Don’t flay the sheep.

Save my Show!

Help! I need all of my readers to start watching TV!

I just heard that Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, the new TV show that I really like, is down from the 12 million viewers who watched its premiere to 8 million viewers this past Monday.

Here’s why we need to save this show: it has one very interesting, very complicated, and very Christian character. Harriet, comedian and Christian (and Southern Baptist, at that), is not your typical cookie-cutter Christian character. She’s complex and intelligent and the kind of person I’d like to meet. She prays like Hauerwas (thanks to Meg for pointing this out).

And last week, she told the most beautiful story about converstion and comedy. It seems she decided to give her life to Jesus th day that she made her pastor laugh during a church play. How wonderful!

Did I mention she’s from Michigan?

I know there aren’t enough of you to swing the Neilsen ratings. But it’s worth a shot.

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Lullabies for Zora

Erik and I were convinced that good lullaby music was already present in our pre-Zora music collection. Here’s a partial list of “lullabies” I compiled for her this week:

Oh, Bury Me Not (Johnny Cash)

When You Dream (Barenaked Ladies)

Adoramus Te (Beth Nielsen Chapman) (Zora’s current favorite–she likes the resonant alto and bass voices)

Hymn (Jars of Clay)

The Long Day Is Over (Norah Jones)

Grace (U2)

Ice Cream (Sarah McLachlan)

We’d love more suggestion for music to add to the list!

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Prayer from a Former Life

My return from leave includes the task of finally unpacking boxes that have been earmarked for my office. Some of these boxes have been waiting since I packed up my teacher’s desk over a year ago. (I didn’t have room for much during my year-long residency position because I just had a cubicle.)

In one box, I found the prayer I wrote for the beginning of the school year, 2004-2005. I was honored to give it, and happy to be at a school that started the year with a prayer. My “year” is starting a bit late because of my maternity leave. There are parts of this prayer that I need right now:

Holy Lord, God of new beginnings, this is your day and your year and we are thankful for them. Hear our prayers as we start this school year.

Father God, we thank you for your continual care for your people. Watch us through this year. Be with students, parents, teachers, staff, administrators, in all our tasks. Help us to hear your call in our everyday lives.

We praise you, Creator God, for the wonders of your world: for rocks and trees; for insects and sunrises; for birds in the morning, and the moon at night; for human community, art, and ingenuity. Help us to see yout handiwork in every class. May we meet you in biology, poetry, music, and geometry.

Lord Jesus Christ, unite us to you. Give us your patience and strength, kindness and honesty. Fill us with God’s grace and truth. Give us open hearts for the people around us–students, parents, teachers. Help us to love others even when they disaapoint us, and to love ourselves even if we fail to meet our own expectations.

Spirit of wisdom and comfort, fill us with understanding and knowledge. Sustain us through the year. Be present when we are joyful and satisfied, and when we can barely see our way through another week. Quiet the fears and worries of everyone of us.

These prayers and all other, Lord, we place in the strong hands of Jesus, confident that you hear every word.

Amen.

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Writing “Loving the Nearest Neighbor”

Tough Bible passages are par for the course when you’re a preacher. If you’ve read my most recent sermon, you know that it was a bit of a doozy.

Pastor Carl (head pastor at Fox Valley) decided to do a sermon series on the Ten Commandments this fall. By the luck of the draw (analogies to Jonah getting the short stick apply here…) I got # 7: adultery. It was my first Sunday back after maternity leave. Adultery was about the last thing on my mind at that point. (As I said to the Wednesday Bible Study group that looks at the upcoming sermon text, “With a new baby, who has the time for adultery?)

I knew this would be a tough one to write, especially after I picked the Matthew passage to partner with the commandment. I needed that passage because I think it shows how Jesus expands the definition of adultery beyond the man-owns-wife property defintion of the Old Testament. But, adding that passage meant that the whole divorce issue entered into the picture.

