With the price of gas, now it’s financially wise …
And after years of eschewing the environment Christians are now flocking to the so-called green movement in droves.
Can I say this in my outloud voice? I’m just a little bit cynical.
No, make that a lot cynical. Cynical to the point of illness. You see, I’ve been an environmentalist literally all my life. I could just say, “I grew up in Vermont,” and most of you would understand. But it was more than that. I grew up understanding the devastating effects of pollution. I’ve been cutting the plastic rings that encircle beer/soda cans since they came out … to protect water birds. I cleaned road sides as a child and now as an adult I look at the trash on our roads and remember the animals who live in what has become a toilet.
We are a wasteful society and trash culture. When we look at ourselves in the mirror, our culture of efficiency and productivity on one side of the coin, has created waste, trash and selfishness on the other side. We cannot have low prices without using people and resources in ways that are abusive in the end.
We have had the technology for smarter cars and using less gas for thirty years. Yet for the last ten years we have driven larger, and larger cars. Look in any church parking lot, what do you see? SUVs and minivans … an armada of them.
Look inside any church, what do you see? An ocean of cheap plastic clothing. Polyester, nylon … both derivatives of petroleum. Made cheaply and at the expense of someone’s life in another country. But here in the US? We have been “good stewards” of our individual budgets. Each family member has far too many clothes bought cheaply at the local deep-discount store.
I read on the wall of a Mennonite grocery store, “The cost of something is that amount of life which must be exchanged for it.”
Too often we have looked at our individual budgets, incomes and outgos and thought we were being “good stewards” of our money. But have we been good stewards of our lives and of the lives of others? Have we measured the cost of things in terms of the life that has been expended on it? We look at cost in terms of dollars. What if we began looking in terms of life exchanged?
What is that call on our lives? Then perhaps, Christians truly would be little green men.
It’s one that will surely survive in our collective memory as a family.
It began early; as in 5:30 a.m. One last early rink time for the season. We all went. LightBoy’s game was on one sheet at 7:20; LightGirl’s on the other at 7:30. I ran through the golden arches for a delicious, nutritious breakfast. Yum. LightBoy lost. LightGirl tied. But none of that is memorable.
LightGirl has had a crush on a teammate for a while now. About a week ago she got some intel which suggested that he was more LightBoy’s age. This was completely embarassing. Humiliating. Horrifying. In her words, she felt like a pedophile. Ewweth. This morning before the game I discovered she had bad intel. Her crush was her age. I passed this information along after the game.
So what do you think she did? Well, what would you do? Given that you definitely wouldn’t be seeing the guy again til September and maybe not very much even then.
Has she ever been on a date? No.
Has she ever had a boyfriend? No.
Has she ever been in any kind of relationship of any sort other than friends with a boy? No.
Has she ever spoken more than say fifteen words in a row to this kid? Uhhh … no.
So, of course, it goes without saying … ask him out. Ask him, where? Just … you know … out. On a date. Sometimes the mom is stoo-pid.
It’s helpful too, to have a friend by your side who will act as your voice when you and the guy stand there staring at each other. So, her friend did the actual, you know, asking. She said, “So … LightGirl wants to know if you’d go to the movies or something?” He said, “Sure.” and they both stood there and looked at each other … stunned. So GirlFriend spoke up again and said, “Now it would be good if you exchanged phone numbers.” So they did that too.
Then she came flying around the corner to tell me all about it. Grinning from ear to ear.
She spent the next half an hour texting him. Now she is firmly, giddily ensconced on the phone and computer with her peeps giggling and reliving the event. Imagining what will come next. And ad finitum. It is quintessential adolescence.
And just like that LightHusband and I have crossed a rubicon. It came upon us and we were across it before we even realized that it was there. I never even heard the echo of my feet on wood as the footsteps bounced back from water.
We are lucky, I suppose. She’s very confident. The young man in question is kind, upright, and a decent hockey player. We now have decisions of heavy consequence to make. Where should they go? What should they do? Now that the question has been asked and answered, will the “date” actually even take place?
On another hand, our fortunes run much deeper than that. Our definition of what is quintessentially adolescent is light and air. It involves words like, “giddy” and “peeps.” She will (Lord willin’ an’ the creek don’t rise) complete her secondary education and go on to get a college level education of some sort. There are many, many parents in the 2/3’s world who never even begin to think these words, never mind associate them with children in their family. Yet most families in our world … our 1/3 world, that is the industrialized, civilized, mechanized, and importantly educated, world do have the opportunity to associate words like, “giddy” and “adolescence” and “grin” and “date” and “secondary education” and “college education” with our daughters. Not only do we have that opportunity, we make the assumption that it is the right and natural course of things.
