Nephews!

Here are some photos of my weekend with the family. My "little" nephews -- the four youngest of my 10 nephews -- are getting big and like to tell jokes with the word "poop" in them. What is it with little boys and their obsession with bodily functions? Hmmm.


Well, I humored them and laughed at their jokes. I tried to get pictures of them swinging, but ended up with lots of leg photos. That's okay, because I love little boy legs. They're all knobby kneed and puppy-like. And the green Crocks really rock....

Prayer request

Pray for Steven Curtis Chapman (Christian musician) and his family. Their youngest daughter, adopted from China, was hit and killed by a SUV driven by their son. I can't think of anything more tragic. Read about it here.

Steven Curtis Chapman and his family have adopted three daughters from China and have created a foundation that helps other families adopt.

Rich and Poor

After hearing last night about friends who recently received a financial windfall from the sale of a business, I've been thinking a lot about what it means to be rich and poor. Curiously, I haven't felt envious or jealous of my friends, although I have turned around in my mind the concept of having a large amount of money -- we could pay off debt, afford our adoption, feel more secure financially. Yes, it would be nice, I admit.

And I can't help but think how crazy life is. What will I say to my friends next time I seem them: "Congratulations! You deserve it!" But who deserves what in this world? If my friends "deserve" a windfall, does that follow that Ethiopian children I read about in the paper yesterday "deserve" to be starving?

Or would I say they are "blessed?" We throw around that term a lot in the Christian community, but what does it mean?

I am truly happy for my friends. Maybe they can live a little more comfortably and send their kids through college, and not have to worry about money.

But jealous or envious? No. And I don't mean this to sound holier-than-thou or self-righteous. But sometimes I think having a lot of money isn't really the gift that we make it out to be in our culture.

My all-time favorite sermon was given at Fourth Presbyterian Church by author and poet Kathleen Norris. In the sermon she talks about being rich and poor and quotes Psalm 62 that says "Do not set your heart on riches, even when they increase." And Psalm 49 reminds us that no amount of money will prevent our death, and states that "in their riches, people lack wisdom: they are like the beasts that go astray."

Norris goes on to say "In our riches, we lack wisdom. And we often seem to need hardship to bring us to our senses..... The theme of wealth and poverty is reflected throughout scripture. The conclusion is this: God upsets our apple carts, the precious idols of the status quo. That which we see as rich and powerful and wise God exposes as foolish and weak; that which we despise as poor and unworthy is treasured by God as a pearl of great price.

"For God knows," Norris continues, "that when we think of ourselves as self-sufficient in our riches, we are truly poor. Our lives wither away, and in our desperation for control, we stunt the lives of others, even those closest to us -- our parents, mates, and children. But when we come to know ourselves as we really are: weak and unfortunate creatures who need the love of God and other people, it is then that we are rich."

Despite my tiny bank accounts and annoying debt and frustration over our adoption moving slowly because of our finances, I truly feel rich right now. In this hardship I feel humbled and totally dependent on the love of God and those around me. And I feel something shifting in me, in the deepening of my character, in my relationship with David, in my trust in God. In my tiredness and discouragement, something feels deep and rich and full. As Kathleen Norris says, "I feel myself -- my weak, weary, and withered self -- to be every bit as rich as a queen."

How to entertain yourself when you're trying to save money.

David and I have been watching lots of DVDs lately. I don't know how long it's been since we've been to a movie in a theater. I miss the popcorn, but it feels good to save money. We're trying to stick to a "cash only" system, which is going pretty well. I find it challenging to see how long a $10 bill will stay in my wallet. I haven't bought any clothes in 2 months (whoo hoo!), I'm bringing my lunch to work every day, and instead of stopping at Starbucks every morning, I fix my own "iced Americano" with a espresso machine my brother and sister-in-law bought me for Christmas several years ago (thanks Scott & Jerilynn!). All of this is an effort to 1) pay off some debt. 2) try to pay for an adoption 3) get David through school without using our credit card.

So if you're wondering how the adoption is going....it's going very slowly. Sometimes I'm embarrassed at how slowly it's going. It's not because we're ambivalent. It's because we're trying to do too many things at once.

