SamahaTown

Oh. My. Goodness. The older I get the more repuls...

2011-07-14T19:23:00.209-06:00

Oh. My. Goodness. The older I get the more repulsed I am at places like this. We went to an indoor water park once and I though I was going to be forever traumatized!

I am envious of you. I would love to move to the s...

2011-07-08T20:40:54.451-06:00

I am envious of you. I would love to move to the south!

Ew. Chuck E Cheese is so disgusting. I went to one...

2011-07-08T20:37:24.895-06:00

Ew. Chuck E Cheese is so disgusting. I went to one in Maple Grove where you would think it would be semi-better. Newp. Equally as nast.

I hadn't checked out the blog for awhile. Lov...

2011-04-02T16:07:28.406-06:00

I hadn't checked out the blog for awhile. Loved this little glimpse into your beach day. :) Love you!

I just read this and it is March, so I am apparent...

2011-03-02T07:00:26.255-07:00

I just read this and it is March, so I am apparently behind in my blog reading. I love the "sparkly vomit" and the princess gown. I get Anna's logic- she is a daughter of the King of Kings and thus,PRINCESS! BTW- Sarcasm is a love language. :)

AHhhh hahahahaha!!! I L-to-the-OVE my family to t...

2011-01-06T12:03:56.678-07:00

AHhhh hahahahaha!!! I L-to-the-OVE my family to the 19th power! Man I miss you all.... It is like the sarcasm room in my heart is filled with heap fulls of dry humor EVERYTIME one of us writes even one sentence! Gulp, I eat it up...every last word. Love you more than working out with a first grader who counts his jumping jacks by the hundreds. xoxoxo

Ha ha. Dude. It was Christmas Eve at Wal-Mart. In ...

2010-12-29T20:27:05.230-07:00

Ha ha. Dude. It was Christmas Eve at Wal-Mart. In the south, no less. The Hello Kitty/Tap Out combo wouldn't have even made the top ten list of oddities in that setting. :-)

Did Steve really make an attempt to purchase paper...

2010-12-29T19:29:28.803-07:00

Did Steve really make an attempt to purchase paper "hello Kitty" birthday hats for which to celebrate the birth of Christ while wearing a lighting bolt adorned "Tap Out" T-shirt? 'Cause that's just awsome....

That sounded like a fabulous historic first day ba...

2010-12-11T10:07:06.788-07:00

That sounded like a fabulous historic first day back to work. When I had to go back full-time after Mayah, I started praying with the girls as soon as we were on the road. It has been such a huge blessing because so many mornings I am so ragged and maxed out before I even pulled out of the driveway. So no matter how I got out of the door and into the car, by the time I dropped the girls off we were all at a better place. Need to be honest, there has been a few mornings where I was too stressed to pray and asked one of my children to pray instead!!! Now, even though I work only afternoons the girls remind me if we forget on the way to school to pray and school is only two minutes away!!!

Cheryl, Charity and I just finished reading your ...

2010-11-15T20:45:12.662-07:00

Cheryl,

Charity and I just finished reading your blog laughing the whole while!! I think I'm going to use the phrase " even when you have to dodge the fiery laser beams shooting from your crazy wife’s eyes to do it". I just love that phrase!!
Love you and miss you all!!!! It's been too long!
Kay

Thanks Gramma Terrie for sending me to your funny ...

2010-11-15T20:43:34.139-07:00

Thanks Gramma Terrie for sending me to your funny daughter's musings....have seen your Christmas poetry and see that the proverbial apple has not fallen far from the mama tree!
So, funny girl, does this make 7 readers? :)
You make me again stand in awe of you mamas wearing so many hats-and God bless the daddies standing in the gaps! If they can keep us laughing, we're good to go, right?!
Your mama's buddie, Joy

If funny Auntie Tami would have been there, I woul...

2010-11-10T15:57:51.987-07:00

If funny Auntie Tami would have been there, I would have NO DOUBT done a frog dance along with the chant! I love you more than the miracle of baby wipes! xoxoxo

Thank you, Samahas for sharing your little Maria w...

2010-11-08T14:35:43.331-07:00

Thank you, Samahas for sharing your little Maria with us at the Bilbrey house. She is a ray of sunshine and dreadfully missed when she is not here. I love the way you write, Cheryl, I have giggled all the way through "the frogs."

O.M.G. how unfortunate! It is tragic really.... ...

2010-08-31T15:25:26.497-06:00

O.M.G. how unfortunate! It is tragic really.... :)

Hans, I like how you stated, "Just because th...

2010-08-26T08:39:25.850-06:00

Hans, I like how you stated, "Just because they aren't found in print on the pages of the Bible...". I believe that is why it can be so important to have an actual "relationship" with God. Day-to-day. Learning more of Him, spending quiet time away from the craziness of life, stopping the incessant talking and perhaps taking a moment to listen to the wind...to His voice. He is soooo much more than just what has been written in the Bible. The Bible is most definitely the main jumping off point and then with that as your reference....go out and see Him everywhere. Experience all the many, innumerable "works of God" that have been written, painted, composed, birthed since the Bible first came together. God is love. God is Grace. Jesus was God. And maybe, just maybe another work of God will be written by one of us in the future!

