The Christian Straw Man

Sometimes I go for days (or even longer) without making a post.  It frustrates me (and I know that it's discouraging to follow a blog and see no activity for weeks) because it's not for lack of material that I don't write more frequently, but for lack of discipline.  Too often I have dozens of ideas floating around in my head, and my brain ends up resembling the frantic but ultimately pointless hamster running on the exercise wheel in his cage.  This morning, at the dark and early hour of 5:30, as I was on my walk, I prayed for God to prompt me about what to write today.  I've still got the chaotic swirl of ideas swirling beneath the surface, but one topic really stood out to me today, so that's the one I'm going to tackle.  And, as often happens when I begin to really quiet myself and begin to process and right - I've realized that this topic is not to be dealt with in one post.  To do it justice, I will write a series of posts on the topic. 

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With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God's likeness.  Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing.  My brothers, this should not be.
James 3:9-10
I'm a decently educated woman.  I attended a secular college and, having a liberal arts focus on my music degree (rather than a strict performance or teaching focus), I had the opportunity to take lots of upper level history and philosophy classes.  I cannot fully articulate the gratitude I give to God for guiding me down that path.  I think so much fear, rigidity, and oppression I see in fundamentalist Christian circles is due to a lack of a broad-based education.  Humans are programmed to fear that which they don't understand.  And that fear sometimes turns into an extremism.  That extremism has manifested itself in many facets, and so broadly that I can't tackle it in one post, hence I plan to do a series on the subject (that was positively God-inspired, because the thought didn't even occur to me prior to this morning).  Today, I want to tackle the umbrella issue - The Fundamentalist Christian's Straw Man.  I am a Fundamentalist Christian.  But probably not in the most understood sense of the term.  I believe in the fundamentals of faith.  I'm an absolutist.  I wholeheartedly reject any doctrine that smacks of relativism or universalism.  But beyond those things, I reject the label as holding any meaning about my lifestyle, my politics, and my view on American culture.  In doing so, and in combination with my education, I view things through a slightly different lens than many of my Fundamentalist Christian sisters (and brothers).  And what I see is often not good.

 

I see that many devout Christ-followers have created a Straw Man that they repeatedly and fervently beat with the stick of unholy righteousness.  That Straw Man is a corruption of modern American culture.  Of course it stands to reason that the Straw Man bears a resemblance to reality, that's an integral part of the concept of the straw man.  But it's only a hollow shell, a Frankenstein creation that's patched together with the worst tidbits of society, half-truths, and persistent and pernicious myths.  This misrepresentation collides with the devout Christian's penchant for insidious and malicious nostalgia.  I understand nostalgia, and it doesn't have to be bad.  I've always felt a love for eras past.  I've often complained, in jest (hey, what can I say, I like indoor plumbing and not having to butcher my own animals), that I was born in the wrong era.  But, that fascination has to be tempered with a healthy dose of reality.  One can't simply plug themselves into a Jane Austen or Laura Ingalls Wilder novel or pop into a pastoral painting and pretend that that was what the past was truly like.  Read the great tragic novels of the past too: Emilie Zola's Germinal will remind you that unrestrained capitalism is not the answer to every problem, Victor Hugo's Les Miserables will help you understand that human justice is a weak, inherently flawed construct, Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina reminds us that society's judgement is frequently more vicious and less forgiving than God himself.  Better yet - look to the Great Book itself.  It's full of stories of wickedness and depravity.  And those are the heroes of the faith!  Great acts of malevolence are not a modern American invention.  Neither is sexual immorality, idolatry, greed, abortion, murder, or persecution.  All have existed as long as the earth has been populated with people, and will continue to exist until the Heavenly Father says "enough".  Be vigilant about romanticizing bygone eras.

