Funny

The Way To Fight Climate Change is To Eat Beef (Seriously)

/ Lori Lawe / 1 Comment

I was looking around me, trying to figure out how to save the world.

We’ve got some problems, right?

“Tick Season” and “Wildfire Season” are the terns that replace what we used to simply call “Spring” and “Summer”.

The warmer winters allow ticks to flourish, and weird weather events are seen all over the world with increased regularity.

So how do we solve these problems, I wanted to know, as I took another bite of my snack and continued to half-watch my favorite iPad distraction.

One list of ways to curb climate change helpfully included “Turn off lights” as a to-do item.

“Come on! The world is falling apart and you are harping about turning off lights?” I thought incredulously.

OK – what are the MOST important things that we can be doing to reverse climate change?

I don’t have a lot of time here. The commercial is almost over.

It turns out, that the best thing we can do is to eat beef.

Now, two caveats:

(1) I didn’t say that we should eat MORE beef.

(2) I didn’t specify what KIND of beef we should eat.

We should eat LESS beef. For sure. Your hearts and knees will thank you. We should cut up that beef into TINY strips and use it to add flavoring to our stir fries, for example. But we should EAT beef.

We should ONLY eat ONE kind of beef. The kind that costs more money. But if we do point number one, above, and eat LESS beef as well to give our overtaxed bodies a break, we still come out ahead, financially. And we can enjoy a side of ultra-cheap beans with every meal, which will make our bodies happy too.

Anyway, having extra money to buy more plastic items that will break next week is one of the idols of our culture, enslaving us. But that is a conversation for another day.

Now, I finally get to the point:

Eat only beef that has been regeneratively farmed.

Yes, a big word for the end of a short blog post.

Check out this movie for a summary of this movement or wait for a future post for a detailed explanation.

Kiss the Ground

What are your thoughts?

Want To Be A Hero Too?

/ Lori Lawe / 1 Comment

I AM a NEIGHBORHOOD CHAMPION. I AM the COMMITTEE CHAIR. (For those who don’t know, the CHAIR is the TOP, MOST IMPORTANT position on the committee).

Of what, you say?

Well, of this group I volunteer with, the Firesmart program. The goal is to educate people about the most common causes for houses to burn down due to wildfire, and then to focus on doing the most important interventions that decrease the risk of a house going up in flames.

We encourage each other to clean up the downed branches that are fire risks in our community. And of course, with tinder-dry forests where we live, in the BC interior of Canada, it seems the trees are shouting, “Please consume me with fire!”

Many of the cedars are already red, dried up, and sad, living in the arboreal never land between life and death.

But I digress.

The point I was trying to make is that, well, have you ever noticed how manipulation is overtly used in our culture? For example, the assumption is by the Firesmart program that Jane-Neighbor (aka me) would be more likely to spend another X number of hours volunteering if we raise her up a bit in her own eyes.

She is MORE important than others. SHE ALONE is the CHAIR, and my favorite, a CHAMPION. I rode around on my bike last summer delivering flyers with information about the Firesmart program. And now, I can wear a badge, and elevate myself to the lofty level of CHAMPION.

We are all so ridiculous, aren’t we? And by the way, when I throw away the title of Champion or Chair, what do we have left? “Regular Mom worried about her kid’s future”. Somehow that title isn’t as important, we feel. How wrong we are! The secret superpower, the cape under our regular clothes, regular moms, regular dads, is actually of course, concern for the wellbeing of our kids.

Learning what wildfire smoke does to kids’ brains* – that’s my superpower. I would wave my paper fan all day long in front of my kid’s faces . . . desperately . . . untiringly if that would decrease their potential cognitive impacts. I don’t even need the elevated title of CHAIR to do that!

Barring that, I ride on my bike distributing flyers. Maybe my kids and us won’t have to drive away in a car in a hurry this summer, flames licking at our tires. We read about others in Lytton, BC who endured that a few years ago. It would be nice not to do that, actually.

I’d rather just be a regular Mom, reading my book on the wharf at the lake while my kids play in the water.

Instead, I am a super mom, manipulated to feel important. The incredible truth is that “Mom Worried about Her Kids” is a force to be reckoned with. She is the true powerhouse.

Have you ever read about those moms who lifted a car off of their kids when they were in danger? The critical line in that article is that “. . . we humans are, quite simply, stronger than we think.”

Ready to lift the car of a sick culture off of our kids?

