In which I threaten a spanking

I only have two real rules in my house.

1. Respect.
2. Obedience.

And that pretty much covers EVERYTHING.







We've had some....ahem...discipline issues these past few weeks. Namely around bedtime. Our tinies share a bedroom and, despite previous success, Anne recently decided that she did NOT want to go to bed on time and what's more, what she wanted to do was read her books, yell at Joe to "WAKE UP, JOEY!" after he'd finally fall asleep, turn on the light and generally be a hooligan.



After a few nights of 9 o'clock-and-the-tinies-are-still-up, I was, shall we say, LOSING MY EVER-LOVIN' MIND.





I was frustrated because not only was she disobeying but she was doing it with a grin, like it was all a big game. I was frustrated because Annie is a good and obedient girl, quick to obey most of the time (certainly not all of the time....). I give her a lot of lee-way and try to remember that she is, in fact, two. Not ten. And still learning. But to see this escalating was making me sad and angry.



It seems so silly to say it made me angry. But it did.



It made me angry because Joe was the victim in this, often weeping with exhaustion because all the poor lad wanted was to just go to sleep, please, dear Jesus. And again, she'd turn the light on, holler at him and laugh hysterically at our repeated "GET IN THE BED NOW!"

It made me angry because I don't like being disobeyed. There, I said it.



I prayed about it. Oh, I sought Jesus. Give me wisdom, I said.



I am dangerously close to spanking that child, I told the Creator of the Universe.





You see, Brian and I have made a commitment that we will not spank our children. There are a lot of reasons why we don't spank. We have researched it and prayed about it. We made our decision and not lightly.



Yet, that being said....



It was the fourteenth time that I had stormed into her room to find her hanging off of Joe's crib, laughing. Brian stood behind me. I got down on my knees, grabbed her arms and looked her in the eyes.



And very slowly, for emphasis, I said it:



"If you don't stop getting out of your bed.....





....your Dad will spank you."



And Brian gasped out loud as I tossed him under the bus.







She had no knowledge of spanking. I might as well have said "If you don't stop getting out of your bed, we will bamboozle you." for all the impact that the word "spanking" had on her.



Thankfully, she went to sleep right after that and we didn't have to follow through. We had another emergency summit family meeting about corporal discipline. We prayed again. Because the thing is this: neither one of us will hit our children. Period.



So now what?





One of the main reasons we don't spank is because we believe it teaches violence as a solution. And I see that Anne is a very literal mimic. She breastfeeds her Blankie. She carries her bears in a sling. She asks me to do something, pauses for effect and then, to the tone, states "RIGHT NOW!" just like I do, I'm sorry to say. She imitates everything.

During this week, she was playing in the hallway. I heard her yelling and slamming the door. She was putting her Minnie Mouse in the bed, stomping out of the door, slamming the door, then opening and yelling "MINNIE! STAY IN THAT BED!" Then she would do the whole thing over again.

Hello, Mirror, not so nice to see you.



I revisited our techniques. I realised we were being too wordy for her. I was yelling. I was losing my cool. I took some deep breaths. We had too many injectures: don't get out of your bed, don't bother your brother, don't read your books, stay in your bed, if you get out again, we will take away your books, we will take away your bed, we will take away joe and make him sleep in our bed..... (You get the idea. A little verbose. Who me? Too wordy? Nevermind...)



And the greatest parenting advice I've ever received was from my mother via my grandmother: "No two year old is going to boss me."



So we went back to basics. We got creative. We took a long-term view. We practiced during the day. I praised her good behaviour. We lavished quality time. We practicised some more. I got it down to three words: STAY IN BED.



And then I felt God tell me: REMEMBER THE BLANKIE.



You see, Annie loves this Blankie like it is family. She has slept with it every single night since she was born. It is tattered, grey and greatly beloved.



So at bedtime, I tell her: "Annie. If you get out of this bed, I will take away your Blankie."



She thought I was bluffing.



As she found out at 7:28, I was not, in fact, bluffing.







I took that Blankie away. I told her that she could have him back if she stayed in her bed for two minutes. And she sat in that little bed, in the dark, crying like her heart would break in two. I gave the blankie back after a minute. And she stayed in that bed all night.



