Irradiate Me

Blogging through Rob Bell's "Love Wins" - Version 1

2011-05-22T08:35:00.000-07:00

Honestly, how can you go wrong with a title like that? I mean, I remember using that simple statement as a facebook status update years ago. I remember it being a VCC semi-bumper sticker slogan: Love Wins.

We had our first group meeting to talk about chapter one of the book this last weekend, and it surely bodes well for English-geeks like me that it took us nearly half the session just to argue through the first study guide question on the Preface. We barely even got to the first chapter, it's that's meaty.

I stand by my first assessment - Rob Bell thinks like a Poet. Words are tremendously powerful things. We do great disservice to always put them all in limiting cages of one fixed solid meaning. Sure, sometimes we need fixed, mundane meanings (non genius-level math and science, practical daily activity, etc.), but that is not all that we are as humans and certainly not all that we were meant for.

Yes, I believe in Biblical inerrancy, but maybe not as what is commonly understood by that term. Remember that we Christians do not insist on a single, unchanging translation of the scriptures. The exact wording of those holy and powerful verses seared into so many of our subconsciouses (John 3:16, Jeremiah 29:11, Romans 8:28, pick your faves) were translated, at best, 1500 years after the original text. We're all working from multiple interpretations and Truth as a prism. There's a reason we love concordances and parallel translations, because it makes the Truth bigger.

Why is it that we all tacitly agree to using anything other than the original Greek, Latin, Aramaic, and recognize all these varying translations as true, either singly or (even more so?) in combination, yet are uncomfortable with a concept of multi-layered, dynamic, prismatically-glimpsed Truth? Maybe we're not really, foundationally, against that view, at least for ourselves, but we can't proclaim it officially/doctrinally because other people might abuse that freedom and run into all kinds of patently false nonsense. Hmmmm. . .

Good thing our salvation (and theirs) isn't based on intellectual precision - though that's a good thing to want. We are saved by FAITH, and Jesus is the LIVING Word. Jesus/God is eternal and unchanging, but living things change and grow. Contradiction? Not necessarily. The little-L words change too, as do our interpretations, understanding, and contexts. The stories we tell around these sacred words take infinite forms, and I guess most of them are "true" to someone at some time and place. And not only Rob Bell, but C.S. Lewis, Max Lucado, Joe Boyd, and many others are brilliant story-weavers.

Wouldn't it seem a little cramped if we couldn't learn from their "stories?"

I'm trying a new thing.

2011-05-22T07:48:00.000-07:00

Maybe this is a bad idea.

My brain is too full of messy, slippery tangents. The problem is, they won't just stay small and concise and expressible; they must wander and linger and morph suddenly into much riskier territory. But these are the things that keep me (us?) up nights, that give vital but intangible flavor to the days. I HAVE to write about this stuff. I can't escape being a writer, even though much of what I think is confused and will never see the day. And the silly part (the idiosyncrasy for word-smiths?) is that these are not "meanderings." They are always reasonably well-formed mental essays, with thesis, sub-points and supporting detail/examples ready for prime time. They're always something I could spiel about for hours and eventually make a point even earthlings can appreciate.

But there is never time. I used to imagine "the Blog in my Head," or that somewhere floating around is the sum total of humanity's unexpressed musing, the things we hadn't time to commit to hard-copy, and that someday somewhere we'll all have access to that great anonymous cosmic record. And we'll have the lovely realization that our crazy midnights rants were understood, shared, and validated.

But I don't really have patience for all that. So, while constrained by this annoying temporal cage, this busyness of surface life and servantly minutiae, I'm just going to post headings. Hopefully I'll get back to some of these threads some day . . .

You HAVE to read this book!

2011-05-17T20:31:00.000-07:00

Our small group is reading this, thanks to joe Boyd's blog at www.rebelpilgrim.blogspot.com

I'm only in the second chapter but my take so far: Rob Bell is a POET. He speaks in images, thick with meaning, and every word creates a space to ponder . . .

Case in brief (p.61) "Right now, we're trying to embrace our lover, but we're wearing a hazmat suit (. . .) We're trying to taste the thirty-two different spices in the curry, but our mouth is filled with gravel."

change my meaning please.

2011-03-14T10:31:00.000-07:00

The dance one won't do -
and the danger it leads to,
falling down for you.

iPhone haiku #2

2011-03-14T10:13:00.000-07:00

Memory falters.
face of the angel, template
of unseen hungers.

"Christian Shepard, really?". . . my pedestrian take on the LOST finale

2010-05-25T13:23:00.000-07:00

Others have analyzed and critiqued the LOST finale in far greater detail than I have time to go into, but one thing stands out for me. Reaction seems to be dividing into two camps: the somewhat touchy-feely "relational" side that loved the finale for its emotional closure and sense of catharsis, and the more "analytical," Sci/Fi, puzzle-solving crowd that wants the island mysteries solved, and was rather disappointed by the ending. (I'm not even going to bother giving links, since a die-hand LOSTie will have already read reviews, but the NYTimes, EWeekly, and Slate.com analyses come first to mind).

I'm not satisfied with that dichotomy. As in most things subjective, dichotomies are a poor way to express the variety of reactions, certainly to an experience as rich as 6 seasons of a ground-breaking TV show, so there's my Straw Man out of the way. Still what I haven't seen expressed much at all is the C.S. Lewis-style "relational/philosophical themes plus sci-fi mystery" explique of the finale's (and possible the whole series') implications.

That is, sometimes those big questions are best left unanswered, at least on this side of the divide. The EW review at http://watching-tv.ew.com/2010/05/24/lost-series-finale-review/

(okay, so I did give you a link) covers many of the overt "Christian" themes in the finale, but even apart from that particular take, there are so many ways where leaving "mysteries" unanswered just rings more true, more believable, than contorting and twisting events to make every single spaghetti strand incident work out. What I haven't heard at all mentioned is the SciFi theistic worldview, that a Supreme Being could work out all kinds of infinite dimensional "realities" where many parallel lives, choices, destinies, and conflicts work out in ways that are equally real experientially. Or, if that doesn't sit well with your theology, a God who is fundamentally outside of time and space could easily create both an island timeline and a sideways world that were equally real.

Of course, these have been some of LOST's major themes all along, and the reason the series has so comprehensively sucked in both the relational and the sci-fi crowds. The theological and epistemological questions are the fun part, after all, whether it's an individual character's growth, or the shadow puppets behind the island. What exactly is "real?" How do people make choices? How much free will do we have? How much are we conscious of our paradigms? Do we dare to step out of our characters?

I can see how this series, more than any other I've seen lately, could fill a college syllabus full of discussions and analyses. I love that LOST is perfect for the times, not just the setting of current events and global conditions, but the way we communicate, collaborate and construct meaning these days. It's perfect that there are as many different valid ways to critique the show as there are characters to love/hate. SOmebody else mentioned that the way a person critiques the finale says everything about the viewer's philosophical frame.

So my particular frame, at least at the time I watched it (and very strongly influenced, perhaps, by the fact that I watched with a crowd of warm, enthusiastic, mostly christian-believers) is that I love unanswered mysteries on this side of the divide, because I believe fervently that our BIG questions can and will only be answered/answerable on the other side. I certainly don't think the creators of LOST had any direct correlation (over the sweep of the entire series anyway) to a specific theology. That would be kinda trite and tacky, not to mention boring. But they certainly left us with a lovely, tantalizing set of questions.

Who is Jacob, really?

What happens to the island?

What's with the mirrors?

"Now we see only an indistinct image in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now what I know is incomplete, but then I will know fully, even as I am fully known."

(1 Corinthians 13:12, International Standard Version)

Paging Jonathan Edwards*

2010-05-06T01:58:00.000-07:00

Okay, Uncle.

I can't sleep, so here I am with warm milk, hoping to blog myself into happy nighty night time by dawn. Tossing and turning upstairs, my mental jag was about how disconcertingly easy it is for humans, Christian or otherwise, to justify a status quo. Just read a column by Nicholas Kristof that sort of made me squirm after the fact. Take a glance here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/02/opinion/02kristof.html

What got me was how few of us really can "grow in Christlikeness" in the sense of revolutionary transformation of how we impact our big world, in a way that makes God's grace (and our differentness from the unbeliever) readily apparent. Kristof's column mentioned several unsung Catholics who are making a tremendous impact by how they live and reach out to those in need around the world. Now, I know there is plenty of hurt to go around and plenty of good to be done right in our back yards, but that's not my point here. What I struggle with is now much, in the developed world especially, we are institutionally bound into a lifestyle that by default causes direct harm to people, the planet, and future generations.

Please be assured that I'm no miltiant environmentalist, not even a wannabe. In fact, I'm painfully aware of how not-environmental my lifestyle is, and how difficult-to-impossible is to be a typical American (especially a suburban mom-of-4) and not walk around every single day spewing poison into the world and causing who knows how much damage to the weakest among us.

Before I get accused of any Leftish leanings here, I also should mention the parallel "La, la, la, I can't hear you" self-justification by ignorance that many "progressives" live by - the refusal to admit the evil of taking a pre-born human life. I'm not even gonna get into arguing why/if it's wrong; we know it is, or why else would we be so reluctant/squeamish/irate about being shown pictures of a procedure if we really believe it's value neutral? (Now don't be judgin,' you're thinking. Okay, whatever. This is Anjoo. You all know me. I'm usually a pretty nice person, but telling me not to be opinionated is like telling the water not to be wet. This is my blog, I get to rant!) So let's just agree that this isn't about political leanings or "issues," but about human nature and selfishness and sin.

So, Kristof was talking about some ordinary Catholics and their incredible witness. "Ordinary" only in the sense (from here out is my take, not Kristof's) that their beliefs and theology are basic Christianity 101: do unto others . . .what you do unto the least of these you do unto me . . . all Creation groans, waiting for its savior . . .no greater love has any man than this . . . etc. And still perfectly NOT ordinary by their rarity. How many of us privileged Westerners could dare to give up all our creature comforts and live like that? We may sponsor kids with World Vision or some other group, we may send checks and earnestly pray for foreign or inner-city missionaries, but how many of us would really live like that?

And it's not because we don't know that grinding poverty exists, and that our actions and lifestyle choices have a direct impact on how the poorest in the world live, or even if they live. So why is it so easy to to make only token gestures? We give 10% or 20% of our income, and feel it's "okay" when the majority of the world lives on a 1/10th of that (Try this little link: http://www.globalrichlist.com/) Or we switch from plastic to paper, or SUV to hybrid, conventional to organic, omnivore to veggie, and think that's enough. I'm not slamming the environmental decisions either here, because some of them are more than I'm doing, and it's a great start.

But it's just a start, and we'll never make up the difference. There's no way we're going to cleanse our eviromental impact in our lifetimes. Or, to look at the other half of the PC spectrum, even if we completely eradicate abortion in our lifetimes there's no way we can say we've adequately cared for the sick, the old, the forgotten, the abused, all those children AFTER they were born. We'll always find a way to deflect the problem, make it somebody else's, pretend we're doing all we can. Or more accurately, to compare ourselves to all "those people" who aren't doing anything, and be temporarily pacified.

Uh-oh, Anjoo must be off her meds . Shhhhhhhhh . . !

Now, let's come around to the theology. Be reassured I do NOT believe in salvation by works, that is EXACTLY the point. I don't believe that if we use cloth grocery bags, live in a hut, and save a million babies that we would thereby be pure and free and not need forgiveness. What I'm looking at, what's so glaringly absurdly apparent if you look at the typical 21st century US lifestyle, is that we can't stand to look at the harm we're causing for more than 3 seconds before we distract ourselves (TV anyone? Internet?) and find an excuse.

We pretend that it's okay because everyone else around us does it. Or, everyone does that much plus 10% worse, so we must actually be doing better than most. We justify what is patently sociopathic or sinful behavior (how is it anything else when we use up so much stuff that God told us to share? when we destroy so much that God told us to take care of? When we kill and abuse so many that God told us to honor?) just because the culture around us doesn't think it's wrong.

How is that following Christ?

All that stuff about taking up our cross, counting the cost, being a new creation, set apart. . ? Now, I reassert that I do not believe we "have to" live by a certain mile-long list of Do's and Don'ts in order to be a "real" Christian. So what is my point? Am I just trying to be a downer, demoralize everyone? Or, even worse, just give voice to the accuser and make us all feel unforgivable? Nooooooooooooo way!

It's GRACE that saves us! Yaaaaayyyyyy, because we all need it so desperately. And it scares me how quickly and almost universally we forget that. How we "do" some little token act of selflessness and think that now, since we're "saved by Grace," that we don't have to look at all the uncomfortable stuff. But I suspect it's just the opposite: because we know we're already saved and loved by Grace when we've accepted Jesus as savior, we should be unafraid to face the remaining yuck within ourselves, and freely acknowledge that there's still a whole lotta yuck left.

A WHOLE lotta yuck. Enough for a lifetime of repentance. So my initial impetus was the hypocrisy of not acknowledging a few particular grievous sins in our culture, but there could be so many more. I do actually love the USA, I hasten to add. I firmly believe it's the least bad country in the world. In this world. But let's not pretend even for a minute people, especially my sisters and brothers in Christ, that this is anything near like the Kingdom we're praying for. Let's roll up our sleeves, fall on our knees, and get to work.

*Jonathan Edwards: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Edwards_(theologian)

Trying to process Hamlet, angst, and religion

2010-05-02T19:49:00.000-07:00

What is it about angst that's so memorable? Maybe this is just a particularly good rendition - I'm multiple viewing the Patrick Stewart/David Tennant "Great Performances" Hamlet lately - but it's resonating more than Hamlets usually do. Of course it's a classic for a reason, but there are a lot of classics out there. Few are as widely and variously reinterpreted, to such excellent effect. It's the mark of one kind of brilliance that while the language is altered not one word from the original 400 year old text, the setting, context and embodiment are absolutely of the moment and occasionally even futuristic.

I'm in awe of how extreme, physically almost out-of-control, and demented some of the "mad" scenes are (particularly Ophelia and Ham's), while Polonius and Gertrude are tragically understated and more sympathetic than I've usually seen them. Polonius is almost likeable! Curiously too, Patrick Stewart is not at all his usually scenery-chewing thespian self, but an almost pitiable counterpoint to the younger folk's dangerous energy.

Okay, now I'll take off my reviewer hat and ask the more basic questions. How do you step down from the cliff off extreme experience, the the pinnacle of questioning, the agnosticism of the "thin places," without feeling at some level like life has become stale and artificial? I sometimes wish I could spend every day at church, or reading war poetry, or watching Shakespeare, but it too easily becomes avoidance for me.

I am tired of being a mom. So very tired of middle age, and Heaven is a long, long way away. I'm nowhere closer to saintliness than I ever could be or have been, and I have committed to the Jesus path enough that there was never a real question of turning back. I get it, really. The great majority of my walk with Him has been sooooooooo worth it, eye-opening and soul-bearing, constant revelation of His unbelievable goodness and love, and yet I find strength that I sometimes wish I didn't.

Does that seem weird? I am now questioning a different set of assumptions. I've almost gotten used to Jesus surprising me at odd corners. I've "met" him at moments of despair and discouragement so regularly it's almost expected. Yet it's always so new when He speaks, that I wonder how much I still have Him boxed in and how much I'm missing. All in good time . . .

One thing that fundamentally has not changed is the hunger, the restlessness, looking for transcendence, being a spiritual junkie. I don't know if it's a "gift" I should eagerly embrace, as I run to Him, or if it's one more sign of immaturity and thrill-seeking. I don't think it's "wrong" or "inappropriate" that I want to dance, laugh, throw my arms around when we worship at church. It doesn't bug me any more that that feeling of "worship" feels so similar to what I used to experience at secular rock shows (looking for transcendence in all the wrong places ...). It's just me and it's okay. I guess by well into middle age I finally get to accept my inner spiritual teenager?

But what if I'm missing an even more fundamental level of connection? What if I'm falling short on the rewards that come from the subtler, quieter, more low-key disciplines? I've kinda been sketchy lately about praying from the heart as much as I could. But then this could easily turn into a "what if I'm doing it wrong" scenario and again I must remember it's NOT about me doing it "right." The disciplines are fundamentally a gift not a chore. In that spirit, the past year has seen great growth in disciplined Scripture reading, cause I finally realized what a blessing the Daily Office is. Not a cynical ritual, but a rich and yummy spiritual food ("taste and see that the Lord is good. . ."). My Celtic Book of Daily prayer is literally falling apart from use, and the MissionStClare.com/DailyOffice tab on my iPhone is always open, a lifesaver when I'm away from home. So I am reassured, hopefully in right perspective again, that "progress not perfection" is sufficient.

And yet, today I got a crappy haircut, felt sorry for myself, and literally had to breeaattthhhe through an almost overwhelming urge to go buy a pack of smokes . . . How laughably powerless I am over my own pettiness! Maybe the laughter is the point. Knowing that Jesus sees me in glowing, faultless, bride-of-Christ mode and in ridiculous aging punk-rock rebellion, and loves me all the same. As they used to say around VCC, or maybe it was in the 12-step rooms (I don't even know anymore): "God loves you just the way you are. But he loves you too much to let you stay that way." With such gentleness he's taken my hand when I never wanted to open it again, and he continually reminds me that I have NO reason to brag and every reason to celebrate.

