OMG! The "Butcher of Baghdad" Has Been Captured

The things one learns on Blogger.

I was trying to wake up this morning and reading random blogs when I found the Environmental Republican and saw that the US had succeeded in capturing Saddam Hussein. I thought it a hoax until I ran into the living room to discover the news buzzing with the coverage. Praise God!

My thoughts turn to Eric Johnson and his family and all they have endured, to the service men and women that are away from their families this Christmas season who have had to deal with the constant questioning of purpose from the media. They pulled him from a farm house in Takrit. NOW we know why and how the continued fighting there has been so fierce. He was calling the shots. Perhaps NOW the real rebuilding can finally begin.

I for one am relieved in a way that I never would have been had we not had confirmation that he was either captured and alive (which has been my hope, he should have to stand trial for the atrocities he committed against his people) or dead and identified.

Thank God for our troops and their commitment to doing their jobs.

God Bless the USA,
T

Thus Ends The House Saga

The mortgage company is a bunch of idiots.

They want 85K for a house with extensive interior and exterior damage. Not happening. No way, no how, that is NOT happening.

WHEN it goes into foreclosure we’ll go buy it off the steps of the courthouse for 60K and get on with our efforts. Now we need to focus our efforts on this house. Tomorrow we get a new water heater, ours leaks.

T

The House Saga -- Day 110

Well, its been awhile since I posted about the house saga. It was just stressing me out so I took a mental vacation from worrying about it for awhile.

On the Monday before Thanksgiving (4 days AFTER our last contract was supposed to CLOSE!) we still had not received an answer on said contract (if you're counting that was contract number THREE). So we issued an ultimatum. Either we get an answer by Wednesday or you no longer have an offer. We heard nothing. Then suddenly on Monday of THIS week we get a phone call...They want to check out the repairs we requested...They didn't think the house was in that bad a shape. ARGGH! So we made a counter request...We want to see the house again. We've not been into the house since September. At least one of the repairs we requested (removal of a dead tree) has been done but we don't know what if anything has been done to the interior or the back of the home.

So today at two we go back into the house. Hopefully we will be able to get from the homeowner, the name of the mortgage company and Diane (our buyers agent) will be able to work on them...Since Lee (the listing agent) seems not to care that we are being jerked around for WEEKS at a time with no answer and that with an open offer still out there we can't realistically move on other properties until THIS ONE is resolved. Also, I need to see if I've built this house up in my mind into something it is not and do I still want it.

This has been such a pain in the rear! If I didn't feel so STRONGLY that this is MY HOUSE it would have been over a long time ago. But it is the only house in the price range we want to spend that has the square footage we are looking for in the area we want. There is nothing else out there that compares. Even in the shape its in. So we plod on. Hopefully we'll have an answer soon.

T

My Redneck Friends

Ok, I'm probably not being wise writing this here where the people in question could theoretically stumble across it, but I am so frustrated with the redneck, bigoted, anti-Semitic attitudes that have recently been revealed by some of the people I grew up with! To witt...the whole "The Jews Killed Jesus" crap.

Let's think about this people. If Jesus Christ was God incarnate, it would have been impossible for any mere mortal to kill him. Indeed it WAS impossible for any mere mortal to kill him. Hence him having to give up his spirit while on the cross. Do supposedly Christian people NOT understand that the Cross HAD TO HAPPEN? IT wasn't some tragic cosmic accident that could have been prevented were it not for those horrible Jews wanting Barabbas. Christ was BORN CRUCIFIED. Had it been necessary he would have NAILED HIMSELF to the cross to accomplish his purpose. And make no mistake, the cross WAS his purpose. The JEWS did NOT kill Jesus. I killed Jesus. You killed Jesus. OUR SINS were what put him on that Cross and his compassion was what kept him there. The Sanhedrin were just tools in the hand of God to accomplish his plans and to fulfill the prophecies he made concerning himself. He could have called down LEGIONS of angels to defend him. THE JEWS DID NOT KILL JESUS and the continued insistence that they are somehow more culpable than any other of us sinful people that he LAID DOWN HIS LIFE for is preposterous. Did we learn NOTHING from the holocaust?

