Society is a hell as long as man or woman is alone. And the human soul dies from consumption in the hell of social catastrophe unless it makes common cause with others. In the community that common sense rebuilds, after the earthquake, upon the ashes on the slope of Vesuvius, the red wine of life tastes better than anywhere else. And a man writes a book, even as he stretches out his hand, so that he may find that he is not alone in the survival of humankind.

– Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, I Am An Impure Thinker, p. 19

My friend Miwaza just told me about Blurb, where you can publish your own books and photos in softcover or hardcover. (Guess which I’m getting. LOL.) I’m so excited! I wanted to make a baby book but I’ve never done scrapbooking before and I’ve thought what a pity to put all that work into making a scrapbook and only have one copy to show for it in the end. Here’s the perfect solution!

Even better, I can publish my own books for my babies to study from instead of writing everything out by hand onto notebooks and sketchbooks. I’ve been planning and laying out a scrapbook for Rinah with all the basic stuff we’re working on now (like Genesis 1, 10 Commandments, Apostles Creed, Te Deum, Magnificat, etc., etc.) and trying to practice calligraphy with a little tot running around the room or squirming in my lap and it was NOT working.

Now I just need to upload pictures and text and hit “publish” and I’m done! And it will look better than anything I try to do by hand. And I will be all done before the next baby is here! And my babies will each have their own copies! Ooooh, maaaan. I can’t wait to start! Thank you, Miwaza!

With Rinah spending so much time eating, playing, sleeping, and running around with my uncle, aunt, and cousins, I’ve had a lot of time to read. It’s been wonderful. Years ago, I started reading Schmemann but life got in the way and I never finished it. My cousin Christopher had a copy sitting on his shelf and I’m trying to finish it before I leave. I don’t know if I can because it’s slow going. One reason is because I keep rereading what I’ve read already. This book been an answer to prayer, showing me the way out of some of the struggles I’ve had in my life.

(The italics are Schmemann’s. The underlining is mine.)

Weltschmerz, hunger, desire, pain.
Created in the image of a perfect Triune God, three Persons in eternal fellowship and friendship and trust, I am filled with a yearning and longing for that same fellowship and friendship and trust. The imperfect human fellowship I have found does not satisfy my hunger, but merely whets my appetite to the point of starvation. Trusting and desiring Man leads to pain and betrayal. There is no true love, no joy, no faithfulness, no peace with Man. But Christ invites us to His table, gives us Himself, His blood and His flesh.

Man is a hungry being. But he is hungry for God. Behind all the hunger of our life is God. All desire is finally a desire for Him. (p. 14)

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I’m pretty sure Adam and Eve spoke Hebrew in Eden.

More something about allergies and breastfeeding till 12 months or later … and then there’s a study “about babies being happier when their mothers ate chocolate during pregnancy.”

Baby has learned how to climb out of her Bumbo. *sigh* Now there isn’t a single safe secure place I can leave her … besides the crib, and she hates it. She starts crying just getting near it. I’m happy to hold her most of the time. Just not when I need to shower and wash my hair, y’know. (I’m still really glad I got a pink Bumbo and not one of the unisex colours.) She hates the stroller, too, so whenever we go out, she’s in a wrap. But you know what? I like holding her, even though I get really tired. I think I like that more than anything else in the world.

She is writhing more energetically every day. It’s not quite crawling yet, but it’s getting there. I think she’s right-handed. She usually reaches for things with her right hand. There are a lot of left-handed people in my family on both sides so I was wondering which she would be.

Her teething has been a pain for all of us. I don’t know what I would do without the teething tablets one of my friends told me about. I got them at the local health food store. They work miracles.

Ben found a beautiful illuminated Bible at TJ Maxx for $16.99. There were 2 copies so we bought them both. They have it at Amazon but there’s no picture or anything. I looked for it online and couldn’t find any information about it anywhere. Mystery Bible … but it’s pretty (King James Version, heirloom-quality archival paper, over 875 full-color illuminations taken from masterpieces of Renaissance bookmaking, genuine leather binding, gold gilding on edges, magnetic side closure, gold foil stamping on cover, gold ribbon marker).

I’ve been winning the lottery almost every day, even with the amazingly good Gmail spam filters. Man, what I could do with all that money.

And speaking of money, I got a brand new cute Crumpler camera bag for less than half price at Circuit City yesterday. It fits my new camera perfectly. I like Crumpler bags so much. They make a necklace, too.

