WHY GOD MADE MOMS
Answers given by 2nd grade school children
to the following questions:
Why did God make mothers?
1. She's the only one who knows where the scotch tape is.
2.
Mostly to clean the house.
3. To help us out of there when we
were getting born.
How did God make mothers?
1. He
used dirt, just like for the rest of us.
2. Magic plus super
powers and a lot of stirring.
3. God made my mom just the same
like he made me.
He just used bigger parts.
What ingredients are mothers made of?
1. God makes mothers out of
clouds and angel hair and everything nice
in the world and one
dab of mean.
2. They had to get their start from men's bones.
Then they mostly use string, I think.
Why did God give you your
mother and not some other mom?
1. We're related.
2.
God knew she likes me a lot more than other people's mom like me.
What kind of a little girl was your mom?
1. My mom has always
been my mom and none of that other stuff.
2. I don't know because
I wasn't there, but my guess would be
pretty bossy.
3. They say she used to be nice.
What did mom need to know
about dad before she married him?
1. His last name.
2. She
had to know his background. Like is he a crook? Does he
get drunk
on beer?
3. Does he make at least $800 a year? Did he say NO to
drugs and
YES to chores?
Why did your mom marry
your dad?
1. My dad makes the best spaghetti in the world. And my mom
eats a lot.
2. She got too old to do anything else with him.
3. My grandma says that mom didn't have her thinking cap on.
Who's the boss at your house?
1. Mom doesn't want to be boss, but
she has to because dad's
such a goof ball.
2. Mom.
You can tell by room inspection. She sees the
stuff under the
bed.
3. I guess mom is, but only because she has a lot more to
do
than dad.
What's the difference between moms
and dads?
1. Moms work at work and work at home and dads just go to
work
at work.
2. Moms know how to talk to teachers without
scaring them.
3. Dads are taller and stronger, but moms have all the
real power
'cause that's who you got to ask if you want to
sleep over at your friends.
4. Moms have magic, they make you
feel better without medicine.
What does your mom do in her spare
time?
1. Mothers don't do spare time.
2. To hear
her tell it, she pays bills all day long.
What would it take to
make your mom perfect?
1. On the inside she's already perfect.
Outside, I think some
kind of plastic surgery.
2.
Diet. You know, her hair. I'd diet, maybe blue.
If you could
change one thing about your mom, what would it be?
1. She has this
weird thing about me keeping my room clean. I'd get rid of that.
2. I'd make my mom smarter. Then she would know it was my sister
who did it not me.
3. I would like for her to get rid of those
invisible eyes on the back of her head.
WHEN YOU STOP LAUGHING --
SEND IT ON TO OTHER MOTHERS, GRANDMOTHERS, AND AUNTS .... and anyone else who
has anything to do with kids or just needs a good
laugh!!
Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE
Easter should remind Christians of their better selves
ALSO IN OPINION
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The Easter season is a celebration of deliverance, and the liturgical calendar sets Easter Week up as a kind of catharsis.
Holy Thursday and the Last Supper have an ominous feel because they are preparation for Good Friday and the dolorous story of Jesus’ crucifixion. Yet two days later, the tale ends in triumph and resurrection. Whatever questions Christians may have about the meaning of that empty tomb, most of us have experienced a sense of joy when the words, “He is risen, hallelujah!” are shouted out on Easter Sunday.
Christianity, like the prophetic Judaism with which it is inextricably linked, is rooted in the idea of liberation, and I have long seen the Exodus and Easter as twin narratives involving a release from oppression and the victory of freedom. These promises have left a permanent mark on the culture outside the traditions from which they sprang.
Yet even in the Easter season, it’s hard not to notice that Christianity hasn’t been presented in its own best light during this election year because Christians have not exactly been putting forward their best selves.
My colleague Michael Gerson wrote recently about the “crude” way religion has played out in the Republican primaries, including “the systematic subordination of a rich tradition of social justice to a narrow and predictable political agenda.”
Gerson is exactly right, but I don’t propose to use his admirable column as an excuse to pile onto the religious right. Instead, I want to suggest that what should most bother Christians of all political persuasions is that there are right and wrong ways to apply religion to politics, and much that’s happening now involves the wrong ways. Moreover, popular Christianity often seems to denigrate rather than celebrate intellectual life and critical inquiry. This not only ignores Christian giants of philosophy and science but also plays into some of the very worst stereotypes inflicted upon religious believers.
What I’m not saying is that Christianity should be disengaged from politics. In fact, the early Christian movement was born in politics, in oppositional circles within Judaism fighting Roman oppression. There is great debate over how to understand the relationship between Jesus’ spirituality and his approach to politics, but his preaching clearly challenged the powers-that-be. He was, after all, crucified.
But because Christians have a realistic and non-utopian view of human nature, they should be especially alive to the ambiguities and ambivalences of politics. The philosopher Jean Bethke Elshtain captured this well in reflecting on Augustine’s writings. “If Augustine is a thorn in the side of those who would cure the universe once and for all,” she wrote, “he similarly torments critics who disdain any project of human community, or justice, or possibility.”
Christians, she’s saying, thus have a duty to grasp both the possibilities and the limits of politics. This, in turn, means that the absolutism so many associate with Christian engagement in politics ought to be seen as contrary to the Christian tradition. And that’s the case even if many Christians over the course of history have acted otherwise.
Similarly, some Christians encourage a view of their faith as profoundly anti-intellectual. Faith is seen as more about experience than reason, more about loyalty than dialogue. The desire to assert The Truth takes priority over exploring productively and honestly what the truth might be.
In his important book Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind, the great evangelical scholar Mark Noll urges Christians down the second path. He argues that “if what we claim about Jesus Christ is true, then evangelicals should be among the most active, most serious and most-open minded advocates of general human learning.
“Evangelical hesitation about scholarship in general or about pursuing learning wholeheartedly is, in other words, antithetical to the Christ-centered basis of evangelical faith.” Noll might have added that a devotion to higher learning does not make anyone “a snob.”
So if Easter is about liberation, this liberation must include intellectual freedom. It entails a tempered approach to politics involving a steady quest for human improvement, not false promises of perfection or wild claims about the demonic character of one’s opponents. Elections, even an election as important as this year’s, should not be cast routinely as Armageddon.
Oh, yes, and a compassionless Christianity is no Christianity at all. I have always been moved by this presentation of Jesus from a Catholic Eucharistic prayer: “To the poor he proclaimed the good news of salvation, to prisoners, freedom, and to those in sorrow, joy.” To which one can say: Hallelujah.
E.J. Dionne writes for the Washington Post Writers Group.