That jukebox in the corner blastin’ out my favorite song,
The nights are gettin’ warmer, it won’t be long.
Won’t be long ’til summer comes,
Now that the boys are here again.
I just noticed in today’s newspaper that hard rock legends Blue Oyster Cult and Thin Lizzy are playing the Keswick Theater on August 17. Unless the show is cancelled (as when BOC was supposed to play Lehigh’s football stadium last year) or I have some awful schedule conflict, I will be there. Care to join me? Tickets are $29.50, and I will probably want to order them soon.
I recently submitted the following letter to the board of deacons of the church I have been attending recently. I didn’t want to offend, so I ended up taking a softer stance than I originally intended. In truth, I see baptism and other sacraments in approximately the same light as Paul viewed circumcision when writing to the first century church. I wrote extensively about this on another blog that is no longer extant, but I may revisit these ideas in the near future here.
Some of you may know me. I first became associated with Calvary Baptist through your Saturday Night Life ministry, which I have now been a part of for most of two years. During that time I have sporadically attended Sunday morning services, and I have recently been involved with the Ministry of Music.
I have attended quite a few different churches in my life as I have moved from place to place. I was raised in a Presbyterian church in Gap, Pennsylvania. While in college I attended an Independent Community church. I have done some “church shopping” in the Lehigh Valley, but spent most of my time either at a Moravian church or at Calvary. Throughout this time, I have never chosen the church I wanted to be a part of based on denomination or specific doctrinal statements. Rather, I have sought to be a part of churches that are committed to the Word of God, that have engaging, meaningful worship services, that offer an opportunity to be an active participant in the life and ministry of the church, and that contain a loving, Acts-like community of faith and friendship.
Now that I am married and committed to staying in the Lehigh Valley for several years, my wife and I are looking for a church that we can call our home for the foreseeable future. I have been pleased to find in Calvary Baptist all of the qualities of a church that I hope for.
I have recently become aware that your church currently has a policy of extending membership only to people who have been baptized by immersion while they were an adult capable of making that decision for themselves, and that you are currently considering amending this rule. As members of a Presbyterian church, my parents had me baptized as an infant. When I was able to understand the implications of faith and to accept the responsibilities of public Christian life, I confirmed the promises that had been made to raise me as a child of God, and added my own intentions to live as His servant.
If I am blessed to have a child someday, I will probably not choose to have him baptized as an infant, because I believe your system of dedication and eventual baptism makes more sense than the Presbyterian system of baptism and eventual confirmation. However, I do not desire to be re-baptized myself. I realize that many people in my position choose to be re-baptized, and I respect their decision, but I feel that to do so as a requirement for membership is to claim that my public confirmation of my faith, and more importantly the baptism of the Holy Spirit that I received when I first earnestly accepted Christ’s call, is invalid. Therefore, I would most likely not choose to join Calvary Baptist under your current policy.
It is not my desire that you would compromise the principles on which you believe your church should be built. My current home denomination is considering such a change with regard to clergy-performed same-sex marriages, and it makes me quite sad. However, if you feel that this is not an essential part of what it means to be a part of your congregation, then I ask you to prayerfully consider opening your membership to your brothers and sisters who may disagree with you on some of the finer points of theology but who share your love of Christ.
I really love good food. I’m far too lazy to go through the hassle for myself or even for Rachel and I, but I look forward to excuses when I can “entertain” and make it worthwhile to cook something non-trivial. My culinary experience is rather limited, so I generally try something new at each opportunity. I’ve had limited success in the past: my strombolis and cheesesteaks were excellent IMHO. I tried homemade chicken noodle soup last winter, and it was ok but not flavorful enough.
Last night we had invited 7 or 8 people to join us for dinner and a movie. I suppose it was a blessing in disguise that only 2 were able to come. My goal was to make a homemade carbonara sauce, although I know it to be slightly different from the way it is described in that link. My experience is that carbonara is simply alfredo sauce with added bacon and freshly ground black pepper. I looked at dozens of different recipes online, rejecting the many that used raw eggs or some abnormal ingredient. Among the recipes I liked, there was one common theme: approximately equal parts butter and heavy cream with double that amount of parmesan cheese. Beyond this, some recipes used milk to make the sauce thinner while others used flour to make it thicker.
I started with about 1.3 cups of melted butter, then added 1 cup of heavy cream and allowed it to simmer on low heat to reduce. After about 10 minutes I started gradually adding a combination of grated parmesan cheese, grated romano cheese, and fresh romano cheese until I had used approximately two cups of combined cheeses. This looked and smelled about right, but it was a bit too liquidy to properly stick to the pasta. Remembering some of the recipes I had seen before, I added two teaspoons of flour and stirred. At this point, the sauce looked perfect and I left it on low heat while I attended to other things. When I looked back at the sauce a minute or two later, it was totally different. There was now a separated mixture of solid white cheesy goo and yellow buttery liquid. We tried stirring, increasing the heat, decreasing the heat, and adding more cheese, but nothing returned it to looking like alfredo sauce. We eventually gave up and the brave among us ate it on our pasta. Despite the strange consistency, it tasted delicious with added bacon and pepper. If anyone has an explanation for why adding flour would cause this effect, I would be pleased to hear it.