they wouldn't believe me anyway

The other day I was walking out of my church and a woman asked me my name.

When I told her, she said, "I remember the talk you gave."

She is referring to two years ago when I was asked/allowed to address our congregation about my personal experience with homosexuals.

And while I don't consider this a "subject" I could ever be an "expert" in, my story seems to be one which interests people when they are struggling with their own story.

This woman proceeds to tell me that she has always wanted to talk to me about a member of her family. This particular person in question is an adolescent, and this woman was worried about her.

"She really hates the color pink." This woman tells me emphatically. Then she stopped, as if waiting for me to diagnose this unseen third party with my conclusions.

"Okay..." I responded and waited for her to continue.

"Well, she just really hates girly stuff, and I don't like to foster that."

Hmmm.

Hmmm?

What am I suppose to say to this? I mean, it seems pretty obvious to me that having an aversion to a color doesn't result in preferring sexual relations with someone of your own physical gender, but then hey... maybe I'm more progressive than most. I don't like to make assumptions about what's obvious and what isn't.

"Well, I was sort of a tomboy when I was younger. I preferred blue over pink. I'm not expert in determining any one's sexual orientation, but I don't think that what you are telling me indicates whether or not this person is gay."

I was cordial. I mean, this person is telling me something here, albeit not the entire story from what I could gather, that is troubling her. And after hearing what I had to say about my life and this subject, she still came to me with her questions. I wasn't going to cut her off just because she was concerned.

"Well, I just don't like to foster that. I won't call her a tomboy."

And see... here is where I get frustrated. Not indignant, not angry, not self-righteous... but frustrated.

I will be the first to say that I don't "get" a lot of things. I don't "get" how to explain to people why in a world of unbelief that I believe in God, Jesus, the whole sha-bang. I don't "get" how to people can look at this world and conclude that there is no God. I don't "get" how people who do believe in God, in the life and teachings of Jesus, can be responsible for so much of the hatred and violence in the history of the world.

There are a million more things I don't "get."

But there is one thing I think I do.

Whether or not said adolescent is, in fact, a lesbian... refusing to call her a tomboy isn't going to change that. What is going to change her life - not her sexual orientation, but the quality of her life - is how people who love her, treat her.

I do not have all the answers about what makes someone gay.

But I do have the answer to how we are to treat all people, and that is with love.

And love looks different in different situations... but I'm not sure it ever looks like the refusal of accepting someone because of who they are. No matter what they are.

That certainly isn't the way I interpreted God's love for me.

There are things about me way more heinous than my sexual orientation for God to be appalled about. But he isn't. And he loves me despite all he knows.

And he doesn't pretend I'm not what I am. Nor does he encourage me to do that.

When I think about this women's perspective, I don't think that she's alone. I can attest that there are many in my own faith who feel almost superstitious about jinxing their children or grandchildren or nieces or nephews into being gay. And for a lot of people, it's because they just don't have the experience with the subject that they would need to in order to form an more informed belief.

But, I think that that statement is true for way more than just Christians and homosexuality. I think it is true about all people and Christianity.

No, strike that.

Because a lot of people experience Christianity through Christians who ruin them for life based upon completely un-Christian-like behaviors.

I think it's true about all people and Jesus.

He is left unexperienced.

So this woman asking me about the color pink is just a scratch on the surface of stuff which has been bugging me.

Life isn't about pink or blue.

And it's definitely not black and white.

And while I wish I had some sort of profound conclusion to end with... even for my own sake... I just don't.

Sigh.

to santa or not to santa

Why do people get horribly angry about children not believing in Santa Claus?

The word "belief" holds such a strong meaning. Wars are fought over them. People are willing to die for them. They separate neighbors and yet connect strangers.

As a person, to "believe" in something is just about the most definitive a statement one can make.

So, in insisting that a child must believe in Santa does strike me as a little dangerous. Espeically since -spoiler alert- we all KNOW (which is another word for "believe") that he is not real.

Now, don't get me wrong, we aren't going to be one of those families who turn Santa into a four letter word. However, we are going to let our daughter know that he's "pretend" just like all of the other storybook characters she enjoys. If she wants to make-believe that he is her gift-giver at Christmas, we can pretend with her. And yes, we will make sure she knows not to tell her friends any differently than they believe. But I just don't see any positives to telling Lilah that Santa is real...

The whole Christmas story (not the bible one) just sounds like a web of lies woven one night when a parent got caught off guard by an inquisitive child.

I can imagine (I pretend this, not believe it)-- It started with little Susie wanting to know the truth about St. Nicholas, and some well-meaning dad who failed his Saint's history class just started babbling.

"How does Santa get into the house if we are all asleep?"

"Umm..... through the chminey?"

"How does Santa get on the roof?"

"Umm....a magical sleigh?"

"What pulls the sleigh?"

