As one of the three women who work together to get the synchroblog going each month, it’s really pitiful that here I am … bringing up the rear in November. But something was stopping me from writing this month. Oh, I have plenty to say on the topic (Voices of the Marginalized) and there were/are many directions I felt I could take. Yet every time I wanted to write, I couldn’t. There was a time when I would have fretted and fussed. Sat down and made something up. But if I’ve learned anything over the last five or six years, I’ve learned how to wait. How to be patient. How to let things percolate and bubble to the surface. And last night as I was drifting off to sleep, I finally knew what to write about. So here I am this morning … a couple days late, and a couple dollars short. I hope you find it worthy.
Marginalization results in an individual’s exclusion from meaningful participation in society and it’s source is many. Economic circumstances, illness, disability, geographical location, gender, sexuality, race, religion are all dominant sources of individuals being marginalized. Sometimes it’s easy to see holidays or certain systems from a position of power or privilege. * As God’s people, what does it mean to see the world through the eyes of the marginalized? What is it like to be one of the marginalized? How can we be part of bridging some of these gaps?
Marginalization results in an individual’s exclusion from meaningful participation in society and it’s source is many. Economic circumstances, illness, disability, geographical location, gender, sexuality, race, religion are all dominant sources of individuals being marginalized. Sometimes it’s easy to see holidays or certain systems from a position of power or privilege. * As God’s people, what does it mean to see the world through the eyes of the marginalized?
Here in the LightHouse we’ve been discussing some particularly knotty extended family issues over the last week or so. This has been an ongoing conversation that has ebbed and flowed around work schedules, hockey schedules, and our emotional barometers. We have worked it around to a place where we realized we are not free to say, “No, this or that will not work for us.” within this relationship. Well, I suppose we are free to say that, but the emotional damage to the relationship will be very high. In order to maintain the relationship, we are required to affirm the other party’s desires, no matter what else is going on with us.
It struck me as I was drifting off to sleep last night, that this is the quintessential difference between those who are in and those who are marginalized. Those who are in have power, are equals and may say yes or no to whatever they please. They have the freedom to choose their lives and their horizons. Those who have been pushed to the edges do not have this freedom, they are required to say yes in order to maintain their relationship with those in power around them. Their choices/our choices are then limited by what they are given to say yes to. A relationship between equals will allow negotiation; it will allow for a yes OR a no. A relationship between a powerful and a powerless will only allow for a yes and negotiation will be minimal at best.
What this means is that those who are marginalized in our country are not free. They are bound by invisible bonds. The ties are tightly woven and they are kept in place (in some cases over generations) just as surely as those of a plantation owner in the Antebellum South. We tell ourselves that now we no longer capitalize on human suffering, but is that really true? Perhaps if we took a different perspective on the relationship of power and wealth vs. poverty, we might begin to see how much of our power grid really does still capitalize on human suffering; on some humans having less than others and on a zero-sum paradigm of the world.
And as I was thinking all of this through, I remembered the words of the Apostle Paul again, in the letter to the church at Galatia:
All of you are God’s children because of your faith in Christ Jesus. And when you were baptized, it was as though you had put on Christ in the same way you put on new clothes. Faith in Christ Jesus is what makes each of you equal with each other, whether you are a Jew or a Greek, a slave or a free person, a man or a woman. (Gal. 3:26-28)
That is the gospel of freedom. That we would all be free to make our yes be yes and our no be no. To be equal with one another. That in the end, our relationships with one another will not be driven by who is powerful and who is powerless, but by love. And our mission during our brief stint here is bring the Kingdom to the dusty corners that we find. Help those in our path see new horizons and find ways to speak; to say no when they need to and yes only when they want to. To have healthy relationships based on love, rather than warped relationships based on fear or power.
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As I wrote above, this is a synchroblog post, and no synchroblog would be complete without a list of juicy links for you to read at the end. Please take some time to read what others have written on this important subject. Thanks!
