A Peek at My Bookshelf

If I am interested in a person, the first thing I want to know is what books they are reading.  If I see someone with a book, I always ask, but not if they are in the middle of reading!  That can be annoying.  I love checking out peoples bookshelves.  And yes, I do judge them by their bookshelves. Do the only books I see color coordinate with the décor?  Do the books look too new and shiny to actually be read? Do the books match with the actual person or do they match a message they want to send? Basically I want to know if they are actually a reader or just pretending!

Now, don't get me wrong.  I'm o.k. with non-readers, I don't know why they wouldn't read but I'm o.k. with it.  My husband is a non-reader and I love that man dearly.  He lives his life working hard and helping others and doesn't understand why someone would want to sit with their nose in a book for hours.  Lots of wonderful people are non-readers, but for the rest of us I want to know; What are you reading now?

Seeing peoples books tells you a lot about a person.  If you were to look at my book choices through my lifetime, you could probably see my life's journey.  What am I interested in?  What is bothering me?  What questions do I have?  What is my passion?  Where have I been and where do I hope to go?  When I share a book with someone, I am giving them a piece of me.  Looking at my booklist is kind of like getting a peek into my journal.  So without further ado:

What am I reading now?

Ethnic studies:

Understanding White Privilege by Frances E. Kendall (Kindle)
Black Like Me by John Howard Griffen (Goodwill)

Theology:

The Evolution of Adam by Peter Enns (Kindle)
The Jesus Creed by Scot McKnight (Kindle)

Ethnic Studies and books recommended by my World Civ teacher:

The Kite Runner by Khaled hosseini (Kindle)
The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad (Goodwill)
Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford (on order at Amazon-used)
The Secret History of Mongol Queens: How the daughters of Genghis Khan Saved his Empire by Jack Weatherford (On order at Amazon-used)

Environmental conservation:

The Sound County Almanac by Aldo Leopold (Kindle)

Light Reading:

The Atlas of Love by Laurie Frankel (Goodwill)

I often have three or more books going at any given time but only one fiction one.  I haven't started The Kite Runner or The Bookseller of Kabul because I am waiting to read those after my classes are over.


So, this is what I am into now.  What are you reading?

On Telling The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

There are many, many things I don't share here on this blog.  I share peeks into my heart, but  I fear if you saw the complete bitchiness of it on some days, you wouldn't return.  I share glimpse of my home life, but I am ashamed to tell you how many nights I go to bed with the dishes undone.  I have had too many shocked expressions when I mention stepping over a pile of dirty laundry or not noticing spilled yogurt until it had molded into a permanent fixture on the side of the chair.  Many days I don't get my bed made, I dust about once a month, and I just can't get excited about a husband that doesn't pick up his own laundry (well, I'm usually reading in the bathroom so i probably don't notice!)  I know he picks up my laundry occasionally, because when I go to get on my p.j.s they are not on the bathroom floor where I left them.

I don't tell this to glorify my slobbiness, but I also refuse to apologize for it.  It's not that I don't want a clean house.  I surely wouldn't complain if some magic fairies (or my children) came and cleaned it for me but I just find too many other exciting things to work on.  My kitchen gets cleaned at least once a day and my bathrooms once a week.  Someone walks around at least once a day collecting enough laundry to start a load.  Things get done, maybe not efficiently, but they get done.

Still, even for me there is a limit.  I don't like rodents and will promptly put numerous baits and traps out at the earliest sign of them.  Spiders don't really bother me but something like a beetle infestation will have me calling the bug guy.  And lately?  It was the smell!

Since we have moved in to this new house I have been complaining about this bad smell in the back bedroom.  I have tried various methods of getting rid of it.  I thought it was the closet so I used Febreze and hung up cedar closet scenty things.  I thought it was the air vents so I vacuumed and cleaned them out and tucked in fabric softener sheets.  I thought it was old wood, or the smell from the previous carpet that leached into the floorboards.

Oh, I hate to admit it because it pukes me out.  It was not a dead mouse in the closet, it was not moldy food or dirty socks under the bed (I wish!), and it was not my children hiding some obscure gross treasure (like a dead chickens foot, remember?)  We had not sealed the floor boards where the previous owners dog had left marks and our dog had gone in and remarked her territory!  I know, gag, right?

