...loves even me.

I’d like to say that I carefully read all the mail we get from missions and institutions and organizations that we support (or that would like us to support them), and that no such missives are ever tossed unopened, but in truth they’re subject to triage like any other aspect of my life at this point.

Recently, I was hovering over the trash can during a desperate counter-clearing effort, doing a pre-pitch skimming of the newsletter from one such mission, when this story changed my trajectory:   

[These two toddlers/preschoolers] are children of a single mother and unknown father. She is a drug addict who works cleaning windshields on the highway. They had lived, or survived, under a bridge fed only on street food, soda, and cookies. Their clothing was ill-fitted, dirty rags. They were victims of indifference.

[When the country’s social services brought the children to the mission], they hadn’t eaten all day. [The boy] was wearing only a t-shirt and a diaper that hadn’t been changed all day. But the smiles on both of their faces, their affection, and their innocence was unforgettable. After eating, bathing, and being dressed in our best, the looks on their faces were indescribable. Yet, they both cried a lot in the days that followed because they missed their mother. Since then, they have adapted well and stolen our hearts.

It wasn’t merely the brokenness of a world in which such stories are all too common, nor the accompanying photos of the children that brought the tragedy to a personal point, that stopped me cold. It was that last bit--did it catch you too? The part that stopped me in my tracks, that accused and humbled and consoled me all at once? Those babies were rescued from filth, neglect, and abuse—Yet, they both cried a lot in the days that followed because they missed their mother.

I feed my kids veggies and whole wheat (at least some of the time). I bathe and clothe them. I’m married to their father and I might even look to some (distant and casual) observers as though I’ve got my life somewhat together. But the really true truth here is that I’m no less in need of forgiveness than the mother who left those kids under the bridge. Nor is this desperately-needed forgiveness available to me in any other special place than it is for her, homemade yogurt and hygiene notwithstanding.

And—astoundingly, humblingly—when my desperate sinfulness spills over, as it too often does, onto them, my kids are just as grudgelessly ready with their love and their seemingly effortless forgiveness, as were those precious little ones whose mother failed more publicly than I.   

Rebekah wrote this one a long time ago, and I still think about it. I think about it because at the end of every day I can count so many times that I’ve screwed up this motherhood thing, again, and yet I can’t count a single time that a child of mine has gone to bed with anger in his heart against me. All this love and trust in their hearts, their eyes, their arms, always at the ready, all undeserved—an overflowing of grace, pure grace, the grace their Heavenly Father so richly and recklessly bestows—thanks be to our prodigal God!

Sick comfort

I hate the sins I hate, but thank God I at least hate some of them.  

Awkward

Explaining to someone, "I don't like your friend because she's so uncharitable." :P

Uncool

People cite many reasons for not choosing the big family life. The reason few people are honest enough to cite is what I guess we must call "style" or "popularity" or "anti-loserishness".

Because, let's face it, big family people are dorks. They look like they just came from the last hour of a garage sale on Doublewide Drive, or the super weird ones even dress up like they're Amish or something. They can't shut up about homeschooling and &$*% breastfeeding and #$^&@%#$#$@ homebirth. The wives always end up looking like heaps of hairy blubber and the husbands are just creepy hagbait with giant guts (must be all those kids, ha ha ha ha ha). They have to drive those Baptist church vans to fit all their spawn in, how is that Lutheran, ha ha ha ha ha? It's fine that some people have a lot of kids, but . . . dorks!

It would sound pretty shallow to engineer one's family on the basis of coolness, though, and the myriad other reasons couched in terms of responsibility and stewardship sound downright mature. But the truth is that skinny jeans and makeup and generally not being a loser are a surprisingly big deal to a lot of people who ostensibly left high school a long time ago.

Little children, grow up. We know very well that all that cruel snobbery we can just say was a joke if we get cornered is a spiteful caricature we have based on a few people we didn't like. Coolness is the extremely silly wealth of a too-wealthy people, and our Lord has nothing but warnings for the rich man.

