The Edmondson Montage: Creative and Disastrous

–adjective

having the quality or power of creating.

resulting from originality of thought, expression, etc.;imaginative: creative writing.

originative; productive (usually followed by of ).

dis·as·trous

–adjective

causing great distress or injury; ruinous; very unfortunate;calamitous: The rain and cold proved disastrous to hishealth.

Archaic . foreboding disaster.

I think that anyone who has kids can testify that these two words can easily coexist. My son is four and apparently exercising his artistic side. A few days ago, I came home to find my husband outside on the phone, my daughter taking a nap, and my son creating a crayola masterpiece on the living room wall. I instantly bustled him into the car, drove to Publix, and purchased a large box of Magic Erasers. His punishment was not getting a free cookie at the bakery. I thought about making him do the erasing, but even though this is an awesome product, it does take some elbow grease. I used up 1.5 erasers by the time I was done.

Fast forward to a half hour ago. You may find this very bizarre, but I can go days without going into my son's room. The reason for this is that it is basically his play room (he either sleeps on the couch or with us...which is a whole other story). I don't even remember why I walked in there, because I got distracted by the astonishingly diverse types of media used to draw on his royal blue walls. Included in this artistic display are chalks, colored pencils, crayons, and ink pen. His use of space is surprisingly effective. He has marked every wall, but it is proportional to the wall space...not too little, not too much, no space completely bare. Even the sides of his black tv and his window! WHAT?!?!?!

The poor sweet boy, what am I going to do with him? He is so active, yet so big hearted. He wears his heart on his sleeve. I didn't even yell at him, just spoke sternly to him, and you would have thought he had lost his best friend. He didn't cry or run away, just went and laid down on the couch. He would have been in much bigger trouble had I actually caught him in the act, but it could have been there for days and I never noticed.

And here's the rub...how do I explain to him that the house we live in isn't ours? We can't just act like we have the right to do whatever we want in the house we live in, because it is owned by the church. Even though we have come so far from the time when clergy families owned nothing but the clothes on their back and a few mementos, and everything else belonged to the parsonage (to include linens and silverware!), Mike and I still view 'our' home as belonging to the congregation and try to take care of it as stewards instead of owners. I think this is one of the huge struggles that children of clergy struggle with. Until we can save enough to buy our own little getaway somewhere, we essentially live off of the charity of others, which is humbling to an adult and fearful to a child or adolescent who has the ability to understand this.

I didn't mean for this to be such a long post. Just wondering how other people deal with these kind of issues!