Here

My family and I missed each other during my absence.  It was the longest that me, solo, had been away from the three of them.

My first grader bravely and enthusiastically reported the happenings of every day on the phone, always ending with, "but I REALLY REALLY miss you. Every second."  She was waiting right at the screen door when I got home, standing taller than I remembered and ready with a big hug.

The dog wormed in front of her to greet me with his paws up on the screen door, tail wagging furiously with his whole self shaking.  He has followed me into every room I enter, and graciously shared "his" couch with me for a little nap, snuggling against me.

My teenager spent a long time on the phone with me Friday night, vetting my story about my flight problems and inability to come home when planned.  She asked to accompany me to the grocery and if we could resume our tradition of reading before bedtime again.

My husband caught my arm as I rounded a corner with a sack full of laundry. He looked me straight in the eye and said in a very humble voice, "Honey, I really tried to keep up on laundry and not have the house be a mess.  But we still managed to make a lot of work for you." (I PROMISE I hadn't said a word about the house or laundry! I hadn't even sighed! I was so happy to be home I didn't even feel one bit upset about it!) I smiled and assured him that I understood how difficult running a household is. "I'm really glad you're home," and he pulled me into a big bear hug.

I was feeling a bit of pressure to do something fun with the kids.  I had promised myself that I would intentionally spend quality time with them.  But after their hellos, everyone sort of scattered and resumed previous activities.  The house had a comfortable feeling of being.

It was as if they were just happy that now I am here.  The world of our family is right again.

When I was leaving, Anna said, "I don't like when you go away, Mommy.  I don't like when Daddy goes away.  Believe it or not, I don't even like it when Molly spends the night at a friend's house.  I like when everyone is at our house the way it is supposed to be.  Me, you, Daddy, and Molly.  And Biscuit."

It is one of the nicest things about being part of a nice family.  You belong there.  When you show up, everyone is like, "Well, it's about time you're here!" and the space you are supposed to occupy is filled with you, and everything continues.  My business trip so happened to carry me to the town where my parents and one of my sisters and her family lives.  The same thing happened there.  Of course there was a spot for me on the bleachers at ball games. No fuss, just cozily there.  I can't explain that feeling.
I was born into it.

Not everyone has that experience, I have learned over the years as my awareness spread beyond the borders of my own family.  People crave belongingness. It's one of the things that Circles®, the national project the agency I work for is part of, seeks to provide.  We call ourselves a family. I believe it's why people stick with it when the going gets tough and they can't meet their goals.

Churches are supposed to be places where people can feel that belonging.  Feminists are supposed to try to make the world a place where everyone belongs.  Jesus offers that to all in himself. I think it is part of the work he wants us to carry on - to invite people into his big old family.

We don't do that well.  Not well enough.  Too many people are on the outside looking in.

What if we challenged ourselves this week to be glad people are here?  What if we acknowledged the belongingness of our families, coworkers, people we come in contact with in anything we attend this week?

There's nothing more soothing to a soul than knowing that just being here is enough.

All We Have to Offer

There are real Christian Feminists in the world.  (I am pretty sure that I don't qualify on a few technicalities).  Anne Lamott is a real one.  And a real author.  And a funny person. (Again, things for which I am disqualified on a few technicalities). 

Recently, my husband earned an $800 gift certificate to Penguin, a publishing company that still prints REAL books!  It was like winning a mini-lottery.  Kind of.  Except it was his and he earned it and we really could have easily tripled the amount and still not been done ordering real books.  Our shelves are now stuffed with lots of classic spy novels (like Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy), obscure and ancient writings on faith (think Thomas Aquinas), and Russian classics (like War & Peace). My husband kindly let me elbow some room for a little Toni Morrison and Japanese classics and such.  He also scooped up a few recommendations from friends whose opinions we completely trust.  A few Lamott books joined our new collection.

Having acquired a windfall of time waiting on airplanes (Look, quick! That's me mustering good attitude and correct perspective!) I read one. Now I have lots of food for thought, some great new quotes, and a new friend. I am assuming she felt the cosmic connection and I can call her a friend. Anne and I do not see eye-to-eye on every topic, but I find her opinion interesting and energizing, thoughtful and beautiful, and I am officially recommending Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith to you, readers.  Yes, you Amanda.  Tash - are you reading?  Ami, Cathy, Beth - you will hear more about this on Monday night.  So you might want to secretly stage a cancelled meeting if you don't want to hear about it.

