Cultivating the Organic

You hear a lot about this word "organic" these days.

A whole section of our grocery store is now named this.  Everything from yogurt to fruit to cereal (to clothing!) can be organic.  I've heard of organic conversations.  Organic churches.  Organic movements.

But what, exactly, do we mean by this?  

Well,when referring to organic food, we mean food that wasn't grown or made with pesticides or synthetic components.  In terms of conversations, we mean discussions that bubbled up on their own rather than being directed or forced.  As far as churches, movements, and the like go...I think we are referring to something that is unproduced, spontaneous--and, somehow, it has the connotation of being better, healthier.

But there is a problem here.  We have taken this term, which is a farming term, and made some gigantic leaps with it.  So now, when it is used, I think we mislead ourselves to some degree.  

When organic farmers grow their fruits and vegetables, they commit to growing these crops without unnatural pesticides or other synthetic means.  So, definitely, there is this "natural" component to growing things organically.  But don't let this fool you.  Growing things organically does not mean that the farmers are just planting the seeds and letting them grow "naturally".  They are not, somehow, saying, "I've done my job and planted the seed.  It is fully capable of thriving on its own, and I will be back in a few weeks to pick its fruit." Nooooo.  Definitely not.  You better believe that gardener or farmer is out there every day, cultivating the bejesus out of those seeds.

I am certainly no farmer, and the only thing I know about gardening is from watching my husband fight with his small square foot garden on a yearly basis.  But I know enough to be sure that organic farming takes a great deal of cultivation on the gardener's part.  Once that seed pops up, the gardener must thin the surrounding seedlings, pull the weeds, water the plant, figure out how to give the plant nutrients (naturally!), thin and prune the plant so that it will thrive--not die, etc, etc, etc, until the yield is finally ready.  These are daily tasks!  Sometimes it takes years for a plant to be ready to give anything back!

You see, plants growing and producing fruit is a very natural process.  That's what the seeds were made to do.  But farming, gardening--those are man-made processes.  To yield a large crop, or even to yield a small yet somewhat predictable and edible crop, takes a lot of work.  The gardener has to be ever-present, manipulating the environment so as to cultivate the plants into what he or she wants.  

This is especially true with organic gardening or farming.  Those unnatural pesticides and fertilizers and growth hormones make it much easier for plants to grow.  But organic farmers have to be even more vigilant.  Even more attuned to the plants and their needs.  Even more responsive when things take a downward turn.

So when we use the word "organic" to mean natural, undirected, unforced, spontaneous, unproduced....we have a problem.  What is organic farming (or any type of gardening or farming) if it is not directed, forced, planned, produced??  Organic, in my mind, is not about how something grows, but all about how something is cultivated.  

In so many settings, I hear this word tossed around, used to mean "let's just start this process and see what happens naturally--organically."  In a sense, "organic" is used to mean "let's start the car and take our hands off the wheel and see what happens." Everyone nods their heads because we know that organic is better, healthier.  And then we're surprised when what grows is disappointing.  But, really, should we be surprised if a car crashes when we take our hands off the wheel??

In our push to do things "organically", we've ignored the fact that the best things in life are cultivated carefully.  Sometimes with much effort...for years...before producing fruit.  Healthy families don't just happen.  They are cultivated by diligent parents doing specific things.  Healthy organizations don't just grow.  There are wise leaders at the helm, pruning and weeding and making the hard decisions about how the organization will best thrive.  Very little in life "just happens".  Even environments that feel very easy, very spontaneous, very free, are cultivated to be that way.  

I do believe there is a difference between organic and inorganic, and we're on to something in using that term. We're trying to communicate that we don't want things to be fake.  We don't want to manipulate them into something that they're not.  But just because we don't manipulate something into something it's not doesn't mean it can't be manipulated.  In my mind, "organic" is a matter of manipulating a plant or a circumstance or an event into what it was meant to be.  Into its best, most fruitful, version of itself.  It all comes down to how we're cultivating.

And just for the record, I do not hate the word organic, and I generally know what people mean when they say it (and give them the benefit of the doubt).  It just always strikes me as odd that as a society, it has come to connote something so opposite from what it actually means.

So what things are you cultivating in your life right now?  Are there things that you're tracking carefully, albeit allowing them to grow as they will?  Are there ways you've taken your eyes off of something, hoping that it will thrive naturally?  And how is that working?  I would love to hear your thoughts.

 

God and Dissatisfaction

Here's a question I've been wrestling with lately:

As Christians, as committed followers of Christ who believe that He has overcome and is restoring the world (and ourselves) unto completion, do we have a right to be dissatisfied with our lives?


And just to clarify, when I am talking about dissatisfaction, I am not talking about being unhappy or experiencing pain (emotional or physical or otherwise) or grieving or mourning.  Obviously, there are times in our lives when bad things happen...to us.  Sometimes, really bad, hard things.  And I do think that we have a right to these emotions...because, for one, I think they are kind of out of our hands.  We feel what we feel.  And two, I think they are healthy and helpful.  Our feelings of pain help us to acknowledge reality, and maybe they help us to see it for what it really is.  And in the process, they bring us to a point where we can identify what it would look like to continue moving forward, new scars and all.

So, sure, I think we have a right to these emotions, which in my mind are natural responses to the world we live in and the circumstances that happen.  But my question is about dissatisfaction, and whether or not this, like other emotions, is something that we have claim to.

Just cutting right to the chase...dissatisfaction seems, at its root, to not be a reaction to the things that happen to us in this world.  Anger, sadness, happiness, frustration....all of those seem like reactions to me.  Dissatisfaction seems more like a conclusion we reach on account of these circumstances.  For example, I might be unhappy about a situation I find myself in because it was not what I expected.  I think I have a right to that feeling, nor do I really think I could force myself to feel happy (and I am certainly not suggesting that we force ourselves into emotions we just do not have).  But dissatisfaction grows from these types of feelings.  Feelings of unhappiness or disappointment are like the fertile ground from which the weed of dissatisfaction can grow.

So after experiencing negative situations and emotions in our lives for a long enough period of time, I think the conversation in our heads turns from "This sucks." to "I don't deserve this." We reach a conclusion about life---that it has not submitted itself to our picture of perfection, and how dare it?.  We all do this.  How can we not?  But nevertheless, my circumstances and my reactions to them turn into a value judgement about life.  That is where I start to wonder if we have the right.

See, if we take things back far enough, we see that our feelings of dissatisfaction with life lie in the fact that we are not sovereign over life.  That the things we will do not always happen.  Yet, as Christians, isn't this precisely the basis of our hope?  We believe in a sovereign, all-good God who is living, active, and continually willing things for the Good.  Moving things in the Right direction.  And us....well, we are not always moving things in that direction.  Our hope lies in the fact that God is bringing about the Good with and in spite of us.  So when we experience tough circumstances in our lives and, rather than communicating those in an honest conversation with God, we jump the track and board the train of dissatisfaction....aren't we in fact telling God, "I should be sovereign, not you?"

Because if that's what is happening, I don't think we have ground to stand on.  I just simply think this is wrong. None of you want to live in a world where my will is sovereign, believe me.  I would love it.  You, probably, would not.  :)

This is all not to say that we should be walking around with smiles plastered on our faces, pretending we're satisfied with life when, really, we aren't.  I certainly think that honesty about our situations is something that is healthy and necessary.  But I think we need to be aware when we make that critical leap from emotional responses to our situations to conclusions about life on account of our situations.

How's that?  Clear as mud?

What do you think?

