Alina's Adventures

Our America is better than this: My hopes, fears, and HOPES.

Inspired by local PRIDE celebrations last month. 

It's been a difficult week for this country. It's been a difficult week for our children as well. For the first time, my kids watched the presidential debates as part of a homeschooling exercise. The Eldest was horrified by Trump's bullying body language and the girls could not believe a man like that would be elected to represent what they believe is the greatest country in the world.

On election night, as they looked at us in horror, we sent them to bed and promised it wasn't going to be as bad as it looked. Then the man and I stayed up and realized it was. We held our breath and gnashed our teeth and stumbled our way through a 10th wedding anniversary. 

The good news is that we are coping and learning more about how to save our communities. The bad news (at a micro-level) is that my kids don't think America is great anymore. My kids think America is mean and nasty and what it takes to lead America is even meaner and nastier. 

And so I find myself arguing with my kids about what makes America great.

And realizing (again and again) that no politician makes America great-- what makes it great is the diversity of its people.

For the record, I'm not going to engage any discussions on how Trump doesn't mean what he said. If he didn't mean what he said, then everyone who voted for him knowingly elected a liar. (Even though polls report that what voters held against Clinton was the belief that she lied.) Somebody is lying. Many are lying to themselves. There is a lot of lying going on and it's pretty ugly. I'm not going to be part of those lies. I'm not going to bring those lies into my house and foist them on my children. 

Again: I'm not going to lie to my kids to explain why friends or family voted the way they did. I think it's best done directly, person-to-person. That's your job, not mine. You can tell my kids why and let them ask questions.

I will not be an apologist for your vote.

I will not tell them that you didn't mean all the racist, xenophobic, misogynistic, classist, sexist, cruel things he said.

If I do that, I will lose their trust. They heard his words. They believed him. That has become a national problem. 

And then there is life, itself, which leads children to draw their own conclusions based on experience.

Today, between ballet lessons, the kids wanted to do something to tell all the people who are scared and hurt and suffering that this is still their America. Their urge was inspired by a faith which holds all persons equally and considers every human to be equally deserving of life, liberty, and opportunity. So we got a small box of chalk and sat near the Bama Theatre in Tuscaloosa where teen beauty pageant contestants were prepping for tonight's event.

The kids wanted to draw on the white, unbumpy sidewalk but I urged them closer to the street so we wouldn't interfere in photos and poses. The message was simple-- to assert love and solidarity with all the persons threatened by Trump's election. That's what they wrote.

And yes, pageant queens whispered and muttered things like "snowflake" and "crybabies". Milla wanted to know why they kept walking past and taking pictures of us. I told her they were curious.

One mother (who walked past at least four times glaring at me as if I was a demon) said to her daughter that "they must not be Christians". 

Because we wrote "This is all of our America. We love you." 

 

And so it went.

Later, as I waited for the kids outside the ballet studio down the street, aware that several "homeschooling friends" had recently de-friended me because I did not vote for Trump, trying not to make things awkward for those persons whom I see every week, a beauty pageant boyfriend tried to erase the words with his shoe as the beauty pageant contestant giggled. 

I did not cry. 

In the car, we talked about voices and democracy. Milla liked the idea of being a snowflake and Micah was annoyed at being called a crybaby while not even crying.

Because everyone in my family knows I'm the crybaby.

I'm the one who cries in church or at movies or concerts or sunsets or a luna moth drying its wings on the wall. 

But the love letter made them feel better. It gave them a voice, however tiny. If we are honest with ourselves, we have to admit we don't give kids much of a voice in this world which surrounds them. We pretend they can't hear what we're saying and then-- if they ask-- we say, "Oh, nothing honey. I was talking to Daddy." Or maybe that's just me. Maybe I'm the only one that tries to be a parody of fair-and-balanced. Which fails. 

Despite my fear and discomfort and sadness at losing friends-who-weren't-friends to begin with, I'm holding out hope that our voices can make a difference. 

I want to encourage everyone to get some chalk and some hope and hit the streets with love. Write some neighborhood love notes to counter the messages. Don't get bogged down in arguments about safety pins. Don't sit around and entertain the mansplaining events which have become rather prodigious. Attend protests.

Get involved in local activist groups and DO STUFF.

Do more. Don't stop.

Don't debate whether it's too small an act or too fancy or too whatever.

JUST DO IT. Keep doing it.

This is going to be a long walk. Don't bail out or burn out or get consumed by your anger. Be angry and let yourself experience it but don't let it own you.

Trust love, justice, and solidarity to lead you. 

I repeat: love, justice, and solidarity are companions you will never regret. 

Don't worry about what people say. It's not your problem or my problem.

Our problem is this: showing love, creating safe spaces, and fighting through activism and engagement to make America great. Guess what? No one else can make America great EXECPT US. 

The summer I want to forget without forgetting, somehow, these moments.

My life divides on the date June 18, 2015. The date mom died. All the details fall into categories of before and after. The photo above is a before. A photo from mom's iphone which she took on our last outing before she flew away.

See, when your mother flies to Amsterdam to see her niece's art exhibit- the niece she loved and wanted to support- and then dies overseas, it is as if she flew away. Boarded a plane and never flew back.

When the coffin arrives on a plane one week later, it's not a return flight. The body does not return smelling of apples and fresh-washed linen. The body does not return to smother you with smoochy kisses.

What comes back is a box you will never open. A story you don't want to read. A story whose text tells you nothing about the protagonist. Not one ounce of her life embalmed in that body that people want to see.

The life is divided. There is before. 

And there is after. And after. And after.

And the after never ends.

There is a hike somewhere above Dillon, Colorado where all you can see is her bright blonde bob just over the next hill. Because she hiked faster. And you can't keep up. 

There is a thunderstorm on the horizon and it is not a source of awe or beauty. You can't see it that way anymore. It is simply this: the promise of a downpour. A weather in which you can cry without being noticed.

There is Gnome's first tennis lessons. Because Bunica wanted them to play tennis. Because she loved tennis and you love her and them but it doesn't make sense to keep on loving if she has left. The other mothers crack jokes about bikini waxes and you try to make cheering sounds but the sun is too bright. And she is not here. To make you behave better. 

There is a game that the girls teach Isla. A game which involves jumping over a rope held by others. You are sure the game has a name but all you hear is Isla's laugh when you look at the photos. All you hear is how they taught her to jump.

All you see are the sunglasses she insisted on wearing through every leapy attempt. All you know is that she felt a connection between sunglasses and jumping. There could be no other option. And you know mom would be proud. But your heart breaks anyway.

There is a note in her trail book about a hike you took together last year. But she wrote the date down wrong. The date she recorded is tomorrow. A day that has not happened. Your son says it is a sign that Bunica wants us to hike it tomorrow. You hug him tighter than a cobra and he wonders when you will stop crying. You cry together. You don't think it will ever stop. But you will lace your boots and bite your lip and make what folks call "the best of it". Are they joking? What's happening right now is the worst of shit. Not the best of it.

There is, indeed, the hike you took to Lily Pad Lake with her last year. There is the hike you take again. This time, you call it a pilgrimage. This time you fold a boat to set loose in the lake where she smiled 1,000 times brighter than Colorado sun. You don't want to leave. You tell the kids descent is more difficult than ascent. You don't tell them why. You don't tell them that you can never go back to a place where she is with you. 

There are structures you climb just to move away from the chatter. You are scared of heights but you keep climbing things that put you out of reach. If you get high enough, then maybe no one will need you to tie a shoe or resolve a conflict over lollipops. The people you love are below. They won't climb this high. And so you cry because no one asks if a woman who climbs is crying. They only say, wow, that looks high.

There are books you read- Russian Nights by Vladimir F. Odoevsky- which make awkward promises about time. You feel yourself flushing. There are new forms of anger you have never encountered. Sudden comets of anger that blaze across your face. There are no unpoetic moments in the life of a poet. You'll take his statement and clarify: There is nothing poetic in the death of a poet. There is no poetry in a heart that stops. There is no beauty in this endless silence.

There is only the impossible, insoluble longing. And the destruction of present tense. This after and after and after. Nothing blessed.

Faith without works and the people of Syria.

A fascinated Gnome.

Today I made it through communion without crying. It's the first time I've done so since Mom's death. Granted, I cried in during the final hymn as we sang the word "perish" because perish is such a heavy, impossible word from which there can be no relief or reprieve.

So I hold quantum theory against human words like "perish"- words that lack the humility of what we cannot see. I hold science and faith and poetry and beauty against words which end what we can neither control nor explain. I realize this is a personal preference. I understand there are others who need to believe Christ's love is something they have earned by saying His name.

Church is always a comfort, a place when the words in my head stop bustling for privilege and paper. I listened without worrying about what I should take away. Listened without holding an ear open for the teachable moment.

The Eldest bumbled through an extended rotation of hiccups while Gnome copied words from The Book of Common Prayer on the back of a blue prayer card. She wanted me to see- and the sight was a succor of soothing verses. 

My mind kept coming back to the reading from James 2:1-26. This is an uncomfortable passage for many who believe once-saved-always-saved doctrines but much less threatening to those (like myself) who believe Christ's love and mercy includes every single human being without regard for class, style, dogma, creed, or religious belief. 

Syrian refugee children (via Peacechild.org).

14 What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? 17 Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

How many ways can we read these verses in light of the desperate political and economic refugees at our doorsteps? 

How many ways can we throw money at a problem without opening the doors of our spacious homeland to those in need?

How many times can we smile, sign a check, and then say, "Um, I did my part and see you later"?

How many excuses can we formulate for our selfishness? How can we say people envy our freedom when the only freedoms we exercise include the right to carry guns and go nuts over football? Surely there are some who envy our foolishness and hubris but this is not the same thing. To give someone a Bible and then refuse them entry into your home is a defamation of what we've been taught.

Surely at some point we must choose between two opposing principles- the preservation of our vapid consumerist lifestyles and love for all the world's human beings. We must choose between this world and the world of Christ's love. We must choose between materialist Mammon and spiritual brotherhood.

There's no middle ground, I'm afraid. We MUST choose, knowing deep inside that the decision to keep refugees out is a choice we make out of fear, mistrust, and selfishness. It is a choice that reflects our lack of faith in love. It is a choice that reflects our love is limited by the heat we pack to protect it. And it breaks my heart to know Christ's love is used to sanction self-defense against innocent victims of war in this world we have created.

Reading Maximus the Confessor in the mountains.

Gnome eats wild strawberries found along a trail
near the small mountain town of Montezuma, Colorado.

For Maximus the Confessor, the kingdom of God is one of love. Outside it, man is divided against other men and himself. He clings to distinctions generated by culture and ego- "human beings begin to feel themselves at first distinct; later, isolated; and, finally, opposed to each other in fear, greed, envy, lust, etc."

So, distinction leads to isolation- that familiar feeling of anomie and loneliness revealed in the writings of Kierkegaard, Walker Percy, and Camus. The isolation fosters a opposition- the sort of thinking that frames life as a battle, us vs. them, America vs. Russia, and so on. 

For Maximus, faith is a twofold experience which involves first opening our souls to God's grace and love and then applying this faith or fidelity toward other men in a way that heals the divisions that separate us. 

To love is to be penetrated or inhabited by the other.

The existence of one is the condition for the other- lover and beloved, loving and beloving. 

To be truly undivided, one must re-create the self as belonging to another. And, by belonging to another, one is no longer divided against the other. 

There is a way in which this undergirds my ecological thinking- this desire to keep things whole, to feel myself as living in a world in which bees are not merely "other", nothing separate.

Father's Day.

Father's Day was uniquely uneventful this year. Going into our second week without a dryer, the King meditated about various and sundry things while hanging out four loads of laundry. "There's something calming about having to hang everything, then wait for it to dry," he confessed later that night, comparing it to construction work and the way he'd get lost in manual labor. 

Bunica brought by a delicious soup, thus sparing me the opportunity to start fires in the kitchen.

When we took a sunset stroll, the King found what every 21st century father needs most- something to climb and no good reason to refrain. 

So being a father is the weight of the world and the lightness that comes with lifting it high in the hair and hearing it giggle.

It's looking down at the tracks laid by others and wondering if there isn't some heartbreaking limit in the places we can go if we agree to follow them.

It's knowing you can't fix the past but you bear a responsibility for the future.

For what you sow and how you sow it.

It's teaching your son how to love himself outside the emotional and spiritual confines of gender roles and assumptions. Discovering new paths and giving him a sense of self strong enough to sustain the adventures.

It's watching your daughters breakdance on a bridge and not feeling the need to "show" or teach them anything at all- only to watch them and learn from their joy.

It's knowing deep in your veins what Wendell Berry meant when he wrote:

We have ourselves to fear.
We burn the world to live;
Our living blights the leaf.

It's knowing all these things without knowing the sort of simple answers given by ideologies or self-help books. Learning to read the runes scribbled in spray paint. Finding yourself in what you leave behind.

In hope of henbit: A discovery of devotion.

The cost of daily nature study with my children is this blooming ardor for all things green. I crave the company of wildflowers. There are times when I yearn for nothing more than a sheet of paper, a pencil, and a mute plant nearby. A particular plant with a story it wants me to tell. 

There is a carpet of stunning purple-blue wildflowers under the camellias near our front door. Part of me finds herself hoping for a henbit identification. For some unspeakable reason, I maintain a steady affection- an openness to being charmed and re-charmed- for the henbit.

The facts, themselves, don't explain my affection. As a matter of fact, henbit is a member of the mint family. There are a lot of mints that do not smell minty, some of them are edible and some of them are not. In fact, some of the mints can make you ill. Though henbit lacks the minty smell, it is an edible herb. Eat the Weeds offers a detailed scoop on henbit's lovely qualities. 

The mystery accrues, growing heavy with the weight of various Latin names and specifications. I aim for henbit, in spite of the bits that don't add up.

The more I study, the more I find satisfaction in touching the flower with all my senses- seeking a scent, lifting it, again, to the light. Sketching and re-sketching. Focusing on the stalk, adding tiny hairs along its length, bonding closer to my subject. Reminiscient of the way writing a poem breaks down the barriers between myself and what I allow myself to feel for and in the world around me, trying to find a name for this flower wraps me tighter into the wonder and magic of its existence. 

Though I can't seem to find a better id- not even on Wildflower Identification Guide- it seems highly unlikely that this would be henbit. It lacks the characteristic heart-shaped, scalloped leaves that grasp the stem and give it the nickname grasping henbit. 

I find myself focusing on the leaf shape, wondering if the oval is actually a lyre. Since lyreleaf sage grows well in this part of the country, I convince myself that the characterstic lyre-shaped leaves need not be quite as, well, lyre-like as the name suggests.

At some point I realize that more than mere science is at stake. 

Pigmentation takes me further towards distracted fascination and closer to mis-identification. I discover a trance-inducing new blog, Anybody Seen My Focus, where I learn that the leaves of lyreleaf sage reveal the amount of daily sunlight it receives. The greener leaves are usually those of the plants who receive full sun. Purple pigmentation in the edges or flesh of the leaf indicates a shade-dwelling sage. This makes sense given the partial shade in which I found our flower friend.

The King reminds me of our plans for the day, the kids throb their way through the castle, a restless rhythm demands I drop my pencil, turn away from the mystery, and face the familiar music. 

At this point, I recognize the religious pilgrim in myself- the spirit steadfastly seeking an intimacy from something outside the material world. My devotion to this simple garden weed becomes a journey, a quest for a name with all the potency of the Holy Grail. So I leave my awe, like a half-knit sock in the fair trade basket woven by women from Nigeria, for another time, another day, another moment. 

But it's hard for me. Easier to drop the sock in the basket than to quash this burning urge which developed in pursuit of a plant.  

Purple deadnettle vs. henbit factsheet (UT Extension)
Purple deadnettle (Brooklyn Botanical Garden)
Creeping charlie, or ground ivy (Edible Wild Food)
Beautiful images of henbit flower (Project Noah)
A lovely look at Lyreleaf sage (Anybody Seen My Focus)

Finding the shelter of each other.

I burned the candle reading on the stoop outside our backdoor last night. The biblio-love with whom I communed, Mary Pipher's The Shelter of Each Other, resonated as clearly as the song of the barn own which visits our backyard at least once a week, the barn owl whom I have come to believe is divided between a past which took place somewhere in the woods behind our yard and a present which resides down the street from us. 

