My family reunion is this weekend! I hardly every get to see very many people from my extended family, and my Aunt Mary, Uncle R.C., cousin Jess and cousin Tim and his new girlfriend are here visiting from California. Also, my cousin Eric is having a birthday party and we may have a small shower for his wife who is expecting in October I believe. The reunion used to be later in the season, so its a little odd to have it so close to my birthday.

Nine Foot Tall Midget

Lately at church, Rob has been doing a series on David, and showing how he was a "heart" champion and Saul and Goliath were "height" champions, skilled in the things that the world says are important and admire. This last week he even used a 9 foot tall wooden cut out of Goliath to illustrate the point of David's relative size. He spoke of how we are meant to be "heart" champions and instead have been put out to pasture or told that this isn't good enough. He encouraged us to pursue these things that are true and pure- through good works and a right heart- in a sense, we are called to be short. In our church, and indeed, in many churches, I don't think that this is the problem. I think that the issue is that in our American congregations we have our own unique type of height- and it is that which often appears to be "heart." We applaud those who come from places of pain or who are far from Christ and are eager to show accpetance of them, but once they come under the heading of "members" they are subject to a change in expectation of their behavior and appearance. What our "world" honors is if people are so busy and so overcommitted that they are stressed bordering on burning out. We admire those who are giving themseves ulcers with all of the "good deeds" they are doing, and we feel inferior if we do not measure up. The longing is still there for the accpetance and the admiration of others. Only the means by which we get this admiration has changed. We are standing up in a crowd and jumping up and down, screaming, "Look at me! Look at how tiny I am! See- I'm so short! I'm freaking microscopic!"
It is wise to show that we shouldn't be focused on the things of this world to gain our status. Things like cars, money, sex, and power are not the true measure of who we are, but we must also emphasize that us do-gooders can have just as much of a impure purpose and unhealthy attitude by deriving our value from the opinions of others through working in the nursery every service as some might have from orchestrating a hostile take-over of a corporation.

http://www.world66.com/myworld66/visitedStates/statemap?visited=ARCTDCDEILINIAKYMEMDMAMIMNMONHNJNYNCOHOKPARITNVTVAWVWI">
> your own personalized map of the USA or check out ourCalifornia travel guide

Now its official.

(edited later becuase I fell asleep and didn't finish the post)

Today (Tuesday) was such a beautiful day today. The weather was a balmy 70 instead of 95, the kids and I spent a lot of time outside (they actually played leapfrog and 4 Square- did we time travel to the 1940s or something?) I also was outside in the Barnes and Noble- Bilbo's Pizza area of Westnedge and the smell of freshly baked Krispy Kreme doughnuts drifted out over the parking lot. It was a sharp reminder of every fall when the families from school all come out to Verhage Fruit Farms and we go on hay rides, drink fresh-squeezed apple cider and eat doughnuts still warm from being cooked. Mmmmm. I used to hate it when summer would fade away, but now fall is becoming my favorite season, despite the knowledge of the impending months of freezing cold.
I was at work today and we were doing random art during free time and I was cutting paper and trying to remember how to make a snowflake and I jokingly put one of my mistakes on the top of a kid's head and it made a perfect "fox ear" hat. Of course at least 7 other kids eventually needed one of my mistakes. The look of the kids with pointy ears popping out of their heads amused me probably a little more than was necessary, butI was really tired at the time and I ended up laughing and couldn't stop. A few minutes later I am handed a folded and smudged piece of paper. I open it up and printed in the halting hand of one of my kids who is going into first grade, "You are the weirdest teacher." I'm thinking of havingit framed, 'cause damn it- I am the weirdest teacher- and I'm porud of it! (I think I also was encouraging them to dance with me to some song from Lion King around the same time.)

