Author Archives: Tara

Hi! Stopping by for a witty recounting of the gift opening, or the family dinner, or my table decorations? Ummmm……you might want to keep surfing. This ain’t that post. Maybe next week?

As this Christmas evening winds down, Christmas exhaustion is setting in, and with it a bit of my annual post-Christmas angst. My own Christmas emotional hangover, if you will. When I was a kid, these feelings of melancholy revolved around the sad, unavoidable fact that there were no more presents to be opened, the boxes all unwrapped, the packaging opened and discarded. Or maybe the disappointment of a well-intentioned gift that just wasn’t anything I had wanted.

When I was older, it was the realization that I wasn’t nearly so excited about presents anymore, that I didn’t want toys, and the gifts that represented my looming adulthood didn’t hold nearly the same allure. (Clothes are great, but they’re just not fun, am I right?) Not only that, but maturity brought with it a higher level of responsibility and pressure for the gifts that I chose. I was more aware when a gift I’d chosen had hit its mark, or missed entirely, and I had a growing sense of my own role in the wish fulfillment of others.

Having children of my own brought back some of the wonder and excitement, as I tried with my husband to create the perfect Christmas for them, one that represented just the right amount of wishes granted and surprises intuited and reassurance of overwhelming abundance.

And this year came really close. Our boys are just about the perfect Christmas age – still young enough to want toys and be excited by them (even if many are electronic), but old enough to nearly make it through the day without succumbing to exhaustion and over-stimulation. We were able to grant many, if not all, of their wishes, and even a couple they had not dared to wish. And miracle of Christmas miracles, each of them of their own accord and initiative expressed sincere gratitude and thanks to us and their grandparents!

(And there were a few fights, and some bad attitude, a wee lack of sharing and even a few punches thrown. This isn’t fiction, folks, this is three little boys we’re talking about.)

Still. Perfect as the day was, there are tinges. Tinges of worry, worry that my boys are too spoiled, have too much, and don’t realize the heights of our family’s blessedness. Worry that Christmas with family, with my parents, cannot be forever, and that I didn’t cherish each moment enough. Sadness about extended family members who chose not to be with us, family members whose lives are difficult and painful and outside of my control or ability to make better with a beautifully prepared meal and perfect gift. Sadness that they struggle to heal from wounds inflicted by others whom I could not stop.

Perfect as the day was, I am aware that our sponsor children in Africa probably did not celebrate until their tummies were too full, that if their tummies hurt tonight that it is because they are too empty. If their mommies worry, it is because they don’t know where dinner will come from, and not whether they picked the right Wii game for the family. (Although with Just Dance 3, I don’t know how I could have gone wrong.)

Perfect as the day was, I know that there are others out there who went without much more even than a meal. I know that my dad lost a friend in a car accident this week, and a friend of mine lost a family member. I know my parents and I grieve my brother, gone 14 years. Worse yet, I know that there are those who go each day without love, without family, without a sense that they belong or are wanted.

I know, as a fully “inducted” grown-up, that our world is broken and there is pain and loss and grief, even and especially on Christmas. I know it is normal for me to want to shield my boys from it as long as I can, to somehow reassure them of their place in this world, of how deeply they are loved through the certainty that comes with the granting of Christmas wishes with presents and candy canes. All of this I want to do without allowing them to see or know about the darkness in this world.

I think it is probably OK to shield them now, for a little while longer, as long as I accept that nothing I do, no picture-perfect Christmas I provide, can change the nature of that darkness. But I can’t allow that shielding for myself. I can’t turn away from the brokenness or the ugliness in this world. And I have to accept that any attempt I can make to reassure them is pointless and empty ……without that baby.

That’s what I gotta keep circling back to, over and over again, ’cause none of it matters without that baby in the manger.

That baby, that baby was love piercing the darkness, light piercing the hate, and the only reassurance that matters.

He was the Light that shined in our darkness, and the darkness has not put it out.

That’s what cures my Christmas hangover.

Well, that, and fudge.

