Unlaced and Undone PLEASE read this blog post. Its short. I'll wait.
Did you do it? Did you catch it? The part about the boy who got his shoes tied? I don't think I will ever be the same again. Ever.
"He headed into that transparent human place where poverty extends
kindness to privilege, when there is no earthly reason for it to do so.
We’ve heard that story before too, but we don’t know what to make of it.
It’s an upside down legend that questions everything. And answers
everything. Because most days we just wonder if we are letting Jesus
wander around homeless out there. But some days, we know it for sure."
Wow. Have you come undone too? I sure have.
Saturday, March 14, 2015
Covered Wagons and Chaos
So I left my kindle at the nail salon last night while getting a mani pedi. All last night I felt like I was cut off from the world. Sure I had my iPhone and my laptop and Daddy playing cards iPad and laptop and iPhone and Little Queen's tablet and the other kindle we let the kid use...but still. Can we take a moment of silence for my First World problems here? I mean, really, I didn't have the Kindle Fire that I prefer to use because I left it at the nail salon while spending almost $100 on a mani/pedi combo. What has this world come to. But all is well, I got it back when they opened this morning. That is after Daddy made fun of my for my world devolving into covered wagons and chaos without my Kindle.
In all seriousness, lets take a moment to be thankful for how truly wealthy we are in this country. I may not be a 1%, but my goodness we are wealthy according to world standards. We have not one, but TWO working newer cars. That we can easily afford to put gas into. And we have never worried about going to the grocery store., or paying the cable bill or any utilities for that matter. Sure we have debt but in the grand scheme of things its really not the end of the world. We don't have so much that we are drowning in it like some Americans we read about. We didn't need to be bailed out of our mortgage or risk losing our home a few years ago. Yes I really wanted to move a few months ago and was sad that we missed out on it. It was a learning experience.
I took that learning experience and turned into something positive, something to be thankful for. I learned that there really is a big difference in what realtor you pick and that Realtors DO make or break the sale of a home. I learned that if it is not the right time to move, then it won't happen, and I learned that even though I THOUGHT I had been patient for 12 years with this house, I truly hadn't been patient enough. So this year I am teaching myself to LOVE the home I am in, not to just be OK or satisfied with it, but to love it. LOVE where I am at, because this place is not just a house, it is my HOME. As part of this little endeavor I took on the task of being thankful for something different everyday. It can be a person, or a thing, or a place, or an article, anything, just no repeats. For an entire year. Its only March and my task has turned out to be daunting already. Daddy may be correct when he mentioned chaos today because that is what my life feels like sometimes.
In the past three months I have been thankful for my neighbors and my facebook friends, my doggie cuddles, and late night text messages from my out of town hubby. I've even found myself thankful for a random hi from a neighbor when I was having a bad day. Its easy to be thankful for good books and warm cups of steamy chai tea. It is NOT so easy to be thankful when three out of four of your kids are sick and the fourth one is crabby and crying and a baby and doesn't understand why mommy has a migraine and daddy is in New York and no one will hold her. Its not so easy to be thankful when your own parents won't return your phone calls over religion that has been warped and diluted and not in any way Christ-like in the first place. But, I push forward because I must. For my daughters. To be the role model for them and not the oppressor against them. To use the good things from my parents and throw away the bad.
So in this Wealthy First World that I am raising my girls, I WILL raise loving, thankful, thoughtful daughters. Daughters who praise, daughters who cherish, daughters who are thankful for what they have, not who are constantly wanting for more. Daughters who can be happy and praise and encourage their friends without being jealous. Daughters who can strive for their best and achieve their goals while still maintaining their morality.
So if it takes Covered Wagons and Chaos to get there, so be it. You can have my Kindle (but get your hands off my yarn...)
