Preventing Grace
One
My weather app says that it’s cloudy right now, and like 40 degrees. Apparently it’s not snowing. So whatever is falling from the sky and blanketing the landscape must be just clouds. Yesterday, looking out the window in disgust and horror, Marigold cried out, “I hate the snow now.” Yes, my child, we all hate the snow now. Probably even more, the people getting married tomorrow likely hate the snow. And perhaps all the birds who are this minute calling frantically one to another.
Two
The shift back to cold weather seems to have brought with it a light cold or something. Marigold is snuffling and weeping because some stranger at Shepherd’s Bowl gave her a large stuffed bear covered with bright red hearts and also a small china doll with wings on. She brought them home and then waved the doll/angel around so violently that the hair came off. At which point she sat down on the floor and wept and wept, really loudly as it turned out. This definitely indicates a cold. Going to have to find glue for the doll’s hair before I do anything else this morning. And I’m really good at crafty stuff, especially first thing in the morning, so it will probably be super fun.
Three
We’re heading into another busy weekend. There is a wedding, and all the fun celebratory events that go along with it. And there is the fact that the house has descended into sheer horrific chaos. Whenever I feel like trying to relax and just “embrace the chaos” or whatever it is that good mothers are supposed to do these days, I end up in a state of hysterical screaming. Somehow, I just don’t know how to embrace it, or live with it at all. I can’t enjoy walking up and down over crushed cornflakes, and stepping on Legos, and trying to scrape paint off the furniture, and injuring myself on pattern blocks, and then sitting in my chair and looking over the vast layers of filth and ruin and devestation. Of course, I don’t really want to clean it either. So I find just screaming and recriminating others works pretty well.
Four
Speaking of chaos and embracing it, I did click on that parody music baby announcement clip last week. I don’t really want to go look for it now and I don’t want to watch it again so maybe, if you long to see it, you can google baby announcement, pop star parody. I’m going to go ahead and feign ignorance. I can’t remember the name of the original singer. I can see her face but I don’t long to dredge up her name. She was the one who behaved so poorly at some award show and introduced everybody to a word heretofore unknown, embarrassing both herself and the world. She is defiantly against all, it seems, and desirous of shocking whomever there is left to be shocked. Is there anyone? I sort of doubt it. So the parody was of a family who is expecting a fourth child and are rightfully irritated that no one is rejoicing with them. As a remedy to this sadness they took the tune and the tone of this defiant, angry song and made it their own, not that they can sleep with whoever they want, but that they can have babies if they want.
I watched the whole thing, cringing at the use of the word “we” instead of “us” (is that in the original?) even if it was to make the rhyme go forward, and then sat and felt very sad. Because, well, gosh. Yes, people should be allowed to have babies without cultural pressure not to. And yes, a fourth baby should be a cause for joy. And yes, I was really hurt when my fourth baby was welcomed with shock and horror. But, well, I’m incredibly sad about the defiance and the language of “choice” and “I can do what I want to.” Maybe you can do what you want to but you probably shouldn’t. You should probably do what God wants you to do. And God is the author and giver of life, every single life. And the defiance turns out to be ugly whether it is about something good or something evil.
Five
Speaking of defiance, I read, or rather listened, to the book of Revelation four or five times this week. Don’t worry, it’s not because I am very holy, but because I kept falling back asleep and would wake up and wonder where I was and then have to go back and start again. So really I got the whole book in starts and snatches and woe. And, as a way of imbibing the bible, it was both surreal and interesting because Revelation is so much the gathering up of all the rest of the whole bible. So you can be listening along, in a quiet stupor, and really think you’re in Genesis, or Ezekiel, but then the image will shift and you’ll remember where you are. If you really know Genesis and Exodus, for instance, there’s so much that leaps out–Hagar fleeing into the dessert, twice, the recapitulation of the plagues, and so on. Anyway, the most haunting line in the whole book, right now, is
Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom the authority to judge was committed. Also I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. Revelation 20:4
As I’ve noticed and probably mentioned before, the history of the world, unfolded from God’s hand, is not chaotic and random and out of control. As the bowls of wrath and judgment are poured out over the earth there is an incredible calm in the language itself. Even this line, “those who had been beheaded” is not accompanied by panic in the text. We feel panic and woe down here, but God is unfolding his plan in his own deliberate, reasonable way. Therein I try to make myself to be more calm and comfortable.
Six
Forcing the children to listen to Kim, which is my favorite book in the whole world, and through my own defiance and stubbornness am causing them to hate it, because of ramming it down their throats. See, I also am a terrible sinner. But, woe is me, I am sick of children’s books. I want to read Kim, out loud, and I want them to listen to it and love it. Surprisingly, screaming at them to be quiet and listen isn’t producing good results. Never the less, I carry on.
Seven
And on that note I will go and investigate the source of the incredible shouting downstairs. Hope you all enjoy a charming weekend. And go check out the Lyceum. Oh, and here’s a picture of my breakfast.
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