I am frightened and lonely. I hate to post things like this for fear that my dear friends will take it as an indictment of them, but I have been lonely for most of my life. The longing for home has at times felt gloriously fulfilled, like on my wedding day, but those times are rare. 

We have lived in Michigan for almost 6 years, and despite my bright hopes for our future in Detroit before we moved at the end of 2014, we have neither lived in the city of Detroit nor ever felt at home anywhere around it. 

That’s not to say that I don’t love Michigan. It’s very beautiful. We have found good friends here everywhere we’ve gone – even some best friends. But we have found Michigan to be a desert, or a land in the grip of a spiritual famine. And I have been no rainmaker. Living here has not been the triumphant procession I imagined. It has been a proving ground for my soul. Almost every group we’ve tried to attach ourselves to, regardless of how great the people are, has seemed closed to us. People have their own families and plans. For long, long stretches of time there was no one who would show up to a party if I threw one. We still ache for our kids, who don’t have a group of friends. We routinely ask God what we are doing wrong or not seeing. This seems to be the best answer we’re going to get. 

There is as much famine behind and before us as there is right here. There’s no going back to old communities that have changed, and no promise it would be different if we went somewhere new. We have no family nearby, and my parents and sister live overseas. We lost a best friend and our children’s godfather to cancer in 2016, and just found out this Summer that another best friend has cancer. Both too far away for us to share their burden in any meaningful way. All around us it seems are lies and violence, and the fabric of a just and tolerant society is fraying beyond repair. Sometimes, despite my better judgment, I look into the future and fear for my children, for what kind of life they will have. I want to have hope, but I can’t manufacture it. I can only cling to the hope I know.

The Widow And The Uncomfortable Miracle

I stumbled across this half-finished post the other day. I wrote it when I was pregnant with Cora (#4) – one of the darkest times of our sojourn here. It feels as true now as it did then. How terrifying it feels to be a woman sometimes! How vulnerable you feel when you have small children totally dependent on you. Especially when you are carrying or nursing an infant. Especially when the world feels so scary and there is no comfort nearby. 

I often think about this woman, the widow at Zeraphath. I feel like I know the utter hopelessness she feels, even though I don’t, not really. I picture her with her small son, at the mercy of the men around her. I can imagine the ancient world during a famine. It’s terrifying. I picture her as down and out long before the famine hit. Or newly widowed and scared out of her mind. She’s just a day away from one violent man deciding she was his to do what he wanted with, unable to physically protect her son. And then, as famine set in, the new fear that nothing mattered anymore anyway. They were going to die and there was nothing she could do.

For thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, “the jar of flour shall not be spent, and the jug of oil shall not be empty, until the day that the Lord sends rain upon the earth.”

And then came the prophet Elijah. Another man, telling her what to do. What could this man do to her that would matter? But he must’ve been different, this wild man out of the wilderness. Did the woman know that the Lord had commanded her to feed Elijah, as God told him? She doesn’t seem to know it, but she calls him the Lord Elijah’s God. And she believes him when he says to feed him, that the Lord would not let the flour and oil run out. That, or it really doesn’t matter that much if it doesn’t work, so she might as well do what he says. Was it faith, or just exhaustion that compelled her?

She’s come to mind again today as all the darkness is closing in and I feel like I can’t breathe. Where was that faith I had a few months ago? I can’t find it at all. Right now, I feel like if I have to live here another minute I’m going to go crazy. For whatever reason, though I’m not physically starving, I feel like that widow about to make my last meal and starve to death with my kids.

Not that a little flour cake is much to live on, either. It’s starvation fare – it’ll barely keep you alive. There was no abundance promised, just that little bit of flour and oil until the Lord sent rain upon the earth. And if this is a promise to me – that the flour and the oil will not run out until the rain comes – what do I take to be the flour and oil? Just the barely-enough energy and money to keep going through each day? No frills, no extras, no friends or community, no intimacy? No abundance or eating my fill?

But she did it. It was the only thing standing between her and starvation. She had the word from the prophet and the evidence in her face every day. She prepared those little cakes for herself and Elijah and her household for many days. That was it.

And it was a miracle.

Is this the miracle we’re supposed to look for? Is this all the faith I am to have left? Not that God is going to do big things for me, and through me? Just that I may keep on feeding myself and my household a meager, miraculous bread? And the promise of rain? No mention of when, or for how long we will have to subsist. Just that rain does come eventually.

I so want big, miraculous things to happen, and I want to be the instrument of those things. I don’t know about you, but we could use a Euchatastrophe* right now. But we have learned how to subsist when we could not thrive. I have learned to accept the miracle of a little bit of what I need, right when I think I am going to starve, and the promise that, sooner or later, rain is coming.

*”I coined the word ‘eucatastrophe’: the sudden happy turn in a story which pierces you with a joy that brings tears (which I argued it is the highest function of fairy-stories to produce). And I was there led to the view that it produces its peculiar effect because it is a sudden glimpse of Truth, your whole nature chained in material cause and effect, the chain of death, feels a sudden relief as if a major limb out of joint had suddenly snapped back. It perceives – if the story has literary ‘truth’ on the second plane (….) – that this is indeed how things really do work in the Great World for which our nature is made. And I concluded by saying that the Resurrection was the greatest ‘eucatastrophe’ possible in the greatest Fairy Story – and produces that essential emotion: Christian joy which produces tears because it is qualitatively so like sorrow, because it comes from those places where Joy and Sorrow are at one, reconciled, as selfishness and altruism are lost in Love.“

― Tolkien, from Letter 89

It’s September 2017. Birmingham Alabama, Iron City music hall. My first Hanson show. I am wearing a loose dress, birkenstocks, and a BACKPACK. I haven’t been able to eat my dinner. I have to pee, but I am not leaving my spot because I don’t want to miss their entrance. I am about to be in the same room with three men I purposely avoided for 20 years and I’m about as filled-up with feelings as it is possible to be. 

For anyone who hasn’t read the whole post from 2015, here’s the short version: in 1997 I learned about Isaac (16), Taylor(14), and Zac(11) on VH1 while babysitting.  I was 15. I instantly developed a devastating private obsession with them – and a heavy-duty crush on Taylor – that made me wonder if I was actually going crazy. Sometime in 98 or 99, I threw away their first album, “Middle Of Nowhere,” when I couldn’t take it anymore. I made it seem like I did it because everyone in youth group was throwing away their Nine Inch Nails albums and such. The truth was much more embarrassing. For almost 20 years, I was not able to see a picture of them without getting back that old crazy feeling. 

But in 2015 I’d had enough. We had just moved to Michigan, I’d had my third baby two weeks after moving in an emergency situation that left me bone weary and fearing I would no longer be able to have children. We’d left our community of 15 years and come to a place where we knew no one. We had few friends. My weight was the highest and my confidence the lowest it’s ever been. There was nothing left to lose. So I got out the old YouTube and I starting searching.

Not A One-Hit Wonder

For the uninitiated, it may appear that Hanson was a one-hit wonder. If you’re old enough, you may remember the ubiquity of “Mmmbop” in 1997. This was before the internet. For a month, I spent every night in my parents room listening to the “top 9 at 9” on U93 South Bend on their clock radio because I knew “Mmmbop” would be the number one song, but I didn’t want anyone to know I was listening to it. That song will always give me a visceral recall of dusk and crickets and loneliness.

