A Better Way

Dear, Surprised (or maybe not surprised) Reader,

So I lied. That was not a good way to end a blog. Depressing. No real resolution.

Let's try this again.

Part of big moves for my family is church shopping.

Let's have a moment of silence for the parts of so many souls that have died in the church shopping process.

Even the term leaves a bit of a puke taste in the mouth.  Church shopping? I am certain this is a term invented by Americans. But it is a very accurate term. It's a bit like puppy shopping. Which is hard to explain too. It should be happy! Easy! But there is something ... wrong ... about the whole thing. You so badly want a puppy. But the behind-the-scenes reality of how puppies come to be for sale is something you don't want to know about. The American church scene/divisions are embarrassing to Christianity. Yet here we are, contributing to the sectarianism with our rejection of church after church. But being involved in a great church - we want that! My best friends in the world have been made by church connections! And my Sunday mornings are way too precious! And my children..... it's so complicated.

We have had the usual unsuccess here in Jersey, church shopping, as well as the accompanying guilt and "what's the matter with us?!"

This past Sunday, we stumbled upon one with promise for us. Ok, "stumbled" is a completely inaccurate word to use. Jeff spent hours and hours on websites and combed through every last page and link on this one. We made a calculated visit to a well-researched place this past Sunday and actually might visit a second time.

How did this place make it through round one of the Rozelle Standardized Test for Churches?

-There is a big, huge garden right by the parking lot and there were people weeding it as we pulled up and as we left. Points given by me. I don't know if the church people keep stuff from it, but I know they give stuff out of it to their food pantry.
-They have a food pantry and other great ministries. This is a very outward-focused church.
-Super duper nice people. We got the warmest welcome ever that was not in the least bit creepy. And you could tell they were tight - they have real relationships with one another. They were nice to each other in all of the little ways people are not, often, in our society anymore.
-They did not chase us down, ask any contact information from us, but gave us ways to contact them and check out what they are about.
-There was coffee that could be brought into the meeting space. (Points from Jeff)
-There were lots of goodies (Points from Anna)
-Kids are important, part of the church family.
-There is diversity - economic, social, age, race (though not as much in the last one as I would hope).
-The worship, though not done by talented musicians, was not distracting and they did not try to overreach their talent and kept it simple and low-key. (Points from Tiff)
- The pastor had a relaxed, conversational style that made it seem unlike a sermon.
-The content of this conversation blew me away.

I won't get into everything that made this appealing to me, but I will share what I think is relevant for this space. The core message was something like wouldn't it be nice to have an advocate? Someone to go to bat for you, plead on your behalf, when you need it? We don't have a lot of real-life examples of that outside the professional realm and especially the legal system. But when we have experienced it, it's powerful. Jesus is our advocate. He has our backs, so we don't have to exhaust ourselves trying to constantly defend ourselves against anyone and everything, including God. Because of his advocacy, we don't have to worry about how we look in others' eyes, even God's. The result of this, once we understand, is that we can find true peace, rest, and security. We can find boldness to do things we wouldn't have had the courage and freedom to do. Like advocating for other people. Wouldn't that turn our world on its head, if people who called themselves Christians spent their time not covering their own asses, but advocating (not judging!) for the hurting people around us?!

All this to say that I realize that many of the things I wish I could take back over the past year, many of the hurts I have caused, many of the ways I have not done what I wished I would have, can be directly traced to me wholeheartedly being my own advocate. Especially since I advocate for myself in an exceptionally bitchy way. Any wedge I have caused in my marriage, friendships, relationships with my children can be linked to me worrying about defending myself. The kind of person I want to be is not that kind of person. The kind of person I want to be makes the world a better place for other people. The kind of person I want to be is generous and forgiving and open-hearted and minded.

