I'd Like to Say...

Today I find myself at what I hope is the tail-end of another outage season.  For those of you non-nukes, that's when his work takes one of these two cooling towers out of service for about a month (give or take - usually GIVE) for routine maintenance.

 It's also when my husband works 72 hours/week.  When we were first married, before the NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) breathed down their necks, the power plant my husband works at required 84 hour work weeks - which were worse, admittedly than right now.  However, all those days (or nights - whichever 7 to 7 shift he happens to be assigned) can take their toll on all of us.  Admittedly, the quality of parenting around here slides.  

I used to worry for our safety when he wasn't around as much, but we have had added some security options around here lately - not the least of which was a Ruger .38 special my love bought for me.  I never thought I'd be a "pistol packin' mama," but we had some incidences of concern this past Spring.  Long stories short - I ended up at the gun shop with my husband and the "gun guy" (who supposedly has a name, but I only ever call him the "gun guy"), who were showing me a few models of gun I might like.  I can't say I "liked" any of them, but the pink pearl-handled revolver caught my eye.  However, after closer inspection - which included gun guy telling me to pull the trigger a few times to see how it felt in my hand, I said, "Well, it's a hard pull, and I think I won't be able to pull it 4 or 5 times in a row if I need to, you know?"  Mark and gun guy looked at me agape for a few seconds, and gun guy got to work showing me a few other revolvers.  I decided on the Ruger - which was a little more intimidating in appearance.  When we left - ammo in hand, Mark mentioned my comment and how he and gun guy had been stunned by my imaginary shooting of an intruder several times with a medium caliber handgun.  I said, "Well, I don't want to have to go to court."  He laughed, and so did I.  I'm not sure how much I was joking, but I don't really like my gun.  I've had several shooting lessons - courtesy of Mark and Austin.  I can load and unload fast, and I can shoot it, but I don't like it.  I like the sense of security I get from it.  This isn't a blog about guns or about second amendment rights or even about home security options.  It's about my weekend.  

It's at this point that I'd like to use the phrase, "It started out innocently enough," but that wouldn't apply here.  Last Friday, our local home school group had a get-together/picnic lunch.   [Background:  A few days prior, on my husband's one day off/week, we took the kids to Brookfield Zoo.  Like any trip to the zoo with young children, it never goes how you have it pictured in your mind.  Rides on the carousel, cotton candy, feeding peanuts to the elephants and corn to the goats...  It really consists mostly of parking and fetching strollers/wagons; exchanging tickets and money for every, possible attraction; dragging a cooler along to avoid $8.00 sandwiches; trying to scrape up quarters for wax mold machines, goat feeding machines, and whatever else the zoo can think of to literally nickel-and-dime us to death; watching your child screaming as she either runs toward or away from the peacocks, geese, and guinea fowl roaming the zoo; and thinking your child is tugging at your leg when it's really a petting zoo goat eating your shorts like they're salad.  Levi and Violet spent much of this trip chasing the more helpless of the creatures roaming the zoo into a tizzy.]

Back to the squirrel at Friday's home school picnic... not as much a captive audience as a peacock with a tracking device/zoo prison anklet.  She began the squirrel chase with a bellow that would've impressed William Wallace himself.  This squirrel had her number.  He scampered up a tree.  She followed.  He went around and down the tree.  She went around the tree.  He went back up the tree.  And so the taunting went.  About the time I turned back to start talking with some friends, my friend tapped me on the shoulder and turned my attention back to the tree, where my 3 year old daughter stood, back to the tree, pants at her knees, butt pointing squarely up into the tree, mooning. the. squirrel.  I don't think anyone would have called that - least of all the squirrel.  At this point I would like to use the phrase, "I was shocked and mortified," but that wouldn't apply here.  I've ceased being surprised by much when it comes to some of my children.  I thought, "How would I explain to everyone here that I have no idea where she came up with that idea?  I doubt they'd even believe me."  Ah, well.  I posed the useless question anyway... and all were, of course, very gracious.  The idea that the Slagters must spend their days mooning one another in gibbon-like displays of displeasure is an amusing picture in my mind - and probably in the minds of others now too.  It's gotta be good for something, I figure.  If I took my days too seriously, most of them would end in puddles of tears.

attitude plus

On to the rest of the weekend...  We were set to travel about 5 1/2 hours (give or take - usually GIVE) to Southern Illinois for a family reunion.  I was going to be on my own with all the children... which isn't a problem for the older three (9, 11, and 16).  They are very helpful, easy-going, and happy, and I'm always happy to be with them.  I purposefully picked out a hotel that had a pool (and jacuzzi).  I thought we could all use the break after the long day of travel.  We arrived at the hotel around 3:30PM the first day (Saturday).  My grandparents, who were staying at the hotel across the street, had mentioned that they'd like to go to supper with us at a local Chinese buffet after we all got settled.  I reluctantly agreed (knowing that most of the kids don't like those places and that those places consistently give me intestinal woes).  I told them I'd wait for their call.  I tried to keep the kids busy in the hotel room, thinking I didn't want to have to drag them out of the pool shortly after they'd gotten into it.  About an hour later, my grandma called me - telling me they'd called some relatives, and that they'd meet us at the restaurant in about 40 minutes.  My agony was complete.  The squealing (from delayed pool excitement), wrestling, hitting, punching, and general wasting of pent-up energy from a 6 hour car ride was getting to me in a big way.  I was trying to keep the room quiet for any possible neighbors.  After about the third time Levi or Violet ended up crying after a wrestling match, I told them that they wouldn't be allowed to swim later if they didn't shape up and calm down.  About 5 "second chances" later for Violet (mostly involving tickle fights gone amiss), she asked me if she could have one last chance - on the walk over to the restaurant.  I told her that this was positively her last chance.  She then proceeded to push her brother off a curb and into traffic.  That was it.  Her last chance expired, and I came to the terrible realization that I had to follow through with the grounding.  However, I had not only grounded Violet.  I had grounded myself... to a hotel room... with a toddler who desperately wanted to go swimming with her happy siblings.  There would be no jacuzzi for me.  There would only be a little girl begging and pleading and crying to go swimming while I tried to comfort her.  I felt like a heel, but I had to follow through with my word - even if it hadn't been very well thought-out.  Sadie asked me if there was a way that Violet could work her way back into swimming-favor.  I replied that I couldn't re neg on this issue, because this already strong-headed blonde with notable skill for getting what she wants would certainly take me to task for it.

I already had the beginnings of a pretty miserable cold.  Between the cold and sleeping with 5 other people in the same room, I resorted to Nyquil.  Ah, Nyquil... the only kind of socially acceptable drunk a mother can be.  Between that an a Benadryl for some awful allergy symptoms, I slept pretty well - considering I went to bed at 9:30 - which is the earliest time I may have gone to bed since 5th grade.  I woke up in the morning to explain to Levi and Austin that they could go to breakfast at the breakfast room in the hotel without us girls and that we would go to breakfast when Violet and Sadie awoke.  (Pay attention, because this fairly benign instruction will bite me back on Monday morning.)  After breakfast, the kids went in swimming awhile.  We got ready for the reunion and met my grandparents to follow them to the community building.  When we got there, the small reunion was attended by only one other child - a five-year-old boy - an astute little fellow whose only phrase directly to me was about Violet when he came over to me, pointed to Violet and said, "You see that girl?  SHE does NOT listen!"  (Tell me something I don't know, kid.)  Levi had a buddy - one who understood his "pain"... until... I didn't see what happened.  I heard some screaming and looked over to see Levi's buddy screaming and holding his head.  I saw Violet running toward me saying, "I didn't do it!  Levi did it!"  The buddy was screaming and holding his head and pointing to Levi.  Levi had tears welled up in his eyes, and he said, "We were just wrestling, and he fell down!  I didn't mean to hurt him!"  I told him I believed him but that he still needed to apologize.  After some coaxing that it was okay, he told his buddy (presumably an only child) that he was sorry - at which point the boy's father lectured Levi in an angry sort of way and told him, "I told you boys that you shouldn't be TOUCHING each other!"  At which point I thought, "Yeah, you can tell YOU only have one kid, rookie."  That's all kids do when they're together... touch each other, touch everything else, and especially touch the stuff you've told them explicitly NOT to touch.  So there was his first mistake - telling them not to touch each other.  If we learned nothing else from God, Adam, and Eve in the garden, it was not to tell human beings the things they're not supposed to touch.  Bottom line: "buddy's" dad banned him from playing with the Slagter children (the only other children at the reunion) for the rest of the day.  I'm not saying it was a bad decision - just not a very nice one.   So I had to encourage my kids to try to give "buddy" a rest from them for the rest of the day.

