what goes around . .

Since we have been here, I have noticed a funny role reversal: in small but epitomizing ways, I have become the parent my parents once were to me!

Didn't you grow up with your parents always telling you to turn off the lights when you leave the room? Since we have been here, I have been turning off lights all over the house, whenever I find them on in rooms that have been long vacated. Of course, most of that has not been my parents this past weekend, when they were only a fraction of the people staying in their home. But I did turn off lights after either mom or dad several times.

And didn't you grow up with your parents lecturing you on finishing the food on your plates, not taking more than you could eat, etc.? My parents were really good about teaching us to remember kids starving in Ethiopia. But then today at lunch, my mom did not eat the (albeit huge) crust of her slice of pizza--and then my dad did not finish his either. My dad, who used to eat the last spoonful of vegetables from the dish at the dinnertable because it was too little to save and they did not want it to go to waste?

But the most humorous one was when I was rinsing some dishes for the dishwasher, and dad came in, saw his third-full glass of milk, and told me that he was not going to finish it, so I could just rinse it down the drain. I could not believe it. My older sister and I used to sneak our milk glasses out to the kitchen and pour the milk down the drain when we thought it was too much for us to finish. Which appalls me now, as it appalled mom and dad when we confessed much later in life. And now here was dad telling me to purposefully pour his milk away?

Mom is reading this, just so you know. My ribbing is in good spirit, because my parents are not wasteful people. And we all know that it is a good thing to listen to one's body and not overeat--that putting food in the trashcan is better than treating your body as the trashcan. And it is their money, their food, and they are adults who can decide for themselves what and when and how much to eat, and I am a firm believer in such rights, which I practice with my own money, food and appetite. So, I am not reflecting on these little moments in a spirit of judgement, but of humor: mom and dad clearly succeeded in their rearing of me in this area, instilling the values of conservatism that being unwealthy (for the US) and in hyper-green CA have helped solidify farther. I am now trying to instill those same values in my children--athough as obsessive as I am about waste, they will probably someday chuckle at me for taking recycling out of public trashcans (yes, I have, on occassion) or dumpster diving for firewood (yes, I have--a local woodworking shop advertizes free firewood on theirs) or eating the untouched garlic bread off a strangers plate at a downtown restaurant (yes, I have, but she was a healthy looking woman and it is a long story but let's just say I was very pregnant at the time).

And yet I still waste things and food and time and probably some of everything I have. It is wise and proper to utilize well the resources God has given us. Yet we all live in such luxury, such prosperity, that the choices we have everyday to waste or not waste are a direct reflection of our innumerable blessings--we are swimming in the overflow of God's provision. How humbling is that!

I could write more, but I have been at the computer too long today, and don't want to waste the opportunity I now have with a sleeping baby and the chance to spend some quality interpersonal school time with my eldest!