Another danger that lies in the propagation of the Straw Man is that it inevitably involves deceit. The internet and social media especially allows a half-truth (or even a blatant lie) to spread like proverbial wildfire.  I've been on the receiving end of many a forward email spreading false information or wild conspiracy theories, and have seen innumerable malicious memes posted on Facebook by folks who purport to be Christians.  This cannot stand!  If Christ-followers will not stand for Truth, then who will?  In 1 Thessalonians 5:22, we are commanded to avoid even the appearance of evil.  What a heavy responsibility!  Do you want to know what phrase is not biblical?  "The end justifies the means".  That's the spirit of Prince Machiavelli, not the Prince of Peace.  Think twice about reposting that cutting meme that fudges statistics or misinterprets Scripture because you agree with the general sentiment.  God is not half so righteously angry with the coarse language of one of the lost as he is with the lies coming from the mouths of His children. 

The Straw Man is hazardous to our Christian life because it puffs us up with pride.  We've spent time constructing him stitch by stitch to conform to and confirm our deeply held misconceptions and prejudices, and, like any good maker, we know intimately his weaknesses.  So we strike accordingly, heaping scorn and derision on the Straw Man.  We beat him to a pulp and stand on the deflated effigy and declare victory in the name of our Lord.  But what a cheap victory it is - a victory by absentia.  Because the Straw Man is our creation.  Nothing more.  How meaningless that is to the Lord of Hosts!  And then comes the real danger.  We extrapolate our nefarious, patchwork Straw Man onto actual people.  Random strangers, our co-workers, our friends, even our family assume all of the evil-bloated characteristics of our creation.  And, we've already established, in our heads and in our circle of likeminded and "like-lifestyled" devout Christians, that the Straw Man is hopelessly, irredeemably immoral and degenerate, which means that the entire American culture is a lost cause.  But cultures don't exist in a vacuum, as much as we'd like to pretend otherwise.  At its simplest, culture is merely a term for a group of people who share a specific spot on the map.  So, we cannot demonize American culture without demonizing American people.  And that, my friend, we are expressly forbidden from doing.  That right belongs to God alone.

Plainly put, a war is a means of gaining and strengthening power.  A culture war is no different.  But what is power to a Christ-follower?  Power is meaningless.  1 Peter 2:23 says "When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats.  Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly."  We are to die unto ourselves to follow Christ.  In his divinity, he demolished the ancient code of laws and regulations that was but a shadow of how to life a godly life.  Now we must simply follow his example - what freedom and lightness, just as He promised!  There was no need for Christ to gain power, in the temporal sense, and there is no need today for his followers to be so utterly and completely occupied with power.  My fellow sisters and brothers in Christ, lay down your Straw Men.  Lay down your sharp tongues and deceitful weapons.  You are not called to be a cultural warrior.  "But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.  Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness."  James 3:17-18.   

I'm Broken Too

It's time.

I know, from my own reading of blogs and Facebook posts, how daunting it is to take a selective peek into another woman's life. It reminds me of several years ago, when we were house-hunting. You'd walk into a house that you knew was full of family life, yet it'd be perfectly clean, organized, and decorated. I'd be so struck by this, that I'd immediately feel longing. Not for the house, but for the perfect life that appeared to inhabit the space. Because my life is so far from perfect. In fact, I'd say that it's messier than most. I struggle with children that are full of "spit and vinegar" as the old saying goes. You might hear me brag about their accomplishments in school or extracurricular activities (although hopefully not too much). I do this because I am proud, yes, but mostly because it helps me get through the dark times of defiance and testing. I share pictures of the events we do as a family, and of the meals we have. But I share those because they are the good times. I don't share the pictures of days like yesterday, where I fall into bed mentally and emotionally broken from a rough day. I don't share the pictures of the family eating takeout pizza. But they are very real in this family. Painfully real. I'm just a broken mom, trying to do her best. Just like you. Always remember that, no matter what you read on my blog.   

