On Art and Ministry and Telling the Truth

At the forefront of my thoughts: I miss art. I miss writing. I write scheduled Facebook statuses for our church, but I don’t think that counts. The New Yorker’d never be interested in my compilation of updates.

Here’s another thought—a lie, this time: Art and faith may not marry. They are first cousins; marriage would yield genetic mutation, deformity in whatever springs off their union.

And here’s the follow-up, another lie followed by others:  Art and ministry together are a codependent couple. Messy. Art displays pain and ministry is a balm for it. Art swears and stings and cuts and smokes pot and is promiscuous and uncontained.  True ministry helps to heal; it is faithful, sometimes containing and sometimes setting free, and rarely swears. And probably never smokes pot. And for sure doesn’t drink too much.

I said these were lies, but I suppose they are half- or three-quarter-truths.  I am working out what it means, what it could look like, to live a life of ministry with its healing and setting free and sometimes-containing and at the same time being a maker of art, of the stuff which, among other things, reveals the need for ministry in the first place.

In my country, I think the church is sometimes afraid not so much of art for art's sake, but of honesty.  Back in the 90s I remember chatter about artists leaving the church because the church couldn’t make a home for them, because their truth-telling--whatever the medium--was disconcerting, unsettling, and at times downright unpleasant. I imagined flocks of sheep, hundreds and thousands, fleeing the pen through the gate.  The artists were leaving! The artists were leaving!  The rest of us were going to keep staring at bare cinderblock church walls, forever singing the only songs we’d ever learned and never any new ones.  I wanted to go with the artists to New York.

Now, as a minister and as one who has remained faithful to the church, I want to embrace art and whatever truth lies in the stories that it tells. But let me admit that I don’t find every story to be overtly truthful. So, I’m not so much interested in the dishonest ones that glamorize or, worse, darken my mood and my heart for no noble cause. But if art can point to something true, even if that truth is unsettling, I’m in. I’ll watch, but I might peek through my fingers.

I read a story a few weeks ago, an essay by a transgenderChristian, writing about her experience first as a husband and father, and then as a woman (all in the context of her Christian faith and an active life within the church). 

I am the first to note the gazillion theological questions that can spring to mind at this mention no matter who you are, no matter what your politics, beliefs, or sexual orientation. But here’s something: this was someone’s life. It happened. It was wrestled with. It was true.   I’d rather look at that than not.

Where to begin?

I wrote the following back in May and never published it. Ran out of time. All the packing, all the kids home for summer, but here it is now. In October.

We almost made it through the school year.  I think my kids no longer hate us for moving.  In fact, Oldest is planning her bday party in a few weeks with new friends from her new school.  Oldest will be a decade old and we will celebrate with flair. She will also get an increase in her allowance and be required to buy her own gifts. And do her own laundry. Not sure she’ll think this is a good deal. But I do.  Oh, Oldest, you are growing up too fast.  And in a few weeks we’ll head to Africa together, she and I. Already, we are reading accounts of the third world, of war-torn Mozambique in the early 90s and our hearts are breaking together in our living room over all the poverty, all the despair that a human life can endure.  “I feel so lucky I get to eat these frozen peaches,” she confided the other night while pulling a bag out of the freezer. “Some of the kids in Mozambique don’t even get fruit.”

I am glad for this new awareness. I think it is shaping her to be more generous, more open-handed, more grateful.  And it’s all happening to me as well as I prepare to go somewhere stripped of hair dryers and product, in long skirts and tennis shoes (because this is Muslim territory). But that’s the easy stuff to give up.  The harder: there are no toilets in the bush. No running water. My friend Amy described her experience last year at a village she stayed at. There was a pit in the ground. And maggots crawled all around the edge of the pit, right where you’d want to plant your feet and squat.

I’ll be honest and say this won’t come easy for me.  But I’m willing to walk through it because I think on the other side of all this stripping away I’ll get something I need. Yes, I’m going to help others. I’m going to be of service.  But I think Mozambique will be of service to me, stripping away all of the trappings of humanity that masquerade as humanity itself. 

It did strip away. And what I saw was something I'd seen before except it was all in plain sight this time. And what "it" was I can't fully quantify in words, which is why I haven't written a blog post in three months. And all of you lovely readers who helped to send me and Una halfway around the world have been waiting so patiently for a report. Yet, I'm still speechless.  I think it will have to come out in bits and in pieces. 

a few sleep-deprived thoughts on The Hunger Games movie

I went to the midnight showing There were at least five school busses full of college students, mostly women, that helped fill up the nine theatres at Coral Ridge. Amidst the crowd were several Katnisses, none as breathtaking as Jennifer Lawrence on screen but each with a long simple braid draped down a shoulder. Amidst all the magazine covers I’ve seen at the grocery store check-out this week and the altar-Katnisses at the theatre, I was reminded of the irony this blogger writes about as we glamorize and idolize the Hollywood aspect of a story that critiques what is at the very essence of our Hollywood culture. 

But let’s get down to business, i.e. my sleep-deprived musings on The Hunger Games. Here’s what I loved:

Jennifer Lawrence almost doesn’t miss a beat. Her acting is what makes us believe in Katniss. Lawrence plays her mostly just right—Katniss isn’t a sap. She’s not a vigilante or a political reformer. Katniss is a quiet, scared teenager with some serious skills, anger, and basic loyalties, all of which fuel her movement through the movie.

Liam Hemsworth plays a believable and tortured Gale, and the directors do well to direct our attention to him, back in District 12, as he watches the Games. Woody Harrelson and Elizabeth Banks resound as Haymitch and Effie Trinket, respectively, providing some humor at just the right pitch.

The musical score, or lack thereof, is right on point, too.  There are many scenes where a score would have absolutely ruined the moment, such as District 12’s assembling for the reaping. The theatre was so eerily quiet as the youth and their mothers lined up to watch Effie host the ceremony.  Silence as Primrose Everdeen’s name is called and the news sinks into the crowd.  Silence as District 12 lifts their hands in a salute to Katniss after volunteering in Prim’s place. In the silence is felt the horror, and a birds-eye view of the assembly calls to mind the cinematic images in our collective consciousness of the standing-to-attention in a concentration camp sort of roll call.