The social construction of reality and the idol of Progress

Pipher, like Wendell Berry, dismantles the idol of "Progress" to which so many mega-churches and self-help groups are now dedicated. Just because science advances to give us the atomic bomb does not mean that this technological progress makes the world a better place. Like many, I am in the thralls of this consumer myth in the places where I least expect it.

We are, after all, one of those crazy families that gave away their TV set this year. That's right- we don't have a TV. Our kids are clueless about the latest exploits of Dora the Explorer or the how the Bratz feel about halter tops. 

"Choose your books as carefully as you choose your friends," warns a grandmother in Pipher's book. For a woman who treats her books like lovers, the admonition is clear- my neural pathways are constructed by the books and media to which I am exposed. Ultimately, as an adult, I am responsible for creating the architecture of my own brain. As a parent, I am responsible for protecting and encouraging only the best and least harmless materials in the construction of my children's brains. 

We all have our blind spots. Boys are one of them. Pipher writes about the challenges faced by boys in our mediated culture- the tension between messages given by the media and the voice of their conscience, as nourished in their homes. When a boy tells his parents, "You just don't understand," he is absolutely right. How can we understand what it's like to grow up in a culture that sets a standard of "cool" for men in which scoring is always the goal, whether in sports or in human relationships? How can we honestly confront the mixed messages given by media that glorifies killing without remorse and consuming sex as if it were a supersized McValue meal? How can we unravel the unspoken double standard that tells boys to kill and screw without warning them of the cost, whether jail, pregnancy, or emotional detachment that leaves them lonely, lacking the very friendship and intimacy which led them to try and impress others in the first place?

To confront this mixed messages requires us to admit the ways in we are complicit in their formulation. We tell our boys what is right and wrong, then we hand over the remote or iPad that reminds them the extent to which right and wrong are glorified abstractions and unrealistic expectations. We pat them on the head and refuse to acknowledge the way in which their kindness and empathy will be held against them in peer groups. 

"Gentle boys who respect girls are at best ignored and at worst brutalized," writes Pipher. "To be accepted they must do things that are wrong and harmful", things which their peer groups will encourage and reward yet fail to assist them in coping with the consequences. The problem is compounded by the way in which our culture discourages kids from looking to their parents for help with complicated emotions and needs.

"We don't give teens permission to love their parents.... We teach them there's something sick about being close." 

This is tantamount to denying the deepest and most essentially human need of all- the need to be loved and nurtured, the need to find meaning in the way we relate to one another.

Encouraging fatalism and despair

"There is nothing is new under the sun," we promise, when our children express despair over bullying or the images of dead civilians, mothers with children curled around them, on the television set. So our kids learn to keep quiet about the things that shock them. Rather than empower them with tools to make the world a better place, we establish a rationale for passivity. There is nothing you can do. Life sucks. So keep playing that video game. At least you have a chance of scoring. 

Albert Einstein said that our theories determine what we are capable of observing. Rush Limbaugh doesn't see struggling single mothers trying to juggle two jobs and parenting- he sees only evil, selfish women trying to steal taxpayer dollars. If you listen to Rush Limbaugh, chances are you will see things the same way. Like it or not, he educates you and creates your worldview. He tells you what to think and what to care about. He lights that fuse beneath your bottom that makes you angry every time you see a young man wearing a hoodie. Worst of all, he convinces you that the world is nasty place where the ballots are rigged against anyone who considers themselves an "honest American".

I would argue that anyone who considers themself an "honest American" needs to take a step back and do some critical thinking and deconstructing of the phrase itself. The honest American is the one who admits what his lifestyle costs the world and all the children of developing countries. The honest American is one who repents of any "Americanisms" that allow him to justify the desecration of our natural world and its non-American residents.

To argue that change is inevitable is to say that planning and hoping is impossible. Its serves to deprive us of personal agency and identity, to sweep individuals into a dustpan where all are just undifferentiated dust flurries. Telling your kids that "that's the way the world goes round" as if it were a truism rather than just a funny song equips them with a sense of helplessness in facing life's challenges. 

Offering a rather un-erotic sex education

Rather than provide our kids with a rich, compelling sex education, we skim over the technical details and allow the culture of porn to do "the dirty work" for us. Perhaps, deep down, many of us still believe that sex is dirty, something that contaminates those who speak of it. So children learn to have "McSex", to just do it and get it over with and consume it as quickly as possible. The difference is not so much in the people with whom you do it, but in the presence of specific condiments- ketchup, onions, anal, etc. 

Honestly, are you surprised to see teens discussing sex as if it were banal, blase, and possibly even boring? Pardon my excitement, but if the coolest experience in the world (namely, sex) has become run-of-the-mill, what on earth is left to words to like "yearning" and "longing" and "hope"? I like words that represent feelings based on delayed gratification; they give us something to anticipate; they add texture and richness to everyday life. 

Human development occurs within the context of real relationships. We learn from whom we love.

The poverty of consumerism- that feeling of never quite having enough- commodifies things that might otherwise be created, hand-made, seeded between people and allowed to bloom, grow, and blossom in unspeakably beautiful ways.

We're stuff-rich but oh so very soul-poor.

We're theory-laden and yet still desperate for love. All the books which punish people for living as if we truly loved others- for living our way through our loves- throw us back on the market in search of the next book or pill that might fill in the emptiness.

Cars before conscience

I admire the courage it takes for Pipher to say that character has more influence on our longterm happiness than the momentary notion of "self-esteem". To define "will as the ability to act on the basis of one's values". To bemoan the extent to which "cynicism is king". To point out that most teens see conscience- not a car- as a luxury they can't quite afford. 

I wonder how we got to a place where kids feel more comfortable raising money to help pets or animals than fellow human beings. Have we made human-kind as unspeakably dirty as sex? Have we made it easier to show affection for an animal than a fellow human being? Have we made it harder for young folks to determine what they, as individuals, want as opposed to what they have been programmed to want? Have we extolled human nature above and beyond the power of human nurture? And do we really want to live the sort of world that exists as a result of these choices? 

These are important questions to ask- as individuals, as parents, and as families. Relieving kids of the opportunity to participate in discussions about the challenges posed by our culture only disempowers them. Many of us (myself included) are better at teaching our kids to be rebels than helping them understand precisely what they are rebelling against. 

Prophet brings me a bowl of flowers. I put down my pencil for long enough to remember why those books I take as lovers must remain, somehow, as side shows to the real show that unfurls everyday in our home.

In a world that tells us it is "safer not to care", the most daring thing we can possibly do is keep caring. And teaching our children to care, in spite of the cost to their "cool factor". If life is worth living, it must be worth engaging. We must agree to fight battles we can't possibly win just because it is the right thing to do. We must agree to be enthralled and delighted. Perhaps these are the best lesson to impart from our temporary, fragile nests.

Meditations on the uses of anger- and the uselessness of despair.

Still, you cannot believe in uprisings without believing in some possibility of social change, and you cannot believe in positive change without believing that some things are morally preferable to others.

So writes Episcopal priest Garret Keizer in The Enigma of Anger. I console myself with his words as often as I hold his words (somewhat angrily) against others. 

Speaking to my dad or to my in-laws about current events and history only reminds me that the presence of facts does not diminish the prevalence of fictions. We tell ourselves stories based on a compendium of characters and then refuse to accept that any story apart from the one we tell ourselves can matter. 

I’m not good at discerning the precise place where patriotism turns into idolatry. My personal manner of reconciling myself with the mass-murdering apparatus known as the nation-state is an ascetic one. I refuse to add the saccharine of patriotism to the bitter drink, lest it lull me into revisionism.

The drink stays bitter so I’m not tempted to lie about it. 

So why is this drinker of bitter-draughts, the girl who declines to make the drink taste sweet, the idealist? How can we explain the fact that she is the one who believes in hope- believes in the value of protest and picket, finds comfort and fellowship in speaking truth to power- while those who sip from the sweetened tea recline and declare, “That’s just the way the world is….”

“Ever since Eve tasted the fruit,” they declare.

“Eat, drink, and be merry,” they reassure, “for tomorrow we die”.

Or, my personal favorite, “Humans sin and only Jesus is perfect”.

Hallelujah. Amen. Someone pass me that gun so I can take a shot at that hoodie-wearing scoundrel who’s looking for trouble. 

For all my sadness at the human condition, I understand that the American Revolution was not (as some armchair theologians might claim) an act of God but an act of human beings. I understand that human beings are capable of great things and awful things. I cannot understand attempts to mitigate or downplay the difference. 

"The feeling I dread most is not fear but despair: the dim, oppressive sense that the more things change, the more they stay the same," writes Barbara Kingsolver in the first essay of the captivating book of essays aptly titled, Small Wonder. It's a book to which I return often.

The persistence of evil and cruelty is not a sound reason for denying the way in which evil changes shape and form over time. In fact, the extent of this change is usually the reason we fail to acknowledge the most recent form of evil colluding in our daily lives. 

The Boy Scouts now "allow" gay members to scout, but the institution still refuses to permit gay "troop leaders". So a gay father can't lead his scout's troop.

Behind this decision lies the sort of shameful thinking we rarely confront. In this case, the rule is maintained by the unspeakable fear that a gay man is the victim of his own "disturbed" sexuality- a sexuality from which young boys must be protected, one that must never be allowed in a position of leadership. Imagine if single mothers were not allowed to leader Girl Scout troops for fear that their divorces or lack of marriage would "contaminate" young girls. Imagine if skin color determined one's access to leadership positions.

Don't tiptoe around "No"- say it. Set it in stone.

Black Americans are no longer slaves. Things do change. But those Americans who wanted to keep their slaves resorted to the same excuse that "things stay the same"- that change is ultimately impossible, that humans can't help but oppress one another and then validate such oppression by calling it "natural".

What if it is despair- that feeling that nothing you do can make a difference- that keeps us from doing the right thing? Rabid, irrational fear might explain bombing innocent civilians, but it is despair which keeps from acknowledging the horror of what we have done and facing it with courage and humility.

Will D. Campbell, a man unlike any other.

The first time I heard Will D. Campbell's name was in the context of a conversation with an elderly neighbor whose voice churned confetti and fireworks as she described her favorite "bootleg preacher". I was intrigued- but all that breastmilk-induced oxytocin erased the name from my memory until I ran across it again while reading a book of conversations with Walker Percy. And then again when researching the life of Clarence Jordan.  

Like Clarence Jordan, Will knew what he was up against in racism- a form of excusable disgust and hatred which preachers sought to justify using scriptures and traditions. For Will, it would not be enough to decry the hatred for other races. Instead, he would have to learn to love even the most unlovable human beings.

"I have seen and known the resentment of the racist, his hostility, his frustration, his need for someone upon whom to lay blame and to punish," Campbell wrote in his first book, Race and the Renewal of the Church. 'With the same love that it is commanded to shower upon the innocent victim of his frustration and hostility, the church must love the racist" Therefore, in 1969, on the night before Bob Jones, the Grand Dragon of the North Carolina KKK was shipped off to federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut, for contempt of Congress, Campbell was there in the Dragon's Den to celebrate communion with a bottle of bourbon. Later, Campbell talked with James Earl Ray, the man who had murdered Campbell's friend Martin Luther King. When people asked if he really expected to save the souls of such men, Campbell allowed that that would be presumptuous: "They might, however, save mine." (Source: Lawrence Wright)

Given his extensive career in the Christian church, Will often surprised people by confessing that his faith came to him much later than his memorization of scriptures. Though a preacher, Will claims he actually became a Christian when his friend, Jonathan Daniel, was murdered in 1966. Daniel had come from his Episcopal seminary in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to register blacks to vote in the notorious Lowndes County. After walking into into a country store with a white priest and two black friends, Daniel emerged holding a Moon Pie and a soda pop. A sheriff's deputy named Thomas Coleman found this Moon Pie to resemble a threat and decided to resolve the matter with the help of his shotgun. Daniel gave his life for the civil rights movement.

When Campbell heard about Daniel's death, he was visiting his friend PD. East, the colorful and defiant editor of the Petal, Mississippi, newspaper called The Petal Paper.

It was East, years before, who had badgered Campbell into giving him a definition of the Christian message in ten words or less. “We're all bastards, but God loves us anyway," East recalled. “Let's see if your definition of faith can stand the test. Was Jonathan a bastard?"

Campbell was still in shock and deeply grieving for his friend. Mainly to get East to shut up, Campbell admitted that Jonathan was a bastard. “Was Thomas a bastard?" East asked. It was easy enough to agree to that.

Then East pulled his chair around, put his bony hand on Campbell's knee and, staring directly into Campbell glistening eyes, whispered, “Which one of these two bastards do you think God loves most?"

This was the turning point in Campbell's life. He describes it in his memoir, Brother to a Dragonfly.

I walked across the room and opened the blind, staring directly into the glare of the street light. And I began to whimper. But the crying was interspersed with laughter.

He was laughing at himself: ”At twenty years of a ministry which had become, without my realizing it, a ministry of liberal sophistication. An attempted negation of Jesus, [a ministry] of human engineering, of riding the coattails of Caesar ... of looking to government to make and verify and authenticate our morality, of worshipping at the shrine of enlightenment and academia, of making an idol of the Supreme Court, a theology of law and order and of denying not only the Faith I professed to hold but my history and my people - the Thomas Colemans."

I never got over Campbell's Brother To A Dragonfly, which I read en route through the entire opus of Walker Percy. Unlike Percy, Campbell didn't need to play dress-up in order to reveal the nakedness of modern man. Like Wendell Berry, Campbell's sense of "place" oriented his characters in a way that is familiar to anyone who was born in Romania and raised in Alabama, between one place and out the other.

Passages like this one found a nook, a place to sit and simmer, in my mind:

I said something about Hitler taking over the world and none of us being free.

"Brother, nobody is free. Freedom is how much you're willing to do to get people to leave you alone."

"And patriotism? That's just something they sold us. How can you love a country? A country is nothing but a big piece of geography. I love that eighty acres of land up there in Amite County where we were raised. But I can't love three million square miles."

As a piece of southern history, Will's book is unsurpassed. It breaks the heart while mending it. Though Will passed away several years ago, his influence continues to ripple outwards. Here are a few selections from those who knew him...

"Rev. Will D. Campbell, Maverick Minister in Civil Rights Era, Dies at 88" (New York Times)
"Bubba to a gadfly- remembering Will D. Campbell" (Ken Carder)
"Reverend Will D. Campbell, southern racial reconciler" (Southern Spaces)
"The first church of rednecks, white socks, and blue ribbon beer" (Rolling Stone)
"The tragedy of the redneck" (Joel Rieves)
"Apostle to the rednecks" (Phillip Yancey)
Brother to a dragonfly (The Contrary Goddess)
"Brother to a dragonfly" (Paul Greenberg)

Building birdhouses and questioning the rise of the nation-state.

Weekends at the Coryell Castle have a tendency to develop in unexpected ways. This past weekend, the King and the Eldest spent a Saturday building a "wren house" from tornado-fallen wood found along Hurricane Creek. It happened because of a book....

Meanwhile, the girls and I colored the "Coryell Castle" sign for the garden gate. The King cut it from found wood last year, but it languished in the garage, unpainted, until the chirps of a coming spring brought it to our attention. 

"Our house is really small- it's not like other castles," observed Prophet, as she washed a paintbrush in water she'd procured from the rain barrel. 

"That's because all the other castles are way too big," I said (a little too smug). "One day, we humans will be remembered only for our ruins- and the ruin we made of this beautiful planet."

Prophet giggled and leaned against Gnome. "Mommy is in a serious mood," she whispered.

Now, after having built the birdhouse and painted the Coryell Castle sign, the King and I sit watching the girls swing.

Gnome shows off her new ability to propel herself by pumping through the air; she throws her head back and closes her eyes for emphasis. We are charmed.

“She would have made a good Wren,” I say to the King, a reference to the original name we had planned for yonder tiny-swing-thing. He agrees.

Why did we name her M---- rather than Wren? Neither remembers.

The clouds lay like a poisonous white snakeskin over the sky. I want to peel them back and find the proper name for this strange planet-place in which we find (and lose) ourselves on a daily basis.

