Before James Kramer was old enough to attend school, doctors said he couldn't be around other children, had no chance of succeeding in a classroom and would end up in jail or institutionalized.

I read this and fumed. What right, I wondered, did anybody have to make such a prediction about a child who hasn’t yet reached five years of age? If a boy were to grow up around others who held such ideas about him, he would surely end up a fulfilled prophesy.

As I progressed through the story I learned why this prognosis was made. According to his adoptive mother, James was born with cerebral disorganization, a disorder that "makes learning difficult." For the first three years of his life he also suffered the kind of abuse that saw him locked in a closet, eating off the floor. At last he was put into foster care, into a family with no other children in the house, a decision made with purpose.

Aggressive behavior developed in those three years with his mother resulted in isolation from other children while in foster care. This, coupled with his abusive imprinting, created a little boy who, by the time he was about four-and-a-half and adopted by a loving couple, still wasn’t potty trained and had hadn’t learned to speak.

Despite pressure from authorities and medical professionals not to adopt the boy, the Kramers did just that.

Here’s how the story stands:

Now twelve years old, James has been elected student body president of his public school. He gets along with everyone, is outgoing, is imaginative and comes up with fun ideas for the student body. He is always first to show up for meetings and contributes with enthusiasm. He is known as a friendly fellow who talks a blue streak. He swims and practices tae kwon do. He plans on running for student body president next year, when he reaches middle school. About that venture, he says, "This is important to me because it shows my character and personality, but it doesn't come easy — I have to work for it."

When they adopted this child, the Kramers felt strongly that what he needed was love and attention. He got plenty of both. I know it took hard work, determination and patience. And it paid off.

Clearly, his “cerebral disorganization” wasn’t enough to create a violent delinquent. Neither was the abuse he suffered, though if he’d undergone it for many more years, the story may have had a different ending. I know there are children who have been adopted out of Romania, having lived their infancy deprived of physical comfort and daily handling by adults. Many of these children have proven to be unable to connect with society and their adoptive families. But what the Kramer story reminds me is: there are no certainties, there can be a reason to hope, and no child should be relegated to a category that predetermines their destiny.

God bless people like the Kramers. They gave us, society, a functioning individual who in turn will love and create and imagine – who knows what? The man that he will grow to be and the things he will accomplish will ripple through the lives he touches and may eventually end in benefiting my life, or yours.

When my younger daughter was going through her phase of dangerous rebellion I saw clearly that she could be headed for a future of loss; it was easy for me to predict the worst and settle into that grieving thought, preparing myself for it. But there was some stubborn bit in me that refused to give her up. I worked at loving her and keeping doors open and cried buckets of tears and prayed millions of prayers. I never stepped away. It was the hardest time of my life.

She is married now and still has troubles, but as a mother she’s a little more centered and is moving toward becoming a strong woman. This is a far cry from the life of homeless prostitution I had predicted for her in my darkest moments.

What if I had given up? I did have to learn not to take her problems and bad choices into my own emotional barrel, but how glad I am that at the same time, I decided not to give up working on the relationship and hoping for better.
There are no cure-alls. But there is hope, and it doesn’t ever have to be given up.

 

The week before Easter my husband and I were on the island of Oahu. I’d tagged along on his business trip. On the north shore are these ponds where farmers raise shrimp and prawns that they sell out of trucks right there on the site.

I never eat shellfish because of this aversion I have to mercury, so I was pleased at the prospect of getting to enjoy mercury-free shrimp, which everyone said was incredibly delicious. On Monday evening we stopped and ate some farm fresh / cooked while you wait shrimp and prawns. OK, that was an experience to share with you all another time – the brains, the legs. Ugh. Once I figured out how to peel them and avoid sucking on the heads, I discovered the fish tasted all right, but I’ve had better food in my life.

The next day I was sick and I’ve been sick ever since. I’m posting a link to an essay I wrote about a chronic viral condition I fight with, so I don’t have to go into the details here. The day after eating that shrimp I was in a full-on flare up and for the last three days I’ve felt worse than I’ve been in years. The best I can figure is that whatever non-natural food they feed the leggy, antennae-y things, and which would be in their tissues, set up an inflammatory condition that I’m fighting to overcome.