Storyline: With a few exceptions the movie follows the plotline of the book, satisfying expectant viewers and coming to the aid of those who are new to the story:  instead of leaving us in the arena with Katniss the entire time, the film cuts to the Games host Caesar Flickerman (played by Stanley Tucci like—oh my—he was born for the role) explaining the genetically modified nature of the tracker jackers, for instance, or to Seneca Crane and his roomful of arena operators with their Capital computers as they conspire to harass the contestants with fireballs and muttations.

I need to say more about storyline, and that will veer us into the territory of what-was-not-good about The Hunger Games movie…but let’s go there:

While technically faithful to the book’s narrative arc, each major action of the Games themselves is arranged like a domino, one knocking over the next, causing the story to move at a much faster pace than the book, which of course we expect from a movie adaptation, and yet…

in many ways, the film misses out on developing the emotional desperation and anguish within the storyline, the stuff that rocks us to our core, and I resonate with DavidEdelstein’s review : “The Hunger Games leaves you content — but not, as with the novel, devastated by the senseless carnage.”  Those small details that should sell us on the humanity and complexity of the characters—and in turn cause us more horror at the mounting atrocities done to them by the makers of the Game—are missing:

Katniss finds water relatively quickly, without any indication of a desperation induced by dehydration. The time at which Katniss blew up Cato & co’s stock of supplies to the time she sees Rue die is, in movie-story time, all of three minutes, it seems. There’s no tortured night of hiding in the leaves, with a blown-up ear drum.

Once the rule-change in the Games has been announced, allowing for two victors from the same district, and Katniss goes in search of Peeta, they spend about a day together, if that, in the cave before she goes off to the Cornucopia to fetch his medicine. That means there’re no ravenous and agonizing night-watches while Peeta lies dying.  No nightlock administered to Peeta to trick him into sleep so she can sneak off to get his medicine. Most importantly, there’s no time for what could later be sold as an organic and natural attachment to Peeta to spark. No clear friendship.  It’s difficult to perceive the depth of attachment—platonic or otherwise. Katniss’s behavior in the cave seems to be entirely motivated to please the Gamemakers and Haymitch; Peeta’s attachment to her is difficult to diagnose. 

Also, we miss Rue’s backstory and the story of her district. There’s no bread from 11 sent for Katniss (although the producers do let us see the riot break out in 11 when Rue dies, a smart move on their part). And although Thresh let’s Katniss lives when he has a chance to kill her (“for Rue”)—it’s unclear whether the gesture resonates for Katniss, whether there is any alliance of the heart.  She doesn’t confide to Peeta  (as in the book) that she would hate to have to kill Thresh if it came down to that, and when she hears the boom of the cannon and sees Thresh’s face in the sky the next morning, she stares at it blankly.

Near the end of the movie, Cato’s death is speedy. The Gamemakers dim the lights for the muttation attack; Peeta, Katniss, and Cato run for the Cornucopia; Cato is knocked over and the mutts tear him apart for all of five seconds, at which point Katniss sends an arrow into the dark, apparently killing Cato; the Gamemakers bring the sun back up. What is missing is a long night in the bitter cold, holding an injured Peeta to her, as Katniss and Peeta listen to Cato’s tortured screams.

Perhaps it's the agony and torture in all the waiting in between peaks in the plot, so easy to render in the book, that helps us readers register the horror and devastation of the Games? 

But those are just initial thoughts on not-much sleep.  I hope to see it another time in theatres at a more wakeful hour, and I"m curious to see how my initial impressions may have changed or solidified.

Raven Street Notes #10

I'm in the camp that says it's creepy for strange men to videotape your children while they walk to school...

And run along beside them, trying to covertly slip into the pack.

Even if they are from the local Fox affiliate news station.

Newscasters notwithstanding, today was the first day of Garner Elementary's first Walking School Bus pilot program.  Oldest and Middle got in line behind twenty or so other kids from the neighborhood and marched to school following a child wearing a lightweight plastic "school bus."

Some have already asked me what a walking school bus is, other than the obvious part--walking.  Here's the scoop.  The walking school bus has a "driver," my neighbor in fact.  There are also what you might consider "bus aides," neighborhood parent volunteers or Johnson County Health/Americorp workers.  There are bus stops and bus times and when Oldest and Middle got on the bus today, my neighbor Amy (the driver) "checked" them in on her bus roster.   Tiny and I, already planning on a stroller ride/walk, decided to tag along on what turned out to be something bigger than I had ever anticipated. We weren't a block past our stop when Fox news pulled up, and the cameraman asked the kids to "not look at the camera" while he panned back and forth on the line.  Soon, KGAN and KWWL joined the ranks, holding up traffic a bit on Front Street.  And all along the way, our school bus line grew, the stragglers way down at the end with the last Americorp volunteer.  When finally our bus made it to the front of Garner Elementary, we were greeted by about half the school's teachers, the guidance counselor, the principal, and a bunch of people wearing suits (who I found out later were from Johnson County Public Health and the school district's supervisory board); the children arrived to applause from all grown-ups present. My neighbor says that this is the first walking school bus in Johnson County and Public Health officials are super excited, considering childhood obesity and all.  I'm giving the walking school bus a thumbs up for it's first day. It was fun, amusing (thanks to the Fox cameraman), and the organizers were well-prepared.

*

In other news, I just went through my closet and weeded out cold-weather wear. My spring and summer clothes are now piled on the shelves and I found myself staring at a stack of gauchos with a mildly irritating conviction that gauchos were so 2008 and 2012 is the year of the (skinny) capri. I think my gauchos will work if I plan to go fishing a lot.  Or attach a woven basket to my bike before I ride to the farmer's market. Or grow my hair long and call myself Sunny or Rainbo. Darn. I really am such a hippie sometimes.

*

If you haven't already, please check out our Mozambique story here!  Una and I have raised $1500 of the $7000 we need for our trip!  Yay! And thank you to all who have helped.

