in which food makes me angry 8.January.2009

Maybe it started last night when I instant-messaged my husband:

“my motivation to cook supper is falling out of the window….  can it be a palio’s night maybe?”

So we went out for pizza.  It was fine.  Under twenty dollars, easy, quick.  It was fine.

But I knew I had to face grocery shopping today, so I finished out my menu for the next week, and went on my way.  I only needed meat (yes, I know:  I never need meat) for a couple meals, so I thought I’d just knock the whole grocery list out at Whole Foods.  The list wasn’t too long, after all.

One complimentary sack of cookies, two trips to the bathroom for my potty-training two-year-old, and over an hour later, we checked out.

One hundred eighty dollars.  Seriously?  One hundred eighty dollars? I mean, sure, I picked up a few extras: a new bottle of raw agave nectar (It’s cheaper than honey.), some raw carob cacao nibs (I had always wanted these when I was on the raw diet and just found them today, only to find out I misread the package and they weren’t carob. At least they really were raw.), a new mint plant for my pot (surely it will produce mint for many months to come!), some extra Food for Life bread (it’s cheaper at Whole Foods than at the standard American grocery store).  Things like that.  They weren’t stupid, unnecessary foods.

But I left angry.  Isaiah and I were not on good terms.  I really just felt like a hamburger.  That is, I felt like eating one.  You know, I do pretty well with the whole eating-sustainably-grown-meat thing until I’m in a bad mood.  Then I think to myself, “You know what?  It is all just hopeless.  I try to be a good steward of what I eat, and I end up being a bad steward of my money.  I am a lost cause.  I may as well just eat fast food.”  Do you feel sorry for me at all?

Anyway, as it turned out, there was no mouth-watering hamburger joint between Whole Foods and home, so we got tacos.  Isaiah liked that.  And I sucked in my Coca-Cola like it was a drug.

On the drive home, I decided that at the soonest opportunity possible, I needed to take a course in organic gardening.  Really, it seems to be the only reasonable way to be be a good steward of earth, body, and money.  And I have failed enough in my own gardening that I think I could use a little help.  It was a little spark of hope, thinking about taking a gardening class, but still… I still had one hundred eighty dollars worth of groceries in the trunk of my car.  Today it didn’t make me feel much better.

Isaiah spilled his fast food water when we got home.  I yelled at him, which hurt his feelings, so he cried.  I felt more like a hamburger than ever.  That is, I felt as lowly as ground beef between two pieces of bread.  So I told my little boy I was sorry, held him a few moments, and admitted to him that it was only water.

We were on better terms when it was finally naptime.  Isaiah smiled at me before I left his room.  He forgives and forgives.

I set off to the kitchen to do some baking.

Sometimes I slap myself over the head for thinking I have to make food from scratch* — like the pecan rolls I want to serve to some valiant moms of toddlers tomorrow.  I mean, pecan rolls?  Really?  The expense is no less than a simple can of Pillsbury whatever-rolls.  And the work is enough to make me dread my entire day.

But then, in the middle of kneading, I looked down and saw my hands working the dough on my wooden board.  My arms hurt; my breath came out in little puffs.  The exertion grounded me.  I felt human again.  It was like the simplicity of hands in dough — working it, working it – washed away all my guilt and self-hatred for failing again and again in the food department.  If I could only only make bread, and see a few ingredients and a little elbow grease somehow turn into this beautiful, simple staple of the human diet, I could see transformation in grocery shopping, in growing food, in my rocky rollercoaster of a soul.

*One exception to this – an occasion when I never feel like I’m biting off more than I can chew — is when I make this beautiful recipe for crusty, chewy artisan bread.  It is so easy.  Believe me. You should try it at least once.  And the result is something you might buy in a good bakery.  And the best part is that it makes four loaves, only you don’t have to bake them all at once because the dough stores in the fridge for up to two weeks!  Mmmm.  I am salivating right now.  Oh, bread, how do I love thee?  Let me count the ways…

discovering snails 3.December.2008

We are gluttons for Fall.
We drink in the last days,
on lush carpets of leaves
among a tangle of branches.

*          *          *          *          *

I tied a scarf around my head in the style of Rambo — only it looked more feminine.  The tie-dyed material pooled on my shoulders and swung down my back, and dreadlocks peeked out from underneath.  I knew I either looked brave and completely stylish in my accessorizing, or else I looked completely clownish.

