Well, here is our disturbing experience. I've had a few days to blow off steam, which is always a good thing to do before getting on the computer.
The reporter we met with in Hutchinson was so unprofessional, inconsiderate, insensitive, and ignorant. But mostly Matt and I both felt badly afterwards because we failed to protect Yonah from her. We were supposed to meet with her at 3pm but we ran into her at 2pm, on the outskirts of town where we had stopped at a gas station convenience store for a cold gatorade (Gatorade and Doritos are the only foods we can count on these days). She was checking her lottery tickets (all losers). We told her we really needed to eat but she assured us she would only take 30 min. of our time so we decided to meet with her first, then go eat and find a hotel and shower. So we ride to her office, sweaty, sticky, tired, and hungry. We wanted to talk about our ride and climate change, but SHE had a different agenda. Yep...you guessed it. She needed Yonah to believe in God. She spent about 30 min. asking us about the ride and then she spent another HOUR making us sit through an excrutiatingly long and detailed account of her battle with breast cancer, complete with descriptions of her chemo regime, surgery, radiation,and all the people, in all the different cities around Kansas, who prayed for her and because of their prayers, and because she is a "good Christian woman" she is still alive. Then she looked at Yonah and said "now don't tell me, young man, that there is no God". I wanted to say "He didn't tell you that! YOU asked him if he believed in God and he said he thought it was just as likely there wasn't a God as that there was! He didn't tell YOU not to believe in God, he didn't even tell you not to eat dead animals". But I didn't say anything. I was just speechless. She was 70 years old....I didn't want to offend her by saying "listen you pathetic lunatic, you are talking to one of the most ethical, compassionate, and honest people you will ever meet". But Yonah (as usual)was far more mature than I am and, in the face of a tirade of personal and inconsiderate questions, in the face of being told he "didn't have a soul", etc. he remained calm, polite, and far more mature than this woman was. I was so proud of his composure and just felt so badly afterwards that I just sat there letting him deal with it all on his own.
Afterwards we all had a lot of good laughes,however. Yonah said "that whole story made me believe even less in God, and much more in those chemo drugs she is taking". Solomon's advice was that "you should have just stood up and started singing Manchester England, England. Across the Atlantic Sea...and I'm a genius, genius...and I believe in God, and I believe that God, believes in Claude, that's me" (which is a song from Hair). So of course we all started singing songs from Hair. Then Matt said "yeah and then we should have all taken our clothes off and started dancing around the office singing "Let The Sun Shine, Let The Sun Shine, The Sun Shine In". Next time we are going to say "when our kids get really sick we just slice the neck of a chicken at midnight and sprinkle the blood on them, feed them dried lizard tail with orange juice and some antibiotics, and they get better.
This is what Kansas is like. We also ran into a librarian who didn't want to sign the petition because she believes global warming ("if it exists at all") "is the will of God". I'm not kidding..those were her EXACT words!!! I just wanted to ask her "isn't it God's will that we are here to try to make the world a better, safer place for all God's creation? Isn't it God's will that we are intelligent enough to reverse some of the damage we have caused?"
I could never live around people like this. I started feeling sad when I see little kids here in Kansas. I started thinking about how hard it must be to grow up in a place where you can't be different without suffering; can't have different ideas about God, can't have sex differently, can't have a different color skin.....how do they survive?
Then, we went to Wal Mart for the first time in our lives! Yuk! We were looking for fuel for our stoves..no luck. All in all, a sort of bummer of a day.
The silver lining was the opportunity to witness Yonah's stunning strenth of character and convictions.
One last good thing about Kansas...everything is absolutely BUTT cheap! Which is good because it appears that, outside of the big cities, nobody has much money.
Here is one last surprise about Kansas...they have OIL! Did you know that? I kept seeing all these derricks out in the fields and at first I thought they were drilling for water. But no, there is oil in Kansas! I started wondering "why are we sending all those kids from Kansas to Iraq when there is all this oil right in their own backyards?"
Djina
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
Man it takes ones breath away.
But ultimately, you probably did
just the right thing. You believed that Yonah had the ability
to deal with this situation and you didn't protect him from it..as
you think, in some way, you should have. It sounds as though, Yonah is pretty clear about how he is feeling at the moment and so you ultimately have nothing to feel bad about. You have provided Yonah and Solomon with the room it takes to grow and develop their minds. There is Gods work in that, defined simply as spirit and humanity. The fact is you have faced the sickness of our time--this fundamentalism is driving the sense right out of some people. They simply have no power to reason. They have become flawed in their misguided sense of responsibility. They understand so little and relinquish their own humanity in the name of a being they call God. It is as you travel through middle America something you will encounter. But this woman reporter, had no right to corner you like that, to ask you to meet her under false pretenses... and she should be called to account. God willing:-)What is the name of her paper and what is her name. I think the only thing you could have done ultimately is get up and leave. Because arguing or even getting angry with her would have done no good at all, and you must have understood that in your frozen silence of disbelief. Butterflies are free (I think now of fireflies) and so are you guys..because you know who you are.
As for the tick..in the next comment..maybe that was symbolic. But you found it, and pulled it out before it could get under your skin. (And as one from Lyme country, it is usually a good thing when you locate the tick and pull it out..it doesn't have a chance then to infect you..was it a deer tick..or the larger ones..if it was a large tick..no worries..but even if it was the tiny one..you seem to have gotten it before it had a chance to do damage. It would take about 2 weeks to see the ring..which doesn't always show itself exactly in the place where you were bit. But only 40% of the ticks are infected with lyme..so you have a better than even chance of not being infected..and you saw it and you pulled it out..so I think you are clear. No worries...Jesus loves you honey! Aunt Y.
That story about the reporter is really amazing. If you want, I will send the link of your account to a Web site run by the Poynter Institute, read by every respectable journalist in the country, so that she can be subjected to the scrutiny of her peers.
Aunt Yvette for president!
hip hip hoorah!
okay maybe she could just be my aunt too...
xo, casey
Me again (Casey) - while checking the latest enviro news, I found this web site - hope this helps!
How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic
Below is a complete listing of the articles in "How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic," a series by Coby Beck containing responses to the most common skeptical arguments on global warming. There are four separate taxonomies; arguments are divided by:Stages of Denial,
Scientific Topics,
Types of Argument, and
Levels of Sophistication.
http://gristmill.grist.org/skeptics
Here are my humble thoughts, mind you I am really mad!
I think John's comment is an excellent idea. That reporter had no right under any conditions to treat you folks the way she did. She appears to be very unethical,self serving and ignorent!
I read the article and it seemed to be written as a personal interest story, as in noisy with no focus on the actual story that could have been written.
I believe stunned silence is a good protection from trying to resolve something when there is no resolution.
Sometimes it is best to have a signal in this type of situation. "Excuse us. Our time is up here! We must be leaving now." At that prompt - Everyone stands, says their goodbyes and walks out.
Of course this is hind sight, but isn't that what learning is all about and I think you are giving your boys a great education that can not be matched!
It takes all kinds to make this world and at least your boys are with you when they cross this situation instead of on their own.
As for kids raised in that environment. They stay with what is familar or become courious, maybe even considered rebellious.
It is a good thing I do not get mad very often.
Have a good ride and leave the negitive in the dust where it belongs!
Linda - Bee Reader
I forgot, my first thought was that I love your Aunt Yvette's insight!
Linda - Bee Reader
Post a Comment