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.

.

.

*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.

Lazy Blogging

I have many blog posts and thoughts running around in my head. About politics. Parenting. Marriage. Life and Love. There is no way that I am going to make them into meaningful good posts for the foreseeable future. My lovely and beautiful baby does not  sleep through the night or spend much time on his own out of my arms. Loves to be with his Mama. It is flattering but exausting. So I’ll do a series of short posts. Maybe someday I will turn them into full-blown thought out good posts. Until that day comes, this is officially going to be a more casual blog.

On Being a Mama

Well, it is gonna be a while before I get this blog back into the swing of things. I hate only posting every so often – I would love to be a once-a-week blogger. But that is just going to have to wait until I have time to do things like clean or work or breath. Currently, I’m having a hard time with any of those three while I care for our little one.

I promise this is not going to become a Motherhood Blog where I reflect all the time on my ever-so-unique situation of motherhood and the wonder of my Amazing Child. Heaven knows there are plenty of those blogs out there and don’t we all just love to read them? Actually there are some great and interesting ones out there, including some UU blogs that deal with motherhood/parenthood which I love. But I do get a kick out of some of the blogs I see that are not just for friends or family, but apparently for the world to see the Wonder of Child X and deal, in great detail, with the daily minutiae of parenthood. Fitting for children of babyboomers whom (who?) often forget that the world does not revolve around them and their WonderBabies.

But I digress. I just wanted to briefly point out two cool blogs on motherhood:

Raising My Boy Chick – written by a feminist, queer-identified, male-partnered mama raising a boy. Sounds familiar to me.

And Mothers for Women’s Lib which is a blog out of the UK that I just saw this morning with this post On Raising Male Children. Exciting, I think. And then I read, “I’ve read a lot in the radical feminist blogosphere about how radical feminist women ought to refuse to care for male children.” Are. You. Kidding. Me? What a great way to give feminism a good and reasonable name. I mean, where are these bloggers that refuse to raise male children and what, might I ask, do they DO with them? As a feminist mama four weeks into raising a precious little boy, and as a feminist scholar-wanna-be, this seems like both a bad idea in practical and moral terms (you know, giving away your child), but also pretty unhelpful in terms of feminism. How are we to reshape our world if we only raise feminist daughters? The blog Mothers for Women’s Lib makes a very similar point, btw.

This raises an important question as to how we might raise feminist sons. Or, if you are not happy with the f-word, I mean sons that are responsible, loving, kind, into equality, justice, race/gender/class awareness and analysis, and that sort of thing. It is hard to undo how our world makes far too many men. I hope we can do better in raising our little one. I, of course, welcome comments about how you do this. So much learning to do. Such high stakes.

But for now, he is asleep on my chest in his little carrier, precious, lovely, perfect, and innocent. A pretty special time. Even if I am delirious with sleep deprevation and my poor cats are traumatized by having thier position as my babies usurped.

Time to nurse.

Peace.

E

Elizabeth’s Little Baby

Elizabeth’s Little Blog has been somewhat on hiatus due to the arrival of Elizabeth’s little baby. We are quite happy about his arrival – healthy, happy, and with a good set of lungs.

But the intention to post at least once a week is still present and will be manifested someday…

Just wanted to let you, dear readers, know that blog posts are still in my head and will someday be back on the actual blog.

Thanks for reading.

:) E

How Much is Enough? Sustainability, Justice, and the Economy

This is a question I return to over and over again in my life and on this blog and my answer never seems that helpful. I guess I like to just keep thinking about it and trying new approaches which is better than completely giving up.

First, I want to be clear that this is a pretty darn privileged post. I know that, for a lot of people, any discussion of where to spend money is about whether to pay for medicine or food. Or how to pay for food. Or how to pay rent. The reality is, that I wish I was someone who would say, “You know what? Until other people don’t have to worry about how to eat or how to pay for life-saving medical treatment, I am only going to buy what I really need to survive and give the rest to more important causes.” But I am not saying that. I might someday. I wish I would. But I am simply not ready to make that sort of sacrifice – of, let’s be honest, my own comfort – for what I think is the right thing to do. This is about how to live more simply, how to better take into account issues of sustainability, justice, and the current economic crisis for people who are not dealing with acute and/or traumatic economic situations.

Given this – that I am not going to live ultra-simply – I still would like to live more simply and more sustainably, better taking into account how my consumption habits impact me, the world, and the values that are important to me (justice, equality, survival of our planet, etc.).

This is for three reasons: first, because it seems preferable to acquire less stuff for environmental reasons; second, because it seems to me that there are spiritual and personal benefits to having less stuff and depending less on acquiring things to make me feel better/more fulfilled; and three, because the economy sucks, I worry about our finances and job stability, and we really need to be saving money.

