Who are you? (who who?) Who kids are defined as in American culture.

Identity. 

Who are you?  When the moment comes, will you help or run?  Will you have mercy or no?  Will it depend on the day you have had?  The year?

When I was a teenager, I struggled with trying to figure out who I was.  It is a strange problem, kind of a first world problem maybe, but it was like missing a fundamental link in the ability to make up my mind for anything or make decisions at all, and I had arrived at a time to make decisions for myself.

Was I a stoner?  Was I a straight-A student?  Was I kind?  Was I realistic?  Was I artistic?  Was I a high achiever?  Did I value telling the truth always?  Was that a good plan?  Who was I?  Would I be alone if I did tell the truth?  What do I do about boys?  What is important to me?  Do I matter?

I am so glad that I am done with all that.  It was a weird, hard time.

Now with little ones of my own, I wonder if there is a way I can raise them to have more certainty about themselves.  To like who they are and be determined in who that is.  How does one do that, anyway?  Most of the time I am just plucky and proud if their clothes are clean, so this bigger question is out of the ball park.

So, truthfully, this has been one of the areas that I was really rescued in.  And when I say rescued, that is my language for, why I chose to follow Christ.  Before that, I had no reason to be good, no reason to be honest, no reason to be gentle, no reason to think of anything but myself.  It took a good looooong time for me to ease into not only knowing I could be better, but knowing how to get the strength to be better, and then, actually doing it.

Without having the compass of Christ's teaching, I pretty much had a "if it feels good, do it!" compass.  And then I could never figure out "Why isn't this making me happier?"  Like the party last night, I mean, that was fun, my friend set her hair on fire and we had to go home, but I mean, it was fun while it lasted,"  (yeah, that happened).  Why wasn't dating people more satisfying, in fact, it was more like a roller coaster ride that wouldn't stop?  Isn't having a super good looking fellow who has a fun car, a job and an apartment, what was missing, why am I still not really happy?

That was where I was circa 1991.

Since then I have realized that much of my youth I permitted the culture at large to define to me what the world was all about.  If it was in music, on TV in magazines, then I was there, I knew about it and I was one step ahead of all of it, because it was important.  Why weren't the things in the culture really making me happy?

Our culture does nothing for showing to anyone what real joy or real sorrow looks like.  Much less how to deal with it.  For example, new music that I liked made me as happy as I ever got.  Freedom in my car listening to my music was about as good as it ever got, outside of that was reality which looked confusing and not fun. 

When my first child was born was at the peak of my happinessometer.  It was and still is the defining joy of my life.  But does popular culture talk about that much?  About the satisfaction of that experience, or does it help us to understand how to cope with the death of a close person young or old?  Culture, particularly our American culture, does very little for our young learners who are trying to comprehend who they are and this world they are in.  In fact, it tells quite a lot of lies. 

How do you do one of the most difficult and important things in real life, how do you help someone facing death?  Where does American culture help guide us here?

It tells our young ones that their happiness or success if dependent upon their looks, their fashions, their wealth and their popularity.  It doesn't inform us of relationships, how to cultivate or keep them by honoring people around us, it shows us how to make ourselves happy.  With things.  Like fancy boots or cars or jewels.

Culture focuses on the constant parade of temporary happiness.  How long before a person figures out that these things, feeding the appetites, is just a treadmill? Culture speaks not at all to the spiritual side of a person, unless of course it wants to sell them crystals, TV evangelism or an addiction to feed.

There are so many big topics I am just glancing on here, but the main point is that American culture is pretty unhealthy.  And I know I am stating the obvious here to an adults in the room, but for young folk, they look to the outside world from their homes to tell them what is real outside what mom told them and the messages are pretty shallow.  Big boobs, plastic surgery, making money, self-oriented satiation of appetites.  Sex.

In a deeper look, I believe that our American culture sends some pretty damaging messages to people.  A message that they aren't that important, that they are disposable if they aren't hitting a certain standard of wealth, beauty or popularity.  Our culture doesn't equip us in any meaningful way whatsoever to know how to deal with reality.  The best we have are reality TV shows.

As a mom, I have wished often that what kids saw outside of what mom and dad said was something more healthy, something more whole, more real, more relevant, more true than the barge of trash that parades across the TV screen.  But I suspect that it is the price that is paid with a capitalist culture that what sells is what will fly, and what sells is usually the stuff that appeals to the most people.  And what appeals to the most people I suppose also depends on the age and education level of those people, perhaps.  With a popular culture that largely purveys junk, I hope for a time when collectively as a nation we will detox.

And in all truth, it makes me hope that the steady flow of junk will help people to acknowledge that none of this really brings any joy, and that they will go looking, and in looking, they will find enduring joy.

Chezwhat.net

I have restarted the main blog that I typically write at. 

It is a place where I store those pesky strong opinions, stuff I am researching, excited about and of course, pictures of my kids.

chezwhat.net has been around since 2005 when it was really just a whimsy, but has grown into a bit of a friend.  There are whispers that it might transmogrify into mainly a place for photography I do while Elisha's Bones keeps being the place where I put the words that I write.

Dogma of "God's Plan"

The other day I saw a young man that I knew in passing, said "Hi" and briefly caught up on his life.  He had just graduated college and was in that time where he was looking for the right job for his skills.  From experience, I know that dealing with that is stressful.  He offhandedly said "God has a plan," and I knew what he meant.

The right thing is out there.  He didn't have to worry.  After all the hard work of college, it is hard not to feel a little anxious about knowing the next step.  Knowing that the right thing was out there and that he would come to it no doubt allayed those anxieties.  I get that, and I agree with deriving peace from God's ultimate control and his love for us.

But the contemporary dogma of "God's plan" to allay our concerns  is something people created, and it works sometimes to make us feel better, but not always.

Extending that, I respect those who can speak gently, respectfully without fear.  Those who can initiate conversation without dividing.  Those who can approach a fire without burning up or making it bigger. I hope I can do that here.  I have tried many ways of turning this over in order to find the right words.  It is hard, if not impossible, to know how to say it.  So I will simply say.

