Category: Uncategorized (Page 151 of 188)

last week we watched the green mile. it’s the only king book i ever read, and though the movie was good, the book is better – as always. (btw, can i quote the husband here? he said a while back, “you know i heard that the book is always better but i never believed it – until i started reading books.” it was the funniest thing i’d heard in a year). i read the book while on vacation sometime in college and i’m really surprised that i missed the christological parallels drawn, how a man gave life back to another but in exchange, took on his / her illness. and was sentenced to the death penalty. how did that not scream parallelism? proof in point that i’m smarter than a college student. or at least the college version of me.

then i went to bed but read a chapter of Lamott’s book that i’ve been working through. ironically, the chapter was on her experiences teaching / speaking at a nearby prison. she speaks a lot of how the church should be reaching to this specific group of “least of these”s.

this was the same day that my mom told me that my sister was coming home today. she made the trip because a friend of ours got released from prison after 7 years.

ok, God, i get it that there’s a message in there. i’ve held off on this post for a week because i was hoping to resolve what this message was. however, in this particular situation, sky writing may be a bit more effective.

i use the term “friend” about T very loosely. mostly because i’ve been a very bad friend the past 7 years. my sister and my dad both made trips to see her, and my sister assured me that she is very forgiving for people who haven’t made the efforts. “she realizes that life goes on” she said.

which just makes me feel more guilty. because i didn’t just forget about her. it wasn’t lost in my memory. i’ve thought about her more often than any other person i went to school with. i prayed, i cried, she even showed up in a dream or two. i wrote a letter once. i was relieved when i got the address wrong and i used it as an excuse to not reach out again.

the worst part is that i have no idea why i’ve felt this way. and i hate (yes, hate’s a strong word) that i was one of those people who just did nothing. really – does feeling strongly but doing nothing even really count? i’ve told the kids a thousand times that love isn’t a feeling, it’s something you do, it’s something you choose. i may feel for her, but i chose and did nothing.

i think some of it is because i’m a fixer and in this situation there was nothing to fix. i’d end up being the stereotypical “here, read this book, i think you’ll find it inspiring” type of friend. it’s not who i want to be, but that’s who i would’ve been. i’d offer canned advice. that’s not what’s needed. what is needed is real love. and that’s a scary thing to offer.

fortunately, this is a happy day for her and she’s had several people stand by her through the years. opportunity is on the horizon. she’s had quite a story of a life up to this point, but she gets to write the next chapter, starting today. so once again, i need to stop thinking about myself and just celebrate with and for her.

i’m a pretty rule-driven person. it’s comfortable to me to know the boundaries. i believe that you can enjoy yourself more when you know where the confines of “safe” is. and it’s been said in writing that you must know what the rules are before you break them. i frequently told the kids who complained about particular rules that “for every rule, there’s an idiot [that caused the rule into being]”.

for some reason i woke up early on saturday morning thinking about food rules. ironically, my mom, sister & i later talked a lot about michael pollen on oprah and his newest book is called Food Rules (seriously, pollen, i deserve endorsements).

my first food rule ever, circa 2002,revolved around diet coke. i love a good fountain diet coke. i’m not a huge pop drinker, but i do love me some diet coke. i found, at one point in my life, that even though i really loved diet coke, i would drink pop on all occasions – even pop i didn’t thoroughly enjoy. when i decided to think more about what i ate, i decided that i would only drink diet coke at restaurants that served it. if the restaurant served pepsi, i drank water. it was a good compromise. and i found myself eating at taco bell and kfc less (because they serve pepsi). but still, it works for me.

my eyes have been opened to the food world mostly because i’m becoming more conscientious of what the child is eating. as he is growing and developing, i feel like i need to offer the best stuff i can to help him get a good start in life, building a stronger baseline. later in life, like where i am now, it’s about extending what i have- i’m not really creating anything new (well, currently i am, since another child is getting a direct line of my food selection). i have a firm belief that anyone over 70 should eat whatever they want without anyone complaining. but i digress. surprised?

what i’ve come up with as my personalized guidelines to feeding my household operates off of a principle one of my cousins told me about a while back – “always foods” vs. “sometimes foods.” this goes great with the discipline ideology i ganked from KLM’s training, based on “rights” vs “privileges” (separate post). i don’t like the idea of “never” foods – God created all things and said that it was good. perhaps not good in the sense that we make a dinner out of chocolate, but good enough that I can’t put a “never” label on it.

i’m starting to try to see things more on a spectrum – that there are always foods (good example: broccoli) and sometimes foods (example: cookie). there’s no dark black line between the 2 and sometimes foods vacillate between the two based on factors. and there are things about foods that make them a stronger always food – always, like daily – or a sometimes food that is best enjoyed once you’re 21.

