Just read a blog post by Erika Haub, which examines the nature of church outreaches and whether what we are giving away is meeting "true" needs or just the perceived needs of a materialistic culture. It hinges on angsty, but I do appreciate the post and the snarkiness of a comment from Petey Crowder, which is:
"Sometimes my students see other ministries on campus doing free hot chocolate giveaways in the Quad, etc. and they ask why we don't do similar things. I tell them because I don't believe Jesus' call was to give free crap to people who can already afford it."
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
a poem for parenthood
I've got a poem, only, for my daughter's anaphylactic reaction yesterday.
it’s not the walnut’s fault. On its
deciduous perch--warbly,
dry--its done nothing but crest on breezes flinging
between ground and branch: your baby play,
it’s juvenile state. The shells fall
out when they are grown,
like your teeth, first erupting from the gums,
then eject. I love
you more than Jupiter’s Acorn 'though Jupiter’s
shells and trunk seem sturdier than your limbs
at least right now, least while quivering
on the hard-wood desk
and your stomach, half-shelled from your shirt
was pearly is now scarlet distended
like a saggy half-blown balloon you ate
the acorn, you know good and evil,
shall not die, but are on death’s watch
near enough to death’s treasure, the X-
tree in the garden, ground beneath littered
with sturdy dull orbs, innocent
fruit, I said. scapegoat. It's my fault
only—mine that your alveoli clenched and burned
your scarlet-skin. story:
a walnut on its perch, shackled, plucked
shelled and revealed in
coffee-hues and milk.
factory. market. home. then:
I put walnuts in cookies. I put cookies
in your lunch-box. you shelled a walnut
with your teeth, nibbled
twice. it was crunchy you said when
I found your capillaries aflame, millions
star-lit burning on histamine, noxious
gas I prefer God keep
for consuming Novae, rather
than obliterating you, your life
it’s not the walnut’s fault. On its
deciduous perch--warbly,
dry--its done nothing but crest on breezes flinging
between ground and branch: your baby play,
it’s juvenile state. The shells fall
out when they are grown,
like your teeth, first erupting from the gums,
then eject. I love
you more than Jupiter’s Acorn 'though Jupiter’s
shells and trunk seem sturdier than your limbs
at least right now, least while quivering
on the hard-wood desk
and your stomach, half-shelled from your shirt
was pearly is now scarlet distended
like a saggy half-blown balloon you ate
the acorn, you know good and evil,
shall not die, but are on death’s watch
near enough to death’s treasure, the X-
tree in the garden, ground beneath littered
with sturdy dull orbs, innocent
fruit, I said. scapegoat. It's my fault
only—mine that your alveoli clenched and burned
your scarlet-skin. story:
a walnut on its perch, shackled, plucked
shelled and revealed in
coffee-hues and milk.
factory. market. home. then:
I put walnuts in cookies. I put cookies
in your lunch-box. you shelled a walnut
with your teeth, nibbled
twice. it was crunchy you said when
I found your capillaries aflame, millions
star-lit burning on histamine, noxious
gas I prefer God keep
for consuming Novae, rather
than obliterating you, your life
Thursday, February 21, 2008
male/female pastoring relationships
I was reading an interview with Kathy Escobar and Karl Wheeler the other day. They are the copastors of a church called the Refuge. The interview centered on the fact that Escobar and Wheeler are of the opposite sex, married to other people, and yet pastor a church together. Wheeler and Escobar are delighted to demonstrate that men and women can work together as pastors and that they each value one another's giftings in their pastoral roles.
One thing that struck me, however, was the discussion about the feelings of their spouses (in regard to Escobar and Wheeler working so closely together). The pair explained they made a rule that they would never "meet alone. For us, it just makes sense to always protect ourselves and each other, and ensure that no one can be suspicious. Just as importantly, it actually helps us live out our dream of always working in teams.
I understand that this team is in a unique situations, have unique spousal relationships and they are doing what works for them. They may simply have different personal comfort levels than I have. And while I am respectful and thankful for the unity they are bringing through their copastoring roles, I am interested in whether a rule such as theirs will set the tone for other emerging/mixed-gender pastoral teams. And if that rule should become a standard, what message would it send?
Let me first say I agree that there is strength in numbers on pastoral teams. And I am okay with paying a reasonable degree of attention to what "others think," yet when it comes to nonmarital male/female relationships in the church, I think this card has been played too many times, to the effect of keeping women outside the leadership circle. Lewis Smede was quoted in Rodney Clapp's Families at the Crossroads, as saying: "A covenant-keeper does not have to worry much or moralize a great deal about the proprieties of relationships outside of marriage. Within committment there is room for suprises, risks, and adventures. Loyalty is limiting but not constricting." In other words, when you have personal integrity before God and your marital partner, there's not a whole lot you need to be worried about. God sees your heart. He's got your back. He'll give you wisdom when you need it to avoid situations with shady folks.
I know one of my fellow co-pastors, A., would say there's a lot to be worried about, however. He was falsely accused at a former church for having some kind of extramarital romance with a single woman who he'd spent a marginal amount of time with. R. our senior pastor, sat in his office one day in a church down South and was shocked when the female parishioner meeting with him climbed over his desk, trying to get her skirt off in the process. (R. ran for the door.)
So I recognize the dilemma, but at what cost to the church is the articulation of and presence of a formal rule that bans the sexes from meeting with one another? What it costs us, I believe, is unity, and not only unity but the absence of about half the leadership gifting in the body of Christ.
On another note, I've NEVER heard same-sex injunctions of the kind that are issued to hetero meetings. Men should never meet with another man alone. (sounds ridiculous, doesn't it?) And yet why wouldn't it be of equal concern as the hetero meeting? We know that all sorts of extramarital homosexual interactions have occurred in Christian institutions across the board and throughout time. Yet there is no such injunction to "protect" ourselves in this way, in the same way there is no such injuction that Christians "protect" themselves from shoplifting by avoiding shopping, from gluttony by avoiding food, from falsehoods by avoiding speech. None of those solutions appear balanced enough to promote mental, emotional and physical health, not to mention societal well-being.
So the question is why? Why the rule about male/female relationships? I can only see one answer. I am biased, sure. But strongly opinionated that this inequity all stems from misogyny. Trickle-down-from-the-ages misogyny and and belief of our Christian fore-fathers and -thinkers that women are the source of all sexual impurity and evil in the world, able to disarm a man of his moral purity and all decision-making agency. I'm not joking about this. You can look it up. (try Saints Jerome, John Chrysostom, and Augustine to start.)
One thing that struck me, however, was the discussion about the feelings of their spouses (in regard to Escobar and Wheeler working so closely together). The pair explained they made a rule that they would never "meet alone. For us, it just makes sense to always protect ourselves and each other, and ensure that no one can be suspicious. Just as importantly, it actually helps us live out our dream of always working in teams.
I understand that this team is in a unique situations, have unique spousal relationships and they are doing what works for them. They may simply have different personal comfort levels than I have. And while I am respectful and thankful for the unity they are bringing through their copastoring roles, I am interested in whether a rule such as theirs will set the tone for other emerging/mixed-gender pastoral teams. And if that rule should become a standard, what message would it send?
Let me first say I agree that there is strength in numbers on pastoral teams. And I am okay with paying a reasonable degree of attention to what "others think," yet when it comes to nonmarital male/female relationships in the church, I think this card has been played too many times, to the effect of keeping women outside the leadership circle. Lewis Smede was quoted in Rodney Clapp's Families at the Crossroads, as saying: "A covenant-keeper does not have to worry much or moralize a great deal about the proprieties of relationships outside of marriage. Within committment there is room for suprises, risks, and adventures. Loyalty is limiting but not constricting." In other words, when you have personal integrity before God and your marital partner, there's not a whole lot you need to be worried about. God sees your heart. He's got your back. He'll give you wisdom when you need it to avoid situations with shady folks.
I know one of my fellow co-pastors, A., would say there's a lot to be worried about, however. He was falsely accused at a former church for having some kind of extramarital romance with a single woman who he'd spent a marginal amount of time with. R. our senior pastor, sat in his office one day in a church down South and was shocked when the female parishioner meeting with him climbed over his desk, trying to get her skirt off in the process. (R. ran for the door.)
So I recognize the dilemma, but at what cost to the church is the articulation of and presence of a formal rule that bans the sexes from meeting with one another? What it costs us, I believe, is unity, and not only unity but the absence of about half the leadership gifting in the body of Christ.
On another note, I've NEVER heard same-sex injunctions of the kind that are issued to hetero meetings. Men should never meet with another man alone. (sounds ridiculous, doesn't it?) And yet why wouldn't it be of equal concern as the hetero meeting? We know that all sorts of extramarital homosexual interactions have occurred in Christian institutions across the board and throughout time. Yet there is no such injunction to "protect" ourselves in this way, in the same way there is no such injuction that Christians "protect" themselves from shoplifting by avoiding shopping, from gluttony by avoiding food, from falsehoods by avoiding speech. None of those solutions appear balanced enough to promote mental, emotional and physical health, not to mention societal well-being.
So the question is why? Why the rule about male/female relationships? I can only see one answer. I am biased, sure. But strongly opinionated that this inequity all stems from misogyny. Trickle-down-from-the-ages misogyny and and belief of our Christian fore-fathers and -thinkers that women are the source of all sexual impurity and evil in the world, able to disarm a man of his moral purity and all decision-making agency. I'm not joking about this. You can look it up. (try Saints Jerome, John Chrysostom, and Augustine to start.)
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
McCain Music Video
I got this McCain "response" video from my friend Ali's blog. It is in response to the Yes We Can Obama video that came out recently. Anyway, this one is hilarious. Disturbing, but hilarious.
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
Longing Made Me Do It
I've had short hair twice before, as short as an 1/8th inch length on the electric clippers. The first time, I was in college. My friends where doing it. I enjoyed the look on my parents' faces when they saw my new hair for the first time. Shock value was fun. And I liked the look.
Then, four years ago, I did the same thing. I was the mother of a 1-year-old.
Now, my 30th birthday is comign up in a few months and in many ways, to many people, I fit the mold of suburbia-Mom, shuttling my kids to school and dance class, doing the bulk of the grocery shopping, the laundry, the cooking. Now, my circle of acquaintances is broader, from more diverse backgrounds (think: school teachers, principal, dance instructors, professors, church people--not just scruffy college students). None of my woman-friends are buzzing their hair. If I defied expectations ten years ago, then I defy more now. Not to mention I'm supposed to preach/teach/chat for forty minutes in front of a bunch of people for the first time during a Sunday morning service this weekend.
All of this has nothing to do with my reasons for cutting my hair off. The engines driving my process were two-fold. Here's part 1:
I went to a movie two weeks ago. I saw some women with very very short hair. I felt a pang of longing. I felt stuck behind my shoulder-length red hair. I felt hidden and weighed down.
The seed of the idea, planted in my mind, sprouted.
Here's part 2:
I should mention that four years ago, when I shaved my head, it was a week after my third miscarriage. I had one living child to show for my four pregnancies. My husband and I had seen our fourth fetus' beating heart on ultrasound just ten days before. When we went back to the doctor to look again, that heart had stilled. There was something intuitive about grief-inspired shearing, and I took to it the second my husband left for a weekend visit to his family, the one I was supposed to go on had I not been so anti-social and grief-bound.
Currently, there is no obvious source of driving grief in my life. My family members are healthy, for the most part, and contented. But I've found myself gravitating to the silence of being alone in my house, when the girls and Mark are off at the library or kids playplace at the mall. In the silence, I am aware of this ache inside me, comprised of longing. Longing for God. Longing for justice in my neighborhood. Longing and frustration that what I can do to help the single mom I know who threw her back out last week is not enough, does not even scratch the surface of her need. The snow is piling up in her driveway, just like ours, and even though I shoveled part of her driveway Sunday night, more has fallen in that clearing--6-10 inches more. And my husband and I are now barely able to keep up with our own snow.
I feel longing for the gospel of Christ to be experienced as relief and good news in the lives of people around me, the way citizens feel when they hear a catastrophic war has finally ended. That means people who couldn't walk walk. People who couldn't see, see. Depressed people rejoice. Acts of kindness abound.
Parts 1 and 2 merged sometime while I was laying on the floor crying and praying in an empty house this week. In retrospect, the merge makes sense, the hair-shearing being an acceptable form of catharsis I could provide myself, while stuck inside watching the falling snow, too sore to shovel my neighbor's driveway.
Then, four years ago, I did the same thing. I was the mother of a 1-year-old.
Now, my 30th birthday is comign up in a few months and in many ways, to many people, I fit the mold of suburbia-Mom, shuttling my kids to school and dance class, doing the bulk of the grocery shopping, the laundry, the cooking. Now, my circle of acquaintances is broader, from more diverse backgrounds (think: school teachers, principal, dance instructors, professors, church people--not just scruffy college students). None of my woman-friends are buzzing their hair. If I defied expectations ten years ago, then I defy more now. Not to mention I'm supposed to preach/teach/chat for forty minutes in front of a bunch of people for the first time during a Sunday morning service this weekend.
All of this has nothing to do with my reasons for cutting my hair off. The engines driving my process were two-fold. Here's part 1:
I went to a movie two weeks ago. I saw some women with very very short hair. I felt a pang of longing. I felt stuck behind my shoulder-length red hair. I felt hidden and weighed down.
The seed of the idea, planted in my mind, sprouted.
Here's part 2:
I should mention that four years ago, when I shaved my head, it was a week after my third miscarriage. I had one living child to show for my four pregnancies. My husband and I had seen our fourth fetus' beating heart on ultrasound just ten days before. When we went back to the doctor to look again, that heart had stilled. There was something intuitive about grief-inspired shearing, and I took to it the second my husband left for a weekend visit to his family, the one I was supposed to go on had I not been so anti-social and grief-bound.
Currently, there is no obvious source of driving grief in my life. My family members are healthy, for the most part, and contented. But I've found myself gravitating to the silence of being alone in my house, when the girls and Mark are off at the library or kids playplace at the mall. In the silence, I am aware of this ache inside me, comprised of longing. Longing for God. Longing for justice in my neighborhood. Longing and frustration that what I can do to help the single mom I know who threw her back out last week is not enough, does not even scratch the surface of her need. The snow is piling up in her driveway, just like ours, and even though I shoveled part of her driveway Sunday night, more has fallen in that clearing--6-10 inches more. And my husband and I are now barely able to keep up with our own snow.
I feel longing for the gospel of Christ to be experienced as relief and good news in the lives of people around me, the way citizens feel when they hear a catastrophic war has finally ended. That means people who couldn't walk walk. People who couldn't see, see. Depressed people rejoice. Acts of kindness abound.
Parts 1 and 2 merged sometime while I was laying on the floor crying and praying in an empty house this week. In retrospect, the merge makes sense, the hair-shearing being an acceptable form of catharsis I could provide myself, while stuck inside watching the falling snow, too sore to shovel my neighbor's driveway.
Shorn Scorn
Last night at dinner with my two young daughters, my husband, and my father, the five of us went around the table trading news of our days, the good parts and the bad. When my turn came, I said, "Well, this didn't so much as happen to me today, but I'm thinking that I"m going to shave my head." Really, I meant buzz my hair pretty short with electric clippers. But saying "shave" sounds a whole lot more exciting. I directed a big smile directed at the girls, one of whom immediately started crying.
"But Mom, I don't want you to cut off your hair. You'll be so UG-LY. Don't do it, don't do it, don't do it."
My father and my husband stared down at their plates while she spoke. Neither of them laughed at her melodrama. Mark had already commented earlier in the week. He prefers me with long hair, but won't argue with my decision. My father, I'm sure, was just trying to be respectful and therefore remained quiet.
In the quiet, after my daughter's comments I found myself riling up inside. I know my five year old is not alone in her opinion. Especially in Christian culture, where people toss around scriptures about women's hair being their glory, yada yada. The other thing I know that's true is that hair is associated with beauty in women--in secular or sacred culture. So what my daughter says is true: in a black-and-white, fitting-the-mold-is-what-matters, kindergartener view of the world, I'll be ugly.
Many of us know ugliness is an unpardonable sin in a woman.
I hadn't given up on my five year old, though. "Hey," I said, "If you want to shave yours too, we could do it together." I was picturing a female-bonding sort of thing while hanging our heads over the bathroom sink, sneezing together from all the short hairs we inhaled. For a brief moment I imagined how life altering this memory could be for my daughter. One day, she and her mother shaved their heads together, symbolically and actually forsaking externally imposed standards of female beauty. She and her mother lived to tell about it. This one subversive act would alter the course of her thinking for the rest of her life: she would remember how once she defied sexual objectification of herself, and she could defy it again, perhaps not with electric clippers, but with words, with confidence, with truth--in her workplace, in her classroom, in her service to others.
But my daughter, still distraught, asked, "Why??! Why would I do that when you know I've been trying to grow it out?" She grabbed the ends of her hair and held them up for me to see.