Mozambique 2012

For those of you wanting more details on our Mozambique adventure in 2012, please see a modified version of our fundraising letter below: 

...I’ve thought about how to tell you this story for the last three months, and I think the simplest place to start is at the beginning.  There was a woman named Heidi who, along with her husband Rolland, traveled to Mozambique, Africa, in 1995 to see about helping the poor within the country. Within a few days, Heidi was offered by the government an orphanage that no one else could support and that no one else wanted. The 80 children who lived there were impoverished and underfed. The building was dilapidated and neglected.  With a great measure of faith, Heidi and Rolland accepted the mission to take on the care of these children, bringing in teams to care for them and help build up the orphanage again, slowly but surely. When the number of children in their care reached 320, however, they were evicted by the government. The children and Heidi and Rolland were marched off the property without a home to go to. 

But quickly, provision flowed in from all over the world, allowing Heidi and Rolland to continue to care for the children. Land was donated by a nearby city for a new space, tents by the country of South Africa. Soon, they had enough money to build dorms for the children. In the midst of these difficulties, coupled with devastating floods of 2000, the children thrived and actual miracles broke out in their midst as well as in the neighboring bush.   A church spontaneously came together, and then hundreds, and then a thousand churches:  today, there is a safety net of church-based orphan care in the 10 provinces of Mozambique. In addition to care for multitudes of children, ministries to widows and single mothers are in place to help families stay as in-tact as possible. Heidi and Rolland’s ministry bases all over the world are today known as Iris Ministries.  They are staffed and supported by natives as well as long-term and short term foreign missionaries.

That is their story, but here is my own:  I first heard Heidi’s assistant speak about the work they were doing in Mozambique many years ago.  Something inside my heart leapt when I heard of the children and the way those who served them in the most distressing of environmental and economic circumstances witnessed provision, joy, and love become the fruit of their prayers and efforts.   I also understood how much help and support was welcomed and needed for an operation like this. A year ago, when a friend traveled to the base at Pemba where 200 children reside, I felt the same stirring, and I felt I should get ready to go someday soon.  The opportunity has presented itself to go this year for three weeks, in July, with my daughter Una (she’s excited to play with the children and love on them), along with a team from the Kingdom Sending Center in Elgin, IL.  The KSC team will be preparing us thoroughly on the nuts and bolts of traveling to Mozambique and all of the factors we need to prepare ourselves with in regard to travel to a foreign country and to Mozambique, specifically. 

I’ve sent this letter to friends who are people of faith, in the traditional sense, as well as friends who have faith in simply the impact that love and practical help can have on a life, many lives, a village of children, and an entire nation. I’m telling you Heidi’s story and my story because I want to invite you to partner with me and Una as we prepare to go to Mozambique, most recently ravaged by cyclones in February of this year when over 400,000 people lost their homes.  In the base at Pemba, our team will work on repairing the roofs on the widows' homes. Una and I will also serve in whatever ways we are needed—digging ditches, playing soccer with the kids and rocking babies (all of whom crave mothering and fathering from those who come to stay even short-term), building things, cooking, cleaning, etc.  If you are a person of prayer, then we are in need of much prayer for the many aspects of our travel, as well as financial provision for the trip, which I’m told will total nearly approx. $7000.  Thanks for taking up the adventure with us!


 If you want to get in on supporting our service trip, you can make a donation here.

Notes from an Election-Year Observer

“Isn’t it fortunate I’ve got such an imagination?” said Anne. “It will help me through splendidly, I expect. What do people who haven’t any imagination do when they break their bones, do you suppose, Marilla?”  --Anne of Green Gables

I’m not an expert on politics; I’m not thinking like one these days. I ruminate like the mom, wife, friend, sister, daughter that I am--a person who generally cares about the well-being (physical and spiritual) of all people.

I can safely say that the election-year discourse is killing me.

Facts about me: There is no political party in this country that perfectly matches (or ever has) my own array of moral convictions. Every four years I’m tormented by choices between lesser evils and greater goods. Sometimes the candidate who, on paper, presents the lesser evils is easily identifiable. But he (and yes, I’ll say “he” for simplification’s sake tonight) might act like an ignoramus (or worse, a jerk) half the time he’s on camera. This induces doubt as to his viability as a competent president.

Character matters to me more than anything else, but by “character,” I don’t mean that a candidate can check off a list of values on which both he and I agree; rather, I’ve been reduced to watching the way a candidate responds to interviews and attacks. Is he sarcastic? Derisive? Dismissive? Disrespectful? Hostile? Arrogant? Does he play the blame game? Are his rebuffs simplistic and/or full of holes? Does he comprehend (intellectually, morally, emotionally) the opposing point of view?  Does he demonstrate compassion and goodwill despite disagreement? Does he, instead, vilify his opponents?   

Evidence of good character can also, of course, be ferreted out in the examination of a candidate’s history: How has he treated his employees? his children? his marriage commitment(s)?

I'm worried about a few things: about a president who, in a television interview of all small things, cannot hold his peace and dignity. About a man who could not keep one, two, or three lifelong vows to a single individual and yet wants to woo an entire nation to trust him with the next four years of our livelihoods, our environment, our health.  And I’m worried about any man who is incapable of empathy because, truth be told, the most important things going forward don’t hinge on either party’s political platform or agenda in 2012; what matters are those actual grueling days in office where executive-branch decisions are made in response to crises that were never forseen, were never made a part of public discourse during election year.  What matters is how our next president responds if and when we encounter the next Katrina, the next 9/11, the next stock market crash.

And while I hope it is a resolute compassion among other goods that drive the speech and actions of the man sitting in the Oval Office at that time, I doubt compassion is achieved in the absence of a vivid imagination. And imagination is what I find utterly lacking in many of the GOP* spokespeople, congresspersons, and presidential candidates this year.  

See, it’s imagination that unlocks for a man the raw and vulnerable experience of a woman’s unwanted pregnancy. Imagination pulls back the curtain on a lesbian alone in a hospital room without her best friend, her partner, there to hold her hand, handle affairs of state, make life and death decisions that no other family member can make with the same intimate knowledge of the patient’s wishes. Imagination guts the superhero illusion of our 9/11 first responder volunteers who are now suffering from cancers and other terminal conditions and whose livelihoods and families bear up under the economic stress of a lost income and lost fathers and mothers. And imagination multiplies broken levees by a million residents of New Orleans and comes up with dehydration, hunger, homelessness, disease, rape, murder, mercenaries, racial profiling, the Superdome.
Despite his ethics, despite his secular or Biblical morality, my faith is in the power of imagination to pave the road to compassion, and compassion can out-think the politics box, it can work with people of diverse backgrounds and viewpoints; compassion will burn the candles at both ends to get the job done. But if, say, imagination is not to be found in the next president (incumbent or otherwise), how will we heal when America breaks another bone?

