The Real Reason the Term “White Privilege” Needs to Die
![jesusthomasdoubt[1]](http://theupsidedownworld.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/jesusthomasdoubt1.jpg?w=172&h=129&crop=1 "jesusthomasdoubt[1]")
The Sacrifice of Jesus and the Prodigal Son
Did God Really Demand the Death of His Son as a Sacrifice for Sin?
Sometimes You Just Have To Be Your Own Cheerleader!
What is salvation anyways?
The Myth of Sex by Tim Muldoon
What do you do with people who just don’t get it?
The Prodigal Son – The Hangover Edition
Shall I Become the Anti-Evangelist?
Why My Kindergartener Will Not Be Getting Fingerprinted
I asked God to hit my husband with a bus
Is it my fault he smells like cumin? Thoughts on parenthood
Mountain Climbing
The Quitter
A New Fundamentalism
What to do when you wake up in hell
What I think God would say about abortion
Anxiety -> Prayer -> Peace
Why I Won’t Keep a Gratitude Journal!
Steps to Forgiveness
An Argument In Support of an Angry God
When Someone You Love is Making a Big Mistake
Stages of Forgiving
My Dog’s an A-hole
“You’re so sensitive!”
Being right is not the most important thing
An Appreciation for the Absurd
Just a housewife in Wisconsin
Know Thine Self
What Michaela is Teaching Me
God Sees You
There’s always a reason
Laziness
Raise a child up and whaaaaa?
Brooks, Dreher, DeYoung et al vs “Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus”
God is father to the fatherless. We just call ‘em bastards.
Writing my first traditional, non-sucky Haiku
Why Christians Have a Moral Obligation Not to Have Sex Outside of Marriage
I Need an Editor. Or Something. . . Forgiving. For Real.
Now Available For Kindle: The Upside Down World ~ A Book of Wisdom in Progress
Did the Ex Try to Poison Me? Plus, A Guide to Wine for the Newbie.
Children: What’s the return on investment?
Hi. Remember Me?
Danny the Champion of the World
A Prayer for Easter Morning
Turning the Other Cheek – A Lesson in Assertiveness
I would quit
I have tried to quit
But it seems that I don’t know how
There is no window to submit your paperwork to
Or voicemail to leave a message on late at night.
You cannot march into God’s office
To announce your departure face-to-face
He will not reply, “I hate to see you go.”
No matter how hard…
I had a chance to chat this afternoon with Alex Botten on his podcast show Fundamentally Flawed regarding the perils and problems with teaching kids literal creationism. We had fun. And kind of ripped on advocates of literal creationism. I hope you will head over and check it out.
If you are unfamiliar with my ideas regarding evolution and Christianity, I have a page on the blog dedicated to the subject. It’s under the “Hot Topics” menu and titled “Christianity & Evolution”. Included on the page are posts like “Why Creationism Doesn’t Honor God“, “I Love Evolution, a Christian Perspective“, “In Which I Call Creationism Demonic“, “Raising Christian Evolutionists” and more.
-Rebecca
The Creation of Eve 12-13th Century Mosaic Monreale Cathedral, Sicily
So, it’s been light blogging because I’ve been recovering from having my gallbladder removed last weekend. And percocet makes me mean. So I’ve been applying the adage my boys have heard 1 times a day since they learned to speak: “It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.”
But I’m off the dope and wanted to get back to our earlier discussion on Adam and Eve. (To understand this discussion, I suggest reading What’s the Deal With Adam and Eve? Part 1 first.) When we left off, Adam had determined that there was no gibbon that tickled his fancy and God put him into a deep sleep. Then God took a rib from Adams side, closed the spot with flesh and fashioned woman.
A few things here. The man is put into a deep sleep. This can certainly mean simply that Adam was unconscious. Under full anesthesia, if you will. However, because we are also reading the story as an allegory, it can be informative to go a little deeper. When we sleep, we are still alive. We are not aware of what is going on in the physical world, but we dream. Our brains are busy doing clean-up work that can not be tended to when we’re busy using it while awake. And often we wake up and remember none of it. If we do, as often as not, we’re left with an impression which is more emotion than anything and hard to put into words. Continue reading
We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey. ~Kenji Miyazawa
In the spring of 2000, I received a phone call informing me that the qxh (quasi-ex-husband) had collapsed at work and been taken to a nearby hospital. By the time I got there, he was being released. They had decided that he was having an asthma attack, so despite the fact that he couldn’t walk, they gave him a nebulizer treatment, saw it didn’t help and sent him home. I helped him out of the wheelchair, into the car and he pretty much held onto me and the wall on the way to our apartment. Within 10 minutes, he came out of the bathroom, collapsed on the floor and said, “call an ambulance.”
