Category Archives: culture

Crisis – I Lost My Phone!!

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Guest Blogging today is my daughter Courtney. She sent this post to me months ago and it kept getting lost within my in-box…today it has been found. (The post, not the phone.)

On my first day back on campus for my junior year at Purdue, the unthinkable happened… I lost my phone. I had met up with a friend to catch up and drink some bubble tea by the clock tower, and at some point had received a text asking what I was doing later that night. I responded, set my phone down, finished up tea, and walked back to my apartment. Halfway back, I realized that the miniature computer I had only had since last October was not in my purse… or my pockets… and when I walked back to the bench we had been sitting on, I found that it wasn’t there either. I tried to text the friend I had been hanging out with, only to remember that was nearly impossible without a phone.

I traced my steps a few times and said a silent prayer of thanks that I already had dinner plans, so when I arrived at the restaurant I had my friends call my phone and leave a voicemail. “Wait… you need my password to get into my voicemail. WAIT… you need my tracer passcode to get into my phone.” I remotely installed apps for lost phones, set a screen telling anyone who found my phone to call my mom at her number, forced my phone to send me pictures and sound bytes of its location, tried to use GPS (the radius of its potential location was 1856 meters. Thanks, phone), and went on several recon missions until the battery’s inevitable death. For days after I frequented the campus’s lost and found locations and checked the activity online, but all my efforts were fruitless, and remained fruitless for the next two weeks, until I got a SIM card for my high school flip phone. But during those two long weeks, something crazy happened.

I survived the experience.

The thing I was most worried about was becoming a social recluse. How do you make plans without a phone? But I found something encouraging – when my friends wanted to see me or were making group plans, they made the effort to reach me on Facebook or texted the people they thought I would be with to make sure I was still getting included. After a two-day-long withdrawal period, it was even kind of nice not having a phone in my pocket all the time, and I found I was able to focus for longer periods of time on a single thing. The drawback was I did get a little Facebook addicted, but when I wasn’t around a computer that wasn’t really a problem.

Thanks to my incredible parents (who dealt with two weeks of intermittent online chatting, as my computer mic was also broken, taking Skype convos out of the picture) I do have a functioning phone now, and I would absolutely choose having a phone over not having a phone (just being honest). But it was nice to get a little taste of a life unwired; it allowed me to see that I didn’t need to be constantly connected, and the friendships I had were meaningful enough that my friends put a little bit of extra effort into including me. I do feel as though phones and iPads and all this social connecting all the time has driven us a little up the wall, and the confirmation that I could survive without it all was good, as I really do sometimes wonder. It’s something good to keep in mind as we go through our lives in this culture – you can survive without a constant connection!

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Random thoughts that cannot seem to be contained

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I’m just having a hard time today with the killing of these children and teachers in Connecticut. These are the things swimming in my head today ~

I’m thinking about all the violent, personal warfare video games (and the insistence that it’s fine for kids to be playing these types of games). I’m having a hard time with the efforts that have been spent on legalizing marijuana; this thought courtesy of an article in the paper this morning (in the same section as the many articles on these killings). Why is this something our culture values?

The passionate plea to end ANY mention of God in schools, the expulsion of our church youth leaders from the lunchrooms of our schools, Christmas trees in public places now being called “Holiday Trees” or “Celebration Trees”. We all know they are Christmas trees. You can call them what you want, we still ALL know what they are.

The mocking of Christians & Christian beliefs in mainstream media – and yet the prominent pictures showing up today in mainstream media of people praying, and mainstream media displaying images of the hundreds and thousands of people in churches. We mock it, then are grateful for the peace and comfort these images create within us. I’m grateful mainstream media shows these pictures, I’m just confused by the constant mocking.

My mind can only think about all of this in small bites, then I have to divert my mind. In a chorus of a worship song this morning, I dropped to the floor, with tears splashing on the tile on behalf of these families. When I got up I had to move my mind to a different place – I could not think about it any longer.

I’m horrified for the parents, families and communities who don’t get to divert their minds. I’m just aghast by the families drowning in sorrow today.

Listening to worship music, and praying, praying, praying….

A good article by Rev. C. Emily Heath in the Huff Post. Dealing with Grief: Five things NOT to say, and five things TO say in a trauma involving children. Read it here.

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What the Heck

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A story on NBC’s Today Show yesterday highlighted an area in which I believe so many of us are falling down –  it’s as if we’ve forgotten that it’s our job, our responsibility, to teach respect, honor and integrity to our kids.