Come on, Moms, Dads. It’s time to reluctantly put away the novels, look at the future of our kids 20 years out, and work together to do some lifting. Our kids may be trapped between wildfire smoke and flames licking their tires unless we can find a way to turn this big ship, our culture, around. Time for some real heroes to show their stuff. On board?

For now, we can use our voice here, as one example of taking off our Clark Kent clothes and jumping into the battle. And let’s continue to talk about how to be a real hero in a future post, shall we?

Blogpost Footnotes

*Statement from this article: “A growing body of literature also suggests that exposure to particulate matter may have neuropsychological effects in children, including associations with ADHD, autism, school performance, and memory.”

Don’t Laugh At Me Yet

/ Lori Lawe / 4 Comments

No. It isn’t funny. We concur with you. We empathize. We feel your pain. We’ve been there. This is NOT funny……. (yet). We turn away when the snicker rises up. We don’t want you to see the guffaw. Not YET. Yet is the keyword.

My daughter is a minor chemist. She has mixed and remade so many versions of slime that she could create her own YouTube channel if she wanted to (in fact, she does and likely will). She was thrilled with the quality and texture of her most recent recipe, bounding down the stairs to lay her magnificent creation before my unappreciative eyes.

“Oh yes, it’s more stretchy,” I expressed, grasping to appreciate homemade slime. She couldn’t hear my lack of astonishment. She was a momma and this new batch of slime was her baby. No one, nothing, could tempt her to see a lack of wonder towards her beloved. This I could understand.

But it was unbelievably annoying when later that morning, after using our bathroom, I automatically rested my hand where the hand pump soap sits, and … nothing. The soap was gone. I actually thought I was going mad. I couldn’t find my teaspoon measure (again) later in the day. Random things seem to appear from thin air in bizarre locations, and others disappear with no rhyme or reason.

So it wasn’t funny. Yet. Can we not even keep soap in the bathroom, this hygienic essential? What is wrong with our household? I stumbled to the coffee machine in an effort to increase brain cells, to seek comfort from another cup of java. How is it that we don’t even have what we need to function at the most basic of levels? I asked myself.

I was discouraged. My identity was somehow wrapped up in a $6 bottle of hand soap. If I’m the one directing this ship, together with my hardworking husband, why is there another hole in the boat?

Coffee wasn’t solving my problem. But laughter did. Unentangling my identity from the bottle of hand soap helped. Waiting for the YET, which I could sense somehow, was coming, was the relief that I needed.

So, of course, our daughter used the family bathroom hand soap to make her most recent batch of glorious slime. Why wouldn’t she? And yes, she did put it . . . somewhere. Now where was it?

Here is the YET. I am NOT actually incapable of having enough of the basic essentials available to avoid a major health hazard. I am homeschooling. And my daughter is the inventor. Of COURSE, we may not have soap to wash our hands every now and then.

Relating this story to a friend later that day was long enough for the YET to arrive. Pull my hair out, question my ability to safely homeschool my children a few hours ago. And now it’s funny.

Because our little inventor is ridiculous. And so am I. Who ties their self-worth to the state of organization of their home? We need each other, her and I. God has plans for us both.

So she returned the soap. I had a laugh with my friend, who relayed a similar homeschooling mishap, and we went on with storytime together. And I am learning again, that because I am ridiculous, and because I live with those who are ridiculous, funny stuff happens.

I see your lips twitching the next time I share my frustrating homeschooling mishap. It’s math time. Has anyone seen all of our pencils? You look away, trying not to burst into laughter in my face. Not yet.

But you are the ones chosen by God . . . chosen to be a holy people … from nothing to something, from rejected to accepted. The Message‬‬

Do you sometimes throw away your identity as a child of God and link your self-worth, instead, to a $6 bottle of hand soap, or other expectation for yourself as Captain of the ship? Are you frantically bailing out a sinking ship, or is this just not funny (yet)?

How To Avoid Spiritual Head Banging

/ Lori Lawe / 1 Comment

It started its day by banging its head against the window. “Aw – poor little bird,” I thought. I wondered if it accidentally flew into the window. But then I heard it – thump . . . thump… thump… This bird had been caught in a Mobius loop, a cycle without exit.

“Must. Bang. Head. Against. Window!” it thought, its determined little mind hurling itself again and again at its reflection

I felt compassion for the little thing. These glass window panes are a menace to little birds with walnut-sized brains. Seeing its reflection in the window, it tried desperately to fight itself off.

