It’s Not Yours!

A couple of weeks ago I was participating in a discussion regarding money, people and treating both rightly. I was new to the particular group of people talking about it, so I didn’t speak up as much as I wanted to, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about ever since, so I’ll share my thoughts here (by the way, this discussion did not occur at my home church, Divine Life).

 The discussion was about evangelizing people and what church is supposed to be for those who are either tired of church or who have been hurt by it. One of the points the speaker made was that they will know that what we have is different by the way we treat them. Our love, kindness and seeing them for who they are instead of what they can do for us will set us apart. We were then encouraged to do at least one random act of kindness and to do it anonymously within the next couple of weeks. 

I was surprised at how many people had a hard time grasping this concept, especially after all the publicity that the “Pay it Forward” movement at Starbucks got last Christmas. (If you aren’t familiar with it, a person in the drive thru at Starbucks decided to pay for drinks in the car behind him. He pays, drives off and when the next car pulled up to their free drinks, they decided to pass it on and pay for the person behind them. This started a chain of people “paying it forward” for an entire afternoon). Maybe it is in my nature to buy gifts for people, but I loooove doing stuff like that! Especially when it’s anonymous and for a total stranger. You never know when you can turn someone’s day around with something like that. 

At one point when discussing ways to bless people, one lady piped up and said (very honestly, I must add) that she didn’t want to do it, because it was her money and she had worked hard for it. I don’t know if she was saying that to get a discussion going or to generalize or if she really does feel that way, but I found it very disturbing. We are talking about a cup of coffee, not a steak dinner (which was another thing she hoped God wouldn’t “make” her buy for someone). It doesn’t really require a lot of sacrifice, and it is the attitude behind the act that will please or displease God. This was where I bit my tongue (b/c honestly, I was pretty irritated at her for it) but I wish I had shared with her what God has taught me about stewardship, possessions, money… even my child. 

It has been a three year journey, and I in no way have “arrived”, but to sum it up: IT’S NOT MINE. 

The only reason I have anything- a job, a house, a car, an education, a savings account, my family, my life- is because God has given it to me. He allows me to breathe and live. He has given me possessions so that I may be a good steward over them. I have an added responsibility to use and nurture them wisely, because I am a Christian. Just as you’d be extra careful borrowing your dad’s brand new car, we tend to be more cautious with things that we know are not ours.

 My house should be used as a place of nurturing and fellowship… my car should take me to places where I can be a blessing… my education should equip me to interact wisely with people…my savings account should enable me to meet a need when I see one…my family should be cherished because they are God’s children…my life should reflect the truth of eternity. I fail at all of these many, many times, but it is something I am now constantly aware of and try to live out genuinely.

 Let me go back to the savings account for a minute. When Ryan and I got married, the plan was to wait 5 years to have kids, save money and work and then I’d be a stay-at-home-mom. 2 years later we had a perfect little baby girl, no money in savings and plenty of debt on 4 different credit cards. You might be wondering how we let ourselves get to that point. Good question. It was poor planning, greed, and a general abuse of the things God had blessed us with. Yet instead of turning to the Lord for help, we tried to help ourselves. I wasn’t working and Ryan was picking up extra catering jobs. It felt very frantic, and there was always something looming- “Well, if we can just pay down this credit card, I’ll calm down. If we could just get $1000 in our savings account, I’ll feel secure”.

 I eventually ended up going back to work, and of course the extra income made it possible to pay off our credit cards and start saving again.  But the Lord really worked on us through those hard times, because we started to realize that nothing WE do will take away that feeling of something just not being “right” about the whole situation. Sure, we have to do our part with planning, budgeting and cutting up credit cards, but we also have to allow God to work on our perspective. I will never again let money own me, I will care about it only for what it can do for people. The savings account is not supposed to be your “safety net”. Yes, it makes me feel more secure knowing that if I lost my job today we could pay the bills for awhile, but that’s not why we contribute to it every paycheck. The savings account is there so that when we are made aware of a need, God can meet it through our willingness to obey him.

 It’s not mine. It’s His. And you know what? As soon as we realized this and started living it out, Ryan got a ton of catering jobs and we will more than surpass our “goal” for the number by the end of October. Don’t hear what I am not saying: none of this is to say how great we are, but to say how great GOD is in what He has taught us about caring for His people. 

This perspective can be applied to anything. I have a lot of inner struggles with myself as a mother. I am constantly worrying that Aubrey is not eating the best she could be, or getting enough sleep, or wondering why she throws fits and says “no” all the time (note to self: um, she’s TWO, that’s why!). One thing that really reels me back in with my concerns for her is to understand that she is not mine. She is God’s daughter, and He has entrusted her to my care for her life here on earth. I cannot be with her every second of every day, I have to trust and pray that God holds her in His Hands. She is HIS child, not mine. That is so liberating and exciting! It doesn’t let me off the hook when it comes to parenting, discipline, and proper care, but it does allow me to enjoy her and let her be who God has created her to be without constantly controlling every detail (even though, if you know me at all, that is something I fight every day). 

