Living-Deliberately.com

When I was a little girl, laying on a blanket on the grass, looking up counting clouds, I don’t remember ever saying, “When I grow up I want to be lonely”. On the contrary, my earliest memory of growing-up dreams went like this: “When I grow up I want to have 5 children.” My childhood play included muddy baby dolls and tee pees in the woods or dollhouse homesteads with multitudes of barefooted chillin’s running around. I thought the daddy would be my best friend and we would live in ordinary domestic bliss forever.

Life kind of turned out like that. I had the five babies. They were even muddy and barefooted most of the time! Truth be told, lots of times they still are. I’ve even come pretty close to an actual homestead. What little girls don’t realize (and its probably a mercy to them) is that the reality of dreams that come true have a lot of other stuff that comes with them. Like the fact that I’ve had 5 babies but only get to raise 4, having buried one when she was born with a broken heart. Or that sometimes the man you thought was Prince Charming turns into a mean toad at night, turning your humble little castle into a haunted homestead of illusion. Life is like that; sugar comes with lumps.

When dreams break and there are pieces to pick up, lots of the daily rituals that existed are gone. The cast of characters changes.  Basics like eating and sleeping are thrown off kilter. People worry less if the externals look the same for as long as possible…you know, if you still show up for work on time, have the same party you always did, come to church and sit in a neat row. So maybe a lot of energy goes to those things, just to avoid dealing with both the tragedy and the disruption caused for others. But one thing is definite: people love to give advice. I think it makes them feel like they’ve done something to help when the problem seems too big for anyone to fix. And another thing can be counted on, at least most of the time: that advice worked for them or someone they knew so they’re sure it will work for you too.

It’s well meant. Very much so and it always helps to keep that in mind. There have been two really big traumas in my life that have resulted in a constant tide of lovingly-meant advice. The first was after my Clara died. The second was after I left that abusive marriage and said out loud that I gave up.

When Clara died, it was all “stay busy” kind of stuff. For some reason, it seems grieving people shouldn’t be allowed to have too much time on their hands. Makes them dwell on the pain too much maybe. What I hated most then about those days was how easily the world kept on turning when I wanted it to stop for a second and acknowledge her existence. I hated busy-ness. I hated having Things To Do. I wanted to crawl into my lonely nursery, paint her picture for hours, tend her grave, hold my toddlers, and give the whole process it’s appointed time.

This was very different from how I’d coped with anything else. Extreme financial pressure, major disappointments, emotional despair…these were all met with hard work. Lots of hard work. I throw myself into projects when I need to push through something. Take no breaks. A task at a time, I stay too busy to think. So when I put on the breaks that May, I gave myself over to it fully but it was counter to everyone’s prescription. Maybe it’s like when someone is pushing on you and instead of pushing back, you drop your arms and let their own force make them fall.  I knew in my heart when the time was right to Come Back.  I washed her clothes and put them away. I got the nursery ready for the next baby and willed myself to dream of him whole. I started listening to life again. And I learned in vivid color that this “time”, this turning point, is different for everyone. No one can appoint it for any one else.

The end of marriage though was the total opposite. Now the idea was “you need time alone”. I have the unfortunate (for this story) historical note of having gotten married too young. I married a year after high school and lived at my parent’s home until I moved into “Our” first apartment. In most of the world, this is normal. In America, this Bad News.

So, when you do that, and it goes badly, it’s assumed at least part of the problem was that she wasn’t independent enough.  Really, it’s another way to make him less responsible. Go with me here for a second: There’s a persistant attitude regarding abused women that part of them likes it or they wouldn’t stay. Or maybe part of it is that they are too stupid/naive/young etc to notice the signs. Whatever. The crux is that this puts the responsiblity of the abuse ON HER. Nevermind that men shouldn’t abuse their women. That there shouldn’t BE signs to recognize because EVEN IF she’s stupid/naive/young, men don’t have the lisense to beat her head into the wall because dinner was late or the kitchen floor needs to be mopped.

I don’t think anyone who has spoken to me directly has thought his abuse was my fault. Not in so many words. But when they say it happened because I was too young or it happened because I didn’t have enough time on my own first, that’s missing the mark. It happened because HE. Not, It happened because SHE. Get the nuance?

