Holy Spirit Working Overtime

Oh, another day, another....day. I keep trying to make some bread I made once that was delish, but now, I cannot for the life of me figure out that same accidental recipe, and every time I try, we end up with disgusto bread. Even the kids won't eat it, and they think everything is good, especially when it's slathered in honey or gooey jam. This taste like flour, and regardless of how flour is the key to many good things, on its own is pretty disgusting. How many kids have stuck their fingers into a bag of flour to taste - maybe behind their mother's backs - to find that their mother was right when she said, "Don't eat that, it doesn't taste good."

Well, today I got the angriest blog comment in response to my last blog about racism. Actually, I thought it was amusing. OK, I will admit that initially I thought, "Who is this fool who commented so angrily to my blog? I mean, get your own blog, if you can come up with any unique rantings at how completely ignorant and awful all of us Christians are, but good luck with that, because I think they've all been redundantly exhausted to infinity and beyond." I mean, I'm guessing he didn't get through all the paragraphs of my last blog, since essentially, his angry quip became a charactcature of paragraph four, but at least he didn't spell anything wrong, well except for the word, "possible," and it wasn't as much a misspelling, as it lacked the right suffix. (Here's a hint: It should have been "possibly," but he called me ignorant, so he probably didn't think I'd notice).

Anyhoo, when I came in off the ledge from reading his expressed desires of what he'd have liked "the Romans" to have done to all the Christians, I liked this guy. I mean, I realize that he hates me, or at least he hates his limited knowledge of me, but at least he's not lukewarm! He wouldn't want me to say this because some Christian somewhere has stepped on his toes a few times, or so it seems, but Jesus (Our Lord and Savior whom my new blog friend called, "a petty thief") spoke vehemently against being "lukewarm." Jesus said, "So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth" (Revelation 3:16).

My new friend also kept referencing the Romans: I know that, per my new friend, I appear to be ignorant (maybe he's bought into stereotypes of dumb blonds, or Christians who rely solely on blind faith), but didn't the Romans fall? I feel like I'm pointing out someone's exposed slip, you know, like with that saying, "It's raining in the north, but it's snowing in the south." Have you ever heard of that saying? It's the thing that women are supposed to say to each other to point out, but not too overtly, that a woman's dress or skirt slip is showing beneath the hem.

Anyway, it is my understanding that the Romans are no longer in existence, as "The Romans," per se. I mean, surely there are people who are of Roman descent, but really when you make an adulating comment regarding the Romans, isn't it sort of like addressing the people of Atlantis, or Pompeii? It's OK though, because sometimes that's how I feel about disco - "Long Live Disco!"

I am really not trying to upset my new blog buddy, I'm just pointing out a few strange idiosyncrasies of his post. By the way, I didn't post his comment, because such anger is frankly uncomfortable for everyone. (Sorry, John, but it's not like you expected this "ignorant, narrow-minded" Christian to print that. Really, I'm loaded down with that sort of thing just listening to "The View"), and it's my prerogative, since it's my blog.

What I was getting at, before I addressed John directly, was that to my surprise my best friend in the whole world (John, you're not going to like this), the Holy Spirit did this amazing thing inside me, and that's why beyond my human upset and reaction of the flesh, I can seriously love John through the Holy Spirit - wherever John is on this big blue ball spinning around in the universe.

John, as a Christian, I am sorry for whomever has offended you in the name of Christ. I'm not kidding. I'm sorry if that offensive Christian is me. I am sorry you have opted to hold onto that anger, not giving it over to God. I am sorry that you think everyone who thinks differently than you is "ignorant." And, John, I hope that the next time you run into a Christian, whether on-line, or in the line at the grocery store, you remember that there is someone else here on the globe that is praying for this guy John, who the good Lord put in front of me. You think I'm kidding, or being sarcastic, I'm not. I don't know you. I don't know your trials, but I know that God's ways are not accidental.

Seriously, if the overworked Holy Spirit who dwells within me wasn't at the reigns of this wild horse, I'd be running head-long toward a cliff before I took out a few angry people named John along the way, dragging them under the dust of my pounding hooves. See, most of time, when the Holy Spirit isn't working painfully hard to reign me in, I am no different than John. Ironic that John is the name of the last living disciple. Does anyone else see the irony? Maybe not, probably least of all, John. While I'm sure there were lots of people named John prior to the birth of John the Disciple, John was considered the "beloved disciple" - the most loved by Jesus.

Though John may come back to me with a fury, I want to let him know that Jesus loves him. Just like the prodigal son who despised his father enough to demand his inheritance even prior to his father's death - a true insult in its time - that earthly father RAN to greet his broken son when he returned. Guess what, John? You can wish all day long that Jesus' death had been more painful, like you stated in your venomous comment to me. I think you achieve that goal every time you wish such a thing on your Heavenly Father, just like the prodigal son hoped for his father's premature death. All I know is that He is waiting for you, arms wide open to receive you, should you ever be that broken. As for me, I accept you anyway, because I've been where you are: I am nothing more than a little jagged, imperfect reflection of His perfect, holy, complete, and wonderful love - a love that makes us better than when we are left to our own.

