My Uncle Ulrich and Aunt Ginney sang this German nursery rhyme to Ella, while bouncing her on their knee.

Hoppe hoppe Reiter (English below)

Hoppe hoppe Reiter
wenn er fällt,
dann schreit er,
fällt er in den Teich,
find't ihn keiner gleich.

Hoppe hoppe Reiter
wenn er fällt,
dann schreit er,
fällt er in den Graben,
fressen ihn die Raben.

Hoppe hoppe Reiter
wenn er fällt, dann schreit er,
fällt er in den Sumpf,
dann macht der Reiter... Plumps!

(Kind "fallen lassen")

See alternative verses below.
ENGLISH Prose Translation

Bumpety bump, rider,
if he falls, then he cries out
should he fall into the pond,
no one will find him soon.

Bumpety bump, rider...
should he fall into the ditch,
then the ravens will eat him.

Should he fall into the swamp,
then the rider goes... splash!

("Drop" child)

An Epistle I Recieved from an old friend

christopher, an apostle of christ,

i firmly believe in the continuing grace of our Lord and have been inspired through prayer and constant meditation to dispatch countless messages over the passing years towards to end of reinstigating the tradition of letter-writing amongs the churches.

many times i have felt compelled to write you such letters but have felt fettered by my lack of knowledge concerning your current spiritual state of being.

a great Evil has spread itself upon this earth, as indicated by our scriptures.

false prophets are among us.

we live in a world, and specifically a nation, of christians, and yet, our Faith in our Lord has been twisted to suit the desires of those who we should rightfully call our enemies.

I speak not of other cultures and faiths.

I speak of men of great power who profess a devotion to Christ, but who also seem to have a tendency to drop high powered explosives on people they've NEVER WITNESSED TO or met face to face.

In light of the current events in this world, i have found myself entirely devoted to a reinterpretation of INTERPRETATION of scripture.

For far too long have the proponents of false doctrines been the gatekeepers of our Lord's compassion. Their love is weak and spread too thinly across too much unbroken bread. Their COMMUNION is mere ritual, NOT spiritual and communal experience.

The Promise of our Lord does not reside in the petty affiliations of secular rulers of modern nations, regardless of the extent to which they profess OUR faith for the sake of THEIR election to national privilege.

They profane the name of our Lord through their murder and conquest.

They dare to speak His name and recite his scripture in their speeches and public addresses.

The time has come for all true believers to separate themselves from the lesser, human aspects of spiritual history.

You and I, Christopher, as heralds of His Word, MUST feel obligated to speak the truth.

The so-called Christians of the present era are NOT sacrificing themselves for the sake of martyrdom before the eyes of Roman patricians.

They are NOT dying upon the sands of Coliseums.

They are hypnotized by glowing-machine-pictures to the point of believing the exact inversion of our Lord's sacred Word.

The most immoral and profane of rulers has defiled our faith by invoking Christ's name to further the greedy cause of conquest and invasion as prophesied in the texts that we share and value.

I for one will not stand by idly as the virtue of our Lord is desecrated by the rulers of this new pagan Rome.

I request that you pray and mediate ceaselessly, as I'm sure you are doing, concerning the matters that I have now addressed through the modern means made available by the progress afforded by the governance and glory of our Lord.

I do not hesitate in admitting that I have spent the past few years in service to my own devotion. My prayers and worship have been endless and strong, and yet they were self-directed.

The Lord has ripped me from this self-indulgence and charged me with confronting my fellow Christians with the message He has given me.

Please share this word with those you trust and with those you know to hold Christ's name and glory above present historical and cultural circumstances.

Our ranks have been infiltrated by machine-image Chaldeans, false prophets, and politicians eager to gain favor through adherence to the local imperial cult.

I have not known your company or voice for quite some time, but trust that we have remained united in Christ and remember that your mission is NEVER complete until your hair is grey, your belly is sagging, your voice is spent, and your body is destroyed-

your physical form ruined not through torture and tribulation as our former historical churches have experienced at the hands of mad imperial power,

but through the joyous proclamation of Christ's Love and Divinity!

