The passing of a beloved writer

Madeleine L'Engle passed away last Thursday. She was a gifted writer of science fiction, fantasy, and non-fiction. She had a huge heart of compassion and a violent love for honesty and creativity.

I read her science fiction works as a child, but I didn't really come to appreciate her until I read her journals as an adult. She told the stories of her life in such a vulnerable, honest way; while I didn't agree with everything she said, I loved her for the way she said it. Reading about her struggles as a writer encouraged me to keep plugging at my OWN manuscripts and plotlines. Even though my talent is not equal to hers, I never felt ashamed of my own desire to write when I sat down with one of her books. I felt her writing was PUSHING me to continue.

Mrs. L'Engle and I were almost diametrically opposite in our views of God; while I believe that she is with God now, her writings bespoke a person immersed in liberal culture struggling to figure out where the God of the Bible fit into all that. She was raised by an art critic and a musically gifted mother; they lived in New York City surrounded by actors, musicians and playwrights. Her husband was an actor (He played Dr. Tyler on All My Children) and she even acted for a short while before devoting her energy to children and writing. I think being in that artistic world hindered her from understanding the Bible in a literal way and seeing Christianity as exclusive.

All that being said, her vehement desire to understand the world and find her place in it left a mark on me. I look forward to meeting her one day.

"There are three ways you can live your life. You can live life as though it's all a cosmic accident; we're nothing but an irritating skin disease on the face of the earth. Maybe you can live your life as though everything's a bad joke. I can't.

Or you can go out at night and look at the stars and think, yes, they were created by a prime mover, and so were you, but he's aloof perfection, impassible, indifferent to his creation. He doesn't care, or, if he cares, he only cares about the ultimate end of his creation, and so what happens to any part of it on the way is really a matter of indifference. You don't matter to him, I don't matter to him, except possibly as a means to an end. I can't live that way either.

Then there's a third way: to live as though you believe that the power behind the universe is a power of Love, a personal power of Love, a Love so great that all of us really do matter to Him. He loves us so much that every single one of our lives has meaning; He really does know about the fall of every sparrow and the hairs of our head are really counted. That's the only way I can live."

-- Madeleine L'Engle, Circle of Quiet

Okay, so if you've read my first post, you'll know that we've been doing some soul-searching about our current church. Things have not improved since the day I wrote that post, and we've more or less decided that it's time to move on. It's not a fun proposition, starting over... and yet it seems to be the right thing to do.

Well, it SEEMED to be the right thing to do... until I started looking around for somewhere else to worship! We're in a bit of a unique situation; we hope to move within the next few years to be closer to the school our children will attend. Because of that, we don't want to get strongly attached to a church that we'll have to leave in a few years. So ideally, we'd like to be led to the right church for the indefinite future. If that makes sense.

We really wanted to stay in our current denomination, but there aren't any of those churches within a feasible distance from the school. So that leads us to other... disciplines, I suppose? I hate to use the word "denomination" again, but I don't want to use the word "faith" or anything like that. We're not becoming apostates; we're just trying to figure out where to go since our first choice is a no-go.

And this is where all my headaches of the past two days have originated. I've been online for HOURS, searching for churches that still hold to the same basic truths that we believe. But apparently I've got too many eggs in my basket. If I want to go to the one that shares our convictions about baptism, I get a different church government than I like, or a different stance on women being ordained. If I pick the one with the right kind of programming for our children, I get a different belief on divine healing. What's with these people? Can't they just give me everything I want?

And what I want is the church I grew up in. The creeds I cling to, the reformed faith, the children's programs, the small groups for marrieds... Apparently I CAN have it all, I just have to get my husband to move 600 miles to the left, and we'll be set.

I've been trying to make a list of "negotiables" and "non-negotiables," doing my best to skim off any fluff, but it just doesn't seem to be helping. It's ALL important! If it weren't important, it wouldn't be on my list!

If God didn't give me a spirit of fear, then where'd I get it from?

