holiday trees?

You may have read this post on facebook, or one similar to it.

"It was announced that there will not be Christmas trees at the White house this year. They will be called Holiday Trees. Obama says this is no longer a Christian Country, it's a country of many faiths. We as Americans must send the message to Obama that this Country was founded on Christian beliefs and we are STILL a Christian Country. Please repost this and let's stand up for CHRIST! MERRY CHRISTMAS! May God have mercy on this nation! THEY ARE FREAKIN CHRISTMAS TREES....Go home if you don't like it!"

Now, I'm all for Christmas. I go around my day-to-day activities and my shopping during this season greeting random strangers and cashiers with Merry Christmas. Granted, the traditionally festively decorated evergreens are associated with Christmas. However, in all fairness, this is not a Christian country. The founding fathers may have been Christian men who did daily devotions and had Christian principles in mind when writing the original documents to govern our country, but until the actions of this country's government align with the teaching of Jesus Christ, this can not be called a Christian nation. One of the basic principles that this country was founded on was freedom of religion, and those many religions in this country have differing holidays during the winter season. So it seems contradictory to demand that traditionally decorated trees in the home of the nations leader be referred to as Christmas trees. Yes, they are Christmas trees. They are not Kwanzaa trees, Hanukkah trees, Yule trees, Eid trees or Diwali trees. But if you were the President of a nation that boasts freedom of religion, would you not call them holiday trees in an effort to be sensitive to all the religions that are practiced in your nation? Let's not get all bent out of shape now shall we?

global collage

It strikes me how while aimlessly scrolling through my news feed on facebook, the posts are so drastically different. One is a status that says, "GO BIG RED!" And my heart inside says, "Yeah GO BIG RED! Win today! Beat Penn State! Carry on the Husker legacy!" The next won is a shared photo of a man's feet, from a third world country. The shoes on his feet are plastic bottles that have been flattened, and he used some type of root or twine to make them into thongs. And my heart falls and thinks how sad I am for him, and how ironic it is that I'm viewing this on my laptop from my heated dorm. The next is a small collection of blurry photos of a happy couple newly engaged. I smile and my heart leaps in joy because I like them, and they are good for each other. A pep talk from the Cornhuskers facebook page. A shared photo of a comic depicting the difficulty of awakening, "So true," I think. A status: "GO TCU! Win for my birthday!" A shared link of an inspirational contemporary Christian song on You Tube. A shared link of an article raising awareness of anti-LGBT groups and their cruelty.

Facebook has made a global collage. Of all we think, dream, live, believe, love, hate, do, wish, talk, see and hear. Sometimes I think we "share" these things without thinking, our hand on the left-clicker of our computer mouse is disconnected from our brain. Later we browse through everything those we love or don't know have "shared" with our eyes/heart disconnected from our hand. Hmmm.

this

This past Sunday at church the worship leader asked us what comes to mind when we hear the word 'God.' She paused for a moment to let us think before continuing on with the meditation. It was only for a moment, but the image I saw in my mind's eye was that of a child. A destitute child. Starved for love, acceptance, food, someone to teach them. This caught me a little off guard, and I wondered if it was only a glimpse, that I was imaginging this image because I thought that's what I SHOULD see, because I'm an education major. As I sat there in the pew pondering this possibility, it only became more clear to me that what I had seen was in fact what God had intended me to see. It felt like a confirmation, a calling if you will. It felt as if God was saying, this is the least of these, that's who I'm talking about. This is who I have called you to serve. And what's more, I'll share a secret with you, it was definitely a child in Southern Asia, or Northern Africa, a child of color. I've wanted to go to India since I was about nine years old. It felt like God was saying to me, stick with the education major, even though it's dragging, there's a purpose behind it, keep that passion and hope alive to serve internationally. Don't let going to India become some 3rd grade dream that never comes true. For this is what I have called you to do, this is who I have called you to be. This is who I am.

Crazy

Saying it all now sounds crazy. Absolutely crazy. But apparently before this summer started I thought I was turbo woman. I set out to do it all.

My plans were to:

-have full-time job,

-have part-time job,

-take 9 credit hours,

-try to figure out how to be in a close-distance dating relationship after being in a long-distance one for 1 1/2 years,

-live "on my own" for the first time.

-be responsible for a farm full of animals for four weeks (currently)

Sounds crazy doesn't it? But this is what I was going to do. Maybe, in some alternate universe I could have, or in 5 years, or 2 years ago, but not now. I keep asking myself where I went wrong. Where did I fail? Cuz that's what I feel like right now, a failure. Well, my full-time job started before school was really over, so maybe that's where I went wrong. And while education majors don't really have finals, I was playing catch-up from being bogged down/procrastinating, so I never really got a breather, one just flowed right into the other, and it didn't exactly flow. Ok, that must be it, that's where I went wrong. I had decided before school was done that I was going to quit my part-time job, so I put in my two weeks. Did things flow/automatically get easier then? Ha! Course not! I'm not turbo woman remember?