One Generation Away From a Tent

OK, last week I posted on my Facebook page my upset about Obama canceling the National Day of Prayer, and the offensive timing of the newly instituted Islamic Day of Prayer on Capitol Hill. With that, I have had a great epiphany: Do not, through guilt or any other cajoling, allow anyone you don't know relatively well into your slew of Facebook friends, and do not speak out against a regime wherein anyone has immortalized them in songs taught to Kindergartners, or emblazoned them across Hanes Beefy-T's in a very adulating, idolizing way.

See, I just feel that I am too jaded for that sort of adulation, but some are clearly not, and though I voted for George Bush in previous elections, I would never even imagine myself wearing a shirt with his multi-colored image silk-screened on it. I might be apt to wear my children's faces on a t-shirt, but anyone else would seem ridiculous to me. In fact, I've said for years - YEARS prior to ever knowing of Barack Hussein Obama, that if ever a future president came up with chanty songs, or big Kim-Yong il posters, I'd be the first to freak out at the mere whisper of such dictator-type love. Well, I'm just saying, I said that for years - years upon years, and nothing has changed. I am freaking out, because now when I mention that I don't like policy change, guess what? I'm a racist.

That's what one guy called me on my Facebook. I have since de-friended him. I mean, I voted for George Bush. How many people hate THAT man? I live in California, so if I walked into the busiest mall, or into a packed stadium and threw a stone into a crowd, every single time I would hit a George Bush hater: Everyone hates George Bush, and they don't just dislike him with a dullish passivity, they despise him. They wish him death, illness, and meanness the likes I've never seen before. They wish ill upon his family, his children, and his wife. When it appeared that Dick Cheney had a scare of cancer, there were people saying they wished he'd die, and not just die, but suffer and die!

What kills me is that it was open season on Bush and his administration. Unleashed hatred due to mere disagreement from liberals to conservatives is a protected sport, but disagreements voiced from conservatives to liberals is now deemed racist. I don't think anyone can know how offensive I find that claim.

I mean, it's important to be clear I don't hate Obama for the mere sport of it, or because it impresses my fellow conservative friends, or because it's expected of conservatives. I don't like the majority of Obama's policies, which I expect would have been the same outcome with any number of Democratic candidates.

Can I tell you why the racist thing bothers me so? It's because that while I know statistically I'm supposed to be in the majority, I've never felt that. Scoff if you want, but you have to know just a few things that define me to understand that statement. Just like any person who has been treated like a minority at any juncture in their life, the things that define me go back a generation or two.

I can think of no better place to start than with my paternal grandparents: They were key to my upbringing. First of all, all I can say for all four of my grandparents is that they were fierce. They faced challenges that would emotionally paralyze any person nowadays, but instead, it made them profoundly strong.

With my paternal grandparents, they came to California on the prompting of the Oklahoma Dust Bowl. I'm pretty sure that would be more profound if kids were encouraged to read about it nowadays in John Steinbeck's, "The Grapes of Wrath," but at our local community college, the required reading for English 101B are materials pertaining to Arab Studies. So, when I say that my grandparents arrived in California with little more than a broken down car, no one in current day California gives that any merit or consideration of what that means. In fact, there is this profound ignorance that anyone in the United States has ever faced difficulty, though history, if people knew it, conveys such a different picture.

When my grandparents arrived in the San Joaquin Valley, they worked in the fields. They worked in the fields picking anything from apricots to prunes. They were migrant farm workers. They were the people given the lowliest jobs, and mistreated as the people taking all the jobs away from the locals (remind you of anyone?). Being pregnant, my grandmother gave birth to my aunt in a tent in the San Joaquin Valley. Then, my uncle was born and delivered by a drunken and impaired doctor who tugged at his poor breach body until he was permanently handicapped. They drove hours to have my uncle treated at the Oakland Children's Hospital. Sometimes, they would have to leave him there alone for days without visits.

When my father was born, my young teenage aunt cared for them all in a drying shed that a land owner had given them to live in. My dad told me that my grandfather pulled two sheds together to make one larger one for their makeshift home. They still had a dirt floor, but they were thrilled to have a larger place to live. My 64 year old father did not have running water in his house until he was in high school, and he has yet to be offered free college scholarships, free housing, or free anything. My dad is probably the hardest worker I've ever known, and he is still working a very physically challenging job today.