I am not instructing you to do anything, for i acknowledge your senior knowledge in such affairs, but I would invite you to use whatever means available to spread this word that I have sent you.

Speak it to a single love you trust, or even go so far as to read these words to a small group of close friends.

Either way, it is of no concern.

Our union with Christ in Eternity is promised.

Considering this, all ventures yield value and spiritual profit, and yet are forced to stand in a relative awe before the absolute of the One and Only.

In closing i will say that if troubles come upon you, remember these words:

No imperial sword may pierce the breastplate of His righteousness, which adorns the body of all who profess.

No worldly affliction possesses the power necessary to invalidate OUR FAITH in Christ, regardless of the lies of conquerers and thieves.

In closing I can only say, in love and devotion to you through Christ, that I would gladly meet you upon Roman sands and contest the might of hungry lions, singing praises to our Lord before the mortal gaze of any earthly false emperor!

Let he who doubts these words meet us both in Eternity and present any and all objections!

May our deeds be deemed worthy upon His return. SELAH!

Jacob Eckstein

Why I gave up consuming "La Biblia en un Ano"

La Biblia en un Ano

Two reasons: 1. Kings is pretty confusing in Spanish. 2. If you miss a day its all over. No more Bible in one year. I think my solution will be to read whole books of the Bible in a sitting as much as is possible.

See more about La Biblia en un Ano

“I wonder if you guys would read a story I’m writing.” I remember the awkwardness of my first words to Andrew and Kevin. They were regulars at the coffee shop where I had taken to hanging out. I had overheard their discussions of ideas well waxed with all things deep and philosophic.

Ella, in her way, had chosen their group to make friends with, so by extension I had become acquainted with them. Yet getting the courage to actually attempt that fearful task of relationship initiation – small talk, took too much caffeine and my near completion of a story about a pre-Socratic philosopher. I was so excited by the resonance of espresso and a good idea that I had to share it with someone. I paced back and forth a couple times and then, approaching them, gesticulated the awkward sentence. They agreed, but I didn’t know what to do next. I gave them the web address for the story and left it.

They were to become dear friends. I only realized how much I loved Kevin and his girlfriend, Liz the night before they left for Marquette. I talked with them late that night, long past closing, and then while I was still cleaning they came back and brought me a slice of pizza from the Atrium.

From the time I met Andrew he was already one with Amanda, a girl who worked at the coffee shop. We sometimes called them Amandrew. They too were my kind of people. Coffee culture, academic, bohemian. Tonight, I said goodbye to them. Over the past couple years they have become some of my dearest friends, more than that, they are a brother and a sister to me. Their farewell party was bittersweet. I will miss them, and I desperately hope and pray for the grace of sharing our lives again. But sweetly I also praise God that he allowed me to love them for the time I have. Even if my great desire for them is not met, it is enough that I have known people so pure and dear.

Andrew’s parting words to me were that he would email me his comments on a revision of the story I asked him to read when we met.

Naked Nihilism

I saw coke-bottle bespeckled Bill, today, riding his old-man bike downtown. He had his shirt draped over his handle bar. It struck me as significant. Looking at the wrinkled manflesh of a naked nihilist is too much for the human mind. For when nihilism is laid bare, it is like looking into the the dark abyss of nothingness.

I sit at a booth at a sidewalk sale during the Sugar Festival. It is the heat of early afternoon and people have already left off shopping the dwindling downtown. Up and down the sidewalks, elderly shop keepers and artisans are packing up their wares. The air is heavy with the humidity of resignation and happy disappointment. The Festival congers up nostalgic images of the community those elderly patrons and purveyors once knew.

The main source of traffic is the steady stream of young people cruising center. In defiance of the nostalgia, car after car vibrate by, the bass too strong for Detroit steel to handle: it buzzes rather than resonates. The urban beats and hip-hop expletives hit the farm town streets with a hard insurrection. Even I, perhaps the youngest curb sitter, nearly 30, am reproached for my age.

