Today is the Lord’s Day. I did not make it to church because I had to work. I work twelve hour shifts that go from six to six. Today I happened to be on days. I finish my last twelve hours on days tomorrow and will be off until Friday night.

Working Sundays, except for missing Worship services (which is a big deal) are not bad at the refinery where I work, because there are no generally maintenance people and view supervisors. Things are usually relaxed on the weekends.

I just finished saying our evening prayers with the little boys before I came to write for the blog. The boys were getting to bed late so I was going to cut or prayer time short. After we pray our regular prayers we then recite together either the Lord’s Prayer or the Apostles Creed. I was going to skip this last part of our prayer routine, but they would have none of that and wanted to recite the Lord’s Prayer. I was very pleased at this. I then gave them a very short (2 minute) lecture on what we meant when we say “hallowed be thy name” and then we recited the prayer together.

Lisa and I are supposed to sign all the papers to sell our house and buy the new house on the twenty-seventh of this month and we plan to start moving in the new (for us) house on the 28th. The new house is very close to some of my co-workers and to a few of my friends who attend Covenant Presbyterian Church in Sulphur, including the pastor Bill Smith.

I am making large strides in the correspondence of Cyprian (pronounced See-Pree-yan in Cajun), the Martyred Bishop of Carthage (258 AD). I am enjoying it very much and have found it quite interesting. I took a small break from Cyprian this weekend and read Imitation of Christ (book 1) by Thomas à Kempis . This is an absolute goldmine. Kempis lived from 1380-1471 and was a member of the Brothers of the Common Life. Which was a pre-Reformation spiritual renewal movement within the Medieval Church, that was centered in the Netherlands.

The book is written for Religious (i.e. Monks) so I do have points of disagreement with à Kempis, but it is clear that he loves the Lord and almost all that he says here needs to be heard by Christians today. His promotion of asceticism is (I believe) off base, but even this aspect of his book should be read and heeded to some extent to check the rabid materialism and “ME-ism” that has infested much of the Church and so many Christians in our own Culture.

The introduction, which was written in the late 19th century, to the copy of Imitation of Christ that I read pointed out that this book was then second only to the Bible as the most popular book of the day. I believe this book, which is well over 500 years old needs to be read by more Christians today.

Coram Deo,
Kenith