Don't Be the Monster

An episode of The Twilight Zone that originally ran on March 4, 1960 was called “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street.” If you haven’t seen it, this is an edited look that gives the basic idea of it. Youtube isn't cooperating this morning for me to get the embed link, but you can click here to see it. 

Basically, strange things like the power going out, for example, start happening on Maple Street, and at first the neighbors are talking together about it and wondering what’s happening.  One neighbor decides to go over a few blocks and see if the power is out in other parts of the neighborhood, while other neighbors start listening to conspiracy theories about a more sinister reason the strange things are happening - maybe it’s aliens that look like us who have infiltrated and are coming to do more harm. One neighbor attempts to be a voice of calm and reason  and eventually decides to go into town to see if he can find out what’s going on. Meanwhile the neighbors continue to spin up their worry and look upon certain neighbors with suspicion. The question becomes, who can you really trust? They begin turning on each other en masse as the mob mentality begins to take over when people voice their various suspicions.  The voice of reason man returns, and the neighbors now suspect him. Eventually the episode ends in tragedy when, now that it is becoming dark, they see a lone figure walking slowly up the street and in panic one neighbor shoots.  It turns out it was just the neighbor who had decided to walk a few blocks away to investigate.  At the end, the actual aliens who have been turning the lights on and off discuss how easy it is to generate the mob mentality and turn people on each other.  They don’t even have to conquer, just sit back and watch them destroy themselves. The point is, who, exactly were the monsters here?

I’m bringing that up today because I have found that the more I read comment threads on the NextDoor app, the more I think about this episode.  Especially now that we find ourselves in this unusual crisis, I’m feeling this when I make the mistake of following the rabbit hole in the comment threads. I don’t know what your neighborhood is like on that app, but the two I’ve been part of now have both seemed to draw out the kind of people who seem bent to assume the absolute worst rather than assume the best.  The worry-warts come out in droves and peddle panicky posts and theories. If they ever see someone in the area doing something that doesn’t fit their understanding of things, they post about it and shame strangers all over the comment threads.  Never, ever give someone the benefit of the doubt that they might have a truly valid reason for what they are doing that you don't understand, or might have made a simple mistake while driving, or had a bad day, or been swamped with work and couldn’t mow the lawn as soon as the neighbor thinks they should have. Nope. They are portrayed as idiots who we have every right to shame all over social media.  It’s so easy to see a snippet of a moment of someone’s life and assume the worst rather than try to put the best construction on it.  It’s so easy to assume motives, but, truly you DO NOT KNOW what someone is thinking if they don’t tell you! Just because people don’t think exactly like you or do things exactly like you does not mean they are bad people.  They might just be different. They might be having a difficult day.  You DO NOT KNOW.  Everyone makes mistakes - even the people who write those shaming posts.  How about we treat each other with the same gentleness we would like to be treated with when we mess up - and we will mess up.  Everyone has a bad day, and everyone makes mistakes, no matter how careful we try to be. Would you want to be judged all over social media based on a bad moment you had which isn’t a true picture of who you are all time? 

And then you get the comment threads.  Oh my.  People pile on with judgment and assumptions and vilification that makes me cringe and hurts my heart.  

When I watch all that go down, on almost a daily basis, it makes me sick to my stomach.  We are all just one crisis away from what we see on that Twilight Zone episode.  I truly do hope that not ALL of us are as easily triggered, this lacking in understanding, gentleness, and grace as what the NextDoor app dredges up.  Maybe it’s just a small portion of people who feel the need to get on there and vent against any and every grievance or quirk or perceived gripe and the rest of us more rational people choose to stay away.  I hope there are more of us like the voice of reason guy on that episode.  Truly, I do.  But looking at that app on any given day, I do feel like I’ve dropped into Maple Street on The Twilight Zone.  So much so, that I have to severely limit my exposure to it.  Once in a while there is good information, but the bulk of it - we act like the monsters of Maple Street, so easily spun up, so quick to think the worst of our neighbors and people who are just trying to live their lives, so quick to be suspicious and griping , so quick to make sure we point out when someone does something we perceive as wrong, rather than extend the grace of trying to put the best construction on things and assume the best as long as we possibly can.  Nope.  We are inherently selfish and thinking much too highly of ourselves.  

