I loved when my wife and I attended the worship meetings for the network of house churches to which my son and his wife used to belong.

Every young man there (and they are all young men) had a beard of various lengths, and almost every young family has at least one child under the age of two.

That’s why I affectionately called it the “beards and babies” church.

I am of an earlier generation, one in which both the men, but especially the women, prefer clean shaven men. But I must admit, my son’s church was full of handsome men who sported beards as varied as the Don Johnson-like stubble (anyone remember his role in Miami Vice?) all the way to a full-on Willie Robertson “Duck Dynasty” beard. Any child in my son’s church saw only men with some sort of facial hair. I wonder if my future grandchild (due in July! Woo-hoo!) will ever understand that I am also a daddy, since I don’t have a beard.

Something else to ponder on this cold, wet Monday (a fellow blogger described this weather as “vile” – hat tip to you, Stephen Black and the Fractured Faith Blog):  The children of that church have this in common with the Christ child: the infant Jesus saw only bearded men.

Trivial? Yes.  Fun to think about? Yeah, that too.