And he smiles that smile.

Wow, I forgot I had a blog

2010-04-18T01:48:00.000-07:00

In my defense, something is crazy with my physical though not mental endurance lately. Can't seem to get enough sleep to feel rested, EVER. That and I'm gaining weight at an alarming rate regardless what I do/don't eat and how much I (pretty consistently 3-4 times/wk) exercise. So, maybe the thyroid's gone screwy again, or maybe it's just the spring allergies acting up, but I just don't seem to have more than 8-9 functional hours most days.

After that I'm a zombie, good for input only of the minimally invasive sort: TV, internet, non-threatening fiction, light conversation with hubby. That's it. Nobody else may secure my attention (as I growl to the older kids through gritted teeth "I love you; now GO TO BED!"). Nothing will be deeply pondered, considered, ingested. "South Park" and maybe some Colbert is all I can manage at this hour, so cut me some slack if I can't come up with intelligent blogging. And really, what's the point of posting just to ramble inanities?

If you just want to hear me say "hi, I'm still alive" follow me at facebook. So no, this blog ain't dead. I'm just trying to conserve what very little energy I have for doing actual meaningful things with real people in non-virtual land. Part of what I gained from "Free" series at VCC was that I no longer have to prove I am/was a writer to anyone. Ever again. I suspect I will only write seriously, creatively, in a disciplined and intentional manner, when I honestly feel like it is the most positive, meaningful, Spirit-filled and radical thing I could be doing at that moment.

Bombast is okay, as long as it's honest. Grin.

Switch on. switch off

2010-01-23T21:07:00.000-08:00

Tired of flip-flopping, so back to not-so-cold hard reality we go. Off the meds again, and wonder of wonders, when the freakin' temperature goes up the so, miraculously, does my mood.

I'm not one of these people that wants to be categorically opposed to better living through chemistry, but these side-effects have been worse than the problem. Enough is enough. I cannot stand walking, living, breathing, every moment in foggy, blearly, half-alive-land, and never even come out of the "depression" in the first place.

So, now we try the new thing. Nothing. Plunging back into life, homeschooling, doubling the church volunteering, and see if this keeps me afloat till the days get longer. At the very least, I'm too occupied to think so much (interesting research lately on correlation between depression and "ruminating" thought-patterns), and sometimes that's best.

Still mildly bummed that I won't have time to work on these paintings again for weeks, maybe months. Sigh. But it's not like the world is losing a great talent or anything, I just need to do this stuff for me, not for anyone else.

I'm going to try a new thing of praying seriously for Obama every day. Had a really cool experience today at a Vineyard prayer outreach thingy, where I met a very angry woman who asked that I pray for the president. It was so good to be able to tell her, honestly, that I already do. Just very glad that we're a diverse body, you know?

And on a last note, this week's movie reccomendation: The Constant Gardener (with Ralph Fiennes, based on a story by John Le Carre). See it NOT for the politics/conspiracy theory, but for the interesting camera-work and wonderful lead acting.

Bye now.

Bizarre but essential viewing

2009-12-19T08:49:00.000-08:00

Up till 3am switching between a documentary/concert-flick about lovely Icelandic combo Sigur Ros and a network showing of "Sid and Nancy." Haven't seen the latter since it was in theaters in '86. That movie and I have a complicated history. Still, it was needed. The antidote of Sigur Ros - pretty but too sane to be "haunting" - made S & N more endurable.

Strange that it took me 20+ years to see that movie like a viewer not a participant. I used to complain that the very act of making celluloid of such a pathetic story necessarily glamorizes it, but now I'm not so sure that's entirely bad. Probably the overwhelming majority people, Alex Cox included, would still see the sadness/ugliness and shake their heads. Of course there is still that tiny, disaffected demographic (cough, cough) that has already made up their mind it's an antihero-love story, but what can you do about that? Cox certainly didn't try to make it look at all appealing, and adult viewers are generally (one hopes) subtle enough to get that all the artifice and compression of the Big Screen necessarily makes the story an artifact all its own, not a true representation of anything.

Except maybe it is a "true" representation of delusions, despair, and the downward spiral. The director did a pretty impressive job of casting; my only quibble is that Gary Oldman, though brilliant in the role, was perhaps just a bit too tidy and sympathetic/puppy dog at times.

Or maybe that's just me.

Not knowing what any of these people were like "in real life," we see only the Story: a teenage grandiose version of decay, black humor, and the spectacular flame-out. "Spectacular" in the sense that they knew they were characters; they were acting out McClaren's snide little drama of destruction and didn't care how much it hurt. The warped, high art of sacrificing yourself into pure symbolism, incompatible with real life. So those pitiful lives were a "success" in the dramatic sense: they lost everything in playing out the archetype.

Normally I would say this interpretation is a messy, inaccurate blurring of the line between "the movie" and the biographical facts, except that the punk rockness Cox so elegiacally presents was itself a willing Fiction, sometimes with the participants aware enough to recognize it. Surely Johnny got it ("ever get the feeling you've been had?"), and many others who were sane enough to survive it.

The unease I initially had in 1986 has dissipated only somewhat, but now it's not the director's fault. The tension is the creative allure of that story: the doomed character(s) so embedded in their story that they don't/can't resist their doom. As a construct is has such symmetry, completeness, even purity. But as reality it's horrible, ugly, and an utter waste. So I feel kind of sick, voyeuristic to appreciate the story, knowing it's human cost, yet the lure of Artistic Integrity is powerful and cruel.

Is something gained or lost when we become too grown up, too sane, too healthy, to seek that any more? Sometimes I'm not sure. I'm not the 14 year old writing morbid poems any more, thanks be(!), but what a colorless world it would be without morbid teenage poets. . . Punk rock must have its sacrifice, so S and N lived it out. Now we look back, and remember too well to be mystified. Of course it made sense.

Fighting the good fight

2009-09-07T22:14:00.000-07:00

I am getting demoralized by trying to open the minds of right-wing friends on health care reform. Just got off a several days long, polite but passionate exchange with a a friendly acquaintance who's diametrically opposed to me on the issue. Been trying so hard to be rational, humane, reasonable, open-minded, and yet not pull punches or back down on why I think a national plan, is the better option.

But dang it I'm getting tired of this deadlock! Today I just found out this person gets her talking points from Glen Beck.

Sigh.

There goes the chance for reasonable discourse. How do you get people to even see their filter, the presuppositions that color every "fact" they see?

It's been giving me that awful, ugly gut feeling I used to get during implacable stalemates with loved ones, the kind you absolutely can't walk away from but you know they will never ever see what you see and will label you the "enemy." But just like those heart-rending spousal or parent-child battles, I know I'm supposed to stay and engage, not walk away.

Because if we Christians can't stay, be civil, be honest and assertive about what we believe, how can there ever be reconciliation? The Bible has so much to say about unity among believers, and how that is the most powerful witness to a watching world. I don't mean that all Christians should have the same political opinions (heaven forbid!), but it makes me so sad when other Christ-followers use their religion to justify why their political opinion is right. Don't they realize I could just as easily play that game and "prove" Jesus is a left-leaning radical social reformer? But I won't sink to that level. It's pathetic, it tears apart the body of Christ and makes the enemy laugh.

Not that that's exactly what this person was doing. I know she wasn't questioning my faith, but something about all this is making me kind of queasy. Of course, my faith has to support my political beliefs. Duh. If they ever conflicted, it would be the politics that has to change, in a heartbeat. Maybe part of what's making me queasy is recognizing that temptation so strongly in myself - to say Jesus is a pro-life Green and everyone else is just wrong - and know how long and hard I've tried to see the Right's point of view about this and I just don't get it.

I want to find common ground but it's fading fast. All I see in the anti-reform sentiment is misinformation, ungrounded fears, and a failure of compassion. There, I said it as nicely as I could. My original adjectives were a heck of a lot more incendiary. But like I said, I really want to find common ground.

Somebody on the Right please, please, PLEASE prove me wrong.

Show me that you really get what it's like to have a pre-existing condition and be denied coverage time and again. To live with the daily fear that any time anything happens to you or your kids' health it could mean you lose everything, savings, job, home, all of it. To be literally unable to go to the doctor when your child is sick because you know it'll just be one more black mark that makes it even more impossible to get the insurance you so desperately need. Explain to me how in this amazingly blessed and bountiful country of ours it can possibly be "okay" that some people get state-of-the-art healthcare and others die for lack of a simple drug or diagnostic procedure. How is that okay? How is that "Christian?" And then, after you've told me what a horrible socialist takeover we're heading for, please show me your better option. Because that's what I haven't seen yet. Show me how these profit-driven, insane CEO-bonus giving, coverage-denying, shareholder-courting, free-enterprise-pleading private enterprises are suddenly going to do an about face, out of the goodness of their own hearts (without any legal lash) to make it all better.

And they say Obama's naive.

The proverbial 2X4

2009-08-06T02:21:00.000-07:00

Today was one of those days when you feel sheepish for spiritual immaturity. I've been so discouraged lately, so hopeless and pissimistic (yes, I meant that typo!), and realizing it probably had a little something to do with medication issues didn't resolve it. Briefly, the beginning of another year's homeschooling has had me more bogged down than inspired, though somewhat determined to finally, FINALLY let go the rigid school mind-set and be freeeeeee to learn whatever I wanna, and let the kids along for the ride.

Still, homeschooling's the fun part, and that's at least halfway something to get buzzed about. What's really been bumming me out is the autism thing, and Vasant's recurrent cycle of extreme introversion. Having seen the alternative, the long stretches of time in recent years when it seemed he was coming out of the fog and coming back to us, has made the closed down/shut down/turning away so much more painful.

I realized once again that I can never really "finish" this grieving for the healthy child he'll never be, for the son I feel like I lost. But mixed in with that is a whole lot of more selfish fears, about never getting to be an empty nester (that freedom thing again), growing well into my old age with an adult child who's still largely dependent, and the fear of what will happen to him when we're gone. Not to mention all the stuff I would rather be doing/playing/learning instead of fighting autism everyday.

Not that it's so bad. It's not "hard" living with Vasant at all. He's a great kid. But it still feels somehow like I'm failing him, not helping him enough, missing the opportunities to give what he needs but can't ask for, when I'm too tired/busy/pre-occupied/in denial to respond.

And then I started doing this Daily Offices thing, and I think it's helping, but I also recognize that I have the uncanny ability to turn otherwise wonderful and benign things into an obsessive weapon. I really like spiritual intoxication. I envy hermits. But luckily the resources I'm using (Celtic Daily Prayer by Richard Foster, and missionstclare.org's "daily offices" weblinks) make it abundantly clear that the true monastic life is HARD, not some new-agey, self-indulgent, spa-like "getaway," but quite the opposite. I mean, some of these people used rocks for pillows (shinning the "luxury" of straw for a bed), and took vows of extreme self discipline to govern every thought, word, and deed. They were not kidding around.

And while I may greatly admire them, and somehow get the benefit of babysteps following the way of the cross, I'm not kidding myself. I like my creature comforts way too much. I'm pretty ordinary that way. I'm middle aged, and just like everyone else I realized half-way too late that these superficial things don't satisfy. I feel extremely grateful that I was introduced to a spiritual, more "countercultural" lifestyle fairly early in life (age 20 or so, in 12-step-land), but I've never gone far enough down that path to be fully satisfied.

Sometimes it's good to stay unsatisfied, of course; we are not of this world and all that. And there is always so much more left to discover. Farther up and further in, as Lewis would say. I only hope I don't waste the time I have running after silly illusions. Or better yet, that I have some grace and sense of humor enough to take it in stride when I realize that none of us really get it right.

OK, that's me being cheerful and well-adjusted. Nighty night, all. : )

Square one, redux

2009-08-02T01:04:00.000-07:00

The Zoloft gave me massive brain fuzz. The SAM-e worked really well for the depression, but made me sick to my stomach (as in, doubled over in constant pain and unable to sleep) at the recommended dose. So, I took a couple days off and restarted at 1/4 dose, to see what I can tolerate.

Other than that, vacation was good. Summer's ending. Good riddance kinda, I think. Except there's another couple of summery things left to do.

We saw a wonderful free local Shakespeare production with 3 of the kids. R&J done as manic, hormone-drenched all-nighter. There were several "interesting" adaptations that nevertheless worked really well. It's so rare to find theater productions that use novel ideas without turning them into gimmicks, or snarky self-referential distractions that submerge the wonder of the Bard. But this really worked. The urgent pacing, cross-gender casting ("Nurse" played by a stocky middle-aged man whom you very quickly "believed" in the role), and loose-cannon physicality of even the more traditionally passive roles (Juliet!) added a freshness I haven't seen in R&J in a while. It's so FUN to find great arts freebies!

Goodbye pharma.

2009-07-12T22:44:00.000-07:00

I guess I'm just not made for Rx anti-depressants. It was a short lived trial, but long enough to know there are far better alternatives out there.

I had already done a trial with SAM-e (thanks, Kudzu Bob), and liked it well, but was being very scrupulous about wanting to follow "doctor's orders." So, figured I'd go off the SAM-e and try a trial with the Rx, just to be fair, for comparison sake. Since I actually was starting to feel better with the non-Rx, I figured I'm a "responder" and might have equally good luck with the Rx and should try it in the interest of giving mainstream medicine a fair shot. After all, the good doctor was very helpful in Dxing and Txing my anemia and hypothyroid, so why not give it a shot?

But the Z really sucked. Brain fog, vagueness, ever thickening sense of ineptitude and clumsiness, and of just not quite ever being really present and able to Wake Up. Kind of like a caffeine addict denied coffee, but without the withdrawal headache. Glad I had tried the SAM-e first, so I could remember what it actually feels like to be reasonably sane, functional, and occasionally even chipper. So now I'm back on the SAM-e, and almost immediately (within 2 days) the brain fog has cleared, and the "good" symptoms are back.

Just read today today that SAM-e is also used pretty effectively for fibromyalgia. Hmmm . . . that can't be a bad thing.

Okay, enough about me now. Nighty-night, all.

Cuteness

2009-06-15T08:03:00.000-07:00

More bands the kids have introduced me to: Franz Ferdinand, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs,

Band I have introduced the kids to: the Pixies, Kinks, White Stripes

Bands hubby has introduced me to: Fleet Foxes, DeVotchka, Arcade Fire

Bands Manju has introduced me to (lately): Gogol Bordello

Bands I need to introduce the kids to: the Zombies, Velvet Underground. De La Soul

Artists I kinda like that the kids hate: M.I.A., the Ting Tings

Today I was listening to the Strokes "Is this it?" and Sanjay came in and said, Believe it or not I still have this song on my iPod. I asked him if he remembered when he was a toddler at the old house and used to bonk on the couch to that song. He said Yeah.

Awww . . .

It's the ultimate moment of parent-child bonding when your ultra-cool Teen tells you they still like some of the baby music you used to play them. I am so lucky. : )

Some heavy duty theology

2009-06-07T22:45:00.000-07:00

¹⁹If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.

²⁰But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.

²¹For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.

²²For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

²³But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming.

²⁴Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.

²⁵For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet.

²⁶The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.

- 1 Corinthians 15:19-26 (KJV)

It begins (v.19) with what's very obvious, in looking around the world we live in. Of course we're fools if judging by the world's standards. Each person for themself, follow your bliss, the pursuit of happiness, whatever. . . maybe that system works really well for some people, in some places and fortuitous time. For others, it's a rabbit trail.

Then a pretty straight-forward, on the surface, description of the order of resurrection (v. 20-23), but that's pretty weird too. I mean, who can really imagine what that is like? That world, redeemed, those eternal bodies, who can really inhabit that belief? We've had some talk at church lately about the inadequacy of English to express the fullest translation of what we often call "belief." The word we translate, in other languages, could more accurately be called "trust." So, it doesn't matter nearly enough that I say I "believe" in resurrection, if I don't trust it as well. As an aging, broken, this side of 40-years-old person, it's easy enough to recognize that the bodies we live in now are painfully inadequate. But how on Earth does one imagine resurrection of ourselves? It seems almost sacreligious even to try. . . I can imagine Jesus resurrected easily enough, but He was/is already perfect. It feels comical, almost pathetic, to try to imagine that for little old me, with this ridiculous flesh housing an even more limited and obsolete consciousness. Where to even begin?

So let's just move along in our reading, but now it gets even stranger. In v. 24-25, I like that Paul mostly side-steps the trippy eschatological imagery, fire and brimstone, dragons and cosmic ladies, and deals instead with the earthly powers of men. Except, he isn't really. We know there are also the "powers and principalities" as the real enemies, not just theological abstractions but manifested in bones and stones. Here I get really irritated, because my conscious imagery has been influenced by too many Hollywood epic battle scenes (I blame Peter Jackson for making LOTR so dang "evocative"). I really don't want to focus on the gore. the rallying cries, but to understand in whatever paltry level what it would feel like to welcome that king, to be part of that following, to step into eternity.

