Easter Sunday

Mixing Jackass, lighter fluid and genitals causes trouble

I'm not making this up.

Associated Press

EAU CLAIRE, Wis. — Attempts to duplicate a movie stunt landed one man in the hospital with burned genitals and another facing criminal charges.

The men were trying to do a stunt from one of the Jackass movies, in which a character lights his genitals on fire.

Jared W. Anderson, 20, suffered serious burns to his hands and genitals, according to the criminal complaint. Randell D. Peterson, 43, who sprayed lighter fluid on Anderson and lit him on fire, was charged with felony battery and first-degree reckless endangerment Tuesday in Eau Claire County Court.

Witnesses told police that Anderson, who was drunk, volunteered to do the stunt Sunday after watching the movie, the complaint said.

After Peterson ignited Anderson, he ran into the bathroom, jumped into the tub and put the flames out, according to the complaint. He was taken to Luther Hospital, and eventually treated at the Regions Hospital Burn Unit in St. Paul, Minn., for second-degree burns.

Anderson told police that he didn't want anyone to get in trouble because of the stunt.

Peterson was freed on a $2,000 bond. He has a hearing scheduled April 16. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison.

Ouch.

TR, BR, CR?

If you're presbyterian/reformed and reading here, among the following three categories (defined below), how would you classify yourself? Please leave a comment and if you're comfortable doing so, identify yourself enough that I'll know who you are as you respond. Also, comment on how you perceive others in your circle of influence/observation to be.

• TRULY REFORMED
• BARELY REFORMED
• CATHOLIC REFORMED

And if you're not presbyterian/reformed and reading here, let me know what your impressions are of these different categories and how they relate to your own beliefs.

THE TRULY REFORMED (TRs)

The TRs are conservatives of the most intense sort; and they are fervently committed to the scholastic, Reformed orthodoxy of the 16th and 17th centuries. Almost all are “strict subscriptionists,” holding that statements of faith like the Westminster Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, the Canons and Decrees of the Synod of Dordt, the Belgic Confession, or the London Baptist Confession are virtually summary duplications of Biblical teaching. They are strongly committed to the scholastic formulation of Calvinist doctrine as it comes to the fore, to take an example, in the Westminster Larger and Shorter Catechisms.

THE BARELY REFORMED (BRs)

This group within the Reformed camp is much more committed to a broad evangelicalism than the confessional form of the Reformed Faith. The BRs are pragmatists (and sometimes admittedly so). They are strongly committed to reaching the unsaved, and therefore the evangel, the gospel, means a great deal to them. They often pastor or attend the largest conservative Reformed or Presbyterian congregations in the United States, and they are tireless in their efforts to win souls and increase the size of the congregation. They tend to be less concerned with what they consider secondary doctrinal disputes over literal, six-day creation; women in the ministry or in other church leadership roles; the inroads of Arminianism; evangelistic strategies; the nature of the sacraments; and so forth.

THE CATHOLIC REFORMED (CRs)

Catholic Reformed does not denote Roman (or Eastern) Catholicism, but the manifestly Biblical notion of the universality of the Faith and church (Eph. 4:4) and their description in the Nicene Creed and among the patristic church as “one, holy, catholic and apostolic.” CRs agree with the TRs in identifying three main problems in the modern church as evangelical Arminianism, Protestant liberalism, and Roman Catholicism. We agree that evangelical Arminianism has undermined the gracious character of the gospel; that the European Enlightenment, joining later with Romanticism to produce Protestant liberalism, precipitated a great crisis in the Western church; and that Roman Catholicism undermined the catholicity of the church by insisting on its hegemony and subverts a gratuitous soteriology by insisting that man in some way merit salvation. CRs agree with the BRs, however, in wanting to focus attention on the preaching of the evangel, the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We agree that incessant dispute over comparatively secondary doctrines to the exclusion of the energetic preaching of the gospel has things just backwards, though CRs by no means consider any Biblical doctrine unimportant.

The author is in the 3rd of these categories and is making a case for it. I am curious to know how each of you might classify yourself.

These categories are excerpted from an article I'm reading right now and I'm curious where different people I know fit into or respond to these ideas. You can read the article in its entirety here:

Disclaimer- Links to Internet sites are provided for informational purposes only and do not imply endorsement of the content of those sites or organizations.

We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.

And all the time—such is the tragi-comedy of our situation—we continue to clamour for those very qualities we are rendering impossible. You can hardly open a periodical without coming across the statement that what our civilization needs is more 'drive', or dynamism, or self-sacrifice, or 'creativity'. In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.

C.S. Lewis- The Abolition of Man

On Keeping a Holy Lent

Excerpt from a paper by Craig Higgins, Trinity Presbyterian (Rye, NY) on Lenten observance.

