alone and ... exposed?

i'm not sure how the folks who do it on a regular basis think, but preaching takes it out of me. i currently have what i like to call an extrovert headache and anticipate a subsequent extrovert hangover to commence soon. i reaaaaalllly need a nap. and i blame preaching completely.

its a really odd thing... i can't explain it. preaching is very lonely for me and leaves me with a feeling of "what now?". i find myself constantly asking those closest to me about it afterword - what could i do better? did you get this part? did the message become clear? what were you compelled to think or do? i'm honestly not digging for compliments. and it's not even about improving a skill. i just need to know it mattered.

you spend so much time working through a piece... diving into the scripture, understanding the context, all the homiletic energy you expend. there's a moment that arrives that you burst through, light shining on exactly what it is that you're trying to get at.
then you begin to craft something that you hope will communicate the message. generally it's not one story or illustration that makes it, but something about how it all fits together. i spent a significant period of time last night reworking today's message because i had kinda felt like i was sitting with one cheek on a seat. after a good run, i was "where i needed to be" (as i told JJ).

so you do all that... it's initimate work. with the scripture, with the message. you don't even have to be telling significantly personal stories, but the act of sharing the message is deeply personal. it's like you just throw yourself out there for all to see.

i'm always encouraged by positive feedback, even some people saying meaningful things. but generally i'm left wanting. i wonder if it's like when a chef prepares a gormet meal and a patron just says "thanks." or even worse, "that tasted a lot like a dish i had at ..." i wonder if musicians feel it when after composing a piece people say, "that was pretty."

i'm not sure exactly what i would be looking for post-sermon. i don't have an ideal. it was just an observation since i've preached a few times recently, all for the first time really when i wasn't working for the church.

so that's my day. time for a nap.

the way you make me feel

lots and lots of emotions all whirled around like a hurricane right now...

**frustration. and over something mundane. sometimes i just need to get over myself.

**fear / nerves. i preach again tomorrow. this is not normal (this= both preaching and feeling nervous about it). makes me more nervous. vicious cycle.

**sadness for a friend

**overwhelming love for this handsome 7 (nearly 8!) month old boy.

**that feeling you get when you read a really really good book that you want to hurry through to see how it ends but yet you never want it to end and has a subject matter of consequence, leaving you feel like you need to change something. i'm addicted.

i know, i just need to settle down now. *deep breath*. maybe a run will help clear it all up.

don't want to close my eyes... cause I'd miss you, and I don't wanna miss a thing

we've had our days, but lately this kid has been soooo much fun. we're finally sleeping well, and then this morning at 7:30 we still hadn't heard him get up - verrrry unusual. JJ went to check on him and guess who was in his crib just playing happily?! it was so sweet.

i was just watching him play today. he likes to just sit and play. you know, shake an empty spice jar (filled with noodles), or pull the liner off the basket the toys were in. or try to catch lizzie's tail. i could just sit and watch and smile. just yesterday while on the phone with my dad he (H, not my dad) wanted to sit with me, and he just laid there and cuddled. peaceful.

it made me do some reflecting (as most things do). i've had some recent frustrations, some tears with previous patterns that H seemed to get stuck in. i felt very... i'm not sure what the word is... but i felt bad for feeling it. but today made it worth it. i'm not saying that H hasn't been enjoyable until today - he's brought so much joy already! but today made all the tears and fears and frustrations melt away. they didn't even matter.

it was a good day.

daddy dearest

i think jj's first fathers day was a success. he got a power tool that could cut off an extremity, lunch out and enough peace to get a paper finished. he said it was good :).

of course i've always participated in fathers day, but now that i'm celebrating the father of my child it has a different feel. i was struck by a blog post by don miller appreciating dads for, well... being a dad. he grew up without one and is pretty vocal about the effects it had on him as a child as well as now as an adult. he even wrote a book about about it (though I have not read it, but i loved blue like jazz and his general approach to most everything).

i had never given much thought to a group of people who god takes special interest in - the fatherless. i did some reading up on it today in deuteronomy and it's quite clear that those without providing men in their lives (widows and orphans) have a special place in God's heart, along with the stranger or alien (soapbox: which i believe should inform one of the controversial politics of today).