It will get tired in a few minutes and fly away, I thought optimistically. When minutes turned to hours, I was starting to admire the little guy, in a “you’re crazy” sort of a way.

I scared it away, using my most terrifying howl. I won’t see that bird again today, I thought, pleased with myself. Not even a full minute passed before the little animal returned. BAM. Flutter, flutter. BAM. This thing is brave.

I placed pillows, and miscellaneous items against the window to hide its reflection. The bird merely defecated repeatedly on the pillows before flying slightly higher and slamming itself against the window pane. BAM. Fly fly flutter flutter. BAM.

I taped black paper on most of the window. Like the cat in “The cat came back” National Film Board feature, this bird flew to another window of our house, and then another and another. I followed it from window to window, covering pangs so it couldn’t see its reflection.

Soon I felt like I was living in Britain in WW2, with black paper from my daughters art supplies covering almost every window. Wham… wham… wham…

The black paper helped for awhile but with determined insanity, the bird found my loopholes. A week later, I found it delightedly smashing it’s little head against a forgotten garage window. BAM! It didn’t even back away when it saw me this time. It was busy.

Guess how long this has been going on? A few hours? Nope. A few days? Nope. So far we are at more than three WEEKS plus one day of thumping. The little guy is determined, for sure.

We left for a holiday, and when we returned, I was amazed to find the little bird still thumping, not wanting to miss even one day of it’s morning routine. Clearly now this bird was just in a habit. A VERY bad habit.

I saw another dark-eyed junco this morning, as I peered through the small hole of black paper taped to the window to peer cautiously outside. This little bird was pecking at the ground, fluttering about, doing regular bird stuff. It seemed to be having a better go at things, a more joyous life.

Why was the other little dark-eyed junco stuck?

And us? I see the same thing in other parts of life. In my church. Instead of standing back, offering our activities to God, seeing what God is offering new this season we “Must. Do. The. Same. Things. Over. And. Over” too. Even if it’s dangerous to our well-being. We are determined.

Forget about what’s happened; don’t keep going over old history. Be alert, be present. I’m about to do something brand-new. The Message

Why don’t we ask God where we are banging our heads against the window, because, we too, like that stuck little Junco MUST. DO. THE. SAME. THING. OVER. AND. OVER.

Stuck spiritually?

Dislike reading the sacred text, the most influential book of all time?

Hate to pray?

Maybe it’s time to try a new approach.

Let’s pray together. I am excited to announce an online prayer time, and you are very welcome to join!

Details coming soon!

Jesus, teach us to listen, and to obey your voice into the bright and exciting future you have for each one of us, that we may, by Your power, share Your love with the world.

Let’s awaken, listen, respond.

Holy Spirit, what is the new thing that You are calling our hearts to soar into?

How To Make Homeschooled Kids Clean Up (Avoid Insanity, Parents!)

/ Lori Lawe / 3 Comments

This post could make you feel like a Superhero Mama in Clark Kent clothes (OK – Clark Kent clothes with a bit of spit-up on them. Who’s looking THAT closely?) because this post is filled to the brim with advice about how to make your homeschooled kids clean up.

(Or at least there is one piece of advice somewhere in this post. I hope you can find it. While you’re looking, have you seen any pencils? We lost all of ours so it’s becoming harder to do our math.)

We moms sit on the floor, despair weighing us down as the kids fly paper airplanes around us, laughing, and the dog follows. We had a great day, yes. The homeschooling party is over for the day, yes. Mom is exhausted and she can’t even find a few inches of kitchen space to drag out the carrots to chop for dinner tonight.

HOW do you make the little rascals clean up???

This was the subject of many years of my careful research. I scoured homeschooling stores and dumped piles of regular dollars in exchange for a few cheaply printed “Mom Dollars” linked to “rewards that all children love,” believing the promise that THIS TIME, they will clean up.

It all failed.

In fact, sensing an inner weakness with their sixth sense (the one only accessible to children), one child purposely hid random items all over the house because “It was easier than putting it away,” she confessed, eyes downcast.

They are purposely trying to wear you down.

Don’t let them.

I printed this small quip that my brain construed one random Wednesday evening. And the sign stuck. And it worked. Voila!