So I went through June, being stressed at work, stressed at home, thankful the people I'm living with weren't on vacation yet, not seeing my boyfriend as often as I thought I should, going to out-of-state obligations, not doing my homework, feeling like beating my head against a wall at the end of every work day. It was a grand month. At the end of this month, through some tearful deliberating I decided to drop 3 credit hours. Yahoo! This should make my life so much easier right? And the week I'm in charge at work I have to open at 6:30am, which means I get done way sooner, so I'll have plenty of time to catch up on homework right? Or...veg in front of the nearest screen to avoid feeling constantly overwhelmed which inevitably makes me feel even more overwhelmed. So now I'm faced with yet another decision through tearful deliberation. Do I drop my remaining credit hours? I'm not getting them done, they're stressing me out, and if my stressful summer flows into a stressful fall (it won't flow folks) it'll be all bad. But I feel like such a quitter, a failure! I don't quit! The last thing I quit was children's choir in 7th grade, and it was so awful that I've focused a lot of energy on not quitting anything ever. Dropping three credit hours was hard enough, and now to drop the remaining six? What's wrong with me? Other people have done it, are doing it, can do it. Why can't I? Am I deficient? When I look back on everything I set out to do at the beginning of summer, it sounds crazy. Absolutely CRAZY. And I tell myself I shouldn't have started it in the first place. But how were you supposed to have known says a voice in my head. How? I don't know, but I was turbo woman remember? Oh right, I'm not. I'm not turbo woman, I'm not psychic, I'm not self-sufficient. I'm a child of God. Who needs to be led through life by a mighty hand.

Lord forgive me for thinking I could do it all on my own. Thank you for constantly watching out for me.

Amen.

Humble Pizza

I find myself once again writing a blog after a several month hiatus. I guess I'm not writing as much because it's not assigned (encouraged) as part of a program, and no one back home who gave me money is reading it wondering about my well being, and daily happenings. But I do hope someone reads this. Otherwise it's a bit pointless for me to be writing on here.

Tonight I found myself humbled at where of all places but Pizza Hut, where I work as a waitress. Sunday nights are usually busy and I was dreading going into work, because Friday night was really busy, and while the tips tend to be better, I didn't want another night with that much stress. However, this was not the case, we had only a slow trickle of tables with a few handfuls of carryout orders over the supper hour. What I expected to be my last table was a young couple in their 20s with their 3-year-old son. They appeared to be the kind of people that don't eat out very often, and to make up for that they got just about everything you could want to eat at any one meal. They knew right away they wanted hot wings, and a little bit later cheese sticks. After several minutes of talking, laughing and perusing over the menu, they finally decided on their pizza, and trips to the salad bar. Their order was precise, they knew exactly what they wanted. I really appreciate when customers know what they want and don't have 20 billion questions, even after I've explained it to them. What caught me off guard was when I went over to the man at the salad bar to ask a question about their pizza, he asked if we had a trash can, because he had some cheese and bacon bits that had spilled on the salad bar and he didn't just want to leave them there. Most people just leave the salad bar messy. It usually looks like a bunch of 5-year-olds were left to it unsupervised. Normal civilized adults pay no mind to getting bacon bits in the potato salad, pudding in the peaches, tomatoes in the kidney beans, or eggs in the cheese. He very well could have just left it there for me to come and wipe up in a few minutes. When they left, they had stacked their plates, cups and silverware neatly, exactly how I would have so that I could take it to the dish pit in one trip. I really appreciated them as customers. My co-worker said that she used to work at the Pizza Hut in Marion (about 5 miles from Hillsboro) and so she knew exactly what I was having to do.

Everyone left by about 8, and so I started vacuuming and sweeping early so I wouldn't have to stay so long past closing time. It was going well, and I was preparing to roll silverware early. At about 9:20 a table of 5 walked in. The cook and I were annoyed, but we were still open for awhile, so it wasn't a huge deal. About 15 minutes later a table of 6 walked in. This was more annoying, but we couldn't turn them away. As soon as I had entered their order in the computer, a table of 7 walked in. As I was making their drinks, it turned into a table of 11. I couldn't exactly turn them away. By the time I got everyone their drinks and was asking for their order, it was 9:55. I told them we closed at 10. They started to panic a little, and I said they could still order, and someone piped up, "But eat real fast?" I said yup. All three tables were youth from an Old Order Mennonite church, possibly Holdeman. This particular branch of Mennonites has in the past and continues to baffle me. The women wear head coverings, and homemade dresses. The men appear to wear conservative clothing, but from any retail store. Tonight one of the guys was wearing a jacket from a popular expensive retail store, that is anything but conservative in their clothing styles. Most people had current cell phones, and from what I could see through dark windows drove nice cars. Any time I've waited on a group of this religion, something is always terribly funny. Tonight I could only assume it was happenings in youth group. I was surprised to hear some of the girls singing along to contemporary country radio being played over the sound system in the store. As I began to clean up the salad bar, I heard someone quoting and laughing about a popular song with some questionable lyrics that I NEVER would have expected to hear from one of their tables. When the largest table payed for their food, the girl handed me the signed credit card receipt, I gave her the customer copy and she returned back to the table. I stared at the receipt for awhile. She had written me a $25 tip, in addition to apologizing for coming in so late. I knew she hadn't written it by mistake because she had taken out her phone calculator to figure out the total amount. Before they left one of the guys said thank you for putting up with them. They stacked their plates a little bit awkwardly with silverware in between, but they tried. I was very humbled by their massive tip in an attempt to apologize for inconveniencing me. I'm sure I couldn't have been the best waitress. I had removed my apron and un-tucked my shirt before they came in, and I didn't bother to fix it after seating them and serving drinks. I'm sure my annoyance at their choice of arrival time was evident on my face. They were paying customers, so it's not as if their inconvenience was completely imposing.

Oi, it's after 2 am, I can only imagine how coherent this blog post actually sounds. I think I shall stop writing for now. I supposed the point of this blog post was to illustrate how waitressing is a humbling experience. Oh I must tell you stories of my co-workers sometime. But now my bed is calling my name. Good night dear reader(s? oh that would be oh so nice!).

Becca