Immortality

The Turritopsis Jellyfish can age backwards, from adult to baby, and can do so infinite times. If threatened by disease, starvation, or other crises, it can revert to a blob of cells in an embryonic state. Those cells can differentiate into whatever cell is needed- a cell that started life as a muscle cell, can become a sensory cell, for example. The catch is that this process can only happen when the Immortal Jellyfish is under some sort of stress or danger. Old age alone will not allow it to defy death and go back to the jellyfish cradle. It can and will often die of old age.

My son sent me this information yesterday morning. I know he is close to finals time in his second year of law school.
"Taking a break from studying?" I asked, as I perused the Immortal Jellyfish article he had just sent across the gmail chat box.
"No, in class," he typed back.
"Is the professor discussing Immortal Jellyfish? No, I didn't think so...."
Good to see my son taking his studies so seriously...

But the article was intriguing. I wonder if scientists have hopped on this little fountain of youth and dissected just what mechanism triggers this process. If they bottled it, it would be more valuable than diamonds. And why, why, why did God waste this miracle of eternity on a jellyfish? Of all the creatures that I would love to see bounce back from mortal injury, the jellyfish is not on my list. Inscrutable. (Good SAT word, Asherel, look it up.) God's ways are clearly not my ways.

I have been increasingly convicted that I know nothing of God. I believe He is real, I believe He loves us, I believe He speaks to us, but the more I know Him, the less I really understand Him. So why have I spent two years every single day writing about His messages that I believe He is transmitting? I don't know. I don't understand that either. I just feel I am supposed to.

But immortality to a jellyfish? I mean, jellyfish don't even have brains. All they have is a loose network of nerves called a nerve net. They don't have a backbone either. Why, why, why did God give immortality to a brainless, spineless blob?

Let us reason together here, Lord.
Careful, mortal one, remember, you do have a brain and a backbone. Do you really want to be a jellyfish? 
Well no, that is not the point. You are the creator. You could have made the jellyfish die and us immortal.
Yes, and were you to live on forever in the state of rebellion and sin you are currently exhibiting, do you think that would have been wise?
Well, do you have to phrase it in such a negative way?
Or even kind?
But Lord, the jellyfish can't even know or care that it is going to live forever. We humans do!
You humans don't value what you can't lose.
Now that is just not true! I value sunsets, and the sound of waves crashing upon the beach, and the trillium blooming in the forest....
That's because you are mortal. Remember, even the poet said, " And since to look at things in bloom,  fifty springs are little room, about the woodland I will go to see the cherry hung in snow."


I paused in my musings. He could be right there. How many times have I tried to cajole Asherel to go out on a walk with me on a beautiful day and she refuses,  answering, "There will be more beautiful days..."
What if there really would not be? Would we never appreciate the beauty we have if it were never to end?

Besides, mortal one, lest you forget, I have given you immortality. But I have given it in a way that only a creature with a brain could capture it. It has to be a choice. The jellyfish has no capacity for choice. You do.

Romans 6: 3-8, 22-23
³ Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴ We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
 ⁵ For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. ⁶ For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— ⁷ because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.
 ⁸ Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. ⁹ For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. ¹⁰ The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
²² But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. ²³ For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Divergent Paths

For the record, practicing guitar is easier than learning Kreb's Cycle. If you don't remember Kreb's cycle, it is probably because you didn't understand it in the first place. Asherel and I made a chart, filled in all the co enzymes, products, ATPs, NADs, Acetyl CoA as needed, and then sat down together to do the end of section test.
"Don't answer unless we both agree," I warned her.
"What answer is most common, b or c?"
"That doesn't matter, we are not going to guess. We are going to determine the correct answer."
She looked dubious, "I think it is B. They almost never have A or D as the answer in multiple choice."

