Untraditional Christmas

Have you ever just had the urge to stick a pair of antlers on a white Siberian tiger?  Like slapping the trappings of something you're used to onto something a little foreign to you?  Okay, I'm stretching the metaphor a little bit.  The Boo decided it would be fun to decorate Grandpa's stuffed tigers.  They don't seem to mind, and they make for a great photo opportunity.  Thinking seriously about this Christmas, though, that's the sort of Christmas we had.  Not quite traditional. 

 The traditional Christmas at my parents' house has a very specific structure.  Everybody arrives at least two days in advance.  We go to the Christmas Eve service.  When we get home, we eat scrambled eggs and badger my parents into opening presents that evening. Present opening has a very specific structure too: we turn out all the light except the ones on the tree, we start with a reading of the Christmas story, my brother Ted passes out one round of presents, we sing a Christmas carol, and then he passes out another round of presents, and so on. Then the next morning, after everyone is awake, we open our stockings, drink lots of eggnog mixed with orange juice, eat cinnamon rolls, and prepare to eat ourselves silly, play board games, and complete at least one jigsaw puzzle.  That has been Christmas up to this point.   

But this year, the combination of economy, life changes, and just plain growing up induced us to alter a few things.  None of us live at home now, so three of the siblings didn't get in until Christmas Eve.  (I, on the other hand, being devoid of a husband, showed up a week in advance to help with the baking.)  We decided to exchange names instead of getting presents for everyone from everyone, so there was only one round of presents, and it happened on Christmas day, after the Sunday morning service, at the same time as opening stockings.  We did read the Christmas story.  We did not sing any carols.   There was no jigsaw puzzle.  But most striking of all, we didn't even finish one carton of eggnog between the nine of us.  Mom was sincerely distressed because she's supposed to be avoiding sugary foods, and she'd bought three cartons of eggnog to make sure there would  be enough for my hollow legged brother and brother-in-law. 

I'm not complaining about the changes, at least not seriously.  The idea that Christmas is a flexible entity has been coming on gradually for me.   I remember feeling a lot more awe of the sacredness of it when I was little.  Then the dimmed lights and the carols sung felt like a connection back to the first Christmas.  I remember lying under the tree and staring up through the branches at the patterns made by the lights and thinking abut nothing but the lights and how beautiful they were.  I remember Christmas presents being a lot more exciting (possibly because I didn't have to tell people what to get me) and stockings being at once mysterious and satisfyingly predictable. 

But then the order started getting mixed up, and I went off to college and got married, and I had to get in on the Christmas rush myself, being possessed of my own househod, and things just got screwy.  Like my mother-in-law told me once, Christmas isn't as magical once you're responsible for making the magic.  It's better when it seems to come out of nowhere, like Santa Claus or the angels.  It used to just develop around me and then sink slowly back into the tide of the new year.  Now, I'm behind the scenes, and even in my simple home, it's quite the production.  This year, like several years past, we didn't get a tree because Seth wasn't going to be home.  I didn't get Christmas cards out again (my apologies), and we had no family picture to send either.

Still, I think I liked this year.  It was nice to cut back on the shopping and focus on three people instead of eight.  Comforting economically too.  It was nice to spend time with my folks and watch eagerly for snow that never came (as per usual).  With less time an attention spent on presents, Boogaloo got to play more with her aunts and uncles, and she didn't get bored with anything, like she did last year.  I got to spend a little bit more time reflecting on the enormity of God's love and the promise of peace on earth and a lot less energy worrying about making an unforgettable experience.  (Of course, it helped that the celebration was at my parents' house, and they had the majority of the responsibility, but I like to think that I lightened that responsibility somewhat.)  Maybe Christmas should always be this simple.  Then we would like it more. 

Meanderings of the mind.

It's Wednesday, and I have nothing to write about.  I have to write today because I didn't write on Saturday, and if I let myself slack until next Saturday, well, I know it just won't happen at all.  But while I've been musing on any number of things lately, none of them seem worthy of a whole blog post.  I wish the sports commentators would just let Tim Tebow play football, and Kardashian headlines are beginning to disgust me.  I have promised myself that I'm not going to look at anything regarding the presidential election before January 2nd, and life is just life as usual. 

Isn't it funny how life as usual can seem like a bad thing?  Somewhere in one of my notebooks I have a collection of lines that I'd like to build a novel around, and one of them is, "Everyone wants to live on the edge of the epic.  No one realizes that epics only happen when the world has been turned upside down."  I meant it as a corollary to Gandalf's "So do all who live to see such times."  People living in peaceable places want excitement and heroism.  We want to be part of something exciting and gripping.  People who are heroes, if they have any sympathy with their fellow man, wish that their actions hadn't been necessary.  After all, in order to save someone from a burning building, the building has to be on fire. 

I don't go around looking for burning buildings, and I pray fervently that I will never have to make the decisions that characterize the epic or tragic hero.  But I, and I think a great many Americans and probably Europeans too, feel separated from the great struggle that we know is part of life.  The popularity of RPG video games and fantasy novels.  We want a struggle.  We want a challenge, and we don't want it to involve paying bills or being nice to that person in the next cubicle or making sure the toddler brushes her teeth.  I think we want to feel that we're having an impact in a style of life that seems casual or even isolated, and the daily routine of keeping our heads above water doesn't satisfy that feeling. 

It's silly really.  We only need to look at our current economic state to see that when one man can't meet his daily obligations anymore,  it pulls the guy who's next to him and who depends on him down too.  One man can't pay his rent.  Without the rent money, the landlord can no longer pay his mortgage and send his son to college at the same time.  Etc, etc, etc.  If my house isn't clean, I'll get ants, and the landlord will have to spray.  If the laundry isn't done, then the Boo has to wear pullups.  Trees get cut down to make the paper.  My carbon footprint increases.  Our little decisions to be responsible do make a difference. 

And even we, in middle class suburban America, are in the heart of epic conflicts that are hard to see but are no less real.  The battle against death and his cohorts disdain and despair is multi-faceted and never ceasing.  It engulfs the poor and the homeless, the unborn, the lonely, the elderly, the environment, and the ill.  Just because we aren't facing dragons or invading hordes doesn't mean that we can't shape the world.  We just have to be willing to invest persistently and keep our hobbit sense handy.  After all, the struggle is a lot more epic when we remember how small we are and that we have to be faithful with a little before we can be trusted with a lot.

Hearing, asking, doing

Oh, what a day.  It seemed like one continuous litany of "no."  "Boogaloo, come upstairs and go potty."  "No."  "Boogaloo, let's get dressed and take Max outside for his walk."  "No."  "Boogaloo, stay out of the fridge." "Boogaloo, let's clean you up." "Boogaloo, stay in the cart."  No, no, no, no, no. 

Does it not occur to kids that parents have reasons for decreeing what they decree.  I'm trying to remember back to my early childhood, but my brain is just too foggy.  I'm pretty sure I was a lot like my daughter (though Mom says she resembles my little sister more in attitude.  Go figure!), but that's not really the point.  When do they begin to see reason?  Or when do they begin to accept the pattern because I know that I'm being consistent, at least in all the important things. 

Case in point, this morning after breakfast, I was on the computer, and I hear the familiar 'pop' of the fridge opening.  Now she knows that she is not allowed to get stuff out of the fridge.  If she gets something out on her own (juice is the usual culprit), she loses that privilege for the rest of the day.  So I say, "Boogaloo, close the fridge."

She gets an impish grin on her face.  "No."  Then she runs for it, leaving the fridge open, of course. 

