As your birthday approaches I am torn between my desire to go grand and have an elaborate celebration or to simply enjoy a small intimate family day. I am so easily lured to the flair of life! I know it's all nonsensical, but it is so much fun for me. Then there are a host of things I am juggling and I am reminded by motherhood that sometimes the basics are really the best. I was so convicted the other day thinking about heaven and how I spend my time and the trivialises of decor that can so easily absorb my attention than the less pretty, more functional, grimy, meaningful, Jesus would do this side of life. Forgive me for my tangent!
Over vacation, your Daddy and I were discussing the ever increasing BIGness of the world. Someday, you'll learn about the rat race! I want to shelter you from some of the BIGness, the busyness, the MAN, keeping up with the Jones, "society," as they say in the movie Into the Wild, the corrupt and wonderful things that money and humans can do.
It raises a question, how do I explain to you this world your growing up in? It's different than when I grew up (I would love to hear my Grandparents' parents responses if I could tell them about life today). I grew up learning about the native Hawaiians having no written language and a completely oral culture. They shared history through hula, songs, stories, and legends. That felt foreign because if I couldn't see a friend, we talked on the phone or wrote letters. Today, my students text, email, twitter, facebook, not only their close friends but their entire schools and sometimes even the world. My mom handmade a baby book for me and I am typing yours on a blog!
The evolution of humanity is changing so rapidly with globalization. Basic building blocks of our lifestyle are completely different: food, communication, transportation, information sharing, water, housing, agriculture, animals, etc.
Today cows eat corn instead of their natural diet of grass because of government subsidized crops in the farm bill. Chickens are "grown" with hormones that increase their size and body proportions in a shorter life span, treated as food not animals.
Ancestors ate whole foods in simple forms. Today almost all of our food is processed, including the first food pediatricians recommend giving to babies, rice cereal. Daddy commented the other day how odd it is that we actually have to write something like natural on food because so much of our food today is chemically processed.
In the past, ancestors had arranged marriages which our culture currently shuns in favor of marriages based on love. Today, tv shows arrange marriages of strangers in a competition of affection. When I was in Kenya, they spent their evenings together talking all night by candlelight. In most of America, evenings are spent watching characters talk.
Not to say that this world is a big, bad, terrible place. Far from it! I love this world. We couldn't go the Olympics, but we were able to watch them in our living room. Amazing! It is just that we are going through so many changes so quickly, it just makes me wonder where we'll end up, what exactly is happening to us in the process, what history lessons future generations will learn from us.
I want to say the rat race won't be so ratsy or racey when you grow up. But the truth is, it might be even more ratsy and racey than it was for me. I think it is the same feeling all parents have regardless of time. You, my darling, are my hope. You already shine so brightly making our lives better everyday by your ever flowing love. Someday, the world will feel the warmth of your love and turn a little greener and grow a little stronger, because of all you do.
"I believe the light that shines on you
will shine on you forever.....
......I'm going to watch you SHINE
going to watch you grow"
paul simon
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