I gathered our chart of Kreb's cycle and our notes that we had taken in front of us. Then I took a deep breath, which by the way, is part of how Kreb's cycle works...it needs oxygen and is the basis of cell respiration. As Asherel's video teacher keeps telling us, "How cool is that?"
"Ready? OK, question number one...how many ATPs are produced as the result of glycolosis and Kreb's cycle? We can do this! We know this! 2!"
"No, 4."
"Don't answer! We don't agree."
"Mom, it's 4."
"Should we just guess B? I think you are right that usually it is B or C."
"Mom, I know this one. It's 4."
"Are you certain?"
"Yes."
"Well then go for it. I think it is 2."
The little video quiz instantly pops up the correct answer. It was 4.
"Oh!" I said, "I misread the question. I just thought we were looking at glycolosis, not Kreb's cycle too!"
Asherel smirked at me, "Read the question carefully!"
I won't tell you our final score, but we didn't fail. At this point, that gives me hope.

"What are you going to do with that Kreb's cycle chart?" asked Asherel.
"Hang it in your room."
She looked horrified, obviously picturing John, Paul, George and Ringo having to give up one of their prime wall positions to let Krebs in.
"No!"
"Well I want it to go somewhere where you will see it everyday and learn it."
(I would like to take a moment to let you parents doing early Christmas shopping know that if you have a teenager, you can cross the Kreb's Cycle poster off the Christmas list.)
"Maybe in the bathroom, then, " I said, picking up our Kreb's poster.

Guitar lesson was a blessed respite. Lenny taught her how to play another Beatles song, and I drew on my iPod. My brain ached.

I think Kreb's cycle is one of the harder things we will have to figure out in Biology. I can't wait for the sections on anatomy. Even genetics is easier than Kreb's. But the strange this is, I felt proud. I haven't worked that hard to understand something in a long time. Most of schooling high school level courses is providing mentors and resources in the areas I am not skilled in....which is all of them. Well, except for art. I think I am actually a pretty good art teacher. However, I took a subject I had not remembered at all, looked at several hours of text and videos with Asherel, and managed to understand it, at least to a small degree. And I am remembering something about school I had forgotten. Learning something that you were certain you could never learn is satisfying. Deeply satisfying.

We moved on to Poetry.
"Oh, today we read my favorite poem!"
"What is it?" She looked worried.
"The Road not Taken," I told Asherel.
I began to read. As I read, my eyes began to fill with tears. I could see Asherel rolling her eyes. Whenever  I read her a magnificent poem, I start crying.

"I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."

Tears rolled down my cheeks and I tried to choke out the words, "Why do you think he tells this with a sigh?"
Asherel was still rolling her eyes, but paused, "Hmmm. He feels sorry for the road?"
"He doesn't personify the road so you shouldn't either. What do you think he's feeling if he retells this with a sigh?"
"Regret?"
"Yes!!!!! Why do you think he speaks with regret?"
(And please don't tell me because he had to learn Kreb's cycle before going on his walk in the woods.)
"Well, because he had to make a choice, and he wasn't certain it was the right one."
"You know," I told her, "Every choice means you must give up something else. So every choice involves loss. And sometimes, you will never know if the decisions you made were the right ones or not."
By now, I am really feeling like sobbing, because the poem touches the very core of my soul. So many decisions in life I look back on with regret, or with ambiguity. Was it the best choice?
"What does he mean in the lines-
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted I should ever come back."
"He won't pass that way again... the road leads him further and further away."
"Homeschooling is one of those divergent paths for me," I told her, "Every year I agonize whether taking that path is the best path. We give up alot as homeschoolers...but we also gain alot. I will never know if that choice was the best choice, but I can't go back, at least not to reclaim the years that have already passed."

I thought of all the choices, the really big choices in life that my beloved daughter will have to make. Later, without even knowing what sparked it, we were returning from guitar lesson and were discussing why I am so passionate, so strong in my opinion about certain things, mostly things of God.
"Of all the things I help you to choose, as a parent, what I desire more than anything is that you will choose God. It is the one path that I hope more than all others you will choose to follow. But all I can do is set forth the example, and my reasons while you are young. Ultimately, it will be your decision, not mine."
We were quiet for the rest of the ride home as I thought of the line from Frost's poem, "And that has made all the difference."