Here in the LightHouse, marriage has been a popular discussion topic for the last several months. We — and when I say “we,” I mean, “I” supported by “we” — spent a large portion of our summer working with the LightUncles to throw a celebration of 50 years of marriage for the LightGrandparents in August. It was a weekend of laughter, fun, joy, and most of all, love. Enormous vats of love. I know that I steeped in it as much as possible. I know that my parents did too.
My parents are still walking more lightly on this earth because of the celebration we all shared together. So am I. So, I would dare to imagine are many of the folks who shared in the festivities together. We gathered together that fine August weekend to remember 50 years of loving well. I had another goal; it was that I wanted my parents to know how their lives had influenced and helped the lives of those around them in their community and family. We are all better for the team of LightMom and LightDad looking out into the world together.
As I reflect on that wonderful (and hectic) weekend I think about the institution of marriage and how it makes families possible. The gender of the parents is not the issue and we should not be creating Sneetches with stars on their bellies, and some without in this case as Dr. Seuss might have so lyrically put it.
THE SNEETCHES , by Dr. Seuss
Now the Star-bellied Sneetches had bellies with stars. The Plain-bellied Sneetches had none upon thars. The stars weren’t so big; they were really quite small. You would think such a thing wouldn’t matter at all. But because they had stars, all the Star-bellied Sneetches would brag, “We’re the best kind of Sneetch on the beaches.”
With their snoots in the air, they would sniff and they’d snort, ” We’ll have nothing to do with the plain-bellied sort.” And whenever they met some, when they were out walking, they’d hike right on past them without even talking.
When the Star-bellied children went out to play ball, could the Plain-bellies join in their game? Not at all! You could only play ball if your bellies had stars, and the Plain-bellied children had none upon thars.
When we separate marriages into different sex marriage and same sex marriage and tell our children that some families are “right” but others “wrong” and therefore sort of distasteful, we are creating a new form of racism. Or, perhaps it is a very old form or racism and intolerance. Families are families, they are created by parents and children who love and care for one another.
There are many problems with this from a governmental perspective and from a Christian perspective.
We have a government which claims to value freedom of religion and specifies that there will be no state interference in religion; nor will there be any religious interference in state matters. When our governing documents were written, the assumptions they were based on were that the religion that would interfere would be Christian. That is no longer necessarily the case. While an overwhelming percentage of our population continues to identify with the Christian church, the numbers are in decline and we have rising numbers of other religions who must be accommodated within out borders this includes people who have no faith at all. In addition, if religion is going to be free of the state and vice versa, then it is possible for marriages to be performed by the state, and churches to be free to say “yes” or “no” to whether or not they will perform marriages within their walls. Churches are separate from the state. We need to remember that.
Those of us who claim to follow Jesus Christ have no problem calling ourselves children a Godhead who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit; overwhelmingly male with only female overtones. Yet many Christians cannot conceive of a human family with two fathers. Or two mothers.
It seems to me that the best way to defend marriage is just that. Defend marriage … of all kinds. Make it unassailable. Stop the pretenses and silliness. Build people up. Make them whole. But until the divorce rate in the church is significantly less than that of the rest of our culture, we need to keep our mouths shut and our arms open.