I am sure that I have stirred up a storm over on my class BB but dang it I'm tired of this ignorance going unchallenged. Jesus WAS Jewish!

Frustrated! So very discouraged and frustrated by this. When will I learn not to expect anything better from my redneck friends?

T

Published!!!!

If I knew how, I'd change my tagline on my blog, but I don't so I won't. But the fact remains that I've moved from aspiring author to published author. My first submission...MY VERY FIRST that I sent out has been accepted for publication. I am SO excited.

The piece itself is a tribute to an amazing man, Mr. John Harvey Roberts, and a moment of grace that changed my life. I am so hoping that he will like it. It will be published soon by Bethany House in an anthology titled "The Heart of a Teacher" by Wayne Holmes. The title of the piece is "A Gift of Grace".

That it was even sent out into the world at all is tribute to another amazing man, my mentor and dear friend, author Troy D. Smith. Thank you old friend, for believeing in me and for encouraging me to believe in my self. As I find my voice again, I am rediscovering the passion for writing that I thought had long since died. I can't NOT write. I have missed that SO much.

There is so much about this project that just leaves me in awe. That it was my first piece I ever sent out, is virtually unheard of. That it was selected out of hundreds of submissions. That the book is being edited by the author of "Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story" while intimidating was incredibly encouraging since he really didn't rip my story to shreds. Writing my bio. Condensing into 50 words what are the most important things in my life that I want people to know about me. That has a way of focusing one's priorities. I am so blessed.

To those of you, my friends, who read these ponderings and have supported me in so many ways. This is your success as well. You are a blessing in my life and I love you. Hopefully this is the beginning of something beautiful.

Terri

I have the most amazing music teacher in the world

I have been a musician for 25 years. I play 6 instruments ranging in proficiency from beginner level (bass guitar) to having played in a full orchestra (bass clarinet). I have taken years of lessons...Including piano from a guy who performed at Carnegie Hall at 13. But right now I have the most amazing music teacher in the entire world...His name is David and he's been my best friend for 17 years.

In all those years of lessons and all those years of playing, I never fully learned to read music. I learned enough to "get by" because I was gifted with a fantastic ability to play by ear. But I never understood anything pertaining to theory and NO ONE in all those years of lessons seemed concerned about that. So I reached 25 years as a musician not able to sight read a piece of music if my life depended upon it. I could play anything, if someone would play it for me once. But I could barely read music at all and theory was Latin to me...Foreign and irrelevant. Then I started taking bass lessons.

I picked bass for two reasons, one I LOVE the sound. I've always been enthralled with watching David play. But most importantly, I KNEW I couldn't read bass clef at all. So I would HAVE to let him teach me rather than relying on tricks I have picked up in 25 years of faking Clarinet/bass Clarinet/Contra-bass Clarinet/ Alto sax/piano. I was baffled and somewhat frustrated when he insisted upon teaching me theory. No one had ever seemed to care about theory before. If it was mentioned at all, it was in passing...Perhaps some vague reference to chord numbers (without ever explaining what those things meant) but that was about it. For weeks and months we have discussed theory.

To my amazement, I sat down at the piano yesterday (having not touched it literally in over a year) and began to sight read. To actually be able to read and count through a piece and to play it recognizably (albeit in the wrong tempo at first...Got to do things slowly to start with) the first time through. I cried. I literally cried. In less than 6 months David has accomplished what 25 years as a musician and over 10 years of formal music training never did. Finally, I can read music!

I think he's brilliant!

And now, I've got to go play.
T

The Waiting -- Day 30

And still we wait. On day 28 we wrote the THIRD version of our contract. They finally, on day 24, countered our counter. They said that 85K was as low as they could possibly go. After much prayer we agreed. With concessions. Lots and lots of concessions. And now we wait some more.

Truly if they come back with a reasonable counter I will be willing to drop about half the concessions. But we NEED them to pay the closing costs. We NEED them to provide us with a one year home warranty. We NEED them to purchase us a termite contract. The rest, even the termite contract actually, are negotiable.

