Things I wonder about...

Last night, we were preparing for a class session that Jenna was going to teach the 1st & 2nd-graders at our kids' Home-Education Co-Op, which happens once-a-week on Thursday mornings. So when the check-out lady at Stater Brothers asked why we were purchasing dry lima beans, plastic cups and sundry other items, I told her that Jenna was "teaching a class tomorrow." She then lauded Jenna for being a teacher, and seemed to have an instant boost in respect toward Jenna... I can only assume it's because she assumed that Jenna was a public school teacher... Is that presumptuous? I only wonder, because earlier that day she got almost the same treatment (plus a discount!) at another store earlier that day, after she said she was "teaching a class."

I wonder if she would have received the same displays of respect and admiration if she revealed that she was a "keeper-of-the-home?" Recently I saw a friend (also a "home-keeper") list her job description as "CEO of Household Operations and Student Development." How cool is that!

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Also, when we announced to friends that we were expecting our 5th child, some of them carelessly said something like, "Don't you know how this whole thing works?"

Listen. I'm 40 years old. I've been procreating, off-and-on, for the last 13 years. What do you take me for? Just because we don't subscribe to the "Boy for me and a girl for you and praise-the-Lord, we're finally through" line of thinking, does that imply that we're not capable of making thoughtful decisions about the size of our family?

Anyway, just thought I'd rant for a while. Thanks for reading. :-)

More Disneyland Pix

Our visit with family in the Arizona desert

Visiting Ric's brother Dave in Lake Havasu and his Dad in Kingman, AZ

Chloë wants to fly....?

Around the dinner table last night, we asked the kids what they'd like to learn to do as they got older. Chloë, without hesitation, said "I want to learn to fly. But not like in an airplane."

Daddy says, "You mean, like in a hang-glider?"

Chloë replies, "No, like a bird! Just spread my arms or wings and FLY!"

Well, I think THIS is what she had in mind. Looks like FUN!! WOW!!!

Sophia on the Trampoline

(Click the title for a bigger size)



(Background song is "Rainy Weather Friend" by David Mead)

Visiting the tide pools at Point Loma...

What I did on my Summer Vacation...

Livin' large in South Lake Tahoe!
(Taken August 2008)

CLICK HERE for (less-incriminating) photos :-)

Sophia Sings!

Books I've Been Reading... (Ric)

Click the pix for more info...

"Mothers Health?"

I think that the sub-issue of abortion-in-case-of-mother’s-health, while specifically valid, is generally less-than-consequential. At worst, the caveat of keeping abortion legal for “mother’s health” is a smoke screen and a slippery slope toward catastrophe for any society.

First of all, who defines “health?” Emotional? Spiritual? Physical? Social? I guarantee that while the primary answer may begin as “clearly physical,” those who want to keep their “options open” and their responsibilities limited will continually re-define the “mother’s health” until it means something more akin to “mother’s well-being” or “mother’s choice.” This “pragmatic redefinition” is an undeniable precedent among those who devalue human life, as is the custom of those who subscribe to the ideology that humanity has evolved by chance, not by divine design in maturity, completion and excellence.

Second, I would bet all I have on the assertion that the ratio of “mother’s health” abortions to “don’t want a baby” abortions is inconceivably low. The number of what I’ll refer to as “opt-out” abortions has reached (and continues to surpass) staggering proportions in America, let alone the world. Over 48 million. Simply unimaginable. That is eight times the estimated number of Jews (and others) executed in the Holocaust by Hitler – a disciple, as it were, of Darwinist “Natural Selection” ideology. Now, the world collectively said, “Never again” about such atrocities – and yet it continues, with no signs of slowing, unless legislation changes. This number has reached these proportions because the practice was first legalized, then “socialized.” (And this figure merely represents the “documented” instances.) The goal of radically reducing this statistic must include alterations to current legislation, at the federal level, and go on to include preemptive and restorative educational and social actions.

Finally, make no mistake that, as I asserted in a conversation you and I had several years ago, humankind has a “lover of the soul” (our Savior) and an “enemy of the soul” (satan, “the accuser”/ “destroyer”). I believe that the enemy laughs at and scorns us before God, for the fact that this unprecedented infanticide continues unabated. As a human who survived gestation because my mother chose to keep me (though I was pre-Roe-v.Wade), I am grateful not to have been a victim of her “choice.” As a believer in the power of the redeeming blood of the Son of God, I know that abortion is not the unforgivable sin; God can and does renew the purity and conscience of those who humbly approach the throne of grace. Every life is valuable to God, and by all scriptural accounts, he tends incline His heart especially to the helpless, the poor, the destitute, the accused… yes, even the voice-less and “non-viable.”

The issue of the legalization of abortion not relegated to the “health of the mother,” but to the health of everyone. It shouldn’t be an available option for an independent, sentient being to extinguish the existence of an absolutely dependent, voice-less other.

Humbly and respectfully submitted,

--Ric