Ontology

As my second maternity leave draws to a close, I’ve been thinking alot about those questions of who we are, and how we know who we are.

Just the other day (months ago!) I attended a service for the renewal of ordination vows. It felt especially important to go this year. My ordination was an ontological shift- in that moment I became “a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek” But there are also sacramental actions that enact priesthood; Performative acts of preaching and blessing that both mark me and make me a priest of Word and Sacrament. In the simplest terms, it is hard to be a priest without an altar, and a pulpit.

Are we who we are? or are we what we do?

(Was I absolutely ready to embrace Dollhouse? Oh yes!)

Today I am celebrating my profound joy in being the Mommy to two amazing, incredible, delightful, frustrating, crazy-making, perplexing children. I became a mom at 7:30 on a Wednesday morning (twice!), making a fundamental and permanent shift in my identity. Diapers, feedings, cuddles, nightime, teaching, comforting… those (rare?) midnight crises- these are the performative acts of motherhood that make it ridiculous to say that adoptive parents are anything other than “real”. But also “real” is the mom who has lost a child- who no longer performs those parenting acts- or whose performative acts of parenthood are rituals of grief.

Are we who we are, or are we what we do?

It often seems, in North American culture, that there is this sense that “I am what I am” is a copout, that we all have the capacity (and therefore the obligation) to become anything we want to become, by the expedient of pretending that we already are.

This is who I am. And I have no interest in pretending to be someone or something else in the name of self-improvement. I don’t want to “fake it ’til I make it”. But I also want to keep growing and changing and learning and challenging.

I am. And I have been. And I will be.
Human being and becoming.

on Produce

Fair warning.
This story has with a moral.
The moral of this story is: if you ever have a chance to go grocery shopping with a pre-schooler who is really excited about rutabaga, take it.

This story begins with a long-but-worth-it weekend of travelling to see friends and family. Good times all around– but the regular Saturday morning grocery shopping trip just didn’t happen. So, since my husband generally enjoys food, and since he was planning to start and end his workday earlier than usual, he agreed to do some grocery shopping on the way home. I wanted to make a stew, so I asked him to pick up some things that aren’t on the usual list, including a rutabaga.

He came home with an abundance of wonderful things to eat. But no rutabaga. It seems the rutabagas available at Nearby Grocery Store A were wizened and sad and he couldn’t bring himself to purchase one.

But, still, many wonderful things to eat. So 3-year-old Ruth and I set about putting away the groceries. I get a huge kick out of watching this child’s developing relationship with food. As I work at putting away long-ingrained ideas about ‘good’ and ‘bad’ foods, and listen to my body’s cues about hunger, she’s a natural expert.

Mommy! Daddy got yummy blueberries!
Mommy! Crackers! Daddy got crackers at the grocery store!
Mommy! CHICKEN!
Noodles, mommy! These go in the cupboard.

Somehow, through her eyes, food is an absolute, unabashed delight. Each item was carefully removed from a bag, and exclaimed over, and carried gingerly to either the fridge of the pantry cupboard, and stowed safely away. She does this fairly often, and it amazes me the sorts of food she recognizes.

After dinner, I invited her for a walk to the grocery store with me– for a Rutabaga. I’m incredibly fortunate to have not one, but TWO major grocery stores in easy walking distance from my home. (Park? no. Good school? no. Grocery stores? yes.) So we headed off to Nearby Grocery Store B. All along our walk down the hill, and through the aisles of the store, Ruth sang:

“Rutabaga Rutabaga Rutabaga”

We found some root veggies in reasonable condition, she insisted on carrying the thing, clutched to her chest, to the check-out. The underpaid teen at the cash cracked a smile as Ruth informed him “We need a rutabaga”. She conceded that I could, perhaps, carry our purchase home.

The stew was awesome.

She wants a Big Fattie

One of the most entertaining things about life with a pre-schooler is trying to figure out what she’s talking about, most of the time. Her speech is actually quite clear (well, it is to me, anyway) but while each individual word is easily understood, she expresses herself in a hodge-podge of words, concepts and images cobbled together from home, day-care, TV, and her own vivid imagination.

(oh, the days and nights of frustrated bedtime angst it took to figure out that her demands for “The Kite Song” were for this little ditty. If you guessed that there is a rainbow-coloured kite suspended above her bed, that makes you far, far quicker on the uptake than her poor parents.)

This morning, as I was cutting up an apple for her breakfast, she announced that she wanted a “Big Fattie”.
Actually, what she said was, “Mommy, I want a big fattie, please I have it?”

And, you know, she said “please” so I was inclined to grant her request. If only I had the faintest idea what it was.

As it turns out, a “Big Fattie” is a quartered apple- as distinct from a diced or more thoroughly sliced apple. At daycare, little babies get their apples thin-sliced, while big kids are entitled to “Big Fatties”. Big Fatties don’t turn brown on you, and they come with the skin on. Big Fatties are the bestest way to eat an apple.