In one chapter, Anne chronicles a story of conducting a service at a nursing home with her son and friend.  She describes the scene: "the people here are shipwrecks, and sometimes there is not much left, but there is a thread in them that can be pulled and still vibrates." 

I have done my own visiting in nursing homes, and I am going to be doing so again in a few weeks. I also work with people in poverty, and there this quote is applicable as well, in a different sense.

Then again, we are all in different states of shipwreck.  Some of us haven't crashed yet.  Some might be in the clean-up stages or the re-building stages. But we don't always see it that way.  As happily cruising along sailors or sunbathers or perhaps captains, we may not be aware.  When we see the actively shipwrecked, the ones in danger of losing hope and life, we don't always know what to do.  Maybe we want to jump in and start helping, throwing life preservers or money or something.  Maybe our hearts just break and we look away because we don't know what else to do.  I've also spent a whole week at a training for my work and have had some time to reflect. 

Sometimes, I think our best response is to recognize the thread of connection in our situations.  The human condition applies to all of us.  Lamott's response to the very old who were sick, unresponsive, frail, or not in their right minds: "I realize again and again that this is all you have to offer people most days, a touch, a moment's gladness.  It has to do, and if often does."

You may think this sounds calloused and cold, but it beats the Savior complex so often present in non-profit work.  It lends perspective when the the number of lost souls aimlessly bobbing about the sea seems to be multiplying, and more seem to be slipping beneath the surface.

I have been out of control of my traveling situation this past week, at the mercy of airlines. This kind of non-control keeps me aware of the house of cards that is my life; control is really a borrowed commodity of moments, dependent on so many fragile balancing acts to keep it at hand.  Poverty, old age, mental illness, addiction, etc. are just more obvious shipwrecks, fallen card houses, and such.  All we honestly have to offer is that acknowledgment of the Divine present in the human.  "I see you, person of immeasurable value.  I know you are here." Anything more we might have to give at any point in time is just another borrowed commodity.

New Life

There should be two feet of snow still on the ground. That was the coherent thought that pushed to the forefront of her brain as her eyes followed her daughters around the park.  Nothing about this winter had been typical, however, including the weather.  The sun penetrated unusually warm through bare tree limbs, the way spring sun does in a more Southern climate.  The effect made Tracy feel as though she were transported back to one of those more Southern springs of an earlier decade, which was not an altogether pleasant sensation. She was more recently used to Northern springs where leaves sprout in the slightest warm up and when the sun picks up any kind of strength, the shade filters it.  

There had been lots of bickering in the house this morning, and it seemed to be continuing into this afternoon at the park.  Her youngest daughter was stomping towards her with an exaggerated frown that foretold of tattling.  Tracy sighed and waved her away with a tired, “I don’t want to hear about it or we’ll go home.” Lucy turned on her heel and began stomping back towards her sister, probably to announce the injustice of Mom not listening to her.  

There were many other families taking advantage of the unusual spring-like weather in what was technically still winter.  The park was packed with families in a way Tracy was unused to.  Perhaps that was because in the past, Tracy only visited this neighborhood park during the week.  When she had been a stay-at-home mom, there were bigger excursions on the weekend, and this playground was a time filler for weekdays only.  The sight of all of these families trying to have fun and enjoy the weather somehow depressed her.  Ridiculous!  Maybe she was projecting; her attempt to do something fun with the girls this afternoon was not turning out quite as uplifting as she hoped it would be.

“Mom!” This was her oldest, running up to her with urgency.  Tracy squinted into the sunlight, puzzled.  Nothing seemed obviously wrong.  There was no telling what her quirky eldest would find bothering her.  “Have you seen the creek? What is all of that disgusting green stuff in it?”

