#Giving Tuesday

December 2, 2014December 2, 2014 / jdunderwood / 3 Comments

It’s “Giving Tuesday,” did you know? The link is to a cute Youtube video about this day that follows Black Friday and Cyber Monday. I thought today would be a great day to post what I hope to make an annual tradition on this blog: the “gifts that give back” post. I wrestle a lot with our consumer society in general and our “I have to buy everyone a gift” attitude toward Christmas, BUT more and more we have the opportunity to give gifts that give twice: to the recipient AND to a ministry that practices Biblical generosity. If you have already completed all your Christmas shopping, then this post isn’t for you, but if you’re just starting to think about it (I’m in this camp!), then I hope to give you some good ideas in this post.

GENERAL GIVING

You can use Amazon.com’s Smile program and choose a charity to receive a portion of your purchase price. (Mine is locked in at Compassion International currently, but there are thousands on Amazon’s list.) The link above gives more info, and this program is not just for the holiday season but operates all year.

IF YOU’RE SHOPPING FOR PRETEENS/TEENS

Check out www.mudlove.com. This company, based in Winona Lake, Indiana (home of my wonderful in-laws and my alma mater, Grace College), sells made-on-site clay bracelets and necklaces. The most popular version is stamped with a word or phrase, and you can even custom order a word or phrase that has particular meaning to you. Twenty percent of each purchase goes to provide clean water in Africa, and $5 spent provides an African with clean drinking water for a year. My girls (ages 10, 14, 15, and 17) ALL love them. (Honestly, I do, too!)

BIG-TICKET BEAUTY

Hand and Cloth sells gorgeous, one-of-a-kind blankets made from used saris by women rescued from the slave trade in Bangladesh. I’ve featured this ministry before on my blog (https://journeytojen.wordpress.com/2012/09/27/blankets-handmade-by-women-women-handmade-by-god/). These are perfect buys for the person who appreciates beautiful, handmade artisan items (hmm—maybe that describes you yourself!). They start at $98 dollars and go up to around $200. Check out the blankets at the website—which itself is beautiful—and read their story while you are there. “Blankets handmade by women. Women handmade by God.” Wonderful work! (They also have stockings–each one unique! So cool!)

Renew Project is an incredible ministry. Based in my area (Chicago’s western suburbs), it trains and employs refugee women to make beautiful items from recycled textiles. Bags, baby items, tablecloths, etc., and their work is incredible (these women are artisans!). Best of all, each purchase helps a refugee woman thrive in her new home.

THREE FOR WOMEN AT RISK

If you want something other than blankets made by women rescued from the slave trade, visit WAR International. The acronym WAR, standing for Women at Risk, was started in 2006. You can find jewelry, accessories, home décor, and children’s items made by women in 13 countries, including the United States. AND, during the month of December, if you shop either online or at the Naperville, IL, store and mention New Name as you’re checking out, then 10% of your purchase supports New Name (the link takes you to a past post about New Name).

Narimon employs women rescued out of the sex industry in Bangkok, Thailand. the woman make beautiful jewelry, handbags, and some clothing at The Well, where the women not only work but are ministered to. Narimon is the products division of Servantworks. Seriously, their work is beautiful (I just bought a pair of Treble clef earrings for my daughter’s piano teacher from Narimon).

www.stoptraffickfashion.com has t-shirts, jewelry, and totes/bags made from recycled materials. Many of their t-shirts express the heart of the women who run this website. One with a barcode also has the logo “People are not products” and several sport the logo “free.loved.radiant.”

LITTLE BIT OF EVERYTHING

Need to shop for kids, men, women—want to spend a little for this one, more for that one? Go to www.tenthousandvillages.com. Gorgeous jewelry, decorative items, and woven/knitted items for women; toys and games for children; even things like chess sets, bookends, and bicycle-chain frames for men. Their website is very easy to navigate and has some very helpful tools. If you click on the “gift ideas” tab at the top of the page, you can shop for holiday items, for men, women, or children, or by type of item. You can spend a little (items as low as $4) or a lot. They also have shops (there is one in Glen Ellyn, IL) across the U.S. You can find a shop locater on the website.