When someone dies, especially a young person, and someone tries to console them by telling them that "it is part of God's plan,", it is not consoling.   It can be reviling and angering and makes people angry and hateful toward a God that would have a "plan" that included the death a child.  Particularly their own child.

I speak to this from experience, as we (our family) has passed through a trauma.  A trauma that made newspapers, sent all of us reeling, still in some ways.  It isn't in the newspapers anymore, but death doesn't leave when the newspapers stop reporting.

An aside here to give light on other dogma within those that would follow Christ, particularly in America where we have lots of Evangelical bent.

When I began following Christ, people in the church talked about different gifts.  I couldn't figure out what my "gifts" were, and so I handled that the same way I handle many other things, by making jokes about it (because if I didn't, I started feeling insufficient, or ungifted, but something else knew this was just ridiculous).  I said my gift was getting drowsy in church (which I actually don't usually, but I was poking fun).  Or my gift was meal planning during sermons (which I am guilty of).  Just jokes that made me smile.  But after following Christ for awhile, I was still uncertain of my "gift", and growing in uncertainty if I put any stock in that dogma at all.  I have suspected though that my gift might be related to faith, because my faith is deep roots to me.  My faith is okay with doubt, mystery, not understanding everything, still questioning relentlessly.  My faith is like an earthquake-proof building, it is not rigid.  I am okay with not knowing everything right now.  I am okay with discovery and growth.  I am okay with controversial things, they don't threaten me, which I didn't see when I asked big questions of people around me (asking "Why did God create evil?" --which is a legitimate question when considering he created everything--made some around me a little surprised).

However, if my beautiful son committed suicide by accidentally taking the life of 4 other innocent people and someone approached me and consolingly told me that it was part of "God's plan,"  I can't be sure of how I might respond.  Peaceful?  Comforted?  Relieved?  Probably not.

Enraged? Revulsion? Strong unpleasant emotion? A desire to distance myself from a God whose "plan" included killing my child? Yes.  Because that is barbaric.  It is sack cloth and ashes level of loss.  It is "now I have decided to become a hermit," loss.

I don't know a gentle or sensitive way to put this, but the dogma of "God's plan" is not something that people grieving death are comforted by in the rawness of the event, unlike my friend who graduated college and was waiting to see what was out there.

And that makes me question where this whole idea of "God's plan" came from.  I think God had a plan for the Israelites, and he probably has hopes for our choices, as "Gentiles".  I don't know if I would feel good about the idea that his "plan" included a bunch of beautiful babies getting killed at Sandy Hook.

Why would he destroy so that he could redeem?  Can you imagine breaking the most precious thing of your child just so that you could either replace it with something else or have some other plan to bring glory to yourself?

I do know that stuff happens in this world because God's kingdom is in heaven, not on earth. Those who follow Christ, it is our job to live out his kingdom here, isn't it?  Making it so in living differently.  Living differently because he gives us the ability to do so.

In conclusion, "God's plan" dogma  might be another human effort trying to make sense of things we don't get to know about.  Like why young innocents die.  Cosmological things.  Big questions.  It is an often frustrating pat answer much like "I guess we will have to ask God when we get to Heaven!" that is just lumped on to faith to "make sense" of things we cannot explain, rather than accepting ambiguity as part of servant-hood.

But specifically, "God's plan" dogma is not a very good or all encompassing way of understanding things, and in the face of grief, loss and death, it is the kind of response that makes people reject God.  Truthfully, I know that God can make sense and beauty out of the brokenness of this world, but I am not sure if I believe that he breaks things so that he can put them back together for his own glory.  That makes no sense to me, if I believe in a loving God.

But there is plenty I don't get to understand. We don't get to be experts with all the answers.  There is living and dying and the mess of life.  Why do people try to fit things into nice tidy little packages with tidy little answers worded in perfect Christian vocabulary? Sanitized.

Jeremiah 29:11 says this:  For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

This verse gets used to substantiate the "God's plan" dogma.  But I wonder always why we claim for our very own personal meaning things that are spoken to a specific group, in this case Jeremiah 29:4 says

This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 

And I am not a bible scholar so I will stop here, but where are all the references to God's plan otherwise?  I suspect the dogma is another example of where culture (western evangelical culture) hasn't seeped in and tweaked the message just a bit, sort of like the "name it and claim it" dogma, or the "Prayer of Jabez" things that seem to get lumped on, for comfort's sake.

The need to bring comfort to those in precarious situations is heartfelt, sincere.  Faith can bring great comfort in times of testing.  Unfortunately, suggestions that great tragedy in a person's life explained away with non-biblical dogmas about "God's plan," which resulted in the death of one's child don't allay pain or grief or bring comfort, in fact at times can inadvertently and well-intentionedly do the opposite.  People reminding us about "God's plan"  doesn't even really help make sense of anything in death.  These dogmas are, in deep tragedy, simply more reminders of how insufficient humanity is to give us what only God can give (and how frail and thin our attempts are).

You gots to find the good stuff

 

While 2012 won't go down in the annals as "my favorite year", to not look and see the good stuff would be a huge mistake.

 

While this year challenged me personally and professionally on an almost daily basis, there were amazing moments of respite and rare joy that I might never get to really experience much in my life.

 

And its best to be careful in daily life, I guess, because it is really easy to miss them, and not know when these little moments will pop up.

 

Like when you are on a family vacation when everyone is grouchy, but there is this awesome little 3 year old who decides she is going to pretend that she is a Solid Gold Dancer.

 

At the beach in August.  I am sure none of you ever have family vacations that get to be challenging.  And I am really certain that you don't have a child that chooses to do impromptu dance routines involving pink homemade play doh.

 

But if you do, isn't it awesome?

 

And isn't it a game changer to have this persistent joy in your presence?

 

It's like having a puppy, only better.

 

And this is what cameras are for.

 

And this.  Because blue bubble gum ice cream in August and being 3 are things that only happen once.