I don’t know why I’m sharing this except for the fact that my brain isn’t focused enough to write anything important. And I guess it’s part of jumping into the water. I’m hoping someone will be at the steps with a towel for me.

I’m crossing my fingers that tomorrow I won’t hurt so badly all over and my brain will come back. And that I find something to laugh at!

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I eat oatmeal for breakfast at around ten or ten-thirty in the morning. Sounds late, I know, but I go hiking or walking first thing in the morning and my body adjusted years ago to this kind of late breakfast. The routine is: one or two hours of exercise, depending on which trail I hike, then house cleaning on three mornings, followed by breakfast and a shower. I always turn on one of the movie channels while I munch through my oatmeal. This takes a while because I add lots of goodies to it.

Weekends are usually an exception to this routine, but when my husband isn’t home, Saturday is pretty much like any other weekday. This Saturday morning I ate my oatmeal in front of The Sundance Channel and watched the first half of Catching On, a documentary about modern-day hobos – train hoppers. (I’d seen the second half a previous morning.)

These are not old men with nothing better to do in the waning years of their lives. They are young folks who have dropped out of college to roam the country. Most of them find places to settle down for a few months at a time before hitting the rails again. One couple met in a soup kitchen and ended up settling into what they call “The Straights” to have a baby. The story of their transformation from a mobile couple with a only bagful of pennies to their name, to a family living on stationary ground and paying rent left me wanting more – it was too shortly told.

Another fellow caught my attention. I don’t know his age – he looked to be in his early thirties – and he’s been living in the forest in a squatter’s hut he erected seven years ago. I imagine most of the items he’s got – bed, lazy-boy, carpet, tea pot – he’s managed to scrounge. He said that he’d built the hut out of reclaimed materials. He lives in poverty, that goes without saying, but has shelves of food. He is not an emaciated man by any means. Which brings up the question for me: where does he get the money to buy the food and soymilk he eats? I’m not making any judgments. Maybe he worked in his younger years and saved up money. Maybe he rides to places where he works temporarily. But somehow, I doubt it. Most of these youthful riders referred to “checks” they get once a month. You guess where the checks come from. OK, that’s a whole different discussion: how our tax dollars get used.

What interested me more was this man’s perspective on life. He’d spent five years working with a group who called themselves The Hunters’ Sabotage Group and they worked tirelessly in the Mojave desert and other places in California, as well as Montana, to prevent hunters taking “trophies.” He admitted that they were never successful in their efforts, but he sincerely wants to make a change. He wants to be one who makes a difference.

I just can’t figure out how he’s going to do it from his hut in the forest.

I empathize with his desire to be quiet and at peace with his surroundings; to have the freedom to go and do what he wants when he wants to do it. Who wouldn’t? But the way I see it, if he’s really serious about making a change he’s going to have to get back into society where the problems are and get his hands dirty. Climbing rocks and blowing horns at Big Horn rams just isn’t the way to accomplish anything lasting.

Being committed to a cause is a commendable trait. But I don’t see it doing him or society any good unless he’s willing to sacrifice his poverty and free lifestyle to do some serious work for it.

 

Who would have thought a British High Court judge would have a sense of play about his job? His name is Peter Smith and he’s the judge who passed down the ruling in the plagiarism case against Dan Brown, the author of The Da Vinci Code.

I haven’t read the book and had no idea its author was accused, and acquitted, of kiping someone else’s idea. I understand part of the plot involves a secret code that reveals an ancient conspiracy.

I doubt the court proceedings were playful, but the judge had some fun with his written ruling. Within the text of the seventy-one page document was hidden a code, planted there by the judge who scattered italicized letters throughout.

It took a month before anyone noticed it, but a mere day of puzzling before it was cracked. And what was this secret message, hidden by a judge? I’ll tell you:

“Jackie Fischer, who are you? Dreadnaught.”

It seems Jackie Fischer was a Royal Navy admiral who developed the idea for HMS Dreadnaught, an early twentieth century battleship. The judge happened to know of an historic event that occurred exactly one hundred years to the day of the start of the Brown trial. I presume it involved the above mentioned admiral and perhaps his battleship. The judge decided to have some fun and memorialize the event in a unique way.