There was a clear creek that ran through the park.  It was always very cold, no matter what the temperature, as it originated in one of the glacier-formed lakes not 10 miles away.  It was a popular place to wade in the summer, and one of the highlights of coming to the park for Tracy’s children.  As Tracy walked over, her heart sank as the sight of unending green glowed under the surface of the moving water.  She noticed some boys downstream fishing huge swaths of the slimy matter with fallen tree branches.  

“Is it safe to wade in?” Isabelle pushed her glasses up until they jammed against the bridge of her nose.

Tracy shrugged, “I don’t know.  It is gross, though.  I wouldn’t get in it.”

“I don’t mind it,” Lucy announced, coiled and ready to spring into the water.  Tracy shot out a hand to restrain her. 

“No, Luce.  Let’s stay out of it today.”

Her two daughters responded in unison. Lucy, wailing loudly: “Maaamaa! That’s the whole reason I wanted to come here!” and Isabelle, frantically: “Will it stay like this all summer, Mama?  Will we ever get to wade in it again? Why is it like that Mama?”

“Lucy, we can go home if you keep it up.” Story of our lives, Tracy thought. “Isabelle, I really don’t know.  Maybe it’s algae bloom.”

“Why does the algae grow, Mama?” Isabelle continued to maintain her habit of slamming her glasses up against the bridge of her nose.  Tracy wondered how there wasn’t a permanent bruise there.

“Well, maybe fertilizer and pesticides and weed killer from people’s lawns, or something like that got into the water and threw off the equilibrium.” I sound like Jim, she heard in her head, as if the thought came from someone else.

“People wouldn’t do that on purpose, would they, Mama?  They don’t know that stuff is going in the water, right?” Isabelle’s faith in the goodness of the human condition was unwavering.  

“Probably not.” Tracy, as usual, chose to let her daughter’s innocence carry on. It seemed more humane than bringing her own current cynicism crashing in on her child’s party.

“I’ll bet it’s because we didn’t have winter this year,” Isabelle hypothesized.  Lucy had snuck upstream and managed to fall in. She was casting furtive looks over at Tracy and Isabelle, wringing out her wet soccer shorts and trying to look as if she was casually strolling over towards a sunny set of swings.  

“Whatcha mean, Love?” Tracy chose to ignore Lucy.  

“Well, we didn’t have all that snow this year.  The creek didn’t get cleaned out.”

“Ohhh - you mean because it didn’t freeze?”

Isabelle continued before Tracy had finished, “Maybe the algae always tries to grow but winter usually knocks it out.  It’s too cold and stuff for it to grow.”  Isabelle looked pleased with herself, and assured that she had found the reason.  “And Dad said he didn’t need winter!”  She tossed her long hair and ran after Lucy.

Tracy was disappointed with the condition of this lovely creek.  It was another sign that things were different, and not really for the better.  Just as she couldn’t take her daughters here during happy summer break weekdays anymore, the creek-wading days might be over as well.  Just as the entire happy family doing something fun on Saturday times were gone too.  

Tracy was surprised that she wasn’t an obvious mess.  She would’ve thought that her husband leaving her would’ve caused her a great deal more sadness and anger, and that maybe she would’ve been a nervous wreck.  He had moved out around the holidays, even, and she had allowed herself one good cry or two before moving into a resolve to not just survive, but thrive.  She moved into working full time again relatively smoothly, and the switch to single parenthood, while difficult, was manageable. 

Except on days like today when she had to be fun and play with her kids.  Had she become incapable of doing this?  She could navigate the busyness of weekdays like a champ, but unscheduled weekend time with the kids....there seemed to be a disconnected wire inside that prevented her from enjoying that anymore.  Maybe the part of her that turned off in effort to pull through the divorce was connected to that. Right now she should be basking in a lazy afternoon at the park and instead all she could think about was needing to do yard work or go to the grocery.  Maybe it was easier to focus on what needed to be done every day than it was to explore her feelings.  She really hadn’t spent much time doing that.  She was known as an over-analyzer, a person who talked out everything.  In fact, this had exhausted Jim.  Ironically, now that it didn’t matter, she couldn’t talk or analyze or even think through whether or not she missed him.  Her heart was probably quite a mess if she started really looking into it.  She didn’t want to.  She preferred to stick with the view that showed how tough she had been, and how capable. 