I finally got down on my own knees and sniffed around on the carpet.  We ended up buying a black light and checking all our carpet (suffice it to say, all our carpets will be removed shortly!  GROSS!)  If anyone has tried to clean up dog urine you find out that when it is wet the smell intensifies.  Even though the cleaner says it will get better when it dries...out came the carpet!  In went hardwood (after sealing the floor).  I humbly apologize to all my guest that have stayed here at various times.  Yes, this was the Davids room, the guest room, I am talking about

My beautiful husband, with minimal fussing and no vicious threats against the dog (that i heard anyway), has been working away in his free time laying hardwood.  He finished Davids room and decided to go ahead and do Lizzy's too.  He is waffling on doing ours since he wants all the rooms to be uniform but wants carpet in our bedroom.

I even heard those precious words every wife loves to hear, "I should have listened to you in the first place" ha-ha, I tried to talk him into hardwood throughout the whole upstairs because carpets gross me out.  I've had too many puking, peeing, spilling kids...and now a dog!  And just think the things we track in on our shoes...shudder!

Searching

March has slipped into April and the blossoms have already blown off the trees.  Time passes and I see that I haven’t written here since last October, although it feels like a lifetime ago.  I went through a period of dying, a time when I was a caterpillar all curled up inside my chrysalis, waiting to see if anything would emerge at the end of the darkness, a time when I felt too fragile to expose myself to other people’s opinions and criticism.  Now the winds of spring have blown gently and dried my wings and I am ready to write again, ready to face my own thoughts and see what becomes of them.

A lot has been happening in our lives.  We bought an older home that needed some work done, so we tore down some walls, built up others, and threw some paint on the rest.  I have sleepless nights over being back under the tyranny of a mortgage, but life goes on.  My husband and I took a trip to Belize to celebrate 15 years of marriage.  It was wonderful and I get all tingly just thinking about it!  I continue my schooling at a snail’s pace while trying to remember the moral of The Tortoise and the Hare.  We fret over the slowing economy and funds that are getting low.  Life just keeps moving and sometimes my feet trip trying to keep the pace.

But inside…inside the music is slow, the lighting is dim and my growth tends to take the circuitous route instead of the linear.  I have big thoughts of God and even bigger questions.  While my hands chop vegetables, my heart is wrestling with God’s Word and trying to come to some understanding of how it all ties together.   I fold the laundry and see small children with bare feet and hungry bellies, and I know that I am called to just DO something but I don’t know what.  I eat bread and remember how Jesus fed the masses with the few loaves and fishes, and I wonder why he would trust US, his body, to carry on feeding the hungry, healing the hurting and standing up for the oppressed.  Yet I know that some of us are out there doing just that.

At the end of the day, I crawl into bed knowing less than I did upon waking.  I curl up into my husband’s embrace and breathe and I thank God for those blessings.  I pray for forgiveness and ask for grace for the morrow.

 

Life gets tiring. And when you hear that the dog snuck upstairs and peed on the carpet, it’s just something that feels like too much to deal with. So, my son threw a towel over it…and I’m going to face it tomorrow. There will be regrets about that decision, I am sure.


Tonight I rubbed my daughters back as she puked for the ninth time. I fed her ice chips with a spoon in an attempt to keep her hydrated, and told her not to cry because she was leaking out all the fluids I managed to get in her. As I watched her giant tears fall off of her incredibly long eyelashes and slide down her nose, I remembered a younger Lizzy, and telling her the same thing. She has always been a good puker, so I know to get the heating pad for the tummy that is exhausted and sore from trying to expel the toxins.

Tonight I put an overtired 10 year old to bed and listened as he poured out the woes of his day. Everybody was mean to him, even me apparently. I was tired, I was crabby and wanted to tell him to shut up and just go to sleep, but I bit my tongue. Not because I am a patient and good mommy, but because I recognized the fact that the quickest way to be done with it, was deal with the hurt. So, I looked past the petty accusations (see, you’re mean again. You won’t let me play with the ipod), and dealt with what I knew was going on. “I’m sorry I made you feel bad. I know I was too busy to pay attention to you today. I do love you. I do care for you.”

Tonight my better half was also too exhausted to deal with stuff. He needed a soft place and was unable to be mine. If he worked a long day and came home with the hope of being fed and pampered a bit…he was disappointed. He didn’t say. I was too busy with ice chips and tears and dogs, walking around with my dinner plate in hand while I shuffled laundry and dishes and food. I found the Motrin I gave him for his carpal tunnel on the counter after he went to bed…sometimes we can’t help people and sometimes they don’t accept the help we can offer. I’m sure he feels neglected also.