Then again, maybe I don't want to tax my little brain that much. It's late, and things are bizarre enough. We see through the glass sooooooo very darkly, or not at all. And when our eyes are too tired to see, when we can't even bear the over-stimulation of what clutters our retina for this second, we may be allowed to smell it. Maybe a wordless, subconscious hum we almost heard. We can't quite understand, we can't entirely say we "believe" because we're so smart and modern and have to explain, define, compartmentalize it before we can trust.

I don't understand. Except when I do. Sometimes when it's way too late and I can see the full moon, taste the insomnia, it's almost within reach. I miss those midnights with my feral nurslings. the raw physicality juxtaposed with acute clarity. Often times now it's so much more mundane; I act like I 'trust" in a resurrected life far too often for it to have been just some good idea I invented. This journey has far outlasted any good idea I ever had; it started with someone else. Lately I'm walking more in shadows and clouds (not doubts, clouds) than I have in decades. Frustrated and irritated all the time, and yet I know it's the only path open. I"m not aligning with the enemy. I'm not strong enough to challenge the creator of the Universe, or young enough to play the nihilist/existentialist pose any longer.

So where were we? Oh yeah, we come to the last baffling line (v.26), which is either supposed to be reassuring or just make you scratch your head, I'm not sure. I'd like to just accept it and go on, except it changes the entire physical/temporal nature of the universe and existence as we know it. How can consciousness go on after death is defeated, if by "go on" we mean "to go forward in time," when time no longer exists? And anyway, thank goodness it isn't "us" that goes on anyway, us petty, silly (I'm being charitable) half-blind ghosts (okay maybe I'm being a bit misanthropic . . . ). I'd want it to be someone far more perfect than us, someone that bears only the faintest whiff of resemblance, and that only as a merciful nod to recognition. I'd want it to be someone awake enough, clear enough, alive enough to really belong there. See how even the usual adjectives don't work here? "Good" and "wise" are so earth-bound and arrogant. We just can't pretend, right now in this world, to understand or even describe, let alone be those creatures that would inhabit Eternity with Him (a far better writer than me might attempt it, but even C.S. Lewis only dared to be specific in his allegories, not as a literal projection of heaven).

Of course, the other option is to take it at face value, accept that we can't understand it yet at any deeper level, and return to the work of this temporary world we live in. Serve somebody, knowing it's not nearly enough to make this hurting, F'ed up place as good as it was meant to be. But it's what we do, it's the only thing we can do, while we wait for the one who will defeat the last enemy. And when we're really honest, we tremble at the bit of enemy still inside us, that must die.

Have a great week, kids! : )

I did it ~ sort of . . .

2009-05-25T09:24:00.000-07:00

Well, the 5K is over, and I'm trying to reframe this as a successful learning experience, if not an outright Success. I didn't make my goal of running the whole way without stopping to walk, but I learned a lot.

Lesson 1: know your route. Had I known the topography in advance I would've paced myself much better and possibly not had to stop and walk. The route was pretty much straight up hill for the first 2.5K and mostly downhill on the way back.

Lesson 2: Go sloooowwww . . . like, WAY slower than you think you should be. I thought I had learned this one during training, that the only way to go the distance is to pace really slowly, but in practice I guess my default pace is always starting out way too fast and burning out. I had to stop once to walk about 1 Km into it, and again briefly at 2K and 2.5K (top of hill for a water break). Still, I ran almost the entire way back down, and my final time was under 37 minutes. That's about 2 minutes better than my personal best, and 4 minutes ahead of my goal time. Which tells me I was going way too fast.

Lesson 3: Meta-lesson. I don't "learn" nearly as fast as I think I do, because I'll think I've learned something when I understand it intellectually, but it doesn't do me any good till I've learned it experientially. Until I knew what it felt like to apply lessons 1 & 2, above, I couldn't really apply them in the crunch.

But anyhow, I did it!!!! I finished the 5K in less than 37 minutes, and it was a glorious Family Event (both Nelson family and church family) for a good cause. Yaaayyy team! : )

Have I mentioned how much I hater running, by the way?

2009-05-21T16:19:00.000-07:00

Well that's a bit exaggerating. Actually, I just hate the first 3/4 mile and the last 1/2 mile. The middle 1.8 miles or so is only mildly agonizing. So why am I doing this again? Good question . . .

What is rather shocking is that, just when I "lower my standards" and expectations wayyyyyy below what I think any reasonable, self-respecting person could possibly expect me to do, I find out I've only just started lowering. I mean, I thought I was being ridiculously "easy" to set a goal of average pace = 5mph. Just to realize after this last painful week of running trial 5k a couple of times, that I really can't sustain a pace anywhere near that. So far my best is averaging 4.8mph, and that's assuming I get a good night's sleep and a day's rest beforehand.

How humiliating. Oh well, a year from now it won't matter what my pace was. It'll just feel really good that I did it at all.

Wish me luck next week.

Today's "driveway moment"

2009-05-19T20:00:00.001-07:00

Caught the first few minutes of this story on NPR this morning:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104252712

Now, let's leave aside all my issues about "not being Indian enough" and all that. I know, I know, the world out there just can't get enough of anjoo's neuroses and insecurities, but you'll just have to wait for that . . . What intrigues me about the story is the whole class consciousness thing about raising your kids as "Americans" rather than "Indians" regarding servants, etc. The following quote about an affluent young returnee raising her kids in a gated community: She worries that her children, raised in the U.S., will get too used to having maids in India. She tells them, "You're American. I don't care if your friends' maids pick up their stuff. That's not how I'm raising my children."

My hat's off to the woman. She's able to make some compromise about living with material comforts (in the gated community) and still presumably maintain some "American" ideal about not treating hired employees like an underclass. Me, I just get all wishy-washy, terrified by the shades of grey, and immobilized (guilt-struck?) from my own economic privilege. Whether it's because of my inherited Indian socio-economic class, or my married-into (lucrative hubby) demographic, or some combo thereof, I can never forget the surreality that this current bizarre excess of material wealth I enjoy is a result of absolutely nothing I've done. I used to think it was just an existential glitch, a nihilist-absurdist joke that I happen to benefit from at this moment, but no longer. As a Christ-believer I have to look for some meaning and purpose in this wealth. Even though I can't stand "prosperity theology" (God wants you to be rich), I can't pretend I'm the kind of saint that could take up vows of poverty and just walk away from all this, even if I was convinced that's what I'm supposed to do.

It's made even more problematic by having any sort of multi-cultural experience at all. Suddenly the things that my natural selfishness would prefer to leave vaguely abstract are made real and undeniable through no choice of my own. Dave talked about it in a recent sermon (see his entry for May 10, 2009): http://daveworkman.blogspot.com/

It comes back to that same pesky duality with a Jesus who embodies perfect justice AND perfect mercy. Huh? I need his fresh mercies for my selfishness every day, yet when I feel comfortably forgiven, am I still honestly motivated to change for the better? I know it's a a question that betrays my spiritual immaturity ~ I know we're ultimately "supposed to" be motivated by an excess of his Love, by the pure Joy of giving from what we've been given, not from Fear or spiritual performance anxiety.

I get that. Sometimes, but not nearly often enough. The unfortunate reality is that too often I stay stuck in apathy and spiritual candy-land, where the only thing that does motivate me is either pain or guilt or just not wanting to miss out on some spiritual cookies (hey, don't knock 'em! spiritual cookies are yummo!) And it's so easy to fall into just comparing by "american" standards instead of worldwide economic justice. The tension between being American and being Christian is sooooo uncomfortable sometimes.

Oh well, these are truly luxury complaints. I hang up my thinking hat. Now let's go serve somebody. : )

Here's something you don't see every day

2009-05-14T19:31:00.001-07:00

I'm training for a 5K. Big whoop, you say, but this is me.

Running.

Voluntarily.

Really.

So, now that you've picked yourself off the floor, be reassured that I will approach even this most seemingly physical of endeavors with as ruminative and navel-gazing a perspective as ever. Already I'm convinced of at least 3 great "life lessons" learned from my 2 weeks (so far) of haphazard training. But the most wonderful part is that I haven't quit yet. And it hasn't been nearly as impossible as I would've thought. Or at least, the really hard parts are completely different/opposite from what I thought they would be. But more on that in later posts.

Already I'm up to running 2.5 miles without stopping to walk. Yes. For me that's the best cardio-vascular performance I've ever had in my life, except perhaps in the fog of some netherworld dance-clubbing days. And those certainly weren't exactly healthy days . . .

But off I go to bed now, since this "training" things works a whole lot better if I get something resembling sleep at least 5 nights a week.

Go see your first big summer movie

2009-05-10T11:33:00.000-07:00

Just saw Star Wars the movie, and LOVED it. If you're not a Trekker, it's still good. Go see it if you like "Lost," too. Since I'm feeling lazy today, here's a review.

Incidentally, for you writers out there, this is how you write a film review without being sycophantic or snarky, but just someone who really loves movies. Makes me want to ponder (just a bit, this is a summer flick after all) and then watch it again more intentionally. Or maybe I just wanna watch again. : )

http://kinetofilm.blogspot.com/2009/05/star-trekthe-review.html

Oooopsie, neglected again.

2009-05-03T19:33:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to do a new thing: be a morning person. Thing is, I always liked being a morning person (defined as being awake and functional by dawn). And a night person (still cracking away past 1am). But there's this pesky thing called sleep. Dang! I guess I'm officially past the hypothyroidism if I can again burn the candle at both ends. Call me stupid, but it's just the way I want to live. "I'll sleep when I'm dead," etc.

So I'm trying to get to a 7:15 recovery meeting at least a couple times a week, because I'm so stinking drrryyyy lately that I'm absolutely a miserable cuss for anyone to live with if I don't start the day out ALONE, with a good stiff decaf and a 12-step infusion. We'll see how it goes. At least while the days are long and the birds are chirping, the next few months of this should be manageable.

Maybe I'm in delusion land, but everything isn't awful these day. Although there is always the semi-consciousness that somewhere, some innocent souls are suffering unspeakably, that's no longer a justification for me to descend into the pit of hopelessness, to stop believing in the last light. It won't help them any, whoever they are, if I become incapacitated by despair. So there is for a mere mortal (I guess), or at least for an ordinary reformed sinner, always the need for some "callousness to others' suffering" just to be able to stand life enough to go on another day and hopefully help someone. I mean, if you're the kind of person I am, the default position is always and only to see the overwhelming ugliness, injustice, cruelty, and pain in the world.

Part of the journey for me has been realizing that it's not an either/or, all/nothing paradigm. It's not a question of "if I have enough faith in God/Jesus, I'll only see His goodness and this world's ugliness will fall away." Or not, "if I were a better Christian (oxy-moron) I'd only see the beauty of His blessings/creation, and not worry so much about worldly things." Maybe God doesn't want to throw out everything about our identity/character/psychological makeup - He made us after all - but He just wants us to surrender it to His changing. So maybe it's okay that I see the bad stuff and "care." Ideally, a Christian uses that to behave more compassionately, mindfully.

I tried for too long to shame myself for not being a carefree, "happy" Christian, but happiness is kinda over-rated sometimes. Truthfully, I'd rather be what the world calls "depressed" and feel close to Jesus, know that he's guiding me, than strive for "happiness" as a goal in and of itself. Of course, I'm not knocking happiness, but you can be superficially kinda blue, kinda worn out, and still experience that unshakeable inner JOY that is so much more real than superfluous, transitory feel-good.

The warnings to the wise (or at least the not utter fools) are two-fold. First, the temptation of "despair" to become a self-indulgent pose; a narcissitic, dark exhibitionism, is very real. There's no compassion at work there, only selfish cynicism. The second is that melancholy can slowly slip undetected into real clinical depression, as a person becomes so familiar with the lights twinkling out one . . . by . . . one . . . that there's finally even not the last tiny light of hope left, in Christ. It can nearly sneak away like that. Scary.

But the important safeguards for me are: Excellent support system, accountable friends, an active social network, awareness of physical/medical issues (though not necessarily medication all the time), and just asking am I okay, anjoo?

Self, how are you dealing? Are you functional? Can you still laugh sometimes?

I think I'm okay.

So let's go serve someone.

Aaaahhhh . . . finally it's spring!

2009-04-17T10:42:00.000-07:00

70's and sunny, that's what I needed. Actually went running OUTSIDE today and didn't hate it. The birds are twittering non-stop, the pea plants haven't been devoured by foraging animals (yet), and I'm looking through my Breck's catalog for next year's tulips. Because the one and only thing I miss about our old house is the awesome tulips.

Blast from the past : )

2009-04-15T19:34:00.000-07:00

Normally I don't intermingle stuff from my "kids" blog (from the YahooGroup) and this, my personal blog, but I just got a kick from reading a YG posting from 18 months ago. Realized that my life really has gotten a bit easier since then. Here's a snapshot from the life of a mother who "doesn't work." Enjoy . . . : )

"A Snapshot of life with Autism"

Today I was up at 8:30 (I'm never in bed before 1am so this isn't as late as it sounds). Sanjay helped me get little kids' table set
for breakfast and the morning pills, while I got dressed and made tea,
took my meds for day. Treadmill from 9-9:30, then 15 minutes haggling
with Kavita to get her dressed for swim class at the Y, while
reminding Vasant to do all his morning chores so he could come with
us. While at Y I got a few minutes to drink coffee/decaf while Vasant
looked at the fishtank and asked questions about the Y decorations.
Then helped Kavita get dressed after swimming, got snacks (she
actually didn't throw a hissy when I told her no Cheeto's and agreed
to Sun Chips instead - wow!). Then back home around 11. By now I was
really hungry.

I had given the big kids instructions on what chores to do while I was
gone, and told them I'd be back at 11am, by which time they should be
ready for school. I was also hoping I could sneak in breakfast since
I was hungry by now. So, home again, throw Kavita's swim stuff in the
dryer, remind Vasant to put away his stuff while I brew some decaf
tea. Suniti, unfortunately, is still finishing breakfast but not too
far off schedule. Sanjay has already started math (very luckily, he
was able to understand the lesson all by himself and didn't need my
teaching. Other days it might take up to an hour to introduce a new
math concept.) and is working in the living room.

By now it's 11:15 and I'm pretty hungry. have to make a pit stop.
Suniti tells me the internet is down (again!) so she can't do any of
her homeschool. Her only remaining work today was to catch up on her
spelling and typing, which are completely free internet-based. So, I
tell her to go do her chore instead (load and unload dishwasher).
Sanjay tells me Suniti has already done all the lessons on unit 12
math (we're re-using workbooks for Math-U-See) so I need to go erase a
page of the worksheet for him to do. Suniti is wondering how long to
scrub the pans in the sink so I tell her to do only one and leave the
rest. She asks if she needs to scrub the outside too, and I try to
"scaffold" her thinking to figure it out herself. Lately a lot of our
focus is on daily life problem-solving, and I'm trying to help her
become aware of the process instead of just giving her answers. I'm
trying to prepare her to think independently, since she is 14 after all.

By now I hear Kavita bonking on the futon in the office way too hard
and know I should tell her to stop, but that might start a tantrum and
I'm a little too hungry/distracted to deal with it right now. Still,
we're trying to enact some boundaries with her and be more consistent
with rules. So I go in there and tell her she needs to go bonk
somewhere else. She wants to watch a video in the office and
complains. I still haven't made that pit stop and tell her she can
bonk till I come back then she'll need to watch a video in another
room instead. I go hide in the bathroom.

While there I hear Vasant start to get upset about something. He's in
the living room with Sanhay, who's allegedly doing math but sounds
like he's interacting with Vasant instead. It's not going well. I
really want to finish the TIme magazine article I'm reading - I only
have less than half a page left. I hear Vasant start to yell. Sigh.
I remember I haven't prayed yet today. I quickly ask for the
willingness to be a "servant" and have patience to meet the kids'
needs. By the time I reach Vasant he is in 75% meltdown (crying
copiously, red faced and hyperventilating, but no physical violence).
Sanjay doesn't know what happened. It's 11:45 and I still haven't
eaten yet.

I take a deep breath to calm down, knowing I need to display calm and
patience with Vasant or he'll go further into meltdown. I'm still a
bit irritated by this inconvience, but have no more grace-points from
Vasant. He has *not* had any buffer zone lately and isn't capable of
self-soothing right now, so this could sour the whole day for us if I
don't handle it well. I take several minutes to help Vasant calm down
his breathing, not hyperventilate or pant but just breathe naturally.
Several times he try to start talking and just starts crying instead.
Finally he's breathing and I tell him I have to go to the kitchen and
he can come with me to talk or he can stay on the stairs. He follows
me to the kitchen, but then Kavita comes in demanding her cereal and
he runs off to the family room to hide.

I coax him back to the kitchen while getting Kavita settled at the
table with her cereal and I try to get my breakfast together. He looks
near tears again. I help him get back to breathing and tell him he
can talk when he's ready. He's finally able to tell me he was upset
because Sanjay hurt him while they were playing in the living room (I
know it was an accident but he doesn't). I make a very sympathetic
face and sounds, open my arms for a hug. He takes the hug and
whimpers a bit more. I wait till he's done, trying to keep Kavita
from butting in while he composes himself.