So anyway, I didn’t live alone before I got married. And after I left, I went back to my parent’s house, which became more lengthy than anyone intended. Legal issues are complicated and after he was committed, a physcologist was added into the mix. You can’t rent an apartment if you can’t change your legal residence. So, we lived where we were told to live, poster children for the fact that idyllic solutions can’t be slapped on situations so far from any kind of ideal.

And somewhere in the mix of the time since then, surfaced this idea that I might be afraid to be alone. Or I might not know how. Or, if I can just somehow manage it, it will make everything better.

Well-meant, constant advice.  Any writers reading this are probably laughing… writers and other creatives know that time alone inevitably fills with words, images, and ideas faster than you slap a tick. More content is generated than can be expressed in a lifetime; the feeling being there is never enough time to get it all “done”. It’s something craved, not feared. I can’t remember the last time I was bored, felt afraid of silence, or couldn’t find something to do.  Nevertheless, when relational crisis happens, the universal advice is “you just need some time alone”.

The “work” that often has to be done, is different for everyone. For some, they have never known solitude and their biggest work is learning how to be alone with the quiet. For others, who’ve had too much time alone, their biggest work may be learning to how to dwell within community, or at least, a different community. To say one size fits all is to say we must all be hermit monastics or that there is a magic number prescription that is if swallowed, will make the rest of life go down more easily. To be sure, breaking old patterns and learning new ones, opening life up to light, and choosing health over toxicity will all make the new life better than the old one. But if this came in a bottle or in a clearly defined checklist we all could adopt, it’d be a Brave New World indeed.

I knew where my work needed doing. There are a few general “givens” that I didn’t waste time questioning. For instance, therapy always helps. Anyone. At any time. Got a problem? Go talk to someone. It’s guaranteed to help and probably in ways you wouldn’t have predicted. It’s transformative like that.  Another is to analyze what steps occurred that led to the previous choice and design some kind of map of opposites so that it’s not possible to choose that way a second time. Want different people in your life? They probably hang out in different places than the others. And they have different hobbies. You might have to learn something new, which happens to be pretty interesting and transformative all on it’s own. All that “stepping out of your comfort zone” stuff grows a person. If you spent years burying your own preferences, the process of uncovering them becomes it’s own adventure. Back it way up baby; go back to the start. Remembering what you liked and what’s been added to it in your absence is seeing new skin on your finger after a week or so under a band aid. Everything feels really fresh again, even if it’s actually quite old. It’s you that’s been changed.

Having the kind of childhood I did, with all that time in the woods, making “friends” with trees and ideas, gave me lots of time alone. Being a creative person, who paints and writes, taught me how to fill available solitude with texture. Being married to who the person I was, taught me how to work hard within the the context of emotional isolation, in the absence of camaraderie. Walking away from every tangible thing I knew, small children in tow, through a dangerous Leaving and towards an uncertain future certainly taught me how to be strong for others even as the world around me crumbles. It definitely conquered any fear of doing it alone!  Learning how to be alone is not something I need more practice doing. As I lay dying, I won’t think back and wish I’d had more time alone. I won’t wish I’d spent more time reading interesting books or trying  a new painting technique, though I like to do both of those things. Someone said to me last week that what those telling someone “you need to be alone” don’t realize is that what they are saying alienates the person they are saying it to.  This ultimately drives them away, to go be with someone else rather than “alone”.  People, like legos, really don’t make a whole lot of sense without the context of one another.

Transformation doesn’t have to have a cocoon or bubble in order to occur. In fact, I think I’m starting to believe that it rarely does. I will include the deeply spiritual practices of intentionally sequestered time for mediation and prayer. By it’s very nature, the discipline of prayer includes addressing someone, a higher power, something bigger than ourselves. Even prayer does not happen “alone”, though it does happen in quiet.

It might be more convincing that it works if it seemed anyone really did it. I know people who decided not to date after a break up for a long time…but they live very active social lives. Or online lives. Or that blurry place inbetween. There are people who maintain a private mailing address and call this “alone”, even though their hours aren’t spent that way. Others don’t tell their friends and families who is in their lives and call this “alone”. I’ve heard people say with regret (because they didn’t do it) that “you need to be alone”…only because in hindsight they wish they’d done things differently and pick needing companionship as the weakness they’d most like to purge.

As if the ability not to need people makes them super heroes. The only thing it makes them sound like to me is less human.

