Water For Christmas Birthday

On November 3, 2008, Jody Landers officially launched Water for Christmas.  What an amazing one-year journey it has been.

$59,000 was raised in that short time between 11/3 and Christmas.

And it was all done by regular people.  There wasn't a professional fund-raiser leading the charge.  Just a regular person who knew lots of other regular people.  And a passion to help people.  And a weariness with the materialism of Christmas.

Of course, it helps if you are a regular person with a blog read by, it seems, a zillion people everyday.

Not mine, of course, Jody's.

So: Happy Birthday, WFC.  And way to go, Jody, who, by the way, is on a plane right now heading to Liberia to see for herself the work that Water for Christmas and Charity:Water are doing there.

Now, heads up.  Water For Christmas enters it's second season, and we're going to kick it off with a bang.  Here's what's happening:

Last year, we did $10 Fridays.  Every Friday for six weeks, people were encouraged to give ten bucks to WFC.  A lot was raised through $10 Fridays.

This year, instead of six Fridays, we are looking at one day.  One really big day.

November 13th.  Everyone giving $10.  So spread the word.  Use whatever means you have: Facebook, MySpace, blog, Twitter, email, texts.  Even that old technology that is hanging on your wall in the kitchen.

Here's the graphic that we are using:

Right click, copy and paste it into your message.  (OK, that won't work so well with that thing that hangs on the wall in the kitchen, but you know what I mean.)

I need your help to get the word out, because, well, my blog reaches somewhat less than a zillion people.

But I'm working on it.

McNugget

I like to eat dead animals.  Dead cows, dead hogs, dead chickens, dead fish.

I'm a carnivore.  Technically, I'm an omnivore, but I could honestly do without vegetables, fruit, or grains and live completely off of meat.  Apparently I wouldn't live long, but I would live happy and content.

For my fiftieth birthday we had some friends over to the house and I grilled t-bone steaks.  Not whimpy little 6 oz. steaks.  Nope, I went to Sam's, found some 1" thick t-bones, and told the guy I needed 12 of them.  Watched him cut them.  Set me back a few bucks, but it was my birthday and my friends.  These suckers were so big that some of the women were wanting to split them with each other.

Not me.  And if company hadn't been over I would have never used a knife and fork--just picked it up by the bone and started gnawing.  And I promise you the bone would have been clean when I was done.

16 oz. of steak, at least.  That's a lot of meat.

So when the instructions for "The Five Day Food and Water Challenge" said this: "Meat is a luxury, with the average African consuming about ¾ ounce per day—the size of a small chicken nugget," I knew I was in trouble.

What's the fewest number of McNuggets you can buy at McDonald's?  4 in a kids meal?  Six for adults?

And I'm supposed to eat only one a day?!

But that's not really the problem, is it?  The problem is that the average African only eats about 3/4 oz. of meat a day.

Wonder what the meat cutter at Sam's would have said if I had asked him for a 3/4 oz. t-bone?

"Sir, I'd like a steak the size of a small McNugget."

We Americans really do live in an alternate universe from the rest of the world, don't we?

How McLaren Loves His Neighbor

Jesus calls us—no, sorry, Jesus commands us, those who call ourselves his followers, to love our neighbors.

But what if your neighbor is a Muslim?  How would you go about loving your Muslim neighbor, not just in an abstract way but in real-life, demonstrable ways.

Brian McLaren observed Ramadan. 

McLaren is a local boy—he grew up in Rockville; in fact, he and I attended the same schools, lived around the corner from each other, took piano lessons from the same teacher.  We didn’t know all this until we were having coffee with some mutual friends at a Cooperative Baptist Fellowship conference at which Brian was to speak.  Brian graduated from the University of Maryland, taught English there for a few years before quitting to start Cedar Ridge Community Church in Spencerville.  He is now a internationally-known Christian writer and speaker.  He’s done good.

He is also one of those types of people who make friends easily, and in his travels he has made a lot of friends who are also Muslim.  Since Brian takes following Jesus seriously, he also takes Jesus’ command to love our neighbors seriously as well.

Very seriously.  Rather than try to explain for him why he wanted to observe Ramadan, here is what he said on his blog:

Whether or not you agree with him that this is an appropriate way to show love to his Muslim neighbors, you have to admit that he is taking Jesus’ command seriously.  Of course, some Christians think he’s just gone too far.  Brian says that he received hate mail from some Christians.  Wow.  Christian hate mail.  I wish I could say that I find that unbelievable, but I can’t.  But he also received emails from Muslims that basically said, “Thanks for recognizing us as human beings.”

That they would write that means that they have felt denied that very basic acknowledgement from others, presumably and undoubtedly from some Christians.

And that is definitely not taking Jesus’ command very seriously.

Quigs and the Evil Empire

My good friend in West Virginia, Tim Quigley, is from Philadelphia.  So he's a Phillies fan.

Now, if you know anything about Philadelphia sports fans...well, they have a reputation for being jerks.

Not all of them, I'm sure, but you can check it out.  Philadelphia sports fans aren't known for their tact, civility, or, frankly, their sobriety.  And don't throw stones at the messenger.  This is a well-known, documented fact, and most Philadelphia fans are actually proud of their behavior.

So, yeah, the Phillies won the World Series last year.  And the Orioles came in last place.

And Quigs has loved pointing out these two facts in various ways, most of them unprintable.

It's been a long year.  And it does no good to point out that the only time the Orioles played the Phillies in the World Series, they beat them 4 games to 1.  That was in 1983.  Only one of my two children were born at the time.

Nor does it do much good to point out that the Phillies have lost more games than any other major league franchise; that they were the first team to lose 10,000 games.  (Seriously, 10,000 games, that's a lot of games.)  Nor that they are still the only franchise with at least 10k losses.  Actually, it's 10,167, but who's counting?

