I saw a news feature on PBS the other evening about children in Africa, thousands upon thousands, who are having to raise themselves and their siblings because their parents have died of HIV/AIDS. There are numerous attendant social problems, as one can imagine. Many in schools and churches give assistance, and governments give financial aid, often used improperly. The central fact, though, is that there are children children children languishing without parental nurture or training, without the benefit of wise counselors from whose loins they have sprung, without the benefit of those who care only for them and who guide them as only parents can, who provide them with that sense of self and stewardship so needed to survive and thrive, that only involved parents can provide. This, beyond the obvious physical needs that go pathetically, anguishingly neglected.
Later, musing over this poignant reality, it struck me that every such child stands as accuser of those who, in this and all the “civilized” countries of the West and East, claim that sexual freedom is a civil right. Those children live in serious jeopardy of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness because “civil rights” were imposed upon them by their society, and by those who birthed them and then left them orphans.
“Yes,” they say, “tell me that sexual intercourse is the right and privilege of every male and female who finds himself attracted to any other male or female. Tell me that my coming in to life HIV-infected myself, only to lose a parent before ever I learned to toddle, thence to be thrown under the care of a 16-year-old big sister, herself an HIV/AIDS-infected single mother and responsible for five other siblings as well, is all well and good, and all a necessary sacrifice at the altar of civil rights-insured sexual freedom."
How many canaries do we need before we understand that the oxygen we think we're breathing is really some deadly toxin?
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
randmom thoughts
I was about to write "random", but when I saw the word "randmom" it seemed more appropriate, because these are thougts relating to what I've learned from being a mom, a daughter, a wife, a sister, etc.
I've been thinking today about a class I took at BYU's Education Week about dysfunctional families, specifically about the hallmarks of a dysfunctional family, specifically the one that says dysfunctional families have their own particular set of little rules that become a really big deal if transgressed. One of ours was that the children did not use the towels in the guest bathroom....so what??!!
Anyway, what I've been thinking about today in connection with that particular warning sign of a DF is the "We don't do that" syndrome - as if our family is an exclusive little syndicate, just a cut above the normal, more "in the right" than just about everyone else. In actual fact, saying what we do or do not do is more an effort to control, to assure that the expectations of the one in control are carried out.
If we want our children to learn, truly learn good conduct, we might consider asking questions that require the child to ponder her behavior, that require him to make a decision about the course of action he as a person wants to follow. We want to appeal to the child's own sense of right and wrong, not corral her inside our own paradigm. Thus we encourage him to use his own agency, to try it out and to find it real, to discover that agency is the avenue to truth, to meaning, to fulfillment.
"And that's all I have to say about that." Today anyway.
I've been thinking today about a class I took at BYU's Education Week about dysfunctional families, specifically about the hallmarks of a dysfunctional family, specifically the one that says dysfunctional families have their own particular set of little rules that become a really big deal if transgressed. One of ours was that the children did not use the towels in the guest bathroom....so what??!!
Anyway, what I've been thinking about today in connection with that particular warning sign of a DF is the "We don't do that" syndrome - as if our family is an exclusive little syndicate, just a cut above the normal, more "in the right" than just about everyone else. In actual fact, saying what we do or do not do is more an effort to control, to assure that the expectations of the one in control are carried out.
If we want our children to learn, truly learn good conduct, we might consider asking questions that require the child to ponder her behavior, that require him to make a decision about the course of action he as a person wants to follow. We want to appeal to the child's own sense of right and wrong, not corral her inside our own paradigm. Thus we encourage him to use his own agency, to try it out and to find it real, to discover that agency is the avenue to truth, to meaning, to fulfillment.
"And that's all I have to say about that." Today anyway.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Review of the movie Fireproof (written as a letter to the editor)
I enjoy reading some of the movie reviews by John Beifuss in the supplement, GoMemphis.com.
When I learned through an email from a friend of a movie he did not review, other than a short blurb in the general listings, I at first thought it a shame that John did not deign to review this movie, Fireproof. Having seen the movie and after thinking it over, however, I realize that it’s best that he did not give it a full review. It is nearly impossible for someone who gets paid to write reviews to give this movie the glowing endorsement it deserves, without running the risk of having such a review discounted on religious grounds, readers possibly concluding that the writer is using his position to “convert” others. This is not, perhaps, the job of a journalist.