But our day wasn't over yet.  Chinese food started to kick in, and my stomach was a wreck.  Nausea and stomach rumblings started to overtake me.  I spent the last hour (give or take - mostly GIVE) in the Belle Rive Community Center bathroom - crossing my fingers that the kids were staying away from "buddy", his ice pack(s), and his imaginary friends.  As they closed the building, I had to leave my "fortress of solitude" and head for the cemeteries.  Yes, the cemeteries.   The traditional visit to the cemeteries was one I dreaded as a child - the awkwardness of adult grief, the rules about not stepping on the grass in front of the gravestones or touching flower arrangements, etc.  However, I've come to appreciate the importance of these visits as an adult.  That is, unless I'm sick.  As I was chasing Violet around telling her not to pick flowers off grave site arrangements, climb monuments, or otherwise desecrate grave sites, she announced, "I have to poop!"  As her urgency grew, grandma said we could go.  So I thought we were headed back to the hotel... and sweet privacy (or at least relative privacy).  The grandparents took a detour and headed to a second cemetery where - who else was there, but buddy and his overprotective parents.  His dad glared at us as my children unbuckled and began to run over to buddy - a friendly face they recognized.  In buddy's eyes, bygones were bygones, but I could tell that not so in his dad's eyes.  So I suggested strongly that the kids should come back to the car with me and wait till grandma and grandpa were ready to go back to the hotel.  About 5 minutes later, they meandered back to their car, and we started gratefully following them toward the interstate... as Violet was continually complaining about her need for a bathroom, and I was feeling the same sense of pain myself.  About 3 miles on the interstate (and only 6 more miles till our hotel exit), I saw a sign for a rest area.  I believe I forgot to mention that we had an incident on the way down when Levi (who insists on using men's restrooms now instead of accompanying me and his sisters to the ladies' room) got out of the restroom before we did and dialed the emergency call button on the police telephone outside the restrooms.  We were met with a flashing blue light and an operator asking what our emergency was.  SO... rest areas were not places of good luck so far this trip.  I set Violet up in a stall and proceeded to grab the stall next to her myself.  Not 5 seconds later, Violet announced from her stall throughout the bathroom, "Well... NOW I CAN'T GO!"  At this point, I'd like to say that I was mystified by this turn of events.  I'd also like to say that she ended up changing her ways when I said in my quietest yet most threatening voice, "You're not leaving that stall until you go poop!"  However, I heard a toilet flush, and a stall door open.  Had there not been a solid block wall between us, I'm not entirely sure I wouldn't have grabbed her ankle and made her stay in that stall.  I then heard her asking strangers for help washing and drying her hands... along with adults asking where her mommy was.  UGH... I was seriously conflicted between rushing to get out of my own stall and back out with her to make sure she made it safely back to the van and just tossing the dice and hoping for the best.  Fortunately for all of us, motherly instinct won out (as it usually does)... yes, even over physical agony.

At this point, I'd like to say that was the end of a long weekend.  I'd like to say that when we finally made it back to the hotel to the swimming pool and jacuzzi that it wasn't cold from some sort of malfunction that couldn't be fixed on a Sunday evening.  I'd like to say I didn't spend the rest of Sunday evening nauseated beyond belief, fitfully sleeping, and unable to go get the kids some supper.  I'd also really like to say that Levi didn't wake up early Monday morning and quietly yet skillfully manage the bolt lock on the top of our hotel room door (without waking anyone else up), walk himself down to the breakfast room, and start eating breakfast all by himself.   But I can't say those things.

What I can say - with any degree of confidence, is that I fail.  Life is full of glittering victories and - quite possibly more often - utter, dismal failures... for all of us.  I know people who shy away from the words, "success" and "failure".  I don't.  I fail.  I can't feel good about myself if I lose my temper with my kids.  By God's grace, that rarely happens.  I happen to have become blessed (or plauged - depending on who you ask) with a thing called forbearance (or even laid-back-ed-ness).  I wasn't always laid back, but since my first marriage ended, I was brought to surrender... in that I cannot possibly control my circumstances.   From time to time, I try to grasp that control back - an act of habit, but I'm always gently reminded that it's futile.  As I imagine what people in that breakfast room must've thought when my 5-year-old wandered into the room barefooted in his football PJ's, helped himself to a box of cocoa puffs, popped the top, and started chowing down, I imagine maybe they thought we were into "unparenting" - letting our kids ride the subway unattended and things of that sort.  Little did they know it was more like nausea followed by Nyquil induced parenting... reminding me that I wouldn't be a good actual drunk.

I read a devotion by Charles Spurgeon (19th century British minister).  It started out, "A living dog is better than a dead lion." - Ecclesiastes 9:4  From there, Spurgeon goes on to say that worst things of life - the absolute most awful of its circumstances - are still brighter than the best death has to offer.  He says that same thing applies to our spiritual lives.  The least amount of grace exercised is far superior to the best of the unregenerate nature.  "The thief on the cross excels Caesar on his throne; Lazarus among the dogs is better than Cicero among the Senators," because of the fact that there is beauty in admitting failure, weakness, and need - in a very human way - to One greater than self.  You see, even Caesars and Ciceros are weak, needy - pathetic even.  They need - even if unwilling to admit it.

Life happens, and as Spurgeon writes, "Life is the badge of nobility in the realm of spiritual things, and men without it are only coarser or finer specimens of the same lifeless material, needing to be quickened, for they are dead in trespasses and sins."  Life - and how I rise (by conscious choice) to meet it or fall to be conquered by it - are badges of honor unique in all of creation to humanity.  In addtion, "A living, loving gospel sermon, however unlearned in matter and uncouth in style, is better than the finest discourse devoid of unction and power.  A living dog keeps better watch than a dead lion, and is of more service to his master; and so the poorest spiritual preacher is infinitely to be preferred to the exquisite orator who has no wisdom but that of words, no energy but that of sound."  My actions toward those around me (most often my children) are more effectively used in loving, grace-giving, surrender than in blustering, controlling words and deeds that end in the hardening of hearts.

I take the kids to a local ceramics shop sometimes to work on projects and learn new skills.  The proprietor, a lovely woman - and well-put-together, loves to use the word, "Perfect!" when referring to how a color combination or new skill we try turns out.  I love it when things turn out, "perfect".  What a delight that a side-effect of a fallen world - full of error - is the frustration of would-be perfectionists.  Striving for perfect pleats, perfect hair, perfectly matching colors, perfect decor, and perfect weather for a perfect vacation, we can miss the joys of living in the imperfect.

Perfection is a requirement fulfilled only by God, and that not through effort but through His very nature... not something earned or accomplished, but something intrinsic to His very being.

Yes, I'd like to say a lot of things about how our weekend went, but in the end... I'd do it all over again. Experiences that teach are far more valuable than easy ones.  I can say this for sure - there is grace abundant and free for all of my mistakes and yours.

I Could Write a Whole Blog about SongPop, but...

