The Burnt-Over Blog: September 2010

Friday, September 24, 2010

Floating Mills

Over Labor Day we took a camping trip to Center Hill Lake, Floating Mills campground. Seth and I had stayed here one night about a month after we were married traveling on our way to Fort Eustis Virginia. We thought it was so beautiful and hoped we could come back someday. Ironic how we now only live an hour away from that campground 7 years later.

It was a lot of fun to camp there and the kids loved it of course. They had the lake, hiking, and a very nice beach to go swimming in. What more could any kid want?

Bekah even caught her very own fish! I didn't have the camera with me of course so I missed the good shot.

The next day Lincoln caught his own fish!

Bekah really liked fishing, guess that means daddy finally has a fishing buddy now.

One morning the fog rolled in and made the lake eerily beautiful.

Lincoln searching for something.

Oh, its a nice wet log!

Linc is excited about something, can't remember what though.

Our little hike.

Lincoln wanted to attempt taking a picture all by himself and this is the result. Not bad.

Then Bekah had to have her turn taking a picture.

That was our great camping trip. A couple weeks later we took the kids to the State Fair. Here Ella is showing the finger where the chicken bit her!

We ran into some fun clowns that made the kids balloon hats.

They had a fun petting zoo.

September turned out to be a fun month and we look forward to the nice cool weather of fall!

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Playground Fun

We finally did it! Seth found a playground on Craigslist for really cheap and we bought it! It is the best buy we have made. The kids come home from school and instead of wanting to watch T.V., they go straight outside and play. The seem to like the swings the best. Anyone out there thinking of getting a playground, definitely get one from Craigslist!

The nice climbing wall.

Isn't that so cute!

Even cuter.

Teaching Maggie to sit before getting a treat.

Then praise for doing what she asked. Such a good dog trainer.

This is what they do for hours at a time.

They occasionally go down the slide too.

It is so great to have this for the kids. When Seth took them to look at it the first time, they played on it and then Seth asked Linc if he wanted to bring it home, he got so excited he peed his pants! Oh the simple joys of youth!

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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