"Whoa!" to the world ...

The following is Matt's Christmas Eve sermon. I did not get to hear it, per se, due to the inability of my youngest to maintain for even 10 minutes in a church service thus far. But Matt basically preached it to me afterward (there was a break between the 7 and 11:00 services, and he came home to help put the boys to bed), and I'm thinking it's pretty good. It is also an excuse to put off any actual writing of my own ... 

What Child Is This Anyway?

Christmas Eve, 11 PM

While I studied for the ministry in Washington DC, I worked as the Youth Minister at a downtown DC church.  A few years before I worked there, the church had gained a measure of fame (or notoriety) for being the Clinton’s church while Bill was in office as president.  The people who were there during the Clinton years loved telling me about the elaborate preparations involved if you care to host the president and his family at your church.  

Secret Service agents would arrive a couple hours early to scour the building.  They set up metal detectors at every entrance.  They put snipers on the roof.  Only after everything had been double- and triple checked would the Clintons arrive at the church.  When you’re the president, even if you’re just going a mile, you never go alone.  The presidential motorcade is typically 20 to 30 vehicles including police cars and motorcycles, an ambulance, and a communications van.  More vehicles hold a counter-assault team.  There’s an SUV with equipment that will scramble the signals of rocket-propelled grenades and anti-tank missiles.  And then, finally, there are several heavily armored limousines all driven by professional drivers.  The one the president rides in has the strongest defenses of all.  It’s called The Beast.

Contrast that if you will with the scene in Bethlehem some 2000 years ago.  We’ve had 43 different presidents, but there’s only one eternally begotten son of our heavenly father, and his protective detail was two unmarried Jewish peasants and their donkey.  If Jesus was so important, where was his motorcade?  

You probably have heard the story before, about how Mary, the young Jewish girl heard the news from the angel Gabriel that she had been chosen by God to bear a son, in spite of the fact that she’d never been intimate with a man.  Her fiancé Joseph wanted to leave her but he got news in a dream to stick it out.  Fast forward nine months and here we are.  Joseph and Mary, pushed around by a Roman decree, have to travel back to Joseph’s ancestral home of Bethlehem.  When they get there, the town’s so jam packed with other travelers that they are forced to spend the night in a stable.  It was there where their baby was born.  He would be given the name “Jesus” – which means God saves.

Bethlehem was an unlikely backdrop for what C.S. Lewis calls “The Grand Miracle.”  It was a place not unlike a rundown home in east Greensboro or a rural village in east Africa, places from which most people wouldn’t expect God to do great things.  But we who have been part of this church for long know better don’t we?  That’s exactly the kind of place where God loves to work.

************************************

We tend to think of that scene in Bethlehem as a moment of hushed majesty, like the picture in the greeting card, but if we’d been there we probably wouldn’t have thought it was so special.  Imagine if you had been there looking at Mary and Joseph getting turned away from the inn and somebody elbowed you in the ribs and said, “Behold! Thus begins God’s plan to rescue and redeem the world, starting with Israel.”  You would have thought he needed his head checked.  

And what if this person went on to tell you that time forever after would be divided into the years before and after this child’s arrival?  What if he told that the baby born that night would never write a book, never command an army, or lead a nation, yet, because of him, over half the world’s population would become monotheists?  What if they told you that people would be crowded into rooms like this one 2000 years later in order to sing carols and light candles as we remember and celebrate this child’s birth?  

You wouldn’t have believed it for a minute and yet here we are.  Whatever brought you here, I want to reiterate how glad we are that you’re here.  Some of us worship every week, maybe some of us are entering a church for the first time.  Some of us are here for the music, some for the candles.  Some are here for the sake of their kids and some are here to please their parents.  Some of us have come here after great feasts while some of us will go home to the wire shelves of an empty pantry.  Some of us are overflowing with joy.  Some of us have almost totally run through our reserve of hope.  

And for once, at least, you may be at an advantage if you are low on church experience, low on food or low on hope.  Those who haven’t had their senses dulled may find it easier to hear how truly astounding message of Christmas is.

*****************************************

I don’t know about you but my days are not just filled with a sense of wonder.  Thankfully, I have two young boys who help me see how special the Christmas season is.  David, the younger of the two has some developmental delays, and as a result doesn’t have a big vocabulary.  But he reminds me 20 times a day how special everything is when we pats me on the arm or leg, points and says, “Whoa!”  It’s whoa when he sees the poinsettias, whoa for the stars and whoa for the Christmas trees.  And when he gets old enough to understand the story about how the God of the universe entered into our world in the form of a helpless infant who had to be fed , burped and changed… well I hope he says “Whoa!” to that, too.  That’s the biggest “Whoa!” of all.

None of us were around to be amazed 2000 years ago, so the angels turned instead to a bunch of shepherds.  That was an interesting choice.  A few centuries before shepherding had been a noble profession.  King David was been a shepherd.  But by Jesus’ time shepherds were just hired hands.  On the night Jesus was born they may have had the smell of booze on their breath and one may have been getting ready to tell the others a dirty joke when – all of a sudden – they got the second biggest surprise of their lives.  They saw a sky full of angels who announced to them that the long-awaited Messiah had finally been born and the shepherds needed to get there pronto.