Five seconds at Arbor Hills, I realized it didn’t matter at all.  This outing was all about how everything else looked.  We escape here often, usually bypassing the monstrosity of a jungle gym for the “natural unpaved trails for pedestrians only.”  Isaiah has developed strong footing on the rooted paths.  He ambles down declines and doesn’t care too much if he falls down.

We twist in and out among the trees, finally settling down in a little clearing.  We come here — to nature — because Charlotte Mason says so, and she makes more sense to me regarding loving and educating my child than anyone else ever has.

Isaiah collects sticks, and I sit down with my book.  Isaiah shoves it away, and perhaps it’s his intuition that tells him nature is too big and full of life to have to read a book in it.  So we play in the dirt instead.  I find five snail shells – empty homes that now decorate the forest floor.  We talk about what all God made:  plants, dirt, and Elijah.  I search for more shells; Isaiah gets bored.  A dead tree trunk leans across the clearing where we play.  Isaiah rides it like an airplane, and I read my book again.  Isaiah wants me to stop again.  I show him what bark is.  We lift up pieces of the skin of trees, and there is more to discover.  Living snails cling to the cold, wet underside.  I lift one off and hold it in the sunlight before Isaiah’s face.  The snail stretches out of its home, pointing antennae into the air, trying to find its place again.  Its sticky face finds my thumb.  I return it to the wet bark.

There are snails everywhere.  I find myself as entralled with life as Isaiah has been the last two years.  I pick up more pieces of bark, finding the snails’ empty homes.  I collect the architecture in my palm.  I could find a thousand shells if I were here all day.  I climb the little hill and clear away the leaves to find the dirt of the forest floor.  Inspired by natural sculptor Andy Goldsworthy (Netflix subscribers, watch the documentary Rivers and Tides online for free, if you’re interested), I build a snowflake out of 58 empty snail shells.  It is my bit of graffiti art along the trail.  I leave it as tribute to the unobtrusive snail, and as a monument to God.

A whistle breaks through the quiet crackle of the trees.  I decide it must be a signal for twelve-o-clock, although I didn’t need the reminder.  We were hungry and tired anyway, and the sun was high enough that I knew it must be time to leave.

When we step back out onto the paved trail and drive home in an automobile, when I see the streets and buildings crushing out nature, everything in the forest seems like I dream.  I touch and feel plastic, concrete, manmade things, and it all feels like such a joke of a world.  I stop at the grocery store on the way home to get a candy thermometer.  I walk down a towering isle of boxes and jars and packaged, processed food, and I think: perhaps this is the dream.  When can I wake up from my mood being set by Christmas carols piped over the loudspeaker?  When will the snails raise their voices and say, “Here!  We are here by the millions, billions, trillions!  We scatter the forest floor everywhere! We are everywhere!  Won’t you look?”?

the beginning of reading 16.November.2008

We have read Pete’s a Pizza at least twenty times this week.  I have read it quickly, slowly, with voices, without voices.

I’ve read to Isaiah from his birth.  I wanted him to love books more than I had, and, yeah… I love them quite a lot.  In the beginning, I would read my own books aloud, letting him hear the cadence of sentences, the intricacies of the English language.  And then I started reading him his own short picture books because I thought it was the right thing to do.  Once he got out of the habit of gnawing off the corners of all his board books, he loved the colorful pictures.  I couldn’t wait for him to sit still for a whole story.  We read a few books every day, and I patted myself on the back for a job well done.

But then I ran across one family’s homeschooling guideposts, one of which was: “2 hours a day of Reading — especially before they are five.“  That did say before they are five?  Well, Isaiah is not five yet, but… well… when do you start that two-hours-a-day thing?  At birth?  If so, then wow, somebody cared about reading even more than I did!

Isaiah is two.  I can’t imagine how much reading there will be when he is three, four, five.  There are times when I need to take breaks from reading to him, and oh!, the fits my voracious little reader has thrown!  I hate to stop; every moment of those stories, with Isaiah sprawled on top of me or perched on a pillow by my side, is pure joy.  We never aimed for two hours (though I did aim for one), but all of a sudden, I find Isaiah and I spending more time, huddled together on the couch, absorbed in book after book after book.  What time used to be a forced twenty minutes has become joyful hours upon hours.

