I’ve
started a few different Christmas-themed entries but haven’t been able to
finish any – family busyness continues, and most stuff seemed kind of stupid
and pointless after last week’s school shooting in Connecticut. I’ll talk more
about that at the end, if I can, but I’ll start with the easy topic of the fam.
Simon
is out of school for two weeks, and David has finished Mother’s Morning Out and
will transition to full-day daycare the first full week of January. Matt and I
met with the daycare director, his classroom teacher and the assistant (all of
whom worked with Simon so we all know each other) one day last week to
familiarize them with David’s skills, deficits, and needs. Our house is about
as decorated as we can make it, most gifts for the boys are wrapped, and I’m
nearly finished filling stockings for them and goodie bags for grownups. The
church Christmas program was this past Wednesday, and went pretty much exactly
as you might expect – you couldn’t hear half of it, Simon didn’t sing anything
but instead stared off into space, and the aisles were full of parents with
video cameras (is that what they’re even called anymore?). It’s one of my
favorite nights of the year, mostly because it’s such a ritual of everything
going wrong but the kids looking so darn cute despite all of it – happy sighs
from Joanna.
David
and I still have lingering colds; he thankfully seems to be much better and my
only remaining symptom is a yucky cough. Simon seems to have missed this
particular round, and Matt hardly ever gets sick. Or at least, not sick enough
to admit it, go to the doctor, and/or take a sick day, which I think he would
view as some sort of personal moral failure J
… We
are kind of feeling our way along in terms of “Christmas parenting.” Even if
Matt weren’t a pastor, I’m pretty sure both our natural inclinations would be
to emphasize the whole “Incarnation of the Savior” over Santa Claus and greed.
Of course every parent (I guess) says that, but we really, really mean it. For
real. J A recurring issue is Santa Claus, which was never a part
of my childhood (my parents just never talked about him; I believed in him for
about 15 minutes in kindergarten until a classmate told me he’s not real).
We’re pretty ambivalent about it with Simon so far; mostly we’ve talked about
it in terms of “some people believe that …” but I guess we need to come to a
consensus before he asks us point-blank. In the meantime, we have a number of
Santa Claus decorations up, and he’s had his picture taken with the big guy
twice this year. I don’t think anything about it is a make-or-break issue, but
it makes me distinctly uncomfortable talking about it at all with Simon, and I
would feel weird telling him a deliberate lie.
But
neither do I really want to bluntly disabuse him of the notion, nor do I want
him to be a big know-it-all to friends who might still believe. It’s really
important to Matt and me for Simon (& David) to be as un-materialistic as
possible, and let’s face it, Santa is all about getting presents. I know some
parents talk about the spirit of the season, yadda yadda yadda, but at the end
of the day it’s still about asking for stuff.
[This was going to be a longer rant but I no longer have the energy
for it: Please don’t come to me about the “War on Christmas,” I certainly don’t
have the energy for that. It sometimes surprises folks that a pastor’s spouse
feels this way, but: I am a really strict church-state segregationist. I do not
want prayer in schools, the Ten Commandments in the courthouse, and when I was
a federal grand jury foreperson I never “swore” anyone in to tell the truth “so
help you God.” I am totally fine with “Happy Holidays,” and a holiday tree at
the White House. Because the presence or absence of any of these things does
not affect my Christian faith in any way. I believe strongly that home and
church are the places for religious instruction, and I think it is
parents/families and church families who should take the lead in religious
formation, not public school teachers and administrators. I always try to
consider what it would be like to be in the minority, and if we lived in an
area that was populated heavily by Catholics or Mormons or whatever, I would
not want Simon or David to be instructed in school about transubstantiation or
some screwy Fundamentalist thinking about “a woman’s place” or anything else I
don’t believe in. Not in a public school. And for conservatives who are always
talking about a “culture of victimhood,” I think complaints about efforts to
“take Christ out of Christmas” are pretty ironic, or hypocritical, or something
… remember how 1st century Christians (and modern Christians in
other countries/cultures, and people of other faiths who are not free to
worship as they choose) were, you know, tortured and killed because of their
faith? It was hard for those folks to be Christians, so quit yapping about not
being able to put up your Nativity on the lawn at City Hall, and put it up in
your own yard (or that of your church)].