She stayed in that bed all the next night.



And as I type this, she is, once again, staying in her bed, fourth night in a row.





I love that kid. I love her so much, it aches.

In which everyone deserves an ice cream cone

We welcomed my beloved Auntie for a visit last week. She is my mum's older sister and, thirty years later, still refers to us as her "little nieces". Which just makes my day.

Anne loves her Granny and so to have Nana here too...well, that was just the bee's knees. Plus Nana got to meet Addison and spend more time with Joe as well. It was a big ol' love-in.

From Bloggy Goodies

(This is my beautiful Auntie. Hi, Auntie! We love you!)


Lately Annie has been enamoured of fire fighters. I'm not sure where she picked it up, but anything fire fighter related is the new big thing. We pretend to put on our boots and jackets and helmets every day before racing around the condo with our hose, putting out fires. Whenever we pass by a firehall, she solemnly informs me that "Uncle Bill (my Auntie's husband) is a firefighter, too!"


So imagine her glee with Firefighter-Uncle-Bill sent her a little fire safety kit complete with a plastic fire helmet.

From Bloggy Goodies

She was positively giddy. I haven't been able to get it off her most days. Plus her little cousins (well, technically second or third cousins...who knows? who can keep track of this?) took pictures of themselves in the fire truck and sent them along with pictures that they drew of the firetruck. She wanders around the house now, holding onto their photograph, telling Hannah and Tyler about how they're all firefighters and gonna fight fires.

But what are warm summer days spent with family without a trip to a dairy for an ice cream cone?

You Lower Mainlanders, get thyself to this family owned dairy. There is a little grocery store with a local food. Your tinies can play on the swing set and smell cows. Annie likes to walk around the animal pens and watch the goats in particular.

From Bloggy Goodies

We all love Birchwood Dairy out in the Sumas Prairie of Abbotsford.

From Bloggy Goodies

(This is my sister, Mandy. She likes ice cream. can you believe she just had a baby 6 weeks ago? Honestly. It's a good thing I like her so much. I'm not bitter. Much.)


Sure, it smells like cow out there but that's because it's fresh ice cream, baby.

They milked it, iced it and served it. (I told you I was in marketing. That was fierce slogan action, my friends.)

In which I wonder if God can be trusted Part 3

I am in the midst of an ongoing discussion about the problem of evil and suffering.

Part 1 is here
Part 2 is here

Part of the reason that I am grappling with this question is because of my background. My parents began to follow Jesus in their thirties when my sister and I were quite young. We started off at a Presbyterian Church (which is ironic, given how much I don't like the whole neo-reformed movement these days. But that's another post. Or not.). We eventually started to attend a charismatic non-denominational church. It was the 80s and we had zero exposure to Christian traditions. My Dad in particular was decidedly anti-establishment and had no desire to attend the usual church with the vestments and festivals and big language. We found community and, truly, life in small churches across Western Canada. We worshipped in community centres, hotel ballrooms, school gyms, movie theaters and Seventh Day Adventist Churches (that didn't meet on Sundays so their spot was free). We sang choruses, danced a lot, listened to sermons and considered ourselves lucky if the 9:30 service let out before 1 o'clock in the afternoon. We had healing lines, kicky songs, preachers that said the word "sucks" sometimes, women preaches, egalitarian values, racial diversity and anointing oil.

Our churches had tambourines.

I love me some tambourines.

We moved into a smaller movement called Word of Faith but rather than engage in the excesses of the movement that occurred in the USA, our churches tended to preach an emphasis on being "blessed to BE a blessing" as opposed to "being blessed so that you can have a personal jet and be happy and handsome your whole life."

Although that sounds good to me these days.

I know a lot of people struggle with the Word of Faith movement; I am one of them. (I stopped self-identifying with that movement/theology in my early twenties.) However, I don't have an ax to grind against the movement or its most visible proponents/teachers. Mainly because I grew up there and I know their hearts, even the "TV preachers". I know that they love Jesus and that their motives are usually very pure. (I also know some of them are charlatans.) I see the excesses and the over-realised eschatology, usually the result of literal readings or simplistic story-telling. Even where I know that they are wrong, I give the benefit of grace. And the movement does teach a lot of wonderful truths, long neglected by the traditional church. I choose to remain gracious and not judge their motives. I hope that I have found a balance between "thinking critically" and being critical. In short, you won't find me bashing Word of Faith. That's still my family, literally and figuratively.