Of course we'd all totally die for Jesus no prob, but of most of us he does not make so straightforward a request. Most of us he asks merely to be despised and rejected even as he was. Which is to say, among other things, uncool; renouncing in large part the clothing, entertainment, demeanor, speech, and camaraderie of the World around us. Would I give up my edgy hipness for a meek and quiet spirit? Would I stop making a point of denouncing badly dressed weirdness to make sure everybody knows I'm not one of those losers even if we do all go to the same church? Would I risk appearing to be allied with (or at least refuse to speak ill of) that annoying hippie and her annoying hippie friends* who happen to be my sisters in Christ? Would I give up the ax I've been grinding so long on the backs of badly dressed weirdos to do right by the husband, the baby, the children, the church, the neighbors God has given or would give me?

I don't like being a weirdo. I have, idiotically, been jealous of the cool people since the time I was old enough to perceive their exclusivity. Although I'm getting pretty old and crusty, there are times when I hate knowing that I, with my six kids and my pragmatically determined appearance and my six-kid-centric lifestyle and my boring hangup on the same, am the loser the cool people are still sneering at. Little child, grow up.

*And this one is really dangerous, as I have been terribly embarrassed to find the hippies much kinder, humbler, and more accepting of others than I am. Organic jerks, making me feel all bad and stuff . . . .

Who shall stand?

I wonder how many of us are from the kind of families we imagine our children's future spouses must come from. Although I'm inclined to think I came from a pretty decent family, I'm sure some purists would consider it unacceptable. After all, anyone who grew up wrong regarding certain matters can't really be trusted, no matter what they say they think now. You can take the girl out of Sulva, but . . . ?

Furthermore, anyone who grew up right won't make Certain Mistakes, and Certain Mistakes are unforgiveable. Not for God of course (it's his job to forgive people), but for future parents of our grandchildren, who must be exactly as undamaged as we've imagined them.

Lamech, you're so lame.

Oh, those awful patriarchs and kings. How could they have been so wrong? And their wives, their FIRST wives, their REAL wives--how could they stand it? Why did they stand it?

"Lamech took to himself two wives: the name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other, Zillah" (Gen 4:19). This is the first we hear of polygamy in the Bible. If one wife is good, two must be better; and Lamech's reasoning is found amenable for generations thereafter.

Interesting that God does not provide any editorial remark. Doesn't He think polygamy is bad? Well, yes. It's terrible. So terrible no one needs to say it's bad because every sane person knows. God also makes no comment on Lamech's bragging on his own malice and bloodlust a few verses down. We don't need to have it spelled out for us that Lamech's sins are sins.

But anyway, imagine Lamech's kids and neighbors. Meh, two wives. That's just how we do it in our tent, just how they do it next door. Not normal for everybody, but normal for Lamech. And what's normal for your dad or your neighbor, well, it's not that weird, right? Something you see every day isn't weird. Normal for Lamech and Adah and Zillah becomes normal for their sons, normal for their daughters, normal for their neighbors, just normal.

So Jacob: another week, another wife. David, a man after God's own heart, never gives us an indication that this polygamy business keeps him up at night for any good reason (neither does the practice solve his lust problem). Even tender Elkanah cannot imagine himself to be worth less to Hannah than ten sons, oblivious to having given her only half of himself. And if our main concern is that polygamy is bad for women, I wonder if 1000 lonely Ancient Near East guys might have some insights to offer wise Solomon.

What happens to polygamy? Exile, probably, and the poverty it brings. Roman occupation and law (thanks for that at least, nations). Once polygamy becomes abnormal again, its wrongness becomes self-evident to Christians. (Though our honored fathers can still trip us up.)

Polygamy: the sexual sin the people of God--good, pious, exemplary people of God--could not live without. Fornication, divorce and prostitution/pornography being roughly historically equal, can we possibly be so arrogant as to imagine that we have transcended this capacity for tremendous transgression, for unthinkable unchastity?

But don't worry, Protestants. As long as you're not a bishop (and what Protestant would be?) the Bible doesn't say you can't have two wives. As my favorite pastor told me, "At least polygamy is life-affirming."

Further reading.

Hard to swallow

"It was as if, every month of that former life, I had walked into an abortion clinic and said, 'I’m probably not pregnant, but if I did conceive, take care of it,'" Mrs. Kevin Golden writes in the current issue of the Missouri Lutherans For Life newsletter.

I am not a scientist. When I read something about how a particular drug works, I can't assess the scientific accuracy of that statement. But any lay person can consider the implications of scientific statement and make a personal decision about potential risks.

