The Burnt-Over Blog: February 2009

Sunday, February 15, 2009

From Farm to Battlefield

Last weekend we took the kids to Dudley Farm where they were having their annual plow the field by horses festival! People all the way from New York bring their big Belgian horses down to help plow the field for planting. It was really cool to see and the kids had a lot of fun!

The kids loved this gigantic turkey! They even got to feed it later.

They had fun children's games for them to play. Becca liked this feed the chickens game.

Link liked this one where you put the walnut on your spoon and try not to drop it!

Becca finally got the hang of it too!

Yesterday we went to Olustee for their annual Reenactment of the Civil War. It was rainy but we have learned to never let that stop us in Florida. It was well worth it, wet and all. They had tents up and camps and the battle was really cool! I never realized how foggy it gets with all the black powder going off. Its called the fog of war, Seth informed me. I have heard that but its quite something else to actually see it and wonder how you can do battle in it.

Here come the calvary! And notice that you can't see much past them.

Here was the Union side.

And here was the Confederate side! It was amazing to see how many people volunteer to reenact this war. Clearly there were way more people on the confederate side! You can even see a fallen soldier off his horse there on the ground. They stayed there the whole time lying in the rain pretending to be dead!

I love my husband who finds the coolest things for us to do!

Saturday, February 7, 2009

Medieval Faire

A couple of weeks ago, we took the kids to the annual Hoggetowne Medieval Faire. They absolutely loved it! We started out at the witches tent where they had bubbles to blow and magic tricks they preformed.

Then the kids got to meet the King and Queen of the fair. They actually remembered Link from last year.

The King asked if he wanted to be a knight in his service. Link said yes and as you can see he even dressed the part. He wore his knight costume from Halloween.

Lincoln knelt down and the King knighted him Sir Lincoln!

Not only was he now Sir Lincoln, but shortly thereafter he got to ride an actual elephant!!

Becca got her turn on the ponies. I want you to notice how my hand is on her leg in this and the next picture, making sure she is steady and doesn't fall.

Not long into the ride however and she made me take my hand away wanting to do it all by herself!

The great event of the day was the jousting match by the knights. Here is the emcee, a Scotsman, announcing our heroes.

Our knight won the tournament!

If we end up staying here, we are definitely making this a yearly affair!

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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