My husband is Benny Hinn

I'm not quite sure how to write about this, but it was such a strange week that I need to get something down on, er, paper, so to speak. I won't give too many details, because I am a person who appreciates not hearing the details of OTHER people's stomach flu experiences, but I will tell you that our whole family had the stomach virus last week...it ran rampant and was not enjoyable.

I could not get over it. Could NOT. Everyone else was eating and rehashing their experiences (my two year old, "Mommy, I SO SO SORRY that I puke!") and I was still feeling horrendous, in bed, practically comatose, and having "episodes" frequently.

Wednesday night I was laying in bed, covered in itchy hives, of all things (the nurseline said it happens sometimes with viruses--gee, thanks!), shivering, miserable, and my husband put his hands on my head and prayed.

We do this fairly regularly in our house. We have seen enough stuff to more or less believe in demonic possession of one type or another (see some below blogs about my last church) and we don't do it lightly, either. So he prayed, and I fell asleep for about an hour. After that, it gets blurry, but the story goes that I got out of bed to make yet ANOTHER unhappy trip to the restroom, and I passed out, fell, hard, on my shoulder, and came to when my husband started trying to get me awake. He got me into bed, and after calling our neighbor to stay at our house, we went to the ER.

Our local hospital is lovely and kind; it's where my son was born peacefully and everyone was respectful, quiet, and caring. They hooked me up to an IV, gooooood drugs, and I finally, finally, felt better.

The next day, I pretty much felt better. By last night, I was feeling good, even. And today, aside from a bit of weirdness, I'm almost back to normal.

I didn't connect the casting out of the demon and the fainting/ER/feeling much better until last night. I don't know if you believe in this stuff, and I almost cringe when I read it too, but it's happened several times now, and I have to say that I think there's something to it.

Either way, I'm grateful for whatever it was that caused things to come to a crisis so that I could truly get well. To quote The Princess Bride, "If you haven't got your health, well, you haven't got anything!"

Just for fun

Really, if you don't have dial-up and have a few minutes to spare, PLEASE go watch this. Laugh your head off at my silly family, then go make your own. Happy Holidays, y'all.

Ahead of my time! ***Warning*** political blog ahead

So, when I was busy bitching this summer about if I were a man, this all would be happening very differently, I had no idea that it would be THE topic of conversation during Thanksgiving week!

If you haven't heard Hillary's quote after John McCain laughed at a woman who said, "How do we beat the bitch?" then here it is:

"He's not criticizing me because I'm a woman; he's saying that because I'm winning."

LOVE it. LOVE IT! My opinion is that the guy had no idea what to say to the perfectly coiffed woman who asked the question. And who asked her, anyway?

On The View on Friday morning, which I watched through a feverish post-Thanksgiving virus-induced haze, the ladies were all up in arms about Hillary and how things would be different if she were a man. How fabulous is that? That she can absolutely not be a person of power and actually have power without seeming like a bitch. There was also an editorial in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution about how women with power are not "likeable."

Which really gets me thinking about what we consider "likeable" for a woman. Powerless?

Halloween Fairy Tale

See if you can guess which one.....hint...the grandma and the woodcutter are also in the story.

Wisdom from Yoga Today

I have been back into yoga for several months now, inspired by one of my best friends, a single mom who fits it into her busy days with a video on her laptop, so I figured I could do the same thing. I've been using Yoga Today, which is free yoga on the internet, streamed for anybody. It seems way too good to be true so I'm afraid that some company is going to co-opt it and charge for it, but right now it's free and wonderful.

The class above, if you have fifty-eight or so minutes of time on your hands, is an example of why yoga is just a good thing to have as part of your day. It's a balancing class, and it's hard. I mean, like, they do stuff that you think is a total joke until you see the lovely teacher, Sarah Kline, actually DOING it.

But here's why it was just so helpful. She shares this wisdom as she tells you to do nearly impossible things... "You will fall. And that's good! Just approach the difficult asanas [postures] with a sense of humor, not as something that 'must be done.'" And I did fall, and because I had in my head a sense of humor rather than "I must be the very best yogi in the whole world," it was all pretty hilarious and exhilarating. I fell, but I did a few things for the first time, and the rush of doing that really rocked me in the best way.

So please try it, or at least one of the Yoga Today classes, and approach it, and all things difficult, with a sense of humor, and see what happens.

Reformation Day Sermon

(This is my sermon, more or less, that I will preach this Sunday)

A few people I know, mostly women from my home church in Tennessee, came to a retreat a few years ago here in Georgia. They came from different places in life, as all of us do, and they came on this retreat to get away from something and be together…and to experience a little bit of spirituality.

