Category Archives: parenting

Moving Mountains

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Dear Sir,

You are my dad’s age. He died after a helicopter crash a few years ago. Actually, around the time little Ethan was born. And pretty close to Newton–he died in Dothan.

You need to know that God has an answer to what is troubling you. A peaceful answer.

I am praying for both of you.

Please, Sir, let this little boy get home safe. His mama needs him back safe.

When I pray for you I see my dad. You traveled in a truck. He traveled in a helicopter. He flew over Dale County all the time.

Both you and Ethan are scared little ones to God. He loves you. And you are both precious to God. You are both in my prayers.

Please sir, move this mountain so Ethan can hug his mama soon.

Please.

Mom

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I have mostly modest gifts, but one that is extraordinary but of no monetary value is my ability to understand, remember, sort through who I was at 2 or 5, 4 or 7.

I still can see through mine younger eyes. Only now I see all the other stuff besides.

It is painful. No one is perfect. You tried. I know you did try. And when you tried you succeeded.

It took me a long time to realize that God always saw me clear–beautiful and lovable, valuable and dear.

The picture of us taken by dad’s cousin. The picture you must’ve taken of all of us–I am wearing a wild blue coat. Fuzzy.

I can look at these pictures now and feel the fierce heat of God’s love for that little girl.

I have always loved you. I cannot and won’t stop.

Your monster pictures of me are not real mom. They. Are. Not. Real.

What is real is this–

Somewhere in the world you have a grandchild who is your twin.

Resembling who you were when you were three. Adorable. When I look at this child I think–gosh, I was a cute kid.

When I look at this child I see you. And I love you both.

Think about it mom.

When you see me you see the Minotaur.

When I see you I see a beautiful little girl with a head of dark curls.

Beautiful child
Mom.

I almost

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I see men who resemble you often. Like really close. Sometimes their wives resemble your wife. Sometimes the kids are even close.

Last weekend the impatient fruit seller was a dead ringer for H. H, who is also impatient with me.

I am afraid.

I almost call mom a few times. Just to say

I love you.

Ironically, even if I shouted it in German she would probably still understand.

Ich liebe dich!!!

What stops me is this terrible memory–a night in late summer, an infant and a toddler both held in my arms as I face an unknown accuser.

We now know it was mom. But then all I can think is–

what if they make me stay away from my babies?

I am jittery with an irrational fear. Because mom reported me when M kept running away.

M abused me, mom reported me as the abuser.

And she taught me that all the money in the world was not worth the risk. The labyrinth of her mind.

So I tell my kids about my fear. I tell them about my year in China and the million ways God took care of me.

Then I think of you. You standing on the bus, towering over the Chinese men, like you were their oversized parent or some strange incarnation of Snow White among the post-Maoist dwarves.

Overshadowing them.

Or how stingy and mean I was to you–making you climb the Great Wall with me but refusing you soda for water.

I should have got you the coke.

And while I can see us there together like an old woman watching a perfect movie about her own life…

The truth is I have lost you. Lost you so long ago I wonder if you were ever real.

When did you stop being real?

The Rest

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Mark 6:30-31 (NIV)
The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught. [31] Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.”

He fingers the cheap rhinestone nose ring. Asks me about it. I say, I got it when you were a baby after something really bad happened. I got it to remind me that even when bad stuff happens, God is good.

My definition of quiet rest.

Twisted Lines

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How did they get tangled?
The long lines reaching out and up to the scaffold
Not cloudless but wind-fierce
Like blue could be fire.

I ask my son to count
Them, he gets the number wrong–says six for seven
When number eight shuttles around in a lost circle
Infinite forgotten

I watch this man
Patiently untangle them
Cords missing air balloons
Lines, ropes, braids

Carrying clumsy morons like me

I ask him about the scars along his knuckles
Painful looking
He tells me his story
…one more way to be brave

I am not

I can tell you exactly when I knew
I was a coward
The day I let go of the rope

Forever as you swore at me loudly in this crowded terminal
The people raise their eyebrows perhaps

I only remember the pain, you
A promise
Never to rise again
with the white noise and anger

Airplanes pressing physics
across this merciless deep
Sky

Nurture parenting

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The agency told us they had been severely neglected, possibly abused, definitely exposed to awful stuff.

They were sent to us after a disrupted placement–their foster mother had had enough.

The sole piece of advice they gave us: be consistent, don’t give in to bad behavior.

Not bad advice, but not nearly enough. I am not sure that RAD and fetal alcohol issues are fixable….but if they can be mitigated then caregivers need to nurture.

I am an elementary school teacher– a nurturing type, so I know I tried. The children often did not respond to cuddling, hugs, or carrying the way other children do.

I spent hours carrying them on hikes and I have a rich store of memories of being hit, kicked, punched, and verbally assaulted for no other provocation than carrying them. Most young children have the sense to know that a good, patient Sherpa mama is worth something.