As for my maternal grandparents, they had equally trying lives. My grandfather said that he was so poor that when he lived in Arkansas, his parents could not afford shoes for he and his sisters. For fun, boys he went to school with would drive their bicycles close to his feet to make him scurry and hop around. As a gift for his youngest five year old sister, he brought her a stray cat he'd found one day. That cat had diphtheria and it killed his sister. Suffering from severe and potentially deadly asthma attacks, his parents moved their entire family from Arkansas to Idaho in hopes that the change in weather would encourage his health problems. They too, worked as farmers.

My maternal grandmother had my mother at eighteen by my grandfather, a man who was not her husband. In a small, backwards town in Idaho, she was judged and ostracized. Her own family would not speak to her. Rather than give up my mother, as many encouraged her to do, she kept my mother, worked hard and even bought a small house for the two of them.

When I went to college an unsuspecting classmate asked me where my parents went to college. When I told him that they had never been to college, he prodded, wanting to know more. When he learned that I was the first in my family to go to college, he told me in a clinical, examining way, "Really, you shouldn't even be here." After that, he let me know every time we had required study units together that I was beneath him, intellectually, and in every other aspect, as well.

Even now, I will not concede that I am immune to such judgment. Now, it comes in different forms, but in an earlier blog about where I grew up, I know this ridiculous attempt to pre-judge me exist. Let's face it, the world lives on stereotypes and ill-based judgment calls.

When a woman moved into our neighborhood a few years ago, I went over to meet her. In the first few moments of our meeting, she told me that I would probably not understand her, because her parents still lived in San Joaquin Valley and had been migrant farm workers. Having found a commonality, I exclaimed, "So was my dad!" She looked at me in disbelief. I explained that my family had come here from Oklahoma, and my dad had worked his youth in the fields picking prunes, cotton, walnuts, and apricots. It was as though she never heard a word I said, because there was this strange contradiction in terms: This blond, blue-eyed woman could not be the same as her, and yet, our backgrounds were abundantly similar.

Look, I'm not saying that I know what it is to be black, or Hispanic, or any other nationality, but American. I do, however, know what it is to have someone judge me based on the color of my skin. Being white and blond, I assure you people make plenty of their own assumptions. I also know what it is to be judged based on someone's false assumption of where they think I came from, or what privileges they think I've received. Because of that, I will never be comfortable with being tagged with the non-illustrious accusation of being a racist.

I would even assert that I have a more diverse group of friends and acquaintances than anyone who casually accuses others of being a racist. It's not differences that bother me, it's the intolerance of differences, even the loss of civility among friends when you disagree that profoundly bothers me. I can, not just be around, but enjoy people who have vehemently differing views than me, and I have never felt the compulsion of calling them names. Also, I have gay friends, and frankly, I am maybe as surprised of them being nice to me, as they are of this devoutly Christian woman being nice to them.

Shutting someone down from their opinions and views, by calling them a derogatory name is, to me, shameful. It is a bizarre attempt to stifle individual freedom and thought, and really, I find it frightening. I'm all for learning and embracing our differences, until it becomes an overly aggressive bear hug that seems more like an attempt to suffocate me until I pass out.

Luke 10:27
'Love your neighbor as yourself.'

Sixteenth Wedding Anniversary

Last Friday Rick and I celebrated sixteen years of marriage - sixteen years! When I was younger, I used to think that sixteen years was a long time. I used to think, I'll never be old enough to put sixteen years behind me, and remember it. Well, I guess I was wrong. As early as last year, I remember thinking that our wedding seemed like it had just happened, like it was just yesterday. I think since we've been through such a difficult year, it seems like our wedding happened ages ago. Now it's like a historical event you read about in a big, thick, dusty book. There's a line in a Third Day song that says something to the affect of, "forever's just as far as yesterday;" Well, that's how I feel.

Don't get me wrong, it's not that our anniversary, our love, or our commitment to one another is diminished in any way, because of the difficulty we've been through; In fact, maybe it's just the opposite. Honestly, I think we've hit a milestone in our marriage. It's as though we've just come out of the smooth sandy honeymoon stage of our marriage, and we've hit bedrock - the solid foundation.

I think every marriage needs to go through that, in order to stabilize, be strong and learn to weather storms. I remember thinking and saying the entire ten years we struggled through miscarriages that if we hadn't gone through those hard times, maybe we wouldn't have a greater appreciation of the good times. I think that still, and maybe even more greatly as we continue to struggle through one of the hardest times our marriage has ever been through.

Can I tell you a story, because I LOVE amusing stories - it's what I live for! On the night of our anniversary, we went out to dinner. We went to Aqui's, a local Cal-Mex restaurant. Because it had been a long day of home-schooling, we didn't even get there until after 9pm. Getting a table far away from everyone, it looked like it could be a quiet, intimate dinner, but God always gives us just a little more than we bargain for.

We sat down at the quiet table, and right as we sat down came another couple sitting right behind us near the door. They were young. I would have assumed they were on their first date. I barely noticed what they looked like, but just their body language would intimate that they were not entirely comfortable with each other.

