Crunchy new leaves

So, the initial twinkling in my gut offered by the prospect of rallying to help American take it down a notch has grown into a sparkly new equilibrium that I’m so relieved has arrived.

Shortly after we made that decision to go an adventure, we tore the entire house apart.

Actually, those activities are not related. Several months ago, Jacob and I were in a middle of an argument and the topic shifted to the condo, it’s state of cleanliness, whose jurisdiction various cleaning tasks fall under, the piles of junk that have no home and whether or not I have ever felt really welcome to live into the space. In a “Fine!” “Fine!” moment, we decided to resolve the issues by marking off an entire weekend to buy some shelving units, buy some new furniture, get rid of awful furniture and reorganize in general. I also intended to give away copious amounts of stuff since I feel liberated when I do that.

We did not have an entire weekend to do that until 2 weeks ago. However, before we could get down to it, we invited a couple from church to move into our guest room for the next three months before they move to California. This added a certain amount of urgency to find new places for all of the stuff that was stacked up in the guest room.

So, reorganizing weekend rolls around and I feel great. I move from task to task with verve. I borrow my brother’s car and drive not just once but twice to IKEA. I stay up working until 10:30 on Saturday night, sweeping and setting little things right. Jacob’s head cold doesn’t bother me at all. I just pick up the slack. There is a powerful feeling infusing my muscles that sings, “This is finally going to be done.”

Sunday moved a little slower but still powerfully. We fought a little because, seriously, I was upending the environment that Jacob has been living in the last five years and, although we discussed every decision, it was still hard for him. I totally empathize.

By Sunday night, we were in a good place. We had the major shelves up in the living room with everything cleared out of the guest room. Jacob had gotten rid of the gigantic and superfluous couches and I had gotten a couple to pick up the broken kitchen table on Saturday night. We made the old dining room table into Jacob’s new desk that he didn’t have to share with anyone and we anticipated building the new dining room table sometime during the week before our Shabbat dinner for about 10 people.

On Monday morning, Jacob started having abdominal pains. By 9:00 that night, he no longer possessed his appendix.

This was not part of our plans.

Still, I was feeling good. Tranquil. My feet were completely on the ground so I did not get knocked off-balance.

This is an amazing feeling, people. One can handle being exhausted if one hasn’t been knocked over.

By Thursday, Jacob was feeling well enough to help his brother put together the new dining room table. All the people coming for dinner were intimates so I didn’t mind them seeing the chaos of our possessions that were still out in the open. Because Jacob’s brother helped out, I could make soup to be warmed on Friday and lay out the ingredients ahead of time for the challah that Jacob could mix and set to rise before I got home from work.

Since then, our roommates have moved in and are wonderful. Jacob and I have had little tiffs but have worked them out without much ado and I have continued to make forward progress with the house while feeling comfortable to just sit and rest when I need to, knowing that it will all get done eventually now that it’s started.

I guess I wanted to share my new state of mind with you all since so many of my recent posts have shared my interior struggles. I credit lots of therapy, difficult self-reflection, amazing support from my husband and a sense of comfort in my relationship with God for giving me a framework to cradle me and gently push me upwards until I was above-ground again. I'm sure I'll fall into the depths again but I will not take this season of golden autumnal sunshine for granted. It has been long-awaited and sought after.

Intervarsity vs. Habitat for Humanity

Last night, I spoke to a group about 200 evangelical pastors at a conference about evangelizing. I was part of a panel that consisted of 2 atheists and a Christian that most Christians would not consider Christian. I was the latter.

During the panel, I talked about my time in college and why I chose Habitat for Humanity over Intervarsity as my main social group. I said that when I looked at both groups, I think I chose Habitat because I wanted to be more like those people, while I definitely knew that DID NOT want to become more like the Intervarsity folks.

The list of why I was repulsed by Intervarsity is easy to come up with:

Girls were weirdly perky
Guys were kind of assholes but with a moralistic veneer
Girls and guys were separated and traditional gender roles were clearly the norm
I hated praise songs

In the Q&A sessions afterwards, a woman asked me what was so attractive about the Habitat for Humanity group.

I bumbled the answer so I thought I'd record what I should have said here:

They were fun and funny. This may be relative as I'm sure the IV folks experienced fun. But my personality liked the kind of jokes that were made at Habitat.
I had a liberating sense that I could be myself. The only social limit I saw was that you couldn't be an asshole. I sensed that in the IV crowd, I would have had to use clean language and did not see potential for personal exploration that I thought should be part of the college experience.
They were smart and wanted to change the world.
They actually worked at making the world a better place every Saturday. My first year, we raised $27,000 and built an entire house in partnership with the neighboring college.
They liked me for me rather than for how I might be lauded as an example of the success of their ideology.
There was a potential for me to be a leader there, even though I was a woman.

Unfortunately, this was the best question that a conference on evangelism could ask so I'm sorry that I bumbled it. If more churches were like that Habitat for Humanity group, more people like me would go to church.

Rally to Restore Sanity

Just a quick note to let you know that Jacob and I will be attending the Rally to Restore Sanity in Washington DC. Actually, Jacob will be attending the concurrent March to Keep Fear Alive, hosted by Stephen Colbert. I have never attended a rally of any sort but found myself weirdly moved to act when I heard about this one. Jon Stewart of The Daily Show is hosting it and writes,

"We're looking for the people who think shouting is annoying, counterproductive, and terrible for your throat; who feel that the loudest voices shouldn't be the only ones that get heard; and who believe that the only time it's appropriate to draw a Hitler mustache on someone is when that person is actually Hitler. Or Charlie Chaplin in certain roles."

This describes me perfectly.

Also, when I started doing some research, I found that the idea originally came from a Reddit user and that members of that forum donated over $200,000 to Donors Choose in order to persuade Stephen Colbert to make this idea a reality. I really like that model for change. I hope it catches on.

Lately, I've been feeling pretty paralyzed when it comes to making decisions. I've talked about it with my therapist and have all sorts of complicated explanations for it but the basic problem is that I just can't discern which consequence I will regret more. Whether it is choosing dinner, sorting out my stuff for what to give away or making financial or social decisions, while I can imagine what possible outcomes might arise from making one choice or another, I can't imagine how I will feel about those outcomes.

For a girl who is used to going with her gut, this is perplexing. I have never really found it difficult to decide what to do next. As I have said before, one idea just seemed like the next thing in front of me and so I did it. Anne Lamott writes about her pastor's decision-making process and says that she gets very quiet and breathes in and out slowly. Then she looks down at her feet and imagines her options as stepping stones on either side of her. The stone that appears to have a spotlight shine on it in her mind's eye is generally the path she should take. Or maybe I am remembering that all wrong. Still, I've used that advice before. But now, there's no spotlight at all. Is it too melodramatic to say THERE IS ONLY DARKNESS?

I'm not a person who makes lists of pros and cons, nor am I someone, not do pareto analysis or decision trees appeal to me very much. The best I do is some sort of back of the napkin cost benefit analysis.

So, I spend a lot of my non-work hours pretty overwhelmed and sometimes a little panicky. Where did that confidence go? I've asked that question a couple of times here in the last several months.

But when I heard about this rally, I just knew it was the next thing in front of me. I feel so bewildered but grateful for the light shining inside of me when I think of it.

So Jacob bought the tickets (choosing from the different options was too much for me) and I asked a dear from from junior high and high school to put us up on her futon. I'm excited about the atmosphere that we'll be a part of: funny, smart people who believe that this slightly ironic gesture will actually make a difference. I think it will be festive and ridiculous. I missed the celebration in Grant Park when Obama was elected. I'm hoping to find some of that jubilation and the experience of being part of a crowd all feeling the same feelings at this rally.

No follow-up obligations. No homework to do before-hand. No family to be in relationship with. Just an experience. An adventure, one might call it. A real vacation.

The right question

Lately, I have had a couple of people look at me strangely when I tell them that I often sit quietly in meetings at work when evangelical Christians assume that everyone else in the room shares their religious and political opinions. I think that my friends know me as outspoken and also an advocate for marginalized folks and so the idea that I would sit quietly doesn't jive with the persona that they know. Of course, they could also rightly see me as bossy and tactless and have a similar response. I'll hope for the former.

However, my position as director of partnerships means that when my professional hat is on, I have to put the relationship of my organization with their organization as the top priority and challenging the beliefs of the representative of another organization puts the mission I'm working so hard to achieve at risk. I know that some folks might worry that this suppression is hurting my soul but I don't grit my teeth while keeping my mouth shut, nor do I seethe with unexpressed loathing. I'm really comfortable that as I get to know people, my testimony will be more easily heard because it will be in heard in context with the way I live my life, which is as a mostly loving, mostly gracious Christian.

