A Young Girl and a Powerful Man

As a freshman in college, I was cast in the lead role of the play Antigone.  A week ago, today,  I was back on campus with my husband and my daughter.  We toured the campus and visited all the important places, even gaining entrance into the costume room where members of every cast would sign the wall.  That play changed my life.  It was the door that would open my heart and mind to who I am today.

Later that day, we were settling to bed at a hotel, watching the breaking news about Trump's terrible (albeit not surprising) conversation, recorded eleven years ago.  Talking heads were going insane, suggesting this was the end for Trump, that he would back out of the race, etc. etc.  I was so tired. I went to sleep.

Back at home, I attempted to settle back into my routine, but my mind grew increasingly troubled as I watched Trump's version of an apology and the resulting commentary that followed from people I know...some of them even part of the cast of that play that so altered my life. My stomach ached. I couldn't sleep.  I obsessively read article after article on Facebook.

Their reaction goes something like this:  Well, yeah. What he said was bad.  But we've got to think about the Supreme Court. We've got to have pro-life judges! We've got to have judges that believe in traditional families!  Besides, it's only words.  Women don't seem to mind trashy talk in dirty books and movies and tv shows.  Kind of hypocritical, don't you think?

Antigone is a Greek tragedy.  We utilized a translation that had been modernized.  I found it online and read the whole thing through, hearing it in my memory in our own young voices.  The gist of the story is that Antigone has two brothers who have killed each other in a civil war. Their uncle Creon has taken power and to settle the matter, gives one brother a hero's burial and one brother is left to rot, unburied, as an example to the people.  Antigone is young and engaged to Creon's son. She has her whole life before her. But leaving her brother unburied meant that his soul would wander forever and he would have no rest in the afterlife.  Knowing it would cost her life, she buries the body and defies the king.  They exchange a lengthy debate, but ultimately, she cannot be dissuaded.  Decency and human dignity must be upheld.  Even if her brother was not a good man.  It is a moral double-bind.  A logic vs. heart decision.

At the time, we planned to create allusions to the pro-life movement within the production, but as rehearsals went on, the idea was dropped.  We hoped that the words of the play and the story itself would be enough to say that dignity of human life was worth protecting, even dying for, in the face of powerful leaders who would not uphold it.

There are important political agendas and there is basic human decency and you cannot skip one to get to the other.

"What a person can do, a person should do."  Antigone says flatly.

Trump's words and actions have ripped open a wound in the souls of women. An article about Kelly Oxford's Twitter question to women (here) left me nearly paralyzed by memories and shame. But for women like me, who grew up in the evangelical/fundamentalist church, there is a something especially venomous about this.  You speak of being pro-life.  How we must hold our noses and vote for Trump because of the babies.  But please, can somebody tell me, who of you is standing up for women?

For years, you told us that women shouldn't go to work. Our duty was homemaking and taking care of the children. You told us we can't teach the Bible to boys older than twelve. You told us we could never be pastors. You told us that we must be modest because our brothers in Christ were relying on us to “not cause them to stumble.” You had us kneel down before you to measure our commitment to God...or our skirts...we didn't know the difference. You made us so self-conscious that when we looked in the mirror, we learned to be a little plainer, a little uglier, a little less. You told us that we were the keepers of our purity, while the boys scaled the walls to gawk at us in the locker room from the ceiling. When the girl got pregnant, she had to get up in front of the whole school and apologize. When the man molested girls in our school, you gave him a love offering and sent him quietly on his way "for the sake of the gospel." And he molested again. When the missionary abused the missionary kids, you told the girl it was her fault. And he abused again. When we got to Bible college we talked to the other girls: "At your Christian school, too?” You told us over and over again that we could never really be equal because of the curse. And when we got married, you expected us to be attractive, but never sexy. You told us to never say no to our husbands, especially on Saturday night so that he wouldn't be lusting after other women in the church on Sunday morning. You created a collective culture of ignorant mistreatment, inequality, abuse, assault, and objectification, in the name of Jesus.

