Why my favorite holiday shall, henceforth, be Presidents Day - or - The one where I get all cynical

I have grown weary of the emotional baggage that has become an intrinsic part of nearly every holiday we observe. I have decided therefore, that from this day forward my favorite holiday shall be Presidents Day. Ten reasons for selecting Presidents Day as my holiday of choice are as follows (in no particular order):

1.  No obligatory email forwards, facebook posts or blogs in which I must  express due honor, respect and thankfulness. No one will consider me a cold hearted, callous degenerate if I fail to wax sentimental over our dear, departed President Washington.

2. No feeling like a complete failure when I neglect to send out my Presidents Day cards...again.

3. No traditional Presidents Day feast or goodies to interfere with my Hawaii weight goal.

4. No gift buying stress.

5. No inner struggle to remain grounded and keep my focus on the "true meaning" of the holiday or soul searching to determine why I really celebrate and what Presidents Day really means to me.

6. No  Presidents Day parties. 

7. No expectation that I share Presidents Day greetings with everyone I encounter.

8. No annoying earworm Presidents Day songs played on the radio.

9. No decorating or storing decorations.

10. No controversy.

The Healing Field

We took the whole family, including our visiting nephew, out yesterday morning to join a group of volunteers from Wal*Mart in helping to take down the Healing Field Flag Memorial in Prescott Valley. I hadn't even seen it until a couple of days ago, but I was quite impressed. It was a grass field out at the civic center filled with 1,100 American flags.

It was absolutely beautiful. To each flag several cards were attached, each one containing the name and story of a person who lost their life in the terrorist attacks of 9/11/2001. Our first task was to go through and remove and collect the cards from the flags. As we went along, my husband clipped zip ties as I kept the cards in order. I began to realize that these stacks of cards that I was holding represented real people, people who died on that terrible day. As this realization came over me, I decided to look down at the top card in my hand and I read a brief synopsis of the life of one man and how that life came to an end. The story itself wasn't what got me, any one of the thousands of stories on those cards would have had the same effect. I lost it. Not sobbing in a heap on the ground lost it, but the tears just started quietly streaming. Completely surrounded by flags, I looked around at the touching display and remembered the horror of that day. I also recalled how our nation pulled together in the days and weeks that followed. Much of that sense of camaraderie and common purpose has been lost in the years since, but people still pull together on the anniversary of that day to produce some truly touching memorials. We didn't know the vast majority of the people we were working with yesterday, but we all worked together with a common purpose. We all were careful to treat the flags and the cards with respect. And we all gathered around for a group photo before the last flag came down. The job that organizers estimated would take 3 1/2 - 4 hours was completed in an hour and a half.

We gathered our family and headed for our van where we discussed the events of the morning with the kids on our way to breakfast. One thing that we all realized was how very different the experience was from what we expected. We all just thought we'd go out, do a job and be done with it. But we all were both moved and exhilarated by the mornings work. It was so much more than just a job that needed to be done. None of the kids remember the day of the attacks, the oldest was only five at the time. To them, it's just an event in our nation's history. But they got to feel a little of the spirit that came over the nation in the aftermath of the attacks. We weren't a divided people in those days. We weren't Republican and Democrat, Christian, Jew, Muslim, etc. We weren't people of different skin tones, different beliefs, different values. We were just Americans. We were a nation of people who had all been hurt by outsiders who hate us simply because of who we are as a nation. What a shame, that it took such a horrific act of hatred to make us see how strong we can be when we pull together. How glad I am that we can still recapture a little bit of that spirit each year as we commemorate that day. Next year, organizers of the Healing Field hope to put out 3,000 flags. You can bet this family will be on hand to be a part of it.

Thankfulness:Family

I wasn't always so thankful for my little brother. When we were kids, I was pretty well convinced that his only purpose in life was to annoy and disgust me. I'm fairly ashamed of my attitude toward him back then, but I doubt it's very unusual for a young girl to view her little brother that way. I do understand my moms frustration, though, as my girls tend to treat each other in much the same way that I treated my brother. Mother's curse, I guess!

Wade had some struggles in grade school and I had trouble understanding his need for extra time and attention. As we got older, my folks found ways to help me get more involved in understanding him and he and I found some common interests to connect us. When the boy whom the experts had told my parents would likely never graduate high school managed to graduate from the University of Southern California with honors, I flew across the country, eight months pregnant, to be there. There was no way I was going to miss that moment in the life of the little brother that I had come to respect and admire...and be proud of.

My little brother never was a typical boy, always more interested in his stories than in any sports.  The imagination that kept him entertained also set him apart. While he was always well liked, he was often left alone with that imagination as many people were simply unsure of how to join him in his world. It's that same imagination, as well as a refusal to mold himself to what society might expect of him, that makes him extremely popular with kids today, especially his nieces and nephew.  With a Master's degree in education, he puts his talents to use teaching at a university in South Korea as well as pursuing numerous creative endeavors in writing, making movies, creating teaching curriculum, story tellers clubs, etc. He has so many interests and pursuits I have a hard time keeping up with everything he's doing. 