I say the angels’ announcement was the second-biggest surprise of their lives because the biggest surprise came when they got to the stable and realized they were the only human beings who had been invited.  The angels were in on the celebration, of course, and there was probably some livestock around.  The wise men only came later.  No, on the night Jesus was born God singled out these third-shift shepherds to be the first people to hear the greatest news in the history of the world.  

So, to recap: On that first Christmas, Jesus was born in one of the last places you’d expect… to some of the least likely parents… and was greeted by people you’d think would be the last to know or care.  

I could spend a loooong time waxing on about the significance of that first Christmas and what it means to us today, but you know what?  More than anything else I just want you to hear the story tonight, as if for the first time, and to join me in wonder and awe.  Think of this as me saying “Whoa!” to you.

Sorry, guys ...

Hi, everyone. It has been months since I posted anything and for that I apologize - I have been greatly distracted by a number of life events but hope to get back to doing some writing soon. In the meantime, the little family is doing well and the boys are fabulous. If you need proof:

The soccer ones are from a program called Top Soccer, for kids with special needs. Each kid is matched with 1 or 2 primary "helpers" who all appear to be high-school age, or maybe older-middle-school. There are not games, per se, but lots of running around and kicking the ball, and hey, that's the fun part of soccer anyway, so why not? David really loved it. The other photos are from this past summer (yeah, it's been a long time ... again, sorry) - a quick trip up to Washington DC and another to see friends in Wilmington NC. In David's individual beach picture, in case you can't tell, he's holding back the waves and saying, "no, no, no!" In Simon's beach photo, he is simply looking cool. 

More writing to come .... 

Various Readings - Dead Pets

I mentioned the recent death of our cat, Chicken, in my last post. I've gotten numerous messages of support on facebook - I didn't realize quite how many people had met her over the years, but what with the leg-licking thing I mentioned in the other post, she tended to make an impression - a wet, gross impression, but still (also, she was very sweet and cute and affectionate, so ... ). I also didn't realize how many folks had taken care of her for us, when we were out of town. We will probably get another cat sometime (Simon really wants a dog, but I am simply not up for it), but I think I will enjoy a break from scooping cat litter for awhile, and maybe I'll manage to get rid of some of the Chicken fur that has accumulated on every surface, before we make any moves toward another pet.

This is the first pet death that Simon has been through. We had another cat, Cat Stevens (we usually called him Steven), who died when Simon was about 18 months old, so he doesn't remember that. We've read a number of books and whatnot about it, so I hope this is helpful for other parents:

1. City Dog, Country Frog by Mo Willems. We know Willems from his books about Trixie and Knuffle Bunny, and this is definitely a different tone. This is a wonderful book, and it is about animals but you could use it to talk about any death. It made me cry the first couple of times we read it, when Simon was younger, and I definitely cried when we read it this time around, last week. It does have a good message about death being a part of life, not something to be afraid of, and that we miss people/animals when they're gone, but we go on living. Nice.

Matt is going to loan "our" copy (it's a library book) to another family at David's preschool, because their little boy evidently has had a lot of questions lately. The preschool is the basement of the Quaker meeting house with which it is affiliated, and the cemetery is just on the other side of the small parking lot. One day this kiddo and his mom were coming down the steps behind us, and I heard the boy asking his mom about the cemetery, and who is there, and when people die. His mom replied that most people die when they are quite old, and then the boy asked how "they" (the dead people) get to the cemetery. His mom replied that someone takes them there, and of course the boy then asked who, and his mom replied, "All the people who love them," which sounded just beautiful to me.

2. Goodbye, Mog by Judith Kerr. This is the last (obviously) in a series of books about Mog the Forgetful Cat. We had the original Mog book when we were growing up, I suppose I didn't realize there were any others until (this is one of Joanna's few "la-do-da" moments in life, so listen up) Matt and I were in Blackwell's Books in Oxford (yes, England, not Mississippi) and I saw several of them lined up on display. There's Mog's Bad Thing (which is yes, peeing in places other than the litter box), and Goodbye Mog, and I don't know how many others, but those are the two I bought. I was in the middle of this world-famous bookstore, nearly weeping in the children's section.

So we read this to the boys at bedtime, on the day Chicken died (she passed away early in the morning; she had been really really sick and I kind of thought she would die sometime that night, and ... yeah, she'd been coughing and hacking and making throwing-up sounds and I was trying to comfort her and not succeeding and then she just --- stopped). It is a little confusing, especially from our theological perspective, but I still really like it. The book starts off saying that Mog was old and tired, "dead tired," and that she wanted to go to sleep, so she did. That makes me slightly nervous because when a person dies you're not supposed to say "it's like they're sleeping" and when discussing plans for Chicken the day before, I'd been careful not to say that she might have to be "put to sleep" but used the big word "euthanized" instead. And then, most of Mog (leaves) but "a little bit stayed behind to see what would happen." This was a translucent sketch of Mog, that the family couldn't see, and at first I described it as "like a ghost" but then switched to "like an angel." Mog was really worried that the family would not be able to get along without her, and then when they got a new kitten it appeared to be the "wrong sort of kitten" that would not fit in. But the kitten can see the ghost/angel Mog, and so Mog teaches her what to do, and once the kitten gets the hang of it and Mog is convinced the family will be okay, she goes "up and up and up and straight into the sun."

