Coming Undone

Elberta Peach Blossom

Today I would be fooled into wearing my summer clothes if not for the crisp shadows of the trees and rosebushes and birds on the flat surface of the grass and the sidewalk. In the summer, in Alabama, shadows grow gray and diffused as if they are pressed flat under the languid brutality of the sun on the fields and the fruit trees and the insects. In the summer, not even the rupture of rain relieves the heat, but I still love the smell of the rain on the hot and oily asphalt. I love the syrupy indolence of the summer in the Southlands. 

But today is cold and my floor (long ago brutalized by termites) allows the chill of the basement to encompass my feet (five toes polished and five toes bare) and I realize that they won't again be warm until I tuck them under the quilt tonight. But I don't wear socks and I don't know why. And I've got a pair of cold feet in my mind, too. I'm constantly aware of how uncomfortable they are, but I'll tolerate their niggling chill until they break through the soil of my unconscious and force me to some kind of action. It's a fine balance of comfort and misery with which I am familiar. 

Lately, I'm finding myself on the periphery of a few conversations that overlap like Venn diagrams and raise more questions than answers. They're about something I haven't really delved into in a few months or years: the proper roles and positions of women in the Church and in the family. 

Two years ago I left the Presbyterian Church in America, a denomination that had nurtured me from babyhood, and the next year joined an Anglican congregation. I've been a closet Anglican since the first time I attended an Episcopal service at St. Dunstan's parish in my college town, and taking this step feels like getting off of an uncomfortable fence. And something I love about my parish is that we don't talk about women. Ever. There are no bylaws to circumvent or negotiate. There are no questions regarding the gender of the person serving you holy communion, yet the elements themselves are handled with much more respect and care than any Presbyterian would care to offer them. And it is such a welcome respite for me when I remember the months of negotiation and exegesis and debate that went in to making sense of what women can and cannot do in the Presbyterian church. But lately, I find myself back in the fray (at least in my own mind) as I struggle through issues of submission (oh, blast!) in marriage and community. 

I don't believe in the Biblical Submission of the Wife. I just don't. It's sexism in a fancy hat. And yet that realization begs new questions. Was Paul a sexist? (Because I still find his writings in Timothy troublesome.) And if the answer is yes, does this open up a fracture in the carefully wrought veneer of my Cradle Calvinism and allow for an error in scripture? (Gasp.) And I venture...oh so slowly and on trembling paws...to say maybe.

And yet, as I think of my own marriage – this union of  stubborn and sharp-tongued loners, really—  I start to believe that in order to allow Christ to move through it and make it wholly His, I must lie down and die. Die. That is what it has come down to. I must relax my grasp on my own right to single-mindedly pursue my own goals. I must become pliable and forgiving instead of rigid and demanding. I must choose to nurture the unity of this relationship at the expense of the chaff and chattel of my selfishness and ambition. And I realize that I've never been here before. Never before has life offered me the choice of self or family. It makes me boil it down to this: am I such a uniquely flawless human that the elevation of my own good over the good of my family is justified? Honestly, as a feminist who loves well myself, I have to answer no. No, it isn't. And then I start to wonder not only if I can let this part of myself die, but how I can help to kill it. 

God help me. 

Thank You

I so appreciate all of you who read what I write here. I know some of you and don't know some of you, but it is significant to me that you are even a little interested in what I have to say. Thank you. 

But see, I'm running dry these days and I'm tired of spirit. So, I'm taking a computer sabbatical to concentrate on my thesis and my baby and my real-person friends. (The very few that I have.)  I'm not enjoying things as I should. And it's JANUARY after all.

I'm sure I'll be back in the spring and I hope you will be too.

Much Love,  (Really)

Susan

A Conflux

For a while now, I've been stewing on the ideas of community and sanctification. They seem so unrelated, so at odds. Yet, from a theological perspective the case isn't hard to make that Christians belong in some kind of community of faith. Lately, I'm beginning to see the Darwinian aspects of community and human development. We are born helpless into a family. Give a baby and mother and a father (better yet a mother, father and two sets of grandparents) who love her, and she thrives and grows. But we don't, I'm seeing, progress beyond our need for family.

I've been terribly ill for about a week. In fact, I've been more ill than I have ever been before. Recovering from all of my surgeries was the French Riviera in comparison to trying to recover from this invasion of my body by one angry little bacterium. I was helpless. Helpless to feed myself. Helpless to give my little one a bath. But I have a family. A community. A network of support. And I am sure that the time will come when I take my part to cover and protect a member of my family who finds herself helpless. This is family and it is blessed.

From a spiritual perspective we are dependent on each other to know God. I pause to consider the implications of this notion. I, as quarrelsomely introverted as I am, am dependent on other human beings to know God as He intends. I need to be baptized, take part in the Eucharist, give my confession, pray for and be prayed for.