In all seriousness, lets take a moment to be thankful for how truly wealthy we are in this country. I may not be a 1%, but my goodness we are wealthy according to world standards. We have not one, but TWO working newer cars. That we can easily afford to put gas into. And we have never worried about going to the grocery store., or paying the cable bill or any utilities for that matter. Sure we have debt but in the grand scheme of things its really not the end of the world. We don't have so much that we are drowning in it like some Americans we read about. We didn't need to be bailed out of our mortgage or risk losing our home a few years ago. Yes I really wanted to move a few months ago and was sad that we missed out on it. It was a learning experience.
I took that learning experience and turned into something positive, something to be thankful for. I learned that there really is a big difference in what realtor you pick and that Realtors DO make or break the sale of a home. I learned that if it is not the right time to move, then it won't happen, and I learned that even though I THOUGHT I had been patient for 12 years with this house, I truly hadn't been patient enough. So this year I am teaching myself to LOVE the home I am in, not to just be OK or satisfied with it, but to love it. LOVE where I am at, because this place is not just a house, it is my HOME. As part of this little endeavor I took on the task of being thankful for something different everyday. It can be a person, or a thing, or a place, or an article, anything, just no repeats. For an entire year. Its only March and my task has turned out to be daunting already. Daddy may be correct when he mentioned chaos today because that is what my life feels like sometimes.
In the past three months I have been thankful for my neighbors and my facebook friends, my doggie cuddles, and late night text messages from my out of town hubby. I've even found myself thankful for a random hi from a neighbor when I was having a bad day. Its easy to be thankful for good books and warm cups of steamy chai tea. It is NOT so easy to be thankful when three out of four of your kids are sick and the fourth one is crabby and crying and a baby and doesn't understand why mommy has a migraine and daddy is in New York and no one will hold her. Its not so easy to be thankful when your own parents won't return your phone calls over religion that has been warped and diluted and not in any way Christ-like in the first place. But, I push forward because I must. For my daughters. To be the role model for them and not the oppressor against them. To use the good things from my parents and throw away the bad.
So in this Wealthy First World that I am raising my girls, I WILL raise loving, thankful, thoughtful daughters. Daughters who praise, daughters who cherish, daughters who are thankful for what they have, not who are constantly wanting for more. Daughters who can be happy and praise and encourage their friends without being jealous. Daughters who can strive for their best and achieve their goals while still maintaining their morality.
So if it takes Covered Wagons and Chaos to get there, so be it. You can have my Kindle (but get your hands off my yarn...)
Wednesday, March 4, 2015
My religious past
So all this talk about my parents and religion has me thinking about my upbringing and how I was raised and if I suffer from Post Traumatic Church Syndrome or not, I honestly I have to say maybe a little, but just a teeny tiny bit. See despite how my parents are acting now, that their youngest child is 35 with children of her own, I was raised in a very secular home. My parent's idea of religion was driving us to church on Sunday, showing up right as it starts, and being one of the first ones out the door to beat the parking lot traffic. If dad was home for dinner (he worked the second shift) we would say Grace at the dinner table. About junior high we stopped going to church altogether. We NEVER talked about religion at home, if I had a question, my mom would say, read the bible. If I asked her where in the Bible, she would say look it up (meaning she didn't know) after a while I stopped asking, after that I stopped caring.
Unless Grandma was around. Then I was the bad kid. I was the rebellious one, the troublemaker, the reason my mom has grey hair, blah blah blah. Basically she just liked to complain and for some reason I was a target. Whatever. Knowing the things I do now, I am pretty sure my mom made crap up to get sympathy from her, mom liked attention.
In high school I started going to church and Wednesday night youth group with a friend and learn amazing concepts like God wants to have a relationship with me (WHAT?!!!) and hes not just this untouchable angry being that doesn't care about us. Crazy! I got a version of the bible I could understand (sorry King James folks, it just wasn't working for my 15 year old self) and actually started to READ the Bible, like read and understand it.
Then college came and I found Campus Crusade for Christ and I met my first judgey judgersons. I've been made fun of before for having a conscience, for being a fuddy duddy, for being boring, but NEVER in my life, have I ever been ostracized for being "not good enough for Christ". I kid you not! I was betrayed, stabbed in the back, laughed at, judged, and kicked out of a Bible study for WORKING (like earning a paycheck working). It was bad enough I actually turned completely away from God for a while.
