Does the road wind up-hill all the way?
Yes, to the very end.
Will the day's journey take the whole long day?
From morn to night, my friend.
But is there for the night a resting-place?
A roof for when the slow dark hours begin.
May not the darkness hide it from my face?
You cannot miss that inn.
Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?
Those who have gone before.
Then must I knock, or call when 'ust in sight?
They will not keep you standing at that door.
Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?
Of labor you shall find the sum.
Will there be beds for me and all who seek?
Yea, beds for all who come.
-Christina Rossetti
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Wednesday, August 04, 2010
I am sitting alone in the early morning trying to just be quiet. My husband has left for work and my children are not stirring yet. Only the dog and the restless pregnant cat are awake. I find it very difficult to quiet my heart - I can never seem to be really still.
The coffee maker coughs politely in the kitchen. The antique clock never stops counting the seconds, somewhere there is the very small sound of trickling water - the shower drain?? Birds chirp in the woods across the street, their chittering, high, voices sound urgent and rushed. A jay's sharp voice interrupts in warning or complaint. I don't know which. The dog sighs in his sleep.
Even if I hold myself completely still, the room is never still. The pendulum swings in its case, its tarnished brass face reflecting the light of my reading lamp, the open door into the next room. Outside the windows leaves are fluttering in the lilacs that brush the two front panes. A single wisteria bough from the vine that wreathes the kitchen door reaches out in front of the window next to the busy clock. It bobs lightly in the breeze, buoyed by some invisible force. Through the same window I can see the restless wood across the street. Leaves flutter silently, then are still for a time, but begin to stir again when the wind returns, as if they are passing secrets to each other in whispers which can be seen but not heard.
The clock strikes the half hour with a mellow, predictable note. It is usually a background noise, but just now, when I am seeking for quiet, it is loud. I hear steps on the stairs. The quiet hour is gone.
The coffee maker coughs politely in the kitchen. The antique clock never stops counting the seconds, somewhere there is the very small sound of trickling water - the shower drain?? Birds chirp in the woods across the street, their chittering, high, voices sound urgent and rushed. A jay's sharp voice interrupts in warning or complaint. I don't know which. The dog sighs in his sleep.
Even if I hold myself completely still, the room is never still. The pendulum swings in its case, its tarnished brass face reflecting the light of my reading lamp, the open door into the next room. Outside the windows leaves are fluttering in the lilacs that brush the two front panes. A single wisteria bough from the vine that wreathes the kitchen door reaches out in front of the window next to the busy clock. It bobs lightly in the breeze, buoyed by some invisible force. Through the same window I can see the restless wood across the street. Leaves flutter silently, then are still for a time, but begin to stir again when the wind returns, as if they are passing secrets to each other in whispers which can be seen but not heard.
The clock strikes the half hour with a mellow, predictable note. It is usually a background noise, but just now, when I am seeking for quiet, it is loud. I hear steps on the stairs. The quiet hour is gone.
Tuesday, August 03, 2010
summer surprise
My teenage daughters sleep on the fornt porch most summer nights. It's not really a porch - more of a stoop - a raised wooden platform big enough for two, maybe three girls and a cat. The four corners are bounded by large flower pots, some painted,some plain clay.
They are there this morning when I open the old screen door to let the dog out. He'll have to use the kitchen door since I don't want to disturb them - ever. I want them to always be there on cool, damp late summer mornings.
A single toe sticks out of the blankets, a jumble of mismatched textiles. An old, faded quilt with a fraying jade green border is ripped in several places, some of it's 1950's vintage squares are just shreds. The corner of a paisley, Indian sheet shows beneath a burnt orange, woven bedspread, also of Asian origin. A rust colored, silk basket-weave afghan is tangled with the old quilt, and under the heap are a pale yellow comforter and a folded green sleeping bag for padding.
A very old, lumpy black and white cat with a smudgy nose sleeps between the two girls, mostly on the orange pillow, his head nestled against some touseld golden hair that is not attached to anything visible.
They could be a bundle of blankets - ragged ones at that - left out on the porch after a picnic or little girls' tea party. They do leave their blankets there most days after they climb languidly out, making the porch seem messy and unkempt. But I don't mind. They've been sleeping there off and on all summer, but it is still always a surprise to me to open the front door in the morningand find there are girls in the jumble of quilts and blankets - as if they magically appeared in the summer night while I was sleeping. So I never disturb them. I want them to stay on my porch as long as they will.
They are there this morning when I open the old screen door to let the dog out. He'll have to use the kitchen door since I don't want to disturb them - ever. I want them to always be there on cool, damp late summer mornings.
A single toe sticks out of the blankets, a jumble of mismatched textiles. An old, faded quilt with a fraying jade green border is ripped in several places, some of it's 1950's vintage squares are just shreds. The corner of a paisley, Indian sheet shows beneath a burnt orange, woven bedspread, also of Asian origin. A rust colored, silk basket-weave afghan is tangled with the old quilt, and under the heap are a pale yellow comforter and a folded green sleeping bag for padding.
A very old, lumpy black and white cat with a smudgy nose sleeps between the two girls, mostly on the orange pillow, his head nestled against some touseld golden hair that is not attached to anything visible.
They could be a bundle of blankets - ragged ones at that - left out on the porch after a picnic or little girls' tea party. They do leave their blankets there most days after they climb languidly out, making the porch seem messy and unkempt. But I don't mind. They've been sleeping there off and on all summer, but it is still always a surprise to me to open the front door in the morningand find there are girls in the jumble of quilts and blankets - as if they magically appeared in the summer night while I was sleeping. So I never disturb them. I want them to stay on my porch as long as they will.
Monday, August 02, 2010
heavy heart
No one told me that
when they removed the weight from my womb
they implanted another in my heart.
A tiny, nearly imperceptible pebble
that was alive
and would grow.
It must have been placed there
while I was anesthetized with joy
giddy with relief
mesmerized by the weight in my arms
I did not notice the subtle slice into my heart.
It waxes and wanes
fueled by fevers and tears
by loneliness and fears
which are not my own.
Still they hurt my heart.
My condition feels acute
but I know it is chronic.
I will not die of it.
It will not show up on the autopsy report
but it is incurable.
Some days I forget the mass is there
it shrinks so small, so light
I am sure it is gone -
I am cured.
