The Atsma Family Christmas Letter

Dear Family and Friends,

May God bless you as you wrap up the current year by reflecting on his love and begin the new year with the hope and encouragement that come from being united with Christ. 

Last winter we actually had snow in OR. 

I dearly hope that this letter is not in lieu of Christmas cards, but momentum runs against me.  I can't think of a year since I've been married that I have gotten out all my cards on time. If you've gotten a card from us consistently, I have no explanation.  If you haven't, it's nothing personal.  It's just the season.  Sometimes I wonder how life was simpler for my parents because Christmas was always ready when I was growing up.  The cards were always sent, the goodies were always plenteous, and the stockings were always hung at least two weeks before Christmas.  The only answer I can come up with is only that we had no Internet back then. 

Notice the fireplace.  That was one of our major projects this year. 

The theme of our year has been the provision of our Lord and God, specifically centering around our new  house.  Last year in October, we moved into a pleasant little two bedroom house in Forest Grove, Oregon, comfortably priced because the previous tenants had taken less-than-stellar care of it, and proceeded to make it our own.  This year we have learned the joys of refinishing floors, of painting, of installing a woodstove, of laying and taking up flooring, of replacing appliances, and even laying a bit of tile. 

Our house has a large yard with several fruit trees, and we have learned how to prune and when to harvest.  I've gotten back into canning and jam making, and Seth has been experimenting with fermenting cider.  It's a great comfort to open our pantry and see pears and plums and applesauce, but man, it was a lot of work in the making.  I didn't always appreciate the comfort when I was peeling our organic pears (we all know that organic can simply mean buggy, right?) or splitting prunes in a stuffy kitchen, but we do appreciate it now. 

Seth is in the middle of his fourth year as a customer service engineer at ASML, a Dutch company that makes micro-processing machines for Intel.  His workload has been growing considerably toward the end of this year as Intel expands in our area, and next year, he expects it to grow even more as the company installs three new machines (when I say machine, you should think of something roughly the size of your dining room that makes lines smaller than a human hair).  Seth also serves our church as a pastoral elder and is thinking about chaplaincy ministry in the near future. 

Annika is growing by leaps and bounds.  In fact, every time family sees her, they say, "Has she grown?"  The answer is yeah, probably.  She is in first grade this year, and seems to enjoy school with moderation.  The homework is never a problem for her, and she has a large group of classmates that she counts as friends.  She is passionate about everything she does, especially her artwork, and we hope to get her involved in music too in the coming year.

I have been picking up some ESL tutoring at the local universities.  There is currently an influx of Saudi Arabian students in the U.S., and I've had the privilege of working with several of them to help them become more proficient in their English.  I've also started substitute teaching a couple of days a week.  On Tuesdays, I meet with an ESL Bible study group at our church in addition to a little bit of work in the church library and some music with the praise team when they need a flute. 

We took a break for a family reunion this summer, so most of my extended family finally got to meet the "elusive Seth" and vice versa. Then Seth and I competed in my first (his second) Warrior Dash this fall.  Seth spent a couple of weeks in Eindhoven for training with his company. But for the most part, we've been here enjoying the fruits that laboring in one's own house can bring and remembering that the future is always opening up in front of us, one providential day at a time. 

Much Faith, Hope, and Love to Everyone. 

Seth, Jennifer, and Annika

 

 



And another thing. . .

One of the things that I love about tutoring is the incidental knowledge that I pick up while I'm instructing my students in reading and writing.  The same thing happens with substitute teaching.  Is my student working through a unit on thrill seeking?  Guess what I get to learn about.  Does the high school need a basic geometry teacher?  Guess who's getting a refresher course in interior and exterior angles.  This past semester I have learned a number of things I wouldn't have encountered otherwise:

1. Wilkie Collins wrote the first real detective novel, a book called The Moonstone, which set the pattern for almost every detective novel (or at least English detective novel) since, including anything mentioning Sherlock Holmes.  So when I stumbled across a copy in my parents' basement,  I read it.  Not bad.
2. Blue light is a major factor in human health.  Applied in the right times in the right ways, it can completely reset our internal clocks, for good or for ill.  Electronics are a major source of blue light, particularly because we focus on them so intently, but even the brightest flourescent lamp does not project as much blue light as a cloudy winter day.  Blue light during the day is good.  It forfends depression, soothes aggitated nerves, and keeps people awake.  Blue light at night counteracts all those good things by short circuiting the circadian rhythm, an internal shift that can also lead to diabetes, cancer, and in general a higher mortality rate.  Having struggled with depression, I took notice of this information. 
3. 11 teenagers die every day from accidents related to texting and driving. 
4. Alternate interior angles are always congruent.  Consecutive interior angles are always supplementary.  Coordinating angles are always congruent.  And if you really want to confuse a student, put five different variables inside two pairs of almost parallel lines when all you really want is x, which happens to be in the top right inside corner, and y, which is directly across from it. 
5. Radiocarbon dating is only for rocks with organic matter in them, and the numbers of all rock dating methods rarely come back consistently with each other.  
6. Second-graders can understand scarcity.
7. Seventh-graders do not remember 9/11, but I remember the collapse of the Berlin Wall.  That makes me historical. 

It's fun, learning all these new things and being refreshed in things that I haven't studied since high school.  And then to apply sometimes. I told Seth about the effects of late night blue light, and we switched our alarm clocks (our last was a bright green light) to something dimmer, and the change might be improving our sleep.  (It's too early to tell.)

MOOCing

Is there anything the Internet can't do? 

I've just discovered Massive Online (Something or other) Courses, courses where thousands of people from around the world can sign up, log in, and learn something college-like, often for free.  I'm using one for professional development.  It's just like college, only in this case, it's free.  I even get a certificate of completion.  Right now I'm studying teaching argumentation to English language learners, something I will use whether I tutor or teach.  The course comes through Stanford University (yes, that Stanford) and Oregon State, and in return they get information to improve their teaching courses.  Seriously, the concept is pretty awesome. 

Of course, MOOCing leaves me with four to eight fewer hours per week, as well as one day that I can't substitute because I'm in the classroom observing or practicing my teaching, so life has been a little crazier than usual, but I'm also making contacts online and in the school district which I wouldn't have made without it.  And I've coined a new term. 

End of an Era (at least in Boogaloo's mind)

The pool is coming down this week.  The first week of school, the first week of cool evenings, the start of the football season, all of these herald the end of pool season, and Boogaloo just isn't sure how to take that.  The pool is her friend.  It's been here all summer.  She's been in it every day, and now Daddy and Mommy are getting ready to put it away.  What's a girl to do?

She wanted to go swimming this evening, but Seth had already unplugged the filter. 

"Mommy," she persisted.  "I plug it back in."  Sure enough, the tubes were back in the side of the pool, though I wouldn't vouch for how well connected they were. 

"It doesn't matter, Sweetpea.  The water is too low for the pump to work."

"We should add more water."

"No, Boo.  The water is dirty.  It's starting to get cold at night.  It's time to put the pool away."

"But I want to swim."

"Well, Boo, swimming is kind of like Christmas.  It happens at a special time of year and not at other times of year."

[Ears perk up.]  "I want to swim at Christmas." 

That is not what I wanted her to take from that analogy.

"No, Boo, I meant that Christmas happens once a year, birthdays happen once a year, and swimming happens at its own time of year." 

"I could swim at Christmas." 

"We might have snow at Christmas.  The pool would freeze over.  That would definitely be too cold for swimming." 

Contemplation.  I left her to contemplate while I went to forward dinner along.  A few minutes later she followed me into the kitchen. 

"Mommy, I have to talk you something."

"Sure, Boo, I'm listening."

"If the pool is still up at Christmas, we could go ice skating." 

Sometimes you just gotta put your foot down.  There's no reasoning with this kind of optimism. 

A theological conundrum

A few days ago, a friend sent me this link: http://www.tfpstudentaction.org/stop-black-mass-oklahoma-city.html with the request that I sign the petition at the other end.  It seems that a satanic group has secured the use of public property to hold a Black Mass ceremony .  The ceremony has been publicized as an attempt to "help educate the public about Religious Satanism. Enjoy the delights of the Devil”  (TFP Student Action)  and also to "continue the Satanic movement -- to keep fighting for our rights for religious freedom" (patheos.com). 

