Our daughter, LilliAna is now two (as of 10:30 PM, October 23), and she is as precocious as ever. She’s got a way about her that is hilarious, cute, and disobedient all in one.

At church on Sunday night, Angela was breastfeeding while i was teaching, and she was wanting to be her usual rambunctious self. Well, Angela told her that she needed to sit down and be quiet, or Daddy would spank her. Of course, LilliAna is a very intelligent child for two, and she looked at her Mama, shaking her head, and said, “No, Daddy reading Jesus.”

It was funny tonight, too. She was sitting in her high chair eating her evening snack before she gets ready for bed, and i started a little game we play with each other. I hand her something to eat, and say “Eat it!” and she gives it right back to me and says, “YOU eat it!” and we go back and forth doing that to each other. Well, after we did that a few times with her cheese and crackers, she picked up her Cinderella juice bottle she was drinking from (she has several juice bottles that originally came with apple juice in them with little plastic figures of the Disney princesses around the straw of each one), and as she poked the cracker in Cinderella’s little face, she said, “YOU eat it!” Of course, Cinderella didn’t respond—she’s plastic! So, LilliAna looked at Cinderella again, this time with a scowl, and said sternly, “You HEAR me???”

A week ago last Sunday, i had the great priviledge of baptizing a young man into membership in Christ’s body. He is a young man who had never been baptized (otherwise, i never would have baptized him!), but who came to know Christ through several issues in his life that providentially converged.

Well, i counseled with the young man, not only explaining the Gospel, but also explaining his responsibilities as a Christian to live in way that is worthy of the Gospel, because if he doesn’t, if he falls away and by his life later denies the Lord who bought him, he’ll be worse off than he was before. Also, though, one thing i counseled him to do was to wear nice clothes, but to wear clothes that he didn’t mind getting a bit wet.

Well, Sunday came, and i gave my baptismal exhortation before the baptism itself. Then, i asked the young man to come and kneel down next to the font. In keeping with the Didache, i practice trine baptism by effusion (short of baptism in running water, i pour water three times over the head). I cupped my two hands together, and took a handful of water from the font and said, “I baptize you in the name of the Father,” pouring the first handful. I took another handful as i said, “And of the Son,” pouring the second time. Once again, i took a handful of water as i said, “And of the Holy Ghost,” pouring the third time. Each time i poured the water, you could hear the water as it rolled down the young man’s head, off his shoulders and back, and splattered on the floor. Immediately after the third handful, i laid my hands on his head and prayed for him that God would make his baptism effectual, and that he would, by God’s grace, grow in his faith and assurance, especially thanking him for the grace of baptism that would give him, as it does for all of us, aid in time of temptation and trial. It was a wonderful time of worship and fellowship, as we had a meal immediately following the service to celebrate the new member of God’s Kingdom.

During that meal, though, several people made some funny comments about the baptism. One person said, “I thought you were going to drown that boy!” The funniest line, though, i thought, was one of the elders who said, “I’ve seen Baptists use less water to baptize somebody!” But of course, i just think that it was what Presbyterians should be doing as we baptize.

Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! It is like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron’s beard: that went down to the skirts of his garments; As the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion: for there the LORD commanded the blessing, even life for evermore. (Psalm 133)

Our Wednesday evening prayer meeting at church is a pretty informal time. I often liken it to a family meeting where everyone shares the major things that happened to them during the day, things going on with them that are coming up, and people they’re concerned about and for whom they want to pray. Of course, there are things about our prayer meeting time i would change if i had my druthers, but that familial kind of feel to it i would never change.

Well, one Wednesday evening some weeks ago, one little boy named Adam—a quiet, 8-year-old, little carrot-topped boy—was up to his normal tricks. One of Adam’s favorite things is to tell pertinent little details about people he knows. One of the things he likes most to tell about other people is their age, and the people he likes most to tell about are his parents. In this respect, i think he takes a cue from his daddy, who always is sure to remember to let people know about people’s birthdays coming up or just past.

Well, this one Wednesday night was just before Adam’s mama’s birthday, and he wanted everyone to know it. But not only did he tell them that she was about to have a birthday, he also wanted them to know that his mother was just about to turn 38. His mother was used to this, and so her embarrassment wasn’t what it could have been, but we all laughed at him and his openness with other people’s personal information. But to try and teach him that he should be more thoughtful about what he tells other people, i said, “Adam, you don’t have to tell everything you know!”

Well, just then, another little girl named McKenzie, who is only two weeks younger than Adam, spoke up in response to what i had said. She said, “Well, i do!”

The funniest thing about it all was what McKenzie’s mother said after McKenzie spoke up, “You’ve heard it from the horse’s mouth!”

Here at the manse, i have almost an acre of grass to cut. Compared to grass i’ve cut in other places, it’s not all that bad, but it still adds up. There is one problem, though: the grass grows faster than it breaks down after it’s cut.

So, my wife and i decided it’d be a good idea to get a bagger for the lawn mower so that there wouldn’t be a bunch of grass piled up in the back yard after i cut grass. That way, we won’t be tracking it in, and our daughter can play in the yard without worrying about getting it all over her.

The lawnmower we have (it was given to us by a couple in our church that no longer uses it) is a Murray, and since Murray is now a defunct company, it’s hard to find parts and accessories for it. So, i’m having to order the bagger over the internet to get it.