But not for long.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Meditation on a toothache
This morning I woke up with the words to the song "I am a flower quickly fading, here today and gone tomorrow" running through my mind. How true- the reminders are everywhere including the crumpled, damp teabag in a plastic cup atop the stack of hopeful books on my nightstand. For some reason teabags help to relieve the pain of gum injuries, so I'd fallen asleep with one wedged in my mouth. All week I've been afflicted by a painful tooth abscess in a molar that sports an expensive gold crown. I've lain in bed wondering if the crown will have to come off to repair the root, and, if so, will they give me the gold and what will I do with it? I've read macabre stories of stealing gold from the mouths of dead bodies, so presumably it is valuable, but I've never read what they do with it. Ebay?
Then I've spent some of the painful night watches wondering whose fault this is - mine or the dentist's. I always feel that blame must be assigned, though I don't always know where to deposit it. I suspect the dentist did not do his job when I paid him the $1700.00 to repair a single tooth, but I am sure he will not admit to it; then I might not pay him another $2000.00 to fix my current, painful problem. But even if the original decay were my fault - for not brushing my teeth after every meal, for not flossing every day of my life, for growing up before water was routinely flouridated, for generally not being perfect, he was supposed to have fixed it - didn't I really pay him so I would have one less thing to worry about?
Of course, I know there is not enough money printed by the US government, not enough diamonds mined by unscrupulous men, not enough gold in all the mouths that have ever trusted dentists for relief to remedy the creeping decay I live with, to remove the curse under which I was born. Floss, flouride, sugar-free gum can only retard the process which causes us to fade like the late summer blooms in my garden. The lovely red spikes have nearly all fallen off the proud bee balm that the hummingbirds adored, the few bright orange lilies which we did not eat in a wonderful salad last week are shriveling, their once satin-smooth petals are puckered and distorted. Jesus encouraged his disciples to consider the lilies of the field in their prime - more glorious than Solomon in his riches, but Isaiah also reminds us that after their brief glory they fade, and then disappear. Even the place where they bloomed so brightly remembers them no more. They are simply gone. Withered hath grass, faded the flower, For the Spirit of Jehovah blew upon it, Surely the people is grass reads Young's literal translation of Ecclesiastes.
Still, I will wend my hopeful way to the endodontist next week for another temporary fix. But I won't expect too much. I know it's only a matter of time.
Then I've spent some of the painful night watches wondering whose fault this is - mine or the dentist's. I always feel that blame must be assigned, though I don't always know where to deposit it. I suspect the dentist did not do his job when I paid him the $1700.00 to repair a single tooth, but I am sure he will not admit to it; then I might not pay him another $2000.00 to fix my current, painful problem. But even if the original decay were my fault - for not brushing my teeth after every meal, for not flossing every day of my life, for growing up before water was routinely flouridated, for generally not being perfect, he was supposed to have fixed it - didn't I really pay him so I would have one less thing to worry about?
Of course, I know there is not enough money printed by the US government, not enough diamonds mined by unscrupulous men, not enough gold in all the mouths that have ever trusted dentists for relief to remedy the creeping decay I live with, to remove the curse under which I was born. Floss, flouride, sugar-free gum can only retard the process which causes us to fade like the late summer blooms in my garden. The lovely red spikes have nearly all fallen off the proud bee balm that the hummingbirds adored, the few bright orange lilies which we did not eat in a wonderful salad last week are shriveling, their once satin-smooth petals are puckered and distorted. Jesus encouraged his disciples to consider the lilies of the field in their prime - more glorious than Solomon in his riches, but Isaiah also reminds us that after their brief glory they fade, and then disappear. Even the place where they bloomed so brightly remembers them no more. They are simply gone. Withered hath grass, faded the flower, For the Spirit of Jehovah blew upon it, Surely the people is grass reads Young's literal translation of Ecclesiastes.
Still, I will wend my hopeful way to the endodontist next week for another temporary fix. But I won't expect too much. I know it's only a matter of time.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Is anybody still out there?
It's been a long time since I wrote anything. I'm not sure why. I would like to become a more disciplined writer, writing whether I feel like it or not, but I'm clearly not there. For some reason my muse departed last year and hasn't been seen in quite a while.
I plan to start writing again, though perhaps in a different vein. I've chosen a new template color to mark this new episode. Kevin and I are in the last stages of a homestudy in preparation to adopt a sibling group from Ethiopia. Adoption is something we've talked and prayed about for years, but never seemed to be in the right place for, either because of our finances or our life situation. Finally we feel like we have a green light. Strangely, it comes when we have three kids in college. Our finances are still stretched very tight, and our kids have had to give up the private college educations we dreamed about for years - they are at UNH and River Valley Community College, not Wheaton or Boston College. But God has given us the money to begin the process, and we finally have some free bedroom space in the house!
So, I want to chronicle the process as we walk through it, and keep anyone who cares to read about it informed. I actually began my blogging today by trying to add a Paypal button to my sidebar so anyone who cared a lot could help with the cost of bringing two or three orphans to our waiting home, but I was not able to make it work. I had mixed feelings about asking for financial help, anyway, so maybe I'll pursue that elusive button, and maybe I won't!
I plan to start writing again, though perhaps in a different vein. I've chosen a new template color to mark this new episode. Kevin and I are in the last stages of a homestudy in preparation to adopt a sibling group from Ethiopia. Adoption is something we've talked and prayed about for years, but never seemed to be in the right place for, either because of our finances or our life situation. Finally we feel like we have a green light. Strangely, it comes when we have three kids in college. Our finances are still stretched very tight, and our kids have had to give up the private college educations we dreamed about for years - they are at UNH and River Valley Community College, not Wheaton or Boston College. But God has given us the money to begin the process, and we finally have some free bedroom space in the house!
So, I want to chronicle the process as we walk through it, and keep anyone who cares to read about it informed. I actually began my blogging today by trying to add a Paypal button to my sidebar so anyone who cared a lot could help with the cost of bringing two or three orphans to our waiting home, but I was not able to make it work. I had mixed feelings about asking for financial help, anyway, so maybe I'll pursue that elusive button, and maybe I won't!
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Ignoring the warning light
We own a fleet of old cars. Now that we have three and a half college and high school drivers we have four and a half old cars in our driveway. We've always driven geriatric cars, not because we are particularly fond of them, but because we don't like car payments. And maybe also because my husband likes an automotive challenge. Maybe that's the real reason; I'm not sure.
When I first met K he was driving a lime green Chevy Vega. The car was being rapidly eaten away by leprous rust and sometimes lost body parts en route. I remember one weekend when he was traveling home from college along a Midwestern interstate he lost a fender. He carefully stashed it behind some underbrush, noted the mile marker and picked it up on the return trip. It later miraculously reappeared on the car. He was a wonder-worker. Maybe that's the real reason I married him; I'm not sure.
