Wednesday, April 29, 2009
A Big Red Letter Day!
Hannah and Allie were both accepted into the Applied Economics and Management major and Luke was accepted into the Animal Science major.
What a day of joy and celebration! Mom is currently planning a big barbeque with desserts galore to increase the festivities. How fun!
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Whoa! Don't Skip Spring!
What ever happened to the idea of spring? It's only April!
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Surprise!
I was already so excited to go to Los Angeles on business, because I knew that I would get to see my wonderful friend and college roommate, Kristiane, but, little did I know that my other wonderful friend (and other college roommate) Trina would totally surprise me and pop out of the shadows of the hallway when I was returning to my hotel room! What an absolute blast! I was so surprised and absolutely thrilled that all three of us could be together just like the old days! So happy! The pictures above were taken at Manhattan Beach.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
NYT on the Renovation of the Poughkeepsie-Highland Railway Bridge
Friday, April 24, 2009
Bentley Farm Prepares to Welcome a New Family Member
But, here's the good news, in recent years our family has, once again, welcomed new members into our home with great joy...it's just that the age of the new members has slightly shifted! First it was our dear grandpa, then our fun-loving grandma....and now, one more is coming! Grandpa Farmer's first cousin, Maryella Strane, is planning on moving into the room that Grandpa vacated. Maryella is 92 and one spunky and clever lady. Our family will never be done growing!
Thursday, April 23, 2009
The Irony of "Free" (TOTB Part VI)
The joy of the truth that Jesus Christ was raised in the body is that we, mere mortals, have a means, a mechanism, by which to enter into the fullness of the love that we were created to experience. Because the same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead dwells in us, our mortal bodies are quickened to live a life of wholeness and of fullness (Romans 8:11). The next four posts regarding Theology of the Body will look at how we can mirror the free, total, faithful and fruitful love of God in our bodies.
One of the most ironic words that we encounter in our language is the word free. The irony is not that free always has a catch, because truly, for us, free doesn’t always have a catch. The love of my mom for me is free. I’ve tested it enough to know that it doesn’t have a catch. My mom doesn’t love me because I look or behave a certain way. Her love, as given to me, is truly free.
The irony of the word free is found in the fact that free always has a price tag – it’s just that free means that the price is paid by someone else. My mom’s love for me has a price tag that’s truly expensive – her free gift of love has cost her sleepless nights, hours of listening, hours of counseling, hours of chauffeuring, hours of encouraging. Her love is really very costly – but, when I receive it, it is given to me freely.
I think it could be said that it is for lack of understanding the irony of the word free, that we misinterpret the nature of sexual love as it was created to be. Free love as promoted by the sexual revolution allows me to believe that free means that I can give my body away to a man or woman or myself (it’s my choice) free of emotional entanglements, free of stiff religious prohibition, free of societal norms, free of judgment, free of commitment, free of fear that I will have to raise a child, free of anything but my immediate desire for my own pleasure.
But free always has a cost and someone is paying the cost of our current understanding of free love. We have lived with this active definition of free love long enough to realize that distributing our bodies "freely" eventually has a pricetag that is paid by someone. The cost that society pays for free love is steep. Suffice it to say that the first group of people who pay the price for this misleading definition of free are children. Children conceived from "free" love face historically unprecedented rates of murder before they even take their first breath.
But the problem is not that we have mislabeled love as free. Love is meant to be free. God in Christ taught us this truth.
But the nature of God’s free love is diametrically opposed to the nature of free love as promoted by the sexual revolution. The nature of God’s free love requires that I give freely; the nature of the sexual revolution only requires that I receive freely.
Truly free love between a man and a woman means that a man and a woman will commit to the cost of love, so that they can give love that it truly life-giving. Truly free sexual love means that we learn to cherish a whole person to the point of committing our whole lives to that person before we receive the gift of their body. Dr. Janet E. Smith, professor at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, calls this truly free love natural sex. She says, “We have very few people in this world who have an experience of what I want to call natural sex. Natural sex is the sex that a man and a woman have with each other when they are in love with each other, when they’ve made a commitment to each other and they’re open to having children with each other. That’s natural sex. It’s really incredible and wonderful sex. Those who have that will testify that it’s way better than any other kind of sex.”
The irony of free thus continues – they who give the most costly love will find love to be most free.
We Do Not Lose Heart
- 2 Corinthians 4: 16-18
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
And This is Grace, An Invitation to Be Beautiful
We come with purposes written on our hearts, written on our souls
We come to every new morning
With possibilities only we can hold, that only we can hold
Redemption comes in strange place, small spaces
Calling out the best of who we are
And I want to add to the beauty
To tell a better story
I want to shine with the light
That's burning up inside
It comes in small inspirations
It brings redemption to life and work
To our lives and our work
It comes in loving community
It comes in helping a soul find it's worth
Redemption comes in strange places, small spaces
Calling out the best of who we are
And I want to add to the beauty
To tell a better story
I want to shine with the light
That's burning up inside
This is grace, an invitation to be beautiful
This is grace, an invitation
Redemption comes in strange places, small spaces
Calling out our best
And I want to add to the beauty
To tell a better story
I want to shine with the light
That's burning up inside
- Sara Groves, Add to the Beauty
Sunday, April 19, 2009
More Weekend Snippets
Dad, Jacob and I spent a bit of the day cleaning up around the model home. After the development project ended, a lot of organization was left behind.
