Posted. Funniest Post.

I am so grateful for Sweet Sarah's awesomely simple link ups which always seem to come along when I have had trouble getting myself to the keyboard and need a quick easy post to get me going again.

This week in no exception. Brutal travel then finally arriving in the arms of family and enjoying their company has kept me away from my blog this week. So, realizing it was time for Posted. made me feel so relieved.

Then she had to go and pick funny. That was kind of hard. I mean, I think I am hilarious. But everyone else? Not so sure. But I was back and forth between two and this is my blog and I can do what I want and I think Sarah would be very patient with my inability to totally follow the script, so I am linking both.

Given our recent travel chaos, which I hope to tortureyouwith  entertain you with some time this week, I have had this post about our border crossing to Panama on my mind. I laugh every time I think about that trip.

And then as I visit with people in the States and try to explain what we are doing and why we are headed to Africa and realize all over again how the life that seems so normal to me does not appear that way to everyone else, I am reminded of this post about how people perceive us when we are trying to make new friends. And laughing at myself once again.

So go ahead, have a few laughs. And check out the other posts in the link up too. I am sure there is some fun to  be had.

Day 4 of Giving that Gives Back: How Not to Be the Grinch

One of the things that's hard about tackling this issue on a personal level is others' reaction to it. I do not know a single person who would try to become a more intentional consumer for the sake of making others feel bad about themselves. And yet that seems to be the general reaction.

People feel the need to defend themselves or declare us a saint. It's hard not feel pressured to stop talking about this at this point. No one wants to ruin someone else's merry. I am hardly here to try to make another mom feel badly about herself for sticking a candy-cane shaped tube of Hershey's Kisses in someone's stocking. And yet, judging by the comments in my friend Sarah's post at the NC Register today, it seems that this is exactly what happens when we go there.

Here's the thing, I am convinced it is better to do something rather nothing. I know my efforts will never be perfect and I will likely never get the opportunity to physically rescue someone from slavery. I know my best attempts may fail me and I might find out the ethically sourced chocolate I purchased was mailed in bubble wrapped that spreads cancer to workers in a developing nation. It's just unavoidable.

But here's the thing. If I never try to change my actions based on what I know, nothing will change. Not in me and not in the world. Bianca Olthoff, who is fighting trafficking on the front lines with the A21 campaign said something when I heard her speak recently. She summed up perfectly our purpose here with this short phrase: "Awareness should lead to advocacy should lead to action". We cannot be paralyzed by fear or guilt or being simply overwhelmed. We have to live in the tension that we can try and never get it totally right. But if we are aware there is an injustice as grave as modern day slavery rising to epidemic proportions in our time, we must use our voice to advocate for solving it and we must take what action is available to us. Tweaking Christmas is one way we can start.

But we can also find ways to do it without being the Grinch to those around us who would feel indicted by our action. One way is invite them to make merry with you in this. My friend Audrey hosted "A Different Kind of Christmas Party" this weekend.

Nickie's table representing St. Bryce Missions at
Audrey's "Different Kind of Christmas Party"

She invited friends to represent causes they were passionate about with tables set up in her living room. Then her guests made merry with holiday cheer and goodies while they had a chance to get to know the opportunities to give a different kind of gift this Christmas. She had children to sponsor in Ethiopia and items made by social enterprise initiatives. And my dear friend Nickie invited guests to purchase chickens for our St. Bryce Missions Chicken Run Project which provides chickens to families with undernourished children in our area.

A festive little chicken gift bag to bring her gifts home on

She made it lovely and fun and festive for the guests. Just look at those photos! They even took home little gift bags with gift cards in them to give to whomever they had purchased the chicken in honor of.  After the party, Audrey sent all her guests links to the groups that were represented at the party.

Rather than try hard to make changes and end up feeling like the Grinch this Christmas, why not find a way to creatively celebrate your efforts at change? And look, don't freak out about how your baked goods are contributing to slavery while you have a party to help stop it. Just relax. Breathe a little.

Find some friends around you who are passionate about a certain organization or group, invite them to advocate for that group. Don't know anyone to ask? Do a virtual one. Invite your guests to bring their favorite gadgets and introduce them to the links we are sharing here or your personal favorites. Bookmark and pin in holiday style. Encourage them to think not only about products to purchase, but encourage them to choose a non-consumer option or a charity gift for at least three of their gifts this Christmas. Give them permission for it to be yours. Have festive round up friends. Play some Christmas tunes. And change the world without anyone having to feel badly about herself. We have to start somewhere. Why not with a party?

Don't forget that you can find all the posts in this series linked in the original post.

