The Importance of Being Human

It's been almost three months since I've been to the gym. After going religiously for a year and a half, I've really missed it.

Well, today after work, I tried out a new Zumba class at the gym down the road.  While it lacked the rowdy energy and ambiance of the Zumba classes at my old venue, it was still good.  Good enough, anyway. Good enough to consider just joining that gym, because it's close and cheap and open 24 hours and I need to find a place soon.  Tomorrow I might try out the Yoga class.

One of the things I miss most about working out is the feeling of control over my life. I used to feel guilty for needing control, but now I've come to accept that it's just my personality type. I'm a control freak. I need to have control over things. Is that such a bad thing? Yes, it can take over my life in a bad way, but in other ways, it keeps me calm, it keeps me going forward. Getting regular exercise feels good and keeps me level and grants me control over various aspects of my health, such as what I eat. I feel I make better choices over all when I've kept up my exercise routine. It clears my head.  It wakes me up. I love the way it feels, the burn, the sweat, the energy, the endorphin.

I don't think it's a bad thing to need a sense of control, as long as there is a little perspective. My problem is, I don't have much of that.

The problem I have with control is the feeling of disarray and confusion I feel when I don't have it. When things don't go as planned, when routines get interrupted, when I make a mistake, I tend to lose it. I'm not only a control freak, I'm a perfectionist.

And that's what I think I'm going to work on this October and this next year.  Imperfection.  Or rather, allowing a little imperfection. There's probably a better word for it, like Acceptance. Letting It Go. While I've stopped feeling guilty over needing control in my life, I also recognize I must find some Balance.  I seriously need to learn to relax a little and accept that things cannot always be perfect. I must find the things that grant me control - like exercise - but also let go of some things that are simply too much for me right now. I hate that my house is harder to keep clean now that I'm at work eight hours a day. I hate that I'm not the mum who can go on field trips and help at class parties anymore. I hate that dinner isn't on the table at 6:00 sharp every night now.  But I've got to learn to accept these things, I simply have to. I'm only one person; I'm only human. I try to be superlori, but I can't always achieve that. No one can. Perhaps it's the year for learning to Let It Go, for creating Balance, for finding Acceptance. What's that serenity prayer? "God grant me the serenity to change the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference." Seems about right.

Balance. I like that. We'll see what all comes out of October, but I'm thinking that will be the main theme of the upcoming year. Balance. It seems to fit. It's something I need to work on.

Oh, and speaking of October...

Cue segue:

ODP Day 2!

Talk about something that makes me feel in control! I love ODP. I love the challenge. Today was Casual Friday at work, so I couldn't pass up the chance to wear The Dress with jeans. I tucked The Dress in to a pair of straight leg jeans and folded up the sleeves to vary the length. I added one of my favorite infinity scarves and brown flats. I wore my hair down and natural (it's getting so long!) with a pearly headband. Which I'll admit, gave me a bit of a headache all day but was worth it for the cute factor.

One thing about this dress - I freaking love that it has pockets, but pockets make it difficult to tuck in and wear as a shirt. Still. Pockets are WORTH IT.

Another thing - since we moved, I can't find my camera. I'm sure it's somewhere in a box or something, but until I find it, I must rely on my phone for photography and my husband or children for photographers. Or I can just take camera selfies, like every other human being in the developed world. Selfie stick this year instead of a tripod?

(Just look at this. My hair is getting so long!)

Let the October Dress Project Commence!

I'm doing it. By golly, I'm going for it. Fourth year in a row. Yes!

Traditionally (four years is long enough for a tradition, right?) I wear the dress as-is on the first day, as a sort of "Meet The Dress".  Today, I wore The Dress with my new beige patent wedges and with strings of pearls (all fake, obvs) - pearl earrings, pearl necklace, pearl bracelet, pearl anklet and EVEN pearl badge holder. For some reason, I felt the simple outfit looked better with my glasses too.

You know, there is just something about October. I realized today that for the past several years, it's been the month that sets the whole following year in motion. It's kind of like the start of my own personal fiscal year. Each October (thanks to ODP), I end up making my equivalent of a New Year's Resolution; let's call it my New October Resolution.  During October and ODP, I usually end up discovering what my "theme" for the upcoming year will be.

The first year it was Simplicity, learning to simplify my life and my belongings.  The second year it was Satisfaction, where AFTER simplifying my life, selling everything we owned, and moving to America, I had to learn to be satisfied with what we had.  Last year, I decided to embark on a year of Adventure.  At the time, Scott and I wanted this to include moving to Seattle (and we really thought we would, but the universe had other plans).  Though that did not happen, we still had a wonderful time with the adventure theme, going on small vacations and outings and moving to a new house closer to town.  He had his "year of change" where adventures included everything from getting his first tattoo to learning to eat cheese. For me, it meant taking life by the reins and making something of it rather than waiting for life to take charge of me. I published my book, and I got a new job. We had a lot of big and small adventures during the last McFarlane Fiscal Year, but now it's October, and it's time to learn something new.

I have an inkling of what that will be, but I'll let October decide for sure.

Just A Couple of Kids

They were just kids really. Barely able to vote, barely able to drink. Nineteen and twenty-one, chasing each other around the car park laughing, her on his knee flirting, both of them so charming, so fresh, so young. His teenage long hair straight and silky enough to entice her to reach out and touch it before thinking. Sitting close enough in a car that their barely brushing knees could ignite a wild flame of excitement and desire.  The shy pinkie fingers in the movies, so close, so close, the intensity of non-touch. The hands that finally clasped at the top of the nature trail at Cornalees. Sprawled out on a blanket outside, lying head to head, staring up at the clouds on a rare bluesky day, both silently thinking, "This is different. This time it's different."

They had so little knowledge of the grown-up world, yet there was a wisdom there, a seriousness beyond their years. When his first careful, thought-out "I love you" was followed with "I love you properly... I want to spend the rest of my life with you", he had considered those words long and hard before uttering them.  When they acknowledged that marriage involved more than fiery feelings and longing and more than even love itself, but compatible directions, goals, plans, and values, there was something a little less childlike in the works. But they were still children.

And when love and marriage involved huge life changes and personal development that took them from the young people they had been into the grown-ups they were about to become, they fought for each other anyway. They recognized that the person they married had grown into someone else, but they decided to accept each other no matter what strange new people they became.  They grew different but not apart. They grew independent but together.

They waded a lot of muddy waters and plowed a lot of snow. They stretched on warm, sunny beaches and strolled on cool, cloudy days.

Today, they snuggle close as they gaze into the horizon, wondering what the future holds, but they are so in love, they are not afraid.

