Easter Recap

We had a great Easter week at home in Middleboro, MA. Here are a few pictures: 

Jeremy, my dad, Jenna and I took a walk in Plymouth and stopped to say hello to the 'boat.'

Jeremy and I have a lot of memories in ye ol' Plymouth. 

I like this picture.

The Delancey kids defending against the "sleeping giant" (aka Uncle Jeremy) 

Ruth saying Happy Easter to one of the new chicks.

Sammy :-)

Fishing with Dennis, Jay and Jeremy after Easter dinner. Here's me with my first catch, a bass.

Lola, Bob, Jay (Jeremy's cousin) and me... and that's Benson in the water (left).

On our drive home, we stopped Hammonasset State Park in CT for lunch. 

Egg Rolls, Belatedly

The weekend before Easter my Auntie Karen and Uncle Bill came for a visit from Vancouver, BC. The pictures are soooo yummy.

If anyone hasn't experienced my Grandma Mac's eggrolls, just feast your eyes below. Beware of drooling.

The Hunt Club

Title: The Hunt Club 1998


Author: Bret Lott, b. 1958

Genre: mystery, suspense

Themes: family, sin, greed, love

Review: If Bret Lott's The Hunt Club were a movie, Nicolas Cage would be its star. Overflowing with murders, chase scenes, illicit lovers, and the discovery of national treasures, I keep picturing Cage's sallow face and receding hairline, melodramatically windswept, charging across the pages of The Hunt Club as Leland Dillard ('Unc') in this 1998 novel. This is not a compliment.

Leland Dillard is the strong and silent type. He's blind (he lost his sight diving into a burning house to save his dying wife), but he's no invalid. He and his 15 year-old nephew Huger ('YOU-gee') are the proprietors of a backwoods hunting club on the banks of the Ashepoo River in South Carolina. 

On page two of the story, Leland smells blood and finds a brutally murdered body lying between hunting stands 17 and 18. The rest of the book is a who-done-it? narrated by Huger. 

This is my second reading of The Hunt Club. I read it my senior year in college (I found a plane ticket stub dated December 2005 wedged in the back pages to prove it). At the time, I was studying Bret Lott to see what difference a writer's belief in Christ makes to his (or her) craft. Now I remember that I had to leave The Hunt Club out of my study.

Although Lott has 1 Timothy 5:24 printed before the title page ("The sins of some men are obvious, reaching the place of judgment ahead of them; the sins of others trail behind them"), there are just far too many f-bombs and ruthless acts of violence to enjoy this book as a Believer.

Christian convictions aside, the plot is also too fast and the characters are, consequently, unfinished, as if Lott wanted Leland and Huger to be more complex human beings, but lost control and let the need-for-speed and gut-gripping action mow them down.

Bret Lott is a talented writer. I've actually read everything he's written to date. I just don't think suspense writing is his genre. Mr. Lott, take my humble advice... leave the gun slinging and chase scenes to Nicolas Cage and stick to the insightful, people-based stories you do best. 

House for Free

Apparently the Hannah B.G. Shaw Home for the Aged in Middleboro is giving away my dream house for free. Its a mid-18th century traditional Cape-style home with three (3!!!) fireplaces, a modern kitchen, beautiful local hardwood floors---and yeah, its free---if you can move it...

Jigga whaat? you ask...

Here's the story. At home in Middleboro, the Hannah B.G. Shaw Home recently purchased land to expand their top-ranked community. But before they can start building, they need to clear out the old home standing in their way. Instead of razing it, they want to give it to anyone who will move it.

No joke.

Jeremy emailed the contact person earlier this afternoon and plans to follow-up by phone tomorrow morning. It's worth an inquiry, right? The Hannah B.G. Shaw Home said they will help defray relocation costs, so if we can find a good spot somewhere in Middleboro to place it... a job in Middleboro... a few house restoration geniuses...

Enough dreaming... just check out these pictures:

Fireplace #1... Can't you just imagine filling that bench seat with quilts, pulling one out, and reading next to the fire on a cold day? 

Kitchen: I love the dark wood floor, dark beams, and white cabinets. PS: note the stainless steel appliances...

Fireplace #2: Jeremy especially loves the pine in this room.

Fireplace #3: Beehive oven / fireplace in the kitchen! 

Baller Reunion

Today was a great reunion. Marita, Sass, Emick, Laner-bop-de-bop-bop-de-boop and I met in Reading, PA and spent a solid four hours catching up over soup and salad (and cookies) at Panera.

For inquiring minds who want to know...

• Marita is now mom to 1 yr. old Cole 
• Sass is teaching 6th grade math 
• Emick is teaching 2nd grade, and 
• Lane is coaching basketball, training clients at her new in-home gym, working at her family's safari wildlife park (Lake Tobias) and planning her upcoming wedding.  

It was great to hear everyone's news. I really appreciate this group of girls. The ties we built in college while playing basketball together, rooming together, traveling together, and generally being "squirrels" together have perhaps loosened with time and distance, but at the end of the day, they've not changed. I know I can count on these girls to genuinely share my joys and sorrows---and to provide a few laughs, of course. Thanks friends! 

Spring Slowly Springing

Although it snowed here in Philly last Friday, small signs of spring are springing up in our neighborhood. Yesterday, we took a walk in Jenkins Arboretum, about a mile down the road from our condo complex.

 Jenkins Arboretum has lots adirondack chairs to sit down and enjoy the trees, walkways, pond, and sometime soon, the flowers.   

For the last several months, the arboretum has been hosting a temporary outdoor sculpture exhibition called "Wind through the Trees." All the sculptures are designed to move and spin in the wind. 

We found a tree in bloom!

 My personal favorite sculpture, which is suspended over the pond by strong wires.

 There was a lost dog named Lucky in the arboretum. We played with him until his owner arrived to take him home.

 Meredith and Kyle joined us later in the afternoon before heading back to our place for dinner.

 There are several of these large watering cans at the arboretum, each uniquely decorated. Meredith loves (and collects) elephants.

When we got back home, the deer who live in the field behind our parking lot were out and about. 

The Application of Salvation

As it turns out, its easier and kinder to ask Jeremy about what he's studying when he's not studying.

Today is Saturday, so let's see if Jeremy can sum up excerpts from Bavinck's Reformed Dogmatics: Holy Spirit, Church and New Creation Volume 4.

First off, Jeremy tells me, the theology of salvation has historically been broken up into two streams of thought...

1. the history of salvation: Christ's incarnation, death, resurrection and exaltation, and
2. the order of salvation: how the salvation of Christ is applied to a believer's life---i.e. when is a believer saved? Does it start with the believer's faith or with Christ's work of regeneration? 

In the order of salvation, its critical---essential---that we affirm according to Scripture that regeneration precedes faith. Regeneration is being "born again" or born of God.

If we confuse this order and believe that faith---or human decision to follow God---comes first, then our salvation is not through God, it is through oneself. As we go about life, we could just as easily decide not to have faith. Our salvation is unsure.

When Nicodemus (a Pharisee and member of the Jewish ruling council) came to Jesus in John 3:3-8 and asked the pinpoint question, "How can a man be born when he is old?" Jesus said to him:

I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.

Likewise Paul reminded the Church in Ephesus in Ephesians 2:

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in our transgressions...  

It is by grace you have been saved, through faith---and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God---not by works, so that no one can boast.

God does the work. He is the Savior. When Jesus says, "I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand" (John 10:28), we can believe and trust Him confidently.

What is more, as we grow in faith and understanding God's power to save, we can give Him the proper credit and glory for what He has done.