Nationals

I'm in Orlando. 

I'm sure there are happy people who live here in the magic of Disney, but it is not in my comfort zone. I am happy to be with daughter #2 at the National USA Jump Rope Championship. I never get to chaperone secular trips so this is kind of fun to just be a mom and not a pastor or overly responsible adult. 

I am realizing in these first 36 hours with only two hours of sleep that I have huge gaps of talent.

Things outside my skill set:

• Heat
• Braiding hair on a moving bus
• Standing in line without whining or singing 80s songs
• Sleeping in hotel rooms (even though the hotel room was a welcome relief to the five hours spent in the playroom in the lobby at the Disney Resort). I've given up on germ issues and just wallow in public bathrooms now.
• Heat
• Sitting next to a ten year old on a six hour flight who chomped his gum and kicked me the entire time. Around 2:00 am I believe I might have stared at him with some disdain because he curled up closer to his mother.
• Watching Men In Black 3 without weeping through the whole thing because I know in the end his dad dies. Maybe that's why the kid kept kicking me on the plane.
• Heat
• Sitting still and waiting for something to happen
• Following directions
• Listening to Mickey Mouse's voice in the playroom for five hours while trying to sleep without screaming or punching the screen.

Coping skills:

Coffee: I packed a coffee maker and 24 oz. of ground coffee. I think this will see me through the trip. It might be an addiction, but it keeps me from punching Mickey.

Sleep: I know the power of naps. I also know that I have to bring my own sleeping pad, pillow, and sleeping bag. I'm a freak, but I've figured out how to sleep as a freak.

Humor: I'm so slap happy that I'm laughing at pretty much everything that comes my way. It's a little disturbing for the people around me, but that keeps them questioning my sanity.

Mr. Potato Head and 80s songs: We're staying at Pop Century Resort, which has gigantic icons from each decade peppering the lawn. We're sleeping in the 80s section so Ah-ha, Men at Work, Wham, Cyndi Lauper, and all the other greats are playing on loudspeakers a regular basis. It prepares me well for the line standing. 

There is a huge Mr. And Mrs. Potato Head in the middle courtyard. They are fabulous, but I knew I was getting loopy when I caught myself talking to them. Then I realized how comforting I found their presence. Then I started to think about what a fascinating image for God Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head could be. Then I went to my room and got my two hours of sleep.

Skee ball: What can't be fixed with skee ball? Way cheaper than therapy and available in our hotel for only a small fee.

Perspective: I get to step out of all the other roles in my life that consume me and be a mom to just one child and a goofball to several others. It's a huge gift even with heat and a heightened awareness of alligators.

Responsibility

I'm learning a slew of crazy history reading about how Wonder Woman was born. The development of the polygraph test, the fight for women's right to vote, and the campaign for sex ed and birth control are all woven together in her story. 

I knew women were arrested for protesting for the right to vote, but I had no idea the persecution of women who tried to teach other women how not to have children. 

A hundred years ago, it was illegal to tell a woman how to prevent pregnancy. 

That kind of blows my mind. It also raises my blood pressure  as Alaska tries to put restrictions on teaching youth about sex. Knowledge does not make people run out and engage risky behavior; it actually allows us to make choices.

I'm thankful for knowing how to prevent pregnancy, but I also grieve that eugenics came as part of the birth control package. Some of the most progressive and liberal folks started to advocate for a better society through selective breeding. I can't help but wonder with all the research into DNA and genetic makeup whether we saddle new couples with too much information about how their children might be and engage a new kind of eugenics.

So eugenics sounded like a good idea in theory. I like the idea of breeding out whining or talking on cell phones in public bathrooms. And like most good ideas it turned into a way of brutalizing people. 

Helpful hint: Always suspect ideas proposed by those with power to take responsibility for and fix those we consider a mess. 

My brother and I illustrate well why eugenics doesn't work in practice either. We have the same genetic material and we are radically different, but my folks love us both. We play very different roles in society. My brother fixes computers and frightens workers into not opening attachments. I have a job that produces good conversation, but not a lot of measurable outcome. We approach the world in contrasting ways and there are times I think about fixing him.

Then I remember this great story in the Bible about brothers. Cain and Abel go for a walk and only Cain comes back. Another helpful hint: If your sibling asks you to go for a walk in the Bible, it doesn't turn out well.

Cain kills Abel out of jealousy, out of trying to make himself right, out of boredom. Who knows. It seems pretty drastic, but RISK almost brought Mike and I to that point more than once. The part of the story that sticks out is when God is questioning Cain and Cain responds with "Am I my brother's keeper?" 

He just killed his brother. The irony is pretty thick and God gets it, but not us. We pull out this line and make it a motto. Good Christian folks think "keeping our brothers" is a righteous thing.

