As temperatures have turned fall-like, we have also passed the mid-term of the first trimester of the year. It was so wonderful to have the opportunity to meet with parents to discuss how we are working together to support your children during our first Parent-Teacher Conferences, and we also loved welcoming parents virtually for our first Lower School Showcase of the year. It remains a blessing that we are able to continue to hold many of these events and traditions that are so much a part of life together at ILS, even if we have to adjust and adapt this year.
Looking ahead to November, we have so many things we are looking forward to sharing together with students and families. We’ll be again hosting our Veterans Day “Salute to Veterans,” and we look forward to sharing the stories of many of our family members and friends who have served or continue to serve our nation in our armed forces. We’ll also be expanding our traditional “Day of Service” to a month-long effort from our entire school community to showing love for our neighbors through acts of service. We are partnering with Christ House in Old Town to collect for Thanksgiving Meal Kits, running a month-long food drive, and sharing love and service to our neighbors all month long in and out of school. We hope that all of our ILS families will join us in participating in these activities!
Once again, we’re sharing our "What we're reading..." Blog series, with what we hope is a variety of inspiring, thought-provoking or intriguing materials. It is our hope that these pieces continue to help to shape our ongoing conversation about how we create and build our culture together at home and at school. We would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below as you read these!
Thank you for your continued partnership, and for engaging with us in these ongoing conversations and for sharing items you have read that may be inspiring to others in our ILS community! Please feel free to share a link in the comments to email us any time!
Sermon for All Saints Day - Pastor Noah Rogness, Rogness on Tap
“We’ve all been there, the lonely walk to the grave. No other walk seems to take so long or be so difficult. The hole in the earth stares back at you, open-eyed and awaiting another body to consume - the body of your father or mother, your brother or sister, or your son or daughter. The pastor speaks, he speaks words of comfort - words of hope, the Words of Christ Jesus Himself. Yet, the hope and comfort of Christ proclaimed is met with tears and sadness, ears that have gone deaf from grief. Is this the end? Are we left with only memories or will they too depart and fade from our minds as the leaves that fall to the ground?
However, today, Revelation presents a very different vision of life, a vision of overwhelming beauty and heavenly glory as we reflect on the lives of the saints - those who have died in Christ. In all His splendor, the Lamb is upon His throne. The multitudes are those whose ragged and soiled garments have now been washed in the Lamb’s blood. These are the saints no one can number, people of every nation, every tribe, every language. These are your fathers and mothers, your brothers and sisters, your sons and daughters.
“These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence.” (Revelation 7:14-15)
Here is your All Saints Day, a glimpse into heaven and those who have died and gone before us. For the saints in heaven, the troubles of this life have ceased, sin and Satan are no more. The multitudes surrounding the Lamb now await the resurrection of the dead, the new heaven and the new earth that are to come. ”
Why Classical Music is a Gift - Mrs. Marie Greenway Prelude to Postlude: CPH Music Blog
““Mrs. Greenway,” a first grader asked me yesterday, “do we ever listen to any Early Age composers?”
In our school, each music class concludes by listening to a piece of art music (generally known as “classical” music). We learn about one composer and one composition written by that composer every week. Each composer falls into one or two of the following categories: Early Age, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic, or Modern Day.
We love what we know
The students, particularly the younger ones, love listening to these pieces. They were veritably rocking out listening to the first movement of Vivaldi’s “Autumn.” Apparently, they haven’t yet figured out that art music is supposed to be boring. And if it were up to me, they would never find it boring.
I’ve written about this regarding hymns, and it’s true for art music too: kids love what they know. When we are constantly listening to Vivaldi and Bach and Mozart and Stravinsky and Haydn, they learn to love that music. Art music is beautiful and complex and fun. When it’s taught in a winsome way, children look forward to listening to it and even begin to recognize their favorites. At my school, the favorite tends to be Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons.
Fill your life with the beauty of creation!
Children need to learn about the beauty of art music, a generous gift of God. For God is abundant and gives us far more than we need. Creation is bursting with beauty and plenty. In the twenty-first century especially, we have the resources to surround ourselves with beauty every day. Why fill our lives with drab and colorless things when we could have rich, beautiful colors all around us? The same goes for music. Why listen to exclusively boring, crude, simplistic songs when we could immerse ourselves in wonderful, complex, beautiful, and endlessly interesting compositions?”
How to Pair Cheese With Halloween Candy (Because We All Need a Little Fun) - Marissa Mullen, Food52
“The air is getting colder, the days are getting shorter, and all I want to do is drink pumpkin beer while snacking on chocolate. Last time we paired potato chips with cheese, offering some delicious salty and savory combinations. Now it’s time to switch gears into the world of sweets. Halloween is approaching: It’s the time of year when we all devour candy like nobody’s business.
I’m a big fan of sweet cheese pairings; the sweetness of chocolate adds another dimension to the overall tasting experience. However, it doesn’t stop there. Why not pair the marshmallow notes of candy corn or the salty, sweet crunch of caramel popcorn? The options are endless!
