(TB: This post first ran on Baylyblog in 2004. It is a tribute to Mom Taylor and David's and my mother, Mary Lou Bayly. Both are mothers in Israel and we give thanks for them to our Heavenly Father. But of course, we also give thanks for our own wonderful wives! The tribute starts with a poem Dad wrote on the back of a Mother's Day card he gave to Mud just a couple years before his death. The reference to three and four at the end of the poem is Dad alluding to their three children who had already died and their four children who were still alive.)
To M.L. (Mary Lou)
Mother’s Day, 1982
—to celebrate your creation of children
What a Holy Spirit calling:
To create an infant
within yourself
Your very inmost self—Nourish, protect, prepare
Then bring to birth
Nurse, feed
—run between stove and table in teenage—
Teach, discipline, hope, expect
Love
And all the while pray
with faith in God
Bring to safe harbor
through calm and storm
and monstrous waves
to wholeness
and useful life
on earth
in heaven
That God should call
three to live and serve there
four to live and serve here
What a calling!
My mother-in-law studied for her degree in Home Economics during the late '30s and early '40s, graduating summa cum laude from Oregon State University. After marrying her childhood sweetheart, she gave birth to 10 children in 14 years. Her husband, engaged for most of the years when the family was young as editorial director of a religious publishing house, brought home low wages, so frugality was a necessity and the degree served this young mother and her family well.
Food preservation, hygiene, cooking, sewing, and home budgeting were part of the home ec curriculum and, along with the liberal arts training which came with every bachelor's degree at the time, these young women graduated with specialized training for their profession of choice--motherhood. Other women took similarly helpful majors in Elementary Education, Bible, Christian Education (my own mother's major), and Nursing.
Then came the frontal assault on housewifery and motherhood carried out largely by a new and powerful aristocracy...
It's summertime, so how 'bout a little diversion? Mary Lee and I get quite a bit of joy out of God's good earth and its lawns, bushes, trees, and gardens. Mary Lee does the perennial gardens, I cut the grass, and we both work on the other stuff (fruit trees, roses, berries, vegetables, etc.) Here then are a few of our favorite things.
The lead book review of the April 2017 issue of First Things is Notre Dame prof Patrick Deneen's group-review of three prognostications for the future of Christianity in North America. Each work is set against the backdrop of the sexual anarchists' revolution concluded in 2015 by the Supreme Court's Obergefell decision.
A brother in Christ passed 
Here's a pic of the last precast panel being placed on the south side of the building, today. There's still a gap in the wall, though. That gap is for a smaller crane and semis carrying the steel girders to enter the building. When they're done there won't have to be another two panels delivered and tilted up. They'll be delivered and tilted up today, then tied to two other panels where they'll wait for the steelworkers' crane to slide them into position when they're done their work.
With its counterweights, the crane weighs 235,000 pounds. Since this particular panel it's putting in place has no windows, it weighs the full 38,800 pounds. When it's set down on the footer about one foot below ground level, it will rest on two piles of shims about the side of a small paperback. Those shims will allow the slurry to slither underneath the panel, filling in every square inch with a liquid cement much stronger than the footer or panel. The slurry won't be pumped under the panels to surround the shims for a couple days, yet.
We're adding 60,000 square feet to our church-house and the precast walls started arriving today, semi after semi after semi after semi. The semis backed up inside the shell of the building and then these wall pieces were lifted off the semi and set in place by a crane, after which they were anchored by the work_ _ _.
Visiting Joe and Sandy Armstrong.
Mary Lee and I took a quick trip to Bristol, Virginia, this past weekend: first, to attend the 