It's not. We are never called to keep people, we are called to love them. Taking responsibility for people, unless they truly are incapable, is not Jesus' call to us. The definition of responsibility is: the state or fact of having a duty to deal with something or of having control over someone.

That's a far cry from love. It's control and as fun as control is, I'm pretty sure it's not a fruit of the spirit.

We've had lots of children come through so far this summer with the lunches and they all seem like such good little projects to get working on. But then I remember people aren't projects.

I had a line in my last sermon about the demoniac at Gerasene that I thought was brilliant.  

Demons make us see other people as tools for our pleasure or problems to fix or pests to ignore instead of mysteries to encounter and love.

Brilliant moments are rare this summer so I have to hold onto them. 

I'm not responsible. 

I'm not my brother's keeper. 

I'm called to encounter and love the mystery in my brothers and sisters.

Rain

I love rain.

That's why I live in a rainforest.

We have many words for rain in Southeast Alaska, but my favorite kind of rain is a soft drizzle. I enjoy sunny days greatly and downpours are thrilling, but a gentle mist is when my soul is most at rest.

I thought about doing a top ten list of why I love rain and then I realized lists are silly and only useful in the morning when I'm organizing my day.

So these are just my ramblings about why rain is a delight:

I'm allergic to the sun.
This is probably a big one. I break out in a rash, get sick to my stomach and a horrible headache when I get too much sun. It made for awesome family trips to Florida where I got to wear long sleeves, pants and a hat. My eldest inherited this fabulous gift from me.

The best songs involve rain.
All my favorite songs either involve rain or coffee.

• Robert Earl Keen Not a Drop of Rain  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlsBiAIQ3jM
• Andrew Duhon  It's Gonna Take a Little Rain  https://vimeo.com/37927947
• Dar Williams The Beauty of the Rain  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRoOqKf7uds
• Lyle Lovett If You Were to Wake Up https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITgB8vcuIlE

I love Kierkegaard
The Danish theologian Kierkegaard had issues and I'm way oversimplifying his theology of despair, but I'll do it anyway. Kierkegaard talks about the despair of possibility and the despair of impossibility. There is the paralysis of too much opportunity and the paralysis of no choices.

I feel like sunny days are slightly despairing. They offer too much. I feel torn between a million things that I want to do so I suck all there is out of the day. My crabbiest days tend to be the sunny ones. I will also admit that weeks of being socked in with the clouds can lead one to despair, but at least you can curl up with a good book.

A day of drizzle is a fine tension of opportunity and limits. The day does not expect too much out of me but still offers a loveliness that should be explored and enjoyed.

Drizzle keeps life in perspective
Sunny days throw everything out of perspective. The breathtaking beauty still catches me off guard and leaves me speechless, but it doesn't seem fair to have such amazing grandeur when there is so much horrific sorrow in the world.

A day of drizzle allows me to hold the sorrow of the slaying in Orlando in my heart along with the beauty and joy of life. It keeps the paradox of existence balanced without allowing me to slide too far in one direction.

There is grief and joy wound up together in life and nothing captures that better than a good day of drizzle where the mountain caps peek out of the clouds modestly and the tiny wildflowers stand humbly with drops of rain on their leaves.

Rain settles the dust
I would bottle the smell of rain if I could. It's my favorite scent as the earth is settled and the dust vanquished.

I love rain.

Not as much as my chicken, who I continue to
cuddle even though she is huge, but still a great deal. I appreciate the sun, but it's the rain that keeps me sane.

Jobs

So one of my most charming traits, besides my ability to fart with my hands, juggle everything that stands still, and yell at my children in German, is my talent finding worth in folks and work for folks.

The people around me might not find it that charming because it normally means I will ask them to do a task, but I only ask because I love them and think they can. 

I realized my propensity to find work for everyone today when I tried to put Donna Walker's bodyguard to work. Mrs. Walker is a delightful woman and the wife of our governor. She loved hanging out with the children, who knew bodyguards didn't do that?

 I asked him a few questions about what he liked to do and he was pretty vague answering. Then I suggested several fabulous tasks, like, asking the youth questions, or helping in the reading room, or working with the garden. 

He gave me a look. 

That's when it finally clicked. He has a job and working in the garden with children is not part of it.

When we went to Cuba moons ago, I will never forget visiting a senior home where an aged revolutionary stood in the middle of the garden with a carrot held high saying, "As long as I can, I will work and give back to my country, my people." 

One of the problems I see with so many of the work requirements in peoples' brains and in public assistance systems, is we want to see people work, but we don't do anything to help folks feel like they matter and they are worth anything. We don't do a good job as a community investing in folks so they in turn feel invested in the community.

We dismiss people and think we are doing a favor by relieving them of work. We demean folks and demand work that often leaves people more disconnected from family and community.

I know that tying our sense of worth and work together can be destructive, but I also think there is a basic fusion where we find meaning in our work and to find work we need to feel like we have meaning. 