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I think that’s ironic. Why is wanting to be in the presence of a friend considered a weakness? It’s a universal human desire, one of such magnitude that God said it was not good for man to be alone so He made him a woman. Humans need food, water, shelter, to love and be loved. We die without those things. And yes, I get that we all die anyway but if we were given a life to live for a time I don’t see the point in wasting the hours. We get ONE life and it’s later than we think. If there is work to be done after a crisis, I’d rather do it fully and then get on with living. Which is to say, I don’t want to spend my one little lifetime sorting through emotional trauma and the fallout. There’s so much more to real living than that.

If I’ve learned anything in my suffering it’s that everyone has it. Everyone knows pain and struggle. We are all valid. What we are not is all the same. What might heal you is not necessarily what will heal me. My remedy could be your poison. If I walk with you, I will know this. If I hand you a platitude and walk away, I will not. People need people, a hand to hold, a hug, room to be. Fortunately, the world is a big place full of people. If one tribe won’t commune, there’s another that needs you. In this one life we get, we can touch as many as we wish. When I read that quote last week, “it’s later than we think”, it stuck with me. There’s no time like now; it’s the only time we have.

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In my Thanksgiving Countdown list every week, a recurring point has always been the friendships in my life. And having those people in my heart and life really are one of the biggest elements of my life right now that is “right”.

A look at my Facebook list was interesting: I’ve been blessed to have friends in every state I’ve lived in, friends since I was a baby, friends since I was a bushy-headed 13 year old. Friends since high school, friends who I met in the gap between school and marriage. Friends who’s babies were born when mine were, friends in every church along the way, friends inside of the box and out. Friends who homeschool, public and private school, friends who unschool. Single and married, black and white, gay and straight, longterm and new. I have friends who walked through the door of divorce before me, friends who’ve been through violence to the other side and encourage me along my way, friends who’ve been married 40 years and Understand. I have friends who waited through and were Still There when I went years disallowed from contacting them. Friends who have protected me, sheltered me, challenged me, and been painfully honest and straight with me. Friends who understand the reasons behind my journey and friends who don’t but love me anyway. Friends who voted McCain/Palin and friends who canvassed for Obama. Friends who have never seen my face but read every word I wrote this year, and I, theirs. Friends who don’t own a computer. Friends who giggle at my exploits and friends who won’t let me take things (or myself) too seriously. Friends who saved my life and friends who saved my cupcakes. I’m glad it’s a big, big world.

If you’re reading this, you know who you are.

One of the things that was pointed out this year is that having a variety of friendships is a sign of a healthy life. When a person is evaluated for personality disorders and mental illness, one thing that is looked at is the relationships around them. Are there large gaps of time where they don’t communicate with their siblings? Do they still talk to anyone who served in their wedding? Are they in touch with anyone from their childhood? How long can they hold the same job in the same office? When is the last time they went out with someone for fun? Do they have a balance between old friendships and new, in a variety of settings? After all, the buddy you chat with about yesterday’s game over the cubical wall is different than your old roommate yet being able to maintain both with stability requires mental balance and health. People who only have old friends probably don’t get out much or handle their daily stress well. And people who only have new friends who cycle through quickly probably have a host of other, mostly narcissistic, issues as well. Or so the discovery has gone.

So, if having relationships is a sign of health, I think it also encourages health. Having a lot of people in your life means you have a support system. You aren’t alone. And you can’t be small…. people are all so different. So challenging. You have to learn to ebb and flow and let people be Who They Are, which in turn sharpens you into a Better You. I can see the contrast through my years of how I’ve been challenged to listen more, say things better, reach out of myself, hear someone else’s need. Loneliness isn’t just about the one who is isolated and can sometimes be very selfish. I can’t know or address anyone else’s need if I’m locked away to myself. And they can’t know mine. The world shrinks.

Controllers know this. They like the world small because it means more of it is under their thumb. It’s more easily managed. Eliminate abusive control and the world grows; freedom blooms.

People Are Beautiful and variety keeps life growing. You can’t have Spring without Winter or Summer without Spring and who would really want one long, never-changing season? My friends who try new foods with me know this, as do my friends who read new books and my friends digging into musical history for an old classic or salvaging windows from that old house for a cold-frame. I grow when I find a common interest over native grains with someone of a foreign (to me) faith.