We have searched and prayed and negotiated in good faith. I am now at peace. If the deal tanks I will know that WE did everything within reason to make it happen, we were simply dealing with unreasonable people. Sadly there is another buyer that is interested in the area who has more resources at his disposal and needent make such a tight deal. If we lose the house, it likely won't remain on the market for us to try again at a later time when they are more willing to be reasonable.

And so we wait.

House hunt update

The waiting...Day 14

We have offered, been rejected and counter offered and now we are playing a waiting game. 14 days have passed since we wrote the contract on the house and we are no closer than we were the last time I wrote here. I only THOUGHT that I had a headache then.

This house is everything I could want...except ready to move into...it needs SO much work. There is a crack in the wall of the second bedroom that is wide enough to put my hand in. It needs a shower enclosure in the guest bath and new fixtures in the main bath. It needs new glass in the back door and a tree removed after the storm that blew through here in July. Extensive landscaping work and new vinyl siding is also needed but lower on my priority list than the rest.

Yet with all this, the mortgage company that holds the key to getting the house refuses to budge on the price. The location is wonderful, the layout is great, the closets are to die for and I can see the fireplace at the holidays. But will any of this come to fruition? The answer to that is in the hands of some inept mortgage lender on the left coast that doesn't return her phone calls or answer her e-mails in anything resembling a timely manner. Last week we thought that was a good thing...right up until they rejected our first offer after 7 days of leaving us hanging. Now we are 7 MORE days into the process and awaiting word on our counter offer...I must admit I don't have high hopes for the desired answer and my mind has already moved ahead to do we make yet another counter offer or do we cut our losses and walk away.

I hate house hunting. Passionately.

House Hunting Makes My Head Hurt

I haven't blogged much recently because of the fact that we are searching for a new home. I have discovered that house hunting makes my head hurt and financing makes it hurt even worse. However we received word yesterday that we are pre-approved. Yeah! Of course this means that we must now decide for serious if the house we have been daydreaming over for weeks is the one we really want to put an offer on and what our max offer will be. I feel a migraine coming on even as I type this.

My stress level has been incredible and my eating disorder is almost out of control. The most I can claim as victory is the awareness that I am losing my grip. Sometimes that is a victory worth celebrating and this is one of those times. Other areas of my life have been at the fore recently and I became distracted. The eating disorder is my "default setting" and I revert to it in times of stress because it "feels" comfortable. For the first time I am able to step back and see this happening. The last two or three days I'm feeling more in control again. This is good.

In the midst of all this I'm homeschooling, teaching 4 classes in co-op, carting the 6 year old back and forth to various lessons and trying to find some time for me. Contemplating moving terrifies me but I will manage it when the time comes. I always do.

Was there a point to this? Probably not. Did I find something within it that is useful to me. As always, yes. Celebrate the small victories and don't beat myself up about the seemingly large failures and I will be much more able to cope with life the universe and everthing.

T

Stumbling on the Path

I hate failure. It makes me angry. In my perfectionism only complete success is good enough, so often nothing ever gets accomplished. So it is a source of tremendous frustration that I find myself stumbling on the path that was so surprisingly easy at its beginning.

My eating disorder is flourishing and I don't know why. This drives me crazy. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that I never schedule my own needs into Mi Vida Loca. Everyone else's needs take priority to my own. My counselor said, in the last group session I attended, what two months ago that Eating Disorders are born out of the idea that it is wrong to have needs. Huge light bulb moment. I have actually said that I was not allowed to have needs. That I did not have time to have needs. So what do I do. I overschedule myself and then drop my needs in order to make the agenda I have comitted myself to work. Why? Why do I do this to myself again and again? Why can I not be ok with inconvenencing others in order to take care of me?

At least I am becoming self-aware enough to know it is happening before it gets totally out of control. I have stumbled. I have not left the path. Perhaps this is not failure? Perhaps, maybe, this is a tiny, small but significant success?