This is part of the October Synchroblog on Legalizing Same-Sex Marriage. Please read these other fine writers below for more perspective on this issue –
Kathy Baldock at Canyonwalker Connections – Marriage “I Do” For Who
Dan Brennan at Faith Dance – Sexual Difference, Marriage and Friendship
Steve Hayes at Khanya – Same Sex Marriage Synchroblog
Sonja Andrews at Calacirian – In Defense Of Marriage
John C O’Keefe – Exactly What Is Gay Marriage
Liz Dyer at Grace Rules – Nobody knows why or how same-sex marriage is harmful
Herman Groenewald at Along The Way – Same Sex Debate
Margaret Boelman at Minnowspeaks – What Have We Done
David Henson at unorthodoxology – ban marriage
Erin Word at Mapless – Synchroblog: Legalizing Same Sex Marriage
Joshua Jinno at Antechurch – The Church Is Impotent
Kathy Escobar at The Carnival In My Head – It’s Easy To Be Against Equal Rights When We Have Them
Peter Walker at Emerging Christian – Synchroblog – Same Sex Marriage
K. W. Leslie at The Evening of Kent – Mountains, molehills, and same-sex marriage
Tia Lynn Lecorchick at Abandon Image – Conservative Christians and Same-Sex Marriage
This was a real treat when I was a child. Ends & Pieces. That would be bacon I’m talking about here. The meat packing plant would pack up all the bits that are left over when they are finished slicing up the perfect strips of bacon and they heap them onto a styrofoam tray, wrap some plastic around them and call it good. You get some real treats in there, nice meaty pieces of bacon, but you also get some real duds; slabs of nothing but fat. It’s cheaper than so-called regular bacon because it’s not very pretty. But it’s very tasty. So that’s what you’re getting today … ends and pieces. Cheaper than the regular thing, some pieces might be really meaty, but you might find some that are pure lard. You’ll have to decide.
About 7 months ago, LightHusband and I joined Weight Watchers. We’ve added more than a few pounds over the years and we need to send those extra pounds packing; go find someone else to torment, thank you very much. BlisteringSh33p and BlazingEwe had joined about 5 months before we did, so they were old hands at it. So off we go every Monday night to face the ScaleMiser and listen to our FearlessLeader as he gives us help, tips and pointers for the week to come. This is a long tedious process during which I am coming face to face with my very unhealthy relationship with food and how I use it to feed many things in my life besides my bodily functions. sigh. But that’s another story. Last night as we sat in the meeting, I came face to face to with another gremlin in my life. ADHD. It’s something I’ve often wondered thought I might be dealing with or have dealt with and I laugh at myself about it a lot. But it was not even a diagnosis when I was young, so I was certainly never given that label. And now I’m not sure I want it. But it would be nice to know because then I could figure out how to overcome it. In any case, our FearlessLeader was describing the 4 main ingredients in what WW calls, Filling Foods. These are foods that give you the most bang for the buck (the calories they contain). Mostly they are high fiber/low calorie fruits and vegetables. He said, “blah, blah, blah air, water, fiber, protein …. ” and I had a fully formed vision of Air, Water, Fiber and Protein as the SuperFriends from the Hall of Justice. I could not stop giggling and leaned over to tell BlazingEwe. She started giggling. Then neither of us could stop. And poor FearlessLeader had to bring the meeting to a halt because we were about on the floor! I ‘fessed up to my vision and brought the house down. But my point is, I’m always having visions like this and have had since I was very little. When I was younger, I thought everyone did. As I get older, I’m finding that no, I’m kinda weird. Not everyone thinks like this. In fact, it’s mostly people who have brains which can’t sit still think like this.
I know I can get medicine to help with this. But I don’t think I want it. I think I’m going to read up on coping and figure myself out. I’m going to try and harness this energy for good, not evil 😉 and work with it. This could be a good thing eventually.
