Eternal Grace

Just a few words:

I read a quote from Babette's Feast (which I have not read and really should) that felt like a minor revelation. We are daily bombarded with messages of scarcity - jobs are hard to find, Black Friday doorbusters disappear while you're parking the car, fertility and marriage opportunities wane together. Our friends have only so much time for us between work and school and church. Husbands see their free hours drift away. We are all of us continually bumping up against limits and walls and empty wells from whence no strength can be drawn.

And yet,

God's grace defies scarcity.

 Just think about that for a moment. A candle flickers and dies, but the stars have shone for millenia. Grace is big like the sky. We just forget it's there.

Theology of home design

This is the first time I've ever had some much scope for domestic activity, and I'm finding the task both daunting and inspiring. Where I once wondered about Ikea curtains I'm now contemplating new gas ranges and moving entire walls. It's a heady sense of possibility coupled with nervous glances towards the budget sheet and days spent sifting through chandeliers, fabric choices, and paint colors as I try to define a vision for our new home. This process is revealing how I'm both deeply stubborn and fiercely insecure. At times the reality that we're spending thousands of dollars based (largely) on my judgement and preferences sets a whole formation of doubts marching before my eyes. With Allen's support and guidance most of our decisions have come out well, but during the between times when we're handing out checks and not seeing the fruition it's easy for me question everything about my judgement and preferences. After all, if a girl grew up with formica countertops and never questioned them before why should she start romancing her imagination with soapstone? But, I'm stubborn. There are so many ugly, cheap and just plain pretentious things out there, and I want a home made with substance and beauty and simplicity. At one point we were considering formica countertops, and I was starting to feel a little batty trying to find something beautiful that wasn't fake stone. I realize other people feel differently, but to me the beauty of formica is that it's not stone. Technically speaking I'm sure you could make formica plaid if you wanted to, but instead everyone tries to make another granite look alike that ends up resembling granite about as well as melamine resembles antique mahogany. I like things that do a good job being what they are and don't try to be a poor version of something they definitely are not. And really my formica search was just the beginning. Lighting, fixtures, cabinets - it's a struggle assembling a pleasant home when you have views about faucet aesthetics.

I suppose this could all sound very much like a first world problems kind of blog post, but I actually think it goes way beyond that. This isn't about how much money you have because I've seen more beautiful options at virtually all price levels (especially when you include searching second hand stores and craigslist). It's about a world that often values the showy and "high status" over what is beautiful and enduring and what we homemakers can do to fight this trend. I think as Christians we need to live in ways that are gracious, peaceful, and welcoming, and our homes should reflect this. Think about the various historical periods of the past - many of them had a certain style of furnishings that developed along with that period's zeitgeist. That's sort of what I'm getting at here. There should be a Christian spirit that animates our door knobs and couches and window shutters, and I think this excludes much of what is ugly, cheap, or overly showy. To make an analogy - I'm saying not to buy all your clothes from Forever 21. They're mostly designed to make a show for a season and then fall apart in your washing machine three months later. By that same token, I think Christians should generally avoid bedazzling their chandeliers with gold mardi gras beads. (Don't laugh, I've shopped on Etsy before.) You can also paint things that clash and employ a modicum of aesthetic judgement when shopping for bargains. A slip cover can work wonders, or maybe you could wait a couple months to see if something nicer shows up at a yard sale. If you still aren't convinced this is worth spending time, money, and energy on I'll leave you with this - God thought it mattered. I can't recall if it was the tabernacle or the temple, but way back in the Old Testament God Himself raised up a class of artisans to beautify His residence on earth. When the arguments are over it all comes down to "because God said/did so, and we're called to be like Him."

More on how I'm personally applying this to come.

Five years and counting

Just now that Allen and I are starting to feel settled my cousin popped up on facebook with some "exciting news" which is honestly a little bit challenging. In the past five years we've been through a fair number of ups and downs, but one constant remains - no kids. Just hasn't been happening for us. We've been through some rough patches with that, but really the thing I find most disconcerting at the moment is how well Allen and I fit into the "friendly people with no kids" stereotype. I go places with my friend's three kids. Their youngest daughter runs up to me church saying "Miss Natalie!"; their son tells me about his video games, and their oldest daughter goes shopping with me sometimes. Allen dangles all the little boys by their ankles after church, and we're generally "good with kids." Don't get me wrong - there are moments when I get a little queasy hearing about yet another birth/baby shower/new pregnancy. I might walk a little faster past the baby aisle at Target, but I'm generally ok with things. It's just funny how well we quickly settle down into certain roles. People with kids act one way. People who are glad not to have kids act another way. People making the best of not having kids tend to do a little more traveling and "take an interest" in the families around them. I guess I'm turning into my mom after all =) (I mean this in a good way - she didn't have me for eight years and previous to that ran the church youth group with my dad. All I need is a dog and keys to the church van, and I'm set.)

This isn't a pity party post. I don't particularly want sympathy. It's just more a reflection on coming to a point where, although I still desire a family, I no longer feel so completely left out of God's story and the life of His Church. There are a lot of broken people in the Bible - people who were incomplete and yet loved of God and who did their work anyway. I've been reading a study of Ecclesiastes which just confirms that we live in a funny old world and that the ability to laugh at it a gift from God (possibly the gift granted the Proverbs 31 woman?). Sometimes things don't work out the way we planned, and according the Ecclesiastes that seems to mean that we should pick up a bottle of red and curl up the couch with a Marx Brother's movie. The good things in life are still good, and the bad things will be evened up in Heaven. It's a sort of sanctified cynicism, a sort of holy hedonism that appeals to me. There's room here for me both be broken and to put that brokenness aside and enjoy playing Super Mario with Allen.

All that said I've by no means given up on us having kids. Even with everything still in boxes or (worse) half out of boxes I'm starting to feel settled. I don't feel constantly plagued by depression. I have a house and the expectation of being in one place at the least the next few years. It's a good place to be, and it's a good time to start asking questions.

Envy at the top

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.