Yeah, it does matter, actually.

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I saw another one of those little videos that occasionally pop up in social media, or at least in my social media (because social media computers know I have given birth and therefore I must want to see all the babies other humans have birthed.  Or something.) with the following message.  Tell me if you've heard this one before.

"Do you feel sad because your house is dirty and you spent the day doing parenting things?  Well I'm here to tell you that you shouldn't feel sad because your children don't care about the state of your home they only want lots and lots of love!  Who cares about dirty old housework?  Not you, that's who!  Because you are a 'good mom'!"

Does that sound familiar to other people?  These videos are always accompanied by mothers - always mothers, never fathers - holding infants and rocking them to sleep or else down on the carpet playing blocks or something.  Always that.  There is usually a panning shot of a dirty messy house also.  Toys everywhere.  For some reason a sink overflowing with dishes is a common image.  Sometimes the little rascals are just being oh so adorable and emptying bags of toys on the clean floor!  Or prancing around a mud puddle!  Or smearing paint on the floor!  Oh it's just the twee idyll of motherhood, yes it is.

Okay so the problems I have with this are multiple.  Every single time one of the videos or memes pops into my life in some way I feel an up swell of deep aggravation.  To start with, parenting is a middle ground.  It is no more accurate to say "I love my kids so house and laundry and food and education and toys and money and so on be dam*ed" than it is to say "I love a clean house/luxury food/whatever so I'm not going to bother taking the time to connect with my children". Those are extremes!  They're EXTREMES.

And along those lines I'm going to hazard a pretty good guess here and say that, with the exception of extenuating and unusual circumstances, most parents DO love their children and DO show that love and they DON'T need to be told "Now Jessica, don't forget to give your kid a hug at the expense of mopping!"

Secondly, yes it IS important to continue to do things that make your mental and physical health good, like eating stuff multiple times a day and not feeling obligated to hold your baby 24/7 and cleaning your house and sometimes making food that isn't from the microwave.  That's a GOOD THING.  You don't have to feel guilty about that.  You don't have to be told (Maybe you do!  Maybe I've read society all wrong!) that if you're trying to get Christmas dinner on the table you can tell them with confidence that NO, you WON'T play with them.  You are doing something *GASP* more important right now.

On top of which this is all so shaming to people who don't fit the stereotypical 'good parent' these days.  I have approximately zero desire to, for example, play with Lego.  I don't want to play Lego.  According to this whole methodology I am a bad mom because I can't bring myself to lie on the carpet and make houses out of plastic bricks.

"No no!" you say "This isn't that at all!  It's just helping people feel less guilty for choosing to spend time with their children over all the other things of life!"

Well that's just nonsense.  I mean, to begin with those other things are ALSO important things.  It is important to live in a clean house and wear clean clothes and so forth.  You aren't IGNORING your children by making sure that those things are available, you're providing for them.  And on top of which you're showing them by example that they don't run the house - sometimes it is time to play and sometimes it is time to work and sometimes it is time for mom to be on the phone and not looking at the picture you just painted so please be patient.

On top of all of this is the deep seated belief that as a mother you must always, always, give in to the children in some way, shape or form.  It's practically sacred writ at this point that Children Always Come First, and not just in the 'save the children from the Titanic!' way, but in the 'I'm exhausted after work but Jimmy wants to take singing lessons so off I go!' way.   And before you know it, you are completely exhausted and your back hurts and your eyeballs feel like boiled onions but heaven help you you promised a birthday party with twenty kids and you're going to give a party with twenty kids.  And a bouncy castle.  And help with the science diorama and also chauffeur the younger sibling to something special so they don't feel left out and also someone posted something on Pinterest about letting your children play in the dirt to build immunity so you'd better do that too.

Actually, no, you don't.  Don't shriek at me.

These sorts of periodic social media stances on the Very Best Ways To Be are talking down to us all, assuming our natural instincts to cherish and care are insufficient, continuing the subtle but pervasive mindset that we need someone professional to tell us how to parent properly.  And for the vast, vast swathes of the majority this is utterly, utterly ridiculous and untrue.