Prophet settles onto the swing nearest Gnome. Suddenly, Gnome's two pigtales reveal their asymmetry, she lays her head to the side, crumples her face into a cry- “No, Prophet, go away”. Prophet tries to ignore the crescendo of wails demanding that she get off the swing.

I feel myself redden.

“Gnome, you can’t cry because someone sits next to you or breathes near you!”, I snap. I'm surprised by how much this flusters me.

“Next thing you know, you’ll become one of those nationalists!" I practically spit out that last word as if it were an expletive.

"Look," I say, trying to impose some calm on my own outrage, "If you don’t like the person next to you, then it's YOUR job to get up and move. You don’t have a right to remove them or make them leave....” The Alabama Immigration legislation flashes through my mind, alongside sepia-toned photos of Ellis Island and Japanese internment camps. Gnome stops complaining; the girls swing as if their lives depended on feeling their toes touch the clouds.

The King enters my field of vision, picking up trash from the lawn, a large smile on his beardless face. “Did you just call her a nationalist?” he laughs.

“Yes,” I admit. I am that woman in the check-out line who fears that her children will find anything of value in flags, nation-states, and patriotisms. The excuses we imagine for mass killings can never be sacred to me. Fortunately, the King takes a more nuanced view of fences, gates, and the history of the nation-state. 

If it weren't for the subtle poetries of living in the deep South, this girl would be roaming the continents with her backpack, eyes peeled for caravans or other contingencies. I wonder sometimes if my rambling blood courses through the kids' veins- how and when and if they will recognize it, what symptoms will lead them to give it a name.... The mysteries of life disguise themselves in rapture.

Thoughts on Mr. Lookadoo's approach to "self-empowerment".

"Mom," Micah whimpers, her eyes still moist, "It's like I'm just not dateable. I mean, none of the guys want to go out with me... If I was allowed to wear makeup, then at least I could compete with the other girls." I shake my head, trying to find a way to respond. But Micah continues, wailing, "All I want is to be DATEABLE..."

So goes the scene I imagine in my head after reading the R U Dateable website. It's not a pretty picture.

What if Micah's biggest goal in life is to be "dateable"- to be desired and wanted by men? What if my competitive, ambitious, super self-conscious middle child decides the most important thing she can be is wanted by some man? How much more pathetic an aspiration could we find for existence?

A preface and a few disclaimers

In what follows- my grappling with "dateability"- the narrative will not attempt the impossible task of remaining gender-neutral. Because Mr. Lookaboo's worldview is so incredibly gendered, I will try to explain why it fails to make the world a more beguiling and beautiful place for our children rather than present compelling arguments against a gendered interpretation of human relations (arguments to which I fully subscribe). Note that gendered accounts are precisely what keeps the "war of the sexes" running. If we approach other humans as individuals, we are less likely to rely on gendered cliches to explain and understand the behavior of what turns out to be just another human being. 

Given the heteronormativity of every single word uttered by Mr. Lookaboo, I won't try to explain why such a narrow understanding of human sexuality is poisonous to individual flourishing (one reason why I reject heteronormative accounts). It's too big and breathtaking to bring in; I can't do it justice and still explain what bothers me so deeply about this emerging dateability paradigm.

Instead, I'm going to stick to the narrow, nasty picture painted by Mr. Lookaboo- a picture in which girls should "accept" being girls while guys should remember that they are on top, the world is theirs to "lead", destroy and pillage without regard to so-called feminine virtues like empathy, compassion, and honor for human life.

"Dude, that girl is sooooo dateable...." and other forms of empowerment

For the record, friends, it is not a compliment to say someone is "dateable". Not for those of us who prefer to be respected as individuals rather than prototypes. In fact, I'll go so far as to suggest that Justin Lookadoo might have done us all a favor by revealing "dateability" and the teenage dating world for the misogynist entry-level meat market that it is.

That said, I feel that Lookadoo's brand of uplift is humiliating for men, women, girls, boys, and human beings in general. The only thing that gets lifted is an oversexualized valuation of females that encourages duplicity, manipulation, and lack of personal integrity. Granted, guys get to pat themselves on the back for maintaining the double standard that requires girls to pay them homage for acting like douches.

Being a guy is good. Dateable guys know they aren’t as sensitive as girls and that’s okay. They know they are stronger, more dangerous, and more adventurous and that’s okay. Dateable guys are real men who aren’t afraid to be guys.

Obviously, given these sorts of assumptions, Mr. Lookaboo is relieved to have been born a "guy". I can't imagine hearing those words and thinking somehow that being born a girl is anything other than a twisted form of slavery or punishment. Unlike yours truly, Compassion International, a well-known Christian nonprofit, celebrates Mr. Lookadoo's approach to empowerment on their website:

Justin Lookadoo's witty, off-the-wall-style of writing, nails reality "slab dab in the middle," as translated in Justin's native El Paso lingo.

He leverages current and relevant cultural twists to show teens that biblical Christian values are actually cool rules to live by.

He says, "Everything I do wraps around two themes: identity and purpose. Who am I? Why am I here? These are the challenges that face young people today."

When it comes to young adults, Jason is a certified specialist in the field, having served as a juvenile probation officer, crime and drug prevention specialist for six years.

I'm not sure that Jason/Justin assisted juvenile offenders in understanding why rape or sexual assault are unacceptable violations of human dignity. Mr. Lookadoo's advice to young girls overemphasizes their sexual presentation to men and then holds them responsible for the effect. For example:

“Please, please don't tease us. To show us your hot little body ... and then tell us we can't touch it is being a tease. You can't look that sexy and then tell us to be on our best behavior.”

Is it so hard to go from this to the presumption that a girl who is raped was "asking for it"? How does Compassion International interpret this statement in light of its primary mission involving compassion for other human beings? Mr. Lookaboo is radically compassionate in that he reserves his compassion for girls in burkas. Wouldn't it be better if he just reminded guys that girls do not exist for the purpose of their sexual arousal or pleasure? Just because you see a girl that looks attractive does not mean you have a "right" to look at her or fantasize about her. Nothing that a girl puts on her body gives you any rights over her body. The only rights you have with respect to another human being are those explicity communicated by word of mouth.

Oddly, this sort of market-driven approach to the female body poises Mr. Lookadoo to be an excellent would-be critic of consumer culture, advertising, and modern capitalism- except, of course, that this is not the direction in which he plans to take us. Not at all. That's because Mr. Lookadoo wants us to buy his dating books and his "hip" persona as an alternative to so-called popular mainstream culture. 

“Ladies, I’m going to say this in the nicest way possible….you are the most horrible, awful, vindictive creatures this planet has ever seen.”

How would you feel if you happen to have a vulva and have to listen to this without being able to stand up and respond? Unfortunately, I feel more empowered by listening to a Chris Rock stand-up routine than I do by listening to Mr. Lookadoo. At least Chris Rock doesn't wear the Christian brand on his shoulder.

Come to think of it, Lookadoo leaves the same taste in my mouth as watching Bill Maher- a gross disgusted taste which makes me more conscious of my "fleshly goods" than my spirit, independence, or individuality. The female body is America's most inflated, liposuctioned, labioplasted commodity, with Lookadoo, Bill Maher, and Hugh Hefner acting as a few of its greatest salesmen.

Guys should be honest, but girls should master the fine arts of salesmanship and deception

Mr. Lookadoo's divergent advice for guys and gals expresses the differing power relations accorded to sex and gender in the present day. Guys, as the power-holding group, can afford to be themselves and to express their feelings (or lack thereof). Meanwhile, girls, as the powerless, must play to those in power and try to trick or manipulate them into tossing a few token crumbs of respect in their direction. It's a nasty charade- one we can only hope to finally bury.

Be honest with girls. Dateable guys don’t use the truth to their advantage. They know that girls read into things so they don’t use that for their good. They are honest and not manipulative.

Boys tell it like it is. But girls need to tell it like the boys want to hear it. If reading Lookaboo's rules for dateability makes a girl feel manipulative and twisted, that's because this is precisely what Lookaboo reccommends.

Part of being a Dateable girl means you really see people. They matter, and if you don’t look them in the eye then you will never see them and they will never know they matter to you. Look ‘em in the eye. They are valuable.

It's an old salesman's trick- connect with someone by meeting their gaze and holding it. It's the best way to disarm a person, to cuddle up close to their mind without physically touching their body. And, yes, looking into someone's eyes is exciting, suggestive, and erotic- it's the sexiest way to kiss and make love; it's the source of swoons for Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters. But for Mr. Lookaboo, who doesn't really believe in uncontrived, romantic love, looking 'em in the eye is key to a succesful sales pitch.

God made guys as leaders. Dateable girls get that and let him do guy things, get a door, open a ketchup bottle. They relax and let guys be guys. Which means they don’t ask him out!!!

The sales pitch matters because Lookaboo believes a woman's job is to manipulate a man into wanting to marry her. The dateable girl knows how to sell herself to a man. The more a girl can make a guy feel like the stud, the more likely he will bloom into the true stud that God intended him to be. So when a guy doesn't want to change the diapers, you can bet there is a woman to blame- a woman, maybe his wife, that doesn't "let him lead". 

Need him. Dateable girls know that guys need to be needed. A Dateable girl isn’t Miss Independent. She knows we are made for community. Needing each other is part of faith. She allows him to be needed at times, knowing he was called to serve just as much as she was.

But you can't blame an aspiring dater for being confused... not when the next suggestions from Mr. Lookaboo involve hiding your interest, feelings, enthusiasms, passions, and thoughts from the very person you're supposedly pretending to "need". The suggestions for fakery and dishonest self-presentation undergird every aspect of Mr. Lookaboo's rules for girls. Like the old Madonna-whore dichotomy, a girl is asked to play two different drums at the same time while admitting to not having played either. 

The sexiest thing on a girl is happiness. Girls try so hard to add beauty and sexuality to themselves with clothes and make-up, but the truth is it’s your spirit that makes you hot. Your outlook on life, your happiness factor. Dateable girls aren’t downers, they love life.

Pretend to be happy. Smile all the time. When you don't feel it, fake it.

Be mysterious. Dateable girls know how to shut up. They don’t monopolize the conversation. They don’t tell everyone everything about themselves. They save some for later. They listen more than they gab.

Pretend to be shy and "mysterious"- as if being yourself, a unique and fantastic human being, isn't mysterious enough. Nod when a dude speaks, and don't get in the way of his fantasies about you by allowing him to get to know the person over the prototype.

Dateable girls know that confidence is hot. And the cool part is that no one knows if you are confident but you. Confidence isn’t how you feel, it’s how you act. Act confident and people will think you are.

Pretend that you are the bee's knees- because you're not the bee's knees. You're actually just another girl trying desperately to "win" a guy's attention. You don't have to love yourself- that's not what you need to be working through during those teenage years. No, save the self-love for later. Right now, just focus on pretending to love yourself so you can get a guy to love you.

The best girl is one who fakes it

But then, just so you don't too comfortable, remember...

Dateable girls don’t lie to themselves. They don’t say stuff like, “His girlfriend just isn’t good to him, that’s why he’s seeing me on the side.” Or “She started it so I’m going to get even.” The Dateable girl let’s God run the world, and tells herself the truth–that all she can control is herself. She doesn’t imagine things to be more than they are.

(Note: All spelling mistakes belong to Mr. Lookaboo- I'm just doing as a dateable girl should do, namely copying and pasting the formidable wisdom of a male leader.) So dateable girls don't just sit and listen to a motivational speaker disparage them on the basis of their sexual organs. Instead, a dateable girl

So we find ourselves back in the Garden of Eden. Back to the paradise where a man blamed a woman's independence for his own course of action. Eve didn't let Adam lead. See what happens when a man follows a woman? Personally, I'm more inclined towards Jacques Ellul's reading of the Eden story, one in which God decides to let women bear children because they're the ones who can be trusted to think of a future bigger than themselves (rather than looking for someone else, to blame for the choices they've made). 

This "dateability" bull-poop prepares a woman to blame herself for her partner's future infidelity, should she be one of the odd 50% of marriages in which such an event were to occur. Up next from Mr. Lookadoo... the book R U Sexworthy, a how-to guide on ways to keep a wild, adventuresome, undomesticated man from cheating once he discovers that marriage is an institution intended to pay lip service to the dignity of two individuals (as opposed to their "adventuresome" inclinations). Okay, so I made up that last bit about the book. 

But here is what I'm not fudging. I'm not fudging the fact that Mr. Lookaboo and his crew should never be allowed to present their ideas in a school as a speech or lecture. The only context in which Mr. Lookaboo should speaking to teenagers is in a debate, where opposing paradigms are given equal time and students have a chance to come to their own conclusions. 

7 FAST REASONS WHY UNDATEABLE PEOPLE ROCK

1. Undateables will not allow another person to disparage them on the basis of their sexual organs without pointing out to said person that such insults are unacceptable. And when men like Mr. Conservative call their response an "attack", undateables point out that their response would me more accurately called a "counter-attack".
2. Undateables focus their energies on learning how to love themselves rather than constructing a false self they hope will be loved by others if they can manage to get the sales pitch just right.
3. Undateables revel in flexible constructions of gender that allow them to thrive and flourish without resorting to fakery.
4. Undateables don't have to worry about remember "rules" that have no bearing on personal ethics or integrity.
5. Undateables prefer communication to duplicituous manipulation.
6. Undateables don't blame victims for the crimes perpetuated against them.
7. Undateables are capable of compassion and empathy for persons who don't fit in the dating box or the conventional categories.

Now read what others have to say about Mr. Lookadoo's message. 

The Christian Science Monitor's Modern Parenthood blog responds
Jamie Clark-Soles responds
Make Me a Sammich responds
Matthew L. Skinner looks at the Biblical side of Lockado's and Lockadon'ts
Not Black and White Thoughts responds
Taylor B. Allen responds and shares her petition
Happy Nice Time People's satire of Lookadoo
Christopher Zara on Lookadoo's connections to gay conversion therapy

OUR KOINONIA EXPERIENCE: A sense of place.

Days long past at Koinonia.

The spiritual kinship between Clarence Jordan and Wendell Berry is hard to escape. Both put a tremendous amount of stock in the importance of community and the beauty (not just the duty) of sacrifice. There were many moments when Wendell's words came to mind as I watched Koinonians share their concerns about the year's pecan harvest and the challenges of shared burdens. 

One of the interns left her book on the outdoor table at Jubilee House....

I am reminded of the poem, "Healing", which Wendell published in a book of essays called What Are People For?. A poignant excerpt:

Good work finds the way between pride and despair.

It graces with health. It heals with grace.

It preserves the given so that it remains a gift.

By it, we lose loneliness:

we clasp the hands of those who go before us, and the hands of those who come after us;

we enter the little circle of each other's arms,

and the larger circle of lovers whose hands are joined in a dance,

and the larger circle of all creatures, passing in and out of life, who move also in a dance, to a music so subtle and vast that no ear hears it except in fragments.

Micah before one of the pecan orchards.

This commitment to living for and with others- living alongside nature in a mutually sustaining relationship with humans and creatures- is how a sense of "place" is created and cultivated. As pilgrims to an established place, we pay homage to it through awareness and respect. It is not our "place"- not unless we agree to give up our current lives and accept this shared responsibility- but it is a place we deeply admire. A place that has changed the way we feel the blood rush through our veins. A place that brings to life (and brings into life) many of the ideas that have changed our hearts and minds over the years. 

OUR KOINONIA EXPERIENCE: Discovering our spiritual footprints.

We ventured out along the dirt road the meadows near the pecan orchards, back towards the creek and the reknowned Picnic Hill. The roosters had their say amid the chirps and the steady sound of hammers in the hands of a few volunteers from the Fuller Center for Housing. I found myself chasing the little people, lamenting their joie de vivre which often felt more like lack of self-control or obedience. Again, the old question- why can't they drop everything and obey me? Again, the sharp answer, also a question- why do I need to feel this sort of power over them?

The king created a lovely parting gift- a journal filled with verses, photos, poems, and daily meditations. I longed for the free time to sit down and pore through its pages. Stealing moments and glimpses only to find myself conscious of the way Milla's shrill shrieking (a new habit) strangled the soft sounds of nature and creation.

