Concordian Sisters of Perpetual Parturition

Homesick

2012-01-29T09:58:00.000-06:00

I hate missing church. It is a unique pang which strikes when the bell rings across the street and I'm still over here in my smelly pajamas wiping up whatever revolting muck is erupting out of some kid's body*. Somebody brings home a bulletin and I look at it and see the hymns and think, "You guys sang this without me?"

Nothing drives home the worth of the exhausting effort, the niggling anxieties, the unavoidable embarrassments, the absurd and bewildering expectations, like having them taken away.

*Today, so far, it is only complaints. I am suspicious and very crabby.

How to eat a beast

2012-01-27T08:49:00.000-06:00

If your husband kills a beast, or someone at your church gives you a part of one, you should eat it. Some beasts are described as tasting "gamey," an Old Icelandic term for "like socks." If you don't like the way socks taste, you can do these things to make your beast taste more "tasty" ("like those slabs of tissue you're used to").

Season it. A good spice attack covers over a multitude of socks. Ground beast responds well to a taco treatment. Ground beast can also be combined with ground pork and then sausaged by way of various ethnicities (Penzey's sausage mixes are a good idea source to get you started).

Soak it. Once I heard that you can soak beasts in milk to take out the gaminess, but I can't see wasting all that milk. I'd rather soak it in something I can turn into a sauce. A beast roast can be converted into a fine sauerbraten. You can also slice it and give it a good ginger, soy sauce, and sherry soak for a stir fry. If you're grilling, cut backstraps into steaks and marinate in lemon juice and worcestershire all day. You make the sauce while he grills (obviously this will be happening after the kids are in bed).

Soak it like crazy. My husband started corning and pastramizing beasts this winter and they are so good. You need some Morton's Tenderquick for a crazy soak.

Smoke it. More tenderquick and a smoker will get you a beast ham. They have shiny spots and everything. Smoke a roast, smoke sausage, smoke a drooled-on pillow. They'll all come out great.

Slow cook it. Italian. Korean. Stew. Time heals all toughness if you're stuck with some stringy old trophy buck somebody shot without thinking about what everything under that rack was going to taste like.

If you got sad about the poor moo-moos and cluck-clucks when you read one of those foodguilt books by a rich jerk who gets to eat and write all day, comfort yourself with some free beast whenever it comes your way.

PSA

2012-01-25T11:57:00.004-06:00

This is important. Please listen carefully: It is possible to give birth to a baby without health insurance coverage. Giving birth to a baby without coverage will not destroy you, your life, your financial future, or your credit rating.

It is even possible to give birth to a baby after having received a full schedule of prenatal care and in a hospital without being covered by health insurance. It is further possible to give birth to a baby after having received a full schedule of prenatal care and in a hospital without being covered by health insurance, but with the dubious aid of an obstetrician and several expensive nurses. It is EVEN FURTHER possible to give birth to a baby in a hospital without being covered by health insurance, but with the dubious aid of however many expensive people AND with the assistance of a well-paid anesthesiologist.

I know this because I have personally myownself given birth to two babies--one living, one alive in Christ-- without the mantle of health insurance, in two different hospitals with two different sets of expensive staff-peoples. I am not impoverished or forced to wear a large "S" for stupid on my outer garments. We simply paid for the prenatal/birth-related services rendered over time, in increments we could afford. This paying was not embarrassing or shaming in any way. It's the way people have been paying for things for, like, ever. Health insurance is fine for what it is, but it is not Necessary.

Behold a mystery: Birth cost us approximately the same out-of-pocket without health insurance coverage as it currently costs us with health insurance coverage. All in all, God provides. Be not afraid to carry out the fullness of your marital love. We brought nothing into the world; we can take nothing out of it; but we can bring forth children in the grace of our God without health insurance. Really.

Fight hideous poverty

2012-01-24T14:02:00.002-06:00

A clenched fist may be able to retain whatever is in its grasp, but it can never receive anything more. So too a clenched heart, but worse: the damp darkness of the tight-clenched heart will begin to fester.

I am so glad that Gauntlets pointed out Rev. Scott Murray's Memorial Moment awhile back. Such a worthy addition to my inbox (when I, um, get to it. Sigh).

Here's part of what he wrote about marriage yesterday:

Yes, marriage is a messy business. It is fraught with difficulties, sick children, worry about money, dirty diapers, and frightful disagreements. But marriage enables us to get out of ourselves and seek meaning in the other.

….Marriage isn't for everyone, but everyone ought to be for marriage. There is no way to be in true relationship with another apart from the sacrifice of self. And the more we give of ourselves the more we will have of ourselves. The more we hold back of ourselves the less we will have. What a hideous poverty resides in the heart of those who will not give themselves for the other.

Here we find just a hint of what it means to be truly human in the world created by the God who molds man out of the dust of the earth. We are to find our ultimate meaning not in ourselves, but in the other. The relationship of man and woman points to the relationship of the Bridegroom, Christ, with His bride, the church. Man and woman were not created to be alone, but to be in union with one another and with their God.

From Father Gunnulf

2012-01-23T21:28:00.002-06:00

. . . a terrible temptation came over me. I thought about the way the Savior had hung nailed to the cross all those hours. But his disciples suffered inexpressible torments for many days . . . . Then it occurred to me that many of these people had suffered more than Christ himself.

I pondered this until I felt that my heart and mind would burst. But finally I received the light that I had prayed and begged for. And I realized that just as they had suffered, so should we all have the courage to suffer. Who would be so foolish not to accept pain and torment if this was the way to a faithful and steadfast bridegroom who waits with open arms, his breast bloody and burning with love.

The Wife (Kristin Lavransdatter), Sigrid Undset

Full disclosure

2012-01-22T21:49:00.000-06:00

So on this here old blog pretty much all I do is talk about babies, but in real life I'm just a normal person who happens to have six kids. Whereas I am able to interact with real people without unnatural or excessive reference to this secret obsession of mine, and I virtually never engage in procreative stumping, I find it curious that women tend to explain their families to me. I would never ask anyone why she has the number of kids she does; it is none of my business. But they tell me out of nowhere. Strangers tell me, vague acquaintances tell me, old ladies tell me, the person stuffing my mouth with gauze tells me. They all have a reason. Some wanted more, some decided by not deciding. Some sang when they learned they were pregnant [again] and some cried. So many of them have had miscarriages they need to share with someone.

These stories are so personal. I don't know why they tell me. Maybe it's something all women tell each other and it only seems odd to me because I have no need of telling my story when my car is obviously jam-packed with it, or since I am not (that I know of) Done. Maybe the carful of story marks me as a likely sympathizer. Not one woman's story is simple, and it is clear that the writing of each was difficult and uncertain work. Every story has plotlines that got out of control or went unresolved or had to be stricken. I treasure them regardless of their content. I am glad and humbled that they have been told to me. They are serendipitous gifts; even the sad ones, even the scary ones.

Thanks for nothing

2012-01-22T11:07:00.000-06:00

From The Lost Art of Self-Preservation (for Women):

What feminists do not acknowledge (but do know) about the work/motherhood dilemma is that it's not really much of a dilemma. If you screw up at work, you will be fired. To be fired from motherhood, you have to fail spectacularly and repeatedly, and this failure will have to be noticed and documented by teachers, social workers, police officers, and judges. Therefore, work will always come first because the pushback for failure will be harder and more immediate from a boss. To a child, "normal" will be what Mommy creates for her, even if that's neglect, abuse, chronic selfishness or the less malign flakiness.

What irritates me most about these sorts of articles is the idea that women must jump on the 7-7 treadmill for the betterment of the child, for the fulfillment of the mother. The majority of women out there working aren't doing so because they love it or because it's making their lives richer. They're doing it because they need the money to pay for food and rent. Their jobs aren't glamorous and never will be. They're trapped because of the economy, because of divorce or single motherhood, or because of outstanding student loans. And there is no "work/life" balance. There is only work and then whatever you can get done after work - the same grind people had before the period of the mid-twentieth century American prosperity.

Emphasis mine. Full post here.

Cloudy with a 100% chance of meatballs somewhere they shouldn't be

2012-01-19T11:29:00.000-06:00

Occasionally someone offers me an encouraging word about "seasons." I get the impression that this is Evangelicalspeak, although I don't know the origin. Apparently its essential meaning is, "Someday you'll be doing something else. This is OK for now."

Here's where I'm going to speak freely and if it's going to make you disgusted with my various personal failures and/or my failure to represent whatever cause you think I am or should be representing you may be excused . . . .

