The phrase is "separation of church and state"

Repeat after me...

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

Those words are taken from the Bill of Rights, most specifically the first amendment to the Constitution.   No, let's be even more specific, the first PART of the first amendment to the Constitution.  For those of you who aren't history buffs like me (and don't watch historical documentaries for fun), what this means is that our founding fathers; people like Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Ben Franklin, John Adams, and so on, fought the American Revolution to keep religion out of politics.  Not to keep religions other than Christianity out of politics, to keep ALL RELIGIONS out of politics.  To the next person who says, "our country was founded on Christianity", I'm going to hand you a history book.

These men and their families, and the friends' families, and their families before them, many of them left Europe because of religious persecution.  In other words, they were put down, mistreated or otherwise vilified because the religion they practiced wasn't the religion of choice of the current king or queen.  The principal that all religious beliefs be allowed and accepted in the new country was important enough to them that it was the very first idea in the Bill of Rights, a crucial part of the Constitution for the new country they had fought, sacrificed and so many had died for.  Yet here you are over 200 years later saying any religion but Christianity isn't okay?  And then justifying it by trying to claim that our founding fathers would have agreed with you?  Wrong.

While we are on the subject of religion - religion doesn't belong in the public school system either, for the very reasons listed above.  If you want your child to attend a religious school, they have those.  Lots and lots of those.  If you choose to have your child attend a public school, then you are choosing to go with a state run school and religion has no place in government or politics.  That doesn't mean your child cannot share, pray or otherwise acknowledge their religion in school.  It is perfectly acceptable for your child to pray before they eat or at prayer time.  I have had students do so in the past and would welcome any child who does so in the future, to whatever God they choose.  With that said, this meme needs to go away...

Again, if you share this meme I used to ignore it.  Not anymore.  Every single time I see it I am going to say something.  First of all, who ever said the pledge was not okay?  Everyone says it.  We say it at FC, my kids said it at DE and I don't know a single school that doesn't say it.  Do I think the words "under God" should be included in the pledge?  Nope.  So if you choose not to say it because your religion does not allow you to pledge to another God, I'm completely understand that.  Before you get your panties in a twist, let me remind you that the Pledge wasn't even written until the late late 1800's.  One hundred years AFTER the country was founded.  When it was written, the Pledge went as follows "I pledge allegiance to the Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."   It wasn't until 1954 that Eisenhower and Congress added the words "under God".  So yes, the top picture in the meme is 100% okay and so is the bottom.  It isn't an either or kind of thing.  Both are okay.  Both are allowed.  Both are acceptable.

While we are having a history lesson, our founding fathers didn't put "in God we trust" on our original money either.  That was added later, as in times of war and fear, people turn to their religions for comfort.  At no time in our history was our country more shattered, more upset, more in turmoil than the Civil War.  It was at that time that a faction of devout Christians proposed that our coins be changed to reflect a new united nation that believed in one higher power.  Since our government had an overwhelming majority of Christians, possibly all, at the time, it was easy for the changes to pass through and seem like a good idea.

Our country wasn't founded on the Pledge, it wasn't founded on "in God we trust" and it wasn't founded on a Christian God.   It was founded on respecting others, freedom to choose to be different and have different beliefs, and human rights to have your own thoughts and ideals - even IF they are different from the collective masses.  The word "freedom" didn't come with stipulations.  It wasn't "free to follow one religion, speak one language, celebrate one set of holidays, or pray one way.  Freedom doesn't have limitations.  You can't beat your breast claiming that our country is the best there ever was and wave our flag saying you are a true American, unless you can embrace the ideals that our country was truly founded on and ACCEPT others for not being like you.

Our country is not suffering because we have taken the church out of schools or public places.  Our country suffers when people take religion out of their homes and their own lives.  If you want your kids to be Christians and live the Christian life, they don't need to learn that at school; they need to learn math, reading, science, grammar, etc....