I Give Up Self Sufficiency

A year and a half ago, as I hugged my coworkers goodbye for the last time before moving one thousand miles away to Atlanta, my boss handed me a card.  Inside was the most wonderful note thanking me for all of the hard work I’d put into my job over the years.  My boss was a woman who I admired more than almost anyone I had ever met, and her words were so precious to me.   But at the end of the card…the very last line, in fact…she wrote something that I haven’t forgotten.  She said, “We’ll miss you here.  But we know that God has bigger and better things for you, and we can’t wait to see what those things are!”

Although those words were meant as a blessing, my heart sank the second I read them.  I didn’t believe with any part of me that I was moving on to bigger and better things.   I knew what I was moving on to.  I was 8 months pregnant with our second daughter, and I could see an endless string of days at home stretching out before me.  Of course, the work I would do at home with my children would be important, but it suddenly seemed so insignificant in comparison with the life I had been living in the working world—a life where I was making an obvious difference, helping people, showing them God’s love.  There was a big part of me that wondered if God had forgotten me.  Or if it was some cruel joke that just as I was where I had always wanted to be, He moved us away.

And so, believing wholeheartedly that God had either forgotten or didn’t care about my desire to do something good and important with my life, I forged off to take matters into my own hands.  We soon settled into Atlanta, I had our baby girl, Caroline, and then I began to sign up for every possible thing I came across—looking, I suppose, for the bigger and better.  I became a room mother for Molly’s class and I took on a part time job tutoring in the evenings.  I became a part of moms groups and playgroups and library groups and church groups and neighborhood groups—sometimes stepping into leadership positions without even a thought.  And as you can imagine, it didn’t take long for me to be completely overwhelmed.  Not only that, but I wasn’t satisfied.  I wasn’t feeling appreciated or like I was really making a difference.  I was just the schlep who was doing all of the things that no one else wanted to do.

It was at this low point that God broke in and showed me what I was doing.  I had taken it on myself to build up my life and establish my reputation—apart from Him.  In refusing to believe that God could possibly be at work in me, moving me on to the bigger and better without a burgeoning career or position of importance in the world, I’d come to rely fully on myself.  As long as I was advancing in a way that was expected, I had been willing to follow God.  But as soon as advancement meant trusting God to use me in a much less visible situation, I had bailed.   

I spent a lot of time asking God about this place I found myself in.  A place that, to me, felt like absolute nothingness.  I wondered how God could want me to become nothing.  To not utilize the gifts and talents I thought he’d given me.  God didn’t answer these questions.  But he definitely did talk to me.  He told me to let things go.  All of the things that I was grasping so tightly, trying to use to create an identity for myself…he told me to let them go.  He told me to make space in my life so that there was room for Him to enter in.  He promised me that if I made this space and trusted Him to be enough, that He would be.

And so, very reluctantly, that is what I began to do.   I made space.  It meant not signing up for gymnastics AND soccer.  It meant not volunteering for every opportunity that came along.  It meant having entire afternoons, days, and weekends where we had no plans.  This was really scary at first.  I feared the long days, and I hated the conversations that began with, “So what have you been up to this weekend?”  I had to become okay with answering, “”Not much,” which was humbling.  As our neighbors jetted off, day after day, to ballet lessons and piano lessons and soccer practice, I wondered if I was depriving my children.  I wondered if I was depriving myself!  But, still, God would whisper, in those moments where doubt and insecurity crept in, to wait, to stand firm, to not pick up the idol of self-sufficiency that I’d just decided to lay down.

And then something amazing began to happen.  Into all of those empty places like the long afternoons and the open weekends, God began to fill, to become sufficient.  Spending so much free time outside in our front yard meant that our house became the place for all of the neighborhood kids to congregate in the afternoons.  Sometimes we have 10 or 15 children in our yard, and we are building relationships with them that we never would have if we were always going off in 5 other directions.  We’ve also become a stopping point for many of our older neighbors who walk their dogs in the afternoon. They walk past, we pet their dogs, and we chat…sometimes for a long time.  Though I thought that making space would relegate me to loneliness and deprive me of adult company, it has turned out that I often have more company than I know what to do with.  I have learned things I never would have otherwise…things like who is having surgery, who is sick, and who is just having a hard time.  And in the midst of all of this, I see that God has given me a place, an important position.  I am the one who is always around.  I am the one who knows about the hard things.  I am the one who has time to care.  I love that God is making me this person. 

But that is never the role I had for myself.  That, to me, was not the bigger and better that I’d hoped for.  I was too focused on becoming someone (not sure who)  and something (not sure what) to see what God was so clearly trying to show me…that he has a role for me right now, ministering in his kingdom.   It wasn’t until I agreed to let my plans fall away that I could see what God had for me.  And realize that his plans are not just enough, but perfect.

   

So, this Lenten season, I give up self-sufficiency.  I give up self-sufficiency because I am beginning to believe the things I’ve heard about our God all of these years:  That he loves me.  That he knows me…deeply, truly, and completely.   That he has plans for me—a destiny that he has crafted uniquely for me.  And that nothing, absolutely nothing that I could dream up for myself could ever compare to the life that God wants to give me.

The One Without

In my last post, I wrote about how I've arrived at this point of thinking that hearing from and responding to God is it. The point. Thanks to those of you who engaged in conversation with me about that.  I said that I would put some thoughts together on what exactly it means and looks like to hear God in my next post, so that's what I'm going to attempt to do here.  As always, I would love to hear your thoughts...especially as I feel like I'm in kind of strange territory here.

Let me just define my terms (or rather, term) to begin.  When I'm talking about God, the one we hear, I'm talking about a specific God.  I am not referring to a generic spirit, a source of energy or power, or a force in the universe.  I would venture to say that when people talk about this more general or overarching supernatural being, they tend to view the being as part of and inseparable from everything.  So, for example, if I think of God as energy, I might think of that energy as being everywhere.  Around me, in me, in you--part of everything, and indistinguishable from anything.   I think that--as the world has taken on a more secular flavor--the concept of God has not disappeared so much as blended into this idea of an energy that is everywhere.  However, I think that this is a mistake.  To buy into this idea that the point of life itself is to hear from and respond to God necessitates that we think of God as other.  As separate from ourselves.


I want to be clear.  I do believe that God created everything.  I believe that he is eternal, omni-everything, etc.  And he holds all things together.  So, in some ways, God is a part of everything.  But he is separate from us.  I am me.  God is god.

Why is this important, you ask?  Well, I think that hearing God is simply being able to recognize thoughts, ideas, and inspirations within our minds that are from without.  I think that if we start paying attention to the "without" moments in our minds and in our lives, we will see God.  And we will hear him.  Let me try and explain this (have I lost everyone yet?)

The easiest way for me to explain what I think are "without" moments are instances of what we normally call inspiration.  There is a reason we call the most amazing things in life (great art, music, literature, etc.) "inspired".  I think every artist, musician, and writer could tell you of times when they have surprised themselves with the things that they produce.  Sure, they would tell you that they spend countless hours honing their craft by building their skill level.  But there is a point at which skill plateaus, and I think that to get from skilled to great there is a leap of inspiration that needs to happen.  There is something that meets the artist or the musician or the writer from without, and it catapults what is happening to a whole new level.  Have you experienced this?  I do not consider myself an artist or really even a writer, but even I have had these moments when I look back at what I created and realize that part of that just did not come from my brain.  There was something else happening there.

I also think there is something to the idea of intuition.  Many of us have experienced moments in our lives when we knew something that we shouldn't have known.  In my mind, these are clear examples of One who is from "without".

