In the Zone

I'm preparing for hostilities I'm not talking about open war or riots or murder.  In fact, I won't be the hostile one.  Instead, I believe it now my mission to prepare my students for the hostile world that awaits them. What do I mean? Well, with the Supreme Court decisions on marriage this week, coupled with the Texas filibuster that kept an abortion bill from passing (and the praise that senator received), it is inevitable that Christian teenagers will grow up in a world where their beliefs in scripture will make them outcasts. I've seen it already.  I read several blogs praising the decision and labeling Christians who believe homosexuality is a sin as backwards, outdated, wrong and hatemongers.  Popular opinion is not on our side. Then again, it never was. In Jesus' day, he attacked popular opinion.  Time and again he called out the religious leaders for teaching a secularized version of scripture.  In Jewish culture, during the exile, the r...

As I type this, my desk is literally covered with piles of permission and medical forms. In less than a week, we leave for youth camp.  In less than a month, we depart for our mission trip to St. Louis.  In six weeks, we take our children to kids camp. All of those trips include lengthy medical forms that must be filled out.  On the forms, allergies, medicines and health conditions have to be listed.  Insurance cards and numbers must be included.  Signatures from parents are required.  In the past, some of those forms even needed to be notarized. To take students to camp or mission trip requires a fairly detailed, finely-worded process that must be signed off by parents or the student cannot attend or participate.  (I once misplaced a form and was told that student could only sit in the dorm room until the form was found and faxed.) Yet, thanks to recent court rulings and now the Obama administration backing off of their appeal of tho...

Last week, at Disney World, I went to retrieve our stroller from the stroller parking section.  As I searched among the hundred or so strollers, I finally found mine and started to move it.  As I pulled, it snagged on a woman's garment.  Panicked, I looked up and saw it was a Muslim women in full Muslin dress.  Her body was completely covered.  Only a slit for her eyes was visible.  I was careful not to yank, and I tried to apologize as the hook of the handle caught part of her garment.  She didn't say a word and we both quietly went on our ways. As I walked away, I felt pity on her.  For one, it's Disney World in June in Florida.  I strode along in shorts and a very thin T-shirt.  Both were soaked in sweat.  I had already consumed two bottles of water and still felt weary.  She was dressed head to toe in heavy garments.  I can't imagine how hot she was pushing a stroller with two kids through a mass of people in hum...