We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey.  ~Kenji Miyazawa
In the spring of 2000, I received a phone call informing me that the qxh (quasi-ex-husband) had collapsed at work and been taken to a nearby hospital.  By the time I got there, he was being released.  They had decided that he was having an asthma attack, so despite the fact that he couldn’t walk, they gave him a nebulizer treatment, saw it didn’t help and sent him home.  I helped him out of the wheelchair, into the car and he pretty much held onto me and the wall on the way to our apartment.  Within 10 minutes, he came out of the bathroom, collapsed on the floor and said, “call an ambulance.”

Which is where a good wife immediately dashes to the phone and screams, “help – my husband’s dying!” to the dispatcher.  But I hesitated for a split second.  There was part of me that wanted to say, “stop being a baby.  I’ll help you back into the car and we’ll take you back to the hospital.”  He had been sick for over a year and no matter how many tests or trips to the doctor we made, no one could find anything wrong with him.  And calling an ambulance is kind of a big thing for another round of nothing.  But he had never asked me to call an ambulance before, so I quickly but calmly (I don’t do panic) dialed 911.  Thank God. 

On the way to the hospital he flatlined.  He told me later that he awoke to the paramedic, a small Asian man, frantically trying perform CPR while the defibrillator charged.  The qxh is a big man and apparently the paramedic was having a hard time.  He says he opened his eyes, looked at the paramedic and asked, “why are you hitting me?”  The paramedic looked at him in shock for a second and backed up a bit, looking relieved.  The next thing the qxh says he remembers was waking up to a doctor standing at the foot of his bed laughing.  “I just need to shake your hand because you have got to be the toughest son of a bitch I’ve ever met.”  He had been looking at the file at the foot of the qxh’s bed which contained test results showing that the qxh had absolutely no b12 in his body and so many blood clots in his lungs that no one ever bothered counting them.  I was told it looked on the lung scan as if someone had spilled black pepper over it.  The B12 should have rendered him immobile if not dead several years earlier.  And you have a 50% chance of dying from one of the sort of pulmonary emboli the qxh had.  And he had been at work that day, even though he told me later than he was leaning on walls to move from place to place.  His family needed to be taken care of.  (That’s the sort of man I lost in the last 2 years.  Sigh.)

When this happened, the qxh and I had been living in Minnesota – a notoriously difficult place to make friends - for about a year and a half.  The closest family was 400 miles away.  I knew from experience that I could handle my younger son who was a little under a year at the time in an emergency room cube.  (I was quite experienced with ERs, doctors offices and hospital rooms by this point.)  Our oldest son who was just shy of 5 was another issue.  There was no way he could handle what could easily be 6-8 hours in a curtained room.  I ended up calling a family whose son was in Noah’s preschool class who he’d had playdates with before and asking if they could help.  And they did. 

When I made it back about 5 hours later, I still didn’t understand how serious the qxh’s medical condition was.  I didn’t even know that he had flatlined in the ambulance. (Although I had thought is was odd that the person at the desk with all the paperwork I needed to fill out had asked me, “are you scared?” “No.  Am I supposed to be?” I answered and she just smiled and pointed to some line that needed my signature.)  So when I went to pick Noah up, I thanked the mother and father and explained that the qxh had multiple pulmonary embolism but was responding well to the blood thinners.  (The husband was a doctor, the wife a former nurse so they had some idea what I was talking about.) And then I went home and did a little research on the internet and let myself panic a bit.  It had been a really serious situation.  The qxh didn’t get released from the hospital for over a week.

Quite a dramatic story, huh? A miracle even.  Or it could be that as the qxh would say, “evil doesn’t die!”  I kid.  It really was a miracle that he survived.  But that’s not why I’m sharing this story.  The part I want to talk about happened after the qxh was finally put in the hands of competent doctors.  This is the part of the story which still leaves me completely aghast.  Like mouth hanging open, wordless undone sort of aghast.  That family that watched Noah while I was at the hospital?  I never got even a phone call to ask how the qxh was doing.  I mean, I truly appreciate that they watched Noah for me – having him there would have been a nightmare.  But they knew full well that we had no real friends or family nearby and that I was alone with two small children.  If it had been me, I would have called the next day, brought over a meal and let everyone at the preschool know what was happening so they could do likewise and then called a few days later again.  Even if I didn’t like the person one whit.  You care for people who are alone, sick, overwhelmed or scared.  It’s been almost 13 years since this happened and I still can’t wrap my head around how seemingly decent people could completely ignore a family so obviously in need of care as mine was at that point.  I just can’t imagine what would cause someone to behave like that.  And I have a really, really good imagination.

Of course, all’s well that ends well.  I powered through and the qxh recovered and we even made some actual friends. Unfortunately, I have discovered over the years that this family’s response to being confronted with someone going through a particularly hard time is far more common than mine.  I suppose this shouldn’t be as surprising as it is.  Why shouldn’t a culture determined to avoid any and all suffering treat the suffering as social pariahs?  That really is how people feel when they find themselves on the receiving end of this sort of treatment.  Think of how often you have heard or read a letter to an advice columnists where someone complains that since the death of a loved one, a divorce, serious illness or accident, no one will have anything to do with them.  Their phone calls go unanswered and the only people calling to see how they are doing are their mother and the bill collectors.  A charity may be bringing by meals, but not neighbors or friends. 

I do know that I am being uncharitable to a good many people who mean well and just don’t know what to do.  And we do live in a culture that leaves a lot of people unequipped to help those who are suffering.  Normally, I’m the first to credit good intentions.  But so much suffering is compounded by what amounts to and feels like large-scale abandonment at a person’s most acute time of need.  I think that upsetting the applecart a bit to address this is more than justified. 

In addition to all-too-frequently being the person going through a traumatic life event, I have also been the person who have walked alongside more than a few people going through such things.  So, based on my experiences as well as a bunch of research I just don’t have time to hunt down tonight, here are my suggestions for how to deal with someone who is going through a hard time.