*The Democrats aren't all off the hook in my book, either, but they're also not center stage at the moment, making any absences of imagination easier to ignore.

Raven Street Notes no. 9

I think about this blog like twenty times a week, and I think about what I want to write.  And then the phone rings, or the baby wants milk, or it’s time to make dinner.

So here I am on a Friday night with nothing on my mind, or rather  a million things on my mind, not one crowning all the rest. Truly, I have been taking notes and I’ve written no essays on any of my studies or subjects:

*
We have one girl going through a new stage. She’s writing letters regarding her discontent and delivering them to me or Mark.  We are terrible parents, she says, because we have not taken her to Disney World. Everyone else in her class has been there.  We don’t do anything fun (like Disney World) or go anyplace fun (like Disney World). And I make terrible food, like quinoa and sourdough bread and black bean soup when she’d rather be eating hamburgers or French fries or pasta. The cumulative weight of these grievances are great indeed, and yet we have no plans for Disney World, and I made her eat all the quinoa salad at dinner.  Some she spat into the garbage can, and I’m almost certain a spoonful was flushed down a toilet.  But mostly, she ate it.

I told her sister that they would thank me someday.

Someday,her sister agreed. But not NOW.

*

Now that Tiny is well (she’s well! She’s well!), the rest of us are still flirting with headcolds.  But it warms me to watch a healthy Tiny sport around the house like she owns the place. In spite of our warnings and admonitions, she keeps climbing up on this low, wide coffee table in our sunroom, standing up, arms wide open,  a little Leo-DeCaprio-I’m-the-king-of-the-world.

Until this week, I haven’t had any trouble understanding Tiny’s words. They’ve been solitary, stand-alone expressions related to context. Her meaning was obvious. But now, she’s taken a turn into sophistication, with “I’ll get it,” “clean up,” “here you go,” “here it is,” “Evvy’s” (note the use of the possessive), and “change you” (which really means “change me”). In addition to all of that, she’s trying to tell me other things I don’t understand yet, language that sounds like a bunch of gobbledygook, but insistent, purposeful gibberish. She’s staring at me, she’s holding out her hand, she’s looking at something. She’s repeating the same phrase over and over. But I don’t know what she wants.

At the same time, we’re weaning her off her moment-to-moment use of the pacifier (aka “Paci”).  It’s been a little bit like a death in the family, her frequent asking for paci and my having to explain that Paci is “taking a nap right now” or that Paci is “all gone” and that we’ll see Paci “when we go to sleep.”  I get a bit heartbroken over it all, wondering what that comfort really means to her and how we should make up for it. Does her need for Paci speak to some deeper level of need for security and comfort that I need to provide in another form?

*

Oops. I wrote all of the above two weeks ago before I got sicker and before a round of Zithromax. We’re healthy now, all of us. And today I’m grateful for a mild March walk around the pond in our neighborhood, two ducks in sight, and Tiny crying out to “Touch it! Touch it!” The sun lingered long enough for me to trim one of the overgrown evergreen bushes in the front yard.

*

I was also grateful for the checks that arrived by mail in support of our Mozambique trip.  We’ve raised almost $900 of the 7K we’ll need.  I’ve been humbled by the responses from those near and far. Even my chiropractor slipped me an envelope yesterday and then confided that he was particularly moved by the prospects of our upcoming adventure. I haven’t had a chance to thank each one personally (YET), but if you’re reading this, you know who you are. Thank you.

*

In spite of the outpouring of support, we are still far from the total sum we will need. But every time I open one check in the mail, I'm thankful for the person who sent it and for their gift. 

And I remember the loaves and the fishes.

Shame and the USPS

If you're reading this, chances are high that you'll be getting a piece of mail from me through the USPS in the next couple weeks.  You'll see the envelope, a spark of recognition and anticipation might light a fire under you. Perhaps the Webers finally got around to sending me that Christmas card-turned-New-Year's greeting they are late with? Nope. Maybe Heather was affectionately thinking of me, and her fondness was so rooted and ageless and meaningful that she felt the need to do something as quaint and concrete as sending me a handwritten note through an old-fashioned, honest to goodness postperson?  Close. I was thinking of you. And regarding most of you, I admit affection of varying depths. But I did not send you a handwritten note to express it.  I'm very sorry to disappoint all of you who will look at that envelope expecting personal sentiments or trinkets or, in the case of one friend who replied to my request for her address: "Please send money and gluten free cookies."

God help me, and God help all of you.  I have written a fundraising letter. Horror of my deepest horrors. I have described a humanitarian adventure my daughter and I will take in July and I have requested that you take up the adventure with us, in spirit of course, by way of two things: 1) prayer, if you're the praying type and 2) financial contributions to our trip, if you're the giving type. Of course, one may also pray and give. 

In my heart of hearts, I believe this is a great venture to invest prayers and/or dollars.  I believe the work done by Iris Ministries is changing lives in ways both athiests and believers would deem worthy. But it's terrible to ask for money.  Which is why I don't "ask" for it per se.  In my letter, I let you know that if you'd like to partner with us, there is an opportunity.  But I'm not fooling anyone. It's a fundraising letter, with a self addressed envelope included so that you can all send money back to me so that Una and I can buy our passports and plane tickets to Mozambique.   Were it not for the possibility of financial help, I could have sent you all an email and asked for prayers, best wishes, and blessed thoughts.

My friend and pastor, Rich, who was a missionary in Bangladesh for nine years says people are more likely to give if you present them with some numbers, if you suggest $15 or $100 or $1000 donations.  So I printed up these slips to go with the envelope. They say somethign to the effect of (imagine a perky voice): If you would like to financially support us on our trip, we welcome any contribution you would like to make!!  Small numbers add up to big numbers when many people are involved!!  And then I list how many people would need to give if everyone gave $15  or $100, and so on. 