Common Curiosities

As I immerse myself into life here in Costa Rica once again, I have been thinking a lot about my time in the States and life there. And how different it is from life in most of the rest of the world. I am not one of those guilt tripping missionaries who want you Americans to feel bad about what you have. I just want you to appreciate how strange our lives may look to someone coming in from the outside. The longer I live outside the States, the more I find myself having to mentally coach myself through the process by saying, "Pretend that this is normal. Pretend that you do this all the time. Pretend that you are perfectly calm and okay with this." Because the American lifestyle? It's a little overwhelming. And I think most of you have moments where you would admit the same. I feel a bit more like Alice in Wonderland every time I go back with things that were once common to me becoming curioser and curioser. So, here are my top three (just so you know, I started with five, but was flush and breaking out in hives by three, so I am revising) common curiosities I encountered in the States:

1. Pavement: The sheer expanse of concrete in the U.S. is amazing, you guys. Highways with five lanes going in each direction. Parking lots the size of a small town. Sidewalks! Everywhere! The sheer expanse of paved, flat roads on which one can traverse the United States is a wonder to behold. Does it never strike you as curious that you can get from one end of the States to the other, changing altitude and topography drastically on mostly flat, straight roads? That we blow up mountains to keep the road going straight through in the middle of it rather than create a curve in our road? That we really never walk anywhere but we have sidewalks everywhere? That we would rather circle around for an hour and half before using the back half of one of our monstrous parking lots, but we keep building them to house twice as many cars as are ever parked in one place anyway? Look, you guys, I have no big moral feelings on pavement one way or the other. I just want you to appreciate the wonder of being able to get from one place to the other on a paved, wide, flat, straight line. This is truly a marvelous curiosity and unheard of in most other parts of the world. Also, I encourage at least once to seek the adventure of careening through curvy mountain gravel roads while an 18-wheeler careens back at you with no space for either of you to let the other pass. Your adrenaline will get the thrill of its life and you will never take your highways for granted again.

2. Wegmanns: Feel free to insert your nearest boutique grocery shopping experience's name here. Grocery stores in America have in general begun to be anxiety provoking experience for me. The bright lights, the hoards of people, the rows and rows of stuff begging you, "choose me! choose me! choose me!" But add in a man rolling sushi, an antipasto bar, an Italian pastry shop, a wine cellar and a place to sip coffee and WATCH OTHER PEOPLE GROCERY SHOP and you have a recipe for a panic attack. Seriously, Wegmanns in Northern Virginia on a Saturday afternoon about did me in. I think my sweet friend Mary may have feared for my sanity and physical safety. You guys, we have turned to procurement of food into entertainment and recreation.The jury is still out on the moral implications of this in my mind, and I said this blog post was not about the great American guilt trip, but can we. just for a moment, agree on how odd this is? The next time you step into one of these stores, try to imagine it through the eyes of a person who has only ever gone to a small neighborhood shop to grab the basics needed for survival for the next couple of days...rice, 1/2 a kilo of meat, dish soap, bread, oil. And who is one of the well off for the ability to do so. We seem a curious bunch through those eyes. no? I just am not even sure what to say about that. And the pet food selection? I cannot even discuss it without getting all self-righteous preachy...

3. American Football: Look, I am a Southern girl and a mom of boys. If I was in charge, I would declare football morally excellent in a heart beat. And Sunday family football gatherings. And Saturday tail gates. And Fantasy leagues. All of it. Yum-malicious goodness where I am concerned. But I do think we tend to forget that almost the entire rest of the world has absolutely no clue what we are doing in our football madness. And that it must seem just a little odd to them. I mean look, they get all crazy like just like us when it comes to soccer. Faces painted. Wild hates. Madness in the streets. Too much beer. It's not that. It's the actual sport of American football. And that none of us feel the need to describe it as AMERICAN football because we call the sport that the entire rest of the world calls football by a random name we made up for it because we have OUR OWN FOOTBALL...a sport in which man wrap themselves in protective padding and tight pants, crush each other with curious vigor to gain possession of small ball and carry it across a field to a painted rectangle and then do a self-glorifying victory dance. Try to fathom making mental sense of that with no frame of reference whatsoever. Curioser and curioser for sure. But like I said, I'm all for proclaiming the moral good of football (except for player salaries...which again ignite my pop up soapbox so we won't go there) so we're going to go with Alice on this one. Is football mad? I'm afraid so. It's entirely bonkers. But I'll tell you a secret. All the best sports are.

So there. For what it's worth, these are the things that made me feel like I just stepped into Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. Strange things are afoot in the U.S.A. And that just proves that I do not think myself superior to the rest of you. I just quoted one of the strangest of our affinities of all time without guilt. So there.

photo credit: Brandon Christopher Warren via photopin cc
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