However, as an unpaid citizen, I can offer that glowing endorsement. I wholeheartedly recommend this wonderful movie to everyone. It is well-acted, professionally done, and substantial, which is not always the case in some well-meaning but bungling religious films, especially when many of the actors are volunteers! What I liked especially is the honest portrayal of the often unrewarded effort, time and anguish human beings must go through in order to make marriage a successful venture. I must, must also add that I was deeply gratified at the movie’s unabashed statement that successful marriage is impossible without making God a co-partner.
If you are willing to take an honest look at yourself and to make some serious changes, see this movie and “go and do likewise.”
When I learned through an email from a friend of a movie he did not review, other than a short blurb in the general listings, I at first thought it a shame that John did not deign to review this movie, Fireproof. Having seen the movie and after thinking it over, however, I realize that it’s best that he did not give it a full review. It is nearly impossible for someone who gets paid to write reviews to give this movie the glowing endorsement it deserves, without running the risk of having such a review discounted on religious grounds, readers possibly concluding that the writer is using his position to “convert” others. This is not, perhaps, the job of a journalist.
However, as an unpaid citizen, I can offer that glowing endorsement. I wholeheartedly recommend this wonderful movie to everyone. It is well-acted, professionally done, and substantial, which is not always the case in some well-meaning but bungling religious films, especially when many of the actors are volunteers! What I liked especially is the honest portrayal of the often unrewarded effort, time and anguish human beings must go through in order to make marriage a successful venture. I must, must also add that I was deeply gratified at the movie’s unabashed statement that successful marriage is impossible without making God a co-partner.
If you are willing to take an honest look at yourself and to make some serious changes, see this movie and “go and do likewise.”
Family Files I
I am in love with my husband. After 31 years of marriage, I can say this unequivocally. This is why it is good to stay married, and not to opt for divorce when the difficulties come. This is why making and keeping promises is a must in marriage. It is so worth it! After thirty-one years, I am delightfully, giddily, in love with my husband.
Oh, we were smitten at the beginning, all right. But children came soon, seven of them, and conflicts soon arose over how to rear them, and over how to spend the money my husband so doggedly worked to provide. Our backgrounds rose up snarling at each other -he was a child of divorce and of alcoholism, I a child of relative ease and indulgence. How often over the years we could have called a halt to the craziness and gone off to promulgate it in other ways.
Instead we stayed and worked it out. Our children grew up slightly less crazy than we were and much more wise, somehow.
In John Bayley’s introduction to Tolstoi’s great tome War and Peace, he opined that “marriage is the novel’s ultimate theme, its climax, its apotheosis. ’Marriedness’ is happiness; and to be happy is to be right, justified by life and at peace with it…The book ends with marriage,…not [as] a device for concluding the work, but, in a curious sense, [as] the justification for it .” Spencer W. Kimball, prophetic leader of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1973-1985, stated simply: “Home [is] the place to save society.”
As practicing Mormons, we believed that. So we stayed. We fought it out, so to speak, between ourselves, but most effectively, within ourselves. How many the times I cried in the night, how many the nights my husband ground his teeth in anguish. How angry we were with each other, but it was an anger that was tempered with submission and obedience. We had promised to do our best, to love each other and our children. How imperfectly we loved each other, interspersed as it was with personal psychological issues and, perhaps more tellingly, with selfish attitudes that kept the smolder of resentment flickering.
Ultimately, however, as I have already exulted, love won out. What a marvel! We have been to counseling, personally and as a family, several times over the years. We have struggled to the brink of absolute desperation, been consequently humbled, and have thus haltingly but surely progressed step by step. We have, at our best, submitted ourselves to change, to repentance, and as a result have seen amazing things come to pass.
Who can read this and say that God does not keep his promises when we keep ours? Who can imagine that holding to the foundation of human society - that is, honorable marriage and subsequent family - with all one’s might and mind, is not but what is best calculated, indeed, for the happiness of humankind?
Ah! We have accepted a false bill of sale in this world today. We, like the citizens of the emperor’s fabled town, behold all the counterfeits of marriage in a blinded state, and fail to see what is so blatantly clear, that the emperor is naked.