I put these slips in five envelopes and then I had to stop.

Do me a favor, if you get this letter in the mail, forget that you even have a wallet.  Just read the story in the letter. Read it and see how your insides feel when you're done.  If some piece of yourself is crying out in agreement with this story, with our adventure, with the work we have ahead of us, then, maybe, possibly, remember that you have a wallet and see if that place inside of you is leaping at the chance to open it.

But if you read the letter, and you think, eh, then you might want to just cut out the picture of me and Una to remember us by.  And then add the rest of it to your recyling bin.

Adventures with Food (& eating & the Amish & being a stricter mommy)

Hi there.  I’ve been busy not-blogging here because I’ve gotten a kick to the pants to start eating healthier again.  And all that carrot peeling, fruit chopping, and bread baking takes a lot of time.

Here's my story: December of 2011 was Chocolate Month. November was Thanksgiving. And October ushered in Halloween candy, which I never used to buy until this year. Oh, and September was Moving Month. The girls were loving how much junk food mom was letting them eat all fall.  And, alas, January came with the understanding that  I was we were fully dependent on sugar and chocolate. Along with recurring blecky feelings after eating, I had some strange new symptoms:  My hormones were all out of whack.  And I was having hot flashes many times a day. What? At 33?

That’s what I said.

Truth be told, my diet was already probably better than 75% of you readers. (I’m not trying to brag, I just know how many of my friends already thought I was a health-food nut). And so it seemed kinda crazy to me that my body got as messed up as it did. Since January 3, I’m eating different than I was, than I ever have.  Proof: I got a recipe book from the library with an entry for “Brain Omelet” (that’s calves’ brain, people).  And while I will never (in a million years) be preparing brain omelet, I am now eating with body chemistry and body physiology in mind like I never have before.  Ever heard of re-colonizing a digestive track? You can do it with kefir.  (My Iowa friends give me an are-you-on-crack face when I mention kefir. But come on, West Coast, you’ve got to be friends with kefir. I just know it.)

Did you know you might get fewer stomach aches if your grains are soaked in water and an acid for 24 hours before cooking? Yeah, I’m back to that again—soaking grains and legumes. I’m fermenting and growing things on my counter before ingesting them. I made my own wild yeast starter for sourdough, and I’m baking bread. It’s happening. Oh, and apparently, experiments with enemas help, but I'm skipping out on those.

The hard part of all this is my offspring, who nightly tell me I’m Hitler the worst mother in the world, that I’m ruining their lives with the stricter rules about sugar.  God help them, they can only have two cookies after dinner.  “In the old days, you would have let me have three!”  “In the old days” = a temporary lapse in judgment since moving four months ago.  I was busy painting their rooms--and so of course they could have ten cookies for dessert?

The upside is that I think I feel better, though it’s slow going, and the hot flash situation is not resolved. The most educational part about it all is that I bought two shares in a herd of dairy cows on an Amish farm.  It’s illegal to sell raw milk in Iowa, and so I don’t buy raw milk. I already own some (now that I bought some shares in a herd of cows).  And when I went to pick up my raw milk for the first time last week, my Camry bouncing over a muddy rutted lane, I called out my window to a little Amish boy, circa age 7, who replied to me in a the most adorable German accent that I could pick up my milk right down the lane.  As my friend Rene and I drove through the farmstead, we passed a barn with the door open. From the ceiling hung two sides of an unfortunate animal (cow, I’m assuming), just curing in the foggy January air. Clara, the Amish woman who sold me a share of dairy cows, gave me my gallon jugs of raw milk and pointed out for me the cream line a third of the way down the gallon.  These are organic-fed, pastured cows—lots of omega-3s in their milk.  Still, I had no ideas cows were this prolific when it came to cream.

There is something really beautiful and pleasing about making my own butter or cheese from milk that has never been at a grocery store.  Something really comforting about all the jars-covered-with-cheesecloth that perch on my counter in various stages of soaking/culturing/fermenting. Something unseen, mysterious, is happening in all those bottles and jars, and my body will find out what in 24-48 hours. My body will be happier for it.

Will I always eat this way? I don't know and I don't care. It’s just how I’m living now, to get up out of this hole.

Dear Anonymous Facebooker

Dear Anonymous Facebooker,

I saw your post today. The one about believing in Jesus Christ and challenging other believers to put the same post on their wall.  You said Jesus said he would deny us in front of God, if we deny him in front of our “peers.”  It’s a simple test, you said. If you are not afraid, then re-post.

You probably don’t know this—probably you had no desire to have this effect on me--but your post makes me want to do the opposite.  Because it inspires guilt and fear in me, a lover of Jesus who gets by in the world because of and out of the conversations I have with him daily: the questions and answers and simple moments of divine presence felt.  Yet, Jesus never told me—he didn’t, I promise—to copy and paste your status up on my Facebook page. And I wonder at the audacity of a mere human trying to boil down a relationship with divinity (and everyone’s afterlife statuses-to-be) to whether one hits cntrol-c followed by cntrl-v on a keyboard. It seems so black and white. So cut and dried. So harsh, really. Do this, or else. Or else—what? Damnation? Eternal Punishment? Separation from God for eternity?

Because that’s the kind of God you believe in. The kind that is upstairs devising tests by which he can damn us all quickly. Hey—using Facebook for the job is so efficient. All he has to do is count.

Do you remember that Peter denied Christ three times and yet. Yet, Peter was also martyred for his love for Christ, crucified upside down. Because of love. For Christ.

Anonymous Facebooker, I want to introduce you to wiggle room. If you peer into the economy of Christ’s kingdom, I believe you’ll find an X factor,  so that a man like Peter, who denied him three times, and then testified for Christ, died for the sake of that testimony, is welcomed by Christ—not denied by him. The X factor: can we call it grace? Grace that doesn’t damn us to hell the second, the moment, we speak or don’t speak, act or don’t act, put your stupid status on our FB page or not.  Because there are a hundred times a week I speak or don’t, act or don’t, and yet I know this grace that looks at the whole picture of my heart, grace that gives me an opportunity to be in process, to make mistakes and recover, to arrive at my own understanding and final revelation of divinity or not divinity in my life.

