This is the Henson family, and this is our web page. Our family has two adults (my wife, Mary Anne and myself) and four young boys: Stephen (age 11), Matthew (age 9), Mark (age 7), and Sean (age 4). The kids would also include our two cars in the family - Tiger and D.C. (Darned Cat). We just moved to Cookeville, TN from Philadelphia, PA. In Philadelphia, I was a physician at the local Veterans Affairs Medical Center there for about 15 years, but left Philadelphia for a better lifestyle in the Sunbelt. It was very difficult leaving my family and friends, and was probably even more so for my wife and children. We are still making adjustments to small town, southern life; it will probably take several years before we really feel at home here. But the people are extremely friendly, the climate is wonderful, the living is much easier, the economy is booming, and the taxes are low. This area of the country is one of the friendliest I have ever met; the people here are so anxious to help you that it is sometimes even embarrassing.

Our trip to Cookeville was not without incident. We had to battle bad weather, several articles of furniture broken or could not be reassembled, my having significant, sudden vision loss just as the moving van was disappearing over the horizon, my wife losing her glasses, we forgot to latch the back door of our Suburban and part of our luggage fell out onto the highway, etc. It was a four-day drive with four young boys, all of whom were very anxious to get to the next donation. We heard incessant cries of, "How long till we get there?" all the way down.

One of the highlights of our trip was a stop at the Luray Caverns in Luray, Virginia. I remember having been there many years ago as a boy when traveling down South with my parents. It is a truly marvelous place, with huge caverns full of stalactites and stalagmites, along with other interesting rock formations. They have a beautiful organ deep within the caves too, that was built decades ago using tuned rock formations as the sources of each musical tone. It was quite wet down in the caves, for it had recently rained there, and we had to be very careful not to slip, especially while trying to take care of four boys who were not very adept at staying together. We were frequently losing at least one boy as he would run off into the front of the line, or lag behind to get another view at something interesting. But the caverns truly were spectacular and not something to miss.  Afterwards, we went across the road to visit the Luray Reptile Zoo.  Stephen, my oldest boy, is very interested in all kinds of animals, especially the invertebrates found in the backyard.  He has had several reptiles in his room, including anoles, newts, and lizards.

We also stopped at the Roanoke Zoo to look at their collection of animals. Stephen particularly is interested in animals, and so we thought he might be interested in stopping at a zoo on the way down south. The zoo was founded in 1952 and became a non-profit organization in 1975.  Unfortunately, however, the zoo was much smaller than the Philadelphia Zoo and I think he might have been somewhat disappointed. The zoo was in a beautiful location on Mill Mountain overlooking the city of Roanoke and still had a beautiful if somewhat small collection of animals.

One of the more difficult parts of the trip was our stay-over in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Gatlinburg is a beautiful town just barely outside of the Great Smoky Mountains in eastern Tennessee. Just next to Gatlinburg is a five mile strip of amusement parks, rides, stores, and swimming areas just for kids so naturally the children wanted to visit there. One of the most famous sites near Gatlinburg is Dollywood - called "The Entertainment Capital of the Smokies."  It was built in 1986, and is now Tennessee's #1 attraction, with good family entertainment.  However, our children's behavior was so terrible while we were traveling through Tennessee that we postponed these amusement areas until we went back there again. I find this particular area of the country really beautiful, and it brings back memories of when I used to visit there as a young boy.

We finally got to Cookeville on a Sunday, and we couldn't even remember how to get to our house.  The hospital had thoughtfully put us up at a local hotel overnight so we didn't have to spend our first night living in Cookeville in a house with no furniture.  The next day, the moving van arrived and the real work began.  We had to try to figure out where each piece of furniture - each dissected piece of our former lives - would fit in our new house.  Thiis took many, many hours, and thoroughly exhausted us all.  The kids had a great time getting used to the new house, and exploring the woods and stream behind the property.

But everything has worked out well finally, My vision has largely recovered and I see as well as before with new contact lenses. We were able to safely recover all of the luggage that fell out of our car onto the highway, and my sons are slowly adapting to their new home, new friends, and new school. It has been a difficult time for all of us, though, but I like to think we have learned through this trial to appreciate each other more.  We have learned to help each other through the difficulties associated with moving to a new location far from everybody and everyone with know and love. Better times are yet to come.

Life's Meaning

Everybody should have more meaning in their lives than merely their work, however.  I am now a pulmonary and critical care physician in Cookeville, and serve in a hospital that covers much of middle Tennessee.  But, there is much more to my life than just my work at the hospital.  I have a wonderful family as I have noted previously, and try to serve as a father to my four growing boys who need their father more and more as they grow older, and to my wife, who I hope needs me more and more as we both grow older.  I also try to have some hobbies and diversions which interest me, and which help me understand the country and world we live in and how we relate to each other.  I am politically active with conservative values - what President Bush might call "compassionate conservatism."  

More importantly, I try to understand my Christian faith better and present this faith in a way that would be understandable to the world at large by demonstrating how Christianity is a reasonable faith in that it is historically valid and agrees with the latest scientific knowledge concerning the origins of the Universe and of life on this earth.  A scientist does not have to ignore his scientific knowledge in order to be a fundamentalist Christian; indeed, our most recent knowledge concerning the origin of the Universe shows our Christian understanding to not only be reasonable but also remarkably accurate.  Note I am not discussing "creation science" which is certainly not "science."  Creation science generally proposes a young earth and a young Universe despite the great preponderance of evidence to the contrary.  It is not necessary for a Christian to believe in creation science in order to be a fundamentalist, Bible believing Christian.  Indeed, I believe that "scientific creationism" has immeasurably hurt Christianity as it necessarily portrays Christians as ignorant, prejudiced backwards bumpkins who would believe in pseudo-science and myth rather than what is clearly demonstrated by science and reason.  Certainly, scientific understanding changes over the years while religious truth is eternal.  Our understanding of religious truth, however, may need to change as we become more cognizant of different meanings contained within God's word and as we expand our understanding of God's creation.  It is one of the missions of New Hope Ministries to present Biblical Cosmology as a reasonable, scientifically verifiable understanding of the creation of man and the universe within the construct of Christianity.  

The existence of God and the validity of Christianity cannot be proven, just as any belief system can not be proven.  We need to understand that since nothing can be proven absolutely the best we can do is to ascertain whether a belief system is rational and reasonable; whether it agrees with what we understand about the world about us.  I propose that Christianity is the most reasonable belief system not because I was brought up as a fundamentalist Christian - which I was not - but because it answers life's question with a rational, proven apologetic.  There are no other belief systems or religious understandings that have so much verifiable, independent evidence as to its objective truth as does Christianity.  It explains how we got here, the meaning of life, our relation to creation and its Creator, and what happens to us after death.     

Sites to See

Everybody has their own favorite sites on the Web - sites that are of special personal interest or those with something profound to say.  My links page is a portal to those sites I have found which have special interest to me, and which I hope might prove valuable to others with similar tastes and interests. On this site there are links to other link pages such as astronomy, business, science, mathematics, cigarette smoking and its health risks, space science, technology, college sites, etc.  There is probably something here for everybody.

My Four Boys

My personal site would certainly not be complete without references to my children - my four boys.  These kids are great; Stephen, Matthew, Mark, and Sean.  Being a father to four boys is certainly very challenging; I believe a boy's father is probably the most important person in their life, especially as they get older.  I wish I could give some idea as to the great joy they give me personally.  But I would be remiss if I did not also note how difficult they are to raise; they love each other but they fight constantly.  They try to be helpful at time, but they can be incredibly destructive.  They have given me the best of times, but also the worst of times.  I would be incredibly poorer without them!

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