I tell him that sometimes when I accidentally get hurt I like to think
of something fun or happy to keep my thinking busy until the booboo
feels better. He really struggles to think of something "good" (core
deficits in action - the inability to recall positive episodic
memories). Finally he says "I could play - playing is good." I smile
and compliment him for thinking of that all by himself. I tell him I
would want to play with something safe that wouldn't hurt me. He
suggest his "Darth Tater." I ask if he needs help to get it down from
his high shelf. He says yes, so I suggest that since Sanjay
accidentally hurt him, Sanjay could help him reach the toy. I give
him a partial "script" - he could say to Sanjay "since you
accidentally hurt me could you get the Darth Tater so I can play
until my head feels better?"

He goes to get Sanjay but can't find him in the living room or the
bathroom. I can tell he's starting to unravel again. I tell him
Sanjay's probably in his room (I hope I'm right!) and he starts to go
upstairs, crying slightly. Luckily Sanjay comes out of his room just
then - whew! - but by now Vasant is telling me "I can't put the happy
face on my face." I tell him that's okay, it makes sense that his
face wants to be sad because his body still feels bad. He tells me
that his body feels better now but he still doesn't know how to make
the happy face (he's still crying a bit). I reassure him that when
his body feels ALL better his happy face will come back all by itself
andhe doesn't have to think about it.

I remind him to ask Sanjay about the Darth Tater and he luckily
remembers his script and asks him. Sanjay cheerfully agreees. He
even says "I'm sorry I accidentally hurt you in the living room. I
didn't know you were hurt because you didn't say anything." The boys
go upstairs. I go back down to deal with Kavita and take my breakfast
to the office. She fusses because she doesn't want to leave. Sanjay
comes in excitedly to tell me he got an A+ on his math so he's done
with all his October homeschool. Yay!!! I ask if he'll take her to
the family room so I can have brunch in peace. He asks me if she can
watch "N-E-M-O" so he can lure her to the family room. I gratefully
agree and he takes her there.

Whew.

So now I finally eat my breakfast and start on this post. I haven't
posted in weeks. The internet was still down. Shoot. I breathe
another prayer and snarf down my breakfast, open the mail, do 2 bills,
check on a phone message. The internet starts again (yay!) so here we
are. I still need to shower, give the little kids lunch, give the
older kids their instructions for what to do this afternoon, check in
with Suniti (she's still a bit moody and irritated, self-conscious
that I had to "scaffold" her earlier), before I take the 2 little kids
to Vasant's speech therapy in an hour. Oh yeah, and I was supposed to
go over his list of therapy words before the session. Oops - maybe
we'll get in a few minutes review if I finish this post and shower
really quick, and Kavita cooperates, and no one else has a meltdown.

Oh, and I also need to call a friend about picking up the kids for a
playdate that I had to reschedule from last week when Kavita was sice.
So we'll be at a friend's house all afternoon, then I need to get
home by 6, stopping at grocery on the way to get a few ingredients for
dinner. I'm determined to cook from scratch as much as possible
because it's the only way to be 100% GFCF and stick to the Feingold
plan ideas that I'm incorporating (no artificial colors, flavor, or
preservatives, which rules out even a lot of the "safe" packaged GFCF
foods). But I really want to try this, since Vasant's showing so many
obvious food intolerance symptoms lately, and Sanjay's asthma has
up-ticked a bit since we got Bob (the new kitten). Sanjay would be
heart-broken if we had to give away the kitty, so I'm trying to manage
his asthma in other ways if possible. He's also allergic to dust,
mold and dairy so we have to crack down on those. We also need to
fill an Rx for Zyrtec for Vasant since Claritin isn't strong enough
for him anymore.

Then after the grocery, home to cook and manage the "6pm grumpies" all
by myself (the time when all the little kids are hungry and whiny but
I'm trying to make dinner as fast as possible and all the phone people
are pestering us). Monday is Chris' night out so he won't be around
(except for about 15 minutes to change out of work clothes and say
hello to the kids) till about 9ish. So I'll need to get thru the
crazies, serve dinner, pills and bedtime routine for little, before
Chris gets home and I can finally eat lunch. Yes, lunch. Normally I
would have somethin on hand to grab before I go to the playdate, so I
could snack at my friends house, but I havent' been to grocery yet
this week. And it's *impossible* to go with Kavita. I don't want to
do drivethrough to get a salad because then the littles will start
whining for something and Kavita will throw another hissy. I'm not a
food-nazi about fast food per se, but I sincerely want to give this
feingold a try before I decide.

So, I'll look for something I can lunch on real quick after my
shower, before we go to speech therapy. Which means I can't do the
words review with Vasant. We only had 2 weeks to do it of course, but
you know how hard it is to find 10 *whole* minutes in just a 2 week
period? Maybe I can ask the older kids to do "words" with Vasant.
Luckily (thank God!) this is our unschooling week, or I'd feel
supremely guilty about pulling Suniti away from school to do a therapy
exercise for Vasant. These older kids are saints. But it's important
that I don't go 8 whole hours without sustenance.

So there's a typical day for us, so far. Off I go to shower now. The
kids are watching TV. I can hear uproarious laughter, and I know it's
just Nickolodeon, and I know they're all "sharing" the fun, so it's
okay.

April? What the . . ?

2009-04-15T11:26:00.000-07:00

Last week it snowed. This week, out with the kids, I saw what I thought was another snow and inwardly groaned. I was wrong. It was a cascade of pear tree blossoms caught in a gust of wind.

Beautiful!

Perhaps because it's been the LONGEST winter anyone can remember, I'm really noticing the spring signs proliferating this year. Every single day, there are changes from just a day before, buds that hadn't quite opened, leaves growing right before my eyes, (pre)teenagers sprouting another inch overnight . . . and suddenly our dead brown neglected lawn is green again. When did that happen?

Now if it would just warm up a little.

2009-04-09T12:05:00.000-07:00

"I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."

- Mahatma Gandhi

Yow!

On this day before Good Friday, I want to reflect on how little we resemble Christ, NOT as a way to beat up Christians (after all, will the person in the room who isn't a hypocrite please stand up? There, you just found your hypocrite), but as a reminder how much we/I need a Savior. The Good Friday cross brings to mind so many things, but the latest visions are particularly brutal to me this year, having just watched a PBS special where an anthropologist did various high-tech scans of an antiquated specimen, a human heel-bone pierced by a Roman nail. The computer simulations illustrated graphically what would have happened inside a body after that nail was inserted, and the chain of indescribable suffering that would follow.

Gasp.

Can anything but horror and incredulity be an adequate response that treatment of one human being by another?

Call me slow, but I just got something really central to the faith. All these years I've been critical and dismissive of my own level of spiritual surrender (or more appropriately, lack thereof) because even though I am to metaphorically "die to self" everyday as a follower of Christ, it's usually pretty symbolic. Sure, I'll surrender my rights/wants/needs here and there, even if I don't really love the recipient of whatever limited "grace" I have to offer. And of course I would lay down my life for my children, and maybe even for someone else if that's what was required. But that's a tremendous MAYBE ~ God's grace would definitely have to be acting for me to be that surrendered at that moment. But even then I'm thinking a quick bullet to the brain, or something equally instantaneous and relatively suffering-free. And I'm not really thinking about it at all, in terms of the full trauma of expectation and knowing what's going to happen.

But to choose a death like He endured?

Never. Not in my wildest dreams. That is a level of Willingness and Acceptance that I truly cannot fathom. And somehow, in my warped (works rather than faith-based) walking out of salvation, I've held that as a minus against ME and my spiritual immaturity. But it's not about me. It's about Him. What he was willing to do, "while we were yet in our sin." While we continue (even years after being saved, see above mentioned hypocrite) in our rebellion and hard-heartedness. He still would do that for us; He still loves us that much.

So this Good Friday the kids and I are taking some food to the Healing Center (pantry), delivering some chocolate bunnies to some kids who probably won't get much from the Easter Bunny, and thinking about how much we've been given.

Happy Easter! : )

Experiment

2009-03-16T14:51:00.001-07:00

I'm trying a new experiment in Jesus-y living that might be sheer foolishness or it might just be a really amazing new insight into what I've been missing. I'm not going to spell out what it is because that would definitely be dooming me to much ridicule. No, I'm not superstitious, but I know how these things work out motivationally for me if I spill the beans. All I need to say is that it involves taking one particular passage of the Sermon on the Mount much more seriously.

If anyone hasn't read it lately, you can find the more or less full version in the New Testament in Luke chapter 6, or a slightly different version in Matthew chapters 5-7. Of course, it goes without saying that a person could spend their entire life delving into any one passage/verse out of dozens in the Sermon, and not make any significant dent towards saintliness, but that's not the point. I think, at times, when I've looked the SotM it's just jaw-dropping in its beauty, power, and utter impossibility (a little closer to the point . . .), but I'm not looking at this as a code of ethics, performance or "earning salvation" issue.

It's simple curiosity maybe; I just want to know what if feels like to try to take this particular passage more to heart, because it may suggest an antithesis something lacking in my life that has caused myriad problems. We'll see how it goes, no pressure, no grades. Anyway, the Potter grades on a serious curve.

And no, that wasn't a reference to JK Rowling, cheeky monkeys! ; )

Lenten thoughts

2009-03-03T19:30:00.000-08:00

Although I expect it to be predictable (isn't that kinda the point of rituals?) every Lenten season is different. This year, after deciding I don't have enough legitimate "vices" leftover to give up, and I'm DANG sure not giving up teevee during March Madness (grrrrr . . .Pitino!!), I gave up radio instead. This means no NPR, no classical tunes, no sports scores, nada. It's been a good thing, one less angry voice screaming through the day, if you know what I mean.

I think I'm used to the surreal never-endingness of this cursed winter. It's gone on, what, like 9 years now since we had sweater weather? But today I put in the seeds for early starting with the little kids, so we have a pan of dirt on top of the fridge now, teasing us with dreams of future basil and beefsteak tomatoes. Oh me of little faith, I honestly can't fathom that we will ever see gardening weather again. . .

So into the midst of this gloom and pessimism comes the promise of Messiah, the ancient wish for renewal and salvation. God we still need saving, 2000 years later, so Somebody please come quick.

I'm glad we're doing this corporately, 50+ churches in greater Cincy are using the "Reset" curriculum to recharge, explore, explode our concept of who that Jewish carpenter was and what he really came for. It's a pretty heavy-lifting curriculum that requires real study and commitment, not just sitting in a pew once a week. Every week we have a small group meeting, suggested readings, and several assigned writing prompts to help us dig deeper. Plus we're going into large chunks of the gospel of Luke from various angles. The point of this, for me anyway, is to kick me out of the malaise and inertia of thinking I "know" what Christianity is supposed to be about and remind me once again of who Messiah is.

That guy isn't just the hippie Jesus, the nice guy, the baby in the manger, the American Protestant. He's world-changing, enigmatic, unpredictable, dangerous, life-giving, life-saving, friend of the poor, enemy of tyrants, Lion, lamb, a brother, a mother, the beginning and the end and (most unsettling of all) the right now.

Where do I even begin?

Read this before you buy any more groceries.

2009-02-18T15:09:00.000-08:00

This is so cool. An open letter from Michael Pollan ("The Omnimore's Dilemma," "In Defense of Food") to then president-elect Obama on how to fix our messed up food/agribusiness/nutrition/farming crises. Would it not be awesome if our elected leaders could be this sensible, and put the welfare of citizens above special interests and corporate profits? But I digress . . .

Read it here (you can sign up for free to get NY Times access):

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/magazine/12policy-t.html

Hey, ho, we're all sick today

2009-02-18T14:08:00.000-08:00

The 2 older kids have day off school with fevers, sniffles, etc. This, after about a gazillion snowdays this year to date. My excuse is just random winter awfulness plus the stupid thyroid thing. I'm due at the doctor next month for another blood draw and just HOPE she ups my dose because 50mg is not cutting it. But last time I half started to feel better, she said I was too high and cut the dose back down to 25mg.

Maybe it's partly the darn, blasted, never-ending grey of winter. Maybe it's that I had the most ill timing in finally deciding to go off sugar and caffeine (sort of, mostly) and now that lack of artificial stimulants has left me a permanent blah. Maybe it's the economy (wasn't that Bill Clinton's campaign slogan a century ago? Oh, how the 90's look good in hind sight . . .) or the fact that EVERY single headline is bad: massive layoffs, increasing foreclosures, food banks running shorter than ever. If ever there was a time for communal gnashing of teeth, this is it.

Which brings me to the topic of Lent, coming up soon (Feb. 25 through April 11). I haven't decided what to do yet; unfortunately or not I don't have a lot of the popular vices left to sacrifice, just the garden-variety bad habits and character defects that can't be put aside for 40 days so easily. And, less encouragingly, what relatively minor time-wasters I could consider giving up (TV, computer, etc.), well . . . I'm just not that willing.

Truth is, I am just barely hanging on to sanity by a shred, and can't imagine giving up one more thing. I gave up the St. John's Wort. Does that count? It was arguably helping me feel a shade closer to primate lately ~ if not quite "human" anyway, at least I was able to let out a hearty roar and swing energetically from the limbs now and then. One of those things where you don't notice any definite improvement till you quit it, then oh boy do you regress. So I guess it's back on the SJW and when I see the doc again next month ask her nicely to rewrite to Zoloft Rx.

But I don't want to write about depression, not now when we're so close to the capital "D" variety, and anyone who's ever experienced either kind doesn't need a poetic recount. In looking for the silver lining in what's happening nationally, I'm torn between 2 rather different perspectives . . .

As a Christ-follower (however poorly attempted) I want to redouble the focus on spiritual things (kindness, faith, mercy, generosity, and the like) and firmly remind myself again that our faith has never been in money, job-title, possessions, or the world's definition of success in the first place. That this is a time for intense focus of being the light in a very dark world, for bringing hope, strength, and mercy to people who no longer have any and don't even know where to look.

The other side of me, the rapidly waning cynic, analyist, "let me tell you all where you messed up because of course you didn't do what I would have done" side, is too tired to gloat but quite justified. After all, didn't we know this would happen eventually, even as we maxed out our credit cards, ransacked the earth, ignored the scientists, and went on a crazy-eyed buying spree in complete denial of our grandparents/parents' advice? Were we really so arrogant or short sighted or "exceptionalist" that we thought those rules don't apply to "us?" Really? That we could ignore the fine print about "risk tolerance" and possible side effects, global repercussions, etc. etc?

I guess so. Me and everyone else. Sometimes I feel even more the fool because I'm such an economic worry-wart by nature, such a conservative investor, and even I got caught up in Greenspan's "irrational exuberance?" Hey, who doesn't love a winner? And now I'm thanking the Power that Be that at least there is that whole faith thing to fall back on, that at least at least we haven't lost everything, anything that wasn't already destined to burn anyhow.

But sometimes it's no fun being a living frickin' "witness." I go on and on, trudging out this faith, being "generous," making the coffee and folding the chairs, because the life force has me on automatic, and I just don't know what else to do. The program teaches us that good habits are what save our a** and perhaps our lives when disaster hits. And Paul tells us that "suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us. . ."

Yeah, I know all that is true, and getting that message down from head to heart requires some cost. So maybe, since my Nelsonclan has been fortunate enough to escape (yet . . .) some of the more obvious economic calamities, this other depression is what I get instead. Yippee.

Bring on the Zoloft.

Go see "Slumdog Millionaire"

2009-02-08T06:52:00.000-08:00

Go see slumdog millionaire.

If you're Indian(ish), go see it.

If you're not Indian, GO SEE IT!!!

Get past the first half hour of horror-show, and end up dancing in your seat. Go on, I dare you not get all Bhangra . . .

Side note: perhaps the most amazing, disturbing, sadly appropriate usage of a Clash song I've ever seen in film.

Beautiful. Now, go see it if you haven't!

Aaaacckkk!

2009-02-07T21:02:00.000-08:00

Ye gads - what have I done?!

Unleashed the monster, I have. Got myself a facebook page and now it's a bleeping mess or PEOPLE from all over. Maybe not such a good idea for a raging introvert . . .

Oh well, change always teaches us something about ourselves, welcome or not. Let's give this little junker a spin, shall we?

Oh it's almost Groundhog's Day and we're in a blizzard ~ hey! : )

2009-01-31T20:46:00.000-08:00

Not really a blizzard. Just 10" of snow with a thin layer of ice in the middle, resulting in 4 days off school for the littles and a leeeeetle cabin fever for the rest. Luckily, I still remember last winter's lesson that going outside, no matter how crappy the weather (or sometimes, the crappier the better?) makes a huge diff in my attitude, at least for a few hours. Or maybe it's just the St. John's Wort finally kicking in. Or maybe it's the psychological perspective of the days' sunlight finally getting longer . . .

Or maybe it's the 2 days I spent in bed past noon (ahhhhhh . . . blessed sleep!)

