My Version of Ecclesiastes

Curious friends have asked me how having a baby has changed things for me, and each time I've wanted to spend half an hour in deep thought before answering. But since that would make an awkward conversation, instead I've quickly said something about how tired I am all the time, or how much fun it is to see someone develop from an infant into a person.

I think if I gave myself the half hour of reflection, this would be my answer: the single most persistent way that having a baby has altered my world is by reminding me that life as I know it could fall apart at any second.

I remember when I was in my mid-twenties and single, having a revelation of myself as a fragile, mortal individual. I imagined I was in a boat, surrounded by friends and family in their boats, but in my own vessel I was alone. My boat could spring a leak and go under at any time, and though my loss would affect others around me, ultimately they'd suffer no long-term damage. And I? Well, I'd be absorbed into the eternal bliss of heaven, and whatever that means, it'd be good and I wouldn't miss my little boat.

When I married E, I recognized some of the risk we were taking. Two people in one boat meant that when one person left life, the other would remain with permanent loss. We jokingly argued over who would get to die first, neither of us wanting to be the one Left Behind. The argument could only be resolved when we agreed to die simultaneously, in a car accident where both of us accidentally fell asleep on a road trip peacefully unaware we had careened off a bridge. My apologies to people who would have been saddened by this arrangement, and to Cal Trans for theoretically having to repair the bridge railing.

So now, we have this baby.



She's small and fragile and innocent and happy. She needs us. And she's kind of in her own boat. I mean, she's part of us, makes us a trifecta of love, and without her we would be incomplete. But she's not one with us the way we're one with each other. Somehow, her life is both essential to and separate from ours. This makes our boat arrangement infinitely more risky, and infinitely more delightful. The depth of joy we have in our small family is too profound to be sustained forever.

"The pain now is part of the happiness then." I hoped to cite C.S. Lewis as the source of this quote, but as far as I can tell it was the invention of Shadowlands, that movie about C.S. Lewis. Either way, with a little flip the quote becomes a perfect expression of how I view our family from this side of struggle. For months now I've reveled in the fact that "the pain then is part of the happiness now."

Every night when I pray for V before putting her to bed, these words just burst out as the most accurate way to express my full heart: "Thank you, God, for another day with my sweet baby." It's hard to imagine the possibility of a night when I can no longer say that to Him. But since I'm aware of the possibility, the reality of today is so sweet and so rich.

Rethinking Christmas

I've seen ads for several popular campaigns this season promoting charitable donations in lieu of traditional gift-giving. I'm not gonna lie - they made me feel kinda guilty. Here I was actually enjoying Black Friday shopping, while across the nation rabid consumerism led shoppers to act like animals and everybody in America forgot how to be decent people for Christmas.

I've racked my brain trying to think of one single creative way I set apart Christmas as a sacred occasion. E and I don't even go to a Christmas Eve service at church because we're juggling time between our families. Rather, the annual gift exchanges form the main events of our holidays. Am I a shallow materialist when it comes to this season?

I'm still working this out, but I've decided a tentative "no".

There were a few issues I had to grapple with before arriving at this conclusion. First, consumerism in America has gotten out of control. Second, there are many who are desperate for our help, financially and otherwise - donating to charities is an effective way of meeting needs. Finally, for Christians this season is significant because we celebrate Jesus entering the earth in human form; His profound vulnerability as an infant reminds us of how much He gave us in His life, death, and victory over death. Doesn't seem to leave a lot of wriggle room for holiday shopping lists.

Here's why I'm okay sticking with tradition:

1. Buying, like most other activities, is good in moderation. The amount of greed and waste in Western civilization is an appalling consequence of a good thing perverted by misuse. When done intentionally, weighed against a person's values and ideals, the items bought can become tools or temporary treasures. I try to treat buying as an art, or a game: get what is needed with the most thought and least expenditure possible. Gift giving is no exception. If I give you a present, I've probably slaved over it for hours to get it just right for you, including as many meaningful personal touches as I can. Whether or not you see it, love is dripping off every ninja in that bar of ninja soap.

2. Christmas is a great opportunity to donate to charity, but it's not the only or best time. Why should we treat non-profit organizations like shopping malls, letting their accounting books get in the black only around this season? Like many people, E and I plan our whole year around charitable giving; while we do give extra for special Christmas projects through church, the bulk of our donations take place throughout the year, including times when many organizations feel the pinch the most. I'm okay spending a fraction the cost of one month's donations on gifts for family and friends.