The annual Christian Community Development Association (CCDA) conference is here in Chicago this year and it is again a mix of delight at catching up with my growing network of friends and colleagues in the industry, fun in hanging out with my dad and angst at feeling a little bit on the outside of this predominantly evangelical crowd.

For the last several years, I have been hearing about a guy named Andrew Marin, who is becoming a leader at CCDA. (It's worth doing a google search to see how many different people on the spectrum have an opinion about the guy's work.) I know that at some point I should read his book but it just hasn't gotten to the top of the pile yet. Instead, whenever anyone asks me about him, I ask about him right back. I tend to say something like, "I hear a lot of good things about Andrew but I am a little fuzzy about what he actually believes about homosexuality and the church. Everything I read online seems to dance around that issue." I haven't gotten an answer to that question yet that has let me feel comfortable forming an opinion about his work.

He works to be a bridge between the evangelical community and the GLTBQ community. As far as I can tell, he encourages the evangelical Christian community to drop their fundamentalism and reflect God's love to all people, including gay folks. He doesn't seem to feel a need to assure evangelicals that he believes homosexuality is a sin but he doesn't affirm it either. I call that progress.

Yesterday, I was asked about Andrew Marin by a former supervisor whom I really respect and feel pretty comfortable with. When I asked, "But how does Andrew actually feel about homosexuality?" he gave me a typical response and said, "You're asking the wrong question." I like this man enough to push back. I said, "As a person whose church welcomes and affirms gay people, I have to say that I think it's the right question. If someone does not feel like the marriage of Michael and Rodrigo is worth our community's support then we might need to protect them against you." I probably didn't say it that well, but I hope I got the gist out.

My friend referred me to Andrew's interview on Moody radio, which I haven't got a chance to listen to (I'm taking advantage of a rare and limited quiet moment to write this post) but hope to soon. I appreciate the help.

I want to say again, I think it's the right question. I think Andrew's work is great progress for the evangelical church. Lots of people need to hear that the way they act on their beliefs hurts other children of God and are, thus, actions that aren't Christ-like. However, I think that message needs to be a gateway to folks examining their actual beliefs and determining if they are themselves the beliefs Christ would hold in this day and age.

This may seem hypocritical to some folks that have been reading this blog for awhile. As an emergent Christian, I am adamant that all beliefs about God are the result of our experiences with God and are therefore totally unique to each person and should not be used as a basis for whether or not we are in relationship with one another. We shouldn't judge each other's experiences with God as valid or invalid. It may seem like I am saying that Andrew Marin's relationship with God is not as enlightened as mine since he seems to believe that homosexuality is a sin.

I am not saying this. Andrew Marin is just as good a Christian as I am. Probably better. However, beliefs about other people are not on the same level as beliefs about God. I am asking the right question because it is essential that we human beings continue moving along the path toward believing that other human beings are equal to ourselves in the eyes of God and that we believe that we are fully loved for exactly who we are, without ever needing to change to maintain that status of being loved. As Christians, we need to be constantly moving toward dropping our agendas for how to change other people, which means that we need to move toward changing our pesky habit of believing that we know how other people need to change. Only God knows that. We delude ourselves into thinking that we ARE God when we take on that mantel.

Early abolitionists advocated on behalf of the rights of African slaves while still believing them to be an inferior species. Those of us engaged in racial reconciliation from the social context of membership in the privileged, dominant culture (i.e. white folks) still struggle with our complicity in the structures that have been created over time that continue to treat African-Americans as second-class citizens as a legacy to that racism of the past. We acknowledge that everyone is still a little bit racist. Even puppets acknowledge this. Acknowledging this flaw in our characters allows us to be on the look-out for how it hurts others. However, if we tried to say it was OK to be racist, we would begin heading down the slippery slope of excusing our mis-treatment of others, which stops our forward progress of becoming more Christ-like.

As far as I know, Andrew Marin is doing great work in helping Christians examine their actions. The oppression of homosexual children of God is a problem that needs to be attacked by people from all points on the spectrum. However, I will continue to insist that until it becomes as appalling in our society to be against gay marriage as it is to be against interracial marriage, the positive outcome of the battle is still far from being inevitable.

And your heart was an open book

I used to feel like a vibrant compilation artist, moving fluidly from adventure to reflection to expression, experimenting and experiencing whatever circumstance brought me and as my whimsy took me. Now, I feel like an accumulation of skills and talents learned on those adventures, made useful by practice and with a responsibility not to waste that utility because of the concomitant knowledge gained over the past 15 years about the suffering of so many other people.

I fear that this is adulthood. I fear this hardening. It is so new and I don't know yet how to reliably find joy within it. When I thought that adulthood was being married and owning a house and having kids and being respected for my opinions, I welcomed it. I can see how one would find joy in all of that.

Now that I understand that adulthood is commitments, I have been feeling bereft. And, let there be no mistake, I don't mean commitments as in a lot of things to do; I long ago learned basic time management skills.

I define "commitments" to mean "things I have given my heart to and so desire to pour my best effort into." There are only so many things you can pour your best effort into. Right now, I feel like I am filling holes to keep the ground level rather than building anything worthwhile.

When I told Jacob last night that everything moved too fast, I couldn't explain the metaphor, but just knew it was true. I can't catch up and I can't slow down and absorb the life that is all around me. I make lots of stupid mistakes, like forgetting to tell Jacob that I already ran an errand and wasting his time or forgetting to tell him that I need something that he would have been happy to have the opportunity to provide for me. Jacob can't and shouldn't have to do all the housework himself so the house is a complete sty. I am also unconsciously avoiding simple tasks that have any chance of difficult emotional underpinnings, like basic implementation of financial decision that Jacob and I have made.

This will not end well.

So, I am hoping that identifying this new state of being will be the first step toward accommodating it and finding balance. My parents checked in on me last night since they hadn't heard from me in awhile and my best friend in Minnesota called. That helped, too. But my best friends in Chicago, the people who have poured their best efforts into me, are moving tomorrow. My grief is embarrassing and doesn't help with the larger problem.

I'd like to be an artist again. How does one find the necessary liberation to experiment and express when one has commitments? Do you know?

25 new things about me

1. I have witnessed the laboring of two women in the last four months and helped with the actual birth of one's child.
2. I am no more baby-crazy than I have been my entire life; the people closest to me are just beginning to have babies that I feel I have a right to obsess over.
3. I remember being angry with the old lady who babysat for a whole group of us kids while our moms had a Bible study upstairs. I was only 3 or 4 years old but I was indignant that she wouldn't let me hold the babies.
4. I have been married just shy of a year.
5. Dude, this marriage shit is hard.
6. And I have a lot of fun.
7. And I'm not lonely anymore.
8. And I like having the opportunity to care for my husband and to do things simply because they will make him happy.
9. And that scritchy-scratchy feeling of wariness from a constant expectation that life could jack-knife and go shooting off in any direction while leaving me behind has also significantly decreased.
10. However, I am fully aware that this new-found sense of stability is merely illusion; the easiest way to make God laugh is still to tell her your plans.
11. I believe in a God who wants the best for me; my explanation for why bad things happen to good people is that we live in a broken world (for some reason) and so consequences of that brokenness hurt folks, often when they didn't break a thing in the first place. It's not a satisfying theology but I'm learning to live in the mystery.
12. After I met my husband, his Judaism taught me the phrase tikkun olam, which is a concept that God wants all of us to participate in mending the broken world. This is part of why I need Jacob and his faith: to give me words for what my Christianity has neglected.
13. I have somewhat traditional beliefs about God and Christ. You know, the Trinity, the co-existent divinity and humanity of Christ, death and resurrection, and the persistence of the Holy Spirit.
14. I do not need anyone else on the planet to believe the same things that I do.
15. I think that beliefs are a direct result of experiences. Therefore, everyone's beliefs are slightly different.
16. So, my Christianity gets expressed by gathering with other people who all start from different places but who are all heading in the same direction - toward God - rather than being expressed by clustering with people who are exactly like me.
17. I make quilts.
18. I recently knit a sweater for the first time even though I have been knitting hats for years.
19. I used to live on an island in the Pacific Northwest.
20. I have a job that perfectly melds my profession passions and skill sets: I build capacity within an organization that is just beginning to succeed at effecting policy change at a systemic level regarding how American society views vulnerable children by challenging Christian to live into their faith and care for a child in their homes for a little while so the parents can get their feet back under them.
21. I am very close to my family.
22. I struggle a lot with treating other people well. I just can't seem to get the hang of seeing things from others' perspective. This sucks for everyone involved, myself included.
23. I fear that if most people had to describe me with three words, the first two would be "abrasive" and "intimidating."
24. That fear probably explains a lot to anyone who is trying to figure me out.
25. I laugh a lot over the course of a day.