I’m not sure that “Fattie” is a word I would have introduced into her vocabulary, were her entire vocabulary up to me. But, clearly, it isn’t. And I think I’m very pleased that her associations with this word are happy ones- connected to abundance and sharing and the good food, and the bigness that is connected with her own growing sphere of ability and capability.

This is probably not the last context in which she will hear the words, “Big Fattie”. Because, in the way most of the rest of the world uses that phrase, whether or not she wanted one, she’s got one– me. But for now, the word comes without shame, or blame, or critique. A fattie is big in wonderful, satisfying, happy-making, take-my-apple-and-a-kiss-too, delicious ways.

Maybe if we start having Big Fatties for breakfast more often, it’ll become as easy for me to hear, as it is for her to say.

Remember you are dust.

I hope you enjoyed your pancakes!
I can’t believe its already Ash Wednesday again.

And, in realizing that I’ve blogged about this day before, I’ve also realized that I’ve been blogging here (off and on, more off than on) for over a year.

And nary a hateful comment in all that time. I must be doing something wrong.

I’m leading a service this afternoon, for a small church who’s Priest recently retired. I love this service (a variation on what we do is here). The litany of penitence is thorough, and difficult. But it ends with absolution. The honour of pronouncing God’s forgiveness to God’s people is still new and fresh, no matter how often I do it.

I’m struck by the power of this act of imposition of ashes, and the starkness of the words: remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

I need to hear this. I need to remember this.
It is not a message I hear from most quarters.

I am told: “You need to buy, to acquire, to have, to hold… whoever has the most toys WINS! Bigger house! Bigger car! Newer! Shinier! Faster!”
(remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.)

I am told: “You need to diet and lose weight, you need to stay young and beautiful, or you will get sick and die! Fat people will all DIIIIIIEEEEE!”
(remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.)

I am told that I am broken, and that somehow I must fix myself to be ‘good enough’ to enjoy any of the good things life has to offer. I am told that I should suffer now, to earn the right to good things in the future.
(remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.)

Life is short. I am dust, and to dust I shall return. And if I will not make the choices that will lead to a more abundant life then I have wasted this fleeting gift of life.

In the church calendar, the season just ended yesterday (with pancakes!) was Epiphany. And I so leave you with this brilliant bit from the mind of Joss Whedon (who, for a man who claims not to be religious, has a lot of wise things to say about community, forgiveness, hope, choosing good, fighting evil, redemption, and abundant life.)

From Angel, Episode 38 “Epiphany”.

Night. Kate and Angel are sitting side by side outside in the garden court of the Hyperion.
Kate: “I feel like such an idiot.”
Angel: “A lot of that going around.”
Kate: “I just couldn’t… – My whole life has been about being a cop. If I’m not part of the force it’s like nothing I do means anything.”
Angel, still looking pretty beat up: “It doesn’t.”
Kate: “Doesn’t what?”
Angel: “Mean anything. In the greater scheme or the big picture, nothing we do matters. There’s no grand plan, no big win.”
Kate: “You seem kind of chipper about that.”
Angel: “Well, I guess I kinda – worked it out. If there is no great glorious end to all this, if – nothing we do matters, – then all that matters is what we do. ’cause that’s all there is. What we do, now, today. – I fought for so long. For redemption, for a reward – finally just to beat the other guy, but… I never got it.”
Kate: “And now you do?”
Angel: “Not all of it. All I wanna do is help. I wanna help because – I don’t think people should suffer, as they do. Because, if there is no bigger meaning, then the smallest act of kindness – is the greatest thing in the world.”
Kate: “Yikes. It sounds like you had an epiphany.”
Angel: “I keep saying that. But nobody’s listening.”

Friday Fluff: a happy coincidence

I find it delightful that the two posts titles:

“Five Confessions” and
“Forgiveness”

Are appearing consecutively on the Fatosphere feed.

[edited to add: confession without forgiveness seems so pointless- which is sort of what the "forgiveness" post is about. Moving forward after making mistakes- we all have to do it, and if we are in relationship with others in community, we have to do it together with them. If confession isn't, at its heart, mostly about a first step towards reconciliation- directed towards moving on together, then what is it for?

There was some good stuff about this on (of all places) Ni Hao Kai Lan.
"When you cause a problem here's what you should do:
first you say you're sorry then you help to fix it, too"

Wouldn't that be a world worth living in? Where confession was mostly "I'm sorry about this problem I caused" and forgiveness was mostly "here's what might fix it, lets do it together"?]

Also: I’m posting this while waiting for the Banana-chocolate-chip muffins that Ruth and I made together to cool. Baking with toddlers is an awesome good time, and the totally-forgiving nature of muffins makes them a good choice for us. (Finding a use for the spotty bananas is good, too).