3. I learned in Sunday School as a youngster that the reason we give gifts to each other at Christmas is because God gave life to us through His Son. I was trained to think of those presents under the tree as one of many clear expressions of our gratitude to Him. I still can't reconcile that image with the mob trampling a Walmart employee in Long Island - that's what people do when they abuse or don't know love. It's not the presents that got people there; it's the empty, unchecked hunger for something to replace love. At its best, sharing our hearts through gifts to each other can be a sacred activity, I believe - just as sacred as breaking bread together.

I hope these aren't lame excuses for sticking to my materialistic ways. But if they are, I hope all of you will help set me straight. I don't resent the anti-shopping campaigns - I think they're really cool and I hope they continue causing people to rethink their Christmas traditions. They caused me to rethink mine, and for now, to appreciate them all the more.


HORSE prompt: Share your favorite cold-weather recipe, and the best clothes/location/activity in which to enjoy eating or drinking it.

All You Need Is... Christ's Mind

Once upon a time, Paul wrote a letter to believers who had so stripped the power from Christ's message that Paul in disappointment called them "spiritual babies". These were believers in Corinth, and they should have grown up by then. Where had they gone wrong?

For one thing, they were getting puffed up, thinking that their own brand of wisdom made them more spiritual than others. They believed this gave them rights, or authority, to act as they would without consequences.

Sexual immorality? For them it was a badge of honor. Participation in idolatry was a sign of strength. They had become self-seeking in their quest for spirituality.

There's an odd twist to this story, however. These same Corinthians were, by outward appearances, really spiritually active. Paul himself praised them for having every spiritual gift! Apparently, they were familiar with words of wisdom, words of knowledge, faith, healing, miraculous powers, prophecy, distinguishing between spirits, speaking in different kinds of tongues, and the interpretation of tongues. From the sounds of this, the Spirit's work should have been thriving in the Corinthian congregation. What was missing from this picture?

My guess is, Christ was missing.

In the same portion of the letter in which Paul praised the Corinthians for their spiritual gifts, he repeatedly referred to Jesus - nine times within nine of our modern verses, in fact. Excessive, much? But the excess served its purpose, because Paul's earliest readers would have recognized the repetition as a form of emphasis used often in those days.

Christ called the Apostle who founded this church; Christ was the means of their sanctification and calling; Christ is the Lord of all believers everywhere; Christ gives grace and peace with God; God enriched them to confirm the testimony about Christ; the Corinthians gifts were given as they waited for Christ to be revealed; their security was for the sake of their blamelessness in Christ's day; and God called them into fellowship with Christ.

Why do you think Paul was so emphatic about this whole Jesus thing?

I think the Corinthians had kept the bath water and thrown out the baby. Now that they had achieved their level of spirituality (after all, look at what they were spiritually empowered to do!), Jesus had become irrelevant to them, as had the purpose for which He had called them.

They had lost sight of love: relinquishing rights for the benefit of brothers and sisters; sacrificing temporary freedom for the sake of releasing sin's captives forever; allowing God's power to take precedence. That is Christ's love.

And that is what I think Paul meant when he said that we have the mind of Christ.



Stay tuned for the HORSE prompt to come at the end of the next post...

Hide and Seek

"What is at the top of your list? Pick three random emotions (jealousy, wistfulness, etc.) and write a list of five experiences that cause you to feel each emotion. After all lists are complete, write a summary stating what each emotion means to you, based on your observations of the list for that emotion."

Humility
1. Losing at anything.
2. Leading to fill a volunteer gap when I know someone more highly-skilled could lead better, if only they were willing.
3. Debating with my husband about almost anything. (See #1.)
4. Teaching. (See #2.)
5. Losing at Scrabulous.

Humility is what I feel when comparison of myself to others is unflattering to me.

Bitterness
1. Watching politically partisan escapades.
2. Knowing gas in the U.S. will most likely never again cost less than $3 a gallon.
3. Recognizing impenetrable social cliques as they painfully exclude non-members.
4. Reading a history of atrocities committed in the name of Jesus Christ.
5. Losing someone to death knowing they never knew Life.

