Tasting

Very hoppy, a little bitter. The next bottle was better, after resting another week.

Grace Reformed Church in Walkerton

Today we returned to visit Grace Reformed Church in Walkerton. It’s a congregation of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, a relative of our closest denominational alignment, the Presbyterian Church in America.

We attended there for about a month or so when we first moved here, but the longish commute was a bit much with a two-nap baby, and we really wanted to find a more local church where we could be in a small group and / or have other interaction during the week.

There were also some things about the church that we didn’t particularly like.

The OPC comes from a tradition that takes for granted that there are two services each Sunday — morning and evening. Neither of us is from such a tradition, and we don’t want to go to two services each Sunday. This particular congregation has so many folks that travel a good distance that they have an afternoon service instead of an evening one, with a potluck meal in between. I like fellowship meals — but I confess I like them better when they’re less frequent and I don’t have to think about what I will bring this time. Also, I like having after-church meals with just one or two other families sometimes. Obviously, though, we’re not required to attend the potluck every week.

Today we arrived in time for Sunday school. I don’t know if there were any children’s classes — we didn’t see signs for any, and no one told us about any, but it seems likely they would have some, and I don’t think I saw any other kids in the adult class. The topic was baptism — I think they’ve been looking at it in an ongoing study. It was nice to hear more about the Presbyterian views on baptism and where they come from. And it was very nice that the semi-lecture format allowed plenty of room for questions. It was sort of funnily refreshing to be inquiring against the other side for a change. (We’re relatively new to paedobaptism, and it’s been over two years since we last studied it.)

The main service was comfortably liturgical. A piano piece for a moment of quiet meditation and preparation. A call to worship (via a hymn, I think). A reading from the law along with the assurance of pardon and a prayer. A community prayer with congregants able to name their concerns. Offering and offertory with prayer. A kids’ message. The sermon, one in a series on 1 Samuel, covering one chapter. Communion. And a benediction. I think there were three or four congregational songs altogether, one from a binder of semi-contemporary music, and the rest from the hymnal.

The kids’ message was pretty funny to me. Obviously the intent was to give the kids something to listen for during the sermon — the pastor just basically asked the kids if Samuel, David, and Saul all lived at the same time, and then talked briefly about knowing the main characters in any story you read, including the book of 1 Samuel. A note-taking page was handed out, too, but I forgot to look at it.

Communion was wonderful; funny what a difference little details make — details that may not have intrinsic importance in themselves. We liked having the bread and the cup separate. We liked going to the front to take a piece of bread from the loaf, instead of (stale) crackers passed through the pews, and then again going to the front for the cup of juice. We liked taking each element back to our seat and partaking together with the rest of the congregation. We liked the communion hymn, “Ah, Holy Jesus, how hast thou offended?”

People talked to us after the service; some remembered us and some didn’t, and that’s fine — it was almost two years since we’d visited before, and we hadn’t attended long.

Amy was a little wiggly but seemed content with her blanket or an occasional lap. She was pretty quiet. Occasionally played with some toys we brought, or looked at the hymnal or Bible, or drew on the bulletin. There’s a nursery available with toys, rockers, a pew, a bathroom, a window that looks across a hall into the sanctuary, and a PA system so one could still listen to the service — we didn’t need it today, but it’s a nice option to have, especially since it’s still connected to the service.

There’s more I would want to know through observing and exploring longer, but this could be a good option for us.

Perhaps I should also mention that the pastor’s wife is a hammered dulcimer player. She has a CD out of stuff she’d play at the local coffee shop. She also leads a group lesson, mostly other folks from the church. Her teaching and playing styles are different from mine, but it’s always nice to find people who even know what a dulcimer is.

Grace Fellowship Church in Bremen

Our church search resumed today. We went to Grace Fellowship Church, a Reformed Baptist congregation in Bremen — a little over a half hour away.

Sunday School began at 9:30.

I sat with Amy in the youngest class — I’m not sure of the exact age range, whether it was 2-3, 3-4, 2-4, or what. It seemed to me most of the other kids (were there about eight or nine?) were at least a little older than Amy.

What I liked:

• They had some varied activities, moving between a table and two rows of chairs — coloring, stickers, answering questions, hearing a story, singing.
• They are working through a catechism — I’ve talked with Amy about the same first few questions that they reviewed in class, about who made us, what else did God make, why did God make all things, how do we learn about God.
• They are learning the major Bible stories, apparently somewhat chronologically, with a connecting theme about how God does what he promises to do.
• They sing songs (and without a background track).
• They are memorizing the books of the Bible, apparently beginning with the NT books.
• They are learning the Ten Commandments.
• They are learning about sin AND what Jesus did about sin.
• No junk food snack.
• The teachers seemed sympathetic and patient.

