BaylyBlog: Out of our minds, too...

Do the French have a secret in their mothering and fathering...

If you're a mother or father, read this article. And note the last couple of paragraphs carefully. Over and over again, I tell mothers and fathers of undisciplined children that their rebuke and discipline of their sons and daughters lacks conviction. Firmness. Acting as if they mean what they say rather than that they're mourning having to put up boundaries, as they say. Then I tell them to watch the Dog Whisperer and note how much of Cesar Milan's success is simply a function of his being completely integrated as he looks at the dog. He doesn't apologize for his authority, but exercises it.

If you're a mother or father, again I tell you: read this article. You have no authority because you have chosen to have no authority and your precious little one's got your number.

And while we're on the subject, the principles in the linked article are applicable to elders and the souls under their care, also. Pastors and elders who don't want authority aren't respected--just as they wish. And that may seem to be no big deal until you realize the authority we're trading away is not ours.

It is God's. Fathers and mothers of the home and church have been delegated authority and will be judged by their use of it in the training and protection of the souls God has entrusted to them. (TB, w/thanks to Lucas)

Our Little Brown Bear...

Readers know our children have adopted two sons from Ethiopia and are in the process of adopting a third child. So a favorite theme of family feasts is our adoption by our Heavenly Father and our adoption of these little ones bearing His Image.

Since the fam reads, writes, and designs, they got talking and decided to do a book on adoption. They still hope to tweak it some, but here it is. It's titled Our Little Brown Bear and it features the Ummel family--Doug and Heather with their blessings Jonathan, Nathan, Bayly, Alison; and little brown bear himself, Josiah. Hope you all like it.

And for those keeping track, our children now have ten blessings from God with three more on the way (two mothers expecting and one adoption in process). What joy! (TB)

Joseph Maraachli and the state's usurpation of parental authority...

Joseph Maracchli was the subject of an intense right-to-life battle in Canada last spring. Sadly, a couple months ago he died at his parents’ home in Windsor, Ontario. He was 20 months old. Andrew Henry wrote about Joseph on Baylyblog back in March. You may review the details here.

The number of similar cases will explode in coming months and years and there are important lesssons Christian fathers and mothers should learn. God has given parents the natural affection and compassion for their own children that no doctor can truly have no matter how highly trained or respected he may be.

This is not to say that parents are incapable of being neglectful of their children, but it's the exception rather than the rule. God’s good gift to children is parents who are loving and tender toward them.

The ever-increasing power and authority of government in our lives can only produce bad fruit, and the belief that a well-paid and benevolent bureaucracy can make better decisions than parents is wicked...

Should Christian parents get vaccinated...

Excellent blog post by son Joseph on the subject of the discipline of children and talk shows on Christian radio stations. Please read it. (TB)

Children are a blessing from the Lord, CTW version....

Praise God for the safe arrival of Gabriel Victor, born last Monday to Steve and Ashely Marcuz and Adele Marie, born last Tuesday to Andrew and Andrea Van Engen!

And for the arrival the week before of Emily Nicole born to Jeremy and Rhonda Heyerly! (DB)

Children are a blessing from the Lord...

Praise God for the safe arrival of Ezra David Crum, born at 4:53 PM to Nate and Katie Crum! (TB)

"There was storm... and then a wolf."

A Christian confesses his faith, today, when he stays married to the same woman until death. When he continues to name his race "man" rather than "humans" or "human beings." When he chooses a church where he's sanctified rather than one where his wife is happy. A Christian confesses her faith, today, when she lets herself notice the beautiful diversity of manhood and womanhood, then calls attention to it.

We got a doll house with furniture off Craig's List a year ago...

Children are a blessing from the Lord: Genevieve Joy Hess...

This morning at 8:44 AM, Genevieve Joy Hess (Vivajoy for short ;->) was born to Abram and Sara Hess. Abram reports, "Mama and baby are both doing very well." God is so very kind to us!

On same day here in Bloomington, twins give birth to twin babies...

From his present home in LA, Sir Alex forwarded this news note. Identical twins of the tribe of Judah gave birth to twin babies yesterday at the Bloomington Hospital. Jennifer Patterson gave birth to a girl named Adalynn Rose Patterson, followed by Jessica Patterson giving birth to a boy named Mason Douglas Patterson.

