Motherhood as Noncompetitive Sport

A friend of mine mentioned her discomfort with "mommy group conversations"; the "advice talk" about getting your kids to bed, to eat well, to get dressed, to use the potty is plain daunting and leaves her feeling disconnected more often than not. She is a mother of an almost 6 year old, so it's not as if she's without need of advice. Still, she'd rather turn to a book. And while I've read my share of books to raise my son, I realize that I've benefited most from a particular genre of "mommy group".

Just yesterday, I had a mommy conversation after our boys jumped on the bus. After sharing my horror at something wildly inappropriate my son had recently exclaimed, one mom simply said:"he's a boy" and "boys do that for shock value". She laughed and helped me laugh and begin to let it go. As the mother of three boys, she knows what she's talking about. And, as a fellow Christian, her advice to "let it go" has credibility. Another friend of mine and I have discussed over the years how our children sleep with us. For Western parenting, this is, as they say, "not good". But she and I are inching our way into reclaiming our adult only beds; our methods are imperfect and our progress occurs in fits and starts. And we walk alongside each other both celebrating the starts and encouraging each other in the fits.

Mommy groups have become a competitive sport. Mom conversations on playgrounds and school drop-off points are all too often punctuated by one-upmanship: "Oh, my four year old daughter is reading chapter books!" "Oh, my son was potty trained at two!". I leave these mommy conversations feeling exhausted and alone. I am drawn to the real and the genuine struggle of motherhood...the challenging times, the stuff that's not in books, the moments the developmental theorists left on their analytical cutting room floors. And it is the mom's that share in this journey that give me energy and courage. They help me know I am not alone in my worries or my imperfections.

My son potty trained only when we "really had to"; we had a preschool deadline [he's very much like his mom....more productive with deadlines!]. He is just beginning to be confident in his reading at age 7 1/2, and he didn't go to sleep in his "big boy bed" until he was 6 3/4. When I beam with joy that my son says he "likes reading" or when I celebrate my ability to have an hour or two to myself after Gabe goes to sleep by himself in his own bed, my "mommy group" really "gets it". And, similarly, I really understand and celebrate with them in their moments of triumph. And our celebrations seem both more credible and more real because we have walked alongside each other in the muck. I say, three cheers to mommy groups with the motto: we "mommy group" to know we are not alone.

Climbing in Love

I am eight months post my 3 year relationship sabbatical. At times, I want to retreat back to self-imposed intimacy exile, yet I know that relearning this stuff is crucial. Recently, I've been re-immersed in the "early phase" of a relationship...the head over heals part, the think about him all the time part, the wonder how his day has been part. I feel looney and vulnerable, ridiculous and buoyant, sixteen and forty-two all at the same time.

I like this phase because it's fun and it feels good. I enjoy sharing joys and sorrows with someone else. I enjoy the unfolding of each experience, the new insights of each conversation, the series of "firsts" that accompany a new relationship.

I dislike it because it is scary. It feels too good to be true, and regardless of how the future goes...this experience is temporal. The newness goes away. The first kiss happens, by definition, only once. These moments fade.

Infatuation, I am learning, looks similar whether we date as teenagers or in midlife. My perspective on the experience, however, has definitely changed alongide the shift in my ideal date. As a young adult, my dream date involved dressing up and going out. At midlife, my dream date involves jeans, cooking in, and playing Yahtzee.

There are more substantive arenas in which my 42 year old perspective differs from the teenage one. I now realize that relationships are not, ultimately, about "falling in love". "Falling" is involuntary and accidental; that is not love. This morning's sermon, the culmination of a series of sermons pondering the meaning of love, confirmed this. Love, our pastor asserted, is patient and kind. Love is humble and "does not insist on its own way". In sum, love is intentional and feels more, at times, like an uphill climb than a fall.

My sabbatical, and the work I did amidst it, helped me tap into the ways that I previously lived out a distorted vision of love. My patience depended on being right. My kindness extended only as far as I got my own way. I craved the experience of falling in love, without the real work. And now I am learning, slowly, how to take love one step at a time. Watch my footing. Hold onto the rope. And enjoy the view while I climb.

(Random) Acts of Kindness

Today I received an e-mail from my son's second grade teacher. The Subject line read: "Today". As any parent might imagine, I braced for the worst. Since I hadn't heard from the nurse, I figured he was healthy. I assumed that Gabe had been mean or hit someone or refused to do his schoolwork. ....in short, I assumed Gabe had done something wrong. How wrong I was. I opened the e-mail to read the following:

I wanted to send a quick email to tell you how much I enjoy having Gabe
in my classroom. He is truly a neat kid and I see him being kind to ALL
students in the classroom. Just today, I witnessed him helping another
student that was feeling down ~ Gabe kept telling him positive things
about himself and he included him by asking him to play at recess. I
love seeing these random acts of kindness and I wanted to share the kind
act that Gabe displayed today. He is such a sweet boy!

Have a terrific day.

