Jeff snapped a decent picture yesterday. Chris said a complete sentence today:

"Daddy, I want milk."

There aren't too many 70 degree days in November, so we spent a couple of hours at

the Manasquan Reservoir

with a picnic lunch and some time on the playground.

Other pictures.

I was sad when it closed even though we had seen it four times.

It was worth seeing four times.

We have one of the recordings to enjoy anytime.

Go see it, if you get the chance!

The six-year-old told me just this morning that he's too old to play with Thomas anymore.

I built a simple track with only the other two boys in mind.

Lo and behold, the eldest joined right in and soon complained that the track layout was a boring figure 8.

Alright, I admit it: I was lazy and unimaginative.

The two-year-old is learning the engines' names: James, Toby, Emily, Gordon. And other special cars: "coach," "caboose" and "coal car" (I know, I know, "tender"). And he has favorites already!

See other photos.

Rutgers Shocks No. 3 Louisville" - NBC 4 NY, 11/10/06

Jeff was so interested in the game, I thought that he had money on it.

"A Red Letter Day: Scarlet Knights down Louisville for biggest win in school history" - Asbury Park Press, 11/10/06

sending the Scarlet Knights to a dramatic 28-25 victory over No. 3 Louisville before a Rutgers Stadium-record crowd of 44,111

Jeff had been in Piscataway yesterday on business and reported that traffic patterns seemed to be gearing up for "busy".

He said that the Empire State Building was lit up red but I don't think he can see it from that part of Jersey. He must have heard that on the radio.

College football isn't big in NY. There's just too much pro action. College basketball is big.

"Two fires set inside new middle school in Millstone" - The Examiner, 11/9/06

the police termed the incident "arson" and sent its Arson/Bomb Unit out to investigate.

For some reason, the high school students had a half-day on the Monday before Halloween; I heard them that afternoon running four-wheelers up and down the street.

Tuesday morning, Halloween morning, I noticed toilet paper in the trees on our street and at the current middle school on Schoolhouse Road.

My neighbor told me that evening that a State Police patrol was walking around my backyard the evening before, shining a search light in our thick row of pine trees. During that time, I was putting the youngest to bed, so if the patrolman came to the door, I don't know of it. IOW, without my neighbor telling me, I would not have been aware that the police were investigating anything on my property.

Apparently the neighbors across the street were on their porch watching the excitement, but they never said anything to me about it afterwards. Our mailbox was smashed a little bit but some down the street were knocked off their post. It seems that they caught the teens who did this. Must be a different bunch from the arsonists.

I'm not really sure what's up with the teens in town. Some seem to harbor significant hostility towards the township's school system.

The pericope was Exodus 32-34 but the passages at the end of chapter 33 caught the eye of the first-time Bible reader in our study group:

He answered, "I will make all my beauty pass before you, and in your presence I will pronounce my name, 'LORD'; I who show favors to whom I will, I who grant mercy to whom I will.

But my face you cannot see, for no man sees me and still lives. Here," continued the LORD, "is a place near me where you shall station yourself on the rock.

When my glory passes I will set you in the hollow of the rock and will cover you with my hand until I have passed by.

Then I will remove my hand, so that you may see my back; but my face is not to be seen."

NAB - Exodus 33:19-23

The rookie reader focused on the anthropomorphic language in the passage, which attributes to God the Almighty physical features: face, hand, back. He said, "I guess God is a human. And all these years, I thought God was spirit!"

No one knew what to say to him.

For any of us to counter that God is, in fact, spirit, would only have driven him back to the Exodus passage and his literal understanding of it. "How to account for this?" he may well have asked.

To challenge him along these lines, "So, you think the Mormons have a point?" would have cowed him into tight-lipped retreat, sure enough, but we aren't about fostering reticence among our participants. We want to draw out these jumbled impressions and put 'em right. Still, what text to show him?

Our leader could have taken us to the woman at the well in John 4 and read from verse 24 which says "God is spirit" and clear up the matter entirely. But he chose to stay within the Jewish tradition, in the pages of the Hebrew Scriptures, lest anyone object that this is a Christian / Jewish distinction.

He lead us to 1 Kings 19:11-13, God's appearance to Elijah in which God's transcendence is emphasized. Note especially the footnote: "Though various phenomena, such as wind, storms, earthquakes, fire, herald the divine presence, they do not constitute the presence itself which, like the tiny whispering sound, is imperceptible and bespeaks the spirituality of God." God is quite above us, otherwise the Incarnation would not have been so remarkable.

The footnote to Exodus 33:23 in the New American Bible takes a creative angle: You may see my back: man can see God's glory as reflected in creation, but his "face," that is, God as he is in himself, mortal man cannot behold. Cf 1 Cor 13:12.

Reference: Catholic Update: "What Catholics Believe" - Fr. Foley