I signed the petition right away.  I tend to do that; urgent language has a way of getting to me.  (Therefore any and all email requests for money are deleted immediately as policy.)  But in this case, I don't want a black mass to be held anywhere.  The fact that the devil's days are numbered doesn't mean Satanism isn't a bad thing.  But when I thought about putting the petition out to my friends and family, I had to pause for a moment.  How should I phrase this request?  How do I justify it? 

The difficulty that I keep running into is that the Oklahoma City Civic Center is public property, and per First Amendment rights, public property that is open to some religious and civic groups must be open to all religious and civic groups.  Attempting to deny some crackpot in Oklahoma the use of this facility runs directly counter to the many lawsuits that Christians have filed to use school gyms or civic centers for worship services or conferences.  Secularly, civicly, both Christianity and Satanism are religions, so neither of them can be excluded from places of public function. 

One could argue that Satanism doesn't really count as a religion because it exists primarily to derail another religion. Organized sacrilege might be a more valid term.  Satanism is not the same thing as paganism or atheism, which have their own belief structures.  It actively opposes the Christian God by doing despicable things to earn the blessing of the Christian archdemon, Satan.  The understanding is Christian; it's just that Satanists don't like the Christian deity or the Christian result (i.e. new creation without pain or tears, reunion with God, the elimination of all evil), and so they support the devil. By that argument, I'm not sure that Satanism would be open to protection under the religious clause in the First Amendment, but I can't see any court in the land wanting to be the one to rule on what is a religion. 

 My conundrum is this: Of course I don't want to see this sacrilege gain traction in the public arena.  "The insults of those who insult you have fallen upon me." Jesus is my savior; He suffered unspeakable torment to give me a life I don't deserve.  In the eyes of any right-minded person, that is honorable and should be respected, even if it isn't believed. Not only does it hurt to see Jesus denigrated, it also hurts to see someone so completely screwed up that he would make a point of trying to spread this kind of behavior. However, if this public activity does anything, it shows the perpetrator for what he is: a spiteful, small minded lunatic who is systematically shriveling his own soul by trying to degrade something holy that is inexpressibly beyond his reach.

Another concern is that regardless of the state's responsibility to be unbiased, religious activity does have spiritual repercussions.  You can't just invite the devil in, and then expect him to leave when it's convenient for you.  The spiritual world is at war, and when you cede ground, you have to win it back. 

But at the same time, a Satanic ritual doesn't hurt the church or Christ. The devil's power, even when consciously invoked, does not rival God's power under any circumstances. The Black Mass is perpetrated by stealing a communion wafer from a Catholic Church and doing things to degrade and insult it.  From the Protestant perspective, it's as if someone stole a picture of someone who saved your life and walked around spitting and shitting on it.  Of course, you'd be upset, you'd want the picture back, and you'd have to suppress a primal instinct to knock the perpetrator's teeth in (we are Christians, after all, and we have an established protocol for dealing with insults), but in no way is your friend and benefactor actually injured.  Christ's body is in the members of the Church, and it is open to injury and insult all around the world as our brothers and sisters suffer for his name.  I respectfully submit that our Lord feels more grief over the state of the soul of this Satanic priest than He does over what happens to a piece of the host.   

Apparently this mass has been held for several years, and according to a public response by Oklahoma State Representative Rebecca Hamilton, nobody (literally nobody) attendeds.  But say people were attending this event in droves.  Say it was an actual rival to the Gospel in Oklahoma City and an active destroyer of moral values in the public sphere.  Would petitions to exclude Satanists from public property really be the most effective way of countering its influence?  Simply put, spiritual battles are fought in the heavenlies;  the legal system is merely one of the places that we see results.  If the Christians of Oklahoma City want to see this ritual stop, I suggest that they stand outside the Civic Center and fast and pray for the soul of this Satanic priest until he walks out and asks for Jesus. 

Wrangling the human condition

So exasperated!  Moved to tears even, and that doesn't happen very often.  When Seth was in the Navy, it would take two and a half months of being alone to move me to a convincing set of tears.  Now it takes two weeks of believing that I might have been pregnant, followed by a negative test and the beginning of that thing that ends my hopes every other month at least. 

