You go. I’ll take care of this. part III

The Sermon on the Mount is a tricky part of our How-To Manual. This is crazy stuff. Big demands. I encourage you . . . challenge you . . . no, implore you to go home today and read it. Begin in Matthew, chapter 5 and continue right through chapter 7. Really read it. Read it not as a pat on the back, but as instructions for how to be. Not as “blessed are the poor in spirit, so yay me if I’m poor in spirit.” NO, BE poor in spirit. DO hunger and thirst for righteousness, Do be peacemakers, do be persecuted and rejoice in it. You murder if you are angry, so you had darn well not be angry with someone. You commit adultery if you lust. Tear out your right eye if it causes you to sin. No, really, turn the other cheek to one who has already struck you. Love your enemies. Really. No kidding. Be perfect as God is perfect! Do not store up treasures on earth. Seriously? How am I going to eat?!

Ahh. How am I going to eat.

The sermon on the Mount is so radically counter-cultural. It really makes no worldly sense. Reading it in its entirety leaves us with few options for response. I think people tend to look at it in one of two ways: either as something other-worldly and mystical, which is how I think many non-Christians view it; or as some sort of unattainable ideal, as I think many Christians view it—I fear in order to rationalize our failure to achieve it. But It’s neither. Because if it were either of those, it wouldn’t have made canon’s cut. There’d be no reason to read it. Jesus is not a mystic, he is not other-worldly. That’s the core of our faith. Our God is a pragmatist. He. Put. On. Flesh. And. Dwelt. Among. Us. He lives among us. He’s not in some far off land. It wouldn’t be like him to give us a pile of fluff to dream about. He gives real, concrete guidance. The first draft of the Ten Commandments was written in stone by his very hand! Talk about concrete!

That leaves us with one final option: Jesus really meant it. He meant it for his disciples. And we are his disciples. But how are we to devote ourselves to a primary vocation of proclaiming God’s kingdom?

I think I’ve brought us to the same place Jesus’ first disciples were when they heard Jesus’ words on the mountain: Ok, Jesus, this is all sorts of crazy stuff you’re telling me to do. It all sounds so good, and it sounds so right, but you want me to leave my family behind? I’m their breadwinner you know, and now I’ve got no job. You’re telling me to go off and live this way. It sounds so good, be poor, be meek, don’t store up treasures on earth, don’t serve money. But I have to eat. I have day-to-day needs. How can I meet them? How am I going to eat?!

I can almost hear Jesus pulling up here. Noticing the widened, fearful eyes of his disciples. Wordlessly pleading, “How are we going to do all this?” And Jesus takes some time out to say these reassuring words:

“Don’t worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about what you wear. Worrying won’t do you any good. Haven’t you seen how God cares for his creation? Aren’t you part of his creation? Don’t you think he’ll care for you in the same way? It’s the world, the ones who don’t yet know me, who strive for food and drink and clothes. You don’t have to worry about these things. He knows you need them. You Go, seek out God’s kingdom. Give yourself up to his use in building the kingdom, live the life that he’s called you to. He’ll take care of the rest.”

We serve an all-satisfying God. I think on our best days we tend to only go so far as to believe God is providing our spiritual needs, we lean into him to help us face tragedies or even simply weariness. But God is all satisfying. He will provide our every need. Even our very food and drink. Remember that image of the nursing mother. It’s not just heady imagery. It’s literal, it’s practical. A tiny baby doesn’t know how the whole milk thing works, he doesn’t even think to his next meal, but he knows where to go when he needs it. He knows that mommy is magic and she provides this amazing stuff and all he has to do when he’s hungry is turn to her. So it is with us. Not just when it comes to spiritual fortitude, but with our actual, literal hunger. We are free to seek God’s will in our lives, to follow where he calls us, no matter the consequences, knowing that God will take care of the rest. He will provide our basic necessities. He will give us our literal bread to eat, daily.

You Go. I’ll take care of this., part II

To find that message that goes beyond “don’t worry, be happy,” we need to look at the passage in its larger context, as coming within Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Jesus did not deliver this Sermon on the Mount to the masses. Sometimes Jesus spoke to every Tom, Dick, and Sally. But in Matthew’s rendering of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is talking to his disciples. He has just recently called them to himself. Some crowds got to following him, but in this instance Jesus heads up the mountain and addresses his disciples directly. He is not talking to the crowds now, he is talking to his disciples, those who have already given everything up to follow him. He is telling them how to be his disciples, his students. Jesus is forming them as a unit, he is giving them an identity, describing a way of being that will set them apart from—even in opposition to—everyone else in their community. He is giving them a how-to lesson on being his disciples. Maybe that’s why the Sermon on the Mount doesn’t make sense outside of the church. Jesus isn’t talking to the multitudes here, he’s talking to those he’s called to himself, the ones he will later (in chapter 10) send out to proclaim the good news, “The kingdom of heaven has come near.” And he’s talking to us. His 21st Century disciples. We are the ones he is calling to himself. We are the ones he’s sending out into the world today.

The Good News of the Gospel is not just for you and for me and for our psychological well-being. The Good News of the Gospel is the news of an entirely new Kingdom. An entirely new way of being. It is the ushering in of a whole new creation. Not just for you and me, but for the world. And our part in it, as the Church, is not simply to feel better about facing tomorrow. It’s not even about just helping others feel better about tomorrow. It is about participating with the God of the universe as he creates anew his glorious Kingdom. The start of the rebuilding project was his sending his Son, Jesus Christ. Our savior lived, died, defeated death, and rose again to usher in the New Age, the coming of God’s eternal kingdom, and he has called us, those who call him Lord, along for the ride. The continuation of God’s project, his mission, is his Son’s sending of us, to further that kingdom, to serve that kingdom with all that we have and all that we are. To embody that kingdom, to carry the blueprint around with us, to serve as hammers and nails, lumber and masonry, as he builds his Kingdom with us. All while we await the consummation of the building project with the return of God’s Son.

