Your attention, please

We'd like to recommend a great new website, The Hausvater Project, "Promoting a Biblical vision for family, church, and society in the spirit of the Lutheran Confessions." The site has practical resources for parishes and families, creative and critical content, and opportunities for you to contribute on the Programs page. Finally, a website that takes out the trash without being asked! ;)

Disclaimer

I hope I (and we, but those other girls are better people than I am so I don't worry about them) never come off as ungrateful or complaining, but "never" is a strong word. We were saddened to get an email from a reader who perceived us to be judging people strictly by numbers (more on this later from Reb. Mary--please stand by). God sizes families as he sees fit, some big and some small, and sometimes with great trial and hardship. Although being an overachiever in terms of fertility has its challenges, I know that it is as pure a blessing as can be had in this life and I thank God that he has spared me the sadness of she for whom I was named. I know many Concordian Sisters who would have the same life I do if their bodies were set up for it, but they aren't. I am close to people who in several or many years of marriage have been given only two or one or no natural children. Why me? And why them? All I can do is pray that God who has blessed me so abundantly would do the same for other Concordian Sisters whose parturition hasn't been so perpetual. And I do.

Oink*

Characters:

Concordian Sister (CS): Pregnant woman, early-30s, puking ad nauseam most days, but not just now.

Nurse: Perky woman, early-30s, prone to excessive blinking.

A small, fluorescently-lit room. No windows. One door. Room is furnished germane to a doctor’s examination room. CS sits on a worn chair reading a children’s magazine because she is not yet old enough to read the other magazine options. The Nurse enters carrying a stack of interview papers and a big smile.

Nurse: Hi mommy! How are we today?!?

CS: Fine.

Nurse: That’s terrific! And how is baby?!?

CS: Well, I was hoping you could tell me.

Nurse: HA HA HA! Of course we will. But first, let’s just go though a few questions for your file, OK?!?

CS: Sure.

Nurse: OK! Is this your first baby?

CS: No.

Nurse: . . . You’re second?

CS: No. This is my fifth pregnancy. Hopefully our fourth living child.

Cue primal drum beat. Nurse begins blinking rapidly in time with the drum.

Nurse: smiling largely. . . Wait . . . what?!

CS: Uh . . . this is my fifth . . .

Nurse: I heard you! Well, how many kids are you planning to have?

CS: I . . . um . . .

Nurse: waiting expectantly as drum beats/blinking grows more intense

CS: I . . . One more. For the rest of my life.

Nurse: smile grows larger as drum beats/blinking continue. Then: Of course. How nice. I have two children myself. And I used to think I wanted a big family, but . . .

The room grows dark as Nurse is spotlit in red. Her chair rises from the floor and whirls wildly as she says:

TWO IS ENOUGH BIRTH CONTROL FOR MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

This continues until, you know, you get sick of it. The chair with its Nurse returns to its starting position, the drum beats/blinking die down, and everything resumes normalcy

CS: . . .

Nurse: . . .

CS: Wow . . . how . . . did you do that?

Nurse: Hydraulic lifts. Under the chair.

CS: . . .

Nurse: Well, shall we continue our interview?!?

CS: . . .

Nurse: Have you ever had tuberculosis?

CS: No.

Nurse: Leprosy?

CS: No.

Nurse: Pseudorabies virus?

CS: sighs

The lights fade to black.

End of Play

And there you have it folks! If you like, feel free to use this little drama for your next youth-led worship service. You might want to add this alternate ending, just to jazz it up a bit:

CS and Nurse are silenced when they hear opening bars to song, ”Jesus Loves the Little Children.” Upon realizing what’s playing, they smile at one another, stand, clasp hands, and begin soft-shoeing their way across the stage. This continues until, you know, you’re sick of it.

*please see Rebekah’s awesome post for helpful insights into this title.

On decision theology

Back when I was pregnant with Boy the Third, I ran into an acquaintance and her three young children. Watching her juggle library books, diaper bag, and kids, I commented, “I don’t know how you do it, and I don’t know how I’m going to manage when this baby is born.” I said this partly because I never know what to say to people, and partly because I really was wondering how on earth I would manage three kids. She laughed rather ruefully and returned, “Some days, you just have to keep reminding yourself: ‘I chose this.’”