I hate my body, and not because of its shape or its consistency.  I hate it because it plays tricks on me.  It feeds me lies like swollen breasts, waves of fatigue, nausea, tenderness, increased potty frequency, and enhanced sense of smell for two weeks, and then it drops me right back on the doorstep of starting all over.  The fact that going through one's period is uncomfortable is just adding insult to injury, reminiscent of the time there was some one, and they didn't stay.  Why, why, why did you tell me I was pregnant?  Didn't I do everything you asked me to?  Didn't I exercise regularly and eat all the healthy foods that the video diet plan required?  Didn't I get enough sunshine and sleep?  Was I not drinking enough milk?  What did I leave out that inspired you to put me through this ringer again? 

I honestly believe that I could be happy the rest of my life having only one child if only my body would stop pretending to be pregnant every couple of months.  If out of season symptoms didn't send my hopes skyrocketing and kick my baby planning glands into gear, I would be fine.  Last time, Seth and I joked about names.  This month, the symptoms were so complete that we were thinking about how to turn our workout room into a nursery.  Even he was getting a little giddy, and he's used to my flights of hormonal fancy. 

When we lost baby Blessed last August, the doctors told me that another baby should be coming along "any time in the next six months." "Just trust your body and let it settle down."  Right.  I can't trust my body.  My body doesn't know one end of itself from the other.  None of the indicators that should be attached to states are attached to the states which they ought to indicate.  I'm still nauseated.  I'm still tired, I'm downright hysterical, and my bras don't fit.  My body let my baby die, and now, every other month at least I spend two weeks thinking  "Is this real?  Is it going to turn into something?  Will it continue?  And if it doesn't, does that mean there was no one there, or did I lose someone again?"  It's not personal, obviously.  How can a body intend things personally against its person?  But it's so easy to see it that way.  Why do I have to hope so much?  Why can't I just roll with providence and see where it takes me?  Why all this jerking on a chain I can't ignore because it literally runs up the middle of me? 

A crazy way to make my life a little easier.

Have you ever noticed how the first two weeks of something are easier than the second two weeks.  For the first two weeks, there's a high that sustains the activity; the momentum is all on your side.  Then, suddenly, reality sets back in, the parts of life that had to be put aside start demanding their due, and commitment becomes a real chore.   My necessities ( I really need my workout.  It literally keeps me sane.) and the general necessities were in conflict. 

How many parents  feel this?  "I can't establish an exercise regimen or a relaxation period or a time to read just a little enlightening, adult-oriented material because there are so many other things that need doing."  We can't all be Maria Kangs, right?   My guess is the majority of us feel that way.  But I'm not going to tell you to button down and set aside those times for yourself.  I'm going to tell you to multi-task.  That's right.  Clean and exercise at the same time.   I'm only half joking, and that's because I haven't gotten it all figured out yet. 

I should state right off that I am not a physical fitness professional.  I do not have a degree in body mechanics.  These are all my own experimentations with the movements that I've seen on the Insanity workout videos as I try to incorporate them into my house cleaning routine.  I confess, the first time I tried this, I had an uncanny picture of the most recent Stepford Wives movie as they all shimmied around in their cheerful workout clothes with their washing machine poles.  Well, this is the anti-Stepford.  They were incorporating housework into their exercise to stay feminine.  I am incorporated exercise into my housework to get sweaty, and I haven't hurt myself yet. 

For example, the sweeping lunge. 

 Doesn't that sound athletic?  This exercise has two parts: the first is aerobic, and the second is a stretch.  For the aerobic part, I incorporated memories of basketball drills.  Get down in a "chair" and hop a couple of feet to one  side.  Put the broom head on the ground and sweep as you shuffle back to your starting position. Keep your core tight.  Hop up a step and repeat the movement.  About halfway across the designated space, about face and perform the same motions leading with the other leg.  When that segment of the floor has been swept, move the starting point over four to six feet and begin again.  Make sure you get down into a chair position that your junior high p.e. teacher would have been proud of and keep those abs tight. 