"Umm... flying reindeer?"

"Where does he get all the presents?"

"Umm...he makes them?"

"How does he make ALL of them?"

"Umm...he has elves who help him?"

And from this, Susie the chatterbox five-year-old spread to all her friends, the Christmas story as we know it today.

I think the "magic" surrounding Christmas is wonderful. I love how so many people from different backgrounds all come together in celebration of... well, children. Because honestly, it's not really the "mass" of Christ which brings mankind together at holidays.

It's the season of giving. For family. For getting our retail-based economy back in the black. The celebration of stuff.

And really, that's all fine with me. I love giving gifts. I love shopping. I love my family. It just bothers me that in all midst of all this, the real meaning is overlooked.

Cue up my Linus moment.

I'm always so interested in people's stories. The details of our lives which make us unique, yet connect us all.

And when I look at the life of The Virgin Mary, I am intrigued by how God's work in her life was done in such a way as not to make her some sort of unattainable celebrity. She is just a woman, a mother, a believer... just like me.

She went through nine months of feeling her child grow inside of her. She experienced feeling him move for the first time. She strained through the bouts of discomfort.

She bore him in childbirth, and she was spared no pain in the process. She held her child in her arms for the first time and no doubt fell in love with him.

These are all the same experiences I had with Lilah (although I was spared some pain in childbirth, thank you epidural).

Of course, the details were different. Jesus was born in a stable to would-be fugitives. Lilah was born in a cushy hospital bed while I watched American Idol.

But the experience; the essence of bringing a child into the world... I believe so much that God wanted all mothers to be able to relate to Mary. To understand the love a mother has for her own child. The importance and sacrifice of motherhood.

Because think about it... Jesus could have just appeared one day, a full grown man, out of the heavens. He could have hatched from an egg. He could have exploded forth from a volcano, arrived on a spaceship, or been lowered down from the sky in a huge pyrotechnics display.

And he wasn't.

He came into the world like I did. Like you did. Like my child and your child.

And while every child's birth is special, this child's birth--Jesus' birth, comes with it a promise.

For you. For me. For our children. For everyone.

THIS is the child who makes right the covenant between God and His Creation. THIS is the child who will exemplify for all generations the righteous life we are all to strive for. THIS is the child through which the history of the world is changed. I am changed through THIS child.

This is what I believe at Christmas. I believe in the humanity of the story of Christmas. The realness. It's not a stretch for me to believe the story of the nativity like it is for me that of Santa and bottomless sack of toys.

So why does the pretend story get all the attention?

The truth is not lacking in mystery, miracle, beauty, or relatability.

I guess as a people, we have a history of choosing lies over truth.

And while some people might just write me off with the notion that I just think too much about things (which I believe I do at times), I do profess that it's important to me to be intentional in all I do.

Even in a make-believe world.

sad shopping

Yesterday I was at the mall buying some pants.

Since having a baby, I haven't owned a pair of black dress pants, and it was time I found a new pair. I opted once again for the cheapest, "They almost fit me" pair as opposed to the more expensive, "They make my butt look awesome" pair--as usual. I can never reason the extra money when the lesser costing pair still serve the purpose.

I had two 30% coupons in my hand as I stood in the checkout line. The lady behind me was purchasing a coat, so I offered her one of my extra coupons.

I love doing this. Probably because I would think it so awesome if someone would offer me a coupon for something I was buying as I was standing in line to pay for it.

She was most grateful. Both she and her lady friend were probably in their early 60s, well put-together, and very chatty. They both raved about Lilah the entire duration of line waiting. It was a nice conversation, and I felt good that I'd contributed to this stranger's good mood.

Both the lady and me were called to the cashiers at the same time. Our purchases rang up, and I overheard the lady's cashier tell her that her total was somewhere around $80 for the coat.

I then heard the saleswoman ask the lady if she'd like to contribute $1.00 to St. Jude's Children's Hospital.

The lady declined.

Wait... wait a minute...

In my mind, I did the algebra:

70% (X) = $80.00

X = approximately $115.00

Total savings with coupon: $35.00

This woman was willing to have paid the full $115.00 for this coat; she was in line to pay for it before I even offered her the coupon. Therefore, she unexpectedly was going to get to leave the store with $35 extra in her pocket.

And of that extra $35, she didn't want to spare a mere $1 to a charity.

Now, I'm sure that there could be an extenuating circumstance I don't know about. Perhaps this woman supports only certain charities approved by her church. Perhaps she was planning on making her own contribution to St. Jude's in a large lump sum in exchange for a tax write-off-able receipt closer to the end of the year. Perhaps she hates sick children. I have no idea.

It just didn't seem right to me. She was granted some unanticipated grace in her favor, and then when provided with the chance to do the same, she declined less than five minutes later.