Our first Waverly small animal swap

A week ago, on Saturday, the family and I attended our first Waverly small animal swap.  This isn't the girls and my first animal swap ever, but it was our first animal swap in YEARS, like ten of them at least.  The last time we went to a small animal swap there was a grand total of maybe 12 - 15 sellers and we still came home with a guinea pig and a bunny or two and had a blast.  (Well, other than Sophie shutting her finger in the door, but small animals had a way of even making that pain go away.)  ANYWAY....

When I saw the dates for the Waverly swap come out on social media I immediately put them in our family calendar.  I have heard great things about this swap but nothing prepared us for the awesomeness that was Waverly.  We could tell by the cars as we arrived that it was going to be busy and we weren't disappointed.  I'm guessing there were at least 100 sellers with everything from cages (good thing too because we bought a second one) to toys to every kind of small animal you can imagine. The really crazy thing is that people come and go from this swap for a solid 24 hours, through the night even.  These people are serious about their small animals.  We walked up and down the muddy rows and tried to look in every cage.  I would like to say I went to the swap with a plan.  That would be a blatant falsehood.  I went to the swap hoping to find hens.  I was not prepared for the sheer volume of choices, breeds, sizes and prices available.

In the beginning we left the carrier in the car.  This proved to be a mistake as chickens we were interested would sell before we got through the swap and back around.  So about halfway through we decided to buy a second carrier to go with the one still in the Traverse.  Believe it or not, it was actually Tim's idea. Silly man, two carriers means twice as many chickens!!  Sophie wanted more turkens (weird kid that she is), Libby wanted silkies and Melissa wanted chickens of any size, breed, color, egg color - just chickens!  I had a few breeds I would have loved to find, but not picky.  Only hens though so that did put us out of the running as some people only sold trios or pairs.  We all ended up getting what we wanted.  Throughout the couple of hours that we wandered the swap we got two silkies, some banties, some Easter egg layers and some speckled Sussex.  We sent Tim back to swap carriers at one point and it was his reminder that sent us back at the very end of the swap to find Sophie's request, turkens.  We did find two more little turkens and she picked out some fun colors.

Despite the fact that we were mainly chicken shopping, we sure enjoyed looking at and dreaming about the many MANY other animals we saw there.  I will never forget the hilarious look on Libby's face when the trailer behind her let out a very loud and determined bray.  I'm not sure if she thought the trailer was exploding or what, but she sure had the wits scared out of her.  That trailer held an adorable mini donkey, as did so many others.  We will have a donkey again someday!  One wouldn't fit in the back of the Traverse though, darn it.  We also saw every breed and color of ducks, geese, swans, pheasants, pigeons, quail, turkeys and peacocks.  Boy, those peacocks were sure gorgeous.  Hard to leave them behind.  We learned a bunch too.  I love how many of the sellers weren't afraid to talk to you about their animals and explain what they were, how they were raised, etc...

It wasn't just donkeys and birds though.  There were calves, pigs, llamas, mini ponies, sheep, skunks and patagonian cavies too.  Oh yes.  Skunks.  Descented, I'm sure or it would have been a mess as they were obviously nervous.  They were not your typical black and white either, these were apricot colored skunks.  Kind of cool, but I had no desire to bring one of those home.  Carter and Sophie both argued hard and long about the other animal we saw a LOT of at the swap though.  Both were bound and determined we need to add a goat to the farm.  There were goats of every size, breed, color and age to choose from but they were both met with a firm "no" at this time.  I had my reasons against bringing home a goat, like gardens, flowers and my sanity, but they were sure disappointed. Maybe next time....

If little tiny critters are more your thing, there were plenty of those too.  There were guinea pigs, hamsters, mice, rats, hedgehogs, sugar gliders, chinchillas and pretty much everything that falls into the "creepy, crawly" or "fuzzy wuzzy" category in my book.  I'm not going to lie that I rushed past a lot of those sellers because the cute little sugar gliders and chinchillas were usually caged right next to 20 or so mice that looked fairly determined to escape their cages.  They are cute.  In a cage.

All in all, our first Waverly swap was well worth the drive and a success story.  We will be back and we will be more prepared the next time. Libby and I think we should bring a trailer for the next go around.  I'm not sure why Tim isn't keen on that idea?  I mean, just because I have a trailer doesn't mean I will fill it, right?