Previous descriptive list posts can be found in these posts: 25 Things About Me, Because My Old One Is Woefully Out of Date, and 100 Things About Me.

Happy birthday

When my friend finally gave birth today, I had my face next to her face, holding her shoulders from behind and cradling her head with one arm to help her to curl up to push. There are images in life that never leave you and seeing the tiny ear, so perfect, so defined, emerge from the mess of flesh and hair is one of those images. I whispered in Jess's ear, "There's an ear!" And when the baby slithered out, I was the first one to tell her, "You have a baby girl!"

Her water had broken 34 hours earlier and she labored that whole time. I joined them for the last 5 hours, bringing fresh energy, telling funny stories in between contractions and then just sitting quietly as things progressed sooooo slowly and my friend began to struggle. She became a Woman Giving Birth, beyond humor, focused on getting it right, focused on the intense work of pushing and focused on the animal fear caused by pain. She was exhausted and glorious. More than once, I teared up when all my eyes could register was how strong she was. Instead of thinking, "That is Jess," I thought, "That is strength." Also, I was profoundly aware of the honor of being allowed to work with her, lending her my muscles to help her change positions or to hold her legs up and out. I felt such keen affection for her body, kissing her ankles and massaging her feet, smoothing her hair and wiping a cool washcloth on her forehead, neck and wrists.

I also almost passed out but we don't need to talk about that. :-) I had locked my knees while standing at the side of the bed to hold her leg and between that and the tiny breakfast, I felt the world swim and recognized what was going on soon enough to ask her mom to take my place so I could lean against the birthing tub with my head between my knees. The sweet and awesome midwife called out a little later, "You OK, Rebecca?"

"Yes, but this isn't about me anyway."

But it was a little bit, too. My perception of my place in this world has mostly involved feeling like I was not #1 on anyone's list. I have had few seasons with best friends and many of those BFFs had other totally legitimate relationship priorities going at the same time. Have I ever told you about when I was 11 and offered a best friend charm with a heart in three pieces to girls from church and they turned me down?

My friend who gave birth today is particularly talented at making friends. And she chose me to be there. And expressed earnest gratitude when it was all over and she was herself again. (I mean, she was always herself. The worst her language got was when she shouted, "Oh! Goooosh." It was just an unfamiliar self.) This made me feel special in a way I have not felt before. It made me feel like there was something good about me that shined brightly enough that they saw it through the abrasiveness and whatever it is about me that intimidates most folks. I didn't want to be trite when they thanked me by saying, "No, thank YOU," so as I stumbled to find something else to say, all I could come up with to explain my feelings of reciprocity was, "I love you."

And isn't that the reason we want to be important to other people? We want to be given deep enough access to fully love them. The act of loving is crucial to our well-being. When too many people in our lives consider us to be in the third or fourth tier of intimacy, we don't have the chance to love them.

But today, I got to tell a friend that she had a daughter and give her periodic sips of water and so I'll say here what I didn't want to say there, "No, thank YOU."

Happy birthday.

The battle is already won

Remember how I wondered in my last post about how one takes a vacation from the continual process of fitting a chipped cog into the broken machine that is this world? I have to admit that grace has allowed me to stumble into an answer. Wednesday night, while feeling hormonally miserable and wandering around the house aimlessly waiting for Jacob to come home so we could talk about the dreaded finances, I looked into our Jacuzzi bathtub and thought, "Hmn. Why not?" I filled the tub, added Dr. Bronner's lavender soap and read Anne Lamott's Rosie until Jacob came home and climbed in with me. At that point, I was positively playful even though an undercurrent of insecurity remained.

As an aside (I'm not finished yet describing my return to being fit for human consumption), we seem to be in a new season in our marriage. I think we started with sorting out the logistics of life together combined with tapering stress-adjusted adrenals then moved into a phase where we were both sorting out our roles within the relationship and now I'm in a place where I need to be assured that this is for real. Whatever love is, right now I need to know that Jacob has something to smooth out my rough spots in his reception of me. I hate to be so cliche, but as a girl who has been left by a husband before, there is something primal within me that just needs to hear, "I will never leave." Unfortunately, we're both learning that Jacob speaks with action and I hear with words. I know, it would make sense that since my ex-husband was so good at telling me what I wanted to hear and so bad at actually following up on any of his promises, I would now be looking for a man who spoke through actions.

It would make sense.

But no one ever accused my emotions of using much sense. My choice to marry Jacob was very much a choice of the head. I love him but I have loved men before who would be terrible life partners. Slowly, I learned from my dating experiences how to discern a bad partner and when Jacob came along as the antithesis of that archetype AND I loved him, I chose to pursue marriage with him.

When I spell it out that way, our relationship seems pretty unlikely and therefore magical. He is my great exception.

But sometimes my emotions are still patterned around the men of my past, who were mostly good at making me feel better with their words. Jacob is honest, which cannot always coexist with making me feel better. So, I have to learn how to make myself feel better most of the time. That's a compromise I'm willing to work towards since the reward of never having to doubt him is so great.

But on Wednesday night, after our financial talk had worn down the protective layer of playfulness (finances are just inherently stressful for me), I was exposed again and feeling unsuccessful and I was worried that Jacob had made his decision about me like I made my decision about him: with his head. You see, if he used his head he must has been basing his decision on faulty data because who would marry someone with as many neuroses as I have and as many bad habits and character flaws that I do? (The Imp of Insecurity was working overtime whispering persuasively in my ear at that point.) And if he based his decision on faulty data, by now wouldn't he be discovering the truth and wouldn't that mean he would feel justified in terminating the contract?

I laid in the bed and he laid his weight on top of me over the covers and I babbled all of this to him with tears dripping into my ears.

And do you know what my man of action told me, "Honey, you didn't look very good on paper when I made the decision to marry you." Then, he listed all of my faults.

It was the best thing I have ever heard.

Because if he can list all of my faults and married me anyway? Then I have nothing to worry about. He can't feel deceived or resentful. He loves me just the way I am and we can move forward from there as equals in this relationship. I don't have to struggle to be the best me all the time for fear that if I slip, the scales on his eyes will be lifted and he'll leave. I can be myself, knowing that it is enough, growing at a normal speed into a better human being. Before I was feeling like I had to use fertilizer to be as impressive as possible but scared because modern farming technique aren't sustainable and deplete the soil. Now, he and I can work the farm organically.

I will slip into insecurity again and have the same feeling of relief and comfort again because that's the way life works. Things change incrementally. I'm OK with that because the next time I feel this insecure, I have a history of knowing that although Jacob speaks with actions, sometimes his actions are to use words to reassure me. I can trust in that.

When I started writing this post, I thought that I would tell you that the solution to the puzzle of how to take a break from being oneself in the world was to sleep until noon (like I did today), babysit for one's baby niece (like I'm doing right not) and get a phone call that your husband is returning early from his hiking trip and wants to spend the evening relaxing together (like I just got). But it turns out that's not the solution. I can enjoy those things because my soul is at peace but that peacefulness comes from having chosen a good partner.

How lucky am I that the answer to my problems is a choice that I made almost a year ago? The solution is now always there, I just need to remember to reach out to him.

Thread through a needle

I have been working on a mix CD for my best friend entitled, "Aren't We Aging Well?" because of a Dar Williams song and it's got me thinking about emotions.

I have been thinking about so many mixes made in the past. Mixes made out of infatuation, mixes made out of grief. Mixes made for my car stereo and not to give as a gift because I wanted to wallow in their emotion and not feel as alone.

I made break-up mixes in honor of my college boyfriend that included the Indigo Girls singing Love-Struck Romeo and shouting in my heart, "But it was just a scene to you!" When I left my first job bitterly, I made a mix that highlighted Ani DiFranco's Million That You Never Made. I made a mix for my ex-husband before I knew our marriage was dead with Garth Brook's Rodeo mixed with Dolly Parton's Touch Your Woman inexplicably mixed with Aretha Franklin's Rock Steady because he still gave me joy but I couldn't say out loud that he was growing distant. After the divorce, I made a mix with the Rolling Stones's Sympathy for the Devil because I discovered it helped to put it on repeat and turn the stereo up - way up - in the car. My first mix for Jacob had Thao's Bag of Hammers because I really really wanted him to stay and not get on that interstate bus when the inevitable fights came up because I was so delighted with him and wanted it to work but knew that I was was like a bee sting sometimes.


The emotions that we make mixes to reflect are powerful. They inform our day to day living. We sing songs in our heads while swimming and driving and filing and we want those songs to be appropriate to our mood so we craft little soundtracks for ourselves or as gifts for others, trying to help them feel less alone and more loved. They are big emotions.

Now that I am married, I wonder if these big emotions get short shrift. Now that the break-ups are done, what is left to make mixes about? Logically, there should be plenty of stuff since big emotions are probably pretty evenly distributed throughout life and not front-loaded to life before marriage. I wonder if I bury them under the equally large but more culturally acceptable emotions of love and contentment. We all fall into the lie that life is a Disney movie that ends with a happily ever after and I wonder which parts of that I have not been unpacking.

I'm not asking for tragedy to strike but I think I need to start noticing other events in my life that need mix tapes. I have walking around in a low-grade rage for a couple of weeks after a lovely stint of calm and serenity brought on by intensified therapy. It has had me puzzled until I started to think about mix tapes. What lyrics are speaking to me in the music I'm listening to? For one thing, the other day I realized that I had never uploaded my Alanis Morrissette or Violent Femmes albums. That should tell you something about what my sub-conscious mind is asking for. The Dar Williams song above makes me cry every time because I feel both that I AM aging well but also that I'm not. The rest of Susan's mix that I'm working on now has some pretty hard-driven funk like the Chili Pepper's version of Higher Ground and Ida Maria's I Like You So Much Better When You're Naked but also has fun dance songs like Kermit and Fozzie singing Movin' Right Along.

So, what emotions am I brushing off because they seem less important than happily ever after emotions when really they deserve their own mix tapes? Well, I have stopped engaging a dear, dear friend of mine because we had a blow-out and she insists on treating me like a monster that she doesn't feel safe with unless she hides behind email or has a mediator in the room. I can't handle being the bad guy for her anymore. There is real sadness mixed with real relief there but I don't know how to process it. Or, out of his own intense emotions, Jacob said something deeply insensitive on Friday. We have talked about it and grown closer but I find that the wound still stings. Also, I feel pretty unsuccessful in my interactions with folks in a variety of communities, like I am not navigating well the narrow line between being myself and not offending or upsetting others.

None of these powerful emotions are really attached to an inciting incident that would typically be noticed in the story arc of a normal life. I mean people all around me are having babies and moving and dealing with cancer, for Heaven's sake. I would have expected that the emotions associated with my situations would flare and then dissipate since they are not as huge as, say, getting married. They are part of day-to-day living, not events.

But as I think about mixes, about soundtracks, these little tensions inform everything I do when I succeed at being present in the now. Like the WS Merwin poem says, they are "like thread through a needle. Everything I do is stitched with [their] color."


This will require me to change the lens on the camera aimed at my inner landscape. I'm so tired. I would love to just be. How does one take a vacation from the continual process of fitting a chipped cog into the broken machine that is this world? Maybe not so strangely, I have been finding comfort in a Vance Gilbert song: Your Brighter Day.

I won!

Since entering the wonderful world of crafting blogs, I enter giveaways all the time. I have never won, though.

But today, I won! How exciting is that! Free fabric for me! I'm getting a charm pack (small squares of a bunch of different fabrics from the same design line) of a gorgeous fabric that is also environmentally friendly. Could there be a more perfect giveaway for me, given my charm quilts?

Take a look around at the site of my benefactor. They are one of my regular reads because it is just pure delight to see which fabrics are out there. It's probably not very good for my pursuit of materialist freedom since it is a very real example of a burgeoning desire to collect once I begin seeing just how much is out there. What was once contained to what I could find in the local craft stores has opened up to actually searching for online stores that carry a particular designer (Heather Ross, anyone?). Still, I rarely make anything for myself and instead goes out as gifts, so, it can't be that bad for my spirit, can it?

Thanks, Kim. I'm super-excited.

Hath no fury

One of my favorite things to do is to really point out to someone that they have been hurtful and are therefore wrong. My therapist describe it as coming out of his shoes. (He likes to do it, too, so we understand each other.) It feels so good to describe my expectations and then to carefully analyse for them just exactly how someone doesn't measure up.

The last time I really let myself go to do this was in college. A mutual friend hurt my best friend and I went over there and made her cry.

In my pursuit of grace and peace, as well as my desire to prioritize relationships and making people feel as loved as God makes me feel, this practice has laid mostly dormant. It comes up in fits and spurts if someone provokes me over email, which is why I have requested to all of my friends that they not say potentially hurtful things over email. I've worked really hard to get good at accepting criticism to my face so that people can actually feel like they can take me up on this request without getting burned. I stumble here and there but I have lots of success stories to tell, too, so I know I'm on the right path.

I have also cut back on this activity because it just doesn't work. Most people, myself included, respond more to body language and tone of voice than they do to carefully crafted sentences. Words just don't mean much in the heat of a disagreement between intimates. Finding closure after my divorce required embracing the futility of finding exactly the right words. My ex-husband was never going to admit that he made certain choices even though he knew they would hurt me. He was never going to give me a carefully crafted apology in response to my carefully crafted dressing-down.

So, I am a better person for refraining from making people cry. But sometimes I miss the white hot intensity of righteous indignation. It recalls for me the rapture of writing my first letter of civil disobedience during my sophomore year in high school when the stupid cheerleaders screwed up and none of us got to have initiation weeks for our clubs. I was an International Thespian, damnit and I deserved to be publicly humiliated! Now, I usually write the email or blog post but then not send it or publish it. I try to make phone calls before misunderstandings get out of hand.

Still, yesterday I made an exception. I posted over at my blog for interfaith families if you'd like to see the result. Like my episode in college, I don't like it when the silent minority gets brushed off because there is no spokesperson. So, I became that spokesperson.

It was fun and I appreciated that the object of my anger was willing to comment so that I could also engage him with a more conciliatory tone so that something might actually be accomplished besides simply making oppressed folks feel validated (which has lots of value on its own, though).

My oldies station

I started high school in 1990 and graduated from college in 1999. I think it's fair to say that if you pull together the greatest songs of the 90s, it will be the proverbial soundtrack of my adolescence.

Luckily for me, VH1 has done that work for me. I'm at my parents' house tonight all alone, by a fluke of scheduling. Since they actually receive a TV signal here (as opposed to our house, where we revel in Netflix), I stumbled on this paradise of mindless television and been on the couch for the past two hours knitting my first baby sweater and living the memories.

Since I'm still alone, I thought I'd share some of them with you. I should preface this by telling you that I am not in the slightest bit a music elitist. It plays in the background when I do stuff and there are a few albums that are written on my heart but I have never sat down and listened to an album, or even a song, just for the experience of listening to music. I used to try when I was in junior high because my brothers all did that but would not realize until the third or fourth song of whatever album I was listening to that I had gotten up off the floor during the first song and begun playing with my dolls or, often, reading a book. Needless to say, I do not keep up on the latest bands, even though two of my brothers actually know people who are actually in bands that other people have heard of. Since these two brothers will probably come up in this post a lot, I'll introduce them to you:

David is 8 years older than I am, a genius artist with a brilliant sense of humor. He was a "skater" when he was in high school in the 80s and built a 12 foot half pipe in the back yard for all his gorgeous skater friends to hang out at. Being surrounded by these suburban rebels with their asymmetrical haircuts and the scrawny but somehow muscular chests during my formative years can probably be blamed for many of my romantic mistakes once I came of age. I still resent Matt D. for not following through on his promise to marry me that he made when I was 8 and he was 15. David went to college in Champaigne during those years in the late 80s when bands like Smashing Pumpkins were playing in bars in Champaigne. We're still pretty sure one of our dogs is prominently featured on a vinyl release of a major single from that time. However, it should be telling that I can't remember which one. I still have my turquoise Powell-Peralta t-shirt that he left behind when he went to school.

Daniel is two years younger than I am and followed David's lead a decade later. He and I had many of the same friends since we both hung in the "alternative" crowd but he lived the lifestyle while I watched from the sidelines. Daniel is a true musician and his explorations into musical discovery and expression made me as cool as I am, even though that's not very cool. When we were still in junior high, he spent the entire summer learning Jimi Hendrix's Star Spangled Banner with the amp turned all the way up. It was a long summer. I am his biggest fan and stood in the front row for all of his shows, which included his first album release party at a local VFW hall as a sensitive singer-songwriter, his country band called Barely American and his glam rock years as Glam Dan and the Fancy Lads. You can actually buy one of their albums on I-Tunes. It's the best concept album I've ever encountered. Of course, remember that I have never actually sat down and listened to another concept album in my life.

So, without further adieu, let me attempt to paint the pictures that rise up in my mind as I watched some mindless television. If those C-listers can tells their stories, I should be able to, too. I just won't have M.C. Hammer adding some totally vague and affirming compliment at the end of each African American artist's song. You'll have to imagine that for yourself.

VH1's 100 Greatest Songs of the 90's...

Nirvana - "Smells Like Teen Spirit" (1991, #6 US)

My main memory of this is hearing it at a party (I did not go to many of these and I think this was a pseudo-party hosted by some kid's mom in her basement) and hearing the other say it was amazing and realizing that I had heard it before. David had brought home the first two albums at Thanksgiving the year before and played it for my cousins and I listened from the doorway and marveled at the little naked kid on the cover.

U2 - "One" (1991, #10 US)

I got nothing.

Seriously, I know U2 is the shit but although I could probably sing most of their many hits word-for-word, I have never been a fan. I have never been emotionally moved by one of their songs.

Sorry.

Backstreet Boys - "I Want It That Way" (1999, #6 US)

Again, nothing. The boy bands were simply something to be mocked and endured at basement parties. I remember responding enthusiastically with my friends when some headbanging song came on because it was such a relief from music like this.

Whitney Houston - "I Will Always Love You" (1992, #1 US)

In college, I lived in Suite 3D with a bunch of other girls including Erika and Amanda, who were both bridesmaids in my first wedding and I performed that role in their weddings. Erika was in the Bridal Brigade for my second wedding. We used to sign this at the top of our lungs to each other, relishing the dramatic key change toward the end. At Amanda's wedding, we stood on chairs and sang it to her during the reception.

Madonna - "Vogue" (1990, #1 US)

Dan K. was bosom buddies with Daniel the summer this song came out and we changed the words to "Don't just stand there, let's get to it, pick your nose, there's nothing to it. Nose." We were all in the summer art and technology class for gifted kids and thought we were very clever, with our opaque projector and our video scanner that printed out pictures of our faces on the 8-bit printer. Dan, of course, came out of the closet 10 years later, a fact I learned when another fabulous friend told me that they had literally made out in the closet in high school.

Sir Mix-A-Lot - "Baby Got Back" (1992, #1 US)

Cliff C. and Brad D. were the two sociopaths of my church youth group. I felt tormented by them but desperately wanted their attention because they were just so fucking funny. And ridiculous. We were on a mission trip to Mississippi and in the kitchen of Canton Bible Baptist, Cliff did KP while wearing a walkman and occasionally shouted out lines from the songs. This is where I first processed the meaning of the line, "My anaconda don't want none unless it's got buns, hon." Actually, I'm not sure if Brad was there at that moment but I have other memories of him singing ridiculous things in that kitchen with the same energy so he's included in the nostalgia.

Also, Cliff used to sing Smells Like Teen Spirit in an astonishingly annoying repetition. I remember my youth director, Malcolm, trying to catch him up by asking him what a libido actually was. He might have been hoping to embarrass him but I can't imagine that tactic actually working since Cliff seemed to have no shame. He also did not know what a libido was beyond the fact that it rhymed with mosquito.

Britney Spears - "...Baby One More Time" (1999, #1 US)

Missed this entirely. I think I was planning my wedding at the time.

TLC - "Waterfalls" (1994, #1 US)

For some reason, I was listening to the local Black music station my first couple of years of college. This struck me as a bad attempt at poignancy and I couldn't figure out what all the fuss was about. It just seemed too obvious. I had NO cultural context to put it within.

R.E.M. - "Losing My Religion" (1991, #4 US)

Dan S. was one of my best friends and Michael Stipe 100% mimicked his physicality in this video. Dan was emo before emo was a thing and there was not one iota of affectation about it. He was just a shy kid who ran cross-country and talked late into the night on mission trips and retreats about important and intelligent stuff. He is possible the only male friend I hung out with in high school that I did not have a crush on. Sorry, Dan.

Sinéad O'Connor - "Nothing Compares 2 U" (1990, #1 US)

I remember mocking this for her weird voice. Then, it was the cool thing to do to mock her for her weirdo stunts. I learned from VH1 that she released an album recently called Theology and I'm actually kind of curious how she thinks about God because in maturity I realized that she must have been kind of interesting. (Although I don't buy her denial that she ever wanted to be a pop star. What? You stood in front of a camera and cried while you sang a Prince song because you were just looking to entertain the local yokels?)

Pearl Jam - "Jeremy" (1991, #79 US)

Uah. So tragic. So narrative. So comprehensible. So true. So true.

Alanis Morissette - "You Oughta Know" (1995)

I was a freshman in college and loved the surge of angry girl rock. This was just sexually explicit enough to titillate my slowly fading Vestal virgin persona. I borrowed the CD from the girl down the hall to put this on a mix tape. Oh yeah. Transitional audio technology. I was right in the middle of it. After my divorce, I listened to this album a lot.

Dr. Dre (featuring Snoop Doggy Dogg) - "Nuthin' but a "G" Thang" (1992, #2 US)

Guys in the youth group sang lines from this a lot but I didn't have a lot of experience with it. Their gangsta love felt vaguely exploitational and pathetic for a bunch of suburban white guys and it made me uncomfortable but one's last name was Guillemette so the G-Thang, G-String joke was pretty funny.

Mariah Carey - "Vision of Love" (1990, #1 US)

Nothing but mockery for this one. A 7-octave range meant nothing if it sounded screechy. I was just beginning to take voice lessons as a locally acclaimed soprano so I should know.

Red Hot Chili Peppers - "Under the Bridge" (1991, #2 US)

The cute senior in the theater class I took freshman year recited the lyrics as his dramatic monologue. What was disturbing was that he pantomimed shooting heroin before he began. In a world without internet, I'm now a little disturbed to wonder where he learned how to tie a tourniquet around his arm and tap a vein.

MC Hammer - "U Can't Touch This" (1990, #8 US)

This was just ubiquitous. I don't have a specific memory attached to it except to recall the trend of Z. Cavaricci pants. I suppose this is what grunge was rebelling against. My friend Carrie once went on a field trip with our girls' Bible study group to buy a pair at the Stratford Square mall and counted out over a hundred dollars in cash. For pants!

Destiny's Child - "Say My Name" (1999, #1 US)

Like I said, I was listening to a lot of B96 at this point but now it was because I had a job teaching African-American high school kids and I wanted to be up on the lingo. Also, I really liked it. So, this song is solely associated with being in my '92 stick shift Saturn that I bought off my dad when I graduated from college.

Metallica - "Enter Sandman" (1991, #16 US)

This song literally frightened me. I watched the video tonight and the strobe-light haunted house effect brought it all back. I remember being vaguely uncertain of whether or not this counted as "evil."

Beastie Boys - "Sabotage" (1994)

Again, my knowledge of the Beastie Boys came almost solely from the guys in my youth group. From them, I learned to prefer Paul's Boutique over the other albums. It was good to have a preference. If you have a preference, people think that you know something. Since I didn't actually care enough to explore new music on my own but still wanted to be cool, I needed to project that I knew something about music. This I could do by insisting on Paul's Boutique.

Hanson - "MMMBop" (1997, #1 US)

These guys came from Tulsa, Oklahoma, which is where my aunt, uncle and their five kids live. They used to hear Hanson play at the local water park before they were huge.

Celine Dion - "My Heart Will Go On" (1997, #1 US)

I think that my first real experience with irony occurred listening to Celine Dion's My Heart Will Go On. I loved it with all of my dramatic adolescent self. All of the interior urges that caused my to become a member of Thespian Troupe #233 - building sets and acting in high school plays, as well as a community theater production of Godspell - these urges were massaged by the drama . . .

Wait. That's not right. I'm thinking about It's All Coming Back to Me Now. My Heart Will Go On got mocking because it got played so incessantly because of it's association with Titanic, which I still haven't seen.

So, let's pretend we're talking about It's All Coming Back to Me Now. The video was created by the same guy who did Meatloaf's I Would Do Anything For Love and involved a castle and a hot guy dying in a motorcycle crash. It pushed every romantic button in my newly adult heart. At the same time, I knew it was incredibly cheesy. So, I lived in that tension. I think it was my first guilty pleasure that I mocked with a wink wink nudge nudge so that I could listen to it more. Irony. Or maybe camp. I borrowed the CD from the same girl I borrowed Alanis Morissette from and put the song on the same mix tape.

Beck - "Loser" (1994, #10 US)

Pretty incomprehensible. I have never liked songs that I couldn't understand the words. So, I didn't pay much attention to it.

Salt-N-Pepa with En Vogue - "Whatta Man" (1993, #3 US)

I have come to love Salt-N-Pepa much more in my later life than when they were an active music group. I found them to be catchy in my youth but was too intimidated by my lack of membership in African-Americanism to actually go out and buy an album. They were a little raunchy and that secretly appealed to me plus I could understand all the words and the words made me laugh. Delayed gratification is just as sweet, though.

House of Pain - "Jump Around" (1992, #3 US)

I don't know. Fraternity house basements?

Soundgarden - "Black Hole Sun" (1994)

Ubiquitous. Somewhat overly depressive. I didn't respond much to music that seemed like you needed to have taken drugs to understand what it was communicating.

Eminem - "My Name Is" (1999, #26 US)

Again, I didn't come to love Eminem until much later in life. At first, I rejected him because he was so totally offensive. Later, when I calmed down a little (you know, in general, with my personality) I realized that he was really clever and that I liked his use of assonance. My boyfriend on the island watched 8 Mile constantly, which again seemed odd for a white guy who was a professional sea kayak guide from my home town. Still, I watch a movie about a goblin king surrounded by Muppets who falls in love with a young girl (who looks suspiciously like an idealized version of me) and sends her on a quest because he is so conflicted about his love. So, who am I to judge? Has anyone else noticed that my relationship with music revolved a lot around my racial identity?

Counting Crows - "Mr. Jones" (1993)

Again, ubiquitous. Not very interesting.

Ricky Martin - "Livin' la Vida Loca" (1999, #1 US)

Loved this. It felt sexy just as I was getting sexy. It made me want to move my hips.

Vanilla Ice - "Ice Ice Baby" (1990, #1 US)

Some kid named Jason used to breakdance while singing this in the cafeteria in the 6th grade. I always felt bad for him because I think he thought he was secretly cool all along and the rest of the kids were finally recognizing his true self when the truth was that we were laughing at him. I think I projected a lot of my own fears in this scenario.

*NSYNC - "Tearin' Up My Heart" (1998)

I got nothing.

Radiohead - "Creep" (1993)

Ubiquitous. Nondescript. Again, it felt drug-induced and I never really jived with the Gen X loser sentiments. However, now I fully claim my Gen X status. I might have been on the tail end but I definitely relate more with the generation older than me than the one younger than me that has always had email and CDs.

BLACKstreet - "No Diggity" (1996, #1 US)

LOVED this. At one point, I think someone calculated that B96 played this 5 times every hour. I could understand the words and they sounded extremely sexual even though I couldn't quite map what was being said to my very limited understanding of what sexual acts were options. The rhythm was intoxicating. Again, this is absolutely associated with driving in my car. When iTunes made finding songs easy, I put this on the first CD I made from purchased digital music.

Spice Girls - "Wannabe" (1997, #1 US)

This song went on the same college mix tape as You Oughta Know and It's All Coming Back to Me Now. (Susan, did I get all of those from you?) It perfectly expressed the joyful silliness I felt after I found some friends in college to celebrate being a woman out on her own. My whole being felt this exuberant at times.

Third Eye Blind - "Semi-Charmed Life" (1997, #4 US)

Again, fraternity basements come to mind. Only a third of our campus went Greek but since it was a technically "dry" campus, the only real accessible parties were at the fraternities. Also, my close friend Emily join Sigma Kappa and took me along with her. They used to dress me in borrowed baby t-shirts since I still had yet to figure out how to communicate my personality through fashion in a way that could be understood by other people given the current style context.

Oasis - "Wonderwall" (1995, #8 US)

Another in the same camp as the other druggy, whiny, incomprehensible and dark grunge songs. I was firmly in the grunge demographic in high school and college. XL t-shirts that were tucked into the front of my baggy boy jeans with a flannel shirt were de riguer for me. I also had a great pair of railroad overalls purchased at the Big R in Danville, IL to give them authenticity. I have never felt comfortable with posers.

One of my best memories was hanging out with a guy named Paul, who was one of the first openly gay men I knew. Looking back, he was clearly in the natal stages of his fabulousness but it gave him style cred in my 19 year old mind. I was wearing a pair of grass-green corduroy short-alls with a white midriff baring tank top. Over it all was my favorite oversized flannel from the Gap, which was mostly white with the plaid being different shades of the same green as the short-alls. The shorts were only just longer than the tails of the flannel. Paul told me that he loved my outfit and then talked about it for awhile. I felt a blanket of justification wash over me. Like the break-dancing Jason in the cafeteria before me, I secretly believed that I had recently found my style groove and Paul validated that. Ah, grunge.

C+C Music Factory - "Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)" (1991, #1 US)

This is where I came into the program. I'm just going to pick and choose from here on out.

L.L. Cool J - "Mama Said Knock You Out" (1990, #17 US)

My youth director Malcolm used to sing this ridiculously. Mama said knock you down and so forth. He was interacting witht the aforementioned Cliff and Brad.

The Presidents of the United States of America - "Peaches" (1995)

Totally catchy. I had forgotten about this song. It felt just right for my alternative suburban, grungy soul. Playful and ironic without actually saying anything that I understood. But I could sing along.

Digital Underground - "The Humpty Dance" (1990, #11 US)

I have to tell you that this plays in a steady rotation on my iPod currently. It makes me laugh all the time. It's a song about being ugly but still having sex all the time. What could be better? I only have a vague memory of it from this time period.

Deee-Lite - "Groove Is In The Heart" (1990, #4 US)

I have never danced more ridiculously than I danced to this song and the B52s Love Shack. I have never felt more myself than while dancing this way. High school dances were actually quite fun for me because I was surroudned by a group of people who just danced in a big group and didn't have to talk. You could just run around and chase each other and laugh just like you were kids again. A few drank but you didn't have to in order to get a rush of endorphins and sexualized dancing was out of vogue at the time. You just stood in one place and bounced while moving your arms as the spirit moved you. I still dance like that.

Will Smith - "Gettin' Jiggy Wit It" (1998, #1 US)

Similarly, this is totally danceable and I never felt the racial awkwardness with Will Smith that I did with the other Black artists.

Lenny Kravitz - "Are You Gonna Go My Way" (1993)

I owned every Lenny Kravitz album and went to see him in conert 3 or 4 times. This should tell you a lot since I rarely bought albums and didn't go to a concert until my freshman year in college. He was odd and sounded like the soul music that I liked on the oldies radio stations but he still rocked. I realize that my brother Daniel hasn't actually made an appearance but I've realized that is because he introduced me to older rock and roll classic like Led Zepplin and David Bowie. Lots of David Bowie. He also gave me Lenny Kravitz (and then stole my conert t-shirt that cost $25 bucks!)

Paula Cole - "I Don't Want to Wait" (1997, #11 US)

I preferred Where Have All the Cowboys Gone. The bleak portrayal of rural life for a woman combined with the conflicting longing for a strong man expressed the strange feminism I feel that I live with still.

Prince & The New Power Generation - "Gett Off" (1991, #27 US)

Too sexy for me. I love love loved this with all of my suppressed Christian loins.

Lisa Loeb - "Stay (I Missed You)" (1994, #1 US)

Janstee and I drove everywhere with this cassette single in her car's tape deck. I think her car was named Skippy and she used to hit curbs all the time when she turned. She was the first friend in high school that I felt totally at ease with. I felt like she genuinely enjoyed having me around even though she was much cooler than I was. We gossiped and girl talked and liked the same boys. And learned every word to this song. I recently bought a copy of the soundtrack to Singles at a garage sale just for this song.

The only song I can think of that is missing for me in Nine Inch Nails' Closer. It is the sexiest song I can think of besides anything made by Prince. The pulsing rhythm felt like everything I imagined sex to be. I remember gettign into a huge argument with Mike B. in my youth group because he and Brad thought it was evil and shouldn't be listened to. They thought it was written from the point of view of Satan and existed to encourage teenagers to have sex. I could see the Satan point but felt like it was a Satan who looked a little more like David Bowie in the earlier described Labyrinth: fallen but regretful and longing for the goodness he could no longer have. One of the lyrics is quite literally, "You get me closer to God." If sex was everything they taught me it would be in youth group, Nine Inch Nails expressed the transcendence perfectly to my imagination. I think Dave P. would be drunk at high school dances and grind with me, probably because he ultimately turned out to be gay. It was safe and experiemental. I remember being frustrated with the youth group argument because the guys wouldn't even consider my perspective. That was the quintessential gender dynamic in that group so should be recorded in this reminiscene.

So, that's it. More than you ever wanted to know about my adolesence and how it related to sex, race and music.

I realize that a lot of formative music for me was created in the 80s: Violent Femmes, Depeche Mode, They Might Be Giants. These came from my brother David's group and my friends who were following in his path. We would buy the albums on cassette and copy them onto tapes for each other. One alubm usually fit on a side of a 90 minute tape. It was great. David also bought me a Lemonheads album for Christmas one year and I listened to it so much that it is written on my heart.

What memories do these songs bring up for you?

Big month

Seriously? It's been a month since I last posted? But I had notes in my journal and everything! I had a lineup of things I wanted to tell you! I was going to get to it! Really, I swear.

All protestations aside, I really am surprised that it has been so long.

Still, it feels like it has been a big month. To start with, we had four weddings to attend in May, two of which required travel, one I was in, and a fourth that I could attend blissfully without responsibility. It was such a sense of almost levitation getting ready for Amy and Chris's wedding because there would only be 6 people that I knew there and all were from church, so I didn't need to have any sort of agenda with my outfit (you know, boobs out for ex-boyfriends, professional for events where some attendee, somewhere might hire me). So, I could just try on dresses for Jacob and let him pick the one he liked best rather than asking his opinion and then telling him why it wasn't the right opinion. Here we are, dancing. I particularly love the dress he chose because I paid $3 for it at the thrift store and it looks classic, even though I know (with my freakish mind for costume analysis) that it is straight out of the early 90s. Seriously, can't you see Andie McDowell with this neckline? Or Elaine from Seinfeld? That photo was taken by the wedding photographer, Gavin Gould. There are more pictures on my Jake and Jess's blog.

Speaking of Jake and Jess, they have asked me to be their birth plan advocate. I went to tour their Alternative Birthing Center with them last week and when we were standing in the room in which they will become parents, I started to cry a little at the profundity of it all.

They want me to be there with them. While they become parents. I will be part of that intimate moment, even if I'm sitting in the corner knitting a hat as it happens. I was the girl that couldn't find friends to go to the Fun Fair with me in elementary school. I was the girl who knew the shapes of the headlights of the people in her youth group because I stared out into the dark wondering if they were going to stop by and see if I could join them while they cruised (life before cell phones = perpetual waiting). I was the girl who almost transferred out of college my first semester because I had missed the window to pair up with my new BFF and it seemed like none of the established groups were looking for new members. Now, I'm the girl that this family wants to be in the room to witness the new life of their child. When my brother's baby was born, he said, "Hold her now, she'll never be this new again." To get to do that again? For dear friends? It's too much of a blessing. I can't handle it when I think too deeply on it.

So, what else? Except for a short fall off the wagon on Saturday, I have felt very calm and with a stable sense of well-being that is so far from my cookie debacle awhile back. I just haven't felt the need to shout. I consider that only a little bit less than miraculous. As Katherine said in a comment to that last post, I have been less hard on myself. My therapist and I believe in a spirituality of imperfection, which teaches that we will not fix ourselves: no human can. All we can do is gently readjust our position so that we're more likely to receive God's grace that will help do less damage than we did before.

Saturday's fall off the wagon involved an impressive upwelling of anxiety regarding my absolute certainty that I am supposed to change the world in a measurable way, in a big way. I believe this more strongly than I believe that my feet will always be stuck to the planet by gravity. It's an internal motivation and therefore impossible to shrug off by saying that it doesn't matter what other people expect, which is how people try to comfort me. This is a huge weight and responsibility and most days I don't notice it. But I think that as I have been slowing down and examining myself, I can't help but notice it finally and respond to this inviolable expectation that I have of myself. It's difficult because as I slow down and quilt a little more often (Josh & Sara, Dan & Mary get ready!), I want this life for myself. I want a life where I'm only responsible for improving the lives of my immediate circle through love, caring and kindness. Systemic change is so all-consuming. It's a little scary.

Having lunch with Shane Claiborne, my nemesis, didn't help much. Nor did going to hear Anne Lamott speak on the same themes of focusing on our small communities and what we contribute. The one-day retreat in a beach house in Michigan, studying Henri Nouwen's, In the Name of Jesus, about his transition from hifalutin Harvard professor to companion of handicapped adults and Bart Campolo's talk at last year's CCDA about how impact might just be impossible to achieve in urban ministry certainly intensified this internal struggle. Sitting on the beach feeling almost too hot in the sun, with my feet shocked occasionally by the cold Lake Michigan water was so perfect, so restful, so uncomplicated. I lived in the now of physical sensations and felt a little transcendent. The daunting challenge of finding that same transcendence in the rest of my life is currently haunting me.

Still, I am happier than I have been in a long time. I am more in love with Jacob than I have ever been and my family is brilliant. My job continues to feel useful and the tasks I am set are mostly interesting. It's hard to complain about that and I don't think I am. But when given the opportunity to write a little bit tonight before I head out to my bi-weekly Dungeons & Dragons game, these are the things that were worth sharing with you.

Race and the Emergent Church

So, I'm a little late in letting you all know about this but remember when I wrote about an interview I gave to a couple of reporters?

I have two responses, maybe three: one is to the content of the article, which may or may not be mixed with feedback from my Guatemalan-American friend from church, Jhonathan and finally, some meta talk about the process of being quoted in a major national magazine.

The article on race and the emergent church was published in Sojourners May 2010 edition. You can find the article here under the title, "Is the Emerging Church for Whites Only?" although in the ensuing online conversation, my favorite alternate title was suggested by Eliacin Rosario-Cruz: "Some color is not enough color in the Emerging/Emergent Church."

On that note, let's start here: a characterization of the emergent church as all-white is wrong. My church as an example is about 25% people of color. A picture of a box of uniform white crayons tells members of my church family that they are persona non grata and I will not let anyone do that without challenging them. By setting up a straw man argument that the default is white that needs color added to it, rather than acknowledging the color that already exists, the article disempowers the very people it claims to be advocating for. It disempowers Jhonathan and Noe and Mirari and LaDonna and Nkosi and Andy and Dev by denying that they even exist in the first place and this is happening from a major Christian publication. This assumption put forth in order to write the proof to convince people that Emergence is just an example of privilege self-perpetuating steals my friends' identities as both people of color and emergent, without ever getting to know them.

(By the way, ignorance can't be claimed here. I pointed out this demographic fact about my church to the authors and I introduced them to Alise Barrymore, an African-American pastor of a multi-ethnic emergent church. Although they quoted her, they did not mention that she was a person of color.)

So, I won't participate in the discussion within this incendiary frame. If we can agree to a frame that acknowledges the true starting point of the emergent movement, then I am happy to continue this important conversation and I appreciate Dr. Rah for bringing it to the attention of a larger audience.

My friend from church, Jhonathan, subscribes to Sojourners and when he stumbled across my name in the article, he texted me to see if we could sit down over coffee to talk about it. Before I talked with him, I would have protested Professor Rah's fixation on book contracts and speaking gigs. Many of the online responses point out that a majority of the work being done in the emergent movement is not by the writers and the speakers but by everyday people opening themselves to God to be transformed so that they can do the work of bringing justice to this world. (And many of these folks are people of color.) I often quote my pastor when she said that our church would have more non-white participants when we become the type of people who have more non-white friends.

However, Jhonathan thinks that the amount of attention that article authors focus on systems of oppression such as publishing and conference gigs is appropriate. He spent some time explaining to me that our emergent movement needs to be concerned with how we are perceived. He said that as a person of color, our church feels like home to him but it is also sometimes uncomfortable. He overcomes that discomfort but knows that there are lots of people of color out there who won't make the effort if we just sit back and wait for them. This was eye-opening for me.

The sentiment is echoed in a post by my friend Julie Clawson on power and the church, when she says

I’ve also encountered those that approach power openly [rather than hierarchically] who tell me, “step-up, we’d love to hear your voice.” It took me a long time to actually trust those voices and to take them up on it, mostly because I didn’t fully understand that there were people who truly did hold power in an open hand. I expected there to be hoops to jump through, votes to be taken, and popularity contest to be won, but when it came right down to it, none of that stuff actually existed. I think this is where the emerging conversation is most often misunderstood.

Jhonathan's point is that while Julie overcame her learned helplessness, other women and members of oppressed groups need to see -in authors and conference speakers- that their kind are actually welcome. I'm willing to back down from my earlier thought based on Jhonathan's willingness to challenge me.