Today, they look back on twelve years together, eleven years married. They smile at each other. In a way, they are still really just two kids with so little knowledge of the grown-up world. But they are together, and that's all it takes to make them happy.

'Til death do us part..

... or the fights over the remote.

Tender moments...

...and kill each other moments.

Partners in crime...

...partners in life.

But no matter what...

...I'll always dance with you.

Happy anniversary. xx

To ODP or Not to ODP: That Is the Question

October is only two weeks away, and I can't decide if I should do the October Dress Project again.

I've done ODP for the past three years, but this year I actually work an office job. Can I pull it off, still being so new? Can I find enough ways to dress up the same dress that is all office appropriate? What kind of dress would I go with that would be different from previous years, but still versatile enough to ODPize?

I'm thinking of something like this... I've done black twice, and I don't want to do black again; gray is still neutral but a little change from black. I've always wanted an ODP dress with pockets (not having pockets is killer). And I like the sleeves, though sleeves definitely limit variation options.

But can I pull it off in the office?

The American Sailor

I miss you, dear blog. I apologize for the time I've been away, but I've been busy and tired.  Perhaps a wee short story will cheer you up and make up for our lost time together?

The American Sailor

If Ma and Da only knew... Maisie thought to herself as she brushed a thin layer of brown mascara over her translucent eyelashes. She was going to meet him again tonight, and if she could have her way, every night after.  He was so different from all the other boys she knew; he was a real man, a confident, handsome, exciting man. He had made her feel exciting too, and the exhilarating flush she felt when he had held her hand earlier that day made her feel tingly and guilty and alive all at once in a way she could only describe as delicious.

Ma would never approve, of course.  Girls who went out with the American sailors were slappers.  Da certainly wouldn’t approve; he’d have that man’s guts for garters if he knew who she was meeting, and where! Maisie knew a few of the girls who went out with sailors and had always looked down her nose at them.  But Robert was different. She was different.  She wasn’t looking for the “good time” those other girls were, and she felt in her heart that neither was Robert.  They were both looking for the same thing: true love.  There was no question about it for Maisie; this was it, the real thing, he was The One.

She knew meeting with him without Ma and Da finding out would be tricky.  They were devout Catholics, Da especially.  Maisie wasn’t allowed to go to the pictures or the dancing.  It was fate that she even met Robert at all.  They’d met at the newsagents while she was getting the paper for Ma and smokes for Da.  The rain had washed the snow off the pavement into brown and grey clumps and then refrozen. Da’s arthritis had been playing up too much for him to take the treacherous walk himself, but Maisie enjoyed getting out for a solitary walk so was quick to accept the chore. 

While she was paying Mr Watt for her sundries, the sailor in his starched blue uniform was reading the front page headlines of the Telegraph.  Suddenly, he had laughed out loud a big hearty guffaw.  Startled, she looked up at him, and he met her gaze.  The moment electrified her.  They stared into one another’s eyes for a few seconds, their souls becoming acquainted.  Still laughing, still holding her gaze, he pointed at the paper to the word “ironmongery” and laughed some more.  “Iron-mongery.  Sounds like somethin’ outta Shakespeare, don’t it, miss?”  Maisie didn’t get the joke, she just blushed and looked away.  Her pink cheeks and ginger hair caught his attention, and he teasingly remarked, “You’re as pretty as a peony, when you blush like that.  I’m Robert.  What’s your name, Red?”

Maisie could have died under the disapproving scrutiny of Mr Watt, glaring at her over his bifocals while handing over her change.  She felt suddenly very hot under her thick white coat despite the icy gusts blowing over the Clyde.  She whispered, “I’m Margaret” and quickly hurried out the door.  Robert chased after her, tossing the paper back onto the counter. 

“Wait! Can I walk you home?  These sidewalks are too slippery for a little thing like you to be walking around on by yourself.”

Maisie only lived around the corner, but her father would have been scandalized to see her carrying on with one of the Americans like that, and in broad daylight too.  So Maisie, peering over her shoulder to check Mr Watt couldn’t see, turned down a different street and allowed this handsome stranger to walk with her.

Robert was carefree, chivalrous, and charming.  He kept calling her “Red” even after she insisted on being called Margaret – or at least Maisie.  Each time he responded with, “Whatever you wish, Red,” which made her blush all over again. “I like to make you blush,” he chided. “You’re as pretty as a peony when you blush like that.” The rain was coming on again and the spits of ice brought a deeper rose to her cheeks and a sting to her eyes, shining the green irises like an emerald.

Maisie allowed him to walk her three blocks up the street and then one block down another before confessing, “I’d better go the rest of the way myself.  Da doesn’t approve of me talking to the boys.”   

“Then would he approve of you talking to a man?” That’s when he took her hand.  The sensation of his warm, rough palm lightly clasping her cold tiny white fingers was intoxicating and poured all over her body like a warm shower.  She of course blushed again, but this time with rapture. 

“I could meet you tonight.  At the chapel.  For mass.  I know it’s not anything, maybe it’s not what you do but --”

“I’ll be there.  What time?  Where?”

“Seven thirty. Saint Mary’s, over there.  I always sit in the second-last row up the back.”

It felt like sinning - gloriously, thrillingly sinning - to be getting dolled up for a date at the mass. Ma and Da would never think anything of it, Maisie attending an extra mass on a Saturday; they’d in fact be proud as peacocks of her piety.  She would just have to be subtle, lest any of the neighbours should notice and talk. It was blasphemous really, using God to meet a boy – a man, rather – but strangely she did not feel guilt.  Or at least not enough guilt to repent of.  If anything, the glimmer of guilt she felt only added to the overall excitement.  At any rate, she told herself, it was to a righteous end; she would one day be Robert’s wife, there was no question about it.

She tucked her blusher back into her handbag.  With her comb, she brushed out her red curls and pinned back the sides.   Her unruly red hair was a constant affliction to her, but Robert had spoken of it as if it were beautiful – “pretty as a peony”, she repeated to herself over and over.  Years of being called “Ginger” had resulted in detestation of her looks, but in one afternoon, Robert had reversed all of that.  In the reflection she didn’t see a Ginger anymore, but a Peony.  Her cheeks pinked up again, and set her body on fire.  She put down the comb.  Turning to inspect her figure side-on in her modest chapel dress, she imagined him watching for her to arrive, waiting in the second-last row, and in the mirror, Maisie crossed herself prettily and practiced an alluring genuflection.

Teatime was unendurable.  Maisie’s father was in a poor spirit because of his pains and the weather and kept pounding his fist on the table and damning everything. 

“Damn spoon!”

“Damn Yanks!”

“Damn bloody Tories!”

“Damn broken chair!”

“Damn bloody sodding Proddies!”

