MIA

I guess I should post something. People on WT keep asking if I'm okay, and now I've received a comment or two here. Yes, as a matter of fact, I have fallen off the face of the earth. Just kidding.

I have no excuse. I just haven't posted anything. I have 3 blogs. My personal LiveJournal account, where all my entries are locked. Only a select few people can read it. I have my portraiture business blog, which I haven't updated since last fall. And I have this blog. When I blog I prefer to be very candid and transparent. I don't feel comfortable doing that here, and I don't think it's professional to do that on my biz blog. Thus, everything I have to say ends up behind locked doors on LJ. (Oh wait, I have the petition blog too, but that's kind of moot now that Issues, Etc. is back.)

I am alive and well. We've been very busy. My daughter has been in the hospital a couple of times, but she's doing fine. We tore up our carpeting and had the hardwood repaired and refinished. We painted. We got new baseboards. I've been stalking craigslist for furniture that can double as posing props for the studio. I got a neat chaise lounger (fainting sofa) off ebay for $61, but it needs to be reupholstered. I got a sweet purple wingback chair for $25, but it's out with Furniture Medic getting repaired. I scored a leather wingback chair with brass tacks for $25 bucks at the Salvation Army store. We sold our Ikea entertainment center, and got a new bookshelf and I painted a nifty cabinet from the Salvation Army for our TV and components. I got a couple of rugs for the floor to make it cozy.

We still need some drywall work but the contractor I wanted to hire flaked out on me. The other contractor I talked to gave me a lowball price and then offered to include 3 other drywall repairs in the price. That just seemed fishy to me. So, we have two incompleted walls with painted paneling that I DETEST.

We ripped out some overgrown bushes and put in some plants. I got a 3 piece wicker furniture set for the porch for $20. We even unloaded all our old lava rock by posting it on Craigslist.

My husband is running for.. something. I don't want to say here which office he's running for.

We changed churches. I loved where we were going, but we felt it didn't offer much more than a beautiful, reverent and historic liturgy. We wanted something with a school (other children), adult catechism and other classes, opportunities for fellowship, and places to serve. Now that we've found all that, it feels like we've also encountered compromise. I've decided that I don't like the 3 year lectionary. I don't like it when the liturgy changes every week, and I REALLY REALLY want weekly communion. I miss that the most. It doesn't feel like church without sacrament. The sermons are longer, but they seem lacking in the law AND gospel. It's like... minimal law and watered down gospel. I can get that elsewhere. Where is the Lutheran Faith (and practice) that I read about on WT, and hear about on Issues, Etc.? Do I have to drive to Hamel every Sunday to find it? I realize that no church is perfect, but I don't want modern mainstream Lutheranism. I want historical, confessional Lutheranism.

And, I must say, Lutheranism is a lonely, isolating faith. I feel out of touch with the American "evangelical" Christianity that was the only Christianity I knew for 19 years. I can't relate to much of it. CCM music and "contemporary" worship... the theology of glory... it's all become foreign to me. I feel like I converted on a much larger scale. Even though I've only converted from non-denominational to Lutheran, I feel like I just converted from Hindu to Islam. It seems that significantly different. I feel like I have little in common with most Christians. I used to be very anti-romanist, and now I feel more of a kinship with Catholics and Orthodox than I do with mainstream Christianity. I just can't seem to find a Lutheran church that fits my faith. Most of them seem too mainstream. Isn't that screwed up and sad? I want local fellowship and reverent liturgical worship with other Confessional Lutherans. Is that too much to ask for?

Okay, thanks for letting me vent.