Sour Grapes

One of the things that I pride myself on as a pastor/parent is that I take the time to prepare my son for worship - pointing out to him changes or additions in the sanctuary that indicate something new or different will be happening in worship, making sure that he has his own bulletin and hymnal so that he can fully participate in worship with his father and I, even pointing out to him things that I think are strange or weird in worship, helping him recognize our worship habits or by noticing when we stray from them.

Preparing children for special worship and for the sacraments is something that I have written about before, and I have an especially favorite and popular post encouraging parents to prepare their children to participate in Ash Wednesday worship services. But sometimes I worry that my selective sharing of the benefits of worshipping with children, and my thoughtful essays on children in worship, might give the impression that our worship life as a family is full of success and only the rare frustration. 

This is not the case. at. all. 

You are not a Bad Person. You are Just a Person. The Problem of Sin.

Last night after a tearful recovery from an afternoon battle of wills, I asked my son if he could describe to me what exactly he thinks went wrong.

I feel like I am a problem you are trying to solve.

I am not sure if my response was all that helpful or appropriate, but I told him that actually he was right. He is my problem to solve. He is my child to teach. He is my person to raise and to shape into a helpful and thoughtful young man. 

I asked him if he wanted to be someone who is respectful and kind, and he quickly agreed that he does in fact want to be those things. And he often is. I told him that it is my job as his parent to teach him how to be those things. 

I asked him if he wants to be a patient person. He was less willing to concede to that one. He instead told me that he would like to be a person who doesn’t get bored so quickly. I will take what I can get. 

Beyond "Mothers" Bible Study

I should have seen it coming. 

A new friend asked me if I would be willing to help a woman at one of the churches we have been visiting to start up a new “Mothers” Bible study. They will be meeting in my neighborhood, so how could I say no?

“You don’t need to lead it, just support and encourage her as she leads it for this group of young mothers in the church and neighborhood.” 

On one level that sounded great: no responsibility, no preparation, just encouragement. 

And then she gave me the book that she wants to use with these new mothers. More on that in a moment.

I should pause and say that one of my favorite parts of my job as a pastor was leading and participating in Bible study with other women. Single generation, intergenerational, mothers, widows, wives, stay at home moms, retired saints of the congregation - these all describe the different women and groups with which I was privileged to study scripture at one time or another during ten years of pastoral ministry. 

Over the course of so many years, it was inevitable that we used some books and curriculum that I was less than excited about, and even some that I regret using. But we all tried to keep the long view of study, remembering that this is a lifelong endeavor. We also tried to become more comfortable disagreeing in love with any given author/scholar, and with each other.

But the curriculum (written to be used by groups of women) that I had just agreed to be encouraging of is a few ticks past where I would typically draw the line. Admittedly I have not read it cover to cover, but I did spend one evening reading the notes of inspiration that the author had placed in the margins. They included advice about reclaiming one’s virginal purity, making sure to let the guy make the first move in a relationship, and tackling the important work of submitting to my husband’s authority. 

Prayer for My Son on Martin Luther King Jr. Day

About two years ago, when our son was in Kindergarten, I remember lying in bed with him one night talking about celebrating Martin Luther King Day. We talked about who Dr. King was and how he wanted to make sure that all people were treated fairly. It seemed like we were on track for a good, Kindergarten-appropriate conversation.

My son’s class had studied Dr. King that week, and my son had learned that King had been a pastor. His teachers, knowing that I am a pastor, gave him the opportunity to share with the other students what a pastor is. I think my son was a little shocked to have learned of the great importance of this man, and then to have found out that his mother did the same job. He made sure to let me know that he was probably going to hold me to a higher standard than he had before; he started by asking me what I had done to celebrate Martin Luther King Day. “I went to work at church,” I told him. He was less than satisfied.

Women of Valor: Finding each other

A Review of Rachel Held Evans’s A Year of Biblical Womanhood

Before I finished college, but after I had decided to answer the call to professional ordained ministry, I wanted to find one last internship. This one would not be about getting ahead or securing a future job, but instead would be one that represented my values – ironically, the same motivation that led me to ministry.

I spent five months as an intern at the National Organization for Women in the spring of 1998. It was one of the most formative experiences of my college career. While there were many highlights, the most pivotal low point and educational moment came when the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinski scandal broke just weeks after I started in January. I was beyond impressed with the ways that NOW leadership were able to speak on this issue recognizing both that the President had been a fierce advocate for women’s rights on the one hand, and such a creep on the other.

Here Am I

Mother and Child I
Ruth Sinclair

In the warmth of the womb I met you,
And I called you to life
Through the love of man and wife;
In the warmth of the womb I met you
Saying, “Here am I.”

