A house of prayer?

Perched above our bed the other night on the light/fan, we found a praying mantis, several inches long. It looked like it was praying (preying?), perched on the light, probably catching bugs attracted to the light. How it got there, I have no idea. I got it into a cup, and put it outside on a bush, where it hopefully continues to catch and kill evil bugs. I have been told it is a crime to hurt a praying mantis.

Does this make our home a house of prayer?

The biggest lie ever

Seen handwritten in white paint letters on the back of a car driving near Monmouth Mall in Eatontown...

"THE DEVIL IS YOUR FRIEND"

I looked over at the driver- was he a raving Satanist? He was about 30, wearing a baseball hat backwards. I wish we could have stopped and I could straighten out his theology. But what message could be a bigger lie?

Where is this?

On my prayer-walking in Manalapan, I took the following two photos. The second is of what may be the largest house in town. It was so big that this photo is only part of it, the house did not all fit into the photo- it is really two big houses joined together. The first photo is of a beautiful public place that is totally deserted- I walked around for nearly an hour without seeing a single other person. This was unprecedented!

For bragging rights- where are these spots?

Sharks and other fossils

Our church trip to Big Brook Sunday went well. There were about 15-20 people, a small group. The sharks were hiding, we found relatively few shark teeth (but everyone got one), with Timmy Forquignon winning the coveted biggest shark tooth prize. Joe Hewes and I found a spot with nice belemnites (nautiloid relatives, look like large brown bullets), Bill Forquignon found a snail shell, and I found the most unusual thing, a saber-toothed salmon tooth. The weather was perfect, and we all had a good time in the cool water in the hot weather.

If you want to see more about the fossils, check out www.njfossils.net or www.fossilguy.com/sites/bbrook

Most people don't know that Marlboro is named after the marl layer which contains all these (and many other) cool fossils. The marl was mined and used as fertilizer. Some of the original fossils pits are on the back of the new church property. They say dinosaur skeletons were even found in them, so who knows- when sitting in the new church, you may be above a dead dinosaur!