FEBRUARY 2009
"WINTER TIME"
Winter is dragging on around here. We have enjoyed the snow; it was nice. Now we would like for it to be over. All of us that is, except for our youngest student. Winter is a nice time for snowmen making and hot chocolate drinking. But there is just something about the first glimmers of blue in the sky and sunny rays peeking forth from gray mundane overcast clouds that makes a soul yearn for Spring. February has it's good points I'll allow, the Berean News Group owner and your beloved Berean Times editor celebrated 17 blessed years of matrimony together, an absent member returned and LOVE was more diligently studied, given and received. We here at the "Academy" are looking towards spring with a new focus. A digging into our studies afresh, preparing for...dare I say the word "TESTING" sshhhh! We finally have our school computer fixed and ready for group subjects (Yeah!) Sara and William have started attending an apologetics group that they are learning a lot from and they really enjoy to boot! We here at the Berean Academy believe in Delight Directed Study. It does make a difference in attention, comprehension and retention of the material studied. Well my post for this month is abbreviated just like the month itself. Now I must go looking for some rabbit trails. Persevero.
MLH
Breaking News ....
The other columnists at the Berean Times have missed their deadline...
More later....
Breaking news....
The columnists have deeply and exceedingly apologized for their lax behavior regarding their deadline schedules and have now gifted us with their respective columns.
The Management
Odds and Ends
Say what you will about one New York thief at least he was thorough. Walter U Tessier returned a $10.99 lobster to an Amsterdam, N.Y. price chopper supermarket saying the crustacean was bad. But while Tessire went browsing for a bag of king crab legs to exchange for the lobster, store employees became suspicious of the rejected food. Apparently, Tessire ate most of the lobster and reassembled the crustacean to appear whole before returning it to the store. When confronted, Tessire fled on foot but was arrested later at his home and charged with petty larceny.
(Bad boy, bad boy whatcha going do??????? He must have been pretty hungry, obviously the recession is making people do things they wouldn’t normally do in better times.)WLBH
Excerpted from World Magazine Feb. 14th, 2009
February in Focus
Wow! February has been awesome. Chad and I went to a Kutless, Stellar Kart, Disciple and Esterlyn concert. Some teenagers started a mosh pit in the front and I got pictures of them picking people off the ground and hand passing them in the crowd. The lead singer of Kutless watched this and jumped into the crowd. On the way there Chad and I were jamming out to some songs and singing REALLY LOUD!!! = )! During an intermission Chad went to get something to eat and being bored I started punching the air and chanting, Whou! Whou! Whou! and got the other teenagers to chant with me. People were opening water bottles and throwing them around getting people wet, but hot as we were nobody cared. Jon Micah Sumrall aka lead singer of Kutless saw this and towards the end of a song he punted off his water bottle into the crowd. Another highlight was that JMS stopped right in the middle of a song and said, “I see some people out there who have just refused to jump all night and I see two types of people; I see some older people who maybe brought their kids or their grandkids and are saying I’m just to old for this, now let me tell you something, you are never to old to jump up and down at a rock n roll concert!” Everybody started screaming and then he said, “and the second group of people out there are a little younger, middle school/ high school, maybe even college that are saying I’m just to cool to jump. Well let me tell you something you are never to cool to jump up and down at a rock n roll concert!” and after he said (college) a few people started screaming. “Now I want EVERYBODY to jump up and down.” I looked back and almost everyone was jumping up and down. Kutless sings songs like Shut Me Out, Your Touch, Sea of Faces, Strong Tower, To Know That Your Alive, Promise of a Lifetime, Winds of Change, Hearts of the Innocent and Take Me In just to name a few. Stellar Kart is a Christian band with hits like, Me and Jesus; I don’t really know this band very well but I like this song …
"Me And Jesus" by Stellar Kart
When there's nowhere else to turn
All your bridges have been burned
Feels like you've hit rock bottom
Don't give up it's not the end
Open up your heart again
When you feel like no one
Understands where you are
[chorus]
Someone loves you even when you don't think so don't you know you got
Me and Jesus by your side through the fight you will never be alone on your own you got me and Jesus
After all that we've been through
By now you know I've doubted too
But every time my head was in my
Hands you said to me chorus.
Hold on to what we got
This is worth any cost so
Make the most of life
That's borrowed
Love like there's no tomorrow.
Disciple is a Christian ROCK band that is alright and Esterlyn is pretty good. A couple weeks before the concert Chad and I busted out the Kutless c.d.’s preparing for the concert and memorizing the songs and singing secretly. I’m not kidding you. Hard as it may seem I actually sing but I’m not saying you’d want to hear it.
After The World Lyrics by Disciple
You break the glass, try to hide your face
Recorded lines that just will not erase
And buried in your loss of innocence
You wonder if you'll find it again
Was I there for the worst of all your pain?
And was I there when your blue sky ran away?
Was I there when the rains were flooding you?
I hope that you see those were My tears falling down for you, falling down for you
Chorus:
I'm the One that you've been looking for
I'm the One that you've been waiting for
I've had My eyes on you ever since you were born
I will love you after the rain falls down
I will love you after the sun goes out
I'll have My eyes on you after the world is no more
Did I arrange the light of your first day?
Did I create the rhythm your heart makes?
Could you believe when your candle starts to fade?
I want to be the One that you believe
Could take it all away, take it all away
(Chorus)
Isn't My life a clear sign since I have crossed over this chasm
To fill the space between Me and you?
