I was extremely busy at work yesterday and today, but they have been good days. Yesterday I was working to get a hydrogen compressor ready for machinists to work on. I one point we had to shut down the work because of a thunderstorm. Everyone left the job site, but I stayed and watched an awesome lightening show. For an hour or so I as watched the storm pass just to the north of our plant. It was beautiful.

After a 10 hour work day, I came home and swung my youngest son on the swing that hangs from an oak tree in the front yard. While I was swinging my youngest, Christian, Ryan and our teenage across the street neighbour read the first three chapters of Acts. I joined them latter as they were having a discussion about biblical “stuff.” Later we went for a walk around the neighbourhood (2 ½ miles) and talked.

Today was busy at work again. We were working with the hydrogen compressor again. I was able to leave after just 8 ½ hours today. When I got home it was time to swing both the little boys on the oak tree swing.

Now I am typing and watching the Brit Hume’s news program on Fox News and typing this. I will soon (when Brit Hume is over) get back with the children.

Coram Deo,
Kenith

Ps. It is still raining every day.
PPS. Lisa's friend Kim is doing much better. She is out of ICU and is recovering.

Today is the third day of nearly constant rain here in South Louisiana, though we did get to see the sun for a little while yesterday evening. I'm home today and out of the rain, but yesterday I had to work in the rain for much of the day (though I was not in the rain as much as the other guys with whom I was working.

Lisa’s very good friend, and her children were in a very bad accident early yesterday morning. Thankfully the children, while badly shaken, came through it unscathed. Lisa’s friend, Kim, is at the hospital in intensive care. She’s banged up pretty badly. Last night, when conscious for a short while she said that she swerved to miss an on coming car in her lane. Thank the Lord; none of Kim’s injuries seem life threatening, so we are hoping for a slow but full recovery.

I took the day off because I was tired and I wanted to be available for Kim and her family if they are in need of any help.

I finished reading Tertullian’s Apologeticum a few nights ago. It was a good read and there were insights there that I found useful. I plan to read more of Tertullian latter, but for know I would like to read some works from other church fathers. This morning I read The Life and Passion of Cyprian, Bishop and Martyr by Pontius the Deacon, who was a disciple of Cyprian in Carthage and not long after writing this short biographical sketch of Cyprian also became a martyr of the Faith of Jesus Christ.
I now plan to begin reading some of Cyprian’s own writings. Cyprian is an important man of the early Church. He, like Tertullian and Augustine was a native of Romanized North Africa.

Lisa and I had a good time at the Turner’s the other night. The other couple were friends of the Turner’s though I had meet the gentleman a number of years ago. All three of us men are members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and so the South and the Late War of Northern Aggression was a fair part of our conversation.
It was good that Lisa and I brought a fifth of Rebel Yell Bourbon (this is Mr. Turner’s preferred whiskey) because they had run dry of the stuff. It was a time of good friends, good conversation, good food, good wine, good dessert, good bourbon and good coffee. That’s hard to beat.

Let me get to other things.
Coram Deo,
Kenith

I'm still working straight days. This week I am working 10 hour days, instead of the eight hours a day I worked last week. Lisa and I have a dinner date this evening, at the Turner’s. There is another couple invited as well, but I don’t think I know them. All three of us men, who are going to be there tonight, are (from what I have been told) Confederate types. So after supper we will have to sit around, sip bourbon (I think I’ll pick up a 5th of Rebel Yell for the occasion) and reminisce about the Lost Cause.

Things have been going well at home. Ryan is still with us, and he is welcome for as long as he likes. He’s started reading some works that I’ve suggested. He should have finished Francis Schaeffer’s How Should We Then Live. He also recently completed the Gospel of Luke and has started the Book of Acts. Christian too recently finished reading Luke and has also started in Acts. He is also reading my old Western Civ. book from college.

The other night the three of us (Christian, Ryan and I) went for a 2 mile walk. During our walk we saw a satellite (space station?). We were trying to figure out what planets we could see, but we were only able to make guesses. We need to look some sky charts.

Coram Deo,
Kenith

It has been over week since I have been able to sit down and write on any of my three blogs. I was taken off shift this week and worked 8 hour days, from 7-3. I am working on the operations plan of an upcoming turn-a-round (i.e. shutdown, catalyst change and maintenance). I think a lot was done, but there is still more that I need to do and will have next week off shift to complete that work.