1. Stay in touch more than you think you need to.  Ask someone else for a phone number or email address if you need it.  If you normally talk to the person once a month, call at least weekly.  If you normally talk weekly, call a couple of times a week.  I mean, if they are uninterested and have to ask, “who is this again?” more than once, back up.  But it is so much better to be something of a nuisance than to fall back.  When a person is in a really dark place, they need people around them and they often don’t have the energy or wherewithal to reach out themselves.

2. If someone starts crying in front of you, touch them.  On the shoulder, arm, a pat on the knee or a full hug if you can manage.  There seems to be nothing which is guaranteed to trigger a deer-in-the-headlights response like having someone burst into tears in front of you.  I think people feel like they shouldn’t do anything to draw attention to another person crying.  As if they might forget if you just don’t mention it.  But of course, just the opposite is true.  People don’t burst into tears in front of people if they can help it.  And now they are standing there bawling and if you don’t reach out to connect, they WILL experience it as judgment.  Even if it’s the furthest thing from your mind, your silence will be experienced as criticism for losing control.  They will feel embarrassed and ashamed.  You don’t even have to say anything – just touch.  It will let the person know that if nothing else, they are OK with you.

3. Let the person who is struggling be a mess.  When someone is going through a traumatic life event, grief and anger can be a bottomless pit, a person may actively wish that they could die, the laundry may pile up a mile high, the person can be confused and so distracted that they do weird things like leave their front door open all night.  This is not a sign that the person is in trouble and you need to stage an intervention so they can get help ASAP.  Sometimes life is a mess.  But given time, people pull through.  We’ve been doing that since the beginning of human history.  Yes, some people get stuck, but if it’s a major life event, you need to wait many months before suggesting that what’s going on might need to be addressed more formally.  If you jump on someone who is undergoing a traumatic event with “concerns” about how they are handling things, that’s like throwing a tree branch on a broken camel’s back.  I know it’s hard to watch someone be in so much pain.  Just think of what it’s like to go through it and give them time.  More time than you think they should need.

4. Whenever you can, let them know they are normal.  A traumatic life event can throw life into such disarray that people going through it can lose all sense of normalcy.  Schedules get disrupted.  Energy levels plummet.  Simple tasks can be overwhelming.  People can feel pain and anguish and fear in a way that they have not before.  They need re-assurances that they have not lost their mind, turned into a terrible person, or whatever nasty thing they are busy telling themselves.  It is normal to be a wreck and non-functional and emotionally overwrought sometimes.  Unless it’s been going on for months or there are children being neglected or a job’s about to be lost or crimes are being committed, whatever the person is doing, saying or feeling, it’s normal.  Stick with that.

5. Be positive.  Unless you are dealing with someone with a serious substance dependency problem or untreated mental illness, a person going through a traumatic life experience is well aware of how bad things are.  They will often believe the most god-awful things about themselves and the world and how people see them.  Don’t say things that prove them right.  Keep your negative opinions to yourself.  You can take a vulnerable person and put them into a complete tailspin by deciding that now’s the time to suggest “now you can finally get your life together” or “your life is a wreck.  How do you ever expect to recover?” or some such.  If you have a negative take on their life, assume it’s the same demon which is haunting their every unguarded thought trying to get you to join in the fun.  And don’t co-operate.

6. Listen. Follow the lead of the person actually going through.  Don’t assume that you can see their life more clearly than they can.  Generally you can’t and even if you can, now’s not the time for it.  Just listen.  Sometimes I would call people while hysterically upset because I just needed to talk myself down.  Really, the person I called could have put the phone down and walked away – it probably wouldn’t have mattered.  I just need to talk my way through it.  Of course, not everyone has diarrhea of the mouth like me.  Some people convince themselves that no one wants to listen to their problems or could possibly understand.  Of course neither of those are true.  Encourage them to talk by asking questions if they are receptive to it.  But even if they are saying outrageous, shocking things, let it be.  It’s like poison; it needs to get out.  No one expects you to fix anything or offer some profound bit of wisdom.  If you must speak, things like “I’m so sorry you’re going through this.  It doesn’t seem fair.” will work much better than “have you thought about getting some help?”  Yes, of course they’ve thought about getting some help.  Everyday.  But right now, you can help by listening sympathetically and biting your tongue until it bleeds if need be.

7. Share what’s going on in your life.  Often a person going through some major life event ends up talking about their problems a lot.  It is a really nice break to have a chance to just chit-chat about your new washer or the argument you’re having with your sister-in-law.  Back in college when I was pregnant with my oldest, one of my best friends started dating another guy in our circle and she never said anything about it.  I knew it was happening because I have eyes and I’m not an idiot.  It made me so uncomfortable that I could hardly stand being around her but I didn’t have the emotional energy to confront her.  I know she didn’t say anything because she thought it would be wrong to talk about her love life with someone whose life was such a wreck, but it destroyed the friendship utterly.  Don’t think that because what’s going on in your own life isn’t big and dramatic or life-altering it is somehow inappropriate to bring it up.  Just the opposite. It is often a welcome respite from dark times.

8. If you really can’t be there to support someone in these softer, hands-on ways, do what you can.  My family went through a period where the qxh was working out of town and we only saw him every 3 weeks or so.  I had 3 kids and another on the way and the qxh was trying desperately to find a new job, but nothing was working.  One of the women in my bible study who was probably the last person I would have called to talk to went shopping and got food for several easy meals for me and the kids.  It was perfect.  I come from a family that isn’t always very good with the emotional support, but sometimes someone will send a gift for me or the kids.  Or just a card or a note on a facebook wall.  Smoke signals and asking people who know the person how they are doing is a bit to long distance to do any good.  But there are many things that you can do which don’t require you to hug a crying person or listen to someone wax poetic about how great it would be if their ex got run over by a bus.  And they really do make a difference.