"But Mom, I don't want you to cut off your hair. You'll be so UG-LY. Don't do it, don't do it, don't do it."
My father and my husband stared down at their plates while she spoke. Neither of them laughed at her melodrama. Mark had already commented earlier in the week. He prefers me with long hair, but won't argue with my decision. My father, I'm sure, was just trying to be respectful and therefore remained quiet.
In the quiet, after my daughter's comments I found myself riling up inside. I know my five year old is not alone in her opinion. Especially in Christian culture, where people toss around scriptures about women's hair being their glory, yada yada. The other thing I know that's true is that hair is associated with beauty in women--in secular or sacred culture. So what my daughter says is true: in a black-and-white, fitting-the-mold-is-what-matters, kindergartener view of the world, I'll be ugly.
Many of us know ugliness is an unpardonable sin in a woman.
I hadn't given up on my five year old, though. "Hey," I said, "If you want to shave yours too, we could do it together." I was picturing a female-bonding sort of thing while hanging our heads over the bathroom sink, sneezing together from all the short hairs we inhaled. For a brief moment I imagined how life altering this memory could be for my daughter. One day, she and her mother shaved their heads together, symbolically and actually forsaking externally imposed standards of female beauty. She and her mother lived to tell about it. This one subversive act would alter the course of her thinking for the rest of her life: she would remember how once she defied sexual objectification of herself, and she could defy it again, perhaps not with electric clippers, but with words, with confidence, with truth--in her workplace, in her classroom, in her service to others.
But my daughter, still distraught, asked, "Why??! Why would I do that when you know I've been trying to grow it out?" She grabbed the ends of her hair and held them up for me to see.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Minisry and Gender-Role Conversation w/ the Girls
Because I recently took on a new role at our church, there's been some explaining to do to the kids about why I'm going to such and such a meeting, or why I might go out of town to a conference in a few months.
"So, you know how Pastor R. is pastor? And how C. is a pastor?" I asked the girls.
"Yeah. . ." they said cautiously.
"Well, now I'm a pastor, too, and I help out with things in the church more now."
Evvy, the three year old, scrunched up her face and her eyes welled with tears. "But Mom!" she wailed, "Dont' be a boy!"
It took me a second to comprehend her worldview. "I'm not a boy," I said, confused.
"But Mom," she continued, tears on her cheeks, "ALL Pastors Have To Be Boys."
And then I got it. And I wondered how she had this all figured out already, at three.
"It's okay," I assured them, "All pastors dont' have to be boys. Girls can be pastors, too."
"Oh!" Una, five, jumped in, and as in contradiction to her sister's hard-line sentiments, jested: "Well, ALL Pastors HAVE to be CHAIRS."
"No, no!" shouted Evvy, in the same spirit. "ALL PASTORS HAVE TO BE DOORS!!"
By this point, they'd proved Ev's arguement ridiculous and were laughing uproariously.
"So, you know how Pastor R. is pastor? And how C. is a pastor?" I asked the girls.
"Yeah. . ." they said cautiously.
"Well, now I'm a pastor, too, and I help out with things in the church more now."
Evvy, the three year old, scrunched up her face and her eyes welled with tears. "But Mom!" she wailed, "Dont' be a boy!"
It took me a second to comprehend her worldview. "I'm not a boy," I said, confused.
"But Mom," she continued, tears on her cheeks, "ALL Pastors Have To Be Boys."
And then I got it. And I wondered how she had this all figured out already, at three.
"It's okay," I assured them, "All pastors dont' have to be boys. Girls can be pastors, too."
"Oh!" Una, five, jumped in, and as in contradiction to her sister's hard-line sentiments, jested: "Well, ALL Pastors HAVE to be CHAIRS."
"No, no!" shouted Evvy, in the same spirit. "ALL PASTORS HAVE TO BE DOORS!!"
By this point, they'd proved Ev's arguement ridiculous and were laughing uproariously.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Christian Culture Anxieties, Part 2
A dear friend of mine was duped by a forward about a month ago. The email she received claimed that CBS discontinued the show Touched by an Angel because it used the word "God" in every episode. Madeline Murray O'Hare, the woman who succeeded in eliminating mandatory prayer and Bible reading from public schools many years ago, was blamed for the CBS/Angel fiasco. Not only that, the email claimed O'Hare had a hearing with the FCC, where, if her petition was successful, "all Sunday worshipservices being broadcast on the radio or bytelevision will be stopped." The email urged Christians to action.
Many of you reading this will think this sounds fishy. I immediately did a search and came up with a few urban legend-type websites that debunk these rumors (http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/m/madelynmurrayohair-touched.htmhttp://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_petition_2493.htm
The question that interested me most, once the rumor was debunked, was this: How does this sort of thing start? How does it spread? And why? The only true fruit of the rumor-spreading seems to be an increased level of paranoia among Christians. Paranoia and ignorance that prevents us from seeking real public change.
This brings to mind Y2K and my mother, who joined an organization called The Prophecy Club. After many hours on the phone with a "Prophet" named Tom, my mother took a carload of her possessions to Goodwill, applied for her passport, and pleaded with my brother to give his life to the Lord. What did she learn from her conversation with Prophet Tom? That there were Russian troops hiding out in WW2 Japanese internment camps, waiting for all systems to go haywire on January 1, 2000. When chaos commenced, these Russian troops would take to the streets, imposing martial law. Christians would be persecuted, Prophet Tom said, but there was a small farming community in Belize where Christians could survive by working the land, a safe and humble lifestyle.
Mom never made it to Belize, but she was damn sure immobilized by fear, not to mention bereft of her only copy of The Late Great Planet Earth, which she donated to Goodwill in her escape-planning frenzy. I know this story is a bit exterme, and most people I know are not this gullible. Still, there are plenty of organizations like the Prophecy Club making a whole lot of money off their products. And that money is coming from somewhere, likely from very anxious Jesus-followers.
Many of you reading this will think this sounds fishy. I immediately did a search and came up with a few urban legend-type websites that debunk these rumors (http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/m/madelynmurrayohair-touched.htmhttp://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_petition_2493.htm
The question that interested me most, once the rumor was debunked, was this: How does this sort of thing start? How does it spread? And why? The only true fruit of the rumor-spreading seems to be an increased level of paranoia among Christians. Paranoia and ignorance that prevents us from seeking real public change.
This brings to mind Y2K and my mother, who joined an organization called The Prophecy Club. After many hours on the phone with a "Prophet" named Tom, my mother took a carload of her possessions to Goodwill, applied for her passport, and pleaded with my brother to give his life to the Lord. What did she learn from her conversation with Prophet Tom? That there were Russian troops hiding out in WW2 Japanese internment camps, waiting for all systems to go haywire on January 1, 2000. When chaos commenced, these Russian troops would take to the streets, imposing martial law. Christians would be persecuted, Prophet Tom said, but there was a small farming community in Belize where Christians could survive by working the land, a safe and humble lifestyle.
Mom never made it to Belize, but she was damn sure immobilized by fear, not to mention bereft of her only copy of The Late Great Planet Earth, which she donated to Goodwill in her escape-planning frenzy. I know this story is a bit exterme, and most people I know are not this gullible. Still, there are plenty of organizations like the Prophecy Club making a whole lot of money off their products. And that money is coming from somewhere, likely from very anxious Jesus-followers.
Monday, January 07, 2008
Christian Culture Anxieties, Part 1
I got a forward last week from a friend of mine. The original email came from an Iowan who was urging her out-of-state friends to pray for the caucus on caucus night, that people would "vote according to the things that are on God's heart."
That doesn't bother me. But the rest of her email made me squirm. Here it is:
"[Iowa City] seems pretty conservative and 'harmless' to most outsiders. I live near Iowa City, one of the most humanistic cities in the US. Per capita, we have the highest rate of abortions in the nation. Nearly 5% of the population is murdered in abortion clinics every year. That's about 3000 babies. We are fourth in the nation per capita for homosexuality. The University of Iowa boasts a 13% gay population. We are also a hotbed for wiccan activity and all sorts of post-modern thought. And believe me. These people all vote and they vote proudly for the things that matter to them. Please pray that despite what we in this country have deserved, that God would set up righteous judges over our nation."
Here are some thoughts/questions that came to mind:
1. "That's about 3000 babies." I am not pro-choice (I can write more on that later), but this email reminds me of my beef with pro-life Christian culture--not so much with what the author is pointing out. For many Christians, one of the biggest factors determining a stance against abortion is the idea that life could begin at conception. If we are to be consistent with this arguement, why don't Christians, as a "pro-life" culture, have funeral or memorial services for fetuses miscarried ("spontaneous abortions") in the first trimester and embryos implanted in fallopian tubes (ectopic pregnancies)? And why do so many pro-life Christians use birth control pills, the function of which (advertised by the manufacturers), among other functions, is to prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in the walls of the uterus? These cultural observations make me wonder: are we really "pro-life"? Do we grieve the loss of life through natural (or pharmeceutical-related) causes in proportion to the grief we exhibit over the loss of life created through abortion?
In addition, do the politics that typically ride along with a pro-life sensibility fit harmoniously with that sensibility? In other words, the pro-life plank is typically found on the platform of a Republican party candidate, and Republicans are notorious for their cuts on welfare and assitance to the poor, the poor being mostly women and their un-aborted children.
2. So Christians believe the gay lifestyle is not a representation of God's ideal when he made human relationships, but I don't understand all the fear implied in the email. Gay people are just more people to love, right?
3. "hotbed for Wiccan activity and post-modern thought." Wiccans, too, are more people to love. And I'm not sure I understand why Wicca and post-modernism are lumped together here, and why there is an implied moral stance against post-modernism, as if modernism (which I'm assuming postmodernism is being pitted against?) did much for proving God's existence.
Many of you reading this know a lot more than I do on the subject of modernism v. postmodernism, so feel free to add your two cents
I guess the bottom line is I'm so tired of Christian culture anxieties, the "us v. them" mentalities that keep us out of the public square, and from befriending the multitudes of people to be found there.
That doesn't bother me. But the rest of her email made me squirm. Here it is:
"[Iowa City] seems pretty conservative and 'harmless' to most outsiders. I live near Iowa City, one of the most humanistic cities in the US. Per capita, we have the highest rate of abortions in the nation. Nearly 5% of the population is murdered in abortion clinics every year. That's about 3000 babies. We are fourth in the nation per capita for homosexuality. The University of Iowa boasts a 13% gay population. We are also a hotbed for wiccan activity and all sorts of post-modern thought. And believe me. These people all vote and they vote proudly for the things that matter to them. Please pray that despite what we in this country have deserved, that God would set up righteous judges over our nation."
Here are some thoughts/questions that came to mind:
1. "That's about 3000 babies." I am not pro-choice (I can write more on that later), but this email reminds me of my beef with pro-life Christian culture--not so much with what the author is pointing out. For many Christians, one of the biggest factors determining a stance against abortion is the idea that life could begin at conception. If we are to be consistent with this arguement, why don't Christians, as a "pro-life" culture, have funeral or memorial services for fetuses miscarried ("spontaneous abortions") in the first trimester and embryos implanted in fallopian tubes (ectopic pregnancies)? And why do so many pro-life Christians use birth control pills, the function of which (advertised by the manufacturers), among other functions, is to prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in the walls of the uterus? These cultural observations make me wonder: are we really "pro-life"? Do we grieve the loss of life through natural (or pharmeceutical-related) causes in proportion to the grief we exhibit over the loss of life created through abortion?
In addition, do the politics that typically ride along with a pro-life sensibility fit harmoniously with that sensibility? In other words, the pro-life plank is typically found on the platform of a Republican party candidate, and Republicans are notorious for their cuts on welfare and assitance to the poor, the poor being mostly women and their un-aborted children.
2. So Christians believe the gay lifestyle is not a representation of God's ideal when he made human relationships, but I don't understand all the fear implied in the email. Gay people are just more people to love, right?
3. "hotbed for Wiccan activity and post-modern thought." Wiccans, too, are more people to love. And I'm not sure I understand why Wicca and post-modernism are lumped together here, and why there is an implied moral stance against post-modernism, as if modernism (which I'm assuming postmodernism is being pitted against?) did much for proving God's existence.
Many of you reading this know a lot more than I do on the subject of modernism v. postmodernism, so feel free to add your two cents
I guess the bottom line is I'm so tired of Christian culture anxieties, the "us v. them" mentalities that keep us out of the public square, and from befriending the multitudes of people to be found there.
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Friendly (?) Produce Man
I love friendly people. Friendly people who go out of their way to smile at the grocery store, friendly people who say, when you tell your kindergartner she can't buy Hi-C because it's full of sugar, "It's horrible what we're feeding kids these days!" and shake their head, in full agreement with your decision to go for the box that says 100% juice--I like people like that. Secretly I want to be one, to insert myself more into the airspace when I'm in public places, sidle up to the woman debating which brand of diapers to buy and say, "Isn't it nuts how much diapers cost these days?" because that's exactly what I'm thinking and probably what lots of parents are thinking. And the two of us diaper-shoppers would grimace together and then maybe smile and then go our separate ways, having connected with some other in the universe, even if the connection is on a minute scale.
Today at an Amish-run grocery store (aka Bent and Dent) in the country, my father and my children and I ran into a man on the juice aisle. He heartily approved my 100% juice selection and then held up his own bag of cookies apologetically and said to me, "I'm a produce man and I"m buying cookies!." I laughed and shook my head, thinking this man looked awfully familiar, which I then stated. Yes, he told me, we had met. He looked in my eyes and smiled. "I told you you had beautiful hair," he said.
And then it all came flooding back. I'd run into him this past summer at the same grocery store; he'd followed me around for ten minutes, trying to talk me into stopping by his produce stand in Iowa City in front of the Ace Hardware. He had corns and canteloupes, the best prices around. As I made my way to the parking lot with my full cart of groceries, he was just leaving in his truck. He stopped in the middle of the lane and rolled down his window. "I have to tell you," he confided, "You have beautiful hair."
"Thanks," I'd said, and shrugged and moved on, glad to have met another friendly human. But today, when he reminded me, I saw caution lights. I let my dad talk to the friendly produce guy--who kept him talking a full five minutes by the mixed nuts--while I scurried around the store hoping to avoid a conversation. The two kids were getting restless and I didn't want to get caught in another produce conversation.
My father was able to part ways with the produce man eventually and I ran into him again at the checkout where he was in line ahead of me. "Have a great day!" he'd enthused when he left. "See ya!" I'd smiled. A few minutes later, as I was paying for my groceries, the produce man, having come back into the store, materialized before me with a box of chocolate covered cordial cherries, the sort that taste like choclate covered cherry Ny-Quil. He stuck it in front of my nose. "Happy New Year!" he said. I said thanks, of course, and as he was walking away said the only other thing I could think of, patterned after his earlier confession about the cookies:
"The produce man is handing out chocolate!" He looked back and smiled.
My father, after our shopping trip, opined that the produce man was lacking in social skills, or at least had little regard for the shopping other customers needed to do. I wondered aloud if he was merely misunderstood, a friendly soul society had not crushed and pounded into an emotionally repressed man. On the other hand, the hair comment and the chocolate cherries seem to add up to a little more than that, leaving me with a nagging little feeling of distrust, and the sadness that some super-friendly people after something other than friendship.
Friday, December 28, 2007
The Velveteen Rabbit
I was annoyed by the "three-minute bedtime" version of the Velveteen Rabbit, which we purchased in a desperate moment at an airport a few years ago so that we'd have entertainment for our kids on a long flight. For Christmas this year, my children received the authentic, original version, which thrilled me--classic literature with pictures. Wonderful.
Sadly, I'd forgotten the narrative twist that occurs when, after the Boy's bout with Scarlet Fever, the doctor exclaims when looking at the Bunny: "Why, it's a mass of scarlet fever germs! --Burn it at once. What? Nonsense! Get him a new one. He mustn't have it any more!"
And what follows: "The little Rabbit was put into a a sack with the old picture-books and a lot of rubbish, and carried out to the end of the garden behind the fowl-house. That was a fine place to make a bonfire...."
I'm thinking Margery William's own children must not have had their own "Real" stuffed animals, because if they did they might have exhibited a reaction similar to my children's, who each have their own tattered, much-loved, Puppies.
The fact that a fairy princess rescues Bunny from the bonfire pile did little to relieve the trauma of picturing the cremation of their own precious Puppies. The three year old had tears streaming down her face mid-story, and after the "happy" ending, my five-year-old laid on the couch with her head in my lap and sobbed, frequently asking, "You'll never burn my puppy, will you?"
Sadly, I'd forgotten the narrative twist that occurs when, after the Boy's bout with Scarlet Fever, the doctor exclaims when looking at the Bunny: "Why, it's a mass of scarlet fever germs! --Burn it at once. What? Nonsense! Get him a new one. He mustn't have it any more!"