When I first met K he was driving a lime green Chevy Vega. The car was being rapidly eaten away by leprous rust and sometimes lost body parts en route. I remember one weekend when he was traveling home from college along a Midwestern interstate he lost a fender. He carefully stashed it behind some underbrush, noted the mile marker and picked it up on the return trip. It later miraculously reappeared on the car. He was a wonder-worker. Maybe that's the real reason I married him; I'm not sure.
Over the years he has has kept a huge assortment of vehicles running, sometimes in very creative ways. We've had cars we had to drive with the heat on full blast - in summer- when the temperature guage began to rise. We've had cars that had to be started with a screwdriver wedged in a particular spot under the hood; we owned that car when I was eight months pregnant and could barely fit behind the wheel, never mind under the hood. In our first year of marriage when we were living on love instead of money we had a tire that went flat every night and had to be pumped up every morning with a bicycle pump. In recent years we've had numerous cars in which the Check Engine light stayed permanently on - at least until it was time for inspection.
My husband still does most of the fleet maintenance work himself and is a first class diagnostician. Click and Clack have nothing on him, other than their fabulous Boston accents and their incredibly annoying wheezy laughter. I can't begin to count the times I've called my husband, sometimes from the other side of the world, to describe a symptom or a sound and he's told me almost immediately what the problem is and what to do about it. So if he says I can ignore a rattle, a clank or a warning light I do.
For the past few months I've been ignoring the Check Engine or Service Engine light in two of our cars - the van I usually drive and my husband's Saab which I sometimes use on the weekend. K has determined they are both false alarms and should not be taken seriously. It's amazing how little time it took for the once-disturbing light to fade from my conscious notice, and to eventually become nearly invisible to me. It is as much a part of the normal dashboard landscape now as the fuel guage or the odometer. Just a friendly little message glowing quietly amongst the lighted guages.
Yesterday, however, I felt the consequence of ignoring a warning light. The Check Engine light is on the lower right side of my dashboard display, just above the ignition, just below the fuel guage, just to the right of the speedometer. That quadrant is also home to an additional warning light which reads Check Guages. Those two seemingly innocuous words are often the first clue that something is wrong that needs immediate attention. The lettering style, the lighting, the color of the two Check warnings is identical, and they appear right next to each other. I discovered I had become so used to not heeding the one warning, that I didn't even notice the other until I heard that suspicious tapping noise that even I know means the oil level is dangerously low. Not till that moment did I notice the glowing words, Check Guages right next to Check Engine.
How long had the second warning light been on? I really don't know, but I suspect it was probably there when I drove the car earlier in the day, maybe as early as the previous day. I, however, had become so accustomed to ignoring the fatuous Check Engine light that I treated the new warning with the same indifference. I had successfully quieted the alarm I would normally feel when a glowing message appeared on my dash. I had turned down the volume, shut off the smoke alarm, ignored the warning signs - to my own peril.
Thank God I stopped driving in time. Thank God that three quarts of oil delivered by my favorite mechanic solved the problem. Thank God the van purred happily when I next turned the key. But things could have ended disastrously. And yes, there is a lesson. There always is. I remembered a verse from my youth that saved me from moral or financial dangers on more than one occasion, Proverbs 27:12. A prudent man sees danger and takes refuge, but the foolish continue on and are punished for it.
God puts lots of warning lights in our lives. Sometimes they flash glaringly in front of us, but just as often they appear more subtly, in the corner of our minds, at the edge of our vision, part of the display of our busy lives. We can train ourselves to heed each warning and take its caution to heart, or we can ignore the little lights and keep driving. What would the prudent man do?
The Grace of Forgetting
I was remembering this morning some dear friends we knew in another life - or so it seems. I was remembering what wonderful, kind, selfless friends they were to us, and how unworthy I sometimes felt of their friendship. So much of the initiative in our relationship always seemed to come from them. I was busy, jealous of my solitude, needing always to plan ahead rather than do something on the spur of the moment. It gives me a bit of a pang now that they are far away and can never call and say "We're in your neighborhood. Can we stop by in five minutes?" Then I remembered a time when God allowed us to help them out of a financial bind - something I had honestly forgotten. I felt grateful that we had been able to contribute that gift to the friendship, but I found I could not remember the amount, or even much about the occasion, or if it happened only once or more than once. . . . and I was grateful for the grace of forgetting.
God, the Omniscient, the Beginning and End, the Ever Present actually talks a lot about forgetting in the Holy Scriptures. He promises that He will remember our sins no more, through the Apostle Paul he urges us to forget those things which lie behind. He blots things out like the record of transgressions against us, He casts things into the deepest sea, presumably meaning He is not going to consider them any longer. The saying, "out of sight, out of mind" could have come from the mouth of God. God's intentional forgetfulness, if it can be called that, is a wonderful grace.
These days I fret often over difficulties remembering where I parked my car, or where I left my keys. While I feel chagrined and a bit panicky when I cannot remember someone's name - we fifty-somethings all know where this is heading - I realized this morning that forgetting is not always a bad thing. It is good to forget about good deeds we may have had the chance to perform, not to rest upon our laurels. It is even better to forget about offenses or slights we may have endured. It is an amazing blessing to look into the face of someone who has hurt us deeply and not remember the former pain, but only feel the pleasure of the present fellowship. Sometimes it is better to forget than to remember.
Of course there are things which should never be forgotten - the faithfulness of God, the many ways God has led us and provided for us, the calories in the bowl of ice cream I already ate this afternoon. Just as there is a time for every purpose under heaven there are times and occasions for both remembering and forgetting. Wisdom comes in knowing the difference.
God, the Omniscient, the Beginning and End, the Ever Present actually talks a lot about forgetting in the Holy Scriptures. He promises that He will remember our sins no more, through the Apostle Paul he urges us to forget those things which lie behind. He blots things out like the record of transgressions against us, He casts things into the deepest sea, presumably meaning He is not going to consider them any longer. The saying, "out of sight, out of mind" could have come from the mouth of God. God's intentional forgetfulness, if it can be called that, is a wonderful grace.
These days I fret often over difficulties remembering where I parked my car, or where I left my keys. While I feel chagrined and a bit panicky when I cannot remember someone's name - we fifty-somethings all know where this is heading - I realized this morning that forgetting is not always a bad thing. It is good to forget about good deeds we may have had the chance to perform, not to rest upon our laurels. It is even better to forget about offenses or slights we may have endured. It is an amazing blessing to look into the face of someone who has hurt us deeply and not remember the former pain, but only feel the pleasure of the present fellowship. Sometimes it is better to forget than to remember.
Of course there are things which should never be forgotten - the faithfulness of God, the many ways God has led us and provided for us, the calories in the bowl of ice cream I already ate this afternoon. Just as there is a time for every purpose under heaven there are times and occasions for both remembering and forgetting. Wisdom comes in knowing the difference.