But there are some good things: I have a great job that I love and pays me well, David is half-way through school, we're learning a great lesson on how to live within our means, I'm being forced to deal with my feelings and attitudes about money and being a part of our consumer-centric culture, and we're having to trust God with the adoption.

We're also finding that we can entertain ourselves without spending much money. Here are reviews of some books and DVDs that I've discovered recently....

Movies:

Lars and the Real Girl:



On the surface this movie seems odd. It's about a guy who starts "dating" a blow-up doll. Weird, eh? But it was one of Christianity Today's "most redemptive films of 2007", so I thought I'd give it a chance. I found a gem of a movie. It even made me cry, which is rare (David is the "crier" in our family). This movie is all about community, connection, and love. It's about healing someone's loneliness by loving them, quirks and all. Two quotes I love from the film (I'm paraphrasing here). One is when Lars is going through a tragedy (I don't want to give away the plot), but a handful of older women in the community come to his house with food and sit in living room knitting. Lars, in his grief, comes down from upstairs and sees them and says "what are you doing here?" One of the women says, "We're just sitting. That's what we do when someone is hurting, we just come and sit." For some reason, that scene made me cry and reminded me of hearing author Thomas Lynch (who's also a funeral director), say that what we should do when someone dies is "Go to where the pain is." Something as simple as just sitting with someone is a powerful form of love.

The other scene I love from the film is when Lars and a friend come out of a bowling alley and it's snowing. Lars says "I was really hoping that Spring was here." His friend says "No, Spring is never here until Easter...."

Maxed Out:

David rolled his eyes when he saw I rented this movie. It's all about credit card debt in America and how it's making the poor poorer. "It'll just make you depressed" he said. But I watched it anyway. I think everyone should watch this movie in order to have a better understanding of how credit cards, banks, mortgage brokers prey on the poor. Our financial system in the country is truly evil. And it motivates me even more to get out of the (small) credit card debt that we have. In fact, I really just want to sell of everything and go live in a shack in the desert, stuff my money under my mattress, and grow my own food in the back yard.

Books:

Organic God, by Margaret Feinberg


I've written before in the blog about my cynicism toward Christian Publishing. But for some reason I keep getting asked to be a judge for the Evangelical Christian Publisher's Association Gold Medallion Book Awards (I think it's because my friend, Sherri, works there!). This year I judged the "Christian Life" category. While I found some of the books unbearable and not worth the paper they're printed on, there were a few gems in the bunch. "Organic God" by Margaret Feinberg is one of them. She's a nice, fresh voice and is apparently well-known in the younger "emergent" crowd. While this book isn't incredibly deep, she's a solid writer and I read the book through in one sitting.

Eat, Pray, Love, by Elisabeth Gilbert

My sister recommended this book, so while I was in the Dallas airport, after the security guard had confiscated about $50 worth of Aveda hair products from my carry-on bag (okay, I knew I wasn't supposed to be carrying on liquids in a larger-than-six-ounce container, but do they really think someone could blow up an airplane with Shampure??!), I went into the airport gift shop and bought this book to make myself feel better. I saw that Anne Lamott had recommended the book, as well, so how could I go wrong?

I must say this book brought up a lot of different feelings for me. While I liked her writing, I felt myself getting angrier the longer I read. (Sorry, Amy & Anne). First, she apparently "meets God" in the bathroom at the beginning of the book. But then at the end, decided it wasn't really God, but just her "more mature" self calling to her from the future (Whaaaat?). Her theology is really all over the place. Second, she leaves her husband, but because she declines to give more information about what went wrong in their marriage (to her credit), she comes across as being selfish and narcissistic. For all we know, she left because he didn't make enough money and she wasn't ready to have children. So...off she goes to Italy, India, and Indonesia to "find herself" and heal. Each section gives lots of juicy information about the country, culture and her spiritual journey. She's witty and I envied her adventures. Sure, everyone wants to escape the hard parts of life and travel around the world for a year. But that's just the problem. I think she would have done her spiritual life a lot more good if she had stayed at home (and in her marriage?) and faced the choices and commitments she had made. As a result, I didn't really respect her "spiritual journey" that didn't seem to lead her anywhere substantial.