(Rob McAlpine wrote a very helpful book for me called "Post Charismatic?" If you're grappling with the charismatic movement or one of its splinters (like Word of Faith), it's a balanced look at how you can remain close to those teachings without the excesses. It helps me balance the truth with the excess.)

Anyway.

My tradition left a big hole that I am trying to fill. My background never addressed suffering or evil in a way that felt satisfactory to me.

Because our movement placed such a strong (occasionally inadvertent) emphasis in those days on control, I grew up almost believing that if you had enough faith, then bad things wouldn't happen to you. If you knew enough Scripture, if you wrote enough Bible verses down and pinned them to your bathroom mirror, if you prayed often, if you "prayed the Word", if you never confessed anything remotely negative, then you could affect the outcome every time.

If you were broke, sick, lonely, unemployed, depressed or addicted, then brother, you just needed FAITH.

I had an underlying sense that if someone got sick or died or suffered, then somehow...it must be their own fault.

Maybe unconfessed sin? Maybe not "real" faith? Because it wasn't possible - it wasn't conceivable - that God fell down on his side of the bargain. Because the bargain was this: I give up my miserable existence and in return, I become healthy, wealthy and wise.

The thing is that I've seen too many people that I know trust and love the Father not get their miracle to believe that anymore. I know that they "did everything right" and somehow, still, it didn't end the way they thought it should.

But here's the thing: I no longer believe that it rested entirely on them to begin with. After all, is it really all about how well we perform? How well we do at these things? Like God is a judge or a scorekeeper? Is our faith just a modern method of buying indulgences, pleasing a God that is not moved with compassion? Of course not. That's ridiculous. God is above all else, Love. And what is Love? For starters, it never gives up, never loses faith, always hopes and endures through every circumstance.

We emphasized so much that "THE WORD WORKS - EVERYTIME".

Well, yes, it does.

The Word does work everytime. (Now, when Word of Faith says "The Word", we mean the Bible. But now I have had my mind changed...the Word is actually Jesus. 'Nother post again later. I better start writing this down.)

I look at the Scriptures and I see that those that loved Jesus, who walked with him, who were, for all intents and purposes doing everything right. And yet lived a life far from the American dream. Transient, tortured, martyred. Laying down their lives in a million small ways. I believe they experienced joy and peace, fulfillment and security. But I don't read that they experienced what the world would usually expect or value. If anything the Church should have an uneasy sense about the power that the world gives, eschewing the ways of the Empire...after all, it's notoriously fickle.

I am grappling though because I DO believe in a good God. I do believe in God as Father, as my Papa (go read The Shack, please). I do believe in supernatural healing. I believe that God meets my physical needs. What's more, I'VE EXPERIENCED IT. So it's too late to tell me it doesn't work. I am not a cessasionist. I believe in the gifts of the Holy Spirit and , yes, they make a difference in my life, every day. I believe that God honours a cheerful giver and that tithing is scriptural.

I believe, I believe, I believe! I practice, I practice, I practice. My orthodoxy = my orthopraxy.

His heart is always for us. And how much do I love my children? Then how much more does the God of the universe love them?

How much does he also love me?

How much does he also love you?

So I'm left with a big hole in my theology that my background can't fill. I haven't found a satisfactory answer in my faith traditions. So I'm looking for an answer now.

What about you? What was your faith tradition? How did you grow up hearing about evil or suffering? As always, I value your insights.

In which I welcome you to the new digs

So.....what do you think of my new place?

After four years with Xanga, I've set up a new shop. I grew weary of how often Xanga crashed (it made me nervous!). And so I went hog wild over here. And Jennissa over at Once Upon a Blog was a great blessing!

I'm still getting settled. The blog roll and recommendations need some work. Brian's Picks in the store is almost completely empty. I've only gotten 5 months worth of blogs imported so far (this, my friends, will take a while). But I am excited about this new world.