Joshua 24: 15
¹⁵ But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.”

The Two Faces of a Swan

Do you ever get that message on your computer as you wait an interminable time for a page to load: "Not Responding."
"No kidding! I never dreamed it was something you weren't doing properly, my dear Dell, I just thought that God had put a stop to time."
The computer doesn't understand sarcasm however, and remains unresponsive until it decides it is good and ready to begin working again.

I don't love lack of response. I don't love it in computers, in my children, or in my prayers. It I ask a question or make a request, I expect an answer. And given the exceptionally rapid connection between my sensory and motor neurons, I expect an answer quickly. Some people refer to my personality type as "hyper". i prefer to think of it as "super conductivity between nerve synapses."

I headed to the swan lake a second time yesterday, hoping again that my prayers for the lonely male swan would be answered. I prayed that his mate would have returned. Instead, the lake was swarming with boats, and men with long poles with nets on the end, circling around the poor swan. I hurried to the water's edge where a woman with a large, fancy camera stood filming. I presumed she was a reporter of some kind.

"What's going on?" I asked.
"They are trying to catch him," she said, "He's injured and they hope to bring him to the humane society."
He looked fine to me, though frightened, as he continued to elude his captors. I presumed that since he didn't fly away, he was unable to fly. I know when he came to the lake, he had been injured in some way as the Neighborhood Association had gotten the pair of swans from a Bird Rehab center.
"He looks ok," I said.
"This side of him does," she answered, "But a snapping turtle got him. Ripped off half his face on the other side."
The swan turned and I saw what she was talking about. I saw how capturing the swan would be a kindness.
(This is not exactly the answer to prayer I was going for, I whispered to God.)
"What happened to the mate?" I asked, choking back tears, "Did the turtle kill her?"
"No, she flew away before this happened."
She flew away!? That ungrateful hussy.
"The male swan will often starve himself to death if the mate leaves. They mate for life," she said.
I knew then what had happened. The swan I had seen moping for his mate all week, never leaving the center rock in the lake, had stopped eating. His strength gone, he had succumbed to the advances of a snapping turtle. I was almost certain turtles never attacked grown swans, only babies. He must have already been weak.
I watched a little while longer, but unable to stand it any more, headed back home. I didn't want to write about this. It makes me unbearably sad. But it is impossible to not write about what fills my heart.

I am reading (again) Daniel Deronda by George Elliot. It is a great classic, and one everyone should read, as soon as they finish my book, I am Listening with a Broken Ear. In it, the protagonist is tormented by her own guilt over a choice she made that improved her life, but at the expense of others. She asks a friend, who has unwittingly become  her conscience: what would be best- to be miserable oneself or to be the cause of another's misery? He answers immediately, not knowing the specifics of her situation, that the first is far better.
"But what if you have no choice?" she asks.
"Then," he tells her, "Do everything you can to spread goodness. If you can't help the one you harmed, then perhaps you can help others."

I do believe this is the only antidote to the horror of life. There are two sides of life, and sometimes it is the beautiful face of a swan, but sometimes it turns and the destruction, and suffering, and agonies of loneliness, betrayal,and despair are exposed. I suppose first one should decide whether to be the female swan that flew away, or the lonely, ruined male she left behind. I pray that whenever I can, I choose not to consciously inflict pain on others. And if the choices I make have led to the irreversible pain of others, the best I can do now is try to find ways to bring joy to the world I have yet to encounter. Horrifying as it is, it is better to be the ruined, dying swan.

I liked the symbol of the swans, I told God, lying in bed feeling depressed, all the way until the mate flew away. And did the poor swan who was left really have to go through all that agony? Why do your lessons have to include pain?

God didn't answer. Instead, He put me to sleep, and sent me a dream. It was a dream so beautiful, so hopeful, so redemptive that I didn't want to wake up. And when I did wake up, I could not remember the dream, only its joy.

1 Corinthians 10:23-25

²³ “I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but not everything is constructive. ²⁴ No one should seek their own good, but the good of others.

