Race Wars

Most of my ancestors have been at war with each other at one time or another. English and Scottish, Scottish and Irish, Irish and English, Native American and Pioneer American, French and French, German and nearly everyone...the list goes on. 

The idea of my ancestors trying to kill each other just because of their nationality pales in comparison beside the modern-day conflicts that stretch from a global scale all the way down to violence from one person to another. The case of Trayvon Martin has recently unleashed a firestorm of opposing views, and several years ago a female army reservist was beaten, punched, and kicked outside a restaurant, by a man yelling racial slurs. Just yesterday morning one of the news headlines was about a high school girl who violently attacked another soccer player from the opposing team, and now faces assault charges.

Though we may never know for sure how much of a factor race played in each of these interracial conflicts, there are enough examples of hate crimes every day that the trend can't be ignored. We can expect that these types of tensions will only get stronger as we get closer and closer to Jesus' coming. Two thousand years ago, Jesus saw that it would happen, and gave a detailed warning. Matthew 24:7 says, talking about the time just before the fall of Jerusalem, as well as the very last days of earth's history, "For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom..."

In the Greek, that word "nation" is ethnos, from which we get words like ethnic and ethnicity. (Just a quick digression. I am not a Greek or Hebrew professor - I have a secret weapon. A free download of a program called Esword, available at e-sword.net, can turn any lay person, including me, into a scholar. Hover your mouse over the # associated with each word in English, and it will give you the Hebrew or Greek of the original text, the pronunciation, and each possible meaning. Every time you read the Bible, you'll find new treasure you never knew was there!)

So this verse, put another way, says, "Race will rise against race, and realm against realm." 

Back in the days when we lived close enough to prisons to do ministry there, we got to know inmates of many different races and affiliations. In the chapel, or the comparative safety of the visiting room, they would breathe the same air without too much trouble. Out on the yard, it was a different story. They lived one wrong glance away from a prison riot. The inner cities are full of their own stories of violence and tragedy.

All of us find our identity, to some extent, from our surroundings. I'm a wife, a mother, a daughter, a bus driver. We have identities based on political ideologies, careers, and yes, even race. I'm proud to be from a mixed heritage. Jack is proud to be Native American. When I try to remind him that he's part white, too, he pretends like he can't hear me. :) No matter how much or how little we feel that racism personally affects us, a huge part of our identity is tied up in our ethnicity.

If you don't believe me, try a little experiment. Picture yourself a very different color than what you were born with, and see how you feel. It's very unsettling, and maybe even a little uncomfortable. It may be easier for me than for most people, since I have undergone a rather startling color change. Due to my Portuguese heritage, and a darker strain of Germans, I have always had a nice color to my skin. Brown in the summer, and still a light tan in the winter. 

It's different here, where the sun hangs low against the horizon for all the long months of deep, hard winter. Each of the last 3 years I've gotten a little lighter, and after this winter I'm a brilliant, glowing shade of stark white. I've never been a plain old white person before. It's strange to be so pale. Even at the ripe old age of almost 40 (shhh, don't tell anyone), I had a mental picture of myself as a brownish person. It's hard to adjust, and I can hardly wait till the weather is good enough for me to start getting some Vitamin D going, along with some color - any color but red.

As Christians, one of the experiences we must go through as part of our learning process, is to set aside our worldly identities. To no longer let labels like black, white, brown, conservative, liberal, rich, or poor, define us. We are not who the world says we are.

Galations 3:28 says it better than I could. "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus."

United in Jesus, saved by His blood. That's our identity, and our eternal destiny.

Long-lost Son

After church one day, Damon got my cell phone out to call his dad. He dialed the number, and a deep voice answered.

"Hi, Dad!" he chirruped cheerfully. 

There was a bit of a pause. "Who is this?" the deep voice finally asked.

Ha ha ha. Damon laughed. His dad could be such a kidder. "This is Damon - your son!"

The pause stretched as long as 8 seconds on the back of a bull, only a whole lot quieter. At last the deep voice, quavering just a little, said hopefully, "Um, this is Tom Smith."

