::: still winter :::

I've been hearing a lot of people murmuring wistfully that they wish this snow would melt. They're ready for SPRING, they declare, wrapping their arms around their sweatered torsos while affecting a theatrical shiver. And while I will concede that this winter has given us a pounding of precipitation, I have to give it credit; it's a winter, I tell ya, a genuine, bona fide winter. None of those half-hearted "dustings" or anemic "flurries" for us here in the midwest. We've had one serious snowstorm and blustery blizzard after another, transforming major metropolitan areas into thick blanketed ghost towns, making our rural roads impassable and turning my country lane into a snowbank lined luge track. It stops people in their tracks, slows us all down, shows us we're simply not in control.

And I like it.

My fourteen-year-old son isn't the one who checks the school closings hour-by-hour, beginning the night before. I am. My children aren't the ones standing at the patio door with their noses pressed against the cold, frosty glass, watching the giant flakes float from a bright blue sky. That would be me. And while you would say, "Well, it's pretty, but I don't like to drive in it," neither do I, which is why I don't. It's those snow days that get me off the hook, give me permission to stay at home, rent an iTunes movie or three, plant myself on the couch with a few good books, spend a day in the kitchen making bread or pizza or soup or some new recipe that happens to call for things that I already have in my pantry. On snow days, I get a reprieve. On snow days, all bets are off.

I'm not really sure why this is, because, as a stay-at-home mom, I generally get to determine what does and doesn't get done on any given day. Still, the days usually find me not staying home but trotting from store to store and place to place collecting chipped coconut or tamarind or sheep grain or three ring binders or Dad's blood pressure medicine or someone's forgotten coat/hat/shoes/iPod. I go to meetings and concerts and plays and programs. Even when I'm home, I open the door to repairmen, salesmen, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Amish guys selling assembly-line, fundraiser pizzas.

When the snowstorms comes, though, I know that no one's going to brave my luge track to hand me a Watchtower or peddle a pie. I'm safe to leave my hair uncombed, wear my comfortable elastic-waist pants with the hole in the butt and leave my face bare. I don't have to make the bed, if I don't wanna, and I don't have to shovel the walkway. But I CAN if I WANT to, see. I've got all the time in the world.

Winter allows layers of clothing. I can wear my sweater leggings and laced black boots under a corduroy skirt, a cotton shirt, an earthy sweater and a jacket, my toasty leather mittens with the fingered liners inside, and a thick, fluffy scarf. The perfect ensemble to hide all of my wobbly bits.

And, besides, what happens when this gorgeous blanket of white succumbs to a warm March rain or an unexpected February sun? Do midwesterners really believe that melting snow in January is a harbinger of Spring? Do they not remember their many, many years of living here, in a place where snow continues to fall and snowstorms stack up, sometimes into early May?

When the snow melts in the first quarter of the year, my friends, what we are left with is mud. Puddles and pockets and pits of mud. When the white stuff relents, we are left with a mess, the detritus of winter's litterers unveiled. Now, instead of a harmless puddle of melted snow beside my kitchen door, I'm faced with a heap of mud-encrusted shoes, clothes and children. The dogs no longer leave little wet footprints when they bound in from an outdoor romp, but sploshy smears of sludge. The passel of piles of poo that sunk, steaming, beneath the snow upon first deposit and lay preserved through the months of December, January, February, are now exposed and thawed, sodden and bloated, waiting for an unsuspecting child's, repairman's or Jehovah's Witness's shoe to carry them through the door, onto the white carpet or the wood floor where I find the remains later after feeling a slight wetness on the bottom of my last pair of clean socks.

Yes, Spring will come. When mid-April arrives, her spikes of green crocus leaves breaking up the monochrome, immutable landscape, Spring will come. It will not arrive sooner, no matter how we wish and whine and swear and shiver. It will not arrive in late February or mid-March or early April. For some of us, it will not arrive in early May. So, let's have Winter, shall we? A real, bona fide winter! With the countrysides cloaked in quilts of blue and white, stitched in sticks of black, bejeweled with icicles and spangled with glistening powder, canopied by skies of blue and hazy snowblink, occasionally leaving a gift of fleeting, photogenic air and surface hoar, begging to be admired, gone by the first glance of the sun.

As I look out the window, I'm thrilled to find a fresh batch of flurries gliding to the ground. I'll shove my toes into my comfy slippers and make a cup of hot tea.

It is still winter, after all.

::: doing it all: how to enjoy a perfect christmas :::

Last night, my mother-in-law called. In the course of our conversation, she told me about some traveling she'd like to do that just isn't going to pan out this Christmas. She was disappointed, but she'd come to terms with it. My father-in-law had given his oft-repeated advice:

"You can't do it all."

"That's a lie," I told her. "You most certainly can do it all."

Of course, I was joking.

Kind of.

I don't like being told that I can't, and I usually choose not to believe it when people say it. As a matter of fact, it kinda spurs me on. I mean, what if Mother Teresa had believed those words? What if Stephen Hawking and Beethoven and Stevie Wonder had believed those words? Of COURSE you can do it all!

You can do it all and be it all and have it all!

Especially at Christmas time! Not only CAN you do it all, but you're EXPECTED to do it all! So take advantage of it! Put all that expectation to work for you and do EVERYTHING! Find the most complicated gingerbread pattern and invite all of the kindergartners in your neighborhood to make them from scratch! Promise to decorate the Christmas tree in the center of town all by yourself using only ornaments made by people from your community! Open a homeless shelter and soup kitchen instead of buying gifts for your loved ones! Or, better yet, spend July through December finding the perfect gift for everyone on your list, including all of your children's teachers, the neighbors, the mailman, the librarian, the Sunday School teachers and the dog! The gifts must be perfect--only very expensive or cleverly handmade will do--so yank out that credit card and spend, spend, SPEND (because even handmade costs lots of money if you want to do it right)! Attend multiple Christmas celebrations with all of the branches of your family, your co-workers, your neighbors and your church! Better yet, invite your entire family and a few lonely people to dinner in your home, research all of the most complicated recipes by your favorite food bloggers, create a killer tablescape complete with handmade place cards featuring your favorite photograph of each guest, and look like a knockout in the little black dress you avoided all of the Christmas fudge and ran five miles on the treadmill every day to get into! Cozy up your home with adorable Christmas vignettes in every corner featuring authentic old-world goose feather trees, crisply ironed linen stockings with hand-embroidered names, and vintage mercury ornaments piled in hand-blown vases! Better yet, create a theme for each room! The bedroom can be all muted blues and whites, the kids' room can have a "Candyland" theme, and your bathroom can be dripping with silvers and golds! And don't forget pictures! You must take lots and lots of pictures to capture all of this Christmas magic! Arrange for formal pictures with color-coordinated outfits in which everyone is happy as well as candid pictures of family members wide-eyed over their perfect gifts. This is the time of the year when expectations are high! People are counting on you! Christmas comes but once a year, so you only have a few chances in your lifetime to do it right!

WE CAN DO IT ALL!

Except...

I didn't make hard tack candy this year.

Years ago, during a Christmas when money was especially, um, missing and Bard, my eldest, was a child, she wanted to give her grandmother a very special gift. She knew that Grandma loved stained glass, and she had the idea of making her a jar of hard tack candy. I'd made a few batches along with hand-pulled molasses taffy, hand-wrapped caramels and the usual array of cut-out cookies. It sounded like the perfect gift, so we found a jar and went to work filling it. Oh, how it sparkled with color! She was excited to give that gift and it has turned into a Christmas tradition in the Thicket Dweller house.

Every December for many, many years, I have spent days--verily, weeks--mixing water, sugar and corn syrup, boiling it for what seems like hours, carefully testing the molten mixture with a candy thermometer, a glass of cold water, the sheet test--whatever I had available to me at the time--to get that perfect temperature before adding the little dram of oil and a few drops of food coloring. Over the years, I've learned some valuable lessons about this pass-fail project:

Lesson #1: Don't drip any of the molten liquid on your skin or it will leave a hole in your flesh that burns down to the bone;
Lesson # 2: Don't put cinnamon, clove, wintergreen, spearmint or peppermint oil in the molten lava until it has completely stopped bubbling, or the oil will immediately turn to a gas, coat all of your exposed skin, and hurt for days like the worst sunburn you've ever had as well as giving you an extra edge by turning your face a not-so-festive bright red;
Lesson #3: If you have four burners on your stove, use 'em. There's no rule that you have to make one batch at a time. Just space them out a few minutes apart and pay attention to the rate that each pot and burner cook (they're all different!) so you're not adding oils and coloring to all four pots at one time;
Lesson #4: Grape oil is from the devil. No matter what my multitude of tests said, once I added grape oil, the resulting candy would NOT be hard and will stick to all dental work. I gave up on grape oil;
Lesson #5: This stuff is SHARP! It can and will cut you to ribbons. Blood does not mix well with hard tack candy.