The Bible as a whole is our how-to manual. How to carry the blue-print, how to serve the project, how to be sent. How to be the tools God uses to build his kingdom. The Bible is the manual that forms us all as God’s mission team.

You Go. I’ll take care of this., part I

Isaiah 49:

14 But Zion said, “the LORD has forsaken me,
And the Lord has forgotten me.”
15 “Can a woman forget her nursing Child
And have no compassion on the son of her womb
Even these may forget, but I will not forget you.
16 Behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands;
Your walls are continually before me.”

Psalm 131:

1 O LORD, my heart is not proud, nor my eyes haughty;
Nor do I involve myself in great matters,
Or in things too difficult for me.
2 Surely I have composed and quieted my soul;
Like a weaned child rests against his mother,
My soul is like a weaned child within me.
3 O Israel, hope in the LORD
From this time forth and forever

Matthew 6:

25 “For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 “Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? 27 “And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life? 28 “And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, 29 yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. 30 “But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith! 31 “Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’ 32 “For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. 34 “So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

These were the three lectionary passages for a Sunday last May when I was serving as pulpit supply at a nearby church. Immediately after reading the three texts, my mind began to spin, placing all three passages together quite easily. First, there was the passage from Isaiah: “Zion (Israel) said, ‘The Lord has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me’.” In response the Lord compares himself to a nursing mother, telling Zion that a nursing mother is more likely to forget her child than the Lord is to forget his own. Now, Isaiah’s audience would not have been so far removed from the nursing image as we in our modern, Western culture might be, so let me help flesh out this reality for you.

Anyone who has nursed or has known well someone who has, knows how next to impossible it is for a nursing mother to forget her child. A nursing mother’s ability or inability to forget her nursling is not simply a function of how much she loves her child, or how good a mother she is. No, there’s a lot more to it than that. A nursing mother can’t forget her nursing child because her body won’t let her. Her body remembers for her. If she is absent from her child for a time longer than they would normally go between nursings, a mother’s body tells her quite plainly, quite full-ly, and sometimes even quite pain-full-ly that her child is missing. A mother who has to spend extra, unexpected time away from her young nursling is just as desperate to reunite with her baby as he is with her.

This is the kind of love and connection God is speaking of here. God will not forget his own, he cannot forget his own. In fact it’s even easier for a nursing mother to forget her nursling, and that is a physical impossibility. Isaiah 49 assures Zion, and by extension us, in no uncertain terms, that we will not be forgotten by our Lord. He will remember us, he will remain faithful to us, and is faithful to us, even when we have forgotten him.

In Psalm 131, David speaks of resting content in the Lord, as a weaned child with his mother. A weaned child has a calm, a contentment, a security. Resting in the arms of the one who has provided all his needs until his needs were fulfilled, a weaned child rests, assured of continuing love and care, assured that the one who has met his needs of the past will continue to meet the needs that are to come.

The passage from Matthew, this excerpt from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, continues the Psalmist’s theme. David, calmed and content in the arms of the Lord, lives the life called for in Matthew 6:24-34. Not worrying about tomorrow, trusting God to provide for his needs as God provides for the lilies of the fields, David doesn’t have to worry about tomorrow. Nor do we.

So within about 15 minutes of reading the lectionary texts, I had that. Ok, I’m done, I figured. But that won’t take long to say, that’s hardly a full sermon. In fact, it’s only about 4 minutes’ worth. But then again, what more is there to say? God does not forget us, he remains with us, faithful to us, supplying our every need: food, shelter, clothing, giving us nothing to worry about. It’s all right there, spelled out so neatly, so easily.

But is that it? Really? As amazing as all that is, I think there’s still more to be learned from those three passages working together.

While it’s all very true, here, in this context, falling in the midst of the Sermon on the Mount as it does, this passage is saying far more than “Don’t worry, be happy.”

Falling off the face of the earth . . .

So I’ve disappeared, apparently, from Blogland.  I don’t know why.  And I’m either having deja vu or I’ve written that at least half a half a dozen time in the last month or two or three.  I wonder if it’s because I’ve been preaching more regularly lately.  Don’t know.  But today, which, according to my last post must be tomorrow, I’ll talk about my cute kids.  Cuz I can’t do that too much while I’m preaching.  Though I do have a good story about Ruthie and Communion that will likely show up in a sermon some day . . .

So, on the kid front lately . . .

We have Isaac.  Who is seven.  And I’ve decided seven is my all-time favorite age.  At least that’s my story this year.  He’s just such a neat, neat kid.  He’s really coming into his own and we don’t have to struggle over every request, and his brain can handle some more complex thoughts and conversations . . . it’s just so fun.  And he’s so nice to his sisters.  He really is.  Especially when he’s not yelling at or kicking or otherwise bringing harm to Hannah.  They’ve been playing together so much better, just really being good friends together.  I love that.  They must have spent 4 hours in their bedroom on Saturday morning, just doing some sort of imaginative project together.  Very nice.