Monday, April 06, 2009
Harbingers of Spring
I wrote this post in February. It sat in my box for a while waiting for me to get to the crust part, but I've moved on to other metaphors now that spring is here! So, I'll just post my musings on icicles, rather belatedly.
Two metaphors have been skirting around the edge of my thoughts these days – icicles and crusts. February is the month of icicles here in northern New England. Old colonial houses with steeply pitched roofs abound, and the snowfall this year has been generous. For weeks snow piles up on the roofs and in the gutters, biding its time till a sunny day. February’s skies are bright blue after January’s gun metal expanse, and the snow begins to soften and then to drip. The sun is deceptively warm, but the air is still cold. The combination makes for icicles which lengthen during the sunny days and harden in the cold, dark nights.
Some roofs look like they have grown sharp fangs overnight, the rows of closely spaced icicles fringing the roof like shark’s teeth. Others are more elegant and assymetrical, long, thick sharp sabres alternating with shorter, more delicate points. My children love to watch the roof across the street and make forays into the yard when the owner is not home to harvest her icicles. Sometimes they have short lived sword fights with them, more often they bring them home to the freezer to try to extend their natural life span. They coexist in the dark with bags of peas and ice cream cartons until someone, usually me, tosses them out to break on the porch.
Suddenly in February the public signs which have been ignored all summer and fall – Caution, Falling Ice- begin to have portent. Parking too near the edge of a building could have serious consequences during February. We park, drive and walk at our own risk during these bright days which lure us outside. Icicles are at once the harbingers of spring and the reminders that winter is not over.
Some days I feel like an icicle. I can melt, or be melted, by the misfortune of others, by the needs I encounter all around me, by a friend’s pain or a husband’s struggle, but my heart can harden again just as easily. I wish for it to be always spring in my heart, but I am stuck in February, I fear. I weep, but then I forget what I’ve seen, I feel touched by the feeling of another’s infirmity, but I don’t stay soft; I slip back into the icy shadows of my own wants and needs and cares, the cold darkness of my own night. My heart so easily hardens toward others and I am sharp and brittle and frozen solid. The cycle of melting, hardening, melting and hardening seems to go on forever. I know when I look at the calendar that sometime soon the icicles will melt away for good, that mud season will inevitably overtake winter. But when I look at my heart I cannot predict spring so infallibly. Though I ache for spring, though I drip in anticipation, winter could be here for a long time. For good if I let it.
Two metaphors have been skirting around the edge of my thoughts these days – icicles and crusts. February is the month of icicles here in northern New England. Old colonial houses with steeply pitched roofs abound, and the snowfall this year has been generous. For weeks snow piles up on the roofs and in the gutters, biding its time till a sunny day. February’s skies are bright blue after January’s gun metal expanse, and the snow begins to soften and then to drip. The sun is deceptively warm, but the air is still cold. The combination makes for icicles which lengthen during the sunny days and harden in the cold, dark nights.
Some roofs look like they have grown sharp fangs overnight, the rows of closely spaced icicles fringing the roof like shark’s teeth. Others are more elegant and assymetrical, long, thick sharp sabres alternating with shorter, more delicate points. My children love to watch the roof across the street and make forays into the yard when the owner is not home to harvest her icicles. Sometimes they have short lived sword fights with them, more often they bring them home to the freezer to try to extend their natural life span. They coexist in the dark with bags of peas and ice cream cartons until someone, usually me, tosses them out to break on the porch.
Suddenly in February the public signs which have been ignored all summer and fall – Caution, Falling Ice- begin to have portent. Parking too near the edge of a building could have serious consequences during February. We park, drive and walk at our own risk during these bright days which lure us outside. Icicles are at once the harbingers of spring and the reminders that winter is not over.
Some days I feel like an icicle. I can melt, or be melted, by the misfortune of others, by the needs I encounter all around me, by a friend’s pain or a husband’s struggle, but my heart can harden again just as easily. I wish for it to be always spring in my heart, but I am stuck in February, I fear. I weep, but then I forget what I’ve seen, I feel touched by the feeling of another’s infirmity, but I don’t stay soft; I slip back into the icy shadows of my own wants and needs and cares, the cold darkness of my own night. My heart so easily hardens toward others and I am sharp and brittle and frozen solid. The cycle of melting, hardening, melting and hardening seems to go on forever. I know when I look at the calendar that sometime soon the icicles will melt away for good, that mud season will inevitably overtake winter. But when I look at my heart I cannot predict spring so infallibly. Though I ache for spring, though I drip in anticipation, winter could be here for a long time. For good if I let it.
Sunday, April 05, 2009
Redemption, recycling and Bernie Madoff
My daughter and I were discussing the indictment and guilty plea of Bernie Madoff a few weeks ago. I heard a commentator on NPR express the near certainty that Madoff would "spend the rest of his life in prison." I expressed my own opinion that such a penalty is meaningless - completely unrelated to the crime, unlikely to do anything to either help the victims of the crime or to restore the perpetrator. I think the same could be said of 90 percent of the prison sentences handed down in US courts. A small percentage of the 1 in 40 adults incarcerated in the US are truly dangerous and need to be locked away, but we can't seem to think of anything else to do with lawbreakers, so they all end up wasting their own time and taxpayers' money.
My daughter made a very perceptive comment at that point. She said, "You know, our society isn't really into redemption at all. Not in any arena. We don't redeem people, we don't recycle goods, we don't reclaim wasted food, we don't redeem our time." I think she cut right to the heart of the matter.
So we began to talk about whether those things are related - is our attitude toward criminal justice really related to our handling of our trash? Do our buying habits and our leisure time activities say anything about our worldviews? Could you predict someone's attitude toward crime and punishment based on whether they have a recycling bin in their kitchen? Well, maybe not, but then again, maybe so.
My daughter posited that most of us have just become lazy. We all tend to do what is easiest, unless we have a compelling reason or belief that makes us choose the road less traveled. Our phenomenal affluence has coincided with the loss of any understanding of the value of and the need for redemption. We Americans have become so accustomed to throwing things away instead of fixing them, to tossing out the leftovers (or, in my case, letting them rot in the refrigerator for three weeks and then tossing them out), to filling our trash cans and our prisons with the things and the people we don't want to keep around anymore, rather than doing the hard work of redeeming them, making them into useful products or useful citizens. Maybe it's not a coincidence at all that our landfills and our prisons are both burgeoning.