And now, you would lead those women to vote for a man to lead the whole country in that tone.  For the greater good, of course.

In 4th grade penmanship class, I practiced my cursive writing with this quote: "It's never right to do wrong in order to get a chance to do right."   -Dr. Bob Jones Sr.  The repetition of penmanship practice led to the permanence of the idea in my mind.

And that is the crux of the thing for me.  I have friends who will vote for  Trump because of finances or military concerns, and I'm ok with that. But for those of you who want to believe that you will achieve some greater good for the Kingdom of God by voting for someone who denigrates other human beings,  in the words of Antigone, "I spit on that." 

This is not about who you vote for.  It is about what you think you are accomplishing.  Do not assume that the Kingdom of God is the same as the empires of men.  It is not built on the backs of those who can be assaulted into submission.

You can't make the world safer for babies by making it more unsafe for women.

Twenty - Part 4

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

As the plane rose in the sky and the few clouds scattered to make the scene below us visible, Robb promptly drifted off to sleep.  Apparently, planning a massive surprise 20th anniversary vow renewal, reception, and 2nd honeymoon in the middle of a job change while pastoring a church and parenting four kids, followed by four days of beach life can really take it out of a guy.  Who knew?

Alone with my thoughts, I could probably have spent the whole flight going over the trip in my mind, much like I did for the few hours of rest we had after we left the reception.  All I knew then was that I was to pack for four days for a hot beach.  I didn't know where the beach was, but I knew Robb was packing our passports.  It was his last surprise.  The flight would leave early Sunday morning, so we would have just a couple of hours to pack and sleep and then leave the kids in the care of my parents.  I was too overwhelmed to sleep, though, and instead, I spent those few hours going over the perfection of every detail in my mind.  I could not stop smiling.  I think I smiled through the flight from XNA to Atlanta where finally, all the way at the end of the terminal, I saw our destination designated at the gate:  Nassau, Bahamas.

Of course.   Of course he would take me to the Bahamas.  Twenty years ago, he had gone there on his senior trip for college, learning to sail chartered boats around the islands on a grand adventure, while  I was back at home in snowy Pennsylvania.  He bought a handcrafted box with a butterfly on it from the Straw Market there, and used it to hide my engagement ring the night he proposed. Of course he always intended to bring me back there with him.

And it had been perfect.  Just the right mix of adventures and doing nothing.  The water, so clear and blue, the sand so fine and white, the waves smaller and calmer than they are on the Great Lakes.  The all-inclusive hotel provided one delicious meal after another, and enough alcohol to pickle our livers. And the best part, as any other parent of four children could verify, we didn't have to worry about anyone but ourselves.  The lovely Bahamian people have made it their business to make their guests relax and have fun, and they are good at it.

I even got a chance to wear that cute dress I had bought.  It was perfect for our actual anniversary on that Tuesday night, when we followed a delicious dinner of steak and lobster with a moonlit walk on the beach.   We talked about our dreams and hopes for the future, especially as we were about to really start a whole new routine with Robb's new job, working from home, and the kids heading back to school.  I tried again to explain what I was feeling back at the very beginning of this huge surprise... why I asked "Am I dying?"   It was such an odd thing to say. I fumbled for an explanation as we made our way down the soft sand with the beach all to ourselves. 

 "I just feel like I'm due some sadness with all this joy."  

"Why?  We live by grace, Honey, not karma." 

Something about the objectivity of that theological statement settled me, like it often does, and our conversation drifted to other things. 

