The Vitamin D Tour: Musings on Life South of the Snow Line

Or shall I say, “The Vitamin Detour” ? You know, highway construction and all.

Even with a Garmin GPS unit affixed to the dashboard – which makes me eminently trackable via satellite – if you take a wrong turn, the emotionally neutral “Jill’ that is built into the unit almost seems to acquire an edge to her…”re-calculating”, she says a bit impatiently, as we prepare ourselves for an anticipated, “told you so” that of course never comes. I love how technology can veer so close to an attitude and yet manage to get it’s way with us so easily. But additionally, this portable wundermap, which tells me where every single Starbucks is and much more, does present a spiritual application. At one point, we were perplexed as to why it recommended a route through Chicago quite far removed from the ‘traditional’ Wisconsinite path through the Windy City. So we defiantly decided lean on our own understanding and took the way that was right in our own eyes. The way we have always gone. We asked ourselves, “Is Jill the only authority here, is she trustworthy? There are many paths through Chicago.” Something told us that the satellite above was the way to go, but we were defiant and skeptical. And lo and behold, we got traffic, trouble, and, well, lost. Down the wrong path we went. The application is obvious: if we don’t use our Bible like a GPS, trusting the One who watches over us and wants only what is best for us, we end up where we shouldn’t have gone, having to ‘re-calculate’ our course and maybe even time of arrival, and at the very least, enduring the potholes and perils of the path we chose which were not in the original plan.
GPS: “God’s Plan of Sanctification”.

The snow line? Kentucky, no kidding. Even Indiana could not escape winter with a ‘capital W’ this year. And so we have submitted ourselves to the all-seeing GPS, to pursue some Vitamin D, the sunshine vitamin. And there have been so many stories lately that kids today have vitamin D deficiencies. How can that be? Are things really that different than when we used to play outside 12 months of the year and only come inside to eat? When there was no such thing as SPF 5000? Yes. Stay tuned for more…