The point isn't that there was no danger.  There apparently was someone manipulating things.  The point here isn't that there isn't an actual crisis that we need to be aware of and taking reasonable precautions about.  The point is how quickly we seem to degenerate into mistrusting each other and being quick to assume the worst of others and quick to go from caring about and helping our neighbors to worrying about how to protect me and mine and mistrust our neighbors and turn on people because we assume the worst and how easily we can allow ourselves to get spun up and feed off of other people's anxiety. 

Don’t be the monster.  Be the voice of reason and calm.  Assume the best and don’t let yourself get spun up by everyone else’s paranoia and anxiety.  Take reasonable measures to be safe and love your neighbors and stop assuming that others don’t actually want to do the same.  

Status Update, March 2015

Seeing as I haven’t posted anything here since the end of December, Happy (not so )New (anymore) Year, blog world! My blogging ability seems to have waned along with my mood this winter. Winter in Cleveland has been quite an experience for this former Florida girl. I thought I liked a little winter, and I do like A LITTLE winter. Snow is great and pretty and fun when you only get a couple of big snows and then it melts away soon after. Though people jokingly warned me about winter here, I do not think I was prepared for quite so MUCH winter. I think you can’t be prepared for it until you experience it, and when you experience it you will either love it or hate it. Guess which side I landed on along with my many falls on icy sidewalks? I told someone recently that I think Cleveland winter has done its work and turned me into a bona fide snow Grinch. We haven’t seen grass or sidewalk or driveway since November (brief respite in an unusually snow-free December which lulled me into blissful unpreparedness) and January, oh, January, when we began to get mounds of snow and ice and more snow and gray, gray, gray, dismally gray skies for MONTHS. I’ve been truly fighting a bit of the winter blues, what with winter in general and some other things along the way that I don’t want to write about, and my energy for writing was completely sapped. So, if anyone even bothers to check here anymore, I’m sorry for the blog silence, but maybe, just maybe I can start getting my head above the gray clouds again now, with the hope of spring around the corner.

Driving here is not fun on a good day, in the winter it’s been….interesting. Throw in the mix that the last time we had the oil changed in my car (the one 4-wheel-drive vehicle we own) they put the wrong size cap on and it slowly lost all its oil without us realizing it, resulting in one day the car just not driving at all and the bad news that the engine was completely fried, and, well, it’s been a frustrating winter. Now, three weeks and quite and expense (but not a new car payment!) later, I have my car back with a new engine. Thankful, I am.

I know I shouldn’t complain and be so low in the winter. I know people who are facing real hurts and struggles, for whom I’m praying daily, and my griping about winter in Cleveland is pretty lame, which only makes me feel even more guilty about the confusing fog of blues into which I descended over the past few months. But my fog was real for me, and I’ve been praying through it, and God is good all the time, even when my feelings and emotions lack zeal. How extremely thankful I am that my standing with God and salvation are not based in my feelings and strength, but in my gracious Savior Jesus, who never wavers and who is ever interceding for His own.

Some great news today is, as I said on my Facebook wall just now: The sun is shining! The snow is melting! It’s a glorious 46 degrees and for the first time since November it feels LOVELY outside without a coat! No coat! No need for hat, scarf, OR gloves! The air doesn’t hurt my face! And I can see pavement on the sidewalks! No more ice skating to school! There are even a few spots of, what’s that stuff called again? Oh yes, grass! Dare I say the long, gray misery of winter may be coming to a close at last? AND I hear birds. Birds! I’d almost forgotten how very much I love to hear birds singing. It’s a lonely world when the birds go silent. So long, winter!

I will say that one very bright spot in our year here in Cleveland has been the church we get to join with while we’re here. The prayer, music, and Bible teaching are so rich, and I have been greatly encouraged by this body of believers and their commitment to worshiping Jesus well. I think this encouragement has done much to keep the blues at bay. 

So, not a very serious post, but hopefully one to get me back to blogging again. I hope. If you’re interested, I have found a couple of books that are helping me learn how to pray well, and they’ve been a blessing to me alongside reading my Bible. One is The Valley of Vision, and the other is Prone to Wander: Prayers of Confession and Celebration by Barbara R. Duguid and Wayne Duguid Houk. 

Happy (almost) spring!

Driving, Not My Favorite Thing

Until last night I’ve been able to say I’ve never been pulled over while driving. Not once, no tickets, nothing. Those of you who know me and what a wonderful, hahaha, driver I am can all share in a small laugh right now if you so choose.