And what follows: "The little Rabbit was put into a a sack with the old picture-books and a lot of rubbish, and carried out to the end of the garden behind the fowl-house. That was a fine place to make a bonfire...."
I'm thinking Margery William's own children must not have had their own "Real" stuffed animals, because if they did they might have exhibited a reaction similar to my children's, who each have their own tattered, much-loved, Puppies.
The fact that a fairy princess rescues Bunny from the bonfire pile did little to relieve the trauma of picturing the cremation of their own precious Puppies. The three year old had tears streaming down her face mid-story, and after the "happy" ending, my five-year-old laid on the couch with her head in my lap and sobbed, frequently asking, "You'll never burn my puppy, will you?"
Saturday, December 22, 2007
"Oh, no, Mom! It's made in China!"
It's nice to know that some things I teach my kids about are actually making an impact. I've been thinking about ethical consumerism quite a bit this fall with the holidays coming up. I've changed my chocolate buying habits to exclusively fair trade chocolates, and I've limited white sugar consumption (check this link out). I've also been harping on the problems of lead paint in children's toys, not to mention the uncovering of many many sweatshops in China (run by contractors for our toy god, Mattel) where human rights are trampled on and pregnant workers are exposed to toxic levels of lead in the paint they use to make the toys. Because we have a one-year-old at our home every week, 
I've been telling the girls to be careful about what Josh puts in his mouth, since only God knows if and in what instances Mattel can be trusted.
I've been telling the girls to be careful about what Josh puts in his mouth, since only God knows if and in what instances Mattel can be trusted.Well something sunk in. The other day I heard Una shriek from the hallway where she and her sister were playing with a Nativity set (not Mattel's). "Mom! The angel's wing is broken off. Josh must have eaten it. AND IT'S MADE IN CHINA and FULL OF LEAD PAINT!"
"Oh no!" Evvy, the three year old, chimed in.
I knew for a fact that Josh hadn't bit off the angel wings. They were factory defects, breaking within just a few minutes of play in almost the exact same spot on each wing. And we didn't actually know if these toys were made in China or any place that might use lead paint. But Evvy clearly did not believe me when I explained this. As she folded her hands under her chin, she announced, "I'm going to pray for Josh." She then uttered a half-intelligible prayer, "Lord, please... Josh... paint... China.. thank you. Amen." She lifted her head and smiled.
This afternoon, Una and I were wrapping Christmas ornaments to give as gifts to friends and I turned one over and saw the little "made in China" sticker on the back of one. Darn, I'd missed that when we bought it at the store. "It's made in China," I told Una, who became more distressed than I expected. "OH NO. MADE IN CHINA?? MADE IN CHINA??? ON NO. There's probably lead paint in there."
All this is to say, it's nice when you realize your kids have been listening to you, even if the message they regurgitate is slightly lacking in balance. And really, what a sincere prayer for social justice scripted by Evvy: "Lord...paint...China. Thank you. Amen."
Monday, December 17, 2007
What's Wrong with Cinderella?
This article in the New York Times was provocative, mirroring my own struggles and raising new questions, over the whole issue of raising "princesses."
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/24/magazine/24princess.t.html?ex=157680000&en=3887685b453b9e60&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/24/magazine/24princess.t.html?ex=157680000&en=3887685b453b9e60&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
Saturday, December 15, 2007
The Politics of Address
It's the one time of year that I sit down to address a hundred Christmas letters to friends, relatives and acquaintances, and every time I do it I agonize over the greeting and the sign-off. I've received enough greeting cards and invitations in my life to be thoroughly disgusted with the form of address to our family that seems to ignore the fact that I am a part of it. "Mrs. Mark Weber" has a way of pissing me off, unmatched by many things. But a lot of women in my generation identify with feelings of anger over their identity being subsumed under their husbands' names, and I'm getting fewer and fewer cards like that anymore. The more subtle and challenging politics of address come, for me, in the ordering of names at, say, the opening of our Christmas letter. "Dear Mike, Susan, and kids" is the traditional route, not "Dear Susan, Mike and kids," but I'm finding myself compelled to embrace a sort of affirmative action when it comes to naming females in the families.
But I pause with each new couple. Is the re-ordering of their family names something they'll notice? And depending on their age, socio-economic status, religious and political persuasions, etc, is this reordering something they'll be offended by? Additionally, I suspect everyone getting our Christmas card will know that I am the main composer and signer-offer on it, that it's the woman in the Weber family making these executive decisions on how to order names. Will they, therefore, perceive these address decisions as the subversion I intend them to be? I prefer it not be so noticeable, and prefer to subtly sneak my female-affirming greeting into their lives, catch one of those mothers or wives off-guard with the site of her name first leaping off the line of greeting in our Christmas letter. How refreshing, I imagine.
At the same time I want affirmative action in these lines of greetings, I am also an egalitarian, and I"m conflicted by the desire to make up for centuries of female-identity-subsumed-under-male-identity (by listing female names first consistently) with a desire for fairness, to affirm the importance of both the sexes in the present.
So it turns out, none of my lines of greeting take the same format. If I address the family as "Susan, Mike and kids" I might find myself signing off with "Mark, Heather, and kids," and if I'm scared of the reaction of a rather patriarchal family in South Dakota (they might write me off b/c I'm a feminist??), then I might just go the traditional route, cringing all the while. This makes for a painstaking Christmas Card mailing, pausing with each recipient, wondering how best to acknowledge them this Christmas.
The possibility that no one will either notice nor care how I acknowledge them has also occurred to me. This is both good and bad news.
But I pause with each new couple. Is the re-ordering of their family names something they'll notice? And depending on their age, socio-economic status, religious and political persuasions, etc, is this reordering something they'll be offended by? Additionally, I suspect everyone getting our Christmas card will know that I am the main composer and signer-offer on it, that it's the woman in the Weber family making these executive decisions on how to order names. Will they, therefore, perceive these address decisions as the subversion I intend them to be? I prefer it not be so noticeable, and prefer to subtly sneak my female-affirming greeting into their lives, catch one of those mothers or wives off-guard with the site of her name first leaping off the line of greeting in our Christmas letter. How refreshing, I imagine.
At the same time I want affirmative action in these lines of greetings, I am also an egalitarian, and I"m conflicted by the desire to make up for centuries of female-identity-subsumed-under-male-identity (by listing female names first consistently) with a desire for fairness, to affirm the importance of both the sexes in the present.
So it turns out, none of my lines of greeting take the same format. If I address the family as "Susan, Mike and kids" I might find myself signing off with "Mark, Heather, and kids," and if I'm scared of the reaction of a rather patriarchal family in South Dakota (they might write me off b/c I'm a feminist??), then I might just go the traditional route, cringing all the while. This makes for a painstaking Christmas Card mailing, pausing with each recipient, wondering how best to acknowledge them this Christmas.
The possibility that no one will either notice nor care how I acknowledge them has also occurred to me. This is both good and bad news.
Monday, November 19, 2007
Holy Family Faberge-Style Egg
This advertisement is funnier if you can imagine it being spoken by a deep male voice, very stiff, very paced.
"And for your gift of 25 dollars a month or 250 dollars one time, [Paul and Jan would] like to send this beautiful Holy Family Faberge-Style Egg, decorated with sparkling jewel-like emblems. This fabergé-style egg is a special work of art you’ll want to display year round. Inside is the Holy Family gathered around the greatest miracle of all: the Christ child, who would become the savior of the world. Send your love gift to TBN at post office box...."
Covert Christian TV Fundraising
I won't comment yet. But here's what I watched during an illness-induced moment of weakness today, as I lay on the couch recovering from a head cold.
I flip on TBN to the Paula White show. I've never seen her before. She looks about thirty, thin, blonde, made up. The shows almost over and she's wrapping up a few main points from, presumably, her show's topic today....
"...And then the third key is this: Give thanks to him and bless his name. To be thankful means 'to hold out the hand and to throw, especially to revere or worship with extended hands.' Someone once said, 'Paula, why do you lift your hands when you worship?'
If someone came and held you up at gunpoint, and the first thing you would do is you lift your hands. What are you saying? I surrender. So worship--which I’m going to teach you in a program real soon--worship is this: 'God, this isn’t about me.' It’s a surrendered life. 'I surrender. You are lord. You’re lord over my life. I extend my hands to you to say I live a surrendered life. This isn’t about Paula. This is about you.' And so it says to be thankful and bless [here the text from Psalm 100:4 appears overlaying a field of wheat]. 'Bless' means 'to kneel as an act of adoration.' So not only do we extend up, but we also get down, we kneel, saying, 'God I understand that you are Lord over my life. And I kneel as an act of adoration, reverence and respect for who you are.'
God wants to show up in your life. I challenge you right now. Don’t miss out on the spiritual possibilities that God wants to give to you. There is a passage that you have right now, a portal to enter into his gates, into his portal and to receive the presence of God in a very profound way. But you have to do it this way: You have to bring him a thanks offering. It’s the first thing.
What do you mean Paula? [one might ask] Just like what I taught: What is the value of God in your life? Your sacrifice, YOUR sacrifice validates his value. Call that toll free number right now. Get up and go to the phone and say, 'God I want to honor you, I want to worship you. I want to denote the worthiness of your value in my life by extending my hand with a sacrifice.' And maybe it’s simply to say, 'Thank you God for the unexpected blessing.' Maybe it’s a vow for something you’re believing God for. Or maybe it’s simply to honor and recognize who God is in your life. Whatever the reason, whatever the motive, it’s the act of worship that says 'God, because of who you are, I can’t help but to sacrifice, to exchange what I call valuable for something else: your presence in my life.'
During this thanksgiving season, have an attitude of gratitude...
[At this the visual of Paula is lost. Her voice blares out over a still frame of a cornucopia filled with pumpkins, squash, apples and corn. “Honor God with a Special Thanksgiving Offering!” reads the headline at the top of the screen. Below that viewers are instructed to “include your praise report and a list of 5 things you are thankful for.”]
...and not only bring an offering to the Lord, but why don’t you write down 2 or 3, maybe 4 or 5 things you are grateful for. I promise you your perception’s going to change. As you call that number, as you go to the website, or write the p.o. box, and you extend your hand with a valuable sacrifice, a seed that magnifies who God is in your life, also write down those things, or tell that person [on the phone] what you’re grateful for. It is imperative. I believe the best is yet to come in your life. And as you do it God’s way, expect God-results."
In case Paula's message hasn't hit home yet, a deep male-announcer voice speaks as the camera pans over a thanksgiving table, feast laid out, glassware and dishes awaiting food:
"The thanksgiving season is more than turkey and dressing, family and friends. In psalm 100, we are commanded to enter his gates, ...
[the image now: double doors opening in a stone archway. Beyond the doors is a great light]
...or divine presence, with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise, to be thankful unto him and bless and honor his name.
[Image: a written list of the ‘commandments’ overlay the darkness on the viewers' side of the double doors: “1. Enter His gates with thanksgiving; 2: Into his courts with praise; 3: Be thankful unto him and bless his name."]
. . .There are two simple steps you can take. . .
[Image: a bleach-blonde viewer with perm-curly hair in her twenties, with frosted blue eyeshadow, sits on her living room sofa and smiles at the camera. Underneath her are the words “A Spirit of Thanksgiving”. Quickly the image changes to an African-American (?) couple who are nestling into one another, looking VERY thankful. The man is kissing the woman's cheek and wraps his arms around her shoulders as they both look up and smile at the camera]
. . .to come before God with a spirit of thanksgiving. [1] Give the Lord a special thanksgiving offering today as an act of gratitude for the things he has done and will do in your life by calling toll-free, writing, or visiting on-line and sowing into God’s kingdom through the worldwide outreach of Paula White ministries. 2) write down five things you are thankful for and include them when you write. In appreciation for your best thanksgiving offering unto God, Paula will send you her newest teaching series, “An Attitude of Gratitude,” featuring five messages on your choice of CD or DVD. Enter through his gates of thanksgiving this year through a life of greater blessing through an ‘Attitude of Gratitude.’
I flip on TBN to the Paula White show. I've never seen her before. She looks about thirty, thin, blonde, made up. The shows almost over and she's wrapping up a few main points from, presumably, her show's topic today....
"...And then the third key is this: Give thanks to him and bless his name. To be thankful means 'to hold out the hand and to throw, especially to revere or worship with extended hands.' Someone once said, 'Paula, why do you lift your hands when you worship?'
If someone came and held you up at gunpoint, and the first thing you would do is you lift your hands. What are you saying? I surrender. So worship--which I’m going to teach you in a program real soon--worship is this: 'God, this isn’t about me.' It’s a surrendered life. 'I surrender. You are lord. You’re lord over my life. I extend my hands to you to say I live a surrendered life. This isn’t about Paula. This is about you.' And so it says to be thankful and bless [here the text from Psalm 100:4 appears overlaying a field of wheat]. 'Bless' means 'to kneel as an act of adoration.' So not only do we extend up, but we also get down, we kneel, saying, 'God I understand that you are Lord over my life. And I kneel as an act of adoration, reverence and respect for who you are.'
God wants to show up in your life. I challenge you right now. Don’t miss out on the spiritual possibilities that God wants to give to you. There is a passage that you have right now, a portal to enter into his gates, into his portal and to receive the presence of God in a very profound way. But you have to do it this way: You have to bring him a thanks offering. It’s the first thing.
What do you mean Paula? [one might ask] Just like what I taught: What is the value of God in your life? Your sacrifice, YOUR sacrifice validates his value. Call that toll free number right now. Get up and go to the phone and say, 'God I want to honor you, I want to worship you. I want to denote the worthiness of your value in my life by extending my hand with a sacrifice.' And maybe it’s simply to say, 'Thank you God for the unexpected blessing.' Maybe it’s a vow for something you’re believing God for. Or maybe it’s simply to honor and recognize who God is in your life. Whatever the reason, whatever the motive, it’s the act of worship that says 'God, because of who you are, I can’t help but to sacrifice, to exchange what I call valuable for something else: your presence in my life.'
During this thanksgiving season, have an attitude of gratitude...
[At this the visual of Paula is lost. Her voice blares out over a still frame of a cornucopia filled with pumpkins, squash, apples and corn. “Honor God with a Special Thanksgiving Offering!” reads the headline at the top of the screen. Below that viewers are instructed to “include your praise report and a list of 5 things you are thankful for.”]
...and not only bring an offering to the Lord, but why don’t you write down 2 or 3, maybe 4 or 5 things you are grateful for. I promise you your perception’s going to change. As you call that number, as you go to the website, or write the p.o. box, and you extend your hand with a valuable sacrifice, a seed that magnifies who God is in your life, also write down those things, or tell that person [on the phone] what you’re grateful for. It is imperative. I believe the best is yet to come in your life. And as you do it God’s way, expect God-results."
In case Paula's message hasn't hit home yet, a deep male-announcer voice speaks as the camera pans over a thanksgiving table, feast laid out, glassware and dishes awaiting food:
"The thanksgiving season is more than turkey and dressing, family and friends. In psalm 100, we are commanded to enter his gates, ...
[the image now: double doors opening in a stone archway. Beyond the doors is a great light]
...or divine presence, with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise, to be thankful unto him and bless and honor his name.
[Image: a written list of the ‘commandments’ overlay the darkness on the viewers' side of the double doors: “1. Enter His gates with thanksgiving; 2: Into his courts with praise; 3: Be thankful unto him and bless his name."]
. . .There are two simple steps you can take. . .
[Image: a bleach-blonde viewer with perm-curly hair in her twenties, with frosted blue eyeshadow, sits on her living room sofa and smiles at the camera. Underneath her are the words “A Spirit of Thanksgiving”. Quickly the image changes to an African-American (?) couple who are nestling into one another, looking VERY thankful. The man is kissing the woman's cheek and wraps his arms around her shoulders as they both look up and smile at the camera]
. . .to come before God with a spirit of thanksgiving. [1] Give the Lord a special thanksgiving offering today as an act of gratitude for the things he has done and will do in your life by calling toll-free, writing, or visiting on-line and sowing into God’s kingdom through the worldwide outreach of Paula White ministries. 2) write down five things you are thankful for and include them when you write. In appreciation for your best thanksgiving offering unto God, Paula will send you her newest teaching series, “An Attitude of Gratitude,” featuring five messages on your choice of CD or DVD. Enter through his gates of thanksgiving this year through a life of greater blessing through an ‘Attitude of Gratitude.’
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Mom's Group
This morning I went to a woman's/mom's group at a church in town. They have a nice set up: child care for a suggested donation of $2; the moms go to their own room, where they help themselves to coffee, pastries and fresh fruit. Each week, guest speakers pontificate on the theme for that week. Today it was "Transitions in Motherhood." Someone with a microphone in hand elaborated on the specifics of the topic: entering the workforce after having children. After the speakers talked, each table of women discussed the topical questions for the morning.