I have been complaining to the husband for about 2 years now (because no one seems to take this freakin' thyroid disorder of mine Seriously enough sometimes) that I have literally FORGOTTEN what it feels like to "get enough sleep." As in, what does it feel like to get out of bed because you actually got enough rest, rather than because a kid is crying or you have an appointment somewhere or the phone is ringing? I had truly forgotten that feeling. And no, insomnia doesn't count as "not needing sleep." Just the opposite sometimes, maybe it's the sub-manic, semi-welcome, polar opposite of exhaustion, but it isn't the same as real energy.

But for the record ~ shout it from the rooftops ~ I had one day this year (January 29, 2009) when I slept in from around midnight till 3:25pm the next day and I got enough sleep!

Yes, you read that right. I actually got out of bed because I had had enough rest and felt competent to face the next 8 hours or so. Till 10pm~ish, and the littles were abed and I could surrender to the torpor again.

So we still have a good 6" on the ground but most of the major roads are good, and tomorrow is actually February. As an act of supreme self-preservation (clawing towards optimism one bloody fingernail at a time), I am going to look through the gardening catalog and actually order something to start our seedlings early.

Those of you who've followed NelsonLand gardening adventures over the years may argue that therein lies madness, but I reject such nay-saying. Gardening isn't about Product Yields or any such. Remember that little seedling at the center of "Wall-E," that they all risked their lives to protect?

It's an act of faith, pushing away awareness of the too-close, deadly COLD, to warm our little souls till spring comes.

Day something-or-other on St. John's Wort

2009-01-28T10:07:00.000-08:00

I suppose to be objective and all, I should be a bit more specific, but I can't remember exactly what day I started the SJW, just sometime around the 20th/21st. Started with just one pill/day then upped it to 2 a couple of days later (recc'd dose 1-3 daily). It's supposed to take a few weeks to kick in, so we'll see.

Also started back working with Anne, my long-time AA sponsor, whom I'd taken a hiatus from (the sponsor, that is, not the program) for about 5 months or so. So as always when playing medical detective, and especially with the days gradually lengthening, it's impossible to know what to make of cause and effect if/when I start to feel better. But I've grown accustomed to uncertainty now, and it's better to do some stuff - any stuff - and not know what worked, than to stay in the rapidly-approaching-unbearable.

We just got our first real snow of the winter ~ sheesh, it's about time! It's the last week of January already and finally the kids get a snow day (or 2), parts of the highways and the University's closed, and we had a bona fide ice storm last night. It's kind of peaceful now with the roads almost completely deserted (Level 3 emergency means you can technically be ticketed for non-emergency driving) and the sun coming out. Almost blinded in the snow glare, and shoveling the drive was a good excuse to get outside yesterday. Today I'm going to shovel some more and see if I can make a snowfort in the front yard, even though I'm the only "kid" in the family who wants one.

Valiantly trying to enjoy this season, because by Gum if it's gonna be freakin' 20 degrees out side there better at least be something crystalline and beautiful to see.

Stay warm.

"All is quiet on New Year's Day . . ."

2009-01-01T06:07:00.000-08:00

So it begins.

Today's topic, boys and girls, is the "cup of suffering" and what it means to drink of it. Perhaps before I begin I should issue a disclaimer more in keeping with the season, perhaps a gratitude list of sorts for the goodness of this past year, or at least an acknowledgement that I'm glad our household has been spared (so far) much of the hardships the rest of this country faces, but that's assumed already, and I have limited time to write. So assume the gratitude is there and we'll move on.

Been thinking about how we're all called to take up the daily cross, count the cost of what it means to be a disciple, and keep our eyes on eternal things rather than get completely enmeshed in these passing troubles. Wear the world "like a loose cloak" and all that, rather than a straight-jacket. There was a time as a new believer, or perhaps all my life out of some misplaced guilt, that I would have insisted I have no real suffering in my life, since materially and in almost any externally apparent way things are so better-than-average (demographically . . .) for my clan.

But now I'm a little more honest, or at least more beaten down, and I can admit that "suffering" of any sort - emotional, physical, intellectual, or other - feels real enough when it strikes, and distinctions about whether or not a critical mass of society would acknowledge it as valid makes no difference to the real and crippling effects one experiences. Or the surprising blessings. Because on the flip side of loneliness, pain, sadness, fear, failure, and disappointment, there are times for introspection, refining, rest, peace, and getting to the heart of what we claim we believe.

I know, the cynic in me wants to say that things like perspective, humility, and moderation are just the consolations of a life winding down, or of watching most of your younger self's dreams flame out or fail miserably. But enough of the pessimist. Even if that voice is true, it's only half the story. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control . . those ring a bell, anybody? They're the "fruits of the Spirit" Paul exhorts us towards, or rather, they're the promised gifts of living a life of true discipleship. Like somebody said on the radio the other day, when this older woman meets somebody for the first time and they immediately tell her "I'm a Christian," she thinks already?! How'd you get there? I've been trying all my life to be one . . .

Indeed.

So, I haven't made much headway with this cup of suffering thing. I suspect, as always, it's probably not what we think. First, it was Jesus speaking explicitly of his own actions when he said he was willingly drinking of that particular cup (crucifixion and death, and all the Passion in between). Then, when he told us we would have to take up our crosses daily, anyone I know would give a very wide, loose, individualized interpretation of that "cross." Besides the obvious, awful suffering of many in the world for the Gospel (the acknowledged and unacknowledged martyrs ~ there's a rumor in Christian circles that there are more people dying in the world today because of proclaiming Jesus than there were in the first Century, but I don't know if that's fact. It's certainly believable in terms of sheer numbers of the persecuted church in some parts of the world) there are the limitless, inexpressible sacrifices we daily, semi-willingly make.

I don't mean simply that the question of taking up suffering seems counter-intuitive, which of course the gospels so often are. The why part is answered pretty clearly for any believer, and its motive quite different from the ascetic renunciation of other faith traditions - there's no aspiring to self-purification or perfection here, but instead a million little actions and individual decisions stemming from, at core, being His. Being so consumed with and hungry for that presence that all the other sacrifices and hardships seem as insubstantial and petty as mosquito bites. A love, a longing that is at once both utterly selfish and selfless. And there is no "how do I get there," or at least there is no how. For those who want it badly enough, I think it eventually sort of just happens.

Merry something or other

2008-12-11T21:59:00.000-08:00

Something about edging towards the shortest daylight of the year seems to bring out that old, pre-rational, animist self in me. That furtive, creaturely, slightly feral consciousness that tries to paste on tinsel and bright artificial lights and pretend it's real. But deeper down knows that our real selves are scared, small, and just one cold winter's night away from the edge of the cliff. Not to be morbid or anything, but the thought of spending a night in a freaking BARN having a BABY, for goodness sake, spilling blood and amniotic fluid into dirty half-frozen straw, while piling next to stinky sweaty animals for dear warmth, kinda puts me more in touch with how Bitter the cold is, than with Macy's tinseltown parade. Childbirth is not something I've forgotten yet. It was scary enough without throwing in the homelessness and the blasted bitter cold.

I have to admit I'm one of those annoyingly p.c. people who somewhere along the way started saying "happy holidays" instead of "merry christmas." Actually I never thought of it as annoying or particularly p.c. until one of those new reverse p.c. virtual people ( you know, the ones that tell you how everyone else in your demographic thinks but you never actually meet a real person who thinks like that?), told me it was so. Funny, though, in an effort to be inclusive and thoughtful, I seem to be guilty of somehow watering down what I believe. Or so I'm told. Oh well, I guess I better quit this line of thought before sarcasm sucks me in even deeper.

All that sparkles is not snark. I know, I should be arrested for flagrant punning in a non-malaprop zone. My punishment is to go read something uplifting and happy re-gifting.

And if it still feels like none of what's going on in the world right now makes any sense at all - you're right! But it's impossible to feel grateful and guilty at the same time (that's my blurb for the day, except it's true), or rather, humbled and bitter don't co-exist well. So I'm trying to focus on the certainty that " . . . in Him there is no darkness at all" and that "He is faithful and just to forgive us . . ." and of course that "whatever you did for the least of these brothers of mine you did for me . . ." while reconciling it all with this faltering, fainting flesh of mine that is so painfully afraid of the cold.

If I despise anything at all it's the bone-shivering, utter black, miserable COLD of winter. But lately the "hate" part of me seems to be a waste of energy when I have so little to spare. Fitting it is, that becoming a less hating person is no act of virtue at all but a matter of just eventually running out of steam.

". . . became flesh and walked among us." Would I follow Him into a homeless shelter tonight, or can I at least sit here and be genuinely grand-spankin' grateful for all that I have? Okay, cheerio. Good night.

2-fers day!

2008-11-08T19:23:00.000-08:00

Had I any bloggerly integrity, this would be 2 separate posts, but I don't so here goes.

Two disparate trains of thought converge. First is that our little Bible study has been looking at 1 Peter. We've only in depth so far looked at chapter 1, but this week I've been reading and rereading chapters 2-4. Chapter 2, of course contains the infamous verses about submission in marriage. I guess I've been a Christian long enough that I just don't get that worked up about it really any more (unless I'm PMS-ing and Chris is trying to "lovingly" push my buttons just for fun). Every single Christian woman I've met in person has struggled with that passage at some point and has eventually come to some understanding she can live with. That's a tired old debate for another day, another decade.

The second thought is what an unexpected message we got at church tonight. Started a new series last week on the holy spirit, and I was expecting it to be kind of ho hum. Well actually no, I wasn't expecting anything. The holy spirit is admittedly for me the most indecipherable part of the trinity, and though biblical scholar I certainly am NOT (nor aspire to be) at least the other 2 persons of the trinity are at least, well, more personal. Where Joe took the sermon was really powerful, and I won't even try to describe it here (in a couple of days you should be able to access video of the message at the Cincinnati Vineyard link at bottom of page). THe message, and particularly the prayer and "nailing to the cross" part afterwards, was not something I want to handle superficially right now. . .

But my surface brain, much later, took a tangent to some of the ways we talk about the Spirit. Partly to balance out my skewed, mightily flawed view of the Father (which I've always struggled with as a recovering feminist and even more so as an intellectual snob), I've subconsciously always imagined the Spirit as the more female principle of the trinity. That view has backing in christian feminism, which sometimes suggests that Logos ("the Word") was either a descendant concept or a translation of Sophia ("knowledge") traditionally depicted as female in Greek. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God," etc. Again, I'm no scholar, but it just intuitively has a kind of completeness/wholeness about it, that in the beginning is a perfect God, a Trinity of the male principle-female principle-child. So then where did that female principle go? Why is the Holy Spirit always a "he?" Or if not, why can't we at least mention every now and then that Spirit isn't necessarily a He? Seems kind of basic, doesn't it?

Though of course every mainstream Christian knows we don't anthropomorphize a literal male figure for the Father, I'm quite wary of the power of language/word choice to shape our thinking subconsciously. I've always been a little irritated that the modern evangelical movement has apparently so little awareness of that danger. Maybe this is just my little issue, but I doubt I'm that unique. Obviously I believe the traditional Gospel hook, line, and sinker, and I have little use for secular feminist critiques of Christianity, but this is important, even vital to me. I mean helllooooo . . . if God is all Good, and He created EVERYTHING in the universe, created male and female, then where did that feminine principle come from? Where did it go? Was it just supposed to disappear into some vaguely menacing Jungian archetype and never be mentioned in grown-up, legitimate Christian apologetics again? Yeah, I know that the early church was actively combatting the pagan practices and occult influences that used female sexuality, but did they really have to throw out all of womanhood as well? And really, do we even believe the single-father view of the universe is the most accurate understanding of God? I mean, it seems kind of lonely is all . . .

Then again, we're always reminded that our triune God is fundamentally and eternally in relationship, the "Godhead three in one." So doesn't it strike anyone else as just a little odd that they all three are depicted as guys? Hey over there, more than half the human race is waiting for a little acknowledgement . . .

I need to define my terms a bit here; when I say "depicted" I don't mean in any way to imply that I doubt the Gospel or the truth of the Trinity, as though it's a story somebody just made up with invented characters. But I think it is incredibly important to consider that naming all three parts of the Trinity in exclusively male terms is way more than just superficial word choice. Words change everything. People have been killed, tortured, excommunicated because of words. In my darkest moments of doubt I'm almost convinced that the Bible we read is translated into such a flawed medium (fallen human language) that we can never have anything but the very blindest, blundering understanding of what it actually means till we get to the other side ("Now we see as though through a glass darkly; then we shall see clearly"). If I get too dangerously distracted by the church's rampant sin of sexism, horrified and heart-broken that it is present even today in the church I hold to be my salvation, then only 2 things seem to help:

1) I look at Jesus. I look for him. I listen, I pray, and I am never disappointed. Chastened sometimes (hey girl, there are people in the world today that are suffering a heck of a lot more than the average college-educated, middle-class, non-disabled Western female. How about thinking about their welfare for a minute?), startled sometimes (he actually knows THAT about me?!), reassured occasionally (he actually likes that about me?), and frequently saddened by how easily we can lose Christ in the midst of all the religious trappings. But I am never, ever left with any doubt that Jesus loved/loves women absolutely passionately, as His sisters and daughters.

2) Having established #1, I am then encouraged to realize that, though the Bible we read may be filtered through imperfect language, the Word that the Spirit reveals is in itself perfect. Though we live, and sadly may always to some degree live, in a misogynist world where people continue to deny, downgrade, ignore, or just not "get" how much Jesus loved women, somehow the message still gets through. Even if I were a total cynic (I'm not, really . . .) and thought the Council of Nicea or whatever were just bunch of sexist jerks (I don't), they still weren't powerful enough to silence the message, to filter out Jesus' grace, to keep the women out.

Jesus always wins.

Post-election hangover : )

2008-11-05T04:03:00.000-08:00

Couldn't sleep this morning for all the decaf I drank watching the returns last night, so lucky you, reader. Was thinking a bunch of deep thoughts for a new series I want to do on the hot button issues and my "slightly skewed" (wink, wink, SNL) view on them. But naaahhhh, let that rest for another day. Let's just bask for a day and let this all sink in.

Plenty of time later for constructive criticism. One thing this election result has definitely done for me, though, is to reaffirm my faith and pride in what's good/great/unique about the USA. What struck me repeatedly, in the rapid cascade of public perception changes that the economy brought about, is that we finally seem to reached a cultural tipping point about healthcare, economic distribution, energy efficiency, etc. Not that everyone's on the same page, but things are finally in the public awareness now and not just taken for granted.

I was reminded that, perhaps unique among the world's nations, Americans FIX our own problems (belatedly, maddeningly slow perhaps, but we do it). Whatever mistakes American makes, we eventually see the light and address the problems, and even more importantly, we do it because we realize the need, and not because anyone else is making us do it. That's a pretty amazing validation of what freedom and democracy can be. So just for today I'm going to try to leave my cynicism on the shelf.

Pray for our nation. Pray for our soldiers. Pray for Obama.

Bye.

Quadrophenic?

2008-10-31T10:04:00.000-07:00

I wonder how long it'll be before no one (who bothers reading blogs, anyway) recognizes that reference any more. Hemmm...

This is the big weekend - for the first time ever in my life I've signed on to help out with a political campaign. I had to get over some mental obstacles like, do I even get to do this when I still haven't gotten citizenship yet? But eventually that just has to be a separate issue, crazy as it seems. The bigger obstacle was, can I maintain "secular neutrality" in the face of meeting real people with real needs? I've never done the door to door canvassing thing, and my reflex when meeting people in hard circumstances is to want to tell them about AA, or pray with them, or least give out some free groceries or a coffee or something. So I guess the logical work-around is to drop off 2 extra yellow grocery bags at church tomorrow, as penance for being a political junkie (recovering).

Scattered, disheveled, tilting in the breeze. . . I've been listening to probably too much of the Killers, Moby's "That's when I reach for my Revolver" (trying half-a**ed to decide whether or not to go vegan again, leaning towards NOT but at least it's easy to maintain lacto-ovo in this current economy), the Afters, the obligatory Newsboys, and the amazing, inimitable Johnny Cash/Joe Strummer (sniff, sniff, boo-hoo) cover of "Redemption Song."

And finally, marveling at the strange, backwards ways in which our children "rebel" or defy us by being overwhelmingly GOOD in situations where Chris and I were unquestionably very not good growing up. I've observed before how odd it is that our 12 and 15 year olds still like listening to rock/pop music WE introduce them to, at least the more conventional stuff. In my day we would NEVER have listened to the same stuff as our parents ~ sheesh! So lately, I've been sorely challenging that by getting outside the parameters of kid-safe music to listen to what I really like: Gogol Bordello - thanks to Manju - Jolie Holland, the Shins (yeah, I know, so 2007, but I process musical tastes at glacial speed) and whatever extremely heavy Dub/Reggae I can find on Rhapsody.

It's working. Yesterday while I was listening to the Klezmatics Sanjay came in, all quizzical, shook his head and said "Mom, that doesn't even sound like music. It's just weird . . ." and walked back out. Victory. But don't worry son, we'll always have the Newsboys. : )

Now go change.