i can't imagine growing up without a dad. honestly, i'm not sure how i'd deal with being dad-less at 28. but even more so, i can't imagine raising my son without a dad. and we're living in an era where i'm allowed to be educated, own a house, drive a car and sign my own legal documents. in theory, i can do all the things that dads do, and there are many women in the world doing just that (my hats off: i'm not sure i could handle it all).

i did some thinking on it all this afternoon. why? why did God chose to take special interest in those who did not have an adult male in the home? the social implications of being sans penis were huge... but that still doesn't mean God had to do something about it.

it's knowing about these things - that God wants to be the voice for the unheard - that makes me want to put my faith in action in new ways. if God had such compassion for these women and children, why don't i? when you get down to it, it's God's character that gives him such concern - to use church words, that he is just and compassionate. and if i'm trying to live a life reflective of God, shouldn't i be just and compassionate, or at least try to be?

and i do wonder, what would the world be like if all the daddies in the world would man up and be daddies? what social issues would we likely not be arguing over? abortion, welfare abuse, poverty... surely having a dad who lives like a dad doesn't make things perfect by any stretch, but if everyone felt loved and protected and provided for (as i did growing up), couldn't that change things?

just a thought.

thank you, mr. temple

Reading Richard Foster's "devotional classics" and he shares some writings from Lord William Temple about "christian principles" in the social life. i dig it.

"if Christianity is true at all, it s a truth of universal application; all things should be done in the Christian spirit and in accordance with Christian principles*.
'Then,' say those who want reform, 'produce your Christian solution for unemployment.' but there neither is nor could be such a thing. The Christian faith does not by itself enable its members to see how a vast number of people within an intricate economic system will be affected by a particular economic or political idea.
'In that case' say those who want to uphold the status quo, 'keep off the turf! By your own confession you are out of place here.' Here the Church must reply, 'No; I cannot tell you what is the remedy. But I can tell you that a society with chronic unemployment is a diseased society. If you are not doing all you can to find the remedy, you are guilty before God.'
the Church is likely to be attacked from both sides if it does its duty. It will be told that it has become 'political' when in fact it has merely stated its principles and pointed out when they have been breached. The Church will be told by advocates of particular policies that it is futile because it does not support theirs. If the Church is faithful to its commission, it will ignore both sets of complaints and continue as far as it can to influence all citizens and permeate all parties."

*according to Foster the principles are: the supremacy of the law of love, the reality of original sin (to which i enjoy temple's thoughts as well), the infinite value of all human life.

say what you need to say

one time a gal was speaking at 180, talking about the funny things you say to new babies. she remarked how some babies just aren't cute, and to those babies it's always safe to coo to the new parents, "oh, what small little feet!" (because that's still true).

i had lunch at the plaza buffet (back room!) with my parents a few weeks ago. in trying to figure out a system so that someone was always at the table with H, my mom said, "why don't you go ahead. i don't eat as much."

sometimes it's what you don't say.

a friend was making a few remarks on facebook about a particular social issue. he commented that he and his family do not partake in this particular disputable topic. reasoning? he and his family "trust god."

so because i partake, i suddenly am not on the trusting god side? better yet, because i find it necessary to partake in said social issue, that puts me in the opposite corner of trusting God?

it's not what you say :: it's what you don't say. it's not your exclusion. it's your lack of inclusion. it's not that you're mean, it's that you're generally not nice. no, i'm not speaking to anyone in particular... more just myself in general i suppose. but i feel better now.

never's a long time away

a friend of mine was composing "10 things" she'll never do. however, she had a little trouble so she decided to stick with 8. i got to thinking... what 8 things would i say that i'd never do?? i had trouble with it, but here's my list. let me know if i missed one.
*one caveat: due to the nature of her profession, her list was largely health related ("i'll never stop working out... i'll never get my kids vaccinated..."). due to the nature of my vocation, my list casts a much wider net. :)

Michele will never...
8. ... throw away a book. i just can't bear it. even the poorest written, lack-of-storyline chick lit will at least get sold on amazon, if not given to goodwill. reminds me of A League of Their Own- girl learning to read: "he touched her mii...miilll...milky whiiite br.. bre... breast. milky white breast. oh!"
Mae: "hey, she's readin' ain't she?!"