Maisie’s mother, as was her way, spent the meal trying to placate her husband with more totties, more tea, more agreeing nods and tuts, more hand pats.  Maisie couldn’t eat, and with her da’s crabbit mood, she worried she’d be asked to stay home and help cheer him instead.  She did her best to swallow a few mouthfuls so as not to raise any suspicions, and nodded and tutted in with her mother to keep everyone at relative peace. Finally, the church bells rang for seven o’clock, and Maisie was excused to get ready for mass.  She buckled her freshly polished shoes – praying no one would question why now on such a dreich day she had attended to such a detested chore – and pulled her white coat over her shoulders.  She surreptitiously surveyed her image in the dark living room window and let herself out the front door.

Snow was falling again, this time with heavy, plucky snowflakes, that rested on her coat and hair and eyelashes without melting.  The night was magical.  Romantic.  She felt like one of the lassies in a Jane Austen book she’d read in school. The chapel windows in the distance glowed in the dark night through the rapidly falling snowflakes like a choir of angels calling her home.  Inside, her sailor would be waiting for her.  She quickened her pace, growing unable to bear the separation a second longer.

At the chapel, Maisie shut her eyes, breathed in deeply, and pushed open the door.  Trying to appear nonchalant, she coolly surveyed the chapel for her sailor, starting first in her second-last row up the back.  She couldn’t see him.  She dipped her finger in the holy water, crossed herself absently, and slid into the pew.  She was early after all, she reminded herself. 

She had to control every muscle in her body not to turn around every few seconds to check the door.  She allowed herself a cursory glance once every two minutes, which was torture.  She removed her coat, feeling the beads of sweat prickling on her arms.  Her face flushed.   She peered over her shoulder at the door.  She waited.  Her stomach gurgled; she realized she was starving.

The organ began to play.

Her feet were heavy and her legs were thick as she trudged through the glistening snow back home. She tried to remember something about the mass to relay to her parents, but she had missed the entire service, checking the door every minute until the very end.  Her stomach was empty and cramping.  The cold wind burned.  She pulled her coat around her throat.  The snow had stopped falling; the night was vacuous, mute.  Involuntarily she continued to search the empty streets for Robert’s blue uniform.  Maybe he thought she’d said eight thirty.  Maybe he went to the wrong chapel. Maybe he’d been in an accident.  Maybe he’ll turn around the next corner in a frenzy and run to her, apologizing for the mistake and beg for her forgiveness, explaining about the terrible circumstances that had kept him away from her.  But all hope eluded her once she reached the front steps of her house.  One last time, she searched up and down the street for him, then let herself in the door, resisting the tears until she was safely in her bedroom, where she cried tormented until overtaken by sleep.

She didn’t even know his last name.  He didn’t know where she really lived. Over the next two days, Maisie searched for any excuse to get out and walk up and down the streets and around the newsagents.  Robert was nowhere.  Any time she spotted a sailor in blue uniform, she lost her breath for an instant.  How can this be? How could he do this to me?  Surely something has happened to him. Her imagination led her to all sorts of possible conclusions. He’d been shipped out.  He’d gotten the time or place wrong and thought she had stood him up.  But the worst conclusion, the worst one of all, the one she knew in her deepest, most anguished depths was the truth but could not, would not, acknowledge, was that he did not love her.  She had been a plaything to him, just like all the girls were to the Americans; he was just like the rest of them.

On the third day, Tuesday, it rained.  Maisie felt the rain was an embodiment of her own inner turmoil and greeted it miserably.  She did not leave the house once that day but brooded at the window watching the rain splash in puddles forming along the pavement.  The snow turned to blocks of grimy brown slush along the streets.  Wretchedly, she blamed herself for her misfortune.  

Blaspheme against God’s Holy Church, and this is what you get. The beautiful pure snow tarnished with sin becomes a heap of filth, she thought poetically, and wrote the words in her private diary. Never again, she vowed, and in a derisive show of righteous passion, she drew an elaborate cross and nailed the name ‘ROBERT’ to it.

Several rainy weeks passed. Though her heart still ached, the painful sting of Robert’s slight had eased.  Maisie felt older, a new possessor of sad wisdom, and with renewed zeal, intensified her focus on heavenly matters.  Robert was never far from her thoughts, but she accepted this thorn in her flesh as rightfully deserved punishment. She concentrated diligently on her lessons at school, helped her mother complete household chores without complaint, responded to her father’s cantankerous demands with a patient smile and attended confession twice weekly. Her soul was healing.

One morning, she awoke to bright sunshine peeking past her window curtains.  She grinned. The sun is a metaphor.  The clouds of my heart have parted and the beams of heavenly light shine down, she wrote in her diary, of which pages and pages had been filled since that day at the window. Feeling light and airy, she trotted down the stairs to make tea and toast for breakfast and have a wee blether with her ma and da.

“I’m oot ae bloody smokes,” her Da grumbled, as she poured his tea for him. “Maisie, hen, oot ye go and get your ole da some smokes, will ye, hen?” Feeling obliging and good-natured, Maisie consented.  It would be the first time in weeks she would visit the newsagents again, but this morning she had turned over a new leaf and nothing could ruin her newfound cheerfulness, not even a visit to the cursed newsagents.  She slipped on her coat, and traipsed out the front door, down the steps and along the pavement to the shop, almost inclined to join the spring birds with a merry whistle.

Mr Watt looked over his glasses at her as she pushed the cigarette pack across the counter to him.

“That sailor been asking fae ya,” he mumbled, unhappily. 

Maisie froze.  Fury seized her, followed by uncontrollable delight churned with guilt.  He’d been here?  All this time, he’d been here, asking for her?  She realized an unstoppable grin was spreading across her face, betraying her to Mr Watt, but then, was that a faint flicker of a smile on his face too?  She thanked him for the cigarettes (“Doan’t thank me!”) and rushed out the door.

See him again, she must.  But how?  When?  Mr Watt knows.  Maybe he...?  She was lost in the many calamitous questions spinning around in her mind.  Distracted by these tumultuous thoughts, Maisie never saw the steel pole until she had strode right into it, head first.

“Hey, Red, take it easy on that thing, what’d it ever do to you?”

Maisie looked straight up in surprise and right into Robert’s teasing hazel eyes.  She rubbed her forehead.

“Been wondering where you been.  I’ve been hoping I’d see you again.”

Maisie was speechless.  No, furious.  No, indignant.  All she’d wanted for weeks was a moment like this to occur – perhaps without the pole incident – and now here it was, and all she wanted to do was run.  So she did.

“Maisie, wait!” Robert shouted after her.  He sprang into a jog and caught up with her.  “Maisie, Maisie, stop, wait up!”

