Still Growing Up

I came across this paragraph written by Caroyn Knapp the other day. I think it is perceptive and wise.


It seems like such an obvious insight, so simple it borders on the banal, but I'd never before really grasped the idea that growth was something you could choose, that adulthood might be less of a chronological state than an emotional one which you decide, through painful acts, to both enter and mantain. I'd spent most of my life waiting for maturity to hit me from the outside, as though I'd just wake up one morning and be done, like a roast in the oven. But growth comes from the inside out, from trying and failing and trying again. You begin to let go of the wish, age-old and profound and essentially human, that someone will swoop down and do all that hard work, growing up, for you. You start living your own life.

Offenders, Registered and Unregistered

I have a brother who is a registered sex offender.

He has done time in prison, 8 years of hard time. His family has done eight years of hard time, as well. It is a miracle that they are still a family in fact as well as in name. My brother was released within the last year- puportedly to re-enter the outside world and to rebuild the life his offenses demolished. But we have come to realize that he can never really re-enter normal life. He will always be an outsider, branded with a label he must wear for the rest of his life. He will never be treated like everyone else again, and no one will object very strenuously if he is discriminated against, scorned, verbally abused or marginalized. None of us, popular wisdom says, should ever be allowed to forget his offense; he must never be allowed to earn our trust again whether he repents and makes an aboutface or not. He is only getting what he deserves, many Christian friends have told me.

And yet, I can't help but wonder how many of us would like to be permanently labelled acording to the worst thing we have ever done? How would we all feel about wearing the Scarlet letter? I'm not saying an offender registry is necessarily a bad idea, (though I suspect it probably is); that's not my point. I'm just trying to level the playing field a bit. How would it be if we all showed up at church one Sunday wearing placards that announced the most shameful thing we've ever done. We could look around the sanctuary and see Internet Pornographers, Adulterers, Fornicators, Child Abusers, Tax Evaders, Thieves, Wife Beaters, Liars, Racists, Drunkards, Drug Abusers. Gluttons and Gossips all around us. I'm not sure which of those labels I would have to choose for myself, how to rank my own transgressions, but I could qualify for at least five of those. Wouldn't you like to know which ones. I don't have to tell you, though my brother does.

But I wonder how we would feel in that situation. Would we all feel shame? Would we feel any less shame knowing that everyone else was wearing an ugly label as well? Would we feel any more compassion for others once our own secret sins were exposed? Would we be more likely to encourage each other, to weep together, to pray with one another? Would we feel like we have more in common with one another, or less? Would confessing our secret sins give us a commonality or drive us apart in our fear and loathing of what others have done? I don't even know the answer to that, but it would be a fascinating experiment, wouldn't it.

Now, I am not trying to suggest that all sins are equal in their consequences. Clearly, they are not. No one equates murder with gluttony or adultery with envy. (Though Jesus did equate hatred with murder.) Some sin chiefly damages our relationship with God and our personal peace, while other sins have a more direct influence on others. But in another sense all sins are the same; breaking one commandment makes us guilty of breaking the whole law, so none of us can claim to be more righteous than anyone else. In that sense we are all equally condemned and deserving of equal recompense. Most evangelicals would give lip service to this doctrine, but we find it hard to live it. Although God speaks of one unpardonable sin, many of us have a longer list in our own minds.

In his second letter to the Corinthians Paul warns the church against continuing to segregate a sinner who has repented. He fears that the individual who was, incidentally, guilty of a particularly egregious sexual sin, may be "overwhelmed by excessive sorrow" if the church continues to punish him indefinitely. "Now instead," he advises, "you ought to forgive and comfort him. . . . I urge you, therefore, to reaffirm your love for him." In another letter to the same church he strongly condemns a lengthy list of sins, but he reminds his readers that 1)many of them used to do those things and 2) those who commit such sins can be washed, sanctified and justified . No sin can place one beyond the grace of God.

So what do we do with the truly repentant sex offender? (The question raises another question: How do any of us know who is truly repentant?) Do we drive him off into the desert (at least 1000 feet from any place children congregate), like the ancient Israelites' scapegoat? Do we make him the symbol of all our own sins and thank God we are not like that man? Or do we receive him into the church in loving, appropriate ways, helping him to create a new, holy life. Do we dare to say, "Go and sin no more"? Jesus did.

