Petulant child...

So, on a list i'm on, we were discussing church/babies/nurseries. And i wrote this:

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Yeah- it's just been such a long stretch of always having to leave in the middle of worship/the sermon. Fourteen years solid.

I don't really like nurseries, either - i'm not comfortable nursing in front of strange men who might come in whenever they want, the change station is always kinda gross - other people's children have licked all the toys (and then mine do!) - and you can't hear anything in there...

T does most of the nursery duty, since he hurt his back and can't sit still that long either :) -

it's not that my littles are bad - it's just that the situation has been hard for a long time. they are all taking their turns being babies. But Anaia at 5 should be able to be a little better. And not, for example, pull up my skirt in the middle of worship ... just for instance :)... Now i only wear pants to church!

One thing i like is the "family feast" the last Sunday of the month - at first it was a pain to get a big meal made and brought to church, and then try to corral the children, but the more we do it, the more people know who we are, and the children are more comfortable and we kind of know where they are if they're not with us...

But the whole sit down shut up part is kind of lost on me most Sundays... Someone always has to go potty, or starts to cry, or wants to nurse, or is doing something naughty. It's not the end of the world, but it is the end of my concentration, and i'm one of those people that if i miss one point, i feel like there was no point listening to any of it...

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So anyway, my friend told me i should adjust my attitude. And probably she's right.

But

What for?

What is the point of church? Is everyone there hating it as much as me? IF so, is there a way to do things differently? Or is this just one more case of grin and bear it and soon you'll be out of those pesky child bearing years?

Because that's what modern medicine tells me - i pretty much avoid all prescriptions, because nothing is safe for "pregnant or breastfeeding women" - which is what i've been for fifteen years solid. and i feel like the same can be said of church... Maybe most women don't care, because it's a two or three year span and then they are done?

Another friend wrote it was much easier when she let go the hope of being "spiritually fed" in church. Well, it's been decades since i have been - if i were going for spiritual food, i'd be dead by now.

But again, what is the point?

Is the family feast enough of a reason to go? Maybe it is.

If it's not the worship, it's not the message, maybe just the communal eating is the whole point of going. To get to know others? Sometimes that's a good thing, sometimes it's really not.

I don't find most people hugely encouraging in my strange-to-them calling in life. Christians are either repelled or scared if you have more than 2 children, and tend to judge your motives before you ever open your mouth. If you have a large brood, you are expected to have them all perfect and quiet all the time. Some people tell you that the children are good even when they're not - others glare at you the whole time. And the whole prolife issue - when i was a child, every Christian was pro life. Now, they would prefer not to talk about it, and i would venture a guess that if the majority is prolife, the biggest part of that majority is the silent type...

I'm sorry if it makes people uncomfortable, but i can't figure out what church is for.

sometimes i worry that it's sin, since i'm obviously just going because of the "fear of man" and "whatever is not of faith, is sin"

I'm not trying to kick at the church i'm going to, which i am getting used to... just trying to figure out why i hate this so much and everyone else loves it so much...

We too live in a fallen world and must participate in its sufferings

Just so you know - most of this post below is from my notes at the Good Friday service this morning. We were late, i'm getting fat from being sick and had trouble finding something to wear - but i was glad we went.

These are my notes:

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Mark 8:34

34Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35For whoever wants to save his life[c] will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. 36What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? 37Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? 38If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels."

We succumb to the crush of the urgent.

We misunderstand Romans 8:28.

In misery we are assured that God is working on our behalf.

Taking up your cross doesn't mean minor irritants.

When we suffer, we are following Jesus, and if we follow Jesus, we will suffer.

No fence sitting during suffering.

Our Christian witness is crucial.

Your suffering is not in vain.

"Pain is God's megaphone" (Don Larson) (I thought i had heard that before - and it was C.S. Lewis i was thinking of : C.S. Lewis once wrote "God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains; it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” - The Problem of Pain)

His Word is a wellspring of life.

Suffering deepens our walk
Suffering creates compassion
and our ability to help others

Look to the one who suffered for you.

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Those are all the notes i took - redolent of CS Lewis and Madame Guyon, reminding me of who He is, washing me in the Word...

One of my favourite Good Friday hymns is "Go To Dark Gethsemane" - it has two different melodies, and powerful lyrics for today and for the coming Sunday...

Go to dark Gethsemane, ye that feel the tempter’s power;

Your Redeemer’s conflict see, watch with Him one bitter hour,

Turn not from His griefs away; learn of Jesus Christ to pray.

See Him at the judgment hall, beaten, bound, reviled, arraigned;

O the wormwood and the gall! O the pangs His soul sustained!

Shun not suffering, shame, or loss; learn of Christ to bear the cross.

Calvary’s mournful mountain climb; there, adoring at His feet,

Mark that miracle of time, God’s own sacrifice complete.

