Crying on your shoulder

I need to write my Lancaster column early this week, so I can spend the last half of the week at the PhillyFIT fitness retreat.

I think what I'm going to write about is hard difficult it has been for Christians to admit that they get depressed, or don't always have an easy answer-or that Scripture, although it gives us the outline, doesn't have every detail.

For some reason, Christians, particularly evangelicals, have a tough time showing weakness in front of one another.

I've thought about this while at the gym this past couple of weeks. I am working with a personal trainer, and one of his goals for me is to get me to arch my back and throw my shoulders back. I'm so used to hunching them over-as a tall woman, I sometimes feel a need to seem shorter, to hide. If I walk the way I was designed, I know people will see flaws-but I'll be healthier.


Remember Adam and Eve in the garden, ashamed and hoping God wouldn't see them? When you are feeling grief, or anger, or even confidence, or happiness, it's better to share. Our bodies were made to communicate with each other-they reveal the inner light (or gloom).

What does it mean for you to be a child of God? There's nothing about you that is a shock to God. The challenge is to learn to love yourself.

Why now?

This past week Bill Clinton has taken a few iron-fisted punches at Barack Obama. Whether he is being canny, as some speculate, or whether he is just angry (when has Clinton felt a need to behave like an adult?) the outrageous things he said (like comparing Obama's words about his wife to a "hit job") put Obama in a difficult position. If he punches back, he runs the risk of sullying his image as a peacemaker. If he doesn't he looks like he's lost the initiative.

It says a lot about where we are in the US that, after seven years with a profoundly scary Bush fils, we prefer to return the Presidency to the wife of a man with such an enormous ego. Immature as his behavior was when President, I found a lot to admire about Bill Clinton. Despise this Administration or not, I'm worried about a Clinton monarchy. Yes, Hillary Clinton has more experience-but the bass line of entitlement in the Clinton campaign is tiresome.

Then the N Y Times Editorial Board endorsed Hillary Clinton as the Democratic candidate, and John McCain as the Republican one.
That raised a whole host of other questions-about the New York Times. Why are they endorsing someone so fast? Yes, it's the Thursday/Friday before the New York primaries. But it is possible that Super Tuesday won't settle the race for either party-nor should it. Why is the Times tossing its weight around when only a few states have even had primaries?

Read the AJR story linked above.

I'm now thinking it doesn't much matter who the NYT endorses. Because apparently few pay much heed, the opinion of those near the top of the editorial greasy pole is more of an annoyance factor.

What do you think?

If anyone remembers what they did the last election, let us know! I wish they would just hold off-and let us figure it out one state at a time.

Is she trying to tell me something?

You know how the parenting experts (and other parents) say that you can find out a lot about your boy or girl from listening to them in the car?

Sometimes you can learn a lot about dad or mom, too.

On the way to the YMCA, my daughter decided to organize my kitchen. First, we'd open up the freezer-tossing all the food I'd bought two years ago and the frozen and ground zucchini from the garden that had once seemed like a brilliant soup or stew additive. After this, if there was still sunlight in the sky, we'd go on to the refrigerator.

My son (who has no idea of the work his dear sister has planned for him) will help me clear out the food cabinets, which have a great deal more half-eaten bags of tortillas and snack mix than are appropriate for a three person family (five, if you count our cats).

After we do that, we'll make labels, so that the 100-calorie snacks and the chips, the vegetarian chili and the British biscuits will have their own home-I'm sure they have been wanting it. Of course, there will be one shelf given to Mom's chocolate habit.

I must admit, I was quite taken with her ability to organize me. Now, if she would pick up the wet towel with which she washed our cat off the floor, or put her dirty clothes in the hamper instead of letting them hide in her bed or take the empty boxes out of the cupboard instead of putting them in, I'd be truly amazed...