I have been absent from the blogging world because I’ve been spending too much time on Facebook lately. I guess things go in fits and starts too though. Facebook is much quicker and let’s face it, there’s something to be said for instant gratification. I do pop in to check on my stats and my no-existent comments. What I have noticed is that one of my posts, “Michelle Obama, I’m Jealous” gets about 50 or more hits a day. Thinking that folks wanted to read about Michelle Obama, I wrote another one called, “Michelle Obama Hugs the Queen” which I thought was actually much better, it seems people are more interested in jealousy. True secret here, and I hate to mess it up for people, I am not really jealous of the First Lady. I am happy for her, she seems to be doing a great job as a first lady and, most importantly, a mom.

As for my exciting life and Facebook, it is because of my new found fun internet compulsion I have reconnected with friends I thought I would NEVER see or hear from again. I even got to go to a 31st High School Reunion. I know 31st is a kind of odd number but what the heck, I’m glad I was included. I knew only a few people but I was happy to meet with them. I was a nobody in High School in my senior year because I had been away for 8th- 11th grades going to a large metropolitan school. Coming back to a small town school which had not even been integrated was a bit tough but all anyone needs is a few good friends, and those I had.

It was fun to see what had happened to the “hot guys” as the kids call them now back then they were simply the “cute guys”. Many are bald old and fat, so to all you hot guys out there, beware, age happens and then guess what, you’re stuck with your personality so if it’s shallow you don’t have much to fall back on. There were a few folks who looked much better than they did in High School and a few really looked young. My secret elementary school crush still looked cute and in great shape. He didn’t even remember we were in class together, my heart is broken yet but again, NOT. What fun though, I’m so glad I went.

Then

Now

In all fairness, my kids reminded me that they do this stuff when their school work is finished, but in all seriousness, I think “play is a child’s work” as good old Dr. Spock of 1950’s baby and child care fame once said. Frankly, I’m glad my kids have time and plenty of it to mess around and act silly. This is important to me.

I’m up on my soapbox so feel free to depart if you don’t want to hear a rant, but… Kids do not have time to just be kids anymore. Their lives are so micromanaged with activity from long hours sitting in school, to dance lessons, to gymnastics, to soccer, to swim team, to scouts, to god awful mindless, useless homework, to so many, many other things.

Many kids are woken up in the wee hours of the morning to be carted off to day care and are not picked up until dinner time. Heck they might as well put on the suit and tie and carry their little brief cases, they work just as hard as the hardest working office worker.

While Clarinet Hero is not going to get my kids a good grade on a standardized test or even help them with a future career, it does allow them the freedom to just be creative. I once read that  a number of polymaths or people who are geniouses in more than one area and had been interviewed, all stated that they had lots of time to just sit and think as children. None of my kids are geniouses but they do at least have time to get themselves bored and thus figure out how to get creative.  This is a good thing, I think. Enjoy.

I can not stop thinking about this whole thing with Susan Boyles.

Have we learned anything from her? I hope so. What if Susan couldn’t sing though? What if she was just Susan Boyles same person without her special and amazing talent? Would we adore her?  We should. Why? Because she is Susan Boyles. My point and as Ellen DeGeneres says, “I do have one”, is that each and every person on this planet is unique and yes special and even wonderful.

What if Susan had a mediorcre voice, or worse, a horrible voice. She would NOT have made such a sensation. She would have been laughed off the stage or worse booed at and made fun of. When did we get so obsessed with physical characteristics, money, prestige and yes talent? When did we get so darn mean!? Don’t get me wrong, Susan’s voice brought tears to my eyes. I can’t wait to her more of her singing. I honestly can say though that if I met Susan in Scotland when I was traveling near her hometown just over two years ago, I’m sure I would have liked her, even if I had never heard her sing,  because well, she just seems like the kind of person I would enjoy sitting and chatting with over a cup of tea.

What about the average Joes and Janes though that fill this planet? I have a good feeling that if any of us took the time to hear their stories and really listen we would find a world of Susan Boyles or at least of people equally as wonderful and surprisingly talented in an amazing variety of ways. I’m really hoping my kids will take note and listen to my rambling lectures on the value of each human being on this small blue ball we call home. God bless you Susan Boyles and all the Susan Boyles who have yet to be discovered.

