A Time to Tear Down and a Time to Build Up: A Post in Three Parts

I.

The July 2010 issue of O Magazine encouraged readers to "ignore memoirs by people who have barely cracked their 30s."

I read the article two weeks before I turned thirty, on the first day of a writing retreat. I was there to work on my memoir.

Katelyn Beaty recently introduced her review of Lauren Winner's new book with a nod to the issue of youthful memoirists. "Yes, our self-absorbed society is glutted with [memoirs]; yes, many 30-somethings lack the wisdom and experience to say much worth sharing. But the spiritual autobiography—a narrative account of God's gracious movement in the believer's life—is central to the church canon."

Time and reviews will tell if I have the wisdom and experience to say much worth sharing, but I'm grateful Ms. Beaty gives young writers the benefit of the doubt.

There is still a pendulum that swings inside of me sometimes.  
You have nothing to say. 
You have something to say. 
You have nothing to say. 

But then I remember: God moved graciously in my life.
I have something to say.
I have something to say.
I have something to say.

II.

Last October, Richard Ford told the Guardian, "For a writer, children make life needlessly hard." 

In her lovely essay, Writing with Children, Jessica Francis Kane quoted Elizabeth McCracken's response to Ford's generalization. "We all write with everything we have, and for some of us that includes children, and for some it doesn't." Kane went on to speculate why people are so fascinated by the "conjunction of motherhood and writing." She wrote, "Perhaps it's because they're both considered all-consuming, and people are generally skeptical of someone being consumed by more than one thing."

All I could think (other than: thank you, Ms. Kane, for nailing it): yes, and add ministry to the fire, too.

III.

About ministry. What's with the unexpected reprise of the anti-female clergy song and dance? Lately I've been hearing far too many troubling stories. And far too much about the misogynistic theology of that bully preacher from the Pacific Northwest.

But I'm not too worried, and neither is Rachel Held Evans. "Most of the time, when I am discouraged about the state of Christianity, it’s because I have forgotten the end of the story. We are part of a living, growing Kingdom in which the last will be first and the first will be last, in which the peacemakers and the merciful and the meek will be blessed, in which the tiny seeds we plant today will grow into great trees where the birds of the air will nest, in which a crucified savior is King, and in which all things will be reconciled to God in love. Control is not the end of the story. Power is not the end of the story. Violence is not the end of the story. Inequality is not the end of the story. Jesus is. Those who preach the gospel of power will come and go; they will flourish and then fade."

Amen.

Someone's Been Using My iPad

I certainly didn't upload this to our iPhoto library.

That gorilla kind of scares me. But apparently he made Juliette feel happy.


(Pretty sure this was some sort of image capture from the Electric Company App.)

Love Your Body

I've been loving my friend Suzanne's creative project for 2012; she posts photographs of hand drawn/painted wisdom for each day.

image :: suzanne l. vinson

I am grateful every time one of her images comes up in my photo feed, delivering heartfelt, authentic wisdom.

The other night I was scrolling through pictures on Instagram, and one of her daily posts came up. Juliette was with me. She asked me what it said.

image :: suzanne l. vinson

Love your body, I told her.

I would love to believe that Juliette hasn't yet encountered any forces that tell her not to love her body, but I'm not that naive. That message is everywhere.

We talked about all the wonderful things we can do with our bodies: run, dance, hug, eat delicious food.

I thought the conversation was over, as Juliette was quiet. But then she patted me on the arm and said, "I love your body, Mama."

"I love your body, too, Juliette."

Love your body, and love the bodies of the people you love.

That's wisdom.

Umpteenth Post About Back Pain

I am not having the day I was supposed to have today.

I was supposed to meet a friend for lunch and a tour of Two Brothers, a local brewery. It was one of the big ticket events on my Make January More Joyful tour.

And then, while I was making breakfast (cranberry scones and bacon), I had to sneeze.

I turned my head away from the food, sneezed my usual five-to-seven times, and turned back.

And my entire upper back was suddenly seized by severe pain, akin to the kind of pain you get when you get a foot cramp, only it doesn't go away after thirty seconds. I went from being fine to being not fine and hardly able to move.

I canceled the lunch plans and made an appointment for a deep tissue massage.

I burned the scones.

After a mediocre ninety-minute massage, I have a little bit more mobility. And I have a lot of self pity.

Have I really become the kind of person who can throw her back out by sneezing?

I have been dealing with bouts of back pain for about twenty years now. I was still in elementary school the first time I woke up with a head that wouldn't turn. When I was twenty-two a chiropractor took one look at my x-ray and told me I had the neck of a middle-aged man. I've sprained my back by carrying a speaker and lifting a canoe. I've suffered through postpartum back spasms that were infinitely worse than actual childbirth. I've seen physical therapists and pain specialists, gotten massages and and an MRI. I've swallowed painkillers so strong I couldn't hold them down, and learned to avail myself of demerol shots (though not when I'm nursing).

And it just seems like it's getting worse. This is the third time since Genevieve was born that I've had back pain acute enough to  affect our whole family. The last time was just a couple weeks ago, when I sprained my lower back doing balance ball exercises that were supposed to strengthen my back so that it's more protected against pain and injury.

The fruitlessness of this pain is what gets to me the most. Maybe labor really was worse than the back pain ten days later, but there was an enormous difference: the labor pains were going to end with a baby.

I totally get why people need pain to mean something.

Barbara Brown Taylor, from An Altar in the World:

I hope that the antidote to unreality makes me more compassionate toward all the other folks enduring this peculiar experience of being human.

(At least once I can move enough to crawl out of my pit of self-pity.)

In this place of pain, further than any thinking, I give thanks for reality, and cool water, and the someones in my house.

Well, the someones who were in my house, until they left a bit ago at my encouragement to hang out with friends. Just before she walked out the door, Juliette (who is a terrifically sympathetic little girl) said, "I'm glad of you, Mama. That means I love you."

And with that, back to the couch.