Church, wrestling and the loss of faith

I started writing such a protracted comment to this blog post, I shifted gears and am dumping out here what came to mind.

See, someone I am close to went to a christian school. And the experience is similar, so many having walked away from church. And subsequently became very angry with God about incidents that no one wants to ever to experience.

There are thoughts that are turned over repeatedly in ones head. Thoughts looking for a conversation.

There are feelings lapping the beaches of the heart. Emotions kept in check. Anger, grief, fear and precipitant numbness that all must be saved for the proper moment.

And when the proper moment does not come... or if it does come and it is too scary to give voice to the things inside, because it might involve strong emotion that is not typical to pleasant light chatter. The listener may just opt to back away slowly, and decide this is more than they can handle. And the heart that has everything pent up might easily decide it is much easier the hold in what is there than to risk/trust speaking (understandably). And the road to bitterness has begun.

And if one belongs to a faith community, one might wonder, who can help? Does anyone see? And when the grip on why people believe in God at all begins to become too heavy to sustain grasp, and faith erodes and slips away... is there anyone there? Anyone persistent enough? Anyone unshockable enough? Anyone with any time? Anyone with whom one would want to speak?

What is the purpose of a church if not partially to sustain the weary and celebrate with the joyous?

I remember asking questions and having people be worried when I asked them, and maybe I just imagined them making some space between themselves and I. I was in my 20's. I remember asking a woman that if every good gift was from above, why couldn't I marry my Jewish boyfriend? She gracious admitted to not having an answer. I appreciated her honesty.

More recently I have met the unflappable. I appreciate them very much. I was struggling with understanding why God would have created evil, if he indeed created everything. Her answer was subtle, but I could tell my line of questioning didn't cause her any panic whatsoever.

I know that God is ok with wrestling, even if it weirds other people out. I do wish church felt like a safe place to wrestle more often than it does. I wish many things about church.

Recently a person in our meeting spoke out saying that anxiety was due to a lack of faith. A double punch. The misery of anxiety and an indictment that it is your own fault. I did not hear Jesus' voice in that. But such is the way of community and congregation.


For my own, I accept that the purpose of church is very humble. It is merely carving a space and time to show up. And the best and highest use of that time, and the time after that is just to be a good thing to those around you who need it. It is being available. I think every faithful follower must get to a point where attendance is just obedience. And really, for me that hasn't been a bad starting point.

How to choose a good husband

So lately I have this hare-brained idea that I should just write a friggin book on how to choose a husband. Based on experience? I don't know, whatever, forget it.

The only thing I can thing to say though is this:

You cannot train a husband like you train a dog. Forget that idea.

You cannot do anything about these things: 1. his past. 2. his family 3.his future

And there are probably more things in there too. The fact is, his past can bring difficulty to the present. His future, which you also cannot do anything about, may bring difficulty. So for example, if his a person he is close to dies, and he changes into a different person after this, you can do nothing about this.

I begin to understand why Paul told us not to marry. Yes, Paul the apostle speaks and I listen.

And with that said, if he decides Paul the apostle was a charlatan, and so was the Messiah, there is little to be done there either. And you are still married to him.

And if you have kids, they will need a father. And no matter how great the trial, there are other people involved who are relying on you.

And so is there any situation that can more thoroughly make you throw your hands up and admit "My boundaries are crossed, my rules broken, my wishes gone, my dreams in shreds..." and still I am married. And my babes need a papa.

Now do you need God? Yes, you do.

And so, in terms of picking a husband, there are obvious requirements. And they can get pretty detailed. But in the end, you will most likely have to let go of them all. Oh, I hope I am not sounding like a jaded, war-weary, battleaxe. But truth is, marriage is often an improbable arrangement. I am happy for the ones with worries like shoes that pinch, sibling rivalry (which can cause insanity), or terminal giving without appreciation (it can happen). Women are often wired to want children. It is like a super-power we cannot resist trying out.

But be aware, there are so many things you cannot anticipate, so many things which we do not get to control, best be realistic and lay that wager on a generous serving of "hope" and "God Willing"

Eat. This is good winter fare for the beefeater.

Richard’s Beef Burgundy

This is a super beefy, hearty and um really incredibly yummy meal. It came from my stepfather Richard, who knows his ways around a delicious meat and potatoes meal. He has good taste. I think it would be good served over some egg noodles. It makes a lot and is the perfect use of a nicely trimmed chuck steak. (of large size) It is homegrown variation on the beef burgundy of the Julia Child variety. This recipe is just real ingredients prepared the way that really make them shine. Enjoy. It is really a great dish for cold weather.

Ingredients:

3 lbs of Chuck Roast cut into 1 ½ inch pieces
2.5 T of olive oil
1/3 cup flour
14 oz. beef broth
1.5 cup Burgundy wine
2 T tomato paste (I have substituted tomato sauce in a higher quantity without bad results)
4 cloves of garlic (which is just a starting point, really?)
4 Bay Leaves (which I never have and so I use other things like Thyme)
1 t. salt (garlic salt perhaps?)
1 t. thyme
2 lbs small new potatoes (I admit I just cut up a couple russets)
1 lb carrots
8-10 small boiling onions
½ lb. medium sized fresh mushrooms
¼ cup chopped fresh parsley

Now, I have mentioned a couple of my substitutions and I will just mention a couple more. I completely forgot the mushrooms and no one died, but I think they would really lend another important flavor/texture to the mix here. I used dried parsley, and for the boiling onions, I minced couple of the medium sized yellow onions and it was all good.

Directions:
In a Dutch oven, heat the oil on medium/high and add meat and sear.

Remove the meat. Sprinkle flour over drippings. Stir in wine, broth and tomato paste, whisk smooth. Boil and then reduce to low and add garlic, and all seasonings (thyme, bay leaf, salt) and then the meat.

Simmer tightly cover for 1 hour and 45 minutes or until the beef is tender. At the potatoes, carrots and onions and cover again and cook for another 45 minutes.

Stir in the mushrooms and simmer while you make up some noodles.