After a second hit single, “Where’s The Love,” that year, and another single from their second record – released in 1999 – “This Time Around,” (which I don’t remember ever hearing on the radio), they disappeared from public view other than an odd press release in People magazine or an appearance on TV, as far as I knew. I still thought about them often enough, wondering what they were doing. It wasn’t quite the frenzy of prayer I subjected myself to around 97, trying to stave off insanity, but of course if Taylor came to mind I had to pray like my sanity depended on it. I will never forget where I was (foot doctor’s office on Summer break from college) when I caught the tiny thumbnail announcement on the back of a “People” that Taylor had gotten married to a girl named Natalie Bryant. I had known it was coming sooner or later; I’d just assumed I would have more time!! He was only 19. (I have come to have such respect for the Hanson wives, by the way, what little we get to know of them. Natalie is an inspiration in her own right).

One friend told me they were still touring and writing new music and that his friend had just seen them at the House Of Blues in Chicago. My sister knew a girl who had written a research paper about their experience in the music industry. They were traveling around to colleges with this documentary they’d made called “Strong Enough To Break.” 

Hanson Deep Dive

Can I just pause here and say that, if for no other reason (but there are PLENTY), the brothers Hanson are worth investigating because they are total outliers. If you can open your mind to this – and I think you should – they are an embodiment of the idea that, as John Taylor Gatto says, 

“…genius is as common as dirt. We suppress genius because we haven’t yet figured out how to manage a population of educated men and women. The solution, I think, is simple and glorious. Let them manage themselves.”

They come from a family of 7 kids, they were homeschooled, they started playing together as a band when they were 11, 9, and 6 and they stuck with it for 5 years (which, for a kid is like eternity). They did some very ballsy things like cornering a music executive at South By Southwest to ask if they could sing for him. I always think, who is this mysterious Mrs. Hanson and can I meet her someday? For the three of them to have this vision, she had to have it too.

They started their own website in the late 90’s – an actual ISP – which they kept when music executives told them they didn’t need it. It proved to be – as with many technological advances they either helped pioneer or adopted early – one of the ways they kept their career afloat when the music industry turned against them. 

When their record label got bought by another company, and that company refused to promote their second album very well and told them their careers were over, they took their earnings and started their own record label. I don’t have all the details about this by heart, but when they finally ended up putting out their third album, “Underneath” (five years and hundreds of songs later), it was something like the highest selling independent record that year. They’ve built several businesses, events, and non-profit organizations, and continued writing and doing live shows all over the world at a breakneck pace. 

That’s all peripheral, though. Their real genius is in songwriting. You might know them from Mmmbop (which they wrote as little children I might add), but the rest of their work speaks for itself. And there is a TON of it. In my opinion, you should give it a listen and let it speak to you.  

Back To My First Concert

So anyway, in 2017, I sort of expect that when they hit the stage it’ll be like when I did the scariest thing I’ve ever done. Which was, probably when I was 13, at a homeschool skating party in LaPorte, Indiana. Shelley Foster had been chatting with this new boy; a good-looking, self-possessed kid a bit older than me who had shown up at our monthly event where no new boys ever came. I truly must have been goaded at her or I must have responded to an inner dare because I ordinarily would never have openly approached a cute teenaged boy without an intermediary. It’s the only time I can remember having done so. 

I was ill. 

Like, seriously. I felt like I was going to throw up.

(Funny aside here. One of the things I did in preparation for the Hanson show in 2017 was to buy the official Hanson biography from 1997 on eBay. One of the best parts of this book is when Taylor is describing how it is sometimes difficult to talk to the girls who come to their shows because they’re screaming so much you can’t ask them any questions. I still laugh out loud at the image of Taylor kindly trying to talk to a girl who is literally screaming in his face.)

At that homeschool skating party, I experienced – in the midst of my terror – a wild exhilaration for having mustered my courage. Oh my gosh. Teenaged boys…amiright? Only to be dashed back to earth to find out it was his younger brother being homeschooled and did I want to meet him? But still. I did it.

And now, here I am at Iron City, and not much has changed except one husband, 3 children, 20 years and 50 lbs., waiting to feel annihilated. And then suddenly they’re there onstage, and the crowd is roaring, and I just…I don’t know. I forget myself. In a good way. I know right away I should’ve done it years ago. There isn’t a single nanosecond from the time they walk onstage until they belt out the last notes of “Rockin’ Robin” acapella that I’m not enthralled. I sing, clap, jump and pump my fist in the air, and I have NEVER been that kind of person. 

Words cannot describe the light, sparkling character of that show. It was like a wide open sky, a big effervescent bubble of joy expanding upward and out into the night, pulling my heart right along with it. It was a “swift sunrise over a far green country.” For two hours, I got to put myself aside while they took over and it was the truest rest I’ve had in a very long time.

Walking Into Embarassment

I guess this is the thing loving Hanson, and yes even having a crush on Taylor, has done for me: I have been invited to walk into embarrassment and find I could survive it. It continues to be the perfect foil to my envy-stricken self. Was it ever “cool” to be a die-hard Hanson fan? Not the way I do it (come on…a BACKPACK?). I was never a screamer, or a stalker, but all the rest of it that’s true of their other fans is true of me too. Was it ever “cool” to be one of the screaming girl horde? On the contrary, I couldn’t even look at a Hanson poster much less put one on my wall in my embarrassment. How cool is it now, when I’m almost 40? Zero. Negative cool. 

Here’s the thing about embarrassment that I just learned: it can be the cover for evil. I just read this book “People Of The Lie, The Hope For Healing Human Evil,” by M. Scott Peck. According to Peck, the foundation for a healthy psyche is summed up in this quotation of St. Therese of Lisieux: “If you are willing to bear serenely the trial of being displeasing to yourself, then you will be for Jesus a pleasant place of shelter.” I would expand that definition to say “for other people” as well. According to Peck, the opposite is also true. What evil does is hide from the world, and from itself. It can’t bear the light of truth or reason.

I found it helpful to read his observations on evil, because it’s not something you can easily pinpoint in yourself or in someone else. Most evil isn’t flashy, it’s mundane and boring. You know how when you’re around some people you feel easily confused about why they are so off-putting because nothing about them seems like it should bother you? You have an aversion to them, but you are convinced that everything is your problem? Or when you’re unable to reconcile in a fight with another person because they just can’t or won’t see things from your point of view, and if they would just understand you they’d realize you didn’t do anything wrong? 

Yeah, that’s evil. I know, because I just did it yesterday to Henry. In the car. On the way to church.

Flannery O’Connor, puts this idea in “A Good Man Is Hard To Find.” So often, we cling to the appearance of “being good,” to acting good and being good at things, because we can’t bear to see ourselves as we really are. We go to God or to church or to social justice, etc. (or all of the above) because we are trying to get as far away from our own badness as we can. It’s often the true misfits of this world who understand this first. Hence, the beatitudes.

I had never really thought about what it meant that I was too embarrassed to be the screaming girl or to admit that I had a crush on Taylor. But I think I finally got something right because of the light and life that has come into my life when I decided to be mortified. I could have gone on the way I was, trying to ignore him, and them, but I miraculously didn’t. Maybe it’s never going to feel “good.” Being willing to be displeasing to myself, and to see reality the way it is is a necessary part of becoming more human. Sometimes a hard-won triumph feels kind of shitty. 

This thing with Hanson isn’t the thing that has ruled my life (contrary to how I make it sound), but it has become kind of a catalyst. Once I went back to that point where I had refused to be embarrassed and admitted I was just like those “other” girls who were totally obsessed with this guy, I realized I had some grieving to do, which was in itself also embarrassing. But it was like cleaning out a bunch of rooms that were stuffed with junk. I still do grieve over it sometimes: that time in my life, the things I’ll never have, the person I didn’t become, circumstances beyond my control. But that one little turning – that facing the truth that Taylor is a real person and I wanted his attention but would never have it, and pressing through the embarrassment to admit it to myself (and now the internet) – has made all the difference. The more firmly I keep it turned, the more light I let into those rooms. 