According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs being secure in our bodily needs allows us to become more secure with our friendships, family and relational intimacy. This in turn builds self-esteem, confidence, etc. It makes sense in a way. One cannot build relational intimacy, when one is deeply hungry for days and months on end. Or living in a place where the water is not reliable. It is simply not feasible. So most Westerner’s (we of the 1/3’s world) would tend to think of education as necessary yet expendable. After all, an education will not build security. It will not fill stomachs or healthily hydrate starving bodies. It will not keep peace among warring neighbors.
Or … will it?
What we are coming to find now is that the key to world peace might just be …
… our daughters. Our collective daughters. The brown ones, and tan ones and yellow ones and pink ones. It’s not that they need to rule the world. Far from it. They just need an education. It is having an education that gives them self-esteem and self-esteem begets relational intimacy which then allows for safety and security and then they can help their families fill their stomachs and hydrate their bodies. It seems that Maslow works for us, but it may just be upside down in other parts of the world.
Give these girls some time … time to be giddy and grow up. Time to learn. Time to be girls, then time to be women. Time to read. Time to calculate. Time to have a date or maybe two. Time to giggle. Time to achieve. Time to gain confidence in their righteous state as children of the Creator. Time to earn respect. Time to bestow respect. They need our time, so that they may have a little more time. And in so doing it is our collective daughters who may just change the world … one village at a time.
Blind Beggar (Rick Meigs) has put out a call for a synchroblog on Monday, June 23 to discuss the idea, the topic, the notion of missional. The word is losing it’s boundaries and becoming a catch-all word that people use because they think it’s the latest cool ministry word to throw around.
I’m going to add to his invitation here because he just posted the list of potential bloggers. As of now, there are 18 (eighteen). Seventeen men and me. Ladies, I’m feeling very lonely and sort of overwhelmed. Now, you know most of the men are going to post treatises that are wonderful (but long and, ahem, boring ) on definitions and complaints and they will “fix the problem.” We need to bring some balance to this mix. Some of our wonderful right-brain thinking. How do women view the concept of missional? It is a highly relational term. Hello!! This is our ballpark, jump in and write your thoughts on that concept. If you want to use poetry, or story or have a video … all the sweeter.
So, my girl friends, please either visit Rick’s blog to sign up and let him know you are participating or let me know in the comments and I will keep a list here for him.
This photo is from the on-line gallery of Phillip Toledano (thanks to fellow Scriber, Ben).
Sit with that photo for a minute. Allow your emotions to bubble up and give them names. Let them have their own stories just for a moment or so. See what those stories might be, if you don’t just shove the emotions down or wave them aside or tell them what to do.
Now, think for a moment about how intimidated you feel when standing in the presence of someone who is dressed “to the nines.” How intimidated you feel when you walk into a room or space and suddenly you realize … you are not dressed the same as everyone else there. You’ll never be able to dress like everyone else there.
Now you have the sense of modesty that Paul was trying to instill in Timothy when he wrote, “I also want women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God.” His concern was not for sexual purity, but that the women would set a tone of hospitality and welcoming.
Our clothes tell people something about us. They tell a story about who we are before people ever get to know us. When we use those clothes to engage in power and manipulation to subdue others in our presence … by whatever means, we are negating the power of the Gospel in the very space that the Gospel is to be transcendent.
So … how should we dress? Well … that’s up to you and your particular dance with the Holy Spirit. See, none of us is the same. The rules are all the same, yet they’re all different. All we can do is ask questions of each other … where do you live? How do your neighbors dress? What are the local standards? What is welcoming amongst them? How do you create a welcoming environment in your space, where you are free to proclaim the Good News to people so they will hear it from you?
One day about 14 years ago I signed up to take a meal to a woman who’d just had some sort of surgery. She had two small children and her husband worked alot of hours. The family were members of our church and it was the beneficent thing to do. The children were about 4 and 1 (at the time) and LightGirl was around 6 months old. I figured I’d drop the meal off, say a few words and leave. It was around LightGirl’s naptime afterall. I think I left about 3 hours later.
The way I figure it I think we’ve spent the equivalent of a year of our lives on the phone together. Most of that laughing. I spent the wee hours of the morning with her oldest two when child number three joined them, and then child four and then finally, child number five (who is now five).
Child number 2 and number 3 are LightGirl and LightBoy’s ages … they have grown up together.
The oldest, a girl, graduated from highschool yesterday. A milestone of sorts. My first friend to have a child graduating from highschool. More than that though … I’ve known this girl virtually her whole life. I remember more about the funny things these children said when they were little, than my blood nieces and nephews. We hid out together during tornado watches and cooked chicken feet one day. We’ve watched each other’s children for overnights and for vacations.
We fell away from each other for a few years for no particular reason. We staying in sporadic contact, but falling off of a cliff in the middle of the mines of Moria made me a little difficult to reach for a while. So when we received the invitation to her graduation party, our whole family was delighted. Even better was LaughingEye’s reaction when she opened the door this afternoon. Her whole body radiated joy.