I would say that at this point in our marriage, sometimes it is enough to simply be together, and after hours and hours of home-schooling, that was about all we could muster on this night. It wasn't long that through our quiet we could hear the excited discussion that erupted behind us.

"I scored really high on my SAT's," said the young man.

"Really, how high?" said the gentle, soft voice of the young woman.

"Really high, like 800."

I laughed to myself, shared with Rick what he hadn't heard, and said, "That's not that high. I think I'd keep that to myself."

"Oh," the boy corrected himself, "Yeah, I meant 1600." The young man was really loud and seemingly got louder as he spoke. It would have been difficult not to hear him.

"Wow, he's suddenly doubly smarter than he was just two seconds ago," I said, "with a perfect score now. Amazing!"

The young woman must have told him her SAT scores, but her voice was soft and you could not hear her.

Then, he began, "I'm really smart."

"Ugh," I said to Rick, and we both laughed. "Don't you disqualify yourself from all intellectual conversations when you have to TELL someone else how smart you are?"

"Yeah," Rick said. "You hope it's obvious, so you don't have to tell everyone."

The young man continued, "I don't need a high school diploma. None of that matters. All of those grades are disqualified after so much time."

The young couple was behind me, and I hadn't gotten a close look, so I asked Rick in a whisper, "How old are these two?"

He peeked around me to see better, "Mid to late twenties."

"Weird," I said. "I wonder why he's holding onto high school and SATs?" Rick shrugged.

Then, the soft, timid voice that had throughout been entirely quiet got loud; "Are you saying that you think you're smarter than me?"

"Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm," I shook my head. "Does it look like there are are any sharp utensils on their table?" I asked Rick. He shook his head again.

Again, louder, "Are you? Is that what you're saying?"

'For the sake of your own life Boy, say no,' I thought, but he kept going; "I'm just saying your degree means nothing."

She exploded, "How can you say that to me? Do you know how insulting that is?"

Apparently, he did not, because he continued; Loudly, he said, "Degrees mean nothing. I'm a genius and I don't need a degree to prove it to anyone," How he got that out without laughing, I'll never know.

Rick and I were silent, waiting for the punch line: There was none. At one point when the young man had gotten really loud, I had turned casually in their direction to steal a quick glance. The young man was leaning on his elbows onto the table, taking up more than half of the surface. He was smiling an arrogant, coy smile at the girl in the midst of insulting her. Was this his come on to her, because he had this disconnected look, as though Don Juan had given him private lessons. I thought, maybe he's trying out some new-fashioned dating tactic, like what the military does with new recruits: Tear them down to build them up. Had he been a genius, as he claimed, his brain should have been exclaiming, "Retreat! Retreat!," but he continued to insult her.

Clearly, his physical looks had taken up the better of his time. He'd forgotten to enlist any of that effort on furthering his intelligence, or humility. Smartly, the girl had recoiled from him, arms folded tightly to her chest. She was pretty and diminutive, and her body language spoke volumes to that fact that this date was over.

"Do you think we should offer her a ride home?" I asked Rick, but before I could even get that question out, she shot up from the table and stormed out the back door. Slowly, stupidly the young man got up from his chair with a Cheshire-cat grin and followed, making sure to not break stride from his cocky, genius, slow swagger.

"I tell you now, if ever our son treated a girl like that I'd tackle him onto the ground and have to be hauled off by a S.W.A.T. team and a K9 unit."

Rick nodded, "He'd never," he said. "That's funny. I was thinking the same thing - how Austin would never think of doing something like that."

"And," I said, "if our girls sat through something like that for as long as that poor girl did, I'd tackle the boy to the ground and have to be hauled off by a S.W.A.T. team and a K9 unit." Rick nodded again and laughed.

I felt sorry for that girl. I mean, she gave this guy a chance, and somewhere in the process of being asked out by that guy and getting treated profoundly rude, he must have bamboozled her with kindness somewhere along the way. She was smart enough to leave him eventually, so I doubt that had she known from the start how it would have ended that she would have given him a chance at all.

What I learned that night on my sixteenth wedding anniversary from this young couple's troubled date was that there's just a few simple things about romantic relationships that are true across the board: First of all, everyone wants to be loved; Everyone wants to be treated with respect, and no one wants to be treated with haughty, superiority by their romantic partner, whether that person is just a momentary prospect of love, or a long-time companion. It's all stuff you know, but sometimes it's the stuff that becomes painfully obvious when you see it displayed to the contrary of what it should be.

In the same way we are to build our faith on something solid and lasting, we should also build our marital relationship on the things that last - the things that won't fade and give way to age, time, and difficulties: Jesus was speaking about faith when he said, "Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash" (Matthew 7:24-27).

For Rick and I the rain continues to come down, the streams have risen, and the winds blow still, but finally, after a couple of years of this blustery storm I am becoming thankful for the test. I know that "suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us" (Romans 5:3b-5).