One of my dearest friends is about to adopt a baby. I see this concept playing out before my eyes with her choice to adopt: that God would give life to my friend with this new baby in mind. That her life situations, experiences and relationship with God would bring her and her husband to a meeting point with this baby, whom God has also led and created for their care. That she can love and anticipate someone she has never met is a testament to her faith and obedience in the Lord, and that she can trust that no matter how this child comes to her, she will be Jesus in their life is so beautiful it makes me cry. That baby is NOT hers, literally, but it will be given to her (after a TON of hard work, paperwork, and planning) and she will care for God’s child as if she had birthed it from her own body. Awesome!

 Stewardship applies to everything in our life. We have to make wise decisions about our time, money and resources so that we are able to maximize our positive impact on the lost in this world. Keeping an eternal perspective is difficult, because it isn’t something we can totally grasp, but it is something that can make what we are called to do make more sense.

 So yes, save your money. And yes, give to charity! And for Pete’s sake, TITHE (because like I said, it was God’s money in the first place). Bathe your kids, make them eat their veggies, kiss your husband/wife, clean your house and don’t use credit cards. Use your money to bless others, buy them a latte, and enjoy your family and friends. Through our obedience to God and what He has called us to, the cares of money and responsibility will slowly turn into blessings, and when we are challenged to give beyond what we imagined, we will be able to.

 IT’S NOT MINE. And that’s just the way I’d like to keep it.

 “Money may be the husk of many things, but not the kernel.  It brings you food, but not appetite; medicine, but not health; acquaintance, but not friends; servants, but not loyalty; days of joy, but not peace or happiness”.  ~Henrik Ibsen

Simplicity

Every other month at Divine Life, we have a class on Tuesday nights. They are a way to dig deeper into certain topics and allow for discussion afterwards. I really enjoy attending and definitely looked forward to the one for April which was on “Creation Care”. I thought it was neat that they had organized this to happen during Earth Month and Jill did a great job of preparing and teaching on our Christian responsibility to the world we live in. It wasn’t just a class on how to recycle or turning the lights off- it went a lot deeper. We learned how our choices here in America affect people in other countries and how to be more aware of what is really going on in front of our eyes here at home. It really got to me when I thought about the fact that our consumer-driven society actually jeopardizes the health, well-being and prosperity of people who don’t even live in this country. I have really become more aware that everything I do has a consequence- good or bad.

Looking back on this month, it is amazing to me to see how much my thinking has changed. I really think that this class, coupled with God working in my life, has opened my eyes to a lot of bad habits that I have. Don’t get me wrong, I love America and out of all the countries I have lived in, it’s my favorite. But I think a lot of the ways I see the world are a result of living in the American culture. I think my biggest “sin”, if you will, is wastefulness. And I think that it stems directly from living in a country where there is plenty of everything, and up until recently plenty of work if you wanted money, etc. And hey, if you don’t have the money to go shopping or redecorate your house (even though it is perfectly fine the way it is), there is always a credit card to fall back on. I don’t blame my country for my mistakes, but I do think that our way of thinking has contributed to my wastefulness.

This class has really shown me that I don’t “need” everything I think I do. As a Christian, my goal shouldn’t be to have the most stuff , dress my child in all name brand clothing or have the latest and greatest stroller system to show off at the playground. Having those things isn’t wrong, but sacrificing what is truly important to have them is. The whole idea behind “creation care” comes down to stewardship. Are we good stewards of what God has given us- financially AND when it comes to the world we live in? Think about it… how many times have you gone through the Sunday paper and seen an advertisement for a sale for something you already have 3 of, yet go out and buy more? “It was on sale! Aubrey will look soooo cute in it! I really need more clothes for work”… etc. The need to “have” is greater than the actual need.

My epiphany came a couple of weeks ago. It was a light bulb moment, and I was completely disgusted with myself when I realized how wasteful I am. I kept a mental note of my habits for a couple of days and found myself throwing paper in the trash (post-it notes are recyclable, too!), throwing milk out before it went bad and buying a new jug, buying clothes or shoes that I already had plenty of (I don’t really need 4 pairs of black pumps, now do I?), and, here I confess my most shameful sin, seeing something growing in the Tupperware in the fridge and instead of cleaning it out, throwing the whole thing in the trash. Talk about lazy. Talk about wasteful! Everything I noticed I was doing that was wasteful was usually traced back to laziness and the thinking that “Tupperware won’t break the bank, so I will just buy more next time I am at the store”.

Seeing my habits in this light made me feel several things: first, I felt shame. As well I should have! Then, I felt anger, mostly at myself for being too lazy to wash something out or take stock of the food that was already in my fridge/pantry before going to the store to buy stuff I already had (I mean really, how many boxes of organic spaghetti noodles does one need? I am certain that I don’t need 4 all at once). After the anger came determination to change, and after that decision I began with the lists. On the computer, so as not to waste any more paper!