7.5 years ago I had my life overhauled by Randy Alcorn's booklet "Does the Birth Control Pill Cause Abortions?". Not everyone agrees with the case Alcorn makes. But there is evidence that the birth control pill can cause abortions. I speak not as a scientist but as a Christian when I say that the pill is not a risk married (or fornicating) Christians can be willing to take. This is not a statement about contraception, but about hormonal contraceptives (pills, rings, patches, IUDs, etc.). Don't want to get pregnant and don't buy the anti-contraception business? That's an argument for another day. This post's argument is that non-abstinent Christians cannot take the pill. A scientific ambiguity with implications for morality (and morality here means human mortality) requires Christians to err on the side of caution. There are other ways to engage in intercourse and avoid its results.

Thank you, Missouri Lutherans For Life, for publishing Mrs. Golden's candid article, and Joy, thank shrew. I mean you.

A story

Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time I went to those pastor wife thingies, conferences or retreats or whatever they're called. I went to them at fancy conference centers in big important districts, and I went to them at churches and camps in a small backwards district. I went to the meetings at the pastor thingies that they held for wives in adjoining rooms. I went either because I wanted to be where my husband was, or because other people told me it was a good idea to spend time with other pastor wifes.

Putting aside the fact that the prevailing pieties at these things in any district were not varieties I could easily stomach, the events were unhelpful to me. Why? Because I don't mind being married to a pastor. While there are the occasional annoyances, and they occasionally become acute, it's just not difficult for me overall. As I've mentioned before, I actually like how it entangles our family in the life of the church. I don't need a retreat from pastoral wifery any more than I need a retreat from changing my socks.

So when the other wives start sharing their troubles, which is common and often becomes quite emotional, I can't relate. Then it's a short trip for my not relating to become despising them for their complaining and oversensitivity and selfishness and for crying out loud CRYING. (I should mention also that I've never borne the cross of being in a very messed up parish.) Why don't they just shut up and deal?

Easy for me to say. The things that torment them usually don't even bother me much. But it does me no good to hang around there, since it just tempts me to be impressed with myself for being such a great pastor's wife. Me, the strong! Me, the perspicacious! Me, the virtuous! Me, the wife all those poor slobs married to whiny crybaby basket cases wish they had! Too bad there's only one of glorious Me to go around. I also walk really well and can operate a mailbox!!

It's not exactly bearing their burdens for me to hold others' burdens illegitimate either because I don't find those burdens all that burdensome or because I bear my burdens differently. The last thing these sad people need is for me to hit them when they're already down with such helpful insights as, "What's your problem? That's how it goes so you might as well just handle it. Grow up and shut up."

The moral of the story: Hare Today, Goon Tomorrow. Wait, that's something else. The moral of the story is that I don't go to pastor wife thingies any more. The End.

Strange encounters of the well-meaning kind

My life is a waste land of unrealized expectations and unfulfilled potential.

“My nerves are bad tonight. Yes, bad. Stay with me.

“Speak to me. Why do you never speak. Speak.
“What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?
“I never know what you are thinking. Think.”

Ha ha! Only kidding, of course. I never really had that much potential. :P Must I admit that a few years ago there was a time, or at least there were days, when I could have uttered that sentiment in all seriousness—at least as much seriousness as melodramatic flair can convey?

But really, folks. When I chance upon acquaintances of yesteryear who learn that I’m “at home,” I’m amazed at how hard they work to ascribe to my life some scrap of significance that is quantifiable or comprehensible to them. They’d really like some evidence, for their own sakes as much as for mine, that my (dubious) potential and (ridiculously prolonged) education isn’t being squandered on story hour and finger painting.

The script for these encounters goes something like this:

Well-meaning Person or Persons (WMP): So I understand that you’re living pretty far from “civilization,” ha ha.

Me: Yes, ha ha, I suppose you could say that. Lots of great things about small town life, though!

WMP: So isn’t it wonderful how the internet is opening all sorts of possibilities for mothers to work from home?

Me: Mmm-hmm, yes, it certainly is.

WMP: So what are you working on?

Me: Me? Oh, I’m not working on anything really. Unless you count chasing these kids, ha ha.