Seven Quick Takes - Picking On Easter

Hey!  It's Friday!  I had thoughts, and here they are.  Don't expect a lot.


1.

If you're a Christian, then Easter is coming.

I mean, if you aren't a Christian, Easter is still coming, but isn't as much of a big deal, being mostly about chocolate and less about, you know, eternal salvation.

If you're a Protestant, because it seems a very Protestant problem, then someone around you, maybe your church, is calling Easter Sunday Resurrection Sunday.

Since Easter is, in fact, the day of Christ's resurrection, I guess sure, but also...really?  This is what we want to do now?  Rename our holy days because of the possibility of ancient goddesses?  It just seems a little like a sulky, insecure sounding thing to do, doesn't it?

I mean, The Venerable Bede mentioned a possible anglo-saxon goddess ONCE, in the 8th century, and now approximately 1200 years later we're getting in a tizzy about it?  And writing articles like this, which say things I roll my eyes at but also bring up the decent point that we're not upset about all the other daily things named after ancient mythological figures - like the days of the week or the months of the year...or the word Sunday.

That article above also says "Some ministers believe it's outright wrong, even unchristian, to use the word Easter at all."  Man, them some crazy ministers.  UNCHRISTIAN?  So the past 1200 years of Christians going to Easter Sunday service are sinning in some way?  Using the word Easter is...unbiblical?  This is ridiculous talk.

Anyway, I shall continue to go to church on Easter Sunday, and those ministers can spend their time arguing about how they're going to spell the word 'January' now.

2.

I started listening to this podcast this week, which is done by a missionary couple in Angola affiliated with the CEML hospital.  I've mentioned other blogs I read by people involved in this work, and I enjoy keeping up with all the news.  It's interesting to me because if you asked me what areas of the world I felt most intrigued by, I would not say Angola, and yet I am learning so much about it these days.  Anyway, there are monthly podcasts and the couple are funny with each other.

3.

This is a great resource for free printable colouring pages for children at church that are not cartoony.  I don't like cartoony.  I don't really like colouring pages in general but I'm not a complete curmudgeon!  I can compromise!

4.

One of the things I don't like about homeschooling is that often I will come up with a very cool curriculum or idea or project and lack the momentum to see it all the way to the finish.  BUT, a friend of mine and I have combined forces and now every Wednesday her three kids and my three kids and both of us adults get together and do school.  We are doing a unit study based on the book Paddle To The Sea, by Holling C. Holling, and I have to admit it is fantastic and also fits both of our strengths very well.  For example, I like to fix things.  My friend likes to develop ideas at the speed of light.  Nothing makes me happier than typing up her messy notes and forming them into nice looking documents.

5.

I've been on an old-fashioned Christian book kick, which is not at all my usual genre so it's very strange, but here are two I enjoyed and would be gentle, interesting religious fiction reads if that's your cup of tea.

The first is called The Witness, by classic christian author Grace Livingstone Hill.  It's available via Project Gutenberg (so free, hurrah!) although I read it in print.  It's your standard faith based story with the exception that the protagonist, and almost all of the characters, are male.  Nowadays it seems like Christian fiction is almost exclusively a female thing, so maybe this has changed over the years, or possibly ladies in the past read about male protagonists more?  I don't know.

The second is by well-known author L. M. Montgomery, and it definitely isn't Christian in the same way as Hill's book, but more Christian fiction in the same way that Anne of Green Gables is Christian.  The overall worldview and attitudes and characters and such are Christian, even if it isn't a story of coming to faith.  Anyway, the book is called The Blue Castle.

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Look at this cover!  Isn't that the most silly cover you've seen in a while?  I assure you neither of the main characters look like this.

6.

I can't think of a #6.  I'm just sitting here, surrounded by things I'm supposed to be doing.  The horror.  The horror.

Have a...something...Good Friday.  And then a Sunday that reminds you of what is important in life.

