For the Record
Apr 29th, 2008 by Sonja

I do most of my blogging in my pajamas … while drinking my morning coffee. I’m proud of that and don’t hide it at all. But then, I think that pajamas are highly underrated forms of clothing. They are comfortable, colorful and playful. We should all wear them far more often. The world might be a better place if we all stopped taking ourselves so seriously and wore pajamas a little more often.

As you were.

Cry Me A River
Apr 28th, 2008 by Sonja

I had a little party the other morning. A tiny little pity party. It was a party for three … me, myself and I. We were all invited and we all showed up. Lemme ‘splain.

Light GirlLightGirl is fourteen. It’s a wonderful age and it’s a terrible age. There are times when I really, really love this age. This morning was not one of them. Many times she seems as if her sole purpose in life is to reject every single thing about me. To reject me myself. That hurts. As much as I know about teen development. As much as I know about how she needs to do this and it’s all part of growing up and taking on who she is going to be. As much as I know about this process of separation, maturation and how necessary it is. It still hurts. I had a flashback that morning of the few moments after she was born when she was in the basinette and we locked eyes. I completely and utterly fell in love with her in that moment. She has been the apple of my eye ever since. She’s not perfect. I know her weaknesses. I know her strengths. But she’s my girl and I love her, warts and all (as a favorite math teacher used to say). This particular part of the process seems unduly difficult.

One thing it does though is continually remind me of her “otherness.” I suppose that is part of the purpose. For so much of our children’s childhood they are in one form or another an extension of us, that we need this reminder that they are, in fact, other than us. They will grow up to be individuals with their own preferences, strengths, weaknesses, idols, and needs.

We know consciously that other people are “other.” But how often do we know this with our heart and soul, not just our minds? How often do we turn our perceptions around and begin to attempt to perceive them not with our lens, but theirs? How often do we begin to try to love others not as we want to be loved, but as they wish? Or offer an apology that is not the apology that we want, but the one that they need? What a struggle it is to step out of our own skin and attempt to perceive life not with our own senses, but with someone else’s. Not with our own memories but another’s.

Yet, is that not the call of Christ in our lives? To love our neighbor as ourselves. May it be to me as She has said.

I Must Be Crazy
Apr 26th, 2008 by Sonja

I’m going to try to update my blog software tonight.  Things might get a little crazy around here.

As you were.

Miles Of Thread Later
Apr 24th, 2008 by Sonja

And I do mean that literally. Quite literally. Eight bobbins and two large spools of thread equals miles of thread.

Finished Quilt Top

We are finished. Well, we’re finished with our part. Now we take it to a long-arm quilter to have the three layers that make it a quilt put together and stitched. But our part is finished and we are happy with it. So happy that we have both agreed that we will likely spend far too much in raffle tickets in our attempts to win the quilt back … because now we LOVE it. How can we give it away to a stranger?

We will if we must … but only after we take plenty of photographs.

Who? Me?
Apr 23rd, 2008 by Sonja

You know how you’re reading in your reader … just browsing through the blogs, lazily looking at all the juicy writing, sipping your morning coffee (or other beverage of choice) … when all of a sudden you see your name on someone else’s blog and it just blows your mind? Yeah … it doesn’t happen too often to me either. Like maybe twice a year, three times when Bro M is telling jokes.

Well, the other day my fellow Scriber Jeremy Bouma surprised me, but good. He nominated me for a Subversive Blogger award. Thanks Jeremy!

Subversive Blogger Award

Subversive bloggers are unsatisfied with the status quo, whether in church, politics, economics or any other power-laden institution, and they are searching for (and blogging about) what is new (or a “return to”) – even though it may be labeled as sacrilege, dangerous, or subversive.

Wow … yep, I’m unsatisfied with the status quo of just about all of those things. But like a few of the other bloggers (including Jeremy) nominated, I’ve been a little dry of late, and feeling as though it just doesn’t matter, my words are flying off into space with no effect. They likely are. But perhaps they will one day blossom into plants which will seed. So I shall write on … and there are others who should as well.

