Brand new shiny toy gift phone!

Meet my new phone. It is granny-smith apple green. It is sleek. It is not edible. I've been asked for many years now if I had one (when I didn't). And now I do.

The apple is not edible

Meet my i-phone (no. 5, currently nameless).

I'm not quite sure what to make of the "everyone has one" argument I'd been hearing. Will it be handy to have a camera again? Most certainly. Is it nifty to be able to see previous texts? Oh yes. Can I use it in my classroom? You'd better believe I will (audio recording, hello!)

But does everyone have one?  Taking a quick glance at most of the world, that'll be a resounding nope.

Then again, not everyone has parents who are still together, a bed, enough money for plane tickets to visit family, Bibles in my two languages, the promise of a hot dinner tomorrow (and two other meals, plus snacks), a bachelors degree, a healthy body and plenty of things to clothe it, a faithful computer (who turns 6 this year!), or even access to clean water.

I'm so ridiculously privileged I don't even realize it until I have a brand new shiny toy gift phone to make me remember.

I don't mean to sound like a downer about these things, but I guess this is where my mind goes when I'm thankful. I'm happily reminded that everything- like this phone- is a gift not meant to be hoarded but shared to bless others and bring the Kingdom a little bit closer to home. I'm humbly challenged that this phone (along with everything else) is an investment, and I am responsible to its true Owner. I may be taking this a bit too grandiosely, but after all, it's an i-phone. It can do stuff.

Okay, enough seriousness and Siri-ousness. I mentioned briefly that this brand new shiny toy gift phone is currently nameless; this puts it at odds with my other pricey possessions, which all have names (Mechitas the Mac, Eddy the car, Lucy the deceased camera, Enoch the trombone...etc.)

....Any suggestions?

The mud on our jeans

Tears are not uncommon on 2nd grade recess. Skinned knees, hurt feelings, accidental (?) pushes and reports that "she's not my friend anymore" swarm 2 feet below me, all of them wondering if I can fix it and asking in one way or another a fundamentally human question: am I going to be okay?

Sometimes, thought, the teary-eyed ones don't come to me, and I find myself drawn, like today, to the boy on the lonely bench. His hood is up because it's cold and because he doesn't want anyone to bother, or even see, him. 

I ask him what the matter is and he replies, shoulders shaking, that he tripped and got mud on his pants. 

"Oh kiddo, it'll wash!" I told him, repeating almost instinctually the advice my mom once gave me and likely my grandma once gave her (I wonder how many generations these phrases go back, but that's beside the point). 

He shook his head rather violently. "My mom will yell at me."

I bit my tongue a moment or two. He has mud on his jeans and is distraught at the idea of getting scolded and hurt for the sin of getting them dirty. 

...

Last night I woke up during a dreamed conversation with my cousin Ethan. He said he was going to preach about sin (this is what seminary has done to me, I guess, since he's never preached, although he is one of my favorite people to talk with...I'm guessing that's my dormant brain's connection), and so I asked him what his main point was and advised him to talk about sin in the light of grace and forgiveness. This is pretty profound, now that I think about it, and in line with Jesus' teachings. He talked an awful lot about what to do with the sister who sins against us (forgive as many times as it takes), the tax collector who can't even raise his head as he prays with his hood up in humble honesty and yet goes home right with God, the wasteful son who stumbles homeward with muddy jeans, destined to be a servant but welcomed into his Dad's arms. 

...

I turn again to the boy, and ask him a question I ought to ask myself more often: "what's more important- you, or the mud on your jeans? Which one matters most to your mom?"

Hiccup. "Me."

Of course, but how easily we forget it. The jeans will till have to be scrubbed, but they will wash. There is a way to be good again*, there is forgiveness, there are even new squelchy mud puddles to discover tomorrow. But under it all, there is the assurance that we are loved so much more than the mud on our jeans. 

And that means we are going to be okay. 

*A quote from one of my favorite books: The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini

**The pictures are not mine, they are respectively heisted from an outdoor clothing site (http://www.muddyfaces.co.uk/being_outdoors.php) and a random article about God's love (http://escapetoreality.org/2010/12/01/love-of-god/). I don't officially endorse either, although I enjoyed the article and definitely use clothes outdoors. 

Re-entry, or maybe I'm crazy sometimes

I'm sure the comparison has been made before, but there is something about culture adjustment (going from one country/culture to another) that is uncomfortably like being mentally, well, off. I won't say mental illness, which is a separate issue and way too heavy to compare to any plight of mine, present or past. But mentally off in the sense that most of my points of reference for what is normal/expected are suddenly shifted- ever so slightly- but just enough to throw me for an emotional loop.



There are the mornings I wake up and go downstairs for breakfast, and stand, somewhat overwhelmed, at the well-stocked kitchen shelves in front of me with no fewer than 6 kinds of tea (I'm indecisive even when faced between black and green tea). Then there are the mornings when I don't even leave my room before I'm astounded at the size of my room and the softness of the carpet and the smell of my books and the clothes in my closet (the ones I'd forgotten I'd had these past ten months). And there are even mornings when I don't even make it out of bed before I remember that I'm not on the top bunk and that my friends are thousands of miles away and in spite of the fact that I'm "home" I don't quite feel home.



And then there are mornings like today when I hear the lyrics "people are strange when you're a stranger" on the radio and start crying in the restaurant for no apparent reason, much to my (and my Dad's) bewilderment.



Like I said, re-entry = mentally off.


Or maybe I'm just "home" nowhere and everywhere at the same time.