Confined

The "back forty" needs a bit of repair. I went walking the fence line yesterday morning and found that a dog even less wily than Emporer Escapist Lucky could manage to get out of our fence. Now it is true that all the damaged sections just lead to someone else's fenced in back yard, but depending which section Lucky decided to scale, the consequences could range from none to severe. There are four damaged areas, each leading to a different yard with different likely results.

Escape number one would be the safest choice and I am pretty sure that is the route Lucky usually chooses. It leads into Comer and Evelyn's back yard, and since they are currently in a Nursing Home, and no one has yet bought the house, it is empty. Their gate is a little tottery so Lucky can squeeze through that fairly easily to freedom. That section of decrepit fence would require some climbing and then scraping through some open wire, but it could be done, and I could tell, had been done.


Escape # 2 was at a low corner that led into Piper's yard. Piper is about 6 inches tall and loves Lucky. Those neighbors also love Lucky and have been very sweet about the few times they have found Lucky in their yard. Their fence is otherwise difficult to scale however, so Lucky chooses it less often as he only finds himself in another fenced in yard, and his entire nervous system seems wired to escape enclosures.

Escapte #3 was one I had not known about, and exceedingly disturbing. The picket fence was actually toppling and the wire was squished down . Any dog with half a terrier gene could figure out how to squeeze through that hole. This route was most unfortunate, as being very simple to navigate and leading into the jaws of the pitbull neighbor. This pitbull does not like other dogs, and growls when he sees us near the fence. However, that section is particularly tempting to a dog like Lucky because a.) it is an easy escape from our yard, and b.) the neighbor's fence has a large hole in it not big enough for the pitbull to get out of (supposedly) but big enough for wiry Lucky to slip through to complete freedom. All he'd have to do is get past the pitbull..... I tacked that section up immediately with all the old wire screening I could find and knew that any money left from this year of great expense had to go into a new fence. We just had no choice.

Escape #4 was an unknown risk. It led to the neighbor's house where a new dog seems to visit every few weeks. The last one was a rottweiler, but I don't think he is there any more. This was the surprise box with a big question mark on it for Lucky. It was a route he must have used at least once, as the wire was squashed down with dog shaped squashes, but I don't think it was a route he used regularly. Lucky has an electric collar as well as a physical fence. The collar supposedly shocks him as he gets near the fence line, but freedom is such a lure to him that he withstands the small moment of discomfort for the greater glory of disobeying us.

So we called fence businesses for our requisite three estimates. The first man arrived quickly. He surveyed the fence, we outlined the issues with our dog and he came up with a fencing solution that should be difficult for even Lucky to escape through. As he left, he talked about our need to discuss with neighbors whether we should do a jointly erected (and hopefully split cost ) or should put up our own fence right beside their's.
"And people get really funny about these things. Really greedy. Must be republicans," he laughed.

Neither Arvo, my to-the-right-of-Atila-the-Hun husband, nor I smiled.
The fence man kept laughing, then slowly rolled to a grin, and then choked to a concerned look on his face in the ensuing silence.
"You ain't one of those, are you?" he asked.
I smiled sweetly, "Well yes, as a matter of fact, we are."
I suspect we will need to contact Fence Company Number two.

I was thinking about those escape routes and the results each choice would bring, and realized what a perfect picture they painted of the consequences of all our choices to sin and to stray in life.
#1 is a safe choice, no real thrill, no real danger, no horrible consequences in the short run. Of course, once out of the safety of our own "fence", any number of dangers could await us.
#2 is a mercy laden choice, into the confines of friends and loving reception by those who care for us and will restore us to our right place with little recrimination. If we must stray, it is best to stray towards those who will counsel and protect and ultimately restore.
#3 is a risky choice into obvious dangers that could maim or even destroy us. The route is easy and appealing in that respect, but the consequences are likely dire. This choice is suicidal, and one that few make except in desperation.
#4 is an unknown. The consequences could go either way depending on the day.We choose that route when we feel lucky.

