I am going to need some help getting dressed

Does anybody know what "resort wear" is? I feel a bit foolish asking. One answer that I got is it is the same as "cruise wear" but since I've never been on a cruise, I don't know what cruise wear is either.

The reason I would like to know is because - hold on to your seats now, because you are not going to believe this - my husband and I are going on a business trip with his company in January and we have been told that the attire is "resort wear". And where, pray tell, does one need to wear "resort/cruise wear" in January?

Are you ready for this??

In Hawaii.

Can you believe it?!? (Yeah, me either! )

We first learned about this little trip around two years ago. My husband came home from work one day with this memo that said the annual company management meeting in 2009 was going to be held in Hawaii. The company would pay for the airfare, accomodations and meals for the attendees, and, oh yeah, spouses are invited and we're paying for them too!

When I read that memo I just thought "Yeah, sure. I'll believe it when I see it.". My husband had only been with the company for about 9 months at that point and his previous TWO jobs had been just horrible experiences. So I was taking everything I heard about the new company with a BIG grain of salt. But my husband kept insisting that it was for real and so I played along, but in the back of my mind I really thought it would probably never happen.

Well, it's been two years now and all along the way the company has sent out updates on the Hawaii trip. "Maui Moments" is what they are calling it. And while the plans became more and more concrete, and I learned more (positive stuff) about the company, it began to sink in that this was really going to happen.

This trip is partly a business meeting and partly a thank you to their employees and their spouses. That is huge to me. It is an acknowledgement that the support of a spouse plays an important role in the success of the employee. This gesture to the spouses in indicative of the overall values of the company. They treat their employees very well. I suppose I should give them some linky love *wink*! Check them out here.

So, back to "resort wear". We received our registration package this week with all travel booking information, meeting agenda, etc. etc. The employees have meetings in the mornings and afternoons are free time. Some of the evenings we gather as a group for meals and some nights we are on our own. It's a really nice place we're staying at and they mentioned a couple of times about "proper attire". Do you think that means business casual? A little more dressy? Would Hawaiian shirts be ok? Any ideas? (Pictures would be really helpful!!)

All told, there's going to be about 700 employees and their spouses going on this trip, so I suppose that if I'm not quite dressed appropriately nobody's going to notice.

Or 1399 people could notice!

A quote...

The Gospel doesn't say "Do", it says "Done".

Credit

Updated: To answer Sara's question of What Does This Mean?

I think it refers to our human tendency to try to make the Gospel into Law. We say and think things like, "If you want to be saved, all you have to do is..." and "If a person is truly saved then he will not do..." etc.

When Lutherans are concerned about the mixing of law and Gospel, they are concerned with the loss of the promise-nature of the Gospel - and it is the promise nature which is the Holy Spirit's way of calling forth faith *and of sustaining faith*. "For the Word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who ARE BEING SAVED it is the power of God." [1 Cor. 1:18] And this mixing invariably means speaking "Gospel" (or what we think of as Gospel) in such a way that it is not experienced by the hearers as promise. The dread of uniting law and Gospel together for Lutherans is that if there is a pathway from the one to the other, then the Gospel has ceased to be pure promise and has become instead something due, owed to our fulfilment of some condition. It is immediately rendered doubtful and uncertain.

People ask: Well, isn't faith a condition? No, faith is what appropriates, takes the promise, holds it, the trusting of it, and rejoicing in it - but such faith is never a condition for a Gospel promise. Rather than say: If you believe, your sins are forgiven you. Better to say: Your sins are forgiven you, blotted out by the blood of the Son of God. Believe it, for it is true.

"If the word becomes an appeal, faith becomes its performance in action. If the word becomes a demonstration, faith becomes insight; if it becomes a statement, faith becomes knowledge. Finally, if the word becomes an expression, faith becomes a ground of experience given with human being as such. Only if the word is promise (promissio) is faith really faith." [Oswald Bayer, Theology the Lutheran Way, p. 139]

More credit

This wireless life

The thing about the BlackBerry is you are always connected. You can get phone calls and email virtually anywhere in the world - heck that's old news.

I'm able to blog from this device (I am doing so right now) and I can check your blogs too. I can easily check facebook and Twitter from it as well. Texting is a breeze - so much so that I probably text more than I make phone calls. I have internet access pretty much anywhere if I am willing to pay the data roaming charges. It really is a marvellous little device and there is a lot to love about it.

