Question: Are you the fun parent?
I am not.
Question: Are you the fun parent?
I am not.
At dinner each night of November, see if your family can collectively think of 10 more things you’re thankful for. Keep a running list.
Display a vase filled with your list written on slips of paper. Alternatively, scrawl gratitude items on kraft paper doubling as a Thanksgiving tablecloth—complete with markers or crayons prompting guests to add their own.
While living in Uganda, my language acquisition developed to an equivalent of that drunken-sailor lurch of a new toddler. That is, my ability to speak resembled lurching, grinning, and occasionally falling on my rear.
And of course just because you can speak a language doesn’t mean you use it in the same ways. I’d occasionally get weird looks for wishing someone Merry Christmas (Seku Kulu enungi!) in December. Apparently Ugandans keep this phrase pretty much for Christmas day.
At dinner each night of November, see if your family can collectively think of 10 more things you’re thankful for. Keep a running list.
A vase filled with your list written on slips of paper, or written scrawled on kraft paper doubling as a Thanksgiving tablecloth—complete with Sharpies or crayons prompting guests to add their own.
A friend told me recently of a trip he and his wife to Hawaii took several years back. After dropping his wife at the terminal for the flight home, he was the only person on the rental car shuttle. He recalled the shuttle driver’s words: “I think I need to go on vacation.” My friend laughed when he told me this. Where do you go on vacation when you live in Hawaii?
Having friends who used to live in Kauai, I know that wherever you live, life is never all bliss. In fact, one side of my house looks over a little cabin serving as a VRBO (Vacation Rental by Owner) year-round. And God seems to use it to tap me on the shoulder: Just a reminder. You live in a place where a lot of people go on vacation.
So many of us are experiencing new heights of irritation with and alienation from our own nations’ government. But consider this post an opportunity to shift our eyes in gratitude. When I’m struggling to feel content here, I think of my African friends’ perspectives on just what abundance we drink in every day.
Today’s and yesterday’s posts, rather than reinforcing the misguided, often arrogant notion that developing-world countries are horrible places to live, are simply invitations to be grateful with me about what we have…but generally did not create for ourselves.
Melanie: I-I realize it’s difficult what with, uh, Celia, Kristen, Elaine.
Jack (pauses, looks at her): I know your name, Mel.
My seven-and-a-half year old sat near me as I typed quietly yesterday. His Hot Wheels were performing gravity-defying stunts; he rather violently hummed the Cars 2 theme song, replete with adrenaline-loaded sound effects, of course–over and over. And over. I almost quietly asked him to please desist. But then–I realized my Hot-Wheels-overlaid-with-Cars-2-soundtrack days are kind of winding down. (Sniff.)
Keep hummin’, buddy.
A friend of mine who eventually lost his wife, and the mother of his four children, to Lou Gehrig’s disease once recalled to me a profound moment with God. While he still cared for her as her body spiraled downward, he had lain on his bed, overcome by loss.
But God seemed to be pointing him toward thanks. Not able to immediately turn to full-on gratitude, my friend simply started small. He thanked God for the ability to breathe; for the bed he wept on; for the air conditioning. From there, his gratitude snowballed, steering him into praise.
My friend’s attitude has revolutionized my approach to my bad days; to my pain.
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