For the price of – well, nothing, really – you can make your Grade 4 student practice their cursive and you’re got a sign too! But here it is – the magic formula…. Drum roll, please…

A touch of brilliance if I may say so, however immodestly. No eating until there is enough tidying that at least one clean bowl surfaces. AND since they EAT, and since the sign is staring you in the face AS you serve the food, you remember to enforce this new “homeschooling rule,” so Voila! Magic!

Notice the algebraic ORDER of things. FIRST clean up. THEN face stuffing.

The homeschool magic key unlocking every child’s inner Mr. Clean has arrived! You don’t eat until you’ve dumped a dozen or so shovelfuls of horse manure outside.

That would be if you were a farmer.

In our case, it is partially used math supplies and dirty cups with unfinished, carefully measured daily water allocation goals for each child. But you get the point.

And yes, I am aware that the phrasing implies that we are knee-deep in moldy, forgotten science experiments and half-finished math pages strewn about when it says “Clean up the place.” Duh – we are.

Also, I am aware that the words “stuff your face” don’t exactly imply dinner manners appropriate for Ms. Lovelybottom’s approval (I’ll explain her someday too since I have already told you other embarrassing stuff and you still like me).

The point is, the cleanup gets done. I can sit at the table with my feet up, sip a lemonade, watch them work, and realize that actually, I am doing a good job. Everyone is happy. Even, and especially, me.

For a few minutes at least.

But who’s counting?

And if it takes a ridiculous sign to make it through another week, another year? Well, print away, dear homeschooling parent.

So let’s not allow ourselves to get fatigued doing good. At the right time we will harvest a good crop . . . The Message

We take a little homeschool bliss where we can get it.

At least we’ve got our priorities in the right order.

A clean house is overrated, anyway.

How To Interact Normally With Teens

/ Lori Lawe / 1 Comment

I really needed a relaxing afternoon with a chick flick movie and popcorn.

I asked my 17-year-old daughter to join me that afternoon after church. Fun!

At church, I felt the call of God to invite the 21-year-old woman to join us.

She had phoned me earlier in the week to ask for some advice about a boyfriend. I hadn’t had a chance to get back to her yet.

We picked up the 15-year-old after church and they all came for lunch.

After the movie, the four of us sat on the floor and whispered about boys and love and life and wisdom for two hours.

I thought only a few minutes had passed but was surprised that we had forgotten about supper.

But this is normal for us, in kind of an abnormal way.

We attend the women’s prayer meeting together – youth and teens and young women. We go to the women’s retreat together – all ages.

Why not?

This is what we do in the church.

My mind recollects 25 years back when I was taking a course for my Master’s degree. The Professor said that the church is the last place where we can collect sociological data that reflects all ages.

That surprised me like a 2×4 aimed at my head.

The church is the LAST place in our culture where people of diverse ages interact.

Wow.

Just because something happens frequently doesn’t mean it’s normal.

Maybe tossing our teens in the basement with a jumbo pack of Cheezies and a few other youths, knowing they will be staring into their phones and doing “who knows what?” is not “normal”.

Maybe hoping for the best for them as we try to forget them for a while, while we watch our own movie upstairs is not “normal”.

This is common in our culture of highly segregated ages. It is common for youth to share their hearts almost exclusively with people in the same age demographic, give or take 6 months, but is this normal?

No. Look to the church for normal.

There are some alternatives we can take to insert some “normalcy” into the “common un-normalcy” of our cultural expectations around how we interact with teens. Here are a few:

1. Push them out of the way at the buffet when you are trying to get at the cheese. Hey, you never know! It worked for me!

2. Wear weird pants and wait for teens to come to you. Hey, you never know! It worked for me!

3. Buy a Christmas present for yourself and pretend to give it to some youth. This may guilt them into interacting with you. Hey, you never know! It worked for me!

4. Bring your kids and youth to church. Try this while you are still bigger than them if they are physically resisting you.

The 70-year-old lady told me a story this week of the 7-year-old from our church who came over to sit next to her on the public bus. This child was genuinely curious about what the older lady was doing that day. They love each other because they have had some time in each other’s company.

That’s kind of cool.

The 90-year-old wise lady in my life, when I was a teen, turned me down a narrower, healthier path many times.

And I loved her too.

Anyway, let’s keep being the uncommon normal.

Society may depend on it.