Which brings us to the third story:

3. Rainbow Bridge - not a book, but a story, that was included with the little carved wooden box that came with Chicken's ashes. I'd never had a pet cremated before, and the whole experience was pretty nice. Now with a name like "Rainbow Bridge" there's no way this is not going to be the cheesiest, sappiest story in the world, and it was sort of, but I liked it. According to this little story, when a pet dies, they go to this sort of place of limbo, where they and all these other pets are frolicking about and having a great time, until their owner dies, and when the owner comes along, s/he and the pet go across this Rainbow Bridge together, to Heaven.

(Isn't that nice? I think it's a sweet idea). In our family I do tend to defer (but not submit, dammit) to Matt on most theological issues, as he is more, uh, learned. But on the subject of, "do pets go to heaven?" I laid down the law to Matt that our answer, when/if that question is asked, will be, "Yes." Because (a) who the hell knows? not me (I think that'a a Holden Caufield-ism), and (b) Simon is six (practically seven) and it is not going to hurt one tiny thing on earth if he (rightly or wrongly) believes that his dead cat is in heaven. Later in life he can make up his own mind, but I'm thinking that for now, this is a totally harmless thing to believe .... look, this kiddo already knows that all the little kids who died at Sandy Hook are in Heaven, and the people who died at the Boston Marathon bombing are in Heaven, etc. If he wants to think the cat is in Heaven, and it brings him some comfort, then by all means the cat is in Heaven.

Someone at our church, after reading my last post, recommended Will I See My Dog in Heaven?, written by a Franciscan friar who appears to believe the answer to that question is a resounding "Yes." My fellow (sister) church member says he backs this up pretty solidly, he's not just saying it because it feels good. I've not had a chance to check it out yet - maybe I'll make Pastor Matt read it first?

So I'm still thinking about Chicken the Cat just about every day, I'm still being reminded of her frequently, and when I do I'm sad and I miss her. She and I were together for a long time, and for a couple of years it was just the two of us. Simon is ready to get a new pet ... a parrot. I have actually always wanted a parrot, but I always had one or more cats, so ... but I am really hesitant to get anything that has a cage, because it stinks. I realize getting another cat means a stinky litter box (believe me, I know), but ... I don't know. We'll just have to see.

One more photo of Chicken. The white curve at the bottom of the photo is my pregnant-with-David belly; she's sitting on my lap and this are my blue pajama pant legs under her. All the Sesame Street figurines are from the Greatest Toy Ever, a Christmas present for Simon

when he was 1, maybe, from Aunt Tara, and either  Simon or David played with it Every.Single.Day for about four years straight.Unbelievable. And we still have just about all the "characters,"

as we have called them, which is even more unbelievable. 

:)

A double referral, of sorts

Steering you to my other blog, and then having almost nothing original to say ... 

http://joannatheexcitedwriter.blogspot.com

you.are.welcome

Surprising Joy, and Chicken

Part 1

I've meant to write this post for quite awhile, just haven't gotten around to much since I started my new job in January. I'm loving the job (part-time outpatient mental health therapist), but ever since I began working there has seemed to be one mini-crisis after another - mainly, lots of missed school days for the boys due to the weather. Pastor Matt has been wonderful in accommodating me being the "new kid" at work and making sure I could work if at all possible, which means he took care of the boys A LOT. Now that Spring finally seems to have really arrived, perhaps our family life will be a little calmer and I can get back to doing some writing - I have missed it, and it occurred to me last week that I've barely touched the "book" idea since we moved last summer.

We recently celebrated David's fourth birthday; I turn 39 (!) this weekend, then Simon will be 7 and Matt, 38, all in the next month. David continues to do quite well in his preschool; we're thinking we'll need to make a change for the summer and/or fall to something that offers a more full-day program, because we love his preschool but the fact that it lets out at 3:15 is a complicating factor for us. Simon will finish up the first grade soon; he has loved attending the after-school program since I started work, and he's signed up for the summer program that is basically 9 - 6 the entire summer, with lots of activities and field trips. I feel a little (   ) bad about having him in camp/school pretty much every day of summer break, but I recall that when we moved last summer and we didn't really have anything lined up for either boy ... it.was.a.nightmare.  I joked that once I found work, we were going to establish the Simon Dean Summer Camp 2014 Savings Fund and that he was going to go to camp Every Single Day, so I suppose I have gotten that wish. It's pricey, but to have it all worked out/arranged is worth it, I think. David will likely attend the summer program at his preschool, and we'll continue to work out picking him up every afternoon, but then maybe for the Fall we'll find a full-day daycare or preschool.

The title of this post comes from something that happened ... awhile back? A couple of months ago, probably? Is that how long I've been meaning to write this? ... There was some sort of mix-up with the child care provider for our Thursday night contemporary service at church, and so I ended up playing with David the whole time in the church nursery. He simply cannot be maintained in a church service, especially one when his Daddy is preaching, so I didn't even try. Normally this would be a stress-inducing experience, but we had so much fun - much more fun than I would've had sitting in the service without him. Here's some of what we did:

And here are some more (semi-) recent photos:

Part 2

One sad note - the cat I've had for about 15 years, Chicken, died a couple of weeks ago. She was old, obviously, and had been slowing down for awhile, slowing down more the past month and much

more so the last week. She seemed to have trouble walking and we were going to take her

to the vet, though I knew what the recommendation would be. But she died at home the 

morning before the appointment and we had her cremated. I've never done that before; growing up 

in the middle of the woods we always buried pets out in the woods, but it was a nice

experience. We got the ashes back in a nice little carved wooden box, and a card with a quote

and a little story professing that pets DO go to heaven, that dead pets exist in some sort of 

really nice pet limbo until their owners die and then you and the pet go to heaven together. 