I love the way homeschooled kids play

I love watching homeschooled kids at play. They are SO accepting and accomodating of one another. We had our teacher's meeting today for our co-op and had in attendance 30+ kids ages 2 to 13. Black and white kids. Boys and girls. Two with special needs. All body shapes and sizes. And they all played together without any fighting, scuffling, hurtful words and in ways that included everyone. They organized a game of kickball. Automatically moving in closer and pitching more softly to the littles so they could be successful too. They played in the sand box, making sand cakes decorated with pea gravel sprinkles. My daughter, all 85 pounds and 48 inches of her, was never called "Fat". She shines as the leader she is. I rejoice in her confidence in herself. I was already neurotic about my body size and shape by the time I was her age. She will be 6 on the 5th of September. By the time I turned six I was already on Weight Watchers for the first time. I looked across the play area today and I saw in front of me Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream being lived out. Children enjoying one another and evaluating one another strictly on the content of their character. I love watching homeschooled children play...it gives me hope for our future.

Finally, A post about Homeschooling

I have a teachers meeting tomorrow, the first of THREE this week. I am a homeschooler, how and why do I have not one but three teachers meetings to deal with? This is one of the paradoxes of homeschooling...the use of a CRS (church related school) commonly known as an "umbrella school".

An umbrella protects you from the rain. An umbrella school protects us from social services and the truant officer. In Tennessee homeschooling is governed by something called the "Jeter Memo". Basically there are three ways to legally homeschool in Tennesse. The easiest by far, is the use of a CRS. But it is a trade-off. Isn't life ALWAYS like that? For the protection offered by the CRS, our home is considered a satellite campus. This means that I am faculty. And once a year I must attend a faculty meeting. Tuesday night is this year's faculty meeting.

But that is NOT my first teacher's meeting this week, Oh no, my first teacher's meeting is tomorrow morning at 10 am. Because I have an only child, I DO worry even more than the average homeschooler, about the dreaded "S" word.

Socialization


Socialization is one of the reasons we choose to participate in a homeschool co-op each week. Last year I taught art and science. This year I've dropped the science class and am teaching Art/Music to the K through 6th graders and Bible to the 7th through 12th graders. Tomorrow we have a mandatory teachers meeting.

Finally we are charter members of the "Keepers Club" (think Girl Scouts meets AWANA) and we have a planning meeting for that group on Thursday night that IS essentially a teacher's meeting.

Don't get me wrong. I LOVE homeschooling. I LOVE each of these groups. It's just that I HATE meetings! Call it a social, a fellowship, a luncheon, something...but please, DON'T call it a meeting. I hate meetings. And this week I have three of them

An Idol called NORMAL

For most of my life I have wanted only one thing, to be normal. That was all. Just to be Normal. It didn’t seem to me too much to ask. I wanted desperately to fit in, to blend in to be invisible. To simply be normal.

I was different. I was an only child. I was a gifted only child. I had a rapport with adults that other children my age didn’t. I genuinely wanted to please my parents, my teachers my mentors. I was reading fluently when I began first grade. I had to arrive at school an hour early for special instruction and my classmates resented the “help” I was assigned to give the. Even at that very early age, I was not NORMAL. And I wanted to be. I wanted that more than anything in the whole world.

I have, to this very day, strove to be normal. It was my goal. My desire. My obsession. My idol. Yes, my idol. Today I have been convicted that my idol is this illusive thing called “normal”.

I wasn’t called to be normal. And God isn’t willing to let me settle for normal either. Normal is being conformed to this world…and God has called me to be transformed by the renewing of my mind. Normal is Peter denying Christ with curses as the rooster crowed. Normal is an idol and today it fell.

God showed me what I was asking him for when I kept begging to be normal. He showed me that normal was my Tarshish when I was called to go to Ninevah. For those of you that don’t get the reference…think three days in a whale belly. Only I’ve spent THIRTY YEARS here. God called me to himself. He anointed me to proclaim freedom to the captives. He didn’t commission me to be normal. He commissioned me to lead. And that frightens me. The scripture that He gave me as my “marching orders” is the same scripture that almost got Christ stoned for blasphemy when he claimed it as his commission. I have a call on my life, a charge to keep and what was holding me back from it was the siren song of “normal.”

Truly, none of us were created to be “normal” we are told again and again that we are called according to God’s purpose. From the moment of our conception, when God knit us together in our mother’s womb, he had a plan for our lives. The trick is finding it. At least now I’m back on the path…not off chasing a rabbit trail called “normal”

My Life as a Refugee -- Day 7

Today is the 7th day without power. I remain in Middle Tennessee. Today I had to get refills of my medications called in because I did NOT think that I would still be here a week after the storm.