What I didn’t like so much:

• They were always sitting in chairs — I would rather kids this young be able to move a bit more, especially since they are expected to sit through the service later. They could sit on the floor for story time. They could stand to do movements with the songs. They could play a game like duck duck goose — purely for the sake of movement, enjoyment, and cooperation.
• Was it information overload? Catechism questions, commandments, Bible books, memory verse, reviewing all the stories and lessons learned so far?
• There is a place for rote learning — memorization and lists can be useful. But I would have liked to hear more from the kids besides repeating learned answers.
• I’m not sure how to go about teaching about sin to children, or at what age to start, but I would like to see the most emphasis on sin as separation from God, and a condition we are born into, and less emphasis on obedience and moral behavior.

If we go back, I would like to talk to the teachers about their curriculum, and maybe, if they’d let me, ha ha, sit in for a few more weeks.

Mark went to one of two adult classes. It was mostly for young marrieds, about parenting. The other class was more older folks, and I don’t know what they were studying.

This class too was a lesson, not a discussion. I appreciate Reformed folks’ concern for correct doctrine and thorough teaching, but I wish they would more appreciate the place of subjectivity and discussion, even (gasp) open-ended discussion.

Mark appreciated that the other folks in the class, during the one opportunity for participation, didn’t seem to be putting on their holy faces — they seemed to be willing to be direct and honest.

Next was the worship service proper.

I think there were some announcements up front, then the pianist played an arrangement of “For the Beauty of the Earth” that I think I remember MaryAnn playing in Ithaca, too, for a quiet moment of preparation.

We sang one song from an overhead (the little bit from O Come All Ye Faithful, with extra verses: O come let us adore him…. for he alone is worthy… something else) and two or three hymns. The hymns focused on forgiveness of sin — our unworthiness, and how God draws us in, makes us able to come in, out of his great love.

The sermon was long — whether it’s a fault of our culture or our generation or not, it’s just hard to attend to a message that is forty-five minutes long.

They’ve been preaching through James for almost a year, which is cool — we like a sermon series that focuses on a book of the Bible and take the time to be thorough. The topic was bringing back wanderers — that even Christians can stray and wander, that it’s important and loving to pursue those who are wandering, that it’s not sufficient to claim faith, but it’s important to pursue holiness — not in order to merit salvation or win God’s favor, but because it simply follows from what we claim to believe. Only Christ can cover our sin.

The preaching style was a little odd to us, but not awful.

They do communion six times a year, which would be hard to get used to after attending churches with weekly communion. Once a month they have a fellowship meal. They have a Sunday evening service that’s apparently only slightly more informal than the morning service, and Wednesday evening there is prayer meeting. There’s a women’s book club, once a month, and something for the men on Saturdays.

I don’t like any sense of obligation about meetings beyond Sunday morning — I know it’s important to live my faith all week long, but that doesn’t have to mean doing churchy things all the time. I don’t know how much pressure there would be to attend the evening and midweek services.

Children older than three are expected to attend worship — there’s a nursery for younger ones. I saw kids with scribble pads and that sort of thing.

Since they’re Baptist, we would likely not ever be candidates for actual membership, because we were baptized as babies and have no intention of getting dunked now. But I don’t know if that would much hinder our participation in the life of the church, should we choose to continue there.

There are apparently several other folks coming from Plymouth, which is nice.

Several people talked to us after the service, and they seem to be quite nice, genuine folks.

The building is nice, not flashy, but sort of well-appointed — gold colored faucets in the bathrooms, chandeliers in the sanctuary, very nice sage green carpeting, wooden upholstered chairs.

I’m still a little concerned to learn how their emphasis on holiness works out practically — how legalistic they might be, where they might draw various lines, how accepting they would be of us and our current spiritual situations. But it might work.

Mark agrees. He said it was refreshing to hear the Gospel again — to be reminded that the most important thing is what God has done for us.

Protected: Mark’s first homebrew

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Dozen

Yesterday was our twelfth anniversary.

Saturday we drove down here to the in-laws in Indy, and yesterday morning left Amy with them and headed to Cincinnati.

We saw a matinee performance of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. It was a very nice, small theater — every seat had a great view of the stage, and every word was clear. On the other hand, the sort of 1920s feel (original script, but 20s costumes, music, and so on) was weirdly realized (we thought Maria looked and sounded more like a 50s NYC maid, for example). We both prefer period productions — we didn’t know in advance that this one was an adaptation. It felt a little overacted, a bit extra boisterous — perhaps a nod to 20s slapstick? Neither of us was familiar with this play — we decided we like others of his rather better.