We have been trying to hide our exposed selves ever since Adam and Eve made aprons to hide their nakedness. This nakedness, however, is not so much physical as it is spiritual, and presents a conundrum for which we as mortals have no real solution. This sense of “being exposed” is a result of crossing that invisible barrier in our souls that tells us when we have done wrong. We try every way we know to “hide” that sense, we cover it with all kinds and shapes of aprons, with a multitude of politically correct platitudes, to the point that on some level we actually convince ourselves that we are clothed, hidden from ourselves and from God. But it is a tenuous cloak, and the first cold wind uncovers us again. Our reaction? To find some other way to hide.
It was God who made the coats of skins with which to clothe Adam and Eve, however, and it is only in Him that we find our true hiding place. Curious: we try to hide ourselves because we transgress his laws, but it is He himself who provides the only true covering.
This we know. We as a couple and as a family have hidden ourselves in him, and when we once again cross that unwavering line, as we unfailingly do as mortals, his “arm is stretched out still;” his cloak is still there, but it is He who covers us with it through our humility, our willingness to change, our obedience, because we ask Him.
Yes, I am profoundly in love with my husband, and that is irrefutably a miracle.
Oh, we were smitten at the beginning, all right. But children came soon, seven of them, and conflicts soon arose over how to rear them, and over how to spend the money my husband so doggedly worked to provide. Our backgrounds rose up snarling at each other -he was a child of divorce and of alcoholism, I a child of relative ease and indulgence. How often over the years we could have called a halt to the craziness and gone off to promulgate it in other ways.
Instead we stayed and worked it out. Our children grew up slightly less crazy than we were and much more wise, somehow.
In John Bayley’s introduction to Tolstoi’s great tome War and Peace, he opined that “marriage is the novel’s ultimate theme, its climax, its apotheosis. ’Marriedness’ is happiness; and to be happy is to be right, justified by life and at peace with it…The book ends with marriage,…not [as] a device for concluding the work, but, in a curious sense, [as] the justification for it .” Spencer W. Kimball, prophetic leader of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1973-1985, stated simply: “Home [is] the place to save society.”
As practicing Mormons, we believed that. So we stayed. We fought it out, so to speak, between ourselves, but most effectively, within ourselves. How many the times I cried in the night, how many the nights my husband ground his teeth in anguish. How angry we were with each other, but it was an anger that was tempered with submission and obedience. We had promised to do our best, to love each other and our children. How imperfectly we loved each other, interspersed as it was with personal psychological issues and, perhaps more tellingly, with selfish attitudes that kept the smolder of resentment flickering.
Ultimately, however, as I have already exulted, love won out. What a marvel! We have been to counseling, personally and as a family, several times over the years. We have struggled to the brink of absolute desperation, been consequently humbled, and have thus haltingly but surely progressed step by step. We have, at our best, submitted ourselves to change, to repentance, and as a result have seen amazing things come to pass.
Who can read this and say that God does not keep his promises when we keep ours? Who can imagine that holding to the foundation of human society - that is, honorable marriage and subsequent family - with all one’s might and mind, is not but what is best calculated, indeed, for the happiness of humankind?
Ah! We have accepted a false bill of sale in this world today. We, like the citizens of the emperor’s fabled town, behold all the counterfeits of marriage in a blinded state, and fail to see what is so blatantly clear, that the emperor is naked.
We have been trying to hide our exposed selves ever since Adam and Eve made aprons to hide their nakedness. This nakedness, however, is not so much physical as it is spiritual, and presents a conundrum for which we as mortals have no real solution. This sense of “being exposed” is a result of crossing that invisible barrier in our souls that tells us when we have done wrong. We try every way we know to “hide” that sense, we cover it with all kinds and shapes of aprons, with a multitude of politically correct platitudes, to the point that on some level we actually convince ourselves that we are clothed, hidden from ourselves and from God. But it is a tenuous cloak, and the first cold wind uncovers us again. Our reaction? To find some other way to hide.
It was God who made the coats of skins with which to clothe Adam and Eve, however, and it is only in Him that we find our true hiding place. Curious: we try to hide ourselves because we transgress his laws, but it is He himself who provides the only true covering.