My wife IM’d me from the other room at her computer asking me how it was coming along. However, she made a cute little typo. She typed, “How’s the nagger ordering coming along?”

Of course, i replied: “I already have one of those. I don’t need to order another one.”

I attended Erskine Theological Seminary. It was a wonderful experience for me. Whenever anyone asks me where they should go to seminary, that’s always at the top of my list, not just because that’s where i went, but because it’s a great school.

At Erskine, there are lots and lots of people from all different denominational traditions who attend (in that sense, it’s a very “Catholic” seminary). However, Erskine is the ARP Church’s only denominational seminary, but the interesting thing is that a minority of ARP ministers actually go there; the majority of people who do attend, in fact, are Methodists. This makes for some lively discussions on lots of issues, not only because of the issues of free will and predestination, but especially since the ARP Church does not ordain women to the eldership or to the ministry. I have had many lively discussions with female Methodist pastors about women’s ordination, and many of the female Methodists who attended Erskine tried to “influence” the ARP women who attended the seminary (for counselling or Christian Ed. stuff) about the nature of ministry. None of the ARP women i knew were ever more than amused.

One time, though, i was in RJ Gore’s Systematic Theology class, and we were on a break in between sessions (in a three hour class, you have to take breaks!). There was a Methodist woman pastor from Savannah named Lois sitting behind me, and somehow, when we were talking, the topic of gender roles in the Church arose (it was usually the Methodists who made the digging comments about how Presbyterians hate women and think they’re incompetent—absolutely not true in either case, but that’s usually what they’d say). Lois said, “You know, you’re gonna be real surprised when you get to heaven, and Jesus comes out in high heels!”

Now, for the life of me, i didn’t know what to think at this comment. I could only see two possibilities: (1) Jesus is really a woman, and i won’t have known it until i get to heaven; and (2) Jesus is a cross-dresser. Honestly, i didn’t like either option.

So, in the most gentle and humble spirit-of-John-Knox i could muster, i said, “You know, you’re gonna be real surprised when you get to heaven, and Jesus won’t let you in!”

My wife loves to watch Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! (they come on in that order where we live). That’s our usual thing to do at 19:00.

Tonight was the “tie-breaker” for the first-time, three-way tie on Jeopardy!. We were watching intently the Final Jeopardy question (about some astronaut who went to space in 1961), and, as usual, the theme song played for Final Jeopardy. Pretty much everyone can hum the “do-do-do-do” tune. It has become, in our American culture, synonymous with people trying to answer a hard question or some other kind of decision.

Well, my wife, my seventeen-month-old daughter, and i were all here in the living room watching, and the show was going off after Final Jeopardy was over, and just as the music stopped, we noticed our daughter, young as she is, was humming the Jeopardy! song, “Do-do-do-do…”.

I’m sure it’s a sign of things to come.

At church on Wednesday evenings, we have a meal at 17:00, then some kind of activity for the children following, before we have prayer meeting at 19:00. That’s our typical schedule, and different people do different things. People sign up to cook the meal, and some people sign up to lead the activity with the handful of children we have.

Well, this past Wednesday, the mother of one of our members had signed up to cook (she visits us alot, but she’s a member of another church), and we didn’t have any activity scheduled, so i ran to the house to get the Storyteller DVD that i had from Netflix. It was the Greek Myths version of the Storyteller, and it tells four stories: Daedalus and Icarus, Perseus and the Gorgon, Orpheus and Eurydice, and Theseus and the Minotaur. If you know anything about Jim Henson’s Storyteller series, this is just another installment with a different storyteller and about these Greek myths. They’re pretty good, and they’re good to keep the attention of little kids.

When i got back, i put the DVD in our player that is connected to an electronic projector we bought last year. (The projector is really good for Powerpoint projections and movies and things like that. We usually use it on the wall in the sanctuary since it has no want for bare white walls.) So, we were in the sanctuary watching these Greek myths, and the lady who cooked was passing through the narthex on her way out (she doesn’t usually stay for prayer meeting), and she saw the movie we were watching.

She yelled out across the sanctuary, “Now, that’s the thing! That’s really the thing!” I tried not to interrupt the kids watching, so i just smiled at her and waved. But after she left out of the sanctuary, she went into the fellowship hall again and told some older youth and adults in there, “Y’all might want to go in there; they’s watching Bible stories on the wall!”

For two years before and six months after we were married, my wife and i lived in central Texas (Killeen area). In that part of the country, lots of folks are in cattle ranching. There is a reason, after all, that the University of Texas has the Longhorns (a type of steer) as their mascot.

We were at church there in Texas one Sunday evening, at a church fellowship dinner, and a i was standing around jacking jaw with a bunch of those Texan fellows who had done their due on cattle ranches and slaughterhouses when they were younger. One fellow happened to mention that one way they would work so efficiently was that they would rarely take time out to eat a whole meal. They would, instead, fry up some mountain oysters, and just pop ‘em as snacks while they worked. It was, he said, a great source of protein to keep them going through the day. He was a big fan, you could tell.

Well, just as he finished explaining that, my wife walked up and innocently asked what we were all talking about. The guy explained that they were talking about mountain oysters, and he asked her, “Do you like mountain oysters, Angela?” to which, she replied, “Oh, i don’t eat seafood.”