I left depressed. "That was hard," I told Kate afterwards. Kate attends twice per month. "I don't know how you do that." The odd thing was I couldn't articulate fully what teh problem was. It's not like anyone said one specific thing that knocked the wind out of me. It was more the sum of little things expressed that helped to construct the big picture for me--a picture of the mindset of many of these women in regard to motherhood, marriage and friendship with God.
I've learned, for instance, that the new hip thing to be these days is "Real." "Being Real" is the end game, from the way the first speaker talked about it. "I wish I could get up here and say I'm perfect and I've got all my issues straightened out, but I don't," she confessed. "I'm far from perfect!" She laughed and smiled and ended her talk soon after that, leaving us with the impression that simply saying you're having a hard time in life is tantamount to dealing with it and getting somewhere. Later, when a question from an audience member was directed at her [How do you overcome what others will think of you? How do you start beign real?], the speaker crossed her arms over her chest defensively and shrugged. I don't know, she said. I guess I just realized that my friends still liked me even when I went through hard times.
Some of the women at our discussion table expressed appreciation for people who could "be real and say 'I struggle with that, too.'" But I wonder if politely saying, "I struggle with that" is the same thing as Being Real. Saying "I struggle with that" is easy for me and doesn't involve a lot of emotional risk. What's hard (and humbling) is calling Kate up when I'm about to start sobbing from whiny children, and tell her I can't handle it. When I think of Being Real, I think of prayer times I've allowed myself to speak, uncensored, and cry if I needed to. Scream if I needed to. But that brings up the issue of prayer requests at this mom's group, which are written down at the end of our table's discussion and then emailed to, presumably, all forty women at the meeting. A women at my table was having trouble with her stepchildren questioning her authority. Another has a child with a severe developmental problem. Another "needs wisdom" on how to confront her parents. We don't, of course, talk about any of those things other than to get the story straight in order to write it down. The mother with the child with the developmental problem only alludes to her concern over the cost of diagnostic testing and the fact that she is worried over her son.
What's also in the water at this church is the idea that wives are called to aid/abet/assist their husbands in whatever they so desire. If husband wants to start a restaurant, she should not argue. If husband wants to move to Kenya, she should say "Okay, honey. What should I pack first." The oft-quoted-from text this morning was the book "Created to Be His Helpmeet," which gives wives handy profiles of the three main types of husbands and how one should tailor her responses based on the kind of husband she has. As one discussion group member put it, "If I say that it'll make him mad. So I better not say it."
What some of my discussion group also found inspiring was the idea of a "Priorities Umbrella System." It looks like this. "My relationship with God comes first. THen my marriage. My relationship with God is like an umbrella that covers my marriage and my marriage is the umbrella that covers my children." "How do we put our marriage (i.e. our husbands) first?" one of the questions asked. Our discussion facilitator described how it's hard for her to be constantly thinking about showing more love to her husband than the children. "He comes home and I'm cutting the kids' food and getting the drinks at dinner time and [she enacts looking over her shoulder] i'm like, 'how was your day?' So then my husband feels left out and asks when he gets to have time with me...." In this scene she paints, her husband appears entirely inactive. He is not helping cut chicken or green beans for the children. It's almost as if it's completley her job to figure out how to balance everything, make the kids disapear for a little while so she can be with the hubby. In the picture she paints he comes off in a bad light, a little spoiled, with little agency other than to whine, yet getting dinner and his wife handed to him on a silver platter.
I left depressed. "That was hard," I told Kate afterwards. Kate attends twice per month. "I don't know how you do that." The odd thing was I couldn't articulate fully what teh problem was. It's not like anyone said one specific thing that knocked the wind out of me. It was more the sum of little things expressed that helped to construct the big picture for me--a picture of the mindset of many of these women in regard to motherhood, marriage and friendship with God.
I've learned, for instance, that the new hip thing to be these days is "Real." "Being Real" is the end game, from the way the first speaker talked about it. "I wish I could get up here and say I'm perfect and I've got all my issues straightened out, but I don't," she confessed. "I'm far from perfect!" She laughed and smiled and ended her talk soon after that, leaving us with the impression that simply saying you're having a hard time in life is tantamount to dealing with it and getting somewhere. Later, when a question from an audience member was directed at her [How do you overcome what others will think of you? How do you start beign real?], the speaker crossed her arms over her chest defensively and shrugged. I don't know, she said. I guess I just realized that my friends still liked me even when I went through hard times.
Some of the women at our discussion table expressed appreciation for people who could "be real and say 'I struggle with that, too.'" But I wonder if politely saying, "I struggle with that" is the same thing as Being Real. Saying "I struggle with that" is easy for me and doesn't involve a lot of emotional risk. What's hard (and humbling) is calling Kate up when I'm about to start sobbing from whiny children, and tell her I can't handle it. When I think of Being Real, I think of prayer times I've allowed myself to speak, uncensored, and cry if I needed to. Scream if I needed to. But that brings up the issue of prayer requests at this mom's group, which are written down at the end of our table's discussion and then emailed to, presumably, all forty women at the meeting. A women at my table was having trouble with her stepchildren questioning her authority. Another has a child with a severe developmental problem. Another "needs wisdom" on how to confront her parents. We don't, of course, talk about any of those things other than to get the story straight in order to write it down. The mother with the child with the developmental problem only alludes to her concern over the cost of diagnostic testing and the fact that she is worried over her son.
What's also in the water at this church is the idea that wives are called to aid/abet/assist their husbands in whatever they so desire. If husband wants to start a restaurant, she should not argue. If husband wants to move to Kenya, she should say "Okay, honey. What should I pack first." The oft-quoted-from text this morning was the book "Created to Be His Helpmeet," which gives wives handy profiles of the three main types of husbands and how one should tailor her responses based on the kind of husband she has. As one discussion group member put it, "If I say that it'll make him mad. So I better not say it."
What some of my discussion group also found inspiring was the idea of a "Priorities Umbrella System." It looks like this. "My relationship with God comes first. THen my marriage. My relationship with God is like an umbrella that covers my marriage and my marriage is the umbrella that covers my children." "How do we put our marriage (i.e. our husbands) first?" one of the questions asked. Our discussion facilitator described how it's hard for her to be constantly thinking about showing more love to her husband than the children. "He comes home and I'm cutting the kids' food and getting the drinks at dinner time and [she enacts looking over her shoulder] i'm like, 'how was your day?' So then my husband feels left out and asks when he gets to have time with me...." In this scene she paints, her husband appears entirely inactive. He is not helping cut chicken or green beans for the children. It's almost as if it's completley her job to figure out how to balance everything, make the kids disapear for a little while so she can be with the hubby. In the picture she paints he comes off in a bad light, a little spoiled, with little agency other than to whine, yet getting dinner and his wife handed to him on a silver platter.
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Musing on Church Growth Strategies
I keep wondering what would happen if the flyer (see "Church Flyer," posted 9/28) advertised Jesus in the same way it advertised the pastor. What would it say?
TWO THOUSAND YEAR CHAMPION OVER ALL YOUR SICKNESSES
PROVEN CURE FOR DEPRESSION
WHO'S WHO AMONG DOCTORS
WORLD RECORD FOR RAISING PEOPLE FROM THE DEAD
I'm not advocating this as an effective method for getting people in your door for church. If anything, I think the new church in town will get more people in the door with the football angle. Althought I doubt they will be a very desperate demographic and it seems like, in the Bible anyway, the desperate people were the ones who got healed the most. Not that Jesus isn't madly in love with the football fans.
I was talking to a pastor recently about different church growth strategies. His friend has a church where people get healed all the time. You'd think that would be an effective church growth strategy--cancer cured in a church service?? But he says his friend's church is not "seeker friendly." The pastor of that church readily admits people walk in and walk out because, along with the healings are all these other odd-looking things happenign in the church, like bodies splayed out along the aisles in worship before the service even starts, and, I imagine, people whooping and hollering.
Still, I can't help but believe that the power of the Gospel could speak for itself. Wouldn't healings at the mall, at Wal-Mart, at the park be sufficient introduction to Jesus? Wouldn't that be better than door prizes and gimmicky slogans for getting people into church?
Is the only reason we're working so hard on church growth strategies because we've lost the power of the gospel? Whatever power those first century church Christians had we've seen only glimpses of. But wherever the glimpses are in the world, those are the places church programs and slogans become irrelevant because the Gospel is speaking for itself.
The other thing is the Church is currently operating on such a top-down model: get people to church, then introduce them to Jesus. In the old days, people met Jesus and then they were the church.
TWO THOUSAND YEAR CHAMPION OVER ALL YOUR SICKNESSES
PROVEN CURE FOR DEPRESSION
WHO'S WHO AMONG DOCTORS
WORLD RECORD FOR RAISING PEOPLE FROM THE DEAD
I'm not advocating this as an effective method for getting people in your door for church. If anything, I think the new church in town will get more people in the door with the football angle. Althought I doubt they will be a very desperate demographic and it seems like, in the Bible anyway, the desperate people were the ones who got healed the most. Not that Jesus isn't madly in love with the football fans.
I was talking to a pastor recently about different church growth strategies. His friend has a church where people get healed all the time. You'd think that would be an effective church growth strategy--cancer cured in a church service?? But he says his friend's church is not "seeker friendly." The pastor of that church readily admits people walk in and walk out because, along with the healings are all these other odd-looking things happenign in the church, like bodies splayed out along the aisles in worship before the service even starts, and, I imagine, people whooping and hollering.
Still, I can't help but believe that the power of the Gospel could speak for itself. Wouldn't healings at the mall, at Wal-Mart, at the park be sufficient introduction to Jesus? Wouldn't that be better than door prizes and gimmicky slogans for getting people into church?
Is the only reason we're working so hard on church growth strategies because we've lost the power of the gospel? Whatever power those first century church Christians had we've seen only glimpses of. But wherever the glimpses are in the world, those are the places church programs and slogans become irrelevant because the Gospel is speaking for itself.
The other thing is the Church is currently operating on such a top-down model: get people to church, then introduce them to Jesus. In the old days, people met Jesus and then they were the church.
Monday, October 01, 2007
Gender and Design
Have you ever experienced God in spite of stupid preaching?
I visited a "prayer center" over the weekend that I'd heard a lot about. Apparently, in the year it's been running, they've seen forty-some miracles--healings, I presume. The prayer center wasn't an actual church, but a place staffed by multiple denominations where prayer and worship take place 24/7. On Saturday nights, they have a service, sort of. This is what I went to. I was not disappointed. I could feel God's presence during the music time, felt like I could almost go to sleep--not from boredom, but from this sweet feeling that God was very close, almost like I was wearing him as a jacket zipped snug across my chest. When the music ended I wanted to lay myself out on the floor and just sit with that feeling I was having.
I tried to keep my eyes open, though, for the guy who was speaking that night. His topic was somethign about beign dependent on God and how our culture fosters independence, which seems, in a sense, counterintuitive to the idea of following Christ and trusting him to meet our needs. I don't think this dude was in any way advocating blowing all your rent money on an LCD screen TV because Jesus can take care of the rent. Rather, his focus was on the way our attitudes are shaped toward independence, without acknowledgement of God's ability to care for us. We were designed for dependence, he said.
Then he tried to give an illustration to show how badly things go when we are not fitting our intended design. He said he hopes his daughters will continue to live with him until the day they are married. Because God designed for their husbands to meet all their needs. What's the point of them moving out and learning all this independence they'll "have to undo" once they get married? Wouldn't that be counterintuitive to send them out in the world to be somethign they're not designed to be?
What did he even mean? Here are the things I can think of that you learn when you live on your own: balancing a checkbook, grocery shopping, taking out trash, doing laundry, cooking.
Are these things he means will be good for a woman to unlearn when she gets married? As far as I know, with the exception of balancing the checkbook and taking out trash, these are all the stereotypical roles a woman will take on during marriage--domestic work, regardless of whether she has a job outside the home as well.
Not that I am in any way advocating these stereotypes, but does he expect them to sit on their asses and eat bon bons or something? These chivalrous metaphors of marriage people subscribe to seem to run away from them at times. The metaphor might serve some need to make romantic sense of the world, but when they start talking about what it looks like practically (laundry, trash, groceries) it doesn't make any sense. It doesn't serve them even in the way they think it does.
"Do you guys get me?" He asked
I shook my head no.
The guy a few rows in front of me nodded his head vehemently yes.
*
With some relief, what I concluded after my visit was: God is truly alive and well in the Midwest. Hence, the miracles, his sweet presence, and the peace I felt.
Additionally, I concluded: Dear God, he is in THE MIDWEST, working his way through in spite of stupid stupid cultural paradigms.
I visited a "prayer center" over the weekend that I'd heard a lot about. Apparently, in the year it's been running, they've seen forty-some miracles--healings, I presume. The prayer center wasn't an actual church, but a place staffed by multiple denominations where prayer and worship take place 24/7. On Saturday nights, they have a service, sort of. This is what I went to. I was not disappointed. I could feel God's presence during the music time, felt like I could almost go to sleep--not from boredom, but from this sweet feeling that God was very close, almost like I was wearing him as a jacket zipped snug across my chest. When the music ended I wanted to lay myself out on the floor and just sit with that feeling I was having.
I tried to keep my eyes open, though, for the guy who was speaking that night. His topic was somethign about beign dependent on God and how our culture fosters independence, which seems, in a sense, counterintuitive to the idea of following Christ and trusting him to meet our needs. I don't think this dude was in any way advocating blowing all your rent money on an LCD screen TV because Jesus can take care of the rent. Rather, his focus was on the way our attitudes are shaped toward independence, without acknowledgement of God's ability to care for us. We were designed for dependence, he said.
Then he tried to give an illustration to show how badly things go when we are not fitting our intended design. He said he hopes his daughters will continue to live with him until the day they are married. Because God designed for their husbands to meet all their needs. What's the point of them moving out and learning all this independence they'll "have to undo" once they get married? Wouldn't that be counterintuitive to send them out in the world to be somethign they're not designed to be?
What did he even mean? Here are the things I can think of that you learn when you live on your own: balancing a checkbook, grocery shopping, taking out trash, doing laundry, cooking.
Are these things he means will be good for a woman to unlearn when she gets married? As far as I know, with the exception of balancing the checkbook and taking out trash, these are all the stereotypical roles a woman will take on during marriage--domestic work, regardless of whether she has a job outside the home as well.
Not that I am in any way advocating these stereotypes, but does he expect them to sit on their asses and eat bon bons or something? These chivalrous metaphors of marriage people subscribe to seem to run away from them at times. The metaphor might serve some need to make romantic sense of the world, but when they start talking about what it looks like practically (laundry, trash, groceries) it doesn't make any sense. It doesn't serve them even in the way they think it does.
"Do you guys get me?" He asked
I shook my head no.
The guy a few rows in front of me nodded his head vehemently yes.
*
With some relief, what I concluded after my visit was: God is truly alive and well in the Midwest. Hence, the miracles, his sweet presence, and the peace I felt.
Additionally, I concluded: Dear God, he is in THE MIDWEST, working his way through in spite of stupid stupid cultural paradigms.
Rules-To-Live-By
My friend Kate and I were talking about the flyer today.
She said she thinks there's this move away from Jesus-centered evangelism toward a more Tony Robbins/Deepak Chopra rules-to-live-by approach that may be based on biblical principles.
For example, she said, there's this new guy who's writing all sorts of books. She hadn't read them, but none of them appeared to be overtly Jesus-centered.
I knew exactly who she meant. I saw him on TBN (yes, I'm guilty of watching, only because I want to know what's going on in Christian-TV land) last week for the very first time. I've heard tons about this guy. He's got a mega church in the south, a friendly drawl and a wide-mouthed smile that doesn't go away when he talks. When I saw him he was preaching to what appeared to be a stadium full of happy-looking couples. He was talking about relationships.
He said it's important to get to know the people in our lives. What makes them tick? What makes them upset, angry? What do they need in order to live a peaceful existence? And what can we do to help them achieve that?
For instance, I told Kate, he said 'men,' [wink wink], 'you know that a certain time of the month for our wives...is sensitive. That's not the time to be making big decisions....' not the time to have conversations about important issues, etc etc."
("Because we don't have a brain?" Kate asked.)
Mr. Smiley Preacher was full of more examples of how we can get along and have peace with the people in our lives. His own life is a virutal handbook of fallenness and redemption. 1) He used to sort of ignore his kids when they'd come in his office while he works. Now he knows how important it is to give him his full attention for two minutes, to let them know he cares. 2)Because he works at home, his wife loves to join him for lunch. But on those days when he was working on his sermons, he'd be so engrossed that he could hardly engage with her in conversation. He'd nod, say 'yeah yeah' but not get too involved. One day he had an epiphany that that wasn't "fair" to his wife. He apologized. And now, **drumroll please** she doesn't eat lunch with him on those days he's working on the sermon. He never asked her not to. She just stopped coming in because she understands and respects him. And we can show respect to our own spouses in similar ways. When your spouse comes home from a long day at work, that's not the proper time to tell them that the toilet broke today or the hamster died or whatever.