Feminism at its best is about advocacy. Advocating for people who are given less-than status in some way. Christianity is too often not about that, and to hear this kind of message, at the heart of who Jesus is - an advocate, brings everything full circle for me. In recognizing how free I am to advocate for others because I have been, am being, advocated for, is the key to Christianity and Feminism working together for good in my life. Or losing those labels all together and saying this is who I am meant to be.

I wish you courage, freedom, rest, hope, and the joy of becoming the best version of who you are meant to be.

With love,
Tiffany

jmatrozelle@yahoo.com
http://www.tiffanysattempt.blogspot.com/

Time to Let Go

This morning I read a most beautiful post on a friend's facebook page. I very rarely read anything truly profound on facebook, but this morning her post was lovely in every way. One facet of her writing described how she surrendered to a recent life-changing experience and is discovering what it means to let go of her normal expectations and orientation of her life.  Besides being grateful for the beauty imparted by her story, some things finally broke through the surface of my personal life.

Why have I been living life as if there is some big test I will have to pass? As if everything will be evaluated. I can be a gross underachiever, but mostly I am an overachiever. If there are grades, I want an A plus. If there is a race shirt that names the event and underneath has "Marathon, Half Marathon, 5K" I sure as hell will not be running the 5K and probably will only run the marathon. And I will want a PR.  And to be in the top 25% of my age category. I want to be referred to as a good wife and mother. On employee evaluations I want the highest possible scores and of course the highest possible raise. I want to bring a dish that I bring none of home.

This is ruining me - my character. Chipping away at my marriage. Probably alienating friends. Sending my daughters messages that the standards they must aspire to are impossible to reach but they should, at much personal cost, try to reach them anyway.

In Ecclesiastes there is a well-worn passage about a season for everything. A time to be born and die, keep and throw away, speak and keep silent, etc. I have realized what season this is for me. 

It is time to let go.

Let go of trying so hard, competing, worrying, keeping score, trying to figure it all out and do it all.

In the dark and putrid recesses of my heart, I have felt that it is so noble of me to be doing this move for my husband. This is all for his benefit, the nasty hidden me thinks, and he really owes me so much.

As if Providence does not move in ways that all lives are touched and I stand alone untouched as a pillar of sacrifice.  This move, I think, shifted the bedrock of my life in order to jar me into seeing that I need to save me from myself. And/Or save those I love from myself. 

This will be the last entry on this blog. At this point in my timeline, it is part of what I need to let go of. I will continue to chronicle my family's life on An Attempt  .  Thank you for riding along and I hope that your time here has enhanced your life in some way.  I wish you good things as you journey forward.

Men in Aprons: My 8 Year Old's Opinions on Marriage

 My 8 year old announced today that when she grows up and gets married she does not want to get stuck with all the "lady" chores like cleaning the house and doing the laundry.

My high schooler responded, "Well, those things are cultural. It's not like a rule that girls have to do them."
"You mean I don't have to do them?" 8 year old sister was very happy but skeptical...
I entered the conversation: "You can tell your future husband that you would like him to do half the chores and you to do half the chores and you can negotiate."
(Not that I am a very good example of how this could work, which is why my kid had the notion of "lady chores" in the first place...)
My 8 year old laughed, "Ha! Maybe he could wear an apron and do ALL those chores!"
Her sister joined in her laughter. As I was about to interject something about fairness, my  8 year old said, "But I would not want him to wear one of those aprons that says 'Kiss the Cook' on it!"

Myself, Reinvented?

Yesterday as I was grabbing dinner out with the kids on a busy evening, I was acutely aware of all the women in their business attire and I felt like I needed to say, "Yeah, this isn't really me anymore, this shorts-on-a-weekday thing."

It's interesting how we form our personal identity based on transient things that are not intricately attached to our souls. When I transitioned to being a career mom, I found myself floundering in identity uncertainty. "Wait - the person I am makes everything from scratch! I don't buy lots of "stuff'! I don't eat out a lot! This is not who I am, this eating-out, convenience food, materialistic woman!"  When we moved into our current house I felt a shift in identity, "Wait - I'm the person who walks or bikes! I am not this suburban dweller who owns a snow-blower and lawn mower and garage-door opener!" Now that I have ended my term at my job, I find myself adjusting identities again: "Wait - who is this person watching Soul Pancake clips with my teenager at 9 am? Why am I in shorts on a Tuesday afternoon? Why am I re-constructing my own resume - I am the person whose job it is to help other people with their resumes!" 