Now that it’s November, Isaac’s year-round Halloween obsession has come to an end.  I think he actually finally released enough of his Halloween ideas into the atmosphere that he’s no longer exploding with Halloween.  He’s making a good transition into Thanksgiving.  Which is probably his second favorite holiday.  Because of the food.  And because he love love loooves having guests over and hosting events.  He loves it.  So, he’s planned out how we’re going to have our family over for Thanksgiving dinner and he’s divvied up the dishes:  daddy’s turkey, mommy’s gravy, daddy’s mashed potatoes, Aunt L’s sweet potatoes and homemade cranberry sauce (we need her to make cranberry sauce.  I love Aunt L’s homemade cranberry sauce!!!), Grammy’s rutabaga and parsnips, Grandma’s peas and corn and apple pie, and mommy’s pumpkin pie.  I think that all covers it.  And picture it delivered much faster than you just read and with more enthusiasm than you can imagine, and you’re probably close to the live version.  Isaac is excited! about Thanksgiving.  He’s now talking of buying a giant blow-up turkey for our front yard because we don’t have any Thanksgiving decorations.  He’s also started planning for upping our Christmas decorations from last year’s additions.  Think Clark Griswald.  “Christmas Vacation.”  Except his father and I are more the simple all-white little lights and candles in the windows sorts.  If we were actually motivated to decorate at all, that is.  I’m not really sure where this boy came from.

Hannah.  Hannah girlie.  Hannah girlie’s birthday is right around the corner and is she ever excited.  We wrote out her invitations for her friends this morning.  This is her first birthday party with friends invited, not just family.  She was jumping up and down and wiggling with excitement.  Which means, when you do the conversion, if Isaac felt that same level of excitement he would, quite literally, be through the roof and out in space somewhere.  Hannah is giggly and excited and wrote everybody’s names on the envelopes along with a drawing of a stamp and an I <3 U for every one of her classmates.  She’ll be five.  FIVE!  And if she saw you on the street, she would invite you to her party.  She’s just sweet as can be.  And I need to start making some plans.

Her “best friends” in her class are the kids who are in most need of early intervention and/or special education.  I’m not exactly sure why, she can’t explain what she likes best about them, but knowing Hannah, it just seems to fit.  She sees the people most in need of love and care and attention and she lavishes it.  Of all our kids, we can most easily, very easily, see Hannah following in the family business.  Of course, Lord knows what he’ll really call her to, but she has the kindest, gentlest heart and a passion for caring for people.  She’s precious.  Simply precious.

And Ruth.  Ruthie Ruthie Ruthie.  Ruthie’s big project this last week and a half is starting to use the potty.  I’ll save you the gross details.  Suffice it to say, she’s been so easy about it.  She just decided to do it and now she’s doing it.  It’s thrilling.  It’s the end of an era.  And there isn’t an ounce of bitter in its sweetness.  I’m thinking of opening a special savings account where I can squirrel away the money we’ll be saving on diapers.

Now that I’m thinking about it, I might just know the real reason I’ve been absent from blogland.  Ruth has been two-and-a-half.  And if you’ve ever met a 2 1/2 year old, you know what I mean.  Holy moly, Ruth is doing 2 1/2, like she does everything else:  with GUSTO!  Full bore!!!  Yesssireeebob, I am toddler, hear me roar!!!  Wow.  And I’m getting a little old for this stuff.  Finally, finally she seems to be mellowing out some.  Some.  She’s getting a grasp on taking turns.  She’s gaining a little bit of patience.  She’s developing better language skills and that seems to diffuse some of the intensity.  But at the end of the day, this toddler is positively hysterical.  When she’s not screaming at me, she’s saying and doing some of the funniest things and I find myself laughing at her all day.  What a joy!  What a blessing!

There ya have it.  My three kids and where they’re at and what they’re doing.  Meanwhile, I’m watching them grow and learn and be, and am, in many ways, simply along for the ride.  These years are far too fleeting.  I don’t want to miss a second.

Sick days for the mommy . . .

My husband is too good to me.  Have I said that here yet?  He just really is.  I am beyond blessed with this man o’ mine.  For just being a couple of kids when we got together, we’ve done alright.  And he’s done stupendously.

I’ve been sick for the last two weeks.  Whatever horrid germ it is has worked its way through all five of us at some point.  Today I’m on day two of antibiotics and am starting to feel better, but I think the things are making me nauseous.  I feel pregnant:  the constant sensation of almost-barfing.  It’s helping console me on the whole empty-arms whine I wrote last time.  Blech.

So, this hubby of mine . . . since I was smart enough to not get sick on a Sunday, I’ve had some real down time to get better.  And I’m grateful.  And I know not everyone has this, and I write this to remind myself in darker days (read:  days when I am re-thinking this whole marriage thing) that my husband really does go above and beyond to be kind to me and to take care of all of us.

I thought I’d try a funny post today, but it’s not happening.  Where has all my funny gone?  Maybe tomorrow.  Tomorrow when my brain is not fuzzy, when I don’t feel like heaving my chicken noodle soup.  Tomorrow I’ll tell the tale of Screaming Ruthie.  I’ll contemplate the great mysteries of the toddler who has a 100% potty success rate when she’s naked and a 100% failure rate when thick gotchies are applied.  Go figure.  Tomorrow I’ll reflect on the fact that I think school is driving my children insane.  Tomorrow.

Tomorrow.  Tomorrow I’ll tell all the silly tales of motherhood.  Today I’m going to curl up and feel nauseous and revel in my chance to rest.

It’s time for a baby . . .

but there isn’t one.  I’ll stick that right up front, lest anyone get excited.