Eternity?

2008-10-22T11:41:00.001-07:00

Just made a strange connection about worldview and parenting. I had a lovely conversation with my friend Becky (aka my "Autism/RDI guru") this weekend. Becky goes to our church and homeschools 6 kids including 1 with autism. She's really dedicated to Relationship Development Intervention and has often been my pep-squad and motivator when I'm on the (frequent) verge of giving up. Becky reiterated the RDI mantra: remediating autism in our kids is "a marathon, not a sprint." I kind of thought I understood that, but lately I'm learning about it at a new level . . .

When I see that Vasant still doesn't have the motor control at nearly 9 years old to brush his teeth, or that his 4 year old sister can easily ride her bike faster than him, I don't really wince anymore. He'll get there, eventually. What's sometimes harder is when I see him completely overwhelmed and unable to handle situations that even a toddler or 2 year old can easily negotiate, like how to join in a game of chase or peek-a-boo, that it tears my heart again. Times like that, I'm still tempted to doubt that we've really made any progress at all in these last 4 years. It doesn't always help that I (and to a certain degree, Chris) have been a non-conformist/very early adopter in our therapeutic choices. The fact that we've often gone against the grain of current therapeutic advice in favor of what we believe are/were more promising and ethical alternatives has meant that we often haven't had anyone much (locally, at least) in front of us, as guides.

But that just makes it a greater opportunity to rely on God, to put trust in Him ahead of trust in man. Too often my native cynicism about trusting humans bleeds into not trusting anyone, but that keeps changing too. I think God's teaching me/us (slowwwllyyyy . . .) that He is trustworthy EVEN with Vasant's RDI program. The challenge of trust always seems to be in the specifics for me. It's easy to say yeah, I know God loves Vasant and will take care of him; it's harder in the crush of a typical day to know what I can do to make a positive difference without either burning out or overdoing it.

So anyway, I was thinking about this long process, and I got to comparing it to just normal parenting stuff, Suniti's adjustment to high school, Sanjay going through some pre-teen stuff, and it struck me again that all parents have to face the limits of their power every day. And that the stuff you want for your kids often isn't going to materialize for 20, 30, even 50 years.

And then it hit me - duh! - Christians get Eternity to work on/hope for this stuff . . . wow! What a concept: it doesn't mean I failed if my kids (now whose are they really?) don't learn something I hope they'll learn while I'm alive to see it, or even while they're alive on this Earth. Maybe God's eternal plan for them involves things that totally mitigate the hardships they'll face all their Earthly lives. . . Not that I shouldn't do whatever I can to help Vasant here and now, but maybe it will be okay even if I can't.

And then the last thing struck me. Maybe it's the lack of a hoped for Eternity that makes so many (non-believing) parents make what seems like such bizarre choices to me. Of course, maybe I'm the weirdo and they're just doing what seems right, but maybe it's that fear of having to do everything now, in the next 5, 10 or whatever years, in this season of fleeting youth, that makes other parents so frantic about their kids. Not that I'm not just a big scaredy cat too sometimes, but I know there's a wider horizon if I'd just admit it sometimes. How scary, and what unbelievable pressure it must be, to try to raise kids in today's world without knowing there's a bigger back-up plan.

Another late night

2008-10-21T10:29:00.000-07:00

This is what happens with hormonally induced insomnia ~ might as well put it to work:

Grappling (for Abba)

Each dying is different.

As each harvest yields its fruit individually

yet gathered

each body withered

leaves its singular hollow.

I saw

his face twisted into the

parody of life -

one eye gaped open and mouth skewered,

felt his hand

too soon turned brittle-blue

and cold.

Later

there are flowers,

white satin and dark wood,

mild tears and tasteful words

as we adults

all grapple for a symbol,

a tidy end.

a child lays the single blossom on his chest,

Mommy, is this heaven?

no dear, not yet.

But how we hunger for your innocence

your sweet ignorance

and just one

single

reason

to go on.

(R.I.P. Vasant Bhapkar - July 23, 1999)

You heard it here first, folks

2008-10-09T02:38:00.000-07:00

Coming soon, "threeTees.net"

Once again I can't sleep so may as well vent the good stuff. It's been beyond-catching-up long since I last blogged, so I won't even bother to fill in. Amazing things are happening at Cincy Vineyard and I want to get to that.

For months going on years now Chris and I have been wanting to "do something" to facilitate peer-to-peer giving at the Vineyard using the internet. Of course Chris is the web-development guru, and we're blessed with a small group full of praying and giving people who also happen to have a technical skill set compatible with task. But so far it hadn't really seemed like much was happening. Waiting wasn't filled.

That's changing.

We just came back from a really scenery-changing, special worship/prayer service at church, capping a day of communal fasting and giving to the hungry so that "out of our poverty we can give." This comes in the midst of a new teaching series at VCC, "In God we Trust," about what our role is as followers of Christ in responding to rough/catastrophic economic times. (Go to vineyardcincinnati.com for more on the series, and you can watch/listen to the first part.) The major bullet point from this weekend was that "the Mission is not in Recession . . ." The mission to love the people of Cincinnati into relationship with Jesus Christ has never changed; it's just become more urgent and more possible now. Crisis versus opportunity and all that.

We are uniquely equipped, as believers, to throw out the world's economic "wisdom" and be promiscuous in our giving. Holy fools, slaves to love, and all that. Nothing will demonstrate better that our faith is real, that there is a Creator who knows and loves us individually and infinitely, than for doubters/unbelievers to see us just giving it way joyfully, generously, without fear. Years ago Pastor Steve did a series called "The Fear of Not Enough" describing how believers can escape the never-ending downward cycle of fear - not enough money, time, etc. - by giving some of it away.

Huh? Head scratch. How's that supposed to work exactly? How does that create an extra hour, improve my cashflow, etc? But as anyone knows who's tried it long enough, it does work. I want to step lightly here, and not give into my old (hopefully?) arrogance about the "evil rich,"and Heaven forbid (I mean that) that I try to guilt someone into giving what they truly need for their own family. I'm talking about the FEAR of not enough, versus the true literal poverty of not having one bite of food in the house - obviously you can't give away a dollar if you don't have a penny, but everyone has something to give if you broaden the net. I really want to look at what God is trying to teach me (and Chris?) about generosity, and not stand here judging someone else's giving. Really. REALLY. But I was taught a long time ago in recovery circles that if you have a roof over your head and food in the fridge you don't have to call yourself "poor." Sometimes the bigger problem is just fear of the future that's out of our control, all the economic chaos and dangers lurking, all the things that could go wrong. Just fears that we have to give to our Creator, growing towards humility and trust.

"Either God was everything or He was nothing. What was our choice to be?" (Big Book)

"For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, says the Lord" (Isaiah 55:8)

So this is an opportunity, a challenge to work out our faith muscles, and tonight's worship service was electrifying on that level but on so many others too. Any more I'm becoming a worship junkie - through the depths of my most recent bout of depression I felt like communal worship time was the ONE time that I actually remembered what joy felt like, the one time the dark veil of hopelessness and exhaustion would lift for a moment to show that there was still life on the other side. On a side note, I guess that's why I've tended to resist medication for depression - how can I ever be sure that there isn't a sweet breaking- into- the- light, even closer walk with Jesus kinda thingy happening at the other side that I would miss or not wait for if I medicate away the hunger. On the other hand, God is more powerful than my medication decisions and can speak to us however, whenever he want.

Important CAVEAT #2: I am soooooo not saying Christians (or recovering people, or whatever) shouldn't take meds for depression. If you are having suicidal thoughts or thoughts of harming others, RUN don't walk to the nearest doctor and get whatever you need. But don't stop there. Pray, pray, pray, open yourself up to God's people, His hands and feet on this earth, and wait for the miracle. Some of us will never be "cheerful," springy, always smilin' types, or even want to be (y'all know I'm a big fan of Snape, right . . ?) but that is not the same thing as losing joy, or hope, or all meaning. Those things are gifts of love from a Creator regardless of your personality type or temperament.

So we prayed, we worshipped in many different ways, we laughed, our heavy eye-liner ran, and God moved. He spoke. He gave us what we needed. And the pastor (it was Joe Boyd this time) reminded us that we in this little church have everything we need to take care of each other, but it might mean surrendering our pride or (illusion of) self-sufficiency. Part of me was jumping up and down inside, 'cause Chris and I have been hungry for so long to be/become that kind of church that freely gives to each other in our time of need, but maybe we have all needed some spiritual straightening out to get past our embarrassment and self-consciousness about both giving and receiving. And I personally need to be reminded regularly that it's beyond my understanding to know who is really "giving" and "getting" in the spiritual realm. As Fred Rogers said, we "are all needy in some unique way." Enough said.

So, my poor insomniac head is buzzin' with Ideas and Inspirations for what I want to tell Chris to develop, and you're wondering after this insanely long intro what the heck the "three Tees" are. . . Just time, talent, and treasure. Some hybrid child of peer-to-peer giving fueled by the internet, the Heifer Project idea of buying "shares" of something big to combine with other donors into something tangible ($10 per share X 20 donors = a flock of chickens for a family, etc.), and the incredible good will of people who hunger to make a difference if they just new how. I loved the idea from "Reckless Faith" author Beth Guckenberger that you can just look at whatever you have to offer in service (5 friends, a pickup truck, and a Saturday afternoon, etc.) and give it up to God to see what He can do.

I want a search function for giving opportunities based on whatever we have to give, that can be combined with others' servant gifts of time, resources, and skills, in countless ways. I want giving to be contagiously FUN! I want to blast through the myths (lies of the Enemy) that keep us stuck in meaninglessness, guilt, and pessimism:

- that what we have to give is not enough to make a difference

- that we have to do it all ourselves, or "just me and God," which too often pushes out even God

- that just one time/occasion won't or can't make a difference

- that we're not important, talented, or special enough to have anything of value

- that God won't love us unless we're super-humanly generous, prayer warriors, spiritual giants or whatever (raises the bar way too high and totally ignores God's grace; leads us into fear or guilt based giving and robs us of the joy and freedom of being God's "beloved.")

I want to put this out there and surrender it to be useful in whatever way, small or not so small, that He sees fit to make it, and not get all ego-dependent on how "successful" our little contribution is. But I am so convinced that God is moving in a big BIG (hairy, audacious) way in our little town. Between the unexpected community-building endeavor of an entire city without electricity for a week, this economic climate, the opening of The Healing Center, grass-roots organizing and a real public hunger for "change" (y'all know who I would vote for - let's not go there now), you know God is getting ready to rain down on us.

In Pastor Dave Workman's words "we just need to get a bigger bucket." : )

Yay, God!

What I'm reading lately

2008-07-24T12:25:00.000-07:00

Either in progress or recently finished:

Cold Mountain ~ Simply amazing. Transforms the "mountain" dialect into something of spare, classical elegance. Also deeply internal, at times meditative, without ever becoming pretentious or navel-gazing. READ this book first before you rent the video (which I haven't seen yet).

The Prince of Bagram Prison (Alex Carr) - a page-turner, thriller, classic summer reading, but slightly disturbing given the (possibly) realistic setting. About a teenaged orphan detained by British and US forces in Afghanistan, and the cover-up in the death of another detainee. The author bio says Carr spent a few years before college traipsing through Morocco and, looking back, was appalled by Western ignorance of Islamic social mores. Gave me a new appreciation of how culturally savvy our servicemen/women and contractors will have to be just to survive in a world so different from our own. Also whetted my appetite to explore the psychology of being a woman behind the veil (particularly those who do so by choice, in more moderate or secular societies).

Creative Therapy for Autism - focuses on puppetry, fairy tales, color, rhythm, and movement/dance to help spectrum kids. Touches on many of the Waldorf/Enki theories on whole person development (mind, body, spirit) and how the arts can uniquely bring out or encourage emotional/relational development in people who have verbal language or sensory issues. Interesting. As always, however, it reignites my frustration with the narrow-mindedness of the "traditional" therapeutic establishment. But see my other blog for that rant, not here.

The Biggest Monster - haven't actually read this one yet, but previewed the first 10 pages or so at Amazon. Written by an arch-conservative Christian with whom I probably disagree vehemently on nearly every overt political view, this book nonetheless portrays dead-on the fundamental divide between Christian and non-Christian views on the nature of humanity and morality. Normally I'm skeptical of anyone who tries to present a monolithic "Christian worldview," but this one rings true, at least what little I've read. Hmmm . . .

Christ the Lord book 2: The Road to Cana (Anne Rice) - Yep, that Anne Rice. Since she gave up the Vampire/witch motif and recommitted to her childhood religion (Catholicism, of course) she has taken up this absolutely delightful fictional portrayal of the life of Jesus Christ. It made me think about what might have been the actual setting behind many of the maddeningly spare gospel anecdotes that we ponder as believers. Better than other fictionalized Jesus stories I've read, she portrays the mystery of divinity coexisting with full humanity. If you're a believer, you take that duality seriously, yet it's impossible to fully comprehend. She does a fair shot at showing a Jesus who had immediate access to omniscience, yet fully suffered the emotional baggage of living in and with a human family. If you've only read her Vampire stuff, you'll be impressed and perhaps surprised by how she's reigned in the purple prose, while building up an intricate historical setting. I got a view into devout, working-class, first-century Jewish life that I can't usually get from the scriptures alone.

Obligatory Harry Potter ~ Bk. 6 ~ The Half-Blood Prince. Come on now, you didn't really think I could get through an entire summer without at least ONE HP, did you? Especially since the next movie isn't coming out until almost another 4 months. My usual practice is to inhale an HP in about 36 hours when it first comes out, followed by a slower reading to savor over the next month. Finally, I'll re-read it just before the next movie or volume (sniff, sniff. . .) comes out. Upon 3rd reading, I enjoyed book 6 rather better this time than previously, when it seemed mostly a place-keeper (cliff-hanger) for the final volume. This was the first time I've read HBP since we found out how it all ends, so there was that added dimension.

And last but not least, I am very, very slowly working through the Gospels again for our "homework" at church. We're supposed to read all of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John to notice every instance of the word "Kingdom." We're in a series explicating the Lord's prayer ("thy kingdom come . . ." etc.). It helps to have teaching pastors who've done the serious etymology. Once again, I'm struck by how limited our understanding is when we're only fluent in one language (a modern one at that) and don't consider any of the nuances/connotations of the original texts.

Maybe next time I'll get around to my essential summer listening. Happy reading, all. : )

some pomes (yes, that's how they're spelled) in progress

2008-06-22T00:08:00.000-07:00

"Sacrifice"

Did it hurt Adam to wake
from that sleep?

From his body she was born;
screaming into agony of birth -
flesh from her flesh torn.

Desire will heal the contagion

and she will die from this who was
too much loved.

_____________________________________________________

"Always"

"Never will I forsake you; Never will I leave you."

he promised.
So why did the happy ending hurt so much?
Goodnight sweet prince
savior, Lord.

alone at the foot of the cross
blind hands and empty -
he's gone.

why then does she stay to live
when the sword has pierced her too?

she would have kissed those feet again
and again with her tears,
or wine to ease the pain
but he refused.

she would have followed him
though the others
turned away

so she stays
in the rough sand
scraping out the shape

of His name.

~ apologies to J. K. Rowling

Apostasy, Autism, and why we bother to go on in the face of it all.

2008-05-27T23:58:00.000-07:00

I'm tired of beating my head against this wall. I want something to change for Vasant and for all of us. It doesn't seem we've learned near enough. In my perfect world we'd be Way Better Parents than we are now, and Vasant would get unlimited time and attention, enthusiasm, patience, encouragement. Unconditional love.

He would thrive.

Instead,he has to endure unfair accusations, cynicism, grumpiness, whining, distractibility and defeatism from the very people who want nothing more than to be able to love him right, just the way he is. But there aren't any other parents here than us, so we have to keep acting like we believe things will get better again, and eventually they will.

Maybe.
Or not.

I think I have faced ugly reality enough - the bloody, self-loathing insomniac face of it - to
know that perhaps there's no Cure here. Autism is the permanent, uninvited guest in this house.
For a while I struggled with the question of neurodiversity - how much I was/am selfishly trying to "convert" someone who didn't want to be. Really though, the question was never so high-minded and ethical; it was just a carefully sheathed quest for the Power to Heal someone else. In my theology there's supposed to be someone else who does that job, but never mind. I wanted to make Vasant all better. I'm the mom, dammit, what else would I want? But now I've faced the limits of my own power (zero).

So what's left now?

What does it look like to accept neurodiversity; just what are we trying to accept here?
There's horrible, wretched, made-for-TV autism, and then there's the day-to-day, not so bad, almost cute autism, and I've seen them both in Vasant. I've seen the "tampered with" (judiciously therapied and remediating) Vasant. He is still CLEARLY on the spectrum; no one's gonna say we were guilty of selfishly taking away his autism. But that Vasant is also happy, funny, strange, angelic, amazing, connected, and alive. The Vasant we're seeing right now is mostly angry, scared, wildly dysregulated, violent, chronically struggling and overwhelmed.

