february brings more snow

Gladys was copying out that ridiculous poem yesterday 'January brings the snow, makes my feet and fingers glow (what does that even mean?). February brings the rain thaws the frozen lakes again (rain and again are supposed to rhyme presumably).'

Gladys read it out and then looked up in confusion and wonder. "What month are we in?"

"February," I said, making some kind of small effort to surpress some bad words. "I don't remember who wrote this poem," I said, "but February never brings the rain and March doesn't bring the flowers." We were all seven of us huddled around the heater in the school room, sniffling and warming our cold fingers like something medieval. There were constant fights and jostlings as each tried to be as near the heater as possible without touching it and being burned. And now the snow is dumping out of the sky again. It's a valentines day miracle. But Binghamton hasn't canceled school. Heh heh heh. Suckers.

So I bought myself some flowers. It seemed the only thing to do.

And I carry them to whichever room I'm in as a coping mechanism.

Matt tried to say that because he had said I should sometimes buy flowers that somehow this counted as him buying them for me. 

"No," I explained calmly and slowly, "If you want credit for buying flowers you have to go outside in the muck and put gas in the car and actually buy them." 

He looked up from his computer vaguely as if he had heard some kind of sound but couldn't locate if. "Hmm?" he said.

Later I took Elphine to her second time of fencing. Ohmyword she is so cute and short with the helmet and sword and glove and everything.

And her unmatched socks. Her commitment to the truth led her correct me that she "did it on purpose". 

"I couldn't find matching socks," she told everyone reproachfully. 

"Well," I said to the assembly, "I have six children and my husband does all the laundry." Everyone nodded understandingly. 

So now I guess I'll go make pancakes. 

Happy Tuesday!

men are human: the preach moment

I've been thinking about Jael the wife of Heber a lot lately. It's hard not to with a steady diet of P.G. Wodehouse and his Scripture Knowledge Prize. Every book you open there she is, so funny, so strong, so like Aunt Agatha who chews up broken bottles and the dreams of young men.

She, Jael, I mean, not Aunt Agatha, is an interesting portrait for our time. When all the men are freaking out, she picks up her tent peg and does what's required. Her warm milk, her soft words, her firm pressure and grip on the hammer, she has it together. She is strong and clever and what you want every young woman to be. Nevertheless she is an indictment against Israel. That she had to do what she did, that the men were all wringing their hands and fussing, is it's own judgement.

Place her in the pulpit and you have a sign of a world gone awry. I always thought this when I was on my way to and then in seminary, listening to young men and women preach and distinguishing no real difference in the quality of the voice, neither in content nor strength. Many times the women were indeed more forceful, more prepared to wield a word of judgement. That is until Matt stood up, in class, and preached an incredibly startling and glorious twenty minutes on how to escape the fire of God's wrath. The class, if I remember, was transfixed and then horrified. This was no tent peg but was a glittering sword. That same term I preached a long "poem" about The Road, and everyone thought it was so charming. Not desiring to shed blood, I gave out the milk and left the peg in my room.

Sometimes God tells the woman to stand up and use what's in her tent. She should not stand helplessly by when evil rides in longing for a rest and a drink. But that's the not the problem, anymore. There are so many women in the pulpit saying so many things in the same tone of voice and very little of it has anything to do with arresting evil. 

When you have the chance to listen to a man, week by week, wielding a sword, you have been given a great gift. The voice of the man should not have to be muted so as not to scare and offend. He should not have to speak very quietly. It is a great sorrow to me that when you finally get the chance of hearing a man preach the voice is often pallid and sorrowful, practically indistinguishable from a woman's (I long to name a number of actual preachers here but I don't want to be unkind nor get in trouble with anyone). 

Matt's preaching through Mark has been the true counter to the weak insufficiency of the modern Man. I think there are several reasons for this. For one, his voice is pitched neither too high nor apologetically. There is no whining timber anywhere in his delivery. For another, he works through a whole text so that a complete theological and exegetical thought is completed. He answers all the questions in the text. Most critically, though, he works hard to bring out the Psychology of the Individual, both the preaching voice of Jesus, the true and perfect man, and the weak and broken thinking and acting of the sinner. In a moment of shameless appealing, I commend the whole series to you--but most especially this last week, the 9th--which is on the internet, somewhere within the reach of Google. Surely you can find it if you look.

I think it was CS Lewis who likened a woman being able to preach to a dog riding a bicycle or doing tricks or something. (I'm not going to bother to look it up so everyone is welcome to correct me.) It's surprising that it is being done at all. It seems to me, all these years later, that the remarkable preach moment is a man really preaching as a man and not as a man trying to be a woman. When you hear it, you should stop and listen and be glad of the rest. Tent peg or no, a sword works so much better.

jumbles

Baby turned three on Sunday. I'm thinking of calling her Elsbeth. I really like Ermintrude but 

Matt hates it. He really likes Euodia but I don't. Clearly she needs a name because a Baby she isn't, nor Fat. Woe is me. Her little baby shape has changed into a little girl. She uses words and has fine motor skills. Sob.

She got a Pair of Shoes and a sparkly butterfly skirt and wings and a wand.

When I mentioned that her birthday was coming up she said very clearly and pointedly, "Marigold broke my crown." So I bought five crowns and we're all still wearing them.

I'm not much of a believer in every little girl being a little princess bit, but I found it surprisingly pleasant to spend the whole afternoon in a crown myself. It gave me that extra push to just keep going.

She looks sweet but she's pretty bossy and loud. After posing with her new Bunkey she turned and smacked Marigold for trying to touch her Tiny Special Owl. What a beautiful moment.

Elphine has been sewing all the time as if her life depended on it. I haven't had the will or ability to teach her anything so she's been figuring it out herself--threading needles, stiching, everything. She made a dress for Elsbeth's (see, that sounds pretty nice doesn't it?) Unicorn.

Was so so worried that The Bully Elsbeth wouldn't express true gratitude but she was really delighted and Elphine was extremely proud. Elsbeth even hauled it up to bed and slept with it. 