You’ll never believe this, but it was Tolkien who helped me understand what was happening to me in this passage from The Fellowship Of The Ring. When the Fellowship leaves Lothlorien – the realm of the Elf-Queen Galadriel – Gimli the dwarf has had an experience of beauty that left him grief-stricken. He’s seen Galadriel and Lothlorien and he’ll never be the same.

“Gimli wept openly.

“I have looked the last upon that which was fairest,’ he said to Legolas his companion. “Henceforward I will call nothing fair, unless it be her gift.” He put his hand to his breast.

“Tell me, Legolas, why did I come on this Quest? Little did I know where the chief peril lay! Truly Elrond spoke, saying that we could not foresee what we might meet upon our road. Torment in the dark was the danger that I feared, and it did not hold me back. But I would not have come, had I known the danger of light and joy. Now I have taken my worst wound in this parting, even if I were to go this night straight to the Dark Lord. Alas for Gimli son of Gloin!”

“Nay!” said Legolas. “Alas for us all! And for all that walk the world in these after-days. For such is the way of it: to find and lose, as it seems to those whose boat is on the running stream. But I count you blessed, Gimli son of Gloin: for your loss you suffer of your own free will, and you might have chosen otherwise. But you have not forsaken your companions, and the least reward that you shall have is that the memory of Lothlorien shall remain ever clear and unstained in your heart, and shall neither fade nor grow stale.”

“Maybe,” said Gimli; “and I think you for your words. True words doubtless; yet all such comfort is cold. Memory is not what the heart desires…”

What Happened After

Facing my fear and grief freed me to really see Taylor (and Isaac, and Zac) – not just idolize him – and to hear their music and be changed by it. There was work being done that I wasn’t doing at that concert. I only brought myself there, and that was hard enough. I never expected any kind of resolution. I expected to feel something like indifference or arrogance, I’m ashamed to admit. You know how you can tell when someone is performing disdainfully? It’s not a nice feeling. I expected to feel something like that, but it was the opposite. It was all generosity and humility and joy. I don’t know how they do it. It’s probably about who they are as people. I started out admiring them as boys and nothing I’ve ever heard them say or heard about them doing has changed that. My admiration for them has only grown. 

We crazy, female Hanson fans say it all the time: their music has gotten me through some very low points. It is uniquely inspiring. And I really mean that. I don’t get inspired that way or feel that kind of optimism easily. They are relentlessly kind, and humble. They are relentless, period. They embody the best things about manhood. They are a force for good that I would have missed;  that I did miss for a long time. I wouldn’t be able to say this about many other public figures. They should be as big as U2, and we wish for their sake that they were, but it doesn’t truly matter. They are always working, always hoping for the best, always grateful for what they have, always trying to impart hope and joy and meaning to those who are listening. 

In these dark days, I can imagine what a difficult job that must be and I’m even more grateful. 

When you become a fanclub member, you get access to all kinds of cool stuff. They do a lot for their fans. One of the things they do is throw a big party to celebrate “Hanson Day” in Tulsa (May 6th was declared Hanson Day by Oklahoma’s then-governor Frank Keating), and you can only get tickets if you are a member. I have never been, but it’s full of special workshops, game nights, concerts and more. I was watching some footage of a big announcement on Hanson Day a few months ago. They were announcing more tours (since canceled because of COVID) and more studio albums. It’s been several years since their last studio album, “Anthem.” (don’t let that fool you. They’re constantly writing new songs). The new album, scheduled for release in 2021 (if 2021 even happens), is called “Against The World.” I was struck by something Taylor said during that announcement.

(I know none of you care, but I know I’m harping on Taylor a lot. I just need ya’ll to know that I think they’re all amazing and talented. And I love them all like the big brothers I never had. They all say and write and sing things that inspire me and give me hope.)

Here’s what he said: “it’s not just us *pointing to himself and his brothers* against the world, it’s us *pointing to himself and the audience* against the world.” I thought, how beautiful is that? He could be saying the first thing and we would all accept it. But he’s taking his talent, beauty, and power and throwing in his lot with us – arguably misfits. He’s saying he’s on our side and he’s sticking with us. If that’s not an emulation of Christ, I don’t know what is. 

I’m just so grateful.

Here are the lyrics to a new Hanson song that was written and released this Spring/Summer on their Members only EP “Continental Breakfast In Bed,” (which is currently sitting on top of my Bose). I wanted to share it because it perfectly expresses how I feel in the world right now. How so many of us feel. You can hear some of it on their YouTube channel, but I think you should just become a member so you can own it, and see what you’re missing.

It’s called “All I Know.” 

I hear my shoulders beg for rest

I can feel my beating heart pounding inside my chest

and I fear the future, so I hold it tight

turn my ear to listen, but I can’t hear a word tonight

So I try

and fail to get there

and I’m sure

that the end is coming soon

But with all I know

all I know

is not enough

I have kept my secrets

but I’ve told few lies

anyone can see the man that hides behind these eyes

Like an unknown question in an unseen light

too many reasons

hang over me tonight

But I try

and I fail to get there

and I’m sure

that the end will find me soon

with all I know

all I know

is not enough

It’s not enough

I’ve had enough

I’m tired of this kind of living

It’s not enough

something is bound to give in soon

I’ve had enough

I’m tired of this kind of living

‘Cause all I know is not enough

I’m done with living

in the past

where anything I’ve done that’s good I doubt will ever last

well, I’ve earned my reasons, anyone can tell

but I’d be gladly parted of them for a chance to finish well

So I try

and I fail to get there

and I’m sure

that the end will be here soon

with all I know

all I know

with all I know

and all I know

is not enough

I have a problem. I’ve had it my whole life. It’s that I find men to be compelling and beautiful. Of course, not all men at all times. Not most men most times, truth be told. But when I’m going to get all choked up by something; when I’m going to feel that heart-growing-two-sizes-too-big feeling it’s going to be about some man.

I know, it sounds ridiculous. Especially in the current state of things out there. Men…beautiful? I can’t help it. I know it sounds like I’m off in a corner with my fingers in my ears. Trust me, I’m very aware of what everyone is saying about “toxic masculinity.” It’s just not that interesting to me because, for all that men end up being the ones to do some horrifying shit, they are also extremely glorious when they are doing what they are made to do. I see it. I feel it in my bones.

I am curious to know what makes Woman so great, if anything. It has to be more than the girl power mantra. I honestly don’t see myself changing the world. I’m having a hard time just losing the baby weight. Also, women at the apex still want to be mothers, and motherhood is just down and dirty work. If men and women are basically the same, and women are as good as men at everything, and if all we want is to compete with men, then why would Lady Gaga want to have a baby? What’s in it for her? She’s already at the top. 

On the flipside, why then would I ever feel like I needed something more than just being a wife and mother? There are certain circles where I’ve felt pressured not to have dreams of becoming anything myself (with whatever is left of my life force). Why would I have cried when I was little over not having a penis (true story. Thank God I was born in the 80’s), but have grown up to love being a woman? I wouldn’t trade it. Why would I revisit this theme so often in life, even though I am proud of bearing four children and I am proud of what I do? I regularly cry over not having the drive of a man. I am envious of certain men to this day, and I wish I could get over it. Maybe that’s the torture inherent in being a woman.  Maybe the sadness of clearly seeing but not being able to possess whatever it is about men is an essential thing about womanhood. Or maybe it’s a curse and it’s meant to be undone someday. 

