Still here

Even though my blogging has slowed from a trickle to little, rare droplets, I still write posts in my head and long to reenter blogging both to have a place to work out my own thoughts and to rejoin the rich conversations of the Unitarian Universalist blogosphere. I am at South Station preparing to take the commuter train home after my first full day of teaching where I rambled rambled rambled. I so much prefer working all of my thoughts out in written form, reorganizing, editing, and proof reading again, sending out in a careful and safe email where at least my attempts at humor fall flat later, where I do not have to see the lack of laughter.

I am several months into being the president of our congregation, a role that I treasure and, at the same time, wonder what exactly I was thinking in terms of time management. Such is life though, ehh? We follow our callings and our passions and try to fit as much into  life as we can. I am lucky in that our congregation is gracious and supportive, and amazing in that there is minimal bickering, so I am learning a lot, and loving church life even if it was not the wisest choice in terms of being careful not to over-commit.

And, painfully, my general exams for my doctorate are coming up in October. It is my hope, at this point, that I am prepared enough not to fail or at least almost prepared enough not to fail. But I wish I felt solid about them rather than sickly and worried.

And our boy. He is a little person now, not a bundle of baby. He has is own baby doll which we have creatively named Baby. He loves his frog boots and insists on listening to Fat Boy Slim all. the. time. Which was cute, but now I am tired of Rockafeller Skank and Not From Brighton. When I try to put on Natalie Merchant he says no no no nonononono. It is such a joy, though, that he can say what he wants. Cracker. Baby. Mama. Dada and so on. He is at a daycare with goats and chickens, several bunnies, cats and a dog, and he loves loves loves the animals. And there are five other children that love him and rub his head and say Eli Eli Eli Eli. Which still scares him, but it is sweet none-the-less.

My parents, who are now, primarily, The Grand Parents, visited and doted on our boy and cuddled him and read him endless books and put the rocks in the bowl and out of the bowl and in the bowl with him 201,883 times. He ran to the guest room this morning and said, “Where go?” So we miss them.

I have more thoughts. I think about vegetarianism and animals and our recently rescued cat that I don’t really want, and how to handle/think about our fish tank at church and our mouse problem at church, and then more generally, about the 1001 moth larvae I recently killed in my pantry and the ants I kill that crawl around our living room and the spiders that live in our house that I want to move out but I feel really bad smooshing yet I do not have the time to lovingly transport each one of them outside. How to love the earth’s creatures, even little tiny ones that seem gross to me, and still have a house and church that does not crawl with such creatures. How to balance the beautiful look of a fish tank and swimming little magic animals, with the fact that I think they really don’t like it in there and would be happier in the ocean or a lake. I think about the exceptions I make when I eat eggs and the little chickens that suffer quite the life of misery for my breakfast sandwich. I want to do less harm in the world. But it is hard.

I think about how sad I am about all the fear and unkindness and hurt and harm and injustice expressed around the Muslim Community Center near the site of 9/11… How naive I was about the public’s understanding of Islam. And how easy it is to express outrage at such things from my comfortable little life – how little it costs to feel bad about such things and how I somehow probably think that Feeling Bad and Knowing Better somehow at least a little bit absolves me from my complicity with the injustice in our world. It is so easy to write blog posts of lament, preach to the choir, sign petitions and repost things to facebook…. Yet, my middle class, pretty-easy-relative-to-most-lives is contingent on cheap oil, using too much of my share of the world’s resources, and accessing my white, class, pass-as-heterosexual, have-a-Christian-heritage privilege which is all wrapped up in the U.S.’s history and present that produces/reinforces the sort of hysteria we see around Islam, immigration, and race politics around the presidency. I don’t write this to be all dramatic – oh what shall we ever do – but simply to put it out there. I struggle with it. It seems to easy to let me off by just saying we can’t solve everything and do everything, even though I know we can’t, I guess I still feel called to be with the impossibility of living a life of comfort that I want while it does violence, albeit pretty indirectly. My partner and I talk about this all the time – if you are somehow more removed from the harm you cause, are you better than those closer? Or just more easily able to distance yourself from seeing and doing with your own hands the harm that is done for you, from a distance, for a price. I’m not sure there is a terribly good answer. I was touched by someone in one of my classes who is writing a paper and he wrote that he would like to explore thinking about humanity “in ways the depend less on ‘agency,’ ‘autonomy,’…and more on malleability and incomprehensibility – a wounded soul that is also the site where God works.” Maybe I just want to make sense of my profound sense of woundedness and all the woundedness I see, but somehow it feels like a relief to me to give in to the incomprehensibility of it all and hope that God can work there.

