I sometimes (daily?) get overwhelmed by the minutiae of life. I often feel amazed at what others seem to accomplish while I feel like I’m drowning in dishes, dirty clothes, to-do lists, e-mail, and piles of papers. I’ve even been known to turn down a vacation because getting organized for all that just sounds like too much work.
This is particularly relevant for me this year as I take a year or more off from parish ministry to focus on caring for our baby. When I imagine going back to work as a full-time parish minister someday, somewhere, and continuing to care for our child, family, and household, I quickly find myself turning to either hysterical laughter, droll sarcasm, or the all-too-present devil, comparison. The conversation in my head or between me and a confidant usually goes something like: “So-and-So manages to do this, that, and those 3 other things.” “How does So-and-So do all that?” “I have absolutely no idea, but it makes me tired even trying to imagine it.” And also: “You mean people who have one child and know what it’s like go on…to have…another one?!”
Now I’m well aware there are a half dozen articles, blog posts, books, columns and probably cartoon strips as well circulating about how women juggle their professions and parenting, and I’m not particularly interested in stepping into that muddy swamp at the moment (who has the time?). I’m more interested in my own mind. I’m curious to understand how my own mind works to keep me from doing things because I seriously think “that’s just not possible.” Is there a way to embrace the minutiae and just be okay with it, so as to get to experience the living that is working, parenting, and playing?
I am someone who has dealt with the demands of parenting an infant by “dialing in,” eliminating any extra responsibilities or commitments as much as I am able, and focusing on finding a sleep-eat-nap routine that worked for our kid. I am fully aware that we as a family are blessed and privileged to have been able to do this—we have lots of extended family support, amazing local friends, and we had some savings to enable me to not work this year. We’ve also chosen to live in a small apartment to keep our housing costs down. My taking a break from working enables us to not have to wrestle with daycare costs and not working has been a blessing for me…and a time of discernment.
For the six years I served as a parish minister in Central Oregon, serving that congregation was my primary focus. As I told them in my departing sermon, “Let It Be A Dance: Some Lessons Learned in Six Years of Service”, that congregation was “my baby,” the commitment and responsibility to which I gave my all for those years. It’s hard for me to imagine serving a congregation as fully while also caring for a family. And yet, more balance in our lives and leadership is something we all need and crave.
I’ve been thinking lately about how the minutiae of any task can keep us from enjoying the beauty of the work, whether it’s ministry, parenting, personal relationships, gardening, even tending to our homes. It is too easy to let the inevitable “dirty work” of any job or task distract us from its overall value. We say “he can’t see the forest for the trees” when we mean “he’s lost in the weeds, he can’t see the big picture.” I don’t want to live my life avoiding tasks or work altogether in some effort to avoid weeds. When it’s literally a garden we’re talking about, I know that weeds come along with the beauty of the harvest; there’s a balance that I accept and even embrace. As I weed, I know I’m creating space for the beets and lettuces to grow and flourish.
I’m honestly not sure how to orient my mind in such a way as to get less frustrated or disheartened by all the minutiae. Dishes, laundry, e-mail, meetings, tasks, housecleaning, babies crying, bills, disgruntled congregants, disagreements that need to be sorted out, to-do lists, and did I mention dishes?: these are all realities of living. Living less won’t mean fewer tasks, it won’t mean that there are suddenly more spacious days on the beach soaking in the sun and reading novels. To get to the beach takes work. To have a happy, healthy, thriving child takes work. To serve a congregation and watch it flourish takes a lot of work, meetings, conversations, and a lot of e-mail. To grow vegetables requires weeding. To be in the forest, to see the trees, requires setting aside the time, packing a bag, figuring out the directions, dealing with D.C. drivers, paying the bills, and so on. This is life, all of it: the minutiae and the magnificence, the crying and the curious smiles, the incredulous grin on our little girl’s face and the worn-out face covered with dried pureed yams that desperately needs a clean washcloth and a bath.
Today, on our way home from a quick lunchtime outing, our Little Bean feel asleep against her Mama C and slept through getting on the Metro, the noisy jarring sounds of the subway, walking home, street noise and the banging of our building’s front door. I said to Cathy in amazement: “Well. This is one of those occurrences I’ve seen in the movies, and on Other Parents, and thought, ‘wow.’ How do they do that?” Our kid fell asleep on 11th Street NW, near Pennsylvania Avenue, and made it all the way home on a warm sunny busy Friday afternoon in the city without waking up. That’s magnificent. And it’s the sweetest bit of minutiae in our day so far. It’s both, and it’s beautiful.