I've always loved the way the process filled the house with so many delicious aromas, the line of tiny oil bottles marching along the countertop waiting to be added to the molten lava, the satisfying "CRACK" of the cooled candy being shattered by the heavy end of a butter knife, the shake-shake-shake of the candy in a baggie of powdered sugar, the big jar filled to the brim with stained-glass candy. It's a beautiful thing. Yes, it's a lot of work, but it's a very, very beautiful thing.

And I've never really felt that it was Christmas unless I've made hard tack candy.

I mean, we can do Christmas caroling, or go sledding, or pile gifts under the tree, or tick off each day with the opening of yet another door on the Advent calendar. We can bring in the greens and haul in a live tree, hang the stockings with care and wear ugly Christmas sweaters, but it doesn't feel like Christmas unless I've shopped for all those flavors, burned my hand a time or two, covered the counter with foiled-lined cookie sheets, scented the whole house with root beer, watermelon, bubblegum, clove, anise and wintergreen (but NOT grape), and filled that gallon jar with cracked sparkling goodness.

Tell me, how crazy is that?

No, you don't have to tell me. I already know.

As much as I want to do it all, have it all and be it all, I also need to know my own limits.

Because Christmas will come even if I don't do any of those things. It will come if I live in a slum neighborhood in Philly or if I have Pancreatic Cancer or if my child dies or if I feel depressed or if my house burns down or if I lose my income or if my family comes down with ringworm or if my husband has pneumonia.

Christmas will come if I make gingerbread houses, or if I don't, if I find that perfect tree skirt I bought on sale last year after watching it all Christmas season, or if I remember that it got peed on by the dog, hung on the porch railing and forgotten until Spring.

Christmas will come if all of my children are home for the holidays, or if one is in a remote village in Western Africa avoiding poisonous snakes and making food out of trees.

Christmas will come if I find that one perfect present for each of my family members, and it will come if I have to buy everyone gift cards to Stuff-Mart, and it will come if I don't give anyone anything at all but a kiss and a heart-felt "I love you."

Christmas will come if I don't make hard tack candy. And it will come if I do.

Heck, yeah, it's fun to do some of that stuff. It's also a big pain to do some of that stuff. So I take my B-12, my Vitamins A and D and my Glucosamine and I do what I can, what I want to. And that might look different every year.

It has been looking a lot like Christmas every year for over 2000 years.

And the One who makes it look that way is not a God of guilt, but a God of hope and healing, love and forgiveness.

Maybe we can't do it all. Maybe we can. But maybe we can work on taking joy in what we can do, leaving the guilt out in the cold.

May you be blessed this Christmas season with pure peace and true joy.

(Photo of kids from Christmas 2005)

::: guilty either way :::

There are times when I need to just shut my mouth.

During these times, I think it's best to stare out the window silently and feel sorry for myself. The greatest satisfaction comes when I think of something so terribly sad that my eyes cloud up and mist over and all of the sadness spills out, and when I squeeze my eyelids together, it runs down my nose and tickles the outside of my nostril until I have to push it away with my sleeve or the tip of my finger.

There are times when I need to just speak my mind.

During these times, I know it's best to pause until the right words pop into my brain which cooperates with my mouth to bring forth the intended meaning. As the sentiments spill out, I know when they're hitting the mark, just like a basketball player who knows that the ball is headed for nothing but net the moment it leaves his fingertips. It just feels right.

What I should have learned by now, as an adult, as a human being, as an intelligent woman, is which times are which.

When I stare and the sadness spills and the nostril tickles, I feel childish and self-pitying.

When I speak and the words hit and they're nothing but net, I feel hubrish (it's not a word...yet) and bossy.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there is no right time for either. Maybe this is a causal oversimplification. There are likely many reasons why I feel childish, hubrish, self-pitying, bossy.

Either way, I feel like I should apologize.

So I'm sorry. I'm sorry for saying nothing, and I'm sorry for saying everything.

I hope that covers it.

::: there's a muddy road ahead :::

One of the things that bothers me about our culture is how we can sometimes be presented with a thought or piece of information that sounds like it's just burgeoning with wisdom, but, when truly analyzed, the message is actually quite false. We find this in films and music, especially, but also in writing.

Earlier this week, I was leafing through one of our local newspapers and came across the "religion" section in which there was 1/4 page public service ad showing a pair of shoes lying beside a closed door. Below the photograph was this piece of writing:

"In some homes, it is a tradition to leave your shoes at the door so the traces of the outdoors don't get tracked throughout the house. Floors stay cleaner as slippered or bare feet tread silently about. This week, as you approach your house of worship, enter God's house with happiness, don't bring the outside in. Leave your cares behind...deposit them at the door."

I can see how this piece could seem to offer a bit of wisdom, and, as a mother, I certainly appreciate the idea of a clean floor, but after reading this, my immediate reaction was, "Wait. Leave your cares behind? That's not right."

I mean, when we go through our week, that span of time between Sunday mornings, our shoes take us through all kinds of terrain. Some of it is rocky. Some of it is slippery. Some of it, yes, is even muddy. Sometimes we might even find ourselves wishing we were in someone else's shoes.

But to arrive at church and leave those shoes at the door? Even with my motherly desire for clean carpet, I have to disagree.

When we enter into our house of worship, we find family, family who has also walked for a week through the rocks, slime and mud, and when we gather together, we shouldn't leave all of that at the door, pretending we have no cares or concerns. Instead, we should bring it all in, all of the cares of the outside world, all of the dirt and grime and muddiness we've gathered, and let our church family help us bring it to the foot of the cross, let them help us knock that mud free of our shoes and come away clean, ready to step back into the world and face another week.

::: i like less than half of you half as well as you deserve :::

I'm becoming a hobbit.

Minus the hairy feet. 

I'm not sure if this is a medical condition or a sign of old age, but every day, I find that I'm more and more happy just staying home and being alone.

It's not that I don't like people.

Okay, yes it is.

But not always! There are some people I can tolerate being around. And there are some I actually like a lot! But there are those few darn people who make it pretty doggone hard to keep oneself from being a mistrustful misanthrope, and it's those people who make me break out in hives when I hear their ringtone on my cell phone, or send me hiding in my closet when there's a knock on the door.

There are people I truly like, though, but I find myself less and less inclined to just hang out with them, even though they've done nothing wrong and they're very fine people with no visible signs of wanting to devour my soul. There are simply more days that I'd like to be alone, or with my husband and kids, than out socializing and schmoozing. Part of it is fear of judgment. Part of it is the avoidance of banal small talk.

But part of it is my own failure to meet my expectations of myself.

I fantasize a lot. I dream of being well-liked, or well-known, or well-achieved. I plan amazing things and become delusional about their success. I devise grandiose schemes and wonder why I'm disappointed when they don't work out. I like the thought of perfection. I like the thought of success. I want an amazing garden, and an amazing house, and amazing kids, and an amazing marriage. Heck, I'd settle for an amazing blog! But when it comes right down to it, I don't really have the tools necessary to achieve greatness, like discipline and money and talent.

That can be a problem for someone like me. 

See, if I'm not living up to my own standards, which are pretty flippin' high, how do I think that other people are going to accept me, or, even more desirable, admire me, like me? And when I think someone's just on the verge of liking me, I can't handle the impending criticism that I just know is hanging on the very tip of their tongue. I don't need to hear how my storage container cupboard isn't as organized as it could be, or how I could keep my recipes in a binder instead of in a kitchen drawer, or how I'd be able to save more money of I used more beans and rice, or how my dogs are scaring the deer away or how I sabotaged the family event by showing up late or how I borrowed the electric skillet and it wasn't as clean as it should have been when I returned it. And since I've had my share of people chewing me out for being inadequate or being suspicious of my intentions, regardless of how hard I tried, I kind of seize up, feel like the trying itself is completely futile. When what I thought was my best wasn't good enough for others, or when I don't feel that I'm doing my best regardless of what others tell me, the very best plan I can come up with is to just hole myself up at home and avoid the rest of the great big ugly world and all of its crazy inhabitants.

That's the plan for today.

I stayed home from church. I'm not going to the grocery store. I won't set foot in a restaurant. I don't plan on leaving my room much. My biggest goal for the day will be to put food in my mouth and fold a pile of underwear. Today, my DVD player is my friend. My bed is my habitat. Neither delusion nor grandeur will be a part of my plan.

See? Don't attempt much and disappointment is nearly impossible.

Now, that's not how I generally live my life, but, for today, it's what I need.

Or at least it's what I'm doing.

::: if i get there before you do, i'll cut a hole and pull you through :::

How do you like to go up in a swing,
Up in the air so blue?
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
Ever a child can do!

Up in the air and over the wall,
Till I can see so wide,
Rivers and trees and cattle and all
Over the countryside—

Till I look down on the garden green,
Down on the roof so brown—
Up in the air I go flying again,
Up in the air and down!

~Robert Louis Stevenson

This is one of the girls' favorite poems, and when we read daily from The Child's Garden of Verses, this one is almost always read. The older children sang a version of it for choir.

