Healing Thoughts for Henry

Henry is the kitty of one of my dearest friends. I was there the day he was adopted. I adopted our Gustav the same day. Henry fell suddenly ill this week and it is not getting much better. I’m sure he would appreciate healing energy from all the cat lovers out there.

Get well soon, Mr. H.

The Hardest Choice

The article below is a beautiful and heart-breaking piece about abortion past the first trimester. It is so difficult for me to understand how people cannot hear stories like this.

The Hardest Hardest Choice: Why I Had a Second-Term Abortion.

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.

Writing About Dr. George Tiller

I am sad about the doctor who was killed…angry about the lack of access that women have to abortions… about the people who try to reduce access to abortion and birth control but don’t adopt all the unwanted children out there… about conservative zealots who promote hate but take no responsibility for the results of their irresponsible and polarizing rhetoric. At the same time, I always hate to make a big fuss about *one big happening* that is sad and tragic and terrible since there are such happenings every day that go unnoticed by us because they are routine. So I almost didn’t write this post, but then I did because I’m trying to let myself write more without it having to be perfect and worked out.

I am sad and angry about the loss of Dr. George Tiller, the loss of the important services he provides, the people who work to limit women’s control over their own lives and bodies, the women who feel shame about abortion, the children who are born unwanted… and all of the suffering and hurt and injustice that goes unnoticed and unmourned each day.

May our lives be blessings on those who need it – families, doctors, religious people who feel strongly, who act wrongly. May we be peace where it is needed. Hope where there is none. Love – real love, hard love, challenging love – in the places where it is hardest to do that.

Marriage Equality – whoo-hooo!

While I have always been a HUGE supporter of marriage equality, I also have ambivalent feelings about marriage,  how great it is, and even if it should exist in the form that it does. I have just never been able to get on board with the idea that marriage makes the world better – that somehow it is good for society that if more people get married, things are better and more stable. Ah, but that is for another post. Today, I want to celebrate! Because, no matter how we feel about marriage as an institution, people want to be legally recognized as a family, should have that right, and deserve to celebrate the great victories that have been rolling in in recent months.

Maine has been the most recent state to legalize marriage for same-sex couples.* Maine joins Connecticut, Iowa, New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont in allowing same-sex couples to marry. (Let’s all keep our fingers crossed that California will re-join this list somehow.) The District of Columbia and New York State do not allow same-sex marriages to be performed, but the recognize those performed in other states. And Washington State, Oregon, and New Jersey all allow same-sex civil unions which, in some ways, allow all the same privileges that marriage does in that state, except, of course, a pretty darn important one which is the name marriage.

Anyway, I just wanted to give a shout out to all of these states and the people who have worked so hard to bring these changes about, to the judges and elected officials who have made the right and just choice by allowing same-sex couples who love each other to receive (mostly) the same legal protections and recognition and benefits that male/female couples are accorded. I feel like this is one step toward the world where we want to live – where families are families based – not on gender and sex – but on commitment, caring and love. I know we have so far to go, but I am pretty happy to witness the progress that has been made in my lifetime.

Blessed be to all of the people who have waited so very long to be legally recognized as families, and, in many ways, to be recognized as people capable of love and committment. May we continue to stand in solidarity with those who are still waiting for this sort of justice – and so many other sorts of justice.

__

*Not to get all picky, but I also struggle with the terms “gay” marriage and even “same-sex” couples and marraige. But that is also for another post. (Note to self: actually do the posts on gender issues you’ve been meaning to for, um, several years.)

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

An Important Distraction from More Important Topics

When Doug left to go live with Carol and the twins, I must say I was proud of him for doing the right thing. Yet, I could hardly imagine life without him. It was never the same.

Needless to say that this picture warmed my heart. I think we’ll all sleep a little easier knowing that Georgey, I mean Doug, will be with us one more time.

