The Burnt-Over Blog: July 2011

Thursday, July 14, 2011

4th

We had some good fun this past 4th of July! I took the kids and we bought a slip n slide, a bag of fireworks and some crazy sprinklers. Here are the pictures.

Bekah didn't want to slide so she started out crawling under the water!

Then she finally did some sliding on her knees.

Lincoln knew what to do!

Apparently you are never to old to slip n' slide! Though you may just end up with a lot of bruises after.

Annie made a great splash!

Stomping on the snappers.

Annie was the designated firework lighter as Seth was out of town. Despite these faces the kids loved them!

Another great 4th of July, though I have discovered that Tennessee doesn't do parades on the 4th. Coming from Utah where we have two parades in July it seems rather odd but I guess if you have never had one, you don't know what you are missing. They do have a Christmas parade here though. That would never work in Utah unless the floats were pulled by dogsleds. Actually that would be an awesome parade!

Sunday, July 3, 2011

Adventure Science Center

I took the kids to the Adventure Science Center last weekend. Here are some pictures. Aren't they just the cutest little kids!

Bekah is pulling a car up by herself!

This was a cool earthquake model.

In the train.

Linc in the ambulance.

That was our fun day. The following pictures are from Linc and Bekah's cameras they got for Christmas. After cycling through 900 (no joke) pictures, here are some of the best.

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