The Father - Son Campout and Other Miscellaneous Things

Hello, all! It is now two, no, three months since I have written, and I wish it were shorter. I have been meaning to write, but, obviously, I have not.

We have a new President-Elect, who is not the one I wanted. Still, we must do the best with what the Lord gives us.

Another, very exciting thing is - I have finished Les Miserables! I don't know how long it took me to read it, but I am sure I have set my personal "longest time taken to read a book" record, if I am correct in believing that its time trumps that of Crime and Punishment. As you can see by the sidebar, I am now reading Sherlock Holmes, Much Ado About Nothing, and Don Quixote. The Picture of Dorian Gray is one that I have just finished. It gave me the heebs, but at least it had some redemptive elements at the end. Much Ado About Nothing is the book I am doing a book study on, while Sherlock Holmes is my literature reading. Don Quixote I am reading for fun.

And the Grand Finale is... a first-hand account of the Father-Son Campout, featuring Dad and me!

We set off the Tuesday that is two days before Thanksgiving. Mercifully, the first twenty or so miles were in Dad's car. We were listening to The Pirates of the Caribbean: The Dead Man's Chest official soundtrack. We parked at the beach overlook off of the road, got out, put on our hiking boots, and opened up the car's trunk. We then put on our twenty-ton (my exaggeration, but it felt like that much later on) back-packs, loaned to us by a youth leader who was in the air-force. Then we began the six-mile (not exaggerating) hike along the beach toward the state park campground. Our path took us through a wildlife refuge, one of the loneliest places I've ever been. Besides the vehicle tracks in the sand and the tracks Dad and I had made, there was no sign of human life. However, there was a high seagull population. We hiked the six miles (I am not proud of it, but I groaned the last three or four.) up to the sign that read "now entering State Park." I whooped, and then Dad and I looked for the trail that would lead to the campground. It was nowhere in sight. We hiked up the dunes to look for the campground. Behind the dunes was a sandy wasteland, even lonelier than the shore we had just left. We turned around at the sound of a truck. There was a Park Ranger. I was worried we would get in trouble for being on the dunes, but no. Dad cleverly steered the conversation toward the lack of a campground. The Ranger told us that it was another half-mile to the campground. Inside I was screaming, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Literally, my scream had that many o's. Anyway, we hiked to the campground and set up camp. By the time we were done, it was completely dark. We hiked to the shoreline again and looked at the stars. We didn't get to see a shooting star, but we did see Venus and Jupiter very clearly, a lot clearer than on the Monday night that was said to be the best time to view them. We saw our city in the distance, glowing with lights. It was quite beautiful. We hiked back to the campsite, got into our sleeping bags, did our nightly reading of Thoughts for Young Men by J. C. Ryle, and fell asleep. The next day we broke camp, hiked back to the car, and drove home. Personally, I think that the second hike was more difficult than the first hike, because we were already tired and sore. But it was still great. I just loved having some guy time with Dad.

And so, that is the tale of the Father-Son Campout.

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Basilisks

I'm back after a long wait, with many exciting things happening, not the least of which is that I am now reading The Book of the Dun Cow. That is pretty much the cause of this post, so pay attention.

In The Book of the Dun Cow, the character Cockatrice is quite interesting. Wangerin writes: "Senex commanded one Toad to stay in the Coop. ... The Toad was forced to sit upon the little egg. [I]t ripped apart. ... Then... the Rooster chick began to grow... a serpent's tail. ... The Rooster chick continued to grow, ... it developed grey scales underneath its body, from the throat to the tail; and the tail itself was covered all over with scales."

Also, I will now draw from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets before I introduce my point. Rowling writes: "'Of the.. beasts... there is none more curious... than the Basilisk... [which] is born from a chicken's egg, hatched beneath a toad.'"

The emphasis is mine. I believe that you realize what I am getting at, namely that Cockatrice is a Basilisk. Rowling goes on to describe the Basilisk in a manner somewhat contrary to Wangerin's description, but many are the disagreements of authors. Also, it seems that this last part will be important to the story of The Book of the Dun Cow (for I am only in chapter six): "'...the Basilisk flees only from the crowing of the rooster, which is fatal to it.'"

I believe, but I am not certain, that Wangerin agrees with this statement. The whole thing fits, and I will read The Book of the Dun Cow with the assumption that Cockatrice is a Basilisk, and that Chauntecleer, the rooster, will be able to defeat Cockatrice by crowing, especially since Wangerin writes: "A third category of crows would... burst from Chauntecleer's throat with a terrible power. ... Within the year Chauntecleer would find his land under... attack; and then, in that war, this third kind of crowing would become his necessary weapon."