The result of this seemingly unremarkable exchange was one of those classic moments in which politeness dictates that an even façade is maintained even though one’s mental process is at almost complete odds with one’s facial expression and verbal output.

Here: Mental process: “What? No! I didn’t choose this! Not in a million years would I choose this. But, uh, here I am. So I guess I did choose this? Well, I suppose I did. But not really. Wait, what?” Facial expression: Smile and look pleasant. Verbal output: “[Insert incomprehensible but empathetic murmur here].” Move on quickly before mental process finds audible outlet.

In our choice-driven world where self is queen and personal autonomy is her ruling mantra, a woman’s choice to have a large family might make sense to some people. Then they could fall back on the old, “Well, I could never do that/I would never choose that, but it’s ok for you.” If they’re not of the sort to yell at you for ruining the environment with too many children, they might even have a sort of admiration for a woman who chooses to have more children than the “average” family.

But what do you do with a woman who doesn’t really choose to have one or three or ten children, but simply accepts them as God gives them? That’s a bit harder for people to understand. In fact, it’s almost impossible for people to understand. Even if that person is (more or less) you, as my confusion in this conversation makes clear.

Rereading John 15:15 is what recalled this exchange to mind: “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last.”

Ah. Yes. A CSPP theme verse, perhaps? My life is not found in the sum of my choices. My life is hidden in the Savior who chose me. Being chosen, rather than choosing, is yet another mortification of my self—particularly since it’s so darn obvious, not only from Scripture, but from the mess I daily make of things, that I was not chosen to bear this lasting fruit because of any merit, worthiness, inclination, or even adequacy on my part.

No, I cannot console or rally myself by asserting that “I chose this.” Hear this, Prideful Self: You did not choose this; you were chosen. And you were not chosen because you were special. These daily tasks, these menial repetitions that you so begrudgingly perform—you grumble that these chores are not worthy of you, but the truth is that you are not worthy of them. Turn your hand gratefully to the care of the least of these, and marvel at the mystery of being chosen in spite of yourself.

Vocation

They pick up lawnmower-decapitated toads without regard for the dangling entrails. But sometimes a four year old boy is the only man for the job.

Please to the explaining

A number of strange assertions were made back in June during the antipenultimate and ultimate presentations of the CCA conference, but the one that sets me a-head scratchin' the most was that contraceptive use is never ok for unmarried people.

Huh? If contraceptives are not inherently immoral in the procreative schema of Our Beloved Synod's resident bioethicists, how does using them in an illicit context make them wrong? If you're a felon, and you engage in a morally neutral act like walking downstairs, the fact that you're a felon doesn't affect the moral status of stair usage. Since pragmatism seems to be the determinitive force in all their arguments, wouldn't unmarried people be the main constituency Our Beloved Bioethicists would want using these highly practical, morally neutral (by their definition) items? These people are a walking commercial for the Trivium.

The LCMS: promoting pregnancy out of wedlock, seeing little need for it within.

Since we're on the topic

of repeated remarks that become rather tiresome, both of these just came up again, and I’m trying to decide which annoys me more. So, perhaps we should take a vote:

1) “I wish I could stay home with the kids, but [wistful sigh] we just can’t afford it” [uttered by persons who can’t but know that their head-of-household’s income exceeds ours].

2) “I could never stay home with the kids [because it would drive me crazy/because I need to be out doing something else]”

I was thinking that least #2 is refreshingly honest, and therefore less annoying than the people in #1 who are not being honest with themselves. But then I thought: Hey, I could never stay home with the kids either…but here I am. So I guess both statements represent a truth-talk problem. And I can’t decide which is more annoying. (Hmmm…maybe I should be thinking about something else instead? Like maybe a nice, bright response to the above? Hey, maybe I'm the only one who's small-minded enough to be annoyed by these things and you've all got brilliant responses to such inanity/insanity...by all means, share your inspiration here.)

I’ll try to be less cranky tomorrow. I know, I know: I can be tired and angry, or I can just be tired...I’m working on it...