“It is finished!” hear Him cry; learn of Jesus Christ to die.

Early hasten to the tomb where they laid His breathless clay;

All is solitude and gloom. Who has taken Him away?

Christ is risen! He meets our eyes; Savior, teach us so to rise.

I know it sounds like all is pain and suffering here, and i can assure you that's not true! We are enjoying my husband's week off of work, enjoying the sun as spring tries to peek into our town, enjoying being together, and even enjoying the forced lassitude of sickness in the house. Sickness slows us down, we do less, and we connect more the slower we are going... It's been a slow week, but one filled with pleasure, and i know God is doing a deep work in me this week, and through this hard time. I've changed my signature at the bottom of each email to a Bible verse that encourages me every time i send out a message :

Job 23:10 But he knoweth my way, and trieth me, and I shall come forth like gold

What we are going through is so little compared to so many of my brothers and sisters all over the world. I've been reading "Scared" by Tom Davis on my ipod, and it made me cry, in the GM station, to think of all that some beautiful young believers have to go through - that they have to live in faith only to die still without seeing a realization on earth of God' hand upon them, of His good intentions toward them. They die like Abraham, not seeing the end of their faith on the earth. And i am so blessed. So blessed. But even the little pains that we endure will not be "for nothing". He sees, He hears, and all things He works for my good and for His glory both now and in the world to come...

Spring is coming!

Being Friends With God.

I've been thinking/praying a lot lately.

If you are my real life friend, or on any lists with me, you'll know a little bit, but just to recap - since Christmas day, we've been sick - i've had pneumonia, the little ones have had human meta pneumovirus (and still not over it), at least two different kinds of stomach flu, pinkeye... head colds, flu...

Our dryer broke down, then our washer. Then our laptop, and our stove is not behaving either. Plus we need a new tranny.

None of these things were surprises to me, because i did have advance warning - you know, how God just kind of lets you know "there's more to come... just be prepared"... In my case, that helps. And just so you know the ending - God is faithful - we are all down but not out, beautiful friends happened to be replacing their washer and dryer - and the tranny still has some use in it, for now... We have everything we need.

BUT it does lead to thoughts like these.

I've been focussing on "being a friend of God" and you know how some friends it's just sooooo easy - you show up, hang out, laugh, and it's all good? And other friends you have to work at it more - you have to be more careful with your words, or maybe you don't enjoy the same things, so you'll do the things you don't like so much, just because you do value their friendship - but it's not as easy? Well, God is like the ultimate hard friend, i think.

This is what i know. He wants to be my friend. He wants me to know Him. He wants me to run to Him when i have troubles, and to share my joy. But my "skin on" friends - if i ask them for help that is easily within their power to do - and they say no - i will quit asking them. That's just normal. So why does God want me to come to Him, even though He knows He will say no? I've been asking for a reprieve from the sickness for months now - and it's been pretty bad. I've been pretty despondent - especially when baby decided she didn't like taking her asthma medication four times a day nor the eye ointment four times a day. Eight times a day i was holding that tiny little girl on my lap, or on the floor, holding the air chamber up to her face, while she cried and tried to get away, or while she screamed "My eyes! my eyes!"...

I know it could be so much worse, but those days i was just shaking, broken, by the time T came home from work. And if He did listen, and healed us all, i know deep inside i'd be thinking "then why didn't you save my little baby?"...Because I've been more desperate than this before...

Thing is, it is NOTHING to Him to fix this... And i know, i know, i know... He has a plan for us. I know this deep inside. And what is almost worse - i know that every time we go through something like this - something that has "the whiff of brimstone" about it - that i come out changed, and with a deeper knowledge of who He is, a deeper faith, a renewed heart.

But while it's going on, all i can see is that my own strength is totally gone, i have no human refuge, and my one Friend that i know could fix it, won't...

I've talked before about my two best friends - my husband's deep, calm love. And my God's crazy, wild, reckless love... And somedays i'm thankful most that God did give me the man He did, to be that comfort in my life.

I wonder sometimes if "friends" is an appropriate paradigm to use with God. Sometimes, yes, it seems perfect - when i'm in constant prayer, and He's there, and showing me new things in His Word - and sometimes it seems like trying to be friends, like the Little Prince by St. Exupery - with a wild thing, a fox, an alien, something just so utterly *different* and *beyond* and *trans-everything-i-know*.

But friend is what i know, and some days i hang on to that.

Jesus loves me, this i know

for the Bible tells me so

Little ones to Him belong

they are weak

but He

is strong.

I Cannot Do This Alone

I Cannot Do This Alone

O God, early in the morning I cry to you.
Help me to pray
And to concentrate my thoughts on you:
I cannot do this alone.

