O Come, Emmanuel--The Piano Guys

I See Fire--Peter Hollens

We interrupt your regularly scheduled Christmas tunes to bring you this magical cover from Peter Hollens: "I See Fire" from "The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug," originally performed by Ed Sheeran. His version is fantabulous, too.

Angels We Have Heard on High--Pentatonix

Carol of the Bells--The Piano Guys

Little Drummer Boy--Pentatonix

O Come, Emmanuel--Lindsey Stirling

In the spirit of Christmas, I'm going to post a Christmas song every few days or so, starting out today with Lindsey Stirling's "O Come, Emmanuel." I've been a fan of hers for quite a while now, and the message she put in this latest video made me really excited. Check it out.

Fairy Princess

 Hey everyone! I'm not sure what's up with blogger today, but it's making all my pictures look incredibly noisy, and it's messing up with the shadows so some I wasn't able to upload because they looked awful. Anyway, I painted Grace's face again for Halloween last Thursday, and we went out to take pictures. The time of day we had to do it was not very conducive to nicely-lighted photos, but I think I made some of them work.

And I just had to add this picture of Clay. He went as the Tenth Doctor.

"De Mortificatio Vitii"

or,
On the Mortification of Sin

My dear nephew,

    When we last spoke, you mentioned that you are striving to deepen your relationship with our Father, but keep falling into sin. My purpose in writing this letter is to assist you in the purpose of mortifying sin in your life by offering a few “tips” based on my own observations, lessons I have learned from the Bible, and examples given in CS Lewis’ Perelandra, which you and I have discussed previously.

    To begin, I’d like to define “sin,” lest there is any later confusion on the matter. In a broad sense, “to sin” means “to go against the will of God.” When you repent, you are drawing closer to God; when you sin, you are pulling away from him. Furthermore, there are two different kinds of sin. The first, and the one that most people tend to think of when they hear the word “sin,” is that of disobedience. When God has given a command to not do X, to do X would be to sin. On the other hand, if God gave a command to do Y, to not do Y for whatever reason would be sin. This is the second type of sin, the sin of omitted obedience. As the apostle James says in his letter, “So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.”

    The first step in mortifying sin in your life is recognizing it. I know this sounds ridiculous, but recognizing a particular action in your life as sinful and admitting it is one of the hardest parts of overcoming it. As humans, we are constantly justifying our actions to our consciences, saying that a particular action isn’t really wrong in light of our circumstances. The Holy Spirit, however, who lives inside you, has made you into a new creation and is working on changing your mind to recognize sin. Call upon him like David did in the Psalms: “Search me, O God, and know my heart...and see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!”
    Secondly, you need to understand when and where temptation is the strongest. Is it when you are bored, with nothing to do? Or when you have had a stressful day and don’t want to deal with people, so you respond sharply? If you know when you are most prone to temptation, you can take ample precautionary measures in order to protect yourself. When we know what our “lures” are, they become easier to avoid. This is a simple example, but if you struggle with alcohol, don’t let yourself go to a bar. The Bible says to flee from temptation--you shouldn’t put yourself in a situation where you’re saying, “It’s ok, I’m strong enough to fight it off.”

    In fighting temptation, it is important to recognize that we are not supposed to deal with it on our own. Christ came to free us from sin by taking our sin upon himself. “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden,” he said, “and I shall give you rest.” I would even go so far as to argue that we are incapable of resisting temptation for any significant time if we have not surrendered ourselves to Christ. As Paul says in Romans, we were slaves to sin before being redeemed by Christ. We could do no good.  But now, “we have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God.”
    In addition, we were created to live in community with other believers, and to share our joys and struggles with each other. “Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.” The Church is one body. The Christian Journey is not a solo trek. In Perelandra, when the Un-Man is tempting the Green Lady, Dr. Ransom is with her, fighting the Un-Man’s cunning words with wise counsel. Oftentimes, during times of temptation, the thing that we need most is sound, Biblical advice from a fellow Christian. While he or she might not have all the answers, it is important to be able to come to a friend with your struggles and prayer requests. For an accountability partner, I would suggest choosing someone from among your peers, who is both of the same sex as you as well as a mature Christian who will take the responsibility seriously.
    You cannot gradually wean yourself from sin. If you allow yourself some leeway, like allowing yourself to commit the sin, say, once a week, you’ll never completely defeat it. That “once a week,” even though you promised yourself would eventually change to a “once a month” or “never again,” will always be there, ready to lure you in and entice you, and the next thing you know, you’re right back where you started. To repent of a sin is to ask forgiveness and do a complete 180° turn, never going back.
    The final preparation for temptation, and fundamentally the most important, is being “transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” This renewal of your mind comes from constantly steeping yourself in the Word of God. Daily quiet times, even if they are only fifteen minutes, are vital in maintaining a healthy Christian walk. Nephew, the Enemy is cunning, and his words will often sound like wisdom. When he tempted our Lord, he even used Scripture. How, then, can we tell death from life? We must know the Scriptures even better than our enemy, so that we might discern what goes against God’s commands. If Frodo (and Sam) had never looked at Sting, they would have not been able to discern if there were any nearby dangers--namely, orcs and goblins. In the same way, if we never look at the Scriptures, how can we detect danger?

