Since election day is just a couple hours away we'd like to take this opportunity to publicly show our support for....drum roll please...............ORANGE LEAF!
For those of you who have not yet experienced Orange Leaf, I am sorry for you. Orange Leaf is a frozen yogurt cafe that allows you to create your own masterpiece of awesomeness. You grab an oversized bowl, then approach a wall of 16 self serve frozen yogurt machines and fill your bowl with flavors that could only be imagined in the epic movie, Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. From here, you make your way to the truly endless bar of candy, fruit, every kind of chocolate, syrups and whip cream. Once again you serve yourself and before paying you place your creation on a scale. Our family paid $15 for 4 monster bowls of happiness! The yogurt was good, but the experience was phenomenal. The boys were in heaven because they got to do everything by themselves and Dan and I were in heaven because we felt like little kids again. It was a really fun way to spend time together!
So, lets transition back to election day. We are a family that doesn't watch t.v. Our anti-t.v. home is not a statement or an effort to be countercultural. It was simply a financial decision we made in February 2009. Since then we have been out of the loop politically. We no longer eat dinner watching the 5 o'clock news and we are completely oblivious to the drama of hollywood. Dan just found out last month who Snooki (sp?) is. All of this to say that we haven't been exposed or should I say bombarded with endorsements for the presidential election. Certainly we can be criticized for not 'knowing what's going on', but from our perspective what is 'going on' is right in front of us - it's our family. And with or without t.v. its also clear that beyond the safety of our home, 'what's going on' is the rapid, devastating decline of families that are healthy. Dan and I are both involved in relational vocations that allow us to be deeply invested in the lives of others. Often, as in daily, we talk at night about the people that filled our day and the same theme crashes into the conversation every time...families are struggling, drowning, and crumbling all around us. And the hardest part of this reality is that the children that are brought into these homes are suffering and hurting tremendously. The emptiness and pain that these broken homes create is not a wound that can be healed through programs, non-profits or therapists. It's the kind of destruction that has to be leveled and rebuilt all together, which almost never happens. So instead our city, our nation is left with a demolished landscape. Sound exaggerated? Actually, I would argue that the number of people hurting tonight because of the brokenness caused by unhealthy, failing families is so immeasurable that it should be the nations #1 news story. It is an epidemic that has a larger ripple effect than any other we've seen before.
So this election year, I will be voting for the candidate that seems to recognize this epidemic and the candidate that values families more than budgets, jobs and healthcare. I hope you'll consider doing the same.
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