There are few folks who participate in life at our church without participating in the mission and work of the congregation. To steal Nadia Bolz-Weber's description of a healthy church, I really do believe we are a "community of producers instead of consumers."

That's a huge leap for a church or anyone in a community. We change from "what will you give me or do for me" into offering what we have and trusting the folks around us to do the same. 

I love summer lunch. It's exhausting and hard work for lots of folks, but forming relationships, filling a need, seeing kids and families pitch in to also help and own the program makes life a bit more meaningful and rich. 

So if you don't want to feel meaningful or get put to work, and if you want to be around me, you better learn to juggle because I can be easily distracted too.

Fragile

I am sarcastic and ornery because I am so stinking sensitive. I've had to come up with some coping skills for feeling the world so deeply and in my mind these are better than drinking heavily or throwing myself into complete busyness. 

I've learned how to ration the pain I let in or else I live with an aching heart all the time. The best counter to pain is laughter so I find odd things humorous or make normal things funny. It's my secret to not melting down or weeping through life.

My mom used to ration how much sadness I was allowed. I could only read one Flowers in the Attic book a month so I wouldn't carry the weight of the siblings stuck in the attic through all teen encounters. It took me a couple of days to recover from reading one and I would mope and cry randomly. Not pleasant for anyone.

I'm thinking all of this because I've fallen in love. 

My sweet Ptari-dactyl curls up on my bosom and sleeps. She snuggles and matches my heartbeat and breathing. This has confirmed in my mind that I'm related to Gonzo: nobody knows what I really am but they suspect I'm an alien, my twisted sense of humor and now I'm in love with a chicken.

Who cuddles with a chicken? 

Here's the problem with loving a chicken: everything wants to kill them. She's still just a baby and safe in the house, but pretty soon the smell and size will make us kick them outside.

Then, there is a huge list of predators. We know having lost four chickens a couple of years ago. We're smarter now and will protect them better, but I know chickens do not have long life spans.

Why am I throwing my soul into a relationship I know won't last and will only cause me pain?

I have no idea, except I'm hoping the tedium of cleaning up after her will break me of it. 

That's the funny thing about love. We can commit to loving and tending others, and we know from the outset it will be work. I'm kind of a big supporter of arranged marriages. If you start out with the commitment and move into the emotion, then you don't get your soul crushed. 

Or, as often happens in life, we randomly and unexpectedly grow attached to another being for no particular reason and you are bound outside control or reason. Bound together knowing there will be hurt; gut wrenching hurt and probably a lot of clean up.

I know this is way over investment with a chicken, but I tend to over invest. When I love, it is deeply and completely. I fall in love with people all the time, but I can fool myself into thinking I'll have them around for a while. Heck, I fall in love with trees and I will weep if I see one of my favorites succumb to a storm. 

One of the few Miles Davis songs I like is, "I fall in love too easily." That's me. It makes my life raw and fragile, but it also fills me with joy and connection with life (except for rats-those are nasty). 

So if I am snarky or tease you, it's my little bit of shield that gives my heart some space to disconnect. It's a rich and lovely life, but I know what happens to chickens (like all living creatures) and I need to stop letting her sleep on me while I read. But she's so cute and cuddly, I'll probably just keep loving her. 

Crazy

I love every living creature in my house, but sometimes they make me crazy. 

Here's a fun family activity that encourages group bonding: name each other's most annoying traits.

I might have been feeling a little stressed and exhausted this weekend because the list came easily:

Guinea Pig: Poop. All the time. All over the place.

Frog:   Inability to control his excitement. We tried to introduce fish that were supposed to live happily with him, except he got too happy. He clouded the water in his excitement and killed them all. I thought I'd be safe introducing a zombie statue into his tank, but that got him equally as excited. Now he lives alone singing a love song and it makes us sad.

Chickens: We're in the honeymoon period so they are completely adorable and have no annoying traits.

Cassie: She is a golden doodle and princess and slightly neurotic. She barks at the ravens who mimic the chihuahuas who live behind us. It's a cacophony of annoyance not to be missed.

Elijah: Legos. They are everywhere. I threaten to sweep them up and I'm sure I have, but I know what will happen. Someday he will want to pay off his student loans from his philosophy and theater major and will come up with the brilliant idea to sell off all his Lego sets, except they all will be missing one piece. And I will know where all those one pieces are.

Sophie: Towels. Wet towels. In the middle of the floor. All floors. All rooms. At least she likes to bathe.

Hannah: Rubber bands. It's not enough to shell out $7000 for braces, you also have to live with tiny rubber bands on all open floor space not covered with towels or Legos.

Kirt: Gum. If I could live in Singapore where chewing gum is a $3000 fine, I think I would. I hate with a burning hate the sound of chomping gum. Seriously, if you are going to chew gum, then keep your mouth closed or just suck the flavor out and then spit it into a trash receptacle. 

