Illegals

Are the people we share our borders with our neighbors?  Who is my neighbor? When Jesus was asked this question he told the parable of The Good Samaritan. A guy gets beat up and robbed and thrown for dead, instead of his own peeps coming to help him, his worst enemy stops by to help in the most tender and loving way. In other words your neighbor is actually the person you love to hate, you know who that is. Wait a minute though, Jesus didn’t stop there with the simple love your neighbor. He said, anyone can love their neighbor but the real man, or woman will love their enemy.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ ⁴⁴ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, ⁴⁵ that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. ⁴⁶ If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? ⁴⁷ And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? ⁴⁸ Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. Matthew 5:43-48

I absolutely can not understand for the life of me how people who call themselves Christians can have such disdain for people who risk their lives to cross the Rio Grande to look for a better life. I actually think about this a lot because I spent several months over a period of time in Central America years ago and befriended some of the most amazing, kind, hard working, loving and horrifically poor people I have ever met in my life. I have heard my own friends say things like, “those people”, “they are out to get us”, “they are taking over”, and “the Mexicans”.

I think if we call ourselves Christians we should live a Christ like existence, even if we usually fall short while trying. I do realize that people of all religions live or don’t live their beliefs in a variety of ways from extreme fundamentalism to extreme liberalism. However, I would hope that in the end all religious people would at least live a compassionate life, one of kindness and generosity. This is naive and I realize that but I will remain hopeful to the end. I understand for problems involving large countries there are no easy solutions but I also realize that as a Christian I am called to love, even to love my enemy, and I will do my best to do that and teach my children so.

Resolutions for a New Year and Teddy

I decided to speak less this year and listen more. I am making a real effort to open myself to what the universe has to say with me, through the people I meet, the animals I come in contact with and the nature I visit. I had an epiphany moment recently when I watched a short video my kids took of me visiting the neighborhood fire station. It was embarrassing, not just because I hated the way I sounded but also because I blabbered on at length. Even though I am often bursting with enthusiasm, I’m going to try and share myself by listening to others. I had a great opportunity on New Years Day to practice this new resolution when I met someone who actually speaks a lot more than I do. I just sat back listened, smiled and enjoyed what she had to say and it was fascinating really. I poked in appropriate questions to show I was really listening and interested too so we had a lovely time together. I guess time will tell if I am successful at my goal.

My Christmas present is doing well but still not fully house trained. My dog Teddy is pure love. I am so in love with this furry little dog, despite his need for much training. There is just so much to learn from our dogs. Each day is like a gift to them and they live so beautifully in the present. When Teddy wakes up and I let him out of his crate, it is Christmas, Easter and his birthday all rolled up in one. He is positively joyful, every single day. He is so happy to see me that despite his voracious appetite he will leave his food to have me pet him. He is the cuddliest animal I have ever known and his fur is luscious, beautiful blue meryl, soft and silky. When I go to pet him he first leans against me and then sort of melts on to my foot and then just gives it all up and rolls right over to his back ready for a belly rub.

Though Teddy has learned much since he came to live with us three weeks ago, he still has a way to go. He needs to learn that we are all friendly and will not hurt him, so he needn’t pee submissively. He needs to learn that when we go to pet him we are going to do just that and not strike him. How anyone could possibly throw this gorgeous animal away is beyond me but people do worse to their own children. Teddy was found tossed away in the woods with his puppy siblings, and a blind beagle. One of the pups was run over by a train and is now buried at the rescue where we adopted Teddy. Who knows what kind of treatment Teddy received before he was rescued? He was starved and covered in fleas and ticks and he is still catching up on his weight. Teddy is a work in progress but so are the rest of us and I’m going to be patient and in the meantime I’ve taken the rugs up.

Good luck to the rest of you in your goals for 2011.