When we moved here, we joked that if I managed to get through our year here without being pulled over, it would be amazing. Driving here is that difficult. I made it almost five months. Yay me. 

How fun it was last night to be driving home from taking my oldest son to the doctor, hungry and cranky after waiting at the doctor’s office for over an hour right at dinner time, fighting off the beginning of my own raging headache, minding my own business, driving carefully because I was determined to beat the odds and not get pulled over for driving like a bonehead around here and because I had seen the police car in the next lane over, when I turned onto the main road home and immediately heard that ‘bloo -oop!’ and saw lights in my mirror. My son looked shocked and said, “Is that for us?” I said, “Looks like it is.” So I pulled over and sure enough it was for us.

As we sat there waiting for the officer to come tell me what I’d done wrong, I couldn’t for the life of me figure it out. I had my turn signal on, wasn’t speeding, signaled my lane change, what?? 

Turns out my plates expired last month (exactly 24 days ago). Somehow in all our moving around, we either didn’t get the renewal notice or, worse, I’m going to find it accidentally filed away somewhere when I clean out my files. It’s been a rough year. I have been wracking my brain trying to remember if I ever saw a renewal notice or not. Doesn’t matter now. We went online last night and took care of it, and that little clerical error will now result in me having to pay a not-so-welcome fine to the city and get a report sent to the Ohio Division of Motor Vehicles. Happy I am not.

At least the police officer was nice about it while he handed me my ticket, though I felt really stupid when he said, “Are you aware your plates are expired and have been since October?” and I had to honestly say, “No sir, I was not aware of that.” I didn’t even try to explain about moving and not getting the notice to renew. Fun times, fun times.  

And that headache that was just nudging at me behind my eye last night?  I woke up with it raging this morning, since apparently three of the five of us now seem to be fighting what the doctor informed us is a nasty head-cold that’s going around. Yay me, again.

Actually, I’m thankful that if I had to be pulled over for this, and it was inevitable since I’m pretty much the only one who drives that car and we really weren’t aware it had expired, that it happened at a time when I wasn’t late for an appointment or, even worse, taking my son to school. Can you imagine that humiliation, to be pulled over in the high school car drop off line?

So, I can no longer say I’ve never been pulled over, but at least I can say it wasn’t for being stupid with my driving. 

Happy Thanksgiving, y’all. 

Status Report - November 2014

Drinking…..hot pumpkin spice tea with honey. I’ve already had a large amount of coffee, and I don’t want my hands to start shaking if I drink much more, but since the cooler weather is settling in for the long haul, only to start growing colder now, hot tea it is.

Making….sourdough starter, well, already finished making it this morning. Hoping it turns out well. I’ve not had a lot of success with sourdough, but my husband likes it, so I’m trying it again. Hoping it will be warm enough in the kitchen to get this starter going.

Enjoying…how absolutely beautiful Fall is here in Ohio. We live in a neighborhood with lots of older trees, and the colors have been splendid. It’s like drinking in the gorgeous colors as I walk and drive through town. I’ve never seen so many ginormous piles of leaves on the ground before, either, as the glories of the season are beginning to wind down and we head into the cold and snow of winter, as people keep taking some perverse pleasure in reminding me is just around the corner.

Speaking….of driving through town, that is something of an experience around here, and not always a pleasant one. Wowza. Some days I feel like I’ve held my breath the whole way between home and where ever it is I’ve had to drive to. 

Thinking…about how ‘social media’ isn’t so much a good thing for the social life. It seems to have a role in hurting more relationships than helping sometimes. I’m learning to be a whole lot more ‘surface’ in what I post and staying out of a lot of conversations when at all possible. Then you get into the whole internet vs. ‘real life’ face time discussion that I don’t want to flesh out here. 

Logging out….of Facebook on my iPhone for a while. Part of that thinking up there. I am becoming convinced that, for all the good that comes from smart phones (maybe), they overall aren’t actually such a good thing for us in the long run. I’ve never seen something that I find so addicting as that stupid, stupid phone. I find myself scrolling and scrolling social media and checking in on the two games I play, and it just is NOT healthy in so many ways. SO much wasted time, energy, and emotion. I’m trying to use November to wean myself away from it a lot. That and it's really annoying to only see the tops of people's heads these days as everyone else seems to be just as addicted to the dumb phones. We are becoming a nation of phone zombies.

