Resolutions

When we moved back to America, we made two resolutions as a family.

1) We promised ourselves we wouldn't get involved in too many activities, especially at night.

2) We determined not to let discussions of how the church should or should not be, or how Christians should or should not act, overshadow talking about Jesus.

Time to assess our success or failure...

1) It's hard to live in America with kids and not get involved in some evening activities. All in all, though, we're home about as many nights as we're out. Now I need to re-resolve to make sure our time at home is used wisely, but I can't make that resolution until this round of the Amazing Race and Survivor are over.

2) This is a toughie. I spend a lot of my energy fretting about how to change situations and people I have no control over. I let myself fall into less challenging conversations with people I know will mostly agree with me. It's time to refocus my words on important topics. It's time to hand over the stuff I can't change and let God work his wonders without my help.

Oh, Garbage!

I'm amazed at the attention garbage gets in this country. And I'm amazed at how much of it we produce each week.

In Africa, we ended up with perhaps a barrel full of garbage a year, less in a year than what we now produce in a week. There, food scraps went to the neighbors, the dog, or the compost heap (in that order). Tin cans, cardboard boxes and plastic containers were coveted items. I'd collect a stack of them on my porch knowing that sooner or later someone would come and carry them away. For a while, we buried our chicken bones. That was until we realized that our African friends could get a whole 'nother meal off the bones and skins and scraps we left behind.

Here, no one wants my chicken bones. Or my yogurt cups. Or my cereal boxes. I've tried reducing how much we use, but the system here is designed to produce waste. I take my own bags to the grocery store, but I still come home with all kinds of foods wrapped in plastic or mesh or cardboard. Even fresh produce has to go in a plastic bag to keep it safe from the other produce. You never know where that avocado has been, you know.

I wonder if we produce more garbage in America because a big truck comes to haul it away each week. After all, if we had to pile our trash in the street for everyone to see or bury it in our yard, I bet we'd be a lot more careful about how we shopped.

Remembering

We're not very good rememberers. Pomp and ceremony have all but left our culture as we chase after the here and now, the comfortable, the informal. But there are a few moments in life that leave a mark on our hearts - the birth of a child, the words "I do," a sudden death.

For those who were alive, there are moments we share as a nation that define us. The bombing of Pearl Harbor, the assassination of President Kennedy, the space shuttle Columbia disaster. And of course, the attacks on September 11, 2001.

For some reason, I spent those first few days huddled over a scrap booking project. The TV was on, but I couldn't watch the pictures. I kept the children out of the room, let them play and be innocent for a few more days. I didn't want images of that day making them afraid to sleep, to dream, to live.

Like in the days following Hurricane Katrina, people were desperate to help and many did. Others of us held our breath and prayed and waited for everything to return to normal. Only normal is not the same.

A friend, an airplane pilot from the south, was grounded indefinitely. He jumped on his motorcycle and rode two thousand miles to the northwestern corner of Washington. He arrived in the dark, in the rain, with a spirit that said "You can't stop me." That's what I needed to hear.

Perfect Timing

More often than I expect, events in life fall together in a way that just makes sense. Take yesterday for example. We started a new history book which will finally, after 4 or 5 years of studying through history in chronological order, launch us into the colonization of America and its birth as a new nation.

Over a year ago, I put my name in the government's hat and asked them if I could receive a set of American art through the Picturing America Project. The set arrived today and it's a beautiful set of 40 pieces of American art that tell the story of our nation through photographs, paintings, sculpture and other art objects. I'm so excited about how it will dovetail with our history study over the next year or so. And I'm excited to share it with other educators who can also use it to expose their children and their students to the power of art to reveal stories.

Another Look

You know how there are things you drive by all the time without really seeing them?

There's a place on the sidewalk between my house and the mall that I've driven past a thousand times. It's a little platform with something sticking up from it and something fluttery wrapped around it, like a tattered flag.

