Spiderman Theology
I love it when the Lectionary surprises me. Today is this verse in Luke 12: 32-48, the very last verse:
Luke 12: 41-48
41 Peter said, ‘Lord, are you telling this parable for us or for everyone?’42And the Lord said, ‘Who then is the faithful and prudent manager whom his master will put in charge of his slaves, to give them their allowance of food at the proper time? 43Blessed is that slave whom his master will find at work when he arrives. 44Truly I tell you, he will put that one in charge of all his possessions. 45But if that slave says to himself, “My master is delayed in coming”, and if he begins to beat the other slaves, men and women, and to eat and drink and get drunk, 46the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour that he does not know, and will cut him in pieces,* and put him with the unfaithful. 47That slave who knew what his master wanted, but did not prepare himself or do what was wanted, will receive a severe beating.48But one who did not know and did what deserved a beating will receive a light beating. From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded.
When I got to the end of the reading, I laughed out loud. I have used a similar quote many times: With great power comes great responsibility. It’s from Spiderman, and most people relate to Spiderman. I know I do. Today, I loved discovering its grounding in scripture.
Twenty years ago, in Kuwait, I would have posted this and asked my fellow bloggers if there were comparable scriptures from their books. A lively discussion would ensue. I would learn surprising similarities, and disturbing differences. I miss those discussions.
Me and IKEA
“What am I looking at?” You might ask. It’s my 28 year old laundry basket, good as new. It holds a lot of laundry, it folds up into nothing, and the bag unbuttons and comes off to be washed. 28 years, and good to go for another 28 years. It’s from IKEA.
IKEA is the nomad’s dream. I bought three tables to use in a country where I had no tables. These tables come apart, fold down to 24″ x 39″. and fold out to double that size. The hinged tabletops look like the day I bought them. I can put three together and seat 12 more people. They’ve moved six times, made their homes in four countries.
The complex in Kuwait provided the couches and beds, IKEA provided by closets, storage and book cases. I could take them apart and ship them from country to country. I finally had to leave them in Doha, our final post.
No, it is not fine furniture. And for a nomad, it packs up and travels just fine. One of my Army wife friends once told me (her father dealt in fine furniture and antiques) to save my money and buy the fine furniture when we retire and stay (more or less) in one place. I took her advice, except that I still have my die hard, hard working IKEA tables and my laundry basket. And all the IKEA shelves holding my books and fabrics and quilting supplies in the sewing room.
BRAVO, IKEA!
How a Grown Up Ends a War and Wins
It is not my intention here to give our current president a strategy for a gracious exit from the War with Iran. I am writing this only because I believe he is incapable of adopting my solution.
Years ago, my very smart husband, AdventureMan and I played strategic board games. One time, I beat him in only six moves, at which point he stood up and stomped his foot (a very strong statement from a normally restrained man) and yelled “You can’t do that! It’s unorthodox!”
And that’s how wars are won. Yes, you can waste billions on sophisticated weaponry, and have a lot of fun with bombs and destruction. High T at work. You can also waste lives, and I believe that is a crime against your country. Our young people are not expendable.
We’ve all started fights we can’t win. It’s wired into us as human beings. What is the way out?
“I’ve made a big mistake. I take full responsibility. I’m sorry I got us into this mess, and now, I am going to do everything in my power to make it right.”
Those words, and the humility it takes to say them, save relationships, re-establish peace, and a firm foundation for moving forward.
It takes a grown-up to say them. It takes a grown-up to even think them. To continue on a losing path is wasteful and self-destructive.
We are not winning.
It’s time to own up, exit, and begin rebuilding our alliances.
New York’s Participation Trophy for Trump and his Iranian debacle. Everyone invited to contribute; no achievement too paltry to commemorate. The more gilt, the merrier.
Give to Those Who Ask
Yesterday’s Lectionary readings were rich with wise instructions for navigating complicated situations.
First in Doha, then in Kuwait, and now, too, in Pensacola, we encounter beggers. In Doha, it could be women with babies, kicked out of their homes, or a begger in the middle of the street with a transfusion bag full of blood with an introvenous feed tube, begging for enough money to have the operation he needed for his kidneys (I later learned they were fake). In Kuwait, we had beggers who knew us, and who waited outside our favorite restaurants and we would give them our take-away boxes. In Pensacola, it is the homeless, often military veterans with mental health issues, families without homes, elderly men and women abandoned by the side of the road.
Many treat these people with scorn, insisting they are living like kings on what they scrounge from gullible givers. Some act with compassion, passing out bottles of water and fresh made sandwiches, or passing small bills to those at the corners. Discussion varies little about the “problem;” what is the right thing to do?
