Show Us Your Life: Favorite Vacation Spot: New England

Well, Kelly's Corner blog is hosting a blog link-up about favorite vacation spots, and hey, since I love travel so much I figured I would go with it!

Lately I havent really had the opportunity to go on "vacation" to any exotic locales, but I have been marvelously satisfied with most of the "Staycations" that I've had around New England. Mini-getaways if you will.

So let me share my love for New England with ya'll.

First my family and I took a Rhode Island Bay Lighthouse Cruise. I totally recommend it. It was a show stopper. The cruise takes you through the Narragansett Bay area, around the Jamestown Island, and into the Newport Harbor. This light house cruise is absolutely wonderful, providing narration and indoor and outdoor seating. Absolutely picturesque, up close and personal views of the ten lighthouses and other interesting sights, along with a perfectly sunny and breezy day spent with family, how could you go wrong? I would recommend this for everyone- kids to elderly, native rhodeys or out of towners. Seriously. 


My grandparents brought my cousin Jack down and we spent some time at the Fall River, Massachusetts Battle Ship Cove. That was a really cool place, even for someone in their 20's! They have a submarine and giant battleships, with interesting displays and awesome stories surrounding it. Fall River is also the home to some really neat architecture and history. 


We also ate at a delicious clam shack on Oakland Beach called Iggy's. Delicious lobster rolls!




In the fall I went with some friends on a "To the Golden Shore" tour of New England. This tour was based on the biography about the first missionary from America, Adoniram Judson. It took us through Massachusetts to places such as Plymouth Rock, Salem (where the witch trials were held), Beverly, First Congregational Church in Wenham, and to the place where Judson was buried. Very awesome, historic, and memorable. 






These little trips dont even count for half the awesome places that Ive been and can recommend in New England. 


 The Oldest Country Store in America- in Rhode Island. Freedom Trail in Boston? Soooo good! Cape Cod is beautiful. Maine's nature is to die for. Vermont cheese? Oh please! Mystic Seaport in Connecticut is awesome! The birth place of the industrial revolution... Slater Mill in Pawtucket RI- fascinating!
The awesome thing about New England is the diversity of such a small-ish region. So much history, culture, art, delicious cuisine, nature, city life, all within reasonable driving distance from one another!!!!!






    ...I know, it's a little overwhelming. But that is because it is WORTH IT!

Have you ever been to New England? Where is your favorite vacation spot?

Experience New England: Providence Independence Trail

image source: creative commons

Yesterday, May 4th 2011, Rhode Island's Govenor Chaffee and Providence Mayor Tavares unveiled the "Independence Trail." This three mile, downtown Providence trail will

"feature 75 sites ranging from a place where George Washington slept to a statue of Civil War General Ambrose Burnside, whose distinctive facial hair coined the word 'sideburns.'"  (wpri.com)

The trail will also

"cover more than four centuries of Rhode Island history, culture, architecture and folklore – including the birthplace of religious freedom, the site of the first shot in the fight against England, and the spot where Lincoln spoke." (providenceri.com)

According to one article, one of the goals of the Independence Trail is to

"help Providence supplant Boston and Philadelphia as the Northeastern capitals of historical tourist attractions." (mysanantonio.com)

The trail seems like an exciting way to showcase the important history of Providence. It will be a fun way for both native Rhode Islander's and out of town tourists to more fully understand all that Rhode Island has to offer. At each site there will be a number you can call to get a prerecorded description of the importance of the stop. The trail should be fully complete by July 4th, or so says the trail's founder Robert Burke.

I think that the Independence Trail will be quite an interesting addition to the development of Providence as a whole, as well as the tourism sector. It will give Providence more depth as a destination, and create that connection and education that tourists seek in historic locations. (Even better because I think people will be surprised at the amount of history that is located here.) Personally, I am excited for this.

Click here to see the full size map! 

What do you think? If you are a local, are you going to check it out?

If you arent in the area, is this something that interests you?

Mini Expeditions: Abandoned Oddities

(photo credit: creative commons)

If you really know me, you will know that I love exploring abandoned things. My hometown (Lockport, NY) is a haven of old warehouses, factories, and secret trails into the woods or along the canal. As a kid, my friends and I would always go exploring!

 These photo-articles were super fascinating and I thought I would share with you!