    Finally, when the temptation comes--for come it will--you have many tools at your disposal to fight against the temptation. The first and probably the most simple is to distract yourself with other things. One “distraction” that I have found particularly useful is praying for my accountability partner whenever temptation comes my way. Not only does this occupy me and prevent me from falling into the temptation, it also focuses my mind on God--continuing the renewal process--and benefits my partner.
    The second tool is outlined for us in Ephesians 6:10-20: the full armor of God. I know it may sound cliche and bring to your mind images of Sunday School coloring pages, but truly, this Armor is our best defense and offense against the Enemy. When we lack faith, we disobey. The Green Lady, when speaking of her previous desire to live on the Fixed Land, said, “It was to reject the wave--to draw my hands out of Maleldil’s, to say to Him, ‘Not thus, but thus’--to put in our own power what times should roll towards us...That would have been cold love and feeble trust.” But when our faith is strong, it is a Shield with which we can “extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one.” And when we use the Sword of the Spirit, the Word of God--“living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword”--we can engage the Tempter in combat as our Lord did in the wilderness.
   
    This won’t be easy. You will slip and fall many times, and you may feel like you let God down. But you know what the great thing is? You can’t let him down, because you were never holding him up in the first place. Rather, he is holding you up, and he will never let you go. No matter how many times you mess up, he’ll be there to catch you and forgive you. Don’t give up, even though times are difficult.
    “The splendour, the love, and the strength be upon you.”
   
    Your uncle,
    Alan Smith

*I do apologize, my footnotes are being difficult and refusing to carry over to the blogger post creator. If you'd like them for whatever reason, ask me and I'll send you the original doc.

Worldview Academy 2013

 I spent last week at Camp Tejas for Worldview Academy 2013. It was phenomenal. To tell the truth, I didn't want to come home, I enjoyed it so much. Now I have to do catch up homework, so I don't have time to explain it all, but if you'd like to check out last year's experience--and see more explanation of the week--click on the "Worldview Academy" tag at the end of this post and scroll down to find last year's post. :)

"The Best Things In Life"

Over the past few days, I've been reading "The Best Things In Life" by Peter Kreeft and, so far, I must say it's pretty fantastic. Having read Plato's dialogues, I've found it interesting to compare Kreeft's Socrates with the original. Kreeft's is a much easier and more humorous read, yet retains Socrates' philosophizing-through-questioning, through which he presents many interesting arguments on topics such as careers, marriage, music, and pleasure.
The following is a short excerpt from the chapter "On Rock...and Music."

"Socrates: Hello, Felicia. I told you we'd meet again. What is that strange device you're wearing today? Is it some sort of medical therapy for your ears?
  Felicia: Hi, socrates. Boy, you are out of it! This is my Walkman.
  S: It does not seem to be walking. Nor does it seem to be a man.
  F: I'm listening.
  S: To what?
  F: My rock.
  S: Oh, dear. Perhaps it is more than medical therapy that you need. You think your rock talks to you?
  F: Rock is music, Socrates.
  S: You think your rock songs to you? Am I wrong to take its stony silence for granite?"

Yellowstone 2013: Part 1

Well, sorry it has taken me so long to get this up! To tell the truth, I took almost 3000 pictures on our trip and the idea of going through all of them was a bit overwhelming. For the blog, I've trimmed it down to under 250 and split it into two parts. This part goes from the beginning of our trip to the day we left Yellowstone.

