Tweens and teens

I just wrote my first "tweens and teens" blog. I really would like to do more, and should do one a week so I can accumulate enough to send off somewhere. I wrote it in Word for two reasons: 1) it doesn't quite fit here; 2) my son told me I need to save these blogs for someplace where they will be read by larger numbers of adoring fans (or just plain ole anyone), and where I will be paid! I think it's way cool to have a 15-year-old fan, even if he doesn't actually read my writing.

Now it's too bad that I am not raising any girls, because I feel lke I have a major blind spot about what it's like to raise them. It doesn't count that I come from a family of two girls, me and my sister ... things were different then, and I can't imagine what my parents thought of raising us! I do remember when my sister and I would get the giggles at the dinner table. We'd giggle, and Dad would glare. The more we giggled, the madder he got! I never did understand what he was so upset about. Maybe, just maybe, part of the fun was knowing how easy it was to get him agitated.

Well, now it's payback time. Andrew is the one who insists on acting silly, and it makes me so mad sometimes! Why? I don't know. I still don't get it! In fact, one of the kids' favorite expressions to me (especially from Andrew) is "Calm down, Mom," which oddly enough, usually has the opposite effect.
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Here is a coincidence where God has chosen to remain anonymous: a friend of mine is starting a Buddhist group in Floresville! Why, she might as well be starting a society to promote gay rights and abortion -- that's how startling and out-of-place this is in our small very-conservative oh-so-red-state town. I think it's amazing that I have the possibility to study Buddhism in a group, right here, when so many other things about living here seem so binding and constricted.

Don't get me wrong; there are many things I love about Floresville, the people most of all. I much prefer living somewhere where I know so many people. It's a comforting feeling to go someplace and run into people I know, especially for an introvert like me. But it's hard to have certain open-ended conversations on topics where people are likely to have strong opinions: politics, religion, what's that third one again? Oh, I guess that's a problem everywhere.
Like I wrote to a friend when I was doing Christmas cards -- one of the chief disappointments I've felt about my Bible study class so far is that there should be more questions, and fewer answers. Especially pat little answers given by people who are afraid of the deep mystery of faith.I do thank God that there hasn't been a lot of overt judgment against other people, except when someone in the group gets talking about those strange worship habits practiced by those Asian people (and a certain person sitting at the table with him).

I am learning that truth does not always reign supreme over all other considerations. There is a real need to temper truthfulness with love, and tact, which I often lack. I am finding that when someone is not ready for my version of truth, it may be better not to say it at all. But then there's Karen, who reminds me that we should not hide our lights from others -- that her spiritual growth has been through the nurturing, sometimes pushing, of her loved ones. Growth can be quite painful and uncomfortable, and I often don't want to go there in talking to other people. If someone is not ready to grow, or if I am merely trying to convert someone to my world view, pushing will make things worse and set them more firmly in rigid beliefs.

Another hopelessly rambling entry. I don't feel like deleting half of it, though, so you'll just have to forgive me.

Here's a link that explains some about Buddhism, which (I think) is best understood as a philosophy of life rather than a religion.
 http://www.buddhanet.net/4noble.htm