Where the wild things are

Do you have this book, or do you remember it?

I don’t know if I like it or disapprove of it.

On the one hand, the kid is punished, and instead of meekly accepting his punishment, thinking about what he did, repenting, having a change of heart, etc, he gets to go off to fantasyland, assert his continuing power, punish others (who did nothing wrong), and then still get his dinner.

On the other hand, the kid’s ego strength is not harmed by a stupid punishment (sent to bed without dinner? food shouldn’t be used for punishment). And he returns home because he knows it’s where he is loved best of all.

I certainly don’t want any discipline we do with Amy to break her spirit, merely conform her to our wills; in that sense I want to be protective of her ego, her wholeness of self.

But I do want her to learn what it means to recognize bad choices, regret them, aim to choose better next time, understand repentance and forgiveness, etc.

Thoughts?

Ten Commandments, by Karl

An elder at my previous church is the director of a Christian study center (Ithaca is a college town) named after G. K. Chesterton. His blog recently included this little piece about the Ten Commandments.

What to eat

When I first thumbed through Nourishing Traditions at my in-laws’ house, its basic messages really rang true for me: what we eat should be as un-processed as possible, natural, whole, slow, all that sort of thing. Meat from an animal that lived a healthy life eating what it was meant to eat. Plants that haven’t been modified or sprayed with poisons. Sugars from fruit, honey, maple syrup. The lack of evidence for the “fact” that saturated fat and heart attacks are linked. Stuff like that.

Nourishing Traditions is rather strident in its tone, though, and unforgiving and uncompromising. That kind of attitude can make it hard to take its suggestions (commands) seriously.

I just came across this book review, and I’d like to borrow or buy the two books mentioned (In Defense of Food and The Omnivore’s Dilemma, both by Michael Pollan) — they seem a bit more of a moderate approach, arriving at similar conclusions.

The author also has this interesting post on food and finance. I would love to someday be able to buy most of our food at farmers markets and that sort of thing. Mark doesn’t really care whether he eats a block of Kraft cheese or a piece of cheddar from the fancy (real) cheese section, a loaf of store brand bread or an artisan loaf from the bakery, but I drool over such choices. (Am I a snob? or have more taste buds? or does my brain just tell me I have these preferences because of what I believe about food?)

It drives me nuts that eating well can cost so much more than eating fairly or poorly.

Book a minute and in five seconds

Like books or movies? Barbara links to two fun parody-synopsis sites.

The Awakening

Barbara writes about an article about a woman who wrote a book about why she regrets having had children.

It reminds me of that novel — Kate Chopin, was it? — The Awakening. I hated it when I first read it. But I don’t hate it quite so much as I did then.

I can understand how a woman might feel obliterated by the expectation of giving up everything to bear and raise children.

I can understand how other women might feel shocked at anyone being so selfish as to regret having kids.

How neatly this fits into my little sub-healthy / healthy / super-healthy theory (here and here.) That the same behavior can be rooted in very different psychological places.

One person might give up everything for her kids because she feels she is nothing except a mother. Another person might give up a lot — not everything — for her kids because she has a secure enough sense of self to manage sacrifice and recovery. Someone else might give up on the kids because, in her psychological state, she is unable to care for them and for herself at the same time.

Not all selfishness is bad, depending on how you define it. It is good and proper and even holy to desire to be the self that God has created us to be, instead of a doormat or robot. It is wrong to set this desire against all other responsibilities, as if self is the only thing that matters.

Balance!

Or, in the words of E. M. Forster from Howards End, “Only connect!”

A beautiful quotation

Barbara writes about a book with the great title, Sometimes I prefer to fuss; see her full review here.

Another quote that stood out to me was, “The trial of our faith is not to point out how faulty it is but to prove how trustworthy He is. I had always pictured God testing me to show how little I believed, but He has a more positive purpose — to increase my capacity to enjoy His faithfulness.”

What Amy reads (and listens to)

Mornings and some afternoons, Amy and I are reading our way through The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien.

Evenings and some afternoons, she and her daddy read George Will columns or pieces from The Book of Virtues.

By herself, she plays with a board book full of animal photos; it has padded covers which extend beyond the pages, making it easier to open. She also plays with Pat the Bunny, and — less often — any other board book lying around.

Sometimes we read board books together. She especially likes Sandra Boynton’s Barnyard Dance, hearing the sounds the animals make. Sometimes she tries to crow like the rooster.

Much of the time we have it nice and quiet. Other times we’ll listen to dulcimer music, classical music, Christian music, or something else. Sometimes I’ll sing to her. It’s been a while since I’ve played an instrument for her. Occasionally I’ll turn on a musical toy.

Missions and marriage

Toward the end of my college career, I was getting serious about Mark and abandoning or at least setting aside my plans of becoming a missionary with Wycliffe Bible Translators.

I heard about Wycliffe in middle school and thought it was the perfect mission.

First of all, there’s a concrete, scholarly task to do: learn the language, develop an orthography (writing system, like our alphabet), teach reading and writing, and translate as much of the Bible as possible with the help of local people. And relationships can form and grow as part of the work and part of the flow of life with kids, market, cooking, etc. (In contrast, strictly evangelistic missions seem awkward to me, with less organic / natural means of relating to people.)