Please do me a favour and look up in the right hand corner. You'll see two options for subscribing. Please subscribe! You can choose to sign up so that Emerging Mummy shows up in your blog Reader or sign up to receive it in your email inbox.

Thanks for joining me on this journey!

In which kingfishers catch fire

 

As Kingfishers Catch Fire

By Gerard Manley Hopkins

As king fishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
    As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
    Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
    Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
    Selves - goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying What I do is me: for that I came.

I say more: the just man justices;
    Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is--
    Christ. For Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
    To the Father through the features of men's faces.

[emphasis mine]

In which this is a great way to spend a sunny evening

 We spent an evening at Central Park in Burnaby this week. I love Central Park. We lived just a few blocks away for a year or so right before Annie was born. Brian used to jog there and I just loved to wander. It was sunny and warm, the sun still high in the sky.

From Central Park

It has enormous trees, two lagoons filled with ducks, a couple of playgrounds, very assertive squirrels and ferns the size of a house.

 We love to wander in the trails there.

We had ourselves a picnic in a field of wish dandelions.

From Central Park

From Central Park

From Central Park

From Central Park

From Central Park

From Central Park

From Central Park

From Central Park

I look at these pictures and I'm so thankful for our life. I'm thankful that I married someone that shares the same values with me; someone that values quiet, simple pleasures, time spent outside and family.

In which we add to my "Things I've Noticed About Americans" List

I am often asked "What are the big differences between Americans and Canadians?"
After all, I am Canadian (born and raised) but lived in the USA for 8 years and have an American husband.  So people often want to know what my perceptions are of both sides since I have those experiences.
Canadians want to know if American really do carry guns (yes).
Americans want to know if we really say "eh?" (yes) and if I know this guy they went to university with that lives in Toronto now (no).

---

It's a very tough question to answer without making use of two of my FAVOURITE writing techniques:
1. Extreme hyperbole.
2. Vast, sweeping generalisations.
But a little exaggerations and stereotyping never hurt anyone, right?

---

For instance, I have noticed that Americans, in general:

• Hug a lot more.
  
• Talk to strangers.
  
• Are incredibly friendly and outgoing.
  
• Are very patriotic.
  
• Have an amazing ability to talk religion and politics which are usually "off limits" subjects for the rest of us.
  
• Have amazing food. If you're like me and enjoy cheese and frying things, anyway.
  
• Are very inventive.
  
• Are open spiritually.

So away we go into this quagmire again. Let's add another, shall we?

---

I think that Americans must love to be outraged.
Seriously.
It may have surpassed baseball as their national pastime.
And the nice thing is that, unlike most generalisations, this one actually applies to all regions, states, creeds and religions. They are all mad as a wet hen.
Have you ever watched American news? Those people are pissed. They yell at each other. They bring in regular folks and they're just as ticked. Everyone yelling, everyone mad at each other, no one is doing it right.
In the past few weeks, after reading Facebook and Twitter updates, blogs and websites, I've noted that Americans are ticked off about:

• paying taxes,
  
• swine flu,
  
• borders,
  
• protocol,
  
• presidential behaviours,
  
• the name of the dog,
  
• that Dick Cheney isn't respected or
  
• that he's still around,
  
• that they torture/don't torture,
  
• gay marriage (both sides),
  
• the state of highways,
  
• volunteerism,
  
• hamsters,
  
• pageants and
  
• Britney Spears.

So many people with fierce, strong opinions on EVERYTHING.
I have to the conclusion that they must enjoy it. It must be a part of the game. I get so flustered when I'm angry that I try to avoid it. But everyone else watches these news pundits and reads propaganda websites/blogs (both sides, I'm sure) and get so mad at everyone else. It's always "What are those guys (the other side) up to NOW, dear Jesus, save us!?" Previously I thought that they were just mad at each other. Now I think that they must enjoy it.
My friend, Brittaney, gave me her opinion that the reason why they're all so angry at each other all the time is tied to their historically "fierce independence". Is that true?
It must be exhausting to be so opinionated.

---

I'd love to know if others agree or disagree with me.....? Any other suggestions?

