October 2, 2012 Dear Children, What a grand time it was in August when all 9 of you made your way to Hoonah for a reunion—the first time we were all together in 24 years! It didn't come about without a great deal of sacrifice in time and expense on your part. What a blessing it was to spend a week together under one roof. We are grateful for Cheyne, his wife and family, and Carey for the "roof" over a building large enough to house us. Alexander Pope wrote in his essay on "Criticism" that "fools rush in where angels fear to tread." Putting some of my thoughts about "Facebook" in this letter may cause me to fit that description. The first thing I want you to remember before you press that button is that there may be thousands who you don't know who can read what you write or what you "like." The Psalmist tells us in Psalm 73:15 "If I say, 'I will speak thus; behold, I should offend against the generation of thy children.'" I see preachers sharing their theology and "would-be" intellectuals displaying their smarts for all to read and we common folk to wonder about. I see some who make so many entries that pretty soon "facebookers" pass them by rather than try to read them all. Makes me wonder if it has become their "ministry" and where they get the time to let us know how much they know about politics, the state of the nation, etc. I see terminology that would be better not displayed where holy-minded people are exposed to it. I also wonder if there might be a smidgen of pride in collecting "likes?" I guess I'm old fashioned but telling the world how much you love your wife or husband and describing your relationship with words and pictures make your mother and I feel a bit like it should be left in the bedroom. We may be wrong but we have both often seen when there is excessive affection in public there may be problems at home. I am preaching a series on Paul's 14 times he says "God Forbid." My Vine's Dictionary says, "These words are entirely used to express Paul's repudiation of an inference which he apprehends may be drawn from his argument." So lest that happen here I want to say that your mother got on facebook because she wanted to see her grandchildren's pictures. Personal communication via email had become almost non existent. She would call me to look at pictures and finally I decided to use her password and look on my own. Besides the pictures I found many good things connected with Facebook. The prayer requests, the encouragements given when needed, the birthday greetings, etc. Many things you are doing as a family, the cute things about our grandchildren, etc., we wouldn't know w/o Facebook. I will close with "PRAY BEFORE PUSHING THE BUTTON." LOVE AND PRAYERS, DAD