in the last couple days, i saw a couple signs i found strange, and full of potential “other” meaning.

first, a few times in canada, i saw signs for an “area of refuge”. i have no idea what these are. this one…

appears to not only be an area of refuge, but a handicapped area of refuge. neat. the first one we saw was in the airport, and it was a tiny glass-enclosed room (like a miniature version of the smoking rooms you see in some airports, where the smokers sit looking like delinquent animals in a zoo for vices). maybe some canadian can tell me what these “areas of refuge” are. in the mean time, when in canada, i will use these as a visual reminder of what it means to live in christ: like the coneys (proverbs 30:26) who know that their safety is in the rock, my area of refuge is in christ.

then, today in the grocery store produce department, i saw a stack of little watermelons, each about 6″ or 8″ in diameter. and then i noticed the sign for them:

personal watermelons. i’m not sure why this both cracked me up and distrubed me. i guess it seemed (i know i’m slightly stretching it here, but that’s what metaphors do, right?) like a metaphor for the over-individuation of our world, especially our u.s. culture. watermelon is the ONE fruit (it is a fruit, isn’t it?) that, by its very design, is communal. watermelons are meant to be shared, to be sliced up into hunks for everyone at a party. watermelons belong in parks and poolside and at the beach. to engineer a “personal watermelon” seems oxomoronic at best, and reflective of our “it’s all about me” mentality at worst. couldn’t they at least have called them “small watermelons” or something other than “personal watermelons”?

what’s next, personal church? personal marriage? personal buffets? i think i’ll go outside to my large pool behind my privacy fence, and swim by myself while i think about this.