Dusty Feet

We are the disobedient?

2012-02-20T11:03:00.000-08:00

There's an online art shop I found a few months ago called Fresh Words Market. It's where I found our wonderful "Time for Another Adventure" print, and it's also where I found the print above. It puzzled me. While none of the art sold by Fresh Words would, in my opinion, count as intellectual, I've often found it to be at least somewhat witty and thoughtful in a bumper sticker sort of way. That might sound like damning with faint praise, but they're bumper stickers I'd think about putting on my own car (or my computer) or at least smile at if I saw them on someone else's car. This whole disobedience thing I don't get though. That particular collection of prints contains others such as "Robin Hood was Right" and is inspired by the 99% movement, but honestly I have to wonder if anyone even thought about these before slapping them up on a poster.

In case you didn't see the whole message, that poster says "It is through disobedience that progress has been made." Really? When? According to whom? Imagine for a moment a teacher reading her class a book in which the central character learns freedom and creativity through disobedience (you probably don't have to imagine very hard because I'm sure those books exist in fair measure). Now imagine said teacher closing the book and announcing it's time to put the story rugs away and get ready for recess. What are those kids supposed to do? What have they been trained to do? Can the teacher fault any of them if they decide to break the bonds of coerced labor and head directly for the monkey bars? Suppose she makes the fatal mistake of trying to reason with them. If she loses then she's lost her authority. If she wins she's won through force of rhetoric and/or personality and set up a precedent for her students to follow the most persuasive leaders instead of the most principled. I say this because I can't think of a single way that, absent of an appeal to some authoritarian first principles, a teacher could convince a child to do anything without overawing them.

I saw this play out in the book To Sir, With Love. The teacher who worked such miracles in his classroom really did work wonders with his class, but as you read through it you start to find where the seams fray and the principles at play start to unravel. There are times in the book where he appeals to student's duty to respect their parents without once having a good foundation other than customary usage. To share one instance in particular, a girl's mother was worried her daughter might fall into promiscuous habits. However, when it came out that the mother herself had once let a man spend the night with her, it was treated as of little consequence to whether her daughter might behave in a similar manner. There was no authority for the standard which the older adults where trying to impose on this younger girl and no reason why she should respect a value (in this case chastity) which did not apply to those adults who were supposed to be guiding her. Obedience and disobedience become matters of personality and not principle.

Nevertheless, for Christian this sort of sentiment should appall us because it's precisely opposite of how Christendom advances. In the very beginning we see Noah saving his family by obedience, Moses freeing Israel through obedience, and of course Christ Jesus bringing salvation to the world through obedience. As Jesus said "I come not to abolish the law but to fulfill it." There's a difference between smashing idols and breaking the 10 Commandments. The first thing we are authorized to do (even if it's not cool), but the last thing we are not authorized to do (even if it is cool). So a Christian might be against things like crooks on Wall Street or in Washington DC or downtown USA, but we are against these things because we are for obedience to Christ. This is why we teach our kids, our students, and ourselves to be obedient - because obedience ("honor your father and mother," "love your neighbor as yourself," "do not steal," "worship the Lord your God") is how the world actually advances.

Under the description of this poster it says "Inspirational artwork, fit for adult or child space." The question I have to ask is this. Would you hang this in your child's room? If so can you tell me why you're so little interested in your child's welfare?

we're almost there

2012-02-17T12:42:00.002-08:00

We're less than one week from closing on our house. I must say it's pretty unreal. It'll be good to walk into our house and slow down and feel like we own it. I've been so focused on the work that needs doing (and it needs some!) that the thought of living there has become just a tiny bit disconnected from reality. It's as if our house is a space conjured out of pinterest boards and a few scraps of paper covered in circled initials and legal descriptions. Perhaps it'd be good to thrown down our mattress and camp out there for a week just to get a feel for the place before we start tearing down walls and ripping out counter tops. Still, I rather hope we don't have to put off doing the kitchen for too long as I'm not sanguine about any of the appliances. However given a number of unexpected expenses (ie replacing the roof) I may just end up getting better acquainted with my propane camp stove :)

Here's our roughed out remodeling plan:

Replace the roof, gutters, repaint the exterior, and repaint/replace the exterior doors. Allen and I plan to do the repainting ourselves. Fortunately the exterior is at least partially brick. Either way it's a pretty big project =)

Fix the bedroom layout (ie remove part of a very unnecessary closet wall), replace the carpet and wall hvac unit, add a new window (maybe), and paint.

After that we'll look at our finances and decide what it will take to put in a new kitchen and vault the ceilings in the main living area. We'll either find some bargains or put it off a few months until we get another quarterly bonus or two tucked away. Depending on how that works out we'll be refinishing/patching floors, painting, and generally finishing things up. We also need to replace virtually every window in the place, but that can wait until next year.

That's all the stuff that we need to do. Here's my wishlist of smaller projects to work on while we're not doing major remodeling:

Replace the bathroom vanity top and remove/cover that terrible painted over wallpaper in the master bathroom.

Start an herb garden

Get some more trees and a few other bits of landscaping started in the yard.

Get my friend set up in her art studio (she's taking over one of the spare bedrooms).

Recover the dining room chairs and make new cushion covers for the living room chairs (this is what happens when you buy used furniture).

Install in a banquet/built in bookcase in the kitchen eating area.

Put in a deck off the living room (yeah, this may not happen for a while) and replace/repair the deck/landing outside the master.

It's funny but writing that down makes me think that this is a manageable project after all. There's some big ticket items on there, like the kitchen and ceilings, but there's also a whole lot that I can do myself and a whole lot that Allen and I can work together on some weekends. It's going to take time to get it all done right, but I think this is a house (and a location) that will reward our efforts. If all else fails I've at least confirmed that there are trees of adequate spacing for me to hang my hammock and forget out the mess inside :)

Created to Be His Help Meet: Part 2 (Sobriety)

2012-01-20T19:49:00.000-08:00

Well it's been 2 1/2 very busy months over here, but I'm finally putting up another review. Sorry for the delay. My brains, as you may imagine, have been largely elsewhere.

Mrs. Pearl introduces Part 2 of CTBHHM with a brief overview of Titus 2:3-5 and her intention to work through the various things that "aged women" are to be teaching young wives - namely "to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands." The second part opens with a discussion of what it means to be "sober." By this Mrs. Pearl doesn't mean abstention from alcohol or drugs but rather a steady-minded attention to one's job.

Mrs. Pearl says that when a woman marries "she makes a commitment to be the best wife, mother, and manager of the home that anyone could be."(147 emphasis mine) The first thing that came to mind when I read that statement was the parable of the servants charged with investing their master's money. God didn't compare the servant with four talents to the servant with ten and say "You lazy servant! How is it that you stand before me with only four talents when your fellow servant has ten? You should have worked harder to gain the required amount!" No, God says "Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master" (Matt 25:23). All that to say I winced when I saw that Mrs. Pearl had me committed to being the best wife anyone could possibly be without regard to my particular gifts, circumstances, or how far along I am on the journey of housewifely sanctification. The flip side is that there are some women who probably laze along thinking "well I'm doing the best I can" when actually they need someone to say in no uncertain terms that, while "their best" might have been fine for the first six months of marriage, by their third anniversary they should have enough practice to move the goal posts back a few yards. As Mrs. Pearl says, "When a woman soberly considers the needs, time schedule, and resources of her home, then she will be a more efficient help meet" (147).

The application segment of this chapter is the usual mix of highs and lows. Yes you are called to serve your husband when he's a jerk. No I don't think that being perfect will make your husband automatically stop being a jerk. An alcoholic doesn't cease to be an alcoholic simply because he's at a meeting of Southern Baptist elders. Lack of opportunity doesn't equal change of heart. On the other hand more women should probably be encouraged to think of their home in a more businesslike manner and employ a little more left brain problem solving to what is actually a rather complex vocation. Mrs. Pearl is gracious enough to suggest how a busy mom can get meals on the table with a minimum of fuss, but I find it very ungracious of her (by which I literally mean lacking in Grace) to suggest that bad days just don't happen to good wives. Cf the statement about doing your best above. If you're using "bad days" as an excuse not to plan then I suggest you get a clue, otherwise I think we can just move along.

I have to say my favorite anecdote of the whole book is the one where her cousin relates her despair at being told by her husband, on a very hot day in the south in a house with no air conditioning, that he just wanted a cold meal. This after she'd slaved away at a hot stove doing her very best for him. The younger generation hearing this story was very huffy, but the older women laughed it off as the growing pains of marriage. There's a whole lot of wisdom in that story, but I think I can sum it up as the following: be willing to laugh at your mistakes and keep learning. A hot, exhausted husband isn't the end of the world, and the things that crush us today will often lead us on to greater successes tomorrow. Marriage, like Mattie Ross, requires grit.

I begin to think that Mrs. Pearl never met a nuance she couldn't put in time out. Apparently after 1960 "all" media began proclaiming the year of female liberation and "as always" the established churches (by which I'm guessing she means mainline denominations) weren't far behind in perpetuating all sort of gender whackadoodle. This of course ignores Piper, MacArthur, Driscoll, Wilson, my pastor, and the not insignificant number of pastors and teachers who have labored mightily against this very thing. But no matter. In contrast we get the famous "excerpt from an undocumented, possibly non-existent, 1950's home ec textbook on how to be a good wife." I'm not going to reproduce it here. I already review this book in way too much detail. Sufficing to say I don't find it surprising that a decade so devoted to worshipful adoration of the adult male led to more than one daughter deciding that she wanted OUT! While the list might not be an actual historical artifact, the sentiments are, and I find more than a tinge of desperation in the "please dear heaven don't do anything to upset this man who has an actual paying job and earns money so that you can flit around with your little cherubs while wearing cotton sundresses that your granddaughters will one day seek for high and low through every thrift store that hipsterville offers." After all, one could postulate that in the more secular American 50's (and yes the post-war years were more secular in many ways) men had less pressure than ever before to remain faithful, diligent husbands whereas their wives were in an economy that put sociological pressure on women to return home in order to open up jobs for returning vets. This is all theory mind you, but perhaps the "liberated" women of the 60s and 70s saw their mothers trapped in a desperate cycle of trying to please their husbands and maintain the only safe and respectable position they had in society? In short, they saw their mothers putting into place Mrs. Pearl's advice (albeit likely in a secular setting) and decided based on the outcome that they'd try independence thank you very much. It's a thought. The 60s didn't pop out of a vacuum. Whatever actually happened in those tumultuous decades Mrs. Pearl closes with the whiplash inducing injunction not to make an idol of our homes (the one's we're supposed to being keeping in tiptop shape because we're Sober Help Meets) because it can cause emotional distress ie drive us crazy. If you want any of those statement to dovetail you need to bring your own router.

Also, Mrs. Pearl knows that Mary was "self-possessed, thoughtful, and always learning to make wise judgements." Given the amount of Scripture used to back up this claim I could say that Mary was a hot-headed, impulsive young thing who was happy to find a situation where submitting to God didn't mean biting her tongue when her little sister asked her to play "Moses in the Bullrushes" with her. Again. Yes, I'm probably thinking this thing through way too much.

Just a little motivation

2012-01-17T20:30:00.000-08:00

Hawaii trip this Spring.

High Sierra backpack this Fall.

I'm still trying to get my head around these events. The high Sierra route is still a little tenuous, but we've got the tickets to Hawaii :) If that's not motivation to get myself in shape I'm not sure what is. The problem now is just breaking down the steps into pieces small enough for me to get my brain wrapped around them. Also, my MIL makes the best chocolate chip cookies ever. Hands down. No contest. Did I mention we're staying with my in-law's currently? On the other hand, she's something of a health nut, so I'm thinking that will balance out the cookies. Am I kidding myself here? I'm thinking that if I can't loose 15lbs for a Hawaii vacation I'm not sure what could motivate me, but then again I've learned my head can be a strange place. At least I've got September pushing me to get my rear in gear (most literally!) so that I don't just sit down and give up half-way from the summit of some pass. I'm hoping that if I can manage to think about California while I'm training and Hawaii while I'm eating I'll end up happy on both accounts. Just long as I don't reverse the two. I can scarf down the calories while I'm backpacking (can anyone say endurance sport?), but I don't expect Hawaii will be all that strenuous. Yeah.

