Nearby family, friends from church, friends from Samuel’s pre-school, and friends from work all converged on the playground across the road from us today to celebrate Samuel’s birthday. Samuel turns four on Wednesday, August 2.
I hope to say a bit more and perhaps even post a few more pictures later (probably Monday evening), so check back in!
(click on image for bigger picture)
I want to give my highest recommendation to a series of posts (linked at the bottom of this post) just concluded by a thoughtful Reformed Christian and “cyber-friend” of mine, Jonathan Bonomo. His series takes a critical look at three essays written by the 19th Century high church Protestant, church historian, and member of the German Reformed church, John Williamson Nevin. As Bonomo points out in his series, the church desperately needs to hear from Nevin today, particularly if Protestantism is to be saved from itself.
Provocatively - especially for those of us who love the Puritans — Bonomo summarizes one of Nevin’s more important points as follows:
Pope Benedict XVI and I clearly have our differences, me being Reformed and all. But credit needs to be given where it is due when someone in his exalted position and of his exalted character stands up to the relativism of the present age.
Here is what he has to say to all those who say to Christians, “Can’t we all just get along — by you keeping your mouth shut?”:
“Today in a multicultural and multireligious world, many are tempted to say, ‘It is better for peace in the world among religions and cultures not to talk too much about the specifics of Christianity, that is, of Christ, the church and the sacraments.’” …
“Precisely at this moment — a moment of great abuse of the name of God — we need the God who triumphed on the cross, who won not with violence but by his love.”
“Precisely at this moment we need the face of Christ to understand the true face of God and, in that way, to bring reconciliation and light to the world.”
To that, I give a hearty Amen!
One of the things Bonnie and I love to do is garden — almost as much as we enjoy eating the vegetables our gardens produce! And one of the things we have wanted to do as we’ve gained experience is keep a garden journal, in which to chronicle lessons learned and wonderful gardening memories. I’m not good at keeping things on paper, and I’ve grown to love the ease and usefulness of blogging through my main blog here, the Borg Blog.
Therefore, I have now officially launched that garden journal - the Borg Garden Blog. (The template in use there is a satisfactory fill-in until I come up with something better)
There we will post lots of pictures from our gardens over the years, detail our planting schedules and plot designs, and post things we learn about various flowers and vegetables — through our own experience, as well as through notes taken from various gardening books, periodicals and websites.
We hope you find this new site useful for your own gardening adventures, and, if you have a green thumb at all, that you will chime in with your own wisdom so we can learn from you, too!
Today at the Borg Garden Blog, I uploaded pictures of our recent and abundant harvests of various crops:
Lord’s Day Meditation
On Wednesday, Rachel turned two weeks old and went in for her two week doctor appointment. She is in excellent health and has regained her birth weight — and then some. She now weighs 9lbs. 9oz and is 21.5 inches long:
Tonight I took Maggie out on her first date with Daddy.
Now, we’ve run errands alone together and things like that, but this was an honest-to-goodness date. And I must say: of all the couples out at dinner tonight, I was the luckiest man. And with me was the prettiest little girl.
I took Maggie out to Hops Restaurant, Bar and Brewery for dinner. Dinner was preceded by miniature croissants with honey, the restaurant’s complimentary signature appetizer. We both had cheeseburgers, mine with onion rings and hers with fries. And we each had a tall glass of beer. Well, okay, Maggie’s wasn’t so tall; it was in a kiddie cup with a straw. But we both enjoyed our root beer very much.
This was Margaret’s first-ever root beer. I knew she would love it, and I was rewarded with a moment I will never forget. Maggie took her cup of root beer from the waitress, took a sip, and then flashed the most pleasingly shocked look I’ve ever seen. “That’s made…that’s made…of SweeTARTs!” she gushed with a huge smile. The waitress and I laughed heartily in response.
The evening ended with an Oreo each and then a brief stop at PetSmart to look at the fish, birds, lizards, and assorted rodents that some people like to keep as pets for some reason. Maggie liked the fish, crabs, and love birds the best.
I loved our first date, and look forward to many more. I think Margaret liked it, too, as she kept asking me throughout the evening, “Daddy, do you know why I love you?” “Why, Sweetie?” “Because you’re … my … Daddy!”
Plus, she wore this adorable and oh-so-happy expression all night — that is, when she wasn’t in an all-out grin:
