Receiving Good Gifts from God

Advent is almost over.  Packages are wrapped.  I think I’ve finished most of my semester.  The table is set.  Some special food treats have been prepared.

		Christmas 2010 VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Like I said here, Christmas is jitterbug ing along." Click link.  I kept thinking that I have plenty of time to finish everything I wanted to.

I didn’t and I don’t. When I realized that I was late with my Christmas cards, I was sure that I could get some help from my old friends from Star Trek, the original generation.  They weren’t so much help this time.

So I will just tell you

As Soon As I Finish the work for this semester, I need to be doing some serious work on my January reading list.  It’s time for another "Dreaded Intensive. " Two Weeks of classroom time = one semester.  I’m taking:

• Field Education Seminar
• The Pauline Epistles
• Theological Ethics

Here is my reading list for after Christmas through early January:

MA in Deaconess Studies
January 2011 Intensives Book List

PMM 153 and PMM 253 Field Education Seminar I and II (19 students)

Kleinig, John W. Grace Upon Grace: Spirituality for Today. St. Louis, MO: Concordia Pub. House, 2008.

EXT 212 Pauline Epistles (18 students)
Required books

Gieschen, Charles A. (editor). The Law in Holy Scripture. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2004.
Grothe, Jonathan F. The Justification of the Ungodly: An Interpretation of Romans. Volumes 1 and 2.

Canada: 2005
Martyn, J. Louis. Galatians. Anchor Bible 33A. New York: Doubleday, 1997.
Reicke, Bo. Re-examining Paul’s Letters: The History of the Pauline Correspondence. Harrisburg, PA:

Trinity, 2001.

Other helpful (but not required) reading (some of these will be provided on Moodle):
Luther, Martin, Luther’s Works: Lectures on Galatians. Volumes 26-27. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing

House, 1963, 1964.
Gieschen, Charles A. "Notes on Romans" (unpublished manuscript from DELTO course).
Scaer, Peter. "Justification and the Book of Acts." 2006 Symposia Papers.
Westerholm, "Justification by Faith is the Answer: What is the Question?"

PMM 432 Theological Ethics (9 students)
Required Texts

Althaus, Paul, Ethics of Martin Luther. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007.
Meilaender, Gilbert. Bioethics: A Primer for Christians. Grand Rapids, Mich: W.B. Eerdmans Pub. Co,

2005.
Pless, John T. A Small Catechism on Human Life. LCMS Human Care.
Charles A. Gieschen. The Law in Holy Scripture: Essays from the Concordia Theological Seminary,

Symposium on Exegetical Theology. St. Louis, MO: Concordia Pub. House, 2004.
Veith, Gene Edward. The Spirituality of the Cross: The Way of the First Evangelicals. St. Louis, Mo:
Concordia Pub. House, 1999 (If you don’t already have this, buy the revised edition 2010)

Plus Electronic Documents on Moodle

Other Useful Texts

Bayer, Oswald. Living by Faith: Justification and Sanctification. Grand Rapids, Mich: W.B. Eerdmans Pub.
Co, 2003.

Bayer, Oswald. Martin Luther’s Theology: A Contemporary Interpretation. Grand Rapids, Mich: W.B.
Eerdmans Pub. Co, 2008.

Bayer, Oswald, and Jeffrey F. Cayzer. Freedom in response: Lutheran ethics : sources and controversies.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.

Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, Clifford J. Green, Reinhard Krauss, Charles C. West, and Douglas W. Stott. Ethics.
Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005.

CTCR: What Child is this? Marriage, Family and Human Cloning. A Report on the Commission on
Theology and Church Relations of the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod (April 2002)
(www.lcms.org/ctcr)

CTCR: Gambling.

CTCR: Christians Procreative Choices (1996).

CTCR, Christian Faith and Human Beginnings (September 2005)

Elert, Werner. The Christian Ethos. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1957 OR Eugene, Or: Wipf & Stock, 2004

Eyer, Richard C. Holy People, Holy Lives: Law and Gospel in Bioethics. St. Louis, MO: Concordia Pub.
House, 2000.

KHberle, Adolf, and John Caspar Mattes. The Quest for Holiness: A Biblical, Historical and Systematic
Investigation. Minneapolis, Minn: Augsburg Pu b. House, 1938.

Luther, Martin. Luther’s Works: The Christian in Society Volumes 45-46. Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press
1962.

Schulz, Klaus Detlev, Two Kinds of Righteousness and Moral Philosophy: Confessio Augustana XVIII,
Philipp Melanchthon, and Martin Luther,” (CTQ January 2009)

I know it probably sounds crazy to you, but I’m really looking forward to digesting these books!

I’m still the juggling 57 things at once, but this semester is beginning to wind down.  Maybe now I can update this more regularly.

Have a great one!

Most of you know you know that I appreciate Holly Lisle’s fiction – and her tips on writing well. She not only creates interesting and flawed characters that grow, she explains her processes well enough to make me think that I can do it, too.

Once I get finished with graduate school, anyhow!

Some of her better clinics are now available for Amazon Kindle and the barnesandnoble NOOK, making them more portable. I’m going to brag on them, even though I don’t get a kick back. I think you will enjoy them enough to make it worth my while. (Let me amend that. As long as you are not a whiny and self-involved professional victim, you will enjoy these clinics.)

I think my favorite is the Create A Language clinic. Whether you want to create a few words/phrases for a quick short story, or create something rich enough to rival Marc Okrand’s “tlhIngan Hol,” this is is for you! Problem is, I enjoyed it too much. I always get stuck at this one. Anyhow, you can get it here:

Holly Lisle’s Create A Language Clinic
KINDLE:
http://www.amazon.com/Lisles-Create-Language-Clinic-ebook/dp/B004EYUHYC

NOOK:
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Holly-Lisles-Create-A-Language-Clinic/Holly-Lisle/e/9781450747868

Go get them for yourself and see! Let me know what you think!

I still don’t know why stuff wouldn’t stay down. I never felt particularly bad. I just was nauseated and running a low grade fever. Who knows?

The utter frustration with my computer is waning. It probably was the dongle developing Alzheimer’s. That, combined with windows update at the wrong made does my wheelchair mouse and voice recognition quit working.

Everything is working now, but I don’t entirely trust my computer.

Testing…

I’ve been fiddling around and making changes. I’m hoping that nobody notices but me, but it is possible that I broke something. Let me know if you’ve got this…

Pastor Mallie\'s \"Think Theologically\" class snippet-John 6: 45-40