Some days are like others
And some days Richie
Havens dies. It’s more
Than a dream that a
Guitar can sigh and take
Some lucky ones with it.
Muddy. Richie. Robert–
Temples. Churches. BP,
They bow before the hands
That move those strings.
Even the devil, money
Himself, will say uncle
To one song like that.
Art. Richie. A dream.
Light is no more than
Fingers on strings right.
For the last week and a half the news has been pretty much all Boston bombing, all the time. Why wouldn’t it be? There was a horrific act of mayhem in which three innocent people were killed and 264 more were injured. There was a man hunt, a shoot-out, and a show-down that led to the capture of one of the perpetrators, who is now being grilled about his role in the terrible events. The media is full of interviews with everyone who has even the most tenuous connection with the Tsarnaev brothers, and their religion and motives are being analyzed to the finest detail.
In the meantime, a fertilizer plant has exploded in Texas, killing 14 and injuring 200 more. Although the tragedy was broadly announced, very little information seems to be making its way onto the public airwaves as to what led to this horrific event. Now that we know it wasn’t terrorism, we’ve pretty much let the subject drop.
What is it that is so much more compelling about the first tragedy than the second? Why does it deserve so much more of our national attention and imagination? Far more people were killed in Texas, and the property damage was devastating, pretty much flattening the small town. Their grief is just as real, their first responders just as brave.
There are, I’m sure, many explanations, but I’d suggest that the biggest reason for the different levels of national attention to the two tragedies has to do with a known flaw in the human brain. We are terrible at assessing risk. When we hear of a bombing, we imagine that it could happen to any of us. We see a world in which terrorists lurk behind every bush, and we want to do everything possible to stop the bad guys, and to punish their terrible acts of wrongdoing. When we hear of a factory explosion, it’s just an accident, and something that could not possibly happen to us, since we don’t happen to live next to a fertilizer plant.
But the reality is far different than the flight or fight systems in our brains would have us believe. The risk of terrorism to any given person in the US is infinitesimal. Your risk from a texting driver, a legal gun owner or a lightning strike is higher. Your risk, however, from under-regulated industry, of the type that caused the Texas explosion, the massive oil leaks that happened recently from pipelines in Arkansas and Texas, not to mention the Deepwater Horizon explosion that dumped over 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico as well as claiming the lives of 11 rig workers, is far, far greater. If you consider the subtler incursions of unsafe pesticides, genetically modified foods that may or may not be safe, air and water pollution and so forth, then your exposure to risk starts to approach 100%.
In response to the events of 9/11 and subsequent terrorist acts we have spent trillions of dollars and changed our lifestyles in ways that range from how we board an airplane to who sees our private information. In response to the devastating human and natural costs of under-regulated industries and corporate greed we have…a continued call for less regulation, and less money spent on enforcing the regulations that remain.
If we really cared about addressing real dangers we would have applied the trillions of dollars that have gone to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to developing and promoting renewable energy and fighting the effects of climate change. If we really wanted to make our citizens safe, we would be holding the corporate perpetrators of natural and human disasters responsible, and working to see that safety regulations were followed in a way that would prevent future disasters.
But we are bound to a national narrative that tells us that we can combat the bad guys by putting more guns in the hands of the good guys. We are tied into a story which is so dedicated to supporting the capitalist undertaking that while we are willing to give corporations the free speech rights of individuals, we aren’t willing to hold them responsible the way we would with individuals who had committed equally heinous deeds. We are quick slap the label “evil” on people who commit terrible acts, and even to extend that label to the religious or ethnic groups to which they belong. But we seem to just accept the fact that corporations will do whatever they can to maximize profit, and the costs that all of us must bear are somehow simply the price of doing business.
Sure, I want to know why the Tsarnaev brothers committed their terrible acts of violence. And I get that we are fascinated by the rare individual who commits unimaginable acts for unimaginable reasons. We already know why West Fertilizer Co., and BP and Exxon and so many others allowed terrible things to happen on their watch. And it is that prosaic, everyday pattern of choosing short-term profit over life and health that I find truly terrifying.
Here’s what I’ve been musing about all week, as events of all kinds have folded and unfolded: How do we describe forces that are indifferent to human life and suffering, and does our description make a difference as we try to lessen their hold on us?
