Category Archives: Random

Why I Do What I Do

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I was in an analyzing mood today, and so all of you faithful/careful/hapless readers get to be the blessed recipients of the result of this exercise.

Actually, I found it to be a very useful exercise and encourage anyone to try it.
(And, yes, I noticed that my wife-ness didn’t hit the list, but I think that is indicative of the way God works in our marriage– all of it has been quiet, natural, and nearly invisible. So it almost never makes it to a list.)

One of the blogs I read encourages finding/creating a purpose statement for your life/writing/work. I’m not ready (focused enough?) to do that, but this list is probably the next-best thing– and I really like it.

It goes like this:
I am drawn to a number of different things in my daily life. Why? Do they have a purpose? What do I hope they accomplish?

What I want to do?
Why I want to do it?

Why write?
Because I hope to somehow touch lives beyond my family without detracting from my primary responsibility and assignment.

Also because it helps me better understand myself, so that (Lord willing) I can better/more efficiently improve myself to be a useful tool and effective witness for my heavenly master.
Being less of an embarrassment to myself is an additional perk.

Why Guitar?
Because I’ve always felt competency in an instrument it is somehow a part of a “complete” life, along with the husband and children and so on.

While not wishing to diminish the the intensity of the desire for children, this is the best analogy I’ve found so far: There is a image of older women desiring children; that they feel a hole, along with a sense of urgency while they wait. That’s the best way I can describe my “need” for excellence, or maybe just existence, in this realm of music.

Being able to sing (even well) is somehow not enough, in the way that these women, while perhaps willing to adopt, desperately want to hold their own baby.

It is a very awkward need to have, truly, because I’ve found little internal motivation (e.g., to practice) beyond the bloated sense of need that it happen. The means of happening is woefully under-funded.

Continue reading »

The Danger of Trusting God

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I guess a better title might be “The Danger of *saying* you’re trusting God.” Or maybe just, “We’re trusting God too.”

Barbara at Mommy Life is working on an article about Evangelicals (basically non-Catholics) who have given up birth control and are trusting God for their family size. She acknowledged “full-quiver” (having as many children as you can?) isn’t exactly what she’s trying to talk about.

The comments are full of personal stories, some quite inspiring, and (though I haven’t finished going through all of them) thankfully free of calls to sameness or the implication that all Christians are called to this type of obedience.

Jay and I haven’t felt called to this type of “openness to life.” We’ve felt peace about three biological children being the appropriate number for my body, and expect that to tie into plans God is giving us for when they are older.

My difficulty with this (and the reason for this post) is– you guessed it– the language.

There is no way (I have yet found) for a couple to express their calling to a large family (or whatever number they’re given, free of the plans of men) without somewhere, in some way, saying they’re “trusting God.” The unfortunate opposite of that is, of course, implying not trusting God.

I believe that couples (assuming they have sought God rather than only their own plans) can still be “trusting God” when they use contraceptives.

I feel very strongly that there are very few medical (or conscionable) reasons to use hormonal birth control or IUDs. There is enough question–some will say proof– about their abortifacient nature that I don’t think a pro-lifer should use them without careful consideration.

That said, I do believe there are contraceptive methods that are quite acceptable choices for believers.

I think of it as a stewardship issue, and compare trusting God for your family size to trusting God for your family finances.

Continue reading »

Book Give-away!

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Overwhelmed is sponsoring a monthly book give-away that she said I could add my own spin to.

pay-it-forward.jpgThe original rules have the books being offered the first Monday of the month (so you see I’m already late), and require each winner to offer the book in a give-away in a month or so (assuming it’s been read) to continue to pass the love along.

As a confirmed book…devotee, I resist requirements to part with a book I may grow to love. So here are the Untangling Modifications, and how to enter:

  1. Leave a comment mentioning which set of books you’d love to win (if you have a preference) and write a note about the drawing on your own blog (if you want to).
  2. When you receive your books, pick a date in the next month or so to have your own give-away.
  3. (The challenging part:) Only give away books you would be happy to receive– That “do unto others” bit. It can be the books you just received, one or two of them, or one you bought just for the occasion if you want to keep all three.

The Books:

Set #1

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Versibility: The Poetry Game (Great for you word-types who have friends that are word-types.)

The Perilous Gard If it’s not my all-time favorite, it’s pretty close. I’d love someone else to meet it.

Messie Free a two-books in one guide to de-messifying your life. One of what I call “talisman” books. (The type you buy because now, maybe, things might be different… or a little easier… because we’ve bought the magic.) It’s useful too. Thought-provoking reading, but you still have to do the work. I know. Bummer.