Maisie spun around, nearly knocking Robert off balance.  “You! You! How dare you!” she cried, aware she was about to make a scene but powerless to control herself.

“Maisie, I--”

“You never came!  You said you’d be there, and you never came! And you never came back here, tae the shop, you just never – do you think I’m – what do you think I’m – I was just going tae – I – I have feelings!” she screamed, tears running over her nose and lips, hot and infuriated and humiliated, conscious she was attracting stares.

“Maisie, are you talking about not meeting you at mass? Maisie, you couldn’t possibly think we could get back over the water in all that weather that day, did you?  The weather was awful that week.  Just as soon as it cleared, I came back, but you were nowhere to be found.”

They had gathered a crowd.  Wee old biddies whispered curtly about ole John’s wee lassie carrying on with the sailor, shaking their heads and wagging their bony fingers at each other. Maisie could not have been more shamed or terrified, not to mention confused, than she felt standing there in the street, the centre of unwanted gossip, before a man she both hated and loved fiercely all in one great miserable moment.  What would her father say when he hears about this?

Robert turned to the crowds of busybodies and said in his booming, American drawl, “Y’all got nothing better to do than watch a couple of young sweethearts have a lovers’ quarrel?”  The old women gasped at his Yankee impropriety and sauntered away, whispering to one another reproachfully.

Maisie’s forehead was throbbing.  She touched the painful bump that was growing larger and avoided Robert’s gaze.  She felt foolish yet moved that Robert considered her his sweetheart. And it really had been snowy, maybe it wasn’t possible to get the ferry back over from Holy Loch like he said.  She peered at him from under her brow.

“Can I please hold your hand again, Red?”

Softened, she shyly held out her hand, and he took it into his and wrapped it around his arm. “Let me walk you all the way home this time, and let me meet your pop.  Those old fishwives are probably there already anyway, telling him all about me,” he said, smiling.    Maisie nodded uneasily, but she knew he was right.  Besides, she’d have to introduce him to her parents some day if she was ever to become Mrs...

“What’s your last name?” she asked suddenly.

“Martin.  Lieutenant Junior Robert Daniel Martin.”

Challenge Accepted! July and August Books

The end of the year is coming around fast, and I haven't gotten as far along in the reading challenge as I hoped I'd be by this time. But I'm doing not bad either.

July and August were such busy months with me starting my new job and us moving, so I never got a chance to review my July books. Even now, I'm not sure how much of a proper review I'll be able to write, given the distance in time since I read some of them and the lack of time I have right now to write with.  We are trying to get as many boxes unpacked and put away as possible with this long Labor Day weekend. Three days off work means three days of getting the house closer to the way we want it.

So anyway, let's get on with it, shall we?

July Books

The Rosie Effect by Graeme Simsion (A funny book)
Last year in our book club we read The Rosie Project, and I loved it. It was just a fun, quirky story with delightful characters. The Rosie Effect is the sequel which came out earlier this year (or late last year, can't remember).  It's about Don Tillman, a genetics professor with undiagnosed Aspergers, who falls in love with a very unpredictable and fiercely independent woman called Rosie. This book picks up where the last left off, and it did not disappoint.  It was filled with much of the same awkward, cringeworthy situations, good-natured humor, tear-jerk moments, and heart-warming sentiment that I loved about the first book. I hope there will be a Rosie Book 3. I will definitely read it!

Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama (A non-fiction book)
I loved this book. Loved it.

I read about half of The Audacity of Hope and expected this to be much of the same, but it was entirely different. Dreams from My Father is an autobiography, plain and simple. Well, not plain and simple; it's so much more than an autobiography. It's an important commentary about race in America.

Obama starts his book with his youngest memories of childhood, a black boy living with his white mother and white grandparents who grew up listening to stories about his Kenyan father whom he didn't actually meet until he was ten years old.  He takes us through his formative years - a couple of elementary school years in Indonesia, middle and high school in Hawaii, college in California, working in New York and Chicago, and finally his first visit to Kenya.  All through the book he illustrates his struggle as a black man from a white family trying to figure out just who he is and what he was meant for.

While I did get bogged down a bit during the long section about his job as an organizer in Chicago, the whole book felt important, like something that no one is talking about but should. Or perhaps something people are talking about but in the wrong way. I had to take the book very slowly because every chapter left me with something bigger than myself to dwell on and work through. So much that I'm going to have to go back and read it again sometime soon. I don't feel like I can even adequately review the book, because my experience as a white person is so limited and so privileged. All I can say is, whether you like Obama the politician or not is not the issue with this book. This book is entirely unpolitical. It's about a man and his struggle to come into his own and to find himself in a world he never seemed to fit into. It's well-written, thoughtful and careful, and emotionally stirring.

(A side note: What I would've given to see the look on his Kenyan family's faces when their own Barry was announced President of the United States! I imagine them saying, "He's an Obama! He was made for big things!")


August Books

Incognegro by Mat Johnson (A graphic novel)
Like so many books these days, I learned of this one via NPR.  Mat Johnson was being interviewed by Terry Gross on his latest novel, Loving Day, and they referred often to his first graphic novel, Incognegro. I decided that would be my graphic novel.

Only problem was, it's out of print, and all the copies I could find online were running $50-60 bucks. Erm...

But I kept looking and finally found it for $20, and I snatched it right up.

It's the story of a black journalist with such fair skin that he goes undercover as a white man to investigate lynchings. He is tired of the job though and decides it's time to move on - until his boss gives him one last assignment...

I had no idea that a graphic novel could pack such a punch.  The artwork was horrifying, and the story was agonizing. I actually felt sick to my stomach at parts, the reality of recent history making itself plain to me in the gory images of lynchings and the unthinkable things whites did to blacks - and not all that long ago.

This isn't an easy book to get a hold of, but it was really incredible. It's also opened up the world of graphic novels to me. While I doubt I'll be delving straight into Batman any time soon, I have started reading my second graphic novel - to be discussed in September's books!

God Help the Child by Toni Morrison (A book from an author you love that you haven't read yet)
After reading Disgruntled and Dreams from My Father, I started looking for more books written by black authors about black lives.  Toni Morrison's Beloved is one of my favorite books, so when I heard her interviewed (on NPR of course) about her new novel (she's in her eighties!), I got very excited.  Morrison usually writes about the past, and I believe this is her first novel set in the present. It was a little bizarre; it had all the most modern cultural references, but she still wove in the mystical as if it were the practical in the way she so seamlessly does.  

This book is about Bride, a very dark girl ("Sudanese black") born to a fair skinned mother, Sweetness, who couldn't properly love her for her skin tone.  Bride grows up to be a very successful young woman, but the scars of her loveless childhood never really heal. As she tries to assert herself and leave the past behind, she only becomes more and more the child she is fighting to no longer be.  In the meantime, Sweetness watches her daughter keep her cold distance, and it slowly, vaguely occurs to her that "what you do to children matters. And they might never forget."

Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America and Found Unexpected Peace by William Lobdell (A book with antonyms in the title)
I actually found this book by Googling "books with antonyms in the title". Having just written and published my own deconversion story, I figured it was now safe to read others. I'd kept very clear of any books like this while writing my own for fear of being influenced by them.  I wanted my book to be pure and honest and entirely my own; I didn't want their words and emotions to seep into mine.

It's a good thing I made that my plan, because I found myself nodding and murmuring "uh-huh" and "mm-hmm" the whole way through.  The specifics were different - he became a believer as an adult and was drawn to the Catholic church, and his faith fell apart after years of reporting on corruption in organized religion - but our hearts seemed to have been in the same place and dealing with the same things.

I wrote my book to make others in the same situation feel less alone. Reading this book returned the favor.  I felt after reading it that I was comforted this time around. It was a pretty good feeling.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs (A mystery or thriller)
Mysteries and thrillers are not my genre. I don't like being scared, and I don't like suspense.  So Miss Peregrine's is simply going to have to be the book that checks this category off. It's mystery enough to count, I think.

Jacob travels to the island of his beloved grandfather's childhood to unlock the secrets of his grandfather Abe's dying words to him. He has long stopped believing his grandfather's wild and impossible stories, but what he finds on the island changes his life forever.

The book combines authentic vintage photography with a plot line that is interesting, mysterious, and engaging. The unique photography adds enormously to the story line. I picked this up on a whim in the book store, and I really liked it. It's got a few choice words, so it won't be eight-year-old Fifi-worthy just yet, but in a few years, I hope she pulls it from the shelf and loves it. It's a book I look forward to sharing with my wee readers.




To see what else I have read this year:
June
May
April
March
February
January

Too Stressed To Think of a Title

I am stressed.

Stressed, like, beyond anything I've ever known.

I underestimated my worth as a stay-at-home-mum, but now that I'm a working mum, I realize just how much I did when I was at home.

I stayed home with the kids when they were sick.

I took them to doctor's appointments and dentist visits.

I took the cats to the vet.

I paid the bills (on time).

I took letters to the post office.

I went to the bank.

I made calls to sort out doctor's appointments, bill queries, banking issues.

I took the cars in for oil changes and maintenance.

I cleaned out the cars.

I cleaned the house.

I kept on top of the laundry.

I kept on top of the dishes. 

I made menus and grocery lists and did the grocery shopping.

I prepared breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

I even got in my "me time" by going to the gym and keeping fit and healthy.

Now?

All those things still need to get done, but Scott and I both need to leave the house by 7:30 to get the kids to school and daycare and get ourselves to work by 8. We both push ourselves mentally to the limit daily from 8-4:30, only occasionally taking an hour for a lunch break, before heading back home to collect the kids. By the time we get home, it's too late to run errands or make phone calls. By the time we've done homework with the kids, eaten a late dinner, and put all the little people to bed, it's time to tackle all the chores.  

Throw into the mix moving into a new house, where the errands, bills, and housework are thrown into overdrive. We are surrounded by boxes we have no time to empty and loose ends we have no time to tie. We had the old house to clean too, and all the old utilities to reconcile. 

This weekend we drove nine hours to Texas to visit family which was AMAZING (minus the driving part) and fun. But upon arriving back home at 1:45am and seeing the mess my house is in and knowing I'd have to be getting up for work in just five hours was devastating. I thought I'd also get the grocery shopping for the week finally done, after living the last two weeks on takeout, but that never happened either.  

Next week, my in-laws from Scotland are coming. The guest room is still full of boxes and no bed.

I never realized before how tough working mamas have it.  I worked full time from home for several years, which was extremely taxing, but I had no idea how hard it would be to work outside the home and not be able to get daytime tasks accomplished. Some people joke that going to work is a break from the kids, but my job is just one loooong day of a shitload too much to do. I go home from working nonstop all day to thinking of all the things that didn't get done at work and at home that need to get done. I wake up in the middle of the night trying to work out problems that won't let me get back to sleep. I remember half way through my work day that I never paid the car payment but I can't do anything about it because I'm at work. All my perfectly organized systems and daily itineraries are shot. My days run into each other bringing to close week after week without my realizing where the time has gone.

I am stressed.

I tell myself that in time it'll all come together. I'll make a new, albeit busier, routine and fall comfortably into it. But at the moment, I can't see that anywhere. All I see is a rocky landscape stretching to the horizon, and me climbing and tripping over the boulders and loose stones trying to go forward under the glare of a blistering, blinding midday sun. And all that's in the horizon for me is more rocks.

Usually, when I catch myself in danger of depression, I see myself slipping down a steep slope. I see it as a fast, slick descent. Right now, I see it as something I'm pushing myself into, unable to go any other direction other than full force straight into it, because that's the direction and inertia of my life.

How do you working mothers do this? How do you balance work and home? How do you spend all day expending your mental powers on the job and then come home to children who need attention and affection and patient help with homework, without totally coming unglued? 

I want to be that mother who comes home from work and pulls all the children onto her lap like a box full of kittens and snuggles them all with sitcom-worthy good nature before setting the whole family down for a healthy meal of meat and two vegetables. Who then brushes all the teeth and reads all the bedtime stories and tucks in all the blankets and coos as she turns out all the lights. Who throws in a load of laundry, washes all the dinner dishes, and then cuddles up with her husband on the couch with a glass of wine and a happy smile on her face. Who then wriggles into her perfectly made bed (done every morning, of course) with a book to read before slipping easily off to her eight hours of healthful sleep, fresh and ready for the 6 o'clock alarm the next morning.

Instead, I'm the mother who curses at the traffic on her way home from work, who picks up the kids from daycare and screams at the them because they have immediately begun to fight as soon as they get into the car over car seats and seat belts. Who gets home to a messy house and feels a massive headache come on as she tries to figure out what to throw together for dinner in a pinch because she hasn't had time to go to the grocery store in two weeks. Who feels guilty over the lack of vegetables on the plates and the overabundance of starches.  Who then loses her temper when the kids refuse to get dressed for bed because they have suddenly remembered that they have homework they need help with. Who snaps at her husband who also has been working all day over the tiniest things because her patience is gone and the house is a mess and even though they are both trying to carry their weight, the weight is too heavy. And when the kids are finally in their beds, after yet another night with no bedtime story, she looks at all the work that needs to be done and just cries as she moves from room to room doing small tasks that lead to other small tasks that make her feel she has done nothing at all when she looks back over the whole thing. Who collapses into bed without washing her face because she's too exhausted to fucking care that her face is going to break out and eyeliner is going to smudge all over her pillowcase.

