The Burnt-Over Blog: Kirtland to Springfield

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Kirtland to Springfield

Our first stop to Utah was actually at Camp Crooked Creek in Kentucky where Seth was a counselor for the Boy Scout Camp here 12 years ago! It was a lot of fun to see the place from where I have heard so many stories.

After 9 hours we made it to Kirtland.

Linc trying to break in!

This is looking out of the top tower on the Temple. You can see the graveyard down below.

And here we are in the tower looking out over the roof. A beautiful fly trap is hanging next to Lincoln's head!

On our way to Springfield, we stopped off in some little tiny town for dinner and we saw this live bait vending machine! Seth thought it was great!

Luckily we bought some DVD players for the kids to watch movies in the car. That was such a life saver.

In Springfield Illinois our second stop, we went to the Lincoln library and museum and if you ever find yourself in Springfield, you should definitely go! It was the coolest museum ever! The kids even loved it! Here is Lincoln with Lincoln as a young man.

And here he is again with Lincolns wife and kids.

Now they are both dancing in front of them!

Bekah playing with some Lincoln Logs.

They had a great play place for the kids. Of course Ella has the horses!

Here is the state capitol that Lincoln served as a House Rep and where Pres. Obama announced his run for the presidency!

Inside the Senate.

It was a great first half of the trip across the country! Next time, Nauvoo to Independence.

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Doctrine and Covenants 163:10a-b

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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...

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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.

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