In which this is a great way to spend a rainy day

Start off with bubble baths that go on until everyone is as wrinkly as prunes.

Then coat the babies in baby lotion so that everyone smells delicious and soft. Put on your comfy clothes and make sure everyone has an elastic waistband for the day.

Dump out the toybox and let the small lad play. Discover that he likes to bang things together.

Fill up the sink with dish soap, warm water and food colouring. Give a wee girl her tea party set, a few measuring spoons and let her have a good time "cooking". Even if she's soaked by the end of it.

Then have a good lunch together.

And make sure everyone has a good nap.

Then curl up with a cuppa tea and a very good book. A book filled with beautiful coming-of-age stories about our connection with food at home. Feel refreshed, thoughtful and revived by the connection we all have with feasting as families. Resolve to cook a good meal that night.

Even rainy days are beautiful days when you embrace the quiet and the chaos together, aren't they?

In which you'll just have to indulge me here

Has there ever been such a beautiful boy? Seriously.

Be still my heart.

 

In which I tell a tale of housekeeping

Once upon a time...
I was a good housekeeper.
No, I take that back.
I was an immaculate housekeeper.
Every Saturday morning, I scrubbed our beautiful little bungalow in Texas. Brian cut our lawn then washed and vacuumed our cars. I cleaned baseboards weekly. I washed the insides of cupboards and Windexed the sinks until they shone. I hated to have a laundry basket that wasn't empty.
If I came home from work and the house was a bit dirty, I'd clean it. End of story.
People would come over and I would scrub the house all over again before they got there. Having friends over would stress me out if the house wasn't perfect. You ask these poor people if they ever saw my house dirty or messy; they didn't. As a result, we didn't have people over too terribly often. After all, it was hard to entertain properly in a dirty house, you understand.
When we sold our house, in the advertisement, the first words were: "This house is absolutely immaculate and like new."
I was thrilled.
So this weekend, I realised that things have changed.

My little condo is not immaculate.

It's actually downright dirty and grimy some days.
Do you have any idea how much laundry four people can generate?

Lots. (And yes, that is my laundry closet. You all thought I was kidding when I said we do our laundry in a single panel closet that Brian can't fit into. I. Was. Not. Kidding.)
After all, I shoot for Picked Up. I'll settle for Messy But Not Dirty. And sometimes we're just Dirty.
There are fingerprints (and nose prints, if we're being real here) on every window about 2 and a half feet up. There are tea party sets on my shelves and high chairs strapped to my kitchen chairs. There is food stuck in the carpet and a never-ending pile of laundry.
I run the vacuum around once in a while. I try to remember to wash the floors when I find that my feet are sticking to them a bit. I do manage to wash the washroom....every other week. I have toys stacked up in the bathtub corners. I don't recall the last time my baseboards got a wash. And the insides of my cupboards? Let's not go there.

I have friends over, look around think "Bah. They aren't here to see the house. And if they are, this will give them something fun to talk about." And then I pick up the dried Cheerios on the carpet while cursing the builder that didn't give me a spot for a table in this place so we are forced to feed our toddler above a carpet. I open my doors, welcome them in and let their kids dump the toybox out in the hallway. We yak over a cuppa tea, they change their babies on my carpets, we have Veggie Tales dance parties. And then we pick up a bit and go to the playground.

I don't stress out about the house much anymore.
Don't get me wrong, I still love a clean house. I still love to make it shine.
But now it's not as much fun because approximately 2.46 seconds after I clean it, a tornado blows through, leaving Rice Krispies and socks and fingerprints behind. When it was just the two of us in our 1500 sq ft house, it was immaculate and easy to maintain. And now I live in 800 sq ft with four people and we have friends that come over, mail ladies that stop in after they drop their flyers off, babies rolling all over the floor and toddlers splashing in the bathtub hollering for more bubbles, dishwashers that need emptying, supper boiling over on the stove and toast crumbs from breakfast still on the countertops. We eat popcorn on the couch.

We are living in our house.
So maybe I don't have sparkling floors. Maybe my tub is full of toys. Maybe there is dust on my shelves. Maybe there is dried nailpolish on the carpet and a stroller on my balcony.
But there is a lot of joy here.