Elphine has also made me a cover for my basically destroyed bible and a tiny purse for Marigold and a purse for herself. It's so amazing. She figured out that if you sew something and then turn it inside out you can't see the seam. Felt guilty for not telling her but she was so thrilled to have discovered it herself. So Binghamton, who amongst you can devote some summer moments to Emma? I even have a sewing machine. And I'll give you a pie for every hour you spend with her.

So now we have a break from birthdays until April, just around Palm Sunday if my calculations are correct. My third quarter for school ends this week and then, if God is nice to us, I think we'll be able to push through and finish all our curriculum before Holy Week. I keep saying that and not believing it, but every time I look through everything it looks like it might really be possible. Of course, Matt is sick, and I  feel terribly unwell, and the kids are all pale and pokey, but that's no excuse to not get into a little extra spelling....and math....and maybe just a little more history.....and some handwriting.....nobody is sick enough to skip handwriting.

Onwards and Upwards!

my talk at iv last night: independence

Some lovely person came up to me this Sunday after church, someone who had spent a few minutes with my fifth child, a four year old girl, and said to me, "Marigold" (that's her blog name) "is really independent isn't she?" 

"Oh yes" I said, laughing, and then I looked in this lovely person's eyes with a sinking heart, "you mean Rebellious, don't you? Not independent."

She laughed. "Well yes. Rebellious."

It's cute in a child, rebellion. And sometimes it's hard even to detect because it comes with a toothy grin and it's just so cute and you think, if you're a bad parent like me, "oh, she's just expressing herself. She's just being who she really is." And that's true, up to a certain point, but not the person she should be.

It's a thin line, between independence and rebellion, we might even say two sides of the same coin. They aren't opposite of each other, exactly, but more like two points on the same line. The question is which direction you are walking.

Independence, that state of thinking and acting for yourself, is a valuable quality, one which I think every parent and every child across the world has a relationship of necessity with. When you were born you could not live without the totalitarian and life giving choices and presence of your mother.  For food, for warmth, for safety, for everything, you depended on her, and probably your father, or some necessary care giver. But those closest to you, lest they loose their minds, needed you to grow and learn to do important things by yourself.  Walk, eat, speak, cross the road, drive a car, study for an exam, manage a check book, enter into relationships with people who were not them. Babyhood, childhood is so precious, so lovely, but there's a reason it needs to end before age 20. Your parents would have died of exhaustion if you hadn't grown up. They love you. They are probably willing to give their lives for you. But if you don't grow up and get a job, you will send their poor gray hairs is sorrow to the grave. I say this as someone who only began sleeping through the night this year. I stopped sleeping with the birth of my first child, eleven years ago, started sleeping again this year now that the youngest is 3. Indeed, with the youngest, long after she had stopped waking up to be fed, I continued to wake up from the memory and habit of it. This kind of dependence, though beautiful, is apt to kill you if it doesn't end. So Independence is good. It is necessary. And it is given to a child by parents who don't need the child. They maybe gain love, eventually, but it's not a reciprocal relationship where the parent gets very much back from the child.

Even when independence is given as a gift, it doesn't come easy. This American cultural is saturated with the message that you have the right to determine your own course in life. You can do anything! You've been told by Disney in every movie for the last thirty years. The most important person in the world is you and your choices are supreme over all things! Perhaps, as you struggled through adolescence, you made choices and pursued your dreams but you ended up feeling more dependent than ever on your parents and friends. Stupid Disney, perhaps you thought, as I did. Now you are here, self determining your classes and relationships and food choices and everything else, but still you probably write home, or maybe text, for money. I am so old, I used a fax. You want to graduate and get a brilliant job. Your parents are praying with all their souls that you don't have to move home any time soon. They want you to be you, an individual with thoughts and feelings and aspirations. The parent who doesn't want that, who wants the child to stay really close, who wants to make all the decisions, who obscures and muddies who you are, or the friend who does that, is muddying the water between good dependence, which only happens when two people are properly independent and weird bad dependence which happens when one person won't let the other person be an actual person. Independence allowing for the right kind of dependence, is good, even when hard won.

Let's turn the coin over and look at the other side, or the other point on the line. Rebellion. To see what this looks like we will go back to the ancient story of Adam and Eve.  You've maybe heard this story. Another time we could argue about how and whether this story is true. For now, go with me to my Christian paradigm. This is how God articulated the beginning of all things, and the beginning of humanity. 

In Genesis 1 and 2 God created Adam out of the ground--not a baby, crawling around on the garden floor eating bugs--no, a full grown human man, a man with a personality and identity. Adam had work to do. He was supposed to name all the animals and care for them and the garden. But God created Adam, independent walking around Adam, with a lack. He created him lonely. After naming all the animals and looking them over, Adam realized something was missing. There was him, and the animals, and God, hmm, something else was needed. And so God put him to sleep and took a rib and made Eve, beautiful, self possessed, different and distinct from Adam. WhenAdam woke up he was so delighted. You are the one I've been missing! he cried. You are bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. Let's be together forever. And God married them and they lived happily ever after.

Just kidding. It's not Disney. There's another piece to the story. While Adam and Eve could walk and talk and eat food they actually were not supposed to be completely independent. They were distinct from each other but supposed to depend on each other--to work together in the garden, to help each other and relate to one another. They weren't supposed to absorb each other into their own beings, manipulating or managing each other, nor keeping each other at arms length, preserving a careful boundary around their own psychic space--no, depending on each other and even more they were supposed to depend on God. 

That's something Christians say a lot--depend on God. It's an easy thing to say and impossible to really do because of what happened next. Adam and Eve were hanging out in the garden, doing whatever they were supposed to be doing  when a great temptation came upon them. The serpent, Satan, came to Eve and said, God doesn't really love you. He hasn't given you everything you need. You would be happier if you had more independence. Wouldn't it be great to know things the way God knows you, to be like him.  He doesn't want you to really be who you are.  He's trying to obscure and muddy your true identity. He is a bad father. True happiness lies in independence from God. 