So I get to pass on the linky love and nominate subversive bloggers of my own … here are my nominations:

Adventures in Mercy by Molly

Quirky Grace by Jemila

The Virtual Abbess by Peggy

Eternal Echoes by Sally

Ravens by Patrick

The rules of participation are pretty straightforward:

  1. If you are tagged, write a post with links to five subversive blogs.
  2. Link back to this post on JakeBouma.com so people can easily find the origin of the meme.
  3. Optional: Proudly display the “Subversive Blogger Award” somewhere on your blog (image above) with a link to the post that you wrote.

And as Jake says, the award is meant to be encouragement to keep blogging, so I hope this will encourage these five to keep on keepin’ on, because their photo is next to the definition of Subversive Blogger (if there is one somewhere)!

Surprised By Grief
Apr 22nd, 2008 by Sonja

About a month ago, BlisteringSheep and BlazingEwe told us about a radio broadcast they’d listened to and I wanted to listen to it. It had been on NPR, so I knew how to find it. I did, and went through the necessary steps to download the podcast. Then I discovered that I can subscribe to their podcast. WOW! This means that I just open up my iTunes window regularly and, poof!, they download some new stuff. I am now discovering that this is also true at Allelon and other wonderful places as well. I am so far behind the curve that it’s a wonder I don’t still believe the world is flat. I know that is a place where I could find a lot of information and do some multi-tasking is by listening to podcasts.

U2 Special EditionHere’s my problem though. I don’t have an iPod. I live in a house filled with iPods, but I don’t have one. I used to have one. I loved my iPod. It was the original U2 Special Edition iPod that came out in late 2004. Shiny on the back with the boys autographs engraved on it. Matte black and red on the front. Sleek. Proud. Special. And it came with all of their music. And it was mine. For the first time in my whole life I didn’t have to share my music with anyone else, or cringe when I listened to the same song over and over and over again, or … well … anything really. It was mine. But because I’ve always shared my music, I shared this as well. Shared too well, apparently, because it disappeared. I think it stayed at my CLB2 that last day we were there. That’s the last time I remember having it, I’d used it for music that morning and given it to the sound guys. In the flurry of clean up at the end of the morning, I would often forget those details … but we were always set to return. We’d always see each other again, you know? But then … we didn’t. And likely never will.

I didn’t discover that my black beauty was missing for months. I was too sad, too angry, too hurt to listen to music for a very, very long time after we left. I still don’t listen to music very often. Now I listen to the LightChildren’s music, or LightHusband’s music. On the rare days I want to listen to music, so I find it on the dish … and listen to the radio on our television. But I want to listen to those podcasts while I’m sewing, or sorting, or whatever. So I claimed the one iPod that won’t fit into the car jack this morning. Told the kids, “I need this.” They really didn’t squawk too much. They are very good kids.

Then I sat here with my computer on my lap and the iTouch in my hand and cried.

It’s time to move on, and stop looking back. Stop wondering what might have been. Stop wishing for the love and the community that broke so badly. I understand some of the pieces of what happened. Some of them I will never understand. It’s time to let those go.

I was surprised by the grief that poured out at the thought of finally putting my old iPod to rest. It’s gone. Really gone. For some reason, and in an odd way, it’s come to symbolize putting those friendships and that part of my life to rest for good and all. I’ve known this for some time now, but I’m fumbling with the how.

An old friend stopped by about a month ago for a brief chat. As we caught up with all of our respective goings on, he asked LightHusband and I, “So have you made a lot of new friends with all the hockey parents?” and in my mind I came to a full stop. No one else noticed, of course. But the question washed over me like wave in November, numbing with cold and I froze. The answer that tumbled into a wreck behind my teeth was, “Well, no … I can’t make friends now. I have no earthly idea how to trust anyone. I don’t know when that will ever happen again.” Fortunately, LightHusband had a more socially acceptable answer and conversation continued on without my contribution. But I’ve been sitting with that ever since and watching myself walk around mistrustful, angry, broken, wary … of people. This is/was not my normal functional state. I am not comfortable like this. For 40+ years my automatic assumption was to trust others implicitly and that has been completely shattered.