We should also pay attention to the fact that what our SPOUSE needs to unwind is not what we need to unwind. "Sometimes i just tell V. to take a little trip to the mall. And when she comes back, she's a new person!"
To be fair, I only heard about half an hour of this, but it all seems reasonably Jesus-free, not to mention some of it midly co-dependent.
She said she thinks there's this move away from Jesus-centered evangelism toward a more Tony Robbins/Deepak Chopra rules-to-live-by approach that may be based on biblical principles.
For example, she said, there's this new guy who's writing all sorts of books. She hadn't read them, but none of them appeared to be overtly Jesus-centered.
I knew exactly who she meant. I saw him on TBN (yes, I'm guilty of watching, only because I want to know what's going on in Christian-TV land) last week for the very first time. I've heard tons about this guy. He's got a mega church in the south, a friendly drawl and a wide-mouthed smile that doesn't go away when he talks. When I saw him he was preaching to what appeared to be a stadium full of happy-looking couples. He was talking about relationships.
He said it's important to get to know the people in our lives. What makes them tick? What makes them upset, angry? What do they need in order to live a peaceful existence? And what can we do to help them achieve that?
For instance, I told Kate, he said 'men,' [wink wink], 'you know that a certain time of the month for our wives...is sensitive. That's not the time to be making big decisions....' not the time to have conversations about important issues, etc etc."
("Because we don't have a brain?" Kate asked.)
Mr. Smiley Preacher was full of more examples of how we can get along and have peace with the people in our lives. His own life is a virutal handbook of fallenness and redemption. 1) He used to sort of ignore his kids when they'd come in his office while he works. Now he knows how important it is to give him his full attention for two minutes, to let them know he cares. 2)Because he works at home, his wife loves to join him for lunch. But on those days when he was working on his sermons, he'd be so engrossed that he could hardly engage with her in conversation. He'd nod, say 'yeah yeah' but not get too involved. One day he had an epiphany that that wasn't "fair" to his wife. He apologized. And now, **drumroll please** she doesn't eat lunch with him on those days he's working on the sermon. He never asked her not to. She just stopped coming in because she understands and respects him. And we can show respect to our own spouses in similar ways. When your spouse comes home from a long day at work, that's not the proper time to tell them that the toilet broke today or the hamster died or whatever.
We should also pay attention to the fact that what our SPOUSE needs to unwind is not what we need to unwind. "Sometimes i just tell V. to take a little trip to the mall. And when she comes back, she's a new person!"
To be fair, I only heard about half an hour of this, but it all seems reasonably Jesus-free, not to mention some of it midly co-dependent.
Friday, September 28, 2007
Church Flyer
I got a flyer in the mail last week from a new church in town. I've met the pastor and his wife. They seem normal.
The thing that struck me about their flyer is that you almost couldn't tell it was for a church. Sure it did say "Join us for the grand opening at Coralville's Newest church", but the front of the flyer had a guy in an Iowa Hawkeyes sweatshirt holding a football, next to the question, "Who is this champion coach?"
On the flip side was a little bio of the pastor, next to his grinning mug shot: "Meet a guy who will bring out the 'champion' in you. Someone who has proven not all champions eat their wheaties. Rather there is a Champion in us all! Joe Smith* is a 9 time coach of the year with over 700 career wins and 35 championshis. This former principal is a 23 year school veteran who has coached football, basketball, and baseball. He is a Disney educator of the year finalist, and a 3 time Who's Who Among American Teachers. Joe Smith is considered by many to be a master communicator and motivator who helps deal with real life issues and questions head-on. He is encouraging, funny, and passionate about providing inspiration for daily living."
Beneath Joe Smith's bio was a picture of the worship pastors, next to the heading, "What to expect at NEW CHURCH*:" with the following bulleted answers:
*CASUAL, laid back atmosphere;
*WORSHIP/MUSIC by popular artist Bill Brown*;
*EXCITING ADVENTURES for KIDS at Iowa Children's Museum, nursery-6th grade;
*A RELEVANT message that makes sense and applies to YOUR life;
*People who are ACTUALLY HAVING FUN--Bordedom Factor Zero!"
There is too much to say about this ad. I will just jump in on a small point and come back later. Here's the thing: I think people will come. People love the Iowa Hawkeyes around here. I bet people will go to church if they think it has something to do with football. Also, the Children's Museum is a huge and expensive experience that many families (if they don't already have a membership) would love to do for free. The "artist Bill Brown" leading worship is sure to be a draw as well, seeing that he's "popular."
Joe Smith has a great bio. It's the kind of thing people in Iowa City flock to--resumes, achievements. He's got instant respect, and lucky for him since he's starting a church and wants people to come (and lots of people dont' go to church). But I can't help hating the fact that this all feels so gimmicky and false. I dont' doubt for a second the sincerity of the hearts of these people, but their strategies sadden me.
Red flags go up when you have to work this hard for people to get to church. Red flags when you have to say in your flyer that people "ACTUALLY HAVE FUN" at your church. And if anyone tells me straight up, "Boredom Factor Zero," I'm willing to bet 100$ the Boredom Factor is off the charts.
The whole thing sounds club-ish, scouts-ish, as well as corporate. I hate clubs, and I hate companies that try to sell themselves on their "authentic," "fun," and "personal" streaks. If you have to sell yourself, then that doesn't make it authentic, fun, or personal.
I understand church growth issues. I'm sure this pastor has some limited funding from the mothership (his church's denominational headquarters). The funding will last so many months. When it stops, he better have a congregation of some sort so he can feed his kids, as well as feed the other hungry people in the community, pay rent the theater and the children's museum, pay for advertisements, sound equipment, etc, etc, etc. And how one gets warm bodies in the door of your new church when you dont' know anyone else in town is you advertise. You get a couple shots through the USPS with your limited budget and you have to take your best--say what you need in order to get those people through the door. And then, after you tell them about Jesus, maybe some of them will stick around.
This doesn't make it any easier.
*not his real name
The thing that struck me about their flyer is that you almost couldn't tell it was for a church. Sure it did say "Join us for the grand opening at Coralville's Newest church", but the front of the flyer had a guy in an Iowa Hawkeyes sweatshirt holding a football, next to the question, "Who is this champion coach?"
On the flip side was a little bio of the pastor, next to his grinning mug shot: "Meet a guy who will bring out the 'champion' in you. Someone who has proven not all champions eat their wheaties. Rather there is a Champion in us all! Joe Smith* is a 9 time coach of the year with over 700 career wins and 35 championshis. This former principal is a 23 year school veteran who has coached football, basketball, and baseball. He is a Disney educator of the year finalist, and a 3 time Who's Who Among American Teachers. Joe Smith is considered by many to be a master communicator and motivator who helps deal with real life issues and questions head-on. He is encouraging, funny, and passionate about providing inspiration for daily living."
Beneath Joe Smith's bio was a picture of the worship pastors, next to the heading, "What to expect at NEW CHURCH*:" with the following bulleted answers:
*CASUAL, laid back atmosphere;
*WORSHIP/MUSIC by popular artist Bill Brown*;
*EXCITING ADVENTURES for KIDS at Iowa Children's Museum, nursery-6th grade;
*A RELEVANT message that makes sense and applies to YOUR life;
*People who are ACTUALLY HAVING FUN--Bordedom Factor Zero!"
There is too much to say about this ad. I will just jump in on a small point and come back later. Here's the thing: I think people will come. People love the Iowa Hawkeyes around here. I bet people will go to church if they think it has something to do with football. Also, the Children's Museum is a huge and expensive experience that many families (if they don't already have a membership) would love to do for free. The "artist Bill Brown" leading worship is sure to be a draw as well, seeing that he's "popular."
Joe Smith has a great bio. It's the kind of thing people in Iowa City flock to--resumes, achievements. He's got instant respect, and lucky for him since he's starting a church and wants people to come (and lots of people dont' go to church). But I can't help hating the fact that this all feels so gimmicky and false. I dont' doubt for a second the sincerity of the hearts of these people, but their strategies sadden me.
Red flags go up when you have to work this hard for people to get to church. Red flags when you have to say in your flyer that people "ACTUALLY HAVE FUN" at your church. And if anyone tells me straight up, "Boredom Factor Zero," I'm willing to bet 100$ the Boredom Factor is off the charts.
The whole thing sounds club-ish, scouts-ish, as well as corporate. I hate clubs, and I hate companies that try to sell themselves on their "authentic," "fun," and "personal" streaks. If you have to sell yourself, then that doesn't make it authentic, fun, or personal.
I understand church growth issues. I'm sure this pastor has some limited funding from the mothership (his church's denominational headquarters). The funding will last so many months. When it stops, he better have a congregation of some sort so he can feed his kids, as well as feed the other hungry people in the community, pay rent the theater and the children's museum, pay for advertisements, sound equipment, etc, etc, etc. And how one gets warm bodies in the door of your new church when you dont' know anyone else in town is you advertise. You get a couple shots through the USPS with your limited budget and you have to take your best--say what you need in order to get those people through the door. And then, after you tell them about Jesus, maybe some of them will stick around.
This doesn't make it any easier.
*not his real name
When I Say It's "Always the Boys",
(see previous post), I am merely reporting fact. The boys in Una's class have, so far, been the violent ones. I sure hope nobody takes this as evidence of an innate difference between girls and boys. That would be unfair, especially since girls are taught to coo at plastic baby dolls and do the cradle-hold while boys are handed water guns and light sabers and video games that are won through physical prowess.
Sometimes I think we're just plain stupid. We turn around after handing out light sabers and say, "Golly, gee, boys are so aggressive"
There's a boy in Una's class, M. The only way he knows how to interact is physical. Give him a car, he'll pound it on a kid's forehead. Smile at him, he'll start running after you, clobber on the shoulder if he can catch up. For no apparent reason, M smashed Una's face into the drinking fountain while she was getting a drink--the first day of school.
The worst part about his behavior is that it causes people not to like him. Even grown ups who should know better. Every other parent dropping their kindergartener off seems annoyed at M's behavior, and therefore annoyed at M. And there are few kind words spoken in his direction. I was one of those parents the first couple weeks, and then I wondered who was going to love this kid? Who was goign to love him out of his crazy, mixed-up, ways of relating. If he kept it up, he'd get more ostracized, and even less capable of connecting with the rest of the world.
I decided to be nice when he walked up to the line the other morning. And not just nice--but engaged. "Hey James," I said, as if he were my favorite kid. "How are you?" All the other parents stared at me.
M stared at me. Then he stopped walking and smiled. He turned around so I could see his backpack imprinted with the image of Lightening McQueen. "Cars," he told me and smiled.
"Cars. Very cool," I said back.
He went to stand in the end of the line, and that day, I don't think he punched or grabbed anyone while waiting for the bell.
Sometimes I think we're just plain stupid. We turn around after handing out light sabers and say, "Golly, gee, boys are so aggressive"
There's a boy in Una's class, M. The only way he knows how to interact is physical. Give him a car, he'll pound it on a kid's forehead. Smile at him, he'll start running after you, clobber on the shoulder if he can catch up. For no apparent reason, M smashed Una's face into the drinking fountain while she was getting a drink--the first day of school.
The worst part about his behavior is that it causes people not to like him. Even grown ups who should know better. Every other parent dropping their kindergartener off seems annoyed at M's behavior, and therefore annoyed at M. And there are few kind words spoken in his direction. I was one of those parents the first couple weeks, and then I wondered who was going to love this kid? Who was goign to love him out of his crazy, mixed-up, ways of relating. If he kept it up, he'd get more ostracized, and even less capable of connecting with the rest of the world.
I decided to be nice when he walked up to the line the other morning. And not just nice--but engaged. "Hey James," I said, as if he were my favorite kid. "How are you?" All the other parents stared at me.
M stared at me. Then he stopped walking and smiled. He turned around so I could see his backpack imprinted with the image of Lightening McQueen. "Cars," he told me and smiled.
"Cars. Very cool," I said back.
He went to stand in the end of the line, and that day, I don't think he punched or grabbed anyone while waiting for the bell.
More on Kindergarten Relationships (and meditations on Grown Up Relationships)
I told J's parents about the conversation (see previous post) at the school carnival. I was in line behind them with the kids, who were waiting for five minutes on a big bouncer the school rented for the event. J's parents are both educators in our community, at different schools. His dad laughs when I tell the story, though underneath the laugh I think I hear a mild groan.
My first encounter with J is at school the following week. I join Una and her class at lunch time in the cafeteria and J sits across the table from us, with his carton of chocolate milk and hot lunch tray. He makes funny faces and funny noises and Una laughs like crazy. When J finishes his milk, he pounds the container with his fists and yells, "DIE! DIE! DIE!" Una, of course, thinks this is hilarious and cannot stop laughing.
That night at the school's open house, I tell J's mother about his words to the milk carton. "Sometimes I wish I could be a fly on the wall," she confesses. "Other times, I'm glad I'm not."
***
It concerns me that the boys in Una's class are so aggressive. She's been hit a number of times. Always the boys are the perpetrators of these crimes, and usually the same handful of boys, who aren't singling Una out for any special bullying. They hit all the kids.
K hit her the other day for not playing a game with him at the playground. "I told him, 'I dont' play games with people who hit me. So I'm not going to play with you.'"
I am dumbfounded when she tells me her declaration to K. Really, my child has boundaries? If it were me, well, when it was me, some 20 years ago, all I wanted was for someone to like me. Of course I was going to play dodge ball if a boy asked me to play, even if I had to drag my feet, even if I ended up getting slammed in the face with the ball and a bloody nose and the boy never stopped to see if I was okay. Of course I would play.
Who is my child and where did she get this self-esteem?
In my early twenties even, when the "cool" friends were having an unhealthy effect on me, I could not disengage from them. I wanted them to like me. It took me getting real unhealthy before I was able to change my ways.
**
Jesus said to pray for those who persecute us. To love our enemies. I used to think that the final word on an unhealthy relationship was to avoid the unhealthy person at all costs. I've learned that may be necessary when I'm in self-preservation mode, i.e., when I lack the strength to deal with an emotionally unstable person. But once I get some strength, fill up on what God has for me, I am beginning to see he's calling me to a more active form of love. Not just theoretical love from a distance. Which is why I tell Una it's okay not to play with kids if their gonna be mean, but we can still be kind to them in other ways. Like, she can offer them the place in front of her in the line to the drinking fountain. She can help them carry their library books.
As I'm dishing out this advice, my anxiety rises. I'm calling myself to a higher standard by telling her this. I know pro-active loving of my enemies sure doesn't come naturally or easy for me.
I was encouraged by my daughter though. At the open house last week, her teacher said, "Una was real sweet when K. apologized. She said, 'I forgive you.' " In all her years of teaching, Mrs. C. said she'd never heard a kindergartener forgive before.
My first encounter with J is at school the following week. I join Una and her class at lunch time in the cafeteria and J sits across the table from us, with his carton of chocolate milk and hot lunch tray. He makes funny faces and funny noises and Una laughs like crazy. When J finishes his milk, he pounds the container with his fists and yells, "DIE! DIE! DIE!" Una, of course, thinks this is hilarious and cannot stop laughing.
That night at the school's open house, I tell J's mother about his words to the milk carton. "Sometimes I wish I could be a fly on the wall," she confesses. "Other times, I'm glad I'm not."
***
It concerns me that the boys in Una's class are so aggressive. She's been hit a number of times. Always the boys are the perpetrators of these crimes, and usually the same handful of boys, who aren't singling Una out for any special bullying. They hit all the kids.
K hit her the other day for not playing a game with him at the playground. "I told him, 'I dont' play games with people who hit me. So I'm not going to play with you.'"
I am dumbfounded when she tells me her declaration to K. Really, my child has boundaries? If it were me, well, when it was me, some 20 years ago, all I wanted was for someone to like me. Of course I was going to play dodge ball if a boy asked me to play, even if I had to drag my feet, even if I ended up getting slammed in the face with the ball and a bloody nose and the boy never stopped to see if I was okay. Of course I would play.
Who is my child and where did she get this self-esteem?
In my early twenties even, when the "cool" friends were having an unhealthy effect on me, I could not disengage from them. I wanted them to like me. It took me getting real unhealthy before I was able to change my ways.
**
Jesus said to pray for those who persecute us. To love our enemies. I used to think that the final word on an unhealthy relationship was to avoid the unhealthy person at all costs. I've learned that may be necessary when I'm in self-preservation mode, i.e., when I lack the strength to deal with an emotionally unstable person. But once I get some strength, fill up on what God has for me, I am beginning to see he's calling me to a more active form of love. Not just theoretical love from a distance. Which is why I tell Una it's okay not to play with kids if their gonna be mean, but we can still be kind to them in other ways. Like, she can offer them the place in front of her in the line to the drinking fountain. She can help them carry their library books.
As I'm dishing out this advice, my anxiety rises. I'm calling myself to a higher standard by telling her this. I know pro-active loving of my enemies sure doesn't come naturally or easy for me.