Our family doesn't have baby years and little kid years and school years and teen years. Or rather, we do, but they all occur at the same time instead of in the nice organized increments everyone else does their best to get them. Where I live, it's Pregnant/Baby season for a lot longer than most of these climatological well-wishers have ever had it. My older children travel through their lives while I tag along, dragging the two youngest as well as I can. Pregnant/Baby season is always working to trump everything else that is going on. I can bust my tail trying to beat it, but I don't always beat it, and sometimes I feel so bad for that droopy old tail I don't even try to bust it.

Blessed as Pregnant/Baby season is, I'm no more keen on it from a certain perspective than all the people who gave it up after two or three weather cycles. When one lives in a temperate zone the end is always in sight; the seasons are manageable and kind of charming. But this zone I'm in just isn't temperate. It's all monsoons here, and I've been cowering in my hut for a lot longer than a lovely Midwest fall.

A really, really, really long time to cast away stones.

Kyrie, eleison

2012-01-17T11:06:00.001-06:00

Touchstone calls it like it sees it in this month's issue. Please read what is available online, when you have the time. And this, by way of a teaser:

Christians are not the only ones in a position to understand what Augustine and Leo XIII and Paul VI understood—that marriage resides at the very foundation of culture. They are not the only ones who have reason to be concerned about the bastardization of the citizenry through same-sex marriage, or about the Kulturkampf that threatens to leave behind it a moral wasteland blanketed by impenetrable judicial thickets. They are not the only ones capable of standing for freedom. Christians may, however, be the only ones capable of standing against contraception, which is their particular duty.

Douglas Farrow, "Why Fight Same-Sex Marriage?," Touchstone Jan/Feb 2012

Why is it always the middle of the night when they start throwing up?

2012-01-17T10:48:00.004-06:00

Seriously, is there some medical explanation for this? Inquiring minds want to know.
Sigh...

Strong enough to be gentle

2012-01-14T18:43:00.000-06:00

I attended Concordia-Seward while Pastor Greg Mech (now of Joplin, Mo.) was chaplain. Once in chapel he told the story of bringing home their second baby. The older child was very young and wanted to hold the baby. "He wasn't strong enough to be gentle," said the chaplain, so he took the older child in his lap first, then took the baby and held them both together.

Strong enough to be gentle, that is a rarity. The mother who snaps, the sister who snipes, the daughter who gripes, the yokefellow who knifes, the wife who torpedoes, the pot-shotter and the grenade-lobber and the bulldozer (I speak, I think it is obvious, of myself)--she is weak. She cannot control her anger, envy, cruelty, or malice.

But the fruit of the Spirit is gentleness. Cunning, tyranny, provocation, humiliation, and wounding are works of the weak flesh. The one who is able to be gentle, whose words turn away wrath rather than being drawn into it or inflaming it, is the one whom He hath made mighty, and stronger than the strong.

Book, recommended: Weak and Loved

2012-01-12T10:12:00.001-06:00

Once I met a girl on the internet named Emily, and I liked her. She was the kind of mom I wanted to be, which is to say, one with a good and thankful heart. That would have been enough, but it happened that she was also writing a book, so I couldn't not pester her because I think people who write books are just so cool. So I pestered her and that good heart of hers did its work: she let me read her book.

The story Emily tells is the one we're all afraid of: Mom meets girl, Mom loves girl, Mom finds out she might really lose girl, Mom lies awake at night listening for girl's breathing. But this mom's words and insights are smoothed and deepened by a grace you don't find in women's magazines and junk devotionals and pop-Christian bestsellers by pop-Christians. The grace is no accident or rhetorical device. It is real, because Emily is a person who understands grace. She does not seek to inspire with this book that would almost certainly be pigeonholed as "inspirational" by the book pigeonholers, whoever they are. She wants to tell the truth.

The truth is that there is no such thing as a "fighter" or a "survivor." There are only mortals, and an omnipotent God of love and wisdom on whose mercy they can throw themselves. The truth is that bad things happen to sweet little girls because sweet little girls are sinners. The truth is that mothers are forced to live with terrors not of their imagining, but of lethally diseased flesh. The truth is that young children have to learn about sickness and the shadow of death the hard way: at home, on the playground, in their bedrooms.

Emily, unlike any other Christian mom-author I've ever read, finds comfort in precise places: her daughter's baptism, her own baptism, the real promises of God rather than fake general ones people made up, salvation in Christ even if there is no happy ending in this life. There is no blather about God's perfect plan or the blessings of watching one's child suffer a life-threatening illness (?!). There is only the cross that breaks us, sick baby or not, and the cross that saves us, for we are all sick babies. I was really ready to read a book like that. Buy it or win it? False dichotomy.

Fantasy Baby

2012-01-11T08:33:00.001-06:00

I have often fantasized about what all this would be like with an imaginary baby, the one some other mom always has, the kind that sleeps and doesn't cry and knows how to nurse from minute one. I have had babies who possessed each of these attributes singly, but never all together.

It happened. I got my Fantasy Baby. Dad and I realized one day that we had a two-month-old and somehow were not miserable. Wonderful wonderful wonderful baby.

It took us six to get here and a few of them have been doozies. Postpartum was still double plus uncool because I am still double plus uncool. I don't know if the Fantasy Baby is a species or a fluke, so I don't know if there's any encouragement here for anyone else. I just wanted to tell you--I got her. I got my Fantasy Baby. I feel like our whole family got a huge pass on this one. I feel like I won the lottery.

Verily, verily

2012-01-10T09:48:00.000-06:00

Babies are a syntactically backwards race. They remember the last word of a familiar phrase or sentence and that word comes to function as a sort of synecdoche for the whole meaning. A small child's Lord's Prayer sounds like: "Father. Heaven. Name. Come. Done. Heaven. Bread." Etc. But a very small child's prayer is always, actually and effectively, "Amen."

Why I don't give my baby a fake boob in public or anywhere else

2012-01-08T13:06:00.001-06:00

Because I don't have any. If I had one, I wouldn't have anything to put in it. I don't buy formula (that's one of the primary aims of nursing) and I don't have a pump. I don't have a pump because they are expensive and I have so little occasion to use it (that's one of the primary aims of staying home).

I don't get why people think pumping means Mom will get a break. It actually means the opposite. It means she will spend time hooked up to a machine getting schlooped like old Bossy before the time when the baby will need milk in her absence, and possibly again for her own comfort while she is absent from the baby. It means someone else will have to give the milk to the baby from a fake boob (more work for another person, although I know some mothers-in-law are pushy about wanting to do this work). It is totally inefficient. Pumping also doesn't work for everyone in a purely technical sense--saying, "Why doesn't she pump?" makes nearly as many assumptions about how a person's body works as, "Why doesn't she breastfeed?"

The number of stars in my eyes about breastfeeding is zero. I have had a plain rotten time of it. I do it because it is free and healthier for the baby and me. My commitment to it is strong, but purely utilitarian. I am sorry if this makes me a monster or something, but not sorry enough to feel even remotely like a monster.

Despite and because of this monstrous utilitarianism, I despise pumping. I have had to do it, what with the plain rotten times. While I prefer a little space when I nurse, I would prefer to be on another planet to pump. A pump makes me feel like some sort of inferior biological cog in a dystopian future; like my brain wasn't good enough to be connected to the Central Thought Reservoir so the alienbots settled for my lacto-glands instead. Nursing is meh. Pumping is mortifying. I could never pump without asking myself, “Is this really worth it?” When it was the only way the baby could get milk, it was worth it. If it was so I could leave the baby for a length of time so great that the baby would need a fake boob . . . not worth it. If someone walks in on a mom nursing, there's a very good chance he'll just think she's holding a sleeping baby, and she will almost certainly let him keep thinking that. If he walked in on her pumping, they would both die of embarrassment.

This means that occasionally I have to risk it. If the baby and I go somewhere, I can feed her before we leave and hope she doesn't want to nurse before we're home again. But it's complicated, because nursing doesn't always happen just because the baby is hungry. While we're out, I may need to find some way to keep her occupied and quiet because babies are squirmy and noisy. Nursing is the least obtrusive way for me to do this. It is immediate and quiet and still. I do not have to get up and walk out or shake a jingly toy or whisper-read a book. She is used to it and it is how she is most comfortable. Unfortunately, it is also nursing, which some people find inherently obtrusive. The best part is that you don't know who the obtruded upon people are until someone else tells you what the obtruded upon person said in some other time and place about how gross nursing is.

Why don't you just carry one of these around?

While we're on this exciting topic, the obtrusion problem is why the nursing cover is mostly a ruse. Those who wish to be covered are usually able to nurse in such a way as to not need a cover. Those who don't care that much may use a cover unsatisfactorily to the critics. The real trouble is that using a cover tips people off to what is going on, such that those who find nursing inherently obtrusive will feel obtruded upon even if they see no skin at all. They don't really want you covered. They don't want you nursing; at least, not where it might cause them to think about it in some non-abstract way, and especially if the baby is of a certain age (ie older than two days).