There's a Boy in the Girl's Bathroom

Several of our kids lately have been peeking into the opposite gender's bathroom at school, and though I don't want them to be looking in at the other bathroom while people might be using it or changing, I know that it is natural to be curious and also can be happening because it is the allure of the forbidden. After two girls told me that this had been happening again, I decided to copy a tactic used by one of my own teachers when we read the book, There's a Boy in the Girl's Bathroom, in third or fourth grade. We lined up and I told them that I was- just this once, going to let the boys check out the girl's room and likewise for the girls. They all began laughing and a few actually cheered. We walked to the bathrooms and the scurrying to get inside was out of a cartoon. Feet running in place, only later followed by actual body movement. The boys were amazed at the confinement of all the stalls and the girls couln't get over the openess- and the messiness. Its funny that even at this age the girls notcied that boys are messier. I told Miss Betsy about this because I almost immediately had to turn them over and clean out this theme from the School Age Room. She congradulted me on my tactics. I don't know what the books would say, but the kids enjoyed it, and time will tell if it has stemmed the curiosity.

Our new theme, by the way, is Roaming the Desert, and in the theme area I have built our very own Oasis complete with sand (carpet squares) grass (an indoor/outdoor carpet creatively cut) a palm tree, sand table and lawn chairs. I'm going to try to get a few cacti and some other things- like desert animals. I think this will be my hardest theme, because I know the least about it before coming in to teach it. By its very nature a desert is sparse and it seems like there'd be less obvious teaching tie-ins. Maybe it will end up being the most interesting just because I'm learning along with the kids. Sometimes its funny how the most memorable things the kids learn are not at all related to the theme. What they've been most interested in is getting better at drawing hte human figure. We got on this recently because I was doodling a picture of a woman and they began asking questions and experiementing on their own. Its flattering and funny how they like to impersonate whatever I am drawing, and its fun to get to do art- as opposed to center after center of practicing writing names. (No offence to my preschoolers- I love them all!)

My Birthday

Okay, I was looking at my blog, and I've realized that lately its rather heavy or at least issue oriented, and what blogs are usually supposed to be about are the day to day life experiences that intrigue, frustrate, confuse, and amuse us- andI've been discussing wrongful imprisonment and prostitution. But I gues thats just the real me coming out. Anyways, I've decided to blog about something completely trivial. My birthday!! July 24 baby, and I will be 23. That seems so old. No more interesting birthdays until 30 really. It also makes me think I should have more things figured out- but then I talk to my friends, most of whom are as clueles as me. I love you guys!! I probably won't do anything too interesting, just dinner and maybe Taste of Kalamazoo, but just a restful weekend is really all I need. Youth Group will be a pool party- which was purposely planned so that it would be easier for me. I remember as a kid having a whole week that seemed like my birthday. Maybe it was that July begins with the 4th of July, and then Andy's birthday is on the 10th. As kids, since our birthdays were so close, we'd have a party for friends in between our birthdays and then have something smaller on the actual day for family. (My mom may completely contradict this- she accuses me of having a faulty memory when it comes to my childhood.) So pretty much the whole month of July had something exciting happening on a weekly basis.
So, Sunday Melissa and I will be a year older, and for her this is the first year as mom. She brought Max in to visit the school, which was exciting for several reasons. As she was about to leave, she asked Max to say goodbye and he reached out and gave me a hug. Melissa told me that this is a really good thing, since he has always been more reluctant to bond with women because of his mom abandoning him at such an early age and just having his dad around. This made me very happy and renewed my conviction that someday I want to adopt.
The kids were also very excited see Miss Melissa and they all set out to be the one to entertain him and get a reaction. I found out today after school that one of our kids have asked his mom if she would ever have to give him away if she couldn't take care of him. Heartbreaking, but it apparently created a good opportunity for conversation.

I was looking at an article recently about the most recent attacks on the London Underground and I found this surprising quote. Does anyone else find this rather harsh? I know the guy was trying to kill a bunch of people, but the way that it was stated still seems kind of blase. Maybe its just my optimistic belief that there is some good in everyone coming out, but comparing killing a human being to an animal still weirds me out.

""They pushed him onto the floor and unloaded five shots into him. He's dead," witness Mark Whitby told the British Broadcasting Corp. "He looked like a cornered fox. He looked petrified.""

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8655541/

Too Many Books So Little Time

I've been going to the library more, in an effort to make this summer productive despite my school-age children induced stupor. Now I have the problem that I have too many books out of the library that I am very eager to read. Lewis and Orwell are to authors who are currently on my shelf (thought Lewis I have 3 that I am at least 20 pages into) and I also found two books, "Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy," and "Children For Hire: The Perils of Child Labor in the United States." Prostitution has long been an issue of interest to me, but a lot of the research that I have dates back to the late 90s and I am eager to hear more up to date information. Oddly, the night that I got these books from the library one of the episodes of West Wing that I watched featured the issue of women from other countries coming to the United States and being forced into prostitution. I also managed to telepathically make my favorite episode of Malcolm In the Middle show up on TV that same night.

