My church was gracious enough to grant me six weeks paternity leave. With twins, I’m convinced now that, by the end of that leave, I’ll have needed every second of it. I’m grateful to be employed by such a generous Christian community, not just for this leave, but for all the support they’ve offered Ms. Kairos and me over these last five weeks. As I prepare to go back to work a week from Monday, some have already lined up to come in and help with laundry, meal prep, light cleaning, etc. Its just plain hard to watch two infants by yourself and do all those other things. And as Ms. Kairos prepares to go back to work herself six weeks after that, we’ll be trying to figure out how to do all this with daycare.

Ms. Kairos is a bit concerned with sharing pictures of our family on the net, so you’ll have to make due with one final shot of the girls (for now):

We asked the girls which picture was their favorite, and these are the pictures that each chose. I’m not sure what that says about their personalities yet. We’ll have to see.

Regarding blogging: I’m going to ease back into it over the next few weeks. I don’t know what my time will be like before going back to work. Maybe Toby is right and I’ll have plenty of time at 3am this week. Or maybe not.

What caught my eye today was James’ post today on Think Christian about Rosie O’Donnell. Here it is:

The American Family Association is all worked up by Rosie O’Donnell telling “The View” viewers, “Radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam in a country like America where we have separation of church and state.”

Founder Donald Wildman wrote, in a mass email, “O’Donnell was saying there is no difference between the radical Muslims who kill in the name of Allah and Bible-believing Christians who follow the teachings of Jesus.” He urged Christians to email “ABC that O’Donnell’s comments
deserve an apology and a reprimand.”

I’m not sure that’s the right attitude. Didn’t Jesus say, “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Matthew 5:11).

So like Baalam’s curse of the Israelites turning into a blessing, isn’t O’Donnell blessing followers of Jesus and providing a great reward in heaven? The truly “radical Christian” thing to do, might just be to email O’Donnell a thank you note.

What do you think? There’s this attitude among so many Christians that any slight to Christenedom needs be countered by strength. James has a point here. And I think Rosie is wrong in her characterization of “radical Christianity,” which doesn’t equal fundamentalist or what I’d call “Christianist” Christianity. But I thought I’d pass James’ post along…