Living in the Middle East, I was the recipient myself of kind charity, stuck by the side of the road with a broken car, being given bottles of cold water while a kind stranger changed my flat tire, or a neighbor brought me a platter of leg of lamb and mensaf on an Eid holiday. People invited us into their homes and families. People were kind as I struggled to find words, and helped me understand customs which were strange to me. Charity comes with many faces.
If we are who we claim to be – People of the Book, believers – the answer is clear in this reading from Matthew:
Matthew 5:38-48
38 ‘You have heard that it was said, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” 39But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; 40and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; 41and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. 42Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.
43 ‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.” 44But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. 46For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax-collectors do the same? 47And if you greet only your brothers and sisters,* what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Stranger in a Strange Land: High School
Today’s writing prompt is irresistible: Something you learned in High School.
I left my US High School mid-year to live in Germany, and to go to a US Department of Defense High School.
I learned that not everyone thinks the same way I think.
I learned that sometimes the way I think might even be wrong, or incomplete.
I learned that even within our own culture, there may be varieties of cultures and many different ways to do a thing, and that none is truly the “right” way, that there may be many right ways.
I learned to lean back and observe, before I ventured an opinion.
I learned to listen when someone said I was wrong. I didn’t have to agree, but it helped to get this other perspective (no matter how mistaken it might have been, LOL)
After high school, I lived a nomadic life, back and forth to university, then marrying a military man and being on the move for the next forty years. Some of my best friends to this day are friends I made during those high school years, people who have led very different lives, but who still share so much in common because of our uncommon heritage and our diverse views. Learning that kind of flexibility eased the way in later life, living in different cultures in Germany, in Africa and in the Middle East and finally, in the Deep South. I’m still learning! 🙏😄🙏
Unintended Consequences
It is rare that I am stunned into silence.
This is not the world I grew up in. This is not the country I served. These are not the values we were taught as children, in a United States full of post WWII optimism, as we allied with other nations for the greater good.
I am a blessed woman. I have what I need, and my son married a woman with deeply perceptive insights. An environmental specialist, she taught me the concept of Unanticipated Consequences. We are witnessing a host of unanticipated consequence unrolling by the minute, consequences which will have reverberations far into the future – not forseeable consequences but lasting.
Our current Administration is whacko. They command the mightiest military on earth, and they hold the keys to nuclear weapons. I have a friend who says “We’re Doomed,” only he uses a stronger, vulgar word I don’t want to use here.
Bravo, Kuwait!
Bravo, Kuwait, for the first election in years, supplying Kuwait with what the New York Times describes as a “robust” collection of representatives.
As we know, democracy is messy. It is often compared to sausage making – you don’t want to know what goes into it. Having an autocratic leader, however, leads to increasing gaps between the very wealthy and privileged, and those who are at the bottom, working their bottoms off just to put a roof over their heads and food in the mouths of their children.
I look at the turbulence and polarization in my own country and thank God for a breath of fresh air, as this news of the election in Kuwait gives me hope. We are praying for a fair election in the United States.
Seventeen Years as Intlxpatr
I don’t blog as often these days – who knew retirement would be so busy? I’ve now lost 40 pounds in retirement – did I mention I was diagnosed diabetic about ten years ago? I started with water aerobics, and when COVID hit, went bach to swimming. We learned to swim in Alaska, when we were very young. Everyone had boats, and every kid learned to swim, even though we had life jackets. The pool where we learned to swim, Evergreen Park, doesn’t even have that old glacier-river fed swimming pool anymore. Yes. It was cold. It didn’t matter. We loved swimming.
Now I am swimming three days a week, 2 miles a day. I love getting up early in the morning and hitting the pool early. I love the quiet of lap swimming and the noise of my pool buddies. It’s a great way to start the day.
I found this great Blogaversary cake honoring those early days in Alaska – won’t you have a piece? There’s another, if you don’t want to mar the beauty of this one.
Being an Alaskan has profoundly influenced who I am; it gave me a spirit of adventure and exploration. We spent a couple years in Seattle, and then moved to Germany with our lively parents, who took us everywhere during the 10 years they lived there.
We lived in Heidelberg. We had our high school proms and graduation in the Heidelberg Castle. We would jump on a train and go to Paris, or Berlin, or Amsterdam. It was an extraordinary adventure.
I met AdventureMan when my sister married in the Heidelberg Castle. We’re heading back later this year to visit some of the cities we were unable to visit during the long years of the Cold War, when there was a wall and a curtain that kept us all divided.
All those early years, they didn’t have “blogging.” It wasn’t until I got to Doha that I discovered blogs, and not until I got to Kuwait that I took the plunge and started this blog. I was terrified. The blogging scene could be rough, and people writing anonymous comments could be brutal. An expat who offended a high official could be sent home, and I didn’t want my husband to suffer for my mistake.