Appendix: Questions for Self-Examination
1. Have I been fervent in prayer? Was there warmth? access?
2. Have I prayed at my stated times? with my family?
3. Have I practiced God’s presence, at least every hour?
4. Have I, before every deliberate action or conversation, considered how it might be turned to God’s glory?
5. Have I sought to center conversations on the other person’s interests and needs and ultimately toward God, or did I turn them toward my own interests?
6. Have I given thanks to God after every pleasant occurrence or time?
7. Have I thought or spoken unkindly of anyone?
8. Have I been careful to avoid proud thoughts or comparing myself to others? Have I done things just for appearance? Have I mused on my own fame or acclaim?
9. Have I been sensitive, warm, and cheerful toward everyone?
10. Have I been impure in my thoughts or glances?
11. Have I confessed sins toward God and others swiftly?
12. Have I over- or under-eaten, -slept, -worked?
13. Have I twisted the truth to look good?
14. Have I been leading in my home, or only reacting to situations?

In his set of questions for self-examination, the late Jack Miller gets right to the point: *
1. Is God working in your life?
2. Have you been repenting of your sin lately?
3. Are you building your life on Christ’s free justification or are you insecure and guilt-ridden?
4. Have you done anything simply because you love Jesus?
5. Have you stopped anything simply because you love Jesus?

If we are honest, the answer to all these questions is no.
This simply helps us name what we tend to ignore.

Two to One

Ephesians 5:31- "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh."

Recently, I converted the blog to use Blogger's new software. In that process, all of the previous posts were attributed to me (Batch).

In truth, many of them are Holly's. Just know that as you read anything prior to 2007 that it may say I wrote it, but it could well belong to Holly.

In a sense, I guess two have become one flesh blog.

Happy Pancake Day

From wikipedia.com

Shrove Tuesday is the term used in the English-speaking countries of the United Kingdom^[1], Ireland^[2], and Australia^[3] to refer to the day after Collop Monday and before Ash Wednesday (the liturgical season of Lent begins on Ash Wednesday). In these countries, and amongst Anglicans in Canada, this day is also known as Pancake Day, because it is customary to eat pancakes on this day.^[4][5][6] In other parts of the world—for example, in historically Catholic and French-speaking parts of the United States and elsewhere—this day is called Mardi Gras, and in areas with large Polish-immigrant populations (for example, Chicago and Detroit) it is known as Paczki Day.

Click here for the full explanation. Thanks to Barlow for the heads up.

She doesn’t always love you back

Southern authors such as William Faulkner, Thomas Wolfe, and Willie Morris often wrote of the ambivalence that native Southerners feel for the South. We Mississippians, perhaps more than other Southerners, feel for our state a tension between love and hate, fascination and rejection.

William Faulkner spoke for many Mississippians when he wrote: “Home again, his native land; he was born of it and his bones will sleep in it. . . . Loving all of it even while he had to hate some of it. . . . He knows now that you don’t love because; you love despite; not for the virtues, but despite the faults.” As Willie Morris said, “You can love Mississippi but she doesn’t always love you back.”

• Charles Sallis: Mississippi as a Prodigal Daughter

Those words penned by Charles Sallis, a Mississippi Native & professor at Millsaps College in Jackson, MS, quote two of the more famous literary Mississippians. I couldn’t find a better way to summarize my thoughts and feelings about leaving (again) the place I’ve always thought of as home.

I first moved away from Mississippi in January of 1998 upon graduation from Mississippi State. Driving the big yellow truck, I wept from the time I left 1712 Lisa Lane until I arrived in Atlanta, GA. Everything significant I’d ever known was there; my future wife, my friends, my family, high school, college and a lifetime of memories. I loved Mississippi dearly and was determined to move back again some day.

After a series of moves around the Southern United States and one stay abroad (Atlanta, Birmingham, Houston, London, Houston), I accomplished that goal in November 2003. A confluence of family events seemed to necessitate our being nearer to family so we packed up and left friends, work and church in Houston, TX, put our belongings in storage and split time between Starkville, MS with my family and Hammond, LA with Holly’s family. Around that same time we had dear friends who lived on the Mississippi Gulf coast and after spending many weekends crashed on their floor, decided that we would give coastal Mississippi life a try.

Our experiences there over the past three plus years have been diverse to say the least; frequently challenging, sometimes joyful, often maddening, occasionally frightening, usually instructive. Now that we are leaving Mississippi again, my prevailing emotions regarding ‘home’ now include sorrow, anger and disappointment.

In retrospect, we likely didn’t need to relocate to be with the family. I was eager to get ‘home’ and am afraid I used those circumstances for my own selfish devices to expedite getting back to the Magnolia State. Don’t get me wrong, it is not that I regret the move as we really have learned a tremendous amount; but my perspective about Mississippi has changed. Again, Willie Morris captured it very well:

There is much of the South, I unhesitatingly confess …, that I wish I could escape forever. I wish I could escape the smoldering malevolence behind a … prolonged racial tirade …. Escape the tenacious righteousness of the "seg academies." … Escape every manifestation of institutionalized, right-wing, fundamentalist religion, richer and more pervasive than it ever was. Escape the ennui of the morgue-like Sundays….

• Willie Morris- Is There A South Anymore?