Is that really all that defines me - job title and attire, dwelling and location, food consumption, exercise, etc.? Or is who I am more: loyal friend, adventurous wife, loving mama, etc.? Sometimes I wonder if what we primarily use to define us serves to draw lines between us that ruin our ability to be in real, honest community and therefore indulge in satisfying soul-friendships. "Oh, I'm a stay-at-home granola mom who grows her own food; so sorry that you are a career mom who drives a hummer and feeds your kids Happy Meals. We are very different." Really? Or are we both nervous about whether or not our kids will adjust to high school and find friends to sit with in the cafeteria, lonely because it seems we don't have time to invest in our own female friendships, worried about our aging parents, and nervous that our husbands will no longer think we're so attractive as the crows feet and back fat accumulates? Do we cancel the common denominator of womanhood and humanity by the way we form our identities?


Moving will inevitably change parts of my identity again: living arrangements, job, etc. What is the identity gold that will emerge from the refining process?

The Accidental Parent

My children were not planned. I always wanted to be a mother, but I had pictured it as a more controlled endeavor, all the way around.

In no way is motherhood, in my experience, a controlled endeavor.

This began with the knowledge of the existence of my first child.  Kelly was the first of my sisters and I to have a baby, and I distinctly remember announcing to my mother at the preparations for Kelly's baby shower that I would not be attempting motherhood for a very long time. I had so much to work on before I dove in.

I pretty much found out I was expecting Molly the day that Kelly's son was born.

So much for that. I stumbled my way through the first months of pregnancy in a very sick daze and assumed that I would just, at the end of 9 months, deliver a healthy baby.  Instead, lots of hospital time but months before her due date, my daughter came the color purple and weighing 1 pound, 10 oz. She lived her first month in a little plastic house at the hospital and connected to beeping machines. I spent every minute I could parked outside that isolette, trying to be a good mom, whatever that was, because I loved that baby so much and I thought I would die if she did.  I tried not to make her heart rate spike and her O2 rate drop and willed her to get fatter and I tried to simultaneously obey the nurses and assert my independence as a mother.

3 months later, a day that still ranks at my top 10 best ever, my husband and I proudly carried home a 4 lb 3 oz peanut packed into an infant carseat that was still much too big for her. We spent the first weeks taking turns watching her constantly, and at some point began our descent into our style of laissez-faire parenting.  We assumed every baby slept as much and cried as little and was content to sleep anywhere including the movie theater. She was healthy and perfect and we did not give that much thought.

3 years later, I decided I very much wanted another baby. 2 years later than that, I gave up on the idea that I would ever produce another child. It wasn't that simple, but not unlike many other disappointments that come with the territory of motherhood. And like those, I survived. I pursued a career in nursing, partly so that I could be one of the understanding nurses in the NICU who help bewildered mothers feel better and not worse.

Then I discovered I was expecting another baby and would not be completing nursing school on time. My doctor ordered me to bedrest and no clinicals. And my healthy, roly-poly, very loud and very hungry second child was born with a very much black hair and a personality very unlike her sisters'. This daughter showed me that babies can ingest endless amounts of breast milk, crawl and walk too early, ignore the word "no," bite other human beings, throw fits in every store in town, not want to do anything that you want to do, and  still be impossibly adorable in spite of all that.  I spent every minute worrying that she would be a holy terror, trying to be a good mom, whatever that was, because I loved that girl enough to forfeit my own life. Which is what I felt I did for the first years of her life until at some point I began my descent into my style of laissez-faire parenting.

