Let's pretend I'm 19 and have all the answers in the world again. I can fix EVERYTHING and have not been jaded and trampled by life not going exactly as I expected it to go.
And let pretend I have a blog. (ok, pretend it's 19 year old me not midlife crisis me)
And let's surround my blog with people who read what I write and take it as gospel truth, because if it's on the internet and has a million page hits or is linked by another blog or news site I like, it must be true.
And people circulate these posts, and other people circulate the dead opposite posts, and both people think their side has monopolized the truth/true way to fix the world/economy/religion/etc...
I finally hit that proverbial straw this week when rather than hitting delete, I started responding. I had been operating under the modus operandi of 'respond with grace/ignore/delete' but this clearly has only gotten my 1083 unread emails in my inbox and a facebook feed I can hardly read. So my almost new year resolution is to no longer just ignore but to respond - to everything that I disagree, because isn't that the way the internet is supposed to work?
No one listens anymore, since their minds are already made up and they have 1000 or something likes to prove they are right.
Most things won't matter in eternity. Life the life that God has called you to do, demonstrate His love for others and stop doing battles on every front there is. God did not call us to destroy each others' churches. He did not call us to pick fights in extra-biblical theology. He called us each to an individual relationship with Him. He did not call us to critique other's relationship or lack thereof with Him. There is a few verses about this- he without sin casting the first stone (john 8:7) and taking care of the log in your own eye (matt 7:3-5).
The one thing in life that has opened my eyes to the way our heavenly Father's relationship with us is parenting kids. So many times there are squabbles and tattling- child a with sin issue a tattling on child b with sin issue b. And like our heavenly Father, I want to YELL at them (does He yell? Sometimes I think he does) IF YOU CAN JUST WORK ON YOUR OWN ISSUES AND LET THEM WORK ON THEIR OWN ISSUES WE'D ALL GET ALONG SO MUCH BETTER!!! And that is what I feel when I see church member a getting wound up that church b isn't "taking a strong stand against (abortion, same sex marriage, upholding the constitution, liturgical rites, etc)
So often I see church b brow beating someone (who wants nothing to do with Church B) for going to hell for not following their moral code. The church is putting the pony before the cart. There is no reason for people to follow the laws/moral code/etc of the Bible if they don't claim to be a Christian or follower of Christ. And the way the 'christians' treat them, I hardly blame then for not wanting anything to do with Christianity.
Jesus came to serve then call people to repent and follow him. If we could all get that order right, God would be pleased and the world would be better.
But the more we continue fighting being angry with each other and forwarding, posting more of the same, the more evil triumphs.
We have a choice.
Saturday, December 19, 2015
Monday, December 14, 2015
Annual Christmas Letters
It's that time of year where we start receiving those brag sheets annual Christmas letters with updated pictures of kids we may or not have seen, ever. Of course since we moved shortly before Christmas last year and have given up on updating addresses for pretty much anyone when there is facebook and email available for contacting.. and blogging if one is so motivated.
But anyhow, tocompete with keep in contact with all those not forgotten loved family and friends, here is our letter:
Greetings to all our loved friends and family! In case you missed our un-mailed letter and address change notices from last year(s) we are now living in coastal North Carolina and waiting with baited breath to hear our next duty station. We should here in the next 2 weeks, or 2 months, or about 2 weeks before we have to report to the new station. We anticipate moving to Florida, Texas, California, Japan, or some other heretoforth not known location that will take me a full year to accept living there. Briefly we thought we might be getting out of the military since staying in requires certain physical fitness and weight requirements that is completely not compatible with our baking habits, but the insurance is pretty good and the forced adaptability skills are not to be missed. Plus there is that motto about seeing the world and all that was promised.