So, ye obtruded upon, sorry. Sorry these aren't good enough reasons for you. Sorry I don't carry a fake boob around because I know looking at fake boobs stuffed into babies' mouths doesn't gross you out at all. Try not to think about the fact that you don't know if it's nice, clean formula or gross boob milk that the baby is slurping out of the fake boob because that might gross you out if it were gross boob milk. May all the boobs in your life be fake.

Old Possum explains it all

2012-01-05T08:45:00.001-06:00

"People can be persuaded to desire almost anything, for a time, if they are constantly told that it is something to which they are entitled and which is unjustly withheld from them."

T.S. Eliot, Christianity and Culture, "Notes towards the Definition of Culture"

Be it resolved

2012-01-04T10:12:00.002-06:00

As a farmer's daughter living in a farming community for whom farming is a very big deal, I want to point out that the "using birth control is like farming" metaphor just doesn't work.

While there is not a tidy bijection between women's bodies and Mother Earth, real flesh-and-blood farmers "husband" the earth. Yeah, they, um, farm it, i.e. push it toward production. Even the hippies with their green manure and their heirloom inheritances and their Native American rhetoric. Because, look: farmers want their soil to generate an abundance, year after year after year. They tend the soil, they care for the soil, they even love the soil, but they do not wander about at the edge of their fields wringing their hands, wondering if maybe this year they ought to let the weeds take over. And they do not ever think that maybe it's time to sow salt in their fields, rendering them infertile, because they have more crops than they can handle. (HAHAHAHA! That one is my favorite. Like any farmer anywhere wouldn't know what to do with a surplus of crops.)

Please, everyone in the world, please, please, please stop using farming as The Thing that Proves whatever it is you want to prove. Farming doesn't work that way. No, it really doesn't. Leave the fields to the farmers and the women to their husbands. Life and the creation of life isn't easy poetry; it can't be neatly bent to this or that idea of what's right. The poetry is simply correct. It is up to us not to use it, but to become it.

Because toe jam is not, in any country, considered a delicacy

2012-01-03T14:48:00.002-06:00

I have been, quite possibly on more than one occasion (a-hem), guilty of speaking too hastily into a situation that I understand imperfectly. The foot-in-mouth aftertaste is not one that I particularly savor, especially when compounded by the concern that my ill-considered words may have inadvertently added to another’s misery.

Tasty in infancy, but rarely thereafter.

You, dear readers, are doubtless always more circumspect with your words. So you will nod with immediate, sage recognition when I record, for posterity, this thing that is always and forever, without exception, The Wrong Thing to say. I sadly suspect that perhaps some of you, like me, have been on the receiving end of variations on this theme.

Woman A: Congratulations! How are you feeling?

Woman B: Well, you know, pretty bad. Can’t keep anything down, to the point that I might have to go on anti-emetics again; and I’ve got to be careful about dehydration.

Woman A: Oh, I always feel really sick when I’m pregnant too. [Wait for it…..wait for it….] But I just really hate throwing up, so I always manage not to get to the point of actually puking.

Woman B: Smiles weakly and creeps off to sip some Gatorade, hoping against hope that it stays down this time.

What you all immediately see here, of course, is that Woman A, however inadvertently, is implying one or both of the following:

1) Woman B doesn’t really hate throwing up. Hey, maybe she thinks it’s kind of fun!
2) Woman B is weak-minded or weak-willed; if only she were tougher she could control her bile rather than vice versa.

Now, it may well be that God gifted me with morning sickness to save me from the worse offense of being Woman A. Back when I got pregnant with BabyOne, morning sickness wasn’t even on my radar. I had at that time just a couple friends who’d been pregnant, and they lived far away. If ever I thought of morning sickness, it had a vague and Victorian association in my mind, like something associated with hand-on-forehead fainting spells and remedied with smelling salts. Certainly it was not something that would ever happen to me. I was Healthy and Strong!

Then, WHAM! I woke up puking one morning, and didn’t stop, round the clock, for months. I tried every weird remedy suggested by anyone and her mother’s third cousin, to no avail. By week 17 of that first pregnancy I was five pounds under my prepregnancy weight. So much for tough. And I’ve learned my lesson: unless you know what it is to be always scoping out the nearest restrooms and receptacles on the occasions when you must venture away from your own dear porcelain fixture; unless you know what it is to carry a bag in your pocket so that you don’t disgrace yourself by throwing up on a totally inappropriate surface if no toilet, garbage can, or bush is handy enough; the only words you should venture to offer to an emetic woman are those of deep sympathy.

Now. Lest we sometime hyper-emetics start feeling a sick (haha) sort of reverse pride in our barf badges, and be tempted to look with scorn upon those whose “only” complaint is nausea: I have also had a pregnancy in which the vomiting was miserable and bothersome, but not excessive or health-threatening. Yet nausea there was a-plenty—and at times it flattened me as effectively as the constant vomiting had. This too, I would not have comprehended, had I not experienced it. I would have been another version of Woman A, chirping, “Oh, I always feel sick too. But life must go on! I’m too busy just to lie uselessly on the floor wishing for death!”

Which brings me to my next point: Hey, people, rejoice with me! I’m puking again! And, you know, I have a ray of hope to offer those of you who may fear, after several rough pregnancies, that ‘twill ever be thus: this is the least sick I’ve been in a (Lord willing) viable pregnancy. I’m miserable, but in many important respects functional. Not that the household and the homeschooling and the whatnots haven’t suffered—but I do not take for granted this ability to remain mostly upright at least for the children’s waking hours. And I earnestly wish for those of you who through wretched experience fear the first months of pregnancy more than L&D, that you may also one day enjoy such reprieve!

Usage you can use: Fiancé(e)

2011-12-31T15:00:00.001-06:00

Fiancé is masculine. A man who is engaged.

Fiancée is feminine. A woman who is engaged.

E. It matters.

Meditations upon Boxing Day

2011-12-26T12:54:00.000-06:00

--I didn't win a Nook from Lulu. Hard to believe, I know. Other things I have recently not won include a gift card from a grocery chain for all the surveys I fill out for them, and a Father of the Year award for my husband from a local electric coop. Jerks. Anyway, Lulu told me I could still have a Nook if I sold more of something than anybody today. Seriously, I'm supposed to compete with Wil Wheaton? Bump it.

--You know you've arrived when you have to do laundry on Christmas on a non-emergency basis.

--Did anybody else see that bulletin cover? Ha ha ha ha ha.

--Best Christmas movie ever is A Muppet Christmas Carol.

--What is the deal with "I Saw Three Ships"? Is this another one of those weird British nationalist things?

--What is everybody else doing about the loot/space discrepancy with greed and sloth skewing the data?

Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto knowledge of the truth

2011-12-23T09:57:00.004-06:00

It's been years since I last posted this little discursus by Luci Shaw, so here it is again. Merry Christmas, dear readers. God bless you and yours unto life everlasting.

It’s as if the infancy were the whole of the incarnation.

One time of the year

the new-born child
is everywhere,
planted in madonnas’ arms
hay mows, stables,
in palaces or farms,
or quaintly, under snowed gables,
gothic angular or baroque plump,
naked or elaborately swathed,
encircled by Della Robbia wreaths,
garnished with whimsical
partridges and pears,
drummers and drums,
lit by oversize stars,
partnered with lambs,
peace doves, sugar plums,
bells, plastic camels in sets of three
as if these were what we need for eternity.

But Jesus the Man is not to be seen.
We are to be wary, these days,
of beards and sandaled feet.

Yet if we celebrate, let it be
that He
has invaded our lives with purpose,
striding over our picturesque traditions,
our shallow sentiment,
overturning our cash registers,
wielding His peace like a sword,
rescuing us into reality,
demanding much more
than the milk and softness
and the mother warmth
of the baby in the storefront creche,
(Only the Man would ask
all, of each of us)
reaching out
always, urgently, with strong
effective love
(only the Man would give
His life and live
again for love of us).

Oh come, let us adore Him--
Christ--the Lord.

More crazy talk

2011-12-21T09:45:00.000-06:00

You do things your way, America. I do things mine.

The term “mommy” has its place. My toddler calls me Mommy, because she is two, and she can’t speak any better.

But “mommy” ends with the toddler years in my house. “Mommy” is lovely in the mouth of a baby, a delightful descant to the family symphony. In the mouth of the older child, however, it becomes unsettlingly cute and saccharine, like an anime bunny. Thus, “mommy” cheapens my relationship with my older children. To these, I am not merely food and warmth and vague comfort, neither am I their cuddly little friend. I am their queen, their mother. I have been given to rule them in the most affixing of ways: by sacrificing everything of myself for their sakes. The substance of my flesh, the best of my mind, my treasure, my blood, my life—paltry though it all may be, it is what I have to give in exchange for their health and growth and success. It may be my joy to pick up such a cross, but it is not cute and toothsome. Pain is not nuzzly. Sacrifice is not sweet. If Christ carrying His cross through the streets of Jerusalem cannot be called cuddly, then let us greet our lesser crosses befittingly.

