Aj Schwanz

My book group has chosen to read Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemna for next month’s selection.  As with many of the choices, someone asks, “Have you read it?” My response:  “Yeah . . . well . . . I started it, and then [insert some excuse which I find very valid in my head, but sounds a bit weak when is verbalized].”  This time the excuse was my profound sense of melancholy that descended over me within engaging the first few chapters.  That, and I had just given birth, so there might have been some hormonal issues.  And sleep issues.  But I digress.

My remembrance of what I felt at the time was Doom.  Doom, because there were no good answers.  Doom, because no matter what I did, as the Manager of Consumption in my household, I would be making some wrong, or hurtful, choice.  Doom, because I come from a long line of people with blood sugar issues, and my children MUST be fed Frequently (as with the Mama:  I’ve been told that discussions will be continued only once I’ve eaten some string cheese), and I didn’t think it would be feasible to say, “Well, kids, we’re abstaining from food until I can find local, organic, healthy, low-carbon-footprint food sources.  Oh, and affordable.  And don’t take up all of my time, because those important activities in my day must be maintained:  Facebook can’t just surf itself, you know.”

My friend Jenn finished the book (I can’t tell you how many times we read the same books, but she finishes where I poop out).  She said that it got more hopeful towards the end, that the author didn’t necessarily find “the right answer”, but at least he had some options for moving in a healthier yet doable direction.  And he still seemed a bit confused, which is always nice not to be the only one.

Today I found another picture of what may be a healthier, doable direction.  A woman wrote an article about the Boise Vineyard Church, which I’ve already been interested in, but this just seals the deal.  They have a Garden o’ Feed’in at their location in Garden City.  Sounds like an ideal spot, right?  A garden in Garden City:  so picturesque.  Except if you’ve been to this area, you know it’s like the armpit of the Treasure Valley.  The history of the church location involves being on a site that had contaimated water (GREAT story – pastor gets a word to sprinkle salt in the water and pray like one of the OT prophets – next thing you know, clean water).   Hello:  story of redemption!  Gives me chills.

Looking at the author’s website I came across a link to God’s Gardens in Boise:  “Proclaiming the love of Christ through benevolence, stewardship and community.”  Ah, joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart.  These pictures give me something to move towards, something to look forward for, something to share with and promote in my community, something that gives me an option other than spending all my time rolling my homemade tortillas (that’s for you, Jenn ) or all my money buying a four-pound free-range organic grass-fed fryer chicken.  My dilemna is still present, but at perhaps it’s forcing me to move towards a healthier, doable option.

[HT:  Evangelical Ecologist]

When my husband and I last upgraded our phones, he was very excited to see a certain icon:  3G.

“What’s that?”

“For third generation.  It’s the latest network.”

“So we can hear better?”

“Ideally, yes.  Of course, they don’t have phone towers with the right technology everywhere yet.”

“So, I can only hear well some of the time and in certain areas.”

“Yeah. . . . But isn’t it cool?”

I love being married to a tech head.

My friend Carla (well, she’s a friend of a friend, but I’d prefer to adopt her as one of my own) has written a post titled “Is Motherhood a calling?” that’s created space for some quality conversation.  My friend Kim has extended her thoughts over at her own space.  I’ve recently been wondering about my role in my childrens’ lives lately.  It started from seeing a posting for a job that a) I would love to do and 2) I could actually do really well.  Those two things don’t often collide for me.  I’ve since let it past:  I couldn’t figure out how I would “do it all”.  Which I wouldn’t:  the time committment to both tasks (in the home and out of the home) are too great at this juncture in my life.  And, the job will always be there:  my kids, not so much.

But thinking of the job did make me realize how much of my identity is tied up in my current work, and how would my identity change with this adoption of new activities?  How do I balance the conservative voices I hear in my life that talk about the functions of gender roles as they see it biblically (and honestly, I see some wisdom in their words) with the more liberal voices that desire to break away from those rolls completely due to the abuse that has stemmed from them?  My friend Robin has more than once reminded me that early Quaker women would hear a calling from the Spirit and up and leave their families to spread the Good News about the Light of Christ within us.

Sometimes it feels like motherhood is a cell phone within changing networks:  if you’re in the right place and the right time, it’s all so clear; othertimes, you’re hollering at anybody within range:  “Can you hear me now?”

