Four in a Row

Four little monkeys sitting in a tree - only they're not so little anymore.

My how time flies! (ages 7,6,5,3)

Under-the-wire knitting

The summer heat may be upon us, but that doesn't mean the needles and wool go away. Quite the opposite! I've been very busy click-clacking away making gifts, completed in record time, just in time:

15 hr drive to see family? No problem, knit the 1 yr old's birthday sweater on the road. He was very obliging to wear a wool sweater in June.

Came back from the above trip and realized I had a week to make another baby sweater. Gulp! OK, this one took 2 weeks, but I DID manage to finish it before the baby was born! Whew!

The NEXT DAY this purse was started for a friend moving away. I had 24 hrs before it had to be delivered, so bulky yarn and chunky cables fit the bill. This one was knit entirely at a wedding rehearsal!

Extra touch: lined with a fun tea pot fabric, but hand sewn through many tears. I hope it doesn't fall apart. I miss you SK!!

All the summer gifts are made, and now it's time to think about Christmas. Really. It's almost August! Get your orders in soon...there's lots of bright orange bulky wool left! Hunting hats?? :)

Cain's wife

Questions:

So... who did Cain marry? Also, of whom was Cain afraid (4:13-14)?
Also, do you think there is a backwards step in time between Genesis 4:24 and 4:25?
Was there a whole lot of incest going on at the beginning?
Was this contrary to God's will?
Did Adam and Eve have other sons and daughters?
Were there descendents of Adam and Eve who lived in Nod - east of Eden?
I've never had these questions answered in a manner that is intellectually satisfying.

Answer: I think Adam and Eve had many children after Cain, before Seth. Gen 5:4 may lean against this, but it allows it. (They had children after Seth, but it doesn't rule out that they had children before Seth, too.) Gen 5:3 says they had Seth when they were 130 yrs old - plenty time for other children, from whom Cain would marry. They are mostly not godly - it's like Gen 6:5 already. (Seth is a relief for believing Adam, I think). Adam has Cain and other children and grand children, 4-5 generations' worth, with whom Cain could build a city, before Seth comes along. Basically I see 100-120 yrs going by "in the process of time" of Gen 4:3.

How is the woman the glory of man?

1 Cor 11:7, 14-15: "A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man....Does not the very nature of things teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him, but that if a woman has long hair, it is her glory?"

Question: what does this mean? Is it a sin for men to have long hair?

Answer: My view of this is that the principle is gender distinction in clothing and hairstyle.

It isn't wrong to have long hair, but does tend to blur the distinction. I think the same about women with very short hair. It is that distinction which Paul grounds theologically in verse 7: while all people are made to glorify God, women were made with a different subsidiary purpose: to help the man. Man was made with direct relation to God, with no one else in between that he was to help. This doesn't mean a woman doesn't relate to God directly, though.

Question: But you still affirm that women bear God's image, yes? The passage almost seems to suggest, "Not quite."

Answer: Yes, it has to fit with Gen 1:27 somehow.

That's why I say "subsidiary" - to Gen 1:27. That doesn't mean the 1 Cor 11 emphasis is less important, though.

It obscures the image of God in a couple when they have no distinction of different roles and identities, because that isn't how the 3 Persons exist - trying to all be able to do the same things equally. That's the modern egalitarian imbalance. The patriarchal imbalance is in wife doing all things FOR the man, and she only gets to God (or the church) through him. Over emphasis of 1 Cor 11 can take you there. The balance is that they are equally in God's image, submitting to one another, but in different ways, since they have different roles. The wife serves God by helping the man fulfill his calling.

What should we learn from John Calvin?

You'll need high-speed connection, or patience, for this, but it's a series of good summaries of Biblical Christianity.

http://www.desiringgod.org/Blog/1894_What_Can_We_Gain_from_Calvin_Today/

Holy things

Matthew 7:6 - "Do not give what is holy to the dogs..."

The 2nd century Didache says of this verse: "But let no one eat or drink of your eucharist [Lord's Supper] except those who have been batpized in the Lord's name. For concerning this also did the Lord say, 'Do not give what is holy to the dogs.'"

Happy Birthday little man!

Trying to keep up with my sister's phenom cakes, we created a simple rocket ship.

3 yr olds can never give a true smile on command, can they? I love how his fakey smile involves sticking his tongue between his teeth.

Slippery Slope not always a Fallacy

Doug Wilson, discussing womens' ordination, and in the process, describing my denomination of origin, the Reformed Church in America:

"If someone is disposed to argue this particular point with me, they could win that argument by making a list of all the denominations that have begun to ordain women in the last generation, and show me how this was followed by an explosion of moral chastity, purity, and fidelity. Looking for flourishing chastity in such settings is a sexual snipe hunt. Just ask the question directly. Those denominations that worked through the controversy of women's ordination a generation ago have certainly moved on. Their controversies now concern whether sodomites should be wearing sodomitres in solemn procession up the central aisle."

Drawing

I started teaching an intro to drawing course this summer. This is my 5th round as teacher to homeschoolers in the area, totalling to about 50 students over the past 2 yrs. I really enjoy it, but it is quite challenging to put into clear, concrete words a method that just sort of comes naturally to me. Add to that the complexity of different learning styles, personalities, and natural abilities... whew! My desire is not to have students be able to realistically draw an object at the end of the course. My goal is to help them learn to SEE and understand what they're seeing, and feel confident in the procedures of drawing to be able to strike out on their own and develop their own style. My students range in age from 8yrs old to nearly a great-grandma (sorry NT! Do you think of yourself as that yet??), but they're all kids at heart. I love getting to know each of them (you can tell so much about a person just by looking at their drawings!)

