CZ Retro-reflector

Yeah, I know it’s been far too long since I posted anything with substance. I’ll do my best to get something out this week. For now, here’s something I was playing with — with positive results for a change!

3.13ct CZ in my Retro-hex design. It’s hardly a novel design in the cutting world, but I can lay some claim here as I did this one from scratch. I’m waiting for my machine to come back from the shop so I can try some other ideas I’ve had a few weeks to ponder.

For the record, the image above is hosted by Flickr. Flickr makes things rather easy and gives double-exposure (which may come in handy if I ever go back in to business). Feel free to click the image and poke around my other pics.

An Expenditure of Words

Read authors who stretch you and introduce you to other writings as well. Great writers stimulate your capacity to think beyond their ideas, spawning fresh insights and extensions of your own. Good reading is indispensable to impartation of truth. An expenditure of words without the income of ideas leads to conceptual bankruptcy.

Ravi Zacharias, “The Dying Art of Thinking”, 1992. http://www.rzim.org/resources/jttran.php?seqid=2

Nicholas William Torraca

Our first Torraca nephew was born on Tuesday! Here are the vitals:

Nicholas William Torraca
10:20pm, Tuesday, July 24, 2007
7lbs 3/4oz
22″

Welcome little guy! Congrats Mom A & Pop E!

Family Letter

I just finished the family letter about our move. Instead of mailing a letter to everyone, we decided to go with a simple picture postcard that includes our new contact information and a URL for the family letter: http://www.torraca.net/houghton.

We’ll send out the first few picture postcards today — hopefully the rest are soon to follow.

Flickr

I just posted some recent family pictures online at Flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/22314586@N00/sets/72157600761881306/

There are also some gemology photos, if you’re interested. I’ll try to add more as time allows.

I decided to set up a Flickr photo stream rather than try to maintain my own system on this site. Flickr is a huge contributed photo website and has become very, very refined. It’s rather more powerful than anything I can set up here. There are literally thousands of wonderful photographs by professionals and talented amateurs — and thousands more from people just playing with a point & shoot camera like me. Check out the “Explore” link at the top of the Flickr pages and you’ll see some amazing images.

A word of warning: Flickr hosts almost whatever pictures people upload. They have a policy against out-right pornography, but there are plenty of “artistic” images that mature Christians would likely define as pornography. I don’t think you’ll accidentally stumble on this kind of thing while exploring Flickr, but you will find it if you actively seek it.

Home Again

We made it to Houghton and have all our stuff in the house — though it’s more like a jungle of boxes and packing paper at the moment. Still, it’s home!

Moving Day

Well, our time in Indiana is at an end. Lord willing, on Monday the movers will come and put the bulk of our stuff into a giant truck and head toward NY. I’m really looking forward to things being concluded here. I’m really looking forward to being in next week, even though it means a house without AC, tons of boxes and disoriented, grumbly cats. I’m really looking forward to digging into the new life God has planned for us.

Tomorrow is our last day at church. It’s going to be a hard morning, especially for the kids. It will be hard because we’re loved. That’s the lesson the Lord had for me here. It’s not some high, profound insight of theology or moving, mystical experience — just a simple and deep lesson in the importance of community and loving each other in the Body of Christ.

I’m sure the names and faces here will fade with time, just as our names and faces will fade for them. What I must try to remember from them is their example of simple openness and ready caring. I need to make an effort to emulate their example when I re-enter a community of academicians who are prone to value profound thinking over loving practice.

Giant Marshmallows!

Driving in the family van, someplace in Western, NY:

“Look kids! That’s where marshmallows come from!”

“Wow, Dad! Marshmallows!”

“Look at the giant marshmallows!”

“Peter! What did you say that for? No, kids those are….”

It tooks us about 45 minutes to convince them that Daddy was only joking and those were really hay bails.

Our NY Home

Well, we’re dual mortgagees now. Hopefully it’ll only be for a short time. The pic on the right is the front of our new home. It’s quite different from everything we’ve owned before. It was built in 1918 and has some wonderful period woodwork inside. It’s amazingly quite even though it sits right on the main road going through Houghton. Thankfully, the house is within walking distance of campus, so Karen doesn’t have to drive to work. With gas prices being what they are, that little detail is now quite important.

I’m looking forward to getting back to NY, taxes and politics notwithstanding. There is something different about the air in New York. Perhaps it’s just the difference in the trees and earth. Perhaps it is just the fact that I grew up there and thus it’s more like home to me. Whatever the case, I’m eager to get back to it and happy that the kids will get to grow up there – unless the Lord has another surprise lined up for us.

Houghton College? Yes, we’re heading back to college. Except this time we won’t be students. Karen will be Houghton’s Professor of Organic Chemistry. There is, of course, a larger story here, but I’m not ready to write it just yet. The short version is that the Lord has called us to participate in what He’s doing at Houghton College.

Our Indiana home is stumbling it’s way toward being sold. Unfortunately, it’s not an easy road this time. Still, the Lord wants us to be at Houghton so things will work out. It’s not an easy process for us, but I believe that’s the tool the Lord is using to teach us some things right now. If we come to mind, please keep us in prayer!

A Meditation on The Mystery

“Indeed the mystery of Christ runs the risk of being disbelieved precisely because it is so incredibly wonderful. For God was in humanity. He who was above all creation was in our human condition; the invisible one made visible in the flesh; he who is from the heavens and from on high was in the likeness of earthly things; the immaterial one could be touched; he who is free in his own nature came in the form of a slave; he who blesses all creation became accursed; he who is all righteousness was numbered with the transgressors; life itself came in the appearance of death. All this followed because the body which tasted death belonged to no other but to him who is the Son by nature.”

Cyril of Alexandria (378-444), On the Unity of Christ, as quoted in Christopher Hall’s Learning Theology with the Church Fathers, 82.