Faith

July 30, 2008


I am a Unitarian Universalist.

Seven years ago, I knew nothing of this religion but was intrigued by the beautiful historic church in town that flew a rainbow flag. A few years later, I became a member of this church. Without a doubt, our congregation has some of the most accepting, friendly, open-minded and caring people I have ever had the pleasure to meet.

I am now a Sunday school teacher in our church’s RE program. I love these kids—their innocence, curiosity and ability to drive me crazy—they make me happy I decided to volunteer even when my practical self said, “I have no idea what I’m doing!”

When I heard about Sunday’s shooting at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist church my first thought was of the children. About 25 of them were in the front of the church, performing the musical Annie, when a disgruntled man walked in and opened fire, all the while shouting hateful things at the petrified people in front of him. One congregant, a 60-year-old church member and usher who had recently taken in a foster child with his wife, placed himself in the line of fire to protect others. He and a 61-year-old retired teacher died from the shootings.

The gunman apparently hated the liberal movement and the church’s support for gay rights.

There are times when I am at church and I look at the people around me–old, young, black, white, straight, gay, male, female–and I think how great things can be when we accept people for who they are instead of what they are.

Unfortunately, we still have so far to go.

My thoughts are with all of you.

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Filed Under: Fairly Odd Me, The Outside World 6 Comments

Down On My Knees

July 28, 2008

Look what I was doing on Sunday morning. . .

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Filed Under: New England Mamas 1 Comment

Food Allergies, Part Deux

July 25, 2008


After things settled down over in the comments section of this post, I went back and reread what everyone had to say both here and here. There were two comments in particular that I wanted to revisit with regards to peanut allergies in the United States.

The first was written by Toyfoto:

In Africa they are saving children from starvation with a peanut-based product. They don’t have the allergies we have.

The second, written by Robin, said this:

It’s odd, here in Israel babies are practically weaned straight onto “Bamba“, a peanut-based puffed snack (think cheese doodle made from peanuts), yet you almost never hear of peanut allergies. OTOH, most Israeli kids don’t eat much peanut butter. Except for mine, who would probably starve without it, but bringing it to school is not a problem here.

Interesting, isn’t it? If severe and common peanut allergies are not as prevalent in other parts of the world, what is going on here? Why are there enough kids allergic to peanuts, I mean seriously allergic to peanuts, that there has to be a ban on their products in almost every place where young children congregate.

And it isn’t just peanuts. We know kids allergic to soy, milk, gluten, wheat and egg. When my daughter attend a Montessori preschool a couple of years ago, the director told me that they literally had dozens of Epi-pens in their medicine cabinets—all prescriptions filled by parents and sent to the school to protect their child from potential harm.

We were one of those families. As many of you know, Belly is allergic to milk. I’ve heard people blame immunizations (check), overly sterile environments (not our house), cesarean births (yup, she was an emergency), formula (check, but mostly breastfed) or possibly just better awareness of allergies. But, what if it is more than this? Will food allergies just keep getting worse and worse?

And, to those of you whose children have multiple food allergies, or ones so bad that your child could die from a smell: you have my empathy. Parenting is hard enough without this too.

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Filed Under: Fairly Odd Kids, Health n Food Talk 16 Comments
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