"Oh, that's cute," the observer says, and some small, treacherous part of me is inclined to agree, hindering my attempts at discipline.  Boo wants to play with Mommy.  Oh boy!  However, when the entire day from morning hair brushing to evening tooth brushing is made up of these antics, I begin to wonder what I'm doing wrong. I am so tired, so tired, of being thwarted by a three-year-old in all of the simplest necessary matters of daily life.  She's not being mean or rebellions, just mischevous, stubborn, self-willed, and difficult. 

As always, reflecting on my relationship with a child leads me to reflect on my relationship with my Father in Heaven.  You know, there are passages in the Bible when he calls Israel (and by extension all of humanity) stiff-necked and harded headed.  How many things out of the things I do all day are the rough equivalent of getting into the fridge without permission or soiling myself on the playground and refusing to admit it  (she got a spanking for that one.  Yuck.)?  How maby times a day do I do something without thinking or just because I want to do it even though I know that it doesn't square with the guidelines that God has laid out in plain view?  And how does he feel about that?  There are times in the Old Testament when God seems torn between hugging Israel close to his breast and throttling them within an inch of their lives. 

But love always wins out.  God's love won out with Moses.  It did under the prophets.  It does with us, little though we deserve it. (Sometimes I think the little, persistent sins should do more to frustrate God than the big, once-in-a-lifetime sins.  Such sins are like saying, "Lord, I know you're great, all-knowing, and have my best interests in mind, but I'd really rather have this than you." Sheesh.  Very Romans 7).  I suppose it helps being omnipotent and omniscient.  He knows that it will all work out in the end. 

My love for Boogaloo wins out.  She's still in one piece, happily fed, cleaned, and snuggled up in bed.  I hope she has no idea how frustrated I got today.  For one thing, she seems to think it's funny when I pull out my hair, and for another, it's not about me anyway.  It's about getting the job done. 
Sufficient unto the day is the trouble thereof, and today is done. 

And then Calvin gets into it.

Remember Calvin and Hobbes, the comic strip from about ten years ago (or maybe fifteen.  I lose track of these things) -- the bratty little kid with his maybe-imaginary-maybe-not pet tiger?  He's been making a reappearance at my house lately.  Boogaloo discovered him on the bottom shelf of the bookcase in Mommy and Daddy's bedroom and has been dragging him all over the house.  Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat is downstairs by the printer while The Essential Calvin and Hobbes is peeking out from under our dresser.  Revenge of the Babysat occupies a permanent place in the diaper bag.  There are enough pictures in it to get a cranky Boogaloo halfway through the grocery store. 

So I've been refamiliarizing myself with the antics of this spiky-haired six-year-old.  He's such a devilish little manipulator with such a huge imagination. I was a little like that as a child.  The real world wasn't half as exciting to me as my imaginary worlds, and I would gladly have kept a pet tiger if my stuffed animal collection had afforded it (I did have a baby seal and a stuffed unicorn.  They were exciting).  The scary thing is that I can really see bits of him in Boogaloo.  Not that I'm worried about Boogaloo picking up on any of his behaviors, but some of them might be there already. 

It's such a treat to see my daughter picking up something I love and enjoying it on her level.  Granted, she's three.  She doesn't even read yet.  She has to rely on the pictures and the facial expressions for her entertainment, but that's more than enough.  Bill Watterson is such a talented illustrator that even a three-year-old can get something out of his pictures.  She reads the books so studiously too.  She doesn't laugh or comment.  She just raptly turns the pages.  I hope she isn't mistaking Calvin's world for reality.  In a couple of years, she might be asking us for a tiger.

But the reason I'm thinking about Calvin tonight is that when I'm not picking up Calvin and Hobbes,  I've been glancing through Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion ( the former is named after the latter, you know).  The Institutes makes a good break from Augustine and The City of God, and sometimes they even play off each other.  I was just reflecting on Augustine's studied abhorrence of the pagan gods that were set up as rivals to Christ.  Then I turned to Calvin and pick up his analysis of the Ten Commandments.  It was a completely random justaposition.  That's just where I happened to be.  Calvin goes the same way.  Anything is to be done rather than to set up a rival to God.  As Calvin points out, everything we do is done in front of God's face, so setting something up in God's stead is like a wife cheating on her husband with him in the room. 

Instead, Calvin encourages us to simply give God the credit for everything.  His is a simple formula:
1. Adoration -- Recognize everything that God is, does, and had done.  This includes obedience and submission of conscience because obviously, God being God, he's right. 
2.  Trust -- I like the way he phrased this one.  "Trust, is secure resting in him under a recognition of his perfections, when, ascribing to him all power, wisdom, justice, goodness, and truth, we consider ourselves happy in having been brought into intercourse with him." 
3.  Invocation -- "the retaking of ourselves to his promised aid as the only resource in every case of need."
4.  Thanksgiving -- because everything comes from Him, all of our gratitute goes to Him. 

Calvin presents this formula with a "duh" sort of attitude that would have done his namesake credit.  You can tell that the majesty of God and the following submission, trust, invocation, and thanksgiving, are all very obvious to Him.  He understands that some people don't accept what he's saying, but that doesn't stop him relying on it.  And yet his world was no less complicated than mine.  Gosh, it was a good deal moreso.  He had the reformation of a whole city, a whole continent, and the analysis and expression of the whole truth of the Word to worry about.  I'm just trying to be a wife and mother.  The winds of thought and whisper don't shake him;  why do they wobble me? 

Reading Augustine.

I've started reading Augustine's City of God.   Two things have struck me.  One, what he says is pertinent for our attitudes even today.  In his day, the pagan citizens of Rome were blaming Christianity for the fall of Roman prosperity and security.   Today, "sophisticated" society blames religion for the world's ills.  Augustine's reply was, in sum, "What have your gods ever given you but a bad example and the demand that you follow it?"  Perhaps our reply should be, "What would you rather have direct men instead?"

Secondly, Augustine really hated the theatre.  Of course, the theatres in Ancient Rome were instruments of adoration and emulation for the pagan gods, but Augustine places them above the games in a list of degradations.  He seriously thought that the games (and people died in teh arenas) were less corrupting than the theatre.  He spoke disparagingly of tragedies and comedies because they were only human stories, but he abominated the stories of the gods and approved of banishing poets, who took creative liberties with serious matters and perpetuated licentiousness in the population by telling the shameful stories of the gods, as suggested by Plato. 

He really takes my breath away sometimes.  He's not very reformed, if I may say it, at least not in the modern sense.  He doesn't seem to believe in coopting something of this world to use if for Christ.  Of course, he might have felt differently about mystery and morality plays if they had existed at that point.   

Boogaloo at the Beach.

We decided to take advantage of the long weekend and the decent weather to take Boogaloo to Seaside, OR and let her get a taste of the beach.  After a month of work and housework, we were pretty keen to get out of Hillsboro and do some exploring. 

The first thing that we discovered is that Seaside is a little farther away than we expected.  This charming picture was taken on the way there, not the way back as might be imagined. 

Once we got there, we had a late lunch on the boardwalk.  Boogaloo was more interested in the sights("Seagull, Mommy.  Seagull, Daddy."), but she did actually look at the camera. 

This is Boogaloo before Mommy foolishly coaxed her out into the tidal area. 

This is Boogaloo after a roller surprised us both and took her off her feet.  The terrified look on her face as she lay on her back in the surf was funnier, but really, if I had taken that picture, what kind of a mommy would I be?  She was seriously scared that she would be swept away, and not even mommy's death grip on the front of her jacket reassured her.  As soon as we got her on dry land, she looked at me with a pout and said, "Wet."  Yep, that pretty much sums it up.

Daddy shows Boogaloo the seals at the Seaside Aquarium, one of the oldest aquariums on the West Coast.  Unlike other aquariums, Seaside actually encourages you to buy fish and feed the seals. 

Their seals are all bred in captivity, and they sit up and beg for treats.  They can be quite insistent. 