As I’ve said, I don’t find much that’s useful in our culture about this question. But I have found Tolkien. And Tolkien, though he doesn’t write very many women, writes women profoundly. I listen to LOTR every year starting in September, and in recent years I’ve been more and more moved by his description of Goldberry. Goldberry is the wife of Tom Bombadil, Master of the wild woods on the borders of the Shire, where the hobbits live. Frodo, Merry, Pippin, and Sam get rescued by Tom several times in the early part of the first book and this passage is just after their first rescue as they come through the dark woods to the house of Tom and Goldberry (emphasis mine): 

“Then another clear voice, as young and as ancient as spring, like the song of a glad water flowing down into the night from a bright morning in the hills, came falling like silver to meet them:

Now let the song begin! Let us sing together

Of sun, stars, moon and mist, rain and cloudy weather,

Light on the budding leaf, dew on the feather,

Wind on the open hill, bells on the heather, 

Reeds by the shady pool, lilies on the water:

Old Tom Bombadil adn the River-daughter!

And with that song the hobbits stood upon the threshold, and a golden light was all about them. 

 the four Hobbits stepped over the wide stone threshold, and stood still, blinking. They were in a long low room, filled with the light of lamps swinging from the beams of the roof; and on the table of dark polished wood stood many candles, tall and yellow, burning brightly.

In a chair, at the far side of the room facing the outer door, sat a woman. Her long yellow hair rippled down her shoulders; her gown was green, green as young reeds, shot with silver like beads of dew; and her belt was of gold, shaped like a chain of flag-lilies set with the pale blue eyes of forget-me-nots. About her feet in wide vessels of green and brown earthenware, white water lilies were floating, so that she seemed to be enthroned in the midst of a pool. ‘Enter, good guests!’ she said, and as she spoke they knew that it was her clear voice they had heard singing. They came a few timid steps further into the room, and began to bow low, feeling strangely surprised and awkward, like folks that, knocking at a cottage door to beg for a drink of water, have been answered by a fair young elf queen clad in living flowers. But before they could say anything, she sprang lightly up and over the lily bulbs, and ran laughing towards them; and as she ran her gown rustled softly like the wind in the flowering borders of a river.

‘Come dear folk!’ She said, taking Frodo by the hand. ‘Laugh and be merry! I am Goldberry, daughter of the river.’ Then lightly she passed them and closing the door she turned her back to it, with her white arms spread out across it. ‘Let us shut out the night!’ She said. ‘For you are still afraid, perhaps, of mist and tree shadows and deep water, and untamed things. Fear nothing! For tonight you are under the roof of Tom Bombadil.’

The hobbits looked at her in wonder; and she looked at each of them and smiled. ‘Fair lady Goldberry!’ Said Frodo at last, feeling his heart moved with a joy that he did not understand. He stood as he had at times stood enchanted by Fair Elven-voices; but the spell that was now laid upon him was different: less keen and lofty was the delight, but deeper and nearer to mortal heart; marvelous and yet not strange. ‘Fair Lady goldberry!’ He said again. ‘Now the joy that was hidden in the songs we heard is made plain to me.

O slender as a willow wand! O clearer than clear water!

O maid by the living pool! Fair river-daughter!

O spring time and summertime, and spring again after!

O wind on the waterfall, and the leaves laughter!’

 Suddenly he stopped and stammered, overcome with surprised to hear himself saying such things. But Goldberry laughed.

‘Welcome!’ She said.’ I had not heard that folk of the Shire were so sweet-tongued. But I see you are an Elf-friend; the light in your eyes and the ring in your voice tells it. This is a merry meeting! Sit now, and wait for the Master of the House! He will not be long. He is tending your tired Beasts.’

The Hobbit sat down gladly on low rush-seated chairs, while Goldberry busied herself about the table; and their eyes followed her, for the slender grace of her movement filled them with quiet delight. From somewhere behind the house came the sound of singing. Every now and again they caught, among many a derry doll and a merry doll and the ring a ding dillo the repeated words:

old Tom Bombadil is a merry fellow;

bright blue his jacket is, and his boots are yellow.

 ‘Fair lady!’ Said Frodo again after a while. ‘Tell me, if my asking does not seem foolish, who is Tom Bombadill ?’

‘He is,’ said goldberry, staying her swift movements and smiling.

Frodo looked at her questioningly. ‘He is, as you have seen him,’ she said in answer to his look. ‘He is the master of wood, water, and hill.’

‘Then all this strange land belongs to him?’

‘No indeed!’ She answered, and her smile faded. ‘That would indeed be a burden,’ she added in a low voice, as if to herself. ‘The trees and the grasses and all things growing or living in the land belonging each to themselves. Tom Bombadil is the master. No one has ever caught old Tom walking in the forest. waiting in the water. leaping on the hilltops under light and Shadow. he has no fear. Tom Bombadil is master.’

A door opened and in came Tom Bombadil. He had now no hat and his thick brown hair was crowned with Autumn Leaves. He laughed, and going to Goldberry took her hand.

‘Here’s my pretty lady!’ He said, bowing to the hobbits. ‘Here’s my Goldberry clothed all in silver green with flowers in her girdle! Is the table Laden? I see yellow cream and honeycomb, and white bread, and butter; milk, cheese, and green herbs and ripe berries gathered. Is that enough for us? Is the supper ready?’ 

The way Tolkien writes about women is intriguing. I have always loved Eowyn’s story, since I saw the trilogy of movies in college, although the girl power message was lost on me then. There’s a lot I resonate with in Eowyn’s story. I even named my daughter after her. She has a high destiny, for one, and she’s broody and full of despair, which I love. I can completely relate to the feeling of loving someone from afar whose love you are not destined to have, no matter what great thing you do. 

I honestly don’t know how Tolkien gets to the heart of it. It’s true as he writes it; women do want to be useful, we want to be able to fight like a man. We want glory, and we want the admiration of admirable men. Is that so much to ask?! From one angle, the story of womanhood is a story of feeling thwarted and of learning to be content with what you are given. I don’t know, maybe that’s just the story of mankind. 

Two other less attractive angles on womanhood from Tolkien:

Eoreth – the woman from Minas Tirith – who can’t stop talking. Her self-importance about the small part she plays in the war is insufferable and lifelike. She’s funny, and also cringy.

Then there’s Shelob – the giant spider-she-monster who lives in caves on the outskirts of Mordor and whose only delight is in feeding on flesh: orc flesh mostly, but man, elf and hobbit when she can get it. After she stings Frodo, Sam wounds her and drives her away with his Elvish blade when she attempts to use her body to squash him. Shelob is the spawn of Ungoliant, one of the oldest followers of Melkor – the original rebel against the maker of Middle Earth. What Ungoliant wants is to consume all of creation. Her hunger is never satisfied. Either Tolkien’s imagination of this is a revelation, or he had experience that informed it. Whatever it was, I find it in myself. Apart from the healing work of Jesus, I am not sure if anything would ever be enough for me. 

In fact, I was once given this vision in prayer: my mouth had become a black hole, sucking in everything I saw. Wherever I turned my head, everything in front of me was sucked into my gaping maw. In my distress, I wondered what could ever turn it off. Was I destined to only suck everything up? The answer came when Jesus appeared, turned me to himself, and kissed me on the lips and when He did, my mouth turned into a normal mouth.