And the idea of community I'm seeing emerge (and the word "emerge" I select intentionally) is a group of fellow "seekers" who will "sit in the mud" with you as you negotiate life's often painful quotidian complexities. And I guess I can distill some measure of validity from this concept for some people. But I can't seem to get over the danger inherent in inviting the "unwashed masses" of the local church to participate in the sacrament of your own struggle. And by "dangerous" I don't mean exciting and risky, but beneficial. I mean perilous. As in watch out Will Robinson. As in flirting with irreparable harm and schism and woe. And what is the benefit of all this mud-sitting? Did Jesus come to sit in the mud and ruminate with us. Surely, there was some level of condescension in his willingness to clothe himself in flesh. But to what end to we celebrate our frailties and weaknesses when perhaps what we need is a hand up? 

I'm beginning for form a new concept of community for myself. No, that's false. I'm beginning to understand and work out the concept of community embraced and cherished by men and women much wiser than I. I wonder if this engagement with each other is something to consider more carefully. Surely, I have lent ears to fools to my own detriment. Surely the selection of an inner circle must come with prayer and great trepidation. And surely, we should not long allow ourselves to marinate in the excreta of our own repugnant sinfulness in the name of community. I don't think I care to have a community who would condemn me to such a fate and call it benefit. 

Oh. My. Goodness.

Tonight I am left to wonder just what kind of parents:

use the BUMBO seat as a car-restraint system and/or a flotation device
put the baby to sea afloat on an Exersaucer
leave a child at the top of the stairs in their walkers to play Picabo Street
put a cozy plastic bag in the crib for a little late-night entertainment.

Probably the same people who eat the little packets that come in shoe boxes.

I read all of these warnings and I realize that somewhere, someone loaded up the Tahoe with little Betty in a BUMBO or thought to fill the Exersaucer with tea and I am dismayed at the state of the world.

Tour de France in my underpants

Frances England? 

Yes. 

Yes.

Yes.

When I played this for Carrie, she laughed for about 5 minutes.

I just have to point out that I received something like 20 hits this week from people googling "bow-legged economy" and "copulating inanimate objects."

I am pleased with myself and because I am a twisted individual, I will post a link to the #1 hit for "copulating inanimate objects." I mean, what kind of world is this when we can't leave our picnic tables alone?

I watched the old Spencer Tracy movie "Judgment at Nuremberg" yesterday. I also saw footage of a woman in Zimbabwe and her four-month-old baby who are both certainly near death from cholera. (Cholera. Cholera? I've never even heard of someone contracting cholera.)

I woke in the night and couldn't expunge these images from my mind.

This morning, I'm left with the question of how we cope with witnessing this kind of horror. My grandfather (we think) participated in the liberation of Dachau. But I can't even see 70-year-old footage without losing sleep. After visiting the camp all of these years later, I lost sleep for nearly a year. I am haunted. In a true sense. The unanswerable question gnaws at the corners of my mind: did He forget them? Can He forget me?

How do I put this to bed in my mind? How do we continue to live and eat and breathe and have babies knowing what kind of world this is?

What do I do now?

These are honest questions. I can't but despair in finding their answers.

When Mama's Away....

Grandmomma will dress your baby up as Jesus.

This Week's Book for Fun

Liar's Poker by Michael Lewis

My favorite quotations thus far:

"I was as helpless as the female victim of arranged marriage who, upon seeing the horrible visage of her chosen mate, shrieks in vain."

"His world was filled with copulating inanimate objects and people getting their faces ripped off."

"The mortgage traders emitted such evil vibes that I carved a wide loop around them every afternoon...They were known for hurling phones at the heads of trainees and were said to have installed extra-long cords to increase their range."

Tagged by Tony

Carrie in her Froggie Pajamas. 

I generally pretend not to notice when I get tagged to participate in blog-games like this, but this request came from Tony (Sand in the Gears), who I strongly suspect is a bit of the Real Deal and so I happily comply. 

Here are the rules:

Link to the person who tagged you.

Post the rules on your blog.

Write 6 random things about yourself.

Tag 6-ish people at the end of your post.

Let each person know he/she has been tagged.

Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

1. My favorite smell right now is Carrie's breath. I can smell it when I go into her room and it makes me feel very deeply contented. When she was in the NICU, her nurse changed her clothes and stuffed her little froggie pajamas into a cubby under her crib. I found them and held them to my nose and smelled that little new baby and wept and wept and wept. 

2. My favorite hobby right now is making up answers for the question my father-in-law will undoubtedly ask me when I see him at Thanksgiving. So, what ARE you going to do with this degree? Right now, I plan to say "Well, I've always wanted to live in an Airstream trailer," because the more of a non sequitur my answer is, the better to elicit that flummoxed expression of which I've grown so fond.

3. It occurs to me that the best things in my life (except for Carrie) were used and discarded by someone else.

4.  Every time I see her husband I think she got what she deserved. 

5.  My husband brought my coffee in my Santa mug this morning and it was a greater expression of love than any jewelry or expensive gift could ever convey. (Especially when he covered Santa's eyes and said "Where's SANTA?!" And I said "THERE he is!")

6. I am learning to tend my own fire. And trying to tend to other people's fires is the number one thing I confess each week before Holy Communion.

I don't know if I'm allowed to link to all of these people, but I tag:

Jason

Carla Jean

David (David has been including some of his market-color as of late. He is brilliant. And he is mine.)

