In the Beginning...

There's this delightful camp song that I grew up singing: The Hippopotamus Song. And probably for about a year I've been thinking of making a quiet book (you know, the cloth books that have little things for toddlers to do in them) based on The Hippopotamus Song. My nephew would be one and a half at Christmas and it would have made a great gift. So I bought the supplies in the fall...and then did nothing with it.

But this summer, with extra time on my hands, I finally completed the quiet book...albeit with hot glue and a lot of cut corners. (Literally. I cut a lot of corners off the felt.)

So, ladies and gentleman, The Hippo Song: 

Mother's Day Confession

I have never been a huge fan of Mother's Day.

I don't know that I have ever really "celebrated" Mother's Day well.

(This is the worst part. Sometimes I don't remember to even call my mom on Mother's Day.) 

Somehow, a day that seemed to be about cards and flowers and encouragement didn't seem to fit with my mother. And it's not because I don't like my mom, or love her, or whatever. It's a little bit like Valentine's Day, I suppose. I didn't see why this one day should be the day that I communicate appreciation for my mom.

So I have always been fairly ambivalent about Mother's Day. Until the last five minutes of this Mother's Day, when at 11:55pm I read The Radical History of Mother's Day. 

The intent behind Mother's Day wasn't a day filled with well-planned brunches, breakfast in bed, and extravagant gifts. It wasn't about making proclamations that my mother is the best, or giving moms a "day off", or any of the commercial things that my mother wasn't really all that into anyway.

Mother's Day was intended to be a rallying cry for peace, a day "grounded in faith, feminism, and protest."

This sounds more like my mother. My mother would speak these words, would rise to this challenge. 

"Arise then...women of this day!  

Arise, all women who have hearts!

Whether your baptism be of water or of tears! 

Say firmly: 

“We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies, 

Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, 

For caresses and applause. 

Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn 

All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. 

We, the women of one country, 

Will be too tender of those of another country 

To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

My mother would feel more alive on a day when she was asked to stand for peace than any day she is asked to relax and eat a delicious brunch. 

And I thank God that He has made her so. I thank God that she has taught me to follow the Prince of Peace, to cry out against injustice with compassion and mercy, to love those who may not often receive it. It may have taken 25 years, dear Becky, but thank you for teaching me charity, mercy, and patience. I hope the lessons you taught me, I may pass on. 

My parents on a mission trip to Haiti. 

Knowing The Things That Make For Peace

My heart is breaking.

For the ethnic violence in South Sudan, a nation that, were it a human child, would just be learning to ride a tricycle. For my friends, my beautiful friends, who are from South Sudan and believed so much in their new nation.

My heart breaks to hear that these women still fight, violently, with each other.

What does it mean to pray for peace?

What does it mean to ask another to believe in the gospel of peace?

I believe so strongly that Jesus’ death at our hands is what allows us this peace. I believe that Jesus being the Lamb of God means that we can be done with offering sacrifices of scapegoats.

In church we have been reading the letter to the Ephesians. And at the end of the letter, Paul tells the Ephesians how to dress themselves spiritually:

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. 11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. 12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. 13 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. 14 Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15 and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. 16 In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; 17 and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, 18 praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, 19 and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, 20 for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak.                                                   Ephesians 6:13-20

And I have never been so acutely aware of the disconnect between the culture that I live in, and the culture that this letter was written to. I have no concept of wearing armor, of needing armor.

The part that is especially striking to me is verse 15: “As shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace.”

When I think of peace in my own life, I think of comfort, of not being stressed before a test. Right now I think that peace will come after June 6^th, D-Day, The Day I Take The Boards. I think that peace means going on a car ride and not disagreeing vehemently with my husband about something theological. That the best way to achieve peace is to be sure to fulfill all the duties given to me so that no one will have reason to reprimand me.

But is this peace? Can I have peace if my neighbors do not have peace? Does putting on the readiness of the gospel of peace mean more than looking at how I can avoid conflict in my own life, or even how I can conflict well in my own life?

Is the gospel of peace more than being “at peace with God”?

How can I proclaim this gospel of peace when I have no concept of what it means to be at war? 

Can a sermon on peace be taught without acknowledging the conflicts of the world?

Can a sermon on peace be taught faithfully without being "political"?

Because this peace is not just for us, not just for Christians, not just for our personal relationships.

Lord, I pray that I may I know the things that make for peace. May I advocate for the things that make for peace. May our church proclaim the things that make for peace, a peace that doesn’t come from the assurance of being stronger than another, of agreeing with others, or of being better armed. The peace of that sort is only temporary.

Let the peace we seek be the more permanent peace that Jesus brings.

 Let us proclaim that peace boldly. 

Wedding Dress and Psalm 102:25-26

My thrift store prom dress

 When I was a lifeguard in high school, I would spend a significant amount of my time on the chair mentally designing my wedding dress. I had managed to repurpose a regular thrift store dress into a pretty awesome prom dress with the help of my mom, and I had some pretty extravagant ideas about what I wanted for my wedding dress.

