Hi everyone! Our blog has a new home. Here is our new address:

wethreepilgrims.blogspot.com

Please continue to visit us there. We so much want to keep in touch with you our brothers and sisters in Portland, so sign up to receive our posts when they are published.

We love you, friends and family.

-trevor and paige

Though when this post is published, it will appear with Trevor’s name as the author, don’t believe it. It’s not true. This is a Paige Maitland blogpost. My first.

Trevor and I are going to be blogging here at We Three Pilgrims again, but we are in the process of figuring out how to give our blog the appearance that we envision in our dreams. This may take some time. One cannot rush the creative process.

In the mean time, I thought it would be nice to post a picture of  sweet Piper. She is a wonderful and beautiful creature. Her little personality is emerging more everyday! She will be four months old on September 29th.

She is so wonderful!

She loves to laugh and smile.

She is such a precious little one.

Trevor is well into his first year of law school. He loves his classes, particularly criminal law and civil procedures. He thrives in the competitive atmosphere. All the preparation he invested his time into before classes began has given him confidence and a wise study strategy as he faces heavy workloads and the already-looming final exams.  It is beautiful to watch him grow into the noble calling of counselor and advocate.

Our family life, though intensely concentrated at this time, is sweet. God has brought harmony and peace into our home even in the middle of Trevor’s constant burden of work. It is a distinctly different season for us than the season we recently left. In Portland, we were in close community with friends on a daily basis, and our studies were spiritually nurturing in a deep way. Here in Athens, we are in a season of hard work and pressing into one another as a family, depending on the Lord together. For me, this has been an amazing time. I have the opportunity to use my gifts as I never have before in support of Trevor and caring for our little one, creating a culture that reflects who He is in our home. It is challenging, to be sure, but precious! I will probably share alot of my thoughts on this in the future.

My prayer is that the time spent writing in this space will cause us to recognize His redemption in all aspects of our life, and rejoice in what we have been given in Him–new life, abundant life, more-than-enough life, blood-bought redemption.

I found this editorial highly poignant and entertaining regarding Obama’s recent executive order to re-instate government funding for the research of created stem-cell embryos.

For a positive spin on the stem-cell issue, read Newsweek’s article.

For an argument against the use of embryonic stem cells, read James Kelly’s article in the National Review.

i’m taking an introduction to fine arts class this semester, and quite honestly, i’ve been blown away by how much i really love the content of the course.  i was thinking that we would learn about different ages of music, types of paintings, and names of ballet moves … so, needless to say, i was incredibly pessimistic about it going in to the semester.

every time i thought of painting before taking this class, i used to think of a Jackson Pollock, or Andy Warhol’s soup can painting. i (kinda) thought it was just a scheme for people to make money off of each other, and that it was all kind of a big hoax.  (see the article regarding the $5 painting dubbed a Jackson Pollock, and causing a major stir in the art world.)  i mean, if someone else could paint something that sells for $50 million dollars, then why is it worth so much??

then i was confronted with something beautiful.  Rembrandt’s “Peter’s Denial of Jesus” was the first painting which really showed me the masterful skill and ability which it takes to craft something truly great.

Peter's Denial of Jesus - Rembrandt

in the center of this painting, we see Peter denying that he is a disciple of Jesus (located in the right of the painting).  rembrandt paints one of the accusers seemingly holding a light up to the future apostle and asking him about it.  images of John chapter one come rushing to mind when the apostle writes of John the Baptist “he came to bear witness about the light.“  the woman seems to be holding up “the light” to Peter and asking “do you know about this?”  there’s many more themes just like this which i don’t have time to expound upon here.

One of the things which is supposed to distinguish “great” art from other forms is its “in-exhaustability” or the ability of the work to hold the viewer’s attention for an unlimited amount of time.  each time you come back to the painting, it should capture your attention.  this painting (when viewed much larger) is a terrific example of a work which is inexhaustible.

there was a time when Christians engaged very heavily with the arts.  the church commissioned the greatest artists in the world to depict the beauty of the faith in various forms of art like painting, sculpture, music, even architecture.  in his article “Why We Need Artists,” Tim Keller says that we need art to fully understand the truth.  jonathan edwars also said that unless you take a truth and you imagine it, unless you visualize what it means, then you don’t have a sense of it on your heart.

admittedly, i’m at the very beginning of my study of these things, and i’m very anxious to test and think through the theories of the necessity of art in theology, or art as theology.  do any of you have any experiences with these things?  do you have a theology of art?  does the modern church properly engage with the arts?  what do you think?

paige and i have really been struggling with the issues over this year’s election.  we’ve been engaged with the candidates and their stances since this time last year, and we’ve watched as the field has finally narrowed to the final two.

we’ve read huckabee’s, mccain’s, obama’s, and even hillary’s plans for the country given on their websites, we’ve poured over their voting records, we’ve watched the debates, and we’ve given serious thought (probably for the first time) as to what our own political views are.

i’m sure we’re in the boat with many christians when we say that we’re not terribly impressed with either of the remaining candidates.  Senator Obama’s worldview clashes so heavily with our own (naturalistic, liberationist, feminist) that it is very hard for us to see ourselves agreeing with his potential decisions, once in office.  on the other hand, Senator McCain’s not exactly our knight in shining Conservative armor, either.

in the end, however, we just can not get past the abortion issue.  it would require that we violate our conscience, knowing that Senator Obama desires to implement the Freedom of Choice Act once in office, for us to vote for him.

what we do decide to do with our vote is a matter of much prayer and deliberation right now.  we realize that, statistically speaking, we do our best to prevent Obama from being elected by voting for John McCain.  i am not yet convinced, however, that to vote for a third party candidate would be a “wasted vote.”  John Quncy Adams said, “Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.”

Some of the other candidates (and their platforms) can be found here.

regardless of who you vote for, in 13 days, we’ll know who the next President of the United States will be, and then it will be time for the country (one and all) to rally around him and try to make him the best and most successful leader he can be, both for this and future generations.

it’s becoming more and more apparent that the best way to keep all of our network of friends and family somewhat updated on our life is to blog.

so we decided to [re?]start a family blog.  our “family” formerly included only paige and me, but now there is a new addition!  little [yet to be named] baby is now two months old in the womb!  we’re pretty excited about it, and are looking forward to raising him/her up and going through the whole pregnancy experience together.   our blog goal is to keep family posted (pun not intended) on what’s going on with media and random thoughts and perhaps to save this section of our life for posterity’s sake.  we welcome any advice, comments, exhortation, encouragement, or anything else any of you (our family and friends) may have to offer!  thanks for participating in this with us!  

-trev

P.S.  Right now we’re thinking through baby names, so any boy or girl suggestions are welcome and appreciated!