But, back on the plane on the way home, feelings I didn't quite understand began to build.  My heart pounded as I tried to ascertain what I was seeing below us.  The water was so clear, I could discern what seemed to be shallow water around the edges of land.  But I knew from flipping a jet-ski earlier that morning,  that even though it looked shallow, it was actually quite deep.  As the turquoise turned to dark blue, the vastness of the water frightened me.  What is comforting and relaxing while you curl your toes into the sand -the bigness of the ocean verses the smallness of your problems-  it becomes something entirely different as you fly above it and cannot find the orienting edges of where the water ends and the dry land appears.  I tried to read, but the opening chapters of Dave Egger's book A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius are nothing short of a parent's nightmare.  The more I tried to calm myself, the more I could feel panic rising.  The thought of waking Robb to tell him I was freaking out seemed too cruel. He had just given me such a perfect gift...how could I turn around and tell him I was unhappy in any way?   It seemed like the blood pounding in my ears and the pressure of the air of the plane were both pushing me into a corner of my imagination.  I wanted to cry.  I wanted to scream.  I wanted everything to stop.  I wanted to hide.  I wanted to stop feeling whatever it was that I was feeling.

"God. You have to come get me.  I'm freaking out here."  I prayed.
"I'm serious. Drop whatever you are doing. I need you."

__________________________

Back at home,  the school year resumed. So much newness.  Not only was Robb really getting in gear for his new job, I started a part-time gig with my friend Stacie and her shop Gingiber, answering customer service questions and helping with other areas of communication.  My ordination paper still unfinished, I observed the days and tried to guess how I might construct them in ways that let me accomplish as much as possible, while running the mom-taxi and keeping this crazy little toddler of ours occupied in ways other than say...coating herself in eyelash glue from her sister's bathroom (Sorry, Mattie).  The air cooled unusually for the weather in August here in Arkansas, and we gulped down each new day like another bite of dessert.

We had a therapy session on the calendar already, which Robb had cleverly pushed back a week or two longer than our usual interval, so there was much to talk about. We practiced telling the story of Robb's surprise with our therapist, since we will be telling it for years to come.  Much of the hour was gone by the time I brought up the anxious moments from the plane.

"What is the deal with that?" I asked flippantly, not really expecting any real answer of substance. The time was too short to cover such a big topic.  And besides, obviously, I had so much happiness to live off of, I could push anxiety away by replaying the happy story to myself and other people.   Those hours of being so perfectly loved. So perfectly safe. So perfectly relaxed.  My only job being to feel joy.

I had even described it to Robb as being life-changing.  He had raised an eyebrow to that and teased that I was being a little dramatic.  "No! I'm really not."  I explained.  It was as if my parameters of what was possible had been pushed back to a much wider, more beautiful, more hopeful, space.  Robb's "why not" of grace had cleared back a landscape that I often allow to become overgrown with doubts, mismanaged practicalities, self-imposed limitations and childhood hangups.

 Our therapist cleared his throat.  "Well, it seems to me that anxiety comes up so often for people because we exist in the world as adults the way we learned to exist in the world as children."

I choked down a sob that caught me totally by surprise.

Perhaps you want to read those words again and see how that bit of free therapy I'm passing along affects you. I can only tell you that I suddenly had the image of my own self, at about 7 years old.  In my imagination, I poke my head in, like moms do, to see her playing by herself in her room.  I know what is inside the mom's head. And I know what is inside the girl's head.  So often, when we look back on ourselves, we are condescending; "So dumb!" we think.  But in this moment, I saw that child with compassion, the way I would feel about my own kids.  My eyes followed the unruly curls on her head and observed her easy smile.  She is full of curiosity. Creativity.  Industry.  She is always thinking up a day-dream, a pretty, innocent thing.  She sees the world as basically good and she sees herself as basically strong.

But you know how kids pack for things in ways that seem so silly?  You tell them, "We're going on a trip!" And they pack their favorite stuffed animal and four shirts, and a few toys and no socks or toothbrush or pants?   I imagine myself that way too.  For life, I packed some ridiculous notions.

I packed the expectation that nothing good comes without some string attached.  I learned somehow as a kid to never think that good things just came along without something equally and oppositely bad.
There is no free lunch.
Into every life a little rain must fall.
Don't tempt the gods by being too happy.

I should make the disclaimer that I don't know if anyone was really trying to teach me that or not.  Kids just try to make sense of their worlds the best they can.