Of course, the choice I wish we would make each time isn't listed. It is implicit however. Stay in your own fenced yard! Remain in the confines, rules, laws of the Master who put the fence there for your protection because He loves you and longs for you to thrive.

Since Lucky is unlikely to remain happy long with this best choice, we greedy Republicans will need to buy a new fence.

Psalm 88: 8-9
I am confined and cannot escape;
 ⁹ my eyes are dim with grief.

2 Corinthians 10:13 (New International Version)

¹³ We, however, will not boast beyond proper limits, but will confine our boasting to the sphere of service God himself has assigned to us, a sphere that also includes you.

Psalm 139:4-6 (New International Version)

⁴ Before a word is on my tongue
   you, LORD, know it completely.
⁵ You hem me in behind and before,
   and you lay your hand upon me.
⁶ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
   too lofty for me to attain.

Ascents and Descents

The phone rang but I ignored it. I never answer the phone when I am teaching art class as I don't want to deprive the kids of one second of my wisdom. After a brief silence it rang again. I still ignored it. It rang a third time and I went to see who was calling. An unknown number. Probably a telemarketer. I returned to my art class where one of the students held up his phone- "Leigh's mom wants to talk to you...."

Lucky, the dog who cannot exist without a day of mischief, had been left loose with his electronic collar on so he could greet the students who came in through the open gate. He had busted out of the electric fence. And now Deenee, my art student's mom, had him in the street, but he didn't want to go back through the electric fence. She had called my home phone three times. I was grumbling about the stupid dog and wondering why Deenee didn't just take off the electric collar to coerce him back in the yard.... when I saw her and Lucky in the street. She was on crutches with a cast on one leg. She held Lucky, tottering on her crutches.

Do you ever feel like you have made really poor choices? You weigh the options, choose a course of action, and then feel like a jerk with the full result of your choices slamming you in the face? And stupid poor choices are one thing. Morally poor choices totally another. Those are accompanied by regret and shame as well as feeling like a knucklehead. I cannot begin to express how deeply I long for wisdom.... for continual, reliable wisdom. And goodness. It just doesn't flow out of me the way it should after all these years of walking with God. It is funny that despite having the world's worst memory, I remember in excruciating clarity every poor choice I have made,  and continue to make. Those haunt me, tugging with icy fingers at my joie de vivre.

Asherel spent another frustrating many days and countless hours on her helicopter, and we did a test flight yesterday morning. After all that work, again, failure. The new wire attachment idea worked, so it didn't break, but it flapped to the ground. She picked it up and the wound rubber band rewound with a resounding smack against her newly repaired rotor, breaking it....again. And then she realized that on both the newly repaired copters, she had attached the rotors backwards. They were flying exactly as they should with rotors pushing them down, down, down....towards Hell.  My usually good natured girl is very close to the breaking point. The very air around her is crystalized...ready to shatter with one more setback.

She went back to work. I went back to prayer. Finally she reemerged with the repaired copters and a woebegone look on her face.
"It won't work," she said.
"Let's try it, " I urged, sighing deeply. I have come to loathe Science Olympiad.
I thought of the highschool student in my art class who is doing the highschool division of the helicopter event.
He has still not started building his, nor researching, nor gathering supplies....and there are now 3 weeks til the contest.
"I suggest you start," I warned grimly.
So we wound Asherel's rubber motor, and she lifted her hand, her face downcast. The helicopter rose out of her hand, and one of the rotors flew off the copter, spiralling to the ground. Miraculously, on just three rotors the helicopter flew for about 20 seconds. This bodes well for what it will do with 4 working rotors.
"Fix it and call that one done. We won't test it again til the team meeting."
There is only so much stress a twig can take before it snaps.

So once again, we are leaving our 70 hour weeks behind and going skiing today. The mountains have fresh powder that was supposed to fall all night but stop conveniently in time for the plows to clear the roads. Asherel and I need to purposely race downward instead of being dragged down against our will.