Sprinkle with the fresh parsley as you serve it.
Enjoy

Phone message

A sort of backdrop of sadness, loss as a year passes.

And you got a phone call today! From Sweetwater Sound.

I am sure the guy didn't know why I was quiet. Your sister is doing well, all things considered. She is throwing her muscle behind her academics, coming up with high achievement.

Your baby sisters still ask about you, the answers are never very easy. I wish you were adjusting to a dorm room, counting your scholarship money, and feeling the achievement that college can bring (as well as Friday nights in the library).

Ugh, I am sure you are someplace easier than where you were the night you left, but you are missed.

Inherent talent vs. sustained hard work

He wrote me the tabs to the song and I used his guitar to try to play them over and over. He was in the other room and I was really self conscious as I practiced the words in Russian that he had written down, and as I tried to get my fingers to do as he had shown me. See, he had just completed his first album, and now he was showing me how to play this Russian folk song on a guitar. I had been practicing guitar in the ample free time I had in my komnata there in Saratov Russia. Maybe he thought I was more practiced than I was, or maybe more talented than I was.

I liked being behind the guitar, I liked reading and singing the Russian folk song, I liked feeling like I might get this, if I practice long enough... I didn't like continually goofing up in front of my new musician friend.

It was St. Petersburg, 1997. He had just turned his hair purple and completed a record. I was at the end of my time in Russia. I had spent a year and a half drinking tea with women 2 times my age. To me, a person my age who made music and lived in St. Petersburg was somewhat novel. Ok, I will admit it, I was happy to finally be with someone my age who was cool.

It was white nights, a time when the sun never actually sets, lending to the whole experience a surreality. I lost an important ring. I explored St. Petes on my own sometimes. Traveling alone is a topic for another time.

It was there that the question first came up.

Should you bother to do it if you don't have a natural talent for it? I mean, can you say you do anything if really, you aren't 100% (or even 90%) confident that you can do it pretty well? Isn't there any room for the tinkerer? Sometimes, it felt, in Russia anyway, that you perhaps best not mention your interests lest you were ready to demonstrate.

I have a friend who is beautiful. And her parents raised her so well. She sings. And her singing is beautiful, not because it is perfect, but because it is sung with her heart. And to me, it is that heart that makes things beautiful and perfect. Maybe it is because she is gifted to make people feel loved, maybe it is the life she lives as a Christ follower, not back-biting or 2-faced, not hypocritical or self interested, but just really filled with love for people. Her song is the best to me.

The question reasserted itself time and time again. I realized that it lived in all the people I traveled with to Ecuador who were trying to learn Spanish, amidst others in the group who poked fun.

Should you bother to do it if you don't have a natural talent for it?

And if I wanted to escape it, I went into the wrong profession. Teaching.

Should I bother to do it if I don't have a natural talent for it?

Ok, I admit it, no. No. No, I don't have a natural talent for it. But I plead...

Look, I can do this, I will work very hard and I won't ever give up. I will do the best I can I will work so hard. I will be gentle, kind, encouraging, patient. Watch, I will do all the things no one ever thought I could. Because it is that important to me. I want this.

And after so many years of teaching, I can honestly say, yes, I am a good teacher. Because I have the heart. I have managed to translate that heart into every interaction with students to know what they need, and when I don't I, by default, encourage.

Somewhere else, there is Beethoven, Mozart and every savant with an affinity for something that ever was. Playing chess, speaking to each other in prime numbers, or maybe with colors. Everyone given a tremendous talent. Everyone who is really good at something, anything. They are there. With their talent. And probably an angst or two.

And the rest of us are over here, trying very hard to figure out either what we are good at, or, if in a world with people dying of hunger, if we are permitted to do what we would love to do every day if we were in heaven.

And what if what we do isn't what we are good at? And what if what we are good at isn't something we love?

For example, I am really good at making snarky jokes, being a bit cynical. But I am also good at seeing good stuff in people, encouraging them and I can be articulate. I am a good learner when it's important to me, and I work hard at what I have decided to do. But was I born to teach? Born to be a musician? Born to speak words of wisdom to folks? I dunno, I have to believe that if a person deeply wants to cultivate some ability, they can do so.

So the question is, what is more important, what is inherently in a person as something they are just born with, or a lifetime devoted to crafting and cultivating talents or characteristics that match their values? just curious...

Should you bother to do it if you don't have a natural talent for it?

Abuela

There was an argument in my head over the stone that was, in my mind thoughtlessly placed on her grave. Her son, my father, had chosen dice to put on the stone. It was, I suppose reflective of the way he viewed things. But I couldn't help thinking it looked like gram was a gambler or crapshooter.

The Grandma I knew was 20 to 30 years older than I am now. What I remember are her wrinkly pudgy fingers dirty from working in the garden cleaning up a collander full of green beans. I remember goats milk yogurt drunk with trepidation and secretly enjoyed for its milky sweetness with strawberries. I remember the glasses of wine, the endless games with the backgammon board and the John Deere tractor which she rode all over her property as she kept things clean. Chicken coops that seemed mysterious and ordinary all at once. Chicken wire which I clung too as a toddler and the creek with all its multicolored stones at the bottom.

And now I see other things too, my own love for gardening as its own escape. I see the farmers my family were. I see what a farmer is, someone who doesn't give up easily, knows the entire landscape of human emotion by glaring it in the eye with each waking day's coffee, or crawling into ones pillow at night.

I remember the smells, oh the smells of her farm house. Strongest of cats, then some indescribable earthy smells, fire smoke, hard water, dirt and bacon.

More recently I remember trying to build friendships at a university, in a ladies group starting off by describing their grandmothers. By the time the 5th girl described her grandmother, I was wishing I could either slowly be swallowed by my easy chair. I also wondered how conspicuous I would be if I ran out. I considered lying. Not out of shame, mind you, more of feeling like I had fallen in with a group of fine young ladies whose grandma's were worlds apart from my own. I didn't want to stick out, but I didn't want to lie, either.