I won't.  But I will say a few things:  

1) iTunes is making a killing off this game.  Some of my old favorite songs I forgot even existed after 1998.  Ah, it's nice to have you back The Presidents of the United States, because really... who doesn't want to "movin' to the country" and eat 'em a lot of peaches?  

2) It's easier to play on the computer than on the iPhone.  

3) I might prefer losing an eye to selecting the wrong answer accidentally - a theory which could only be confirmed or debunked by me actually losing said eye. 

4)  I hate that I have to check my times with my opponent's to make sure he/she doesn't think I was cheating just because I thought a little slower than I should.  I find a tenth of a second or so is the only acceptable lag time.  

5) Sometimes I cheat if I don't know the answer.  

6)  I hate when I cheat and it turns out that the other person didn't know the answer either - which I only know after selecting the answer he/she selected and it turns out we are both wrong.  Then it's obvious I cheated.  I mean, I would rather pick the wrong song completely and come out with my dignity than pick the other person's wrong song.  

7)  LOVE the "send challenge" button when I totally owned the last round.  HATE the "send challenge button" when I missed three out of five songs.  Then, it is officially no longer a "challenge" but rather an embarassment.  I think the button should then say, "send this embarassment" OR "let's burn this travesty and promise to never speak of it again".  

8) Go ahead and pick "Modern Rap" 14 year old who challenged me, because I'll "Alternative 90's" you back all.day.long.

Hmmm... now I'm not sure what the rest of this blog should be about.  Maybe I really did write a whole blog about SongPop. 

Invalid

Today I was driving with the kids, when I asked Claire (9) - whose birthday was last week - what had been in her card from an aunt and uncle a few days ago.  She replied, "I don't think I got a card from them."  I said, "Yes, you did.  I handed it to you.  It had a blue envelope."  She still could not conjure a recollection.  So I said, "You told me you had gotten money in a lot of cards.  I just want to make sure you didn't lose it."  She has a tendency to treat money like it's just paper.  She either carries it in her pockets all the time or leaves it on the floor or table or someplace else - willynilly like it doesn't matter to her... until she needs it for something.  Then it's panicsville.  The conversation continued..., "Where do you put your money when you get it?"  Claire responded that she puts it on top of her dresser (obviously a fool-proof place to keep it from thieves and curious toddlers).  Sadie (11) piped in (true to her firstborn personality), "Um, Claire, that's not where money goes.  You should be putting it in your piggy bank." Claire said quietly, "I lost it."  The girls and I laughed and I said, "Claire, I think you just made Sadie's point for her.  If you can lose a whole piggy bank, how are you keeping track of dollar bills?"  She laughed a very "Claire" laugh, and she said, "Sadie, just wait till I get a house of my own.  There will be bills everywhere."  I said, "What kind of bills?  Dollar bills or bills you can't pay because you can't find your money?"  She laughed harder and said, "Dollar bills, of course!"  Sadie asked (laughing), "How are you going to afford to buy a house when you can't keep track of a few dollars?"  Claire then went on to explain how she would put dollar bills all over her couch cushions, and Sadie told her that guests wouldn't be able to sit down, and then Claire decided that a better place would be between all the couch cushions... yes, that was much more sensible.

I doubt very much that anyone was missing it, but I have been out of blogging ability for about 6 weeks now.  Honestly, I was out of ability for about 4 weeks and then out of willingness for 2 more.  About 6 weeks ago I was taken to the local hospital by ambulance (a first for me), where I was put on a morphine pump for 3 days for some herniated and degenerated disc issues in my back.  I spent the next almost two weeks flat out at home, and I've been slowly getting back to sitting for longer periods of time.  This is the second time I've had the discs go out into nerve space, and I just have to say that I hate it.  Yes - there's the pain (which, in my experience, made childbirth look like a tiptoe through the tulips)  that I hate, but much worse than that was being "out of commission".  I hated being on pain medication.  I hated being away from my family.  I hated not being able to do the things I usually hate to do most - laundry, dusting, cleaning toilets, etc.  We've gone every possible route for pain control and strengthening - from physical therapy (current and past), strengthening exercises (always), to traction (current), to inversion table (current and past), to ice and heat (constantly), to chiropractic (regularly), to deep tissue massage (whenever possible), to cortisone epidurals (which I hate to get but are the most effective), and now to a TENS (electro-stim) unit that I now carry with me almost everywhere I go.

I told my husband last week how hard it is to feel invisible.  I have spent weeks on my back on the couch or in bed or reclined in a chair with all of life going on around me but not being able to really be a part of it.  He reminded me to be very thankful that, for me, it is a temporary thing - at least for now.  A friend of ours was in a motorcycle some months ago and lost his leg.  We also get facebook updates and photos from a hometown hero of ours who lost both of his legs in Afghanistan.  These are tangible reminders that I am not in the dire straits I have felt.  My reality is not fun, but it's not permanent.  I will not fully recover, but I have my legs.  I can walk.

A month or so ago, I sat outside the pool on a reclining chair - wishing I could get in the pool or at least go putter around in the garden.  I watched Mark interacting with the kids when Levi said, "Dad!  Where are my goggles?!  I can't find them anywhere!"  A few seconds later, he laughed realizing they were on his head.  Who hasn't experienced that?  Looking for spectacles that are on your face or for the milk jug you have in your hand... I think that is a quirk of human nature that God uses to reveal to us how blind we can be to our own lack.  Sometimes the things that are closest to us are the things that are the hardest to see.  The kids all love to show me their drawings, coloring pages, etc., but they like to shove it as close to my face as possible to give me the best view.  I have two eyes - that should help me see better than just one, but they work against me when trying to focus on one thing.  The closer things are to my face, the less clear they become.  I have to step back from the viewed item to be able to see it properly.

I am mostly blind to my condition.  The things I say and do that are unbecoming are not Christ in me.  They are me in me.  My actions and reactions are the truest picture of what I am holding closest to my heart at the time.  If I am holding me closely, I am selfish, short-tempered, defensive, full of pride and self-pity, and sometimes just downright nasty.  I have been very introverted because I have felt that I have to be to protect myself from hurting again.

When complaining to Mark last week, I said, "It's just so succinct that the word invalid (noun stating the person as their condition) is exactly the same as the word invalid (adjective - describing the person's state)."  I've felt invalid - as though I didn't matter anymore.  They go on bike rides without me.  They do my laundry instead of me doing theirs.  They cook their own food.  No one is replaceable and yet everyone is.  When a void is felt, humanity has a unique strength in moving in to fill that void so that it's no longer felt.

The neat thing that I've noticed in these brave men who are facing life-long disability is that the times they shine the most are when they don't accept that their physical condition is a lifelong identity.  They choose to be involved with family and friends and community.  They choose not to let a trial define them.  I wish that, in my minor trial, I had readily taken the same approach.  After all, our physical condition on earth is very temporary.  

Resilience is one of the most fantastically brilliant ways of all of nature - but especially of humanity.  Hope springs eternal.  Each of my children is so different.  I have some optimists and some pessimists.  I have an older sister and a younger sister.  As a middle girl, I had many firstborn characteristics (loved The Birth Order Book by Dr. Kevin Lehman) such as perfectionism, rule-following, etc., but I was also messy, creative, and often misunderstood - hallmarks of middle child syndrome.  A few weeks ago, I read the story of two pigs (Sidney and Norman) - one neat, orderly, and punctual and the other one messy, disorganized, and forgetful.  After the story, I asked the girls which pig they felt they were (if any).  Sadie piped up that she was the neat one, and Claire smiled and said she was the messy one.  In the story of Claire above, it's obvious that she knows her tendencies but is unashamed of them.  I love that.  As a child, my mom used to bet me (jokingly) that I couldn't go through a whole meal without getting food on my shirt.  I was/am Claire.  While Sadie is asking me the day's schedule and reminding me if I miss a beat or packing wet naps in her purse for the hands of the little two when we go to the zoo... assuming (and rightly so) that I will probably forget  to do so, I am wishing that I had an ounce or two more of that genetic bent.   I used to think Claire was kind of oblivious to order and what other people generally do.  Now it's clear to me that she sees those things but isn't made by them in any way.  She has my ridiculously curly hair, but it's underneath a pile of thick, wavy hair that makes it look like she always has rats in her hair (which she only has about half the time - despite what my mom might think.)  She doesn't care at all about that.  I used to dress my girls up in dresses and hair pretties and headbands when they were babies.  Once they got minds of their own, they became their own persons - instead of being a mirror of me or what I wanted them to be.  I love that too.