My heart was deeply warmed by her observations; this is a Gabe that I see often. I experience him to have this amazing compassion, often for those younger or less powerful than he...he seems to inherently reach out to the "least of these" in his world. Still, my qualitative research self recognizes that, when it comes to Gabe, I am absolutely and utterly biased. My love for him has expanded my capacity for love itself, and thus I cannot possibly be objective when it comes to Gabe as subject. Even as Gabe's teacher shared her observation of Gabe's act of kindness, she lived out her conviction. In sharing with me a view of my son from beyond my vantage point, she displayed an absolutely and not-so-random act of kindness. And I am deeply grateful!

Spirituality and its Discontents

A close friend of mine, Michele, once told me I had the "spiritual gift of discontent". I recognized that her feedback accurately portrayed my sometimes "glass half empty" mindset and my uncanny ability to look at 10 things, 9 of which are perfect, and notice the 10th. After all, I come from a long line of "discontent" in my family. And I have, over the decade since I first heard this, intentionally tried to not only notice but also to verbalize what is right. And, working on my tendency toward "discontent" has been good.

Still, recently I have begun to return to the recognize the "spiritual gift" element too....that it, there is some positive in Michele's statement. N.T. Wright suggests in his book, Simply Christian, that the hunger for justice evident in human experience is an "echo of a voice" that beckons us to faith. The hunger is evident in our desire to "put things to right" and this requires noticing what is wrong. So, perhaps my "spiritual gift of discontent" is indeed a gift as evidence, perhaps, of God's purpose for my life to participate in putting some little part of the world "to right".

Love in the Small and Big Stuff

Gabe and I visited Harrisburg Brethren in Christ Church this morning. It was my church home for a decade, and while I'm searching for a church at the moment...I keep coming "home" to H-BIC. While I love the theology of grace amidst the brokenness and the multi-ethnic vision, I struggle with the theology of the worship where there seems to be little "we" and a lot of Jesus and me. I desire for the community of faith to be more evident in the worship. It was great to visit, and to be in a place where Gabe and I both know others and are known.

The sermon was on a verse from I Corinthians 13 where Paul says that "Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful"(4-5). Essentially, Pastor Woody suggested that the reality is that life is often hard and unfair. There are some little things in life that we need to just "let go". He said, and I quote, "some of us need to learn the art of not sweating the small stuff". [Only Woody can make theological connections between Scripture and the texts of pop culture.] Now that's easy when we're talking about how different people squeeze toothpaste or interpret scrabble rules, but what about the stuff where letting go isn't so obvious. But life's disappointments also impact the big stuff. Our challenge, then, is to discover what we need to do when our deepest desires go unmet.

And the answer, in a nutshell, is to allow the love of Christ to transcend real experience....for us to choose kindness and patience in the midst. And, God uses all things...sometimes especially the junk in our lives...to transform us. As much as I wish I'd been spared some of life's disappointments, I wouldn't trade who I have become in light of them. And I know that the transformation of the junk in my life occurred solidly amidst the community of H-BIC church. It was good to visit “home” this morning, and challenged me to reconsider the parameters for choosing church in the first place. Perhaps I , too, need to let go of the "small stuff" and return to a place that has faithfully helped so many through the "big stuff" of life's disappointments.

The Fruits of Weeding

Gabe and I have attended recently to the tasks of weeding and mulching. Gabe has been absolutely amazing! He has focused on tackling the tallest weeds, and has made terrific progress. He has made $13.00, but it is apparent that his primary motivation is not financial. He knows he is making mom very proud. With every bucket, he has retrieved me from the mulching, asked me to remove my garden glove, held my hand, made me close my eyes, and guided me carefully to his work area. When he has me situated perfectly, he asks me to open my eyes and I say "WOW! You are amazing. I can hardly believe your progress!". And he gets this adorable glimmer in his eye and his dimple emerges along with a bright smile. He really has made me very proud. Some days I can't get over how blessed I am.

We've made some great progress overall. Just one side of the house left to weed, spray, and mulch. I remember almost four years ago when I first started to take care of the house on my own, I journaled about weeding as a metaphor for "dealing with the junk in your life". My real and metaphorical house was more weeds than anything at that point. I literally discovered a rose bush under some very tall weeds. I thought then about how important it is to take care of the weeds and to keep at the difficult work of plucking out the challenges.

Recently, I've discovered the real fruits of weeding; once the weeds are clear, there is space to imagine what might be. As I've weeded through some difficulties in my own life, I now have room to see what might be. Four years ago, all I saw was weeds. Today, I am not weed-free [no one is, I presume] but I am content. I have a wonderful job that fits me, and a vision for my future is emerging. I have recently ventured into dating, and realized I have a good sense of what is most important to me in a life partner. Even my house, which I’ve been slowly renovating, is beginning to look like what I only once imagined. And I have a wonderful son, who is showing the fruits of being raised by a healthy, whole mom.

What a joy to see the value of attending to the weeds both literally and figuratively. While I still attend carefully to the "weeds" in my life, I know that the weeds no longer overwhelm the beauty and the joy in my life. And as I weed with my son, the process of weeding and the experience of joy actually merge.