On the way back, we stopped at a roadside shop that boasted 18 types of jerky, including alligator and yak.  We didn't buy alligator or yak, but we did get some wild boar ("made from the meat of a feral pig." appetizing!) and buffalo.  Expensive, but good. 

Confuscation

Have you ever watched something and watched it and watched it and thought, "Something's just not right"?  That's how I've been feeling for the past week whenever I think about the latest Muppet movie.  We've been looking forward to it for quite a while.  We all love the Muppets, Boogaloo especially.  She's been running around the house yelling "Frog on d'pay" from their football ad all week.  But when we went to see the movie on Wednesday, something just wasn't right.  Boogaloo enjoyed herself. She watched the whole movie raptly. She sang along with the theme song and ran down the aisle shouting "Muppet show, muppet show."  (The theatre was pretty empty, and most of the chuckles were appreciative, so I didn't worry about it.).  Seth and I weren't as satisfied.  Seth looked at me over dinner and asked, "Is it bad that I thought the previews were funnier than the movie?"

I felt the same way, and it bugged me, bugged me to the point of keeping me up at night.  Well, actually, I've been sleeping poorly lately, but while I was lying awake, I was analyzing The Muppets, and I think I've figured it out.  It sends a conflicting message.  The main idea is that the Muppets represent a return to innocence no longer represented by American entertainment or corporate interests. They need each other, and we need and want them.  It says, "We want you to like us, but you're really a dork for doing so."  Why else would they have their main proponents be such losers? 

"Hey, wait a second," you say.  "I've seen the movie, and I thought Gary and Walter were good guys."  Yeah, sure, they're good guys, and their devotion to each other is touching, but it's the only outstanding or redeeming character about them.  By the time they're adults, waking up in matching pajamas in the same bedroom, presumably in their parents' house, and marching down the street in matching pale blue leisure suits (not practical for the bus, I can tell you that!), I started to feel that something was amiss.  Gary has to be at least twenty-eight, with Walter not far behind, and yet neither of them appear to have a job, a degree, or even a commercially useful skill.  Gary has been dating his lovely, intelligent, employed (and unsatisfied) girlfriend for 10 years, and he doesn't even have a desire to separate that relationship from his relationship with his brother.  I mean really, talk about failure to launch.   It kind of proves the cynics right. 
So I guess I never really bonded with the main characters.  Kermit was the first person that made my heart leap, and by that point, I was already off.  They had set up the wrong atmosphere: a pathetic atmosphere that begs us to like them out of pity, not on their obvious merits.  They had apologized for something that wasn't readily evident, and that never helps solidify your case.  It only makes people wonder what's wrong with you and doubt you more.  By the time the wheels really started rolling, and the Muppets were doing their inimitable thing,they had already implied that you couldn't be a fully realized person and like what they do, and that was kind of insulting. 

After all, I like the Muppets, and I like to think of myself as mature and responsible.  I like to think I would have tried to save their theatre too.  Furthermore, they've never fallen out of the spotlight.  Are we really supposed to believe that the frog who taught us that "It's not easy being green," can't get an audience with any network executive he wants.  And the Muppets may seem like good clean fun compared to some of our reality tv, but they're really not all that innocent.  "The Muppet Show" was not a kids' show.  They blew up cute little birdies and ballerinas.  They had their go at great art.  They had their go for women's lib and animal rights.  The antics of Miss Piggy backstage (and Gonzo occasionally) were PG-rated at least.  The Muppets were snide in all their silliness with a dose of hippie idealism and skepticism to mellow it out.  They delighted to give you what you didn't expect, and there is a little bit of that in the movie, but by the time we see it, we've been set up to believe that it's not entertaining.  So the whole time, we watch with conflicted feelings, half ashamed of liking the antics on the screen. 

My husband should be a professional football analyst.

Turning from the Kardashians to a more wholesome controversy, my husband and I are Denver Broncos fans (he by choice and I by osmosis), and we have been eagerly following the development of Tim Tebow into an NFL quarterback. Following this "discussion" that's happening among sports commentators, I find it hard not to be in awe of my husband.


From the beginning, the commentators have all been split on the matter of Tim Tebow. He was a college phenomenon, a national championship winner, a Heisman trophy winner, and a celebrity before he hit the NFL. But he doesn't play typical football, and he's a hard match for professional offenses to work with. The Broncos have been faced with the challenge of changing their offense to match their quarterback instead of having a quarterback who steps into their offense. But he's winning.

I am a confessed Tebowist. (See Tebowist defined: http://espn.go.com/espn/page2/story/_/id/7250435/tim-tebow-inspires-dj-gallo-proclaim-tebowist) He's a Christian and he's outspokenly pro-life. I would cheer for him even if he didn't play for my husband's favorite team. If I didn't have a more objective football fan in the house, I would totally become one of those Tebow jersey buying, coach squabbling, "every knock against Tebow is a knock against evangelical Christians"-griping type of people. Of course, if I didn't have a more objective football fan in the house, I might not even know who Tim Tebow is, so take that for what it's worth.

So I asked my objective football fan what he thought of Tim Tebow when Tebow became the Broncos's starting QB, and he told me this:

"Love, a lot of people think football is just about the numbers. Tebow has something different. He's not an NFL level quarterback, but he has these intangibles that make him a winner. Now, you look at Kyle Orton. He is a good quarterback. He completes more passes in a game than Tebow does in three. But the Broncos weren't winning under Orton. They wouldn't get fired up under Orton. They get fired up under Tebow. That is an intangible, and it gets them victories. Is he a great player? No, but he inspires other players to greatness."

"Oh," I said, "kind of like George Washington." It's a recognised historical opinion that Washington was the charasmatic glue that held greater geniuses like Nathanael Green and Henry Knox together in a team. Seth holds to the opinion that Washington was brilliant in his own right, so he ignored this. Maybe he didn't hear me.

This past week, after a stunning victory over the Jets (you should listen to the commentators. They really are stunned.), Seth called me over to the computer and showed me a clip of the second-to-last play of the game. D. Thomas catches a long pass and delivers a tremendous stiff arm to his would-be-tackler. "That's the Tebow effect. The offense is rising to his enthusiasm.

"And the defense too. You know, the Broncos haven't really had a defense for the past few years, not since the Orange Crush, actually. It's just not something the Broncos are known for. But tonight, the defense totally rose to the challenge. They held Mark Sanchez, who is recognised as a good quarterback, to 13 points. That is Tebow's influence."

So I read a few articles and listen to the commentators after Thursday's game (Seth was playing them pretty non-stop Friday night.), and guess what they're saying. "You know, I'm starting to believe that Tebow can lead this team." "His intangibles really make the difference." "The defense knows that if they can hold the other team to a low score, somehow Tebow can do something special in the fourth quarter to win." "His team believes in him, and they go out there and make things happen."

And I thought, "These guys sound like my husband. Wow. I married a really smart guy. He ought to analyze football for a living."

The downside to independence.

G.K. Chesterton wrote "The principle that all creation and procreation is a breaking off is at least as consistent through the cosmos as the evoluationary principle that all growth  is a branching out.  A woman loses a child even in having a child.  All creation is separation.  Birth is as solemn a parting as death." 

I've been reflecting on this passage from Orthodoxy for the strangest reason.  Boogaloo no longers needs me to wash her sheets every morning.  She has now slept drily through the night twice.  I no longer need to get up in the middle of the night, pull her out of her puddle, pat her down, dry her off, strip her bed, and settle her back on clean sheets.  From here on out (with a few exceptions, I'm sure), my baby will only need me for nightmares and vomit episodes, at least between bedtime and breakfast.