As it turned out, while it was important to tread carefully, blogging opened up a whole new world to me, and I met some really special people who helped me see things in new ways. Blogging changed my life. It gave me a voice, even if it was a timid one. The longer I blogged, the more confident I became – thanks to my fellow bloggers and friends who encouraged me.
So, to honor you, I do this annual virtual party, and invite all of you to enjoy these astounding cakes that people with vision create. I celebrate them, too, and their wondrous talent.
I appreciate the years of friendship and support you have given me. I thank you for reading about my travels and adventures, and for sharing my joys and woes. Thank you, thank you.
Living off My Fat: Adaptation
It probably all started growing up in Alaska, where my mother would measure us in July to order our snowsuits as soon as the new catalogs came out. We lived where ships didn’t come in the winter, so supplies for the winter needed to be ordered – and received – before the ships could no longer navigate the channel.
Then came our life in Germany, where we lived by what my sister called “Commissary rules.” Her one word of advice as a newlywed leaving Germany, while I was staying, was “When you see something in the Commissary or PX you think you MIGHT need, buy it.” Definitely a no-regrets philosophy.
When we were sent to live in Tunisia, in the late 1970’s, we were instructed to take everything we might need for the next two years. Some things – chocolate chips – we learned to live without. We adapted to new foods, new ways of doing things. One of the great treats was the fresh, gorgeous, silky olive oil; I would take my jar to the little olive oil vendor at the nearby souk and he would weigh my jar, fill it, subtract the weight of the jar and charge me for the oil, which made everything taste French.
I did have a two-year supply of shoes for a growing toddler, also clothing for him in graduated sizes, and two years of age-appropriate books I could pull out of the closet. We were able to mail-order through the embassy pouch, and my mother was able to mail me little extras. One year, when I was running the Christmas bazaar, she was able to find red and green Christmas fabrics in July, at a discount, and mail them to us for our crafting. It was such a luxury!
In Qatar, I was always bringing back duffels with quilting rulers and rotary cutters for my quilting friends. In Kuwait, it was books for my book club and American sugar for a friend who liked to bake. Kuwait had sugar, but more coarse, and American sugar melts more quickly for a finer result. Who knew?
There are items from the past I still have in abundance – dental floss, women’s underwear, shoes – and staples I buy but no longer use in the quantities I once did because we no longer live a life where we entertain a lot nor prepare for unexpected people on temporary duty who need a meal and an exchange of currency. I am trying to bring down my supplies of artichoke hearts and pimentos, beans and rice, canned tomatoes, chutney, Tupperware and hand soap.
My Little Free Library, one of the best birthday gifts ever, helps me keep my books from overflowing.
We are happy, these days, to be living with less. We are still caught by surprise by rolls of baking parchment we are still using from Kuwait, dental floss leftover from our years in Tunis and an excess of Christmas decorations we still need to pare down. We try to go easy on ourselves. “Ah,” we sigh, “it’s a process.” God grant that we live long enough to use up all those supplies we bought “just in case.”
Intlxpatr Celebrates 15 Years of Blogging
How could I miss my own blogaversary?
Fifteen Years! Whoda thunk it?
Remember when we all got started? 2005? 2006? I was reading blogs like Waiter Rant, Jewaira’s Boutique, Hilaliyya, Fonzi – and the lively Kuwait blogging scene inspired me to take a chance.
I’m not a big risk taker. My style is more uner-the-radar. The Kuwait bloggers welcomed me in, provided lively and stimulating feedback, we encouraged one another and we never looked back.
All these years later, I’m astonished to find I am still blogging. I remember a lengthy conversation in one of the comments sections about why we blog. I am still convinced that we blog because . . . that is what we are wired to do. We cannot other.
So really, I have an excuse for missing the exact day – September 6th – of my blog’s beginning.
I’ve been traveling. I bought a new computer, and you know those steep learning curves . . . I learned that when you buy a new computer, you no longer have compatible card readers with which to upload your photographs. If I’ve taken a photo with my iPhone, I can AirDrop it to my photo files, but anything taken with a camera to a SanDisk is just (pardon my language) SOL.
I also discovered that my good friends at Amazon don’t always tell me the truth about compatibility, so even though I bought an Apple gizmo that promised me to work with my new computer, it did not; it never even had the possibility. Go figure.
As a hint to what is coming, instead of Champagne, or Vouvray, or Sancerre, or a fine Bordeaux, this year we are going to have some refreshing, delicious Flathead Cherry Juice.
Thank you for coming by, thank you for your faithfulness and support these fifteen years and thank you for your encouragement. Thank you for reading, and for commenting, whether online or behind the scenes. Thank you for following. You, and our conversations, are what keep me going. Many thanks.
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Early Voting in Florida