Jacob drove the trailer to a less conspicuous spot.
Dad and Jacob (it took two tractors) moved the dumpster.
And here I am in my silly sun hat. I moved a ton of branches, big tires, electrical wires, bramble bushes and silt fencing. It's definitely looking better!
I can never, ever be too busy to catch a picture of the sun setting in the Catskills!
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Snippets From the Weekend
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Loving Him Before All Else
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
No Simple Pleasures?
The circus came to town yesterday. At midnight on March 23, ten elephants walked through the Midtown Tunnel and along 34 Street, on their way to Madison Square Garden: the 139th annual Animal Walk of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey's Circus. The great gray legs of the pachyderms, their swinging trunks, that strangely rapid shuffle that they do: a simple pleasure to see. Except that the animal-rights activists were out in protest at the entrance to the tunnel. There are no simple pleasures remaining in our puritanical times; each human pleasure is run through the great fires of human guilt, where it must be consumed. Or perhaps I mean each small and innocent joy must be consumed. What strange days: The complex pleasures of human sexuality are declared simple and guilt-free, while the simple pleasures of a circus parade are rendered complex and guilty.
Don't Forget the Lovebirds!
Ray, A Drop of Golden Sun
Cleaning the Fields
Monday, April 13, 2009
Amenia to Millerton and Back Again
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Easter Memories
Clarence joined us for one swell ham and potato Easter dinner which was followed by an amusing round of games including a very difficult chocolate egg hunt (led by Rebecca), a game of nine books (led by Luke), a game of Indian Princess and a game of word magic (led by Jacob). Crazy! Check out the very eclectic photo documentation.
And I Know My Redeemer Lives!
and Who told the ocean you can only come this far?
and Who showed the moon where to hide 'til evening?
Whose words alone can catch a falling star?
Well I know my Redeemer lives
I know my Redeemer lives:
All of creation testifies
This life within me cry
I know my Redeemer lives, yeah.
The very same God that spins things in orbit
runs to the weary, the worn and the weak
And the same gentle hands that hold me when I'm broken
They conquered death to bring me victory
Now I know my Redeemer lives
I know my Redeemer lives
Let all creation testify
Let this life within we cry
I know my Redeemer, He lives
To take away my shame
And He lives forever, I'll proclaim
That the payment for my sin
Was the precious life He gave
But now He's alive and
There's an empty grave.
And I know my Redeemer lives
I know my Redeemer lives
Let all creation testify
Let this life within me cry
I know my Redeemer,
I know my Redeemer
I know my Redeemer lives
I know my Redeemer lives
I know that I know that I know that I know that I know my redeemer lives
Because He lives I can face tomorrow
I Know I know
He lives He lives yeah, yeah I spoke with him this morning
He lives He lives, the tomb is empty,
He lives I gotta tell everybody
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Behold the Place Where They Laid Him: The Body is Risen! Hallelujah! (TOTB Part V)
The whole point, from the very beginning of this story, has been that our bodies reflect our created purpose - our call to enter into the eternal union of love that existed in the Godhead before all time. We royally fell from our intended purpose, but because God's love is so faithful, God the Son, in the man Jesus, radically showed us the way back to abundant living. Tragically, we responded by killing him, thinking that if we could rob God of his body, we could continue to grope in the darkness without facing the truth that our lives had no meaning apart from their created purpose.
If the story ends here, however marvelous the story is to this point, the whole story is in vain and worthless. Everything is void and we are done and we have no hope. Death ends everything.
- If death is the end of the story of God the Son, then there is no eternal communion of love, and hence no purpose to this life. The grave is all-consuming and there is no reason to live with intention. There is no reason to live at all.
- If death is the end of the story of God the Son, then God's love is not total; it is, in fact, limited by a grave.
- If death is the end of the story of God the Son, then God is powerless to save, and we are stuck, forever stuck, in the futility of our bodies, forever seeking self-gratification, rejecting self-donation.
Everything is at stake in the remainder of the story!
We can relive the wonder, the relief, the incredulity, and the awe of joining Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Salome upon reaching the tomb of Jesus on the third day after the crucifixion. Mark's gospel reports, "The stone [of the tomb] was rolled away [and] a young man [was] sitting on the right side clothed in a long white garment.... And he saith unto them, Be not affrighted: Ye seek Jesus of Nazereth, which was crucified: he is risen: he is not here: behold the place where they laid him."