Maybe the mothers are married to twins named Patterson? (TB, w/thanks to Alex JC)

Make Applesauce Day...

Today was Make Applesauce Day in our kitchen. Six bushels of apples cut, cooked, and run through the food mill by four generations including my mother, my wife, our three daughters, and nine of our grandchildren. Daughter Michal Crum took the pic and I pulled it off Google+.

And although there was already lots of naturally-occurring sugar in the apples, they added lots of white refined stuff as well. (TB w/thanks to Michal)

Grandview Elementary School evacuated to ClearNote Church, Bloomington...

Grandview Elementary Evacuates to ClearNote Church from Good Shepherd Band on Vimeo.

The past several hours here at ClearNote Church, Bloomington, we've hosted four to five-hundred children from Grandview Elementary School across the street from us. Around 1:30 this afternoon the children and their cooks, aids, teachers, and Principal Lily Albright were evacuated while the Bloomington Fire Department investigated a smell that seemed to point to a gas leak.

The bathrooms are entirely inadequate but the rest is working out fine. Although it's cold and raining outside, the children and their teachers are warm and dry and happy and singing in the sanctuary (sadly, not Rock of Ages or The Son of Man Goes Forth to War).

On the next page is a pic of our Monroe Country Community School Superintendent Dr. Judy DeMuth leaving the church...

The death of an eighteen-year-old brother...

The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, To the person who seeks Him. It is good that he waits silently For the salvation of the LORD. It is good for a man that he should bear The yoke in his youth. Let him sit alone and be silent Since He has laid it on him. Let him put his mouth in the dust, Perhaps there is hope. Let him give his cheek to the smiter, Let him be filled with reproach. For the Lord will not reject forever, For if He causes grief, Then He will have compassion According to His abundant lovingkindness. (Lamentations 3:25-32)

(NOTE: Since posting this a few hours ago, I've made a couple corrections and added some text at the end.) Back in 1964, my brother, Joe, went off to Swarthmore on a (rare) full ride National Merit Scholarship. He was a philosophy major, ran on the Cross Country team, and loved the Lord. He planned to go on for a Ph.D. and serve in foreign missions.

Meanwhile Dad...

A little help from our friends...

This request comes from my two oldest grandchildren, Jonathan and Nathan Ummel (here with their Great Nana Bayly, my own Mary Lee, and their brother and sister, Josiah and Bayly).

They e-mailed their request to family members, but if any of our good readers are so inclined, I would appreciate you sending them postcards. (TB)

We are working on a school project.  We are trying to collect postcards from all the states we can. 
We would love it if you would sent us one from your state. we love you .Thank you very much :} :}:}:}:}

Mstrs. Jonathan and Nathan Ummel

8218 West John Williams Lane

Bloomington, IN 47403

 

A New York state of mind...

Good girls gone bad, the city's filled with them...

                - Jay-Z, "Empire State of Mind"

Here's a list of the fifteen zip codes in New York City that have the highest rate of abortion. The graph was created by the Chiaroscuro Foundation and it tells us Manhattan's Chelsea - Clinton zip code has the highest rate of child-slaughter in all of New York City.

The Chelsea-Clinton zip code is the zip code of Redeemer Presbyterian Church...

Welcome to the family, Norton, Jasmine and Joy...

Christ the Word rejoices in God having added three precious babies to our midst this week. 

Jasmine and Joy Drees are home from Florida, arriving today from Florida six weeks after birth, including four weeks of hospitalization and two weeks awaiting adoption approvals. The twins join Paul and Renee Drees together with siblings Josiah, Madalyn, Sam, Summer and Lily. We rejoice that Joy and Jasmine are healthy, and that the obstacles that hindered their coming home have been removed. God be praised.

We're also thrilled to welcome Norton Zion Clark to our family. Norton, son of Kevin and Jennifer Clark and younger brother of Wolfgang, Stella and Joaquin, is a signal to me of what a precious gift it is when God allows a pastor to serve in one location for multiple decades. Norton's parents once played with Cheryl's and my babies. Now my children play with the Clark's babies. Joy. (DB)

Children are a blessing from the Lord...