I am definitely thankful for a brother who marches to the beat of a different drummer, loves his family devotedly, is an extremely popular uncle to my kids and never backs away from something that he believes in. But more than that, I'm thankful that God opened my eyes to see the amazing person that Wade really is.

Thankfulness:Family

Next up on my list of family that I'm ever so thankful for...My Sister

Heather was just fifteen months old when I took my place as her baby sister. She was my very first best friend and I still count her as best of the best. One of the wonderful things about moving back near my parents is that we are also very near to my sisters family and can reach their house in just an hour and a half. Most of my earliest memories include my sister and a good number of them involve us getting into some sort of mischief. On most of those occasions I don't even know which ideas were initiated by whom, there was always just this unspoken, common assent. We always thought alike. On several occasions in high school, we got dressed for school and headed out the door without ever really looking at each other, neither of us being morning people, only to see each other later in the day and discover that we had dressed alike. We were often asked "Don't you guys ever fight?", a question that often puzzled me. Why would I fight (more than occasionally) with a sister as amazing as Heather? I was always so proud of my sister and always looked up to her. I was surprised once, when we were young adults and she was demonstrating a new skill for me, when she asked me "Aren't you proud of me?". I always wanted my big sister to be proud of me, but it never occurred to me that it wasn't a complete given that I was proud of everything she did. When my husband and I moved away from San Diego, one of the hardest things I had to do was to leave my sister and her five week old daughter behind. For some time after that, it wasn't unusual for me to wake up crying after a nightmare that involved me losing my sister somehow. When I found myself struggling to forge new friendships in our new home, Heather was the one I frequently reached out to for comfort. She patiently and lovingly encouraged me through many tearful phone calls in those days. I thank God for putting Heather and I in a family together and blessing us with a relationship that continues to delight me. I'm also super thankful for the extended family that Heather has brought into my life. Her husband, Mike, who genuinely loves his wife's family and fits right in with us. And three terrific kids that are an absolute delight to their doting aunt.

Thank you, Lord, for this beautiful family and for allowing me the pleasure of having them in my life!

Thankfulness:Family

So, this morning's post was supposed to have been posted last night, but I fell asleep. So the one that I said was for "tomorrow" I'm actually posting now...then I'll post another one tomorrow :)

I cannot begin to express how thankful I am for... My Parents.

I could not have custom designed better parents for myself. They are the perfect mix of gentle but firm, generous without spoiling, loving and compassionate but not afraid to discipline. They reared my siblings and me in the light of God's love. We were taken, not dragged, to church. We were included in activities that taught us to socialize comfortably with people of all ages. They taught us respect for our elders and caring and compassion for little tykes. As the family of a commercial airline pilot, we were blessed with many opportunities for travel that was fascinating, relaxing, educational and just downright fun. Looking back on my childhood, the thing that stands out in my memory most prominently is the laughter. We were always a family ready to laugh and have fun. As a teenager, I would often choose to pass up activities with my peers in favor of activities with my family. For a pretty shy kid, they were the people I was most comfortable with and whose company I often preferred. My parents created a home atmosphere where we kids felt safe, secure and loved. I am so thankful for the parents that they were to me growing up, and so thankful that they are both a continuing presence in my life. After moving to the other side of the country as a young newlywed and moving back to the same side of the country as a mother of three, it has been a tremendous blessing the past several years to live within an hours drive of them. I could go on....and on and on and on, about how great my parents are. For now, though, I think I've made a pretty good case that I have the best parents in the world. As a mom, I look to them as my ideal model for what a good parent should be.


Proverbs 1:8 Hear, my son, your father's instruction, and forsake not your mother's teaching,
9 for they are a graceful garland for your head and pendants for your neck.

Thankfulness

It has recently occurred to me that I have fallen out of the habit of being thankful for the blessings in my life. When we fail to acknowledge what we have been blessed with, we miss a key element in our relationship with our creator. And, after all, what else is thankfulness about but truly giving thanks to God? I'm sure just being randomly grateful to some cosmic force has some sort of therapeutic effect, but God designed us to have a relationship with Him. He is the one that brings blessings into our lives and He is the one who deserves our thanks. Giving Him the thanks He deserves brings us into a closer relationship with Him, and nothing can be more therapeutic than that! It also causes us to look beyond ourselves and our trials and realize that, no matter how bad we may feel about our circumstances, there is always something to be grateful for. Corrie ten Boom shared a story in The Hiding Place about her sister encouraging her to give thanks to God in all things, even when life seems at its darkest. Corrie's sister was encouraging her to be thankful, even for the fleas that infested the barracks where they were imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp during the Holocaust. At the time, Corrie couldn't see past the discomfort caused by the fleas or imagine any possible good in them to be thankful for, but she heeded her sisters' wise counsel and gave thanks to God, even for the fleas in a concentration camp barracks. It wasn't until sometime later that they discovered how repulsed their guards were by those same fleas, refusing to enter the barracks because of them. The guards' refusal to enter the barracks allowed Corrie and her sister the freedom to hold prayer meetings and study the Bible with their fellow prisoners. Even in the midst of seemingly insurmountable trials, we can always find a reason to give thanks to God. All we have to do is look. And when we choose this mindset over the mindset of defeat, we can find the strength to keep moving forward. With that in mind, I intend to spend the next week or two sharing my thoughts on some of the people in my life for whom I am thankful. When considering people that we are grateful for, I think most of us would find it quite natural to begin with family, which is exactly what I plan on doing. Starting tomorrow, a celebration of the family that molded me into the person I am today! Psalm 106:1  "Praise the Lord. Give thanks to the Lord , for he is good; his love endures forever. "