This we know. We as a couple and as a family have hidden ourselves in him, and when we once again cross that unwavering line, as we unfailingly do as mortals, his “arm is stretched out still;” his cloak is still there, but it is He who covers us with it through our humility, our willingness to change, our obedience, because we ask Him.
Yes, I am profoundly in love with my husband, and that is irrefutably a miracle.
Family Files II
What I am going to tell you is precious to our family. Please find that corner of your heart where sweet, tender things abide and read this from that place.
Jesse was a bonus baby. He came to us at a very stressful time. We were square in the middle of raising a large family, trying to keep a home together, trying to manage finances, busy in church and in school activities. We felt our plate was full. When I found out I was expecting, I did the logical thing: I went into a serious funk. I was foolish, I had jeopardized my own health and the well being of our family. My husband, Blaine, was equally distressed: how could we provide for seven children, let alone six? We were having trouble being parents already! We were a sorry duo.
After a few months of drowning in our own self pity, we received some very good counsel, and we followed it. I don’t need to tell you what it was, because it was good counsel for us; you’ve received and followed good counsel before, you know what it feels like. As a result, our attitudes changed. We began to realize that, contrary to what we had initially thought, the coming of this baby was not part of the ongoing struggle, but instead an instrument of resolution. We began to look forward to this birth, we felt at peace about it.
Jesse weighed in at 11 pounds 7 ounces, natural birth just like all the others (the obstetrician for my first pregnancy told me that my body was built for having babies - thank heavens!). Blaine was there as he had been for each preceding birth. Childbirth is an emotional experience, particularly when you’ve consciously met and labored through every anticipatory wave of preparation, all the way to that final whoosh, when that mysterious burden slips from his solitary inner world out into his new earthly landscape. One feels so glad, so exhausted, so amazed! Blaine, endearingly, cried every time.
I always insisted on my babies “rooming in” - staying in my room instead of in the hospital nursery. So the nurses, after cleaning Jesse up a bit and administering the standard tests, brought him back to me. I was sitting in a rocking chair; they handed this incredible little bundle of mystery to me; I received it in awe, still wrapped in the otherworldly spirit that is human birth. His deep blue eyes locked with mine - consciously. His whole face blossomed into a beatific smile, every feature alight, and we communicated in utter clarity: I’m here! Everything is going to be all right now. God had sent us our very own family angel.
That day our oldest son Andrew was in a “live” Cub Scout derby race: each scout (and his dad) made his own car out of a cardboard box, and provided the horsepower with his own two legs. Blaine and the other children, Amy, Tamra, Benjamin, Matthew and Jared, were the pit crew. Andrew’s car was the General Lee, complete with orange paint, 01 on the side, and a real metal grill (his car was so heavy that he came in last, but he was awarded best design).
This little family endeavor seemed to make Jesse’s birth all the more a family event. When the children came to the hospital for a visit later that day, there was a strong sense of camaraderie and enthusiasm; the great race and the baby’s birth seemed to take part in the same spirit, a joie de vivre that was particularly familial. Already Jesse’s presence was working its magic.
In fact, I guess that is what Jesse, our baby, has done for us, just by being who he is: he has had a binding effect upon us all; through his birth somehow we became truly "all for one and one for all."
Until that time, I had never been quite sure that our deliberate though prayerful decision to have six children was really right, even though, as I said, we felt fully engaged to the pressure point with that many. Once my change of attitude occurred, and with greater conviction after Jesse arrived, how many children we had wasn’t even an issue anymore somehow. It just wasn’t important. Jesse’s presence in our family was a testament to the fact that God knew us and was especially concerned for our welfare. He had us in the palm of his hand. We were not to worry, but only to do all that we could do. He would do the rest, in ways often seemingly contradictory, but always amazingly fulfilling.
And so it has been. The struggles still occurred, things still remained to be resolved. There was more joy present, though, more purpose. More "We can do this." It was as though we had all linked hands and were pressing forward, always forward. It was messy, it was inconvenient, it was turbulent. But we were in it together, and together we remain.
Jesse is almost 19 now. When he graduated last spring, I figured I had the summer to transition before he went off to college, but his summer job required him to live with the people he worked with. Even though it was still fairly local, it came as a blow to me. I questioned in my heart, I suppose, whether it was just to take him away from me so peremptorily. Into my heart came the response: You have had him for eighteen years; it is time to share him with others now.