Tonight I feel guilty. I feel guilty for all the time I devote to school. I feel guilty for not being everything to everybody. I feel guilty that I have trained everybody to expect me to do everything for them. I feel guilty, but am not accepting this feeling as truth. My poor family…needing to learn to do things for themselves! It’s good for them.

Seeing through the eyes of Christ

When I was homeschooling I came across a common phrase, “Christian World View” or “Biblical Worldview.” It was a normal push of Christian parents to teach their children from a Christian worldview, which is to approach all learning from the distinctly Christian perspective. Often this is explained, as it is in this article from Focus on the Family, as moral guidelines and a way of living a holy life that is pleasing to God.


I am in no way opposed to people living a moral life or teaching their children to do the same. Yet, I don’t understand this to be a “Christian” worldview. In fact, I often think that in the teaching of morality we often live Christ behind, somewhere pinned to a cross or perhaps up on cloud. I think this speaks to a deeper problem, one in which the bible is read from certain biases and views…perhaps a fundamentalist view, and it quickly becomes a how-to manual for living a moral life instead of a life giving transfusion.

We then take this a step further and start building up walls around “us” and “them”.  Instead of teaching our kids to bring the gospel of reconciliation to the world, we become the dividing curtain that keeps sinners away from the Holiest of Holies. Instead of offering living water to a hurting world, we eat chicken to exclaim our exclusivity to the club, and our hatred for those who are not as “moral” as we are. We proudly slander the standing president on our Facebook pages and mock the poor and marginalized among us. What is our message? “Become a Christ follower and you will be just like me!” and to this the world says, “No, thank you!!”

If Christ came to make dead men live, not to make bad men good, then our message changes. If the power is in the gospel of Jesus Christ, crucified dead and buried, then our attitude should change also. Not that the world needs to be more like me, but that I need to be more like Christ. I need to lay down my life for those around me, I need to reach out to the poor, the marginalized, the hurting, the dying and offer them living water. Living. Water. Do we really believe in the power of the gospel message? The power of the crucified Lord? The power of His resurrection to bring life back into dead men?

“Wait!” I can just hear you say, “Christ told the woman caught in adultery to go and sin no more!” And he did. And when we make ourselves to be moral police, and the bible a moral guidebook, that is what we focus on. When we read the bible from a Christian worldview, we see ourselves in the crowd, rock in hand and ready to strike and Christ steps in and saves us from ourselves. Or, we see ourselves in the woman, facing our condemnation (the wages of sin are death) and Christ steps in, “neither do I condemn you…go and sin no more!”

What is a Christian worldview? I believe a Christian worldview is one in which I recognize that I was a dead man walking, but my sentence was lifted and now I am free and I want to free as many people as I can through the power of Jesus Christ. A Christian worldview reads and interprets scripture from Genesis to Revelation and sees the story of Christ. A Christian worldview looks out at the masses of people, enslaved under the worlds systems, and knows that Jesus died to set them free.

Small Child Responsible For Toxic Spill at Local Goodwill

There was a little brown eyed girl shopping with her mother at Goodwill. Newly potty trained and anticipating that maybe this time her mother would buy her a toy, the little girl tried to wait patiently for her mother to finish shopping. In her excitement she forgot about the toilet and accidentally tinkled on the floor.


Meanwhile, in another part of the store was another brown eyed girl shopping with her mother. This one, being much older at 13, was long since potty trained and looking for cloths to wear to junior high. She was the height of fashion with her cute little dress and her newly purchased bejeweled flats. Finding some cloths she liked, she went in search of a dressing room, heedlessly passing by the tinkled on area.

“Stop!” she heard an angry voice cry out.

“Toxic Waste! Toxic Waste! You stepped on toxic waste and must remove your shoes immediately.”

The girl looked blankly at the woman. “We are cleaning up toxic waste and you stepped on it. You must remove your shoes and we will have to throw them out. Didn’t you see the ‘Wet Floor’ sign?”

The girl, confused, took off her shoes and went in search of her mother.

I was shopping in the book section with David when Lizzy walked up barefoot, “Uh, mom? That lady over there said I walked in toxic waste and made me take off my shoes.”