Both girls are growing into lovely young women now.  Yesterday, my husband and I attended our youngest's children's theater performance. It was an impressive show and she had been working hard. We had been told that "the big kids got the main roles." So we were surprised when our 8 year old seemed to still be one of the major characters with solos, while several older children did not have the same privilege. She delivered a great performance, and when she sang her solo we looked at each other in amazement. Wow!

Later that day, my husband and I tried to figure out how we managed to get two fabulous kids.  They are fun. They are smart. They are talented. They have good hearts. We know there are many better parents out there, but we are pretty certain there aren't too many better kids. It's really a miracle.

If you are a mother, I am guessing you feel much the same way. You look at these little people running around your house sometimes and wonder how in the world you ended up so lucky. (Or maybe you only wonder that when they are all snuggled in bed asleep - I've been there too). If you are one of those mothers that is convinced that your children are products of your superb parenting skills and perfect planning, then we probably don't have much in common. I know myself, and I know the greatness of my children is something that in my most honest moments I view as something I should say a prayer of  "phew...thanks...I didn't deserve this...." about.  There are moments I try so hard I think I will faint and others that I don't and I'm not sure which benefit my children more.

I love them. I get mad at them. I love them. I have fun with them. I love them. I am amazed they are mine. I love them. I love being a mom, whatever that means.

It's Not That Easy

There are three immense, looming obstacles to financial security I have been observing the people I work with bump into. One of them is student loan debt. It not only messes up credit in ways that can seem hopeless, but it prevents them from going back to school, the very thing that supposedly will help them over the poverty line.

Somehow I found myself at this article.  It is a story that weaves elements from those of people I work with. It also, with one twist of choice and a different demographic or two, would be my story. Which may be why I had the urge to cry when I read it.

It is another tale from the neverending story of girls from low socioeconomic brackets and minority groups, clawing their way up from the bottom of the pile while the rest of us think we are "helping."

"They just need an education" is second only to "why don't they just get a job" on my "Most Irritating Things People Say to Try to Fix Poor Women" list. 

Transcending Talent

Lots of giggling, talking freshmen surrounded me in the auditorium.  Good kids, basically, but inconsiderate as freshmen can be. Mine sat quietly in the second row. Next to an odd girl that no one else wanted to associate with.

Lots of pretty but over-done girls wearing ultra short shirts. Mine wore her hair down and just washed and brushed, no make-up, flared knee length skirt, all grey white and black.


Lots of girls singing popular songs. Mine would be the only one to play a classic instrumental solo.

As the time for her to play her violin drew near, weirdly, a panic climbed from my chest to my throat, threatening to choke me. What if she bombs this, poor thing? What if people laugh at her or think it's odd that she's playing this piece? And the violin? And that she didn't spend hours primping?And that she's not wearing a black mini skirt in size 3T? Do people like her? Is there a strange connection between maternal instinct and high-school survival instinct that conjured this succession of irrational thoughts? Something about the way she was about to make herself vulnerable at a high school talent show reached in and dragged this nonsense out.

She arrived on stage, fussing the way violinists do before they play, due to the touchiness of an instrument that can never be counted upon to stay in tune. It seemed like a long time, too long, too pregnant with possibilities of bad things to happen, until one of her loyal and dear friends called out, "Go Molly!" A round of clapping and whistling flared up briefly.  The clapping died as the lights dimmed.

She sat on a lone chair in the middle of the stage, spotlight shining on her blonde head. Her long arm drew the bow across the first note of Meditation from Thais and the atmosphere of the room transformed. You could have heard a pin drop in the audience. She played gorgeously, expressively, causing the strings to whisper and sing and cry. No freshman laughed or talked during this performance. I willed myself to tear my eyes away from her to sneak a peak at the formerly goofing-off kids and noted that all eyes were on her. I took a look in the other direction to see adults swaying, eyes closed...enchanted?

As soon as her arm stilled with the whispers of the last note fading, the audience erupted into whistling and clapping and shouts of her name. She flashed a pleased grin, stood, and disappeared behind the curtain.