For most people this would be a point of celebration. Hooray! She's dry through the night. Maybe poop in the potty come next. I actually felt kind of displaced.  At first, I really didn't like it. Ditto for her growing potty independence during the day. She doesn't need me anymore. I feel as if I've been sloughed off. My maternal programming dictates that I do something that isn't necessary any more.  I have this urge to go where there's nothing to do. 

I guess that's the process of raising a child.  I wasn't bothered by her attitude of independence (she is, after all, three) because it was so obviously undeserved.  Now she's starting to deserve it.  She can button her own buttons and zip her own zippers.  She hangs up her own coat and chooses her own shoes.  She thinks she can get her own snacks, but I still intervene there.  Most of the time I appreciate that when she does what she can do, I am freed to do the other things I need to do, but sometimes, it just goes against the grain.

Chesterton continues his profound thought thus:  "It was the prime philosophic principle of Christianity that this divorce in the divine act of making (such as severs the poet from the poem or the mother from the newborn child) was the true description of the act whereby the absolute energy made the world.
    "According to most philosophers, God in making the world enslaved it.  According to Christianity, in making it, he set it free." 

I wonder if God feels this kind of pain when he watches us grow up.  But then God doesn't have to be worried about being needed.  He's the upholder of the universe.  And he wants to see us grow up.  He can go with us through everything we grow into.  I'm just starting to realize that my little girl is going to have separate activities, separate pursuits, a separate life.  Sakes alive.  What am I going to do when school starts?

There and back again . . . in time for supper on Saturday.

It's official.  We are now fully residents of Hillboro, Oregon.  What makes it official, you ask?  We finally moved my car down from Bremerton.  Due to lack of drivers under various circumstances, we have had to leave my poor car sitting neglected in the driveway of our little house until now.  We couldn't drive it down the first time because Seth had to drive the moving van.  And then we couldn't bring it down when I went up to clean the house because Seth was in Taiwan.  So finally, after a month, I am reunited with my battered Buick, and we are once again a two car family.  The only thing we have left in Bremerton (besides friends and memories, of course) is a house. 

It was interesting being a one-car family for a month.  I was used to running the house independent of Seth's schedule.  Independence is kind of necessary when your husband may or may not be on the other side of the world. (Of course, if he was on the other side of the world, I had sole use of the car, so it balances out.) If something had to happen, I just needed to go make it happen -- groceries, doctors appointments, church functions, brief trips to friends houses.  They were all just a matter of course.  But over the last month, I've actually had to plan these things around my husband's schedule, and the funny thing is, it didn't really interfere with our lives.  Having a car only twice a week was enough.  In fact, it was kind of nice.   It made me focus on my home and my kid.  Fancy that. 

But we couldn't just leave Billie the Buick sitting in Bremerton.  People want to move into our little house, and they can't do that if we're still occupying the driveway.  We left for Bremerton after work on Friday.  Seth got us a room at the Bremerton Hampton ($89 with AAA discount), I packed the duffle and deflated the dogcrate, we tossed it all in the Jeep, and we made it to Bremerton about nine o'clock at night.  We even got a bottle of wine and watched the lights on the bay, in between telling Boogaloo to get back in bed.  Then we turned around and came back this morning.  Now I don't have any more excuses to keep me from getting out and getting things done. 

An unexpected milestone

Well, it's been a rough week in the world of headlines.  Kim Kardashian's divorce is turning ugly.  Joe Paterno has gone from potentially resigning to fired, and Ashton Kutcher is no longer allowed to tweet his own tweets as a result.  Herman Cain maintains that he doesn't know the women accusing him of sexual harrassment, and Rick Perry stuck his foot in his mouth, but he'll survive to joke about it.

In the Atsma household, however, things have been looking up. After two weeks of training in Taiwan, my husband is home again.  The irony there is that we got out of the Navy to find a job that would allow him to spend more time with the family, and now we find that his new job is going to send him away for the whole month of December.  That means that once again we most likely won't put up a Christmas tree this year, but that doesn't disappoint me as much as I thought it would.  I guess I'm getting used to it.  I got a half an hour with my best friend and cleared up a few matters that needed clearing.  I found curtain rods for the livingroom and got half of our kitchen table stripped.  Boogaloo made overtures toward going #2 in the potty after a disastrous accident at the park Tuesday morning (oh ick).  I found a good chiropractor, and I made the acquaintance of the dog-walking lady.  Oh, and the Broncos won last Sunday.  Overall, this week has been a week on the heartening side.

But I had a growing moment today that gave me pause, and after reflecting on it for a while, I just have to share it. 

Boogaloo and I were at the park walking Max and playing on the climbing structure, and there was another mom there with a little boy about two years old.  She had overheard my conversation with the aforementioned dog-walking lady, so we just pretended that we'd been introduced and started making conversation.  Her little guy was named Merrit (which I think is a brilliant name for a boy), and he was living up to his name by trying to do everything on a playset designed for five- to ten-year-olds.  We as moms deplored the lack of toddler friendly equipment and the presence of a slippery dew.  Then as conversation lagged, I noticed that her sweats said Air Force down one leg, so I said, "I see you have Air Force connections."

"Yeah," she said.  "My father was in the Air Force, and my wife's father was too, so it's something we like to commemorate. Do you know someone in the Air Force?"

My mouth made reply.  "Yeah, my dad was in the Air National Guard, but my husband just got out of the Navy."  My smile did not falter, and my tone of voice did not change.  However, my brain and gut both screeched to a halt as I tried to process, "Did she just say wife?" 

Yes, she did. I'm embarrassed to say that I ran an internal diagnostic to make sure that I wasn't mistaken in what I was seeing or hearing.  I mean sooner or later I should have expected to meet someone of the homosexual persuasion, but I guess I didn't expect to meet one at the playground.  I was thinking in a group of theatre people or maybe among Seth's coworkers.  I think my basic mental picture was yuppie intellectual male, not mom in sweatpants who refers to her partner as "mommy" in the hearing of her little boy.  I guess I didn't expect something so foreign to my psyche to be so close to my world. 

I related my little adventure to Seth over lunch.  He laughed at me.  He even grinned a little when I admitted that until she said wife, I had been thinking about proposing future playdates, and after she said it, the desire just died away completely. 

"Love," he said.  "You let her play with Wiccans." 

He's right, as usual.  One of my best friends in Bremerton was a Wiccan, and Boogaloo played with her kids all the time.  People thought Boo and T's youngest were twins because they were so close to the same size.  I was similarly startled when I found out that S. and T. had kids, but then I had the excuse of processing the appearance of two totally pierced-up, gothed-out, black bedecked people at night. Somehow, that image just didn't fit with my concept of "parent." There was nothing strange about this woman that I'll call M. (for mommy).  I wouldn't have been surprised to see someone like her at my Bible study.  Someone like her just doesn't fit my concept of "lesbian."

So what does it say about my mindframe that I get a gut-check at the idea of letting my kid play with the child of a lesbian but not at the idea of playing at the house of a witch?  Wicca is a religion, a spiritual state, and it's contrary to Christianity.  They don't acknowledge the rights of God, and they're inclined to defend the claims of the devil, literally.  They open spiritual doors and converse with spirits that are by Christian definition hostile to humanity.  I don't regret my friendship with T.  It helped me grow a lot, and I hope it leads to her to Jesus eventually, but the fact remains: you can't be a witch and be a Christian. 

You can be a lesbian and be a Christian.  There's considerable controversy over whether or not you can indulge your feelings, but the two are not mutually exclusive.  Homosexuality is not, in itself, a spiritual activity.  So why did it cause such an instant change of emotion in me?  Why did the urge to get to know her better just die? 