Having miscarried six times in ten years, I know that I was never able to fully submit to God's authority until I was truly thankful for the testing of my faith: That is truly where you find your breaking point, and sometimes you just can't be fixed until you're fully broken. If you've ever tried gluing a broken piece of ceramic or porcelain you know what I mean. You can't really fix or glue the pieces if they're just cracked. The glue is clumpy and the very best you can do is to smear the glue across the fissure if the item is just cracked, but that's not a real fix. To fix it, you need to break the pieces apart, get the glue right along the broken edges, and then firmly hold them together until they're dry. For one thing, it's not a quick process, and sometimes, it gets a little messy, but oftentimes the outcome can be as good as new, and mean even more than if it had never been broken at all.

Give me Health Care or Give me....uh, well, nevermind

OK, I never thought my blog would get political, but then again, I never thought politics would get so "bloggy." "Bloggy" in this context means stupid, in case you were wondering. I don't even care who I offend, so as for my "friend" who told me that one time I was bitter, let me put out this disclaimer saying yes, I'm bitter. If bitterness offends you stop reading now.

OK, for us on a personal note, nothing has really changed. It reminds me of a time when I was a little girl. My mom had back problems and my dad would crack her back to relieve tension. I told her I wanted him I wanted him to crack my back. My mom asked if I had back pain and I said that my back had always felt that way. Maybe I had pain, but had just gotten used to living with it, so to answer her question, I didn't really know if I was experiencing pain.

It seems remotely painful what we're going through, but I've gotten so used to it, I'm not sure if it's painful, or if it's just life. I'm starting to be convinced that it's just life, which frankly, scares me. Last we heard, Mim and Cat still want to tour our building.

Let me say this, when we first took over the business, after paying way more than it was worth, we had to take Mim and Cat along to an industry convention to Phoenix. On that trip, which they convinced us they HAD to attend, we paid for all of their expenses. See, Mim told us they were doing us a favor by introducing us to all the industry "gurus." "Gurus," that's what Mim called all of these ancient, crackly old cronies.

So, in 110 degree Arizona heat, we unfolded to find Mim and Cat poolside, never looking more lively. In fact, it was as though Ponce de Leon entirely missed his search for the fountain of youth, and it was found by Mim and Cat in the form of a free trip with all the food and beverages you could consume, or shove into a white, polyurethane, leatherette purse.

Cat even seemed giddy at times, and at the hoe-down, she was cracking jokes and rubbing elbows with all the guru wives until Mim slapped his hand over her mouth, telling her to shut up. It was disturbing, and she almost cried. However, she was well on the road to recovery the next day when, leaving us behind to flounder by ourselves, they took a Jeep ride with some cronies across the desert landscape. Aside from being overheated, I was already simmering, since Rick and I paid for that Jeep ride. In fact, as they toured, rode, ate, wined, dined, took pony rides, had their pictures taken on Santa's lap, and relaxed, we paid for it all: They spared no expense to us at this proverbial fountain of youth.

While Rick and I stayed pretty close to the convention, waiting to garner the ever elusive key to our success, Mim and Cat partied like it was 1999. Cat started accounting for her energized, rejuvenated spirit, by saying that Arizona's arid climate made her feel alive and she wanted to move there. In my estimation, I think the devil is simply at home in the heat. Rick was pretty sure that the free stuff brought both Mim and Cat to life. All I know is that no one was sick, creaky, or had any lingering ailment that had previously been ever-present in California. Like an old lady wrought with rheumatoid arthritis who is suddenly healed by the sight of a jingling slot machine, oozing with hundreds of shiny silver coins, Cat was healed with bilking us at this desert oasis.

Well, today as I readied myself for my unemployment interview, my heart began to pound. I have never filed for unemployment before. I was nervous. Getting money for being unemployed bothers me, though Rick and I actually stopped taking salaries last October - that would be October 2008. We were trying to get this business out of a rough spot. You know, land it on drier ground. We were trying to weather the storm, which, with stupid optimism, we felt would pass any day.

So, when the lady called, because they will call you, you cannot call them, my heart was in my throat. She sounded friendly. I was encouraged. Then, I asked a question. "Mrs. Smith! Mrs. Smith! Mrs. Smith, I am talking," she said. "Oh, I'm sorry. I thought I could ask questions," I said. The way she yelled at me, you would have thought I had incited a riot, but I'd only asked if they'd gotten some paperwork I'd sent over a month ago. "I am talking right now, so no you cannot ask a question. I am conducting an interview. Do you understand that?"

