He Giveth More Grace: An Illustration

Did you know that there are lots of free books on Kindle? The secret to finding them is to look for books written or translated into English before copyright laws in their modern form came into effect. Some great authors include Leo Tolstoy, Victor Hugo, George MacDonald, G.K. Chesterton, and--the author I am currently reading--John Bunyan, author of Pilgrim's Progress.

All of Pilgrim's Progress is an allegory for the Christian life. I have enjoyed reading it and taken much encouragement therein. (Also, my internal monologue is starting to sound like the King James Bible.) Below is one of my favorite illustrations:

"Then I saw in my dream that the Interpreter took Christian by the hand, and led him into a place where was a fire burning against a wall, and one standing by it, always casting much water upon it, to quench it; yet did the fire burn higher and hotter.

Then said Christian, 'What means this?'

The Interpreter answered, 'This fire is the work of grace that is wrought in the heart; he that casts water upon it, to extinguish and put it out, is the Devil; but in that thou seest the fire nowithstanding burn higher and hotter, thou shalt also see the reason of that.' So he had him about to the backside of the wall, where he saw a man with a vessel of oil in his hand, of the which he did also continually cast, but secretly, into the fire.

Then said Christian, 'What means this?'

The Interpreter answered, 'This is Christ, who continually, with the oil of his grace, maintains the work already begun in the heart: by the means of which, notwithstanding what the devil can do, the souls of his people prove gracious still. And in that thou sawest that the man stood behind the wall to maintain the fire, that is to teach thee that it is hard for the tempted to see how this work of grace is maintained in the soul.'"

I have thought of this illustration often while I've slowly made my way through the book. Yesterday I was laid up with the flu, and although I feel much better today, I still am not quite back to normal. Despite my weakness, though, it is wonderful to think that Christ is working in my life, behind the scenes, adding the "oil of his grace" to the fire.

Little House on the (Urban) Prairie

"A wife of noble character who can find?
She is worth far more than rubies.
She gets up while it is still night;
she provides food for her family
and portions for her women servants." - Psalm 31:10, 15

I've been reading Laura Ingalls Wilder's books in the hope that I will learn both to appreciate domestic life and pick up some tips along the way about how to run a house. I was surprised to discover that even Laura got discouraged about housekeeping. Writing about when she was pregnant with her second child, she lamented, "There was so much to be done and only [Laura] to do it. She hated the farm and the stock and the smelly lambs, the cooking of food and the dirty dishes. Oh, she hated it all, and especially the debts that must be paid whether she could work or not." I was surprised by the break in Laura's consistently positive attitude through all the ups and downs of she and Manly's first years of marriage. I found her brief complaint reassuring, though. Even Laura Ingalls Wilder had some bad days!

Source: modernpioneermom.com

Ma's tireless work to maintain a home first in The Big Woods and then on The Prairie, though, have really inspired me. She started the day by making breakfast before daylight, worked all day, and then sat and stitched or mended by firelight while Pa played his fiddle. This was a woman who knew how to work! Her are some things I've picked up from Ma:

1. Seasons matter. It seems that the Ingalls always knew what the changing weather meant for their lives. During a late snow one year, Pa said, "It's sugar snow!" Laura had never heard of sugar snow. It turned out that Laura's grandpa had tapped the maple trees for their sap, which would be made into syrup and brown sugar. A late snow meant that the trees would bud late and thus the sap would run longer. Laura's whole family came together to process the extra syrup and divide it up among themselves. The day's work ended with a dance with all the neighbors to celebrate and share the bounty. What a different perspective on late snowfall!

Another time, Pa harvested the oats. He cut the heads off some of the stems and gave the long straws to Ma. She carefully sorted the straw and wove the thinnest straw into hats for Laura and Mary, the thicker straw into hats for herself and Pa, and the thickest, roughest straw into work hats for Pa.

I really like the idea of ordering life by the seasons--by planting and harvest time and even by unexpected snows. How much stress to we put on ourselves by fighting the weather? When snow comes, we get up before daylight and go out with our salt and our shovels to take on the snowy obstacles keeping us from the things we "have" to do. We eat fresh produce all year round, paying no attention to when plants produce their fruit. If we want a straw hat, we go buy one. We establish routines that don't change for the weather, for the seasons, or for the unexpected.

2. Beauty matters. Ma always wanted everything to be pretty. She had a china doll that she carried wherever they traveled and set carefully on a shelf or mantel. She shredded carrots to use carrot juice to make her butter a nice, soft yellow. Although Laura may not have been as enthusiastic about housework as her mother was, she always wrote very lovingly of all the details that made both her childhood home and her married home beautiful. That careful attention to detail and to beauty is what makes a house a home, what makes a space welcoming and inviting.

3. There's a reason it's called "homemaking," not "home-doing." Both Ma and Pa were always making things. Pa built Ma a beautiful rocking chair. Ma made Pa, Mary, and Laura nice clothes and quilts. Pa plowed and planted fields. Ma tended the garden.

In our consumer-driven society, I am beginning to understand Pinterest's unending pages of DIY projects. People were meant to create things, not merely consume them. Managing a house is not just about cleaning dirty dishes and clothes day after day. It's about creating--creating welcoming spaces, creating order out of chaos, creating nutritious food, creating routines, creating unique items for family members. I've been thinking a lot about what I might be able to create, and so many things--like clothes, food, household items, furniture--are so much easier to buy now than they were in Laura Ingalls Wilder's childhood days. Creating things I don't know how to make when I can buy them in the store seems like an exercise in futility, especially when I'm not very crafty or decorative. However, I can write. Creating a record of thoughts and memories that I can share with others and revisit in the future is an act of creation that I can engage in now. And I am slowly learning to create other things and will continue to learn in the future.


I've only finished Laura Ingalls Wilder's first two books (and skipped ahead to read the last one which was published much later). I am looking forward to continuing to learn about life in the Ingalls household. I am especially interested in Ma's character. She seems very steady and hardworking, both traits that I could use more of in my own life. She has inspired me over the past few weeks to work harder and more intentionally to run our household.

Source: Nazarene Theological Seminary

I was thinking of Ma this morning when I got up at four o'clock (while it was still night) to put soup in the crockpot for a community lunch at the seminary today!

On Faith, Judges, Coffee, and Short-Term Missions

"The conquering power that brings the world to its knees is our faith." - 1 John 5:4, MSG

For the past eighty-five weeks (approximately), my pastor has been preaching on Judges. Right now we're on Samson.

Here's what intrigues me about Samson: His name is on a list with Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Joseph, Moses, the prophets, and so many other mighty examples of faith in Hebrews 11.

Sure, Samson was really strong. He did have some problems with the ladies and his temper, but he was, after all, one of the judges. But does that warrant a place on this list of impressive men and women of faith? Ever since we've been studying Samson, I've been wondering exactly which part of his life might be worthy of imitation. Here's what I've decided.

Let me back up.

I was talking to my friend Liz the other day about a blog post by one of our favorite bloggers, Jamie the Very Worst Missionary. Jamie suggested that maybe the way we do short-term missions isn't quite what Jesus had in mind. But here's the thing. Jesus' method is pretty scary. Don't stay in a compound or "safe" place. Go to people's houses. Eat their food, share their space, serve them. Go out in pairs, not in a big comfortable group. Don't take a long list of all that you're going to accomplish by working twelve hour days the entire time you're there. Go and be with people.