I don't know.  Part of my response probably comes from hanging out on the pro-family scene.  Most pro-life organizations are also against homosexual normalization.  I've been telling myself that I'm not going to form any opinions about LGBTQs until I know one well enough to ask awkward questions, but I don't think I ever expected to meet someone of the persuasion.  Maybe, and most likely, I just need time to process this.  A part of me ponders the boundaries and requirements imposed by my faith.  If we become friends (and we don't even know each other's names, so really, I'm fussing about nothing at this point), how far can I reciprocate friendship?  Can I invite them into my home if I decide that I can't validate their lifestyle? How do I explain to my daughter that good, friendly, responsible people that we like a lot can be live contrary to what we know is true?  I needed 30 years to come to that conclusion.  How do I teach her to stick to the Word without sticking it to her neighbor, a fence the Christian community walks all too often?

How do we do this to ourselves?

I've been watching this whole Kim Kardashian/ Kris Humphries thing blow up. I know I shouldn't. I wish I knew what it was about these people that makes the rest of us people sit up and watch them make ruins out of their lives. I've never seen one of her shows. I just feel compelled to click on her headlines. Boy is she sure getting the headlines now. Magazines alleging that the whole marriage was a scam for headlines. Entertainment websites analyzing every mistake and facial expression. How does he feel? How does she feel? How did she tell her mother? Does she keep the ring?

The thing is, I really don't think this marriage was a ploy for media attention. She says she was looking for a fairy tale ending. I can see how someone who makes a career out of being the center of attention, being pretty, and telling other people how to be pretty would expect to marry and live happily ever after. Her life is something of a fairytale to the rest of us.  I think a lot of people expect a fairy tale ending at the point of "I do," as if some serene happily-ever-after will coat our feelings, habits, and expectations with a glowing light of affability, and we'll never hurt or be hurt again. And when it doesn't happen, well, that's probably where a lot of divorces come from.  I feel like I'm watching a little sister make a mess out of her life, which is funny because I'm 30 to her 31.

 

The simple fact of the matter is that we're none of us at the ending yet. Happily ever after in the fairytales means that the wicked witches aren't chasing you anymore, and you're free to get on with your life. But the heroes of fairytales earned that ending. They slew dragons and cut off giants' heads. They wandered through wildernesses for years and lovingly served wicked stepmothers who would keep them down at all costs. Their love was already tested and their virtue proved. That's why the marriage is the end of the fairytale.  They achieved something in order to get there. 

But for the rest of us, marriage is the beginning of the love story, and sweetheart, you didn't even get past the "And in that village lived a shoemaker" stage. Any decent love requires more than seventy-two days to put it to the test. You didn't give yourselves any chance to sacrifice, persevere, and overcome.  The modern American fairytale should begin "There once was a lovely young woman who married a handsome young man, and they promised to stay together forever. However, the spirits of self, stress, and fear conspired together to take away their happiness and drive them apart forever." This is only the start of your story. This is where the witch catches the prince with Rapunzel and casts him out to wander blindly through the wilderness. This is where the trolls snatch Puss Cat Mew from her fireside and lock her in a hidden dungeon. You've got whole chapters of ups and downs to go before you get to the fairytale ending.

I know you said you have to follow your heart, but the heart isn't any more reliable than the rest of a person.  It feels unreasonable passions.  It responds to fears that are real and imaginary.  It holds the hidden motives that we aren't fully aware of, and more often than not it responds to those instead of taking in the truth of the matter. If you want a husband, a marriage, and a family, then you have to learn to evaluate your heart in terms of your goals.  You have to learn stick-to-itiveness, and you have to learn to weather doubts, frustrations, and seemingly "irreconcilable differences."  Your marriage has to be a higher priority than your reputation and your career because your marriage is a committment to more than a dream.  It's a committment to a real, living person. 

Once, when I had been married for about a year, I had a moment when I thought I could have pitched everything.  The year hadn't been unhappy, but it had been lonely.  My husband and I had weathered the basic adjustments of marriage pretty well, but we had moved across the country twice, he had worked twelve hour days on rotating, seven day shifts, and for me there had been a lot of sitting at empty tables, sleeping in empty beds, and walking alone through empty housing developments at twilight, waiting for him to come home.  I felt like all the loneliness had left a hole in my heart.

 I had gone to spend a week with my parents and attend a friend's wedding, and to go from home and company back to an empty apartment was more than I could handle.  As I crested the hill above the Tacoma Narrows Bridge (which is a beautiful sight in early August, by the way), I literally thought, "I have to turn around.  I want to go home.  I can't do this anymore. I want a divorce."  My heart was ready to turn the car around, but my hands and feet knew better.

I got home, and Seth opened the door for me.  He saw the look on my face and said,  "What's wrong?"  I said, "Don't ask me.  Just hold me." And we sat on the floor in our narrow little entryway while I cried on his shoulder. I think I told him how miserable I was.  It was years before I told him that I'd been on the brink of asking for a divorce.  Even as I was driving that day, I knew he didn't deserve the pain that that would cause him, and that knowledge was what kept me going forward.  He was and is a good guy who loves me, who has done everything he could under the circumstances (and we have had circumstances) to make me happy, and knowing how I would have hurt him kept me from doing what I felt like doing then. 

If I had followed my heart that day, I would not have a husband.  I would not have a daughter.  I would not be as strong or as independent as I am today.  I would not have learned the lessons of intimacy and patience that are making me a better wife. The last seven years of my life would not have happened, and whatever would have happened instead would not have gotten me any closer to my happily ever after.  But instead of following my heart, I thought about my husband and what was right and fair to him and I kept going forward.  And now, even though necessity takes my prince away on a regular basis, I can say that I have learned to be happy, and I can see my happily ever sitting far off on my horizon. 

I'll probably come across as naive if I say go back to him, but I hate to see any marriage break up.  You really haven't given yourselves a chance to grow into something good.  Go back.  Talk to him.  Find a counselor (or better yet a pastor. A little post pre-marital counseling will do a world of good.) and together put some effort into this.  Making this work will make you happier than leaving this behind.  

Settling in.

There's nothing like looking through the memory card of my camera to remind me how little I've been posting lately. I have homecoming pictures, camping pictures, painting pictures, packing pictures, and a few random Boogaloo pictures all begging to have something done with them. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) I'm a little to full of the present to revisit the past. I'm learning that moving is more than packing and unpacking. It's reestablishing ones' self, and that's just not easy.

The whirlwind is largely over. All of our deadlines have come and gone. Our furniture is all in place, and our garage is largely empty of boxes. Annika's toys are all assembled. We have even hung some pictures on the walls.

Still, there are so many things that are out of place: shelves that aren't up, lamps with no bulbs, lightswitches that pertain to that mystery outlet (you know the kind), boxes of books, and bags of screws and other hardware with no perceivable purpose. We now have more windows, so we need more curtains. We have more sinks, so we need more soap dispensers. We have more space, so we need more livingroom furniture. Now there's a broadening experience. We, who still have our posters from college decorating our walls, are now the proud owners of two recliner rockers and two more bookcases. We are looking for something that might pass as a couch.But the biggest adjustment, I think, is learning to live in an apartment complex again, and a complex with no binding ties. In college, we lived in apartments, but we all went to class together. In the military, we lived in apartments, but we had a common experience to keep us interested in each other. This is just a plain old apartment complex, and now I know the truth. An apartment complex is the only place where you can hear a person through the wall, but you don't talk to them in the street.

Maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration. I've been here two weeks, and I know the names of two people outside of the leasing office staff. These people are my neighbors on each side of me, and I only know the name of my right hand neighbor because I had to ask her permission to block her driveway for an afternoon. She helped me unload my trailer, and we shared lifestories in about five minutes, but I hadn't said ,"Hey, by the way, . . ." as she was leaving, I wouldn't have gotten her name. Seth got the name of the lefthand neighbor for me. He thinks I should pop over and arrange a playdate. They both have kids the same age as mine, but we never seem to run into each other.