One last note of caution.  On several occasions, I have been the one to walk with a friend through a major life event like the death of a parent, a child with serious disabilities, crime victim, divorce, etc.  If it was not a close relationship before the crisis struck, be prepared that it may not last.  Without a history, sometimes the relationship is too unbalanced and the adjustment to a more normal way of relating may not work very well.  Or you can become too associated with a painful time and get left behind when the person reaches the point of being ready to move on.  Don’t take it personally.  You will have done a very great thing in the eyes of heaven.  God is close to the brokenhearted.  If you put yourself close to the brokenhearted as well, God does not fail to see.

So, there’s my down-n-dirty guide for how to be a friend to someone going through a terrible situation.  If anyone has other suggestions to add, I’m all ears.  Well, not really of course.  If I were all ears, how could I type?

Facepalm. Words. They fail.

I am fascinated with the creation stories.  I have mentioned before that it was the habit of ancient Hebrews to meditate by holding two thoughts which seem opposed together in your head at once.  I may have also mentioned that I have both a very high regard for scripture and I value science as a tool for understanding how God’s other testimony – creation – works.  Which right there creates a conflict which many people think they can make go away by picking the side that makes sense to them and hanging out there.  But I always figured that if God made the world (which I believe he did) and scripture is true (which I believe it is – in all sorts of surprising ways) and science was saying something different, God had an answer.  And not like, “well I only made the earth look billions of years old in order to see if you would trust me enough to think it’s really 6000 years old.“  A real answer.  Two true things cannot contradict one another.  If they are in conflict, it doesn’t mean one is right and the other is wrong.  It means we don’t understand them well enough yet. 

So with this as my mindset, I set out holding these two ideas – biblical creation and the evidence of science - in my head at the same time and meditating on them.  I won’t bore you with all of the details, but it was a curious thing.  Whenever I was found a good explanation for something other than a literal understanding of some aspect of the story, the story didn’t just stand – it started to make more sense.   Looking at it literally – and even spending time arguing over whether this aspect or that aspect should be taken literally – is a distraction and totally missing the point.  After spending more than a decade thinking, praying and reading about the whole thing, I think the closer we get to understanding of these stories, the more everything else makes sense.  The stories contain puzzles worth of great minds.  Unfortunately, many great minds have been chased off by those who insist that the biblical creation stories must be forced to fit into a historical framework.  If only it wasn’t such a terrible fit, it might have worked.

One of the first clues that we’ve been looking at the creation stories the wrong way is the text itself.  Creationists say that they are being faithful to scriptures by taking them literally.  So far as they can.  Which is almost as hard to do for the creation stories as it is for another famous dream-like sequence found in scriptures – Song of Songs.  As always, the more literal minded among us have attempted to re-create a linear account from the text of Song of Songs.  There are also people who handle snakes under the thrall of the Holy Spirit in Appalachia.  I don’t remember if people have died, but I know people get bit.  Probably only when they’ve been really bad.  I was going to make a joke here about masturbation.  But it’s way to complicated.  Anyways. I personally kind of think that if a linear account of events for historical records was what God was going for, he might have done it himself – or found someone else who would. 

It is entirely consistent with the actual text of the biblical creation stories to see the story as dream-like rather than literal account.  There’s the vagueness, the mysterious “we” and “waters” and the fact that it starts over again part way through.  Adam looking for an animal he’d like to boff and not finding one.  You know, stuff like that.  At any rate, the text makes much more sense when allowed to be what it is rather than trying to force it to be a historical account. 

There is also abundant evidence for poetic license.  There are rhymes and puns and rhythm.  There are the clear references and refutations of other creation narratives common in the Ancient Near East.   The bible’s creation story makes no sense as a historical or even mytho-historical bit of writing.  Yet it starts to make perfect sense as a poetic, dream story meant to convey basic and complex ideas together.  It carries truths and symbols that I think we can only start to make sense of now in light of what science is teaching us.  The best argument that creationists can give for a literal reading of the text is that Jesus and Paul both refer to Adam and/or Eve as if they were real people.  Well, besides that fact that they had no reason to think otherwise given human knowledge at that point, I refer to Adam and Eve as real people.  It means nothing.

So, Adam and Eve.  If I say that I’m not sure they were real people, then what are they?  Well, the first clue is the homonym in the middle of the room.  Adam is not only a name – it’s a noun which means man or mankind.  I majored in literature and I know an allegory when I see it.  Apparently it wasn’t just invented with Pilgrim’s Progress and poor little Pilgrim, whose name is Pilgrim, but who in no way should be understood to represent pilgrims in general who are making some sort of journey or something.  Clearly God always dreamed about naming his first child Adam just like Gwenyth Paltrow dreamt of naming her first daughter Apple.  Makes sense, see?  Um, yeah.  How about I just sweep away the whole problem and go with the obvious: Adam is an allegorical figure representing mankind.  Crazy, I know!  (Actually, if I am not much mistaken, kabbalists teach this as well.) 

OK, so now that we have that all straightened out, let’s take another look.  If Adam is really humanity, then the obvious problem of having one man and one woman show up in the vicinity of one another to become the first man and woman through anything resembling a natural process goes away.  Mankind was a bunch of people.  And maybe not even homo sapien people – Neanderthals are shockingly human.  So at whatever point, some thresh hold was crossed and we became Adam. (My theory is that at the point where our brains had formed the structures needed for us to receive ”nasham” or God’s breath. Whatever that is or means.)

Homonyms aren’t the only literary technique those crafty ancient Hebrews used; they were apparently familiar with alliteration as well.  Adam is a word play.  It sounds like the word for earth in Hebrew (adamah).  If you read the text of Genesis 1 in Hebrew, the distinction gets really blurred.  Physically, Adam doesn’t come from anywhere but the earth.  He is a genuine creature of the earth.  I think remembering this close connection puts being given dominion over the earth a whole different feel.  This isn’t just his home; its what he’s made from.