Reading…..a book called Time and Again by Jack Finney, which I did not realize until I looked up the link to share here just now as I write this is actually book one of two. Hmmm….. Well, I’m enjoying this one at the moment, and I’m about halfway through. I’m also reading Expository Listening by Ken Ramey, which I received from Truth for Life. I’ve probably mentioned this before, but if you are not listening to Alistair Begg on Truth for Life, you should be. :-)

Finding….that I am having a harder time sitting down to focus on reading than I’ve ever had in my life. I feel like I’ve developed adult onset ADD or something. I am sure it is directly related to my dumb smart phone. One more aspect to my love-hate relationship with the crazy thing. 

Writing….quite a few blog posts that I’m not quite ready to post in public yet. It’s frustrating. I have a lot on my mind, all of which it helps to write about, but none of which I believe is ready for the blog, if it ever will be. My private journal is getting lots of wear and tear lately. I may have to burn the thing sometime down the road, but it helps me to corral my thoughts to write about them and work through them.

Beginning….to research the area where we think we may be moving next summer. Another minor background stress, that not knowing for sure yet where we’re going next, but we’re starting to look at churches, housing, and schools in the area where we think we will be. Encouraging thing is, if we’re going where we think we will be going, there is a lot to be excited about in those areas.  

Feeling….the drain of missing having good friends to talk with face to face over lunch. We are only here for a year, and not having that camaraderie is so difficult. In fact, the last year and half has been one of the most difficult seasons of my life for various reasons, to be honest, and I’m feeling some of the strain of it, truth be told. My husband is wonderful at listening and talking me through things, but I’m sure he would appreciate it if I had some girl friends to share the burden of all my words. :-) Sometimes you just need your girl friends, you know? This moving for just a year is lonely, and I can see some areas where it’s quite difficult on my children, too, and that hurts.

Thankful….we have an excellent church to attend while we live here. It is a blessing.

Working on....memorizing the book of Colossians. I started this way back a year ago, then life got busy, my ADD kicked in and I let the project drop. I've picked it up again. I find the discipline of memorizing long passages of scripture to be very beneficial. It gets your mind engaged in a way that simply reading the passage once does not. This is one more reason I want to walk away from social media all-the-time connectivity, so I can free up my focusing ability to work on memorizing these passages. So, I'm working on finishing up chapter 1 this week.

Also thankful, beyond words….for Jesus. No matter how difficult or lonely or even confusing the path I’m walking today, He is with me, and I am never alone. Every promise in His word is true, and I can stand on every word. I’m so thankful for His Word, that I have a Bible I can read and study and learn to know Him. And I’m thankful for His discipline and for the mercy He shows His people as the Great Shepherd and Redeemer. 

And with that, I’ll sign off for now. Happy November!

Where I Am Right Now, Thoughts on Moving and Where We Are Planted This Year

Moving to a new community is always interesting, and each move brings with it challenges, joys, sorrows, and struggles. The community where we are planted for this year is no exception. It is interesting, challenging, but also has some good. One thing that’s added to the mix this year is that the city we live in, in the greater Cleveland area, is, on some measures, one of the most liberal cities in Ohio, maybe even the country. We in our family have been known to call it the USSR of (our city name). It’s definitely the most liberal school system we’ve ever encountered. It is also a totally IB-infused curriculum from elementary to high school throughout the entire school district. Those of you who love that curriculum, please don’t be offended or feel the need to convince me otherwise, I’m glad for those who like it, but that wasn’t actually a draw for us. I wouldn’t choose it for my kids if I’d had a choice. At least we really, really, really love our church, even though it’s kind of a drive to get to it several little cities over.

That said, there are some great things about this community and school system, IB and all. I’ll start with that before I get to my rather short point. First of all, this is probably the most diverse community we’ve ever lived in, and that is a really good thing. I love that my daughter is completely race-blind. She truly wants to befriend anyone that will be her friend, whether black, white, brown, or whatever, we are all descendants of Adam, created in God’s image. I love this for my kids. May their tribe increase. I also think it’s great that they get to meet people who aren't necessarily just like them and don’t think like them. I am very encouraged by the discussions we have at home as they work through what they believe and why they believe it and learn to embrace the faith as their own and also learn to respectfully discuss issues with people who hold very different beliefs. Our Sunday School class is studying the book of Daniel, and last week we discussed the balance between being resolute in our convictions and what we hold to be true, and know to be true, and respectful in how we seek to follow them and talk about them. I found it quite helpful in light of some things we face daily. 