Here’s when I started to wonder: When President Obama, initially describing the events just unfolding in Boston, said, “We don’t know if this is the act of terrorists or not.” And I thought, why don’t we know? Isn’t random killing of innocent civilians in a way designed to terrorize an entire city—isn’t that what terrorism means? And then I realized he meant that we didn’t know if it was the act of a specific group which is defined as a terrorist group.
But does that matter? The ‘lone gunman’ who so often is the perpetrator of these violent sprees terrorizes no less because he is not attached to a formal group. The families of the victims grieve no less. The by-standers are no less traumatized. I think that the definition matters only if we want to know exactly who to blame, and for license to retaliate.
The owners of the factory in West, Texas, who repeatedly assured the EPA that there was absolutely no danger of fire in their fertilizer plant: Weren’t they also acting from massive indifference to human life and suffering? Weren’t they putting their profit and convenience ahead of the lives of others? Are the people whose loved ones died or were injured there grieving any less? Are the by-standers any less traumatized?
Or this: The U.S. Senate, despite pleas from grieving parents of murdered children, and survivors of mass shootings, refused to take action to limit access to guns by even the tiniest bit. How are those 46 Senators who cast the no votes (and refused to let the majority rule) tied to the future suffering of the inevitable next mass shooting which we know will occur? Are they responsible?
I’m not going to use the word ‘terrorist’ to describe factory owners, or U.S. Senators, or even the two brothers who wreaked such harm in Boston last week. But I am going to wonder: How do we find language to hold one another accountable, to demand that businesses, governments, schools, churches, and individuals care for one another?
Because one thing I have observed in my life: Individuals mimic what we see. Indifferent parents lead to indifferent kids. Crummy teachers foster crummy students. Ineffective governments foster ineffective citizens. Democratic society can only happen with democratic government.
So I’m less interested in knowing who to blame and how to retaliate, and more interested in creating accountability between us all so that care for one another is maximized and violence between us is minimized. I’m interested in finding the language that will do that.
.
love is the voice under all silences;
the hope which has no opposite in fear;
the strength so strong mere force is feebleness;
the truth more first than sun more last than star.
~ e.e. cummings
Beloveds, today the sun is shining. Yesterday the sun was shining too, even though it was pouring rain here in New Orleans. And last night, the sun was shining. Love is like that – present and shining through the dark nights, the stormy days, and the bright times.
Trust this. Trust this love more than fear, more than force, more than lies. Trust this love. Trust this sustaining shining, even when you cannot see it. There is no out but through. May we go through this together with love.
I was scrubbing the dishes this evening, hot steam rising up from the sink, when I realized what was getting to me. Earlier I had been mind-wandering on Facebook and looked at some posts of friends and some videos. I had felt a gnawing anxious pit in my stomach, and still, a half hour later, it was lingering. The article, photos, and videos I’d watched were of the people the FBI is now searching for, the suspected perpetrators of the Boston Marathon bombing. Over 17,000 people had “liked” and “shared” these photos & videos via Facebook alone, and the FBI is clearly asking that people do that, to spread the word, to gather tips.
But I know I don’t know those people, pictured and shown. I knew it the minute I saw the images. Really I was 99.99% certain I didn’t know them days ago, so why did I even look at the link? And why did I then click on the article, the press release, and the video clips? What sucked me (and 17,000 other people) in? I’m so glad I don’t have TV or live with someone who watches the evening news; I’m already so affected by the stories and the photographs I glance at in the newspaper. What can I tell from the photos and videos? They look like two ordinary young men who might live in Boston, to me. They are somebody’s sons.
I’m grateful that our kid isn’t old enough to know anything about all the tragedies of this week—the Boston Marathon bombing, the Senate’s rejection of any progress on gun control, the fire and explosion in West, Texas. I’m not a pollyanna enough to think that there won’t be plenty of disturbing events when she is old enough to understand and ask us about them, but I’m grateful that that time has not come yet. I still have time to sort out my own feelings in the quiet sanctuary of my heart and head. I still have time to clear my mind and have a cup of tea and, once she’s asleep, sit someplace peaceful and sort through my thoughts.