More on Michelle Obama… not only is she stylish, and boy it seems every time I see her on the news she is ever more stylish, but now she’s off hugging the queen. Hug away girl! This is the kind of woman we need more of. (photo from the BBC news 24)

This is not the only hugging this woman has been doing she’s been busy hugging people all over the world. More power to her. I say we all could use more hugging. In fact, hugging is downright good for us. I was looking for a link to a good article on this even though I know of the positive affects from my own scientific experiments here at home. There are just too many out there so I decided to just go right on ahead and put a link to the google search itself. In a nutshell, hugging helps release oxytosin which is a bonding hormone that helps us to feel secure and loved. It actually reduces blood pressure which can reduce the risk of heart disease. I think Michelle is on to something here. I know I don’t hug my kids nearly enough. (Save your allowance girls, you’ll need it for therapy one day!) But seriously, I wonder if Michelle was the president if she would still hug people? Do female presidents hug people, how about male presidents, they only seem to hug babies at election time. This whole hugging thing is no small matter and just another reason I’m liking her as a first lady.(photo news.sky.com)

I hate to be so shallow but isn’t that outfit striking. If I only had one once of her style… I am so amazed at how this woman puts on color. Most women run screaming from color this woman embraces it, no pun here of course. She does wear a fair amount of black also but it seems to be at the more formal events.

(photo chicago tribune)

(photo the huffingtonpost.com)

(photo www.zimbio.com)

Today I took 15 six and seven year old girls and assorted siblings, parents, and grandparents on a walk in the woods. We weren’t really even in the woods but walking along the lakeside next to the woods. The weather was gorgeous and the kids had been sitting in school all day, poor kids. It’s days like this when I realize just how lucky my own homeschooled kids are. The girls were overly enthusiastic which is always nice and who wouldn’t be in such a beautiful environment. We saw deer tracks which one child suggested were pig prints. I told her it was great she noticed the cloven hoofs. They got the dog prints right away but one child asked if they were wolf prints. I said they are part of the same family but there were no wolves in our woods.

What struck me as surprising and even somewhat sad was how frightened one of the children was. It was broad daylight and it was as if she was concerned that something was going to jump out at us and attack her. She insisted on holding my hand the entire time even after I assured her she was completely safe. She jumped even when a small twig brushed against her face. I realized many of these kids do not get much or any time in nature to explore and learn. How sad.

Which brings me to the title of my post. The Last Child in the Woods which is an amazing book written about this very subject. Many children are more comfortable sitting on a couch watching television or playing video games rather than playing outside in the great outdoors. They do not connect with the natural world because they have no experience with it. Their parents are either too busy to take them out or afraid themselves. Rural spaces and woodlands are not always accessible to the public. Some people do not even see the benefit of going out in the woods. All I know is that it brings me great joy to expose kids to the many wonders of the natural world which can be as simple as seeing a deer print in the sand next to a lake, finding tufts of fur in the woods, or as exciting as baby birds hatching or a snake eating a frog. There is much to learn from nature and if few children are exposed few will have the interest or concern to care for the environment in the next generations.

I’m tired of people trying to take Jesus and use him for their own benefit, whatever that might be. I can not stand the old, WWJD because usually what people say he would do is not what he would do but what they do do.  For example, Jesus would never vote Democrat, or would he only vote Democrat, or maybe he wouldn’t vote at all. My niece has a bumper sticker on her van that says, “Who would Jesus bomb”, I’m not quite sure what to make of this? Better said is WWYD? What would YOU do as a follower of Christ? You are the body of Christ btw, if you are a believer that is. Be a man, (as my four feminist girls jokingly love to say), and stand up and make your decision!

Who was Jesus anyway? This seems to be dependent on who you ask or what church you go to? There are over 400 Christian sects alone, yikes! I get my ideas from the Synoptic Gospels as they are four similar accounts. I was also amazingly fortunate to have a personal encounter, the kind that everybody but me had had, or so it seemed. That experience made more sense to me than all the reading in the Bible I had done previously.