I’m a big believer that God always does His work through people. That means, when we pray, we’ll see the answer very often via another human being and maybe it doesn’t look like what we expected. Many, many times I find myself near tears with gratitude of the friendships that are in my life. For years I was told I didn’t have time to give them and to let them go. Or that they were hazardous people that I should avoid. Or that I’d outgrown them. But life in the Light has shown that not to be the case at all. Even busy lives can include times to connect. Maybe not as often as anyone would like but enough to communicate caring, interest, and the hope for more. Someone’s idea is not dangerous to me or mine unless they force it upon me and ironically, friends don’t do that…controllers do. And how can someone really “outgrow” another human soul? None of us is at our destination yet and everyone is growing.

So, dear friends, you are one thing that is right in my life right now. If I could change anything about it, it would only be that there continue to become more of you, with more time to really nurture and discover. What I have, I hope to preserve. I want to be a better friend, listen more, grow more, discover and give. New, old, casual, intense, same as me, different than me… It’s an honor to be on the path of life with you. Thank you.

I’m rewatching a favorite: A & E’s version of Pride and Prejudice. I love this version…the newer one seems to breathlessly rush through the scenes, the little moments that really make the tension of the story.

For most of the years I’ve watched it (and since the kids love it too, we rewatch it regularly, having most of it memorized), my favorite parts have been the quick and witty dialog scenes, the dances, the dawning of the main character’s minds and hearts toward one another. Today though, I’m thinking about a different dynamic: the heroism of the active love shown, the love that ultimately saves the day.

Near the end, when the scandal that had been building through the story comes to a climax, and it explodes in devastating ugliness, Lizzy is faced with the unavoidable visibility and consequent loss that comes with it. Her life is messy: she has a disgraced sister whose choice reflects upon the whole family. Just before, and 3/4 of the story along, she and Darcy have lowered their guard…they have let one another in and fallen in love. Then comes the blow. He comes to see her at the moment she hears the news and the unspoken words are almost stronger than what is verbally said in that scene: she is desperate for her family, she is marked by the drama, and she sees him turn cold at the news. Understanding his predicament, she freely lets him go, knowing though, “I will never see him again”.

True to the age, she never would have. The bonds of propriety were too strong, as shown in all of Austen’s novels. And yet, unbeknowst to her, he is not running from her scandal….he is repairing it. Facing it. Freeing her from it. Saving the day. She does indeed see him again, and is proposed to, at that.

Jane Austen’s story is timeless because lives are still messy. We still form prejudices and suffer from pride. We still flee getting involved in others’ dramas and traumas. We still self-protect and attempt to make only “advantageous matches”. Hopefully there are still heroes out there, heroes who look beyond pride and prejudice and scandal. I think Lizzy was a heroine as well…without coercion she released him, she gave up her dream, even though it cost personal suffering.

It’s a whole level of the story I’d not considered before. It’s depth that defies time.

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Ammended to say: it does still annoy me a bit that he couldn’t have at least told her something to reassure her when he left…some little tidbit of steadfastness and intent. Anguish would have been avoided and how could he exactly, have kept from at least uttering, “please don’t cry…it will be alright in the end”? Even heroes have flaws I suppose.

With the days finally getting darker earlier, meaning the near-end of “daylight savings time”, cozy times are settling back into our routine. Even though the renovation is not yet done and the bunkbeds are still in the living room, we are wrapping up playtime and work hours more to the clock than to the sun, getting baths and clean jammies on, and snuggling up for story time. For ever how many reasons this ritual gets derailed in the summer (and it always does), I’m ever so grateful for it’s return.

I guess part of this is because I directly feel good or bad as a mother based on a very seemingly superficial thing: if the beds are made each day, the sheets clean, and the jammies fresh…put on bodies with sweet-soap scents still lingering, at a decent hour of twilight, I feel there is a healthy order in our universe. Really, the whole kit and kaboodle can be in serious jeoprody, but if they get washed every night and slip into clean, well made sleep spots, with a story, prayers, and kisses, I can manage quite a bit of daytime mayhem. The worst days are when the beds are rumpled and the dog’s been sleeping on them or worse yet…the kids go to bed in jeans. (shudder).

But as sure as the seasons change, the nighttime ritual returns. No more running barefoot into a way-past-bedtime sunset or watching fireflies. Mom and Dad have cups of hot tea and children get baths and story, and the stars align just as they should.