“Toxic waste? What kind of toxic waste?”

“I don’t know but she has my shoes and won’t let me have them back”

Me, with crazy scenarios running through my head, “If there is toxic waste, why don’t they close the store? Why did they send you out barefoot without coming to tell me?”

Lizzy shrugged, “Someone said a little girl had an accident. Can you just go get my shoes? The lady was really mean to me.”

“You mean someone peed on the floor?”

Shrug, “I guess”

I made my way across the store (it was an extremely busy day) and came to an area blocked off by shopping carts and 3 people. “Toxic Waste, watch out! We are cleaning up toxic waste here.” I could hear the cries before I could see the problem. In the middle was a woman, hair flapping in her face wearing a paper mask and a frantic expression. I could see she was sweeping some sort of white absorbent clean up powder, stained yellow, into a dustpan (she was wearing a mask but no gloves).

I paused and stared, mouth slightly agape and eyes wide. The lady closest to me (a blocker) let out a screech, “Toxic Waste! You can’t come this way. You must go around another way.”

“Uhmmm, you have my daughter’s shoes?”

“Hey, this is the mom from that girl who stepped in the toxic waste!”

The cleaning lady pulled down her face mask (with her ungloved hands that she was just using to push the absorbent powder into the dustpan with a little box) and told me, “I had to do it. She stepped in toxic waste so I had to throw her shoes away. “She holds up the garbage bag she has been dumping the mess into and in the bottom I see Lizzy’s new shoes. “You can just go up front and get a new pair.”

I stare at her dumbly, “I…don’t…let my kids wear…used shoes.” (or used underwear, I’m funny like that)

The lady stands up straighter, “Oh, I think we better call the manager.”

The manager comes out confused, is apprised of the story but doesn’t know what to do, so she calls her boss. He doesn’t answer. She keeps calling but he still doesn’t answer. “I don’t know what to do, how much were the shoes?”

I tell her the price, and tell her that I would take the little antique rocker I was looking at in trade.

“Will you pay the difference in price?”

“No, I decided against the rocker because I didn’t want to pay $59 for it.”

“Ok, whatever, take the rocker.” She wanted me gone as much as I wanted out of that nut house.

I did call her back later to verify that it was just little girl pee on the floor…it was! Crazy day at Goodwill! While on the phone, I mentioned that if it had indeed been some sort of toxic chemical, maybe having my daughter take off her shoes and walk around the area barefoot wouldn’t have been the best solution. Like Lizzy said, “She could have just wiped off the bottom of my shoe with a Clorox wipe, it’s not like I’ve never been peed on before. Besides the floor was really dirty and the pee was only on the bottom of my shoe, not my feet”

I Chose Today

Today I fought with my husband and the strength went out of my knees. I locked my bathroom door and lay on the floor with my head on a towel. I didn’t weep. I didn’t shout. I just lay there without strength, because when he pulls his love back I feel weak, and I hate that about myself.


Today I clung to the surface of the great sucking darkness and willed myself not to go under. Slogging through the sinking that wanted to pull me in, I walked out into the kitchen, turned on music and washed dishes. I put on my makeup and heels, and went to the mall where I bought new jeans and a book about weight loss. I came home and ate a protein bar and drank water and went to sit on the front porch by my husband. My face felt tight, my head hurt and it was hard to keep my eyes open, so I closed them to the brightness of the sun. We didn’t speak. I worked on softening the muscles in my face and felt my headache ease.

Today I reconciled with my husband and it left my body feeling exhausted, like I have travelled a great journey. We co-parented, took the kids to Panda Express and supervised chores, before collapsing on the bed together. I lay with my head on his chest listening to this heart beat I have listened to for over 15 years, and wondered why we get so busy that we forget to share our hearts and listen to the other ones hurts and dreams.

Today I stood on the path to darkness and chose not to go there. I literally stood with one hand on the door and almost turned back, I almost chose being right and standing on my righteous indignation over being reconciled and being happy. My husband points out, and it’s true, that I always have to be right in an argument. He doesn’t know how long I stood with my hand on the knob, before turning the handle and stepping out into the sunshine. What he sees is a stiff face, shopping, music, reading and the world going on, and interprets it as not caring. He doesn’t see if for what it is: a brittle shell I have learned to construct, so the me in the middle doesn’t melt into nothingness and wash away through the cracks in the sidewalk.