Suffer the little children…

On Saturday night, I took my children to a holiday dinner at my mother’s church. For the record, church is something like I no longer “do” for a variety of reasons, most of which have to do with the lack of analysis and participation in most churches. I grew up during the era of “don’t ever ask questions, just pray and have faith and trust that God has all the answers even if you don’t know what is really going on in your life and a lot of things just don’t make sense. Keep your eyes closed and stay on your knees!” Thankfully there are churches today that allow for just a little more participation that that! I have been to some of those and find them to be a good start. But I digress…

At this holiday dinner, there was good food and an excellent program! There was modern dance, spoken word, singing (good and bad!) and a whole lot of other fun activities — even breakdancing! Very positive. But one thing that struck me on the negative side was the way that many adults felt about the little children playing.

My three children along with three other youngsters were having a ball, running and playing in the hallway (outside the main room) and sometimes laughing and waving and joking (inside the main room). For their antics, they received many a disapproving frown, a lot of “shush!” and my husband and I were both approached (at two separate times) with a strongly-worded request that we keep the children quiet. It seemed to me that adults had a great appreciation for the children, as long as they were on-stage singing, dancing or otherwise looking cute and performing for the Lord. But outside of that, the children were seen as a nuisance and a bother.

Now I went to church for many years and I remember a lot of the Bible and the lessons that were taught. One that stands out for me vividly is “Suffer ye the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.” Is that verse out of fashion these days? I don’t remember Jesus saying “Suffer ye the little children to come unto me but keep their little behinds quiet or you’ll be asked to leave.” No disrespect but if they have as many stringent rules and regulations in the Kingdom of Heaven as they do in some churches these days…well, let’s just say that the experience left me feeling not too joyful. ‘Nuff said.

Practical Application: RSS Feeds

Feel free to congratulate me! After I spent the whole weekend immersed in the world of eNewsletters, SEO, digital editions, old code vs. new code, SNS, del.icio.us and God knows what else, I came home to my three kids (and football-watching husband), headed for the kitchen and executed an admirable RSS feed!

RSS feed might mean something hip and tech-savvy in the online world, tonight in my kitchen, it stands for Really Simple Stew. Here’s the recipe if you don’t have a lot (or any) time on your hands:

• 2 cups of red lentils
• 3 cups of water or vegetable broth
• half a jar of tomato sauce (or whatever was left at the back of my fridge)
• seasoning (mixed herbs, bebere, Caribbean green seasoning,, whatever you have)
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced (or crushed, it’s faster)
• 1 onion, chopped (watch your fingers)

Put it all in whatever medium-sized clean pot or frying pan you can find. Bring it to a boil then cook, semi-covered, on medium-low heat. Try not to let it boil over (but that always happens to me, I just wipe it up and turn on the fan to get rid of the burning smell). When the lentils are soft, it’s ready (about 10-15 minutes).

Toss it over some couscous, quinoa or rice (couscous is faster — I pour it in a bowl with boiling water from the kettle and cover it. It will steam while the stew is cooking and be done right on time).

Well, my children ate it down and asked for seconds (OK, maybe they were just that hungry). It might not have been the RSS feed that I had in mind at Web Weekend but it worked! And on top of that, here I am blogging away. I guess it was a double success.

Welcome to OUR world

Wow! I am sitting in the lab at Magazines Canada Web Weekend, learning different ways to improve the World Wide Web Experience for our Black Woman and Child readers. I just made this blog! This is AMAZING. I am getting so many good ideas here. And sometimes it is great to know that my brain can actually get charged up theses days by something outside of breakfast, breastmilk, diapers, lost mittens and homework. Whoo hoo! Anyway, I’d better wrap this up or the presenter will think I’m not paying attention. In the next few weeks, I hope you check out our website at www.blackwomanandchild.com so you can see all that I’ve taken in this weekend. Peace!