Older children can understand without trying that it is good for their lady to retain certain dignity, because and in spite of her toils. Of their own accord, my older children address me as Mother (or Mom, when they’re in a rush). They are given to speak to me as those who have been given much and from whom much is expected, in proper tongue, without sputtering, grunting, or gasping. Even the beasts caress their young and receive the spit from their mouths. But we are men, and we are given to a higher affection: to speak; to name; to crown our beloveds with honor they cannot grasp for themselves; to remind one another of how grandly we are collectively loved.

There is no time to waste on childhood without end. Rather, in the fullness of time, a child is weaned from “mommy” to the solid, enduring presence of his mother, who becomes for him a source of wisdom and, if he is lucky, beauty—things that are far more nourishing than milk anyway.*

*I invoke luck because while I know I’ve been given the capacity for mothering, its expression depends a great deal on how much sleep I’ve gotten this year.

Yet another thing I can see no reason not to post

2011-12-20T07:56:00.004-06:00

It's been way too long since we've had a Vanity post. Besides all of them, I mean.

Postpartum again! I'm trying not to be so vain this time. Maybe I'm just getting too old to care so much; that would be good. Anyway, in a manic moment I found a great deal of humor in the fact that I'm carrying around on my person a plurality (at least) of the food my baby is going to eat this year. What a goofy system. What do I expect to look like? It's got to go somewhere.

I could tell the moment was manic because I then began imagining what it would look like if I weren't nursing but still had to carry a year's worth of baby food on me. I have no idea how much formula a baby goes through in a week. A can? Three cans? Let's call it one can. We won't count little Gerber jars, just formula. I am now picturing myself with 52 cans of formula affixed to my body. Sheesh, I'm huge! This formula takes up a ton of space! I'm also really loud with all these cans clanking around me every time I move. I look, like, SO silly. I can't get comfortable enough to sleep, either. I'm exhausted.

I think we've all learned an important lesson here.

Above and beyond

2011-12-19T07:59:00.000-06:00

I needed a baby so I could realize how much I needed a husband. A husband is not a BFF. A husband is the man who takes care of you when you can't take care of yourself.

I'm not saying a spouse isn't or can't be a friend, just that the "husband as BFF" motif so prevalent in contemporary conjugal piety (especially at weddings in which the couple writes the "vows") is really dumb. This has everything to do with a motif that's been dropped from contemporary conjugal piety: "husband as lord." This necessarily leads to people marrying their BFFs whether or not the BFF is of the other sex.

But anyway, although my husband is my friend, he is also more and less than that. He is my lord, and as such a great part of him is above me and therefore unknowable to me. And I will venture to assert that as his lady, I am and always will be a mystery to him. There is a great part of me that is beyond him and therefore unknowable to him. One of the greatest services husbands and wives do each other is NOT trying or pretending to share absolutely everything. Not every cross borne by a husband can be shared by a wife, as surely as a great multitude of a wife's burdens cannot be lightened by a husband. To act or expect otherwise is delusional and unfair.

Knowing this and valuing it frees us from needing to be jerks about it. I find that when I get to spend time with my female friends (which means one of us herding crawlers out of the kitchen while the other cooks), sharing with each other the burdens beyond our husbands, we end up thanking God together that he put us under the care of dudes so much better than we are.

Springerle

2011-12-18T14:03:00.002-06:00

I have my grandma's springerle rolling pin and I feel like a jerk for not using it. I remember eating springerle when I was very little and loving it. So I really want to make it but I haven't had luck with the recipe I've got (not my grandma's--alas, that one is lost). Does anybody have a good recipe? I'm paralyzed by all the internet options and would love it if one of you internet people had a recipe with commentary.

These. I want them.

Alliums, or why any number of intervention-free deliveries do not a NCB advocate make

2011-12-15T13:09:00.002-06:00

The following comes of my sick, terrible habit of hanging around birth-junkie websites in the weeks before my due date. GOT to stop that.

The main reason I wanted a med-free birth with our first baby was curiosity. I wanted to know what it was like. Not everybody gets to find out.

Now I know, and I haven't wanted one since, but I keep getting them. Lucky me. As I've said here, there are some valuable lessons in the experience, but the most valuable one for me has been learning that it wasn't really my choice. It was my preference the first time around, and it worked out. I didn't have any complications, so I got my curiosity satisfied. (In a hospital. Yes.)

Then all my friends and relations started having babies, and I started seeing that childbirth isn't any different from breakfast on a busy morning. You can't always get what you want. Some wanted to go "natural" for whatever reason, and they couldn't, honest. 2000 miles or 150 years from here, something bad would have happened to mother and/or child, no matter how ideal their birth ideals (and why the ideal would be anything other than an experience which does not induce terror upon its remembrance--which for a few of us weak-minded people would involve pain relief of some sort--is beyond me). Some decided along the way that hours of voluntary agony weren't worth the Natural Childbirth Award, which doesn't exist. Some regretted not having an anaesthetic in place when it came to the measures which had to be taken upon them after the baby's birth. Some wanted pain relief and it didn't work, or even made things worse. Some got what they planned, whether it was Interventionpalooza or a moonlit glade attended only by maiden wolves. Everyone had preferences and made choices, but not everyone got the birth story they wanted.

The only thing I feel like telling someone any more about how to have a baby is You can do it! Unless you can't. You won't know until it happens. If you get the delivery you think you want, thank God in heaven because that is the third cherry on the real whipped cream on the hottest of fudge on the Haagen-Dazs of a healthy baby. If you don't, don't feel bad AT ALL, because who cares? It is ultimately not something you can control. And however it goes, turn off the comments when you post your birth story because there is always going to be some fool out there who thinks she knows better than you what should have happened.

But I still want to lodge my major complaint about the NCB universe, and that is its ridiculous self-satisfaction. I cannot take pride in my deliveries, much as I would LOVE to after this many times, any more than I could be proud of surviving a lightening strike or bout of ebola. They prove nothing except that God dealt with me mercifully (which is pretty blasted hard to admit, considering). That first time when I got myself all educated and prepped, I was told I'd stride away with this incredible sense of strength and accomplishment. Instead I hobbled off feeling completely ruined and, moreunder (or is it lessover?), lied to. There's no buzzkill for that post-baby rush like the thought of earning it again, or maybe ten more times. I came with onions and left with garlic.

Unlike the farmer and the monk, I also left with six perfect babies. So that helps.

Update: the comments upon this post, while non-explicit, are frank. If that would trouble you, dear reader, do not attend.

On the doing of homework

2011-12-13T21:08:00.007-06:00

So there's this, which is like, you people still? And this, which is pretty funny. And a bunch of people saying stuff. But please, everybody, do yourselves the huge, huge favor of reading this book, the best book ever written on the topic outside of Heilege Schrift, The Eternal Woman by Gertrud von le Fort.

Read it before you write your next post about not ordaining women!

Read it before you write your magnum opus on women in the church!

Read it even if you don't like me or this blog!

Read it even if you're a dude!

It's so important that you read this!

Yes, YOU!!!!

New ropes, old ropes, and the gallows, too

2011-12-10T16:20:00.002-06:00

Rebekah's last post reminded me of something I've been saving for a rainy day. It's raining in my amygdala today. Ta da.

When and why did moaning under one’s cross becoming synonymous with “whining?” Life on this side of the veil is hard, most grievously hard. Christ knows this very well. He does not sneer at His little ones who cry piteously over what in eternity amounts to a stubbed toe or missed dessert. Rather, in His mercy, He hears the groans of His Elect, those who bear His Name in Baptism, and has compassion.

Indeed, God, for the sake of Christ, lifts His countenance upon us as we muck about and stays His righteous wrath. Instead of floods, hellfire, and stonings, He provides for us the softest, gentlest of graces: a Holy Mother Church, who patiently and lovingly hears our sobbing and soothes our consciences with Words placed into her most beautiful mouth by Christ Himself.

And thus are we taught to hear the suffering of others. Dear sisters in Christ, it is not necessary to coat your face in colorful Plasticine and intone tired American lies about how lucky you are to have the Eschaton somehow immanentized in your heart. Rather, let us receive what God has given, and then do as our Mother does. It is good, normal, sensible, and poetic to see your sin and the sin of your children, and to speak it out of darkness that it may wither and die in the light. It is good, normal, sensible, and poetic to hear patiently a sister speak of her struggles, and to direct her toward her good Mother, who is a fertile land abounding with milk and honey and who will feed her the very salvation of her soul.