Isn't swinging one of those simple, lovely things that makes childhood grand? One of my favorite memories is of my dad pushing me on my little metal swingset in the back yard, me soaring, he loudly singing, "Swing lo, sweet cherry-ought. Comin' for to carry me home." I can remember how I would rush to the swingset at the school next to my aunt's house, even into my teens, when my friend and I would pump our feet to the rhythm of our own voices singing The Steve Miller Band's Fly Like an Eagle.

It's great fun as a child. But somewhere along the line, we decide, or someone tells us, that we're too old for it, and then, when we want to return to it, our bottoms are too big for the seats, or our feet drag on the ground. But if we can get past those parts, it's still a simple, lovely thing to do.

And swinging in sync with a friend? Ah. Magical, isn't it?

I loved watching Sweetheart, The Baby, and their friend Lydia fly through the air, giggling, trying to slow down and speed up to match each other's flight. And even the competition that took place was interesting to watch. The synchronized swinging almost became an obsession with some, and a non-issue with others, and for those some who took it seriously, the fact that no one would sync with her was a great insult to her psyche.

Life is like that. There are things I take way to seriously, and someone might be able to say to me that it's no big deal, that I should just shrug it off, that it doesn't really matter anyway. But that doesn't erase my human emotions, my desire for relationship, my confusion when someone I love, or someone I try to love, rejects me, deals with me callously, or misunderstands my intentions. Why does it matter? Why does it bother me so? Why, when people who love me, people who really know me, people I respect and admire, tell me to forget about it, shrug it off, can't I do so?

I must not be the only one. I was listening to a repeat show on This American Life, an NPR radio program that I download as a podcast each week. This week's theme was The Kindness of Strangers. In it, Brett Leveridge tells the story of his experience of standing on a subway platform. A stranger, which, of course, means someone Brett doesn't even know, probably someone that no one waiting on the subway knows, meanders along the platform, and chooses people as if choosing players for a kickball game: "You're in. You're out. You can stay. You have to leave." But it wasn't like the people who were told they had to go left. They just ignored this strange person. Not Brett, though. For some reason, as the guy approached Brett, all he could think about was how he hoped the guy would approve of him. A guy he didn't even know. A total stranger.

So if, as humans, it matters to us that a total stranger approves of us, how much more important must it be that someone we know, someone who at least in modicum knows us, rejects us?

This is why, I believe, the person of Christ is so compelling. He was, and is, what we long to be. Perfect. Without sin. Blameless. And we long so much for that perfection and blamelessness, for that relationship and acceptance, that it's almost unbearable when someone rejects us for reasons we can't fully understand, even if it's a person we don't particularly like. Even if it's a person we can't really stand at all.

But here was Jesus, and, yeah, like I said. Perfect. Without sin. Blameless. And still, He had enemies. He was despised and rejected. Those He loved denied Him, betrayed Him, doubted Him. What must that have felt like for Him, who didn't just feel He hadn't done anything wrong. He really hadn't done anything wrong!

And so I know that, with all of my flaws and failures, I can't expect to be unconditionally loved by anyone but God, but this feeling of swinging so high, of laughing and and feeling that weightlessness, and laughing, and then falling and scooping so low, and reaching out my hand to sync with someone who chooses to keep theirs death-gripped tightly on the chains, pumping their feet so that they can rise higher and higher and higher than I, is always a bit of a shock to me. Hey, I think, wasn't this supposed to be fun?

And on the worst of days, I just want to jump off of the swing altogether.

My son told me recently that it takes seven positive comments to counteract one negative one. Seven. For every. single. negative. So if you get totally chewed out by someone, told in every way how you've failed, what a loser and terrible person you are, just imagine how much encouraging and building up your loved ones have to do to cancel out what that one uncaring, selfish, unthinking person did.

Wow.

No wonder it's so hard to love. It takes persistence, doesn't it? We have to keep undoing all that's been done, not just by us, but by others, too.

I guess that's why I want to be the one who swings next to you, who, when you reach out your hand for someone to sync with, grabs that hand and sticks right next to you, keeping time with your rhythm, no matter how high or low you go.

Sometimes I'm up, sometimes I'm down
Coming for to carry me home
But still my soul feels heavenly bound
Coming for to carry me home

The brightest day that I can say
Coming for to carry me home
When Jesus washed my sins away,
Coming for to carry me home.

::: seizing double :::

I recently read that you can reduce the number of chewing surface cavities you get by chewing on a stick of celery after your meals, which removes trapped food and helps saliva neutralize acids that cause tooth decay. I mentioned this to my husband, Bo, saying that it makes sense that 14 year-old Monet has so many chewing-surface cavities. We never eat celery!

"I like celery," Bo said.

19 years of marriage, and this, I never knew.

And as Bard was reading this, she said, "You didn't know that Dad liked celery? I like celery."

So while wandering in and around the produce department of my local grocer, I remembered that fact and reached out to score myself a bundle of crunchy greenness, plopped it into the cart, and reached for a second. I had to stop myself. It was a struggle, really. Not a physical struggle, no, but a mental struggle.

Why?

Because I'm afflicted with a terrible disorder. I seem to only be able to purchase things in twos.

I have no idea how this habit started or what my reasoning has been, if there has been any. But I remember discovering it for the first time.

I was standing in line at Stuff*Mart, placing my items on the conveyor, adding up my purchases in my head, when I became aware, through another strange habit of mine which is counting things, that I seemed to be bothered if I placed just one of something on the belt. One bottle of vitamins or one lampshade or one copy of Nacho Libre should be enough, if that's all I need, right? So why did it seem that the majority of my cart's contents came in multiples? And not in threes, or fives, or sevens, but always in twos. If there was one pound of butter, there was a second. One loaf of bread...two. One bottle of shampoo, one can of beans, one bag of rice? Yep, always a second one.

Now, to be fair to my slightly obsessive self, I do have a large family. With five kids in the house and usually one or two guests, plus a husband and a dad, we obviously go through more food, and more toilet paper, and more, well, more everything than a lot of people I know. But please. Who really *needs* two jugs of Tiki Torch fuel?

And also to be fair, it's often cheaper to buy two smaller containers of an item than the "family size." Have you ever noticed that? That family sizes can actually be more per ounce than the smaller ones? And that it changes, so you have to stay on your toes? Shame on those marketers. Shame, shame, shame.

So I've been trying to reform. I don't need double. I don't need double. and I certainly don't need to PAY double. While at the store today, I resisted the urge to toss in two boxes of allergy medicine. I chose three bottles of soda, in three different flavors. One bag of ice. With lots and lots of individual ice cubes inside the bag. I won't even attempt to count those. And even though I struggled in front of bargain bakery rack, I put back the fourth petite loaf of La Brea Roasted Chopped Garlic bread, leaving me with an odd number that only looks good in certain types of architecture.

From now on, I'll try to buy in twos only when absolutely necessary. Like in the case of pant legs. And Reese Cups. And pounds of baby swiss cheese. And extra-large glazed donuts from the local bakery. And strawberry rhubarb fry pies. And anything on clearance sale.

And Tiki Torch fuel.

Teaching as Doctrine Rules Made by Men

I started out this morning with a post about the work the family did in the yard and garden yesterday, which will still show its face, I'm sure.

But I just couldn't bring myself to do it right now, because I'm feeling a bit bothered by some things, and I'd like to get them off my chest. Here is as good a place as any.

First, let me preface this by saying that I'm not a highly political person. I abstained from voting in the 2008 presidential election because there was not a presidential candidate who represented me. I went to the polls, yes, and I voted on other issues and positions. But when it came right down to it, voting my conscience meant not casting a vote for president.

I was, however, excited about Barrack Obama's election. I think it's an amazing time in history, and, had I voted, I probably would have voted for Obama. Between the two, Barrack Obama lined up more with my political and faith beliefs than did McCain. And while I didn't vote, I'm proud to call Barrack Obama my president. This doesn't mean that I agree with all of his policies or actions, which is partly why I abstained.

But here's what's really on my mind. Ever since the presidential election, I have witnessed some of the ugliest, most selfish, ignorant behavior by my fellow Christians who live in these United States. Immediately after the results were announced, I heard and read young Christian friends say things like, "We're screwed," (by a thirteen-year-old Christian girl) and "My family's moving to Canada," and "I'm stockpiling guns" (by an eighteen-year-old Christian boy) and other things I can't repeat. They've been tossing about terms like "socialist" and "anti-christ" and "commie" and "Muslim" and "terrorist."

But even before the election, this type of talk began flying around in Christian circles, with partial thanks to conservative alarmists who make money by creating fear and anger. Early in the presidential campaign, when I first started hearing about this controversial figure named Barrack Obama, I began watching his speeches online. It was in his Call to Renewal address that I heard him speak these words:

"Faith doesn't mean that you don't have doubts. You need to come to church precisely because you are of this world, not apart from it; you need to embrace Christ precisely because you have sins to wash away - because you are human and need an ally in your difficult journey.