Well that's over!

2012-01-09T05:09:00.000-08:00

Well one day perhaps I'll be a proper blogger and not go completely underground at every single opportunity, but then again maybe one day I'll have my thyroid in order and won't be moving cross country at Christmas :) We are moved though - if only in the sense of having all our stuff on the same side of the country as ourselves. My mother-in-law's spare bedroom is full to bursting with books, clothes, Christmas presents, and the assembled detritus of two people living in approximately 100 square feet (which is to say that we're trying to not have our things spread out over too much of their house). Speaking of which, we are in the offer/counter-offer process of buying a house. It's a little more of a fixer-upper than we originally planned on buying, but it's also in a great location and offers the chance for us to really design and create a space suitable for having the whole family over and (Lord willing) raise a few kids. Right now I'm knee deep in kitchen design - my pinterest boards are full of back splashes, counter tops, and various design elements. My father-in-law is proving immensely helpful in being able to talk us through parts of this process. As a homebuilder/remodeler he has the expertise (and the contacts) to help us make smart decisions. And that's been a lot of our Christmas right there. We looked at houses, visited family (including a flying trip up to Indiana), went to a wedding, and tried with varying levels of success to keep it all together. In retrospect Allen and I didn't pull together as well as we should have, but then again after 5 years of marriage we're finding our relationship growing out of old patterns set during my pre-counseling days and finding our balance as somewhat more mature and emotionally stable people isn't as easy as you'd think given the above description. And that was Christmas basically - not exactly bad but not really an experience I'd like to repeat. Our second day driving cross country was actually one of the least stressful days of our entire Christmas. Drive, nap, read, listen to Christmas music, repeat. One set task to accomplish and everything needful for said task right in front of you. Not at all like the pandora's grocery list I brought out after we arrived in Birmingham!

bone tired

2011-12-08T01:14:00.000-08:00

It's 1:30 in the morning, and I'm still packing. We leave Santa Clara in about 15 hours.

That is all.

(It's times like these I wish I was about 55 with the experience to be supremely competent and serene. I'd take the darn wrinkles if only I could be asleep right now.)

It's fun being a girl :)

2011-11-26T19:47:00.001-08:00

Two words for you:

Under goodies.

It's just plain fun when you can rummage through the store picking out the cutest "pretties" and grinning to yourself because on the outside you might be all Jane Plain in your sweatshirt and sneakers, but you revel in knowing that today you wore the special pink underpants with yellow flowers and green polka dots that you wore the day you saw a double rainbow on the way to work and that the world better watch out because these are your sassy pants!

Guys just don't have this much fun.

Sometimes I feel sorry for them.

On the other hand, I pray I never, ever, in a million years, have to witness the spectacle of man wearing pink underpants with yellow flowers. My counseling budget just isn't large enough for something like that.

Thanksgiving

2011-11-23T21:04:00.001-08:00

We're rapidly winding into Thanksgiving and the Christmas season. This year I'm grateful for friends with cute kids, daisies, Aunt Kathy, two and a half amazing years in California, and the chance to move back home and be with family. These past years have often been difficult - we've had three grandparents die in a 12 month period and wrestled with finding a place in Silicon Valley's intensely driven culture, but we've also grown and explored in ways I couldn't have imagined three years ago. I've moved towards reconciling with my past and understanding who God wants me to be. We're finally in a position to buy a house. Allen has a job that is stretching him in all kinds of ways but that also excites him. It's been good to be here, and now it's good to be going home where we can be with people who really believe in family. I continually that God that He has given me such lovely in-laws who have loved me every step of the way. For all that I'll miss about California, you can't buy anything to replace people like that.

Thanksgiving Menu:

Hot Spinach Dip and pita chips
Mixed Veg
Brie and crackers
Russian sausages (this and the one above are being brought by my Russian friends. I can't want to try the sausages.)

Herb Roasted Turkey with gravy (this is the recipe I make in my camp oven the past couple of years we've gone camping over Thanksgiving. Why mess with a good thing?)
Sweet Potato Casserole (without marshmallows)
Onions roasted in their skins
Cornbread sage and onion dressing
Mixed baked beans with mustard greens and bacon
Steamed Broccoli
Korean Style Carrots (another offering from my Russian friends - she says it's not actually Korean :)
Rolls (still deciding that one actually)

Pecan pie
Apple pie
Pumpkin pie
...all the above served with mountains of whipped cream :)

Aunt Nita's Apple Cider
Sparkling Cider
Pinot Noir
Riesling
Hot Chocolate/Coffee/Tea

Now I just need to get everything cooked and on the table :)

teddy bears and puppy dogs

2011-11-17T13:29:00.000-08:00

I must admit that I have what could actually be an embarrassing number of dolls and stuffed animals. There are my American Girl dolls (Kirsten and another doll that in a fit of misguided mothering I named "Krishta); there's my "no seriously she's old enough to be a legitimate childhood keepsake" Fisher-Price doll, Cindy, who has managed to survive over 26 years of my often enthusiastic affection with only a flat spot on her nose to show her age; in addition, there's Fluffy the stuffed dog, an ancient pound puppy, and a miscellaneous assortment of other stuffed animals both small and large. Mercifully there is no 100+ collection of beanie babies packed in tissue paper. But intrinsic to the act of packing is sorting. Things go in piles, and eventually you have a pile of things that aren't worth moving. The NYC teddy bear Allen bought on a visit and later tossed into my lap after meeting me at school (the meeting where I thought "he's really glad to see - like, really glad to see me. Does this mean he likes me?!?) obviously goes with me. But what about the cute teddy bears I got on some not terribly well remembered camping trip? It was probably in the Smokies, but which trip? What about the stuffed puppy (Magi) that Julie bought me the Christmas we realized that none of us kids had bought presents for the other and, after assembling some loose change, paired up and went roaming through Walmart? So I see Magi and remember all the times us kids banded together to solve some problem regarding presents or chores. Those were good times when we pulled in harness to deal with a home life that could be chaotic and stressful. Now the band is broken though - broken so completely that I occasionally wonder whether it ever existed. Was I a good big sister? For all the hours I read books when they were little, did I charge them in surliness and unconcern later? I don't know. There's no one I can trust who can tell me either. So Magi opens quite a mixed bag of emotions for me. And don't get me started on the funny little half-circle pillow Joey gave me one Christmas. It's made from pink quilted material (left over from a place mat?) that I think he got mom to sew in half. Then he came up to me with a needle and thread and some odd bits of trimming and showed me exactly where to sew to make a mouth and nose and two eyes. It's the funniest thing you ever saw, and he couldn't have been more than 5 I don't think. When I'd finished he took it away and wrapped it up and gave it to me for Christmas. Tell me you can toss something like that no matter how silly it looks! But once again, I don't know Joey any more. He's a stunning looking young man (he and my other brother) with a lovely girlfriend and plans for Navy career. Some things once broken become as if they never were. So there are times when I want to put everything in a pile and just get rid of it and forget the bad memories, and yet I can't. Once upon a time I was Natalie M. - big sister, one of five, firstborn daughter. Now, sometimes it feels like those lines from Jane Austen's Persuasion, "Now they were as strangers; nay, worse than strangers, for they could never become acquainted." It does not seem that there will be any friendship without reconciliation, and as that presently seems impossibly remote I will continue to pack and remember and laugh that a 28 year old should have a stuffed bear half her own size. (And this I will unapologetically keep since he reminds me of my old dog who was much the same color and size.)

I'm still here

2011-11-15T14:53:00.000-08:00

It seems like all I do is post recipes and book reviews of CTBHHM, but mostly that's because I've been head down in property searches. There are over three thousand listings in our general search area, and no matter how you slice it that means finding and evaluating hundreds of listings. This means keeping up with new listings, pre-sorting listings to consider later, looking over my first cut, and then referring my cut list to Allen so we can evaluate and rank our top choices together. There might be an easier to way to do this, but then again I've never been terribly good at collating this sort of information. It's this kitchen vs that backyard vs this other listing price that would let us rip out the kitchen and put in whatever we want. In other words - it's hard! I thought I was pretty flexible, but I'm finding that as I look through houses I'm finding "want to haves" that I never thought about six months ago. I knew a private backyard was important, but I didn't know that I prefer foyers and entryways to walking straight off the porch into the living room. I don't have to have a formal dining room, but five years of apartment living haven't endeared me to the combination living/dining room. The more we talk about what we want to do with our house we realize that we really want a den/rec area so we can set up a ping pong table and have Allen's family over to play games and eat lots of food. Allen needs an office space. We want room for those hypothetical children. (We're working on making them less hypothetical.) In other words - we kind of want a big ol' house :) I say this as a person who hasn't even filled up her two bedroom apartment (well, I have but not with furniture!).

So yeah, packing and house shopping. That's me. I'll try to post another installment on the book review soon though. I have a feeling that if I don't finish it up before we move that it might not get done.

Created to Be His Help Meet: Part 1 (Concerning Mysteries and Kingdoms)

2011-11-03T22:20:00.000-07:00

We're finally closing out Part One of CTBHHM, and I wanted to share an insight I gained talking with my mother-in-law. As we discussed some of the problems I have with this book she pointed out that at least some of my reactions are probably heightened because I saw my mom and dad acting out a codependent relationship with my mom at the center. Even though my mom would swear up and down that my dad called the shots, her emotional state is what, from my perspective, actually ruled the family. Hence I get really jumpy listening to Mrs. Pearl talk about how women can have a perfect marriage regardless of their husbands - once again all that talk about respect and authority masking the real position as wife firmly in the central, guiding role. On the other hand, women who grew up seeing their moms (or other women around them) getting along despite a recalcitrant husband might actually be encouraged by hearing that they can have a "good" marriage regardless of the man's attitude. I still think it's potentially problematic for wives to take some of Mrs. Pearl's very pragmatic advice into healthy, maturing marriages, but I understand a little more why some women might miss so much of what completely turns me off of this book.

Chapter 13 opens with the "great mystery" of Ephesians 5:32-33 and the return of Dubious Exegesis Debi. I'm going to block quote Ephesians 5:32-33 once as cited in CTBHHM and follow with Ephesians 5:22-33 as per my Bible. Although I typically use ESV I'll post the second quote from KJV just for comparison's sake.

This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and church...and the wife see that she reverence her husband.(emphasis in original)

Compared with:

22Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. 23For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. 24Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. 25Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; 26That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, 27That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. 28So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. 29For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: 30For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. 31For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. 32This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.33Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband. (emphasis mine)

I realize those at just a couple hunks of text tossed on the (virtual) page, but I wanted to provide a means of contrasting and contextualizing Mrs. Pearl's reference. It doesn't take an advanced degree in English to see that Mrs. Pearl is leaving a whole lot out of her quote. The Bible says "This is a great mystery:but I speak concerning Christ and the church." Basic reading here: "but" contrasts with "mystery" and attempts to provide some sort of information about this mystery. It doesn't say "and" which would you lead you into another topic. This is about the mystery. What mystery though? Is it wives reverencing husbands? The preceding sentence says "For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery." Any common sense reading of this passage would equate the "great mystery" with the "one flesh" of marriage. If you look back up at the extended quotation you'll that Paul is constantly going back and forth between the unity of marriage and the unity of Christ and Church. Based on his argument I'd say that this "great mystery" refers to the "one flesh" union of marriage and furthermore applies the metaphor of marriage to Christ's union with His Church. Could Mrs. Pearl be right? Maybe. But, although I can excuse her elipsing out the husband's role she also left out this ticky little "Nevertheless." If we took the husband out of that passage it would still read "Nevertheless let...the wife see that she reverence her husband." "Nevertheless" is approximately equivalent to "however" and signals a shift in the conversation and is therefore and important word to have been left out. Given the complete quotation it would take quite a bit of 'splaining for me to accept Mrs. Pearl's version of the "great mystery."