I’ll bet this judge would make a good manager. He reminds me of my husband who, while taking his job seriously enough to excel in his profession, loves to have fun with his work and employees. They do all kinds of nutty things and get miracles accomplished along the way.

Sadly, the industry he works in is changing and his freedoms to interact and maintain fun relationships with his workers are being curtailed, to the determent of everyone and everything except the bottom line. When life becomes too serious the quality of productivity suffers – not just in my husband’s corporate world, but in my personal life, as well.

I love this High Court Judge who found some fun to be had and snatched it. All right, so he also gave a little history lesson, who cares? Did he chuckle under his breath as he highlighted and italicized each of the letters in his code? Did he go home and tell his wife about it over dinner and share a good laugh with her? Did they wonder together when someone would catch on? Maybe not. Maybe he held it close to his vest in stereotypical British manner and put it out of his mind in favor of more pressing matters.

But it’s go me thinking. What keeps me from finding some fun to have every day? I know how much better I work when a little bit of playfulness infuses my day. However, the realty of life is that there are days – sometimes days upon days – when I feel lousy and depressed, or sick. I wonder if there’s a way to learn how not to take that darkness so seriously, to embed my own code within it – a riddle that will put things into perspective and bring back the lightness and color and joy without much delay. Is it possible to find something to enjoy each day of my life?

 

The city where I live has been rated for many years the safest city of its size in the United States. Which isn’t to say we don’t have crime. It’s here, but generally not of the newsworthy variety – it’s the violent crime we have little of. But I live in Southern California near Los Angeles, so reports of all kinds of crime are a daily fare in the papers and news reports.

It’s a sad commentary that I read with little astonishment a news article about a man who beat up his wife and child, then killed himself. He’d brought his family to California from Virginia a month ago, and they were renting a house in a neighboring community. I hardly batted an eye at the report of the violence and death, as horrible as it was.

Here’s what stopped me in my tracks:

Several other neighbors said they had not talked to the couple and did not know what they looked like. They also didn't know what had brought them to California.

Some things can’t be avoided. Perhaps if neighbors had become friends, and this family had found an anchor in the community they would be enjoying dinner together right now. Perhaps not. But what would it have taken for a neighbor to bring over some cookies or just stop in for a chat and let them know they were welcomed, that they weren’t alone on the block?

Now, having asked that, I blush with shame remembering how many years it was before I met the woman who moved in across the street from us. I have a nice, friendly relationship with her now, but if she’d been killed a month, or a year after she’d moved in I could not have told authorities a single thing about her, even given them a description.

When we moved into this house in 1979 I quickly took the initiative and met my immediate neighbors – we only have one next-door neighbor since we live on a corner. Within a month I knew five families. Most of them have never moved, but the house across the street has been occupied by three different owners since we came to live here. And I paid no attention when it most recently changed hands.

What happened to me in those years when my newest neighbor moved in across the street? What became of my friendly, hospitable self? Why in the world did I never even feel curiosity about her? Curiosity isn’t the most noble reason to get to know a neighbor, but at least it would have opened the door and allowed a relationship to begin. Where had I disappeared to, and why was I so engrossed in my own little life and world that opening myself up to a stranger – a neighbor – never crossed my mind?

The truth is, during those years a lot was happening in my life. If I want to, I can find an excuse. I don’t really want to do that, though. Neither do I want to beat myself up (as my husband warns me against doing) over something already done. What I want to do is make a promise to myself that a neighbor will never again come into my life without receiving a welcome and an open hand from me. It’s a mindset of looking outward instead of inward, of wishing to be involved in something other than my own problems and work. It takes some effort for me to do this – I’m not naturally an outgoing person. It took work and deliberation twenty-seven years ago. I think if I dig deep enough I can reach that deliberation again.

 

The final pilgrimage

By the time he was twenty-one, he’d purchased a $500,000.00 condominium and was earning $80,000.000 per year. He gave it all up and went to work as a campus missionary at the local college, dependant on charity and fundraising for his rent and day-to-day needs.

He felt the call to the priesthood tugging at him, but didn’t especially like the uncomfortable necessity of asking others for money, or missionary work. The last thing he wanted to do was go to Bolivia and work in a mission. But he went anyway.

