In praise of sleep, laughter and ice cream (and other stuff)

It’s only August, so there’s a lot of year still left to go, but so far 2016 has in many ways felt uniquely eternal and taxing. Lately I’ve been trying to pinpoint bits of the “why” behind this.

Some of it, I think, is due to absorbing the news of jaw-dropping horrors across the country and globe. Orlando, Baghdad, Nice… the sheer frequency of such incidents and the unrelenting hatred seem unprecedented, shaking my hope in that arc of progress that bends, slowly but surely, toward justice. The popular ignorance and inhumanity of Donald Trump hasn’t helped either. Where is the love, the compassion, the common ground and good will that keep society intact?

But as much as these broad and legitimate reasons for deep concern have definitely affected my outlook this year, the primary roots of my weariness are more personal, more selfish, if I’m being honest – and mostly just not that big a deal in the grand scheme of things.

But in my little corner of our fraught world, or at least in my head, those ultimately minor disappointments, injustices, frustrations and failures have felt pretty big. And they loom even larger when I’m not feeling well (I’ve had a bad cold this week at an especially busy time).

And so I think that’s kind of what’s been going on and getting me down more than usual – just a lot of what seem like backward, out-of-my-control steps this year, followed by mental exercises in deep-seated insecurity and self-absorption of every stripe: My hair sucks. Maybe I am just terrible at this and chose the wrong path. I should dress better. It’s all my fault. I should be faster at this. What is wrong with me? Why haven’t I mowed the lawn yet? The weeds are literally the size of trees. Why do I feel so behind? Are they right that I am actually going to hell? Why can't I fix this? What is wrong with me? How have I still not made a dentist appointment? Is it selfish of me not to plan on procreating? How have I made so little progress financially at this age? Everyone else seems to be juggling life just fine. Stop looking at Facebook. Get it together, self! Blahhhhh.

On the upside, 2016 has been a really good reminder to me of how much we need each other and that I am beloved and understood (and so are you) by the people who know me and love me anyway, even when I’m at my worst. To have people in our lives that time and again help us claw our way out of our zany heads and keep on keeping on is no small grace.

In addition, I’ve taken refuge in more ice cream and other indulgences than I’d care to admit in recent months, but hey, oh well. Ice cream is very delicious and helpful. So is keeping a sense of humor, particularly about ourselves. Sleep is good, too, and possibly my most key accomplishment of 2016 was investing in a new mattress. Definitely an underrated errand.

Have you but one blessing

Esau’s desperate plea echoes on through the ages, an unresolved chord.

So does the divine verdict with its matter-of-fact shrug: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”

It’s enough that life isn’t fair, enough that when Esau is hungry, vulnerable and consumed with work, those he trusts betray him. But it gets worse in the second act, of course. And centuries later, when people try to ask questions, an impatient apostle won’t hesitate to make Esau exhibit A of that’s-just-how-it-is.

People will keep asking questions and keep pleading Esau’s plea. The haunting verdict will stick around as well, and even the characteristically empathetic Jesus will repeat its chilly message now and then. When students ask about his cryptic approach with crowds clearly hungry for hope and help, the teacher will reply, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For to the one who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.”

To his credit, Esau himself eventually moves beyond his very justifiable outrage. Not only does he move on, though -- he becomes a model of reconciliation and being the bigger person.

Years later he will run toward his despicable brother, wrapping the twerp in an affectionate, all-is-forgiven, hairy-armed hug. And Jacob will be showered with unexpected grace.

There was and is still in this story only the one blessing, still the infinite injustice and betrayal, all of it unacceptably consecrated by a higher power. Esau rightly voices his rage at a rigged, wildly screwed-up game. In the end, though, while the god of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob may hate him, love wins the day. And Esau decides to bestow it.

Becoming Eve

"We are deeply saddened that you have thereby separated yourself from the visible church, outside of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation." So ended Form 2B, a Word document emailed to me in regard to my soul about six years ago.

After printing out this certificate of dismissal from the church of my youth, I didn't know where to file it away. In the back of my Bible? In the fireproof box under my bed? I folded it and carried it around in my shoulder bag for several weeks, pulling it out now and then to make sure I was reading correctly.