Maybe I don't sound very gracious toward you. I'm sorry. I need to take deep breaths and back away slowly when I see status updates like yours. I have to write an entry like this over the span of a week because I'm trying to make it come out not-too angry. I'm working on telling the truth as I see it, with love.

And here's my bottom line: God’s not riding Zuckerberg’s coattails..  

Tiny: a Cookie Conversation

Ah cookie? Ah cookie?

No. the cookies are all gone. We’re not having cookies.

Ah cookie?

Nope. Do you want some crackers?

No.

Do you want some Chex?

No.

Do you want some raisins?

No.

[Curiously eyes old carrot stick on floor, picks it up, nibbles it momentarily].

Reset. 15 minutes later:

Ah cookie?

I'm Sorry I Didn't Bring You Cookies

I’m sorry I didn’t bring you Christmas cookies.  You live far away.  And/or, we ran out of eggs.  When you have a limited supply of gas and eggs, you have to let whim and the spirit lead. 

Among other destinations, the spirit led my family and a plate of cookies to our friend Ethel’s house last Christmas Eve. I swung open our minivan’s passenger-door, plate of cookies in hand, and two things happened at once, so fast I almost missed them both. One, the stick-on bow that I had affixed to the tin foil-covered plate of cookies slid off its perch.  Two, the cell phone in my coat pocket slipped out, hit the street’s pavement, and ricocheted right into a storm drain.

I just bought that cell phone. Three weeks ago. I even purchased insurance should it be damaged. I even purchased a very expensive, very hard case/enclosure system that would protect this cell phone in the event of nuclear war, fire bombs, and toddlers.  The “otter box,” as it’s called, reminds me of a sat phone MacGyver might have used, back when they were the size of small boom boxes. 

The insurance I purchased doesn’t cover cell phone loss due to low elevations in the bottoms of storm drains.

Our only hope was a manhole cover at the top of the storm drain.  Correction: our other hope was my husband, who thought to pry up the manhole with a tire iron stored under our carjack.   And so he did. 

Did I also mention that this was a family outing with all the children? We were bonding over taking cookies to people who whim and the spirit led us to.  So the four of us (Tiny stayed in the car) took turns peering down into the seven-foot storm drain at a mess of dry leaves and plastic bags. We could not see the cell phone.

But we knocked on Ethel’s door, handed her the cookies with a Merry Christmas Eve!, and then asked if we could borrow her ladder. Mark lowered it into the manhole while I stood next to him and fretted that he would hurt his arm or shoulder or that the ladder would fall over once inside. And then he inserted himself into the hole and climbed down the ladder while I fretted some more and Ethel and the girls stood around watching. The girls said, ohhh, ohhh, oh.   And I said, be careful!  And Mark batted the leaves around with the tire iron once he got to the bottom, but he could not find the cell phone. Until he got to a small tunnel/pipe thingy (presumably the route the water takes out of the storm drain as it fills up) and moved a plastic bag and some leaves around and there the phone was.  

And he climbed up the ladder, and he handed the phone to me. And he pulled the ladder out of the manhole and replaced the cover.  And my otter-box encased phone looked as good as it could be. It could have survived nuclear war, fire bombs, or toddlers. But it chose a storm drain. Good for it. Branching out.

Earlier this week I got a second-degree burn on my hand. Two months ago I got a concussion after a glass light fixture fell on my head.

My friends want to build a phone- and heat- and glass-proof membrane that I can surround myself with at all times, which is okay with me as long as it is chocolate-permeable.  Because there are only two food groups in the world: chocolate and everything else.  And I wouldn’t want my diet to get off because I didn’t get an adequate amount of cacao bean through the phone-/heat-/glass-proof membrane/bubble thingy my friends want to build. I wish them good luck with that.

And as a postscript, if you’re wondering if I’m accepting See’s candy right now: I am.  My supply is off to a really good start.  It seems people read my blog post last week and I received more than two pounds of See’s chocolates over Christmas as gifts.  I can always make room in our cupboard for more, should the urge strike you.  Unfortunately for you locals, the See’s candy kiosk is closed at the local mall. You’ll have to mail order, people. You’ll have to mail order.

2011: Year in Pictures and Few Words

2011. Here's what happened. We had a toddler (who used to be a baby). She liked to eat dirt.

We had an Evvy (who turned 7 in the fall).  She's sweet. And loud. And is trying to master the art of running on her hands and feet. Once in a while, she plops down for a rest.

We had a Una (who turned 9 in June).  She's sweet and smart and thoughtful. She says I'm not allowed to post "hilarious pictures" of her. Or embarrassing ones.  But this meets her criteria:

(Psst, if you want to see another one that I just love, then see it.)

We don't have a good picture for everything that happened this year, but I'll let the ones we do have tell the rest of the story.

Nay Nay's birthday. We love her.

Fourth of July in our friend Robyn's front yard. I laid on the grass in the shade with Nay. Everybody else watched the parade and caught candy. Candy. Bleh.

Una and Evvy were flower girls (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!).  They've been asking their whole lives to be flower girls. 

And here's a silly flower-girl pose with their/our silly friend Chris.

Hey, did you know we moved this year? But I don't have any pictures of our house handy. And honestly, I don't know if I want you to see it yet.  The shrubs out front are too bushy, and I haven't hung all the pictures yet.  Instead, I should offer you an annual family portrait, like people do, in front of a Christmas tree or a wreath, yada yada.  But, does the pose below count? We look sorta reflective/end-o-the-year-thoughtful/familyish.

No?  How bout this one?

This is not at our new house. Or even our old house. And somehow we lost our kids and gained a dog. But at least you can tell who we are (see red shirt) and that we look happy in a SNL kind of way.

Merry Christmas and/or Happy Holidays to all y'all out there.   We are happy to know you and hope you can come visit us soon.

Heather, Mark, and girlies.

Christmas Chocolates, Christmas Lights

Today, for about five seconds, I thought about opening my own See’s candy kiosk franchise at the Coral Ridge Mall—next winter, October 1 through December 26. Be there.