Nature Study In The Ugly Places

I saw an article this week - Nature Study In Suburbia at the Afterthoughts Blog - and I love it!  Yes, yes!  Here is someone saying what I feel!  To not let the perfect be the enemy of the good, to embrace where you are, where God has placed you, and to see the beauty that He has prepared for you there!  So of course then I Googled something like 'Charlotte Mason Nature Study in the Inner City' or something like that, and I ended up finding two more great posts along the same lines.  How We Find Nature In The City at Mercer Homeschooling and 7 Ideas for Nature Study When You're Stuck in the Suburbs by Blossom and Root.  I don't want to just repeat all the same fantastic ideas these bloggers have, so I won't, but I'll add my two cents to the conversation.  And I suggest if this is a topic of interest to you that you check these posts out, because they are worth the read.

1)  One of my favourite literary exploration methods is the 'close reading', which is probably the secular kin to the Catholic Lectio Divina.  Essentially, a focused dedicated look at a small (sometimes just a word long) section of literature.  And this is a method that can be used for nature study as well, because if you don't have big nature, perhaps you have small nature?  And small nature can be really cool, too!  Forget the majestic trees - can you look at a leaf under a magnifying glass?  Can you look at a drop of water under a microscope?  We found our school microscope for under $10 at a second hand store and I have seen at least one other in the past few months.  And look at this!

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It's not just for children!  Haskell spent a year documenting the changes in one square metre of old growth forest and then he wrote a book about it!

2)  The sky!  Recording the weather was mentioned but if you can see stars at all, or even the moon, or clouds...  We have a basic telescope and I love Terence Dickinson's books on the sky.

3)  Forgotten nature is nature too.  That ugly bush over there - that's still a bush.  What kind of bush is it?  Those marigolds at the grocery store - those are flowers to look at and watch and examine.  Why are there bulbs for sale in the fall?  We forget that pigeons and gulls, ants and spiders in the bathroom, these are also nature, they can ALSO be interesting.  It's in how you approach the topic.

4)  The children have really gotten excited about their recent acquisition of old baby food jars filled with grass seed and dirt.  They picked them up at an event and the 9yo, at least, has run with the idea fully and gives his grass 'haircuts' and insists it smells like summer.  I mean, sure!  Why not!  You don't have a lawn, grow a lawn in a baby food jar.

5) Insects!  Listen, wherever you are, there are bugs and worms and flies and something, somewhere.  Look at them.


Oh I find this whole topic very exciting.

Leave The Dying Churches Alone.

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I read this article, about the epidemic of closing churches, and I have mixed feelings.  That probably doesn't surprise anyone.  I specialize in mixed feelings.

I've been a Christian for so many years now that sometimes I feel like I've heard every argument people can make, and this is nothing new.  There are lots and lots of things any organization *should* do - every organization under the sun, not just churches.

And to paraphrase H.L. Menken: "For every problem there is a solution that is easy, neat, and wrong."

And yet it's hard for me to say this because I love the easy answers!  Yes, so simple, so OBVIOUS!  Just bundle all the Christians together into one big, effective, vibrant church and then all the little churches can close and you can be financially stable and so forth.

This sort of answer just pulls at us, doesn't it?  The simple and neat and easy and successful?  Get rid of all the complexity of messy humanity and be a substantial congregation and fiscally stable and all that - I mean, who wouldn't want to look at it that way?  Well, God, for one.  God doesn't look at it that way.  I can't count the number of times I've said the following statements:  "God doesn't call you to be successful; He calls you to be faithful.", "No one intelligent enters the ministry with an eye on financial success in life", "(my husband's) 'boss' is not the congregation; it is God".  And so forth.  I have to say these things over and over again because...this is not what the world tells us.  And Christians, including this author, have absorbed similar ideas.  The church is intended to be successful, the church should close old buildings and focus on what will really work, the people who cling to those old buildings are doing so because they have nice memories associated with them, but we should pass over those feelings and get rid of that old stuff, because there is New! Stuff! Ahead!  Go forth!

That...isn't Christian.  It's very popular, and it's very appealing and it would maybe give you the results you desire...but it isn't Christian.

The fact of the matter is that God is the head of those churches, as He is the head of all churches that follow Him.  I don't know the churches that the author mentions, but I would be hesitant to support any suggestion that we know all that God intended them for - that His plans for those buildings, those congregations, that history and community influence, are simply done now because the church isn't financially affluent.