Now, this was a great lie, but a bewitching one. There were two kinds of dependence that Eve had on God up to that moment. The first was for her very existence. She was walking around on her own feet and picking fruit to eat, but she actually owed her very breath and existence to God. God was holding up her being alive in the palm of his hand, in his very breath. He sustained her existence materially and physically. The second was for her spiritual existence. God kept her spirit alive and he also loved her and she was able to perceive that love  and to experience it. And Adam with her. They could talk to God and be with him as one is with a parent and a friend. As long as they depended on God, they experienced true independence.

This relationship between independence and dependence didn't spring from nowhere, it's a reflection of God himself. God the Father is related in perfect love to God the Son. Everything the Father has he gives to the Son. Everything the Son has he gives to the Spirit and the Father. They are perfectly unified. The technical word is One. They are one in being and heart and purpose. But this perfect unity is only possible because God is three, the father, the son, and the spirit. They are perfectly distinct from each other. They are not weird outgrowth avatars of each other, the Son some kind of manifestation of the father. No, they are distinct persons within the Being of God. They have unique roles. The father is not the son. The son is not the father. Neither are the spirit. So they have something actual to pour out, to give to each other. Adam and Eve were a reflection of this distinction that produces unity.

Until the moment of temptation. Be like God but do it without him, said Satan. And so Eve took and ate the fruit she was not supposed to eat and became truly "independent". Except now the word is called Rebellion. It's doing things your own way as if there is no God, as if you yourself are God. And we all have it. If you see a child look in her mother's eyes and say 'no!' you are seeing rebellion. If your parents say, please come home for Spring Break and you say you have too many papers to write and go to Cabo, you are being rebellious, not independent. If a friend says, I really need you to have a coffee with me because I'm coming unglued and you say, get your own life together I have better things to do, you are really being kind of selfish and rebellious. If you say, to your friend or room mate or anyone really, I'm not going to let you be who you are, I'm going to manage and manipulate you to suit myself, you are being rebellious. But at the center of it, if God says to you, Love me more than yourself and obey me and be related to me, and you say, 

No, I love myself more than you and I will do things my own way,

That is true rebellion.

It looks like independence, it feels like independence in the moment, it probably feels good, but it's rebellion. 

Here's the trick, God created you to be you. He created you to glorify him and enjoy him and do interesting and useful things. But he always meant to be loved by you. He made you expressly to be in a relationship with him and to depend on Him.  Your "independence" is conditioned on your total complete unconditional and willing dependence on him. 

Your walking around and making your own life choices does not negate the fact that he holds your very breath in the palm of his hand. His existence sustains you. Were it not for him, you would be as dust on this gray floor. You might go around feeling awesome and empowered and alone, but that is not the fact on the ground. You depend on him for your existence. The question is will you willingly depend on him for your life. 

Will you trust him with yourself? Will to give your whole self to him to be his? Will you glorify him by depending on and being depended on by those around you?

Why would you want to? What's so bad about rebellion, you might ask. Well, one big reason is that the rebellion side of the coin is ugly.

I'm very sorry to say that the Sunday after my daughter was identified as rebellious, another friend asked me what I was speaking on. 

"Independence" I said. And the person spit his coffee out with laughter.

"What!" I cried. "I'm not independent! I'm not rebellious!"

But I am. I get irritated when my kids want me to do stuff for them that they can't do for themselves. When people articulate weakness, I am tempted to say, 'Just get it together why don't you.' When Matt isn't living up to my plans for him I want to manipulate and destroy him. When I am weak, I want to hide it from the world so that everyone will think I'm fabulous and independent and have it altogether. But really, I'm rebelliously making my own way to have knowledge and good things without God. 

The opposite of Rebellion isn't independence as I said in the beginning. They are two points on a line. The difference between independence and rebellion is which direction you are walking. The true opposite of Rebellion is Love. Love is acting for the good of a distinct other. It's not just a feeling of affection, it is an action for the good of another. So God, in pouring out himself for us, is acting in love. When you give up your own agenda and plans and give yourself to God or to another person, you are acting in love. 

The trouble is that while God has the power to pour himself out to you, you don't have the power to pour yourself out for anyone, let alone God. Eve destroyed the perfection of dependence on God that brought true independence. You are carrying around a great lack. You aren't holding up your own material existence and you can't perfectly meet your own needs for love or anything. 

If rebellion and independence are two points on a line, and there you are on the line, maybe you're waffling between both or just fully in the grasp of rebellion. There you sit, knowing you ought to walk towards God, not really wanting to or being able to. Meanwhile, God isn't waiting for you to make up your mind and get it together. He came down to the line himself. The Son, the second person of the trinity, came down to show us his true identity, to cut through the rebellion. The Son, as you probably know, is Jesus. He is the true picture of love. He gives himself to you to be depended on, to give you what you need, so that you can stand up and be who you're supposed to be and then to actually have something to give to others. You don't need to absorb and obscure others because Jesus has given you his whole self.

To the outside world it may look like you are no longer truly independent. But really, you have walked away from rebellion towards God. You have given up yourself for another. You have said, maybe to God, not my will but yours, not my plans but yours, not my way but yours, not my knowledge but yours. Do you then loose your identity? Do you become a religious sap or nut who cannot think or act with any independence or creativity? No, instead what you have done, when you have given yourself in love to God, is become a true person, a person with no lack, a person who is free to walk closer and closer to God, a person whose identity is less and less obscured and muddied by temptation and sorrow, no longer alone, but bonded to another, closely, truly. 

seven quick takes: why am I in this hand basket edition

one

I shouldn't have been blogging so psychotically and consistently the last two weeks. If you've been wondering why I've become your morning cup of coffee it's because I've been supposed to be writing a talk for Intervarsity for this evening. Being the kind of person that I am, I've been doing everything I possibly can to distract myself from this morbid and terrifying reality. Don't worry, my talk is written but only by the grace of God. I did everything I could to sabotage myself, working all the time to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Although there's still time. I have all of today to get through.

two

So I guess I'll go get a hair cut. What could be less sensible than going in the middle of the day when I should still be writing and editing or schooling my children to get a hair cut from a total stranger who wields immense power to completely disappoint me.

