Let's keep in mind

All we who are not primary researchers arrive at our decisions regarding what is safest, healthiest, and best on the basis of someone else's authority.

There is always an opposing view with research to support it, and always a question of whether the prevailing opinion prevails because it is conventional or because it is right.

To depart from the majority position is merely to exchange one form of credulity for another.

Glykophilousa

Thanks to Kelly for these fine words of which I was reminded on this Feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

"One mother, one alone, did what was good

In worshipping the baby born to her"

Three keys

From Starck's Motherhood Prayers:

"God has reserved for Himself three keys: the key to the grave, for nobody except God can raise the dead; the key that unlocks the rain in the clouds, for no false god can give rain, and no human being can cause rain; and the key to the womb, which nobody can open when the Lord has locked it, nor lock when the Lord opens it."

I love a parade

I respectfully disagree with the decision to invite deaconesses to process at the service for the installation of Synodical officers for the following reasons:

1. The purpose of a processional is to facilitate the Divine Service; more circumstantial than pompous. Those who process do so for the purpose of carrying an object necessary to the service or because they will be performing some function in the service. Surely we do not have so many thuribles as to require a throng of deaconesses to bear them (particularly when every pastor of Synod has also been invited to process via the official invitation appropos of an installation, and no gentleman would ask a lady to carry something when his hands are free). As to performing a function, the function of a deaconess in a public worship service is the same as any other lay person: to receive the gifts of God offered by His called and ordained servants.

2. To single out deaconesses is arbitrary. It suggests some heirarchy among Commissioned Ministers. Why were teachers, DCEs, DCOs, and other CMs excluded? Whereas deaconesses are a subset not only of CMs but also laity, why not bricklayers, bean counters, bus drivers, or (as a caller to my house recently suggested) pregnant ladies? Or perhaps the deaconesses were selected to represent -esses, in which case waitresses, actresses, stewardesses, or blogresses could have been just as appropriately invited. Anyway, it's confusing and invites animosity.

In puzzling over this strange matter, I was informed that there are certain quarters which think President Elect Harrison does not value women highly enough and this move was intended to disprove that. Again, respectfully, I believe there is a better way to refute this absurd accusation. While the invitation is clearly intended as an honor, it is in the end tokenistic since the deaconesses do not have an official role in the service and therefore no proper place in the processional. Tokenism always brings the credibility of the token into doubt. But the Church can do better, for no one knows better than we the true value of every child of God and therefore has less need for cosmetic posturing.

The deaconesses would do well to say, "Thank you, Pastor Harrison. We know what you mean, and we appreciate it, and we know this is the kind of thing the world eats up. But you know us; we're much more comfortable in the highways, hedges, hospitals, and homes. What is our want, anyway? We want to serve. Whom do we want to serve? Well, the Lord's wretched and poor will probably be thirsty after that long service, so why don't we have some drinks ready outside afterwards? We'll be able to save our financially floundering Synod the cost of the wait staff and demonstrate the humble service for which Loehe saw a need in the church and world and fostered the development of the deaconess as we know her today. That's so Dorcas!" Or something like that. I'm sure any deaconess, as a licensed servologist, could come up with an even better idea.

And President Elect Harrison, if he is truly interested in serving the women of our church and world (which I believe he is) could inaugurate this task by doing something the LCMS (and the C there is for Chicken) has failed to do. He could apply his skills of scholarship and writing to a clear, unequivocal, Scriptural statement (not to say encyclical) of what women are given to do at home, church, and world; in celibacy, marriage (addressing both maternity and infertility), and widowhood*. He could reframe our discussion of women's service into an explicit confession of what women are positively given to do instead of a negative campaign against women's ordination.

Such a statement could render the benefit of cutting into the "how far is too far" games currently being played in our church body which are effectively turning the LCMS into a technical virgin. Such a statement could help make the LCMS the place where women are valued for what they do naturally, rather than narrowly frowned at about what they cannot (which merely provokes more mischief) or transmogrified into imitation dudes. And such a place as that could make a woman happy to say, "Behold, the handmaiden of the Lord. Let's rock the cradle roll!"