With the age range of our kids, 2.5-11.5, and the fact that the older kids are doing school with Dad at night, we’ve found a new pocket of opportunity: one-on-one time with the littles, snuggled up in Mom’s bed. Days are busy and everyone around here is always together. But this has become a special treat; a chance to spend a few quiet moments with each child. I have no idea how long it will last….only that the thought joins a little mental catch I have to savor it because our days spent with childhood, before the teenage years are upon us, are surely limited.

And so to the bookshelves where our stacks of picture books have sat waiting all summer long do the little boys return. The pile is migrating to my bedroom, where it accumulates night after night, and I am loathe to take them back down and reshelve them, in an effort to postpone the passing of the memory as long as I can. Tonight we opened Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree, a book I bought them all for christmas our first year here in Tennessee. It opens, “Once there was a tree….and she loved a little boy.” Within is a tale of time, and childhood, and mothering, and giving until there is no more to give…when, just at the end, a little more is found.

May these days slow down…just a little bit. They are golden.

Green & Black has this out…and they flaunted the little tub of glory in a magazine I perused the other day. Alas, I’m not sure where to find it and even if I do, it won’t be in time for this rainy night. Autumn is hanging out over on the other side of the mountain and will blow in soon but it’s not here yet and the result is an environmental funk. The trees can’t seem to decide if there should be a breeze, the rain comes and goes, the crickets are half-hearted. I’m working late ‘else I’d be slicing fresh fries and crawling under my ancient blanket.

Madeleine L’Engle died last Thursday. This makes me want to reread the A Wrinkle in Time series and Two-Part Invention: The Story of a Marriage (The Crosswicks Journal, Book 4) and all the others I have on the shelf that I haven’t delved into yet collected out of love for her. I imagine her walking in the fields of her farm in Conneticut though her last three years were spent in a nursing home. Over the past year I’d waited to hear this announcement of her passing, knowing it had to be close. She is a comfortable, intelligent, creative read; if you’ve never heard her read her books aloud, get a recording. It adds a new dimension to books that were already quite in another dimension.

This is a total gear shift but on one level, another “comfort” read of mine is People mag, so maybe within the realm of cozy-vegging it’s not such a shift: hot around the internet today was the building common head shaking over Britney Spears’s disasterous performance at the VMA’s. Say what you will about booty-shaking, half-dressed, sex-charged music, performing is Britney’s JOB. No one making her do it…presummably anyway; it would seem her “come back” is up to her. Who shows up on the job drunk and gets away with it? But that scene is scary. She’s glazed over and stoned looking, being steered around by dancers that were more in step than she was. I read somewhere that she looked nervous…I don’t think so. I think she looks disinterested and careless and lost and really, like a million red alarms over her health and well being should be screaming. It looked to me that rather than lip-syncing, “Gimme More”, she was saying, “Get me off this crazy thing….called life.”

The video, being posted all over the place, is also being pulled all over the place. Internet freedom is fading in whispers but that is a rant for another night.

While I’m posting tonight, let’s add a little “on topic” link love. A friend of mine had this delicious little clarifiying way to remember how to make the step from inaction towards action, from a Fortune Cookie of all sources! then Seth Godin had this post on the willingness to take little chances.

Maybe there’s some ice cream and Ancient Blanket Vegetation in my future after all; I’ll skip the fries and the mice who try to take over the world….this time.

This experiment was interesting; I’d certainly pick the book up for a read, along the lines of Big-Box Swindle: The True Cost of Mega-Retailers and the Fight for America’s Independent Businesses. Someone wondered something (how tied are we to a global economy?), gave it a deliberate try (live without things made in China for one year), to the end of a discovery (buying locally reduces your eco-footprint) and a book, (A Year Without “Made in China”: One Family’s True Life Adventure in the Global Economy).

The kids and I often talk (usually in the car) about the rise of China; they are particularly interested in China’s large military, girls being adopted in America, declining population, and control of our manufacturing. It’s complex, that’s for sure. For now, our focus has not be to avoid things made in China, mostly because they seem so umbiquitous that it would feel like an overwhelming task. Instead, we are buying them second-hand as much as possible so that at least we are changing our mindset from “disposable consumer goods”. It’s a baby step I suppose. But we’ve striven to eat locally for years and this year have given added focus to supporting local business; buying locally made products can not be far behind, ideologically speaking.

Here and there I’ve also read things about toxins and poisons commonly used in China’s manufacturing, lately showing up in the Thomas The Train recall, which directly affected our family. As they surpass us in Carbon Emisssions, it is yet another reminder of the future of America and China connection. Anyone else have any China concerns and the future?