Again, I apologized, because clearly we both knew who was in control of my situation, and it was not me. "I'm sorry, I thought this was a fluid conversation." "It is not. It is an interview. Do you understand what an interview is?" I nodded and said yes. She let me know that this interview and her approval or disapproval would determine whether or not I got unemployment benefits. She asked no more than four questions, and I could have sworn I heard a gavel and a "denied" stamp hit my paperwork on her side of the phone. I would know within ten days of our telephone interview, but I would need to e-mail any disputes, rather than call, because they are overloaded with telephone calls and the phones ring constantly busy.

Afterwards, I felt lame. Chloe asked what that call was about. I told her that the government takes our money to pay into unemployment. It is money they are supposed to set aside in case you become unemployed and need money until you find employment, like a government run temporary savings account until you can find a job and get paid again. It's a pretty simple system really, unless your government bilks you, bankrupting what you've paid to insure your unemployed times, or denying you for some unknown reason.

Seriously, I've applied, sent resumes and according to the County of Santa Clara, pursued a job they never even posted. I've never even gotten a call back, except for the Santa Clara County thing, which seemed more like a baffled, head-scratching inquiry than a callback. I will assume that a mom whose taken time off to raise her children is not the optimal employee, since you have as much as said in words unspoken, that your family comes first.

To clarify, I am teaching at the kids' school, but that's an unpaid position. God has allowed and disallowed certain things, and I know it's for a reason. I'm OK with that; however, I'm never good with getting bilked. I'm never good at being lied to. Unemployment is something we've paid into. It's something that is supposed to be there, because essentially it's our money. For whatever reason, our government convinced us that they could handle our money better than we could, should we ever have a rainy day, and stupidly, we believed them.

Now, they want to take care of our health care system, because our cutting edge health care isn't working for them...er, I mean for us. Health care is one third of our nation's economy and greedy government wants some of that. I love that they keep pointing to Europe, because whoever said we wanted to be like Europe? I didn't. I love our country and my health care, for which we pay plenty. I also love that this country was founded on Christian principles, though its been eliminated through historical revisionism.

The least "religious" of our founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin, insisted that they open in prayer every morning during the composition of the Constitution, lest they get distracted by God's plans for our country, but you never hear that. In fact, he told those at the Constitutional Convention, "In the beginning of the contest with Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayers in this room for divine protection. Our prayers, sir, were heard; and they were graciously answered." He then went on to say, "I have lived, sir, a long time; and the longer I live the more convincing proofs I see of this truth -- that God governs in the affairs of men."

Benjamin Franklin was 81 when he gave that speech to the likes of George Washington, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Patrick Henry. Not one of the fifty five men at the convention dismissed Franklin's speech as the delusional ramblings of an old man, because they knew too that adherence to God had gotten them far.

Last week an elderly man openly opposed health care reform in a town hall meeting with Pete Stark. The elderly man quoted Judge Judy when he said,"Don't pee on my leg and then tell me it's raining." Pete Stark retorted: "I wouldn't dignify you by peeing on your leg. It wouldn't be worth wasting the urine."

Before that, Sheila Jackson responded to a cancer survivor's questions and opposition to health care reform in Houston: Representative Sheila Jackson got on her cell phone while the woman asked questions that would directly complicate care for her and her daughter, should their rare type of cancer reoccur.

See, the problem I have with this is the way they responded to the people they represent. These public servants - Stark and Jackson - were discrediting the very people they are supposed to represent. Different than Representative Joe Wilson's "You lie," outburst directed at the president, these public servants were censoring through public humiliation the people. They wanted to make clear that opposition will be dealt with accordingly.

Can you even imagine our forefathers acting out this way? Can you imagine? A government founded by irreverent, vulgar, disrespectful rouges? Frankly, when I heard that Joe Wilson yelled out, "You lie," I immediately thought of Patrick Henry. "Give me liberty or give me death." I suppose Joe Wilson kept his outburst to a simple two-liner, because insisting on death might easily be taken care of, given the fact that some czars believe in Sharia Law. I mean, someone could take care of that emphatic death plea, right?

All I know is that our country is completely out of whack. The government is making huge sweeps to take what is not theirs. They have taken what's yours and mine, and lied about what they're doing with it. The same way Mim and Cat deceived us, the government has done the same. They have told us that if we paid them in the form of taxes, unemployment insurance, ecetera, that they would take care of us. Now, they want to "help" us with our health. Can you even imagine?

With the money I've paid into unemployment I can't even get a live person on the telephone. I am chastised like a toddler pulling the hair out of the family cat when I ask questions, and it's up to the discernment of a rude woman who couldn't care less about me, as to whether I get unemployment pay or not. Seriously, if Benjamin Franklin were alive today, he'd have already been given the "Your Life - Your Choices" handbook, because let's be serious...81 is old.