It was because of these newfound understandings that I was finally able to walk down the aisle of Trinity United Church of Christ one day and affirm my Christian faith. It came about as a choice, and not an epiphany; the questions I had did not magically disappear. But kneeling beneath that cross on the South Side of Chicago, I felt I heard God's spirit beckoning me. I submitted myself to his will, and dedicated myself to discovering His truth."

Just a few days later, while I was coaching a Christian speech and debate club, one of the teenage girls who I know fairly well warned a group of teens and me that there was a previously unknown Muslim man who must be defeated running for president, that he had even used the Qur'an to be sworn into office (Office? I thought. Didn't you just say he was unknown?), and that he had to be a terrorist; his middle name is Hussein! She and others asserted that we could NOT allow him to be president; his very name sounded like Osama bin Laden's!

I listened patiently, but I was disappointed. Here before me was a young Christian whose hobby was debating and giving speeches, which involves a lot of research into political issues, which involves finding truth, and she was making this claim against a man I had heard days before speaking to an organization which I trusted and respected and making a confession of faith in Christ, submitting himself to God's will. Furthermore, the statements she was making were eerily similar to the ignorant, fear-mongering viral e-mail I'd seen in my inbox earlier that month, an e-mail that could easily be debunked by a quick trip to snopes. The rest of the teens in the room were eagerly nodding their agreement with their peer.

"Have you heard him speak?" I asked.
"No," she answered.
"He's not a Muslim. In fact, he's made a confession of the Christian faith. He's a practicing Christian. He's a fellow believer."

She seemed stunned. I felt like a heathen. I knew that this was not the accepted view in conservative circles and wondered if the parents of these students would shun me. How could this man, a black democrat with a Muslim-sounding name, be one of us?

And while young people are fully able to form opinions of their own, I believe that much of this misinformation, quick judgment and fear-mongering forms around the kitchen table and in the family car. Since the beginning of the presidential race, I've heard many adults spout similar ignorant nonsense.

Just a few weeks ago, I was volunteering at my favorite thrift store when I noticed a female shopper wearing a white t-shirt bearing this message, hand-written with fabric paint in red and blue:

"(Our county) Tea Party: Freedom or Socialism."

When she approached the register, in lieu of a greeting she said to me, "Have you heard the news?" I immediately thought of all of the "news" I've heard over the years that has shaken me--the 9/11 attacks, the Challenger explosion, the Ronald Reagan assassination attempt--and I braced myself.

"We're not a Christian nation," she huffed indignantly.
"I'm sorry?"
"We're not a Christian nation. That's what that Obama is going around the world telling all the other countries."

Because I was representing my favorite thrift store at the time, I didn't feel that I could respond the way I would if I were representing myself, my country and my faith. I wanted to tell her that, yes, President Obama did make the statement that we do not consider ourselves to be a Christian nation...or a Jewish nation...or a Muslim nation, but a nation of citizens bound by a set of values. That even George Washington made it clear, stating that "everyone shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid." Our tenth president, John Tyler, touted the U.S's "total separation of Church and State" saying that "no religious establishment by law exists among us" leaving the conscience "free from all restraint and each is permitted to worship his Maker after his own judgment." He offered the U.S. as a welcoming place for all, saying, "The Mohammedan, if he will to come among us would have the privilege guaranteed to him by the constitution to worship according to the Koran; and the East Indian might erect a shrine to Brahma, if it so pleased him."

Why is this? Why can we not call the U.S. a Christian nation? It's because our country was founded as a republic, which is a state without a monarch, a state in which the rights of the individual are protected by a charter, in this case, the Constitution, not the Bible. You can have a communist republic or a socialist republic. Your country can be a republic but also a democracy. And, if I'm not mistaken, socialism and communism are economic systems, not forms of government.

Having said all that, let me go back to how all of this affects me personally.

I made a declaration of faith when I was sixteen years old, decided to become a Christian after a young man named Nicholas Giaconia jumped onstage in cut-off blue jeans, shoeless, with guitar in-hand, during a talent show I was judging, having been the reigning Old Fashioned Days queen the previous year. After his performance, I talked to Nick about the song he shared, how it moved me, and he invited me to a concert where he opened for a group called Glad. In the darkness of that hall, I stood and made a commitment to Christ. I was a young girl. I was moved greatly by my emotions. I'm not sure I entirely knew what I was committing to. But in the months, and, indeed, years that followed, I took that commitment seriously, reading my Bible and learning what it meant to be a Christian, one who lives to follow the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. I wasn't really part of a Christian culture. I hadn't been raised in a church. My parents were not believers. I guess you could say that I was a Berean, that I studied the Scriptures daily to know how to live this life I had chosen, without much input from others.

Here are a few of the things I discovered that Jesus taught:

• Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth.
• Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
• Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.
• Whoever strikes you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also.
• If anyone sues you to take away your coat, let him have your cloak also.
• Let your will be done, as in heaven, so on earth.
• If you don’t forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
• You can’t serve both God and Mammon.
• Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who mistreat you.
• He who seeks his life will lose it; and he who loses his life for my sake will find it.
• Every idle word that men speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment.
• I was hungry, and you gave me food to eat. I was thirsty, and you gave me drink. I was a stranger, and you took me in. I was naked, and you clothed me. I was sick, and you visited me. I was in prison, and you came to me.
• Put your sword back into its place, for all those who take the sword will die by the sword.

These are the words that, as a sixteen-year-old girl, I had committed to live by. And the more I read the words of Jesus, the things He taught, the more I realized that He knew what He was talking about. I remember, shortly after my commitment to Christianity, having a conversation in my high school civics class centered around politics. I thought it was very simple, and I said so; if we all followed the teachings of Jesus, our biggest world problems would be solved.

I still believe that today.

This morning, as I was hanging out on my favorite social networking site, one of my young politically conservative Christian friends posted this as her status message:

• Socialism: If you own two cows you give one to your neighbour.
• Communism: You give both cows to the government and the government gives you back some of the milk.
• Fascism: You keep the cows but give the milk to the government, which sells some of it back to you.
• Obamaism: You shoot both cows and milk the government.

Several people commented after her, agreeing and laughing, but I couldn't help remembering the day I was representing my favorite thrift store, and the woman who proudly wore her "Freedom or Socialism" t-shirt.

What is it called when you freely give your cow to your neighbor?
Your food?
Your water?
Your time?
When your allegiance isn't to a country?
When you don't serve the dollar?
When you freely, voluntarily, give your life?

Because if the church were doing this first--whatever it is called--if the hands and feet of Christ were freely giving to those in need, the government, which nonetheless rests on the shoulders of Christ, wouldn't need to bother.

I think it's time that the Christians take seriously the words of Chronicles 7:14:

"If my people, who are called by my name, will humble [emphasis mine] themselves...then will I hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

Because in addition to those red-letter words I mentioned before? There's this one, which I definitely don't want to be guilty of:

• These people draw near to me with their mouth, and honor me with their lips; but their heart is far from me, and in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrine rules made by men. ~Matthew 15:9.
  

On Earth As It Is In Heaven

I canned ten quarts of peaches today. Not because I am or want to be Martha Stewart. Not because I have anything against the peaches you buy in cans at the local Stuff*Mart (actually, The Baby declared that she likes those better, though she has yet to taste the home-canned goods). Not because I grew my own peaches, because I didn't--my peach tree died last year after finally producing a heavy crop of almost-ripe fruit which calcified before it was time to harvest, just before all of the leaves turned a crisp peach-tree-death brown and fell to the ground.

I canned ten quarts of peaches today because I like the way they look, floating around in that fragile yet sturdy transparent jar, fleshy and buoyant and preserved. I like the way they look, and I like that I like the way they look. Some people like beer. Some people like cigarettes. Some people like hunting. I like canning peaches, okay?

Yesterday, while I was picking up a few canning supplies at my local necessary evil Stuff*Mart, I dropped my hodgepodge of shopping bags onto the conveyor. The young man at the counter, always up for a bit of controversial yet lighthearted conversation, grabbed the bags with mock begrudgery and sneered, "Thanks for ruining my day."

"Ruining your day? Oh...because one of my bags is torn?"
"No," he huffed, "for using them at all."
"Well, just look at it this way; I'm helping you in the long run."
"Ha! If you really think you're powerful enough to save the planet by not using a few plastic bags..."
"A little corner of it, yes..."
"...then, Al Gore certainly has brainwashed you."
"I've never even spoken to Al Gore."

A further conversation ensued about Al Gore's electricity usage and the size of his carbon footprint.

But that's not what I was thinking about.