“To live more voluntarily is to live more deliberately, intentionally, and purposefully- in short, it is to live more consciously. We cannot be deliberate when we are distracted from life. We cannot be deliberate when we are distracted from life. We can not be intentional when we are not paying attention. We cannot be purposeful when we are not being present. Therefore, to act in a voluntary manner is to be aware of ourselves as we move through life….

….To live more simply is to live more purposefully and with a minimum of needless distraction. The particular expression of simplicity is a personal matter. We each know where our lives are unnecessarily complicated. We are all painfully aware of the clutter and pretense that weigh upon us and make our passage through the world more cumbersom and awkward. To live more simply is to unburden ourselves- to live more lightly, cleanly, aerodynamically. It is to establish a more direct, unpretentious, and unencombered relationship with all aspects of our lives….

…Simplicity of living means meeting life face-to-face. It means confronting life clearly, without unnecessary distractions. It means being direct and honest in relationships of all kinds….

….When we combine these two ideas for integrating the inner and outer aspects of our lives, we can describe voluntary simplicity as a manner of living that is outwardly more simple and inwardly more rich, a way of being in which our most authentic and alive self is brought into direct and conscious contact with living….

…the object is not to dogmatically live with less, but is a more demanding intention of living with balance in order to find a life of greater purpose, fulfillment, and satisfaction.”

From chapter 1 of Voluntary Simplicity, Revised Edition: Toward a Way of Life That Is Outwardly Simple, Inwardly Rich

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturidly and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to it’s lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness out of it, and publish it’s meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.

This, of course, is the quote that gave the name for my blog a few years ago. I re-read it today as part of the writing I’m doing on my book and every time, it’s just as inspiring as the first. Routing out all the “fake” in my world….living honestly and with integrity, even when it’s not always positive but mean even… giving a “true account”. It’s the essense for me; it’s what empowers the marrow-sucking. Because there can be no real savoring of life if we romanticizing reality or not confronting the ugly in the world; if we cling to the artificial that is all we’ll be left with in the end.

Oh what an exciting week it has been! And few will probably appreciate the magnitude of that statement…this was the week of our daughter Clara’s 8th birthday. Due to a misunderstanding of where I was on the calendar (itself a minor miracle in the last week of March), I first thought her birthday was Sunday. Then Tuesday. But really, it was yesterday. What struck me as beautiful is that is was the kind of comical befuddlement that happens to my living children’s birthdays too. It was the first time it had happened with Clara’s; the darkness that has followed me every spring has been lifted. I attribute this almost completely to the fact that she has been remembered in corporate, public prayers for the departed since late fall. Her presense as one who prays for me as well has been validated; something I’ve long felt but never heard another say so seriously and earnestly as I have this winter. That she is no longer my “secret”, that I no longer feel like I must fight the tendancy to make the dead invisible, has been it’s own miracle in my spirit and the result has been the lack of dread as we’ve approached the season of anniversaries.

And so this has been a good week! Tulips and butterflies and ivy and daffodils! Sunshine and supreme warmth! As I type there is birdsong outside my open window.

Last night we made our first confession, in preparation for our upcoming chrismation. I’ve been pondering what confession really is: said privately it really is only an admission that you know what God has already known. True confession does require another’s ears hear your words. I made a list, one to help me remember and stay focused, but what the true result was the creation of a record resulting in self-loathing and shame. And I think for the first time my embarrassment at needing to say this before another human being, especially one I love and respect so much, gave me a glimpse at what must be so much more grievous before a heavenly father. And in to an earthly, lesser, extent, I think what happened was glorious. Because this confessor, this human being, did not seem to look at me differently afterward and certainly not with the scorn I’d feared. Rather than rejection I was given grace and love. I left feeling comfort and reassurance that my redemption is truly a possible thing, even with habitutal sins that I’ve long struggled with, even as I fight battles like everyone else, not so odd after all. And if that is model of what really happens in a heavenly realm then I stand amazed and bit sad that this was missing from my tradition for a lifetime.

I’ve two major projects in the works: a book and new business. This blog has over 50k hits per month and the readership is growing, what I’m told is a good performance for a young site. Requests for web work and blog make-overs have come, putting together a “professional blogger” kind of service. So I’ve assembled packages for business people who want a blog, or have a blog that needs revamping, and out of time or knowledge constraints, want some help with it. It’s work I love to do, love to learn, and in some ways, feels like a cummulative way to use what I’ve been developing for a long time.