*For all the feminist readers of this blog, of whom I'm sure there are scads: why are women being considered only according to their marital/reproductive status? Because when God tells Adam and Eve "Be fruitful and multiply," He's giving Eve instructions very different from those He's giving Adam. That's just how Christians roll; thanks for asking! :)

When life gives you caterpillars

They will make frass. Loads and loads of it. Unbelievable quantities of it. You will mutter to yourself, How can three little caterpillars possibly produce so much frass? You will have to clear it out, every single day.*


And you will have to feed them, from the herbs you were intending for another purpose, every single day. You will grumble, How can three little caterpillars possibly eat so much? And why do I feed them, when it just turns into frass that I must then clean?


Then, without regard for your science lesson schedule, the little buggers will pupate overnight, so you can’t even watch them do it. You will wake up and discover these brownish dull things taking up space on your counter, completely insensible to your careful plans, to say nothing of your preferred décor. At least they’re not frassing everything up anymore, but neither are they making much of a positive contribution to the household economy. How long can this go on?


But then—oh! A crack in the chrysalis—the wiggle of a wet wing!
You will hold your breath at the glimpse of a miracle in the making.


In the blink of an eye, the frass is forgotten, as improbably metamorphed beauty takes flight.


*On the bright side, frass is neither stinky nor goopy. In fact, I’ve read that it actually tastes like what the caterpillars eat, in which case our caterpillars’ frass would have been parsley-flavored. We decided not to test that particular factoid, so do let me know, intrepid readers, if you verify that.

Postpartitude

How long after the birth of her baby can one classify herself as postpartum? Possibilities:

1. Medical/societal: 6 weeks. Once the doctor signs off on you, people expect business as usual.

2. Emotional: varies. Probably between 3 months and 2 years.

3. Gravitational: as long as weight is going down. Let's call this 9-12 months like the professionals recommend, although public opinion considers 2-3 weeks more than generous.

4. Pileous: as long as hair is falling out. My shower drain indicates this is still going strong at 7 months, and may be related to the gravitational indicator.

5. Somnial: at whatever point the mother begins having enough sleep regularly to feel regular. Varies widely.

6. Somatic: whenever functions approximate normal/painless. I said approximate.

7. Dermal: when stretch marks fade from shades of Lent.

8. Hygienic: when mother resumes bathing at a typical cultural rate.

9. Cinematic: when mother no longer falls asleep while trying to watch a movie with father.

10. Gestational: when mother becomes pregnant again.

Deep thoughts

You know that thing where you wake up, and no one is crying and everything is fine, and then 10-15 seconds later the baby starts crying?

I did that with our first baby, and it felt like maybe there was one thing I was doing right. I had some inexplicable connection to this baby whom I was completely failing in every other way.

Then for the next three this didn't happen at all and I thought, well, the other stuff is going better, but now I'm just a jerk. No more magical baby connection.

Well, it's back on Baby 5. And so now I'm wondering if it's actually the baby who has the mysterious power. Because what do I think of as soon as I wake up for no reason in the night? The baby. So maybe it's actually the baby whose brain hears my brain thinking about him, which then causes him to wake up.

If this theory is correct, I'm going to have to keep extra close watch on Babies 1 and 5.

I was having this awful dream that Mom was awake and not feeding me.

Theses on bashing synodical bureaucrats

Debatable. That's the point of theses.

1. A bureaucrat is a public figure to the public, but he is a private figure to his wife, children, siblings, parents, and friends. When public words get to these private people, those words often do not sound like the plain, necessary truth. They sound like the kind of words Christians are not supposed to use about each other. They do not sound like defense and speaking well of, although everyone always claims to be trying to explain everything in the kindest way, if there were only some way all these awful things could be explained kindly.

I'm not saying this negates the "public figure" we all know and love, that unperson to whom the 8th commandment (joy of joys!) does not apply. But aren't family relationships always more complicated than we'd like?

2. Many synodical bureaucrats are probably not as dumb as we think. They know they are politicians, and they know we are too. They know they're trying to play us and we're trying to use them every time we schmooze or spar. Everyone wants everyone else in his back pocket. The bureaucrats find the system just as sleazy as we do (moreso, even, since they know it so much better), and they're just as stuck with it as we are. As a veritably politic observer of the synodical organism told me once, "We create a political system, and then are disgusted that politicians succeed in it." Downright politic, that guy. Of course, every system of church POLITY is political. It's not just an LCMS problem.

3. Few synodical bureaucrats arrived at bureaucratic positions without having spent some, often quite a lot of, time in the parish. They are still pastors and fathers in Christ.