I was thinking about my shopping bags. I was thinking that I like them. Not because I'm an Al Gore fanatic. Not because I'm trying to save the entire world. Just because I like them. I like how useful they are. I like that my daughter used them to move to her college dorm. I like how I can throw them in the washing machine and they come out nice and clean. I like the red ones and the green ones that are stamped with the words, "Speak Softly and Carry a Bag of Books" that I bought at the Better World Books store in Goshen, Indiana, a business that collects and sells books to fund literacy initiatives worldwide, with more than two million new and used titles in stock, operating as a self-sustaining company that creates social, economic and environmental value for all our stakeholders. Better World offers free shipping to any location within the United States or 3.97 worldwide, and every order is shipped carbon neutral with offsets from Carbonfund.org. And while I like my shopping bags, I also like that I'm not contributing to the consumption of 500,000,000,000 (yes, that's BILLION) plastic bags per year. I don't like to see them floating around in the trees. You don't either. Even Wal*Mart doesn't like it. That's why they stopped producing those trademark blue smiley-face bags that could be easily identified on roadsides and dangling from trees everywhere and went with the more generic white bags, added trash cans to their parking lots, and introduced their own line of reusable shopping bags. Watching a sea turtle choke on that blue plastic smiley face is a PR nightmare.

I was thinking about how I stopped buying paper towels about a year ago, and how I pick up cloth napkins and hand towels from my favorite thrift store, and how the money I spend there goes to help provide basic human needs internationally while the store also does their part to help people recycle things that they might otherwise have thrown away. I was thinking about the fact that I love that thrift store so much that I drag my sorry butt out of bed three Friday mornings per month to volunteer at the cash register.

I was also thinking about the furniture in my house, how almost all of it, with some very minor exceptions, came from that thrift store, or from Freecycle, or from dumpster diving.

And I was thinking about the local farmers I support, buying produce and deliciously smoky maple syrup and vases of gladiolas from that wonderful little stand called Blessing Acres run by a hard-working Amish woman whose husband died of cancer two years ago.

I might even have had time to squeeze in a few thoughts about the lack of chemicals on my lawn, how I bend down to pop a dandelion or broadleaf plantain out of my lawn and either eat it or toss it to the sheep, or how I let the milkweed, thistle and blackberries grow to provide food for the monarchs, goldfinches and other birds. How I didn't till my garden this year, but instead heaped it with all kinds of manure, both animal and green, and spent a few more hours this summer hunched over yanking bits of purslane out of the soil and popping them into my mouth, just so I wouldn't chop up the worms I've been trying so hard to encourage to live in my garden.

Because you can have a lot of thoughts in those few seconds after someone says, "Thanks for ruining my day."

I guess I just figure that God gave me this amazing planet and all of the absolutely incredible creatures that inhabit it (yes, humans included) to enjoy and be a good steward of. The way I look at it, in relation to heaven, this big ball of dirt must be pretty small, and if I'm faithful with it, I might get something bigger some day. That'd be cool.

So, now, I probably won't save the whole planet with my canned peaches, or my cloth shopping bags, or my thrift store napkins, or the redworms in my garden. But really. What's it gonna hurt?

And besides, I *like* them.

::: this one's for you, wherever you are :::

Life is too doggone short, you know?

This week, two of my friends have lost parents to complications from cancer. This evening, I attended the memorial service of one. I hadn't known my friend's dad very well at all, but listening to the people who spoke about his life, I was so sorry that I hadn't known him better. As a matter of fact, the longer I sat there, the more sorry I became that there are a lot of people I don't know as well as I should, and I was saddened by how unfamiliar everything was to me. Yeah, I was in a familiar church. Sure, I knew a lot of faces. Yes, I count some of those people as friends. But do I really know them? Do they really know me?

I remember when my uncle Paul died of a brain tumor about 12 years ago. I slinked into the funeral parlor sheepishly, not really wanting to make conversation with anyone. Though I spent a lot of time as a child at my aunt and uncle's house, I never felt like part of that family. I never felt like they knew me or loved me. For some reason, I always got the distinct feeling that I was the troublemaker, the black sheep. Even now, when my dad talks to his sister, I know that the bulk of their conversation is centered around me, my mistakes, my bad choices, my failures. So I didn't feel welcomed in that family, and I didn't feel welcomed at that funeral.

But when people began to talk about my uncle and the choices he made as a man with a brain tumor, the faith choices, I began to see him in a different light, and I wondered why I hadn't spent more time getting to know him. The people who shared what they knew about my uncle were strangers to me, and the man they talked about was just as much of a stranger. I hadn't known him as a man of faith. I had known him as a tough, strong, condescending kind of man. I remembered him as the big, scary person who would make fun of me--not tease me, mind you, but make fun of me--for having knots in my hair or stains on my pants or dumb-looking dolls. I always felt small and insignificant and stupid around him. Who was this great man all of these people were talking about at this funeral? Why hadn't I met *that* man? Why hadn't *he* been my uncle? What had I done wrong to lose out on *that* relationship?

I'm not saying it was all his fault, either. I don't have such a great track record with carrying on deep, meaningful relationships. I think my expectations of myself are too high. If I can't be a perfect friend, a best friend, then there's no point in trying to be a friend at all, you know?

And I'm pretty hard on friends, too, to be fair. Not as hard as I am on myself, but pretty darn hard. I expect a lot of a friendship, though I may not say that aloud. So if you're not going to be a true blue friend, don't even make the effort. Harsh, huh? I guess the older I get, the more of a misanthrope I become.

Because I've put myself out there quite a few times, taken the risk, exposed my soft (and it really is soft) underbelly. And I've been hurt so many times because of that vulnerability, torn apart by people who claim to know me but have never really taken the time to do anything other than judge me and look for my faults and then tell me, in no uncertain terms, how badly I've screwed up, that it gets harder and harder to put my real feelings out here on this blog for fear of being misunderstood, misjudged, and truly attacked.

Yet here I am again. And why? Because one person told me tonight that they miss my blog entries. That they enjoy my writing.

My son told me recently that it's been proven that it takes seven positive things to cancel out one negative thing. In other words, if one person in my life tells me that I'm a screw-up, that I've failed, that I really let them down, it takes seven people saying great things about me to neutralize that negative thing. I think that's a bit conservative, actually. I'd venture to say that it takes ten positives. Maybe even twenty. And I'm not sure that those harsh, hateful words ever disappear. I think they just sit there, haunting every word I type, sometimes just lying about benignly, but only until someone even hints at one of my weaknesses, and then all of those negative things come back to the surface, sniffing for wounds and ripping open a major artery like the 1916 shark attacks along the Jersey Shore.

So maybe you were number seven, Brenda. Or maybe your sincerity was enough to be numbers five, six and seven altogether.

Or maybe it was you, Mel, when you asked me if I feel that blogging is a valid way of recording family history (and for those of you who are wondering, my answer was yes), listened to my less-than-expert ramblings with patience, and made me realize that, if I believe that these writings are valid, accurate records of a life, I should probably keep at it, even in the face of the nasty trolls, both real and imagined, who try to convince me of my worthlessness. Because, as I've said before, this blog is not for them. It's for me. It's for my family. It's for Kim and Paul and Catherine and Nicholas. It's for Brenda and Mel. It's for Jill and MamaGeph and Michael and Kris. It's for Tammy and Hope and Kathie and Gina. It's for Donna and Diane and True and Lil Sis, Raymond and I.M and Patrick and Dean, Peaceful Lady and Marie and MamaNutt and Linda and Gail and Analisa and TulipGirl. It's for you who come here to cry with me, and laugh with me and empathize and nod and cheer, to comment or not to comment, but to read. To think. To be changed. To muddle through with me.

And it's for God. It's what I promised him when I handed over this mess of a life, this brief, fleeting moment, this comic tragedy. It's his to do with what he wants, to use how he sees fit.

I thank God for Benny, even though I only knew him for a fraction of a second. His life and death gave opportunity for all of us with our own fleeting moments to gather in one room for long enough to get yet another glimpse into each other's lives.

Can we get together more often? And not just at weddings and funerals over coffee and lemon bars? Can we enmesh ourselves in each other's lives, cook with each other, sing with each other, worship together, watch movies together, get angry together, and still accept each other with the same unconditional love with which Christ accepts us?

I want to get to know you deeply, truly, so that we don't sit at each other's funerals and say, "Gosh. I wish I would have known her."

Facebookin'

It was early in the facebook craze when a college-aged friend told me about the social networking site. At that point, facebook was mostly for college students. I don't think it even accepted high school students then. I was skeptical of it. Okay, let me rephrase that. I thought it sounded pretty stupid. 

I mean, "facebook?" What the heck? What does that even mean? 

I tucked the concept away, sticking it into my brain's version of the mini mesh metal trash can in my Mac's dock. Much like with that icon, there are times when I fail to right-click on my brain's trash can and choose "empty." 

So years later, when my high-school aged children mentioned facebook again, I opened the contents of my brain's trash folder and scanned the files. Ah, yes. There it is. That's the site I thought was so stupid years ago. Facebook? What does that even mean? 

"It's like a yearbook, Mom. Get it? Like a yearbook online, where you can see everyone you know, and all of their information, and their pictures. I think you'd like it. You should join."