She called to Isabelle and Lucy.  It was time to walk home, she decided.  They had played for over an hour, and she had to give the dog a bath, see to it that the kids got baths, make dinner, and throw in another load of laundry.  She promised the whining girls ice cream sundaes if they cooperated, they stopped whining, and the three of them began the uphill walk home.  

100 years

My kids were on Winter Break last week, which made for a lot of improvising at our house, complicated by me getting a stomach flu, ending with my husband dropping pizza all over the oven Friday evening. To the rescue: the gift card my aunt and uncle had given us for Christmas to The Spaghetti Warehouse, which we also had coupons for. 

While we were there, my youngest had to visit the ladies' room.  If you, by chance, have never visited a Spaghetti Warehouse, you should know that the decor is circa 1912.  Even in the restroom.  As I waited for my daughter, who took a really long time, I became engrossed in one of the articles of the old newspapers lining the walls.  It was a posting of opinions of proponents and opponents of women's suffrage.

I don't know what angle the editor was spinning from, but there were a lot of men supporting women voting, and a lot of women against it.  I was most intrigued by the statements from women saying that being able to vote would not be a good thing.  Their arguments seemed odd  100 years later, and almost don't even make sense in hindsight. To me, voting is a basic human right.  People who cannot vote simply are not full-fledged members of their society, nor true citizens.  Why would anyone choose that?  "Oh I can influence things from the periphery." Wouldn't you rather exercise your voice? 

The article has stayed with me, and I wonder what we hold on to today that will seem unfathomable 100 years from now.  In what ways are women opponents of what may, in the future, seem like something so elemental on the human rights scale? Or maybe women have toppled all of the walls keeping them out, and there are other strongholds to storm along lines of race, age, etc.?  It's interesting to think about, anyway.  I wonder if we'll even have any newspapers left to cut articles from.  Maybe there will just be like huge Ipad screens everywhere and with a move of your finger you display what you want on the walls.  You may not have to ever look at anything on a wall by chance.  That would be kind of a shame - how many times have I been struck by something that I wouldn't have chosen or even thought to look for, but it enriched my existence by crossing into the field of my consciousness.  Maybe that sentiment will seem silly 100 years from now, when my grandchildren will be wondering why I have boxes of books or letters in my attic. Or old newspaper clippings. 

When the Church Gets It Right

Sometimes, one does not want to call oneself a Christian.  You know - the news stories that make you cringe and think, "I do not want to identify with this."

And other times, you hear or see of something that makes you think, "This is what it's about. Sign me up."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msaU6yR3bA4

I think that generally Christians represent Jesus poorly on high horses and better on our knees.

How Do I Look in This Shade of Gray?

There are lots of changes in our household as a result of my husband's diagnosis, added to those that we are still trying to adjust to as a result of my still-new career.  My identity shifts so much that I am having a devil of a time balancing and staying on my feet.  With the new "normal" comes some decisions that cause me to wonder if the way I am actually living is consistent with my character (or what I thought was my character).

My husband, as a political enthusiast who is on rest, has had the television tuned into coverage of the Republican election hoopla close to 24/7.  There is a lot of talk about flip-flopping and moral character and adherence to party values and such.  The candidates love to point out inconsistencies between one another's actions and words.  This has fed into my examination of my own tarnished record, so to speak.

It's a question I have wrestled with a lot as I travel through adulthood, because it is very difficult to live up to ideals.  Making real life work often requires the moving of lines drawn in the sand.  My favorite quote in all the world about parenting came from one of Jeff's former colleagues, delivered when we were talking about what we end up doing in the middle of the night to get our babies to go to sleep: "those lines we draw... it is after all, just sand."  We feed them when we said we weren't going to, give them pacifiers we took away, bring them to bed against our pediatrician's advice, etc.  We might have had really strong convictions about these things at 3pm.  But at 3 am, the world looks like a very different place.  Just as the world of parenting looked so much different from the non-kid side.