So now I'm back, outside of the box, in my own world. Been hurt many more times by so-called Christians, and decided I am done with this shit, I am going to do something about it. I don't know what yet, but I am going to do something.
But isn't that what spiritual growth is? Spiritual, personal, deep? No one can tell you have to do it, and it has to be a journey and no two journeys are the same? I think that is what prompted the Through the looking Glass Project in the first place. My spiritual journey. I want, no I NEED to figure out how I want to worship MY God and what exactly My God means to me. What is the Holy Spirit saying to ME? What is the Holy Spirit telling ME to do with my family and my kids? Hopefully studying and learning more will help.
Unless Grandma was around. Then I was the bad kid. I was the rebellious one, the troublemaker, the reason my mom has grey hair, blah blah blah. Basically she just liked to complain and for some reason I was a target. Whatever. Knowing the things I do now, I am pretty sure my mom made crap up to get sympathy from her, mom liked attention.
In high school I started going to church and Wednesday night youth group with a friend and learn amazing concepts like God wants to have a relationship with me (WHAT?!!!) and hes not just this untouchable angry being that doesn't care about us. Crazy! I got a version of the bible I could understand (sorry King James folks, it just wasn't working for my 15 year old self) and actually started to READ the Bible, like read and understand it.
Then college came and I found Campus Crusade for Christ and I met my first judgey judgersons. I've been made fun of before for having a conscience, for being a fuddy duddy, for being boring, but NEVER in my life, have I ever been ostracized for being "not good enough for Christ". I kid you not! I was betrayed, stabbed in the back, laughed at, judged, and kicked out of a Bible study for WORKING (like earning a paycheck working). It was bad enough I actually turned completely away from God for a while.
So now I'm back, outside of the box, in my own world. Been hurt many more times by so-called Christians, and decided I am done with this shit, I am going to do something about it. I don't know what yet, but I am going to do something.
But isn't that what spiritual growth is? Spiritual, personal, deep? No one can tell you have to do it, and it has to be a journey and no two journeys are the same? I think that is what prompted the Through the looking Glass Project in the first place. My spiritual journey. I want, no I NEED to figure out how I want to worship MY God and what exactly My God means to me. What is the Holy Spirit saying to ME? What is the Holy Spirit telling ME to do with my family and my kids? Hopefully studying and learning more will help.
The blow up!
WOW, I'm really making up for lost time, aren't I? I really wasn't intending this to be a religious blog, but since that is the topic running rampant through our home right now, it needs to be addressed.
So here's the issue. Daddy playing card and I have had a few issues come up in conversations with the little weirdieland inhabitants that we weren't very fond of. Things like, "mommy when I grow up I want to be an architect but Meme's church says women shouldn't work because its not proper"...hmmm OK so we addressed that one and told her very affirmly that she is allowed to be anything she wanted to be and that God wouldn't give her brains and talents if He didn't want her to go out into the world and use them. If she chooses to stay home with her children that should be a chose she and her future husband make together and not something she feels like is her only choice, and besides, she would always have daddy and I for free babysitting. (What a conversation to have with an 8 year old, right?)
Then later on a couple months later little mad hatter this time tells us that, again at Meme's church she was told that she needed to stay away from people of different religions and not talk to them because they could "taint her and make her sin". ALRIGHT. HOLD THE PHONE. WTF? So being the lazy parent that I am I never really looked into the church. Its the same church my parents used to drag me to when I was little. Drag being the key word here. Turns out the church isn't Southern Baptist like I was led to believe my WHOLE ENTIRE FREAKING LIFE, but Independent Fundamentalist Baptist, which is a whole separate world. Scratch that, its a whole separate plane of existence. Don't believe me? Google. That's all I'm going to say.