As Christians we claim to walk as Jesus walked. We hold up the life of Christ as our role model. More than that, we stake our lives on the truth of His redemptive life and death. His sole purpose in His earthly life was to redeem that which had become soiled and ruined by sin. His life and death demonstrated the enormous value of redeeming what would otherwise be lost. He was willing to die to do the hard work of redemption.
We have the opportunity every day as individuals and as members of society to model a redemptive lifestyle or a careless one. We can demonstrate for our children and our neighbors the virtues of reclaiming and renewing things and persons that are soiled and damaged by use or by sin, that may look as if they have no usefulness left in them. Or we can teach them to toss them away as so much garbage - paper, plastic, aluminum and people.
My daughter made a very perceptive comment at that point. She said, "You know, our society isn't really into redemption at all. Not in any arena. We don't redeem people, we don't recycle goods, we don't reclaim wasted food, we don't redeem our time." I think she cut right to the heart of the matter.
So we began to talk about whether those things are related - is our attitude toward criminal justice really related to our handling of our trash? Do our buying habits and our leisure time activities say anything about our worldviews? Could you predict someone's attitude toward crime and punishment based on whether they have a recycling bin in their kitchen? Well, maybe not, but then again, maybe so.
My daughter posited that most of us have just become lazy. We all tend to do what is easiest, unless we have a compelling reason or belief that makes us choose the road less traveled. Our phenomenal affluence has coincided with the loss of any understanding of the value of and the need for redemption. We Americans have become so accustomed to throwing things away instead of fixing them, to tossing out the leftovers (or, in my case, letting them rot in the refrigerator for three weeks and then tossing them out), to filling our trash cans and our prisons with the things and the people we don't want to keep around anymore, rather than doing the hard work of redeeming them, making them into useful products or useful citizens. Maybe it's not a coincidence at all that our landfills and our prisons are both burgeoning.
As Christians we claim to walk as Jesus walked. We hold up the life of Christ as our role model. More than that, we stake our lives on the truth of His redemptive life and death. His sole purpose in His earthly life was to redeem that which had become soiled and ruined by sin. His life and death demonstrated the enormous value of redeeming what would otherwise be lost. He was willing to die to do the hard work of redemption.
We have the opportunity every day as individuals and as members of society to model a redemptive lifestyle or a careless one. We can demonstrate for our children and our neighbors the virtues of reclaiming and renewing things and persons that are soiled and damaged by use or by sin, that may look as if they have no usefulness left in them. Or we can teach them to toss them away as so much garbage - paper, plastic, aluminum and people.
Friday, April 03, 2009
Matters of taste
One of the many unfortunate physical changes that occurs as you get older is that your skin grows thinner. Last summer my Mom was telling me how easily her skin tears these days, and, I have to admit, even at my age I have noticed not-so-subtle changes in the texture of my skin. I think it is particularly cruel that this kind of thing should happen just when you seem to need a thicker skin - when your kids grow up. Most of my children have moved way beyond the stage in life where Mom is beautiful, wise and always right. All of them have moved beyond the stage where Mom knows anything about clothes, music or youtube. Even though I know they are probably right, I still forget sometimes.
I have (almost) finally stopped trying to buy any items of clothing for my daughters, with the possible exception of white sports socks. (I don't always get those right, but I have an 11 year old who will still wear just about any style for basketball practice. I know my days are numbered with her.) My older girls have been very kind to me for years. Countless times I have pulled something out of a shopping bag with a "Ta-da" flourish only to hear them demur, "Oh, Mom, that's really interesting." "OK, maybe I could try that." "That's really nice, but I'm not sure if it will fit; you know how ridiculous I am about how things fit." Later they try to slip them out the back door in opaque bags bound for a local charity so I might not notice. Nice girls.
It's not that I'm completely clueless about my fashion weaknesses. I admit I just don't notice the subtle differences between brands and cuts of jeans; I can never remember which backpocket designs are OK and which are anathema. It's one of my blind spots. And I know, too, that vintage finds that I think are fabulous, that make me exclaim, "Oh, I would definitely wear this if I were 20 again" will never interest my girls unless it happens to be October 31. I do understand a few things. But I thought I could still do an adequate job of choosing my own wardrobe. Apparently not.
One Sunday last month I arrived downstairs ready for church only to hear my fourteen year old say, "Mom, that outfit looks like it came from "What Not to Wear." Seeing she had hurt my tender fashion feelings she quickly backtracked with, "No, no! I meant what they choose for the woman to wear, not what she started out in," but I got the point. My eldest son arrived home from college for spring break a few weeks ago. He gave me a big, warm hug and then stepped back for an appraising look. "Mom, are you wearing your wampum around your neck?" he asked when he noticed the new necklace I had just bought to make a bold statement. Wampum was not the look I'd had in mind.
I take some comfort from the knowledge that I am not wandering all alone in the fashion wasteland of midlife. I was discussing skinny jeans with one of my age cohort a few months ago. I mentioned my girls had frowned disapprovingly when I casually brought them up in conversation. They shook their heads and murmured things I could not quite hear, but could not misunderstand. My friend confided that her daughters had gasped, "Mom, don't even think about it" when she eyed their Ugg boots with more than cursory interest.
I can still remember my own mother's fashion faux pas when I was young and cool, like her stiffly sprayed hair that was refreshed once a week at the salon. In spite of her best efforts to sleep carefully for the next six days it became flatter and more misshapen as the week wore on. You could pretty much tell which day each of her friends had her regular appointment by the state of their hives. That was 1972. I also remember her picking out "cute" things for me that I would not consider going to bed in, much less wearing to school. I remember the myriad ways I had of saying "Are you kidding?" so it sounded more like, "I think I have enough clothes to last me for the next three years, but thanks anyway." And I remember my relief when my mother eventually stopped buying me clothes, though I missed the moment of excitement I used to feel between the announcement, "I got you something great!" and the unveiling of the actual item.
So, I should not be surprised to find that I have reached the same stage in life. It was inevitable. I should not feel like a complete failure just because I will never get a job as a fashion consultant to anyone under thirty - really, for anyone at all. The wisdom which comes with age doesn't have much to do with taste, I guess. I should probably turn my energies to other pursuits, like growing a thicker skin.
I have (almost) finally stopped trying to buy any items of clothing for my daughters, with the possible exception of white sports socks. (I don't always get those right, but I have an 11 year old who will still wear just about any style for basketball practice. I know my days are numbered with her.) My older girls have been very kind to me for years. Countless times I have pulled something out of a shopping bag with a "Ta-da" flourish only to hear them demur, "Oh, Mom, that's really interesting." "OK, maybe I could try that." "That's really nice, but I'm not sure if it will fit; you know how ridiculous I am about how things fit." Later they try to slip them out the back door in opaque bags bound for a local charity so I might not notice. Nice girls.