We found a park in Oklahoma and stopped to stretch our muscles a bit.

"Bone Cabin"--A part of the Oregon Trail

In this and a few of the pictures following, you can see the wagon
ruts left by the people going on the Oregon Trail. Now that was pretty neat.

The rolling hills of Nebraska

This is one of my personal favorites. Ethan almost
looks like a satyr holding panpipes.

Mom and Gracie's "travel colors"

I was maybe three feet away when I took this picture.

One of the things that I found most interesting is how
vastly different the landscapes of America are, even from the road.

"Agate Fossil Beds"

They told us we could see the excavation site if we followed this trail,
so of course we did, hoping to see some fossils. It was two miles long
and we saw...

...this. Yep. That's pretty much all that was there. I was slightly
disappointed.

This is an old pool at Fort Robinson. 

Gracie got to ride a pony. When we got home and I asked her
what her favorite part of the trip was, she almost immediately
answered, "Riding Snowball!" (Don't ask me why it was called
Snowball.)

The Indian Cheif

The view from the Mt Rushmore visitor's center/parking lot

What I found most impressive were how real and
deep the eyes looked, especially on Lincoln.

This was probably one of my favorite National Monuments. The way
they had it set up, there was a white tombstone marking the place
where every US soldier was killed, and a granite tombstone where the
bodies of the Native Americans were found. So looking over the hills
and seeing clumps of white tombstones, or two tombstones apart from all
the others, it was easy to visualize the battle. Very cool.

This is the National Cemetery on the battleground.
It's a bit like Arlington, though not near as large.

Here, we're walking to the Pompey's Pillar Visitor's Center.

Pompey's Pillar

The Pillar holds the only physical evidence of Lewis & Clark's
expedition: Clark's signature, carved into the rock. "Pompey" was
Clark's nickname for Sacagawea's son, and he named the rock after him.

The view from the top

Haha, ok, so, this was our "home" in Red Lodge, Montana. Dad
asked me to check TripAdvisor for hotels in Red Lodge, and
this place--the Yodeler Motel--came up as highest rated. So, I told
Dad about it and he made reservations. Little did we know that it was
the motel where all the biker gangs stayed...that was interesting..but
it was still very nice. Very "quaint."

Driving up Bear Tooth Pass into Yellowstone

WE MADE IT FINALLY

Our tent

I did a lot of experimenting on the trip, especially with light
and shutter speed. In this one, Grace was playing in the river.
It's kinda weird, but I like it.

She watched "Man from Snowy River" and fell in love with Jim
Craig, so she was tipping her hat to us the whole trip. It was fantastic.

Our friendly neighbours: they were an older couple who lived in
the area and I'm pretty sure they spent the entire summer (or at
least the majority of it) in the park. They knew practically everything
about it and the wildlife and where the best spots were to see ____.

It's a bit hard to see, but in the middle of the picture is a golden
eagle's nest with two eagles in it. I think the white one is the baby.

Bison were the most common animal we saw. Seriously, they were
everywhere. And they didn't care a bit about people or crossing roads.

These particular bison just stood in the road for several minutes,
blocking traffic. 

You can't really see the main item of interest
in this one, but in the brown dirt patch in the middle
is a coyote den with baby coyotes. 

We saw a family of otters! I think there were about five of them
This particular one was eating several fish.

Yes...this was encouraging...

Mammoth Hot Springs

We had to pump our own well water, haha. I felt quite manly
and old-fashioned doing so. It was great.

The first bear we saw--he was about fifteen yards from us, trying
to cross the road.

Ok, I saw this guy's hoodie, and I was made immensely happy.

This was the view from our campsite at about
9 o'clock at night. It didn't get dark until around 10.

See?!

Hahahaha, this bumper sticker made my day.

The Grand Prismatic Spring

This sign was telling you to stay on the boardwalk...

but, you know, YOLO.

Everyone waiting for Old Faithful to blow

There she is! 

....I didn't even know what to say...

The stars were brilliant.

I saw a badger! That was cool.

Dad made a photographer-friend (the guy in the middle) from
Jordan. He, too, was helpful in letting us know where to find
certain things.

A marmot

...and a least weasel. 

We had a beaver in the river by our campsite.

"Oh, I'm hit!"