This is not meant to be a “downer” post. My life is so wonderful and so rich in so many ways. But I sit with these questions a lot. Especially as I lead in my congregation and in teaching and in raising our little cuddle bug, I am even more aware that my responses to these struggles aren’t just for me, but that they will influence others. I want my life to match my desires for love and justice. It is so much harder than it seems.

Communion with the Little One

So, I was never really one of those moms who was like, “And, the second I saw him and held him in my arms, everything changed. My whole life was different and new and I would do anything for my baby.” This is not to say that I did not love my little cuddle bug A LOT when he was born. I did. I was thrilled to have him and I still am. But, for me, I was pretty much the same person before he was born as after he was born, except with an adorable baby and sleeping much less.

I am also not a mom that is totally awed by all the amazingly wonderful and brilliant things my baby does. Yes, he is really quite cute. And seems to be a bright little bee. But I am pretty low key about him and his magic. I think in a pretty good and healthy way.

I say all of this for two reasons. First, because sometimes I feel like maybe a sucky mom because I don’t run around saying how wonderful life has been since he has been born and how it has changed everything and the sun rises and sets differently and all. I think there is this cult of motherhood that tells women that you have to just love your child and have him or her change your world and it will be immediate and like magic. I think this sets people up to feel pretty terrible when they are in month number six (or in my case, 14) of not sleeping through the night and all of a sudden your house is chaos all the time and you only see your partner in passing while one of you is changing a diaper and the other is… oh, I don’t know… studying for her general exams in October. Anyway, so on Mother’s Day when everyone is crooning about how magic mothers are and how much they love mothers and flowers and roses and all of that, I guess for whatever reason I felt inspired to bring it down a notch for all those moms out there who sometimes wonder if they are doing it right even though the fireworks of love and peace and perfect joy didn’t/don’t go off like they “should.”

The second reason I wrote about all of this is so that the next thing I am about to say about my little toddler boy doesn’t sound like the ultimately cheeziness. That is, it isn’t my style to go around crooning about the boy, so when I say something like how he taught me a really profound lesson, it doesn’t get lumped into the pile of 101 profound and beautiful things my baby did THIS MORNING.

Geez. I did too much lead up to this. I do this in my papers too. I go on and on in the intro setting everything up and then I have two and half sentences of substance to say.

Anyway, our boy loves to drink out of classes. Sippy cups are okay, but he really prefers to drink either water or apple juice out of the big glasses that are obviously too big for a one year old. But we’re pretty flexible, so we do it even though it often means that when he is done he pulls the glass away pretty fast and the juice or water gets on him or us.

And he has taken to insisting on sharing his drinks, and then tonight, his strawberries. He is insistent – he takes a drink, and then puts the cup to mine or my partner’s mouth in a very insistent way and we take a drink and then he takes another drink. He mushes the strawberries up between his fingers and sort of shoves one in into my mouth, with such a pleased look on his face, and then squishes one up and puts it in his mouth. And somehow this led me to “get” communion in a way I never have before. Regular readers of this blog know I have a highly ambivalent relationship with Christianity and can never decide really if I am Christian or not. And for some reason I have always loved communion – there was something that was so special about it – like this thread that went back throughout my life and childhood and then back throughout time. It felt like a very connecting sort of ritual. Like I was part of something really special. Yet, for the last few years, I never take part because I just feel like I can’t do it until I know more where I stand. This has been sad for me.

Yet, somehow through sharing my apple juice and strawberries with my boy – I got something. This idea of table fellowship. Communion not as some ritual that we do in church – that marks us as in or out – but as joyful sharing of nourishment, in communion with each other. It is an intimate thing to feed and give a drink to someone else. This is why the bread and wine is not sat out on a table for each person to go up and get themselves, but we give it to each other.