I made her an album quilt … a quilt with space for her friends and family to sign. She was thrilled. I am thrilled. And I sat, absorbed back into my friend’s family and realized that friends really are the family you choose.
I woke up this morning with these words echoing around in my head:
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today!
They were spoken in a voice that is different from my voice. A rich deep baritone that is familiar to all of us. This clip is familiar to many of us. I have fuzzy, crackly memories of those words when they were first spoken, crackly and fuzzy on the radio in our house in Kansas. I was two and something. Those words were repeated over and over throughout my childhood.
Twenty years later when I was 22 and something I stood down on the Mall and listened as those words and that speech was re-enacted. I looked around at the poverty and disparity and dispaired of the words ever having truth.
Forty years later when I was 42 and something I listened to those words each year with my children and we talked about what they mean, and who this man was.
Now I’m 47. I woke up this morning and realized I’m watching this dream come true. On August 28, 2008 … 45 years to the day later, Barack Obama will accept the nomination for the Democratic Party.
This year. This election. We’re choosing hope. We’re looking at the content of someone’s character and not the color of their skin. Yes, Amen and all good things, we’re choosing hope. Let justice roll down like a mighty river and may grace abound …
I’ve been tagged again in a couple of meme’s and very lax about responding. These meme’s, however, have taken some thoughtful response, so I’m giving myself that out.
First, Grace tagged me to tell you all about my favorite book of the Bible. That’s hard … I think I have to say, Ruth. I love the story of Ruth. If you read it thoroughly it is a complete story of God … He’s all in there, but you have to look in all the nooks and crannies for Him. That’s why I love the story so much, it’s a beautiful love story and it’s multi-layered; keep pushing through and you find more and more and more. After that, I’d say Romans. And Esther.
“The life of the Christian should be burning with such a light of holiness that by their very example and conduct, their life will be a rebuke to the wicked.” (St. Francis)
In an era where Christians are largely known for the sin they oppose, this wisdom could not be more timely. Francis calls us to face the compromises of our culture by becoming living alternatives with how we live.
Jamie set up the following rules (I think of them as more like guidelines )
1. Consider aspects of our culture where we have too easily compromised, issues that you passionately oppose.
2. Then, ask yourself what it would mean for you, both as and individual and as a part of a community, to be a living alternative. Write about it.
It’s too easy to be morally upright about the things that matter least in God’s economy … things like sex and alcohol. Yet it seems as though those are the things that Christians are known for caring most about. We don’t seem to spend a lot of time worrying about the seven deadly sins from the classical era … pride, greed, gluttony, sloth, wrath, envy and lust. Some may say (and correctly) that these are not mentioned by name in the Bible. True. And yet … we must look at the results of these sins. They serve to devour others and their needs, rights, desires in the service of mine. They build up me at the expense of another. This is counter to the love of God and love of other that is woven like a golden thread throughout all of the Scriptures.
To be a living alternative is to understand root causes and behaviors. It is to live in the meniscus of grace, dancing with the Holy Spirit where She may take me. Living with open hands. I have a house for purposes of hospitality. I have stuff for the purposes of giving it away to those in need. I am home during the day so my young neighbor can get a ride to school when he’s missed his bus. I can give water to those who are thirsty and share my food with those who are hungry. I can live with my hands and heart open, giving away … and not storing up for myself. Do not live to devour others, but live to serve God and dance in Her Grace.
And I’ll tag:Bill, Jeremy, Peggy, Lyn , and now Doug (who I’d been thinking of all along, but got distracted!)
I have three blood uncles. Two on my father’s side and one on my mother’s. That’s two brothers to my dad and one brother to my mom. All three served in the military. Two (my dad’s brothers) served in World War II. Interestingly, all of my uncles (by blood or marriage) served in the military. In my generation, I can only think of three or four cousins (out of about 30) who served.
Yesterday Uncle Ralph, the younger of my dad’s two older brothers, came to town to visit the WWII Memorial. He came with other WWII veterans in Connecticut and Massachusetts to visit the memorial. It’s part of a private program that is working diligently to get WWII vets to the memorial before they pass on. As Uncle Ralph told me yesterday, there are only 10% of the veteran’s left alive today. One of my older cousins arranged to get my uncle in the program and was his guardian for the trip.
As a pacifist by nature and by choice, I struggle with war and the need for it. I want to negotiate with evil and find compromises. I’m not always certain that is possible. Even though it is my choice. When I heard about the building of the WWII Memorial I was saddened by the glorification of war. When I heard about busing vets in to this mecca of war for one last visit, I was cynical. But our visit there yesterday changed much of that for me.