You might think I'm spending too much time on a simple misquote, but it's important when she's making it the foundation for understanding how a wife reverences her husband. The biggest mystery is how she missed the mystery! Once she gets past her odd exegesis Mrs. Pearl actually has some good things to say about how our marriage is supposed to be an earthly picture of Christ's union with the Church and how this prepares us for the day when we really are joined to Christ.

And now it's over the top story time! Mrs. Pearl presents us with another wife (this time one whose husband visits prostitutes) who goes out of her way to make her husband feel like the most amazing dad in the world. I suppose I'm a wildly skeptical wife, but I don't think my marriage vows include anything about coming down with an incurable venereal disease because I'm having sex with a man who has sex with prostitutes. In that same vein I don't consider staying with a man who tried to kill with a butcher knife while you're pregnant to be covered by my marriage vows. Since Sunny and Amed's story (and the outrageous advice Mrs. Pearl gave) are legendary I won't add very much. If you have a friend who refuses to leave her abuser then counseling her to do everything in her power to not set him off is valid, but it's not as valid is seeing that son a degenerate rat put in jail! Actually counseling a woman to stay with her abuser could end up with with one (or more) deaths, and I'd hate to be the woman who told that wife to stay.

But, once again, if you ignore the crazy you'll find some good advice on overlooking your spouses faults (not feeding the dog, forgetting your birthday, etc) and not trying to "punish" them with our attitudes. At best you get strife and at worse you get the freedom for a find another man who'll forget to mend the door or pick up a gallon of milk. Good marriages, as Mrs. Pearl rightly points out, are made of overlooking faults and loving the other person.

I wasn't sure about adding any more to this post since it's already getting rather long, but if you'll bear with me the next chapter is pretty short.

Mrs. Pearl closes out Part 1 with a chapter on the practical outworkings of reverencing one's husband. I could go into it point by point, but basically it means publicly and privately acting in ways that build your husband up and bring him honor. It means serving him and appreciating his attentions and company and certainly not shaking off an embrace because he might mess up your dress or your hair. (Caveat: If we were getting ready for an event and Allen tried to bear hug me in such a way that it'd be another 20 minutes putting my hair back in order I'd give him a friendly warning to that effect simply because being late/arriving deshabille could also reflect badly on us/him.) So far so good. Once again though I lose her when she says that God has installed in a men a response mechanism whereby wives can win their husbands by correct behavior and that men, conversely, really can't do anything about a recalcitrant wife. She might have a point, but if you read that as "You can lead your angry husband even if he resists, but he can't lead you unless you let him" it doesn't seem to square with the roles of husbands and wives. I don't have a chapter and verse at the moment, but it doesn't sound right.

Next time we'll start on Part 2. Stay tuned :)

Created to Be His Help Meet: Part 1 (Men and Women)

2011-11-01T23:40:00.000-07:00

One reason I don't trust Mrs. Pearl is because her exegesis tends to be very hit or miss. On the other hand, her writing is actually best when she approaches things pragmatically - ie how to make the best of being married when one (or both of you) can't handle situations in an emotionally mature, Biblical manner. Face it, this book isn't written to wives who basically wish to do well by their husbands and who have similarly inclined husbands. This is a high octane drag race out of marriages that are one mislaid gas bill away from divorce court. Her examples, predictions, and methods are extreme. If Allen and I tried living by these chapters we'd be in counseling within 6 months. Just writing this review I'm noticing myself slipping back into timidity.

All of chapter 11 is pretty much an example of how NOT to read your Bible. I'm almost impressed that her husband (a pastor and supposedly a Greek scholar) would have endorsed so many errors. I suppose the crazy goes deep in their home. And as usual she displays a complete lack of nuance in describing men and women. In her world men carve out canoes with their teeth and use them to go hunting polar bears with spear made from the tusk they wrestled out of a walrus. We ain't got no sissy boys here no sir! The women, naturally, are calm, practical, and rather bemused by these caveman activities. Whenever a man stops punching trees down with his fists to comment on the color of sunset or quote a little Wordsworth his woman is thrilled to see her hulking he-man actually possesses a shred of sensitivity. Yeah........For the record I make a really mean apple pie, and Allen would never have started backpacking if I hadn't persuaded him to come with me. On the other hand Allen likes to wrestle with code monsters the size of Grendel (if I'm reading those muttered imprecations correctly that is) while I content myself with a little old fashioned romance. Who's more likely to read an old book because it's there? Allen. Who's more likely to climb on top of a rock because it's there. Me. Who wears the pants in the family? Allen - all day, every day, and that's the way we like it. But, we were going to talk about exegesis.

Naturally enough Mrs. Pearl takes a big chunk of space going over the Adam and Eve narrative. She has this spiel about how God created man with all this armor that helps men drive to succeed and enjoy challenges and how God created women to stand behind her husband's armor with the understanding that a woman's more tender and trusting nature is necessary for rearing children. As a general outline of male/female temperaments it's fine, but as part of the Adam and Eve narrative it's only the first of many problems. She interrupts this narrative to basically say that men and women have different ways of being spiritual and different ways of ignoring God. She turns this into a claim that most Christian cults (not sure how she's defining that) are brought about by women. To support this she cites Matthew 13:33 which says, "He told them another parable. 'The kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leavened.'” In case this parable isn't fresh in your mind (I had to look it up) it's the last in a series of parables (including the mustard seed story) concerning the kingdom of Heaven and, to my understanding, illustrates how God's kingdom grows and expands. I could be convinced otherwise, but it would take more than the bare statement "Jesus uses this to illustrate corruption" to do so. This is important though because Mrs. Pearl is about to completely exonerate Adam for his role in the Fall. You'd think this would be hard, but by starting with 1 Tim 2:14's statement "And Adam was not deceived" she builds a case that Adam found himself led by his love for Eve to ignore God's rules so that Eve could have her heart's desire. On this basis women need to be very careful with the power they have over their men so as to not destroy their husbands and themselves with him. Right. Adam, lord of creation, whipped! It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me either. On one hand these men of ours are so set in their ways that must resort to placation to preserve peace and on the other hand we can send them to Hell with a little hip sashay. I realize that people are contradictory, but this is going a little too far. As Allen pointed out, Adam may well have been using Eve as a guinea pig to test God's rules because, hey, he could spare another rib if Eve burst into flames. Sounds more a kid saying "you open the cookie jar" than a mature man blinded by self-sacrificing love. Don't know that I'll ever know what really happened in Adam's head, but by that token neither does Mrs. Pearl!

To continue this story of fallen Eve, Mrs. Pearl looks to Jezebel the notorious wife of Ahab. No surprise that Jezebel becomes something of an all-powerful, emasculating force and that Ahab becomes a poor, pathetic loser. According to Mrs. Pearl, Jezebel 1. Led Ahab spiritually, 2. Caused Ahab to become unstable and depressed by assuming "the masculine role (112)," 3. Played Ahab's stress to her own advantage, and 4. Influenced her husband to destroy those she didn't like by using "spiritual pressure (113)." In other words Ahab was led around by his nose. Poor chump never really stood a chance. I think I'll pity him. Oh wait!

In the thirty-eighth year of Asa king of Judah, Ahab the son of Omri began to reign over Israel, and Ahab the son of Omri reigned over Israel in Samaria twenty-two years. 30 And Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord, more than all who were before him. 31 And as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, he took for his wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and went and served Baal and worshiped him. 32 He erected an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he built in Samaria. 33 And Ahab made an Asherah. Ahab did more to provoke the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger than all the kings of Israel who were before him. 1 Kings 16: 29-33

For all her "exegesis" Mrs. Pearl never once points out Ahab's own evil character and how it contributes to the story. For instance, it says that Jezebel took the king's seal and signed letters in his name and sent them out in a plot to kill Naboth. Mrs. Pearl takes this as evidence that Jezebel was usurping authority, but in ancient times the one who had the king's seal essentially had the king's voice, and you'd think that if Jezebel had slipped it off his finger one night we'd know about it from Scripture because it would be a Big Deal. It's far more likely that Ahab was sulking like a little boy and only to happy for his clever wife to deal with things. Does that make Ahab weak? Yes. Does it make him fully complicit? Yes. Did God hold Ahab accountable for taking Naboth's vineyard? Yes. If you flip back through 1 Kings you'll see that Elijah doesn't go to Jezebel and rebuke her for usurping her husband's authority and conspiring to commit murder. Instead Elijah goes directly to Ahab and accuses him of murder. Jezebel comes in for her share of condemnation, but Ahab is still clearly the one in authority, and what Jezebel does in the Ahab's name is counted to him.

Honestly this whole story is a bit of a muddle. There isn't much to be said for either Ahab or Jezebel. Jezebel is a obviously a thoroughly evil woman whom (and I'm surprised Mrs. Pearl missed this bit) the Bible says incited Ahab to evil, yet Ahab was already dashing off the sins of his fathers with ease when he married Jezebel. Ahab might have been weak to let Jezebel handle things for him, but one could also say that Ahab used Jezebel to accomplish his own desires when he couldn't be bothered to exert himself. My problem with Mrs. Pearl isn't that Jezebel isn't fully as wicked as she says but that there's no consideration of who the Bible declares Ahab to be. Jezebel didn't take (or do) anything that Ahab wasn't ok with. The Bible doesn't even say that she led him away after idols (and the Bible isn't shy of saying that). That's a different story than Debbie would have you hear.

Debbie concludes chapter 11 by considering some positive examples of Biblical womanhood. I do like that she affirms the strength and dignity of the Proverbs 31 woman. I know a whole lot of guilt and shame comes in the door with that particular passage, but I've become convinced that we should really be reading Proverbs 31 and be encouraged by her strength and humor. Feeling that way it's always good for someone to stop apologizing for why she exists. However, Mrs. Pearl mostly uses this space to trot out her two pet peeves of the overly spiritual woman (who's actually using her "superior" spirituality against her husband and family) and the controlling woman. Not two things I really see in Proverbs 31 and (par for the course) not things that she backs up with reference to Proverbs 31.

Now for good parts of Mrs. Pearl's exegesis. Mrs. Pearl opens chapter 12 by explaining the hierarchy God has placed in marriage and that submitting to this hierarchy is more about submitting to God and taking your role in the grand metaphor of marriage than about submitting to a man because he's earned it somehow. That's something people (women) need to hear more often. We salute the uniform if not always the man in it. It's not, as she goes on the explain, that women are incompetent to lead or teach or hold authority but rather that God has drawn limits around those activities. As Mrs. Pearl put it, "It is not a question of being qualified; it is a matter of being authorized (119)." I'm encouraged that her explication of Deborah on this matter is to the point. Deborah the judge was a very effective leader and mother of Israel, and she knew that it was too Isreal's shame that there were no men remotely capable to be found. If you read the whole story you know that the king himself wanted to hide behind her skirts when he went into battle, and that resulted in even more glory and honor being taken from him. When women rule men well it's a judgement not a blessing, and that goes double for marriage.

So there you have it. It's taken me a good while to get this post up because there's so much I wanted to say, and with good and bad so frequently mingled it's been difficult to state my position with any clarity. Also, there are a couple of typos in this post, and I'm currently getting too cross eyed to go back and check them. So forgive my laziness. Hopefully this review hasn't been too jumbled. I'll try to get something coherent up in the next couple days, but since my in-laws are coming to town tomorrow I may not be getting on the internet much for the next few days.

