On being reactionary

Some time (and outsideness weeding in the garden) later…

I have some tendency to react against whatever it is.

I saw a Barney episode once that was all about a healthy snack picnic. That offended me as much as seeing kids come out of Sunday School with candy.

I’ve read some Wendell Berry stuff that shares some of the values I think I believe in, like doing local when you can, living simply, being present, and that sort of thing, and yet I can’t stand Wendell Berry. There’s a poem about Christmas trees without lights that our pastor in NY used to print in the bulletin each year that I especially find disgusting. Even though I hate excessive noise, batteries required flashiness, and so on, and appreciate natural, simple things.

And so on.

I think I would rather be equally gracious towards all sides, instead of equally contemptuous and disapproving. How does one learn to be gracious without abandoning all values and convictions and principles? How does one love when one disapproves?

More molehills

1. The toy bin in the church nursery needs an overhaul. I found lollipop sticks, candy wrappers, Candyland cards (but no game), tiny toys (too small for babies), things that do nothing without batteries but had no batteries in them, stuffed toys with the tags still on them (choking hazard), playdoh lids and tools… I did clear out the broken and unusable things and the trash I found. Instead of griping, I should probably volunteer or organize some kind of system for cleaning and sorting the toys once in a while, and maybe even buy some toys that are better quality — age-appropriate, safe, versatile, etc. Don’t get me wrong — there were also some very good toys in the bin. It just annoyed me that the selection seemed so haphazard and thoughtless.*

2. The kids came out of their Sunday School class with bowls of candy. I wouldn’t dream of offering candy or any sweets to someone else’s kids without the parents’ permission.

3. It was far too loud in church today. It was Mark’s turn to run the soundboard, but the musicians kept asking for this and that to be turned up, and the system got overloaded, and yikes. Chain of command, Mark says; chain of command; it’s not clear who’s in charge of what. And he’s still new to doing sound. Oh, and for a while I escaped into the nursery, but then someone put on a kids’ CD and turned it up too loud, too. It’s a small room, folks. And really, kids can play very productively without background noise.

4. In two days I’ve been in three local stores looking for particular seeds. I planted my vine crop seeds too early and so they rotted in the soil. I had enough left of most of them to just replant, but I needed to get more acorn squash and pumpkins. But I wanted pumpkins for pies, not jack-o-lantern types, and I want semi-bush types so they don’t take over the garden. I found some online, which is good, even though shipping was three times the cost of the seeds.

5. I don’t like being or appearing so grumpy. Or feeling that everyone thinks I’m just overdramatic and picky and ridiculous.

———

* I am trying to teach / model for Amy that when you keep your things tidy and organized, and when you take care of them, they reward you by being easy to find and nice to play with. I don’t want to foster OCD, and I don’t want things to be so neat and clean that there’s never any fun, but, just — taking care of things. If you keep the Legos in the Lego box, then you don’t have to go searching through all the other toy bins for that one piece you’re looking for. If you treat the doll’s hair gently, you’ll be able to comb it. If you think… if you’re not careless… and so on.

I hear G. K. Chesterton talking about people needing to be MORE careless… not tripping so much over worries and concerns, but just living…

Surely there’s a good balance.

Today’s molehill

Playgroup today was just three of us moms and four kids. At the end we discussed the option of lunch at the dining hall, agreed we all planned to go there, and drove off.

I got there first, somehow, and parked Amy in her booster seat, got in line to get food, saw one of the other ladies and said hi, returned with food to find Amy still alone and the other lady sitting elsewhere. Huh. Maybe she didn’t see Amy, or maybe she hadn’t planned on eating together. Never saw the other one at all — maybe she was hanging out in her husband’s office first.

So how many of you would blow it all off and think nothing of it?

And how many of you, like me, add it to a long list of subtle signals, wondering if the whole list (not just this one occurrence) should be a clue that these ladies don’t really like me that much?

Because no one ever comes right out and says “I don’t like you.”

I used to be bad at social cues in the sense that I’d assume everyone liked me — now I’m bad at them in the other direction, very careful not to assume anyone likes me. I think both approaches are pretty unhelpful — people don’t like being around snobs OR whiners. And yet here I am.

Does it even matter whether people like me or not?

Maybe for some things… people who I let into my innermost self should like me. People I go to playgroup with, maybe it doesn’t matter.

I certainly need to be out and around people, so I suppose I will continue going to playgroup, and if they don’t like me, too bad (for them AND for me).

Just wish I had at least one or two other real friends who really like me and want to be with me and know me and for me to know them. And who are available and accessible.

The “trauma” of sleep

I didn’t sleep much the night before last.

Last night as I was waiting to fall asleep, I was thinking about sleep.

How do people fall asleep?

It’s not something that can be willed — you can’t just say, okay, I’m going to sleep NOW. Some people drop off more quickly than others, but I don’t think they just have a switch they turn off.