I have been making the most of this trip. In the last week I have visited with many of my old friends from high school and am enjoying renewing old friendships. I've also become the owner of a fishing license. We've been fishing every day for the last two days. They won't let you buy JUST a fishing license. So since I HAD TO purchase a hunting license I have decided that before the year is out I will find something to shoot. Small game only...007 I am not.

Last night I had dinner with several old friends. It was the first time I'd seen Adam since the reunion. I had hoped it would be better between us, but it is not. He has zero respect for me and could not resist taking shots about things that are NOT a joking matter. His daughter is beautiful and his wife is expecting daughter number two the end of September. I wish things were better there but until he gets a grip I don't forsee that happening. Seeing Richard & Cherri, Dave McCulley, D'Lo and Stephanie and Brian was delightful though.

I am trying to keep my sense of humor and figure this is God's way of insisting that I take a vacation, but it is frustrating not to know when I will be able to return home. I miss my husband, I miss my friends, I miss my SS kids, I miss David. I miss my own bed and my own routines and being able to stay up til one am to chat online or to blog without my mom telling me it is time to go to bed (as if I was still 15 instead of 35). Oh well. It could be worse. I could be in Memphis with no power.

More from Sparta next time.

My Life as a Refugee -- Day 4

Memphis remains without power and I remain in Middle Tennessee. This is day four.

While this trip is fun and has been planned for several weeks, my original date of return was July 28th. We are not going to be returning as planned. My house is still without power and that means I am here, in the town of my childhood, for the forseable future.

Some good things: I had dinner with my cousin tonight. We never get to see one another and we had a wonderful time catching up. Last night was the same, but my dining companions were some friends of mine from high school. Today we spent the morning fishing in the river, my citified daughter's first time...it was a day of firsts for her...after our fishing trip and a quick nap she joined my aunt and uncle for a ride on the lake in their boat. She's never been on a boat before. She came home with my parents late tonight sunkissed and flush with excitment at all her new adventures. I made my usual trip to Walmart today. In a small town such as this, Walmart is the place to see and be seen. True to form I ran into three more of my high school friends and one of my "big sisters" from dad's explorer troop when I was kid. I also got my OWN fishing rod and tackle to go with the fishing/hunting license that I purchased today. I have a HUNTING liscense. I have NEVER had one of those before. I am now determined to make use of it before it expires next year. I do not know what I shall hunt.

The downside: Being in my childhood home has its disadvantages. My parents for one still lapse into treating me as if I were a child, not a mother with a child of my own. I return home and suddenly I am 16 again. It is a puzzlement. But most of all the not knowing is driving me insane. We could have power tomorrow, we could still be without it a week or more from now. I don't deal well with uncertainty.

It is late and I am responsible for two small girls tomorrow. I will close now. Stay tuned to this channel for more updates on my life as a refugee.

Inconveniences of Modern Life

Do any of us realize how dependant we are upon electricity? We have grown up in an era where it was always avaliable at the flick of the switch on the wall. We take it for granted. Even this method that I use to communicate my thoughts to the ethernet is wholly dependant upon the movement of electrons down wires or cables. Without it EVERYTHING comes to a screeching halt.

Memphis is without power. I'm writing this from my parents home in Middle Tennesse where I've taken refuge. You don't think about what happens when 2/3 of a major city loses power. In minor storms our way of coping was to go to the mall. The Mall is without power too. Ditto the grocery store, the resturant, the movie theater. Unfortunately ditto the hospitals, the gas stations, the power company main office itself. Even here, the affects of the storm are being felt. My mom's office closes all their home loans through a processing center in, you guessed it, MEMPHIS. The rerouting is creating its own headaches. Mom's hours are longer and the stress level is higher than usual.

How much will the price of groceries increase so that they can re-coup the losses in meat, dairy, produce and frozen foods? How many businesses are operating on such a narrow margin that this event will be what pushes them out of business?