Bitterness is my response when any response seems powerless to change the situation.

Contentment
1. Walking home knowing who's waiting for me there.
2. Hearing my littlest brother's voice on the phone.
3. Watching an inspiring documentary film.
4. Seeing another believer baptized.
5. Purposeful times of prayer and worship with God's family.

Contentment grows out of interactions with others who snap me out of my self-absorption and remind me of an intention far superior to mine for a world far greater than mine.

Tag! If you read this, you're IT!

Deliciously Underpaid

Why does it seem that for most people, the best, most loved work they do is the work they do for free?

I'm sitting here in the church office on my volunteer Thursday, being a secretary and doing odd jobs not really more meaningful than any of my work at the library. Apparently, the tasks I engage in at both are similar; required motor skills and brain activity are comparable.

But somehow, I woke up today glad to spend a morning not making money.

The papers and tests I prepared for this last semester built up in me some extreme stress and duress. I commuted 3 hrs a day for classes, returning home exhausted and insecure at the end of most days. Sleep was lost, communication with the outside world put on temporary hiatus, and friendships and fun sacrificed at the altar of responsibility.

And yet, not even into the second week since the end of the Fall semester, I look forward eagerly to the pay-free challenges of school in Spring.

I've always loved dabbling in crafts and art. But even when I was young, no matter how passionately or for how many years I pursued a particular art form - and at the age of ten, stamped stationery was high art - as soon as I had to make a bundle to raise funds for volleyball camp, my devotion to lanyard-work or greeting-card-embossing or paperdoll-crafting soured directly into drudgery.

Since the beginning, I have been emotionally opposed to making a buck.

So here I sit in the church office, taking a few minutes of my own time to compose a thought for the benefit of the five friends who care to read it, and I think I might hit on an answer soon. Because I realize if I were writing this post while sitting at the library with money on the ticking clock, I'd be stealing from an employer. Not just taking money - I'd be stealing the whole clock off the wall.

Which leads me to wonder: How does it work that the company willing to put its money on my clock gets to put my clock on its wall?

Dilemma

[Scene opens in kitchen of small apartment in New Jersey. Warm sunlight pours through open window. Woman in late twenties stands at the sink washing dishes, humming softly. Man's voice calls from other room.]

Reid: "Honey, did you already pay the electric bill?"

Joy: "Yeah, the stub is on the refriger--"

[Camera zooms in to Joy's back. Footage converts seamlessly to CGI as camera moves through abdominal cavity, past healthy organs, pauses on normally-beating heart. Suddenly, heart begins racing as sound of heart valves slamming open and shut grows increasingly louder. Camera moves again to follow rapid flow of blood to brain, where abnormal level of electrical activity appears like violent fireworks. With continuing sound of blood pounding through vessels, camera zooms out again to kitchen scene. Joy grabs the edge of the sink, white-knuckled. Driving heartbeat sound pauses... one beat, then pause... one beat more... Fade to black as woman falls backward.]

--Opening credits--

Countdown

Eight days until The Move, the calendar says.

My pulse quickens.

Twenty-five days until The Wedding, the calendar says.

I start to hyperventilate. My palms get clammy. My shaking hands whip out several To Do lists and I begin yanking lines of completion across each task.

Seven hundred, forty-five days until The First Degree, the calendar says.

I pause.

One thousand, one hundred eighty days until The Year in Europe. One thousand, four hundred, eighty-four days until The Second Degree. One thousand, seven hundred, fifty-seven days until the First Baby. Two thousand, six hundred forty days until The First House, the calendar says.

Comfort steals over me.

For a minute there, it felt like every milestone was breathing down my neck.

Through a Glass, Darkly

"I always heard you don't know how how well you've raised your kids until you've seen how your grandchildren grow up," she says in her warbly munchkin voice.

I study her profile where she sits in her favorite armchair, one of the few chairs she can still hoist herself out of without help. The paralyzed left side of her face is turned away from me. The side that can smile is what I see. Her back is hunched just enough to make her look comfortable with 87 years of living. If I could scoop her into my arms right now, I would.

Her right eyebrow swoops into a frown of thought.

"I wonder why three of my grandchildren are gay."

I laugh quietly to myself. I usually do when I'm with her. Spending time with Grandma is like watching a theoretical me 60 years from now.