Baby It's Cold Outside

I just came in from driving a daughter to work at 7:30 AM in the spare winter light. The little box on the top right hand corner of my computer told me it was 10 degrees before I ever set foot outside the door, but I probably could have guessed within five degrees or so; guessing how far below freezing the thermometer has fallen is an acquired skill of most New Englanders. In the same way that some people always know what time it is, we have developed over time all kinds of internal meters to guage the depth of the cold.


On the way home my thoughts strayed, as they so often do, to Malaysia, and I wondered what I would be doing on a Friday morning if I were there. I fiddled with the radio dial and thought about the tropics some more. "Island Music" was what I really wanted to hear. I realized in a sudden flash of inspiration why tropical music always sounded so happy, why reggae could never have originated in Northern New England. It was so obvious!


But "No," I thought, "That's too simplistic. Warm weather alone is not enough to explain it. It's probably really the weed that makes those Jamaicans so happy and relaxed, not the climate." But even that began to seem like a geographical factor to me: I mean, if Northern New Englanders indulged too often in any substance that made them relax a bit too much they'd freeze to death. Constant vigilance is a condition of survival in this region - we are living proof of the doctrine of the survival of the fittest.



To test my geographical determination hypothesis I tried to think of any songs I knew that were native to this region. The first and only one I could think of was "The Fox Went Out on a Chilly Night." Which really proved my point. It begins:

The fox went out on a chilly night

prayed to the moon to give him light

for he had many a mile to go that night

before he reached the town-o town-o town-o

he had many a mile to go that night

before he reached the town-o.

Sounds like my life, I thought; no "Don't worry, be happy" around here. There is a "cozy, warm den" with lots of fox children later on in the song - you have to do something to keep warm on those dark, chilly nights, I guess, but the grim little ballad ends up with the little ones chewing on the bones-o - not exactly a cheerful image.


But, I'm back home now. I don't have to go out again for another fifteen minutes and Bob Marley is as close as my stereo. Things could be worse. I'm going to go look for some bones to chew.

Musings in Middlemarch

Ive been reading Middlemarch for the first time. I never tackled it before because it looked so daunting, and while I loved Silas Marner, I could not imagine reading 450 pages of Silas Marneresque prose. But Middlemarch is completely different, and, I have found, captivating.

The plot is not particularly exciting. So far I have been reminded often of Jane Austen. The setting is a rural town in England, rather hidebound and consumed with pettiness, but what animates the book are George Eliot's observations about human nature - as precise and sharp as a scalpel, reminding me even of the sword which discerns the thoughts and intentions of the heart, dividing asunder soul and spirit. (I am not making a case for George Eliot as The Holy Spirit, but she does get to the heart of things in a quiet, undramatic but clean cutting fashion.)

After reading several contemporary novels I am happy to read one which has someting to animate it besides a gripping pseudo-moral dilemma revolving around some current hot issue like family abduction, foreign adoption, (I have a little alliteration going on here!), recovered memory syndrome or family secrets. I have been seduced into buying so many books by the cover blurb, only to find that the author may have had a great idea for made-for-TV movie, but she can't write an interesting sentence, never mind a paragraph, or a page, or a chapter, etc. And she has nothing to say that is universally true for all times and all places.

So Middlemarch is a breath of fresh air. I have dog-eared my copy of the book to death, though I am only half-way through. I may yet find the end disappointing, but I rather doubt it. My only unhappiness is that I am reading a second hand copy which has already been underlined and bracketed by the previous reader, so I have to resort to flourescent pink marker to distinguish my favorite parts from his/hers.

Here are a few of my favorite passages, which may provide fodder for future blogs.

We mortals, men and women, devour many a disappointment between breakfast and dinner-time; keep back the tears and look a little pale about the lips, and in answer to inquiries say, "Oh, nothing!" Pride helps us; and pride is not a bad thing when it only urges us to hide our own hurts -- not to hurt others.



.. . for we all of us, grave or light, get our thoughts entangled in metaphors and act fatally on the strength of them.


To have in general but little feeling, seems to be the only security against feeling too much on any particular occasion.

I especially like the last one, prone as I am to feeling too much on most occasions. Maybe that is, indeed, better than the alternaive.