What came to me while I was washing dishes, what helped loosen the knot in my stomach, is my clarity that I just seem to see things differently than our country’s leaders, differently even than some of my neighbor friends. Understanding my own reaction and knotted stomach helps me breathe again. What I realized—what I remembered—is that I just don’t believe in good versus evil. My reaction to seeing the photos is not “good, I hope they go get them.” I would not be able to say, as President Obama said on Monday evening, that “any responsible individuals…will feel the full weight of justice.” It’s not that I don’t believe in justice, nor that I don’t recognize the awful pain that has been caused and that continues to reverberate throughout the Boston area and beyond. But the way that Obama’s statement has been taken out of the context of his larger, thoughtful reflection and made into the slogan of what is now a nationwide manhunt just sickens me. I don’t want to be a part of that manhunt. There are people whose job it is to find the people who did this horrible thing. It is not my job. I do not, I will not, be brought along into this manhunt. I do not trust us as a nation of people who will respond carefully. We are all still learning, still growing up, still figuring out how to be civil in a world where terrorist acts are familiar to so many people in other countries but something we just don’t expect here; for better and for worse, we have not learned how to respond calmly to terrorist acts in our own country. As Amy Davidson wrote in The New Yorker this week: “It is at these moments that we need to be most careful, not least.” Our national conversation about “good vs. evil” is so immature, so colored by Star Wars, Disney, the Lone Ranger, cowboy Westerns and reality TV.
So instead of spending another moment online as those photos get plastered on every news site and social media feed, I’m going to keep doing dishes. I’m going to drink my tea. I’m going to savor that our child knows nothing of all this and I’m going to read Snuggle Puppy to her a dozen more times tomorrow. The world is complex and messy, nuanced and hurting: I know this. There will come a time when we leave our little home and I have to explain the pain we encounter out there: I know that, too. But the other thing I know, that I am just learning how to articulate now as a new mom, is that this is what I can offer her: I can fill her up with love and laughter, I can help her be calm when she falls, I can show her that things happen, good and bad, and what is important is how we choose to respond. I can model for her how to be calm and grounded and not rush to conclusions, not rush to hurt someone else when she gets hurt. We all get hurt. What I’d like to see more of is not passing the hurt on and on and on in a mad rush to blame, corner, arrest, punish, imprison, and execute. I am glad that there are others whose job it is to identify the perpetrators of these crimes. It is my job to teach love: resilient, determined, unfaltering love. Love that includes kindness, compassion, calmness, humility, forgiveness, and learning about the tender fragility and inherent worth and dignity of all people everywhere so that one less child grows up to walk through a crowd of families and friends, children and students, and set down a backpack with a bomb in it.
It’s Poem In Your Pocket Day,
and like a springtime bird
still dazed by the snow,
I dart, twisting my head,
in unbelief at all the food.
It’s Poem In Your Pocket Day,
and everywhere is a poem.
Twist your gaze, grab some
unbelief: the snow is gone.
Look. Look at the food.
http://www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/406
We don’t know, and we can’t imagine. Who would set bombs to go off at the end of a foot race? Why would any human being do such a thing? What is the world coming to that such acts of violence are beginning to seem commonplace? What sort of beings are we, what sort of a society are we, that wholesale random violence would be an ongoing part of our lives?
We don’t know, and we can’t imagine. And maybe it isn’t such a bad thing to sit with those two facts. We don’t know. And so it does no good to speculate about foreign terrorists or domestic terrorists or mental illness or right-wing or left-wing conspiracies. We don’t know. Maybe by the time you read this, we will. But for the meantime we just have to live with horrible suffering for no known reason. Which is kind of how life is. We don’t know why some people get cancer, or why some babies die in their cribs or why one house is completely demolished by tornado or fire when the one next door is untouched. We just don’t know. You could say it’s God’s will, but usually that’s what the neighbors with the intact house say—“God saved us!”—while their neighbors blankly examine the rubble of what was their home.
We don’t know, and we live in a world of not knowing. Except that we know that brave first responders are tending the wounded and clearing the area of any other explosive devices. We know that people are caring for one another, that shell-shocked bystanders are seeing that the hurt receive medical attention, that people across the country are calling up the Red Cross to see if they should donate blood, that folks everywhere are praying, sending love, wishing for safety and healing. And we know this without witnessing it, without seeing it on the news, simply because that is what people always do. That is who we are.
And who we are is people who can’t imagine. We can’t imagine why someone would commit such a brutal and bloody act because however many times these horrific acts rip across our headlines, 99.99999% of us are the kind of people who not only wouldn’t do such a thing, we are also people who couldn’t even imagine doing it. We might or might not jump in a river in an attempt to save someone who is drowning, but we can imagine it. We might or might not walk onto a busy highway to rescue an injured dog, but we can imagine it. What we can’t imagine is creating wanton destruction, because we are not that kind of people. However many of these horrible, heart-wrenching events happen, they will only be perpetrated by the most infinitesimal fraction of the population, while the rest of us watch and pray and donate blood and do whatever we can to hold safe not only our children and our friends, but also complete strangers whose suffering we can, alas, imagine.