The easiest thing about the sermon was simply being able to say, “Adultery–don’t do it.” The hardest thing was dealing with the definition of adultery, and wittling down all of the positive aspects of the commandment.

As I said in the sermon, there are more sermons in thesse texts. But I’m not sure the congregation (or the preacher, for that matter) were ready for a 4 hour sermon. Here are a few of the issues I wish I could have preached on more:

1. Divorce, obviously. I had so little time to talk about it that I’m not sure I was able to say enough about it, and to say those things with enough grace so that the sermon had smoother edges (softer places to land, as my Dad put it) for people who are struggling with divorces around themselves.

2. What is marriage for? A huge topic, a life-time’s worth of discussion and practice for those of us who are larried.

3. Single people. I wish I could have read the whole of Meg’s blog post, and the comments that followed to the congregation. It’s a good sermon in itself. I think that God uses all our relationships to grow us into the people we’re supposed to be.

In the end, I am grateful for the mercy of a congregation and of God toward preachers. Stepping into a pulpit remains one of the most intimidating, God-fearing moments in my life. I am awed that God places me in that position, I am awed that people listen (and sometimes I question their wisdom for listening to me), and I am awed whenever I re-read a sermon later and find that it makes at least some sense.

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Loving the Nearest Neighbor

• Exodus 20:14; Mark 10:1-12
• Fox Valley Presbyterian Church
• October 8, 2006

A true confession to begin the sermon. (That ought to get your attention in a sermon about adultery!) I spend too much time reading advice columns. If I’m busy, the “Ask Amy” column might be the only thing I read in the Tribune. When our home computer died last month, the thing I missed the most was access to the weekly “Dear Prudence” column on Slate.com.

Why do I love these columns so much? Because I, like Amy and Prudence, am in a profession where advice is something I sometimes give? No, the truth is a bit seamier than that. I’ve noticed that a good third, maybe even half, of the articles are in some way about relationships and sex. Other people’s relationships and sex. People I don’t know. And, like a nosy, small town gossip, I’m intrigued by the information.

I might be a little too comfortable reading about sex in these columns, but when it comes talking about sex in church, when this commandment rolls around, I’m uncomfortable with it. I suspect a lot of you are too.

I’m uncomfortable with the commandment because in our culture we are perfectly happy to talk about sex, as long as that talk doesn’t get too personal. My advice-column-addiction is a great illustration of this. I have no problem being interested in the sex lives of people I don’t know. I have no problem with those details showing up next to the comic strips. But, when it comes to myself and the people I am closest to, I am uncomfortable with the idea that sex is public.

We live in a culture that is unquestionably infused with sex. But at the same time, we live in a culture that says sex is only between the people involved, and the community has no say in what happens. We are free to speculate about Brangelina’s or TomKat’s sexual unions, to peep into the bedrooms of the Desperate Housewives, to look at just about anything we want online. Political parties may use sex as a battle cry. I can read my Ask Amy and Dear Prudence columns. But when it comes to my bedroom, your bedroom, it’s none of the community’s business.

Do not commit adultery. With this commandment, sex is placed squarely in the realm of community. It comes right in the middle of commandments about living with and loving our neighbors: Do not steal. Do not lie. Do not murder. Somehow, God is tying our sex-lives to loving not just our nearest neighbor, but all of our neighbors.

In the culture of Ancient Israel, the connection of adultery to preservation of community was fairly obvious. The specific definition of adultery was a little different for men and for women. For a man, it meant sexual intercourse with any married woman who was not his wife (note that this leaves room for sex with single women…), but for a married woman it meant sex with any man who was not her husband. This preserved community—women were supposed to be the unsoiled property of their husbands. That sexist, patriarchal legacy leaves many people wondering if this commandment has outlived its usefulness. Do not murder, do not steal, those carry weight for all times and places. But in our egalitarian, liberated society, maybe this commandment has no place.