[more laughter ensues; generally good-natured on my part, and uneasy on theirs]

I really shouldn’t be so surprised by these efforts to find some sort of “meaningful activity” in my life. Like a high school senior who suddenly realizes the need to repackage herself because colleges won’t be impressed with her extracurricular resume, I used to be prone to a sort of self-conscious glossing over exactly what I was doing with my life here at home. You know how it is: on the all-important transcript, hanging out with friends makes one a “social organizer;” dog sitting for the neighbor becomes “runs pet-care business,” etc.

But it's glamorous!
Can't you see how @@@@@ glamorous it is already!?

Sometimes I still entertain myself by mentally listing the socially acceptable titles people are awarded when they’re paid to do for strangers’ kids what I do gratis for my own (you know the list as well as I do: pediatric researcher, early childhood educator, behavioral development specialist, etc.). Nowadays, though, this little exercise is more to have something mildly amusing to do with my brain while I read Skippyjon Jones and the Dinosaur Bones aloud for the fifth time than it is to assure myself or random passersby that this kid thing is but a temporary aberration in an otherwise brilliant career (and again I say: Ha! Ha ha!).

These blasts from the past, encounters that I used to find rather excruciating, can still be rather embarrassing—but I’m now usually embarrassed not for myself, but for those well-meaning persons who want so badly for me (and for them) to feel like I’m doing something “significant.” Those poor souls must be getting cricks in their necks from straining so hard to overlook the significance clamoring about my knees. Can’t anyone really remember what a workhorse is for, after all?

Undeniably exotic, she’s a real looker but is hotblooded and trends skittish. If you’re looking for a model you can trust with your children, check out her more temperate cousin:


Powerful and intelligent, spirited yet gentle. And check out those lines: she’s a classic beauty, amazingly versatile, turning her hoof successfully to most any task that’s asked of her.

Coooonnnnnnnvvvvvveeeeeerrrrrrrssssssion

We were not overnight converts to CSPP. We were overnight converts off the pill. Our plan was to go to NFP but we got pregnant in the meantime. Our late-arriving CCL book persuaded us while we awaited the birth of Baby 1 that other forms of contraception were out. (It persuaded me, anyway. Now that I think about it, I don't know how Dad got where he is or much else about his feelings or meta-thoughts on the topic, just that we landed at roughly the same place at the same time).

Our plan after Baby 1 came was still NFP. But the dirty little secret of NFP is that figuring out return of fertility when you're nursing a baby falls somewhere between tricky and impossible. So we got pregnant again when our first baby was 9 months old.

Back to asymptomatic NFP (which is to say: no NFP. Come on, people). Baby 2 was 13 months and I got pregnant again. (In case you're wondering why we were at least thinking we were NFPing--our reasoning then was that we were in a two-bedroom apartment in a sky-high housing market. We'd have gotten evicted by law for more than two kids, and since that was the cheapest apartment we'd been able to find for our tight budget, we didn't think we had a choice. I've got enough current sins to contend with that I haven't taken the time to precisely weigh out past conundrums. And for those of you wondering why on earth I feel some need to explain myself here . . . I'm not really sure, either.)

I distinctly remember the day I told Dad that we should just take them as they came (not that we had been able to manipulate their arrivals before). I was six or seven months pregnant with #3. God had graciously delivered us out of the deluxe hamster cage and its incipient occupancy dilemma by calling Dad to a parish with a nice big parsonage. Now the only reason I had left for NFPing was "mental health." This exception has always made me nervous since it's also the one that lets anyone get an abortion. Moreover, I didn't have true "mental health" problems. It was just that running a baby farm was pretty far from the top of my career list. Being sad and angry about it didn't excuse me from it. [Disclaimer: I know mental health is a real thing, but it's also easy to abuse.]

Anyway, the point is, the CSPP conversion process has a lot of time (9 months + 6 or more months, usually) and uncertainty built into it, such that many people may find themselves practicing before they're true believers. It took me a while to get this crazy, and I had already been effectively acting crazy for a while before I really believed whatever it is I believe. It's taught me that there's no need to terrify others on the path with excessive righteous fervor on the topic (my mere existence is terrifying enough for some, although the people I really get a kick out of are the ones who get angry). The path often changes people naturally and, in a kind of twisted way, gently.