The real kicker was seeing an ad in the brochure, for another theater’s production of Jesus Christ Superstar — we would have seen that instead if we’d known about it.

But hey — a couple hours nice and warm and peaceful, with something entertaining to watch — very good.

Nice dinner at BJ’s Brewhouse, and the next day, a leisurely stroll through two malls doing a little final Christmas shopping and buying a quilt for Amy’s bed — a quilt I hemmed and hawed over and am still second-guessing, in true Marcy-shopping style.

Again, shopping in malls doesn’t sound like a particularly romantic anniversary outing, but it was by ourselves! Only what WE wanted to look at! Our own pace! And uncrowded, too.

Thence to Metamora, a tiny village in Indiana between Cincinnati and Indy, where we were supposed to have the B&B’s anniversary suite but were given a smaller but warmer room instead. To Batesville for dinner at the Sherman House, followed by a turnover and brownies from the bakery across the street.

Breakfast was cream-cheese-filled French toast served with butter-orange sauce, sliced oranges, hot chocolate, and sausage patties — delicious.

Amy had a good time with her grandparents and caused no trouble. If she missed us, it didn’t make her miserable. I think the “worst” thing was just that Grandpa mentioned going for a walk as he was getting her ready for her nap, and so she didn’t sleep at all, but knocked on the door and asked for the walk.

Having a nasty sore throat that started Saturday night made the beginning of the trip rather miserable for me, but cough drops, Advil, hot salt water gargles, and steaming showers helped a lot, and while my energy level is still low and my head still feels rather stuffy, my throat doesn’t hurt anymore.

Oh, and I’m glad I brought my Ativan, which I haven’t needed in ages now; for whatever combination of reasons — holidays, general stress, being sick, being away from home — I had some anxiety to quell.

Mark’s birthday

Today is Mark’s birthday.

(Happy birthday, Mark!)

Amy and I spent a good part of the day in Culver, hanging out with Jasenka again at her garage sale. At her invitation; I might call on someone one day in depression, but I don’t push my luck, don’t foist myself on people too much, too often. In fact, I debated whether to go or not; I didn’t feel quite as deeply pitted as I did yesterday. But I remembered that garage sales might be a good place to look for a little table and chair(s) for Amy, so we went.

There weren’t any other garage sales in walking distance, and Jasenka and her cohorts didn’t have such a table and chairs, but I did pick up a few books, some toddler socks, and a toy dustpan and brush (Amy wants ours very desperately whenever it appears).

At one point we took a long walk over to Amy G’s to see if she and the new baby were home yet, but they weren’t — but we visited a few minutes with little Ryan and his grandma.

Just when we returned, there was a flash of lightening and a very loud crack of thunder, followed by a relatively brief downpour. We tried to push all the goods (already on the porch, good thing) out of the rain’s way and retreated inside for a while.

Then to the dining hall for lunch, but we’d just missed Mark, apparently, and ate by ourselves.

Home for a little play and a little nap, and Mark got home early. We all napped. It was good.

Out to dinner at Cristo’s, a little diner with the typical very long diner menu complete with some Greek dishes. Good rolls. Good soup (I had something Greek which was light, a little creamy, chicken and ricey; Mark had a potato soup; Amy tasted a lot of each). Good ribs, good patty melt, not so good fries and grilled cheese — and really, Amy doesn’t eat enough to merit ordering a kid’s meal for her yet.

Thence to Sears to pick up Mark’s birthday present — not particularly fluffy fun, but still appreciated, a 6-ton hydraulic jack and a work light with a 30-ft cord in a retracting reel.

Then grocery shopping (everything interesting on the shelf, or that mama picks up, Amy wants to “help mama!”, i.e. hold it for me), then home and a bath for Amy, complete with one poop in the tub and another on the naked-time blanket afterwards and one tiny bit in the potty.

Common Ground Christian Community

Today we worshiped at Common Ground Christian Community, our second visit. The first was several weeks ago, and then we had two snowstorms that kept us home, and then we were away for the holidays.

It is a small church — perhaps fifty people or so. It feels about the same size, maybe a bit smaller, than New Life Presbyterian, our church home in Ithaca, NY.