The ugliness within- here it comes- the true test of my faith, the way in which I allow myself to feel that the little people grate every available nerve. My hands lay idle, yet filled with the care and nurture, the possibilities of need to which I must continuously tend. I found myself distracted by the barriers within my own heart to accepting the mystery of life. It seems I would prefer it to be a pretty picture that I have designed and painted without any input from Max, Micah, or Milla- a picture of my own making which I can then encourage everyone to admire. 

Does it seem silly that I thanked God for their heedlessness and disobedience at that moment when I most wanted them to sit down, plait the grass, and obey?

The little people collecting fallen limbs from the field.

In an effort to make ourselves useful, we picked up fallen tree limbs and branches from the soccer field. Max stacked them around the base of a tree- with Micah and Milla quickly joining him. Then the kids had a contest to see who could snap the largest number of branches into kindling. Watching them break twigs, arguing and laughing, building tiny piles of tinder in a race against each other, even their competition offered a truce of sorts- a moment to stop, breathe, and appreciate the lives we've been given to live and love. 

After carting a few bags of kindling over the the bonfire pit, Max returned just in time to find Milla crying over a recent foray into a fire-ant hill. Her tiny plump feet were covered in red welts. I made a practical discovery with vast implications for future fire-ant incidents. Iodine, applied heavily with a cottonball, works wonders on fire-ant bites. After an hour, Milla's welts dried out, removing every trace of the white bumps that characterize a fire ant's vicious communication. The little things should never cease to fill our hearts with gratitude.

Another source of gratitude came with the development of a more other-regarding awareness. There's a consciousness that comes from sharing a house with six hard-working interns- a house that is open to us whether we have money to donate $30 a night or not. I found myself watching my voice and its volume, standing to walk into the adjacent room in order to talk to the kids rather than shout across the rooms. By facing them up close, the way in which I communicated also changed- my words and language softened by the tenderness of flesh and proximity. 

Alongside this re-humanized way of relating, I was struck by the way in which communal property earned a sort of respect from me that private property rarely evokes. Oddly, it mattered that we put the chairs back in the way we had found them. Knowing that everyone draws water from the same well, we took short showers and shared bathwater to make minimal use of this precious resource. Micah reminded us to turn off the lights and the fan. 

We became conscious of our footprints not just on this world from an ecological standpoint but on the lives of others around us. A loud song from our room might keep others awake in the room next door. A yell might jar someone's prayers. In a community where residents live nearby, there is an implicit understanding that one must honor the humanity and spirit of other persons. The way we express our grievances ripples in circles around us.

That second night at Koinonia, on our starlight walk, all four of us talked about our newly-discovered "spiritual footprints", or the way in which our spirits impress and affect the world around us through through words, thoughts, and deeds. It was a heady and beautiful revelation, one with which I am still reckoning.

And yet I would lack the honor of this reckoning if it weren't for the spirited excitement of the little people that share this space under the stars with me. Perhaps this is because the things I think I want are not those which allow my spirit to grow. Instead, the things I want (i.e. peace, silence, obedience, control) encourage spiritual statis, keeping things as they are, exposing me to familiar delights and comforts. Being broken can be beautiful thing.

Honoring Jon Daniels' life and love.

Pilgrims in Hayneville hold an icon of Jonathan Daniels on this year's pilgrimage.

If you do a quick online search for the name "Jon Daniels", you'll find multiple links to the manager of a major sports team. What you probably won't find, however, is a link to the "Jon Daniels" that made such a difference in the world as we have come to know it.

Jonathan Myrick Daniels (March 20, 1939 – August 20, 1965) was an Episcopal seminarian, killed for his work in the American civil rights movement. His death helped galvanize support for the civil rights movement within the Episcopal church. He is regarded as a martyr in the Episcopal church. The wikipedia entry offers more facts and details. Now I'll offer my own shrivelled synposis.

While Jon was studying at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the spring of 1965, Martin Luther King Jr. put out a call for students and clergy to come to Alabama and participate in a march from Selma to the state capital of Montgomery. The students debated how to respond to a call from the dark- a darkness made more palpable by its social and intellectual distance. Tim Abbott shares his father's own encounter with King's call, as well as with Jon Daniels:

Dad describes his own growing activism and the late night conversations with his fellow seminarians in which "we were honing our positions and our hearts on what had to be done."  He remembers his classmate Jonathan Daniels as a complex man, and totally non-violent. "I was in a very different place than he was, in terms of active activism and spirituality" he told me.  "In his liturgical way he could sing the Magnificat and feel as if that was his calling, a true Epiphany, and I wasn't there yet.  I was studying religion rather than living it the way he was.  I was much closer to the activism, on the verge, but there were too many easy rationalizations for not going down to Selma.  They weren't about self-protecting - I was not as concerned about personal harm, though perhaps I should have been - but felt I had obligations at school...When he went to Selma with the 1st wave, a couple of seminarians went with him..."

Thus Jon answered the call. And then he missed his bus back to Cambridge. Feeling pulled by the social breakdown he witnesses in Alabama, Jon stayed behind in Selma the rest of that semester to help the civil rights movement.  He returned to Cambridge for his final exams, and then went back to Alabama in July. Because something unspeakable kept pulling this highly-disciplined, non-flamboyant, dedicated young seminarian back...

There was a moment, of course, when Jon’s commitment to the beloved community became clear. This moment came prior to his time in Selma at a time when he was working in Wilcox County, specifically in the town of Camden, where sharecropping remained the primary industry for blacks. In Camden, Jon first experienced tear gas and came to see the ribald fear of blacks to become a casualty of the march for their own freedom.

He found himself inhabiting his own "existential moment". To have an existential moment is to become aware of the fact that our lives have signficance and that we exist within them- that we are responsible for them and to a spiritual sense of self characterized by a concern for integrity. An older man who lives on my street likes to call those moments "epiphanies"; I'm inclined to follow his judgement. 

The impact of this epiphany on Jon's faith was life-giving. He wrote:

My hostility really lasted until last week. I think it was when I got teargassed leading a march in Camden that I began to change. I saw that the men who came at me were themselves not free: it was not that cruelty was so sweet to them (though I’m afraid sometimes it is) but that they didn’t know what else to do. Even though they were white and hateful and my enemy, they were human beings, too. I found myself feeling a kind of grim affection for them, at least a love that was real and ‘existential’ rather than abstract….. Last week in Camden I began to discover a new freedom in the Cross: freedom to love the enemy. And in that freedom, the freedom (without hypocrisy) to will and to try to set him free.

On August 14th, Daniels was arrested for protesting against a "whites only" store, and he was sent to a county jail in Haynesville, Alabama, along with several others.  After their release on August 20th, Daniels, along with a Catholic priest and two young African-Americans, went to a local store to get a soft drink.  They were met at the door by the store's owner, Tom Coleman, who was carrying a shotgun.  When Coleman aimed the gun at 17 year old Ruby Sales, Daniels pushed her away, and he caught the full impact of the blast in his chest, killing him instantly.

The story of his murder was reported nationally in the immediate aftermath of his death, and once again after his killer was acquitted by an all-white Alabama jury.

Jon completed his college education at Virginia Military Institute, where he was a valedictorian, before deciding to attend seminary. This is his VMI class photograph.

As a seminarian, Jon struggled to continue his studies while fulfilling his spiritual calling to serve the torn communities of our state. Soon, his experiences in Alabama began to inform and supplement his theological education; the abstractions of theory rubbed shoulders with the reality of love in an angry, selfish world. It became hard for Jon to separate the texts from the people he encountered along the way. For his theology Professor William J. Wolf, Jon submitted a paper he’d prepared during the summer entitled “Theological Reflections on My Experience in Selma”. In it, he described his experiences as the source of a "living theology", a faith lived anew in each day of one's life, a love lived with immanence and resolve:

All of this is the raw material for living theology.  And yet in as deep a sense, from my point of view, it is the product of living theology.  The doctrines of the creeds, the enacted faith of the sacraments, were the essential preconditions of the experience itself.  The faith with which I went to Selma has not changed: it has grown.  Darkening coals have kindled. Faith has taken wing and flown with a song in its wings. 'My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my Spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior...'

I lost fear in the Black Belt when I began to know in my bones and sinews that I had truly been baptized into the Lord's Death and Resurrection, that in the only sense that really matters I am already dead, and my life is hid with Christ in God…

The point is simply, of course, that one’s motives are usually mixed- and one had better know it. It occurred to me that though I was reasonably certain that I was in Selma because the Holy Spirit had sent me there, there nevertheless remained a fundamental distinction between my will and His.

This paper was read at Jon's funeral as a eulogy. I read it now as a testament to the message of love he left behind. How many of us know the saints that live just down the street? How many times have we encountered a love so certain that we find our fears and anxieties dissipate as the urge to share this love becomes a central part of our lives.

The signs of the times- the signs Jon prayed would disappear, and take with them, the paralyzing fear felt by many blacks in Alabama.

Jon Daniels is a model for all of us who lose sight of the way in which love demands that we respond with unconditional love in the immediate, absolute present. Carpe diem is not a slogan that urges us to throw back as many beers as possible during a football game- it's a slogan that reminds us no love and no faithful action can be postponed to a "better time" or a "better place". The only time we can be sure of is this moment. The only acceptable time to do what is right- to honor the image of God in every life- is the present. Living in the moment means loving in the moment. Nothing is a greater, more worthy challenge.

The life and ministry of Jon Daniels is remembered on August 14th every year by the Episcopal Church. In this context, the role of the Episcopal Society for Cultural and Racial Unity (ESCRU) played a pivotal role in eventually integrating southern public institutions. Members of ESCRU felt that Daniel’s alleged murderer, Tom Coleman, was acquitted wrongfully and that white juries would continue to fail to convict those that should be found guilty of race and hate crimes. In response to the acquittal, ESCRU launched Operation Southern Justice, a campaign and lawsuit undertaken in conjunction with the National Council of Churches and other groups to integrate southern juries.

The Episcopal Diocese of Alabama supports an annual pilgrimage to Hayneville to honor Jon Daniels' sacrifice. 2013 marked the 15th annual Jonathan Daniels Pilgrimage. Though we missed it this year, our calendars will keep this date open for August of next year. I was especially inspired by a 2010 pilgrim's post about how the experience impacted her life and spirit....

For more on the life and death of Jon Daniels:

Outside Agitator, the wonderful biography written by Charles Eagles (and published by the University of Alabama Press) that led me to Jon Daniels' life
"But My Heart Is Black," an article by Jon published Oct. 29, 1965
"A Burning Bush", an article by Jon written in April 1965
Jonathan Daniels lectionary 
Jon Daniels (Encyclopedia of Alabama)
Daniels' 1961 Valedictory Address (Virginia Military Institute)  
Daniels' Yearbook page (Virginia Military Institute) 
Memorial plaque for Daniels in Hayneville, Alabama 
White House tape transcripts of Pres. Johnson's response to Daniels' murder 
Liturgical lesson plan for "A Love That Forgives" 
Bishop Fisher's blog post about Jon Daniels 
"The Journey of Jonathan Daniels" (Sentinel Source) 
"Memory and Denial Are Kissing Cousins" (Greensleeves) 

Idea for a horror movie: The Ezzos come over for dinner with my family.

Who knows what I'm saying in this photo, but my stellar eye infection really brings out the chatty Cathy in me. Clearly, not an Ezzo moment.

Reading Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards' Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future illuminates the ways in which the struggles of feminism have gained complexity for the Third Wave. Since its publication in 2000, the book itself is already somewhat dated. For example, it glosses over the rising numbers of educated feminists who are choosing to educate their children at home with the premise that the revolution starts now. While providing ample information on the continuing battle for a choice over whether to continue pregnancy, the book skims over the tremendous battles fought by women who seek to reclaim their uterus and birthing process from the medical establishment by giving birth at home.

I can't read the words of sisters without remembering that it's my responsibility to say what I see and not to expect others to say it for me. Being a woman who has decided to also be a mother changed my mind and reaffirmed my belief in the continuing need for feminism in our society.

What I discovered did not please me. I am very good at biting off the head of a man who condescends to women and I am unparalleled in my ability to provide running monologues on the extent to which we perpetuate the patriarchy by honoring the concept of "success". Yet I am somewhat lacking when it comes to integrating my parenting choices (which tend to follow the child) with my Riot Grrrlish self. I'm going to take a little detour to explain what I mean by this.

Fact: It's important to parent and raise your children in a way that works best for you. However, "a way that works best for you" should not be taken to mean that the child becomes a product which you compare to other highly-valued objects. When we talk about children, we don't talk about possessions or things- we talk about little people whom we hope will NEVER be treated like possessions or things in our super-thingified culture.

After the King and I first got married, we attended a small-group for young parents which focused on parenting strategies. The textbook for the group was one written by the Ezzos which outlined their program for "Biblical parenting". As the sessions progressed, my discomfort with some of the phrasing from the Ezzos just wouldn't go away.

The "strategies" seemed mean and hurtful- as if to punish little babies for being needy, vulnerable little beings who cannot thrive or survive on their own. Letting them "cry it out" required me to deaden my most natural maternal instinct to comfort and soothe- and deadening that instinct leaves you less sensitive to a child's needs and concerns. I cannot believe that women were created with this universal instinct by accident. It seems to me to be an important part of the way in which God wants us to relate to our children. In other words, that constant nurturing impulse is a given- a starting premise for any parenting methods rooted in respect for human beings or their Creator.

Your Shenanigans Will Not Be Tolerated wittily sums up more Ezzo in the most snarky and simple fashion:

In a nutshell - and I will keep things to a nutshell, there is plenty of information readily available on him - Mr. Ezzo was complimented on how well behaved his kids were in church.  This led him to create the Babywise publishing empire.  Babywise, as a method to raise your baby is very similar to that of the Baby Whisperer.  The main difference, however, is that instead of getting to know your baby's signals & cues and respond to it's individual needs, you actively avoid learning its signals and cues and make it respond to your own personal needs.  This is generally done through starvation and abandonment.

The Ezzos believe the primary threats to the family came from a bad relationship between the parents and child-centered parenting (i.e. behavior that acknowledged and dealt with the little person's feelings or fears). Their solution to these percieved threats might be called the Nuclear Rearmament Strategy with all selfishness and inhumanity implicit in such a description. You can read the details here.

Essentially, the Ezzos insist that the "greatest influence parents have on their children is as a husband and wife, rather than as a mother and father". While there are ways in which this is true, the rest of the Ezzos' philosophy is just one particularly rough interpretation on how to honor this relationship in a family. Lest we begin to worry about kids getting liberal ideas, the Ezzos quickly insist:

"This lesson is not promoting egalitarian roles in marriage. Egalitarian is defined as “equality in marriage,” meaning equal leadership as well as sharing common roles at both work and home."

Of course, promoting egalitarian roles in marriage is precisely what the King and I were trying to do. As we worked our way through those first years of marriage, deciding who would do the laundry and who would cook dinner, we realized that "expecting" me to cook dinner just because I stayed home with the kids was another patriarchal way of undervaluing the work I do by caring for our kids.

It didn't come as an epiphany, of course- it emerged through arguments and re-arguments as we learned from our gay friends that a "partnership" is the only way to truly honor one another within a marriage. Our partnership is my favorite place to be in the world- it evolves, changes, and amazes us continuously as we negotiate new ethical qualms and novel interests. The Ezzo-style marriage for us would be a quick route to disenchantment and divorce.

As the group meetings continued, I realized that I was accepting and learning this odd philosophy without studying the source- so I decided to study the source. Who are these Ezzo folks for whom egalitarianism is such a threat? What makes them such supercalifragilistic specimens of humanity? Are they known for their kindness and generosity, like Jimmy Carter? Or their peace-making skills, like Nelson Mandela? Or perhaps even their piety and joyfulness, like Thomas Merton?

What I learned was that the Ezzos did not have a reputation for honesty, truthfulness, and accountability in their longterm relationships. Former elders from churches wrote warning letters to naive, exhausted parents like myself- letters which suggested that snake oil might be part of the package we were purchasing from the Ezzos and their outfit, Growing Families International.

