Rabbit Hunting

This morning, I stumbled (literally!) upon the boys attempting to "catch Bugs Bunny", as shown by the documentary evidence captured below:

Why it appeals to them to emulate the character who always gets a bomb inside the shirt or a tree branch upside the head is beyond my comprehension.

In other news, Mom is doing much better; she came home Sunday and is well on the road to recovery. Thanks again for your prayers.

A followup

Thanks for praying everyone...

After spending almost 48 hours in the ICU, Mom has improved significantly this afternoon and was moved to her very own hospital room, where she'll probably spend the next few days.

And we've taken advantage of this optimistic news to speed home and sleep in our very own beds. Aahhhhhhh.......

Sometimes, I Just Can't Think of a Title

Today's update comes to you live from a small hamlet in southern Maine, where we find ourselves standing by the 'happy Grandpa'. His dear wife, Grandma, (Carol A.) had what was supposedly a routine surgery Tuesday morning, but the recovery went sour after about 18 hours. With fever increasing and pain-meter buzzing, she was rushed into the ER late Wednesday morning.

We received word and came over that afternoon. She was later transferred to the ICU, where she is laboring under intense pain and an internal infection from the surgery.

Her condition was upgraded this morning from 'critical' to 'guarded', and we continue to watch and pray.

Thanks for praying with us.

From the Children files...

The other night, while getting Jonathon ready for bed, I dug the following out of his jeans' pockets:
More notable, perhaps, is that he had these objects in his pockets almost all day.

In other news, James went in to wake up his sister and the first words out of his mouth? "I think that Rachel is fat."

Under the Knife

This morning, I had minor surgury to remove 'a pound of flesh' from four different places on my person. Since the last time I was in this particular doctor's office, I passed out, the doc gave me a prescription for some meds, which caused me to feel a little drowsy, clumsy, dizzy, and even a little forgetful, but otherwise made everything happy.

As you can see, I'm going for a hyperlink record here.

I've only been going to this doctor for about a year, in spite of my loving mother's persistent encourangement for the past ten. She is convinced that, any minute now, without a moment's warning, I will keel over and die. Of course, after this doctor took one look at me, I think he agreed, for his eyes turned into little dollar signs ("I guess I can afford that trip to Barbardos after all.").

But, as uncle Hub says, "What do ya want me to do? Die of old age?"

In the news...

According to CNN, that purveyor of all the news they see fit to print, having a larger family is now a status symbol in some circles.

I hasten to clarify that by "larger" they mean "more than two children" and, in some cases, "more than four."

Read it here for yourself.

Wine-bibbers

One of my favorite Sabbath reading magazines, Business Week, usually has a page of wine reviews written by Robert Parker, the world-renowned oenologist. I find this page interesting because of his ability to "find" the most "random" flavors in the wines being reviewed.

Witness this recent gem, in the October 16 issue, inspired by the 2003 Montelena Estate Cabernet Sauvignon: "This powerful, concentrated wine exhibits aromas of black currant jam, tar, smoke, and forest floor. While less flamboyant than the extroverted 2002, it's an opulent effort - deep, chewy, pure, and well delineated."

What!?! Chewy!?! Aromas of forest floor?!?

His pièces de résistance, however, were the flavors found in a recent listing: flowers, raisins, plums, figs, incense, Asian spices, cedar, spice box, dried herbs, oak, crème de cassis, licorice, graphite, black olives, black carrots, blackberries, smoke barbecue spice, tapenade, acacia, roasted meat, pain grillé.

Sounds like a wine-bibber to me.

On moles and mules

This morning, Jonathon caught a mole. He spied it in the bushes and scooped it up with his toy bucket. Then, as he was running around saying the word 'mole' over and over again, it reminded me of a humorous event when I was in high school, only this anecdote involved the use of the word 'mule'.