Life around these parts has been WAY too serious and depressing lately – stuff going on in my extended life that currently isn’t mine to share. So, since I can’t share what’s really on my heart right now, I thought I’d bless you with this instead:

See, that right there is a big snake, courtesy Sunsentinel.com

Instead of boring you with my life drama, I’m going to give us both a reason to be glad we weren’t hiking in the Florida Everglades recently. Cause this here snake (why must I write about the snake with a particularly….rural accent in my head? I don’t know) done swallowed a whole entire deer, a SEVENTY-SIX pound deer.

That right there, my bloggity buds, is some perspective, free of charge!

Am I struggling to see the light at the end of a long, long tunnel? Yes, I am, but I ain’t been swallowed whole by a snake!

Do I find it disturbing that even in the (extraordinarily) early years of not-quite-middle age, my skin has certain resemblances to that of a 13 yr. old? Yes, I wish I was blemish-free, but I ain’t been crushed to death BEFORE being swallowed whole by a snake!

Do I wish that dark chocolate peppermint Joe-Joe’s from Trader Joes were calorie-free? Well, of course I do, but I’d rather eat Joe-Joe’s than be eaten by a giant snake!

Apparently, this particular python has teeth that point backwards, all the better for grasping the prey it is crushing to death before swallowing whole. Lovely.

My final gift of perspective?

Fall in my Northwest neck of the woods

A lovely view on a stroll.....

Fall in the Florida Everglades

Run, Bambi, Run!

There you have it. Even on a bad week, I’ve got something for which I am grateful. Think I’ll go outside for a stroll now….

Need more info on the snake? It’s right here: BIIIIIIGGGGGGG Snake

I know that as a competent, educated and successful woman, I should be able to do it all. If I cannot do it all, I should prioritize, and choose those things I would let go. Set them free, as it were, to drift off into the sunset of my consciously reduced expectations. But the reality is that I both want to do it all, and feel intensely resentful about not wanting to do it all, all at the same time. (Welcome to being a woman.) (Why, yes, I might overthink it a bit, why do you ask?)

I’m feeling that conflict pretty intensely right now as I’ve just gone back to work part-time. Things that my family feels they should be able to take for granted, like clean clothes or, I don’t know, dinner? Those things are currently not happening in a consistent or reliable fashion.

In a moment of sheer fantasy, I decided to make a list of the services I would happily pay someone else to do for me so I could spend more time reading books to the boys, or helping them craft original art projects, or frolic in local nature parks. Or send them outside so I can watch movie trailers online. Or read People Magazine. You know, the basics.

Obviously this is all fantasy, cause once again I’ve taken my expensive degrees and put them to use in the highly paid, glamorous world of nonprofits. Wait, that should read highly rewarding, not really glamorous world of nonprofits. Either way, I can’t afford to pay for any of this, but it’s fun to dream. Plus, if I’m dreaming I can put off going and actually folding the clean clothes. Ugh. Let’s make that first on the list:

Top Five Things I’d Pay For If I Could Afford It

5. Folding and Putting Away the Laundry – seriously. I do manage to get it all washed and dried. But then it kind of gets stuck in the hallway in buckets of clean laundry. I’m afraid my boys are going to lose the use of words like closet, drawer or hangar. Then it just lingers there in the hall, socks taunting me as I walk by, wrinkled shirts calling out to me my inadequacies as a laundress.

4. A Personal Trainer – this person would just show up at my house and make me work out. I know I could get totally buff if I had someone make me work out 5 times a week. And they would be really funny, so I wouldn’t hate them. Plus all the laughing would give me killer abs.

3. Washing Gross Pots and Pans – Full disclosure, I don’t do this now. I make my sweet hubby do it, and he does, with nary a complaint or whimper. Much. But I figure it I get all this free fantasy stuff, I might as well let him in on it a bit.

2. Making Big, Fabulous Salads and Cutting Up Fruit – I know, this is pitiful. But when I go out and have a salad, veggie or fruit, I remember I really like eating salads. I just don’t like making them. All the chopping, and the peeling, and the ….  oh, I don’t know. Like I said, I know this one is pitiful. But if I had a fridge stocked with yummy salads that I could visit between sessions with my amusing personal trainer? I KNOW I’d be a skinny, skinny girl.