Oxytocin. No wonder our church is happy and loving. We're awash in dilation and lactation. Pull-quote of merit:

In Western culture today, women barely lactate at all, leaving them just as physiologically ready to hold a grudge, to never forget the face that did them wrong, as any man. Too bad. Perhaps what we need is more lactation...

No wonder Presbyterians are so dour. Our wives are too busy getting graduate degrees and having professions to dilate or lactate. (TB, w/thanks to Kamilla)

Church officers and fathers who cover up sexual crimes...

"Fathers need to know this: avoiding the potential shame by not providing justice for your daughter is a cowardly act that will be forever remembered..." - longtime PCA elder and father of little daughters just found to have been raped by a relative

Here's an e-mail we received responding to the post "With the souls of sodomites destroyed, children are next...". As you will see, the e-mail is filled with horrors--particularly the horror of Christians who refuse to recognize the horrors taking over our homes and churches and to respond to them Biblically.

Since posting this and the previous piece, it's become clear to me that readership of this post has been small. And I believe this means sexual sin and the rampant fornication and pornography that are its seedbed will live on in the church, gaining ground while church officers and household fathers abandon their flocks and talk exchange blog posts and comments about family-centered churches and post-millenialism.

The predators love this.

So please, look again at the pull-quote at the top and ask yourself if you and your church officers are beyond it? If you're such good fathers, pastors, elders, deacons, and Titus 2 women that you don't need to find out what it means or how to respond to this failure of fathers filling our churches with bitterness? I'm sure no one relishes reading such a rebuke, but then do we really think the Corinthians enjoyed the Apostle Paul's letters?

Note particulary the father's statement about the cowardice of fathers who try to cover up the crime rather than protecting their children. This is the reality of my pastoral experience, over and over again. Our session submits the criminal to the civil magistrate. Always. Immediately. And so must you.

Living in a university community, over many years, now, ClearNote Church has been blessed by God with a good number of opportunities to be servants of reconciliation in these tragic circumstances. We would be pleased to serve your church's officers by providing support and counsel when you need help with sexual abuse and crimes against our Lord's little ones. Please feel free to contact us.

Now, on to the account...

These ones were born in Zion...

It's time to do the numbers. Lucas and Heather and Tenile report there are twenty-four children under a year and sixty who are five and under at ClearNote Church of Bloomington. Including the fifteen or so mothers carrying unborn Covenant children, that brings us to about seventy-five children five and under. How God has blessed us!

Cutting the grass today, I was listening to the Psalms and heard this:

The voice of the LORD makes the deer to calve And strips the forests bare; And in His temple everything says, “Glory!”  - Psalms 29:9

If you think it's weird to talk about children and births, read the Old Testament. I dare you.

Iain Martyn Mentzel...

Names mean something, and this just-born one was named Iain Martyn Mentzel. (Iain Murray and Martyn Lloyd-Jones are the two servants of the Word my brother and I have the most respect for from the past century or so--not counting our father.) May God make Iain Martyn like the pastor and his assistant he was named for. What joy, Jake and Amanda! (TB)

A thousand words...

A great blog pic. Be sure to read the verse. Gotta love that male inclusive... (TB)

Motherhood as a mission field...

Several of you have forwarded a link to Motherhood as a Mission Field by Femina's Rachel Jankovic. Dear mothers in Israel, do read it.

The father of a family--the only true adventurer...

There is only one adventurer in the world, as can be seen very clearly in the modern world, the father of a family. Even the most desperate adventurers are nothing compared with him.... Everything is against him. Savagely organized against him. Everything turns and combines against him. Men, events, the events of society, the automatic play of economic laws. And, in short, everything else. Everything is against the father of a family, the pater familias; and consequently against the family. He alone is literally ‘engaged’ in the world, in the age. He alone is an adventurer. - Charles Peguy in Clio 1.

(TB)

Godly fatherhood...

My Dear Bristol,

Before you were born I prayed for you. In my heart I knew that you would be a little angel. And so you were!