I recall a family vacation to Branson Missouri when I was a teen. The country music atmosphere and senior tour busses made me feel like I was in an assisted living twilight zone. We went to what, in retrospect, was a great concert by violinist Shoji Tabuchi. Shoji fiddled to just about any kind of music, jazz, bluegrass, and Broadway. Before intermission, he pointed this out and challenged the audience to try to stump him with another music style. My brother and I looked at each other with a crooked smile. There is no way, we thought, that a place like this could produce the music we were listening to. We were wrong, after the intermission he did a rap version of “The Ballad of Jed Clampett.”

After the concert, my brother and I went to our van, thoroughly disgusted with the world’s lack of sensitivity to youth. We popped in a tape of, dare I admit it, gangster rap? We blasted it to the parking lot of smiling seniors, inflicting our fierce youth upon them.

Perhaps it is the way young people respond to a world that doesn’t understand them. Perhaps it is their way of saying that they don’t feel apart of the community. Hopefully we can smile like the seniors in the Branson parking lot and find ways to embrace their youth making them part of the community the Sugar Festival celebrates.

A story about "Quantum Theology, Revised Edition : Spiritual Implications of the New Physics"

Quantum Theology, Revised Edition : Spiritual Implications of the New Physics

by Diarmuid O'Murchu

This is a mind tingling book. I find I have to be in a highly caffinated state to get into it. I love it when I am… into it. Glenn loaned it to me and he wants it back pretty bad. So I guess I’ll have to hit the coffee.

See more about Quantum Theology, Revised Edition : Spiritual Implications of the New Physics

Don't fence me in

Words have the power of construction. Steve said, as writers, we use just enough words to fence in an image so that it can't get away.

Other people, I have noticed, have the ability in anger to build walls, sometime whole box canyons. With their words, or the spiritual force behind them, they make me feel trapped. I try to escape with a witicism and something in their eyes or manor declares that it is futile.

An electric cage traps my heart in my throat. My face turns red with confusion adn humiliation. I regroup and quietly attempt to disarm or retreat. Either way the trapped feeling is not easy to shake and the injury to my soul stays with me, changing my being for a time.

What is ministry?

If it is not relational, it is not ministry.


True?

Rosary

“Would it be too much trouble to have you open this case? I’d like to see the rosaries.”
“That case?” the dealer asked. “Let me get the key.”
I stood wondering if I seemed foolish, if she thought I had a strange fetish or something. Perhaps it’s my upbringing, third generation Pentecostal, about as protestant as they come. When my family hears about my experiences with ancient Christian spirituality, they often wonder if I’m becoming Catholic. I bounced on the balls of my feet nervously looking at other items.
I had been agitated walking around the expansive Bay City Antique Center. Dueling goals prodded me. One – to get out of earshot of the loud woman at the front counter, forced me to move quickly, eyes flitting from case to case looking for my treasure. This time, my mood was not helped by booth after booth, room after room, floor after floor devoid of the object of my search. They were full of Americana, kitsch, and collectables.
Occasionally something would catch my eye. A deco counter that one day graced a thirties bar, or theater back wall struck me in one room. A pince-nez in a case turned out to be no where near my prescription. A set of golf clubs set me imagining myself on the course in knickerbockers and argyles. When I’d seen enough, and I’d had enough of my mood, I asked to see the rosaries.
“This case is the worst in the shop,” the dealer returned.
I apologized and pointed to the one I wanted to see. The tag said it was “well used,” that was what I valued: the experience, the sensual devotion, and the passion of another’s life for their God worn into wooden beads.
Gingerly, lovingly, I guided the beads from the case. As I touched a wooden bead, I felt connected spiritually to the heart and devotion of the Holy Church Universal. The emptiness that had marked my day – made me grumpy, agitated – was filled with joy, a rushing joy, a silent river. My heart began to thump. Through the emotion and vibration, I was able only to count to seven.
“Why are there so few beads between the stations of the cross?” the dealer asked.
I had only just processed the number and whispered, “It’s Anglican, they have weeks instead of decades.”
I’d never seen an Anglican rosary in person, though it is an Anglican prayer I pray with my rosary.
I left in a new spirit. I didn’t buy it.
“I can’t spend that much with out talking to my wife,” I said. Just touching it and the discovery was enough.