Has anybody else harbored a secret sense of satisfaction because of a volcano in Iceland with an unpronounceable name? I admit it. I’ve been snickering every time the news explains that the airline industry loses $200 million a day, that thousands of travelers are stranded, that nobody is quite sure when it will get better all because a relatively small volcano is burping its way through mid-April.

My apologies for an insensitivity to the plight of tourists and the industries that depend on air transport. I know that the whole shut down of airports has a human toll.

Still, a kind of glee rises up within at the thought that all our human ingenuity and technology has fallen into a heap when the Earth decides to speak up. Recent earthquakes fall into this, I suppose. But the human and property losses mitigate against a sense of joyous wonder.

The Iceland volcano has, for the most part, simply disrupted the flow of humanity and goods. I think we often find ourselves complacently smug in our ability to control the environment. So when a volcano can spit grit into the air at such a height that it disrupts the lives of millions, I see Mother Nature reminding us of our smallness. We are not in charge.

Yes! That’s it. Despite what we may sometimes think. We are not in charge.

Pastor B

Then, in a series of well orchestrated conservative coups, the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod made a sharp right hand turn. The main issue was the inerrancy of scripture. The newly elected leadership of the LCMS brought theological cleansing to their seminaries, and faculty either jumped ship or got thrown overboard.

The church body divided, and the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches quietly began operations knowing they would live only as long as it took for the two others to finally marry. The AELC hooked into a new seminary, a LCMS seminary in exile. Known as Seminex, the seminary trained pastors and practiced great Lutheran theology.

That 1973-74 school year I came back from internship to take up the job of being the president of the student body. At mid-year, when Seminex struggled with solvency, the student body of Northwestern Seminary voted to give all our treasury to Seminex.

A photographer from The Lutheran magazine caught the exchange of checks. That’s me on the right looking a lot younger.

Lutherans in the United States seem to have a knack for dividing and reuniting. Our ELCA may lose several hundred churches over the issue of human sexuality, but the issue really gets down to how we read the Bible.

History continues to repeat itself, it seems.

Pastor B

News item: On March 29, nine men who are part of an anti-government militia group in Michigan were arrested for a plot to kill a police officer and then stage a massive explosion to kill even more officers at the funeral of the first. Scary stuff. And even more frightening? They consider themselves a Christian militia.

Truly, truly this kind of activity tears me apart with remorse, anger, grief, and a great desire to drop to my knees and pray for the Lord to look away. Here we are, still in the glow of Easter, and already the Prince of Peace has followers brainwashed into thinking that violence is the way. Albeit Einstein once said, "Only two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the universe." "Christian Militia" is an oxymoron that proves Einstein’s point.

I am watching a country, my country, increasingly mixing Christianity with a brand of politics that includes anger, hate, and violence. The Michigan nine only form the tip of the iceberg of militias out there. More and more politicians decry violence in public but use passive aggressive language to fan the flames.

Dear Jesus, turn our eyes to your light and keep us from running into the shadows. Dispel the darkness of violence but raising up sunlight in the nighttime of those who would claim to show you their love by killing another.

In peace,

Pastor B