When a church struggles these days, we immediately start to throw newness at the 'problem'.  And believe you me, I have experience with churches slowly 'dying'.  We find new ministries, we gussie the place up a bit, we start new outreaches and such.  And if we are doing this because we feel as though our faith has grown stagnant and needs to be renewed then probably this is all quite a good idea.  If we're doing it because the other churches in town have bigger congregations than we do and we want the same outward signs of success and prosperity...maybe not so much a good idea.

I've gone to those little churches before.  My husband once did pulpit supply for a church so small that when we showed up we doubled the congregation.  And I don't know what to tell you.  Those churches, like all churches, serve as beacons of God's word in the wilderness, even if they do nothing else of value in the world's eyes.  They are the church that you drive past on your way home from work.  They are the church your grandparents went to.  And who knows...maybe they're the church someone goes to that Sunday when "I should go to church someday" turns into "Today is the day I go to church."

I get it, I get the desire to have the big, the shiny, the new.  I get the desire to want to look out over the pews and see them full, just BURSTING, with people, and new people, and eager people.  But these people are cherished souls, and the old, the tired, the ones who look nothing like that vibrant congregation of your dreams, they are also cherished, in their old grey pews, with their well worn faith and their adamant desire to not use an overhead projector.

Leave the little, decrepit churches alone.  Or rather, don't leave them alone.  Go to them!  Attend them!  Help them make coffee and offer to print off a nice Easter bulletin for them or at the very least talk to them, maybe they have something to teach you.  Listen.

Notre Dame On Fire

it was what she stood for,

            that Grand, Grey Lady,

it was what she stood there for that made the singing 

make you cry.

her reaching up to heaven tower

emaciated, down to bare bones, all the way down to the bones

of what she was.

the years peeled back.

the work of a thousand hands.

the work of a thousand backs.

all peeled back.

and God himself could look through the roof that wasn't.

Watch for the deer.

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Where I live there are a lot of deer, and there's this one spot next to the highway where the rocky sides are quite high, but the brush is cleared back, and people put out emergency deer feeding stations and so the creatures often congregate around there.  Practically every time you drive past that rocky patch there are does nibbling the ground.  They don't even look up, but just stand there, perfectly blending with the drabness around them.

I could never see the deer for the longest time.  Not there, necessarily, but in general.  I would stare out the window intently looking for deer or bears or any wildlife at all, but usually I didn't see anything.  The deer I saw were the ones in fields, in big groups, or the ones actually crossing the road.  The hidden, woodsy deer - well they just blended too perfectly for me.

Do you know that quote attributed to Michelangelo about the carving of the David?  It goes something along the lines of 'I simply took away everything that was not David'.  Over this winter, that has happened to my eyes in regards to the deer.

Somehow, and I don't know how exactly, I have become so accustomed to the shape, the colour, the curves, the very 'deerness' of the deer, that my mind 'takes away the trees' when I look into the brush, and suddenly I can see the deer now.  It hasn't happened with other creatures - I still peer absentmindedly around trying to find birds to identify for example, and if I stop looking for 'deerness' and instead look for deer, then again I lose my ability to see them blended into their surroundings, but still, how remarkable.

It occurred to me today that this is also a good way to picture seeing God in the world.  The Christian life is, in many ways, a method for drawing near to our creator, to know Him, to follow Him, to understand Him, as much as we frail creatures are able to.  One of the great blessings of the mature Christian faith is that you KNOW your God so well.  This is not your new passion, your new interest, which has that excitement and thrill to it; this is the well worn, but never shabby, mature faith, where you have seen Christ so long that your eyes can filter out what is not Him.

Our forest is the rest of our lives - the frustrations and anxieties and distractions - but He is there, in every forest, no matter how thick the trees.  And if we refocus our vision in that way you can only acquire by knowing Him so well, then there He is.  Look with fresh eyes into life and see Him.

Toilet Gratitude. Worst Title Ever.

At the risk of sounding like the sort of person you would literally cross the room to avoid at a party, here is something weird that happened to me this week.  And it involves a toilet.

