Life has been so hectic that I haven’t blogged for over a week. The last post was made from Buffalo, Wyoming, Rosa my wife’s home town. We were visiting along with Ginny and Kate our daughters, David our son-in-law, Kate’s husband, and three grandchildren. Our return trip was quite an adventure. We left early due to a threatened blizzard. About one o’clock last Tuesday morning a fox ran across the road and we hit him. There didn’t appear to be any damage. Later I looked up from a seat in the second row and saw that the van was overheated. It began to sound funny. We stopped at Saint Joseph, Missouri for the night. Rosa contacted our insurance the next morning while I taught a course by Skype. The fox had put a hole in the radiator. After a new radiator and air conditioning condenser, we were on the road again–by now it was Tuesday night. After about three hundred miles the van began to heat up again. We stopped and added coolant. Smoke was billowing out of the exhaust–not a good sign. We had just gone around Memphis and gotten into Mississippi when it began to heat up again. This time coolant didn’t help much. We ended up about four in the morning off the interstate at Como, Mississippi, just south of Senatobia. There wasn’t anything at the Como exit. AAA helped us get a rental car in Senatobia. The tow truck driver took everybody to McDonalds until the car rental place opened–everybody except me, that is. I rode the last 162 mile to Paul Moak Honda in Jackson in the front of the tow truck. For the want of a nail, a horse was lost. For the want of a horse, a rider was lost. For the want of a rider, the battle was lost. For the want of the battle, the war was lost.  Well, for the sake of a fox . . . an engine was lost. The bad news is, the van is sitting at the dealership awaiting a new engine. The good news is, insurance is paying for the engine. I wonder if anyone else has ever had a road trip like this one?

Now, as for the topic of the last post–baptism. We posted a picture of the baptismal pool at the Basilica of Saint John in Ephesus. At the ruins of the church where the Council of Ephesus was held in the fifth century, there is a baptismal pool very much like the one at Saint John’s church. See the picture above.  It appears that such pools may have been typical of fifth and sixth century churches in Asia Minor.

One of the most interesting parts of Saint John’s Basilica was the baptistry.  It was a small eight-sided structure attached to the side of the main part of the church. On one side was a worship center for the ceremony before the baptism. From that center steps descended into the baptismal pool. Steps ascended from the other side of the pool to another worship center for the ceremony that followed the actual baptism. See this picture taken of Rosa and me standing in the pool. I left thinking about what this arrangement suggested concerning the meaning of baptism. How was your baptism like or different from what Saint John’s baptistry might suggest?

The ruins of the Basicilica of Saint John were a short walk from our bed and breakfast. This remarkable church was built at Ephesus by Justinian and Theodora, the great Byzintine sixth century Emperor and Empress. It commemorates the reputed burial place of the Apostle John, who spent his last days in Ephesus. We spent a wonderful afternoon walking over this I fascinating sight. A few of the columns, that once supported the six-dome, cross-shaped structure of this sanctuary still stand.