The problem with throwing the commandment out on that basis is that it misses the point that the commandments are not just a list of “don’ts”. They are also a list of “dos”: instructions for living lives of gratitude to God.

The Pharisees’ challenge to Jesus approaches the commandments as a list of “don’ts”. They want to know what one can’t do as a way to define what one can do. They ask, “Is divorce permissible?”

But Jesus takes the answer in a different direction: the Pharisees are asking about marriage as it is, scarred by human sin. Jesus’ answer is about what God intends marriage to be.

This is a tricky passage: Jesus statement about divorce, remarriage and adultery was shocking then and it is shocking today. There’s another sermon or two there…and this is not intended to be a sermon about divorce.

But notice these things about his answer.

First, Jesus’ answer shows progress away from a sexist interpretation of marriage. Men and women are held responsible for their actions in marriage. And, women, not just men, are protected from promises broken too easily.

Jesus also says that the laws about divorce are accommodations to the reality that we live in a sinful, fallen world. God’s intention was not for marriages to fall apart. Jesus broadens the definition of adultery: the boundary lines for adultery are not a sexual act, but encompass the preservation of all commitments made in marriage. Divorce is a breach of any of those commitments. This does not mean that God cannot or will not forgive. Divorce is the most extreme way in which those commitments are broken. Sin, whether it is our own, a partners, or even the sin that exists in the fallen world around us, has scarred the relationship beyond repair, and the covenant is broken.

Sex is at the heart of adultery, just like sex is at the heart of marriage. But neither adultery nor marriage are limited to sex. Sexuality is one of those areas where we are prone to being dishonest with ourselves. If you’re not actually having intercourse with someone, if a relationship is not physical, if it’s not even a relationship with a real person, but just a little innocent over-stimulation courtesy of the internet, is it really adultery?

The truth is that the commandments are right to place not just sex but our broader sexuality and our marriages in the midst of the community. We take our marriage vows here, in the community. We pledge as community to care for these marriages. And so, we should talk about sex in this community.

We need this commandment, and we need the community to help us live it out.

This commandment is not just about who you may or may not sleep with. This command is a call to protect and preserve marriage, your own and others, and to respect what God intended marriage to be.

In our current cultural context, I know that last statement sounds like the beginnings of a moral-political-rant, like I am about to raise up a certain form of marriage as righteous. But if there is a crisis in marriage in our time and place (and, honestly, the statistics aren’t so good…), yelling about who marries whom misses the point entirely…the problem is how we view the inside of marriage: what marriage is for, what sex is all about, how to love your nearest neighbor. Without having these things straight, we cannot follow the commandment.

My friend Meg, a wise, witty, and often irreverent seminary student, a future fabulous-pastor, would probably protest being given expert-status in a sermon on adultery: as a 20-something-single-woman, she does not exactly have the clout to speak from experience. But, reflecting after a course on marriage, she wrote the following:

Marriage is a gift from God.
God’s gifts are not for our comfort.
(You did not hear that wrong: God’s gifts are NOT for our comfort.)
God’s gifts are for our redemption.
God goes to exceedingly great lengths to accomplish our redemption.
One of God’s great lengths may be our marriages.

Try writing that on the next wedding congratulations card you send out! We are quick, when we celebrate marriage, to mention the “great gift” part. We are not so quick to acknowledge that marriage is not always a comfort, and that Christian marriage, like our experience of God’s redeeming work, as part of God’s redeeming work, often comes by way of growing pains.

Marriage attaches us to another person not just as a sexual partner. We are meant to be companions in every possible way. Intense companionship is not easy. The idea that marriage is not for our comfort becomes all too real after you’ve been married for awhile. It turns out that the intense experience of living so close to someone let’s you see them at their best AND at their worst.

The ethicist Lewis Smedes says, “no one marries the right person.”