I think with a lot of things, the meaning of a moment can’t quite come through so well in words. The sweet smell of my little boy and his juice. His pre-linguistic self knowing that there is something important about me taking a drink and then him and then me and then him. The clear joy and satisfaction he gets from making sure that we are sharing – that we are a team, that in many ways we are one.

It helped me better understand why I am so drawn to communion and miss it so much. Yes, yes, I know there is that whole bread/body, wine/blood thing. But that is for another post. For now, I will commune with my little one, and appreciate what he has to teach me about life and love and faith.

You might kill your baby!

The New York Times style section recently had an article about babywearing and then the Motherlode blog at NYTimes (which I really pretty strongly dislike) writes about (scary music please) UNSAFE BABY SLINGS. I often carry my little snuggle bug in a baby carrier – we like really could not have survived the first year of parenting without the Ergo and Moby. We could never figure out the Maya wrap well, tried the Baby K’tan with little luck, and could never figure out why we would use the Kozy since it seems like a much less comfortable and workable version of the Ergo.

All of this is to say that we are sort of into what is called babywearing, although I just like to think of it as carrying your baby with you. This worked well for us because our boy would cry cry cry very easily and just liked to be close to us AND I hated trying to navigate the damn stroller around places. Found it to be a huge hassle and much easier just to tote him with me. So, in a way, I am psyched that the Times is highlighting baby carriers because I think they are a great invention and I think more families might really like to have them.

What I just can’t stand is that the NYTimes article makes it into this THING. Is it SAFE??? Are sling-wearing mamas against EVIL STROLLER MOMS???

This is not helpful. I think the bottom line is is that there are quite a few things you can do to harm your baby. Driving, for instance, can be very dangerous. Putting your baby in a crib can be bad. Having your baby sleep in your bed can be bad. Bad things can happen if you vaccinate. Bad things can happen if you don’t vaccinate. Your kid can fall out of a tree. But if you are too protective he or she can end up being sheltered and turn out weird.

I think it is reasonable that bad things can also happen with baby slings if you don’t, you know, read about them and learn the safe way to carry your child in the sling. Some moms hate strollers. Some moms love them. If you put your child in a stroller ALL THE TIME and listen to your ipod and never ever talk to your child, probably that is not ideal. But it is my sense that this is not what happens to most children in strollers, so lets just all chill out a little bit, ehh?

My point is that I wish people would stop making parenting some sort of DRAMA competition (good moms vs. bad moms) and high risk danger-fest. This is not good for parents. Not good for kids. I happen to like many of the attachment approaches to parenting. Although I understand why this does not/cannot work for a lot of families.

So, New York Times, could you please tone it down? If you want to report on increased sling usage, can we just say that it is increasing – it is great that there are so many (increasingly stylish) options for ways to tote your child around and more ideas about how to love our children the best we can. And, like with everything, we should read about it. And take reasonable precautions.

So yay for parents who are trying hard. Cuddling their children. Exploring options. Supporting each other. And de-dramatizing approaches to parenting. Because it isn’t some sort of competition or sport. It is about how we can be in the world with peace, how we can love and be loved, how we can flourish and find ways for our children to flourish.

On The Suffering of Others

There has been another terrible “natural” disaster in Haiti. My stomach dropped as I looked through the pictures in the New York Times. And then I got ready to go back to my work. I thought for a second, “What can I do for these people who hurt, who have a little boy just like mine who cries and is hurt?” I thought for a second about sending a donation online, but wondered what my $25 dollars would do. It was more about easing my conscience than the suffering of the people in Haiti. I mean, let’s be real here, things in Haiti were horrendous and horrible and breathtakingly hard and sad before this damn earthquake. I suppose when something is on the front page of the newspaper we just think about it a little more, for a second or two, or maybe a little throughout the day, before we go back to our own lives that are filled with things like getting our house clean, keeping up with email and studying for our general exams.