It was English class, my senior year, with Mr. D, who, for the record, is one of the top three teachers I have ever had (as Richard H. could attest, having also been under his tutelage). The lesson for the day was the complete parsing of verbs. To 'parse' a verb, as I recall it, is to identify all of its different forms for tense, person, etc.

To wit, if the verb is 'run', then the simple present-tense parse would be:

• I run
• You (singular) run
• He runs
• We run
• You (plural) run
• They run

Then you modify the form to make it past perfect, past progressive, and so forth for the forty or so other tense forms. So, Mr. D called upon one of my friends, Matt, to write a sentence on the chalkboard that the class would spend the remainder of the period parsing. So what does he write?

Brandon is a mule.

And Mr. D was okay with this, except he did allow me to choose the sentence that Matt would parse the next day (I will discombobulate you.). On about 45 minutes later, and the class is working on the most advanced tense (The Singular Past Perfect Progressive Future Indicative Participle Gerund Code Red: Brandon had been thinking about becoming a mule at some future point during his past life.), and my name is plastered all over both chalkboards, and everyone's notes for the day, I was feeling a little self-conscious.

But thank goodness for a decade or so of space which allows us to laugh about such things. :-)

John 1:50-51

Well, I suppose now is a good time to write a few lines explaining my choice of blog title, which, for those of you with short memories, is found at the top of this page. It was not, as some would use the word, a "random" selection, devoid of cognitive evaluation and subject only to the whims of my subconscious.

Neither, for the record, was it a self-deprecating commentary on the quality of the published material contained therein, although the statement, on its face, is most certainly true.

I made the choice, as it were, "on purpose."

A few years ago, at the breakfast table, Jonathon "all of a sudden" noticed that his younger brother Jeff was missing an ear. He asked me if Jeff's missing ear would ever 'grow back.' I replied that Jeff would only have two ears if God created a new one for him. Without pausing to reflect upon the metaphysical implications of what I had just said, Jonathon immediately put down his spoon and prayed, asking Jesus to heal Jeff's ear and make him "normal." Then he picked up his spoon and resumed eating, as if what he had just asked Jesus to do was no more unusual than any other "random" thing, like say, for example, eating breakfast.

Ever since roughly that time, I have been inspired about faith and, perhaps more accurately, the bigness of God's faithfulness. And my desire has been to see greater things than this, 'this' being what we observe and understand under the limitations of our five senses.

Consider the example of Abraham, who, "...with respect to the promise of God, did not waver in unbelief, but grew strong in faith..."

Here is a man who had plenty of reasons to waver in unbelief:

• He went around most of his adult life telling people his name was Abraham, which being translated means, 'father of a multitude.' Then he had to explain that he didn't have many children...none, actually. Wouldn't that make him feel a little sheepish, perhaps?
• His wife, Sarah, to use the common vernacular, had gone through menopause. Sure, Ishmael had been born at this point (maybe), but wouldn't this minor detail been enough to give his faith reason for pause at some point?
• When the child of promise was born, God told him to kill him. Even this was no obstacle to Abraham's faith, because "he considered that God is able to raise men even from the dead."

There are plenty more reasons, I'm sure, but everything Abraham observed and perceived was overwhelmed by his vision of God's faithfulness. May the same be able to be said about me, and all of us who call upon the name of Jesus. And, may we be in a position to see 'Greater Things'.

...Shouted from the Rooftops

This morning, at breakfast, the boys were in a good mood. We were eating with the students. Out of the blue, James declared, in his stentorian voice, "Sometimes, Mumma says bad words to me. She says that I am a glutton."

In "Mumma's" defense, though, she hasn't ever, technically, made that accusation, or, for that matter, said any so-called "bad words" to James.

If not today...

Last week, while discussing our plans to eat meals elsewhere for the next two weeks, Jonathon summarized the arrangements as follows: "This week, we will eat in the Dining Hall. Next week, we will eat with the students." Then he added, without missing a beat, "And then, we will see Jesus."

So, lift up your heads, folks...it won't be long now.