Now that the novelty of it has worn off, I'm beginning to wonder if being able to blog on the toilet (if one was so inclined - which I am NOT!) is such a good thing after all. Do people REALLY need to be connected all the time? I think an argument can be made that these devices that are supposed to help us stay connected can also play a role in DISconnecting us from those around us.

Case in point: last night Ken and I sat beside each other in bed - I with my BlackBerry, updating my blog and Ken with his iTouch, watching a movie.

Tonight gadgets are offlimits and we are going swimming.

He takes after my side of the family

My son Kirk is tall and gangly like his father. Well, gangly like his father used to be at that age. I met Ken at precisely the age Kirk is now. I keep expecting Kirk to look and act like Ken did then, but he doesn't.

In fact, he takes after my brother Stephen quite a bit; so much so that it's kind of eerie. He resembles him quite a bit physically, but that's not where it ends. He talks like Stevey. His tone and phrasing and choice of words - Stevey. Gestures, mannerisms, quirks - all Stevey. Even a lot of Kirk's attitudes and the way he looks at the world remind me more of Stephen than they do of his father.

Truthfully, it frightens me. A lot.

I don't think I've ever said much about my brother Stephen. I might have mentioned "my crazy brother" in passing, but I'm pretty sure I've never blogged any particulars. Stephen is currently estranged from our entire family. And when I call him "crazy" I actually mean it. As in he has a mental illness.

It's very difficult for me to talk about him. I have very mixed up, jumbled feelings about him and I have a hard time keeping any objectivity. He has, by his actions, hurt our family very deeply. A part of me understands that it's his disease that makes him like this, but another part of me wants - needs - to hold someone (him!) responsible for the havoc that he wrought on us.

It was around the age that Kirk is now, maybe a little earlier, that Stephen first started to exhibit signs of mental instability. I remember that out of the blue he would become unreasonable, irrational even, over small little things. And he seemed angry a lot of the time.

This is why I am frightened. I am seeing some signs in Kirk that worry me. He seems overwhelmed by the everyday. He has a hard time coping with...just everyday life. Well, I know anxiety when I see it and I see it in him. But where I will get weepy when things get tough, Kirk's go-to emotion is anger. It reminds me a lot of Stephen.

Over the years Stephen's quirks grew into full blown mental illness. (Look, I should say upfront, that he has never had a diagnosis, because he refuses to acknowledge that he has a problem. But if you were to spend, oh, I don't know, maybe 30 minutes with him, I'm pretty sure that you'd come away with the same impression. He's just not rational.) But the point is, it started out small. At eighteen it was easy to dismiss his peculiarities as teenage angst. Teenagers are known to be moody, so it wasn't that hard to attribute his radical mood swings to hormones. And because Stephen moved out of the house when he was only 19, his illness was hidden to us a great deal of the time...but it grew.

This morning Kirk had "an episode". I came downstairs to find him weeping as he should have been leaving for work. I was alarmed and asked him what what wrong. He couldn't answer - he honestly didn't know. He said the moment his alarm went off and he had to get up for work, he burst into tears. The thought of having to go into work was utterly overwhelming to him. And the fact of this made him bewildered and angry all at the same time. Now, understand that for months now, I've been wavering, wondering if I'm really seeing what I think I'm seeing. But you know, people don't just wake up in the morning and fall apart because they have to go to work. That's not normal. So this morning I decided that I'm not going to wait and wonder any longer. We have a history of mental disorders in our family and it is entirely possible, if not likely, that Kirk could develop one too.

So after breakfast I called the doctor. I told them what I saw and I told them what I suspected and I made an appointment to have Kirk come in to talk to the doctor. And then I worried all day how Kirk would react. *weak smile*

But maybe, just maybe he's not like Stevey after all. Because Kirk didn't get angry and deny that he was having problems. He didn't try to justify his behaviour and try to manipulate me into thinking I was overreacting. He was relieved. And grateful. And hopeful that there is help out there for him.

I understand how hard it can be to open up to someone and tell them that you're having a hard time coping - period. That everything in life is brittle, and harsh and too bright...and there's no good reason why it should feel like that. I remember those bleak days, and when I think of my son having to endure them, it feels like my heart is being squeezed right out of my chest.