She's lost several inches in height, but her hair is very near the dark blonde it always was. The knobs in her knuckles don't disguise the fact that her fingers are long and slender. Her pale skin is doused with freckles. Though one eye is halfway sewn up, you can still catch in it the glint of a thinking blue.

Her stubborness reaches mule-like proportions at times. Every once in a while she throws rationality out the window. She loves working on projects - for Grandma, christmas preparations begin in January and the church could always use another book sale. Her friends describe her as steady, sharp, loyal, and always up for a good laugh - even at her own expense.
When she was a young mother, she had the chance to study under a world-famous voice instructor in New York, who saw potential in her to become a diva. She chose to raise her family instead.

When Grandpa turned into a crotchety tyrant in his old age and demanded banana cream pies for every meal, Grandma laughed it off and became an expert at making homemade whipped cream.

When she found herself a widow several years later, she packed up and moved from Northern to Southern California in this tidy, simple house with white walls and warm sunshine. Today, she enjoys her own company here. Close friends are always welcome. She positively glows when family visits.

Somehow her life is full. Though she carries disappointments from the past - though her familiar strength and agility are gone - though none of her success has been great enough to astound the world - though there is a lot about her Savior she still doesn't understand - she lacks nothing.

She simply continues to grow.

My decisions have already veered me into a life unique from Grandma's. God has had a longer time to work on my submitted self. In some ways I'm an earlier - in others, a later - bloomer than she. But as I sit beside her, comfort in our similarities warms me. The adventures, challenges, successes and failures that make my life so intimidating to me diminish when I see them through her eyes.

Once, the future glared into her face, demanding her participation. She must have felt helpless and blind when confronted with some of her major decisions. The terror of "one false move" probably paralyzed her at some point. But she survived. And she continues to grow.

Just like me.

Today, a note that she's written and laid aside catches my eye. "I am thankful I can get out of bed, shower, dress, and anticipate the day ahead. For all of which I thank God!"

I guess in their own way, lilies and birds are full of prayers like that. And God sees that it is good.

Just like me.

That Doesn't Work, Tom

"And unflickering porchlight sounds nice, but to be honest, a mother, or brother, or sister that loves you feels a lot better."

It's a metaphor. You can't mix metaphor with... whatever the opposite of metaphor is. If people are mosquitoes, then people can't be people, too. Your sister is a mosquito, buzzing around and being annoying, diving and spinning and making a wreck of herself. If people are people and not mosquitoes, then God is God and not an "unflickering porchlight".

Don't you remember? Remember how good He is? Like, better than the best good you've known anywhere else? Like, completely mind-bogglingly better? Like, everything beautiful and lovely and powerful and intoxicating and attractive and comfortable and affirming and good
just
turns
to
grey?
When you look His way?
It's better. You don't have to feel it. It just is.

Lost in a Thought

What happens to us, that inexplicably draws us to or repels us from our Father? He's unchanging. Like an omni-everything-good porchlight. And we're finite, fickle mosquitoes, striving in all directions, urging our bodies along a dizzying path of zigzagging curlicues.

There's no method to it.

One split-second we're booking it as deeply into the shadows as we can. The next we're spiraling headlong into a burning brilliance of glory. A few moments later and we're skirting the edges of warmth, nursing what seem to be wounds, but are more likely remnants of not-yet-surrendered pride.

What are we looking for? Why do we never seem to find it for good?

Why does my uncle walk around like a dead man, when he used to know life?
Why does one brother reject family, while another rejects church, while I cling to both, while we all just survive?
Why do I always feel right about extending a hand, only to look down and see empty, useless palms?
Why doesn't anyone touch this God-given robe and be healed?

Why is unconditional love so hard to buy?

Let us consider these things in quietness before God who sees them all. ~Elisabeth Eliot
I just left a conversation with my brother that cut me deeply, and I can't explain why. If you have any answers to these questions, you're probably Jesus. If so, please comment, because it would be cool to have a comment from Jesus. And answers.

Holy Crap, Minus "Holy"

Today my dad dropped off about 10 boxes of Stuff my parents have been storing for me at their house.

Stuff. Not Tools; not Treasures; not Things. Stuff.

Tools are useful. Treasures are valuable. Things have potential to be useful and/or valuable. Stuff is just Things without potential.