The other day (maybe the same day) I had conversation with a young lady about reincarnation. She confided in me that she believes in reincarnation and proceeded to give me some statistics that bore out this belief. I listened politely. Then she asked me if I believed in reincarnation. No, I said, I do not. I do, however, believe that our soul continues to exist past the life of our physical body, but I do not believe that it goes on to live in another body. She wanted to know why I don’t believe that, but our conversation was cut short and I didn’t have a chance to explain myself. I’ve been thinking about it a lot since then and the short answer is grace. And, honestly, that’s the long answer too. Oh, I used to believe in all kinds of different things, and yes, I even spent some time believing that reincarnation was a likely possibility. But then I discovered grace and I just can’t get enough of it. I don’t like the idea that we’re born over and over again to atone for the sins of a past life that we can’t remember. It seems capricious and mean and points to a standard of behavior and perfection that really no one can live up to. It reminds of the legend of Sisyphus somehow; always hungering and thirsting for something we cannot have. But the God I found in my late 20’s and early 30’s was giving out love and mercy and grace liberally, to all who wanted it. Believe in me, S/He said, and that’s all S/He wanted; some trust, some faith and some love in return. I can do that. So, no, I do not believe in reincarnation, but I believe in grace and the One who Loves endlessly. But sometimes it’s fun to talk about past lives and imagine … I’ll grant you that 😉
It’s that time of year again … in many different places people are talking about reunions. They are talking about class reunions, family reunions, school reunions, etc. I had a startling revelation about the power of our minds the other day. It was very revealing to me. About 6 months ago, the LightChildren and I joined a couple of homeschooling groups for the purpose of socializing with other teenagers. We get together with one group in particular about once a week and all of us have made friends … me too! It’s been a welcome relief after the past three years in the desert. The moms are all about my age, some a little older, some a little younger. But they are around my age. We all look like a peer group. I admire these women and see them as adults in the middle of their lives. Then one day I was thinking about a couple of my dear friends from highschool who I will be seeing when I go to Vermont next week. It was startling to me that I do not “see” them as being the same age as the women who I am friends with now. For some reason, my perception of my highschool friends is that they are younger than my current cohort group, when the fact is that they are likely older than the ladies here in Virginia. Then I wonder, do my highschool friends and I behave differently when we’re together? Do we revert and act more like our younger selves? What forces are at play here? Or do I behave more maturely when I am with my friends here in Virginia? Or … am I the same and I just play cruel mind games on myself? It’s all very mysterious and makes me realize what a powerful force our minds are when we are dealing with reality vs. perception.
Sunday night we had a huge scare. LightGirl ended up in the emergency room after an anaphylactic reaction to ??? We don’t know what. The best guess at the moment is that she had Exercise Induced Anaphylaxis. This is not common, but it usually caused by a combination of food and exercise. This does not mean that the patient is allergic to the food they have eaten, but it may mean that they are sensitive to it and the increased blood flow, etc. of exercise causes an extreme anti-histamine reaction causing anaphylactic shock. She is going to the allergist tomorrow where we will find out more about this. Her lungs still hurt and she is having trouble talking. I can find out plenty about anaphylaxis on the internet, but nothing about the aftermath and recovery. If anyone reading this has gone through it and knows what we might expect, I’d love to hear your story. It would be a huge help to us.
In a week we go to Vermont for our annual pilgrimage. It’s going to be a somewhat shorter trip this year. But it will be fun nonetheless. I’m looking forward to some porch time to say the least!
Tell us everything you know about the day you were born.
Okay, first of all I need to say this. I’m beginning to feel very, very self-conscious about these blog prompts and I might begin to go off the reservation soon. While this discipline is really good for me, the nature of these prompts is not what this blog is all about and I really do not like talking about myself nearly this much. So I guess I will answer this one. Then I’m going to spend some time and make up some prompts of my own … for myself.
I don’t know too much about the day I was born.
I know it was a Saturday. It was the first Saturday in May because my mom and dad listened to the radio broadcast of the Kentucky Derby in the car on their way to the hospital. Every year we all three have to look up who won that year (nearly 50 years ago now) because we can’t remember. Well, they can’t remember. I didn’t know at the time and even though I look it up every year, I still cannot remember from year to year. My parents now celebrate my birthday on Derby Day although they/we didn’t when I was a child.
I know I was born at 10:52 p.m.
I know my parents had not yet graduated from college. Somewhere there is a photograph of me all bundled up with my grandparents at the graduation.
I know my arrival was late. I’ve been running behind ever since. My parents had only been married about 7 months. Emmmmm hm. You do the math. They are celebrating their 50th anniversary this year (October), so it was a good decision all around. They have an excellent marriage and are still very happy together … despite the fact that they frustrate the snot out of their children sometimes.