I tried drafting various Form 2Bs for other parting occasions: We are deeply saddened that you have left this political party, outside of which there is no ordinary possibility of social progress. We are deeply saddened that you have separated yourself from this company, outside of which there is no ordinary possibility of gainful employment.We are deeply saddened that you have chosen not to patronize this Denny's, outside of which there is no possibility of enjoying our delicious Grand Slam breakfast. We are deeply saddened that you have separated yourself from this relationship, outside of which there is no ordinary possibility of love.

Sometimes I can smile, shake my head at this ultimately impotent piece of paper, this well-intended warning of eternal perishing. But every so often I'm still anxious, fearing that Form 2B has been faxed to heaven, where Jesus will locate my name in the Book of Life and blot it out with his decisive red pen.

-------

Looking back on some of the messages I received and what I recorded around the time I confessed deep doubts and was threatened with excommunication (before instead being sent on my rebellious way via the gentler Form 2B), several patterns emerge, including repeated invocations of a certain namesake.

A cousin wrote to warn me of my peril: "The very first temptation to mankind came when the serpent said to Eve in the garden, 'Did God really say?' Eve questioned what God had said and decided to live and make decisions apart from his Word. I pray that you will not make the same mistake."

A friend forwarded me a note from her mother, who was praying for me at the time. "Today, as I've thought about and prayed for Evie, I was struck by the thought that another voice is playing a role here. I thought of Satan's words to Eve in the Garden and was overwhelmed by the thought that Evie is being faced with the same battle. Trusting that Evie is born again, as I believe, then is the huge voice of doubt and accusation coming from the Serpent? Is Evie able to identify Satan's voice?" I neglected to answer these questions. I was not confident that I could identify supernatural voices, having never heard one before.

A loved one told me one day, "When we question God, we become like Eve. And what in the world would have ever led you to see the Bible as fallible, after all you've been taught?" She was upset, hurt, and I knew it was not the time or place for me to give a list of reasons. But I did have some. "I don‘t mean to be hurtful," I said, "but there are things I'm not convinced of, and it would be dishonest for me to pretend that I am." She softened for a moment and assured me that she was simply trying to be honest about what she believes to be true. "But it's also God's truth," she added.

Another family member told me he'd thought more lately about my name, Mary Eve, and how Eve was the mother of sorrows and Mary the mother of hope. He hoped that one day I'd mirror Mary more than Eve, though I've been "Evie" from day one. I watched his beloved face crumble, telling me this. Mine did too.

More than half a decade later, I'm far from knowing what to make of it all. I know I was loved and am loved still. I continue to feel a lot of guilt over leaving the tradition in which I was raised, and I still have great regret for becoming a source of pain I'm powerless to soothe. But I also still think I had to leave.

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In the biblical account of Babel’s creation and collapse, the human remnant aspires to survival and even success, and a steeple takes shape above the landscape. Call it pride, hubris if you will, but see too it is human potential at its peak. The all-wise Adonai, seeing this, registers unusual surprise and concern.

"Nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them,” he concludes, then proceeds to confuse the language of the people. Understanding fails and the community is undone.

Construction does not end overnight but scatters to the ends of the earth, each pinnacle mimicking the gesture of the ill-fated original—come, come here and be secure. We live in its wake, in places splintered between hope and disappointment, clinging for life.

Eclipses, exiled librarians and other things to love about 'Jade Dragon Mountain'

I never win drawings, but years ago I won a drawing where I got to nervously accompany the great Salman Rushdie on a short plane ride from Laramie to Denver alongside two fellow University of Wyoming writing students – each of them far more devoted Rushdie fans and just better-read people than me. Before the tiny plane touched down at DIA (and all out of our awkward and obviously over-prepared questions for the novelist), we asked him for autographs. I remember grabbing the one book of Rushdie’s that I’d read and owned – The Satanic Verses – and feeling rather sheepish as the other students on the flight handed him multiple volumes to sign. Then one of them said with a deep, earnest seriousness, “Midnight’s Children restored my faith in literature,” and I knew I was not worthy of this delightful and nerve-wracking trip.

That is all totally beside the point except that the statement comes to mind tonight as I think about the novel I just finished. I can’t say it exactly “restored my faith in literature,” because I’ve never lost that faith. But it did remind me of what real and robust storytelling can be and do in a world where it seems we lazily apply that term (storytelling) to everything under the sun.