Sometimes I tell my partner that I think we talk about the suffering in the world and how awful it is and how inadequate our response to it is more just to somehow tell ourselves that we are doing something by being aware of it – aware of our great indulgence living in a house bigger than we need, getting organic fruit at Whole Foods for our little one and spending as much on surgery for our kitty Grace than many families in the world make in the whole year. As if we are somehow one tiny ethical step ahead of those who do all of this without thinking or reflection or people who don’t feel as bad as we do about it.

I often tell myself there is no good answer to this, but I wonder in the back of my mind if there really is a good answer and I just don’t really want to do it. I mean, it seems like the good answer would be to live with what we need – decent food, decent shelter, warmth, the transportation we need to get to our decent jobs – and then spend the rest of our time and money working to change the savage injustices that we see on the front page of the newspapers, or, too often, as a side story in the back of a newspaper or a completely unknown story never told. I guess that would be the good answer. But instead, we resign ourselves (sophisticated resignation, as Forrest Church says) to the fact that we just sort of don’t really want to do that and even though such dedication is needed to help address the profound and deep suffering in our world, we would rather live a more comfortable life in our nice warm house, washed in the privileged of where we were born.

And so it goes. Another earthquake. More pictures of misery, and hurt – not far-away hurt of other people that must somehow not be like our own deep hurt – but real hurt that is just as deep and just as acute and terrible as I would feel if it was my sweet boy sick, without shelter, without the food he needs. I remember when it first occurred to me that the pictures of the children with the swollen bellies were not just images flashed on the screen to get us to send money, but they were actually like me – with real lives and real suffering just like my own. It is so easy to see the suffering of others and take a step away from it and get back to what we feel like we must do – live our lives, do the dishes, pick the boy up from daycare – because really – I mean what else could be expected of us? I mean, we can’t GIVE UP OUR LIFE for all these injustices, right? And although I have this funny relationship with Christianity, and pretty much don’t think of it as my spiritual home, I remember the idea of giving up our life to the call that Jesus made to be with the poor and oppressed and give our enemies the shirt off our back and the idea of taking up our own cross and it speaks to me. Not a call to attend another social action committee meeting, but the call to live a radical life of giving and love when it is really really hard – not part-time, not on the weekends, but a life that gets at the very heart of what I know I say I want – a just world.

But instead I write a blog post on it and then get back to writing my paper which is due January 28th.

101 Things in 992 Days

Well. I write all sorts of thoughtful blog posts in my mind these days, including one I would like to title, “It Isn’t Really About Silent Night,” related to the now widely blogged about Garrison Keillor hubbub, but those will just have to wait or float around in my sleep deprived brain until our little cuddle bug starts sleeping through the night. Between working, school, baby, partner, friends, home, and church, blog is ranking a little low on the list of things to do these days. Alas. And did I mention that many of my family members, including my partner, mom, dad, baby, and myself got some sort of horrible virus on Christmas day, most likely the h1n1 thingy? Bleh. Good thing our little one is really too little to remember his first Christmas.

But, my cousin is doing 101 things in 1001 days and one of her “to dos” is to inspire someone else to do such a thing. And, I am a sucker for checking things off lists. And, I like the longer time frame, and taking some time to reflect on what I would like to accomplish and focus on. So I’m doing it too. The idea comes from this website. I wanted to find out the history of the idea – how did the website or idea get started – but I couldn’t find more of a history on it. I got my dad and partner to join in. Maybe my mom too, but she isn’t feeling well enough to decide.

I adjusted the number of days to coincide with my birthday, so I have 992 days. I would like to list the things here, but this blog isn’t quite that “out there” about my life, so it is going to have to go somewhere on my computer. But here is a sampling:

4. Successfully pass my doctoral exams.

9. Go to 100 yoga classes.

11. Complete one unit of CPE.

12. Complete the MFC reading list.

88. Go to the beach (where it is hot, not a New England Beach) once a year.

It should be fun. I like the longer time frame so it isn’t like a New Year’s resolution where I feel like if you fall off the wagon, it is hard to get back on the wagon at May 14 (like my ill-fated goal of not buying clothes for a year which lasted only until May). I’ll update periodically…

Happy Almost New Year!

