Cookies and Popcorn

The Girl Scout Promise: On my honor, I will try: To serve God* and my country, To help people at all times, And to live by the Girl Scout Law.
The Girl Scout Law: I will do my best to be honest and fair, friendly and helpful, considerate and caring, courageous and strong, and responsible for what I say and do,and to respect myself and others, respect authority, use resources wisely, make the world a better place, and be a sister to every Girl Scout.
* The word "God" can be interpreted in a number of ways, depending on one's spiritual beliefs. When reciting the Girl Scout Promise, it is okay to replace the word "God" with whatever word your spiritual beliefs dictate.
from http://www.nccoastalpines.org/home/about.aspx

The mission of the Boy Scouts of America is to prepare young people to make ethical and moral choices over their lifetimes by instilling in them the values of the Scout Oath and Law.

Scout Oath
On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law; to help other people at all times; to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.

Scout Law
A Scout is:
Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean, Reverent.
from http://www.scouting.org/media/mission.aspx

We've been talking with the twins about joining the Boy Scouts/Girl Scouts. They haven't been overly excited about it because they don't know much about these organizations. As I looked online early this morning for more information about joining in this area, I stumbled upon the dreaded asterisk (above). The asterisk shocked me so much. I can't support something and have my child participate in an organization that openly says there could be another God. After I found it, I searched around to see if there was any question about God in the Boy Scout oath. Thankfully, there was not.

I talked to Jimmy about it and he agreed, although he said he didn't feel as strongly as I do about this. Lately, I've been getting fired up about things. Jimmy did say that possibly the same argument could hold true for public schools, because as a teacher you can't talk about God in the classroom. Maybe there is something to what he's saying. At this point, I don't feel God calling me and my children away from public schools. I also don't feel God calling me to sign Lou Lou up or to purchase Girl Scout apparel or cookies. To me, taking a stand for what we believe takes priority over adopting a tolerance for all things that is so popular in our culture.

When I was in second grade, I wanted to be in Brownies SO BAD. It didn't happen because the Brownie group met on Wednesday nights, and my parents felt that church attendance was more important. At the time, I thought that we went to church enough already, even if I cut out Wednesday night attendance. I didn't harbor a big grudge, but always wanted a little brown outfit.

When MaJe (my mom) was in high school, she wanted to join the basketball team at her very small high school. Her parents said no because the team practiced and/or had games on church nights. MaJe had to be at church to play the piano.

I investigated some alternatives for Lou Lou since Bear is still going to participate in Boy Scouts at this point. We talked about how good it would be for him to be with boys for a change, considering our family makeup. GAs (Girls in Action) is a mission organization just for young girls. This is what I was doing most Wednesday nights as a child when I was missing Brownie meetings. I'm going to look into this further. Lou Lou will be upset at not joining Girl Scouts, but will be excited to do something (GAs) here with me. I'm going to pray that God would bless and grow our GA club. (I guess we'll call it a club. Little girls, and boys I assume, love to feel a part of a "club".)

Jimmy and I did discuss that actually eating a Girl Scout cookie that someone bought was okay. After all, the cookie didn't say there was more than one God. When I started talking about this (at about 2:30 this morning), Jimmy laughed. Maybe I'm a Froot Loop or just crazy. I have to do what I think is right for Lou Lou.