To 'Bee' a Saint

A couple days ago Fiona was sitting in the Living Room getting her daily dose of Dora the Explorer when Dora shouted out through the television, “What do you want to be when you grow up!” “A Bumble Bee!” Fiona screamed.

Fiona told me in September that she would like to be a Bumble Bee for Halloween, well, a Mommy Bumble Bee to be more specific. It wasn’t difficult to find a Bee costume that for all intensive purposes could fulfill the role of a Mommy Bumble Bee. But after purchasing the costume two months in advance I was pretty certain that someday in between Sept 1st and Oct 31st she would change her mind, growing bored of all the potentials and possibilities of being a Mommy Bumble Bee.

Still, it was more than the humor in my daughter’s recent certainty that she would grow up to be a Bumble Bee and the anxiety that I may have just wasted $40 on a Bee costume that would never get used that brought meaning to her Halloween costume choice. You might remember that it had been only a few months earlier that Fiona and I had just barely survived a legendary swarm attack of the Bumble Bee’s grumpy cousin, the Wasps. She must have touched a bush or looked at the nest the wrong way because before I knew it she was covered in a Greenwood Village Gang of Wasps. There they clung, on and under her shirt, just sticking there looking for the slightest excuse to sting her. It was a terrifying experience; one that has haunted her with many future random attacks of phantom bugs and bees.

It is this context of her decision to be a Mommy Bumble Bee that has made me rethink the potential of Halloween not only for our children but also for us as adults. Here is a two year old who was attacked by wicked little stinging bugs who decides that for Halloween (and perhaps for the rest of her life apparently) she is going to be what might be the most gentle and non-threatening of flying creatures, a Mommy Bumble Bee. For me, it’s a fascinating way to imagine Halloween, as a space in which we can look at all the nastiness and evil in ourselves and in the world and imagine a better ‘us.’ To pretend to be the finished product of the person God is molding us to be by reflecting on those persons who have come before us and impacted our lives in ways that connected us to the love and grace of God in ways we had not experienced before. And maybe for this one day, we might let go of all the anxiety and fear that causes us to cling and sting, and be a little bit more like the Mommy Bumble Bee, floating from flower to flower, person to person, peacefully spreading the Light of Christ through labors of love.

1 Corinthians 11:1 reads, “Be imitators of me, as I am Christ.” On the eve of Halloween we remember that we are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses; People who we have known and people who we have only read about who have been able to manifest God’s hope for this world through loving action. We are all called to be Saints in this world, believers whose unique call creates pathways for God’s love to live in this world. Like light shining through a stained glass God’s love spreads and magnifies the potential of our actions. And the beauty in remembering our part in this communion of saints is the realization that we are not alone in our journey. That inevitably we will stumble and fall, make wrong turns and lose our way, sting those we love and have stingers to pull out of ourselves, but in all our adventures we can return to the Truth that it is not in our single attempts to save one another or the world that we live most as saints but in our ability to embrace our interconnectedness with God and with one another.

Maybe this Halloween, as we take time to remember those saints whose footprints have molded the shapes of our hearts and reserve a day to make believe the images our lives will take as we experiment with those ways in which God is calling us to live out Her love in the world, we should all dress up as Mommy Bumble Bees, the Saint of the Bees.

Motherhood of All Achievers

I was recently asked by a woman if I had any resources for new mothers struggling with issues of identity. After some quick flipping through my mental Rolodex I realized that only thing I could come up with was my own blog, incredibly narcissistic and considerably unhelpful, I know. But in the midst of flashbacks to those first months home alone with Fiona, greeting John with tears of exhaustion as I handed over this new little human before he could even close the front door, I drew a blank.

I should have been able to think of millions of books, magazines, or support groups. I mean, I am the person who researched the ethics and sociology of motherhood for at least a year before caving in to those screaming hormones that trumped all the feminist literature and logical arguments many books told me about the insanities of motherhood in our culture. In the end, my incredibly thought out reasoning for the decision boiled down to one sentence, "I wanted to be someone's mama."

At the time of this woman's inquiry I imagined that later on, after some thought, helpful resources would enter my mind....but here I am, still, drawing a blank.

I don't know about you but it seems like after motherhood arrives there is little time for books, or reading, or showering. Reality takes over and all the books seem incredibly unhelpful for the obstacles and challenges that we face. (Sort of like those birthing classes but that's another blog post). What comes to my mind is not great authors with awesome insight or incredible answers to all of the issues new mothers face but more how individual each experience ultimately is and how alone that makes us feel when we are starting out.