The snake oil really started to stink in 1998. That spring, the conservative, evangelical-minded Christian Research Journal published a report on their extensive evaluation of Growing Families International. While acknowledging GFI’s popularity (over a million reported followers around the world) and noting that “a number of the parenting ideas in GFI materials are sound and have benefited families who have used them”, the article evaluated the widespread controversy associated with the organization. They concluded:  

“GFI has provoked unprecedented public censure from Christian leaders because, although it is not a cult, it has consistently exhibited a pattern of cultic behavior, including Scripture twisting, authoritarianism, exclusivism, isolationism, and physical and emotional endangerment”. 

As far back as 1998, a physician writing for the American Academy of Pediatricians warned that the Babywise method was "linked to dehydration and failure to thrive". This physician, Dr. Matthew T. Aney, expressed his concerns again in 2001 after comparing a chart generated by the Babywisers to one generated by the AAP. But the Ezzos are still winning hearts and minds under the guise of their secular books on the "Babywise" method- essentially the old Biblical parenting without reference to Bible verses or Evangelical terminology.

The truth is that my feminism is not compatible with a parenting philosophy that undervalues emotions and the stuff of the heart.  And I am baffled by the Ezzos' pro-life politics in light of their anti-child parenting. Fear is not a "structure" that little ones need in order to thrive. And love is not manifest in how we hurt or frighten little ones who rely on us for their lives and livelihood.

There is a lot of pressure to consider children who "obey" their parents out of fear as "good kids". Deep down, however, I know that fear can be used to motivate us to do anything in the world, including bombing cities overseas and marching lockstep behind political parties or ideologies. So I bite my lip and accept that my children are usually not the most "obedient" ones in the room. Instead, I focus on their zest for life, their creativity, their strong individual sense of justice, and their love for our family.

Michael Bates expresses my misgivings better than anyone when he shares his own about the "first time obedience" strategy central to the Ezzos' philosophy:

That approach to discipline alienates parents from children, and sets mom and dad up as scorekeepers and penalty managers. I found myself denying myself the enjoyment of time with my brilliant, funny, and beautiful kids for the sake of teaching them a lesson. And a child's natural desire to please mom and dad turns to despair -- the feeling that nothing he does will ever be good enough, so why bother trying?

It is hard to ditch the Ezzo mindset. You're confronted with regrets over years wasted and damage done, as the letter on Quiet Garden discusses. There's also the inner Ezzo nagging you that you're being too lax, too lenient, that you're spoiling your kids. But I'm starting to think that the worst kind of spoilage would be if my child no longer felt connected to me, if my child felt alienated from me, no longer identifying with my values, uninterested in my advice, unwilling to learn from my experiences.

I'd rather work alongside my children, enjoying their company, sharing laughter, and guiding them down the right path -- not like the guy back at the gas station who gave you directions but like the sherpa who is with you step-by-step up the treacherous mountain trail.

While Michael and I probably don't share the same views on other things, we both have that same gross feeling in our stomachs that something is wrong with the extent to which childhood is demonized by the Ezzos. Tomorrow, if you can bear it, I'll share the story of a young mom who sees the world through Ezzo-eyes and what this has helped me to realize about parenting as a feminist, Jesus-loving existentialist who is more convinced of her own ignorance than her sanctity or "savedness". 

[Caveat: I don't believe in hell and I don't think anyone is going there. If you're concerned about my politics or worldview, see my bio for details.]

The face of courage when losing a child.

The first time I met Bethany, she was managing to joke and make light of the challenging early months with a high-needs baby. Having been one of those mothers and having failed to remain as calm as Bethany during the long nights, I immediately had one of those "I can learn from this person" moments. A few years later, when she lost Lucy due to complications from Kell's, my heart broke for her.

I'm still learning from Bethany. When I ran into her at Manna Grocery last month, she looked tired and sad. My sister and I were having lunch with our brood of chatty children, so it wasn't a good time to stop and talk. But I needed to talk to her- felt drawn to the sadness and grief she wasn't bothering to hide. So I ignored the awkwardness and walked over to her table, realizing I had not decided what I wanted to say or even why I needed to say anything at all. I just hugged her and then told her that grief was a long, torturous journey (something Sarah taught me) that doesn't just end according to our plans and schedules. I wanted her to know that her grief over Lucy's death was legitimate (how sick that I should even feel the need to reassure her of that) even six months later. I wanted her to know that I admired her (as I admire Sarah) for refusing to settle for the fatalistic "it's God's will" sort of answers which suggest a God that does not hear or communicate with us.

But Bethany should be the voice in your ear right now. On her wonderful blog, Losing Lucy and Finding Hope, Bethany shares her journey with grief and Kell's antibodies. Her courage in sharing what most of us prefer to hide or fake amazes me. And teaches me about what courage means in a world where social taboos keep us from being honest and living with integrity. Bethany explains:

"I’ve noticed that people don’t like to talk about miscarriages or stillbirth (I mean who would WANT to talk about something like that.) Some women feel like they’re supposed to keep these losses to themselves. It makes people feel uncomfortable and awkward. Before losing Lucy I used to think miscarriages were sad and that the women who suffered them probably felt better after a few weeks. I thought miscarrying or having a stillbirth was nowhere near as painful as losing a child. Now I know that it IS losing a child. It is a soul shattering, heart crushing tragedy that leaves permanent wounds. No matter how far along the woman is in her pregnancy it is still her baby she lost. I think her grief should be respected and her baby should be mourned as a lost child. I want to talk about my miscarriage. The people who have comforted me the most through this ordeal have been mothers who had miscarriages/stillbirths and shared their stories with me. I hope that this story somehow can bring hope to someone who has been through a similar tragedy."

To honor a life often requires us to mourn its passing with devotion. Beautiful Bethany is in my thoughts and hopes. I am grateful to her for everything she dares to feel and express- grateful because her love for Lucy frees me to be honest with myself about grief and hurt.

The more I experience of this life, the more convinced I become that stoicism is the enemy of hope, joy, and love. It's the ultimate cop-out, the way to "save face" under the pretense of appearing to be strong. But there is nothing strong or brave about living a lie and asking others to play along. Maybe the best I can do is to acknowledge this and honor the grief which lies at the heart of only the best love.

Revisiting France with Thomas Merton.

"A life is either all spiritual or not spiritual at all. No man can serve two masters. Your life is shaped by the end you live for. You are made in the image of what you desire."

Thomas Merton

When I was a young lass, my father took a sabbatical to teach in Nancy, France. Carla and I went along with him and I studied in a French school for the first semester of 7th grade. It was the longest time I'd lived without the sweet Tresor-scented aura of my mom nearby.

From what I remember, 7th grade was the year when all my Catholic school friends started "dating" and tight-rolling their jeans. I was a little bit of a wierdo- the kid who wasn't allowed to watch "Saved By the Bell" or to shave her legs, the one whose mother laughed when she mentioned getting a "perm"- "You don't need all those chemicals in your hair, Alina!"

In a sense, I escaped the pressures of 7th grade girldom in the States and found a whole new world. In this new world, everything you had to do as an American preteen made no sense. My experience with cultural relativity did so much to ease my transition into the teenage years. All those imperatives assumed their proper space within a particular locality and culture. Peer pressure lost its rub on me. 

And my Tuscaloosa friends could not hide their concern when I returned wearing straight-leg jeans and having "grown out" my bangs. The good news is that I found better ways to relate to my friends that by wasting hours "styling our bangs" together. Rather than love them for the way they fit the mold, I was free to love them for the ways in which they were themselves, young girls on the cusp of womanhood with inarticulable dreams and a soft spot for star-filled skies.

My 7th grade class at Lycee Frederic Chopin, where I learned more red-letter words than my parents knew existed in the French language. It was a baptism of fire for me in my puffy red down coat. 

I loved to chew on these anise-flavored twigs for days at a time. I think we were driving through Lorraine on our way to Domremy-la-Poucelle in this photo when the most beautiful storm belly-danced around us. 

Every weekend, we climbed into our car and visited another tiny village. The intensity and rich backdrops of history absorbed me completely. I would just sit with my Walkman and gaze at the amazing stories unfolding around me. It still gives me chills to remember those days and that effervescence that tied me to the soil while leaving me somehow floating above it.

In a park munching on baguettes with Carla and her friends.

Given the sensual awakening of my first love affair with a land, I wasn't surprised to feel a tad of Franc-envie while reading Thomas Merton's The Seven Story Mountain this morning. When ennui sets in, Merton reminds me that "the biggest human tempation is too settle for too little". To settle for marriage without love. To settle for faith without awe. To settle for life without living.

Merton describes his impressions of Cazals, a small village which even today has an estimated population of 160 people. His description captures certain shades of the meaning invoked by the daily wonder we discover when refusing to settle for commercial voyeurism and, rather, delve deeply into the heart and flesh of human culture.

It was an old, old town. Its history went back to the Roman days- which were the times of the martyred saint, its patron. Antoninus had brought Christianity to the Roman colony in this valley, and later he had been martyred in another place, Pamiers, down in the foothills of the Pyrenees, near Prades, where I was born....

The town itself was a labyrinth of narrow streets, lined by old thirteenth century houses, mostly falling into ruin...

Everywhere I went, I was forced, by the disposition of everything around me, to be always at least virtually conscious of the church. Every street pointed more or less inward to the center of the town, to the church... The church has been fitted into the landscape in such a way as to become the keystone of its intelligibility. Its presence imparted a special form, a particular significance to everything else that the eye beheld, to the hills, the forests, the fields, the white cliff of the Rocher d'Anglars and to the red bastion of the Roc Rouge, to the winding river and the green valley.... and the significance thus imparted was a supernatural one.

The whole landscape, unified by the church and its heavenward spire, seemed to say: this is the meaning of all created things: we have been made for no other purpose than that men may use us in raising themselves to God, and in proclaiming the glory of God. We have been fashioned, in all our perfection, each according to his own nature, and all our natures ordered and harmonized together, that man's reason and his love might fit in this one last element, this God-given key to the meaning of the whole world.

And this is exactly how I remember feeling when driving through the French countryside, unassaulted by billboards of girls in bikinis promising that I could look like them if I purchased some product meant to distract me from that trembling little spirit within- the only real and eternal part of me. My parents did more to nourish my heart and soul with these experiences than all the Sunday School sessions in the world combined. By drawing my attention and imagination to history and the varieties of cultural experience, they freed me from an allegiance to "looking good" or "being cool". It's all temporal anyway...

Now, in the present, looking backwards, I wonder how to share this lesson or experience with my children who have been raised in the culture of affluence..... As I plod along, don't be surprised if you find more Merton in the coming days. And don't be too reticent too share how you have found ways to connect your children to the beauty of the eternal in everyday life.

Merton and the mint family.

“We live in a society whose whole policy is to excite every nerve in the human body and keep it at the highest pitch of artificial tension, to strain every human desire to the limit and to create as many new desires and synthetic passions as possible, in order to cater to them with the products of our factories and printing presses and movie studios and all the rest.”

    Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain    

I am so guilty of seeking the superb stimulations to distract me from the marvels which require me to inhabit and live them, rather than just keep that seat warm on the bleachers of life.

Metaphysics: The Spotify playlist.

Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that investigates the general nature of being or reality, especially the being of the sensible world, God, freedom, and souls. It is sometimes synonymous with "ontology", though some philosphers would shun me for saying this.

In case you are like me and need a special amount of time each day considering metaphysical questions like: Can there be aspects of reality that are in principle unknowable? What is consciousness? Is it purely physical? Do we have those immaterial bodies known as souls? What is intentionality? Could it be a purely physical phenomenon?If so, then what on earth would ethical culpability involve? Is reality determined or does free will have a place in causation? What is freedom under these circumstances? then, here is the playlist to match the mood. 

After the playlist, I added a few notes about each song and its potential as rubric or vehicle for metaphysical speculation. Because I'm crazy like that.

 

"I wanna see the thing in itself, I don't wanna see nothing else.
I wanna see the thing in itself, I don't wanna think no more...
One suchness, ten thousand things"
Akron / Family is serious about metaphysics.

Eef Barzelay makes me wonder how we can feel something as intentional as "love" towards something we declare to be "unknown". Is there anything that is actually unknown enough to give rise to "love"?

The Stars want you to "use that head and stop to think a little, just cause you're crazy doesn't mean that you're free.."

Devendra Barnhart really stumps me with the "eyes are the stems of space" thing.

Rancid ventures into the diving area with their little quip- "nihilistic feelings are movin', if I try real hard, I'll see right through them." I want to keep this at the level of metaphysics without wandering into the realm of superhero syndromes and I resent Rancid for making it difficult for me to keep them separated. 

Willy Mason wants me to think that "the cards are stacked" and that I "don't know what I'm running from". His hard-edged fatalism leaves little room for manuveur. 

Quantic really flirts with epistemology unless you take this song to be about the nature of consciousness. Specifically, is "a presence felt" a way of knowing or is it a symptom of thinking and imagining? How do feelings relate to consciousness?

PJ Harvey's instrumental, "The End", sits you squat face-to-face with the big question- What is the end?

The Pixies make an interesting connection between watching TV and the destruction of the atmosphere. Considering this requires something akin to consciousness.

Goran Bregovic' and Eugene Hutz (of Gogol Bordello) offer their take on utopia. Quantum utopia, like most utopias, lies on the cusp of questions about free will and determinism. Does the setting up of a specific rules system model have any chance of working effectively in the realm of human social and political behavior? Is human free will the penultimate party pooper for social schemers?

The Cowboy Junkies take a hard line on the question of the supernatural. For them, the supernatural does not exist apart from the mind which creates it. Their conclusion: Demerol is more chemically accurate and ascertainable than God. I can think of a few existentialists who would disagree with their method while accepting their conclusion.

The Dave Matthews Band, as suggested by the King, throws a wrench in my speculations since I am now forced to consider how my species' evolutionary history turns consciousness into a spectrum.

Bright Eyes wants to know about time, and he doesn't avoid astrophysics. I like that in a song.

M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel distract me with the ethereal fuzz. I spend a large amount of time trying to decide if my shadow is a separate object with its own existence or merely an adjective to describe the way the light occupies the space around me. 

A Christmas eve pageant.

The way the threads of life twist and combine to create a picture which leads us from one moment to another mystifies me. When Tino came and stayed with last Christmas, so many strands were coming apart. Perhaps one of the most difficult was our decision to leave the church in we began our married life and begin the search for a more liturgical, spiritual, and merciful community.

The wise men preparing for the pageant with their guitars.

Since we believe that a church is a community of brothers and sisters whose ties reach beyond the mere bonds of everyday life, it took us almost a year to talk, pray, wonder, and slowly rediscover our faith outside the home of our church.

Being a lover of people, I worried about losing the friendships we had established and nurtured for years at our church. I worried about our children and the possibility of lapsed comraderies. I worried about the message we might send and any feelings we might hurt. I worried about what might appear frivolous and all the misunderstandings that arise from lack of communication, all the gossip, all the ways in which we try to establish and decide how others feel or think without the benefit of asking them directly.

Tino's photo of our shepherds bringing back their sheep.

Ultimately, all this worry and caution fell by the wayside when talking to my husband, whose longing for a service with less emphasis on the spoken word and more deference to the ultimate mystery of Jesus Christ met my own. As a couple, our journey reached a point when all the books we had read, all the scripture we had studied, all the apologetics we had consumed offered no light and began to taste like rationalizations for all those things we wanted to believe. 

Heather and Mike told mentioned Canterbury years ago. We smiled and nodded. An aquaintance suggested we visit. We smiled and nodded. Tino came and stayed and told us about Canterbury, where he decided to attend during his Alabama visit. We smiiled and nodded.

And then, one morning, we decided to do more than smile and nod. We dressed up and attended. And something felt right- from the kindness of strangers to the unconditional love cultivate by Rector Burnette to the music that opened the doors of the spirit. Communion came from a shared cup- a cup shared with our children and with faces not yet owning names to us. And we found ourselves there again the next month. And something keeps drawing us back. I can't think of another way to describe it except to say "it's the love". That's good enough for me.

Milla slept through her shepherding duties.

Our first Christmas at Canterbury was not filled with multimedia presentations or tweets- it was simple and accented by the commotion of little ones in costumes hiding behind pews. Although we watched a pageant, there was no pageantry in the pews- it was simple reverent love and devotion. I am grateful to Tino for being the final thread- and grateful to watch the picture of the present unfold.

Shepherding the nativity.