And I will do it all over again
Just look for Me, just wait for Me
The One you've been looking for
The One you've been waiting for
You won't have to look anymore
(Chorus)
The One you've been looking for
The One you've been waiting for
On a different note, Sara and I have started going to apologetics and Chad is going to be coming I think. Also I’m amazed at my luck with horses if you want to call it that, I’ve had chances to go to horseback riding lessons and ride other people’s horses. At Miracle Ranch I was told I could come anytime I wanted and we lived seven minutes away and then we moved. : ( ! We went on a field trip to the V2 farm where I was offered a volunteer position by the owner, who had been a horse class instructor and planned to start a horse program at the farm. You probably know it didn’t work out. : ( ! A little over a month ago I decided to start going on a run in Selleck and met some new people. I talked to them again on another run and ended up being offered a horse for free; the lady had hurt herself while riding and couldn’t ride anymore. She offered me a quarter-horse mare, I will leave it at that. ;(
One more tidbit, I titled these pictures “I Love Kutah” because on the way to the concert I would start saying something and then stick my head out the widow. What I was saying was “I love Kutless” but at the last second I would stick my head out the widow and the wind would suck away the end of my exclamation. :p !!!
WLBH
KUTLESS Q&A PRE CONCERT SESSION FOR VIP'S
YOURS TRULY
KUTLESS LEAD SINGER JON MICAH SUMRALL
VIP TICKET HOLDERS
If you would like to see more pictures from the concert please visit my new blog at www.1equusdelirus.blogspot.com
WLBH
FEB YOO AREY
My very fleeting thought about February is this… they; whoever could make such a drastic decision, should take the [r] out of
the word February! The reason being that almost everybody I have heard saying the title of this shortest month including me, says it something like this, “FEB YOO AREY”.
Is this an accurate depiction? How do YOU say this word? Can you hear the rrr sound in there? C’mon try it FEB ROO AREY {o:
Ha ha ha ha! Try again next year! God Bless
SLH
Augustine
This section is absolutely moving. I love it!
Him let us love! Him let us love: He made us, nor is He far off.
For He did not make us, and so depart, but we are of Him, and in Him. See there He is, where truth is loved. He is within the very heart, yet hath the heart strayed from Him. Go back into your heart, ye transgressors, and cleave fast to Him that made you. Stand with Him, and ye shall stand fast. Rest in Him, and ye shall be at rest.
Whither go ye in rough ways? Whither go ye? The good that you love is from Him; but it is good and pleasant through reference to Him, and justly shall it be embittered, because unjustly is anything loved which is from Him, if He be forsaken for it. To what end then would ye still and still walk these difficult and toilsome ways? There is no rest where ye seek it. Seek what ye seek; but it is not there where ye seek. Ye seek a blessed life in the land of death; it is not there. For how should there be a blessed life, where life itself is not?
But our true life came down hither, and bore our death, and slew Him, out of the abundance of His own life: And HE Thundered, Calling aloud to us to return Hence to Him into that secret place whence He came forth to us, first into the virgin’s womb, wherein He espoused the human creation, our mortal flesh, that it might not be forever mortal,
And thence “ Like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, rejoicing as a giant to run his course.” For He lingered not, but ran, calling aloud by words, deeds, death, life, descent, ascension; crying aloud to us to return unto Him. And He departed from our eyes, that we might return into our hearts, And there find Him.
For He departed, and lo, He is here. He would not be long with us, yet left us not; for He departed thither, whence he never parted,
“ because the world was made by Him.” And in this world He was, And into this world He came to save sinners, unto Whom my soul confesseth, and He healeth it, for it hath sinned against Him.
O ye sons of men, how long so slow of heart? Even now after the descent of Life to you, will ye not ascend and live? But whither ascend ye, when ye are on high, and set your mouth against the heavens? Descend that ye may ascend, and ascend to God.
For ye have fallen by “ascending against Him.” Tell them this, that they may weep in the valley of tears, and so carry them up with thee unto God; because out of His spirit thou speakest thus unto them, If thou speakest, burning with the fire of charity.
Excerpted from St. Augustine’s Confessions
SLH
Woodworkers Ballad
All that is moulded of iron has lent to destruction and blood;
But the things that are honored in Zion are most of them made from wood.
Stone can be chiseled to beauty, and iron shines bright for defense, but when mother earth pondered her duty, she brought forth the forest from whence.
Come tables, and chairs, and crosses, little things that a hot fire warps, old ships that the blue wave tosses, and fiddles for music and harps;
Oak boards where the carved ferns mingle, monks` shrines in the wilderness, snug little huts in the dingle, all things that the sad poets bless.
King Arthur had a wood table; And our Lord blessed wood; for you see, He was born in a wooden stable, and He died on a wooden tree;
And he sailed in a wooden vessel on the waters of Galilee,
And he worked in a wooden trestle, at his wonderful carpentry.
Oh, all that is moulded of iron has lent to destruction and blood;
But the things that are honored in Zion are most of them made from wood.
-Herbert Edward Palmer-
Born 1880
Excerpted from A Treasury of Christian Poetry
SLH
CRITIC'S CORNER
"Ishmael"
This month I'm reviewing a wonderful novel that we have read here at B.A. "Ishmael" written by E.D.E.N. Southworth in 1876 is an engrossing read that captures your attention right from the get go. The protagonist of this story is Ishmael and the book and it's sequel "Self Raised" tell his life story. From the coldest and most abject poverty to the heights of acclaim, you will rejoice with him, cry with him and ponder God's great love for him and (us) and His all encompassing providence in ours and others lives. Ishmael is an astonishing example/hero especially for boys, but the book is also full of contrasts; proud vs. meek, true beauty vs. outward beauty and so on for girls to glean from. I do not know if this book is available at your local library or not, but it is a gem certainly worth looking for. This title is available for purchase at www.lamplighterpublishing.com
MLH
