Asa and the Newsboys

There's a song that's fairly popular in the Christian music world by the Newsboys called "In the Hands of God." That song includes, in the main refrain, the following lyric:
"... rest for the restless, and the weary, hope for the sinner..."

Asa is very emphatic on this point, and recognizes this song for this particular lyric, which he sings:
"... rest for the restless, and the wee wee, hope for the sinner..."

What do you do with that?

The Human Genome Project and Christian Theology

I'm assuming you've heard of the Human Genome Project, the much ballyhooed endeavor to map every strand of human DNA. Much has been made of the potential that could be ours if we could master and manipulate the genetic code. Much of this, of course, is (or would be) great. It is also, however, a humanist's dream. In the words of Fast Company magazine:

It is one of the biggest scientific endeavors in history, premised on the notion that the results can be used to prevent or fix many things, or possibly everything, that ails the human body - from allergies to cancer to aging itself. (emphasis added)

That's heady stuff. In fact, it's no leap to say that what is described here is nothing less than salvation by other means, the fountain of youth, eternal life achieved by our own ingenuity. Think of a world without sickness, without aging (without death?), with a quick fix to any malady.

Well the genome was finally mapped 6-7 years ago. Fast Company, again:

Yes, we've cracked the genome. Experts can identify every one of the 3 billion bases in every micrometer of DNA in any cell in your body. But so far, that has given the medical world no more ability to treat or predict most illness than knowing that Al Qaeda is camped out in Waziristan has allowed the U.S. government to clean up terrorism or predict where it will strike next. In fact, while thousands of links have been cataloged in journals and trumpeted in the media, with precious few exceptions virtually no promising new treatments or even highly useful diagnostics have emerged. And the situation is unlikely to improve anytime soon.

What happened? Well it turns out that these things are pretty messy, complicated, etc. These genetic connections "happen to be hideously convoluted." You can read more about it all in the Fast Company article.

But I suggest that Christian theology/worldview might have something to say about this (it usually does). All of this seems to me to corroborate the doctrine of sin, specifically the idea that the world is completely screwed up because of the Fall, which is to say because of human sin. Allergies and cancer and Parkinson's and aging and death are a part of life on a fallen planet because it has been marred by sin.

That's clearly not an explanation that would satisfy most scientists, operating as they do from a naturalist / secular humanistic worldview and presuppositions. But maybe it might be enough to make a few of them think about it and ask bigger questions. I hope they do cure cancer, but they won't ultimately cheat death. Only one man has done that, so it stands to reason that he'd be the only one to tell us how.

Chick-fil-A on wheat?

I was amused at Chick-fil-A tonight when the girl taking my order asked if I'd like a wheat bun for my Chick-fil-A sandwich. Because, obviously, the guy ordering a fried chicken sandwich, fries, and a Coke is really into making health-conscious food decisions tonight. Was it an attempt to assuage my guilt? Could I take some shred of dignity and self-satisfaction away from my fast food meal because I boldly proclaimed my preference for the wheat bun? Or were they merely trying to squeeze another 20 cents out of me?

Alas, it turns out I made the responsible decision and opted for the wheat. The sandwich wasn't quite as tasty, but I took my stand for my health, right?

Lydia Grace

Lydia Grace Forrest (or, as Asa calls her, Lydia Grace Speedy Forrest) was born this morning at 7:45. The delivery was mostly good and incident free. Everyone is doing well. Yes this is a low-res picture from my phone, but it's all that I've uploaded thus far. I'll load up Flikr later.

The Boys' Weekend

A couple funny kid items from the weekend:

* Asa learned to play musical chairs in his class at church this morning. They played twice and he was, according to the teachers, the first one out both times. Evidently he was basically willing to give up his seat for the other kids who wanted it. That's both pitiful, funny, and endearing all at once.

* This evening we had some friends over (Matt and Anna M). They have served as babysitters for us on numerous ocassions. Asa was excited to see them (he'd been anticipating their arrival all afternoon). Eli, however, had a different response. As soon as he saw them walk in, he stood up, began sobbing, said "Mama" and went straight to Keri to hold on to her. He thought for sure we must be leaving. Again, pitiful and funny at the same time. (Not surprisingly, the thing that finally broke his mood was his favorite thing in the world: reading "Go Dog Go.")

* Asa was inspired by the French Open (Roger Federer specifically) to play a little tennis. So we got my racquetball racket out (about the right size, for now anyway) and began teaching him a bit in the driveway. Not surprisingly, he took to it fairly well. He does conflate his sports a bit. He was confusing tennis with baseball a little bit (the way he'd get into a stance and ready to swing), and then he'd say "Throw it to me, I'm open" - so football is up there somewhere too.

* We enjoyed a few minutes of MLS Futbol on Telemundo again this afternoon (we've done that a few Sundays). We all enjoy it when someone scores and the announcer (along with us) calls "Gooooooooooooooooooooooooooool!"

Death of a Blog? Nah... Perhaps a New Start

There was a time when my job afforded me lots of dead time in front of a computer screen waiting on customers to enter a store. So I started a blog and blogged a lot. I was into it and was, for a little while, getting 100 hits a day or thereabouts. There was politics (national and denominational), culture/worldviewish stuff I was studying, etc.

Happily, I don't have that job anymore. Now I don't have the time and, frankly, I'm not sure I have anything all that interesting to say. And even if I did, I'm not sure that anyone is here to read it! It seems that blogs in general aren't what they once were. Sure there are some big-time blogs that emerged at the right time with the right content and achieved a wide readership.

So I've thought about killing this thing. But I won't.

Instead, I'm going to be more intentional in making it the Forrest Family Blog. I'll use it to post funny anecdotes and quotes from the kids and that sort of thing. I may put occasional pictures on it, but really I'll utilize Flickr for that since I ponied up the $25/year to do so (and since it is a much better format for photos). Thought about changing the URL to something like ForrestFamily... but for now I already have this one, and there's plenty of family stuff mixed in with the first five years of this blog.

The timing is good... Lydia Grace will likely be here in about 10 days. Here we go...

This and that

A few random things that have been going on...

* Eli cannot get enough of "Go Dog Go" - and who can blame him? It's got lots of dogs and they often drive cars. He talks his way through it... sort of. "Ah-Ah" for dog. "Guh dah guh" is the title. "heh-wo" in a very high pitched voice when the girl dog greets the guy dog and asks if he likes her hat. You get the idea...

* Asa had to get an impromptu shower one morning this week after slipping into the potty... after the fact...

* Asa has been up 3 nights in a row with nightmares. He's scared of the dark for some reason. And once he has a nightmare, he cannot stand to remain in his room. And we've long since passed the point in pregnancy when we have room for him in ours. So I stagger out of bed and manage to get him set up on the couch. It's really a bit frustrating - we need to be sleeping these final pre-newborn days.

"You need to get your shoes, big guy."

-- Asa, to me as we're leaving the house a couple weeks ago.

Photoblog Updated

If you're curious, I've posted a bunch of pictures on my photoblog. There are family pictures (mostly the boys) and a number of scenic-type pictures (me having some fun with the camera). The date of each post is an approximation of when the photo was taken, but everything on the first page was uploaded in the last week or so. It's a handy way of backing up and sharing photos.

Good Music

Let's mark March 3 on the calendar! It will likely be a good day for music fans.