This year Larry did get to see the world, or at least Europe/Spain for 8 months. I guess if you have to deploy, Europe is the way to go. It certainly would be my first choice. I did rope my parents into watching the kids so I could visit him while he was there. For those of you familiar with the military ways- yes, this was rather unusual for a deployment. But if you get sponsored by the command you can not only visit but you can fly Space-A. Space-A is short for Space-Available which roughly translated means you can get onto a military transport plane going in the direction you want to go for free or dirt cheap, but you have to show up and hope there is an open seat and it's based on a ranking system of who needs to go and how only wants to go and how long ago you signed up to go.. in a logarithm some programmer came up with.
I learned a few things: sign up early, pack light but bring a winter coat even if you travel from 90 degrees to 90 degrees because at 10000 feet or however night they fly, it gets dang cold in an unheated plane. I also learned if you wanted to pack an air mattress and sleeping bag, you can completely lay down to sleep in such planes. Really trippy, but c-c-c-c-cold.
But Spain was totally cool and I'd add it to my list of "places I wish the military would send us" but the nature of military life is that the very second I add it to my top 3 locations, I will.not.get.that.place. So, it's unspoken. Plus I'm not sure the grandparents would totally forgive us for taking their grandkids that far away even if we flew space-a back yearly to visit.
The kids are just fantastic.
Sonia ( age 12 , grade uncertain since we homeschool and grades are just arbitrary designations anyway) loves homeschooling because it means that instead of my harassing her to wake up for school at 6:30 she can sleep in until 8:30, or 12:30 if her mother gives up on the battle that day. She still loves animals, especially strays more than her siblings and has taken to feeding every stray cat in a 5 mile radius. If you could possibly adopt a cat, please come see me. I will ship them, if I can catch them. She also enjoys reading, cake decorating, sleeping in and standing up straight since it makes her appear taller than her mother. She played volleyball this year as a compromise since it involved no running and was an indoor-air-conditioned sport and comfort is key.
Joey ( age 12 about to enter engineering as a profession) has make it a life goal this month to devise a trap to trap said strays to aid and abet his mother in dropping said creatures off at the pound. Since we have yet to successfully manage this, our front porch/stoop looks like a cardboard box disaster complete with sticks, rubber bands and cat food and fabric bits. He did successfully catch one, however it would turn out that packing tape is not strong enough to contain the fury of a captured stray cat, so while that success was short lived, the tape does contain enough hair and DNA evidence of holding a cat to give him hope of catching them. Other than that, his hobbies include minecrafting, golf, growing 6 inches this year and sprouting a pair of feet bigger than his father's feet and he joined boy scouts this year. From our limited experience with the boy scouts thus far it appears that a new hobby will include playing with fire and a pocket knife as soon as he earns the pocket knife 'tote-n-chip' or whatever the official permission is that scouts gives you to carry a knife - think of it as the concealed carry permit for the pre-driving crowd.
Kayla (age 10 and at last count I think is somewhere between the 5th and 6th grade) is still playing the role of the agreeable middle child except for the days that she isn't agreeable. She still is our resident life coach to her younger brother and the example to the rest of us of how extroverts live. She is our fashion conscious, fad following child who keeps me up on all my texting acronyms. IDK where she learned them all, but it would appear that she is the child that knows the trends. At a homeschool Christmas party today she was the one of my 4 kids who not only went up to do the dance but knew the moves to it. If anyone wants to tell me that homeschool kids are necessarily sheltered and odd, let me introduce them to this kid. She cha-cha slides and sings one-direction (who apparently goes by 1D?) with the best of her public school counterparts. But seriously we don't even have cable, I think this kid learns this stuff by osmosis.
JonMichael (age 8, at last count he's somewhere between 3-4th grade) remains our youngest child. Much of his antics secure that position because after him, I'm pretty sure we are just broken parents who are just surviving. He announced this year that he wants to be called "Jonathan" however, I'm pretty sure his real name is "Tigger" since it would most certainly appear that his top is made out of rubber and his bottom is made out of springs. We bought a trampoline this year, largely because I thought he needed something to expel all this energy that didn't involved absolutely destroying the house and so far we have experienced 0 broken bones, so I call this a win. Unfortunately is rains a great deal here and trampolines are entirely an outdoor toy. He remains our sports orientated kid and loves anything that involves a ball. This year we added golf to his sports played mostly because they were short one kid for the team Joey was on. He and Kayla consider the entire world the audience for their 2 person comedy act. They get this from their father, I think- he's the funny one here.
