A Christian First

It caught me off guard the other day when my 12 year old son referred to himself as an Adventist homeschooler. Immediately I understood why he said this but I still stopped and asked him why he said it. He told me exactly what I already knew; it's the only thing he's ever known and he still identifies with that denomination.

He was around 2 years old when we joined the Adventist Church. We attended the same church for almost 10 years, the boys attended the church school during that time, I worked as a secretary at the church for 2 1/2 years before going back to school to get my degree in teaching and then taught at the school for 5 years. So, our life was focused and centered around our church and church family. He has only known himself, outside of our family, as an Adventist.

However, there came a point during which, I became disenchanted with the hypocrisy within the Adventist school system and the church. Specifically, the pastor's refusal to baptize our oldest son, who, after attending baptism preparation classes, twice, was refused this next step in his spiritual life because he played sports on Sabbath. This is despite the fact that there were wealthier families in the church with children in the same sports leagues who were allowed to get baptized. This broke my heart. I had seen first-hand some of the poor decisions and inequities within the church because of the humanness of the members but I also saw the damage it does to individuals and their walk with Christ along the way. In this case it was an opportunity for a young man to make a very special and public commitment to Christ and this man, who was our pastor, crapped all over it. How sad is that?

Having worked for and around the church and school for almost 8 years, I saw these situations on occasion but overlooked them and explained them away as I put my head down and plugged along being reminded that these men were not my boss. I do believe that God worked in incredible ways in my life during this time. However, this particular situation was the straw that broke the camel's back. The other breaking point was when, after expressing concerns with my oldest son's teacher about his grades and performance, she just smiled and told me what a pleasure he was to have in class. At that point I could care less about his deportment, I was talking about his performance academically. So, after being ignored and nothing being done in class to help him succeed I took my concerns to the school board chairman and shared that my husband and I were thinking about homeschooling our oldest as a result of the inaction on the part of his teacher. Well, she blew up and told me that "If the school was not good enough for my son then maybe it wasn't good enough for me." I took her at her word and put my money where my mouth was...I walked. With my husband's support, I quit my full-time teaching job, which I loved, in order to homeschool our boys, whom I love even more.

We withdrew our membership 2 years ago and have not joined another church since. We've visited a couple but have been faced with the mega, fast-food version of church or the small congregations where nothing will happen unless you're doing it. It is a huge investment of time and energy to find a church, join it, and become a part of it. I don't know when we'll be at that point again. In the meantime, we have to contend with family members who tell us that their salvation is secure despite the fact that they've not been to church in the last 20 years and then bop in and out of church on occasion and ask us why we aren't going to church. Sheesh...some people just don't get it.
 

Having grown up in a home divided by parents who attended different churches, priests that have acted selfishly and only considered their ego rather than the best interest of their members, or the hypocrites who judge others but are unwilling to look at themselves, make me want to throw in the towel on "church". In the end I just want my sons to embrace the idea that they are a Christian first, regardless of denomination or how often you step inside a church.

Take a Proper Leak!

Living in a household of men, I have, on occasion, experienced the agonizingly disgusting situation in which I park my backside on a toilet seat sprinkled delicately with urine. Yuk! Almost nothing hacks me off more than this scenario. It usually ends in my yelling loudly that no one with a penis is allowed to use that bathroom, ever!! This lasts about 7 hours until I and they forget. Is lifting the toilet seat really that difficult?

But, if you will notice that I said "almost" nothing hacks me off more and that almost is when women, who, when faced with the reality of being unable to find any paper toilet seat covers in a public restroom, then pull a Lady Gaga on unsuspecting women everywhere. We (women) naively assume that we can go into the "Women's" restroom and park ourselves on a public toilet without sitting in urine but I have been mistaken on a number of occasions. So, the next time you feel that your ass is too delicate to actually touch the plastic of a public restroom toilet seat, take your squatting, urine-spraying self into the men's restroom and piss in a urinal!

Wow, Where to Start?

Well, it's just over a month later since my last post yet so much has been going on. Our 16 year old son got a job at the local golf course, our 12 year old son is busy with AAU basketball practices during the week and tournaments each weekend and got his sports goggles, my husband got his custom made longboard, my father-in-law has been dating, breaking up, and dating again (same lady), my puppy Tillman has been growing and thriving (last check put him at 23 pounds), Leno stole the Tonight Show back from Conan, there was a devastating earthquake in Haiti with estimates of up to 200,000 dead, and the US federal deficit is expected to reach 1.267 trillion dollars by 2011.

Sheesh...I'm worried about what life will look like in a month from now, a year, a decade, let alone tomorrow. Everything is so fragile and I'm afraid that we, as Americans, are learning this lesson a little too late. Yet, the media, Hollywood, and our artificial world around us continues to distract us from what really matters. We're like a bunch of ADD kids at the circus without our parents.

I'm just as bad. I can tell you which movies are nominated for an Oscar (did you realize they're nominating 10 instead of 5 this year?). I could tell you about some of the concerns that Heidi's gone over the top with all her plastic surgery (but no I don't watch The Hills). I'm concerned that Brad and Angelina are going to break up, (NOT!). What about all those kids? They're worse than that Octo-mom. We could talk about Travolta taking his plane into Haiti loaded with a bunch of Scientologists and rice. Yesterday I learned that Lil Wayne is going to spend a year in jail. How's he going to get the weed that he loves? I'm worried. Or, looking a little closer to home, perhaps you've heard about the case in Thurston County where prosecutors charged three teenagers with Class C felonies for allegedly texting a naked picture of an underage girl. Did I mention the underage girl is the one who originally sent the picture? Sad.

So, what does this all mean? I have no clue but the information is coming in more quickly than I can process it. The whole thing makes me want to grab a copy of Thoreau's, On Walden Pond with a bag of peanut m&m's and hide out in the woods!