 

On Fostering

I have lots of ideas rolling around in my head at the moment. What I mainly wanted to write about for therapeutic reasons was taking in my foster kids. On January 22, 2010 my husband and I became foster parents to two sisters, ages 10 and 15. We had originally met the girls through our own children, back in October.  There is much I can not or will not say, but suffice it to say, the girls did not have the basic necessities and much beyond that.  I found myself thinking of them regularly and wondering if they were okay and knowing they were not.  I was even having trouble sleeping at night. I am a praying person. I prayed. I prayed hard. I asked other people to pray. For weeks it seemed like nothing would ever change for these kids. I didn’t lose faith, I just kept praying. I prayed that God would keep this family together too, because they are a family and in my mind that is sacred.  I prayed that if that wasn’t possible that the kids would be placed where they could get the basic needs met and be safe.  Finally, and this definitely should have been my first step, I surrendered.  I went happily, merrily along my daily path of being a mom to four busy girls and a helper mom to three other kids.

Out of the blue I received a call from social services asking if we would consider being foster parents to the kids. In life, there are some decisions that are really hard to make, this was a no brainer. Tony and had already decided we would if the opportunity arose. Now although decisions are easy to make does not make them easy to do and that is where we are now. Never have I felt as incompetent as I have in the last weeks of my life. I seem to be faced with a hundred decisions before I even get dressed each day. Just getting all these kids to school each day, even though they ride the bus, is a task and almost every day one or the other of them will ask for a ride.  The energy that six girls can produce in a smallish house is phenomenal. Four teenage girls can be really loud. Come to think of it two ten-year old girls can be rather loud themselves. Put the two groups  together and well… this is one rockin household. Back to the decisions, it’s one thing to make decisions for your own flesh and blood but quite another to make them for a non family member who is living as a family member. It can be tough and I must answer to social services also. Added to the decision making, is the planning and organizing of eight people and all their activities. I also have a part time job. Needless to say, I don’t get much time to sit around. I do still take time for myself, but not much.

By the grace of God, and I do mean this quite literally, I am doing well. I just wish I knew how to manage my time more efficiently. I constantly am having to figure out how to be in two places at once. Managing the schedule of eight people is a real challenge. Beyond that, I wish I had the wisdom of Solomon to make the decisions I have to make without having to worry so much about it, but then I guess that is what parenting really is all about, a lot of fumbling around to do your best. One thing useful I did learn from my mandatory foster parenting classes is to listen more and lecture less. A simple strategy which seems to be very effective so far. Hopefully I can continue to drop the lecturing and be a better listener and hugger as well.

Not Enough Hours in the Day

First of all let me say, I’m cranky right now. I just snapped at three out of four members of my family. I am not proud of this but I’m at least admitting it. Why can’t I be like Ghandi or The Dalai Lama or some other perpetually smiling and benevolent type who never gets cranky.
One thing I have noticed is that the perpetually smiling types almost never have any children, never, no not ever, not that children are a bad thing, not at all. Secondly, why don’t they wear normal clothes? Maybe if I wore a saffron robe around I’d get more respect. At least I’m not a rodent and when things get hairy (no pun intended) they just eat a few of their offspring. Geez, how did I get going in this direction?

I just have so many things I would like to be doing lately and well, 24 hours is just not enough for all of them. I have a new job which I’m loving. Can you imagine a job where you get to take a hike and get paid for it. That’s not all to it there’s much more but the much more is wonderful too. More on that later.

A couple of months ago I started my scanning project which all my faithful readers will be delighted to know they will now get to see photos of me at every stage of life,… just kidding.

Here I am at the prom with Michael Winn, aka Napolean Dynamite. Aren’t the glasses and bow tie just great! My kids have laughed themselves silly at this one and I have to admit that it is rather ridiculous. Michael was a nice guy  but I had to ask him to take me because I didn’t feel like sitting at home feeling sorry for myself. We had a great time too, in fact we nerds danced way more than the cool peeps.

I promise more fun photos as I have the time to post them.

Apart from that I have joined a paper back book swap, not that I need even one more book in my life but I got hooked in and well, it’s just fun. I go to my favorite thrift store and pick up books for 25 and 10 cents a piece. What ever book gets picked I mail it out and then I am due one exchange. I pay for the postage on my end. I’ve mailed a couple of books that seem a bit larger than average and they only cost $2.13. I’m getting my first book too an EXCELLENT read by the way. In the Company of Cheerful Ladies.