Over the course of the weekend, they were talking and I happened to be there visiting. One of the retreat speakers asked what they would do if they had one year left to live, and they knew they only had one year. I know these women pretty well, but I was amazed at the responses. One said she would divorce her husband of 30 years and go out with a whole bunch of people. One said she would quit her job, a job she worked hard for, including a PhD a few years back, but she would quit it and go travel all around Europe. Another said she’d tell everyone exactly what she thought of them, and it wasn’t all pretty. The other responses were similar. If they had one year to live, they would make BIG, sweeping, changes in their lives.

I also read a book recently that I just saw is on the top of the bestseller’s list. It’s called Eat, Pray, Love. It’s about a women who didn’t have a disease or anything, but who decided that she was going to do what she would do if she only had one year to live…she was going to do exactly what she wanted and needed to do to find healing, and to find God, and to find love in her life.

Just like my friend wanted to do, but hasn’t done yet as far as I know, she quit her job, divorced her husband, and moved to Italy to eat and just enjoy life for four months. In an interview, she said that her American friends were shocked…one of them said, “You can DO that?” The Italians were not surprised that someone would want to come to Italy just to enjoy themselves…they are the pros, and so that’s what she did. Then, she went to India for four months to live in an ashram and meditate and pray. She had amazing experiences of the presence of God, because she took that whole time to be quiet and to listen to the voice of God speaking to her. Then she went to Indonesia, to try to figure out how to put it all together, and has more adventures there, ending up finding someone to love, which she never expected.

Now. You might say that this experience of this woman is unusual, and for sure, it is, because she’s the only one I know who’s done this, written a book about it, and ended up on the bestseller list for sure. My friends who talked about only having one year were really just imagining it…they wouldn’t really LIVE like that, right? People don’t just do that, unless they actually have this happen to them.

But why not? Especially for Christians, why not? Especially for Lutheran Christians, on this day of Reformation, WHY NOT?

You might remember that Martin Luther had an experience that changed his whole life, and that changed all of our lives too, because here we are in a Lutheran church, 500 or so years after the fact. He was a monk, and had tried everything to earn God’s love and forgiveness. He had whipped himself…he had walked up stairs on his knees…he had said who KNOWS how many Hail Mary’s, trying to get himself right with God, trying to earn God’s love. And he couldn’t, he couldn’t ever do enough, and he felt terrible about this. What else is there? What else can I do to earn the love of God?

And then it came to him, while he was reading our lesson for today, Romans. There’s nothing else you can do. In fact, there’s nothing you can do to earn the love of God, simple as that. Faith comes through the grace of God, not by anything we do…it’s a gift, like that moment of inspiration was a gift to Martin Luther from the Holy Spirit, opening his mind to understand the love of God through the Word, through scripture.

To Martin Luther, this meant that he was free. For the first time in his life, he was free to pray, or not. To sin, or not. To get married, or not. He was set free by these words from a lifetime of slavery to sin…and his particular sin was thinking that he could earn God’s love if he were just a little better, did just a few more things on the checklist. He was now free from that sin. Can you imagine? He was so free that he went out and stood up to the Pope, his boss, on matters that he didn’t agree on, like that the church shouldn’t make people pay to get their relatives out of purgatory or hell. He was so free that he DID get married, married a nun, in fact, had a bunch of kids, led, basically, a seminary from their house, preached a bunch of sermons, wrote a lot of songs, and, from what we can tell, had a lot of fun. After he was freed by the Word of God, yes, he had a lot of hard work to do, but he had a lot of fun with his life, with his family, with his students.

Because when we are set free by God in Jesus Christ, what are we set free FOR? To live as though we still had a thousand years to go on a treadmill and we hated every step? Not so much, I think.

If you had one year left to live, what would you do? This theme keeps coming back in books, movies, TV. On a recent TV show a woman gets told that she is dying. That they are releasing her to hospice care because there’s no more that they can do. She starts crying hysterically and the doctors can’t figure it out, until they realize that they had messed up the room numbers and told the wrong person. Before they can find her, she checks herself out of the hospital, quits her job, dumps her loser boyfriend, and books a flight to a tropical island to live out the rest of her days. When told that she’s actually NOT dying, then, she REALLY gets upset!

What would you do? God sets us free, not necessary to go to tropical islands, but to continue our journey into the heart of God, as the people of God, knowing that we can make mistakes, we can mess it all up, we can sin boldly, as Luther says, knowing that we are free to do all that. The Bible verse says, “It’s for FREEDOM that Christ has set us free.” Sounds simple, but so many times we as the humans we are try to set all kinds of rules about how Christ has set us free and WHO Christ has set free and what we should be doing for that freedom when it’s really just for FREEDOM that Christ has set us free. For freedom. That’s all. It’s a gift, and one that we cannot possibly repay. We simply live in our freedom, maybe as we would live as if someone told us we had one year left, or one week, or one day, because Jesus has already died and risen again for us to give us that freedom, that life more abundantly, in his name.

What would YOU do?

Article on my bitter theme...not so bitter...

If anyone is still reading my blog....argh....I wanted to share this article that is on the same theme as my last post. Which I'd like to mention was more than a month ago. Argh. Argh. Truth-telling article, though. I think we're only starting to crack the surface as far as "equality" goes.

Women in Film

If I were a man

I was sitting at the pool while my kids played today, thinking to myself,
"if I were a man..."

If I were a man maybe I wouldn't struggle with this feeling of "I SHOULD be grateful."

If I were a man, no one would be surprised that I am searching for a call, and would, in fact, be asking me multiple times how it was going.

If I were a man, women wouldn't have pulled me aside as soon as I said I was taking some time off and said to me, "You'll never regret it!" as if it were something I should have been doing all along. (I do regret it, sometimes.)

If I were a man, my simultaneous calls to my children and my church would not be in question.

If I were a man, my restlessness at being at home, at being at small people's beck and call all day long, would be perfectly normal. Of COURSE he gets bored...he's a pastor!

If I were a man, perhaps I would not question my own call as much as I do.

If I were a man, I would be allowed to be sad for my church that died under my care, and not told it was all for the best because then I got to be home.

There are many reasons I'm glad I'm not a man, but this bitter post has been simmering for a while, and now it's written down, and it's out there. And I'm glad.

Young Leaders (or, I get carded at a church function)

I just got back from a conference at our churchwide assembly in Chicago. To tell you the truth, I mainly went at first because a) it was mostly FREE, b) a few of my friends were going, c) it was in Chicago, d) um, FREE!

I'm at the point in my (for lack of better terms) faith journey where I'm religious, but not spiritual so much. I practice disciplines that I know are good for my relationship with God, but I don't get so much of the goose-bump-y happy God feeling that I used to get in say, high school or college. However, they do happen, and when they do I am always surprised and always crazily grateful for them.

Last week was one of them. I had a moment of realization as I sat in a Starbucks on Michican Avenue that I had not skipped out on one bit of the conference (er, unless you count that moment when I was, in fact, sitting in the Starbucks). That is way out of character for me...I'm a skipper-outer. I sit in the back so I can jet out if it doesn't appeal to me. That's just how I deal with church conferences. But this one, I stayed in. I realized why--it was because I wasn't on the fringes. I sat in a room with 90 of my peers, my true peers, women and men who were under 32 and mostly ordained and struggling to find where they fit in ministry and life. It was the closest thing that I've experienced since church camp, back in high school, where I sat in a room and knew that everyone's concerns and prayers and experiences so closely mirrored my own that we had our own shorthand and could begin conversations in the middle without all those crazy introductions (yes, a PASTOR, not a youth pastor, the PASTOR, I preach, etc).

It was an insanely beautiful thing.

I even got to feel old and wise because I was only one of two participants with more than one child, and I had been ordained the longest, six years. I got to hear amazing women's voices who were frustrated with their organization's higher-up's lack of listening to what they needed in a call, and I got to hear someone describe the candidacy system as "fucked-up" (to much applause).

I got to partake of the open bar with my new and old friends, and yes, I got carded, for being a "young pastor" trying to enjoy herself. Hilarious.

It ended for me like any mountaintop experience...not wanting to come down, but knowing that somewhere, your PEOPLE are out there, and they are with you. We'll call, we'll email, we'll maybe do it again, but mostly, we'll know that there are others like us, trying to figure it all out, trying to do the best we can in a world where we're still on the edges.

In the middle

This is where I feel, most of the time. And most of the time I guess it's a good thing. But what I'm talking about mostly is parenting.

First of all I should say that I really really hate the judgement that everyone loads on each other as far as parenting goes. It's been happening forever and ever, I guess, but I'm in the middle of it right now (see a theme here?) and it's getting on my last "nervous," as one of my daughter's friends says.

To one segment of people with whom I associate, I'm a freak. I put my kid in cloth diapers, I don't take them to McDonalds, we eat bunches of fruit and veggies, and I nursed both kids til two (Mr. Man...STILL GOING). I don't like using my car when I don't have to (like, to drive to the neighborhood pool, for crying out loud) and I'm a vegetarian. So, total freak. My neighbors look at me weird, and other moms at my daughter's school trade stories in front of me (while I'm nursing my toddler) about how they couldn't nurse past (insert shorter time period here, three months, three weeks, whatever). Freak! That's me.

But then there's another segment of the population, and I don't quite fit there either. I don't sleep with my kids in the bed as a regular practice, past the age of about 9 months. I drink Diet Dr. Pepper on a regular (that is to say, daily) basis and my kids eat popsicles, Frosted mini-wheats, and goldfish crackers. I didn't birth at home, I send my kids to school, and I'm REALLY looking forward to a couple weeks away in a month or so.

And where this all leaves me is in the middle. Not crunchy enough, too crunchy. I console myself by repeating Anne Lamott's wise advice, as always, "the most subversive thing I could do is show up for my life, and not be ashamed."

Camping

We had a really great time camping. So starts possibly my lamest blog ever, but I just want it recorded that a few weeks ago, we took four small children, five adults, and three Subarus into the North Carolina wilderness, and we did just fine.

I had been looking forward to this camping trip for quite a while. I have long fantasized about being a person who camps, who takes her kids camping, who casually says to people at the pool and such, "oh yeah, we went camping last weekend" (which I did, completely dorkily, right after we got back). I also would love for us to have a (CHEAP) fun thing to do on weekends for our family.

So, if I'm being honest about the actual setup of camp, the "testosterone brigade" helped quite a bit. Let's just say I could put a tent up if I absolutely had to, but when it started to pour down rain I graciously stepped aside and let the manly men do their work of putting up the rain cover and making sure it was tight enough to not have leaks. This was a STORM, mama, I'm telling you, and then it was just rain, until 1 or 2 a.m.

Nevertheless, all nine of us (including one very confused, but game, four-month-old) hung out in our damp, dark tent for a while, til the kids began to lose their minds. The two-year-olds nursed, the baby nursed, the four year old curled up on her little bed, and although I did learn that a cot is MUCH less comfy than an air mattress, sleep happened for everyone involved.

The next morning was beautiful. I was out before sunrise and the trees were still heavy with the rain, so I occasionally got showered, and I could hear the giant waterfall across the road. We made bacon and pancakes on the cast-iron skillets, which made an unbelievably tasty breakfast, and then we had smores for dessert since we got cheated out of our campfire the night before. "Breakfast SMORES???" said M, in extreme delight.

All in all, a very normal, fun, grubby, happy, camping trip. That is to say, a miracle in my house. I'm a camper! I camp!

The Five Things I Dig about Jesus

Okay, so the title makes me cringe a little bit. But I've been tagged by Just Jill to play this meme, even though I don't know what a meme is, though I like the concept.

And also she pointed out that it's time for my monthly post. Yowza!

So here they are, the Five Things I Dig about Jesus
1. With Jesus, once you think you're in, you're out. But if you feel like you're out, then you're in. The kingdom of heaven, that is.

2. He just did not seem, in the words of my colorful-language spouting preacher husband, to give a SHIT. In a good way. Got five husbands? Whatever! Unclean? Not a problem. Snot-nosed kid that just wanted to say hi? Come on over! Scribes and the priests coming to kill me? Well, that's a bummer. But go on ahead, I have power that you don't EVEN know about.

3. He can take all your crap, let you cry all over him and be a whiny mess, and then serve up a miracle that both takes all the wind out of your overdramatic sails and also brings tears to your eyes at how grateful you are for your life. Not that I speak from experience or anything.

4. He told everybody it was going to be hard to follow him. He did NOT engage in an evangelism program or a new member's class that talked about the great potlucks or choir.

5. That he loves me, no matter what. That he loves my kids, and I can tell them that, and mean it. For me, that's what it comes down to.

Only 30 days til my next post!!!!!

Shame

I waver between shame and shamelessness about not keeping this blog up to date. I also waver between thinking that what happens during the day is impossibly boring and I don't even see the point of documenting it, and thinking that I really should write, if for no one else but myself.

Anyway. It has been over a month since I actually have written, and though I have a few drafts of snippets of thoughts on things, none of them materialized into anything remotely publishable.

I have spent three days with my kids, with no school and no camp and no nanny, which is a whole other side story about how I see this mom of a kid in my daughter's class in places like Starbucks and the bagel shop and even carpool and she NEVER HAS HER BABY WITH HER and clearly I am a bit jealous but also just marvel at the way she doesn't have a job, just a nanny, presumably so she can work out and drink coffee a lot.

I feel like a complete failure and wuss. Three days has been enough to reduce me to a mess here, on the floor, whimpering because the toddler WILL NOT GO TO SLEEP and I just need an hour or so of silence and maybe some bad TV and sugar.

I know tomorrow will be better, at least for a little while. I know that I am luckier than many other mamas on the block, but I wonder if it's some failure in myself to not be able to spend many days straight with my kids with no programmed entertainment and not lose my mind.

So I'm going to take some time, now that toddler has stopped his monologue from the crib, to take some breaths, try to be in Her presence. Maybe do some yoga. Eat some cake, watch "So you think you can dance." To quote my favorite crazy wonderful author, "It isn't enough, and it is."

Kid pics

The first one is of my boy doing his face that always makes us laugh, and enjoying the girl's sunglasses.

The second is of me and M doing her first "real" race! She ran half a mile in about six minutes! This running mama is SO proud. More importantly, when I told her I was proud of her, she said, "Yes, and I'm also proud of MYSELF!" That's right, girlfriend.

Friday Five! Amazingly enough...

I occasionally can do this since I'm obviously not fasting from the computer this Friday and am actively procrastinating on finishing my sermon.....

What are you:
...Wearing...
My favorite jeans and my AIDS in Africa gap t-shirt. THE most comfortable t-shirt I have that didn't used to belong to my dad, and helps people with AIDS too. It says ADO (RED).

......Pondering...
Whether or not to really slam it to this congregation I'm preaching at on Sunday. Also, whether or not pastors should be seen as/called "shepherds." And if we should go out to eat Italian tonight, with ice cream afterwards?

......Reading......Runners' World, Baking with Julia Child, The Fourth Hand by John Irving, the paper (restaurant reviews), Vanity Fair. Sadly all are open on my thankfully giant coffee table.

....Dreaming......about the future, what middle ground I can strike between kajillion hour a week pastor and full-time mom...that God Herself would send me in writing something really great. Haven't had any night dreams in quite a while that I've remembered.

....Eating.... um, Doritos. Long run this morning and I'm starving, and eating anything that doesn't move. Next in line is some Trader Joe's Hummus, mmmm.......

Strictness and conversion

I never did an update on my Lenten initiative, but I just read a quote that explained it for me. I was a vegetarian for 40 days, and I did not cheat once. Well, I did eat these completely disgusting potato "wedges" from Arby's during a necessary drive-thru that had something in it that in some former life MIGHT have been bacon, but it was so far from their incarnation then that I haven't worried about it too much.

Anyway, the point is that I did not cheat. No "Sundays don't count," no "because it's a special occasion" or "because it's Thursday" or whatever. I actually had a bite of chicken on my plate at one point and I did not eat it...not because I thought God would hate me or something if I ate it, but because I had said I was going to do it in solidarity, and I knew I would remember that bite.

At the end of Lent, commonly called Easter, my husband asked if I wanted to go get a big old burger to celebrate, because that's what I had talked about. I thought about it. A burger sounded good, in theory. We have a kajillion burger places around us, it was Easter, and I had made it 40 days without eating any meat.

But when I got down to it, meat did not sound that appealing to me. What sounded appealing was a little place down the street from us that has amazing tacos and salsa. We went there instead, and after hemming and hawing I decided on a chicken dish that I had been craving. I ate it, and the salsa was great and the cheese was great and the way they fry it was great (all cornbread-y), but the chicken was a little weird. "It just doesn't taste good!" I said to my partner, and he got a look of fear in his eyes, like, oh s$%&, this veggie thing is going to stick.

I felt kinda sick that night. The next week or so I sort of experimented with eating meat again. Not ever beef, because I just couldn't stomach that, but some organic chicken and such. I had thought that at the end of the experiment I would try to eat only organic and local meat, because I was never opposed to eating animals, only the treatment and how much it takes to prepare one and ship it and make it cheap and all that (See the omnivore's dilemma for more info on that, good stuff). I could not eat it. I did not want to eat it, and it just tasted, for lack of a better word, strange.

So I guess I've become a vegetarian. Today I read a quote that summed it up for my experience at my new favorite blog, No-Impact Man. “Only through strictness do you have a conversion.” He was quoting his food mentor, Alisa Smith, who was cautioning him that although you can cheat in the process, you'll only experience the impact (or in his case, no impact) though strictly following the process. And I really think that's what happened with my vegetarian thing...that through strictness, something in me, not even consciously, unexpectedly, had a conversion.

I'm sure the theology of all this is going to come up at a later date, but for right now, it just makes me wonder what else I could be strict about!

Break time

I have been an official "stay at home mom" for about eight months now. It's been really kind of weird. Some parts about it have been great, like the meeting friends for a run or coffee at really any point, as long as I can tote along my toddler. But some parts about it are just grueling, like getting through a whole day with both of them without a real break. Anne Lamott has this part in her baby book "Operating Instructions" where she says that her baby never just says, "hey, you take a break, go do something for yourself, I'll just lay here and read." It kills me because that's totally what I find myself saying some days, and my daughter, who's coming up on four and a HALF, is still not quite ready to be okay with that, with giving me time off.

I find that around six p.m., when dinner is done and kids are running around and I just want to sit down with a giant beer or three and a trashy magazine, is about the hardest time. My partner and I (yes, he's still a man, but it's a solidarity thing) are trying to work on this and some days I do take a break for a little while at "quitting time," even leaving the building if necessary. But then there's still the getting of the kids to sleep and then when they are asleep, the total and absolute exhaustion.

This is all not new, I get that.

But this mom, despite the fact that of course there are moms who go years and all that without a break, God bless 'em, needs a break. So I have scheduled a few trips in the fall and after much agonizing, am going to take them without kiddos for the first time in nearly six years, not pregnant, not nursing (although ds is welcome to start back up when I get home!). I find that when I start to get all twitchy, I can look forward to the trips, even though they're a while away, and have some sort of hope that I can reclaim a bit of myself, and even miss them while I'm gone, which I'm sure will be excruciating in its own way. So that's the plan, and it's keeping me going on these crazy evenings these days.

I've got a crush....

and this is so weird, but kinda wonderful. I preached at a church today that I jokingly say I'm "vulture-ing," meaning I'm waiting on the pastor to retire so I can just slip in there. It's terribly close to my house (I could bike!) and I've been sort of wondering what's going to happen with it for a while.

But today, I sort of fell in love. I'm a little starry-eyed with a crush on this church. It's clearly early in the relationship so I haven't seen the warts yet and all that. I've only seen the warmth, the welcome, the absolute non-issue of my young-female-with-kids-ness, which is boringly still an issue at some places, the music that I love, the conversations where I can both be myself AND be really present for people in their stuff...

and then there was the moment. A few moments, actually, while I was distributing communion. As I gave each and every person their bread and said "the body of Christ, given for you," it came over me in waves that IT REALLY WAS. Every person looked beautiful to me, every person looked like someone Jesus would want to love. Usually, and this is sort of a secret, communion is a beautiful time for me, but you notice little weird things about people, lines on necks, lipstick awry, stuff like that. I'm not saying it's a good thing, it just happens when you have to get close enough to people to feed them. But today, everyone was lovely, for a few moments. I thought, in sort of an out of body way, "I am seeing with the eyes of Jesus."

And there were some other great moments, like when everybody actually GOT my sermon and seemed to enjoy it and have fun with it, and when I got hugged in a decidedly non-creepy way by two people on two separate occasions, just "so glad to see you back!"

Anyway. If I never am called there, okay. But it was a lovely day, I have stars in my eyes, and I have some hope that a church can be a place that is healing and wonderful in the midst of the hard work to be done. And I'm feeling that tug again, to find a place, to be that pastor, because that is so much of who I am, even with the interruptions.

Jetsam

M is ripping paper and throwing stuff because her brother turned off Sesame Street just as she was getting to the good part (Grover, doing a documentary on Alaska. Did you know the word they use for winter is "uquiq?")

(interruption--get kicked by M, remind J to be "gentle" with her as he's smacking the crap out of her for fun, and get both of them their third and fourth breakfasts. And remind M that if she does not listen to me or her dad today, she will not be going to gymnastics this afternoon.)

I've been up since five a.m. with a short break to sleep, and now the husband is getting his much-needed sleep since he had what we refer to as "the water torture" this morning, where you fall back asleep but then a kid is in your face just as you drift off saying something like, "daddy, can you fix my shoe so I can be a princess."

It is 8:47 a.m.

I have had half a

(interruption to put the dog in her kennel after she emits a small yelp while J lays on her head)

dozen blogs in my head over the past month, but they've remained in my head. Can't imagine

(interruption to remind M to NOT do the big jump off the trunk on to her brother's foot)

why, at all. Mostly I am grateful for my new spiritual director, who I of course have been remiss about getting together with, who gave me this little bit of wisdom in her last email. I had emailed her that in this whole process of figuring out what I want to do and be in the next little bit and of course "where is God in all this mess"

(interruption to save J from certain death at the mercy of a window cord--yes, I KNOW it says strangulation risk about fifty times on the stupid things)

I feel like I am a person who likes a lot of irons in the fire, so to speak. I like the idea of being a pastor a bit, a mom a bit, a seamstress a bit, a writer a bit, a poet (lately) a bit, a runner a bit. None of it expertly and most of it just for fun. But I like multitasking

(interruption to save everything on the table from J's pulling it off like a magic trick that failed)

and all these different things, and I have felt like that isn't okay for some reason, that it's not okay that I'm not ready to throw myself 80 hours a week again into the church stuff.

