Deepak Chopra?

God's Boys will be good boys! What college is is an opportunity to explore the world of thinking, unchaperoned. That is a great opportunity to use your own reasoning as formed and founded in the scriptures and family traditions to make your mark on the world. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. The warfare is not avoidance of untoward creeds and thought, but developing the tools of thought to overcome them, by the blood of the Lamb and the word of your testimony...

Arise my soul arise, shake off thy guilty fears...

Enjoy the mental challenge of taking captivity captive, in your own mind and then teach others to do the same. Happy sword fighting.

How our reading can affect our direction...

God's Boys will be good boys!

Like a delightful respite, we enjoyed a nice conversation about how Pastor MacArthur's book affected Christian music for our good, this recent past quarter of a century. It is true that we have been blessed by the direction and assistance of god-blessed study and writing. Can it be that there was a great and silent awakening that we have enjoyed? Looking at the development of Christian music, you and I and the rest of your siblings rejoiced that "excuse me!"{by Nicholas} was not the only example of Christian exuberance of those long days ago.

Sometimes we look at the days of the puritans and miss the things that are just past us. This time, the joy of spiritual fruit of the glut of Christian instructors and music were our reason to rejoice. Sadly our Christian profession has not outshined our verbosity in music and instruction. What if we are measured by the weight of our words compared to the weight of our personal profession? What if we are compelled to really be what we talk about and listen to? " Let us love and sing and wonder..."

Let us be what we hear and write and talk so much about. We are technoinstructed, super abundant tools for the spiritual warfare? Still, we are all too anemic in our victory. HELP, LORD!

Thank God, you are not a father yet! I am grateful for that.

God's Boys will be good boys! I imagine the idealest of circumstances for fatherhood. Relative obscurity, security of finances and a loving marriage and then...children. I imagine Prince William {certainly not the idealest of circumstances to be a Prince} always looked at and fawned over, but God has a plan for such uncomfortable circumstances, as well.

My daddy challenged my every faculty from my earliest moment. He looked at me as his soul, what he would have done or been, had he a father. It started at 6 months and I certainly would never recommend this, but he heard the guys on the job talking about their walking children and he was determined that I should be one of the early walkers. He placed me against the wall and of course I fell flat on my face. I don't remember this, but they told me this.

Infancy is for relationship development. I think my Daddy and I bonded very early. It is about teaching the child to trust you and know you. "Getting to know you" time. Don't mistake their inability for inattention. I think they are more attentive than we could realize. My children would remind me of things that had happened to them, when I thought they were unaware, the year before, when they were 2 or so that I thought that they would never remember. I would take at least an hour every day,{were I a young papa} playing age appropriate games with little baby-mine and introducing some of my interests also. If I am engulfed in a book of my liking, I would spend some time reading that book to baby, while bouncing or tickling toes.

They need muscle stretching, we learned from Grandma Ruth. Dad would talk about his horror at watching her stretch the small infants for a few minutes everytime they went to the in-laws house. She did it to everybody and she always told us it was good for the babies. I recommend it. Range of motion exercises for baby's development of movement. Eventually they won't need it, because they will do their own things.

I don't like techy things for babies. I think it will mess up their eyes and no mirrors in the crib. Grandma Rosalee says it makes them teethe hard and we experienced it first hand with Evvy. She was the only one that we disobeyed that law with. We had to go to the hospital for her first molar, it was purple.

I do hope that one day you'll be able to stomach the melodrama of the "Lloyds of London" movie.

God's Boys will be good boys!

I am thinking this morning about the touching scene when Mr. Angerstine first meets the little impoverished Jonathan and becomes his mentor. The affection that takes a man from a civil duty to a paternal duty was played so well in this movie. Every once in a while someone grabs our heart and doesn't let it go. Maybe, they don't know they have won our paternal prayers and concern. Providence has sent us brothers and sisters and father and mother, but grace and mercy weaves relations in Christ that are as dear and life-giving and soul-uplifting. We fear so, that some will take advantage of our heart's affection and this keeps us distant from one-another. I pray, dear boy, that you would be aggressive to carry your brothers in your heart in prayer and good relationship. I pray that you would nurture that relationship and expand your fellowship to develop yourself and others throughout life. Be encouraged to grow your fellowship.

{For Enoch, one day when you're a father, at the birth of the new prince}Even the best of fathers will feel the enormity of the task at times.

God's Boys will be good boys! My poor dad had no dad of his own around to show him the ropes and yet providence, etc. had placed 7 souls on his doorstep for fathering. I imagine Elizabeth Taylor in Father's Little Dividend, only the opposite for fathers. There was no movie about Buckley. He, like your dad had examples of different fathering styles to choose from. I can't tell which is worse. The primitive birth of the 50's and later where the style was live in closeknit parenting. Maybe that is great. Like she{Elizabeth Taylor} spoke about keeping the baby close at all times, is a temptation for fathers whose fathers were somewhat in absentia. We all hate something about our fathers and mothers and sware off ever being like that. Only to find them in the mirror in a few years. Looking above them, I think best. Acknowledging the pain of your own experience and attempting, gratitude and effort to do differently. Seeking first the kingdom of God, means reading scripture and praying with them, but it also means pouring yourself into that life. What a more difficult part of the job description! Thank God that He doesn't leave us to our own devices. Love and forgiveness can forge a path to healthy, though never perfect fathering, for even the broken. God can make a monument out of a molehill.

What My Son?

God's Boys will be good boys!

What, My Son, as you Graduate?

Getting ready for prom!

God's Boys will be good boys! Everytime it is promtime for my children, I cringe. I wonder, why God makes me so sensitive of this occasion for my children. I wonder why much of my heart goes out in prayer for my child to have a memory that I never had. The fire that would have consumed our house on that night and the gladness that I still have the real treasures of my life that I would not have had, if my prom hadn't been such a source of contention between my mother and I. She wanted me to miss it. Or she was having a premonition. I don't think that prom and hunger are exclusive. I think that you can have food and prom and sisters to love for the rest of your life. I think that God can protect you if you dance from your heart. I don't think that the knowledge that you are a good dancer will make you too proud. I hope you dance!