They have come together from far and wide. Having flown in from every direction, their convention opened on Friday, although a few arrived earlier for set up. Like gold wing motorcycles during one of their conventions, they are everywhere you look, and you can identify them from a long way away.

Look, there’s an admiral! So easy they are to spot in their crisp uniforms with neat shoulder and sleeve markings. Is a gathering of admirals called an armada? There must be thousands - maybe tens of thousands of them here in town for the week.

I suppose, being half way between oceans, Wisconsin is a good place for admirals to meet. That would explain the fact that they are meeting an awfully long way from where you might find a battleship.

They are a bit of a flaky group. They call themselves "red" admirals. I have know idea if there are white admirals and blue admirals to complete the patriotic colors. They seem to hang around it groups, yet they all seem to move in different directions. And by the path they make, it is clear they could never pass the walk-a-straight-line test. These red admirals seldom sit still for more that a few seconds.

Oh, and the one thing you should know about them for sure: If you hit one head-on with your car, the admiral will turn to a yellow smear.

To see if the red admirals are convening in your city, click here for a picture.

Thanks to Deana Hipke for the admiralty information.

Pastor B.

P.S. Today is the mid-point to Christmas. From now on, your cards are no longer late, but early.

I discovered just a few months ago that The Sopranos was not an ongoing television series about the castrati. I don’t get HBO, and until the reruns started playing on a regular cable network I could never quite figure out why everyone was so interested in men with high voices. Oh, boy, do I feel embarrassed.

The buzz, apparently, around the office water cooler these days is about the final episode of The Sopranos. (Turns out "Soprano" is the family name of a mafia clan). I guess the option of snuffing out the lead character, Tony, was expected by many. The actual ending was a scene from the mundane life of almost any family. Some folks wanted a more decisive ending - violence, blood, death. Even sports broadcasts are weighing in with their opinions.

Just because I know you want to know, the final ending of the castrati came without any sudden catastrophic event either. The castrati became common in the mid-1500's as church music grew in its range and place within worship. Since women were not allowed to speak (or sing) in those good-old days, the castrati were born to supply the alto and soprano voice parts (castrati were also used for the women's parts in operas). By the late eighteenth century the social norms had changed and the demise of the castrati began. The practice was officially banned by Pope Pius X in 1903. The last known castrato, Alessandro Moreschi, died in 1922.

Now, when you get tired of arguing over the ending of The Sopranos, you can make yourself look knowledgeable about some other kinds of sopranos.

We aim to be erudite, if not timely, here on the Monday Blog.

Pastor B.

Thirty years ago life as we know it changed. Star Wars opened on the big screen. No one at the time had any inkling of how that movie would change the landscape of the American experience. Think of all the words Star Wars has introduced to our language: light saber, Darth Vader, R2D2, Hans Solo, Death Star, and Jedi warriors to name just a few.

The original movie on one level was simply a high tech cowboy western with good guys versus bad guys. Yet, another layer carried more complicated themes with the Dark Side and hints that even Vader may harbor a flame of goodness. It didn’t take long to feel pseudo-religious themes. Obi Wan gives his life, yet he is still alive in voice and spirit. The pull (read "temptation") of the Dark Side is very powerful. Yet, against the darkness there exists the "Force."

Sunday sermons across the country paralleled "The Force be with you" with our liturgical "The Lord be with you." The Force was often used to help confirmation kids understand the meaning of the Holy Spirit. A small backlash came in the ensuing months, as you might expect. Yet even today, when Obi Wan reverently blesses Luke with "The Force be with you," many of us hear the Christian liturgical pronouncement.

So happy birthday, Star Wars! Yes, there are religious themes to be mined from the story. But there is no Jesus, light sabers are as unnecessary as St. Peter's swords, and the Holy Spirit will not tell you the exact moment to loose the missile which will destroy the Death Star.

And, do you remember that there is a small reference to "another" Jedi knight in the original movie? I knew then that Princess Leia was Luke’s twin sister, so I never had to get into the discussion of which hero she loved the most.

Now excuse me while I try to hunt up my light saber.

Pastor B.

In this morning’s paper a sportswriter covering the Brewers was noting how pitcher Ben Sheets struggled in his pitching after breezing through the opening innings. According to the writer, Sheets needed only 32 pitches to ease through the first two innings but it took 67 pitches to plow through the next four.

One of my summer jobs in college was working for a distributor delivering frozen orange juice to grocery stores. I learned two things my first day on the job which included loading and unloading bins of frozen juice. First, even if it's 95 degrees outside, wear gloves or you’ll freeze your fingertips. Second, it’s cheaper to buy two small cans of juice than one big one. I did the math.

Back to the pitch count. When did the pitch count become such a prevalent baseball statistic? I suppose pitching coaches have been making tick marks on a piece of scrap paper for years. Now there’s a special scoreboard in some stadiums that keeps count for everyone. The magic number seems to be 100. After that a pitcher’s arm might fall off.

Well now, pitcher Sheets hurled 32 pitches in the opening innings. Averaging 16 pitches an inning proved how effortless the job was according to the sportswriter. Over the next four innings Sheets labored with 67 pitches according to the article. Yet, by my math, that works out to 16.7 pitches per inning.

I realize I don’t hang around professional baseball locker rooms, yet it just doesn’t sound to me that an additional seven-tenths of a pitch per inning signifies a huge struggle. I guess it’s all a matter of the adjectives and the tone a writer puts with the statistics. And so again, it comes down to doing the math.

Pastor B.

P.S. Krista passed another scan. Yipee!