Well, I like to check items off a list. A list of "sitting, talking, eating, sleeping, repeat" makes me a little uncomfortable. Especially if we're talking about strangers. Who don't speak my language. And come from a completely different culture. Let's do activities, people!

What do short-term missions have to do with Samson? After much consideration, I would like to suggest that the one quality in Samson worthy of emulation is his impulsiveness. Sure it led to a lot of trouble with the ladies, but it also led to fulfillment of God's purposes for his life. God was "seeking an occasion to confront the Philistines" (Judges 14:4). Samson provided such occasions in spades (see: killing a thousand Philistines with the jawbone of a dead donkey).

I like to be prepared. I like to think ahead and anticipate difficulties. In fact, at this exact moment, I have hanging on my refrigerator a precisely laid out schedule for the stew I plan to make for supper tonight. It begins at 12:30 with cutting up the meat and ends with finishing the last 20 minutes of simmering and then eating at 5:30.

But maybe that isn't quite the sort of faith God has in mind for us. Maybe faith does not mean anticipating all the difficulties and bypassing them. Maybe faith means heading somewhat rashly, headlong into the difficulties.

This is the kind of faith I'm trying to exercise this year. On a big scale, I want God to move powerfully in my life. I want to step out into an unknown future following the God who goes before. My first step: stop drinking coffee. Because coffee is one of the ways that I try to anticipate and bypass difficulties. If I don't get enough sleep, I drink coffee because I want my day to be productive. But then, inevitably, I can't sleep at night. So I stay up too late, waste time playing iPhone games, and make generally unhealthy decisions. And then, guess what...I'm tired the next day and drink coffee!

Yesterday was a test of my resolve. I didn't sleep very well the night before, so I was already off to a bad start. I had a busy morning of getting the house ready for visitors, practicing for chapel music, and doing the regular morning baby routine. Then, around noon, my neighbor brought over his son, who is three weeks older than my son, for me to babysit all afternoon. I hoped that one or both of them would sleep for a good portion of our time together, but they were both very excited to be in each other's presence and refused to be separated. We watched some Daniel Tiger. We threw leaves in the yard. (I threw leaves while they looked on, captivated.) We read books. We all three suffered some sort of very nearly serious injury. (Don't worry if you're reading this, Sabrina. We were all fine!) It was a LONG afternoon.

At the end of our time together, I took both boys over to the seminary to prepare for chapel. This is when I really wanted the coffee. I was playing piano. Normally I would have practiced a bit in the afternoon, but sitting at the piano with my back to the boys didn't seem like a good plan. So I walked in feeling exhausted and unprepared. I handed both boys off to people in the congregation and, after a brief sound check, waited for chapel to begin.

I couldn't remember the introduction to the first song, so I just kind of fumbled along until Mike started singing. The music was not perfect, but after the terrible introduction, I miraculously found my notes. I kept losing my place in the music, but my hands always seemed to know where to go. We didn't have time to adjust the monitor levels, so I couldn't hear the other musicians very well, and we weren't always as tight as I like, but we stayed together and made it through both songs without incident.

Maybe I didn't go to a foreign country without an itinerary or take on the enemies of God with nothing but a donkey jawbone, but I stepped out on faith. I said yes to babysitting and to playing piano and then trusted God to give me what I needed to take care of two very active boys all afternoon, immediately followed by playing piano in the first chapel service of the semester--all without coffee or enough sleep.

Hopefully that is one small step towards bringing the world to its knees.

Here's the two boys when they were much younger. Surprisingly, I did not think of taking a picture of them yesterday.

What Happens in December Stays in December.

"A man reaps what he sows." -Galatians 6:7

Mike and I were not incredibly committed to our no-sweets/bread-during-Advent fast, but we both did pretty well until just a few days before Christmas. And let me tell you--bypassing the nonstop eating from Thanksgiving to Christmas was such a relief! This post is about one of the things our fast made me think about: the illusion that our lives are compartmentalized, that certain parts don't touch any of the other parts. Let me explain.

What happens in December stays in December.
January is the season for diets, exercise, New Years' resolutions, and major life changes. December is the season for giving into the darkness of winter. Just sit on the couch and eat cookies. Whatever weight you gain in December can be lost in January.

Sorry, no. Maintaining weight is much easier than losing weight. So from the diet perspective, eating for a month straight is not a good plan.

But there's more. Giving way to the invitation to indulge oneself, to embrace the unceasing message of consume, consume, consume that comes at us more in the weeks leading up to Christmas than even the rest of the year is not something you can do for a month and then walk away from. I say this from experience. Living one out of every twelve months in service of the god of consumerism gets you nowhere.

Maybe this is a blog of repentance. For the people I ignored because I didn't feel like going out or making a phone call, for the gifts I didn't buy because I wanted more for myself, for the impatience I exhibited because I couldn't be bothered with the self-restraint required by choosing patience, for the memories I didn't make with my kid because I wanted to relax, I repent.

What happens in December does not stay in December. It hangs on into January just like that extra ten pounds. The self-indulgence, the impulsive buying, the laziness. You can't just wake up on January 1st a different person.

Thinking about how easy it is to believe that led me to think of some other compartments.

What happens in childhood stays in childhood.
At a party recently, I was talking to a schoolteacher who was telling me that many of the kids at his school move there because of family crises: divorce, job loss, illness or death in the family. The location of his town makes it kind of the last stop out of the city/suburbs when money is gone and families are forced to relocate to a cheaper area. However, this being a party after all, he dismissed my concern for his students saying, "But they're kids. Kids are tough. They get over things."

I had just watched Ender's Game the night before, so my brain couldn't let that comment pass. Ender's Game is an incredible science fiction fantasy about a war between humanity and an enemy alien species. But it is also about a boy trying to find his way--in his family, in his school, in a global crisis. His actions ultimately result in the destruction of an entire species, and he is doomed to wander the universe carrying the last surviving member in search of a world in which they can rebuild their species and he can let go of the weight of his actions.

Kids have been reading Orson Scott Card's novel for a long time. Because kids know--what happens in childhood can haunt you for the rest of your life. It is too easy for adults to toss out those words: "Kids are tough," which lets them off the hook from taking responsibility for their actions towards their own kids or their neglect of the hurting kids around them.

I think that (we) adults also like to draw a line between kids and grown-ups, claiming that we've left the past behind. Then we don't ever have to deal with the heartache of childhood events. Unfortunately, though, that stuff that we don't deal with can weigh on us as heavily as Ender's burden, taking over not only our childhood but also our adulthood.

What happens in childhood matters. So let's be compassionate to the kids we meet, and let's also be a little more compassionate to the adults we meet who carry invisible burdens. And maybe while we're at it, we can be a little more compassionate to ourselves.

What happens in college stays in college.
Ok. So this is what happens when I go to long between blog posts. I have way too much to say. But this one is important too.

In Christian Smith's book, Lost in Transition, drawing on thousands of interviews with young adults, Smith laments the narrative our society has woven about "the college experience." It involves drinking and partying as much as possible, one night stands, and casting aside your parents' values. For many, college is viewed as a four-year recess from responsibility and consequences.