I remember the first time I watched “You’ve Got Mail.”  It was at the Cameo Theatre in Newberg.  My friend and I paid for the Louge (the dollar-more-expensive padded seats that rock) and had to sit on the edge of the row because it was the last two together.  I had snuck in Ben and Jerry’s Sugar-Free New York Super Fudge Chunk, cause I neeeeeeeeded it.  And the movie began.

I never knew that there would be so many quotes that would directly pertain to my life.  You know, that kind of movie that seems to blend in to your life story so you don’t know where one starts and the other stops because some of the memories are of quoting the movie with others whose lives have similarly blurred lines.  Or just truth:  plain truth.

Today the wisdom of Joe and Kathleen is the following:

Joe Fox: [talking via email, to who he doesn’t know is Kathleen Kelly] Have you ever become the worst version of yourself. That a pandora’s box of all the hateful things, your spite, your arrogance, your condecension has sprung open? Someone upsets you and instead of smiling and walking away… you zing them. “Hello it’s Mr Nasty”. I’m sure you have no idea what I’m talking about…
Kathleen Kelly: [talking via email, to who she doesn’t know is Joe Fox] No I know exactly what you mean and I’m completely jealous. When I’m confronted by someone I get tongue tied and my mind goes blank. Then I spend the rest of the night tossing and turning over what i should have said. For example what should I have recently said to…
[meaning confrontation with Joe]
Kathleen Kelly: …a bottom dweller who recently belittled my existance.
[stops and thinks]
Kathleen Kelly: Nothing… even now days later I still can’t figured it out…
Joe Fox: Wouldn’t it be great if I could pass all my zingers to you, then I could always be nice and you could be nasty whenever you wanted to be. Although I must warn you… when you eventually have the pleasure of saying the thing you want to say at the moment you’re wanting to say it… remorse eventually follows…

Lately I’ve been sensitive to the Mr. Nasty in me, around me, in other situations, seeing Mr. Nasty in places that he’s not even present, or not noticing his presence until BAM:  oh, there you are, Peter (another excellent movie).

Instead of mastering the art of the zinger, I’d like for the zinger to be gone.  Or for the inclination to zing to be transformed into . . . something else.  But what?  And how do I hand it over?

When I find myself muttering in the shower, when I over zealously stir a batch of Super Sloppy Joes (not a good move), when I’m snappy with my family for little unimportant things, that’s a sign that things are not in a happy place.  I don’t want to just Be Happy;  I want to be Real, and reality involves Suffering.  I want Blessings instead of Cursings.  I want Peace like a River.  I want all-permeating Transformation, in and out and around me.

The glib answer bouncing around in my head says, “Look to Christ!  You know, He went through all that and more” [insert condescending look].  And then I want to Zing myself, which is more a mental kick-in-the-shins.

How does one authentically acknowledge the nasty and posture to be transformed to the Good and Real when one feels stuck in a we-have-no-snow-plows-and-have-to-shut-down-I-5-due-to-the-foot-deep-snow-ruts rut?

This weekend I had the opportunity to attend a baby shower of a dear friend (and birthday buddy).  Her little girl will be born sometime in the next six weeks, maybe sooner, maybe later:  these infants just aren’t so good at sharing specific details.

I brought Judah with me, partly to give the husband a break, and partly to include him in something I consider to be a sort of Rite of Passage (for the baby:  she’ll be passaging soon).  Judah learns about food preparation as I meal plan, and he learns about cultural/heritage type of things as I include him in events such as baby showers.  He asked whose birthday party it was, and I said, “Well, it’s a sort of “early” birthday party for Miss EllaMae,” and went from there, why she was an important person in our lives, why we celebrate births, etc.

In the past I never would have thought to bring him, but recently Judah’s learning to sit:  to play:  to talk with other adults.  The hosts were gracious and gave him toys, but mostly he enjoyed handing the presents to the Mama-to-Be.

The host, the grandmother-to-be, started off the gathering by stating she doesn’t “do” baby shower games:  phew.  Instead, she chose to hand out advice cards for her daughter.  We were supposed to write down (on a tiny index card) all of our fount of wisdon and knowledge and experience.  Or at least our phone numbers where we were most easily reached. 