What made the difference?  Not long ago, I read a book called Honey for a Child’s Heart by Gladys Hunt, and I was intrigued by Hunt’s claim that the quality of books determine how much our children love to read.  She has a wonderful list of books for each age group, and I’ve been snatching up the library’s copies of many of her suggestions.  A few are too dull for him, or too advanced; some are too subtle in their beauty.  But between the covers of most of these children’s stories, I am learning the value of what Hunt calls “living books.”  Books alive with characters, quality illustrations, compelling words and sentences, good stories.

Noticing this difference has made me a bit of a snob about books, I’ll admit.  I would like to burn our copies of Dinosaur Lovables: Stegosaurus and Pepper the Puppy (and his pals Poppy the Pig and Poopy — or what’s-his-freaking-name — the Pony).  Oh, I’m sorry.  Who wrote those books?  Yeah, that’s what I thought.  It’s not even worth putting on the cover.  And it’s not worth my time, or Isaiah’s time.  I’ve decided that if you want to make your kid hate reading, you don’t not read to them.  Instead, you read them dreadful books like Dinosaur Lovables (shudder).

And here, I would like to dispel the claim that anyone can write a children’s book, or particularly, if I, Carrie, want to get started as an author, I should try a children’s book first.  I do not claim to have the brilliance necessary to write a book worthy to be read by children.  A good children’s book is a work of art, and it will play like the Pied Piper to your child’s imagination, luring him into a love affair with reading that will be all but impossible to ever abandon.

*          *          *

A few recommendations from Isaiah:

Pete’s a Pizza, by William Steig

The Little Engine That Could, by Watty Piper (original illustrations recommended)

Harold and the Purple Crayon, by Crockett Johnson

Goodnight Moon, by Margaret Wise Brown

A Boy, a Dog, and a Frog, by Mercer Mayer

courage to create 15.November.2008

Today I’m taking inspiration from my husband, Kyle, who posted a collection of notes and reactions to Twyla Tharp’s book The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life.

I’ve never linked creativity to risk, but tonight it makes sense to me that taking risks may help me live more creatively.  It’s fear that keeps me from living life more creatively and passionately.

This year and probably next, we’re living in a rental house.  But if we ever end up in home we own again, I want to create an art wall.  I’m not talking about a wall where artwork is hung.  I want take a whole wall of our house, and let it be turned into whatever the members of our family want it to be turned into.  Everyone can and should contribute to the masterpiece.  Old things can be covered up (though I’d like to take pictures of the wall — maybe every night — to help me remember how the wall used to be), and any art medium can be used, including the writing of text and the posting of photographs.  Hopefully the wall would always be an artistic representation of what our family looks like at that moment.  It would be a way to relieve frustrations, celebrate joy, and commune as a family.

But it’s risky, you know?  It would mean you’d have to give up the idea that your house can look like a decorator’s dream.  Beige paint, begone!  And then you’d have to admit to yourself that it’s okay if the wall isn’t pretty.  And you’d have to be okay with visitors seeing all your struggles and ideas splashed up against the wall.  Yeah, it’s risky.  It’s scary.  But just think:  isn’t it scary to think that whatever beauty that could be expressed on that wall may never have a chance to be released unless it has a canvas?

A few weeks ago, a friend asked me if I had ever heard of relactation.  I hadn’t.  But I went home and scoured the internet for all the information I could find about it.  I discovered that I could train my stagnant breasts to produce milk again.  With enough regular demand for milk, the supply could be rebuilt.  I could actually breastfeed our adopted baby!  Though the process of training a baby to nurse when he has only been bottlefed may turn out to be grueling, the opportunity for bonding through breastfeeding is invaluable.  I imagine this is a little crazy to some people.  But even if I face failure, how can I not try to take advantage of something so perfect?

Today on NPR’s Studio 360, green architect William McDonough spoke of the inspiration he takes from nature.  He admits that humans have pretty lame design skills:

“I reflect on the fact that it took us 5000 years to put wheels on our luggage.  So we’re not that… smart as a design species.  But if you look at a tree and think of it as a design assignment, it would be like asking you to make something that makes oxygen, sequesters carbon, fixes nitrogen, distills water, provides habitat for hundreds of species, accrues solar energy as fuel, makes complex sugars and food, changes colors with the seasons, creates micro-climates, and self-replicates.”

Yeah, my God is creative.  He’s an artsy guy.