The image faded from my mind as I came back to our therapist's office and I heard his voice clarifying his comment:

"We are trying to decipher, is it a benevolent universe, or isn't it?  How are God and my father different?"

"It's Psychology 101" I said.  "I get it."

________________________________________

Back on the plane, my desperate attempt to reach Heaven for an answer had just been sent, and I waited for a reply like an important text.  I snapped photos, trying to look calm when I felt like any second I might start screaming.

And then I heard it.

I don't often hear from God.  Probably because I'm not often poised on the edge of terror.  I can usually find some activity to busy myself and push anxious thoughts away.  But on a few occasions, I have heard that unmistakable voice.  The economy of words is what tips me off.  They speak straight to the real thing.  My own imagination is ...obviously.... wordy in the extreme.

It was not the promise "Nothing bad will happen to you."  or "You are never going to get cancer"  or "You'll always get to have the relationships you want to have."  or even "This plane will land safely."

Instead, the words spoke to the source of my real anxiety.  My panic attack on the plane was born out of the belief that because I had experienced such bliss, I would pay for it.  It would come after me and break my thumbs and demand equal suffering. And it would be soon. Because, as one psychologist explains it, "What fires together, wires together."  If you were having a perfectly nice time and let your guard down and were just having fun, that was the moment that everything would turn south.  The principal would walk in on your dance party in Study Hall.  The family vacation turned into a yelling match. The snake slithered down the creek where you were wading.  So don't be too happy. Don't have too much fun. Don't get too relaxed.

God said to me: "I made this for you."

"I made this for you. "

"I made this for you."

There is no other shoe to drop.

You don't have to pay for sunrises.  They just happen. Everyday.  You don't have to earn leaves changing colors. It just happens.  We don't work for waves. They just happen.  A daily, reliable, tangible gift.  Love. Goodness. Beauty.  Grace.  The deep water we don't always understand. The islands of calm.  The colors. The air.  The vastness. All of it.  It's right there in front of you.

My heart stopped pounding and took Robb's hand and went home to my beautiful life.

SaveSave

When You Feel Like Punching Customers in the Throat

A few weeks ago, I was at my favorite coffee shop and the barista asked me how my week was.  I reached into my thoughts and fumbled around like I do when I need to find something in the bottom of my too-large purse and fished out this as an answer: "Oh, busy."

And as soon as I said it, I grimaced and thought "Gross."  I looked at her friendly face and said, "That is such a boring answer to your question."

For months now, I have been living inside the busy machine, watching the wheels go around and around, observing the mechanisms, trying to figure out how to stop it.  I paid attention to what I enjoyed, but I had trouble really feeling that. But I started really noticing that my customer's questions on Etsy were beginning to anger me more and more.  If anyone but Robb could have heard the way I answered in my fantasies, you might be equal parts amused and horrified.  One shopper inquired if she could have a discount by way of free shipping.  Out of curiosity, I asked for her zip code. She replied by telling me that she actually has two houses, one in an expensive city, and that would be her preference that I send it there.

I fumed for a whole night and the better part of a day.

"So let me get this straight?  You have TWO houses and you want me to give you something for free JUST BECAUSE you think you ought to have it? Do you really think I'm just here to GIVE away my product?  Never mind that I took my baby out to a thrift store, sorted through aisles and piles of stuff, identified this item as one of value based on over a decade of experience, brought it home, cleaned it, photographed it, listed it so you could shop at your leisure, buy it with confidence that I would package it appropriately, ship it promptly and deliver it to your door.....you are so damn special that you deserve to get a discount, functionally asking for this service for FREE. "

"Thanks for the offer, but I'm going to pass this time!"  I breezily replied after hours of trying to decide what to do.

I actually considered taking her offer, because I hadn't had a sale in a few days and I was missing the money and the hit of adrenaline that selling brings.  But selling is hard these days.  In fact, the whole platform at Etsy has changed in the last couple of years, especially since the company went public.  Gone are the days of simplicity and smallness.  Gone are the days of curating pretty treasuries that you hoped would reach the front page. Instead, it is a huge marketplace with ever shifting suggestions and tips for mastering SEO, becoming a wholesaler, joining networking teams, blah blah blah....