Which is where a good wife immediately dashes to the phone and screams, “help – my husband’s dying!” to the dispatcher. But I hesitated for a split second. There was part of me that wanted to say, “stop being a baby. I’ll help you back into the car and we’ll take you back to the hospital.” Continue reading
Facepalm. Words. They fail.
I am fascinated with the creation stories. I have mentioned before that it was the habit of ancient Hebrews to meditate by holding two thoughts which seem opposed together in your head at once. I may have also mentioned that I have both a very high regard for scripture and I value science as a tool for understanding how God’s other testimony – creation – works. Which right there creates a conflict which many people think they can make go away by picking the side that makes sense to them and hanging out there. But I always figured that if God made the world (which I believe he did) and scripture is true (which I believe it is – in all sorts of surprising ways) and science was saying something different, God had an answer. And not like, “well I only made the earth look billions of years old in order to see if you would trust me enough to think it’s really 6000 years old.“ A real answer. Two true things cannot contradict one another. If they are in conflict, it doesn’t mean one is right and the other is wrong. It means we don’t understand them well enough yet.
So with this as my mindset, I set out holding these two ideas – biblical creation and the evidence of science - in my head at the same time and meditating on them. Continue reading
A Tweet to the first person to guess correctly how old I was when I wrote this!
*Ahem*
A Love Story
A turn of fate
A twist of the eye
The misalignment of moonlight
The glow of stars
And you are in love
Suddenly the world is blind
And you are beautiful
You’ve found someone to share your lunch with.
You cry at his jokes
And laugh at your wedding
Then you buy a frog
and the kids live happily ever after.
So you sell the washer and dryer
To buy a garden
Where you plant ladybugs until 3 pm
When it’s time to go, dear
And you ride away on your tandem bike.
Missy Piggy Tattoo by Jamie Sapp. Inspired by my career making performance, no doubt.
I’m not sure exactly what came over me, but one afternoon in the music room in junior high I was so charged up from a long day of doing anything I could think of to keep myself amused that I stood up and belted out the words “Look at moi! I’m as helpless as a piglet in a trough! . . . I get hungry just holding your hand!” like a 12 year old soprano Ethel Merman. That afternoon, I remember standing by my mom’s bed where she was folding laundry and telling her a little sheepishly that I was going to be Miss Piggy in the school play. It was kind of a big deal for me, but the thought of my family seeing me behave so outrageously was pretty mortifying. And not only that, but I was going to be singing and dancing with a boy in my class. In front of everyone! A kind of cute boy even. (Not that he could hold a candle to Justin Belt who was not only the hottest 12 year old ever, but inexplicably, spoke with an english accent of some sort. I think I would have lost control of myself in some way if I had to dance with Justin Belt in front of everyone.)
I, of course, stole the show. Or maybe not. I don’t really remember. But what I do remember is something my mom told me after the show. Some woman who I vaguely knew existed had sought out my mom and told her that I had “a voice like a beautiful bell.” Now, I do love singing – always have. But for many years, I had a huge hang-up about singing in front of people. So, I really had to push past my comfort zone to make a big ham out of myself in front of my classmates and whoever else was there. This woman’s compliment was my reward.
I now only have a medium sized hang-up about singing in front of people. Continue reading
I am. That’s our goal. I am. We are children of I Am. Made in his image. I am. Are you? Ha!
Part of our problem is that we are convinced that I am – whether it be God, ourselves, or our present circumstances and surroundings – is something to be suspect of, probably terribly boring or terrible bad or terribly not me. Like the God whose main building tool is explosions is going to want us to stand around all day humming melodically. Seriously? (Sometimes when people talk to me, this just pops into my head.)
But we resist I am. If we didn’t we’d have to learn to slow down and be present. We’d maybe even have to let ourselves be irreperably imperfect. We’d have to face things we didn’t even know we’d be running from. And that would be uncomfortable. We’d have to do things the people around us might not approve of. It might be too hard. It might even drive you into the arms of God, no? Because it’s not easy to learn to just be. I would never want to have to do it on my own.