[Having said that, I’m totally okay with President Obama’s remarks
at the memorial service for the children and teachers of Sandy Hook Elementary,
that he began and ended his talk with Scripture. That was a memorial service
for grieving families, these were his own personal remarks (not government
policy), and also, I am not a complete jerk.]
So now
I get to quit being chicken and talk about the school shootings. There’s way
too much to say for one blog post, or one blog, or even the entire Internet, so
I’ll try to be brief. I imagine I was exactly as shocked and horrified as any
other person, especially as any other parent of young children. I have worried
about Simon being kidnapped or simply wandering off from school; it had never
crossed my mind that he might not come home from kindergarten because he got
shot in the face by a crazy person. Jesus. Kindergarten. First grade. Whatever.
The first parent to speak publicly, the dad of that little girl Emilie – when
they showed her picture I thought, oh look at that beautiful corn silk blond
hair, that could be Frances [one of Simon’s classmates and soccer teammates].
Each time I began envisioning the crime scene, my brain (thankfully) shut down
and wouldn’t let me do it.
We have
prayed as a family for the parents and surviving students at the school; I
could never come up with anything better than praying they would feel God’s
presence and know that God is still with them, that God didn’t make this
terrible thing happen, and that God loves them, and their children.
I’m
trying to restrain myself from making any grand proclamations until there’s
more information (if that does come) about the shooter and his mom and the
guns. Of course many interest groups and politicians have already vastly
over-simplified what is probably the most complex question about how and why
people do what they do, and I’m not bowled over by a lot of the proposed
solutions I’ve heard thus far. It would be interesting, when and if the parents
(and families of the adult victims) feel like talking about it, to know what
they think should be done or changed. Not that that has to be what we do, but
unfortunately their numbers are such that we could maybe get a pretty
representative sample. God, that’s horrible to write. There are so many of them
from this one thing, that maybe there’s enough diversity of demographics,
educational levels, political affiliations, etc., so that we could get a
variety of opinions.
I will
timidly assert the following: I am not too crazy about guns. There, I said it.
Well, I sort of said it; the first time I typed it I said I am not too crazy
about guys. I might need a nap. I would be okay with folks having a pistol or
two around the house to shoot bad guys with, if no child ever ever ever got
shot with one by accident. Ever, not one. I’m pretty ambivalent about hunting,
and taxidermied deer and whatnot creep me out. I see where folks are going with
the “if you criminalize guns only criminals will have guns,” but if you scratch
the surface of that a bit, since when do we allow the fact that people are
going to break a law, prevent us from making it a law at all? Someone said, “an
armed society is a polite society.” Maybe. Even if, I do not wish to live in an
armed society. The diligence required to keep a gun safe in a classroom full of
children (while still having it somewhere where you could actually grab it and
use it if needed) is mental energy I would rather have expended on teaching my
child. Blaming the establishment of “gun-free school zones” for this tragedy is
about the dumbest, most short-sighted line of crap I’ve heard since this whole
thing began, and that LaPierre guy is so out of touch with reality that I’m
amazed he’s allowed to speak – if I were the NRA I’d keep him locked up except
one day a year, to let him out to try to see his shadow.
Aside:
I feel the same way each time I hear Sarah Palin speak. Why is she still
talking? Why do they allow her to talk? And Grover Nordquist, who the *&^$
is he? I mean, I know who he is, but why does he get to talk and why do people
seem to really care about what he says?
At the
same time, my dad had a number of guns in the house the whole time I was
growing up, and we knew not to touch them, and we never would have. On the
other hand, the crime rate in the tiny town I grew up in is about zero, and my
dad doesn’t hunt, so why did we have them? I have fired a revolver (a .357,
wow) a few times at a target, but that’s it.
**************
(disconnected)
So
there’s plenty of room and time for discussion, but for this holiday season we
will try to be as positive and hopeful as we can. Warm holiday wishes to
everyone and our prayers continue to be with all those who are hurting, lonely,
cold or hungry. Thank you again for reading.
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