Eas: "The world is not fair."
Ada: "What do you mean?"
Eas: "In North America we have machines and all that stuff and in Africa and Asia they don't."
Ada: "I know, buddy. I told you that."
Eas: "I don't think so. I don't think anyone told me that. I think I just know that."
Eight Observations
1) Robert Capon, in his wonderful, delightful little ditty, Bed and Board, says that the thing children cannot tolerate is unfairness. They can tolerate all manner of toughness and firmness and hard work and difficult requirements, but the minute we are unfair, we lose them. Eas definitely follows this rule.
2) My children, for all of their conflict, have a beautiful relationship, and their brains are beautiful things.
3) My husband and I used to be sad that the world is unfair. We lost that sadness somewhere along the way. Maybe we shall get it back from our little ones.
4) When I was pregnant with my middle child, I said he was going to remind us all of our dear friend Dan Woodliff. I was right. Not only is Eas goofy, bouncy, and not really concerned with social structure and behavior requirements, he is also really against the world's inequalities. I continue to be thrilled that somehow, someway, Dan passed on his delightful personality and love of all of God's people.
5) We have always thought that Ada was an emotional mess. She cries over socks and has occasionally punched her brother because, well, 'he was just talking in that way that is very annoying.' And yet, she takes in stride the horrors of the world.
Not sticking her head in the sand, but just, "Yes. It's life. People are homeless. Africa is machineless. Jesus was crucified. Babies die. It makes me sad, but miraculously, my affect never changes; however, if you mess with my bow in my hair, well, armageddon."
Maybe she's more like me than I've thought in the past. The hard things are easier than we'd imagine, and in their place, the small things become a tad bigger than they should be.
6) How funny is it that Eason truly believes that he somehow just knows that africa and asia are less developed?
7) However he and his sister know this, I surely am glad that they're aware that other people don't have 'machines and stuff'; the conversations in which I tell them that they have more than 95% of the world may actually be being absorbed. Or maybe it's the NPR on for every car ride?
8) That continent song that the kids have memorized at school is really working.
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