I couldn’t think of advice to give:  my brain is too foggy from that time period of infantdom (thankfully:  that’s why we have two kids).  So I changed my card into a card of blessing.  For me, blessings speak to the hope of a future.  They move me out of the present moment into thinking of the bigger picture.  And when I read them as time passes, I see how God is faithful in being present in those blessings.

Advice is often given more than blessings today; was it that way in Old Testament days?

We talked about the difference between the words joy, happiness, and blessing at Bible Study, but I don’t know that we came to a clear picture of each.  “Be happy when you can; be joyful always” – Graham Cooke.  That was my offering.

What would happen if blessings were bestowed more than advice?

This morning I read this:

1 Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty warrior. His father was Gilead; his mother was a prostitute. 2 Gilead’s wife also bore him sons, and when they were grown up, they drove Jephthah away. “You are not going to get any inheritance in our family,” they said, “because you are the son of another woman.” 3 So Jephthah fled from his brothers and settled in the land of Tob, where a group of adventurers gathered around him and followed him.

and I thought about how much I like the Bible.  What a story!  And what a short little blibby it’s given.

Mighty warrior!

Son of a prostitute!

Driven from his family!

Lived with adventurers!

Obviously the Bible did not have Hollywood execs to get a script past, because the long passages on mildew treatment might not be given so much space.

I realized how much of the Bible I don’t “get” while reading Judges.  The Canaanites move in; the Philistines attack; the Moabites oppress.  Big whoop.

But if I heard “the Nazis move in; the Taliban attacks; the Appartheid oppress” I think I’d be more concerned, more invested in the story.  Perhaps having to seek out the meaning involves me in the story, sets me out on my own Bastian adventure.  Like Jephthah, only without the prostitute mother and with shorter adventurers. 

My son came downstairs this evening, dressed in his Christmas pajamas, showing me his new magnetic calendar.  It has labels for each month, for days, and icons for special events.  For example, he has a school bus put on Tuesday, the day he’s supposed to return to school from his summer-length winter vacation.  Today is noted with a snowflake.  Because it snowed.  Again.  We just returned home and have only seen the grass in our backyard for about an hour over three-ish weeks:  oy.  Another day further on in the month is decorated with balloons and cake and such, but we won’t go into detail about that.

One of the magnets has two hearts, I suppose, for that Sainted Mister Valentine (or my mama’s birthday, or my nana’s birthday, as it happens to all collide into one terrific 24 hour period).  Judah looked at me and stated very matter-of-factly:  “God makes hearts.”  “Yes, son, yes God does.”  “My heart is in my stomach.  My heart and my stomach are right here.  God made them.”  “Oh . . . ?”

Later, as I was FB chatting with a lovely friend, Judah interrupted me to look at his “broken” tooth, a fairly nightly ritual that neither I nor his father have comprehended.  Finally tonight we came to a realization that he believes his molars are broken, because they are not pointy like the rest of his teeth.  I tried to explain that God designed teeth with different shapes so as to serve different functions.  “So some bite off or rip off food, and others grind the food so we can swallow it.”  “Yeah, with the broken teeth.  I broke my tooth when I was Abel’s age.  But God, when I break my teeth, God will make me new ones.”  If only it were that easy, says the girl with a crown (though I love my crown:  it’s a solid tooth.  Now, the chipped tooth next to it is another matter . . . ).

This weekend I got to hear some funny adult interpretations of events and chronology.  My mom wondered about scanning all the slides Dad took of their time in Germany as newlyweds working on the Air Force base.  We came across an envelope of pictures of my dad’s parents that I have *NEVER* seen:  pictures of my papa beeming with his sons, pictures of my nana with her mom and mother-in-law, pictures of my nana in little short-shorts and then (gasp) a two piece, pictures of my grandparents out on the town with (another gasp) bottles and glasses with alcoholic beverages in them.  See, I grew up in an alcohol-free household mostly due to the fact that alcoholism runs in my family.  But, as a small child growing up in Evangelical Southern Idaho, I began to assume that only “not good” houses drank and “good” houses didn’t.  My parents never said that, but just as Judah somehow *knows* his heart is in his stomach and *knows* that his tooth is broken, I *knew* that alcohol was a sign of moral failure.  My head has changed its views since then, but sometimes I wonder if my heart knows that.  I also wonder what else my head and heart think they know for certain . ..