three

When we moved to Binghamton I drove to Ithaca every time I needed a hair cut. That lasted about a year. Then I got tired and just cut it myself. That was stupid. Really stupid. And stressful. Then I had one brilliant haircut from someone who I could never find again. And now I'm on my third try of just clicking around the internet and praying for The Lord to guide me.

four

Isn't it irritating how silent God is on matters that are really the most important? On the subject of hair for instance. On a day like today I would really like God to stop worrying about my holiness for just a few minutes and spend time working it out so that I will look awesome. Of course, as I stand there tonight, my soul virtually naked before a room full of people who I'm sure are all much much more awesome than I, certainly because they're all much younger and read books and stuff, I want them all to be drawn closer to Jesus and not think of me at all. But I don't want to look stupid. I'd really like my hair to be amazing.

five

If you've been waffling between being for or against the ordination of the ladies, I guess I've just given you a really great reason to be against up there in take number four.

six

Sorry Ladies. Didn't mean to betray our gentle sex. 

seven

So I guess now I should just beg you to pray that it will all be ok. O Lord Just Make It All Ok! There, you don't have to think of an actual prayer, I put it down for you. Now, if everyone who reads this will pray that ten times over the course of the day, maybe it will be ok. 

Have a great weekend! And go check out Jen!

{phfr}:grumbling about the snow edition

{pretty}

It is objectively pretty.

It is. I awknowledge that it is objectively beautiful. However, I am a sinner and so I am unmoved by the beauty. I don't like it. Really just don't like it.

{happy}

By happy I guess I really mean angry (me), whiney and cold (the children), and sick (Matt). I didn't start out angry but by the time everyone was dressed and outside I was cursing the day I was born. Then they only stayed outside for five. read FIVE. minutes before trying to come back in. And then the school room was basically a lake of water from all the melted snow. And they came in demanding, cold and whining for hot chocolate, like it's their birth rite. Nothing makes me want to make hot chocolate less than being shouted at by a pack of children.

Oh well, maybe they'll remember it more fondly than it was.

{funny}

I just had the following conversation with Marigold who is four but who is difficult to understand and only just started talking but who lept right in to language with rather large concepts. This is, frankly, an ordinary conversation with her.

"That's Gladys' ring. That's her ring to get married. She always gets married with that ring," she said.

"Who is she going to marry?" I asked.

"I think Mary is on her way."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Jesus is on the cross and he doesn't know about Mary," she said.

Then she mumbled something about her father.

"What about daddy?" I asked.

"I think daddy will get married in time but he's working on your blog again."

{real}

All year we've been learning a hymn called "Forgive us Lord, as we forgive" (Hymn 674 in the 1982 Episcopal Hymnal by Rosamond E. Herklots, Detroit) along with Matthew 18:21-35 which is the parable of the wicked servant who won't forgive his fellow servant a dept of 100 denarii after he had been forgiven his dept of 10000 talents. There isn't a good rendition of the hymn on YouTube that I can find but the tune is lovely and articulates the substance of the Matthew text really perfectly.

So I copied it out while waiting for Elphine and Alouicious to remember how to spell 'orator' which I guess is more complicated than you would expect, even after being previously apprised of it's actually spelling. And then I took this bad picture. So there you are, I did do something today.

Here are the words of the hymn:

Forgive our sins as we forgive

You taught us Lord to pray;

But you alone can grant us grace

To live the words we pray.

 

How can your pardon reach and bless

The unforgiving heart

That broods on wrongs

And will not let old bitterness depart.

 

In blazing light your cross reveals

The truth we dimly knew,

How small the debts men owe to us

How great our debt to you.

 

Lord, cleanse the depths within our souls,

And bid resentment cease;

Then, reconciled to God and man,

Our lives will spread your peace.

wordy wednesday: peanut sauce

It's snowing. To put it mildly.

All the children are stuffed up and whiny and suffering from deep unhappiness of various kinds. I've read thirty five blog posts on how to avoid February burnout but I think it's already too little too late. Let the children paint in the middle of the day yesterday because I'd lost my will to live. Can't tell you how much I loath a room full of children painting. The water everywhere. The paint smeared on everything. The bickering. The torn paper. The enormous stack of pictures at the end of the day that aren't really nice enough to keep that you have to smuggle out because each child is convinced their seven paintings were glorious dreams. So I made peanut sauce. Too bad I haven't made it in so long the little girls didn't know what it was and were not apprised of the fact that it's supposed to be everybody's favorite food in this house. That's the baseline expectation for membership in the family. Know I posted the recipe years ago but I can't be troubled to go find it and you'll probably be wanted to make it when you can get past the snow to a jar of peanut butter.

Peanut Sauce

One chopped onion, a couple of minced garlics, an inch of grated ginger, sweated in a deep pot. I added five little sweet peppers, diced, a couple of diced carrots, and half a chopped cabbage at this point but none of that is necessary. Then, when the onions are translucent, add a jar of smooth peanut butter (no sugar, obviously, because that would taste really strange), two tablespoons of tomato paste and probably four or five cups of stock, assuming you want to feed ten people. If you want less sauce (and I can't understand why you would want to do that because this freezes brilliantly in little cups and gets better with time) you could do half a jar of peanut butter and half the stock. Once it's going along nicely you can add chicken--thighs are best but if you have an aversion to those you could do something else. If you want to be authentic you will go kill a chicken and dismember it and add it piece by piece to your pot, but I can see the snow making that route difficult. Plus, I've discovered that modern stores provide already dismembered chicken for you, so that's probably a sensible option. There you are, when the chicken is cooked through and the rice is done (unless you're carb free and then you'll want a big bowl and a spoon) you can eat it. Actually, it's fine to just stand in the kitchen and devour it with a big ladle and not tell everyone it's supper time. Oh! It's really delicious with red pepper and lately I've been squeezing a big lime into it, just at the last moment.

men are human but what if the man is woody allen

Woke up with a bad headache and the shifting shadow of a bad dream confusing my angry morning darkness. Gladys was shouting that her head hurt and Baby (still nameless) was "patting" me sharply on the face and bellowing my name.

The dream wasn't about bad children, though, it was one of those horrid ones where you're trying to get away from a thug but you're too slow and stupid to enact any kind of plan. I think I was looking on in terror as some hulk with the features of Woody Allen set about to make like difficult. Then I was on a plane (another kind of nightmare) and then the children screaming.