I want my trust back. I want hope. While I grieve what did not happen and what can never happen in my former community, there is also a sense in which I am grieving the idea that it might never happen. Or that I will never be able to participate in it because I will be too afraid of the pain. I will have lost that sense of fearlessness which is a necessary component for entering into it.

So, I have yet to re-program that iTouch. It’s sitting next to me on the sofa. Shiny and black. It’s speaking to me of the possibilities inside. I also know that there are opportunities available on the web to purchase a replacement for my beloved U2 Special Edition iPod and I’ve found them. But it seems that there are a few paths I need to walk down first. When I’ve done that, then I’ll be ready to have my own iPod again.

Book Review – My Beautiful Idol
Apr 20th, 2008 by Sonja

As you may (or more likely not) have noticed on my sidebar over there, I’m a member of The Daily Scribe. We’re a loosely organized group of bloggers and you can visit the site to learn more about us. Our intrepid leader, Shawn Anthony, finds different ways of exploiting our greatness and building our blogginess. One of those is getting books into our hands to review. In one way or another, we’re all nerds and like to read so free books are a bonus. So it was as a result of all of this that I was recently accepted as an Ooze Select Blogger. This = free books to review.

Book imageI received an e-mail announcing my first book. Approximately two days later LightBoy brought me a small package with an ominous look on his small face, “More educational hell, Mom,” he announced. Hmmm, I thought … I haven’t ordered any educational hell recently, so I wonder what this could be? It was, in fact, my first book from Zondervan; My Beautiful Idol, by Pete Gall. It had been announced in the e-mail as a confessional memoir and the promise waved that it would stand up to Traveling Mercies or Blue Like Jazz. My red flag sailed up the pole and I tossed the book onto my coffee table. Those are two of my favorite books and no mere interloper on the scene could possibly measure up to them. I didn’t even want to look at it.

And … by the way … have I mentioned this quilt I’m working on?

I had a doctor’s appointment in the morning, and curiosity killed my cat, so I picked it up on my way out the door. After all, I’d promised to read it. I might as well get started. Since I only manage to read about two pages a night, I’d need plenty of time to get the review in under the deadline. Well …

I finished it at about 9 o’clock that evening. I would have finished it closer to dinner time, except that we left the house for several hours in the late afternoon to do some shopping. I did take a break in the morning for some computer work and a couple of naps in the early afternoon. But I read the whole book in one day. In one sitting, so to speak.

So, Pete Gall is not as laugh-out-loud funny as Anne or Don, but he’s deeper than they are. Maybe not deeper than Anne, but definitely deeper and more serious than Don Miller. He packs some serious theological juice into this book, but it’s readable, ponderable and believable. It’s more than a stand-up routine. I loved Blue Like Jazz, but I read that for the punch lines and the laughs. I loved the deconstruction that was in there, but I never could quite believe that anyone really lived that life. Pete’s life is utterly believable from the opening cab ride to Burritoville, to the ending ride home to Zionville.

His life is believable because the scripted things don’t happen. He writes as if they were about to, but then … they don’t and we must wrestle with the theology and theodicy of why those things did or did not happen. Life is not a television script where all things work together for good in our human ken. What we understand as good must be wrestled with in the face of great evil and darkness even in those who would do great good. Money and food do show up at the last minute, but it’s not the result of prayer or living “righteously” as most people have us believe. They show up, no matter how Pete screws up … or sometimes doesn’t. Because God is not a gumball god. We can’t put in our quarter and get back a prize, no matter how much we want to believe that’s how it works.

Christianity has this entire worldview that treats the filth of life as impermanent, redeemable, escapable, and unable to make the bride too filthy to be loved. But we have this thing in our culture where we don’t believe a bit of it. We work so overly hard to make God look good that what we say has no credibility at all; we’re such cow-brained dullards. In our insecurities and arrogance, and our lack of honesty, we demand to see God turn lives around, to do something cool for us. To be our dancing poodle. We want to be able to tell a great story about well our lives have been transformed by this God who, to exquisite torture, simply does not do enough flashy stuff for us to feel comfortable letting his work stand on its own. We are so desperate to share the good news that we almost always fake it. We forge the miraculous and we promise more than we really experience ourselves. And we are so conflicted about how to be “good Christians” — people whose lives been turned around and made squeaky clean — even though that’s not what we experience exactly, that we have developed a twisted, hand-wringing culture where we are far less matter-of-fact about sin and temptation and doubt and the profane than are our Scriptures, our God, or even the rest of the world around us where there is no promise of rescue or redemption. We’re obnoxious fools, and our dishonesty makes us incredibly vulnerable and weak — and far from trustworthy people who could actually benefit from knowing the truth according to God. (p. 148-9)

