2003: The Year of Josiah Farah Watney
Seven Favorite Memories on His 17th Birthday
My 7 Favorite Memories
1. His Awkward Questions in Genesis (2012)
Josiah (9) is reading through Genesis for the first time — -a chapter a night before bedtime — -and some awkward questions are being yelled down the stairs:
“Dad, what’s a concubine?”
“Umm…aah, just an extra wife, really”
Next night:
“Daad! What’s Sir-cum-cision?”
(For this one, I grab Laurel’s large German carving knife, run upstairs, and exegete the text for him. His eyes grow huge as I explained, with a slash of the knife, what happened to him 8 days after his birth).
Next night:
“Dad, I don’t understand Genesis 19, its really “!”
“Genesis 19!?” I walked up the stairs, took one look, and hurriedly flipped his “Children’s” Bible over to Gen 20.
“Aah, just start here with chapter 20” I said.
“Why? What’s the matter with chapter 19?”
Its going to be a long, interesting journey for Josiah and I.
2. Attempting Pike’s Peak — Again, and Again, and ….
3. A Strange Theological Question (2015)
“Dad, how much would you pay for a bottle of Jesus Wine?”
“For a bottle of the wine Jesus made,” I responded, “I would sell my Texas house, my car, and my books. For one bottle of that wine I would offer….at least $60,000. And if that wasn’t enough, I’d sell our house and live in a one-bedroom apartment — — but I’d need Mom’s permission for that.”
To which my wife immediately responded: “He would not get my permission! I can buy Jesus’s pineapples for $1 at the market!”
4. Becoming Tom Sawyer (2016)
I had just commissioned him to mow the lawn, and then saw this…