I know Matt thinks this is total hooey, but it's a nice story.

This is Miss Chicken, as she was also known ("Pretty Girl" was another nickname)

at Christmas at our house in Cashiers. She was a very pretty cat, very soft fur, and her little face

was just always very clean and pretty and white. I got her when I lived alone in graduate

school, and for a couple of years it was she and I against the world, sort of. I've had her longer

than I've had Matt - when Matt & I met he was actually allergic to cats (I had two of them then, Cat 

Stevens died a few years ago) but I apparently made it clear they weren't going anywhere, and 

eventually the dander didn't bother him any more.

This is Chicken and Simon - how old was he, goodness? Maybe 18 months? If you are wondering

what Chicken is doing, she's not doing a routine bath. She was abandoned as a kitten and does

(did, frown) this wool-sucking thing that the vet called "wooling," that is common in kittens who

weren't weaned appropriately. A lot of cats do it to wool sweaters or broom straws, but as this girl

was abandoned near some train tracks there were neither of those things around, so she 

just sort of nursed on her thigh. Or, when she was younger it was her thigh, as you can see in this photo she has gotten on a bit in years, is less flexible, and is sort of doing it to her side. Most

cats outgrow it, but this one did not. She did it pretty much every single day of her life. You could predict that whenever she sat down in your lap and started to purr, she would do it, and

even I have to admit it was kind of ... gross. She'd do it for an hour if you let her

(and no, I never really tried to do much about it), and that's a lot of wet cat thigh

to then brush up against you. Ah, Miss Chicken. You were a wonderful

companion, and I miss you a lot.

Darkness and Light: Bittersweet and Incomplete, a Year Later

Note: This was supposed to be published around Christmastime, 

so when I say "now" or "last week" or whatever, that's the time frame. 

(This is lengthy. And sad. Probably not for the casual reader)

Part One: Some Backstory

The faithful readers among you (God bless you, even I get tired of reading my stuff after awhile) will recall that this time of year was not very good for me last year - the general joy of the season was overshadowed by the fact that I had miscarried a twin pregnancy in June (2012), and the due date had been Christmas Eve. I wrote about the miscarriage here and here; I talked about last Christmas Eve here, so I won't do that again, but feel free to read them if you'd like. In the Christmas Eve post, I wrote I expected that last year would be the worst, this one would be a little better and next year better than this, etc. I didn't anticipate that this year would be … what, exactly? … not as bad as last year, but worse than I thought it would be:

I don't know how common it is to talk about the contrast of light and dark during the season of Advent, and though I suppose there's a lot about Jesus being "the light of the world," I don't remember it being discussed as specifically as it has been this year, at our church - one Sunday it was back-to-back, Sunday School and then the sermon (not Matt's, our senior pastor's) on the same Bible verses without our SS class purposely following a curriculum that aligns with the pastor's. 

In Sunday School, we read some passages from Isaiah 60, John 1 and 2 Corinthians 11. The study materials asked if any of us had ever experienced complete and total darkness, like when you are deep in a cave and turn out your headlamp, or an interior room in a building with no windows or lights. I've never been in a cave at all, I don't believe, but the times I've been in the most (literal) darkness, my main feeling was one of disorientation - how in the world do you know where you are, when you have no idea where anything else is? When you can't even see your hand in front of your face, how do you find your way out? If you move, how do you know you won't fall off a cliff or something and be in even worse shape? Ah, metaphor. The phrase, "I was in a dark place" is somewhat overused in my circle of people, but I think it's accurate here - the miscarriage was about the darkest place I have ever been in, the worst I have ever felt, as if I was in that cave all by myself. I didn't know how to get out, I was so sad and scared out of my mind and really didn't understand anything or know what was going on. 

In the Belasara song mentioned in last Xmas Eve's post, there's a line in the chorus that says, "and honestly, there's a part of me, that just wants to go to sleep" … when I saw my therapist about a month after the miscarriage, she asked if I had experienced any suicidal thoughts. I hadn't; I've been through a few bouts of major depression in the past 10 years but even at its worst, I cried a lot and felt hopeless a lot, but never considered anything like that. And that was still true even after the most physically and emotionally painful experience of my life - I told her I'd had some vague thoughts of, I want to be with the babies, but from what I'd read that's really typical so I wasn't worried about it, and she agreed … I believe there is a Heaven (not too big on the concept of Hell, though) and I suppose I basically believe we all go there when we die, but please don't press me for details on the "whether too-tiny-to-see miscarried fetuses go to heaven" issue - I still have no real, definite thoughts on that.

