The cruise was most relaxing, and was a break that I desperately needed. We were originally planning for the trip to be only for Sarah and me, but we found out a few days before leaving that we would have a little stowaway with us.
Tomorrow morning Sarah and I leave for an extended weekend Caribbean jaunt to Cozumel, Mexico. Blogging will not be on my mind, so don’t expect any new posts for a few days.
It’ll be our first cruise. If you have any advice for us newbies, please pass it along.
Daniel looks at the damage on the Union University campus. Photo by Morris Abernathy.
British writer Laura Nolan laments the rise of men who act like boys, making it harder for single women in their 30s to find husbands.
The person who fell in love and believed that when you found a great girl you counted your blessings and married her has morphed into someone in search of nothing more than a bit of fun, who views any relationship that he can’t get out of at the ping of a text message with genuine unease.
Nolan details some of her dating experiences with immature men afraid of the slightest bit of commitment and who treat women only as conquests. She makes some good points.
My advice to Laura: Show her male friends this article by Ray Van Neste, in which Ray addresses what it means to be a man. I posted a link to this a few weeks ago, but it’s an appropriate response to the problems that Nolan identifies of sissy, self-absorbed guys.
Some wise advice about parenting babies.
Hat tip: Challies
The Wall Street Journal’s Stephen Moore writes about how video games have turned his kids into mindless zombies.
The trouble began last summer when my sons started spending virtually every unsupervised hour camped out in front of the computer screen engaged in multiplayer role games like World of Warcraft and Counterstrike. At the start of this craze, I wrote it off as merely a normal phase of adolescence. I was confident that, at 14 and 16, they would soon be more interested in chasing real-life girls than virtual video hoodlums.
Boy, was I wrong. Their compulsion became steadily more destructive. They grew increasingly withdrawn, walking around like the zombies from “Night of the Living Dead.” Unless I pried them (forcibly) from the computer, they would spend five or six hours at a time absorbed in these online fantasy worlds. My wife tried to calm me down by observing that “at least they’re not out having sex or doing drugs.” But how would that be any worse?
Good column by author Ridley Pearson, who recounts his childhood memories of his father reading to the family at the dinner table.
But it was the evening dining table reading that connected the family. Usually no more than a paragraph or two was read, sometimes a page or more. And it wasn’t intended as a jumping-off point of discussion (although it often had that effect); it was read because the subject matter was something my dad had been thinking about, or he’d stumbled onto a page that was just too good not to share.
That, I think, was the underlying message that I came away with: Reading is to be shared. Like a good meal. Reading is what connects the dots between the forty-somethings and the 6-year-olds. Reading is for everyone.
Ray Van Neste offers some insights to young men about being men.
Hat tip: JT
You need a license to drive. You need a license to fish, hunt or own a gun. You even need a license to get married.
Sometimes I wonder if we should require a license for procreation, because a lot of people have no clue when it comes to parenting. Examples of parents behaving badly are never hard to find, but a couple in recent weeks have caught my attention.
What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
I’ve probably sung the words to that old hymn hundreds of times in my life. But it was never as meaningful to me as it was during our worship service yesterday.
I was holding my 4-year-old son Daniel. Usually, Daniel doesn’t sing much during church. He can’t read the words on the overhead, and he doesn’t yet know most of the songs we sing. Every once in a while he’ll pick up a word or a phrase and join in, and it pleases me to hear him try.
But he knows the words to “Nothing but the Blood,” thanks to a Sunday school teacher who taught them to him. So as we began singing the song yesterday, he jumped right in with gusto. It was a blessing to my soul to hear that little voice belting out the words right into my ear. And he was certainly proud of himself for being able to participate with everyone else.
Of course, Daniel doesn’t fully understand the meaning of what he was singing. That’s OK. He doesn’t understand the meaning of the Bible verses he’s memorizing, either.
So my earnest prayer is that one of these days – while he is still a young boy – God will enlighten his mind and warm his heart to the truths he was singing. That Daniel will look to the blood of Jesus as the only thing that will ever make him whole again. That he will find his hope, his peace and his righteousness in that blood. That he will embrace the beauty and the preciousness of the flow that will make him white as snow.
May God make it so.
From Canada’s National Post:
Women who rush back to work after giving birth may do so at their baby’s peril, suggests a new Canadian study that fuels the emotional debate over career versus parenthood.
The less time a new mother stays off the job, the more likely her child’s motor and social development will be impaired, University of British Columbia researchers concluded.
The last week has been the busiest week of my semester thus far, so I haven’t had much time to devote to the ‘ol blog. I’ve had a few folks send me some news stories in recent days that I haven’t gotten around to posting yet, so here are a few of these items for your information and for discussion:
Mastermind of first Twin Towers attack claims he has converted to Christianity
Scandal hits TV preacher’s academy
Mom’s religion dominates custody hearing
Bush: All religions pray to ’same God’