So in keeping our family sane and avoiding confusing conversations that seriously stress out my little mad hatter that genuinely loves everyone, Daddy and I just decided we would really prefer it if the girls just not go to church with my parents any more. We didn't say they couldn't spend the night. We didn't say that we wouldn't associate with them or ever come to visit, we just said we would prefer it if the girls didn't go to church anymore with them. We then even said we would be at their house bright and early on Sunday mornings to pick up the girls before church as to not inconvenience them and they can still have their Saturday night sleepovers. Sounds fair, right? OMG, you would have thought we set into motion events to start the apocalypse!
There was several attempts from my mother at "well if you aren;t bring them to Sunday School, SOMEBODY has to!" (WHY does somebody have to? WHERE in the Bible does it say they HAVE to go to Sunday School? It DOESNT! It says raise your children in the ways of the Lord, but never, anywhere does it say you actually have to physically attend a church to do so). Further issue with this was I asked her HOW she knew if my kids were going to church or not and she replied because she asked them. WAIT A MINUTE! Its important enough that you actually think they will go to hell if they don't show up every single week, but not important enough to actually talk to ME about it, and further more, you went BEHIND MY BACK and talked to my 7 and 8 year old daughters about it and then asked them not to mention it to me. hmmmm.....
Then it was followed with "Well I guess you have already made up your mind" um, YES, why WE, being Daddy playing Card and I, PARENTS of the weirdieland inhabitants have already discussed, in detail, and came to a decision. Prior to talking to you. You know because we are adults, and a family, and capable of making rational decisions for OUR children. So then she gets mad and throws the phone at my dad.
Dad comes on the phone. He states the the church doesnt really follow the things they have listed on their own church website. Yes, read that again. The church doesn't follow the things they have listed on their own front page of their own website. They just put that their to "attract members" and he has never seen anything like what I'm talking about. Ohh. oookkk. Because an organized fundamentalist church would NEVER do anything shady...Moving on...
He then tells me that the church's main thinking is to Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin. So I ask him, so you are OK with your grandchildren learning Hate? No, we don't hate, we hate the sin! Its totally different? See the point here dear readers, is that you can't use the word HATE in defending yourself against the fact that you teach hate. After all, hate is hate is hate. Just because you don't agree with somoene else's view point doens't mean you have to hate them. You can not like something but still not hate, so why is the word HATE used at all? Not something we chose to teach our children. If it works for you, great. It doesn't work for us. Thats the whole point is that we are a family and this is what we chose for our family. Then again goes back to the, "well I guess you have already made up your mind then..."
It all boils down to issues that we have been dealing with on both sides of the family since Daddy and I met each other. We are not adults. We are not people, but extensions of our parents. We should not make decisions for our family but go to our parents and allow them to make the decisions. But our parents didn't act that way towards their parents. Why do we not get the same respect that our parents got from their parents? My grandmother may have her faults, oh so many of them, but she respected that my mother and father were their own family. If they wanted to come over for a holiday, they were invited, but not expected. If they didn't come, they didn't come and had their own plans and that was OK. My grandmother understood that my mom got married, had kids, and had her own life. So why doesn't my mom understand this?
Lack of respect from my parents, lack of respect from his parents. We are people too. Hopefully Daddy playing card and I can learn from our past and not make the same mistakes with our kids that our parents made.
In the meantime its been two weeks, 5 voicemails and 10 phone calls and my parents haven't called us back. Little Mad Hatter has a choir performance tomorrow night. We'll see if they show up.
UPDATE: The parents did NOT show up to Little Mad Hatters First Grade Musical. No call, no show. She was heart broken. We talked to her about it and just said we haven't heard from them and ten took her out for ice cream. She hasn't brought it up in a week. No one has asked to see them. Little Cheshire Cat at 4 years old told me yesterday that Poppy's (grandpa) church won't let him see her. She hopes someday he'll come over. I just gave her a hug and said me too and changed the subject. What do you say to a four year old when her grandfather chooses a church over his grandchild?