So I majored in linguistics, also took anthropology courses, spent a summer in Africa with Wycliffe’s Discovery Program. That summer, I asked God to show me if Wycliffe was my calling. By the end of the trip, I had seen no skywriting and had no other clear leading. I figured that maybe it was okay to go into missions because I wanted to, even if I didn’t have some definitive sense of calling.

I tried to resist Mark, on the other hand. I wanted to develop a friendship with him, and was continually galled that I found him attractive. I thought I had no right to such feelings since I didn’t know him that well yet, and I didn’t want my thinking to be clouded by my feelings. Besides, “Real Christians” put God (in the form of missions) first, not marriage. And “Real Christians” don’t date, or feel romantic about anyone, or anything like that. No — in the spirit of a popular pamphlet going the rounds, once you stop wanting a husband, God will throw one in your lap — but you have to stop wanting one first.

Reminds me of the time I was little, when I kept trying to stop wanting something so that I could pray for it — because God wouldn’t give it to me unless I stopped wanting it.

Yikes.

Anyway, the strongest, clearest message I felt from God was not about missions or marriage, but sounded something like, “Go ahead, have some fun — date Mark! It doesn’t have to be this big huge monstrous commitment.”

And I did.

And later we got married.

I’ve often thought, since then, that marriage can be as holy as missions, a holy place in which God can work my sanctification. Loving my husband and learning to live with him is, for me, even more sacred and powerful a task and a grace (and a witness) as working for Wycliffe would have been.

Believe it or not, all of that was just the introduction to this post.

Barbara has written a lovely post about how much more difficult it is to trust God and be gracious in the little annoyances, compared to the big obvious challenges. So true.

I’m not writing in response to her post — I think it’s great. I’m writing in reaction to the Roaslind Goforth quotation near the end of her post.

Basically, this missionary wife has to allow the local people, who are prejudiced against whites, into her home, and she is expected to be perfectly saintly to them no matter what. One of them insults her deeply, and she speaks firmly in response. Her husband tells her he is disappointed in her.

I can see the point — really I can. It would be a powerful witness to never be hurt and lash back at anyone*. And the wife’s behavior certainly set back the husband’s goals.

But!

The insulting person responded, “she has a temper like us.” How true! Yes, the white people are not gods, they are not perfect; they are subject to all the range of human emotion and are not impervious to hurts. The wife’s talking back was not a personal attack. It was not name-calling or cursing. It was standing up for herself, for her home. Can it not also be a witness when people see that we are like them, that we get hurt and get angry, and when they see how we manage these feelings?

And that husband… could it be that his marriage should come before his mission? Did he love his wife sacrificially in that moment? Could he not have consoled her, comforted her, assured her of her wholeness and dignity in the sight of God? Took thought and care for her feelings first, before those of the outsiders? Charity begins at home. And what a powerful witness it is when a man loves his wife well!

*I have a theory that there are three levels of spiritual / psychological health; one is subhealthy: the people who are doormats because they believe they are worthless and less than nothing; the healthy: people who have good boundaries, who know who they are, who have respect for themselves as well as for others; and the superhealthy: people who can lay aside their rights for the sake of another person, without losing their sense of self and dignity. Standing up for yourself is healthy. Not standing up for yourself might be subhealthy or superhealthy, depending on what lies beneath. You can’t fake superhealthy. You can work towards it, and grow in grace with it, but you can’t force it.

My current blogroll

Per Sandi’s request, here’s a list of the blogs I am reading lately. I don’t keep a blogroll in my sidebar because I don’t want to have to update it when it changes. I also don’t want to get into any kind of favoritism or status stuff.

• Always a work in progress — A young mom talks about her kids, homeschooling, and Christian stuff.
• Chewymom — A mom writes about her kids, small town living, nutrition, the environment, and Christian stuff.
• Finding the light in the darkness — A young Catholic woman talks about surviving child abuse.
• House of Five — A young mom talks about her family and faith.
• The People Behind My Eyes — A young woman writes about life with Dissociative Identity Disorder, therapy, plus art and poetry.
• Post Secret — People mail in their secrets (positive, negative, uncensored) on postcards.
• Spin Me I Pulsate — A young mom talks about her kids, being Bipolar, having lost her mom at an early age, and all sorts of other things.
• Stuff on my Cat — People send in pictures of various items on their cats, from clothes to food to whatever.
• The Wood Between the Worlds — A young mom talks about her daughter, mental health, theology, and more.

I also read the blogs of some friends of mine who are in high school and college, and a few others from time to time.

In which I regret not keeping up with the news

I just discovered, oddly enough through WordPress.com’s Tag Surfer feature, with the tag “Miscellany,” that one of my two favorite authors died last week. Which also means I discovered that up until a week ago, he was still alive.

If you’ve never read any Kurt Vonnegut, try some this week, or month, or year. You might hate it, you might like it, you might hate some of his ideas and absolutely love the way he writes about them, you might find some comfort and catharsis in his cocktail of absurdity, meaninglessness, kindness, humanity, beauty…

And so it goes.