But it’s time.  Ruth will be precisely 2 1/2 tomorrow.  Isaac was one week shy of 2 1/2 when Hannah was born.  Hannah was one month and one week shy of 2 1/2 when Ruth was born.  (Makes it look like we are such good planners.  We’re not.)  So.  Now Ruth is 2 1/2.  And I’m supposed to have a newborn.  I can feel it.  I can feel this empty space where a newborn would go.

It’s hard.  It’s hard to explain and it’s hard to come to terms with.  We made a very conscious, a very well-thought-out decision to stop at three children.  And on some level I know it was the right decision, but I’ve been sad about it.  And right now, when my pattern indicates it’s time to be adding someone new to the family, it’s particularly sad.

I think it’s a mixture of being robbed and of being a failure that haunts me.  This decision we made, this likely very wise decision we made, was built upon some circumstances that seem to be either totally beyond our control, or entirely in my control, depending on the day, depending on my mood.  Whichever it was, this decision was not made because I looked at my family with three children and said, “Yes.  That’s the right number.”  And I think I feel that.

Pregnancy was really not good for me.  And, therefore, really not good for my family.  Completely debilitated by morning sickness and depression, pregnancy means, for me, essentially a year of sitting on the couch (the “year” because it also includes the first three months with a newborn who eats near continuously).  For my children it means 9 months with a near useless, totally miserable mommy.  One who is able and willing to do little else but sit and snuggle.  For my husband it means having to be not only the sole monetary provider, but also the sole caretaker of his young family for the better part of a year.

When I was in late pregnancy with Ruth, we decided we couldn’t all do this again.  None of us.  Ry didn’t want to see me that miserable ever again.  I didn’t want to rob of their mother the three children in my arms for the sake of another in my womb.  And I didn’t ever again want to watch my beloved, generous, loving husband weighed down by the burdens of a congregation and the full responsibilities for our family.  I was still pregnant when we made the decision, and part of me thought maybe we should wait until we weren’t in the throes of pregnancy before we made our decision permanent, but I vividly recall the rest of me believing wholeheartedly that it was best that we make the decision while we were in the throes of pregnancy misery lest we forget just how bad it was.

And now.  Now I think I have forgotten just how bad it was.  But I don’t forget how amazing it is to have a whole new little person in my arms and at my breast and in our family.  And I also feel so better armed for the pregnancy journey now that I know going in that pregnancy creates depression in me.  Maybe I could take an antidepressant while I’m pregnant and actually have an enjoyable pregnancy experience.  And I now have all these crunchy resources for dealing with morning sickness, maybe I could even do pregnancy without feeling like vomiting all day every day from weeks 7 through 22.  All of these what if’s . . . But the decision’s been made and ratified, and I’m not sure any of us would really be willing to take the chance on the what if’s.

Yet still.  It makes me sad.  I watch births on TV, I read birth stories online, and I cry.  I cry that I will never do it again.  I mourn the baby that never will be.  I give myself a sound beating for not having been better at it.  For not having been better at accomplishing the biological task my body was designed to do.  And I beg God for a miracle.  There.  I admit it.  I beg God for a miracle baby.  We have, after all, one more empty chair at our table.  Of course, then I give myself a sound beating for being so greedy.  For not being simply grateful for and satisfied with the three wonderfully healthy babies we have, and the fact that I have held each and every one of my babies, when I know so many women who haven’t had that much, ones who never got to hold their breathing babies, ones who held them for far too short a time.  Then I try to remind myself of these thoughts.

Sigh.  Pity party.  And you know what?  That may be all I have here.  I’m still not ready to see the hope in it, to see the Good News of it.  I’m just not.  I’m having my pity party  today.  I wanted a fourth baby, and, because I can’t be pregnant without inflicting profound misery on my whole family, I can’t have one.  Or, maybe I didn’t want a fourth baby, maybe I just wanted the opportunity to think about having a fourth baby in terms of normal questions like, “Do we have enough room in our house?”  “Do we want to start all over again?”  “Is somebody still missing here?”   But because of my pregnancies, that really wasn’t an option.  And I’m mad.  And sad.  And not very glad at all.  I guess crummy pregnancy symptoms are part of the Fall.  And as such, they should piss me off.   And they do.

Maybe as Ruth rounds the corner away from 2 1/2, away from the age at which kids become big brothers and sisters around here, maybe it will become less painful.  Maybe as she gets older and easier and we start spending all night every night with just the two of us in our own bed and everyone is using the toilet independently and everyone can put on their own shoes and socks and so on, and so forth . . . maybe it will grow less painful and I will grow more content with our family of five.  I hope (and pray) that I don’t endlessly continue to look at that sixth chair at the dining room table longing to fill it with another offspring.  I hope and pray I can sincerely look at it and desire to fill it with a stranger in need of a place to sit and eat.

So maybe I do have some hope here after all.  A little bit.

Two very different girls . . .

I think about this a lot.  This parenting thing.  It’s been my primary vocation for 8 years now.  (I start counting with Isaac’s conception, as that was the point at which I began obsessing about the whole parenting enterprise.)

It seems everybody’s got their ideas, their philosophy.  Rules to follow, guidelines to lead you in leading your children toward adulthood.  I tried to qualify that adulthood:  healthy, well-balanced?  productive?  But every little nook and cranny of parenting-lore has its own goal in mind.  Christian circles where the name of the game is obedience:  raise your kid to be obedient to you so that when they are adults they will be obedient to God.  Non-Christian circles whose goal seems to be adults who are capable of finding their own way, their own path.  And everything in between and a zillion hybrids.