As always, Jesus is my consolation. I feel like I'm hanging on to Him with my fingernails, but I know that isn't true. If it were up to me and my strength, I would have let go by now. It is He who holds onto me. And that gives me more comfort than I can describe. I wish I could wax poetic about it but his faith of mine isn't the most elegant. I seem to lack the eloquence to give voice to all that it is to me. But it is a sturdy faith. Servicable and practical. And pointed firmly towards the cross, the only place I'm sure of. It is the faith that God has given me and like all His good gifts, it is sufficient.

Thank you Jesus, for sending your Holy Spirit to sanctify me and keep me in the true faith. This hasn't exactly been my best year ever, but by faith like Job I can say, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him."

What I did on my vacation

I tried doing the "real-time" blogging thing while we were on vacation, but frankly, typing out a post on the teeny tiny keyboard of a BlackBerry is not fun. I can understand why heavy users develop carpal tunnel. I also could not figure out how to upload pictures from the device. So I decided to wait until I had time when I got back. So, where did I leave off? Oh yeah, fishing at the break of dawn...

Well, I regret mocking the boys for getting up so early to go fishing. They were quite successful!

They were fishing for pickerel and they came home with 12 on the first morning and 8 on the next. My dad cleaned and filleted them for us and I bet there was 30 lbs of meat all told.

Mom and I had the job of washing the meat and packing it for freezing. Luckily my parent brought along their camper so we had 2 freezers, otherwise there would not have been room for it all. We had to freeze them because it turned out that nobody felt like eating fish after cleaning and packing them made us smell all fishy!

Here is my mom and dad's trailer - from the front

and here is the "backyard"

It's quite nice in the back, very quiet. My dad's got a little bean garden over to the right. It's kind of hard to make out in this picture.

Ken and the girls and I stayed in the trailer and my mom and dad stayed in their camper. They parked it right beside the main trailer.

It might seem weird that my folks have a trailer and a camper. The trailer stays in the park year round and they use it in the summer, but they also like to travel (guess that's where I got it from) but they don't like staying in hotels. So they travel around in their little camper and they are quite happy in it. It's actually quite posh inside!

Saturday night there was a big bonfire and karaoke, which was organized by the camp owner. They do it every year for the Civic Holiday weekend. It's very fun to watch. In the early evening they let the kids go up and sing. Alli and Danielle went up and sang "1985" (Bring back Springsteen, Madonna, way before Nirvana...) which was hilarious. Both Alli and Danielle are quite good little singers and it was nice to see them having such obvious fun.

Later in the evening, as the beer gets flowing the adults get up the courage to go up and sing. One of the camp favourites is "Picture" that song by Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow. That one gets sung 3 or 4 times over the course of the night and it gets funnier with each successive rendition. Ah, I guess I shouldn't mock, after all I don't have the courage - artificial or otherwise - to get up and sing in front of people.

The karaoke ended about 11 pm and then we stayed up a bit later at the bonfire. The girls stuffed themselves with roasted weenies and smores. I would have too, but, you know...appearances!

The next day me, mom and the girls made a big bacon and eggs breakfast while the boys were out fishing. When they came back we went to the beach. The girls had made some friends so they went and hung out with them while Ken and I swam and sunned ourselves. There was a lot going on down at the beach - volleyball tourneys, arts and crafts stands and vendors selling beach wear, cheap jewelery and henna tattoos. Also a live band! That was neat. They had a little biergarten set up so you could go in and get out of the sun for a bit and watch the band.

I didn't get very good pictures of the beach. These are actually from Monday when we went back. It was MUCH less crowded than on Sunday.

After breakfast my mom and I went up to the liquor store to buy some beer for my dad. My dad is German and very particular about his beer. He told my mom the name of the beer and showed her what the can looks like, but alas when we got to the liquor store she couldn't tell which one he wanted. I stood there and read off the names to my mom, hoping that one would ring a bell. (My mom is legal blind, remember, and wouldn't be able to recognize the beer can anyways.) So while we're standing there, a clerk comes over to see if she can help us. My mom explains that we're looking for a particular beer for my dad but we can't remember what it is. "Oh," says the clerk, "I know what kind of beer your husband drinks!" and she picked it out for us. Ah, small town life!

That evening we barbequed some ribs and had local corn for supper. That was just about the best dinner I've had in recent memory! We ate out on the porch - which always makes food taste better somehow.

