There’s about an inch of heavy, wet snow on the ground; snow still falling, too. The power is out. Called IREA to report the outage, and they are aware of the outage which is affecting a pretty wide area. One inch and this is what happens? Things do not look good for the winter. I hope for their sake someone slid off the road and knocked down a pole, though not for the driver’s sake.

We were just given a $220 over-the-range microwave. It's like someone wants us to live here.

On a day overwhelmed in American Pietism, I have chosen to ignore most of television, radio, and even the newspaper. I won't watch or listen any news program. I won't watch or listen to any remembrance ceremonies. I won't read our weekly edition of the Denver Post.

As today is a day that we are never to forget, I ask, "What about December 7?" "What about April 19?" I could go on a ask about other days, but really there isn't much hoopla about the these two days, and there certainly isn't much for others. In fact, the day proclaimed as one that will "forever live in infamy" doesn't, and hardly anyone outside of Oklahoma City knows the significance of April 19. So much for American Pietism.

So, no, it's not that I don't remember. I remember quite well, in fact. I simply choose not to celebrate an attack on our soil. Call it Patriot Day; call it whatever you want—today will be seen as a day of celebration, not a day of remembrance. Oh, they'll say we're celebrating freedom or the enduring American spirit or whatever, and many will remember the lives lost ten years ago today, but I can't help but think that it will be as an after thought. Maybe, in another 10 years, freedom and the American spirit will be all that we'll remember (and at our current rate, these will be only memories).

But, for me, today isn't simply September 11. Today is Sunday. I'll be doing something else today in remembrance. But more than in remembrance, I'll be receiving my Lord's Body and Blood for the forgiveness of my sins. "Do this in remembrance of Me," Jesus said. And so, I'll be recognizing the institution of the Lord's Supper with those words.

Ironically, forgiveness is the theme of the lessons today. Forgive your brother who perpetrates an evil against you and forget it. It goes so far as what is read in today's Old Testament reading, when Joseph's brothers send word to him asking for forgiveness after their father died. "You meant it for evil," Joseph tells them of their selling him into slavery, "but God meant it for good." So it is of every evil that God allows and sends our way—illness, cancer, drunk drivers, natural disasters, even terrorist attacks—all tragedies in their own right, but evil that God uses for the good of those who trust in Him.

So it is today, as we remember the evil that 19 men inflicted upon this land of ours. But more than that, as we remember the evil that several men inflicted upon One, as God-in-the-flesh hung dead upon a Roman cross at the behest of the ruling Jewish council who incited the crowds in Jerusalem, the sacrifice of the Lamb that takes away the sin of the world. Both of these men meant for evil, but God meant for good (for those who love Him). Never forget..."do this in remembrance of Me."

We have closed!

If you could see how many knives, darts, and arrows are every moment aimed at you, you would be glad to come to the Sacrament as often as possible. But there is no reason why we walk so securely and heedlessly, except that we neither think nor believe that we are in the flesh, and in this wicked world or in the kingdom of the devil. Therefore, try this and practise it well, and do but examine yourself, or look about you a little, and only keep to the Scriptures. If even then you still feel nothing, you have so much the more misery to lament both to God and to your brother. Then take advice and have others pray for you, and do not desist until the stone be removed from your heart. Then, indeed, the distress will not fail to become manifest, and you will find that you have sunk twice as deep as any other poor sinner, and are much more in need of the Sacrament against the misery which unfortunately you do not see, so that, with the grace of God, you may feel it more and become the more hungry for the Sacrament, especially since the devil plies his force against you, and lies in wait for you without ceasing to seize and destroy you, soul and body, so that you are not safe from him one hour. How soon can he have brought you suddenly into misery and distress when you least expect it!

On March 20, 2006, then-Senator Barack Obama said, "The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can't pay its own bills...Americans deserve better." I wonder if Mr. Spend-spend-spend really thought that then or if that was just a convenient attack on the president then, who happened to be from the other political party. I mean, we can stick his words to him now, can't we?

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

Ich danke dir, mein himmlischer Vater, durch Jesum Christum, deinen lieben Sohn, das du mich diesen Tag gnädiglich behütet hast, und bitte dich, du wollest mir vergeben alle meine Sünden, wo ich unrecht getan habe, und mich diese Nacht gnädiglich behüten. Denn ich besehle mich, meinen Leib und Seele, und alles in deine Hände. Dein heiliger Engel sei mit mir, daß der böse Feind keine Macht an mir finde. Amen.