to Let's Move!

I have battled weight issues since I was about 10 years of age, at about the time that my mom, due to the Recession and family financial crises, had to go back to work to help my dad support the family.  At that time my brother and I became latchkey kids and both starting battling the bulge.  There were just too many hours without supervision, of boredom and of lack of exercise from sitting in front of "the tube".  Childhood weight issues developed and caused extreme pain and self-esteem issues in my own life, and I image in my brother's.  The issues have taken me many years of maturing and many hours of therapy to overcome and have subtracted so much from my own happiness over the past 35+ years.

Until recently I have exposed myself very little to who our new First Lady is, and so it has been of great interest to me within the past 24 hours to learn a little more about her and hear of her initiative to eliminate childhood obesity in this country.  According to the website http://letsmove.gov/:

Let's Move! has an ambitious but important goal: to solve the epidemic of childhood obesity within a generation.

And,  according to the Presidential Memorandum for Establishing a Task Force on Childhood Obesity, the goals for this initiative are:

(a) ensuring access to healthy, affordable food;

(In my community, lack of availability of healty food was not a factor in causing my childhood weight issues.  I grew up in a middle to upper-middle class area in Southern California and there was a glut of food available in supermarkets and a glut of cars getting to the supermarkets.  Our issues were more psychological, social and cultural, as in what we were choosing to put into the cart and later into our mouths.)

(b) increasing physical activity in schools and communities;

(There is a catch-22 with overweight kids.  The heavier you are, the more difficult it is to move and the more you are ridiculed by your peers when wearing your gym clothes and/or bathing suits, thus causing you to want to participate in physical activities even less.)

(c) providing healthier food in schools;

(Now, this is an interesting one.  In Jr High we had a snack bar which sold the most awesome cinnamon and caramel rolls and also no-bake peanut butter bars.  If someone had waved an apple and $100 bill in front of my face offering to pay me to eat the fruit, perhaps I'd still have rather eaten one of those high caloric but really scrumptous cookies than take the bucks.
In High School we had vending machines to supply us with our nutritional needs.  It was here that I was first introduced to Romona Chile Relleno Burritos....don't want to even think of the fat content and lack of vitamins in those...and to soft large prepackaged chocolate chip cookies.  Yep, I love those cookies!  The school vending machines probably sold juice and milk, but I don't think I ever stood in line to buy one of those items, what with the other options causing my salivary glands to go into overdrive and what with the pain from the peer-teasing 5 min. before making me want to stuff some carb-comfort into my mouth.)

(d) empowering parents with information and tools to make good choices for themselves and their families.

(I don't think weight was ever an issue in my parents' families when they were growing up.  Both were raised in large poor or  very lower middle class households.  Food was never in surfeit for them.
Thus, I can't really blame my parents for not understanding or knowing how to help me overcome the extra poundage and the pounding this poundage cause me to get from my peers.
Add to that the fact that both of them worked so dealt with time constraints and the fact that the only information out there RE teen weight problems seemed to be how to take it off the extra pudge by cutting calories/carbs. There was really no info for the average parent, that I know of, RE psychological causes of obesity, or how to deal with what is causing the child to want to eat so much to begin with.)

To sum it up, I want to be a voice of someone who has lived the pain of being an overweight child.  Our bodies are only a part of who we really are as individuals, but they are the first thing that others see and therefore by which we are initially evaluated by others.  This is human nature, and children by definition of being children, are not developed enough psychologically and socially to really assimilate the fact that the essence of each of us as people is not on the outside, but found in our souls and spirits. 

So, I'm behind Ms. Obama on this.  I truly hope her program succeeds, not just for the potential $ we can save as a nation if we were all had healthier bodies.  I know the weight that a heavy child carries is only partly on the outside.  The heaviest part is on the inside.  I'd love to know that many children in our country could grow up healthier AND happier, to feel good about knowing how to make these choices for themselves, that they are worth making these choices for themselves, and that this heritage can be passed on to their children as well. 

Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person's character lies in their own hands.  Anne Frank

Let's do what we can as a nation, as a community, as parents, to put wise choices in our children's hands.

to "Heart of Texas"

“ A sculptor does not use a 'manicure set' to reduce the crude, unshapely marble to a thing of beauty. The saw, the hammer and the chisel are cruel tools, but without them the rough stone must remain forever formless and unbeautiful.

To do His supreme work of grace within you, God will take from your heart everything you love most. Everything you trust in will go from you. Piles of ashes will lie where your most precious treasures used to be!”
— Aiden Wilson Tozer in the opening monologue of The Heart of Texas

I've glimpsed this chiseling in the lives of family and friends who have lost those whom it seems too unbearable to lose.  I've glimpsed it in the lives of family and friends who have forgiven what seems too unbearable to forgive...during these times can be seen, if we are but open to widening our vision, revelations of what life and loss and love and forgiveness can really be about and what Life and Truth and Love and Forgiveness really are. 