Created to Be His Help Meet: Part 1 (Understanding your husband)

2011-11-01T20:32:00.000-07:00

I'm just going to say up front that all of chapter 8 is something of a headscratcher. From a purely pragmatic point of view I see value in her advice. Men who demand to be waited on hand and foot aren't likely to brook much opposition. Guys on a personal crusade to restore the Stuart Monarchy aren't likely going to care so much about living in a nice bungalow within reasonable distance of his wife's family. Laid back guys who just grind out their days probably won't move to Alaska because some dude with bushy eyebrows found a few ounces of gold. As a wife you pretty much have to roll with it - guys don't typically marry a woman hoping that they've finally found someone who'll give their whole personality a brisk going over. On that front I'd say read this chapter and grab any bits that look likely and see where they take you. In the broadest terms (ie stop nagging and deal) Mrs. Pearl is saying something valuable. On the other hand, she's also pulling some things straight out of her braid. For instance, Mrs. Pearl opens by saying that she understands men to be expressing in their dominant traits different sides of God's Triune nature and then says that Jesus is the only man who contained all three of these traits in perfect balance but then moves on without any explication. Maybe it's a deep insight. Maybe it's not. Without more context it's hard to tell.

Oh, and here are my odd statements for this chapter.

Most young girls are married only a short time when they make the awful discovery that they may have gotten a lemon (76).

and

Wives are very much flesh and blood, and as young women we don't come to marriage with all the skills needed to make it start out good, let alone be perfect (89).

A. I really hope not.
B. Generalize much?

And so far that's Mrs. Pearl in a nutshell - some larger good principles to apply and then some completely odd statements that make me think she's really writing this book to her younger, headstrong self who jumped into marriage with an autocratic man and (almost) lived to regret it before finally learning to just roll with the punches. Nice work if you can get it, but then again if one of my daughters ever tried out her "I want to have your babies" line I'd yank her lily butt back home before the fella'd had time to stop blushing. Call me old fashioned, but I like the men to do the chasing.

Before moving on I'd like to comment on her bike trip honeymoon story. I agree with Mrs. Pearl in part. In the interest of peace this wife really did need to understand that her husband was not going to listen regardless of how well suited she was to advise. Better for her to have as much fun as she could than to become bitter. I would even add that she needed to diligently search her own heart to see if she'd been advising him with an open and loving spirit or whether it had grown from superiority and discontent. In either case she has some work to do. If the latter she needs to work on her heart and focus on keeping her mouth closed until she can speak to her husband with love and respect. In the former case she might also need to keep her mouth closed, but she should also realize that she might have married a fool and need to pray (and prepare) accordingly. This might mean stashing part of her mad money (or butter and egg money) in the freezer so they have something to fall back on when he dumps their last penny into a busted enterprise. It might mean quietly signing up for AAA and changing the oil yourself when he steadfastly ignores car maintenance. This is a trajectory that Mrs. Pearl doesn't consider but seems implicit in the man's character as described.

Chapters 9 and 10 really go together and therefore will be treated as one block. She opens with a letter from a woman whose husband has, after long years working as a CPA, decided he wants to be a dairy farmer. She's upset, overwhelmed, and really not into it. While Mrs. Pearl's response is a little over the top it's still on point in that she basically tells the wife to deal with it and enjoy being a dairy farmer's wife. Better to follow her husband's lead than to make them all miserable, and (although Mrs. Pearl doesn't suggest this) it's barely possible that if this wife made a gung-ho effort that after a year or so her husband might decide for himself that they really aren't country people and propose a move back towards their old life.

Transitioning from chapter 9 to chapter 10 Mrs. Pearl explains how revising our thoughts can change the way we feel (and therefore change our reactions) and stop the cycles of harmful reactions. She illustrates (and here I find Mrs. Pearl refreshingly realistic) how the dairyman's wife can spend days and weeks thinking about her own frustrations and grievances until she literally bursts the second her husband walks in the door. By refocusing her thoughts on how diligent her husband is and how grateful she is for his provision she can break the cycle that is wearing down her and her husband. Mrs. Pearl concludes with something that's worth quoting and remembering: "No woman will ever have peace and joy in her marriage until her mind is filled with goodwill towards her husband (103)." Amen. Over all I'm finding CTBHHM both better and worse than I remembered.

Going Home

2011-11-01T19:51:00.000-07:00

We'll soon be leaving California for our beautiful home state of Alabama. There are already boxes stacking up in the spare bedroom, and I've started bookmarking real estate listings. After living in three different states it's finally time to be home - to settle and plant tomatoes and bake bread in my own kitchen and drink sweet tea with friends from church and watch the fireflies flickering on a muggy evening. I won't have my own Christmas tree this year, but next year I'll buy the biggest tree I can fit in my house and put lights in the trees.

Lord please be willing.

I'm going to plant bulbs outside my windows and watch them come up in the spring. I'm going to have a place to spread out my projects and have six things going at once. We're going to put a pinball machine and a ping pong table in the basement and invite Allen's brothers over. I can't wait. I'm already going over paint colors in my head. I'm trying to prepare myself for a house that isn't perfect. I don't want all the pressure of "falling in love." Really though, I want to walk into a house and see the next ten years staring back at me in the windows. I want a place that says "Sure Yosemite was your refuge in California - this can be your refuge every day." Hard lines asking a house to live up to one of the most amazing national parks in the country, but there it is. I want to sunlight on the floor to be my Merced River and porch to be my Tuolumne Meadows. I bet that's one the real estate agent hasn't heard before!

Envy at the top

2011-10-28T16:23:00.000-07:00

As I reflect on my love for travel and my longing after aspen trees in fall and wildflowers in spring I'm often troubled because it seems that my desire to visit and bask in all the beautiful places I can find is tinged by more than a little discontent. I want to see all the aspens and the most beautiful ones. I want the best wildflowers. In fact, I think I rather want to be God. All this beauty that no one sees that I want to see and at heart the mingled toddler's cries of "But I want it!" and "It's not fair!" But it's not wasted. Why shouldn't God have a few spectacular sunsets to Himself? Hasn't He provided me with sunsets and clouds and turning leaves of all descriptions? Aren't I perhaps I little ungrateful for the bounty I've already been given that I turn so rapidly away and wonder "perhaps I could have exchanged it for something better?" In my redeemed soul there is hopefully a Godly longing for beauty and creation that God is using for my own sanctification, but on the flesh side there's a whole lot of clamoring for more, More, MORE!

What I'm going to do about this I have no earthly idea besides confess it ten thousand times and then unwittingly (or unthinkingly) encourage it again and again. Well, and try to be a whole lot more thankful. I suppose that's a start.

So there you have it. I actually would like to be God. This probably surprises no one except myself. Odd how that happens.

Created to Be His Help Meet: Part 1 (Wisdom)

2011-10-28T10:56:00.000-07:00

As I've moved into the section on wisdom I've found that there are some great one-liners and some real head-scratchers bumping elbows. Let's start with this one:

God made you to fulfill this eternal vision. Until you embrace that divine plan for your life, your life will never make sense. You will always be struggling. When you can finally let go and believe God, life will become so simple that you won't have to wonder what you should do. You will know (49 emphasis mine).

Could this be part of the problem with CTBHHM? Last time I checked life doesn't become a one-lane highway once you become a Christian and surrender to God. As my pastor once told us - the fences that God put up (ie the Law) are really fences, and we should really stay inside of them. Once you're inside the fence though? You can go roaming around all you want. Sometimes you'll find yourself tripping over your own feet, but just because you scraped your knees doesn't mean you sinned. That's one reason it's called wisdom.

Moving on a few inches we find two very different statements sharing a paragraph. It starts by saying that regardless of the man (good, bad, or indifferent) you can have a good marriage by being a certain kind of wife. Glad to see that Mrs. Pearl has never met a thoroughly bad man who despised his wife and took all her patience and sweetness as fuel to his malignancy, or (to be less dramatic) a thoroughly worldly one who good-humoredly decided he like to trade in for an earlier model. But then she turns around with the completely true statement that we (wives) serve Christ by serving our husbands whether or not they've earned it (50). Rather odd bedfellows those two. With regards to that first statement I'm suddenly reminded of that passage in the Bible where we're told that if an unbelieving spouse wants to leave we should let them. I wonder how that would jive with Mrs. Pearl's "anything but divorce" stance?

On the opening page of chapter six I noticed that during my first reading I'd written (in good lolcat form) "I can has nuance?" Yeah, not exactly something that Mrs. Pearl does very well I don't think. Consider this statement: ""We live under a law of sowing and reaping that is a certain and unrelenting as disease and death (57)." Now recall Ecclesiastes' famous observation, "The race is not to the swift." Although God says that sowing and reaping are intrinsically linked, in Ecclesiastes God also reminds us not to be simplistic about applying this principle. Diligence is from the Lord, but it's not magic lever whereby we force Heaven to open up and bless us. Sometimes good, careful, intelligent people get their life savings wiped out or labor for years in obscure jobs. I reckon that's why it's so important for us to delight in the Lord. He's really the only thing guaranteed never to fail.

The rest of chapter six largely concerns an interesting (albeit over the top) example of a woman who was consumed with bitterness and her own willful spirituality and who eventually went stark staring mad. Considering that my mom isn't the sanest woman around (and can also be highly critical) I have to wonder whether there's a fair bit of truth to her story, but moving on...

Chapter seven is pretty much an extended (dare I say diatribe) on the dangers of divorce and absolutely miserable life a woman can expect if she dares to stand up for just about anything. To be fair I'm getting the impression at this point that Mrs. Pearl is talking about a woman who could make a husband long for his loving mistress simply by the manner in which she asks him to hang up his jacket. On this reread I was rather more impressed by her role in the "why on earth would you pay so much for meat" episode than I was before. While her husband appears thoroughly autocratic and unpleasant, Mrs. Pearl really does come off as a smug, superior housewife. I just wish the implication wasn't that it's wrong to say anything. If there's a bad way to say "Did you notice there's a cheaper option?" I'm pretty sure there's also a good way. Perhaps I'm speaking for my marriage alone, but if I respectfully ask if Allen overlooked something there's a fairly good chance that he'll thank me for pointing it out and say that he hadn't. It's just not that big a deal. Lesson from this chapter? A critical spirit can sink your marriage faster than the Lusitania. As Mrs. Pearl put it, "He practices his faults, and you practice your bitterness. You are both practicing divorce." I'd have to agree.

Created to Be His Help Meet: Part 1 (Thankfulness)

2011-10-27T08:01:00.000-07:00

I'm wondering if this is going to be a pattern throughout this book - every other chapter being somewhat worth reading if it wasn't sandwiched in between so many monumental bloopers. At any rate the third chapter goes on to laud thankfulness as another beautifying and endearing trait for wives to cultivate. Mrs. Pearl wisely points out that thankfulness is largely habit and that even the most grumbling natures can practice thankfulness before God and their husbands. Since most men are driven to provide it doesn't take a savant to realize how important this can be to family peace.

The fourth chapter develops this theme by pointing out how thankfulness can end up guarding our own hearts against much frustration. I admit I don't really see the joke of having to clean up a bag of trash because your husband was showing off, but then again I probably wouldn't hide in the laundry room in order to scare him. More power to them I reckon. Her main point is that thankfulness produces a joy that makes husbands and wives joyful playmates more quick to laugh than fret. Amen. Where I lose Mrs. Pearl is when she that she has this sort of marriage because of choices that she made and that by making similar choices you can "control" what kind of marriage you have (40,42). Sounds a whole lot like backseat driving when you consider that husbands are heads of their wives.

As I read through chapter 4 I noticed some more odd theology about women (remember me questioning her ideas on single women?). There's a tiny paragraph that I think is worth quoting in full:

Because I have known such love and closeness with a man, subsequently my understanding of God and my appreciation for him are so much deeper. A relationship based on law, rules, willful humility, and formality is death. I have learned to approach God just as I approach my husband with love, joy, and delight (44).

Again, I know this is written to wives, but where does this leave all the other women? It's a no brainer that wives would experience God differently than single women, but then again farmers, navy captains, and architects also experience God differently from teachers, painters, and biologists. That's the nature of believing in a God who deals in metaphor and narrative. Certain parts of our own stories will align more or less closely with parts of God's revealed story. Speaking of which, her interpretation of Luke 7:38 baffles me. I was pretty sure that standard interpretation is that this woman was washing and anointing Christ both for his burial and in judgment of the Pharisees who condemned Him. Instead Mrs. Pearl turns it into a story of guilt over her daring to soil the feet of Jesus with her tears. One question for Mrs. Pearl - if that's the case then why does Jesus say she hadn't ceased kissing His feet? Something doesn't seem to add up here.