The book is the other Major Undertaking, one that is much fun and since NanoWriMo, is not all that intimidating. The goal is to have it ready to show to an editor/publisher by the end of September of this year. The working title is Low Income is Better Than Owed Income: How One Family Decided to Live on purpose and Become Debt Free. I’ve got extensive notes and the outline done, and oh yeah, I lived it. It’s our story, plus the testimonies of other like minds, and lots of practical tips for those wanting to give it a go as well.

The image of a puzzle keeps coming to mind, pieces fitting together and the completed picture working its way into focus, a metaphor for the coming year. Everything is a part: healing, committment, work and effort, rest and prayer. The result is clarity; the irony to me, in a year resplendant with ironic moments, is that clarity is the meaning of her name. Some gifts take a long time to open.

While I was away this weekend, David found this blog and was anxious to share it with me this morning. I soon saw why…lots of great nuggets on there directly relating to a few of my current endeavors. The blog writer, Guy Kawasaki, recently reviewed an article called The Effort Effect. Restructuring how I say things, first and foremost to my kids, is a huge recent undertaking and the author also wrote a book sounds like it might have some interesting things to say about that. It’s called Mindset. Take a look.

a fellow kindred spirit began her own experiment with a boycot of Walmart and thankfully kept good records! She shared them today:

The figures are in.

I quit shopping at Walmart last August 31st as a protest against several of their policies.

BUT I figured not shopping at Walmart our budget would take a hit. It has proven opposite. It has helped the budget AND I my pantry is full, my freezer is full, PLUS it is so much less stressful to shop the local grocery store or smaller, less busy discount and hardware stores.

In a side by side compaison of Sept. - Dec. 2005 to Sept. - Dec. 2006 I spent $263.14 LESS NOT shopping at Walmart. In 2005 I shopped almost exclusively at Walmart for colthing, groceries & household needs. The 2006 figure even included the extra feed I needed for the extra livestock we now own.

I started not shopping at Walmart in protest. I will continue as it has proven beneficial.

Expenditures for clothing, household, animal feed & groceries
Sept. - Dec. 2005 = 3474.27
Sept. - Dec. 2006 = 3211.13
Savings = 263.14

Rock On Girl! And thanks for letting me share this with everyone, in hopes of encouraging others that shopping at a store we hate doesn’t have to hurt our budgets!

Also, a book recommendation was passed on. Big Box Swindle.  I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it soon…..bbwwwwwwhhaaahaaaaahaaa!

This book arrived in the mail for Rowan today as a part of a book service he’s signed up for in Tennessee. And what a sweet surprise of a children’s picture book it is! Rowan instantly went crazy over the animal stencils in the inside cover and the entire thing is beautifully illustrated. The story, told in a lyrical rhyme, is a young boy asking him Momma questions for “me and baby” and her answers. It was a tender representation of a stay at home mother on a small farm; definitely a new favorite.

The other day an old post of mine on Kathryn Sansone got a couple of new comments. This happens from time to time; her book is still a hot topic for some I guess. Being very involved over the last few days with bigger fish to fry, I didn’t reply to the comments but last night, when I was suposed to be dreaming I think, some thoughts came to me instead that this morning I’d like to express.

Carolyn said, “Both Duggar and Sansone should be appreciated for having the courage to publish useful tips to other mothers.
Hopefully neither one of them will ever have to read the less than charitable comments/critiques thrown around about them online.
Both families clearly have a lot of love which is what really matters…whether we’re rich and send our kids to school or living simply and homeschooling. Why don’t we spend our free time encouraging each other rather than comparing?”

Why compare indeed? Well here’s why:

• Kathryn Sanson wrote a book, putting herself out there, inviting the world into her life. Responsible, intelligent people won’t just read stuff; they will think about it, they will filter it through their worldview. One way or another they will form an opinion. Maybe they will gain encouragment from a book like this; many women found it disheartening. I wrote a review of what I found it to be, but I think it’s important to say that what I said wasn’t personally motivated. Kathryn Sansone, and Michelle Duggar for that matter, became almost analogies for a “kind” of mother in our society, both on opposite ends of the spectrum. I’m sure they both love their families and they both show it in radically different ways. It’s okay to compare methods.
• one my mottos: method matters. Or one could say, “the ends don’t justify the means”. Something may be very well worth doing, for instance, mothering, or making time for oneself, or making extra money. But HOW it is done matters. Looking at how another does something is one way to see what their method resulted in, what kind of consequence, and then makes it easier to decide if that’s a similiar path one wants to follow.