I've never felt so sad buying pair of pants before.

family christmas movie

Today I watched a Christmas video of my family from 1983.

It is honestly the only home movie that exists of my entire family until about 1996 when my parents bought a camcorder.

My youngest sibling was six months old. Erica was five. I was four.

I haven't seen this movie in years. I "borrowed" it from home when my parents were going through their divorce because I was sure that my mom was going to try to destroy everything in the house which had anything to do with my dad, and I couldn't bear the thought of losing this film.

I tried to brace myself ahead of time that it wasn't goig to be difficult to view. This February, my grandmother will have been gone for an entire decade. And while I never feel like she's too far away, watching her in live action on the television is always a cruel tease.

And it was again today.

Everything good about me came from her influence. Everything I want to be was planted within me by her hands. She was the sole influence in my faith as a child, and the one who encouraged me in it as I got older.

She lived a life of sacrifice, indiscriminate love, and compassion.

And as I watched her little four foot ten inch frame shuffle around her trailer, handing out gifts to Erica and I, and speaking in that sweet southern drawl... I missed her so badly.

It hurts so much that she doesn't get to be here with Lilah. I want her to see me as a mother, and I want her to be proud of the mother I am. I want her to know that I try every day to be the person she always believed me to be.

And I look at that little girl who was me. She was so quiet unless she thought no one was looking. She was happy. I want to go back and protect her from all the things I know will happen. I want to trade places with her just for a moment - to have back what used to be.

Looking back with what I know now, there is such a subtext to that video I never would have picked up on before. Things that were unsaid then which have since been spoken aloud. For better, for worse.

For the rest of today, without even thinking, I called my daughter by my sister's name.

Memories are hard sometimes.

failing with 95%

Today I attended a meeting at my church regarding the future of the children's ministry.

Some of the statistics that were presented in this meeting were frightening.

A recent study in Canada showed that 95% of people who were raised in the church had walked away by the time they were 25.

95%

Why is that?

What is happening in society, in the church, and in our homes which is turning people off to God?

Obviously, the answer is complicated. And not one I claim to know or understand fully, but if I could analogize my theory, it would look something like this...

Math has never been one of my stronger subjects. I don't like dealing within the realm of what's intangible, and once letters started becoming numbers, and then negatives starting becoming numbers, and then things that were "imaginary" started becoming numbers... well, I pretty much checked out of ever really getting what was going on. I was always able to memorize the procedures of skill sets, however, in a way that kept me at the top of my class in math all the way through high school and into Calculus.

But, I honestly never understood what the heck I was doing. I knew how to solve the equations, find the slopes, and find the function, but it never meant anything to me.

Because I never knew how to apply it.

The second I realized that I had enough math credits to earn the diploma was I going for, I dropped Calculus in a second and I never looked back. And honestly, the fact that I didn't have to worry about all of those unknowns anymore was extremely freeing. I was no longer bound by the "intangible". I didn't have lie awake at night contemplating the transitive versus distributive property. I just rejected it all, and I was happy with that choice.

It didn't matter to me that what I didn't understand were mathematical truths. I didn't care about the potential problem-solving skills I was missing out on. It just felt good to not worry about it anymore.

Having not been raised in the church, I'm not sure what it would have taken for me to have walked away from my upbringing. In fact, because my upbringing was void of church in general, and I saw how well that was working for me, I went running into every church I could find looking for something better. But, if I had been raised in most of the churches I tried out in my search, it probably would have been easy to walk away when the going-got-tough in my life.

I remember what it was like searching for God during my adolescence. I always believed in God, but I was fearful of Christians and church because I never felt "good" enough to be with them. I always ended up breaking some hidden rules during a church service, like not knowing when to stand up or sit down. I felt stupid when the preacher would use a term like "lamb of God" and I didn't know who he was talking about. I couldn't keep up with the Christianese or the dress code or the judgment. Church was a scary, unaccepting place--especially for a 16-year-old who was going at it alone.

And PS--The media does a great job of highlighting the most discouraging members, practices, and misguided beliefs of the Christian faith. Until my adult life, I thought that almost every church goer was a gay-hating, bible-thumping, hypocrite. This, I'm happy to say, is the exception, not the rule.

Before I mentioned how I didn't like dealing in the intangible. Many would argue that God is intangible. But my saving grace came in the very tangible relationship that I had with my grandmother. When I think back to the early defining moments in my faith, they were always with her. And what she told me and showed me about Jesus Christ was very tangible. Tangible doesn't mean visible, it means perceivable. It was this significant relationship which encouraged me to not give up on God because I couldn't fit in at church.

But, now I'm a parent. And I don't want my daughter to learn procedure and equations and meaningless memorization about God. I want her to experience God. I want the church to lay the foundation for this and be supportive of her growth in her relationship with God. I want her to be able to apply what she learns on Sunday (and every other day at home) in life.

