Dominion Family

I think this will be our new “poem” for the new year. I thought some of you would like to join us in memorizing this.

Jesus, Name Above All Names

In GENESIS Jesus He is
the Ram at Abraham’s altar

In EXODUS He’s
the Passover Lamb.

In LEVITICUS He’s
the High Priest.

in NUMBERS He’s
the Cloud by day and pillar of fire by night.

In DEUTERONOMY He’s
the City of our refuge.

In JOSHUA He’s
the Scarlet Thread out Rahab’s window.

In JUDGES He is
our judge.

In RUTH He is
our Kinsman Redeemer.

In Ist and 2nd SAMUEL He’s
our Trusted Prophet.

And in KINGS and CHRONICLES He’s
our Reigning King

In EZRA He is
our Faithful Scribe

In NEHEMIAH He’s
the Rebuilder of everything that is broken

And in ESTHER He is
the Mordecai sitting faithful at the gate

In JOB He’s our Redeemer that ever liveth

In PSALMS He is my Shepherd and I shall not want

In PROVERBS and ECCLESIASTES He’s our Wisdom

And in the SONG OF SOLOMON He’s the Beautiful Bridegroom

In ISAIAH He’s the Suffering Servant

In JEREMIAH and LAMENTATIONS it is Jesus that is the Weeping Prophet

In EZEKIEL He’s the Wonderful Four-Faced Man

And in DANIEL He is the Fourth Man in the midst of a fiery furnace

In HOSEA He is my Love that is forever faithful

In JOEL He baptizes us with the Holy Spirit

In AMOS He’s our Burden Bearer

In OBADIAH our Savior

And in JONAH He is the Great Foreign Missionary that takes the Word of God into all of the world

You go on and you see in MICAH He is the Messenger with beautiful feet

In NAHUM He is the Avenger

In HABAKKUK He is the Watchman that is ever praying for revival

In ZEPHANIAH He is the Lord mighty to save

In HAGGAI He is the Restorer of our lost heritage

In ZECHARIAH He is our Fountain

And in MALACHI He is the Son of Righteousness with healing in His Wings

In MATTHEW Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God

In MARK He is the Miracle Worker

In LUKE He’s the Son of Man

And in JOHN He is the Door by which everyone of us must enter

In ACTS He is the Shining Light that appears to Saul on the road to Damascus

In ROMANS He is our justifier

In Ist CORINTHIANS our Resurrection

In 2nd CORINTHIANS our Sin Bearer

In GALATIANS He redeems us from the law

In EPHESIANS He is our Unsearchable Riches

In PHILIPPIANS He supplies our every need

And in COLOSSIANS He’s the Fullness of the Godhead Bodily

In lst and 2nd THESSALONIANS He is our Soon Coming King

In Ist and 2nd TIMOTHY He is the Mediator between God and man

In TITUS He is our Blessed Hope

In PHILEMON He is a Friend that sticks closer than a brother

And in HEBREWS He’s the Blood of the everlasting covenant

In JAMES it is the Lord that heals the sick

In lst and 2nd PETER He is the Chief Shepherd

In lst, 2nd, and 3rd JOHN it is Jesus who has the tenderness of love

In JUDE He is the Lord coming with 10,000 saints

And in REVELATION…….

Lift up your eyes, Church, for your redemption draweth nigh,

He is King of kings and Lord of lords!

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The DHM has written a very poignant, funny post about how her oldest daughter learned the truth about Santa Claus.

We never told our kids about Santa Claus although we do read storybooks that feature the old guy, and we do have a St Nicholas day birthday in our family.

The Common Room post reminded me of something funny that happened over Thanksgiving.

The whole family was outside watching or playing tennis ball, otherwise known as baseball-that-won’t-ruin-the-neighbor’s-corvette. Our 5yo Alex was talking to his slightly older cousin Kevin.

Kevin said something about Santa Claus coming to his house.

Alex immediately told Kevin that there wasn’t a Santa.

Kevin came back with, “Yes, there is he comes to our house every year.”

Alex said, ” Well, he doesn’t come to our house.”

“That’s because he only goes to the houses of good children. You must be bad,” Kevin retorted.

Alex came over to me all frustrated and I told him to just change the subject with Kevin.

A few seconds later I heard Alex saying, “Let’s just change the subject.”

Once again the age old problem of how to keep the kids who don’t believe in Santa from ruining it for the kids who do.

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Timothy has always been a dog lover.

When he was about 6 a friend gave him the Usborne book Understanding Dogs. Feeling rather blue about our disobedient dog Weatherby, Timothy mused, “I wish we had an understanding dog.”