Since I attended a Christian college, my own experience as well as most of the people around me wasn't so extreme. But here's what really got to me. Smith said that maybe we shouldn't uproot kids from their support systems at such a formative and vulnerable time in their lives. Maybe we shouldn't send kids away from our communities when they are first trying their hands at being adults.

Because what happens in college doesn't stay in college. For a few that means tragedy such as death or severe injury as a result of bad decisions. For others that means heartbreak from relationships that became a lot more serious than anyone ever intended. But for a much greater number it means that they learn to be adults from their peers who don't know any more than they do. It means they learn how to participate in politics, how to choose a spouse, how to develop a philosophy of life that will shape their career plans and their family lives, how to talk and think about God as an educated person--all from the few older people who cross their path and from their peers.

We reap what we sow.
I've always been told, "Don't date someone who is mean to the waiter." It's for just this reason. You can't be mean to one person and consistently kind to someone else. You can't be self-indulgent for one month and be selfless the other eleven.You can't be reckless for a season and resume responsibility like nothing happened.

So, how do you compartmentalize? Are there parts of your life that you've convinced yourself don't affect the others? Are there other seasons of life that our culture says are "throwaways"?

In A Land of Excess

"This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God." - Jesus

My friend Liz (suddenlyfive.blogspot.com) came with her family to visit over Thanksgiving. She told me that they almost never have leftovers at their house because the two Nicaraguan teenagers who live with them eat everything in front of them. Habits developed throughout a life of feast or famine (more famine than feast), have led them to feast whenever they have a chance.

My first thought was that self-control is a learned skill and the ability to save things for later is a sign of maturity.

But then I remembered Jesus' story about the man who had such a great harvest that he had to build bigger barns to store all his extra grain.

"You fool!" God said. "This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have stored up for yourself?"

Saving is one of the highest virtues of American Christians. Get rid of your credit card debt. Live within your means. Put something away for a rainy day. Practice self-control in the face of consumerism that tells you to "buy, buy, buy."

Hearing about my Nicaraguan friends suddenly flipped that value on its head. John Wesley famously said, "Make all you can, save all you can, give all you can." We are quick to criticize the people who only practice the first part of that aphorism, people who constantly pursue better jobs and more money without regard for anything else. However, American Christianity is a lot more complimentary towards people who only make it to the second point, people who work hard and live frugally, putting away a nest egg for the future.

But what about the third part, "Give all you can"?

According to an article I read recently, Americans fail at dieting because of a phenomenon called "decision fatigue." We are faced with so many decisions every day that we just get tired of choosing not to eat bad food and to exercise. We are both psychologically and biologically programmed to hoard--to eat as much as we can and rest as much as we can--in preparation for an unknown future time of famine. In a land where that famine never comes, we get fat.

According to another excellent article from The New York Times about a Greek island full of people who regularly live into their 90s or even 100s, individual change is nearly impossible. After listing a number of factors that contribute to the overall health of the islanders, the author writes this:

"Every one of these factors can be tied to longevity. That's what the $70 billion diet industry and $20 billion health-club industry do in their efforts to persuade us that if we eat the right food or do the right workout, we'll be healthier, lose weight and live longer. But these strategies rarely work. Not because they're wrong-minded: it's a good idea for people to do any of these healthful activities. The problem is, it's difficult to change individual behaviors when community behaviors stay the same. In the United States, you can't go to a movie, walk through an airport or buy cough medicine without being routed through a gantlet of candy bars, salty snacks and sugar-sweetened beverages. The processed-food industry spends more than $4 billion a year tempting us to eat. How do you combat that? Discipline is a good thing, but discipline is a muscle that fatigues. Sooner or later, most people cave in to relentless temptation."

In a land of feasting, is saving really a virtue? What is the difference between saving and hoarding? My initial judgment of my Nicaraguan friends and their lack of self-control could easily be mirrored back to my own life. Is learning to live surrounding by plenty really a virtue?

Mike and I have decided to do an Advent fast this year. We've given up sweets and bread for the next few weeks. Partly, we are both tired of being overweight. But after spending Thanksgiving with my Nicaraguan friends, I found myself appalled by the insatiable appetite of Americans between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Everything from peppermint mochas to a hundred different kinds of truffles and cookies is everywhere--on tv commercials, on billboards, on posters and pictures throughout stores, on the sidebars of Facebook and Google. Work parties, friend parties, work dinners, friend coffee dates. Eating while you shop. Eating on the run in the midst of the craziness. It's all madness!

How do we make it stop? I think our Advent fast is a step in the right direction, but I wonder if our whole perspective on saving needs to change. I wonder if we need to stop being okay with being surrounded by such plenty, if we need to stop being so proud of our self-control and start wondering why we got so good at turning down temptation in the first place.

Maybe I need to stop listening to Dave Ramsey and start listening to Jesus.

A Song in the Night

"He did not spend his life for the people because he was a parson, but he was a parson because the church of England gave him facilities for spending his life for the people." - George MacDonald

"What do you want to be when you grow up?"

This is the question every kid is asked numerous times throughout their childhood. The question has a little bit more of an edge when asked of a senior about to graduate with a degree in "liberal arts" or of a 26-year-old using his master's degree to work at Starbucks.

My husband and I have asked ourselves this question over and over as we have encountered the various forks in the road that came with marriage, having children, job changes, church changes, etc.

What do we want to be when we grow up?

When I decided to attend seminary, I felt completely confident that I was on the right path. I wanted to be a "marrying, burying" pastor. I wanted to oversee a church that would welcome people in for both the major milestones in their lives as well as the day in and day out stuff of living. I wanted to pick a place and live there for the next forty years until I retired. And then, presumably, I would retire there. I wanted to spend my life for people.

As Anne Lamott says, "If you want to make God laugh, tell her your plans."

I think I thought that spending my life for people would somehow be whimsical, evoking tears at times, laughter at others. I thought it would have some kind of soundtrack in the background--something like Lord of the Rings, a combination of dramatic runs and peaceful melodies.

I think the composer of my soundtrack is temporarily on hiatus.

What I am hearing instead is the gentle breeze of beautiful red, orange, and yellow trees on a fall day. The peaceful stillness of a sleeping baby. The echoes of laughter and music from the evenings spent listening to Southern Gospel and dancing with the baby.

It's possible that when I wanted to spend my life for others, I really wanted to spend it for me. I wanted it to look and feel a certain way. I wanted to decide what I would "be" instead of just allowing God to decide who I am becoming.

I pray this day for grace to spend my life for the people standing in front of me and for grace when I fail in those efforts. I pray for attention to the opportunities I have and the fulfillment that comes with seizing those opportunities--whether it is accomplishing a task while the baby is sleeping or being okay with accomplishing nothing. I pray that I would hear the notes of the soundtrack around me and recognize that the future day of being "grown up" is here and now, and this is, in fact, who I am.

"A brown bird sang on a blossomy tree,
Sang in the moonshine, merrily,
Three little songs, one, two, and three,
A song for his wife, for himself, and me.

He sang for his wife, sang low, sang high,
Filling the moonlight that filled the sky,
'Thee, thee, I love thee, heart alive!
Thee, thee, thee, and thy round eggs five!'

He sang to himself, 'What shall I do
With this life that thrills me through and through?
Glad is so glad that it turns to ache!
Out with it, song, or my heart will break!'