It is not good and far from poetic to harbor your misery or to treat with complacence the cries of your fellow Christian. Life is difficult and filled with storms we cannot understand. Even the smallest of thunderclaps finds its impetus in sin, and it was for even the smallest of peccadilloes that our Christ died. Every cramp of flesh and soul is of importance to our Savior, who does not hesitate when we call for help but immediately puts out His hand and draws us out of the waves. He might chide, “Why did you doubt?” But such words are His and His alone to give, and His Bride is more than capable of conveying their meaning to Her babies.

You and I commune at the same altar; that is good enough for me. Let us join together in raising our voices to Christ. When you rejoice, I will rejoice with you. And when you cry out, “Oh, Lord, how long?” I’m the alto you hear over yonder.

Could be better. Will be better.

2011-12-08T09:19:00.001-06:00

I remember getting a book from the library when I was a kid called, I think, Could Be Worse. Yup. It was about a couple of kids whose grandpa always told them when they complained to him about something, "Could be worse!" Once when they brought him a complaint, he told them a long, crazy story about all these awful things that had happened to him when he was young--something like his house exploding in a hurricane while weasels ripped his flesh and his mom poached monkey gizzards in puke sauce for supper and on like that for pages and pages. The kids hear him out and then happily tell him . . . you got it.

And of course grandpa is right and the kids are right and that frowny, responsible, "you live in the first world you unpitiable whiner" voice in the back of my head is right. But there's a part of me that could do without Could Be Worse. It's not weeping with them that do weep to always be telling them "could be worse," and it could be way stinking better, and it's OK and even important to want that, and we're supposed to be sort of ready for it, and frankly there are times when it feels like that's really all there is to look forward to.

One of those comments that becomes a post

2011-12-04T21:47:00.003-06:00

I don't expect anyone to be persuaded by the following arguments which I find persuasive. I offer them as a courtesy to the polite sister in Christ who requested them, not as a call to warfare, and I have neither the time nor the desire for a spitting match. I'm sure everyone who disagrees with me is much, much smarter than I am; I forfeit. If you've already heard all this and it will make you sad, don't read it. Talk to a pastor.

1. I've said here before that the contraception question is not one of chapter and verse, but of interpretation. Until the 1930 Lambeth Convention (Anglican--a tradition founded on divorce and now swirling down the drain with a bunch of lesbians impersonating pastors), the Church catholic considered contraception an unchaste practice. There was more ecumenical unity on contraception than there was on the sacraments. As late as the 1950s publications of the LCMS condemned contraception (then they just got quiet on the topic). Interpretation belongs to the whole church, not me and my B-I-B-L-E, and that's what the whole church understood Scripture (Onan et al.) to be saying for 1930 years (and all the time before that).

This one is really the bottom line in my personal view which, again, I can't imagine being of value to anyone. But here are a few more ways of thinking about it:

2. Imagine a pastor and his parish saying, "We've made some disciples of all nations, and we're happy with them. We're going to take care of them and enjoy our time together. If we made more we might not be able to give them everything they need. Making disciples makes us tired and sick and poor. No more disciple-making." I bet the DP would love it.

3. Christians put a lot of stock in condemning fornication on the grounds that sex and marriage go together. (Chapter and verse for that? Adultery, huh? What does "adultery" mean?) Babies and sex are connected far more inextricably than marriage and sex are. It's easy to engage in intercourse outside of marriage; you don't even have to think about it, as many hungover teenagers can testify. It is normally not so easy to engage in intercourse and not have a baby happen, as many pregnant teenagers can testify. Contraception requires planning and deliberate action; it is a multi-step process (acquisition, possession, use) that can never occur in a moment of lapsed judgment. God made it harder to separate babies from sex than marriage from sex. Little wonder we should see it the other way.

4. "But what strikes me as truly extraordinary is the implication that there is something low about the objective [of marriage] being the birth of a child. Whereas it is obvious that this great natural miracle is the one creative, imaginative and disinterested part of the whole business. The creation of a new creature, not ourselves, of a new conscious centre, of a new and independent focus of experience and enjoyment, is an immeasurable more grand and godlike act even than a real love affair; how much more superior to a momentary physical satisfaction. If creating another self is not noble, why is pure self-indulgence nobler?"

G.K Chesterton, "Blasphemy and the Baby," Brave New Family

I am mystified by the elevation of the "unitive" aspect of marital love by anyone with a sacramental confession. It's not magic. The unity is REALIZED in the literal one flesh who comes from two separate people. The rest is happy thoughts, and whatever esoteric thingy seems to be indicated in 1 Cor 6 (if some qualified person would care to explain that in the comments, I'm all ears). How can unity possibly be enhanced/increased by cutting out its fullest manifestation?

5. Would it be ethical to use some method or device to remove pleasure from conjugal relations?

6. Every marriage is an icon of Christ and his holy bride, the Church, who give themselves utterly to each other and whose love is ever-bearing. Contraception is antithetical to self-giving, other-accepting love. It introduces disintegrity to the marital union. There is ample evidence that it will not necessarily kill a marriage (although we would be foolish to disregard the correspondence between the rise in contraceptive use and divorce, however it may be interpreted), but it will compromise it. It is likely to leave one spouse feeling used, even if both want to or feel they must prevent conception. Marital love normally has a consequence which causes both partners to count its blessed cost. To eliminate the cost (actually an investment) is to cheapen the act and actors. If a baby were not the act's weightiest meaning and effect, we wouldn't be having this conversation at all.

Phew. Is it hot in here?

Single persons wishing to avoid all this trouble have an opportunity to do so by remaining celibate. To the married who feel they cannot have more children, the Church has historically held out the option of continence. The present day is not this option's most popular era. :P It is still an unnatural and disintegrative separation of three things God has bound together (marriage, marital intimacy, marital fruitfulness), but conforms to the "less un-divinely ordained" view of argument 3.

I'm going to stop typing now.

Latch-key ambitions

2011-12-03T12:42:00.004-06:00

More inflammatory rhetoric, on this boring, boring Saturday.

There is never a good time for a mother to return to “the workforce.” Children are far louder about needing you when they are babies, but they never stop needing you. They merely become a lot more polite about expressing how terribly they need you the older they get.*

Yes, there comes a point when children no longer need help doing the more banal tasks of being alive. (Someday, I will not have to summon the sitzfleisch for toilet training! HOO-FREAKING-RAY!) But there is never a day when suddenly a child can accomplish by himself the terrible and the beautiful tasks given all men to accomplish. There is never a day when a child, boy or girl, man or woman, stops needing his mother, not to coddle and coo, but just to be there. The child needs his mother as a structure needs its pillars, and as the ocean needs its boundaries.

A daughter never stops wanting her mother, especially if that daughter is blessed to become a mother herself, as everyone here well understands. A daughter, be she married or virgin, never stops needing the consolation and shelter of her mother’s voice, presence, and help. There is never a good time for a mother to take on work that interferes with her ability to be a blessing and help to her adult daughters and to be fully a grandmother.

A man will leave his mother and father and hold fast to his wife, and in things both salient and subtle a good wife supplants a good mother in the life of a man. Thanks be to God. Even so, a man never stops being his mother’s son. If a mother takes work that interferes with her sons’ lives and happiness and well-being, then so much the worse for everyone. If a mother takes on work that makes her relationships with her daughters-in-law unnecessarily strained, that mother has cut and cauterized those heartstrings that once held her sons.

You absolutely cannot have it all. Should you go scrabbling after a sense of worth, you will find yourself begging for scraps of love in all the wrong places. Stay home, even when your house is empty. They need you there.

Yes, this being there, this being a mother, is a cross for women. Being a woman is a much bigger deal than all that is stored up for fire would have you believe. But this being doesn’t look like much. It looks like years and years of patient waiting, of quietly resisting the erosion of your body and mind, and a lot of missed chances to contribute to the Social Welfare. It means submitting to being consumed and being all things to all your own people, instead of one comfortable blip to a myopic People that just barely exists. It means reflecting however imperfectly the Church who gave you birth unto life everlasting, until your days accumulate in the death of your flesh to the glory of your soul. But, look: we Christians know what to do with crosses. We do not flee from them. We do not decorate them with flowers, soak them in essential oils, and put them in storage to be borne when we have the inclination. We pick them up, splinters and all, when they’re given to us, trusting in Christ who promises that His yoke is easy and His burden light.