Top Ten Interesting Ghost Towns Around the World


Abandoned Castles, Chateaus, and Mansions Worth a Visit


Deserted Europe: 20 Hauntingly Abandoned Buildings


5 Abandoned Stations of the NYC Subway


Abandoned Theme Parks Abroad (Open for Exploration)


Top Ten Interesting Abandoned Places


7 Spectacular Abandoned Hotels, Hospitals, and Churches

Enjoy!

Have you ever explored abandoned places?

Doubt Versus Humility

There is a growing camp among irked evangelicals that loves to promote the "humble doubter" label. A friend posted a link to a CNN article on Facebook recently, and here I provide a sort of  half-response/ pondering..

Here is the article: Why I Believe in God by LZ Granderson

Here is my response:
" the claim of having definitive answers about an infinite being. But true faith does not require us to have all of the answers." 
-CORRECT..

"Faith, as it relates to spirituality, isn't knowing something others don't know -- we call that a secret -- but rather belief in something that can't be empirically proven or disproven." ..OK...

"To truly be a person of faith one must accept the fact there is no tangible evidence there is a God. If such evidence existed, we wouldn't need faith." 
No tangible evidence? What about Jesus Christ? THE WORLD? The universe? Humanity? The drive that humans have to worship something greater? 


The discussion of doubt emanates from God himself? That what is basically being said here:
"I believe the discussion itself is divine." 
That's a little chincy and unbiblical to me. God calls us to have faith, not to dabble in doubt.


‎"To admit doubt removes the arrogance of certainty prevalent in so many evangelical Christians and atheists alike and replaces it with the humility"
I think there is a big mistake in the doubt / humility argument, and a big misinterpretation. Doubt does not equal humility. Saying that you do not know something when you don't, or making it clear that you do not have every single answer is humble. I would even possibly say that doubt is a perverted or twisted humility to fellow man. We need to be humble before the Lord (James 4:9-11), and he has told us to be faithful and persevere.


When you just look through the Bible, we see Jesus acknowledging doubt. That is a lesson for us: it is unhelpful to just cast a deaf ear to someone's legitimate concerns. But he always responds this way:


"If you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, 'Be taken up and thrown into the sea,' it will happen." Matthew 21:21


"O you of little faith, why did you doubt?" Mark 14:31


"But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. ⁷For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; ⁸ he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways." James 1:6-8


With this in mind, there are many other concerning things about this article. Many, many other concerning things, so much so I am terrified that this person has been going to "church" for years and has no idea about his theology- his being a pick and choose mushy one.


We must remember the call of Titus to have mercy on those who doubt, while also holding to solid Biblical teachings.


What do you think?

Good Friday Hymnsing

Yesterday was Good Friday, a day that we remember the wonderful work that Christ did for us on the cross of calvary. He took our punishment that we deserve in order so that we could be made righteous and adopted into God's family. For a second I was wondering why it was called "Good Friday" as the thought of a man being slaughtered  for my behalf seems morbid, but then someone reminded that it is in fact the BEST news of all. We are saved from the wrath of God that we deserve and we are given life, which we do not deserve. YES!

Some people from our church decided to have a "Hymnsing." Now if you are not familiar with what that is, basically it is a time where you gather together and worship Christ through song. There are many ways in which this can be done, but the focus for ours was the local church gathered to praise God in thanks for His work on the cross. Many of us had not participated in a hymnsing before, and I think we were partially influenced by an article that we read on the Resurgence blog titled "Is a Worship Service More Like a Concert Hall or a Banquet Hall?"

Niki and I hosted it at our apartment, and it was really great as Joel lead with his guitar and we sang hymns that were focused on the cross. We sang about 14 songs all together mixed with times of prayer and scripture reading. I was both refreshed and gripped as we sang together about how great our Lord is. Some of the hymns we enjoyed were "It Is Finished," "Let Us Love and Sing and Wonder," "Jesus Paid It All," "Man of Sorrows," and "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross." I think and hope we are going to make this some sort of annual Good Friday service.


Here is a little video from Isaac Wardell about hymnsings. Check it out.

Bifrost Arts from josh franer on Vimeo.


"More and more people show up to church and expect to have a worship experience delivered to them, instead of showing up to church expecting to sing together."