I had gone to bed wondering how that small weasel-ly man, Woody Allen, can go on being famous and beloved all these years and prey on young girls like it's no big deal (assuming the charges are true) Hollywood double standard bla bla bla. Something must be done, I thought to myself. But what? 

The fact is, there are really evil men who have hurt and do hurt and will go on hurting women in unspeakable ways. Just read that weird and horrible story in Judges about the Levite and his concubine and you will see how very old and traumatizing and part of the whole human experience this is. It's no wonder that well meaning people look at the violence of the world, and even men in particular, and think, 'I must shield myself from that and I must make sure that my boys don't ever do that. Here, sit quiet and do as you're told. That will be a good solution.'  In the name of fairness and safety (that ridiculous idea, I'm sure you've heard it, that if women ruled the world we'd all live in meadows of butterflies and flowers) and equality and rights bla bla bla, women have banded together to do away with all the evil in men and in the world.

Except that it hasn't worked. For a hundred years it hasn't worked. Instead of a more peaceful society and world and less violence against women we have the same violence and degradation we had before but now we've managed to dehumanize the offending half--men. If you have to be a man, poor you, you had better be as gentle as possible and by that, of course, I mean passive. Don't Scare Anyone with your evil masculinity! Meanwhile the women are allowed to be as pushy as they want.

Don't get excited. I don't have a novel solution. The solution is as boring as the bible. If you run around looking for the evil in the other person, you unhappily miss it in yourself. And when you go about trying to fix that other person's evil, you actually end up trying to make them look like you and that's idolatry. 

So yes, I guess I'd have to say that Woody Allen is a human being. A really rotten nasty one like all the other ones. And it is so evil that men violate and degrade women. But that degeneration doesn't justify the dehumanizing of all men everywhere in all time. That was a poor solution to a bad problem. Too bad more people aren't more interested in the real solution--Jesus--but I guess I will leave that to him--the best and most human man ever.

a super day

We baptized a new Christian yesterday, in church--young man who has had a rough go it up till two or three months ago, made a lot of bad choices and had things turn out unhappily. If I'd wanted to engage in some nefarious and shadowy activity, he could have been my guide. In the gray light of day, on the feast of presentation of Jesus in the temple, he stood on the step facing the congregation renouncing Satan and all his works and turning to Jesus and embracing him as Lord. Then he turned around to face the altar and Matt called the congregation forward to lay hands on and pray for him. There was a sort of rush out of the pews and nearly everyone who could stand and walk seemed propelled towards him. Elphine, standing next to me in her bright red acolyte robe, turned red in the face and her eyes got teary and she looked like she was going to cry. Then he went up to the font and was baptized and handed and candle and anointed with oil and then Matt said, as he always does because it is written in the bulletin, "Let us welcome the newly baptized". There was a great corporate shout and whistling and applause and I think someone banged on a pew. And then the peace took forever because everyone. Everyone. came out to greet him. Later he stood around in the parish hall holding an enormous cake and being photographed with lots of people who were meeting him for the first time. 

The picture of him standing on the step, holding a candle and grinning broadly, came back to me as I watched what seemed like endless footage of poor Peyton Manning and his woebegone team in the third and fourth quarters of yesterday's game. It was no contest, really. The Broncos ran out onto the field and were suddenly and completely defeated. They stood no chance. But nobody knew before the game. People made predictions on both sides. It seemed like any outcome was possible. The complete routing, as I got more and more foggy because these games are so so long, worked itself into an icon in my mind of this young man's new life in Jesus. Evil, crowding in on him, has no chance. He looks vulnerable, holding his thin small flame, his grin and the expression of life in his eyes the only mark that a new great force dwells within, that he cannot be defeated, that evil has been vanquished. There will be attacks on all sides. But there won't really be any contest. 

And then the total and overwhelming rejoicing. I think those laboring on in the kingdom of heaven, like me, get so discouraged. It seems like we just work and work and pray and evil is so big and God doesn't choose to do what we want him to. He could solve the Syrian crisis in a moment. He could break Pastor Saeed out of prison. He could get that house sold or heal that person. To the world, and sometimes to me on the inside, it seems like it could go either way. Maybe evil will prevail after all. Predictions are made on both sides. The eyes full of life, the grin, the thin vanquishing light, the cake, the church full of rejoicing came at the right moment. A super day, a day of presentation and joy, a clear picture of how the battle will ultimately play out.

men are human

I've lately been saying to any about to be married couple we come across that they shouldn't worry so much about roles and headship and submission. Certainly, they should worry enough to try to obey the scripture. The man should be a man and should love his wife. The woman should be a woman and should respect her husband unconditionally, even if he doesn't deserve it. That's the whole point. He imputes love to her that she doesn't deserve. She imputes respect to him that he doesn't deserve. And there you are, they should both seek Jesus and love him and obey him and not worry so much. 

But then it seems that sometimes young couples, and sometimes even older married ones, are confused and troubled and get into tussles and difficulties. And then I think the trouble is that neither of them knows how to be human. Try being a human being and letting the other person be human, I say, waving my arms around. That's one of the things that's being torn asunder and ruined in this declining civilization. So confused is the question of gender the very humanness of each person is actually obscured.

Last century Dorothy Sayers wrote so cleverly, "Indeed, it is my experience that both men and women are fundamentally human, and that there is very little mystery about either sex, except the exasperating mysteriousness of human beings in general. And though for certain purposes it may still be necessary, as it undoubtedly was in the immediate past, for women to band themselves together, as women, to secure recognition of their requirements as a sex, I am sure the time has now come to insist more strongly on each woman's--and indeed each man's-- requirements as an individual person."*

I would say that the time has far far past for women to band themselves together on that score. Sayers is quite right. The time has come to stop doing that. And having done it too too much, and for a century wallowed in a falsehood that being a woman is a great trial and every man must give way to the Woman, to the furthest possible extent that he even stops being a man, every woman should turn around and walk in the other direction and let the poor man be human. She has not loved him as she loves herself. She should repent. He is a human being and she should open her eyes and heart and see that he is one. Her life is not a great trial or burden. She does not suffer more than anyone has ever suffered because of her gender. He has not destroyed her by being a man, any more than the child she could or has born has destroyed her. 