Sapphira and Me

Ananias and Sapphira. Don't they just have the worst reputation in Christian circles?! What deceivers, deliberately lying (to God!) about the price of the property they sold.  Clearly the moral of that story is that you should not lie about what you are giving to God.  It's a shame they wound up dead. Tsk, tsk.

It's a wonder, then, that I am walking around. Don't I want to be part of radical, amazing work? Don't I want to give it all? And don't I always keep back a little bit for insurance.  I mean, what if God really can't be trusted? If the sacrificial living thing turns out to be a bust... might be nice to have a Plan B. 

Obviously, I am alive to blog about this. But I probably err if I think I am off the hook - Jesus said in order to find your life you first have to lose it. Is that why so many of us are trying to find ourselves? Is that why despite our unprecedented material excess and physical comfort we are dissatisfied and depressed and searching? The joy that goes with surrender, with giving ourselves to the common cause, apparently cannot be replicated unless all chips are cashed in - maybe that's the loss we experience.

It strikes me that in fighting poverty, in building community, no progress is made if people do not unite across divides. Left and right. Black and white. Protestant and Catholic. Government and the people. Rich and poor. It is one thing to approach a school board about ridiculous bus policies on behalf of clients or "the poor." It is entirely different if my kid is affected by those bus policies - I problem solve on a whole other level with a helluva lot more energy.  Until I process, internalize, and accept who my neighbor is, I will never be able to truly build community, or the kingdom of God. 

I suspect that it will always be part of human struggle to make decisions balancing what is best for us personally and what is best for the common good. (Most of us) vaccinate our children, but (most of us) send our children to the best schools we possibly can. I confess that I have never put a child of mine in the worst-performing school in the area in order to be better able to promote change there. And I probably never will. (And that was not a statement inviting argument or defense of that). I have bought property in a blighted neighborhood in hopes of being an agent of change there, and in the end sold that house with an exhausted sigh of relief, never to live in a city again (until - now?). That seems a failed experiment on many, many levels. I kept a job when I no longer believed the organization was working for the best interests of people it served because I knew it was a good paycheck. My fingers are clutched around so many things. I want to let go. I may never be able to, and I do so with the knowledge that my hands will never be free until I do.   

None of that is said to judge anyone. It is statement of my reality; I need to acknowledge what is in my own heart. And I think that's the point. I can't lie, and that starts with to myself. I can't pretend to be a better person than I am if I want to be who I was meant to become.

The Deadly Side

My husband's book group is reading something with an intriguing title: Jesus Wants to Save Christians, a not-recent book by a guy whose viewpoint I always find intriguing.  (Rob Bell).  I stole the book from my husband on a recent business trip.  Poor guy thought he lost it.

The trip was a national conference about ending poverty. One of the keynote speakers was Jeanette Pai-Espinosa, president of the Crittenton Foundation.  One of the most inspiring speakers I have heard in awhile.  Her organization seeks to reach young girls who have been hurt, usually sexually, and set them on the path to thriving. I was so intrigued by Jeanette's work that I browsed the website at lunch, also casually searching for any Crittenton agencies in oh, say, Philadelphia.... 

In my browsing, I came across this article.

When the Super Bowl rolled around this year, there was a lot of chatter about the half-time show and commercials that I chose to stay away from.  The above article felt like something that was just not a choice to ignore.  It may be unpopular to say, but our culture has a deadly side and we are subtly poisoned in so many ways. The Super Bowl is so fun, so All-American - the party of the year! As an American, I continue to unexpectedly find myself connected to things that are oppressing others in propogation of my fun/comfort/etc. And as a Christian, feminist - whatever - whoever I am is not comfortable with that. I don't always know what to do with what I find. Is it because I don't want to know what to do? (Because it might mean looking like a stick-in-the-mud, or being uncomfortable...)

