God and Trailer parks...

I asked my daughters a question last night at supper, "What would you think if we sold our house and moved to a trailer park?"  The conversation that unfolded lasted almost an hour.  They climbed up on the kitchen table and sat there with Indian-crossed legs as we talked about possessions, what is important, what we think we deserve, where Jesus would be if he lived in Lowell, why we think we need more, what clothes are really supposed to be (stuff to cover your privates) instead of what they've turned into (stuff to adorn you in order to get people to look at you with either jealously or contempt or lust or comparison), what life is like in Africa and what kinds of homes they live in....

IN fact...

I took a sheet of paper and drew out the floor plan of a trailer.  I then drew out our house in comparison to show how much bigger it is.  Then I drew a little hut off to the side and showed how much bigger the trailer is than most houses in the world.  They sat there stupefied.  

I then did a dramatic monologue of what can only be described as a "california hollywood girl" who is spoiled rotten and who lives in a huge house but is miserable cause her parents have been divorced and remarried four times.  She has the coolest stuff, but she is spoiled and bratty and unhappy.  That went on for about 10 minutes.  They laughed and yet I used the humor to crack open their hearts to the sickness of our society, and worse yet, our Christianity.

I couldn't believe how much they absorbed this line of logic.  Though they pushed back with the perceived embarrassment (much of which comes through false ideas peddled at school) of living in a trailer park, and the "making fun" that they would get from their friends, I turned that into a teaching time of how we view people of lower income, lower position, lower social status.  "Who do we think we are?"  I said that about a hundred times.

Later that night, after I had put her to bed, Kami wrote a letter to Heidi and I that started like this: "Mom and Dad...I am so thankful that God has placed me in our family.  I love you both so much!  Make sure that when you go to be you turn the fan toward me feet.  The End."    She underlined the words "God" and "placed"...which are, in my opinion, the two most beautiful words in this note.

I share this to let you all know that the "rabid rabbi" would have been having these conversations.  They are not pleasant, but they are pleasurable.

I don't know where to go from here, but I'm sure glad I'm here.