The book, Jade Dragon Mountain, is a debut historical mystery by Elsa Hart, and the tale woven across its 300-some pages is alluring and rich like the cover. Exiled librarian Li Du, who is traveling in a western corner of China in the early 18th century, finds himself in the role of detective after crossing paths with a kind and curious Jesuit astronomer discovered dead just days before the arrival of the emperor. As a long-anticipated festival looms, all in honor of a solar eclipse widely considered the work of the emperor himself, time is of the essence. Somewhat reluctantly, Li Du suspends his solo travels to investigate the killing, an inconvenient development in the eyes of the ambitious local magistrate.

I am no mystery aficionado (though I want to read more of them after this!), but I loved this book. Somehow it manages a quick pace and plot alongside sentence-level delights of language. In addition, Hart’s understanding of the history and geography comes across with confidence and care, leaving me with a welcome glimpse of people and places about which I have known so very little.

There are compelling stories within the story, too. Thanks to the presence of the character Hamza, a travelling storyteller who befriends Li Du, the book introduces us to not only the city of Dayan (now Lijiang, where Hart drafted the novel) but to other faraway locales through Hamza's dramatic storytelling. Seamlessly told, the yarns tie nicely into the action of the overarching story, while also hinting that there are many more stories to come from this talented author.

And then of course there are the characters, who for all their no-doubt-carefully-planned-out usefulness to a satisfying story full of twists and surprises, are rendered with delightful relatability and depth.

Lastly, I loved the descriptions of tea, broth, wine and all sorts of tantalizing earthly goodness in this book. Two Sundays ago, I could not have been more happy than I was that afternoon, curled up on the couch with tea, cat, Jade Dragon Mountain and an impending eclipse of our own.

Thinking aloud about PP and such

Lately, my feed is a conflicted mix of pink profile photos and metaphorical rendings of garments. I tentatively thumb up the former when I see them, not quite confident enough to place the Planned Parenthood filter over my own picture, but ultimately landing on the pro-choice side of the abortion fence.

I haven’t always been there. I attended many a pro-life rally as a child, and in junior high I regularly volunteered at a crisis pregnancy center, folding baby blankets and sorting diapers and formula in a back storage area. Up front, in the reception area, a chain-smoking, disorganized, very personable and probably not-well-paid director handled the anti-abortion counseling sessions and walk-ins and such.

I am pro-choice now, albeit uncomfortably. My upbringing closely paired religious orthodoxy with vehement opposition to abortion, and these days I’m more fearful of admitting – and of trying to defend – a difference of opinion on this issue than even on something like hell or resurrection. But maybe that makes it more important to try and open up about.

It's difficult to pinpoint what specifically eroded my assurance about the anti-abortion camp being quite simply the right camp. Several moments have stuck with me, though, over the past decade.

The first is a statement by an evangelical, adoptive mother who said to me (in a 2007 interview for a feature I was writing about the practice of adoption) something like, "If you're going to be against abortion, adoption is the obvious thing to do." Although I had long admired the adoptive families I knew, this was the first time I’d heard an evangelical so starkly call other evangelicals to account in terms of a concrete commitment (or lack thereof) to this pet issue. She was very matter of fact about it, and it got me thinking.

And thinking (about this and many other issues) got me reading up on such topics. Pieces like this one, offering first-hand accounts of experiences I had never endured, and the heartbreaking testimony of Michael Chabon's wife, about her later-term procedure, pulled at me. This long-lived controversy was more complex, and more personally fraught, than I'd imagined.

Meanwhile, I moved to St. Louis, where I ended up living just a few blocks from the main Planned Parenthood facility in town. My short commute to work took me right past the gated parking areas, offering daily glimpses (while waiting at the light on my bike or on foot) of PP clients, employees and protesters – and of the latter’s strident voices and signs. And it was in St. Louis that studies like this one showed a dramatic decrease in abortions in the context of free access to contraception – something the right wing continued to push back against.

I also started taking public transportation, which among other things frequently offers a palpable and sobering reminder of the poverty and despair around me. Sometimes the children across the aisle from me look happy, well-fed and beloved. But this is not consistently the case. Now and then parents on the train yell hatefully at their children, completely overwhelmed and burdened and impoverished, barely holding on. It's a devastating scene.

On top of all this (and more…this is a bit of a rushed post, and hardly exhaustive) is what I observe on social media. First, the positive: I see adoptive families loving children in need – and, despite having perhaps the most integrity-filled case for being vocal about abortion and PP, not really going there much. I see a single friend fostering and adopting children in need in her own southern state – and again, not outwardly flipping out about PP, but doing the amazing work of offering shelter to unloved children around her. It’s these posts on my feed that bring, rightly, a convicted lump to my throat and motivation to do better, to find ways to help. There is so, so much suffering in this world, and here I am staring at Facebook.