As far as moving from darkness to light, goodness knows there are tons of examples, but for whatever reason the first thing I thought about was the story Bedtime for Frances by Russell Hoban. We love all the Frances books, and so do the boys. Matt didn't read them growing up - I guess they are sort of more for girls, but now that he's met the little badger family he loves the parenting lessons they incidentally provide. Anyway, in Bedtime for Frances, as you can likely guess little Frances is coming up with every possible tactic to delay going to bed - forgot to brush her teeth, wants a drink of water, etc. At some point Frances sees what she believes to be a giant lurking in her room, and runs to tell her parents. After her parents send her back to her room, Frances confronts the giant and realizes it is only the silhouette of her bathrobe, tossed over a chair. So the light shows us that what we thought we were justified in being afraid of, isn't so bad after all. 

Part Two: The Scriptural References:

Isaiah chapter 60: (a vision of Israel's future): (1) Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you … (4) Life up your eyes and look around; they all gather together, they come to you; your sons shall come from far away, and your daughters shall be carried on their nurses' arms. (5) Then you shall see and be radiant; your heart shall thrill and rejoice … (8) Who are these that fly like a cloud, and like doves to their windows? (9) For the coastlands shall wait for me, the ships of Tarshish first, to bring your children from far away … (19) The sun shall no longer be your light by day, nor for brightness shall the moon give light to you by night; but the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory. (20) Your sun shall no more go down, or your moon withdraw itself; for the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your days of mourning shall be ended. 

(Gospel of) John chapter 1: (1) In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (2) He was in the beginning with God (3) All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being (4) in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. (5) The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it … (9) The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world … (14) And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth. 

2nd Corinthians chapter 4: (1) Therefore, since it is by God's mercy that we are engaged in this ministry, we do not lose heart. (2) We have renounced the shameful things that one hides/ we refuse to practice cunning or to falsify God's word; but by the open statement of the truth we commend ourselves to the conscience of everyone in the sight of God. (3) And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. (4) In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God … (8) We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; (9) persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed … (16) So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. (17) For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen in temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal. 

So (refer to the page, "Selfish Scriptural Interpretation" for more instances of me applying Bible verses that are really about Egypt or Israel or whatever and turning it into a personal message to me) … this makes me feel a little better. And it might help me refine my answer to the Heaven question. 

Part Three: Pretty Bird

So here's something - for all three pregnancies, Matt and I have used birds as a symbol. I think this started during my pregnancy with Simon, when Matt found some stickers in this really nice stationery store in DC, of birds and eggs and nests - no, Matt is just reminding me it started when he suggested referring to our as-yet-unborn awesome son as "Tweet" (this was before Twitter was, you know, everything). I did not care for Tweet (we went with my original idea, Little Person or LP, which I came up with about 2 minutes after I finished my positive pregnancy test - oh, there's a little person in there), but I did stick with the Mama Bird idea. Then we chose birth announcements with two parent birds and one baby bird, and a similar one for David's, as well as bird decals for Simon's nursery.

And when we found out about this pregnancy Matt got me this for my birthday:

When I put it up originally there was just one little birdie in the cage; we didn't know about the twin part until after the miscarriage had already started. The image shifted for me, from one birdie who was waiting to get out, to two that would never be getting out. I moved the decals upstairs to my desk and took them down when we moved - i haven't put them back up yet, partly because our spare room/office is in such disarray we don't know where everything will go yet. Matt got me some new ones for Christmas with the idea that I might not want to put the old ones back up; I get that but I haven't decided yet one way or another. I have a little memory box I made; there's not a whole lot in it except the little pajamas … I have resisted really doing much with it, like I was going to take the DVD of the ultrasound and print out a photo, but I haven't had the courage to actually look at the images yet. It's not …. it's not what you are likely thinking; the pregnancy technically lasted 12 weeks but all that was visible was the egg sacs (yolk sacs?) - one egg had been fertilized but then didn't grow or develop at all, and the other only developed a tiny bit and then stopped. So "nothing resembling a fetus" was what the ultrasound tech said; just tissue and blood (God, there was so much blood). 

Matt and I both love Jenny Lewis, and these are the lyrics to her song "Pretty Bird", on the album Acid Tongue. Take a listen here:

Pretty bird, pretty bird
why you so still?
pretty bird, pretty bird
we've been waiting on you

(chorus)

you go west for the black setting sun
you go south to the white spirit of earth
you go east for those real green eyes
you go for north, walk the good red road

pretty bird
there's a mirror in heaven
pretty bird, pretty bird
there's a window on earth

(chorus) 

some pity me
ooh pity me yeah
stars pity me for
the blood of the pretty
the blood of the pretty
the blood of the pretty
bird

pretty bird, pretty bird
we're starving you still

(chorus)

Disclaimer: I do not know what this song is actually supposed to be about. When I tried to find out, a commenter on the song lyrics page said she'd heard Jenny Lewis say that it was about a story she heart on public radio about a woman being raped on an Indian reservation … if that's the case I apologize for co-opting it for my own purposes, but if you know me I don't hesitate to use Bible verses to suit my own purposes (see above), so pretty much everything else is fair game too.