See, the elderly couple who ventured into the franchise this year are from Ottumwa. They drive a good two hours to the mall every day and stand in their white See’s candy lab coats, holding  out baskets of lollipops for passersby.  This poor couple, the cashier confided to me, will most likely not be back next year.  The See’s candy franchise has taken its toll—all that winter driving, varicose veins and such.  Poor dears, I thought.  And then, poor me, because how will I get See’s candy locally ever ever again? How will I get it without having to pay a 20$ shipping fee from Chicago or California? My purchase today at the See’s candy kiosk wasn’t even for myself—it was a gift. A box of milk chocolate Bordeaux for not-me because I shopped whilst hanging on to the illusion that See’s might be at my disposal at least 3 months out of the upcoming year.  And so I was truly forlorn at the news whispered to me by the young cashier. Childhood nostalgia for See’s kicked into high gear.    

That's when I had this brief and fleeting idea: *I* could run my own kiosk. And then I could have as much See’s as I wanted.

But, I would probably gain thirty pounds.  And I hate the mall at Christmas time.

So I went home and put my packages away, feeling so terribly sorry for myself and the See’s candy deficit in my life that I began to hear voices.  The milk chocolate Bordeaux was actually calling my name!  At first I couldn’t believe it—these things don’t happen in real life, I told myself. Christmas presents can't really come alive. Tsk.

But, the ethereal reach of a box of candy across the house, from my office where they were stowed away to the kitchen where I put away dinner leftovers became a thing of substance.  This box, this gift for a dear relative, was asking me to do something unthinkable, something terrible awful. Oh dear God.  I argued with it, chastised the perversion of its thinking.  And then I asked the husband:

Would you hate me for eating this [$17 box of] See’s Candy?

(A quick aside: It’s better to ask these sorts of questions with melodrama.  If I’d asked, for instance:

Do you think I should eat Aunt Ione’s box of Christmas chocolates?

--well, a five-year-old could give you the right answer in no time flat.)

Would you hate me?  Well, that’s just the right cocktail of self-pity mixed with desire and fear of rejection to make a husband tell his wife, practically, No, honey, you go right ahead. Btw, I love you sooo much.

I couldn’t live with the shame of eating someone else's Christmas present in front of him. So I waited 'til he left. And then I did it.  Sunk my teeth into that soft center and gave myself the biggest bite on the inside of my cheek to date.  Chocolate mingled with the taste of blood. But despite accounting for the blood-chocolate combo, something else just didn’t seem right. And wouldn't you know it, I'd bought the wrong candy, and by “wrong” I mean not the kind I thought I was buying. It lacked chocolate in its gooey center.  And it tasted like it’d  been in its Christmas wrapper since August, when the factory got ‘em all prepped and ready for the holiday kiosk.

Stupid $17 box of talking chocolates. I'm gonna cut your throat out.

In other breaking news, I’m charmed by our neighborhood’s display of outdoor holiday lights. You know how our minds free associate and leap to all sorts of random hypotheses throughout the day? Well, today, I thought: people who put up Christmas lights must be nice. Nice nice. Bring-meals-to-sick people nice. Rescue-a-mutt-from-a-well nice.  And if I was stranded on the road, my car engine on fire, my children in tow on a bitterly cold winter’s night, you know which house I’d stop in for help at?  Not the one with the people who couldn’t be bothered, the people who didn’t have the time, energy, or emotional resources to string up a Wal-mart rendition of baby Jesus lit up like a Broadway stage. Nope. I’d stop by the house with the well-lit Santa sleigh/reindeer combo in the front yard and hope the residents there (or Santa) would give me a lift home.

(See's candy update: I’m on my sixth seventh piece.)

Dialogue with a Girl Who Pours Over the Dictionary

I am sandwiched between two boys who say curse words in Spanish.

(These are white, Caucasian boys, mind you.)

He was getting people to say a swear word in Spanish.  He told Gracie, “say ca twice,” and she did but she didn’t know what it meant.  Then Mr. Martinez came in to talk to us about it and he was very upset. You could tell his feelings were hurt.

After school, Rodney said the bad word was the same as the S-word.

Do you know what the S-word is?

No.   I only know two swear words. The A-word and the B-word.

What is the B-word?? Oh--was it in that book you read?

Yeah.  And it ended in –ing.

The bad word is the word without the –ing. It's a really bad name for someone.  Okay, [deep breath]  so you know that words are just words, right?  I’m going to say the S-word so you know what it is when people say it. And why people use it.

NO, DON'T SAY IT!!! 

Why don’t you want me to say it?

Because I will be tempted to use it!  And part of what makes me unique is that I don’t know swear words!

Okay...?

So…I know there’s an A- and a B- and an F- word. I know the F-word is the same as sticking up your middle finger, so I’m always careful about sticking up my finger.  Mom, is there a swear word for every letter of the alphabet? Is there a C-word?  And a D-word?

Well, not exactly for every letter, but I’m sure there are a lot of them.

How do people even decide to make up swear words?

Well, I don’t know, there’s probably a book out there that tells about the etymology of curse words.  Etymology is the study of the words, their history.  Would you like a book about etymologies for Christmas?

[Aghast] No!

Raven Street Notes no. 8

My blog is ugly and outdated. 

To the right, my blog lists “current faves.”  These are over a year old.  I don’t have time for web design.

I know, JBeyer, you have offered to do this for me.  I’ve been too lazy to take you up on the offer.  Yet, I wince with shame at the ugliness.

Also, my printer is slowly printing coupons from the Target.com web site. One sheet at a time, every 20 seconds. 

The saying comes to mind, right at this minute, in regard to productivity (mine and the printer’s): Off we go now like a herd of turtles.

*

Want to know something?  I thought of something really deep and meaningful that I wanted to say last week, for a minute. And then I forgot it. But take my word for it: it was deep. And meaningful.

*

I think I forgot that very deep, meaningful thought because I have been so busy, like you all have been.  I’ve been packing and traveling for a family of five.  Been doing lots of church work. And laundry. Lunch packing. Reading. Studying. Praying. Fretting. Mopping Floors. Cleaning Bathrooms. Grocery Shopping. Clipping Coupons. Baking Pies. Gingerbread-house Building. Cooking Dinner. Reading Aloud. Watching Alias. 