Pete is at his best when he’s pulling together his story lines and spinning an abstract web from his concrete story slabs. The conversations are a little contrived, but that may be because he is recalling them from over ten years ago. He is better still drawing analogies which return time and again making more sense with each coda.

As we discuss our respective desires to be used, to have a mission in life, it strikes me that we’re more alike than I’d thought for a long time. Maybe we’re not the only ones. Both my mother and I are determined to point to something outside of ourselves to demonstrate our worth and our utility. The crab shell must be covered, well and completely, beautifully and wisely, by a collection of things or by the sponge of Jesus held desperately by hopelessly inadequate hind legs, or we will have no one to blame but ourselves when the squid brings the pain. We want to be important enough to be loved, both of us.

Strangely, somewhere both my mother and and I have come to believe worth and utility are the same thing. But they are not. There is a great difference between being worthless and being useless, and there is a great difference between the things that make us useful the true measure of our worth. One is what we do, and the other is what we are. One is developed and grown, and the other full and unchanging from the moment of our conception. (p. 212-13)

There are two things I wish had been different in this book. One is that I wish that Pete had spent more time exploring this value gap of worth vs. use. I think there is a gold mine of how we in the West mix up our theology with our economic philosophy in that discussion. Unfortunately, I rather think that would not have reflected his journey.

The other thing I wish had been different is this. Very early in the book, as in on page one or two, Pete admits to lying for fun and profit with people. He never really backs away from this and I can’t get rid of the image. While the book is utterly believable, I’m left with the contrasting image from the beginning of a man who lies to sell things. It is unsettling, unnerving and the reader is left to wrestle with that image. In the end there are no white hats and no black hats. Just people, wondering when and how their scaffolding will collapse, and hoping the pain won’t kill them.

Would I recommend this book? If you are person who can live with grey areas, metaphors which might collapse at any moment, or uncomfortable analogies, then yes, I would recommend this book with fervor. If you are a person who likes boxes in your head, who likes life as you now know it, and is not into questions with no answers, then no … do not read this book. So it depends. There are some people for whom I will purchase this book and wrap it up with a bow and others for whom I would suggest perhaps not reading it. It is however, a very well written and engaging memoir of one man’s coming to grips with his spiritual nature. If you read it, you might come to grips with yours as well.

The End of Time
Apr 17th, 2008 by Sonja

LightHusband recently went out of town on a business trip to Cincinnati.  He traveled with his boss and a couple of co-workers.  BossMan and SalesGuy are more conservative than we are.  That’s the best way I can say this.  We are friends with BossMan and his family, but when it comes to matters of theology and politics, we generally agree to disagree about a lot.  We respect each others’ perspectives, but …

LightHusband returned from his trip yesterday and the rest of us were glad to see him again.  He used to travel quite often and we all have bad memories of that (me especially).  Like the time he went to London for a month when LightGirl was 6 months old.  He was housed in a stadium with no phone access.  It was fairly unnerving.  But he did get introduced to the Queen.  In any case, he and I went grocery shopping for dinner together yesterday afternoon on his return.  That may sound funny, but it’s something we enjoy, especially if we can leave the LightChildren home.

While at the store we ran into an old friend from our CLB1.  Now this lady also happened to be a founding member of that church.  She was (and is) a dear.  I spent a good deal of time with her oldest son when I worked in youth ministry (he was also helping out).  We had a nice conversation catching up with one another.  Then talk turned to our old church and goings on there.  She caught us up on some of the main big news.  Somehow we got on the subject of some books that she is reading and is very excited about.  It’s a series by an author named Joel Rosenburg.  Apparently, he’s written quite a series based on Ezekiel 38 and 39.  It seems to be very popular according to the sales figures on the website.  She spoke very highly of the books and recommended them to us.

