The Dawn Treader

Watched by billions around the globe, World Cup 2006 will go down as the most watched sports event in history ... until the next World Cup, that is.  Did it deliver?

Oops, a 20 pound Japanese macaque, escaped from Roanoke's zoo Sunday morning.

Let's see.  I live about 7 miles from the zoo.  If Oops descends down Mill Mountain (on which the zoo is perched) and makes her way south and west, travels down Brambleton and then makes a right on Electric, she should be in my back yard sometime tonight.

What I am secretly hoping is that Oops gets hungry and attacks and eats the peacock that has been roaming around in the woods behind my home.  Ever had a peacock in the neighborhood?  Those things are loud.

Developing....

UPDATE: Oops has been caught and returned unharmed.  The peacock is still on the loose in my neighborhood, however.

Sent to me by a friend of a friend of a friend who lives in Gallatin, Tennessee.  Quite a few of my friends and colleagues live in this area of the world.  I have a friend in Hendersonville who watched it from a mile away.

This first hand report is from a Centurion colleague named Lance : "We are OK...our neighborhood was one of the one's that was directly hit, but our home was about 30 yds. from the path. We only lost part of our deck, some shingles, yard furniture, etc. All of that can be fixed...praise the Lord our family is safe."

I see that Brian posted recently, so I presume everything is ok in his hood.

Reminds me of a cross stitch still hanging in my mother's house: "Life is fragile, handle with prayer."

Where is Mr. Dawn Treader these days?  Good question.

1st note to self: create a post to let your two readers know that you are not pushing up daisies.

2nd note to self: write a reaction post to this interesting article which has a boring title but is loaded with such controversy that the Centurions are buzzing about it.

3rd note to self: write a post about why the New Testament book of Titus should get more attention than it usually does and why you will be co-blogging with this guy about the book of Titus.

4th note to self:  write a post about this guy and why he scares you so much.

5th note to self: write some more notes to yourself so you don't forget what you are supposed to be doing.
Enough notes for now.

During our family worship time, I taught my children the story behind the great Horatio Spafford hymn, It Is Well With My Soul.

Then a friend sent a link to this article in the Roanoke Times.  The similarity between stories is stunning.  A good friend of mine from Greensboro is friends with the Bryant family.

"We can choose to be angry and bitter. Or we can choose to trust God and walk in his peace," Wilburn said.

After the final prayer, a violinist played "Amazing Grace." Thirty-six men dressed in black and gray suits stood up and carried the six coffins one-by-one from the church and loaded them into six hearses."

Where do you go with this amount of grief?

In 1871, as Spafford sailed the Atlantic and processed the loss of his four daughters to a tragic accident at sea, the loss of his young son to disease, the loss of his business and material holdings to fire, he penned the words to the hymn.

Particularly powerful is Spafford's third stanza, my personal favorite ... it is a rare occurrence when I can sing this part of the hymn without crying.

    My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
    My sin, not in part but the whole,
    is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
    praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

    It is well with my soul,
    it is well, it is well with my soul.

How is your soul?  Is it well?

Join with me in pleading for God's grace and comfort to rain down on the Bryant family and their community as they experience this loss.

I am having one of those weeks.  We are in the midst of a major transition in our household.  We have home schooled all of our children from day one.  This week that changed.  Our oldest two children started in a private school on Monday.  The transition for our family has been huge.  We have new schedules, new issues and new rhythms to adjust to.  The jump from home school to traditional school is big.

My blog is beginning to remind me of my nightstand ... which is overcrowded with books half-read.  I have several blog posts started and sitting in draft ... and several others I am writing in my mind.

After two slow chapters in the C.S. Lewis Reflections On The Psalms, I struck gold in chapter six, "Sweeter Than Honey".  Ever wonder why the poets were thrilled and delighted with God's law ... not his grace, mind you ... but the law.  They considered it more precious than silver and gold and sweeter than honey.  Seems like an odd reaction to a bunch of rules and restrictions ... or is it ...

A second post I started unpacks the phrase "engage culture".  Christians use this term all the time.  What does it mean?  Is it just a euphemism for political action as Phil Johnson suggests?

A third post explores natural law and its relationship to engaging culture.   How does this concept fit in a reformed / Calvinistic framework?  It was spawned by Scott Klusendorf's rejoinder of Christians who have a "gospel only" mindset when it comes to engaging culture.  This topic is so big that I am tempted to just give up -- or pick one tiny part of it and post on it.

A fourth IDea I have to post on is Reasons To Believe's stance on intelligent design.  RTB opposes teaching intelligent design in schools.  They are also critical of the reluctance of ID'ers to name the designer.

Another brewing post is a criticism of Tim Challies' review of McArthur's Battle for The Beginning.   Tim (who is a great reviewer) commits a common faux pas in his analysis.

Finally, I am reading Mark Levin's book, Men In Black.  Interesting book.  It is stirring up some thoughts on judicial activism.

Given the week I am having, I will be doing well to get any one of these done.

I love language.  I recently heard this sentence uttered by a co-worker, though he was not talking about work.  He was talking to another guy about a scheduling challenge the guy's wife was having.  The fellow's wife was setting up a schedule for first-year residents in the ER.

He said,

"This is a linear constraint-based optimization problem isomorphic to a constraint knapsack (or box pack)"

I followed my friend Brian the worldview warrior ... and obtained the entire first season of "24" on DVDs.

I was up till 1:30 am watching episodes 1 - 4.  The relevant question is, will I break Brian's record of watching fourteen episodes in one day? ;-)

I am going to the U.S. Open!

To my surprise, my wife and children arranged a surprise for me.  When I got back yesterday, they presented my Father's Day present.  A ticket to the Championship round of the U.S. Open.

This time I will be in the gallery on the 18th on the final round of the final day, unlike last time.