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Holidays - Out with the "New", in with the "Old"

I've been mulling over holidays a lot since last fall.  I was raised and have been raising my kids as American traditionalists.  We celebrate all the mainstream American holidays, to varying degrees: New Year's, Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, Easter (in the secular sense), Mother's Day, Father's Day, Fourth of July, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas (also secularily).  I never really thought much about it - it was just our comfortable default.  But, especially after Halloween, I started thinking about the arbitrariness of some of our holidays.  Don't get me wrong, you are not going to hear from me a list of reasons why Christians shouldn't enjoy Halloween or secular Christmas traditions - I've read those lists many times over, and mostly I see historical inaccuracies, misinformation, and a spirit of fear pervading the author.  I refuse to live my life in the bondage of legalism.  That is never what motivates my decisions to be countercultural!  But, I feel less and less of a pull towards many things that are accepted as normal and as-it-should-be in our culture.  Holidays are no exception.  And, if many of the holidays we celebrate are arbitrary and reflective of ancient pagan cultures, I've been thinking - why not look towards perhaps alternatively celebrating some of the Jewish holidays?  Now, don't get me wrong - there's nothing redemptive or "holy" about celebrating Rosh Hashanah instead of Halloween.  Perhaps you merely feel called to celebrate fall in a God-honoring way of your own.  But, for my family, I think that there is value in understanding the history of our faith, which is, in part, the history of Judaism.  It is important to me to find ways to incorporate my ethnic ancestry into my family's culture, and I think that my "faith history" is at least as important, if not more so.  So, in light of this, we decided to celebrate our first Fife family Passover seder.  I've been exposed to the seder meal before, when I was a child, but never the service.  Our pastor was so kind as to loan us the necessary materials (a Haggadah, which is the liturgy of the seder, and then a bunch of the physical objects you need), and we tried to do our very best.  It was a wonderful experience (and tiring too - with a day full of preparations/cooking).  The older kids were quiet and respectful, and the younger kids, well not so much, but hopefully as it becomes a tradition (and they get older), they'll start to see the beauty in it.  The seder, from start to finish, took about three and a half hours (with potty and discipline breaks LOL) and after washing a few of the dishes, mopping up a last-minute wine spill, and sweeping the floor, we fell into bed at 11 that night, thoroughly exhausted and spiritually nourished.

Note the orderliness pre-meal :-)

Hard-boiled eggs (an appetizer for our feast) were the first to go (and Colin's kippah had a mind of it's own - or possibly Colin has a funny-shaped head LOL)

Ian had the most fun of the children

 

Allegra and Ian

Our esteemed leader (and the only one, besides Cecily, who truly enjoyed the lamb, although everything liked the Chicken and Matzo Ball soup, and the Noodle Kugel)

Elle konked out on the table about 30 minutes before we finished (and after she spent a good 20 minutes amusing herself by crushing matzot into fine pieces and sprinkling it on the floor)

This was how Colin ended the night.  He was sound asleep right there, underneath the table.

By the end of the night, it was 2.5 men down (Ian didn't fall all the way asleep, but he was happy to keep Elle company using the table as a pillow). 

Healthy Eating Success! (and recipes)

 So far we've done really well on our new healthy eating lifestyle.  We're three weeks in and I just did our second grocery store run last week and it was even more successful than last time!  I supplied all of our needs (not quite through the end of March, but only a few days short), my cart was almost exclusively bulk stuff and produce, and my total came to less than $80!  We've also DRASTICALLY reduced the amount of times we eat out - both fast food and sit-down dinners.  We've stopped at the drive-thru for lunch/dinner twice this month, and eaten out once.  One of our favorites was the Pesto Cream Green Beans with Almonds (making your own pesto is crazy easy!) - we had it two nights in a row, as a side, it was so good - once with "floppy joes" (faux sloppy joes - vegetarian) and once with Spicy Italian Pork Chops.

Basic Basil Pesto
  1 large clove garlic
5 loosely packed cups fresh basil leaves
1 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
6 tablespoons pine nuts
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/2 teaspoon salt (I used kosher salt)
1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper

Put the garlic in a food processor and process until finely chopped, about 10 seconds.  Add basil, cheese, and pine nuts.  Process until finely chopped, about 20 seconds.  With the processor on, pore the oil through the feed tube in a slow, steady stream, processing until the mixture forms a loose paste, about 20 seconds.  Add the salt and pepper through the feed tube and process until blended.  Use immediately or freeze in an airtight container for up to 1 year.  Use a melon baller to scoop out frozen pesto as necessary.  (Makes 1 cup)