And then again, 15 months isn't that much time. I've felt pretty stable about all this for a couple of years now. But I don't know that I would if we had kept up at our initial turnover rate. Right now I'm living the longest non-pregnant stretch I've had since the night of the Pill-toss, and I feel downright CALM. It's weird.

I also used to think that our kids were really close in age. I've learned from our readers and commenters that there are women out there who are back in the game post-baby much earlier than I am. Girls, you're tough.

I love my life, for real

Dear Worthy Folk of Christendom,

It has come to my attention that some people are worried about me. Apparently I need to get some time away and whatnot, quit throwing away my life by having all these kids and setting all of us up for a life of hating each other.

First, I appreciate these concerns. They are thoughtful and motivated by love.*

Second, I don't expect anyone who does not hold the convictions held by CSPP types to understand us or those convictions. This is a very niche-y blog. While anyone is welcome to read here, we write for ourselves and others who hold the catholic belief that marital chastity calls for non-inhibition of the procreative process, and especially for those who didn't plan for their lives to go that way, and it's all informed by Lutheran theology. That doesn't account for many people. All other readers are likely to misunderstand us to some extent, so let me just say

third, I LOVE MY LIFE. I'll skip the boring stuff about the superlative husband, kids, churches, house, town, and get straight to the point: I derive immense satisfaction--to the point of pride, which is why I keep it on the downlow--from the knowledge that I, at the cost of great personal pain of numerous kinds, have brought four children into the world, and may repeat the trick. Don't even get me started on what an in-freaking-credible accomplishment breastfeeding has been for me. The regular compliments we get on our children's behavior and abilities suggest that we might actually be doing a pretty decent job of being their parents. Generativity vs. stagnation? Integrity vs. despair? Not worried. My work is cut out for me, and it is good and blessed work. I am doing the right thing with my life. I pray that with God's help I will do the right thing rightly. And let me also say something about marital integrity: we didn't know what we were missing.

So why the long face here in blogville sometimes? Because in this world we will have trouble. My particular frustrations and personality are such that it comforts me to write about them and share here some of what I write with the tiny group of people who can relate to them. I'm sorry if this occasionally gives the wrong impression. But, to my great surprise, I absolutely would not give this up for anything. This is real and lasting, unlike any other work I could be doing. Approved workmen are not ashamed (I never knew what that meant until now--sorry, Awana), and golly does that feel good, though the tasks are difficult and I daily prove myself unworthy.

I also don't miss fretting over how my talents are being wasted by a church body that just won't acknowledge how brilliant I am and how much it needs me. Good luck, First Girls Ever To Learn Greek. I hope you all get to be seminary professors and district presidents.

This blog is not the whole story of my life. At all. I don't get into that, because I arrogantly suspect it would just foment envy (a sin).

So rest easy, ye ministry-minded worriers for my various healths. I am the laziest, most selfish piece of worthless schwat there is. I take plenty of time for me. The day will not come that this glob of gluttonous sloth works her delicate fingers to the bone or her frail psyche to madness. I am way too greedy for that. For example, I sent my kids to play outside so I could amuse myself by writing this while the little guy takes a nap. Who could resent such great babies? Hey, quit fighting out there! Or I'll yell at you to quit fighting again!

Loving life like you wouldn't believe, and only regretting the time I wasted in getting here, and feeling genuinely sorry for everybody who doesn't get it, and totally laughing as I reread this,

Rebekah xxoo! :)

*Thoughtful and motivated by love as these concerns are, I'm a bit surprised that they weren't brought to me directly. In the future, the truly concerned should feel free to remember me in prayer in addition to calling me for a friendly chat, or perhaps sending a gift to console me in my distress.

Grunt

God calls the humility bluff of every woman who becomes a mother. We humble ourselves in the sight of the Lord, because we have very little choice in the matter. Anyone claiming to be Christian must say that he would, of course, happily do whatever work to which God appoints him. But women have particular opportunity to put the money of their lives where their Christian mouths are. A mother's home is a landfill and a sewage treatment plant, and she is not the foreman. She is the grunt in a position with no upward mobility. She does, even on Mother's Day, those jobs we give as examples of the jobs no one wants to do.

