Fathers and sons

Samuel is still a shrimp, but not such a shrimp as he was. This week he graduated from his three-to-six-month onesies to his six-to-nine-month onesies (he is nine months old). And today, Karin brought him some large pacifiers. We’d worried that he would swallow one of his older pacifiers; he’d begun slipping them entire into his mouth. Samuel also did his first crawls today. He’d been standing on hands and knees without moving, but this week he took a few crawls forward. I hope he walks soon so I can let him wander around the back yard.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

I’ve finished reading Book 2 of C.P. Snow’s Strangers and Brothers series. Nine more books to go. This particular novel used to be called Strangers and Brothers, but for the omnibus edition it was rechristened George Passant. This month, I’m reading Book 3, The Conscience of the Rich.

I also am reading John Stott’s IVP Romans commentary which I used to notice my dad assigning to his seminary students. (They’d usually read it in Spanish.) I’ve put off studying Romans long enough. And now that I’m beginning, I’ve resolved to limit how much I study it. Some people get sucked in and read dozens of commentaries on that epistle. That isn’t for me. If I find a tidy 400-page Reader’s Digest Condensed version that makes sense of Romans, that will suffice.

Today, coincidentally, Samuel and I were having a video call with my parents when my dad, who was writing study notes on Romans, gave me an impromptu presentation of his worked-out theory of the Atonement. Indeed, he presented it several times in response to my clarificatory questions. He is the same father who used to sit with me in the middle of the night when I was too afraid to sleep, answering questions such as What is faith, questions upon which salvation hinges.