Larry continues to work with Marines and has picked up minecraft to play with the kids,or at least he said it was to play with the kids. They have some communal island and build and grow things. I tell them they should try programming so they can be the ones making the next big thing like minecraft. No one is really interested.
Gina has no interest in Minecraft and has over 1000 unread emails in her inbox. She occasionally thinks of going back to work but in the meantime has been driving kids to co-op class, sports, and will be teaching the 6-9th graders science this winter. We continue to homeschool since we have managed to cover more material in less time and have more flexibility in our learning. Also the flexibility in vacations, sleep schedules and pretty much everything else is pretty awesome, too. And not being in the parent pick-up and drop-off lines every day: priceless. But who knows and we are fickle people and next year might bring public or private or charter school, depending on location.
Overall this year has been filled with ups and downs and character flaws and character growth. We've been able to look back over our friends and family lists and photos and reminisce about lovely memories and hopeful dreams for the future. No matter where our lives have crossed and where they will cross again, the one hope we have is that we will meet again in eternity. Until then, we blog, we laugh, we eat and hope to see you all again.
Much love
XOXOX
G, L and kids.
But anyhow, to
Greetings to all our loved friends and family! In case you missed our un-mailed letter and address change notices from last year(s) we are now living in coastal North Carolina and waiting with baited breath to hear our next duty station. We should here in the next 2 weeks, or 2 months, or about 2 weeks before we have to report to the new station. We anticipate moving to Florida, Texas, California, Japan, or some other heretoforth not known location that will take me a full year to accept living there. Briefly we thought we might be getting out of the military since staying in requires certain physical fitness and weight requirements that is completely not compatible with our baking habits, but the insurance is pretty good and the forced adaptability skills are not to be missed. Plus there is that motto about seeing the world and all that was promised.
This year Larry did get to see the world, or at least Europe/Spain for 8 months. I guess if you have to deploy, Europe is the way to go. It certainly would be my first choice. I did rope my parents into watching the kids so I could visit him while he was there. For those of you familiar with the military ways- yes, this was rather unusual for a deployment. But if you get sponsored by the command you can not only visit but you can fly Space-A. Space-A is short for Space-Available which roughly translated means you can get onto a military transport plane going in the direction you want to go for free or dirt cheap, but you have to show up and hope there is an open seat and it's based on a ranking system of who needs to go and how only wants to go and how long ago you signed up to go.. in a logarithm some programmer came up with.
I learned a few things: sign up early, pack light but bring a winter coat even if you travel from 90 degrees to 90 degrees because at 10000 feet or however night they fly, it gets dang cold in an unheated plane. I also learned if you wanted to pack an air mattress and sleeping bag, you can completely lay down to sleep in such planes. Really trippy, but c-c-c-c-cold.
But Spain was totally cool and I'd add it to my list of "places I wish the military would send us" but the nature of military life is that the very second I add it to my top 3 locations, I will.not.get.that.place. So, it's unspoken. Plus I'm not sure the grandparents would totally forgive us for taking their grandkids that far away even if we flew space-a back yearly to visit.
The kids are just fantastic.
Sonia ( age 12 , grade uncertain since we homeschool and grades are just arbitrary designations anyway) loves homeschooling because it means that instead of my harassing her to wake up for school at 6:30 she can sleep in until 8:30, or 12:30 if her mother gives up on the battle that day. She still loves animals, especially strays more than her siblings and has taken to feeding every stray cat in a 5 mile radius. If you could possibly adopt a cat, please come see me. I will ship them, if I can catch them. She also enjoys reading, cake decorating, sleeping in and standing up straight since it makes her appear taller than her mother. She played volleyball this year as a compromise since it involved no running and was an indoor-air-conditioned sport and comfort is key.