He sang to me, 'Man, do not fear
Though the moon goes down, and the dark is near;
Listen my song, and rest thine eyes;
Let the moon go down that the sun may rise!'

I folded me up in the heart of his tune,
And fell asleep in the sinking moon;
I woke with the day's first golden gleam,
And lo, I had dreamed a precious dream!"
 - George MacDonald

A Modest Goal

"You can make him do nothing at all for long periods. You can keep him up late at night, not roistering, but staring at a dead fire in a cold room. All the healthy and outgoing activities which we want him to avoid can be inhibited and nothing given in return, so that at last he may say...'I now see that I spent most my life doing in neither what I ought nor what I liked.'" - C.S. Lewis, Screwtape Letters

Last summer, Mike and I decided to listen to a dramatized version of C.S. Lewis's Screwtape Letters. When I heard the last line of the above quote, it stopped me in my tracks. How often do I find myself doing "neither what I ought nor what I liked"?

As a stay at home mom, I have a lot of unstructured time on my hands. A great deal of it, of course, is spent in caring for the baby, one way or another. But what about the rest of it?

Mike and I recently visited New Harmony, Indiana. The town was built by the Harmonizers. They were a sort of cult who believed in separatism and the imminent return of Jesus. In the first year of settling the town, they cleared 2,000 acres and built 160 homes. That's a lot of hard work! Especially if they thought Jesus was going to return any day...

I imagine that the Harmonizers must have worked hard, harder than I can imagine, from morning to evening every day. My life does not require that kind of hard work. And to be honest, I'm not sure I could hack it if it did.

But what am I doing instead? If I don't have so many "oughts" as settlers clearing land to survive in the 1800s, I might as well pursue some "likes."

So, that's my goal. It may not be a very lofty goal, but I'm trying to use my time doing what I like if not what I ought. 

Going Green

So I joined Twitter.

I don't really like new technology. I don't like investing time in learning something that is only going to ultimately take more time than I want to give anyway.

But Twitter surprised me. Did you know that the Internet is full of interesting, useful, well-written articles about everything? I've read about what kinds of food professional cyclists eat, how people are responding to the government shutdown, a theological understanding of power, what it feels like to always be the worst athlete at the gym, mowing crews in Detroit, a guy who is 5'5" and can dunk, and so forth.

In the past week, I have read an incredible number of words. Every day, I think the next day things might slow down a little...because how much high quality content can really be added to the internet everyday?

The answer is: A LOT. Every day, I have new tweets in my feed, new links to articles and videos that I find myself compelled to follow.

I have written previously about my thoughts on sustainable eating (here). But until I joined Twitter, I was unaware of the massive consumption of information happening in our world. I would like to suggest some ideas for "going green" on the Internet:

1. Reduce. At a recent trip to the Kansas City Museum of Art, I wandered through the contemporary art exhibits and was surprised to see a television. The accompanying sign informed me that in the early days of television, there were only three channels. Something like 55% of households owned a television, and they all watched the same three channels. Shows like Gilligan's Island and The Ed Sullivan Show were a shared experience. Now, news and entertainment are so specialized, no two people have the same experience. There are of course many advantages in this (respecting the variety of values held by people, giving voice to marginalized sources, presenting multiple perspectives on an issue), but I think we've gone overboard. How about we divide things up? Maybe we can all get our news from the BBC on Monday, CNN on Tuesday, MSNBC on Wednesday, Fox on Thursday, and The New Yorker on Friday. Saturdays will be devoted to recreation--I like the Outsider magazine. And Christianity Today can have Sundays.

2. Reuse. Instead of constantly updating content, how about reposting the highest quality articles, stories, poems, and even books from the past from time to time? It is sad for me to see so many good articles that are here today and gone tomorrow. A really good article might last a few days as it gets shared and re-shared on Facebook. But we seldom give it enough time to change our lives.

3. Conserve. Read an article and then think about it. Talk to someone else about it. Retweet it. Act on it. Don't just read it and then toss it aside like litter. Get some mileage out of it. Recently our dishwasher broke, and the dishwasher repairman who pronounced it dead told us that the average life of a dishwasher is between 18 months and 3 years. I don't know the average life of online content, but I imagine that it is at most a matter of weeks. Try to stretch out the life of the really good articles and ideas, rather than tossing them aside.

This post is meant to be a little sarcastic. My husband once had a co-worker who printed out every single email she received and filed it. Thank goodness for electronic searches! I hate filing!

Seriously, though, I am overwhelmed and a little saddened by how many good things are happening in our world that come across my Twitter feed so fast I can hardly give them more than a few seconds thought.

So, here is a poem I read this morning that is worth slowing down for.

"The Peace of Wild Things" by Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.


Just give it a minute...

Telling the Truth

"Good writing is about telling the truth." - Anne Lamott

Well, here goes.

Life is hard. There. That is the truth. Any questions?

I was talking to my mom this morning about a friend of hers who is having a really tough time at church. Her friend said that she was ready to quit the church, to just give up and move on. My mom suggested to her that there may be some good reasons not to quit, and I think her friend decided to give it another go, but that's not always the way that conversation plays out.

We compared notes and discovered that we both know people who expect church people to behave better than non-church people. Unfortunately, just like anyone else, church people can be awkward or inconsiderate. Or even just plain mean.

My pastor is fond of saying that too many people expect the Christian life to be like a cruise. They want to just sit back and enjoy the ride. Those people are offended when God has the audacity to interrupt their cruise with things like calls to difficult assignments or suggestions about being kind to one's enemies.

They signed on to escape life, not to be thrown in headfirst.

In a recent sermon, one of my favorite pastors shared this story, written by Barbara Brown Taylor:

“Several summers ago I spent three days on a barrier island where loggerhead turtles were laying their eggs. One night while the tide was out, I watched a huge female heave herself up on the beach and dig her nest and empty her eggs into it. Afraid of disturbing her, I left before she was finished. The next morning I returned to see if I could find the spot where her eggs lay hidden in the sand. What I found were her tracks leading in the wrong direction. Instead of heading back out to sea, she had wandered into the dunes, which were already as hot as asphalt in the morning sun.
          A little ways inland I found her: Exhausted, all but baked, her head and flippers caked with dried sand. After pouring water on her and covering her with sea oats, I fetched a park ranger who returned with a jeep to rescue her. He flipped her on her back, strapped tire chains around her front legs, and hooked the chains to a trailer hitch on his jeep. Then I watched horrified as he took off, yanking her body forward so that her mouth filled with sand and her neck bent so far back I thought it would break.
          The ranger hauled her over the dunes and down onto the beach. At the ocean’s edge, he unhooked her and turned her right side up. She lay motionless in the surf as the water lapped at her body, washing the sand from her eyes and making her skin shine again. A wave broke over her; she lifted her head slightly, moving her back legs. Other waves brought her further back to life until one of them made her light enough to find a foothold and push off, back into the ocean. Watching her swim slowly away and remembering her nightmare ride through the dunes, I reflected that it is sometimes hard to tell whether you are being killed or saved by the hands that turn your life upside down.” (Barbara Brown Taylor in The Other Side Magazine March & April 2000)

Ultimately, the real life that we are called to as Christians might be more fulfilling than a cruise and it might even save us in the end. But in the thick of things, sometimes it's hard to tell whether we're being saved or killed.