That's the beautiful image I see of this girl right here. Hi, I'm Lori, the evil, stressed out arch nemesis of Supermom. Nice to meet you.

New House New Town New School

Well, we've kept it pretty quiet until it was a done deal, but this past weekend we MOVED! We moved out of Nowheresville into Somewheresville.  It's not quite the city, but Target is a five minute drive away, so I count that as a major step up in the world.

We rented a cute four bedroom house in a cute neighborhood with a cute neighborhood school and a cute-slash-awesome daycare. Instead of taking 45 minutes to get to work, it takes us 15. It's incredible.

When the house gets less boxy and more decorated, I'll take some pictures. It's an older house than the one we left, which has its advantages and disadvantages. The closets are much smaller, the bathrooms are smaller, and it's got old features like popcorn ceilings and wooden panel walls and drafty doors. BUT it's also got some adorable quirks like a wet bar, a wood burning fireplace and a Harry Potter-esque room under the stairs which will double as a fantastic storm shelter in case of a tornado.

The kids are loving the new space. It's such a big house that sometimes I actually can't find someone. Usually though, it's a cat I can't find. They are having a difficult time adjusting to their new digs. I'm trying to teach them to use the toilet instead of a litter box, with modest - very modest - success. More often than not, Sassy pees in the bathtub, but hey, it's better than the carpet! And I'm proud to report there HAVE been some poos in the toilet litter, which means it's starting to sink in on some level. If all goes according to plan, I'll have potty trained kitties in about, oh, three to four months. Worth it!

Today was the kids' first day of school at their new school. I am LOVING that they wear uniforms again. I think uniforms are a great thing for kids, at least young kids. It's easier on parents, it looks neat and tidy, and it levels the playing field for kids across the board.

Jaguar also started in his new daycare. We loved his old daycare and will miss the wonderful people there, but this daycare is super-cool. I told Jaguar they had pet guinea pigs in every classroom.  He laughed in my face and said, "No! Dinosaurs!" I had to explain to him that the daycare did not have pet dinosaurs, just guinea pigs. He didn't really believe me until he saw for himself today.

So now that we have hot water, a fridge (had to buy our own), and internet, the place is starting to feel like a home. Now we just need to stock up our wet bar (we live in a wet county again! No more driving out of city limits to buy wine!) so I can have a nice wee night cap before bed.

Things are looking up!

P.S. We have a guest room now, so if you out-of-towners want to come visit....

The Difference Between You and Me: Or Is There One?

I mentioned last time that I've had several responses to the Screen Doors post that I wanted to address. One of the ones I really wanted to respond to was my friend Kate's response to Screen Doors.

She responded to my blog on her blog.  It is really good and asks a lot of questions that I am eager to respond to. (Response response response, can you say it five times fast?) I'll post snippets here as I reply, but please go read her entire post afterwards. Whether you are a Christian or not, I think it is very inspiring, honest, and furthers this amazing dialogue that is so rarely seen between believers and non-believers.

I'll begin with this:

“Most of the time I feel as spiritual as a plunger.” I worry perhaps a friend saw my sin, my depression, or my bad parenting and they knew I wasn’t being Christ-like. Did this help them turn away from those teachings we grew up with? ... I feel disappointed in myself and my lack of spiritual fortitude.

She was talking about her childhood friends whom she has seen since leave Christianity.

I can't speak for every single person who has ever left their faith, obviously. I am sure there are plenty of people who have left because of the hypocrisy or failings or bad behavior of believers. However, I can say that in my experience (and at least one or two of the friends she might be referring to), this was not remotely the case.

One thing that I do not miss about Christianity is the guilt. Oh, sorry, I mean "conviction".  If you've read my book, you'll know what I mean when I say I was a spiritual masochist. I turned everything inward, wondering if there was any part of me that was to blame for any undesirable situation. I believed this was cleansing me, making me more like Christ. I could not fathom anyone being a genuine Christian and NOT constantly rooting out the evil within them. I recognized my brokenness too deeply. I was ashamed of my poor witness. I prayed constantly to be made more like Christ, but I failed over and over again. This all basically comes down to me saying I relate all too well with Kate's concern.  I too wondered if my own imperfection was driving people away from God. I'm a crappy parent sometimes, I get depressed, and I never felt I was quite living up to the person God wanted me to be. I could be a hypocrite. As hard as I tried to be righteous, I messed up time and again. And I wondered, "Is my light so dim that no one can see Christ through me?"

The answer, almost certainly, was no.

I left the faith, and many, many others leave the faith, simply because we run out of faith. We started the race like marathon runners, but after the first 26.2 miles and the next 26.2 miles and the next, we started to slow down. We ran out of breath.  We hunched over, panting, trying to keep running. Finally, we collapsed. The faith that we either longed to have (but could never admit was lacking) or the faith that we held unquestioningly somehow just began to run out. Whether the burden of reason grew too great or the allusiveness of God too wearisome, losing faith in a religion is often a highly introspective experience. It's not caused by other people's behavior. It may be, but I'd venture to say a genuine loss of faith is usually very inward-looking.

People who care enough about their faith to worry that their imperfect lives may be causing others to stumble are almost NEVER the people who should have to worry about that. You are usually the best people around. You are empathetic, you are introspective, and you are genuine. You're the good guys.

Let me add before I go on that the greatest joy I feel daily is the lack of guilt and shame and brokenness. I thought I felt whole as a Christian, but now I realize I only felt fixed. It is only now that I feel truly whole, now that I realize I was never broken in the first place.

Another huge issue for me is my own unbelief. All Christians struggle with unbelief or doubt at times. I have gone through seasons of my life -sometimes even years- when I feel disconnected from the Lord and full of doubt. When I have a friend who outs herself as an atheist, a big part of me wonders if she is going through a similar season. And, to be very honest, sometimes you feel like your friendly atheist has made some excellent points and all your doubts coming flooding back to the surface.

Let me repeat the caveat - I can't speak for everyone here. Just myself and several people I know.

Yes, we all have our doubts, Christian or not. Sometimes they are huge and leave us in a pit of despair for far too long. And for some, that faith does return. I followed a blog for a while called Gakeat's Musings, in which the author ruminated on his crisis of faith. He eventually reconciled his belief in Christ (and has sadly stopped blogging - I'd love to hear his thoughts now that he is back on this renewed path!). Some people do go through a season of doubt and come back to their faith.

And some of us are beyond seasons. If you are an evangelical, you likely had some sort of turning-point moment that you could never go back from. I know I did. Whether that was the moment of "salvation" or just the moment where my spiritual journey took off like a rocket, I don't know, but it fundamentally impacted the next decade of my life.