In fact, she got pretty wound up about the whole idea of the so-called Second Coming and the Rapture and the End Times.  She got a big grin on her face and a light in her eyes and she stood on her toes.  The air around her was electric.  She spoke with certainty about the days to come and the fulfillment of prophecy.

Maybe I’m cynical.  Maybe I’m … I dunno.  But all I could think as I was listening to her was one word … zealot.  Well, other words came to mind too.  I wondered exactly what makes Christians with this perspective any different from Muslims who are engaging in war-like behavior to bring about their prophecies.  Then, as I was sewing today I was musing about it and I realized the root of my disturbance with the whole thing.

Everyone who subscribes to this theory of the end of time assumes that they will be among those who are raptured (caught up as it were).  They are all absolutely sure that they are among the ones who will disappear in a twinkling and everyone else (all the rest of the rabble) will be left to the horrors of the millenium.  Just as every Christian I know “knows” they will be going to heaven.  But … um … I got news.  Not everyone who thinks they’re going is.  OR … everyone (and I do mean everyone) is going.  What I mean by this is that if this whole metaphor were to actually be truth (and that is a big IF), there are a lot of people who might be in for a nasty surprise.

I have to wonder why it is that we always think that our own fruit (of the spirit) is sweet to God and therefore we’ll be raptured … but that other guy down the pew row, well … he’s not goin’ anywhere.  He may have prayed the prayer, but I don’t see any fruit in his life.

I’m just not so sure I want to be praying and acting like the Rapture is a good thing.  Because that prayer is not in scripture anywhere and does not assure me of anything other than checking a box on a human list.  It seems to me that living in a proper fear of God might just include an understanding that we are not in control … at all.

Justice is Holy – April Synchroblog
Apr 16th, 2008 by Sonja

I could write a lot on this. But my observation is that there are two main branches of Christian action. There is the personal holiness branch, which is characterized by the legalistic how to remain pure and upright before the Lord activities, and there is the social justice branch, which is characterized by how to do good works. The twain do not meet. Nor do they look one another in the eye. One tends to be quite conservative, the other quite liberal. They also call each other nasty names in private, when no one is listening. Or so they think.

There is a problem though. Both parts are necessary for a holistic walk with Jesus. I don’t think it is possible to be personally holy without concern for social justice. Nor can one have concern for social justice without personal holiness. I think it was best said by David Thewlis in the movie, “Kingdom of Heaven,” in conversation with Orlando Bloom:

Hospitaller: I put no stock in religion. By the word religion I have seen the lunacy of fanatics of every denomination be called the will of god. I have seen too much religion in the eyes of too many murderers. Holiness is in right action, and courage on behalf of those who cannot defend themselves, and goodness. What god desires is here
[points to head]
Hospitaller: and here
[points to heart]
Hospitaller: and what you decide to do every day, you will be a good man – or not.


Holiness is in right action and courage on behalf of those who cannot defend themselves …

Who are those who cannot defend themselves? Why … interestingly, they are those who benefit from social justice ministries; women, children, single moms, impoverished, immigrants … the lowly and down-trodden. It is giving a cup of water to the least in society for no other reason than that it is the right thing to do. And, by the way … it is a holy act.


This post is part of a synchroblog … Here is the list of socially concerned, and maybe even active individuals who are going to be blogging together on this subject Wednesday, April 16th:

Phil Wyman at Square No More – Salem: No Place for Hating Witches
Mike Bursell at Mike’s Musings
Bryan Riley at at Charis Shalom
Steve Hayes writes about Khanya: Christianity and social justice
Reba Baskett at In Reba’s World
Prof Carlos Z. with Ramblings from a Sociologist
Cobus van Wyngaard at My Contemplations: David Bosch, Public Theology, Social Justic
Cindy Harvey at Tracking the Edge
Alan Knox at The Assembling of the Church
Matthew Stone at Matt Stone Journeys in Between
John Smulo at JohnSmulo.com
Sonja Andrews at Calacirian
Lainie Petersen at Headspace
KW Leslie: Shine: not let it shine
Stephanie Moulton at Faith and the Environment Collide
Julie Clawson at One Hand Clapping
Steve Hollinghurst at On Earth as in Heaven
Sam Norton at Elizaphanian: Tesco is a Big Red Herring

On Making a Community Quilt
Apr 15th, 2008 by Sonja

So as I may have mentioned in my earlier post, I am somewhat pre-occupied with this quilt lately.  It’s taking up all my time and all of BlazingEwe’s time too.  We are actually ripping our hair out.