FOR THE COFFEE LOVERS

Land of a Thousand Hills Coffee Company has “Drink Coffee. Do Good” as its motto. It started with farmers in Rwanda (the founder saw the effects of the genocide and had to do SOMETHING) and now works with farmers in Haiti and Thailand as well. They sell 100% Arabica, fairly traded, fresh roasted coffee. They sell ground, whole bean, and decaf, teas, and coffee accessories.

If you’re in Chicago’s western suburbs, drop in at River City Roasters in Wheaton and pick up a few bags of their Venture blend, which supports Venture Corp (www.entertheventure.com), a small nonprofit started by some young friends of ours. Each bag purchased helps support two wonderful ministries in Africa. (I am privileged to have met both Mary and Ronnie, the leaders of the two ministries Venture supports.)

LOOKING FOR HANDCRAFTED CROCHETED ITEMS?

My husband just told me about this one, and I checked it out and love their website. What a great story! A group of high school guys learned to crochet simply because they wanted unique ski hats on the local slopes. Others dubbed them the Krochet Kids. Long story short (if you want to know the whole thing, visit the website), they taught these skills to women in northern Africa and then Peru, and they sell these handmade items at www.krochetkids.org. Each item carries with it the signature of the woman who crocheted it, and you can visit the website to learn her story.

AND, FINALLY, FOR THE PERSON WHO HAS EVERYTHING

Buy them a goat—bet they don’t have that. Seriously, go to World Vision or Compassion (the links take you directly to their online gift catalogs). They have items like school supplies, ducks, and clean-water wells. You can honor someone with your gift, and that person will receive a card telling about your gift and what it will accomplish. If you want to keep the idea of giving in front of you this season, request that a print gift catalog from either World Vision or Compassion be sent to you. It’s a fantastic tool to use with kids during this season when they are constantly faced with advertisements that fool them into thinking that their “wants” are actually “needs.”

ANY OTHER IDEAS???

If you have other ideas, please leave a comment and share! I’d love to hear and share other opportunities to give gifts that give back.

Thanks for reading! I sure enjoyed pulling the list together.

Henri Nouwen on Thanksgiving

November 24, 2014November 24, 2014 / jdunderwood / Leave a comment

The following quote by Henri Nouwen was included in the latest Wheaton Academy faculty/staff bulletin, and I just had to pass along the blessing. For a beautiful article on Henri Nouwen, read “The Holy Inefficiency of Henri Nouwen,” written by Philip Yancey shortly after Nouwen’s death in 1996.

“Thanksgiving comes from above. It is the gift that we cannot fabricate for ourselves. It is to be received. It is freely offered and asks to be freely received. That is where the choice is! We can choose to let the stranger continue his journey and so remain a stranger. But we can also invite him into our inner lives, let him touch every part of our being and then transform our resentments into gratitude. We don’t have to do this. In fact, most people don’t. But as often as we make that choice, everything, even the most trivial things, become(s) new. Our little lives become great—part of the mysterious work of God’s salvation. Once that happens, nothing is accidental, casual, or futile any more. Even the most insignificant event speaks the language of faith, hope, and above all, love. That’s the Eucharistic life, the life in which everything becomes a way of saying “Thank you” to him who joined us on the road.”

May our “little lives” become great with God’s overwhelming love–and may it begin in us this very day.

Happy Thanksgiving,

Jen

Odds and Ends

November 21, 2014 / jdunderwood / Leave a comment

This is a purposely random post. It includes further thoughts on a recent post; one quote; and one Scripture passage (in three versions) that I found beautiful.

Last weekend, as I was walking just after our first snowfall, I saw this bud lying on the ground. I brought it home, set it in the snow on our patio, and shot a picture. I changed my header picture to this shot because it certainly describes this strange transition of weather we are in. Down to 12 degrees one night, and then five days later it’s back up to 50!

1. A couple days after posting the Meanderings on Being piece, I heard a radio interview with James Bryan Smith about his book The Good and Beautiful God. He shared this wonderful illustration from his book: A 19th century Russian Orthodox priest named John of Kronstadt was terribly bothered by the alcoholics he saw passed out in the gutters on his way to the church where he served. Unlike the other priests, he could not simply walk by them. Compelled by love, John would lift up the “hungover, foul-smelling people from the gutter, cradle them in his arms, and say to them, ‘This is beneath your dignity. You were meant to house the fullness of God.'” When I heard that amazing story, my mind jumped to my thoughts about the “God-blank” I wrote about in the Meanderings piece. Hmmm. “You were meant to house the fullness of God.” Oh, I like that.