Continual failure and set backs marked the journey of the Jewish people out of Egypt into the promised land. Some of the failure was due to their own stubborn disobedience, and some due to the evil idolatry and corruption of the people in the lands they traveled through. Any way about it, the Jews struggled in a perpetual see-saw between trusting and following God with joyful wholeheartedness, and giving over into sin and despair over failure after failure after failure. What Asherel, Lucky, and I are experiencing is nothing new. Failure and setbacks are a part of life, sometimes a huge part. Somehow, one has to waddle through the mud of tribulation.

I have a few favorite verses in the Bible, but the past few mornings, one in particular keeps coming back to me, "I lift mine eyes unto the hills. Where does my help come from? "  Yes, I can identify with that despair, looking all around wondering when will triumph blast its trumpet in my ear? I know Asherel can relate. But the rest of the verse is the part that suddenly covers me with relief and peace:
"My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth."

To the snow covered hills we will lift our eyes today. The creator or heaven and earth will hopefully be working on the helicopter while we are gone.......

Psalm 121

A song of ascents. ¹ I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
   where does my help come from?
² My help comes from the LORD,
   the Maker of heaven and earth.
 ³ He will not let your foot slip—
   he who watches over you will not slumber;
⁴ indeed, he who watches over Israel
   will neither slumber nor sleep.
 ⁵ The LORD watches over you—
   the LORD is your shade at your right hand;
⁶ the sun will not harm you by day,
   nor the moon by night.
 ⁷ The LORD will keep you from all harm—
   he will watch over your life;
⁸ the LORD will watch over your coming and going
   both now and forevermore.

Cosmic Consequences

With the Giants the new World Series champions, we can now go guitar shopping. Asherel was quick to remind Arvo as the Giants began flooding the baseball field, spitting sunflower seeds like confetti and leaping victoriously on each other's heads that per his promise, she was now owed a celebratory guitar.

But it will have to wait til tomorrow. Today, for the 13th year in a row (or so) we will run a Kids Voting booth. We are asked to do so little to keep this democracy running. Pay taxes, be informed, and vote. I guarantee more people know the exact statistics of every major league batter better than the Bill of Rights. We are so good at excuses- let some one else be informed and vote. Let someone else pay for my health care, for my retirement, for my chocolate bon bons.  Running the Kids Voting booth is my little way of saying "Informed voting matters. It is a duty and a privilege. And you get a cute sticker that says you voted."  The research seems to indicate that in countries where mock voting for kids is promoted, the kids tend to grow up and vote. I feel like I am investing in the future of my country.

Election Day for our family has always been a big deal. We gather around the television as the polls return with markable maps in hand. Anders, our oldest, was fanatic about staying up til the wee hours of the morning on presidential election nights, marking the states red or blue and counting electoral votes. We buy special dinners, cheer our team on when they are winning, and despair when they are losing. This is an event with consequences though, and more than a guitar is riding on the results.

Choices matter. Today we get to choose who will serve us in this wonderful country that I sometimes fear is collapsing from within. We have to wait til the first Tuesday in November to make that choice each year. But God gives us a choice every day. I love how Joshua reminds his people that the most important choice for leadership they will ever make they can make NOW. This day the choice is spread before you.
And the reward for the winners in that cosmic election will be plucking strings to a heavenly choir. The losing team  will find their strings a little too hot to pluck.

Joshua 24: 15
But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.”

Dubious Choices

Helping book the honeymoon is risky business. We knew owning a timeshare had future benefits and that manifested itself when Matt announced he wanted to honeymoon somewhere outside the safety of the land of the free. We could trade our highly desirable summer week in Hilton Head and send Matt and Karissa anywhere in the world. All we'd need is airfare.