Sometimes we are just along for the ride, fists gripping tightly onto God's shirt tails, as the ride is terrifying and we go along reluctantly, and yes, with eyes half-shut....yet we could not let go even if we willed for we are stunned not only at what we endure but at the beauty He creates as He reveals Himself through the journey... revelations of what His Love and His forgiveness really look like.  I fear that as Christians we aren't typically open enough as vessels to truly see Him and His work during these times.  And when we encounter the things that God allows onto our paths we are prone to frenetically attempt to swathe a way through the brambles based on our own limited perceptions.  In the process we can easily lose a little bit of ourselves and a lot of others' along with us....If it weren't for God faithfully foreknowing our weaknesses and shining His grace through both our worst and best attempts to forage on...

I cannot retell the story of "Heart of Texas".  Others have already done it in about as fine of a way as humanly possible.  And I don't want to give away information out of time.  That is not my place.  Perhaps all this post can really end up being is a call-out to see this movie which is based on the lives of the Grove & Jill Norwood and the Ulice Parker families.  I have no idea, nor want to know, which Christian denomination, if any, endorses or sponsors this documentary.  If we concern ourselves with that, we probably miss the point. 

So I'll just let you know that today on television I watched an hour long documentary simply entitled "Heart of Texas."  Three simple words which don't accurately depict what transpired in the lives of these two families, and in the lives of those blessed enough to have been a part of their heart-wrenching yet heart-exhilarating story.  No three human words could accurately summarize these happenings.  I know "Heart of Texas" does not.  Maybe an appropriate title could only be depicted with the tongues of Angels... I know I cannot describe it with any where near complete justice.  It is one of the most bitter-sweet, truth-is-stranger-than-fiction stories that I have encountered in quite some time.

Let me give you but a taste of what there is to soak up if you do decide to share their story:

"I saw an invisible God become visible."  Ulice Parker

"The Character of God is the only stability in Life".  Jill Norwood

"I saw forgiveness for the first time."  Ulice Parker

"I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat is planted in the soil and dies, it remains alone. But its death will produce many new kernels--a plentiful harvest of new lives."  John 12:24 New Living Translation

Hopefully and as a rememberence, we can "leave" knowing that "It is with Joy that God builds His house"....

heartoftexasthemovie.com

to the Cartwrights

Due to the loss of my job last July, my husband and I suspended our satellite/DVR television coverage about six months ago and just very recently "got back on line". As a result of those six months sans TV, I happily found that there IS fulfilling life to be had out there without it.

That said, we did miss watching our weekly favorites together: Fringe, House, CSI or CSI Miami, Leverage, The Closer, Mental, Mentalist....those hour-long dramas sprinkled with a good helping of suspense, science and/or mystery are the ones we like to save & watch when we're together. During our "real TV" drought, on those evenings in which we hungered for and hunkered down for an hour or two of mindless entertainment, we'd end up borrowing or purchasing cheap "b-rated" compilation DVDS, which typically consisted of five or so fairly bad sci-fi or disaster movies or, in one case....was comprised of 10-15 episodes of.....Bonanza. And so, for the first time in recorded history, I got a little hooked on a western TV show and got a slight crush on the most charming of the 60's western TV characters- Adam Cartwright.

Yes, I spent a week, in the presence of my husband, falling a little in love with Adam and those other three handsomely rugged men from "Bonanza". Adam particularly so, not just because of his dark good looks, but because, like me, he would rather have worked out his problems doing something which involved "cerebral grease" than to be out doing something which involved a lot of heavy elbow grease. Now that was my kind of hero!

Like I mentioned, I've never been a western-"phile" but I just got this crazy little crush on those four good-looking Bonanza guys. (Yes, even Hoss had his own good looks, a big-teddy bear appeal, not unlike my husband's). These guys were charming, unlucky-in-love, hard-working and loyal to the bone.

So, today, as I heard of the passing this week of Pernell Roberts , the last of the four actors who portrayed them, I wanted to tip my hat to the Cartwrights. Because, as Baby Boomers and lovers-of-things Americana may know, the Cartwrights stood for various values which are best not to be lost in our society today:

1) Undying loyalty to family
2) Looking for the best in everyone, especially in the unlovable

3) Taking in and caring for the underdog
4) Treasuring "the land"
5) Courage under fire
6) Appreciation for other cultures and ethnicities
6) The ability to laugh at ourselves and those we love.... a trait most undervalued

And I'm sure you could add to this list. Yes, TV is quite a vast wasteland, as said by FCC Chairman Newton Minow in 1961, but I think Mr. Minow may have forgotten that there is always gold to winnow out if you're open to discovering it....

And so today I tip my hat to.....the Cartwrights.