The Burnt-Over Blog: October 2010

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Fall Fever

My favorite time of the year in Nashville is definitely the fall. The colors of the leaves are incredible! And the weather is just perfect. Here is what we have been up to this fall so far.

The kids colored their pumpkins in anticipation of the day we will cut them.

Bekah is a purple dragon for Halloween and Linc is Spider-man! They like to swing in their swings and pretend they are flying through the air with wings or spider webs.

I raked the leaves in front of their slide so they could fall in them.

Seth and I built and all-naturale (except for the tarp of course) doghouse for Maggie. Even when she is getting soaking wet from the rain, she still won't go in there! Oh well.

Last Friday we took the kids on a hike at Percy Werner Park. Perfect day for it. Notice Lincoln putting his hands out, he does this most of the time while hiking because he is the leader and he doesn't want Bekah or I to pass him!!

Beautiful!

Bekah's walking stick. Always has to have one hiking. Kind of reminds me of you Papa John!

Lincoln's Log!

Bekah took this picture!

The next day we went to the Buddy Walk for Nashville's Down Syndrome Association. They both got medals for finishing it!

Monday, October 11, 2010

Oktober Fest

Last weekend was Oktober Fest in Nashville's own Germantown Historic District. Didn't even know there was one until now! It was a lot of fun especially as it was all free! They had a lot of fun stuff for the kids, like this huge blow up slide.

It was quite the climb.

Once Linc made it to the top, he was too scared to slide down. Finally some girls coaxed him down.

He wanted to go again but this time with Daddy.

They even had pony rides there, and for free! Sure beats paying, like at the fair!

Then they got to color their own puzzles.

Lincoln is getting better at taking pictures.

This is Bekah's attempt at taking a picture.

A beautiful Catholic church there in Germantown.

They had a ton of these blow-up things for the kids.

I can't remember the last time Bekah took a nap! We must really have worn her out to have her fall asleep so quickly and in such an awkward position!

Oktober Fest was awesome and definitely a keeper for next year!

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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