just real quick

I was just on Heidi Weimer's blog The Heidaway and some of us have been having a comment conversation about a law that has been passed in Arkansas forbidding gay and single parents from adopting. Who on this earth should feel confident enough in their own wisdom to command that certain people not be allowed to care for a child that has been abandoned, possibly mistreated and then abandoned? If you're going to make that law, then do your part. If you are going to tell all the loving and willing to-be parents out there that they can't be, forbid those children a home and a future, then take them in. Make up the difference. Want to be selective about who you say gets to love a child, then make sure you have the luxury of throwing your weight around. Because the last time I checked, there are thousands of children out there who will live their whole lives never being hugged the way only a mother can hug or hearing I love you in the way that you know no one else in the world hears it because so few people want to be adoptive parents. In the meantime, while you're imposing your self-righteous, judgemental values on the rest of us, think about the children you're imposing them on.
The Bible tells us that we will be judged by the standard we judge by. When you start judging which people get to love and whom they get to love... Well, it will really stink when you have to explain every relationship you have being judged by the same standard you are judging by. How awful to feel that your opinion of someone's lovelife is denying a child a home.
But, hey, congrats on that spreading the gospel thing. Sacrifice spreading the love of God for spreading the "word" of God.

Angel babies

My sweet angel babies are growing up! I look at them and want to cry at how big and happy they are growing to be. Seeing Locke fit into clothes that just look so huge and seeing Lil do "chores" now. It's almost too much. And when I look at the world around us, despite a lot of things, I just think how amazing the times they live in will be. This year, how many barriers were knocked down so that they will see it all happen. Nothing is impossible, it seems. That they will know people from all over the world, families of all different kinds, hear other languages all around... Lily has her own little life now. Friends. Conversations. She learns. She asks questions until I just stop answering because I can't explain one more time how traffic lights work.
And through all of this, I am just overwhelmed with guilt for maybe not being involved enough since I work. Will Locke remember me not being around or me being around? Does Lily think I'm a sporadic presence? Am I special enough to them? Am I prioritizing them below myself and what I want our standard of living to be? I feel so protective of them, but I'm not even with them 8 hours a day. And for a lot of the hours I am with them, we're all sleeping. I question every minute if I'm making good choices. Is that normal? I mean, I justify it by saying that I want the best for them, I want us to be able to provide every option they could want. I'm at a loss. And now, with our family in flux again... What will the future bring us? The Hemphills are looking for a road map.

OK. So I started this after being so inspired by Heidi Weimer's The Heidaway blog. Mostly, I just desperately need a place to express my feelings, more specifically, the ones I want to scream from the rooftops. This is my rooftop. Some of this will be personal venting which I will attempt to tie into the bigger picture, some will be politically charged, some will be religiously charged, some will just be goofy kid updates probably.
Let me begin by saying that I could not be happier that Barack Obama is our president - elect. Seriously. It almost makes me want to cry, I am so inspired, filled with hope and faith in justice that our country, which only a few decades ago would have condemned a black man for even thinking about the presidency, would elect not only a black man, one with a crazy name and a crazy background. How we have grown, America, that the majority of us can see a mixed race, raised by a single parent, young man as the route to change. Thank God for the hope that this election has given me in my countrymen.
After this election season and being condemned for the bumper sticker on my car, I am overwhelmed by gladness that my condemners were not the majority. I was beginning to worry. The ignorant minority who surround me who actually believe Obama is a Muslim because they get their political knowledge from e-mail forwards!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And SO WHAT IF HE IS? Islam is a peaceful religion. How hateful to judge an enormous group of people by what a few do. How terrible to think that one of the largest religions in the world is a conglomeration of people who want to kill. How incredibly stupid and presumptuous of these judgemental Christians to categorize a group of believers in their sister religion as terrorists. Muslim does not mean Killer. How would they like it if we decided that all brunettes were Muslims because they had dark hair? How stupid would that be? Jeez. Read a book. Jesus told us that we will be judged by the same standard we judge by. God help me when I am grouped with Christians who do nothing but hate based on lies.
I have encountered so many people since Tuesday who say that Obama will be assasinate in the next couple of months. It makes me want to vomit. It make me as sick as when a friend of mine told me when Hillary was running that she felt that a woman should never be president because women are too emotional and illogical to lead. How sad to me that a woman should think that of herself and how disgusting to me that she would take that out on the rest of us. I feel like that assasination thing (which I have actually heard jokes about as if people don't grasp the gravity of assasination being a murder of a man with a wife and two young daughters) is just a way for Republicans to comfort themselves, to voice hate under the guise of civic concern. If you have to preface the statement with "I'm not a racist, but..." then just own it. Just say, "I think a black man is unqualified to be president simply because he is black, and simply because he is black, I think his death is imminent." I cannot even think straight. It makes me want to cry and scream when someone I thought wasn't one of those hateful Christians, hateful racists, hateful Republicans, turns out to be one, and, instead of just wearing the t-shirt, hides behind a joke or a pretense of discussing legitimate current events.