Happy Fourth!

A Happy Independence Day to you all! We celebrated by going out for coffee this morning and then doing lots of chores around the house. At 11:00 we drove down to the end of our street and joined Nate and Pen watching our subdivision's parade. It consisted of a fire truck, an ambulance, and a horde of kids on bikes etc. and their parents following in their wake. Kind of like the FamCon parade, it seemed there were more people in the parade than there were spectators. Good times.

Well, this has nothing to do with the Glorious 4th, but a few little blogworthy things have been accumulating in my brain's blog bank.

First, the other day, I was talking to Brad about food, telling him that I have been slowly realizing that the old saying is really true that I am what I eat. He said, " Well, you must be eating some pretty beautiful things then." Awwwwwwwwwww! What a husband I have. Sorry, all the rest of the women of the world; he's mine.

Yesterday at work, the subject of death came up. Mr. Africa started saying something about its inevitability and I said, "Yes, nothing's certain but death and taxes..." And he was like, "What? I've heard that said about death, but I've never heard that about taxes!" I thought that was quite amusing. To be fair, he has only been in this country for the last ten to twelve years or so...It's interesting to me what cultural things are passed on to immigrants and which ones take longer to register.

And then the conversation turned to the desperate state of things in the world. As the conversation was winding down, Mr. Africa said casually, " Yeah, that's why I'm looking for the New Jerusalem. This right here doesn't cut it." I just about fell out of my chair at that point. I was quick to add that I quite agreed.

He mentioned a couple more times throughout the course of the day, that he was looking forward to the New Jerusalem. Every time I had to do a sort of mental double take. Here is a man who is a little off - to put it mildly- on some vital issues, but incredibly, he has the wit to somehow recognize that the New Jerusalem is an imminent reality...and he mentions it as if he is talking about the advent of a new grocery store opening up in his neighborhood. And here I have been taught from childhood about Jesus' second coming and the future that lies in store for us...and it doesn't even occur to me to mention the New Jerusalem in this conversation about how the world is going to heck in a handbasket. What a lesson for me. What a funny combination of being humbled and inspired.