It's not that I'm completely clueless about my fashion weaknesses. I admit I just don't notice the subtle differences between brands and cuts of jeans; I can never remember which backpocket designs are OK and which are anathema. It's one of my blind spots. And I know, too, that vintage finds that I think are fabulous, that make me exclaim, "Oh, I would definitely wear this if I were 20 again" will never interest my girls unless it happens to be October 31. I do understand a few things. But I thought I could still do an adequate job of choosing my own wardrobe. Apparently not.
One Sunday last month I arrived downstairs ready for church only to hear my fourteen year old say, "Mom, that outfit looks like it came from "What Not to Wear." Seeing she had hurt my tender fashion feelings she quickly backtracked with, "No, no! I meant what they choose for the woman to wear, not what she started out in," but I got the point. My eldest son arrived home from college for spring break a few weeks ago. He gave me a big, warm hug and then stepped back for an appraising look. "Mom, are you wearing your wampum around your neck?" he asked when he noticed the new necklace I had just bought to make a bold statement. Wampum was not the look I'd had in mind.
I take some comfort from the knowledge that I am not wandering all alone in the fashion wasteland of midlife. I was discussing skinny jeans with one of my age cohort a few months ago. I mentioned my girls had frowned disapprovingly when I casually brought them up in conversation. They shook their heads and murmured things I could not quite hear, but could not misunderstand. My friend confided that her daughters had gasped, "Mom, don't even think about it" when she eyed their Ugg boots with more than cursory interest.
I can still remember my own mother's fashion faux pas when I was young and cool, like her stiffly sprayed hair that was refreshed once a week at the salon. In spite of her best efforts to sleep carefully for the next six days it became flatter and more misshapen as the week wore on. You could pretty much tell which day each of her friends had her regular appointment by the state of their hives. That was 1972. I also remember her picking out "cute" things for me that I would not consider going to bed in, much less wearing to school. I remember the myriad ways I had of saying "Are you kidding?" so it sounded more like, "I think I have enough clothes to last me for the next three years, but thanks anyway." And I remember my relief when my mother eventually stopped buying me clothes, though I missed the moment of excitement I used to feel between the announcement, "I got you something great!" and the unveiling of the actual item.
So, I should not be surprised to find that I have reached the same stage in life. It was inevitable. I should not feel like a complete failure just because I will never get a job as a fashion consultant to anyone under thirty - really, for anyone at all. The wisdom which comes with age doesn't have much to do with taste, I guess. I should probably turn my energies to other pursuits, like growing a thicker skin.
Friday, January 23, 2009
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.
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.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
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.
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.
Friday, January 09, 2009
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
Thursday, January 08, 2009
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?
***************************************
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?
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."
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?
***************************************
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?
******************************************
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."
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
"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.
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.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
short days and long nights in new hampshire
This is one of those northern New England days when it 's hard to believe the sun is shining anywhere. At 7:30 the sun has not shown its face yet. The steady drizzle and low hanging clouds make my headlights necessary, but the lights do little to illuminate the scene. The lovely yellow and red leaves that carpeted the ground the last few weeks have turned brown and slick and heavy in the rain. I try to remember the hot sun of my last two years living in the tropics, but it seems more like a different planet than a different hemisphere. I feel sure the sun is not shining anywhere real this morning.
We have entered the refrigerator season in our house. I have an unheated pantry off my kitchen in our 1796 colonial house. In the summer I use it for canned goods and baking supplies, but in the spring and fall it doubles as a cooler. Extra jugs of milk, blocks of cheese, eggs and even leftovers from dinner share the shelves with soup and crackers. Already, however, I need to remember not to leave anything that might be damaged by freezing in there; we have already had two heavy frosts and it's only a matter of days till the pantry becomes a deepfreeze overnight.
My seven year old became accustomed to the unchanging rhythm of life on the equator and is confused by the dark mornings and darker evenings. As each day starts later and ends earlier than the last she is never sure of the time. She arrives downstairs in the morning with her thoughts as tangled as her hair. "Is it really early? Should I go back to bed?" And on the other end of the day she wonders, "Why are we eating so late?" when she looks up from her play to see that the sun is gone.
I vividly remember the first year we lived this far north. This was our dream house, our dream place where we would raise our brood of children in pastoral bliss, with a huge maple in front of the ancient homestead, the sound of a waterfall just outside the kitchen door. We moved in during the deceptively lovely first week of October. The sun was shining, the trees were still hung with brightly colored leaves, the nights were crisp, but not unnaturally long.
By November first, nearly half our waking hours were spent in darkness. I drove dark, winding country roads, still unfamiliar to me, to do my grocery shopping in the middle of the night, leaving my husband to clear off the dinner table from what had begun as an early dinner, but must have gotten caught in some kind of timewarp and ended at what was surely midnight. I remember pushing my cart through the fluorescent light of the market, fighting the nausea of an early pregnancy, and emerging into the cold, dark of winter come too early.
I learned in subsequent years to welcome the early dark, to enjoy gathering my family together in the circle of light that was our kitchen table, eating comforting winter foods and warming our hands with mugs of coffee or cocoa afterwards. I learned to find pleasure in the way my body gradually warmed to the task of a brisk walk on a biting cold day, eventually breaking a sweat under the many layers I peeled off one by one. I remembered from my own childhood the smell of wet wool after sledding and came to tolerate, at least, the mountains of wet coats and mittens and scarves and boots that dominated my kitchen for three or four months. I grew to really love the darkest time of the year right around Christmas, when the lights of the tree made the darkness feel like a blanket around our family, drawing us together in a warm, bright corner of the deep, dark universe.
I need to learn those things again this year, to treat my sojourn here like a long marriage, reminding myself of the things that drew me here in the first place, what I found enchanting and endearing when we were new to each other, this place and I. I suspect it may take some work, some intention on my part, but I'm willing to try. Bring on the snow. . . . just not quite yet.
We have entered the refrigerator season in our house. I have an unheated pantry off my kitchen in our 1796 colonial house. In the summer I use it for canned goods and baking supplies, but in the spring and fall it doubles as a cooler. Extra jugs of milk, blocks of cheese, eggs and even leftovers from dinner share the shelves with soup and crackers. Already, however, I need to remember not to leave anything that might be damaged by freezing in there; we have already had two heavy frosts and it's only a matter of days till the pantry becomes a deepfreeze overnight.
My seven year old became accustomed to the unchanging rhythm of life on the equator and is confused by the dark mornings and darker evenings. As each day starts later and ends earlier than the last she is never sure of the time. She arrives downstairs in the morning with her thoughts as tangled as her hair. "Is it really early? Should I go back to bed?" And on the other end of the day she wonders, "Why are we eating so late?" when she looks up from her play to see that the sun is gone.