The link between all of the above is that my mind and heart have been radically challenged.  Which means, blog readers, that I dump all of this challenging material out for you to help me sort through as well;) Maybe it's because I will be making fresh starts in many ways very soon that causes me to explore. You do not have to explore with me or help me sort anything out.  If you find this conversation interesting, I welcome your thoughts.

What a Girl Needs

I *heart* this clip!

Soul Groanings

But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words. Romans 8:26 NLT

This verse pretty much sums up my prayer life.  I am not a Biblical scholar and it would not shock anyone if I pulled a verse from Romans out of context, but I think this is one of the most descriptive statements in the Bible about spiritual life. It is very, very soothing to me that I can just throw out feelings, thoughts, or essence of thoughts and feelings in a prayerful way and they will get sorted somehow by Divine power.

This is parallel, to my odd way of thinking, to when someone is trying to express something to me by handing me a favorite book.  After reading the book, my soul connects to the other on a plane that words could not capture.  My daughter brought me a book by her favorite author, Sharon Creech, called Bloomability shortly after the news broke that we would, once again, be moving.

Reading Sharon Creech novels causes me to want to write a book of my own in very strong ways. Which is probably not relevant. Her characters and settings are so charming, though. Her adolescents' views are precious reminders of an age I forget to remember with fondness.  There were no overt messages my daughter was trying to send me.  She was simply inviting me to join her in feeling a certain current swirling around her.  It swirled around me and I somehow understood something.

There were many ways I thought of writing here about moving from Syracuse, NY to Moorestown, NJ (which is really Philadelphia).  Should I talk about the anxiety of making a perfectly wonderful daughter start her sophmore year in a new place? Should I discuss how wonderful the career move is for my husband but how I have to start my career all over again? Should I share the hope that things might be better for my little one in a fabulous school district with a gifted program? Should I whine about the hassle of buying and selling houses? Should I convey anger? worry? excitement?

But in the spirit of Sharon Creech and Molly and Romans and the Holy Ghost, I am just sort of eliciting a soul groan because there is so much that cannot be expressed in words. 

Who's Afraid of Of A Little Bedbug?

This seems to be a bit of a carry-over of theme from the last post: talking is a different thing from doing. The same theme comes up in sermons in churches on Sunday mornings and in scripture itself; it comes up in feminist discussions and writings. In science, a theory is only a hypothesis until it is tested and proven.  We seem to not  always have the same standards in other disciplines....

Living is messy business.  If you're in the pit, you're going to fight and subsequently see, taste, hear, smell, and feel blood; you might even bleed.  Theorizing is sanitized.  Even planning is clean. 

You've heard about Hopeprint 2 posts ago.  I received a communication today from the director that mentioned bedbugs...

You must understand that bedbugs are on my "Top Ten Most Dreaded Non-Lethal Things" list. They almost made the "Top Ten Most Dreaded Things EVER" list, but putting them in the same company as anthrax and ebola seemed melodramatic.  Realistically they probably fit in better with pigeons.  Trust me when I say we should leave that alone.

Anyway, in previous work I did there was high chance of me picking up bedbugs and I took elaborate precautions.  Not only are bedbugs just icky, they are IMPOSSIBLE to get rid of.  Dreadful things usually are ridiculously hardy.  Like, can-live-10-years-on-a-hard-surface-hardy.  Or, hustling-humans-out-of- their-hamburgers-hardy... wait, I said I would leave that alone!

I like to think I have been a safe distance from bedbugs lately. I make my husband help me check for bedbugs every time we enter a hotel. I mean, I'm the one who when the note from the school nurse comes home saying a child in the school has a case of head lice (not nearly as hardy as bedbugs and 10 times easier to get rid of) immediately throws everything my children had on them in sealed plastic bags and check their hair three times a day for the next 4 weeks. This communication I received almost made me pick up the phone and tell Cathy and Nicole and everyone "So sorry -  I forgot I'm busy every Tuesday night for the rest of the year."