Sidney and Norman both got messages from God - that he wanted to see them.  Neat Sidney was sure he would be congratulated for his "good performance".  Messy Norman was terrified that he would be chastised for his overall "poor performance".  God's message for both was the same.  "I love you."  Nothing we do or don't do (can/can't do) will change our standing in His sight, because His view of us is covered in the precious and perfect blood of His only begotten Son.  So no amount of my performance can upstage God's.

A devotion a week ago reminded me that I have a tendency to take credit for my abilities.  That's so easy to do when we are complimented for anything from physical traits to creativity to personality.  I was reminded that those attributes and abilities are not only bestowed on each of us by God but that my traits and abilities are faint shadowy replicas of true Creative Genius, true lovely Spirit, and true beauty.    

I apologize for rambling, but I'm a bit on the sleep-deprived end of life right now.  When I was married to my first husband, we often argued toward the end of our marriage.  Each time, I found my inner head voice vacillating wildly between two thoughts:  1)  I am a horrible wife.  I'm a horrible person!  How could anyone want to be with me?  and 2)  I am such a good wife to him!  How could he treat me like this?  I could do so much better, and he's lucky to have me.  I remember the day when God made it clear to me that both of those lines of thought were complete lies.  I'm not horrible, and I'm not wonderful.  I have the ability to act horrible and sometimes (by God's grace) the capacity to muster wonderful.  Unless I see me the way God sees me, I will always be seeing myself as either too amazing and significant and important or too ridiculous, insignificant, and unimportant.  A friend of mine was once apt to point out that self-loathing is just the flip side of the coin of self-love.  When we loathe self, it is in anger and pity for self, because we feel deep down that we don't deserve to be seen so negatively.   The point (I think) is that we can't see our true nature when we're absorbed in self.  We can only see it when we get caught up in Someone bigger than self.  

My Husband is Hot

I rarely go through the self-checkout aisles at Walmart.  I think it's because it never goes right for me.  I have to make sure I don't have anything lightweight in my cart, because the scale doesn't like lightweight items.  I have to make sure that I don't have anything that's missing a code tag or anything that needs store approval - like spray paint, booze, or rated R movies.  Like I'm going to huff paint... I need all the brain cells I have left.  That reminds me of the time my old Schwan man asked me if I knew that pregnancy caused a loss of brain cells.  I said that I didn't know that.  He said, "Well, you just seemed smarter before you were pregnant."  Ah... he had seemed smarter before he said that.  Maybe he didn't realize he worked on commission.  It was a good thing for him I don't hold a grudge very well... and that I like ice cream. Ah, who am I kidding?  He knew he could pretty much say anything he wanted to say.


Back to Walmart - having been certain that none of the few items in my cart would be too lightweight, too controversial, or too intoxicating, I approached the self-checkout lane with relative confidence - anticipating a smooth transaction.   One of the items I was purchasing (in our household of many girls) was a bra.  To my surprise, when I scanned the tag through the soothing feminine Walmart lady voice came over the speaker, "Approval Needed".  Um... this could be interesting.  I froze momentarily - wondering what my next move should be.  What kind of approval was needed for purchasing underwear?  Austin happened to be with me, and, as embarrassed as he is about everything else in the known universe, it seems underwear is not one of those things.  I started to laugh with just the sheer speculation of what this obvious computer error could mean for womankind.  What would we have to prove in order to purchase bras?  Fortunately for me, the error corrected itself.


I've been hearing/reading a lot about the virtues of gender neutrality lately.  For instance, Sweden is in the process of removing gender language altogether from their dictionaries.  They began with children's books in creating a neuter term for children which is neither male or female.  In the U.S., there is talk currently of eliminating gender references in school altogether.  In this neuter environment, children would be specified as neither male nor female.  They could use whichever restroom they like.  They could play on whichever sports team they like.  In fact, sports wouldn't be divided up by sexes at all.  Sexes, after all, are confining and completely unnecessary.  Prevailing wisdom dictates that the world would be a better place were the genders nonexistent.  Now if we could just make our bodies hermaphroditic from birth, the world would be perfect?  Aside from the myriad of logical and logistical problems with these types of plans, my mind can't comprehend what kind of societal benefit would come from such a system.  A few of the articles I've read have asked the question, "Who would propose such a system?"  Has the existence of gender distinctions hurt individuals so badly that they seek to erase genders from all of society?  Don't get me wrong, I'm all for boys and girls doing things that have been traditionally viewed to be for one or the other, but wishing our sex organs away will not somehow create a Utopian society.


My husband is hot.  Not boy band hot... not metrosexual hot... not white collar hot... The best kind of hot, in my truly humble opinion, is blue... collar... hot - working man hot.  I'm not saying this because anyone else should think he's hot.  I'm saying it because I DO.  I'll talk about this more later.

I said before, in a briefly published blog, referring to a "thing" I had for the Marlboro man type - minus the cigarettes of course.  The guy leaning against his horse with a few days of scruffy beard, a far off look in his eyes, and a bit of tan on his skin... testosterone is not an undesirable hormone in a man.  


Sometimes I think we've domesticated men too much.  Having now been mom to a baby boy, a teenage boy, and having been married - I think that women, in attempts at "equality" (which I'm not sure why we'd ever desire), have rearranged masculinity.  We have pigeonholed many men into one of several types or combinations of types:  1) Jerks - These men are openly angry and antagonistic toward women.  2) Womanizers - These men pretend to love women but treat them unlovingly by hopping from one to another.  Being insecure he fears that, if he stayed too long with one woman, she would realize that he was not enough for her.   3)  Domesticated - These men seem to like routine and don't mind being bossed around a bit.  They're not afraid to push a shopping cart or buy feminine products when asked.  4) Man-children love video games, paint ball, porn, and any other activities that disengage them from reality.  These guys are "checked-out".  5) Macho Men - These men have to try any number of things in order to prove their masculinity.  These are often things they perceive as cool or rebellious to show they're owned by no one.


So, let's see, in seeking equality, we've made them hateful and angry, unfaithful, wimpy, childish, and/or disengaged.  Those are the biggest complaints I hear from single women about the men in the dating pool or from married women about their husbands.  It reminds me of a SNL skit I watched a few years ago.  It was of a couple being interviewed about their "wonderful" marriage.  She went on and on about how domesticated and sensitive her amazing man was - how he was in touch with his feelings and how they could talk for hours about nothing.  Basically, he was a woman in a man's body.  As she talked, he began to also talk about his feelings - weeping with joy or sadness over the discussion topics and sharing his deepest thoughts and inner angst with the interviewer and his wife.  As he did, she got more and more nauseated with him - ironically telling him to "man up" and to stop being a wimp - finally telling him she was sick of him and complaining to the interviewer with contempt about the fact she was pretty much married to another woman.  Everything she'd wanted her man to be - more emotionally "in touch", more sensitive, more like her, the more she hated him for it.  