In some mysterious way, with some combination of our inner desires and God’s guiding hand, the person we marry becomes a catalyst for our growth and development into the person God intends us to be. They do this by bringing out the best in us, but they also do this by bringing out the worst in us. It is when we stick with the marriage that we truly see growth.

This is not what society tells us about marriage. It’s similar, but subtly different. Society says we are meant to be “self-fulfilled” in our marriages. Self-fulfillment is about our own good and enrichment. We get married because it will be good for us, it will stimulate our growth. We stay married for the same reasons. But when the marriage is no longer fulfilling to us—when the sex isn’t what it ought to be; when the relationship takes too much from our own emotional stores; when the commitment limits our individual potential—then it can be discarded.

The Christian view of marriage is not self-fulfillment, but covenant keeping. Marriages are covenants made between two people. Covenants have to be kept. They are not set in stone for all time—the agreement must be respected and nurtured by both sides. (And this is why everything I am saying about growth and sticking with difficult marriages does not apply in cases of enormous breaches of that covenant, like abuse.)

When we publicly make these commitments in front of God and in front of our community, the commitment becomes part of our identity. The future will bring change, but when that change comes, the commitment we made is meant to be an un-changing part of who we are.

We are meant to grow in our marriages, and growth does not happen without change, and change is not always comfortable. There are times in any marriage when the person we marry is the worst person for us—the person who can bring up the things that have hurt us in our past, the places where our past growth and development was stunted.

And this is not a bad thing. The security of a covenanted relationship gives us a space to work on becoming the person God intends us to be. But we cannot experience that growth unless we stay in the haven of that covenanted relationship. Bailing out when things get tough means that we cheat ourselves of the healing God wants us to experience. Like Meg said, marriage is one of God’s gifts, and those gifts are meant not primarily for comfort, but for our redemption. Our growth is not for self-fulfillment, but part of God’s fulfillment.

The sexual center of a marriage is the place where trust grows and blossoms so that we can stay with each other through tremendous hurt and sorrow. Violations to that center can take many forms: physical and emotional affairs, pornography, spilling secrets, emotional distance, violence and abuse.

We are bombarded with temptations to violate that center. For some of us, those temptations tend more toward the emotional. We have friendships that slip too close to the intimacy we ought to have with our spouse. We withhold large parts of who we are from that person who ought to be closest to us.

And for some of us, those temptations tend more toward the physical. It is all too easy to find sexual fulfillment in places other than our marriage.

There is a sketch by comedian Dave Chappelle where he imagines what the internet would be like if it was a real place. He steps into a mall, headed for a specific store, but is sidetracked by stores, attractions, and salespeople approaching him. Most of them are offering some form of pornography or virtual sex experience. His conclusion after a few hours in this mall: “If the internet was a real place, it would be disgusting. I’d never go there.”

On the internet or not, whatever our individual temptations toward adultery are, it is not easy, but if our marriages are meant to be tools of grace, if our spouses are meant to agents of the grace by which God shapes and molds us into the people we were created to be, we must maintain the safety and trust at the core of our marriages.

That maintenance is not just the task of isolated couples—it is one of the things the whole community is called to. It is a call to maintain openness and accountability about our marriages with the people God has placed with us on this journey. It is a call to talk about sexuality as the good gift that it is. It is a call, whether we are married or single, to cultivate appropriate fidelity in all of our relationships. It is a call to open ourselves to the growth that comes from faithfully sticking with the people we are committed to.

It’s an intimidating task, but God does not leave it up to our willpower alone. It is only through God’s grace that we keep this, or any, commandment.

And with that grace, God is our ultimate model of faithfulness in covenant: God who pursues us, even when we turn away, Jesus Christ who gave himself for love of us, and the spirit who remains with us in all circumstances.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

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Cloud of Witnesses

Two weeks after Zora was born, I initiated her into the joys of life as a pastor’s kid by dragging her to a Presbytery meeting. I had to go as part of my process of transferring to a new Presbytery. Talk about bringing a kid up in the church: between that early trip and her continuing tendency to raise her arms in the air like she’s blessing the congregation, her vocational fate might be sealed…(although, the CD that’s been putting her to sleep for the last three days is traditional Catholic hymns.)

