Quote of the Day, 09/23/2008

I'm laying in my bed this afternoon, taking a nap, half in and out of consciousness. I hear Ben open the door of his room and go into the bathroom. The sound of tinkling reaches my ears, followed by a declaration from Ben,

"That's a lot of bubbles."

"The Knowledge of the Holy"

This is a book review on The Knowledge of the Holy by A.W. Tozer.

Synopsis: A.W. Tozer presents the attributes of God in a concise and easy to understand way. He starts off by laying the foundation as to why we, as Christians, should seek to truly know who God is. He then proceeds to discuss each attribute.

Review: This is an excellent book! I highly recommend it and strongly think every Christian should have a copy. It's not a long book, only 117 pages, so Tozer moves quickly through each attribute. That does not mean it is necessarily a quick read though. I had to digest each chapter and sometime re-read a section to try and really understand the truths being taught.

If you don't have a copy of this book, go out and borrow or buy it today. This is a keeper for my library and one I will re-read many times I'm sure.

"Out of Islam"

This is a review on the book, Out of Islam by Christopher Alam, which I stated I would do last November. I've tried to do this two or three times, but have gotten into too much detail each time. I have to keep in mind that I'm doing a book review and not a book report. Hopefully, using a section title of "Synopsis" will help keep me focused.

Synopsis: This is an autobiographical book about Christopher's upbringing in a strict Islamic family in Pakistan. How belief in Allah, who never answered any of his prayers and abuse by his father and step-mother led him to the point that his greatest desire was to die. It was at this point he heard the gospel and became a Christian. Through persecutions and trials, fleeing Pakistan and being granted asylum in Sweden, he learned to trust in God, the God who answers. He went to Bible school and got married. He began to get involved in ministry. Christopher also began to question why he did not see the power (i.e. the miracles) in the present day that was depicted in the New Testament. He got involved with Kenneth Hagin, went to the USA to study at Hagin's school and now holds gospel crusades around the world, in which baptism of the Spirit occurs, healing and other such miracles.

Review: First of all, let me start off saying that when I picked this book up in our one local Christian book store, I thought it was the story of another Muslim turned Christian, Daniel Shayesteh, that I had seen advertised in my Answers in Genesis magazine. I was disappointed to figure out that it was not.

I was very involved in the story, reading how God changed this man's life so completely and met all of his needs, only to read that he got involved with Kenneth Hagin and the Word of Faith movement. That sent up red flags and produced disappointment. I don't want to get into a whole theological debate here, but from everything I've heard and read on Kenneth Hagin and the Word of Faith movement, they don't line up with the whole counsel of Scripture. I've provided links at the bottom if you want to do some more reading on your own.

Christopher Alam has made some excellent observations about Christianity and life that I agree with. It's hard to deny someone's stated experience, but things like the quote below (from page 160 and 161) certainly give me reason to ask, "Is this really from God, and am I just uncomfortable with this because it is out of the realm of my personal experience as a Christian?"

I stripped off my jacket and tossed it into the crowd. "The power of God is upon my jacket," I shouted.
The healing virtue of the Lord Jesus was so powerful upon my jacket as it was being passed around through the crowd that people were being healed the instant they touched the jacket.

There are Biblical, New Testament examples where clothing was involved in healings, but this has a sensationalism ring to it, that makes it suspect in my mind. Anyway, that's just my opinion.

The book is a pretty good read, if you know what to expect. It will never be a favorite and definitely not one I will read over and over again.

Links:

• Wikipedia entry on Kenneth Hagin.
  
• Forgotten Word Ministries on Kenneth Hagin.
• Christian Research Institute on Word of Faith, Part 1 and Part 2.
• Some call the Word of Faith movement the prosperity gospel. Joel Osteen is one of the most visible leaders of this movement today.
• Listen to John Piper's rebuff to the prosperity gospel.
  

She's Two!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY
ELISABETH!!!

Update 08/15/08

I'm just going to go for it, bullet style.

• Have you seen the latest on the Bigfoot front?
• Two weekends ago, we went to the Mystic Aquarium. Here's a link to the post my wife did about it. We had a very enjoyable time.
• This week has been a crazy, fast paced week. Lots of things going on and added to that, my manager is on vacation this week, so I'm covering for her. I'm glad it's Friday.
• During the summer, our local library has family nights on Tuesday. That's when they have some sort of activity or presentation for the kids, and their parents, to come to. We recently participated in two of them. The first was a presentation by a bee keeper. He had part of hive with one of the frames that had some of the bees wax on it showing the honeycomb structure. He also had a small jar of honey he had collected that day for us to sample. The boys thought it was better than the store bought honey. The second activity was a reptile show. A guy who raises and entertains with reptiles for a living came and talked to the kids about several different kinds of reptiles. He was very good. He taught them facts and allowed the kids to touch and interact with the reptiles.
  