And to appease my children, I let them set me up with a facebook page. 

Oh. My. Goodness. 

Suddenly the social networking world opened me up and swallowed me whole. Sure, I had a blog. Sure, I had a myspace. But this--THIS--was something completely different. With facebook, I could keep in touch with all of my young friends, like my speech and debate students, and my homeschool group students, and even my college-aged friend who first introduced me to facebook. I could keep in touch with my extended family, posting pictures and having brief discussions. I could even have conversations with my children, play games like Scrabble and TextTwirl. I could keep in touch with friends who had moved away or I'd moved away from. I could connect with high school friends that I hadn't seen in twenty years. And instead of asking them to update me on what was going on in their lives, I could just click, click, click, and I'd know what was going on without them even telling me. I could create groups about things I loved, invite people to events I was hosting, or post video projects I'd created. It was like being in one big room where everyone I knew and loved was present (kind of like my idea of heaven!), even though they weren't connected to one another. And because it's a private place, a place where only my friends can view my information and interact with me, I wasn't all that worried about my personal security.

It wasn't long before I was hooked, addicted, strung out on facebook. And it wasn't long after that before I received an e-mail from a friend exposing me to the evils of facebook. A frightening presentation told me about the risks I'm taking by divulging my personal information on a social networking site. In McCarthyistic style, the presentation suggested that the information that I share on facebook could land me on a blacklist sometime in the future, possibly when religious and political freedoms are limited in the United States, possibly in the very near future, and that all information, including my interests, organizations and affiliations, could be used to indict me. 

For a little while, it frightened me. Actually, sometimes it still does. I know what kinds of persecutions took place when between 11 and 17 million men, women and children were systematically exterminated during the Holocaust, starting in 1935 with the Nuremberg Laws and continuing on through the liberation of Theresienstadt in 1945. That kind of systematic destruction of a people is not behind us. It happens today in many forms, whether through the murder of white farmers in South Africa, vandalism and destruction in Turkey, or torture for Christian conversion in Laos. 

So if facebook were a government fact-finding service, designed to collect as much condemning information about me as possible, what would they find? And if I didn't have a facebook, would there still be enough evidence in my life to convict me of being a Christian? A peacemaker? A thinker? An NPR listener? A music lover? A reader? A volunteer? An addict of The Office?

Of course there would be. 

Which brings me to this thought: I'm not worried about my facebook information because I have nothing to hide. I have nothing to hide. I have to think pretty hard when I consider those words. Are they true? Yes. Yes, they are. I have nothing to hide. At least I don't want to hide anything. I want to be real about who I am. I want to be open with the fact that I am an imperfect person. I'm a self-centered, quirky, eclectic, stubborn woman with vain ideas. I'm materialistic and frequently overspend on things I don't need. I lose my temper easily and often get impatient with my loved ones. I'm prone to paranoia, self-doubt and intense moments of self-criticism. I'm a blamer, and I expect way, way, way too much of people. I'm opinionated, idealistic and argumentative. 

But I also want to be open to what God would have me be. Through him, through Jesus, and through the Holy Spirit, my weaknesses can be his strengths. The Holy Spirit can make me what I need to be. I can be kind and loving. I can be a visionary and a peacemaker. I can encourage, lift up, serve and intercede. Through God, I can be made new. 

God is doing all kinds of new things!

Technology is moving forward, and these crazy beings called "people" are moving along with it. While we can lament the disappearance of the hand-written letter and look with disdain upon the rash spontaneity of e-mail and text messaging, the truth is that these actions are merely symptoms of a truth. Human beings want to interact with someone. They're looking for acceptance, love and relationship. They're looking for someone to always be there to hear them, to listen, to respond. 

I believe that God can use me, in all of my imperfection and maybe even in spite of it, to work in the lives of others, being his hands and feet, his eyes, ears and mouth. 

And I believe that he can use these ridiculous inventions like social networking sites to do it. 

Up next, my thoughts on Twitter. 

::: oh, to be a cat :::

What's it like to be a cat for a living? To spend one's days figuring out how to squeeze one's self into places that one would not normally care to squeeze into? To be enamored by every moving thing, whether it's the ladybug on the window, or the cursor on the computer screen, or the laser beam controlled by a teenage boy, or one's own tail?

What must life be like when one's only worries are when the people will rise and fill the food bowl, or banish one from the counter, or spill some cream as they're filling their coffee mugs? What must it be like to fill one's days with searching for the warmest beam of sunshine or the freshest basket of clean laundry or the last sleeping child? No worries about exercise, or relationships, or beauty. One simply knows that one looks good, even in one's graceful act of bathing.

And when one has an issue with a fellow cat, one simply lets out a horrifying hiss or a terrific growl, maybe even bats a clawed paw, and the message is clear. Soon enough, one will be playing with one's enemy, or one's tail, and all will be right with the world again.

When one needs a change of scenery or a safe hiding place, one has only to climb a tree, or curl up on a warm refrigerator, or perch atop an open door, and then one can have a view of everything, can bat at the people as they pass by, just for fun, or can completely ignore them, also just for fun. One can turn one's gorgeous green eyes upon the people, or turn and lift one's tail with dignity; one can choose to pay attention, or to not, but one can not be ignored, whether one is lying on the keyboard or the newspaper or pawing at the yarn in the evening or at a person's face in the wee morning hours, hoping for a little nibble of something, or eager to leave a dead-mouse gift, or hoping to get the person's attention just long enough to ignore them.

If I were a cat for a living, I would rule the world, I'm sure. Mice would fear me, children adore me, trees cradle me. And no matter what I was doing, whether sleeping or bathing or eating or playing, I would always be gorgeous.

What is this feeling?

While many people close to me have headed back to work, school and regular routines, I'm resisting. After moving at a break-neck pace for so long, I almost feel as if I'm suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome. Often when my day begins, I don't really want to do anything, just bask in the stillness and quietness of the day. I don't have any interest in interacting with people, really, and I don't feel like cooking, cleaning or going out. Some might say it's depression, and I have to admit that some days I think that, too, but then I wonder if it's not something else. Something less vile and destructive. What if it's a feeling that I've gone without for so long that I can barely recognize it for what it is. What if it's just contentment. Satisfaction. Wanting for nothing.

Peace.

I'm happy to laze in bed and watch an independent film while the kids do their lessons, and then read to them for a while, or watch a nature show on the Mac in my room, or just cuddle quietly. I'm happy for them to finish their lessons and then spend the afternoon playing with their new Christmas gift, the family Wii. The contentment and quietness pervades. Is that okay? Is it okay that right now, in the stillness of my bedroom, all I can hear is a yelling blue jay, the icy snow falling on skylight and the ticking of my clock? Is that acceptable?

It's so peaceful. It's what I want.

And yet, I find myself feeling guilty for having it. I should be...I should be...I should be.... The expectations, requirements and necessities pour in, and I struggle to keep them at bay. I'm content, and yet I find myself looking for ways to alleviate the guilt I feel for being content.

Is anyone starving? No, of course not. Crying, unhappy, bored? No. Are my children well-cared-for? Intelligent? Rested? Loved? Very much so. The grumbling recedes. The bickering ebbs away. We're in a sanctuary. A safe place. A respite.

The other day, Bo and I took Bard and her friend out for the evening so that Bard could do some clothing shopping before going back to college. While I was meandering around Target with my empty shopping cart, finding nothing I felt I needed, a familiar face came toward me, a family friend who I've lost touch with a bit since we've moved to the country. A hug. A talk. Catching up. His wife is one of my best friends, though, even in this age of communication, we rarely take time to talk. Still, I know that she's my friend. I value her friendship dearly, admire her greatly, miss her tremendously. And while I spoke to her husband, he listened to me tell of how we've cut back, pared down, retreated a bit. Things are slower now, I said. We're taking it easy. He told me that when his wife, my friend, would read my blog, read about all of the things we were doing and going to and being, she would question herself. "Are we doing this right?" she would ask her husband. "Are we homeschooling our children okay? Should we be doing more?" And he told her that, no, they should not be doing more. They were doing what was right. For them.

I often fall into the trap of questioning myself, second-guessing my choices. Shouldn't I be doing more? Accomplishing more? Reading more? Teaching more? Working more? Cleaning more? Usually those questions come from my inner struggles with comparing myself to others. What a dangerous thing to do, no? I need to do what is right for me, for my family, for now, for this moment in time. My child is not your child. Your house is not my house. We are not the same person, in the same struggles, with the same desires, goals, dreams, hurts, families, angers, choices, possessions, means, debts, beliefs. We are unique. I am. You are. My choices today are based on my knowledge, and yours have to be, too. We love our families. We are doing what is right for them.