This book is an absolute delight. It is the kind of book that gives you hope for humanity. It is the fifth in a series of six books by Alexander McCall Smith about Precious Ramotswe of the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency. I have never had any interest in detective stories and frankly I don’t really think these are. They are more about life in Botswana and the simple ups and downs of human interactions. What a keen insight the author has and how refreshing to see someone so downright positive.

I’m also working on cookie selling for my scout troop and trying to hold together our members as we all struggle with our busy schedules. I have such vision for our troop but I can only do what time, money and schedules allow. I think sometimes people forget that scout leaders are volunteers.

I have also been asked to head a committee at church. I didn’t really want the job but this is one of those instances where I felt it would be fine to take it and I’d do my best. It isn’t a job that will require loads of time and if I wanted I could really do nothing but I am not that kind of person so I’ll see what I can get done and hopefully do something worthwhile, not for myself but for others. There now I am sounding like the Dalai Lama, I think I’ll just go and pull out my saffron robe and puff myself up.

Then there is this blog and because my home page at home is set to it every time I go online it stares me in the face so if I haven’t typed anything in a while I get bored looking at it. I guess it’s a good strategy to force me to renew it. I do enjoy writing and think maybe one day I’ll write a book. That will come with the knitting and quilt making I want to do before I die but definitely now right now. For now I’m mainly trying to get enough sleep and that seems to be more than it used to be. So this is the end of this rambling post as I bid you adieu and say good night.

Mimi

The Land of Plenty

Living in the literal “land of plenty” can be at the best times disconcerting. We have so much and yet we have so little. I know it sounds trite and overused but things don’t make people happy and man do we have lots of things to fill our emptiness. I do admit that at times I wonder what it would be like to be very wealthy, to fly first class, to shop in the best stores with careless abandon or to never have to worry about whether or not the income is going to pay all the bills but most of the time I feel positively rich.

Having traveled to numerous very poor places I have not been able to forget the poverty I saw there. I saw and tasted and felt the anguish of the poor who could not even provide the basics for their children. Children who die daily because they can not get simple antibiotics which are so readily available elsewhere. It is enough to make one feel totally helpless. I never take a hot shower for granted. I thank God each time the heavy flow of hot, really hot water, showers down on me. I remember the tiny children with bloated bellies full of parasites and empty of food, naked but for a few scraps of clothes. I remember the people offering me as a guest more than they could afford their own children and how I stealthily passed the food on to the children as the parents were not looking. I gave away what I could to them, most of what I brought with me but I was easily able to buy what I needed when I returned home, they were not. I was amazed at what so many survive on enduring hard physical labor every single day of their lives. These people, in this case the native people of Guatemala, do not have weight issues, unless it is being underweight while a good bit of the developed world struggles not to eat ourselves to death.

Yet I saw real joy, laughter and happiness in the midst of their suffering.  Families enjoyed time with each other and enjoyed simple pleasures of visiting their neighbors and looking forward to the time of their city’s patron saint celebration or some other celebration of which they have quite a few. Something is missing, I think in our land of plenty. It is something internal. We have lost our way so to speak. Though we fill our lives with more and more of the products which we are told will make us sexier, slimmer, more macho or whatever we are supposed to want to be we are no more happy but pretty miserable. With the advent of technology and science we are supposed to be so advanced and yet we are no more happy than when we were living in much simpler conditions. There is no real way to go back, we have opened up Pandora’s Box for better or worse and yet do we have to go back?

This post has sort of taken on a life of its own I meant it to be about how stressful Christmas time can be but this is what came out. I’m fearing that this post is going to make me sound holier than thou and totally depressed and I am neither.I am generally a very happy and hopeful person but sometimes and often at this time of the year I sink down some.

