Comments on: Guest Post: Here I Raise Mine Ebenezer

By: Carol

Carol — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 04:48:36 +0000

Thanks, everyone. Nice pun, Mark! I love your idea, Grant. We’ll have to save something like that to put in the hole when we plant a tree or build the barn or something. It’s neat that you collected dirt and carried it with you for that purpose.

By: David Y.

David Y. — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 01:25:57 +0000

Nice! Thanks for sharing.

By: Cliff

Cliff — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 23:05:27 +0000

Wow, thank you for such an inspiring story! Good luck with the new farm and even better the family tradition of thankfulness.

By: Amy T

Amy T — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 20:07:08 +0000

Thanks for sharing your experiences, Carol. What a wonderful thing for your family to have such a personal and tangible symbol, and so many good times ahead.

By: The Other Clark

The Other Clark — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 19:15:33 +0000

Loved this post. My wife and I have a similar dream–not as far along though–and I found this story inspiring on so many different levels.

By: Mark B.

Mark B. — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 16:36:21 +0000

This is a terrific post (sorry, no pun was intended)!

And Ardis (#3) should get a Nobel prize for using “hark” rather than the usual, in this benighted age, “harken” or “hearken.”

We’ve got two large stones in our yard–unearthed during the construction next door, claimed by my wife, and moved by the neighbor’s backhoe to appropriate spots in our garden. I’d never thought of making either our Ebenezer, but this post has inspired me.

And I love that hymn, so it would be altogether fitting and proper to raise one of those stones to that exalted state.

By: Stephen M (Ethesis)

Stephen M (Ethesis) — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 16:31:14 +0000

I am grateful for having this post to read today. Thank you.

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 16:26:58 +0000

I’m a real sucker for traditions and rituals, even if they’re newly invented ones, and especially if they hark back to something as old and meaningful as this. Thanks, Carol.

And all of us: Now that we all know what that line in the hymn means, we can spread the understanding!

By: Grant

Grant — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 15:37:24 +0000

Thanks for sharing this great story of meaning. I think it is so important to make our lives meaningful with important symbols.

We did something similar when we had a house built in Albuquerque that we unfortunately had to leave when my work trasnsferred me (sigh.) It was no farm and while only a tract home, it was a new one and we watched it being built. We had a stone from the Albuqueque Temple construction that we dropped in the southeast corner of the hole for the foundation before they poured it. Then we sprinkled in dirt from our old house, some of which had been gathered at the shrine at Chimayó in northern new Mexico. That was all mixed from dirt from the Mormon Battalion route, from the schools our kids had attended in Santa Fe, and from the Santa Fe Ward Chapel flower beds.

I hope the family that lives there now is blessed as well. One of our LDS neighbors told them about the Temple stone.

By: Paul

Paul — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 14:28:13 +0000

Lovely. I am impressed when people like you do these things. I do not have it in me to start a farm, however noble I find that effort (and I do find it noble). But I’m so grateful that you shared your experience with us.