What makes tonight different from every other night?

I just wanted to stop by and tell you folks that things are going well here. I'm currently in New York, preparing for Passover with my in-laws. It's actually quite pleasant and is starting to feel like vacation, rather than work. Like everything else post-wedding, it seems like things have calmed down enough that we can all be ourselves and "ourselves" are fairly interesting folks who have good intentions in their hearts. My mother-in-law has been delightful, caring and only the normal kind of crazy that every woman gets when she has to prepare a ritual meal for her entire family. I feel blessed.

My nieces are perfect 4 and 6-year-olds who think I'm fabulous. The 4-year-old asked me what I was reading and responding with perfect enthusiasm, "Oh! A fairy book? Will you read it to me?" She also explains the intricate details of whatever imagination play she is engaged in and does not mind when you need to walk away to carry a set of plates from the kosher-for-Passover kitchen in the basement to the newly clensed kitchen on the main floor. She is eternally patient. The older wants to be included in things and I've let her help me make the Jerusalem salad by having her hold the measuring spoon for the oil and asking her to transfer the vegetables from the cutting board to the bowl. She asked me, "When I'm a little older, will you teach me how to knit?" I love answering their questions and quizzing them about the preparations for Passover. "What else do we use parsley for during the seder?"

Tonight, we will tell the story of the Jews' liberation from Pharoah and remind each other that we have a duty to liberate others from their bondage. We start with ourselves, having patience for the endemic stress that is ubiquitous during holidays when it flares, shrugging our shoulders at someone else's melt-down to show helplessness in the face of criticism: both a mea culpa and a martyrdom for what we have not caused. We open our arms in the next gesture, making eye contact and smiling or leaning forward for the kiss that says, "We'll live through this," and "Isn't it nice to get to be so intimate because of these trials?"

Tomorrow, we will tell the story of the Jews' liberation from Pharoah and remind each other that we have a duty to liberate others from their bondage. Then, we will get on a train and take the long trip through the wilderness, wandering if another coal train derails on our route like one did on the way in, feeling lucky that it only delays our arrival by 6 hours, rather than 40 years. As we return home, we know that like the Israelites, we will turn from God and be given the opportunity - in fact, God will practically beg us - to return to the way of living that God gives us. We will light Shabbat candles every week and thank God for that way, for the commnadments that are called mitzvot in Hebrew, so that we have direction and purpose in our lives, instead of having to wander.

Good Passover, people.

Disposable income and disposable diapers

One of the few organizations that I allow solicitations from is the Center for a Commercial Free Childhood. My parents did an excellent job of letting my brothers and I have childhoods of innocence and play. Aside from gigantic hordes of Star Wars toys (never as many as my cousin Eric, though) and about a bazillion Strawberry Shortcake figures, very few of our toys were licensed trademarks of anything. Of course, it was the late 70 and early 80s so there weren't as many out there and Legos were still old-school without story-lines and instructions, so that was a little easier. Still, at some point, my parents got rid of the TV for a few years and I was not allowed to have Barbie dolls until I was 10 so that I might have a modicum of a chance at a positive body image.

I also consider myself quite lucky that my adolescence was spent while grunge was the dominant style. Baggy jeans, big flannel shirts worn like cardigans and colored opaque tights under skirts and worn with Converse all-stars gave me all the protection my developing body needed from the degrading stares and comments of the adolescent boys I was surrounded by. I often look at teenagers (and younger) today and feel sad that their looks are so polished, with the visible and perfect cleavage with those flouncy little skirts. Did I even own an underwire bra before I was 20?

So, when an organization fights the constant erosion of childhood at the hands of market forces, I support them. They have asked me share a story with you about the aftermath they encountered from Disney after the Baby Einstein videos were exposed as frauds.

As described in the New York Times, last fall’s successful campaign to get Disney to offer refunds on Baby Einstein videos came at a price. At the height of the media flurry about the refunds, representatives from Disney contacted JBCC, and our relationship with the Center was changed irrevocably. We were pressured to stop talking to the press about Baby Einstein. Questions were raised about whether CCFC’s mission was appropriate for a JBCC program. Finally, in January, we were told that we had to leave—quickly. And, for our remaining time under JBCC’s auspices, we were forbidden from conducting any advocacy aimed at a specific corporation or product. You may have noticed that you haven’t heard from us in a while.

It is chilling that any corporation, particularly one marketing itself as family friendly, would lean on a children’s mental health center. We have great admiration for the Center’s staff, and the work they do for children. At the same time, we are deeply saddened that the institution ceded its ground and stopped supporting CCFC and our efforts to challenge powerful interests in order to protect children and support parents.

My brother and sister-in-law are expecting my first niece or nephew in a few weeks. I am trying to make sure that Baby Shashi has a chance to be a kid before she must become a consumer. If that jingles your bell too, check them out and make a donation if you're so inclined.

Take Me To The River

I was reminded on Sunday why I go to church. So often, the pursuit of an interfaith practice or and emergent expression of Christianity is an intellectual pursuit for me. I get passionate about systems and infrastructures and just-how-it-will-be-done. For instance, writing the program for the wedding was by far my favorite activity, except for maybe writing the ketubah. Both spent a lot of time finding rationales and laying out frameworks for the spirituality and relationships that will grow upon it and within it.

But often, church is a quiet place to go, hug a bunch of people, laugh at some conversation, meditate for an hour and then have potluck dinner with some cool people. This is a lot and my work as Treasurer and on the Leadership Co-op help to make it happen. But most of the time for me, it's just a good party.

And then God wallops me one on the side of the head and I'm struck down by her grace for my shitty little blase apathy.

We had our first baptism this past Sunday and I was a hot mess. I cried throughout the ritual. I had asked to be the elder who presented the candidate for baptism and I was so overwhelmed with emotion that I could barely finish her full name.

I'm not sure what it was. Some of it was grief that I might not get to baptize my babies. Jacob and I haven't decided what we will do when it comes to that but as of right now, there are definitely still things about Christianity that feel threatening to him. Although he was out of town on Sunday and missed the show, I would be comfortable betting the nest egg that baptism is one of those threatening things.

I was also struck by what this act meant for our community. We had watched Emily grow with Satchel in her belly. We had thrown her a shower. We had crouched over the baby carrier when she was first brought to meet us all. I have gotten to swoop in after services and simply tote her around on my hip as I set out the dishes and cutlery for potluck while her parents socialize. That last act is something from my childhood at church: the un-self-conscious ability to simply lay claim to a baby without even considering that I might be infringing on quality family bonding time, which is the opposite of the experiences I have usually had in my adult life when visiting with parents and their new babies.

On that note, I would say that a majority of the powerful emotion seems to have been a profound feeling of continuity. On Saturday, I had answered a bunch of my friend's questions about my identity as a Presbyterian emergent Christian since he was writing a paper on the topic. I dug down a little to think about my history in the Presbyterian church and how exactly it has shaped me. This is an example:

- What does it mean to you to be Presbyterian? Is that identity important to you at all (especially as a lay person)?
For me it's more of mindset and a personality than a theology. I like order. I like study. I like that I come from a staidness that did not adapt well to contemporary Christian praise songs, although they tried very very hard. I like liturgy. I like knowing what will be next in the service. I like hearing the bulletin rustle when a section of the service requires a page turn. I was told when I was little that Presbyterian churches dedicated more square footage to classrooms to sanctuary space. This excited me. I like representative democracy. I like flannelgrams. I also really resonate with the idea of being reformed and always reforming. I like that there were strong female pastors in my upbringing.

Having this identity is great for jokes. But if there were not an emergent Presbyterian church, I would look to another denomination. The liberal Episcopalians appeal to me. I like smells and bells, too. However, Lakeview Presbyterian would probably feel like home, as would 4th Presbyterian. I would just get different things from them. When I lived in LaGrange as a young, married suburbanite, I was a deacon at the Presbyterian church there. I picked it after visiting all the churches within walking distance twice. No one spoke to me anywhere else. Twice, they welcomed me there. Also, other churches like UCC mess with the words to the hymns. No good.

With these memories so close to the surface, I was then immersed in the ritual that I have been a part of my entire life.

Powerful stuff.

The Presbyterian version is very simple but asks the congregation if they will accept responsibility for raising the child to know God.

Powerful stuff.

To be reminded that a group of people agreed to envelop me with that care when I had no personality, no language skills, little cognitive ability and almost no motor skills - in short, the things that I believe make me likeable - is a reminder of grace. In the Church, we are known before we know ourselves and that knowledge leads people to accept us as one of their own. God is very present in promises like that.

Powerful stuff.

I was a sniffly and weepy and seepy witness to the welcome we are just starting to extend to the next generation of this emergent thing we're trying to do. I got to make her a blanket that everyone signed. I got to run my fingers through her crazy hair, made stringy with water and oil. I got to sit in the presence of God and my community and know that I contribute as much as I receive.

A literary wedding

My gorgeous friend Jess recently asked if I knew of any good love poems.

Do I?!?

First I pointed her to these two blog entries that I think are just brilliant: A Practical Wedding (of course) and Offbeat Bride.

Then, I went through my giant file of quotes that I love and created a document of the love and marriage ones. I figured I'd share them with you all while I've got them all in one place.

Because we had friends and family read the Seven Blessing in both English and Hebrew plus folks reading Hebrew scripture and Christian scripture, we felt it wasn't really necessary to have additional readings. However, that doesn't mean I can't love them.

Bride and bridegroom performed the Dance of Isaiah. Hip to hip, arms interwoven to hold hands, Desdemona and Lefty circumnabulated the captain once, twice and then again, spinning the cocoon of their life together. No patriarchal linearity here. We Greeks get married in circles, to impress upon ourselves the essential matrimonial facts: that to be happy, you have to find variety in repetition; that to go forward you have to come back to where you began. (Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex)

I stepped into the room late last night
Because late is the time I keep
You were sleeping warm as coal
In a pocket of comfort and white sheets

But you don't startle anymore when I step into the room
Though the hour is later than midnight
And neither window can place a moon.

"I missed you," you say
And it sounds like a promise
When whispered half asleep
Your skin still damp with sweat
From thoughts your dreams refused to keep

I follow my memory to a switch on a light
"Shut your eyes," my voice cut short
When darkness turns bright

"Do you love me?" you say
But love is too familiar a word
For in this bed 10,000 times a phrase already heard
But, "I love you" speaks my reply
Though I know I failed myself and you for not
Matching how I feel with words of higher wealth

I know it's lonely in the world tonight
Because here is more than what's deserved
And the imbalance can't be summed in black and white
Cause "love's" too familiar a word. (Ellis Paul)

A marriage made in Heaven is one where a man and a woman become more richly themselves together than the chances either of them could have managed to become alone. (From "Marriage" by Frederick Buechner from Whistling in the Dark)

Sometimes hidden from me
in daily custom and in trust,
so that I live by you unaware
as the beating of my heart,
suddenly you flare in my sight,
a wild rose blooming at the edge
of the thicket, grace and light
where yesterday was only shade,
and once again I am blessed,
choosing
again what I chose before. (Wendell Berry, "The Wild Rose)

On the one side is your happiness, and on the other is your past - the self you were used to, going through life alone, heir to your own experience. Once you commit yourself, everything changes and the rest of your life seems to you like a dark forest on the property you have recently acquired. It is yours, but still you are afraid to enter it, wondering what you might find: a little chapel, a stand of birches, wolves, snakes, the worst you can imagine or the best. You take one timid step forward, but then you realize you are not alone. You take someone's hand . . . and strain through the darkness to see ahead. (Laurie Colwin, "The Lone Pilgrim")

‘If a woman is stronger than her husband, she comes to despise him. She has the choice of either tyrannizing him or else making herself less in order not to make him less. If the husband is strong enough, though. . .' she poked him again, even harder, 'she can be as strong as she is, as strong as she can grow to be.' (Robert Jordan, Lord of Chaos)

He closed the door carefully behind him, and at that Daily Alice awoke, not because of any noise he’d made but because the whole peace of her sleep had been subtly broken and invaded by his absence. (John Crowley, Little, Big)

A glimpse, through an interstice caught,
Of a crowd of workmen and drivers in a bar-room, around the stove, late of a winter night – And I unremark’d seated in a corner;
Of a youth who loves me, and whom I love, silently approaching, and seating himself near, that he may hold me by the hand;
A long while, amid the noises of coming and going – of drinking and oath and smutty jest,
There we two, content, happy in being together, speaking little, perhaps not a word. (Walt Whitman)

Like the water
of a deep stream, love is always too much. We
did not make it. Though we drink till we burst
we cannot have it all, or want it all.
In its abundance it survives our thirst.
In the evening we come down to the shore
to drink our fill, and sleep, while it
flows through the regions of the dark.
It does not hold us, except we keep returning
to its rich waters thirsty. We enter,
willing to die, into the commonwealth of its joy. (Wendell Berry, “The Country of Marriage”)

Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being "in love" which any of us can convince ourselves we are.

Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossoms had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two. (Louis de Bernieres)

Marriage is in many ways a simplification of life, and it naturally combines the strengths and wills of two young people so that, together, they seem to reach farther into the future than they did before. Above all, marriage is a new task and a new seriousness, - a new demand on the strength and generosity of each partner, and a great new danger for both.

The point of marriage is not to create a quick commonality by tearing down all boundaries; on the contrary, a good marriage is one in which each partner appoints the other to be the guardian of his solitude, and thus they show each other the greatest possible trust. A merging of two people is an impossibility, and where it seems to exist, it is a hemming-in, a mutual consent that robs one party or both parties of their fullest freedom and development. But once the realization is accepted that even between the closest people infinite distances exist, a marvelous living side-by-side can grow up for them, if they succeed in loving the expanse between them, which gives them the possibility of always seeing each other as a whole and before an immense sky. (from Rainer Maria Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet, translated by Stephen Mitchell)

And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth. ("Late Fragment," by Raymond Carver)

Sometimes we push against love to see if it is fragile. (Nanette Sawyer, 28 September 2008)

We’re all seeking that special person who is right for us. But if you’ve been through enough relationships, you begin to suspect there’s no right person, just different flavors of wrong. Why is this? Because you yourself are wrong in some way, and you seek out partners who are wrong in some complementary way. But it takes a lot of living to grow fully into your own wrongness. It isn’t until you finally run up against your deepest demons, your unsolvable problems – the ones that make you truly who you are – that you’re ready to find a life-long mate. Only then do you finally know what you’re looking for. You’re looking for the wrong person. But not just any wrong person: the right wrong person – someone you lovingly gaze upon and think, “This is the problem I want to have.” (from Andrew Boyd's Daily Afflictions, Loving the Wrong Person)

While exclusionary interest in one other human being, which is what we call courtship, is all very exciting in the stages of discovery, there is not enough substance in it for a lifetime, no matter how fascinating the people or passionate the romance.

The world, on the other hand, is chock full of interesting and curious things. The point of the courtship -- marriage -- is to secure someone with whom you wish to go hand in hand through this source of entertainment, each making discoveries, and then sharing some and merely reporting others. Anyone who tries to compete with the entire world, demanding to be someone's sole source of interest and attention, is asking to be classified as a bore. "Why don't you ever want to talk to me?" will probably never start a satisfactory marital conversation. "Guess what?" will probably never fail. (Miss Manners)

In raising the status of wife to one of presumed equality, lesbian marriages have the potential to improve the status of women in straight union as well. Freed from being a term inextricably linked to “husband,” “wife” can take on new meanings. Once we accept the possibility of “wife an wife,” the whole system of opposite-and-unequal terms gets thrown out of whack. Instead of falling into preordained roles of husband as king of his castle and wife as “trouble and strife,” individuals can explore innovative ways to express relatedness. (Audrey Bilger, “Wife Support,” Bitch Magazine, Winter 2009)

An Interfaith Wedding

Speaking of weddings, I recently posted the text of our wedding bulletin on the other website I co-host, which is for folks engaging with Judaism in non-traditional ways, such as from interfaith marriages, like mine.

Go check it out and come back here and tell me what you think.

The unexpected trials of vegetarianism

I have been to several events in the suburbs now where there was absolutely no vegetarian option available. I take that back, each had a salad made of only greens, croutons and cheese.

I hate salad.

My mouth gets tired of it long before my stomach feels full.

So, I gave in and just ate what was being served. One of the main rules of my burgeoning vegetarianism is that I will never refuse someone's hospitality. Plus, I was at these functions for work and I didn't want to get grumpy because of my hunger.

This experience was unexpected because I feel like every event I have been in the past few years (which all happened to be in the city) have had fairly broad vegetarian options. I notice because Jacob only eats vegetarian when we're not at home. I know that I just plan menus automatically that have vegetarian options built in whenever I am entertaining. (I also make some pretty good vegan or gluten-free, dairy-free, sugar-free dishes.) I just know a lot of people who go that route and I want to make sure they feel welcome.

Does this mean that vegetarianism is still exotic out in the suburbs?

Maybe it's not geographic. My friend who is serving vegetarian food at her wedding has twice had to tell the graphic designer who is creating their invitations (who is a friend of the groom) that she does not need to warn people that no meat will be served at the reception.

Is vegetarianism threatening to people's ideology: the beliefs they have to protect their security?

That's weird to me because I feel late to the party on this one. Almost everyone I know flirted with vegetarianism in college and many people continue to eschew eating animals even into their 30s and beyond.

This is my first jaunt and I find that my wobble a little, but not unpleasantly so.

Still, I might start eating before these suburban events.

A Practical Wedding

Woohoo!

There is only one wedding blog that I continue to read and that's Meg's A Practical Wedding. This is because she is sassy and talks authentically about experiences and is aggressive about encouraging people to have the wedding they want to have while being realistic about pesky things like family relationships and budget. She also encourages readers to think about what it means to be married and not just the event itself.

When people tell me they are engaged, I recommend that site, Bridal Bargains and Offbeat Bride. That's it. You really don't need anything else.

So, today, she posted my advice for brides that I wrote based on my own experience. These "wedding graduate" posts of hers were so helpful while I was planning and, you know me, I always want to give my own experiences more meaning by sharing them with folks. Go check it out here. Then, come back and tell me what you thought.

Heather's giveaway

Hi folks. One of the bloggers that I read is hosting a giveaway to celebrate her first birthday. Go visit her site here and take your chances.

Where things stand

Today was a busy day. I got to talk about Emergent Christianity and Race with some reporters from a pretty major magazine. Want to hear some of my answers?

I'm unwilling to make broad statements about what Emergents do and don't do when it comes to race. My pastor said once that our church would attract more non-white people when we became people with non-white friends. I use this example to say that the Emrgent movement is a decentralized movement. Different communities do different things. In the core group of 40 people at my own church, I was able to identify 14 non-white people, 4 of whom were immigrants. That's 35%. And yet the idea persists that the Emergent movement is predominantly white.

Some of that perception comes from the fact that it seems like the old guard is handing over the keys to the (material) kingdom to the Emergent darlings. This may or may not be true. Sure, a dying Presbyterian church in San Francisco gave their building to an Mission Bay, an emergent church in the area. But Mission Bay is pastored by Bruce Reyes-Chow. Yup. Sounds like a WASP. Did I mention that this Filipino/Chinese-American pastor later became the leader of the entire Presbyterian denomination?

But even if we accept that premise that Emergents are getting preferential treatment and it's proven because they get all the book deals, it's hard to blame them for that. Would turning down the book deals change the system or just let the status quo be the only voice heard? I think many of us are at least mindful of our privilege and are trying to leverage it even if we don't always succeed. When the journalists approached me, I asked them to speak also to the African-American emergent community in the south suburbs.

The problem is that Emergence is not a new denomination in the old model. It's a paradigm shift away from hierarchical church organizations that emphasize common beliefs in order to be consider a member of the community to flat organic networks that try to break down the walls between insider and outsider by respecting all experiences and their resultant beliefs. When a hierarchical system tries to pass on material goods to a decentralized system, the confusion that results can easily make folks resort to tribal instincts. When studying for my degree, I found that there are plenty of studies that show that at our deepest level, tribalism affects economic decisions. We do the best we can to receive it in good faith and to try to spread the wealth around but walking away from the chance to change the world is disrespectful to the people who still need the world changed (i.e. people without privilege). It simply allows the old systems to reproduce a new generation of oppression.

Like my pastor said, racial reconciliation is done by transforming individuals. I think folks in the Emergent movement are all at different points on the path to enlightenment about white privilege (remember, many members of the Emergent movement are non-white). We don't have an equivalent to the evangelical CCDA movement. I'm lucky enough to be involved in both but many Emergent folks aren't ready to be surrounded by a belief-based system in order to get the tools they need to do racial reconciliation (of course, no one in CCDA really knows for sure how to do it, either). Think how long Evangelicalism had to be around before those resources coalesced. We're only 15 years old and yet there is an expectation that we should be perfect in how we engage the world. We won't be. But we want to improve. So, I suppose if folks want to help the Emergent movement be better citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven when it comes to race, they will help create tools for how Emergent communities can help their people become the kind of people who have non-white friends. Not a lot of people want to help. Most want to feel threatened and so lash out. That's OK. They are on their own path, too.

On another note, I spend a lot of my time reminding people within the Emergent movement that we are not a small band of rebel fighters. This is not Star Wars lived large. Lots of people espouse similar ideas to lots of different demographic communities. I cited some examples when I spoke to the reporters today. I think very few people inside the movement would claim that we have any monopoly on the truth. That would be a new denomination in the old model. Instead, we are part of a societal shift and a few of us just happened to find each other and cluster together in the tumult.

Emergence is a label that some people need to help them on their spiritual journey. It allowed me to have a powerful sense of belonging, finally, in a spiritual community. It allows lots of people to signal who they are without going into long explanations: a shorthand almost. It functions like a handful of balloons on ribbons in a crowd and helps folks who have just read Brian McLaren or Shane Claiborne and felt a great sense of liberation look around and connected with like-minded folks.

There is some talk about how the Emergent movement is dying. It may be. All movements have life cycles and over centuries these life cycles seem to be getting shorter. If Catholicism begat Protestantism which begat Evangelicalism which begat Emergence, it makes sense that our life cycle might already be over. And that's OK. The ideas will live on. You can't go back to the cell once you have tasted liberation. I will continue calling myself Emergent for as long as it means something to the people to whom I am identifying myself. I said something like the following to the reporters today (although less thought-out and coherent) and later wrote this email:

It seems like if there were a seismic shift in the movement that people were responding to, I would have felt it. So, if the movement has not changed, then people [who are declaring their abandonment of the movement] must be responding to their own internal transformations and that's OK. But as it stands, the part of the movement that I resonate with is the part that puts the words "heresy" and "wrong thinking" up on the shelf since they are often tools a hegemony uses to force people to conform to subservient social positions. God gave us all the ability to engage with her and to reflect on that experience. Emergence acknowledges that all of those experiences are valid, even if they are different and lead to different theologies. I believe that God will transform heresy and wrong thinking through the grace of Jesus and the active presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives. This relieves me of the burden of saving other people from themselves, or even of judging them.

I like when I can write something like that.

It's been a big thinking day and I like that, too. I got a lot done at work and a lot done in my soul and that's a good place to be in life.

Meat is Murder. Tasty, tasty murder.

So, I'm thinking about starting to eat only vegetarian foods. I figure it's probably pretty inevitable and I have just been waiting for the right moment.

This seems to be it.

I have been having trouble maintaining my weight without being hungry all the time even though I exercise at least three to four times a week. Plus, I'm finding that I'll have a second helping of dinner (which is more and more frequently meat-based) because I'm not satisfied and I don't feel good after. I've gotten into the habit of eating slowly and waiting before second helpings and of drinking a lot of water and all that stuff you're supposed to do to make sure that you aren't eating out of habit or emotionally. But the fact is, I'm still hungry. And when I'm hungry, I'm cranky and can't focus on my work.

A few months ago, I picked up a copy of Skinny Bitch at the thrift store for $.99. Although their "trademark straight-talk and bawdy humor" gets pretty annoying pretty fast, the book is a quick read and seems to make a lot of sense based on what I already know about how our bodies work. It cuts through the urban legends of dieting that try to circumvent natural functioning and talks about what our bodies weren't meant to eat to sustain us. It pointed out that digesting rotting corpses is pretty inefficient and I figure it's worth a shot to try being vegetarian for a little while. If I'm eating a lot, at least it's easy for my body to digest.

I say that vegetarianism was probably inevitable because I've known for awhile now about how awful the animals that we eat get treated. I've mostly shifted to organic foods because of that but still, I know that none of the flesh that enters my mouth was tenderly cared for by a farmer in overalls. It also has a huge environmental impact to eat meat. I know that I can't actually make a measurable difference but that has never stopped me from altering my consumer choices before. I want to be able to live with myself and my choices and that means that I choose the less oppressive choice as much as I can, even if it means paying more or sacrificing a little. It's just the kind of person I want to be. So, I shop at thrift stores for all my clothes, I buy only fair trade chocolate, and now I am a vegetarian.

I want to be a little loose because a) we still have stuff in the freezer and kosher meat is expensive and b) I never want to reject someone else's hospitality.

Still, I am actually a little scared. I held Jacob's hand in bed the other night and cried a little as we talked about it. I find so much joy in my life from eating good and satisfying food. I learned from my mother than eating unsatisfying food (like supermarket birthday cake) is a "waste of calories" and that has stuck with me. I spend a lot of brain waves about my meals and I fear that I will not be able to create enough variety or attain satisfaction with vegetarian meals without spending 3 hours cooking every day. It seems like easy vegetarian meals are just recombinations of the same ingredients. Like in the Simpsons:

Marge: This is delicious! What's in it?
Manjula: Chick peas, lentils, and rice.
Marge: And what's in this?
Manjula: Chick peas and lentils.
Apu: Try it with rice.

I don't know enough about spices to make things interesting and you can't eat navy bean soup every day.

It seems like the alternative of vegetarian dishes that sound interesting require more than 10 ingredients each and you need to make three of them to have a balanced meal. I tend to keep a few staples in the house and work with what I have. Jacob tried to soothe me and said, "Pasta with sauce and steamed broccoli on the side is a good vegetarian meal."

This did not help. This is, in fact, my nightmare of vegetarian casual cooking.

But I'm going to try anyway. Jacob can't figure out what the big deal is. He really doesn't care about whether or not the food tastes good or is balanced so that one feels like one has had a full meal. Plus, he has had to be functionally vegetarian whenever he eats other places since kosher meat is generally unavailable or is unwittingly paired with butter or cheese.

The lovely A. has recommended the rebar cookbook for its unexpected flavor combinations and although it looks daunting, I'm willing to trust her and give a few a try. I like working with beans (especially because I can buy them bulk and avoid all the excess packaging that gets thrown out) so I'm trying to spice them differently. I've had a craving for pintos and cheese for days so I thought ahead to be able to make them for lunch today. I guess I'll leave you with my recipe for that since I typed it out for a friend on Facebook.

Soak two cups of pintos overnight with a big handful of salt. Drain and rinse in the morning. Put in crock pot with four cups of water, a diced onions and 4-5 diced garlic cloves. Cook on high stirring occasionally until pintos are mushy (5 hours? 6?) Add a bunch of Trader Joe's quattro formaggio. Stir. Eat. Sometimes I add zucchini or ... canned tomatoes in the last hour or two to get in some sneaky vegetables. If the pintos are smushy but too wet, leave the lid off for the last hour. Yum.

Timmy Turner

Last Thursday I left work with the company Yukon (it was donated) to pick up a 12-year-old boy so that his mom could go to the hospital. She has both sickle cell and asthma (because that's what poverty does to a body) and was having an attack. So, here I am, a white lady headed to the west side of Chicago in a giant SUV. This has trouble written all over it.

I have actually met this kid before and he's really nice. He drew me a picture of Timmy Turner once while he waited for the family that was going to take him in the last time his mom went into the hospital. Unfortunately, that family wasn't available again this time so I didn't know where he was going to go as I was driving down Homan Avenue.

As I pulled up to the building, it had a sign on the front that indicated it was some sort of private housing project. An ambulance was pulling away without lights or sirens and I wondered if that had anything to do with Jesse's mom (of course, I've changed his name). A middle-aged African-American man let me into the foyer that was well-lit, clean and institutional. His expression asked me my business and I said I was here to pick up Jesse. He confirmed that the ambulance just left without Jesse's mom and they were up on the 6th floor. I got in the elevator that took forever, feeling very conspicuous as the classic white social worker type. No one questioned my presence.

When the elevator doors opened, a woman was yelling for help from an open apartment door and yelling that she couldn't handle it any more. A man in the apartment next door had his head stuck out looking around but closed it quickly when I arrived. The woman said something about Jesse and I entered her apartment to see what was going on. It started to register from my ears that she was saying something about a knife but I saw Jesse walking toward me and all I wanted to do was hug the kid once I saw him. He was so rigid with anger and sorrow. His eyes looked up at me as if the muscles of his face were bench-pressing his eyeballs up in my direction. He was scared of himself and tears were running down his face. He jerked and twitched in order to walk but his body stayed rigid. I reached out to put my hands on his shoulders but he pulled away and only then did I realize that he was holding a knife in his hands. From my earlier scan of the apartment, I recognized it as a cheap serrated steak knife like I had seen in the dish drying rack.

His mom told me to help her and I said, "Ma'am, I can't help you." And I really couldn't. I don't know how to take down an out-of-control kid. I don't know him well enough to talk him down from his rage. And I didn't know what my legal liability was. I've been working in under-resourced communities long enough to know how limited I really was. If this had been 10 years old, I'm sure I would have been brave and stupid and tried to fix everything. Maybe I would have succeeded. Probably not. Since I am 32 and not 22, I stood there somewhat helplessly. I was pretty sure Jesse wouldn't hurt me. The knife was held rigidly pointed down at the floor, like he'd grabbed it in a fury and then didn't know what to do with it. I've felt like that before. Like my body needed to take a violent action but my brain interceded before I could do any actual damage. Still, I thought about how Jacob would feel if I took a risk based on my assessment. This is when I tried to pray.

Pray for me involves opening my inner self up to the presence of God. Like meditation, I try to let down the emotional walls I regularly put up and try to listen to God. As I tried to pray in that apartment, making myself vulnerable actually caused me to tear up a little bit and so I quickly stopped praying and tried to toughen up because I knew I had to keep it together and be strong for these people. My privileged innocence wasn't the most important thing being hurt in this moment.

Jesse pushed by me into the hall. This whole time his mom had been yelling about how awful he was but clearly in an end-of-her-rope way and not in a bad mom way. She was clearly in physical pain, which must have been why she wanted to go to the hospital and now her adolescent was freaking out. I don't think I'd have done a lot better based on my own experience of how tetchy I get when I'm in physical pain, even the minor pain of dental surgery or cramps.

At this point, the man that let me in the front door appeared out of the elevator and made a quick assessment of what was going on. I was grateful to realize that he was really big and calm. He spoke to Jesse's mom while Jesse stood with his back to us at the end of the hall. She had been spiraling into a more intense state of upset and he talked her down a little bit. I learned that the ambulance driver had insisted on taking her to the local hospital but she advocated for herself and wanted to be taken to the hospital where her doctor was, saying the local hospital treated her badly whenever she went. I offered to drop her off at her hospital, which was only a mile away and the man used this to help her calm down.

When we checked on Jesse again, he looked at us desperately and threw the knife to the ground, behind him and towards us. He was so clearly ashamed and trying to work himself out of this predicament he'd gotten himself into. The man went into the hall to talk to him and hold his shoulders and steer him back into the apartment. His mom was still upset, saying how she just couldn't handle him any more. I looked around as they put their coats on. The apartment was immaculate with pictures geometrically arranged on the wall. I thought about how hard she must be working to make a good life for the two of them and how it must feel like everything is against them. She complained that she was going to lose this apartment because of Jesse and it was the whine of someone who doesn't expect her complaint to be heard. She said that he was mad because she had asked him to go upstairs after she fought with the ambulance. I asked if Jesse had a school bag. He said he didn't want it and his mom said to leave it. I took it anyway.

We got into the car and I tried to act like I would if everything was normal. I didn't know what else to do. I made little remarks like, "It's this beast of a car over here." "Do you want to sit in the front?" Both Jesse and his mom sat in the back but Jesse had lost the rigor of rage enough to yell at her for it. "Who does she think she is, sitting next to me?" He continued to say things like that under his breath in an angry tone of voice, but when I asked for help on where the hospital was, he'd tell me in a normal voice, "Keep going straight here." "It's past the second flag like this." I was silent most of the time out of respect for them. I didn't want to be a pollyanna dork.

When Jesse's mom got out of the car at the emergency room, I asked him if he wanted to sit up front with me. He didn't and I let him sit quietly back there for awhile as I drove. I tried to pray for him again and again started to lose it so stopped praying. I asked him if had had dinner and then whether he wanted Burger King or McDonald's. He said, "I don't know. I just can't think right now. I'm kind of paralyzed by what happened."

My heart just broke for him. I was quiet most of the rest of the way because I didn't want to be the white social work type who sticks her nose in without knowing anything and just ends up making things worse. Still, he spoke to me every once in awhile. First he said that he was sorry. I paused for a minute and then responded, "It's OK but . . . thank you." A few minutes later he said, "Rebecca, I'm sorry for wasting your time." I told him that this is what I do. I said that I didn't understand why God made a world where families like his had to struggle so much but all I could do was try to help. He said one more thing that I can't remember but that broke my heart again for this kid. I mean. He's 12 and African American and living with his mom who has no support network. Statistics alone says that he hasn't got much of a chance at a happy life. It would be weird if he didn't end up in jail one day. He knows it and I know it. And just then I got tired of backing away from the situation. I wanted to be compassionate. I wanted to be myself, even though I was interacting with a type of person I don't normally interact with. I said, "Do you the one thing that I liked about what happened up at the apartment? I liked that you threw away the knife. You didn't want to hurt anyone. You're a good kid. It's going to be really hard to remember that about yourself over the next couple of years but it's true: you're a good kid." I looked back at him both times when I said he was a good kid.

We were quiet for a little while after that. He said that maybe he would have McDonald's. I pulled into one and he asked if we could take just a minute before pulling into the drive through so he could think about what he wanted. He said he was still finding it hard to think. I pulled over into a spot (actually three spots because Yukons are gigantic) and after a minute or two he asked me what we were doing. I teased him a little and said we were waiting so he could think about what he wanted. He laughed a little and gave me his order. When I handed the bag back to him, he asked me if I liked Cheetohs. You bet I do. He then handed me a snack pack of Doritos and one of Cheetohs. He couldn't pay me back for dinner and didn't even try. Instead, he offered me what he had. I opened it right up and began eating it so that he would know that I valued what he was giving me.

We talked a little more loosely then. He asked about the family he would be staying with. I told him what I knew. And then we were back at work. I gave him a hug when we got out of the car. As we walked into the building he mock-accused me of forgetting my other bag of chips in the car. I said, "Nuh-uh!" and showed him that I had them. When we got inside, I asked him to sit in the hall and I told the Director what had happened. I didn't want to be the only one who knew. I cried a little and, apparently the Director thought that was weird because he mentioned it to one of my colleagues and said it was weird. For me, it was just about processing the adrenaline after holding it together for an hour and a half. I didn't weep for the stranglehold of poverty this sweet kid is entangled in until Jacob arrived to take me home.

There is no moral to this story. I cannot connect it to books I am reading or conversations I have been having. I have no great spiritual insight. But it seems to be an important story so I am sharing it with you.

Pomelos

As part of a recent theme of communication, I had to say this in regards to an incident last night, "I'm sorry that I yelled at you because you couldn't give me good directions for where to find the pomelos in the fridge."

It's ridiculous. I know. I hadn't had a hard day. I was really happy to be moving around the kitchen with him. I like my life right now. And yet. "I'm sorry that I yelled at you because you couldn't give me good directions for where to find the pomelos in the fridge."

Here is where I am just about the luckiest girl on the planet. I just received this email:

Time's Orphan

I was just watching an episode of Start Trek: Deep Space Nine with Jacob and it made me blubber a little.

We find ourselves fighting about weird things:

Rebecca: So I was really excited about the way my boss corrected me the other day because that's a good sign for the future.
Jacob: Really? What happened?
Rebecca Well, we were on a conference call and I was getting frustrated with the people on the other end. It showed on my face so he signaled me to back off and then . . .
Jacob: Wait, can you hold on? I've got something in my eye.
Rebecca: waiting quietly
Jacob: OK, it's out. Can you rewind because I didn't hear much?
Rebecca: You alright? Well, we were on a conference call and I was getting frustrated with the people on the other end. It showed on my face so he signaled . . .
Jacob: Wait, who were you talking to?
Rebecca: suddenly annoyed It doesn't matter who we were talking to! The story is about my relationship with my boss!
Jacob: Well, I was just asking because I thought I missed it when I was digging in my eye!
Rebecca: You didn't miss anything! You asked me to rewind and so I rewound! Why would you think I didn't do what you asked?

We also find ourselves talking a lot about big relationship sustainability things like investments and sex and careers. These conversations are really hard. Sometimes we fight. Sometimes I pout even though a little voice inside me exhorts me to stop pouting. Sometimes we walk away angry and come back calmer. Sometimes I cry. Sometimes we feel bad.

We are taking solace in something my friend who has been married twenty years told me after I wrote this: "I think the first year of marriage was the hardest." I'm not sure why that is so comforting but it is for us.

We laugh a lot and cuddle a lot and pinch each other's butts a lot and when I read this article on bonding to him this morning, we agreed that we were already doing a lot of the actions on the list. So, sometimes it is mystifying when we stumble into these other, harder conversations. That's when my friend's words comfort us.

On DS9 today, Myles and Keiko thought they lost their daughter forever in the space-time continuum (we're dorks). Jacob and I both watched with wet eyes and afterwards, we commented that it makes us think about how awful life can be sometimes. There are going to be terrible things that we have to live through. It's goofy and corny but it felt good to say to each other that we'll face the ravages of the space-time continuum together.

So this first year of marriage where the turmoil is generated internally is just something we have to do so that when the turmoil comes at us from outside sources, we'll be tighter to each other so that we won't get torn apart. If most other couples have this same experience, then it's just something we have to do, too. I think we can be OK with that.

Paradoxy

Once again, I find myself working in an entirely evangelical Christian setting. I am not evangelical and have, in fact, spent the last several years of my life finding myself in situations where evangelicalism has been the foil to my spiritual development. The biggest difference between myself and most evangelicals is the way we view religion. I see religion as a lens that I use to view the world. When religion is right for a person, the world comes into focus. It makes sense. Because I view religion as a lens, I can believe that someone who believes differently than I do can still be right. Just like prescription optics, different people need different lenses because of genetics or life experiences. My interactions with evangelical people lead me to believe that they think Christianity is a universal lens; that is, everyone else thinks they are seeing clearly but are simply deluding themselves and once they find Jesus, they will see clearly. I believe evangelical people come to this belief as legitimately as I come to mine. Every one that I know has an experience in their life where their experience of God came in the form of Jesus and was a clarifying epiphany for them.

I've spent the last several years healing from the wounds that these folks have caused (generally well-meaning ones) and through the help of my church community and the emergent movement I have found my theological place in this world from which to engage evangelicals in safety.

But I keep being sort of gob-smacked by them.

At work last week, one of my colleagues that I had just met was talking to his intern about a potential family who were willing to take a child into their home while the parents dealt with a crisis. "They're Jewish but they're actually a really nice family."

So, that's a start. But then he kept going in a tone of incredulity, "They're so warm and generous, you would think they would be Christian but they're not."

I said nothing. What would be the point? He would bluster and apologize and then keep his bigotry under wraps in the future.

However, I did start filling out my application to become a certified home and clearly wrote our Jewish affiliations on the forms. Since he does all the certification, I knew he would read it eventually.

Sure enough, he apologized on Monday morning. I acted like I didn't know what he was talking about because we still don't know each other very well so talking about it wouldn't do much good.

I told this story to friends on Tuesday night and one asked if I really believed that if I waited until we knew each other better it would make a difference. I told him a story from college.

I went to a small liberal arts college in central Illinois. Almost everyone there grew up in rural or suburban Midwest settings and, in 1995, had very little known interaction with homosexual people. This meant that most folks were just a little (a sometimes a lot) bigoted in that area.

It seemed like a third of the campus had been recruited by one admissions counselor who was revered and admired by those kids and by their friends once they got to campus and saw how cool he was. He was beautiful, athletic, came from the same background we did, had been in one of the fraternities on campus when he was a student and had been known to have a drink or two with students as if that were normal.

Then, he came out of the closet.

The entire campus had to examine how they felt like homosexuality. They had to say to themselves, "I feel this way about gays. I feel this totally opposite way about Jerry." Then, they shrugged and decided that they still liked him and if he was gay, then probably other homosexuals were OK, too. I probably lived on one the most gay-friendly campuses of the mid-90s. One year, Norm McDonald was hired to come and do stand-up for us and opened with a gay joke. No one laughed. He was visibly thrown and tried again with another. Again, we just didn't think it was funny. After that, he never really captured us as an audience and I actually got up in the middle because it was so boring.

So, I do believe that being liked by someone before you confront them with their bigotry makes a difference.

My office won't even know what hit them by the time I'm through lovingly demonstrating that even someone unequally yoked can be earnestly following the teachings of Jesus and even have a undeniable personal relationship with the man.

I just finished reading The Ladies Auxiliary and although the actual writing is only average, I found myself swept up in the consternation of a tightly-knit Orthodox community having their sense of what defined a member of the community challenged. The characters were perfectly round. No one was entirely evil or entirely righteous. I could sympathize with all of them, even the matriarch of the community who insisted that you could make your children into what you wanted them to be. If you couldn't, then her whole life of meticulous religious practice that connected her with generations past was a waste.

Still, the community had to come to terms with the fact that although their children still chose Judaism and even Orthodox Judaism, many of them were choosing to do so in different parts of the country. Judaism's gain was the mothers' loss.

I am so thankful that my parents love me first and love their desire to replicate themselves eighteenth or nineteenth in the grand scheme of things. If they had been evangelical in their theology, I don't know that we would be as close as we are.

On Sunday, Jacob and I spent the day at their house, quietly and in front of a warm fire. They have an old farmhouse so the wood-burning fireplace actually warms the room. I was able to leave him there without awkwardness while I went to an event for work. They all read and napped on their separate couches while I was gone.