Yesterday, I wept again as I crossed over the Pearl River on Interstate-10 from Mississippi to Louisiana, unsure if I’ll ever live in my home state again. The “tension between love and hate, fascination and rejection” for Mississippi is somewhat new for me and I am just beginning to understand it. It is clear to me though that you can indeed love her, but she doesn’t always love you back.

Christmas Day

We were graciously invited to enjoy Christmas "lupper" (lunch/supper) with the Leavengoods. Here are a few pictures from the festivities. Apologies in advance for the crazy faces some people are making...I didn't take the picture at the dinner table!! (Yes, that's also known as passing the buck.)


Almost the whole gang...only Pam and Lois are missing from the table at this point...Aidan and Isabel are at the kids table right behind Batch and me.





Isabel was thrilled that Santa brought her a PINK bike. She's not quite sure how to ride it yet, but Aunt Laura was kind enough to help her out...

Missy, Corie and Murphy got a tug-o-war toy they could all enjoy at the same time.

"Grammy" was here...

Ok, so Batch and I don't have children yet so my dog thinks and acts like he's the child of our family. This is especially true when my mom is around. She arrived on the 21st and was able to stay until the 26th- a welcome extended stay! Here's a picture of Luke in his "happy place":

An unexpected Christmas guest

In preparation for our holiday company, Batch was trying to complete one last home project on the 23rd. He was almost finished the project but needed to make a "quick trip" to Lowes. Just around the corner from our house he spotted what he first thought was a deer crossing Bayview...the deer turned out to be a lost Great Dane puppy. We estimate the dog is about a year old, well cared for with a black collar, but NO tags. We've contacted the police department, Humane Society, local Great Dane rescue but have had no success in finding the owners.

Our family arrived on December 26th and the Deans' (Batch's sister and her family) have agreed to take him home with them to Fayette, AL. They have several acres of land and a small horse stable so he will fit right in with them.

Here are some pictures of our unexpected Christmas guest:

Batch returns to Christmas past...

"Santa" was very good to Batch this year and remembered a wish from Christmas past. When we lost our house on the beach all of Batch's train collection was inside. "Santa" decided to use the eBay elves and buy a replacement...I think it was a hit!!

The train set is a vintage 1970s' Lionel Train much like the set Batch had growing up.

Blast from the past...

I ran into our illustrious "plumber", John Tasselari, today in Lowes. A whole flood of emotion came over me as I explained to the guy next to him in line that he shouldn't give him any money because he was a crook. I didn't get super angry, but my blood pressure is still on its way down.

As it turned out the guy I was talking to wasn't with Tasselari. And Tasselari dropped his stuff and left the store immediately.

It is sad/maddening that the authorities aren't able to pursue this guy and that he is here and likely still perpetuating his scam on others.

B

Busy Season

Since it's been a while since we posted, I'll give you a little summary of where we've been.
As is typical for us, the fall is our personal "busy season" (if you don't recognize the terminology, ask an accountant). After enjoying a quiet Labor Day weekend at home, we have been on the road almost non-stop since September 8th. Although it's been a hectic schedule, we have enjoyed the activities and events we've been able to attend. Here's what our schedule has been so far:
- Wedding shower for our friends Skip and Shelly (Jackson, MS)
- MSU football game (Starkville, MS)
- PCA Women in the Church Conference (Holly only- Atlanta, GA)
- Long weekend with Mom M (Columbus, OH)
- Baby shower for Ashely (local- Ocean Springs, MS)

The next couple of weekends involve local activities such as a Pat Green concert tomorrow night in New Orleans then it's back on the road for November. We'll be visiting San Antonio, TX (company meeting); Miami, FL (Holly only- bachelorette party); Birmingham, AL (pit stop to visit friends); Maggie Valley, NC (Thanksgiving); Atlanta, GA (pit stop returning from NC). I'm also trying to plan a party for the Saturday after Thanksgiving since many of my friends from high school will be in town for the holiday.

What can we say, we're tryin to live the saying "Work Hard, Play Hard!" In the midst of all this travel we have made some progress on the house, so I'll try to post some new pictures this weekend or next week.

Patience vs Impatience

I've been confronted with my impatience in a number of ways this week. Just now, as I began to become angry and frustrated (forms of impatience), I searched BibleGateway.com for 'patient'. A number of verses were referenced, but I found particular comfort in the following result.

Ecclesiastes 7:8

8Better is the end of a thing than its beginning,
and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.

I certainly have seen this truth displayed powerfully in the past year. I see it all the time in smaller, everyday matters. Some circumstances seem really difficult as I approach them... dread takes over and I tend to make those circumstances more monstrous than they really are and wonder to myself, "How will I ever survive?". And often, once the 'ordeal' is over, I look back and see that it wasn't really an ordeal at all, but blessing. Sure, it was tough at times, but it was good too. And when I have truly experienced an ordeal, I can see the blessing of our God all the more clearly.

I also, found alot of timely, practical wisdom for some other current struggles in these verses.

2 Timothy 2:22-26

22So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. 23Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. 24And the Lord's servant^[d] must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, 25correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, 26and they may escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.

There's a lot to unpack there, but I just thought I'd share.

B