I've been afraid of the dark since...always, I guess. I can remember going back and forth with my mother, begging her to leave the hall closet light on, then trying to be a "big girl" and sleep without it, but never succeeding.

I can remember being 10 years old, at the summer cottage with my uncle and grandmother. I can remember being wide awake at 4 in the morning, all the lights on in my room, reading the Psalms: "I will both lie down in peace and sleep, for only thou, O Lord, makest me lie down in safety." David wrote that when he was hiding in caves from Saul, fleeing for his life. If King David could write that when armed men were out to kill him, why couldn't I find peace and comfort in a snug little house surrounded by my loving family?

The problem is, I know that while everything that happens to me is for a purpose, and everything is God-filtered, bad things can still happen to me. Muggings, rapes, murders, house fires, abductions-- these things happen to Christians as well as non-Christians. So while I intellectually understand that God is in control of everything that happens, I emotionally cannot forget that He has made no promises to spare His children from suffering. So I can't just lull myself to sleep saying, "God's not going to let anything happen," because I know it isn't true. So I somehow think that I can stave off evil if I just stay awake and vigilant. And even though in my head, I know that God won't let anything happen to me that I cannot bear... I'm afraid. I'm afraid of pain, terror, death.... I'm afraid of being afraid. I know that I'm not brave, strong, or cunning, and if anything were to happen, how could I protect my children? I get nervous during thunderstorms, for crying out loud. I'd be nowhere near a hero if someone broke into our house.

Add to this the fact that my husband travels A LOT for work, and you have a recipe for dysfunction. I'm up until at least 2 in the morning every night that he's gone, until exhaustion finally sets in. Because of a health condition that I have, I don't sleep well at all, so I'm depleted of all energy the next day. By the end of a work week, when my husband's been gone for five days, you can just imagine how well I'm coping.

What is grief?

I lost two loved ones this spring within a span of five weeks. One was my grandfather, and one was a very close friend. They played different roles in my life, but they were both needed very much. I spent a great deal of time with each of these people in my thirtysomething years... and yet I don't think these two people were ever in the same place at the same time, let alone MET.

When my grandmother died, some twelve years ago now, I could not be there for the funeral. "You spent time with her while she was alive," my mother said, "and that's most important." I believed her, and yet I still felt this weight of... expectation. I remember experiencing waves of guilt, thinking back to the week she died. Should I have put myself in seclusion the day of the funeral, my own way of mourning, since I couldn't be there? Was I a worthless person because I could smile at someone else while she lay cold in a casket? I couldn't figure out what it was I was SUPPOSED to be doing. What was a grieving granddaughter supposed to look like? How much time had to go by before I could laugh or say her name? So many questions I never really found answers to...

When my dear friend died this April, I'd been mourning for about a week before then. We'd all been told that it wouldn't be long now, and I struggled with guilt for being so far away. I was angry over all the things we never got to do together, the conversations that wouldn't happen anymore. But I knew that there was no getting better for my friend, and I knew how painful the present was. So my friend's death actually brought me more... relief, I suppose. I grieved and wept more during my friend's dying than because of my friend's death.

After the funeral, one of my friends remarked that "you cannot judge how people grieve," meaning that we cannot put expectations and rules on people about their behavior when they lose someone. The statement was an unexpected gift to me. I'd been stressed about what I was supposed to be doing and feeling, rather than just letting myself experience grief in whatever form it took. I could tell stories about the people I'd lost and laugh at the memories without feeling guilty. I could take a moment to bawl privately in the car, weeks after the burial, and know that it was okay. I could just...be.