Their grandmothers reminding them to keep their knees together in church by saying "Close your bible book!" contrasted sharply with my sweet granny who was scolded by a pastor for not wearing dresses to their small town church. I don't believe she owned a dress. To say nothing of him asking her not to come back till she quit smoking.

Or the time she ran her car into the smoke shack.

Or I could have told them, in retrospect about how grandma started following Christ when she was about 80. Or that she lived in the South Pacific with her family for a time. Or about the owls around her house.

One must mention her raising 4 kids, as well as 2 of her grandchildren. I can only imagine as an only child, it wasn't what she had anticipated.

Their grandmothers with lacy aprons baking something light and fluffy and scrumptious, mine with hands in the soil and cooking. I do think of her really as a very rustic Martha Stewart, actually.

I wish I could catalog all the stories of grandma, because they are wonderful. She was a true character. In her latest years she never stopped, receiving awards for her letter writing campaigns to begin veteran's history projects and revamping forgotten sacred lands.

I remember kissing her felt just like I imagined kissing Yoda would be like. Sorry gram, but each one of those kisses I anticipated such.

And when my turn came to describe grandma, I didn't chicken out, I told them that my grandma wore coveralls and rode around on a John Deere tractor and probably secretly wished that someone else would "weedeat the crick" (and sometimes not so secretly). But truthfully, I didn't go back.

When she died, her main entertainment was the birdfeeders outside her window. She loved, no, she lerved the birds and would make all varieties of suet and hummingbird food for them.

I remember as a very little girl her house seemed filled with secret stashes of Prang watercolors and coloring books and blank paper screaming to be drawn on. And strange interesting books and photo albums. As a little girl, I loved her sort of dirty but exotic seeming house. It just seemed to contain a million benevolent secrets.

Things I seldom think about: Women in church

Because I was not raised in a church, I don't have all that baggage goodness of understanding roles that women play in the church.

I have felt at times that I wasn't particularly good at "staying in line" in the context of what a "female role" was in church, but I was a pretty lousy "renegade" too.

Truth be told, I seldom thought about it.

But lately, there are so many different things coming at me about prescribed places women belong, and men too, that I never even realized existed. I am meeting intelligent people who have interesting stories to tell about where they bumped up against the edges of what was expected and came away a little flounced, and maybe surprised. And perhaps a feeling a bit turned out.

Like the married couple youth pastor team who had difficulty explaining to a pastoral staff that they worked together as a team and needed to each pull a wage.

Apparently the pastoral staff that the wife came for free, maybe with a plate of cookies.

And the young woman who has observed throughout her life the gentle nudging off the platform of female deacons and elders. Why didn't they get to serve?

And the man who can find no purchase within ministry at churches, carrying a message that it is men's job to help their wives realize their life goals (oh! I LOVE this!).

And things that I haven't thought much about arise in realizing "oh, yes, I guess they are there," and I have never very well played into the role of abiding female, have I? or have I? Maybe I have played into it more than I even realize.

Drowning in Love notes...

Fingers click clacked the letters urgently. The white paper set intrepidly by the keyboard and the soft eyes looking, waiting so quietly for the click clacking to stop, and the realization to set in. Focused deeply on a task, the click clacker doesn't realize what the blue eyes are patiently waiting for.

Realization of a love note.

There are times in life when you have to let go of precious things, things that you wanted and thought would be normal for you. Dreams deferred, deep sorrow, caring for people who need a person there to catch them.

And then there is that one little persistent beam of hope. somewhere. it just won't go out, it won't stop shining, it won't stop being beautiful, it won't stop being just whatever it is.

for the past i am not sure how long now, I have been receiving weekly love letters from my oldest daughter.

to tell you the truth, when she began writing them with some regularity, after i was overwhelmed with the sweetness that caused her to write them, and when she kept writing them i started to wonder why? and began to imagine that i had some how messed her up in a way that caused her to write a bunch of love letters to me.

I want to pause on that for just a second... wouldn't it be great if we could somehow parent in such a way that made our kids adore us? Ah... an impossible dream.

But as they came daily, I began to get overwhelmed "I love you! don't forget! I LOVE YOU!!!" I wish more people wrote love letters as prolifically as she. Would we all be so bedraggled then?

She is persistent. It has been months. I must have received upwards of 50 love letters from her. They are all over my desk, shoved in my bible, shoved in notebooks, used as book marks, in between recipes, taped in random places around the house... wherever you go around my house, you are likely to find a love letter.

I am no longer fearful that I somehow messed her up and the outcome is love letters. I must be very careful to cherish each one, as she observes carefully what I do with them.

She will say, "You just set it down, don't you like it?"

and I will stop what I am doing and look at her, and take her pink pillow cheeks in my hand and say "Are you kidding? Whenever I get one of your love notes, it's like God is using you to tell me how much he loves me. He loves me so much that he gave me a daughter that writes me love notes every day. They are the BEST part of my day,"

Then she perhaps has gotten exactly what she wanted from writing that love note, and we are all happy.

Lately, when i tell her that i love her too, she tells me "I love you more!"

I could post a few here, but for now, it has been wonderful just to meditate on being drowned in love letters. I hope it is an experience that everyone gets to have at least once in their lives.

The call to profession

I am truly grateful that in my family, one was really strongly encouraged to find a direction in life that would sustain one financially. Being a writer, a poet, an artist, a dramatic artist, an anthropologist, a naturopath... ahhh nah. Be an engineer.

Never mind, I didn't become an engineer, but I did obediently find a path somehow, that would keep me from being dependent on someone else. And THAT is a really important thing for a young female. And to my complete surprise, and what seems like completely by accident, I have a solid amount of education and experience under my belt anymore, I am finally discovering that elusive thing I couldn't find when I was younger: confidence.

My daughters, I don't think, will know this problem. They seem to have the confidence of a tsunami.


In retrospect, I realize I could have become anything, a nurse, a weigh station attendant (why does this profession fascinate me?), a waitress and even an anthropologist or a writer.