When you were born on my birthday, April 7, 1980, it was evident that you were a special gift from the Lord. But how profound a gift you turned out to be! More than the beautiful bundle of gurgles and rosy cheeks...more than the first-born of my flesh, a joy unspeakable...you showed me God's love more than anything else in creation. Bristol, you  taught me how to love.

I certainly loved you when you were cuddly and cute, when you rolled over and sat up and jabbered your first words. I loved you when the searing pain of realization took hold that something was wrong...that maybe you were not developing as quickly as your peers, and then when we understood it was more serious than that...

The economics of feminism...

Sooner or later every faithful pastor joins the resistance movement engaged in mortal combat with the Feminist Reich. At long last, the shepherd finds it impossible to live seated in the heavenlies far above the screams and bloody carcasses rotting in our public squares and churches. Hell and destruction get to be too much for him, so he puts on his armor, grabs the Sword of the Spirit, and marches out to destroy the Devils of Hell whose mouths are dripping the blood of the sheep. War is finally declared and the shepherd marches out in defense of his flock!

As he enters the battle, though, it dawns on him that economics is one of the key battlefields. Yet he's never learned a thing about economics...

Contraception or birth control: a matter of life and death...

...for the foetus, though enclosed in the womb of its mother, is already a human being, and it is almost a monstrous crime to rob it of the life which it has not yet begun to enjoy. If it seems more horrible to kill a man in his own house than in a field, because a man’s house is his place of most secure refuge, it ought surely to be deemed more atrocious to destroy a foetus in the womb before it has come to light. (John Calvin)

(Tim) Readers familiar with Baylyblog are aware my brother and I believe most use of contraception is contrary to the will of God Who commanded us to be fruitful and multiply (Genesis 1:22, 28; 8:17; 9:1, 7; 35:11; Jeremiah 23:3) and to propogate for Him a godly seed (Malachi 2:15). This is the reaon the Westminster Confession (XXIV, 2) explicitly states fruitfulness is one of the three purposes God created marriage. Still today, this reason is recited in the wedding liturgy used by Biblical pastors presiding over wedding ceremonies. Listen for it.

We don't believe every married couple has a Biblical duty to have as many children as physically possible, yet it should be our joy to give ourselves to what God has commanded and to receive His blessings with glad hearts. We live in an evil day, though, when even among the People of God, couples are expected to justify their Biblical faithfulness in this area and if they give themselves to Biblical fruitfulness, they feel the weight of other Christians disapproving of their hard work and asking them to justify it.

Beyond faithlessness in childbearing, Christians today are also faithless in the methods of contraception they use. Which is to say that as convenience is the basic concern behind couples choosing not to have lots of children, so convenience is the basic concern behind which method of contraception they use.

Let me say this clearly...

"This woman, at least, will be saved by childbearing..."

(Tim, w/thanks to Shelly) It disgusts me to have to direct Baylyblog readers to Roman Catholic sites as often as I do, but there's no helping it. Reformed men and women are so busy sinning so grace may abound that there's almost no comparable teaching in the Reformed world. And certainly not in the PCA--I defy you to show me one single article this spectacularly beautiful and sanctifying for women published anywhere under the auspices of the PCA. In fact, on any site having any affiliation to the PCA. Or rather, any site affiliated with any of the chest-thumping Reformed men: Together for the Gospel. Acts 29. Desiring God...

Brothers, if you want to do a more Biblical job of loving your wife, read this. Sisters, whether married or single, if you're willing to trade in your iPhone and laptop for the salvation 1Timothy 2:15 promises woman, read this.

There's nothing more foundational to godliness in Christ Jesus than your femininity.



Even these may forget, but I will not forget you...

(Tim, w/thanks to Cindy P.) Foundational to understanding our world including the Evangelical parachurch culture is a close reading of Ibsen's "A Doll's House." For a real-world example of Nora in our own time, cry your way through this one. But then call to mind our Heavenly Father's tender promise:

But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me, And the Lord has forgotten me.” Can a woman forget her nursing child And have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, but I will not forget you. (Isaiah 49:14,15)

 

How do babies survive us...

(Tim, w/thanks to Kamilla) As you get older, you wonder how God could allow this or that person to have the responsibility of raising a child, but then you remember what you were like when He blessed you and your wife with a little baby--your first--and suddenly it occurs to you to stop thinking and be happy!

