Fires and other incendiary topics

While we are in the midst of Christmas decorating and filling our house with stuff, some people are sifting through ashes.  Our hearts are with our friends and family members in Ventura these days. The Thomas Fire, named for Thomas Aquinas College where it was first reported, is still out of control, consuming homes and property in its path. Over 450 homes have been lost, and Thursday a young firefighter lost his life, leaving behind his wife, a two year old and a baby on the way.  Fires are also still burning around LA and northern San Diego County and Tijuana. Our 11-year-old, the disaster specialist, keeps asking if we are at risk, but we live in an area protected by water on three sides.  Air quality is so poor in Ventura that schools have been canceled a second week, and my husband's brother and his family are packing up to head to Grandma's house in Oklahoma a week early.

The four of them and their dog and guinea pigs spent a few days here last week, after just being here several days at Thanksgiving.  They offered to take our two older girls with them to Gram and Pop's, where we all will gather in another week.  Although this would give us a lot more room in our car, I don't want to give up my time with the girls.  The school break started yesterday and goes until January 2nd, so they don't have much time after we get back from the Christmas travels to hang out with us and with friends, but we do have this week before we leave. I have some dental and eye doctor appointments scheduled, and I want to do some holiday fun outing - something to build memories and traditions especially for the youngest.

After Thanksgiving, I was feeling very protective of family time.  Two of my husband's brothers and their families came for the holiday, which was wonderful but also exhausting. We were still recovering from jet lag when the first set of cousins arrived less than a week after we returned from Ireland.  His brother from Ventura arrived Tuesday evening before Thanksgiving, and we had an excellent adult night out dinner. The challenge was that the next couple of days we had competing ideas about how to relax over Thanksgiving, which made the weekend not so relaxing.  We needed more vacation time to recover from vacation.

So the next weekend, just before the first Sunday of Advent, I scheduled a mandatory family fun activity. The weather was beautiful, and we hadn't been camping since the spring, so I thought some time in the woods would do us all some good.  The kids weren't so sure. Although no one had any major events planned for the weekend, no sports or birthday parties or socials, none of the kids was enamored of packing up to sleep on the ground and miss potential fun back at home. And the older kids did have a pile of homework.  So I compromised. I gave up camping - mainly because I myself was still so tired from the week before, but we did go spend a day in the woods.

We headed up to Mount Palomar, explored the amazing observatory and had a fascinating conversation with an employee - better than a guided tour because he gave us an insider's understanding of the work the scientists are doing. It costs around $10,000 a night to operate the telescope, where astronomers are looking for the tiniest changes in the night sky to determine what is happening in the universe now and millennia ago. After expanding our brains with these complex ideas, we stopped for ice cream at a little camp store before taking a medium length hike through the state park. Then we cooked hot dogs and marshmallows around a tiny campfire as we watched the sunset over the hills. It was a beautiful day, and the kids, once they got out into the fresh air, did exactly what I had hoped they would do - they climbed rocks, played with sticks, and had fun with each other gathering mistletoe and making up narratives about the future. Something about being outside together, away from the competing needs at home, helps them reconnect with each other.  Sometimes turning a deaf ear to complaints about doing things together ends up being the best way to create memories and reconnect as a family.  Which is why I declined the invite to send a couple of the kids in the cousins' car for the 2 day drive across the southwest. There will be plenty of complaints in our car, but we'll also have some fun eating at cheap restaurants, listening to books on tape, and having the occasional conversation about something meaningful.

For instance, we have had a couple interesting conversations about issues in the news. At the kids' high school, the varsity soccer team shaved the new team members' heads, somewhat against their wills.  A friend whose son is on the team was furious about this hazing, but because the boys won't say anything about their teammates to the administration, nothing is being done other than requiring the team to write an essay about hazing.

This slap on the wrist has my morning walking friends and me upset.  With all the news about sexual harassment cases, the deaths of students in fraternities after hazing events, and even the recent bullying video that went viral, the school's response to an event of hazing seems to turn a blind eye to an event where the younger boys didn't want to have their heads shaved, but went along because bigger, more powerful people intimidated them.

Granted, this incident isn't on the same level as these other events. And some of the kids who got their heads shaved may even think it does give them a sense of membership and belonging.  But it is an exertion of power and aggression at heart; the younger members of the team didn't choose to have their heads shaved.

Thoughts have been swirling about these events - and the case of the kid whose mom posted the video of him crying online about bullying. Sympathy overflowed from celebrities and a fund was established. $50000 was donated before someone noticed that the mom had posted a photo of herself with a Confederate flag on her facebook account at some point in time. Then someone suggested the kid was bullied because he was a racist.  This is a stretch.  Kids bully for all kinds of reasons, but rarely, I suspect, because they are motivated by social justice.  And are the sins of the mother the sins of the child?  Is it reverse bullying to make this national news? (I heard about it on NPR.)

Evidence of original sin is everywhere, even though everywhere we go Christmas spirit is marketed, and kindness and mindfulness are encouraged by all. Still people persist in sins of the flesh and of the spirit.  All the more reason why we need a God with skin offering mercy and redemption.