I also got to hear some funny interpretations of historic events as my parents tried to convince each other that they remembered events more accurately than the other.  And as both my head and heart are in agreement, I knew just to keep.my.broken.toothed.mouth.shut.

I’ve rarely made New Year’s resolutions:  it seems like a giant way to set myself up for failure.  “Hello, self esteem, another way that you didn’t measure up”.

Or so said my former self until I had the realization:  I don’t have to make a bunch of resolutions:  I could just do one.  And there are no NYr rules (that I know of:  if there are, I don’t want to know:  keep that door firmly shut:  la la la, I can’t hear you) that state I have to do a BIG resolution.  It could be small.  Insignificant.

So I started flossing.  Yes, that was a NYr:  and I actually followed through.

The next year it was drinking enough water.  And as you can ask my husband, who trips over water bottles (reusable, BPA-free) scattered throughout the house and the car, I tend to keep decently hydrated.

When I lived in Boise, I decided my NYr would be to read my Bible in one year following the handy dandy guides in the back.  It was a Bible I got “free” while attending YouthQuake (you know, the “free” stuff that comes with a hefty conference fee).  It was an amazing experience.  Boise was a ‘desert’ time for me, a time where God met me (kicking and screaming, or rather twitching due to my unknown blood sugar issues) to spend some quality one-on-one time together through God’s Word.  It hurt, but it hurt so good.

A few years later when I started doing “things to help keep depression a pacified, happy camper” coping mechanisms, one of the suggestions was to read a Proverb every day because it stimulates the frontal lobe, and when the frontal lobe is happy, everyone is happy.  I got bored after a while (there’s only so many Proverbs, and only so many times I like to read about how it’s better to sleep on a roof in the rain than in a house with a cranky woman), so now I read some part of the Bible at breakfast time, whatever interests me.  I just finished reading the Narrated Bible version of the Gospels (which you, as some of my pastors who I won’t directly name but might reference later on, might think is a verbal version of the Bible, but really it’s just chronological).  Now I’m moving onto Judges, because my dad believes (after much study, and of course, a little Godly insight) that we’re in a time period similar to that of Judges (I’ll go into that someday later), so I figure it might be good to familiarize myself with the patterns of that book.

My friend/fellow blogger/pastor/fellow Newberg-Boise-Newberg mover Gregg posted about reading the Bible in a year.  He’s opting to subscribe to an RSS feed through Google Reader.  Sweet:  I’m glad that works for him!  I, however, am a skimmer, and would read simply for consumption rather than transformation.  Must get all feeds read!  What’s that about edification?

What’s been helpful for me is to subscribe to a podcast called The Daily Audio Bible.   The host reads through the Bible in a year – Old Testament, New Testament, Psalms, Proverbs selections each day.  He closes with prayer, thoughts, and prayer requests from the DAB community (which I rarely listen to, but am glad there’s space for such a thing).  I also listen to PrayStation Portable (interesting, not having grown up in a liturgical setting) as well as Pray As You Go.  In the morning I listen as I get up, get ready, and open up the house (feeding all the creatures – two and four-legged, blinds, mental list for the day, etc.).

So there’s my liturgy of sorts.  A little different than monks and nuns probably intended, but would you expect any different from Quaker Sister Mary Aj?

Interesting thoughts on the day of remembrance of Christ’s dedication.

We have much to be judged on when he comes, slums and battlefields and insane asylums, but these are the symptoms of our illness, and the result of our failures in love.  In the evening of life we shall be judged on love, and not one of us is going to come off vey well, and were it not for my absolute faith in the loving forgiveness of my Lord I could not call on him to come.

But his love is greater than all our hate, and he w ill not rest until Judas has turned to him, until Satan has turned to him, until the dark has turned to him; until we cal all, all of us without exception, freely return his look of love in our own eyes and hearts.  And then, healed, whole, complete but not finished, we will know the joy of being co-creators with the one to whom we call.

Amen.  Even so, come Lord Jesus.

~Madeleine L’Engle, Glimpses of Grace 334-335