When trying new pairings, think about the intensities of the two items on hand. Pairings are fascinating in the way they completely transform a bite. It’s like painting: You combine two colors to make a different shade. You’re mixing together flavor notes to create an entirely different experience.
Something like a strong, sharp cheddar can overpower a lighter flavored candy like candy corn. I know this because I tried the combo and it did not blend well. The sharpness of the cheddar almost made the candy corn taste sour instead of sweet. I then paired the candy corn with Brie, a much better choice. The marshmallow notes of the candy corn blended nicely with the creamy, brown butter notes of the Brie.
All of this to say: Don’t be afraid to mix and match items until you taste something you like! Pairings are personal at the end of the day. And I’m here to walk you through five of the pairings that I loved, pulling together my favorite cheeses with my favorite Halloween treats.”
Composer of the Month: Martin Franzmann - Nathan Grime, CPH Blog
“Not unlike many American Lutherans in the upper Midwest, Martin Franzmann (1907–76) was the son of a Lutheran pastor. Born and raised in Minnesota, Franzmann continued his undergraduate and seminary education in Wisconsin and ultimately taught at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri.
Franzmann is perhaps the most beloved twentieth-century Lutheran hymnwriter; his well-known hymns “Thy Strong Word” (LSB 578) and “O God, O Lord of Heaven and Earth” (LSB 834) are two of his five hymns (and one translation) that appear in Lutheran Service Book.
In addition to being an author of theological books, Franzmann began writing hymns in English and translating them from German when he was still in his twenties. Although the first LCMS hymnal to contain Franzmann’s hymns was Worship Supplement (1969), Franzmann’s translation of “Rise again, ye lion-hearted” appeared in The Lutheran Hymnal (1941).
LSB 578: “Thy Strong Word”
Franzmann wrote his most famous hymn “Thy Strong Word” in 1954, in anticipation of Concordia Seminary’s 1955 commencement ceremony. The work came about when Franzmann’s seminary colleague Walter E. Buszin approached Franzmann with a tune he had discovered: EBENEZER.”
The Church as Culture - Robert Louis Wilken, First Things
“ast spring on a trip to Erfurt, the medieval university town in Germany famous for its Augustinian cloister in which Martin Luther was ordained to the priesthood, I learned that only twenty percent of its population professed adherence to Christianity. In fact, when the topic of religion came up in a conversation with a young woman in a hotel lounge, and I asked her whether she was a member of a church, she replied without hesitation: Ich bin Heide—“I am a heathen.”
It is hardly surprising to discover pagans in the heart of Western Europe where Christianity once flourished: a steep decline in the number of Christians has been underway for generations, even centuries. What surprised me was the absence of embarrassment in her use of the term “heathen.” She did not say that she no longer went to church or that she was not a believer. For her, Christianity, no doubt the religion of her grandparents if not her parents, was simply not on the horizon. I remembered that two days earlier my train had stopped at Fulda, where St. Boniface, the apostle to the Germans, is buried. Boniface had gone to Germany to convert the heathen, and in a spectacular and courageous gesture he felled the sacred oak at Geismar. The astonished onlookers soon hearkened to Boniface’s preaching and received baptism. It would seem that if Christianity is ever to flourish again in the land between the Rhine and the Elbe, a new Boniface will have to appear to fell the sacred oaks of European secularism.
Yet what made an even deeper impression on me in Europe was the debate over the preface to the new constitution of the European Union. I was living in Italy at the time and had been following the discussion in the Italian press. All the nations of the EU are historically Christian, and the very idea of Europe was the work of Christian civilization. The Carolingians, Christian kings, first brought together the peoples west and the east of the Rhine to form a political alliance, with the blessing of the bishop of Rome. The story of Europe is a spiritual drama impelled by religious convictions, not by geography, economics, or technology. Yet the framers of the EU constitution refuse even to mention the name of Christianity in its preface. While readily acknowledging the inheritance of pagan Greece and Rome, and even the Enlightenment, Europe’s political-bureaucratic elites have chosen to excise any mention of Christianity from Europe’s history. Not only have they excluded Christianity from a role in Europe’s future; they have banished it from Europe’s past. One wonders whether the new Europe, uprooted from its Christian soil, will continue to promote the spiritual values that have made Western Civilization unique.
Talking to the young woman in Erfurt and listening in on the debate about the EU constitution I found myself musing on the future of Christian culture. In my lifetime we have witnessed the collapse of Christian civilization. At first the process of disintegration was slow, a gradual and persistent attrition, but today it has moved into overdrive, and what is more troubling, it has become deliberate and intentional, not only promoted by the cultured despisers of Christianity but often aided and abetted by Christians themselves.”
America’s Toxic Love Affair With Technology - Tim Wu, The Atlantic
“America has long carried on a great love affair with technological progress. But the truth is that really big inventions—the printing press, the internal-combustion engine, the internet—have both upsides and downsides. They make new things possible, but they also tend to undo settled expectations and create chaos. The real question is not whether there will be major technological changes, but whether societies can learn to better handle the disruptions that follow.
