In Service - teaching to be there by example

I just rushed in the house - I have 35 minutes to type this before I pick up Samson from preschool.

I was driving home in my warm car, sipping a sweet tasty hot beverage, a backseat filled with cotton shopping bags carrying organic produce and juices, soy-free vegan chicken nuggets and sweet potato fries for my dinner guests tomorrow night - a big show.  How limited it all seemed, the bus trip and all. . . the newspaper article called it a year long field trip - oops, so did I at the top of this blog.  Time to re-arrange my priorities.

I'm not kicking off a sightseeing tour of the US at the expense of others' time and support - I don't want to be the curious white woman taking photos of the natives within a safe distance.  I can't be that person with a telescope jotting down notes and comparisons and blogging them daily - facts and figures and regurgitation of forced experiences.

About 1 in 5 road trips I've taken in my life involve breaking down in one form or another.  Solo, with friends, with family, solo with 2 babies, solo with three children. . . I feel most comfortable broken down - the humility is enlightening, and opportunities emerge that would never be available otherwise - to talk to folks, even to help people with your stories or kindnesses.  Sharing your food at the bus stop, rest area, providing water, a phone, a dollar, an ear, information.

I am hereby vowing to prioritize our goals by placing service on the TOP of the list.  We're going to go out of our way to offer whatever a single mom and a 5, 7, and 10 year old can provide, which in reality, is probably a whole heaping lot more then we will allow ourselves to think.  I'm going to write to a few non-profits today to see if I can represent them.  I have no idea who or what, but that will come to me, like the seed for this did with Jack Johnson and a mocha.  Indulgences fed the guilt that I recognized but refused to let it grow, instead that guilt spurred the growth of a new idea, a new focus, a new meaning.

After all, the best lessons are learned by example.  How will my children learn to love unconditionally (and by default, be stewards of the earth and accountable to the inhabitants on earth - all encompassing concept, very simple) if only watching from the sidelines?