In me there is darkness,
But with you there is light;
I am lonely, but you do not leave me;
I am feeble in heart, but with you there is help;
I am restless, but with you there is peace.
In me there is bitterness, but with you there is patience;
I do not understand your ways,
But you know the way for me…

Restore me to liberty,
And enable me to live now
That I may answer before you and before me.
Lord, whatever this day may bring,
Your name be praised.


- a poem included in Devotions for Lent, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I swiped it off of Ann Voskamp's beautiful blog called Holy Experience

No. I'm not really observing Lent this year. Tentatively, i told God I'd try to read His Word every night. For a long time it was my tradition not to miss a night or morning with Him. After i lost my little baby, i just withdrew from His severe love that held me but let my little one fall.

maybe i was wrong to feel that way about Him, but we're working through it. He knows my heart, and this is where i'm at.

And i've missed a couple of days, so i hate even saying i'm observing Lent. Because it has to be perfect, doesn't it?

I cannot do it alone.

He knows how true that is for me.

Ordinary Miracle

maybe it's just me getting older. maybe it's me feeling tender tonight.
we've had sickness in the house for so long and finally we were feeling better, only to be pushed down and beaten up again.

and yet in the busyness of cleaning up and nursing fevered brows, i am so acutely aware of the things i do take for granted.

i prayed that we would not have any lingering germs when we went to visit my baby sister and her new baby - we did. Disappointing. In one sense, it's a prayer that God said no to.

But how many times does He answer the prayers we don't pray, does He supply what we lack before we even know to ask?

Tonight i've been at Kara Faith's blog and read about Nancy Jean's polyhydramnios. My sister had that, and we all prayed, and her baby was born whole and well. That was a pretty dramatic answer to prayer - but the next time the doctor told her there was polyhydramnios, it didn't seem like such an emergency, nor such a miracle when that baby, too, was beautiful and whole.

My little baby has been sick with a cough on and off since Christmas. Meanwhile, i got her cough, and kicked it up a level to pneumonia. But it could have been my little sweet one with pneumonia, instead of me - and i'm so grateful to God that He let that ordinary miracle happen.

So many threats, strangers, dangers abound - and yet so often we are spared. We (and here i mean "i") - I have my feelings hurt when i feel that God hasn't protected me enough, and yet when I am fine, when all is status quo, do I thank Him for the lack of drama? For His protection from unknown, unsuspected harms that He has taken care of, without my knowledge or asking?

Tonight i am grateful for those ordinary miracles, and for His grace, as steady as my heart is unsteady...

what do you say?

This video made me think.

I've been brought up in a certain evangelical tradition where you have Bibles and tracts available to give out, and a certain set patter that you go through, the Four Spiritual Laws, the Romans Road, etc.

And those are great, but in light of my mom's readings from Universalism, i've been thinking...

If i had to boil it down to three sentences - what do i say?

And i'm guessing my three sentences might not exactly fit a tract, but like the Bible says:

But make up your mind not to worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves. For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to contradict or resist.

Luke 21:14-15

Anyway, this video made me think about being more *ready* to share my faith. I tend to think about missed opportunities after the fact, and wish that i had done things differently.

Depression and God

Does that sound like a stupid title?

Sitting here on my green pilly office chair, leaning a little forward so the shiatsu balls that were so awesome when i was pregnant but now seem a kind of torture won't inflict themselves on me, keeping one foot on the floor so that when Uly pushes my chair or arm i won't spin out of control, i'm trying to write as honestly as i can.

because i think this is maybe important to my own experience of religion, and i'm going out on a limb here, i bet i'm not the only one who has a/ had these experiences and b/had these thoughts. But i've never seen them in print, never heard them fall from another's lips.

Then again, we don't talk about depression much, do we?

I don't want to depress you with where i'm at, and unless i'm desperately trying to hold on, i will keep it to myself.

In fact, i talk so little about it that i don't notice the slide until i'm in scary territory.

But God has met me in my wrestling with depression, and i guess i'll start here.

This might be more than one post.

But for now, two pictures.

I walk up to my big strong husband, T, and lean into his chest. He stands there. Not putting his arms around me, just letting me lay my head there on his warm chest, put my arms around him.

I know he loves me. So why isn't he putting his arms around me, too?

Another picture:

I come downstairs for my workout, which T is in charge of planning and coaching me through. He's at the computer, downloading music into a playlist from www.grooveshark.com, trying to make sure there's some i love, some he loves.

He picks one new song neither of us has ever heard - says "It's the top downloaded single right now". It's the music of optimism, hope, youth, possibility.

After the workout, i work at the computer, playing it over and over.

That night, after we have everything all packed up to go to my sister's for Christmas, i ask him if i can download the whole album (7.99 for the album, 1.29 for the single, seems like good math).

We download it overnight since we are both so beat, and the next morning, he loads it onto my ipod for me, and when the drive gets long, i put on the headphones, and listen, and start to cry.