1.  turn off the lights. Sounds simple, but it doesn’t always get done at my house
2.  line dry my clothing. This will save me money too because our dryer is about to poop out on us and we have to run it twice for the towels to dry. I picked up some lines and clothespins at Walmart for about $7, and Ryan installed them over the shower. Out of my 5 loads of laundry this weekend, I used the dryer for only one of them. THAT was a good feeling. 
3. re-use Ziploc bags. Wash and sterilize them and quit throwing them in the trash if they don’t have holes in them! 
4. grow my own food. Instead of going to the store and getting veggies that sit in my fridge and go bad because I forget they are there, I planted tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini and green beans. I also planted cilantro, basil, mint and thyme. These are all foods and herbs that we eat often, and having to tend the garden and pick the food when they are ripe will keep me aware of what I have and what I need to eat before it goes bad. I planted a TON of green beans and plan to can them and have enough to get us through the winter without having to buy any.
5. Simplify. I probably have enough makeup (with the exception of things that run out like mascara and foundation) to get me to age 35 if I would just use what I have and quit buying the newest thing to come out. Who needs 14 (I’m serious) different shades of brown eye shadow? Apparently, I did.

That last point is, if you will, the point of this post. I think I am a gatherer. If I have the money and see something I want, I buy it. We have lived without credit cards for about 2 years now, and next month will finally pay off the balance of the very last one. That will be such a good feeling! Living within our means has meant sacrifice, but in the long run it has put less stress on our family as well as fostering creativity in our activities.

A couple of weeks ago I was standing in my closet, buried by clothes I never wear and complaining that I didn’t have anything to wear. It was just ridiculous, really. So, this past weekend I had a garage sale. I went through the house and anything that had not been used/worn in the past year went into the garage. My only goal was to make enough money to get a pedicure (it is sandal season, after all!) and to get rid of all that crap that I never used. Let me tell you, it was a lot of work, but it felt SO GREAT to make enough money for my pedicure AND a Zoo Pass for the summer, as well as drop off about 4 garbage bags of perfectly good clothes, toys, books and household items that someone who really needed them would use.

My new quest is for simplicity. I have enough clothes and shoes to wear to work for quite some time. I might get a new item every once in awhile, but it’s not going to be part of my payday ritual anymore to go buy something just because I can. I have enough food growing in my backyard now that I will not have to buy salsa all summer, and if I want a salad I just need to add lettuce to my grocery list. I really believe that simplifying is going to benefit my family in more ways than one. Obviously, by reusing things like Tupperware and Ziploc bags, we will save money. But by reprioritizing what’s really important, it will push us to be creative about our activities, enjoy God’s creation more, and just appreciate what we have more than always yearning for what we don’t have.

I’m sure it won’t always be easy to say no to “stuff”, but I think I’m up for the challenge.

Where did she learn THAT?!

I am so glad the election is over. While I am not abandoning my political commentary (I reserve the right to rant at any time… though I am probably the only person who reads this blog who agrees with me), its time for a break. I haven’t talked about Ryan or my dog or most especially my daughter in a long time.

We finally got the new bedtime routine down. It consists of a bath, teeth brushing, pj’s, reading books and laying down with a little stuffed reindeer my grandma gave Aubrey last Christmas. She loves that thing. The only problem with this routine is that it only works when Ryan is the orchestrator of this system. If daddy is in the bathroom, Aubrey plays nicely and lets me brush her teeth and doesn’t soak my entire body with water that she splashes. If daddy is dressing her, she lays perfectly for him. If daddy is reading Fox in Socks,Aubrey will stare in wonderment at the pictures and how Ryan never stumbles over that tongue-twister of a book (“First I’ll make a quick trick brick stack, Then I’ll make a quick trick block stack…My tongue isn’t slick or quick, sir. I get all those ticks and clocks, sir, mixed up with the chicks and tocks, sir. I can’t do it, Mr. Fox, sir.”) Then she will lay down perfectly, roll onto her tummy and snooze the night away.

This opposed to the creation of a hazard zone in the bathroom from the slippery floors, the wailing and bemoaning that I should dare want her to have good dental hygiene, the constant need to twist and stand up on the changing table and peeing on me before I can get her diaper on, the closing of every book and pointing to the dog during story-time, and the instant standing up in the crib and production of the world’s largest tears when Ryan is not home to put her to bed.

Aubrey is such a daddy’s girl. That makes me happy and I complain about how hard it is for me to put her to bed in jest, but I do love it that she is so good for him. It worries me that I won’t have as much influence in her life as he does, but that may change. I wasn’t really close to either of my parents growing up and I don’t want to repeat that. Of course, when I got to college I became best pals with my dad and sister and as soon as I found out I was pregnant, I realized why my mother acted so crazy all the time. That’s what motherhood does to you. You go crazy with the amazement that this is a brand new chance to see a life built, you go crazy with worrying about your child all the time, you go crazy when they ignore you and you go crazy wondering if they will shove that karma right down your very deserving throat when they hit puberty.

Aubrey is a good kid. She is such a sweetie, and she is very loving. The older she gets the more things come out that totally throw me off. Yesterday I told her no when she was pulling all of my kitchen towels out of the drawer and she laid on the floor and pounded her fists on the ground and cried. I was like, what the heck? Who taught her how to do that? I ignored her and she stopped (is that the best thing to do in those cases? I have no clue) but still. I don’t want my kid to be that brat in the store or restaurant and people mutter to each other “I would so beat that kid’s butt if she were mine…” Parenting is hard. I had my ideals when I thought of how I would do it, but as it progresses I see the need for flexibility (gag), creativity and most of all, teamwork. I have said this before, I give props to the single parent b/c this is the hardest and most wonderful job in the world!  