Working for the Man

Aaaah, Saturdays. I love Saturdays. I know Sunday is the day of rest, technically, but Saturday is the day of "Do-Whatever-I-Feel-Like," so with that, Rick and I mish-mash around and putter around the house like a couple of old people until we finally find our purpose. We kiss in the kitchen in front of the kids, to hear them say how gross it is, and see Sophie hide behind her opened fingers to watch us. Usually, I will admit, we never find our purpose. We poke at the kids. We dance to embarrass them. We yell at them to go out and play, and we yell at them to stop fighting once they've finally gone outside to play, and we watch Mandy, the twelve year old dog, through the gray hue of the window screens to make sure she's still alive while she's sleeping.

So, that has been our day, and Mandy is still alive, so it's a good day. Actually, for whatever reason, and maybe for no reason at all, things have been blissfully good lately. We haven't heard from Mim and Cat. I don't know what they're doing, but we've heard they've been in and out of surgeries and on vacations. I don't care, as long as they're not up in my business. I mean, I really hope that they're having lots of unnecessary plastic surgery. It's an unreal hope, but one can dream and fantasize. I mean, wouldn't that be fun to see? I once worked for a guy, maybe the craziest man on the entire planet and he had lots of plastic surgery. It was as though, through various botched surgeries, he got just what he deserved.

One day, he came into work with dark sunglasses and a baseball cap, and proceeded to act as though everything was normal. I mean, this was a miserably small office of just three people, so we were bound to notice, right? When all was said and done, he had hair plugs coming right out the front of his forehead where no hair had ever grown, naturally. I was afraid he was going to poke my eye out with those. They were coarse, like rust colored copper wires jutting out straight over his eyes like the visor on a cap. His eyes were suddenly slanted upward at the corners, like he had a coy little secret that he would never know, or share.

His hair was now this coppery red color. It seemed as though he had tried to dye it from its natural dark brown color to blond, and maybe while he sat in the beautician's chair, he saw someone else across the salon who made him question his manhood with his plastic shower cap elastic digging into his skin, and the ring of cotton stretched around his forehead to keep the blond hair dye out of his eyes. I'll assume he probably saw a man, a man like he wanted to be, like the multitude of construction workers in our building he was constantly comparing himself to. He would oftentimes stand at my desk, flexing non-existent muscles under bright purple and teal silk shirts, and ask if I could tell he'd been working out. I would always nod, and in his heavy turquoise jewelry, he would always say suspiciously, clinking a chunky ornate pinky ring on my desk, "Really? Really, you can tell? You're not just saying that, are you?" Of course I was just saying that, because being honest to Sherman was not an option.

I had seen him yell at the top of his lungs that his beautiful wife was an idiot and stupid, because she told him she liked a certain wall color rather than one he had chosen. "Stupid! You're just stupid," he yelled. "I mean, do you even know anything? Why are you so stupid?" He asked her, incredulous. Then, he stormed off leaving her standing in the lobby in front of the watching timid staff, while his wife tried to smile away his scathing insults.

I knew too that Sherman was a tenacious personal injury attorney that, when challenged at any level, would fight a dirty street fight like no one had ever seen. When his building got "tagged" by some school kids, he went to the school. For two weeks, he rearranged court dates and times to stand outside that nearby junior high. In his pimp-styled duds, he pursued kids that appeared to look, in any way, disreputable in comparison to the herds of other kids. After following and leering at middle schoolers, he finally found his target: A thirteen year old girl leaving the campus had the same scribblings on a tattered notebook that had been spray-painted on Sherman's building. Taunting her with his new found information, he followed her nearly a quarter of a mile in his lime green alligator shoes. Getting her address and finally coaxing some information out of the scared teen, he eventually got enough information to sue the girl's mother: It was a landmark case. Though the single mother pleaded with Sherman to have mercy on her, he would not budge. He said she was trash and needed to be taught a lesson. He was scary on many levels. He could not have been more pleased with himself.

On a personal level, he wasn't much kinder. When it was Sherman's birthday, he had told our little staff of three exactly what to get him: Having seen his numerous tantrums before when he didn't get what he wanted, we made sure to get him exactly what he wanted. With the identical item he asked for wrapped in shiny paper and looped with a big silver bow, he smiled: "I can't imagine what might be in here." 'Really,' I thought. 'You told us exactly what to get you. I can hardly wait to see how a crazy person acts surprised.'I would never know though, because though Sherman told us exactly what palm pilot to get him, the technology had just upgraded days before -- something we all should have known, had we not all been so flipping stupid! He took one look at the palm pilot that cost proportionally more than I made, gave a disgusted shake of his head, exuded some heavy puffs of disgust from his fleshy white effeminate body, said absolutely nothing, and left the room. For the rest of the day, and probably into the night, he holed up in his office contemplating whether we should all be fired or beheaded. The next day the over-priced palm pilot still sat on the conference table atop the pretty wrapping paper.