I had that same kind of experience when I de-converted. To go back now seems, well, unthinkable.

For some people, it is only a season of doubt. For others, this is our new (improved) reality.

As for the "friendly atheist [making] some excellent points", that's another, more difficult topic. Do I want to venture into it? Maybe later ... But for now, my goal is not to turn people away from their faith. It's only to share the view from the other side and to keep a dialogue going.

When I found out a friend was no longer a Christian I was full of questions and worries. ... How can this be? ... We cried together, and worshiped together. Or at least I thought we did. Was she lying to me? When did this start? Was she doubting her faith when she was praying for me when I was struggling last year? Was she just acting or bowing to societal pressure this whole time?

I'm not the friend she's referring to, by the way. So I don't know what her friend was going through. But if she HAD been talking about me, here's what I'd have to say.

Those moments you refer to were real, for both of us. For me, those moments were never put on or intentionally deceptive. Growing up (adolescence, young adult years), my faith was solid. I cried and worshiped with hands lifted high.  It was never fake. Christ was my center, my All In All.  When my faith began to waiver, though, I did hide it from most people. I was afraid of being judged. I didn't want anyone to know that this girl who led worship at church, who helped in the Sunday School, who facilitated the Prayer Wall, who had been on mission trips, was now starting to doubt. I didn't know if my doubts were just one of those aforementioned seasons or not, so to share them seemed premature. But I was ashamed. So at that point, I did keep it inside. But I wasn't acting. I was just hiding in fear.

If I'd been praying for a struggling friend during that time, those prayers would probably have been the most heart-felt prayers of my life, because I was living the struggle too. No one can empathize better than the person walking in the exact same shoes.

So much of my identity is wrapped up in my relationship with the Lord. When I found out that Jane had rejected Him, it is shocking because I feel like she is rejecting part of me, and in some cases, her upbringing ... I want to say, “Jane, do you remember that [time] when I went forward and received prayer at church? It was terrible and wonderful at the same time.  I felt so embarrassed when I cried and my nose ran and I was shaking as you and the others were praying for me. I hated for anyone to see me that way. I hated to make myself so vulnerable, but I knew you understood. Do you still understand or do you look back on that time and pity me and revile my weakness?”

Oh, my heart breaks at this point. You can't imagine what feelings reading those words brings up in me. Yes, we still understand. I'm not Jane, remember, but this could easily be asked of me. I have had so many of these moments; the vulnerability, the ugly tears, the weakness, the love and thankfulness I felt for my friends who held me and understood me and prayed for me. I can never forget my own moments like that; how could I ever revile someone else for theirs?

I speak for myself here when I say that even though I often feel embarrassed by the things I said and did as a Christian, and even though I sometimes feel regret and anger and frustration, I also have come to a place where I can give myself a lot of grace. Yes, grace is a word that's been co-opted by Christianity, but it's a good word. It's something we all need, regardless of who gives it to us. I am learning to give it to myself. But I never needed to learn to give it to others; for me that just came naturally. I'm way more forgiving of others than I am of myself. I don't look back at your weak moments and feel embarrassment or pity. Just love and grace.

One other thing to mention here is the use of the word "rejection". It's a commonly used word in this context; the atheist "rejects" God or even "denies his existence".  Yet that is an entirely inaccurate word for most people.  I don't think I know a single atheist or agnostic who feels they have rejected or denied God. We simply don't believe a god exists (or are not sure either way). I don't deny or reject Zeus, nor do I deny or reject Allah. I don't believe either exist. When it comes to our friends, we no longer share that thing we once had in common, true. But we don't reject it or you. However, I can completely see where you're coming from. I don't think that's a crazy way to feel at all. When your faith is your essence, then someone leaving that shared faith can absolutely feel like a rejection. But just please remember that it's not. Again, the loss of faith is highly internal. There certainly must be people who throw out the baby with the bathwater, or in this case the Christians with the Christianity, but I hope those people eventually see that this isn't necessary.  Just as we non-believers long to be loved and accepted by others, we should extend that same love and acceptance to our believing friends. Without judgment, without arrogance.

One close friend told me that he realized his unbelief was a bigger deal for me than it was for him. ... I’m worried about his soul ... but he isn’t.

Yeah. I think this is probably true. For a lot of people, de-converting is fairly uneventful. Especially when it was a largely intellectual affair. For me, it was highly emotional, but this not normally the case. Most of my religious-turned-nonreligious friends had a harder time emotionally with losing friends and family than losing their faith.


Finally, I must address her last thought. This is truly the crux, if you ask me, of the entire subject.

I wonder about my friends who don’t have the Lord in their lives. How do they make it through the day? How do they have the strength to be the mom their children need? How do they stay married? I doubt they would say they have everything figured out or that they are better than me. They are taking it one day at time as well, but I cannot comprehend how they are still functioning. This raises all kinds of confusion within me. I am less a capable woman than them? I am just trained to be dependent on the Holy Spirit because of my upbringing and beliefs? Are they failing miserably and not telling anyone? Am I a horrible person with unfathomable depths of depravity that I need help overcoming while they are just normal functioning people?

My answer cannot be summed up succinctly or in some quaint, quirky, poetic little sentence. Here's the thing: We ALL struggle. Constantly. We are all human.

How do I personally make it through the day? When I was a Christian, I truly believed God was bringing me through. I believed he had his hand on my life and was guiding me, protecting me. When that faith began to disintegrate, I had no idea how I could cope without him.

I'll never forget the day I realized that not only could I go forward on my own, but that I'd ALWAYS been on my own. When you come to realize there is no almighty god guiding you and protecting you, you eventually make the connection that such a god didn't just disappear leaving you in the lurch but never existed in the first place. Therefore all those years before HAD been on my own. And I survived. The feeling of empowerment and strength that moment afforded me is inexplicable.

Wait, I know EXACTLY what you're thinking. How presumptuous of me! How arrogant! I seriously deserve pity now that I've come right out and said "I can do this on my own without god!" Oh boy, am I the classic Kevin Sorbo character atheist now! But hear me out, if you can.

The way I see it, you and I are no different. You and I both struggle. We have bad days, we have bad months, maybe even years. We get depressed, we get angry, we fail miserably. Yet we both find the strength to get out bed (most days) and push on. We both look at our children and think, "You are worth me trying to do better." We look at our marriages and think, "This is worth fighting for."

Your strength rises out of your faith. I admire that. I think that if faith in Jesus Christ gets you out of bed and makes you a better person, then that is awesome. Regardless of whether or not I think your strength actually comes from inside YOU or comes from God, the fact is you are strong, and you are making the world a better place for yourself, your children, and everyone else around you.