The random kisses she gives to the dog, the helping me “clean” or the new words she seems to utter everyday give me more joy that I thought possible. It’s even hard not to laugh sometimes when she wails and wails but no tears come out, and she throws her hands over her eyes and then peeks out from between her fingers to see if I am watching her. The kid is definetly a drama queen.

…I wonder where she got that from?

The year of perfection has ended…

When Aubrey was born, she was an abnormally good baby. Sure, there were a few rough nights (due to her idiot breastfeeding mother deciding to eat chili for dinner) and crying fits when we messed with her routine, but for the most part, I kept waiting for the ball to drop. People kept saying things like, oh just wait til you get her home… just wait til she starts formula, just wait til she gets a tooth, just wait til she starts to crawl… and still, the perfect child remained. I took it for granted- the fact that a bottle could fix everything, the fact that she slept for 13 hours every night, the fact that I could set her down with a toy and have a good 30 minutes to clean or check my email.

Well, thanks a lot, “people”, because your dire predictions have come true! The child can’t have formula anymore, she has 2 teeth and 2 more coming in, and she likes to scream til 4 am unless I am holding her. And dishes? Forget it. I’m about to kill the planet and buy styrofoam plates.

Aubrey is a year old. She is becoming a little person with opinions and preferences. She is letting me know that she will not fit into any mold that I or anyone else makes for her- she is letting me know that she is Aubrey, and you know what? Aubrey is amazing. She steals my sleep and makes me smile while doing it. She smears baby food into her freshly-washed hair and manages to get a laugh from me for it. She OPENS HER MOUTH when she sees Stella going for a lick and instead of freaking out and grabbing the clorox, I delight in the fact that my dog does not want to eat her and enjoy the shrieking giggles that ensue from my daughter’s mouth.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a person of lists, to-do’s, chore days and laundry sorting. A dozen roses are nice, but Ryan really gets the “aw” factor when I come home to a house smelling like bleach and vaccum lines in the carpet. I feel safety in my routine and have done everything in my power to protect it.

Aubrey broke that down in no time… and the beautiful thing is, I have delighted in it. I still love a clean house and folded laundry, but I love sitting on the floor playing peek-a-boo with my kid way more. So yeah… I don’t have a perfect little blob anymore. I have something much better- a 15 pound teacher of life who flings her toys everywhere.

Talk about lucky.

The aftermath of a robbery, ear infection and amoxicilan allergy

Sleeping in your house the night its been broken into is not something I would recommend. Every little noise made me stop breathing and I was certain the evil ones were lurking outside of Aubrey’s window, waiting for me to fall asleep and snatch away one of my most precious possessions. I think I got about 3 hours of sleep that night- after I inhaled the remainder of my Tylenol PM- but I was READY to go to work the next day, for the sole purpose of NOT being in that house. After all, it got robbed in the middle of the day so why would I want to hang around for round 2?
After dropping Aubrey off at daycare and telling the babysitter that hey, you might want to lock the door to your garage, I went to work and promptly began my research on home security systems. I found one, called, got a good deal, referred my sister-in-law and got an even better deal, and still could not breathe easy. I had a panic attack that night and Good Lord, I hate those. I haven’t had one of those since the pressures of college and of boyfriends had during said college years. I have always been one to get scared, to watch the news too much and assume that every rapist and murderer has me next on their list. So you can imagine how my irrationality increased after this incident.
But yesterday, the nice man from the security company came to my house for 6 hours and drilled holes in my ceiling from the attic and wired the doors and every window and a bunch of other stuff that was totally worth dipping into Aubrey’s college fund. I now have little red lights that let me know every time I enter a room, and chimes and such to let me know that hey, I opened the door. And then, hey, I just shut the door. I am so eco-friendly. Last night, I slept like a baby.
They might have taken some of Ryan’s hunting stuff, but they didn’t get it all so just be aware, if you try to scare me by creeping around my house, or toilet paper my house or shaving cream my car, I have weapons and I know how to use them and I am one paranoid, irrational homeowner… so consider yourself and your toes warned.
I know that I am supposed to have faith in the Lord, the He no doubt DID protect Aubrey and I the day of the robbery by us not going home right away. I know that it was only “stuff” that was stolen, and I could really care less about that. I wish that I could say that I place all hope in the Lord, that I could lay down at night and fall fast asleep. I wish that I could let the dog out to pee every morning without fearing that a man is standing there with a gun. I know that as a Christian, fear should have no place in my life. But you know what, I’m human, a flawed one at that, so yeah, I’m scared and having a little keypad that calls the police in 2.5 seconds DOES make me feel safer. I was talking to a lady at work about it today and she told me to read Psalms 91 tonight before I go to bed. We’ll see if that helps. Anyways, I’d love your thoughts on this. How does one know in their head that God will protect them (and if He doesn’t, its in His perfect will and there are better things awaiting us) but fight that natural, perhaps evolutionary urge of survival?