How do we simplify and become more self-sufficient? I'm not about to give up my modern conveniences...I love my computer too much...but surely there has been brought home in this a need to be far more prepared. I need to have more canned food on hand. We have the capacity to cook, thanks to the gas grill, but not enough foods that won't spoil. Having lots of food in the freezer didn't help this time. I'll be re-assembling that emergency kit that we used to have during the earth quake scares of the late 80's. I'd gotten careless. We were lucky. We had somewhere to go. Others aren't. We need to be ready and not so dependant that we are incovenienced when our modern lifestyles are suddenly disrupted.

Hopefully I'll be blogging from Memphis again soon.

Communication

How do we EVER manage to understand one another on even the most basic level? Each of us has our own personal filter and everything we read or hear, write or speak, is sifted through that filter. And no two filters are the same. No matter how close two people are. It is a wonder we understand anything.

Yet we assume that we have been understood and that we understand others. We make assumptions based on our filtering system that may have nothing to do with what is really being said, or rather meant.

Recently I’ve had this experience with several friends. I don’t think that it is that we’re understanding one another less, but rather that I have become aware that thing are not always what they seem and instead of attempting to decipher for myself the hidden meaning of my friends’ attempts at conversation I have begun to do something truly radical. I ASK!

It has lead to some amazing discoveries about people that I thought I knew as well as I knew myself. It has also lead to some of the most healing conversations I have had in my entire life.

I have learned for example not to project my own guilt feelings onto someone else. It is not fair to say to someone, “You must be furious with me.” When what I really mean is “I am furious with myself and worried that you are too.” I have learned to confront the “codes” that others hide behind as well. For instance when I hear “If I had done something like that you’d have thought I was out of my mind.” I can ask, “Are you trying to tell me without telling me that you think what I did was insane?”

I am learning to reflect back the feelings I hear behind the words. For example, “I can’t believe that you let him tell you what to do like that.” Would cause me to postulate, “You feel that I am accepting bad treatment from him.” Or “Its important to you that he doesn’t tell me what to do.”

It feels really weird. And even weirder is extricating myself from the position of mediator between the various people in my life. I have been a conduit between people for years. I don’t know what to do now that I have resolved not to do this anymore. I feel useless. I feel as if I am being mean when I tell someone, “You need to ask X about that if it bothers you. I’m not X, I can’t tell you what X meant by that.”

Oddly, though I have far fewer conversations I am finally achieving real communication. I think that is a very fair trade.

Eating disorder…it still feels unreal to type that…to speak it out loud. Weight Problem is familiar and seems “safer” somehow. But eating disorder, wow, yet another in the plethora of diagnoses that would threaten to define me. Am I more than the sum of my disorders? Do the conditions I have define who I am? I feel as if they do. I feel so screwed up at times. Sexual Abuse survivor. PTSD sufferer. Domestic Violence survivor. Hypertensive. Hyperinsulinemic. Hyperlipidemic. Hypothyroid. Eating Disorder sufferer. I, who so want to be normal, am a walking PDR. I fight it. I fight it with a passion. I hate feeling weak. I hate being “sick.” I do not want pity. I want to be healed. I want to be whole. I feel cheated. Yet I know that God has promised that He will take this weight. He promised that I would be delivered from it. I have to trust that promise and I have to do MY part in seeing that promise fulfilled. I have to take care of my health. And whatever it takes to do that, I will do. Including accepting the fact that I have an eating disorder. Including eating every two hours. Including checking my sugar 4 times a day. I will beat this. I will. With God’s help and my support team behind me, I WILL beat this thing. I choose life. I will NOT die. I refuse!

Even now God is being faithful to his promise that his strength is made perfect in our weakness. I have a deeper level of credibility with the kids because they see me struggling and being willing to be accountable to THEM even though they’re “just kids” and they are growing in their faith because of it. The promise of Romans 8:28 has not failed me yet.

God has anointed me to proclaim freedom to the captives. But I must be free myself to be able to lead others to freedom. This area is still holding me bound. It is going to be broken. The weapons I fight with are not the weapons of this world; on the contrary they have divine power to abolish strongholds. This stronghold WILL fall. In the name of Jesus!

Progress.