(interruption to hold J for a sec, whining that he wants A READ! A READ! also to try to convince him that he wants to read to himself. he doesn't)

and maybe I'll never be ready for that kind of ministry.

My kind and wise spiritual director said, you know, I've been studying a little thing called feminist theory of ministry, and it says that the male model of life and ministry, which is one track of anything, has been held up and valued until, oh, now. But the ministry valued by women is one necessarily of multi-tasking. My very involved, amazing husband can

(interruption to make sure all was well after a marker-stealing incident)

work upstairs with all kinds of screaming going on down here, and while that is necessary, it is

(interruption to tell M to be gentle with J in her hug, and to tell J not to terrorize the dog)

not something I have ever been able to do very well. So I am sort of embarassed but mostly glad that lovely SD pointed this out to me, that it is okay and in fact pretty wonderful that this is the model I see myself in most clearly for ministry...it's just not male.

I think I'm getting interrupted for good this time...but at least I've managed to blog for 20 minutes with only the teensiest of interruptions. J is keeping up a steady chorus of "Me-Ma, Me-Ma" which means he'd like to nurse if I can spare a sec. There's an ant on the counter. I've got a sermon to write. It is what it is.

Driving haircut boy

Just wanted to show off my boy with his new haircut, already driving. They grow up so freakin fast.

Lent-y Lent

So, it's been a whole month since I posted, and this is going to be a drive-by post as well. It's just not been in the cards for me to be reflective and stuff these days.

But...for Lent, I am doing something weird, for me. I gave up meat. I'm vegetarian. At least for the next 40 days, not counting Sundays.

Being a vegetarian is something I've thought about for a long time. I've, let's say, flirted with it, for several years now. I think it's something I should do, in theory, but I love chicken and burgers and all that stuff and have a meat-eating husband. So, it's just not happened. And in all honesty, without the miracle that is Trader Joe's, it may not have happened this year, either.

But this Lent I decided that it was just going to happen. I've been really feeling a heavy burden (and oh, please excuse how dumb this sounds, but is actually sincere) for the people of Africa. I was watching an Anderson Cooper special while I ran on the treadmill and saw several babies die of starvation in the Sudan, and their mothers walk away without even getting to bury them because they have to care for their other children.

Now I know this happens, but one of the babies they showed was the same age as my sweet boy. He was so sick that he rejected the formula they tried to feed him because he was too weak to take a bottle. I started crying, there on the treadmill, trying to sweat off my last five post-partum pounds, and it felt so strange.

So that's a roundabout way of saying that for this Lent, I'm giving up meat in solidarity with the mamas who are starving, and whose babies are starving because they can't nurse them. I'm doing the hunger walk in our town in a few weeks too as part of this, and it feels good. Obviously I can't save everybody in Africa or in Georgia or whatever, but I can pray every time I miss my too-cheap chicken or the meat that has had who-knows-what done to it before sending it to the Publix, for the mamas and the babies who do without every single day.

I came home from a playdate the other day, and told my husband that the family who M was playing with had a servant. She took our coats and everything, I said, and unloaded the mom when she got home of all the stuff she was carrying in. She asked me if I wanted a beverage. Their house was spotless. So when I got home, I started whining that I wanted a servant too. And husband, Bible dork that he is, had to bust me on the fact that I do very much covet my neighbor's maidservant.

Damn. I thought I had that one under control.

We happen to go on playdates to houses that are much bigger than ours sometimes, since M goes to a school that is way out of price range but we get the "pastor rate" for. It's a great school and she has great friends, and I do really enjoy the moms who host these playdates. And their maidservants. But excuse me if it weirds me out a little bit that there's a servant there to take my coat when my house is, while not exactly squalor, not exactly not-squalor either.

I get embarassed about my house sometimes, but only in comparison to these other houses with the maidservants and such. If I don't compare it to anything, I love my house! I love how it's comfortable and how it's open, how the light hits my (dusty) kitchen, and as someone who moved 14 times before I was in high school, I love that it's mine. I worked on a shack one time for a family of six on a mission trip to Mexico one time, and whenever I'm tempted to think that my house just isn't enough, I remember that trip, and how grateful they were to be getting a bigger shack that had a tin roof, not cardboard, so the rain wouldn't leak in on them at night. But that little devilish voice gets me sometimes...the one that tells me my house isn't big enough, isn't nice enough, all of that.