On a Roll

My lovely partner has our dear little boy (nearly eight months old!) and I have a few precious minutes to work and rest, which, after caring for a flu-sick child the whole week, work and rest feel very similar because no one is nursing, crying, or sleeping on me while I try to sit very still so as not to wake him.

I do wish I would post here more, and I have drafts in the queue, but just can’t let myself publish things that are so unpolished.

I was reading the Interdependent Web and saw a quote from ministrare and went over to read the whole post. And I saw this quote:

I learned that when an issue with me/my ministry arises, I should listen more, explain less, apologize clearly and directly, and document my efforts to improve the situation. It does not help to explain my thinking in that moment.

I think I need to do this more in life. When there is a complaint, listen, don’t explain, apologize clearly and directly. My partner and I struggle with this a lot: one complaint causes the other to say, “Well you do that too!” and no one feels heard or addressed. I want to make a rule for myself (ha! and my partner, but it is harder to make rules for him…) that when there is a complaint, I will make sure that the person feels heard, try not to explain it away, and apologize. The apologizing part is hard sometimes, right, because what if you don’t feel like the complain is legit? We can at least apologize that the person feels hurt or upset. We can make sure the person feels heard even if we don’t affirm that it seems the same way to us. Isn’t that often the point of the apology – not to say, “Yes, you are right and I am wrong,” but to say, “I can understand why you feel that way and I am sorry you do and I’m sorry for my role in that.” This is a difficult balance – to affirm, to hear, to honor, but also to factor in our own perspective.

I have to remind myself over and over that I am never going to “get it” and it will be done. Life is an ongoing journey, struggle, joy, learning, growing, hurting, celebrating sort of thing. We aren’t going to figure it out. It is like the tide – in and out, in and out.

And so it goes.

Things I Would Write About If I Made Time For It

I know that some people always make time for writing and blogging. I could do it, I know. But instead, in my few moments of rest, I choose sleep, watching House, looking at facebook, uploading pictures of my little one to Shutterfly, petting my kitties, hanging out with my partner and having a bloody mary. I hope someday I will return to blogging more regularly. If I did, here is what I would write about:

How important Buddhist ideas have become to me and what this means for my religious identity. (Raises issues of cultural appropriation and puts a different spin on my approach to life which has always been about trying harder, working harder… this is hard to do with meditation.)

How hard it is to make the life we want and how it takes (for me) constant returning, breathing, refocusing, and a very difficult balance of trying harder while letting go.

How different the skill sets are for running a successful campaign where people feel engaged in politics and running a successful government where people feel engaged in politics. This also reminds me of how ministers (like presidents) need several very different skill sets: 1) preaching well week in and week out; 2) keeping a church healthy – people getting along, a sense of community, social justice work, spiritual growth, people growth, etc.; and 3) pastoral care.

How much harder it is to have a multi-cat household with some foster cats and some permanent ones when you have a baby.

On having a child: the joy, the difficulties of needing daycare, the desire to do well without obsessing over doing it “right”, work life balance, the role of women in running a household when both partners are trying to do it equally…

My increased insanity about keeping our house clean – it is as if when the house is in order, my soul feels more in order. I know there is a blog post here.

There will be time for this writing someday. Until then, peace be with you all…

Learning Things Again and Again

I have started this post five times, and it always feels cliched and obvious each time.

So I will just say it simply even if it is cliched and obvious.

I am amazed at how often we have to relearn the simplest things. Like appreciating what we have. Slowing down. Setting limits. Living simply.

It is in every self-help book and Unitarian Univeralist sermons across the country week in and week out.

On our deathbeds what will we wish we will have spent our time and energy on? Meeting our work deadline? Or soaking up another ten minute play session with our baby and Penelope the pig and Pablo the penguin and the singing bear?

We will be glad we got every last speck of dirt off the floor, or will we wish that that we took another walk and loved the trees and the chipmunk that lives under the stones on the front steps?

Yes, we know. We know. Slow down. Appreciate. Love. Breathe.

But we must relearn these things day in and day out. It is hard to practice the sort of life we long for.