And then I felt a Divine whisper: "Hypocrite."

Locking ourselves in, sealing ourselves away is not living.  Living is not safe.  Living in a way that seeks justice for all is most definitely NOT SAFE. But as a child, I was sometimes guilty of hiding really near home base so the distance to safety would be short. As a teenager, I was sometimes guilty of not trying out for something for fear of failure.  As a mom, I am sometimes guilty of making the decision that keeps my daughters out of harm's way instead of the one that will provide an opportunity for growth.  I fight the urge to stay safe more often than I would like to admit, even this many years and lessons into life. 

I deeply believe that being involved in the mission of Hopeprint is a natural extension of my values and beliefs and is something I need to be involved in. People needing hope and love is bigger than sanitation: pretty Un-American and Un-the-family-I-was-reared-in and honestly, Un-me.  I like sanitation.  But if we all gave into our fears all of the time, evils of all kind would prevail.

Who's afraid of a little bedbug?

Me. Totally.

But I'm going anyway.

From Where I Sit

There has been a lot of down time at my place of work lately.  I have been trying to use the opportunity to brush up on reading some of the writings in my field.  I came across a report prepared for a 2011 Anti-Poverty Programs conference held in Berlin.  The author was Ron Haskins of the Brookings Institution.  He seems to be a very knowledgable conservative in an important and often predominantly liberal conversation. "Fighting Poverty the American Way," was its title.  What a great title set in an intriguing frame.

Research galore to back up his opinions and very sound arguing; essentially the conclusion was that policies handicap American programs that try to do away with poverty and need to be revamped.  The forces identified in this report that keep poverty alive and well are low wages, family dissolution, mediocre education, and immigration of poorly educated workers.  You would think 2 of those would come out of a conservative's mouth, one from a liberal's, and one from both (everyone has an opinion on education in America, and usually it's that it could be better...) So I found the article to have a tone I could consider seriously.

I am not a world-class researcher.  I am not nearly as smart as the author and the others at his table. I do not have the background and the experience they do. My own actual position twists and turns so much that a real solution would be hard to come by.  The following are only musings deriving from observations made from where I sit.

Half of all children living in female-headed households live in poverty.  When a child lives in a household with only a mother, they are four times as likely to be poor. Those are facts. There was another statement made that I was not as comfortable backing since I didn't see the hard numbers: that children in female-headed families are more likely to be arrested, become pregnant as teens, have mental health problems, commit suicide, and become divorced when they grow up. 

All of the single mothers (well, I could argue all mothers in general, but that's a different tangent) I know personally live with elephant-size guilt.  Some fully acknowledge it, others try to stuff it under a lot of bravado and it rears its head only in the most vulnerable of moments.  I don't think these statistics do much to encourage these women.  I don't know that keeping the men in their lives would have helped their situation.  I don't know what to do with these statistics. 

The feminist angel -or devil - has a lot to say; men are absolved from a lot of the responsibility of child rearing, men have more earning power and better social standing, etc.  The Christian angel - or devil - says families are supposed to be two-parent headed. If I think through what Jesus would actually have to say I can't help but conjure up images of him writing in the sand in the midst of a mob with stones in their hands. 

We can say a lot, and take a conversation in several different directions.  But what to do - well, the United States of America hasn't figured that out either.  No country has.

I spend a fair amount of time intellectually hanging out on the macro level, planning programs and beyond. At the end of days when I have time to reflect, it is the time I spend hanging out on the individual level that the most gets done, for better or worse.  It's one thing to read numbers and another thing entirely to look into the eyes of someone those numbers represent. At some point we hope the planning and work on the ground inform one another and make headway. 

Hope

There is a house in the heart of the Northside of Syracuse that is inhabited by young women fully committed to amazing work.  The neighborhood, by some, is considered dangerous.  Most would deem it not desirable, anyway.  They live there because that's where the people they've decided to work with live.  The have made it homey and lovely and throw open its doors to everyone who is a refugee or volunteers to have meaningful connections to refugees.  These are not social rejects.  These are hip, smart, cute young women who are doing incredible things.