Packed away in dust-baptized boxes, my Stuff hadn't enjoyed daylight for years. A trophy for 2nd place in my elementary school's spelling bee. Ticket stubs from every movie/play/concert/ballgame/church event I'd been to since 1989. Artwork by kids I babysat for, unsigned and unmemorable. Every single card, letter, and valentine I'd ever received. Ugly keychains from Oregon. Mounds of paper dolls - I mean seriously, ridiculously too many paper dolls. A mostly empty bear honey jar.

Why am I attached to it? It all feels like a chain connected to my ankles at one end, and my past on the other end. I don't need these things, I don't even want them, but chucking it all feels like a betrayal of my childhood.

For real: when I was 13 I thought it would all be in my life forever.

I think it's about time 26-year-old Bethany had a talk with 13-year-old Bethany. I need a visual aid here.



Hey, bitch.

Guess what? You're young and ignorant, and you're afraid of the future - what you will become and how different that will be from who you are now. You feel an impulsive need to gain control over the frightening Unknown. You don't want to lose your identity as you grow older. So you hoard.

But you don't hoard Tools or Treasures or Things - you use them, admire them, and discard them when their day is done. Instead, you hoard Stuff... and call it "Memories".

Somehow, you've stumbled across the one way to keep your fingernails sunk deeply into my reality - the reality of 26-year-old me, trying to let go of the past and stretch forward into the future.

You make my Memories contain pieces of me, like glass jars holding my identity. The foggier the jars get, the less I understand myself. I'm afraid I'll lose my knowledge of who I am, who and what I love, and what is important to me. I need to know what came before to understand what is now and what will become.

God forbid I forget I went to the flipping Nutcracker ballet when I was 8.

When I die, I refuse to leave behind a heap of meaningless Stuff to burden my loved ones the way you've burdened me. I don't need my spirit to haunt them through Stuff they feel too guilty to toss out.

So this is what I'm going to do: all Stuff goes into the dumpster, starting tomorrow.

Thank you for your attention.

This is a Desert Place

His cousin John got decapitated by a disgusting slug-king. Jesus just heard about it, and He wants to be alone.

The people are annoying. They won't give Him space. God, I hate the crowd right now. Why are we so suffocating, so desperate?

Why do we need Him?

I can just see it now: the numbing cloud of shock settling over His head; the throb of tears lodged somewhere deep inside His chest - we, in our barefooted blindness, crave His company as He craves solitude. What disgust He must feel as He slowly realizes that, once again, we've tracked Him down. Oh Father, He breathes, Don't let them say anything. I can't handle their ignorance right now. Maybe, just maybe, we'll get a clue what's going on, seeing things the way He does. Maybe we'll comfort Him for once.

I doubt it. You all must feel as ashamed as I do, but you obviously can't help approaching Him, either. What miserable failures we are. I don't like us, and I am one of us. We must make Him sick.

He's walking out now.

"And Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and He healed their sick."

You beautiful You.

O Little Town of Hope-lehem

Places don't really change. People change. And thank God they do, because otherwise we'd be going to Hope Christmas parties for the rest of our lives.

We stand there, the three or four of us who don't belong. A couple of us make feeble attempts at fitting in, but our hearts are clearly not invested. Deep down, we know it's true: this is what it feels like to be an intruder with stolen queso and other people's ornaments.

What's happened? The dorms are still made of cinder block. The residents, though looking considerably younger than they did in our day, are essentially the same people that have always been here. Priscilla Schubert remains Priscilla Schubert. Dr. Edgingtion tries just as hard as every Christmas to appear "loosened up". The food is equally yummy and the music is equally sucky.

I'll tell you what's happened. Somewhere along the way, some time since we last wore carefully modest pajamas to devos, College Squeezed us Out its Butt, and now we're left Floating in the Toilet Water of Life-After-College's-Butt.

We think it feels great. We think we're glad to be finally free. We think we couldn't stand to stay here another ten minutes. And we look at each other and wonder aloud, "Where has everyone gone?"

The faces that used to make this place home, the security living within these oddly-angled walls, the familiar scent of familiar conversation with familiar classmates... it's all over, as though it'd never happened. The book has closed on our lively little chapter, as though we'd never written it. It's strange not to know this as home, and sad to miss what it felt like to fit in.

On the other hand, how many more crappy ornaments did we really want to make, anyway?