Nationalized health care and parental authority...

(Andrew Henry) The conflict over Joseph Maraachli throws into stark relief our modern age's attack on the authority of fathers and mothers.

The circumstances are simple and painful. Several years ago, Moe Maraachli and Sana Nader lost their daughter, Zina, to a degenerative neurological condition. Her respiratory function deteriorated so severely that she was placed on a ventilator. Rather than allowing her to die in the hospital, her parents decided to take her home. A simple tracheotomy allowed her to breathe without the aid of a ventilator and she lived for six more months at home with her family before passing away.

Fast forward several years to the birth of Joseph. He was considered to be at high risk for the same genetic condition and was closely monitored as he grew. At four months old, he began having seizures and his parents worst fears were confirmed...

A four-year-old boy wants to know...

(Tim) Not saying who, but one of my grandsons saw a pic of Mt. Rushmore the other day and asked his mother, "Why did those men get turned into rocks?"

Kids raised in the dispensationalist error don't even have the right questions, do they?

 

 

Steven Mosher and the latest Rwandan genocide: your tax dollars at work...

(Tim, w/thanks to Dan R.) Back in 1983, a young Stanford anthropologist was booted from China for blowing the whistle on China's forced abortion policy. Steven Mosher (not the Mosher of Climategate) had been in one of China's rural provinces doing Ph.D. research when he discovered China's government forced mothers to murder their unborn children.

Mosher publicized this great oppression and China's government responded by expelling him from the country. Standford University also responded by expelling Mosher from his Ph.D. program. The Chronicle of Higher Education did long articles on the scandal and, despite Stanford's attempt to defend their actions, those of us who read about the case as it developed learned a lesson about the limits of Academic freedom.

Shortly afterwards, Mosher published his best-selling expose of China's mass murders of the unborn, Broken Earth: The Rural Chinese; followed a few years later by Allan Bloom's best-selling expose of the Academy, The Closing of the American Mind.

For some years, now, Mosher has been doing excellent work at the Population Research Institute. Here's a recent example exposing the abuse of our U.S. tax dollars for the coercive sterilization of Rwandan men.

A reading of "The King's Breakfast"

(Tim, w/thanks to Heather) One of my favorites from A. A. Milne's When We Were Very Young. (And no, we don't know the children.)

Isn't having lots of children an Old Testament thing?

(Tim: under an earlier post, I responded to a dear brother who asked the same question we all have--namely, isn't being fruitful and multiplying more an Old Testament than a New Testatment command?)

Dear Brother, don't be dismayed. About 99.999% of Reformed officers in America today--in fact, 99.99% of any Reformed officers since Margaret Sanger (founder of Planned Parenthood) engaged in civil disobedience and got the Supreme Court of these United States to reverse our nation's Comstock laws last century--have believed what you articulate. Here's a more crass way of puting it:

We've been fruitful, so let go of this Old Testament patriarchal take-woman-into-the cave-and-have-your-way-with-her neanderthal mindset. It's so demeaning to women. Haven't they suffered enough already? Do they have to spend their lives at home making babies, cooking, and changing diapers? Would any servant leader do that to his wife?

Please don't be offended. I know this is not how you put it. But having known and loved many Reformed officers over the years, this is a pretty accurate summary of the state of our obedience. We've evolved. We've learned scientific truths the Reformers didn't know. We need to focus on the quality--not the quantity--of our childrearing. We need to educate our daughters as well as our sons, and give them a chance to live...

Differences between small and large families...

(Tim, w/thanks to Eric) Our Lord, the Apostle Paul, and economists are agreed that money matters quite a lot. For instance, check out the comments on this blog responding to the news that, in China, a law is being proposed that would make an adult child's failure to visit his parents actionable in court. If the law passes, parents could sue their child for failure to visit and the child could be fined and directed to submit to a visitation schedule. What wonderful visits that would produce! Beyond the question of banks, pensions, and Social Security, though, there's another set of numbers worth noting, here.

We have a fair number of international students who attend ClearNote Church, Bloomington (our new church name), and some are from China. Due to China's one-child policy, these students rarely have siblings or cousins. Picture it: one father and mother had one child--a son; another father and mother had one child--a daughter; that son and daughter married and had one son who married someone else's daughter--again, an only child. Now what do you have?