I grasp the scrap of paper that is my hope of relactating and breastfeeding our new baby.  It’s a small innovation, a small hope, a humble dream.  But it is my risk; it is my bit of innovation and creativity.  I’ll trudge through weeks of sitting at breast pumps and sopping up leaked milk.  I’ll remember what full, sore breasts feel like.  And I’ll take that scrap of paper and pray for it to be turned into art.  Dare I hope it could become something as complex and beautiful as… a tree?

anna 25.September.2008

Anna came to visit tonight while I was knitting.  It was quiet and dim.  I was bundled under my orange scarf, assuring myself that I must not be fast enough because my needles don’t make clicking sounds — the cliche that’s always used to describe knitting.

Anna sat down on the couch and watched me.  Her mouth twitched at the edges, waiting for me to make a big deal about her being there.  Her foot danced back and forth.  I looked up.

“You like the scarf?” I ask her.

“Matches my dress, don’t you think?”

I taste my hot raspberry tea, and I remember how sullen Anna has always been.  “Where did you get that dress anyway?” I ask.

“A long-lost lover.”

“Yeah,” I snort.  “He’s got good taste.”  Never mind about the sullen part.  Anna has never been sullen.

“You like it, huh?”

“I’d wear it.”

“Kinda low for you, hmm?”

When I glare, she laughs out loud and leaves a crooked smile on her face to annoy me.  She looks pleased with herself.  “So you remember me, hmm?”

I sigh.  “How could I forget?”

She doesn’t think I’m funny.  “I can’t tell you where I got the dress.  You haven’t got the time, poor dear.”

I raise my upper lip at her.  “How would you know?  Anyway, I have Isaiah now.  As much as I love you, I’m still changing diapers, sweeping floors, taking walks in the park.  And I love it, okay?  I love it.”

“I like walks.”

“Shut up.  I can’t add one more thing right now.  Did you know I ran this morning?  I ran a mile.”

Anna feigns a look of shock, just for me.  “So, you have time for a run, but not… yeah, yeah, I see how it is.”

“I can’t write, Anna.  I used to, I don’t know… pretend, I guess.  I don’t want to do you a disservice.  You wouldn’t like what I write; I know you.”

“So, meanwhile, I just sit here, withering away.  Poor me.”

But she really is ticked.  She stops talking to me and twitches her foot again.

“You don’t deserve me,” she finally says.

I roll my eyes.

“What?  You don’t.”

“You’re one to talk.  Look, I don’t want you to look fake.  I don’t want you to appear on some Christian fiction bookshelf as a morality lesson.  You’re more than a morality lesson.”

“So don’t make me a morality lesson.  Just make me me.”

“You don’t understand.  I am not John Steinbeck.  I’m not even Anne Lamott at fiction, or C.S. Lewis.  I can’t write a space trilogy.”  I let out a snort.  “Although I tried that, remember?  Ha.  That’s one for the record.”  I continue my rant.  “I’m not Tolstoy.  I’m not Amy Tan.  I’m not Victor Hugo.”

“Thank God.”

“Yeah, I know.  But you know what I mean.  I’m not any of those people.”

“You’re c.l.beyer!”  Anna waves her hand for emphasis, laughing at my look of disgust.  “Dun, dun, dun, dun!” she sings.  “c.l.beyer the great twenty-first century…”

I kick at her to get her to stop.  She’s heartless.  You see why I hate her?

“My life is hopeless, I guess.”  She sighs for emphasis.  “Who else do I have?”

“Poor unfortunate soul,” I say.  “Oh, wait.  You don’t have a soul.  Maybe that’s why I’ve decided not to spend my time with you anymore.”

“That’s not fair,” she says.  “I still have a life.  I’m still a person.”

“I know.”  It’s not fair.  I know it.  Anna’s here; she needs me.  She really doesn’t have anybody else.

“You should talk to me again.  You really should.”

I sigh.  She comes with so much baggage.  “I’ll think about it.”

“You’ll think about it?  Is that all you can give me?”

I have to push her out the door.  “Thanks for coming.”

“Yeah, yeah.  My pleasure.”  She swings down the front walk, too disgusted at me to even give me so much as a nonchalant wave over her shoulder.

“I’ll think about it,” I repeat, and I close the door behind her.

a day of gratitude… 22.September.2008

(8) for the crumbs on the floor — remnants of meals shared with blood family and God’s family.

(9) For the delight emanating from Isaiah’s face when he hears the garage door at 6.15 p.m.:  “Daddy?”  Yes, I nod, and he dashes to the door.