If the area doesn't allow for easy shuffling, I use a stretching lunge.  This requires some muscle control.  I haven't mastered it yet.  The basic lunge position has one leg extended with the heel resting on the floor and the toe in the air.  The other leg is bent so that (and this is very important) the knee is directly over the foot and the backside is back.  All the work in the lunge and the squat happen because the backside is being levered back over open air, thus requiring your core and leg muscles to support it instead of letting it support itself.  For the sweeping lunge, lunge to one side (I know, I know, ouch.  Only go as low as is comfortable.) and then hold the broom out in front of you and sweep as far as you can without unbalancing yourself (Didn't I say I was still mastering this?  Many are the times I've nearly ended up on my nose).  When you've covered the ground you can reach, come slowly up out of the lunge and repeat the movement to the other side.  I find it useful to sweep against the lunge.  That is, I pull the broom from the side of the bent leg, not the straight leg. 

The mopping lunge.

For a change up (because like I said, we have a lot of floor),  I like to work in some forward lunges.  These are not like the sweeping lunges.  They go forward, not to the side.  The proper position for a lunge is with the feet parallel to each other, one a couple of feet in front of the other (I'm pretty tall.  Distance is relative to body height.).  When the body sinks down, the front knee should be over the front foot and the back knee should be under the back hip.  Both knees should be at 90 degree angles.  The back should be straight, the neck long, the head high, the core tight.  Holding the mop in front of you, go down into a lunge.  Pull the mop back as you rise.  Switch legs and move over slightly.  Lunge again.  Switch.  Lunge.  Continue until you run out of room or your legs get tired. 

The laundry attack squat. 

This exercise is for front loading laundry devices.  I've tried  to find an exercise for a top loading washing machine, but my head kept getting stuck in the door. For front loading machines, get a laundry basket that is lower than the lip of your washer or dryer.  Position the basket under the lip of the opening of the machine.  Squat over the basket (I know, I know.  Just forget that you look like you're trying to lay an egg.) and reach into the machine.  Pull out the contents of the machine and dump them into the basket as quickly as you can.  Keep your back straight, your head up, your shoulders relaxed, and your neck long.  Start with the dryer.  Empty it into the basket.  Pivot or shuffle over to the washer.  Resume the squatting position.  Pull the wet clothes into another basket.  Then pivot/shuffle back to the dryer and rapidly feed the wet clothes back in.  Flex the hips to stand up.  Start the dryer.  Move the load of dirty clothes in front of the washer.  Squat.  Load.  Stand.  You get the idea. 

I know won't get a complete body workout by doing only these exercises every day, but they do help keep me on track when I have time to do nothing else.  The cool thing about squatting and lunging while I work is that I maintain proper posture while I'm lifting the bucket, pushing the mop, etc.  I don't curve my spine or slouch.  I use proper lifting position.  Squatting is good for chasing kids, for picking up objects on the floor, and for childbirth.  Honestly, the more squatting and lunging we can work into our lives, the better. 

I should mention that I couldn't do any of these properly if I hadn't spent four weeks watching the professionals on the Insanity videos , listening  to my husband (who has a lot more fitness experience than I do), and training my muscles what proper stance feels like and where my body should be.  I get awfully sore on my housecleaning days, which makes me think I should incorporate some stretches somehow, but I work up a good sweat, get my heart rate up for over 30 minutes, and my house gets cleaned.  When I'm really on form, I can put on an audio book or a sermon and get three things done at once.   It's intense mommy enhancement time without neglecting my huswiferly duties.  I count that as a good day, and it keeps me on track. 

The little metaphors of life: exercise

The Apostle Paul says, "Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air.  No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave, so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize."  He also said, "If I am out of my mind, it is for God, but if I remain in my right mind, it is for you."  (2 Cor. 5:13).  All this goes to preface that Seth brought home the Insanity workouts, and we've been learning a lot. 

The principle behind the Insanity workouts is to push the body to points beyond what the mind would have thought the body can endure.  It relies on circuit training and plyometrics to raise the heartrate above the aerobic level and then let it come back down.  The impact on the body is intense.  For the first two weeks, Seth and I were taking naps midway through the day.  We were that worn out, but we felt fantastic. 

