Advent

We are doing Advent activities with Chandler (5) and Gabrielle (3) each evening, partly as home school activity and partly as just plain old wholesome family time. The Scripture we read yesterday was Genesis 1:26-31 regarding how we are made in God's image:

26 Then God said, “Let us make man [1] in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

27 So God created man in his own image,

in the image of God he created him;

male and female he created them.

28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

29 And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food.

30 And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so.

31 And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

It's funny to me how the kid's prayers have evolved recently. For a long time, there was only the "food" prayer. Whenever the prayer was happening, meal-time, bed-time, whenever, it was always the "food" prayer. Recently, they have started a "bed-time" prayer relevant to bed-time.

Anyway, last night following the Scripture reading, Chandler prayed first and on his own he thanked God for "making us in His image." I thought was really cool to hear him use something in his prayer that he had just learned.

Blessed

I had the privilege of spending Thanksgiving weekend with most of my Dad's large family. We all gathered at my uncle's home in Roanoke, VA. Let's see who was there....

• Great Uncle Harold and Aunt Lavera


• Cousin Veda and Carl


• Dad and Lois (Uncle Bill to everyone else)


• my sister Jennifer and brother-in-law John


• Eric


• Caroline


• Me and Tammy


• Chandler


• Gabrielle


• Cameron


• Aunt Mary and Uncle Mitch


• Cousin Michael and Diane


• Micah


• Benjamen


• Bethany


• Kayla


• John


• Celleigh


• Anna


• Ruth


• Aunt Glenda and Uncle John


• Aunt Brenda and Uncle David


• Uncle James and Cherlyn


• Cousin Susanna and Jake


• Annabelle


• Cousin Sara


• Uncle Harry and Ela


• Cousin Katie


• Cousin Michael


• Uncle Dave and Aunt Susan (Dave deployed to Afganistan today 11-28-05)


• Cousin Jon


• Cousin Martha


• Cousin Josiah


• Cousin Emma

I think I and my family are really blessed to have each other (and like each other.) :-)

We really did miss everyone who couldn't be there.

Hubris

I was reading this article in the Salisbury Post today, The gist of the story is that the Rowan County Commissioners voted to sell some land without following state law in the process. When it came to light and everyone acknowledged that the process was flawed, you would assume that they would start from scratch and do it over legally. Well, you know what assuming does. Only one Commissioner wanted to do it over and he had to threaten a lawsuit to get the rest of the Board to agree to follow state law and redo the process on this issue. Hence, this letter to the Salisbury Post.

With President Bush in his second term we've heard the term "hubris" become the favorite description used by his detractors. Apparently this is something seasoned politicians get infected with that causes them to become arrogant.

It seems that this infection has arrived in Rowan County and the whole "Common Sense" investigation was not the last occurrence. The County Commissioners take an illegal action on the Summit Land sale, and in a textbook display of arrogance, refuse to correct their illegal action until Commissioner Sides threatens a lawsuit.

This is just the latest in a long list of reasons to eagerly anticipate a house-cleaning in next election.

Huff On Alito and me on abortion

My friend Randy wrote some interesting thoughts on Supreme Court nominee Alito. It brings back to mind something I read earlier in the summer about what the practical result of overturning Roe V. Wade would really be. I've no chance of finding it now but the gist of the article was an analysis of which states were likely to allow abortion and which would not. The result of the study was that the availability of abortion would likely not change much for the vast majority of American women.

When you consider that a clear majority of Americans support the right to abortion and yet majorities also support restrictions like parental notification and a ban of Partial Birth Abortion, it seems like the only accomplishments of the long fight against abortion might be the correction of a terrible court decision and a vindication of States Rights.

I guess some battles must be fought on principle even if any potential victory will be pretty hollow.

Hello World!

I hate to stereotype people, but I always assumed that people who have personal blogs were somewhat self-absorbed. I mean, why would anyone care to read your personal ramblings. Anyway, I was finally inspired to start my own blog by a couple of treasured friends who have put up blogs. I know that neither of these guys are self-absorbed (I'll withhold judgment on the rambling.) :-)