Family Note

Having a toddler makes me realize how much I used to sit around doing exactly what I wanted.

I still do this as much as possible, but now with more interruptions and requests!

Brendan is definitely in the request stage. Here are the most common:

Watch show!
Go Outside!
Go for walk!
Play toys!
Watch Piderman!

BILW or SIL

Is your brother-in-law's wife your sister-in-law?

Well, anyway, she got some great pics of Brendan at their house yesterday.

Halloween Summary

I often feel like Calvin in Frank Schaeffer's Portofino. I come from a fundamentalist background and I just want my family to be normal. The first step to normalcy is not making every little decision into a grand showdown in my mind between Satan and God.

My family is still a young one (son, age 2. daughter on the way in Dec). But I have no desire to debate How Critically Spiritually Important one's celebration of Halloween is. I know and respect people that do....it's just not a subject that interests me. Atall.

I carved a pumpkin, the boy dressed as Tigger, we went to a neighborhood festival, went trick-or-treating, and watched Nacho Libre as a fam. It was great. I don't see anything in there that deserves the amount of theological speculation this subject is given on the interwebs.

Do Protestants Venerate Saints?

What does veneration mean, in a religious context? It means to give someone honor, to pay someone respect, etc. As human beings, we can't do this gnostically, just unthinkingly sending invisible respect beams to one another.

At little Johnny's birthday, we don't just stand around meditating about his positive attributes. No, we sing to him while he merely listens. We give gifts to him while he simply receives, opens, and responds. We prepare specials foods and decor. We designate an entire day to what is, in material terms, nothing more than a common obstetric procedure.

Catholics can catch a lot of flack for venerating Saints. It is Obviously Idolatry to many unfamiliar with it.

Except for Anglicans, most protestants don't have "Saints" in the Catholic sense. But they do have what are sometimes called "heroes of the faith" or "great figures of the gospel". There are sermons preached on them, books written about them, etc.

[ snark ] Now, I looked on some websites and tried to find out how these super-spiritual protestants are elevated to such a position. Who decides who gets to be Always-Quotable Heroes of the Gospel? There are two main ways:

1. The Magisteria of book publishers decide which biographies will sell.

2. Individual pastors decide which men agree with them and quote them in their sermons. Why do they quote Jonathan Edwards, puritan and not Ralph Toney, Baptist preacher and auto-mechanic? Because they've created an unbiblical adoration of fallible men! [ / snark ]

That totally tongue-in-cheek comparison probably doesn't work on every count, but it can be easily done if I assume that protestants are being disingenuous or un-biblical.

Evening Activities

Had the chimney swept by a company. Put in some new mortar/caulk myself, filing in some cracks inside the fireplace. Got that baby fired up and everybody had a ball.

Hot Wife Alert!

Does Rome "Make" Saints?

1. Catholics acknowledge that the NT addresses Christians on earth as Saints.

2. Catholics realize that the biblical word for saint is even broader than the typical protestant usage.

3. Catholicism does tend to use shorthand, calling the "Saints in Heaven" (and angels) just "Saints". This terminology can lack clarity in some contexts.

4. The Catholic Church, through the processes called canonization, does not make that person a saint. That's a rather crude way of saying it (though common). It would be like saying the Church made Hebrews inspired when the book was canonized. No. The Church has a process whereby she looks at the evidence of person's life and the miracles beyond it and then declares the person is a saint, and already was a saint, before canonization. It is official approval to emulate, venerate, and request the intercession of this Christian who is now in Heaven.

Of course there are real differences between Catholics and Protestants on these issues and I don't expect Protestants to agree with all the Catholic takes on the points above. But it would be inaccurate to say that Catholicism makes Saints through a complicated process in contrast to some plain, biblical truth about the matter.

Potty and Pumpkin and Pick

The kid gets potty trained today by Mommy. He'll be learning via the Toilet Training in Less Than A Day system. Hopefully everything comes out alright.

buh-dump ching.

**Update** Mommy has declared this morning's attempt at potty training a complete and utter failure! D'oh!

Here's a pic of the little guy dressed as Tigger next to the pumpkin I carved. He is eating his newly acquired chocolate. He took to trick-or-treatin' like a fish to water.


Last Saturday, the new cover band I'm in had our first show. I think it went very well. Yes, I'm not just a sassy catholic blogger, I'm also a rock star: