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.

Christmas Eve Sermon

What happens tonight?

What happens tonight? If you ask my three-year-old, she would say that tonight, Santa is coming. If you questioned her more, she might say that Jesus is born. Even more, and she might tell you that we finally get to light that fourth candle on the Advent wreath, the one that’s been bugging her for weeks now. It’s finally here. What happens tonight? Jesus is born.

What happens tonight? We’ve waited for this night for weeks. We’ve prepared our houses, we’ve baked our cookies, we’ve wrapped our presents, we’ve listened to the carols. Maybe we’ve listened to the stories leading up to tonight in the Bible…the one about John the Baptist and his mother, Elizabeth, the one about Jesus saying that the end times are very close, right around the corner, in fact, and the one where John the Baptist is giving us the good news that the Messiah is coming and will harvest the people of God. Just to stretch it out, we’ve lit one candle, then two candles, then three, and now finally all of them stand lit.

And after all that, I don’t know about you, but I’m tired. I come to this night, and maybe you do too, full of expectation and hope but also full of all the things that bring us down in this world…everyday stress, the state of the world, war, poverty, sitting in traffic. I bring all those things with me to this night, and I bet you do too.

What happens this night? What happens when we come face to face with God? What happens when we see the God who lives in Jesus’ birth tonight?

We can see what happens when we look at the ones who were there that night. The ones who saw Jesus, face to face, and were touched and changed by his birth.

What happened to the shepherds that night? What did they feel when they saw the face of God in the angels? They felt, we hear in the story, fear and trembling. The old translation says that they were “sore afraid.” Very afraid. Insanely afraid. Because the night had become as day…the night got lit up by the presence of these angels, and I can’t imagine that the song they were singing was quiet. They were afraid. And that’s how we feel too, sometimes, when faced with the presence of God. Afraid, when our life is lit up to show what we have done and left undone. Afraid, when we hear the voice of God telling us even good news in our life. Afraid. That’s what happens first tonight…we feel afraid. But thanks be to God…the first words out of the angels’ mouths was “DO NOT BE AFRAID…WE ARE BRINGING GOOD NEWS OF GREAT JOY!” Do not be afraid, even though the presence of God means nothing is done in secret. There’s good news of great joy for all people, even people who are afraid, even people like us. Do not be afraid.

What happens this night to the people who were afraid, the people who lived in darkness? What else happened to those shepherds? Well, in the words of the movie Forrest Gump…they just ran! They didn’t walk to the manger, they went with haste, meaning, they RAN. That’s how meeting God affected them…they ran to the manger to see this baby. And this people, who had lived in darkness…then they praised and gave thanks to God! These shepherds, these common people who didn’t have anything, really, ran to see the baby Jesus, and then they ran back out again, praising God, preaching, prophesying, and telling everyone who they met what had happened to them. That’s what happens this night. Even people like us…people who don’t have any special qualifications…people who have walked in darkness…people who aren’t even expecting ANYTHING…these people become the ones who spread the good news about the birth of Jesus, because they can’t imagine doing anything else. Seeing the face of God so changed them, so touched them, that their lives have become all about running, not walking, to tell people who haven’t heard about the grace of God.

What happened this night to Mary? What happened to this important disciple, this servant of God? Mary gave birth to Jesus. In the Orthodox church, her title is God-bearer. She brought God into the world in Jesus. And that might have been enough, her saying yes to God, when an angel came to her to ask if she would be the one, her giving birth. But she becomes more than that. After these things happen to her…all these things, can you imagine? An angel visits you and tells you that you, if you agree, will become the mother of the Messiah, and you’re a teenager and not even married yet? You carry the baby, agree to your husband and the government’s crazy idea that you, nine months pregnant, should take a three-day trip to Bethlehem on a donkey so they can count you, and then give birth in a stable. I think that would be plenty for me, thanks, for one lifetime.

But Mary is special. Mary knows that these things that have happened around her son’s birth will affect everything. So she looks at all these things…the angels, her strange pregnancy, the shepherds, running to her side, the bright star over the place where she gave birth, the beautiful baby boy in her arms. She looks at all these things, and she holds them dear, she holds them to herself. She keeps them inside, even though she’s not sure what they all mean at the time. But she preserves the memory of this night, of all that happens to her in this night.

And we preserve it too, don’t we? It’s Christmas Eve, the night we waited for, the night that the herald angels sing and the faithful come and the night is silent, at least for a little while. We treasure the moments and we remember them in our hearts, even if they’re not perfect, because we have brought our tired selves here to worship the baby in the manger and his face is the face of God.

So we, with Mary, remember this night, and all that has happened. We carry it with us when, like Mary, we have terrible things happen to us, when life is not so wonderful and magical by candlelight. Mary must have carried the memory of this night with her when she saw her son on a cross, so many years later. Although there was pain and struggle and death she carried within her the memory of a night, this night, when the star shone and the angels sang and a baby was born who would save us all.

Amen, and Merry Christmas!

You can't always get what you want...

I'm a big believer in the magic of Christmas. I think that kids should go downstairs to see presents wrapped under the tree, and I think that at least one of them should be something that they "oh please oh please oh please" asked Santa for, even if it's of questionable value.

But I am not buying princess shoes this Christmas.

M insists that she wants princess shoes and a bride dress (among other things) and I am not doing it. She is getting some lovely creative play dress-up things that can become anything she wants. She is getting a lavender princess dress with matching hat. But I am drawing the line at the shoes, and I have to admit that I feel kind of bad about it. The girl loves shoes. She already has two pairs of princess shoes, and I can't, in good conscience, buy her more.

So I guess I'm just hoping, even though I'm convinced that I'm doing the right thing by not buying her any more of the plastic-y, foot-pinching, made in Japan craziness, that she still finds Christmas to be magical. And I keep reminding myself that you can't always get what you want, but sometimes, you get what you need.

Goodwill to me.

I've been thinking about Goodwill lately. Not "peace on earth, goodwill to all ('men' is a poor translation, by the way!)" but the Goodwill. I went through sort of a thing in the spring, and by "thing" I mean some sort of revelation or life-changing epiphany.

I love clothes. Always have. We have pictures of me at two, three, four years old, looking happy to be wearing my own spiffy concoction of skirt, lacy shirt, cowboy boots, bikini top. You know what I mean. I still love clothes...I often had though that if I had kajillions of dollars, I would buy myself some obscenely expensive shoes first of all, and then a suit that was made just for my own self by some fabulous person in Italy.

But...the epiphany. I had known of this little thing called "justice" and another thing called "child labor" for quite a while, but I was in denial, being a person who loved clothes with little funds. I felt like I had no choice but to buy things with labels that say, "Made in Bangladesh" or "Made in Myanmar" although I have childhood friends who came from there, and I know that almost certainly a woman or child getting paid not much made them for me to buy for an unfairly cheap price.

This all sort of started crashing down on me, at the ripe age of 30.

What to do? I have less funds, having gone from part-time to extremely part-time, and sometimes not at all. I still love clothes and can't stand to look bad at things that are important to me...weddings, preaching gigs, parties, etc.

A solution came to me, and it is the only solution I could think of that encompasses all of these: my love for clothes, love for shopping, cheapo budget, saving the earth, and not causing my buddies and their children across the sea (or here at home) to make clothes for me for an unfair wage.

GOODWILL. It helps that I live in an affluent area, so the Goodwill harbors treasures that are just amazing. I try to only shop there, actually. I don't talk about it too much, hence the blog, because truth be told, I don't always want to explain that I'm not just a cheapskate...it's about so many other things. So I shop there for my clothes, and I'm dressing just as well (or better) than I ever have. And I feel like, in a teeny way, I'm doing more of my part to bring justice on the earth. When I grow up (or my kids do) I'll be an activist, but today, I'll just shop at the Goodwill.

Four

My daughter is almost four.

This sounds like, I bet, NOTHING, to someone who doesn't have kids, or maybe who doesn't have a girl child, or, just to take it further, it probably sounds like nothing to someone who doesn't have my particular daughter.

Three has been a little rough.

Three has meant something like ten tantrums a day at some point, for reasons such as "I didn't want YOU to tie my shoes, I wanted DADDY to tie my shoes!" and "I didn't want my food TOUCHING on the plate!" and "I wanted to pick my spoon out myself!" and oh, the list goes on and on. Melting down is a nice way to describe what would then happen. We tended to call it "losing your mind," which seems to me to be more accurate. Many times a day, this. I took deep breaths. I went running. I did my best to reflect her feelings. Sometimes I yelled or did things that would not put me in the mom hall of fame.

But I'll be honest...I prayed the other day, the other month, maybe, about all of this. I said, "God, you've given me this little person whom I desperately love. But I don't like her. I don't like being around her a lot of the time, and that makes me want to cry. Please help. Please, please, help."