You have a married couple who themselves have one child who will grow up with two parents, four grandparents, and eight great-grandparents. It's entirely conceivable he'll have some of his great-grandparents live to the time of his marriage, at which time he'll take on through his wife another set of two parents, four grandparents, and eight great-grandparents. Let's assume only half of that couple's great grandparents survive to the time of their marriage; then that couple each has two parents, four grandparents, and four great-grandparents, which brings the total number of aging relatives on the shoulders of that young couple to twenty. And if all their great-grandparents are still alive, the total is twenty-eight.

Which is to say that, beyond the hundreds of millions of little babies slaughtered by the one-child policy and forced abortions of China in the past century, they now have a rapidly aging population. It's estimated one in four adults will be over the age of sixty-five by 2050.

Let's be practical about this. When my mother-in-law and mother want to move into someone's house...

Wedding sermons, children, and diapers...

(Tim) At a wedding, recently (not this one pictured), I was privileged to meet the father and mother of this Burch family. My son had preached a sermon that spoke of the high calling of motherhood and Mrs. Burch mentioned that, over the years of raising ten children, she estimates she's changed 45,000 diapers. What glory!

Here are the sermons preached by Joseph and others at ClearNote Church in Indianapolis. The wedding sermon isn't up yet, but maybe it will appear? If it wasn't recorded, maybe Joseph will post the manuscript here. In my biased opinion, it would serve well as a model for any wedding sermon.

A one-track mind he has...

(Tim) If you have to give up having your children around, grandchildren are a good consolation. We return to a grandson (who will remain nameless), with his mother Michal reporting...

"Some of New York City's most prominent religious leaders" mourn city's aborted babies...

(Tim, w/thanks to Matthew M.) Religious leaders in New York City came together this past week to speak out against the pervasive slaughter of unborn children in their city. Of every one hundred babies given by God to women of the city, forty-one of these precious little ones are murdered by abortionists. (The figure is 48% in the Bronx, 38% in Manhattan; here are the stats.) The Sun reported:

Some of New York City’s most prominent religious leaders are making a public demand for answers as to why decades of social welfare programs aimed at making abortions a rarity have not only failed, but failed so dramatically.

The leaders — spanning Catholic, Jewish, and Protestant clergy — issued their demand at a press conference today at Manhattan. They said they are galvanized by new data showing that some 87,000 abortions were performed in New York City in 2009, a figure that accounts for 41% of all pregnancies across the five boroughs that year. That 41% rate is nearly double the national average.

“The Statue of Liberty should be the symbol of this city, not the grim reaper,” declared the current archbishop of the Archdiocese of New York, the Most Rev. Timothy Dolan.

Which religious leaders joined in the public lament? The New York Times...

Death and life are in His mighty hands...

(Tim) The past two weeks the Bloomington Baylys have had sorrow and joy. Sorrow in the death of my dear cousin, John DeWalt, who succumbed to a long illness connected with diabetes. He died two weeks ago this coming Monday and some of us were able to travel to Pittsburgh for the funeral. There we grieved, and yet celebrated his homegoing with his mother, Inis (Mrs. Curtis) DeWalt, his sister Beth DeWalt, and his brother Paul DeWalt (along with Paul's wife, Patti, and their three children--Zachary, Sarah, and Jacob).

A week ago today, we had the joy of joining brother David's family in the celebration of the marriage of David's eldest son, Nathan, and his lovely bride, Aleaha (pron. a leah). It was a joyful day.

Then the past three days we've had the joy of gathering here in Bloomington for our family Thanksgiving celebration and being joined by my mother-in-law, Margaret (Mrs. Ken) Taylor. That's the pic you see above. For the record, we now have ten grandchildren. (I apologize to my dear wife, Mary Lee, for the mysterious white-out on her forehead, but otherwise it's the best pic.)

Names? Well, let's do it by families...

Children are a blessing from the Lord...