So, the dominion thing.  In the Genesis story, God has Adam name all the animals and in doing so, discover that there is no mate for him.  This has always been a really bizarre detail to me.  What – had it not occured to God that Adam didn’t spawn clones of himself like a flatworm?  Was he going to mate with his pet iguana?  I know – God was tired of making stuff and wanted Adam to check and see if there wasn’t a orangatang that tickled his fancy before he had to break down and do one more blessed thing?  Ah, yeah – no.  I think what is really happening here is that God is having Adam go through the process of seeing animals as other than himself.  It could also point to the leap – whether by evolution or by choice – of only mating with other Homo sapiens.  (There is evidence of humans mating with other hominids – neanderthals and homo erectus have been identified so far - in our DNA and in fossils found in Turkey.) 

I have now written nearly 1200 words and have 5 loads of laundry waiting to be folded on my couch and many more waiting to be de-filthed. Which is why this is a part 1.  The next time I get around to writing more about this – I’ll deal with the creation of Eve.  And then why Adam and Eve’s perfection may probably wasn’t what we assume next.  And wait until you get me started on that whole fall thing.  One day I may even get to my theory on that whole crucifixion thing.  You know you wanna know.  Of course if you can get me a publishing contract with a decent advance, I could hire a nanny and a housekeeper and pound out a 1st draft in a few weeks.  Otherwise, I’ll get to it when I can.  Now, if you will excuse me, this descendant of apes has some laundry to take care of. 

BTW, I have not cited sources for some of the claims I make, which I know is just proof to anyone who disagrees with me that I’m making things up on flimsy evidence.  To help dispel that notion, allow me to share the sort article I have read by the hundreds over the last 10 years: Genesis and Ancient Near Eastern Stories of Creation and Flood: An Introduction Part I. And here’s the tab I kept open for reference while writing this.  If someone wants to know how I know all these things, I’ll tell them what I tell my own kids.  There’s this cool thing called google.  Learn to run good searches.  Same goes if you don’t know the bible stories and references well enough to keep up.  www.bible.cc. Look it up.  That’s all!

*Ahem*

A Love Story

A turn of fate

A twist of the eye

The misalignment of moonlight

The glow of stars

And you are in love

Suddenly the world is blind

And you are beautiful

You’ve found someone to share your lunch with.

You cry at his jokes

And laugh at your wedding

Then you buy a frog

and the kids live happily ever after.

So you sell the washer and dryer

To buy a garden

Where you plant ladybugs until 3 pm

When it’s time to go, dear

And you ride away on your tandem bike.

Missy Piggy Tattoo by Jamie Sapp. Inspired by my career making performance, no doubt.

I’m not sure exactly what came over me, but one afternoon in the music room in junior high I was so charged up from a long day of doing anything I could think of to keep myself amused that I stood up and belted out the words “Look at moi! I’m as helpless as a piglet in a trough! . . . I get hungry just holding your hand!” like a 12 year old soprano Ethel Merman.  That afternoon, I remember standing by my mom’s bed where she was folding laundry and telling her a little sheepishly that I was going to be Miss Piggy in the school play.  It was kind of a big deal for me, but the thought of my family seeing me behave so outrageously was pretty mortifying.  And not only that, but I was going to be singing and dancing with a boy in my class.  In front of everyone!  A kind of cute boy even.  (Not that he could hold a candle to Justin Belt who was not only the hottest 12 year old ever, but inexplicably, spoke with an english accent of some sort.  I think I would have lost control of myself in some way if I had to dance with Justin Belt in front of everyone.)

I, of course, stole the show.  Or maybe not.  I don’t really remember.  But what I do remember is something my mom told me after the show.  Some woman who I vaguely knew existed had sought out my mom and told her that I had “a voice like a beautiful bell.”  Now, I do love singing – always have.  But for many years, I had a huge hang-up about singing in front of people.  So, I really had to push past my comfort zone to make a big ham out of myself in front of my classmates and whoever else was there.  This woman’s compliment was my reward. 

I now only have a medium sized hang-up about singing in front of people.  Even today, I will sometimes remember that I have “a voice like a beautiful bell” and it helps me to forget myself and reach for the high notes in Rent.  (All the people who were subjected to me singing “I am a rock, I am an island” in the hallways between classes in high school are thinking, “what the hell is she talking about?” See, that was after I learned of my fine singing skillz.  And really they should be thinking “Thank God she had this horrible hang-up about singing in front of people or she might have been doing that in the middle of class!  She would have taken over school assemblies just to make us listen to her heart-felt rendition of ‘The Rose‘.  My entire high school experience could have taken place to the sound of her singing Erasure songs from the back of the classroom.” Actually, I may have done that last one.)

One of my favorite books is Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean Auel.  The Neanderthal clan of the title wear amulets around their necks.  They are little leather pouches which contain bits of stones that are given at important moments like at naming, after a first kill or marriage.  The main character, a human named Ayla who was taken in by the clan as a small child, would often notice an unusual stone just after having made some life-altering decision and would add it to her pouch.  She took it as a sign from her totem spirit meant to affirm her and her choice.  Later when she was gripped with doubt over the choices she had made or over her own ability to deal with the challenges facing her, she would open the pouch and look at each stone.  Each reminded her of something good and true about herself and gave her the confidence she needed to move forward against some daunting challenges. 

Now, me getting over my neurosis about singing in earshot of anyone and Ayla living off the land by herself for a couple of years with only the help of a horse, wolf and baby lion she domesticated herself are both fine examples of what it means to face daunting challenges with great courage, wisdom and determination.  But it is also true that having been affirmed in some way – whether it be through a compliment or a sign from God – allows us to muster the courage we need to walk through challenges that just feel too big to be survived. 