I vividly remember the first year we lived this far north. This was our dream house, our dream place where we would raise our brood of children in pastoral bliss, with a huge maple in front of the ancient homestead, the sound of a waterfall just outside the kitchen door. We moved in during the deceptively lovely first week of October. The sun was shining, the trees were still hung with brightly colored leaves, the nights were crisp, but not unnaturally long.
By November first, nearly half our waking hours were spent in darkness. I drove dark, winding country roads, still unfamiliar to me, to do my grocery shopping in the middle of the night, leaving my husband to clear off the dinner table from what had begun as an early dinner, but must have gotten caught in some kind of timewarp and ended at what was surely midnight. I remember pushing my cart through the fluorescent light of the market, fighting the nausea of an early pregnancy, and emerging into the cold, dark of winter come too early.
I learned in subsequent years to welcome the early dark, to enjoy gathering my family together in the circle of light that was our kitchen table, eating comforting winter foods and warming our hands with mugs of coffee or cocoa afterwards. I learned to find pleasure in the way my body gradually warmed to the task of a brisk walk on a biting cold day, eventually breaking a sweat under the many layers I peeled off one by one. I remembered from my own childhood the smell of wet wool after sledding and came to tolerate, at least, the mountains of wet coats and mittens and scarves and boots that dominated my kitchen for three or four months. I grew to really love the darkest time of the year right around Christmas, when the lights of the tree made the darkness feel like a blanket around our family, drawing us together in a warm, bright corner of the deep, dark universe.
I need to learn those things again this year, to treat my sojourn here like a long marriage, reminding myself of the things that drew me here in the first place, what I found enchanting and endearing when we were new to each other, this place and I. I suspect it may take some work, some intention on my part, but I'm willing to try. Bring on the snow. . . . just not quite yet.
Monday, September 29, 2008
My Life as a Dog
I have been reading the Old Testament stories to my seven year old at bedtime. It's our second time through this year. First we read the ancient and venerable Hurlbut's Story of the Bible, now we are reading the more modern and poetic prose of Walter Wangerin's Bible for Children. The stories are the same but her questions, like God's mercies, are new every morning (or evening). Today it was, "Does God have a really bad temper?" Not a bad question, actually, though one I've not asked for a while, having learned the "right" answer years ago and never revisited the problem. She has also wondered whether God is actually selfish – “Why does He always want everybody to praise Him?” Some of these are quite challenging to field at bedtime when my critical faculties have already shut down for the day. But another question which I have thought about more recently is, "Why do the Israelites keep going away from God?”
As a child I was also puzzled by the Israelites. I did not understand why they never seemed to learn, why they committed the same sins over and over again, why they seemed to have such short memories. I heard sermons on verses like Hebrews 3:9and 10, "Your fathers tested and tried me and for forty years saw what I did. That is why I was angry with that generation, and I said, 'Their hearts are always going astray, and they have not known my ways.'" Or Psalm 78: 21-32, "In spite of all this, they kept on sinning; in spite of his wonders, they did not believe. " Even more damning was verse 36, "But they deceived Him with their mouth And lied to Him with their tongue. For their heart was not right with him, neither were they steadfast in his covenant." "What was wrong with them?" I wondered.
Now, however, having lived longer than the Israelites wandered in the wilderness, I understand them all too well. I used to to try to justify myself to myself, noting the differences between me and the Old Testament sinners. I used to think, “If God spoke to me in an audible voice. . . .” or “If I saw the water gush from the rock, if I had waded through the stinking quail carcasses, if I had seen the Egyptians utterly destroyed in the water of the Red Sea, then I would not find it so hard to be faithful, so easy to stray.” But I don’t buy my own excuses anymore. I know the truth of Jesus words that “even if one came back from the dead” it would make no difference.
“Prone to wander, Lord I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love” is the theme song of my life. And while I understand the fickle Israelites better than I did as a child, I still do not fully understand the mysteries of my own heart. When I think of all the loves of my life I wonder if there is any other relationship like the one I have with God. It seems to be utterly unique in my experience. What other relationship is such a mixture of love and wandering, desiring intimacy but requiring vigilance? Is there anyone else I say I love, or even want to love, but continually walk away from, deceive, hide from or ignore? I don’t think so.
As I puzzled over this, I found myself remembering a dog we had years ago. He was a Golden Retriever who loved us passionately. He obviously spent all day every day longing for our return; he tore down walls (literally) to be near us during thunderstorms. He mourned when we left him and rejoiced when we returned. Yet, through it all, he kept his eye on the open road. He became a master at opening the backyard gate. He was incredibly devious; he could look innocent as a lamb lying at your feet on the porch, but the minute your attention was diverted he'd be down the steps and around the first corner he could find. If you caught him in the attempt he would switch gears real fast and try to look like he was just stretching his legs or changing positions. We knew, however, he was really just biding his time till the next chance. Afterwards, he was always so happy to be found - at the pound, on the front stoop of a house miles away, or sometimes, hot and tired and panting, on his own porch. The day after an escape he'd stay close to home, tired and hungry and content, but the wanderlust would always return. I know the feeling.
The Old Testament reading Sunday was from Psalm 32. One verse caught my attention: "Don't be like the horse, or like the mule, which have no understanding, who are controlled by bit and bridle, or else they will not come near to you." At first I thought God was giving the general caution, "do not be like a beast" and I worried about my canine soul, but I believe He is singling out stubborn animals who can only be controlled by force rather than love. God Himself has, in another place, reminded us that it is the goodness of God that leads us to repentance, that while we are indeed like foolish, wayward animals, He is the Good Master who welcomes us home again and again. Like an old hymn says, "Perverse and foolish oft I strayed, But yet in love he sought me, And on his shoulder gently laid, And home rejoicing brought me. "
Probably none of this would make sense to seven year old Ivy, who is still wondering why the Israelites kept disobeying God. I can only trust that if God gives her the grace to become one of his flock she will, one day, understand. For now, maybe we should buy a dog.
As a child I was also puzzled by the Israelites. I did not understand why they never seemed to learn, why they committed the same sins over and over again, why they seemed to have such short memories. I heard sermons on verses like Hebrews 3:9and 10, "Your fathers tested and tried me and for forty years saw what I did. That is why I was angry with that generation, and I said, 'Their hearts are always going astray, and they have not known my ways.'" Or Psalm 78: 21-32, "In spite of all this, they kept on sinning; in spite of his wonders, they did not believe. " Even more damning was verse 36, "But they deceived Him with their mouth And lied to Him with their tongue. For their heart was not right with him, neither were they steadfast in his covenant." "What was wrong with them?" I wondered.