2. If you live in the U.S. and used Google today, you saw the funky artwork at the top with a quote in it from Corita Kent. Here’s the quote:

“To understand is to stand under

which is to look up

which is a good way to understand.”

I like that, too. When I read the Google blurb on Kent (1918-1986), I learned she was a nun, a teacher, and an artist known for contrasting the idea of consumerism with spiritual concepts drawn from her religious background. I found one article on her in which a friend described her as “a Boston lady who understands friendship and ‘who quietly waits for the gentle inner voice to whisper’ where it will take her next.” An artist whose friend described her first in terms of FRIENDSHIP–and then referred to her as a thoughtful artist: that’s a good model!

3. Here are the verses: Psalms 16:5-7. I’m pasting it in here in the Amplified version (of course), but the reference link will take you to a Bible Gateway page with the ESV, Amp, and New Living translation side by side. (I love that tool!). This verse, too, informs my “meanderings on being.”

⁵The Lord is my chosen and assigned portion, my cup; You hold and maintain my lot.

⁶The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; yes, I have a good heritage.

⁷I will bless the Lord, Who has given me counsel; yes, my heart instructs me in the night seasons.

Thanks for reading.

Jen

Book Suggestion: A Minor by Margaret Philbrick

November 20, 2014November 20, 2014 / jdunderwood / Leave a comment

A few months ago I went to a book signing for my friend’s debut novel, A Minor: A Novel of Love, Music & Memory. The author, Margaret Philbrick, is a both a writing friend (she’s on the board of the Redbud Writers Guild) and a fellow member at Church of the Resurrection (though she’s been there much, much longer than I).

The book deals with a teenage piano prodigy, Clive, and the mentor who helps him to, as Clive puts it, “set his fingers and his heart on fire.” I was fascinated with the way Philbrick describes music throughout the novel. It becomes a character, and it drives and woos Clive.

Clive’s relationship with his mentor, Clare, also becomes increasingly complex, and he finds himself falling in love with her. But Clare is more than twice his age, and Clive soon notices her memory is slipping. Clare is diagnosed with early-onset dementia, and Philbrick explores the effects of this on human relationships and on a person’s gifts and passions (with a particular focus on the effects of music on memory).

I don’t usually suggest an e-book over print, but this book is an exception BECAUSE Philbrick has done the coolest thing ever. In the e-book, the reader has the option of playing the music Clive is working on; it becomes the background music as the reader experiences the scene!

Here’s another reason to purchase the e-book: November is Alzheimer’s Awareness Month, so Philbrick and her publisher, Köehler Books, are donating 20% of all proceeds from e-book sales to the Alzheimer’s Association AND it’s on sale for only $1.99.

Intrigued? Here’s another link to the book’s Amazon page and here’s a link to the info about the publisher/author donating money during Alzheimer’s Awareness Month.

Discontent disguised as “spiritual” longing

November 15, 2014 / jdunderwood / Leave a comment

A few weeks ago “Do not grow weary in well doing” literally jumped into my mind. It was unexpected, both out of place and time. I was NOT engaged in what I thought of as “well doing” at that moment. Nor was I in a particularly “spiritual” frame of mind. In fact, after the verse jumped in—surprising me—I retorted back at, I assumed, the Holy Spirit. “What if I’m just simply ‘weary’ without there being any ‘well doing’ going on at all? That’s rather depressing, don’t you think? It means I am weary simply spinning my wheels, simply being ‘busy’ with suburban mom ‘stuff.’”

I waited for a moment, wondering if another verse would “pop up.” Nothing came, but I was left with a slightly unsettled feeling, as if the conversation were not yet finished.

A week later it continued, this time a bit more forcefully. I was driving (no surprise there–a literal spinning of the wheels), vaguely longing for “otherness”—a more focused ministry that involved our entire family (or at least my husband and I together), a centralized location that would involve much less “in the car” time for me…

This time it wasn’t a verse, just three words, but they cut across my mind, stark, black on a white background.

“You are discontent.”

What? Discontent? That didn’t describe me! I was simply longing for something “better,” right? A more spiritual life, one that stood out as “different.” One that could serve as a good example for others…

Ooh—pride as well as discontent.

Yuck!