Regardless of what she does with her life, the Christian mother never ceases to be a mother to her children. Children are made to thrive in the warmth of a mother’s faithful, long-suffering obedience to Christ (and her faithful repentance of failure), even when that mother draws down a paycheck. But, think it over. Your children want you when they're small; they will want you even when they’re grown and busy and distracted (sinners are we all, and thus do we take for granted that which is best for us). And when the times comes for you to leave your children on their own, when your angel comes to bear you unto the bosom of Abraham, knowing that you wait beyond all shadows with the angels and archangels for that glorious Day wherein you will breathe again and be reunited to your people—that even in death you have not ceased to be their mother—gives your children courage to mourn as those who have hope. They will not stop needing you, even then. Be alive for them while you can.

*Again, I know there are Reasons why some of you cannot be home, and that those reasons are good. Especially you, dear friend whom I love. Christ redeems my "good works" right along with yours, that we might have no cause to fret. Thanks be to God.

Why casuistry should be left to the professionals

2011-12-02T09:30:00.002-06:00

A post you won't like if you don't like this blog. And if you don't like this blog, I urge you again, don't visit it.

If you want to me to pray, tell me about the Kerlumpkins and their seven unruly children and poor Mrs. Kerlumpkin whose health is so bad. Tell me about the Sammyads and how chronic unemployment has ruined their marriage and their family life. Tell me about the Bagginses and their terrible pregnancy losses. Tell me about the Ottery-St. Catchpoles and their two-bedroom apartment and their second set of twins. Tell me how Mrs. Spumoni is penguin-guano crazy and their kids' lives are wrecks and Mr. Spumoni gets blamed for it all.

If you want to see my eyes glaze over, tell me about all those people and then look at me with the squinting frown which asks, "And NOW what do you think of your judgy convictions, you judging judger?"

I'll tell you right now what I think about every single one of those situations. They're unspeakably awful. Lord, have mercy. They also have nothing to do with how I should live my life. The personal experiences of the Kerlumpkins or the Ottery-St. Catchpoles or anyone else have zero bearing whatsoever on what constitutes sin in the court of God Almighty. Hard cases make bad law, and sometimes the Law makes hard cases.

As big of a deal as a sick mom or a lost income or a bunch of people just plain coming apart are to the individuals under scrutiny, it does not change the answer to the question of whether it is OK to enjoy sex while avoiding children. That question I must always answer the same way whether I like it or not. I have all kinds of sympathy for those who grew up and got married without ever being taught the whole truth of such things (which my beautiful associate has written about so well in the previous post) and are now mucking through a muck they didn't know existed. I am one of those people. It's been, you know, rough. It still is.

The question of the what the poor Spumonis should do about their situation I am in no way qualified or authorized to answer. I'm a freakin housewife who doesn't even know those people. I also can't help noticing that no amount of stories about the marvelous Sarsparillas and their 14 marvelous, talented, successful children who made it through on powdered milk and prayers or Ethel Kennedy and her 11 C-sections (before the bikini cut!) manage to convince anyone on the other side. Hasn't TLC alone provided us with ample evidence that the anecdotal approach to persuasion or proof on this topic is completely fruitless?

So, Bagginses and Spumonis and all you other people I know only through the bald gossip of Christians, I am sorry that you have been turned into situationally ethical footballs. I am sorry your names have become bywords among those who ought to be treating you with the most charity rather than the least. The details of your situation are between you and God and your pastor. If you wish for me to be involved, I will pray for you. That is absolutely all I can do.

Some inflammatory rhetoric, because I'm getting bored

2011-11-30T09:20:00.007-06:00

It would appear that, generally speaking, one who detests the more normal functions of a woman's body, even if she who detests such functions is herself in so-called possession of that body, is fundamentally un-poetic. Which is to say, out of touch with the metaphysical, with who Woman is as She was created and as She exists even now as the Bride of Christ.

The Bride feeds her children from her Body. So, then, because this is what Woman does, this is also what women do, insofar as they are given to do so by God. To do otherwise when it has been given you to do is to deny your existence as a woman, and to become Something Else.

There are really but two choices for a woman who desires to be fully a woman: to remain a virgin and thence serve her neighbor out of love for Christ; to marry, chastely submit to her husband, and serve her own people out of love for Christ. Either choice is equally good, for the Woman is both virgin and mother, and thus, to have Woman reflected among us today, we need both virgins and mothers in our society, all working in their given roles to the best of their abilities as they have been blessed by God.

However, to try somehow to be both is aberrant and plain weird, because, then, what exactly are you?* There has been but one perfect reflection of the Virgin Mother: Mary, who bore unto us Christ, our Lord. The rest of us can't have it all, because "all" hasn't been proffered to us. We must choose. And if you are married, then you have chosen to have children insofar as they are given to you (Wives have the option of not having children? What does that even mean?). And once you have borne a child, then you have chosen to feed that child from your own body and to pour yourself out as a drink offering over the child, because this is what your Mother does for you. You cannot continue as if you were a virgin, just as the virgin cannot feed a child from her body. And yes, we live in a veil of tears, and it's difficult to die to yourself and to become your child's mother. I daresay, that very exercise is much of the point, for it is this exercise which makes a mother more like the Woman. As such, it is God's gift to women, further evidence that He loves us and counts us among His children. As if we needed any evidence beyond Christ's blood! But see how our cups overflow! Do you see?

Carry on.

*My friends, I know there are Hard Cases. I am sad with you.

2:00--someday

2011-11-23T14:52:00.002-06:00

A story about a story

2011-11-22T09:26:00.003-06:00

Katie sent me a heads up a few weeks ago about a short fiction contest from Lulu. My natural inclination was to say that I can't write fiction.

But then I saw that one of the prizes was a Nook. And I would really like a Nook because then I could give it to my kid for Christmas and she could stop stealing my Kindle (can you get tons of free old-timey kid books on Nook like you can on Kindle?).

So back to not being able to write fiction: I got to thinking and realized I'd just written up my birth story for the benefit of myself and the boredom of a few friends and relatives. Contest stories only had to be 600 words long. I could write 6000 words about making lunch yesterday and it, like much of my life, would sound ridiculously fictional.

So I did some editing and published that silly thing on Lulu. It is an EPUB. I have no idea what this means except that I can't read it on my Kindle (I guess it can be read on a Nook, which is great because the only person I know with a Nook is Gauntlets and she's already read it). I don't know if it's done properly because I couldn't figure out how to preview it. I wanted to charge about $0.04 for it but then I learned I'd have to charge a dollar to turn a profit of one bright zinc-y penny. At the end, I got a message that said, "Your story has successfully be submitted." I thought that sounded really promising.

So if you'd like to pay $1 for the privilege of attempting to read an unpreviewed EPUB of my most recent birth story (oh yeah, it's a birth story--ew! Don't worry, though; it's just about the human condition), here's your big chance. Only 9900 zinc-y pennies and I'll be able to buy a Nook like suckers who would never win that dang contest anyway. Or a Kindle!

So.

What I remember from high school

2011-11-20T22:11:00.000-06:00

Sheesh, I've been looking for this poem on the internets for years. Finally found it here. Thought you should know.

BLINDMAN'S BUFF

Peter Viereck

Night-watchmen think of dawn and things auroral.

Clerks wistful for Bermudas think of coral.

The poet in New York still thinks of laurel.

(But lovers think of death and touch each other

As if to prove that love is still alive.)

The Martian space-crew, in an Earthward dive,

Think of their sweet unearthly earth Up There,

Where darling monsters romp in airless air.

(Two lovers think of death and touch each other,

Fearing that day when only one's alive.)

We think of cash, but cash does not arrive.

We think of fun, but fate will not connive.

We never mention death. Do we survive?

(The lovers think of death and touch each other

To live their love while love is yet alive.)

Prize-winners are so avid when they strive;

They race so far; they pile their toys so high

Only a cad would trip them. Yet they die.

(The lovers think of death and touch each other;

Of all who live, these are the most alive.)

Plump creatures smack their lips and think they thrive;

The hibernating bear, but half alive,

Dreams of free honey in a stingless hive.

He thinks of life at every lifeless breath.

(The lovers think of death.)

Blessed are ye that hunger now

2011-11-16T10:27:00.000-06:00

It is sometimes difficult to see, but it is nonetheless true that those of us living this CSPP life have more in common with folk who confess the real presence of Christ in His supper, even if those folk use birth control, than we have in common with Michelle Duggar.

Personhood

2011-11-08T22:10:00.006-06:00

The reason Mississippi's "personhood" initiative is getting attention is its implication for contraception. If personhood begins at fertilization, the initiative would de facto illegalize hormonal contraceptives. It is abortion advocates, not crazy anti-contraceptive people, making the noise. Abortion supporters are completely comfortable with hormonal contraceptives' failsafe mechanism of creating a uterine environment unfavorable for the implantation of a fertilized ovum.

