Contrary to appearances, I am not trying to shake off my modest but loyal readership with vagabond-blogger tendencies. Every since I left Blogger for WordPress I have had crazy things happening; such as disappearing posts and duplicating posts. Twice the blog went away completely, only to return as a prodigal, missing the links and other goodies that I added before its departure. Who has time for a mischievous blog? So, I took a break from posting while I registered a domain and uploaded The Siberian Grinder (still powered by the snazzy WP software) to its new home.

This is the last time that I will ask you to tinker with your bookmarks .

I am thankful that traffic to the Grinder continues to increase, now averaging about 50 visitors a day. I hope that most will enjoy the new blog, and that is why I keep linking to it .

Without further ado, I invite you to click on over to the new site and… well, read it.

www.siberiangrinder.com

• Maya and I wed on September 15th, 2001

• David was born on September 2nd, 2002

• Hannah came along on March 21st, 2005

• I learned to speak Russian, and then to teach/prch in it.
• We moved to a new city in September, 2005.

And that is probably enough sentimentalism for one post.

Our hearts be pure from evil, that we may see aright the Lord in rays eternal of resurrection light; and, list’ning to His accents, may hear, so calm and plain, His own “All hail!” and, hearing, may raise the victor strain.

Now let the heav’ns be joyful, let earth her song begin, let the round world keep triumph and all that is therein; let all things seen and unseen their notes in gladness blend, for Christ the Lord hath risen, our joy that hath no end!

Hymn written by John of Damascus, 8^th century, and translated by John M. Neale.

One of the strangest, perhaps, of the Russian classical writers was Nikolai Gogol (image above [borrowed from Wikipedia]). For my Russian study this week, I read a short story of his called The Nose. The story is as nonsensical as it gets. At the same time, The Nose is a curiously interesting read. The main character, Major Kovalyov, somehow looses his nose (yes, the real one on his face), and meanwhile the nose takes on a life of its own, and even masquerades as a civil servant. But why give away the rest of the plot here? You can order it (or find the text online) in English and read the story for yourself. It is better in Russian, though, complete with obsolete words and archaic spellings (e.g., середа for среда). For the Russian-language enthusiast, I recommend this excellent dual-language book found here, which has this story and many others, and lots of language helps to boot.

The first was that all afternoon our hot and cold water and our heat services were cut off. That by itself is unsurprising, but still inconvenient for hosting a group of people. No water would mean no washroom or facilities (and the meeting usually goes for three hours!). Also, and maybe more important, we usually serve tea before the lesson (a cultural norm). Without water, this would be impossible. I prayed that the water would be restored before the lesson. Five minutes before the first guests arrived everything was turned back on.

The second item also relates to the utilities. We were reading Psalms 139:11-12. As soon as we read: If I say,“Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,” the electricity went off, leaving the room dim (it was dusk outside). We laughed at the coincidence and, after a moment, we strained our eyes and continued reading… even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you. And just then the lights came back on. We could not have thought of a better illustration to drive the point of the verse home.

The final thing was something Erzher shared at the end of the meeting. He recounted how he hurt his leg earlier in the day while kicking a soccer ball around in the snow. Before the lesson, while we were singing, he was in agony, and could only think of his leg. As soon as the lesson began, the pain left him and he even forgot about it. The moment the lesson concluded, the pain returned. He said, “Now I see that God wanted me to listen closely to the lesson.”

We are blown away.

1. There was no snow before the Fall of Man. Which was good news for Adam and Eve because;
2. Man wore no clothing before the Fall, so they would have been a little chilly on a day like today – and leaf outfits would hardly have kept back old Mr. Frost from nipping at all that exposed skin.
3. The earth’s weather was drastically different before the Flood. The vapor canopy (Genesis 1:8) that covered the earth before the Flood allowed for a far more consistent weather pattern, as is evidenced by the lack of rain (Genesis 2:5,6) likely until the day that the Flood began. Yes, you would be correct to argue that snow is then a result of the Flood. However, since the Flood was God’s judgment for sin, my thesis holds. No sin – no Fall, no Fall – no Flood, no Flood -no snow; thus, snow is, at least, an indirect result of sin. That makes more sense to me than blaming April snow on global warming.

Many creationists have written about the lack of snow before the Flood. Dennis G. Lindsay, in his The Canopied Earth, wrote:

Another marvel of the pre-Flood world included a lack of seasonal changes that much of the world now encounters. There was no ice-skating, snow skiing, snowball fights or snow shoveling. Rather, there was a year-round tropical paradise—as one might experience on a South Pacific island. It was not until after the Flood that we read about seasons of summer and winter.

So, I am not glum today because of the wet falling white stuff. I am merely grieved because of sin. (Is this an indirect way of complaining about the weather?)

This has been great language practice. I have a hard enough time with legal terms in English; you practically have to know Latin (e.g. prima facie). So tackling the terms in Russian has been stretching, but fun.

Please be thinking of us next week. That’s when the lawyers will file the documents.