I love baking with Ruth- and she loves it, too. Most of what we make is delicious, with the bittersweet aftertaste of knowing I have less than 2 years before school nutrition and health programs will start teaching her that the cookies we make together are “bad”.

Adam and Steve

I was taking both the girls to the library the other day, juggling a pre-schooler, an infant, a big bag of books, 2 coats, 3 toques… you get the idea.

At the edges of my personal aura of chaos (I imagine us surrounded by a cloud of disorder, sort of like Pigpen) there was a guy in the lobby, speaking loudly enough to penetrate my chaos-bubble and demand a portion of my attention. And I found myself trapped in this awful question:

I’m here with my kids. So, for their sake, do I just walk past, ignore this guy, not make a scene, and just let his words just hang there, uncontested? Or, for their sake, do I speak up, and speak out?

What he said was, “… but I’m a Christian, and God made Adam and EVE, not Adam and STEVE”.

Now I wish I’d said something.

I wish I had asked him, when Adam and Eve were created in the garden- what colour were they? And what shape, what size? Was one of them blind? or deaf? Was one of them lactose intolerant? And just who, in the whole realm of human diversity, is he prepared to exclude from the realm of human experience on the basis of the fact that they do not, in these regards, resemble Adam or Eve?

If you have given power and authority to this ancient creation story, do you truly imagine that the entire spectrum of humanity could possibly be encompassed by any two human beings?

I wish I had said, among other things, that I, too, am a Christian. And I worship a triune God. And there is a LOT of doctrine that Christian Churches quibble about, but the Trinity isn’t really one of them. Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. First, Second and Third Person of the Trinity. We use different language but one of those (rare) basic, credal statements of faith that we make is that we worship a God who is Three in One, and One in Three.

And Adam and Eve were created in the image of that God.

So, if two persons aren’t enough to encompass the fullness of the Divine reality how could it possibly be that two persons are enough to encompass the fullness of the human reality? (I loved, loved LOVED what Fillyjonk said about human bodies “in all their many forms and functions”)

Or, is it possible, just possible, that the human family, the family of those who are created in the image of God, who, as bearers of that image have a claim and a right some basic respect and courtesy from those who claim to worship the God whose image they bear, is wider than just Adam, and Eve. Is it possible, just possible, that there is not, in fact, one ideal way of being human.

The thing is, the discussion about the Church’s role in the blessing of same-sex marriages is ongoing in my denomination. On either side (and many clustered in confusion, hope, and frustration in the middle) there are faithful, kind, loving, scripture-reading, Jesus-following people who are trying choose a path of true discipleship. There are people I admire and respect on both sides of the marriage-blessing table. (And many who are sick of this subject demanding so much energy, who would rather talk about poverty reduction, global inequality, environmental justice…)

Now, if I could just reduce all that to a rhyming sound-bite I could proclaim it to any and all in the lobby of the public library.

Eh? You went fishin’?

There’s this thing we do in my family, this in-joke, that may be an iteration of a spontaneous conversation between two of my ancestors somewhere in our history, or it may not.  But we do it.  It is part of how we re-establish ourselves as a single family, now that we are scattered across a continent.  It is how spouses affirm themselves as one of us.

“I’ve had sufficient”

“Eh? What? You went fishin”

“I’ve had plenty”

“What’s that? You caught twenty?”

“You silly old fool”

“Eh? You fell in the pool?”

You are one of us when you know the correct response to a spontaneously offered “I’ve had suffiicient”.  Sometimes there doesn’t even need to be an answer.  We can just leave it unspoken because we all know that we all know the answer.

But it has to be said.  We cannot eat a meal together without the ritual refusal of seconds with the phrase, “I’ve had sufficient”.  Which is a long and roundabout way of explaining why it is that the notion of sufficiency gets into my head over the holidays.  I think it informs the way we feast together, too.  We don’t do a lot of staggering away from the table, uncomfortable and overfed.  And for sure, nobody walks away hungry.  We stop eating when we’ve had sufficient.  I’m very fortunate that big family meals have this food-anxiety escape valve built right in.  “I’ve had sufficient”.

In broader terms, I’m strugging with the idea of having sufficient as this new year begins.

8 months ago, before I left my fabulous part-time job for a maternity leave, people kept asking me what I planned.  I kept being evasive, knowing that plans often change.  But I can say it here: what I planned, what I wanted, was to go back.  I wanted life to settle into a new sort of normal, with two babies and a great part-time job (in a community I love, with a boss I respect and admire) and freedom to moonlight very part time with a small Church that needed someone to do exactly what I can do, but only on a very part-time basis.  I wanted to be a mother, and a priest, and a wife, and occasionally a level 70 Draenei Hunter.  All in one, wonderful, messy, chaotic package.  Like I was before.