I often find myself starting to fall asleep, and as soon as I recognize that’s what’s happening, the observation wakes me up again — I have to shift position, I have to breathe, I have to rearrange the covers, I have to go to the bathroom, I have to get a drink, or I just have to lie there and wait again.

Someone said to me (who was it?) during PPD, when sleep deprivation was at its worst, that peace is more important than sleep. I think Joe has said similar things. Not that you can get by with peace instead of sleep, but that anxiety and panic and worry and willfulness is not going to make sleep more likely, and is going to make miserable the time spent not sleeping.

Finding peace when I can’t sleep is not a skill I am good at yet, but just having it in mind does help, especially when the anxiety peeks out from around the corner, wondering if this is a good time to get scared.

Luke 11:13

“If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?” (NASB)

This is the end of the passage where Jesus first teaches the Lord’s Prayer at his disciples’ request, then tells them about the guy who gives his friend bread in the middle of the night not because of friendship but because of his persistence, and assures us likewise to keep asking, seeking, and knocking, because we’ll receive, find, and get the door opened. And he talks about how people don’t give their kids snakes and scorpions instead of the fish and eggs they ask for. (Most people.)

But then he ends with talking about the Holy Spirit?

What, is he saying that it’s not worth persisting in prayer to ask, seek, or knock for anything else? Or that whatever we persist in praying for, the real answer will be the Spirit, or in or through him?

Mothers’ Day and Other Thoughts

My in-laws visited this weekend. They initially suggested last weekend, to celebrate Mark’s birthday, but this weekend worked out better. They brought me a lobelia (small! blue! flowers!) and some dark chocolate — very nice, thank you! And all we’d done was send grandma cards with Amy’s coloring in them.

Amy thoroughly enjoyed seeing her grandparents again, and they returned the sentiment.

Oh — and did we get a lot done in the yard! It’s the wrong time and all, but we pruned the fruit trees, and planted tomatoes and peppers that my father-in-law brought. He and Mark even cut up all the branches for a nice neat pile behind the shed. Thanks!

Happy Mother’s Day to those who partake. To those who, for whatever reason, shudder and tremble on this day, peace and comfort to you.

The rest of these thoughts are sparked, some days later, by things I’ve seen at other blogs.

1. No one is evil — not completely. All people are created in God’s image, and still bear it, shattered though it is by the fall. While some people are perfectly justified to cut off contact with / refuse to reconcile with certain people who have hurt them very badly (forgiveness is not the same as reconciliation), I don’t think that it’s as simple as calling those people pure evil. I think it’s possible to admit that everyone has a little good in them, a little of that divine image, without saying they’re pure goodness and light — without negating the evil those people have done — without invalidating the harm one has suffered at their hands. That’s it — there’s a difference between calling someone’s behavior (and in some cases, their intent) evil and calling the person evil. Evil is not born — it is made. There is always some reason (again, not the same as excuse or vindication) for the evil that is made.

2. Church matters. And not just the sermon. It is a means of grace to partake of communion together, to witness baptisms, to make offerings, to hear Scripture, to pray, to sing. Yes, by all means, there must be more to it than that — there should be fellowship, times to dig deeper into Scripture study, times to pray very personally and specifically for one another, times to help in practical ways. And good sermons improve church immensely — good sermons, in my estimation, being those that explicate Scripture carefully, from a foundation in grace and the Gospel, in a way that refreshingly reminds us of the basic things we most cling to, and yet also addresses the things we find puzzling and difficult and interesting. And I don’t think Sunday morning services should be watered down for the sake of the non-initiated — just that church folks should be sure to define terms, explain concepts, etc. Even though the church we attend is not our denomination, and I have taken issue with some things I’ve heard and seen there, I don’t think I could not be part of some kind of church with people outside my own family. And now that we’ve been there a while, some of the things that have bothered me are becoming more comfortable.

3. People have awfully strong opinions about numbers of children. Sometimes I catch some of that ill-feeling towards those who have only children. But then I remember that siblings are no guarantee of anything — they will not always get along, and their conflicts introduce as many problems as their cooperation solves. And while I don’t want to burden Amy alone with our care when we’re old and decrepit, I think that’s a very insufficient reason to have a second child. And, look, folks, I have good reasons for being wary of going through another pregnancy and newbornness.

4. Five minutes after I called my friend to see about getting together tomorrow or Tuesday, only to find her not only not answering the phone, but not even having the answering machine on, one of my Virginia friends called for a nice long chat. Nice.

The ominous stair

I woke up at 3 am too scared to get out of bed — the childhood nightmare type of scared, where bed is the safe haven and getting out will sic the monsters on you.

The nightmare? Bizarre.

I was drawing pictures, and / or taking pictures, and / or telling / reading a story to Amy.

The picture was of a red barn-like building, low to the ground, with a tall black roof. Off to one side, a stairway stuck out of the building — enclosed — ending in the air. It might have been in a spooky thin-trees-forest swampy environment.

It’s the stair that escalated the fear.