Now, however, having lived longer than the Israelites wandered in the wilderness, I understand them all too well. I used to to try to justify myself to myself, noting the differences between me and the Old Testament sinners. I used to think, “If God spoke to me in an audible voice. . . .” or “If I saw the water gush from the rock, if I had waded through the stinking quail carcasses, if I had seen the Egyptians utterly destroyed in the water of the Red Sea, then I would not find it so hard to be faithful, so easy to stray.” But I don’t buy my own excuses anymore. I know the truth of Jesus words that “even if one came back from the dead” it would make no difference.
“Prone to wander, Lord I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love” is the theme song of my life. And while I understand the fickle Israelites better than I did as a child, I still do not fully understand the mysteries of my own heart. When I think of all the loves of my life I wonder if there is any other relationship like the one I have with God. It seems to be utterly unique in my experience. What other relationship is such a mixture of love and wandering, desiring intimacy but requiring vigilance? Is there anyone else I say I love, or even want to love, but continually walk away from, deceive, hide from or ignore? I don’t think so.
As I puzzled over this, I found myself remembering a dog we had years ago. He was a Golden Retriever who loved us passionately. He obviously spent all day every day longing for our return; he tore down walls (literally) to be near us during thunderstorms. He mourned when we left him and rejoiced when we returned. Yet, through it all, he kept his eye on the open road. He became a master at opening the backyard gate. He was incredibly devious; he could look innocent as a lamb lying at your feet on the porch, but the minute your attention was diverted he'd be down the steps and around the first corner he could find. If you caught him in the attempt he would switch gears real fast and try to look like he was just stretching his legs or changing positions. We knew, however, he was really just biding his time till the next chance. Afterwards, he was always so happy to be found - at the pound, on the front stoop of a house miles away, or sometimes, hot and tired and panting, on his own porch. The day after an escape he'd stay close to home, tired and hungry and content, but the wanderlust would always return. I know the feeling.
The Old Testament reading Sunday was from Psalm 32. One verse caught my attention: "Don't be like the horse, or like the mule, which have no understanding, who are controlled by bit and bridle, or else they will not come near to you." At first I thought God was giving the general caution, "do not be like a beast" and I worried about my canine soul, but I believe He is singling out stubborn animals who can only be controlled by force rather than love. God Himself has, in another place, reminded us that it is the goodness of God that leads us to repentance, that while we are indeed like foolish, wayward animals, He is the Good Master who welcomes us home again and again. Like an old hymn says, "Perverse and foolish oft I strayed, But yet in love he sought me, And on his shoulder gently laid, And home rejoicing brought me. "
Probably none of this would make sense to seven year old Ivy, who is still wondering why the Israelites kept disobeying God. I can only trust that if God gives her the grace to become one of his flock she will, one day, understand. For now, maybe we should buy a dog.
Thursday, September 04, 2008
voting for the Muslims
I am realizing again how black and white everything becomes in an election year. Shades of gray are hard to find, especially in a close, hard-fought election like this one promises to be. The lines seem to be particularly harshly drawn this year, and the contrasts are stark. From age to experience to skin color, we are presented with an either-or choice. No one is in any mood to compromise or seek a middle ground before the election.
So I am especially glad that my children spent the last two years outside the US in Southeast Asia where US events and issues appear more nuanced and less polarized. People, groups, nations or philosophies that may be painted with a single stroke here show in a different light outside our country's borders. My youngest children are at the age where they are just becoming aware of world events; their main exposure to newsworthy occurrences comes from dinner table conversations between their parents and older siblings. In Malaysia they imbibed opinions and attitudes along with lemon grass curry, butter naan and tandoori chicken, washed down with ice-blended mango smoothies, of course.
So this morning over breakfast my seven year old was paying close attention as I explained a map of Europe during the Middle Ages to an older child, pointing out which areas were controlled by Franks, Angles and Muslims. I didn't realize she was listening until she piped up cheerfully, "If there are no Christians, then I'm voting for the Muslims."
I was delighted. I'm so happy that she has had the opportunity to know many Muslims as kind, caring individuals, that women in headscarves don't frighten her and that she has had the opportunity for so many friendly, teasing chats with the dark=skinned young men who weigh produce at the market or serve heaping plates of rice at a favorite neighborhood restaurant. I'm so glad that Siti and Hazlini and Mustafa sound like normal, everyday names to her, and that the sound of the call to prayer does not seem strange or threatening. I know as she grows older she will learn the distinctions between peaceful Muslims and militant ones; her views about Islam will necessarily become more complex and cautious, but for now, I am happy to hear her speak from her own experience and be able to love and embrace the people she lived happily among the last two years.
When she does become old enough to vote, I hope she will not have forgotten the kindness and the generosity of the people we were privileged to know in Malaysia. She probably won't decide to "vote for the Muslims," but I hope she will still love them.
So I am especially glad that my children spent the last two years outside the US in Southeast Asia where US events and issues appear more nuanced and less polarized. People, groups, nations or philosophies that may be painted with a single stroke here show in a different light outside our country's borders. My youngest children are at the age where they are just becoming aware of world events; their main exposure to newsworthy occurrences comes from dinner table conversations between their parents and older siblings. In Malaysia they imbibed opinions and attitudes along with lemon grass curry, butter naan and tandoori chicken, washed down with ice-blended mango smoothies, of course.
So this morning over breakfast my seven year old was paying close attention as I explained a map of Europe during the Middle Ages to an older child, pointing out which areas were controlled by Franks, Angles and Muslims. I didn't realize she was listening until she piped up cheerfully, "If there are no Christians, then I'm voting for the Muslims."
I was delighted. I'm so happy that she has had the opportunity to know many Muslims as kind, caring individuals, that women in headscarves don't frighten her and that she has had the opportunity for so many friendly, teasing chats with the dark=skinned young men who weigh produce at the market or serve heaping plates of rice at a favorite neighborhood restaurant. I'm so glad that Siti and Hazlini and Mustafa sound like normal, everyday names to her, and that the sound of the call to prayer does not seem strange or threatening. I know as she grows older she will learn the distinctions between peaceful Muslims and militant ones; her views about Islam will necessarily become more complex and cautious, but for now, I am happy to hear her speak from her own experience and be able to love and embrace the people she lived happily among the last two years.
When she does become old enough to vote, I hope she will not have forgotten the kindness and the generosity of the people we were privileged to know in Malaysia. She probably won't decide to "vote for the Muslims," but I hope she will still love them.
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