On a lighter note, sort of, Aubrey got another ear infection last week. Just like last time, the hot cougar soccer mom doctor (Ryan LOVES taking Aubrey to the doctor:) ) prescribed amoxicilan, which Aubrey has been taking for 8 days. Well, yesterday I get a call from Aubrey’s babysitter sounding a bit, well, panicked. “Um, just wondering if you noticed that Aubrey is covered in red spots.” Um, no I did not, otherwise I WOULD NOT HAVE TAKEN HER TO DAYCARE, WHAT DO YOU TAKE ME A FOR A HEARTLESS FOOL? So I commence the freaking out, calling the doctor because oh-my-god my 10 month old has the chicken pox, how did she get the chicken pox, I can’t miss 8 days of work and she can’t go to daycare with the chicken pox… you get the point. The nurse assured me that without a fever, it was not chicken pox (even though my mother swears that my sister never had a fever with HER chicken pox, cue freaking out). Ryan went and got her early, just in case.
Don’t you hate it when your kid doesn’t feel good and there is really nothing you can do about it except sit in the floor and scratch your eyes and cry with them? And then they look at you like woman, you are not covered in red welps and don’t truly know my misery so why don’t you just quit being a baby? I gave her a bath, patted myself on the back for remembering to give her the medicine for her ears, fed her and put her down.

I wish I knew how to insert pictures here because this morning when I woke her up, Miss Aubrey looked as though she had been in a fight. Her little eyes were swollen and the red welps had multiplied overnight. I felt so bad for her but she was in a fabulous mood. My mother-in-law was coming to take her to the doctor so I didn’t have to worry about the looks I would get from other mothers at daycare, like ahem, why did you bring your leper to daycare where it can infect my child with that disease?

Long story short (and by now its like, whats the point?), my excellent parenting skills in which I administer prescribed medicine to my child twice a day like the doctor said were actually harming her. She is allergic.to.amoxicilan.

Say whaaaaat?

Yes. What kid is allergic to amoxicilan? I have a special relationship with amoxicilan because it got me through those 6 years of living in smog infested cities, smog infested so badly that if you went out for a jog and blew your nose, your snot would be black. Seriously. I had tonsilitis EVERY SINGLE MONTH of my junior year that we lived in Santiago before my parents (God love ‘em) FINALLY decided to let me get my tonsils out. On my birthday. Thanks mom.

So you can imagine my shock at the allergy, and feel my relief that my child was not infested with a flesh-eating disease or, worse, the chicken pox.

That is a battle better fought in first grade, when you know how to scratch and whine and get your mom to give you lots and lots of ice cream. I’ll be sure to blog about it when it happens.

Why love America?

This article is long but really worth the read.

Monday, Jul. 05, 1976

Loving America

By Henry Grunwald

 

Loving America is a very special task. No other country makes quite the same demands in being loved, nor presents quite the same difficulties.

In most other nations, patriotism is essentially the love of family, of tribe, of land, magnified. There may well be an ideological admixture. The France of the Revolution and Napoleon, for instance, proclaimed the rights of man. Liberty, equality, fraternity were useful enough to overthrow an order and kill a king. But France’s love of her earth and her produce, her landscape, her language and her money—those are the things French patriotism is really about. So it is with other European nations. The songs and the poetry of patriotism are filled with scenery: with rivers and mountains, with cities longed for, with valleys lost, with castles conquered. American patriotism has much less of this specific sense of place. “From sea to shining sea” or “purple mountain majesties” are somehow unconvincing.

It is possible to be deeply moved by the endless American plains, and the settlements defiantly set down in the midst of this vastness, by the coast of Maine or the Rockies or the desert. But that is not loving America. Loving America means loving what it stands for as a political and social vision. Although the great American epic is the conquest and taming of a continent, American patriotism is not concentrated on geography but on a historic event and an idea. The event is the creation of the United States as a fresh start, a different dispensation. The idea is freedom. Both notions have been distorted or perverted at times —that happens with all patriotism. But even when it is misused, American patriotism remains ideological more than racial or ethnic. When the French carved up Germany or the Germans carved up France, it was done for the greater glory of each nation, with firm belief in the innate superiority of their own people.

Whenever Americans went to war, they may have been seized by jingoism to some extent, but more than anything else Americans believed they were fighting for ideas, for a system. It may have been naive to think that other countries were waiting to be given the blessings of democracy, free enterprise and individualism, but that is what Americans did believe.

The U.S. was not born in a tribal conflict, like so many other nations, but in a conflict over principles. Those principles were thought to be universal, which was part of the reason for the unprecedented policy of throwing the new country open to all comers. That not only served to make the U.S. a world power in sheer numbers (compared, for instance, with Canada, which kept its population small and has complained ever since about being overpowered by its southern neighbor). It also greatly reinforced the abstract and ideological nature of American patriotism. The millions from other lands and other cultures had different loves for many different plots of earth, languages, traditions. The unifying love had to be for America as an idea.

In part, this helps to explain the unusual stability of American institutions. In Europe it is possible to shift loyalties from king to republic, from democracy to dictatorship, and still love one’s country. In the U.S. loyalty must be to the institutions themselves. At the same time this explains the extraordinary degree of American unease, selfcriticism, dissatisfaction with leadership. If Congress functions badly, if politicians are corrupt, if Presidents do not inspire, this is seen as a breakdown of the whole American enterprise.