I squandered my youth and singleness.

But my daughter will not.  Her and her former teen missions teammates have been pleading with Cathy and I to start up the group again.  Most of us do not go to the same church anymore, so we weren't sure how we could pull that off.  In that mysterious magnetic pull that happens when things are supposed to come together, I kept rubbing shoulders with Nicole, the founder and director of Hopeprint, the ministry house described above.  Cathy and I finally figured out that Hopeprint was the perfect fit for the girls and a perfect way to get the group working together again. There was a need working with the kids, and the girls love to work with kids.

Tonight was orientation, and the girls met many of the young women leading things there.  All of them were very kind to the girls, and their enthusiasm hooked up with that of the girls and took off.  Now the girls not only want to run the class for the littlest refugee children, they also want to meet girls their age and be friends.

I feel so fortunate for my daughter to have the opportunity to form relationships with people from all over the world - to minister to them and learn from them. She has a bevvy of new role models. This is one of those times I shake my head in awe at a windfall I have received.
I have been noticing a trend - in Upstate New York, anyway.  Young single women are taking up the reins of real, grinding, amazing work.  Last year, on a teen girls mission trip, the girls met Rev. Sarah, a young United Methodist minister who was leading the charge of helping flood victims pick up the pieces.  On another adventure, they met Rev. Becky, another young United Methodist minister who has taken over a dead, vacant church and is trying to minister to poor and broken people in the neighborhood around her. Our girls are poised to do the same.  My daughter and her friend, on the drive home, were conversing about how cool Hopeprint is. "Maybe we could do that when we're out of college - maybe we could live in a house like that!"

Three cheers for the young ladies of Hopeprint and others like them, not only casting hope for refugees and others in the Northside, but also casting vision for young girls from the suburbs. 

Reader, Forgive Me

"Father, forgive me for I have sinned" is the way I remember starting a Catholic confessional. 

Are you disappointed that I did not kick of the New Year with a resolution post?

I know you're not.  You are totally licking your lips in anticipation of morsels of guilt confessed.

Ok, so I had no big scandals involving adultery or gambling or plastic surgery or such.

This is more of taking a deep breath and admitting something out loud.

So I am a career woman now.  Real deal.  Swallowed the whole gig hook, line, and sinker. 

That's not the confession part.  The confession part is that I miss being at home.

I do.  I miss letting my kids be kids.  I miss having things organized. (Though we all know that is such a relative term, organized). I miss cooking real dinners most nights.  I miss having free time without having to borrow from my already shortened sleep.

I don't want to stop working.  I like it.  It's been good for me.  It's been good for my family.  I just don't want to work so much. Or maybe I just want to be better at balancing.

Whenever my family moves, I feel as if it takes 2 years to really feel at home there.  Maybe after 2 years of working full time I will feel at home in my career mom skin.  I'm the better part of a year shy.  I do want to find more balance.  In retrospect, the happiest period of recent times has been when I was working part time. Can I find balance in an unbalanced schedule?

I responded to a comment made the other day by a reader on an older post ("Everybody Needs a Housewife, Including Me") that I have recently been intrigued by the idea that "taking care of" is an art. It is something learned with care, just as people learn to be engineers or accountants.  What I mean to say is that I feel the need to recapture the honor of being able to take care of my home and my children and *gasp* my husband and even myself.

I have no idea how I will do this.  I am not even really asking for suggestions as I suspect this is something I have to feel my way through. 

This blog, at its heart, has always been about figuring out who we are best meant to be.  I am quite certain I am not meant to be who I was entirely last year.  In some ways, absolutely positively YES I was made for what I was doing.  But there was much left unattended to.

This blog became a little scattered and self-centered last year and the reason is because I was. 

Phew, I am done confessing now. C'est le vie. Let's see what happens this year.