I really, seriously can’t believe that I’ve let all of Christmas go by without making permanent any of the memories or experiences from the holiday. Thankfully, I took a lot of video and edited it all together to make one huge attempt at preserving what was the first Christmas that Carter really loved and was REALLY into.
I can say that this year was a little tough for me, having to hold back with buying gifts and doing fun things as a family that cost money. Yes, it can be gotten around and fun times were still had by all, but it wasn’t my favorite. I’ve really gone on quite a personal journey over this past month and I’m sure that I’ve arrived at a better place in the end.
This video is a little long. In it you’ll hear more of Carter singing. I’ll apologize now, because you also have to hear me sing. I’m not sure why I thought my voice wouldn’t really be picked up with the camera right by my head. Silly me. You’ll also see how spoiled Carter was by his grandparents. He had a grand ol’ time.
Not only do I really love reading people’s stories through their blogs, but I love listening to stories. As children, if we were lucky enough, we got read to while sitting in our mother’s lap and lost ourselves in beautiful tales of imagination and fantasy. As adults, we lose some of that. We become the readers and our imaginations begin to lose their spark. Where they once felt the freedom to travel on limitless journeys, now they tend to stick a little closer to home.
The way I get read to these days is through podcasts. I’ve subscribed to several, given them a chance or two and then unsubscribed if they didn’t grab my attention. I have two that have grabbed on and haven’t let go.
The first is the podcast from North Point Community Church. Andy Stanley (son of Charles) is the pastor at this large church with 3 campuses in the Atlanta area. Andy is a phenomenal storyteller. Though I continue to try, I’m not getting a lot from reading the Bible “in my mind”…what I call reading to yourself, when you can hear your own voice telling the story in sort of an echo fashion inside your mind. But, Andy tells the stories of the Bible in a way that paints a beautiful and very real picture for me. Typically, he takes one story and sticks to it through an entire series of messages, going deeper each week and taking you to places you might not have seen in reading it on your own. As I listen to these podcasts, I really just feel like I’m listening to a great story instead of being taught. Though, he always does manage to sneak in valuable lessons on me.
Then, a few weeks ago my brother was visiting from NYC and played an episode of This American Life from his iPod on a short road trip we were taking. They choose a different topic each week and the person(s) who actually experienced it tells their story. Today, as I was driving Carter around to get him to fall asleep (yes, still doing that), I listened to part of the episode titled “The Middle of the Night”. In the hour long podcast, I listened to vivid stories about teenagers who performed a middle of the night initiation ceremony, the experience of produce buyers/sellers in NYC, people who stayed up all night to get free Chick-fil-A coupons for a year at a grand opening, the experience of traveling in an Iraqi night convoy and a mother who stayed up in a hospital all night with her sick daughter. Sometimes I get so caught up in the smallness and complexities of my own life that I forget about the lives going on all around me. This podcast takes me to those places and keeps me from being so closed in on myself only.
Plus, I love a good story and I love to be read to.
I watched him leave the house this morning with a clenched jaw and a furrowed brow. He hadn’t even gotten to work yet and already he looked unhappy. He spends 50 or so hours a week at a job that he appears to not like.
But, then again, I can understand how he must be feeling. He puts all his time, effort and LIFE into this job with very little coming back to him in the way of compensation. It must be frustrating.
It seems like everyone has something they care about. For me, it’s this. I care about the fact that our government and food manufacturing companies may be willingly and knowingly feeding us food that makes us sick. I don’t mean sick like we might get a cold, but sick like it might kill us or seriously affect the quality of our lives. I care about what foods go into my child. It frustrates me that when money is tight and I’m forced to spend less at the grocery store, that I’m also left with purchasing some food that could be of questionable quality. In a perfect world, I could buy all organic and natural and local and I could cook nearly everything we consume right here in my own kitchen from real ingredients and not from a box or a powder or a can or my freezer.
That’s my dream. That’s something I care about.
What about you? Do you care about this? Do you care about something else?
This is the story of Me. It's who I am and who I wish I was. It's where I've been and where I'm going and where I am at this very moment. It's the random thoughts and the contemplative reflections. It's nonsense and humor. It's my struggles and my realizations. It's my loves and my hates. This is my journey and my therapy. This is my life, in my words on my screen. I welcome your comments and I love to read blogs, so if you have one please share the link with your comment.
