Sledding

Baptism of Zane Alton Holloway

Baptisms of Marisol Helen Wilson and Zane Alton Holloway from Daniel Foucachon on Vimeo.

I grew up in a church that did not believe in baptizing babies. I myself was not baptized until the age of 19. All three of my children were baptized as infants. Why? There are Scriptural arguments for both infant and adult baptism. The reason I do this is because I will raise my children as Christians until they prove otherwise and there are great blessings to being raised in such a manner. Can I impart faith to them? Not completely, but I can raise them in an environment that will either nurture faith or reveal their lack thereof. A Jew could be circumsized, but if he did not have faith, was he truly a child of God? And my own children, the offspring of two Christian parents, should they not be considered Christians? To raise a child in the household of two believing parents and to keep them from the benefits of the church because they have not been baptized, would be to raise them as foreigners and alienate them.

Only God truly knows who has faith and who does not. Just because someone prayed a prayer, inviting Jesus into their heart, does that make that person a true believer? And just because someone was dunked, sprinkled, or dipped in water, does that make them true believer? The answer to both is NO. True faith in it's purest essence is something only God knows and gives. But the act of baptism is an act of faith we as believers are called to take and it commences all the blessings of the church to those who are so initiated. I will not withhold all the blessings that are entailed by baptism from my children and treat them inconsistently, not being sure from day to day as to whether they believe or not.. I will assume they have faith, because I, their father, the head of their household, believes. As my family's representative, I will say that my children have faith until they prove otherwise and I will raise them in that faith.

Ain't she pretty?

North Idaho Wolf

The guy in this pic is 6'4" and about 225.  The wolf is fairly normal size for the packs around here.  Imagine a pack of these running around you.

Beautiful pictures.

Left to right: Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Hood (foreground), Mt. Rainier, Mt. Adams.  The bottom right is Meadows Ski Area and near the upper left shoulder of Mt. Hood is Palmer Glacier of Timberline Ski Area.

For more pictures like this, check out http://blainefranger.com/blog/.  Blaine grew up across the street from my parent's house.  He's a great guy and does some inspiring work that has been published nationally in both magazines and on the internet.

An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.
Gilbert K. Chesterton 

Photo on my desk

Our roads are getting more potholes!

"It may, I think, even be argued that Communism in Russia, National Socialism in Germany, and Capitalism and Liberal Democracy in the Western countries are really three forms of the same thing, and that they are all moving by different but parallel paths to the same goal, which is the mechanization of human life and the complete subordination of the individual to the state and to the economic process.  Of course I do not mean to say that they are all absolutely equivalent, and that we have no right to prefer one to another.  But I do believe that a Christian cannot regard any of them as a final solution to the problem of civilization, or even as a tolerable one.  Christianity is bound to protest against any social system which claims the whole of man and sets itself up as the final end of human action, for it asserts that man's essential nature transcends all political and economic forms.  Civilization is a road by which man travels, not a house for him to dwell in.  His true city is elsewhere."  (Christopher Dawson, Religion and the Modern State, 1938).

Getting ready for bed.

General's Month

This is an excellent article about General Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson.  It highlights their opposition to slavery and gives greater depth of understanding as to why the Civil War was fought.

http://www.campaignforliberty.com/article.php?view=516

Monkeys jumping on the bed

Cousins and siblings about to break their heads.