But I digress. I don’t need to search far for my pitfalls. I see the folly of Eoreth in myself, and I know that but for God’s grace I would be a Shelob. I feel keenly the longing of Eowyn, and I hope that in the last hour of despair I would act with honor and strength as she does. I feel the sad sweetness of relenting to a lower destiny as Eowyn does when she falls in love with Faramir. Some of Eowyn’s story shows what glories womanhood holds. 

But Goldberry and Tom Bombadil are something else. 

I can’t even say that I want to be Goldberry, but there’s something about her that calls to me. There’s something about the picture they create together that feels like home. For one thing, Goldberry is waiting. That seems to be one of her things. Goldberry is not Tom Bombadil. Goldberry is not master. The charms of Goldberry are almost entirely hidden, unless happened-upon by lost, frightened and weary travelers. For the most part, her beauty is lavished upon Tom Bombadil, and him only. And yet, it’s silly to think of Tom Bombadil tromping around and singing in the old forest only to come home to a cold hearth. Gathering lilies was his most important business, not rescuing wanderers.

Is this the final magic of me? Of Woman? In some sense, in a very large sense, there would be no Man without Woman. The men I admire wouldn’t do what they do without the women in their lives. One of the few places we have in this sad realm (where men don’t have much opportunity for swordplay) where I have often beheld the glory of Man is in a performance of some kind. It was after a rock concert that I realized something: 

Receiving isn’t passive.

That room and that performance was magical as much because of me as because of the performers. Without me, what would it be? A performance is as much of a dance as anything else. The performers bring expertise, talent, and will, but without open hearts the message is lost. Without someone to receive it, is there really a message? 

The picture of Goldberry isn’t glorious because of what she does. Although the practical part of me knows how much work it would take to have a lovely supper ready, be slender as a willow wand, [ancient and new as spring] have downy mattresses and white woolen blankets ready for guests in spotless rooms and be tending lilies in pots all winter. Her glory is in what she IS. 

“Fair lady Goldberry!’ Said Frodo at last, feeling his heart moved with a joy that he did not understand. He stood as he had at times stood enchanted by Fair Elven-voices; but the spell that was now laid upon him was different: less keen and lofty was the delight, but deeper and nearer to mortal heart; marvelous and yet not strange.”

My whole being gets pulled into the longing for man, the beauty of man. I want to be joined to it, somehow. And, in some moments I think the answer must be to be like it, to work hard, to be visible. It’s so hard not to want to be visible. Not to want to put all my hopes for wholeness into the idea of recognition and power. Men seem to be able to get it so easily. And I have been told my whole life that I should want it above all things. But I find myself torn, and the path I have chosen means I am hidden. I find myself doing work that no one will ever see, and which may not show forth fruit for decades, if it ever does.

When I was younger, I thought I wanted to be famous. I still want to make something beautiful that makes an impact on the world. Me, myself, not just through my body. In the past, in my bitterness I have thought, “anyone can get knocked up.” I have some talents, and some will to succeed. It often feels like I am letting it all atrophy. I had a friend ask me recently if I ever regret that I never did more with my voice. The answer is yes. Of course I do. But if I had done that, what other thing would I now regret? Men can have a career and a family. Women often can’t, or they find that the split is too great and they don’t want to. I honestly don’t know what the answer is.

But the more I go about life, the more I think this: 

In the end, anything worthwhile you do, you do as an instrument. Inspiration is ultimately revelation. It comes from outside of you. All you can do is be faithful to the vision you have been given. I do have a quibble with the difference between pregnancy and giving birth and writing a poem, or a song. One is decidedly more enjoyable for the doer. But in the end, they are both creative acts and they both require submission and sacrifice. Who am I to insist that I will only be this kind of instrument and not the other, or to say that I should have been given this kind of creative work to do and not the other? Who am I to say that I can see its fruition? What fruition there is lies beyond the edge of time.

I will never forget the moment my photography 101 prof asked us to say if we thought the camera was male or female. I’m sure none of us had given it one thought. As student after student gave their opinion that the camera is male for this or that reason – most of which boiled down to the shape of the thing – I got more and more sure they were wrong. I ended up giving what Greg later said was the most heartfelt? passionate? decisive? (maniacal?) response he’d ever heard. All I know is I was, and am, sure of the answer.

The camera is female, and here’s why:

The camera doesn’t spit anything out, and it doesn’t give the raw material for anything. It takes light and time into itself, which is to say it takes in mystery. One, holy moment in time takes shape in the dark secret of the camera’s body and is delivered to the world as a work of art.

No sooner do I say this, than I find it’s what I’m doing, what I’ve always been doing. I’m not on stage, I’m down in the dark looking at the man on the stage in love and compassion, giving his work meaning. I won’t be that spider; I won’t gobble up the world. I was made to take it in, to understand what I am seeing with love and compassion, and to hold it inside myself. I am there to make a home. Do you see what I’m saying? Sister, do you know what it is you’re doing?  

You are giving the world meaning. Without you, there would be no world. 

What could be more lovely?  

Church this week went like this: We got there slightly early because I was the reader and Henry played cello. The kids settled into a pew, took out their paper and all the pencils and offering envelopes in the pew back holder. They began their normal ritual of paper airplane making, fighting and coloring. Wyatt continually wanted my attention as I tried to listen to instructions and have a quick conversation about the reading. The service started but the loud talking and fighting didn’t stop. Many times, I had to lean over to have word with them or stand in between them and Wyatt often had to be asked two or three times to show me he was listening. Nothing I did made much of a difference in their behavior. Then it came time for the kids to gather up front to be dismissed to their classes. After months of battling to get them to go to Sunday school, because we knew it would be good for them to make friends, Wyatt has decided he no longer likes it. So, as I am trying to keep hold of Ginny’s hand and assure Gilead I’m coming with them, I’m trying to pull Wyatt along and let him know it’s going to be okay.

He’s screaming and red-faced, holding onto the side of the pew with his other hand and digging in his heels in the middle aisle. I’m the last mom there – the only person left standing in the front of the whole church – and this is what’s happening. I wish I could say it’s not normal but it, or something like it, happens every single week. There’s always screaming and whining. It’s constant at home as well. On our way to the class in the parish house, I have to reassure him every two steps in order to get him to come. And then there’s a dog. It’s in a cage, behind a fence, but he believes it’s going to be inside the house and this starts up a whole new round of whining, all the way up the stairs. Once we get to his classroom and seated, he’s fine, as I knew he would be.

Later, at the all-church lunch, we end up sitting outside with the overflow crowd. The problem is that the dog is there too. It’s on a leash, surrounded by other kids (who are all thrilled, by the way), but Wyatt is beside himself with fear. It’s impossible to carry on a conversation or eat my own meal. He can’t be reasoned-with. He’s screaming and crying; genuinely terrified.

By the time we finish our meal, I am exhausted. I am ready to go home. There’s nothing anyone else can do to help me, and I can’t participate in the social scene there at the church picnic. And this is what most of our outings are like – even if it’s just going out in our yard.

Wyatt is often the only kid in the whole place who is afraid of something, like the dog, or doing something, like screaming and whining that sets him apart from all the other kids. For this reason, as well as how we are often left to deal with his outbursts, we feel singled out, left out, embarrassed, and like failures.

But I don’t describe this to get pity. Much less do I want anyone to figure out his problem for me. I felt like we’d already been through the same thing with Gilead, just about different issues. We were told he was hyperactive by nursery workers. He was always the kid hurting other kids at a play date; mortifying me. I’m somewhat inured to the embarrassment of Wyatt because I had already had to accept it before. Gilead grew out of some of that. I have a feeling, however, that Wyatt is always going to be a challenge. I don’t have time to go into all of my intuitions about him here, but he’s a unique challenge. He doesn’t seem to fit into any boxes. I love him so dearly but he exhausts me and there often is no logical solution to any given problem with him.