It was a great shock, so long ago, for the west to discover that women are human. It will be a shock, now, a seismic shift, to learn that men are too.

*Are Women Human? Dorothy Sayers, 1938

{phfr}:tired and busy edition, and it's still too cold

Today is my Shepherd's Bowl day and it's not a good moment for me to miss any school At All so it's going to be a long possibly tiresome day involving a trip to the store in this hideous cold and pushing the children solidly through the morning so that we have enough time to cook. And because I'm really tired and don't want to deal, it will be Regular Soup with ground beef, chickpeas, tomatoe, curry powder and whatever else.

{pretty}

I don't know if this should fall under 'pretty' per-say, with the hard expression in the eyes. But as usual I think it's really interesting. Especially as Gladys, who drew it, cried no matter what I did yesterday, even when I was trying to be nice. I cannot fathom the depths of her. 

Also, as a nod to Portlandia, observe that she Put a Bird On It.

{happy}

Had a frenzied attack last Friday and coped with the huge pile of clutter in the Shepherd's Bowl Cupboard at church. This whole area was piled up with just stuff. Put it all away or got rid of it. Feel deeply happy to walk in there now.

{funny}

I feel better when I actually to make my bed every day but Ashy and Frances figure out when I'm going to do it and then plant themselves down and glare, daring me to chase them out. I blame it on the horrendous weather. 

{real}

Suppertime

What more is there to say? Eat your food! Maybe, or, Sit Down! or Don't stab the table with your fork! I also think I said things like, "don't expect to move back home when you grow up! You better work hard and be respectful or you won't have any friends or any job!" I probably went on longer than that.

Happy Thursday! Go read Like Mother Like Daughter!

Wordy Wednesday: a scene of domesticity and comfort

Finally cleaned out the fridge on Monday, after needing to do it for like a couple of years or something, while Matt baked a pizza for the kids and devised a divine chorizo, steak and egg concoction for me (and him). I took everything out of the fridge and piled it on top of the week's groceries which hadn't been put away and then poured myself a glass of wine and started scrubbing and slinging soap around while children ran up and down and smacked into my tippy piles of rotting sour cream and vegetables. Matt had on a debate between James White and some godless Arminean (just kidding, sounded actually pretty devoted to Jesus) where English people could call in and complain about godless Calvinists. Maybe I was on my second glass by that point. After I'd put everything back in the fridge I wanted there--essentially a quarter of the original putrid mess--instead of coping with throwing everything else away or flinging it down the sink, I opened the freezer and pulled out no less than twenty dead chicken carcasses and piled them on the floor. Launched into a heated marital argument about how many we actually needed to make stock. Couldn't find my big stock pot. Fussed and drank more wine. Discovered it in the garage with a frozen mound of milk curds left over from a failed attempt to make cheese with pasteurized milk. Dug out two inadequate pots and tried to stuff the goose carcass and smaller chickens in. Did locate pepper corns, finally. Collapsed in a chair with my glass and the gorgeous chorizo to freak out about the children smearing their pizza all over the couch and pouring their water on the floor. Watched three episodes of Good Eats and argued with the children about whether we should suspend all regular activities for the next month and just make everything Mr. Brown was making in exactly the same way with all the people dressed up and funny dialogue. Finally gathered all the dead birds off the kitchen floor and consigned them to the Binghamton 5$ blue bag and climbed into bed rather over come from all the activity.

What day was that? Monday. The Day Off.

phase two

The first many years of parenting are an anxious and fraught time. The main worry is keeping the child alive for the next 24 hours and praying they won't fall out of the tree they're climbing, or off of the back of the couch which they are using as some sort of gymnastic device. And, of course, you want them to eat every kind of food and become literate and it's so perilous. There's so many possibilities for anxiety and despair.

But then you look around and see that they lived. You didn't somehow do something terrible that caused death. You didn't totally fail. They're actually quite good at balancing.

And then the next wave of trauma descends on you like a cloud, as it did to me last night.

Will They Be Marriageable?!

And Will They Ever Be Employable?!

And you see them sweeping the kitchen, or lying on the floor complaining, or shoveling food down their gullets, or narrowing their eyes at you and you realize I Still Have So Much To Do! I Can Definitely Still Fail. Keeping them alive was the least of it. 

So, excuse me, I have a big pile of socializing and correcting ahead of me today.

in which I confine my remarks to the weather

The snow is swirling wildly outside my window and the temperature apparently is falling another degree each hour. Matt has decided not to walk after all. Discovered, as I rushed along to church yesterday in my stupidly thin coat, that whenever I look out of the window or scuttle through the snow covered landscape, that I am always thinking only of summer. And more even, my mind has been playing tricks. When I open the door of the church and look at the cement slab, I see myself sitting with a cool drink and a friend and children capering around. When I go the other way, out towards the parking lot, I look up at the hills and see green everywhere. When I gaze dull-y out the front window at the big tree I see leaves unfurling.

And then I blink and see that it is really white and gray, not green, and feel the piercing cold, not the soothing balm of heat, and wonder if I am going mad. Maybe I am becoming a person who hallucinates. Maybe I am losing my mind. Maybe I'm developing some weird coping mechanism. 

So the weather is supposed to continue cold, to use an understated and inadequate word, all week. And I, I will continue to fuss and ask God why he doesn't love me. Why, I will ask, must I suffer? And God will tell me to stop complaining. And everyone else will walk around like nothing unusual or bad is blowing itself over the hills and frozen river.

frenzied friday

It will not surprise anyone that I have many opportunities to rush around and be insane during the week. There are only two uninterrupted nights for dinner altogether (don't feel bad for me, two is more than adequate to bear with children who can't eat anything without flinging half of it to the floor) and there's always something to interrupt a regular school day if we wanted. I know, in terms of the rest of America, we live a very calm and peaceful life but reality never has that much influence on my feelings. By any subjective measure, I'm petty sure I could use more time to do everything. The busyness of the week, however, can't hold a new florescent lightbulb to the weekend. The weekend makes the 'insanity' of the week look like having a picnic in a warm, calm, blue skied, bug less meadow.