I am not an ascetic, nor do I think I should be. I live in the material world every day. I long for gadgets to make my life more interesting and less difficult and I love the technology that I am able to use and yet I do feel the discord of living in the land of plenty while so many are empty inside. I struggle that I am worrying about what to buy my children so they can be happy at Christmas time when I know that what will really make them happy is nothing they will find under that Christmas tree but something they will find deep within. Yet,  just like all loving parents I would feel useless if I did not buy them the things they want and of course the things they need. It seems a paradox to me and one of the reasons I get down at this time of the year.

Remember to give lots of hugs and kisses and pats on the back, give out lots of compliments even if you have to stretch the truth a bit. Go visit your neighbor who never gets out, babysit for the mom who’s tearing her hair out because she never gets a break. Give of yourself this Christmas as Jelly says and you will give a real gift, one more valuable than anything you can buy at the store. Have a very merry time of it and God bless you all.

Mimi

Ask and You Shall Recieve

I feel so happy tonight. Last night I went to a once a month prayer meeting which is part of the ecumenical Emmaus community. I can only say that this group is one of the most loving, joyful and spirit filled bunch of people I’ve been associated with. At these meetings there is lots of hugging, singing, honest sharing and eating. I love attending because I feel close to God even though I know God is always with me, sometimes He feels closer when I worship with others.

I enjoy looking over the crowd to see the young 20s with their dreadlocks, the grannies with blue hair, the conservatives, with their sweaters and button up shirts, the suburban moms with a couple of young kids, black and white brothers and sisters alike and one Native brother with a pony tail going all the way down his back. Sometimes I feel slightly out of place being the liberal thinker I can be and yet I know that it really doesn’t matter with this group, they accept me as I am. It warms my heart to pray, sing and hold hands with all God’s children. It gives me hope for the world.

I know Tim whose wife dropped dead some years ago out of the blue, apparently healthy. Tim found another love and partner in his second wife Jan. Both are committed to building God’s Kingdom together. Tim is my older brother, a quiet and unassuming man who for years went weekly to jail to reach out to the lonely young guys there. I got to know Tim in my jail ministry. He is a dear man and I am proud to count him as a friend.

I know Deb who is in her 70′s with a lovely black bouffant and pronounced New York accent, though she lives in the rural part of our county. Deb is a widow who told me that she and her husband were married 52 years. She said they never fought and were blessed with a peaceful, loving marriage. Deb is full of spunk and a love for the Lord.  Deb always has a smile and a soft word for anyone who needs encouragement.

I know Marge and Wally who celebrate their birthdays one day apart, Wally’s birthday is today and Marge’s is tomorrow. Marge is a beautiful woman who would happily give you the shirt off her back. Wally is a giant of a man but a kind and gentle soul. Marge and I were comparing notes about life yesterday and counting our blessings, she mentioned that there were people all over the world who had nothing but a cardboard shack to live in, so though she and Wally were boiling water on the stove  for a hot shower she felt very blessed to be able to have a hot bath no matter how she had to do it.

I asked her if her hot water heater was broken and she said yes but made no more mention of it. Marge is not in the best of health. She has constant pain in her shoulder. She went to the doctor who told her she does not have arthritis but she still has the pain to deal with. She has other major health issues which clearly affect her daily activities. Suddenly I felt very uncomfortable that she didn’t have a water heater.  I decided at that moment that I would help them get a water heater even though I didn’t have the money to just go out and buy one.

Today at church I asked if anyone felt called to donate for their water heater and two people immediately opened up their pockets and gave me a generous donation, still not nearly enough for the appliance. I went home and felt a sort of tension, perhaps a sort of feeling I might have screwed up by getting involved and now getting others involved and making a promise to nobody but myself and yet I just had this committed feeling that it was going to happen. I had decided that somehow they would get this water heater even if I had to pay for it myself with money I don’t have at the moment.

  Around lunch time I got a call from someone who had heard my request for donations, he wanted to buy the water heater but did not want his name mentioned. What is amazing to me but shouldn’t be as a faithful person is that in less than 24 hours after I decided that I would get them a water heater they have a brand new one in their home waiting to be installed.  I am so moved in the way God worked in this situation. I learned a lesson that I already knew, ask and you shall receive. Marge and Wally had a real need and all I did was voice it publicly and God provided. I am so happy for Wally and Marge. I guess this is a nice birthday for them.