And yes, we’ve been given lots of advice. All over the map. In fact, it’s almost excruciating to come up for prayer because inevitably, advice follows. It’s always well-meant. But do you know how hard it is to be in this position? If you do know, then you really know, I bet. You feel my pain and embarrassment. If you don’t know, it’s okay. There are other issues in your life I don’t get.

In every church I’ve ever been in, even the ones heavy on the prayer ministry, and with almost every Christian person I’ve met the response to someone hurting, openly needy and asking for help is usually the same: concern and well-meant advice with a sprinkling of prayer. It’s highly unusual to meet someone who can bear to sit with you in your pain and accept you and what’s happening to you.

Do you know that it is a much, much harder thing to receive help than to give help? That’s why we give each other all kinds of systems for parenting. It’s a lot less scary to sit in a seminar or read a book and implement a system than it is to confess that you don’t know how to help your kid. To suffer the embarrassment of their public bad behavior and then have the humility to say you know you need God’s help and ask for prayer.

I have to confess that I’m so tired of advice. I am tired of self-righteousness in Church.

Yes, advice can be helpful. Yes, sometimes someone sees something in a way that you can’t, and God can use their words. More often, it confuses the issue. It makes me think that if I can just pluck up enough determination, I can really turn this thing around. It points me away from the truth.

What’s that? What truth, you say?

Well, I’m beginning to see this weakness-as-strength thing as the all-pervasive truth. Maybe the only truth there is in the universe. If it’s true that I come to Jesus with nothing morally, and that even the good I do is tainted by sin (this is what Romans says), then it’s true in the realm of parenting as well. Even my good intentions, even the good I do toward my children suffers the same fate.

And what does Romans say about all that? “There is now no condemnation.”

No condemnation

I have to tell you, those rules and systems and pieces of advice feel a whole lot like condemnation. Why do we keep doing this to ourselves? Why do we keep giving each other advice instead of giving each other ourselves? Because it’s easier. It’s less scary. It’s less time-consuming. It’s less humbling – especially when you can get yourself in the position of teacher or advice-giver. And then you start to get a whole church full of advice givers. I know. I’ve done it and have aspired to do it for many years. I’m just as guilty as anyone else in church. But I am truly, truly sick of it.

It took me years to unlearn some subliminal messages about the nature of God because of what I thought I was hearing from authority figures in my life: that I had to be good for God to accept me, that He was mad at me or couldn’t hear me when I prayed to Him because of sin in my life. I definitely don’t want to start seeing God as advice-giver, because he’s not.

The only parenting model I want to follow is the one I’ve been shown in Jesus. And I hope someone on the periphery of the church is going to read this and that they will be able to hear past how those words sound, because this really is good news. I talk church talk because I’ve been steeped in it. But anyway, God has never parented me this way. Jesus has never befriended me this way.

This morning, in the shower, I found myself trying to strip this down to its most essential question. Can I love Wyatt even if he never changes? I feel so unworthy, so inept. And most of the time, too tired. And then, on the heels of that, Jesus can you love me even if I never change?

Do you love me even if this is all there is?

I didn’t need any kind of supernatural answer to that question, even though I did feel His presence in the answer. Because I already know the answer. It’s yes, of course. He goes before me. He loves me into being human enough to love him back. He’s NEVER given me a set of rules to follow. In fact, this religion is hard to understand from the outside because it isn’t, properly, a religion. It’s devotion to a person. And that person came to die, to be humiliated, to suffer for me. He’s only calling me to do for Wyatt what he’s done for me. Not manipulate him into having better behavior, but actually to pour myself out for his sake, so that he can be changed by love. Do you see the difference? One of those things is primarily for my sake – so that I can not be embarrassed by Wyatt’s bad behavior, so that my life doesn’t have to be so interrupted. The other is a labor of love. It requires me to see beyond the bad that Wyatt is doing right now in order to call out his true self. It requires me to put down my agenda in order to sit with Wyatt and really see him. It requires that I put aside my own needs sometimes because he needs me to calm his fears and correct his wrong ways of thinking. It means I have to cuddle when I want to put him in time-out. Or, more often, do both. It requires nothing less than a kind of death; to me. To self. Because if I don’t do it; if I refuse to suffer for Wyatt, then Wyatt suffers for me, for my selfishness.

I realized yesterday this principle can pretty much be applied across the board. I like the line “if it’s us or them, it’s us for them” from the Gungor song Us For Them. Maybe that’s something of what it means to be a spiritual parent to someone whether or not you have a biological child. It’s certainly what it means to follow Christ. I’ll just channel Tim Keller here and say that this is therefore the only absolute truth claim it’s safe to make. That’s why we get so dogged about it, us Christians.

And I have no hope of doing this on my own.

That doesn’t mean that it’s hopeless. On the contrary. It’s just scary because I can’t put any hope in my own performance. I have to put it all in Christ and what He’s done. Even when I can barely hope. Even when I can’t pray. Even when I can’t see the truth.

But thank God, right?

 

I’ve done a fair amount of giving up in life. A few days ago I wrote about having given up at music in college. I gave up trying to run and grow my own business. I give up on healthy diets all the time. I’ve given up coffee too many times to count (it’s easy! I do it all the time!).

To be fair to myself, there were some extenuating circumstances in some of those instances. I probably could have put in some more effort or gotten some counseling to help me not give up. Or, I may have needed to lose some of those things to figure out they weren’t right for me.

However, this isn’t the kind of giving up I had in mind when I wrote this title just now. The “oh well, I’m no good at anything anyway.” The Eyeore Mindset I have spent time perfecting. Nope. Here’s what I mean, and then I’ll get to the good part:

I have often had it in my head that, in order to have a sense of self or a sense of worth, I had to be going somewhere. It was okay that I hadn’t gotten there yet, as long as I was on my way in some way. As long as I was making, or re-making, myself by my own rules and following my own heart, I was doing just fine and I could look people in the eye and tell them I “wanted to be a jazz singer” or I was “planning to go to film school” or I “owned my own jewelry business.” When really what I was doing was nannying and working two part-time jobs or half-assing my way through a music degree I hated and wasting my Dad’s money. As long as I had dreams, I had something. I had some kind of future to which to pin my identity. As long as I was in transit to something acceptable, I would be fine for now. And I knew that as long as someday I made it, someday I got to where I’d imagined I would be, I would finally feel at peace. Every celebrity memoir I’ve ever read is the glorification of that drive. I’m listening to one right now. It’s hilarious.

Then later, I pinned my identity on becoming like the mothers I saw around me with 12 perfectly clean children who all spoke Latin and Greek and played classical piano by the age of 8. I had to be eternally pregnant but thin and with-it. I had to be commanding with my children but yielding with my husband. I had to bake my own bread! But it had to be gluten-free. I had to breastfeed until age 7 but still look bangable for my husband at night. Not to mention family prayers three times a day.

Except that’s all complete crap. And I repudiate it. I choose to be a loser. Why?

Well, for one thing, the target shifts every time you attain something. Listen to any podcast made by any famous person. That, or it’s the opposite of what you wanted, or it’s transitory. See Jonathan Brandis.

