I recently acquired a Kindle, from Amazon. Here is a pretty good summary article from Wikipedia. I’ve been having a lot of fun learning how to use it and loading books into it. I’m unsure yet what precisely it means, but I can not help shake the feeling that this portends the future of how we will receive, and use, digital information going forward into the future. Will books ever go away? No. After over 500 years, they are going as strongly as ever. They are the ultimate portable document device. Let’s think of the advantages of books:

Supremely portable
Simple user interface
Ease of use
Can be used anywhere there is light
Require no power source
Never need recharging
Offer a satisfying tactile look and feel
Instantly on
Never need an upgrade
No risk of breakdown (unless mistreated)

What about a Kindle? It allows me to have with me, wherever I want to take it, a large collection of reading material. With a secure digital card I can carry around over eight gigabytes of intellectual property: music, photos, books, magazines, newspapers, blog sites, and the Kindle has its own functional browser, and offers you the ability to access Wikipedia at any time. Talk about your ultimate walking encyclopedia!

Ironically, one of the first books I downloaded, which I read about on the Kindle, was Isaac Asimov’s Foundation, the premise of which is that a bunch of eggheads are determined to preserve their civilization’s knowledge in the Galactic Encyclopedia.

The sensation of reading on the Kindle is very pleasing. There is no screen glare. It is truly like reading a paperback book. The massive infrastructure that Amazon has developed to support the Kindle is the most amazing feature of the Kindle. You can put any document you want on it. Just as long as you have it in one of several common formats, you can send it to Amazon, they convert it into Kindle’s format and they will either e-mail it to you for you to download on to the Kindle yourself, or for ten cents, you receive it over the Kindle’s wireless Internet connection; which, by the way, works much better than my WiFi at home from ATT and my Sprint cell phone; just now, for example, I uploaded a 6.6 megabyte collection of a German theologians letters to pastors (all of them), and within ten minutes it was sent back down to my Kindle and I can enjoy them there.

There is much to think about here and I’m enjoying both the thinking and Kindle reading! Does any reader of this blog have a Kindle? What do you think?

The first post of the new year is available now on the "Blog of Concord," which is the worlds oldest and largest blog site devoted exclusively to an ongoing conversation about the Lutheran Confessions. Well, ok, it’s the only one too, but hey, that’s how these things get hyped on the Internet. So, pay us a visit and offer your comment or observation. Join the roundtable conversation. Plus, you can check out our nifty new page banner, custom designed for us by Jen.

How lovely shines the Morning Star!
The nations see and hail afar the light in Judah shining.
Thou David’s Son of Jacob’s race, my Bridegroom and my King of Grace, for Thee my heart is pining.
Lowly, Holy,
Great and glorious, Thou victorious
Prince of graces, filling all the heavenly places.

About the painting:
Peter Rubens, The Adoration of the Magi, 1624, Oil on panel.

A blessed, holy and joyful Epiphany to you and yours! It so happens this year that the day of Epiphany falls precisely on a Sunday; otherwise, it is normally observed on a Sunday though falling on another day of the week. Epiphany, comes from two Greek words: "epi" and "phaneo" meaning, literally, "to shine out" and then, "manifest." It is the last and final day of Christmas. It is sad to notice how quickly people throw the decorations out after Christmas, thinking Christmas ends on Dec. 26. We keep our creche lit up at night until the very end of Christmas:  January 5 the twelfth day of Christmas. Thankfully, today, here in Saint Louis, it is positively "balmy" weather and I will have no plausible excuse for not taking down the lights, creche, etc.

On this Sunday we hear in our churches the account of the visit of these mysterious visitors from the East, the "magi" or "wise men." A star guided them to the Christ child, where they offered their gifts to Him and worshiped Him. Who were they? We do not know. Where exactly did they come from? We are unsure. It would seem clear that they were from lands where the Old Testament prophecies were known and studied. It may well be that they were heirs of one particularly important "wise man" from the East, Daniel, whose time in captivity was used by God to plant His word beyond the people of Israel. The visit of these non-Jewish scholars to the infant Christ signals that the good news of a Savior is good news for all. And that, my friends, is very good news indeed.

The Epiphany season, very short this year because of a very early date of Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent, underscores those events in the life of Christ in which we see very clearly that the One who went to the Cross was no mere mortal man, but, as we confess in the Creed, He is: "God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God." During Epiphany we hear about Christ’s first miracle, and His glorious Transfiguration.

One hymn stands over and above so many others in Lutheranism, and that
is quite an accomplishment. The
German title is Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern, literally
translated: "How beautifully shines the Morning Star." The hymn is
found in Lutheran Service Book, Number 395.  It is the hymn of the day appointed for the festival of Epiphany.

In the extended entry below you will find, first, the seven stanzas of the hymn that I could find, then a translation of Bach’s Cantata BWV I, with the German. Bach used this hymn for BWV I, composed for the Annuciation. It uses two stanzas of the hymn verbatim, and then is a paraphrase of other stanzas. Note particularly the powerfully clear reference to the Savior’s body and blood. You can click on this YouTube link to watch a moving score of Bach’s Cantata, and listen to it at the same time. Yes, dear readers, I know that Bach did not write the words of his Cantatas; but, please let nobody think Bach was careless or unconcerned about the words. His music was intentionally designed to support the text.

Read more…

Do you know what "social networking" is? Social network, for you aging persons like me, is *the* thing on the Internet. Heard of Facebook? MySpace? All you young whipper-snappers reading this stop your snickering now! Show respect to your elders.

Have you wanted to try social networking? Well, here’s your chance. Join me and, as I send this note, about 250 other people on "The Wittenberg Trail" social networking site. If you want to know, just click on through to The Wittenberg Trail. Happy trails to you!

How about the spiffy new custom banner on Cyberbrethren now? Thanks to "J" for her excellent design work, and helping me figure out how to get it up on Cyberbrethren. She also did a bang up job designing a custom design for my Book of Concord blog, which you can check out here.