Then--then! When she knows what she is getting into--not like that first time around when being pregnant and having a smiley baby to carry around seemed like methods of enhancing personal cuteness--she does not veer onto the first exit ramp, but says, "I guess I'll stick with this." She starts to get it. She's not that awesome. She's not too good or too smart or
too delicate for any job in the kingdom. Better to spray out noxious diapers in the King's service than to idle away her days trying on flirty shoes in the harem of His enemy, because someday that perv is going to remember her and call her name.

Even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from the master's table. Yip yip yip.

Never could walk in these anyway.

Probing the Sulvan brain

You are hereby warned that the CSPP hardline comes up in this post. If you're not going to like it, you have no one but yourself to blame if you read it.

Pam expressed interest a while back in how the other half (that is, 99%) lives. I don't love talking about it. Guilt is forgiven and shame is covered, but regret never goes away this side of the eschaton. So I offer this not primarily to satisfy Pam's sick curiosity ;), but because it may be of use to someone who is like I have been at various points along the line. Conversion is slow going, and not that cool.

I planned my family when I was in third grade. I wanted three kids. That's just how I thought. My parents talked about wanting 3-5 kids and having it work out just right (they got two, then twins, then took measures). I grew up in a very pious house, an LCMS pastor's family, where you decided. I had no idea there was any other way. My mom talked about having been on the pill before I was born. Picking your family=normal. Like putting on socks before shoes.

I think when we got married we wanted two kids, or that's what we said or I thought about or something. We also planned to name them Wurlitzer and Square Root (strangely prophetic), but that's neither here nor there. We talked about contraception, kind of as an intellectual exercise, but ultimately concluded that if NFP were ok (the pope being the only measure we had for the topic) you couldn't really make a case for disallowing other methods. I was on the pill because that's what you do when you get married.

Didn't I ever squirm? you pious souls ask. Didn't I know deep down that this was wrong? No. No wondering, not once, not the least little bit. Some laws are more natural than others, and environment makes all kinds of difference.

Despite my disinclination to get the baby party started since it would interfere with my plan to go to school forever, it troubled me that if something terrible happened and one of us were left alone, we would have nothing to show for our marriage (here's as close as I came to being naturally lawful). We decided we'd be done with pills the same summer we'd leave for vicarage, rather than our last year of seminary as originally planned, and figured we'd make it work somehow.

A few months before that summer, though, we got wind of the potential abortifacient mechanism in ALL versions of the pill (I had previously been told only some were abortifacient and did my homework for the kind I was on). Bluff called and feeling robotic, I went home and pitched my pills. A couple of weeks later I totally kicked butt on a pregnancy test.

Now, quitting the pill is not the same as professing CSPP. I have another post for that chapter of my really awesome autobiography that so many people are interested in. My goal here is explain how I thought, and how I thought was: Huh? For what it's worth, I just didn't know. What it's worth, of course, is nothing in an absolute sense. But two doctors and a pharmacist had told me the pill I was on was not abortifacient, and all I knew about family planning was that for some reason Catholics weren't supposed to do it. I didn't like that Catholics weren't supposed to do it, because after all, why does God give women brains? So I wasn't exactly the noble savage, either.

But with no hard feelings toward you nice people who never dreamed of anything other than spending 20 years of your life cranking out kids: you're weird. Most people, most Christians, most Lutherans don't know why you got pregnant right away and keep turning up that way any more than they know why your pastor preaches on texts (not the lectionary, mind you--texts) and wears vestments (not maniples, mind you--vestments). They don't actually disagree with you in their natural state, because they don't even get how you think. They just think you want a lot of kids, because to them wanting is the only language of reproduction. If they suspect some sort of conviction on your part, well, that's easy enough to blow off, since holding weird convictions means you're weird and thus can be blown off by definition.

Coming over to the weird side is a big fat deal if you grew up normal, thinking normally, envisioning a normal life. Missionaries deal kindly, patiently, and charitably with polygamous tribal chiefs, and there's a lesson in that for all of us.

The economy of forgiveness

Forgiveness between humans is unequal to any other human act. It is not forgetting, because forgetting is accidental. It is not to say something doesn't matter, because if it didn't matter, nothing would need to be said. It cannot be ignoring, because sins have side effects which remain and sometimes cannot be ignored themselves. Forgiveness is only forgiveness.