So here's the issue. Daddy playing card and I have had a few issues come up in conversations with the little weirdieland inhabitants that we weren't very fond of. Things like, "mommy when I grow up I want to be an architect but Meme's church says women shouldn't work because its not proper"...hmmm OK so we addressed that one and told her very affirmly that she is allowed to be anything she wanted to be and that God wouldn't give her brains and talents if He didn't want her to go out into the world and use them. If she chooses to stay home with her children that should be a chose she and her future husband make together and not something she feels like is her only choice, and besides, she would always have daddy and I for free babysitting. (What a conversation to have with an 8 year old, right?)
Then later on a couple months later little mad hatter this time tells us that, again at Meme's church she was told that she needed to stay away from people of different religions and not talk to them because they could "taint her and make her sin". ALRIGHT. HOLD THE PHONE. WTF? So being the lazy parent that I am I never really looked into the church. Its the same church my parents used to drag me to when I was little. Drag being the key word here. Turns out the church isn't Southern Baptist like I was led to believe my WHOLE ENTIRE FREAKING LIFE, but Independent Fundamentalist Baptist, which is a whole separate world. Scratch that, its a whole separate plane of existence. Don't believe me? Google. That's all I'm going to say.
So in keeping our family sane and avoiding confusing conversations that seriously stress out my little mad hatter that genuinely loves everyone, Daddy and I just decided we would really prefer it if the girls just not go to church with my parents any more. We didn't say they couldn't spend the night. We didn't say that we wouldn't associate with them or ever come to visit, we just said we would prefer it if the girls didn't go to church anymore with them. We then even said we would be at their house bright and early on Sunday mornings to pick up the girls before church as to not inconvenience them and they can still have their Saturday night sleepovers. Sounds fair, right? OMG, you would have thought we set into motion events to start the apocalypse!
There was several attempts from my mother at "well if you aren;t bring them to Sunday School, SOMEBODY has to!" (WHY does somebody have to? WHERE in the Bible does it say they HAVE to go to Sunday School? It DOESNT! It says raise your children in the ways of the Lord, but never, anywhere does it say you actually have to physically attend a church to do so). Further issue with this was I asked her HOW she knew if my kids were going to church or not and she replied because she asked them. WAIT A MINUTE! Its important enough that you actually think they will go to hell if they don't show up every single week, but not important enough to actually talk to ME about it, and further more, you went BEHIND MY BACK and talked to my 7 and 8 year old daughters about it and then asked them not to mention it to me. hmmmm.....
Then it was followed with "Well I guess you have already made up your mind" um, YES, why WE, being Daddy playing Card and I, PARENTS of the weirdieland inhabitants have already discussed, in detail, and came to a decision. Prior to talking to you. You know because we are adults, and a family, and capable of making rational decisions for OUR children. So then she gets mad and throws the phone at my dad.
Dad comes on the phone. He states the the church doesnt really follow the things they have listed on their own church website. Yes, read that again. The church doesn't follow the things they have listed on their own front page of their own website. They just put that their to "attract members" and he has never seen anything like what I'm talking about. Ohh. oookkk. Because an organized fundamentalist church would NEVER do anything shady...Moving on...
He then tells me that the church's main thinking is to Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin. So I ask him, so you are OK with your grandchildren learning Hate? No, we don't hate, we hate the sin! Its totally different? See the point here dear readers, is that you can't use the word HATE in defending yourself against the fact that you teach hate. After all, hate is hate is hate. Just because you don't agree with somoene else's view point doens't mean you have to hate them. You can not like something but still not hate, so why is the word HATE used at all? Not something we chose to teach our children. If it works for you, great. It doesn't work for us. Thats the whole point is that we are a family and this is what we chose for our family. Then again goes back to the, "well I guess you have already made up your mind then..."
It all boils down to issues that we have been dealing with on both sides of the family since Daddy and I met each other. We are not adults. We are not people, but extensions of our parents. We should not make decisions for our family but go to our parents and allow them to make the decisions. But our parents didn't act that way towards their parents. Why do we not get the same respect that our parents got from their parents? My grandmother may have her faults, oh so many of them, but she respected that my mother and father were their own family. If they wanted to come over for a holiday, they were invited, but not expected. If they didn't come, they didn't come and had their own plans and that was OK. My grandmother understood that my mom got married, had kids, and had her own life. So why doesn't my mom understand this?