And that's the truth.

Scale Musings

"The times, they are a-changin'." - Bob Dylan

I weighed myself this morning. My weight has not deviated more than one pound in either direction since about two weeks since Amos was born. I've heard that breastfeeding consumes an additional 500 calories each day and that many women have trouble maintaining a healthy weight while breastfeeding. I have not struggled with that particular difficulty. I have exercised, attempted to eat healthy, joined a gym, run with my husband, and tried to be generally more active. I have also eaten terribly at other times and spent whole weekends watching tv. None of these activities has generated more than a one pound weight loss or gain. I am blown away by my body's stubbornness in clinging to this certain number on the scale.

Changing leaves with beautiful fall skies

As I look out my window, I see the leaves beginning to change colors. Amos is changing everyday too, constantly learning to do new things. My marriage is always changing as we navigate the ups and downs of daily life. My experience of being a stay-at-home-mom is changing as I meet other moms and take on new projects.

Beyond that, there are rumors of big changes in the works for the seminary, including a possible relocation and partnership with another school. If the school moves forward with this possibility, my life will change even more dramatically. We will have to choose between following the seminary and starting over in a new city or staying here but starting over with a new job, house, and community.

While it is frustrating to see the exact same number on the scale every single morning, I am oddly reassured by my body's unwillingness to relinquish its reserves. A fellow breastfeeding mom told me that women's bodies are hesitant to let go of stores as long as we are responsible for nourishing another person. I like the idea that nature is cautious and deliberate in the midst of change. I also like the idea that my body seems to have an inner compass that is navigating uncharted territory reliably and wisely.

As the leaders responsible for making decisions for the seminary contemplate its future, I pray that they will likewise be cautious and deliberate, not too eager to relinquish things that some may consider excess baggage on the journey. I pray that they will trust in things unseen and even previously untapped that will provide wisdom and insight for possibilities never before considered.

I also give thanks for the things that stay the same in the midst of change. God's mercies may be new every morning, but their presence is as reliable as the coming of the morning. I am thankful for my husband's steadfast love for me. I am thankful for the many supportive communities we have been so fortunate to be part of and that continue to support us. I am thankful for the familiar sight of leaves changing and the fresh, crisp fall air, which will lead into the cold days of winter and then into the new life of spring.

I will also be happy if eventually my weight moves out of the "unchanging" category, but in the meantime, I am grateful for the blessing of good health and resilience.

I can't believe Amos was this little just a few months ago!

On Vocation, or Why I Love Football

"Vocation is the place where our deep gladness meets the world's deep need." - Frederick Buechner

I happened to be watching football yesterday afternoon, and I thought I would try to describe what it is about football that speaks to my soul.

I know that sounds a bit extreme, but I was lying awake last night, my brain going round and round in circles from one topic to the next. It finally landed on football, and I fell asleep dreaming of perfect passes, epic runs, and beautifully choreographed plays. I could just see Peyton Manning's perfectly executed pass floating into the arms of Demaryius Thomas in the corner of the end zone right over the head of his defender. I could see Dexter McCluster running back a punt for an 89-yard touchdown like he was out for a jog in the park, completely oblivious to the Giants players falling down around him. I could see the offensive line for both the Chiefs and the Broncos working in sync to protect their quarterbacks, letting them focus on the field opening up ahead of them instead of on the linemen trying to take them down.

It's not just football, though.

Can you see it too?

In my mind's eye, I can see the frisbee float through the air right into the arms of the intended receiver, the defender helpless to prevent a goal. I can feel the moment when I see a play about to happen and reach out for an interception just as the passer lets go of the frisbee.

I can hear the band from chapel as the piano notes soar over the rhythmic foundation laid by the congas and guitars, accenting the perfect harmony of the vocalists.

I can hear the words and phrases of Barbara Kingsolver's most recent book, Flight Behavior, as she so perfectly described the sense of isolation and entrapment felt by stay-at-home-moms, the endless worries about money on the minds of the working poor, the dismal state of our planet after years and decades of abuse, and the hopelessness of bridging the gap between scientists and politicians, college grads and blue collar workers, and rural and urban dwellers.

Over and over, I relive those miraculous moments when the universe seems to align for something magical to happen. Whether it is the carefully practiced connection between an NFL quarterback and his receiver, the split second defensive reaction to intercept a frisbee, the unity of a band whose members have only just met making a song come alive, or the precision of a gifted author describing another person's world, I replay them until my mind is at peace.

Those moments are Frederick Buechner's definition of vocation.

I'm really enjoying the work I've been able to do helping authors birth their books. I'm enjoying writing sermon discussion questions, helping small group leaders translate a one-time Sunday morning sermon to a lifetime of change. I hope that I can do these jobs with the same grace and focus as Dexter McCluster when he runs from one end of the field to the other like it's no big thing, barely giving the defense a moment's glance. I hope that I can fulfill my own vocation with as much dedication as a quarterback and receiver practicing the same pass over and over ad nauseam so that at the decisive moment, the completion looks effortless.

More than my own work, though, I give thanks to God for the ongoing invitation to participate in creating a world where magic happens. Where sometimes our work is tedious and difficult, but sometimes it is electric and inspiring. Where our deep gifts occasionally meet the world's deep need.

I did manage to give birth to this kid. That was pretty epic.

A Little Sleep, A Little Slumber

"A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest--and poverty will come on you like a thief and scarcity like an armed man." - Proverbs 6:10-11

I am here to tell you that a little sleep is a beautiful thing. I think Solomon may have over-exaggerated the dangerous effects of sleeping. I mean, you can't stay awake all the time!

For what seems like an eternity (maybe like two weeks, really), Amos has been waking up between 4:00 and 4:30 in the morning. That is too early. This morning, he slept all the way until almost 6:00. What a relief to have an extra hour and a half of sleep! I had no idea how tired I was until I suddenly wasn't.

One of the dreaded phrases for new moms is, "Treasure every moment." Let me tell you, this is a marathon, not a sprint. Wildly treasuring every moment will leave you completely exhausted and unable to treasure any moments. If I can treasure one moment a day, I'll call it a win. And today's moment (so far) was waking up to silence instead of crying and gradually realizing that the time on my clock started with the number 5. When I did hear Amos making his little noises, I was eager to go say "good morning" to my baby boy and see his morning smiles.

Ahh...the peace of a sleeping baby.

News From the Home Front

"[Barbara Kingsolver]'s a keen observer of the messiness and unexpected beauty of the quotidian." - Cleveland Plain Dealer, review on Kingsolver's latest book, Flight Behavior


I have been a little delinquent on writing my blog. I can't place the blame entirely on my hubby, but he did have sinus surgery last Friday and was home all week recovering. In theory, having another person around the house should make my life much easier, but not when that person spends most of the day in a drug-induced haze trying to convince me that I should sit on the couch with him and watch tv. Even so, it was really nice having him around all week to talk to. I kind of miss him today (his first full day back at work). Since I'm a little out of practice at blogging, I thought I'd just share a little of what's going on in our lives.

Michael
The good news is that the doctor went ahead and did everything he could to fix Mike's sinuses. They repaired his septum, removed a polyp, and cleaned out all the junk that had accumulated. Mike can already breathe better and the doctor expected him to be fully recovered by Friday!