Joey ( age 12 about to enter engineering as a profession) has make it a life goal this month to devise a trap to trap said strays to aid and abet his mother in dropping said creatures off at the pound. Since we have yet to successfully manage this, our front porch/stoop looks like a cardboard box disaster complete with sticks, rubber bands and cat food and fabric bits. He did successfully catch one, however it would turn out that packing tape is not strong enough to contain the fury of a captured stray cat, so while that success was short lived, the tape does contain enough hair and DNA evidence of holding a cat to give him hope of catching them. Other than that, his hobbies include minecrafting, golf, growing 6 inches this year and sprouting a pair of feet bigger than his father's feet and he joined boy scouts this year. From our limited experience with the boy scouts thus far it appears that a new hobby will include playing with fire and a pocket knife as soon as he earns the pocket knife 'tote-n-chip' or whatever the official permission is that scouts gives you to carry a knife - think of it as the concealed carry permit for the pre-driving crowd.
Kayla (age 10 and at last count I think is somewhere between the 5th and 6th grade) is still playing the role of the agreeable middle child except for the days that she isn't agreeable. She still is our resident life coach to her younger brother and the example to the rest of us of how extroverts live. She is our fashion conscious, fad following child who keeps me up on all my texting acronyms. IDK where she learned them all, but it would appear that she is the child that knows the trends. At a homeschool Christmas party today she was the one of my 4 kids who not only went up to do the dance but knew the moves to it. If anyone wants to tell me that homeschool kids are necessarily sheltered and odd, let me introduce them to this kid. She cha-cha slides and sings one-direction (who apparently goes by 1D?) with the best of her public school counterparts. But seriously we don't even have cable, I think this kid learns this stuff by osmosis.
JonMichael (age 8, at last count he's somewhere between 3-4th grade) remains our youngest child. Much of his antics secure that position because after him, I'm pretty sure we are just broken parents who are just surviving. He announced this year that he wants to be called "Jonathan" however, I'm pretty sure his real name is "Tigger" since it would most certainly appear that his top is made out of rubber and his bottom is made out of springs. We bought a trampoline this year, largely because I thought he needed something to expel all this energy that didn't involved absolutely destroying the house and so far we have experienced 0 broken bones, so I call this a win. Unfortunately is rains a great deal here and trampolines are entirely an outdoor toy. He remains our sports orientated kid and loves anything that involves a ball. This year we added golf to his sports played mostly because they were short one kid for the team Joey was on. He and Kayla consider the entire world the audience for their 2 person comedy act. They get this from their father, I think- he's the funny one here.
Larry continues to work with Marines and has picked up minecraft to play with the kids,or at least he said it was to play with the kids. They have some communal island and build and grow things. I tell them they should try programming so they can be the ones making the next big thing like minecraft. No one is really interested.
Gina has no interest in Minecraft and has over 1000 unread emails in her inbox. She occasionally thinks of going back to work but in the meantime has been driving kids to co-op class, sports, and will be teaching the 6-9th graders science this winter. We continue to homeschool since we have managed to cover more material in less time and have more flexibility in our learning. Also the flexibility in vacations, sleep schedules and pretty much everything else is pretty awesome, too. And not being in the parent pick-up and drop-off lines every day: priceless. But who knows and we are fickle people and next year might bring public or private or charter school, depending on location.
Overall this year has been filled with ups and downs and character flaws and character growth. We've been able to look back over our friends and family lists and photos and reminisce about lovely memories and hopeful dreams for the future. No matter where our lives have crossed and where they will cross again, the one hope we have is that we will meet again in eternity. Until then, we blog, we laugh, we eat and hope to see you all again.
Much love
XOXOX
G, L and kids.
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