He's suffering.

It sucks and I don't want it to be this way. I don't want us to be like this. Here's the take home lesson:

Autism + hopeful LOVING remediation = weird, delightful, heart-wrenching, occasionally pass for "normal" but never taken for granted (I wouldn't have it any other way - talk about Unconventional . . .)

Autism + anger/fearful control = exhaustion, misery, despair, lost and abandoned kids, weary confused parents pasting on the "life-*#%&-sucks-but-we're-too-proud-to-say-it" face.

Maybe I just needed to get back to appreciating what we have.

This week's question: Love?

2008-05-21T17:26:00.000-07:00

I'm so flippin' tired and braindead right now I have no business posting, but I was up half the night (again) unable to sleep, flailing around in streams of highly intense drivel that wanted to be written. I beat down the impulse, as half usual, reminding myself how badly I really needed the sleep in order to face today's responsibilities (not least of which is being safe on the road for early-a.m. child taxiing) and, frankly, just kind of not wanting to open the wordly can of worms just yet. Too much reality going on lately to deal with deep thoughts.

So now, when I have to stay awake anyway to watch little ones (you know you're getting old when your single-digit-age offspring can outlast you by hours) I turn to blogging to keep me awake. Of course, thankfully, the urgency of last night's autobiographical/spiritual/political rant has dissipated along with its content, so I don't have to fear the mania so much.

I miss the mania. I really do, sometimes, but the other (saner? or just more practical) side of me knows I just don't need one more angst or passion in my life right now, and the word-stream-hunger that springs out in the night is too scary and tempting still. I know how much I want to dive in and drown in that, how I HATE being interrupted (and the realities of SAHM-homeschooling life mean there is always an interruption, always one lobe set on sentry duty), how it almost always brings up the fresh waves of frustration and resentment that I can't just DO this in my life, that another life is not possible right now. . . Like I said, I don't need another strong feeling in my in my life right now, particularly a negative one, and especially not if it's one that can be tabled, thwarted, rationalized away as selfish, diletante (sp?).

Anyhow, I've discovered a wonderful self-fulfilling prophecy: I get over or avoid the pain of not being able to write freely by denying that I ever had much excuse to consider myself a writer in the first place, then the lack of practice keeps me stuck in the eternal cycle of newbie-returning self-conscious awkwardness. The overoccupation with self and "should I or shouldn't I, am I or aren't I" becomes so boring, repetitive and annoying that it's easy to decide I have nothing worth saying. Nothing, nothing, nothing, so here goes..

If you've read this far, if you know me well by now, you know this has no bearing on my actual mental state. I don't think I'm depressed; it's actually been a really nice happy outdoorsy cheerful friends-dropping-by-with-seedlings kind of week. I talked to lots of friends this week, from all my essential circles of acquaintance and support. I got prayed for and let my guard down with a girlfriend that I'd kind of put on a pedestal (homeschooler with 6 kids and one more on the way, one autistic, the kind of mom who is always positive and STRONG, never gives up and never brags or complains, and is genuinely helpful too). I went to my GP for my first complete physical exam in at least 5 years, and she was nice, conscientious, thorough, didn't rush me out the door or condescend even once, treated my like a real human and not a set of symptoms. Yes, I know I'm letting my native cynicism show big time, but the point is this has been a GOOD week, a time when all my pessimistic assumptions were wrong and I was able, willing and grateful to acknowledge it.

So anyway, what I had originally thought I'd like to start was a very informal series of ruminations on the fruits of the Spirit (you know: Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Gentleness, Faithfulness, Self-control) and what they mean. Not so much in the typical "study" fashion of great ideals that we're supposed to work towards or whatever, but I'd like to take a fresher maybe more back-handed look . . .

How does it feel when a particular "fruit" grabs you unaware from someone or someplace that you completely didn't expect it? How does it stun, discombobulate or delight you when you suddenly realize the Fruit is a gift and a result of the spirit, not something you have to work for but just something received? So with that brief intro, drumroll please for this week's fruit of the spirit question . . .

When do you remember a time that you suddenly found yourself loving an enemy, someone you previously had nothing but judgement and condemnation for? What was the impulse behind that sudden change? Was it something slow and gradual or a sudden insight? And here's the kicker: what did it feel like for just that instant to be fundamentally NOT superior, more enlightened, advanced or deserving than that person?

Okay, I'll hash out a random thought or three in the next few days, but now I gotta go bed some little critters.

Dave's comments on Pastor Wright

2008-05-12T08:04:00.000-07:00

In general I don't like talking about other people's opinions on in the news kind of stuff because the swarm of commentary still leaves me with that kinda queasy love-hate recovering politico yuckiness. But I think Pastor Dave's comments on Pastor Wright were dead on, especially his insistence that at core this is NOT about politics but about the Body of Christ.

Read them at Dave's blog "what I meant to say" here on Blogspot.

ho-hum

2008-04-05T10:41:00.000-07:00

This is kind of a tiresome duty kind of post, and I'm not sure whether or not I want to introduce that dynamic into a blog, which should ideally be "honest" or whatever, but here goes. Thing is, I haven't really decided what "honest" is, or what I want this blog to convey beyond a mere rumble of random thoughts, so I have no boundaries to violate. Grin.

This has been a particularly exhausting 2008, so far. Started out well, with 2 unseasonably warm weeks beginning January, and I was very proactive to ward off the potential SAD thingy by getting outside everyday. But then the dreary dismal winter hit us for real and the house-bound yuck began. We survived winter okay, but this was a particularly relentless year for bugs and germs. No one got terribly sick, but what minor aches and symptoms we had just would not let up and lasted for a good month at a time, which is very rare for my generally healthy brood. So times that by 6 people, and we were feeling crappy for most of late January into mid-March.

Then a very fun but rather busy and overwhelming vacation in D.C. Great to see family and all the sight-seeing, but those of you who are moms understand how much one needs a "vacation to recover from the vacation." Then a brief, low-key, houseguest visit, and finally we are returning to some semblance of normal. Then of course, in another 10 days there's a major surgery in the family, so I'm trying to maintain . . . what?

Sanity? Highly overrated and undefineable, liable to make one feel more paranoid than healthy. Balance? Ditto - a useless expression. A new equilibrium? Hmmm . . . now maybe that's a better word. You can't step in the same river twice and all that, to quote the old saying, but perhaps it is possible without too much self-flagellation to develop a new, temporary pair of land-legs after you've been thrown into that vicious river 3-4 times in quick succession, gasping and drowning and unable to swim. Slowly, slowly, not sure if you have the strength to take real breaths now, now quite trusting that the breath will contain air rather than water, but what else are you gonna do? The relentless drive to LIVE kicks in and you gasp, then slow down, get some bearings, and continue. Maybe you even have the fleeting thought of gratitude that it's a summer day so at least you don't have hypothermia to contend with, or at least you have 4 working limbs so you didn't actually drown.

All you've really lost is the illusion of safety and control - the smug fallacy that you've always been safe and walked responsibly near the water's edge, no way could drowning happen to YOU. WHo could have known that unforeseen forces could end you up in the water, without any conscious "mistake" on your part? Okay, I apologize for my cheap metaphors and tired need to extrapolate a "lesson" out of every darn hitch in the road. But that's just me - lesson seekin' and metaphor recyclin.' But for right now I'll spare you all the lessons. I'm just so, so . . . tired, and I don't do sleep very well. I'll feel better after church today, and the daffodils are finally blooming, and Chris took the kids out for a couple of hours, so maybe by next month the exhaustion will be less, and this season will finally end.

Pax. : )

slogans for the sick

2008-03-09T13:57:00.000-07:00

Everything hurts.
Sounds, lights, people talking, thinking, moving, standing, turning, listening, it's all just pain.
A hot, soaky tub-bath is all that makes life bearable. Now one should ever have to leave tub-world.
TV hurts. Bad TV is pure torture.
"Lost" is okay though - Hurley is all the therapy you really need in life.
The Wildcats really need a winning streak into the tourney so I can have one stinkin' reason to get out of bed for the next miserable month.
Boo-hoo. Leave me alone, I'm sick.
Go away.

I've been sick the last several weeks and just now hopefully starting to let up. It began with a nasty sore throat and unrelenting hacking cough and mild fever back around Valentine's day. The fever and sore throat passed but the cough lingered for weeks, along with the fun, fun accompanying toss-and-turning sleepless nights on the futon in the office, trying not to keep the spouse awake. "The Cough" became one of our family's love languages, lots of rounds of serial coughing in stereo, everywhere you turn.

Then there were just a few days in early March when it seemed like the coug had decided to leave us and move on elsewhere. Oh, cruel illusion of health, that was merely an excuse to ignore the underlying tiredness, inertia, lethargy, and creeping Blah-ness all around. Or, I can be resisting, fighting and denying my own symptoms for only so long before they become "real" by manifesting in someone else. So, soon enough, the low ebb (the "chicken of despair?") was overfilled with other family members' more obvious yuckiness. Vasant came home vomiting last Saturday and spent the next several days completely wordless and motionless on the couch, under blankets with Sprite and NogginTV for company. Kavita joined him with fever and general misery (thankfully minus the tummy-sick) for the rest of the week. Then Sanjay got it for a couple of days and retreated to his bedroom lair, but was able to fight it off to go to a friend's party yesterday.

So I've had to succumb to it this week. Fever, aches and pains, nausea, incessant cough and sinus headache. Garden variety yuck. I went to the doctor, which I hate, and got an Rx for antibiotics. Then the snowstorm hit before we could get it filled (11" of snow - a record for us in March - really beautiful to look at but it was a level 3 emergency and even the malls and churches closed down Saturday) so I'm still making do on the otc stuff. The doctor said she's seen people down with this bug for as long as 2 months. Yay.

It was kind of peaceful on Saturday just to sit and watch the snow accumulate, and know we didn't have to rush out to "be somewhere" because everywhere was closed down too. Snow is really yummy, only closely followed by icicles. Have you ever eaten them directly off a beautiful, brittle-glazed tree? I had never done that - it's surprisingly more cool and refreshing than just drinking water or even crunching ice cubes from a regular freezer. That undefinable, stars-twinkling, winter night magic, I guess. Something you just can't capture with home electronics.

It's been a most unexpected coda to the winter we thought was edging out. So maybe I'll be not-sick next time I post. But one thing's changed for sure - I have had it with being super-efficient and functional. Efficiency is an annoying illusion - just what am I trying to be so darn effective at? The kids are as adequate as they need to be, my life may be lame and boring but no more so than anyone else's. So what's the point of working so hard fighting to change stuff that never changes, just to end up hiding on the couch whining? Insert saying of Solomon here:

"Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done
and what I had toiled to achieve,
everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind;
nothing was gained under the sun."
(Ecclesiastes 2:11)

I love Ecclesiastes. Best thing in the world for one's moments, days, seasons of cynicism and despair. Or as one of friends says: I may not be very happy today but by gosh I'm going to enjoy the hell out of this depression. Despair is not = depression. Crucial point. I have suffered both in my years of crawling along planet earth, and depression is a positive walk in the park compared to despair. Despair as a momentary passing emotion, sure we can all live with, but as an end-state it's somewhere I don't ever want to go again. Depression, on the other hand, in its mild-to-middling range anyway, can be that comfortable old grey sweater you keep sliding into that everyone else thinks is dog-ugly and why do you keep it around, but you just feel so Yourself and comfortable almost in it. It's that slight wintry moroseness, the welcome sigh. . . of being able to accept finally your own anti-socialness. Just go away and let me suffer, people, I'd much rather be alone with my kleenex and herb tea than pretending to like listening to you all.

I can handle depression. It's old hat. Occaisonal life-hating bleariness, who doesn't enjoy that? Curmudgeonliness is one of the consolations of middle-age, is it not? Just a nice middle-class luxury we should all be lucky enough to indulge in from time to time, to sit around, sneer at the TV and kvetch, before we pull on our boots and go shovel the drive. It's only when the depression veers into true despair, when all hope is gone, when you know that your only chance for joy is over and done and the suicidal thoughts become a waking, constant obsession - your own little secret - that you've entered the isolation zone from which is no escape minus a miracle.

I'm not there.

So everyone just go away, I'm sick. Nyah, nyah.

This is really uncomfortable

2008-02-28T18:58:00.000-08:00

I'm going to try something new that is supremely, wretchedly, yuckity-yuck and I'm not sure why, but I'm going to do it anyway. I'm going to attempt to post before everyone else in the house is asleep, before even the kids are in their rooms, and there are are still little teenager feet pattering and galumphing about, not to mention a spouse in the house. Imagine the nerve of them, breathing in my space. Harumph! Never mind that I've been interrupted by little humans twice before even finishing one sentence.

Deep breath. Take it easy - it can be done. And yet, it's so unsettling and deeply annoying that I'm fighting every nerve and impulse not to just pull the plug and abort this attempt. But I know that realistically I will never be able to write unless I can manage to do it when there are others awake in the house, unless I want to resign myself only EVER to write at 2am, thereby missing that night's sleep with no chance to make it up and setting up a permanent cycle of exhaustion, fatigue, lethargy, general moroseness. Normally I would say sleep-schleep, but mortality is calling me lately. Much to my dismay the pleasure of the sleep deprivation high has been disappearing from my life lately, and I'm too aware of having to abide by the same rules normal people live by.

Dang it.

I really LIKE not needing much sleep. All those days/months/years when I used to go night after night after night with never more than 2 hours sleep at a stretch, the new mommy exhaustion finally settling into a sleepwalking, automaton calm, gave me the illusion of super-humanness. The secret self. The creature that only comes out at night, when all the day's distractions (i.e. warm bodies and their incessant NEEDS) are put away and out of mind. When I finally get to be. Just be. And perhaps, the illusion of splitting the self into several layers for assorted consumption: one for the kids, one for friends, a slightly less savory warts and all one for the spouse and "real" friends (you know who you are!), and the allegedly private innermost one between me and God.

But largely unmentioned has been the even more private self long dormant that only comes out on a page. For so long that self was sacrificed on the altar of motherhood that I thought it was finally gone and would just leave me the he** alone. Enough of the torment of having a burning passion to write but never the "room of one's own." Enough of waking up hungry to spill words but too scarily sleep-deprived to risk losing even more sleep. So eventually the words stopped coming so much at night, and it was kind of a relief to have at least one of the voices in the head just shut up for a change. Not to have the guilt/shame of not living up to my "intellectual potential" because I was "just a housewife" and so on. So for a good many years I thought the writer self in me was just dead, long gone I-hammered-that-sucker-good-didn't-I, and that was okay. If that was the trade off I had to make for the kids to survive and thrive, if it would take that level of sacrifice from me for them to be alright in the world then it was okay.

Almost.

As long as I didn't think about it, and who has time to think with 4 kids homeschooling? As long as I didn't introspect or brood or compare or whatever, life these past few years has been pretty amazingly sweet for me. Are you kidding? A house in the suburbs of the freest, richest (okay, say it, the "greatest") nation around, blessed with 4 awesome offspring and a decent spouse (usually, far more than decent, but I'm feeling prickly today), wonderful friends, more material comfort than I ever asked for, who could complain? And it's not like I'm trying to talk my self into "feeling grateful" because 99% of the time when I look around me I genuinely am grateful (grumpy, maybe. Prickly, definitely, but still grateful).

And yet, complaining happens.

For some pesky reason the desire to write has returned, perhaps without any accompanying content, and I feel for some unknown reason that it's important to keep up the habit of writing, even under the completely unglamorous, cold incandescent light of mundane. Perhaps as a penance for my past (youthful) illusions of "other"-ness, that there was a secret worth keeping, the temptation of a gnostic code. There it goes, I suspected this could only come to any good if there's a tie to the larger picture, if my utterly boring small sins could somehow illuminate (irradiate?) the things we all suffer. And now finally, old C.S.L. starts breathing over my shoulder again with his amused, monocled (dare I say it, encouraging?) gaze, to remind that it's all about making the link to the greater reality, not staying trapped in my own egomaniacal loneliness.

Isn't that after all one way our enemy works? By making each individual's generic, petty shortcomings feel so personal, so "special" so dear to us somehow that we cling to them as though they were our core selves? By getting us to focus and fixate only on the details, the differences, the rituals and codes that wrap themselves around our faults, so that we start to associate our personhood with those defects? If we begin to think (the more unconsciously the better) that our "self" is essentially tied to our broken bits, our vices or whatever, because we see the beauty caked onto them, we will be terrified to lose the vices.

(Drat! Interrupted again. Humans are so inconvenient. I want to be a hermit for one day a week, at least, but I'm not. Maybe if I just start acting a little MEANER all the time then these nice people will leave me alone to write once in a while!!!!! Now that my nice little writer-glow has been rudely banished, C.S is just sadly shaking his pitying head at me. What does he know, he was an old bachelor till his 50's wasn't he? Plenty of time to write uninterrupted. . . Double-harumph!)