I have a lot of friends and acquaintances who tell their men how to dress, how to act, how their money should be spent, and how they'll be required to parent the couples' children.  They dictate which chores need to be done when and how they should be done.  They even dictate how their men should show them love.  "Well, so-and-so's husband does such-and-such for her.  Why don't you ever do that?"  The implication being:  If you loved me, you'd do this differently or better.  I speak of these things, because I've done a lot of them.  In my first marriage I carried most of the responsibilities for household things, car maintenance, yard work, and finances.  He claimed the inability or lack of desire to do those things, and I did them grudgingly.  I remember asking him once when he was being unfaithful, "Why?"  He said, "I don't know.  Maybe I want someone to believe me when I say, 'I love you.'"  I wondered why he would say that, and then I thought back to the dozens of conversations we'd had about how he could love me "better" by my standard or about what I needed from him.  I remember never feeling that he really loved me or that, if he did, he'd do something more than he was doing - maybe I couldn't even put my finger on what that'd be.  Resentment grew on both of our parts.  We were both looking for something more.  


So what's a guy to do?  He's supposed to be masculine but kind.  He needs to be sensitive but rarely cry.  He needs to be able to kill spiders, take the garbage out, mow the lawn, change diapers, fix things that break, be available and fun with the kids, and would it kill him to do a few dishes now and then?   Basically, they need to be at our beck and call.

Well, second time around and I've realized that very few things in marriage are worth a fight.  As a wise woman once said, "If it won't matter 5 years from now, it's not worth a fight today."  I said before that my husband is hot.  He has a unique ability to not care an ounce what people think about him.  He says what he wants.  He does what he wants.  I remember when we were first married that we drove through a car lot to look at a newer vehicle.  Annoyingly but not unexpectedly, a salesman scurried over to our vehicle with his clipboard and started to chat up my husband.  "So," he said, patting the side of our older van, "this thing's seen better days, huh?"  Mark looked at him.  "Are you folks thinking about a new ride?"  Mark looked at him.  "Is there anything I can show you?"  Mark looked at him.  I remembered thinking how rude it was of Mark to ignore him.  Mark eventually, after what seemed to me like an hour of awkward silence said, "Nope.  We're not looking to buy.  We're just looking around your lot, and if we think we've found something we like, I'll let you know."  With that, he drove away, and I'm pretty sure that the salesman was as relieved as I to be done with that exchange.  I remember asking Mark, "The phrase 'awkward silence' isn't even on your radar screen, is it?"  I think that, over the years we've been married, he's learned to say what he means without coming across as gruffly, but I admire the daylights out of the fact that he has no fear of others and doesn't waste one moment thinking about what they might be thinking about him.  He doesn't shy from confrontation.  He speaks up when it matters and is wise enough to stay silent when he knows he should.  He doesn't force his will on anyone, but he has a way of getting what he wants without force or manipulation.  I can also trust that almost every time, whether or not I see it at first, what he wants for our family is what's best for us all.  He's great with our kids.  He's kind to the elderly and tender with the young and weak, and he teaches our boys to be the same way.  For all those things and so much more (not to mention his broad shoulders and hulking height) I think he's hot.

One of my favorite movies is The Quiet Man with John Wayne.  Wayne plays a retired American boxer who travels to Ireland to settle down and enjoy his retirement.  He meets and falls in love with a stubborn red-head (Maureen O'Hara), and the rest of the story is about the fireworks of their courtship and marriage.  He loves her, but he won't be domesticated.  He is so secure in the man he is that he can love her and maintain his masculinity and, in the process, she can do nothing but admire him.  


The concept of love has become so twisted.  Mark and I used to listen to a fair amount of country music, but in recent years we've agreed that the tired story lines of "babe, you look so hot in those tight jeans/t-shirt - get up on my truck (or bar, or stage, or whatever's handy) and shake your booty for me", blah, blah, blah... are not just tired but glorify the basest instincts we have.  What do these story lines represent?  Love - with longevity and passion that fills an empty soul?  Hardly.  Lust - short-lived and empty, at best.  A few days ago, Mark handed me a magazine and pointed to an article he wanted me to read.  It was an excerpt from New York Times columnist Meg Jay called, The Slippery Slope of Cohabitation.  The article said, "Most young couples now live together as a safe first step before marriage, but research shows that cohabitation is anything but safe:  It makes couples less likely to be satisfied with their marriages, and more likely to divorce later.  In my psychology practice, I have seen many couples move from dating to sleeping over to cohabitation along a 'gradual slope' unmarked by 'rings or ceremonies or sometimes even a conversation'.  Without saying so, women usually think of living together 'as a step toward marriage,' whereas men tend to view it as a way of auditioning their partners while postponing commitment.  As years slide by, the two people find that despite the trial nature of their relationship, they have become bound together by shared leases, wireless contracts, furniture, pets, and friends.  Those who work up the courage to split find that the 'setup and switching costs' are nearly as wrenching as divorce.  Others drift into marriage, while secretly wondering 'whether they have consciously chosen their mates.'  To increase your chance of a satisfying, lasting relationship, it's best to start with 'I do,' rather than 'Maybe we will, and maybe we won't.'"  This is the link for the NYTimes article in its entirety:  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/opinion/sunday/the-downside-of-cohabiting-before-marriage.html?pagewanted=all


I have a friend who has been in and out of cohabitational relationships ever since I've known her, and she laments her situation to me always saying she wants something more.  She refers to the fact that Mark and I are happily married and hopes to fall into the same kind of arrangement.  She's often asked how I found him or how we've made it work.  I've said as plainly as I can that we just got married.  We didn't mess around.  When we went on our honeymoon, I didn't know if he even knew how to follow a map... much less anything else about what kind of husband he'd be to me - in any way.  I had hopes and prayers, but I had no way of knowing for sure.  She says she couldn't do it.  She'd have to "test a guy out awhile".  I understand the thought process, but, I feel sad about it too.  She resents that, although it's obvious there are men out there who would value a woman enough to marry/commit for life to her without any guarantees of her perfect performance or lovability, she has not found such a man to do that for her.  Somewhere deep inside of women, we must admit that we resent a lack of commitment and fear being left alone with nothing to show for the love we'd given.  This fear leaves us controlling and manipulating the people around us hoping for a positive outcome.


The majority of the time God wanted to redeem His people in the Bible, he sent a baby boy to them.  Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Jesus.  Not to negate the importance of women like Deborah, Esther, and Mary, but primary roles of leadership and saving were given to men.  Every culture and nation has stories of damsels in distress - held by an enemy - waiting to be rescued by - a loyal pet?  another damsel?  a moderately passionate lump of video-game playing expertise?  No.  A white knight.  A man so brave, handsome, passionate, rugged, and strong of character that her knees have no choice but to buckle.  This story is not just ingrained in us by a society consumed with romanticism.  It's written on the hearts of humanity, because that is the story of mankind from the beginning of time.  God (the white knight) breathed his own breath of life into humanity (damsel).  He loved her deeply.  Then she was taken captive by sin and death.  He loved her so much He had to rescue her.  He wanted her back.  There was only one way to prove the depth of His love for her.  He had to die for her.  He sent Himself to earth (Jesus) to love her, speak truth and tenderness to her, and then to offer His life in payment for her ransom.  She is redeemed.  She was purchased at a great personal price to her Love.  Only after making this sacrifice and proving His love did He invite us into intimate union with Him.   (Isa. 54:5, 62:3-5, Hos. 2:19-20).  Jesus Himself reminded us that He was the "bridegroom" and His church was His bride (Mark 2:18-20).  I'm so glad God didn't "interview" me for worthiness before He sent Jesus to die for me.  I'd never have passed the test.  