While friends and I drove to the Festival of Faith and Writing a few weeks ago, we had an argument about this book. Apparently, people either love or hate this book (if you read reviews on Amazon.com, you'll see about 200 negative reviews, and about 200 positive ones). One of my car-mates was defending the book, saying that ALL memoirs, just by definition, are narcissistic and self-centered. And that Gilbert, while we may not agree with where she lands spiritually, her spiritual journey has integrity within her own spiritual paradigm.

Maybe. But I tend to agree with something I heard Kathleen Norris say later at the conference: That memoir isn't just about the person writing about their story -- it must be about something bigger, more universal, more redemptive.

That's what I didn't get from Eat, Pray, Love. That's just me. Feel free to disagree....

Three years down

As of yesterday, David and I have been married three years. We celebrated by going out to dinner, eating grilled calamari, and watching two episodes of Battlestar Gallactica on DVD (our new favorite series). Whoohoo! We're such a wild and crazy couple!

David surprised me by picking me up at the El station with three red roses and all dressed up ready to go out to dinner. When we got home, I put the roses in a vase on the kitchen table and caught the cat munching on the leaves this morning. I'm glad she's enjoying them, too, although she might think twice if she accidentally bites into a thorn.

At dinner we started dreaming of our future. One that includes a little Ethiopian baby, and maybe even a few years living in the Virgin Islands. There's a slim possibility that David's current part time job editing for the VI Source could turn into something more. But we're just dreaming....

Maybe it will happen, maybe it won't. In the meantime, we'll keep plugging away -- David with school, me filling out adoption paperwork, doing laundry, watching Battlestar Gallactica, enjoying the blooming flowers in the neighbor's yard, and trying to find God in our lives. We're praying. Praying that the adoption will happen if it's meant to. And thanking God for what we have.

I asked David last night to give me his opinion of our marriage thus far. "I think we're pretty solid" he said. I agree. But I think we're more than solid. I like this adventure we're on. My friend Angie said that we've only just begun our story. There's much more that will unfold. I like the chapters we've written so far.

The Bluest Eye

"Each night Pecola prayed for blue eyes. In her eleven years, no one had ever noticed Pecola. But with blue eyes, she thought, everything would be different. She would be so pretty that her parents would stop fighting. Her father would stop drinking. Her brother would stop running away. If only she could be beautiful. If only people would look at her."
-- The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison

I read "The Bluest Eye" in a writing class at Columbia College about 10 years ago. I was one of the few white women in a class with an African American teacher and about 6 other students, half of whom were African American. I was a minority, and felt guilt when we were discussing The Bluest Eye, and how Pecola just wanted to be beautiful, and in her mind that meant "white."

I remember thinking, in my naïveté "how can a little black girl think she's not beautiful?" I looked at the black women in my class. One woman was thin and wore the coolest, hippest clothes. She pulled her loose curls back in pony tail and bangles hung on her small wrists. Her brown eyes sparkled. I wanted to be that cool and beautiful.

Besides that, the girls had a certain rapport with the African American teacher. They were always telling inside jokes about African American culture. I felt left out. I wanted to be one of them.

At the same time, my heart broke for Pecola Breedlove, and reading The Bluest Eye gave me a greater understanding into the African American experience.

I've been thinking a lot about things like this as we move forward with our adoption. Will our little girl think she's not beautiful just because she's black? If David and I are going to bring an Ethiopian child into this country, we can't afford to sit back and not do everything we can to understand the racial divide in our country.

Listening to Jeremiah Wright over the past week, it's obvious that we as Americans have a long way to go. There's still so much anger and so little forgiveness (on both sides of the racial divide). Where will that leave us, as a racially mixed family trying to navigate and overcome that divide? Will we be a part of the healing? Will our love be enough to protect our child from racism?

None of these questions is enough to make us stop our adoption. But I know we have a lot to learn and think about. And now I'm even more determined to learn more about how it feels to be African American, and how I can do my small part to help heal racial wounds. I owe it to our child. And I will do everything in my power to help her to know that she's beautiful and made in God's image....even if she doesn't have the bluest eyes....