I am happy, though, to begin introducing her to the cloud of witnesses. Whatever she decides to do with her life, I hope there is a day when she describes her faith-journey to people and says, “My journey with God’s people started early. When I was two weeks old, my Mom dragged me to Presbytery…”

Last week, I got a beautiful, but bittersweet, reminder of my own journey with God’s people. The CRC(NA) is celebrating its 150th year in 2007. As part of the celebration, they commissioned a painting by Chris Stoffel Overvoorde, “Grace Through Every Generation.” A small denomination might be stifling at times, but one of the blessings is the rich connection I have to so many people in this painting.

There are pastors I know who have influenced me directly: Mary, one of the only female pastors I knew when I started seminary. Rev. Tony, who cared about the city. Bob, who critiqued (kindly and well) my sermons during my ordination exam. People who taught me: Neal, whose preaching makes my jaw drop. Mariano, who gave me a passing grade on my Greek comprehensive exam. Emily, who also taught my mom. There are other more random connections: Stanley, the writer who taught my college writing professor. Bas, who went to seminary with my Grandpa, and passed on historic wisdom to my husband in preparation for leading a trip to Turkey with high school students. Louis, whose dry and dense theology I had to read in seminary. There are plenty of people in that picture who I count as friends, and many who I’ve sat with at table. It’s a picture of a cloud of witnesses that has made me the person I am, and shaped my faith and my relationship with God.

But it is bittersweet, because two weeks ago, I lost my place as a minister in the CRC(NA). I was honorably released to serve in the PC(USA). Now, I know ministry is about serving God where you are called, and that all churches are truly part of the Church of Jesus. But it is still sad to leave behind such a rich part of my life.

As I was looking at “Grace Through Every Generation,” I found one other person I know, another woman who has had to set aside some of her CRC(NA) identity in order to find a way and a place to serve in ministry. That is also one of the representative places around this table—some of us were nurtured here, and are called to other places.

The greatest comfort I have in all this is something a Presbyterian minister said to me a few years ago when I was contemplating the “switch.” Wherever I wind up, whatever my denominational identity is, the places I’ve been will always be an important part of who I am. Maybe that’s obvious, but it’s something I needed to hear then when I began this transition, and it’s something I need to hear now as the transition comes to an end.

And as a reminder of where I’ve been, the little print of “Grace Through Every Generation” is on my magnet board in the office now. I might even get it framed alongside my seminary diploma!

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All dressed up with no place to go (or, how to Sabbath with a baby)

The title refers to Zora, not me. I’m still living in pajamas (project for next week: figure out what clothes I fit in!) Zora is well dressed (I was too curious to wait for a better occasion to try this little outfit on her), but not for church.

I originally thought that by today we would make it back to church. But, older and wiser family members have pointed out how tired I actually am, Erik keeps reminding me that I did have major surgery (and, as my Mom said, it’s on equipment I might want to use again, so I need to make sure it heals as well as possible). So, we are at home for the day again. Probably a wise choice, considering that I have yet to walk more than 2 blocks.