Diane Derzis, who runs Mississippi's only abortion clinic, said most people don't understand how far-reaching the amendment could be. "By this very definition of this bill, a fertilized egg is a person, so that does away with the IUD and most forms of birth control," she said.

More here: Why Mississippi's 'Personhood' Law Could Outlaw Birth Control

Pro-contraception Christians are the only people who have ever balked at accepting the potential for all forms of hormonal contraception to function as an abortifacient.

Disclaimer: Mea maxima culpa.

Funny you've likely already seen, recommended

2011-11-07T13:03:00.001-06:00

If you haven't used up all your YouTube time today, spend it on The Lutheran Satire channel. You won't be sorry.

Fish, flesh, good red herring, and the Church of the Augsburg Confession

2011-11-05T10:16:00.004-05:00

This thingy was at Mere Comments a while back. It looks at the "religious fertility" of a variety of traditions and categorizes them into four groups:

Religious Malthusianism idealizes 0-2 children

Implicit Natalism idealizes 2-3 children

Patriarchal Moderate Natalism idealizes 2-4 children

Patriarchal Extreme Natalism idealizes "the more, the better"

This struck me as another one of those times when we just don't fit. I have never heard any CSPP type say or imply, "the more, the better" (although they have been caricatured by their detractors as saying so, and worse). Once again, we are not Quiverfull™. The theology of the cross tells us that some won't get many or any and some will be overwhelmed. There is no right or wrong number. There is only faith's response to the gifts God would give, and faith's response to the gifts it does or does not receive.

This cup

2011-11-02T21:20:00.003-05:00

Sometimes, my heart breaks for the child who ran outside today, shockingly shoeless at first, to capture the first snow of the season.

Cup outstretched, he spun in the rain, the sleet, dashing between drops in his pursuit of the precious white stuff. Wads of snow clumped thickly downward in the mix, bright against dark wet bark, incongruous over lingering autumn color-collage.

But the snow he was so earnestly after—it disappeared even as he touched it. His cup was filled not with the abundance of magical flakes he hoped for, but with a scant spattering of dreary drops. A small disappointment, perhaps—but my mother-heart in that one moment ached under the weight of many moments, heavy for this child of mine to whom many things come hard.

But when he turned and saw me where I’d stepped out to snap his picture, his face was flushed with wet glee. “Look!” he shout-chortled joyously: “Your back has snow on it!”

And then he drank impossibly deeply from what appeared to me to be a woefully meager cupfull, and was satisfied beyond words.

I ducked back into the house to ponder these things, and to treasure them in my overflowing heart. He returned a bit later, soaked, glowing, and unusually quietly contented of spirit.

When I want a heap of snow, and I get a spattering of sleet instead, can I too drink and be satisfied—even unto quiet contentedness of spirit, even unto overflowing joy?

This is grace: our daily cup. We spin madly about, waving our tumbler heavenward, trying to capture only what we want from the mix, demanding the refills we think we need—but our Lord knows that too much can be deadlier than too little. We pray, “Lord, take this cup from me”—but our Lord knows that heavy luggage can be His revolutionary prescription for weary souls. For each of us, He lovingly mixes the bitter and the sweet, titrating with a precision we could never even approximate.

Lord, teach me to pray: Take not this cup from me—only teach me to drink from it deeply, to find even in its dregs an impossible satisfaction, a contentment surpassing words, a joy glowing strong.

An idea

2011-11-01T09:12:00.000-05:00

We're plowing into the holiday season, and you know what that means! A significant uptick in nominally-planned conversations about your lack of procreative sense!

Word to the wise: when the topic comes up, say, "You are sweet to be concerned. Why don't you discuss your concerns with my husband?" Chances are very, very good the crickets will start chirping your favorite tune then and there. ;)

Where did they come from? Where did they go?

2011-10-31T08:36:00.001-05:00

Back in my tender youth, the Lutheran school I attended had a songbook we used in chapel. It was a bunch of typewritten pages bound with a brown back and a clear cover. There was a big treble clef on the front. Some of the songs were:

Jesus Is the Light

I Cannot Come To the Banquet

Give Me Oil In My Lamp

I've Been Redeemed

It's a Happy Day

What Do You Do With a Man Named Jonah (sung to "What Do You Do With a Drunken Sailor")

They'll Know We Are Christians By Our Love

Kum Bah Yah

He's a Peach Of a Savior

I Am a C

My God Is So Big

Allelu, Allelu, Allelu, Alleluia

I am curious as to the provenance of these songs. None of them were sung at the AWANA program I attended with a friend at a Bible church* during the same time period. Some of them were sung at the Lutheran summer camp** I attended a few times. The brown/treble clef book did not survive the parish's transition to contemporary worship. Turns out praise songs are great for kids to sing, and then the kids know the songs for church! Wow! However, there was a memorable transition which set "Go To Dark Gethsemane" to a funky rock beat on the Clavinova.

Have these songs been utterly consumed by the contemporary worship machine? How did they get into Lutheran use in the first place? Am I the only person who remembers them?

*The Bible churchers sang, in addition to the Awana songs, "Peace Like a River" and "I Like Bananas" and . . . hey, that's all I can remember! I'm shocked.

**The dorky Lutheran summer camp musical canon is another curious topic, but I'm not as familiar with it beyond knowing that a bit over ten years ago it was prospering in Seward's DCE program and at a certain Lutheran Gymnasium in Slovakia.

Great news for Anonymous and the creep in Gauntlets' grocery line

2011-10-28T19:33:00.002-05:00

Apparently all the ethical women of the world have taken care of the population sitch, and now you jerks who buy clothes at Target are the problem.

To the person who donated these pjs to the CSL Resellit Shop nigh on ten years ago

2011-10-24T19:16:00.002-05:00

I just wanted to let you know that six babies have worn them. Thanks. :)

Is there a happier sound in the world

2011-10-22T10:08:00.002-05:00

than the kids all giggling at some silliness they have conspired together?

Open letter

2011-10-20T07:46:00.000-05:00

Accomplishing nothing, CSPP style

Dear Everyone Else,

You have your reasons, a million different things ranging from passionate intensity to a lack of all conviction. You look to like, if looking liking move; and when it doesn’t, well then the First Amendment paves your tongue’s way and if you have a right to your mind then surely I have a right to it, too.

But listen here: There is something wrong with a man who would follow a woman into check-out lane number nine just to tell her—loudly, persistently, and in front of the sentient recipients of his scorn—that children are scum. (I’m looking at you, squashy dude with that archipelago of warts floating on your wind-whipped face. Why? You looked into those aeviternal baby eyes, and failed to see that it is Life who animates them? That sneer was like nothing I’ve ever seen before. If the sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds, then what is to become of you?)

Don’t be that guy, dear Everyone Else. I get that you're you, but don’t be that guy. Wrinkle your brow or curl your lip. Mutter to your companion words like “disgusting” and “irresponsible,” just loudly enough for me to hear. Glower at my back. Be rude, if you like. Charge me more. Whatever. The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and we’re used to it by now.

But try. Affect the likeness of Man. Don’t ever speak your invectives to my children’s faces, ever again.

All the best.

Internet doula

2011-10-17T19:15:00.003-05:00

Big thanks to Pastor Weedon for saving me some one-handed typing. :D She's here, she's great, and we didn't have to use the carbirth preparedness kit. How can we thank thee, Lord?

Have you had

2011-10-15T20:58:00.000-05:00

that baby yet?

Better safe than sorry.

2011-10-12T07:26:00.000-05:00

If Scrooge had been in prodromal labor instead of haunted

2011-10-10T04:50:00.003-05:00

"You may be an undigested bit of pickle, a blot of yogurt, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone macaroni. There's more of Baby Ruth than of baby about you, whatever you are!"

Or is it?

Word to the unwise

2011-10-08T14:08:00.001-05:00

Dear kid,

If you're going to write on something on which you should totally not be writing (such as a book or the couch or someone's pants), write something other than your own name.

Love, Mom

I'm waiting to be impressed

2011-10-05T06:17:00.002-05:00

When is TV going to make cleaning up the kitchen as hip as it made cooking?

I really don't care how great this tastes. Where are my sink and counters?

Childbirth Orthodoxy Translation

2011-10-04T09:20:00.000-05:00

And it came to pass, as [Rachel's] soul was in departing (for she had special circumstances) that she called his name Benhazak: but his father called him Benjamin. Genesis 35:18

The need to trust their bodies took hold upon them there, and powerful sensations, as of a woman breathing down her baby. Psalm 48:6

Therefore are my loins filled with pressure: surges have taken hold upon me, as the surges of a woman that birtheth Isaiah 21:3

I have long time holden my peace; I have been still, and refrained myself: now will I vocalize like a woman experiencing uterine waves Isaiah 42:14

For we know that the whole creation chanteth and worketh hard toward the natural expulsive reflex together until now. Romans 8:22

And she being with child produced harmonics, deeply relaxing in birth, and visualizing to be delivered. Revelation 12:2

Quit scaring women, you medicalizing medicalizer!

