The Burnt-Over Blog: August 2009

Monday, August 24, 2009

Colorado Springs

We stopped at the Campbell's house in Colorado Springs our last night before Utah and had such a great time exploring the town and going a block up the street to the Garden of the Gods.

Hiking in Colorado Springs.

Ken and Cindy.

Here are some deer that like to hang out at their home every morning! Two baby fawns and their mother. They also have some resident skunks but luckily we didn't see those.

Ken and Cindy took us out for some yummy ice cream after the hike!

And the kids got to sit on the cow out front.

A wonderful end to a wonderful day was riding in their convertible through the Garden of the Gods at dusk!

Linc and Bekah just loved it!

It got a little chilly near the end and you can see Linc all bundled up!

It was such a relaxing and fun time to be with Ken and Cindy! And yes we even ended the night with our ritual of Canasta and popcorn! Couldn't have been better.

The next day we drove the last nine hours to Utah!

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Nauvoo to Independence

Our next stop on our trip was to Nauvoo. We stayed with the director of Historic Sites for the Community of Christ. It was a beautiful place right next to the Mississippi! This is our view from the back porch. We also had a huge groundhog that would stop in and say hi every once in awhile!

Here Linc found a nice leaf.

During the tour, Linc and Ella thought the headstones of the prophet and his wife and brother were a great place to sit!

Red Brick Store.

The Mansion House.

Cute pictures in front of the Temple.

Climbing the steps.

Wrestling on the front lawn.

Then we stopped off in Independence and took the tour of the Temple there.

We had a lot of fun. Next stop was in Colorado Springs to see our friends the Campbells.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Kirtland to Springfield

Our first stop to Utah was actually at Camp Crooked Creek in Kentucky where Seth was a counselor for the Boy Scout Camp here 12 years ago! It was a lot of fun to see the place from where I have heard so many stories.

After 9 hours we made it to Kirtland.

Linc trying to break in!

This is looking out of the top tower on the Temple. You can see the graveyard down below.

And here we are in the tower looking out over the roof. A beautiful fly trap is hanging next to Lincoln's head!

On our way to Springfield, we stopped off in some little tiny town for dinner and we saw this live bait vending machine! Seth thought it was great!

Luckily we bought some DVD players for the kids to watch movies in the car. That was such a life saver.

In Springfield Illinois our second stop, we went to the Lincoln library and museum and if you ever find yourself in Springfield, you should definitely go! It was the coolest museum ever! The kids even loved it! Here is Lincoln with Lincoln as a young man.

And here he is again with Lincolns wife and kids.

Now they are both dancing in front of them!

Bekah playing with some Lincoln Logs.

They had a great play place for the kids. Of course Ella has the horses!

Here is the state capitol that Lincoln served as a House Rep and where Pres. Obama announced his run for the presidency!

Inside the Senate.

It was a great first half of the trip across the country! Next time, Nauvoo to Independence.

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

The Burnt-Over Blog