Why is it so hard for me to settle for progress? Too often I act as if anything less than perfection is failure. How sick is that? I live and die by measures that have nothing to do with who I am as a person. I am brutally unkind to myself, saying things within my head that I would never think, much less say, about others.

Today I will choose to celebrate progress.

Evaluation of the week just past:

I am feeling more empowered. How odd that acknowledging that I am human and weak and have needs makes me feel that way. How odd that has always been my biggest fear -- not being perfect – and it is leading the way to my healing. I am baffled.

I am becoming more active. I have refused to use the heat as an excuse to stay cooped up in this house. I am making activity fun by playing tourist here at home. If the scale shows something other than what I hope, I will know the truth. I refuse to be defined by the number on the scale!

I have been OP this week. I am beginning to manage this balancing act better. I am becoming responsible for my own well-being. I am taking the initiative in my own self-care. A year ago, a month ago, heck two weeks ago, I would have been thrilled that my blood sugar meter was lost. It would have been my excuse not to check my sugars. Yesterday I was panicked at the thoughts of going out into the heat without it. I have not missed a dose of my meds in three weeks. I am drinking my water. I am making healthier choices about my food. I am eating. I am beginning to recognize MY signals of hunger. I am learning to trust my body again.

I am being more real than I have been ever in my life. I am being vulnerable with those around me who care about me. I am handling my anger without either exploding or imploding. I am taking my issues up with the person who they involve rather than with others. And I am admitting that I have needs. And that is finally OK.

The scale today said down two pounds. But that is not what made today a victory. Chosing life. Refusing to succumb to the habit of self abuse. Celebrating progress. That is what made today a victory.

Today I spent the day downtown with Jessica playing tourist in our hometown. We started last week finding out the free days at the local museums and planning days to take advantage of each one in turn. Today was the National Civil Rights Museum.

For those of you that don’t know, it is a museum that was made out of the Lorraine Motel (the motel where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in April of 1968) and it traces the civil rights struggle from the days of the emancipation proclamation to the present. I don’t know if I ever knew what racism looked like through the eyes of a child until today.

“Mommy, WHY is that man hanging from that tree??” “Mommy, WHY should that lady have to get up from her seat because a white person wanted it? She was there first!” “Mommy, WHY are those police men hurting those boys and girls? Police men are supposed to HELP people!” “Mommy, WHY?” Over and over and over again. And the only answer I could give her was “Because those people aren’t white.” She found that simply unfathomable, “But that’s STUPID! What does being black have to do with anything?”

I wouldn’t call the experience “fun” but it was definitely worth having. I kept thinking of Troy’s book “Bound for the Promise Land” and how well he did his research. If you haven’t read it and you can get your hands on it…it’s a ROUGH read, but so worth reading. Kind of like the Civil Rights Museum. The history is ugly…but worth facing…and learning from.

Memphis is a tough city to love. Race still divides us far too deeply and it is easy to become disillusioned and lose hope that it will EVER be different. Then you see it through the eyes of a child. You see them on the playgrounds at 3 or 4…not seeing color…just seeing friends. And you realize that THERE is the hope for this city. THERE is the future. THERE is Dr. King’s Dream. IF we don’t kill it for them that is.

My FAVORITE musical (other than CATS) is South Pacific. It was extremely controversial when it came out because it dealt with racism. Watching it now it’s hard to comprehend that Asians were once as discriminated against as African Americans and that interracial marriage between Asians and Caucasians was taboo. But they were. There is a song in that musical when the young lieutenant who is in love with a Polynesian girl from Bali Hi, is lamenting the reason that he cannot marry her. It talks about how racism is propagated from one generation to the next. Part of it goes, “They have to be taught, before its too late, before they are six or seven or eight, to hate all the people their relatives hate…they have to be carefully taught.” Today I realized again the truth of that statement. I take racism for granted…it’s a fact of my life…maybe, just maybe, it doesn’t have to be a fact of my daughter’s. Maybe, just maybe, our children will be the ones who understand the song we all learned as kids in Sunday School. “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world! Red, Brown, Yellow, Black and White they are PRECIOUS in His sight! Jesus loves the little children of the world!”

Blessings,
T-Bear