Pesto Cream Green Beans with Almonds
8 oz green beans
2 tablespoons Basic Basil Pesto
1 1/2 tablespoons half and half (or light or heavy cream)
1/8 teaspoon salt (again, I prefer kosher or sea salt)
1/8 tsp ground black pepper
2 tablespoons chopped almonds

Put the green beans in a steamer basket and set over a pan of simmering water.  Cover and steam over medium heat until the green beans are desired tenderness (my kids prefer a softer green bean, but older kids/adults might prefer them crisper).  Meanwhile, mix together the pesto, half and half (or cream), salt, and pepper in a medium bowl.  Add the hot green beans and toss to coat.  Put in a serving bowl and sprinkle with the almonds.  (Serves 4 - I doubled it)

 

Spicy Italian Pork Chops
1/4 cup drained oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes
1 cup bottled Italian salad dressing
4 pork loin chops
1 teaspoon salt (kosher or sea)
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup dry white wine
2 tablespoons mild pepper sauce (such as Frank's)

In a food processor, puree the sun-dried tomatoes with the Italian dressing; set aside.  Season the chops with salt and pepper.  Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.  When hot, add the chops and brown on both sides, about 3 minutes per side.  Add the wine and bring to a simmer.  Pour the dressing mixture over the pork.  Reduce the heat to medium, cover, and simmer until the pork reaches 160 degrees and the juices run clear (about 10 minutes).  Stir in the pepper sauce and return to a boil.  Serve the chops topped with sauce - garnish with basil or parsley if desired.  (serves 4 - I doubled it easily)

This is an awesome recipe that is super flavorful and easy.  I put it together in less than 10 minutes before a violin student came, and left it on the stovetop, on low, for an hour's worth of lessons and it was ready to go as soon as my students were out the door, which I love.  My family is hungry as soon as I get done teaching, and they don't really like to wait for me to make dinner, so I'm super fond of any recipes like this that are flexible enough to make ahead and "sit", if necessary.  I served it with the Pesto Cream Green Beans with Almonds, and my homemade bread.





Floppy Joes (they call them G.I. Joes, but my kids prefer Floppy Joes)
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 onion, chopped (I skip, but I know most people like onions)
1 red pepper, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 bag (12 oz) frozen meatless crumbles
1 can (28oz) crushed tomatoes
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt (kosher or sea)
6 soft Kaiser rolls or hamburger buns

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat; add the onion (if used), bell pepper, and garlic.  Cook until the vegetables begin to soften, about 5 minutes.  Stir in the crumbles and cook until heated through, another 5 minutes or so.  Stir in the crushed tomatoes, soy sauce, vinegar, sugar, chili powder, oregano, cumin, black pepper, and salt.  Reduce heat to medium-low and cook until thick enough to sit on a bum without running, about 20 minutes.  (Makes 6 servings - we doubled it)

My husband is very skeptical about meat substitutes, but he was won over by this one.  It's so flavorful that you don't feel like you are missing out on meat (my kids would hardly believe that it wasn't ground beef).  My mother-in-law cans, bless her heart, so, in doubling the recipe, I used 1 can of store-bought crushed tomatoes mixed with 1 jar of pureed whole tomatoes and it was a bit runnier than just store-bought crushed tomatoes, but yummy.  I baked my own rolls (I haven't found my "perfect" roll/bun recipe yet - I'm still experimenting with different ones, so if you have a go-to recipe, please share!) as an extra treat.

All recipes came from the book/cookbook Fresh Choices (although some are a bit modified)

