Coffee Klatch

I‘ve spent the last couple of nights (and days) camping with the family. We went to Johnson County Park down a little ways south of Franklin, IN, on the north side of Camp Atterbury. They have RV and tent camping, with showerhouses available so even the “primitive campers” can have “facilities” and stay clean.
That was us. We set up our tent Thursday afternoon and got busy collecting some firewood from the nearby woods and from vacant campsites. We knew it was going to be scatter rain showers during the day on Thursday, but we didn’t expect the solid rain for five hours during the night.

TIP: Even a rain fly will leak once it’s heavier and is sagging down, touching the top of the tent. When I was a kid, we had a canvas tent and we were constant reminded not to touch the sides of the tent when it was raining because it would pull the water in and start a leak. Apparently the same is true for nylon tents.
Oh, and another tip. If you put a tarp on the ground under your tent, make sure it DOESN’T stick out from the tent anywhere. When the tarp comes out from under the tent, the rain goes down the tent side, onto the tarp, and right under the tent. Then the things on the floor pull the water from underneath. At on point we had some puddles that were over 1/2-inch deep. I was on an inflatable mattress and kept thinking to myself, “Not to be used as a floatation device. Not to be used as a floatation device.”

It dried up on Friday and the afternoon was a beautiful fall day. There are five miles of hiking trails within the park (where we saw racoon tracks and deer sign), plus a lake, some wetlands, and lots of wildlife and waterfowl. Every night and morning we were treated to the flocking (and singing) of literally thousands of blackbirds. And during the night, we could hear the coyotes–sometimes far, sometimes as near as 100 yards or less.

We pre-prepared a couple of meals at home, by taking a slice of beef and putting potatoes and onions around it and wrapping it all in two layers of aluminum foil. The second one was chicken with carrots and celery, using Italian dressing as a sort of marinade. You get your fire going well and put the foil packets in the coals. Delicious!!

All in all, it’s a very nice park. Camping is very cheap compared with other places (tenting is just $8 a night) and it’s not that far away, while still feeling like it’s “out in the boonies.”

We ended the trip with a stop at a local Denny’s for breakfast this morning, where I had an “Ultimate Bowl,” which was diced, fried potatoes in a bowl with a light cream sauce over them, covered with three eggs scrambled with mushrooms, green and red bell peppers, onions, and ham, and sprinkled with shredded cheese. Bacon and sausage were on the side. Mmmmm….

[tags]camping, johnson county park, tents[/tags]

The Free Information Society has assembled a collection of “Historical Sounds” which contains some of “the greatest speeches in recorded history.” Over 100 audio files in MP3 format with speakers like Spiro Agnew, Fidel Castro, Calvin Coolidge, FDR, Che Guavara, Albert Einstein, Al Gore (the “Internet” speech ), Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Malcom X, Leon Trotsky, Harry Truman, and many more.

They even encourage you to download and distribute these file, and hopefully to learn from them.

[tags]speeches, historical, mp3[/tags]

Ron and John Daniels used to make treehouses when they were growing up. They’re still doing it, but for other people. And they’re charging in the tens of thousands of dollars! Yahoo ran an article today in the Finance column (originally it was at Business Week) about these guys and their luxury treehouses.

Go ahead and read the article. Here is a link to a SLIDESHOW of some cool images to get you more interested.

[tags]treehouses, construction[/tags]

There’s another version of the Hate That Frog game. This one requires three clicks (and no shotguns). The first is for the Power, the second click is for the Height, and the third is for the Spin. If you get him to go 5,000 or more of whatever unit they’re measuring in, he goes “over the edge.” I got him there on my second try!!

Okay, here’s a question for whomever. I’m driving down a one-way street and come to a stoplight. Ahead the road continues one way. To my right it’s a regular two-way street with one lane each way. To my left is a one-way street going AWAY from me.

Got all that?

I want to make a right turn onto the two-way street. With the light being red, there’s no way for anyone to be turning onto that street. Do I have to come to a complete stop? Or can I treat it as a Yield and slow down but just make the turn?

Thanks for your input!

[tags]traffic, driving, one-way streets[/tags]

Here’s how to install a wireless security system. (Thanks to Topher for this bit o’humor. I got this from him today via IM, not his blog.)

Go to a second-hand store, buy a pair of men’s used work boots… A really big pair. Put them outside your front door on top of a copy of Guns and Ammo magazine.

Put a dog dish beside it. A really big dish. Leave a note on your front door that says something like this:

“Bubba, Big Mike, and I have gone to get more ammunition - back in 30 minutes. Don’t disturb the pit bulls, they’ve just been wormed.”

Well, Alaric’s last football game was yesterday. Short season (just 6 games), yes, but it’s a 7th- and 8th-grade league, not high school.

The good news: THEY SCORED FOR THE FIRST TIME!! An actual TOUCHDOWN!

The bad news: They didn’t get the extra point but the other team did when THEY scored. Final score 7-6.