So whatever, vices, yeah. If our enemy can get us to believe the illusion that our beauty, or individuality, or small-s "sacredness" is immutably tied to our brokenness or defects (the 7 deadlies, etc.) because we see them so interconnected all the time, then we don't even realize our fundamental flaw. We don't realize we have it backwards. The beauty that we see in the "uniqueness" isn't there because of the vice but despite it. The rose in the mud isn't beautiful because it's drowning in mud but because it's a rose, and an earth covered in roses would be unimaginably beautiful to us, but a lake of mud would not. But somehow we see a bunch of muddy roses and think, hmmm, mud must be pretty cool . . .

Or maybe, what we think is individual or amazing or unique isn't intrinsically "beautiful" like roses but it's still something interesting, value-neutral (although I'm not convinced there entirely is such a thing as value-neutral for reasons I won't detail now). The error is the same, if we associate our different/unique/specialness with the mud instead of whatever is really beautiful, why ever would we want to choose to lose our individuality. The classic false choice.

Besides the fact that we can't dare to imagine a "good" self because we know deep down we probably don't have it in our power to be THAT good - maybe for a second, an hour even, on a particularly lucky day, but certainly not for our whole lives - we also start to see "goodness" as something boring and empty and lifeless, because we've already associated "individuality" with rule-breaking, vice or whatnot. Then, pride makes us think our little nicely camouflaged and oh-so-tastefully-decorated vice is "different" from (and therefore, not really as bad as . . .) someone else's plain, stripped-down and unspectacular vice. Like, if I'm a snob it's okay because it's about all these wonderful authors and books that I love, and of course "artsy" snobbery is okay. But if someone is a snob about their money, job, family bloodlines, etc., well that's just BAD because their snobbery isn't as interesting as mine. Not as interesting to me, that is. Cause I'm the judge of these things, right? They' re just a plain old, wrong bad snob, but I get to be "interesting. . ." Of course it's ridiculous, but 'fess up, people - aren't we all a little like that?

Oh well, I was going to go off on a lovely detail of all things Pottery and how JKR has permanently embedded her universe into my little skull. Almost like it was there all along, you know? Like there were little neural pathways in the shape of the marauder's map deep in anjoo's cerebellum. Sigh . . . if only. That must mean my time is up. Brain is off now, gotta go catch up on Season 3 of "Lost" (aka 'the one show worth watching this year').

ciao babies. <><

misogyny, misanthropby, mistaken I.D., oh my!

2008-02-14T21:11:00.000-08:00

I'm feeling a wee embarrassed that I'm listening to a (gasp!) commercial radio station and actually liking it lately, but I guess that's just the reality of getting older. All the "ahead of our time" things that we used to feel so persecuted and fringe-y about become another acceptable demographic. And that's okay too, cause truth be told I'm glad to have a comfortable place to hang out (psycho-socially it not necessarily physically) and not be self-conscious anymore.

So anyway on this commercial station (which I'm sure is some mass-format but, again, that's okay too) they play these occasional 10-song listener's choice blocks. Kinda like the amazon.com reader lists that are so fun to peruse, where you get to be all self-focused as you look for kindred demographics, people who "get" your tastes. So I guess I was indulging my inner teen today because the song cycle I cranked way up high contained that fun Linkin' Park song ("What I've done," which really kicks *** if you only hear it a few times a year), the Breeders "Seether" and some Soundgarden song I never can figure out the title to (have you ever noticed how crawling with christian imagery their lyrics are, BTW? it's almost annoying, like if you're gonna keep TALKING about it go ahead and take a risk maybe? never mind me, now, I'm just being tired and cranky and obnoxious . . .).

So it was one of those moments where I could just turn up the volume and be glad I was alone in the car so I didn't have to feel guilty about spoiling the little ones' ears, or selfish for imposing my musical tastes on defenseless captives, and it struck me in particular that my teenage tastes were coming from such a different sensibility than my kids' tastes, and that's a good thing too. Not so much strictly "musical" tastes, where we can at least find some common ground in safely aged alterna-lite stuff (U2, Newsboys, REM, the Shins) or in "bizzaro, family friendly" stuff (a genre single-handedly invented by They Might be Giants?).

After all, we're in the weird post-generational subversion where we "object" to our kids' musical tastes because the stuff they like sounds too MUCH like what we used to listen to. "All that stuff sound too darn derivative!" Can't they listen to something that doesn't sound just like the Strokes/Replacements/Social Distortion? Can't they come up with something their parents HATE, like kids used to in MY day!? For goodness sake, what does it mean when the latest "Veggietales" movie ends with a spot-on cover of a B-52's song, complete with a Veggie in an orange beehive? What does it mean that I actually might prefer the Veggies version? Ack!

But I digress. What's different in these kids' tastes is not their muscial/aesthetic sense, but their near total lack of bitterness/cynicism/general effed-upness. That sense of self-loathing and hopelessness barely masqueraded as apathy or boredom, so ubiquitous in70/80's post-punk stuff. Maybe even that distinction is changing, as the very margins and definitions between "mainstream" and fringe music are changed with these wonderful new outlets and distributions schema, and I don't have time or bandwidth for any kind of analysis of that, but it's all good too. Now that I'm comfortably old and past that stage of wanting (I hope) to be edgy or in the minority or whatever, I can see it's really good for pure artistic reasons not to have those rigid boundaries between "popular" and "cutting edge." But are today's kids sophisticated enough to be okay with letting that distinction die? Maybe.

What I am continually floored by is how open these (Nelsonlings and their friends, not all homeschoolers either) kids are, how they simultaneously manage to appear mature and innocent, wise yet incredibly naive, independent and grounded yet curiously trusting and non-confrontational, secure in their individual identities and yet (on the surface) jarringly conventional. It always shocks me that they seem to have almost no personal reference point for the kind of rabid hatreds (self-destruction, deeply subconscious gender warfare, mistrust of others and of any groups in general) that completely forms the subtext of a certain kind of music. And now, seeing it through their eyes, or rather experiencing it as something they lack, I'm struck at how virulent and sick a mindset it was for us . . .

Maybe it was just me. (grin)

Especially that Breeders song - some seriously internalized gender loathing there; it's almost hard to listen to. Now the cynical part of me says, just wait, the kids are young, they'll learn all that sick attitude in their own time. The world just hasn't damaged them that way yet, but they're young. But part of me (is it delusional, or hopeful, or just compartmentalized and obtuse?) wonders if maybe they never will sink into that level of cynicism and wretchedness. Maybe they like rock songs that sound fun and thrashin,' but they're only amused/bemused/bored by (rather than morbidly "identified" with) voices or characters that make such a forsaken MESS of their emotional and relational lives.

I don't want to be completely naive about the kids' mindset and experiences, and of course we can never really KNOW what it's like for them, but this is my blog after all. I get to skew everything through my filter and watch it limp out the end even if I'm the only one left to watch. At this moment I'm glad to be 30-ten, on a straight skid from pediatric to geriatric, and not have to regret who I am/was anymore. Not have to use a lower-case for the first person "i" every single time cause i'm too afraid to be psychologically pinned down anywhere. Not have to worry if it's precocious enough, if it matters to anyone else, it it's relevant, if i might not want to own it ten years down the road, if it's shallow or too obvious or low-brow.

Is it really so bad to be a slow learner? I never cease to be humbled that these kids are so different from the kind of kid I was, that I would NEVER have hung out with people like them when I was at the depths of my teenage angst - they are far too "normal" -seeming, too calm, too trusting, not nearly as dark and demented as the people I could relate to at age 14. Cause 14 is where it always seems to start, right? I'm of 2 minds: the fast fading former-rebel who wonders what value there ever even was in the dark places, what thing of beauty can be salvaged from the greyness that isn't just arrogance and fear, that wouldn't in truth be far more beautiful when fully in the light? And the other side, the over-protective, bland, mom-bot that wants to prematurely define my offspring as "different' or "good kids" in some belated, embarrassed, knee-jerk attempt to prove i really have changed . . .

It's okay if i haven't changed entirely. It's okay to be a night owl sometime. It's okay to smile kindly and indulgently at my totally uncool inner goth chick. SOOOO uncool now . . . but after all, we were vindicated in the end, weren't we? (Snape is good!)

: )

not ready for this

2008-02-12T22:09:00.000-08:00

I think, finally at age 40, I'm getting some peace with the idea that life will never be easy, that I'll never feel like a grown up (straight from pediatric to geriatric with no pause for proper adulthood in between), and that uniqueness is neither blessing nor curse but just the condition of life.

It'll never be easy. Just how will it be not easy then? Not easy as in, full of challenges and opportunities and too much stress, too many responsibilities, not enough downtime and fun, not enough friendship love and dreams we dare? Well, not really that. Nothing as nameable, quantifiable, identifiable as that.

More, why why why? Not even why me (other than the usual stark staring amazement bordering on ridiculousness that I'm so blessed and lucky when so many others have such horrendous burdens to bear). If the unfairness of life (i.e. why do I get so many toys when others don't even get to eat today?) has always been a backwards glance into the abyss, then at least as a supposed follower of Jesus I might trust someone else to have the answer. Not that I have the answer, of course, or would ever even be capable of understanding it, but simply that I have no other choice than either insanity or trusting that the master has his reasons and that "there is no darkness in him."

But I won't let this devolve into a theological reminder because it's too easy to let that become an anesthetic. I'm not supposed to be completely comfortable with the level of suffering in the world, but I'm useless if I think of nothing else but that suffering. When I was younger I believed there was no other option but either continual torment or anesthesia. Anesthesia won, for a minute, then it too dissipated. When the 7 demons rushed in to take its place, they were of my own creation and no one else's fault, with not even the consolation of being able to kid myself I was someone who "cared too much." Right.

Sometimes it almost offends me how easy it is to step out of that vicious circle: awareness of suffering/injustice> pain > anesthesia/cynicism > anesthesia fails > awareness . . . It seems insultingly simple that the solution/escape is just to take action, do something to help alleviate suffering in some way, relieve another's pain and in that small moment be fully turned towards the light rather than the ever present darkness. "Small things done with great love will change the world" is true but I only half understood it. I always had to keep the illusion going that my little part was going to make "a big difference" because I couldn't bear to face how insubstantial it seemed in light of the world's huge problems. I couldn't face how tiny my part was because as long as I was trying to come up with the "great love" in and of myself I was doomed to disillusionment. I'm supposed to do the small things, which I sometimes get a little joy from, but the "great love" comes from the fisherman and it's pure volcanic grace for anyone in its path.

Finally, at this ridiculously late age, I'm beginning to see another side to the story. Before, I always mistrusted the ease of the action solution (not "easy" as long as I'm a foolish selfish mortal, but "simple") because at the back of my mind was always the "knowledge" that the darkness still remained essentially unchanged. My drop in the bucket, in the end, only momentarily relieved my own conscience but did little tangibly towards the lump sum of suffering in the world. Bucket-head that I am, it took this long to really get that my perception is faulty, that I've never understood the whole picture, and who the heck am I to think I have an "objective" assessment of the good/bad breakdown of the world? Who gave me the scales of justice, where light and darkness hang in the balance, that I could accurately assess whether or not there is any hope?

Someone had to remind me that truth/reality did not reside inside anjoo's head, at a moment (just a micro-nano-giga-second, really) that I was beaten down enough to lay down my existential arrogance. Many someone's had to remind me it was part of a larger plan, and that no, I really didn't need to see it and wouldn't even possibly understand it even if I could. But then they patted me reassuringly on the head and for once I was sheepish enough to be relieved at having the burden of figuring it all out lifted from me. And you know me folks - that's not a burden I give up lightly! And for that split-instant there was safety and certainty and light, and it was good. And whether or not I wanted to there was no going back because the adventure was on, but it's still never been easy. It's still a daily choice, and sometimes a terrifying one.

But maybe I just like it that way. Some of us maybe, you know, kinda feel more at home in the grey than in full light. And please don't go quoting John at me - yes I *know* that "if we walk in the light as He is in the light" etc. etc. But now I'm telling you that this is a place head-knowledge theology doesn't quite reach. Grace, and action, are all that work to wrench out the comfortable half-darkness and replace it with a purer light. The action of helping another and stepping out of myself; the miracle of grace that somehow things only ever makes sense when I stop looking at them head on. And maybe it's not so terrifying at all, but I don't think I could trust a god that is entirely mundane, "nice," and ultimately forgettable.

I need/want/hunger to be reminded that the master is Universe-shaking-Big, and yet full of grace; more splendid and unimaginable than anything I've ever met, yet a presence that is familiar with everything I've ever experienced; fully knowing, as yet unknown; that complete satisfaction of all my mystical "seeking," yet a profundity and depth of love as makes the very seeking seem childish and superficial. And the grace that loves me even though I am childish and superficial, because it's not even about ME and MY shortcomings at all really, is it?

Now, where was I going with all that . . ? Oh yeah, just coming back to some of the reasons I've finally, reluctantly, decided to give up my (false) modesty and take up the blog after all, after years of self-doubt. Always at the back of mind I've been chastised by the awareness of how annoying are the jabbering me me me voices of our self-obsessed culture (there, don't you love me when I'm pure misanthropy?), and embarrassed most of all to reveal that I'm one of them too. Yeah, I'm terrified of Myspace and all that because I might like it too much! There, I said it - I'm just as exhibitionist (or not) as every other blogger out there. I am one of you. I come in peace. . Like every other lonely small-w writer soul out there, afraid of revealing my own inner triviality carefully disguised as "depth."

And, perhaps to better purpose, always challenged by C.S. Lewis' reminder that the great work of the Christian artist is not to use individual identity as a way to draw attention to our limited little ego-selves, but to use our uniqueness to reveal yet one more facet of our creator's limitless beauty. Not to draw ostentatious attention to OUR SPECIAL CHAIR in the theater, but quietly to invite others to come sit in that chair so that they too could see the wonders we see from this angle/slant of the light, that they might enjoy his beauty even more.

I had it backwards. I thought I had to become unselfish or "good" enough to want to do something that I didn't really want to do, like a bitter medicine I was supposed to pretend to enjoy. I thought I had to give up my right to draw attention to me me me (which I really like to do, in case you hadn't noticed!), in order to write something theologically safe, sanitized, "glorifying," and ultimately completely false. I was afraid I would be unsatisfied, unconvinced and unconvincing. Now what kind of "testimony" would that be? I thought I would have to give up the good stuff, without anything really better in return. Sure, I understood intellectually that heaven/the kingdom of God/the new abundant life/Spirit-filledness/Jesus would be "even better by far" than the little goodies that really weren't that great any more anyway, but only intellectually. And too ashamed to admit I was struggling, I hid the struggle, walked away from my passions, denied myself the dream.

I never believed myself up to the task of creating art that was real and raw and personal and relevant and really could touch someone else, and still be whole-heartedly following Jesus. I always thought, I'm too selfish, too trivial, too jaded, too proud, I have nothing new to say. Poetry doesn't count, it doesn't feed any mouths, if I were a real writer I'd write fiction not poetry, not this hyper-personal rambling inner monologue (but really it was always a dialogue wasn't it? Because I was looking for YOU, wherever you are . . .), all the standard accusations and maybe even a few original ones too. Because of that doubt and fear, self-condemnation and generic misanthropy (fun when you're 20, soul-sucking decades later), I gave up writing, painting, listening to the ache of musical transcendence. I threw away my one-of-a-kind LP's or masochistically let the kids destroy them, gave away my punk rock uniform (the sleeves with Joe Strummer's autograph, man!).

I swore I would never write another poem, never get published again, never create another beauty-craving, insomniac, multi-media piece, if that was what was separating me from God. I was willing in that moment to let it go forever, cause I needed him so bad. If I thought at all, it was that it would be a forever trade-off. And now maybe the ground has shifted. Maybe God wants to give some of this dream back to me now, but it so scary when possibilities long dormant open up again. At this absurdly late age - I'm way too old to be a cool person anymore. Now it's only gonna be about the art and not a thing else, not just looking like a poet or living like one (self-destructing like one . . . tried that, highly over-rated).

Anyway, it's not really up to me, is it? If the character defects remain, even at this late date, 20 years after my alleged expiration, then it's not really my place to mess around obsessing about them. Just get on and do life, as messy as it is. The wonderful secret (really, it's such a delicious relief I could laugh) is that by age 40 you don't have to try to become less selfish and self-centered and become the kind of "good" person who really loves god more than themselves. If you live this long with even one brain cell left you've doubtless realized the limits of your own tired old story - we're just not ALL THAT entertaining, in the end. It's no major stretch now, having assessed the parameters of my own "fascinating" ego, to say that the master is way more beautiful, brilliant, limitless, fiery, passionate, pure, intoxicating, breath-taking and infinite than anything I could ever come up with. Why wouldn't I want to throw my lot in with him? It's not about being good, or giving up rock and roll and all that.

It's simply that he is so much better than all that. I don't have to "become a better person." I just have to keep looking at the most beautiful creature in the universe, and maybe sometimes some art will even happen, so someone else can sit in my little chair for a minute if they want to.

So here I go again.

I'll never be ready for this, but that's no reason not to try.

Testing, testing

2007-07-27T17:16:00.000-07:00

Here we go. Don't say I never warned ya.