I was encouraged by my daughter though. At the open house last week, her teacher said, "Una was real sweet when K. apologized. She said, 'I forgive you.' " In all her years of teaching, Mrs. C. said she'd never heard a kindergartener forgive before.
Conversation about Love with the Five-Year-Old Over Dinner
Una, the five year old, announces her new best friend is J.: "I want to marry him!"
"You want to marry him? What about Titus?"
"Well, I love titus too. I love both of them. But you know who I love the best? J.!!!!
"Really, we'll what's he like?"
"Well, he likes to play crazy games like bat girl and bat boy."
"Oh yeah, what's that?"
"It's superheros."
"Do you play with him?"
"Sometimes. He's my best friend. I love him best of all."
"And does he feel that way too. Does he like you a whole lot?"
"Well, I told him he's my best friend and he doesn't care." She shrugs.
"He said that? Wait--what did he say when you told him you liked him?"
"He just said he doesn't care." She shrugs and waves her arm as if annoyed with my question.
"Oh really? Well, honey, maybe you should find a different best friend? Usually best friends BOTH care about each other."
"But I LOVE HIM!" She begins to cry, indignant at the idea of withdrawing her love from J.
"Well, you can love him." I backtrack. "You can totally love him."
"I can?"
"In fact, Jesus says we should love people even if they don't love us, and you know, sometimes, it's true, that if we show love to people then they might love us back." This is not goign how I hoped. It sounds as if I'm proponing manipulation, when in fact I only mean that sometimes love changes people, though there aren't any guarantees.
"They do?" She hops down from the table, wipes her hands on a dishtowel and looks at me.
"Yeah, sometimes."
"Well, I"m gonna be like that." She walks out of the kitchen.
"You want to marry him? What about Titus?"
"Well, I love titus too. I love both of them. But you know who I love the best? J.!!!!
"Really, we'll what's he like?"
"Well, he likes to play crazy games like bat girl and bat boy."
"Oh yeah, what's that?"
"It's superheros."
"Do you play with him?"
"Sometimes. He's my best friend. I love him best of all."
"And does he feel that way too. Does he like you a whole lot?"
"Well, I told him he's my best friend and he doesn't care." She shrugs.
"He said that? Wait--what did he say when you told him you liked him?"
"He just said he doesn't care." She shrugs and waves her arm as if annoyed with my question.
"Oh really? Well, honey, maybe you should find a different best friend? Usually best friends BOTH care about each other."
"But I LOVE HIM!" She begins to cry, indignant at the idea of withdrawing her love from J.
"Well, you can love him." I backtrack. "You can totally love him."
"I can?"
"In fact, Jesus says we should love people even if they don't love us, and you know, sometimes, it's true, that if we show love to people then they might love us back." This is not goign how I hoped. It sounds as if I'm proponing manipulation, when in fact I only mean that sometimes love changes people, though there aren't any guarantees.
"They do?" She hops down from the table, wipes her hands on a dishtowel and looks at me.
"Yeah, sometimes."
"Well, I"m gonna be like that." She walks out of the kitchen.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
A Small-Town Girl's Perspective
I told my friend Michelle about dance class last night and she nodded her head knowingly. She grew up in a small Iowa town about thirty miles from West Liberty.
"I wasn't sure if she was serious," I told Michelle, about the mother I overheard saying she would beat her daughter.
"Of course not," Michelle shook her head. According to her, it's all just talk with those sorts of moms. She said she knows them, grew up with those kinds of moms. That's how they know to parent. She herself is very kind to her children, chuckling with her son in a non-judgmental way when he comes looking for a third or fourth piece of gum after swallowing the others at the school carnival last week.
Michelle says she can probably guess how the hard-talking dance Mom looked. I described her: "She had permed, frosted hair that was short on top and came out in a triangle shape around her face."
"There you go. There you go," said Michelle, as if this explained everything. She added, "And I bet she had white canvas shoes."
Apparently, this sort of parenting occurs in a particular subculture of the Midwest. In the rural, less literate parts of Iowa, for sure. Of course there are exceptions to the stereotype, but the mean-talking seems to go along with particular mannerisms, fashion, educational achievement, and economic status.
"I wasn't sure if she was serious," I told Michelle, about the mother I overheard saying she would beat her daughter.
"Of course not," Michelle shook her head. According to her, it's all just talk with those sorts of moms. She said she knows them, grew up with those kinds of moms. That's how they know to parent. She herself is very kind to her children, chuckling with her son in a non-judgmental way when he comes looking for a third or fourth piece of gum after swallowing the others at the school carnival last week.
Michelle says she can probably guess how the hard-talking dance Mom looked. I described her: "She had permed, frosted hair that was short on top and came out in a triangle shape around her face."
"There you go. There you go," said Michelle, as if this explained everything. She added, "And I bet she had white canvas shoes."
Apparently, this sort of parenting occurs in a particular subculture of the Midwest. In the rural, less literate parts of Iowa, for sure. Of course there are exceptions to the stereotype, but the mean-talking seems to go along with particular mannerisms, fashion, educational achievement, and economic status.
Dance Class and Parents Who Beat Their Kids
Una (the five year old) just started dance classes in West Liberty last week. West Liberty is a town of about 3500 in southeastern Iowa. It is a huge Latino immigrant hotspot, with about 40% of the community having Mexican roots. The town boasts a single main street with two or three Mexican restaurants, a drug store, and an old movie theater that smells inside like musty gym socks. The New Strand plays one movie per week Friday through Sunday nights for about $2.50 and kids five and up crowd the front rows of the theater and giggle and throw popcorn while their parents sit further back, on some sort of date.
The dance classes are offered by a local pastor's wife who happens to be a good friend of my friend Kate, who went to the dance instructor's church many years ago. The dance classes are low-key for five year olds, without a lot of emphasis on image like there is in the Iowa City dance studios (pink ballet shoes, black leotard, white tights, hair in a bun), and it's cheap, making the 20 minute drive down interstate 80 worth it.
Liberty Dance Studio is downtown, a block north of the main street, in an old storefront. It, too, smells like musty gym socks, but is painted brightly yellow to distract one's senses. Last week we got to the studio a few minutes after Una's class had started. She ran through the door in the yellow lobby to the dance floor, where Cindy (the dance instructor) was sitting cross-legged in a circle with the other 4 and 5 year olds. I plopped myself down in a white plastic lawn chair next to Kate in the lobby, which I could do only because she gave up her chair and sat on the floor next to her three month old, Claire, who sat curled up in a carseat. The lobby was packed with chattering mothers and siblings of the dancers. The children ranged in age from newborn to eight years old and they created their own kind of chatter.
I was almost instantly distracted by a young caucasion mother, early twenties, who grabbed her two year old by the shoulders, picked him up and plunked him in a chair while saying "YOU SIT HERE AND DON'T MOVE." Her tone sounded affected, liek I wasn't sure if she was really angry or just acting like it to get results with her toddler. I raised my eyebrows and looked at Kate, who raised hers back.
"Wow," I said quietly.
"Yeah. It was like this last week. The mothers here, they all talk the same way. Did you hear that?--" she paused so I could pick something out of the din of the parents and children.
"No?"
"'Turd'. They call their kids 'little turd'. I sat through half an hour of turd name-calling last week." She laughed the way you do at something absurd.
We decided to leave to take Claire on a walk through the neighborhood, but this week I determined to come prepared to document conversations between parents and kids, if I could hear them in all that racket. I packed a pen and notepad in my purse.
Yesterday was part of "observation" week, where Cindy leaves the blinds up in the windows separating the lobby from the dance studio. So most of the parents were crowded around the windows watchign their kids. I found an empty chair next to two older mothers, maybe mid thirties or early forties, furthest from the windows. Before I could even get out my notepad I vaguely picked up that a girl, who looked about 8 years old, was standing in front of me, askign one of the older mothers for something.
"TAKE YOUR SISTER AND GIT ONE." The mother glared at the little girl and said this in an almost-yell. "I am gonna beat you when we get home."
I had the same feelign as the week before, of not being sure the mother was really angry. How could she be? The 8 year old hadn't misbehaved as far as I could tell. A few minutes later the girl and her little sister returned with long fuzzy thigns that looked like pipe cleaners with feathery ends.
"What are those?" I asked her.
"They'are pens--that can bend." And with that she began wrapping pens-that-bend around her wrists and her ankles and wandered off to sit with some kids.
A few minutes later she was back asking her mother if she could go somewhere.
"Okay. Go outside. Buzz off....[quietly] I dont' wanna beat you in front of everyone."
The woman the mother was talking to chimed in,"just like her father," with a cluck of her tongue, about the girl, I presumed.
"Ornery," the mother agreed.
The little girl looked from one woman to another and quipped in perhaps the only suitable and sane response an 8 year old girl could give her mother who was threatening to beat her over pipe cleaner pens: "How rude." She sighed and left.
I had reflected to Kate on our walk the week before, "What's the difference between them and us? Is it education? That's the way they were raised and so that's how they raise their kids and they don't know any better?"
She thought this was so. But it's stunning to me, that only ten miles away from Iowa City, where parents wouldn't think twice about taking their toddlers to therapy, there are parents who not only threaten to beat their kids, but are almost jocular about it, as if it is something so sewn into the fabric of their family life and parenting practices that their jocularity simply reveals what they believe to be inevitable and the natural order of things.
The dance classes are offered by a local pastor's wife who happens to be a good friend of my friend Kate, who went to the dance instructor's church many years ago. The dance classes are low-key for five year olds, without a lot of emphasis on image like there is in the Iowa City dance studios (pink ballet shoes, black leotard, white tights, hair in a bun), and it's cheap, making the 20 minute drive down interstate 80 worth it.
Liberty Dance Studio is downtown, a block north of the main street, in an old storefront. It, too, smells like musty gym socks, but is painted brightly yellow to distract one's senses. Last week we got to the studio a few minutes after Una's class had started. She ran through the door in the yellow lobby to the dance floor, where Cindy (the dance instructor) was sitting cross-legged in a circle with the other 4 and 5 year olds. I plopped myself down in a white plastic lawn chair next to Kate in the lobby, which I could do only because she gave up her chair and sat on the floor next to her three month old, Claire, who sat curled up in a carseat. The lobby was packed with chattering mothers and siblings of the dancers. The children ranged in age from newborn to eight years old and they created their own kind of chatter.
I was almost instantly distracted by a young caucasion mother, early twenties, who grabbed her two year old by the shoulders, picked him up and plunked him in a chair while saying "YOU SIT HERE AND DON'T MOVE." Her tone sounded affected, liek I wasn't sure if she was really angry or just acting like it to get results with her toddler. I raised my eyebrows and looked at Kate, who raised hers back.
"Wow," I said quietly.
"Yeah. It was like this last week. The mothers here, they all talk the same way. Did you hear that?--" she paused so I could pick something out of the din of the parents and children.
"No?"
"'Turd'. They call their kids 'little turd'. I sat through half an hour of turd name-calling last week." She laughed the way you do at something absurd.
We decided to leave to take Claire on a walk through the neighborhood, but this week I determined to come prepared to document conversations between parents and kids, if I could hear them in all that racket. I packed a pen and notepad in my purse.
Yesterday was part of "observation" week, where Cindy leaves the blinds up in the windows separating the lobby from the dance studio. So most of the parents were crowded around the windows watchign their kids. I found an empty chair next to two older mothers, maybe mid thirties or early forties, furthest from the windows. Before I could even get out my notepad I vaguely picked up that a girl, who looked about 8 years old, was standing in front of me, askign one of the older mothers for something.
"TAKE YOUR SISTER AND GIT ONE." The mother glared at the little girl and said this in an almost-yell. "I am gonna beat you when we get home."
I had the same feelign as the week before, of not being sure the mother was really angry. How could she be? The 8 year old hadn't misbehaved as far as I could tell. A few minutes later the girl and her little sister returned with long fuzzy thigns that looked like pipe cleaners with feathery ends.
"What are those?" I asked her.
"They'are pens--that can bend." And with that she began wrapping pens-that-bend around her wrists and her ankles and wandered off to sit with some kids.
A few minutes later she was back asking her mother if she could go somewhere.
"Okay. Go outside. Buzz off....[quietly] I dont' wanna beat you in front of everyone."
The woman the mother was talking to chimed in,"just like her father," with a cluck of her tongue, about the girl, I presumed.
"Ornery," the mother agreed.
The little girl looked from one woman to another and quipped in perhaps the only suitable and sane response an 8 year old girl could give her mother who was threatening to beat her over pipe cleaner pens: "How rude." She sighed and left.
I had reflected to Kate on our walk the week before, "What's the difference between them and us? Is it education? That's the way they were raised and so that's how they raise their kids and they don't know any better?"
She thought this was so. But it's stunning to me, that only ten miles away from Iowa City, where parents wouldn't think twice about taking their toddlers to therapy, there are parents who not only threaten to beat their kids, but are almost jocular about it, as if it is something so sewn into the fabric of their family life and parenting practices that their jocularity simply reveals what they believe to be inevitable and the natural order of things.
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Taking a Break
Other writing projects are requiring a pause in my regular blogging activities. But I'll be back later. I promise. And I"ll let you know when.
Friday, October 13, 2006
In Defense of the Toddler
I love the toddler more than life itself.
It was another Hospital Day, today. This time, it was the toddler's turn in the Peds Allergy Clinic. Our mission: find out why her nose has been running since August; find out why she's developed a nasty sleep- and exercise-induced cough.
With an investment of 2.5 hours and a $10 co-pay, we left the clinic armed with a special folder of instructions on how to care for our baby who is showing signs of asthma--who is clearly, by result of a subcutaneous reaction to mold spores and dust mites, highly allergic. Our aresnal of supplies include a steroid inhaler and six inch evacuation chamber and rubber face mask (complete with duck-face detailing), a new round of antihistamines, a back-up supply of prednisone, and a fast-acting, "emergencies" inhaler in the case that she starts wheezing after exposure to a hay-filled barn, a pile of leaves, or, more simply, the outdoors in October. We've been reminded of everything we already know in regard to indoor dust-mite allergies: get rid of carptes, curtains, pillows. Encase her mattress in dust-mite-proof barriers. Wash her bedding in near-boiling water every week. Wash Puppy and Blanky every week in water hot enough to skin the dog alive and kill his fleas.
My poor toddler: who's woken every night for the last sixty days with a rattly cough, who runs and rebounds gleefully and precociously on the giant trampoline in the backyard only to stop to catch her breath, ragged on mold spore inhalations, and cough in orgasmic waves.
"Is it truly reasonable to assume that the allergies are the trigger for her cough?" I inquire of the expert-head-of-Peds-Pulmonary-and-Allergy.
"It's very reasonable," he says, "especially given that she's your daughter."
This is no personal jab. Merely the acknowledgement that I have tested allergic to every known allergen (every commonly tested allergen--fifty-some in total) in the state of Iowa, except for the Moth, the Caddis Fly, and the Cockroach. Why did the cards fall such that I tolerate creatures who inhabit greasy spoons and dumpsters and not the fugus that grows on our silver maple tree leaves?
It ocurrs to my the very ornery toddler has been fussy for reasons beyond behavioral imitations of her older sister. Of course I knew this already. But it occurs to me again: She's been miserable for two months. RIght now all I want to do is trot her through the hallways of the Pomerantz Pavillion and put on a show--shine up her shoes, drag out dust-mite-infested Puppy and see if I can't get his internal voice box (water-damaged in the washign machine) to rasp out a bark and catch the attention of a few passers-by for my extroverted Dalai Lama. Let me get the crazily gleeful women from Child Life back to sit with her for a few hours--the women who jumped around our exam room with bubbles and a spinning SpongeBob toy while Evvy was injected five times on each arm, while the male nurse said over and over how she was the best "they'd ever had--at this age" because she didn't even start crying till the sixth injection. Does it matter she is the best? She still wept and tears spilled down her face to her naked shoulder and mixed with blood from the injection sites on her arm. After the shock wore off, she still recoiled from the hold of the foreign Hospital Blanky the nurse had wrapped around her back, between me and Ev, while I held her. And then she asked for Daddy, who walked in the room as if on cue, and she still needed to take turns with each of us holding her for five minutes apiece for the next hour and a half. And, thanks to the brief snippet of Jungle Book she saw on the waiting room television, she announced to us, this day, she is newly scared of elephants.
There is so much to rue.
It was another Hospital Day, today. This time, it was the toddler's turn in the Peds Allergy Clinic. Our mission: find out why her nose has been running since August; find out why she's developed a nasty sleep- and exercise-induced cough.
