day 3. blogging in the hotel lobby on the church

Dad's graduation ceremony was apart of an anglican service. After us white people tried to sing through a somewhat "gospelly" song Liam commented that "If we were all sea creatures, the people this morning would be lobsters, and we would be shrimp."

But it was cool. I don't mind all the form and structure.

It got me thinking on what kind of family we are, that we can go to a black baptist service in the morning and a white anglican service at night. It reminded me of the ninth grade when my family moved from a big city to a small town and after getting in NUMEROUS arguments about race and church denominations with my friends, i informed my parents that my life in Fairhope, Alabama would be much much easier if they had raised me to be more narrow minded.

I wonder what wonderful and complicated things it says about humanity to be able to walk into places with people who have opposite views on many things, and still love them, still affirm them as human beings, and still learn from them. Liam is eleven. The age i was when i went to Kaluga, Russia. I see now the kind of things that prepared me that i wasn't even aware of. They're for the same reason that Liam is allowed to watch Ghandi but not Transformers. I'm very proud of my parents for shielding us from some things (as most parents do) but not from the ways people are complicated wonderful and terrible. Although it certainly makes middle school a bumpier road.

Please post your thoughts on this.

It's 8:49 in the morning.

:)

mal