Yes!!! I love it. I love that you incorporated lan...

2010-08-24T15:02:46.186-06:00

Yes!!! I love it. I love that you incorporated language as one of the major hurdles we have to get over as well as our cultural biases. Something I learned that I found interesting is that the idea of a human soul is a Greek idea and is not found in the pages of scripture. (The Soul being the essence of a person that exists no matter what condition, living or dead, that person is in) Same with the idea of the holy Trinity, although I believe that idea came later from the council of Nicea. It’s interesting how much of our core doctrine is based on interpretative ideas about the scriptures. I’m not saying any of it is wrong but I think it does have to be looked at through the proper lens. I also really liked your thoughts on symbolism. If you really want a truth to transcend time, the best way to package it is to make picture out of it. Unfortunately our western culture looks at stories and myths as either true or not true which destroys the deeper meanings in much of the scriptures. Like the trinity and the idea of a soul, both are beautiful images about the natures of God and Man. Just because they aren’t found in print on the pages of Bible doesn’t mean they can’t paint a picture that shows us more about said natures then a biographical paragraph ever could.

I think the language of our culture (American, Wes...

2010-08-24T09:37:17.596-06:00

I think the language of our culture (American, Western, Christian) about salvation is a real problem. We have a culture that gravitates towards buzz words and Christian words have not escaped the suction of the marketing black hole. But I really think that cultural trappings attached to words are a problem with any human culture.

I have symbolism on the brain as I am writing a literature lesson this week, so I will say I have always been grateful that the Bible speaks so much in symbols as they tend to retain at least some of their flavor when buzz words don't. (I always compare in my mind the clear highway signs that have a tree or a car portrayed as being blown over by the wind with the abstract written signs posted between Santa Fe and Albuquerque that say "Gusty Winds Exist.")

Heaven, Hell, Saved, Damned--as abstract and unclear as they may seem to us at times because of the sometimes contradictory metaphors attached to them, they at least retain something of the concrete symbol. Maybe it's because they are rooted in archetypes, but that's a whole other blog thread, I suppose :-)

But here's what I mean: as you know, to the first century Jewish mind, the Greek idea of Hades was prominent, where all spirits go after death, not just the "bad" ones. I can't remember if Jesus was the first to use the context of "gehenna" but when he did he named the garbage dump outside the city, and therefore clarified the symbol with a concrete picture of a place where not just everyone goes.

But sadly, just because symbols are more clear than abstracts, it doesn't mean they are easy to put into words. I think that at one time, the terms were clearer, but just as the gene pool gets diluted and DNA can be altered for good or bad as influenced by the physical choices of each generation, so too all languages get diluted. Remember that when Adam named the animals, he used the language God had given him (something long before Hebrew) and Genesis says that each name was the essense of that creature. I think language, and therefore all symbols started out pure, but we're downstream a good piece and things have gotten muddy.

Ooh, that was a great clip. Yeah, I can see that ...

2010-08-23T20:13:32.339-06:00

Ooh, that was a great clip. Yeah, I can see that one of his books would be a doozy. Good luck with that. :-)

so here I was thinking Anna had done some dasterdl...

2010-08-23T17:29:35.482-06:00

so here I was thinking Anna had done some dasterdly deed to warrant a trip to the principal and she didn't even suspect that her PARENTS were the culprits! Anna- cheers to a first day completed!

I think that as parents it is important to use eve...

2010-08-23T15:03:55.964-06:00

I think that as parents it is important to use every available option to make your life as easy as possible.... So, if Steve were to dig a trench underneath your back fence, and then build a trap door that was covered with "faux" grass, it just might go unnoticed! Anna could shimmy her little self under the fence every a.m. before the busses arrive. Proper breaking and entering is one of the first lessons that a child needs to learn. :) xoxoxo Love you!

You are such a great writer Cheryl...I was totally...

2010-08-23T10:56:45.713-06:00

You are such a great writer Cheryl...I was totally into reading about your weekend. I was all "yes, yes, peg leg Pete's, then the beach...Oh how funny Anna's pack is ginormous...oop and now there stuck in a school yard and the big P had to bail them out." ( :

Well done. I miss you guys!
M.

I agree, I like the all caps addition of the lie o...

2010-08-23T06:37:59.251-06:00

I agree, I like the all caps addition of the lie of our non-conectedness. So, your great thread here is leading us down a road to a question I suffer under. What IS salvation? What does it mean to be saved? What does it mean to be unsaved? To what extent does our culture and language affect how we view these questions? For the amount of time and weight we give to personal salvation why are the scripturs so vauge and cryptic on the subject? If the everlasting condition of our soul (I use the word fast and loose here) is contigent on our understanding and application of some soul-saving formula, why aren't the the scriptures litered with information about how to achive this salvation? Or are they? These are what I'm wrestling right now...

I spent the weekend surrounded by piles of C.S. Le...