That's what I don't get about this place. I know people get to know each other. I've heard them talking outside the window. But it seems like there's no crossdwelling intercourse on a daily basis. There was no welcome wagon, no neighborly curiousity, no "Hey, I see you have a toddler. Would you like to come over and play?" For all this is called a "community," it doesn't feel like one. I have actually introduced myself to people I've met in the park (after the second or third meeting), and they wouldn't tell me their names in return. They looked at me like I was odd for bringing the subject up. It seems to me that when people live this close together, they should know something about each other. Like the old Papiamento saying goes, get to know your neighbors. If you hurt yourself, they're the ones you're going to call first.

I'm back!

Well, that was a nice little enforced hiatus. Let me catch my breath. Now I know what people mean when they say a whirlwind of activity! Over the last three weeks it feels like I've been picked up, whirled around, and bludgeoned by ceaseless activities, sensations, and emotions.


About four weeks ago, Seth got a job offer from a company that makes the machines that manufacture computer parts. Said company has an office in Hillsboro, Oregon, less than two hours from Seth's folks. Seth immediately accepted and offered to start work three weeks later. As he put it, employment is good. So in three weeks, we set out to pack up our old house, fix it up, list it as a rental, find a new place, take leave of our friends, and move so that Seth could start work this week.


We almost did it. Seth is at work. I am typing in a nice little three bedroom townhouse in Hillsboro, and most of our stuff is here with us, unpacked and in some semblance of put away. The house we left behind is not ready for rental yet, but three out of five ain't bad.


Now that I've had a few days to reflect on it, I think Hillsboro is going to be a pleasant place to live. Each time we move, I get to reflect again that each place is different. Saratoga Springs was older and more refined than Sunnyside. Bremerton was more compact and varied than Sioux Center. And now Hillsboro is going to be something else again. My first impressions is that it is very suburban, clean, and quiet. There are blocks upon blocks of apartment and townhouse complexes with ornamental trees, wrought iron lampposts, and names like Lion's Gate and Palladia. A quarter of a mile in any direction will take me to a shopping center, and fifty feet takes me to a tiny city park that manages to satisfy moms with kids, nature hikers, and evening basketballers all at once. It's a good place to be, but I think it's going to take a while for it to feel like home.


For one thing, I'm not used to quiet, and it's very quiet. There must be at least 500 people in our complex, and yet I have yet to encounter anyone but the dog-walker when I take Max and Boogaloo to the park or the dumpster or the mailbox. I don't even hear voices outside the windows until 5 pm. It's kind of unnerving, especially when I find myself making noise. I find myself imagining some kind of silence compact that I haven't been asked to sign yet. There doesn't seem to be any neighborly curiousity. Sometimes there doesn't seem to be any neighbors. Maybe they're all just used to seeing people come and go. Maybe they're all just thoroughly involved in their own lives, whereas I, in my disrupted state, am trying to reestablish mine.


I have to get used to the notion of being a tenant again too. It's too weird to think that I have to call someone to change my lightbulbs. I don't have to cut my grass or rake my leaves, but I do have to observe quiet hours and prevent mildew at any cost. I have to walk to the central mailbox to send and receive letters, carry my trash to the dumpster every two days, and walk my dog four times a day to keep the carpets clean. And a townhouse is a new experience too. Both bathrooms and the laundryroom are on the top of three floors. I anticipate having very toned legs by this time next year.

It's too early for that smell.

I woke up this morning to the smells of woodsmoke and pregnant rain, two of my favorite smells in the whole world and two of the perks of living in the great Pacific Northwest. Those two smells together are a sure sign that fall is here. Fall is my favorite season bar none, and it is here. The signs of it are everywhere. Leaves are beginning to turn. The clouds have rolled back in. I have my first subbing job next Friday. Halloween candy has been in the stores for a month and a half now. Fall is here with a vengence.

The thing is, this year it really does feel like a vengeance. We had five weeks of summer at most, and that includes the two days in June and two days in July when the temperature maybe almost crested 79 degrees. Our neighbors were burning that woodstove that woke me up this morning well into June this year. That's unusual even for us. We may have long, dreary winters, but we can usually boast about our springs and our summers. They're not hot, but they are beautiful.

Happy as I am to break out the soup pot and the sweaters again, I can't help but feel gypped. The turn of the seasons is supposed to be a relief. There's a certain satisfaction in being so tired of the heat that one relishes the chill, so sick of the rain that one welcomes the snow. We didn't really have that this year. Summer was so late that it really seemed like it was barely here. As far as our vitamin D absorption goes, we're all still in the middle of July. Everyone I talk to would welcome a few more weeks of sunshine. We boosted our spirits during the lagging spring by dreaming of a glorious Indian summer. Not so much.

I don't think I would mind as much if we had gotten to do more. I was pining for a camping trip on the Olympic Peninsula, and since we might be moving when Seth finds a new job, this might have been our last opportunity to go, at least conveniently. Ferry rides are always better in sunshine. Farmers markets are no fun in the rain. Rainy beaches are parr for the course around here, but a mid-September sunny day can make up for a lot gloom.

But the weather isn't something we can sway, and if we accept the fact that this is the second half of September instead of merely the sixth week of summer, then we're right on course. The rain was bad for the cherries, the strawberries, the peaches, and the apricots, but the blackberries were the biggest I've ever seen. That's something.

Postscript: Three days later, I guess that instead of grumbling about the weather, some noble person actually approached the throne of grace and said, "Lord, could we please have another couple weeks of summer?" Asking nicely goes a lot farther than whining, especially with our heavenly Father. Seth is actually grilling tonight. That's how nice our weather is.

Home again.

The hardest part of having a husband home from a deployment is learning how to share space again. For four and a half months (by far the shortest deployment out there, ask any military family), my tiny little house has been my own. My floors have been clear every night, all the toys picked up, all the clothes in the hamper, and all of my minimal electronics confined to one tiny table in a corner of my room. The only thing I've had to trip over is my daughter's dolly stroller and an occasional block tower. The house felt almost spacious. Now that Seth's home, in the midst of my elation, I find myself tripping over his stuff, bumping into him at unexpected moments (not always unpleasant), and generally being aware that there is another full-sized body in my house. It's like being a newly-wed all over again.

But he's home! Our final foray with the Navy is over, and we are looking forward to new things. No more lonely nights or departure dates. No more pensive waiting for an email that might not come for another week. No more taking stock in the life around me and throwing my hands in the air because it's just more than one person can handle. From now on, I'll throw my hands in the air because I'm trying to handle life in tandem with another person, and I'll always be grateful that that other person is around (You can call me on that if I start complaining ten years from now).

Boogaloo is delighted to have Daddy home, but like me, she's a little jealous of her space. She seems to think it's a crime for Daddy and Mommy to talk to each other. She may talk to us, and we may talk to her, but when we talk to each other, all sorts of attention-getting techniques come out. But she knew her daddy when he got off the plane, and she ran right into his arms and climbed all over him.

Sharing her with him is a little weird too. Suddenly I have another person to keep discipline, wipe bottoms, clean up messes, and get snacks. I don't have to go running to her nearly as often. I'm immensely grateful for the freedom, but for the first few days, I kept twitching in her direction every time he went to her. I felt like he was doing my job, when in reality, I've been doing both of our jobs on the homefront, and he's been doing another job and a half altogether somewhere out in the middle of the Pacific.

In about a month we will be a civilian family. Seth has begun looking for work in earnest. We are fixing up our house in case we have to move and probing every corner of the job market so we can stay. Soon we'll be getting used to a set schedule, two weeks of vacation a year, consistent weekends, and years and years of time with Seth doing the things that brought us together in the first place. Lord willing, he'll be here for the birth of our other children, for birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, and glorious sunsets. We've mastered the art of living apart. Now we get to study living together.