"Is Cancun safe?" I asked my travel adviser, as the top picks of the happy couple were mostly in Cancun.
"Safe.... as in how do you mean safe?" he asked.
I paused. This was already not quite the answer I was going for.
He continued, "Oh you mean that unfortunate incident."
"Yes," I said, having no idea what that "unfortunate" incident was.
"That was an example of being in the wrong place at the wrong time," he said, "If your honeymooners stay in the right place at the right time, they should be fine."
"Well, that is what I want to know. Is Cancun the right place at the right time?"
"We have no travel restrictions from the State department," he answered.
Why did I get an uncomfortable feeling he was hedging?
"If they stay in the resorts, they will be fine," he offered in the silence.
"And if not?"
"They should definitely avoid the border towns," he said, "And going out of the resort alone like in that unfortunate incident."
I just could not bear to ask about the unfortunate incident.
"Can you see if we can find a match for them from their top 6 list?" I asked, moving on.
"Now they should not go to Jamaica," he continued. (This was not on their list. He just seemed fixated on avoiding future unfortunate incidents.)
"Nor Aruba except in a few specific resorts. And of course you know that Iran might be wise to avoid til that nuclear reactor dust settles."
"I hear parts of Afghanistan are lovely," I egged him on.
"I can't tell you much about the resorts there," he admitted, "Our members have not requested that often."
"Back to their top 6 list," I suggested.
"Well, hahahahahah, oh forgive me. Are you a millionaire?"
"Why?"
"Well number one is nice, quite nice in fact. This is where the King of Jordan stays when he vacations."
"Oh, you mean it is not just an even trade for our Hilton Head week?"
There was a polite chuckling of mirth, and then he explained about the "all inclusive" trap. This means many of the better resorts add on a fee that is mandatory, but will then cover all drinks and food and some activities as well. For our frugal couple, the fee at their #1 choice was $1800 a day. Yes, I kid you not.... a day. Please understand, Matt and Karissa had no idea what the fee was or even that there was a fee. All they knew was that choice #1 looked nice. I guess they were right.
"Move on to choice #2," I choked.
"Oh, this is also a very nice choice," he said, "But it is never available."
"Why is it in the magazine then?" I asked.
"To lure innocent suckers like you to buy timeshares," he answered, or would have anyway if he were honest. Instead he said that about every 10 years one unit becomes available.
"I don't think they want to wait 10 years for their honeymoon," I said.
"Oh of course, i can understand that! I was young once," he said.
"Can we move onto choice #3?" I begged before I was treated to the impending discussion of his once youthful love.
There was again a disturbing pause.
"Well," he drawled finally,"This is a good choice if they want to pack light."
"What do you mean?"
"Are they aware clothes are optional at this resort?", then he quickly calculated that it was conceivable we were "that kind" of people, and backpedalled.
"I mean, many folks like this atmosphere, but I might worry that on a honeymoon it could cause fights. Hey hubby, why are you looking at those silicon inflated....."
"CAN WE MOVE ON TO CHOICE #4 PLEASE?"

You get the drift. Choice #5 was available, affordable, and "should be" safe. We put that one on hold.

Maybe choices are not a good thing. This of course will start my father on his discussion that " so called" "free will" is a crock. If an all knowing all loving God predestines and already knows what you will choose before you choose it, how can it be "free will"? I would love to be able to argue this concept and settle it right here and now, but I am still trying to wrap my brain around what is the best honeymoon choice on our budget that will not lead to unfortunate incidents.

But that is not a bad illustration of free will. I may know what my son will choose, because I raised him and I know he doesn't want to suck our generosity dry, as then he would have to support us in our old age. I know he wants to keep himself and his bride safe from unfortunate incidents. I could force a choice on them, and say take it or leave it, but like God, I won't. I will give them the freedom to choose, and hope they are wise in the exercise of that freedom. Of course the choices that God sets before us have eternal consequence, and are of much more import than where we should honeymoon. He could force us to believe in Him, obey Him, love Him.... but instead He lets us choose. He longs for us to choose Him, but to His infinite grief, many times we do not. I think His greatest sacrifice is letting us walk away, especially when He already knows whether we intend to walk back or not.

But I am not God, and like it or not, my beloved son and prospective new daughter will not be going anywhere that requires barbed wire around their bungalow, or mine sweeping before breakfast.

Joshua 24:15 (New International Version)

¹⁵ But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD."