The Art of Sitting Down

This weekend, my writing amounted to several questions my five year old made in the space of an hour:

Have you ever thought about hugging your thigh? Can you imagine eating biscuits without butter? Does gorilla glue come from gorillas? What part–is it the mouth? Does it come from a gorilla’s mouth?
Mom, am I a wish that came true? Did you wish for me? Did you want me for a kid?

This, word for word, is far better writing than I can come up with any day of the week. It will suffice; I run fast to my notebook to record it. I have pages full of all the funny things my kids have ever said.
A young child hasn’t learned yet to edit. In his mind and from his mouth come every possibility, every story. It is what Picasso meant when he said it took him four years to learn to paint like Raphael, but his whole life to learn to paint like a child. Childlikeness is a miracle, like a blazing comet we will only ever spot once in our lives.

It doesn’t feel fruitless writing down your kids’ words. Actually, it makes you stand a little taller, especially when you (do you see how I’m using the second person?) have a bad record of maintaining baby books, pictures, milestones and such. On the other hand, when I sit down and try to conjure words–fresh ones from an unedited brain–I feel foolish and mostly useless. It only takes a few minutes to wonder what in the world I’m wasting my time on, when I could be moving furniture or cleaning out my refrigerator. A child doesn’t think work is anything more than dignified play. He dreams up future careers and having a hundred kids. He’ll never think twice about letting a thought rot inside his head. His mind is like a butterfly net, trapping ideas and letting them go for the pure joy of it. His mouth, gloriously and hilariously unfiltered.
As an adult, we have a hard time seeing how art and efficiency can ever co-exist. In our culture, only one thing is worthwhile–the other is worthless. And nothing kills the desire to write like the pressure to do so. Therefore, if I deem it valuable, it can only mean one thing: the ability to create relies on my ceding control of a tidy, ordered life. At the very least, it means humility–reducing oneself to childlikeness.

Annie Dillard, an observer of the microscopic and meaningless (and brilliant writer) says this is where freedom begins.
Your freedom as a writer is not freedom of expression in the sense of wild blurting; you may not let rip. It is life at its most free, if you are fortunate enough to be able to try it, because you select your materials, invent your task, and pace yourself…The obverse of this freedom, of course, is that your work is so meaningless, so fully for yourself alone, and so worthless to the world, that no one except you cares whether you do it well, or ever. You are free to make several thousand close judgment calls a day. Your freedom is a by-product of your days’ triviality. 
The Writing Life, Annie Dillard, 1989

Ah, yes. A costly freedom–tedious, trivial, and totally/maybe fulfilling. I might be playing house, but as long as I enjoy it, it could well be the real thing. I have no book deal, no contract, not anything even close on the horizon. I raise kids and wash dishes, and this is enough to arrest me, to strike panic in my soul. No one but God (and I actually can’t speak for him) cares.

In her book, Page after Page (2005), Heather Sellers urges writers to remember their parents when picking up the pencil.

My parents, raised in the Midwest during the Depression, don’t think they themselves, or anyone they could know (or raise) could be brilliant and famous. My parents, like so many of my students and friends, hold writers in the highest esteem, and secretly want to call themselves writers, and sometimes do….but they don’t write. My parents don’t feel, I think, that they could be writers. They are too scared of being judged. Their pride makes them brittle. My dad is a coal miner’s son. My mom is a blacksmith’s daughter. These people don’t sit around saying, “I’m a writer.” It would be like saying, “I’m God.”

…My parents do everything writers do–worry, make notes, read a lot, fall in love with words, write to writers, watch shows about writers, memorize Mark Twain passages, recite poems from memory. My parents both cut out book reviews from the newspaper that they think their children should read, talk about ideas for books, give other people ideas for their books…They know books are sacred. The only thing my parents don’t do is write.
It was hard for me to realize all of this about my parents. I wanted them to be writers. They wanted themselves to by writers. We all sort of pretended they were writers, and they are, in so many ways. So close.
What keeps me going through the humiliation of writing weak stuff, the horrors of learning how to read my work in public, the long, hard days of feeling lazy, selfish, and strange? I saw the price my parents paid–unhappiness–for not being brave enough to follow their writing dream, to make it real. I devoted myself, early on, to writing. Really writing. Just doing it, no matter how awkward and unfit I felt.

So, every single morning I am on the planet, I grit my teeth and do this hard, embarrassing, abject, thrilling thing–writing–because I want, in part, to count; I want my parents to live through me.
Page After Page, Heather Sellers, 2005

I think about my own parents, whip-smart and worn out from raising kids. Writing was superfluous; it was asking to brag. Missourians are of the show-me state, the land of Question Everything, which I suppose indicates either suspicion or stubbornness. (I prefer the latter.) My own family has a mule as our mascot. He doesn’t even live on my folks’ property (the mule, I mean). Talk about stubborn. We are a breed that leaves little room for dreaming and nonsense. I reckon if Mark Twain had lived in Missouri when he wrote his books, he would’ve been laughed across state lines. I don’t think I could write freely if I lived there now–I’d be far too self-conscious. Still, the burden rests on my shoulders. I am nursing a dream. I’m bringing to life the culmination of everything my folks ever esteemed and feared. It’s sort of scary. And maybe sacred.

There is an art to sitting down. Unfortunately, it seems that coherent words aren’t naturally in my wheelhouse. I’m still regularly taken by surprise when I can make one cohesive, beautiful sentence that looks the same on paper as it does in my head. In general, they are all subconscious material that breaks off, piece by piece, floating to the top of muddy waters to be scooped out and scrubbed clean.
In college, I remember a lasting indentation on my middle finger. A callus pushed my cuticle into the fingernail bed from writing so many papers. It was ugly and I loathed it, but it made it easier to do the work of holding a pencil. I could write for hours. Likewise, I have an eyesore piece of furniture in my house. It’s called a treadmill–maybe the ultimate beast of burden. I’d rather jog outside, but it’s not always possible. So I run on this dreaded machine that makes my heart strong to pump blood, and when the weather is right and my husband can watch the kids–then I am ready to conquer and enjoy the trail.
On the other hand, I have a mandolin and guitar hanging on my living room wall. When I pull one down to strum, which doesn’t happen regularly, I find it hard to repeatedly fret chords. I might last twenty minutes before I put it away because my fingers are sore.
I’ve learned: a callus isn’t pretty, but it causes me to settle into the routine of writing.

In her Newbery Medal Acceptance Speech in 1963 for A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L’Engle said, 
Do I mean, then, that an author should sit around like a phony Sen Buddhist in his pad, drinking endless cups of espresso coffee and waiting for inspiration to descend upon him? That isn’t the way the writer works, either. I heard a famous author say once that the hardest part of writing a book was making yourself sit down at the typewriter. I know what he meant. Unless a writer works constantly to improve and refine the tools of his trade they will be useless instruments if and when the moment of inspiration, of revelation, does come. This is the moment when a writer is spoken through, the moment that a writer must accept with gratitude and humility, and then attempt, as best he can, to communicate to others.

I’m working on it, but I haven’t mastered it yet.
In the mornings, I trip right out of bed, over the child who has answered my early alarm, straight to the coffee pot, even with the new music of unwhispered words ringing in my ears. I must sit. I must hide! But the child is already talking of breakfast and dreams, rushing these lovely surprise word friends right out the back door of my mind. 

There is a flittering, fluttering muse that calls for me to chase her, coax her back. There is also a crusty critic, hands in his pockets, teeth clenched round a cigar. He stamps a foot a mutters, “You fool! What a waste! Look, it’s already gone. Spend your energy on something worthwhile.”

But the muse begs to be caught, and the critic is just a bully. I must write in the space of the cracks of life. I’m catching fireflies as they flicker and dim, just to hold one in my hands and make it light up once more.I’m an alchemist, mixing and distilling, pouring my solutions onto paper before it evaporates.

And shouldn’t I know what a good word or story is worth? Have I not laid in bed as a child for hours, flipping pages, muttering wrath when my mother called me to do the dishes? Who is this coward to tell me to wash dishes now instead of creating chemistry? Brenda Ueland has said, menial work at the expense of all true, ardent, creative work is a sin against the Holy Ghost. She was speaking to mothers like me, the kind caught up in the practical matters of clothes folding and dinner making. Perhaps we must render to Caesar what is Caesar’s, but my boys have rarely noticed if their socks are dirty. They thrill at the thought of frozen meatballs three days in a row. My kitchen table makes a handy desk on which to rest a laptop, and so I choose wisely. What word might cure sorrow, inspire laughter, heal memories? This one? The next? Which dream of mine will my children think worth following even as they hover over me, watching words fill pages?

My next best trap for the muse is a good book, preferably something old, one that talks its way around a matter without hammering the nail head. I need a stirring, silent voice, one I can kidnap with a pencil and a few spare hours. I have tried to read Anne Lamott in the morning, but her voice is too neurotic in my head. I already have a chatty voice like that, my own, and I don’t need two. I don’t need anyone to rain on my optimism, to expound on the urgency to find certainty in the uncertain. It seems fragile, so I don’t appreciate her encouragement on the matter. I need logic, a layman’s apologetics. Emotional appeals are lovely, but superficial.
I like Chesterton, my matter-of-fact, unapologetic uncle, when I’m fresh. Annie Dillard could be my spirit animal of sorts, except when she loses me. Inchworms and spiders–stupendous. Solar eclipses–far beyond me! C.S. Lewis in the evening when I’m too tired to wrestle. Any fairy tale, every storybook.
As I read, the muse timidly creeps back to the corners of my mind. In the darkness, I cup it with my hands and release it on the blank page.

Yesterday, I sat across from my kindergartner’s teacher for a parent conference. She covered the expected areas of conversation, then she recounted an interaction my child had  recently with another student. When the teacher came to the scene, the children were having a small argument. 

“My mom’s an artist,” the first child said.
“Well, my mom’s a writer,” my own kid retorted.

It was the best compliment I’ve ever received.

No, I wouldn’t think of planning the book before I write it. You write, and plan it afterwards. You write if first because every word must come out with freedom, and with meaning because you think it is so and want to tell it. If this is done the book will be alive. I don’t mean that it will be successful. It may be alive to only ten people. But to those ten at least it will be alive. It will speak to them. It will help to free them.
Brenda Ueland, If You Want to Write, 1938

Washed dishes

Jarrid Wilson took his own life only hours after he’d performed a funeral service for a woman who had also committed suicide. Wilson was a young pastor, one who spoke candidly on his struggle with depression. He was not the first megachurch leader to do so. Andrew Stoecklin, another young man, left this world a year before Wilson. Both had battled anxiety and thoughts of suicide, both were dynamic speakers, both carried a packed Sunday schedule. Both were in the paid ministry. Both ended it all.

I’ve been trying to understand American church my whole life. Part of this is because our culture is so independent-minded and, compared to the rest of the world, wealthy. Part of this has to do with my own heightened awareness of what it takes to fit in. I’ve tasted depression, I know its bitter cup, but there was enough hope to reel me in–I was never living my life on a stage, begging God for the curtains to come down.

I’ve always felt a bit uneasy when I hear people talk about being in the paid ministry. My dad was, for a bit, the pastor of a church. It about did him in, both physically and mentally. He resigned and took up a hammer and nails instead. He came home from a day’s work, sore knees and achy feet. Many weekends he still preached at one church or another, though his name didn’t grace the bulletin. He was (and is) rogue in the pulpit. On Saturday nights he’d pore over his Bible, jotting notes in his neat cursive, outlining a message with his typical alliteration-heavy word puzzles. His heart had been preparing all week as he built houses; the final touch came on Sunday mornings as he nervously scavenged the house for visual aids–the small details that made our whole family marvel at his creativity. He preached like no one I’ve ever known.

As a young teenager I remember bumping into other various ministers–usually through youth groups or church camps. They’d always be praising and praying for the youth that the Lord might call into “full time ministry,” even beckoning us pimply teenagers to come forward and commit our futures to God’s work. I felt this unfair, a sort of emotional trickery. Who didn’t want a divine calling on their life? I’d instinctively roll my eyes a little (because of my dad, I guess). I felt I knew of the drama and behind-the-scenes–the perceived supremacy of the post, the ultimate disappointment of people needed their lives fixed, the wear and tear of trying to help. I’d also been to tent revivals where lost soul-winners were on their knees, confessing to extramarital affairs. Mostly I was suspicious. I didn’t think it a higher calling–I thought a stiff old tradition riddled with potholes. 

Full-time ministry, paid ministry, a seminary degree. All unnecessary badges on a puffed-out chest. Perhaps they are a ladder to fall off, adding insult to injury when temptation tips it over. Of course I wanted to be loved, needed, used by God. But why was it necessary for there to be a distinguishable difference, a holy Bible college stamp of approval on my life? What was so wrong with the layman, the fisherman, the tax-collector turned disciple? Didn’t Jesus hand-pick those guys? Why did it seem so guilt-inducing to not sense a Holy Spirit nudge in the direction of seminary? I was always wondering, how do articles made for special purposes and common use (2 Timothy 2:20) correlate with American Christian ministry–those who are useful and those who are not? Was it merely in my own mind, this metaphor for the useful and useless? Should the majority of us assume we are the useless, blinking our blind agreement at the shiny pots and pans in the spotlight?
I don’t think is so–it shouldn’t be this way. We each have assumed our roles quite naively within the church, even the men and women supposedly at the top. 

It is obvious in nearly every church–there are shepherds, and there are sheep. Without a word we are supposed to know on which side of the fence we fall: shepherds are professionals paid to run the sheep, and sheep are needy savage little critters. This cripples both sides from the start, sorting out the useful from the useless, as if any one of us had more to offer. You might encourage your flock to show up for a free test to find out their spiritual gifts or love languages, but I can tell you no one, no matter how much they care about children, wants to teach preschool Sunday school every week until they die, as if Heaven itself were keeping tally. Why should they when their superiors are getting paid to do the same thing? On the other end, pastors tire from the emotional grind and posing as the face of the church.

The whole institution develops cracks when we hoist our heavy burdens onto one person and try to even it out by offering a salary. It turns church into a business, something even Jesus despised. No, we cannot commoditize faith or put a price tag on spirituality. We were meant to try and outdo one another in love (Romans 12:10), not greedily live forever in the land of free childcare and pep talks. We were meant to be Church, living stones, flesh and beating heart. We aren’t meant to resemble a Chik-fil-a–packed parking lot, fast food and my pleasure.

I don’t think it can keep going on this way. I consider these two young men, Jarrid and Andrew, and know there must be thousands more. It is said that for every successful suicide (if you can call it that), there are twenty-five attempts. Something is dreadfully wrong with the way we are running things. For one person, the pressure to be dynamic and wise. For the rest, a peanut gallery that isn’t invited to do anything else but agreeably fall in line.

If there seems to be increased pressure on the people in the pulpit, it is because we have placed them under increased stress. We urge them to go to Bible school or make a vow to the clergy. We pay them to inspire us and complain when they don’t. We depend on the man up front to assume our tithe, our responsibilities, our own spirituality. We’ve elevated their authority near deity levels.

Just this weekend I sat next to a man in church, a new fellow attending for his first or second time. After the service we shook hands and I welcomed him to the church. He pointed to the preacher and asked me, “Does this guy always speak? I mean, like, every week?” He simply wasn’t interested unless he was getting his money’s worth. He was scoping out the field, recruiting a quarterback. Such a man will not feel the need to go home and read his Bible; he will feel entertained and fed at church, substantial enough of a meal to hold him over until next Sunday. I’ve got to get home; the Broncos are on at two-thirty.

Now, it is terrific and exciting to listen to an inspiring, hard-hitting speaker, but have you considered them often as a fellow human? It is foolish to ever assume another human could feed another’s soul the exact diet they require. Still, we beg for a proper minister, one who won’t stammer, one who flawlessly skates in and out of funny, reverent, relatable. Someone who looks good on a big screen and has a clean record. Back in their day, the Israelites begged for a king when they had the very breath of God in their tabernacle, fire from heaven. We hold Bibles in our hands, the Word, the wonder, and then only crack them open on special occasions. 

The apostle Paul said he spoke with a tremor in his voice, not eloquently. He said he didn’t even use big words to impress the crowd. He showed up shaking in his boots (1 Cor. 2:1-5). Who at a job interview hires a such a coward? In this day, it’s inconceivable. Especially not church-goers–we want power in the pulpit!

Is it any wonder a minister begins rolling this burden like a snowball that becomes too heavy to pick up, too massive to even articulate? Tack on culture’s standards of looking a certain way, living a certain lifestyle, maintaining their cool, making a million choices that have nothing to do with preaching, showing up for every little function as if they are the MVP, elevating their employment above their family, minimizing healthy boundaries.

We might push a man off the very precipice even with a paycheck in their hand. They might cease to function for the standard we hold to them. Could it be that one man wasn’t ever meant to assume a singular role of authority within the church? Could it be that–hear me out–a preacher could be a layman? Physical work might be the highest form of meditation, yet we don’t give it the credit it deserves. We don’t allow pastors to enter into this holy space–either because we deem them too “set apart” or because they themselves enjoy being seated at the head of the table. Most of the time we common utensils point to the silver platter and say, isn’t it grand! Isn’t it doing just exactly what it was made to do? But actually we were all made for functional living. We were all made to serve.

What if the teacher stammered his or her way through a message? Would we throw stones? I have a feeling we might–sticks, stones, words, and whatever other ammo we conceal in our heart of hearts. We’d fire them (graciously, like Christians do) and try to find someone else. Someone more suited to the job. Someone we think fits our mission better, someone worth our money and Sunday morning time. 

Could not God wash and rinse all the dishes in his house and decide to use a paper towel holder instead of a silver platter? Shall the other dishes have any say in the matter? But the following verse says,
So if anyone purifies himself from anything dishonorable, he will be a special instrument, set apart, useful to the Master, prepared for every good work.
2 Tim. 2:21

There is no difference in the pots and pans, be they gold, silver, earthenware, wooden…There is only a difference in what they are used for, and all can be made clean and useful. All can be set apart.

Jarrid Wilson and Andrew Stoecklin both left beautiful families behind–single mothers who must raise their children on their own. These men, both known for their mental health advocacy, lost a battle to the whisperer of lies. It shouldn’t have happened–the Church should not have been their pressure cooker. The curtain should not have fallen on them–they should have never been in the spotlight in the first place.

Kay Warren, the wife of pastor Rick Warren (and no stranger to suicide in the family), wrote of her pastor-cousin who also took his life,
Who besides his family could he turn to for counsel? Who would provide a safe place to listen nonjudgmentally to his story? Who was there to hold his hand and reassure him that he would be okay?…Who would pastor the pastor? The same spiritual leader who had been there for thousands of church members over the decades now wrestled in secret, feeling despondent, hopeless and utterly defeated.
(Kay Warren, Washington Post, April 21, 2017. Who Pastors the Pastor?)

When we speak of removing the stigma around depression, mental health, suicide–we might seriously consider what we are trying to say. Stigma, after all, indicates an ugly mark, and there is no despair uglier than a clawing, nagging voice inside a person, telling them they’d be better off dead. Let it keep the stigma; we must beg God to renew our minds and clothe us in his full armor. We must not beg for a pastor to the pastors, but for more laborers in the harvest. We need God to rinse us all–cups, plates, platters–and put us to use.

Perhaps one way to begin is by reevaluating church leadership and our natural tendencies to elevate people within it. It begins with the kids we’re recruiting–are we pushing God’s “sovereign” plan when we really just want to see them play out the holiest version of the American dream? Do we hasten to put power in the hands of a few when we’ve all been called to the field?

Not one of us is useless, not one of us ought to be overused. What shall a man give in exchange for his soul? Jesus once asked. I dearly hope the answer isn’t the pulpit. Perhaps we should think about the way we do church and how we treat people. In the end, it’s all the same, and it’s all that matters.

Banned books

Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.
To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee

From one book-loving nerd to the next, happy banned books week! No surprise, there are a few questionable books on the most-challenged books list (by The American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom).
Skippyjon Jones, for one, a cat that pretends he’s a dog is accused of “misrepresenting” culture. I’m sorry, but we have a cat pretending to be a dog–if anything, this ought to be the foremost qualifier for misrepresentation. When did Skippyjon become the ambassador for politically correct behavior? Holy frijoles!

Of course Dav Pilkey and his Captain Underpants made the list, and like I say–rue the day that man got a publisher! Potty humor obviously has no limits, and Pilkey will take all your seven year old boys’ book order money to the bank. Count on it.

The majority of books are banned for sex–and here I’d just like to say that if you are going to be talking of such things, mightn’t it be better to address an adult crowd? Who puts such a heavy book in the hands of a child? We have labor laws because kids shouldn’t have to bear certain responsibilities…Are children allowed no protection when it comes to adult topics?

I was innocently putting books into my weekly take-home stack and picked up the picture book A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo. This book was displayed face-out on the shelf and had a cute picture, so it made it home with me. Halfway through reading it on our couch, I realized it wasn’t quite three year old little girl material. Sarcasm, politics, and same-sex relationships just don’t sing the same tune as one-minute Disney bedtime stories.

There were also a couple of books on teen suicide–something I’m pretty sure depressed kids ought not to be studying. Toward the bottom of the list was one called Two Boys Kissing, complete with a photo cover of the very thing–just in case you weren’t sure what the book was about.

This is nothing new; nothing new under the sun. I roll my eyes at the public library vibe because I’ve lived in enough places to know they are all the same. Banned books week is menial, a minute drop in the bucket. One more free speech flag to pump the air of propaganda. When I visited the New York library gift shop in March, the cashier showed me a sold-out postcard of RuPaul, even though there were dozens of other portraits of famous New Yorkers to choose from. Public libraries are the outest and proudest of publicly funded entities. Even if they are on the furthermost fringe of all progressive thinking, they are still the best thing about paying taxes. I love libraries for the books–sharing is my favorite!

Folks, let them normalize whatever bizarre behavior they like–this world is passing away. It will try and get you worked up one way or another. You will fall in line with the crowd that cheers for banned books, or you will feel slightly offended if not hotly in favor of burning them. Either way, it is exactly what the deceiver of the world, the “prince of the power of the air” wants to stir up. He wants you to take your eyes off the prize. He wants to stir animosity–an unnecessary battle between the indecently proud and the too-good, holier-than-thous. Don’t waste your breath–or matches.

If you want to do something so outrageous, completely unheard of–I’ll tell you a secret about a book that is so bad, so banned, that whole governments have deleted it from online retailers. This book is being rewritten and printed to reinforce fascist dependency. In China, a nation of over one billion people, even references to this book are being hunted down and deleted from non-religious textbooks and literature. This book has the power to bind people together, divide thoughts and feelings, withstand persecution and hate. It brings people to their knees and then raises them up with purpose. Censoring it–eliminating it–only increases its power. Smugglers risk their lives to bring it into closed countries. It’s not banned in America, yet hardly anyone cares enough to read it unless it shows up in their Facebook feed, a single scripted-font verse on a stock beach photo background.

I wonder if America ought to ban Bibles, so we might see how precious God’s word is. I wonder if tomorrow, all the Bibles in our homes were gathered up by the government and burned, who would be our Denzel Washington, our Eli, to remind us what this precious book said. Do you survive on this daily bread? Is it a lamp unto your feet? Is it written on your heart? Do you take every opportunity to read it to your children?

I wonder about Josiah the king and his excitement when the scrolls were found in the temple. How he unrolled them and read them to his people and they all tore their clothes in anguish at having strayed so far from God. How they stood up and vowed to take the book seriously.
David wrote a psalm, the longest one in the Bible, every single line declaring the sweetness of God’s word. Ezekiel ate it; it tasted like honey.

In China, in 2019, they are locking folks up in prison who “incite subversion” simply by reading–and obeying–the words in this book. For Chinese Christians, there is no bigger boon to their faith than a black market Bible.

Perhaps the librarians will never display it face-out on the shelves. But there’s a good chance you have one getting dusty on your own shelf at home. Break out the banned books, it’s time for a revelation.

Glory Beast

The day before our wedding day amid the hustling preparation, my soon-to-be husband whisked me away to a solitary place. He wanted to give me something, he said. I sat on the steps of the gazebo, two feet from the place we would say our vows in the morning as he pulled a small box from behind his back. I sensed this a precious moment, because in my mind newlyweds ought to have shared memories of closeness, though I didn’t quite know what it should mean to me. After all, we’d had no formal engagement, no diamond ring on my finger. We had hardly planned a wedding or sent out invitations. It seemed sort of frivolous and expensive, a lot of trouble to put on a show for other people we wouldn’t be marrying.

So there I sat on the gazebo step, wondering why on earth we were being so formal and weird and romantic. He carefully presented me with a pearl necklace and fastened it around my neck. I felt like I probably ought to cry or evoke some precious emotion, because that is what one should do in such a moment. Nevertheless, my eyes stayed dry. I was bewildered, my nonfeelings relieved when he shrugged and said, “Yeah…My dad told me I needed to buy you some jewelry. It’s something you’re supposed to do, I guess.”
Perhaps it was then that the disappointment crept in, crawling somewhere into my soul and beginning to warm the bench next to all my newlywed expectations. 

He didn’t know and I didn’t know–we were sorely prepared for making promises. The necklace was a nice gift, but we had gone along with what was expected of us. We were kids. We didn’t have a clue on how married people did things; we were barely old enough to know better than to fight about who did the dishes or took out the trash. We certainly didn’t recognize that marriage itself was a living, breathing thing. That when the two become one, both must maintain vigil to keep the beast alive. We just thought it was a teeter-totter: give-take, give-take. 

It took me a long time for myself to understand, if I’m honest, that love is not marked in columns, but is rather the feeding of a live organism, the mash-up of two souls.

Predating enneagram wisdom and love languages, I could smell trouble. We simply didn’t have a thing in common. The differences between us seemed like infinite hurdles stretching into forever. I live mostly in my head, thinking and rethinking. He, on the other hand, usually had one ear turned off, one on, making split decisions. Brutal years of trying to figure out why he thinks and behaves the way he does caused my reasoning soul a lot of mental anguish. I cannot speak for him, but I’m almost certain this is a well-beaten, two-way path.

There are lovers who write of love and I choke on their sentiments. There are authors who write on life and I wonder where I’ve disembarked from the typical voyage. Who, in fact, makes these mushy Hallmark cards? Why do we read the words and wholly agree it just might purvey our exact sentiments? Who makes a marriage vow–for better or worse, richer or poorer, sickness or health– having any idea how the dice will roll? 
The fact is this: in my spouse I have discovered my truest advocate and nearest adversary. And in some bizarre, upturned way he is the only one for me. For all our frustrations, we still favor each other. Our vows seal the unknowable. Forgiveness paves the way for hope. 

We are buoyed by a covenant faith–a belief that our struggles are holy. That our light and momentary struggles are achieving an eternal glory. (2 Cor. 4:17)

We aim for glory.

At some point we must have begun sailing away from everyone’s expectations. It was an act of self-preservation, we realized–the two must leave and cleave. Still, our feet are very much on the ground, rooted in reality. There is a necessary, reliable boredom on which a sturdy union stands. We intentionally do not seek out bigger and better–we don’t try to balance the future on a teeter-totter of what’s fair and equal. The fact of the matter is this–he is a better businessman than I will ever be, and I am his superior when it comes to haggling children. We stay in our lanes and clap high-fives upon passing.

On a good day—there are more and more of these–we will focus on the things that cause us to cling. We’ve built muscle memory adept at looking past our flaws. The rituals of marriage call for closing the gap, maintaining a pleasant normal–sort of like fluffing a pillow. Intimacy, service, encouragement, food…taking turns with Monday night football and British baking shows. I’ll brush the kids’ teeth and you can put them to bed. These are all treats thrown in the direction of the glory beast, this magnificent creature we have nurtured together.

This spring I scattered a wildflower mix in the front garden. I’ve done this before at previous houses and had terrific luck. Hot orange and red poppies, bleeding hearts, deep purple lupines…I am always trying to recreate the time I had yards and yards of blooming beauties.

This year, the mix was different. All sorts of odd leaves began sprouting. I dug the discarded pouch out of the garbage to read the ingredients on the back. Less than 1% weed, it said. I wondered why they put weed in the package at all. Maybe it was a mistake? Maybe all flower mixes are fundamentally impure?

With this thought in my mind, I spent the next few weeks hovering above my little garden, coffee in hand, willing them to be flowers and not tares. Each morning, they grew taller. One plant was particularly quick to unfold. His foliage wasn’t round or symmetrical, but spiky and suspicious. I wrinkled my nose and hoped it was just a marigold? Mum? Not my favorite, but acceptable. I had my doubts, though, and the next morning I yanked him mercilessly from his bed and tossed him aside on the walk. I do not deny a wait-and-see approach to living, but weeds (or flowers pretending to be) have no place in my garden. (I like to think I’m an urban Emily Dickinson, accosting all species, friend or foe.)

For a week or so I felt badly about this. That poor, poor flower-weed…How would I ever know if it was not just a lovely thistle, an innocent, unidentified perennial? Fortunately, another plant of this kind began growing quickly in the garden. I resolved to let this one mature until I could detect flower or weed.

My husband is an easy-going, wonderful man. Still–he can never be sure of what I am thinking at any moment, and he leaves me just as puzzled. Despite our faith in the other, we regularly frustrate one another with our assumptions. In our well-meaning, we are still always swimming in different depths of the same pool. I am a bottom feeder who rarely comes up for air while he skims like a pleasant little bug on the surface. I can walk through my kitchen and see a thousand things that need to be put away or wiped down. I’ll wonder why one kid thinks it’s okay to leave tap shoes on the table. I’ll think maybe I should make a peach pie with the fruit that is going bad. I’ll make plans to direct the kids to throw empty pretzel bags away instead of leaving them on the counter. I’ll grab the broom to sweep up spilled dry cereal.

He will waltz through the same kitchen, look right past the coffee-stained counter and fruit flies and see the mason jar with two-day old zinnias wilting in dirty water. “Wow!” he’ll say. “Beautiful. Did you cut those out of our garden? Wow!”

We pull into the driveway from running an errand. I get out of the car and walk over to the flowers to see if there are any green beetles on my yellow roses. I am regularly engaged in a battle that ends with me smashing them mercilessly on the concrete, even though all my gardening friends tell me I should use soapy water instead to drown them. He follows me and pauses to watch. Then something catches his eye. Before I can stop him, he’s spotted the curious flower-weed only steps away. 

“What’s this?” he muses, wandering over.

“Stop!” I call as he bends over to grab it. “IwasgoingtoletthatgrowtillIcouldtellwhat–” I rush to explain.

He yanks it out of the ground. “Too late!” he announces. “That’s a weed. No way is it a flower.” He sees my wide-eyed expression and laughs. “It’s a weed! A weed, Pearl!”

I look at the little plant, its roots dangling despondent in his hand. He chucks it away from the garden into the grass, the matter over and done. 

The hope uprooted, I feel a glimmer of disappointment–but it is only a hint. Nothing like the unwelcome visitor from my hours-old marriage. Those soft reflexes only indicated my ignorance, and now I know better. I don’t count offenses, don’t go looking for silly ways to feel hurt.
Less than one percent weed, I think. I look over our beautiful wildflowers, the burgeoning promise of bees, butterflies, petals and blossoms and seeds to come. Joy tickles inside of me.

While keeping an eye on the weeds, a garden had grown. We’ve both tended to it, watering and admiring the blooms. One weed or non-weed, pulled or left in the ground–a fickle, harmless feeling–couldn’t hamper what we have right now.
Sentimentality aside, we sowed crazy hope.

We were fools, young and inept, yet planted whole gardens. We have fed and grown a whole other precious being–a lovely, lively beast–a marriage.

Overfed and Unconcerned

A few times a year, the best kind of mail shows up in my mailbox. There are six kids sprinkled around the globe who send us letters and pictures. Eberson, in Haiti, sends me photos of him standing next to a calf and two fifty pound bags of rice and beans. Nohemi, a beautiful, ruddy-faced little girl in the mountains of Peru, sits next to her daddy with a stack of clothes, a doll, and a new table and chairs. The tie that binds us is one of money, because we support them monthly and send gifts for them to buy the goods we see in pictures. There is an obligation in the photo op, a head nod to our generosity. 

This has a way of making me feel undone.

I’m caught so unaware when I open the envelope–ah! There are children who must buy a goat with their birthday money so their family might have milk. I am thrilled we have done something good, something helpful. But there is a truth that sits like a rock in my stomach. I am sickened that my pride is bolstered by their humiliation–they had to take a photo to prove their dire situation.

When I write back, I promise them I love them like my own children, I am concerned for their welfare. I pray for their safety and success. I hope to one day meet them, to hug their parents and grandparents. 

But I will confess: the last letters I sent them sat, unmailed on my desk for two months. I kept putting off sending them because I first needed to address them, and the labels were down deep in the first drawer mess of my file cabinet.

Two months they sat there. During that time, Haiti fell apart. The people began to starve. Families began fleeing Venezuela. No rain fell in Kenya. Chinese churches were shut down because the government thought them a threat.

In the same period of time, I ordered four packages from Amazon. I watched an entire season of the British baking show. I ate out a dozen times. I got a puppy. I debated rearranging the living room.
The envelopes, full of encouragement and pictures of my healthy family on Mother’s Day, did not move from their corner on the desk.

My sponsored children write me. They tell me to pray that they might not contract diseases from mosquitoes. Their caregivers ask if we could pray they might be able to provide for their families. They ask how they can possibly pray for us.
I sit on my couch and flip channels, avoiding political news, debating whether to eat a piece of chocolate with my hot tea.

The divide is immense.

Recently I began telling the story of Ezekiel to my own kids. It was mostly for sport–Ezekiel was this guy who acted out the craziest scenes in order to get the attention of his people. He built a diorama of Jerusalem, then shaved his head and burned his hair inside the miniature city. He laid on his left side for a year and a month and didn’t even move. He dug a hole in the wall and climbed through it. He became the joke of the town to get the attention of his people. My little boys love these stories.

When I was reading back through Ezekiel to get my facts straight, I was confronted with the harshness of it, the stuff most Sunday school teachers skip right past. Far too R-rated to read to little boys without some bleeping. Back in his time, Ezekiel was living with some of the Jews who had been deported from their home to Babylon to live as slaves down by the river. There was a slew of false prophets in that day, guys that were promising the people that God wouldn’t destroy them completely, that they’d eventually get to go back home, and that every story had a happy ending. After all, they were God’s people, right?

But God had had enough. And he picked Ezekiel to give the message out, using the most peculiar pantomime. The Lord prepped Ezekiel for this task. He warned him that he’d be talking to knuckleheads who wouldn’t listen to him, but he also told him, “I’ll make your head even harder, harder than flint” (Ez. 3:9)–Ezekiel couldn’t back down.

For several chapters, the most awful things are prophesied, because the nation of Israel has forsaken their holy God. It’s a picture of people burning in the streets and dying by the sword, famine, cannibalism, natural disasters. 

Why?! This, the plea of the casual reader. Isn’t God love? 

But Israel had gone too far, offering their own children as sacrifices to idols and prostituting themselves to every passing notion. In fact, God compared the nation to Sodom, saying, 

your sister Sodom and her daughters never did what you and your daughters have done. This was the sin of your sister, Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.  (Ez.16:49)

This stopped me in my tracks.
Overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.

It hit a nerve. Overfed and unconcerned. Overfed and unconcerned. It’s chanted in my mind over and over since I read it. Overfed and unconcerned–he is talking about me. This applies to the here and now, yet we set our heads like flint and won’t hear it. 

Now, I think we have a problem with the media for sure. The media, who gets to decide what is newsworthy and what falls by the wayside. If we don’t know about the Chinese government and its renewed persecution of the Christian church, it could be because CNN doesn’t think it worth mentioning. If we’ve forgotten about the suffering in Haiti and Venezuela, Africa, the Middle East, and North Korea–it is possible Fox News is holding out. But I think cable news actually feeds us exactly what we want, and we suck it down like greedy babies. Overfed. We’d all rather chew up Trump and Pelosi like bubblegum than stretch out our arm to save the needy. We have these phones in our hands that offer steady amusement, and we won’t look up.
If we don’t know about these atrocities, it’s because we don’t care. We are unconcerned. We are stuffed with the little hors d’oeuvres of the world, our mouths attached to a constant stream of tasty gossip. I want my ears tickled; I don’t want to feel pain or guilt. I want to sleep at night. I want God to love me and not expect too much in return. From what I read in Ezekiel, this isn’t a new thing.

Yesterday, I went into my office and sat down. I have a bad habit of thinking I’ve finished a task when really all I’ve done is thought about it. There are still stamped, unsent Christmas cards from 2018 in the drawer because I never found the address for the recipient. When I started thinking about the problem, I realized it boiled down to my lack of self-control, my lack of caring. I assume I will be the only one affected by my laziness, and I can keep it a suave little secret. It is tricky, isn’t it? Our flesh, our unspiritual selves, have great influence when it comes to convincing us to do or not do what is set before us. It snakes its way into nasty habits and self-serving idolatry. Our lack of discipline evolves into downright neglect, and we can’t see it for what it is.
The apostle Paul understood this battle against the flesh. He said we need to train as if we were Olympic athletes, lest we become overfed and unconcerned.

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air. No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.  (1 Cor. 9:24-27)

I am learning my discipline is tied to worship. Discipline to love my husband well, to set an example for my kids. Discipline to avoid the junk food of the world, pretty stuff with no real value. I need to train these muscles to walk toward the poor and needy, my eyes to see what is eternal.  Self-control is a Spirit fruit (Gal. 5:23), and I need it to grow in every area of my life.

There is one boy–a man, actually–we have sponsored for nine years. He will turn 21 in a month. His mother and father are farm laborers and they have 11 children. I have thought what a simple thing it is for me to send this child of theirs an email telling him I believe in him. That if he focuses on a goal, he can accomplish anything. Over the years, I have become more cautious in the things I write. The fact of the matter is this: he is a young man in Haiti with limited education and opportunity. This year I wrote:

I hope this isn’t our final correspondence. I am concerned for you. I think that life must be very hard right now. I am praying for you. We will help in any way we can.

It takes discipline; it is sobering. It is bare bones, no fluff, written with all the love I can honestly offer.

He smiles at me from the picture on my refrigerator.

***I am convinced that supporting children in impoverished areas of the world is one of the most beautiful, tangible acts of love. If you are able and interested, check out Compassion International or World Vision.

Do not despise

Here’s Sulky Sue;

What shall we do?

Turn her face to the wall

Till she comes to.

If that should fail,

    A smart touch with the cane,

Will soon make her good,

    When she feels the pain.

Jacky Jingle and Sucky Shingle, 1800. (The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes, Iona and Pete Opie, 1997)

“See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you, that their angels in heaven continually behold the face of My Father who is in heaven.”
Matthew 18:10

My third child began showing clear signs of orneriness before he was two years old. He didn’t talk very much, but his capacity for creating disaster trumped every energy reserve I had for toddler mischief. He was obsessed with cooking, the idea of playing with food and mimicking all kitchen activities. It seemed like every time I turned my back he was retrieving a fork from the silverware drawer to poke potatoes or whatever unlucky fruit was in the fruitbowl. Several times I caught him wadding up bits of newspaper and tossing them into my oven. He’d sneak graham crackers into his room to grate them on the screen window. He poured a sippy cup of milk into the oil diffuser and watched it bubble and smoke. More than once he asked me for water to put in his play kitchen. When I declined, I later found him emptying his small potty into the tiny soup pot.

My children are not especially good children. Neither are yours.

I think this comes as a blow to our self-assured nature in the times we are living. It seems as though culture these days won’t suffer intolerance, and yet they won’t suffer children either. And what parent doesn’t know that children are sometimes the most intolerable of creatures? I’ve never been more frustrated than with my own children. On the flip side, I’ve never felt more love for them. I would die for them. 

And there is a bonus, an even greater gift, I think. That they should love me back–this is undoubtedly the greatest reward for my trouble.
Yesterday my oldest kid accidentally ripped out an entire refrigerator shelf in a hurry to get milk for his cereal (he neglected to put aside his recent chapter book and his hands were too full). Condiments and glass jars came crashing to the floor. I spent the next half hour mopping up barbecue sauce and broken shards of glass, trying not to mutter nasty things. 

This same kid hugged me sporadically throughout the day and told me I had a servant’s heart (possibly super cheesy, but he’s nine. I eat it up). We are in a continual tug-of-war of deserving and undeserving, loving, despising, repenting, forgiving, and starting over. That there is any room at all for affection either given or taken–I cannot comprehend it. It’s too miraculous even amid all the mundane.

I remember when our little strong-willed chef boy was tiny. He was taking a very quiet bath in the tub, and I went to check on him. My suspicions were confirmed. He was silently shredding an entire roll of toilet paper into the water. White chunks floated around him and he swirled his hands through the mess, enchanted. When he heard my footsteps he looked up at me and frowned. I”m sure I shrieked a “What are you doing?!” before I yanked him out of the tub and sent him to his room. I fished the wads of TP out of the tub, drained it, and spanked the little boy’s bare bottom.

A few minutes later he boldly came out of his room and approached me, tears staining his cheeks. “Mom?” he said. “When you spank my bottom, God heals me.”


I felt the need to repent. Do not despise one of these little ones, Jesus said.

Being a parent is changing me into a far better person than I could have ever hoped to be. It’s forcing me to hold still and be more patient, and try not to flinch–sort of like a fierce game of Bloody Knuckles.
Still, sometimes I think we’d rather present our kids to the greater world as some sort of trophy. Something to be proud of, not something that has scarred us in the process of raising them. No one wants to see scars, ugly, though necessary.

We’d like to think our kids are sort of precious (they are!), but we like to let our toe slip over the line sometimes, considering them the most precious thing (they aren’t).

It reminds me of the adage, pearls before swine (Matthew 7:6). I’ve heard this metaphor a dozen times, specifically relating to children. What we usually ignore is the fact we are all far more piggish than we know. The precious pearls aren’t our children, it is our faith, which is worth more than gold (1 Peter 1:7). We are all beastlike and prone to trample pearls–some of us more subdued than the other. Jesus is saying we ought not dangle our faith out in front of folks who are hateful and intent on our destroying us. The waters ought to be tested before we share our hope (this is referring to the Gospel). We begin by tossing tasty morsels to a hungry, feral world. We show up as servants. We are laypersons–not gloating holier-than-thou selves, but showing up as peacemakers. We “live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse [us] of doing wrong, they may see [our] good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us” (1 Peter 2:12). Bit by bit we pave the way to share the whole cookie. We find we haven’t had to knock on any doors and stand awkwardly–we’ve just naturally drawn the curious. We find ourselves in the path of confession–our appeal is less forced: “We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.” (2 Corinthians 5:20)

This might seem like the long way around. Actually, I’m sure it is taking the long way. Even writing about it has made me wonder, what’s your point, Pearl? Are you preaching? Well, sort of…yes. To myself.

I sit in church often and wonder as the communion plate is passed over my kids’ heads, if I’ve ever done anything right in raising them. I mean, I trust that we are running a long race here, but it’d sure be nice to have a little confirmation in the meantime–wouldn’t dunking him in the baptismal waters and letting him sip the teensy cup of grape juice give me some confidence? I haven’t forgot when he came home from church camp and earnestly remarked that he decided to “trust Jesus to forgive him.” I’m sure the camp staffers marked him down as saved, tallied his name right up there with the other little campers who made a “decision for Christ”. But what nine year old kid has really ever counted the cost of following Him? Why are we so eager to get his head wet and pass the bread? As much as I want my kids to believe what I believe, I cannot force their hand. I can’t in good conscience offer them a cup that represents blood when they’ve never really considered the cross. But I can keep pointing them at the world to behold its confusion. And I can lead them to the Word which offers hope; a light unto their path.


I’ll have to hold my hand steady and unflinching. These kids require some major attention. I’m older and more battle-worn, but I really don’t care. I adore watching them grow–out of the toilet paper shredding stage and into people just beginning to grasp Truth. I’m hoping they find me curious, magnetic, tolerable.
I find them a delight.

Let endurance have its perfect result, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all men generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.

James 1:4-5