Apollos was accurate in everything he taught about Jesus up to a point, but he only went as far as the baptism of John. He preached with power in the meeting place. When Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and told him the rest of the story. The Message

After a moment of thankfulness, and of laying the well-being of a teen we love humbly at the feet of God, does a particular person come to mind as someone who can potentially connect with them? For example, an aunt, uncle, business associate, elderly person, neighbor, or friend?

Jesus, we pray you would show us the wise adult in our beloved teen’s life who may have a key to open their heart.

When can we cook our youth their favorite meal and invite this person to join us? Let’s keep praying for the uncommon normal.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

/ Lori Lawe / 4 Comments

Or maybe that’s “Merry Christmas One” – if there is only one of you who reads this…???

Whatever.

In my Lawe Christmas Letter post from a couple of weeks ago, I lamented that we didn’t have an eloquent picture of our family.

Well, here it that photo, taken today!

In hindsight, there may be at least one person still in PJs in both blog post photos, but let’s not expect perfection!

May God hold those of you who are hurting in His hand, today. May all of us comfort others with the comfort that we have received tomorrow.

All praise to the God and Father of our Master, Jesus the Messiah! Father of all mercy! God of all healing counsel! He comes alongside us when we go through hard times, and before you know it, he brings us alongside someone else who is going through hard times so that we can be there for that person just as God was there for us. The Message

Let’s pause and practice listening today, to that still small voice of Holy Spirit. Jesus, I give you this pain today. Could you give me Your comfort?

Lawe Christmas Letter 2022

/ Lori Lawe / 11 Comments

So, I posted the Lawe Christmas letter here to benefit my readers. Wait – I only have one reader, I think, in addition to my oldest daughter, but … details! …details! We can become overburdened these days with details!

Now, most homeschooling moms are looking forward to sitting on the couch with some vodka by December. No, don’t get me wrong! I MEANT a tiny splash of rum in our Christmas eggnog! I am always misunderstood!

Anyway, it would have been preferable to have one of those lovely family Christmas photos – you know where everyone is wearing those matching red hats, but who has time to book a photographer, coordinate crazy schedules, etc.?

This photo will have to do. We took it tonight impromptu. Sure, some of us MAY be in costume attire but this is what we look like. From left: Esther, Kyah, me, Andy. Come to think of it, elf suits may have been a slight improvement.

In past years, we included memorable quotes from various family members in our Christmas letters. Enjoy!

Quotes about Me

Me: “Where do you want to be in five years?” Andy: “Where you are…!!!” (Oh!!) Kyah: “And I can help you up the stairs” Will we functionally be 100-year-olds in a mere 5 years, I wondered?

Andy: “I like it when you talk” Me: “What??”…(!!!) Andy: “Well, most of the time.”

Quotes about Andy

Andy: “Next June, I will be 50. We should have a massive party.” Andy remembered that we had a big 1990s party for him when he turned 30. Andy, continued, “We can have another 1990s party! We can wear . . . jeans and . . . all the clothes I wear now…” … “and we can listen to … all the music I still listen to now”

Andy: In the shower, calling out, “Hey! Where’s my soap??!!” Me: Calling back, “Oh sorry! Kyah carved it into a turtle and entered it in the fall fair yesterday!”

Quotes about Esther

Esther:” I feel so much older now that I am seventeen. It’s a big difference from being sixteen or fifteen or fourteen. I don’t know why. Do you think it’s because seventeen has an extra syllable?”

Esther to me: “Whenever I make my hair look like yours, I get compliments. Whenever I wear your clothes, I get compliments.” Me thinking: I’m not completely out of date yet!!!

Quotes About Kyah

Kyah: “I’ve had a pretty good day so far.” Time: 7:13am

Lunch was mentioned. Kyah: “Mmm…lunch!” What she was doing – eating breakfast!

Kyah was having an in-depth zoom discussion with budding philosophers about Easter. Suddenly a shrill 10-year-old voice from Pennsylvania emanated from the computer, “Well, I think the Easter bunny should go to hell because . . .” An impassioned speech followed. Lots of great learning and critical thinking in progress. May need a bit more work on theology!

Kyah: “You are the best Mom.” Me: “Well thank you, Kyah, but I don’t think that’s true.” Kyah: “No one is perfect but you are the best Mom for me.”

And so we may not be perfect, but we are the best people that God put in our lives for each other. I know that’s true with your family and friends, too!

Merry Christmas!

The Lawes

~

What are your family’s favorite quotes from 2022? Please share funny or deep thoughts below. We are drinking our eggnog and waiting for you!