• Sunday I gave Stephanie a break and took the kids on a bike ride. The boys each rode their little bikes (with training wheels) and wore their helmets and I hitched up the bike trailer to cart Ellie around. I also wore my helmet (teach by example). The boys did great at obeying me, which kept the stress level low. In our ride we hit two parks, with play time at each, and stopped to look at a large dump truck and front loader. We all had a good time, including Stephanie.
• I purchased new tires for my truck. It'll be nice to have some better traction this winter.
• My manager, since she was going away on vacation, decided that my work pager was an inadequate way for my senior manager to get a hold of me. So now I'm a not-so-thrilled possessor of a cell phone for my work. I doubt I'm the first one to use this phrase, but I call it my "electronic leash". Though, the plan it's on includes unlimited nights and weekends and unlimited calls to other Verizon users, so some of my friends to whom I have not talked to in a long while may be getting calls from me. Then again, maybe not. I'm not a big conversationalist, despite the fact that my sometimes lengthy posts may indicate the opposite.
• Last night I helped the kids put together a train track for our Thomas the Tank Engine wooden railway. Stephanie says they spent a good while this morning playing with it.
• I'm reading Mary Poppins to Will. Neither of the other kids seem interested. Will has really gotten into chapter books lately, which is great.
• On Wednesday, we went as a family to our local zoo for a members' night. Though it was only a couple of hours, we had a good time and had free freezer pops. These were not the best freezer pops but the kids loved them and had stained skin and clothes to prove it.
• Tonight, the boys wanted to wrestle, which means they climb all over me, then I wrap them up and tickle them. I offered to read to them but no, it had to be wrestling. It ended up being dress up wrestling. Will put on a hard hat and one of those fake big-nose-mustache-bushy-eyebrow-glasses disguises. Ben put on a fireman's hat, gloves, eye patch and a fireman's backpack (looks like the oxygen tanks but you really fill it with water and squirt it out though the attached hose and handle). Ellie wore an eye patch. Will gave me a hard hat to wear. So attired, we wrestled.
  

That's it. I'm coming up dry.

This One's For The Birds!

Turkeys
Yesterday, Saturday, during nap time, I happened to look out the front window of the living room and what did I see? A flock of turkeys walking past! We've seen wild turkeys in other areas of the state but never in our neighborhood. We've had quite an assortment of wild life in the five plus years we've lived here: an opossum (found dead in the back yard), skunks (including the one that ambled by our camp), rabbits, squirrels and now turkeys. Too bad it wasn't closer to Thanksgiving...

Birdhouse
A couple of weeks ago, I decided to build a birdhouse with the kids. Of course, having kids as young as mine, the "with" part is used very loosely. I did the building and they watched. I used some left over wood and pulled the plans out of my head - I definitely have some lessons learned for the next time :-).

Even though they did not really help with the actual construction, they did assist with the painting. Again, we used what was available. The only things that were purchased for the project were some small eye hooks used in the hanging of the birdhouse and some extra staples for my heavy duty stapler. We painted the birdhouse white with some left over primer. Then we used some acrylic paint we had to add color. Ellie helped a little with the painting before getting bored but the boys really enjoyed it.

While letting the last of the paint dry, I took out a couple of ladders and surveyed our lone tree in the back yard for a good place to hang the birdhouse. It turned out there was only really one branch that was suitable, once some dead branches were removed. Once I was finished with the ladders, the kids, of course, proceeded to play on them :-).

I did the front.


Ben did this side.


Will did this side.


I did the back too. Had trouble "writing" with a paint brush.


From the top.


The new birdhouse is ready for a family.


Up close.


Far away.


Ben showing no fear on the ladder (You cannot see it for Ben, but I've tied the ladder to the tree so it will not fall).


Will would appreciate it if I stopped taking his picture.


Ellie getting in on the climbing action. My three monkeys.

Da Plane! Da Plane! Da Hole In Da Plane!

**** WARNING! ****
If you live in fear of flying on airplanes, then DO NOT read any more of this post!
STOP RIGHT NOW!

Ok, now that I've given fair warning and feel that I've absolved myself of any psychological trauma this post may cause to my readers, we can proceed.

Today I read a news article about a Quantas jet flying from London to Melbourne which developed a gaping hole mid flight. The end result is that the plane was able to land safely in Manila and no one was hurt. It does not even appear that any luggage was lost.

