The Burnt-Over Blog: March 2012

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

South Carolina

We went down to South Carolina to see Seth during President's Day weekend. We did lots of fun things though I forgot the camera on some of them. Saturday we went to the zoo.

There were actually hyena's at the zoo which you don't see that often.

Cutest Koala Bear ever! They look all snuggly and fun to play with but apparently they are quite indifferent to their human caretakers.

The kids got to feed the giraffes some lettuce. They were pretty funny giraffes and the kids had a great time feeding them and watching their long tongues try and search for food.

Sharing a nice slurpee.

That night we took the kids to a live kids play called "Pinkalicious" after the storybook. It was their first live play and they absolutely loved it! The next day we went to the science center and had fun there.

Bekah made a nice igloo home for those penguins.

It was a fun weekend and we were all just so happy to be with Seth again! The kids wanted to stay and live there with him but alas we had to get home. But we only have one more week and then we are packed and ready for South Carolina again where Seth will graduate and we will begin the drive to Utah and then to our new home in California! See you soon!

Friday, March 2, 2012

Happy Fifth Bekah!

Happy 5th Birthday Bekah! You are the sweetest little girl that we love so much!

Seth got Bekah a spongebob card when you open it it sings a birthday song. Needless to say she still has the card and plays it at least once a day!!

Seth's first stop in Chaplain training was in Rhode Island. He was there for 5 weeks. This first picture is the view he had from his room.

They got to travel to Plymouth and see Plymouth rock.

This is the ship U.S.S. Constitution that he got to tour.

The sailor looking sharp in his new uniform.

He is now in South Carolina finishing up his training. We went and visited him last weekend and I will post those pictures soon. Also we were headed to Japan for three years but they did not have all that Lincoln needed for doctors so we are now assigned to Twentynine Palms California. It is about two hours east of L.A. in the desert! Seth is assigned to the marines and we will only be 10 hours away from family! It will be great!

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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