A few quotes from old research I have that still strikes me from research done with 475 prostitutes from 5 countries:

"It is often assumed that street prostitution is qualitatively different from escort or brothel
prostitution. Our data shed some light on this assumption. We found significantly more physical
violence in street, as opposed to brothel, prostitution. However, there was no difference in the
incidence of PTSD (POst Traumatic Stress Disorder) in these two types of prostitution. This suggests that psychological trauma is
intrinsic to the act of prostitution."

"When we asked those interviewed in South Africa and Zambia if they thought that legalizing
prostitution would make them physically safer, a significant majority (62 percent in South Africa and
73 percent in Zambia) told us 'no'. They viewed prostitution as an activity which always involved
physical and sexual assault -- legal or not."

Since I went to Toronto in 1998, I have had a heart for these people who enter into prostitution- whether forced by htreats of violence or by life circumstances or a pshychological issue that causes them to live lives of quiet desperation. A great site with more information is www.prostitutionresearch.com It has research on porstitutes themselves, as well as information on the trafficking of foreign women into the United States for the purpose of prostitution. There's also an area that shows artwork and photos. You can also get involved in a number of groups that advocate the oppostition of sexual exploitation. Quality stuff.

The Innocents

I was at the library recently, and just by chance I came upon the book, "The Innocents," which is a book and museum exhibit that showcases the stories of people who have been wrongfully imprisoned and exonerated from violent crimes by new DNA evidence. The stories range from the absurd- as in the case of one man who was held for 2 more years after a new DNA test showed that he couldn't have been the source of a seminal contribution in a rape case, to the simply tragic. Each page shows a picture of the exonerated person in a setting that is important to the case, or to the exonerated person. Near the end of the book, readers come upon a page that simply shows a mobile home set in the woods. I found myself searching the windows and looking into the woods that framed the picture of the person, only to come upon a note that says that the former prisoner died in a fall just 6 months after he was released from prison. One of the great tragic ironies was that if he had still been in jail, he could possibly be alive today.
The book also contained statements from each freed person, and many held great wisdom, even as they also showed desperation and a sense of hopelessness. One might assume that someone who is exonerated after spending 10 or so years in jail for a crime they didn't committ would feel a sense of liberation and fervor for life on the outside, but many said that they sometimes wanted to be back in jail. They longed for the secruity of knowing what was going to happen, they couldn't let go of the idea that someone might accuse them of something else again, they had to justify to potential employers why they didn't work for ten years, and even had to put on their application that they were incarcerated, even though now considered fully free.
One has to question, when 159 people to date have been freed by the Innocence Project (and others by other similar groups) how many people (also sadly the wrongfully accused are most often minorities) are still sitting in jail innocent, with no potential DNA evidence to exonerate them. I think they said that 21 of their cases were men freed from death row. How many people have been executed who could now be proven innocent. Many states that have allowed DNA evidence to prove guilt in crimes have refused to allow testing to be done to disprove the guilt of prisoners for years- even when families or other people are willing to pay the cost of testing. Thankfully, law students and other people have begun to take notice of these injustices and begun work to reverse these injustices.
One more absurdity, on man, after appealing his original case, had his sentence reduced from 3,220 years to 3,120 years. Thats so much better.

www.innocenceproject.org

"Till We Have Faces"

I went to Barnes and Noble the other night and I found a copy of C.S. Lewis's "Till We Have Faces." I have been wanting to read this book for sooooo long, and I'm excited that B&N had such a good selection of Lewis's works. Its funny that they have so much more than Family Christian Stores, but thats another topic. I have so many things on my reading list right now, but I'm tempted to bump them off for this one.

"Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold (1956) was C. S. Lewis's last work of fiction, and the one he considered his best. It was not well received initially, probably because of its difficulty and its differences from his earlier narratives, and remains the least popular of his fictional works, though it is the most highly praised by literary critics. The book retells the myth of Cupid and Psyche, which had haunted Lewis all his life. From the first time he heard the myth, he knew that the traditional story, told first by Apuleius in The Golden Ass, had a key point wrong: Psyche's sisters could not have seen the palace of Cupid to which she was carried by the West Wind; they could not have seen it because they did not believe in divine mysteries.....
The story shows how all of Orual's loves turn possessive and destructive (her motherly affection for Psyche, her friendship with the Fox, her sublimated but nonetheless real desire for Bardia). The story illustrates the theme of The Four Loves, that the natural loves can remain themselves, can remain loves, only if they are infused with, or transformed by, divine love, or agape (charity). "

http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=12321

I was just watching 20/20 and I saw the oddest segment on it. It was a show about "teens who triumph" and one was a very inspirational story of a boy who was born with an underdeveloped spinal column, but the next was kind of confusing. A girl had been born toa teen mother and was adopted in an open adoption. 18 years later she herself is pregnant and meets her birth mother for the first time to seek advice and comfort as she decides whether to give up her baby or not. In an odd twist, her birth mother and her husband decide to adopt the baby- Annabella. So now her daughter is also her sister, Annabella's mom is also her grandma and aparently she calls her adopted mom both mom and grandma. It sounds like it is all working out for them and that they are all happy, but Annabella is only one year old, and I worry that things might get confused as she gets older and tries to explai things to other kids and grown ups she meets. They are also trying to get their story made into a tv movie, which always turns me off, but I'm trying not to let that influence my complete feelings about the situation. Hmmmm.

Independance Day

I had a very wonderful 4th of July weekend, which included both going to South Haven for the fireworks and having people over to my parents house on the actual day of the 4th for the not exactly legal fireworks and a violent game of spoons.

South Haven was great and we ended up sitting next to a group of people from the River. Its so random that out of the 10,000 or so people who were there, we decided to sit in a spot that was right next to judy, dale, ryan, andrea, scott, brian, and paul. My roomate Lisa was also there. The traffic was a little touchy at times, and I was very thankful to see that my car was still where I had left it and not towed to some random place.

On the 4th I had people over to my parents house. I did this last year and let myself get all stressed out that something would go wrong or that people wouldn't have fun. This year I allowed myself to relax and I just made hot dogs and had a few snacks. People brought things to eat and we enjoyed a good night of grilling and playing cards. Anna, Todd, Melinda, Jeremy, Mary, Stacie, and I were all there. My parents even got home from an 11 day trip in the Upper Peninsula during the middle of the evening. The shows out on the lake were a little less dramatic than last year because of the holiday falling on Monday night (Sunday night we had great fireworks too) and the night was kinda rainy. I felt a little bad because people had to go into my parents house for a while and we played spoons. The problem came in that they are currently remodeling the house and there was dust all over and the kitchen also had the couch in it. we were able to sit on the couch while we played, so that was nice I suppose, but I wanted things to look great. It will look really nice when its done, and may be painted already. My brother's birthday is on Sunday and depending upon the timing with youth group I think I'll go out there, so then I'll see whats happening.

Quote:

Grace: "There is no me."



Zachary: (In response to playing Outburst with the subject of "Things that are salty")
"Meat."

Me: "What kind of meat?" (I was looking for bacon)

Zachary: You know, like you eat. Oh- I know- a horse!"

I was at Tara's house today and she had a wall full of haiku, and though she is doubtless much more practiced and skilled, it inspired me to share some of mine.

I am not your drug-
I long to be a scalpel
To cut out the wound

We run into crowds
All God's people alone together
Ill in body and mind

Blame Eve for it all
The apple 50 cents a pound
Sin is now on sale

Poetry of Elizabeth Barrett BrowningSonnets from the Portuguese
XXXII

"Quick-loving hearts, I thought, may quickly loathe;
And, looking on myself, I seemed not one
For such man's love!--more like an out-of-tune
Worn viol, a good singer would be wroth
To spoil his song with, and which, snatched in haste,
Is laid down at the first ill-sounding note.
I did not wrong myself so, but I placed
A wrong on thee. For perfect strains may float
'Neath master-hands, from instruments defaced,
-And great souls, at one stroke, may do and doat. "

Let me not to the marriage of true minds (Sonnet CXVI)
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Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
-- William Shakespeare