I looooooooooooooooove Bluehost. I logged in yesterday to set up a new site for someone when I saw that I had used up my allotted number of MySQL databases. I called them to sign up for an upgrade and they upped my limit to 100 … FOR FREE!! I was happy for hours. Not that I will ever use that many, but they’re nice to have. I kept getting nervous about running out of them. If any of you are thinking of getting a new host, go with Bluehost. They are the best, and believe me, I’ve gone through a LOT of hosts over the last 11 years. I know what I’m talking about. I’ve been with Bluehost for several years now and I’ve been very happy with them the entire time. They have a ton of services for only $6.95 a month: 300GB of storage, you can host an unlimited number of domains, and I love that they have Fantastico.

Dr. Leithart just put out another book!! It’s about baptism!! Go get it now (at Canon Press)!! Or wait just a bit and get it at Amazon for over 30% off.

I came across a beautiful site today: Wordie.

And the story (part 1 & part 2) that came with these pics made me smile and tear up a little.

My father recorded a series of lectures about Shakespeare and the Bible. It’s really interesting, and I’m not just saying that because Papa made it. If you liked Leithart’s Brightest Heaven of Invention, then you will want this, too. Every cent from the sale of these lectures goes towards buying land and a building for the Mitaka Evangelical Church (CREC) in Tokyo, the church I attended my whole life (till I got married) and my parents have been missionaries for over 25 years. You can order the CD online.

Just to give you an idea of land prices, a piece of land 10 square feet can cost $8000. The church is looking for land in the suburbs where the prices are a bit lower, but still it’s way more than this 120-member church can afford, with more than half its members being children who are still being homeschooled. If you don’t like Shakespeare but want to help anyway, donations are accepted as well….

And, of course, no camp would be complete without books…. I picked these up from the Biblical Horizons table (all by James Jordan except the last two).

• Judges: A Practical and Theological Commentary
• Through New Eyes: Developing a Biblical View of the World
• The Sociology of the Church: Essays in Reconstruction
• Crisis, Opportunity, and the Christian Future
• Trees and Thorns: Studies in Genesis 2-4
• Covenant Sequence in Leviticus and Deuteronomy
• The Touch of Affliction: The “Plague” of “Leprosy” in Leviticus 13
• Leviticus 1: Translation and Commentary
• The Revelation of Jesus in Revelation 1:12b-16 and Its Relation to the Structure of the Book of Revelation
• A Brief Reader’s Guide to Revelation
• Thoughts on Sovereign Grace and Regeneration
• Historical Perspectives on Justification
• A Canonical Inquiry: An Investigation of Two Possible Canonical Structures of the Books of the Bible
• The Priesthood of the Plebs: A Theology of Baptism by Peter Leithart
• The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science by Tom Bethell

Maybe this baby better stay inside a little longer.

Yesterday, we drove from a weekend in verdant Portland, where I drank the moist air and a soul-slaking sermon of Word-waters, back home to the barren wilderness where my lips crack and my skin parches and flakes … so this is probably a good time to finally blog about attending the Reformation Covenant Church Family Camp 2006. I was going to wait to blog about this until the camp lectures were available for download at the RCC website but they aren’t yet, so keep checking.

I got high every day on the 3-tiered universe and tri-layered reality and symbolism interconnected throughout the Bible and centrality of communion to everyday life. Aaah. Who needs coffee listening to that? The adrenaline rush was more powerful than any caffeine. It was so good to hear after what seemed like forever without it.

The speaker, James Jordan, is one of the latest in a long line of great men including the Apostle Paul, Augustine, John Calvin, and Peter Leithart … and my dad, too. I was so nervous talking to him I made a total idiot of myself, but oh, well, that’s what I am anyway.

James Jordan & Me

In one of the talks, he mentioned a quote from N.T. Wright and didn’t say where. But, oh, the joys of likeminded bloggers! I found the quote online. (Emphasis mine.)

NT Wright, Simply Christian

The Bible is, in short, the staple diet of Christian worship, as it is of Christian teaching. But, as one of the most famous stories of scripture makes abundantly clear, even scripture isn’t the very center. When the risen Jesus met two disciples on the road to Emmaus, their hearts burned within them while he talked about the Bible. But their eyes were opened, and they recognized him, when he broke the bread.

As precious as Bible teaching is, even from the Second Person of the Trinity Himself (!!!!) it’s not as good as Communion with Him (Luke 24:13-35). Preaching can be good or bad, but nothing beats Communion.