Cheese Sandwiches and Sundays

Dad, This one is for you......

Today I am feeling very emotional.  I don't know why exactly - it might be that I am feeling a little sick, or that I am exhausted from my hectic week.  What ever the case may be, I am emotional.  When I get emotional, I tend to reminisce, a lot.  When I am reminiscing, I tend to want to write about it.  When I am emotional and reminiscing, food is sometimes involved.  You know that feeling when you want something that your mom used to make for you or that one dish that you used to love when you were a kid?  Well, that's what happens to me.  Food is comforting to me, and when it is a food that I have fond memories of, it is even more comforting.  So, you take the fact that I like to write when I am emotional and the fact that I tend to reminisce about food when I am emotional, and you get this blog post. :)

The food memory that struck me today as I was driving home from church was that of cheese sandwiches on Sunday afternoons.  When I was kid, my parents were split up, so we divided our weekends between them.  We went to church with my mom on Sunday mornings and then my dad would pick us up in the afternoon and we would spend the rest of the day with him.  At my mom's church, they usually served the same thing every Sunday - bean tostadas for lunch with cake for dessert.  Being a kid, I did not always want to eat the same thing each Sunday.  When it happened that the usual meal was not appetizing to me, I would wait for my dad to pick us up and them eat at his house.  By the time we got to his place it would generally be later in the afternoon and there would not be enough time to eat a huge meal, so I would eat something that was filling enough to tide me over until dinner, but light enough that I would still want dinner.  Enter the cheese sandwich.

The cheese sandwich was a staple in my dad's house.  We ate it on Sunday and Saturday afternoons, and we packed it for school lunches religiously.  It was a favorite of mine and my younger siblings, no question about it.  The cheese sandwich held a very special place in our hearts and on our lunch plates, and there were very specific requirements that had to be fulfilled in order for a sandwich to qualify as a cheese sandwich.  Those requirements were as follows: It had to be made with Miracle Whip on both sides of the bread, it had to be made with mild yellow cheese, it had to be cut in two before eating it, and it had to be eaten with some sort of side like corn chips or cut veggies.  There were variations to the cheese sandwich that were acceptable, but not necessary.  For example, my oldest brother would smother his sandwiches in ketchup - eventually he would substitute the Miracle Whip for just ketchup, but that is another story.  Occasionally we would add lunch meat to our cheese sandwiches, but never so much that it would drown out the strong cheese flavor.  Sometimes we would add lettuce or other condiments such as mustard and pickle relish, but always the cheese must be the main part of the sandwich.

Making and eating those sandwiches was an experience.  You would start with the cheese and a cheese slicer.  You always adjust the slicer so that it cuts the cheese in slices about 1/8 to 1/4 of an inch thick.  This was thick enough to get a nice flavor but not too thick so as to be overpowering.  Then you would put the Miracle Whip on the bread.  You had to make sure that the Miracle Whip covered every part of the bread and was on thick enough so you could taste it when you bit into the sandwich.  After that, you laid the cheese on top of the Miracle Whip, added whatever extras sounded good, put the pieces of bread together and cut the sandwich in two.  Done!  Your masterpiece was ready to eat.

I cannot tell you how many times I enjoyed cheese sandwiches when I was a kid.  I never got tired of eating them.  They became a comfort food for me.  On Sunday afternoons when I was hungry and waiting for my dad to pick me up, I knew that the first thing I would do when I got home was make a cheese sandwich and head to my bedroom to enjoy it in solitude.  Usually, that cheese sandwich would make me sleepy and I would enjoy a nice Sunday afternoon nap before I participated in whatever the family had planned for the evening.  To me, cheese sandwiches represented everything that was good about food.

Since I've become an adult, there have been several occasions when the desire to enjoy a cheese sandwich has overcome me.  The requirements are still the same - Miracle Whip on both sides of the bread, mild yellow cheese cut just perfectly, the sandwich cut in half.  Each time I make a cheese sandwich and enjoy eating it, I think of all those wonderful memories as a child.  This simple food takes me back to a place where I was happy, to something I shared with my brothers and sisters, and suddenly, I don't feel so lonely or sad.  Today was no different.  As I was driving home, I suddenly felt the intense need to have a cheese sandwich.  The thought of the cheese sandwich sparked the memory of all those Sunday afternoons when I was kid and had enjoyed a cheese sandwich at my dad's house.  When I got home this afternoon, I prepared my cheese sandwich.  As I ate, the smell of the bread and cheese and the flavor of the sandwich took me back to when I was a child.  I found myself laughing at the memories, enjoying the reminiscence, and once again thankful for cheese sandwiches and Sunday afternoons.