So, how do we hear from God?  Well, I think we begin paying attention to our lives and trying to find these "without" moments.  Maybe we collect them, put them in our pockets and wiggle them around with our fingers.  And then we ask God, the one who is without, what he wants us to know about these things.  And I think that at that point, we'll be able to hear the answer.

Let me know what you hear.

The Center Point

I am becoming increasingly convinced that, while my faith as a Christian has many different facets to it, there is a central "crux" of things--a place from which all else hinges. And so things like the beliefs I hold and the stances I take on everything from politics to ethical principles are important...but only because they come from and are informed by the center belief. In my mind, this looks a bit like a wagon wheel. All of the different spokes spring from that center point.

And so what is this central point, you ask?

It is this: that God speaks, and that I (we) can hear Him.


Is that what you thought I was going to say?

This is something I've been thinking a lot about over the last couple of months. It really began when I read the Bonhoeffer biography (Metaxas) in December. Dietrich Bonhoeffer is one of my all-time heroes. Perhaps my biggest hero. If you don't know who he is, here's a little background: Bonhoeffer was a theologian and pastor in Germany before and during World War II. When Hitler came to power and the German church (along with other churches around the world) failed to stand up to evil, Bonhoeffer and some others began the Confessing Church--which tried to remain true to the right and good in the midst of Nazi pressure to give in--which it was somewhat, but not completely, successful at doing. He was also involved in underground activities to both help victims of the Nazis and to plot an assassination of Hitler. Bonhoeffer was eventually arrested and was killed in a concentration camp just before the end of the war in 1945.

Obviously, all of these things about Bonhoeffer are admirable. But what I really appreciate about him is the way he reasoned through the ethical dilemmas in his life--and that he did it on paper so that we can still look at his thoughts today and learn so much. Clearly, living in the time and place that he did, Bonhoeffer confronted moral dilemmas almost daily. Questions like: As someone who believes the word of God when it says to love my enemy, am I justified in killing others to prevent evil from harming innocent victims? Questions like: If I am admired and closely watched by younger men and women, can I decide to take a dangerous stand against an evil enemy even though I know it will compel those watching me to put themselves in danger as well?

These are not easy questions!! You could have a long and unresolved argument about these and many more dilemmas like them for days and days without truly reaching the bottom of the arguments. But I think this is why I like Bonhoeffer so much. He didn't reduce Christianity into this nice, neat little box of "shoulds" and "shouldnt's". He didn't take the Bible, hold it out, and say, "Here you go. Everything you ever need to know is right here." That's just not the case. I mean, let's be honest, sometimes the Bible seems to contradict itself and we're left wondering, "What in the world am I supposed to do?"

Bonhoeffer, an ethicist/philosopher/theologian, would tell you that there are no easy or absolute answers about how to react to life. But that doesn't mean he was wishy washy or unconvinced that there is a sovereign God who divides good from evil. Rather, Bonhoeffer would say that we can know what to do in these ethically unclear situations. The way we know? We listen to God's voice.

Bonhoeffer, a liberal, scholarly, highly educated man who grew up in the middle of a strikingly secular family, believed that we can hear God's voice. Not only that. He actually believed that hearing God's voice and responding in obedience and submission to God was the point. It was the only way that we could make it through all of those confusing moments in our lives where our faith in God seems to pit itself against us. But I think the importance of hearing God's voice goes even further than that. Sure, it is super helpful to be able to hear from and consult with God himself in difficult situations in our lives. But I think that God also longs for us to listen to him about things that are much less weighty, that are small, daily, seemingly unimportant. I think he wants us to know him. God, the creator, the one in charge, wants us to know him.

And I don't mean know in some metaphorical sense. I don't mean any of this in a metaphorical sense. When I say that we can hear God, that we can know him, that he breaks into our lives in all of these little moments, I mean exactly that.

So I guess my question is this: Do we believe that that's true? I know a lot of you reading this blog are Christians and have walked a long way down this path. So I ask you: Do you really think we can hear from God--all the time? Do you actually think that God is speaking into every situation in your life? That he is breaking in? And do we believe that this happens in everyone's lives (believer or not?) and that it is our fundamental task as human beings to seek out this voice and respond to it?

Because that's where I am. That's what I think. I think that this concept of hearing God's voice and responding to it is--it. And I think that if we learn to do it, it changes everything about us.

My next post will dive into what it actually means to "hear God's voice". I'd love to hear your thoughts on that if you have any!

David

Did David know
When just a shepherd-child
Of his greatness?

Is one born
In the image of God aware
Of his bloodline?

Did he polish stones,
Herd sheep,
Play the harp, knowingly?

Was it easy?
Sitting alone in arid fields,
Waiting for his destiny

Because he knew,
Somewhere in his innards,
That destiny can’t be escaped?

That it can only be waited for.

And when he volunteered
To meet the Giant,
A child versus a mountain,

Did he know?
Or did the possibility hang in his mind
(even just a small one)

That it wasn’t necessarily settled--
That God may not come through,
And it wouldn’t change anything about God?

If David
Had a little doubt
When he picked up that first stone,

It gives me confidence because
It means that,
Knowing that I am not destined for greatness,

There is still the chance
That I can fight the Giant and win
And it wouldn’t change anything about God.

The Importance of Ritual

These last weeks as I've reflected on 2011 and looked forward to 2012, I've been thinking about the importance of rituals in my life. Truth is, I'm terrible at making and keeping resolutions (aren't we all?), but I have found some success in viewing goals not as a singular change that gets added to my life, but as incorporated into a new life ritual of sorts.

As an example, earlier in the year we realized that we were watching too much television in our house. Thing is, we weren't really watching it much of the time, but we'd gotten used to just waking up and having it on as background noise, and as a result, Molly was racking up television hours like it was her job. The thought of just all of a sudden turning off the tv was terrifying, even though I knew I wouldn't miss it. So instead of deciding to simply enact a rule that we would turn the television off, we created a new morning ritual that just didn't include the television. Formerly, Molly woke up and turned the tv on while she woke up and had breakfast. Now, we wake up, read a story, and listen to music in the mornings. Taking away the television was painless because it didn't really feel like we took it away. We merely changed the routine.

When I was teaching, routines and rituals were something I put a lot of thought into before the school year started. I then continued to reflect on them throughout the year and tweaked things as needed. I believe that having routines (especially in a classroom) creates a sense of calm and safety because everyone knows what to expect. Students can arrive at school and start the day off in relative peace and calm, rather than in a state of anxiety over whether they'll be thrown into an uncomfortable situation. Even (or especially) children need to feel like they have some sort of power over their surroundings. I think that is so important for all of us.

In our spiritual lives, too, there needs to be some degree of ritual in order to grow in maturity. This is what I've really been thinking about as I've set my New Year's goals for 2012. Obviously, God is in charge of whether and how much I grow and mature in my relationship with Him. But there are things that I can do, routines that I can set, patterns that I can follow, in order to put myself on the right path. Rather than just saying, "I want to deepen my relationship with God this year" I have decided to say, "I want to set my life in a trajectory that points more closely to God." I want to establish routines in my life, like waking before my children and having a plan for reading and praying, that won't feel like an additional thing to do, but will replace my current routine. I'll let you know how it goes.

Happy New Year!

A Poem for the New Year

I have been really into poetry lately. Not sure why, but it has just had this profound power over me....I think because I've been in this somewhat long and semi-frustrating state of feeling like I have so much to say and write, but for various reasons I have just not had the words to do so. Often, when I find myself in this place, music speaks to me and I can point to a certain song or set of lyrics and say, "This is how I'm feeling." or "This says exactly what I am unable to." But for some reason, poems have been the thing lately. I can't tell you how many times in recent months I've been reading something and have been moved to tears by the fact that a sentiment is so beautifully, powerfully, and simply expressed. Anyway, it has been feeding my soul. Here's a poem I ran across just the other day that I thought was a good one for the New Year. The entire poem is worth reading, but here is an excerpt of just the last two stanzas. Enjoy...and Happy 2012!