A few nights ago, I pulled in the driveway with some groceries in the back of the van.  As I pulled toward the garage entrance, my headlights shone on a bat that was flying around the garage.  I hate bats.  I texted Mark who was in the house (napping after having put the kids down to bed), "Bat in garage.  Help!"  Moments later, Austin and Mark came out.  Austin reached for a campfire roasting stick, and, although quietly said to myself, "Ew!  Not that!"  As if he'd heard me, he picked up a golf driver, and I thought again, "Ew!  Not that either!"  He used it to shoo the critter out of the garage and Mark waved me into my parking spot.  They went to the back of the van, unloaded groceries, and helped put them away as we talked about our days.  I felt protected.  I am blessed to know that, if I call for help, two big guys and a littler one will be there in the blink of an eye to answer that call without hesitation.  I am thankful for that.  I reinforce their strength by believing in it and not being threatened by it.  Their strength is precious to me, and the more I believe in it, the more I love it, the more I trust it... the more they give it.  If I were afraid of their strength... if I wanted my strength to be more prominent than theirs... if I denied their strength, I would never be the benefit or recipient of it.  As it is, I am both, and I couldn't feel more precious.  

God is the same with us.  He longs to give us His strength... to stand and fight for us, but we often want to fight our own battles, or to force our own will, or trust our own strength.  We miss out on seeing what He can do.  Like the beauty of a woman, the strength of a man can be twisted and/or misused.  At their core though, these two things (strength and beauty) are defining attributes of God and, when used in that context, are powerful, passionate, and life-giving.  I once quoted this verse in another blog ( http://illinoisslags.blogspot.com/2010/04/safety-in-helmet.html), but I think it does an excellent job of explaining the nature of God.  Isaiah 59:17 says of God Himself, "He put on righteousness as his breastplate, and the helmet of salvation on his head; he put on the garments of vengeance and wrapped himself in zeal as in a cloak."   Strength unbridled and pure is nothing to fear.  Rather, embrace it and the One who owns it.

Judging Honkers

A couple weeks ago, the kids and I went to the farm of some friends of ours (also home schoolers) to pick berries.  They own a pick-your-own-strawberry patch.  Now, in case you tend to stereotype homeschoolers, you are about to be schooled on homeschoolers.  There are literally as many different reasons for people to homeschool as there are families who do it.  Many people tend to mentally group homeschoolers as ultra-conservative types who have about a dozen kids and a giant van covered in anti-abortion bumper stickers.  Their daughters wear long dresses.  The mom wears a jeans jumper dress with giant pockets, and the boys wear jeans from Farm and Fleet and, in these parts, quite possibly, a seed corn cap.  I know some of these homeschoolers, and I tend to call them "dress wearers".  I think dress wearers get a bad rap.  It is often assumed that they are anti- any other schooling options.  They are immediately (not to mention ironically) judged as judgmental.  I am sure that some of them are - just as is most of the rest of humanity.  The thing is, I have a few friends and relatives who are dress-wearers.  They are, in reality, some of the sweetest, kindest, friendliest people I know.  You may say, "Well, that's because you homeschool too."  Ah, we do, but we are not dress wearers.  In fact, not only are we not dress wearers, we are shorts and tank-top wearers.  We are divorced, non-nuclear family shorts and tank-top wearers.  I wonder if they call us "tank-top wearers".  

In effort to make you aware of other types of homeschoolers, there are a vast number of people (and a significant percentage of our co-op group) who keep their children home because they have one or more physical or mental handicaps.  These people feel it is their obligation to love, teach, and protect their children at home.  Why not?  That is their option, and I respect them for it.  I know quite a few atheistic homeschoolers who believe that the public school is not "smart" enough for their children.  They are very loud about what they believe is wrong with the system and why their children are not a part of it.  They have no religious or moral reasons for homeschooling at all.  There are tattooed homeschoolers.  There are "sit at your desk with your hands folded neatly" homeschoolers, and there are "hang upside down from the rungs of the rocking chair while you're reading Tom Sawyer" homeschoolers.  There are farmers and ruralists who live 20-25 miles or more from the nearest school and who need/want their children home to help with farm chores homeschoolers.  There are people who read news stories about school shootings a thousand miles away and want to make sure that doesn't happen to their kids - fearful homeschoolers.  In our particular case, there are step-families whose children spend part of their lives with other parents and who felt like they weren't seeing their kids enough when they were gone in school all day - homeschoolers.  Are many homeschoolers religious?  Absolutely.  The truth is - most homeschoolers are any and every combination of all of the above and more.  The head of our homeschool co-op once said that it was hard to be leader of homeschoolers, because they are "rebellious" and "non-conformist".  Ha!  I thought that was hilarious.  I was wondering why she would say that, but I think it's because she has dealt with so many homeschoolers that she knows that many of them have left the mainstream and chosen their own path.  They aren't very concerned, for the most part, with doing what everyone else is doing.  They've made a choice to divert from a forced path and make their own.  Is it a better way?  I don't think so.  Is it a different way?  Somewhat.  Can people whose children go to formal schools homeschool?  Yeah.  In fact, they do whether or not they realize or acknowledge it.  Everything they learn at home is schooling.

Back to the berry field... as we were finishing up picking our berries, a van pulled up next to ours, and about 12 people piled out of it.  This was an interesting mix of people.  There was a (very) white lady (approximately 60 years old) (dress-wearer) with a white head covering that resembled this:

As she piled out of the van along with several interracial adults and children in equally conservative clothing, I glanced down at my own attire and that of my kids.  I thought, "Oh, boy... I wonder what they're thinking about me and mine."  As tends to happen on farms, my children had all but disappeared into barns and outbuildings.  Austin found his friend and they went off to shoot innocent rodentia with airsoft guns.  Sadie found a tire swing.  Claire and Violet found some kitties (Claire to love and Violet to squeeze half to death), and Levi found a girl his age who seemed to enjoy throwing pebbles at a family of ducks as much as he did.  I was left trying to assemble them to leave but always coming up short one or two.  I sat down under the tent to wait for them to come to me.  Meanwhile the white dress-wearer - let's call her "Mary"... I'd lie and say that I gave her that name to protect her identity, but I mostly just gave it to her, because, although she introduced herself to me, I am miserably - to the point of ludicrously - bad at name recall.  If you were wearing a name tag the first time we met, I will likely remember your name, because I have good visual recall.  However, my auditory recall - especially for peoples' names - is abysmal.  "Mary" was introduced to me by our mutual friend, who added, "Marcie" also homeschools."  As she sat down in a chair near mine, I struggled not to be intimidated by her "hat".  She didn't seem the least bit disturbed by my lack of hat.  Anyway, she chatted away about her household of many children, and then she asked me about mine.  I said that we have five - which is a respectable number, I feel, for a homeschooling family.  Isn't it funny that somehow I feel the need to fit in by having a large number of children, but then I immediately out myself, because I feel like I'm cheating if I don't admit that it's a "yours/mine/ours" situation, and, therefore I didn't come by all my children "honestly".  (I only used to want none or two or three.)  I often do this (tell of our blended family) at the outset of interaction with other Christians, because there are (rarely) people who don't look favorably on our siuation, but they are the exception rather than the rule.  Funny thing is - I'm okay with people who look on our situation either way.  I don't get mad at people who see our situation as sinful, because it is.  I don't get angry at people for calling divorce a sin, because God calls it one.  I didn't get hurt when people who were invited to our wedding refused to attend, because they felt it was a sin for us to remarry, because that's their call - judgment or not.  Let me tell you, God didn't call divorce a sin because He was being mean, unfair, or hurtful.  He called it a sin, because divorce is mean and unfair and hurtful.  It's mean and unfair and hurtful to the participants - especially the children.  So call a spade a spade.  God did.  He didn't apologize.  God didn't randomly pick out what "the sins" would be.  He called things sin, because He knew those things would hurt us.  That being said, I believe God has fully sanctioned and blessed our union, and we all feel His pleasure at what he's put together.  After all, He is the Author and Manufacturer of grace, and He gives it lavishly.