But plans change.  I was auxilliary staff in an institution that depends on investment income and charitable givings.  No hard feelings, not renewing my contract was a valid and necessary budget decision.  Plans changed.

So now I don’t know if or where I will find gainful employment this year.  I don’t know if this will be the year we leave this city that I’ve come to love;  if this will be the year we learn to live on one salary; if this will be the year that I convince an employer that some of my skills would be useful outside of Churchland.

I do know that anxiety about it won’t help.  That anxiety about it is, in fact, the opposite of helpful.  I’m trying to hold Matthew 6 in mind. I’m trying to remember that the moment my own plans fall apart is the moment that God’s plan can come to fruition. I’m trying to remember that, with one good salary maintaining my household, I have a great deal more than many. My family is healthy. My parents, sisters, spouse, and children all love me. My daughters are bright shining lights, brimming with both potential and realized beauty and wonder. I am one of the fortunate few.

So, although my sisters have scattered again across the continent, I keep saying it.
“I have sufficient”.

I keep saying it, and hoping that soon my whole self will believe it.

Et tu, Roll Play?

Ian Gadsby, Web Team Supervising Producer: Roll Play

Dear Mr. Gadsby

I have been a fan of Roll Play for as long as I have been a regular consumer of children’s television, and a fan of Treehousetv.com for almost as long. My favourite thing about Roll Play has always been its inclusive approach to active play.  The Roll Play kids show amazing diversity in many respects, including body size and shape.  The overall message of the program seems to be “whoever you are, get up and move your body, because it’s FUN”.  Roll Play beautifully underscores the vital difference between “active play” and “working out”.  This is very much in line with the “Health At Every Size” approach  I hope my daughters will adopt as a lifelong habit.

Because of my love for the show, I was shocked and saddened by the game “Snack Attack” as part of Roll Play’s interactive presence.  While there is indeed more nutritional merit in an apple than in a jellybean, and choosing healthful foods as an important part of overall health, the game’s premise does not represent a healthful, balanced approach to snacking.  Dividing the world into “healthy” snacks that give points, and “bad” snacks that penalize your score normalizes a disordered relationship with food.  The premise that food is an attacking enemy that must be avoided is a potentially harmful one.  The admirable goals of encouraging kids to be active and choose healthful snacks are gravely undermined if they contribute to the frightening numbers of young  children who are affected by life-threatening eating disorders.

I urge you to remove “Snack Attack” from Roll Play’s online presence, or reconsider the scoring system.  And my daughters and I will continue to enjoy a healthful balance of active play, educational TV, interactive media, and baking cookies and cakes to share with family and friends.

Sincerely,

Me.

New Look

So, astute readers will have gleaned that I FAIL at NaBloPoMo.

I just didn’t have that much to say, so chose to say nothing.  You’re welcome.

I did get around to customizing my design a bit.  The rainbow/dove image is a fragment of the altar frontal at St. Laurence in the Square. This delightful church and its (sorry St. Laurence) even more delightful sister church of St. Swithun-upon-Kingsgate are nowhere near here. I visited Winchester a few years ago, and when I got home I realized most of my pictures were of paraments. I have great admiration for the hours (and hours and hours) of (women’s) labour that are given to the Glory of God to make the Church a place of beauty. These images- varied, creative, skillfully rendered- were, in the same way as stained glass windows, a visual teaching tool. Maybe I’m overly romantic about it, nostalgic for a past that never was, but I love the idea of faithful women creatively expressing something about the nature of God… preaching sermons with needle and thread.

I chose this one in particular because the dove is an important symbol to me- a sign of peace and hope and the presence of the Holy Spirit. And the colour scheme worked.

So Smart!

Ruth was working on a new puzzle. Lots of fun for her, and even more fun for me. Because now, puzzles come with running commentary: a tiny window into the workings of her amazing little mind.

“I need Jolly Roger’s other eye. Where is Jolly Roger’s other eye? Where is it? Is that it? No. Is this it? YES! YES! I found Jolly Roger’s other eye! I DID IT!

I am so smart. And so strong…

Now I need the castle.”

At what point do we stop being willing to say things like that? I was taught not to talk about being smart, or strong. To be modest, to show humility. But I didn’t just learn not to say it. I learned not to think it. I recently crashed and burned when a job interviewer asked “What strengths and skills do you think you would bring to our organization?” (I know, a question out of nowhere… who could have anticipated that?!)

I want to keep that voice in her head for as long as possible. Sure, she should probably learn that there are times to keep those thoughts to herself. But I want so much for her to keep thinking them. That’s my ongoing challenge, as a parent.  And I want that voice back in my own head- at least during job interviews.

My response in the moment?
“And brave. Don’t forget brave.  You are so smart and so strong and also very brave.”