Somehow I knew all that shepherding practice we got in Romania would pay off. This year, our Romanian sheep will be acting in a Christmas eve nativity. Of course, their shepherds, Miax, Micah, and Milla will also be on the scene. Yesterday was the rehearsal.

Unfortunately, Milla napped through it so her shepherding abilities will be the wild card this evening.

There is something magical and mysterious about nativity scenes in which children with all their natural energy and joy enact the first Christmas. It is no secret why the scriptures say children are closer to God and more capable of seeing angels than adults, for we are steeped in what we call "reality" and convention. We mistake the duties for the love. We struggle with feeling the Spirit as we crush the Spirit that reveals itself in others.

So I can't wait for tonight- for the way the nativity will unfurl amid giggles and foibles and the general joy of children. It is soothing and beautiful and holy to be so close to the untamed, unbridled heart.

"If a man wishes to be sure of the road he treads on, he must close his eyes and walk in the dark." 
St. John of the Cross

The history of Yule is cool.

I love mythology and ancient folklore, so we can't miss out on the oldest celebration of the year. That's right, the Yuletide, the Winter Solstice, the shortest day and the longest night of the year, the eve when the sun is reborn, and so on. Today, December 21st, is Yule. 

The history of Christmas does not begin with Christ- and I don't think anyone who is a follower of Jesus need fear that celebrating ancient harvest traditions endangers their faith in any way. Understanding our past poses no threat to a faith lived in the present.

The winter solstice - the shortest day of the year - has been celebrated in one form or another for millennia. Northern Europeans called it "Jul" (a term remembered in the English word Yule, which now means Christmas); in ancient Rome it was the Dies natalis solis invicti, or ''the birthday of the unconquered sun''. Through sacrifices and feasting, pagans celebrated the beginning of the sun's revival. You can learn more about the history of Christmas from this succint article in the Telegraph.

Winter solstice celebrations vary across cultures and geographic locations, but a celebration of the end of darkness runs through all of them. Explore the histories of the solstice around the world and use the free printables below to create your own Yuletide traditions.

• For a neat bit of history about Yule in the Northern Isles, see Orkneyjar. 
• In Romanian villages, solstice is still celebrated with merry folk bands roving through town.
• The mistletoe tradition is related to Yule celebrations and the myth of Balder. The Vikings believed that mistletoe had the power to raise people from the dead. Share the story of "Balder and the Mistletoe" with your family this eve. 
• Learn about the Yule legend of the silver pinecone.
• Make your own silver pinecones. 
• A pagan blogger (from whom the image above is borrowed) explains the festival of light from her religious perspective. 

Yule Log Coloring Page from Geekmom (PDF)

Yule Is Cool handout (PDF)

Love letter #44: Spike Mason's Widening Circles.

Spike Mason's album, Widening Circles, brings Rilke into the room as a song. 

The words, sung by the 2012 National Jazz Award winner Kristin Berardi, are an English translation of poems penned over a hundred years ago by the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke. The music is composed in a style that is a synergy of jazz and classical music.

"The writing came slowly" says Mason, "I worked for eight years on the music, and over that time the words have weaved their way into my life. I knew I couldn't get in the way of these poems - the music had to cushion and support the lyrics, all the way through. If I moved toward overpowering them, the structure and meaning would simply collapse."

It is beautiful, wistful, and the perfect gift for a few on my Christmas list. Thanks to Spike for telling me about it.

Thinking of my man and flowers that fall.

Meanwhile, in the front yard.

“As I have read the Gospels over the years, the belief has grown in me that Christ did not come to found an organized religion but came instead to found an unorganized one. He seems to have come to carry religion out of the temples into the fields and sheep pastures, onto the roadsides and the banks of the rivers, into the houses of sinners and publicans, into the town and the wilderness, toward the membership of all that is here......"
                                Wendell Berry 

Alina's Thanksgiving Happiness Experiment.

A combination of Carol Shields, Iris Murdoch, the perpetually-improving-house, and the embarrassing gluttony of Thanksgiving left me pondering happiness today. Happiness in the backyard with birds warbling and chirping- the happiness of being absolutely peripheral for a few chunks of time in which my actions or stares have no meaning to the living creatures around me.

Now that we've mastered the ability to obliterate the planet, what does "happiness" or "sadness" mean in context? How does post-nuclear man experience joy? And how is this experience related to his/her power over the world around them? For example, is the modern version of happiness that feeling you get when you find a great Groupon or sale at your favorite store? 

I'm going to take a microscopic look at my experiences of happiness on this Thanksgiving Day. I want a close-up of what makes me tick in the hopes of unraveling a little more of who I am and what I should be doing with this beautiful gift of a life.

                                                  ALINA'S THANKSGIVING HAPPINESS EXPERIMENT

List ten moments- with description- in which you have felt joy or true happiness during the past few weeks. If you can't think of ten, leave them blank. Only include happiness; don't get sidetracked by pleasure, satisfaction, or mere accomplishment. Then ask your partner, best friend, family members, or loved ones to list ten such moments for themselves in the past few weeks. Don't show them your list.

Now compare and see if any happy experiences were shared. Did you and others tend to feel these moments more when alone or in the company of others?  What characterizes these experiences? Were they planned? Did they have spiritual components? Was an experience of the sacred involved? Journal your thoughts on your happiness. Savor it and be grateful for it.

Alina's Thanksgiving Happiness Experiment (PDF)

OUR ANSWERS

ALINA

1. Earlier this week, we took the kids for a tromp through the woods at an hour when everyone should have been asleep. We brought a few flashlights and crawled through thickets, shrubs, and tree limbs which looked like lace against the night sky. It was beautiful. We had nowhere to be- the little ones loved it- and we got all those secret vitamins I think must be reflected in moonlight and the scent of autumn nights. I was just plain happy.
2. Seeing what Amy and Josalyn brought for Carla's baby shower- and seeing how much they wanted to help and how easily they give. It made me feel happy and somehow lighter.
3. Carla's baby shower pleasing Carla- to give gifts that bring smiles and make it feel as if we still do have those tiny little powers to share our hearts with others. The magnificence of love.
4. Patrick's recent bonfires and the way the shadows of smiles flicker across the faces of my family. Happiness in just being and just being together.
5. Waking up and going for a walk with Mary (though it's been too long). Beating the kids to the day and just chatting about everything from neighborhood militias, sewing projects, and loving our husbands and children.
6. Seeing Patrick return from a night out with Dan glowing. Happiness in knowing my husband connected with a friend and walked the journey of life with someone for a breath of time.
7. Patrick's wedding ring on his hands on his hips. The only jewelry he wears. The only adornment. Our simple silver wedding rings which cost less than $100 but will never be "upgraded" to a metal that costs more to lose. The happiness of agreeing on a shared future.
8. Watching Milla care for her dolls so very carefully. The happiness of seeing love reflected in the actions of others.
9. Watching Micah care for Milla so very carefully. Milla's head in Micah's lap as Micah strokes her hair and my mom says, "You used to do the exact same thing to Carla. She loved to put her head in your lap and you would smooth her hair." Happiness in the continuity of tenderness, a hopeful legacy. 
10. Simply sitting in the perfect weather with the perfect leaves and the perfect colors and the beauty that does not require my hands or upkeep to remain eternally just so.

PATRICK

1. Today when you were gone, the kids were all outside and I watched them from the window as Max gently pushed Micah and Milla in the swing. I was thankful to you for homeschooling the kids and making them such a tight-knit family and I realized that not every child gets this, which made me grateful for your persistence and determination. So this happiness was like a thick gratefulness that started with a small observation of love and tenderness between our kids. 
2. Watching a movie with you last night, in and out of sleep, but touching. 
3. Holding you. When you want to be held.

Handmade dining tables to support a local adoption.

Our lovely friends, Stephen and Susan Norris, are working to raise money for the adoption of two orphan children. As many know, adopting a child is a painstaking and expensive process which is as trying (if not much more) than those 9.85 months of pregnancy. 

To raise this money, Stephen is making custom hand-scraped farm house style tables and benches. Susan writes:

Choose your dimensions and choose your finish. It is gorgeous, very heavy and sturdy (and thankfully for us, indestructible!). If you are looking to buy a table/benches just call or email. If anyone you know is looking to purchase a table and benches, would you forward our contact info to them. If you know any decorators who help people find furniture, would you forward this to them? You can email us at [email protected] or call 205-554-0063. We are aiming for a Christmas delivery, but if someone contacted us very soon, we could probably make Thanksgiving! This would make an excellent heirloom quality gift. Stephen is an amazing craftsman and artist in this way.

Pricing is $85 per square foot for the table and $50 per linear foot for the benches. This is comparable with prices for similar tables at furniture stores (although their tables are generally veneer, Stephen's are actual hand scraped wood), but far less than other custom prices. Plus, we have free local delivery, but would certainly try and figure out a way for more distant delivery at a reasonable price. Our benches are not finished yet and are not pictured. If anyone would like to see it in person, just let me know. I'd love to show it off!

It's not everyday that you can get a fantastic table and benches and give two orphans a family at the same time. Imagine that every piece of bread broken over this table would be a reminder of how you helped bring together a family.... I can't think of anything more beautiful.

An eye for an eye.

Sitting outside yesterday, Patrick read to us from Matthew and we talked about how Jesus clearly removed any right to "revenge" for his followers. Rather than see ourselves as victims and demand redress, Jesus told us to love and forgive those who harm us- even to trust them and give them the opportunity to do wrong again. I don't think he was joking or being "too idealistic"....

"An eye for an eye", the basis for capital punishment, colours how we see the world and our roles in it. I am grateful for every moment in which revenge gives way to empathy, every tiny second in which anger and recrimination is replaced by love and solidarity.

How do we fill the holes in our lives? Do we use them as an opportunity to see the world as it is experienced by others? Or do we use them merely as another way to gaze upon our selves? Be creative with the holes and the tatters. Beauty peeks out from unexpected burrows.

Understanding the "scent of fall" and our role in it.

The scents and stories of a stump.

The scent of fall permeates the woods behinds our house when we approach them. Max "smelled it" yesterday, and so I shared what I find to be a beautiful description of this scent's biochemical origins and how it relates to us.

        Under withering leaves, under the wanderer's foot: a manifold life that his eye cannot discover and his ear cannot hear. From every speck of this soil, millions of fungi send out the heavy odors that are autumn's. In every square yard live hundreds or worms, spiders, and mites, and many pounds of algae and bacteria. The earth underfoot is teeming life, and all things in that miniature world are interconnected.
         The leaves have fallen and the light reaches more easily down to the soil, enlivening a multitude of microorganisms whose struggle for existence has much to do with fallen leaves. Each and every organism is specialized for its assignment. Yeast fungi take care of the leftover sugar, which the leaves had not delivered to the twigs, branches, and trunk before being shed, and ferment it into alcohol; bacteri drink the alcohol and give off acetic acid, which still other organisms throw themselves upon-- and so it goes until leaves once fluttered in the wind are broken down into simple salts that can be sucked up by the roots of the tree and so enter its chlorophyll-green blood of new fluttering leaves.
         What happens in the miniature world at the foot of the tree happens in creation as a whole. Everywhere connections and bonds between different organizations of living matter and, ultimately, between life and nonlife. Everywhere dependence, influence, stimulation. Everywhere everything interacting with everything.
        Everywhere decay and recreation- which need each other. Everywhere the new combinations that living evolution produces out of old elements. Individuals die and are broken down into cell parts, which enter into the humus of the soil, into water and air. But the constituents reenter new living things. Matter continually changes its address. Life eats itself unceasingly through soil and water and air that has nourished and refreshed innumerable living things since the beginning of time and will nourish and refresh new living things for as long as living conditions exist on the planet...
         Look at yourself! Into your skeleton have melted the rocks of bygone ages. Your bloodstream is moved with the tidewaters from a distant sea. Your flesh is composed of elements that have passed through uncountable life forms: plants, animals, and other human beings. When your hand touches mine, it is the earth that grasps me.
        The air washing your lungs and oxygenating your blood is filled with atoms that have visited other living beings. Out of the exhalations of trees and plants you secure the oxygen without which no animal could live. With every breath you capture ten million times more nitrogen atoms than there are human beings in existence, and several million more argon atoms.

At The Foot of the Tree by Rolf Edberg 

Love letter #36: The Brown House and The Blue House.

Photo credit goes to Tuscaloosa News. See corresponding article.

In this love, I must include the Linda who led me to it. The Brown House Project is an adventure or journey undertaken by Amy and Adam Pierce in their home:

We are just plain, vanilla, normal Christians who decided a while ago to share our lives, our love, and our home with the neighbors around us. We live intentionally and deliberately to try to show Christ's love to the world, and we focus on the kids around us that we see each and every day.

The Thursday Night Thing looks inspiring and filled with fellowship. Not far away lies the The Blue House Project involves six Christians in Northport, Alabama who are undertaking "an experiment in Christian living". Telling the stories of the humans investing in other beautiful humans. 

A flurry of thoughts and a moon so vivid I could skip it like a stone over a puddle.

It's late, and the weekend's chaos is winding down. After leading my poor family, including the usual suspects plus Grand Bunicu and Bunicu (who are visiting from Ohio) and Carla and Lesse (visiting from Homewood), on a wild goose chase across Tuscaloosa, we grilled some meat and corn and settled down to discuss the lack of contextual basis for "honor" in our culture while I burned mix CDs for my dad. 

Originally, the day began with a plan to do a little creek cleaning at Binion Creek as part of the Northriver Watershed Festival. But we arrived too late. And then I decided we needed to visit Hurricane Creek in Brookwood. But we never found a piece of public land from which to access the creek. Sometimes the adventure takes the guise of a failure in which grumbles and complaints (Carla is the only one who didn't join the chorus) chip away at our ability to appreciate the mere fact of being able to wander around looking for a spark. For wanderlusty girls like me, the wandering itself scratches an itch. 

A flower Micah picked for me on our stroll today.

Lately, the days roll by faster than I can name them- certainly too rapidly to sit down and claim them by poring over salient details. It is not for lack of action that this reporter-of-the-quoitidien has been absent from her usual perch. So very much has happened, and continues to happen.

Just today, I read Rev. Fred Hammond's post about his recent experiences while protesting the shameful HB 56 anti-immigrant law currently on the books in Alabama. Fred's compassion and love for his fellow humans offers solace in these grim times. It is so easy to walk around Tuscaloosa and ignore the fact that there are fewer Latinos in public spaces- that houses which used to be occupied by large families are suddenly vacant, that swathes of faces have disappeared from our daily lives. It is easy to pretend that everything is fine- their misfortune, after all, doesn't directly impigne on our daily routines. But such chosen ignorance is a crime of spiritual negligence and willful neglect.

He [Gov. Bentley] said the law enjoys widespread support in spite of protests. "We are not going to repeal our anti-illegal immigration law," he said.

Gov. Robert Bentley, who signed the law, said that when he was a doctor in Tuscaloosa, he never asked people if they were legal or illegal, but protesters must follow the law.

"If they read what I read in the Bible, the Bible says you always obey the law," he told reporters while attending a National Day of Prayer observance. 

(Source: Tuscaloosa News)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrestled with these same ideas living under Nazi Germany, a democracy in which the law relegated Jews to the status of sub-humans and a systematic policy to remove them was the law of the land. Today, churches celebrate Bonhoeffer as a conscientious objector to the evils of the Nazi regime- a man who broke unjust and cruel laws. But we fail to see parallels between the past and the present because such parallels are disturbing, inconvenient, and obviously "not the same". 

This country was founded on the breaking of laws. Fred correctly observes that the Boston Tea Party and similar events in American history were characterized by conscience disregard for the laws of the time. The civil rights movement, one of our triumphs as a nation promising "freedom and justice for all", occurred precisely because many conscience-driven Americans chose to disregard an unjust and cruel law.

Fred also notes that Gov. Bentley's very own faith tradition- that of the Baptist denomination- was founded in law-breaking:

His own faith as a Baptist came about because people of conscience disobeyed the law. It was illegal to be of any other faith than Anglican when John Smyth declared his Baptist faith. But if Governor Bentley is correct that the Bible says you always obey the law, then his own faith is illegal, twice over because John Smyth broke the English law decreeing the Church of England as the one faith and the Church of England broke the law when it severed ties with the Roman Catholic Church over the doctrine of divorce–another law that according to Bentley’s argument must be obeyed. Remember that church law and civil law were one and the same in the time of the reformation. There was no separation of church and state.