As a baby in arms I met you,
Wrapped in linen and care,
Watched and welcomed everywhere.
As I baby in arms I met you
Saying, “Here am I.”

In the tensions of youth I met you,
Whether shy or uncouth,
Always searching for the truth;
In the tensions of youth I met you,
Saying, “Here am I.”

In the quiet of your home I met you,
When the door opened wide
Strangers came and out went pride;
In the quiet of your home I met you,
Saying, “Here am I.”

And wherever you go I will meet you
Till you draw your last breath,
In the birthplace known as death,
Yes, wherever you go I will meet you,
Saying, “Here am I.”

John L. Bell and Graham Maule, from “Heaven Shall Not Wait”

I have sung this piece from the Iona Community in Scotland to my son every night since he was a little baby. Always hoping that a solid bedtime routine with a consistent pattern would help us to win the battle against (or with) sleep, I would sing it faithfully - and still do - to help him drift off into sleep.

God is a Tower of Mothers

When my son was maybe three years old, he told me one night while I was putting him to bed that God was a man during the day and a woman at night. I have previously written about this and about the children’s book that Ithink planted this image in his head. It was one of the most beautiful moments I have ever had with him - the kind of moment that makes for a really schlocky sermon illustration attempting to make the point that the older we get the further away we are from our instinctive understandings and experiences of God.

I knew pretty soon after (based on my experience talking with teenagers about God) that someday in the future he will have no memory of his radical theological statement, and will most likely answer any question I have for him about the gender of God with an indignant, “What? Oh yeah, right.” 

In Case of an Emergency - Put on Your Own Mask First

This summer my son took his first two plane rides. It was very exciting for him, and for a while I was bummed that I wouldn’t be doing it with him. But my work schedule meant that I would both arrive late and leave early from our extended family vacation on the west coast.

I was bummed, that is, until I was actually sitting in the plane. Then it turned out I was  relieved - not because of the hassle of traveling with a child, but because of a revelation I had during the review of the safety procedures.

Let me back up even further to say that last summer I took my child on his first roller coaster ride, in the very same roller coaster in which I took my first ride. I experienced a whole new level of fear when I felt for certain that the restraints on a ride that old (much older than me, even) certainly were not secure enough for my child; so I used my own hands and arms to hold him down, convinced that at any moment he would fly out of the seat.

I realized in that airplane that the same irrational fear had returned.

Puff the Magic Dragon and Other Things I Forgot to Teach My Child

Peter, Paul and Mary

A few weeks ago as I was putting my son to bed and singing him my regular repertoire of bedtime songs, I suggested that we throw some new ones into the mix, just to keep it interesting after seven years. (It is my fervent prayer that 8 year old boys do not need to be sung to sleep).

I casually said, “How about Puff the Magic Dragon?”  To which he replied, “I don’t know that one.” As I sang it to him, I began to wonder what else I had forgotten to teach him.

The Hunger Games: Epilogue – or, Why Modern Mothers Should See Themselves in Katniss Everdeen

I will confess that since first being introduced to Susan Collins’ young adult series about Katniss Everdeen and her dystopian world I have been mildly obsessed.

In the past three months I have read all three of the books (The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mocking Jay) twice, led a congregation-wide intergenerational book discussion on the series, and taken a group of high school students to see the film version of book one on opening weekend. I have plans to take our middle-schoolers (all of whom have read the books) to see the movie in a few weeks.

Almost all of the adults I have spoken with who have read the books describe their experience in the same way. We are captivated by the storytelling, the themes interwoven throughout the books, and the vivid descriptions of both horror and compassion.

My Monastery is a Minivan

When we purchased our new-to-us car two years ago, I was pleased to be able to convince my husband that it was not really a minivan. Let’s be honest, though; once he saw that it came with an aftermarket roof-rack perfect for skis or a canoe, he didn’t really care what it was or wasn’t. What was more difficult was convincing my then 4 year old son that the new car was not a trash can. Even with the installation of a seat back trash receptacle, it's a daily battle to keep snack wrappers and chewing gum off of the floor of my car.

In her collection of essays on encountering the divine in the daily life of a parent, psychologist, mother and practicing Catholic Denise Roy describes how she has come to understand her own minivan to be a divine space - that the regular hours she keeps in it are reminiscent of the calls to prayer in the life of a monastic, and that the fingerprint smudges and who knows what that cover the windows of her car are in fact just as illustrative as stained glass, through which the light of God can be reflected.

Our mothers' group read this book together a few years ago, and the collection is diverse enough in its examples that almost everyone was able to find some element or story to which they could relate. Probably most apt was her chapter-opening quote from British author Fay Weldon: “The greatest advantage of not having children must be that you can go on believing that you are a nice person. Once you have children, you realize how wars start.”