There is a lot to learn: Over the past 500 years, humanity has repeatedly blown it. Consider how things stood a century ago, in the early 20th century. People love to say that technology is changing faster today than ever before. But the 1890s through the 1920s witnessed changes far more dramatic than the birth of social media: the invention of airplanes, home electricity, radio broadcasting, tanks, and machine guns. That period and the period immediately after also witnessed terrible labor violence, the rise of totalitarianism, two depressions, two world wars, several genocides, and other mass killings of extraordinary volume. If these horrors were not exactly caused by the wondrous new technologies of the age, they were certainly aided and abetted by them.
Centuries earlier, technological change was also crucial to initiating the colonial era. In the 1400s, advances in transportation and military technologies—gunpowder and ships, most prominently—allowed Western powers to begin conquering and subjugating continents and brutally enslaving millions of people. The process was so traumatic that the wounds are still healing centuries later.
In all these cases, technological inventions were like catalysts, creating what chemists call rapid reactions and what laypeople call explosions. For example, military advances upended whatever deterrence equilibrium existed, giving some countries—Spain, Germany, Japan—reason to think they might overpower others.
If technological shocks have done so much damage, why aren’t we more careful? After all, we know that rivers flood and volcanos erupt, and we take some precautions to mitigate the risks. Why not try to do more to limit the social effects of big inventions?”
Are We Trading Our Happiness for Modern Comforts? - Arthur Brooks, The Atlantic
“One of the greatest paradoxes in American life is that while, on average, existence has gotten more comfortable over time, happiness has fallen.
According to the United States Census Bureau, average household income in the U.S., adjusted for inflation, was higher in 2019 than has ever been recorded for every income quintile. And although income inequality has risen, this has not been mirrored by inequality in the consumption of goods and services. For example, from 2008 to 2019, households in the lowest income quintile increased spending on eating out by an average of about 22 percent after correcting for inflation; the top quintile increased spending on eating out by an average of just under 8 percent. Meanwhile, domestic government services have increased significantly: For example, federal spending on education, training, employment, and social services increased from 2000 to 2019 by about 30 percent in inflation-adjusted terms.
New American homes in 2016 were 1,000 square feet larger than in 1973 and living space per person, on average, has nearly doubled. The number of Americans who use the internet increased from 52 to 90 percent from 2000 to 2019. The percentage who use social media grew from 5 to 72 percent from 2005 to 2019.
But amid these advances in quality of life across the income scale, average happiness is decreasing in the U.S. The General Social Survey, which has been measuring social trends among Americans every one or two years since 1972, shows a long-term, gradual decline in happiness—and rise in unhappiness—from 1988 to the present.”
Not Normal, But Good - Leah Sherman, Sister, Daughter, Mother, Wife Blog
“Back in January, our lives were busy. Many of us had carefully curated our routines to ensure that every family member was delivered to each appointment, activity, or party in a timely-ish manner. Our schedules were packed so tightly we struggled to fit in one more thing. Parents and children alike were worn out by the end of the day. As mothers, we had little time or energy to consider cooking for our families, so we out-sourced our meals and served them to our children who were strapped in their respective seats in the car, all while moving forward to the next item on the agenda. Perhaps those napkins with charming conversation starters made it into our homes with the best of intentions, but such whimsy requires both people to be present, and substantial time for conversations to become an opportunity to actually learn about one another; neither of which we had in all our rushing around.
Perhaps you enjoyed the hours of school at home alone. You had the time to fold the laundry and mop the floors while watching the shows you enjoyed, or exercise to the music of your choice. Close friends met you at the coffee shop for a chat, and you did your grocery shopping peaceably before collecting the kids and rushing home for dinner and homework and basketball.
Whatever your normal was, odds are, it’s gone. All that we did—playdates, gymnastics, piano lessons, plays, work meetings, hair appointments, dinners out, coffee dates, church—all of it—ended. And we were forced to sit at our own kitchen tables each night with our whimsical napkins trying to cheer us up. Back in January, our lives were busy. Many of us had carefully curated our routines to ensure that every family member was delivered to each appointment, activity, or party in a timely-ish manner. Our schedules were packed so tightly we struggled to fit in one more thing. Parents and children alike were worn out by the end of the day. As mothers, we had little time or energy to consider cooking for our families, so we out-sourced our meals and served them to our children who were strapped in their respective seats in the car, all while moving forward to the next item on the agenda. Perhaps those napkins with charming conversation starters made it into our homes with the best of intentions, but such whimsy requires both people to be present, and substantial time for conversations to become an opportunity to actually learn about one another; neither of which we had in all our rushing around.
Perhaps you enjoyed the hours of school at home alone. You had the time to fold the laundry and mop the floors while watching the shows you enjoyed, or exercise to the music of your choice. Close friends met you at the coffee shop for a chat, and you did your grocery shopping peaceably before collecting the kids and rushing home for dinner and homework and basketball.
Whatever your normal was, odds are, it’s gone. All that we did—playdates, gymnastics, piano lessons, plays, work meetings, hair appointments, dinners out, coffee dates, church—all of it—ended. And we were forced to sit at our own kitchen tables each night with our whimsical napkins trying to cheer us up. ”