From Friday, even with various restful moments, like date night and afternoon play, built in, we summit sharply and steeply up through all of Saturday's Sunday Preparations, through ghastly Family Movie Night, to the pinnacle of Sunday morning. And even then, the peak is really only reached midway through the 10:30 service, that moment in which, as I sit with bible open and pen poised, I draw a full breath of relief knowing that all of Matt's intense preparation has carried him through and he is Preaching Well. I am the premier sermon listener. I have read his text twice. I have said what I really thought, sometimes to the woe of us both when he has to go back and rework whole sections. I have implored him to leave the text and, for the sweet love of Jesus, Get Dressed because it's 7:55 and the first service starts at 8. And yet, as I sit in my pew, I am totally and completely helpless as the one whom I love stands exposed to stand or fall on the Word of God and how deftly he handles its vast depths. The moment I can zip my fancy pens into my tea stained pencil case knowing that when I walk up onto the altar and he looks in my eyes I can smile with true approbriel joy is the most spiritual rest I ever endure.

From thence we slowly climb down all the way into Monday where, at the bottom of the mountain, we lie down and are mentally blank. Then we rise up and pull ourselves together and start again. I always arrive at Friday both relieved and dread-full. We survived the week. Will we survive the weekend? Will we toil our way down from the mountain relieved and happy or piled high with anxious worry and work? Only God knows, but either way, the climb starts now.

{phfr}: ordinary time

{pretty}

Gladys draws so well and so interestingly. So much of her stuff looks like it is right out of Millions of Cats, very detailed, dark. She barely ever colors anything in. And lately, her houses look like they have eyes for windows, which she told me was on purpose.

Also, I'm so glad we painted this room yellow. It's so cold and gray out but the room provides it's own light.

{happy}

Fatty Lumpkin, Ermintrude (?), what am I calling her? She is so pleased with her new hat and coat. She smiled especially for this picture, wide mouthed, still for half a second so she could be photographed.

{funny}

We own a treadmill, lying there in disuse down in the basement, and Matt insists on having a forty five minute walk five days out of seven, besides his hour long work out, but he won't use the treadmilll even though it's something like 20 below outside. He wraps himself up in all kinds of layers and goes out in it anyway.

Why does this fall under Funny? you ask. Shouldn't it be in a new category called Insane or Very Very Stupid? Yes, but I do derive so much pleasure from the the extraordinary personality of my husband. And Fatty Lumpkin, curled up in bed with me just now, pointed at him as he put on his mask, and gave a hearty belly laugh. A just and true reaction to someone who won't ever take any excuse to vary his routine for any reason ever.

{real}

Since we haven't fixed on any kind of systematic evening devotional I asked Matt if we could work on the catechism because it's becoming unruly and cumbersome during the school day. There are so many things we're trying to memorize I don't want to neglect the weighty matters of spelling rules and the multiplication tables just so all the children can perfectly rattle off all 146 questions of the shorter catechism from young children. I mean, of course the Jesus part is super important but the day is so short. Choices have to be made, I'm sure I frequently make the wrong choice.

So we talked about points one and two over dinner: Who made you, and What else did God make? Who made you was a nice reason to talk about the March for Life. What else did God make was too tempting to not talk about how terribly they treat their stuff. But then somehow we got to Adam representing all his posterity and why God would create the devil. And here is where childhood development is so interesting, because a fourteen or a sixteen year old child is very likely to have real existential angst about the idea of God being glorified by pouring out his just anger on those who have been prepared before hand as vessels of wrath. Whereas the six year old child thinks God beating down Satan is super cool and is prepared to spin around the dining room table making light saber noises. 

Go check out Like Mother Like Daughter's lovely new site!

and they rose up to play part two

In my tired fog yesterday I went winding my way around Work and Play straight to children which is what I think about most often since I am so covered with them. But of course, when we are told "and they rose up to play" the intimation is that they rose up to do lewd and inappropriate things with one another all around the golden calf. It's not the playing of children that we're seeing, but the 'playing' of full grown idolatrous adults and it shouldn't, in this day and age be hard for you to imagine what I'm saying without me having to lay it all out. 

But the distinction I made yesterday is still helpful, I think, and so is the garden. Adam and Eve were given to each other for knowledge, intimate knowledge, companionship, mutual help and comfort, and that was not so much about recreation as about work. The person who plays around with a lot of other people is worshiping himself. Whereas the person who sets about to know another is doing work, self denying and sometimes hard, though hopefully very rewarding work.

The kind of idolatrous adulterous play manifesting itself around the golden calf leads necessarily to the opposite of things like mutual help and comfort. At the end of such a play you have ruination, hurt, and in the case of this tragic anniversary of Roe v. Wade, murder. God's mercy in that moment was extraordinary, that only 3000 perished and not the whole camp of Israel. We have endured a similar mercy as a country, as God has forborne our lewd play, our murder. I pray he has more in his hand and will rescue some from the fire of his wrath.  

they rose up to play

Somehow managed to push play on the bible without really being awake and so climbed into a partial consciousness as Israel was eating and then drinking and then rising up to play in the presence of a little gold in the shape of a calf. No big deal. Except then Moses and the Levites were killing anyone with the sword that looked crossways. (That's just my own early morning paraphrase.)

Obviously it is very stupid to be that idolatrous so soon after seeing God's rescuing power but it is the usual human way. We have the staying power of fleas and love to worship whatever we can find as soon as we can possibly get our grubby mitts on it.

The part that jumped out at me, again, was 'rose up to play'. I have a whole gaggle of lovely new little people in my Level One Atrium (Sunday School, Catechesis of the Good Shepherd)--two and sometimes three little boys, and five little girls twirling in their pretty dresses and shouting at each other. My first and main task, apart from the lesson and the singing, has been to develop a culture of Work. The child walks (not runs) into the room and fixes on something to Work with. Sometimes a child will walk in and stand about not landing on anything and then I come along on my hands and knees (feeling very old) and say, "Let me help you find some work. Would you like to work with the Good Shepherd? Would you like to polish? Would you like to trace? " and I run down the whole list of everything in the room that was put there especially for the child. It takes two months, usually, to get children to stop saying 'Play' and start saying 'Work' (longer for grow ups) but the difference is important.