When you are determined to learn to embrace I Am whether it is the I Am God or the I am Rebecca or I am going through an unwanted divorce and I’m really embarrassed at what the people I’m related to will think of me because of this, then you will reach a place that I call zen – although it’s probably a terrible abuse of what the actual word means. To me zen is just a very deep acceptance. It’s when you can let go – even for just a few seconds at a time – of your emotional need for reality to be different than it actually is. It’s not letting go of desire – wanting something is part of reality, and acceptance of reality is what living with and in I am is all about. One of the differences between real zen and the Christian version, donchya know.
When I am at “zen”, I find that I have all the patience in the world when I need it. There is peace. There is joy. Things make much more sense from the point of zen than they do any other time. If I’ve ever said something that was so obvious that it made you feel stupid for not having thought of it that way before, it’s something that came from being in zen. Continue reading
Maybe they were right!
I am the whitest of the white girls. I just am. I’m cool with that. One of my black girlfriends told me that when she had moved to the Chicago area back in the 80′s my hometown was one of two places she was told by her mother to avoid ever being in. Before going to high school, the only african american I had ever spoken to was working at a store. But, one of the first people I met at the Catholic high school I attended was Elaine, an African American from Joliet, a small industrial city about 30 minutes from my home. We were both in the honors program, so we had most of our classes together and we hit it off. We shared a wicked sense of humor and spent inordinate amounts of class time writing long notes whose main purpose was to get the other person to laugh out loud while reading it. I can’t believe we never got caught!
We never really talked about it, but there were differences. We were BBFs (Best Buddies Forever), not BFFs. Mostly she ate lunch with the other black kids and it never occurred to me that she would do otherwise. It’s got to be hard spending all day surrounded by people who can’t really “get” you and may not even like you no matter how good or nice or cool or talented you are. I’d want a break too.
Looking back, I realize that I was white-girl clueless in a way that a less tolerant and kind person might have been unwilling to deal with. Continue reading
"Go that way!"
I always wondered about faith. Evangelicals say that you have to choose to have it. Calvanists say that you are predestined to either have it or not. It’s a free gift that you cannot earn. But you have to nurture and hang onto it. Catholics and Orthodox Christians practice it with rituals. So many contradictory ideas.
What I have learned is that faith is the little voice that pops up when you are discouraged or even despairing and points you back to God. It tells you something true and sometimes what is true is not what you want to hear. And you can choose to embrace it and continue walking by faith or you can reject it and try to find your own way forward. And when times are hard, you have to really listen for it. You have to really hold onto what you hear. Because soon enough something will come and wash that little piece of comfort away.
When I have taught my kids to pray, I have always started with the story of Elijah at Horab from 1 Kings 19:
So He said, “Go forth and stand on the mountain before the LORD.” And behold, the LORD was passing by! And a great and strong wind was rending the mountains and breaking in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. 12 After the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of a gentle blowing. Continue reading
“Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all.” Luke 18:17
When ever I have hear this verse taught the point is pretty much the same: we should have a child like trust. What does that even mean? It gives me a vision of children sitting around gazing up at us with trusting goo-goo eye all day. As if. Obedience? Ever known any real-live children?
Become like little children. Perhaps Jesus meant this comment more literally than we usually take it. I happen to know a thing or two about children and off the top of my head, here’s a quick list of typical behaviors:
"Please, please, please!"
Prayer used to confuse me. Or I should say, prayers asking for specific outcomes used to confuse me. Like, “please let my car start” or “please let that guy I have a crush on notice me”. Worthy or not, these are the “please give me what I want” category of prayers. Or sometimes “please let reality not be reality for me just this once”. I used to pray such prayers with great fervency. Jesus said ask and you shall receive. If I just believed enough, it would be granted to me. It was prayer as magic. But magic isn’t real. And it never worked. As a matter of fact, people who spend any time around me will tell you that I have remarkably bad luck. I got 5 flat tires this summer. At least twice a year my mail is returned to the sender for no apparent reason. And those are almost always two pieces of mail with money in them. As a child, I got sick and missed the class field trip 3 years in a row. It was probably the only time I was sick all year. That’s just the way it has always been for me. I don’t know why. Continue reading
Tonight, I was telling Olivia, my sweet just about 2 year old, to keep her grubby mitts off the food that was waiting to go into the oven. She got frustrated with me, grabbed a piece of paper and pretending to read it, said, “shut up, mommy” and handed it to me with a humph. Oh goodness. I just laughed at her and moved her away from the food. Nice try, little one.