so how does one know where on that spectrum a particular food lies? here are my primary factors:
1. Number of ingredients. the fewer, the more it’s an always food. broccoli has one ingredient. milk the same. burger. apple. all very good always foods. the more ingredients, the less often you eat it. because it goes with the next….
2. Pronunciation of ingredients. hydrogonated anything doesn’t sound appetizing. anything that sounds like it should be a medicine instead of a food ingredient rapidly sends it down the sometimes food line. high fructose corn syrup puts it at the back of the line. (i know, “its nutritionally the same as sugar.” but. it’s not. it’s not sugar. its CORN. corn should be eaten off a cob, not sipped through a straw). the ingredients of the ingredients of a dish do change where in the spectrum a food falls. mac and cheese made of real cheese, milk and butter is closer to always than one made of velveeta because the list of ingredients on that box is 80x longer. i fully accept and understand that velveeta does make mac and cheese much creamier. you win some, you loose some.
3. packaging. the less, the better. and if it needs to convince me that its nutritious, it’s probably not. no one disputes the grapes in a ziploc baggie with holes, but the fruity pebbles seem to need to tell me about all the “vitamins and minerals.”
4. Locale of creation. jj and i decided that it’s ok for H to enjoy a treat or two if mommy (or grandma) made it. specifically if we made it and it did not come from a box / bag / plastic square. so pancakes sans bisquick. cookies sans nestle tollhouse tub. ice cream sans ben & jerry’s artwork. they’re on the sometimes food list – we don’t have pancakes every day, or even every week – but they work their way higher in the frequency chart by having roots in my kitchen. theory applies also to where foods are grown, such as in my garden vs. Argentina. and i think my crawford county cow is better than what’s been shipped to my meijer from omaha.

i think that’s all to my rules, but you never know. my list could be ever evolving, much like my reading list. but it’s helping me to achieve balance in my life, that i can enjoy a few things as a sometimes food (especially if i’m truly only sometimes eating it) without too much guilt because i’ve established a good repertoire of always foods.

happy eating.

there’s an irony in the fact that jj is watching the state of the union while i try to gather these thoughts into words. i fear that it’s not fully gathered, but i suppose you can watch the show unfold.

not long ago i was listening to a few friends discuss things that were going on in their lives and somehow the topic of the church’s (specifically the UMC) stance on abortion came up. my friend’s family feels very strongly that it’s not something the church should support and they’re starting to consider what that means for them. (*disclaimer: i have no idea what the official church polity is on the issue. i didn’t even google it.)

something was left unsettled, however, when i left the conversation. i started thinking about what it would mean to other people that the “church does not support abortion.”

i had a pretend conversation in my head later (let’s not pretend that you don’t all do that in the car, too…). what if i told my friend that that I, 5 years ago, had made that kind of decision? would the church stop supporting me? what would it’s people’s feelings be toward me? how would i fit into that group of people?

the conversation in my head continued. what if now, after i had been to that point, i have a heart, a leading to reach other women in that situation. what if i felt God leading me to help bring a voice to the pain, guilt, sorrow and shame that comes with making such a decision? would the church support my efforts? what does it mean to support someone who has – or IS – facing such a decision? can you not support an issue but support a person struggling with that issue? uh oh, this may open a bigger can than i thought: can you really “love the sinner but hate the sin?”

now, abortion is not my make-or-break issue. i feel like i blog about it frequently enough that it might appear that it is, but really it’s not. i have more make-or-break to me in how the issue is discussed and approached (oh, it got under my skin at election time!). and the reason the thoughts keep swirling around is because i’m wondering how many people are hurt by the way we talk about “issues.” in our vigor to march for a purpose, are there people who are trampled underfoot? surely there’s a healthy way to feel strongly about certain things. i think it’s a fair and valid opinion (of which i share) that it’s not ok that babies don’t know life. it’s a very sad thing. but is there a way to help slow or stop this sad thing from happening still while recognizing that there are thousands of people out there that this isn’t an “issue” – it’s a reality of life.

i listened to a few podcasts today, one about judging and one about doubt and questions in faith. seemingly there’s not a lot of connections between the two, but in actuality i heard the same message repeated. walking with God is not about being right. it’s about trusting God and loving others. God has never called on us to know the answers. But he has called us (repeatedly) to love others.

those that would disagree with me would say i’m wishy washy. that we can’t just go around telling people to do whatever they feel because we “love” them. but that’s not what i’m saying. opinions and convictions are fine and good. we need people to take a stand on detrimental actions in our society. walmart, consumerism and processed foods need to be dealt with! but not in ways or with words that hurt people.

now, i’m not a huge dr. phil fan; i never watch him. but i do know that he often challenges married couples by saying, “do you want to be right or do you want to be married?” if you know me you know that i need to be asking myself this regularly – i love to be right. when someone tells me, “yeah, you’re probably right,” i typically respond “i usually am!”

but now i want to want to be loving over being right. not that i have to eat my convictions (and there are a lot of things i feel strongly about…). but i want the desire to put my knowledge and opinion out there in an effort to change someone else to decrease – well, that is, when it’s an effort to change someone so that they’ll become more like me. we could use a little less of me in the world, and perhaps maybe a little more of Jesus.

so i’m asking myself that question a little more often. is this an effort to be right or loving? in my marriage, my family, my friendships and my attempts to follow Jesus. what are my “issues” that it is more important for me to be right than for the person to know that they are loved?

(and if you’re tempted to comment about the actual issue of abortion, i challenge you that you completely missed the point of this entire post).