One of the first things I came across the morning of July 4th was this post on my Instagram feed from @themelanatedbirth:
While you’re out popping fireworks, lighting sparklers, and barbecuing with your friends today, I ask that you pause and reflect on the fact that the over 300,000 slaves that were brought to this country did NOT gain freedom on this day in 1776.
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Think of the natives who were killed and displaced to colonize this country, so you can tell folks to “go back to where they came from”.
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Likewise, consider all of the men, women, and children who are spending today in the horrible conditions that are the “detention” 🙄 camps….those people who have come to this country, not to steal, kill, and rape, but to provide better lives for their families.
Consider them as you scarf down those hot dogs and drink your beers because ‘Merica.
I was already having some real mixed feelings about this holiday.
Good Friday. The two challenging kids who are usually in school were home. I was scheduled for a night shift. I was dreading the anticipated lost sleep that night, and wondering how I was going to get through the next week with all my little kids home, my oldest home, and my two big girls away visiting family friends.
The Holy Longing: The Search for a Christian Spirituality, by Ronald Rolheiser, was the second of two books I read while going through RCIA this year.
RCIA is Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults. It’s part of the process of joining the Catholic Church. I didn’t start the class intending the join the Catholic Church.
This past weekend at work, I spoke with a disarmingly friendly and open coworker who shared her tradition for New Year’s with me. Every year, she cleans her house from top to bottom, down to bathing her kids, and her family shares a meal together. There may also have been other family activities, but what really stuck with me was the cleaning.
Each year, starting out with a clean house, and clean kids.
From what she said, it sounds like she has a 2-bedroom situation, while my house is two stories and five bedrooms. She has two kids, while I have seven, 4 of whom need help to bathe.
For me, starting the New Year off with a clean slate is not a one-day enterprise. But I loved what she said about giving herself and her family a fresh start each year, and I started thinking about what I could do to make some version of it happen at our house.
Just before Christmas last year, I was surrounded by stuff to do, and I wasn’t doing enough of it. I was sitting in a pile of my own expectations and failing to measure up. And I was listening to Pandora’s Pentatonix Holiday station.
I’m still listening to Pentatonix Holiday radio. This year, I have the paid version and no longer have to listen to creepy Subway ads. When I don’t feel like Christmas music, I listen to something else instead of listening to holiday songs out of some strained sense of loyal obigation.
We decorated our tree just days before Christmas. I didn’t go with my family to pick it out.
