faulker012

To My Children: I promise to model kindness, acceptance, community, a "can-do" attitude, and how to believe in yourself.   I promise to make every effort to instill a love of world justice in you.  A focus on ethical awareness and social justice as key in creating a peaceful world.   . I promise to support and encourage the person that you are, without attempting to change the kernel of you.  By loving your individuality, I believe you will grow to pass love and acceptance on to the world around you. . I promise to help you remember to value the difficult times as learning opportunities. Seeds of success are sown in darkness and doubt.   I believe your successes and your pride and sense of self will come from the struggle.  While I promise to offer you every advantage I have at my disposal, I promise to not make your life too easy or too comfortable. . I promise to show you honesty and authenticity in all things.  . I promise to remind you ev...

I posted this on FB last night, just feeling despair and anger and frustrations...and more things. Even though it's not terribly erudite, several friends were moved enough asked if they could copy it to their FB profiles. I thought I'd add it here in case the words move you to their use too. Let me know if you decide to use it. 😉 You might also enjoy: Who I Am, Who You Are Egg on my Facebook   (2010) Why am I an Openly Atheist Blogger? Atheist Parent: Patheos

  Your comments?   You might also enjoy: Raising Atheist Children Atheists Talking to Our Kids about Death and Grief Sexuality: She Left Beauty Whereever She Went

The other day I was at the grocery store in line for the check out. The man behind me had a little basket of stuff so I sent him ahead of me. He said, "Oh, I appreciate it...my granddaughter is in the hospital and I'm just exhausted and needing to get home." We began talking about grandchildren and showing pics, as grandparents are wont to do. He said that his daughter was finally home but his new granddaughter was still in the hospital at twelve days old. She had been having seizures with no explanation. He told more of the story and we all listened and adored his pictures, as you do at such times. At some point I said how optimistic I felt because his granddaughter was at Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital, one of the foremost children's hospitals in the nation. As a teaching hospital, Cardinal Glennon offers excellent and innovative pediatric care. We are fortunate to have it here in  St. Louis and available to our children. Grandpa's reply to this, God i...

Early last year I started a writing group here in town. I had thought that at least a dozen friends were interested but when the dust settled there were just three of us. We meet weekly at a nice little coffee shop in town where we write over steaming mugs of coffee or tea, amid the detritus of salads, sandwiches, brownies, cookies. We three bring our journaling books and our favorite pens. We use various sources for writing prompts. We share our writing with each other. Sometimes one or more of us will bring in some samples of our personal writing from the week to share with the group. This week my friend Carol brought in a piece she called Being 75 and Not Knowing . I don't know if it will move you, but Peg and I gave her a well-deserved standing ovation, right there at the table. Guest Post. Carol has given me permission to share her piece here with you. I hope you love it. Being 75 and Not Knowing at 75, I have felt, an apex should have been in order the climb to the mountainto...

John and I had a weird and enlightening moment this afternoon. He and I were having this conversation where we were reading off "philosophical questions" to one another and answering those questions. It was pretty fun and pretty cool; I recommend it. Anyway, one of the questions was something along the lines of when do you feel a good amount of self worth. We were both, in different ways, saying nearly the same thing. We were trying to elucidate that we felt a satisfying sense of self-worth when we accomplish something. Suddenly I had a thought. Do we expect the person sitting across the table from us to have to accomplish something before we feel that they are worth something? Think on that for a moment. We sat there with our mouths hanging open. Each of us, on our own, found ourselves realizing that we had to earn our own self worth...what a surprising revelation. What a realization...does it make you think too? We'll just see where we go with that now...  === === === =...

Hideous story. It was about ten years ago; the kids were pretty small and we were very involved with our homeschool co op. We had gotten involved with a secondary play group that met on Tuesday afternoons. The group had seven or eight regular families that got together each week. I had been warned by some of my friends about these moms in the Tuesday playgroup, told that they were pretty toxic. But I thought, Hey, I'm nice. It will be OK . One of the families that participated in this play group was a woman, I'll call her Beth, with her teenage stepdaughter, I'll call her Jennifer, and Beth's two sons, I'll call Ben and Bob. John was very close friends with Ben and Bob while I generally sat with the moms as the kids played. It was quite disturbing listening to Beth talk about her stepdaughter the way she did week after week. She was very openly and loudly hateful about Jennifer and said things that, I though, were really over the line. There are lots of stories h...

I'm going to put it down, right here and right now. It's got to be said, even if I upset people. It's my right to be honest even it it doesn't make me popular, though I'm sure my friends will understand. Because I'm going to be totally honest, I can't help if the truth hurts. I'm sorry to be so blunt: People have the power to make a difference. It is within our ability to inform ourselves and to vote intelligently. We have the capacity to drain the swamp, to create the country that we can be proud of, to vote people into the highest offices of our country who represent our real values. Love really and truly means something. In a world that is indifferent or difficult, having love in one's life is the only thing that makes survival a thing worth fighting for. Things and ideas are not valuable above human beings. We can war, both literally and online, about who is right or wrong, about what is better or worse, about what has value and what does not. B...

Some people deny the scientifically-proven, human-created climate change. Some people refuse to get their children vaccinated. Some people are fearful of non-white humans. Some people are proud of having faith over knowledge. Some people think our planet is flat. Some people prefer faith over knowledge. Some people consider science a dubious enterprise.  Some people prefer guns rights over personal rights. Some people eschew medical treatment for prayer. Some people are fearful of people who have beliefs different from themselves. Some people support the glorification of the emotional and irrational to the logical and rational. Some people think that there ever was a better America when we had institutional racism, sexism, genderism, and many other forms of inequality and injustice. Some people prefer tradition and mythology over reason and logic. Some people embrace homeopathy and other alternative treatment forms to proven medical knowledge. Some people actually conceal their in...

Scarymomma.com put up an excellent blog post that I found somewhere on Facebook. The post is called 25 Things I Won't Give a F**K About This Year . I have no idea when this post was put up, but I'm inspired!!!!!! I didn't read beyond the first of the 25 before stopping my reading so that I could copy the idea and write the things that I won't give a fuck about this year.   😊  So I'm stealing the idea for the blog post but none of the actual ideas...because I haven't read them yet. I love the idea that she will not be making any NYE resolutions this year, but, rather, will be listing the things that she won't give two shits for this year. That's the kind of list I can get behind.  LOL For the most part I have already stopped feeling guilty about stuff in my life. I've stopped any and all comparisons and judging. I've stopped any competition, except for when playing Scrabble. I've exited assholes out of my life. I've become the mother I...

I am not a person who believes in new years resolutions. I think most people tend to forget them pretty quickly. But what I do believe in is every day, continually seeking to improve oneself. It is in that vein that I create these little bits of clip art each year. This is my newest:   and I wish you and yours a HAPPY and HEALTHY New Year!