(10) For learning to knit (again), for the soft comfort of yarn slipping through my fingers, for the gentle instruction of my mother,

(11) for the honest words of a good friend.  He taught me of love and of grace.

(12) For the bounty of home-grown produce from Kansas — peppers, apples, tomatoes, eggs, beef, more apples, beans, apricots, salsa, onions, potatoes, pears, watermelon!  Oh, edible joy!

(13) For the contemplative atmosphere of sweeping and scrubbing the floor,

(14) for the persistence of grace, which breaks through my cloudy thoughts and brings me to daylight.

resisting the “blue-screen universe” 12.September.2008

This is the time when Isaiah lies down for his nap, and all I want to do is quit… for hours.  The avalanche of undone work may pummel me when he wakes up, but for now, all I can think of is the moment.  I decide it isn’t worthwhile to fight.

Tonia from study in brown had this to say today:

“our modern world homogenizes the years: air-conditioned, ever-green, halogen-lit.  we rise to the beep of an alarm clock and not the sun, stay awake late by the light of a blue-screen universe, measure progress by the numbers in our checkbook.  but we were not made to live this way.  though the circle of time and season is written in the heavens, laced through the branches of every tree, carved into the earth by seed and stalk and fruit and grave, we have forgotten how to join it.

every day is not the same day; the cycles of the sun and the moon and the twirl of the planet are a cadence on which we can be carried, a beat we can lean into, pulse, sway; a rhythm we can dance with instead of resist.”

Maybe tomorrow will be a day of rest.  But today I will dance.

living with lists 4.September.2008

I have tried FlyLady.  I have tried winging it.  I have sent myself on many, many guilt trips.

The thing is, my dear mom has a housekeeping plan for her house that left no room for failure.  If she planned to clean Friday, she cleaned Friday.  Her follow-through rate is amazing.  Mine?  Not so good.

FlyLady wasn’t so bad.  I have to say, it was motivating… in a cute sort of way.  Attitude and self-image were of high importance; I have a hard time arguing with that.  But the emails.  Ugh.  The emails drained me before I even got started.  I think you’re supposed to forget about the daily missions if you don’t do them for the day.  But I saved them.  I had piles and piles of uncompleted household missions that stared me in the face every day, reminding me that I would never catch up.

I abandoned FlyLady shortly before Isaiah was born.  And, well, the house has been a disaster since then.  I clean, oh, once a month?  I don’t know; I don’t count anymore.  But it stinks (literally, as of yesterday)because, you know, I like a clean house.  But beyond that — way beyond that — I’ve been wanting to seek God’s purpose in my daily life.

I believe one can know the big picture of needing Christ, and maybe even be motivated to love and evangelize those who don’t know about his saving grace, without inviting Him into the everyday.  But what about eating, sleeping, and getting groceries?  What about cleaning the toothpaste-caked bathroom?  What about changing your baby’s wet diapers (I’m not even talking poop; that takes some grace!  Pee is the mundane for me.)?  What about washing the car, ironing, sending the laundry through its cycles?  Where does God come into our lives during those moments?

Ann at A Holy Experience has been blogging about ceremony in recent days.  Read her words from her post “Live a Celebrated Life: the beauty of ceremony”:

If we consider an occasion meaningful, we develop a ceremony to duly recognize it. Simply, ceremony is a repeated action that marks important happenings: always candles on birthday cakes, centerpieces for Thanksgiving, vows on wedding days.

And yet, isn’t every day important? Do not all of our acts warrant ceremony?

Ann goes on to describe God’s way of creating ceremony in our lives: the sun rising and setting in splendor, the stars decorating the night sky.  So, too, we can mark the beginning of a new school year with bright, sharpened pencils; begin a meal with a prayer of joy and thanksgiving for a generous God; grace our ironing time with a blaze of music.

But how can there be ceremony if there is no mundane task to deck out in grace?  We can set out to only enjoy life, throw our work and schedules to the wind, and thank God for what prosperity may come.  Or we can embrace the mundane as opportunity for everyday beauty, for seeing the fruit of labor ripen and bless our lives because we tended it with diligence.

I’m good at imagining diligence.  I can make lists like no one’s business.  Don’t believe me?  Please see the following example.  She is one of (at least) three lists that will guide me in my housekeeping tasks:

Monday

Sweep/scrub floors (Kitchen and Living room)

“Spring” cleaning: Choose task(s) from monthly list (another list for another day!)