I have always been pretty lax about rude, disrespectful kids. Yet no one who spends time with my kids would ever describe them as rude or disrespectful. Just the opposite. (Don’t worry – they have plenty of other questionable traits!) Being rude and disrespectful may not get you in trouble around here, but it will get you laughed at and scooted aside. Great powers do not need to respond to petty beligerance.
The day will come when Olivia can be taught the value of kind words. She’ll learn soon enough; you don’t have to agree with me and you don’t have to like it. You just have to do what I say.
Loneliness can be a deep, vast sea to those who have no one waiting for them on shore. Open your heart to someone you know is floating in a sea of despair, their head barely above the waterline. Stop in for a visit, jot them an email, or give them a call. The fact that someone cares might be enough to give them the fortitude they need to start paddling. ~ by Sandra Kring
Dear Abby
My parents have always kept a subscription to the Chicago Tribune. So from the age of about 11 on, I was an avid daily reader of Dear Abby and Ann Landers. Over the years, I was always a bit amazed that the same complaints appeared over and over again; intrusive questions about fertility, noisy chewers, comments about children with disabilities. Ann and Abby had already answered these questions many times before, people! Weren’t you paying attention? Even my friends at school read Ann and Abby most days. In an argument, Ann or Abby’s opinion was a trump card – they had that kind of authority. Continue reading
I think I want my throne painted!
Would it weird you out to know that I do much of my praying on the porcelain throne? In my house, the toilet is one of the few places I can have some hope of being left alone for ten minutes at a time. My daily devotional book and my favorite bible have pretty permanent spots there. It may seem odd, but really, it’s quite apropos. Allow me to explain.
In the bible, the words of scripture, the words of God and Jesus – the word made flesh – are all compared to food. Continue reading
Proverbs famously says that fear of the Lord is the beginning of all wisdom. Old time fire and brimstone preachers said this meant we were to live in fear of the coming judgment. Others, pointing to the finished work of Christ said that we need not fear judgment and that this verse was simply saying that we needed to have an attitude of reverence towards God. Or it was fear like a child has of their parents. But the word used is fear, not reverence and using fear to control children is rapidly falling out of favor.
I have come to my own understanding of this verse. I think that fear of God comes from really knowing that God does not respect our limits. This is a God who created a world of predators and prey. This is a God who made a world with mosquitoes and earthquakes. Why would God create a world like this? A lot of people embrace some version of religion which denies that God did create a world like this. Continue reading
I hate New Year’s resolutions. Hate them. The worst part of New Year’s day for me was always when the qxh (quasi-ex-husband) would pull out a piece of paper and write “Trotter Family Resolutions” across the top. So we could “pull them out at the end of the year and see how we did”. Great, another completely unrealistic standard to feel bad about not meeting. Just what I need!
The other day I read an article which advised that the key to keeping this year’s resolutions was to set up specific targets. Like “I will exercise 3 times a week and lose 25 lbs by April 1.” Ahahahahahahahahahahahaha! Seriously. That’s what it said. Like the two are related. Continue reading
A couple of years ago, I was sitting on my front porch steps after dinner, watching my two oldest daughters playing and complaining to God in my head. I don’t remember what it was (nothing too serious), but the qxh (quasi-ex-husband) had done something to chap my hide. As I wound down my complaints and let the whole thing go, I asked God in an almost off-handed way, “do you ever have to deal with people treating you like this?” At which point I’m pretty sure all of heaven burst into hearty guffaws. But soon a funny thing started happening: as I dealt with people in my life, often some parallel experience between God and people would pop into my head.
Sometimes it was something little, like calling someone who did not answer their phone. How often does God try to reach out to people who ignore or reject the call because they are too busy, inattentive or just don’t feel like it? I would ask one of my boys to load and run the dishwasher only to discover at dinnertime hours later that we had no clean pots, plates or utensils. Suppose God ever asks people to do things that don’t get done? Ocasionally, I would have to deal with someone who insisted on talking over me, refused to listen to my perspective or treat it with respect. Yeah, I’m sure God never has to deal with stuff like that, right?