Good-bye for now, and I recommend The Book of the Dun Cow to all book-lovers, even though I have only read less than six chapters.

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Of Birds at Busch Gardens

Hello, all! My family and I are currently awaiting the arrival of Hanna, and so I am trying to snatch some time before the risk of power loss becomes too great.

Yesterday Dad took the day off and he and Mom whisked us off to Busch Gardens Europe. I will try to keep this post short, so only two highlights of the day. Dad and I "defied the five," as Busch Gardens advertises it, or, more commonly, we rode all five of the roller coasters, and here they are in the order we rode them: Apollo's Chariot, The Big Bad Wolf, Alpengeist, Griffon, and, finally, The Loch Ness Monster.

The other highlight of the day took place in the Aviary at Busch Gardens. We went in (I, for the first time) quite wet and tired, as it was near the end of our trip. 'ding3, encouraged by the fact that one of the men there had two or three canaries perched on him, tried, two times, to get a canary, and the canary, two times, bit her finger.
I was more successful. I got three different birds to climb on my finger, but two of them flew away when Mom tried to get a picture. The third, however, had a more ingenious way of discouraging photos, which was to climb up my arm and fasten his little beak on my ear. It hurt like crazy, and I just stood there, shouting, "What do I do? He won't get off!" A worker came to the rescue, shaking a rod at the bird. It flew off (and though the rest of my family would argue this fact, I maintain my position), taking a chunk of my ear with it. Needless to say, I cried a little.

I'm better now, with only a scar and a very good memory left from the incident.

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Of More Books and Fish

The other day, we (that is, Mom, Dad, and the four 'dings) went back to the pet store where the other three 'dings had gotten their fish, because 'ding4's tetra, Rhubarb, had died, as had 'ding1's goldfish, Marlin and Coral (think about Finding Nemo). This time, we left with four fish: another tetra (again named Rhubarb) for 'ding3, two guppies (unnamed as yet) for 'ding1, and, wonder of wonders, a betta fish (named Epsilon) for me!

The worker told me to feed him every other day, so, as this is the second day I've had him, I didn't feed him this morning. The worker also said that bettas are livelier when the bettas' owners talk to them, so I have been faithful to say good morning to Epsilon every morning, good night to him every night, goodbye to him whenever I leave the house, and hello to him whenever I return to the house. He seems to be enjoying himself.

Now, for the books part of the title of this post. Like I promised two months ago, when I finished The Count of Monte Cristo, I read, in this order, The Time Machine, The Invisible Man, Crime and Punishment, and, today, I started Les Miserables.

Goodbye after this short post.

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The Conscience

Wikipedia defines the conscience as "a hypothesized ability or faculty that distinguishes whether our actions are right or wrong."

I personally believe that the conscience is a worldly view of the Holy Spirit, which is (to me) a counselor and helper to lead us away from sin and to convict us of our sin when we have sinned.

The Holy Spirit was there from the very beginning. Take Genesis 1:2, for example. This shows that the Holy Spirit was moving about on Earth before any life existed there. The opinion of one teacher that I heard in a Bible study is that the Holy Spirit was the one who did the work of creation. (I don't know if I agree with him on that point, but that might just be from ingrained habit, you know, the God-spoke-everything-into-existence kind of thing.)

Another thing about the Holy Spirit is that it worked in people even during Old Testament times. In 1 Samuel 11:6, we can clearly see that the Holy Spirit has come upon Saul and made him extremely angry. In 1 Samuel 16:14, we can see that the Holy Spirit has gone away from Saul.
These are only two instances of clear action from the Holy Spirit, but they prove my case that the Holy Spirit worked in people even in Old Testament times, and it is therefore a mistaken belief that the Holy Spirit is only from the New Testament.

Your brother in Christ,
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Abortion (and its implications)

You probably know the sixth commandment, but if you don't, it is in Exodus 20:13: "You shall not murder."

The Lord is speaking here. Our maker, the supreme ruler of all that was and is and will be. He is over every ruler on Earth, every presidential candidate, every King, Queen, Emperor, every common person. Yes, even the common persons are rulers, for it is written, in Genesis 1:28: "God blessed them and said to them, 'Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."