My Cup Runneth Over

To the extent that there were Bibles in my life growing up, it was the King James Version all the way. I was a competitive child and wanted to win every contest, including the Bible verse memorization contest at Mt. Zion (the church where my Baptist family goes and my dad grew up). I memorized this verse in this context (along with, amusingly, lots of verses that are not significant at all but were easy to memorize and, thus, win the contest). This passage still speaks to me even though I rewrite it a bit in my head these days.

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

I love this for so many reasons. A God that restores my soul. That invites me to lie down in green pastures, and walks with me along still waters and is with me when I am walking through the valley of the shadow of death. I don’t even know really much what a rod and staff are, but reading it in this passage, it just sounds comforting. I always sort of skip over the part about the enemies, and get to the part where God anoints my head with oil. Have you ever had your head anointed with oil? I have, and it makes you feel so special. (As a side note, I tried to figure out a way to incorporate this into a healing service at a UU church a few years ago, but it was just a little too much, I think, for the congregation at the time. I have not given up though.) Surely, I will dwell in God’s house forever. And ever. Sweet. I just love the idea that no matter what I do, or where I go, God has built this house of love around me – full of still waters and pastures and, yes, even valleys of the shadow of death – but in all of this God is with us. It is coming back to these sort of verses – with such a long tradition (I can see myself right now saying this along with my Mammaw and my Dad and my Aunt and all the elders of the church who loved me so much) that I miss Christianity and think maybe I could become Episcopalian. I know I can’t. And won’t. And don’t want to. But sometimes the thought sneaks in.

I thought of this verse now because every once in a while I am just knocked over by how much my cup runneth over. I sit in my nice warm apartment, two cats at my feet and one sleeping on my rocking chair pillow behind my head, eating frosted flakes, drinking tea, with my supportive, kind, lovely partner in the other room. We are both working on our computers – him for his job (we feel so lucky he has one these days) and me for my school in my doctoral program that I am so lucky to be a part of. And I just think, geesh. What a life I live. Full of love. From my friends and my family. A faith community we love. Gosh, it even makes me feel thankful for our neighbors downstairs who are playing very very loud base right now. Ah, the lessons they have taught us about loving your neighbor! It is hard when it is literal and your neighbors are not very lovable. But I suppose the idea was to do it especially to those who are not lovable.

So I am thankful this evening. And, as a side note, procrastinating on a paper that is due. But it doesn’t take away from how thankful I am. And how ashamed I am, sometimes, that I am not able to better be thankful for all that is good in my life instead of focusing on all that is not that good. Gotta work on that. Or even, as they say, pray about it. Give it up. Hand it over. And know that I will fail again and again, but must just keep opening myself up to change and transformation and keep in mind what I wrote about for the New Year. Trying harder isn’t always the way to go. So, maybe I will not try harder to be thankful, but see if I wait, and walk in green pastures and beside still waters, listen, rest, praise, and worship… maybe my thankfulness and gratitude have been there, and I just need to be able to see it and let it wash over me.

Or something like that.

Much peace, E

Thought for the New Year

From the essay “Do Not Lose Heart”, by Clarissa Pinkola Estes

There is a tendency, too, to fall into being weakened by persevering on what is outside your reach, by what cannot yet be. Do not focus there. That is spending the wind without raising the sails….

We are needed, that is all we can know….

Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach.  Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely.  It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good.  What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing…

One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul.  Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times.  The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire.  To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these – to be fierce and to show mercy toward others, both, are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity.  Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it.  If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do.

And, I believe, this is all we can do. What we can. Our best. Pushing ourselves to love when it is hard, to be kind, to try to be just, to speak up when we feel called. And to encourage each other in this, with understanding and strength.

On to 2009.

Much peace,
Elizabeth

A Hard Winter for Animals

Here is an article in the Globe that deals with the issue of shelters being overrun (and adoptions being down) due to the economy. This relates to my post just a few days ago about little ways that you can help shelters struggling during this time.