Another Christian's View on Birth Control

This is a touchy subject, and I really didn't know if I wanted to put myself out there like this.  But, I've read several Christian women's posts about the topic and I often see the same things said over and over again, and I think "well, my story is a little different", so maybe I do have something to add.  I actually typed this up originally as a response to someone else's blog about birth control, but it was rejected because it was too long (story of my life LOL).  And indeed, it probably is better suited to my own blog, since it's so personal.  My husband and I married at the ages of 21 and 19 respectively, and the moment the ink was dry on that marriage license I knew I wanted to have a baby (I'm not kidding - I pestered James about it during our entire honeymoon in Hawaii, just ask him and he'll groan in remembrance [when I want something, I'm like a dog with a bone - I'm doing better about that as I get older, but it's tough]).  Our first came two months after our first wedding anniversary.  Over the course of 11 years of pregnancy and child-bearing we had 6 children (including the last three all within 38 months).  Neither James nor I have ever decided against having children because we want more material things.  Indeed, wanting a big family has come naturally to us, and we'd rather be pregnant or have a nursling than not.  But, as I dealt with three back-to-back-to-back pregnancies that resulted in some serious health issues for me (including a very long, very tough battle with PPD/pregnancy depression for two full years) and we were faced with economic hardships, we had to stop relying on the Cultural Christian way of thinking (that birth control is bad, and that people who use it do not have strong enough faith in God, etc), and instead look into God's Word and get with him in prayer.  As we studied, God filled our hearts with peace - we felt called to be good stewards of the gift of fertility that he bestowed upon us.  We are often instructed, in the Bible, to be good stewards of all of God's blessings.  We realized that having children that we couldn't afford, and that we would have to rely on outside assistance to care for, and that would endanger my health and my ability to nurture and fully engage with the six children I already had been blessed with wasn't being a good steward.  Just having a child does not bring glory to God (obviously, since non-Christians have children every day) - raising them up in God's holy ways is what is honoring to the Lord.  If having another child interfered with our ability to do that with our current six, then we were not honoring him with our bodies and our resources.  Feeling God's urging for us to be good stewards of our fertility, we next tackled the issue of just HOW we should go about planning our family.  We never considered hormonal birth control, because I will not use artificial hormones.  I don't like them, and I don't want them in my body.  Next we considered natural family planning/barrier methods.  I love this method for most couples, alas it is not a very effective method for us (I don't want to get into particulars, but we've tried it and my unpredictability makes it useful to know when to go out and get a pregnancy test, but that's about it).  We strongly considered the vasectomy - in fact we were leaning towards it pretty certainly, but God put an immediate NO sign up for both of us when we brought it to him in prayer.  Our economic situation, and my health concerns, are not permanent problems that would indicate that we should forever close the door on that chapter in our lives.  Instead, it became clear that the non-hormonal IUD was the right choice for us as a couple.  It works most effectively by preventing sperm from breaching the cervix, but there is a chance that it can work by preventing implantation of a fertilized egg.  So, we were diligently back into the scriptures, trying to find out what God really says about fertility, the womb, and life.  We were shocked to find out that there is no biblical source for calling conception the beginning of life.  It seems to be accepted, amongst most Christians, that that is a biblical truism.  But it's not.  The Bible talks instead about God knowing people in the womb (with the exception of Jeremiah - whom God knew and called to the role of prophet even BEFORE he was in the womb - how mind-blowing is that?! but not really helpful in terms of the birth control discussion because that would mean that any type of preventing, even just timely abstinence, would be sinful).  This was a convicting moment for us - we absolutely agree that life starts somewhere in the womb, we just don't think that it's necessarily at egg fertilization.  Fertilization is one step in a multi-step procedure (instituted, of course, by God), ALL of which are necessary for a potential life to become a realized life.  So, we felt that using the non-hormonal IUD, with a heart oriented towards submission to God and His word and at being the best stewards of his blessings that we could possibly be, was no different than a couple abstaining from sex during a fertile window, or using a condom, or opting for sterilization.  Our family has been so blessed in all ways these last two years, and we've felt little but his peace about our decision.  The most exciting part is that our financial and physical burdens are starting to ease greatly, and we feel like God is prompting us to pray again about our future and we're keeping our ears pricked towards Him to know what he intends for our family.  At any rate, no matter what God has convicted any of us of in the area of family planning and birth control, personally, isn't it a splendorous thing indeed to rest in God's perfect peace?

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Why I Cover

I don't think I could have articulated very well why I cover my hair at church when I first started my journey, which was back in November.  I knew the scripture that addressed it, 1 Corinthians 11.  But I wasn't sure why God was speaking to me on such a "strange" issue.  Women don't cover their heads in my church.  I've never attended a church where they do.  My exposure to head-covering has mostly been to the Amish and Mennonite women who lived in the countryside surrounding the area where I grew up.  But for the better part of a year, the issue just kept gently popping up into my consciousness.  And so I dove in, and since doing it, my convictions about it have grown.