What people do not seem to realize is that the order not to murder applies to every living thing with a soul. This applies to unborn babies as well as anyone else. Aborting an unborn child is exactly the same as killing a born baby: your baby. Would you walk up to your baby, sleeping peacefully, maybe cuddled up with a blanket, and kill it? Would you kill a toddler, smiling and making happy baby noises, a toddler who trusts who? Would you kill your kid while you were playing tag, your child at graduation, your grown kid when he came to visit you, your grandchildren? Would you? NO!

You see, abortion is killing everything your child will become, killing all of the children it would have had, cutting off every single life that might have been created through that one human being.

I would like to tell you another thing. You have no right to your child. Sure, you'll raise it; sure, through you it will come into being; sure, you will wield power over it when it is born! But God is only using you, His creation, a person He loves and adores and wants to be in eternal communion with, to bring another one of His creations, another person He loves and adores and wants to be in eternal communion with, into existence.

And here's another thing. You wouldn't want to be killed, would you? Well, would you? I'm guessing the answer is no, because most of the people who have a computer on which to read this have a pretty good life. They are provided for, they have a home, they don't have to sleep in the street, where any old lunatic could come and violate them.

It is written in Leviticus 19:18: "Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself: I am the LORD."

Believe it or not, your child is your neighbor. In fact, every human is your neighbor, and that means that you should treat everyone like you would treat yourself. You wouldn't kill yourself, so you don't kill others.

To wrap this up, pretty much all I'm saying is that abortion is a sin against God, and I won't get into the political implications of that, though I'm sure all of my readers can think of some.

Your brother in Christ,
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Obsession

Have you ever sat around with some time on your hands and thought of something that you've really wanted to do? That is, play a video game, watch a movie, go over to a friend's house? With many people nowadays, the first option is usually it. With Dad it was Dark Forces, with me, it's Civilization III, but neither of them is better or worse than the other one.

Mom has read studies that prove that video games are obsessive. They were made to be that way. When I first got the game last Monday, it was "the new game."

But, during the past week, conversations began to pop up between Mom and me, conversations that went, "Mom, may I play my game?"
"Yes."

Then the conversations turned to, "Mom, may I play my game?"
"Is the house tidy?"
"Uh, I don't know..."
"Don't talk to me until the house is clean."

Now, the conversations are usually, "Mom, may I -"
"No."

The following is a common conversation between 'ding 3, 'ding 4, and me:

'ding 4 - "Why do you like playing your game?"
me - "I don't know, because it's fun."
'ding 3 - "Don't worry about it. All he ever wants to do is play his stupid game."
me - "It's not stupid!"
'ding 3 - "Yes it is, isn't it?"
And, depending upon whether she's feeling mad at me or not, 'ding 4 might say, "Yeah, it is."

So, you see, my obsession is coming between me and most of my friends and immediate family. I say most of them because one of my friends bought the game in question, on my recommendation, and loves it as well.

I'm not saying video games are bad, I'm just saying that I'm going to try not to be so obsessed with Civilization III, and I hope you will pray for me, and possibly join me in not being obsessed with whatever it is in your life: Webkinz, Runescape, Halo, whatever kids (and adults with too much time on their hands) nowadays are playing.

Your brother in Christ,
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Revenge and Mercy

"'Yes,' he said, 'there have been men who have suffered more than I have, but then they must have been martyrs, at least.'
'Do you repent?' asked a deep, solemn voice, which caused Danglars' hair to stand on end. His feeble eyes endeavored to distinguish objects, and behind the bandit he saw a man enveloped in a cloak, half lost in the shadow of a stone column.
'Of what must I repent?' stammered Danglars.
'Of the evil you have done,' said the voice.
'Oh, yes! oh, yes! I do indeed repent.' And he struck his breast with his emaciated fist.
'Then I forgive you,' said the man, dropping his cloak, and advancing to the light.
'The Count of Monte Cristo!' said Danglars, more pale from terror than he had been just before from hunger and misery.
'You are mistaken, - I am not the Count of Monte Cristo!'
'Then who are you?'
'I am he whom you sold and dishonoured, - I am he whose betrothed you prostituted, - I am he upon whom you trampled that you might raise yourself to fortune, - I am he whose father you condemned to die of hunger, - I am he whom you also condemned to starvation, and who yet forgives you, because he hopes to be forgiven, - I am Edmond Dantes!'
Danglars uttered a cry and fell prostrate.
'Rise,' said the count, 'your life is safe; the same good fortune has not happened to your accomplices: one is mad, the other dead. Keep the 50,000 francs you have left, I give them to you. The 5,000,000 you robbed from the hospitals has been restored to them by an unknown hand. And now eat and drink; I will entertain you to-night. Vampa, when this man is satisfied, let him be free.'"
- from Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo (New York: The Modern Library, copyright 2005)