Adam was given useful work in the garden. Useful, that is, for him. The work was prepared for him ahead of time. But the people of Israel rose up to play. They were hanging around not doing what they were supposed to do, and they landed on play. The atrium is supposed to be more like the garden then like Mount Sinai. The child gets to the mountain eventually, but when he is little, the garden of work is prepared specially for him. 

Of course, children should play. But even I know that the playing of children is useful for them as they grow. Their play is a kind of important work that sets them up to do real work later on. But now, in our culture, it is so hard to get anyone to stop playing and do any work. Even me, I chafe to think that I feel like I am always working and never playing. But there, in Exodus, the people were given work and rest, not work and play. But they didn't work or rest, they played. And they worshipped other gods.

This is, I am sorry, an incomplete sketch, but I have to go work so it will have to do.  

happy mlk day

It's so hard not to start every blog post with a weather update....

Maybe because every day in Upstate New York starts out cold and gray except for those in July and August. More so I think because there are so many things to be depressed about and the weather is a nice visual to lay along side each terrible thing that comes through all the various news outlets every morning.

So today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. An important and auspicious day made all the more necessary by the fact that there is still so much work to do to bring rights and equality (and I am a conservative, as you well know, so I don't mean by these words anything that a good 50% of America means by them) to all people in this vast and confused American Landscape. In celebration of this day we have our own governor, Andrew Cuomo, who lately mentioned in a TV interview so everyone could clearly hear him and no one could misconstrue his words, that people who believe that babies (that is, tiny people who nevertheless can't survive without the care and protection of another) shouldn't be allowed to go on living in New York State, likewise people who believe in traditional marriage. They, people who believe that babies are human beings who should not be killed before they are born, should not be permitted to live any longer in New York State.

This is terrible on so many levels but on this day, MLK day, it is even more terrible because the babies that don't survive to be born most often in this country are minority, mostly black, babies. What a legacy we have given Dr. King who gave his life to make a safe and prosperous life for a people with such a tragic and sorrowful heritage. I would say we haven't learned anything. We listen to the speech. We say a lot of nice PC sounding stuff. But when it comes down to it, we don't believe anything we say. 

May God have mercy.

And let me add my faint voice to those who are calling for Governor Cuomo's resignation.

7 quick take: first real week back in reality

one

Last week I blithely went about doing school as if it was the normal and right thing to do when on day two Matt found me wandering around in a glassy eyed stupor trying to coordinate between my right and left hand not to drop a massive vat of coffee on the kitchen floor believing, wrongly, that if a little bit of caffeine is helpful, a great deal more must be of The Lord.

 "What are you doing?" He asked me, since I guess an ordinary person couldn't immediately divine what I was attempting to achieve.

"I'm doing school," I slurred.

"Why?"

"Well, the main reason is that the children seem exceptionally stupid. But also, it says I should on the calendar. If you look at the calendar, it says it's January, and we're supposed to do school in January."

"Why don't you start next week and just go out for the afternoon?" He said. Like it was an obvious choice that I had considered but decided against when actually it was something that had never occurred to me in the whole course of my existence.

So I did. And it was marvelous.

two

So we started in earnest this week. And would you believe, a few days down made such a difference. Feel stupid for having to say it out loud. But there you are. You go along thinking that you're all that, that you can do whatever you want, and do all the work in the world, and then one tiny little holiday brings you to your knees in realization that you're a weak pathetic person who also must sleep and eat food. 

Also, miraculously, I carefully examined my plan and we should be able to finish just on time, if we really work hard. So you can see the fatal flaw almost immediately because who in their right mind wants to work hard. No one that I have given birth to. I feel like St. Paul, threatening, admonishing, berating even with tears to snatch them out of the jaws of judgement.

three

The only people who want to work hard are those who need constant help to do anything. Gladys and Marigold just want to Learn Something! Anything! Whereas those that can do quite a lot on their own just want to lie on the floor and whine and play with Legos. That was the first day. The second day was slightly better and then yesterday was almost sane. Someone even asked a question to obtain knowledge about something they didn't already know. 

four

Foolishly, I decided that Elphine and Alouicious are old enough to make lunch. Elphine for a week and the Alouicious. I don't know what I was thinking. Alouicious made soup from a packet yesterday (we'll start small, I thought) and besides coming in to ask me every tiny question because even though he was able to read the instructions he couldn't believe that they were true, he strewed soup all up and down the kitchen as if he was some sort of barbarian Hun cook coming to destroy civilization with noodles and synthetic seasoning. And then he was exhausted from the effort and couldn't cope with the idea of cleaning up so he just didn't and Matt walked in at the end of his long day and had  to crunch his way across the floor seeking out a broom. 

five

I make it sound like it's all a chore. There are myriad irritations as with everything in life. But they are basically small. I nurtured a glimmer of hope as I sat curled up next to heater toiling with each child through the most basic elements of language and numbers. It may be that they will learn and grow into reasonable people. I fail so much but I may not completely fail. It's the tiny seed of hope and the thin rays of sunshine into the school room that kept me sitting there until my voice was gone each day.

six 

Nevertheless, when I woke this morning to the sound of Alouicious fussing and fussing and fussing and fussing about not being able to find his iPod even though he had carefully plugged it in last night as part of his preparation for Men's Bible Study and so someone must have come during the night and stollen it and how could he possibly be expected to read the bible from something like a book!..I prayed earnestly that he would get himself out the door and leave me with two hours of peace. Well, one hour because the little girls wake up at seven now (not 6:30 anymore!) and they always come in shouting.

seven 

But it's Friday, and so we only have to finish a little list of things we didn't get to and then go play at church for the afternoon. This is our ordinary and life giving rhythm. May it carry me all the way through February and March, those two worst months of the homeschool year. May we emerge on the other side smarter and holier than we are today.