The RevGalBlogPals have a Friday Five Meme … I decided to participate today. So with little more ado …
In the U.S., we’re heading into a holiday weekend as we prepare to celebrate Independence Day. Although the topic of this meme may be inevitable, independence never is, so it couldn’t hurt to stop and think for a minute about independence in a general way and holidays in a more trivial way.
1) Do you celebrate 4th of July (or some other holiday representing independence?) I/We celebrate Independence Day. LightHusband and I used to sweat it out on a parade route somewhere in a fife and drum corps. Now it’s good to stay cool and dry or perhaps swim in our Canadian friends’ swimming pool.
2) When was the first time you felt independent, if ever? When I got my first studio apartment in Washington DC. when I was 23 years old. But now I’m married with kids, not so much.
3) If you’re hosting a cookout, what’s on the grill? Not hosting … going to a cookout hosted by our Canadian friends of all people!! I’m not sure what I’ll take yet. Probably Strawberry Shortcake now that you mention it.
4) Strawberry Shortcake — biscuit or sponge cake? Discuss. Biscuit … always. In fact, I’d never even heard of having sponge cake until I moved out of New England. And … it must have homemade whipped cream on top with lots of yummy strawberry juice. I’ve been known, on occasion, to make strawberry shortcake for dinner. Just because.
5) Fireworks — best and worst experience Hmmm … best would be on The Mall in DC back in about 1984 or 1985 with a bunch of friends. We hung out all day on a blanket and ate food and laughed. Then we watched the fireworks explode over the Washington Monument. This was back in the days when people would buy real livingroom furniture from Salvation Army and leave it on the Mall for the Park Police to clean up the next day. So there were all kinds of people around us sitting in and on all kinds of furniture.
Worst … Was on the shore of the Potomac a couple of years later to watch the fireworks, but I had a migraine all day. And being in the hot sun was horrible. The fireworks were probably fine, but I was miserable.
It’s official. I am now the world’s meanest mommy. I just thought I should tell all you other mommies and let you off the hook. I have claimed the brass ring.
My garden has become a metaphor for my life. It is choked and full of weeds. Everytime I leave or return to the house, those weeds laugh at me. They chortle with glee and claim victory over me. They try to tell me that I cannot decide which plants will grow in my garden. That my hydrangea must die, my nandia must wither, my lily of the valley must wilt and my peonies fall away. The only plant that is thriving is the yarrow, but really that is a weed that we have decided is a plant. So what is the dividing line between plant and weed?
Two of the weeds were HUGE. They had large broad leaves. They were tall. Much taller than I and I am tall for a woman. I had to stretch up tall with my arms above my head to cut off the top leaves yesterday evening. But I got those two. And many other smaller more garden variety (pardon the pun) weeds in 10 minutes. I have been grinning ever since to know that those two will no longer laugh at me. That I can take back my garden and slowly my life. This metaphor is good and gives me space to think whilst I dig in the dirt.
On the other hand, this morning, LightBoy was crushed. I have killed his favorite plant. He played with is Lego people in it. It was a fort, a spaceship, a playhouse and who knows what else. He wants to find a seed for this weed and plant a new one. I may help him.
One mommy’s metaphor is one son’s castle in the air. Motherhood is hard.
Terror was opening a box and finding that the quilt I’ve been working on for nine years (on and off … it’s all done by hand) for LightGirl had become a home to some very disrespectful mice.
Relief was discovering that all they did was relieve one tiny bladder on the quilt itself.
Anger was finding that they used the stash of antique fabric below the quilt for food and nesting.
I can wash the quilt. The box of fabric will go in my fabric closet to be salvaged when my blood pressure returns to normal. The tiny rodents had already been removed from the premises before their perfidy had been known.
Update: Peace is living in a place and time where terror is finding that a possession has been destroyed by rodents. My cup indeed runs over.
Some of you may recall the glimpse I had of the Kingdom a few weeks ago. It peeked out again and left me breathless.
I’ve always loved the story of Ruth. Several years ago I got to lead a women’s Sunday School class through the book. I bought a commentary to help prepare. It was tough reading, but I enjoyed it. Last summer our church did a service based on Ruth. I made a costume and told her story in the first person. It is a story that encapsulates so much theology in simple, yet beautiful language. All the great themes of both Testaments are in four chapters. Beautiful, clean, graceful.
This past Sunday we moved our Muslim refugee family from one apartment to another. It is not their last move. We hope to make it their next to last move. We managed to pack the truck before the torrential rains came. We were not nearly so lucky with the unpacking.
In every move there are little mis-steps that leave everyone standing around waiting. For the efficient, time-managers among the crowd this causes stress. But I think those waiting times are necessary, it gives people time to rest, to pause and breath. It gives the people who’s home is being moved a chance to regroup and make more decisions.