He discovered poverty beyond his imagination. Whatever discomforts he felt asking for financial support while standing in a clean, sparkling church were buried deep beneath the initial repulsion of odors that hung heavy in the communal sleeping quarters, and the half-clean dishes he was offered for his food.

He shared in lives circumscribed by the labor of working the land with hand tools, of hoeing furrows out of hard earth, of planting seeds one by one with the hope of a harvest plentiful enough to feed the family. Lives lived in mud floor huts and dependant solely on successful crops and rust-laden drinking water, gathered from rainfall collected in corrugated tin and drained into stagnant wells. Lives of hardship and need. Lives of joy, of song, of smiles, of generosity, of hearts open to a stranger. Lives of love.

He learned about going to a place as a teacher, but ending up the one receiving the lessons. He experienced the joy of finding kinship and loving friendship in a place beyond language. The emotion that came from being surrounded by people who knew him little, yet had chosen to love him. The wonder of being accepted and included despite his lack of Spanish, of being offered more food from the hands of those with none to spare. The emotion arising from being in the center of a crowd insisting he tell them when he would return, in spite of the fact that he could think of nothing he had given them.

His lifestyle had already undergone a radical shift – this he accepted without argument. The thought of the paths his spirit must journey struck him dumb with fear, but the needy had spoken, had set forth the example; his heart was branded with the hot iron of their poverty and love. He would be a missionary priest.

And I wept with memory. As a teenager I had spent a week in Mexico working with children in a poverty-stricken village. After the initial shock at the living conditions, their acceptance and outpouring of love overshadowed everything else. I never got over the amazement of those children hugging us, holding our hands, clamoring to sit on laps. And their parents offered all they had to share, begging us to accept their food. They labored hard and with great patience to converse with us, who did not know their language. Like the young man, we went to minister to them, but in many ways they did most of the work, meeting us more than halfway. And when it was time for us to leave, they begged us to stay with them.

It wasn’t because we were special, it was because this openness of heart defined who they were.

I don’t know what it is that makes such people as those Mexicans and the Bolivians such open, loving and generous folks. Is it living in poverty uncompared against riches, so there is no sense of lack of entitlement? Is it living in common need that draws them into a community of sharing, which extends beyond the geography of their village? There are so many questions I know I can never touch on them all.

On our final drive through the Mexican desert the sun slipped into the western horizon, and a full moon rose opposite. A moon so big it dwarfed the foothills at its feet, so brightly yellow it illuminated the scrub and cast deep shadows. To this day I remember that moon as an icon, a symbol of the large, bright hearts that brought me to my knees in humility as they loved me beyond question even though they never got the chance to find out who I was. I need to live more often with this memory and let it guide my own interactions with those who enter my life.

 

A continuation of yesterday’s thoughts.

The priest and college student sat together in the common room of the fraternity house. It was there the clergyman put a challenge to the seeker: carry a cross twenty-two miles to a church in the neighboring town. The intent was for the young man to experience some of the “mystery of the Cross” in his quest for the answer to his question of whether or not to join the priesthood.

With hammer, chisel, and bolts he and his fraternity brothers constructed an eighty pound cross. On a Friday morning, accompanied by three friends and the priest, this out of shape college student set out carrying his life-sized crucifix, the crossbeam anchored firmly against his right shoulder. He only made seven miles the first day, walking until well after dark. He reached the church the next evening.

He discovered he had a spirit within him whose strength had as yet been unmeasured. A spirit that he learned could infuse his physical body – could become muscle and bone and movement. A spirit that could overtake him and carry him beyond his physical limits.

He became bonded in the unity of brotherhood by drawing emotional strength from the friends who walked alongside him, who lifted the cross from his shoulder when he needed to rest, who supported the weight of the burden to ease his journey those final few miles after dark, who prayed for him continually. He was born into a fellowship of suffering and support in those hours of listening through his pain to their prayers and words of encouragement, and sharing in their loving sacrifice of staying by his side and watching over him.

The end result was a leading away from the priesthood and a decision to remain among his brethren, serving with them at the college in their youth ministry.