Excerpt from "Rabbi Ben Ezra" by Robert Browning

But I need, now as then,
Thee, God, who mouldest men;
And since, not even while the whirl was worst,
Did I—to the wheel of life
With shapes and colours rife,
Bound dizzily,—mistake my end, to slake Thy thirst:

So, take and use Thy work,
Amend what flaws may lurk,
What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the
aim!
My times be in Thy hand!
Perfect the cup as planned!
Let age approve of youth, and death complete
the same!

Preparing Room

The season of advent is upon us.  Time, I suppose, for the obligatory blog post on doing Christmas the "right" way, whatever that is.  Less stuff, more meaning, less shopping, more praying?  I'm not sure.

Truth be told, it's really hard to know how to make Jesus' Christmas surpass the grandeur of Santa Claus--especially with small children.  Try as I might, Molly's favorite part of Christmas is the presents, even though she knows all about Jesus and his birthday.  What is a parent to do, really?  There's a big part of me that loves the gift giving (and receiving) part, too...

And so I struggle to figure out what this "real meaning" is that I am trying to prepare for.  Probably not the most p.c. thing to own up to, but it's true.

This morning, while listening to Christmas music, I was floored by a line from Joy to the World: "Let every heart prepare ye room."

I'm not sure why it struck me.  Why it kept circling through my mind as the rest of the song played.  Why it kept coming back as I did other things.  Why it's still stuck there, hanging on.  Let every heart prepare ye room.

Still unsure why this line clung to me as it did, I began to reflect on what it might mean to prepare room for Jesus, the baby King, the one who would save.  The only frame of reference I have for this is preparing for the birth of my own babies.  Thinking back to those times, I recall the planning, the careful shopping and selecting and readying that took place to make their rooms ready for them to come home.  Especially with Molly, the firstborn, I chose all of the things--linens, furniture, decorations--with such care.  We set things up so proudly, washed and folded things, made her some special things and placed them in the room even before she was born.

Why do we feel compelled to do this?  Why has readying a nursery become such an important part of having a new baby?  Surely, it's not because we think the baby cares about all of these things, is it?  We don't believe that the baby, upon seeing the wrong quilt, or upon realizing that the changing table is a hand-me-down, will become indignant and refuse to remain in our family, do we?  Of course not.  Setting up the nursery with care is simply a way that we communicate to the baby, to ourselves, and to the rest of the world that we are making room.  A new one is coming into our world, and we will stop everything to make a place where this new one can live and grow and make their home.  Making room shows that we are eager, we are expectant, and we realize that once the baby arrives, we will be ready and available for life to be different.

Perhaps it's a helpful metaphor for the advent season, especially in light of the fact that the One we await came as a baby.  So what might it look like to make room this season?  How are we preparing?  Are we choosing carefully the things that we are spending our time on this season?  Are we aware that the things we are preparing--the actual, physical things--aren't the important part, but what is important is that these physical things point to a heart that is eager, excited, expecting to stop everything and make room once the awaited one arrives?

The problem with the advent season, in my opinion, is that it is just the beginning, yet it gets all of the pomp.  It is like celebrating a wedding without realizing that the marriage itself is the gift.  Or having a baby shower and not knowing that the raising of the child is the fun part.  Advent is the preparation.  Advent is the beginning, the entrance, the starting gun.  It is loud and shiny and exciting, and Santa and Rudolph join in, and there is hot chocolate and ice skating.  It is all so much darn fun.

But what comes after--when the King has come--that's the point.  That's what we wait for.  Life after the Christmas tree has come down, after the New Year has rung, that's what all of this is for.  That is also the point at which we find out if we have done a good job at making room.  If life is different, if we have received Christ who has come, if we are fundamentally changed, if our priorities have shifted come December 26th....that's how we know.  That's how we know if we've truly made room.  That's how we know that the baby has arrived.

How are you making room this season?

The Transferable Treasure

I am told to ask, so I do.

It is early, and I am willing--just barely--and I ask, knowing there will be an answer.  But at this point, I'm not sure if I am ready to hear any more.

"Storing up treasures in heaven.  What does this look like?  Really?  What does this mean?  What do you want us to do?"

I hear.  But it makes no sense.

That's how I know.  These aren't my thoughts, borne from my brain.  These belong to Another.

"Worship."

That's it.  That's the answer.  Not the answer to everything, mind you.  But the answer to this question.  This storing up treasures question.

Not tithing more?  Not doing more?  Being more?

I am confused, but I know to wait.  I know, by now, how this works.  I just hold it loosely, keep it there floating around.  Soon the wrestling begins, as it always does.  The wrestling to take the word that's heard and bring it to life in my mind and my heart so that it makes sense, sinks in, rings true.

All day, I wonder: Worship?  Really?  That's the treasure that is transferable?

It strikes a chord.  I have been learning, thinking, mulling, these last few months.  Worship isn't a synonym for singing.  It does not always happen with a band, or a leader, or with others.

Certainly, it can.  It does.

But worship is so much more than that.

Obedience.

That is worship.  It's when my actions sing agreement with Him.  When their song mimics His tune, showing that I want what He wants.  Showing that I will follow, not lead.


Rest.

That is worship.  Welcome worship around here.  When my body and soul lie still, knowing there is refuge from the storms.  Knowing that the worrying can cease because of the One who is standing guard.

Praise.  

That is worship.  That is recognizing Him for who he is.  For seeing how great, how long, how wide He is, and knowing--happily--that I will never measure up, and that I'm not expected to.

Work.

That is worship.  It is knowing that I am given good things to do, important things to do, a purpose.  And that I can make a difference in this world in a very real way because He has made me to do that.

Everything, really, can be worship.  It's not about what's going on.  It's about how it's going.


Worship is simply this: acknowledging Him as the starting point, middle point, ending point....for everything.

Worship makes me take myself off of the throne, and it allows Him to reign unchallenged.

Worship is not a moment.  Not an event.  Not a part of a service or of a life or of a religion.

Worship is the point.

Worship is the treasure.  On earth as it is in heaven.  The transferable treasure.

The one, which, if we store it up here, will be there waiting for us.  It will make us rich.  In heaven, for sure.

But here?

It might make us rich here, too.

That Lady

I promised myself that I would not blog about this.  Actually, I promised myself that I would not talk about this or really call any attention to it at all.  There were good reasons for this.  But I am feeling compelled to share...just not for the reason that it will at first appear.

Last week, Molly (4) Caroline (1), myself, and my mom went on a flight to Massachusetts to visit some dear friends.  It was Caroline's first flight, and she did great--until the end.  As soon as the plane began to descend, she began to pull at her ears and wail.  The pressure hurt.  From the amount she was screaming, the pressure really hurt.  But we made it.

On the return flight, we were as ready as we could be.  I gave Caroline some tylenol in advance.  We had plenty of things for her to eat and drink to keep the pressure from building up.  But wouldn't you know that as soon as the plane began descending, the wailing began again.  She was inconsolable.  I felt so bad for her, and sorry that my fellow passengers had to listen to her.