According to this quiz, however, I'm not jealous at all! See if you are...

Not a Jealous Bone in Your Body

You're secure, trusting, and giving with friends and lovers And while you may have been hurt before, you've bounced back You're generally happy with your life - and no one's grass is greener than yours One word of caution: some may see your lack of jealousy as indifference!

Are You Jealous?

"It goes so fast...."

So, my husband is out of town. So what....nearly every mom I know practically rolled her eyes at my preparations, which including making sure we had a playdate or something to do every afternoon he was gone. A lot of husbands are out of town. I will say, though, that my particular husband is pretty great, and I really do feel like we co-parent all the time. Which is why I have been cranky this week, and will probably be until he returns this afternoon.

Monday and Tuesday were good days, punctuated by the occasional bad moment or meltdown. Yesterday, not so good. It started at 3:30 a.m. with a "mommy, I peed in my bed!" wake-up call. After the calming, changing of clothes (a stylin' outfit that involved, inexplicably, a belt and shorts), putting back to bed in the sleeping bag, I got another 20 minutes of sleep or so until baby J decided that it was time for him to get up. We nursed, and then he flopped over on the other side of the bed and said, "Dada? Dada? DADA!!!!!!!!" and then screamed for a while because his beloved dad was not there to rock him back to sleep as usual.

Fast-forward past morning baths, daughter to school, a nap for J but not me, and we're at Target in the bathroom. M decided in the middle of shopping that she had to go NOW and so we abandoned our cart. She took forever on the potty, J was pulling all the TP out of the roll and of course putting his hands all over who knows what nastiness, and trying to crawl out of the stall while, god forbid, I went to the potty too.

At the sink, I was holding a screaming, flailing, J while M was turning it into the most formal hand-washing ritual I'd ever seen, and I said, with a teensy bit of hostility, "Hurry up. Your brother is freaking out."

And that's when the woman at the next sink decided to give me her bit of wisdom. "They grow up so fast," she said, as J flailed and M sprayed. "I've heard that," I said, nicely. Oh, but then she decided to go on. And on. About how it was so fast and the second you turned around it was (scream, flail, spray) over! I looked at her and said, "You know, usually, I get that, but today, it's just not so fun." She looked at me like I had slapped her and went out of the bathroom without saying another word.

Now I don't know her situation. Perhaps she had a child who died. Perhaps she has children she misses terribly. Who knows! I tried and tried to excuse her...I felt bad that I wasn't nicer. But you know, it was a bad day. I love my children, but jeez, little kids make for HARD days, and I can't be patient all the time.

So I've been thinking a lot about her, and trying to pray for her, and hoping I didn't completely ruin her day. But maybe nobody told her it's okay to have crappy days, to wish you could have a second by yourself, to not have to be so freaking NICE all the time, to know that Jesus is okay with me even when I'm snarky.

Feather Boas and a church trial

My son, the lovely baby J, is into feather boas. His sister got a bunch of princess clothes for Christmas (see below), one of the accessories being a pink feather boa. And baby J is really into it. I always hear my friends' husbands say something like, "whoa, you've got to watch out for that!" or some such...even if it's joking. But what it did the other day was give me tears in my eyes.

My friend, Bradley, is on trial by our church right now. Yesterday, I was privileged to host the prayer room provided for those who were a part of the trial or there for support of Bradley and Darin (his partner). There weren't a ton of people who came down, so I had a bit of time to pray and think (unusual in my world) about what was going on.

A circle of empty chairs was in the chapel room where I was, each draped with a stole. I looked at the empty chairs and I could not help but think of the feather boa. What if one of my children is gay? I hope and pray that as with all things I could support them, pray for them, tell them they could be and love anything and anyone they choose.

But as it stands in my church right now, I could not do that. I would have to tell my child that since he or she loves someone the same sex as him or her that he or she could not be a pastor in the church that I love and have served, and that they have been since before they were born.

I have known this for a while, but I guess it came home to me as a mother while looking at those empty chairs with their empty stoles. Bradley's mother is here with him, and I though that it is both wonderful and awful that she is with him through this. Wonderful, of course, because she's showing up for her kid as, in my opinion, a mama needs to do. Awful, because she has to watch him endure a trial for loving someone so much that he wants to spend the rest of his life with him.

So please pray for Bradley and Darin. Pray for his mom. Pray for our church. Pray that the Spirit would move in mysterious ways, in ways that we can't even think about yet. Pray that minds and hearts would be always opening, opening, opening, never closing, to possibilities and people.

Mostly, please pray that no more mothers and fathers have to watch their children be tried and rejected by the church that they love and to which they've given their life's work. Thank you.