I was the first granddaughter on both sides and so I was much fussed over and spoiled … for about 6 months. Then we moved to Kansas.
John F. Kennedy was the president and hope was springing up all around despite the spectre of Vietnam and Cuba.
Annnnndddddd … that’s about all I know.
So, I’m a day late … you’ll have to decide whether or not I’m a dollar short. I was off the grid yesterday, floating down a river in a tube with a group of teenagers and their moms (and a few dads). Well … we each had our own tube. There are now sunburns aplenty and at the end of the day a lot of smiles, weary arms, and tired legs, but we had so so much fun. What a grand day it was.
Yesterday’s prompt – How do you feel about the name given to you at birth?
I was given Sonja by my parents. It is an odd name for my cohort generation. Most girls with that given name and spelling were first generation immigrants from an eastern European nation. I am not. I’m all English and some branches of my family tree can be traced back to the Mayflower, others to the Revolutionary War. But I do not have any Eastern European roots (an unfortunate state of affairs).
I hated my name in elementary school. I was surrounded by Peggys and Kims and Marys and Beths. Growing up in a tiny backwoods Vermont town where everyone had known each other for several generations, I was the odd child, with the odd name. Teachers couldn’t pronounce it because of the pesky silent “j” or they persisted in making the “o” long rather than short. Sometimes they would forget entirely and call me “Tanya,” then wonder at my lack of response. Children couldn’t pronounce or remember my name either, so I lived on the fringe for a lot of elementary school.
I remember asking my mom to change my name at some point. She suggested that we could do so, but it would be to the second place name (the also ran) that I did not get named when I was born.
Nellie.
I was horrified. For those of you who know me on Facebook, you know my maiden name begins with “N”, so I would move from the merely strange to the geeky and weird world of alliteration. That was an unacceptable alternative. I stuck it out with “Sonja.”
I’m glad I did. As I got older it became who I am. I began to learn more about the name. It is the Slavic version of “Sophia” and means wisdom. I’ve always loved that. I was thrilled when LightHusband when to Germany once and came back with a mug with my name on it because you never see my name on anything here. Ever.
All throughout grade school and high school I was the only “Sonja.” It was just me. I began to really enjoy that in a deep down quiet way. Then in my senior year another Sonja came to the school! And she was a senior!!! To make matters worse, she was absolutely stunningly beautiful and kind!! AND … because of the way things worked out with our last names we were put right next to one another in the year book. It was the ultimate irony.
Now I have embraced my name and really love it. I don’t mind when people mis-pronounce it, but I still don’t respond to Tanya. I do correct the spelling if it’s important because I love the “j” and as a visual person I think putting a “y” or an “i” in there makes my name look like someone else. I know that’s stupid, but there it is. Most of the time I leave it alone, though, because it’s a petty thing. I get a huge and silly thrill out of running across other women who spell their name like me. I don’t know why, but I think we should start a club because there are not so many of us.
So that’s about all there is to know about my given name. Some day I’ll write the story of my middle name and how I had a major depressive episode (that’s what they call nervous breakdowns these days).
Perhaps you’ve played this game. Your boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse lets you have one free pass — one special man or woman who is so attractive and out of reach that if circumstances allowed it, your partner would allow you to sleep with that person. Most monogamous couples feel safe with the free pass rule as it’s more theoretical than practical. Sill, if your partner gave you a free pass, would you use it? On who?
For the short answer see Tuesday’s post. There at the bottom … where the prompt asked about whether it’s ever permissible to cheat?
No.
It’s just not how I roll. Because even if LightHusband gave me permission (and … uh … I seriously doubt it), it’s still cheating. There it is. I feel pretty strongly about this. 23 years ago this August, I made some promises before God and our gathered family and friends. I take them seriously. Really. I do. And to me, with permission or without permission, once that veil is pierced there’s no going back.