Clean out fridge and microwave

Tuesday

Clean bathrooms: counters, toilets, baths, showers

Dust everything

Clean kitchen counters

Plan weekly meals

Make shopping/errand lists

Check grocery store sales

Clean out purse

Declutter top of dresser

Isaiah’s bath night

Wednesday

Run errands: grocery store, post office, library, gifts, etc.

Pay bills; balance accounts

Write thank-you notes and letters (including MOPS)

Go through mailbox

Declutter and organize desk; File papers

Email Mom and sisters

Clean out car

Toss old magazines

Thursday

Vacuum everything

Scrub bathroom floors

Declutter washer and dryer

Hobbies: cards, photo albums, knitting, creating art, etc.

Friday

Sweep tile floors; Spot scrub as needed

Wash car, if needed

Laundry: wash, dry, fold, put away

Ironing

Change bathroom towels

Shine mirrors and glass

Date night

Saturday

Work on household project, if needed

Garage/Yard Day

Clean kitchen counters

Take bath; Shave legs; Wash hair

Isaiah’s bath night

Sunday

Go to church

Rest, worship, play

Write rough weekly to-do list

Empty all trash and put out trash barrels

Whew.  Now that we’ve got that over with, let us all agree that I know the work that needs to be done around a house.  But I also know the guilt of seeing my lack of checkmarks at the end of a day.

I have approached this new homekeeping project asking God to help me keep the beauty — His beauty — in it.  Today, I decided that I may hand-write the entire list in my journal, paste pictures I love beside the daily tasks, and use the list more of a guide than anything.  I will grace the list with encouragement from the Encourager Himself:  “Commit your works to the LORD, and your plans will be established…. The mind of man plans his way, but the LORD directs his steps.” (Proverbs 16.3,9)

More than anything, I don’t want my cleaning of my house and planning meals to rise above my desire to make our house warm and inviting — not only for guests — but for my family.  I want joy and peace, goodness and love to reign here.

That is why I want to add ceremony to our lives.  So to my daily task list, I add:

• One hour of reading with Isaiah (yes, it’s a lot, but it’s so precious and important)
• One hour enjoying nature
• Time with God, early in the morning
• Thirty minutes of reading for pleasure; thirty minutes of writing
• Singing and reading Psalms with Isaiah every morning

These look like more tasks to accomplish, but they give us something to look forward to.  They motivate me for things that would otherwise be drudgery and rigidity.  They compel to me to let myself experience grace and rediscover purpose when all I can focus on is what I have done or haven’t done.  The lists are just for me; God isn’t giving grades.

in pursuit of gratitude 13.August.2008

I woke up angry.  Or I arrived there quickly.  Isaiah was standing beside our bed a few minutes before six, saying, “More milk?”  We give him what he wants at that hour — fill his little cup and tuck him back in bed with his blankets.

In minutes, he was back by my bedside.  He wanted to go night-night with mommy.  Figuring it was the only remaining chance to get him to go back to sleep, I pulled him up beside me.

He didn’t go back to sleep.  He tossed and turned, drank his milk, touched my face with his hands and then his feet.  “Stop,” I barked at him.  He smiled at me in return.  Things were not going well.

At seven I gave up, angry.  Angry that I could not have my quiet time with God this morning.  Angry that Isaiah would probably be grumpy later on in the day because of his shortage of sleep.  Angry because as hard as I try to get up earlier in the mornings, Isaiah keeps getting up earlier, too.  Angry because I felt like God owed me a few minutes of solitude and preparation time before having to face the day.

These words from Ann’s blog, A Holy Experience, greeted me as I checked my blog feeds this morning:

“Give up
the bitterness, the anger, the sadness

for what isn’t,
that you wish you had.

And embrace the gift of what you do have.

For therein

is really what you want more of:

Joy.”

-Elizabeth Elliot

My heart sunk with remorse at my anger.  What would have been my most convincing argument toward God — God, I won’t even be able to meet with You alone this morning! — was crushed in the realization that God had not allowed Isaiah to go back to sleep.  What I had was a happy boy, an awake boy, ready to greet the day.  And I could not even be thankful for his health and his happiness and the night of rest God had already granted me.  Instead, I propped up my worthy idols and asked God to worship them.