"Put Prayer Back In Our Schools!"

For years I have been troubled by e-mail forwards that call Christian parents to fight to have prayer "put back in our schools". These e-mails often perpetuate the claim that Christian children in public schools are not permitted to pray before they eat their lunch or take a test, that it’s not okay for a group of Christian students to gather before school or during recess for a prayer time and that a Christian student choosing to read their Bible or share their faith with a fellow student during non-instructional time will land in some serious hot water. While it most certainly is true that many school administrators and district officials have misinterpreted the law and have claimed that these activities are forbidden, our children, in fact, have every right to engage in these activities! When prevailed upon by an e-mail forward to help to petition our government to put prayer back in our schools, my response is generally this, “I will not petition our government to put prayer back in our schools because prayer has never been removed from our schools!” Is it not bad enough that we have secular officials working against us, trying to deny our children their religious freedom? Christian parents should not help to perpetuate this misconception! We must be informed and help our children to be bold in standing up for their faith, and their constitutional right to practice and profess that faith. In fact, what leads parents and school officials alike to the false conclusion that prayer has been entirely removed from our schools is a series of Supreme Court decisions forbidding devotional prayer and Bible reading led by teachers or school officials. According to an article on the Answers in Genesis website, “The First Amendment to the United States Constitution, contained in the Bill of Rights, says that there may be no establishment of religion by the Government. ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.’ The government may not favor one religion over another, or as now interpreted by the courts, may not favor religion over non-religion. This provision of the Constitution is applied to states as well as to the federal Government.” Why am I okay with this? I have no desire to have any school employee leading my children in a prayer or Bible reading which that person may have no understanding of themselves. If a teacher, required to share a Bible reading or a morning prayer, has no interest in or understanding of the God of which they are reading or to whom they are praying, the reading or prayer will be entirely devoid of meaning and is more likely to cause harm and confusion to impressionable young listeners. If, rather, the school allows for a moment of silence at the start of the school day and my child chooses to spend that moment in prayer, that time will have real meaning to my child. My other primary reason for being glad that public schools are not permitted to endorse any religion is that they are not permitted to endorse any religion. If we petition our government to allow, or even require, faculty led religious teaching in the schools, we have to be prepared for them to include the teaching of religious beliefs that we do not want to have taught to our children. The religious education of my children is my husband’s and my own responsibility and I, for one, have no desire to have the public school system mucking around in that arena. They delve too far into that territory as it is with their determination to teach our children their own interpretation of the origin of the universe.
Having spoken my peace on the subject of what sort of prayer has, in fact, been removed from our schools, let me now emphasize what sort of prayer has not been removed. As stated in the AiG article, “The First Amendment not only bars the establishment of religion by the state, it also guarantees that individual Americans have the right to the free exercise of their religion (or non-religion). ‘Congress shall make no law prohibiting the free exercise (of religion].’ Public school children, being citizens of America, also have a right to the free exercise of their religion--even in the public schools.” We began emphasizing to our oldest daughter when she was in kindergarten that no one at school may tell her that she cannot take a moment to pray while at school, as long as it is not disruptive, after she came home upset that a teacher had not allowed her to pray. If anyone tried to tell her that again, we said, we would be requesting a conference. Now in her first year of high school, that same daughter is bold in professing her faith at school and is preparing to initiate meetings (with school approval and a staff sponsor) of a student Bible study. Christian parents, we must be aware of our student’s rights when it comes to the free exercise of their faith at school. Instead of cowering before those who would have us believe that any expression of faith is forbidden, we must empower our children with the knowledge that they can and should be bold in expressing that faith! Our daughter has certainly encountered her share of persecution from other students. My heart aches for her at times, when she feels like an outcast because of her faith. She even considered hiding that faith when she entered high school, but quickly realized that, above all else, she wanted to be true to her Savior. Her father and I are so proud of her bold determination to let everyone see what role God plays in her life, in spite of how some may react. We know that her most difficult battles may still be ahead, but we are prepared to stand and fight with her, if necessary, for her constitutional right to openly profess her faith at school.