I was put off by the idea of carrying a cross. To me, such things have always played like theatrics and rub against my grain. But I got drawn in as the drama shifted away from the young man seeking oneness with the mystery, and moved in a different direction. I saw a group of men expending all their physical, emotional and spiritual energy to see that one of them might accomplish what seemed impossible. Several times the friends confessed to the camera that they didn’t think the goal could be reached, yet they never attempted to dissuade the pilgrim – they never shared their doubts with him; instead, they gave all they had as their contribution to his success.

And understanding his need, the young man accepted their gifts of support, drinking in the strength they offered him and using it up. Without them, it would have been an impossibility for him to carry that heavy, unbalanced weight such a distance in two days.

The lesson here for me is about what can be accomplished when loving support combines with determination of spirit. I saw an example of what can happen when I choose to walk alongside another and dream their dream with them, refusing to share a negative thought and willingly make sacrifices to see them one step further.

This brotherhood / sisterhood of love without limits holds so many possibilities, if I can only be courageous enough to enter into it.

 

Yesterday, in a fit of restlessness and depression, I turned on the TV for some company. I happened upon the rerunning of an A&E series called God or the Girl, about four young men ranging in age from about 22 to 28, who were battling through deciding whether or not to enter the priesthood. I am not a Roman Catholic so had no particular interest in the program, but something about it intrigued me, and I watched the whole thing.

Three of the men went on unique pilgrimages as part of their search for an answer, and it was those journeys that held such great interest for me, and that ended up speaking to me.

One of the young men had been putting off making a final decision for ten years. By his own admission, the thing that drew him to the priesthood was the respect and deference paid to those men wearing a collar. For so many years he’d been longing to be “special.” To be just a little above average and to stand out as a man of importance. This he wanted, and it seemed the priesthood could offer it, along with the opportunity to serve God and the Church, which was what he wanted to do. The problem was, he didn’t really want to be a priest and give up a future that might hold a wife and family.

Before making his final choice, he was compelled to go to a Spiritual Center near Niagara Falls, a two hundred mile trek from his college residence. He closed the door to his room and set off with noting but the clothes on his back and a small backpack containing a jacket and a few extra items for cold, rainy conditions.

With no money or transportation, he set out to see how God would provide and care for him. He discovered the generous hearts of strangers. There was the restaurant owner who fed him, then allowed him to work off his debt by cleaning, scrubbing, washing windows, and clearing ashtrays. The cashier in another business who looked up and wrote down the phone number for the town’s bus station, offered him her cell phone, and handed him fifteen dollars. The woman who, with her husband, drove the young man the eight miles to the bus station. They dropped him off with a share of their own traveling food, a note of encouragement and twenty dollars.

With eighty cents more than he needed for a bus ticket to his destination, and after walking for a day and sleeping overnight on benches, he had been provided with a ride for the remaining long journey to the place of beauty and refuge he was seeking – to the place he expected to find guidance. But the answer had been given to him on the journey.

After this experience of being taken care of by strangers, he decided he wanted to serve from among them. The need to be special, to be set apart, was driven from him – the people he’d encountered had shown him that he was already important, and worth caring about. This was the kind of caring he wanted to replicate and pass on to others as a lay minister.

Now, I have to admit, the cynical part of me was saying, “Well, yea, here’s this pretty clean cut fellow, followed by a TV camera. I doubt any of these people felt threatened or frightened by him. If he’d been on his own, would he have received the same kind attention?” Who knows. And in the end, it doesn’t matter. What he experienced was exactly what was needed to guide him in the direction God intended him to go, and to teach him what he needed to learn. Everything gets used – in his life and in mine. What matters for me, as it did for him, is to pay attention and be willing to follow the path, then look forward to what the future holds.

No matter how many benches, of whatever type, I may have to sleep on over the course of my life, I can have faith that God will watch over and care for me. Because, just as I am, I am significant.

 

My husband and I enjoy taking a certain weekend drive. It’s an hour’s ride through beautiful canyons to a small agricultural town tucked in a green valley. At the quietest end of this town there is a hiking/biking trail that extends for miles, adjacent to the highway. The trail is a maintained dirt path, separated from the road by a split rail fence. Occasionally, an intersecting road crosses both the highway and the trail, and this has lead to a problem for some of those who enjoy the shaded path. A blind woman was nearly hit by a car in one intersection, partly because she had no way of knowing that the trail had changed to roadway. In the absence of curbs, neither a blind person using a cane, nor a seeing-eye dog knows to stop for possible traffic.