Set #2

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The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook Crazy-Weird. Cool.

Forever my Love A sweet gift-book with scripture and sound-bites from Warren’s Triumphant Marriage

The King’s Chessboard an illustrated folktale. Could be a good discussion-starter for reading with an older child. The concepts are a little beyond my pre-schoolers. The way most math is.

As I mentioned a few days ago, I tried to pick books that related to what I write about here. The Survival Handbook might beg a bit of explanation.

I included it because I think it’s cool, and anybody might enjoy it (I gave one to Jay for our anniversary this year– terrific pastime for avoiding bill-paying ;) ) , and I’ll say it’s related to what I put my novel characters through.

I’m sure they might have appreciated having more of a manual for what they end up going through.

So, there you go. The first giveaway from Untangling Tales. The drawing for two winners will doubtless include my darling children drawing names out of a hat, and will occur in one-week’s time, Monday the 17th.

The timing coincides with my grandmother’s birthday (she would have been 89), so this giveaway is sort of in her honor. Worthy (I hope) of the memory of the most generous woman I’ve ever known.

Further Musing on “Helpmeet”

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To begin, this is not pretended to be researched extensively. It’s merely a comment/thought has grown from the double seed of Debi Pearl and Teri Maxwell in a book (Debi) and talk (Teri) about loving your husbands and being good wives.

Both of them include the beginning in Genesis where the idea of a help meet or “helper” was first introduced. Whenever I have heard this verse discussed I have always noticed the speaker/author adding hastily this isn’t the type of “helper” we call our little ones (that slow us as much as help us).

They point out that the word used to say “helper” here is the same word God uses to describe himself later in the bible. This clarification usually accompanies the point that being this sort of helper is not a lowly position, as it’s the role God himself has, or is in.

Later both Teri and Debi both point out that they are their husbands’ helpmeets, not the other way around. That God has given them the assignment of helping their husband, not of him helping her.

All that said, I was thinking about this yesterday and a new idea entered my mind.

Like these women said, my husband was not given to me as my helpmeet, I was given to him. As the type of helper God it to us (they implied).

So maybe in looking at what my job is, I should be studying what kind of a helper God is, and see what he is doing that I may emulate. That is, I already know it’s not my job to convict, but maybe it is in my role to advise my husband– I may see something more clearly than he. Or I may “make his paths straight” (his way easier or more smooth) by anticipating what he needs and helping with that.

This is a neat (and to me a new) way at looking at my job as a helper to my husband.

But, also because of this way of looking, I think it’s a mistake to imagine I was designed as his helper and not the reverse. Because God doesn’t (as some people seem to think) just sit, taking notes as we pray, then jump to work. He has a plan, and he somehow uses us little humans to accomplish that plan.

(I don’t mean to imply the reverse– that really the woman should be in a God-like position of control– just that if our role looks a little like God’s, it’s definitely not all our husband’s ideas and our following blandly along.)

I’m just beginning to question and think this through, so if anyone else can articulate this better I welcome your thoughts. I still agree that God did not give man as a helpmeet. That is simply plain in scripture– it’s the woman’s title.

But I don’t think the woman’s assignment having that title must exclude the man from also being a helper. It is not a lowly position for the woman, because it is way God describes himself, and is no more lowly for the man.

It’s not scripture, but I believe it was accurate when Diane Sawyer said:

A good marriage is a contest of generosity.

Encouraging?

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Jay is one of those people who will usually say nothing negative unless asked his opinion about something he dislikes. Then he’ll be entirely frank.

This (that he dislikes something) has surprised me several times. The latest was this morning.

God seems to have taken the training wheels off (I think I mentioned earlier how smoothly the transition to early-waking was going, and giving God credit for that). All in the same week (the same night, really) E started teething again, is resisting medicine he didn’t before, and his sisters have started night-waking more.

Combine that with one of my (thankfully!) infrequent migraines and *mounting* duties and pressures at work for Jay, and you have a long explanation for why I was up half the night with the Boy. (That’s just one of his nicknames, btw, not an attempt at anonymity ;) )

Anyway, I’ve been thinking for a while of making a more interesting header-image, and had this idea of superimposing my former picture of tangled roots in my current row of books (cool idea, right?). Unfortunately it just made both images look messy.

Then “on a whim” I layered a picture of a Japanese garden with my current header and the match was uncanny– Waterfall over blond rocks matched with the single blond book spine, and the little bridge was in the same place all the books went horizontal. So I played with till I got what you see now. It’s not professional or polished, but it’s fun, so I saved it to ask Jay’s opinion this morning.

“Yeah, it’s nice,” he said. “But I never really liked the books.”