Is your church more of a concert hall or a banquet hall?
"For congregations that are struggling with how to bridge the gap.... it is important to urge congregants not to think of  the worship service as a concert hall where they come to receive something, but to think of our worship service as a banquet hall, where we come to participate in singing together."


check out the other articles in the Isaac Wardell series:

Liturgy, Music, and Space

What Kind of People Are We Forming With Our Worship?

What are your favorite ways to spend Good Friday? Do you have a favorite cross centered song?

The Only Complete Realist

“A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is.... A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in. Christ, because he was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means - the only complete realist.” -CS Lewis

National Poetry Month

While I am no connoisseur of poetry, I do enjoy it quite a bit. I actually have a poem of mine printed in one of those International Poetry Society books, and I won a county wide contest for a poem I had written. This love for poetry was also fostered by my high school English teacher Mrs. Attfield. She would pick the best poems for us to read and we would think through them line by line, my mind fully engaged and almost excited at the task.

Anyways, this is National Poetry Month! (who knew?!) I figured I would enlighten you with some delicious mind candy.

First of all, you should sign up HERE for a Poem a day to be sent to your email for the month of April. Sorry it is already halfway through the month. But there is still time!

Request the cool poster from this month for FREE.

National Poetry Month activities at the Providence Public Library

HERE  is a small collection of some poems I have written.

Below is a great poem for all single people. Good stuff:



And now for one of my all time favorite poems.

Much Madness is Divinest Sense

 by Emily Dickinson (1830–86).  Complete Poems.  1924.

MUCH madness is divinest sense
To a discerning eye;
Much sense the starkest madness.
’T is the majority
In this, as all, prevails
Assent, and you are sane;
Demur,—you ’re straightway dangerous,
And handled with a chain.

What is your favorite poem? Do you read poetry often? 
I would love to dig up some deep theological poetry, so if you know some authors, please share!

Urban Garden Paradise: It is Time

This weekend I was basking in the glorious weather, when I realized that it was time. Time to begin cultivating my urban garden paradise this year!

Saturday I spent time digging in the dirt and cleaning out my containers of any debris from last years plantings. I mixed up the dirt between containers to give the dirt a more rounded nutrient base. I also found out that the containers that I created last year had rotted out through the winter, and so I had to get rid of them :( Sad times. But now I will be on the lookout for more alternative planters. Niki and I saw these really cool cement block planter wall, but we do not have any where to put something this big.

image from pocketgrow.com

My friend Melissa bought us some radish, carrot, squash, and marigold seeds. I planted the radish seeds on Sunday, because they are the only ones that can be planted outside right now, because of the temperature and time of year. I hope to also plant tomatoes, cucumbers, beans of some kind, basil, and cilantro. While unveiling my planters, I saw that the blueberry bush my friend Casey gave me last year was totally green and growing as well! That is exciting and  I cant wait until we get some berries from that!

Last year I did a lot of composting, but this year I am still unsure where I will be living so I might not be able to take that route (I doubt the campus residence halls would be in favor of my composting in my room). But I would encourage anyone who is doing their own garden to compose. It is a helpful and healthy way to feed your plants, reduce waste, and cut down on chemical fertilizers ending up in land fills.

Ive been using this really helpful guide from the University of Illinois called Watch Your Garden Grow and it basically has helpful information about planting veggies, including when to plant, spacing and depth, care, harvesting, common problems and even recipes!

I would also recommend these websites for more information about back yard gardening/urban gardening:

• Urban Farmer: What To Plant Now
• Planet Green: 15 Homemade Organic Gardening Sprays and Concoctions That Actually Work
• Planet Green: 75 Things You Can Compost That You Thought You Couldnt
• Local Harvest: find a local CSA, farmer's markets, etc

Do you have any resources to share? Are you going to be growing a garden this year?

Book Review: Mere Churchianity

Mere Churchianity is a book for those who have left the church “to find Jesus.”

Now, Michael Spencer does have a lot of good points. But sadly, for every “YES” that I wrote in the margin, there was a equal, if not greater number of “I think he has this wrong here.”

Growing up in somewhat of a “church culture,” I did relate to many of his examples: the youth group massacring Dairy Queen, studying the bible with little interest in seeing how it pointed to the gospel, the dangers of being culture shaped more than Christ shaped. Those are all very true things that go on in many churches.