7. ... wear a crop top. I just read in Glamour that it's making a comeback. Count me out, folks.

6. ... get another full night's sleep. I came to this realization just the other day (yes, i know - 7 months old and i'm JUST realizing that?!). i'm sure that the day henry starts to sleep through the night will likely be the day i find out i'm pregnant again, thus restarting all the trips to the bathroom. by the time the kids graduate and i stop worrying about them getting home safely, i'll be so old that i'll have achey parts and insomnia.

5. ... give up on Church. this has become more evident to me lately. the day that i stop participating in the Body is the day that i'll always be right. God will conform to my likeness and not vice versa. that's a dangerous place for Miss Michele to be.

4. ... eat a hot dog from a vendor's cart in Ecuador. not only do i hate hot dogs, but while on my mini-basketball tour there some of our male team counterparts actually attempted this. they ended up with the scoots and i thought, "reason number 2..."

3. ... bungee jump, sky dive or generally anything that requires my life to depend upon a small piece of rope. i know, i'm a party pooper but that just does not sound fun.

2. ... take out credit that I know I can't pay back. my papa told me the day that he handed me a credit card "don't put anything on it that you can't pay for right now."
*admission of guilt: i, too, had trouble coming up with even 8, so i asked kristy what one thing i would never do. she listed this among never: eating a pound of pork chops, giving henry an entire 2 liter of diet coke and posting naked pictures on facebook. all of these are also probably true, but i'm most passionate about people with stupid credit. slightly behind is my revulsion to pig.

1. ... say never. On nearly all of these, i could come up with a situation or 2 that i would say, "well, ok...". most of those situations involved large sums of money being paid to me. but nonetheless, "never" is quite a stretch! i'm definately not the "daredevil" type that would say yes to anything, but i hope that i have an open mind enough to at least give something a chance. hear both sides. ponder the circumstances. weigh the options. i think this is because of another thought (and post) i have brewing about the dangers of declaring things either 100% evil or 100% good. but until then....

say it ain't soooooo

i've had a lot of visitors lately. the good kind, no worries (except the man that wanted to sell me meat out of the back of his van. "at cost" of course, but alas i informed him we have half a cow coming in just a few weeks).

the first of the visitors was my friend kathi (and her husband kevin). i love them because of the great conversation. i have very few friends with whom convesation is lackluster, now that i think about it. but i was verbally stimulated by KK on end and absolutely loved it.

it seemed that much of our conversation seemed to return to babies, mothering and birth. i tried to switch gears so that i wasn't one of "those people", but we always returned. in my defense, i think KK has been doing a lot of thinking on her own and was curious, wanting to hear about my experience. so we talked and talked and talked. we talked about what it means to be a parent and whatnot.

then kathi shared something that i'm going to repeat & attribute 3 times and claim as my own. she said she and her hubby didn't want to speak negatively about their child(ren). they don't want to speak ill of them. i don't think that means that you'll never hear them say "i just wish he'd sleep through the night!" but rather it's that her faults don't need to be made public. she was telling me about her thoughts on the power of words (to which i full heartedly agree, even if i'm not so quick to catch my tongue). we also talked about how parenting is a shadow of the relationship of God to person. and God would never talk about his children the way I have heard some parents talk about theirs.

i want my kids to grow up knowing that they are enough. obviously, there's always room for growth - in all of us. but part of encouraging that is extending grace for where a person is at that moment. mixed with the hope of things to come and the faith that God can work in all people, why wouldn't i celebrate the person he is right now?

life is a highway

henry status update: "dadadada" is now a part of our vocabulary and it seems to have become the multipurpose sound. he says it all the time. it's absolutely adorable. he also purrs like a kitten when he is happy. also adorable.

on the sleeping front we've seen progress but not complete success. i'm actually happy with progress. you can't expect immediate perfection, right? i mean, it took me 28 years to reach perfection.