This quilt is composed of 81 separate blocks.  There are 49 that measure 12 inches square and the remaining blocks measure 6 inches square.  In January and February we handed out kits for these blocks (complete with directions) and all the fabric needed for each block, pre-cut, at our guild meeting.  We asked for the blocks to be back by the March guild meeting.  Most of them came back.  A few more trickled in at our show a week later.  We had to chase the rest down.

Finally, about ten days ago, we sat down and triaged the blocks.

Here are some things you need to know about quilting.  First … a block that will measure 12 inches square in a quilt, really is 12.5″ square all by itself.  You have to figure for seam allowances (a quarter inch for quilters).  Second, some quilters are slap-dash quilters and others are OCD quilters (I fall into the latter category, btw) … and yes, OCD stands for the same thing here that it does in ordinary life – obsessive-compulsive disorder.  Third, a block sort of indicates that the general shape of the thing should be square, that is, four equal sides with 90 degree angles.   That’s what you’re looking for as an end result because it makes the whole thing go together well.

So, as I said, we triaged the blocks.  Of 81 blocks, 40 were not within tolerances.  That means … they were either not square, or not 12.5″ (or 6.5″) in measurement.  Now we know that everyone is different and sews differently so, that means that very few people are going to have exact blocks.  Well … I do, but I’m OCD about it.  However, in order to make it work, they have to be within about an 1/8″ of an inch on all sides.  That’s what I mean by “within tolerances.”  Several blocks had curved outer edges.  That does not meet the definition of a square to me.

We began making notes on post-its and pinning them to each block.  Notes about what needed to be adjusted, changed or perhaps outright redone.  Sixteen blocks needed to be recut and redone from the get go.  We had to go buy new fabric.  In one case this involved a roundtrip of two hours.  Don’t ask.

There was ranting and cursing involved.

We have about half of the quilt top together.  We put the other half up on our jerry-rigged design wall last night and sighed.  We are both tired and tired of this quilt.

Here’s the thing though.  We’ve seen the quilts that most of these ladies have made.  They are beautiful and wonderful.  How is that possible?  These blocks were/are a mess!  It was a mystery.

Then I realized this … if you make the same block with the same mistake 28 times it doesn’t matter.  Those 28 blocks go together just fine.  Structurally, they work together well.  They fit together and the mistakes and idiosyncrasies disappear into each other.  They are not apparent.  However, when each and every block has a different mistake and idiosyncrasy they do not fit together well.  They bump up against each other and look very ugly indeed.  There are gaps where there should be joints.  Intersections which do not intersect well.  Taken on the whole, a community quilt is a very bumpy, wavy adventure.  It makes the OCD quilter (me) somewhat nuts.

One day as I was sewing along I had a revelation.  Quilt blocks are like people, or maybe people are like quilt blocks.  Structurally we all have mistakes and idiosyncrasies.  We don’t notice them at all when we are alone or in our families because they are unique to us and we make them all the time.  When we’re making our own blocks and quilts, these mistakes and idiosyncrasies just fit right in to whatever we’re doing at the time.  It’s only when we get out into the larger community that our unique bits stand out in contrast to the unique bits of everyone else and the joints don’t fit right.  There are gaps and ugly intersections.  Places where the fabrics just clash and hurt your eyes (or ears).

When you’re making a quilt, you can take apart the offensive blocks and put them back together so that they fit more better.  In real life, there’s not so much you can do with offensive people.  So we have to figure out how to make do with what we have instead of remaking it to suit ourselves.  But that’s the problem, isn’t it?  We each want to remake the other people/blocks to suit us rather than let them be and figure out how to make the community quilt just as it is.  Now wouldn’t that be an adventure?

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