The next step is repairing the hole in his eardrum, which has apparently been there for a while. I don't know how soon he'll have that done because he is ready to be well. He ran six miles one morning last June, got sick later that day, and has had various infections and illnesses since then.


Amos
Amos can clap now. He's pretty excited about that. When he wants to get someone's attention, he starts clapping his little hands together. If someone else around him claps, he grins from ear to ear.

He has also started rolling over a lot more. He has been on his stomach a few times now when I've gone to get him up from naps. I don't know if he rolls over once and gets stuck or if he just gets tired of playing in his crib and starts to cry.

He is also eating lots of food! He eats a pear and a sweet potato almost everyday. He likes cooked apples a lot, but he does not like broccoli very much. Despite all that he eats, he is very small for his age, which in my opinion makes him even cuter.

Me
I got a paid writing gig! The job is only supplements for two Sunday School lessons through the Nazarene Publishing House, but I'm thrilled to be paid to write. And I'm thrilled to write for something other than my own amusement. I have to admit, I don't think I'm cut out to be a professional blogger. Unlike Barbara Kingsolver, I am not a "keen observer of the messiness and unexpected beauty of the quotidian." To me, it's all just the quotidian, not especially messy or beautiful. Maybe if I keep blogging I'll get better at that, or maybe I'll move on to writing more Sunday School curriculum.

I'm going to the gym regularly. I'm terrible at it. I'm usually the last one done with the workout. (Our gym is all classes; read more about my gym on this post.) I also use the lowest weights. At times I get discouraged, but the people are really nice and encouraging, and at the end of the day, I'm not there to win; I'm there to get stronger and healthier.

That's all the news from Kansas City, where the women are getting stronger, the men are very good looking, and the children are above average (in some respects, but below in others).

Enjoying some prunes and sweet potatoes.

A Baby Story

On occasion people tell me that I should write down stories about Amos so I don't forget them.

Here is one.

On Amos's two-month-old birthday, we took him to the doctor for his first round of shots (not counting the poke he got in the hospital when he was a few hours old). Unfortunately for babies, many of their first month birthdays are celebrated by shots. It's a good thing they don't know about Dairy Queen ice cream cake or they would feel very slighted.

Amos did really well at the doctor and even stopped crying pretty quickly after his shots. By the time we left the doctor's office, he was back to his normal content self.

That evening, we turned on The Biggest Loser. I began nursing Amos, and suddenly, in the midst of Alison's narration of some competition, Amos started screaming. He was definitely in pain. We discovered that his right leg was red and swollen where he had his shot. Every time I laid him down to nurse him, I laid him right on that painful swollen thigh. He did not like that!

We quickly righted him, but realized there was no way to hold him that did not apply some sort of pressure to his leg. Poor guy! His nice, trustworthy parents were suddenly torturing him. He cried and cried. We scrambled to find the instructions from the doctor to see what we should do. We couldn't find anything about nonstop screaming. Finally, we decided that Mike should go to the drugstore to get some children's Tylenol, and I would try my best to soothe Amos.

After hearing his poor pitiful cries for what felt like hours, I finally found a way to hold him that kept the leg elevated but did not apply any pressure. I did not move from that position. I felt my arms starting to cramp, but I didn't dare move until Mike got back with the Tylenol.

As I stood there holding a now quiet baby, I realized that Alison was still talking on the tv. How long had that been on? I looked at the clock and saw the time: 7:15pm. The show started at 7:00pm. Amos had been screaming his head off for all of 10 minutes. At that moment, I had a profound appreciation for parents of colicky babies who cry constantly. How do they survive?

Soon after, Mike arrived home with the Tylenol. We administered the infant dose to Amos, and not too long after he went to sleep. What a relief!

The next day I found on the paper that we were to call the doctor if the baby cried for three hours straight. Three hours!

Amos woke up just fine the next morning, and our calm, content baby had returned. We had survived our first crisis!

From this...

To this.

Problems Worth Solving

The other day I read one of the "trending" articles on Facebook about how awful it is to work in America. The article said that 70 percent of Americans have "checked out" at work and 20 percent actively hate it. People with higher levels of education are statistically more likely to be "actively disengaged." The writer suggested that the Philosophy 101 class where students are taught to ask questions like "What does it all mean?" might be part of the problem.

That stopped me in my tracks. Is there something wrong with education when it causes disengagement at work? Is there something wrong with the workers? Is there something wrong with the companies who employ over-educated, under-utilized employees?

I recently read an article in a copy of The Atlantic that I picked up at a garage sale about what we can learn from Japan's economic bust. The article is about an entire generation of young adults in Japan who embraced the failing economy of the 1990s as an opportunity to look outside the corporate world for employment and fulfillment. As the economy declined, what started out as freedom from long hours in Japanese corporations turned into poverty and long-term unemployment.

The article goes on to speculate on the long-term impact of losing an entire generation of new workers. These are young people not being trained in specific jobs as skilled workers, young people not participating in the national economy, young people not contributing creatively to the future of corporations.

I think this is a big problem. I've written about this before, but it is a very relevant issue in my life. I see a lot of young people who are not part of the mainstream workforce. Not only are they struggling financially, but I believe organizations are missing out on the opportunity for fresh and creative insight, as well as the opportunity to train young people to become competent workers in the future.

The Facebook article, however, turned my thoughts in another direction. Are young people also missing out on the opportunity to solve problems that their education has taught them are not worth solving?

I'm really writing on this topic because my dishwasher is broken. I have a lot of dishes in my sink that need to be washed, but my education suggests that things like washing dishes and clothes, cooking food, and sweeping floors are tasks not worth my time.

I wonder if both young people and corporations are missing out on important opportunities. Corporations may not be hiring young people, but young people may also consider the day-to-day work of corporations tedious and unimportant.

What problems are worth solving?

How to keep a house clean? How to effectively create and maintain documents? How to sell a product? How to create a product worth selling? How to turn labor into money?

The Facebook article represented a viewpoint that I hear constantly. It is one of injustice, of grumbling, of angst and worry over the present and the future. I know that many of my generation are unemployed or underemployed. We struggle with things like access to health care, concern over the world's food supply now and in the future, finding adequate, affordable housing, and providing care for our children.

However, I find the bitterness so common in my generation too easy to embrace. What is much more difficult is putting my education to use solving the problems in front of me. If I wash one dish every 30 seconds, and I have 25 dishes to clean, how long will it take to wash all of the dishes? The answer is: a lot longer than if the dishwasher worked, but less time than if I had no hot water. The answer is also: a lot longer than it would take to wash 5 dishes if that were all I had.

Has my generation too narrowly defined the problems we are willing to solve? Has that made us both unemployed and unemployable?

Here's a problem worth solving...

Bending the Sky

"He bent the sky and came down." - David

Anne Lamott suggested to her students that they write what they would like to come across. David wrote Psalm 18 to the Lord after the Lord "saved him from the hands of all his enemies and from the clutches of Saul." This is exactly what I wanted to come across today, so I will just pass it on:

"In my distress I called on the Lord,
  cried out to my God;
  in His temple He heard my voice;
  my cry to Him reached his ears.
Then the earth rocked and quaked;
  the foundations of the mountains shook,
  rocked by His indignation;
  smoke went up from His nostrils,
  from His mouth came devouring fire;
  live coals blazed forth from Him.
He bent the sky and came down...