The next few chapters seem to be on wisdom. I'll get to them later today or tomorrow. Right now this housewife has to packing to do. We've got an ETA of 6 weeks, and things are getting busy.

Created to Be His Help Meet: Part 1

2011-10-26T22:23:00.000-07:00

Since CTBHHM is divided into so many chapters and parts I can't guarantee that I'll divide my reviews up quite as logically - particularly since this promises to become more a page by page commentary than a connected set of chapter summaries and reviews.

Part 1, chapter 1 starts off rather well. She opens by reminding the reader just how much work a good marriage takes. This isn't something that just happens, and even Mr. Darcy probably has a habit of humming under his breath while paying bills that makes dearest Lizzie contemplate the decorative swords above the mantel. Yet, despite our husband's shortcomings we are called to be cheerful, willing helpers. It's not that we wouldn't perhaps do a better job ourselves, Mrs. Pearl rightly points out that such contemplations are entirely beside the point, but that it's not our job. Women are to help meets eagerly searching for new ways to bless their husbands. Amen and pass the conviction. Much as I love Allen and I can't say that I'm nearly as eager for his welfare as I should be. If Debi kept to this line of thought I'd be writing an entirely different sort of review, but even here we find troubling hints of the arguments to come. For instance, in talking about the roles of wives Debi entirely skips over any idea that women may have a separate existence. I realize this is a book written to wives and not single women, but occasionally I wonder how she feels about lovely single ladies (we all know them) who, by the grace of God, remain single (pg 23)? Consider this excerpt -"You are, by nature, equipped in every way to be your man's helper. You are inferior to none as long as you function within your created nature...You were created to make him complete, not to seek personal fulfillment parallel to him (21)." Since I'm not even sure what she means by parallel personal fulfillment I'll leave that alone, but I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this. It raises a few questions. Are single women inferior? Is it possible for women (single or widowed) to have purpose aside from men? We can charitably assume that Mrs. Pearl doesn't mean these things, but her prose makes it unclear. One could possible surmise that in her fervent defense of submissive, helper-wives Mrs. Pearl has lost sight of women's larger importance in the church. And here, "in the church," might be the crux of my issues with Mrs. Pearl - something that will become more clear when we discuss the next chapter.

Chapter two starts off with the delightful premise that more women (particularly wives) should take care to wear some of that "joy of the Lord" on the outside where it can beautify their features and enchant their husbands. This isn't something I read so often in the marriage advice genre, and it's something my husband agrees should be said more often. Cheerful, playful wives are way more attractive than doleful, long-faced ones, and the wise wife will keep this in mind while applying her lip gloss. Unfortunately the rest of this chapter slides downhill rapidly from here. After laying out her laudable "cheerful wife" principle, Mrs. Pearl goes on to apply it to a situation concerning a wife whose husband is having an emotional affair. This section has been reviewed elsewhere on the internet, so I'll try to stick with what particularly struck Allen and me. First off this big blooper: "God has provided for your husband's complete sanctification and deliverance from temptation through you, his wife (29)." Allen's remark on this statement was that it's enough to condemn the book out of hand. While God might use temporal agents (a neighbor or a parent) to share His grace, sanctification and deliverance come solely through Jesus Christ and His righteousness. A wife might be an agent of grace, but these agents of grace cannot be considered meritorious in any effective way. The credit is completely God's. Unfortunately it doesn't stop there. Debi Pearl goes on the paint a dreary picture of the indignant, condemning wife standing on her rights and vows and eventually driving her lonely husband back into his secretary's arms while she (the wife) is forced into poverty with her poor government schooled kids, having no prospects of love before except a soul crushing repetition of the same round with a man of another name. First, one can't read through this section without realizing that Debi is either projecting a whole lot or holding much of the previously quoted letter back. (For instance, nowhere does the wife's letter indicate that she's been scolding or that her husband has been lonely/excluded from sex.) Secondly, one can also clearly see just why this book is so poisonous. Mrs. Pearl says "You cannot be pitiful enough to force him to love you (30)." This is very true. If this woman wants to win her husband's love she's not going to do with mopes and accusations. However, Mrs. Pearl completely glosses over any sort of repentance of reconciliation. She goes so far as to say that waiting for repentance may lose this woman her husband completely - with all its dire implications of loneliness and poverty.

This is where we find most the poison. If Mrs. Pearl was saying "Once your husband has repented and shown a desire to be reconciled you have to give him something to he can desire. You're probably feeling very bruised right now, but even if you don't trust him (and I'm not saying you should right away) you need to be a person he can fall madly in love with again. This is going to be a whole lot harder if you wear your heart on your sleeve and look at him reproachfully over your morning eggs." Nope, Mrs. Pearl jumps right over repentance and tells the wife to dive into direct competition with the office hussy to win her husband back. There are so many problems with this. First off, Mrs. Pearl never suggests the wife get a pastor/higher authority involved. Second, the husband receives absolutely no accountability or an attempt to bring him back into right relationship with God. Third, the wife is demeaning herself (and her wedding vows) by acting as if a legitimate competition over his affections existed. Fourth, Mrs. Pearl is assuming that this husband won't take his wife's acquiescence as license to do whatever he wants since his wife is too desperate or dumb to care/notice. Fifth, the implication is husbands get smiles, sex, and blushes because they may go off the rails if they don't, but women get these things because they've worked hard to earn every single one. If this isn't the oddest conception of marriage I don't know what is. I'm pretty darn sure that I didn't earn all my husband's affection, and yet I'm also pretty sure that Allen has earned quite a bit of mine through his patient, tender care.

Hopefully you can see the problems. Taken alone many of Debi Pearl's statements have merit. Men aren't won by critical wives. They do love cheerful appreciation. Standing for your marriage vows might end with your husband packing his bags. The problem is when you put all together and end up with wives acting like their husband's are always in the sexual marketplace - not because a wise wife will see her husband's sexual needs met, but because he literally might be searching the sexual marketplace at any time. At that point what difference is there between Christian wives and Park Avenue trophy wives? Less alimony I suppose. I believe the whole point of this is found in this statement: "Recognize that you are at war for the preservation of God's most noble institution on earth -the family (30)." Unfortunately this simply isn't true. God's family (The Church) trumps all earthly families. It is to the Church that we owe our most basic loyalties. Don't believe me? Consider how Christ said that He came to bring not peace but a sword and went on to list how basic family structures would be torn apart as some answered and some resisted the call of Christ. Divorce is a bad thing, but breaking up a family isn't the worst thing. Even excommunication (roughly equivalent to divorce from the church) is supposed to be part of a larger call back to repentance and fellowship. Unfortunately Mrs. Pearl doesn't see this, and without the church there really is very little she can recommend a wife do besides order a new garter belt and try again.

Created to be His Help Meet : a probably biased review

2011-10-25T15:12:00.000-07:00

Once more into the breach as they say. I'm really bad at finishing book reviews, but this is one that's been simmering for over a year. I first read CTBHHM when my future sister-in-law mentioned that she was reading it. To be very honest, when I heard that I felt sick to my stomach. I hadn't read the book yet, but I'd heard enough to make me doubt whether this book could help anyone - particularly someone whose own experience with marriage (second-hand) hadn't been the best. So in the hopes of having a long chat over coffee I ordered myself a copy and read it. That chat never really happened. My sister-in-law, while being a lovely person, is a true introvert, and with living cross country I haven't had the time and opportunity to invest in our relationship. So if you, my quiet blog reader, wouldn't mind, I'd like to have that chat now. I warn you ahead of time that I'm not disposed to like this book and talk dispassionately about all the good things you can take away from it. I'm more concerned with the pitfalls and dangerous advice that permeate this book. That's not to say that there aren't good points in this book. There are - I just feel the bad far outweighs the good.

I have to say this book starts out with a huge howler. Debi Pearl had been meaning to catch the preacher for something like seven years - this is the fellow so high strung sexually that he wouldn't even shake hands with the little old ladies in his congregation*. Naturally, Debi drops a hint along the lines of "Someday I'd like to give you a little boy (p14)." Admittedly this after said pastor made the roaring indiscretion of holding her hand during a prayer meeting, so perhaps there were extenuating circumstances. Anyway, they get married. And, from this book's perspective, that's when the real fun started. Having admitted just a few pages later that she once threw rocks at her husband I wonder if perhaps that's not a key to understanding this book. If you're the kind of woman who's so very highly strung (think Kate from The Taming of the Shrew) that you make everyone around dance attendance and then fault them on their footwork you might very well need a book like this to shake you till your teeth start dancing in time to the tune you've been playing for everyone else. Most of us though, don't throw rocks at our husbands. (In fact I'm rather sure that too few of us are throwing pillows and that the lack of busted pillows needing to be replaced is a factor in our sluggish economy.) Anyway, all this to say that I will at the front concede that there are probably women of monumental tempers who need lecture quite this stern to get them down to normal levels. For the rest of us though, I find Mrs. Pearl's advice highly problematic, but we'll get into that when we move on to Part 1 of CTBHHM.

*You know there are some forms sexual discretion that are nearly as creepy as open leering. Refusing a simple handclasp with a woman old enough to be your grandmother because of heaven's knows what temptations is really high on that list.

Pasta Shells with Kale and White Wine Sauce

2011-10-15T20:15:00.000-07:00

So a while back Allen and I went to this Italian place nearby and had a regular splurge - pasta, wine, tiramisu, the works. Ever since then I've been wanting to return and get this orecchietti with sausage and kale, but then I found out it was a temporary special.

Bummer.

So I put together this little pasta dish instead. It's not the orecchietti that I had last spring, but it's an acceptable substitute for now.

Ingredients:

1lb mild Italian sausage (the original used chicken sausage, but I used pork this time)
1med onion
handful brown mushrooms
1med zucchini
4-5 cloves garlic well minced
1 bunch kale
2tbs (or thereabouts) sundried tomatoes
salt and pepper
veg bullion
white wine
cream
2 large-ish sprigs rosemary
red pepper flakes

Orriecchetti (I used brown rice pasta shells)

Method:

Start your sausages browning and begin chopping your vegetables. Might want to go ahead and put a pot on to boil so you aren't waiting at the last minute. Saute your onions in a little oil until they start to brown and then add your sliced mushrooms and minced garlic. Once your mushrooms are soft toss in the zucchini and sundried tomatoes and top off with a cup or so of white wine (preferably dry), several glugs of cream, one bullion cube (or equiv), and whole rosemary sprigs. Season with salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes to taste. Slice browned sausages and add to the pan. Allow to simmer 10-15 minutes or until sauce is reduced and flavors combine. Go ahead and cook your pasta now. In the last couple minutes (while the pasta is cooking) add the chopped kale to the top of the pan and cover with a lid so that the greens wilt. Drain your pasta and toss with sausage and veg. Dish up and eat with a good grating of Parmesan cheese. It's right tasty. Also, kale is good for you :)

Beef and Veg Soup with Sweet Potato

2011-10-11T11:45:00.000-07:00

Speaking of food I thought I'd better get this recipe down while I remember it. So after all the brew pub burgers and diner fare we enjoyed while traveling through Northern California last week I figured it was time to dial things back about 4 notches and get a little dietary repair work done. Since we hadn't gone grocery shopping since getting back home this soup ended up being a tasty conglomeration of leftover veggies and freezer stash foods. It's a variation of the old classic "brown up some hamburger and toss in a bunch of veggies with some tomato product" that we all know and love. Allen and I both really enjoyed this soup. It's filling but light. I think between the two of us we ate half the pot. I was also excited to see an actual brothy soup emerge instead of the wet casseroles I often make (yeah, umm, I've made soups that have ended up thicker than most stews. It's a habit I'm trying to break.)