By the next summer a variety of calamities, traumas and disappointments had hit my family full force. As the qxh started to dissemble and then turn on me, these parallels became more pointed and poignant. Loving someone who is being supremely difficult, unreasonable and hostile turns out to be something that God is intimately familiar with. Continue reading
Doll by Jolene Nelson, AKA Locket
The room looks and smells not too different from the library in the middle school I attended while growing up. Walls lined with books. A floor covered with short, blue looped carpet. Encouraging posters dominated by animals reading books are pasted to any wall without shelves. Florescent lights buzz overhead. The room smells like books do when the humidity from hot Chicago summers seeps into their pages and yellows them. Missing are any of the trappings one finds in school libraries these days. No computers or technology of any sort. A typical, old school library; except this one isn’t in any school building. It’s on the lower level of a juvenile prison. Continue reading
This is not what my yard looks like
I have been resisting the temptation to look for a couple of weeks now, but . . . SEED CATALOGUES ARE HERE! I love seed catalogues. I can sit and pour through them over and over again during the short days of winter. But this leads to dreams of turning my scraggly 2 acre yard of reclaimed brush land into a lush garden oasis. I develop delusions of having a thriving vegetable garden with well planned rows and patches. Maybe this will be the year that we try our hand at growing giant pumpkins. Visions of sunny sunflower patches. Rose bushes! A koi pond! Maybe even cluster of blueberry bushes and a few fruit trees at one corner of the yard. I can just see my children frolicking about the gardens, stopping to pluck a flower to adorn their curly hair while I sit with a glass of iced tea and soak in all the beauty of it. If only my yard didn’t actually look like it was waiting for a Chevy on cinder blocks to adorn it. One day.
For years I started seeds in a spare room under lights each spring. Each morning one of the first things I would do is go into the room to check and see what had sprouted or put up a new leaf overnight. Frankly I couldn’t even tell you why, but not much makes me happier – especially when it’s snowing in April – than seeing these little green shoots emerging from the soil. A few years back I had to leave town for a few days in late spring before I was able to plant out that year’s crop. The qxh, apparently not understanding that my request that he water them daily while I was gone wasn’t really optional, didn’t. When I got back about a third of my plants were dead. I’m normally a pretty tough cookie, but I cried for days. Continue reading
We have heard with our ears, O God;
Our fathers have told us
what you did in their days,
in days long ago.
I heard a story the other day about a woman who needed potatoes. To make potato salad. And apparently she needed a lot of potatoes. I probably wasn’t listening very attentively, because I have no idea why she needed to make potato salad – church picnic, family reunion, Paula Deen was coming for a cook-out, I don’t know. But the woman needed potatoes and had no money for potatoes which was causing her a good deal of stress. People were depending on her potato salad. And then she got a phone call from a friend who worked at the weigh-station outside of town: “there’s truck here that’s 150 lbs overweight. It’s full of potatoes – do you know anyone who might need 150 lbs of potatoes?” Why, yes, yes she did. And potatoes fell down from the heavens like manna.
At the completion of this story, another man in the room exclaimed, “isn’t it amazing how God provides? Over and over I have seen things like that – even in my own family, God provides in the most unexpected ways.” Several others in the room nodded in agreement. Not me. I’m like the psalmist – I have heard of these things, but I haven’t seen them.
Which isn’t to say that God hasn’t provided for me in other ways. Not at all. I have amazing people around me who love and care for me who have helped me and my family out in times of great need – and it was a lot more than just a heap of potatoes! But these dropped-from-the-sky events which can only be explained by the hand of God and make you gasp, well, no so much.
You have made us a reproach to our neighbors
the scorn and derision of those around us. Continue reading
Suck it up, kid. You'll get a better one in heaven.
A friend recently sent a note in which she commented on the lack of “why me?” talk on my blog. Silly girl – I was raised Catholic. I can think of at least 100 reasons all of this is my own fault right off the top of my head! That, plus the fact that life has been handing me inexplicably little help for as long as I can remember means that I let “why me?” go a long time ago. There are only two answers: “you’re doing it wrong” or “because this is the way you need to go“. Either I’m screwing something up and should fix it - hence the Catholic guilt - or this is one of those things that will only make sense later. Frankly, Catholic guilt gets a bad rap – it’s downright empowering in light of the alternative!