Still, it was a huge boost for the guys. And now the season’s over and they can relax and celebrate. I think they’re doing pizza and a movie together as a team sometime in the next couple weeks. Great job, “Junior Saints!”

This morning during a Bible study that was looking at James 2, with regard to the concept of “faith without works is dead,” our Lutheran pastor made a comment about what was going on in the time of Martin Luther. He said that during Luther’s time the emphasis was heavily on the role of works in salvation. He said that they acknowledged the power of God for forgiving sins during redemption, but that one still had to work to take care of sins committed AFTERwards. That’s why they were big into indulgences and that’s why they invented Purgatory, so that people would spend hundreds or thousands of years there, working through the penalty for sins committed that Jesus didn’t save them from. And that’s if they didn’t keep sinning while they were there.

I found his statements disturbing and I decided right then to look into the teachings of the Church throughout history and find out just when Purgatory was “invented” and if it was possible to keep sinning there.

The first place I would look would be Scripture. Many Protestants today say that the only place in Scripture that the doctrine of Purgatory is referenced is in the Apocrypha, but you can’t discount that, because up to the time of the Reformation, the Apocrypha was considered part of the Old Testament.

This site gives us LOTS of references from the New Testament that talk about the concepts involved in Purgatory. Concepts like purification after death by fire and a place of suffering and forgiveness after death that’s not heaven. I won’t copy all the verses that are there, since they’ve already done the work. A few aren’t quoted, so you might want to visit BibleGateway to look them up. Some are indirect or symbolic, but others are more clear.

Looking at writings that exist from the first few centuries A.D., I’ve found several references (A.D. 160, 190, 202, 210, 216, 244) to praying for the dead, even dead believers, and descriptions of Christians being purified by fire for a time before entering Heaven. The Early Church Fathers on Purgatory presents an easy-to-read collection of quotes from Clement, Origen, Tertullian, Cyprian, Augustine, and more.

Clearly this concept was not invented during the Reformation nor by Pope Gregory in the 8th century. There are way too many references to Purgatory by the third century. So was the idea of Purgatory invented? Is it traditional? What’s the purpose of Purgatory? I’d always thought of it as a place where you got punished for sins, but I’d always been taught that all of our sins are forgiven through Christ’s work on the cross and that that covers ALL of our sins, past and future.

The basic definition of Purgatory is a state for those who have died and are bound for Heaven, but cannot yet enter because they are not pure. That is, they “have unrepented venial sins, have not fully expiated their mortal and venial sins (i.e. received temporal punishment), and/or still have attachments to things in this world (through sin) that take them away from God.” Revelation 21:27 says that “nothing unclean will enter Heaven.” 1 Corinthians 3:10-15 talks about how Jesus has laid the foundation but then men build on that foundation through what they do in their lives. Fire will test the quality of each person’s works, and the quality things will survive the test. Verse 15 says “If it [what he has built] is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.”

So Purgatory is a place of cleansing on the way to an eternal destiny of joy in heaven. It’s not a place for people to get a second chance at salvation. But sin does have consequences, even when it’s forgiven. This is where Purgatory comes in.

“Christians have believed in the Purgatory from the earliest times, which can be seen in the writings of the early Church. There wasn’t any serious opposition to the doctrine until the Protestant Reformation in the 16th Century. The opposition is the result of a misunderstanding of what Purgatory really is.

Most Protestants would agree that unrepented sin cannot be brought into Heaven and that we must be sanctified before we enter it. This purification would occur instantly upon death. They have not given a name for this purification process, but Catholics call it Purgatory.”

We are also encouraged to pray for souls in Purgatory, that their stay be shortened and they be admitted to Heaven. Prayers for the dead are found throughout the Church Fathers, in all the Catholic liturgies by the 4th century, and even engraved on the tombs of Christians from the first few centuries.

For more information, including explanations, Scripture proofs, and history, visit Holy Souls Online or the Prayers for the Dead and Purgatory articles from The Catholic Encyclopedia.

Summary: Whether or not you believe in it, Purgatory has apparently been taught by the Catholic Church since the beginning. There is enough evidence from the first few centuries to prove that the early Christians believed in it and it wasn’t invented later on. The theory behind it seems sound enough when you just look at the references and take them at face value. I think that proof of it is found more in the traditional teaching of the Church than in Scripture alone. But at the very least, I’d have to say that my pastor was wrong about it.

[tags]purgatory, catholicism, religion, christianity, church history[/tags]

Tonight we started our first fire in the living room fireplace of our new home. Just a little one to “test the waters.” We’d already had a big one out in the fire pit in the backyard, where we burned a lot of old brush and cooked some hot dogs and kielbasa. The chimney looked clean from underneath, so we decided to have a little fire.

It was encouraging how much the living room got warmed up from just a little fire. While it was going, I looked at it and thought that somewhere somebody nearby was walking out of their house or getting out of their car and thinking, “Hey! Somebody’s got a fire going in their fireplace.”

Just wanted to say that we’re doing our part to contribute to the Autumn Ambience.