God bless and Merry Christmas to you all.

Mimi

I’m a Believer

I’ve had this post floating around in my head for some time and the other day I was all inspired and read to get it out in black and white, the ideas flowing out of me like water. Unfortunately I have four children, a dog and a wonderful husband and can not always get to the computer when I want to so…. I’ll try now but I’m not sure I’ll be able to conjure up the same ideas in a consistent way.

This morning I was doing one of my very favorite things in the whole world, reading the morning news paper and drinking a cup of tea. I remember when I was a kid seeing my dad in his plaid bathrobe and ratty  leather slippers with his coffee and newspaper thinking HOW BORING is that! Now I’m doing the same thing. I think he must be smiling down from above or where ever it is he is. Which gets me sort of back to my original idea.

In the newspaper I read a column by Leonard Pitts from the Miami Herald. I love his pieces even though I don’t always agree with him. He is so darn thoughtful and sensible. I can’t seem to peg him as a bleeding heart liberal, though he is definitely liberal. I like that in a person, someone who just thinks their own ideas beyond parties and persuasions. I am that way, a little hard to peg. I voted or Bush, for better or worse, but I am very into environmental causes and volunteer my time in a local prison.

Back to Leonard, today he wrote something a little different entitled I Know He’s Out There Somewhere. In a simple way he sort of summed up my feelings on the issue of God. I too know he’s out there or as my good friend at church says he’s in there somewhere, meaning in me, in you too.  I have been a struggling believer my whole life, not because I want to do things believers aren’t supposed to do. I’m a naturally very conservative person, I hate alcohol because my dad was an alcoholic, I am repulsed by cigarettes and have never felt the need for drugs, I even avoid over the counter meds. I was the one kid who never even tried marijuana in the 1970′s, I was naturally high. I never had the looks to attract too many men fortunately and I found just the right guy whom I’m happily married to.

I have struggled because as we recently learned about Mother Theresa, God isn’t exactly all that chatty.  Apparently, Mother Theresa who people of all faiths have held up as a model of faith had a 50 year crisis of faith. She sure hid that well. Maybe that’s the whole point? I know there are folks who claim God speaks to them, not just the ones who are crazy either, but lets face it not too many of us are seeing burning bushes anymore.

I remember being five years old and realizing not only that I did believe in God but that he (I’ll use the he even though I don’t believe God is  solely masculine, hope that doesn’t offend) was omnipresent. I was brought up by a Roman Catholic mother and a non-practicing Methodist father. My mother was a church goer but not a thinker or a questioner. I was and still am. The questions came early and frankly nobody could properly answer them. They still can’t and the questions still come but instead of going the way of atheism or even agnosticism I’m still a believer. I choose to believe. It feels good to me to think that I was created by a loving being. It goes beyond just wanting to believe though because I’ve let myself entertain the idea of no God for some years but I can’t get my head or my heart around that idea. It is as if there *is* something inside that is moving me in a certain direction, a direction towards God.

For some years in my  teens and twenties I had all the answers worked out very nicely in a tidy package and was part of a religious movement that was saving the world. Bit by bit the questions became more than the answers again and I was tortured by mental gymnastics my mind put me through. In the midst of all this I became a mother and was then responsible to raise good and moral children. Needless to say, I brought them to church. I ended up at the United Methodist Church not so much because of what they believed but because of what they offered to me and my children. However, after being there for more than ten years I can say I mostly do concur with the main beliefs, but still not all of them, most of all I have found a group of people who feel like family. That is way more important than the other stuff to me anyway.

I am sure if people knew exactly what I believed they might be surprised, it’s not all that radical, but it really isn’t traditional Christianity. For example, I don’ t know how it will all work out, but I just can’t see God casting people into a burning fire for eternity. I know I’ve heard all about personal choice and all that stuff but loving parents do not do that to their children, even the bad ones, even the really bad ones.