This is quite a scary story to read about, if you have any empathy for the passengers on board the plane. While I love to fly and it does not scare me in the least, there's a statement in the article that even I find scary and a little bit disturbing. Below I have pasted the portion of the article that includes the statement I find disturbing, which I have highlighted. I'm including some of the story before and after the statement to give it context.

Investigators appeared to be focusing on a structural problem.

"From the pictures that we've seen out of Manila during the course of the day, it would seem that one of the panels to the outer skin of the aircraft has literally come away from the rest of the fuselage," Chris Yates, an aviation expert at Jane's Aviation, told The Associated Press.

"As a consequence of this, the aircraft experienced rapid decompression," he said.

While it is not uncommon for metal panels to be lost from aircraft in flight, he said: "It's relatively rare that when a bit falls off the airplane it causes the sort of instance that we saw in relation to Qantas. In other words that it causes the aircraft cabin to depressurize."

Yates said investigators will examine closely the fracture points that showed up on the skin of the aircraft to determine whether metal fatigue or manufacturing defect caused the panel to peel away.

Say WHAT?! What do you mean that "it is not uncommon for metal panels to be lost from aircraft in flight"? That's a disturbing and scary statement. Notice how casually he says "when a bit falls off the airplane". Like it's not a big deal! I live near an airport. Does that mean I should be concerned that some big sheet of metal may come crashing down on my house or my family? Maybe all those who are afraid to fly have the right idea, this makes it sound like airplanes are a flying death trap.

Is there some conspiracy to cover this up and Yates accidentally let it slip? After all, I don't often hear of stories where the metal panels from airplanes fall off. You would think that passengers waiting to get on the planes would notice when the plane pulled up to the terminal. I don't know about you, but if the plane I'm supposed to get on pulls up with a metal sheet missing, I'm not getting on it, even if it is not uncommon and usually does not cause a problem. 'Nuf said.

What are your thoughts on this? Am I reading too much into this statement? Did I misread it?

Heated Atmosphere And Containment Units

One of the advantages/disadvantages of having a wife who also blogs is that she may post about the same event in addition to my posts or before my posts on said event. The disadvantages are that she may have scooped the story on me or she may have already used the best pictures from the event. The advantages are that we can both tell the same story from different perspectives and it could save me time by not having to write the post but just point my readers to her post, which is the advantage I'm taking advantage of tonight.

Now you're probably wondering what the title of the post has to do with with my ramblings above. The answer is, very little, except to link you over to her post on our family's visit to a hot air balloon festival.

Comment Responses

I doubt I need to state the obvious, but it's been a while since I posted. In an attempt to get a post out so that people know I'm still alive, I'm taking the lazy way out. I'm going to respond to comments made in the past few months. Some of them I may already have responded to with another comment, but not as an official post. So here goes.

• Big Doofus, a couple of weeks ago I created my Linkedin account, per your suggestion. Thanks.
• Dawn, you are correct, we are crazy for having a fourth, but it's a good kind of crazy, I think.
• Scott, I had Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Fudge Brownie for the free cone day.
• Marc, maybe in a couple of years we can come and visit y'all in Wales, and you and I can take a day to strap the jet powered wings onto our backs.
  
• Mr. E, unfortunately I was never able to make it to see the new Indiana Jones movie. Bummer.
• Re: Mary Poppins. It was a mixed bag as far as the kids response to it. Will took to it most but had the most questions, of course. Ben was quickly bored with it. Ellie in the middle. Though they do occasionally sing a bit of "A spoonful of sugar" or "Supercali.....", you know that big long word you can say but not spell (at least I cannot).
• Mr. E, if you guys are ever coming up this way, let us know.
• Mom, you are correct, back in high school I would never have thought I would do a lot of the things I've done as a parent, including wiping a bottom with my bare hand.
• Mr. E, thanks for the book recommendations. I'll have to add those to my list. Now I just need to get through the dozens of books I've purchased but never read yet.
• Stephanie, you're welcome for the day off. But don't count your chicks before they hatch. Next year's not a done deal yet. Four kids, with one under one, may be a show stopper.
• Big Doofus, the zoo we went to is the Roger Williams Park Zoo.
• Mom, I think we have the "What's so amazing about Grace?" book. I think it's one of my unread ones.
  

Tech Daddy Predicts

I'm sure many of you have already read the incredible story of the rescue of Ingrid Betancourt and several other hostages from the FARC guerrillas. If not, I've included a couple of links to news sites at the bottom of this post and I encourage you to read them.

This is such a great true story and I'm predicting that one or more books will be written about it and a movie will be made about it.

What say you?

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