Damon laughed again, just a little embarrassed. "Oops, sorry. Wrong number!" 

Somewhere, a man named Tom carefully placed his cell phone back in its holder, hands and knees shaking like frozen molasses in an earthquake. Wrong number. It was just a wrong number.

Family Fitness: A New Low

Tina came over to exercise tonight. I was unable to join her. Without embarrassing myself with any details, let me just say that it's not an illness in the traditional sense. Or an injury in the traditional sense. Just rather debilitating. 

Not wanting them to feel the lack of my presence, I sat right there and watched while everyone else worked out, calling out helpful encouragement like, "Feel the burn!" and "Oh, it hurts just to watch that!" and "Keep it up - you can do ten more!"

While I ate pie.

My jaws feel the burn.

Noni Beth

Family Fitness, or Something

February 19

You may remember reading a while ago about the robust physical fitness program we had just started. Something about not being able to walk or even move...and then you have heard nothing since.


The first time around,

March 3


I'm not winning any speed records, here. As I was saying some days ago, the first time around our 90-day Xtreme fitness program, we made it about a week and a half before keeling over. Barely able to walk or even move most days, I had to take a break. Then came Thanksgiving, Christmas break in December, and a whole new year. Shortly into January, I was ready to start back up again, with Tina and Caleb joining me for a kinder, gentler exercise program.

Our new regimen, "P90E-for-Easy", may well stretch into P365E at the rate we're going. There are 12 separate workouts, and by the time we do the first half and the last half on separate days, there are at least 24 variations to keep our muscles good and confused. (If we're really busy, we confuse our muscles even more by letting them rest.)

This time around, my workouts aren't the only thing that's been more moderate. After listening to the instructional video, and the emphasis on eating in sufficient quantities to feed a hard-working body, I disciplined myself to eat more. Combine that with tapering off the Xtreme Xercise, and you don't exactly have a formula for success.

The ability to improvise is important. With as many as 7 people exercising in our tiny little living room at one time, and only enough space, weights, or resistance bands for 2 of them, some creativity was required. The deep lunges you do while walking forward ended up with us all in a circle, taking giant strides forward then dipping in unison, like demented carousel horses broken free from our moorings. No weights? No problem, for the experienced kitchen maven. Pasta sauce will do just as well.


For some reason, Tina is VERY sensitive to the thought of our neighbors seeing her exercising, especially with her Ragu Fitness Aids, so one of Tiggy's favorite hobbies is to slide her way closer and closer to the front window, and try to crack the curtains while nobody's looking. A shrill screech always marks the moment of her success.

Fitness poster girls, oh yeah!

Tina was excited to announce that her most recent trip to the thrift store yielded 3 more sets of weights. Eventually, I suppose we'll get all buff, with all the proper equipment, and be quite boring. Don't worry too much, though. At the rate we're going, we won't be running out of weirdness any time soon.

Fitfully yours,
Noni Beth

Victory!

Family Fun Night

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, said some homilious person of yore. And most definitely, Jack has had all work and no play for quite some time now. Since we are the unabashedly wonderful family that we are, we decided to help him out, and bring a bit of surprise fun into his life.

It's called The Daddy Quiz: How Well Do You Know Your Children?

Shamelessly ripped from John's birthday party, this quiz gave Jack an opportunity to earn prizes for his loving children as he answered questions about them. Once in a while, just to make things fair, he got to earn a matching prize. After all, unlike SOMEONE ELSE'S quiz, we didn't want the actual contestant to leave empty-handed.

The early questions were fairly easy, things like, "Name the complete birth date of each child." He got each one right, or at least very close. Why, there is hardly any difference at all between 1967 and 1997. They quickly got much harder, though.

Q: Which one of your children fell dramatically during a race in the backyard, and what kind of race was it?

A: Damon, potato-sack.

Q: How old was Tiggy when she learned to say the Lord's Prayer?

