Huh. The Pancake Bunny got his picture in the NYT....

and also has scruffy Aidan Quinn

bookmarks post

When we walked into our sign language class today, the instructor said, "There's my class clown!" Today he crawled up to all the younger babies and smiled and patted their heads. Then he crawled into the middle of the room, sat up, clapped his hands and made his howler monkey sounds.

I'm going to have to make a standing appointment with the principal when I get him into grade school.

Owen is just the coolest. I wanna be in his entourage.

At least he's just patting heads. Chris was very fuzzy haired. He and Ben both have pretty much the straightest hair possible for non-Asian people. Ben's is nearly as coarse as typical Asain hair, but not as heavy, if that makes any sense. Chris has more hair, but it's fluffier, even though it's straight. When he was about 9 months old, his entire head of hair stuck straight up, and no amount of cutting, or growing, conditioning, or wetting down would fix it, so we just let him go with the spiked look.

His little cousin was about 4 months old, and fell in love with his hair. Whenever she could, she'd reach out and grab as much of it as she could, and just squeal with delight. I don't think Chris would go anywhere near her, 'til he was well into his threes.

That's the problem with this book. The deck is so obviously stacked that I can't really take it seriously. Of course the bigger problem is that I've drifted into being agnostic while my wife is becoming more (that isn't the word I'm looking for, but it will have to do) christian. She wants me to get more involved with the church with classes and stuff, but I'm not really a believer anymore if I ever really was.

That's hard, when you grow in opposite directions on that kind of issue. I've always been glad I didn't marry any of those earnest future missionaries and InterVarsity-staffers-for-life I knew in college, because I hate to think what would've happened to me, him, and our marriage when I hit the breaking point where I nearly turned atheist a few years ago and ultimately ended up with a very different sort of faith than the one I started out with.

(In InterVarsity we spent more time reading Passion and Purity so we could bring our love lives under Christ's control. I kinda wish I'd saved my heavily highlighted copy just for a record of who I used to be.)

You and me both, baby. Passion and Purity was second only to the bible itself as our Guide To How We Should Live.

His little cousin was about 4 months old, and fell in love with his hair. Whenever she could, she'd reach out and grab as much of it as she could, and just squeal with delight. I don't think Chris would go anywhere near her, 'til he was well into his threes.

I'm already trying to teach him "gentle" because I'm worried he's going to try to clock one of these babies. He likes to grab my hair which means I need to get another haircut.

Passion and Purity was second only to the bible itself as our Guide To How We Should Live.

Which is how? Lemme guess - the Passion is for Jesus; everyone else gets the Purity?

My oldest sister was big into the Campus Crusade, but I think now it was more a way to have a social life that Mother approved of. Sharon had to suffer through a lot of Mother's insecurities about this child-rearing thing. The next older sister, Linda, tried for a more conventional social life of hanging out and guys and learned the error of her ways. By the time it got to be my turn, I was so used to flying under the radar that Mother was forced to read my mail to find out what I was doing.

You and me both, baby. Passion and Purity was second only to the bible itself as our Guide To How We Should Live.

I'm sad. I just went over to Amazon to see if it's still in print (it is, but with a different cover). So I read through the reviews and upped the "found this review helpful" scores for all the naysayers who said things like, "P&P isn't actually part of the Bible, you know," or, "This one woman's experience isn't the Only Right Way, and her whole woman=recipient, man=initiator thing isn't exactly a biblical absolute--Hello? Ruth and Boaz, anyone?"

Passion and Purity was second only to the bible itself as our Guide To How We Should Live.

Which is how? Lemme guess - the Passion is for Jesus; everyone else gets the Purity?

I can't remember specifics, but that's the gist of it. And so the girls in my church were VERY into their mega-chastity, even when they were engaged. For instance, one girl told me, after she was married, that she and her husband had a lot of guilt to work through around their sin issue of him touching her breast before they were married. Like, it caused marital problems until they worked through the (and I quote) violation.

It occurs to me now that maybe their problems actually came from their CRAXY.

Which is how? Lemme guess - the Passion is for Jesus; everyone else gets the Purity?

More that if you keep yourself pure, the passion you'll eventually find is that much better. Unless God is calling you to celibacy. And if he is, you should be grateful, dammit, because all God's gifts are wonderful and just right. And all her teaching is framed by the story of her and her first husband's courtship. He was killed only a few years after they married--they were missionaries in Ecuador, and he and several other men decided, IIRC by going around the backs of both the local authorities and the churches that had sent them, that they were going to try to make contact with a notoriously hostile and isolated tribe. Who killed them.

When I was 19 I thought this was the most romantic thing EVER. Long courtship, restrained passion, followed by tragically brief True Love cut short by martyrdom, leaving the noble widow with her baby daughter. All of us girls wanted a Jim Elliott of our very own, preferably without the early death, but even that had a certain romance....