But at certain age, one might look at the career that they have ended up in and start thinking a little Parker Palmer, is this what I was meant to do?

I have. no. clue.

Do I know a lot about it? Yes. Am I knowledgeable and trained in my profession, oh heavens yes. And then some.

Do I feel like I am good at it? What measures that? Do I seem to be doing well at it? I have no idea. Am I doing something good? Ugh. How can one know?

I have landed as a teacher. For many years now! I think one comment from an immature friend who was great fun to be around, a comment which peeked out someone much more in step with what was important than what he usually portrayed, made a big difference:

If it will make me a better dad, than it will all have been worth it.

When he said that, I realized he had spoken something true and important, and at the time I had no kids much less marriage prospects on the horizon. If it would make me a better mom, it will be worth it.

My husband says, if you love it, these questions will go away. Because you love it so much you will inevitably become good at it. It might be true.

But sometimes I wonder why the notion that I would be a good teacher at all would ever occur to me? I am snarky, irreverent and come from a family who is selfish, arrogant and well, selfish (like me, at times).

I remember: I thought, I will learn much much much. And it is true. I have learned much. But I want to be a Very Good something or other. I am not sure if I will get there with teaching, because teaching takes something like an amazing personality or a tremendous mind blowing amount of wisdom like Yoda . I haven't found an educational program yet that will give me either of these things(maybe I should go back to The Evergreen State College, I bet they have a program to become Jedi Master).

Truth is, Great Teachers have something Special. A Confidence. A tremendous amount of knowledge, an ability to articulate and a fortitude to do so. And love, but half of that I have covered. Really, I do.

Except that, I feel like I have always been taught and reminded to keep my mouth SHUT.

How is one supposed to do all these things at once?

Once a student told me I had missed my calling, that I should become a photographer. I buckled inside. Who me? An artistic endeavor?

But that would go against EVERYTHING I HAD LEARNED.

I would love it, though. But for some reason I had learned that I was to be the weigh station attendant, not the career anyone feels born into, the one that you did because you could, and it served the purpose.

And truly, first world problems, anyone? That's what this pondering is, and I know it.

Service. It's not easy.

In reading Mother Teresa some years ago, I remember she told her new helpers that all the people that came to the Home for the Dying were "Christ in his most distressing disguise,". That is to say, that the help and comfort that they were giving to people that arrived at the home were to be treated as though they were Christ. She went on to describe people stuck in sewers whose open wounds had attracted all varieties of nasty things, and for the sisters of Charity, those people were their opportunity to show love to Christ.

This all spoke to me.

Service is hard. Even when you are not taking care of people abandoned in death, it is hard. Taking care of the living is messy, hard.

Even if we get over ourselves enough to give a few hours of the week, there are challenges we never anticipated. People who take advantage of charity. People who somehow seem to know our weaknesses and go right at them. People who lack any gratitude, but rather complain about the quality of what they receive. People who ask much more than we are able to give.

It is enough to make almost anyone just quit.

And so?

My husband does a ministry he loves. It is the wood ministry. He delivers wood to people who need heat for the winter. He brings the kids, they make friends. It is altogether a good thing. He also makes coffee for a group who meet to worship and learn. He realized later he did have hopes of what might have come of these service ops, but they never manifested. Of course he doesn't stop. He loves to be useful.

My own work in service has been messier. It has played on personal weaknesses, have felt taken too far in what I could give. Life lesson? Boundaries, and perhaps a dusting of not guilting myself to give more than I could, because the end of that was quitting.

Where am I going with this? Am I saying it is better we don't serve unless we are good at it? I am not ready to say that.

I have heard that doesn't call us only if we are ready (or equipped), rather that he makes ready (or equipped) those he calls. So I wait. Equip me, please.

Service is not easy. Even harder when what lands in our lap is exactly going to need us to be strong where we are weak.

And when our "confidants" point out "Well the problem is that you are weak in this area," OH! Thank you, I was hoping someone would come along to offer some criticism.

My point is, at some point service will likely become hard. Maybe even too hard. Ministry work is not messing around stuff, your boundaries will be crossed, your anger may be activated and the areas of weakness in your character will be exposed. What is the use then?

Well, then I supppose one might ask themselves then "Why am I doing this?"

Is it because it makes me feel magnanimous?
I want to be redeemed for my faults to do something good?
Because I have nothing much more to do?
Because I feel guilty about something?
Because I want to do good?
Because I want to give back for what I have received?
Because I feel like I ought to?

Figuring out why to pursue doing things which are hard, painful, unpleasant is an important thing too, the motivation to service is really relevant, it will determine one's level of commitment for when things get hard, unpleasant, messy or inconvenient. And service-related work will eventually get at least one or more of those things.

But if one finds the enduring reason (for me, it is the example Christ set), then maybe in going through those times when one feels insulted, diminished and undervalued (by one's own perception) might bring some good wisdom, humility, honesty and reality to one's life.

Perhaps? Didn't Jesus get all that stuff too? Didn't St. Francis tell us to consider ourselves blessed in persecution because of our faith? Uh. Hard truths.

file this under: things I am still working on.

Perpetually hacked

For almost 7 years now I have published at chezwhat.net.

I am happy with the work I have done there, I see quite a change in the person that started that blog to the person who writes this today.

But chezwhat.net is perpetually hacked these days. We have tried many things to undo this, fix and repair and amend and deal with it, and none of it sticks. Eventually it gets hacked again.

So I have given up I might try to print that blog and just start afresh here anyway, it had its run, it has taken me from the mom of one infant to the mom of 2 and erstwhile mom of a young lady.

I changed towns since beginning chezwhat, changed houses and a couple times changed jobs. So I still have so many things to write about, and now I am just going to write them all out here.

Welcome. Kick your feet up and perhaps at some point something I write will make you think or at least go "awww" when I put up the pictures of my extremely beautiful monkeys...er girls.