The building is a store front, comfortably shabby — no dazzling decorations, architecture, furnishings, etc, but no old and musty orange shag pew cushions either. No pews — just cushioned chairs arranged in rows. There is no cross. Up front there are flags of various countries hanging on the walls — I recognized Israel, Japan, and of course our own, plus there were several others. There is a smallish platform for the musicians; the drum set and the keyboard were on the platform, and the guitarist and singers (and, today, three brass players) stood in front of it. It’s all amplified, but not drowning-out loud, and not flashy or overly polished / slick. There is a small table for the communion elements. A nursery and another open room are upstairs, and there is also a small kitchen and one or two other rooms in the back.

We arrive on time and people are chatting and having coffee and donuts. Someone sees us entering and greets us right away. People also greet us during the official greeting time and after the service as well. This is nice and annoying at the same time. Sometimes I wonder if churches who emphasize making visitors feel welcome realize that some visitors want to just slip in and observe without having attention called to them. I suppose it’s tricky ground, because you can’t tell just by looking which kind of visitor is which.

The service begins with singing. The songs are all contemporary — nothing as rich and meaty as the best hymns, but nothing as simpering and meaningless and theologically questionable as the worst choruses. Some I like. Some I don’t care for. I find myself missing the music of previous churches.

The liturgy is limited; there’s the greeting time, a sermon, communion, an offering, and dismissal. Communion is not called communion or explained in any way, other than that it’s a time to celebrate Jesus, and instructions for how it’s done in this church (bread cubes and juice cups are passed, and each individual takes, eats, drinks, replaces the empty cup, and passes the elements down the row). Likewise I don’t remember any explanation of the offering. And it’s dismissal, not benediction. And a worship gathering, not a worship service, and a community, not a church.

I understand the desire to remove obstacles — church lingo and liturgy can be confusing to folks who don’t have the background. And they can remind people of bad or empty past church experience. But to me it makes so much more sense to clarify, explain, properly model these things, rather than hush them up or eliminate them.

I won’t discuss the sermon, since it was by a guest preacher and therefore not representative. The first time we were there, the pastor was finishing up a series relating biblical truth to the Lord of the Rings. It wasn’t as silly as it might sound.

Looking at the sermon notes, the brochures, the website, and reflecting on the service, I think about the Emergent movement and wonder to what extent this church considers itself part of that movement. The language is somewhat counter-culture or postmodern. The lingo is minimized. Mission and inclusion is emphasized. Perhaps doctrine is simplified.

The denomination is technically Church of Christ, but the pastor explained to us after our first visit that it’s “the non-denominational denomination.” Still, I’d like to know more about what this denomination is about and what its history is.

I have questions I want to discuss with the pastor at some point:

They practice immersion baptism, and the pastor at Grace Reformed Presbyterian in Walkerton says that Church of Christ might be one of the churches that believes baptism saves, whereas Reformed folks believe baptism is a sign, a work done after salvation is accomplished and not a work necessary to obtain or complete salvation. Will they accept our baptisms and Amy’s? Do they believe baptism is sufficient and / or necessary for salvation?

Mission and service are emphases; so are inclusion, welcoming. But to what extent is acceptance really offered? Are you only accepted as long as you are on “the right path,” making progress in faith, etc? Is there room at this church not only for seekers and “pretty” Christians, but for real Christians who struggle with real issues? Is there any emphasis on growing as Christians, not just in external focus and service and mission, but in personal depth of faith and knowledge and love? Is “community” such a banner cause at this church that individuals are lost?

I remember reading something about a discipleship process. Some kinds of programs, official structured things, make me nervous. I don’t want anything that makes discipleship a cookie-cutter event, a set of meetings and exercises that can be completed in nice linear order and then you get your disciple certificate. And I don’t want anything that solidifies discipleship into a list of concrete objectives. I want to know more about this process and what it means, how they see it, how they use it.

One of Mark’s comments this evening was how amazing it is that one can go to so many churches, even obviously believing churches, and yet hear so little of the Gospel — so much about what we need to do, so much about topics and surfacy exposition, but very little about the center of it all, the grace by which God comes after us to love us and to offer us righteousness in exchange for our sin.

Christmas Day

We woke at leisure. Had a lovely breakfast of eggs and sausage and toast and oranges.

Opened presents, just Mark and Amy and I, as our present to my parents was coming in the afternoon. Amy participated in opening most of her gifts. One gift was a top and pants, which she carried around the house for a long time, one piece in each hand. She also really liked her ride-on toy.

Amy’s morning nap was interrupted by a phone call, and she was unable to get back to sleep. She was a little cranky for the afternoon.

She got a good afternoon nap, though, and didn’t wake until quite a while after my brother and his family arrived.