Part Four: Finishing Up

I started this blog about our family to possibly help anyone out there who has a child (or has received a prenatal diagnosis) with Down syndrome or some other "special need" - when we initially learned this was a possibility for David, we sought as much information as we could, and hearing from parents who had faced similar issues was helpful for the most part. It also helped me to write everything - to try to order it in some logical way so that others might understand it, and so I might understand it better myself. The same has held true for my pregnancy loss - visiting sites like cafemom.com was mostly helpful; I didn't identify with everyone but generally it was good to know that many women had the same emotional struggle, some of them multiple times. So I hope that if you or someone you know has had a miscarriage and is looking for support, that at least some of what I'm saying makes sense and is perhaps of some comfort. 

I didn't share the feelings related to the light/dark issue with Matt immediately; I didn't bring it up until (some time? I don't remember how long) later. After I told him that I was feeling sad again ("sad" is really the best word, sometimes the simplest is the best), I asked him if he ever thinks about the miscarriage any more. His reply was to the effect of, "from time to time," and he seemed genuinely surprised when I said, "I think about it, to one degree or another, every day." I don't mean to make my dear husband sound insensitive; I think this is the individual/private nature or pregnancy loss, that no one can really understand how the woman feels, and there is a sex/gender gap that is likely impossible to bridge - guys don't know what it feels like to be pregnant in the first place, and though they can see you are going through physical agony and emotional hell, they simply can't grasp the helplessness you feel as you realize something is slipping away from you and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. 

I do still think about it every day, but as I said to Matt, some days it is truly a passing thought and it's usually only if there is a specific pregnancy/baby/miscarriage-related reminder on TV, in a magazine, or online I don't usually think about it in any great depth, and I rarely cry about it, though I am a little right now. 

I don't know if the due date of Christmas Eve means I am any more sad than I would be otherwise - any time late in the year would be the holiday season, and I'm sure I would feel about as bad if the due date were October 14th or November 8th or whatever. But at Christmas there sure is a lot of talk about the baby Jesus, and that Advent is a time of "Joyful Expectation." Last week we had a guest pastor at our midweek contemporary service, and she talked a lot (A LOT) about the baby the baby the baby that is coming. I happen to like this pastor a lot- she is young and smart and lovely and a great person, but I was REALLY READY FOR HER TO STOP TALKING ABOUT "THE BABY." I was ready for her to move to a more theological standpoint, that Christmas is not so much about The Baby, it is about the Incarnation of our Savior, about God coming to earth to live among us as a human being. But I suppose I'm not going to get very far with that wish - folks will talk about it, but Christmas is about the birth and Joseph/Mary/shepherds/Wise Men/star/etc., and there's no getting away from that. 

(General grumpiness Joanna really can't explain - I really don't like talking to 

kids about Christmas in terms of "Jesus' birthday." 

Yes, it is celebrating the day he was born and yes, 

that is your birthday, but I think singing Happy Birthday to Jesus 

and having birthday cake and all is a little too much. I know this is generally harmless

 and I get it - this is something kids can relate to. 

But kids can also apparently relate to SpongeBob, and that's not anything

 I want to spend a lot of time talking about, either).

As always I will try to end on a somewhat lighter note: Simon was talking about Jesus' birthday and what we could give him as presents. I was trying to bring us around to, hey why not behave as Jesus would want us to behave (unselfish, kind, yadda yadda) and say prayers for other people and not just ourselves and that's probably what Jesus would like best. Simon was still stuck on the idea of a physical present (see, this is what happens … ) and I said to Matt yeah, it always sucks when your birthday is on Christmas 'cause you get all the lousy presents that are "for both days." So, thinking about Jesus as the first victim of a Christmas birthday made me smile. Please note, this is Joanna's thought, not Pastor Matt's. 

I have, I think, seen only one episode of the HBO series Oz. It premiered when I was in college and I remember catching it when I was home on break or a weekend. One episode of a show, 16 years ago, and every time I hear Genesis chapter 1, this is what I think of: 

• Augustus Hill: "And God said, let there be light, and there was light. But, that's easy for God to say, he was God. But for the rest of us, finding the light takes time. A lifetime."

And looking it up to get it right, I came across tons of other Oz quotes that are relevant to the matter at hand (light/dark/seeing God) but this entry is already way too long so I'll just send you to the website: tv.com:  http://www.tv.com/shows/oz/gods-chillin-61317/

And I'm really okay, just sad right now. :)

I Am Not Ashamed, But Maybe You Should Be - Part 5

(IANABMYSB: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four)

I recently read a lovely little story on NPR's website about the prohibitive cost of diapers for low-income families, the resulting health issues for the babies and toddlers, and a nationwide network of diaper banks, where folks in need can get diapers free. To read the article, click here - it's really pretty short. 

(Again, this is why I am not allowed to read comment threads). A couple of folks seemed to really get what I would consider to be the "point" of the article, that this is a need, we all complain about how much diapers cost but for some folks it is huge deal, and it's nice that there are folks out in the world who are trying to address the need. One person in particular said yes, cloth diapers are really ideal but folks may not realize that even in difficult circumstance it is possible to wash them, and perhaps we can more toward educating people. A few took the opportunity to vilify disposable diapers. 