A: 6? 5? 4? Let's get some help from an audience member! (Correct answer: 2. "Ow Foddah with owt in hebben, hawwowed be Dy name. Dy tingdom tum, Dy wiww be done, on erf ath it ith in hebben.")

Q: Which one of your children, unsatisfied with the number originally issued to them, tried to create their own brand-new orifice?

A: Devon. (There was no hesitation - Devon is the correct answer to almost every question involving grievous bodily harm.)

Here and there during the quiz, we threw in a few questions from the children about How Well Do You Know Our Mommy? After all, Mommy needs a few prizes of her own.

Q: What does Mom call it when you send all of us away and the two of you stay home together?

A: Peace and quiet? (Correct answer: Mommy-Daddy Date Night.)

Q: How long have you and Mom been married?

A: Long pause. Several minutes go by.

Hint: This is an easy answer. It's always Damon + 9 months. 

A: 10? 

Damon: HEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Correct answer: 15 1/2.)

Then we got to the superglue series.

Q: Which one of your children superglued their fingers together on the way home tonight?

A: (slumped with head in hands) Devon. 

Q: Which one of your children got superglue inside their mouth?

A: Tiggy! (I was actually kind of surprised that he got this one right. I would have thought the answer was still "Devon".)

Q: Which one of the children took an extra-large container of superglue, tried to glue tweezers to their fingers so they couldn't lose them, spilled the superglue on their fingers, got a paper towel  to wipe up the excess glue, glued the paper towel to their fingers, got nail clippers to try and clip off the excess glue and paper towels, and got the nail clippers stuck to their fingers, then took fingernail polish remover to try and remove the nail clippers, paper towels, tweezers, and glue, but got the lid of the nail polish remover stuck to their fingers???

A: (swaying and muttering rhythmically, make it stop! Make it stop!) Oh, yes. Damon.

The prizes, as a whole, leaned heavily toward the After-Christmas-70%-Off Theme. The children were thrilled, and so was Jack. (Though he tried to conceal his excitement with humorous little comments like, "Did I sleep through the whole year, and now it's Christmas again?)

It was inspiring, truly inspiring. I have already let Tina know that I need her help to come up with a full-family version. It may take us a little while to save up prizes. Upcoming opportunities include the After-Valentine's-Day-70%-Off Theme, and the After-Easter-70%-Off Theme. 

I can't wait!

Noni Beth

The Greatest Gift

None of us are rich, monetarily speaking. None of us have ever, for example, dived beneath the Christmas tree and found the keys to a fancy new car. Or even a new car. Or just a car.

No expensive jewelry, costly perfume, cutting edge electronics, designer clothes...none of those exotic gifts that grace so many homes this time of year. We can't afford them, it's true, but even if we could, I don't think we would. For us, the greatest gift doesn't automatically mean the most expensive. In fact, the less wealthy we all are, the more creative our gifts become. Most cost very little, and some nothing at all!

In our crowd, you can never go wrong with edibles, many of them tenderly home-made. I personally like them best for the children, since even if - okay, when - they throw the wrappers all over the floor, they get picked up and cause no further mess till the next year. Some gifts are both edible and thoughtful. Last year, I found a place to order Jack his favorite kind of veggie ribs, and he was thrilled. This year, Mom found him a couple kinds of BBQ sauce based on popular soda flavors. We have no idea yet what these bizarre creations taste like, but we all had a good laugh imagining the possibilities. 

Books, usually used and nearly always vintage or hard-to-find, are also popular. Mom just got Damon two books by Peter Hathaway Capstick, an extraordinary hunter and author. The fact that I have been trying to get my hands on those books myself is pure coincidence. Anyway, there is nothing wrong with a multitasking present. And Tina got the hilarious photo essay, "101 Uses for My Ex-Wife's Wedding Dress". 

Caleb got Damon and Devon each a pair of hockey skates (used, of course), and John got his mom a snuggie. It will come in very handy if she can just get the time to sit down.