Really, Lord? I asked. This—what I so often see as a “small” life—is what You want for me? This here? This now?

Yes.

It was confirmed by a conversation with my mother-in-law. “Let me tell you what I’ve been praying for you lately,” she said. (What a blessing to have not one but two sets of parents who pray for me!) “I’m praying that you will see the goodness and purpose in all the running around, the cooking, the organizing of schedules, the ‘mothering stage’ you are now in, with kids who need you in very different ways than they did when they were younger. I’m praying that you will understand that all this, though it seems small, is BIG. In all this, you are loving your children. This is your good work.”

Good work. Well doing.

Oh, Lord, I prayed, help me to see this—to keep on seeing this.

And help me not to grow weary.

*Here’s a link to a Tim Keller sermon titled “Everyone with a Gift” in which he talks about this very kind of discontent. I’ve listened to it twice now–and I probably need to listen to it again.

“Take, O Take Me As I Am”–followup to “Meanderings on BEING”

November 9, 2014 / jdunderwood / 2 Comments

The last post I put up–with my questions and wonderings about individuality and how it relates to my being a creation of God–came from a journal entry I wrote over a year ago. It’s been sitting and sitting, but when I finally was able to post something (sorry for the gap), it came to my mind rather than something written more recently.

I posted it on Friday, and that night I went to a church service and we sang the song “Take, O Take Me As I Am”. “This,” I thought, “relates so beautifully to that blog post.” I have found myself singing/praying it off-and-on ever since, and I want to share it with you. The link above (the title) takes you to Hymnary.org, which has information on the song’s author, Scotsman John Bell, and, when you scroll the bottom of the page, the actual music (so those of you who are musicians can play it), and this link is a Youtube video of a choir singing the song.

Hope you enjoy.

Meanderings on BEING

November 7, 2014 / jdunderwood / 1 Comment

When I read the following post to my husband (he and my mother-in-law serve as a sounding board for nearly everything I put on the blog), he responded, “I’ve never ever asked myself the questions you wonder about in this piece, but I’m assuming that if you’ve wondered it, someone else has, so, yes, post it.” I then asked him, “Do you think I’m out on a theological limb in this one–just a bit?” At that he grinned, half-shrugged, and said, “Maybe a little, but not too much.” (I’ve done some adjusting since I first read it to him, and I think I’ve moved closer to the trunk.) SO, if you choose to read on, just know I am NOT claiming this is solid theology but simply, as titled, my mind’s meanderings on my being/personhood/individuality.

It all started with these questions: If I am accepted ONLY in Christ, then does God love ME? For that matter, who am I? If I am called to become more and more like Christ, then WHO am I becoming? How can I still be ME and yet be like Christ? And WHO, exactly, is God loving? Me or Christ in me?

Scripture tells me I have no “good” in me, but it also says I am made in the image of God. I have value as God’s creation in general (like the sparrows) and, to a greater extent, because of that image.

I still wonder, though, do I have value simply in being myself?

But, wait, without God, I do not exist.

Now my head is spinning!

In Him we live and move and have our being. So is there part of God’s being in me? Well, if there is no good in me, then, no, there is no “divine” in me. God is good to His core–no, that’s not strong enough. He IS good, so not only is He never unsure about what is right-wrong/good-evil, He is never tempted to do anything that disagrees with His pure nature. Well, that doesn’t describe me at all. So what does it mean that I am “made in His image”?

I go back to my earlier statement: without God I have no being. I am NOT.

Yet I am. Even in a state of alienation from God—my pre-redeemed state—I have been given being. I am able to think and reason and love and hate and feel pain and joy.

I certainly do not FEEL like a puppet.

Nor did Jesus Christ–very God/very man–treat people as puppets. That, right there, wows me. Each person He encountered was His own creation. He could have chosen NOT to create any of them. In one sense, they were nothing more than clay in His hands.

Yet He treated each person as an individual. He treated each with respect as a human, as an individual. Even when He came down hard on a person or a group of people, it was never belittling but related to the choice they had made to set or follow their own standard/to be their own god–and they were definitely faced with the option of choosing differently. (I think of Nicodemus as a particular example of this.)

We are not only treated as individuals; we ARE so individual—down to our fingerprints, as if God is saying, “I am so big I am able to put a unique image of myself in every single one of you, and I will never have to duplicate or repeat.” (We get a beautiful picture of this in Psalm 139, in which the writer, David, imagines God being present–right there–shaping him in utero uniquely and specifically–no cookie cutter “creation” going on.)