OK, it does a little bit of good.  The overall Phillies winning percentage is pretty bad, and Quigs doesn't like me pointing that out.

The high point of the season came in June when the Orioles traveled to Philadelphia AND SWEPT THE PHILLIES!  I texted Quigs and told him that the Orioles were thinking of selling the naming rights to their home stadium but then realized that Citizen's Bank Park already had a sponsorship name.  (Citizen's Bank Park is the Phillie's home stadium.)  I was proud of that one.  Trust me, it was funny.  No, really, it was.  I think it kind of made Quigs mad.

But, really, it stinks to be an Oriole fan and have a friend who is a Phillies fan.  Because he can be quite the jerk about it.

So like I said, it's been a long year, and I'd like to avoid another one like it.

Problem #1: The Phillies are back in the World Series.
Problem #2: So are the Yankees, a.k.a The Evil Empire.

It is against my moral convictions as a Christian to ever, ever root for The Evil Empire.  But I am not willing to listen to Quigs for another year.

So I made him an offer: if, by some force of sheer will, he will agree not to be a jerk for the next year--in other words, not be him for a whole year--I will root for the Phillies in the World Series.  But if not...well, I won't so much be rooting for The Evil Empire as rooting against the Phillies.

I know, I know, it may be a distinction without a difference, but it's a distinction I am willing to live with.

Rice and Beans

I grew up eating rice at just about every supper.  Rice and gravy.  I am southern, after all.

Mom doesn't cook like she used to when she had three boys in the house, but if she did I would occasionally ask her to cook some fried chicken with rice and gravy.

But we don't fry anything anymore, and gravy will apparently send you to your grave.  Hence the name.

I found out later why we ate rice all the time instead of mashed potatos, which was a staple in Pam's family: Dad doesnn't care for mashed potatos, and they are a real pain to make.  The real ones, not the ones from the box.

Boiling some rice is a lot easier.

Also, when I was growing up beans meant green beans.  The modifier was never needed if you were talking about green beans.  If you were talking any other kind of bean, then a modifier was needed.  Kidney beans.  Red beans.  Lima beans.  But we never said green beans.  If Mom said we were having beans for supper, we knew we were eating green beans.

Fried chicken, rice and gravy, and beans.  At least once a week.  Man, I miss those days.

One thing we never had was red beans and rice, which, when I think about it, is kinda weird.  If the Eubanks side of the family is decidedly English in origin, there is a strong French Louisiana strain on my mother's side.  Mom would fix shrimp creole, and gumbo is a huge treat in my family, but we never had red beans and rice.

I was an adult when I first had some red beans and rice, and I loved them.  When we lived in Georgia Pam and I would take the kids to Biloxi once or even twice a year to visit The Ladies.  One day I happened to mention to Grandmother that I liked red beans and rice but never got any.  The next day there was a pot of it waiting for me.

My Grandmother loves me.

And every trip thereafter, when we'd arrive at Nonie's house, there would be a big pot of red beans and rice.  (And a big pot of gumbo.  Made from scratch. The Ladies never made anything from a box.)  I'd toss some Tabasco in a bowl and have at it.  And would end up taking a couple of quarts home to Georgia.

One day I mentioned to Mom that Grandmother would cook me enough red beans and rice every trip down to feed an army, and she said that when she was a little girl they used to eat red beans and rice all the time.  Back during the Depression.  Rice was cheap, and so were red beans, so that's what they ate.  She said that they ate it so much that she got sick of it and doesn't ever want to eat red beans and rice again.


And there you have it.  Mom didn't fix red beans and rice because it reminded her of growing up in the Depression.

Beans and rice.  Rice and beans.  Depression food.  Food you eat when you can't afford to eat fried chicken, rice and gravy, and beans.

There's a difference between eating something because you like it, and eating something because you have to, even if you do like it.

This is the part of the Five Day Food and Water Challenge that I'm doing OK with.  Plain oatmeal, plain cream of wheat--ugh.  Rice and black beans, or red beans, or even just regular beans?  Yeah, I eat that anyway.

But I choose to.  Much of the world doesn't get that choice. 

Beautiful Women

Here's a really good article about the impact of clean water in Africa. 

(I don't find this stuff myself, I just read it on Jody's blog and copy it.  Some people might call it being derivative.  I call it research.)

Cream of Wheat

Like oatmeal, my family didn't do cream of wheat either.  We basically didn't do hot cereal for breakfast. 

We did Cap'n Crunch.

When I was a summer camp counselor at Summit Lake Camp I would see kids eat cream of wheat.  I think that was probably the first time I ever saw cream of wheat.  They would put butter and salt in it, or sometimes sugar and/or pancake syrup, but regardless of what they did, it never looked like anything I would want to try.  And I didn't.

Growing up in the south I ate grits, and so now I understand what people who have never encountered grits are thinking when they watch me eat grits.  They are wondering, "What is a grit?  And what's the attraction?"  Even with butter and salt and pepper--folks, this is good eating, let me tell you--they aren't finding any compelling reason to eat or even try grits.

So a few years ago I wondered what the deal was with cream of wheat, so I bought some.  It was a variety pack of flavors--strawberries and cream (yum), apples and cinnamon (yum), maple brown sugar (not quite as yum, but still yum), and plain.

I put butter, salt and pepper in the plain, and it wasn't bad.  Kinda like grits, but made of wheat rather than corn.

So today I made cream of wheat.  Plain.  No butter, salt, brown sugar.  Nothing.

Not yum.  No where near yum.  So far from yum it would take a week for a postcard from yum to get here.

Plainly speaking, plain cream of wheat sucks.

This five day food and water challenge is not that easy.