At first I didn’t think she liked me.  There was minimal eye contact and she never smiled, or greeted my entrance.  But as days have passed, and she saw that I would actually show-up each day, and care for the kids, her demeanor has melted. 

Mrs. Evelyn lives across the street from the Midtown Center, a small white building, less than three blocks from our house (plus a short-cut the kids taught me, which cuts off another 200 yards).  I never knew it, but it was Mrs. Evelyn’s garden I’ve been admiring all these months, and her husband who seems to be perpetually picking weeds, or watering it.  She’s tall and weathered and sings in the choir at her church on the west side.  I can’t figure out if the kids respect Mrs. Evelyn, or are down right scared of her, but either way, she knows how to keep cuss words from leaking and a pair of pants from leaving the waist.

Ten years ago Sunday, I was living in Paris, when CNN interrupted my library computer screen to live-cast two planes hitting the Twin Towers. It was like a bad prank gone horribly wrong. Americans were advised to avoid public places, including the metro, so drenched in fright and longing, a fog led me home. All I wanted was the voice of my family. Calls wouldn’t go through though, and the two times I did reach an operator, my ability to speak was frozen in tears.

Where were you when 9/11 hit and how did it affect you?

The Bible starts off with God creating the world, bringing Adam and Eve to life, giving them tasks and walking with them. However, in the biblical account this does not stay that way for very long. Eve deceived by the Serpent eats the fruit of the forbidden tree and Adam, knowing better, follows her lead. The result is what is historically called the Fall of humankind. There were several curses that came about due to the Fall. These curses demonstrate areas of brokenness in our world. The four areas of brokenness are:

1) Abundance: God called Adam and Eve to work the garden, through which they had abundant resources (Gen. 1:28) for their well-being. With the Fall, work has become difficult and these resources became scarce (Gen. 3:17).

2) Relationships: God created Eve as it was not good for people to live alone. We were created for fruitful relationships. With the Fall, these relationships became contentious (Gen. 3:16).

continue reading