And, this was the first comment to follow the piece, and it had 9 "thumbs up" votes. I have deleted the author's name from this post, but it's right there on the npr.org site for all the world to see. I will hereafter refer to her as "the Lady," because I'm really trying to write this without any profanity. All I can say is, I'm glad I do not know this Lady, I'm glad she is not my mother or my sister or my friend: 

(emphasis near the end: that's mine)

 

• 2 days ago

"As young parents, my spouse and I were quite poor. We were graduate students, lived in the country in a tiny rental house because it's what we could afford. We grew our own food and made our own baby food, etc. etc. Before having our first baby, we accumulated a large enough supply of cloth diapers and received a diaper pail as a gift. We maintained the soiled diapers and diaper pail in accordance with sanitary practices which we took time to learn about and practice. That pail was extremely heavy by the time it was necessary for me to drive the 15 miles each way into town after loading the heavy pail full of wet diapers into the car, the baby and baby equipment, to the Laundromat. I washed the diapers at the laundromat but rarely dried them there. I would load them into a clean receptacle and load the (still heavy but now clean) diapers into the car and drive us back out to our rental spot which had a clothesline outside. There, in all seasons, I would hang the diapers outside to dry. It was all difficult, labor intensive work and required planning ahead and conscientiousness - but those are just a couple of the many important qualities necessary for being a good and responsible parent. My own parents were always very poor. They had five children. My mother would never, ever have re-used a soiled diaper. She would have stayed up at night and hand-washed diapers if need be. There were times when we couldn't afford "feminine hygiene products" and we would use cloth and laundry and labor! This report is just absurd and reflects a kind of helpless, hapless, dependent, irresponsible, whining point of view and probably describes people who should not BE parents at all. Life is not for the lazy and parenting is not for the helpless."

whoo …. …. …. goodness knows I read a lot of crazy stuff online, but I think my mouth was actually hanging open by the end of this. Even a day later I'm at a bit of a loss for words. But here are some. Matt said, "I'm glad her hardscrabble upbringing has led her to be so judgmental." I say:

(Did you also walk 10 miles each way to school and back every day, uphill both ways, in a snowstorm as my Grandpa did? That's kind of what this sounds like)

Since we are talking about mamas and cloth diapers, let me throw my two cents in. When I was about 2 years old, my family was living in a small apartment in a small city. My dad worked his construction job during the day and then went to the plot of land they'd found to build our house in the evening. We ended up moving into the house earlier than planned, before all the indoor plumbing was completed; I believe this is because a super-creepy neighbor in the apartment building was bothering my mom a lot. So when we moved in we had a well with a pump, and an outhouse (suck on that, Lady, we had no indoor plumbing). This meant little to me as I was still in diapers and I have no memory of it, but I'm sure the other members of the family (mom, dad, older brother) were relieved when that was alleviated. It was a long time before we had a washer and even longer for a dryer. My mom, too, schlepped (although this is rural North Carolina, so probably "carried" is better) a stinking pail of diapers to the Laundromat week after week, and we still didn't have a washer long enough that I can remember packing a lunchbox and going with her, so I'm assuming that meant my little sister, who arrived when I was almost 3, was in cloth as well. And, my parents grew a lot of our food, and my mom canned everything she could, and she sewed a lot of our clothing and between her various skills and my dad's, they managed to keep us fed on little money.

And  you know what? My mother would DIE (I mean, she's deceased already, but go with it) - she would absolutely kill herself and die, before she used any of those details to make some other mother feel like crap because they did any of those things differently, much less because they used disposable diapers. She would never ever ever have used any of her life story and choices to imply that the way she did it was better, that everyone should do it that way, or that other choices were somehow "less than." 

Life is not for the lazy and parenting not for the helpless, indeed. Jesus H. Christ - what in the world is that, Lady? We ("we" being "reasonable people") are talking about two pretty specific things here, diapers and how much they cost. I'm glad you have some sort of forum where you can air your superiority, because I can't imagine a person sitting and listening to you actually speaking your point of view for very long, because … it sucks. Sorry, I have a graduate education and a huge vocabulary, but sometimes the simplest phrase is the best. You may be a fine person but you are coming across as a total jerk, and apparently at least a few people agree with you to some extent.

So there are a couple issues here, and because it's me I'll go one by one:

1. Cloth vs. disposable diapers (this is the smokescreen issue here, but it is an issue): I've told you about my mother, Lady, now let me tell you about myself. I am the mother of two small boys, and we used cloth diapers on the older one for the first year. We chose this because we, too, are concerned about the impact of disposables on the environment, and cloth does feel more natural and the boy had hardly any diaper rash whatsoever. But, and, we used a diaper service because we lived in a hippie/yuppie environmentally friendly apartment building and several other families used the same service, and we had the money to do it. Because I worked 45 - 50 hours a week, and my dear husband was working and taking care of the baby 4 days a week, and I was pumping breast milk and there was plenty of laundry anyway, and … yeah. I didn't need the additional hassle.

And my second son? Let me tell you about him; he is the inspiration for this blog. He's now 3 and 1/2 and is doing splendidly, but he was in the NICU for 3 months and had to have open-heart surgery at age 4 months and had a million doctors' appointments and tons of medications and supplemental oxygen and we were exhausted and scared and if some uppity … other mother … had approached me at any point and suggested I "really should be using cloth," I quite possibly would've punched her in the face until she fell down, kicked her until she was unconscious, and perhaps then suffocated her with a Boppy breastfeeding pillow until she was dead. Yes, really. And before someone says, well, that's different, I'm going to go ahead and say, you do not appreciate the crushing stress that chronic, severe poverty can create. And Lady, please don't cite being poor in graduate school because you know everyone's poor in grad school, right? 