This was a tough week. It was one of those weeks where an emotional rough patch and a life rough patch collided and made a mess all over the highway of my life. (I keep telling God he needs to pave the damn thing.) And just to make sure that all of this doesn’t get to be too routine, my wonderful parents were visiting, so I had an audience. (My poor parents; I’m glad and grateful that they were here, but I know it’s only marginally more fun to watch someone you love go through things you are helpless to do anything about than it is to go through it yourself. I have to remind myself that God must have his reasons for asking them to walk a path which includes me and my mess of a life.)
If you read my book The Upside Down World ~ A Book of Wisdom in Progress, you will remember that I first met God in a fit of enraged blasphemy. Which means that I’ve always felt free to itch and moan and be as upset as I want to be in prayer. Besides, Jesus was said to have prayed with “loud cries and tears” himself. So by the end of the week, my prayers had devolved into demands: “I can’t do this. I’m not going to do this. You need to fix this. Not just spiritually, but for real. In the real world. Continue reading
by·word/ˈbīˌwərd/
| Noun: |
|
My children know one of my old classmates by name. Not that they have ever met her. And it’s not even because I have told them stories about her. I have told them stories about lots of people I have known without bothering to add in their name. No, I’m kind of ashamed to admit that they know her name because when I was a kid, her name became a byword to me. Her name stood in for a set of behaviors which I associated with her and wanted desperately to avoid myself. I called it “Sally Ruthersbrodt* Syndrome” (*Not her real name!) My kids and other people who were very unlikely to ever meet her know her name and what it meant to me. In my mind her name meant thinking that people liked you when they didn’t.
I’m not even sure how that became such a big fear for me, but it was. I got that not everyone was going to like me and I was cool with that (eventually). But what if the people who seemed to like me didn’t really? That was an intolerable thought to me. The idea of thinking that you were safe with people who weren’t really safe freaked me out. And like any good geek, I believed that gathering as much information as possible was the solution. Because then I could figure out how to avoid this perceived threat. So, to that end, I applied my powers of observation to watching the people around me looking for signs that I might be turning into a Sally Ruthersbrodt.
Unfortunately for me, if there is a disorder which is the opposite of Asperger’s that makes you inappropriately hyper-sensitive to non-verbal social cues, I have that. Continue reading
Remember when everyone was writing their “25 Random Things” lists on facebook? Believe or not, it’s been 2 years since that became such a big thing that news outlets devoted coverage to the phenomena which I think means it’s time to take a look back and see what’s changed, what’s the same and maybe what we wish we hadn’t said. I invite you to share your “25 Random Things” list in the comments below. If you are a blogger, this is an easy blog post – link back here or put a link in the comments below.
Here’s my list from January 17, 2009:
1. I always put the toilet lid down before flushing. You should to.
2. For several years when I was little my dad owned a small Cessna airplane. Except for my dad’s airplane, I have not flown since I was 3.
3. I am very funny. Sometimes other people even agree with me.
4. I am often stunned at how beautiful, smart and funny my little girls are.
5. I’m not entirely sure what my natural hair color is.
6. I have a spiritual director I meet with once a month.
7. I will be putting pictures of the plants I start from seed and grow under lights up on facebook all spring. They make me very, very happy.
8. I’m not a very good gardener. But I am sure that in 10 years I will be.
9. I did prison ministry in college.
10. I am taking the test to join Mensa next Saturday.
11. I’ve never met anyone I like (and sometimes hated) as much as my husband.
12. I enjoy reading stories about people’s near-death experiences.
13. I had my first alcoholic drink the fall after I turned 20.
14. I am currently writing my spiritual memoir and I’m very happy with how it’s going. (Please send any writer’s agents you may know my way!)
15. Two of the guys I dated in college broke up with me because they said I was intimidating. Continue reading
When I was a kid, every time one of my parents said, “don’t be a smart aleck” I had to supress the mighty urge to respond, “would you rather I be a dumb aleck?” (I’m pretty sure my attempts at repression failed more than once.) Even worse was when my dad would get frustrated with me and tell me, “ah- you just think you’re right.” Well, yeah – of course I think I’m right. If I thought I were wrong, I would change my mind. Duh. Change my mind if I’m so wrong. (At this point my father is saying to the monitor: “finally – she tells it like it really is!” To which I must simply point out that I was a teenager who never drank, smoked, did drugs, went to parties, dated or had sex. And I was usually on the honor roll and attended mass daily. The challenges of raising me could probably be viewed as the parenting equivalents of first world problems.)