There are some things I’ve learned in these eight years of parenting.  Well, 7 1/2 years with a kid I can actually see and touch.  These rules.  These guidelines.  These “Do XYZ for ABC results” applied to kids?  Bunk.  A whole lotta bunk.  Who are we kidding?  Kids did not come down out of a shoot from a factory.  There is not one model.  There is no model.  They are individual people–hear that.  People.  From birth.–with their own particularities and peculiarities.  Just as different one from another as adults are different, one from another.  Why is it that we expect our kids to fit some sort of mold, follow some sort of equation (if X, then A), when we know enough to never expect the grown ups around us to work that way?  When we encounter adults knowing to expect the unexpected, always prepared to respond to what comes next, knowing that what comes next is not always predictable?  Why do we view adults this way, but not kids?

I can’t talk to my mother the same way I talk to my sister.  They have two different languages.  Two different senses of humor.  Yes, they are similar in many ways, but in others they couldn’t be any more different.  And this is one woman raised by another woman, taught about the world by her from her earliest days.

Yet.  Yet we get these first kids and we open up these books to find out what to do to them, with them, for them, to turn them into the people we want them to be.  Then we have these second kids and we apply all those same rules to them and expect the same result.  “If I do R, this child will do Y.”  But the thing is, the child (C) in the equation (R + C = Y) is not a constant.  The child is one, unique individual and, therefore, a variable.  A variable of enormous magnitude.  So, how can we expect to consistently get Y, the results we desire in and for our children, when we add the same X to a completely different C?  Are you following me?  I have at least one numbers-oriented friend who might be.

We have to change the game.  Change the equation.  Start with the variable.  Start with the C.  End with the Y, sure.  It’s OK to have a goal in mind for your kid.  I want my kids to grow up knowing the Lord, loving him with all their hearts, souls, minds, and strength, and loving their neighbors as themselves.  That’s my goal.  That’s my Y.  So I have a kid, C, who I want to get to equal Y.  Actually, I have three kids, I want to get to equal Y.  Three different equations, one for each variable.  Because each C has a completely different value and measurement and character and you-name-it.  So, I’m left with a general  ( __ + C = Y), but with each child, I have to figure out what goes into that blank.  I have to figure out the Rules, the tools, the means, that need to be added to each different child to get–to the best of my limited abilities–to the results I’m hoping for.

What does this child, Hannah, need?  What does this child, Ruth, need?  What does this child, Isaac, need?  Those are the questions I need to be asking.  If I go to any “rule” books, I need to do so with these questions in mind.  Seeking not rules, but ideas, possibilities.  Things I can try that might work for Ruth, but not for Hannah, things that hit Isaac just right, but send Hannah off the deep end.  Too many of these people selling these books fail to tell you that.  I think these books tell us more about the kids the authors’ had than it tells us about what we can do for our own kids.  And in some cases, my heart breaks for the kids who came after the author’s firstborn but who likely had the nerve to operate completely differently.

So not where I intended to go.  Shock of shocks.  My real point in writing this, as may be evident from the title, was to share an experience I had last night that demonstrated just how different my two girls are.  My three kids are so very different, one from another.  And maybe that’s why I’m so sensitive to all this.  Maybe not everyone’s kids are as varied as mine.  Mine barely seem that they came from the same planet, I don’t see how they all could have come from the same womb.  I simply cannot treat each one of them with the same set of rules.  I would have broken them long before they came off the assembly line.

So, in keeping with the title, an illustration of just how different are my girls. . . .

Everybody was sick yesterday.  Well, not me, but everyone else.  Fevers and coughing and general flu-like stuff going on.  I’m pretty sure no one’s going to die, but there are buckets of misery being passed around.  Hannah and Ruth each had a fever at dinner last night (in the 104 range), so I gave them each a dose of ibuprophen at 6:30 and sent everyone off to bed (read, 2 1/2 hours later, everyone was asleep).

Around 2AM I hear a distinctly croupy cough and a whimpering “Mommy” coming down the hall.  Hannah and Ruth sound pretty much the same, so I can’t tell who it is until I am greeted by the messy halo of blond and footed-jammies silhouette with the yellow blankie tucked under my toddler’s chin.  Ruthie.  “I want Mommy.”  OK, honey.  I climb out of bed to meet her in the hall, but realize, Boy I really need a trip to the bathroom before I get involved in this.  “Ry, can you keep Ruth while I run to the bathroom?”  “Sure,” says my most beloved, always-willing-to-help-a-kid-or-wife-in-the-middle-of-the-night husband.

I return from the bathroom to find my Ruthie snuggled in bed with her daddy and chitty-chatting away in a chipper voice:  “Dem was WRobots.  Da wittle one was WRushy.  What dem peas doing?  What was Pa Gape doing?  Dem was singin’ “  And so on.  And on.  And on.  Ruthie had watched a lot of TV on her sick day, and is retelling much of what she saw.  Chipper and happy and ready to go.   Ry and I are laughing, despite the fact that it’s 2 in the morning and we are both desperately tired.  Ruthie’s just so funny.  I feel her forehead, to check on how her fever is doing and she is burning up.  I run downstairs for the thermometer and ibuprophen.  102.3.  Hot enough.  She’s chipper, so perhaps I shouldn’t worry about bringing the temp down, but I want her to be comfortable enough to sleep well, so I drug her up.  I send Ry off to Ruth’s bed while I hunker down with her in ours.  When she lay down, she has some big, wet coughs and she throws up.  After cleaning up, we both start to drift off to sleep.