  

Well, Mary didn't blink an eye when I told her of our situation.  She asked, like many people do, how things were going - if all the parents were seeing the children, how we coped, etc. - which I don't see as nosy - just curious.  Mary told me her older daughter and her daughter's children and her own youngest child (probably around 18) were with her that day.  I noted that her husband must've been African American, because her children were obviously bi-racial.  She talked of how her daughter's husband had died within the last year and that it was very hard on their family.  Her family came over later, and she said something to her son about seeing The Avengers... which was hilarious to me, because I so didn't see them at any movie at all - much less one with The Hulk and Thor.  Her son didn't disappoint in the homeschool stereotype department though when he said, in a dorky way, "Well, mom, I didn't pay much attention to the lines, because that just really wasn't my kind of movie."  (*Please let the record indicate that I have a strong fondness for "dorks".)  Ironically I also saw them at the movies a few nights after that.

Well, Mary didn't seem to have judged me at all that day, but I had judged her.  Without knowing anything about her, I had assumed that she would probably be self-righteous about her situation and choices versus ours.  I've been the victim of that same type of judging before - many times.  It's like reverse judging, and it's far more popular than the traditional type these days.  It's the kind where people (often feeling guilty over something in their lives) judge a person as self-righteous without having any concept of the person's character or motives.  And, like so many things I love to notice:  It's frought with IRONY.  By that I mean, when I call someone judgmental (or even think it) I have judged him or her myself!  It's just as wrong - just as destructive - just as preclusive of fulfilling personal relationships with one another as the traditional kind.  After all, I find that there are few if any people who have not had a brother/cousin/friend that has undergone something similar to our situation.  People are far less likely to find it odd than I sometimes worry they will be.

I often try to imagine scenarios in which I can give another person grace.  It's like a "grace challenge".  I say this, because I realize often that there are situations when I know people could look at me and go, "Um, wow - what an awful mom," or "what a selfish person," or "what a messy housekeeper," or fill in the blank with a hundred other different things that I can be from time-to-time.  A few months back, I'd had a doctor's appointment in town and I was waiting for one of the kids to get done with an orthodontist appointment, and I was starving because I hadn't eaten anything all day and it was 2:00 or so in the afternoon.  My van was filthy from our dirt road, and I was sitting in the parking lot at McD's playing Words with Friends on my phone.  As I was stuffing my face and yelling, "Oh, that is SO a word!" at my phone, I started to laugh - thinking if anyone was seeing me right now - oh, the things they could assume about me.  

(eating black raspberries on the bike path)

I had a good opportunity to use the grace challenge a few days ago.  The kids and I had come off the bike path and into a park where the kids like to play awhile before we ride back home.  When we arrived, I noticed a woman in an SUV with the windows down and the ignition running.  She was sitting glued to her phone.  While I was running around with kids, holding odd ends of the teeter/totter down for them or pushing them on the swings or sitting down here and there, the woman started to honk her horn - loud and long for some children (who I can only assume must've been deaf) who were about 100 yards from her vehicle.  She didn't drive over by them.  She didn't get out or go over to them... she just HOOOOOOOOONNNNNKKKKEEEEEDD...and honked and honked and honked; for about 5 minutes this went on.  The scrapper in me wanted to go over and knock the stupid phone out of her hands and tell her to stop bugging everyone with her honking and get her butt out of the car to call for her kids.  I mean, I'm all for understanding that momma needs a break sometimes, but come on - disturbing the peace of everyone in the whole park so she can teach her kids that when momma honks that means they... can pretty much totally ignore her for another 5 minutes or so till she drives around to the side of the park you're playing in to honk some more?  That's just selfish, right?  Ah, but who am I to judge.  So I tried to imagine that she might be a paraplegic who is hard of hearing and whose children are also hard of hearing... and that her phone got somehow tragically glued to her hand, and that this somehow added to her agitation.  Okay - I only tried to think of all that after I ranted to Austin about her and he reminded me how I'm always saying that people might have a good reason for the seemingly obnoxious things they do and not to judge.  (Teach them logic, and they'll beat you to death with it.)  Oddly though, it made me feel more favorable... not just because it was amusing, but mostly because I was finding myself able to choose grace instead of anger.  But maybe you get my point?  

We all have moments in which we act unbecomingly and they're not just "off moments".  We are off people... full of sin, ugliness, and death.  The true miracles in life are when we act with kindness, selflessness, and love.  Are Christians better at that than others?  No.  In fact, aside from God's enabling, we are completely incapable of good.  We are, perhaps, worse than others.  More capable of evil.  More enticed to wrong, and better able to carry it out.  There is an old hymn called I Need Thee Every Hour, and I used to wonder, every hour?  That's a lot of need.  Now that I'm grown and more responsible I think, only every hour?  I need Thee every minute... every second of every day.  I need Thee.

Chimps at the Opera

Tonight we took Austin out for his 16th birthday.  He already had a party with friends last weekend, and he will be having another get together with friends later this weekend, but Mark told him tonight was for family, and, "Whatever and wherever you want to go to eat - your choice - we'll go."  Austin is funny this way, but he's always afraid that we'll overspend on him.  For example, a few weeks ago when Mark was working late, I took the kids to an old-fashioned drive-in restaurant.  As we stood in line trying to pick ice cream flavors, he said to me, "Mom, I'll just get one scoop, because I don't want to waste dad's money.  He works hard for it."  I said, "Actually, tonight it's money from my work.  So you get what you want." He said he was now even more sure that he'd get a cheaper ice cream cone.  As he said this, the cute girl behind the counter who was serving ice cream said, "That's the sweetest, most respectful thing I've maybe ever heard a guy say."  I guess I take it for granted.  He's almost always like that, which is at the same time nice and a little annoying.  Like tonight.  He didn't want us to spend too much money on him so he asked to go to Fiesta Cancun.  I said, "Didn't dad tell you that you could pick the steak house?"  (He lives for steak.)  He said, "Yeah, but..."  I said, "But it costs too much?"  He replied, "Yeah."  Levi piped up, "Yay, Austin.  Good choice!  I love the chips at Fiesta Cancun!"  Austin and I talked back and forth about the fact that it was fine to go either place, but if he was only picking Fiesta Cancun because it was cheaper, it was the wrong reason to pick it.  (You only turn 16 once, after all.)  Levi bounced over to me and whispered loudly, "You know, you shouldn't argue with Austin on his birthday!  I like the chips at Fiesta Cancun."  Well, despite some salsa-related ulterior motives, Levi was giving good advice... don't argue with the birthday boy.  Austin said, "We're not arguing, Levi.  We're just discussing something."  (Maybe he's heard that a time or two.)  Long story short, after his dad assured him again that he could go wherever he wanted, he decided on the local steak house.


I think he regretted his choice every moment from when we walked in the door to when we walked out of it stuffed full, with three big styrofoam containers full of leftovers, and spoiling for a fight.  You see, we don't take our kids to fancy restaurants.  We don't believe in spending $10/meal for people who will eat the garnishes instead of the meal and who wear the triangle-folded napkins on their heads while shouting, "Arghhh, mayteee... avast ye... land ho."  As a result, they (especially the youngest two) don't know how to behave in a largely civilized manner when confronted with even the slightest amount of sophistication.  Austin looked like he wanted to crawl under the table, and Mark and I were amused at it all.  