Then there are the 'special' presents. Most often snapped up in thrift stores or on clearance racks, these chance finds are both inexpensive and perfectly suited to the recipient. Tina got me a lovely soft blue sweater, and a vibrant purple hat/scarf/gloves set. I had been meaning to get myself an adorable winter hat, better suited to a delicate bus driver than the full-face ski mask (aka bank robber hat) I wear to shovel snow.

Mom found me a couple of VHS movies that I remember fondly from my childhood. That does not make them vintage, no matter what the item description might say.

"Bag 'em, Danno!"

Mom received a cute little gadget whose purpose at first escaped her. Sewed from lacy, acid-washed blue jeans, it's a hanging tube that holds plastic bags. You know, those bags from the grocery store that you always see in the Man Harming Wildlife documentaries, because so many get thrown away rather than re-used. Well, around here, those plastic bags play a vital role in the containment of certain, ahem, hazardous waste by-products from an anonymous incontinent family member. (We'll call him Strandpa.) Now Mom can dispose in style! I'm sure the garbage men will be grateful.

There was a new category of gifts under the tree this year, with only the cost of wrapping paper. Let's just say it takes re-gifting to a whole new level. Basically, you liberate - a nice way of saying "steal" - the person's stuff, and then give it back to them. 

Tina used to play a version of this game with our brothers when she was little. First, she would steal a whole bunch of their stuff. Then she would open a store, and charge them actual cash money to redeem their own belongings. Upon complaining to Mom, they were told to play nicely with their sister. It was a nice racket. They are still bitter.

The gift version is a little kinder and gentler, since there is not actually a price attached. A few weeks before Christmas, Tina found one of Devon's favorite toys, a plastic parachute man with a working parachute. He had lost it several months before, and it had slipped my mind to give it back once it was found. An honest mistake. Really.

When Devon opened it, he was pretty blase. "Auntie, I already have one of these." We all began snickering as he turned it over and over to inspect it more closely. "And mine is blue, just like this one."

The roar of laughter nearly drowned out Tina as she told him, "Yours looks just like that one, because that one is yours."

And then Tina found out that she was not the only one who had caught re-gifting fever.

Oh, goody. Here's my platter.

This looks familiar, too.

She didn't mind a bit. When it comes to presents, she's always been a quantity over quality kinda gal. If you gave her a pack of licorice, she'd be happy. If you gave her the same pack, with each piece individually wrapped, she'd be thrilled!

Caleb got his own little surprise, too - the Bible he had forgotten at church only that morning.

Wow. Thanks, Uncle Jack.

Jack had already gotten an uncharacteristically pricey gift for me - a dishwasher. After 3 1/2 years of washing entirely by hand, I had gotten used to doing dishes the same way as when I was a kid. (Minus spending hours flicking giant bubbles in my dishwater.) However I can promise you that it will not even take me .07 seconds to adjust to having a dishwasher again. The kindness, thoughtfulness, and love that prompted it will stay with me all year. There are a few, a very few presents you just can't find at the thrift store.

Every now and again, though, the opportunity comes along to give The Gift - that one perfect present that a beloved family member has been longing for, and just hadn't been able to get. This year was Tina's turn. She had always wanted a rock garden.

Jack had been telling her for a while now that he was getting her rocks for Christmas, and that is what he did. With some help from children and small cousins, we collected rounded stones from a field, left there several thousand years ago by a passing glacier. Wrapping them was a family collaboration.

Jack and Damon helped...

...and so did Potto.

It's hard to believe how well his fur has grown back!

The finished rock garden.

Tina was thrilled. You can see the joy all over her face. But hey, some of them were individually wrapped.

No, wait..........there might be something else.......................................

I SMELL A CAMERA!!!!!!!!!

Each year, I think we do a little better at capturing the true spirit of The Greatest Gift. This season isn't about selfish gratification, price tags, or credit card bills. It's about family togetherness and love. The bonds we form with family and friends give honor to the greatest gift of all, when God sent His Son to earth, to become ours now and forever.

Emmanuel, God with us.

Praying for God's peace to guide us as we enter the new year,
Noni Beth