Watching God work behind the scenes in spite of me.

Have you ever had one of those moments where you've been worrying about something important, something beyond your capacity but very necessary, and then God shows you that he can take care of it as well without you as with you?

I was worrying about a fundraiser that I am helping to put on for our local Pregnancy Resource Center. I am the head of the underwriting committee, so it's my job to round up the funding for the fundraiser. I had put about two weeks into it -- making lists of churches to call, recruiting callers, writing scripts -- at the expense of some household things. I hadn't even talked to my church yet because I was focusing on the big picture, and quite frankly I didn't want to give the council anymore money woes.

Then I realized that my husband's homecoming date was closer than I had realized, and I had to switch focuses and take care of those household things. And I worried. I positively fretted. I had set deadlines, and I knew I wasn't going to meet them. I couldn't possibly fit anything more into my schedule. It was one thing or the other.

Then sitting at Bible study this morning, one of our deaconesses turns to me and says, "Oh, by the way, we're going to make your fundraiser the subject of our next special offering. I thought I'd do it even though you didn't ask (because I should have asked right away), and I'm going to need some information to make a powerpoint slide so people know what we're giving to."

So God is good. And I'm a goof.

Letter to my daughter, seven years in the future

The Internet is abuzz over the 10-year-old model who is posing for French Vogue in very adult interpretations of beauty. I wonder what that line of work must be doing to her sense of self. If she's the epitome of beauty at age ten, how will she live with herself at age 20? She won't have this complexion, muscle tone, and figure once puberty comes. She might be equally beautiful, but she'll never be that again.

I suppose a wise mother would know how to keep it from going to her little one's head (though I question about the wisdom of putting a child in that situation at all) and so I started thinking: someday, my little one is going to be 10, and the world isn't going to spare her these pictures of beauty and sexuality. The influences point at a younger audience every day. She's going to want to dress like the girls in the magazines. However much I try to keep things around her age appropriate, the time is going to come when she wants something she shouldn't have in the name of being sexy or beautiful.

Dear Sweatpea,

You know that I love you and want what's best for you. You know I think a lot about things, and I've learned a lot of things. So it is with every ounce of motherly feeling, experience, and intuition that I say, I don't care what's on that magazine cover. You don't need to dress that way, and you may not.

I know that the picture on that cover is pretty, and that girl looks really sophisticated and grown-up. I know that some of the kids in your class are wearing make-up and trying to attract boys. They all want to be pretty and sexy and grown-up. A lot of people around you are talking about sexy, but that's not who you should be right now. You are ten years old. You may feel very grown up, but you are still a child, and your father and I have worked hard to maintain this wonderful innocence that you have.

Sexy is something that comes with time. As you get bigger, parts of you are going to change. You'll begin to feel like a different person in some ways. You'll feel powerful new feelings and have big new questions. You'll worry about them. I will help you understand them. You will even get excited about them and enjoy them, and that's good, but only in their proper time and place.

At your age, you should be thinking about friends and school and books and slumber parties. You should be begging me for riding lessons or drama classes or permission to go to the pool with your friends. There is a whole wide world to learn about. There are penpals and science camps and unicorn backpacks. You should not be thinking about sexy right now.

You don't have to think about sexy because you're beautiful. You've always been beautiful. Ever since you were born, people have been saying how beautiful you are. And you have a kind, friendly, helpful, curious, contented spirit that makes you a wonderful person to know. These are the gifts you should focus on. The others will come on their own.

And once you start thinking about sexuality, you can never really get it out of your mind. I know this from experience. Sex is a powerful idea, and you have to have other big ideas and hopes and dreams to make sure it doesn't take up more room than it should. You have to know who you are and who God is and what sort of life you want so you can channel all those feelings and questions in the directions that they should go. And those concepts take time to develop and understand.

I know you want to be pretty like the girl on the magazine. I know you want to fit in, and we'll do our best to make sure that you can dress like your friends. But there is a very special part of you that it's my job to protect, so sometimes I am going to say no. No, you may not go that party or that movie. No, you may not buy that shirt or listen to that song, and yes, I am going to read that book before I decide if you may read it. That's my job. I'm your mom, and I want to see you grow up as happy and as healthy as possible. I do what I do because I love you.

Mom

Reflections of the way my mind works in the little person sitting next to me.

Conversation with my daughter at the dinner table:

Boogaloo: "Mommy, pease."

Mommy: "Please, what, sweetpea?"

Boogaloo: (holds out her slice of bread) "Honey." (thoughtful pause, face lights up) "Honeeeyy. Where's my supersuit?" (different voice) "What?" (original voice) "Where's my supersuit?" (second voice) "Why do you need to know?" etc.

Mommy: (in her head) You should not have made that jump so quickly, kiddo. That is way too much like mommy thinks. This does not bode well.

A thought-provoking quotation from a great man.

I was reading before bed last night, and this passage jolted me back awake.

"It is not in our life that God's help and presence must still
be proved, but rather God's presence and help have been demonstrated for us in the life of Jesus Christ. It is in fact more important for us to know what God did to Israel, to His Son Jesus Christ, than to seek what God intends for us today. The fact that Jesus Christ died is more important than the fact that I shall die, and the fact that Jesus Christ rose from the dead is the sole ground of my hope that I, too, shall be raised on the Last Day. Our salvation is "external to ourselves." I find no salvation in my life history, but only in the history of Jesus Christ. Only he who allows himself to be found in Jesus Christ, in his incarnation, his Cross, and his resurrection, is with God and God with him." *

Thus wrote Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his book Life Together. His purpose was to encourage Christians to read as much of the Word of God and be as familiar with it as possible. Bonhoeffer advocated that Christians in community, ie families, seminaries, schools, should read a full chapter of the Old Testament and half a chapter of the New Testament in the morning and at night, as well as praying the psalms. He complained that the modern Christian is too ignorant of the Word of God to appreciate its interwoven context and his own place in the context of salvation.

What we call our life, our troubles, our guilt, is by no means all of reality; there in the Scriptures is our life, our need, our guilt, and our salvation. . . . We must learn to know the Scriptures again, as the Reformers knew them. We must not grudge the time and work that it takes.

Bonhoeffer asserts that only people who are well-versed in the Scriptures, their context and their continuity and above all their relationship to the person of Jesus Christ, can correctly guide a church, effectively rebuke a sinner, or even be certain of his or her own salvation.

"It is not surprising that the person who attempts to cast discredit upon their wisdom whould be the one who does not seriously read, know, and study the Scriptures. But one who will not learn to handle the Bible for himself is not an evangelical Christian."*

It seemed pretty harsh to me last night, but I even then I could see his point. We can only know God as God reveals himself, and the only place that God has revealed himself directly is in Scripture. Yes, he also works in our lives, but as valuable as testimonies are, if they are not understood in the light of what God has already done and how God shows himself to operate, they won't answer any questions.

I think about all the times that my depression, my anxiety, my loneliness, and my mistakes have made me question my security. "If I were a Christian, I wouldn't feel this way. I must be doing something wrong." was my daily mantra a couple of years ago. Only after I understood that my feelings were not a proper indication of salvation but my salvation was settled by something that was done and established two thousand years ago did I begin to feel saved. From that point I could begin to knowingly practice obedience, and faith as a mature Christian.

*apologies for the structure. I'm still learning to make blogger work for me.

Picture overload

Here we are, halfway through the summer, and I haven't posted any pictures of Boogaloo for a month and a half at least. I guess facebook has something to do with that, as well as Seth's rapidly approaching separation date. Plus, it's been a busy summer. Two weddings in my family and one reunion in Seth's. Plenty of photo opportunities, not so many posting opportunities.