The context of Romans 13 which Bentley refers also includes Romans 13: 6 and following: “This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor. Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. The commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery,’ ‘You shall not murder,’ ‘You shall not steal,’ ‘You shall not covet,’ and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.”

But love, while wonderful as an object of lip service, is certainly impractical as a matter of public policy. Being all-knowing, our God will surely forgive us if we can't take his injunctions seriously because, as He knows, that stuff sounds good in books but just doesn't make much sense in real life. Tomorrow is Sunday. How many local pastors, preachers, rabbis, reverends, or faith leaders will speak about the unspeakable in our midst- the law that punishes those who wish to be Americans for not having enough money to game the process or not having enough power to squeeze through the tiny allotted quota? How many will elect to direct attention to the tornados of past rather than confront the one brewing right in our midst?

An offering to the storms.

We played around outside because the sun continues to shine despite the severe weather warnings.

And then we stopped to leave some flowers for St. Francis, with an intercessory prayer request.

That the storms may skip us today and let our flowers continue to blossom and our community continue to rebuild itself since last year's awful tornado. 

Monroe Beachy and his community: A lesson about reconciliation from the Amish.

Kids from Sugarcreek enjoy their wheels.

I've always held a great degree of respect for Amish and Mennonite communities because their faith in Christ leads them quite naturally to forgiveness, reconciliation, and nonviolence. So it interesting to watch the press coverage of Monroe Beachy's trial and the various slants through which it is described.

It seems the outrage is contagious; perhaps we prefer anger and its attendant self-righteousness to thoughtful consideration and deliberation. The putatively-liberal Huffington Post channels the customary liberal anger and outrage. Fox News has other fish to fry, lest Republican readers start to consider something not easily given to partisanship (i.e. sports are highly partisan and tap into the adversarial vein). CBS sits on the crime side.

Financial Advisor Magazine at least offers insight into what made Beachy's investment fradulent:

He invested it in speculative securities such as junk bonds, as well as stocks, bonds, mutual finds and Ginnie Mae securities. He began collecting money from investors in 1986 under the company name of A&M Investments, and was a registered rep of H.D. Vest Advisory Services Inc. until 2004.He raised money from more than 2,600 investors in 29 states--the vast majority of them being Amish. As part of his Chapter 7 personal bankruptcy protection filing on June 30, 2010, Beachy said he lost roughly $15 million of the $33 million he collected.

The SEC says Beachy did his own books and made his own investment decisions. He mailed monthly statements that showed rates of return and account balances, and never disclosed the incurred losses. Beachy's scheme lasted long enough to where second-generation Amish were investing with him.

Beachy was not charged with running a Ponzi scheme because he did not divert any of the funds to his own use or enrichment; he simply invested in ways that lost almost half of the money invested with him.  He also was not subjected to a monetary civil penalty "due to his financial situation."

But an article in the New York Times paints a richer, less politicized picture- a picture of what is truly noteworthy in this news.

But the most intriguing aspect of Monroe Beachy’s story is how different it seems from Bernie Madoff’s — and from almost every other story with a “Ponzi scheme” headline over the years.
While victims of Mr. Madoff’s fraud, like most Ponzi victims, condemned their accused betrayer in court as a monster, many of Mr. Beachy’s investors have said in court that it is more important to forgive him than to recover their money.

While the Madoff case and others like it have inevitably created conflict between longtime investors fighting to keep their fictional profits and more recent investors trying to recover lost principal, some Beachy investors urged that their own share of his estate should be given to those in greater need.

And while Mr. Madoff’s wife and sons instantly became social pariahs in Manhattan, Mr. Beachy’s wife and children remain at his farmstead here, living peacefully with their neighbors.

But like the Madoff case, the Beachy case has left an indelible mark on the nation’s bankruptcy record.

It became the forum for a rare bankruptcy court battle over religious freedom, with Mr. Beachy’s Amish and Mennonite creditors insisting that the court’s way of dealing with his downfall could not be squared with their faith or with his.

“Monroe Beachy in his time of distress breached the trust of his fellow Amish and Mennonites” by entering an “environment of coercion and self-protection in the bankruptcy court,” a group of church elders told the judge, urging him to put the case into the hands of the church where it belonged.

That would accomplish three worthy goals, they said. It would allow a less expensive, more advantageous financial workout “based on Christian principles of love and care for the poor and needy.” It would create a setting in which “Biblical forgiveness and restoration can be found between Monroe Beachy” and those he is accused of betraying. And it would repair “the tarnished testimony and integrity of the Plain Community.”

It is impossible for me to not admire the moral courage and mercy exhibited by the Sugarcreek Amish community. In fact, I'm going to share this article with Max today because it offers a counter-cultural yet thoroughly Christ-based approach to crime. I stand with the citizens of Sugarcreek in their efforts to live in truth.

The insidious and alarming influence of G. Stanley Hall on our educational models.

Clarence Karier's book is a thoughtful and idea-laden survey of the American educational system, its institutional evolution and its influences. Encountering Granville Stanley Hall, the first man in the US to recieve a PHD in psychology and a prominent influence on parenting and teaching practices in this country, has been the scariest epidsode thus far. Hall spent some time studying in Germany, and was inspired by the German conceptions of man as a primitive beast who must be "civilized" through the process of education. 

For Hall, reasoning with a child was useless. Instead, the application of dressur (a German word for a method of animal training which develops unflinching obedience) provided the proper key to child rearing and training. Since parents might find this difficult due to their affections for children, a teacher lacking personal attachments to individuals kids would be more effective at dressur. On Hall's view:

The child must be led to fear God, love country, and develop a strong body. As the child burns out the vestiges of evil inherent in his nature, he needs a good share of authoritarian discipline, including corporal punishment, in order to develop his will. The child at this stage also needs and craves myths and superstitions to help him relive and thus burn out some of his primitivistic past. Church and state, fully integrated, could be used to furnish the appropriate myths.... With charismatic teachers in control, the high school would take as its chief goals patriotism, body culture, military discipline, love of authority, awe of nature, and devotion to the state.

Does any of this sound familiar? Critical thinking skills could only detract from Hall's educational mission to create a unified society. Is it a coincidence that the Pledge of Allegiance was developed and inculcated in the same historical period? A bell trains a child to march to the next class, and the child who wonders why exactly he has to do this might earn the lovely label of "truant". Students learn to love authority through hierarchal relations with coaches, teachers, and administrators who have the power to "rate" their success at proper submission to authority. 

In The Pedagogical Seminary, Hall wrote:

For most of us, the best education is that which makes us the best and most obedient servants. This is the way of peace and the way of nature, for even if we seriously try to keep up a private conscience at all.... the difficulties are so great that most hasten, more or less consciously and voluntarily, to put themselves under authority again, reserving only the smallest margin of independence in material interests, tastes, choice of masters, etc.

Is this how it works? Eventually, we learn that it is futile to be heartbroken over wars in farflung lands and the hearts of the young men whom we train to kill mercilessly. That pang of conscience is subsumed by the need for coordinating curtains. We are defined more by our personal material preferences than our commitments to conscience.

We are obedient servants indeed. But we are not obedient servants of God- we are obedient servants of the state, the reigning powers, and whatever piece of fabric symbolizes them.

Sometimes I wonder if we truly believe that putting aside Christ's teaching in the name of Caesar is acceptable in ANY way, shape, or form. We have been trained to recite Bible verses in service of the government or the majority or slavery or homophobia. We have been trained through coercion to practice coercion and worship coercion and celebrate the chains by which we bind others. Can anyone seriously wonder why a person's conscience might lead him or her to educate at home? Someone take this book away from me before I start to cry.

About love.

We're having fun participating in the Unschooling Blog Carnival today; the theme is one which remains close to our hearts. That's right, love. Nostalgia-laced love into the present moment.

Love, the way it changes over time, the way it changes us, little roots growing thick enough to crack sidewalks.

Love out in a field under the stars with wildflowers.

Love for the cupcakes and a new sister named Micah.

Love nursing his doll, Sally, as I nursed baby Micah.

Love the scent of cut bamboo on his hands, the materials for a teepee.

Love with letters.

BALLAD FOR MY ONE TRUE LOVE- Mason Jennings

Love lurking in the veins of a song.

Love becomes a statue in honor of static, the art subject to interpretation.

Lovercraft, a sweet descendant of the hovercraft that drops love not bombs on people everywhere because that is what Max thinks people "should do if they have a lot of money".

Love the breathless beginning of a new story, a discovery so wonderful it must be named "Micah".

Love equations. Two boots + "ugly face" + Milla = a world well-rocked.

Love in the daily rhythms and new beats.

Love life.

A painting with a thousand words: Botticelli's "Mystic Nativity".

Mystic Nativity by Sandro Botticelli, 1500 (oil on canvas).

Max enjoyed staring at this painting for a long time- "there are lots of things happening but I can't tell if people are happy or scared".

We learned from wikipedia that the Greek inscription at the top translates as:

This picture, at the end of the year 1500, in the troubles of Italy, I Alessandro, in the half-time after the time, painted, according to the eleventh [chapter] of Saint John, in the second woe of the Apocalypse, during the release of the devil for three-and-a-half years; then he shall be bound in the twelfth [chapter] and we shall see [him buried] as in this picture.

It seems that Botticelli believed himself to be living during the Tribulation or the Biblical end times, perhaps due to political turmoil and war in Europe at the time. We talked about symbolism in paintings, and Max made a list of all the symbols he could see in the painting and what they represented. I don't know if it's a developmental phase or a personal preference but he is currently a big fan of "perfect painters", or "guys who know how to make things look right".

Max didn't see any inconsistency of vision when comparing this to Botticelli's more famous work, like The Birth of Venus. I think that we adults tend to project our own discomforts with Greek and Roman mythology on little people to whom such stories make formidable sense. I remember as a child finding it very difficult to imagine a God who was not, in some sense, like me. And the character of God in the Old Testament includes a rich texture of human emotions, including rage, unhappiness, loneliness, and frustration. I wonder how Max understands Christ's role and character....

An evening in the company of strange men: Jacques Ellul and Mikhail Zoshchencko.

Stayed up late last night in the company of two fascinating fellows- Jacques Ellul and Mikhail Zoshchencko. They didn't have much to say to one another, but both had so much to say to me. Reluctant to be rude in the name of something as tentative as sleep, I opened the parlor...

Jeremy Hick's translation of The Galosh and Other Stories combined humor, language games, and the absurdity of Soviet totalitarianism. Zoshchencko spent some time in the Red Army followed by a stint writing satire in the newly-formed Soviet Union. When Zhdanov’s notorious Party Resolution of 1946 condemned his children’s story The Adventures of a Monkey as an attack on the Soviet way of life, he was expelled from the Soviet Writers’ Union, which meant he could no longer publish, and for a time he had to earn a living repairing shoes. He was never fully rehabilitated in his lifetime, but remains a source of fascination for oddballs like me.

Mikhail says everything with a smirk. For example, he speaks of the Soviet's pathbreaking regard for female equality:

It was only 1918 when this slogan was first announced to complete raptures all round: equality. That means that any poxy little insignificant lady is equal to a man and if she goes anywhere with him, she pays on the same basis and out of her own pocket.

But within five years, this slogan had been forgotten, and a different picture now meets the eye of the beholder. Whether you go to the theatre with some lady or take her to the cinema, you have to pay the entrance money at the theatre and at the cinema. And if the lady has her minor little sister with her, then you have to pay for her too."

From "A Forgotten Slogan (Letter to the Editor)"

Or his word play on the value of human beings in a time when folks are plentiful and economic goods are few:

"A person's more important than a basket. You can always buy a basket. But you've got to admit a head is priced less."

From "Passenger"

And he doesn't avoid mention of the housing shortage:

Recently, we've been travelling all round the Union. We were particularly trying to see how people live. They're not living badly. They're doing their best.

In every town new houses and homes are springing up noticeably. There are more and more of these little shacks people call cottages these days. And because of this, the housing crisis has started to ease off just a little bit. We never saw more than seventeen people in a single room.

And only in one town did we see twenty-three persons in a room. Cab-drivers. With their families. But that was in Rostov. After all, it's a southern town. It's climatic. I've heard you can even grow peaches there. And the seashore's not all that far away. The sea down there, you know, never freezes over, all year round. With record-breaking climatic conditions like those there really isn't any dire need for covered accomodation.

From "Does A Man Need Much?"

After enjoying Mikhail's powerful and very careful use of language to reflect the absurdity of propaganda and the required "positive attitude" of people living under communism, I was almost reluctant to speak. Words seemed to confuse, not clarify. But Jacques insisted that the words, themselves, are not the problem so much as the socially-constructed hierarchies established by them.

Ellul's Anarchy and Christianity can be paid for or devoured for free, pursuant to individual tastes and inclinations. I had to struggle with the urge to jump up and hug Jacques as I read it. The crick in my neck from nodding continuously was my substitute for a standing ovation.

Ellul acknowledged his interest in Marx and his eventual disappointment in Marxism. As a Christian anarchist, he differed from mainstream anarchists because he did not believe the ideal anarchist society could be established, yet he believed that struggling for its establishment was still necessary. Just as we cannot be entirely free from sin, the walls which keep us from God, yet we must still try.

When I talk of a serious challenge, the point is that in anarchy there is no possibility of a rerouting into a reinforcement of power. This took place in Marxism. The very idea of a dictatorship of the proletariat presupposed power over the rest of society. Nor is it simply a matter of the power of the majority over the minority instead of the reverse. The real question is that of the power of some people over others. Unfortunately, as I have said, I do not think that we can truly prevent this. But we can struggle against it. We can organize on the fringe. We can denounce not merely the abuses of power but power itself. But only anarchy says this and wants it.

He goes on to explain his commitment to nonviolence:

No matter what the motivation, however, I am against violence and aggression. I am against it on two levels. The first is simply tactical. We have begun to see that movements of nonviolence, when they are well managed (and this demands strong discipline and good strategy), are much more effective than violent movements (except when a true revolution is unleashed). We not only recall the success of Gandhi but nearer home it is also evident that Martin Luther King did much to advance the cause of American Blacks, whereas later movements, for example, the Black Muslims and Black Pantehrs, which wanted to make quicker headway by using all kinds of violence, not only gained nothing but even lost some of the gains made by King. Similarly, the violent movements in Berlin in 1956, then in Hungary and Czechoslovakia, all failed, but Lech Walesa, by imposing a strict discipline of nonviolence on his union, held his own against the Polish government. One of the sayings of the great union leaders of the years 1900-1910 was this: Strikes, yes, but violence, never.An authoritarian government can respond to violence only with violence.

My second reason is obviously a Christian one. Biblically, love is the way, not violence (in spite of the wars recounted in the Hebrew Bible, which I frankly confess to be most embarrassing). Not using violence against those in power does not mean doing nothing. Christianity means a rejection of power and a fight against it. This was completely forgotten during the centuries of the alliance of throne and altar, the more so as the pope became a head of state, and often acted more as such than as head of the church.

On education, Ellul bemoans the power hierarchies in the traditional system:

Naturally, I am in favor of education, but only if it is adapted to children and not obligatory when children are obviously not equipped to learn intellectual data. We ought to shape education according to the children's gifts.

Tonight I will keep the parlor doors closed and try to revel in the tentative. But I have a feeling last night's lessons will not be easily forgotten.

The Knowing Nature Challenge.

"We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect."

Aldo Leopold, Sand Country Almanac

One of my goals for the new year is to become a knowledgable friend to all the living creatures in our yards and woods. Rather than treat life as a commodity, whether it be the life of a tree or the life of a human being, I'd like to learn how to treat life with the reverence and respect due creation.

Do I treat my laptop with greater care and love than I do this beautiful world directly created by God? Part of me fears the answer. I have much to learn. Leaf by little leaf. 

So the kids (to the degree they wish) and I will spend this year getting to know all the amazing little nooks, crannies, creatures, and creations in our yard. We learn so that we may understand and respect the eco-webs and ecology thriving on our land. We learn so that we may find joy in the delicate relationships among plants, animals, weather, soil, and minerals. We learn so that we may continue to love the mystery that is our natural world. 