I now apologize for this quite long conversation. For anyone who has read The Count of Monte Cristo, you remember that, more than the others, Danglars was the bad guy. He orchestrated the crime. That does not mean that his two accomplices were any less guilty, but, to me, I am enraged at this resolution. At least with the others, I had some feelings like "this guy is better than he used to be and I sort of like him." With this guy, I thought that he stayed a jerk and should suffer for it. But, lo and behold! he is pardoned! What is going on here?! Not only are his life and sanity preserved, but he comes out with 50,000 francs! Why is he spared?! I believe the answer is that he repented.

To remember in the book, the others did not repent. In his last moments of sanity, Villefort tried to shift the blame to Edmond, and, in his last moments of life, Morcerf (Fernand) fled from the implications of the revelation of Edmond's identity. They did not repent, and lost life and sanity, while Danglars repented, and kept both. He was still punished, so revenge was mixed with suffering.

This is a picture of God's treatment of us, only more self-sacrificing, for He died; and more merciful, for He did not seek revenge on us. He merely died and gave us life.

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Two-fold Teasers and an Obscure Country

"What's my name? I'm prettier than you."
- 'ding 4 to 'ding 3, on taking the Austen Heroine quiz

The Austen Heroine quiz is something that Mom and 'ding 1 showed to the rest of our family this morning. The quote above is something that 'ding 4 said when she turned out to be Marianne Dashwood, and 'ding 3 turned out to be Elinor Dashwood.

On another note, I think you should check out The 4th Day Alliance. That introduction literally gave me chills when I first saw it. I have yet to delve deeper, but you might.

On yet another note, Dad was just now folding clothes, and saw on the tag of one of the shirts "Made in Lesotho." I was working on the rest of this post, and I whipped up Wikipedia. Lesotho "is a land-locked country and enclave - entirely surrounded by the Republic of South Africa."
Christians are welcome there, for "Roman Catholics, the largest religious group, make up more than two-fifths of the population; smaller groups include the Lesotho Evangelical Church which comprises more than one-fourth of the population; Anglican, one-ninth; and other Christian and tribal religions." Unfortunately, "Lesotho is severely afflicted by HIV/AIDS. According to recent estimates, the prevalence is about 29%, one of the highest in the world." Luckily, "English languages are official." "The population distribution of Lesotho is 23.8 percent urban and 76.2 percent rural," and that suits me just fine.

I've always wanted to be a farm kid, and this country sounds great to me.

There's no other stuff that I have to say, so, good-bye.

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Of Books and Fish

We (that is, Mom and the four 'dings) have just returned from shopping, and what started out as simple shoe shopping has ended up multiplying to enormous proportions.

We went to the Dick's Sporting Goods, which is next to a Barnes and Nobles. Obviously, I, the literature fanatic, went to the bookstore as opposed to the sports store, found directly the "buy 2 classics and get the third - of equal or lesser value - free" section, and grabbed a stack. Mom walked in and the pile just kept getting bigger. We ended up with a stack of books that includes The Time Machine & The Invisible Man, The Man in the Iron Mask, A Tale of Two Cities, Les Miserables, Vanity Fair, and Uncle Tom's Cabin, to name some of them. Also, we were in the checkout line and Mom picked up a book from the clearance rack. We ended up buying The Marshall Plan for Getting Your Novel Published as well.

We went home, but 'dings 3 and 4 persuaded Mom to go out one more time. Ding 4 had owned a fish tank for a long time, and so, we picked that out and went to the pet store. We got instructions on how to put it together, and ended up buying tank plants and tank rocks for the tank, as well as a fish bowl and two fish for 'ding 1.

I'm not complaining that I'm not going to get fish, because I came out with about fifteen books! Needless to say, I won't be looking for more books, because once I finish The Count of Monte Cristo, I have an entire stack of novels beckoning me...