Later as a young teen he spents hours pouring over a used book we had picked up by German dog trainer Koehler. He prefaced every sentence with, “Koehler says…”

Therefore, it was no surprise when he asked to get a dog for Alex and Andrew. I was a little miffed that they named the dog on the way home. It is true that they spent their childhood apologizing to visitors for our dog Weatherby’s name. I frequently heard the boys say to visitors, “My mom named him.” But I love to name dogs. I think I might have named the dog John Carmichael but they named him Achilles.

Poor little Achilles has been welcomed with so much joy and love I fear for his life. He is very cute in an ugly sort of way.

Anyone want to guess where I got the names Weatherby or John Carmichael?

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The Circe Institute has launched their new website with big discounts on next year’s conference A Contemplation of Rest.

I can’t imagine a better title for a conference. Tim and I hope we will be able to meet some of y’all there next summer. After 2 weddings we plan on needing to contemplate rest during our anniversary weekend.

This is not a homeschool curriculum fair conference. This is soul-filling fodder. Lord willing you will come away inspired not burdened.

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This Mark Steyn Article has been online for over a week but you will want to read it if you missed it.

I have a love/hate relationship with this guy but I thought this was a great parable and I wanted to make Valerie happy.

Check out the DHM’s 5 posts on The Moral Obligation to Be Intelligent. They are wonderful.

Seasonal Soundings sent me to this fantastic link for Christmas Carols. But they don’t have this carol which is among my favorites.

That reminds me of a link that Margaret in Va posted for a Christmas Family Liturgy which looks intriguing.

Finally, if you like PD James, as I do, check out the free Mars Hill Audio Podcast Audition. This is an interview with Ralph Wood and even a clip of James herself speaking on the place of evil in fiction.

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Ok, the picture has nothing to do with what I want to blog about today.

I wanted to take a minute to explain our name: Dominion Family.

Over the past few months I have seen people refuting on the Internet, dominion theology.

Our family came by our name in a rather roundabout way that didn’t have a whole lot to do with dominion theology.

We were looking for a name for our lawn business. The boys had rejected my idea of “R Boys”. You know: “When it comes to your lawn R Boys are your boys.”

Finally, they got all excited about Dominion Lawns since it really covered the whole idea of taking dominion over the sphere God has placed you in. We would help families take dominion over their lawns.

Dominion was not a word that particularly belonged to a theology. It was a biblical word.

On the other hand, we are reformed and we have friends who would probably call themselves reconstructionists. But when I heard even Gary Demar speaking negatively of dominion theology I got a bit concerned about our name.

Maybe it gave people the wrong idea.

We are not theonomists. We do have books on our shelf that reflect theonomy, but we have not embraced that idea for vague and sundry reasons which I do not want to discuss on this blog.

We do not know all that dominion theology involves but we do know that our name came from our lawn business. We do believe that God has told us to take dominion over the Earth. We do have a hopeful, if confused, view of the final return of Christ.

At this time we are praying about a name change or even a blog hiatus. But in the meantime I just wanted to clear that up.

Some of you are probably scratching your head and don’t have a clue about what I am talking about. Don’t worry about it.

Some of you may have questions. Ask away…. I don’t promise I will answer

Oh, and have a happy St Nicholas’ Day. I know I will.

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I thought some of you would like to see what our day in The Messiah looks like.

Yesterday we ended up with the Chorus: Glory to God. I try to end each day at a chorus.

Today we are beginning with the soprano air Rejoice Greatly, O Daughter of Zion and ending at the Chorus: His Yoke is Easy.

I will read:

Zechariah 9:9-10

“Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion. Shout, O Daughter of Jerusalem, behold, thy king cometh unto thee. He is the Righteous Saviour and he shall speak peace unto the heathen.”

Isaiah 35:5,6

“Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap as a hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall sing.”

Isaiah 40:11

“He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: and he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young. ”

Matthew 11:28-29

“Come unto me all ye that labor, that are heavy laden, and he will give you rest. Take his yoke upon you and learn of him, for he is meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls.”

Matthew 11:30

” His yoke is easy and his burthen light.”

After I read the verses and we discuss them for some time, I will play the 4 sections of music.

The soprano air
The alto recitative
The alto aria
and the chorus.

This is about 12 minutes of music which we listen to in one session.

And that’s all as far as The Messiah goes. We also sing a couple of carols each morning, pray and do various other aspects of our usual Morning Time.

Isn’t that just too simple?

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Check out the view in the windows.

There are elves in the Smokies!

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Andrew found his old slingshot which I had hidden from him with good reason. Shooting marbles at birds with a slingshot is pretty horrific.

Alex must have felt a little insecure also. He was heard saying to Andrew, “You better be careful with that thing. Somebody killed a giant with one of those.”

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