The Burnt-Over Blog: December 2008

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Ho Ho Santa

We took the kids last weekend back to Silver Springs to see the lights and Santa! And of course they had to ride their favorite ride on the boat. You can never get too many boat pictures!

Santa was great, Becca didn't have any problem sitting on his lap though as you can tell by her expressions, she isn't that sure of him either. Link actually got within a couple of feet from him which is an improvement from him crying at 20 feet away last Christmas! So it was good and they got their candy canes! When asked what Link wanted for Christmas, he said Kung Fu Panda, and Little Mermaid (don't know where that came from)!

He still looks a little terrified don't you think?

Merry Christmas!

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Thanksgiving Beach

The day before Thanksgiving we took the kids to the beach to play. All week Linc has been asking to go to the beach and we kept telling him it was too cold to go. Well the day was nice and off we went.

We brought some bread to feed the seagulls as Becca is always chasing after them everytime we go. So we brought them to us, and boy did we ever! They were swarming all over! Miraculously, we didn't get any bombings but they would take the bread right out of Ella's hands! She loved it of course! And so did the birds.

Seth brought his fishing pole and Linc's. He loves to fish with his daddy. And Becca loved it too! Now Seth has two fishing buddies!

And here is the Mighty Fisherman himself!

They had a nice big playground on the beach so the kids played there too. One of Lincoln's favorite things to do is climb. So here he is climbing!

Lastly, a classic funny signs picture. The ice cream shop next to the bait shop! Who could ask for anything more.

We had a great Thanksgiving at our friends house! They had good food and nice big yard for the kids to wander around in! Hope you all had a great time too!

Doctrine and Covenants 163:10a-b

Del Gue's Parting Words

I ain't never seen 'em, but my common sense tells me the Andes is foothills, and the Alps is for children to climb! Keep good care of your hair! These here is God's finest sculpturings! And there ain't no laws for the brave ones! And there ain't no asylums for the crazy ones! And there ain't no churches, except for this right here! And there ain't no priests excepting the birds. By God, I are a mountain man, and I'll live 'til an arrow or a bullet finds me. And then I'll leave my bones on this great map of the magnificent...

The Meaning of Christ on the Cross

At the heart of divine love is sacrifice-the willingness to be diminished so that another may be increased. This is the meaning of Christ on the cross. God, who could have insulated himself from pain, descended to earth, assumed the aspect of his children, and bore the greatest pain in his own person. Rather than hoard the heavenly feast for himself, he invites beggars to his table. He breaks bread with us and drinks from the cup our lips have touched. When he speaks to us, it is no longer from a great white throne, centered in a vortex of light, surrounded by celestial griffins, warding off the unwashed. He speaks to us eye to eye, from a traitor’s gibbet, with his blood and sweat and shame upon him for all to see, and with his wounds forever open. He comes not as king, but as slave. He comes not as judge, but as accused. He comes not as patriarch, but as bastard. He comes not to punish us, but to let us punish him. He does not ask us to love him until we are first certain that he loves us. He is the great failure who saves us from our success. He is the great fool who spares us from our wisdom. He is the rejected lover who will not, in turn, reject his love. He is a prophet without honor, a citizen of a despised nation, a poor relation, an unwanted guest. He is the voice of one crying in the wilderness of every human heart. He is the God of grief and sorrow who is the joy of our desiring. He is utterly good because he loves us in our sins and imperfections, because he freely made himself equal to us, and because he freely opened the way whereby we may be made equal to him.

--Paul Toscano's "Priesthood Concepts in the Book of Mormon," Sunstone (Dec. 1989): 17.

True Conversion

Conversion is a permanent process in which very often the obstacles we meet make us lose all we had gained and start anew. The fruitfulness of our conversion depends on our openness to doing this, our spiritual childhood. All conversion implies a break. To wish to accomplish it without conflict is to deceive oneself and others: "No one is worthy of me who cares more for father or mother than for me." But it is not a question of a withdrawn and pious attitude. Our conversion process is affected by the socio-economic, political, cultural, and human environment in which it occurs. Without a change in these structures, there is no authentic conversion. We have to break with our mental categories, with the way we relate to others, with our way of identifying with the Lord, with our cultural milieu, with our social class, in other words, with all that can stand in the way of a real, profound solidarity with those who suffer, in the first place, from misery and injustice. Only thus, and not through purely interior and spiritual attitudes, will the 'new person' arise from the ashes of the 'old.'"
--Gustavo Gutierrez, A Theology of Liberation, 118

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