My friend Martha Greene, over at The Homemaker's Mentor, has some free samples available to you. Just click the link below!

When I was a child, one of the plants I begged my parents to grow in the garden (to no avail) was pussy willows, which I always found to be really cool looking, and soft, and fuzzy, and just plain fun. When I got a house of my own, I planted pussy willows, though they have no really purpose other than to make me happy :-) I did see recently that people are selling pussy willow branches on eBay (hmmmm...I may need to think about that for next year)...so maybe I could turn it into a cash crop.

The thing is, if you've ever cut some pussy willows for yourself, you know that if you put them in water, you will very quickly have a nasty mess on your hands, as they start to explode (as pussy willow catkins do when the warmer weather gets here). Instead, to preserve the pussy willows, pick them when they look just right, and stick them in a vase (or canning jar LOL) without water!

The blank on the form asked me my race. That's a hard question to answer when you don't believe in the concept of race.

What race am I? I'm part of the human race. I still haven't decided what to put in the blank on the census form, but I am leaning towards writing "human" in, instead of checking off the scientifically incorrect term "white". I'm not even white. It's more of a peachy pasty ivory. Color number 205 in Cover Girl's pigmentation system, but who cares?

Why even ask?

Why make an issue of what color someone's skin is? Why make an issue of ethnic backgrounds? Why make an issue of everyone's differences?

This isn't the dream that Dr. King dreamed. He spoke of a day when people were blind to our differences, rather than more focused than ever on them.

I believe, in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, in the dream of a colorblind society, rather than one that obsesses about race, skin color (a scientific misnomer to be sure...we are all the same color, we just have different levels of pigmentation in our skin), and ethnic heritage, focusing on our differences rather than what we all have in common. It's been so disheartening to hear people bringing race into every political issue lately, and accusing every opponent of the president of racist motives. I didn't even notice he was a few shades darker than me until the press made it an issue...but that's another topic.

I believe that there is only one race, and that race is human.

I've even heard people claim that Christians are racist. Ok, maybe some CINO's are. Maybe some organized churches have historically been. Someone I've been witnessing to has been adamant that Christians are all racist but yet she can't give me any evidence for why she feels this way. She believes it's a fact that doesn't need any evidence (if your professor says it, it must be true, ya know?) Christians were heavily involved in the abolitionist movement (the Republican Party was started as the abolitionist party). Godly men like William Wilberforce fought slavery against all odds, and at great personal cost. Any racism by a person who is a Christian is in direct defiance to the Bible, which teaches:

"God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; Neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation" (Acts 17:24-26)

"But glory, honour, and peace, to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile [non-jew]: For there is no respect of persons with God." (Romans 2:10-11)

"There is neither Jew nor Greek[non-Jew], there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. " (Galatians 3:28)

"Where there is neither Greek [non jew] nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all. " (Colossians 3:11)

There's no room for racism in the kingdom of God...evolution however has been historically used to support racism, including Darwin's original full title of The Origin of Species (ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES BY MEANS OF NATURAL SELECTION, OR THE PRESERVATION OF FAVOURED RACES IN THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE ). Evolution has even been used to justify having aboriginal people in zoos in the early 1900s, as "evidence" of missing links, with the belief that the "pygmy race" hadn't yet evolved above that of animal, such as the case of Ota Benga, a Congolese Pygmy, who was kept in the Bronx Zoo Monkey House. Ugh.(Google the name. I am sadly not making this up).

We are all created (er, yes, CREATED!) in the image of God...and all people, whether they look darker or lighter, or are from Africa, or Asia, or Austrailia, or the Midwestern USA....deserve to be treated as those made in His image.

There is no race, other than the HUMAN race.

A few years ago, I answered a blog question about efficiency and being efficient in mothering and home business management, whihc I reprinted yesterday...not that I consider myself all that efficient. I'm growing in grace in this area, let's say.

But...sometimes there are benefits to being inefficient too.