Yes. We'll probably have more.

I grow annoyed with constantly being asked, "Are you guys going to have more?" by people who know us.

Religious conviction, folks. That's what this is about. No, really. We actually believe on the basis of Scripture as witnessed to by the confession of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church that God intends for married people not to hinder the procreative process. Furthermore, we believe that Christians are supposed to live according to Christian beliefs, even if these beliefs are inconvenient and style-cramping.

So quit asking. I've already told you this. If anything changes, I'm sure you'll hear about it.

Oppose heresy: have another baby

Consider this my convoluted attempt to make sense of that scullery maid/laundry wench feeling I've been having lately...


Motherhood is a notoriously physical endeavor. If we at CSPP don’t have a babe in the womb, we’ve got one in our arms (and more clinging about our legs). The nurture of these creatures doesn’t end when the umbilical cord is cut nor when they are weaned. If you don’t see us in the garden, the grocery, or the kitchen, you can find us in the bathroom or the laundry room, dealing with the inevitable results of such nurturing.

Need I say that all this can sometimes seem monotonous, endless, and even worthless work? Yes, yes, I know: vocation, vocation, vocation…the rallying cry trumpeted from Luther to us via instruments like Veith. It’s the funniest thing, though: “the vocation of motherhood” sounded much nobler before I was knee-deep in diapers, before I was so irrevocably, so physically, so wholly vested in the venture.

Nowadays, if I read something on vocation, I have to force myself to focus on the words rather than the fact that they were likely written by some dude who was sitting in a quiet office or pleasant café all by himself, taking bathroom and coffee breaks whenever it darn well pleased him, receiving phone calls without having to cast threatening looks or menacing gestures at anyone, and going home (or out) to a supper cooked by someone else. [No, I’m not thinking of anyone in particular here; it’s just a generic image conjured by my wistful brain.]

Some days, the word “vocation” is muttered around here with an ironically cast eyebrow at least as much as it is uttered without the scare quotes. Alas!

But back to the main point, if such may be found here. In many, various, and increasing ways, we all know that motherhood is an excellent way to mortify one’s own sinful flesh—not in spite of, but because of, that monotonous, endless, and sometimes seemingly worthless work. Let’s not forget that this vocation [Look! No scare quotes!] also models Truth to a generically-Gnostic world which tends to focus on developing the “spiritual self.” Pursuing this elusive “spiritual self” requires a good deal of time and effort delving into one’s own inner workings, a journey in which the menial tasks of childrearing are cumbersome detours.

It seems to me that the pervasiveness of the spirit=good / body=bad dichotomy is one reason large families are offensive to some, even within the church, which certainly ought to know better (This is my body, given for you…). Most every act in the life of a mother at home with her young/large family affirms the body’s created, redeemed, and sanctified worth and testifies that the self should be effaced, not embraced. Every day, every diaper and every dish glorify the Creator and express the sure and certain hope of bodily resurrection and eternal dwelling on the New Earth.

Of course, this is really only an effective witness if she performs her duties with grace and good humor. (Self: shape it up a bit!)

No kidding

I have one useful tool in my otherwise poorly stocked parenting shed, and that is my long memory for weird things. I have a lot of vivid kidhood memories. One thing I remember most is hating being hassled by grownups.

There's a strain of human grownups characterized by their love for giving kids a hard time. They steal noses and say that tomorrow is Christmas and tell them that their awesome double play is going to be on the local news tonight and pretend to have hurt feelings over not being invited to a birthday party. When I was little, I absolutely despised this subspecies. What a bunch of jerks. As if life isn't confusing enough for kids, who land on this earth with zero information, these clowns go and tell them things that just aren't true. Then when the kid believes these stupid things, which often have anxiety or false hopes built into them, he gets laughed at by the jerk grownup, so he's insulted twice over. It hurts his feelings and makes him skeptical. Why does any adult consider this fun?

And you'll pay for it, too.

Listen up, kid hasslers: remember that you were confused, and to confusion you may return. If you tell a kid you want her to buy you a sundae, she's going to go home and nervously start counting out her pennies. Don't bug kids; they've got enough to figure out without having to worry about your dumb jokes.