When my grandfather died, a scant few weeks after my friend's burial, I almost felt... prepared. I'd never wish back-to-back funerals on anyone, and it certainly wasn't the way I wanted my life to be. "Can I catch a breath, God? I haven't wrapped my head around my first loss yet." But at the same time, with all the struggling, thinking, and grieving I'd already been doing, my coping skills were already warmed up. I could use what extra energy I had left to handle the drama of my family without worrying about how I was feeling or reminding myself that denial just leads to bad indigestion and monster headaches. I could wear my heart on my sleeve if I chose, or I could crack jokes with my uncle about the clothes some people wear to visitations. I finally understood that there wasn't an expiration date on my grace period for grieving. God would be there with me, whenever, wherever. I didn't have to explain myself to anybody. I could just...be.

As always, the only lessons I've ever truly learned have been through experience. I can read books about handling loss, I can do my empathetic best to listen to someone who's grieving and try to understand...but I'd never have gained this development of who I am without this spring, my own season of loss.

There is no coming to life without pain. --Carl Jung

Parenting in the post-modern world

Being a parent myself, I'm fascinated by child-rearing in other cultures and other time periods. Since I don't subscribe to multi-culturalism, I certainly don't agree with every parenting practice I come upon. Looking back over annals of medicine and health throughout history, I'm surprised we survived as a species.

I think the thing that has struck me the most recently is how the purpose behind having children has changed. I suppose you have to start with God's command to Adam and Eve: "Be fruitful, and multiply..." There was a planet to propagate, and only one womb to start with. Yikes!

As you speed forward through the ages, you find that children are born and bred to continue family lines. A farmer farms for his sons, and you need heirs to control the family estate. Children were wanted for house and farm workers; it was the cheapest way to get labor. And the more children you could have, the better, since infant and child mortality was high.

Also, for most of history (and even current times), children were born to ensure racial purity and superiority. Other tribes, nations, etc. were often the enemy, and you could only beat the enemy if you had more people in your clan than they did.

These reasons, of course, only account for the children that were conceived and born on purpose. There has been great hardship over the course of human history because of unplanned children. Some of this has been due to rash behavior, and a great deal of it has been due to lack of forethought. Family size often exceeded family income;It was common practice in Renaissance England for families to take children to the local vicarage because they could not afford to feed them. Only within the last hundred years has mankind figured out how to prudently control the size of their own families and provide for them consistently.

Don't misunderstand the prior paragraph. I'm not making an argument for Planned Parenthood, and I'm not suggesting that children in and of themselves are nothing more than a burden or a problem to be dealt with. I'm not saying that people only had children for unemotional reasons, or that we are the only culture to love our children. Every family SHOULD prayerfully decide how they want to handle birth control for themselves, and EVERY child is a gift from the Lord. However, we have all seen people not place themselves under God's sovereignty or choose to ask Him for direction. The preceding paragraph was merely a statement of things as they have been through the years.

Now, we find ourselves in a different world. We don't really need to bear children to run the family business or protect our lands. Our species is not in danger of becoming extinct. We don't need to bear children to keep our own bloodlines alive. "There is neither Jew, nor Greek, male nor female.... you are all one in Christ Jesus." We live in a culture where contraception is readily available and encouraged (whether you want it or not). There is more information on how babies are made than there ever has been before, so no one in an educated world can really claim ignorance. More than ever before, we live in a world where we can choose to have children...or not to.

So the philosophical question is, why do we? If we feel that we have financial blessings and want to raise children in a godly home, there are hundreds of thousands of orphans around the world in need of parenting. If we feel called to care for little ones that need love, there are orphanages, hospitals, schools, daycare facilties, etc...all in need of loving adults to work in them. Why do we, as educated, wealthy, "First World" citizens decide to conceive and bear our own offspring?

Once again, I'm going to clarify my statements. Obviously, I've had my own children, and I'm thankful for them. I wholeheartedly believe that God wanted me to have my children, and I cannot deny that desire as a woman to be a mother. I don't denounce that feeling, or scorn it. God does call people in this modern age to have their own children...but heck if I can figure out why.

I'd be interested to hear if anyone can give a well-worded, concrete answer to that question. Beyond the "life force," as humanists call it-- that God-given desire to continue the species-- why do we become parents?