I believe down to my toes that when we arrive in heaven we will be greeted by people we hardly remember who want to thank us for some small word or deed that helped them in a hard place.  Things we don’t even remember saying or doing.  And I promise you that if you have not equipped those closest to you with little stones of encouragement when you could, they will struggle even more for not having them when things are really hard.  And once a person is in the middle of their struggle, your encouragement will have a much harder time getting through.  It is so important to take every chance you get to do or say something nice to the people you meet.  Everyone needs these stones of encouragement and affirmation.  Having them can make the difference between giving up in despair and trying one more time. 

Of course, sometimes you’re like Ayla: taken in by people who don’t appreciate you because they are a different species of hominid and find you strange and threatening.   Or maybe you were raised by wolves like Mowgli or perhaps you just annoy everyone who knows you.  Whatever the reason may be, we can find ourselves without affirmation stones from the normal sources.   So God has promised: “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.” (Isaiah 49:15-16). He is father to the fatherless.

Ayla’s amulet is very much like a pouch carried by the main character in Hinds Feet in High Places, the Christian allegory by Hannah Hurnard.  She too carried stones found at turning points.  Hers were each tucked away with the memory of a scripture verse.  And when she was at her very lowest point, certain it couldn’t be worth it to go forward, she also pulled those stones out and went through them one by one and decided to move forward.  God will provide what you need even if no one else ever has.  

Just look.  And be open.  Stop believing in co-incidence.  Look for good things.  If something unusual pops up, maybe notice it a bit.  Not everything means something but not everything means nothing either.  It may seem like a silly thing to imbue a stone on the ground with meaning because you noticed it at an opportune time.  But when you are wondering if you’ve completely lost your mind and that stone reminds you of something good and true, you will be glad you did.  

HT to Scott Williams for inspiring this post with his “This Means More Than You Know“.

I am

Part of our problem is that we are convinced that I am – whether it be God, ourselves, or our present circumstances and surroundings – is something to be suspect of, probably terribly boring or terrible bad or terribly not me.  Like the God whose main building tool is explosions is going to want us to stand around all day humming melodically.  Seriously?  (Sometimes when people talk to me, this just pops into my head.) 

But we resist I am.  If we didn’t we’d have to learn to slow down and be present.  We’d maybe even have to let ourselves be irreperably imperfect.  We’d have to face things we didn’t even know we’d be running from.  And that would be uncomfortable.  We’d have to do things the people around us might not approve of.  It might be too hard.  It might even drive you into the arms of God, no?  Because it’s not easy to learn to just be.  I would never want to have to do it on my own. 

When you are determined to learn to embrace I Am whether it is the I Am God or the I am Rebecca or I am going through an unwanted divorce and I’m really embarrassed at what the people I’m related to will think of me because of this, then you will reach a place that I call zen – although it’s probably a terrible abuse of what the actual word means.  To me zen is just a very deep acceptance.  It’s when you can let go – even for just a few seconds at a time – of your emotional need for reality to be different than it actually is.  It’s not letting go of desire – wanting something is part of reality, and acceptance of reality is what living with and in I am is all about.  One of the differences between real zen and the Christian version, donchya know.

When I am at “zen”, I find that I have all the patience in the world when I need it.  There is peace.  There is joy. Things make much more sense from the point of zen than they do any other time.  If I’ve ever said something that was so obvious that it made you feel stupid for not having thought of it that way before, it’s something that came from being in zen.  If you can stay in zen – just being – through grief and pain and anger and all the reality of life – as long and as often as needed, it doesn’t take nearly as long to work through what comes your way. 

You know, brain scans have found that people who meditate and people who engage in contemplative prayer have the same unusual characteristics in their brains.  I believe that this is something our brains are just made to do.  And all the evidence supports that idea that even people who don’t view time this as a religious thing can benefit.  It’s a gift to us, really. 

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights – James 1:17

I grew up among very upstanding people who did not break rules and we all know the rules: no talking about religion, money or politics.  (They added in sex as well.  I think a lot of people did.)  And since those were the rules, they didn’t talk about those things.  And on the rare occasions that someone did mention politics, religion or money, they seemed to think that since they were already going to be breaking the rules, they might as well be rude about it.  Which meant that talking about such things seemed very rude indeed.  I never found our family gatherings to be very interesting.

So, I felt very extra brave when I decided to openly campaign for John Kerry in 2004.  (The qxh asked me not to put out lawn signs or window signs.)  I bravely wore my John Kerry for President button to the Y for the kid’s homeschool gym and swim class.  I talked with friends who were confused and frankly a bit appalled at me.  I live in a bedroom community in far Western Wisconsin.  I am a Christian.  I homeschooled.  I am pro-life.  I have too many kids.  I voted for Bush in 2000 and would do it again just so we would be spared the trauma of having to listen to the sound of Al Gore’s voice in the days after 9-11.  (Think heartbroken, angry country, smoking ruins, a megaphone and Al Gore. It makes me shudder.)  I was personally insulted by things my fellow campaigners said thinking that everyone there was of a like mind.  But I felt that strongly about it and it wasn’t about hating Bush.  For me it was far more fundamental than that.  It was about expectations; what do we have a right to expect from our government?  Me, I expect the government to make plans to secure weapons in their own war zone.

I have confessed to being a former political junkie.  And back in the days leading up to war in Iraq, I was in full political junky mode.  I hesitantly supported the idea of war (not that it mattered what I thought) when a couple of humanitarian groups supported it on humanitarian grounds.  I can tell you exactly when Bush lost my support and my faith in the system began to really crumble.  It was shortly after the fall of Baghdad.  If you were paying attention you may recall that there had been a short, uneasy lull between the fall of Baghdad and the start of an insurgency too big to be ignored.  It was just as that lull in violence was ending that reports started coming out that huge weapons depots had been left completely unguarded all over the country.  Our military had known they were there, but in order to complete the mission more quickly, no plans had been created for securing these weapons.  They didn’t even have plans to send troops to secure the weapons once the government was toppled.  The plan was to have no plan.  It was to leave the weapons caches of a country believed to be engaged in the production of dangerous, illegal weapons completely unsecured.  Some of them weren’t even inspected or inventoried until after they had been left unsecured for a couple of months and, of course looted.  Even those that were inspected were then left unguarded. 