on a similar note, i had a realization last night. henry wouldn't go to sleep, but he's usually very good at falling asleep if we're on target for bedtime. i kept flipping him to his belly, because he likes to sleep on his belly. he'd play with the puppy rabbit and then flip over. then he'd lose the bink, cry, i'd come in and flip him back. rinse and repeat. i thought "why won't you stay on your tummy? you like to sleep on your tummy!"

as if there's not ever been a time when i couldn't fall asleep on my side (my preferred sleeping position), so i'd roll to my tummy. so why would i never consider that maybe H will likely change things up as well?

i was remarking to kathi this morning (whole seperate post - what a wonderful visit!!) how it's so much fun to see the new things he's doing. picking things out of a basket. looking at a variety of toys. pounding on the mini-piano without me helping him. his whole life is one constant process of change! his routine, his gross motor skills, his babbles are all building blocks on the way to who he is becoming.

i'm not a huge fan of change of routine. this morning i put my face lotion on after i brushed my teeth and was thrown completely out of whack. but do i really want henry to be stuck with dadada as the primary vocab word? unless i do, i must face the reality that things change. not just my baby, but the way our day (and night) takes shape.

it's all coming back, it's all coming back to me now...

(this was our first food day: avocado. he thinks cado is ok, but likes Nanacado much better.)

When i was pregnant with henry there were a few common phrases that drove me batty:
2. it's going to change your life so much! it's going to change everything! (to which my cousins smartly replied, "well i should hope so!")
1. just you wait.

the reason i hated (and still dislike) "just you wait" is because, well, i WAS waiting. JJ and i didn't haphazardly fall into parenting - we wanted this. we wanted a baby. and we had a pretty good handle, thanks to a lot of the experience around us, on the toll it would take on our social, emotional and slumbering lives. but we both knew it was well worth it.

and we still do.

lately, through henry's "rough patch" i can see it's more true than ever. there are difficult times. but that's anything worth doing. marriage can be hard, but it's so worth it to spend your life with someone. service to others can be difficult, like in those people-serving jobs (youth directing, teaching, social services, counseling - anything where you're carrying the burden of loving people), but the privilage of sharing space and time with people brings so much gratification. parenting takes more of yourself than you sometimes think you have to give, but wow. they give you more joy than what you thought you could ever experience.

Jesus was constantly talking in backward terms - you have to lose your life to find it, you have to die to live, you have to give to receive. and i think being a mommy or a daddy is a way of God inviting you to live that on a daily basis. it's always a choice to give of yourself - your sleep, your energy, your body (i never knew i could double as a jungle gym until lately). but oh my gosh! to have this little person want to climb you and then plant a big kiss (well, more of an open mouth suck) on your cheek????

so here's what i have to offer: selfishness is pretty lonely.

can you milk a cat, focker?

i had to go with a quippy title because the general topic is emotional and frustrating.

it's been six and a half months, and now, all of a sudden, breastfeeding is hard.

H has been going through a difficult patch. a week of flu and no eating. a week of eating 8x as much to make up for it. and it's been about a week now that we've tried some solids. not to mention a tooth and a half (i haven't checked yet today to see if #2 has popped through). all of this adds up to wanting to eat at least every 3 hours - day or night.

i love my baby, but i thought we'd moved through this. when he was first born i could work myself through the neediness because, well, he's a baby. he needs me. but now he wants to eat all the time. he needs to eat - he's not gaining weight like the doctor wants. he's eating 5 oz. and wanting more. i'm pumping 3 or 4. needless to say, i think i might be the culprit to our little bad spell and it leads to an overwhelming list of emotions, topping the list: failure, disappointment, shame, and fear.

one thing that makes it all very difficult is the fact that i'm a hard core believer in breastfeeding. i think God designed an amazing system. so with that belief, one of 2 things is happening: a) the system isn't as great as i thought or 2) i'm doing something wrong. i don't like either of those.

and there's a world of competitive moms out there that (i think) would love to see someone with my beliefs fail. which brings on the shame and fear. or maybe that's my own insecurities speaking.

i'd really rather not have the "you can do it" comments. or the "awww, it's ok" remarks. probably my pride speaking there, but i just don't want to hear it.

i have further thoughts, but i also have a crying, hungry baby in my lap. so until then....