This brings me back to my original question: Who am I? But now I realize that there are two ways to ask that question, one good and one bad. The bad way is when I am wanting an individuality/personhood that is separate from God, from being His, from being linked to Him as the Source and the Sustainer.

And isn’t that the same desire Satan had?

Lucifer wanted to be Lucifer on His own. He didn’t want to maintain his being as an angel OF God. He wanted to be Lucifer, just Lucifer. He didn’t want God to be linked to his being.

God granted Lucifer’s request. I know Lucifer was cast out of heaven, but he wasn’t annihilated. Can anything that God creates ever by truly annihilated?

So Lucifer “won,” in the sense that a rebellious child “wins” autonomy. He was allowed to separate. We see the consequences. Lucifer has lost all good. He has NO good impulses. He never creates, only destroys. He destroyed Eve–and then Adam and all their offspring–with the same temptation.

When I want to be MYSELF (and I am speaking here as one who is following Christ), am I trying to separate from Christ in me? Am I trying to fill the God-blank inside me with ME (pure self-focus). And in so doing, do I, like Satan, ironically, become capable only of destruction, never creation?

Hmm. I am imagining the “God-blank” as a sphere within our souls that has a beautiful, unique shape but which is un-filled. It is merely keeping a portion of my soul from being tainted with the selfishness/self-focus that permeates the rest of me. That empty sphere will either be filled with God or be overtaken by all the rest. In its empty state, it has no power to DO good, only to keep space for Good to enter in. When Christ enters it, His Good has power and begins its work in me, renewing me.

My mind returns to Nicodemus here: is this somehow related to “being born of the Spirit”? When I surrender and say, I am Yours, God. You work Your new creation in me, exactly as YOU want to, then am I born anew to be the ME He originally intended? So, though I am becoming more like Christ, with more of God filling me, yet He is filling me uniquely so that MY becoming like Christ is wholly different than my husband or my children or any other person becoming like Him. Together we are His body, but each cell within it is individual.

He is too great to simply duplicate Himself or even a small portion of Himself. There is TOO much of Him to ever be exhausted.

So perhaps God says to each of us: “You are YOU. Yes, you are from me, yet you are you, and the more you surrender to ME, the more you become the YOU I designed you to be. I take joy in your uniqueness because you display ME uniquely.

“When you are focused on self, you are not YOU—the real YOU is being overcome. The real YOU is completely at peace in your being my intricate masterpiece. You lose self-focus and, in so doing, become more YOU.”

All this is too big for me, but I end in awe rather than confusion because I have returned to my Creator. I place my weary, addled head on His chest; I feel His loving arms encircle me; and my spirit is reminded that He is for me.

I rest my whole being in that.

Sharing a post about Ebola

October 27, 2014 / jdunderwood / 1 Comment

Please read this very well-written, challenging, and helpful post by two American doctors living in Kenya who have actually lived through an Ebola crisis. They also have links to an article by Dr. Paul Farmer, who has his own words of wisdom to share on the subject. (Click on his name to read an earlier post I wrote about Farmer.)

Abiding–even in traffic

October 18, 2014October 18, 2014 / jdunderwood / Leave a comment

This is the slightest bit fuzzy, but I couldn’t resist blowing this up a bit to see this beautiful bird’s detail. He was hanging out in my yard last week, and I managed to get a couple shots of him.

It was mid-morning on a Saturday. I’d already taken the boys to their soccer games and returned home. The afternoon had been claimed by the three teens, who needed to shop for school spirit week items. I was their transportation. After that, I would fix dinner, run a younger child to-from a party, and finally collapse.

It was going to be a long day, much of it filled with shopping crowds–always a stressor for my introverted side–and I knew I needed a space of solitude before I plunged into the second part of it. I shut myself in the downstairs bathroom and tried to quiet my mind, to stop the responsibilities and concerns that shout so loud, that so often drown out the Spirit’s whispers.

Into the stillness came a verse, each word in it distinct, like the notes in a simple melody.

I realized it was a melody, was the Scripture I’d set to a tune so I could sing it over my younger daughter each night. “May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of our God, and the fellowship of His Holy Spirit abide with you, now and forever. Amen.”*

That was my prayer, my gift for that time, for the day ahead.