Me: Empty glasses, dental floss, and earplugs. How do people live with me? I carry a glass of water or cup of coffee around until I get distracted and then leave it. I make myself crazy. I won't even give any details about the dental floss and earplugs because I'm disgusted and they're mine.

Hannah clued me into a great insight about annoyances. 

She used to come home from sleepovers and get very irritated with her siblings and I would tell her to take a nap. Her reply was, "Why do I have to take a nap, when they are the ones being annoying?" I would remind her that they are the same people we know and love all the time but you're too tired to be gracious.

Sometimes I need a nap.

I need to remember the power of naps because sometimes I burn my candle at both ends with a blowtorch in the middle. 

Sometimes I just need to rest and remember how much I adore all those who surround me. Exhaustion and stress are not fertile places for grace and love. 

It doesn't mean I will stop yelling about Legos, towels, or rubber bands. It doesn't mean I will stop putting in my earplugs when someone is chewing gum and leave them in some random place. But it does mean I'll keep all that stuff in perspective. Annoyances are such a small part of our relationships, don't give them more power than they should have. 

Because I know once a relationship breaks down, all you're left with is the resentment and irritation. Then, everything makes you crazy and not even a nap will fix that.

Wonder Woman

The closest Kirt and I ever came to breaking up was playing football together at a church event when we were dating. He wouldn't throw the ball to me because I was a girl and might drop it. I got so mad, I stormed out and swore I'd never talk to him again.

Yay. We figured it out.

I hang out with men a lot in my life. And here's what keeps me sane: I think about my relationships with men kind of like interfaith dialogues. We recognize we come to the table with a wide range of perspectives and prejudices about the nature of the world and our role in it, so we give each other grace and space. We learn to listen, ask good questions, show respect and state clearly what we expect and need from the other.

In other words, men are weird so nothing can be assumed. I think I have some great friendships with guys and I'm thankful for them.

Where I struggle is with women. I have some amazing female friends and I'm incredibly thankful for them, but I find that these relationships take more awareness and work.

Relations between women are kind of like conversations between churches. There can be a weird undercurrent of distrust, tension, and competition. We are sometimes similar enough that the differences become more of a point of conflict and contest.

I don't know. I just know sometimes I feel an unease with women that I don't know how to dissipate.

A couple observations based on our recent stretch of sunny weather and Wonder Woman:

WEATHER: Whenever the weather is sunny in Juneau, I hear folks say things like, "We're going to use up all our pretty days and it will rain all summer." Now, I'm not an expert on weather and please don't ever try to explain it to me, but I'm pretty sure there is no weather god in charge of the nice day quota for Alaska. I'm almost positive there is no spreadsheet somewhere balancing how well we've behaved and how many nice days we deserve.

It does feel like there is a limit sometimes and it's hard not to feed into the sense of scarcity, but I know that's not how the world works.

I think the same thing can happen between women. We begin to think there are only so many slots available for woman of the year so if you succeed then that diminishes my chances. There's only so much awesomeness available for women so I need to belittle and critique the women around me so folks realize how fabulous I am. 

It's insane, but we fall into the trap time and again. 

I think I'm fabulous and a failure. It's my good Lutheran mix. When I do something well, I say out loud to myself, "Good job Tari." Hannah pointed out to me this is not normal. I told her it's my way of staying healthy. I'm trying hard not to look for praise and value from outside myself so when I do something well I acknowledge it and move on. I am also often willing to say out loud when I have a bad idea or mess something up. It's okay not to be fantastic at everything.

It keeps my competitive spirit in check.

I also try to remind the women around me how beautiful and strong they are. I'm amazed at what women do and I don't find it threatening to tell them how fabulous they are.

WONDER WOMAN: This brings me to Wonder Woman. We are having so much fun watching old episodes. (I am going to point out one fascinating observation about gender. Fred Meyers offers adult male superhero Underoos, but any Wonder Woman outfit looks like I should be standing on a street corner. Sometimes I just want Underoos for when I spin around in the living room with the kids.) 

My favorite Wonder Woman episodes are the oldest ones when she fights other women. In the midst of those fights, Wonder Woman always encourages the other women to stop fighting her. She reminds them they are not enemies and should not be used as tools for oppressing each other. 

That was an important message for the 70s as women started to emerge in non-traditional jobs and relations were not always friendly, but it continues to resonate today.

What makes Wonder Woman absolutely fabulous, besides the tiara, is not that she can do everything all on her own, but the phenomenal grace and space she gives the men and women around her. She is truly a character who is beautiful on the inside and out.

I still don't always know how to navigate my relationships with women or men, but I'm hearing that whole idea about grace and space. When I start to feel the unease, remember to listen, ask questions, speak clearly, and remind others what is lovely in them.