 Call me medieval, but where there is a spiritual comparison, I have to make it, and the discipline of starting a new workout routine is too metaphorically ripe to leave on the tree.  I don't think working out is a spiritual exercise any more than I think eating is a spiritual exercise, but anything touching life itself has a spiritual element, and anything but anything can be a spiritual metaphor.  The  Apostle Paul often used athletic metaphors, and it's my personal opinion that our Lord was very physically fit.  He spent his childhood putting together houses, most likely, and climbed mountains for his morning prayer times.  Modern psychology is proving that the state of the body heavily influences the state of the mind.  We are not simply spiritual creatures, and we cannot leave the body behind in our reckonings with the soul. 

That's one of the reasons I like this exercise series.  The very push that lies behind all the exercises feels a lot of life in a mental and spiritual struggle.  The instructor and his professional fitness people in the background sweat and sway just as much as we do.  They push just as hard, and they get just as worn out.  "I'm right here with you," the instructor says.  "Now dig deeper."  And the fact of the matter is, yes, he is right there, doing what we are trying to do and feeling at least some of the pain that we are.  Exercise, in a weird way, takes faith: faith that what we are doing won't kill us and will give us what we're looking for in terms of a new body or better health.  That faith keeps us coming back to our routines. 

Do I really have to say that this is an excellent example of how we live the Christian life, with Christ sweating tears of agony in the garden, struggling to do exactly what we are called to do, but doing it and doing it perfectly?  And anyone who has felt the prompting of the Holy Spirit has also felt the call to dig deeper and pursue that perfect righteousness.    Sometimes the righteous life does feel like more than we can endure, but if we lock our minds into what the Holy Spirit is shouting in our ears and just keep pushing, pushing in prayer, resisting temptation, practicing the virtues until they feel natural (the stuff of lifetimes), then suddenly we come to a point where we see results, the workout is over, and we can breathe freely (and fall over). 

I saw an ad for the Insanity workout that said, "Are you insane enough for the Insanity workout?"  But at the same time, the workout advises us to know our limits and work at our own pace.  There are parts of the New Testament when Jesus seemed to be asking, "Are you insane enough for Christianity? Have you counted the cost?  Are you willing to lay it all down and die?"  But at the same time, He works through our difficulties with us and slowly brings us up to speed. 

So while I'm worrying about my body (because I am seriously hurting right now), I am also thinking about the soul. 

Counting the blessings of 2013 beyond myself.

It might not be obvious from the sound of it, but I was really down when I wrote our family Christmas letter. I can tell from the overly peppy sound that I was overcompensating for my feelings. "Must . . . not . . . let. . . anything end on a negative note." You might know the feeling. Everything I said about blessings and learning was true, but I can tell that I wasn't feeling it. So in an effort to put my feelings into perspective, I decided to look at what happened to the people around me in 2013.

For example, no, Seth and I did not have the baby that we have been trying for, but in the meantime we did get a new nephew, who himself came after a miscarriage for my sister. In addition, Seth's aunt had a miracle baby after years of struggling with uterine health issues, and both of them lived to tell about it. Two of my cousins had healthy bundles of joy, and five friends either welcomed a new baby or are expecting to very soon.  A small part of me wants to be bitter because they have babies and I don't, but then I see the baby pictures, and I can't help but rejoice because my family and friends are so happy.    

Two sets of friends got married.  Two more got engaged. 

Considering all my married friends and family, 93% are still married and going strong.

Three family members also bought new houses this past year.  And two of them had almost as much work as we did in moving in and almost as much help as we did in the process. 

Six church friend families also lost an immediate family member, and I'm not including their kids and grandkids who by connection lost someone too.  Some of these loved ones were taken suddenly; some left after extended illness.  Some were well along in years, some just past their prime.  It's hard, but it's part of life to lose people and have them wait for us on the other side. 

Nothing happens in a vacuum.  "Ask not for whom the bell tolls.  It tolls for thee."  But when you hear the bell tolling, don't forget that it also tolls for every person around you, the years of your life and their lives, years meant to be well-lived and enjoyed.