I've been an online seller for almost 13 years.  I started on eBay back in the day when it was new and hot.  I had a borrowed digital camera that loaded 8 pictures at a time on a dial-up modem.  I reached Power-Seller status and we still eat at the kitchen table I bought with my first real profits.  Over the years, I've been able to spin a lot of hay into gold...scouring garage and estate sales, thrift stores and flea markets for treasures that needed to see the light of day.  And it was fun.  For a long time, it was fun. It was work too.  An actual career.  It fit with our family's time and values, and it helped pay for so many small, unglamorous things like school lunches and school clothes and furniture and paint.

When I was pregnant with Whimsy, I had that dream:  the one where you find a room in your house that you didn't realize you had and weren't utilizing.  It's a dream about potential.  It's your mind telling you that you are capable of something else.  That other possibilities exist. At the time it made so much sense.  Obviously, my life was going to change and I was amazed that I was still capable of having a baby at my age.  I knew that having a baby would affect my work, and I was open to what the experience had to teach me.

treat yo' self... to a decent breakfast at your own table

I love the character Dash in the move The
Incredibles (That movie has been an metaphor for my life on many occasions and it's one of my favorites).  I love when the family is all working together, doing what they do best and the mom tells Dash he can go "as fast as he can."   I totally understand his overjoyed disbelief at this permission. "AS FAST AS I CAN?!"  There have been many times in my life that I have longed to do that.  To just break it open and do everything I have inside of me as fast and as hard as I can.  To work without any limits, to express every creative urge, to bury myself in projects that interest me.  But it has been a long, long time since I felt that way.  For months now, I have confused low grade depression for what it actually is:  burnout.

My anger at my customer...while pretty legitimate...was disproportionate.  Paying attention to that anger was healthy.  It helped me realize just how much of myself I have been giving away without being replenished.  I have some huge projects on my plate right now.  I have said "yes" to some things that are very good things.  And now I need to say NO (maybe even "HELL NO!") to some other things.  I cannot keep living in violation of my own values and nobody but I can make that happen.  (Although, encouragement and support from my husband certainly has helped.) At the most basic level, I am a wife to Robb. I am mom to four amazing kids in super transitional seasons of their lives.  I am pastor of a fascinating church where I am just now recognizing the possibilities for me to lead and grow.  I am a creative and I long to give my creativity to those who will benefit from and enjoy it the most.

My biggest mosaic project yet.

More on this later...

this hand-lettering class was very relaxing

Find Old Wallace Simpson at The Little Craft Show on May 7

So for now, I am putting The Classic Butterfly on vacation.  In a month, after I have finished the Little Craft Show and completed two other large projects, I will re-evaluate selling online again. I suppose in glancing over this post, it seems so obvious that this is a good move for me, but it's hard to describe how much this job affects my daily life.  I get up and check messages first thing every day and answer customer's questions.  Whatever I have planned to do otherwise gets pushed aside to ship orders before the carrier arrives each day.  I am always on the lookout for new product.  Sunshiny days always mean taking some time to photograph stock and push myself to be better at product photography.  The marketing and networking never ends.  And in any free moment, I am writing listings.  This has been my routine for more than a decade and more than a whole room of my house is devoted to storing, photographing, and shipping product.  If you think it's going to be easy for me, please think again.

But I had that dream again the other night....the secret room.  I am open to some possibilities again.  There's more to my life than I thought.  

Life for the Ages

Growing up in fundamentalist church, the message I got about the future was this:

Christians have to try as hard as they can to keep the world from getting really bad. 

You won't be successful because at some point, God will get so disgusted, He will rapture the Christians out and leave the world to be plunged into a "tribulation" that will be increasingly terrible over a period of 7 years.  But don't worry, because if you are a Christian, you won't have to live through that. 