So, I suspected that this wholly unnatural reddish-orange hair color was a result of some erratic paranoid eruption wherein he thought someone looked at him oddly, and in his heightened paranoia, he threw off the white towel draped around his neck and insisted that he hairdresser wash out the hair dye in the midst of his venomous insults toward a beautician, he would ultimately leave in tears. He was like that. Always vacillating from one erratic decision to another, or rather, one erratic explosion to another.

His wife was a beautiful kind and stately woman -- a former fashion model. She had quietly apologized for an insinuated drug problem with Sherman, which would have explained much. Let's just say this, I've worked for some crazy people. I've been abandoned in New York City during the outpouring of Rodney King riots, which led to all of Fifth Avenue being boarded up with plywood. At Central Station we were warned that police cars had been tipped over and were on fire. Trying to get back to our hotel, the shouts of, "Hey, white girl!" were unnerving, and during that scenario, I had a lock, more like a boot on a car, attached to my hotel door at the Sheraton Towers, because the owner of our company skipped town without paying our bill.

I've also had my aura read to see if I had the ability to be a good salesperson, but I think I threw off the reading by my internal doubt and outward sarcasm. I don't know if they read my cynicism though, because the owner of the company also had her past lives read during my aura reading, and in her jubilation of finding that she had been a cowboy in her past life, and in all probability married to her own daughter, she was in a celebratory mood to have her love of southwestern art finally validated and know that it meant more than she initially thought.

I've also worked for a band of highly creative individuals at one of the largest connectivity companies in California. On an up note, we actually had Chris Isaac perform at our Christmas party - very cool. On the not-so-cool side, I ended up joining a baking club within the company, founded by a man who appeared to have a crush on me, played guitar in a rainbow crocheted beret at lunch on the grass out front, and got pretty upset when he found that I'd been married for two years -- something I had hoped Rick's picture on my desk, incessant newlywed talk about Rick, and wedding ring would have made clear. I think he honestly thought this character "Rick" was my cat. Eventually, it was the anger that boiled under that little rainbow cap that encouraged me to bow out of the baking group, and allowed me to realize that that little liberal man couldn't have pegged me more inaccurately. I don't know what vision he had had about the two of us singing on the lawn in from of our mega employer, but he could not have been more off.

Nine months after turning down a legitimate job to be employed in Sherman's office and hearing incessant death threats come across for Sherman on our office answering machine, I found myself one morning standing over his desk after he accused me of feigning illness to go on a hot-air balloon ride through Napa Valley, something I've still never done. With all of his ridiculous insults and accusations, I fired off, "You are the most pathetic little man I have ever met in my entire life!" I fumbled to take his office keys out of my purse and threw them onto the floor, "And, if you want those keys, go get em!" I stormed out, crying.

In the typical comfort I can only receive from those who understand me, my uncle sent a bouquet of flowers two months later on Secretary's Day with the inscription that read: "Michelle, I want you back. Love, Sherman." I nearly fainted until I realized the joke, since nothing was beyond the erratic undulations of Sherman.

Though not always clear, I realize that work is a blessing, really. When you think about it, it's one of the first things God gave Adam in the Garden of Eden. It is key to the completion of our human souls, though so many try to avoid it. It says in Genesis 2:16 that "The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it." I suppose since it was the Garden of Eden, it was more pleasant than any place I've ever worked, but still, it was work. I know there is something strangely satisfying when I've worked, done well, and have something to show for my work. I also know that sin has made most of what God initiated such pale shadows of the initial blessings. Somehow, we still have to find the blessing God intended for us.

Recently I started teaching History and Science to second graders. I have told Rick numerous times before that I would never want to teach. I teach our own children, but in doing so, I don't have to worry about parent complaints, unless of course, I become schizophrenic. In all seriousness though, it's not the kids I worry about, its the parents. Not that parents are difficult on their own, but every parent has their own individual idea of what their own child should learn, as well as who their individual child is -- reasons we homeschool. I am seeing beyond that though.

I know that we've worked like crazy these last few years, trying to stake claim to what we thought God had put before us in this business, to find the fields wrought with boulders, never-ending thistles, and no return for our efforts. It's been exhausting like I've never known. Can I tell you this? In the middle of trying to get this one little blog done, while I teach now two days a week and homeschool the other days, we got an e-mail from our attorney. He told us that Mim and Cat still want to walk through our office building. Really, when I read that e-mail, my heart stopped like a big rock stuck right in the middle of my chest. I had almost forgotten the full scope of what we've got before us.

I know this for certain though, work is still satisfying and good when someone evil isn't trying to distort the word of God for their own gain. I know that God is with us, even before us, in things that are too big for us. Even as we are still in the midst of something that is difficult, I am thankful that God has allowed me the refreshing reprieve of teaching these sweet little ones that so greatly reveal His greatness, even in a world full of evil. There is much the world can impose, but there is little the world can really take away from me when my eyes are continually focused heavenward.

Proverbs 12:14 "From the fruit of his lips a man is filled with good things as surely as the work of his hands reward him."