Another thing I like about the schools here is that academically they are quite rigorous, and when I went to the elementary school open house, I liked some of the strategies they shared for how they are teaching math and reading and other things. Musically we could not ask for better education. Both of my boys have top-notch private lesson teachers. And the band totally rocks. 

That said, there is a feel here, for lack of a better word, a kind of smug sense of self-righteous superiority that pervades the atmosphere here that I find a little creepy, and it’s mostly from the IB stuff. First of all, people are NUTS about scores and tests and stuff. One of the first things high school parents ask when they meet me is, “What classes is your son taking?” And there is an underlying arrogance about whose kid is taking the hardest classes. It’s creepy.

Then, another thing that defines our experience here is that there is a group-think mentality I find off-putting, even as they stress characteristics like independence and learning to think critically. However, listening to my older boys talk when they come home from school, there’s a subtle subversiveness to the learning to think thing. It’s great when they learn to think ‘critically’ as long as it matches the teacher’s liberal bent, and as long as their reasoning sounds like good little communists socialists liberals globally aware IB students in the mold approved by the curriculum, but my very conservative, very Christian sons are finding that their contributions aren’t always what the teacher is looking for, and sometimes aren’t very welcome. They haven’t had any outright negativity, but they have been told, “Yes, well, we won’t be going there,” with certain discussion topics. 

Case in point, my high schooler’s text book for Honors English is The Bible As/In Literature. I wasn’t thrilled with that choice, but what I have been thrilled with is listening to the things my son has been telling me as he’s asked me questions and we’ve discussed things and as he’s been sharing in class. He said there is one boy who now asks him, “What do you think about that?” after certain discussions, and he’s able to open up the Bible and show him there is so much more to what they read than the curriculum line they are given in class, which definitely is subversive to our high view of the Bible. That’s been pretty neat to watch. I kind of feel like, if they choose a book like that for a high school class, then they invite the discussion. You use our holy book for your text, don’t get mad if a Christian kid goes deeper with it than you maybe intended. While the Bible is literature, and great literature at that, it is so much more than just literature, too, and if we’re really going to be tolerant, he has just as much right to share his insight as the atheist kids who are so antagonistic to his view. TRUE tolerance implies disagreement. So, all that said, I’m pretty excited to see God working in this situation and how my sons are learning to make a reasoned defense for what they believe. Even when they may not speak up in front of the class or directly to the teacher, other kids notice and they listen to them and even ask them. I’m also planning on giving him the book I’m reading just as soon as I finish it, which is Jesus Unmasked by Todd Friel. After being exposed to the discussions in his English class and the discussions we’ve had at home about those discussions, I’m very excited for him to read Todd Friel’s most excellent look at how all of the Old Testament points to Jesus, finding Jesus in the types and shadows of the Old Testament. The timing of that book coming out is spectacular for our family. My son will get to see how truly awesome the Bible is, how inspired and how much more its message is than what was discussed in class. I pray daily for my children in the midst of all this.

Which leads me on a little rabbit trail. What I see very much here in this community is the classic liberal redefining of tolerance. Tolerance today is not actually tolerance. To be ‘tolerant’ according to the common wisdom of our whacked out culture today means to be totally accepting of everything, and especially of everything that we might be prone to voice any disagreement about, if that makes sense. It means calling evil good and good evil. It means nothing is EVER wrong, unless it’s something that doesn’t mesh in lock-step with the prevailing secularist view. THAT is wrong and intolerant.  These days, calling something wrong is just about the biggest cultural sin you can commit. Problem is, it just doesn’t work. I’m supposed to be totally accepting of homosexuality or evolution, for example, but my view is taboo and ignorant. Tolerance only goes one way in the tolerance-not tolerance camp. TRUE tolerance, however, is acknowledging disagreement, but believing you don’t have to be disrespectful or go to war over the disagreement. TRUE tolerance allows for people to strongly hold their beliefs and convictions, strongly defend them, on all sides, and learn to coexist peacefully in spite of disagreement. That’s when true dialogue can happen, too. A truly tolerant person will not insist on everyone else changing everything they believe or going against their strongly held convictions just to suit them. However, that’s not the culture in which we find ourselves.