This woman happened to be friends with a family with an enterprising high school boy. He had an interest in the blind and their special needs, having been involved for many years in raising guide puppies with his parents and younger sister. This boy made good use of the internet and his initiative, and he used up a generous portion of persistence in wading through governmental red tape. After eighteen months he was finally able to corral a group of volunteers to install rubber strips on the trail, at the intersections. These specially made strips are “curbs” that guide dogs and the blind using canes recognize as warnings to stop and wait for traffic.

This reminded me of something I’d forgotten for thirty years. When I was in high school I had been given the job of reading to a blind boy. I did this for a semester, meeting him after school and reading his text books to him. Now, I can remember him – his dark hair – often greasy, his slightly crooked body, pimply face and pale, colorless eyes. I remember how he used his long fingers to fold his cane, how he separated the sections one at a time, stretching the elastic band running through the hollow interior. Once disjointed, the cane’s short sections could be folded against each other, making a bundle easily stowed away.

Then, when he was ready to leave, he’d give that little bundle the slightest shake and it would unfold itself like a multi-jointed preying mantis reaching for a fly. The only thing my friend’s dexterous fingers had to do was make sure each section was properly mated, and he was ready to tap his way forward. All this was accomplished in a movement as smooth and seamless as the one I used to spoon cereal into my mouth.

He was a nice boy, but a reluctant student and often enough he would simply not be interested in listening to his studies. On those days we’d sit in the empty classroom and talk. This far into the future I can’t remember for the life of me what we talked about, or even what his name was. At some point in time he quit showing up, and that was the end of my stint as a reader.

The memory got delegated to some dark, abandoned graveyard in my brain and for three decades I’ve lived happily, never knowing that I had this rich experience in my history. I wonder how many other gems of life are hiding in my head, and if they will rise to the surface some day, or stay hidden in their neuron graves. What other mysteries do those grey folds hold?


 

There’s a man living in our small community who has served as the president of the board of directors for our local Education Foundation. The volunteer work he’s done has greatly expanded the scope and influence of this organization that improves our public schools.

Though his work here is important, it’s the journey that brought him to this place that fascinates me.

He had a lucrative New York business involving computer software and Wall Street brokers, which he sold, enabling him to move from New Jersey to California with his wife and two children, for an early retirement. Life was to begin anew for them.

His plans for fun and relaxation quickly degenerated into mindless hours watching television, so he started a new business and commuted between California and New York, focused once again on building success and making money.

Back on the fast track and feeling like a fully functioning American male, he went to work on September 11, 2001. Later that morning his eighty-fourth floor office would no longer be overlooking the grand city of New York; it would be located at a place newly named Ground Zero. When the second of the planes crashed into the South Tower, incinerating his office, he was already in the stairwell, but sixty of his co-workers were lost.

He returned home to our town, to start over yet again, with a new focus on the priorities of life. No longer was it important to make money, or live the easy life of leisure and golf. Like most, if not all, survivors of that awful day, he discovered the higher value of making a difference. And once that intent had been set, the opportunity came along.

That difference may seem small in the grand scheme of things; we are, after all, a fairly small community with a small school district. But he gave his heart and time to the task that was at hand, and he gave it his all. For some families what he’s done will amount to a life-changing difference.

It makes me wonder: what kind of difference will I ever make? Is there a place of work God is preparing for me, and preparing me for, that lies in my future? Will it take a “Twin Tower” incident to lead me there?

Whatever opportunity for making a difference awaits me, it has to begin with my intent to give, and a heart willing to take the risks and do the work. This I have always believed: if my intention and heart are set, God will eventually bring to me the job that needs doing.

The first step is gathering the courage to commit today to saying “yes” to the unknown.

 

Yesterday was the anniversary of Adolph Hitler’s birthday (forgettable), and of the Columbine school shooting (unforgettable). It was also nearly the day scores of students and faculty at a Kansas high school were thrust into eternity. Thanks to a woman who reported something she read on a MySpace.com site, the tragedy was averted.