For sure he was a revolutionary, he did not come to make everyone comfortable. Personally I DO NOT think he was lily white, either in skin color or in personality as he has so often been portrayed. I think he hung with the people most of us would not want to associate with who we might be downright afraid of. He said what he said, and what exactly was on his mind and in his heart no matter the consequences. Wow., he was here to do the will of his Father and that was that.

I am finding myself more liberal as I age whereas most people my age are becoming more conservative. Perhaps it is living with three teens that is opening my mind and yes my heart to all the causes that are out there and all the people that need to be loved. People that in some cases might even spit in the face of religious types. Strange as it seems I think they need and even deserve God’s love.

I am tired of trying to be the square peg in the round hole. I voted Democrat, I am an environmentalist and feminist, I believe in evolution, love science, real science and can’t wait for the newest amazing discovery. I love people of all faiths and believe they too are part of this big family called the human family, the family of God. I believe everyone is my “brother from another mother” even if they don’t accept Jesus, radical for Christians I know. I believe salvation isn’t just a string of words uttered at a moment of conversion but a lifelong journey and process. I am not obsessed with going to heaven or hell. I rarely think of it. God loves me and this I am sure of!  I am who I am and Jesus loves me too, just as I am.   I claim Jesus as mine.

Recently I had an epiphany moment, ironically it was working with Epiphany Ministries Inc. If I really want to be a follower of Christ I have to let bygones by bygones but most importantly I have to pick up my cross and really follow. I actually have to make that decision. I can sit around in my comfortable little life or I can pick up the dang heavy thing and get a move on. It is a painful way, especially when it involves meeting people I would normally not be involved with, say like murderers and rapists and this is not figurative either. I can only do this with the help of God, but strangely this is a joyful thing and I can not fully explain why. My heart sometimes feels it will burst with love from within and from without. Maybe it’s just menopause though? I truly am amazed.

I know it may seem sort of ridiculous that my experience two weeks ago made me think of this Elvis song as it is nothing like real jail but I thought it would be fun to post the video anyway and growing up in Tennessee I sort of feel somehow connected to Elvis in the fried peanut butter sandwich sort of way.

Two weeks ago I went into a real maximum security facility to participate in a program called Ephipany Ministries Inc. So much went on it really would be impossible to describe but a friend who was there also did a bang up job so I’m just going to put a link to his blog. Please visit www.butchkinerny.blogspot.com For once in my life I am truly speechless which doesn’t make for a good blog but it is at least an opportunity to stop and think deeply, something that is good for us all.  In the end hug your children, hold them close, pray for them and best of all give them a decent example to live up to.

Mimi

As I wrote some time ago in another blog, I often feel like my interest in and even admiration of Charles Darwin and his amazing discoveries about the emergence of life on earth is a dirty little secret. I get frustrated that the people I often associate with seem to feel that it’s one or the other, science or religion. I have always found God in my study of the natural world. To me nothing makes sense without a creator to have designed the plan for everything and one who is still intimately invovled in human lives. I do not believe there could be any scientific discovery that could shake my faith.

 For a number of years I tried to understand Intelligent Design, at least it sounded more scientific than Creationism which makes absolutely no logical sense at all given our knowledge of radiocarbon dating and plain old fossils, very old fossils that is. I could never seem to understand what the heck the proponets of Intelligent Design were even talking about. Then I came upon a book by Francis Collins called The Language of God and though it was fairly scientific and I am not a scientist, I could understand it and better yet it made amazing sense to me.  I realized that Charles Darwin did figure out quite a lot and that much of it has been proven not disproven.

I have read much about Francis Collins and wish I knew him well enough to call him up and say, “Hey Francis what do you say to people that assume that if you believe evolution you can not possibly be a Christian?” I generally don’t bring it up but wish I could because it is actually one of my favorite subjects. However, there are so manythings I like to talk about because, well, I like to talk and  have many interests. Anyway, to end this post I have this amazing video which is kind of long but well worth the time to watch. If you don’t have time, at least read this CNN article on how science and religion can co-exist.

I just didn’t want to miss the actual date. More on this subject later. I do think that eventually I will have more than two seconds to sit and gather my thoughts but then maybe not… For those who may be interested there is a wonderful article comparing the two men in National Geographic and sorry I can ‘t find a link to it but it is well worth the read.