“Oh,” said I, “Okay, I understand. Thank You.”
The name Jesse means gift.
Jesse was a bonus baby. He came to us at a very stressful time. We were square in the middle of raising a large family, trying to keep a home together, trying to manage finances, busy in church and in school activities. We felt our plate was full. When I found out I was expecting, I did the logical thing: I went into a serious funk. I was foolish, I had jeopardized my own health and the well being of our family. My husband, Blaine, was equally distressed: how could we provide for seven children, let alone six? We were having trouble being parents already! We were a sorry duo.
After a few months of drowning in our own self pity, we received some very good counsel, and we followed it. I don’t need to tell you what it was, because it was good counsel for us; you’ve received and followed good counsel before, you know what it feels like. As a result, our attitudes changed. We began to realize that, contrary to what we had initially thought, the coming of this baby was not part of the ongoing struggle, but instead an instrument of resolution. We began to look forward to this birth, we felt at peace about it.
Jesse weighed in at 11 pounds 7 ounces, natural birth just like all the others (the obstetrician for my first pregnancy told me that my body was built for having babies - thank heavens!). Blaine was there as he had been for each preceding birth. Childbirth is an emotional experience, particularly when you’ve consciously met and labored through every anticipatory wave of preparation, all the way to that final whoosh, when that mysterious burden slips from his solitary inner world out into his new earthly landscape. One feels so glad, so exhausted, so amazed! Blaine, endearingly, cried every time.
I always insisted on my babies “rooming in” - staying in my room instead of in the hospital nursery. So the nurses, after cleaning Jesse up a bit and administering the standard tests, brought him back to me. I was sitting in a rocking chair; they handed this incredible little bundle of mystery to me; I received it in awe, still wrapped in the otherworldly spirit that is human birth. His deep blue eyes locked with mine - consciously. His whole face blossomed into a beatific smile, every feature alight, and we communicated in utter clarity: I’m here! Everything is going to be all right now. God had sent us our very own family angel.
That day our oldest son Andrew was in a “live” Cub Scout derby race: each scout (and his dad) made his own car out of a cardboard box, and provided the horsepower with his own two legs. Blaine and the other children, Amy, Tamra, Benjamin, Matthew and Jared, were the pit crew. Andrew’s car was the General Lee, complete with orange paint, 01 on the side, and a real metal grill (his car was so heavy that he came in last, but he was awarded best design).
This little family endeavor seemed to make Jesse’s birth all the more a family event. When the children came to the hospital for a visit later that day, there was a strong sense of camaraderie and enthusiasm; the great race and the baby’s birth seemed to take part in the same spirit, a joie de vivre that was particularly familial. Already Jesse’s presence was working its magic.
In fact, I guess that is what Jesse, our baby, has done for us, just by being who he is: he has had a binding effect upon us all; through his birth somehow we became truly "all for one and one for all."
Until that time, I had never been quite sure that our deliberate though prayerful decision to have six children was really right, even though, as I said, we felt fully engaged to the pressure point with that many. Once my change of attitude occurred, and with greater conviction after Jesse arrived, how many children we had wasn’t even an issue anymore somehow. It just wasn’t important. Jesse’s presence in our family was a testament to the fact that God knew us and was especially concerned for our welfare. He had us in the palm of his hand. We were not to worry, but only to do all that we could do. He would do the rest, in ways often seemingly contradictory, but always amazingly fulfilling.
And so it has been. The struggles still occurred, things still remained to be resolved. There was more joy present, though, more purpose. More "We can do this." It was as though we had all linked hands and were pressing forward, always forward. It was messy, it was inconvenient, it was turbulent. But we were in it together, and together we remain.
Jesse is almost 19 now. When he graduated last spring, I figured I had the summer to transition before he went off to college, but his summer job required him to live with the people he worked with. Even though it was still fairly local, it came as a blow to me. I questioned in my heart, I suppose, whether it was just to take him away from me so peremptorily. Into my heart came the response: You have had him for eighteen years; it is time to share him with others now.
“Oh,” said I, “Okay, I understand. Thank You.”
The name Jesse means gift.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)