Fast-forwarding about 5 years to my boyfriend and I talking about getting married, and the dress is the first thing that comes to my mind. I texted multiple people before we were engaged to try to get somebody to go dress shopping with me (getting no takers, I did end up waiting until I had the ring). I had fallen in love with a dress designer in Minneapolis (joynoelle.com, her dresses are breathtaking, and all unique), but being a budget-conscious middle child who wants to please everyone I decided against the steep price tag.
I ended up going dress shopping three different times before finally finding "the one." It was the last dress I tried on, and it was everything I was looking for: reasonably priced, light, and unique.
And then I got Pinterest. I went through a period of about a month of looking at all of these gorgeous dresses, lamenting the fact that I'd purchased one so soon. I finally had to cut myself off.

On my wedding day, I was most pleased with my dress. I had looked at it as a big part of "my big day" and it fulfilled its role as expected.
But now, when I think about my wedding day, my dress is nothing special. Not because it wasn't a great dress, but because so many more wonderful things were going on. My husband and I got to share communion with our family and friends. My new brother-in-law and his wife were there with their 3-day old son. My cousins were playing frisbee on the lawn. I got to dance with my favorite little girls.

And sure, its important because it is one of the most photographed pieces of clothing you will own in your life; but those photographs will eventually come down in my house to be replaced by pictures of my children.

The glory of finding a fantastic dress was eventually eclipsed by the glory of a great wedding; which has also been diminished by the glory of working with my husband toward a marriage that reflects Christ's relationship with His Church, everyday. So in wedding dresses, as in all things, keep your eyes on things that matter, things that are eternal.

Long ago you laid the foundation of the earth

and made the heavens with your hands. 

They will perish, but you remain forever;

they will wear out like old clothing.

You will change them like a garment

and discard them. 

The 10 things I've learned from OB

1.  Research is important. If I didn't know better, I would totally think C-sections are better for the mom's body than vaginal delivery. So much stress.
2. Watching a woman give birth and watching the high jump are similar in that I have sympathy actions. Time for the athlete to have a strong knee drive? My knee instinctively raises. Time for mom to bear down? My abdominal muscles clench.
3. After searching for and listening to fetal heart sounds all day, I start to imagine them everywhere: the ventilation ducts, the static on the TV, general background noise.
4. Women are really different. Some women strain for a bowel movement and end up having a child - others work for hours to get the job done.
5. My husband probably won't be allowed in the labor and delivery room. He'll either be too freaked out and faint, or will make a basketball joke. I imagine this going something like, "One possession at a time, just gotta be really good one contraction at a time."
6. I thought because I ran track in college, I had at least seen hard work before. Nothing is as hard as pushing a living thing out of a space that is too small for it to fit through. Sometimes even when you have an epidural.
7. You know it's a good push when you can see hemorrhoids.
8. I may never stop tearing up when putting the baby on mom's belly for the first time.
9. Most shoulder dystocias occur in the absence of risk factors, so they can't really be predicted. If there is shoulder dystocia, there will be "turtle's sign": the baby's head comes out, and then wants to go back in again. In order to deliver the shoulders, there are several things that can help: putting mom on all fours (Gaskin manuever), pulling her knees up to her chest (McRoberts maneuver), suprapubic pressure, and delivering the posterior arm by reaching up and pulling the forearm out, among other things that we didn't talk about/do.
10. There are as many positions for pushing things out as there are for getting things in.

Purity is bullshit?

I have some wonderfully fabulous women-friends who have been posting this from Jezebel.com: http://jezebel.com/female-purity-is-bullshit-493278191

I trust these women-friends. They care about women and how women are treated, and they are passionate. They probably know more about the subject of female purity and how it is distorted by our culture. They're also Christians.

I just fear something is getting lost in translation over Facebook. I don't get to hear them speak about where they coming from when they "like" the article. I don't get to listen to their hearts and why (if this is the case) they think purity, in and of itself, is a non-entity.

Because I, too, agree with so much of what Lindy West says. I agree that a woman's worth is not dependent on what she will or will not do for a man, that a woman's "value as a human being is not contingent on her sexual capital". That there is something inherently wrong with a culture that teaches a young girl that if you have sex before marriage, you're the equivalent of a chewed up piece of gum.


I just think she's throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Much of what surrounds purity is patriarchal discrimination against women. But at it's heart, purity is a call to live in a way that is true to the selves that God calls us to be. So rage against the culture surrounding it and the double standard perpetuated by men who say that "pure" women are as rare as unicorns. Go to battle for the women who have not known grace, who have been or who are still held captive by lies that purity is something that you get once and can lose.

Because purity isn't simply not doing something, right?

I just feel like there's a really good conversation to be had, and I'm missing it because of Facebook, and how awful discussions can get online. So, women, come talk to me, please?

(Sidebar: In looking for another view on this, I found this blog: Bad Catholic: Is Female Purity Bullshit?. Good thoughts...frustrating that there is little acknowledgement of common ground between Catholics and Protestants.)

I did not write this. But it is beautiful.

An Easter Poem

Love is hard
         as nails
And life, a gift
         as tender and precious
         as the morning dew.
Come, now. Wake up
         and   be   glad.