We still perceive America as something unprecedented in history, as an experiment, and as such something that must “work” in order to prove itself over and over again. Hence America demands that love be given not once and for all, but that it be constantly renewed and reaffirmed. That is why both American patriotism and American self-criticism can be so shrill. Attacks on America from within are usually prompted by disappointed love. “My country, right or wrong” is not a very American slogan. We Americans have a hard time accepting a situation in which our country is wrong, not because we are more arrogant than other people, but because our country’s rightness is our soil, our home. One loves one’s birthplace or one’s parents because they are one’s birthplace or one’s parents, regardless of whether the place is especially attractive or the parents especially worthy. One loves them because they exist. America demands to be loved not because it is, but for what it is—and not only for what it is, but for what it does. By its own insistence, to love the U.S. is also to judge it.

Thus, amid the chorus of congratulations on this Bicentennial, America virtually demands that we face the question: Just why do we love America? Amid corruption and commercialism, violence and disorder, resentment and confusion, just what are the country’s qualities that we cherish? One loves America both for its virtues and its faults, which are deeply intertwined. Indeed, one loves America for the virtues of its faults.

One loves the almost obsessive American need to believe, the resistance to cynicism, even if that sometimes means oversimplification and moralizing. One loves the unique American restlessness, the refusal to settle for what is, even if that sometimes means a lack of contemplation and peace. One loves the fact that America sees itself as the shaper of its own destiny, both private and public. While psychology, sociology and determinist historical theories have become massively fashionable, there is still a strong strain of resistance to the notion that man is formed by environment, by outside powers, or that the nation is in the grip of immutable forces. This rejection of fate, this insistence that everything is possible, is surely the dominant American characteristic, and at the heart of its genius. Other nations cringe before fate, or endure it nobly, or outlast it patiently. America insists on dominating, on bullying, fate. This is very invigorating and liberating, for “fate” is only too easily used as a justification for inaction, for maintaining an old order no matter how miserable.

In rejecting fate, the U.S. is the ultimate incarnation of Western, Faustian man. But that posture toward the universe also has immense dangers. There is no shifting of blame, no relief in the notion that “this is the way things are.” We are reluctantly willing to accept as inevitable natural disasters, but little else. Indeed, even nature must be put in its place through technology, and even death is somehow considered an affront, a failure of medicine, or of right living. Disease, poverty and other ancient afflictions simply are not accepted as part of the human condition. Perhaps rightly so—and yet the conviction that they can be banished completely is a tremendous burden because each setback, each delay, is seen as a personal or national failure. That is partly why we Americans are so impatient with the study of history—because history is a reminder of fate. We would rather learn to do than learn to know.

One must love this American view of learning as the tool by which man transforms himself. We Americans believe that everything can be learned, including, to a very large extent, to be what you are not. You can learn to be pretty if you are plain, charming if you are dull, thin if you are fat, youthful if you are aging, how to write though you are inarticulate, how to make money though you are not good with figures. There is something admirable about this, yet nagging questions remain: Where is the line between making the most of one’s potential and reaching for the unattainable? Where is the line between education as a tool and education as a kind of magic? The line is blurred, and that is why when education fails, disillusionment is so bitter.

One loves—with some misgivings—the deep American belief in human perfectibility and goodness. Yet an element of this belief is the fact that America lacks an adequate sense of evil. In the Enlightenment tradition, evil is explained away as a curable flaw. But even in the puritan and evangelical tradition, the American sense of evil is curiously shallow and optimistic, more concerned with behavior (sex or drink, for example) than with the deeper states of sin. The devil can be banished, and evil can be fought; evil is seen almost as a mere “problem” to be solved. There is little sense that evil is a constant presence and inextricably mixed with good. That is why every new American generation seems to discover evil as if it had been invented only yesterday—and by the older generation. There is not much of the insight that man and society are permanently imperfect.

Hence the shock and surprise when we find out that evil is being done by us or in our name. Hence, also, a kind of inverted pride, a mirror image of boosterism; if one side of the American chorus proclaims that the country is the best, the greatest ever or anywhere, the other side asserts that it is the worst ever, the worst anywhere. Both attitudes are equally false and provincial.

The American self-image similarly hovers between idealism and materialism. Can one love the American attitude toward money? Can one love America in the throes of selling, a country wrapped in one endless, all-intrusive commercial? Can one love America in those moments when the immeasurable is measured in the balance sheet, when the ultimate goal becomes the bottom line?

The American spirit is deeply divided about money. In one sense the faith in money is pure: it need not, as it does in so many older societies, apologize for its existence. Money is what it is—good in its own right, a sign of success, if perhaps no longer of divine grace. Yet this view is at war with an older tradition from which, even in a country that slights history, the imagination is never quite free: whether in the Bible or in fairy tales or in great works of fiction, money is held in contempt. The great callings are not trade or commerce but the state or the military or the church or scholarship. The great legendary virtues are not thrift—and its explosive extension, profit—but courage, kindness, faith.