It was chaotic and messy and slow and hot and beautiful and gracious and happy and the smiles that wreathed those old faces were glorious. These men (and a very occasional woman) knew how precious life is because life had been lost. The drums of war were silent here and water in the fountains sprayed and tinkled, reminding us of life lived and worth living. These were the faces of determination and perseverance in the face of adversity.
Adversity which was not glorified nor was it depicted as something to be put aside. It is and was a part of life which creates character. It was that voice that I heard when Uncle Ralph kindly refused the use of a wheelchair, “I never fell out of a 25 mile march and I’ll finish today, thank you, though.” In his 80’s and he still has something to finish and learn.
So … I’ve fallen deathly ill and been carried off. It’s not the cough that carries you off, but the coffin they carry you off in.
I don’t know why, but that line has cracked me up from bottom of my feet ever since the first time I read it when I was about nine. I think it’s the funniest thing … and I repeat it endlessly every time I get a cold. Inside my head of course. Otherwise I might drive my lovely children insane and I would not want to be the cause of their craziness.
Of course, I am not deathly ill at all. I’ve just been distracted by the chickens as Blazing Ewe would say. My schedule has gotten out of whack and I haven’t been arising early enough to get any writing in. Or get any started before my lovely children disturb my train of thought. Perhaps if I write, “lovely children,” often enough you’ll begin to get the picture that I’m more than a little fed up with them right at the moment. Okay? Okay.
Among things that have been happening is that a cousin came to dinner the other night. I haven’t seen him in a long time. His lovely wife came too and we had a wonderful evening catching up all around. He told me about a unique event happening tomorrow with a mutual uncle. My uncle who served in WWII is coming to town for the day and a ceremony at the WWII memorial. So we get to go spend the day with him and see the memorial.
“The” quilt came back from being quilted the other day. BlazingEwe and I are putting the binding and other finishing touches on it. A final photograph should be up soon. Hopefully I’ll be able to sell raffle tickets for it on-line. Once I get the logistics and legalities figured out, I’ll let you all know. Proceeds from the sale of tickets are going to Fisher House (essentially Ronald McDonald House for military families). The guild voted between this and a charity helping school children in Ethiopia (my first choice). Fisher House won, but only by 6 votes. I love my little guild. We’re only about 80 members, but we make about 150 quilts for charity every year … these go to mothers with new babies and nothing else but a car seat at our local hospital, they go to children entering foster care and the C.A.S.A program, they go to the local Medicare nursing home patients … little old ladies and men who have no one to visit, have a quilt specially for them, and they go to the amputee ward at Walter Reed. I’m proud of this accomplishment. When I was president of the guild back in 2002, the community service program was the focus of my presidency. I’ve had the enormous pleasure of watching it thrive and grow ever since. It just makes me smile to see these quilts come into our “treasury,” knowing that they’ll go out again to people who need the love they embody. Even though this is not a “Christian” organization, this is an example of the Body of Christ at work in the world. Quietly working in the background to care for the least, lowest and most disenfranchised. This is why I love the ladies in my quilt guild.
More quilts are in the works and as I work on them, I’m percolating on a couple of posts. So hopefully I’ll get some writing time and will get those up in the week or so. In the meantime, I’m talking immigration law with LightGirl as she engages with her passion for people in this new nativist atmosphere we live in. It makes for some lively conversation around the dinner table and in the car.
I’m still here. I’m still alive. I don’t know what’s been going on in my head lately, but the well seems to be dry for the time being. I do have some things percolating, but the bubbles are moving slowly and gas seems to be on low.
What little writing energy I have has been going into exchanges with old youth group kids. They’re all grown up now, but we’re re-connecting on FaceBook and having some good conversations. Some of those have gotten sorta deep and required some thinking and processing on my part … and on theirs.
I’m also trying to finish up the school year with my kids, continue on with managing the hockey team through some choppy waters and dream about new adventures in quilting with some friends. I’m still around, and things will continue to arrive here, but I won’t make any promises about reliability in the near future.
I’ve got some reviews to post in the near future and some thoughts … and some photos of recent field trips. So stuff is on it’s way soon, I just need to realign myself with some things. Restructure my time and go home and rethink my life. Or something like that.
It’s the latest fashion craze …
According to 
) on definitions and complaints and they will “fix the problem.” We need to bring some balance to this mix. Some of our wonderful right-brain thinking. How do women view the concept of missional? It is a highly relational term. Hello!! This is our ballpark, jump in and write your thoughts on that concept. If you want to use poetry, or story or have a video … all the sweeter.
Today marked a milestone of sorts.
We fell away from each other for a few years for no particular reason. We staying in sporadic contact, but falling off of a cliff in the middle of the mines of Moria made me a little difficult to reach for a while. So when we received the invitation to her graduation party, our whole family was delighted. Even better was LaughingEye’s reaction when she opened the door this afternoon. Her whole body radiated joy.
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