"He reached down from on high, He took me;
  He drew me out of the mighty waters;
  He saved me from my fierce enemy,
  from foes too strong for me.

"With You, I can rush a barrier;
  with my God I can scale a wall;
  the way of God is perfect;
  the word of the Lord is pure;
  He is a shield to all who seek refuge in Him."

 - Psalm 18:7-10a, 17-18, 30-31

Last night at our small group, we talked about mundane things like our physical ailments, how to respect our spouses, the difficulties of participating in a large church, and the challenges of having children. Those things seem so insignificant compared to David's dramatic encounter with Saul, and yet they are still foes and they still threaten to overcome us.

It is so easy for us to be overcome by the mundane. For a struggling marriage to build bitterness and resentment that poisons other relationships. For a physical ailment to turn into mental and emotional apathy regarding the world around us. For a needy child to consume all of our time. For church difficulties to discourage us from receiving the gift of grace and joy found in the presence of God.

But when we call out to God, not only does he hear us, but he is willing to bend the sky, to move heaven and earth to save us. Sometimes he brings relief from physical difficulties or external circumstances, but he always brings the assurance that he is with us and that he is for us. He brings his strength to our weakness. He brings his love and peace to our hearts that are so easily turned inward upon themselves.

As we talked about our worries and fears, I think we found peace. We were surprised to hear that others had the same struggles. We were relieved to know we weren't alone. In our coming together asking for help, God bent the sky to come down and dwell in our midst.

Judges, Part 2

"Faith is jumping off the diving board and trusting God to fill the pool with water." - John Wimber (I think...I was unable to verify that)

 Last week's Judges sermon was about Jephthah. He is probably most well-known as the man who accidentally swore that he would sacrifice his own daughter. In a lot of ways, Jephthah seems like a failure as a judge, but his name made it into the "hall of faith" in Hebrews 11, so he must have done something right.

Benvenuto di Giovanni - The Meeting of Jephthah and His Daughter

One of our commitments in my Denver Bible study was that if it's in the Bible there is something of value in the story. If we don't see anything of value in the story, then it's not the Bible that needs to change; it's us.

As I read Jephthah's story, looking for his faith, an amazing picture emerged.

Jephthah was the son of a prostitute. His half-brothers kicked him out of the family because they didn't want to share their inheritance with the son of a prostitute. He joined a group of bandits and outlaws because in Old Testament times, there really weren't a lot of options if you had no land or family.

Eventually the elders of the Gileadites asked Jephthah to lead their army against the Ammonites. Jephthah's band of outlaws must have been pretty well organized if the Gileadites thought he was capable of leading their army.

The Spirit of the Lord came on Jephthah and he was able to move forward against the Ammonites. But on the eve of the big battle, Jephthah promised God that were he victorious, he would sacrifice the first thing that came out of his house to meet him when he returned home.

For we who have the stories of faith, both the ones in the Bible and our own, Jephthah's promise seems foolish because his victory against the Ammonites seems like a foregone conclusion. But Jephthah had no previous experience of God's faithfulness, no experience of God's victory in battle. He fought for everything he had, for food to eat and a place to sleep, for his position of respect in the community. A God who gives freely with no strings attached must have seemed impossible to him. So he offered a sacrifice, just to make sure he had all his bases covered.

Here is where the faith comes in: then he went to battle. At the end of the day, he had to have faith in the mercy of God. He had to jump off the diving board and trust God to fill the pool.

Mike told me that the book of Mark is filled with people who believed. It doesn't say they were perfect, that they never messed up again, or that they weren't afraid. But at the end of the day, they believed. And then they jumped.

Jump!

In my last angry blog, I came to the conclusion that I need to be okay with failing. I need to be okay with jumping and not knowing what the end result will be.

As I have reflected further, I think the church also needs to be okay with me failing. How do you build a church on the shoulders of failures? How do you constantly jump with no idea of the outcome?

I have also been thinking a lot about holiness (per Clemens Sedmak's suggestion), and I think that we sometimes define holiness so narrowly that avoiding failure is easy. If we can make a clear enough list of things to avoid, then all we have to do is avoid them, and we are sinless.

However, if holiness is connected with belief and faith, which is connected with jumping, then suddenly, holiness becomes a lot more risky and a LOT more difficult to claim.

According to NTS's own Dr. Noble, we often start with sin when we define holiness. What if we started with belief? What if the "litmus test" of holiness was answering the question, "how willing are you to jump"? How willing are you to fail?

Here's Hoping

"In order to create, we have to stand in the space between what we see and what we hope for." - Julie Burstein, 4 Lessons in Creativity

Hope is a tricky thing.

When I was waiting for Mike to fall in love with me, I remember a sermon about Hannah, the mother of Samuel. One time when she prayed, Eli the priest saw her and thought she was drunk. He said, "How long are you going to stay drunk? Put away your wine."

"Not so, my lord," Hannah replied. "I am a woman who is deeply troubled. I have not been drinking wine or beer; I was pouring out my soul to the Lord." (1 Samuel 1:14-15)

I was also a woman who was deeply troubled. I had fallen in love with Mike, but month after month had gone by with no sign of reciprocation. When I heard Hannah's story, I realized that hope is the hardest place to be. It's like sitting on a fence. If your hope is fulfilled, you can come down on one side of the fence, and if you give up hope, you can come down on the other. But living in hope is a precarious balance.

I am thinking of hope and longing now as I look to my post-graduate future. I am a stay-at-home mom right now, but I long to be involved in ministry, in the leadership and shaping of a church. However, the two roles seem mutually exclusive. I like spending time with my baby boy, and I don't want to relinquish him to daycare. Ministry is a demanding 24-7 job that doesn't have space for nursing a baby every four hours, establishing a daily eating and sleeping routine, and being flexible to change that routine every few months for a growing baby.

Yet I long to be part of a community of Christians where we are trying to understand what it means to be the church in our space and time. I long to learn about the Bible alongside others. I want to work with Mike to involve people in ministry and help them do more than they ever thought possible. I want to see God transform and heal broken lives.

Julie Burstein's words struck me. I lived in the space between what I saw and what I hoped for when I was in love with Mike, and it was heartbreaking. She classifies that space as "loss." That's what I felt then and it is what I am feeling now. Then it was the loss of love; now it is the loss of my dreams for my post-graduation life. However, she also identifies loss as a necessary component of creativity. Out of the struggle to see both what is and what could be comes art. Not just the art we see in museums, but the art of creating anything new and original.

My blog may reflect some angst, but I have hope that the angst I feel now will result in a work of art in the years to come as I find creative and original ways to engage in ministry. One of the benefits of getting older is being able to look back on a variety of circumstances in which God has worked creatively and miraculously in my life when all I felt was loss. This may be another season of loss, hope, and art.

I can't put this little guy in daycare!

In Which I Am Angry Again

"Asking for help is a lot harder than giving it." - What to Expect: Pregnancy and Parenting Every Step of the Way

On Sunday, I got mad again. My pastor said the following in his sermon:

"It's really striking how often today the Holy Spirit is calling people to quit things especially when you find so few 'quit' verses in the Bible! And yet, God's program in America appears to be that he wants his people to take lots of time off, to quit serving folks once they have a child, to quit extending themselves. That usually means taking a year, two years, three years--taking a decade."