Boogaloo has had a busy summer. She was the flower girl in her Auntie Abby's wedding. This is the picture before the wedding. By the time the wedding had commenced, we had discarded the pretty headband (which she picked out herself, incidentally).

Boogaloo practices dropping her petals.And then she practices picking them up again. The official picture of the Berkompas kids. From the left: Boogaloo, myself, Abby now Groenewold, Laura, and Abby's twin brother Ted. Boogaloo gets ready in the nursery bathroom. I guess you could call that her first make up, but I washed it off when she wasn't paying attention.

After we saw Abby and Jesse off on their honeymoon, we took a trip up to Leavenworth.

If you ever get the chance, it's well worth the visit. This is the hat shop where they cram every kind of hat imaginable into about 200 square feet. This is my brother Ted and his girlfriend Ally getting back to their roots.There's something a little fishy about that. And here's a picture that people who know my mother would never expect to see. Boogaloo tries on a pretty pink pony hat. She's beginning to have a thing for ponies, as will be seen when I post pictures of the other family reunion.

And going to Leavenworth always requires a stop at the specialty ice cream shop. Blackberry cheesecake marble wafflecone anyone?

Baby wears shades. Boogaloo dons her mom's shades just for the fun of it.

A friendly snail decides to investigate Boogaloo's shoe. This summer, we've learned that nothing stops a snail from moving forward when it wants to, not even the presence of another snail. It just goes right over top or lets the other snail go right over top of it. Now, is that greatness of focus and determination or is it just oblivious stupidity?
Boogaloo the fly ninja. Once the doors stay open during the summer, we have a fair share of flies. This year, Boogaloo decided that she was going to be in charge of driving them back out again. And when she got tired of that, she decided that Babydoll would take up the fly-swatters. Needless to say, nothing came of that, but what a cute idea. Oh, she makes me smile.

Hilarious. For everyone who grew up singing the Hallelujah Chorus every other year in choir, here is a new way to sing it. The premise is that the "singers" are monks who have taken a vow of silence. The person who came up with this is very talented.

http://voxvocispublicus.homestead.com/Index.html

Well, that was embarrassing.

Have you ever felt like events are conspiring to embarrass you? I had one of those moments this past Monday.

I was just bopping along, minding my own business, trying to get back in the swing of things after a week with the inlaws. It's the fourth. I'm the groove. Laundry is on the line. Milk is in the fridge. The grass is now an acceptable length, and the weeds blend in. And a neighbor comes to my gate.

She came up to tell me that my dog had been howling for several hours on end all weekend. She said that making an animal howl that long verged on animal cruelty. He would howl to the point of getting hoarse. There were several other neighbors who were getting annoyed, and she had walked over to my house while recovering from surgery to let me know how they all felt.

This was not just any neighbor. This was the neighbor that I like to think of as the dog advocate lady. She's extremely nice, but I've only spoken to her four times since we moved in five years ago, and three of those times have been related to my dog. She has two beautifully groomed pitbulls that she refers to as Staffordshire terriers (how many people even know that pitbulls are properly called Staffordshire terriers?), and she has that activist look about her that makes me think, "She will tell you what you're doing wrong."

I was mortified because, contrary to appearances, I really do love my dog, and I really do hate to antagonize my neighbors. I apologized up and down and promised to abort Operation Outdoor Dog immediately. She accepted my apology, and after reiterating that dogs shouldn't howl that long several times (I think she felt a little guilty for imposing), she wished me a happy 4th.

Only after she leaves, and I'm extremely grateful for this, do I realize that my t-shirt says, "PLIA 2002: Whatever You Do, Do It in Jesus' Name." Oh. Shoot. Please, Dog Advocate Lady, don't think that I feel entitled to abuse my dog because I'm a Christian. We don't do that. This is not some kind of steward and master of creation complex. I just didn't know he was howling. I was gone. That's why he was outside. Fervently wishing that my abject apology restored whatever esteem I might have destroyed, I remembered pastor's sermon from the day before. He had said, "Our neighbors don't need to see our 'perfection.' They need to see our reliance on God."

For the record, I was trying to acclimate Max to living outside during the summer. I left him outside while I was running errands, and I instructed my neighbor to leave him outside during the day while I was gone visiting family. He had water, food, shade, and a den of sorts, so I was not neglecting him. He did not have to howl, but howling is part of what he does. Obstreperous dog.

Answered prayers.

God just got me my Internet back. My in-home network disappeared, I couldn't get it to work, and my computer expert is at sea. So I prayed, "Lord, please give me my Internet back," and inexplicably, the next time I logged in, the answer revealed itself.

I do a lot of praying for things, but it occurs to me that I don't often remember to thank God for answering my prayers. Sometimes I forget that I had to pray about a certain situation, and sometimes I just forge ahead through the door that he's opened. But I very often forget to say thank you to God or to tell someone else about my "deliverance." (I don't mean to use the idea of deliverance lightly, but if you knew how hopeless I am with computers . . . ).

I can think of two fervent prayers that I sent up yesterday while driving the I-5 home from the in-laws (Cars are kind of like computers for me. I can handle them as long as nothing unexpected comes along, and every now and again I do something stupid that should compromise my situation but doesn't.). The first prayer was of course "Lord, please get us home safely." The second is less distinct in my mind now, but it had something to do with the abysmal traffic south of Woodlawn Cougar and finding a bathroom in time. Or maybe it was the huge piece of siding that I ran over but didn't actually damage my car. Both were answered in the affirmative. After all, here I am, typing right now. But I had been home for about an hour and a half before I realized that I was sitting in my kitchen chair eating yogurt and Oatmeal Crisp because of the grace and providence of God, or in short because he loves me and wants me to be safe. He had answered my prayer.

Hudson Taylor, a famous missionary to Africa, kept a diary of his prayers. He wrote his prayers along with the date on one side of the page, and he wrote the answers with the date on the other side of the page. He always left room for the answers because he knew there would be answers -- concrete, specific answers to concrete, specific needs. I don't know if he told other people about the answers to prayers that he got, but isn't that the simplest form of praise?

Look at the psalms sometime. Often they are prayers or recitals of what God has done. "You heard my plea and you answered me. You put me in a safe place and put my enemies to shame. Please do it again next time." (general summary, not an actual psalm) If I spent time doing the same thing, would I be in a better state of mind? Would I expect answers more often? Would I have bigger hopes and expectations for the world, stronger surety as I prayed, bigger faith, more concrete love? Would I be more submissive as I waited for prayers to be answered if I had a litany of the prayers he has already answered on my behalf? Would I pray with more faith? I think so.

I remember listening to a lullaby on a cd when Boogaloo was just born. It's a very familiar lullaby. "Lullaby and good night. Go to sleep little baby. Lullaby and good night. Go to sleep my little child." Everyone can quote that part, but I had never learned the chorus, and it took me by surprise. "If God will, thou shalt wake when the morning does break. If God will, thou shalt wake when the morning does break." I was aghast. I thought that was an awful thing to plant in a small child's head. But then I watched my Boogaloo wake up every morning, and I realized that she was awake, and that meant that God had willed to give me another day with her. Life got so much happier when I realized that I should attribute the good things to God's will as well as the bad.

The same principle applies with answered prayers. To realize that God has answered our prayers and acted on our behalf is to realize that he will do so again. It's a building block in our estimation of his character to remember that God hears, sees, and does on a daily basis, and this doing is the foundation of our well being. He got me home safely. I won't quite call that a miracle because that would disparage my driving more than necessary, but considering all the things that can happen on the road, I don't mind being the object of a direct application of divine providence either. And I like the fact that I can call on God, and he has already heard.