How many thousands of people are not here today because they fell victim to these weapons in the fighting that followed? Even if this wasn’t the main source of weapons, this sort of ineptitude is beyond unacceptable.  This is a war where soldiers on KP duty suffer from PTSD.  Nearly all the Christians of Iraq are gone.  Estimates of the number of dead Iraqis are so high that I can’t bring myself to look at them.  And we went into this without even bothering to lock up weapons that we knew the exact GPS coordinates of?  That cannot be allowed to stand, unrebuked, even for the sake of politics.

And this was the argument I made to my conservative friends: even if you had voted for Bush and support the war effort, the ineptitude which characterized the Bush administration needed to be confronted head-on.  This man did not deserve a second term.  Not only that, but it would be good for the party for him not to win a second term.  As many people are now admitting, the Bush administration was a disaster from an ideological stand-point.  The GOP needed to do some serious soul-searching about how it had come to elect someone who would lead a war where our military was so super-duper that not even a shoulder held grenade launcher could harm our boys and girls in uniform. And an orphaned Iraqi child had been liberated.  It was an investment in their future.

My argument was - let Kerry take over.  He’s going to be stuck cleaning up the mess Bush made for the next 4 years anyways (which is exactly what Bush spent his second 4 years doing).  Sure he’s a goofy liberal who does things he’s far too old to be doing as recreational activities.  But he’s a decent enough bloke.  Hey – did you hear how he got shot in the ass back in ‘Nam?  Bush never got shot in anything other than a vein back in ‘Nam.  (The swiftboat attacks were despicable and a symptom of what was being fed by re-electing Bush.)

The GOP was due for a come-to-Jesus moment and could have come out better for it.  But the people said no.  One very intelligent friend of mine said, “well, sure it looks bad.  But I really believe that there are things the president knows that he just can’t tell us which would explain it all.”  Really.  You don’t say.

And now, 8 years later, we have the current field of GOP candidates and all I can say is, “I told you so.”  This continual state of panic that if we don’t get our guy in office or back in office post-haste, the world will end is not only completely detached from reality.  It’s really, really bad for our political systems.  Political parties fight like mad to get elected under the claim that they can get things done.  But even a cursory glance at history shows that change and big ideas come out of times of defeat.  When a political party has no choice but to face it’s own demons and find a new way forward, the whole country benefits.  One of those demons was allowing government incompetence to stand in for real action.  The Iraq war should have been a wake-up call.  But instead, we let fear-mongering and hyper-partisanship get the better of us.  And look where we are now.  We did not do the country any favors by re-electing Bush in 2004.   But good luck getting Romney elected.  After 6 years of campaigning, the boy’s starting to show some progress.  I’m sure Barry and his peep will fold like playing cards before him.

“O lord, thou hast searched me, and known me.” (Psalm 139:1)

Perhaps the most frightening attribute of God is that He knows everything about us. Everything! He has “searched” (literally “penetrated”) us and “known” (“understood”) us. . . Furthermore, He is everywhere around each one of us (vv. 7-10), wherever we are or could be. He fills all space, and there is no escape.

Go ahead, ask me where I found that quote.  Or even better, how ’bout I up the fun quotient and give you some options. Was it:

a. A site promoting atheism

b. A humor site skewering religion 

c. A devotional piece from the Days of Praise blog put out by a Creationist advocacy group

I’ll give you a moment to figure it out. . . Oh wait – did I give it away?  Yep, this “be afraid, Be very afraid“ moment has been brought to you by none other than The Institute for Creation Research; a highly profitable venerable institution promoting creation “science”.  The very same people whom a federal judge recently said  are “entirely unable to file a complaint which is not overly verbose, disjointed, incoherent, maundering and full of irrelevant information.” Good to see our tax dollars hard at work there, eh?

This upsets me.  My opinions about the theological viability of creationist interpretations aren’t something I’m shy about.  I truly believe that it’s demonic.  Whether you understand that to be a metaphor for our ability to create and perpetuate evil or as satan whispering in your ear, the answer is the same; it is demonic.  It feeds on lies.  It depends on (and obviously encourages) fear.  It is driven by profit posing as prophet. These organizations (and just like corporations aren’t actually people, neither are organizations) are shrieking banshees in the marketplace sent by our enemies to deform and discredit us.  I am sorry if you have bought into these creationist teachings.  I know that people who simply want to be sure they are following God can be vulnerable to being taken in by anything that says “if you don’t believe this, your salvation could be at stake.”  Or even “your relationships with people in the church who you love and depend on could be at stake.”  (Which is a whole other set of issues for another day!)

I could spend the next 3 hours wrestling with words to create some pithy, compelling description of how creation science warps our theology, keeps us from knowing God as he actually is rather than as we imagine him to be and is a terrible, awful witness to the world.  It is a particularly horrendous witness to those men and women who are spending their entire life studying God’s creation for whom this issue and not Christ that is a stumbling block. But I can offer no better proof than the words of Henry Morris, Ph.D. as evidence that creationism teaches a God of fear, not about a God who is our beloved.  Perhaps Dr. “Be afraid!” should have read a little further down in his psalter:

 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. . . How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you. . . Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.  See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. – Psalm 139:14, 17-18, 23-24

Perfect Love casts out fear.

Collin is learning to be a really funny, crabby 45 year old man. Unfortunately he's stuck being 12 at the moment.

Want to do something amazing for your relationship with your kids?  Engage in this thought exercise:

Think of a good friend; someone you genuinely like and care about.  (Don’t use your spouse – too many in-law issues!)  What sort of parent would you want for that friend? If you were somehow able to go back and parent your friend yourself, how would you do it?