One thing I found interesting in the reaction to Woman First, Family Always, was the idea that she was being criticised for “being rich and putting her children in school”. I wonder if these people really read the book! Kathryn Sansone advocated much, much more than just using a schooling source than homeschooling, and really, that is so NOT the issue. I myself contrasted her with Michelle Duggar, not because I think the Duggars do it the “right” way but because she was her polar opposite in how time was spent and how priorities were arranged and yet here is a woman who appears every bit as satisfied and assurred in her role. She didn’t need to farm out her kids and over extend herself to the point of napping the bank teller line (a real story KS not only tells but recommends) to acheive it and I thought that was worth noting.

Comparisons can be valuable things. Even scripture recommends we hold up our faith and behavior in order to acheive what we should have as our goal. As we listen to other viewpoints and ways of doing things (more on that in another post), at some point we have to compare it against what we do and decide if we’ll keep, discard, or divide it. I don’t find doing so either encouraging or discouraging; there’s a person behind each idea. The idea is what is being compared here, not the individual.

Like I’ve said before, this week dh and I are reading “Facing East” by Frederica Matthewes-Green, not to be confused with last week’s read, “At the Corner of East and Now”.

Last night’s chapter delved a bit into the use of icons, which I found helpful because it is THE biggest difference I’m grappling with. It occurred to me that I may not be the only one fairly clueless about the role icons play in Orthodox worship and why, and maybe a few excerpts from the book would be helpful.

The author tells a story about a book she read her children when they were small called “The Little Lost Lamb” that had pictures of Jesus with children in it. Her children spontaneously kissed the picture each night (they were Episcopalian at the time). She says,

“My problem, then, was not with using images of Jesus or depictions of Bible stories or heroes of the faith. I knew our love wasn’t being lavished on a laminated plaque but was being offered through the picture to the Lord himself. The image was like a window, a seen object opening us to things unseen.”

The idea of icons being windows (which is why they are always flat and not 3-D) is much of the Orthodox position. A quote from St. Basil the Great is, “Honor shown to the icon passes to the prototype it represents.”

It was upon reading this that I had two memories strike me that caused this to resonate with me: one, was that as a pre-teen girl I’d hide pictures of the boy I liked at the moment and sometimes kiss them; the other was the memory, fairly recent, of how I’d kiss our daughter Clara’s pictures. I knew I wasn’t kissing her (to my great pain); but that some secret hope within me existed that my kiss would somehow pass onto her where she was, and that somehow, she’d “feel” my kiss. Like a window to my baby.

In the eighth and ninth century there was a great debate over the use of icons and a group called the iconoclasts (icon smashers) destroyed icons believing them to be idols. On pro-icon argument reminded me of my little protest over R. C Sproul’s comparison of them to the golden calf.

“How can they be idols? They’re pictures of Jesus. If it was a picture of Baal, that would be an idol. But Jesus is God!”

She says, “But the Orthodox have no illusion that an icon is itself a god. They distinguish between worship, given only to God, and veneration, the honor that may be accorded an icon, a saint, or the Theotokos (Mary, God-bearer).”

And of course, what is often pointed to is the incarnation itself. Where God in the OT wanted no visible image, he then “took flesh and became a baby. He became visible, concrete, with shocking specificity: a man of certain height, build, and eye color, eating a roast fish on a Sunday afternoon. Because God chose to become visible, we can represent him; we can represent any person or event in his story because these are manifestations of God’s will to invade earthly life, to make himself concrete and visible.”

Which brings out the point that icons must be images of actual happenings and people; not conjectures and ideas of what we want to portray. For instance, an icon can show Jesus and the Holy Spirit as a Dove, but not the God the Father.

David fell asleep at that point and so we only got halfway through the chapter. This week Netflix is sending me the series by Sister Wendy and I’m hoping at least one of the discs delves into religious art and icons, both eastern and western. I’m still uncertain what to think; only that they’ve done it this way for a long, long, long time, while an image-less worship is much more fairly recent and I think, for that reason, some suspicion of that would be appropriate.