This was a hard week for me.  There was a lot going on and I was worried a lot and I got a lot done but at the expense of sleep and sanity.  A few times I found myself thinking that there was just all too much stuff happening, I couldn't do even one more thing.  I couldn't think what to make for supper; how could anyone possibly expect supper from me in this crazy season?  What sort of insanity was this, that required the feeding of people multiple times per day?  What was God thinking when He invented such a time intensive nutrient delivery plan?

The phone would ring and I would think "Ack!  I can't get that!  I can't help that person!  I can't even find the phone!  I'm drowning!  I'm drowning!"  The smallest things were deeply, deeply infuriating to me, as they often are when I'm overwhelmed and stressed to the limit of my endurance.  The ice on the step outside wouldn't budge, and it haunted me.  I found myself doing other things thinking about that ice.  And yet, the getting of the shovel and the going over to angrily chip away at it seemed just completely beyond my capabilities.  Yes, much better to sit here and think about it.

This brings me to Wednesday.  On Wednesday I woke up early and went with another volunteer to paint the church bathroom.  At the same time I had all the children set up at separate tables doing their schoolwork.  And I was trying to stir the paint and it wouldn't stir.  And I was trying to get the cd player to work and it wouldn't work.  And I was trying to get the six year to Just. Write. The. Sentence. Down. in her spelling book.  And my husband was off at a doctor's appointment and then he was back to work at the kitchen table and then I was bringing the children back home and washing out paint brushes and trying to find lunch for everyone and then my husband had a video chat meeting which meant I had to take the children to the library for two hours and there was a lot of shushing.  And I left the expensive pork roast out after lunch and it was on the counter for a few hours before I remembered and I had to throw it out and I felt terrible and it was cold outside and that felt like a personal affront and I went to my 2:30 meeting forgetting the coffee shop we were meeting at was closed and and and...

When I finally caught up with my Wednesday meeting and we found ourselves another (open) coffee shop and settled in, I was hoping to feel that sense of vacation that sometimes happens when you sit down with a friend.  I had a worrisome doctor's appointment the next day, I had many miles to go before I slept, and frankly I wanted this break.  I wanted to feel that loosening of all the little knots in my brain that had tightened up over the past few days.  And to some extent I did, but I couldn't shake the anxiety and the weight of it all.  The too-muchness of a long, long week only halfway over.  

Some people thrive on this stuff.  I am not one of those people.  I like to do things and keep busy but I'm a creature of the shady, quiet places of the world, and not the hustle.  This is not my country; these are not my people.

At one point I excused myself to visit the ladies' room and I noticed in passing how new looking the toilet was for such a down country type establishment as the one we were frequenting.  And suddenly those little knots let go, and I felt that restful relief I had been seeking for several days.  What a nice toilet that was.  I'm so fortunate to be here, in this restroom.  It's so peaceful and the light is streaming in the window up there.  It's quiet - quiet for the first time in days.  And no one needs me right this moment and no one expects me to leave this room for at least another few minutes.  And frankly if you're going to have a moment of peaceful thankfulness I suppose there's weirder places to have it than in a clean, relatively nice smelling washroom.  Maybe.  

There's no blissful, fairy-tale ending to this story just like there isn't one in the real world.  I went back out and talked to my friend.  I finished my coffee and went to the grocery store and then home.  I went inside and handled making supper and cleaning up the detritus of the day and then shepherding all the children through showers and a game of Monopoly Deal and bedtime stories and medicine and, and, and.  The peace of the diner restroom did not stay with me; it was not a little quiet spot I could peer into when I was anxious in the evening and find rest there.  That's sometimes how those little glimpses work; that's sometimes how thankfulness helps form our everydays, but it isn't always, and it wasn't this time.

But that's not really the point, and it's one of the things so often missed by the proponents of 'counting your blessings'.  The blessing was that it happened at all, not that it stayed with me and gave me all the wonderful feelings.  The wonderful feelings are transient and unpredictable but the reality of that quiet restroom was real, a brief respite from it all, and it changed me whether I get to keep the emotional lift or not.