In which I review the Passion of Mary-Margaret

I'm not a big fan of most Christian fiction. I know that that is cutting a wide swath against the various genres within that group - suspense, mystery, historical, romance etc. - but it's true. I have read and read and read these authors that everyone swears will be THE ONE to change my mind about this genre. And it hasn't. I still find them trite, formulaic and usually, pretty poorly written.

Until now.

I read The Church Ladies by Lisa Samson a few years ago at the recommendation of a friend. And I liked it. Didn't love, but I liked it. Then I read a few more of hers from my library one summer. And suddenly I really liked her.

She had a bit of a gothic and quirky flair to her writing that I loved.  But it seemed that she was on a trajectory of sorts throughout her books. Even though they weren't affiliated with one another, you could see that the themes were consistent, the journey clear. (I have found myself wishing she would write a memoir of sorts...it seems from her books that she must be on a very profound spiritual awakening. Or something. So Lisa, if you read this, WRITE THAT FOR ME PLEASE. Thank you.)  Her prose was unsentimental, wry and occasionally ironic. I loved her characters - the crazier, the better. She wrote about situations that were real and yet rarely show up at the Christian book store.

In my opinion, she had guts equivalent to her talent. Which says a lot.

It would probably be easy to just write novels without that thread of theology throughout, without the clarion call to a Church about love and justice and grace. And it made me addicted. Suddenly I had ordered every book she had written from Amazon and Chapters. My favourites kept switching to her latest. Quaker Summer, Embrace Me...

And this is no different. I think that her latest book, The Passion of Mary Margaret, is nothing short of brilliant. It's brave, well-written, convicting, illuminating and beautiful. The story of love and sacrifice wasn't formulaic in the least; I was taken by surprise on several occasions, twisted by the story.

The highest praise I can give it is this: With a two and a half year old and a teething-refusing-solids-loving-to-nurse baby, I read this book in a day. I could not put it down. And then when I finished it, I promptly went back to the beginning and read it again.

I read a few reviews that had a hard time with a few aspects of the book such as the coarseness of Jude's situation. Most of them struggled with Jesus in the book; Mary Margaret talks to him and he returns the favour; she lives in a tangibility of his presence. And oh, I loved it. As a charis-emergent-missional girl, I GET THAT. Oh, it was sweet.

I love reading authors that embrace the mystical. I think that's part of the reason why I love Claudia Mair Burney's books so much as well. That deep, wild part of our soul, stretching out towards satisfaction found only in Love.

So. No one asked me to do this review. No one even sent me this one for free. I paid for it. And you should too.

---

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Samson (Quaker Summer) mixes quirky with mysticism, seasons it with social justice, and the result is a page-turner with characters so fresh, funny and indelible the reader wants another 50 pages or so, please. Samson envisions a Jesus even an atheist would enjoy talking to, a Jesus whom the titular Mary-Margaret Fischer, a religious sister, talks to and gets direction from, as mystics quite naturally do. An even more compelling figure than Jesus, or at least someone with more lines and hence more characterization, is Mary-Margaret's childhood friend, Jude Keller, a ne'er-do-well with a soul needing saving encased in a body so good-looking it's hard for a body to resist. The required Christian progression to redemption is a natural in this story that slips between past and present—somewhat confusingly at first—and ranges from Maryland to Africa. The plot holds a few surprises that make some of the final, far-flung episodes more narratively and theologically satisfying. Quirk works; this is a deeply engaging book deserving of a broad audience. (Mar.)

In which Joseph says his first words

We received a wonderful anniversary gift from our wee baby today. He said his first words!

He was rolling around on the floor and got wedged in the couch (sidenote: these are the perils of having a living room about as wide as a bowling lane - the children get stuck easily). He promptly started to yell "Mumma! Mumma! Mumma!"

And then when he saw Brian instead, his face lit up and he roared "Dada! Dada! Dada!"

So Brian pulled him out of the couch. It was the least he could do.

Now that he has figured out that saying "Mumma!" makes me happy, he's been crowing it all day long. We went to meet Brian for lunch (happy anniversary to us!) and the entire 25 minute drive was him hollering "Mummamummamummamummamummamumma!"

