Cronquist’s Blog

I have really enjoyed reading a new blog by Greg Scandrett called “the view from the juniper tree.” There Greg poses thoughtful questions and comments on life and our walk with God. Its been a great supplement to my daily reading of the Bible. Yes, “daily.” With the help of the church Tarah and I have been attending, I’ve been participating in their program to read all of the Bible in a year. It has been great for me and I’ve really enjoyed reading the Old Testament with a new perspective and interest. Clearly the Bible is timeless and meets you in different places at different times in your life.

Which brings me to my first “religious” post on our blog addressing my current reading in Exodus. Here we are introduced to Moses and follow his amazing relationship to the Lord. The Lord has chosen Moses to be his “spokesperson” and to go “toe to toe” with Pharaoh in releasing the Israelites out of Egypt. The verse that I want to understand and I believe is a window into understanding God’s character is Exodus 4:22. Here the Lord says to Moses, “When you return to Egypt, see that your perform before Pharaoh all of the wonders I have given you the power to do. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go.”

Exodus goes on to highlight the many miracles of plagues that the Lord brings down upon the Egyptians because of Pharaoh’s hardening of his heart and not heeding the words of Moses, the command of God. Why does he do this? Why does God need to bring on such a harsh consequences, while at the same time even hardening the heart of Pharaoh. In multiple cases you do see that Pharaoh hardened his own heart, however in verses like Exodus 9:12, it is the Lord that hardens Pharaoh’s heart. Why does he do this? And why does God bring such sweeping consequences upon all of Egypt because of Pharaoh’s hard heart that God is causing?

I have started to read some supplemental perspectives on this subject, but I thought I’d pose the question to anyone who has thoughts on this or have struggled through this subject themselves.

Thanks for reading!

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Originally uploaded by Mr_Cronquist.

Tarah and I bought our first TV. Neither of us have ever purchased a TV before and neither of us have had a TV for the past couple years. We went our whole first year of marriage without T.V.

Forward to today.

Now we enjoy a 42″ LCD and have HDTV. If you look closely, you’ll see I’m watching the Seahawks playoff game. I certainly feel blessed to have this T.V. to watch movies and sports, but because of its cost and going from nothing to this, I feel guilty.

I ask myself, “Why do you deserve such a nice TV?” “Don’t you think there is a better use of that money?” “Why does it have to be so big?”

I’m sure this is that buyers remorse tendency that you hear about and I’m sure I’m not alone, but what is it? Why can’t I simply feel grateful and satisfied?

What do you think? Do you have a similar story?

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Originally uploaded by Mr_Cronquist.

I don’t know what this means, but Tarah and I are the proud owners of a little 50cc Piaggio scooter, aka Vespa.
Tarah has always wanted to have a little “scoot scoot” to cruise around SB and we are even thinking of selling her car.
Call it a “green” decision, but as costs have gone up and being “green” appears to be what the “kewl kids” are doing (according to NPR’s commentary on Bush’s speech last night), we think this will be a fun lifestyle change to experiment with.
At the very least it will balance out the two other gas guzzling rigs in our household.
As soon as Tarah gets her motorcycle license, I’ll update the photo to include the rider!

As previously posted, our hiking party last weekend wound up taking the wrong road and we never found the Romero Valley trailhead. Today the dogs and I headed back up to Romero Canyon to see where we went wrong.

Sure enough, as I stood at the same fork where the roads diverged, it was clear that the one to the left was less traveled.  Which reminded me of Robert Frost’s poem, “The Road Not Taken.”  Only this time our group took that road less taken–albeit inadvertently– and wound up on a far less interesting hike than the 6+ mile journey the dogs and I found ourselves on.

This time the dogs and I found ourselves on what I would call a “” hike.  It followed a flowing creek almost the whole time (good for hot dogs) and once we arrived at the top of the trail, we were rewarded with beautiful views of Santa Barbara, the Pacific Ocean and the Channel Islands.  From these high vistas, I really like the fact that Santa Barbara looks out toward the oil rigs, they help with depth perception and they give a nice horizon line from some places.

Once we started our decent the hike was a breeze.  About half way down it turned into a road.  Regardless, I’m going to be sore in the morning.  My body is still getting used to being this active in January.  I still can’t believe how nice it is here all of the time.  Weather reports talk of “cold fronts” and locals complain and promise that it isn’t normally like this and I’m in a t-shirt and shorts.  I understand that they’ve lost a lot of produce due the freezing temperatures, but it doesn’t seem possible when you everyday is bright, sunny and warm. . to me.

A hike a week, the beach every other day, no job. . .I’m living the dogs life.

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Originally uploaded by Mr_Cronquist.

I’m as surprised as anyone when I see little Bootie charging the surf. Granted she’s not retrieving a tennis ball or riding a wave in, but she does pretty well.

Mostly she’s jealous that the other dogs have left her behind on the sand.