Now there are some prayers that I've prayed and prayed and prayed, every day for years, and after a few years it seems that there might be the teeniest of dents in what I wanted to happen with the prayer. But there are other prayers that the second it comes out of my mouth God is falling all over Herself to dump the request on to me, like, "I was waiting for you to ask!" This whole enjoying my kid thing seems to be one of the ones where God couldn't wait to just shower me with all kinds of good kid moments. Or it could be just that she's nearing four. Whatever it is, I am supremely grateful for this hilarious, creative, dramatic, active, little girl, and that feels like a pretty huge miracle.

Thankful, kid-style

My poor neglected blog! To all my faithful readers I say...I have DSL, and I will return!

For now, I'd like to share with you what I did for my daughter's preschool chapel today, in honor of giving thanks. It's my paraphrase of Psalm 67, mostly ripped off from the Message. If you've got a little person in your house, or a dog, or a life partner, give it a try.


PSALM 67

(A Thanksgiving Psalm for Children)

1 God, mark us with grace and blessing! Smile at us, God!
(bless your neighbor, smile up at God so God smiles at you)

2 The whole country will see how you work, all the places will see how you save.
(spread arms out wide for whole country)

3 God! Let people thank and enjoy you. Let all people thank and enjoy you.

(say loudly THANK YOU GOD for…..list things)

4 Let all people everywhere become happy and shout their happiness because You help them.
You even help people who are far away!
(spread out to fill the whole room and say THANK YOU GOD!)

5 God! Let people thank and enjoy you.
Let all people thank and enjoy you.
(point to everyone around the room)

6 Earth, show us how happy you are! You mark us with blessing, O God, our God.
7 You mark us with blessing, O God. The whole earth, THANK GOD!
(arms out for the whole earth,
yell THANK YOU GOD!)
AMEN!

then end with a bunch of hugs and a rousing rendition of "He's got the whole world in His Hands." Or maybe a dance party in honor of Jesus. Happy Thanksgiving, y'all.

"You look happy and proud."

so said my fortune in the cookie I got today at the excellent buffet down the street. "You look happy and proud." At first, I thought, what a dumbass fortune, as usual. But then I looked around, and had the thought that if anybody did see me today, they would think I looked happy and proud. I was with my kids and my husband, and we four were having a pretty good time. Baby J was chowing down on chicken and those noodle-y things, Big Girl M was trying out the trainer chopsticks, and I was eating my share after nursing Baby J through a growth spurt this weekend and running five miles this morning.

I felt happy and proud.

This is exactly the opposite of how I usually felt as I drove to my church or did anything related to it, with a very few exceptions in three and a half years. I usually felt like a failure, and unhappy.

And so I am happy to report that since the actual demise of my church last week I am feeling, in my new occupation (s) of mama at home, slingsewer, and supply preacher, both happy, and very proud. Finally.

"This number is no longer in service...."

Well, my church is dead.

Yes, it was technically over about two and a half months ago, but it has been like when someone dies. They're dead, but you still get the bills. So I've been slowly sorting out the bills, making sure all the checks are in, everything's accounted for, everyone is paid and receipts are filed, before handing it all in to the big ol' church governing body in the sky. Literally. As in, on the 16th floor, that me and baby J made a trip to this morning, me, sweaty and dressed up, he, damp and in the backpack. Long story.

So I'm not going to lie...this ending's taken longer than it probably should have. If I really would have scrambled, I could have had it done a few weeks ago, but something in me resisted. I just didn't want to say goodbye yet. I didn't want it to be final, although if you would have asked me, I would have said, oh yes, of course, I want it to be over.

But today, it's over. Earlier this week, I got an email from a person (see my post below about casting out the demons, etc) demanding a final accounting as he was "promised."

The good thing about this is that it finally got myself into gear to deal with the last few faxes and phone calls and get it done.

The bad things....well...they're legion. What it boils down to is that I have such anger about this person asking me to answer to him after he was the one who made my life at this church pretty bad, maybe even setting me up to fail, although that's debatable. So I decided to treat him exactly how I treat my three year old when she's demanding something. I did exactly what I promised and nothing more, and I decided that if I get questioned any more as if I had done something wrong then I will do what I do with the three year old again and repeat in a calm voice the same phrase, over and over, as if I was a recording...."I'm no longer a pastor at that church. Please ask (my boss) for more information."

I'm still working all this out, but I've recently figured out that I have felt like a person in an abusive relationship...that I look around at some friends with good churches with more or less people who like and support them, and don't even believe it could be like that, and sadder still, that maybe I don't even deserve it.

But something in me just won't give up hope that there's a little church out there that's perfect for me. So I'll take this year as a gift, and I'll keep hoping. Okay?