In which we celebrate 8 years

Two kids, really. Just 19 when we fell in love, barely 22 when we got married. And it felt like forever to wait that long.

And now years later....the life we have shared together, oh, it is beautiful.

Happy anniversary, baby. I love you. MTB.

In which I must be famous now

The Internets are a funny thing. It's a great tool of connection - after all, I've got "friends" in Facebook from high school in Calgary, youth ministry in Texas, message boards I've frequented and so on. But it can also be a bit isolating. After all, you read a blog and that person never knows you read it. Or conversely, they read your blog and you never know that they did.
I don't like lurkers on my own blog much. After all, it's a little discouraging when you write and toil, get over 150 hits but only three or four comments.
But I have a confession....I, myself, am a terrible lurker.
I read a lot of blogs. Some people watch TV. Other people play video games. I like to read blogs. I subscribe to an embarrassing number of and diverse selection of blogs through Google Reader. My ongoing favourites are the Missional Tribe gang. I have read their blogs for a while now, lurking, rarely commenting. I joined Missional Tribe, even started a blog there and posted a few entries.
But I felt so out of place. After all, I post pictures of my tinies a lot, write the occasional poop story and generally write a blog that is one part Mommy Blog, one part Theology Blog and one part "Who the heck knows?" Blog. So I went back to lurking in anonymity.
So it was a pleasant surprise this morning to find that a big favourite of mine, Brother Maynard, of Subversive Influence fame out in Winnipeg gave me a shout out! (Actually, downright shocking. Me, reading through, suddenly sputtering and shrieking and Brian being all "So a blogger mentioned you, so what?" and me all "YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND, YOU NON-BLOGGER!")
It's not quite a celebrity experience but I'll settle for it.
I hope I don't let the fame go to my head.
Hi, Brother Maynard! I'm a big fan! Thanks for stopping by!

In which I wonder if God can be trusted Part 2

Part 1 is here.

I feel like I need to state again that I am so thankful for you and your insights as I write this out. I am not quite sure where I'll end up here and that can be an odd place to be. I am striving to be open in my journey - open to God, open to the Holy Spirit, open to Jesus and now, open to my community of friends and family.

I appreciate your stories and comments so much - much food for thought (and prayer). I appreciate that you are all giving me the space to do this. Plus you are giving me your collective wisdom and understanding.

My heart is not to give offense to anyone. Know that I am prayerfully embarking on this journey and I am full of hope even as I am full of questions.

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I think that most people grapple with this question or a derivative of it in their life. Augustine, the Buddha, Martin Luther, C.S. Lewis, my grade two teacher and so on.

So at least we're all in good company, eh?

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I have decided that this might be an ongoing project over the next few months. I have a lot of questions that I am going to try to work through.

Here is an idea of where I'm headed on this journey (I think...):

• A look at my own background and how we use our faith traditions to answer this question.
  
• Our impact on the state of affairs. As Sandy asked in the original post, we ask God "Why do you allow this?" and the response from Him is "Why have you allowed this?" In short, what role does social justice have in this? How much of this is our (humanity as a whole's) responsibility?
  
• Do we deserve anything different? Has our depravity as a human race only given us these options? (Thanks for throwing that one in the mix, Gina!)
  
• Is everything that happens the plan of God? What role does the sovereignty of God play here? Or not.
  
• Is everything that we see as wrong an attack of the devil? (Ah, yes. The devil. Haven't talked about him here for a while, have we?)
  
• What about free will? Is it all just the implication of living in a "fallen world"?
  
• Are we waiting for heaven? Will everything be made right?
  
• Can evil and goodness coexist? As my friend Jill pointed out, there is a tension between faith and fear, love and hate. So can good exist while evil exists?
  
• What is the character or nature of God? Is he good?
  
• What is the role of suffering here? Many times we note in scripture that suffering is sacred. Many cited Job's suffering and his faithfulness: "Though he (God) slay me, yet will I trust him."
  
• How much of it is a mystery that we simply need to embrace? Should we just let go of this question, understanding that "his ways are above our ways"?
  
• What about the ultimate redemption, kingdom come and all?
  