So, we have a little bit of a dilemma. We can't just sprout people of color just to make other people of color feel welcome. (But don't forget that there are some there already.) It's actually part of a larger conversation that my church has all the time about how to empower folks to muscle through feeling uncomfortable so that they can welcome others both on a racial level and a regular-old introverted or socially awkward level. We don't have any answers: we just keep praying and experimenting and cheering each other on.

Still, it would be nice to have a toolbox to use for how to make the mechanics of our services more welcoming or how to go out and proactively invite people of color in an authentic way. Someone should edit a book of essays about that, right? If that person is white, he or she should co-edit with a person of color. Even better, all essays should be written in teams that include at least one non-white partner. How cool would that be?

On the topic of the experience of being quoted, I really like being in conversation with Professor Rah -he quoted me in book a couple of years ago, too- but I would not call his article comprehensive of the subject. I was surprised by which parts of the 90-minute interview he left out of the article and when I spoke with other contributors, I found that they too felt like he was pulling quotes that agreed with the point he wanted to make rather than using his research to generate a theory. Christianity Today published an article on race and evangelicalism recently and I thought they did a much better job of representing a variety of viewpoints. They are a more conservative publication.

However, I want to make sure that I point out that Dr. Rah's assistant was meticulous in making sure that the quote they did use accurately represented beliefs I hold and I really appreciate that diligence.

On a final note, I want to draw attention to the response my friend Mike Clawson wrote, entitled, "I Didn't Learn It From White Males" that points out an additional level of the conversation beside who the celebrities are and who the practitioners are: theology. He reminds us that some powerful theology has been developed by people of color and those people are who initiated him on his path to Emergence. This is another reminder that to have the conversation within a frame that claims that the current state of the emergent church is colorless will distract from the picture within. Dr. Rah is right to continue to bring up the issue of race in the emergent church, as well as to push other movements within the Christian movement to do the same. Racial reconciliation is hard and necessary work, with some great voices speaking into the process. I am convinced that the Kingdom of Heaven is totally mixed racially and I don't know how to recreate that here but I believe that if I keep following God and talking with God's children, I'll be able to do my part in mending what has been broken, if only a little.

Yes, Dear

At church this past Sunday, a friend was clearing my place after dinner and when I gave a friendly instruction, he joked, "Yes, dear." We all laughed and he told us all that he had been well-trained by his ex-wife. We laughed a little more and he said, "No, I'm serious, she was like a Howitzer. The only thing I could do was say, 'Yes, dear.'" Then, he walked away and our conversation continued, altered a little by his interjection. Personally, I am always a little uncomfortable laughing at jokes that reinforce those gender stereotypes pf the overbearing wife and the hapless husband. My friend has great comedic timing and I love him, so I do laugh. However, I've shared before how much I fear becoming the Dear of "Yes, dear." These kinds of jokes hit a nerve because I know that I have the power of a Howitzer and I know that out of insecurity, I sometimes bring it to bear on Jacob. So, I told a story to my friends at church to redeem the story of my friend's ex-wife. Who knows, maybe she was just like me? Maybe she feared what would happen if she gave up total control of the influences on her life, even over little things like the food she prepared or the home she kept. So, in empathy for this ex-wife, I told a story about my experience. I told my friends that Jacob and I have been fighting a lot about food lately. I told them that I like good food and Jacob doesn't. (I also have pretty good comedic timing.)

So, I set up the story: On Saturday, I made cookies for our friends' party. I used the Cook's Illustrated recipe for perfect chocolate chip cookies that involves browning the butter and hand-whisking the ingredients. You have to whisk for 30 seconds, then let it sit for 3 minutes and repeat that 3 times. I really played up the labor involved to make the punchline dazzle. I offered a cookie to Jacob hot out of the oven and offered to get him a glass of milk. I warned him that he only got one since the recipe only made 24 cookies and I wanted to make sure there was enough for the party and I didn't want him to be disappointed later when he couldn't have a second. When he said he wasn't ready for a cookie, I was cool with that but because soft, warm cookies are so good, I offered again when the second batch came out and the third batch came out, just in case. The cookies turned out perfectly: crisp on the outside and chewy on the inside, even once they were cool.

An hour or so later, Jacob wandered into the kitchen and ate his cookie. I asked him if it was, indeed, perfect and he agreed that it was good.

"I like them softer, though."

When I explained that they WERE soft because the butter had been melted and the size of the cookies created the perfect tension for rising, he asked if I couldn't have just taken them out of the oven sooner. I am not proud to admit that I went ballistic. I had worked hard on these cookies and he wanted some shitty under-baked mall cookie? Or worse, he wanted something filled with chemicals like super-market Soft Batch?

I shouted. I cried. I crumbled up a cookie with my fists to show him how fucking soft it was, leaving only 21 left for the party.

I told this story to our church friends with a tone of incredulousness at my own overreaction and self-deprecating humor. They roared with laughter in appreciation and horror. They asked how Jacob responded. I said he was perfect: that he held my rigid body and tried to calm me down. That he pointed out that this was probably not about cookies. That he hugged me again. That he kept insisting that he had a right to express a preference while still trying to soothe me. That he never said, "Yes, dear."

I don't like abusing Jacob' patience like this. I fear I am damaging us somehow. And I keep trying to fix it but I keep failing.

I considered stopping the story there. I'll be honest, though, I like to control how other people think of me and I didn't want them to think poorly of me upon further reflection during the car-ride home. Also, a small part of me wanted to be totally honest with these members of my spiritual community.

So, I told them (like I'm telling you) that recently I approached my therapist about this. I admitted that don't like being this person and that I fear that this person will push Jacob away. I want to be a person that makes space for the needs (and preferences) of others. I do not want to be a person who uses her weapons to mold the will of others to my own. As I told Jacob later, he is amazing and this inspires me to try to be amazing, too.

At this point, another friend interrupted and said, "You seem to be the last person I would expect to be in therapy."

I smiled and said, "That's how you know it's working." I have been with the same counselor since my divorce and it has made all the difference. I usually see him twice a month now, but with this new spiritual agenda, we will be seeing each other once a week. He said to me, "This is not going to be fun" and so far, he is right.

When they tell you that marriage is hard work, I think this is what they mean. Are you willing to take the time and the energy to become a new person? Are you willing for the parameters of that new personality to be formed around someone who is not you? It seems like this is the work it takes to have a sustainable marriage. I'm sure it's easier for some couple than it is for Jacob and I and maybe for some couples it's even harder. That's OK.

At a wedding last night, the couple asked my friend to read Khalil Gibran's On Marriage, which encourages a couple to "let there be spaces in your togetherness,/ And let the winds of the heavens dance between you." I absolutely agree with that but at the same time, people with personalities like mine (and maybe other types, too) need to err a little in the other direction and learn how to let their partners get closer, to allow those spaces to become less than arm's length.

After this poem that moved both of us, I leaned over and told Jacob that it was OK that I liked good food and that he didn't. He protested a little, not knowing me well enough yet to know that I was repeating a joke that is not very nice at its core while being emotionally moved in order to remove the venom of the joke. In that moment, it was so clear to me that my love for this man and his love for me was more important than our differing preferences for food. Art often uses juxtapositions of contradictory or unexpected images in order to communicate a message about one or both of the objects. I was immersed in this huge awareness of this bond between us and the juxtaposition of that feeling and my joke communicated that the joke was tiny and ridiculous and NOT TRUE. Unfortunately, since emotions are internal and words are external, I was the only one who received the communication. I smiled at Jacob's protests and apologized and told him I didn't mean it because all he could hear was the repetition of the joke.

Man, is that a microcosm of intimate relationships or what? Every word spoken is surrounded by unseen feelings, layers of associated memories, and sub-conscious sabotage that often makes us say something other than the truth we should be saying. These invisible and inaudible inflections make our speech also unintelligible to people if they need to know any nuance beyond the literal meaning of the words, like the difference between French spoken in France and the patois spoken in the former colonies of France. It is the work of the lifetime to learn enough about another person to truly understand what they are trying to say.

Jacob is worth that effort. In fact, I am excited at the prospect of knowing and being known. I also think the journey will be highly satisfying and, in fact, fun. I will become a different person in order to hear him better. I'm sure that he is changing for me, as well.

There is a Mary Chapin Carpenter song that goes, "It's too much to expect but it's not too much to ask." I think this is exactly the posture we must take toward one another. When I expect him to agree with me and try to manipulate him to do so, I become the Dear in "Yes, dear." If he does the same to me, he becomes a chauvinist. Neither archetype is appealing. However, if Jacob asks me to make space for him in my daily activities such as cooking, I can make the choice to become a person who lets him in and cares for him. This is the type of person I want to be. I am grateful that Jacob continues to inspire me to be that amazing person.