Disposable diapers are a modern convenience, one of many. If I were this kind of person, I might ask why you got to use the Laundromat - why weren't you in the creek out back, pounding the little jokers on rocks? That'd be real mothering. There are lots of good things that come with modern parenthood, like cribs your baby won't strangle in and better car seats and carbon monoxide detectors … and diapers that, when they are full of poop, can be folded up and thrown away. 

And, Sister/Lady, we moms and women need to stick together, not turn on one another over something as silly as this. Don't you know that whenever you denigrate one woman "doing it the easy way" and hold up the old-fashioned as the ideal, you're taking us back to when this kind of crap wasn't a choice - it was our duty by virtue of being born XX that we got to spend every waking moment taking care of someone else. 

2. So here's the "But Maybe You Should Be" part:

Lady, you seem to be an absolutely unkind person, and probably not just on this particular subject but on the general subject of what makes someone a good person who deserves to be happy and raise children. At least one other person commented that the solution to not being able to afford diapers is, "maybe don't have children you can't afford." I can't … I can't even really begin to thoroughly address this, I don't know where to start with y'all. There's one idea of, who the hell can afford kids? I mean, really, they are expensive and yes there's the concept of relative poverty and women in lesser-developed countries raise multiple babies and they breastfeed and use cloth diapers because there aren't really any other options for them, but that's not what we're talking about, right? We are talking about judgment and superiority and security/insecurity in the choices you.have.made, not really about the choices any other parent makes. 

Congrats to you, Sister, that you did all this back-breaking work and successfully raised your kid in this particular way. You need to be validated in what you have done, you need to feel it was not just the better choice but obviously the only correct choice, because otherwise … it was all for nothing, right? You coulda gone the easy route with the exact same results, so obviously what you did Has To Matter.  You are obviously A Good Parent.  Congratulations! But you understand that (a) there are approximately 100 million other ways to be a good parent, and (b) even if you are the World's Greatest Mom (you know if you got a coffee mug that said that, it's not real, right? It's not an actual award? :) ), please hear me: that does not make you a better person than someone else. That does not make your life worth more. That does not make God love you any more than Poor Parent with Disposable Diapers X. We are all the same, that's the great thing about living in the United States and/or believing in God, if you do - we are equal in the eyes of the law and God. 

We are all afraid, and a lot of us are afraid all the time. Once you have kids, and you hold a tiny fragile newborn, or an adopted older child with a nightmare history in your arms, it's a long time (if ever) that you feel 100% relaxed again. We make a million decisions about our kids (breastfeeding, immunizations, education, religion and yes, diapering) and ourselves (career, whether to move, how to manage money) and sometimes it turns out horribly and sometimes it turns out awesome and most of the time it's somewhere in between, but really in the end we are just sending the kiddos out into the world every day on a wing and a prayer, hoping like hell they don't get sick or hurt and that they learn how to make good decisions and we do all we can and then realize, shoot, it's not all up to me/them. 

Sometimes the world just does horrible things to you and ultimately, there is sometimes not one single thing you can do about it. Being "a good and responsible parent" is difficult to argue with, but (again) - a - there are lots of different ways to do that and - b -  it is still not a guarantee. God, I wish it were. I wish there were some formula by which you could chose Option A + Option B + Option C and that all equals a kid who is going to complete college and have a career and be a productive American taxpayer, and chances are pretty good that they'll do all that to some measure. But they might not. They might end up with a mental illness or substance abuse problem or do something stupid and go to jail or they might end up getting shot in the face in the first grade a couple of weeks before Christmas - and none of that says anything about anything, other than that "life sucks, sometimes, and terrible things happen." Life is not for the lazy and parenting is not for the helpless. God, what a heartless person you seem to be. 

The reason my Mom was so super-non-judgmental? Something pretty sucky happened to her, when she got pregnant in 1967 at the age of 16. She was treated so poorly and judged so harshly that I think it became sort of her life's work to do the opposite. She was kicked out of high school though she was a straight A student and cheerleader; the father of the baby (my half-brother) was allowed to continue because, well, life in fact is not fair sometimes and though I would contend was as fully responsible as my mom for creating the situation, this was 1967 and he would not be "showing." 

It was only thanks to an understanding school counselor that my mom was allowed to finish high school by correspondence. Her parents eventually kicked her out of the house, they reconciled at some point but in between she was basically all on her own. She eventually worked her way through college and met and married my dad. So she Pulled Herself Up by her Bootstraps, yay! And guess what? Again, she would never hold herself up as some success story, especially if it meant the fact that she ultimately succeeded was used in some way to make some other teen mom (or anyone, for that matter) feel they had to do the same thing. 


My mom and I didn't have many conversations about this experience, but I know the difficulty she encountered was the reason she always immediately called us out for criticizing other people. And I can say with virtually 100% confidence that if you held her and her Pulling Herself Up and her cloth diapers and sewing Halloween costumes and all that up as an example? She would say, "Yes, I did that. But it was so hard, and I was sad and alone and stressed most of the time, and I would've loved some help." She would never use herself as the reason why someone else should be treated, or spoken of, or even thought of, unkindly. So put that in your pipe and smoke it, Lady. I'm tired of talking to you.