Agree

Donald Miller, a story teller who is a follower of Christ, wrote this:

Yesterday, at lunch, my friend David mentioned he’d spent some time in Colorado with the guys at Ransomed Heart. David used to work with them and went back to hang out with them for a weekend in the mountains. He mentioned that one of the guys reminded him that spirituality was not a context. I asked David what the guy meant, and Dave said what he meant was that you learn about God while learning to fly a plane or raising a child or planting crops in a field. It’s not a hard, fast rule to be sure, but the idea is that sitting around looking at your spiritual belly button isn’t going to provide an object lesson for your faith. The idea is that faith makes sense in the context of some other pursuit.

And that might be the reason I don’t migrate toward conversations specifically about faith.

I agree very much, as it seems like it is always through the experiences I am having that God uses to teach me a thing or two, or bring me to my knees. For example, raising kids, or being married. I am fairly certain I could do neither of these things on my own, and if I did, I know there would be enough mistakes that I would recognize only in retrospect, that doing what I thought was best at the time would eventually be my undoing.

If the past indicates the future, that is where I would stand.

Confessing

While reading a book, I realized there was this thing that I had honestly been beating myself up for for years.

I thought about how it came up years after it occurred. The depth of the jerk that I had been. And searching my mind on ways, things I could do that would make me *feel* absolved of this. Merely confessing seemed completely inadequate to the damage I had done.

I considered restitution.

It wasn't a money sort of damage that I had done. And I suspected the people involved might be more annoyed that I even went back to that time and place than grateful for a heartfelt apology. We have all done what normal people do: move on.

When someone apologizes, it is sort of hard. It puts the recipient of the apology back into the unpleasant memory of having a wrong done to them, and then having to say "that's alright" or be a jerk.

Plus, when we are talking old relationships, trotting out this garbage seems really backwards-moving.

What can be done for the person who has done the wrong to put it behind them?

I apologize every time I remember that situation. I don't bury it or hide it. I have learned that I have to be nice to people because, due to some mental or genetic defect, I never let myself forget when I have been a jerk to good kind people who have cared for me.

I have to believe that God has let me off the hook for this a long time ago. Since I can't go back, I have to move forward and avoid making this mistake again, and continue confessing until it is etched over the memory of me being a jerk.

Steward or pilgrim?

Which direction does the bible point to with regards to money? Am I to give it all away and follow Christ, as it says in the New Testament or am I to be wise and save for my grandkids, like it says in Proverbs?

I found myself needing some words of wisdom, and not merely opinions. As a parent of young children, how the question is answered is relevant for more than just myself.

Some well-known writers have also put forth the urgency of the call of a Christian to follow Christ. Living like a pilgrim before I had kids was all for me, but now I wondered if it was the right choice with their well-being to consider.

My husband and I consider carefully the way we divide our resources; setting examples, making moral choices and being obedient are all priorities. So which path is correct? New Testament living by faith or Proverbs wise stewardship?

Who can answer that question of each of us?

The Lord has blessed our family in a way that feels lavish to us. We are grateful for opportunities to give back to our community. But is it sufficient?

For the time, I will be intentional and wise with what the Lord has provided. I will do everything I can to imbue my kids with a sense of the importance of service. I trust the Lord will bless this, as we try to steward wisely the overflowing bounty that he has given our family.

How do you answer this question in your own life?

Lent

This year for Lent I wonder if I gave up sleep, control, perseverance or hope. I can't figure out which cos it seems like at times I gave them all up.

Easter is coming though...

What I said

I spoke at a women's retreat this weekend, and this is what I said ...

Faithwalk March 13, 2010

Learning about God through raising my own daughters and teaching her about God

1. Prayer

2. Introduction

Relatively speaking, I am new to the Friends church. Before arriving here in Newberg, my faith persevered often times in spite of the church rather than being encouraged from it. I understand those who would be disenchanted by the church, but still having been on the inside of it and the outside of it, I know that outside of Christ there really is absolutely nothing Good, and that comes from life experience. I have given thanks daily and weekly for the Lord’s leading us to Newberg Friends. Here I have found people who I respect, people from whom I might learn a thing or two, and a community where it seems that the aspects of my faith I cherish the most are of high value. I am incredibly grateful for finding this fellowship.

3. Some history, and topic

When thinking about what I was supposed to talk about, I found I had absolutely no desire to talk about what led me to Christ, It feels wrong to go through all the twists and turns that finally brought me to a point where I became Christian… The only really important thing to say might be I rejected Christianity because I didn’t like the culture of the church, and I came to the Lord because I wanted something so much better than what I could find in the world, and truly that is what I have found since turning to Christ when I was 21. From the folly of youth and the day the Lord lifted me out of my own mess, I can see a ribbon of his presence winding its way through my life, introducing and reintroducing himself.

I used to think I would have to turn off my brain to be a Christian, and it has been quite the opposite, that it has kindled an ongoing process of wrestling and reconciling and understanding. I love the story of Jacob wrestling with God, it speaks so much to life in faith, but while I feel like that characterizes my coming to Christ, that isn’t where I am going today,

More intriguing to me these days is the process I am starting of raising a child and what it is teaching me about God. How do I show my own children the face of Christ when I feel so ill-equipped? Sometimes I have wished I had a Christian upbringing, but seeing my husband work through reconciling his own Christian upbringing I am not so sure that’s where its at.

Here I would like to tell a little story about what our family looked like in the spiritual sense….


When I was growing up, I lived in a cul-de-sac with a couple other girls. They were from Christian families. Mine wasn't really that way so much.

Me and Karen and LaVonne played together alot. Karen went to an Assemblies of God church. Karen to this day is one of the sweetest people I can think of. She had a child like wisdom, good behavior and kindness that seemed to be a inherent part of her character. I thought very highly of her. One day I was over at her house for lunch. Before we could eat, she put her hands together, bowed her head and then in a little bit she stopped and ate her tuna salad on white bread.. I watched this. I had no idea what she just did, but I thought this was good, like she was. I asked her what she did, and through a mouth full of tuna salad sammich, she told me she prayed.