Last year in November I had  an experience which was perhaps similar to what John Wesley described way back when he was forming the then Methodist Church. Like his, my heart was “strangely warmed”. I felt God, really felt him, so much so I was high for days, weeks even. I won’t even try to describe it, I can’t and that is the thing of it. That’s why I stole John Wesley’s words. This is what I “heard” which is not really how it went because I didn’t hear anyone speaking to me but had an understanding deep inside.

God said, I don’t give a rat’s ass what you believe because it makes no difference to me. I only want you to know that I love you more than you can imagine. I was with you every single step of your life. I know that you’ve been searching for me and I’m right here and I’m not leaving. Furthermore, you’ve been walking around like a  stray dog with it’s tail between it’s legs feeling out of place. Drop it, be yourself, because you can’t be anyone else anyway, I like you just the way you are. Take a good look around you, you see all these people, guess what, they’re family, that’s because I made them too and feel the same way about them. So relax and sit a spell cause you’re with family. At that moment, I felt years of heaviness leave me. I felt like I belonged for one of the first times in my life. It may sound ridiculous to some people just reading this but it changed my life.

I had some questions for this director of my life which I figured might be answered in years to come but I got the answers within minutes. It was almost like a phone call. I wanted to know who the hell Jesus was. I was sick of the Christian call to salvation by saying a simple prayer and then feeling like they had a free ticket into heaven no matter. To me salvation is the journey NOT the destination. So I’m sitting there meditating and I saw Jesus. It wasn’t a person though it was a presence and all I heard this time was, All I want is to help you, nothing more. If you will just take my hand I will walk by your side and help you. I don’t want a statement of faith. Wow, that was simple, I had a helper that was it. I still feel I have a helper, someone who will always be there.

My last request was what in the world am I supposed to do with my life? I still want to save this sad, lonely planet but I’ve failed miserably every time I’ve tried. Slow down, was what I heard this time and listen. Take one day at a time it will become clear. It has become much more clear. Now that I’m feeling like I just am who I am, I don’t have to fit into a particular model of a Christian or of anything else for that matter. I am a child of God and that just has to be good enough. I have special help in Jesus and I’m on the journey of salvation. Shortly after this, I jumped at the chance to go into prison and I’ve been going there ever since. It has perhaps given me more than I’ve given out. I’m guessing that’s one of those religious paradoxes.

It is so amazing not to be afraid most of the time. It’s not that I don’t have fears but the ultimate fear I suppose is death and I know we’ll all die anyway so what’s to fear. I have not experienced the death of a child, that would certainly be horrifying and definitely scary but I’m taking it one day at at time what more can we really do anyway. God is with me and so is Jesus and on a good day the Holy Spirit. When I screw up, I can get down on my knees (metaphorically speaking, I haven’t actually prayed that way very often) and say excuse me God but could you help me out of this one. I’m sorry. I can look around me and say this person is my brother or my sister and I can love people. Somehow I do love people, they are amazing and wonderful and sometimes shitty too but I can love them so much easier because God loves me. I feel blessed and that’s the best way I can explain it, and so this is why I’m a believer.

Mimi

Better to Give Than Receive

Anna just came back this morning from being at camp.  This wasn’t just your usual sleep in a tent, do crafts and go swimming camp. Anna was with other high schoolers from a variety of local churches who got together to spend their week working in or on someone’s house to help them with much needed projects they could not afford.  Anna worked in a trailer with an older man whom she said sat on the bed, smoked and ate oatmeal pies all day.  On the first day he was unhappy he had strangers in his house even though they were there to help but by the end of the week he was telling them about his time in World War II.

She is definitely different. It really is better to give than to receive and kids can learn that too. I really missed her and though I knew if anything was really wrong I would have gotten a call. I was hoping she wasn’t quietly miserable and enduring. She, was in fact, having a good time. We are frustrated that we forgot to send her with a camera but in this case the memories will just have to be etched in her heart and mind where the most important memories stay anyway. I took a few photos at their closing ceremony which I will post at the end of this.