A few minutes into the crying, a lady about 3 rows in front of us turned around and stared at us, shaking her head back and forth.  Clearly, annoyed.  I smiled.  My mom tried to communicate that the baby's ears were hurting.  The lady just stared at us, angry.  Throw-them-off-the-plane-angry.  She even pressed the flight attendant call button at one point, presumably to complain about us.  My heart started to race.  Anger.  Frustration.  Tightness in my chest that slowly creeps upward.  Lady, can't you understand?  Can't you put yourself into our shoes?

We made it all the way down and the crying stopped.  Magically.  Poor Caroline, all blotchy faced, just lay on me in pure exhaustion, snuffling and taking deep breaths to calm down.  We stood up and got our things together, ready to deplane.  The lady--that lady, as she had now become in my mind--had her bag several rows back.  Right near us.  You'd think she'd try to avoid eye contact, try to put it behind her and just get off the plane already.  I thought that's what she was going to do, and I even moved politely so that she could get her bag more easily.  That was me being the bigger person.

And then she looked straight at me.  And snarled.

"You really shouldn't do that to that baby."

Excuse me?  Do what?  Take her on an airplane?

A number of responses, all beginning with the phrase "How dare you", came to mind.  As rushing rage wound its way through my blood, I mumbled something, desperately trying to keep myself from shouting obscenities at her and from keeping my mom from punching the lady in the eye (which was a real possibility).  How could someone be so heartless, so mean, so...shameless?

And then she was gone.

She left me, a young mother with two tiny little girls, there to absorb the sting of her words, without giving us another thought.  We had ruined 10 minutes of her flight, and we deserved it.

I hate that this lady spoiled the end of this trip for us.  We should have come out of the airport beaming and sharing stories and shouting about all of the blessings we were given in that wonderful week.  Instead, we were weighed heavily with the cruelty of someone we didn't even know.  Even though we could brush her words off as ridiculous, it is weighty to glimpse the depravity of another.

But the heaviest weight of all?

Realizing that I am just like her.

Go with me all the way back to the beginning of this post for just a second.  As I said, I really didn't want to tell this story because I didn't want to give that lady any airtime in my mind or my heart or in my words.  I just thought she was deplorable enough not to warrant any further consideration.  And it's true.  This post is not about her.  Not really.

It's about all of us.  Me first.

As this story was unravelling, I was talking to myself (not out loud, mind you).  Wrestling back and forth in my mind:  "Who does that lady think she is?"  "What is her problem?"  "I hope something horrible happens to her on the way out of the airport."  "I hope something falls on her head."  "I hope that something falls on her head and then something else falls on her legs and pins her to the dirty ground."  "I hope that at that moment, one of those little airport cars drives by and rolls right over her."  "I hope that as all of this happens, I can be standing there to watch and laugh and tell everyone not to help her because she is such an awful human being."  "Please God, do something mean to her."

Gulp.  Guilty as charged.

And this one, the thought that I hung my hat on when all was said and done.  I said it like this in my head, "God, thank you that what goes around comes around."

What???

It has taken me several days to unpack this thought in my head.  To realize that I really meant it.  To realize that I really believed (a.) that this is how God works and (b.) that this is how I want God to work.

If what goes around comes around, I have no desire to stick around for what is coming.  Because you know what?  Goodness and compassion and understanding will not be coming my way.  Even though I may not treat someone like that lady on an airplane, I have done things equally heartless, equally cruel, equally lacking in compassion.  And I enjoyed it.  Sure, you may say that she deserves all of this.  Clearly, I agree with you on some level.  But the more I think about it, the more I realize that she is not unique.  It is not that something in her is incorrectly wired to make her a mean, heartless human being.  It's that we're all wired that way.

What makes me think that I'm any better?

Luckily, even though my mind reverts to this "what goes around comes around" philosophy, I believe in a God who is not like this.  He sees that all of us (a world full of that guy and that lady screw-ups) just don't have it together.  We can't be kind.  We can't be understanding.  We try sometimes, and sometimes we don't.  But regardless, we can't do it.  And that's okay.  Because his justice system is not a karmic one, it's a gracious one.  It's distinctly a What Goes Around Does Not Come Around sort of system.

Thank you, God, for that.  Now I can rest easier.  Now I can be assured that my moment of meanness overpowering niceness will not come back and bite me on the way out of the airport.

Also.  Now I have the strength, the ability, the perspective, with which to forgive all of the that ladies in my life.

One Night

Waiting for dessert, the small group of us sat in the living room and talked.  The conversation started and stopped, not unpleasantly, just people getting to know one another.  A question here, an observation there.  We asked how they had liked the tacos.  They smiled, revealing gratitude but not completely answering our question.  Our refugee friends are friendly, shy, warm, intriguing.

The conversation moved to dessert--desserts we were going to have that night.  They hadn't heard of brownies.  Only one of them had tried ice cream.  We promised that they'd only have to eat what they liked.

And then I asked about them.  What desserts did they have in their country?  What sorts of sweet things did they like to eat?
 
A blank stare, and then a grimace.  Slowly, an answer, as if being very gentle with me.

"Kristin, we have economic problems in Nepal.  No dessert."

That sound? That was me and my sense of reality being brought down to size.

I go on, ask the obvious question.  "So what did  you have to eat?  The UN, what rations did they give you?"

The answer: rice, flour, some sugar.  The vegetables they had to grow in their garden.  The mushrooms they hunted in the forest outside the camp.  The meat was bought in tiny shops inside the camp, where they lived in makeshift homes of bamboo, mud, and tarps with their extended families.  There was a rainy season.  There was some snow.  There was no heat.

For 20 years that's how it was.  How it still is there in that camp.  In 2011.

There were many delightful things that night.  Teaching them how to use a high chair.  Watching the adorable little girl playing with a "hammer" toy and giggling each time she made contact.  Learning Nepali words.  Showing off my yoga poses to demonstrate where I learned the word "Namaste".

But we all had to wonder after they left: what do they think of us?  Of us with our overflowing tacos, gigantic bowls of food, plentiful desserts.  Our multitudes of questions, our interest in them, our warm, comfortable homes, solemn prayers.  In no way was our meal extravagant or the night one of luxury.  It was the same thing we do every week.  Do we count ourselves blessed?  Truly?  Do we?

But one question has haunted me since they left that night.  Really, it has haunted me since I met them and heard of their plight.  Honestly, it has haunted me for 10 years--the time when the Nairobi slums became a part of my story.

Not "what do they think of us" but "what do we think of us?"

And, when I'm feeling brave....

"What does He think of us?"

I don't think these are questions I can dodge forever.  I have done a decent job for a long time.  But it's as if the universe--aka God--is conspiring against me.  I don't have answers to these questions.  Not yet, anyway, and certainly not in any tangible form.  But they are things that make me uncomfortable and make me question...things.  Big things.  How-do-I-live-my-life sort of things.

Calling

Is there room in our lives for a calling?

Do our lives have unique purposes, directions, paths?  Has God ordained for us each a road?  A road that we can take--or not.  But, nonetheless, a road that is for us only?


I think so.


God does place callings on our lives.  Callings to specific things and places and people and lives.  Our callings come from the deepest parts of who we are and what we're like.  But that's not all a calling is.  A calling is God reaching out to us, meeting us (and all of our goals, dreams, passions, experiences) and merging His direction with our own.

A calling is...most obviously....God calling the best parts of us out for Himself.  God saying, "Yes, I created that wonderful talent/passion/gift in you and now you have the choice to give it back to me and see what we can really do with it.

Weren't the disciples ones who were called?  Isn't that what happened to them?  They had lives they were leading.  Good lives.  Decent lives.  Important lives.  But God called them.  He called them to stop doing what they were doing for themselves, and begin doing what they were doing for Him.  The fishermen became fishers of men.  Their skills, their talents, their very lives plucked up and redirected.  Called.

