Sunday, August 7, 2011

Jesus > Superman

"Daddy, tell me the truth...are you really Superman."

I wish you would help me settle a debate in my own mind...and here it is:

Am I a bad parent because I've convinced my boys that I am indeed Superman?

Or...

Am I a great parent because they believe (at least a little bit) that I might actually be "The Man of Steel"?

There is a huge back story to this that may or may not include me wearing blue tights and telling my boys that the reason for the tights is because, after I tuck them in at night, I go out and make the world a safe place to be in...I'm Superman!

Jacob was convinced immediately...Eli needed a little more circumstantial evidence.

After me carrying this story on for a couple of evenings consecutively, things reached a high point when Eli began crying as I lay him down in his bed.

Me: "What's wrong buddy."
Eli: "I just want to go fight crime with you tonight!"

As I began feeling the weight of this, it came down like this...These boys watch me very closely...they trust me, they believe not only my words but my actions.

Again, the weight...what if my words and my actions are not harmonious?

The Gospel is this, even though I'm not always Superman, (I mess up and confess to my boys when I do...they think perhaps I got too close to a little bit of kryptonite) Christ loves me, has justified me and is sanctifying me.

I don't have to be Superman to point my boys to Christ, if fact, the periodic stumbles just remind all of us that...

Jesus > Superman

Blessings!
ZS aka (at least to the SnowBoys) Superman

Friday, August 5, 2011

Goodbye Facebook...I'm breaking up with you...


This kind of feels like I'm holding an online press conference (via a blog) to announce my retirement from Facebook...or is it going to be more like a messy break up.

I've been a faithful "Facebooker" for about 4 years now. I remember the 160 character days, I remember exchanging the little buttons and pinning them on your wall, I remember taking the quizzes to see how much you know about The Office, and of course the Farmville craze of '09.

Facebook became a great way to waste valuable time...

Since I started my career as a professional educator one year ago, I have sat in many district meetings as well as other workshops and trainings. In that time, there have been very few of these meetings, that the facilitator did not, as some point in their talk, mention the liability that FB can be. They would talk about friends or co-workers of theirs that lost their jobs because of something on FB. Typically, it was because they entered into a relationship that they should never have entered into, but it could also be because of a misunderstanding of a relationship because someone was "friends" with another person on FB.

To me, it's just an unnecessary risk...

I have been very careful with my FB, never accepting "friend request" from students and being very cautious as to what I post on my wall. However, there are things posted by others that I have no control over. A "friend" of mine could very easily post that they think something is "retarded" (which is a term that, more and more, makes me very angry) or that they think something is "gay" (which is another term that bothers me more and more). These are just a couple of real life examples. And, if you are familiar with the term "guilty by associations" then you can understand my concerns. These things can be posted on my wall and any number of people can see it before I have an opportunity to delete the comment (since you cannot do this from your mobile devise...or maybe I just do not know how to do this from my mobile devise).

Do you know that Human Resource people will gain access to your FB (whether you accept a friend request from them or not)? They will check up on you before they schedule an interview with you. They will see how you spend your leisure time. They will check to see if your lifestyle is going to be a liability to their organization. This is just the times we are living in.

I plan on being in public education for the remainder of my working life. I plan on pursuing a master's degree in education and maybe down the road going into administration. There are certain things I simply do not want myself tied to.

So...

Goodbye Facebook and seriously, it's not you...it's me...

Sincerely,
Zach and Susan Snow