What is church for, anyway?

For the past few years, we've been attending what's commonly called a "troubled church" in religious circles. There was a HUGE rift not long after we started attending, and at least half of the attenders have since left. There are now only two other families with children in the same age range as ours.

This, of course, has led to some frustration. The friendships I had begun forming with other women disintegrated as their families moved to other churches. We went from sixteen families with preschool children down to three. The other two preschool mothers and I get along with each other, but there is no potential there for being strong friends.

In addition, with such a small number of children left at our church, the programming for them has suffered. My son is the only child in his Sunday School class. In a year, he will be the only child in Children's Worship. (I grant that all this assumes that no new families will attend our church.) And the quality of these ministries has been... mediocre at times. Not so much in terms of talent or packaging as much as how much effort and preparation has gone into the ministries. Too many last-minute subsitute teachers, too many teachers flying by the seat of their pants when visitors have been present, etc. I don't expect that every church volunteer will be a vibrant genius with fabulous visual aids and riveting stories, but I DO expect that anyone who commits to teaching of any kind should prepare adequately for it.

This has been very difficult for me, for various reasons. I look back over my own church experiences, and I would like my children to have the same blessings. Almost ALL of my real, true friends came from my youth group. They've been with me since high school (some of them since before that!), and God brought them into my life by way of my church. Not my school, not my neighborhood, not my career. I have been thankful for my friends COUNTLESS times over the years, and I want my children to have the same quality people in their lives too. Kind of hard for my son to find friends when he doesn't have any peers!

In addition to this, I have fond memories of all the things I learned in my church. All the stories, the verses, the songs... the love that I learned through adults sacrificing their time to be Sunday School teachers, choir directors, puppet leaders and VBS coordinators. I'm so grateful for the way I was grounded in the Word at a young age, the consistency of example around me.

Besides my desires for my children, I want more friends for ME. I want/need godly women in my own life stage around me, people I can talk to, have over for dinner, invite to my children's birthday parties. So far, I've met good women through various channels, but no one that really seems to want to stick with me. They're all either in different churches or live too far away to really be a part of my life.

So while I've been in the midst of contemplating all this and how I can cope with it, I've noticed a definite tone in the preaching at our church since last fall. We haven't really done much growing, and I think our pastor is a little fed up. There have been several sermons that have really grated against my nerves. I've come away feeling shoved into evangelizing, and chastised for thinking about finding another home church. There was one sermon in particular that talked about how it's the Lord's church, not ours, and we don't have any right to put any stipulation on what we think we "need" or "want" out of our church. And we're not supposed to leave, either; the only valid reason for leaving is if we move out of the area. Assuming, of course, that our church isn't dishonoring God.

So here's the dilemma. I'm not naive enough to think that a perfect church exists, and I acknowledge that no church springs up out of the ground with a children's ministry in place. Someone has to be the pioneer, to stick it out and do the groundwork so future members can benefit. I can't always expect to be the "taker" just because it's easier for my family; I have to be willing to be the "giver" too. But I have some real, concrete concerns for the immediate future and how it will affect us. There's been talk of discontinuing Children's Worship for now, and I can't say that I blame them. We have a tiny number of children that attend, and it's hard to devote energy to something that affects so few. And yet, if they choose to do that... it will be a huge hardship for our family. Our son is not mature enough to sit in worship with us, and we will have to assess the situation if we're left with no other options.

This is our first experience as a married couple with a troubled church, and it's bringing a whole new set of things to ponder. Is church membership like a marriage? As long as there's no direct defiance of God's laws, are you bound to that church until you die? Should you not even seek a new job elsewhere because you've already committed to a church body? Does God want us to take our families' needs into consideration when we're looking for a church? And are we allowed to reassess those things after we've made a decision? If we turn around one day and realize that NONE of our needs(spiritual, relational, etc.) are being met within our church body, are we bound to grit our teeth and stay there just because we said we would?

What is church for, anyway?