The Peaceful Gnome

As a Lutheran Christian I have the privilege of going to Private Confession and Absolution whenever I feel the need. I really should go more often because it helps me recall who I am and who God is. Well, since I'm "The Angry Gnome" I went to confession last night. Our church has regular hours posted for Private Confession and Absolution prior to the Thursday night Holy Eucharist. There I confessed my unreasonable anger and my tendency to mock others and my excessive sarcasm along with my myriad other sins. My pastor counseled me, after absolving me of my sins, that this behavior is a sign of false pride. Looking down on others, I attempt to exalt myself, this is, indeed, The Original Sin of Adam. "I will be like God!" Of course the cure is to put to death the Old Adam through daily repentance and recollection of my baptism and to immerse myself in the Holy Scriptures and in prayer. Thank the Lord that He has provided us this consolation in the church,...

Now that I have invited some people to actually read my blog I am feeling the pressure to actually write something down, even when nothing has popped into my head so far today! The purpose of this post is to tell all of my many readers, all two of you :-), that I may not post each and every day. I sometimes post several days in a row and then skip a week or even more if the urge is not there. Just know it is a sometime thing and not an every day thing. Today in Dublin it is supposed to be over 100 degrees, this is only our second hot spell of the summer so we can't really complain. Weather for the next 5 days: 5-Day Forecast for ZIP Code 94568 Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday 102° F | 60° F 39° C | 16° C 101° F | 59° F 38° C | 15° C 94° F | 57° F 34° C | 14° C 90° F | 56° F 32° C | 13°...

I suppose you might wonder about the title of this blog. The Angry Gnome? Say what? I chose this title after talking with a coworker, Tom Byrd, one day. He was looking at a photo of me standing on top of Moro Rock in Sequoia National Park and made a little red pointed hat out of paper and stuck it on the computer monitor. "Watch out for the angry gnome" he said. Here is the photo, you'll just have to visualize the red hat because I don't do photo-shop things: Well, after that conversation I thought about starting up this blog as a replacement for my regular one. But that still doesn't explain the Angry part of the name. Anyone who doesn't know me would have no problem with the Gnome part, just look at the photo! :-) But the Angry part? Well, I am sad to say that the Angry part is due to my day to day behavior. :-( Somehow I have gained a reputation for being somewhat "prickly." Even when I'm trying my hardest to be nice I come across a...

Flickr has a cool feature that lets you put your pictures on a map. I've posted up my three most recent trips on it as a sample. Check it out at http://www.flickr.com/photos/devich/map/ Now that is just too cool :-)

This something that ought to be obvious but is really something I must remind myself of each and every day of my life: I sin and I repent, every day . That is something that is so frustrating to me that I can hardly stand it. I want to see improvement, but it seems that I don't. Even when my outer behavior seems to be better my heart remains filled with hate and lust and sin of every sort. Thanks be to God for the salvation we have in our Lord Jesus Christ! In Him we have eternal life, our vile sins covered and our old man drowned and dead forever, new life in Christ is in me NOW , and this is a wonderful and indescribably joyous bit of news! My salvation depends on Christ alone, not on my behavior, thank the Lord! " For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So no...

Welcome to my new Blog, The Angry Gnome. I've set up this blog because my previous one was hosted on devich.org and I couldn't set up "feeds" from it. Feeds allow you to get an email notice whenever there is a post to the blog for example. Just use the form at the top of this page on the right to sign up. We, Lora, Serenity and I, went to the Renaissance Fair in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco yesterday where we met up with a co-worker, Tom and his wife Lucy. There are a few photos on my "Flickr" site. There are also a number of photos there of our trips to Six Flags in Vallejo and our camping trip to Sequoia National Park. Sort of a "what I did on my summer vacation" thing. :-)