Again I prayed it. Again, focusing on phrases: Grace of Christ, love of God, fellowship of the Holy Spirit. Forever.

And then on the one word: abide.

May grace, love, and fellowship abide in me…

as I abide in God.

Abide.

Help me to abide, I prayed, and an image appeared now in my mind: a life-giving Vine, its clinging branch strong and vibrant.

“Mom, when are we leaving?”

The quiet was broken, and the next, crazy phase of the day began. It was full of traffic, of driving, of crowds, of noise.

Yet Abide ruled the day, inserting itself again and again…

And this led to miracles

Calm in the thrift store. I get jumpy so easily when I have to shop, when I’m in crowds, when I see no end in sight to the shopping. Abide, I heard. And I enjoyed time with the three older girls as we hunted for crazy items for spirit week: tutu skirts, Hawaiian leis, “mom jeans,” ugly sweaters. I even found myself some jeans—ones Em approved of, definitely not “mom jeans”—and didn’t go nuts in the process.

Miracles.

Twelve hours after praying in the bathroom, I was close to sleep. I readied my computer for shutdown, clearing all my screens and then closing my Web pages one at a time. The final page to close: Bible Gateway. The previous day’s verse-of-the-day was still on the screen. On a sudden whim, I refreshed the site to read the verse for the current day, less than one hour before it would change to the next day’s Scripture.

“May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of His Holy Spirit be with you all.”

No way!

But yes!

God had worked miracles as I’d shopped in crowded stores and while my car guzzled gasoline and I was stuck behind its wheel. Why was I surprised that the last one of the day was delivered via technology?!

May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of our God, and the fellowship of His Holy Spirit ABIDE with us, now and forever!

So be it.

*I made the song with the word “abide” in it, but I can’t find a Scripture version that actually includes that word (I have no idea why I began singing it with “abide” included). BUT the morning I prayed that verse, it came to my mind with the word “abide,” which then led to my envisioning the vine and branches and thinking about Christ’s words about abiding in Him. SO, I’m using the word “abide” in the song version, but not, of course, in Bible Gateway’s verse of the day. That link includes a couple parallel versions.

26.2 miles for a reason

October 15, 2014October 15, 2014 / jdunderwood / Leave a comment

The back of Dave’s Refuge for Women shirt.

He did it! On Sunday, October 12, my husband, Dave, ran his sixth marathon (second time in Chicago), this one for women rescued from sex trafficking. His “Run for a Reason” shirt arrived too late (and too small) for him to actually wear it during the run, but his efforts still raised money for a safe house here in the western suburbs. A big thanks to all you who supported Refuge for Women, and, for those of you who still might like to contribute, visit this post I wrote last month to read more about the organization, its partnership with local ministry New Name, and Dave’s reasons for running for this particular purpose.

It was an awesome day–especially for us spectators
who were not slogging out 26.2 miles! We enjoyed funny signs, were inspired by courageous people (like the blind runner–also on crutches–we saw at mile four, far behind the others), and loved, loved, loved seeing runners’ faces light up when we hollered out their names and reminded them that, yes, they really could do it.

All seven of us went down to cheer Dave on (plus Em’s friend Abby), and we were joined by my friend Beth (who just ran a marathon last week herself) and her two kids. They were cheering on husband/dad Geof, who was running his first marathon on
Sunday. Dave and Geof ran the whole thing together (well, they lost each other in the last two miles, but that’s close enough), and
we managed to see them at mile 11 and then again at 17. We tried to see them at 26, but the crowds of spectators were too packed. So we met them just after the finish, watched their drawn, sweat-crusted faces light up when they saw us, and told them we were very, very proud of them.

If you’re in the Chicago area, and you’ve never watched the marathon, DO IT! It’s a great day, filled with chances to cheer on strangers and talk to fellow spectators and walk down streets that are actually empty (Patrick absolutely loved this!). You get to spend the entire day wandering around downtown without a bit of pressure to shop (sorry to all my shopaholic friends).

Other highlights: the band at UIC, the crazy outfits worn by some runners (it wasn’t that hot, but still, the full-length character outfits had to be toasty), getting ice cream, playing in the park, congratulating exhausted finishers who hadn’t yet met up with friends or family, and, most of all, going home all together after a wonderful, wonderful day!