Next thing I know–and very little time has passed–I hear yet another croupy cough and whimpering.  Hannah.  She whimpers and whines her way up over Ruth, straddles my legs and just whimpers and whines.  I try to tell her I need her to get off my legs so I can go get her daddy to help her–so Ruth can stay asleep–but she won’t move, won’t speak, can only whimper.  I’m trying desperately to quickly get her up and out of my room before she awakens Ruth, but she’s beside herself.  I also know that she’s going to throw up, because she always does when she’s sick like this with excess mucous–she’s always choked and gagged easily–so I’m also trying to get her to get off my bed before she does.  But she can’t do anything but whimper and whine.  She’s just pitiful.  As predicted, she barfs, mostly getting it off the side of the bed to the floor as instructed–though the bed does not go unscathed–and continues to whimper and whine and tremble.  My poor, poor baby.

I carry her off to Ruth’s bed (in the room next door to ours, so as not to disturb Isaac who shares Hannah’s room) while my beloved cleans up the mess and changes our sheets–have I mentioned how wonderful he is?–and Ruth, long since awakened by the hullaballoo, wanders around between both rooms chattering away, chipper and happy, despite her rosy cheeks and glassy eyes.   Hannah huddles into a shivering ball under Ruth’s blankets.  I get the thermometer and ibuprophen.  102.8.  And miserable.  Drug her up good.

I send Ry off to bed with Hannah, so she has someone to snuggle and keep her warm, and again I hunker down with Ruthie who is really ready to go now, chitty chitty chat chat.  And I marvel at the difference between my two girls.  Both with the same symptoms, the same grade fever.  One happy-go-lucky, bubbly, chipper, ball of energy, one shivering, trembling, whimpering, most pitiful creature.  So different.  Neither good nor bad, just different.  And if they can’t even have the same response to the same virus with the same symptoms, how can I expect them to have the same response to anything else?

Wow.  I’ve rambled.  Blame the fact that I haven’t been blogging much lately.  Blame the utter lack of sleep.  Blame the encroaching virus.  But who am I kidding?  It’s my way.  It’s who I am.  It’s one of the ways God made me special.  It’s my own little way of being different.

I lift my eyes up . . .

¹I will lift up my eyes to the mountains;
From where shall my help come?
²My help comes from the LORD,
Who made heaven and earth.
³He will not allow your foot to slip;
He who keeps you will not slumber.
⁴Behold, He who keeps Israel
Will neither slumber nor sleep.
⁵The LORD is your keeper;
The LORD is your shade on your right hand.
⁶The sun will not smite you by day,
Nor the moon by night.
⁷The LORD will protect you from all evil;
He will keep your soul.
⁸The LORD will guard your going out and your coming in
From this time forth and forever.

I’ve had a lot going on lately.  Specifically, had a crazy couple of weeks back in the middle of September. On September 14^th, I received a call from my mother. She and my father had just returned from an appointment with my father’s neurologist.

Back in the early spring, my 63 year old father was diagnosed with Parkinson’s. This was a hefty blow to the former Marine Master Sgt., and a Teamster who made his living carrying refrigerators around. It was also a mighty blow to the three women of his life: his wife of 41 years and his two grown daughters. Visions of watching this strong, proud man who had worked so hard, so well, his whole life—beginning at the age of 12—physically weaken and deteriorate before our eyes began creeping in from the deep, dark corners of our minds.

This was not how it was supposed to be. We had all grown convinced of an entirely different scenario for his death. His own father, along with his father’s brother, had died of sudden heart attacks at the tender age of 42. Their sister also had her first heart attack at 42, however it wasn’t until suffering her second at 54 that she joined her brothers in early death. Losing his father when he was twelve and a most beloved uncle when he was 16 left my father with an immense appreciation for life. He never took a moment for granted, and began counting every year past age 42 as an especially precious gift.

The other side of that coin was that, as a family, we all assumed that my father, like his father before him, would be cut down swiftly and in the prime of his life. That image, that fear, truly was a driving force in our life.

But. But then came the diagnosis in the spring: Parkinson’s. And our vision of my father being struck down suddenly, in all of his strength, were replaced with shadows of deterioration and longterm care. Devastating. And certainly bad enough.

Now. Back to September 14^th. . . . During this, my father’s second visit with the neurologist, issues beyond my father’s tremors were raised. Behavioral changes, cognitive changes—changes we had attributed to something else—changes observable to the neurologist, put something new on his radar screen: dementia. Specifically, Lewy Body dementia.

Suddenly our vision for my father’s last years shifted yet again. Instead of a strong body failing and deteriorating, we now imagine my father’s mind failing, growing incapable of speech, of even recognizing me or my sister or the woman he’s loved since he was 17 or even his 5 grandchildren.

The thing is, I don’t have to work very hard to imagine the realities of dementia. My 64 year old father-in-law is in the later stages of his own bout with dementia. Diagnosed nearly seven years ago with a form of dementia called Frontotemporal Dementia (or FTD)–go ahead, do the math . . . that’s right, he was 57 when he was diagnosed—the dementia’s effects on him are profound. And heartbreaking.

When I heard of my father’s possible diagnosis of dementia, Ry and I were actually waiting to hear details on his step-mother’s trip to visit her brother on the other side of the country. Feeling a deep need to visit her ailing brother, my step-mother-in-law reluctantly asked if we could go and care for my father-in-law while she left town for 5 days. We were happy to oblige. Our plans were confirmed midweek: we would leave Sunday to spend the week with my father-in-law.

