trudge, trudge, trudge

I hate squeezing through books.  Or whatever you want to call it: plowing through rock-hard-soil books, suffering through agony-books, straining under the weight of books.  And it's worst when you know the book is supposed to be good.  At least that's what people wrote all over the cover.

I am scraping my way through The Ragamuffin Gospel.  What a pathetic book to call drudgery, but it is!  It's so thin, not even an inch thick, and I'm sure it's just smack-full of truth that I could relate to, but I just can't seem to absorb it.

And the worst part is that I won't let myself stop.  C.S. Lewis keeps saying in Mere Christianity that if a chapter doesn't work for you, just skip it.  For some reason, that just freaks me out.  You can't skip!  What abomination!

So, instead, I read at an excruciating pace, hoping, hoping, I won't be 30 when I finally finish.

november challenge: loving Kyle

Well, look at me, posting my challenge on the first day of the month!  Uh.  We won't talk about how I skipped last month.  I've been berating myself all of October for that one.

First, a report on the living healthily challenge from September:  I did pretty well.  I slipped up on the exercise thing a couple times because I forgot.  I started to adopt the trading-in-something-bad-for-something-better thing as a regular habit during that month, so I don't know if I did it every day, but I think that's okay.  I got sick for a few days, so I laid off on the vegetable and fruit thing because all I really wanted was chicken noodle soup.  I learned that feeling gross and headachey after a bad meal has more to do with my overdosing on sugar (pop, in particular) than overdosing on greasy pepperoni pizza.  I think that's an important discovery that I should have figured out before now, beings I had gestational diabetes when I was pregnant.  I am feeling dense and boring tonight, and I think it has more to do with running around after a one-year-old all day than my having just eaten a buttery scone.  So, for now, I have no monumental nuggets of wisdom gleaned from my month of living more healthily.

As for November's challenge, it's all about romance.  Whoopee! 

I missed Sweetest Day.  I've never celebrated it before, but I heard on the radio that it was coming up, and I wanted to do something fun as a surprise for Kyle, but things were busy, and I got tired, and, and, and... I missed it.

In general, things are crazy once you have a kid.  Even if he goes to bed at eight, you still feel like a sopping dish rag by the time you're finally alone as a couple.  At least I do.  Really, I feel more like a dry dish rag right now -- the kind that's all crusty and molded into its previously soppy shape.  Sexy.  Very sexy.

I have no more details for you tonight on my incomparable sexiness, but I'll fill you in on the challenge.  (Yikes.  It's November.  That means I start today.  And it's already after 9...)

I resolve to do something romantic for my husband every day.   I can't give details because he reads my blog.  But I want to surprise Kyle, look and feel beautiful for Kyle, and be nice to Kyle more often.

Okay, I admit, even at 9.14 p.m., this challenge sounds like it could be just a little bit... fun. ;)

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.

getting angry

The whole creation groans. Me. The poor, the widows, the orphans. The trees, the cattle, the chickens, the cornfields (okay, maybe not the cornfields; corn is king).

I've been reading about social justice and food. I've had this perpetual pressure in my sinus area -- tears ready to burst at the injustice in the world. If being an environmentalist means I care about this world and everything in it, yes, I guess I'm an environmentalist.

It started with reading Justice in the Burbs by Will and Lisa Samson. It's only been a week, and I already feel the wisdom of that book slipping from my memory. But I still remember the assignments I gave myself: to open my heart and arms (and not just my checkbook) to the suffering people of this world. Why? Because it's right.

There was an interview on our local NPR station today that made me mad. This lady was trying to convince women that it was too risky to forsake their occupations and stay home with their babies. "Because what do you do when divorce or death claims your husband? You'll have no way to support yourself!" Well, number one, if women kept their vows to their husbands, divorce wouldn't be in today's epidemic proportions. As for the widows, followers of God have been commanded to care for them, so wives shouldn't be left in dire straits even if their husband does die. I could go on and on, but the point is: the system is broken. This is a broken, broken world. Women shouldn't be made to feel like it's risky to be a stay-at-home mom.

Let me change gears.

Reading a book about the history of food -- The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan -- didn't seem to be something that would call that slow, dull ache back into my throat. But as I read it, I keep asking, "God, what are we doing to your world?" As for our production and consumption of food, we're so deep in poisonous cow manure (that literally coats the floors of our super beef-producing factories in America's "heart"land) that we can't even find a conceivable way out of it.

I'm so angry with the people who tricked our nation into believing that corn-fed beef is something wonderful, when in fact, it sickens creatures God made to eat grass (the cows, not us). But when you have your plate full of that "prime" corn-fed steak, you're feeding yourself a long, slow death, too. Beef wasn't meant to be poisonous.

I'm fed up with the industrialization and materialism in America, with the lie that says that you can have it all. I'm angry I don't know how to practice the attribute called sacrifice. I'm frustrated that I, who grew up proud to say, "I'm a farmer's daughter," feel my agricultural background crashing in on me, slicing away my idealism that my daddy farmed perfectly. I'm angry that he probably didn't have that option, and I'm angry that I don't have the freedom to do things the best way possible because of how our nation's politics work.

I'm tired of standing in front of the display of bread and being upset because all the healthy-looking hamburger buns cost twice as much as the bleached-white ones. I want eating "natural" to come naturally. But instead, it requires research, money, and... sacrifice.

I want to open a farm. I want to grow things without poison and sell them for the prices they're worth. I want to invite people to work there who need love and a job and someone to pull them up (because they haven't found those bootstraps everybody keeps talking about). I want to know an orphan; I want to know a widow. I want to stop being a glutton for fast food, gasoline, and cheap relationships.

I want to stop being a hypocrite.