It was during one of those waiting times that I came upon the husband of the family and LightHusband having a conversation. The husband was talking about how grateful the family was to have had our help. The other husband talked about how different culture is here, that in his home country, family helps with things like a move. If one doesn’t have family one is … well … out of luck. LightHusband told him that many of us don’t have family in the area and that our church has become like our family. He went on to tell the other husband that they are part of our church now, regardless of their faith. And then he expressed his thankfulness that they had been able to secure an apartment that was not terribly far away and that we would be able to maintain our relationship with them. And then the other husband said (in his beautiful lilting accent), “Oh, you will not be able to get rid of us. We will sleep in a tent to be near to you.”
With those words, I heard the modern echo of “Wither thou goest, I will go and wither thou stayest, I will stay.” And I knew then that we are following Jesus into the hard places. That this was bringing hesed, the Kingdom, into being, on earth as it is in Heaven. Despite the weather, I was at peace.
Those of you who know me in the so-called “brick and mortar” world of our church and of my family, may have noticed that some new friends are stopping by this blog in the last few days. They are the RevGalBlogPals. They are women involved in ministry either directly (as pastors, reverends, etc. depending on their denomination) or indirectly (like me, Dee, Liz, and Maggie – in our church). They all have blogs. They all support one another. They are very welcoming and you’ve seen how they have welcomed me. Take some time to visit them and read their excellent writing. Check out the blogring, you’ll find the link on the left and down a little ways. In the meantime, enjoy the comments from my new wider circle of friends.
I’m beginning to get a glimmer of what it must have been like during the time of Noah. It’s been raining here for three days and three nights and more is to come. The ground is squishy when you walk on it.
I wonder what it must have been like for those people when it began raining and raining and didn’t stop. It was the first time anyone had ever experienced rain according to the story. In ancient Hebrew it is written that prior to the flood, the earth was watered from springs that welled up from the ground and mists that came down at night. But the first rains happened when Noah finished the ark, and got all the animals on board. He closed the doors and the first drops began to fall.
This morning the sun is shining again and I can see blue sky with no clouds. But the rivers, ponds, lakes and streams are all at flood levels. My much loved Lake Champlain in Vermont is more than 10 feet above it’s normal level for this time of year. I feel we have escaped with only three days and breath a sigh of relief at the sunshine.
For some reason, this little fellow makes me think of that first rain. I wonder how the humans perceived it? Some may have thought it miraculous. Some suspicious. Some may have danced. Some may have hid. All until the waters started rising. But the animals just got wet. They still do.
I started to comment on Brother Maynard’s blogpost pointing to Sally Morgenthaler’s article in Leadership Journal. Both are very good. But I realized that my comment was a post of its own and I shouldn’t be hogging the good Brother’s space.
You’ll need to read Sally Morgenthaler’s article, or give it a good skim, before this makes sense. But I’ve been thinking about this whole idea of professional pastorate for some time now. I’m not sure that having professional pastors is necessarily wrong, but I am sure that how churches treat those pastors in some cases is. I am certain that for too long we have used a few key Scripture references to force pastors, and folks who are in paid ministry positions, and their families to live up to impossible levels of sin free behavior. (I also think we do this to Presidents and politicians, but that’s another story.)
I have good friends for whom Sally’s story would resonate. With a key difference being that their marriage has managed to stay whole. I have other friends who have left ministry positions simply because the pressure to perform outweighed their calling. We have, in many perverse manners, managed to take the simple heart of a shepherd and twist it, mangle it, stretch it, and turn it until the position is no longer recognizable. Those who are in ministry, more than any other, need friends in their local faith community with whom they can be vulnerable without fear of retribution. Without fear of losing face, or God, or love, or community. Without fear … period. But we humans have removed that safety net from them.
What’s that verse in John 15? We’ll be known by our love? Or something like that.
We went out to dinner last night with a rag tag group of friends. By this I mean that it was a bunch of friends that one wouldn’t always picture being together. It was a group that came together sort of at the last minute. We went to our local Indian buffet where the head waiter and waitress know us and love to give us cooking tips. They also bring us baskets of piping hot naan so that we don’t have to rely on the stale naan in the buffet line. Everytime we go there we get a lesson in Indian culture and cooking.
For some reason the conversation drifted at one point to vegetarian eating. I recalled what had to be the very funniest thing I’d ever read about some vegetarians. It was in an article I read some years back (maybe 4) about raw cooking. The term alone is an oxymoron, but I’ll leave it there. In any case, the article focused on a particular restaurant in California which specialized in raw cookery. This restaurant also refused to use honey as a sweetner. This was considered odd in vegan circles because honey is a raw sweetner. However, this chef would not use honey because s/he believed that use of honey promoted, condoned, and continued the oppression of bees. S/He did not want to have any part in the ongoing trade in bee slavery. I have to say that the term raised all sorts of pictures in my mind of tiny bees rising up and yelling in tiny bee voices, “Help, help I’m being oppressed.” I wondered what sort of chains were used for bees? How does one whip a bee? How exactly does one keep a bee under oppression? Slavery, you see, implies that a creature is being forced to do something for which it was not intended by someone larger and more powerful. However, bees will make honey no matter what humans do or don’t do. I expect they might cease if we somehow managed to remove all the flowers from their territory.