I don't have that strength anymore. Not from faith, that is. Nor do I want it. Faith no longer has that rosy fragrance drawing me to it. Now, I have a different strength.  What gets me out of bed in the morning is the realization that life is short, so very short, and I barely have any real time to put my imprint on it. I want to live every moment as a totally alive person, making the short lives of others as meaningful as possible. I want to do better for my kids so they can do better for their kids. I want to fight for my marriage, because life is too short to be alone and sad, and I've been so lucky to find someone I'm desperate to share my short life with. Since realizing that there is no afterlife in which to make up for whatever I missed here on earth, my concept of time has radically changed. Like a heart attack survivor, I've got a new lease on life. To use someone else's words - because they are so much better than mine:

I suddenly felt very deeply that I was alive: Alive with my own particular thoughts, with my own particular story, in this itty-bitty splash of time. And in that splash of time, I get to think about things and do stuff and wonder about the world and love people, and drink my coffee if I want to. And then that's it. -Julia Sweeney, "Letting Go of God"

So, no, back to your original questions, you are not a horrible person who needs God to overcome your failings while the rest of us go on functioning normally. You have tapped into a source of strength. So have I. Many people have not tapped into a source of strength yet, and for those people, I do wonder how they get through life. I hope everyone finds a source of strength, as long as it is not in something destructive. For those who find their strength in faith, I ask only that they do not use it as a weapon also. Same goes for anyone who finds strength anywhere - within themselves or externally. We are all prone to weakness, therefore we all have a responsibility of empathy. We should use our strength to lift the weak up, not beat them down. 

The Difference Between a Screen Door and a Porch

A beautiful and wise friend left a comment on my "Screen Doors" post recently. I started to reply in the comments section, but her words said so much, I decided to post them here before replying.

When you were a Christian, didn't you sometimes feel that you had to hold back about expressing your beliefs, for fear of putting a huge block in your relationship with your atheist friends? We all make mistakes and (I think) just stumble along in life. I can be quite critical of others until I realize how many time I put my own foot into my own mouth. So I am not trying to defend anything here, and I figure for every person with fairly clear thinking and fairly good motives, there may be a completely muddled and selfish person, Christian or atheist alike. But I'm trying to say that I think maybe a screen door is an attempt to avoid building a brick wall. I say this because my youngest son hit a faith crisis right about the same time you declared your atheism. I don't think he'd say he's an atheist. I think he believes there is a God; he just doesn't particularly like God right now. Between the two of you, my world has been rocked with a massive sense of loss. Yet I have hope in my Lord, and I pray for Him to reveal His light and beauty and grace. When I held my tiny baby boy and felt all that mother-love for him, when I nursed him and burped him, washed him and dressed him, cared for him and delighted in how cute he was and the funny things he said and did, I never imagined that we would be here at this point today. I still love him with all my heart, but there are many things I cannot say to him. To me, this is my screen door: I am open to him, I long to have a full relationship with him. I pray for him multiple times every day. He is always welcome in my home. I love to be able to cook for him, or do his laundry, although he rarely allows me to. When he wants to talk, I am ready, I respond. But I have to wait. I have to wait for him to open the door. My screen door is unlocked and I stand behind it watching the horizon for his silhouette, hoping like crazy that he will come home and turn the handle.

First, let me say what a beautiful picture she just painted. It brings tears to my eyes. I remember lying on my side in the still and silent hours of the night, cradling my nursing infant son in the crook of my arm and crying noiseless tears over the enormity of my responsibility to him.  As I struggled with my own faith during those days and months, I prayed with all the strength of my being that he would grow to love God and that he would be saved. Nothing frightened me more than the idea of my perfect baby boy (or either of my perfect girls) rejecting Jesus as their Savior and spending eternity in hell. I remember the passion, the pain and the desperation I felt as I begged the Lord to spare my children, to spare this innocent child at my breast, to give them all life everlasting, in spite of my own shortcomings.

I remember like it was yesterday.

And I can only imagine it gets harder with age, as these young people develop into their own selves, and create their own identities and pursue their own paths. For a believing mother to watch her child struggle with faith or turn from it completely must be heart-wrenching agony to say the least.

But to respond further to what my friend said, let me say that I don't think she has put up a screen door at all.  Judging by her words, it sounds more like she and her son are both sitting on the porch swing, sipping a glass of iced tea together and trying to understand.  They've met in the middle.

I feel like this with my own mom. I know it kills her that I'm not a believer anymore. I know her heart aches, and I know the number of tears she has shed is uncountable. But she's not hiding inside behind a screen door, keeping me out, waving to me from a distance. She has stepped outside, feeling a little out of her comfort zone, to meet me on the porch. And I too have had to step out of my comfort zone to join her there. It's not comfortable for me to face the pain my unbelief causes her, but I do not want to walk away or avoid her. I would rather walk up those steps and join her on the porch, both of us feeling a little unsure of what to say but allowing love to fill the silences.

I think that's where I used to put myself as a believer with unbelieving friends.  They weren't in my church buildings or on my mission trips, and I wasn't exactly where they were. But we met in middle. I wanted them in my church, perhaps, and they probably would've loved for me to living free and easy where they were "in the world" (as I'd have considered it). But if Christians. or any other version of believers, hide behind their closed doors or screen doors, they will never touch the lives they long to touch, and they will miss out on relationships with amazing people. And if non-believers stay off the property of believers, wanting nothing to do with them, they will miss the love and friendship of some wonderful, beautiful people. There is discomfort on both sides, and there is sometimes misunderstanding or miscommunication. But if we can join each other on the porch, we can learn to speak one another's languages and start to understand. There can be love freely given and freely received.

For me, it's uncomfortable sometimes to feel like someone's mission project. Sometimes, taking those steps up onto the porch is daunting. I am confident in what I believe (and don't believe); I don't want to preached at or "reached out to". However, until I join you on the porch, I'll never know if you've just got a religious agenda to "save" me or if you truly, genuinely care about me.

For you, it's uncomfortable to feel judged or ridiculed for your beliefs.  Taking those steps means you might be vulnerable to someone's scorn or rejection.  You might be vulnerable to your own pain and worry for them and their souls.  You don't want to be mocked or attacked, and you want to guard your heart. But until you join me on the porch, you'll never know if I just have an atheist agenda or if I just truly, genuinely care about you.

My friend, you haven't just left your screen door open and unlocked for your son.  You have confronted your discomfort and have stepped outside to meet your son on the porch. I hope he has joined you there.  I hope that it is there, in the slightly humid air, on a slightly stiff swing, that the two of you can feel the cool evening breeze of understanding and love that makes sitting on that porch worth the uneasiness that such a fundamental divide stirs within the both of you.