Those “dreams?” The ones all the Disney princesses sing about? I don’t know how they make anyone happy!! They’re a crock of shit if you ask me. I have some really successful friends. And I know without having to ask them that it’s probably scary and lonely near the top. I also know that they still need all the same stuff I do and have all the same fears. I also know they probably still aren’t doing what they set out to do. I mean, who does that? Like 1% of people. But so many of us still believe that the attainment of something will make us happy. I know I do most times. It’s the gospel according to the whole world. And I include in that all the bullshit that gets thrown your way when you’re a mom. Yes, make good decisions for your children. Yes, be thoughtful. But all the rest? Repudiate it as often as possible. IMHO.

Now, here’s the good part.

When I am at my lowest point; when I can admit that I have utterly failed to do the things I had set out to do at 15, or 24 or 30 and that it’s too late to do them, I’m free. I don’t mean that I think I will never take up a new skill or create something new or get better at piano – or even write a book! I don’t mean that I give up on my kids and on giving them the best I can. I mean, I will never be famous. I will never marry a Hanson. I will not be a jazz singer or a rock star. It’s unlikely I will go to film school. And my kids aren’t going to be well-rounded geniuses. So be it.

When I am at the end of myself, I am finally free. And it’s not a free-fall. Honestly, I feel like I can breathe for the first time in a long time. When I finally admitted that the problem isn’t the money and it isn’t the house and it isn’t that I never had a career – it’s me. The problelm is me…it was a weight off my shoulders.

And yes, you may have to grieve some of it. But sister, you don’t owe anyone anything. Not even Jesus.

Now go outside and breathe. Stand in the sun. Take a walk. Stop thinking about your disorganized pantry. Give yourself permission to accept that you aren’t a broadway star, and cry about it if you need to. And then cry about how badly you fucked up this morning with your daughter. And then just be in that moment with Jesus and let him stand there with you. And you’ll know what to do next.

 

 

I am a loser.

Wait. Hang on. Don’t rush to tell me I’m not, that God loves me, that He made me for a purpose. I know all that.

I don’t come here boldly proclaiming my loser status to get sympathy or disagreement from anyone. I say it because one of the most powerful things I’ve ever seen at church was when a man stood up and, as he was introducing a man who is a recovering alcoholic who had gotten help from our congregation, stated that he was also an alcoholic. Kind of as an aside. Like everyone should know that about him. And let me just tell you, there’s a world of difference between these two men. The guy who was doing the introducing has a much higher socioeconomic status and mental capability than the other. But with those four words, “and I am too,” he leveled that.

I say that I am a loser because we have lost sight of our ability to accept weakness in this country and as a Church. And I think, after struggling through this for many years now, I am starting to understand something. My strength lies more in my weakness than it does in anything I can do well. And I think the same is true for the church.

I’ve never felt like a winner, honestly. There were a few times when I felt proud of an accomplishment, or a piece of art I had put my heart and soul into felt like it came close to what I’d envisioned, or my personal appearance was close to satisfactory. But precious few. And those were mostly – if not all – before I had kids. I’ve written about this before: I’ve never been poorer, fatter, or felt more out of control of myself and my trajectory. It all got taken away from me: starting with financial freedom and stability, continuing on to the ruin of my body, the loss of solitude and the loss of mental and emotional space to create anything. I’m basically a dry husk.

And now I’m entering into a brand new arena of failure: home schooling. Vast new worlds full of beautiful women with well-behaved children and perfect kitchens and nature corners have been unveiled to me. More of them than I ever could have imagined existed.

And what is it all worth? I’m here to tell you: nothing. It’s all bullshit.

Don’t get me wrong. I do love beautiful things. I love order and peace. I love to put a good meal in front of my family with nice serving dishes and I believe those things are important…in their place.

It’s just, when does it stop? I love Charlotte Mason (insert other education method here, if you’re into that sort of thing) because she says some of the truest things about children and people. But if I read her words and immediately identify ten MORE ways in which I am failing and can never hope to not fail at, what has this method done for me? It has become death. This particular law has become death to me.

You can see it anywhere: take weight gain or diets. Fat acceptance movement notwithstanding, you’re not going to convince me that it’s better and more healthy to be large than it is to not be large. But the alternative to not accepting being fat is some combination of judgment from the world and working really hard without feeling like you’re getting anywhere. Cuz most of us aren’t going to look like Heidi Klum no matter how hard we work. Especially not after 4 babies. And even if I think you look as good as Heidi Klum, chances are you don’t feel like Heidi Klum.

I’ve been told, in various ways by various people, to press in to the hard things. When my kids aren’t behaving well, when I’m feeling overwhelmed by motherhood and homeschooling. Even in my spiritual life – in the transformation Jesus wants to do in me. Is that good advice? Yes, of course we have to do things that are hard sometimes. And sometimes that’s what Jesus does want.

But stepping back, all too often it creates a harsh culture for anyone who doesn’t fit in. What about those good things you want me to press into if I can’t do them very well, or worse, if I can’t manage them at all? Suddenly I am on the outside looking in on the small group of people who seem to be able to do them OR I am lying so I can stay on the inside. So I can continue to be in the club.

I’ve seen it happening with breastfeeding, co-sleeping (or not co-sleeping), attachment parenting (or Babywise), healing prayer (or rigorous Bible study), various theological differences, worship music styles, weight loss or diet choices, home birth (or hospital birth), vaccinations (or non-vaccinations), home schooling (or even which homeschooling method you choose), the list goes on and on and on… And that’s just in the tiny little Christian bubble I’ve been part of for so long.

What I think I’ve found out, from the perspective of a chronic outsider (don’t mind me. I’m an Enneagram 4. It’s just how we do.) is that sometimes people give a lot of advice from a place of strength. They’re actually really good at something and it’s natural to them. They have people asking them stuff and it’s life-giving to help out. The problem is when it becomes a gospel. When it supercedes THE gospel.

Sometimes people aren’t as in tune with their weaknesses as I am right now. Or they don’t want to admit them. Hi, I’m Jenn. I’m 36 and never had a career. I dropped out of the conservatory of music at Wheaton. I never went to film school like I said I was going to. I never moved away from my college town until forced to by God. I have spent the last 7 years overweight and chronically yelling. I am socially anxious and awkward. I struggle with depression and suicidal thoughts even though I believe in Jesus. I was not the purest of pure going into my marriage. I struggle every day to be present to my children and most days I lose or give up on that battle. I don’t read my Bible all that often or pray every day. I say I am home schooling but we aren’t doing very much. My kids are often rude to people and they fight with each other. They are scared of new people and new situations. I hate letting my kids cook with me and only make myself do it rarely. I still can’t play a B chord on the guitar. I let my kids watch tv every day. I let my boys play Minecraft several times a week, sometimes for an hour or more. I’ve read three novels this week. Not literature novels. And not out loud to the kids.

Do I say this to say I’m not good at anything? No, I don’t think that. I also don’t think I’m worthless or not good at anything. Honestly, I don’t even think these things are my worst failings and I certainly don’t think they keep Jesus from me. But they are true. And I’m not proud of them. And I think that’s a perfect place to start.

But here’s THE gospel if you wanna hear it: it’s all that bullshit turned on its head. Jesus divested himself of all the power, strength and beauty he had. And of his life. Jesus became a loser, like me. And He told all the other losers that they were blessed. And then he got a bunch of losers to follow him because they had nowhere else to go. And those are pretty much the only kinds of people, still, who are willing to follow him. But they changed the world.

 

 

I just received an email from my Alma Mater, Wheaton College, that Billy Graham has gone to be with Jesus.