If I Were Going to Be a Christian

Long-time readers of this blog know that I come from a Christian (mega-church-Baptist-Catholic-Methodist-ish) background, once identified as Christian, probably don’t now, but still sort of want to and long for some parts of that tradition and familiarity and… long for that something that I felt and knew during my years in that world.*

But I haven’t been able to get over several parts of Christianity, like, for instance, the centrality of Jesus, and the atonement thing, among others. I know, I know. Big issues. But that is for another post. The point here is that I just got done reading an amazing paper by someone in one of my classes. The paper will eventually be posted online, when it is, I will link to it.

But her beautiful paper (she is an academic theologian and a Christian) inspired me to imagine for a second or two that I would be able to convince myself that I could reside both in Unitarian Universalism and in some sort of Christian tradition.

And I thought, if I could do that, this would be how:

It would mean placing myself in a tradition of struggle – a struggle to do right, to love God, to love our neighbors and to apprehend mystery that is beyond mystery, beauty that is beyond beauty, suffering that is beyond suffering. It wouldn’t mean that I would believe differently – but that I would situate myself in a tradition, a context of grappling with this crazy world we live in and trying to make sense of it all by drawing from certain texts, being nourished by a community of believers trying to do right, trying to do good… just plain old trying. It is such a diverse and beautiful and rich tradition because it is just so damn hard to understand the divine and to live well. It takes so many different tries and thoughts and practices just to even begin to get close. It would mean placing myself in a tradition, a tradition that I still long for and miss, that hopes even when hope seems unreasonable. It means acknowledging that people do terrible things to each other, yet we also love radically, believe that things can be better, and imagine that God is within us all (the holy spirit), can walk among us as Jesus did, and that God is everywhere and everything. Christianity can be read and practiced in other ways – hurtful ways, exclusive ways, unjust ways. It has and I understand that. But I could decide to identify with the parts that call to me. I could, at the same time, be a part of the tradition and faith, and transform parts of it.

Maybe I will someday. For now, I am where I am and the Mystery and Love I know is okay with that and glad that I am still struggling, hoping, praying, and trying to make a way in this world – to make a way that is just, joyful, peaceful, and beautiful. It is amazingly hard to do this well and I realize I get so much of it wrong – and this allows me to be more understanding of the ways that others appear to me to get it wrong. It is, I think, so difficult just to stumble through life and not do lots of harm – to ourselves and others. I give thanks for those that journey with me in so many different ways, and for my Unitarian Universalist faith that wants me even given my struggles and failures and longings for something more.

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*This would be in addition to/concurrent with/woven into (not as a replacement of) my Unitarian Universalist faith.

Life With Baby

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” – Annie Dillard

I am trying not to be worried that my house will never be as clean as I want it. Crumbs are not poisonous. They are not specks of doubt flung around announcing my inability to manage my life.

I was telling my partner – I need to think in terms of sanitation..the house must not pose a health hazard – rather than trying to actually keep it clean. I can understand a bit more now where good old Betty Friedan was coming from.

My sweet angel wants to be held. Always. I am not of the cry it out school of parenting. Or the school that thinks you can spoil your baby. He needs what he needs. He need reassurance. He needs my arms and my breast and my heartbeat. Still adjusting to his life that is his own and not 100% woven together with mine. As I said in an earlier post: It is flattering, but exhausting.

Yet. I want to life a life that is about love and peace and gentleness and kindness. Maybe I am some sort of cliche, but these things actually have meaning for me – they are not words – but a life that I long for and believe in. And it cannot be lived if I am running around like a mad woman muttering about papers that are not written or sleep that is not had or crumbs that have not been dust-busted.

So, I try to lose myself in my mesmerization. Let myself feel it. The soft skin. The wonder of our boy. The way his eyebrows are just little fuzzes that I can rub against my cheek while he is sleeping on my shoulder. Just let him sleep on my shoulder rather than try to put him down in order to do something else.

The way his breath smells sweet. The magic of watching him learn how to giggle.

How we spend our days is how we spend our lives.

So I will do what I need to do – the work, the school, the cleaning, the errands – as I can. But when I cannot, I will smell his sweet baby breath. Sit and wait for the wild turkeys to come and get the corn we have put out for them.

Pray.

Breathe.

Cuddle.

And try to let go.