This conflict, old and obvious, is being revived all over the globe today in a revolt against money—against capitalism and the consumer society. What is forgotten all too easily is that money was and is a tremendous liberating force, a great equalizer. It destroyed the old class structure and enabled anyone to rise; money made it possible for people without distinguished birth, without land and sometimes even without education, through enterprise or luck or both, to change their place in life. All this would be little more than a familiar academic footnote if it were not for the fact that to Americans the liberating force of money is still a reality. The bitter complaint always has been that it liberates only a few. We Americans know better. The U.S. has not only created immense wealth, but has organized the redistribution of wealth on a scale far more impressive than anything brought about by later revolutions. In socialist societies people can move and improve their station through ability. But, more typically, they advance through displaying political orthodoxy and learning how to maneuver the vast bureaucratic machine. These societies have their undoubted attractions. They have done away with many of the uncertainties and injustices of money societies. But they have substituted other, and arguably worse, uncertainties and injustices. The majority of the world may not see it that way, but the power of the American capitalist is more benign, and, above all, far more subject to control, than the power of the socialist bureaucrat.

Ultimately all American forces, including money, converge in the passion for freedom—and that is, above all things, what one loves about the U.S. No country carries the belief in freedom farther, the belief that the individual must be free to make of himself what he can, that citizens must be free as far as humanly possible from government. There is about most Americans an attitude toward authority which is immensely bracing and which both dazzles and frightens people of other nations. Most Americans show a self-confidence which to others often appears to be mere swagger, but which is the characteristic of a country that never had either a formal aristocracy or a peasantry.

We tend to think of freedom as a positive and unalloyed good. We speak of “enjoying” freedom. Yet we fail to understand that freedom is not only a blessing but a burden. It is sometimes dizzying to contemplate how much freedom we Americans have undertaken to bear. In politics, in government, in business but also in education and in our private lives, we place immense responsibility on the individual. It can be argued that we bear freedom for much of the rest of the world—not only in the sense of material and military support for the cause of freedom as the West understands it, but in the sense of experimenting with freedom in a kind of vast social laboratory.

Our experiments are not often appreciated by the rest of the world, nor are they necessarily comforting even to ourselves.

We have broken or bent all the traditional framework of rules: in religion, in family, in sex, in every kind of behavior.

Yet we are surprised when the result is both public and personal disorder. We have not grasped the cost accounting of freedom. The great source of our current bafflement is that we somehow expect a wildly free society to have the stability of a tradition-guided society. We somehow believe that we can simultaneously have, to the fullest, various kinds of freedom: freedom from discipline, but also freedom from crime; freedom from community constraints, but also freedom from smog; freedom from economic controls, but also freedom from the inevitable ups and downs of a largely unhampered economy.

Both American conservatives and liberals are embodiments of this paradox. Liberals are forever asking state intervention in the economy for the sake of social justice, while insisting on hands-off in the private area of morals. Conservatives take the opposite view. They demand self-determination in politics, but suspect self-determination in morals. They demand laissez-faire in business, but hate laissez-faire in behavior. In theory, there is no contradiction between these positions. For freedom to be workable as a political and social system, strong inner controls, a powerful moral compass and sense of values, are needed. In practice, the contradiction is vast. The compass is increasingly hard to read, the values hard to find in a frantically open, mobile, fractioned society. Thus a troubling, paradoxical question: Does freedom destroy the inner disciplines that alone make freedom possible?

It is an ancient question, and the way America struggles with it—fitfully, painfully, earnestly, in millions of minds and thousands of communities—is deeply moving. It is the most important struggle going on in the U.S., and its outcome is far from assured. The people willing to undertake this struggle, or even capable of understanding it, are in a clear minority in today’s world. Almost everywhere we see arising a new political feudalism that once again promises a fixed society, an order in which everyone is taken care of—the only price being the loss of freedom.

So one must love America, most of all and most deeply for its constant, difficult, confused, gallant and never finished struggle to make freedom possible.

One loves America for its accomplishments as well as for its unfinished business —and especially for its knowledge that its business is indeed unfinished. One should never love America uncritically, because it is not worthy of America to be accepted uncritically; the insistence on improving the U.S. is perhaps the deepest gift of love. One ultimately loves America not for what it is, or what it does, but for what it promises. True, we know that every national promise sooner or later fades and that fate cannot be forever dominated or outmaneuvered. But we must deeply believe, and we must prove, that after 200 years the American promise is still only in its beginning. ∙Henry Grunwald

My stations of the Cross

At church we have been talking about the Stations of the Cross. It is something I have not ever been exposed to since I didn’t grow up in a liturgical denomination. But they really help you focus on what Jesus did for us at Easter and make you ponder why. Chris asked us to take these and make them our own, to ponder them, to interpret them, and then to share.

 

Ever since I found out I was pregnant with Aubrey, I became somewhat fascinated with Mary, the mother of Jesus. Knowing that she surely went through everything I was, the backaches, the swollen feet, the nausea, the cravings… it humanized her. She wasn’t just an icon I see in a church, her holy face calm and serene. She wasn’t the expressionless pictures we see in early art, holding her perfectly still child.

 

Yes, she was holy. Yes she was favored of the Lord. Her experience as a young, pure virgin girl becoming pregnant is something that I want to give more thought to. Imagine the embarrassment of people in your village talking about you, calling you a whore, questioning your betrothed as to why he would even think about linking himself to you.