“Behind the Jesus Is Here sign there are too many narcissistic competitors in what has rightly been called the “worship wars,” a consumerist competition to draw a bigger audience into a fog of Jesus-lite entertainment.” Sad, but horribly true in some instances.

“Many Christians like to spend time with those who mirror themselves.” True, and not an example of the Gospel.

But Spencer makes a mistake. He chooses to look to disgruntled people to set the agenda, instead of the Scriptures. More than once he talks about the people who are not Christians, but surely know a thing or two about Jesus- we should listen to them. Should we? Should we listen to the people who have no idea about Christ as they tell us that our church services are too long, the music is too old fashioned, the prayers are too intense, yadda yadda yadda. It is with this ideology that many churches has taken a seeker sensitive approach- letting the nonbelievers set the agenda in regards to ecclesiology, polity, and church community and theology. Hardly a biblical concept.

Spencer is right about the spiritual bankruptcy of some churches. But again, he fails to give the correct answer. It is not because of the misdirected brand that is being promoted- though that does play a part- it is because of sin. People are unsatisfied with what the Bible says about how we are to live as Christians in church because of sin issues.

I fear he throws the baby out with the bathwater by the end of the book. Through the whole book, I just wanted to grab Spencer and say “but it doesn’t have to be this way!” There are biblical churches that love Christ, love each other, and love the gospel. There are churches that read the scriptures and teach rightly, and carefully examine their theology. While it might be a wise decision to leave A church because it fails to pursue Christ, it is a lazy self seeking mistake to leave “the church” altogether because of some disgruntled ideas. 

You would be ten times better off reading “Why We Love The Church” by DeYoung and Kluck for some solid ecclesiology.

“I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review”.

Suffering

As a Christian, I have a unique take on suffering, one different than what the world thinks I should have.


There are many times when I want to give in to what the world expects from me, and the mindset the world thinks that I should have, namely that my suffering should cause me to blame God, be depressed, rebel, cease growing in righteousness, and separate myself from those who have loved me the most.


But I must refuse those indulgent offers and walk in accordance to the Bible.


The truth is that brokenness and sin entered the world, and continues to flagrantly display it's disgusting head all over our relationships, health, and lives. The world was perfect, and man sinned. Because of that, we were cursed with suffering and sin through and through. We were broken from relationship with God. We deserve death. That is horrific suffering. After all, a crime committed against an infinite God deserves infinite punishment. But God, in both his justice and his love, sent his son Christ to die for us and take that infinite punishment in our place. Three days later he was resurrected- showing that he beat death. And because of that, if we believe in him we can be back where we started... a whole relationship with God. Now instead of being overcome by suffering, we can  have hope. Hope that God is good and that we are redeemed, and that one day we will be back in a place where there are no ramifications of sin.


In order to have hope I must call on the one who BEAT death.

When my dad died, I must reach out my weak hands and rest in God because I know God is doing everything for His glory (and my growth). 


When things get hard between friends, I must think, "Lord, you know this is helping me to see my own sin, and thank you."


When I am broken and poor, financially or spiritually or mentally- I must think, God, you own the cattle on a thousand hills. You are my provider, and the hope I place in you will not be a disappointment.


Does not the Bible say many things about this topic?

Romans 5
Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;  perseverance, character; and character, hope.  And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. 

Romans 8 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,^[k] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, ³⁹ neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Hebrews 12 Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? ⁸ If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all.

And the list goes on. The bible never says that suffering is something that a Christian will never go through- in fact the evidence says quite the opposite. Look at Paul who was thrown in Prison. Jesus was KILLED. Many of the disciples were killed. Job went through hell basically. But God, for whatever reason, brought them into the situation and through it. 


Something that bothers me about many health and wealth "therapy" preachers, is they do not teach their people how to suffer well. Instead they teach them to whine to God about getting them out of it immediately, because surely God would not want them to suffer. And if we say that suffering or hard circumstances hinder or destroy the work that God has done, are we not saying the the enemy has control over God? Are we saying that Jesus did not beat death? Oh my heavens. 


I do not think it is wrong to pray that God will deliver us from suffering, but the man centered idea that we somehow have to overcome all suffering because it means that God isnt in the picture? I dont know about that.



What do you think? How do you deal with suffering? Any different take? What would you say to someone who is suffering?