I’m thinking about the idea of Sabbath today, and especially of Sabbath with a newborn. Most days this week have been the same. What would make today different? I’m a big advocate of the idea of Sabbathing, making Sunday (or, for clergy-types, another designated day off) differently devoted than any other day. But I myself don’t Sabbath very well. It’s a pattern I haven’t quite worked out yet. Do I stay home, go for long walks, stay away from any forms of commerce, read the Bible, be with family, eat a good sit-down meal, eat less, exercise, take naps, pray? What works best for the setting I’m in, the job that I do, etc.
And now a baby adds a whole new dimension. This morning, I’m thinking about what Sabbath will mean with Zora. Many of the ideas developed around Sabbath seem completely impractical with a newborn. Eugene Peterson’s long walks and picnics? Considering Zora’s reaction to the Baby Bjorn carrier yesterday, I don’t think we’ll be doing that anytime soon. A strict interpretation of “no work”? Sounds great to me, but Zora absolutely had to have that bath this morning, and right now I would probably attack anyone who tried to argue that breastfeeding is not work. Not to mention diapers. I’m wondering if too much of the thought about what it means to Sabbath has been developed by men who, by design, are much more capable of being physically detached from the needs of infants.
Eventually, Zora won’t be a newborn anymore, Erik and I will figure out what on earth we are doing, we’ll manage to get to church (next week is my new goal), and we’ll start to figure out what Sabbath means for our family.

For now, I am rolling around these quotes about spirituality and life with a newborn:

Living with an infant is an intense retreat with the power of breaking down the ego, opening the heart to the way things actually are, allowing the whole self to be present for a mystery unfolding. And the mystery unfolds with lightening speed, leaving new parents with a sense that every moment is a bit of cosmic foam tossed up by the waves of the universe, to be taken in right now, or lost forever…Parenting an infant can call us out of ourselves, into a different, more caring and connected way of being in the world.

Mary Wellemeyer

O Lord, my heart is not lifted up,
my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
too great and too marvellous for me.
But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
my soul is like the weaned child that is with me.
O Israel, hope in the Lord
from this time on and for evermore.

Psalm 131

* Yes, I know she’s not weaned, but I’ll take the feminine imagery I can find!

Thy holy wings, O Savior, spread gently o’er me
And let me rest securely through good and ill in thee,
Oh, be my strength and portion, my rock and hiding place,
And let my ev’ry moment be lived within thy grace.

Oh let me nestle near thee, within thy downy breast
Where I will find sweet comfort and peace within thy nest,
Oh close thy wings around me and keep me safely there,
For I am but a newborn and need thy tender care.

Oh, wash me in the waters of Noah’s cleansing flood.
Give me a willing spirit, a heart both clean and good,
Oh take into thy keeping thy children great and small,
And while we sweetly slumber, enfold us one and all.

– From the hymn “Thy Holy Wings,” Carolina Sandell-Berg (1,3) & Gracia Grindal (2)

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And the knitting part?

OK, time to get honest about the description of this blog.

I’ve always claimed that this blog is about knitting, among other things, and I had planned to track my knitting projects on the blog. But, that has never really happened.

So, here it goes–a list of what I am currently working on:

A short sleeved sweater for me that is almost nearly done, and should look great this fall. (Anyone think they can see a way this could work over a white blouse?)

A bib for Zora. The yarn is an amazing cotton silk blend. I think it is currently bigger than her head and torso combined. But she’s getting bigger (8lbs 7oz at the doctor yesterday!) But she needs bibs now…I’ve got to find a smaller pattern.

A hat for Zora. This will be a bonnet style cap with big bows that I need to attach yet at each ear.

A log cabin blanket for Zora.

A red and white cotton sweater vest for Zora that I started in March and have since decided to unravel.

Notice the theme here? One of the joys of babies is that they are so small! Knitting for them happens very quickly.

Just to make myself feel better, here are things that I recently completed knitting:

Many sets of thick-wool, quick knit baby slippers for friends who had babies along with me (welcome, Gracie, Julia, Lilly, and Tim and Heidi’s impending pumpkin!). Come to think of it, there’s an extra pair for Zora buried somewhere in my knitting bags…

A sweet little hat for one of those babies (when I got sick of the booties).

A bolero sweater for Zora. Erik picked the pattern and the yarn. It’s the best part of my favorite outfit she’s had on so far…

A little blue cardigan for Zora. I’d like to congratulate myself on using scrap yarn for this little number.