So, anyway, back to the point all this was leading up to, last week I went to the elementary school open house, and during the principal’s remarks at the end of the evening, she was discussing the new program they’ve implemented for recess. It used to be, she said, that you would have a group playing football, very competitive, which led to arguing, a group playing kick ball, also very competitive, and then everyone else. Well, now they’ve done away with the football and kickball, because the competitive nature of them was not good, in their opinion, and implemented these non-competitive games that can include everyone. No more bad competitiveness. And it really was presented as if the problem was that being competitive is a bad thing. So, we spend all day teaching these kids group-think, then we don’t ever let them think it’s ever okay to compete at all. We all have to get along, and we can’t ever compete. Being competitive on the recess field is BAD. I think that’s unwise. It’s not bad to be competitive, per se. What about teaching them to be competitive in a sportsmanlike way? Rather than making competitiveness an evil, why not teach how to do it well, and offer the non-competitive games, too, as an alternative for kids who don’t want the more competitive option?

I get that they are trying to crack down on bullying and trying to build team work and cooperation and diversity. Those are admirable goals. I just disagree about how to get there. Teaching the wrong view of tolerance isn’t it - that just breeds a whole new kind of bully, and neither is obliterating any semblance of competitiveness. There needs to be balance. Teach kids to compete as sportsmen, teach real tolerance - the balance between being resolute and respectful, and teach proper competition, and I think we’d have a better mix. Just going around chanting the IB characteristics all day doesn’t make them true, it just makes for a creepy kind of group-think, parrot environment. (Just ask my daughter who came home in tears on Friday because of the ‘mean girls’ (my term) at lunch. Those ‘IB learners’ weren’t acting very ‘open-minded’ or ‘caring’ toward the new girl. My mama bear instinct grizzled up a little as she told me about it and I had to swallow it and talk her through it wisely.)

When I got home from that open house and was telling my husband about all this, it suddenly occurred to me: “Maybe that’s why the high school football team is 1-3 so far this year.” Growing up in the SEC south, this whole being on the always losing team is a new experience for me, I must say. ;-) When you spend their whole elementary school years telling them competitiveness is a bad thing, don’t expect a winning high school team later. Just saying. 

At least the band rocks half-time. :-)

Finding My Song Again

I may have mentioned a time or two that our family moved this summer. Moved right out of my comfort zone into a new city, that is. We are a military family. We move often. I have gotten somewhat used to this, but you never really get used to moving, I don’t care how often you do it. At least, I don’t. Until I went to college, I lived in the same house in Florida since I was a year old. My parents still live there. 

Moving is listed among those major life change events, and there are certain stresses that go with that, even when you are prepared. We’ve been through several of those recently, what with my husband being away all of last year for Army school, us selling the house we really liked, the kids and I living in a small cavelike apartment while he was gone, then moving immediately when he got home. In fact, once he got ‘home’ the movers came and packed us up. We didn’t get much time to reconnect before we were facing the stress of a major move, not only moving house, but moving to a big city I had never even set foot in before we pulled up in front of the house we rented, sight unseen, ready to move in. I could go on, but suffice to say, it’s been a stressful summer, and it hit me harder than I anticipated. 

One of the reasons this move is harder than some is that we lived in Kentucky for four years and had to leave some close friends who I very much miss today, and we know we are only here for a year, so we will be doing this all again next summer, and mentally it’s really hard to settle in and want to connect with people when you know you won’t be here long. It’s a hard thing to ask your high school sophomore to leave the high school and friends he dearly loves, along with the marching band program that was such a big part of his last two years and all the awesomeness that went with that, knowing we’re going to uproot him again next summer. Poor guy is going to have to be the new kid again next year. But in spite of it all, he’s been attending band camp at his new school this week, and though it’s very different from what he’s used to, I think it is proving to be a good experience for him. He plays the trumpet, and there are 65 trumpets, out of 374 kids on the field! That 65 trumpets is almost as big as all the winds combined in his old school. Wowza. These schools are ginormous. My middle school son was ready to go, but now that he’s seen how HUGE his new middle school is, I think we’re all feeling a little bit antsy as we think about how daunting it feels to be starting there next week. My little daughter, who cried for MONTHS before we left Kentucky, bounced the whole way home from her school open house last night. She can’t wait to start school. I think one of the hardest things about moving is seeing the kids hurting, but it’s such a joy to watch them adjust, and adjust well. God is so kind to us. I really believe He has given them the fortitude they need for all this upheaval, and my aim is for our home to be a safe place in the midst of the storm.