And I think they're learning that the "pastor's wife" is much more than just that. :)

From the mouths of babes

My 2 yr old has been coming up with some great one-liners lately:

"Mom! Rain has water in it!"

"I just saw a squirrel picking his nose!"

Rockets, to God's glory

This is the kind of stuff people at my church do for a living.
Check out the link...

http://hamptonroads.tv/hrtv.php?id=4981001

School schedule update

We're on day 3 of our new homeschooling schedule. The children are learning.

But the schedule flunked. It worked for one day only, and not even technically that long! Day #2 was sabotaged by being out for 4 hours to teach drawing, but we managed to get (nearly) everything else done in the afternoon and evening. Day #3 (today) I woke up 2 hours into my schedule. Oops! I'm laughing at it all, really. I'm figuring out how to work 9 - or is it 10? - distinct lessons for 3 distinct children into one day, plus serve up 3 meals for 6 people on a regular basis. Sounds like a bad math problem.

We're out of sliced bread, there are 4 eggs in the fridge, the spelling list is AWOL, and little ditties about nouns and verbs are going through my head. And yet, it all works out at the end of each day by God's grace. The 7 yr old is conjugating Latin verbs while building Lego spaceships, the 6 yr old wanted to do a weeks worth of Lit in one day (and did), the 5 yr old submitted to Mom's way of coloring in squares, and the 2 yr old was jumping with joy while screaming out numbers I pointed to.

This is all really quite fun if you have a strange sense of humor, a VO specialty. :)

PG Wooster, Just as he Useter

Bound to your bookseller, leap to your library,

Deluge your dealer with bakshish and bribary,

Lean on the counter and never say when,

Wodehouse and Wooster are with us again.

Flourish the fish-slice, your buttons unloosing,

Prepare for the fabulous browsing and sluicing,

And quote, til you're known as the neighborhood nuisance,

The gems that illumine the browsance and sluicance.

Oh, fondle each gem, and after you quote it,

Kindly inform me just who wrote it.

Which came first, the egg or the rooster?

P.G.Wodehouse or Bertram Wooster?

I know hawk from handsaw, and Finn from Fiji,

But I can't disentangle Bertram from PG.

I inquire in the school room, I ask in the road house,

Did Wodehouse write Wooster, or Wooster Wodehouse?

Bertram Wodehouse and PG Wooster,

They are linked in my mind like Simon and Schuster.

No matter which fumbled in '41,

Or which the woebegone figure of fun.

I deduce how the faux pas came about,

It was clearly Jeeves's afternoon out.

Now Jeeves is back, and my cheeks are crumply

From watching him glide through Steeple Bumpleigh.

Ogden Nash

Buried with Him in baptism?

"We were buried with Him through baptism into death" - Romans 6:4

What does this mean??

The following are notes mostly from James Boice's commentary:

Bapto = dip or immerse for a second.

Baptizo = dip or immerse with result of permanent change of identity

In 1 Cor 10:1-2 - Israel was baptized into Moses, as they went through the sea. But they weren't immersed. The water would have been sprinkled on them from above, more likely :) (See also Ps 77:16-19 and this link)

http://havingtwolegs.blogspot.com/2009/04/exodus-weather.html

In Gal 3:27 baptize also means change of identity, referencing our water baptism, which symbolizes that change

Baptism is about our union with Christ, our changed relation to sin and death, not necessarily about immersion/burial acting that out.

School of Faith

I'm getting things ready for our homeschool year to start again next week. I've been going through curriculum books, buying binders, sorting through lists, visiting Kinkos, and then buying more office supplies. I was voted "Most Organized" in high school ("Cutest Dimples" too, but that's another topic). It's one thing to keep oneself organized, but keeping a family of 6 pulled together is a challenge. My goal this year is NOT to have piles of papers as permanent countertop decorations. So I'm devising systems, color coding everything, labelling dividers, and generally over-doing it. Last year my organization lasted about 2 weeks according to my weekly planner (which I haven't seen in months). I know I will fail again this year, but the education will not fail.

I attempt and fail at organizing and creating no-fail systems, but there remains FAITH.

There is faith that somehow despite my personal failures, lost tempers, lack of initiative, and general sinfulness, God will work through my hands to bless our children. They will learn to read, they will conquer division, they will get "b" and "d" figured out. But most of all, I have faith that we will come closer to God as a family. Let me be honest; somedays it is very difficult to have faith, especially when our home looks like a tornado blew through, the fridge is empty, and we seem to be stuck on the Exodus forever!

Faith is different from HOPE. They're cousins, to be sure, but faith is concrete. It's not a feeling, a big spiritual deep breath, or anything like that. It is my bedrock that remains when all else is stripped away. It cannot be removed, not by circumstances, nothing. It is a precious gift from God!

I feel disorganized and overwhelmed by the looming demands over the next months, but I have faith that God will work it all out. And we'll get through it with joy.

On facing disappointment as a Christian

"There is many a thing which the world calls 'disappointment', but there is no such a word in the 'dictionary of faith'. What to others are disappointments, are divine appointments to believers. If two angels were sent down from heaven--one to conduct an empire, and the other to sweep a street--they would feel no inclination to change employments."

John Newton