I worry a bit about all of us, though.  I fear that our lives, while decent, good, fruitful, even Godly, have left no room for a calling.  We are planners.  At least, the ones of us that I know are.  We have a plan for the month, year, and next several seasons of life, and we are doing everything we can to keep ourselves on track to accomplish our goals.  We do this because this makes sense and we want to be successful and happy and not wind up somewhere in a dead end job with a house in foreclosure and zero prospects of retirement.  I get it.  We'd be dumb to do anything else.

But if we were called, really, called.  What would we do?

Would we be willing to even consider reconsidering?  Our plans, so nicely laid and waiting for us to grow into them--would we think of abandoning them?

If God broke in and said: Stop.  Not that way.  This way.  ---would we follow?

Because I believe that not only could this happen, but it does happen.  It is  happening.  Daily.  To all of us.

We are being called.  To something, toward something.

Question is: will we answer?



  

A Woman Walks into a Crowded Room and...

If I were to walk into my local mall at lunchtime on a Saturday and shout at the top of my lungs: "FIRE!" until everyone was properly worked up into a frenzy, I would surely be arrested.  And rightly so.  Making people doubt their safety, forcing hearts to beat fast and legs to scatter for no real reason, is criminal in our country.

I have often thought about this when I listen to "experts" speak on motherhood.

See, you take a room full of moms--even worse, new or particularly young moms--and tell them what they should be doing (and throw in the fact that if they aren't doing it this way they could irreparably damage their children), all they're going to think is: I am not doing that.  This will play on a repeat loop throughout the talk.  Oh no, I am not doing that.  Uh oh, I have said that so many times to my kids, and you just said that if I say that, my child is in for it.  Their hearts will beat, their legs will itch.  Anxiety will creep.

Don't get me wrong.  These speakers, I believe, have nothing but the best intentions.  They want to educate, to assist, to prevent! They would say, "I am not walking into the crowded room yelling 'fire!'  I am walking into the crowded room yelling, 'WARNING!  DANGER AHEAD!'"

But so often, the speakers shout "Fire!" when there is no fire and "Danger!" at the wrong things.  This is what irks me.  No, this is what angers me.  You see, we are being trained to react to fire when there is none, but when there really is a fire, we couldn't sense it if it were burning up our pant legs.

On this particular day, the speaker wants us to get our pens.  To listen carefully as she gives us the exact phrases we should use to address our children:  Say "like", not "love" when your child does something that pleases you.  Say "good", and not "proud". There are also some hefty examples thrown in of clients she's had that have been damaged because the parents made these exact mistakes with their words.   I understand what she is saying--we should encourage our children and be precise with our praise: "We like the good things you're doing", not, "We love you because of the good things you're doing".  She is saying that words are important.  I agree with that.  Words are powerful.

But the power of words comes from the fact that our words reflect our hearts.   While some of us have better heart-to-mouth filters than others, for the most part, we say what we feel and what we really think.  However, manufacturing words--being trained to say certain phrases over others--scares me.  It scares me because it detaches us from what our hearts are actually saying.  If I am taught to tell my children one thing, and I say it faithfully because I know it's the right thing to say, I may lose my ability to discover that my heart is not in the right place.  I am believing that the "fire" is in my words and that by changing my words, I am preventing the fire.  In reality, it is my heart that needs the change, and if I don't work on my heart, I am apt to be standing in the middle of a blazing furnace before long.

What if, that day, the speaker had gotten up in front of us moms and said essentially the same information, but gone to the real crux of the matter?  What if instead of just telling us what to say and not say, she had asked, "Ladies, when you tell your children that you love them because of what they've done, is that what you think in your heart of hearts?"  I imagine that for some people, that is what they feel--and that is a problem!  They can rearrange their words all they want, but unless they do the hard work of figuring out how to change that dangerous heart attitude, it will all be for nothing.  And isn't the heart-repair work something we need help with much more than the word-repair work?  After all, children are perceptive.  Even if you avoid telling them that your love is contingent on their actions, they can tell so easily when your heart toward them isn't all right.

Just like....if I love my child unconditionally but, after she does something particularly amazing, I happen to react with, "I love you so much because you did this so well!"....it is not a capital offense.  Everything will be okay.  You know why?  Because my heart and my actions all tell the child on a daily basis: I LOVE YOU NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO.   My words are not as precise and exact as they should be.  But my heart?  It shouts much more loudly.

As mothers, we have got to stop allowing people to come in and scare us with their fiery warnings.  The truth is that we're not going to do this motherhood thing perfectly.  We are going to mess up.  A lot.  Our kids are not going to be spared, either.  They are going to be hurt by us, they are going to be damaged by us, and they will inevitably grow up and wish we had done some things differently.  But that is okay.  That is being human.  We have an obligation to do the absolute best job we can, to love our children, to think about how we're doing things, to constantly try to do better, and to take all of our shortcomings to God.

And that is all we can do.

Destined for Greatness?

Recently, I had a really interesting conversation with a friend about a book that she had just finished reading.  This book (which I have not read and don't even remember the title of) was a parenting book with a unique angle.  The book itself was actually based on a research study that someone undertook on "superstar Christians" (my words--I don't have any idea what they called their research subjects).  Essentially, the researchers sought out Christians who were living obvious lives of faith, and worked backwards by interviewing these people to figure out how their parents did "the right things" that caused them to become the people they eventually became.

The results that my friend rattled off were intriguing.  The researchers were able to identify several factors that the parents had in common.  They identified things like clear boundaries in media exposure and small family size as the "ideal" factors to raising a "great Christian".  It was like they had cooked up a recipe for parents to follow if they wanted to raise a certain type of child, and at that moment, it seemed very appealing to me.  Yes, I want my children to spend their lives leading ministries or being great missionaries.  Of course!  Sounds awesome!  I am so glad to now have the checklist that will get me there!

However, being the former debate student that I am, it finally occurred to me to have my friend define her terms a bit (because I was confused).  She kept talking about wanting to raise these "great" Christians, and how this book had really uncovered something.  But I realized that I didn't fully understand what was meant by a "great" Christian.  And so I asked, and it seems that the book defined a great Christian as one who is a leader in the field of, well, Christianity.  It includes movers and shakers in ministry, in missions, in service--in a way, celebrities in their fields.  People whose lives are clearly marked by the gospel, but who are also leading the way in a visible, noticeable way. And that made sense.  That does seem "great", and as a parent, it seems like something worth aspiring to.

But then I began to get that gnawing feeling I sometimes get when something doesn't quite jive in my brain.  There was this idea, this voice, saying to me, "What are you aiming for?"  I had no idea what that meant, but I have learned to listen to these types of things.  They are way smarter than I.  So I thought about it.  And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that my friend and I were approaching this idea of raising "great" Christian children in a backwards sort of way.  Our aim was a little off.

You see, if the whole point of us being put on this earth for eighty-odd years is for us to become great leaders, great impactors....then I think that the human race could have figured that out long ago.  The authors of this book, after all, did one research study and found pretty conclusive research about how to raise someone to be a great leader.  But the more I think about it, I don't think that's the point.

God never told us to, "Go and be great because that is what will please me.  Lead many, lead them well and with much creativity, and be loved for it."  Did he?  Being great was never His aim for us.  Being respected and honored and praised and beloved--well...those are all things that come up in the Bible...but they are in regards to God.  He is the one who is great.  So...as bad as this sounds...should I aim for my children to be "great"?  Maybe not.  But where does this leave us?  Should I teach my children to be slackers?