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Fallen Pride

"It wasn't everyone, after all, who could have resisted an invitation like Frost's. An invitation that beckoned you right across the frontiers of human life... into something that people had been trying to find since the beginning of the world... a touch on that infinitely secret cord which was the real nerve of all history. How it would have attracted him once! Would have attracted him once... Suddenly, like a thing that leaped to him across infinite distances with the speed of light, desire (salt, black, ravenous, unanswerable desire) took him by the throat."
- from C. S. Lewis' That Hideous Strength (New York: Scribner, copyright 1945)

"Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall."
Proverbs 16: 18*

What a wonderful picture of human frailty! As soon as the person from the first quote grew prideful of having not taken the bait, instantly he is taking the bait. Desire is not really something that can be controlled by ourselves alone, but, with the Lord's help, we can overcome it, if it is improper.

Our enemy is a wily one, and, if we were alone, we would fall to his temptations immediately. Fortunately for us, we are not alone. Dad and I recently attended a church meeting for guys, and there we watched an excerpt from a sermon by someone whose name I don't remember. This pastor was calling his congregation to rally to the cry of "It is written!" Satan may try to use the Scriptures against us, but he has always twisted and perverted its meaning for his own uses. I pray that we will never hesitate to call upon our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Not everyone wants to face this fact, but WE ARE IN THE MIDST OF SPIRITUAL CONFLICT!! We cannot resist Satan without the help of Jesus.

Our family has been talking about how we must not be lulled into a false sense of superiority just because we aren't doing drugs and we don't have ten body piercings. I have to struggle with this myself, and I hope you will pray for me in this.

Few things infuriate me more than a bully. Luckily, bullies don't bother you if you out-bully them. I know that sounds like a bad thing to do, but it works. Trust me. Once, I had this bully (when I was in public school) who would pick on me during the PE and recess periods, and I just ignored him or asked him to stop over and over again. Eventually, I turned to Mom and Grandpa for help, and they said that the next time I had trouble with him, I should make it very clear that he was never to bother me again. Then, if he persisted, I should punch him, pure and simple. I went to school the next day, and, sure enough, that person came up and started picking on me. I asked him to stop one last time, and, when he didn't, WHAM! Down went the bully, and he was done picking on me. To tell the truth, after that, we actually became pals! Neat, huh?

Mom just warned me that, if my posts get too long, nobody will read them. So, for now, farewell.

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*Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

Interbreeding

"These gypsies sometimes arrived in the Moog Empire, and, as 'interbreeding' was forbidden, most of the gypsy-Moog people were persecuted."

I think that this excerpt from an as yet unpublished book shows human nature pretty well. "Interbreeding" was forbidden, but they did it anyway. Deep down, although one might want to do the right thing, one always wants to do the wrong thing. We can't help it. After the Fall, the flesh became the enemy. The flesh is a double-agent, and Satan is happy about that. During a Christmas Advent that our family did once, we talked about how one must keep silencing the flesh and praising God until even your flesh wants to praise God. We have to work against ourselves until no part of us is against the rest. It's a hard thing to do.

On a happier note, here I am! If you are reading this, you probably came from the Parkside Place website to read a blog, so here it is.

We (being Dad and myself) recently started reading C. S. Lewis' space trilogy, and Dad is almost done with Perelandra, the second book. It was one of the creepiest books I've ever read, because something takes over somebody's body, and, even when the protagonist kills the Unman, as Lewis calls it, it comes back to life. It seems that Lewis ventured deeper into theology than I ever supposed.

Sometimes, I have the urge to say random words and do random things, but that is "barred in society," to quote Guy Wetmore Carrel's The Embarrassing Episode of Little Miss Muffet, so I cannot do it. The fewer weird things one does, the better, but that is only what the majority says.

Most people don't appreciate the power of literature, but it is only a way for authors to present their ideas. If the public ridicules those ideas, what of it? At least the authors tried. Some people hate some literature because of its content. After all, there is always somebody who is against something. For instance, the Harry Potter series has raised controversy, as has the trilogy that has The Golden Compass in it. Few people realize that that actually shows the power of literature. Literature raises arguments between people, even among family members (although the latter type is usually only arguments over pronunciation). Literature changes, and not in only one way. Whenever literature is translated, something is lost...

Even fewer people appreciate the power of safe food. I think that people only want food to taste good. For example, kefir is a sour but healthy drink that I don't much prefer, and I don't think that most people would want to eat it, but, add a little stevia and vanilla and, voila! you have a slightly tart, but tasty, smoothy, with most of the health benefits still in it.

How to wrap up a blog post after rambling through that stuff? Well, I guess I could use the words of the apostle Paul, the words that he so often used in his letters: The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen.

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On the First Day

On the first day, the teacher created the Parkside School website.

Then she let her students create a homeschool page. And this blog.

Then, well, who knows...