The Burnt-Over Blog: August 2010

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Last days of Summer

We found a cool little park that had some fountains to play in a couple of saturdays ago. The kids had lots of fun running through the water and then we did some fishing by the river. A good way to spend the last weekend before school started.

It took Bekah a little while to warm up to running through the water but she did it and loved it.

Lincoln taking a breather.

Walking to the river for some fishing.

The pylons on this bridge were built during the Civil War era. There were actually quite a few battles that happened in Nashville.

Our little Ella on her first day of pre-school! She picked out her own clothes, had her Dora backpack, her Tinkerbell lunchbox and was ready to go!

And here is Lincoln on his first day of First Grade! Our kids are getting so big!

It was a fantastic summer but the kids are happy to be in school again. Lincoln just loves it and Bekah is getting used to it. Seth starts next week and then I start the week after. Should be a busy year but lots of fun!

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Day at the Lake

We went to Montgomery Bell State Park last weekend. We rented a boat, went fishing and swam in the lake. Such a fun place to go for the summer. I only took pictures on the boat however so enjoy.

Daddy getting his pole ready. He got two beautiful blue-gill fish!

The kids favorite thing to do is play with sticks in the water.

The kids start school next week and that will be the end of a great summer this year! It has been a trip!

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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