Not these two. A simple hug was never simple.

I think the explanation is that neglected children have a fight or flight instinct that kicks in when it shouldn’t.

Babies need a lot of love, a lot of cuddle time. Without that their brains get messed up–the coldness and hostility of a nurture-deprived babyhood translates to a lot of sturm and drang.

We gotta do better for these wounded souls. But my experience was brutal…

Wish I could have hugged them more.

Mary Elizabeth Williams and the politics of death

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I read MEW’s screed about abortion today. It was a difficult read.

As a self-identified pro-life “wing nut” who actually believes that all life is precious, I found her unapologetic stance painful and tragic.

Ms. William’s candor and vitriol were difficult for me to read….because she reveals the selfishness and myopia at the heart of the abortion-on-demand movement. Make no mistake, abortion is a money industry, just like guns or drugs. But to aggressively insist that mother’s have an unfettered right to kill their own offspring at will? Her words reveal the desperate lack of value placed on the lives of the very young.

No society is civilized when it drops it’s protective force for the young and vulnerable. We are now a society that registers horror over the natural predatory nature of cats but congratulates itself on the termination of wee humans.

When children are openly treated as objects by their own mothers we are all lost at sea.

…our hearts as empty as our words.

Herod and John

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Mark 6:21-29 (NIV)
Finally the opportune time came. On his birthday Herod gave a banquet for his high officials and military commanders and the leading men of Galilee. [22] When the daughter of Herodias came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his dinner guests. The king said to the girl, “Ask me for anything you want, and I’ll give it to you.” [23] And he promised her with an oath, “Whatever you ask I will give you, up to half my kingdom.” [24] She went out and said to her mother, “What shall I ask for?” “The head of John the Baptist,” she answered. [25] At once the girl hurried in to the king with the request: “I want you to give me right now the head of John the Baptist on a platter.” [26] The king was greatly distressed, but because of his oaths and his dinner guests, he did not want to refuse her. [27] So he immediately sent an executioner with orders to bring John’s head. The man went, beheaded John in the prison, [28] and brought back his head on a platter. He presented it to the girl, and she gave it to her mother. [29] On hearing of this, John’s disciples came and took his body and laid it in a tomb.

Not only do I hate this story, it creeps me out that C loved this story.

After I found out that C abused my kids, I raked through the Bible, questioning God– why didn’t He address pedophiles directly? Then I realized: this is the story.

Herod had violated big ticket Mosaic rules when he poached Herodias from his brother.

Herodias is not a good mother. Salome performs an illicit and explicit dance for men. She is young and vulnerable and her mother is perpetuating the idea that her source of power is sexual. The end of this power is state-sponsored murder.

The tragedy is too much to bear. For Herodias to plot to murder the one man who wanted to raise and restore her value is so hard to face.

It is also hard knowing that Jesus, king of justice was in town, so close. Why didn’t he zap people? Free John?

But that is the point of the story: faith sees the rest of the story–thousands of us have mourned John the Baptist and faced this story as a reminder of real faith.

John’s life is secured to heaven. There is no chance for Herod. He is a man who made his own place secure in hell. He lived a wretched life and died a wretched death.

The Loneliness

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When I was 35 I arbitrarily decided I was getting old. I ran a lot that year and I had a baby–so I ran early in the morning and late at night. I struggled with some deep loneliness that year even though I was surrounded by people.

One person I prayed for all the time was a young person I loved who was also lonely–struggling with not being able to tell the truth about who he really was (or what he really loved?)

There was a song I ran to a lot that year by Yaz(oo) called Mr. Blue

To me the song is a placeholder for Jesus. He is Mr. Blue and he promises to abide with us in our wasted, bombed out lives.

The baby is now a beautiful girl. She was hurt terribly by her adopted brother. When I faced the story I was broken that it happened at all, and scared for her. I did not want her to struggle with the sadnesses associated with being hurt by someone you trusted.

So I opted to listen to Jesus–the truth would set us free.

It did.
Free from a church.
Free from some family.
Free from a dear friend or more…
Free from easy trust or blind acceptance.

Despite our efforts we remain free of these things. But that is the point–had we tried to hide what was done to our children we could have kept the appearance of normal and allowed our children to pay for it.

Or we could all be lonely together. Alone, that is, with Mr. Blue.

Gifts and Siblings

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Mark 6:1-3 (NIV)
Jesus left there and went to his hometown, accompanied by his disciples. [2] When the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were amazed. “Where did this man get these things?” they asked. “What’s this wisdom that has been given him, that he even does miracles! [3] Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him.

Lance Armstrong got $200,000 for speaking gigs. Jesus spoke for free.

And he backed up his wisdom with miracles, his miracles with suffering, his life for ours.

But all we see is his poverty and his ordinary family?

Or do we see more? Are we listening to the still small voice of God in the world? Or is it still the flash of the imposter that holds our gaze?