My favorite people have always been the ones who I could crack wise with to my heart’s content. Part of the bond I always shared with the qxh (quasi-ex-husband) was the fact that I could say almost any outrageous over-the-top thing that popped into my head around him. Which can create its own complications. I had to sit him down a couple of years into our marriage to explain that we don’t actually live in a sitcom and if he didn’t tone it down, he was going to find himself in the middle of a family melodrama with no batteries in the remote.
Last night I attended a divorce care recovery group where it was recommended that we make a list of what we have lost in divorce. One of those things for me has been having a place for my personality to just sprawl out where ever it wanted to go. Continue reading
I met a woman a couple of months ago who may have saved my life. At the very least, she brought a much needed spark of laughter and joy into a dark time. And I don’t even remember her name. She was a short woman, with slightly beaver like teeth, but it was a faux-masquerade ball at the local science museum for geeky adults and she was wearing a sequined mask, so I never saw her face. I went because not only am I a geeky adult, I’m also a member of the museum so it was free.
In the course of talking I mentioned that I had 5 kids and was separated from their dad. Turns out she was divorced as well. I listened to her story and expressed sympathy for her painful experience. And then she turned to me and said, “well, and I hate to be a Debby Downer here, but you do know you’re never going to get another man again. Not with 5 kids you’re not. No way. You’re going to spend the rest of your life alone.” At which point it took every ounce of self-control for me not to burst out laughing. Who says something like that? What is wrong with this person? How do you even respond to something like that? Do you burst into tears, confess your fear of being alone forever and let her shake her head knowingly at the shame of it all? If you try to protest that you’ll be OK she’s just going to assume you’re in denial and maybe humor you. I could have told her she was rude, but she was such a character I hated to see her leave in a huff. I told her I hadn’t started processing that aspect of my loss yet.
Now, if this had been all the woman said, that would have been enough to make it worth my drive out that night. But I will take it that God knows my sense of humor and put this dear woman in my path that night. Continue reading
Trotter children are immediately identifiable by their curly hair
Each of my children has a story we tell them about some way in which their lives have mattered. I believe that it’s one thing to tell a kid they are important and that they matter, but it’s something of a gift to them to be able to tell them how they have mattered. Then they’re not just a lowly child floating out in the world with no real base or purpose to start with. It grounds the message that they have value in their real world. It’s concrete evidence for them that just because they exist, the world is a different, better place.
My oldest Noah was born when his father and I were not married. If it wasn’t for him, we would not have formed a family and his siblings wouldn’t be here. And his birth also changed me. Before having him, if you had walked up to me at any given moment and said, “I’m sorry, only real humans are allowed here. Penguins such as yourself belong elsewhere” and I would have shrugged at being caught and thanked you for telling me I was a penguin – I had been wondering about that. I had a bad case of imposter’s syndrome. Practically from the start, parenting Noah was something I just knew how to do and I felt completely comfortable doing it. It was almost like working out of an area of spiritual blessing and was an important step on the way to me knowing (hopefully) more and more of who God created me to be.
Collin, who is now 12 was born while his dad was very sick. His medical care was awful but we were young and hadn’t yet realized that the system works differently once your illness has no identifiable cause or treatment. They eventually told us that he was crazy – really, they did. They even gave us a black binder with a report saying so. Continue reading
Picture Cribbed From "From the Lilypad"
I wrote this poem ages and ages ago but never thought it was very good. But lines from it keep popping into my head lately. So I thought I’d share.
I am the willow in winter
Long swaying branches
like tenticles
dance on frigid air
tinkling an icy fugue
the leafless branches
are all beauty, no life.
I will be the willow in spring
reaching down to choke the deep
and pull out life.
And I will dance
in warm, moist air
full of life
green leaves
making shushing noises
as they rub together
these leaves will die again
in fall
the next time
the coldness of the world
overcomes the willow
and me.
Collin is learning to be a really funny, crabby 45 year old man. Unfortunately he's stuck being 12 at the moment.
Want to do something amazing for your relationship with your kids? Engage in this thought exercise:
Think of a good friend; someone you genuinely like and care about. (Don’t use your spouse – too many in-law issues!) What sort of parent would you want for that friend? If you were somehow able to go back and parent your friend yourself, how would you do it?