Christian Elitism

What is it about Christendom that fosters so much elitism?  Why do so many people who wear the label Christian feel they have the right to look down their noses at everyone else?  Where in Scripture does it teach that if you believe in Jesus as Messiah you are better than everyone else?  Where does the Bible say that becoming a believer automatically gives you the right to judge yourself more worthy than others?  I would say you couldn't find that teaching, or any others like, in Scripture; and, yet, elitism and snobbery run rampant in Christianity.  It drives me crazy!

Elitism is the exact OPPOSITE of what belief in Christ is all about.  How many times in the Bible do you find someone talking about how great they are?  How may times do you see the great men and women of faith of the Scriptures looking down their noses at others?  You won't find it.  It's not in there.  What you will find is great men and women of faith talking about how unworthy they are to receive the gift of salvation.  What is in Scripture is teaching after teaching about how everyone is on equal footing with God and no person is better than any other.  Still, so many believers feel it is their right, and many feel their duty, to scold others, look down on others, or label others as less faithful in their beliefs and practice.  Why, why, why???

Those who do this can't possible think that this type of behavior makes God happy.  They can't possibly think that acting is this way is emulating Jesus.  Yet, I fear that many of them truly believe just that.  They honestly believe they are filled with "righteous indignation" at the sins and wrong behaviors of others.  They have convinced themselves that their are acting in defense of God and are fighting to preserve His laws, His ways.  How sad, and I truly do mean sad, not pathetic.

Now before anyone gets too hot under the collar and starts to claim that I am doing exactly what I am accusing others of doing, let me explain.  I am not looking down on those who are elitists.  They get me really angry and I don't like that kind of behavior, but I do not think that I am better than them.  For many years  of my life, I was a Christian elitist.  I thought that my brand of Christianity was better than everyone else's, that I was more accurately living out the Gospel than others.  I know what it means to think you are righteously indignant at the way God is being treated.

Because I know what it's like to be this way, it makes me so sad when I see it in others.  Yes, I get angry, but mostly, it breaks my heart.  It breaks my heart because I can see how far from the character of God it really is, and how many people are hurt and damaged when Christians put on their elitism robes.  I have seen first-hand how this type of behavior drives people from the throne of grace rather than drawing them in.

I agree that standing up for what you believe is important.  I understand that living by Godly laws and working to live out the Gospel in your daily life is important.  I get the the idea of wanting your life to be pleasing to God.  However, I also believe that living out your Christian faith in a way that sneers at or belittles others does not fall into the category of being a Godly person, and, actually, it negates many of the positive effects of living according to Scripture.

I wish that it was popular in Christian culture to love people, to encourage people, to invite people to learn what truth is, rather than browbeating, scolding, and sneering at those who do not measure up to your ideals of what Christian living is.  The people in Scripture that Jesus scolded and was ruthless with were the religious leaders of the day.  The people He was most merciless with were those who thought that following God was adhering to a strict set of rules and then punishing those who didn't follow suite.  To the sinners, the common people, the non-believers, Jesus was loving, kind, inviting, and understanding.  Never, never did He look down His nose at anyone; and if anyone had the right to do that, it would have been Him.

I think the saddest, most devious, most destructive tool Satan has is the elitism that so grips many Christians.  What if we as Jesus-followers spent less time judging the actions of others and more time loving them where they are at?  What if we spent less energy scolding and beating others up with our words, and spent more time healing wounds and encouraging the lost and dying among us?  What if we worried less about how the actions of others were making God (and let's be honest, ourselves) look and spent more time inviting others to know God.  Perhaps if we could step down from our pedestals long enough to be on the same level as those around us, we might experience more of the power and presence of Jesus in our lives, and might just be the light to the world we are called to be.

I wish that every time we as Christians felt the need or urge to turn our noses up at someone and offer our cruelest words of wrath, we would remember the many mires in which we have found ourselves and the many disgraces we have needed saving from.  I wish that every time we saw something that sparked the desire to wound someone in defense of our faith that we would recall how we were once enemies of Christ too.  I wish that we would constantly bear in mind the grace with which we have been saved so that we could extend it to those around us whenever they needed it.  I wish that we could stop trying to boast in who we are and what we believe and we would rest in the knowledge of Who He is, for that is enough; it is all we truly need.

Thoughts

There are so many thoughts running around in my head tonight.  There are things I want to say, things I want to mull over and work through, things I want to remember, and futures I want to dream about.  As happens so frequently with me, my thoughts have overwhelmed me and I find it hard to put them on paper.  Sometimes I wonder why it is that my thoughts have to rush in like torrential rains, and then why they have to stay and swirl around like churning oceans waters.  Why is it that I cannot think of things one at a time rather than 500 things at a times?  Even as I write this I find myself wanting to say so many things but having a hard time focusing on one specific thing to write about.  Perhaps things are more difficult right now because there has been so much happening recently.  Or, perhaps it is this time of year, which is always somewhat hard for me.  I could go on and on wondering why, but I have never found that to be helpful.  What seems to be most helpful is just talking about what I am thinking.