As I watched the slide show which showed a summary of the weeks activities I was struck by the simple joy kids are filled with, their youthful abandon, their color blindness; their youthful exuberance is so uplifting.  I am also glad that there are adults who can manage to organize such wonderful projects where the givers really end up getting more than they give, even though it is better to give than receive.

These Are a Few of My Favorite People

"I wished I’d a knowed more people. I would of loved ‘em all. If I’d a knowed more, I woulda loved more. Toni Morrison.

There are some wonderful people in this world, some people I truly admire even though they may not be my best friends but I can honestly say I am glad I know them. The following are all real people not characters made up by me, I don’t have that much imagination. I would like to post photos of these people but since I didn’t get their permission you’ll have to form a picture in your mind.

Sharon is my friend and I love Sharon. Sharon watched her father die of a heart attack when she was a small girl. Her mother died also when she was a child and so Sharon and her brother were raised in foster care. Sharon has, in my opinion, a right to be mad and angry but she is not. She wasn’t always treated well in foster care. People didn’t care whether she saw her father die or not, they also didn’t care that she was in need of some love. She told me that some of the foster parents really tried but mostly they wanted some extra income.

Sharon has severe asthma. When I first got to know her I was constantly worried about her breathing as she seemed to be always out of breath. She just lives with it and doesn’t complain. She is always thinking about others. She is a giving, loving person. Sharon did not get the best education and sadly her brother is in jail but she is such a wise woman. She is quiet about it too so mostly I think people pass her by as uneducated. I am so glad I took a second look and discovered what a wonderful person she is and all the things she can teach me.

Best of all Sharon is hysterical. She makes people laugh. I personally think laughter is about the best damn thing around. It certainly is better than smoking or drinking, it’s free and the benefits just keep on giving and fortunately it is "catching". They say that laughing massages your internal organs. I’m glad I know people like Sharon who keep me laughing. I need to give Sharon a call and invite her over.

Mickey is another person I’m fortunate to have met. Mickey and Sharon have something in common they are humble. Mickey never "toots her own horn" so to speak. She is also a very giving person. I do not know about Mikey’s childhood but I do know that despite the fact that she has had brain surgery and suffers from a number of other ailments when Katrina struck the Gulf Coast Mickey and her husband and some kids she gathered packed it in and went to help. Mickey has gone back several times since and this time when they were there her husband needed emergency bypass surgery but she still has a smile on her face.  She doesn’t seem to have any limitations despite all that goes on around her. I am grateful to know Mickey.

Wilford and Mary are a beautiful couple I know. Mary is radiant despite the fact that she shakes uncontrollably when she speaks. She has a sort of glow around her that is hard to explain and her enthusiasm for life and people is contagious even though it can be a challenge to understand what she is saying. Yesterday Mary told me that she and Wilfred, now grandparents, had managed to squirrel away just enough money to fix their leaking roof when they found that their grandchildren needed money for their graduation. They prayed about it as Mary said and gave the money to the grandchildren. Mary said they’d just have to move the bed so it doesn’t get wet when it rains.

Perhaps if you’re like me you’re thinking let the kids pay for it themselves, how did they incur these debts anyway but I just look at what hearts people have and say, gosh, you are way more loving than I am. Mary asked me to pray for her so if you’re the praying type say one for Mary and Wilford. I admire this couple for being willing to sacrifice in such a way, I don’t think I could, even though I would like to think I would.

The last friend I’d like to introduce today is Scott. Scott is a young man I met in jail. He is 20 years old and was as he put it a "gang banger". I am so glad I got to meet Scott. He is wise beyond his years. If I had been Scott I would be dead I’m sure. He learned to survive in what amounts to be a war zone and not only has he survived but he has prospered. He did come to realize that he needed to do something with his energy and talent other than collect guns, tattoos and live a life of crime, not necessarily because he wanted to but because he doesn’t have much other choice in jail.