And then, the next few things I want to knit:

One of my favorite LYS (Local Yarn Shops, non-knitters) is going out of business. During my 5 days of fun false starts to labor, my Mom stopped in to buy me some yarn for a bib (see above), discovered the sad news, coupled with the great sale, and bought me a pile of yarn. Item number one from that pile–bamboo yarn (yes, 100% bamboo) in pink and straw yellow. Should be enough for a pretty magnificent sweater for…Zora! To make this even more fun, I should have some of that bib yarn left over for an edging or something to go on this sweater.

Variegated cotton/wool blend yarn in greens and blues from the sale. Perhaps a sweater or little pants for Zora.

Lace weight red alpaca yarn for a tank top for my Mom. (She buys me yarn to make her things. But alpaca is so nice to knit with that I can’t complain…) The joke here is that I plan to use all these skeins to make a tank top that comes from the book One Skein. But the skein used in that pattern was incredibly huge…incredibly…

A lovely yarn, wool cotton blend, natural dyes, the great find of our driving trip from Chicago to LA last summer, produced one of my favorite projects from last year, a hat and hand warmers. I have enough left to do something for Zora. I’d like to use the same lace pattern and maybe make her a little hat like mine. But I am only planning matching clothes for us because my hat is so wonderful that I cannot imagine denying her the pleasure of one of her own.

All of this brings up one frightening question: when do I plan to do this knitting? Right now, I sleep and feed the baby. Has my life changed forever so that I can no longer knit? Probably not, but I’ll have to find some new ways to fit it in!

Stay tuned for updates!

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She’s here!

Zora Jean arrived on August 24. Finally. (Maybe this is why we chose a name that begins with the last letter of the alphabet.) It was a big wait, and in the week and a half after she was due, we prepared for just about every possible type of arrival. At different points, we were actually scheduled for a C-section, then an induction, and I had false starts to labor. We kept packing up the suitcase, heading to the hopsital, and winding up with afternoons downtown or at my parents’ home. My Dad expressed the sentiment of the week leading up to her birth one afternoon as we pulled into the parking lot by their condo and he said, “Well, once again, we return to Oak Park, defeated.” (The poor man kept taking vacation days thinking she was about to arrive!)

I finally REALLY went into labor in time for us to arrive at the hopsital 15 minutes before we were scheduled for the induction. My amazing labor team (Mom, Dad, Erik, and Aunt Mary) was so wonderful that at one point the nurses were asking what class we took (none, but I did find choral training for breathing and yoga classes really helpful), and at another point Mom and Mary started discussing the idea of starting their own doula service. But, in spite of them and a lot of really good pushing and fabulous doctors and nurses, we had to have a C-section in the end. (This is about the most exausting combination possible for birth…)
So far, this is what we know about Zora:

• She’s a bit petite for a Schemper, but LONG. 22 inches. And, we know she is one of us because she has giant feet.
• Erik has been humming and singing to her. He says her favorites so far are the Doxology and “Will You Come and Follow Me.” She is definitely on a good start to being Reformed/Presbyterian in her preferences. (And how could she not be since her middle name is “Jean” and her church is in Geneva?)
• She likes her mom so much that she has been allowing me at least one 4 hour plus round of sleep a night for the last three nights. Also, she does not care that I have not taken a shower in a while, or that I was completely completely snowed by some sort of drug the anethesiologist gave me when I first met her. I’m still her favorite.
• Other than people, her favorite things are her hands. Also, she might be showing some tendencies toward pentecostalism because she keeps raising them in the air. Erik wonders if this could also be an early sign of skill in conductiong music.

So, for now, we will just keep getting to know her. And, I think she’s waking up and I just missed the window for that shower…

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Great Quote

“There’s a great deal to object to in American society, and it doesn’t take a Muslim to perceive it.”

–John Updike, in an interview on his new book, Terrorist.

I heard this in an radio interview last week and wrote it on the available paper (plate) in my kitchen.

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