I assumed that turning the thermostat all the way down turned off the furnace. Not so. It kicked on about 2 a.m. and the unexpected sound woke me up. I came out to check the inside temp to make sure nothing was amiss and, sure enough, it was 55, the lowest setting on the thermostat. I guess the only way to turn off the furnace altogether is via its breaker, but I'm going to leave it on. We sure don't want any of the water pipes underneath MoHo freezing, and at some point it would get so cold in here that it would take too long for the wood stove to get it up to a reasonable temp.
In fact, even allowing for the unseasonable cold snap we're in it's clear the cord of wood I bought isn't going to get us through the winter. I figure that at this rate we'll make it through January, and maybe into February. I don't want to buy another cord, but even at $180 it's probably still significantly cheaper than using the furnace 24/7.
I got the other two surfaces of the coop's trim boards primed, so I can start on the color coat tomorrow afternoon...or Monday. After that I worked in Fred and finished gutting the main floor. It's still a mess in there, but all the flooring is now gone, the old wiring removed, and all those bits and pieces out. Next I climb up to the loft and start demo there, pitching everything down through the relatively small opening. I'll put the wheelbarrow underneath, and maybe that will save some time and effort.
I occasionally think back to particular experiences from my days teaching, some from a decade teaching homiletics, the class on how to prepare and deliver sermons. There was the guy who completely plagiarized the sermon of a famous preacher, right down to the illustrations. Or the guy who had clearly thrown together that morning his sermon to be preached in class after lunch, and who used about 30% of the assigned time length.
But I had some at the other end of the spectrum, too. It was fun to watch someone go from their first 15-minute sermon that was typically a homiletical disaster to delivering 30-minute messages that had solid content and were delivered with both verbal and non-verbal skill.
I have an extremely high view of what's called the homiletical event. The preacher who delivers the Word of God to his people carries a great weight of responsibility, and nothing but his very best is acceptable. Preaching is both art and science. You can teach the latter while the former is a gift, a stewardship. I've got no patience with shoddy preaching (ask the student who preached that thrown-together mess!), and when preaching is done effectively any outcomes are solely attributable to God's grace in time and space.
If you'll be in church tomorrow (or next Sunday if you're reading this after) pray for your preacher. Pray for his time in preparation, that he'll have focus, insight, and clarity as he determines how to best communicate the truths of the passage. And pray for his delivery, that what got put into the hopper will come out as effectively as envisioned when he sat in his study.
Pray for the preacher on Monday, too, 'cause he probably feels like he totally screwed it up.
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