After dinner, my Aunt Trudy and cousin George came for a quick visit and brought Oma!! Trudy has been here from Australia for a few weeks visiting. My Oma is still in the hospital because since she had to have her leg amputated she has not been able to care for herself on her own. But on that day they let her out on a "day pass". I didn't know they had such a thing. Anyway, Trudy took her home and they spent some time there and then on the way back to the hospital they came down to the trailer to visit. (It's only about half an hour away and that's the whole reason they have the trailer there - so they can be closer to Oma.) Anyways, Oma has been resisting the idea of going into a retirement home. The whole idea frightens her. But going home for a day, she realized that she won't ever be able to go back to living alone in her home, so she announced that she had changed her mind and she would like to move to Waterloo and find a nice nursing home!!! This is the best news and it was the highlight of my weekend. We are so happy and relieved that she will be close to us now!

Here is a picture of Oma and George:

On Monday we went back to the beach. The waves that day were awesome! Most the time Lake Erie is pretty placid - you get a little bit of waves right at the shoreline, but nothing much. But every once in a while if the weather is right you will get big, rollicking waves that will carry you quite a ways. Not as big as on the ocean mind you, but still a lot of fun. And because Erie is so shallow, you can go out several hundred feet from shore before it gets over your head. So we took out a ball and played 4-way catch in the surf. Later I brought out the inflatable chair and just sat and floated around in the waves. We spent the whole time in the water. So much fun!

And then it was time to go home, so we packed up our belongings in the van and headed back for Waterloo. We took a less direct way home and enjoyed the scenery. No one really wanted to leave.

So that was how I spent the first weekend of our vacation. During the week we stayed at home - a "staycation" I guess you would call it. We went away the following weekend as well to (where else?) Niagara Falls. I got some good pictures of our getaway and I have some stories to tell as well, but this has already gotten awfully long, so I will save it for another time.

"Why We Fight"

Remember those old propaganda films that they made in the '40's, to demonstrate to the public why the the US military was involved in World War II? The premise of each of the seven films was that the preservation of democracy could only be possible by the utter destruction of the forces that threatened it. Would democracy have ceased to exist had Germany and Japan not been defeated? I don't know. Maybe not entirely. But maybe democracy would have ended up looking a lot different than what we know it to be today.

Lutherans** often are scolded by other Christians for our emphasis on preserving pure doctrine. We are told that we are being divisive, and that our rigid inflexibility is a barrier to reaching the lost. What others find most offensive (and this is simply my own observation, not an imperical study or anything) is not that Lutherans clearly state what they believe, but rather that they also state what they reject.

The Lutheran Confessions have always had a didactic character; stating that which we teach and confess as being in conformity with Holy Scripture, as well as what we reject and condemn as unbiblical. If you read through the Lutheran Confessions you will not only learn what we believe, but why we believe it.

To those who would say that doctrine doesn't matter, I would suggest that you watch this video. This is a frightening example of what happens when we fail to heed Pauls words to "hold fast to sound teaching". This is "why we fight" for doctrine.

**I imagine that Lutherans are not the only ones who have this complaint leveled against them. Any denomination that understands the importance of doctrine is going to be open to these types of complaints.

A short update

I have my hands full with teenage angst right now. *One* teenager in particular. Our whole family covets your prayer right now. It feels like everything is coming apart at the seams right now. Things will settle down eventually - they always do - but while we're in the midst of it its hard to remember that we are being held in His hands. I hate sin. I hate that there is sin in the world and that it infects me and those that I love. I hate that despite the fact that I am a new creation in Christ, the old Adam still resides in me and I sin and I despair over it. I need the Eucharist desperately. I have no strength of my own and I need the body and blood of my Lord. I can't wait until Sunday. If I called my pastor he would come and bring it to me but I hesitate to call because then he might see how horribly wrong things are in our lives. What is the matter with me that this pride would keep me from the comfort and strength offered to me in the supper?

Will I ever blog again?

Sheesh. Been almost 2 weeks since I last posted.

I'm seeing these "Blogging without obligation" buttons around on some blogs. You know what? I feel absolutely NO obligation whatsoever about where/when/how I blog. Seriously. I don't even feel obligated to TELL people that I don't feel obligated. I guess I just did. Tell, I mean. But I didn't feel obligated to do so, *grin*.