Conversation with Ivy, when she was six

Iy just turned 8 and would probably be embarrassed if she knew I was posting this. She probably knows the answers to these questions by now, but I just came across these quotes I jotted down when she was much younger, and thought they were worth pondering.

Are you trying to trust God or are you trusting God?


Are cows black with white spots or white with black spots?


If numbers go on forever, does someone have to be making up names for them all the time? Who does that? Is there a company that does that?


How do mermaids go to the bathroom?

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A short conversation on another occasion:



Me: Ivy, you have such a pretty face. Where did you get it?



Ivy: From God.



Me: Why did He give you such a pretty face?



Ivy: Maybe it was a reward.



Me: A reward for what?



Ivy: For drawing so well. I think that was good reward, don't you?

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Last week we were visiting a new church and she wanted help picking out her clothes. She rejected anything with pink in it. I asked her why she was so adamant about NOT wearing pink, and she said, "I don't want people to think I am something that I am not."

"Do not grow weary in well-doing, for in due time you shall reap if ye faint not."



I confess, I am very weary of well-doing. I am just tired of it, all of it. I used to take great delight in how much we had reduced our garbage output since we moved home from Asia. I used to love to find the empty shampoo bottles in the shower because I could throw them in the plastics bin in the kitchen and feel virtuous. I used to carefully rinse every bottle of ancient-almost-gone salad dressing that had lived too long in the refrigerator door and add it to the growing collection of cans, jars and occasional soda bottles that I knew would be carted to the recycling center and tossed on the big heap every second Saturday. Now, I just want to toss it in the garbage can and make it go away. I am tired of the overflowing bins in the corner of my kitchen (the recycling center inconveniently closes for the Christmas AND New Year's holidays, just when we most need it.) I take no secret pleasure in deconstructing Pringles cans, separating the cardboard cylinder from the metal ring. It just looks like garbage to me now.



I am tired of the endless rounds of creams and lotions that I used to slather on my aging skin, hoping against hope that in due time I would reap some benefit from them, that the law of sowing and reaping would somehow trump the laws of entropy and aging. I can scarcely believe I once enjoyed lining them up carefully on the counter top before I stepped in the shower - the thick moisturizer and the sunscreen, the specially formulated eye cream, the lip moisturizer, the body oil, the special cream for dry elbows, the oil for my legs, the balm for the heels which were constantly on display in sandals when we lived in the tropics. Now it's all I can do to remember to apply the all important anti-perspirant. I'm just tired of it.



I used to look forward eagerly to my daily walk - the chance to clear my head, to break a sweat, to feel like I was growing stronger and healthier with each step, the challenge of covering more ground in less time each day. But these days the cold weather feels like a barrier erected at every doorway of my house. The biting chill and the hard cold scratch my throat and sting my nostrils when I do manage to put on enough layers to venture past my driveway. My clothes are heavy, my thick socks make my boots feel confining and unpleasant, I feel like I can't ever get a really satisfying breath because my lungs are tight against the cold. I wheeze and cough. I am tired of making myself do this when the pleasure is gone. I have grown weary of it.



I m weary of grocery shopping and bargain hunting, of buying clothes for my kids and of folding clean, fresh smelling laundry. I begrudge the trips to the produce store that I used to love, and I let the towels pile up in the bathroom hamper. I can't find boots that fit everyone, while all my kids friends' are happily ice sakting I can't muster the energy to shop for one more piece of winter sporting equipment. My eight year old has asked me many times in the last few weeks, "Is this the dead of winter?" and while my mind has consulted the calendar and answered, "No, that is probably still weeks away . . . ." my heart has sunk under the question. The very metaphor depresses me. I'm just weary.



Is it winter? Is it age? Did I just have too many children for my personal resources? Is it the after Christmas slump? Will I feel better when the days grow longer as I know they must? Will I ever have any motivation again? I don't know - how could anyone know? I want to follow the example of Father Abraham, who hoped against hope, who considered the deadness of his own body, but still grew strong in faith because he believed that God was faithful. I want to fix my eyes on the joys that are still before me, I want to save the earth and reduce my risk of heart disease and stroke. I want to regain some motivation for this everlasting well-doing. But until then, I need to strap on my snow shoes and put one foot in front of the other and make d0 with the shallow breaths I can take. I hope to faint not.