There was more opening of presents, lots of semi-chaotic playing among Jeff and Carole’s little girls and our Amy, conversation among the adults, my parents, us, Jeff and Carole and Jeff’s son RJ, sister Tracy.

A wonderful dinner, without too much crankiness from the babies. And with horseradish sauce for the roast beef. Mmm… horseradish sauce.

Relaxing for some, playing for others, cookies for all but the babies, then good night to all and diapers in the wash.

A merry Christmas.

To refuse a blessing

It seems people can be criticized for having no children, having too many, or not having enough.

Remember the Aesop’s Fable where the man and his son take the donkey to town to sell it? First neither of them ride, and people criticize them for that. Then the son rides, and people criticize him for letting his father walk. Then the father rides, and people criticize him for letting his son walk. Then they both ride, and people criticize them for burdening the donkey. Then they carry the donkey, and it struggles and falls over the side of a bridge.

You can’t please everybody. You have to make your own decisions — according to your own beliefs and values and desires, and according to what you perceive God to be telling you.

The problem is, I’m terrible at making decisions.

It is difficult for me to know what I want — I have inclinations and impulses, but which is the truest, which will last, which isn’t determined by current circumstances and mood and the state of my digestion?

It is sometimes difficult for me to discern what the godly options might be — sometimes there’s only one, but more often he seems to give us a lot of choices.

Last year, when I was in labor, we joked about who was going to get the surgery (i.e. tubal ligation or vasectomy) so that I’d never have to go through that again. The question became more serious when I developed a rather severe case of PPD. But we said we should wait a year before deciding to do anything so drastic.

It’s been a year.

We still don’t particularly yearn for more children, but we’re still not quite ready to close that door completely.

Some mommy bloggers make it seem like not having all the children you can is to refuse blessings. Or that only people who don’t love the child(ren) they already have would decide not to have any more.

I don’t think that’s fair.

It’s like some blogger I came across who had a “Jesus was breastfed” button displayed in her sidebar. Um, while scientifically it’s true that breastmilk is best for babies, it’s truly not always possible for people to nurse, and formula didn’t even exist in Jesus’ day, and it’s certainly come a long way since it was first invented.

Why don’t I long to have more children?

I don’t want to risk PPD again, which takes a huge toll on our entire network. It’s possible I wouldn’t get it again, but it’s likely I would. Especially since so much of the initial trigger was the desperation of sleep deprivation, which I know for sure would happen again.

I am an introvert and impatient and I don’t like disorder and noise. Sure, if I had more kids I’d have to learn to deal with it, and it would be part of my sanctification. But that doesn’t mean it’s something I am eager to experience.

Siblings have conflicts — they fight over a toy or look to see who got more ice cream, they feel slighted when the other one is praised, they feel insecure when the other one accomplishes something, they feel jealous when the other one has greater privileges. Modeling, enforcing, teaching fairness is extremely difficult — it’s hard to know what’s fair to begin with, sometimes impossible, much less how to model, enforce, or teach it.

People say your love isn’t divided, it’s multiplied, but I’m not sure I really believe that. I don’t know that it’s possible not to like one kid better than another at different times or for different reasons.

So it seems I have some fairly strong feelings about not wanting to have more kids. And yet I don’t want to face the criticism some people might have, that I might be refusing a blessing, being selfish, or whatever. What if they’re right? But just because something hurts doesn’t mean it’s right…

Home again

We are home again.

Along with my parents, we went to my in-laws for Thanksgiving, arriving Wednesday afternoon after a lunch in Culver.

On Thursday there was smoked turkey, fresh cranberry sauce (made with mandarin oranges, apples, and raspberry Jell-O — mmmm), sweet potatoes with pecans, and my pumpkin pies with real whipped cream. And leftover birthday cake.

Friday my parents took everyone out for breakfast, and then, believe it or not, Mark and I went shopping. We had a good idea of what few things we wanted, so it wasn’t that bad.

Today Mark’s mom and I did a bit more shopping (much less crowded today), then after lunch Mark and Amy and I headed home.

A few times this evening Amy has taken four or five steps, arms outstretched, finally falling into Mark’s arms.

Tomorrow we go to Shiloh Wesleyan. The answering machine message included times for Sunday school and morning worship, but also Sunday evening worship and Wednesday meetings. Sigh. Why does that sadden me? I don’t believe church is supposed to be a several-times-a-week thing. I would rather it be informal and unofficial — go have lunch at a friend’s after the service, have a game night, that sort of thing. And small groups that meet whenever works for the group, not everybody at the exact same time and day. Yes, I suppose I am reading far too much into that answering machine message. But I miss our old church(es).