• And finally, what is the role of the community of God in all of this? What are the implications for those of us towards one another? How do we offer support and comfort to the suffering?

So what else am I missing?

I look at that list above and I am overwhelmed. Much smarter people than me grapple with this to no avail. Much smarter and holier people than me don't care.

But I am hopeful.

Jesus, be near.

In which we are the Bear Family

Anne's new favourite thing is to call us all by Bear names.

As in, I'm Mummy Bear, Brian is Papa Bear, she is Baby Bear or Annie Bear, my mother is Granny Bear and so on.

And Joseph? He's Curly-Bear. Yes, he of the stick-straight-barely-there-baby-hair has irrevocably been christened Curly Bear.

I don't know where she gets this stuff.

 

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She's decided that since we don't have a dog, she'll have to take matters into her own hands. She has imagined up a lovely little puppy dog that's all her own.

The dog's name is Two Months and is bright pink.

Everytime we go to the park, she puts Two Months on the leash and then goes off on a run. Two Months likes to sleep in her bed and "goes row-row-row-row" to talk.

I think I have established that I am not a dog person; I have two tinies. I don't need anything else in my house that eats, poops and destroys things.

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I have settled in my heart that my daughter will likely be an enormous tomboy. No matter how much pink or princess is thrown in her path, no matter how many beautiful colouring books I lay on the kitchen table as an invitation to colour inside the lines with Mummy, she will have none of it. Sure, she might colour a token picture with me now and again. But her first love is and likely always will be SPORTS.

She is rather indiscriminate. Baseball? Loves it. Hockey? Loves it. Tennis? Loves it. Soccer? Loves it. Running? Loves it. Basketball? Loves it. Football? Loves it. Golf? Lacrosse? Cricket? Loves it. Loves it. Loves it.

She would rather play sports than do anything else in the entire world.

Brian, of course, is thrilled.

I am hoping that Joseph likes musicals.

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Brian is just hoping that I stop attacking Joseph's stick-straight-barely-there-baby-fine-hair with his styling products in an effort to create Baby-Faux-Hawks.

 

In which we have been accredited

A few updates on ministry...

(I haven't forgotten about this. Trust me. I've gotten started on about seven followup Part 2's and somehow never quite get them there. I have appreciated your comments and insights so much. I am still processing through it and that's part of the reason why I'm writing it out. I process things by writing and so I appreciate that you all are on this journey with me.)

We heard back from the C&MA denomination. They received all of our work and references and wanted to set up a panel interview for accreditation. So Brian had that interview last Thursday. It went very well. He was accredited on the spot. They particularly remarked on his "passion and humility". I think that really sums up so much about him these days, how he has changed and grown over the years. A lot of people have described him as passionate or driven or focused over the years. The humility is a new addition. And it's true.

I have been rather introspective about the accreditation. This is a bit like the first shoots in the ground after a long planting season in our life. We have been planting, tending and waiting for years now. And so to be seeing these first bits of movement towards pastoring again is humbling and sweet. We were talking it over and realised that without these four years, they likely wouldn't have described Brian as humble. These four years have planted the seeds of humility in him.

Oh, the changes we've experienced. They are staggering sometimes.

Plus they asked him tons of theological and scriptural questions. Things like "explain to me why the deity of Christ matters" or "what is redemption?" and then just handed him a Bible. And he knew where to go and what to say. I don't know that he would have been able to do that four years ago. Even after university undergrad in theology and pastoral care. He just knows his Bible so much better because its written in his heart now.

Our next step is to investigate and pray about starting a church. Yes, for reals. We're going to do a bit of a church planters assessment and then a boot-camp of sorts (that's what they call it...which makes me laugh and shake my head a little - oh, these denominations). Then, if we decide to move forward with that, then we'll likely be partnered with an existing church that has a heart for mothering a new church, work there as pastors for several years and then be sent out to start the new church.

It's an ideal situation from my perspective right now. I feel we could use a few more years of pastoring and mentoring. Plus I have never felt comfortable with the Darwinian method of church planting (survival of the fittest) and just starting something up to hope for the best. This feels much more organic and purposeful, family and community driven.

So there's that.