With an investment of 2.5 hours and a $10 co-pay, we left the clinic armed with a special folder of instructions on how to care for our baby who is showing signs of asthma--who is clearly, by result of a subcutaneous reaction to mold spores and dust mites, highly allergic. Our aresnal of supplies include a steroid inhaler and six inch evacuation chamber and rubber face mask (complete with duck-face detailing), a new round of antihistamines, a back-up supply of prednisone, and a fast-acting, "emergencies" inhaler in the case that she starts wheezing after exposure to a hay-filled barn, a pile of leaves, or, more simply, the outdoors in October. We've been reminded of everything we already know in regard to indoor dust-mite allergies: get rid of carptes, curtains, pillows. Encase her mattress in dust-mite-proof barriers. Wash her bedding in near-boiling water every week. Wash Puppy and Blanky every week in water hot enough to skin the dog alive and kill his fleas.
My poor toddler: who's woken every night for the last sixty days with a rattly cough, who runs and rebounds gleefully and precociously on the giant trampoline in the backyard only to stop to catch her breath, ragged on mold spore inhalations, and cough in orgasmic waves.
"Is it truly reasonable to assume that the allergies are the trigger for her cough?" I inquire of the expert-head-of-Peds-Pulmonary-and-Allergy.
"It's very reasonable," he says, "especially given that she's your daughter."
This is no personal jab. Merely the acknowledgement that I have tested allergic to every known allergen (every commonly tested allergen--fifty-some in total) in the state of Iowa, except for the Moth, the Caddis Fly, and the Cockroach. Why did the cards fall such that I tolerate creatures who inhabit greasy spoons and dumpsters and not the fugus that grows on our silver maple tree leaves?
It ocurrs to my the very ornery toddler has been fussy for reasons beyond behavioral imitations of her older sister. Of course I knew this already. But it occurs to me again: She's been miserable for two months. RIght now all I want to do is trot her through the hallways of the Pomerantz Pavillion and put on a show--shine up her shoes, drag out dust-mite-infested Puppy and see if I can't get his internal voice box (water-damaged in the washign machine) to rasp out a bark and catch the attention of a few passers-by for my extroverted Dalai Lama. Let me get the crazily gleeful women from Child Life back to sit with her for a few hours--the women who jumped around our exam room with bubbles and a spinning SpongeBob toy while Evvy was injected five times on each arm, while the male nurse said over and over how she was the best "they'd ever had--at this age" because she didn't even start crying till the sixth injection. Does it matter she is the best? She still wept and tears spilled down her face to her naked shoulder and mixed with blood from the injection sites on her arm. After the shock wore off, she still recoiled from the hold of the foreign Hospital Blanky the nurse had wrapped around her back, between me and Ev, while I held her. And then she asked for Daddy, who walked in the room as if on cue, and she still needed to take turns with each of us holding her for five minutes apiece for the next hour and a half. And, thanks to the brief snippet of Jungle Book she saw on the waiting room television, she announced to us, this day, she is newly scared of elephants.
There is so much to rue.
Thursday, October 12, 2006
How Winter Makes Everything Harder, or How the Toddler Exhibits Borderline Traits
What is it with the children and their stuff? The four year old has amassed mountains of objects all loaded with personal attachment. The standard baby blanket (think Linus) has turned into a collection of five. They are not just blankets—they’ve become proper nouns: Pink Blanky, Blue Blanky, Green Blanky, Purple Blanky, Dora Blanky. She arranged them on her bed in random fashion, every night wanting to be covered in a different order. “Blue blanky first, Dora blanky next. I don’t want Blue tonight.” On top of this she has “Old Puppy” named such in contrast to New Puppy, Old Puppy’s intended replacement at her 2 year birthday. By then Old Puppy was tattered to such distinction that there was no easy trade-off between stuffed animals. New Puppy became an addition to her bedroom collection of stuff, yet was never esteemed as highly as his predecessor.
The four year old has taken to collecting things she needs in bed with her during quiet time and night time. She has a special green cylindrical shaped block, smaller than a thimble, which is Old Puppy’s food, which he can never do without, and which easily gets lost in the middle of a night in the mass of Blankys. Next to the puppy food is the small flashlight keychain in the shape of a computer mouse “so she can see in the dark,” although this aid has never prevented her from storming out of her room at four o’clock in the morning to tell us she’s lost her Smarties.
Against the grain of my dietary values, the husband and I allow her five Smarties after lunch and dinner, along with a chewable calcium supplement in the form of a lion or a cat, depending on what I shake out of the bottle that night. She wants to amass great numbers of the tiny pastel discs on her bed, and saves the candy in neat little rows until she’s accumulated a day’s worth, two day’s worth. Twenty Smarties all lined up in marching order. Or sometimes, she fluffs up Purple Blanky so it forms great peaks and valleys of yarn on the bed and deposits one smarty in each valley.
Today, she peed on the er bed during quiet time and all of these things had to come off before I changed her sheets. The smarties were carefully unloaded into a small cup, the blankys piled on her floor in one corner in order to avoid the rows of wooden blocks she’d arranged on the floor.
The toddler is following suit. It seems she’s adding weekly to her collection of must-haves. They are not just must-haves for bedtime, but necessities for changing location in the house, for hopping in the car with me to pick up her sister at preschool, for sitting on the front porch. She must have Puppy (my father continued the tradition by giving her one of her own). She must have Blanky—which is a knitted white blanket the size of a small afghan. She must have her special plastic sippy cup. And last week she took possession of an old beige headscarf of mine with roses on it that has not been worn with any seriousness since 1999.
Transitions are difficult with her these days, for mysterious reasons. As soon as I announce we are preparing to leave she becomes frantic, clingy, pacing by the back door or following me around the house with her arms loaded down with Puppy, the afghan, the milk, the headscarf, requesting that I “carry you.” I can’t escape to the bathroom to pee before we leave without her standing between my legs and jumping up and down with her arms outstretched. In order to protect my injured shoulder, I wait until the last minute before leaving to heft her and her accoutrements up onto my hip, but before that—inevitably--in her trek across the house in pursuit of my last-minute scrambled, running around the house self, she trips on a block or her plastic phone. This sends her flying onto the floor, where she cries and recovers under a pile of dirty white yarn.
The recent cold weather this week has made the children’s possessions and their toting of them much more burdensome. Today I found myself carrying the toddler out to the car and weighed down with—it seemed—twenty pounds of outerwear, Puppy, the headscarf, the cup, a diaper bag slung over my shoulder carrying my wallet, the presumed diapers, the wipes, the leftover bagel from breakfast in case she got hungry later. The four year old can pitch in these days, and carries her own snack bag for preschool and her pack of epi-pens to the car on her own. Today, after climbing into her booster seat she announced she forgot Old Puppy.
“Oh,” I said with as much empathy as I could muster. “Do you think you can do without him today?”
“I can’t.”
I sigh, but not loud enough to blow my image as an attentive, in-love-with-her mother. “I’ll get it,” I tell her. “Just hang on.” I leave her and the toddler in the car while I run back into the house. The gloves I’d forgotten are sitting on the table. For a split second I wonder if I should take them with me, I have so much stuff. And what can I accomplish with gloves on anyway theses days? Will a gloved hand be able to finger the lock button on the car remote after we park? Will that hand be able to reach into the recesses of the toddler’s carseat and feel for the seatbelt’s release button?
I stuff them into my coat pocket and charge through the house in search of Old Puppy.
When it comes to cold, I’ve always had an every-woman-for-herself philosophy. If the husband and I stop for gas I never volunteer to fill the tank. If I am alone with kids on a tank-empty day, I stand in the cold and jump for warmth while I fill up the car. My eyes, frost-stung, eek out tears. The goal is and always has been: keep the hands in pockets or gloves at all times. Since I got over my junior-high phobia of coats (because coats were fattening), layers and outerwear and covered skin in winter was nonnegotiable. But now, saddled with the two children who can’t even put socks on by themselves (let alone hats and coats), I’m forced to contend with my hands in an ungloved state. I’ve never had sadder winter-hands than I do now. They chip and crackle, breaking open on knuckes and fingernail seams and sometimes on the backs of my palms.
I drop the four year old off at preschool and continue through town to the hospital where I’ll get my allergy shot. It’s insane, I think over and over to myself, to drag the toddler out in the cold, park in the hospital’s monstrous parking ramp, wrestle the umbrella stroller out from the tangle of other strollers in the trunk of our van, lug her out of her carseat, hand off the afghan, the scarf, Puppy, the cup, attach the diaper bag precariously to the stroller handle, and wheel her through a quarter the length of the hospital for this, the subcutaneous injection of mold spores and dust mites, which certainly haven’t prevented my having to take two antihistamines, a nasal spray and a steroid inhaler this fall.
The gloves lie on the passenger seat where I deposited them after turning off the ignition. Should I take them with or shouldn’t I? I know the pores of my hand-skin will begin aching and grow brittle in the short walk in the cold, but I’ll have to take them off anyway, to lock the car, or feel around in the diaper bag for the toddler’s snack. I look at them longingly on the passenger seat and stuff them into my coat pocket.
I wouldn’t mind all this so terribly much except for there is little reward these days. The therapist says four-year-olds are microcosmic teenagers—experimenting with rebellion and needing you at the same time. Love and hate. She hates my singing, the music I want to listen to in the car, and the weird oogly sounds I make to entertain the toddler. Perhaps the love she has for me is implied in the other things she hates: Not getting my full attention at a moment’s notice, i.e. I am handing off an urgent run-down to the husband of the day’s events, activities, food-intake of the children, and dinner menu before I run out the door for an appointment and she wants to tell me about the sudden crumb that made its way into her enchilada sauce. She hates my rules, because one of them means I don’t spend the mid-day quiet-slash-“alone” time with her while the toddler naps, and how sometimes I want to lie on my bed all alone without any conversations about the arsenal of Smarties she’s currently shaping into the numeral six on her bed.
If the four-year-old is modeling fourteen-year-old behavior, then the toddler is modeling the four-year-old-modeling-fourteen-year-olds. “Mommy: Stop singing .” For the first time, the toddler barked at me during a replay of a favorite car song.
“I can sing, Ev.”
“Nooooo!” she screeches without anywhere near a proper buildup of conflict to elicit such a reaction. But that’s what it’s like with the toddler these days. I am never prepared enough to anticipate her objections, nor her spastic arm-flailing which I think is just a mask for an all-out punch at my face. “What do you want for lunch, Ev” I asked yesterday. I got feet stamping and shouts. “NO. It’s NOT lunchtime! NO.”
In the car on the way to the hospital, she dropped the headscarf and began pleading “I drop it my blanky. Get it, Mommy,” she pleaded.
“Sorry, Ev,” I can’t right now. You’ll have to wait till we get to the hospital.”
“Noo,” she yells.
“Sorry, kiddo.”
At this, she launches into a hyena-like pitch and shrieks.
When I’ve unloaded her into the stroller, she frantically asks after the dropped headscarf.
“It’s right here, Ev. I got it.”
“Good JOB, MOMMY!!! You DID IT!!!” she cried with such delight and apparent mirroring of the kind of praise that I give her that that you wouldn’t think she was previously cursing me at heart.
In the hospital, she is Shirley-Temple like, stopping to say hi to Shelly, the janitor we see on our way to Clinic B every week. She holds out her puppy for Shelly to take and giggles when Shelley asks if he is, indeed, her puppy. Her next act is to tell people about the shoes. “I got my shoes on,” she says in a bashful little voice, looking down at her feet and holding one leg up in the air. Everyone goes crazy at this. “Oh, you have shoes on???” they ask in superlative speech and wide smiles, as if this is the greatest breakthrough in toddler communication, when in fact she’s just told every random stranger who stopped to talk about her Stride Rite velcros.
And random strangers do stop to talk. They take her puppy, who is actually equipped with a hand-hole for puppetry, and do a small show there for her in the hallway between Elevators B and C. “She’s such a doll,” they say. And if they don’t say something, most of the women pass by with smiles and nods as if she is the Dalai Lama.
It feels like I’m living with my borderline mother again—jolly and boisterous one minute and raging the next—except this time the crazy one in the family is underage and I’m the grown-up who should be sane enough to know and mature enough to deal with exactly what is going on: The toddler is not-yet two. She has limited powers of communication. And she has a big sister.
The four year old has taken to collecting things she needs in bed with her during quiet time and night time. She has a special green cylindrical shaped block, smaller than a thimble, which is Old Puppy’s food, which he can never do without, and which easily gets lost in the middle of a night in the mass of Blankys. Next to the puppy food is the small flashlight keychain in the shape of a computer mouse “so she can see in the dark,” although this aid has never prevented her from storming out of her room at four o’clock in the morning to tell us she’s lost her Smarties.
Against the grain of my dietary values, the husband and I allow her five Smarties after lunch and dinner, along with a chewable calcium supplement in the form of a lion or a cat, depending on what I shake out of the bottle that night. She wants to amass great numbers of the tiny pastel discs on her bed, and saves the candy in neat little rows until she’s accumulated a day’s worth, two day’s worth. Twenty Smarties all lined up in marching order. Or sometimes, she fluffs up Purple Blanky so it forms great peaks and valleys of yarn on the bed and deposits one smarty in each valley.
Today, she peed on the er bed during quiet time and all of these things had to come off before I changed her sheets. The smarties were carefully unloaded into a small cup, the blankys piled on her floor in one corner in order to avoid the rows of wooden blocks she’d arranged on the floor.
The toddler is following suit. It seems she’s adding weekly to her collection of must-haves. They are not just must-haves for bedtime, but necessities for changing location in the house, for hopping in the car with me to pick up her sister at preschool, for sitting on the front porch. She must have Puppy (my father continued the tradition by giving her one of her own). She must have Blanky—which is a knitted white blanket the size of a small afghan. She must have her special plastic sippy cup. And last week she took possession of an old beige headscarf of mine with roses on it that has not been worn with any seriousness since 1999.
Transitions are difficult with her these days, for mysterious reasons. As soon as I announce we are preparing to leave she becomes frantic, clingy, pacing by the back door or following me around the house with her arms loaded down with Puppy, the afghan, the milk, the headscarf, requesting that I “carry you.” I can’t escape to the bathroom to pee before we leave without her standing between my legs and jumping up and down with her arms outstretched. In order to protect my injured shoulder, I wait until the last minute before leaving to heft her and her accoutrements up onto my hip, but before that—inevitably--in her trek across the house in pursuit of my last-minute scrambled, running around the house self, she trips on a block or her plastic phone. This sends her flying onto the floor, where she cries and recovers under a pile of dirty white yarn.
The recent cold weather this week has made the children’s possessions and their toting of them much more burdensome. Today I found myself carrying the toddler out to the car and weighed down with—it seemed—twenty pounds of outerwear, Puppy, the headscarf, the cup, a diaper bag slung over my shoulder carrying my wallet, the presumed diapers, the wipes, the leftover bagel from breakfast in case she got hungry later. The four year old can pitch in these days, and carries her own snack bag for preschool and her pack of epi-pens to the car on her own. Today, after climbing into her booster seat she announced she forgot Old Puppy.
“Oh,” I said with as much empathy as I could muster. “Do you think you can do without him today?”
“I can’t.”
I sigh, but not loud enough to blow my image as an attentive, in-love-with-her mother. “I’ll get it,” I tell her. “Just hang on.” I leave her and the toddler in the car while I run back into the house. The gloves I’d forgotten are sitting on the table. For a split second I wonder if I should take them with me, I have so much stuff. And what can I accomplish with gloves on anyway theses days? Will a gloved hand be able to finger the lock button on the car remote after we park? Will that hand be able to reach into the recesses of the toddler’s carseat and feel for the seatbelt’s release button?
I stuff them into my coat pocket and charge through the house in search of Old Puppy.
When it comes to cold, I’ve always had an every-woman-for-herself philosophy. If the husband and I stop for gas I never volunteer to fill the tank. If I am alone with kids on a tank-empty day, I stand in the cold and jump for warmth while I fill up the car. My eyes, frost-stung, eek out tears. The goal is and always has been: keep the hands in pockets or gloves at all times. Since I got over my junior-high phobia of coats (because coats were fattening), layers and outerwear and covered skin in winter was nonnegotiable. But now, saddled with the two children who can’t even put socks on by themselves (let alone hats and coats), I’m forced to contend with my hands in an ungloved state. I’ve never had sadder winter-hands than I do now. They chip and crackle, breaking open on knuckes and fingernail seams and sometimes on the backs of my palms.
I drop the four year old off at preschool and continue through town to the hospital where I’ll get my allergy shot. It’s insane, I think over and over to myself, to drag the toddler out in the cold, park in the hospital’s monstrous parking ramp, wrestle the umbrella stroller out from the tangle of other strollers in the trunk of our van, lug her out of her carseat, hand off the afghan, the scarf, Puppy, the cup, attach the diaper bag precariously to the stroller handle, and wheel her through a quarter the length of the hospital for this, the subcutaneous injection of mold spores and dust mites, which certainly haven’t prevented my having to take two antihistamines, a nasal spray and a steroid inhaler this fall.
The gloves lie on the passenger seat where I deposited them after turning off the ignition. Should I take them with or shouldn’t I? I know the pores of my hand-skin will begin aching and grow brittle in the short walk in the cold, but I’ll have to take them off anyway, to lock the car, or feel around in the diaper bag for the toddler’s snack. I look at them longingly on the passenger seat and stuff them into my coat pocket.
