A Little Crunchier than You Thought?

I have mentioned in passing before about my mom being one of the original hippie earth mothers. Ok, so I wasn't born until 1981 (totally just gave a way my age, but whatever) but she still was.

Noah was home tonight and I mentioned to him while watching a commercial for Natural Valley granola bars that my mom has been buying those for at least 30 years. I was eating plain yogurt, wheat germ and flax seed before anyone else I know. We wore clogs, wool socks, listened to Simeon and Garfunkel, and did our fair share of art projects and museum trips.

There is a far amount of hippie thought still floating around our family. My one brother is an artistic blacksmith who is working on his organic garden this summer. One of my sisters is an artist. We all like rusty metal, chunky pottery and a good pair of linen pants. There is actually a book at my parent's house called The Hippie Handbook. It's full of all sorts of useful things like how to make a macrame plant hanger, how to name your hippie baby (and you wondered why our kid's name is Forrest) and how to organize a protest.

Add to the mix my dad. He is an electrical engineer who does aerospace and defense design. What that means is he designs the circuitry for aircraft displays. As kids, we played with computer chips, making them into art pieces of course. We also had a guard shack full of display boxes my day had design work on. We went and still go to NASA every time we are in Florida. We went to the Air Zoo and Air shows. We all have an affinity for airplanes and are all tech savvy. Yeah, that artist sister, well she is a graphic designer.

That might explain my love the of the show Whale Wars. There is something about the Green Peacers spending endless hours in sub zero conditions fighting the Japanese whaling ships that is just appealing to me.

And let me just say, they are a funny lot. As we watched last night, Noah and I kept laughing, because while these people have a whole lot of passion for stopping the whaling industry, they don't seem to be able to get much done. But you got to give them credit. They are trying.

Now before you write me off as a hippie tree hugger weirdo, let me just say I feel that there are much more pressing and important things that we should be willing to die for. Like to bring the Gospel to people who haven't had the chance to hear it. Or to feed starving people so they can live another day to become more like Jesus. But I do think part of our responsibility is to take care of this planet God has given us for as long as He sees fit. And that includes the animals. We shouldn't take a life, even if it is an animal, flippantly. We need to wise and careful about how we use everything God has given us.

So, there you go. Now you know what we do on a Friday night. Pop a bag of popcorn, grab an organic smoothie, and watch a show about non violent protest of the mindless killing of some of the largest mammals on earth.