 

 I've learned that I don't do this for self-righteousness.  I wear headcoverings that are very "modern", and, to most, would appear as just wide fabric headbands or scarves.  That is important to me, because I'm not doing this to display my holiness externally or set myself apart (at least not right now - perhaps God might lead me to that direction some day, but I'm convinced that that's not why I'm covering right now).  No one has ever said a word to me about it, as a matter of fact (although perhaps some have noticed by this point, because I haven't attended a service without a covering in the last 5 months).  And it's not about it being a neat "fashion" accessory.  It kind of was, the first few times.  But there's been many a time since when I've made a nice hairstyle for church, and, quite frankly, the covering doesn't look the best on it.  But I'm quickly reminded that that is not the point of this AT ALL.  I have three head-coverings (currently) that I wear.  They are dedicated to wearing for church alone - I will not wear them the rest of the week (I do believe that there is a clear differentiation to be found in these verses between public worship and private worship, which is why I do not cover at all times).  They are treated gently and put in a special place when they are done.  That's the practical side of it, which, for me, came first.  But since then I've studied and developed the theological side of why I cover, which is more interesting, I think.

The most common reasoning against head-covering is that the practice was uniquely cultural.  But I cannot agree with that in the face of the fact that Paul clearly says, at the beginning of the chapter, EVERY man and EVERY woman (my emphasis) and takes us through the universal order of creation.  He also speaks, in verse 2, of the praiseworthiness of holding to tradition.  I understand that what follows next is cautionary, because it's a reversal of Jewish tradition (male headcovering), but we haven't dispensed with THAT portion, and a lack of head-covering for men has been in force since the early church.  It seems disingenuous to scuttle one portion of it, specifically the part referring to women and the instructions for them TO cover. 

A difficulty in interpretation of this text has historically been the confusion between what the word covering means.  The Greek word, katakaylpto, that is used to reference covering the head in verse 6 is a physical item, outside the body (a piece of some type of cloth).  This word cannot be properly used to signify that a woman's own hair is her covering (that word would be peribolaion, which is used in verse 5, but not exclusively).  It's still a bit muddy, to be sure, but the clearest indication, to me, that the word covering is a literal piece of cloth is that Paul's words simply do not make sense in terms of long hair being a covering itself.  One cannot remove one's hair when they are in private and put it on in public, as the scripture suggests.  And verse six is absolutely nonsensical in terms of thinking of long hair as its own covering.  Also, people have backed up this position with the notion that short hair was the sign of a Corinthian prostitute, but there really is no historical support for this position.

I hesitated a bit about putting this little part in, but I must share because it is simply too wonderful and Providential not to:  as I was considering how to articulate my reasons for headcovering (and this has been about a month in the making - I've had some requests to explain why I cover) - one of our sermons (and also a passage we were studying in the original Hebrew in our Hebrew 102 night class) was on Deuteronomy 6:4-9, known in Hebrew as the Shema, a Jewish confession of faith.  Verse number 8 reads: Tie them [the Lord's commandments] as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.  Headcovering for women is called also by Paul in Corinthians a symbol.  I cover because it is a good, godly tradition and symbol.   

Finally, I cover my head because it's easy to do, and I'd rather err on the side of too much obedience than not enough.  And, on an issue like this, where context and translational issues are convoluted, I'd rather not rely solely on my lowly scholarship or intellect, but on the example of those who've come before - both the women that covered: Sarah and Rebekah, of the Old Testament, and the wives of some of the mighty "modern" men of God, like Katherine, Martin Luther's wife and the scholarly titans of faith who advocated for the headcovering of women in public worship including John Knox, John Calvin, Charles Spurgeon, Matthew Henry, Harry Ironside, and Charles Ryrie.  Of course I do not believe head-covering is a salvation issue. That would be silly and, even more than that, dangerous. But through his word and the work of his Spirit, I'm convinced that it's what he wants me to do.    

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Happy Birthday Grandpa!

Sorry, Hero had already left for school this morning, and it was a minor miracle to capture this video.  Happy Birthday Dad!