So we have a new semi-neighbour, a Sedevacantist, who bought a really nice house with some land that goes right up to a river that flows nearby, about a half-hour away from us. He lives in America so he was only here for a couple of days to sign all the paperwork, and then he had to go back, so we had him over for lunch.
Aside the fact it may have put him off having more children (he has two), as with any new person that enters the house, the kids pretty much assaulted him with questions.
Aryan Girl, of course, being suspicious by nature of any foreigners, quietly sneaked up to my home office while I sent off a work email quickly just before lunch and said:
“Dad… I am not talking to your friend, because he might be a bad guy.”
Basically she said that because she has not yet seen any war films set in WWII. If she had I am fairly sure she would have stopped him at the door and shouted:
“VERE AR YOR PAPERS! SCHNELL!”
I reassured her that he was indeed a good guy, and after that it was difficult to shut her up.
At one point though, the Young Viking asked him what was his favourite thing.
Our new friend asked if he meant thing or food, and YV said “either” but he also qualified it could be anything even off this planet. I realise now in hindsight he was trying to give the man (and us all really) a hint.
Our guest explained he didn’t know about anything off planet as he’d never been to space, so he expressed what was his favourite food instead. After he listened carefully, the YV said:
“My favourite thing is God; because he made everything.”
Which left us all open-mouth stunned.
Keep in mind that although I am a hardcore zealot, because I understand the contrarian nature of our kids, I do not impose anything on them. We hardly do grace at mealtimes, and half the time it’s one of the kids that reminds us to do it. We had friends that had a preemie baby and our children would without fail remember to include him in our daily prayer at mealtimes. We did not skip a single grace in the period for a few weeks until the little boy went home to his family and was out of danger.
But all of that is their own doing. I will answer questions of theology as best I can and they have been to church several times despite it being two hours were, from their perspective, they have to sit quietly while understanding nothing of what is going on as it’s either Latin or Italian of a nature that is hard to grasp even if they were fluent, which they are not.
I taught them how to cross themselves and to act respectfully in church and how to pray , and that’s about it.
I think the YV learnt to pray properly as he listened to my explanation and he told me later the things he prayed for happened, so I think he is starting to see how things work, in great part due to his natural stoicism and aspie-level logic processing.
Even so, his answer stunned me as much as it did everyone else. But it’s that kind of simple yet profound faith that makes men powerful without being weak in the face of adversity or trouble.
My son is exceeding any hopes I had for how he may turn out that I could possibly ever have imagined.
Thank you Lord.
This post was originally published on my Substack. Link here