I am the last person to suggest that creatures be used inhumanely. But I have a problem with all of the folks who protest against hunters. I wonder if the protesters have seen what happens when a deer population goes unchecked by hunting. The weak and young die cruel deaths by starvation and water depravation during the winter months. Which is worse, a quick shot or a long drawn out starvation? I do not condone hunting for the rack, that is killing for the antlers and leaving the corpse to rot, but using the whole deer for meat is not such a horrible way to control the herd.
The same goes for eggs and chickens or milk and cows. Chickens will lay eggs. It’s what they do. Anyone who thinks that milking a cow is cruel has never attended milking time at a farm. The cows are desperate to relieve themselves.
Let’s imagine for a moment what might happen if we were to all become vegans. What would happen to all those eggs? They’d all become chickens. They would produce more chickens. Have you been to a chicken coop? Even a small one in the summer time? Peee-uuuuuu. It stinketh greatly and cannot be abided.
On the other hand, I hate condoning the industrial farming methods that have become deriguer on most corporate farms. They are inhumane and treat animals as if they are mechanical products. In the end, I believe, they mistreat the people those animals feed. I wonder if it is really the farming methods that many vegans are opposed to and not the food itself? As in so many areas, we have taken this to such an extreme that I wonder if we’ll ever be able to see our way back to balance again?
As a mother, one of my hats is as etiquette doyenne of the home. It is up to me to ensure that my children enter the world with manners and decorum. This usually takes place at the table and involves conversations such as this, “Elbows off the table.” or “Hands to your mouth; you’re not a pig slurping out of the trough.” or the much favored “Hannah, Hannah, strong and able, get your elbows off the table.” I don’t say these comments nearly as often as I actually see the offenses. I would become exceedingly bored under those circumstances.
The other day LightGirl and I went out to lunch. We were having a lovely conversation over bruschetta (me) and meat calzone (her). All of a sudden she burst out with, “MOM! Where have your manners gone??!! Please take your elbows off the table.” She was correct. I was sitting at the table, with my elbow firmly planted. My reply? A breezy, “Oh, I must have lost them last week.” And we both giggled.
She’s having a lot of fun telling on me to anyone who will listen.
I have a time machine in my home. It will only go backwards. This is still saying something. It’s in my basement. I found it this week.
Earlier this week, I became the custodian of my guild’s community service fabric. This is all the fabric that has been donated to the guild for our community service projects. We make quilts for babies at our local hospital who’s mothers have (literally) nothing, for the local impoverished nursing home, for our county’s CASA (court-appointed special advocates for young people), and for the soldiers in Walter Reed’s amputee unit. There is a lot of this fabric. My friend and I are putting together kits for a sewing day this coming Monday. We had to sort this fabric. Then we went through my “stash.”
Every quilter has a stash. It is the bounty of fabric she (or he) uses to pull together quilts. It is the rare quilt that is made entirely from fabrics purchased outside the stash. That is where creativity lies: taking the pattern and using one’s own stash to make it sing.
So we went through my stash. The fabrics that I have been collecting for 12 or so years. The original sort of the community service fabric was interesting because it was a walk through quilting fabrics from the 1970’s to the 2000’s. I enjoyed that for it’s own sake. But when we got to my fabric, it got personal. I was able to identify so many of those fabrics and remember when and how I came to have them.
“This was a dress I made for LightGirl.” “This was the matching outfits I made for LightGirl and I for her first Easter.” “I remember when I got that … I was in a fabric exchange on-line.” “Oh … ugh … I’ve never liked that.” “What was I thinking??!!” “Here is some fabric I just loved and was going to make an outfit for LightGirl … but never did.” There was more than one of those. Yeesh! “I used to have a whole yard of this and I loved it,” now holding a scant 3″ square in my hand, “I used it in everything I could. But I can’t get rid of this and I can’t find it anywhere anymore.”
In the end, I was able to release most of my old fabric to the community fabric stash. I know it’s going to good use. And I have room now to store fabrics that I’ll really use. I’m not running out to purchase more … although I did do a little of that yesterday. I went to my favorite quilt store, purchased some of my favorite designer’s fabric and a book, and signed up for a class (while the LightChildren are visiting grandparents). But I have quite a bit of fabric that doesn’t have an official home and now it will. I’ve had my trip in the time machine, but now it’s time to be in the present.