My brother and I started out our day at our dad's house -- my aunt, uncle, cousin, and grandfather came over for a little while before they left for their dinner. It was good to see them and visit with them a little while, and I was able to show them most of my Ukraine pictures. Okay, "most" is an exaggeration, it was actually "most of the overview pictures", since it was only 10% of my total photos. I showed a lot of history/culture ones at the beginning, and then made my way into the ones that had more of the people. (Seriously, I'm forgetting some of the awesome stories...I need a refresher.)
When I was showing my pictures, I talked about how it was neat to see that God had brought a lot of the pastors out of the drug/alcohol culture, and that they went from that enslavement to now preaching and teaching in the church. After a while, I noticed that my aunt had gone into the living room and was otherwise NOT where I was showing the pictures....I suspected it was because my trip was church-related....Adam said later, "I think you talked about God too much for our aunt, because she left after a while" (and was sitting in their car by the time the rest of us came outside).
He's probably right. But how can you "invalidate" someone's story? We've talked in theology class about how the narrative you are in will influence what kinds of experiences you have. For instance, I will not have experiences in my Christian story like those in a Buddhist life-narrative will have. These were the experiences I had -- I am telling what I have seen and heard (Luke 7:22).
My dad and stepmom have told us before not to say "Merry Christmas" to her (and maybe my uncle too), because she won't like it. However, I cannot (sometimes I simply forget). On December 25, I am celebrating Christ's birth -- that is the holiday. I know the name of Jesus Christ is offensive to some, but today, I just talked about GOD. (Yes, Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit are all the same Being, I know.) I think she may be of Jewish heritage, but I don't think she's a practicing Jew.
I want to know what her "beef" is with God, or the church, or Christians, or whatever it may be. Even though I tended to do it in high school, I don't want to preach AT people about my views, or about Jesus. I want to be able to have a conversation with her, to understand where she's coming from, and what her ideas are.
At the same time, I don't want to "chicken out" about sharing explicitly about God, when I think I can predict their responses. I'm going to give credit to God when it's God's.
After my picture show, we drove to my mom's cousin's house. On the way there, my brother was playing with my radio, and found a radio station..."Is this Chinese?" I listened very careful, and recognized the words "katori" and "delit", and said, "Nope, it's Russian!!!!" On our way home, we listened again, and this time it was in FRENCH! I was seriously excited about a Russian radio station -- I'm going to try it again later.
On my grandfather's side of the family, the average age has fallen....rather than the under-40 bunch being the minority, it is now the over-60 bunch that is in the minority. So many of my cousins had babies there, and a few were really cute. Zack is about 11 months old, and Cydney is 4 mos (she smiled A LOT at me!!!).
My cousins told my uncle Eddie that they stopped at a Target where they were the only white people there, and he didn't like that one bit (he's still holding a 67-year old grudge against Japan and Japanese automobiles). What is wrong with white people being in the minority??? I was/am in the minority in El Paso, and I don't mind it at all!
Most of my cousins from NC were up visiting, and after dinner, Shari, Christina, and I tried to put together a couple of these "Scramble Squares" puzzles. I mostly shot down the ones that wouldn't work...I really wasn't offering anything constructive at all. They got 2 done, no problem, but then we sat and worked on this one for quite a while....Abby joined Christina and I when Shari left, and we were STILL working on it. Troy kept "advising" us, but it really didn't help. You'd think a 9-piece puzzle really wouldn't be that difficult! We never did figure it out.I hope the rest of you had a wonderful day as well!
No comments:
Post a Comment