Ingredients:

1 1/2lb ground beef
1 large onion (think cat head large)
6 or so carrots
1/2 bag frozen spinach
1/2 bag frozen corn (I used trader joe's roasted corn which I love because you get a great roasted/smokey/char flavor in soups without having to actually roast/smoke/char anything yourself)
1 can diced tomatoes with chilies
2lbs (approx) of peeled, diced sweet potatoes
any other veg you can scrounge out of the fridge (in my case one zucchini and a bell pepper)
seasonings: salt, pepper, garlic, cumin, coriander, cayenne, beef stock

Method:

Just about what you'd expect. Brown your meat together with the onion and quickly saute your veg to start them cooking. I sauteed the sweet potato in a separate pan with some butter, salt, garlic, cumin, and coriander thinking that getting them a little brown might help the flavor, but I can't tell how well that worked. Anyway, once your onion is soft pour in the can of tomatoes, add your frozen veg, stir in a tablespoon of bullion, fill up with water, and simmer until the potatoes are cooked through.

For seasoning I started with basic salt, pepper, and garlic powder (I was out of fresh) to taste and then started playing around with the cumin and coriander. You want enough cumin so that you get a earthy, smoky sort of heat without it going full on tex-mex. I'd start with 3/4 tsp and go from there. Ditto for the coriander. You should taste the coriander but not be overwhelmed by it. Toss in some cayenne to taste.

Serve with some cheddar cheese sprinkled on top.

food theology

2011-10-10T00:08:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been getting increasingly frustrated with all the food hoopla that's been going around on the internet - largely of the "Don't eat x" crowd with "x" increasingly coming to mean sugar, flour, dairy, coffee, alcohol - basically all the stuff that makes eating fun. Now I've read the blogs, and I know that most people would jump on here telling me how much better they feel and how they really don't miss whatever it is I'm not supposed to be eating and that if they do miss it they just remember the days when they couldn't leap tall buildings and bench press cars and tell me that it's all worth it. The problem is that I don't buy it. That is to say, I don't buy the philosophy that seems to be behind it. A lot of it seems to be driven by speculative forms of evolutionary biology and theories about so called primitive man and doesn't take into account some of the Bible's rather clear teachings on food. For instance, you'll find a whole group of people who will tell you (loudly) that gluten/wheat/grains are bad for you, and I have absolutely no doubt that for some people they are extremely harmful. However, when Christ instituted the Lord's Supper He did it with a baked product made (to the best of my knowledge) from some type of ground grains. Throughout the Bible bread is a powerful image of comfort and provision. God could have chose root vegetables or goat cheese or various other images, but He chooses to tell us about salvation with bread. So, I can't reject bread out of hand. Even if I got to a point where it seemed wise to avoid grains altogether I would have to admit that the problem is with my body and not with the bread. Ditto for things like wine. People who argue for this or that sort of diet (particularly Christians) point out that we have a duty to care for our bodies and keep them in good running order - Christians trot out that old verse about our body being a temple to justify any number of strange eating habits. And yet, few of them consider passages like Colossians 2:16 in which the Church is warned against people who judge other based on what they eat or another passage in Timothy 4 where God talks about the food He's made to be received with thanksgiving. Now I don't want to get simplistic here. Clearly there are some things we shouldn't be eating every day. There are other things we should only be ingesting after careful consideration and for clearly defined reasons (such as prescribed drugs of various kinds). This isn't carte blanche to go and be stupid about a mushroom patch in the woods. There's a whole lot of wisdom to be applied here. What I dislike are the repeated statements about how God designed people to eat as though God handed Eve a poached egg topped with grated carrots and told her to have fun. So maybe Adam and Eve didn't enjoy dark chocolate stout or a creme brulee after their pasta primavera. They also didn't have orthotic footwear, refrigeration, and paved roads. When Adam and Eve set out to cultivate the world I think there's an implied call to growth and maturity that wasn't confined solely to things like architecture and metal working. In fact, I think things like whiskey and soda and pumpernickel bread and chocolate chip cookies are part of that maturation process since they all result from exploring and probing God's creation to get all the goodness out of it that we can. The person who makes chocolate chip cookies takes God's bounty and through grace is allowed to transform that bounty into something even more desirable. It's the same way with babies and iron ore and sheep's wool. God gives us something and gives us the chance to transform it. It's a beautiful thing. That's why it irks me whenever I hear talk about what we were "designed" to eat or how we "evolved" on a certain diet and need to stick with it. We were designed to explore God's creation and shepherd it and transform it against Christ's return. This means, among other things, not acting as though the earth was a library book we had to return in the same condition it was issued.

on wonder and pain

2011-09-23T12:44:00.001-07:00

Sometimes when we're out camping I'll tell Allen it feels like Christmas, but when I've tried to explain why it doesn't really translate. Sometimes I'll say it feels like Thanksgiving, but that doesn't translate well either. There's no lights or presents and the only turkey comes sliced from Trader Joes. And yet there are days that will stay with me. Often when I want to think I write, and in trying to form the first awkward sentences of this post I think I've figured out what I mean when I say that a day feels like Christmas. On the surface of it Christmas connotates wonder and joy and fulfilled anticipation. On the trail this can translate into a beautiful campsite and a warm supper or a double rainbow after an unexpected storm. Every trail or park promises a bit of magic and wonder, and sometimes they deliver in full measure pressed down and running over. But when I say a day feels like Christmas I don't just mean the Christmas of stuffed turkey and bright lights - a day that delivers an satisfactory emotional experience. Every Nativity points to the Cross - joy leads to suffering which ultimately leads to abiding joy which can, though promised and assured, seem like a distant dream of peace as we slog through our present troubles. In Christmas we see wonder, redemption, and joy embrace a suffering world. Christ came because He felt the miserable weight of our sin. Pain, wonder, mutability, mortality, and eternity mingle together. So when I say a day feels like Christmas I could mean that I'm baking an apple pie on a crisp day and am savoring the smell of spices. It could mean that something unexpectedly lovely has happened. Many times though, it will mean that even as my senses dance with the day, the view, and whatever treat up I'm cooking over my camp stove I'm struck by a deep yearning, almost a nostalgia, over how quickly these moments pass and how powerless I am to keep them with me. The very things that make them rare and beautiful make them hurt. In a moment I will hike down the trail, drive away, finish my tea, or unplug the lights, but for one more moment I marvel. It could be that I will never again see or experience anything quite like this. At times like these I find my heart yearning for eternity, and oddly enough the very mountains that break my heart with beauty speak again and speak comfort. The Bible says that we can have no idea of what eternity will be like - that it isn't within heart or mind of man to conceive what glories will exist in the New Jerusalem. The most beautiful mountain meadow is a dim reflection of the beauty we'll find in heaven. It reminds me that I can long in hope and marvel in hope because the One who boggles my mind with dragonflies and mountain passes is preparing things which are as far above my present conception as the notion of surfing would be to an infant. For now, though, I will continue to feed my soul on these small tokens of eternity, and when my heart breaks with hearing Creation's Advent cry for our Savior to deliver it I will remember the first advent and try to be content knowing we are that much closer to our final deliverance.

jog along theology

2011-08-28T21:38:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned on another post soon after starting this blog I've gotten frustrated with the entire counseling/wellness process because (and I suppose some of this is necessary) it can start to feel very self absorbed after a while. This is not to say that counseling or taking care of yourself is bad. They're really very good. I've just been feeling a need to step away from all that and get a big picture. That's why I was so glad to hear tonight's sermon. Our church has been going through Philippians and tonight we came to the passage in chapter 3 where Paul says:

12 Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. 13 Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

There are a few things that really sank in tonight. First, Paul hadn't "arrived" as a Christian. I know in the past I've seen that and just mentally dismissed that as pious apostle speak. "Yeah, ok so you haven't arrived. Yeah, you're the chief off all sinners. Ok, so maybe you murdered a few people. Wait - murder? Oh, but you had that dramatic conversion thing where you were stricken blind and heard the voice of Jesus, so that really kind of offsets everything else you ever actually did wrong." And so I talk to myself and fail to pick up what Paul is actually saying. But here's what I got tonight. Paul, as a Christian, wasn't satisfied with himself. Maybe he struggled with patience or a quick temper or getting up in the morning for prayer. I don't know. We do know that Paul had some sort of "thorn in the flesh," and it's probably one of the reasons he knew he still had a ways to go in sanctification. It's just not something we (ok - I) think about. When you're an apostle/pastor/Christian author being humble about where you are in life is just one of those things you're supposed to do. However, during the sermon, I started to think a little more about a man with a past I'm sure he'd desperately like to forget and who probably had more than one reason to wish God would just fix things already so he could get on with his life. At the time I suppose it's possible that Paul didn't realize what a huge amazing role he played in establishing the Church. So what did Paul do with his broken past and his temptations and weaknesses? He tried harder. He pressed forward. He strained and stretched his sinews out towards the goal line. Now, I've heard it said and continue to maintain that "just try harder" makes really lousy theology. It can lead to legalism, hopelessness (or smug superiority), and complete burn-out. Christianity isn't about just trying harder. So what's the bridge here? Is Paul saying something impossible or out of character? No, Paul is saying press forward towards Christ. Our pastor pointed out that if we look to ourselves we tap out. We are shallow wells and soon emptied. If we look to others (that very popular tactic for taking one "out of oneself") we're liable to envy and discontent. However, if we look to Jesus we find both our goal and the strength to reach that goal. Jesus is "the author and finisher of our faith" - the one who "wills and works in us to to accomplish every good work." Our goal is heaven and the likeness of Christ who is the second Adam. Our strength is Christ's will working in us.

And even Paul was a ways from the goal! He still had to get up every morning and keep jogging down the road towards the New Jerusalem.

He had to (in Christ's strength) keep working out his salvation. So while I'd say that "just try harder" still makes lousy theology I'm beginning to wonder if maybe a few of us are entirely missing the point that we are supposed to be engaged in an actual, physical marathon. Running the race isn't just something you do in your head (although I've heard that if you don't have your mental game in place you're never going to make it). It's something you do by lacing up your shoes and putting your feet down one after the other for a really, really long time. This might be a spiritually conditioned race, but it requires more than having your head game in order. Theology works itself out. For a marriage to look like God's intention you have to physically do some things and refrain from doing others. Same for loving your kids, your neighbors, your country, etc. And we know we're running the race when we start every new stretch by running to where Jesus is. And, here's where the conviction comes for me, we know where Jesus is by knowing who He is. We go to church and pray and read the Bible. I've gone to health professionals and counselors chasing after wellness, but I've neglected to chase after God revealed in His Word.

Writing all this I have to say I feel a little "oooh, hey look I'm writing about the BIBLE aren't I all spiritual and adorable," but I really want to try and hang on to this one. I mean it. Just a week ago I was climbing a peak in Yosemite. There wasn't a trail, and I didn't have any signs telling me how close I was to the top. There were several times I thought about turning around 'cause it was taking too long, and I was getting weary climbing scree at 10k + elevation, but I kept going because I knew just based on the surrounding geography there would be something worth seeing at the top. Let me just say that was one of the most amazing views of the Sierra Nevada range I have ever experienced. I pressed forward, and I saw the prize. There, object lesson inserted.

Legacy

2011-08-18T11:01:00.001-07:00

While talking with Allen's great-Aunt Kathy she passed along this gem to me. She said that they were good parents and that "they helped us do what was good and not do what was bad." I wanted to share her remark because it struck me as about the most perfect legacy a person can have in this life - to encourage good and discourage evil. These were hardscrabble farmers who lived on Sand Mountain in rural Alabama before and during the depression years. An after school treat for Aunt Kathy and Mamaw was a baked sweet potato. They didn't have much that anyone would care to covet, but these great-grandparents of Allen raised two of the lovingest, cheerfullest, most alive women I ever met. One of them, the week she died, was out fixing fences on the farm where she'd lived alone for 20 years after her husband died. The other woman is living in a nursing home where most every capacity is failing her - sight, hearing, mobility- but she's content to be there befriending and helping the people around her. These are people whose hearts have never failed. They live to the last moment. Though sometimes sad or confused or lonely or afraid, I've seen them time and time again turn and look for the next task God has assigned -being full of faith that the best way through hard times is also the way through God's heart. After Mamaw's death I've found myself scrambling to remember phrases and stories, but most of what I remember is her saying "I love you," and "That is so good." She loved people completely and was genuinely glad for any good thing. Her love of God and her faith in God's goodness wound themselves together so that you couldn't see one without the other. Gratitude shone from her eyes, and she blessed people.