Here’s the story, an Oklahoma high school valedictorian, Kaitlin Nootbar, submitted her written graduation speech to her principal for approval. In the speech she had this line, “They’re gonna ask us what we’re gonna be and we’re gonna say, who the heck knows”. The problem is she was pretty sure she was going to say “Who the hell knows” (a line from the Twilight movie, Eclipse). She said in the Today Show interview that she discussed this with her partner with whom she wrote the speech, and then again with classmates right before giving the speech, all encouraging her to stray from the written, and approved, line. So she did, and now the principal is holding her diploma certificate until she apologizes ~ a reasonable request.

In the Today Show piece Kaitlin says she won’t apologize; she says she’s not sorry and that she doesn’t really need her diploma anyway. Matt Lauer turns to her father at one point and says that he (Matt) is a parent and was wondering what he would do; would he want her to give in to the school, or would he want to teach his child the lesson of standing his or her own ground. (Personally, I don’t think it’s either of those lessons) He then asks the father how he feels. The father said he wanted her to stand her ground, that he is a veteran, she has freedom of speech and why should she “bow down to this man”, and give her rights away.

Oh my goodness. “Bow down to this man”, really? How about a lesson that goes like this, “You were under the authority of the school, you purposely used a word in a commencement speech you knew you shouldn’t use, but you did. You knew this would cause a problem, so now, show some level of respect, go apologize and move on with your life.”

Instead she gets to fly to New York City and be highlighted on a national news program where many people applaud her for “standing her ground”. The ground that supports her decision to defy the authority over her, because she wanted to swear at a commencement ceremony. No wonder our kids believe the world revolves around them.

Kaitlin says the lesson from this whole thing is to “always stand your ground…that whatever is in your heart you should stand up for it…” (Unless you’re the principal, I guess she doesn’t believe he should stand his ground.) NBC conducted a poll and 88% of respondents said she should not apologize, 12% said she should. Really, a poll was conducted for this?! But the results are revealing.

Some will say this a freedom of speech issue, I believe it’s a character and lack of self-discipline issue. When we glamorize and jump to the defense of the kids in situations like this, we just cannot be surprised when they function as if they are the center of the universe, or when they have a hard time with authority in their lives, or when they come to job interviews and ask questions like “How long can I be on the internet before I get in trouble” (This question was actually asked by a college student during an interview at my husband’s company).

There is such an emphasis in our culture about doing what you want, when you want, no matter what, and then defending it. I just believe we should also be emphasizing building integrity and honor, within our kids. What do you think?

You can see the interview here.

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Are we as outraged by Syria as we are by Chick-fil-A?

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Normally I don’t enter into headline news type conversations – especially political ones. To be honest, I usually don’t think I’m smart enough to say anything of value, or I don’t feel I understand the issue or care passionately enough to enter the dialog. Not to mention there typically is more than enough dialog going on. But this one is stirring in my head, my heart and it was worked its way to my fingers, which have moved to the computer this morning.

Chick-fil-A…oh my goodness.

First of all, the news clip I watched yesterday and in the article I read this morning, what I heard and read was that Dan Cathy told the Baptist Press that the company was “guilty as charged” of supporting the traditional family. “We are very much supportive of the family — the biblical definition of the family unit…” I then went and read the entire article in the Baptist Press. You can read it here. (I believe it’s good to read with your own eyes and not believe what the media is shouting through headlines…maybe I’m smarter than I think.)

What really pushed me into the conversation is that I’m so sick and tired of the media and celebrities and organizations turning a stand FOR something into a stand AGAINST something. What is wrong with us that we so strongly bash a privately held company – that has experienced 44 consecutive years of positive sales growth – in an economy that NEEDS sales growth (!!) – who this year is expected to generate more than $60 million in economic impact through TWO (never done before) Kick-Off Bowl games.. Yeah – lets bash that company, who needs that kind of economic infusion?

I’m sick and tired of late night comedians taking a stand FOR something and creating vulgar skits, bashing any support of marriage, and with open hostility attacking a union from which they came. Seriously, we don’t need to become so incensed with each other. I believe we can take a stand FOR something without cutting up and slashing another perspective. The picture of standing for a position with fists up and mouth wide open while yelling makes me completely miss anything positive you might have to say.

I know there are many instances you could give me where people who claim to speak for Christians do the same thing. I know. But I’m not talking about that today, I’m simply addressing a positive article written about a company that has a goal in the workplace “to take biblical truth and put skin on it. … We’re talking about how our performance in the workplace should be the focus of how we build respect, rapport and relationships with others that opens the gateway to interest people in knowing God.”

I’m talking about a company that supports kids in foster care, college scholorships, marriage conferences, and the economy. Who wouldn’t want a company like that in their city? I support Chick-fil-A for being a positive company, for being a company that doesn’t bend to the pressures and whims of culture. Thank you Chick-fil-A….I’ll see you for lunch.

(A CNN article about Syria – Massacre feared in Syria’s Aleppo)

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