I’m sure you’ve noticed the Irrational law of the Bounce. Basically the law says that when you drop something it will bounce to the most unlikely and inaccessible place possible. There also seems to be a relationship between the size of the object and the truth of this law.

Not long ago I was standing at my dresser putting on a ring that I sometimes wear on my right hand. I dropped it. Now every rational law would say that on a padded, carpeted floor the ring should pretty much stay where it lands. But the Irrational Law of the Bounce comes into play. The ring bounded under the dresser to a far back corner. I cannot get my arm under the dresser. It is too heavy to move. The recovery required a flashlight and a yardstick. (It also proved to be a learning experience, to whit: Never tell your wife how many dust bunnies you see under your dresser.)

The law of the bounce often happens to people who drop a small screw or nail. The object will mysteriously hop in a direction and at a distance that makes no sense at all. Even outside a small object dropped in the grass will disappear into the lawn as though it were quicksand.

There is a variable of this law known as the Irrational Law of Float. This irrational law applies to a piece of paper which, if accidently dropped, will magically float into the tiniest crack and the most far away place possible. Now, you could purposely drop a sheet of paper and never replicate this feat. That’s part of the law.

In college I took several course in physics. I learned about all kinds of laws that, when bundled together, can explain just about everything in our world. I guess one of the things that makes the world so interesting is all those irrational laws that science will never understand.

Thanks be to God for things that don’t make sense.

Pastor B.

I hope everyone is having a blessed Easter Week.  The great celebration of the Resurrection on Sunday should be an inspiration to to carry us into the world to be the risen people of God.

The lenten season was bookended by snowstorms.  We all remember Ash Wednesday.  Although we did not cancel our worship services that day, we pretty much encouraged people to stay home.

Then we entered Holy Week, and Good Friday brought us several more inches of heavy March snow plus a promise that weather warm enough to melt it quickly was not on the close horizon.

Easter afternoon and evening brought some scattered snow showers that made little difference on the roadways but brought us to the last milestone of the season - 100 inches of snow.


Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Let it STOP snowing!

Two weeks ago the Lambeau Legacy called in his retirement. After 17 years (16 in Green Bay), Brett Favre’s get-up-and-go finally got-up-and-went. The sports stations buzzed with opinion for days, and the buzz will go on long into the next football season.

It’s pretty tough not to admire Favre and his football accomplishments. If you have no interest in the sport, just know that #4 holds a fistful of records which make him an outstanding athlete by the sheer weight of numbers.

The Packers will grieve his loss, and his replacement will undergo the unintentional interim blues while the fans work through their grief. The whole NFL will feel the emptiness caused by his retirement.

Favre’s retirement is the end of an era. Certainly an end of an era for Packer football, but from my point of view his retirement is a signal of the end of another kind of era - sand lot football.

Favre seemed to play football, with the emphases on "play". His style and attitude echoed the kind of game kids used to play in the back yard or the street or whatever patch of openness they can find

I so well remember the autumn days of touch football in the street next to my home. One side the end zone was marked by a street sign (29^th and Princeton) and on the other a telephone pole. Out of bounds on the north side was a hedge of lilac bushes and on the south side a fence (the street didn’t have curbs).

There could be four or six or eight or ten kids playing. Sometimes we even played with an odd number since no one was ever excluded. There were no grown-ups. No coaches. No referees. We picked sides using some system of equity. Somehow we settled our differences of opinion with the advantage usually going to the team that was behind.

In the winter we played in the snow, usually behind the high school where we could gt out of the wind. Extra scarves or sweaters were set out to mark boundaries. We played tackle football. With thick coats, gloves, and stocking caps, piles of boys tumbled into the snow with glee. Holding onto the football could prove difficult, and nothing was more fun than a scramble for a loose ball.

What I remember most is that we just had fun. Everyone played to win. But we never, ever lost the sense that is was a game and we were playing. After all, new teams and fresh games would be on the agenda for tomorrow.

So, farewell Mr. Favre. Your retirement marks the end of an era for Green Bay football. And for me, in many ways, it marks and end to an era of children’s play that we may never see again.

Pastor B.

A few weeks ago, February 20 to be exact, we had a day filled with extraterrestrial information and wonder. For us baby boomers nourished on the space race, the news from orbit never ceases to catch our imagination.

It began with the landing of the space shuttle Atlantis. Even though the flying bricks of our space shuttle fleet have completed scores of missions. I enjoy hearing about each one. Regular television doesn’t cover shuttle flights very much, but the NASA Web site usually has a live camera in the work bay and some special features about each flight. This last one added a laboratory of some kind to the international space station. The return into Earth’s atmosphere was, as we all pray these days, uneventful. The shuttle landed in Florida without a hitch. Technology had again freed us from Earth’s bounds and we came back safely.

The return of the shuttle cleared the way for space politics of a sort. The U.S. put a spy satellite in orbit sometime ago. The problem with this satellite is that the computer didn’t work which meant it didn’t use its fuel and it didn’t reach a high enough orbit. Doomed to fall back to earth in March, the U.S. government decided to shoot it down. They said it was to ensure human safety. Others said it was to make sure no top secrets survived the heat of re-entry and would fall into the wrong hands. Still others said it was nothing but an excuse to test the country’s ability to take out enemy satellites. The politics will go on for years, but the navy launched missile scored a bulls eye. They even have pictures.

Which brings me to the truly awe inspiring space event of February 20 - a total eclipse of the moon. On a very cold evening, Susan, grandson Branden, and I stood on the deck looking at the full moon bathed in just the copper toned light of the Sun, bent through the earth’s atmosphere. Even in the cold, I couldn’t help but feel the gigantic forces God set in place working the same way they have for millions of years. No technology. No polities. Just the wonder of creation.

Pastor B.

The writer's strike is over. Oh, to be sure, millions if not billions of people kept writing, but the people who write television scripts hit the picket lines instead of their key boards. I don't watch very much television, but even I noticed the lack of anything new on the tube.

I wonder if anyone would notice if pastors went on a writing strike. What if we all trotted out old, worn sermons from three years ago (the last time the lectionary was where it is today)? No updating allowed. Would anyone notice? And if they did notice would they care? I don't think any of us wants to find out, so you'll never see us refusing to write new sermons.

Of course, I've heard of pastors who have about six or seven years of sermons that they've repeated through an entire ministry. And there are some who grab an old sermon on the occasions when they're too busy to write a new one. I remember one guy who needed a new call every few years when he ran out of old sermons.

I think sermon writing (and blog writing) serves as a creative outlet for many pastors. I've urged congregation folk over the years to try writing as a way to order thoughts and express creativity. (This time of year there are a lot of people being very creative on their taxes.) If you've never sat down to write a prayer, I urge you to do so. The exercise is helpful on may levels: ordering your ideas, spiritual depth, vocabulary building, and talking with God the whole time you work on it.

Looks like the fresh shows will be airing over the next few weeks. The television will again beckon us to devote hours of our lives to drivel. And we will fall onto the couch after a busy day to be numbed by it all while minute after minute of commercial blather beats us into submission. I can't wait!!

I can only hope that sermons aren't the gobbledygook of the television (and radio). I promise to keep writing.

Quick subject change. Did someone say "strike"? Must be that spring training is in full swing, and real baseball is right around the corner.