 

Imagine being 8 months pregnant, riding on a donkey miles away to have your baby, whom you know is begotten of God, in a stable. I look back on the birth of Aubrey and cannot imagine it any different… the checking in, the needles, the pain, the rest, the suddenness, and then there she was. Mary didn’t have it so easy. She had some blankets instead of that nifty birthing bed, she had cousins or servants instead of an obstetrician and 3 different nurses, she had someone’s hand to hold in the pain instead of an epidural… and then, after all the labor and giving birth, instead of seeing the nurses clean her baby and put him under a warmer while she rested from the ordeal, she wrapped him in clothes and laid him in a donkey’s feeding trough. Then, I am sure she cried at wondering why, if she was bearing the Son of God, did she have to beg for a STABLE to give birth in, why, if she was bearing the Son of God, did she have to lay Him in a manger?

 

Imagine, right after giving birth, having a bunch of strangers burst into your room. and then suddenly, they gave her the sign, the answer to her question. “Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,
 ”Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.”

They worshipped the Messiah, a little baby laying there, probably with a dirty diaper, or crying or eating from his mother…

 

Imagine 3 great men, dressed in their wealth, bringing your infant son gold, frankincense and myrrh.

 

When I think of what Mary must have felt then, it is overwhelming. Yet, she knew that this was no ordinary child, no ordinary birth, from no ordinary baby-making activity. I am sure she remembered the angel coming to her as clearly every day as it was on that day.

 

I look back to my first months with Aubrey, being in awe of her, falling in love with her and getting used to being a mother. I wanted to protect her from everything bad, I wailed right there along with her when she got her shots, I did everything I could to make her happy. I am sure Mary did the same thing for baby Jesus.

 

Imagine, though, her confusion when her husband wakes her up in the middle of the night and says, we have to go. NOW. Fleeing to a foreign land, and finding out later that every other mother like herself was not spared the evil and the horror of having their sons ripped from their arms and murdered. If I was in Mary’s place, I would have felt such guilt and responsibility. I would have been haunted by it. But I am sure she knew… her day of suffering would come.

 

I think what it must be like to see your child grow up, knowing they are destined to save the world. I probably would have tried to keep Him a child as long as I could… to teach and love Him, to hold Him and kiss Him, to always be his mother. I would have been proud as He grew into a great carpenter like His dad, I would have been proud as He learned and studied and taught others. I wonder how she handled the questions that He must have had when He started to figure out who He truly was.

 

Jesus in His adult life became quite the phenomenon. As his mother, I would have been amazed at His popularity, His miracles, His teachings. I would have always been His mother. I probably would have worried about where He would sleep and what He would eat when he was on the road. She must have known He was holy, but she had to have also seen him as a man. A human. She must have known that He would save us all, but that it would come at a price. What an difficult thing to wrap my mind around!

 

And what must it have been like for Mary… to see her only, holy, beloved son begin the path to his death. To be helpless, to know that it must happen. He can’t escape the wrath of someone who fears him twice.

 

These are the stations of the cross from Mary, mother of Jesus’ view:

1. Jesus is condemned to death. Mary His mother sees the frenzied crowd, the anger, the desire for blood. Her son’s blood.
2. Jesus carries his cross. Mary His mother knows He is strong from His work and travels, but after lashes with a whip and hunger and thirst… how will my son be able to carry His own tool of execution?
3. Jesus falls the First time. Mary his mother gasps as she sees Him fall to the ground. She fights every motherly instinct in her to go to Him, pick Him up, kiss His face and make it right. This is what must be.
4. Jesus meets His Mother. Mary His mother looks into His face. She cries and says “I love you” and prays for His suffering to be over. He keeps going, thought I am sure he wanted to do what He could to stop her crying.
5. Simon the Cyrenian Helps Jesus carry His Cross. Mary His mother is grateful for some relief for Her boy… but the journey to the hill still continues.
6. Veronica wipes the face of Jesus. Mary His mother is again grateful for someone who can reach Him to comfort Him in any small way.
7. Jesus falls the second time. Mary His mother knows His strength is weakening and wishes for it all to be over.
8. Jesus speaks to the women. Mary His mother is amazed that even in this time of His great pain, He thinks of them instead of accepting their grief for Himself.
9. Jesus Falls the third time. Mary His mother wonders how much more her son can take… my son, please… get up! I want to make it better…
10. Jesus is stripped of His Garments. Mary His mother feels His shame and realizes that He is the sacrificial lamb… stripped of any impurity and sin.
11. Jesus is Nailed to the Cross. Mary His mother cries, can barely look at her baby boy, for Her will always be that to her, up on a cross like a criminal. Even in this time she hears Him forgiving and loving others.
12. Jesus dies on the cross. What else can Mary His mother do but wail and faint with grief? Her Son is dead.
13. Jesus is taken down from the Cross. Mary His mother feels some relief in being able to hold Him, dress Him, and bury Him.
14. Jesus is laid in the Tomb. Mary His mother prays for rest for Her son, and awaits what she must surely know is coming… the end of the story. Because her putting her Son in that tomb was NOT THE END!