Yes, watching lots and lots of Alias because I have to finish all five seasons now that I’ve started re-watching the series from the beginning. It’s almost a curse, I tell you, because I can’t don’t want to stop until Sydney and Vaughn can live happily ever after with their two children, Jack and Isabelle, on a sandy beach in what appears to be SoCal.

I tell myself that watching this series is about more than soul-soothing entertainment.  No, I dream to myself, metaphors abound in Alias, the profundities of which I am still in the process of ferretting out. But WILL.

I WILL, mind you.

I WILL.

And if I don’t, I’ll just like it and like it forever and ever, like how some ladies still like (and wear) that same big frosted hairdo they loved in the 80s.

We can’t help what we love.

*
But then, I think, sometimes I have to help myself to love--or do the loving thing. Like getting up at 5 a.m. or dark-thirty to soothe a crying Tiny. Or making those lunches. Signing those school papers. Washing someone’s favorite shirt when I’d be happy never laying eyes on a washing machine again in my life. Practicing patience. Practicing hope.  Helping the children practice patience and hope.  Refereeing conflict. Instituting discipline (because I love them, I say).  

Maybe it’s all the “helping ourselves” to love--every choice in a series of choices that conveys the message I love [you]--is what leads to things like ugly web pages and outdated reading lists and having to print out stupid coupons from Target at 9:30 at night when I’d much rather be wait for it watching Alias.

*

Then there are the other things love makes us compels us to do. For instance, I’m going on a trip. At least I think so.  A trip to Africa all because of a bad case of love.

See, once, a long time ago, I heard a woman talk about her love for Jesus. She talked about the Jesus I already knew in such a way that made me wonder if I really knew him. She talked about knowing him where she lived in Pemba, Mozambique, and how one day she hoped to and believed she would  I know, this sounds crazy dance on the waters of the Indian Ocean with him. She meant it in the most biblical way, alluding to Peter, his walk of faith in the middle of the storm, Jesus just yards away, eyes on him and so nothing else mattered. When she said this, I knew I wanted to know a Jesus whose eyes on me could make all my fears stop mattering, stop overpowering my puny body and soul.

I wanted to know that Jesus like nothing else.

This woman was not flaky, although you might wonder. No, she spoke of gritty realities and of living in a place where she and a team of others cared for the needs of widows and orphans—the children of Mozambique who came daily to their missions base for food, physical contact, love, prayer.  Pemba was a place, she said and so have others, where for so many God was the only hope, the only solace, the only excitement, the only entertainment, the only joy.  And strangely, ironically, perfectly--because of the raw need for him in a place so bereft of other comforts—the woman said that in this place she saw God. Well, not in the flesh, exactly. But she saw his handiwork in the ears of deaf villagers who suddenly could hear, in the sight of mothers who’d never seen their own children.  She knew God in the exuberance of miraculous provision of food for the children who came for their daily bread.  And when she spoke of this kind of God, this God I claimed to love, I knew I really did not know him in the same way, yet I wanted to so very badly, so achingly badly—a far worse ache than my need for Sydney and Vaughn to arrive at just closure to their narrative.  This was far more serious than my need love for Alias.

And so events have scrambled to this moment, now:  It seems I’m going this summer to serve alongside an organization that serves the people of Mozambique, near the boundaries of the Indian Ocean.  I am going, God-willing—and by that I mean that (I think) God is willing but I’ll know for sure once I miraculously have in my possession the eight thousand dollars required for me and Oldest to go.  And yes, Oldest is going (we think).  She hates the idea of immunization shots, of long plane rides.  In fact, these factors reduce her to tears at least twice weekly.  But when I tell her she doesn’t have to go, that I’m not making her, she cries even harder, setting her jaw, and says I have to, I’m going as if she’s been hardwired for this decision her entire life.  Then I ask her why, just to check, to double check, to make sure that my Oldest realizes that this is not Disneyland we’re going to, that the toilet situation is far from glamorous, that rice and beans will be our only daily fare.  And every time she says unapologetically for some kind of irrational can't-help-what-she-loves love: “Because." She sets her jaw, "I want to play with the orphans.”

Grace for Middle

Middle has been saying lately, “I feel like I’m the only person in the world.”  She offers this refrain in a tone of wonderment, awe, and a little bit of confusion, as if expecting an explanation from her mother. Silly me, I’ve been thinking that what she’s suddenly aware of is developmentally appropriate self-centeredness—the kind that everyone grows through and hopefully out of by the time they reach their later years.  

I’ve offered my most reasonable explanations for her feelings: “Well, Ev, it makes sense that you feel that way. After all, you can only see out of your eyes.  You can only hear out of your ears, and feel with your body. It makes sense to me that you feel like everything is happening to just you—like you are the main character in your story.”

Both times I offered this explanation, I was countered with a rebuff—a long exasperated sigh. “NO! That’s not what I mean. I don’t feel like I’m the main character in my story. I feel like I’m the main character in the whole world! Like there’s nobody else and everything is just happening to me.”  And then she elaborated, “See, when I go out to play and knock on the door of my friends’ houses, they are always home. And it almost seems like God has made them be at home, just so I can have someone to play with.”

Then I got it:  If God has gone to the trouble of arranging such things as playdates for Middle, she must indeed be very important.  He must care about her very much. So much, in fact, that it might feel like she is the only one in the world to be tended to.

So it wasn’t what I thought--not just developmentally appropriate self-awareness, but awareness of divine favor. Of Grace.  Middle was moving through the world with a growing insight of the existence of divinity so invested in her life and well-being that natural situations were altered, were custom-tailored just for her.

It wasn’t thirty seconds after this last conversation that Middle began fretting over a lost pencil. See, we were going to park in front of the junior high and wait for Oldest to finish up her orchestra lessons. And Middle wanted to use the waiting time to work on her homework—but no pencil.

As I sidled the car up to the curb in front of the school, an object in the street caught my eye. “Ev, I think I just drove over a pencil? You can get out of the car and get it. I’m not sure if it’s sharpened, though,” I cautioned.

Middle leapt out of the car, snatched up the pencil from the street, and climbed back in, announcing triumphantly. “Of course it’s sharpened!” And then, with a giggle, “It’s like God just put it there for me!”