The loudest anti-abortion outrage on my feed, on the other hand, typically comes from those with a number of biological children – children who understandably require the majority of their day-to-day attention. I don’t begrudge them that. But they sometimes come across as seeing their way of life as inherently laudable, above reproach or critique – and as if the only thing the reality of abortion (which, as a reminder, won’t go away if it’s made illegal/inaccessible) requires of them is righteous indignation. (And maybe showing up somewhere to wave a sign in front of someone who has come to different conclusions about this complex issue, or was raped, or may not live if she goes through with the pregnancy…oh and be sure to post pics!).

There's enough hypocrisy and deep inconsistency to go around, certainly. And this post is a half-finished jumble. Maybe I should have just filed it away in a “good try but…no” folder. But I do stand with Planned Parenthood, peeps.

Amtrak adventure

My railroad journey is nearing its end, and this last leg of the trip (Chicago --> St. Louis) includes free wifi, so I thought I’d go ahead and post a roundup of snippets and scenes from the past few days.

I really should have taken more photos in Illinois, Iowa and Nebraska. There’s an unassuming beauty to the Midwest that is harder to capture but is brilliant nonetheless.

Anyway, instead I caught up on sleep, reading and tatting. I plowed through Albert Camus’ The Stranger and James Baldwin’s Go Tell It On The Mountain, two classics I should have read long ago and which Joe lent me for the trip. Five stars to each.

Managing to snag a spot in the popular observation car for portions of the winding trek through the Rockies, I had my camera at the ready more often during this section of the trip.

Two volunteer tour guides (affiliated with the National Park Service) provided a special treat from Denver to Grand Junction, sharing their knowledge of high points along the route over the intercom and via objects we could touch such as pine-beetled wood.

 

The Rockies never get old, even if you lived in their front yard (the Front Range) for a decade and a half or so.

Maybe the coolest thing was the way the California Zephyr seemed to follow alongside the South Boulder Creek and then the Colorado River (after crossing the continental divide) the whole time.

I guess I don’t know for sure that it was the whole time – and maybe that’s not particularly remarkable, anyway – but there’s just something about that that’s calming, deep. Perhaps it’s the lack of a need to reinvent the wheel, that the river knows the best way through.

This nearness to the whitewater also meant upwards of 20 moonings by river rafters (a fellow passenger was keeping a tally) – but alas I did not attempt to capture any of those moments.

No offense to the mountains, the streams, the idyllic towns – but my favorite photo during the hours in my old home state is probably this one (above), from the confines of the lower-level café car while stopped in Grand Junction.

That’s where the kindly tour guides bid us farewell – but the gorgeous, stunning scenery didn’t end there on the Western Slope. Utah was striking along the rails as well. As one fellow passenger described it, the Utah landscape seemed very “layered.”

The morning after deboarding the train in Salt Lake City (though I’d love to take it all the way to San Francisco, sometime!), I rented a car for the last few hours of the trip to my friend’s wedding in Victor, Idaho. As rain clouds rolled in midday, the combination of sky and landscape was again breathtaking – and surprisingly colorful.

These Idaho shots are looking mostly eastward, toward the Tetons and Yellowstone, if I’m not mistaken.

Despite hardly ever driving a car these days, I’m partial to rearview-mirror photographs, and I like how this one (above) turned out.

The rain stopped just in time for my friend’s wedding ceremony at a scenic ranch venue. The celebration couldn’t have been lovelier, from the parade of cowgirl-booted, pint-sized flower girls to the cozy cocktail hour complete with a fireplace and the smell of fresh rain.

 

Something about the juxtaposition of the deejay’s setup for the dance and the horses hanging out just behind the shindig made me chuckle.

All too soon it was time to head home. But not before hanging out in Salt Lake City on a Sunday, which, FYI, is maybe not the best plan. Since the downtown Enterprise closed at 4 p.m. and the daily train didn’t depart until the middle of the night, I had envisioned a cool, car-free, play-it-by-ear half day in the city. Let’s just say that’s a better plan if most places (and transit!) in said city aren’t shut down on Sundays.

 

On the up side, the temple grounds were open and busy and photogenic. I also eventually spotted a Barnes and Noble and a showing of Ant-Man, which carried me through the evening. The movie was quite fun, although I think at that point I was most excited about setting down my duffel bag for two hours or so.