Luckily, though, there is some instruction.  The Bible does indeed address this question, as the disciples seemed to wrestle with it some themselves.  They were in the presence of Jesus himself, and he had just done some amazing things, but they were worried about how to become the greatest of his followers.  Sound familiar? (Maybe they could have benefited from the book?)

Jesus tells us this: "Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all" (Mark 9:35).

So are we aiming for greatness, or are we aiming for servanthood?  Do we really believe that in order to be great in Jesus' estimation, that we must be the servant of all?  We must be not just the last, but the very last? Instead of lining up the circumstances of my children's lives so that they may become "great", should I teach them about living a life of lastness and humility because that is the only way to truly become great?

And even if we believe with our whole hearts that the way to greatness--the true way to true greatness--is to become the very last, how in the world do we do that?  What does that even look like?

You must all pity my children.  I can't say that I blame you.

Parenting and Fear

What would it look like to parent our children without fear?

I think about this a lot.  I think about the decisions that I make and the things that I do in raising my daughters, and I must say, there is a lot of room for fear.  There are a lot of schemes and obstacles that lurk everyday, trying to convince me to be afraid.  Trying to motivate me with fear.

You want examples?  Okay.  I am afraid from day one that if I give my baby even one tiny drop of formula, she will be changed and ruined for life.  Nevermind all of the babies that had formula every day of their lives and turned out to be astrophysicists or brain surgeons.  Be afraid.

Want another? If I am not reading to my child every day, if he or she watches any television, if I don't find all of the right educational activities and playgroups and schools, surely my child will be behind.  She will be doomed.  I will ruin any chance that she had in life.  Be afraid.

It sounds absurd, I know.  But I'm telling you, we buy it.  We cash in the family heirlooms, we sell the farm, and we buy it with all that we've got.

The media has discovered this undercurrent of anxiety and fear in today's parents, and I've seen a number of reports on what they're calling "helicopter parenting."  Parents who 'hover'.  Parents who do every little thing for their child because they don't want them to experience any imperfection or trouble or struggle.  But the reality is that these stories tend to focus on the insanity of the parents (mainly, the mothers).  We laugh at them.  We have some fun at their expense--which is, largely, warranted because they do go and pick up their 20 year old son's laundry at college, take it home, iron his underpants, and return it--all the while he's hungover from his 4 am party.  It's sad.

However, I think that this parenting from a perspective of fear is more than just making moms everywhere look ridiculous.  I think it is actually really harmful to our kids.  There is some notion in our society that any form of pain, discomfort, is tragic.  And so we go to all lengths to avoid it.

But what if, rather than pain being tragic, it is redemptive.  What then?

Then our fear-parenting is not necessary (albeit a little silly).  Then it is devastating.

Damning, even.

More thoughts coming soon.

Fragments

I am rumbling forward, full steam ahead.  My mind, my will, my heart all moving in the same direction.  That which I'm doing--reading, cleaning, thinking-has my total focus, and it is delightful and enticing in every way possible.  Intoxicating, even.

Then the dear, beautiful girl comes along.

She would like me to read her a book.

"No," I say.  Barely hearing her.  "Busy".  Not even a whole sentence for her.  Fragment merely.

She walks off.  I continue.

Then the wonderful husband, comes home, long day at work.  I am busy.  Emails.  So many things to do, and here, can you hold this one?

Fragments, if they're lucky.  Fragments of me, when who gets my whole?  My computer.  My books.  My life of one.

It's embarrassing, really.  When the heartbreak of it all wears off.

I am one who God has blessed in many ways.  I think well and hard.  I love to dwell in places deep and fascinating.  But I do not come out easily.  I begin to drown.  I must be pulled, and it is always me pulling against myself, fighting and kicking.

But I know that the ones pulling are more important.  I see that.  I believe that.  I really do.

And I wonder.  Is there Help for me in this?  Can the Maker make me over, give me the strength to focus--on what is better?  Can he shift my vision, pull me in the other direction?

Of course.

Because all the while, while I wade deep in the wrong pools, He is the one pulling me out. He is gentle, standing in front of me, saying, see Me.  See Me.  Really, truly, look.  See me.

He is grace.

He can make my fragments whole.

Even when there's kicking and screaming involved.

What are our moral obligations?

The cost of my college education exceeded $100,000.  I have a Master's degree, a brain that functions perfectly well, the ability to collaborate with others at a high level, and the desire to make the world safer, smarter, better, more just.  But here's what I did yesterday:

I woke up to baby Caroline, fed her, packed Molly's suitcase for her trip to Ohio, sat on the floor and intermittently played with Caroline and watched her play on her own, fed Caroline a few more times, went for a walk, went to the grocery store, read some books (adult books, to myself), cooked dinner, fed Caroline again, put her to bed, did some actual for-pay work, watched tv, went to bed.

It's not an atypical day.  Usually, there's a little more going on, but with Molly gone, the day is a little duller.

But here's my question: spending days like this--days at home in the monotony of young childcare--is it a waste of my time?  Even worse, am I eschewing some higher or more pressing moral obligations by choosing to be the primary caregiver for my children?  Especially in light of the education and skills that I have, am I morally obligated to do something different with my days?

This is the fascinating and challenging debate that I (and countless others on both sides of the issue) have on a daily basis (if only in my own mind), and which I was completely engaged in this morning when I listened to an episode of OnPoint with Tom Ashbrook on NPR.  You can listen to the broadcast here.

This is the basic premise of the debate: Dr. Karen Sibert recently wrote an article saying that doctors (and, often, women doctors) are beginning to see part time work as an appealing and perfectly acceptable option.   Young mothers, especially, take advantage of this option when they begin having children, and it is typically soon after they finish their residency--so at the beginning of their medical careers.  The problem with this part time option is a complex one.  As Dr. Sibert points out, there is a current and projected shortage of clinical physicians, especially in the primary care field.  You would think that the solution to this would be easy--train more doctors.  However, there is not money in medical schools or, more importantly, residency sites, to enlarge the capacity.  Therefore, when a student decides to become a doctor, he or she is taking a precious spot.  Dr. Sibert believes that the commitment to medical school and further medical training is actually a moral decision.  In her argument, medical students are in essence placing themselves under obligation to their patients' lives and to the life-saving ability of the medical profession as a whole.  However, by determining that they will only practice part time, many physicians are actually taking up a spot that could have been given to someone who would have practiced full time, thus filling a gap in the system's ability to function more adequately.

Her argument, more succinctly: Doctors who receive full medical training but practice part time leave holes in patient care and risk patients' lives.   These doctors have a moral obligation to re-examine their commitments and realize that their patients' lives are of higher priority than anything else.  She also adds that we, as a society, have an obligation to inform students prior to entering medical school that these are their forthcoming obligations.

I sincerely hope that that this summary is not an unfair communication of Dr. Sibert's point.  I really want to illustrate her argument clearly, because I do think that it is worthwhile.  I like how she avoids focusing on individual doctors and is instead looking at the issue on a big picture level.  She is right that there is a problem with the level of care available, and she foresees that the problem will worsen if part-time medicine continues to be a widely available option.

The debate on OnPoint largely focused on female doctors, and particularly mothers.  Obviously, mothers are taking advantage of the part time option in large numbers because they want the extra time to spend with their children.  Several part-time, female doctors who were mothers contributed to the arguments in the broadcast.  They all talked about how much they valued being both a doctor and a mother, about how they had struck a work-life balance, etc.  However, I was very surprised that in the hour long conversation, people who took the opposite point of view from Dr. Sibert never countered her argument with a sense of moral obligation to the family.  Dr. Sibert kept talking about this moral obligation to the patient's life, but it's like it never occurred to anyone that women might have an obligation to their family, to raising their children.