I have found that by looking at a friend, who I don’t really have a vested interest in trying to change, I can envision what it would look like for me to parent with more patience, wisdom and acceptance.  It’s helped me come to see my kids for what they are.  They are their own persons who have ultimate authority to decide for themselves what sort of people they want to be and what sort of lives they want to live. What they are not, are extensions of me or proof of the worth of my life or even my skills as a parent.  They might even know better than me sometimes!

This is so clear to us when dealing with any human being other than a child.  Then we are prone to going into whatever our version of full-blown panicked-tyranny mode is to cow them into pleasing us.  And that’s hard on both parent and child.  Even as a kid it always seemed to me that both my father and my grandfather would have liked to be more gentle and empathetic than they were to their children.  But they were convinced that if they didn’t make sure we stayed not just on the straight and narrow but on the painted line ride in the middle of the road, all hell would break loose.  But, I’ve been letting my kids wander all over the countryside surrounding the road for a while now and my father himself has commented positively on the results.  (Not that he doesn’t have some reservations, but then again, so do I!)  And it turns out that I was right about my dad too – seeing him hold one of his grandkids is a beautiful thing.  Big softie.

One of my proudest parenting moments was when my oldest was about 9 or 10 and I overheard him advising his little brother, “if mom tells you how to do something, just listen to her.  Every time I think I know better and try it my way, I find out that her way actually is better.”  Hearing my son say that based on his experience, he has found me to be trustworthy was a huge compliment.  He was the most uncooperative child you would ever want to meet.  To this day he thinks that trying to re-invent the wheel is a sign of good character, although he has figured out that maybe it’s been his hammer and not everything is a nail.  So, I like to think I’m doing something right.  And if he ends up dealing drugs and porn, I’ve already said it’s all his own damn fault.  See how nice that works?

I think that looking at your kids as younger prototypes of the sort of person you might want to be friends with one day also helps deal more productively with the reality that whether they are left to their own devices or not, many (most?) people do some really dumb things before getting their act together.  As parents, our instinct is to COMPLETELY FREAK OUT over each step our kid makes off the appointed path.  Some kids will be cowed into keeping mostly in line, even if the path is clearly not the right one for them.  Other kids will just begin doing the mambo all over the countryside and give only lip-service (if that) to the idea that maybe they should really get back on the path- or any path that isn’t clearly leading to having a social worker assigned to you.  But I have had friends who did some really dumb things.  I read things like this written by a woman I have to force myself not to be jealous of and I know that even things which can seem like the end of the world for your kid, aren’t.

I propose that the best approach, especially if you have a headstrong teen on your hands is to roll your eyes a lot.  If my kid insists on doing the macarena in a swamp, well I’ll be happy to laugh at him when he’s busy scratching mosquito bites. I might have some calamine lotion around here if he wants to look for it.  Sucks to be him.  (It’s easier to learn from your mistakes when you can laugh at them, right?)   And I bet those cliffs I’ve been telling him not to dance around look a little less appealing now that it appears I might know something about something.

Granted, I’m not done yet.  Maybe the qxh is right and they are destined to be 40 year old comic store clerks.  Maybe, but I doubt it. They’ve had a lot of practice in realizing that what they are doing isn’t working.  I’m sure they’ll catch on eventually. I’d say by about 25 they should have figured out the comic store clerk thing isn’t for them.  Or maybe they’ll buy the place.  Who knows?

Picture Cribbed From "From the Lilypad"

I wrote this poem ages and ages ago but never thought it was very good.  But lines from it keep popping into my head lately.  So I thought I’d share. 

I am the willow in winter

Long swaying branches

like tenticles

dance on frigid air

tinkling an icy fugue

the leafless branches

are all beauty, no life.

I will be the willow in spring

reaching down to choke the deep

and pull out life.

And I will dance

in warm, moist air

full of life

green leaves

making shushing noises

as they rub together

these leaves will die again

in fall

the next time

the coldness of the world

overcomes the willow

and me.

Trotter children are immediately identifiable by their curly hair

Each of my children has a story we tell them about some way in which their lives have mattered.  I believe that it’s one thing to tell a kid they are important and that they matter, but it’s something of a gift to them to be able to tell them how they have mattered.  Then they’re not just a lowly child floating out in the world with no real base or purpose to start with.  It grounds the message that they have value in their real world.  It’s concrete evidence for them that just because they exist, the world is a different, better place.

My oldest Noah was born when his father and I were not married.  If it wasn’t for him, we would not have formed a family and his siblings wouldn’t be here.  And his birth also changed me.  Before having him, if you had walked up to me at any given moment and said, “I’m sorry, only real humans are allowed here.  Penguins such as yourself belong elsewhere” and I would have shrugged at being caught and thanked you for telling me I was a penguin – I had been wondering about that.  I had a bad case of imposter’s syndrome.  Practically from the start, parenting Noah was something I just knew how to do and I felt completely comfortable doing it.  It was almost like working out of an area of spiritual blessing and was an important step on the way to me knowing (hopefully) more and more of who God created me to be. 

Collin, who is now 12 was born while his dad was very sick.  His medical care was awful but we were young and hadn’t yet realized that the system works differently once your illness has no identifiable cause or treatment.  They eventually told us that he was crazy – really, they did.  They even gave us a black binder with a report saying so.  In fact he was crazy in a way.  Unbeknownst to anyone, his body had stopped processing B12 years before.  Your body uses B12 to coat nerve endings so they can communicate smoothly.  He was not thinking clearly and became difficult to the point of being unsafe to leave the kids alone with him.  We had been married a year and if we hadn’t had Collin right away, I doubt I would have stayed.  He was only diagnosed when he nearly died.  If I hadn’t been there to call 911, it could have been days before someone found him.  So, Collin kept us together which ended up saving his dad’s life. 