So your job is to try to get as many people as possible to believe you about the coming judgement 
and the only possible escape from it.  

Side note. Since it will all burn anyway, things that are related to life on earth shouldn't be enjoyed too much because Heaven is wonderful place so conversely, everything here is second rate. 

And this, confusingly, was often referred to as The Gospel.  Or good news.

South American Folk Art Painting - Coming to Etsy soon

There are a lot of reasons I don't see the world and the future and the gospel and my life here that way anymore.  And here is one of them.

In John 5, Jesus is once again in a fight with the religious leaders of his day.  This time, the question is about what right he has to challenge their rules about what people could and couldn't do on the day of rest.  Jesus goes on to explain that God the father has turned over two things to him:  The authority to be the judge of people and the authority to give them eternal life.

The word "eternal" in greek is not really about the future.  It's about a quality of life in the now.  It's the same idea as "an ageless beauty"  or a "life for the ages."   It's a word that is unconcerned about time.  Jesus taught that when people heard his words (the words of a fellow human)  and believed they were an accurate expression about and from the Father (the Divine) then Jesus gave them this eternal life.. a life of quality and great dimension.

vintage iris painting - Coming to Etsy soon

Jewish people then and now had a concern for the here and now.  They did not have a teaching of certitude about what happens after life.  They referred to it as "hidden."  What did matter was how you lived your life now.  If you were to someday go to God, it would be best to spend your time preparing to be with God, much like you might prepare to visit a foreign country, by acquainting yourself with the culture of that place.

What Jesus said to them was strange to them then and strange to us now.  He suggested that the best preparation could be made by believing that He was the embodiment of that future culture and the best communication about it.  He was telling them that all their guesses about how to prepare could be answered by the boss, the founder, the owner, the author, the inventor, the President, the genius behind the whole thing. They just had to believe it was really Him

Dogs playing poker - vintage magazine clipping - found in a book 

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For us it is a struggle is to believe that Jesus would affect our here and now, not just our future. The old cliche is that we Christians didn't mind his divinity, but we struggle with his humanity ...and maybe his appreciation for it.  He gives this life to whoever he wants... not necessarily people who say a certain prayer, walk an aisle or profess a certain creed that is agreed upon by the larger group.  Jesus is the way, but the way people understand, communicate, and place trust in Jesus can be very different.  What we know is that Jesus gives life. Eternal life.

This life is a gift and the only sensible reaction to a gift is gratitude.

I know a lady here in NWA who is more than 80 years old, and for the last decade or so, she has seen everything through the lens of gratitude.  She gets up every day and walks a prayer labyrinth and expresses gratitude.  She is a potter and every piece she makes now has the word "gratitude" on it.  Even in the face of true injustice and disappointment, she has a sweet curiosity for life. She is not a follower of Jesus, but I think she is on to something transformative.  As Jesus followers, imagine believing that the lives we are living are a gift right here and right now, not in some future perfect situation, but right now are in fact.... "Your kingdom come"  "on earth as it is in heaven."

Believing this way allows me to see the good that God spoke of over and over again in the first chapters of Genesis.  There is something satisfying and sweet about life on this good planet.  Of course it is flawed by un-health and a competing decay.  But it is also a world on track for redemption and the lives of Jesus followers are somehow tied to that future good.   We live in what theologians have refereed to as "the already/not yet."

a recent painting by my daughter - inquire for availability 

I have a more optimistic view of the future now.  And I deeply enjoy life.  I grieve the sad things that are very real and very painful about human existence. The Kingdom of God is not fully in place, so terrible things still happen. But I approach each day with a sense of gratitude for what is.  I don't deny the negative, but I don't deny the positives either.  There are many things that are good and wonderful to enjoy here and now.  Eternal life is now.  It's a life for the ages.

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disclaimer: this is a summary of a recent sermon.  My theology is still in process and I do not have time to invest in arguments.  I write only to process my thoughts and share ideas with those who might be interested. There are lots of ways to see things, just like there are lots of ways to express creativity through art.