A few months ago I blogged about making some changes in my life.  I talked about some goals I had that included getting into shape and making healthier choices, trying new things, and working to pay some things off.  While it has not been easy to work towards these goals, I am really happy to say that I have made progress.  I just completed the 3rd straight week of consistently exercising for 6 days out of every week.  The workouts aren't especially grueling or long, and I feel almost embarrassed to admit that.  However, I am really proud that I have stuck with it and it's given me hope that I will continue to stick with it.  I haven't really lost any weight, which is disappointing, but I do feel better about myself.

On the trying new things front, I continue to stretch my horizons, particularly in the food area.  The summer provided all sorts of opportunities to try new foods, and I loved it!  I even spent some time trying new beers. :)  I haven't had nearly as many adventures as I had hoped, but I did have a few that made the summer very enjoyable.  I will continue to look for new foods to try and new adventures to have.  I don't think my focus will be so intense these next few months, but I also think that this has become more of a habit for me, so it doesn't need intense focus.

The financial side of things has been a bit more rough.  It feels that for everything inch I gained, I lost a mile.  There were some good things.  My student loans finally fell below the $100,000 dollar limit, which felt really good.  It's still a lot to pay off, but it helps seeing some progress.  There have been other struggles this summer on the financial front, but I can say that I am learning to stress about it less.  My wonderful husband is so much better at that than me and he is always quick to reassure me that things will be ok.  I do believe that, but I am growing weary of the battle and hope that it will not be too much longer.

There have been so much that has happened for me personally these past few months.  I feel like I am continuing to grow and I am starting to expand my hopes and dreams for the future.  My ideas about what I wish for have changed somewhat and I am finding myself imagining a future that looks very different from the one I always thought would be.  I am starting to realize that just because I am fearful of something not going the way I thought it would doesn't mean it will be a bad thing.  In fact, most times it turns out better than if things had gone the way I had intended them to.

Perhaps the best way to sum up my thoughts right now is to say there are some things that I am more sure of than ever, some things that I have never been more unsure of, and some things that I have realized I have no idea about.  How's that for a summary?  Just as random and chaotic as all the thoughts rolling around in my head right now.  Well, at least it's an accurate representation.

The Flood

It's been a while since I posted and while my blog has been quiet, my life has not.  It seems that my summer was filled with all sorts of everything and there was very little "free" time.  Or maybe it's just that I didn't really feel like blogging.  You know, creative types are known for lack of consistency. :)

At any rate, it is now halfway through September and I find myself wanting to write again.  This past week has been a hard one for my adopted state home.  We had massive flooding for most of last week and there are still parts of the state that are experiencing some flood-like conditions.  There was so much destruction from the rain and water.  So many people have lost their homes or their homes are in desperate need of repairs.  Some people lost their lives.  It's been a sobering, and at times scary, experience these past 7 days.  I've never been this close to a natural disaster.  In Arizona, the closest thing to a natural disaster we see is a bad sandstorm or a wicked thunderstorm.  The flooding in Colorado this past week was something else.  Entire communities were destroyed.  Roads all over the northern part of the state were washed out, leaving many people stranded or handicapped in their day-to-day lives.  

On the positive side, it has been so amazing to see how well equipped the state appears to be in handling something like this.  The fire fighters, police officers, and rescue workers all acted quickly and worked tirelessly to ensure the safety of people.  The national guard came in and worked hard to rescue people.  The thing that has been most amazing to see, though, is the response of ordinary citizens here.  Even before there were formal avenues to help with rescues and restoration, people were eagerly trying to help.  There were so many people who went out of their way to help their neighbors and people they didn't even know.  I don't honestly remember ever seeing a community band together in quite the same way.  Even now, with the flood waters receding and the destruction growing more apparent, people are starting to rebuild and they are helping those around them to rebuild.

Another thing I noticed during this crisis was the humor and positive attitudes people had while this was going on.  There was no negativity to be seen.  Nobody was whining, nobody was forecasting doom.  People were honest about what was happening, but with a very pragmatic approach.  I heard so many people say, "things are just things" when asked about the loss of large chunks of their property.  I heard people say funny things and find the humor in situations, and it was incredible.  I've never lived somewhere where people did that, and it was an experience to remember.

The worst part of this experience, or should I say the scariest part, is over.  The sun has started shining again and the waters are not threatening life and property.  However, there is still a lot of work to do to restore the things that have been damaged.  There are going to be months, if not years, of hard work ahead of everyone in this state.  I hope that the positive outlooks and humorous attitudes will continue through this time.  I hope that I can look back on this whole experience and still feel the wonder, amazement, thankfulness and pride I feel right now at Colorado my home state.