Ramble on a Saturday morning

After two years of learning the American way, adapting to the culture, taking what is good from it, i just woke up, as if from a dream, and decided to be more deliberate in living and expressing my childhood luggage of memories, opinions and education.

I was never the one one to go with the flow. And no matter how much I enjoy the peace, I am ready to pick a fight for the sake of goodness and truth.

Growing up in an era of persecution, persecution of faith or religion (...the oppressors couldn't tell the difference), when all my schoolmates wore the same type of shoes and backpacks, because there was no variety in stores (...all mostly gray and brown), the reason to mock or pick on your colleagues was their faith or the fact that they didn't do their homework. Life was pretty simple from that point of view... and sometimes, I dare say, we had it easy. I have been asked if I was a believer (in a derogatory way) and I looked them into the eyes and I said yes. For some reason they never bothered me again. It was always an awkward question to ask... and it was always brought up to mock someone.

There is no excuse for ignorance in this world, and yet it settles around us like a plague. Sometimes hiding behind the politically correct attitude, trading an awake, passionate mind for a pitiful living, we loose more and more of who we are, or sight of what we were meant to be.

As for raising children, I can only talk about my own childhood. I did not grow up in a bubble, that's for sure, and I am so grateful that I didn't. Why the heck do we strive so hard to make the world seem perfect for our children? We throw out the window the real gifts we have for the children (which is us - a work in progress) to overwhelm them with colorful but fading joy.

I disagree with paying the children to do chores around the house. They will turn 25 and they will still feel like they paid you a great service for taking the trash out or for doing the dishes. It's just life, and we all put our shoulder to make it better.

...I was 5 years old and my parents had a CEC savings account under my name. I don't know why, but as they were talking about "my" money, I truly thought that I get paid into this account to go to kindergarden everyday, just like my parent get paid to go to work.
...I took my "job" very seriously.

I strongly believe that if there is a place where children ought to learn about grace and generosity, is in their home, from their parents. And there is a time for rules and regulations, and there is a time for abundant grace.

I never had an allowance, and that put my mind to work, on how to eventually make some money. I tutored math for younger kids. At first I did it for free, until I got a hang of it, and when I was offered payment from non-family members, I took it. That was my first earned money.

We fill our heads with all these books on how to discipline kids, and yet all we would need is abundant love and grace, striving to set an example though our own life, being determined and living on purpose. Set our eyes on a higher goal in life that would keep our footsteps going straight... and remember that it's no about us! It's about God...