Forgiveness requires us to love a person more than the heinous pleasure we derive from holding that person's sin against him. If we do not love that person more, we must yet forgive, for God demands it of the forgiven. So to forgive is to learn to love, and to love is--among us, for now--to forgive.

The world is poison

I recently succumbed to transgression prompted by a conversation about some poor woman I know who has a baby the same age as mine (9 months). This poor woman "never gets any time away from that baby!" The poor dear! Except the eight hours she works every day, and the three week vacation the baby took to visit his grandparents over the summer! Oh, poor, poor woman!

Nice. I hear these stories and instantly turn into a self-pitying, comparatively analyzing harpy. I start thinking about what a good person I am for not using formula and for taking care of my own children. Next thing you know I'll be congratulating myself for not mowing down pedestrians in crosswalks.

Favorite sins of Concordian Sisters

A dangerously astute holy man was once good enough to sophisticate my understanding of coveting. It's not just wanting something that isn't yours. It's wanting something that isn't real.

The First Girl Ever To Learn Greek

Here's something I've been saving for all you nice people for a while. Comic relief relating to our popular topic.

The LCMS, famously not ordaining women and having an inferiority complex as a result, is populated by a group of young women, reborn in every generation, who think it's vaguely scandalous for women to pursue any kind of theological education. Thus each of them becomes the First Girl Ever To Learn Greek. And she makes sure everybody knows about it.

Back when I was the First Girl Ever To Learn Greek, I would occasionally run into older women, each of whom would hurriedly correct me: no, no, she was the First Girl Ever To Learn Greek, decades ago, when no women did! Also, many of them were the First Girl Ever To Teach Theology At A Lutheran High School. So that took some gravy out of my pot pie. Then I didn't do all that well in Greek (turns out it's a lot of work), and by the end of the second semester I was pretty embarrassed showing my face in class every day to a professor I really liked, not to mention my criminally Greek-geeky future husband who was the tutor. (To preserve my dignity: I did pass all the qualifiers. And to preserve my reputation, I didn't go in for much tutoring. ;) )

Next I got to the seminary and met a lot of other First Girls Ever To Learn Greek (and related species, such as the First Girl Ever To Major In Biblical Languages, and the First Girl Ever To Major In Pre-Sem At Concordia-[Wherever]). They were all extremely annoying and I started having myself some good laughs over all the First Girls Ever To Learn Greek, beginning with my own lame self.

BFF!

My sister took Greek at a certain non-affiliated Lutheran college just for the heck of it (she's good at languages). There were lots of other girls in the class. When she shared this with all the First Girls Ever To Learn Greek she met in her deaconess classes at CSL, they agreed that those girls didn't count because they were all going to be ELCA pastors. Actually, my sister explained, most of them were taking it to fulfill foreign language requirements (unheard of at Concordias) or as part of a Classics major (unheard of at Concordias). The First Girls Who Weren't Going To Sinfully Become Pastors (Until The Rule Changes) Ever To Learn Greek were unimpressed. My sister, in statu confessionis against the First Girls Ever To Learn Greek, refused to learn Hebrew. Of course, the First Girls Ever To Learn Greek (retooled as Deaconesses Who Daringly Majored In Exegetical) now use that as a reason to dismiss out of hand every theological argument she makes, since most of them are about how deaconesses should mind their own d*** business and stay out of their pastors'.

Finally, at and around the seminary, female scholars would occasionally appear at conferences and whatnot. They didn't give two rank diapers about Exegetical majors or parsing. They were actually smart so they didn't have to. Yet another note to self . . . .

If you ever run into a First Girl Ever To Learn Greek, do her a favor and mention how well your homeschooled 11-year-old daughter is doing with it.

This is just another hazard of LCMS parochialism. At least it's a funny one. If I had it all to do over again, I'd major in Systems. Of course, I'd be the First Girl Ever To Learn Latin And German.

I saw my life flash before my eyes today

Or, to be more precise, I saw what I always thought would be my life: Mom, Dad and 2 kids in a midsize SUV with kayaks on top and a pop-up camper behind.