Ry and I slogged through that week: spending extra time with my mother and sister—all of us reeling from my father’s new diagnosis—making arrangements with the school to get work for my 2^nd grader to do while we were out of town for a week, both of us preparing sermons for Sunday morning in two different pulpits. Too late to arrange for pulpit supply for Ry, and with me as the pulpit supply at another church, we decided to head south after we all returned home from church on Sunday and packed up the minivan with all our stuff and three kids. We began the 530 mile trip at 3:30 in the afternoon and arrived at my in-law’s at 2:30 in the morning. Ry’s step-mother left home at 10 the next morning, and on two to three hours of sleep for each of us, Ry and I hit the ground running.

Our week consisted of a whole lot of care-taking, lots and lots of dishes, and what seemed to be a continual parade of meals and snacks and drinks. And our week was filled with amazing blessing as we were able to express our love for my father-in-law in real and tangible ways, and watch our children learn by example our family’s expectation for loving one another.

However. I’ll be honest. Our week was exhausting. And our week was overwhelming. And because the days following my own father’s diagnosis were spent in that flurry of activity, I hadn’t time to stop and really think things through, to really process it. Still the news was weighing on me, and somewhere around mid-week, on a morning after both my father-in-law and our youngest had a bad night’s sleep, I hit a wall.

On Wednesday morning, I had a few quiet moments to myself in the only place a mom can have in her own home, provided the room has a room that locks: the shower. In the quiet, I reflected on my week. I had spent the week caring for my father-in-law, loving on him, his face with only glimmers of expression, his brown eyes only occasionally finding my own in any meaningful way, sometimes confused, often simply staring to space. These images of him raced through my mind, but then before I knew what was happening, the images changed. My father-in-law’s brown eyes were replaced by the clear blue eyes of my father, the expressionless face grew broader, fairer. My mind continued down the path of foreseeing. Thoughts of how I would explain to my children how the brain of their other grandfather now has something wrong with it. I wondered if they would begin to consider this brain deterioration as simply the way the world works and then would begin to worry about their own father’s brain or even their own. I began to wonder how my mother with her own health concerns would be able to care for my father and I realized she would need a great deal of help from my sister and me. I started to think about how after seven years it seemed I was finally putting that Master’s of Divinity to work, serving churches, but how would I balance that now? Throughout my thoughts of all the ways my life would be affected by my father’s future, my father’s face, superimposed over my father-in-law’s condition, continued to come in and out of focus before my mind.

My mind was whirling, buzzing, with all of what would be required of my family in the coming years, while at the same time feeling intensely the heart-wrenching burden of my father-in-law’s condition. Aching for him, and for his wife and for my husband. Knowing that the end is in sight, realizing the huge hole that will open up in our lives without him in it. And my heart ached for my father, for the things he’d have to go through before he lost awareness. Truly, this was not all about me.

Whirring, buzzing, spinning, turning, every which way a big, scary mess. Until finally I found myself completely overwhelmed by all that lay ahead.

And it’s at this point that I did the only thing I think anyone in those circumstances would do, can do. I cried out to God. “Lord, how am I going to get through this? How are we all going to get through this?” An image had formed in my head. A mountain. I was staring at this enormous mountain in front of me and somehow, some way, I needed to climb up and over it and pass through to the other side. “How, Lord? How am I going to get over that mountain?!”

It doesn’t happen often. I think because I don’t listen often enough, but I believe the Lord answered me. And he answered me with his very own Word.

“I lift my eyes up to the mountains. Where will my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.”

To be honest, I heard the verse in the form of the song I know. “I lift my eyes up. Up to the mountains. Where does my help come from? My help comes from you, maker of heaven. Creator of the earth.”

How many times had I sung that song? Countless. Countless many. Many many. With my hands raised and my eyes closed (even though I’m Presbyterian), I had envisioned a vast open space with big mountains, like the rockies—enormous, jagged, imposing mountains. Mountains that demonstrate the power of the One who made them. I envisioned God above those mountains. You know, kind of a Mt. Sinai vision: God, himself, dwelling on a high, rocky mountain. God of power. Beautiful vision, truly. I had sung the song marveling at God’s awesome power to have created such magnificent mountains and to be so beyond the scope of those magnificent mountains, that he dwells above them and beyond them. So to this point this song, this Psalm, was a song that reminded me of God’s strength and power, but in a far off sort of way. God, Big God, way above the mountains, providing help to me. A beautiful image. Truly.

But not the one that came to mind on that day I cried out to him and he answered with this Psalm. Suddenly, I saw things much differently. Suddenly the mountain was not evidence of God’s majesty, of his amazing power of creativity. Suddenly, the mountain was this overwhelming task that was set before me. In my mind I was now at the foot of one of those enormous, imposing Rockies, and my task was to scale it. And I’m no outdoors-woman. But God was assuring me I would make it over to the other side.

When I had a chance to sit down with a Bible and look at the rest of the Psalm, it came into still fuller clarity for me. It does not describe a far-off God providing help from on high. It describes a God who is my climbing partner and then some. “He will not let your foot be moved.” I trip a lot. The image of God holding onto my foot so it doesn’t slip on the graveled terrain? Wow. Suddenly I had a clear image of the ultimate hiking partner. One who would stay right by my side and compensate for any uneven terrain, keeping me on track.

“He who keeps you will not slumber.” You know this is talking about a place where critters come and eat you in the night while you sleep. But God never sleeps, so when you need rest, he keeps things going, he keeps you safe. I was assured that even in the midst of the worst moments to come, there would be time and space for my rest. I cannot keep watch at all times, but when I can’t, the Lord, who never sleeps, will keep it all in his sight and care.