Do you know your land intimately? Would you notice if a tree died or birds stopped building their nests in it? How close are you to the rhythm of your local ecosystem? If you don't know, maybe this is the perfect year to find out. Join us. Learn life so that you may love life. 

A nativity at the Coryell Castle.

It all began with an angel. A hark.

An angel with the kind of news you can't sit still about.

And one wise men, among three, who couldn't stop talking about that star.

A lowly manger surrounded by special beings.

A husband and wife, a dubious pregnancy.

A love borne of duty, the tenderness of hope.

The joy comes when you least expect it. 

Merry Christmas from our home to yours.

The love love love cross.

Patrick does the wood cutting, Max and Micah do the sanding, Alina does the little details. I found this particular shape in an illuminated manuscript from the 13th century and thought it moving enough to replicate.

I love making crosses as a family- it is a gift we can make for others that costs almost nothing (using found wood) except time, love, and tenderness.

This one went to the Thiele family today in the hopes that the boys will have sweet dreams and few nightmares.

Two books I'm savoring.

Greer opposed this book from the outset, and went to some lengths to sabotage what was always an honest and well-intentioned project. Her attack included personal threats and vilification, and the warning off of sources by letter, in print, and through speeches. This was part of her long-expressed hostility toward literary biography, in particular that concerned with living writers.

    Christine Wallace in the preface to this book 

Most of the writings that now make up the New Testament, and a great many of the other earliest Christian writings as well, had as their primary aim the shaping of the life of Christian communities. Arguments and rules, of course, had their place in these writings, but we fail to understand the force of the arguments and rules if we take them out of the context in which they stand. "Practice" or "custom" (synetheia, the word which Paul actually used) was not something added to the process of developing identity, but an integral part of it.

        Wayne A. Meeks, introducing his methodology

4 men (at various stages of development) and a script.

Tino, Doru, Patrick, and Max agreed to humor me and perform a reader's theatre for a running camera last night. I am so very grateful and super-excited.

And then tonight, Constantino took the time to edit and upload the video of this cooler-than-MC-Hammer event so that you could enjoy it as well. That, in itself, is even cooler than Paul Abdul's video for "Cold-Hearted Snake". Before I get lost in the 80s, I should mention that the script for "A Christmas Truce" by Aaron Shepard is available for free online should you decide to do a little theatrical reading within the confines of your own castle.

You can learn more about the history of the Christmas truce here, here, and here. I was also fascinated to read about the Christmas Truce youth tournament which takes place in the same fields of battle and pays homage to the many who lost their lives in World War I, the men whose hopes for peace remained unrealized in their lifetimes.

If you haven't seen it yet, Joyeux Noel is a moving, well-directed film about the Christmas Truce of 1914. Patrick and I felt it captures the tenderness and love of the Christmas spirit much more effectively than the mall Santa.(It is not good viewing for children because the subject matter- war, destruction, human hopes and dreams- requires a mature perspective.)

A cross, left near Ieper in Belgium in 1999, to celebrate the site of the Christmas Truce during the First World War in 1914. (Image source: Wikipedia)

It's A Miracle: A Hanukkah Story Book and craft.

Growing up in the Eastern Orthodox Church, the twinkling lights of menorahs in the windows hold a special place in my heart. This book combines the rich texture of family storytelling with the traditions of Hanukkah.Jill McElmurry's cheerful illustrations are perfect for tracing.

Every night of Hanukkah, after Owen— the Official Candle Lighter—lights the menorah, Grandma Karen kicks off her cowboy boots and tells him a bedtime story. On the first night there's the girl who dreams of becoming a rabbi. On the fourth night there's the alien who gets lost in a little girl's backyard. And on the seventh night there's the boy who wants to be a baby ... and whose parents let him try.

The kids love Grandma Karen's character and can't wait to see what story she tells next. We discussed what this story reveals about Jewish culture and community when compared with our previous book on Hanukkah- Polish versus American traditions, immigration, generational differences, Orthodox versus Reform, village versus urban, traditional and its intersections with modernity. This was a great way to explore comparative history. 

Dinner is a time filled with stories from various relatives. An inviting family meal.

Brenda's beautiful tiny Jewish neighborhood.

We decided to do a variation on Alphamom's genius tiny little neighborhood craft to honor the Festival of Lights in our home. Since the menorah had nine candles, Max suggested we make 9 houses in our neighborhood, which was the plan, but it's nice when he thinks ahead.

Max drawing windows on buildings.

We'll share photos when we finish. Right now, we're still in the "design" phase pictured above.

A garden of good feelings: Christmas book and craft.

Piddling through The Ideals Classic Christmas Treasury last night with Max reaped formidable rewards. We spent some time reading and discussing Henry Van Dyke's brief sermon, "Keeping Christmas".

It is a good thing to observe Christmas day. The mere marking of times and seasons, when men agree to stop work and make merry together, is a wise and wholesome custom. It helps one to feel the supremacy of the common life over the individual life. It reminds a man to set his own little watch, now and then, by the great clock of humanity which runs on sun time. But there is a better thing than the observance of Christmas day, and that is, keeping Christmas.

Are you willing to forget what you have done for other people, and to remember what other people have done for you; to ignore what the world owes you, and to think what you owe the world; to put your rights in the background, and your duties in the middle distance, and your chances to do a little more than your duty in the foreground; to see that your fellow-men are just as real as you are, and try to look behind their faces to their hearts, hungry for joy; to own that probably the only good reason for your existence is not what you are going to get out of life, but what you are going to give to life; to close your book of complaints against the management of the universe, and look around you for a place where you can sow a few seeds of happiness--are you willing to do these things even for a day? Then you can keep Christmas.

Are you willing to stoop down and consider the needs and the desires of little children; to remember the weakness and loneliness of people who are growing old; to stop asking how much your friends love you, and ask yourself whether you love them enough; to bear in mind the things that other people have to bear on their hearts; to try to understand what those who live in the same house with you really want, without waiting for them to tell you; to trim your lamp so that it will give more light and less smoke, and to carry it in front so that your shadow will fall behind you; to make a grave for your ugly thoughts, and a garden for your kindly feelings, with the gate open--are you willing to do these things even for a day? Then you can keep Christmas.

Are you willing to believe that love is the strongest thing in the world--stronger than hate, stronger than evil, stronger than death--and that the blessed life which began in Bethlehem nineteen hundred years ago is the image and brightness of the Eternal Love? Then you can keep Christmas.

And if you keep it for a day, why not always?

But you can never keep it alone.

An image stuck with us. Van Dyke asks if you are willing "to make a grave for your ugly thoughts and a garden for your kindly feelings, with the gate open". To identify and bury our ugly thoughts while nurturing and sharing our kindly feelings. Max decided he was willing. I agreed. So we began a joint venture to extend through the holiday season.

Using a paper bag, two sheets of paper, crayons, and a pencil, Max drew a grave and a garden, labelled them, and then attached them to the front of the paper bag which now dangles from the side of our piano.

We made a pinky-swear to jot down our ugly thoughts and throw them in the grave and jot down our kindly feelings and plant them in the garden for the duration of the month. At the end, as we prepare to celebrate the new year, we will open the grave and the garden to see the kinds of thoughts that torment or enlighten us. No peeking. Or "peeping", as Micah emphasized.

Do you have a special place to dispose of ugly thoughts? Or a special place to honor kindly feelings? How can we extend the feelings into actions?

St. Nicholas' early morning visit.

The kids left their shoes by the front door before going to sleep last night. This morning, they woke up to find a few small gifts from the St. Nicholas, the saint known for his generosity and gift-giving.

A simple toaster for Patrick, who has been conducting a year-long tirade against the toaster over.

Christmas lights and contact solution for me.

Harmonicas for Max and Micah.

A wooden tray and fairy stickers for Micah.

A metal potholder weaving loom for Max.

Max couldn't wait to start weaving.

He has decided this is a critical skill for a shepherd and has already polished off one potholder this morning. Great handwork.

A doll stroller for Milla, who can now stop bopping Micah and trying to steal her stroller. Boy, that St. Nick is a sensible gentleman.

For those unfamiliar with the legend of St. Nicholas, you can print this story handout I created for Max and share it with your family. Maybe St. Nicholas will visit your home next year...

Living with meaningful traditions: The Christmas tree.

The munchkins encourage me to learn more about our traditions by asking all those little questions beginning with "Why...? In turn, explaining these traditions makes them meaningful rather than superficial and merely ornamental.

"Mom, why do we have Christmas trees that we decorate? When did it start? Who came up with the idea?"

The Christmas tree tradition stems from many different legends as they evolved in different places over time. Some say that an English monk named Saint Boniface, who organized the Christian Church in France and Germany during the 8th century, played a part. Legend has it that on a Christmas eve long ago, Boniface came upon a group of worshippers gathered around an oak tree preparing to sacrifice the son of their chief, little child Prince Asulf, to the god Thor. Boniface was horrified at the prospect of a child being sacrificed to appease a god, so he whacked the tree with an axe and managed to topple it. A small fir tree sprang up instantly in its place. Boniface told the awed spectators that this was the Tree of Life, representing Christ.

First Patrick strings the lights.

The tree is lit. Time for ornaments.

Max adds ornaments.

Others believe the tradition comes from a 10th century legend which held that amazing events occured when Christ was born- all the animals began to talk and every tree blossomed and bore fruit, despite the snow and winter cold. All the trees paid homage to the newborn king with the exception of a tiny fir tree from the north who was so insignificant in stature and appearance that the other trees tried to hide her. She had almost mustered a deep-green blush when the Lord intervened- stars tumbled from the heavens, lighted on the fir's branches and illuminated them like a sparkling diamond necklace.

Still others say that a poor German forester welcomed a strange child into his cottage one cold and snowy Christmas eve, feeding the child and giving him a warm place to sleep. The next morning, the child, who was actually the Christ Child, caused a small, glittering fir tree to grow beside the forester's door. The happy host took it inside to become the first Christmas tree.

Micah adds ornaments.

Milla goes back and removes all the ornaments added by Max and Micah.

Some very Protestant folks maintain that Martin Luther is responsible for the tradition of the Christmas tree. According to this legend, Luther was strolling through a snow-covered forest on Christmas eve and was deeply moved by the beauty of the starlight gleaming on the evergreen branches. He cut down a small fir tree, took it into his home and placed small lighted candles on its boughs to dazzle his wife and children with the same heavenly light that had dazzled him. Though no mention of this event can be found in Luther's many writings, the legend became popular among German Protestants. As a result, some German Catholics resisted using a tree as part of their Christmas celebration until a century ago.

The children are attracted to the tree like moths to a window in the summer.

For more history of this tradition, the Christmas Archives has a neat, illustration-laden page.

Nothing left to do but lay under the tree and look up through her lights.

Milla got jealous because Patrick kissed me. She let out a yell and bopped him on the back. You can barely see it, but she is kissing me on the lips.

Do you have any special family tree traditions? Any stories or legends I can share with the munchkins? What does your tree mean to you when you put it up?

A whimsical cross.

This is what happens when Alina draws a lopsided cross onto wood, Patrick cuts it from the wood, Max sands it, and then Alina paints it on a whim. A cross is a symbol of suffering, freedom, and beauty to me, though I'm not so sure about this one.

Thanksgiving for immigrants.

This video was filmed from my mother's kitchen at the crack of dawn without the benefit of coffee or extended sleep for Tino. We're lucky to have Tino with us on this Thanksgiving so we can remember the original American experience- the experience of being an immigrant, coming to a new land, becoming part of a multicultural nation. 

For some of us, it happened to our parents or grandparents- we've only know it as a distant story, a narrative the older folks repeat and the younger ones ignore. We feel that being born here entitles us to greatness which we have neither earned nor deserved. And we frown on those struggling to begin a life here in the US amid the squalor of strict immigration quotas and a law that punishes, rather than protects, human life and dignity. 

For me, I was brought to the US at the tender age of 3 and moved from "illegal alien" to "legal alien" and finally "naturalized" (oh the "immigration" language still disgusts me) at the age of 13. For most Americans, that means I am allowed to celebrate Thanksgiving. I am grateful for that.

As you sit down to feast with family and friends today, remember that the humility of gratitude assumes that you are not deserving or worthy of the blessings and good fortune in your life. Humility is the core of gratitude. You don't deserve your family, your feast, your health, your hair, or even your life. 

When you find yourself thinking that the thing which really bothers you about illegal immigrants is that they are breaking the law, remind yourself of how many times you have broken the law. How many times you've climbed into a car to drive after drinking two beers (hey, that's the law). How many times, how many ways. Be honest- it's not your respect and love for legality but rather the failure of empathy and courage to take priority in your heart and mind that makes it easy to think all those immigrants should just go back to where they came from.

Then remember American history. Then remember how many times good people broke "the law" which maintained segregation and slavery in our history. Remember how conscientious objectors helped preserve religious freedom and honor the moral decision of others to refuse to kill. So much of what you love, so much of the freedom you live in this country, is a gift from those who broke unjust laws.

Imagine how pathetic our United States would be if we were forced by law to kill whenever the politicians in DC deemed it necessary. If women still could not vote (as originally envisioned in our land of free). If individuals were still held as property, as slaves, on the basis of their skin color. Maybe our America is as good and fine and free as those individuals who spoke truth to power and willingly stood for a freedom extended to all people, as opposed to the "deserving" few. 

So here's a thanks to our forefathers- not the dudes on the dollar bills- the real Americans who fought to turn another unfree country into the freer one we inhabit today. And here's a thanks to all the immigrants still struggling and trying and demonstrating to remind us that freedom is bigger than our landscaping projects and DVR setups. And the biggest thanks of all to Christ, who breaks our hearts and allows us to see all the fossils of hate, all the hardened self-righteousness, all the logic and rationalizations, which keep his Spirit far from our hearts.

Beginning with thanks.

I love it that my friends feed my soul. Mary offhandedly mentioned that stuffing your face is not really the best way to give thanks, and that comment stayed with me yesterday. It even followed me into bed.

I think of Thanksgiving as that day when everything revolves around cooking and eating and eating so much that you can't move. Oh, and football. My associations and traditions revolve around feasting with a little prayer just thrown in before we begin the buffet.

How can I raise my children in such a way that their associations of Thanksgiving actually revolve around gratitude as opposed to menus? How can the traditions of Thanksgiving revolve around thanks in our family? What if we started the day with thanks? Better yet, what if we started a list every Thanksgiving, an ongoing list to update throughout the year, mentioning all the things for which we are thankful? 

There are more reasons for gratitude than our little list can bear, but this is the excuse we give for not making such lists. The heart of Thanksgiving is the thanks. Here are ours... both little and large.

Our ongoing list of abundant thanks.

I look different: What blog banners can reveal about your political inclinations.

Shocked that Max threw a ball which hit me in the forehead. "Mom, your head was in the way..." Yes, I know Max. My head is often in the way of so many things.

Some women cut their hair. Others go shopping for a new wardrobe. Still others get a new tattoo. I change my blog banner and associated paraphenalia. Because the change does this restless soul a heap of good.

Ten years ago, I vowed never to stay in one place or town for longer than two years- my way of setting an expiration date on life's experiences. The man I married shared my devotion to expiration dates in every field except the one in which we planted our marriage.

But having children brings out the better in me, maybe the better in us- and the broken vows to myself, like all vows, inhabit a new context. It took D.H. Lawrence to help relieve me of Puritanism and then the darkness of W. Somerset Maugham to relieve me of Lawrence and then the solid mystery of Walker Percy to ease the despairs of reading too much modern literature.

This little blog banner relieves me of something else- the comfort of conservatism, that sad delight in sameness and continuity which keeps me from opening my arms to embrace what life brings to me.

Do you have a similar limitation in your life which assumes that the way things are is the way they should remain? How do you feel about my blog banner change? Does it excite you or disappoint you? What habits of the heart keep your heart from loving life?

More greeting cards to raise money for Circles of Peace.

One dollar per card. Each is drawn and watercolored by hand without reference to any pattern or model. Can you tell I'll do anything to encourage peace and reconciliation in our community?

Please email me if you see something you like and we can "make arrangements" (whatever that usually means, I mean it).