Now, let me make it very clear that I do not think that every woman should stay home with her children as the primary caregiver.  I think that this is a wildly personal decision, and one that weighs heavily no matter what is decided.   A majority of women don't even have a choice--they can either put food on the table with a full time job or stay home and starve with their children.  We are lucky that we even get to have this debate.  However,  I am perplexed that there was not even a hint of the family as a moral obligation.

Is this a sign of the times, or am I just reading way too much into this?  Have we gotten to the point where our careers take precedence over our families?  I know that in terms of actual hours spent, we were there long ago.  But we keep believing that even if our hours are spent on our careers, at least our hearts and our minds are with our families.   At least we save our most precious selves for them. They are our highest priority.  But if we as a society are going to say that doctors have an obligation to their patients first, above other things, what else does it say but that the family is less important?

I like to think that the job I hold at this moment is as important as a doctor who is in an operating room saving a life.  My job surely has to be considered a long-term task--one that will see results in 20 years if I put in the steady, daily work of raising a child.  But if we are going to say that saving patient lives is truly more important, of higher moral value, then what am I doing?  I am living a wasted life.  I am taking my mind, my education, my potential and trading it for something less important.

I hope that we don't really believe that.

More thoughts to come...

Being Present for Others and God

One of the hardest parts of staying home with the girls all day is the temptation I constantly wrestle with to "check out".  At any given moment, I know that I could slip away for a second and check my email, read a few pages from a book, clean up a multitude of messes, etc. etc.  And clearly, these aren't bad things to be doing.  In fact, it is necessary that I do all of these things at some point.  That there are all of these things that "need" to be done makes it even harder to realize when I have departed from my primary mission--to be present with the girls, to give them my full attention---in exchange for one of these far less important tasks.

And it is a big deal.  Once I get wrapped up in a task or chore, I am often gone (in my mind or my heart or both) for a long time.  Sure, the girls are safe and going about whatever it is they're doing, but they're missing out on me and I'm missing out on them.  Additionally, it is the times where I find myself carried away by other things that I find myself most frustrated as a stay at home mom.  Rather than focusing on the girls and finding delight in them, I am preturbed that they made so much mess for me to clean up, or I am frustrated that I don't have enough time to finish that next chapter of my book.  My day becomes one annoyance after another, and surely all three of us suffer when this becomes my mindset.  My relationship with them becomes scarily conditional.

I have done various things to counteract my tendency to check out.  I decide that I'll structure my day in a certain way or make lists to keep track of things I want to do when I have some free time.  But the truth is, none of this really works.  Not for long anyway.  Before the first day is up, I find some excuse to slip away, and the cycle is renewed.  It is maddening and I end up feeling disappointed in my lack of self-discipline.

But I think that, finally, I have found the answer.  It's nothing fancy or really very earth-shattering.  It's actually the simplest thing possible.  Every day, every morning, every moment, I just choose them.  I have a running conversation, reminding myself that in this moment, I can choose what's good--and what I, ultimately, want to chose.  I give myself permission to not worry about other things, and I play.  Or I read.  Or I just sit and watch.  But while I'm doing these things, I don't let other things interrupt--in my mind or otherwise.  At first it was scary because I thought I would be bored.  But I've discovered that I actually LIKE being with my kids.  Who knew?

It's funny how there is always a lesson about God in this little life that I live.  As I've learned how to be a daily chooser of checked in motherhood, I've had some realizations about how this is all really a microcosm of what my relationship with God is like.  There, too, it's easy to check out because of distracting stuff.  There, too, can I get frustrated with God because I only see the messes and quibbles.  But there, too, is the daily, the hourly, the moment-by-moment choice I can make to truly tune in and be present.  It is when I am focused on just showing up and being present--letting go of all other expectations and agendas--that I get to know God and remember that I LIKE and BELIEVE in following Him.

Here's to God, who truly is our DAILY (and hourly, and second by second) bread!

A Matter of Taste: Part Two

Psalm 34 contains an oft quoted verse that goes like this, "Taste and see that the Lord is good" (verse 8).  A lot of people do "taste" the Lord.  They commit their lives to Him.  They pray.  They go to church.  Many of these people do, in fact, discover that the Lord is good.  However, I know that many people taste God and find Him unpalatable.  I'm not going to try and figure out why some people taste God for the first time and discover that it is good, while others taste him and find the opposite.  I also don't think I could explain why some people are born loving scrambled eggs and others aren't.  It's just a matter of, well, taste.  What I AM going to attempt to discuss is whether, if we don't have a "taste" for God, we can develop one.

But first, excuse me while I digress into this story.  I promise that it ties in....eventually. 

A couple of months ago, we took Caroline (who was 4 months old) into the doctor for a regular check up.  At this appointment, doctors usually go over how to introduce your baby to solid food because this is about the time in which babies start to try solids.  This doctor explained which foods to try and he told us the preferred order and all the reasons behind it.  But the most important thing he said was something that I kept going back to for days because it was something that I've never heard before.  He kept insisting that the reason why babies are introduced to solids at 4-6 months of age is not because they need the calories.  Solids don't actually contain as many calories as breast milk or formula, but we tend to think that because the babies are getting bigger, they need solids to feel more full, keep growing, etc.  Apparently, this is not the case. 

So, you ask, why even bother giving babies this age solids?  Good question.  According to our doctor, it is to help the baby develop a sense of fondness for different flavors and textures.  He actually told us to introduce solids in this way:  Pick a food to begin with (say, squash).  Give the baby the squash on day one.  Continue giving the baby squash for 3 or 4 days.  If, after 4 days or so, the baby loves squash (as evidenced by panting, drooling all over the spoon, and shoving every last bit into her mouth like our well-mannered child does) then move on to the next food.  HOWEVER, if the baby does not like squash by day 4 (as evidenced by gagging, turning away, pursing lips, etc.), CONTINUE GIVING THE BABY SQUASH, AND ONLY SQUASH,  UNTIL SHE LEARNS TO LIKE IT.  I think that the doctor even said something about only giving the baby squash until her wedding day if it takes her that long to develop a taste for it.  Hopefully we won't have that problem.

His point?  Our tastes are highly impressionable.  Sure, they begin one way, but that is not how they have to remain.  Our tastes for foods, like our tastes for other things, can be developed.  They can be changed.  Improved.  Refined.

This story tells us something more.  Something that we are already well aware of in terms of our human nature.  Nowhere on this list of "foods to introduce" does it mention candy, chocolate, or sugar of any kind.  Why?  Well, a few reasons.   First of all, these foods are obviously not healthy, so why give them to a baby?  But, I would contend that people do not generally need to develop a taste for the sugary things.  Whereas children may not grow to love carrots, they will most likely love cocoa puffs right off the bat.  It's kind of like how we have a natural taste for a lot of other things that aren't so good for us.  No need to develop those tastes!  Our sinful nature has that taken care of.

Okay, back to the point.  I think that, if when we "taste" God, as the Psalmist says, but do not discover that He is good, there are ways to change our tastes.  It is not that God is not good.  No matter what we think, God is always the same, and He is always good.  It is US.  It is that we just don't have the taste buds that like God's "flavor".

What are some of these ways to improve our tastes, or our affection, for God?  Whether we once had it and then lost it, or whether we never feel like we had it to begin with, there is nothing more crucial to our faith than having this affection for God.  That will be fodder for post #3 on this subject.  If you have thoughts you'd like to share, by golly, I'd love to hear them!