1. Grocery shopping – I. HATE. GROCERY. SHOPPING. Especially with children. Lord have mercy, don’t make me grocery shop with the children. One child? Totally doable. Two or three children? A chaotic melee of punching, racing around the cart, riding on the cart, and then more punching. Did I mention I have boys?

(PS, I am fully aware that these are spoiled, whiny fantasies that reveal my First World-centric nonproblems – plenty of clothes to wear, food to eat, a kitchen to cook in. I do get it, and I try to be properly grateful. Sometimes I use humor to help kick myself in my whiny hiney.)

Ahhhh, dreams, they keep our hope alive. I think I’ll go downstairs where the laundry can’t see me, and watch a little TV. What the socks don’t know can’t hurt me.

That’s right. The ISSUE. You know, the issue dividing church congregations across America, causing us to take sides, split apart, be rent asunder. We, who are to be One in spirit, in unity, and in love, are instead many in division, in opinion, in anger and in alienation. You know, the ISSUE.

And no, I’m not talking about bad potlucks. Or boring committees. Or the quality of church tea. (But really, Lipton? Not that Lipton isn’t a fine, upstanding company, I’m sure, but that ain’t tea. Why do the coffee snobs get all the good stuff?) (I digress.)  Of course, it would be great if the meeting of hundreds of interested members I attended this weekend was called to discuss the quality and quantity of our congregational family’s outreach to the poor, or whether or not we were sufficiently welcoming the lonely, broken or sick in our communities into our arms.

But no. It was called because I belong to a traditional Christian denomination (let’s say it rhymes with Shmesbryterian) that is struggling with the issue of gay and lesbian members in positions of church leadership. The meeting was called to educate and inform the congregation about denominational events on the national level, biblical background for the two major positions, and to recap the work that had been done in our congregation. Following that was an opportunity to break into small groups and be heard, to ensure that all opinions were reaching the ears of leadership.

People, I gotta tell you, lessons were learned. Because I’m a giver, and those lessons will sink in to my head better if I’m forced to write them down, I thought I’d share them with you. To be clear, this post is not my statement on the issue, nor arguments to change anyone’s mind. That is another post, if it is a post at all. These are just lessons and observations. Three of them, in honor of the 3-point sermon tradition…..plus one more because I really have four.

4. Leadership, well done, is a towering act of love.  I truly do not think I have ever seen a more practical, real example of this than Sunday afternoon. I cannot imagine the time our senior pastor put into this presentation, the preparation, the planning and consideration, or the prayer. Or how many brothers and sisters in Christ prayed him to it and through it. But it was evident in every respectful, careful, and loving word he said. He was logical and emotional, respectful and firm, thorough and concise. He walked us through an issue that could have left us splintered, grieving and broken, and brought us to a meaningful position from which to cling together. I left in awe of and grateful for his leadership. I want to grow up and be just like that. But inevitably louder and a good deal more obnoxious, I am afraid.

3. That whole thing about what happens when we assume, and what it makes out of you and me? Truth. I was reminded how difficult it is when smart, thoughtful, prayerful, good people come down on radically different sides of an issue.(Side note A: If any non-Christians ever read this post, please be assured that even within my small denomination there is widespread, LOVING disagreement on this issue and many others. We are dumb humans, trying to figure it out. Side note B: If any gay or lesbian Christian or non-Christian ever reads this post, please know that my (probably not Shmesbryterian) God loves you unconditionally. Period. Not trying to be pushy. Just sayin’.)

In the listening group, I saw the fallout in difficult assumptions that came out just in my small group of 4-5 people. We represented both sides, and hurtful assumptions were made about “my” side. Assumptions are short-sided, and they are the death of good dialogue.