For starters, before we left for the restaurant, Mark had been on an important phone call, and Levi and Violet had been running in and out of the bathroom (the only place he'd mistakenly thought he might get a few minutes of peace and quiet) squealing and laughing.  I had stopped them, just as he was getting off the phone, and said emphatically, "What were you doing?  Couldn't you see your father was on the phone?"  Well, I never call Mark "your father".  I think it was just sheer irritation that inspired the patriarchal verbiage.  Violet stopped in her tracks.  "My fahder?" she asked inquisitively.  "My fahder was on the phone with dad?  Who's my fahder?"  I said, "Your dad is your father."  "Hmmm... does that make you gramma?" she asked seriously.  She was totally weirded out that "father" and "dad" are synonymous.  Well, that started an entire evening of her trying to work the word "fahder" into every sentence she uttered.  "Can you beweeve this id my fahder?  He's not just dad he's "fahder"."  "Fahder, can you take me to the bathroom?  Fahder, watch this..." fahder, fahder, fahder.  Every time she said it, I was more overwhelmed with cuteness.  Siblings don't have the patience that mom and dad do.  While she was jibber jabbering about her amazing fahder, Levi was marveling at the fact he had two forks and two spoons while, at the same time, being annoyed that he had been given water without having been asked first what he wanted to drink.  Claire was slurping up her pop with a straw loudly, and Violet was dipping her whole hands in the water glass to get some ice to chew.  They could not calm down or sit still.  


Sadie and Claire were painfully quiet, barely wanting to speak to the waitress to order. I finally, and against my better judgment, spoke up to tell the waitress their orders, because I felt it was rude of them to mumble so quietly, and I didn't want the waitress to have to wait (even though "wait" is actually in her job title and description) for another 5 minutes to get our order going.  After all, we were on the toddler meltdown clock.  After she left the first time, I told the girls, "You don't have to be shy about ordering.  They want you to order food and spend money."  I then started into a caricature of the response a waitress might give if she didn't want to bring you food.  It went something like, "You want Sprite?  How dare you order Sprite?  We don't serve Sprite to anyone whose name starts with an S."  They started giggling, and I think my point was made.  Just once, I should order them chicken livers or frog's legs when they refuse to speak up.  That'll be the end of that.


I'm a weird mom, I think.  I know every mom must have quirks, but Austin (the only one who hasn't been with me since infancy) is apt to point out my weirdness when I say things like, "Get in the shower.  Make it snappy this time though!  Don't linger - just wash the parts with hair or cracks and get out!" I can't help it.  Our kids like to take really long showers at the expense of dish washing, laundry, and everything else that requires hot water.  Sometimes I set a timer and leave it in there, and it just annoys them till they get out.


But back to the restaurant embarrassment... All the kids' meals came with soup/salad bar.  So there were more oddities with which to cope.  Pickled herring... soup cups that are supposed to have saucers under them... the fact that this was not a buffet where you return several times to get more...  I gave Claire a soup cup and saucer, and she took the saucer out from under it and put her salad on it.  Soup spoons caused another layer of confusion.


Then the entrees came.  Panic ensued when huge leaves of lettuce and sliced oranges were spotted beneath their cheeseburgers (that could have thoroughly fed two full-grown adults).  Then Levi realized that his cheeseburger was naked - no ketchup or mustard?  What kind of low-class joint makes you apply your own ketchup and mustard to your sandwich?  Then the refills.  She brought a refill for Levi before he was done with his first Sprite.  "This isn't mine!  I already have water and Sprite too... now another Sprite?!"  As the waitress was talking (in a mild Greek accent), to my horror, he mimicked her... high pitched voice and all.  No way did he just do that.  As she walked away, I said, "Don't talk to her like that."  He said, "Well, I was just saying what she said.  She talks funny,"  I said, "Well, maybe she thinks you talk funny.  Do you want her to make fun of you?"  He responded in the negative, and Austin was shrinking further in his chair.


I asked him what was wrong, and he said, "This is so embarrassing."  (As if the elderly people sitting at the 4 tables surrounding us and the young married couple across the way were going to be texting his friends about how lame he was for having *gasp* siblings.)  I said, "I think it's kind of funny... all except that last part."  He said (as if he was so much more cultured than everyone at the table), "They're acting like barbarians."  I laughed, "It's kind of like taking chimps to an opera house, huh?"  He smiled, and we relaxed a bit.


As we finished up the rest of our meal, things settled down.  As we asked for a box, Sadie whispered to me, "I want an extra sauce to take home."  I said, "Well, we don't serve extra sauce to people whose names start with S!"  She smiled, and when the waitress came back with boxes, she asked politely, "May I have a sauce to take home?"  Sometimes, I think that making people understand that there is truly nothing to fear in most social situations might embolden them.  I suggested we sing Austin Happy Birthday before we leave, and he said, "No way, mom!"  I said, "C'mon, we can do it quietly!"  He refused.  I said, "What?  Happy Birthday is not embarrassing.  What do you think?  Everyone is going to stare and point and laugh saying, 'Look at that guy!  What a freak!  He was BORN!'"  Despite his laughter at the commentary, he still refused a birthday song.  Well, I guess you win some and you lose some.  In the fight against hormones, I rarely come out the winner.


Well, I guess when you think about it, the kids were just stating the obvious - that most of the things we do to impress one another and feel important (garnishes, cloth napkins, soup spoons) are unnecessary. After all, when faced with the vastness of the universe or the diversity of creation or the elegance of a magnolia tree in full bloom, the things we do are pretty much silly.  They are just shadowy reflections of the glory for which we were created.  1 Corinthians 13 is most renowned as the "love chapter" of the Bible... the one people like to write on plaques (love is patient, kind, doesn't boast, etc.).  The one teenagers use to measure the level of their latest crush.  We forget there is another part to that chapter - one that is encouraging to me.  ⁹ For now we know in part and we prophesy in part; ¹⁰ but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. ¹¹ When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. ¹² For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known."


A few years ago, I read a book that detailed the life of a woman who had been a staunch feminist until she gave birth to not just one but a few handicapped children... one of whom was severely handicapped.  She related how one of her sons had to be institutionalized because he had a feeding tube and other things that made him too hard to care for at home.  She said how she'd had to humble herself completely - taking on what she would have once considered humiliating tasks - in order to provide for the care of her children.  She related a story of how, at one Christmas, they had brought their son home from the institution for the day.  She said, "As it came time for me to take him back to his 'home', I stalled by washing dishes as he sat behind me in his wheelchair.  As I washed, I felt God impress upon me that I must tell him that I loved him.  So I knelt by his chair and told him, 'Son, I love you so much!'"  She was met with a blank stare, and as she wiped away some drool from his chin, she went back to dish washing.  She said that she felt impressed to do the same thing 2 more times, and she did.  As she stood there with tears running down her cheeks wondering why God would want her to do such a thing when He clearly knew how her son would (or rather would not) respond, the reason came to her.  She said she heard, almost in an audible voice, "That's you and me."  In other words, she explained, God is always trying to tell us how much he loves us.  He is always reaching out to us - in our face at times - and telling us clearly how much he loves us.  Our response is a blank stare and a drool-covered chin.  We do not respond.  We are handicapped by our fallen state.  We are unable to give Him anything He doesn't already own or possess.  God's point to her, she felt that day, was, "Would you love your son any more if he was healthy?  Would you love him any more if he could give you a smile and a hug in return?"  Her response was, "No.  I love him for one reason - because he's mine."  He reminded her that, compared to His power and perfection, none of our talents amount to anything.  We are all severely handicapped by our sinful state - particularly when compared to the Creator of all things.


That's God and us - He loves us because we are His.  Nothing we do or don't do can make us more or less acceptable to Him.  We are acceptable as the result of a perfect sacrifice - the blood of His Son, through which He sees us as wholly and irrevocably acceptable when we have been drawn to Him as Savior and follow Him as Lord.  Thankfully, there are no shades of gray with God.  There are no levels of acceptability.  You either are or you're not, and it has nothing to do with whether or not you use the right dinner fork - or even how you vote, or even how you love.  I don't know about you, but that is an incredibly liberating feeling.  I don't have to be perfect.  In fact, compared to God, we're all just chimps at the opera.