4. Although such slick sophisticates as we know better, some bureaucrats really, truly mean it when they say they didn't seek out this position. Since (less empirical evidence to the contrary) it is impossible to distinguish the big fat liars from the charming innocents when they speak on this purely internal matter of the heart, I believe the charitable route is to recklessly take them at their word.

SURE you didn't want to wear that big hat.

Don't get me wrong, I know they're almost all jerks, just like all other categories of people. But as a pastor of my acquaintance says (and he's about as far as you can get from a hyperEuro-"confessional"-Gottesdiensting-conscience binding-Lawlusting-Fort Waynische Father): "That's Pastor Jerk to you."

Trying times

Now, it's all fine and good for me to commend maternal at-homeyness in any family for which it is possible because it's not like I had anything big going on besides ideas that may very well not have worked out. I feel rather more awkward at the prospect of saying so in front of someone who went to law school or med school or is a specialist in a technical field (by which I absolutely do not mean an English professor). Clearly these ladies have brains and are hard workers and have more to bid farewell than I did when I turned up pregnant.

But one of the main lessons to be learned from staying home is that it is not only, or maybe even primarily, the children who benefit from Mom being around. Though it may boost my self-confidence, increase the family's income, even "keep me sane" to be gainfully employed at work I enjoy and at which I excel (and I did have a brief and gratifying go at this), it is, in comparison, no refiner's fire. I do not mean that such work is easy. But its particulars are largely self-chosen, its rewards are predictable, it is genuinely respected by the public, and it more commonly reveals mistakes than sin. This is to say, it is the opposite of CSPP at-homism.

This quotation from an NPR story on French écôles maternelles stuck with me: "I was very skeptical at first, to send her there for basically all day. But eventually as the year went on, I realized that she was learning so much. I mean, she was teaching me rhymes, French nursery rhymes that I should've been teaching her. So she's having a good time, she's learning and she's with other kids, so she's playing. And I can't really compete with that, even though I'm the mom."

I hear you, Barbara. There are many other people who would do a better job of teaching my kids French nursery rhymes and about everything else in the world. I just don't like teaching three-year-olds nursery rhymes, even in English. A lot of times, I don't like teaching my beloved children even the things I really, really, really want them to know. I am impatient, temperamental, lazy, and selfish. Should I be surprised that I didn't learn the oceanic depth of these sad facts about myself until such things became my job?

But there's this, which I think might actually mean what it says. Arguing from the weaker negative, there's the fact that I don't really trust even the most wonderful teacher of French nursery rhymes (or the American top-of-the-line daycare equivalent, which I and most people can't afford) not to screw up my kids. And then there's the horrific baring of my most inveterate sins that this whole maternal experience has been.

As a "person," I could do without that last bit of nastiness. As a "person," I need affirmation and publication* and a paycheck to show how much I'm worth (heaven forbid that I should suffer from low confidence or a lack of identity!), not to mention adult conversation to purportedly preserve my purported sanity and a professional wardrobe to help me remember that I'm a still a terribly beautiful woman (which, apparently, a pregnancy does not indicate). As a Christian, such comforts take the edge off my hunger for a Savior. As a Christian, I can see a big difference soul-wise between my old lines of work and my current hourly reminders of how insidious and horrific is my enmity toward God.

The Christian mothers who are trained as doctors and lawyers, organic chemists and glaciographers--they are Christian mothers too. Just as our beautiful sisters must bow lower to receive the mantel of modesty, our brilliant and accomplished sisters must bow lower to pick up their little ones day after rambling day. They have as much to gain from the crosses and joys of maternity as any Christian mother. Given their brilliance, they may recognize sooner and treasure more deeply than the rest of us the rewards God offers the humble hausmutti: a desperate reliance on His grace, the sweetness of the Christian home, the gifts parents and children give each other throughout a lifetime. God bless those who can and do--and if any of them happen to be reading, thank you. Your example to the rest of us is a profound encouragement.

*she blogged, ha ha ha ha ha.

A lesson for the ages

"We were reading one day, for delight, of Lancelot, how love constrained him. We were alone and without any suspicion."

Many times that reading made us lift our eyes, and took the color from our faces,

but only one point was that which overcame us . . . .

That day we read in it no farther."

"Love, that on gentle heart quickly lays hold, seized him for the fair person that was taken from me, and the mode still hurts me. Love, which absolves no loved one from loving, seized me for the pleasing of him so strongly that, as thou seest, it does not even now abandon me. Love brought us to one death.

Caina awaits him who quenched our life."