I have found that by looking at a friend, who I don’t really have a vested interest in trying to change, I can envision what it would look like for me to parent with more patience, wisdom and acceptance. It’s helped me come to see my kids for what they are. They are their own persons who have ultimate authority to decide for themselves what sort of people they want to be and what sort of lives they want to live. What they are not, are extensions of me or proof of the worth of my life or even my skills as a parent. They might even know better than me sometimes!
This is so clear to us when dealing with any human being other than a child. Then we are prone to going into whatever our version of full-blown panicked-tyranny mode is to cow them into pleasing us. And that’s hard on both parent and child. Even as a kid it always seemed to me that both my father and my grandfather would have liked to be more gentle and empathetic than they were to their children. But they were convinced that if they didn’t make sure we stayed not just on the straight and narrow but on the painted line ride in the middle of the road, all hell would break loose. But, I’ve been letting my kids wander all over the countryside surrounding the road for a while now and my father himself has commented positively on the results. (Not that he doesn’t have some reservations, but then again, so do I!) And it turns out that I was right about my dad too – seeing him hold one of his grandkids is a beautiful thing. Big softie.
One of my proudest parenting moments was when Continue reading
- From “Thinking SciFi”
“O lord, thou hast searched me, and known me.” (Psalm 139:1)
Perhaps the most frightening attribute of God is that He knows everything about us. Everything! He has “searched” (literally “penetrated”) us and “known” (“understood”) us. . . Furthermore, He is everywhere around each one of us (vv. 7-10), wherever we are or could be. He fills all space, and there is no escape.
Go ahead, ask me where I found that quote. Or even better, how ’bout I up the fun quotient and give you some options. Was it:
b. A humor site skewering religion
c. A devotional piece from the Days of Praise blog put out by a Creationist advocacy group
I’ll give you a moment to figure it out. . . Oh wait – did I give it away? Yep, this “be afraid, Be very afraid“ moment has been brought to you by none other than The Institute for Creation Research; a highly profitable venerable institution promoting creation “science”. The very same people whom a federal judge recently said are “entirely unable to file a complaint which is not overly verbose, disjointed, incoherent, maundering and full of irrelevant information.” Good to see our tax dollars hard at work there, eh?
This upsets me. My opinions about the theological viability of creationist interpretations aren’t something I’m shy about. I truly believe that it’s demonic. Whether you understand that to be a metaphor for our ability to create and perpetuate evil or as satan whispering in your ear, the answer is the same; it is demonic. Continue reading
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I spent the day upgrading the blog. I’m still working on details, but I have 48 hours to decide if I want to use this theme or not. If you have a minute to head over to the blog and let me know what you think, I’d be mighty appreciative. Even just a “Better” or “Worse” would be useful. Thank you!
-Rebecca
This is the least frightening picture I've ever seen of General Palpatine, I mean Pope Benedict
Perhaps you have heard that the Obama administration has decided that they have the duty to force religiously affiliated employers to provide their employees with insurance coverage which includes birth control, the abortion poll and sterilization. The Catholic Church is preparing for a massive show-down on the matter. Now, before you say, “they should provide birth control! What right does the church have to force their employees to follow church teachings on such matters”, stop. Let me make a few points:
1. Not having insurance coverage for birth control DOES NOT deny anyone access to birth control. I know, I’ve gone without insurance coverage repeatedly and not once did that have an impact on my ability to procure birth control. Is it easier when I have insurance coverage? Sure - it means not making a trip to a county clinic or Planned Parenthood (which I thought we were providing tax payer money to in order to meet such needs, but any ways). But I’d also like insurance coverage with no deductibles which would cover dental. Dental is a real issue. Millions of people cannot afford to see a dentist. I promise you, despite all the “easier access to birth control” rhetoric, there is not a single piece of research which has found that an inability to get birth control is leading to more unplanned pregnancies. An inability to use it properly, well that’s a whole other matter. It’s an idea which makes intuitive sense to people who don’t have to deal with such things themselves, but there’s no data to back it up. There is zero evidence that this is a real problem with serious consequences being attacked here, just an ideological hammer looking for a nail.
2. Catholic Charities is one of the largest provider of medical and social services in this country (the largest in the world). Um, maybe we outta say “Thank you” rather than forcing them to shut down just to make a point? It doesn’t matter if you agree with them Continue reading