(Tim) In a post last week, I praised God for the gift of new life brought into the world through the labor of one Church of the Good Shepherd mother, Amber Litwin. Amber named her son, Jackson Cruz. and here's a pic from worship this past Lord's Day: l to r, Annalyssa (1), Amber, Callahan (5), Veronica Allen (Amber's main CGS friend), and little Jackson Cruz. Amber kindly gave me permission to share this pic with you. Aren't these children beautiful! Please pray for them, and for Amber as she raises them. Thank you, Amber, for letting us all share in your joy!

If there's an abortuary near your church where little babies are slaughtered for money and your church has no witness outside calling mothers home to Jesus and promising them, "Whatever--and we mean WHATEVER--you need, we'll help!" stop and think what you're missing.

Better yet, look right here at what you're missing.

Six days old...

(Tim) I don't know where this came from, but it's beautiful. And instructive.

When Christians (like one of my former elders who's a pharmacist) say they have no objection to abortion in the first few days or weeks of life; that there's no life or image of God in the first few days or weeks of the life of man, and thus they're willing to fulfill prescriptions for chemical abortifacients that kill the baby in the first few days or weeks of life; look very closely at this picture. This is the man they approve of murdering, or themselves murder.

Yes, 'murder' is the proper word. Anything less would further obscure the wickedness of our bloodthirsty nation.

Two days ago, Mary Lee was at the birth of another baby of our church who is the product of our congregation's faithful witness outside Planned Parenthood's abortuary here in Bloomington...

Alison Joy Marie Ummel...

(Tim) Alison Joy Marie Ummel was born late Saturday night, September 11, 2010 to Doug and Heather (Bayly) Ummel. Weighing 8 pounds 6 ounces, she joins Doug and Heather's other four children--Jonathan, Nathan, Josiah (here holding Alison), and Bayly. The Lord has once again blessed us with the fruit of the womb, which is His reward, and we give Him thanks and praise.

Like her mother, Alison was born at home. She's our tenth grandchild.

Live by faith, vow a marriage, have babies, plant a church, start a school, college, and seminary...

(Tim) Back in 1993, I wrote an article on a conflict over the policy of Westminster School in Atlanta that required board members of this private Christian school to be confessing Christians. The New York Times had done an article on the controversy and I took the piece as a jumping-off point to say a few things about home, public, and Christian schools. Since then, Mary Lee and I have educated our five children (as well as several other children who lived with us through the years) in each of those ways--home, public, and Christian school. This is the final year we have a child at home and Taylor, our youngest, is finishing high school at the school my wife Mary Lee, with a couple others, founded and served as principal--Lighthouse Christian Academy.

It's been years since we've had a child at LCA. When it put up a building, we watched its former commitments decline. It seemed bent on becoming the sort of Christian school that, from the beginning, we'd worked hard to avoid. But this is the ho-hum way of all institutions, Christian or otherwise, and there have been some encouraging changes at LCA the past couple of years--hence Taylor's presence there this year.

But as I point out in the article below, the best antidote to school decline is the founding of a new school. It worked with Yale as a reform of Harvard, Princeton as a reform of Yale, and it's still working with schools like New St. Andrews being a reform of Wheaton, Westmont, Gordon, and Covenant.

Tired and timid souls always laugh at the upstarts...

Let her works praise her in the gates...

(Tim) For some forty years, now--during all the years I've loved her daughter, Mary Lee--Mom Taylor has been one of my heroines. A couple weeks ago, Mary Lee and I travelled back to Wheaton to attend a banquet held in Mom's honor by the Crowell Trust upon the occassion of the Trust awarding Mom their Susan Coleman Crowell Award.

Mary Lee is number nine of ten and her next older sibling, Mrs. Bob (Gretchen) Worcester, gave a short sketch of Mom's life and character. She did such a good job, I asked if she would send a copy of what she'd said.

Here then is Gretchen's bio of Mom. All of us in the Taylor clan rise up and call Mom blessed. May our Heavenly Father continue to provide His covenant children with such godly mothers as He provided us in Margaret West Taylor. (And for the record, our next to youngest, Hannah Weeks, just gave birth to Mom's forty-seventh great grandchild, and Lord willing, any day now our eldest, Heather Ummel, will give birth to Mom's forty-eighth (Mary Lee's and my tenth grandchild).