That also is a legacy worth having.

another month come and gone

2011-08-15T23:14:00.001-07:00

So here's it's been another month come and gone. A month of thinking and remembering and planning. I've made a few changes and made plans for a few more. I'm still thinking about how best to tackle some meaningful hunk of life and get it on paper. So, there's nothing fancy about it, but I'm planning on tackling Hamlet and Macbeth in the next week or so. They're major works of Shakespeare that I still haven't read. Doesn't look good when you're talking to someone about how much you love Shakespeare and their next question is "So what about Hamlet." (crickets) This happened on a phone interview once. Not good. It's time I swept the cobwebs out of my brain and got myself awake again. Honestly it seems like this whole process has been a series of re-awakenings. It's easy to think that the last insight is the most important, that pretty soon I'll start coasting my way towards Heaven, but I'm getting the suspicion that it's nothing like that. At least, if there's any coasting to do I can't really do it from right here. Guess I better keep climbing then.

Finally a purpose for writing

2011-07-20T23:28:00.000-07:00

Before life took another of it's little nose dives I was going to see a trainer/therapist at the recommendation of my chiropractor. At his (the trainer's) recommendation I finally ordered a book written by a certain fitness/health/guru, but when I went to start reading it I just couldn't. I couldn't take one more microscopic examination of my eating habits, my energy levels, my self-awareness, my my my my goodness everlasting my. I'm naturally a selfish and indolent person who'd rather read than clean and talk than listen, but even slugs have a breaking point. Everywhere I turn I'm faced with another voice asking me to consider my motivations, my interests, my level of self acceptance or self loathing. The whole world has become a mirror for my paltry humanity, and I've stared into it until I can no longer recognize myself. Standing on a ridge in the Olympic mountains I can indulge in the self-pity of not being there on a better day with more energy for exploring and less emotional fatigue. If that isn't blinkingly sinful myopia I'm not sure what is. Creation declares the glory of God, and the loudest voice I hear is my own grumbling.

So, here's the deal. I'm sure I'll write about all sorts of inconsequential things on this blog. You'll hear about my Christmas ornaments (or lack thereof) and the bread I made and that funny thing I did one Saturday, but I want the meat of this blog - my purpose for writing - to be in gazing outwards steadily at some thing and attempting to see it as it really is. I'm thinking particularly of the 6th resolution from John Pipers 10 Resolutions for Mental Health which says:

I shall open my eyes and ears. Once every day I shall simply stare at a tree, a flower, a cloud, or a person. I shall not then be concerned at all to ask what they are but simply be glad that they are. I shall joyfully allow them the mystery of what Lewis calls their "divine, magical, terrifying and ecstatic" existence.

Some of what I write might sound a bit odd or out of range. I don't promise not to write a persuasive essay on the glories of my potato masher. I just feel that I've lived too long inside myself. In another of Piper's essays he said that beholding was becoming. If I behold myself constantly and insistently then what hope is there for me? I know pretty well how much actual good lies within my own power. But, if I can even rarely, behold even the humblest item which God has give me and know that I have seen God's hand then perhaps there is hope.

There you have, the new purpose of my blog and written out at midnight on a Wednesday. I happen to think it's a decent one for all that.

God give me grace.

End of the story

2011-06-21T23:08:00.000-07:00

We ended up flying home for another funeral last Saturday. We're pretty tired of it honestly. This is our third funeral in under twelve months. But, it's family. You have to be there. Much as I didn't want to sometimes, for this particular funeral I really had to be there. Mamaw died at age 88 while driving to the store for dog food. The details are unclear, but they involve an 18 wheeler and anecdotal evidence that she might have had a heart attack or something before the accident. Anyone's who's read my old blog knows just how much Mamaw meant to me. She treated me like close kin. There's a lot I could share about Mamaw, but for now I just wanted to share one thought that occurred to me while we were busy saying goodbye. Funerals are a chance of us to hone in on the end of the story - to read the last couple chapters and find out just what we were seeing all these years. As my professor pointed out, when you open Othello it looks like a comedy, but it ends as a tragedy. Without the end it's hard to understand the beginning. At Mamaw's funeral I saw the end of a story that more people should be writing. She loved God and loved people and poured out her life blessing everyone around her. She was a saint with crooked teeth and a garden patch and a hug you'd be happy to drive a hundred miles for who went out and mended fences and loved me more than just about anyone I've ever known. So many times we see only a small portion of someone's life, and it's hard to know where they're going. At all the funerals we've been going to these past months, we've gotten to see just how all those actions and intentions played out. They all three of them told a story of love and faithfulness, hard work, cheerful endurance and unending gratitude. Seeing how those stories unfolded and pronouncing the final "amen" over their graves gives us a nudge to evaluate how our own characters are unfolding, and for that we can be thankful. To see the end and be about to change our own beginnings is a great blessing.

Smart test

2011-06-14T10:50:00.001-07:00

Ok I can now write blog posts on my phone even though my computer is sitting five feet away. That's progress for you!

Seriously though, as much as I might like to laugh at our growing dependance on technology there's a point at which you simply have to thank God for giving us a better way to find our way around strange cities. I mean, seriously, a map containing rated restaurant reviews that can call A A A when your car breaks down and contains a star chart so you have something to do while you wait (or you could just play Angry Birds like everyone else).

(Honestly, it was the star chart that sold me. This phone now qualifies as camping gear and is therefore more awesome than any mere texting platform could be.)

a holistic approach to plastic

2011-06-12T23:12:00.000-07:00

I should be heading for bed about now, but there's a blog post trying to get out :)

This past weekend Allen and I visited a small marine center just outside Santa Cruz. While in there I noticed the small plastics exhibit in the corner - just your basic "please think before using so much plastic" plea that we've all heard time and again. This time though it got me thinking, and the first thing that came to mind are those little plastic tubs grocery stores use to sell cut up melons and such. They're pretty useless when you remember that melons come prepackaged in handy hard casings that can easily store your fruit until you're ready to eat it. Cut melon, store remainder in reusable, resealable containers and toss the rinds in the trash (or compost if you're really lucky). It's really lovely. But why do I buy those unnecessary plastic containers? Because I'm tired, lazy, stressed, and just want to walk over to the fridge and pull out something ready to munch. Hence the need for a more holistic approach to dealing with extra waste products. It'd be easy for me to have a guilt trip over all this, but A. I'm not a member of Greenpeace, and B. guilt is a really lousy motivator. I'm realizing more and more that the problems are more in my head than my hands - more in what I think than what I do. When I'm tired, stressed, lazy, and otherwise checked out of my life I'm way more likely to waste time doing things I don't enjoy (ie crash) or waste resources by resorting to more expensive, more packaged goods. Crashing just exacerbates the cycle. On the other hand, when I'm feeling happy, productive, and peaceful little things like making a trifling mess in the kitchen don't bother me. It's easier to actually cook and do prep work and clean up the mess afterwards. I have to create space in my schedule and space in my brain so that I'm not constantly pushed towards the easy at the expense of the good (pre-cut fruit is rarely as good as the fresh stuff you buy yourself).

So that's my theory on excess waste - people need to slow down, make time, and de-stress to a point where they can feel good about doing a little cooking. Get your head in place, and the rest will follow. Guilt won't help.

Night and Honeysuckle

2011-06-07T21:54:00.000-07:00

While my class is taking their final I thought I’d go ahead and bang out an essay of my own. I had originally meant this topic as class discussion, but various scheduling collisions prevented our getting around to it. It’s a pity too because I thought Chesterton’s “End of the World” would be an interesting counterpoint to the usual character and leadership type discussions. Briefly, Chesterton’s essay is about his travels to a little French village in the mountains called Le Bout Du Monde and his discovery that the world does not all end in the same place. If that doesn’t make sense then consider where you are most your own - where all your art and understanding and being come together in one expression. That is the world’s end. For Chesterton’s Frenchman the world ends at sunset in one still quiet village set amid the cacophonous medley of plunging chasms and endless peaks. Chesterton said, “If the story of the world ended here it ended well. Then I wondered if I myself should really be content to end here, where most certainly there were the best things of Christendom -- a church and children’s games and decent soil and a tavern for men to talk with men.” To Chesterton’s own surprise he realizes that his world doesn’t end here. He wants an English cabman in an English city and an English policeman to wave them through. I can’t do justice to Chesterton’s imaginative love for his chosen home, but to hear him talk even the grime of London is only the patina on an old platter or the vines masking a stately country home. It’s the end of the world for him. It’s where all his livelihood and desires converge.

If you can’t see where this would make a good class discussion for a class on “Character and Servant Leadership” then let me explain. Chesterton had it impressed upon him suddenly and deeply how good it was to be in certain place and was then equally impressed with the necessity of the far better good of being himself in another place. The good that was indeed good was not the good for which he wept on his journey back down the mountain. This is a rare quality I think. He saw something that was good and that really should be preserved by the people who love it, but he was also able to see that there’s something out there uniquely his to preserve and love. I wanted to challenge the class to think about what they love and want to see carried out in the world to think about how they wanted to do it -- all the while acknowledging and understanding how other people are likewise fighting for their corner of Christendom. I think that’s one of the rare qualities displayed in Chesterton’s essay. He’s not trying to convince his French friend that England is better. He in fact admits quite the opposite - it’s precisely because the Frenchman’s world is better for the French that the English world is better for him. They’re complementary visions not competing. We need people who love cities and deserts and plains and mountains and oceans and caves and interstellar travel because if I were to have charge of a desert I’d make a huge muck of it. It’s a glorious adventure for a week or three days, but it’s not my world. I wanted my students to see that they have the chance to grab onto a chunk of the world and make it theirs - to love it through glory and grime and, maybe just once, to weep when they cannot be near it.

So where does the world end for me? I will confess that I love many things and cannot be as rooted as Chesterton and his desire for Wallham Green, and of all the things I have ever seen one of the best is a summer's evening in Alabama. It doesn’t matter much what one is doing then - chasing fireflies, drinking tea, or riding the 4-wheeler out to watch the sunset behind the hayfields. It’s just good to be outside in the warm, damp air smelling cut grass and honeysuckle and listening to the frogs and crickets chanting. The ac fan cuts in and after a while everyone goes inside to eat pizza and watch a Marx Brothers movie. You scratch an itch and are grateful the mosquitoes are outside and not in. No matter how many other sunsets I may see this is where my world ends. It's home and always has been.

Antidote

2011-05-22T21:12:00.000-07:00

For anyone who might be overly concerned about the post below let me hasten to assure everyone that an evening spent eating grilled cheese sandwiches, drinking limoncello, and watching my favorite Marx brother movie with Allen has restored me to semi-sanity. Apparently laughter is the best medicine.

(Booze doesn't hurt though.)

Oh the stressful lives we lead......

2011-05-21T21:04:00.000-07:00

Sorry to start a blog and then drop out of existence. I've been finding it tremendously stressful trying to put together lessons with barely a 3rd of the resources I need. What would you do if you had to teach on the Council of Trent with one worksheet and an activity for which you lack the required books? Did I mention this is for 3rd-5th grade? But there's an extra 2nd grader and her 6th grade sister in the class as well?

Yeah.

You see what I'm up against. Add in a crushing amount of emotional/life stress and you've got me right now. Curled up in the fetal position and wishing I could spend a week someplace like the Post Ranch Inn . I do exaggerate some, but I've never before broken down crying before someone's birthday party because I just couldn't handle anymore people.

