grocery shopping with isaiah

I line the grocery carts with my padded cart cover.  I bought it when I first suspected that Isaiah got sick from sucking on a cart at Target.  Using the cart cover meant I didn't have to say "no" every other second when Isaiah was in the peak of his sucking-on-things stage.  As a mom, you choose your battles.

We walk down the freezer aisle at Kroger, and Isaiah decides to stand up in the grocery cart, just in time for the Kroger floor sweeper to see him.

"There are straps.  You should buckle him in," he tells me.

"Yeah, I should," I say, wrestling Isaiah into a sitting position.  "I've just never tried to figure out how the straps on this cart cover work."

The Kroger man sets aside his broom, and fits the backpack-looking straps over Isaiah's shoulders.  Isaiah stares at him.  I watch the Kroger man figure out the easy buckles that I've never once thought about buckling.  I feel dumb, so I play dumb.

"I guess it's not too hard," I say.  "Thanks."

"You gotta buckle 'em in," he says.  "Especially the climbers."

Two aisles down, Isaiah tries to stand up again.  No problem.  He just takes the cart cover with him.  With that big, navy cloud strapped to his back, he looks like he's about to go parachuting out of there.  I laugh.  Take that, Kroger man!

But then I notice the Kroger man heading toward us again with his broom.  He sets it aside again.  He shows me how to tie the cart cover onto the cart.  Isaiah stares at him again.  I should probably remind myself how kind it is of the man to stop and help.

"I guess if all else fails, Mom's gotta hold onto him."

"Yeah, I guess so," I say.  Duh.

the curse of anonymity

There are pieces of me I'm afraid to tell, out in the open like this.  I'm afraid to tell of my jourrney in the Apostolic Christian Church, afraid to tell of my journey away from it.  I'm afraid to talk about my family too much, except the parts that exude joy.  I'm afraid to name names, to describe deep hurts, to delve into the details of marriage and money.

But I am a writer.  Sometimes I think I can only be a true writer when I am willing to lay it all out on the table.  In a way, to describe my deepest thoughts and pains and longings is to expose my jugular for anyone who comes along.  Or maybe it's more than that.  Maybe it's also exposing the jugular -- or the private parts? -- of the people closest to me.  My family, my husband, my former churchmates -- they didn't sign up to be written about like any old fictional character.

I wonder if creating is the most vulnerable profession in the world.  There is no taking back, no unpublishing, no privacy.  Unless, of course, you don't write with full abandon.

Sometimes I wish that the stuff I wrote for others didn't have to have a sense of anonymity about it.  I wish I could write whatever was calling to be released from my soul.

awe

We took Communion in joy--
for once--
drinking that bitter cup
with jubilation.
"Drink and enjoy."
And I did,
looking up at my Saviour
with adoration.

in celebration of Madeleine L'Engle

Madeleine L'Engle died last week, at age 88. There are so many quotations from her I love, but this one is enough because it magnifies two of the biggest themes in all her writing -- love and faith:

"In the evening of life we shall be judged on love, and not one of us is going to come off very well, and were it not for my absolute faith in the loving forgiveness of my Lord I could not call on him to come."

september challenge: honoring my body, my physical temple

An hour or two ago, I ate a Schlotzsky's pepperoni pizza for lunch, along with a Barq's root beer. Now I feel sluggish, and a headache's coming on. Maybe they're not related, but the idea that they could be inspired (if you can call it that) my September challenge. I'm going to let this one go till October eighth, to fairly give it a full month.

If you read my blog, it's pretty clear I'm on an Omnivore's Dilemma kick right now. Michael Pollan isn't a Christian, and his book doesn't preach that you should eat whole, unprocessed foods in order to honor Christ and your body and the earth; but for me, the book was all about that. Implementing what I've learned has proved to be a whole 'nother baby. It's just too easy to live unhealthily in this culture. A girl's got to go to great lengths to eat whole, healthy, locally grown food from sustainable farms.

(Completely unrelated sidenote: A pick-up pulling a trailer just drove by our house. The trailer had a lawn mower sitting on it. The lawn mower had a man sitting it. I laughed out loud. You don't see that every day.)

My spiritual challenge this month to honor my body through eating right and exercising is a bit of an experiment. I want to see if some of my grogginess (which I've been attributing to being a mother) dissipates. I want to see if I have more energy to do the things I "should" be doing.

Rules for the month:

1. No pop!
2. Exercise for 15 minutes every day, even if it's only a walk.
3. No fried fast food.
4. Eat fruits and/or vegetables at every meal.
5. Every day, substitute something not very healthy for something healthier (e.g. whole grain bread for white bread).
6. Limit sweets and fats.

I didn't do much research on these rules, but they seem to make sense. Please leave a comment if you have suggestions for me.

To good, God-honoring health!

sustainable?

Last week, I ate a 100% grass-fed New York strip.

It came all the way from Australia.

giving milk

In a world literature class in college, I read "Breast-Giver" by Mahasweta Devi. It's Bengali literature -- a story about a Brahmin-class woman who nurses babies at the temple so their mothers can keep their youthful figures. Jashoda's only role is to give milk -- life -- to babies, and "[her] place in the house is... above the [sacred] cows." She is like a goddess.

In my notes I wrote that because of her class and her gender, she becomes lower than the cows when her breasts stop giving milk.

The end of the story is gruesome and sad. Jashoda develops breast cancer, and the story says her breast explodes with infection. It "becomes like the crater of a volcano. The smell of putrefaction makes approach difficult." Jashoda is rejected by the people whose babies she nourished. She's rejected by the babies themselves. Even her doctor -- one of the babies she had suckled -- is not present at her death. She dies alone.

I had to return to the story and to my notes to remember all these details. I remembered the breast-giving -- the suckling -- but I didn't remember how she was revered at the temple. I remembered the cancer and the rotting breast, but I didn't remember the rejection.

When a baby is feeding from your breast, you feel like your heart is swelling with affection. At every single feeding. (Sidenote: this does not happen when you express milk with a pump.) I have only breastfed my own child, but I believe it would happen with any child. Jashoda gave more than milk to the babies she nourished; she gave them her heart and her emotions. And as her breast erupts, I believe her heart is breaking too. I wonder if she regrets the suckling, as she's dying alone. I have never been fully rejected; I have never suffered in that kind of pain. But I still don't think I would regret having given milk to babies. I hope Jashoda didn't either.

I get advertisements for baby formula all the time. The ads sing the praises of formula. It has DHA! vitamins! minerals! These are essential for your baby's development! But, the fine print reads, breast milk is always best for a baby's health.

I have said I would nurse another mother's baby. I think people in our culture might get wigged out to know that, but it seems like a natural sacrifice -- something any woman should be willing to give another. And I call it a sacrifice because there is a connection of flesh and hearts in breastfeeding, a connection I would probably have to sever day after day, and eventually forever, when the baby is weaned.

I remember Jashoda because of how she gave. She kept giving and giving, even when she was suffering alone. If I could be remembered for one thing, I would want to be remembered for giving like that.