Wednesday of this week we had a feast at work. Mat brought ten cleaned squirrels someone else brought some deer sausage other folks brought more items. Bud cooked the squirrels and deer sausage in a wonderful gravy. This was a feast when placed over the South Louisiana /Cajun staple- rice. Marlin (Big Dog) provided pecan pie and Blue Bell ice-cream for dessert.

After a feast like that we were kind of useless after our dinner, and luckily it was a mostly quiet afternoon at work that day. The guys had cooked up rabbit and deer sausage the day before, but sadly I missed that meal.

It has been nice to get home early every afternoon this week. The little boys and I were able to go for a number of afternoon walks. I get to point out certain birds and trees for them. We also did our evening readings (them to me and me to them) and of course we pray together every night.

I’m now going to finish this blog and go grab a book and read for a while. I recently started reading Tertullian. Tertullian was born about 160 AD and lived as a pagan before he converted to the Christian faith in the mid to late 190's. He was an educated man of his day and was literate in both Greek and Latin. I’ve read a little of Tertullian’s stuff in the past. Right now I am about half way through his Apologeticum.

I am still working my way through the Iliad and of course I am still reading lots of other stuff. Today I read Peter Leithart’s review of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. I found Leithart’s review to be very insightful and interesting.

Coram Deo,
Kenith

After working last night, I finished this series of graveyards, though the rest of my shift has to work again tonight. Upon leaving the plant Gary J and I stopped at the Circle K for a beer and fellowship before we headed to our respective homes. I got to bed about 6:30 and drifted immediately to sleep.

I awoke this afternoon about one. I was alone and took some time to prayer. After a season of prayer I went outside, sat under the oak in the front of our yard, and began to read. It was warm out, but the grass under the shade of the tree was nice and cool.

I lay on my back with my head leaning on the tree and the monkey grass we planted around the trunk. It was nice laying there reading. There were doves cooing in the trees around me, occasionally a mocking bird would sing or a bluejay let out his hoarse call, and in the ditch at the end of the road, which always has waterin it, a bullfrog joined his voice in with the birds.

I was reading the last of Keith Mathison’s book The Shape of Sola Scriptura. I have read a number of Mathison’s books, and respect him as both a scholar and a writer, but this book was far better and (to my mind) more important than I could have imagined before I read it.

This is the most important book that I have read in at least five years, and maybe as many as ten years. I can not recommend this book to highly.

Coram Deo,
Kenith

My shift finished up on Wednesday evening. I had worked 96 hours in the previous 7 days and had started those seven days work nights and then flip flopped to daylights after a couple of days. On the first two days on daylights I worked 16 hours, starting at 2 AM. In all that my sleep pattern was seriously messed up, because of switching from night shift to day shift, and I did not sleep well. When I fell asleep last Wednesday night I slept for about 13 hours straight.

Yesterday, after my long sleep, I got up and worked around the house. And spent time with Lisa and the kids. The little boys read to me from our McGuffey’s Readers. They are both improving nicely in their ability to read aloud. After they each read to me, I then read to them from a book that we have started. We then had a time of prayer before they were put to bed.

Some weeks back, after our reading and prayer time, I picked up one of them by his hands and feet and placed him in his bed. The other immediately insisted that I do the same for him. They both find this to be a great way of going to bed, so now it has become the routine when I am home. I pick each one up by grabbing both hands and ankles and place them in their beds. They then beg for me to do it again and I usually succumb to their pleas and do it twice.

With all the hours I worked and the trouble we were having at work, I have not been able to read a lot. I am still reading Mathison’s book The Shape of Sola Scriptura. I detoured off of this book again to check out another quote. The Quote was from St. Thomas so read a good bit in St. Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica. I am also reading The Iliad. I have read parts of it in high school but have never read the whole thing. I am also continuing with Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov on tape. One of the tapes was garbled, this equals 1 ½ hours of reading, so I had to read that section for myself.

I am enjoying all three books, though they are very different from one another.

At this moment Lisa is at work, Christian and Ryan have gone to run a few errands and Morgan has taken the little boys to see the new Harry Potter movie. The were supposed to meeting their cousins at the theatre.

I would like to go to Longville this afternoon to visit and do a little fishing. I hope we can go but it will depend on how things play out.

Coram Deo,
Kenith