Penny

Amy 

Suz

I have lived, all this time, with a Carrie-shaped hole in my heart.

Things That Made Me Feel Rich Today

1. A kitchen full of groceries.
2. White and fluffy towels, monogrammed and folded.
3. A well-behaved dog.
4. A laughing baby.

Head Flush

I've a string of random thoughts running through my mind this morning. Half of them are remnants from the conversation I had with myself this morning at 4 am when I sat in the dark, nursing my baby and feeling grateful for my grandmother's fuzzy white house-shoes and her black-and-white chair both of which I still use when I'm nursing my baby at 4-am. 

I read Eugene Peterson's "The Contemplative Pastor" yesterday. (There is a lot of time to read when one nurses a baby in the midst of a growth-spurt.) This is the primary question I have for Mr. Peterson: When did our pastors start to hate us? To read his words is to be impressed that his congregation sits in the pews Sunday by Sunday spitting sunflower seeds in the floor and farting smellily while he tries his best to exegete some truth into their thick and unrefined headspaces. He also completely misquotes not only Herman Melville, but Ralph Waldo Emerson as well compounding his error by referring to him only as "Waldo." And so, I leave doubly offended, both as a church-member and as a student of American literature. Please, if you ever write a book, don't quote something you haven't read. Because rest assured, someone has and they will beg you return so they may taunt you a second time. And perhaps even catapult a cow in your general direction.

My second random thought revolves around the sweetest (non-religious of course) words I think I've ever heard at church: "We need some more men in leadership." These words are made sweeter by the able men who stood up to volunteer. When men and women work together good things happen. 

And now, this session of head-emptying must come to an end as the baby is hungry. Again. Amen.

To share just because I feel like it.

a happy day for us

Quiet.

Alabama has famously tricksy weather. Every September, just as you start to believe that the scorching heat of summer has begun to submit to the soft hands of autumn, the temperatures reverse and you find yourself slogging through a pumpkin patch in eighty-five degree heat in a sweater and jeans. But this is my thirty-second Alabama autumn, and I won't be fooled again. I am on to you Alabama. I am as wily as leviathan and you can't catch me.

My roses are blooming again in the cooler weather. Two climbing red Don Juans are exploding on either side of my porch steps as I speak. My rambunctious Sir Thomas Liptons are putting out leaves and fragrant white blossoms. Two Marie Pavie shrubs are making clouds of soft pink flowers that smell like heaven and my lone Cecile Brunner is trying to keep up. A yellow climber has shot up past the baby's window and out a hole in the eaves. It's blooming on the roof giving my cottage a kind of elegantly ramshackle appeal. How I perceive this particular effect depends entirely on my mood. When I'm confident and happy, it's the epitome of shabby chic. When I'm depressed and tired, it's just a hole in the roof. Nevertheless, I'm happy that the baby can look at those happy flowers as she drifts off to sleep.

It's quiet in the house. In fact, I've been studying quietness. It's a lesson coming to me. I perceive it with my spiritual rabbit-ear antennae and I am swaying and twisting in the window to shake off the snow of distraction and fatigue to get better reception. (Silly Literary Device. Metaphors are for poets.)

In his commentary on First Thessalonians 4, Matthew Henry writes that it is a most desirable thing to have a calm and quiet temper and to be of a calm, quiet behavior. Satan, he writes, is very busy to disquiet us and we have it in our own hearts that which disposes us to disquiet. I'm afraid that in the wake of the worries aroused by the current economic difficulty we seem to be experiencing (or more accurately, in the wake of all the Media Coverage of the current economic difficulty we seem to be experiencing) and the lack of confidence we seem to have in the pair of boneheads running for President, it is more difficult than Henry could have imagined to ward of the disquiet of our souls. (One word of political advice: when faced with a pair of boneheads, choose the one who isn't a Communist. I'm just saying...) Surely, William Wordsworth would recognize all of this insanity as the revenge of the "Savage Torpor" with which we have been overrun.

But I feel it, nonetheless. It's an urging and a pulling of the Holy Spirit to be quiet. To be calm. Not of speech, perhaps, but of nature. I'm perceiving the message in various places and I raise my aerial high on the rooftops of my mind. (That was even worse than the first one.)

What I had hoped.

Suffice it to say, the internets isn't getting my best writing these days. I need a break from the whole buzz of this particular blog scene. It makes me tired. And I need a break from you, dear readers. But just because I can, and just because it isn't often a girl can present the world with a photograph that would have captured all her adolescent hopes, I give you this representation of the life I'd always hoped I would lead.  (Thank you jd wilson.)

Nice

Weird Fact of the Day

If you google "Mei Lei Massacre" my blog comes up fourth. (???)

Swollen like the Cahaba River last week.

My contribution to the Greater Birmingham Community this year was to show what a girl looks like after an emergency C-section and a week in the hospital. Sitting for the photograph was not as brave as say, storming Omaha Beach, but it was my Iwo Jima.

You can't see the photograph, but you CAN read the essay here Got to buy the magazine to see Su Su Puff Face.

Thank you for another opportunity to force myself upon the world, C.J.

(Look for Kristen's essay, too.)