2010-08-23T05:20:23.060-06:00

I spent the weekend surrounded by piles of C.S. Lewis books (some for work, some for this thread, but all for fun). For me, nothing clears the air like some Clive. Here's where I got with it:

Of course I didn't find that Lewis said anything about being "Fragile" because that's just a word I'm using to avoid words like "salvation" and "broken" and "Christian walk" that mean everything and therefore nothing. But here's a word for you: Vicarious (on behalf of another).

My Quotable Lewis book now has more scribbles (let's say "marginalia"--it sounds so pretty) around these quotes:

"*He saved others, himself he cannot save* is a *definition* of the Kingdom. All salvation, everywhere and at all times, in great things or in little, is vicarious."

and...

"In the Incarnation we get, of course, this idea of vicariousness of one person profiting by the earning of another person. In its highest form that is the very centre of Christianity...It is a law of the natural universe that no being can exist on its own resources."

In Hans' excellent description of a child's coming to self-awareness I'm going to insert one thing and I'll put it in caps: "Children are blissfully unaware of their selves because they have not yet discovered THE LIE that they are independent creatures from the environment surrounding them."

Through one man, Adam, sin entered the world; through one man, Christ, it was defeated. I'm seeing the interconnectedness of this fragility. Being fragile is imperative, but it cannot be acheived on one's own -- or for one's own self.

I must be fragile as Christ was fragile, but I cannot be fragile alone. Fragility, by definition, implies others. Being fragile will save me but not if I'm fragile for that reason. But the kicker for me is that my fragility will save others, and not just because it makes me nicer. As Aslan says in the Lion/Witch/Wardrobe, "There is a deeper magic...when one lays down his life for another."

Of course, the answer to one of the big questions of the Bible--"Am I my brother's keeper?"--is "Yes."

I know, I know, you all knew all of it already. But thanks for not calling me to say "Duh."

Yes and no, the story of the fall defines us as a ...

2010-08-22T05:08:43.588-06:00

Yes and no, the story of the fall defines us as a creature separated from God by our own choice to take the reins of our own destiny, our nature revolting at the thought of giving up control over our environment. We are not geared to be able to give our "self" up. Children are blissfully unaware of their selves because they have not yet discovered that they are independent creatures from the environment surrounding them. Soon after they discover their un-connectedness they begin to learn how to manipulate the outside world to conform to their desire. What begins as an act of self preservation quickly becomes the building blocks of mans selfish nature, although, one could argue that man's selfish nature is simply his desire to be alive. In Mathew and Mark, when Jesus extols his disciples to become like children, he isn’t necessarily asking them to give up their self awareness or (like the commonly held idea) to blindly follow like a child would. The view of children in those days was that they held no value whatsoever. Most children would not live to see their 3rd birthdays due to disease and living conditions. As such they were not considered real people until later in their years when it was certain they would survive. In this context it seems Jesus is asking his disciples (again) to give up on themselves as he did. (Phil 2:5). Ok, I’m going to jump into my own philosophy here for a sec. When the Rich man asked Jesus what he must do to enter the Kingdom Jesus told him to get rid of his treasures. Jesus knew this man placed his faith in what he had earned; his faith was essentially in himself. When Jesus asked him to give up his treasures he was really asking him to drop dead to his grasp on his own life and trust that He (Jesus) was in control. I think this was a loaded question. Jesus deliberately asked him to give up what he knew he couldn’t for the purpose of pointing out that there isn’t a damn thing WE can do to be saved, that it is only him (Jesus) who will wash away the handwriting against us free of charge. This is also why I think Christ continually harped on coming under the world, washing each other’s feet, serving ones enemies and so on. They all have one thing in common which is they all put everyone in the world ahead of me. It puts me dead last in every line I will ever get in. Reflect back to the fall for a sec and consider mans nature. Jesus knew that putting ourselves eternally last was the one thing we could never truly do. It’s like what Cheryl harped on a few comments up when she mentioned using power under as a twisted power over. Even in the attempt to put ourselves behind the entire world we end up using our sainthood as a manipulative power to control the world around us and we're right back where we started. The whole point Jesus is making I think is to convince us there is nothing we can do at all. He is asking that we just give up trying and start trusting. And here is our Hope. In the black hole of our despair with nothing to save us, a hand with a scar in it reaches down and picks us up. Holding us tightly He pulls us out of the dark and into the Light where we can see the face of our savior. Here, I believe, is where we decide if we will put our fate in the hand that pulled us out of the dark or if we will choose instead to jump back down into that pit with all our failed treasures, wanting in the end to be the masters of our own fate, no matter what that fate may be. Don’t get me wrong, I still believe God wants us to be like his Son, doing what we can to be the least and the last to a dying world so they can see through us the hope we all have in the upside-down kingdom

So, my answer is no. I personally do not think we can go back to a state in which we can quell our personal identity to the point that we lose the awareness of our self and only see the needs of the world and our Lord. However, I do believe that this will be the condition of the new Man when this world comes to its beautiful end the new haven and new earth are wrought forth.

I agree with my super sexy hubby on this one, alth...

2010-08-22T03:32:03.439-06:00

I agree with my super sexy hubby on this one, although Im stuck on my iphone all weekend so I will have to wait till I get back to my office on moday to join the fun. So for now I will just sit back and enjoy everyone elses rants.