I can’t tell if I was trying to tell a scary story, or if it turned scary in spite of me.

Then I was inside (our house? the barn?) and in the stairwell, and flipping light switches, and I accidentally (?) flipped on the switch that starts the scary sounds. And I couldn’t believe I’d done so, and cried out in even greater fear, “Mark, oh no, I’ve done it again!”

When I woke, I was surprised at the strength of the don’t-leave-the-bed feeling. I haven’t felt like that in ages.

I tried to say “there are no monsters,” but it felt like bluffing — how do I know there aren’t any monsters? That’s not the point, anyway. To get up the courage to go to the bathroom, I had to talk to myself about how God is not safe, but good. Even if I died on my way to the bathroom, God would be good to me.

During all of this, I was also aware of how strange and amusing it all was. And how strong a theme the dream had of my own complicity in my fears.

Very interesting.

Bitter

Once, in college, God prompted me to look up and write down all the verses I could find about bitterness — things like not letting a root of bitterness grow, and so on.

I could use that stack of verses lately; maybe I’ll redo it.

a) No one is coming to playgroup tomorrow. (Good side: they all (except the one with the newborn) did reply to my email.) One is pregnant and is having an ultrasound. One is watching her kids during her appointment. One just had a baby. One has a meeting with a cause she’s working for. One is going to a garage sale. One is substituting at her kid’s preschool. They all have perfectly acceptable reasons, and yet I want to thumb my nose at them all. (Did people really use to do that?)

b) There are other things, some way back, some more recent, some ongoing — and as much as I can rationally understand and accept these things, even theoretically view them with some compassion and grace and forgiveness, it doesn’t get anywhere near my feelings. Well, maybe a little near, but not enough to dispel the bitterness.

c) Bitter people are no fun. They are miserable and make everyone else miserable. I don’t want to be one.

d) Bitterness runs out of options pretty quickly. There are only so many people in the world, and I need to be in relationship with at least a few of them.

e) My parenting “motto” is compassion and respect. I work pretty hard at it in my relationship with Amy. I would like to extend that to other relationships.

f) Bitterness is dry and shriveled, shrunken, twisted up on itself. A little water, Lord, just a little water… where is this spring of living water? Help me out of these broken cisterns I’ve hewn. (Jeremiah 2.)

g) (I sooooooo love that chapter. “What fault did your fathers find in me?” “It’s no use — I love foreign gods and must run after them.” “Followed worthless idols and became worthless.” (Or, as I think Joe pointed out, it could be translated “Followed emptiness and became empty.” In fact, Joe gave a series of three lectures on this chapter, which used to be available online. I started transcribing them a long while ago and never finished; maybe I’ll take up that task again and ask him if I can post my transcriptions. Or I could ask him if I could post the sound files, too.)

Playgroup Politics

You move to a new town, along with some other young moms.

You are delighted to find the local playgroup, which in the nice weather meets at the park. As the weather turns cooler, folks meet at homes or the library. Boy, it’s crowded when more than two or three show up, and the list is long!

One of the new moms thinks, hey, let’s split off a second playgroup, on another day, just for us newbies — it’ll be smaller, less chaotic, and meanwhile there’s still the first playgroup on its own day, so no big deal.

The grapevine reveals the new group to the old group.

The old group has mixed feelings: “who do they think they are?” “why so secretive?” “we tried to be nice and include everyone and then they do this” “should we split into smaller groups, too?” “would the library let us meet every week there, since we’re too big for homes?”

Meanwhile, the original group does start meeting only at the library. And most of the time only two or three show up.

Meanwhile, after spring break, weeks go by without any new moms group.

I wonder how many of the other moms sit at home thinking about how stupid this all is, wishing they could get together with some other moms and kids, but not doing anything about it.

I wonder how many are harboring bitterness towards the new moms group and don’t want anything to do with playgroups anymore.

I wonder what will happen next.

The more things change…

The mini-crisis mentioned below?

Same as always, though the places and people change over the years.

Willful and unintentionally idealistic, if I can’t have what I want the way I want it, I’d rather not have it or anything at all.

I’m thinking particularly about the world of people, and how often (like in Africa) I am tempted to withdraw from that world, keep to myself, avoid relationships entirely and minimize social interaction as much as possible. If you’re not going to be my friend on my terms (which feels like, ‘if I’m not that important to you’), I want nothing to do with you at all.

Except that reaction doesn’t really punish you. It hurts me instead, because as much as the world of people sucks, I need it. Like everyone else I’m made for community and relationship.

But can I just say it also hurts to suck up that reality and continue to engage in social stuff?

The unintended poem from my journal last night says continuing social engagement is like saying:

Yes — I’m worthless scum.
My feelings may be trampled
But I’ll still come lick your crumbs.

This post is much more light-hearted than it sounds. I am aware of my own ridiculousness as well as the validity of my feelings and needs, and am endeavoring to piece everything together with compassion and respect.