I wouldn’t mind all this so terribly much except for there is little reward these days. The therapist says four-year-olds are microcosmic teenagers—experimenting with rebellion and needing you at the same time. Love and hate. She hates my singing, the music I want to listen to in the car, and the weird oogly sounds I make to entertain the toddler. Perhaps the love she has for me is implied in the other things she hates: Not getting my full attention at a moment’s notice, i.e. I am handing off an urgent run-down to the husband of the day’s events, activities, food-intake of the children, and dinner menu before I run out the door for an appointment and she wants to tell me about the sudden crumb that made its way into her enchilada sauce. She hates my rules, because one of them means I don’t spend the mid-day quiet-slash-“alone” time with her while the toddler naps, and how sometimes I want to lie on my bed all alone without any conversations about the arsenal of Smarties she’s currently shaping into the numeral six on her bed.
If the four-year-old is modeling fourteen-year-old behavior, then the toddler is modeling the four-year-old-modeling-fourteen-year-olds. “Mommy: Stop singing .” For the first time, the toddler barked at me during a replay of a favorite car song.
“I can sing, Ev.”
“Nooooo!” she screeches without anywhere near a proper buildup of conflict to elicit such a reaction. But that’s what it’s like with the toddler these days. I am never prepared enough to anticipate her objections, nor her spastic arm-flailing which I think is just a mask for an all-out punch at my face. “What do you want for lunch, Ev” I asked yesterday. I got feet stamping and shouts. “NO. It’s NOT lunchtime! NO.”
In the car on the way to the hospital, she dropped the headscarf and began pleading “I drop it my blanky. Get it, Mommy,” she pleaded.
“Sorry, Ev,” I can’t right now. You’ll have to wait till we get to the hospital.”
“Noo,” she yells.
“Sorry, kiddo.”
At this, she launches into a hyena-like pitch and shrieks.
When I’ve unloaded her into the stroller, she frantically asks after the dropped headscarf.
“It’s right here, Ev. I got it.”
“Good JOB, MOMMY!!! You DID IT!!!” she cried with such delight and apparent mirroring of the kind of praise that I give her that that you wouldn’t think she was previously cursing me at heart.
In the hospital, she is Shirley-Temple like, stopping to say hi to Shelly, the janitor we see on our way to Clinic B every week. She holds out her puppy for Shelly to take and giggles when Shelley asks if he is, indeed, her puppy. Her next act is to tell people about the shoes. “I got my shoes on,” she says in a bashful little voice, looking down at her feet and holding one leg up in the air. Everyone goes crazy at this. “Oh, you have shoes on???” they ask in superlative speech and wide smiles, as if this is the greatest breakthrough in toddler communication, when in fact she’s just told every random stranger who stopped to talk about her Stride Rite velcros.
And random strangers do stop to talk. They take her puppy, who is actually equipped with a hand-hole for puppetry, and do a small show there for her in the hallway between Elevators B and C. “She’s such a doll,” they say. And if they don’t say something, most of the women pass by with smiles and nods as if she is the Dalai Lama.
It feels like I’m living with my borderline mother again—jolly and boisterous one minute and raging the next—except this time the crazy one in the family is underage and I’m the grown-up who should be sane enough to know and mature enough to deal with exactly what is going on: The toddler is not-yet two. She has limited powers of communication. And she has a big sister.
Thursday, October 05, 2006
What I Did on My Summer Vacation, or Why I Like Jesus
In a writing course last year, the instructor assigned such essay topics to the class as you might encounter in sixth grade. "My Pet Peeve" launched me into a 10 page tirade on Christian anxieties. I wish I could land somewhere with the assignment, "What Jesus Means to Me."
Oh God.
(No pun intended.)
*
It was my third pregnancy after a year of trying to get pregnant and miscarrying. I was at a woman's retreat put on at the pastor's home after having taken a prego test only a day or so before. Every time I went in the bathroom I was swiping for blood, scrutinizing the toilet paper for a full fifteen seconds and wondering, each time, if the tiny red specks I saw in the paper were from its recycled particles or from my uterus recycling its parts. I'd had enough of spotting in the past year. Every trip to the bathroom during a pregnancy was tantamount to preparing to hear a final sentencing. Would this baby live or would it die?
And then, fifteen minutes into the beginning of the retreat my OCD took over and I found myself in the bathroom, swiping and then staring at a small splotch of unmistakeable red that did not come from Soft N' Gentle's manufacturing plant.
Oh, how many times I have wanted to talk about toilet paper, and wiping, for that matter. Toilet paper means everything at the beginning of a pregancy. It's as good as having a daily progesterone or hcg test, as good as having the lab results charted every afternoon. Blood shows up on toilet paper in a pregnancy gone awry, in accord with falling hormone levels. And toilet paper is the eight ball in the whole process. At least, it can be. Sometimes women bleed and it means nothing at all--though not in my experience to date of that pregnancy. Bleeding always meant something bad.
How do I describe the feeling of betrayal in that moment. Soft N Gentle had done nothing wrong. It was me, it was my body, my egg, my uterus, possibly my husband's sperm, that was failing me. I left the women's retreat, the softly-lit living room and musical voices of women who were glad to be together. The worship leader was just playing a chord or two on her guitar in preparation for worship. I left, got in my car, drove through Iowa countryside to get home. I was jerking my knee up and down, unable to sit still, unable to focus on the dark road.
Mark wasn't home when I got there. I ran inside, found the CD, and pressed the repeat button on the CD player.
Carry me. Your love is wider than my need could ever be.
I played it as loud as I thought the neighbors' ears could afford. My need was beyond wide. My need was beyond great. Could love be wider? I needed love to be wider. I slid my torso down the pine cabinets until I sat on the kichen floor. I screamed. I screamed. I screamed.
I screamed like the woman you see in movies whose seven-year-old son just fell over a cliff, the woman you know won't ever be the same because the loss of her son is like the loss of her capacity to breathe. I screamed like that woman even though I hate being that woman, and I never let anyone see that woman (especially the women at the retreat), except maybe Jesus. I sometimes let him see me that way.
I wish I had it in me to let him see me that way more often. Usually its done under my own emotional duress, otherwise he certainly wouldn't force it out of me. He never does.
Maybe this all has to do with why Jesus lately appears to me with the cross in the background, as if I need a reminder that he felt pain, too. Maybe this is why I dig him so much--although I think it's a pretty bleak statement that I connect with him mostly because of pain. I keep thinking that there's this whole other side to Christianity--this side where you're just really joyful all the time and nothing's got you down. But why would I think that? I'm a big believer that shit happens to everyone, Christian or not. I'm a big believer that God brings peace in difficult circumstances. He doesn't load our plates up with trips to the carnival and big band music. He's not Mary Poppins 24/7. Still, there are some pretty sweet deals where Jesus is involved, but nothing about knowing him means I don't hurt. It just means I'm comforted.
Jesus said in one of his teachings, "Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted." And maybe that's what happened on the kitchen floor on a warm September night when I was pregnant with my oldest daughter. He didn't give me any assurances that this pregnancy was going a good direction, although he could have. Really, the only thing he gave me was himself. I felt his presence inside every scream. Felt the weight of comfort bearing down on my chest like a heavy blanket.
Oh God.
(No pun intended.)
*
It was my third pregnancy after a year of trying to get pregnant and miscarrying. I was at a woman's retreat put on at the pastor's home after having taken a prego test only a day or so before. Every time I went in the bathroom I was swiping for blood, scrutinizing the toilet paper for a full fifteen seconds and wondering, each time, if the tiny red specks I saw in the paper were from its recycled particles or from my uterus recycling its parts. I'd had enough of spotting in the past year. Every trip to the bathroom during a pregnancy was tantamount to preparing to hear a final sentencing. Would this baby live or would it die?
And then, fifteen minutes into the beginning of the retreat my OCD took over and I found myself in the bathroom, swiping and then staring at a small splotch of unmistakeable red that did not come from Soft N' Gentle's manufacturing plant.
Oh, how many times I have wanted to talk about toilet paper, and wiping, for that matter. Toilet paper means everything at the beginning of a pregancy. It's as good as having a daily progesterone or hcg test, as good as having the lab results charted every afternoon. Blood shows up on toilet paper in a pregnancy gone awry, in accord with falling hormone levels. And toilet paper is the eight ball in the whole process. At least, it can be. Sometimes women bleed and it means nothing at all--though not in my experience to date of that pregnancy. Bleeding always meant something bad.
How do I describe the feeling of betrayal in that moment. Soft N Gentle had done nothing wrong. It was me, it was my body, my egg, my uterus, possibly my husband's sperm, that was failing me. I left the women's retreat, the softly-lit living room and musical voices of women who were glad to be together. The worship leader was just playing a chord or two on her guitar in preparation for worship. I left, got in my car, drove through Iowa countryside to get home. I was jerking my knee up and down, unable to sit still, unable to focus on the dark road.
Mark wasn't home when I got there. I ran inside, found the CD, and pressed the repeat button on the CD player.
Carry me. Your love is wider than my need could ever be.
I played it as loud as I thought the neighbors' ears could afford. My need was beyond wide. My need was beyond great. Could love be wider? I needed love to be wider. I slid my torso down the pine cabinets until I sat on the kichen floor. I screamed. I screamed. I screamed.
I screamed like the woman you see in movies whose seven-year-old son just fell over a cliff, the woman you know won't ever be the same because the loss of her son is like the loss of her capacity to breathe. I screamed like that woman even though I hate being that woman, and I never let anyone see that woman (especially the women at the retreat), except maybe Jesus. I sometimes let him see me that way.
I wish I had it in me to let him see me that way more often. Usually its done under my own emotional duress, otherwise he certainly wouldn't force it out of me. He never does.
Maybe this all has to do with why Jesus lately appears to me with the cross in the background, as if I need a reminder that he felt pain, too. Maybe this is why I dig him so much--although I think it's a pretty bleak statement that I connect with him mostly because of pain. I keep thinking that there's this whole other side to Christianity--this side where you're just really joyful all the time and nothing's got you down. But why would I think that? I'm a big believer that shit happens to everyone, Christian or not. I'm a big believer that God brings peace in difficult circumstances. He doesn't load our plates up with trips to the carnival and big band music. He's not Mary Poppins 24/7. Still, there are some pretty sweet deals where Jesus is involved, but nothing about knowing him means I don't hurt. It just means I'm comforted.
Jesus said in one of his teachings, "Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted." And maybe that's what happened on the kitchen floor on a warm September night when I was pregnant with my oldest daughter. He didn't give me any assurances that this pregnancy was going a good direction, although he could have. Really, the only thing he gave me was himself. I felt his presence inside every scream. Felt the weight of comfort bearing down on my chest like a heavy blanket.
Fasting People
Fasting people scare me. Not people who fast, but people in a state of fasting for spiritual purposes. They are much more serious than I feel comfy being around while I'm not-fasting. I also have the slightest inkling they think I'm the shallowest person in the world, so I hardly ever want to mention such things as getting my haircut, our new storm door, or my latest scrapbooking project/Christmas present for the girls.
Fasting people are very serious. I fear they don't have much stamina for excessivity in speech or thought or conversation. I suspect they find radio and television shows irrelevant and boring and probably think I'm very misguided in my weekly taping of Gilmore Girls. I fear, even, to exude too much bodily enthusiasm in their presence; after all, they are weak and sobered by their hunger and/or spiritual revelations of their own depravity and God's great love. Who cares about Lorelei and Rory? Who cares about home repairs or sports.
And rightly so. If I were fasting 40 days, I'm sure I would become socially bankrupt, unable to engage in any of the regular and mundane social interactions that seem to be required of citizens these days. I can presume this because I've fasted, and the hunger and headache alone were enough to keep me locked in the house and ignoring the phone and email. And Gilmore Girls fell so flat when I felt so empty and desperate for Jesus to address my own depraved self.
The pastor and other highly invested members of our church are on day 33 of a 40-day fast. (Does this mean I'm not highly invested?) Now, I should give them credit: They've managed to produce light banter on their ends of conversations. They've laughed and smiled at all the right moments, even cracked a joke or two themselves. But aside from trimming down physically, they have sobered up. I can see the seriousness on them like grim, heavy cloaks. I presume they've been in touch with Raw Need, Desire, and Truth. I presume God's been in touch, too. He usually is, in circumstances like these.
In the meantime, I'm watching to see what comes. I know there'll be rejoicing and celebration next week coinciding with a few bowls of vegetable soup (followed by hot fudge sundaes??). And hopefully, they'll have stocked up enough on Revelation to last them for a long while.
I'm just the teensiest bit jealous about that.
Fasting people are very serious. I fear they don't have much stamina for excessivity in speech or thought or conversation. I suspect they find radio and television shows irrelevant and boring and probably think I'm very misguided in my weekly taping of Gilmore Girls. I fear, even, to exude too much bodily enthusiasm in their presence; after all, they are weak and sobered by their hunger and/or spiritual revelations of their own depravity and God's great love. Who cares about Lorelei and Rory? Who cares about home repairs or sports.
And rightly so. If I were fasting 40 days, I'm sure I would become socially bankrupt, unable to engage in any of the regular and mundane social interactions that seem to be required of citizens these days. I can presume this because I've fasted, and the hunger and headache alone were enough to keep me locked in the house and ignoring the phone and email. And Gilmore Girls fell so flat when I felt so empty and desperate for Jesus to address my own depraved self.
The pastor and other highly invested members of our church are on day 33 of a 40-day fast. (Does this mean I'm not highly invested?) Now, I should give them credit: They've managed to produce light banter on their ends of conversations. They've laughed and smiled at all the right moments, even cracked a joke or two themselves. But aside from trimming down physically, they have sobered up. I can see the seriousness on them like grim, heavy cloaks. I presume they've been in touch with Raw Need, Desire, and Truth. I presume God's been in touch, too. He usually is, in circumstances like these.
In the meantime, I'm watching to see what comes. I know there'll be rejoicing and celebration next week coinciding with a few bowls of vegetable soup (followed by hot fudge sundaes??). And hopefully, they'll have stocked up enough on Revelation to last them for a long while.
I'm just the teensiest bit jealous about that.
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Scare Tactics
I'm on the treadmill last night, walking three miles per hour. Like a magnet, the treadmill draws the children downstairs from all corners of the house. They sit as close as I'll let them come. Sitting on the basement steps, they are mute, wide-eyed as my feet move on the spinning belt. They know they'll be sent upstairs if they make the slightest advance toward the treadmill, which dangers I've articulated graphically, in light of the experience of an acquaintence whose three-year-old stuck his hand under one a few years ago.
I've given similar frightening explanations regarding trampoline safety, to discourage Una from pouncing on Evvy, to drive home the reasoning behind the required time-out for chasing Evvy almost-off the ten-foot-wide tramp.
I say in my most shocked and somber voice, "If Ev were to fall off here, do you know what would happen??? Do you know why you're in time-out?" Invariably, she doesn't know. Saturday I told her about brain damage, how her sister might lose her ability to speak, see, or think if she were to suffer a fall from the tramp. "Imagine what it would be like if you couldn't see where you were going. What if you couldn't find your puppy?"
This registers briefly. "Find my puppy?" And then: "Why couldn't I find my puppy?"
Again: "If you were BLIND..."
*
The children don't sit still much for anything these days. After a record-breaking ten minutes of watching the treadmill in a state of relative paralysis, the 1-year old shimmies down to a lower step, a step closer to the treadmill.
With admirable reflex and instinct, the 4 year shoots her arm across the baby's chest. "Evvy. Come back. Your skin will peel off."
With equal reflex, Evvy hops back to her original position and ingests the seriousness of her sister's tone. "Oh. Okay, Una."
I've given similar frightening explanations regarding trampoline safety, to discourage Una from pouncing on Evvy, to drive home the reasoning behind the required time-out for chasing Evvy almost-off the ten-foot-wide tramp.
I say in my most shocked and somber voice, "If Ev were to fall off here, do you know what would happen??? Do you know why you're in time-out?" Invariably, she doesn't know. Saturday I told her about brain damage, how her sister might lose her ability to speak, see, or think if she were to suffer a fall from the tramp. "Imagine what it would be like if you couldn't see where you were going. What if you couldn't find your puppy?"
This registers briefly. "Find my puppy?" And then: "Why couldn't I find my puppy?"
Again: "If you were BLIND..."
*
The children don't sit still much for anything these days. After a record-breaking ten minutes of watching the treadmill in a state of relative paralysis, the 1-year old shimmies down to a lower step, a step closer to the treadmill.
With admirable reflex and instinct, the 4 year shoots her arm across the baby's chest. "Evvy. Come back. Your skin will peel off."
With equal reflex, Evvy hops back to her original position and ingests the seriousness of her sister's tone. "Oh. Okay, Una."
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