2. Humility will take us all a great, great distance. This was true both in the presentation (for good) and in the listening group I participated in at the end (maybe not for good).  As Christ Himself did not say anything about the ISSUE in the Scriptures, we simply CANNOT be entirely sure what He would say. I know I do not want to be caught someday looking in His eyes, trying to justify what I had claimed He would say or want, or the resulting actions I took from such a claim. Please save me from that arrogance. At the very least, I think we need to hold any position with a degree of “this is the best I can do as a fallible human being and I could well have it entirely mucked up.” Such humility, liberally applied with love and mercy, would serve us all well, even when we feel the need to take a stand. (I must remind myself of this frequently, as I can wield righteous indignation with the best of them.)

My final lesson, which I think I will be pondering for a long time to come:

1. We are likely to find more of Christ, and to look more like Christ, when we CHOOSE the  inherent messiness of living out our faith with people with whom we disagree. We may allow God to do a far bigger work in us when we choose to be with those with whom we differ, and argue, and struggle.

In a world that pushes us to polarize, to separate, to split into red and blue, black and white, for and against…….to choose to stay together? Oh, this is the radical choice. But if we do it the world’s way? When we separate ourselves into comfortable little camps that look like us, think like us and feel like us, we are in danger of reducing Christ to a god who merely looks like us, thinks like us and believes like us. Lord, have mercy.

Often in this blog, if I am making some sort of bossy, pushy and emotionally compelling demand such as the one in today’s title, I will be linking to something that I find Really Important. Good works that you could support, if only you knew about them.

Today is different. Today, I want you to watch this video because I don’t want to be the only one standing alone in my kitchen, snorting and laughing at my computer. That would be pathetic, so help a girl out. I found this video via Jon Acuff at Stuff Christians Like. Jon makes me laugh through his blog on a regular basis, and we are great friends. Only he doesn’t know that yet. But he will. He and his wife Jenny and my husband and I are going to be awesome Christian couple friends, as soon as I figure out how to get 7 years younger and 75% cooler.

However, I digress. This video is awesome, and I think I have just found my latest Internet time-suck in Tyler and Tripp. Watch for detail people, and listen close, cause there is lots of awesome to be had.  Enjoy, and let me know if you liked it too!

Today was a generally crappy day. Just the way it happens. Some days are crappy.

I thought it would be a super productive day, but it was not.

I thought my five-year-old would shake his fever. He did not.

I thought I would avoid (potentially hormonal) fits of malaise and hypochondria in which I was sure I was coming down with his fever. I did not.

Had I thought about it, I would have hoped to avoid frustration, pain and confusion resulting from the NEVER-ENDING saga that can be extended family. Nope, I didn’t.

However,  days like today remind me that if I stay focused on the right Source, the joy will come. Not overabundant quantities of joy, not endless supplies of say, sleep, chocolate, Sour Skittles, sun and sandy beaches. No, no, just….enough joy.

Enough to remind me that there is good in the world. That I can laugh, and I should. That while I am worrying (needlessly) about things over which I have no control, that God has my back. And that He knows when I need a giggle, so I can get up and do it again tomorrow.

Today my five-year-old invented his own form of New Math, a sophisticated blend of linguistic symbology and algebraic representation. It will probably help us stabilize wormholes or polarity fields or something in the future. Oh, have I not mentioned he is a genius? I’m not bragging just cause he’s my kid, it’s quite simple. He’s a genius. What’s that? No, I do not think it was a fever-induced vision…..

We were having a jovial disagreement about the merits of his breakfast, sort of a “no, it isn’t” “yes, it is” kind of a thing. I said “well, what do you know? You’re five!” To which he said, “Oh, yeah? Well, I know what 1 plus X is! Wunx!” Wait for it…think about it……

Wunx. Also pronounced wuncks. Brilliant.

Just. Enough. Joy.

Carry on.

Note: my brilliant, fever-dreamin’ boy swears he made this up, and did not hear it from Spongebob or elsewhere. If that is not the case, you may burst my bubble, cause it will still make me giggle. And that is the point.

Yeah, that didn’t happen. I start a new job tomorrow, one with promise and potential to be rewarding, and to use my skills for a good purpose. And a week ago, when last I posted, I knew what I needed to do:

“Goal 2 – Mental meditation and reset: I start a new part-time job in a week or so, and I need to fully process this exciting new opportunity and work through incorporating it into our family life. This will require lots of quiet time, alone, to think. Oh, I’m SURE I’ll have lots of that this week.”