It is incredibly difficult to fathom that five boys could plot and arm themselves for such a thing. The primary targets were chosen and listed. Details, such as disabling the security cameras, were worked out. The weapons and ammunition were amassed. They only awaited the day. They walked in the footsteps of the Colorado teens they intended to emulate.

And who are these boys? Are they hoodlums who have been tormenting and terrorizing other students? I don’t know about all of them, but one is said to be the class clown. In trouble with teachers often, but making everybody laugh on the side, perhaps as a defense against the daily bullying and teasing he suffered. And all of the boys played those blood and guts, gore and violence video games.

There seems to be a familiar thread running through the lives of several of the high school shooters that have sprouted in recent years: a fondness for violent games and literature, and holding the unfortunate position of bull’s-eye for the taunting darts of schoolmates. I’ve seen first hand what bullying can do to a child. My daughter was teased unmercifully at her private Christian school. I watched as she drew into herself and began the process of disconnecting with her family. I was in the fortunate position to take on the job of teacher and social coordinator and so had the opportunity to homeschool and see her bloom and open her soul to life, unthreatened. She gained confidence and the courage to step out into her world. She is now a stage performer with the guts for risk taking I would have never predicted, back when she was in school.

What if I’d had to work full-time? I’d have found another way out for her. Our family was anchored in relationship and involvement; a solution would have been found by us, together.

I want to scream at the parents to get involved in their kids’ lives and be a FAMILY playing and spending time together. I want to wake up the school kids who think it’s cool to mock and belittle others. I want to burn the video games that make murder fun and inconsequential. There are a million things I want to rant about. None of this has to happen. It is all avoidable.

Two ingredients are missing that create a recipe for mass murder by teens. They are missing in our homes, they are missing in the schools, they are missing in society: Unconditional Love and Respect. We are all made in the image of our Creator. What would it be like if we all learned to value that image in everyone – even our children – and to nurture it? Would we save these youngsters from becoming victims or assailants? Could we put an end to the waste?



 

I read a news article today about car accidents. Here’s what causes eight out of ten of them:

Looking away from the road
Reaching to put in a CD
Reading emails
Talking on the cell phone and/ or eating
Driving while drowsy
Reading the newspaper
Applying makeup
Reaching for an object in the floor

Is there any surprise here? And believe it or not, it required a study to come to this conclusion. A study using video.

Researchers reviewed thousands of hours of video and data from sensor monitors linked to more than 200 drivers, and pinpointed examples of what keeps drivers from paying close attention to the road.

Video footage shows four different angles of the driver — the face, a view of the steering wheel and instrument panel, and front and rear views of the vehicle — and offers a look at the moments before a crash.

What I’d like to know is, who are these people, and what is the incentive for them to allow their faces and speedometer to be watched every moment they are in their cars? You couldn’t pay me enough.

Do I want some stranger watching me bawl my eyes out as I contemplate my failures? Do I want to invite them to gaze at me while I sing “Karma Chameleon” along with the radio? How do I feel about someone looking in on an argument? Maybe they can read lips. Lots of private stuff happens in my car, in the driver’s seat. And sometimes I reach for a moving object on the floor. I certainly don’t want anyone seeing that!

But I have to say, I feel so much safer knowing that there are experts out there watching hundreds of drivers so they can tell me that driving with my knees while eating a bowl of cereal may cause an accident.

 

For two glorious days the sun has been shining. And it’s been wonderfully warm. How lucky am I to have the time to take a magazine outside and lie in the sun in the middle of the day? Don’t hate me.

If I believed in reincarnation, I would think I’d been a reptile in a former life. The sun is healing to me and I thrive on the energy it infuses. After I’d been back in the house for a while I happened to smell my arm. Not my arm pit, mind you. This arm of mine smelled like the sun. It turns out this is a unique fragrance. Not like grass, but with a green earthiness to it. Not like chlorine, but reminiscent of that just-out-of-the-pool freshness. There’s the tiniest hint of drying laundry and something else I haven't yet found a name for.

I wonder if my pores just opened their mouths to the warmth and swallowed the sun, then closed up to hold on to it for a while. I hope it hangs around. Tomorrow is supposed to be mostly cloudy, and rain on Saturday. Bummer.