Scrapbooks are wonderful keepsakes. I remember my mother sitting on the den floor, almost smothered with pictures of me and my three brothers. The pictures were of the family posing for a church picture (can you say Olan Mills?), one of the boys in a golf tournament, one of our dogs before it ran away and got run over, or a vacation picture from Panama City Beach. They were, and are to this day, priceless pictures to us.

So, we have scrapbooks from when I was a kid and now from my family. Most of the family trips, birthday parties, sporting events, etc., have resulted in gobs of pictures that we want to keep, so Sheri has put them in books. I suppose all of them are also saved on the computer, but we like to have the scrapbook as well. She seems to enjoy collecting and putting the pictures into books.

Regarding pictures, my how things have changed in this culture of ours in recent years. For example, our son went to Chicago a few years ago to visit a friend and go to a Cubs game. He took a lot of pictures on his phone of Chicago and Wrigley Field. As soon as he got home he got on a website, Shutterfly, downloaded his pictures and had a scrapbook put together online. It arrived in the mail a few days later.

All of which leads me to say that my wife went on a scrapbooking retreat this past weekend. She and some other ladies spent the weekend putting together scrapbooks the old-fashioned way. I could think of a gazillion better ways to spend a weekend than scrapbooking. Going to a weekend scrapbooking retreat would amount to torture for me. If you gave me the following multiple choice test, I would have a hard time picking which I would rather do: 1) go on a cruise ship that loses power and floats aimlessly for days; 2) spend a weekend dancing to the music of rapper-producer Jay-Z; 3) sit in Congress for three days listening to the debate about sequestering; or 4) attend a scrapbook retreat.

A popular book a few years ago was “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.” The author, John Gray, sold about 50 million copies. I don’t know why he didn’t interview me for his book. I know about such things. You can take my word for it: There is no scrapbooking on Mars, but on Venus, it is a source of great pleasure. I can’t, for the life of me, understand how a bunch of women can go scrapbooking for a weekend, then come home and want to tell all about it.

On the other hand, Sheri can’t understand how I can watch football all weekend and then want to talk to the guys at church about it. John Gray, I am waiting on a phone call.

I don’t pretend to understand all the differences between men and women, nor do I think all men are alike and all women are alike. I know there are lots of exceptions to any stereotypes. We should be very careful in making generalizations about people based on gender, race, etc.

I do know that when God made man and woman in the Genesis 1 account, He said it was “very good.” But then, that was before scrapbooking had been invented.

Davis is pastor of the First Baptist Church in Carrollton.