for edmund

Friday, May 16, 2008

...no need to say goodbye.

~Lu



The Call - Regina Spektor - Prince Caspian

super-hero band-aids

This world gets uglier to me everyday.

I hate it when someone gets legitimately hurt and all the other person is willing to do is stand there and say, "I didn't do it. It wasn't me. It's not my fault."...while someone is on the pavement crying. I hate that. My boys were doing that a minute ago. Is it really so much to ask for the "un-hurt" person to just quietly help the crying boy off the pavement and see to his wounds...even if it wasn't their fault? Instead, the un-hurt boy comes and gets me and expounds to me the tale to prove how it wasn't his fault...oh and by the way...there's still a hurt boy on the ground crying.

I think God must get sick of us. We hurt and betray and abandon one another and then we go running to our Father to tell him the tale of how it wasn't our fault. And we leave the bleeding and crying for Him to take care of...because after all...it wasn't our fault. I hate that.

Here's an interesting thing.
I have always kept the ointments, band-aids and other such first-aid stuff in a low drawer in the boys bathroom. When they were small, super-hero bandages were better than candy. They loved them so much that I decided to start requiring them to show me blood before I'd allow them to have one. Well, that had an undesired effect and, you guessed it, I started seeing a lot more blood! :-) That's when I decided that a few boxes of cartoon bandages was a small expense for their happiness and I put them in the bottom drawer and told them they could make their own judgements about how to use them. It has worked beautifully. They're quite adept at caring for their own scrapes and always put the antibiotic on. But apparently the ability to care for one's own scrapes doesn't translate across our flesh to caring for another's...especially when we may be at fault. I guess it's time to teach them the joy of bestowing a super-hero bandage upon your bleeding brother.

And as always, my children teach me about God.

It used to be long ago that a person had to show God blood before he'd bestow his band-aids (the forgiveness that brings healing) on them, but then there was just so much blood and it was decided that Christ would bear the expense and die so that they could put the forgiveness band-aids in the bottom drawer where we'd be able to reach them. I'm crying now thinking about how much those darn super-hero band-aids cost him and still he puts them right there...right where I can grab one for any old hangnail. And I'm crying about how they're right there and he paid so much and some kids won't expend themselves to just go get one for them or for me...or worse...they make an arbitrary judgement about how I don't actually deserve one of those band-aids and withhold it from me.

So the problem now is not the availability of those band-aids...the problem now is that we've grown up, and in order to reach that bottom drawer, we have to stoop. humility. It's not so hard really...is it? If God's parenting is anything like human parenting, He doesn't care all that much whose fault it was or how deserving the wounded is...but he has so much love and appreciation for the person who runs and gets the band-aid. I'm imagining how my day would have started so differently had my little guy come running to me not with excuses but with a super-hero band-aid and the words, "Mom, can you help me help my brother?"

My best friend is highly adept at bestowing super-hero band-aids on me now. I seem to be one of those kids that's always scraping herself up on the playground, so he's gotten good at it(he's my husband too, btw). He wipes my tears and tells me I've been brave. He convinces me that the huge scab means I'm cool and the scar makes me more beautiful and says that he's never seen anyone try so hard at the game. His gift makes me want to be worthy of that super-hero band-aid...and it makes it a little easier to forgive the kid whose fault it really was. I think he makes God really happy, and I want to be like him. I want my boys to be like him. And I hope someday...that kid whose fault it was,will be like him too. Actually, I hope to someday be able to bestow on that kid a whole drawer of his very own super-hero band-aids. I know where there are lots. That's what I hope.

Two things I loved

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

I happened across both of these things today and loved what they spoke of.

One was a verse:
Ecclesiastes 11:5
“As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in a mother's womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things.”

The other was a video clip:
-Joshua Klien and The Amazing Intelligence of Crows.
I love it when someone exercises kindness and goodness to motivate them to think outside the box. This guy's approach to an increasing everyday problem is so unusually positive and good-natured, I have to like him and his ideas. I hope he keeps it up...I hope he will inspire others to think more like he does. I hope I can learn to approach my problems with such a positive, kind nature. If you've got a few minutes to watch the video (only about 10), it's worth it. You'll see what I mean.

morning Hallstatt

Thursday, May 01, 2008


morning Hallstatt
Originally uploaded by zyryntyrah

Wow. how's this for a contrast? I'm writing this morning about Flickr for our Travel Blog and needed a few examples. This is one of the places in the world I dream of one day visiting. Could it be any further removed from the realities of my last post? wow.