When I was a child, I would close my eyes and press the heels of my palms into my closed eyelids. The pressure would send psychedelic colors pulsing into sight, busy and vibrant and symmetrical and changing. I would pretend that I was in another world, that I was falling through some type of carnival ride, fast and furious--everything was moving and morphing. And when it began to hurt a bit, I would take my hands away and open my eyes. Slowly, the real world would come back into focus, but there would still be flashes of light and blind spots for a few moments. I would still feel the affect of that pressure; it would take a few minutes to blink it away.

In this stillness and contentment, I still find myself blinking away the busy, vibrant, changing, fast and furious carnival ride I was on. I can't always see things clearly, but it's slowly coming back into focus.

Photos: View from My Bed, 1-7-2009

The day is new and fresh. Now what will I do with it? I have my plans, of course, as I normally do when I wake to the sun peaking over the hill. I have a lovely view of it from my bedroom window; on most days, I'm happy to greet it, especially lately as I've made the decision to minimize my stress by staying home more, making a commitment to say, "I'm sorry, but I'm not able to do that." I don't say no to everything, but I have cut way, way back on the things that I do as an individual and the things we do as a family outside of our home. Gone are the days of rushing around looking for choir uniforms, or making hour-long drives to this or that organization, or spending days at a time preparing classes for other homeschooled children who choose not to do their assignments anyway. My focus needs to be on my family, on my health, and on the things that I know I can dedicate my time to fully without stressing everyone out.

So, my days are less stressful now. I know that who I am is not wrapped up in my performances. I can have meaningful relationships with people without "proving myself" through committees and organizations and meetings and clubs and societies. And now, if you ask me to do something and I say, "yes," you can know that I mean it fully.

Which leaves many of my days open and flexible. I like that.

Today, for example, is Saturday. Last year, I would have woken on any given December Saturday with a feeling of dread. What long car ride or unpleasant commitment do I have to greet today? Moreover, regardless of how well I do my task today, someone will not be pleased and I will feel that I've failed. What a depressing way to greet the day! How many things I put on the back burner, like teaching my children basic household tasks, or writing an essay, or making meals at home so that I could "be there" for this or that organization, job or club.

But today, I sit at home inhaling the aroma of my son's breakfast-making--pancakes and bacon-- and listening to the sounds of the dryer running, a blessing that has come about because I stopped saying "not now" to the nine-year-old daughter who kept begging me to teach her to do laundry. She has become a maniac, a laundry-doing machine; she sorts, washes, dries, folds, hangs, matches and puts away clothes better than I every have.

Last night, Bo and I were marveling over Sweetheart's gift as a laundress. When she came into the room, we decided to let her choose what the family would do for dinner that night. She didn't know, wasn't comfortable choosing. Couldn't we ask someone else? Couldn't we take a vote? We explained to her that we were giving her this choice because she had done such a fabulous job taking over the laundry chores. She didn't need a reward, she insisted. She likes doing laundry.

She likes doing laundry.

She likes it.

She. LIKES. it.

And so, doing laundry is its own reward. No other reward is needed.

She likes sorting the whites from the darks.

She likes starting the machine.

She likes putting in the laundry detergent and the fabric softener.

She likes the routine of putting the wash into the dryer.

She likes taking the warm clothes from the dryer, smelling their freshness, folding them and ushering them off to their proper locations.

She finds the reward in the enjoyment of the task.

This is the lesson I'm trying to learn. I will say yes to those things I've been gifted to do, those things that bring others joy, certainly, but that bring me joy because the doing of them is my reward. Of course I have to do some unpleasant tasks, but I'm learning to even enjoy those, and to reap my reward from the task itself, not from what others think of it.

This morning, I have a Saturday, and I have a to-do list that is dotted with reasonable expectations, planning ahead, and relishing the process.

And tomorrow will be new, and fresh, and I will not dread it.

Of snow and scarves and hats and men

Man, check out that snow. It's like a shake-em-up after all of the big flakes have fallen and the after-effects of the giant hand have stopped. The air is almost perfectly still, and just the little bits and wisps of tiny, delicate flurries remain. The birds are totally into the feeders right now, especially the suet, and while I sit here, a little downy woodpecker is hanging off the suet grate, sending out gentle chips and chirps, not eating, really, but just hanging there, basking in the comfort that energy and sustenance is right beneath his feet.

It's a still and peaceful morning. Bo has trudged off to his new job (as of about five months ago) as the production manager of a local chocolate company, the children are nestled all snug in their beds (even the eldest, I'm sure, who is making the most of that bohemian bent she gets from her father now that she's a freshman in college), and even the dogs are silent, all six of them, dotted here and there throughout the house, some under covers with children, some snuggled together in a pile of cast-off clothing that's not good enough for the thrift store, and one curled up on the soft blanket behind me. Even my live-in father, who rises early to indulge himself in one of his favorite obsessive activities, vacuuming, is still off in dreamland.

It won't last long, this silence. In less than an hour, Sweetheart and I will be scrambling to get to piano lessons, stuffing ourselves into our winter layers and wrapping scarves around our necks. I might even wear my hat, which is something I love to do but am still not convinced that I can actually pull it off. Some people's heads are made for hats. Some people have just the right distance between their eyebrows and their hairlines. I, however, have eyebrows that get lost under ever hat I wear, and it makes me look like a very serious swimmer who has shaved off all of his body hair to gain speed. This hat, however, looks halfway decent on me. At least I think it does when I first put it on. After a while, I think it just looks silly, which irks me because I really want to be the kind of person who can pull off wearing a hat.

Scarves, however, I can do, because anyone with a neck can do a scarf, and so I proudly don the masterpiece I created in honor of Bo's 36th birthday. It's made of this beautiful natural, earthy brown wool from Australia, which has no meaning whatsoever, other than it's natural and it's earthy and it's brown. But everything else about the scarf has meaning, symbolism. It's 36 stitches wide, to represent the number of years Bo had been on the planet at that time. It's 6'2" long, which is how tall he was when he'd been on the planet for 36 years. It has 13 ribs, which represents how many years we'd been married at that time. And it took me for. eh. ver. to make the thing. Ribbing and I are not good friends. I've tried several ribbed projects and always seem to mess them up somehow. But I was determined with this one, so I kept at it. And now it's done, and it's still beautiful six years later. Problem: Bo doesn't really wear it. Solution: I do. And I love how I can toss one end ever-so-carelessly over my shoulder and the other end still hangs past my belly button. It matches my style, my general color choices (earth tones and blacks) and I am unabashedly proud that I made it. I used to resist wearing it because it belonged to Bo, but now I think it belongs to me. He's just not a scarf-wearer, even though he has a neck and everything. Even though I always knew I'd have a Great Gatsby dresser in my stash of immediate male relatives, I just don't. They don't like khaki pants, or crisp white shirts, or those very cool haircuts that men had in the 20's. For me, a pocket watch chain draped from a pair of tan pleated pants is such a turn-on, just about as much as a simple pair of jeans and a white t-shirt. Classic. Quite sexy. And while I've recently talked Bo into wearing white t-shirts (love it, love it, love it), I don't think the crisp dress shirt, pocket watch and khakis are coming along anytime soon, and it seems I'm out of men, with my sons prefering much more casual attire.

And now I hear the click of the microwave door as my father starts his daily rituals of coffee, the telling of terrible news stories, and reminders of what I must do today. And then the vacumming will begin.

The silence is broken. It's time for me to get going with my day.

Of pigs and bacon

It's fall, and winter's nosing up behind. I can tell it's fall without even opening my eyes, because I feel like baking cookies, and the aroma of granola is wafting through the house. A dish of roasted seckle pears and an acorn squash dotted with butter and sprinkled with salt are the most decadent dishes I've devoured this week. The nasturtiums are thriving in the neglect that occurs in the garden this time of year--no weeding or trampling, and no watering. My bag of garlic cloves and hyacinth bulbs are waiting to be planted, a task that must happen this weekend if it's to happen at all, provided my tiller can be repaired. The down comforter lies folded at the foot of the bed, and the extra quilts are dotting the house, sometimes seen draped around the body of a teenager hunched over a cup of soup or bowl of oatmeal. The pig, our very first, is ready for butchering. I made the call today, leaving a message for "Butcher Dan," a man who will come to our home with a butchering truck to do the deed right here.

It's a bittersweet idea, this hog butchering time. After all, the big black beast has been part of the scene of my kitchen window landscape for a year now. She has rendered the garbage disposal completely useless, which is great, since it decided to relieve itself of it's intermittent duty this past week. Why put through a mechanical chopper what I can feed to a live one, and eat later? I've always been very conscious of food waste, but now I feel justified when I toss out a cup of lukewarm milk or a pile of apple peels or a hunk of bread specked with mold. That beast will eat it up, and I'll eat it up when I enjoy that bacon on an icy day.

And yet, I still recognize the twinge of sadness that was my companion during the days of my vegetarianism. How can I not, when I can recall the last summer days, and how we all, as a family, gathered under the apple tree during Bard's last visit home from college, and filled buckets, baskets and barrels under the watchful eye of a beautiful sunset, keeping the good falls and dumping the bad into the pasture, musing over the swine's devouring of the fallen treats. Oh, to eat with abandon! And, of course, comes the joke of the apple in the cavernous mouth of the roasted pig; could it have been the end of the pig, the choking on the last of the fall fruits in its greedy hunger?