Nope, didn’t happen. Not even close. What extra time I did have this week went directly to other pursuits, such as a tasty new recipe for chocolatey oatmeal bars, new fall TV, and the relative merits of flea medications for cats. Oh, I jest somewhat, as the week was also full of Important Family Stuff, and Important Church Stuff.

The truth is, I can be a bit of an avoider. Sometimes thinking about Big Stuff can be overwhelming, so I only allow myself little bits and bites of it at a time, letting it sift through the other topics on my mind and sneak into my full consciousness without really focusing on it. Or I talk about it with all my girlfriends, and my mom, and my husband (at least ’til his eyes glaze over, guy-style), and then I figure I’ve handled it.

Sequester myself to think it through, alone? Who has the time? Even less likely, sequester myself to take it to the One Who already knows how it will turn out – why on earth would I do that? Because if I don’t think about it, it might go away. And if I don’t pray about it, I don’t have to trust Him to help me, or risk that He won’t help me the way I want.

In truth, I know that in time alone, I can tease out my concerns, my fears, and my next steps. In conversation with Him, I can share the weight of those concerns, safely face those fears, and seek His guidance on the next steps.

But no, I continue to stumble along in the dark, taking a gamble on my abilities to see it through.  Then I wind up being about as effective as my dining room light:

On my own, I'm about this effective...

Why, yes, I have considered a career as a photographer, why do you ask? Oh, I kid….

Can you believe that NONE of the bulbs in this fixture are burnt out, even though only one is lit (the rest is just reflection)? None of them. They just won’t stay on for more than a millisecond at a time, and unless I can find a solution, I may have to switch out the entire light fixture. Which would be tragic, because it has my favorite design quality: it’s Swoopy. Swoopy is a hard-to-pinpoint, unique quality that I find very pleasing, and that this fixture displays in quantity. If only it was able to actually produce light, as well…..

SEE? See how I make that clumsy graceful comparison? I am but a 5-light fixture burning only one bulb at the moment, not producing nearly the light I could in the world….Really, the potential metaphors are nearly endless – I am but the Bulb, and Christ is my electricity.

If my fittings are loose, I can’t use the juice. OK, I don’t know what that one means, exactly, but points for the rhyme!

OK, it’s cheesy, but it’s what I’ve got tonight. Thanks for coming by to bask in my dim light, I’m off to do a little thinking, and sharing, and maybe even some quick recharging.

I must be a somewhat discombobulated collection of random this week, ’cause my current goals are all over the map. I was just sitting in the post-bedtime quiet, looking around the house, thinking about what I’d like to accomplish this week. What a weird picture of who I am right now, in this moment. Are everyone’s goals this …. um…..eclectic?

Goal 1 – Tomatoes: I picked a bunch of tomatoes at my dad’s house last week, and true to my overly enthusiastic, underly* planned self, I left the bag in the car for 36 of the final hours of hot Oregon summer. Then I threw away the 3/4 of the bunch which had burst and rotted, leaving me with the remainder in a container on the kitchen counter right before leaving town for 2 days. Now I get to either A. roast and freeze the remainder or B. throw the rest away, depending on how they did while I was gone. What? No, actually, I haven’t looked closely at them yet. I’m waiting for….inspiration and courage. (*whattya mean, “underly” isn’t a word? You just read it in a blog, didn’t you? Ergo, it IS a word!)

Goal 2 – Mental meditation and reset: I start a new part-time job in a week or so, and I need to fully process this exciting new opportunity and work through incorporating it into our family life. This will require lots of quiet time, alone, to think. Oh, I’m SURE I’ll have lots of that this week.

Goal 3 – Backpacks: If it KILLS me this year, I will come up with a workable plan for my tiny, tiny entryway and the 3 sets of backpacks/shoes/coats/stuff that need to occupy it. My entryway is a blessing of peace and joy when it is neat and tidy, and a tiny torture chamber of annoyance when its messy. I. Will. Conquer. The. Backpacks.