I had to write because I recently finished watching Season 2 of The Crown, which is one of the best shows I’ve watched in a very long time. Like, I think sometimes Mad Men got to this level, and also Battlestar Galactica, but I can’t think of anything else in recent years that has been this good, all around.

The show is just good on all levels: set, costume, acting, production…the writing is the best part. Mr. Peter Morgan, I applaud you.

What I love best about the show, however, is embodied in one of its simplest scenes – between Queen Elizabeth and Billy Graham. It wouldn’t be so beautiful if not for the witness of Elizabeth throughout the first part of the series. We find her to be a solid rock – though everyone around her keeps trying to tell her she’s invisible; swallowed up by the crown. Again and again, I have found myself admiring this woman, and feeling thankful for her, though she’s not my queen.

In the scene I’m remembering, what you notice most is Elizabeth’s hunger, not for recognition or fame, but for a word from a godly man. You see, in the scene between Graham and the Queen, a kinship she doesn’t have with anyone else. It brought to mind the reports I had read of her words in the book she’s released on the celebration of her 90th birthday – that she is grateful to God for his steadfast love and that she has “indeed seen his faithfulness.”

It was a comfort to me to think of these two leaders meeting together. That they both loved Jesus. That it made them better leaders. I can only hope and pray for some more like these in the future.

I’m in no position to be writing about this. As I write, I’m mentally reviewing all of the terrible food choices I’ve made since Christmas and the subsequent mini- breakdown in my physical and emotional health. We’ve been bringing a steady stream of bottles of alcohol into the house. Not enough to fill a liquor cabinet Not even enough to take up any real estate in the kitchen. But enough that when we run out we get more. The desire for a drink in the evening has become more prominent than either of us would like.

I had wanted this post to be more victorious, and there is some victory in it, but right now I am mired in my own weakness and need.

I had wanted to start a fast today. An honest-to-goodness food fast that would go for at least 10 days. I had planned to have only water and green smoothies during this time. In order to be ready for this fast, I had wanted to cut out grains, starches, sugars, caffeine and alcohol in the weeks leading up to it in order to make the transition easier in the first few days. But last week we started school with my 7 year old for the first time ever. As I was trying to cut these things out of my diet, do school, prepare for guests and keep up with my writing work (which is seriously very minimal), I slowly lost the will to keep even those things out of my diet. They crept back in, one by one. So today – or tomorrow – is more about starting over again than triumphing.

This – starting over again – seems to be the story of health, and of fasting, for me. The whole reason I had the crazy idea that I could fast for 10 days in Lent is that I had experienced some success in this arena this Fall. Before that, the few times I had tried fasting went very badly.

For as long as I can remember, I have had blood sugar problems. As a kid, I had to race to the milk and cereal as soon as I got out of bed to stave off the sick hunger I felt as soon as I woke up. A couple of hours later, I would crash again. I eventually self-diagnosed an addiction to sugar/hypoglycemia. I concluded it was messing up my adrenal function, contributing to my depression and anxiety and controlling my life more than I wanted to see clearly. Toward the end of college I made some attempts to cut grains and sugar out of my diet. I usually caved after a week or made some legalistic exception in order to “keep the fast” without the actual benefits of cutting sugar out of my diet. Except for one curious incident, I always returned to a more-or-less “healthy” version of the SAD (Standard American Diet).

The curious incident was this:

In order to be prescribed medication for my depression and anxiety in college, the doctor wanted me to take a five hour glucose tolerance test. This is where you go in to the hospital, drink a disgusting high-sugar drink on a empty stomach and let them draw blood every half hour for five hours so they can track how your body is responding to the sugar. If it turned out I had a blood-sugar problem, she wanted to treat that first before putting me on medication.

For a person who couldn’t drink pop or eat anything sugary by itself at any time of day without immediately getting a headache or feeling a distressing combination of nausea, light-headedness and weakness in the pit of my stomach, I went into this test afraid that I would spend the morning vomiting. I knew, at least, that I would have a very wretched time. But I was sure it was going to mess me up for a week. At this point, I doubt I had ever fasted until lunchtime.

I did feel wretched, although I never vomited. But what I experienced was an after. The nausea and light-headedness passed. I returned to more-or-less normal after the sugar storm passed. I was just hungry. And I proceeded to down a McDonald’s meal as fast as physically possible.

I don’t know how I avoided gaining the weight I eventually did for as long as I did. I knew my diet wasn’t good, but I was lazy. My right hand was reading books about nutrition that were on the extreme end of the crunchy spectrum while my left hand was routinely putting large slices of pizza in my mouth. I told myself that a long walk or run once or twice a week was evening things out.

My church at the time did a church-wide fast twice a year (or quarterly?) in order to unify, and come together to pray over the ministries and plans for the future. It took me years to even listen to the call to fast and be part of it, but eventually I wanted to try. The plan was to fast for 24 hours, come to the prayer meeting at 6 or 7 p.m. and eat afterward together. I never made it until after the meeting. A day of only drinking grape juice (I don’t know why I thought that was a good idea) would inevitably leave me panicking to eat as soon as I left work. Pretty soon after that I entered a long, exhausting march of pregnancy and breastfeeding. Fasting was not in my lexicon. But I did start gaining weight I couldn’t shake off, and my desire to change my diet intensified.

Enter Whole 30.

When we moved here, I had tried going Paleo once or twice with little success. My new friend, Joanna, announced she was doing a Whole 30 and that was all I needed. She was my rock – without even knowing I was relying on her. The first time I tried Whole 30 was in Lent, appropriately. It felt like a spiritual experience. And for the first time, I experienced my cravings falling away from me. Sugar had lost its grip on me for a time. I hear this is what actual fasting is like too – after about 3 days you stop feeling very hungry.

This was two years ago. I lost and regained water weight a few times and then I discovered intermittent fasting. Intermittent fasting can be practiced several ways, but the way I did it was through fasting for part of every day, rather than a prolonged fast once or twice a month. You can look up the benefits of fasting if you want to have your mind blown, but I’m not proselytizing for fasting here. Of course, you will probably lose weight, but my desire has always been to free myself from the cravings and addictions of food. Whole 30 was great, but intermittent fasting combined with a diet as low in sugar and refined carbohydrates as possible made me feel like a different person. I finally started to lose more than water weight.

The problem is that those foods are always lurking. I’m always just one french fry stress-eat away from letting it all tumble down around me. But I’m starting to be okay with that.

For one thing, once your body gets into ketosis once (where it’s burning its own fuel rather than the sugars you’re consuming) it’ll get into ketosis again much faster the second time. I have found that to be very true. Now, it doesn’t take a week to start feeling the changes to my gut and my clarity when I cut out those foods again – more like 2 or 3 days. Now I know it’s not impossible. I’m actually, at any given time no matter how badly it feels like I’ve fallen, only about 2 weeks away from starting to lose weight again. There might be a few days of genuine suffering in between but I have learned to suffer a little bit too.

I find this whole process to have been God’s way of showing me, in real time and with my own body, what it means to be His. Fasting, as I have been told for years, simply reminds me of the truth. I need. I am not coming to this with any strength.

And so I enter this Lent with less will than ever before. I have less determination to do Lent right; to really fast. I feel so weak. But I also know that it all it takes is one small yes, one little mustard seed of intention for God to use. In two weeks, my outlook could be completely different.

So I would like to do it at some point during this Lent: try an actual fast. I think the place I’m in is pretty good: the acknowledgment of my need. But I’d like to try to go further. I’d like to try to press in to that place more. I want to see what happens after, what place I get to on the other side of some suffering.

God bless you as you press in this Lent. I pray you do. And I pray you, too, get to see what comes after.