Crazy, conjugated

2011-10-02T20:52:00.002-05:00

I’m Crazy.
You[sing.]’re Crazy.
He, she, or it (especially she) is Crazy.
We’re Crazy.
You[pl.]’re Crazy.
They’re Crazy.

Gauntlets helpfully brought this up again recently, but I think we can scarcely revisit the topic too often—if for no other reason, than because the creeping creatures of darkness skitter and scatter when we spotlight them.

There are so many things we could say about Crazy. Here’s one important corollary (or perhaps antecedent) to the universal conjugation of Crazy: The Grass Is Not Greener. Still. Really. I’ve had a few recent peeks into “normal” (i.e., two-income, Done after limited number of babies, outwardly sane-looking households) and I say again with confidence, The Grass Is Not Greener.
Why is this so hard to get? While I’m thinking wistfully about how clean her house must be, without barbaric mud-footed hordes tromping through all day on their various (but invariably messy) projects, she’s thinking wistfully about how clean my house must be, since I’m there all day to clean it (*cough*). Meanwhile, no one’s house is clean! For real! Unless they’re expecting company! And maybe not even then!

Or: I’m peeling potatoes or kneading dough and thinking that a break from the kitchen might be nice; she’s buying DiGiorno and wishing she had time to cook from scratch. I’m thinking how I might like my kids more if I saw them a bit less; she’s wishing that between her schedule and theirs, she got to see hers a bit more.

This is true: We all make meaningful choices. This too is true: We are none of us as free as we like to think—nor is the woman on the other side of the fence as free as we like to think she is (“freedom” to leave the house and commute to work does not of itself true freedom comprise, despite what we housebound fence-hangers may feel in our darker moments).

Comparison isn’t simply the death of contentment—it’s also a very slick step on the Crazy overlook. We spiral downward to Crazy when we play the comparison game, foolishly pretending that we’re making a valid assessment. Apples to apples, people—and as it turns out, life’s fruitbasket is so diverse that bucket balances and bar graphs are useless here.

Routes to Crazy abound (as even a brief review of posts on this blog will attest). So, I remind my foolish self, if you must go to Crazy from time to time, at least take an honest route, and get back as soon as you can. Don’t let bad math trick you into a needless dark detour—and if you catch yourself going down that road, pull a quick U-turn and burn some serious rubber out of there.

Make tracks, before you're needlessly mired in the Slough of Despond.

Ego boost

2011-09-29T07:53:00.000-05:00

The upside to having a kitchen full of fruit flies: The tiny creatures put on a show of being intimidated when I irritatedly storm into their midst. My children do me no such favors; they think I'm hilarious when I'm angry.

Ha, ha! Mom's gonna blow her top again!

For three headlines I am disquieted, and for four which I cannot bear:

2011-09-28T06:58:00.000-05:00

1. Rich person pursues random feat ad absurdum

2. Female celebrity appears in meretricious dress

3. Thing happens on TV show

4. Israel can't get along with neighbors

The benefit of preaching to the choir

2011-09-27T09:58:00.000-05:00

is a well-catechized choir.

You awful hospitals it's all your fault!!

2011-09-25T22:05:00.004-05:00

Look, CNN, just don't publish stories that annoy pregnant ladies. They might spend way too much time when they should be sleeping writing long and pointless rants they'll wonder why they bothered posting as soon as they hit post.

But hey, what else is going on here today? So: this story contains claims I have a lot of trouble believing. The headline itself is indicative of its outlook on responsibility: "Hospitals need to do more to encourage breastfeeding," handmaidens that they are of leviathan state (where breastfeeding is in esoteric vogue right now) rather than private businesses free to offer whatever services they choose. Sheesh.

As for the claims: "nearly 80% of hospitals were giving babies formula, water or sugar-water." I've had newborns in four different hospitals. As soon as I tell the nurses I'm breastfeeding, they slap a sticker on the baby's bucket that says I'M BREASTFED. What it means is, DON'T GIVE THIS BABY ANYTHING IN A BOTTLE. And they don't, because if they did I could (and would) go medieval on their hineys for violating my instructions.

I suspect that the real trouble is not hospitals sneaking formula into babies (in fact I have never seen a hospital do anything; they are quite inanimate), but mothers not saying, "I'm breastfeeding." What mothers say is, "We're going to try breastfeeding. Where's the pump?" They are uncertain that they'll be able to breastfeed, whether they really want to, and with regards to all the stupid things some anti-breastfeeding great aunt told them. Moreover, virtually no one breastfeeds using only their breasts any more. So suddenly, it's not an I'M BREASTFED baby. It's a DO WHATEVER YOU CAN TO GET SOME NUTRITIONAL SUBSTANCE INTO ME, IDEALLY BREASTMILK BUT REALLY WHATEVER WE CAN GET TO WORK OUT OK baby. And the dear nurses, bless their baby-loving, new mom-pitying hearts, do.

Another one: "Only one-third of hospitals allow mother and child to stay in the same room." I'm curious about the "allow" here. I don't doubt that at many hospitals, rooming in is not actively offered or encouraged. I have a hard time imagining it prohibited. At least one of our babies was born in nursery-normed hospital. When a nurse came in to wheel my baby off I just said, "Oh, she'll stay with us." And the nurse said, "Oh! Well . . . OK. Call us if you need a break." The hospital administration did not barrel into the room demanding that we give the nursery our baby. No one cared. Again, I wonder if this isn't a matter of mothers simply not knowing their options. Otherwise, I guess I'm just really lucky that out of four hospitals none of them "disallowed" rooming in when statistically 2.667 them should have.

Also regarding the "allow," if there's one thing I've learned from delivering in hospitals it's that, at least on the relatively minor questions I've had come up, hospital policy bows to fear of lawsuit. We've had nurses opt out of assisting in our room because of my weirdo demands like "Don't stick that pointy thing full of creepy juice in me." "That's hospital policy," they say. "Don't stick it in me," I say. "I'll have to go ask Dr. Important," they say importantly. A different nurse comes back, nothing gets stuck in me, and we all go on our way.

Let's see, what else? Oh yeah--want skin to skin contact with your baby immediately following birth? Say, "Hand over my baby." You can even be polite about it if you want because it turns out that being the person who gets to hand a brand newling over to its mom for the first time is a really awesome job that humans, including evil hospital doctors and nurses, like doing. (My only baby who didn't get immediate contact and nursing was the one who wasn't born in a hospital--freakin ha ha.) What if I need breastfeeding help after leaving the hospital? Well, there's a case to be made for the fact that I've, um, left the hospital. I don't expect Pizza Hut to keep supplying me with pizza after I've driven home. Etc.

Much of this "oh those horrible hospitals" report also strikes me as a bit optimistic with regard to mothers. The stories I hear from real live moms who called off breastfeeding usually go something like, "I was just so tired!" (this is before their 24-72 hour hospital discharge, not after three horrific weeks of trying to nurse at home) or "The baby liked the bottle better" (of course he did; he didn't have to work for it).

They honestly don't get it, and how could they? Few baby-free people in our comfortable society have any notion of how much a newborn needs. Asking one significantly injured person to deal with all those hitherto unknown needs is objectively sobering, and contextually insane. One hospital where I delivered DID actively encourage rooming in, and offered extensive breastfeeding services. The nursery was full, and the babies chowed down Enfamil without scarceness. When I availed myself of its breastfeeding assistance in the dark weeks that followed, it didn't help in the least, because breastfeeding problems are one of the main things that cannot be helped, but only endured.

I've got no shortage of objections to hospitals. The extremes of my delivery-related complaints and praises, though, are never for hospitals, but for a horrible doctor or a saintly nurse. Of far more relevance than the hospital are the individuals who happen to be on duty during one's stay. A hospital is not evil. It is too big and stupid to be evil. Its only motive is to attract my business again. The real potential for good or ill lies with the nurse in my room and the doctor or midwife I've hired. Bad ones ruin everything. Good ones make everything as good as possible.

I'd contend that whether or not a woman ends up breastfeeding is in most cases consistent with her previously held ideas about breastfeeding, and that in those cases where her intent is thwarted, it has a lot to do with a circumstance no hospital could have changed.

Learn from the dugongs

2011-09-22T08:25:00.002-05:00

I've got no interest in water birth, but what about a water pregnancy?

Light as a feather

The words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart

2011-09-20T07:27:00.004-05:00

Pregnant lady says, "Hey, dude. You ready for breakfast?"