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Oh. Well, I wasn’t enamored with them either.

Makes switching to something new pretty easy. :)

But I guess what I forgot to say is I’m still trying to decide if this type of discretion is encouraging or not.

I mean, what is more useful: to have the person whose opinion you value the most to reserve criticism, or for him to tell you what he’s really thinking?

Not for kids? (Defending the Use of Fairy Tales)

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I have heard (and said myself) that fairy tales were not meant as entertainments for children.

While I still believe most of the content needs to be filtered by discerning parents, as my kids get older (and, remember, they’re not very old yet) I’m finding and thinking that some of the tales aren’t as inappropriate for them as I once thought they would be.

I first started thinking this way when I hung on to Wiley and the Hairy Man despite my mother’s opinion of it. I can see that the book is intense, but I know my kids, and went though it with them until they were acclimated to the story.

More troubling to me are (several) “children’s” movies that are equally or more intense than this story and too often used to “babysit.” That is, entertain a child without the adult’s involvement.

I am not “above” using movies to entertain my children. That’s what they’re there for. That’s why I watch movies. I have a stash that I am comfortable doing this with.

My general complaint with children being left alone with the television is that too many people equate cartoon with child-friendly.

For this reason I won’t let my girls watch certain “childhood standards” and I will continue to delay those while I can.

I like the movies (well enough). I think they’re good storytelling and art and all that, but I don’t think their level of tension is appropriate for preschoolers.

One of the difficulties with movies is that all the images and emotions come rushing at you like wild animals, and there’s no time or context for processing one of them before being attacked or buried by the next one.

When reading stories– even the same ones the movies were made from– I have more control, the children have more context, and (therefore) more safety for the whole exercise.

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Why do it at all if it requires special presentation to be “safe”? Because I enjoy them, for one thing, and I best meet my own expectations of reading aloud frequently if that first criterion is met.

Also because the stories, told in the right way, create opportunities to talk about real issues (this can be good or bad, depending on what issues are brought up).

Did you know the original Snow White (from the German, not Disney) was a child? She first angers her step-mother at the tender age of 7. There is nothing remotely passive or weak (common complaints about the tale) about a 7-year-old being taken somewhere by an adult she trusts, or being told what to do for her own safety (e.g by the dwarfs).

We have used the original Snow White (still edited slightly as we read aloud) to talk about the danger of disobedience; the reasons for adults’ warnings, designed to keep children safe. Continue reading »

Selective Memory

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One thing blogging is good for is reminding me about reality.

I said last night, with all sincerity, “My babies don’t cry!”

I was thinking of my little babies, and how they were worn babies and very content little ones.

But I wasn’t thinking of the teething, and long car trips, and not-sleeping, and times when I had to leave them behind for something.

They most certainly can and do cry, and like any other babies they had no other way to let me know they had a need.

It’s funny, really, how my brain works.

I begin to understand how my Grandmother (who actively– intentionally– blocked out the unhappy memories of her childhood) could genuinely forget most of her early years because she tried.

My memory of the negative is quite patchy, and I’m not even trying to forget.

What are You Practicing?

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My brother-in-law is going to school for guitar (among other things).

One of his requirements when he first transfered was a mandatory 2-hours a day of practice.

I was just thinking about that practicing. Thinking how it would be really hard not to get better if one invested two hours of competent practice each day.

Then of course I had to think about what I’m practicing. Ask myself if there’s anything I spend hours a day on– even collecting the bits together.

I can see that I’m good at those things, but I have to decide now if those things are really what I want most to be practicing, just now.

Power?

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There was an excuse for soft-porn in the paper the other day.

It was an article about sex-is-power, and had images from a “girl-band tryout” and a several-years-old image of an (also) under dressed Britney Spears. I was thankful the pictures were B&W, but it still floored me they fronted a newspaper section (okay, so it was both surprising and not that the paper would do it).

Jay and I both read the whole article.  It talked about the wave of exhibitionism on youTube and other places, and how “sexy” is the path to *power* in today’s world– and how these young women will do anything to feel powerful.

At the end of the article all I could feel was hollow, and sad. I didn’t really feel like it was inaccurate. On some level I felt that it was rubbing in my personal powerlessness as an (average-looking) mom, knowing that even well-written words are not going to compete with images for the minds of “the masses.”

But more than that, and at the top of my mind enough to be the first thing out of my mouth when Jay and I finally could speak again, was, “No wonder the elderly have no power in this society.”

Something to Remember

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Don’t rebuke an adult the first time s/he does something stupid.  Odds are good they know it was dumb and are mortified enough they’ll never forget it.

This has been true for me more times than I care to remember.