The trip home on the train was enjoyable as well. I aspire to one day invest in a sleeper car, however. Access to a shower and a less-public bathroom sound like true luxury right about now, as I type away here in coach. :) So does home.

The same as an unbeliever

I have sometimes imagined Bertrand Russell actually asking what he said he would ask if, after he died, he discovered that God did indeed exist.

If he really said to God, "Then, sir, why did you go to such lengths to hide yourself?" I hope God at least acknowledged it to be a very understandable question. So many of those who speak with authority about God do not, including prominent evangelical theologian John Piper. Piper sweepingly accuses Russell of playing academic games in the latter's Why I am Not a Christian.

"One great benefit of going to a good Christian college is that you read important bad books with the help of wise Christian scholars," Piper writes in an October 2009 "World" article. "I thank God for wise Christian scholar-teachers who led me through the swamps of academic unbelief so that I could see how inauthentic its play-actors were."

I read Russell's book in college, too. On my own, on a plane ride. And while I still considered myself a Bible-believing Christian at the time, I remember thinking Russell had understandable reasons for his conclusions. And he wasn't a jerk about stating those reasons. He titled his treatise simply Why I am Not a Christian, after all, not something like God is Not Great or The God Delusion. From what I can tell, Russell was honestly seeking to know the world around him. He looked for God, and he longed for certitude, like me. But Piper recognizes in Russell‘s philosophy little worth sympathizing with.

"Yes, we die. And there is darkness and sorrow," Piper writes. "For those who see only that, there will be something much worse than Russell's 'extinction in the vast death of the solar system.' That is not what hell is. But for believers, the despair and futility are swept away in the dawn of Easter Sunday."

When I read words like Piper's, I too can see only that – darkness and sorrow. Hell. Piper's world is ultimately an either-or one, with no space for ambiguity. It's full of realms that welcome dichotomy, banishing nuance.

Elsewhere, Piper talks about the appropriateness of "holy ostracism" in an online transcript of one of his "Desiring God" radio broadcasts. "Holy ostracism" is a new phrase to me, and I continue reading. He‘s been asked a question about how to interact with a fellow believer who comes out of the closet and starts attending another church where he is welcomed.

Piper‘s advice? Take the now openly gay friend to lunch one last time and explain that unless he repents they can‘t be friends anymore.

Piper goes on to suggest that this is the loving approach with those we know who "claim the name of Christ." He cites an example of friends whose daughter was "living in sin" and how they broke fellowship with her, believing this ostracism to be the correct approach. The family stopped associating with their own daughter. The result? They did the right thing, Piper says, and the reward was great because the daughter became so distraught about the loss of those ties that she soon came around.

"So I've seen it work," Piper concludes, "It doesn't always work. But that's what the New Testament prescribes."

Maybe the healthy response to this kind of authoritative counsel is simply to shrug it off as ridiculous. But it deeply alarms me. So many people regard Piper as a trustworthy guide. He's prolific, and his book aimed for young adults, Don’t Waste Your Life, lit me on fire when I encountered it in my early twenties. He made me think about what it would mean to go all out in following Jesus, to have a sense of urgency and to take up my cross daily.

But there are only two words with which I can describe his approach to dealing with fellow humans whose lives or opinions or decisions don‘t fit a given mold – manipulative and devastating.

For Piper, this approach is an application of scripture's exhortation that if a fellow believer is caught in sin and will not repent he should be treated the same as an unbeliever. The same as an unbeliever. What does that look like?

It looks like Chava. Little bird, little Chavalah from Fiddler on the Roof. It reminds me of the scene where her father, Tevyeh, remains implacable to her pleas for acceptance of her marriage to a man outside the Jewish faith. Before completely turning his back, he reminisces, singing to himself, and implicitly to her:

Little bird, little Chavalah

I don‘t understand what's happening today

Everything is all a blur

All I can see is a happy child

The sweet bird you were

Chavalah, Chavalah...

But his knowledge of his daughter's love for the family, and of his fatherly love for her, does not sway him from his convictions and his beloved, disappearing tradition.

"Accept them?" he says to himself. "How can I accept them? Can I deny everything I believe in? On the other hand, can I deny my own daughter? On the other hand, how can I turn my back on my faith, my people? If I try and bend, that far, I‘ll break. On the other hand...no. There is no other hand. No, Chava! No! No..."