Goal 4 – Strategic Communications: Working on a big new project which will affect a lot of people, and I want it to go really well. Will need to put my impulsive, enthusiastic overly communicative self in a head-lock and proceed with mapping a plan to ensure success.

Goal 5 – Learn complicated legal issue, implement solution: Sure, looks like a slow week, so I think I’ll also work on learning the ins and outs of a complicated family legal situation, why not?

What are you working on this week?

Sorry sports fans, this ain’t about baseball. This may be kinda serious, but take my word for it, it’s better than me writing about sports.

Just got smacked in the head this week by another curve ball. You’d think I’d figure it out, but apparently I am a really slow learner. Slow to learn that when it comes to what God wants in my life, I’m supposed to wait on Him. Maybe because I’ve always been book smart, I’m always happy to go off and try to figure it out on my own, good intentions and all. So over and over, God has to throw me curve balls.

Examples? Oh, I’ve got a bucket full…..

First, when I went off to college, I was gonna be a whiter, shorter new Oprah. Four years, a communications degree and no business classes later, I figured I needed a business degree, because really, I was going to work in the glamorous world of corporate PR. Two years, a business degree and fifty thousand dollars in educational debt later, I landed a job in the non-glamorous nonprofit world.

Curve ball.

When my little brother took a different path than mine, and married early to a damaged young woman (more damaged than we could know), I figured we’d just live our separate lives, let my folks carry most of the news back and forth between us, and visit a few times a year. Then he got sick, and before his 27th birthday, he died and left three little daughters without a father and in peril.

Curve ball.

I thought that because I’d always assumed I would have children, that when the time came I deemed appropriate, I would get pregnant. Then I didn’t.

After two years of infertility, I thought I’d figured it out, and became accustomed to the fact I’d never have children naturally. Then we had three boys.

I thought I knew the world I lived in. Then on 9/11, with my firstborn son toddling happily in front of unbelievable, horrific TV images of what was happening in New York and DC and PA, the world as we all knew it changed.

Curve ball. Curve ball. Curve ball.

When my nieces were kept from us for months and years at a time, I thought I was just supposed to be the hip, cool, distant auntie. Then their world fell apart, and my parents and I were all the family they had to stand for them.

Curve ball.

I thought that being a stay-at-home-mom was for special moms who were called to it, and I most certainly wasn’t one of THEM, so I would always work. I thought that because I had a job in nonprofit ministry, doing His work, I was supposed to stay there. Then the job changed, the people changed, and my future in the ministry changed. Then my nieces needed a foster mom, and I had to quit.

Curve ball.

I figured that even though I wasn’t called to be a stay-at-home-mom, I could certainly still figure it out and do a good job. Then I realized I couldn’t, and I wasn’t. (Lordy, are you as sick of all the “I’s” in this post as I am? It’s embarrassing.)

My baby entered kindergarten this week, and I had just come to a place of peace. I thought I’d figured out what I was doing as a stay-at-home-mom, why I was still home and what I was supposed to do with that time. Then a part-time job opportunity with way too many potential matches to my skills and experiences presents itself while I’m just looking for a kayak on Craigslist, for crying out loud!

Curve ball.

Each time, I thought I’d figured it all out – I knew what was next, what was expected, and what I was supposed to do. I may turn easily to Him in crisis, stress, and times of change. But once I reach the other side, I’m ashamed to realize it’s a different story. Then I think I’ve made it, and my actions take on an awful smug tone, more “thanks, I’ve got this, I’ll take it from here” than “thanks, You brought me here, now what?”

Each time, He says, “Child, I didn’t lead you from there to here just so you can feel good about your clarity, your achievement, and what you think you’ve figured out. I can’t do My work through you when you’re like that. So now I’m gonna lead you somewhere new again, and you’re going to have to turn to Me.”

Oh, Pitcher, I’m so grateful You are patient. I’m going to try to keep my eye on the ball. You just keep throwing those curve balls.

You brought me here, now what?

***********************************************************

You know how they say writing things helps us learn them? I just wrote this whole thing, went to correct a typo and lost 85% of it. Had to retype almost everything I’d already written. Coincidence? Probably not…..