The words are :

I can finally see,
That you're right there beside me,
I am my not own,
For I have been made new,
Please don't let me go,
I desperately need you,

(Adam Young)

I've been slowly sliding down, and i don't know how to stop it. I feel like if i close my eyes to the truth of what the world is, i will live a life that is meaningless and that accomplishes nothing. Because living, eating, breathing, reading artifice leads to a shallow life that is in the end revealed as completely hollow. Like a gingerbread house, we can decorate our lives with icing and candies and keep adding things that only get stale, hard, and rot our teeth.

and i want to live a life that nourishes, that heals, that makes the world a better place. I want a life that is fresh, that brings health, life like a loaf of bread, something to share, something homely and every day and life giving.

I struggle sometimes with feeling so helpless.

And this is the truth of it. As dark as the world seems at times, at other times, it seems we live in a vista of incredible opportunity, invention, beauty, almost supernatural beauty through technology, increasingly available to all. It seems that no child has ever been as beautiful as mine, no husband as thoroughly good, no life as whole and well put together. When i'm there, the Bible verse i claim is Psalm 16:6

6 The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places;
Indeed, my heritage is beautiful to me.

And the truth is, that that vision is true.

This is also true. That when i read Say You're One of Them by Uwem Akpan, or even Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace, i saw the heart of man laid bare, and it was something beneath contempt. It made me panic inside to see such depravity, such a heartless, dead eyed cruelty, baseless, meaningless hatred, careless genocide and the tenuous grip that even blood has on us.

It made me despair of living in this world, and despondent thinking of the world my children must inherit that is already too hard, cold, dirty and irreparable for them to be able to overcome.

And my friends, this is a true vision as well.

so it's not a case of "You're depressed, you don't have the right view of the world". It's more a sense of utter desperation, where i am looking for clues to God's nature in view of the depravity of man.

We are made in His image, aren't we?

These are things i find:

Child led families in Africa. A tiny child scoots, dusty and barely clad, to a well, with an even tinier babe clinging to them. We are made to nurture each other. That is the image of God.

Beauty in nature. A few weeks now, by Sunday i can't wait to RUN out of the church building. I need to see beauty and order and perfection. We drive out toward Jasper, maybe 45 minutes, maybe more, maybe less, depending on what looks interesting. We find a place to park, and unpack the littles, some chocolate bars and water bottles. I bring my ergo to carry baby, and T brings his backpack for a bigger toddler, and we bring our camera.

Far from other people, or anything manmade, i feel a weight lift from my chest. My children can run and explore, without my hypervigilance. I know they are safe here. And it's like a bath in warm water to be surrounded with beauty, wholeness, something untainted and natural and good.

Beauty in music - the mathematical precision of all music. The way emotion can be channelled like water through the shallow ditches my children dig in the summer, to divert a little of the river's flow through their own mazes. Bad music has an opposite effect, the pointlessness of effort in the face of the absence of the infinite.

Makes me feel alone in the universe, abandoned.

Warm water. Sex. New growth outside. Little babies. Colors in the sky in the morning and evening. Stars like love letters reminding me of His love for me. Huge yellow moon, low on the horizon. Beautiful art. Beginning readers, the first time they read through a story and midway realize that this is easy, this is something they can do. They smile, and speed up, and it comes out smoother and there is a glow at the end of the story/poem. Architecture that required a lot of math, and materials that will not degrade and poison the environment. Tide pools. West coast beaches. Piles of white, soft diapers. Line drying clothes, kissing every collar, so that person will be smooched by me, unbeknownst. Journals, lined and beautifully covered. Antique furniture. antique ideas, books, pamphlets that show a desire for what i love, hundreds of years before i was even a thought or possibility. Improvement. I can learn and grow, and my littles ones can, and even our elected officials occasionally do, too.

But i do hang on, waiting for God to reach out and put His arms around me, and this is my secret - Sometimes He does. And sometimes He stands there and lets me take comfort just in His presence. This week it's a song that reminds me that whatever the larger questions are, the things i can't handle, the things i can't affect except incidentally, as one tiny pebble in an avalanche, He is with me. I matter to Him. He knows how desperately i need Him. He knows my heart is failing, is faltering. I am not the strong woman i would like to be, sleeves rolled up, ultimately practical, pragmatic. I just can't be. I am buffeted by my own strong impressions, passions, bowled over by beauty, drunk on desire for something more, and cast down by the truths i know and wish i didn't.

And instead of telling me all the answers, whispering all His secrets in my ear, He stands close, and tells me "Here i am. I am with you. Always". And if i can trust Him to be with me, i can trust Him to be at work, somehow, in the situations that keep me awake, crying, waiting for the light.

I can walk with Him out of where I've found myself.