Today, as I mixed the granola in the large stainless steel bowl, pouring in sheets of local honey, smoky maple syrup and thick, creamy raw milk, I glanced out the window, taking in the glowing golden maples, and there was my pig, dancing in the barnyard, her squiggly tail flapping along behind her as she ran and spun and leaped in the coolness of the day. Who can help but think of Wilbur and his joyous romp as Charlotte proclaimed him to be Some Pig? And yet I wonder who would voluntarily feed a meat hog to its natural death.

I am no longer a vegetarian. Meat is not something I love, but it's something I sometimes crave and often appreciate, especially if it's very good. Pork, in all forms, is my favorite meat. A crisp bacon. A breakfast sausage. A cottage ham. A pork roast with warm sauerkraut, mashed potatoes and browned butter. And the bacon grease which provides a base for fried potatoes, scrambled eggs, spinach salad, green beans. I think of Laura Ingalls, and the day they butchered their pig, the girls clamoring over the crispy tail, batting about the inflated bladder, savoring the cracklings. I think of the pig pickins I've been to in my life, and the barbecue sauce that waits in a gallon jar in my fridge, leftover from my overzealous preparation for Bard's graduation.

Yes, I'm sorry that this pig is losing her life, but I'm glad that she's losing it to our family. There are few who will appreciate it like we will.

::: i didn't shake his hand: on meeting author and prophet a.j. jacobs :::

When I met A.J. Jacobs this evening, author of The Know-It-All and The Year of Living Biblically and fellow blogger, the first thing I did was reach out to shake his hand. This staggers the imagination. It falls in line with doing stupid things like reminding yourself fourteen hundred times to pick up your phone on your way out of the house, or make the deposit at the bank before going home, or buy a bag of ice when you get to the cashier. You tell yourself over and over and over again, but you forget anyway. (By the way, when you get to the car after grocery shopping and realize you've forgotten milk, why does it seem easier to come back later and live for a week without milk than to walk from the parking lot into the grocery store and buy the stuff? Or is this just me?)

I first heard about Jacobs' book, The Year of Living Biblically, on NPR a year ago. I was enthralled and intrigued (which is kind of redundant, but I really was) since I was at a point in my life when I was beginning to take Biblical teaching--specifically the words of Jesus--very seriously, so I stopped immediately at my local bookstore to see if it was available. It was, but not at a price I could afford at the time, so I decided to come back for it later, but not before reading a few words here and there. Right away, several themes of the book struck me; first, Jacobs' willingness to learn and appreciate something new, and second, his desire to stick to something whole-heartedly for an entire year. I think I could commit to, oh, maybe eating and breathing for a year, but I'm not sure I'm all that great at committing to anything else for any extended period. I'm not even good at commiting to buying a book that I purposefully drove to the bookstore to purchase.

But I was able to pick up Jacobs' book The Know-It-All, about his determination to read through the Encyclopaedia Brittanica from A to Z (or, more precisely, from a-ak to zywiec), which smacked of the kind of wacky, immersive thing I would do but just hadn't thought of or had the guts to try and pull off. Reading what he had to say about his experience was like reading the book I would have written if I'd had half of his gumption and fortitude. Better yet, it was like reading what I would have found interesting and told people about without having to actually wade through all forty-four million words of the thing. It was like I outsourced my encyclopaedia reading to A.J. Jacobs.

And some of the things I gleaned from the book didn't really have anything to do with the encyclopaedia. Some of the most fascinating tidbits came from Jacobs' honesty about his own hangups. The transparency he allowed made me feel like I knew him, that I could really hang with him, that we could understand each other.

Insert creepy stalker music here.

But seriously, I thought that we'd have a lot of things to talk about if I ever met this guy in a conversational situation. We could discuss similar interests in historical quirkiness, or I could tell him how much I appreciated his chapter on school and the teacher's discussion of war. And one thing I absolutely knew, without a shadow of a beard, was that if we ever met, I would not, under any circumstances, shake his hand.

It's not because of any strange hand-habit that Jacobs wrote about in his book which turned me off from touching him. It had more to do with the fact that Jacobs describes himself as a hypochondriac and germaphobe, and I wanted to honor his hangups by not exposing him to my germs.

So, when the opportunity arose for me to actually meet this author, who would be within two-hours' drive time discussing his book The Year of Living Bibically, I ordered the tome from Amazon, read as much as I could digest (not in the Jeremiah eating-a-scroll sense, of course) in three weeks, which was to page 120 (what? It took the man a year to live it. I figure taking a year to read it is okay, too), and bought my tickets. As I dragged my dear husband along to be my driver, cameraman and general roadie, I instructed him firmly, "If you meet him, you must NOT shake his hand. He's a germaphobe." My husband nodded solemnly.

As soon as we entered the building, I saw Jacobs standing near the doorway. To my credit, I didn't rush him, although I did suggest to my husband that he could follow him into the men's room and introduce himself there. Jacobs couldn't soon forget that moment.

Insert the second movement of the creepy stalker music.

The presentation was decent, though it seemed to me that .9 of the audience hadn't read the book, because they laughed at all of the verbatim parts he quoted as if they'd never heard them before. I waited until the end of the question and answer session, mostly because I found it annoying that people kept shooting their hands up before he was finished answering the previous question. "I'll wait until they're all questioned-out," I reasoned. Unfortunately, the time was up before that happened. I figured I'd ask him my question, which pertained to what decisions he had made regarding the upbringing of his son (a topic he discusses in Living Biblically) when I would meet him at the book-signing table. And not shake his hand.

And, sure enough, he was at the said book-signing table. Since the last shall be first and the first shall be last, I was fairly close to the beginning of the line; I had been at the very back of the auditorium, right near the doorway where he was seated.

I knew I was going to have a few things to say, so I did, in all fairness, offer my space to the woman behind me who made a comment that she was in a bit of a hurry. She only had two books to sign. I had four. She declined, but at least I tried. It was in keeping with the whole golden rule theme. Having said that, I actually do try to live out the golden rule on a regular basis. It's as close as I can come to Living Biblically.

I saddled my husband with the camera and my other junk, instructing him to take several pictures. "And take them from slightly above, please. A modified myspace profile pic, except you're taking it and not me. I don't want a picture of all of my chins."

I was so busy giving photography lessons that I was actually caught off-guard when it came my turn to meet Jacobs. Instinctively, I stuck out my hand, and he reached for it. Almost as instinctively, I yanked my hand back before he had a chance to touch it. Unbelievable. After all of the reminders I had given myself and my husband, I had actually attempted to shake A.J. Jacobs' hand. But all was redeemed. I apologized, assured him that I wasn't actually going to touch his hand, because I know...I know...what? How he feels about germs? I don't know what I actually said, but I think he got the point, and I think he was grateful.

But here's the thing. I'm so accustomed to doing things a certain way, to meeting someone and performing the obligatory handshake, that I was taken aback. I had no idea what to do or say. Speechless, I stammered, "I'm a little lost, now. I don't know what to do if I don't shake your hand...."

At that point, he noticed my camera-wielding husband. Jacobs stood, and muttered that he was allowed to put his hand on my back, possibly as a consolation for not shaking my hand, and Bo took the shot.


Another brief exchange ensued while he signed my books in which he seemed genuinely interested, mostly, I'm sure, because I was one of the first people in line and not the 56th, though stamina and endurance do seem to be two of Jacobs' traits. Still, he really did seem interested. Here he is hanging on my every word. Ignore, please, the multiple chins. On me, that is. Mr. Jacobs' chins are just fine.


See the stamina? See the endurance? See the genuine interest? See the eye contact (Jacobs actually says that he has to work on *not* maintaining eye contact so that people don't think he's a psycho who keeps a cup of noses in his freezer)? Aren't these great traits? As are charm, compassion, humor and honesty, which Jacobs' also seems to possess, from my limited stalk...er, reading. Through his books and the answers to the questions presented by tonight's audience, I came to realize something about Jacobs that he may not recognize in himself, something that, in fact, he disclaimed. A.J. Jacobs is a prophet in his own right. What I took away from my evening listening to him was that he is a seeker of truth, a seeker of wisdom. He's not interested in retribution, ridicule, or setting people straight. "There are enough books out there that take the other side to task. I went into this wanting to understand." And what he learns, he shares. A speaker of truth, of wisdom, of understanding. A prophet.

Once I had left the building and climbed into my car, I opened my copy of Living Biblically to read a passage about Ecclesiastes (Jacobs' favorite book of the Bible) to my husband, flipping past the inscription. I'd almost forgotten it was there, so I flipped back and read it.



If he'd have known, he'd also have written, "And thanks for not accosting me in the men's room."

Insert final movement of creepy stalker music.