Trust and relationship would be badly broken. Does it mean that it can never be repaired? I don’t know. Frankly though it’s a place I’m not interested in exploring. I have enough broken, screwed up, hard places in my life without creating more for myself and for my husband and children. I have so many relationships where trust got broken without the issue of infidelity, that I don’t see how it would be possible.
So there it is. My inner conservative coming out to play. There are one or two things upon which I do not ever budge. This is one of them. If I were ever to feel as though I needed to wander outside of our marriage, then (in my mind) that points out much larger problems in the marriage relationship that need to be addressed.
None of this is to say that there is not a really special person or love from my past that would not be tempting. There is, but he is not worth the damage it would do. Protecting my family and friends from the concentric ripples of dismay and hurt that fan out when relationships go awry and twist in the wind have more value than my selfish desires.
I guess all of this makes me not cool. An old fart, so to speak. That’s okay. I’ve been this way most of my life. I’ll keep on keepin’ on. Because that is how I roll.
Well, this is awkward. Today’s prompt from NaBloPoMo is –
Tell us about your first kiss.
So.
Just how personal (read vulnerable) do I want to be here in internet land? How much of my past do I want to reveal? And the larger question, do I even remember my first kiss?
The answer to the last question is, “No. No, I do not remember my first kiss.” I do however, remember my first boyfriend. And I remember a much later boyfriend and a first kiss that mattered much more. I’ll tell the story of the first boyfriend, but not the story of the later boyfriend (no, it was not LightHusband) … it’s only the interesting people who have a checkered past, you know 😉 .
I have a theory about the eighth grade and being 13. It is the year one is at one’s most stupid/foolish during adolescence. That is the year when we engage in the silliest behaviors. Some children chose a path that year which will make all of adolescence and highschool difficult. Others manage to regain their footing and continue through the teen years on a more even, yet still turbulent, keel. I was part of the latter group. I have several friends from eighth (and even seventh or sixth grade) who I maintain contact with. We all shake our collective heads regretfully when recalling eighth grade. It was not a good year.
In particular, my one of my very best friends (maid of honor in each other’s weddings, etc.) and I both “went out” with boys when we were in eighth grade. This begs the question, where did we go? We grew up in the hills of Vermont. It was a 20 minute drive to our highschool (grades 7-12 and it drew from 5 towns). How, exactly, do 13 year olds go on a date? It was crazy. Mostly we were in love with an idea. So, here is the sad, embarrassing story of my eighth grade romance.
He was in ninth grade and an older boy. Blonde hair, blue eyes … the only blonde I would ever date. He played saxophone in the band, and I played flute, so I expect that is how we knew one another. He gave me his ID bracelet to wear as a pledge of his daily troth and short-lived like. I don’t remember much about our relationship except that when it was over, I was embarrassed by it. What was I thinking? There are three events in our relationship that stand out. The first is that one day he came over to my house to “hang out” for a while. We disappeared into the hayshed to “make out.” It was a huge disappointment to me. Neither one of us knew what we were doing, so it was just kissing (this was good), but the kissing was bad (this was probably also good). I remember thinking that if this was all there was to kissing and making out, I didn’t see what the big deal was; it was sort of boring. [Never fear, I found out otherwise later in life ;-)]
The second event was a time when my brothers and I were going to see Young Frankenstein (with Gene Wilder). The 8GBF and I tried to turn it into a date. This was quashed. I was furious with my mother. But the movie was so funny, I got over it quickly.
The last event was breaking up. I was free. I ran to tell my friends. Here was something that I had wanted so badly, but it had become a shackle around my neck. I never regretted breaking up with him. Oddly, I was always slightly embarrassed by the relationship until writing this blog post. Now, I’m inclined to think that perhaps we were necessary to each others’ growing up. Maturing is hardly ever easy, sometimes we are assisted by the mostly unlikely of people.
Four years ago I re-discovered an old acquaintance. I’m having fun now watching again.
Four years ago I was in the middle of the darkest caves and curling was the only time of day I could breath freely. Something about the commentary, the rhythm, the pace all combined to give me peace and comfort.
