An Inconvenient Truth

This past week has been crazy to say the least. Gabe had the chicken pox and storms knocked out our internet connection for days...I can't tell you how many posts I wrote in my head that will never be read...but I always do that. It's funny when you start a blog a switch clicks in your head that turns every event in your life into a potential post. I'm constantly writing and then editing in my head. And being ADD a lot never makes it to the actual blog. Anyway I am finally having a SHORT moment to post before we plunge into the blackhole that is make up school work after being gone a week....

...Sometimes Gabe amazes me and this week having him home, outside of him itching like crazy which I must say he did with a minimum amount of complaining, a lot of grace and extreem thankfulness when I would rub him down with lidocaine, was a joy. The two of us can talk on levels about spiritual and emotional topics that I often can't share with adults. Sometimes Gabe's questions and insight really rock my world. One of his requests while staying home this week was to watch An Inconvienent Truth, the global warming movie by Al Gore, and just so that you don't think he is a complete cerebral nerd we also watched, Footloose (which I wouldn't recommend-to many inappropriate parts for a boy his age), Spiderman2, and Nacho Libre. Anyway I jumped at the opportunity and we rented AIT from the local video store. To say we live in a conservative climate that is unfriendly to ecology and democrates is to put it mildly. The fact that Gabe attends a conservative christian school where young christian kids often take things they hear their parents say and extrapolate them to the nth degree of ludicrusiness is pretty common. Gabe has been told in the past that 1. He can't be a christian because he saw the Harry Potter movies, 2. that Barack Obama is a muslim, and so forth and so on. All this to say I make it a point to teach Gabe to think critically about what he hears. 1. What does the Bible say about becoming a christian? We looked and didn't find anything relating to Harry Potter. I showed Gabe Obama's own words refuting that statement that he was a muslim. All this to say I like to see Gabe choose to experience things outside of his cultural box and then to discuss using critical thinking about what we are hearing. For the most part I thought An Inconvenient Truth was interesting and informative. There we some parts that seemed conjecture and were presented as fact, but over all it was a good reminder that we all can being doing something to take care of this planet whether or not you on in the camp that reveres this planet as god or in the camp that should revere this planet as a gift from God, part of God's creation that He pronouned as good and that we are commanded to take care of. The one area that I felt the movie really fell short in was in giving any concrete ideas to the watcher in where to start working to reduce global warming outside of running for congress. So we as a family talked about some of the things we are doing to reduce our energy use, using energy efficient light bulbs, recycling, buying energy efficient appliances, turning off lights in the house, not leaving chargers for ipods and other electronics plugged in, and turning off TV's, computers and such from the surge protector so as not to waste unnecessary power. Some of this ideas seem simplistic but you have to give kids something they CAN do NOW so as to feel success and hope when bigger more sacrifical opportunities come later. So I would encourage you to watch An Inconvenient Truth, read the Ken Morefields Review and discuss it with your family.