The Dreams of Children and the Careers of Adults

What is with kids these days?  Have you asked a teenager recently what they want to be when they grow up?
I know,  I know, it disgusts me too.  "Business man," they say; or "nurse," "truck driver" or "salesman." I mean goodness gracious.  What a bunch of wimpy dreams.  Where are the astronauts and artists?  The business owners or writers?
Ask a child want to be when they grow up?  I knew a genius boy once who graduated high school at 8.  He told me he wanted to be an astronaut, flutist and, also, compose specifically for the flute (I understand there is a lack of flute music in the world). 
My daughter said she wants to be a doctor then, when she's done with that, a ballerina.
And my teenage cousin wants a job that pays well.
When does this change?  As children we want the world, and we think we can get it.  At some age, we internalize the notion that we just need money.  The best we can hope for is a job that pays tons and we actually like.    I would literally weep if I asked my 6 year old what her dream was for the future and she said "Stability."

I've got big news for every parent out there.  Your child was made for more than to plug into the system and make some money in order to be self reliant via consumption.
What a waste of potential for us all to be held back by fear and practicality.   There is no greatness in stability- it is in the wilderness that we find God.

So I am going to take some time this week to listen and encourage those around me with the courage to tell their stupid, crazy, lovely dreams for life.  And I hope you do too.

On the other side, do you have something great and stupid you should be doing?  Does your child have a wonderfully idealistic, impossible future plan?

Found Things

There is a great thing about buying an old church that no one ever told me about...tons of weird stuff that was left behind. Here are some highlights:

Puppet Robot, it's mouth actually moves when you pull the block on the bottom

A sword

Termites, don't know why the church wanted those :)

Old costumes, thrones, fake pillars and tons of flower arrangements

My childhood.  This wasn't actually left at the church, but  I was wondering what happened to it, turns out my mom still has it in a box with taxes and travel.

The sword again because it is cool

and Professor Owl, of course

Our first month

It is July!  We are coming up on one month in this place.  It has gone by in the blink of an eye.  Most of what we have accomplished is demolition, so it probably actually looks worse now than when we started.  But sometimes life is like that.  You've gotta break some things down to start building again.

Before

Here was the stage.  This took us so long to pull up.  It turned out the top part of the stage was made of the hardwood floor, which we decided to keep.  It is awesome cedar wood, but to remove it without ruining the tongue and groove took 2 days.  The bottom part was simply particle board so we thought we would quickly cut though it and junk it all.  

Sadly there was a electrical cable running it that Jordan cut.
 After spending the  morning fixing that, we were able to disassemble the rest.

After

Our other big accomplishment was taking down the walls separating the bathrooms.

This was an adventure mainly because you have no idea how the people before you did anything.  So you see a wall that is not structural, that's 2x4s don't even make it up to the floor joist above and you think "that will be easy to take down". Little do you know that the drywall on the ceiling has been strangely nailed only to this floating wall.  And when you cut though a beam, the ceiling will start to fall down on you.

After the sagging ceiling debacle, Jordan used his step-father's reciprocal saw to remove the studs.And hits the copper pipe.  

After

Cut pipe next to board

So that is enough about our screw ups.  We also had a really cool moment.  As I was pulling down the sagging drywall in the bathroom, Jordan said "A book just fell out of there!"

I laughed and said "Yeah right."  But then looked down and saw this book there.  Opening it up we found it was a family bible that they put up there while remodeling.  Very cool. 

"This Bible placed in this church, January 4, 1969 while remodeling the bathrooms.  Bible given to me by children of Jacob Chauncey and Eva Beckner following their deaths.  Pastor Loren (Something)  The Wesleyan Church"