Today, I am going to join the Gratitude Community and start making my own list of One Thousand Gifts.  I’ve loved reading other bloggers’ lists of gifts from God, but I’ve resisted starting my own list because (sigh) I like to be original and different and not give in to the trends of the blogosphere.  But I give in.  Because my gratitude is worth nursing more than my pride.  I released my idols this morning and stepped into the day with my little Isaiah.  I took him to the park, and in my head, I began to form a list…

1. 73 degrees at 9 a.m.  Ah, sweet relief from the heat wave!  The soft warmth of sunlight on my face, and the morning air rushing over my face…

2. My little boy in pursuit of friendship.  His little hand cupped inside an older child’s…

3. The delight that splashes across his face in watching a black lab…

4.  The familiar faces of women in my neighborhood.  Their presence convinces me I am not a stranger here.

5. The bread dough on my stove, slowly, slowly rising…

6. The anticipation of seeing my husband tonight…

bananas and adoption 12.August.2008

We graft a child into our family.  The child has always called another country home.  She had another mommy and daddy once upon a time.  She knows the sights, the smells, the sounds of Ethiopia or Korea or Russia.  Her “I am From” story did not include Kansas wheatfields or plastic-packed Walmarts.  If she could speak, she would tell you that America is not “the beautiful” to her; it is a foreign place.  Not home.

Some adopt because they want children.  We want children, too, and to us, it doesn’t matter if they come from our bodies or on an airplane.  We try to adopt with a heart like God’s.  He calls us to care for orphans, and so we follow, thankful that we can be one of the few fortunate adoptive parents.  We adopt because we find it unspeakably exciting to have a global family — so all of our children will know that the world extends beyond our street and our suburb.  We think we want to rescue a child — to teach him about God, and to give him a family again.  We consider the gift of a family as more precious than allowing the child to stay among all that is familiar.  But with all of its goodness and badness, “all that is familiar” is still home to that child.  We hope, that with a lot of love and time, the child will have a beautiful life, and we can be his heroes and his home.

I just finished reading Are Those Kids Yours?, one of the many adoption books on my list.  It was published in 1991, and its statistics are old, most from the 80s.  The last chapter is called “The Global Family,” and it’s dedicated to turning adoptive parents’ insight to the bigger picture, to see adoption not as a solution to the world’s problems and poverty, but only as a small BandAid over our whole global mess.  In spite of being an old book, I kept getting the feeling that this section had been written yesterday:

“In the account of his son’s adoption, Michael Perlitz referred to Honduras as a ‘banana republic.’  Indeed, it is the prototype of a banana republic.  It was governed by the Spanish for 300 years, and then after a brief period of independence, economically ‘colonized’ in the last century by North American entrepreneurs with the aid of military intervention, in order to keep U.S. markets supplied with food that doesn’t grow in our climate.  Bananas and other export products, such as coffee and sugar, are grown on large plantations, leaving little land to grow food for local use.  Agricultural labor is low-wage work, so the campesinos, or local workers, who pick the crops have little money to buy food….

“When rural Hondurans or Filipinos cannot make ends meet on the wages they earn and have no land on which to grow food, they have great difficulty providing for their children.  Some move to the cities in the hope of better opportunities that may not exist.  Often the father leaves and the family never manages to be reunited.  Relinquishing a child for adoption may be the only way to keep the child fed” (Cheri Register in Are Those Kids Yours?).

Cheri Register goes on to ask a few questions of her readers:

“What does it mean to feel responsible for these conditions?  If the world’s wealth were distributed equitably, what would the common standard of living be?  What would we Americans have to give up?… Can we in our daily lives make principled choices that, in the long run, enable these… families to provide for their children?”

I have bananas in a bowl on my counter.  I just bought them at the store this morning.  I think if I bit into one right now, I would be sick.  How many children have been orphaned because of American gluttony?

When we adopt a child, we will be providing what we believe is the best solution for that child.  But as one four-year-old adoptee asked his mother, “Why don’t the American moms and dads just send money to the Korean moms and dads so they can keep their children?”  We have to ask these questions, not to wrack ourselves with guilt, but to embrace the responsibility that is ours.

I sometimes wonder what God sees when He looks at the world.  Could He teach me how my purchase of a T-shirt made in a sweatshop in Asia leads to the abandonment of a child by its raw-fingered, empty-pocketed, ostracized mother?

I look at the problems and wish I could say, “It is only this sinful world.  There’s nothing I can do.”  But that just doesn’t work when I feel responsible.