“The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.” Day and night, the Lord will be there, protecting me from the elements, protecting me from the harsh realities of the journey.

“The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life.” I will survive this. I will. I will not plummet to my death. I will not be buried in an avalanche or a mudslide. The Lord will keep me.

“The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and forevermore.” The Lord will be here with me through it all. Wherever I go, whatever I do. In this life as well as the one to come.

Praise and thanks be to God for his Word.

Once upon a time . . .

there was a woman.  And she started a blog.  And that woman liked her blog.  And that woman hated her blog.  But she blogged.  Not every day, but at least a couple of times a week.  And then every day for a little stretch.  And she even had pictures sometimes.

But then one day her hate for the blog overtook her love for it and she stopped writing so much.  And then she wrote less.  And still less.  Until finally she was left wondering what she ever used to write about.  Because suddenly it seemed as though she had run out of ideas.

She was sad.  Because she loved her blog.  When she wasn’t hating it.  She loved to write write write her thoughts and ideas.  To sit down at her laptop and type and type and type her streams of consciousness flowing straight from her brain and out her fingertips, never exactly sure that her stream would reach the destination she envisioned or take her somewhere else altogether.  But she hated sticking her ideas out into the vast nothingness of Blogland.  The nothingness of Blogland breathed life into her anxieties and self-doubt and pathologies of all kinds.  And the nothingness stomped out the love.  Mostly.

Still.  The love is there, lurking.  Can love lurk?  Lurk sounds too sinister for love.  The love is there, hovering, contemplating, thinking.  Yet staring out into the great nothingness and wondering if she should really take a chance.  And mostly she concludes, No.

Sigh.  Sad, sad blogger.

She would like to pull up her bootstraps, slouch on her plated armor, and get to work.  Blogging those ideas.  Thinking those thoughts.  Thinking that life.  Because it’s fun.  And she knows there are at least two people who enjoy reading it.  And writing it is fun.  And productive.

So she’s off to think some more about life and maybe even to write some thinks down.  But first she needs to sleep a bit.

A Love Story

I know.  I know I wrote about our first date last year.  But that was last year.  I’m all sorts of nostalgic this year.

It’s funny, though, because when I wrote my post on this date last year, my blog audience consisted mostly of my imaginary friends from my favorite message board.  They don’t know my husband at all, and most of them have never laid eyes on me.  So, I was throwing this story out there to people who don’t know me in my personal, real, day-to-day life and never had.

In the year since then, I took the big leap and started linking my blog to facebook–or vice versa, I’m not sure–and with that, my audience has grown.  Now, it may still be some of my message board friends who are also FB friends who didn’t know about my blog before, but it also includes some friends I interact with on at least a weekly basis, and other friends I haven’t seen much, if at all, over the last 20 years, but who knew me when.  And knew Ry when.  And were our friends when this first date of ours took place.

So, the change in audience makes reflecting on the beginnings of this relationship a little . . . odd.  More intimate?  More exposed?  I’m not sure.  But that won’t stop me.

Because it’s September 14th.  A holiday in this house.  I was greeted first thing this morning with a “Happy September 14th” from a very nice man.  So every year, we pull out the stories.  Much like the pilgrim stories of Thanksgiving.  I’m sure some details have been lost along the way, but I don’t think quite as much has been rewritten as with the pilgrim stories.  We’ve told and re-told our story to one another every 14th of September since 1991–the first anniversary–as well as at various times throughout the year.  And I think it’s important.  I think it’s important for everyone to rehearse, rehash, repeat their own stories.  It helps us remember who we are, who we were.

Yesterday we spent the day with a lovely couple whose only child is in his second year of college.  They were telling us what a shock to their system it was when their son first went away to school.  The two of them sat there and stared at one another:  Well.  What do we do now?  It took them a couple of weeks to realize that, well, now they could go out to dinner with one another any time they wanted, that they could spend all the one-on-one time together they wanted.  They reveled in it.

In the midst of my day-to-day, up-to-my-elbows-in-small-kids life, it’s been important to me, to us, to remember our story.  To remember how it is we got together in the first place and then remember that it is still at the heart of what’s keeping us together.  I’ve spent intentional time and energy on keeping us connected to who we were way-back-when as a way of helping us to stay connected to who we are now–and by we, I mean Ry and Lee, not the whole family–so that we can maintain that we into those days that are out there–somewhere–when it will, once again, be just Ry and Lee rattling around in these halls.  Celebrating the days of yore, the days of just fun and friendship and laugh, laugh, laughing, helps keep us grounded through these days when we are so focused on these little people that it’s sometimes hard to see the face of the grown-up on the other side of the little heads.

So, today we remember.  We remember how we were such good friends.  Just friends.  How our friendship grew slowly, over the course of years.  How we were both surprised when we looked at the other and realized . . . hunh.  You might be a little more than a friend to me.  How the end of our first date, in a very sweet and innocent way, with a hand-hold and a hug, brought us home.  Home to a place we knew we belonged and where we hoped to stay.  It was comfortable and natural and easy.  Just easy.  Like breathing.  Yes.  This is it.  It hasn’t all been easy, but the getting together, the transition from friend to . . . different category of friend . . . was easy.  And that’s where we remain.  Friends of a different kind.  And I give thanks to God for bringing us together in precisely the way he brought us together.  And I pray for 19 more years like the last 19:  years that get better and better.  And then I pray for another 19.  And heck, I might just shoot for another 19 after that.  I like this guy.  I really do.