And I feel like I have to fight for this. I going to have to fight against a society which tries to fill her head with lies about herself, about God, and about what is right. But I also feel like I'm going to have to fight against much of the church in what I teach her to be.

I'm not sure that any parent thinks about this stuff when they decide that they want to have a baby. I know I sure didn't.

We were asked to consider something today. We were to picture our children at the age of 30. And looking at our children as adults, we were asked what life choice or situation could they possibly be in/have made which would grieve us the most as parents.

The only thing I could think of that would disappoint me about my children would be if they were to not have a relationship with God.

I truly believe I could love my kids through anything. There are many choices my children will make, but to reject God would be the one I would hold myself accountable for without pity.

Parents have the most potential for shaping a child's perception of our Creator.

Good or bad, the most potential.

I could have never comprehended what responsibility that is.

Math was way easier.

blank paper

This entry is a



You've been warned...

This holiday season is becoming unlike any other. For the first time in my life, I want them to be over before they really begin. But before you bah-humbug me, hear me out.

There really is no escaping that Christmas is the season of stuff. It's engrained in our culture, necessary for the survival of our economy, and (all of this under the guise of) an affectionate expression of love.

However, that absolute last thing on my mind these days is shopping.

This week alone, I personally know four people who lost their jobs. And I know of many others who are holding on to their employment by a thread. And with 70% of the country screaming for no government bailout for the auto-industry... we might classify ourselves in that category as well.

Our neighbors, a newlywed couple, both lost their jobs late last month. Unemployment is going to pay them just enough to cover their rent next month, but they won't have a penny left over. This makes groceries the new luxury yacht.

The current unemployment rate is nearing 10% in Michigan, and therefore "new" jobs are scarce. Everyone is downsizing, re-organizing, and trying to stay afloat. It doesn't matter if you are college educated and experienced; everyone is being affected.

It's sad.

And I mean that. I'm really sad about this.

Jon and I are thankful for every day that we both get up and go to work. We have learned to understand the privilege of cupboards full of food. And we have come to understand grace in ways we didn't know were possible. However, we are also coming to accept the responsibility we have in this economy. For as long as we are the haves, it is our job to care for the have nots.

But it's so tricky.

Every day I feel it on my heart to do something, and every day that something changes. And so does the recipient of that something. I want to help change the situation, not just throw some money at it and hope it goes away. I feel compelled to get my hands dirty.

I fully accept the truth behind "to those much is given, much is expected." So I'm not sure what my problem is. I suppose it's figuring out the expectation.

Sigh.

The local doom and gloom isn't all that has got me down.

Ever since I became a parent, I have developed this bionic ability to internalize all of the bad news in the world. And these latest terrorist attacks are no exception.

Perhaps it's because I know of my own struggle with fear (and it's basically a paramount battle), but I so strongly emphathized with those held hostage that I had nightmares about Lilah and I being trapped in those hotels with the gunman.

And then hearing all the latest buzz about possible ensuing biological and nuclear attacks...

I just don't know what to do with it all.

I feel the need to act about AIDS in Africa, hunger in Haiti, and genocide in Rwanda. But I feel completely incapable of doing anything. The problem is too big. And while I'm not so arrogant to think that the weight of the world rests on my shoulders, I am positive that more is required of me in all this than just to feel bad about it.

This is how I am about a messy house, too. Once there is too much to clean up, I can't just pick a place to start and go from there.

I panic. And then nothing gets done. Or Jon sends me away and he does it.

But I'm not sure that there are enough Jons in the world. And I don't want off the hook this time.

I've kept quiet about these feelings for awhile because 1.) no one wants to read someone's blog about all the bummy crap in the world and 2.) I didn't think that posting this entry on the same page as I was cheerfully giving away prizes and posting pictures of my daughter and Christmas trees made much sense at all. However, I was pushed over the proverbial edge last night while watching t.v., and I could wait no longer to spill my guts to my virtual journal.

I know that reality television is infamous for taking liberties through the editing process, but I can't think of any way in which The Real Housewives of Orange County could be unspun in a way which wouldn't still leave me enraged. If I lived in another country and I watched these women and took them for the average American, I would totally hate us, too.

The pettiness, the caddiness, and the selfishness I witnessed throughout the two episodes I viewed were enough to leave me - honestly - slack-jawed.

The only thing I can't stand worse than absorbing and dwelling on all the bad in the world is to be the complete opposite - shallow, egocentric, and materialistic.

So, for these reasons, I have been reluctantly putting off the Christmas shopping lists which seem longer every day as more people ask me to "do theirs" for them. I have never not been in the mood to come up with gift ideas. But right here, right now... it seems so pointless.

When Wal-Mart employees are losing their lives because customers are selfish and greedy, it takes the luster our of searching for that perfect present.

Welcome to the other side of Elle Bee.