Perhaps if we, as women, could overcome categorizing ourselves so viciously as working moms, single moms, older moms, younger moms, stay-at-home moms...and on and on. God forbid you are a woman who chooses not to be a mom. We just have this horrible habit of judging one another as if our culture didn't already do that for us. Why do we buy into all of it? Really? That we have to be better than someone else, that others should do it our way, and  if they don't, well they get what they deserve. It seems so heartless and critical and mostly, unhelpful. No wonder new mothers freak out about identity. In so many ways there is nothing we can do right, whether we nurse or formula feed, work or stay at home, we are destined to fall short of whatever moving ideal is set up for us to fit into at that moment. So what all of this made me come to was that our best resource would be other women....that the solution to our identity struggles is not in a book but in each other and our journey to overcome societal messages that separate us and to embrace the diversity of what it means to be a mother and what it means to be a woman and in that find the place of sacred connectedness.

So, here is my propositional brainstorming.

What if, as women, mothers or not, we ditch all the expectations and decide that its okay that we all act as women in the world in different ways. We measure out worth not by all the 'stuff' we do for others but for the creative expression of our love in this world. What would that even look like? If our identities weren't spread out across our children and our spouses, our jobs or our possessions but were cultivated and nurtured in our hearts and minds through acts of intentional self care and self exploration? It seems like if we had a more solid identity to begin with we would be comfortable that we see important things from incredibly different perspectives and that we make life choices that reflect these perspectives....Perhaps we could begin with a burning of Women's Health?

Blowing Bubbles

Considering how the twenties started out for me (not to mention all of the incredibly stupid things I did as a teenager) having just made it to 30 requires a little bit of gratitude and celebration on my part. So here's an early morning coffee toast to the fact that all the idiotic things I have done as a younger person did not have life long consequences and here I am, at 30 years old, sitting on the top bunk of a bunk bed, at my first Clergy Orders Retreat.

I can honestly say that I won't miss my 20s. My 20s were filled with incredible turmoil, lots of life change, and very little coping mechanisms to be able to sort through all the things that came my way. You might not know this about me, and I am currently wondering if you should, but there was a long period in my early twenties when living was not something I was very interested in doing.

My own unraveling began right after I turned 22, graduated from undergrad, and got married. John's mom once told me that she believed it was because for the first time in my life I felt safe letting all of the 'stuff' that I had been pushing down for so long bubble up. Of course, for me the problem was that once it started to bubble up it didn't stop and I had no way of knowing what to do with all of these bubbles besides to invite them to slowly swallow me up. It was a mess. I was a mess.

For almost three years, my life was like living in a dark room with no light. While in the background a recorder played scenes from my life, the worst ones, the most horrible things people had said or done played over and over in a dark room and a overhead voice repeated, "it's all your fault." And this might sound totally horrible to you, but I got to this place where I just wanted some peace. Some silence.

Because for so long I had lived as though I had control of all the ugliness around me. That I was some savior to the whole system I was a part of and that unless I could be that savior no one would value or want me. And my unraveling began when I realized, very truthfully, that I had saved no one. In spite of all my efforts and adaptations, many things that I had hoped to change would never change.

I will never forget the heart break on my husband's face when he had to walk out the door of an intreatment facility and leave me behind. And what a long journey followed of him driving me every day, for weeks, to treatment and faithfully for two years twice a week to Michelle's, my therapist across town. It was and continues to be a long journey. The adult child of an alcoholic. The adult child of divorce. The innate perfectionist personality. But mostly, and what got me through, was the identity of a beloved child of a God who even in my darkest and most hopeless moments never lifted the hand that rested on my shoulder.

And it felt like once I was able to accept God's continuous and persistant offer to hold hands, to join in partnership, and to see a sliver of what God sees when She looked at me, my twenties became very different. It meant that I finished seminary, began a career, became a wife and a mother, a friend and an aunt. It meant that what had seemed like a place where no fruit could grow and no happiness could exist there was an overabundance of joy and laughter and mutual connection.

So my prayer for myself is that my thirties would be filled with big dreams and great peace. Hope for the future but happiness with the present. That I would be surrounded by the energy of children and the honesty of youth. To continue to live in a place of gratitude for the support and warmth of family and friends, closely connected to my husband, my soul mate, and my sister, my kindred spirit. That they would experience from me the unending grace and unconditional love that God pours out over me every moment of every day regardless of my level of awareness. And that in all things, I would be able to embrace my own humanity, my own mistakes, and my own self...dancing and laughing all the way to my 40s.