* * *

Tribute to Mom – Susan Coleman Crowell Award

I’ve been asked to share about our mom tonight from a family perspective – how she has been influential as a wife and mother.

The first thing to understand about Margaret Taylor as a wife and mother is that she was married to the same man for 65 years, and that she raised 10 children! Those are both amazing numbers! But probably even more amazing than the number of children was our spacing.

Children are a heritage from the Lord...

(Tim, w/thanks to Jessica) Jessica Woods forwarded this pic labelling it "the CGS diaspora in Houston." From left to right: Erin, Elisabeth, Nathan, & Clara Polderman; Chantal Incandela; Ning (expecting December 15), Micah, and Dan Gelok; and Michael, Abigail, and Jessica (expecting January 11) Woods.

Bootiful, ain't they? Our Lord does all things well!

The fruit of the womb is a reward...

(Tim) Announcing the birth of Asher Dee Weeks a few minutes ago. Mother and child are both well, and father is giving thanks to God. For those keeping track, Lucas and Hannah Weeks; daughter Abrielle and son Asher.

Behold, children are a gift of the Lord, the fruit of the womb is a reward. (Psalms 127:3)

BP's oil and CT's toxin...

(Tim) Here's a good meditation on fruitfulness, repudiated and embraced.

Arrogate authority; it's what the state does...

(Tim, w/thanks to Tim/Anne) The United Nations is so corrupt, not one smallest part of our nation should be under its authority. Yet our civil servants would like to adopt the United Nation's Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Oppose it here for all the reasons you wish, but especially that this is one more step down the already well-traveled path of government usurping the sacrosanct authority God has delegated to parents over their own flesh and blood.

God has ordained fathers and mothers as their child's natural sovereigns, and unless godly parents rise up against government's exploding encroachment, we'll soon find ourselves unable to make decisions about our children's education, obey Scripture's commands concerning their discipline, bring to term our unborn babies with genetic deficiencies, and on it goes.

And of course, I won't miss the opportunity to point out...

Who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel...

(Tim) Digging the hole for an in-ground swimming pool led to French authorities unearthing the tiny corpses of eight infants murdered and buried by their mother in her back yards. Acknowledging such child slaughter to be a growing trend, French authorities are horrified. In an article titled "Why Are French Women Killing Their Babies," several possible explanations are given:

Experts explained each of those cases as resulting from pregnancy denial, an often misunderstood and minimized condition. According to (former gynecologist) Michel Delcroix ...pregnancy denial is a quasi-schizophrenic condition in which women either don't realize or cannot accept that they are with child — not even enough to have their unwanted babies aborted... Delcroix says it's now rising in frequency. The probable reason, he says, is changes in wider social factors that have downgraded the value of childhood, parenting and family.

But in some cases, it can also be a matter of women simply failing to see themselves as mothers. "Some women never manage to update their self-identity during pregnancy, [while others] want to become pregnant without wanting to procreate," psychiatrist Pierre Lamothe told Le Parisien on Thursday. "When the child arrives, it doesn't really exist for them. They don't give it life, in psychological terms. If they saw it as a [real] baby, they wouldn't kill it."

Others just never realize — or acknowledge — that they're with child.

Women don't realize they're "with child?"

Why would they when seconds prior to birth these same mothers can murder these same children with no consequences at all? Who exactly is "quasi-schizophrenic"--these mothers or the civil magistrate?

Think about it: a mother sees no reason why waiting a few minutes to murder her baby should cause the civil magistrate to prosecute and imprison her. Why should she leave the comfort of her own home...

Another happy Bloomington family...

(Tim, w/thanks to James, Annie, and Barbara) Who's against dogs and cats? Not I--at least the dogs part of it.

Yet something in me shrivels when I see animals paraded as if a woman, three dogs, and a cat are just a different kind of family than one man, his wife, and say, three girls and one boy. Or would it be three boys and one girl?

Lydia Joyce Farnam...

Behold, children are a gift of the LORD, The fruit of the womb is a reward. - Psalms 127:3

(Tim) Lydia Joyce Farnam was born to Gandalf and Anna Farnam last night at 1:56 AM, weighing six pounds, fourteen ounces, and twenty inches long. Mother and child are doing well and father's giving thanks to God.