Without ever putting words to it, I've always assumed it was a little voodoo shrine. That's not completely illogical considering I used to live in a place with shrines everywhere you looked, enough that I eventually looked past them as they became part of the larger landscape.

But this is suburbia. In America.

This week, I walked past that spot on the sidewalk for the first time and was surprised to see it was not a shrine at all, but a broken utility pole with warning tape wrapped around it.

Another piece put in the puzzle of what my surroundings look like. Another piece of the African me lost.

39

Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated 40 years ago today.

He died too young at the age of 39.

39 years to change the world. That's pretty fast work.

I know.

I'm 39.

Jesus lived only 33 years. Alexander the Great, too. It doesn't take long to make an impact, not if you believe in what you're doing.

On my first visit to Memphis many years ago, a friend drove me by the Lorraine Motel to see the balcony where Dr. King was killed. At the time, the biggest impression it made on me was how run-down the place was.

I didn't understand.

I was born 4 months after King's death, born at the end of the turmoil that embroiled our country. By the time I was aware, the biggest clash was between my orange plaid pants and my pink flowered jacket.

I can't say I fully understand even now, though I've had a taste or two of what it means to live in a country divided against itself. I've also come to realize that it's not the place of death that brings honor or dishonor - it's the life led. Jesus' life was not defined by his death on a garbage heap. Neither was Martin Luther King's by his assassination at a seedy motel. If anything, his choice of lodging speaks of his humility, his integrity.

His legacy.

39 years and we'll never be the same.

Flamingos and Penguins

My youngest spent her day yesterday planning a trip to Florida. She dressed in a tropical skirt and put on purple sunglasses and (don't ask me why) a white bandana. No one gave her this idea. No one even told her about Florida. She was coloring a map of the USA and when she got to Florida and its large flamingo, she was sold.

That was that place for her. She wants to go hang out with the flamingos.

I told my neighbor, who's from Florida, about the kiddo's plans.

"Oh, honey, I'm sorry," she said. "The only flamingos in Florida are in zoos or they're plastic ones stuck in people's front yards."

Can I just say I'm shocked? All these years, I thought the only state whose reputation was messed up was Alaska's. We used to laugh at pictures of polar bears hanging out with penguins. (News flash: no penguins in Alaska, but I'm sure you knew that.)

Now I don't know what to think. Did they make up the whole thing about Idaho having potatoes? Or cowboys in Texas? Or teepees in New Mexico (I swear, that's on this map, too. The only teepees I've actually seen in NM were huge tourist traps)

What lies have we been told about where you live? What has surprised you when you've visited somewhere new?

One in a Hundred Million

Today, the population of the United States hit 300 million. 39 years ago, in 1967, it hit 200 million... and Edwin was born.

In 39 years, what has changed in America?

Our life expectancy and standard of living are up... our morality is down.(or is it just that we're less tolerant of hypocrisy?)

Our Hispanic population is up... I know I'm thankful for at least one guy with Spanish blood.

We've gone from LPs to 8-tracks to cassettes to CDs to mp3s; from board games to Atari to XBox 360.

We've seen the invention of the computer, the Internet, and grape jelly in a squeeze bottle.

Houses are bigger, yards are smaller and we own a LOT more cars.

We stopped using party lines and Ma Bell-provided black rotary dial phones and went cordless, then wireless.

We sent men to the moon, a probe to the sun and a camera beyond the limits of our solar system.

We became the only remaining superpower in the world and we felt the responsibility that brings. But we also lost some humility along the way.

We stopped being the most Christian nation on earth and we felt the burn of persecution, not so much from foreigners, but from within our own ranks.

An important milestone, reaching 300 million. Coincidentally, Edwin's little truck is turning over a new milestone today, too. He thinks it's 200 thousand, but I say it's got to be 300. (believe me, if you saw it, you'd agree with me)

And Edwin's turning 39.

He's one in a 100 million to me.