We live in this quirky community just outside Cleveland, OH, that is very diverse and is the weirdest, most difficult place to drive in I’ve encountered yet. Whoever designed the intersections here had to have been high on something. At least, that’s what I’ve been known to say in my more frustrated moments. But, in the midst of having to take my oldest to band camp every day this week and various orientations and venturings out, I’m finally feeling a little bit more competent about driving here. At least I know how to find the schools now, and can get from one to the other. It was a bit iffy there for a while whether I’d ever be able to even leave my driveway. I hate to drive in a normal situation, and here it kind of terrifies me, but I’m coming along. All in all, it is going to be quite an interesting year. We’ve kind of entered bizarro world in a way. We were told that here the cool kids are in the band, and the football games, well, people pretty much come for the band. It’s a very music-centered community. 

Another minor thing I don’t think I’ll ever get used to, having grown up in Florida, is most places have no central AC. We haven’t really needed it most days, but there have been a few hot ones. Wowza. Of course, this means that we all have our windows open, and as the house next door’s windows are seriously only a narrow driveway’s width away, when my neighbor over there watches inane daytime TV all day long and keeps it turned up a little too loud, sometimes I can feel my brain melting. But she doesn’t do that every day. Thankfully. We live on the top two floors of this nifty, creaky, nooks-and-crannies old house, shared with the downstairs neighbor who has the bottom floor. Thankfully, again, she’s friendly and we sometimes go walking together. 

Then again, I hesitate to complain about the heat too much, because people seem to take a perverse joy in warning us just how much snow we can expect this winter. Yeah, that doesn’t make me feel any better about driving.

We have found a great church, one which I knew as soon as I heard that we were moving to Cleveland that I hoped we’d get to attend. I only wish we could have found a house a bit closer, but it’s totally worth the drive to hear such a feast of great Bible teaching and gospel-saturated worship. 

So, I say all that to say that I kind of hit a patch of the blues this summer. Moving is HARD, and as I keep saying, this one’s had its own peculiar challenges. Through it all, I’ve tried to keep positive, but those blues did hit even as I pushed through them. And in the midst of those blues, I lost my song. I still sang at church, because sometimes worship is singing through the blues and offering a sacrifice of praise, but at home and in the car, I lost my desire to sing. I just didn’t feel like it. 

Until today. Today, while driving somewhere, and feeling the most competent I’ve felt yet about driving here, a song came on my iPod, and I just had to sing along. We’ve been introduced to the music of Keith and Kristyn Getty at our new church, and I just had to sing when one of their praise songs came on in the car today. Then it occurred to me, I think the fog is finally lifting, and I have finally found my song again. Thank God, after the past two months of singing through the fog, I finally want to sing again, a song of worship to my King.

Aren’t you glad that we serve a risen Savior, Jesus Christ our Lord, our great High Priest, our Advocate who allows us into the very throne room of God. Aren’t you glad that even when the fog descends, He allows us to praise Him, because of what we KNOW, even when our feelings don’t seem to want to catch up. Hallelujah, what a Savior!

Psalm 40:3 

He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the LORD.

Psalm 96:1

Oh sing to the LORD a new song; sing to the LORD, all the earth!

Psalm 98:1

Oh sing to the LORD a new song, for he has done marvelous things! His right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation for him.

Status Report - July 2014

Blog status reports are usually written at the beginning of the month, but seeing as I seem to have dropped any semblance of regular blog posting for quite some time now, I figure halfway through July isn’t a bad time to pop in for a status report, since so much in my world has changed recently. So, this will be the July 2014 Status Report - ‘Just Moved’ version.

Sitting...in my new computer area off the kitchen in my new house in Ohio. Yes, we’ve moved again. Army life, you know. This time we’re only here for a year, so we get to do all this fun again next summer. Woo and hoo.

Reading….The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare. It's one I had heard of but never read before, but someone in a book group I belong to on Facebook mentioned reading it and loving it,  so I'm trying it. Like it so far. I also just finished a series by Terri Blackstock that I LOVED. (Last Light, Night Light, True Light, and Dawn's Light). I'm not usually all that fond of Christian fiction, but I really liked this series. I want to read more by that author.