When I wrote the MLK day post, for instance, I wondered if people would think I believe I've made flawless choices in building bridges for those on "lonely islands of poverty."  I have not.  When my husband and I moved to Syracuse we made a decision to live out in a suburb.  It just about killed me, the idea that I was deliberately choosing to contribute to what goes on in our urban deserts in order to benefit my own children.  Real life presented me with a situation: I had a sensitive 6th grade girl about to start middle school in a brand new state, and I could put her in a safe school with good ratings and a good orchestra or I could put her in one where only 40% of the students graduate, extra-curricular activities are dismal, and not one person could assure me she would not be assaulted in the hallways every day.

Real life is a negotiation between what actually works and what we wish could work.  There are many times parents say, "Before I was a parent, I said I was never going to _____. And now look at me."  That is not just true for parenting.  As a feminist, I have felt hypocritical about taking the luxury of staying home with my children in their pre-school years, and am trying to determine whether I am oppressing or providing a good job for a woman by considering getting someone to clean my house for me now that I have a career. And who do I think I am that I am considering not cleaning my own house anyway?  It's not like I'm a lawyer or have 4 kids under age 5 or live in 4.000 sq. feet.  The nutrition standards I would like to adhere to do not seem attainable at the moment. I see myself backing off of more and more church commitments, which nicely contributes to Christian guilt.  I wonder if I'm being a bad wife by considering going to work tomorrow or a bad employee for considering calling off again.

How do we live with ourselves, when we make decisions that go against our beliefs?  Are we hypocrites for erasing those lines in the sand and drawing new ones, or simply battle-tested soldiers trying to stay alive?  A little of both, I would venture to guess.

 The trick to the functionality of our bones is their ability to be both flexible and strong.  If they were totally inflexible, they would shatter at our slightest movement.  If they were rubbery, they could never support us enough to let us stand up.  Their usefulness lies in the combination of both qualities.  But what's the formula where perfect balance is achieved?

I think it's ok, as well, to run the results against a litmus test of sorts. Otherwise we can justify anything we decide to do.  We may find some of our decisions still bother us, even if we would make the same ones again.  Or maybe we can find ways to offset our carbon output, so to speak. We learn every time we hold ourselves accountable for our decisions. So I would love to hear from you.  I find these conversations important, and would love to hear about how you have chosen your own personal shade of gray.

Standing on the Edge of a Nightmare

There is a term from nursing school that I adopted into my vocabulary because sometimes it is an incredibly accurate description. 

Sense of Impending Doom. 

While Jeff was in Kenya for 2 weeks, I would get this overwhelming feeling that I was truly single, all alone.  He couldn't really call and we could barely communicate by e-mail, so perhaps that was contributing. 

Then he came home, but for some reason I couldn't rest.  Something was wrong with him.  He would have what we thought was an asthma attack every time he exerted himself at all.  He slept constantly.  He was irritable.  It was like he was here, but not really.  I tried to tell myself it was jet lag; the long plane rides must have triggered his asthma.  I tried to get him to go to the doctor.  Today he finally went.

Tonight he is in a hospital room and the girls and I are alone again.  I hope he comes home soon.  I think everything is going to be ok, but maybe not.  The doctors can't make promises. I know just enough from my nursing school days that half of medicine is guesswork.  And I know exactly what pulmonary embolism means. 

He has a large blood clot in each lung.  The one in his left lung is so big that it has killed lung tissue.  The doctors say that if something "catastrophic" was going to happen, it would have probably happened. 

I have rehearsed this day in my nightmares several times.  I know what comes next in the nightmare, so I hope I wake up soon, before that happens. I want him home safe.  I want the doctors to tell me everything is going to be fine. 

Do you know what I mean when I say that I feel as if I'm calling upon the emergency version of myself that I hoped I would never have to use?  The one created in response to the lurking fears that pop up every now and then, the one invented "just in case" ever happens?  The strong woman who can pick up the pieces of life and put them together in the event of a disaster ... I really never wanted to test drive her.  I'm sure she's better in theory than practice.  My friends are wonderful and supportive and I love them dearly and know that however strong Disaster Response Tiff happens to be that she is powerless without them.

I also know that Everyday Sustainable Tiff, whatever postmodern Christian feminist she fancies herself to be, is half of who she is without Jeff.