So there you have it. Blogging hiatus explained. Hopefully things will rapidly straighten themselves out and I will again attempt to write something of substance.

Ruminations from Tornado Alley

2011-05-07T18:22:00.000-07:00

Some of you may know about the massive storms that ripped through Alabama last week. There were something like 35 tornadoes that day, whole neighborhoods blow apart, and hundreds of people dead. Driving through parts of Tuscaloosa reminded me of footage from Iraq right after the invasion. One moment you're driving through an ordinary downtown area and the next it looks like the street has been shelled. I've honestly never seen anything like it.

A friend of mine said that she was going down to help out, so I volunteered to go with her. A friend of hers was heading up a team from the diocese to sort and transfer donations to some of the harder hit outlying areas. Having seen the pictures I'm all ready to roll up my sleeves and start tossing bricks or handing out water or do something mildly awesome and heroic. Instead I found myself with a clipboard in hand writing down how many diapers and hygiene packs were heading down in a van to poor, rural Eutaw (pronounced Utah). Then I hopped in the car with my friend and a couple more girls to follow the trucks and vans down and sort out all the supplies onto shelves. That was it. I wrote down an inventory sheet and then helped to sort out soup and bottled water and cans of tuna. I didn't see much reward for my labor. I didn't even see much labor for my time. It honestly seemed like a complete waste of all my heroic intentions. Talking with my friend on the way back she mentioned that service was a great way to bring people together because when you serve it's all about giving of yourself - there's no room for "me" when you're serving. I wish I could agree with her. The whole time I was there a part of me was thinking "Look, God I'm doing something awesome. I'm giving up my Saturday to help tornado victims. I've even got a pair of gloves. Surely you have something more important for me to do than count diapers." Wah, wah, wah. Not very noble or self-sacrificing I don't think. But it reminds me of so much of life. We show up thinking that God is surely going to let us do something awesome when really He just wants us to count diapers. We're like a bunch of little kids begging to lift that really heavy log and having to be content with sticks. Sometimes, we aren't that awesome. We go to the right place with the best intentions and then we sit around thinking about much cooler the other aid tent is. It's not about us. But we make it about us. In our own little minds it's always about us.

So I'm glad that I went to Tuscaloosa. It reminded me just how much I don't love people. It reminded me how much I want to pose for the cameras and be a "hero." Yeah, I went down there with good intentions. With a different crew I might have learned a completely different lesson. My compassion might have been touched. I might have learned love and teamwork and service. By God's grace I believe I'm capable of learning and doing all those things. But, today, I learned again that all my righteousness is a shabby cover-up for my own expansive ego. Unfortunately I expect we'll be going back home before I can really get my hands dirty rebuilding this state I love. God bless those cans of soup I counted. Because, despite the unflattering lesson I learned, I really did go down there to give my best.

Frugal, Effective, and Green

2011-04-22T21:11:00.000-07:00

Yeah, that's totally a title I would see from a crunchy granola mommy blogger. However, it's all true. Here's the story.

While continuing my spring/Easter cleaning I decided that I must pull out the bed skirt and iron it. Maybe I was afraid someone would "gasp" discover I store mismatched socks and wrapping paper under the end of my bed. Maybe I ran out of things to do. (Yeah, right.) For whatever reason I decided that I must get that bed skirt ironed and on the bed. So I started ironing. Then I was struck by the desirability of starching said bed skirt. The problem is that when it comes to ironing I'm on a strictly low carb diet. No starch. I don't like using it on my cloths, and the work culture out here (in the tech industry at least) is such that Allen wears hiking boots and jeans to work on a regular basis. So, there's no starch in the laundry cabinet. Since I really didn't want to spend 20 minutes walking to the store I decided to try my friend Google for possible substitutes. After all, most kitchens contain an abundance of starchy substances. Google told me that one heaping tablespoon of cornstarch dissolved in two cups cold water and poured into a spray bottle would do the trick, and Google did not lie. It's dirt cheap, effective, and keeps me from spending money on an extra can that will just go in the trash. I'm not the biggest eco-hippy out there, but it's fun when saving resources is this easy (and thrifty!).

Easter Menu

2011-04-21T12:12:00.000-07:00

Ok, so this is my first time ever heading up an Easter celebration, and I'm just praying everything turns out ok. There's going to somewhere around a dozen people total -mostly young folks like us who can't celebrate Easter with their families. Young folk - Allen turned 30 this year. I guess young is truly relative. Anyway, fortunately our church is deeply rooting in the "tell me what I can bring" tradition, so I don't have to do quite all of it myself. We all live in relatively small places and are used to loaning each other chairs and folding tables and such and therefore enabling each other to host rather more people than our normally modest abodes allow. Allen and I live in "large" apartment, and even we find it a stretch to fit a dozen people in here. But enough about California housing!

Easter Menu:

Appetizers:

Cheese Plate
Devilled Eggs
Veg and Dip

Main course:

Roast Ham (recipe from Perfect Recipes for Having People Over)
Tamari Marinated Chicken Breasts (MIL recipe)
Mashed Potatoes
Oven Roasted Harvicot Vertes
Rolls
Salad
Wine/Italian Soda

Dessert:

Trifle
Undecided
Limoncello
Coffee/Tea

I've tried to pick items I could prep in the days previous or that would cook quickly with minimal attention. The roast can cook while we're at church. Things like trifle, devilled eggs, and rolls I can make ahead of time. Most everything else will either cook quickly or be brought by my delightful friends.

The big deal right now is just getting things cleaned up. We're in the midst of an organizational shift, which means that I've accumulated clutter from the "oh that will go somewhere else later" pre-organization that's been going on lately. It might be about time to make a pot of strong black tea and just blast through some of that. Of course that likely means my back bedroom (otherwise known as that room full of stuff) will become even more impossible (and impassible), but at least I'll have my new sideboard cleared away. Yes, I have a new sideboard (ok, it's from Ikea), and my dining area is so much nicer now. The table actually fits where it's supposed to instead of being awkwardly thrust out in the middle of the room because I had no place for dishes but the baker's rack and no place for the baker's rack than that much needed corner of the dining area.

I hope I really can get through that clutter quickly because until I get that done I really can't decorate, and that's one of my favorite parts of celebrations :) I don't know that I'm all that good at it, but I love setting out candles and turning on my Christmas lights (which are year round contributors to my bookcase). Oh, and I found the most amazing idea for an Easter egg hunt. One of the suggestions I found was to hide puzzle pieces in the eggs. I thought that might be a fun element to get people mixing together and moving around a little.

So there are my Easter plans. I'll try to post pictures once some of this comes together, but for now I need to clean out my closets so I have a place to put all the stuff accumulating on various surfaces.

Flax Seed is my new friend

2011-04-19T14:13:00.000-07:00

Recently I've started adding flax seed to my fruit smoothies, and I think it's really improving my focus and energy levels. Yesterday I spent the whole day cooking giant batches of everything to share with some friends of ours who have twin babies and recently moved. When I was done we had some lovely pot roast, zucchini bread, garlicy rosemary dinner rolls made with fresh ground flour (love my vitamix so much!), and two chicken pot pies made with homemade stock, and I didn't crash once. Yeah the kitchen still isn't back together, but with my history of depression, low energy, and poor focus I felt really good about what I accomplished. Taking my supplements regularly is a huge part of all that, but I'm also thinking that the extra omega-3s and antioxidants are helping. That's brain food right there.

In case you're wondering what I put in my smoothies here's my basic formula:

1 scoop whey protein powder (got to have protein!)
1 scoop fiber blend (helps slow sugar absorption and keeps me feeling good)
1 scoop green food mix (pick your favorite powdered greens supplement)
1/2 frozen banana (makes it sweet and creamy)
small handful whole flax seed (a genuine super food)
1T cocoanut oil (If you don't like nut oils then leave it out. All I can say is that my cholesterol is just fine, and I haven't gained any weight on it.)

From there I add whatever sounds good at the moment. Peach Mango Strawberry is great, and I really like making an all berry blend with a bit of pineapple. I top it off with kefir and orange juice, but yoghurt and any other fruit juice on hand will work. I've used carrot juice in the past occasionally with good results. If you have any blood sugar issues a bit of cinnamon will help even things out.

I know that sounds like a whole lot for one meal, but I keep everything by the blender and can put together lunch in 5 minutes max. Plus, it really does taste great. Just make sure you pick a fiber that doesn't have an offensive taste. Slippery Elm powder, for instance, can be pretty nasty. Apple pectin and psyllium hulls do much better. Once you drink a class of this you've gotten in good oils, probiotics, your fruit for the day, fiber, and gotten a start on your leafy greens. Did I mention that it's also taken care of my ice-cream cravings? Not bad for lunch :)

Teaching: a short recap and some thoughts

2011-04-17T15:11:00.001-07:00

Over the past 5-10 years I've been interested in teaching. It hasn't been a ruling passion of mine or anything like that, but it has been an interest of mine right up there with literature, camping, and discussing odd subjects with my husband. Given my interest it would have seemed sensible for me to do something like major in English education instead of the taking the English/philosophy path I did take. However at the time I had grandiose dreams of graduate degrees and professorships and the like because I figured that was where the fun happened. A professor takes open minds and pours into them all the distilled knowledge and passion from her own and searches for that one answering spark in the minds of her students. In between teaching there are researches into the compelling book of the moment and long hours of crafting prose that simply sings with new discoveries and insights. Perhaps that is true for some professors, but I rapidly begin to suspect that it's not. During graduate school I continually saw students and professors driven not by what is, not by the true and beautiful, but by voters and interest groups and this heaven turned hell that secularists long to create on earth. If it's true that men (in general) at all times and in numeral ways oppress women (in general) and that this is one of the great truths of literary history then that says something very specific and odd about how you read. Books cease to be windows into the human condition (at least in the way commonly thought of as such) but instead function at frames for the persistent arguments of feminists against men. Jane Austen becomes a feminist. Shakespeare becomes a misogynist. These become moral categories, and they start to privilege books to support their own faulty understanding of the world and denigrate books that would question these values. "So," they might say, "you do much the same in saying that Shakespeare or Bunyan or Burke is better than Hemingway, Joyce, or Rousseau." The difference, which hardly bears mentioning since they willfully can't see it, is that we have a firm set of standards for evaluating all literature in all ages. True the tides of opinion might ebb to and fro and legalism or license takes the upper hand in Christian culture. The point is that we have fixed principles that guide our taste and evaluation. They don't and are therefore at the mercy of every new student demographic and every new socio-political stance that appeals to their secular hearts. And so I left. I walked away from graduate school and every dreams of peacefully scribbling away in my ivory tower. I suppose I could have gone to a Christian school, but on the whole I don't think they're so very much better. I was also looking at doctoral studies, and the school where I went had a program to do so.

By the time I left I wasn't sure where I was supposed to be. I'd always had an aversion to government run education programs, and so many of the Christian schools just toddle along with the same methods as the government schools. I wanted something different. Then I found this classical school that let me volunteer and learn on the job. I got to work with students and see the process happening on a lot of different levels. I learned later that some of the processes where dictated by the board and that not all the teachers thought them effective, but at least I got to see real Christian education happening. Just recently I was hired temporarily to fill in for a couple teachers who left abruptly. It's been challenging, and yet I find it so addicting. I didn't realize how much my students would test my compassion, justice, intelligence, and judgement. It's incredibly intense, and I love it. I really feel like I've found something I can pursue. Unfortunately, since this particular school is closing I don't have the option of carrying on there next year. At this point though I'm just glad to have found something that makes me come alive and want to get to work. Right now the hard part is mainly trusting God that I'll be able to continue working in Christian education. Despite the doors slamming shut I feel confident that somewhere the road will shake itself out, and I'll find myself in front of the right door at last.

Welcome to my new blog!

2011-04-15T18:24:00.000-07:00

I decided it was time to go ahead and start a new blog. After a while I think there are times when you just want a fresh page. So much has happened in the past year -even the past few months- that I feel it's time to refocus and get back to the other thing I love. Writing!