Lack of respect from my parents, lack of respect from his parents. We are people too. Hopefully Daddy playing card and I can learn from our past and not make the same mistakes with our kids that our parents made.
In the meantime its been two weeks, 5 voicemails and 10 phone calls and my parents haven't called us back. Little Mad Hatter has a choir performance tomorrow night. We'll see if they show up.
UPDATE: The parents did NOT show up to Little Mad Hatters First Grade Musical. No call, no show. She was heart broken. We talked to her about it and just said we haven't heard from them and ten took her out for ice cream. She hasn't brought it up in a week. No one has asked to see them. Little Cheshire Cat at 4 years old told me yesterday that Poppy's (grandpa) church won't let him see her. She hopes someday he'll come over. I just gave her a hug and said me too and changed the subject. What do you say to a four year old when her grandfather chooses a church over his grandchild?
Religion (Through the Looking Glass series)
Religion seems to be a hot topic in our lives everywhere, and no matter what we can't avoid it.
If we follow this religion, then we are put in Box A, if we don't then we are put in Box B. Everyone in Box A must believe this set of rules. Everyone from Box B must believe that set of rules. NO INTERMINGLING. Even more importantly; never, under any circumstances, EVER EVER think for yourself. We were put on this planet to blindly follow like sheep, do what we were told without question and never exert any form of free will. Because free will is blasphemous. Free will is rebellious. Rebellious is BAD. Nothing GOOD has EVER come from a rebellion. Just ask the founding fathers of the United States, The courageous men and women involved in the underground railroad, Oskar Schindler, Moses, the 12 Disciples, (and for you sci-fi fans, the Rebel Alliance).
See Rebellion isn't necessarily a bad thing. Teaching that rebelling is bad is just another form of control. If they can control everything, then nothing will ever change. If nothing ever changes, then nothing will ever change. Just the way the people in charge want it.
So what happens when God doesn't fit in your pre-designed boxes? Are we rebelling then if we think outside of the box? What if we want Box C? Or no Box? OR we like the God in Box A but we want to Worship Him like the B Boxers do? Its really hard to control someone who thinks for themselves or who designs their own Box, isn't it? My question is, How is this a bad thing? If we all rebelled against this fundamental strict boxed religion that seems to be rampant in our country right now, would that be a bad thing, or would it bring forth a change for the good that is needed like rebellions of that past have done?
We shall see.
If we follow this religion, then we are put in Box A, if we don't then we are put in Box B. Everyone in Box A must believe this set of rules. Everyone from Box B must believe that set of rules. NO INTERMINGLING. Even more importantly; never, under any circumstances, EVER EVER think for yourself. We were put on this planet to blindly follow like sheep, do what we were told without question and never exert any form of free will. Because free will is blasphemous. Free will is rebellious. Rebellious is BAD. Nothing GOOD has EVER come from a rebellion. Just ask the founding fathers of the United States, The courageous men and women involved in the underground railroad, Oskar Schindler, Moses, the 12 Disciples, (and for you sci-fi fans, the Rebel Alliance).
See Rebellion isn't necessarily a bad thing. Teaching that rebelling is bad is just another form of control. If they can control everything, then nothing will ever change. If nothing ever changes, then nothing will ever change. Just the way the people in charge want it.
So what happens when God doesn't fit in your pre-designed boxes? Are we rebelling then if we think outside of the box? What if we want Box C? Or no Box? OR we like the God in Box A but we want to Worship Him like the B Boxers do? Its really hard to control someone who thinks for themselves or who designs their own Box, isn't it? My question is, How is this a bad thing? If we all rebelled against this fundamental strict boxed religion that seems to be rampant in our country right now, would that be a bad thing, or would it bring forth a change for the good that is needed like rebellions of that past have done?
We shall see.
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