A few weeks ago, we stopped by a friend's house to drop off a quiche and coo at their 2-day-old baby. It was a little chaotic as her father-in-law, husband, and newly 3-year-old son were heading out to Chucky Cheese to celebrate the toddler's birthday, leaving her and her mother-in-law alone for the afternoon. After we left, I talked with Jacob about how we have a long way to go until I would be comfortable in that scenario. Exhausted from childbirth, overwhelmed with my status as mother-of-two and also needing to be gracious by making space for my mother-in-law's insecurity - which usually leads to an intense desire to be helpful - that often results in the opposite result. He agreed that being left alone with her in that state would be difficult for me but we also discussed our hope that over time, as we love her, she might grow less insecure and it will get better.

It seems to be one of my callings in life is to get into relationships with objectionable people while having hopes of softening their well-meaning, self-defensive stone hearts a little. I'm humbled by the task because it is so difficult to do it well and not be caught in the trap of believing that my way is better. Paradoxy. Holding two truths in tension and acting on both. I'm up for the challenge.

Hospitality

Last Monday, I walked into my office that is only large enough to house three desks, some file cabinets and a few car seats. Inside there were two babies, a bio mom, two case coaches and our Licensing and Authorization Specialist. The writing that I was planning on doing wasn’t going to be even close to possible during the next two hours. Even if all temporary residents were totally quiet so I could concentrate, one of the case coaches needed my computer to find a placement.

So, I scrapped my plans and picked up a baby and spent some time getting to know her.

For those of you that are just getting to know me, I recently got a graduate degree in Public Policy and this is my first full week at my new job. We have a pretty fast deadline coming up to outline some pretty radical new plans for growth and I have been working to apply all of the discipline and work ethic that I developed while getting my degree to this new project that I’m working on. There was definitely a moment of panic for me when I walked into my office on Monday.

But I work hard to live a life that can be picked up and redirected by God whenever necessary. I try not to get too attached to my own goals and plans so that my life can be dedicated more easily to the needs of others. I accomplish this with varying success. But, I picked up little 3-month-old Alma and listened to her for awhile.

I had tea with the Social Justice Pastor at a large affluent church yesterday who completely believes in the mission of my organization that finds volunteer families to care for children while their parents are resolving crises like homelessness, addiction and joblessness. As a single woman, she has taken a pregnant teenager into her home for 6 months and has been completely transformed by the experience. She is spreading the movement amongst her church as a means of spiritual development and I’m trying to learn from their experiences how I can better develop a network of organizations who do as well as they have to implement the programs. She said to me, “There is something disarming about a child.”

Last week, the other of the two babies was in my office again and since she was only 2 weeks old, I held her in my lap as I typed. I talked to her often and talked a little bit to myself, as well. I looked at her at one point and remarked, “You know, Jesus was a baby once, too.” It seemed so incredible to me as I held that tiny little girl who breathed so shallowly that I had to hold my cheek near her nose to be sure that there was actually life in her that God could have been a baby. The next time you hold a tiny newborn, you think about it. This could be God?

But the pastor I had tea with was right. There is something disarming about a child. Jesus said that whenever we clothe the naked or feed the hungry or visit someone in prison, we are clothing and feeding and visiting him. But something in the way society has shaped us makes it easy to reject Jesus when he is represented by homeless people and terminally unemployed people and incarcerated people. We so often play the role of the wealthy young ruler who walks away from Jesus sadly because he cannot sell everything and follow.

But there is something disarming about a child. The relationship walls society forces us to put up come tumbling down when a toddler asks us a question. “What are you doing?” becomes an invitation rather than the intrusion it would be if a strange adult asked the same question. The best defense is a good offense and the habits of our interactions with strangers keep us protected from harm and discomfort. We avoid eye contact and stay polite but distant. We try hard to project a confident air so that no one takes advantage of our vulnerability. All of these are arms we take up to protect ourselves and those we love. But children are disarming and Jesus was a child. Jesus was also homeless and unemployed and in prison but so many of us find it easier to follow the teachings of Jesus by caring for him when Jesus is represented by a child. There is nothing wrong with this. Putting down our weapons and working towards peace, toward shalom, is good and worthwhile regardless of our motivation for disarmament.

We are better Christians when we do it. We are better people, too.

I make a lot of my decisions based on whether or not I want to live with the person I will become once I make that decision. I find that I want to live with myself more when I take care of Jesus when he represented by people in need, including children.

Jacob and I are considering whether we would be able to take in people in need (or even people who will pay rent). We both value intentional community but I’ll admit, I hesitate on starting right now. I am really nervous that if we disrupt this time of newlywed intimacy, we’ll be damaging the foundation that we build the rest of our lives upon.

I know the counter-arguments: lots of successful couples (including my parents) start their married lives in community with other people, in fact, it might be healthy not to get in the habit of coddling our relationship. But we all know there is a fine line between giving something space to grow and helping it grow by exposing it to adversity. Metaphors abound and I won’t repeat most of them here but, you know, birds need time to fledge so that their wings become strong enough to support them.

I do think the counter-arguments are valid arguments but the reality is that in my gut, I’m nervous about moving out of this stage and into another too quickly. It’s hard to ignore that kind of visceral communication. You know, when my soul speaks to my brain through my guts? I know that often that feeling is just cowardice but sometimes that gut instinct is absolutely right.

I don’t know how we’ll resolve this. There is definitely need out there for our spare room. I don’t mind the inconvenience of sharing a shower. I do fear the opportunity cost of the time Jacob and I use right now to examine - through self-reflection and conversation - our interactions with one another. I am not a very good partner sometimes: I make selfish choices that support my own comfort level rather than making space for Jacob to feel comfortable on a daily basis. I fear that if we bring new people into our home, these choices will become habit because I will be distracted from looking too hard at them.

I’m going to try to trust that our commitment and love for one another will push us to do good things for a relationship whatever context we find ourselves in. I wish I felt as good as that sounds. It feels a little bit better to say that I will trust that if I like myself better for following the teachings of Jesus, then I will be a better partner. It's no dis to my relationship with Jacob; I've just had more practice with things turning out well when I trust Jesus. 30some years is a whole lot more than 1.5 years. I'll get there, though. Jacob is definitely worth it.