When I went home that night for supper, as we gathered around the table I announced "We should pray!" My parents looked at me.
.
"Ok then, pray." I stalled. I had never prayed before I realized at this point, and had no idea what praying really...I just had no idea.
The tension mounted for me, because as I was the youngest, the idea that anyone would pay attention to my suggestion was altogether unusual.
"Ok, well you have to stand up,"
"Why?"
"Because that's how you pray." The family stood up. At this point I am feeling really in trouble because here the same people who usually interrupt me and talk over me at the dinner table are doing what I am telling them to, and I have no clue what I am doing.

"You have to put your hand on your heart"
"What? You do not," said John, my brother.
"Just pray already, I'm hungry," says someone else. So I piously put my hand over my heart and said

"I pledge allegiance to the flag
of the United States of America..."


I have struggled with a sense of not really being equipped to raise a child to love Christ.
I hope to raise a daughter who perhaps doesn’t have to detour through so many painful choices before she comes to realize the value of the presence of the lord in her life. I don’t feel like I am without resources and some ideas of what is right and good, and that’s what I am going to talk about.

He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young. Isaiah 40:11

I do really feel like when I seek I find he DOES GENTLY lead those that have young. He gently leads me sometimes. And so I try to gently lead Addy. It is important to me that her learning be organic, without stress… gentle. This makes my time with her sometimes more like a rest from everything else—for that moment, the most important thing is that puzzle, or the fort, or the new art supplies. At times it seems that parenting is just a collection of moments, and making the best of each one as we are able to.

4. Resources for the job at hand

• I have found resources along the way that have encouraged me, reassured me, informed me, made me curious, and guided me and more than once I feel like the Lord has done the work for me when it comes to having the right heart about things happening, relating with my daughters

The best so far has been the community of moms I have found in Newberg and specifically at Newberg Friends. I really can’t say enough about how grateful I am that the Lord put us here. I appreciate the words of friends who tell me it’s okay for the kids to have nothing to do for awhile. I appreciate the simplicity of bumping into friends or strangers at a park. I am grateful for prayer groups, play groups with moms who I admire and respect and who have walked my path before. I am so grateful for this community which values the things that I value and around whom I am glad my kids will grow up. I am most specifically grateful for friendships with women who do not complain, but look for ways to cope with circumstances, women who set good examples as believers, women who listen and do not judge. I am constantly encouraged by the friendships the Lord is leading me to.

I have reassurance that the relationship that I have with my daughters offers me insight to the relationship and love the Lord has for me. How could I know the deep soulful love that I have for my girls if the Lord didn’t first have that love for his children? The quantity of joy I take in her has to come from somewhere, and I believe it comes from God, who delights in me as well.

1 John 3:16
By this we know love, because Jesus Christ laid down his life for us…

I know that I am not alone in this path with my girls. He is gently leading me as Isaiah 40:11 says

• Another resource I feel like I am learning a little more about is prayer. The sermon series about prayer resonated with me-Jeff and I talked a lot about it-and I started reading last summer. I read The Way of a Pilgrim by an unattributed author, but coming from the Russian orthodox church and also Prayer by Philip Yancey. The books have changed my prayer life entirely. My own prayer life had its shortcomings and I suspected that there was more to prayer than what I really knew about, because it never seemed as powerful as what people said. My readings lead me to see that prayer was something that might result only in changing my own heart about a circumstance, but so far that has been significant….

Now, when the virtues went around I am pretty sure I got shortchanged on patience.
Some of the suggestions about prayer mentioned in the book have really, really helped me to keep what is most important to me right in front of my face: to be a patient and loving mom at times when I wasn’t sure there wasn’t any more patient left. Daily with my girls, I cannot without regularly praying for mercy, patience, gentleness, self control and the measure of love that is required to be a good parent.

• Prayer has changed my decision making. It has clarified what the purpose of this time of my life is, raising children and looking for things that will make me a better mom. Sometimes that means learning from a gifted teacher of children, sometimes it means learning to play the piano, or other activities that do not require me to be a mom…. And when all else fails, sometimes being a good parent means a little time apart from the kid.

5. God gives me deeper understanding of himself through her

Being much time with a child really is a pouring out of ourselves. It can be really exhausting and also an amazing blessing. She verbally reminds me how God loves me, she blesses me with the singing of hymns we sing together. My heart grows when I see her loving God in her childlike way, and I am encouraged and grateful. In the difficult times the simplicity she represents which is a rest and respite from the complexity of messy problems.

Sometimes I wonder if God doesn’t give us children to teach us something very specific about our relationship with Him, but I am not sure what that is yet.

While I talk about this, I hope it doesn’t sound like “I have this all figured out!”, what I have learned through trials is that I can control pretty much almost nothing in my life, but I can control how I respond. And I am still trying to get on top of that one.

The thing that makes me really joyful is that I am so very much at the beginning of this process, and I am looking forward to what God will reveal. If this sounds overly optimistic, it also again reminds me of how very much my daughters and this whole process is in God’s hands, I cannot worry (though I will probably try)

. It might be important to add, that while I feel like I am learning a lot, it’s because I have a lot to learn…

• Teaching her about showing Christ’s love to those around her, getting her past her own selfishness, and getting me past my own selfishness as well

• Authentically demonstrating my faith, mostly this is through the way I live, the choices we make as a family, priorities

• Choosing the responses what will resonate in her heart

• Showing her how, and what to pray for, and why.

• Nurturing her spiritual growth… what will this look like? I am infinitely grateful for moms around me who if they don’t have all the answers, they encourage me so much.

• Equipping her to go far in life, not hobbling her with hangups (is this even possible?)

In conclusion, the choices, paths or turns my daughters life takes are things that are in God’s hands. The only thing that I can really control on is my response to things that happen, so I pray the Lord will be there teaching me at those times too. Despite what I might lack in informing me how to raise my kids, I am constantly encouraged as the Lord seems to give me what I need, when I need it—how to pray, a community that seems tailor made for where we are in life, encouragement, friendships.

Read Psalm 25: 4-10