Moments of RED

This week I sat at a breakfast table with an amazing young man who told me his father had infected him with HIV when he was 11 months old and then explained that he believed in a God who creates beauty and possibility out of even the ugliest situations and that because of this belief he is using his own experience of discrimination to speak out against the stigma of persons with HIV/AIDS and to empower children and youth who are even today growing up in the midst of an unforgiving and irreconcilable ignorance.

I sat in a forum where a man living with AIDS publicly pleaded with tear filled eyes and a trembling voice for a government official to help the people in his state receive desperately needed funding for life saving medication.

I heard a United Methodist Bishop state that while the United Methodist Church might still be making its mind up about whether or not to minister to people living with HIV/AIDS, Jesus already has. I watched many admirable, humble servants receive beautiful awards for their compassion and commitment in communities of people which the rest of the world so easily forgets.

I heard statistics that I had heard before but even repeated remained difficult to comprehend...each and every time the nameless numbers float around in my mind. I heard plans for resolution, for an AIDS free world, for a church which was willing to stand up and fight for toleration of those living with HIV/AIDS and a church intolerant of waiting for one more person to be infected before they began to continue the work of Jesus.

I heard stories and held hands and sang songs and prayed prayers that in the struggle to combat stigma, apathy, and ignorance, that I might have a place, that my gifts and graces, enthusiasm and education, might find a voice in the chorus of miracle makers...and that this place and this voice might be welcomed in what can sometimes be the coldest and most judgmental of institutions; the church.

Mama Llama is Lame

I have decided that I am a fairly jealous individual. Before I became a mom my jealousies were limited to silly things like weight. That was about it. But the whole mom role has turned me into this jealous maniac. I get jealous of mom's over the most ridiculous things. Like mom's who have clean houses. Or mom's who have nannies. Or mom's who drop there kids off at school wearing slick looking work out gear. Mom's with new cars. Mom's who can cook and who can convince their kids to go grocery shopping and not have to push around that stupid seven foot cart with the car attached. And mostly mom's who, as a luxury, can choose to stay at home with their children.

I think that for about the first year I was a mom I was ridiculously proud of becoming this mom who would do it all. Fiona's first weeks were spent in a sling with her mom sitting at a computer in the church office. The office manager and I took shifts walking her up and down the halls of the church to soothe her and get her to sleep. At six weeks Fiona went on her first mission trip. I preached sermons with her in the Baby Bjorn. She was the founder of Junior Youth Group which met simultaneously to Middle and Senior High Youth Group. She claimed a seat next to Pastor Todd in the sanctuary and is the reason the safe code had to be changed...I mean, if a one year old can crack the code...

Looking back on all our adventures together I am less proud and more embarrassed at my own level of insanity. We did fine. We had fun (mixed in with several mini nervous breakdowns) and most importantly we made it through. Both in one piece. But there are times when if nothing else it would have been nice to have a break. To not feel torn between being the best with a career and a child. And never really doing either as well as I would like.

I just am thinking about this today because my therapist made a comment this afternoon that I have lost my incentive for working the moment I had my daughter. Okay, my feminist friends don't get in a frenzy. Her point, as I interpreted for my own convenience, was that once you become a parent you are torn between two worlds but that neither one is completely fulfilling because they both have something to offer you and you to offer them. 

I would be lying if I said that the only reason I work is in response to a deep commitment and passion for ministry but there are also financial realities which dictate my daily decision to wake up and do the impossible. Huge student loan debt, the desire to give your child the best education, monthly health insurance premiums, the cost of living in an area that has nice schools and neighborhood parks...It all means I have to be away from my child. That sometimes I have to miss Halloween parades and nighttime routines, morning kisses and playdates at the park. For me, it makes me bitter, and angry, and spiteful toward all the mom's that don't have to miss those moments because these moments pass so quickly and pretty soon we are all just lame mama llama's who must take our place as taxi drivers and relationship referee's and teen homework police and the embarrassing parents who don't understand anything because we are so stupid.

I just want to get to enjoy these times when being a mom and picking your kid up from school also means being a celebrity. That they actually want to be around you even if they must dictate every single thing you do during that time and after an hour you think "wow being at work is SO much easier!" So I need to find the incentive in missing out because its what I have to do and I don't want to be torn and hateful and leaving mean notes on other mother's new SUV's anymore...they are going to figure out its the crazy lady who hasn't showered, worked out, or done her hair since her last day off three weeks ago when they follow the coffee trail leading to the office of the insane associate pastor who thought it was so cool to do it all but is now curled up under her desk asleep with caramel corn falling out of her mouth.