This vision appeared as I entered my seventh hour in the middle seat of our minivan--the dog, that spoiled mutt, was riding shotgun, while I tried to entertain the baby and help the back row with their stickers, maps, and etch-a-sketches.

When I remarked to my husband that I had just seen my (not) life pass me by, he immediately corrected me: "No, we passed them." Well, yeah. True in all senses. Not even a contest. Though I do look forward to reclaiming that front seat.

CSPP Conversion: A progressive tale

Not everyone has to be dragged kicking and screaming into CSPP. But here’s one version of my story.

1) This is your brain on drugs. You pop your pills, congratulating yourself on being responsible enough to put off children while you “get to know each other” and do Important Things like Hanging Out and collecting random graduate degrees. You may have an occasional sense of unease but it’s vague (and quite possibly related to the side effects of the hormones you’re pumping into your body).

2) Isn’t that a Papist thing? A longtime RC friend speaks gently to you about why the Pill might not be such a great idea. You try to relegate this to the same category as purgatory propaganda…but your hormone-addled mind is nevertheless more uneasy than usual. Perhaps the disquiet is reinforced by a brochure Renee Gibbs handed to you at seminary, and by rumors of classmates—uber-Lutherans!—who are tossing their pills.

3) Uh-oh. Now it’s getting personal. The unease grows and you think hey, maybe this is important enough to consider for more than half a minute. You come across evidence like this that makes you quit drugs cold turkey. Perhaps you attempt some other “methods” or perhaps you’ve simultaneously become an NFP convert, squinting through the Kippleys’ papistry in order to become champion charters (or learning the Billings Ovulation Method, or…).

4) Slippery Slope. As we well know, the trip from NFP to Baby to CSPP is notoriously short...

5) Reluctant Martyrdom/Angry Resignation. By this time you have a baby or two and are adjusting to the normal systemic shock brought by bearing a child and being in the full-time company thereof--but also to the staggering realization that the road ahead is paved with more diapers and less You than you ever envisioned. You can recite the pro-CSPP arguments in your sleep (when you get any sleep) but that doesn’t mean you have to like them. This stage may also be characterized by CSPP-evangelism that is motivated largely by Self-Pitying Self-Righteousness and Misery Loves Company.

6) Earnest zeal. You’ve become somewhat reconciled to your fate but still tense up whenever childbearing-related topics or references to being Done arise in casual conversation, feeling an intense burden to say exactly the right thing every time. (Like anyone’s really listening to you anyway!)

7) Live and let live (literally!), and revel in the wonder of it all. Theological arguments for CSPP are great…if you’ve got the time and can organize your gray matter, which seems highly unlikely, given the jumble of shoes in the back hall and the upheaval of playthings across the house. You’re not afraid to speak boldly for truth, but your life becomes your witness, along with quiet conversations at opportune moments.

And these children—they who seemed (and indeed still sometimes seem) to be your prison wardens—these same children, they are amazing. Incomprehensible. Every new morning, new every morning, you have the opportunity to nurture their growing bodies, to shape their stretching souls, even as you yourself are sanctified through the same process. And you think: I would trade the co-creation of persons who will live forever in Christ’s presence for—what again? A cubicle? A corner office? More stuff and more vacations? More time to pursue “my Christian calling and gifts” as dictated by my own self?

O, this tow-headed row of blue-eyed boys—these unexpected, undeserved, unruly and unrivalled blessings—there is no contest. There will be no trade.

Or as Rebekah has so adeptly, so succinctly, so eloquently described it: Kick A where you’re planted!

God loves me dearly

Lofty words about parenthood being an icon of God the Father's love for us cut both ways. I fail frequently and deplorably, and in doing so remind myself how I profane this office.

The truth is, the babies' love is often a much better likeness of the Father's than mine. No matter how much I've ignored them, no matter how impatient I've been with them, they still want to be with me. Two minutes after I snap or growl or criticize they're proposing book reading and Memory games, making me "treats" and asking me to cuddle with them on the couch. They forgive me without even thinking about it, without even realizing they're doing it. They love me so much that no offense on my part is worth losing a hug or a puzzle or a song over.

I know they'll grow up and come to their senses and figure out that I don't treat them as well as I should. They'll get mad at me and hold grudges and struggle to forgive as much as I do. But in the meantime, their dogged love is, to understate, humbling.