Sara and Sue and I have been going back and forth about what people blog about and what motivates them to do so. I have come to the realization that I mentally make assumptions about what motivates people to blog about what they blog about. Sometimes the motivation is obvious - the blogger states up front what they blog about and why. Other times they don't say and I'm left to fill in the blanks. Probably shouldn't be doing that though.

I suppose people probably wonder why I call my blog "Ask a Lutheran" and then I blog about my husband going fishing, or me doing laundry at the laundromat or just about anything that is NOT specifically related to being Lutheran. I really couldn't tell you why either. I just blog what I feel like.

Some of the blogs I read are so well written I wonder why they aren't writing professionally. But to be honest with you, I much prefer the blogs that are written by the everday writers who write about their everyday lives. Sometimes what they blog about is mundane. Sometimes it is profound.

Posts about "Lutheran stuff" take me the longest. I want to be sure that I precisely relate the confessional Lutheran position. Often I have to stop and pull out the Bible, my catechism and the Book of Concord to make sure that what I'm writing is accurate. Sometimes I draft, and edit and agonize over the choice of a single word. I really do take it seriously - but it is a lot of work.

The fluffy stuff that I write is so much simpler. I sit down and type. It comes out. Does anybody care about this stuff? Is the blogosphere a better place because of it? I struggle with this. I feel like if I am not writing something deep and profound (or at least informative) then it's just so much wasted bandwidth.

Today I was listening to an episode of Issues, Etc. It was an older episode about "Vocation: God's Will For Your Life" and as I listened to them talk about vocation being that which God has given us to do, for the good of our Neighbour, in service to Him, I made a connection to blogging. They used the phrase "ordinary life, for ordinary saints". The premise is that we serve our Lord when we go about our daily lives; we don't have to be doing "super-holy" works to be serving Him. Ack. I'm not explaining this well at all. Listen to the episode here if you like. (In fact, listen to any of the episodes. Its realy good stuff.)

Anyways, I've concluded that this is can be an ordinary blog about ordinary things. And there's nothing wrong with that. If I happen to blog about something explicitly Lutheran, I'm doing it because I AM Lutheran. Not because I have a special call to write super-holy stuff about Lutheranism.

Huh. I guess maybe I do feel a little bit obligated after all.

Saturday - morning

Its 6 am. Hubby set the alarm for 5:30 to get up and go fishing. Upon seeing that it is still DARK at that unholy hour he decided that maybe he'd sleep some more. I, however, can't get back to sleep. With everybody still asleep in the trailers, I have come out to the front porch to blog.

The plan for this morning is Ken and my dad (when they can manage to rouse themselves, lol) are going fishing. Apparently dad has learned the location of a secret fishing hole. How secret this "hole" can be on Lake Erie I don't know. Maybe fishing "spot" is a better way to describe it. In any case, I'm sure hoping for some fresh pickerel for lunch!

Mom and the girls and I are going to go in to town this morning and pick up a few groceries and get some corn from a roadside vendor. Its now peak corn season. Fresh corn and pickerel...ah, bliss!

Other than that we don't have a whole lot planned for the morning. My dad has promised us a boat ride. Danielle is really looking forward to that as she's never been in a small watercraft before. I grew up around boats and learned how to drive them at around age 12. I am not able to drive them anymore though because I don't have my boat license. (Its a new thing that just came in about 5 yrs ago.). Ken has his license so I've never bothered to get mine. I am content to let Ken or my dad do the driving.

I'm taking lots of pictures but I can't figure out how to post them from the handheld. (Actually, I'm not even sure you can. May have to wait until I get back home to put them up.). Ta ta for now!

I am on vacation

Here we are at Big Otter Marina in Port Burwell. We are staying with my mom and dad who have a trailer here. This weekend - the Civic Holiday weekend - is the busiest weekend of the year here in Port Burwell. It was pretty quiet tonight but there's a lot going on tomorrow and Sunday.

Alli is with us and she brought along a friend, Danielle. The girls went to a dance tonight. They said it was "ok" (affecting nonchalance). Oh to be 15 and "cool" again *eyes rolling*

We (me, Ken and my folks) went to a campfire but got rained out after about 30 minutes. I was getting tired anyways. My dad gave me a beer and a shot of brandy. The beer was good but the brandy made me tired.

Off to bed. More adventures tomorrow.