So how much stuff is enough to have? When it comes to buying stuff and having space (in your home, which costs money and uses resources) and spending money – what is being normal and reasonable, what is being conscientious, what is being extravagant?

With the economic situation and our recent move, I have returned to these questions more lately and at least until I am preoccupied with other things (baby to arrive soon), I hope to blog on it more.

I ran across a blog (I forget how) Enough which is:

a space for conversations about how a commitment to wealth redistribution plays out in our lives: how we decide what to have, what to keep, what to give away; how we work together to build sustainable grassroots movements; how we challenge capitalism in daily, revolutionary ways.

I haven’t read a lot of the blog yet. I’m pretty sure they are more radical than me. I think I am not so much into challenging capitalism (maybe I am into challenging capitalism as it currently is practiced/carried out, but not in general). But the rest of the point of the blog – thinking about what to have, what to keep, how we work together to build sustainable grassroots movements related to justice and equality…. that sort of thing is what I am interested in.

So this post is getting long. I think I will stop here, and say that this is the introduction to my How Much Is Enough? series which, at the very minimum, will include a post on How Much is Enough? A Question of Faith, How Much is Enough? Moving Edition, How Much is Enough? Baby Edition, and How Much Is Enough? Buying Green Edition. I welcome links in the comments to blogs, posts and websites that deal with these issues from any of the three (obviously intertwined) lenses that I’m using to look at this: the sustainability perspective, the justice perspective, and the personal economic perspective.

More soon!

p.s. Other posts I have done on this in the past:

Privilege, Justice and Sustainability Thoughts how to try to eat more sustainably without getting on our high horses, on the interconnectedness of justice issues (including the issue of food).

Book Review for The Simple Living Guide

Can Polyester Save the World? Part of the series of posts on my (failed) attempt not to buy new clothes for a year.

May a Curse Fall on the House of Pottery Barn: Trying to Want Less

No More Clothes in the New Year Thoughts on trying not to buy new clothes for a year. (Spoiler: It lasted five months.)

A Slower and Simpler Life (?)

I Could Keep Living Generally the Way I Wanted Does it actually take sacrifice to live a more sustainable life?

Power of Place

If you have read this blog or spoken to me in the past six and a half years, you may have heard me complain about where we live. Shockingly, it took us until last fall to realize that, as much as Somerville was not our number one choice of cities to live in, a huge part of it wasn’t really Somerville’s fault. It was that we were not urban people. Sure, we loved the diversity – Spanish and Hatian Creole spoken at the grocery store. It was nice to have a choice of three Thai restaurants within eight minutes of our apartment. We will miss not being closer to our friends. But this was mostly outweighed by what we perceived as a generally loud, dirty, crowded, tacky, stressful, loud, expensive place. I am glad there are cities. And glad there are people who like to live there. But it was good to realize that the quality of my life – and that of my partner – was not enriched by living in the city. We are not do-ers. The theater and culture of a city is not our thing. We are homebodies. We drink our tea, read, hang out with our cats, and enjoy nesting.

Since Tuesday, we have lived at the above cottage and it is such a relief that both of us can barely believe it. We just didn’t realize how much better it would be for us. The trees. The grass. You can see the stars and the moon against the dark night sky in the silence. They must have been there in the city, but somehow, it was not the same at all. No wide open sky. No silence.

I am amazed at the joy I get in parking right next to my door rather than driving around the block three times and spending ten minutes shoveling out a spot, only to slip and slide over ice-covered sidewalks, up the steps past the neighbors smoking pot and playing loud thumping music, to my triple locked door.

My soul is so much more at ease here. The air is better. Our neighbors brought us cookies, rather than stealing our mail and screaming at us for leaving the hall light on. No one drives by with their music up at 2am. No lights come through our window at night, except the moon.

And, it allows me to appreciate the non-country even more. We went into “town” today (is this a Kentucky thing – “we’re going into town” – or I wonder if everyone who lives in the country says this…?) and I was in love with the character of it all. Barnacle Bill’s House of Crab, The Rosewood Inn, Ella Jane’s Hair and Nail Salon… These things are are all lovely, when I visit them and don’t live next door to them. There was even a TRAILER PARK, which somehow made me feel very at home since these are perfectly normal in the parts of Kentucky and Ohio I am from. It was a town surrounded by country life, rather than the city next to another city next to another one.

Then we came home from “town” and drove right up to our door. No sounds of cars outside. Just our trees rustling and the melting snow dripping the roof.

There are apparently wild turkeys that live in our woods although we haven’t seen them yet.

I am psyched. And happy. And incredibly blessed.