Michaela was the one child I that was my idea.  This time I was the one to talk the qxh (quasi-ex-husband) into having another kid.  He was ready to be done, but I really wanted a little girl.  Believe it or not, but I had never had any intention of being a parent and it had rather disrupted everything else I had wanted to do with my life.  So I figured that as long as I was going to be a parent, I at least wanted to try for a girl.  Against his better judgment, the qxh went along to make me happy.  When Michaela was a few months old, he came and thanked me.  “She’s my heart,” he said, “I can’t believe I didn’t think I needed her.”  The qxh had all sort of very retrograde ideas about how to raise boys – many of which revolved around putting as much parental inflicted suffering on a kid as he can take in order to train him for the rigors of manhood.  But with girls, he took a cue from Chris Rock: “my job is to keep her off the [stripper's] pole!“  The qxh sees a father’s job as demonstrating to his daughter how she should expect to be treated.  So Michaela was the one who helped him find a much softer, gentler and more patient side than he had been working from before she was born.  Which made all of our lives more pleasant.

Sophia is my second daughter.  She was all the qxh’s idea.  There is an almost 6 year gap between Collin and Michaela and the qxh wanted Michaela to have a sibling to play with.  Two weeks later, Sophia was on her way.  Sophia was the child we had no real reason for having.  Most likely in the scheme of things, having Sophia meant that Michaela wouldn’t be completely ruined by being her father’s only daughter!  But when we tell Sophia her story, we tell her that she was the baby we had for the fun of it.  It was a gamble, but it paid off. 

And then there’s my baby, Olivia.  She has a strange story that I’m glad I don’t have to try and explain to her yet.  Just over three years ago, the weirdest thing kept happening.  My four kids would all be in a room with me and I would count them because I thought someone was missing.  I told a friend who has 5 kids about it and she immediately responded, “uh-oh.”  (Many people assume that large families are a sign of contraceptive issues, but it really comes from a completely different mindset towards having children.  Among those who have large families, this sense that someone is missing is often given as part of their reason for having another child.)  Shortly after that, the qxh came out of no where and announced that he had no idea why but he was suddenly gripped with a desire to, um, do his part to assist in the creation of a new Trotter.  And I said, “well see – that’s strange, because I have had this odd sensation of someone being missing.”  Weird, right? 

So we talked about it for a couple of weeks and I came to the firm conclusion that having another baby was a really, really bad idea.  My husband was sick of being the sole breadwinner and our youngest was starting preschool that fall so I could start working on building something myself to contribute to the family finances.  And my then 13 year old stepson was coming to live with us, so I would be going from having 4 kids to 6 in a very short time.  And babies are sooooo much WORK.  We didn’t even have a vehicle big enough for all of us as it was!  Bad, bad, bad idea.

However, a couple of weeks later, I was complaining to God (yes, I complain to God a lot.  That way everyone else doesn’t have to listen to it!).  “Where’s my joy?” I demanded.  And clear as anything the words, “she’s here with me.  Waiting.” just popped to the front of my head.  I knew immediately that this was about that bad baby idea.  So, I told God that I thought it was a really, really, really bad idea and I wasn’t going to do anything to help bring it to fruition, but if it was really what he wanted and it was that important, that I would trust him.  6 weeks later on the first day my period was late, I didn’t need a pregnancy test.  I knew.  I had been forwarned. 

The next 8 months ended up being a nightmare for so many reasons that I began to hope that the baby (due at New Year’s) wouldn’t come until January just so she wouldn’t be associated with 2009.  Turns out 2010 was even worse, so 6 of one, half-dozen of another.  The pregnancy was difficult, I had become depresses which made life very unenjoyable and there were some really serious family problems that came up that fall. 

When the baby did make her appearance, it was just after Christmas.  I was in labor for nearly 48 hours and I’m certain that my ambivalence about having another child contributed greatly to the long-drawn out ordeal.  I knew she was “sunny side up” (facing the wrong way – face up) and that I should have been doing things to help turn her, but the nurses and doctors didn’t believe me so I pretended not to know either.  It wasn’t until the doctor used a suctioning device to assist with the delivery that he realized that I was right - she was facing the wrong way.  It seems her nose seemed to had gotten caught on the way out.  We named her Olivia Joy.

And of course, I love her.  I still think it was a really bad idea to have a baby just then.  And it was really confusing.  It seemed so clear to me that God intended her to be here.  So, why would he send her into a family that was falling apart the way ours suddenly was?  Sometimes I would think that Olivia’s existence must mean that things were going to work out and we were going to pull through.  Unfortunately, everything worked out much worse than I had been afraid of when I decided that having another baby was a bad idea.  

Now she’s two and she’s gotten to be my little buddy.  She’s a very sweet, loving little thing.  Although she climbs like a monkey and is into absolutely everything.  (Like pouring salt into the sugar.  Or into the soup minutes before I was going to serve it.  We are now keeping the salt on top of the fridge.  She’s been trying to figure out how to stack chairs up to reach it, but so far, no dice.)  When I was at my lowest, she would come and shove my head off my pillow and say, “get up!”  At which point I would have to get up because what kind of shlub mom am I if my toddler’s forcibly trying to get me out of bed?  It still doesn’t make any sense to me that it was so important for her to be here, especially at such an inopportune time.  I’m sure it will all be clearer later.  Right now it’s probably enough that I know she was purposed to be here.

And really, that’s why I tell my kids these stories about themselves.  I want them to know that they have a purpose for being here.  I want them to understand how important they – and all people – are just through their existence.  And researchers know that people who see their lives as an unfolding story rather than a conglomeration of events and periods in one’s life are happier and more fulfilled.  I want my kids to know how to create their own stories and claim their credit in the world.  I always think these stories we tell our kids about themselves are like a little building block we can give them to get them started.

Do you have any interesting stories to share about your kid’s effect on your world?  Do you tell them to your kids?