Thankful....most of the unpacking is finished, and we actually got rid of a lot this time around. Goodwill and the half-price bookstore have seen a great deal of my husband over the past two weeks. I’m proud of him for letting go of so many books and things! This move was one of the most difficult yet, since we had the stuff I and the kids lived with last year in the cavelike apartment in Kentucky after we sold the house, the stuff that was in storage for a year after moving from that larger house to a small apartment, and the stuff my husband lived with in his ‘van down by the river’ for his year of Army-Baylor school in Texas all coming here together at once. But we’ve purged better this time than we ever have before, so next move should be a little easier, at least as far as ‘stuff’ goes.

Happy....to have my husband home again, even though that meant we had to uproot and move for a year. It is so right to be together as a family again. Last year was HARD for all of us. Glad it’s behind us. 

Sad, but excited...for my kids who will start new schools here in this city this fall. It’s going to be quite an adventure, that’s for sure, and I’m especially sensitive to how hard it is for my high school son to have to uproot not once, but twice during high school - this summer and next. But all three kids are facing this with remarkable grace. God has truly blessed us in how He is working in their lives, and it’s a joy to watch.

Out of my comfort zone.....with living in this city in the greater Cleveland area. I’m not a city girl at all, but with my husband doing a one year stint on loan from the Army to Cleveland Clinic, we didn’t want a huge commute for him, so we’re learning how to live the city life.  Driving makes me nervous. It’s not really that bad except for the crazy intersections and weird no turn signs. Seriously, there’s one intersection that says no right turn, no left turn, and straight is a confusing road to find. We laugh about that one all the time. “You can’t go left, you can’t go right, and there doesn’t seem to be a straight. Where do I GO???” And the honking. Seriously, people. Honking does not make the light change faster and it doesn’t make the car in front of me go faster, either. Give the guy time to move his foot from the brake to the gas pedal when the light turns. And my husband has introduced us to this thing called riding the train into the city. There’s a station within walking distance of our house. I don’t so much like it, but I’ll do it if he’s with me. And the garage behind our house? We joke that I may be stuck in the house all year because I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to back out of it. It’s a long, narrow driveway, and I’m not the best parker or backer. We’ve also decided our little city state here is a socialist state. If there’s a rule to be made, they’ve thought of it and made it. Don’t, Don’t, Don’t everywhere you look. Wowza. But there is a lot good, too. We live in the top half of this really cool old house, and our neighbor is a nice lady. Good to have a good neighbor if you have to share a creaky old house. This is the first time I’ve ever lived in a house with no central AC. I grew up in Florida, y’all.  But it hasn’t been all that bad. It’s only a year, and we plan on making the best of it, finding lots of neat things to do - the symphony is supposed to be one of the very best, museums, restaurants, shopping, and lots more. They say it snows a lot here in the winter. Oh boy.....

Listing....some of the hard things about moving:

• Getting over my culture shock and learning my way around
• Finding a new church. We’ve visited two, but we are pretty much in agreement about where we want to go, I think. When I first heard we were moving to Cleveland, there was one church I really wanted to go to, and now that we’ve visited another good church too, it’s really neat that as my husband and I talked and prayed, though both are good options, the one we really wanted to go to seems to be the one we both are sensing a real peace about going to, even though it’s quite a drive from our house. I have listened to the pastor there for years on podcast and learned so much, that it will be a joy to be able to attend this church for a year with our children.
• Losing sentimental things along the way. This is kind of a small thing in the grand scheme of things, but as we were emptying a dresser for my husband to use, I realized that a stack of cards I had kept that friends had sent after each miscarriage has gone missing. I know it’s just cards, but they have meaning to me, and I hate to lose them. I’m sure they were in that drawer, but I’m hoping maybe somewhere along the way I put them somewhere else and we will come across them. I don’t rehash those sad memories all the time, but those cards were special to me in the acknowledgement that the loss of those children and the grief we have over them is real and valid, and the kind words shared by my friends at those times are things I treasured.
• New things. I’ve never been very good with change. I’m getting better, but this one has been harder than some.

Thinking....this may end up being kind of a lonely year, but I want to be constructive with it and do some writing. We drove past a Panera today, and I reallly, really, really miss my special girl friends from Kentucky and our marathon lunches there. You know who you are, and you’re special ladies. I miss y’all, and I’m thankful we were in Kentucky at the same time. 

Thankful...for God’s amazing grace. I know that He is with us, wherever we can go. I know that He has placed our family together and placed us here for this season, and what I want most to do is seek to glorify Him and grow closer to Him throughout this year, and the years to come. And I’m thankful we do have a solid, gospel-preaching, Bible teaching church with which to join ourselves.