I can’t say whether it’s enough, but it’s how we live in this world.
Today I have to make sure that there is a port-a-potty for the tri-congregation Earth Day service in the park on Sunday. Today, I get to meet with community organizers at their monthly meeting to talk about a change to the city charter. Today I need to write an evaluation for a Monday meeting with an employee. Today, I will print tickets for our Mother’s Day fundraiser to sell this weekend. Today, I must pay my taxes and the bills in the pile by the door. Today, there is live, free, glorious music playing down by the river and somehow, I will get there for a little soul revival.
Beloveds, whatever your to-do list holds, may you remember that our lives are lived today. We are not promised tomorrow. Let us remember daily to celebrate the gift of this life.
The poet Alice Walker writes,
Though not
A contest
LIFE
Is
The award
& we
Have
Won.
Ah yeah…Amen.
I have learned a thing or two about asking for help these past two weeks. I’m not sure why I’ve long been hesitant to ask for help, but I’ve got my theories. Maybe I’ve wanted to prove to my parents or to myself how much I could accomplish “All By Myself” (hear that 6-year-old voice within? I do!). Maybe because I was raised an only child with no cousins and we moved all over, a lot, I just got used to not knowing enough people nearby to bother asking. Maybe I simply grew up in a culture that puts too much of a value on privacy and independence, on “dealing with it ourselves.” Maybe I just haven’t been connected enough—haven’t prioritized getting connected, enough—to community to have people to call upon in times of need.
My partner Cathy has really been teaching me to ask for help. Most recently, our little Robin has been hospitalized twice in the past month for an infected congenital cyst and we have been right there with her at every moment. That means that all our other routines have been put on hold—all our routines: work, bills, laundry, groceries, cooking, e-mail, even refilling the cat’s water bowl (sorry, cats!).
In the big picture of our and Robin’s lives, we are fine. This is Life! I expect life (and parenting especially) to be filled with both joy and challenges. In the short-term, this cyst thing is, quite literally, a pain in the neck. We have to obsessively watch and clean R’s neck while we wait for the infection to completely subside, treat her for diarrhea caused by the infection-fighting antibiotic, and count the days until we can hopefully have another surgery to remove the cyst entirely.
In the meantime, I have learned a lot about the grace, goodness, laughter, kale, quinoa and polenta tamales that can come with asking for help. During times of stress, thank goodness for friends who cook. Thank goodness for neighbors who bring brownies and air mattresses to the hospital, for colleagues who set up meal delivery schedules online, bring daffodils in biodegradable cornstarch cups, and remind a worried parent to step outside for a little sunlight. Thank goodness for building-mates who bring accumulating newspapers and fresh diaper deliveries inside. Thank goodness for family friends who come over to visit and listen, hold the baby and happily eat whatever smorgasbord of leftovers can be assembled and heated up. Thank goodness for healthcare providers who gently say “she’ll be okay” and reassuringly repeat “you’re good parents.” Thank goodness for new friends who don’t hesitate when asked to do loads (and loads) of baby laundry.
At some point a neighbor-mama sat in our living room with me and spelled it out: “These days…when we’re all so busy…we need a reason to connect. An impetus. We need to be asked…but we all want something to do, a way to help each other out. Caring for each other through a crisis…however ultimately minor…helps us all have a stronger community.”
A couple of hospitalizations quickly puts my usual, day-to-day worries and to-do lists into perspective. One of the things I’ve re-learned is that cultivating time with friends—“hanging out”—is actually much more important than a lot of the stuff I usually feel like Must Get Done. Cause it’s the friends who are lasting, it’s the friends who are flexible and can change their schedules around and show up, it’s the friends who are going to be there to help during the rough times. It’s the friends who make us laugh, who dance to Teenage Dream in the hospital room while the baby is on “contact precautions” and can’t leave the room for days, it’s the friends who keep us company (and help keep us grounded, healthy, and sane) while we deal with the inevitabilities of life.
Thank you to all of you. We’re washing out your tupperware, your Pyrex and your Calphalon, and looking forward to returning each and every favor. Just, please: let us know what’s going on in your lives. Ask for help. Be specific, say “quinoa,” say “laundry,” say “cat food.” We’re on it. We’ve got recipes. We’ve got daffodils. We’ve got dishsoap. And we know that we need you as much as you, at some point, might need us.
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