Step 15: eat health food
After I was born my mum got so ill and weak she was near death. A big part of her recovery was a total change in her diet. She embraced health food. Her children were part of that embrace. For the most part that was great. She is an excellent cook. Not having soda and candy around the house just made them more of a treat. But there was one thing: breakfast.
Four days a week we could only eat fruit before lunch. Fruit meant apples and oranges. And they were never nice, and there was nothing tropical, and it was winter, and I was cold and hungry.
Then for several months, on the other days, we had wheat. This was how it was prepared: take raw grains of wheat. Cook them for a week until they are tenderish. Add some raisins. Continue cooking until the raisins are swollen and disgusting. Serve with milk and honey while fighting your gag reflex.
Also, there was a cod liver oil phase.
Step 12: Shake Pat Robertson’s hand
This is how it looks from my little perspective: In the 1980s evangelical Christians in America went insane and believed that getting political power was the way to save the world. Maybe we thought following the example and instructions of Jesus wasn’t good enough now that we had technology and gay people. Maybe loving our enemies wasn’t as fun as being nasty to them. Maybe doing it the Jesus way was too hard and slow and messy for us. Whatever it was, we ended up helping to give the world President George W Bush. I’m really sorry about that.
12 years before GWB, Pat Robertson, televangelist and prophet of doom, ran for the presidency. Someone gave my parents tickets to a $100/plate Robertson fundraising barbecue. My 14 year-old self, full of evangelical-political fervour was thrilled. And he Shook My Hand. Ladies and gentlemen, I have touched Pat Robertson.
On the other hand, my dad who was a grown-up and knew things about nuance and balance and not getting completely swept away by politicians’ bluster and rhetoric, made sure to watch Jesse Jackson’s speech during the Democrat convention. Back then I could not understand why he would do that.
In which I decide a thing
Okay, now that I’ve had a few minutes to be angry and sad, it’s time for this: I got £50 for my birthday. Judging by the fact that the biggest problem I had today was a blown speaker in my iPhone headphones, I think the money could be better used somewhere that isn’t buying stuff for me.
The question is: where?
I could send it to that hospital in Afghanistan. I could send it to my cousins who have children’s homes in the Philippines and are heavily involved in helping with the typhoon recovery. I could give it to the foodbank that my friends started this autumn. Or I could give it to a thousand other very worthy projects.
Instead — and this might be pure selfishness — I would rather invest it in something local, something that can grow from £50 into something that lasts, something that I can do with my family so my kids see a different way of living, something that leads to a genuine lifestyle of connecting meaningfully with and serving the people around me, especially people that society says I shouldn’t be connecting with.
I guess what I’m saying is that I want to spend £50 on becoming a better person by creating something useful and rule-breaking and full of life.
Geez, that looks like it’s been written by a big faffy prat, but I am writing it down because tomorrow I will most likely be trying to think of funny tweets, and I will need a reminder.
I don’t know what that is yet. Do any of you have ideas?
It's a weird world
I took a few minutes to catch up on my RSS feeds. The first one was was about a guy’s visit to help out in a hospital in Afghanistan that gives free medical care to helpless women and children. That meant that I had to read the second one about the branding of a Tiffany & Co. sponsored outdoor ice rink through eyes full of tears.
It’s a weird world. It’s a really f***ed up world.
Step 10: stay out of the military
At some point during my childhood, I announced in an offhand kind of way that I would probably join the army. My mother replied in a non-offhand kind of way that I certainly would not, that she had seen what the military does to people, that no son of hers would ever join the army.
She was influenced I’m sure by the action my uncle saw in Korea. And my dad was drafted during Vietnam. Fortunately, he was only sent to Germany.
That conversation was the beginning of my becoming the pacifist* I am today.
*More like kingdom-of-God-ist, but that takes too much explaining and ‘pacifist’ is plenty annoying anyway.
Step 7: pray the prayer
First of all, I’m pretty sure I could slap a bible verse across this illustration and sell prints by the millions at Christian book shops across the world. That embarrasses me — a lot. Normally, if I did anything this twee, I would junk it and start again, but NaNoDrawMo is about quantity, not quality. Meh.
When I was six or seven, I was struck forcefully and independently of any person that if I died I would be separated from God forever. I went to a corner of our living room, knelt down — I don’t know why I knelt because I had never knelt to pray before — and I asked Jesus to come into my life.
There were no rays of light from heaven, nor angels choirs singing. I did feel happy about what I had done, and I told my parents. They were happy too.