It’s been a long and winding road. But I can finally say that the fall is over. I might even be out of the caves and in the sunshine on most days.
Life is good.
A group of professional people posed this question to a group of 4 to 8 year-olds, ‘What does love mean?” The answers they got were broader and deeper than anyone could have imagined See what you think: ———————————————————- ‘When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn’t bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That’s love.’ – Rebecca- age 8 ———————————————————- ‘When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different.. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth.’ – Billy – age 4 ———————————————————————- ‘Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other.’ – Karl – age 5 ———————————————————- ‘Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs.’ – Chrissy – age 6 ———————————————————- ‘Love is what makes you smile when you’re tired.’ – Terri – age 4 ———————————————————- ‘Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK.’ – Danny – age 7 ———————————————————- ‘Love is when you kiss all the time. Then when you get tired of kissing, you still want to be together and you talk more. Mommy and Daddy are like that. They look gross when they kiss’ – Emily – age 8 ———————————————————- ‘Love is what’s in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen.’ – Bobby – age 7 ———————————————————- ‘If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate,’ – Nikka – age 6 ———————————————————- ‘Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday.’ – Noelle – age 7 ———————————————————- ‘Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well.’ – Tommy – age 6 ———————————————————- ‘During my piano recital, I was on a stage and I was scared. I looked at all the people watching me and saw my daddy waving and smiling. He was the only one doing that. I wasn’t scared anymore.’ – Cindy – age 8 ———————————————————- ‘My mommy loves me more than anybody You don’t see anyone else kissing me to sleep at night.’ – Clare – age 6 ———————————————————- ‘Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken.’ – Elaine-age 5 ———————————————————- ‘Love is when Mommy sees Daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Robert Redford.’ – Chris – age 7 ———————————————————- ‘Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day.’ – Mary Ann – age 4 ———————————————————- ‘I know my older sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes and has to go out and buy new ones.’ – Lauren – age 4 ———————————————————- ‘When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you.’ – Karen – age 7 ———————————————————- ‘Love is when Mommy sees Daddy on the toilet and she doesn’t think it’s gross.’ – Mark – age 6 ———————————————————- ‘You really shouldn’t say ‘I love you’ unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget.’ – Jessica – age 8 ———————————————————- The winner was a four year old child whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife. Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman’s yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there. When his Mother asked what he had said to th e neighbor, the little boy said, ‘Nothing, I just helped him cry’
In the spirit of coming to Jesus as little children, take a shot at it in the comments – what is love to you? Where do you see the concept we call love manifest in action in your life? Or … which one of these was special to you and why?
Happy Valentine’s Day!
One of my most fun memories growing up was of watching my father line up with his siblings to have their photo taken. They’d line up by age, which in their family meant that the group was bookended by women, turn to either the right or left and have a profile photo taken. It was fondly known in my family as “The Naylor Nose photo.” My father and his four siblings were all endowed with fairly regal, even aquiline, noses. Some more resplendent than others. They were proud of this bit of their heritage from their own dad. Though I don’t remember that my grandfather’s nose was anything in particular. It was simply a way that the next generation had of reminding themselves of who they were.
That generation is aging now. The eldest among them turned 90 August 6, 2009. And as of last August they will no longer all be together on this earthly plane anymore. My oldest uncle passed away after a long battle with emphysema. He was 87 and retired from a career as a pilot in the Air Force among other things. He flew in WWII, the Korean War and Vietnam. When he got out, he built seawalls in Florida. He took my brothers on a two month long camping trip across country to Alaska one summer. And he taught my children how to do “smooth five” so they could give a high five to the elderly without breaking an arm or spraining a wrist.
My aunts and uncles are members of the “Greatest Generation,” my parents are members of the Silent Generation, my cousins are Boomers, my brothers & I and my cousins children are all Gen X-ers. My children are Millenials and I’m not sure what generation my cousins’ grandchildren belong to; maybe it doesn’t have a name yet. We are a microcosm of trendy generations.