He also said:

"Are you a person who can be counted on by others, that when you say you're going to do something, it's money in the bank?"

What? You don't know me! Are you judging me? Are you telling me that I'm putting words in God's mouth? Are you labeling me a quitter without even giving me a chance to defend myself?

Because the thing is, I am trying really hard not to quit. But how can we keep volunteering for things and then backing out at the last minute--when our baby gets sick or just decides he doesn't like the nursery, when my husband loses the ability to hear due to an ear infection, or when the baby suddenly decides he needs to go to bed an hour earlier? Our word isn't very much like money in the bank unless that bank is a piggy with structural damage!

So what? We have to choose between being quitters or being unreliable?

As I was ranting and raving to my husband about pastors and sermons and quitters and blah, blah, blah, I told him that all I really wanted was a place where I can volunteer in a role that actually matches my gifts and that has some flexibility.

Suddenly, all my frustration landed on a single point. I want to be part of a community where people serve according to their gifts, their availability, their passions, their calling, etc. Not everyone is an eye. Not everyone is a nose. Some people work part-time or stay home. Others work seventy hours a week. Some people have babies, and some people want babies. Some people have grandkids who they spend a lot of time with, and some people desperately miss their grandkids who live far away. Some people love meeting new people, and some people love completing tasks. People are unique and not simply interchangeable.

Sometimes I feel like Charlie Chaplin.

Our church appears very polished every week. In a church our size, it's easy to think that the whole thing is a big machine and all the volunteers are perfectly machined cogs. My life with a husband and kid with ongoing health issues (relatively minor but still inconvenient) doesn't seem to quite be the right shape to fit the machine.

As much as I may want to blame my church for its machine-like appearance, however, it was the daily newsletter from WhatToExpect.com that stopped me in my tracks. A healthy community is made up of people who are willing to ask for help, and as the newsletter writer so astutely observed, it is easier to give help than to ask for it. I don't want to admit that I can't do something or that something is hard for me. I don't want people to think I'm unreliable.

The reality is that every cog is a little oddly-shaped. Every person has some quirk or difficulty they bring to their job. Every person who plays an instrument, hands me a bulletin, watches my kid in the nursery, and even just sits in the congregation is just as fragile as I am, one germ or crisis away from failing in their role.

Maybe my response to this sermon should not be to defend my ironclad reasons for quitting but to realize that I may need to ask for help sometimes, and that's okay. Maybe I need to take a step back and realize that when I only do things that I am totally confident will succeed, I miss out on a chance to demonstrate vulnerability and to receive help. As long as no one ever fails, failure seems terrifying, or at the very least potentially embarrassing. But if I want to be part of a community where it's okay to fail, maybe I need to start by being willing to fail myself.

This baby isn't afraid of failing! He's having the time of his life failing at crawling!

Dreaming of Puzzles

"Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least." - Goethe,
quoted by Stephen Covey in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Habit 3 (of the 7) is "Put first things first." To be honest, I read Stephen Covey's book quite a few years ago, so I don't remember every detail, but one principle that has stuck with me is this chart:

Covey describes a few scenarios based on this chart. Some people spend their time doing what is urgent, but not important: responding immediately to every request made of them without regard for their significance in the big picture. Others spend their lives alternating between the important/urgent quadrant and the not important/not urgent quadrant. They are constantly putting out fires, solving big problems, responding to emergencies--until they crash. Then they stare at their computer mindlessly until another big problem comes along.

A highly effective person spends their time in the important/not urgent quadrant. According to Covey, most of the big problems and crises start in that quadrant but don't get attention early enough to prevent them from escalating. When your spouse starts yelling at you for not spending enough time with the family, the problem is urgent. The way to fix this is not to clear your schedule for the evening and then wait until your spouse gets angry again. Instead, make spending time with your family a priority so your spouse doesn't have to yell.

That example highlights another aspect of Covey's philosophy. Too often we feel forced to choose between two alternatives, neither of which are what we want. As the quotation by Goethe above suggests, it is up to us to decide what matters most and pursue that. Maybe if you spend more time with your family, your boss will be angry that you are neglecting your job. You feel stuck between an angry boss and an angry spouse. The answer is not to try to figure out how to appease both parties. Rather, it is up to you to decide what you want and to pursue that. Covey says that you are always saying "no" to things in your life. If it's not to the urgent things, demanding your immediate attention, then it is probably to the more fundamentally important things that are easier to let slide.

Stephen Covey tells the story of a mall that was descending into bankruptcy after business after business pulled out. A businessman purchased the mall, and rather than dealing with the impending financial disaster, he began walking around talking to store owners. As he built relationships with them, things began to turn around. The store owners felt heard and valued. The owner made good decisions for the mall based on the store owners' suggestions. By focusing on the important work of building relationships, rather than the urgent financial crisis, he was able to prevent financial ruin.

Source: Google Images

I decided to write on this topic because I had a dream last night that I was trying to climb carpet stairs while wearing rollerblades. I was thinking this morning about how my dreams sometimes reveal to me things that I'm worried about or are bigger problems in my life than I realized. (Apparently I have some residual anxiety about rollerblading.) A few years ago, I was really stressed at work. I had a dream that I was walking around my job, and every time someone wanted me to do something, they handed me a puzzle piece. My cupped hands began to overflow with puzzle pieces. I sat down at my desk and looked at the puzzle pieces overflowing my hands, and I felt completely overwhelmed. As I looked at them, I realized that mixed in with the pieces that represented tasks was a map of the United States. By taking the time to complete that puzzle, I could remove the unimportant pieces and focus on what mattered. So I began building the puzzle. I woke up somewhere around Iowa. (I don't think my subconscious had a very good map of the United States to work with.) From that point on, I began to take ownership of my priorities, doing what I felt was most important and would make me most effective at doing my job, rather than rushing around from one person's demands to the next.

Sometimes the most important thing to do is not the most obvious. It might not be the most urgent, and there may be people who are disappointed by your choice of how to spend your time. But by spending your time pursuing what is important and not being drawn into the trap of constantly responding to the urgent, you can avoid burnout, live according to your own priorities and values, and achieve bigger goals.

I often apply this principle with Amos. Sometimes I have a lot of things that I want to get done in a day. But by spending time with Amos when he is awake and happy, not only do I get to enjoy having a super cute baby (a good priority by itself), but I also end up with a happier baby who is less fussy while he is awake and takes better naps when it's time to sleep. Taking the time to interact with him and play with him may be hard when there are dishes in the sink, laundry in baskets, and an unwritten blog, but it results in a happier baby and a happier mommy.

Sometimes it is hard for me to identify my priorities and keep them in front of me, especially during this season of relative inactivity. The image that comes to my mind is that of a boat at sea on a completely calm day. The sails hang limp, and the boat doesn't move. Time well spent on those days can make the ship more capable of withstanding future storms. I hope that this time as a stay at home mom can help me learn to spend my time wisely and effectively so that when I am surrounded by more urgent concerns, I will have the presence of mind to remember what is important and make that my focus.

This is the face of a baby with a highly effective mom.