Scott is very smart but I’m not sure if he realizes just how smart he is, I hope there are people in jail who can tell him that but I also know he must pay for his crimes and it isn’t their job in jail to tell young men how smart they are. However, while in jail he has completed his GED and is taking college courses. He told me he wants to go to High Schools and talk about his life on the street. He wants to help other kids stay out of trouble.

When Scott was 8 years old his mother who was a crack head walked out on him and his two siblings, one 12 and one 6 or so. She never came back. Like Sharon he doesn’t complain over his misfortune but doesn’t deny it either. Perhaps it is these stories that make people like Scott so strong. The children survived for three weeks with out a parent but then were taken and put in foster homes. Scott admitted he constantly ran away from his foster homes and was happier living under a bridge with his younger brother. I can’t pretend to understand what he went through or goes through I am only very glad I got to meet Scott and I hope that one day he will get to live out his dreams outside of the bars.

There are just so many wonderful people in this world and I’m glad I’ve decided I want to meet as many as I can. I think sometimes we think I only have enough love or energy to devote to just the people in my small group but the way I see it is love is a sort of paradox, the more you give the more you receive. It is limitless. While I’m not on a wild chase to "collect friends". I will try and be open when I meet new people to the possibilities of a friendship or at least to recognize that there is so much to learn in everyone we meet.

Mimi

My Dirty Little Secret

How’s that for a great opener? Actually I’ve been thinking of this post for a while but wasn’t sure if I should let the cat out of the bag or not. Some of my faithful readers, all two or three of you, may say, “Yeah and so what, that’s not news”, others may not feel that way.

Since I was a young child I have wondered about where humans came from and how the world developed. I am fascinated by human evolution and archeology. I have recently been reading and thinking more deeply about evolution and finally it hit me like a ton of bricks, Charles Darwin did have the basics figured out well and really it is rather simple when I think about it. So what, you say, that’s rather old news. Well not for me, I had always avoided Darwin’s writings. I wrongly assumed that anyone who believed in evolution must be an atheist or at least an agnostic. I am neither, actually I am a Christian, United Methodist to be specific, though I am not typical nor would I try to represent Methodists because I have a sort of universal belief that somehow God will save us all despite our feeble attempts to figure it all out, no matter our religion. Religion is man made and God is much bigger than religion, thank goodness.

Well along comes another book, The Language of God which I’ve plugged three times now on my blogs. Finally a book that put it all together and made sense to me. It also dawned on me that I can believe anything I want even if the ideas are not popular within the eclectic variety of people I associate with, or seem to match with each other. By this point you may be scratching your head and saying, DUH!  Well the so what part is, I love to talk and I tend to get very enthusiastic with the ideas I am learning.  So my  dirty little secret is that I believe in evolution, it is the most simple and straight forward theory on how the world and its inhabitants developed but  would certainly be ostracized if I dared to breath a word of this in some of the circles I travel.

So I find myself really wanting to say to folks, don’t knock Darwin, how many of you have ever even read any of his writings? Darwin was never an atheist. He began as a Christian, a Unitarian to be specific, and eventually became an agnostic because he couldn’t work out the problem of evil, not an easy one as people have been working on that  for as long as people have been thinking and at best each person just has to come to their own conclusion.

How many know that he was a devoted Father of ten? He also adored his wife Emma and had a wonderful relationship with her. Part of his loss of faith came after his beloved daughter Annie died a horrible death of what we now know was tuberculosis, who wouldn’t struggle in such a case? He was known as a kind and sensitive man and was much affected by the ridicule he endured. He knew his ideas would shake up established religious ideas and so hesitated to publish The Origin of the Species (this link is the actual entire text of the book) I learned this information from a wonderful book written by his great great-grandson, Randal Keynes called Darwin, His Daughter & Evolution.

What I can’t  figure out is why people feel that God couldn’t have used evolution to create this amazing, wonderful, complex and sometimes strange universe? I fully admit I have more questions than answers but I see absolutely no reason why science and religion should be at odds, why I shouldn’t fully accept evolution and a loving creator who wants to relate to me in my daily life. More on this later, perhaps…

Mimi