October 27, 2009

I’ve slowly been reading the book What to Expect When You’re Adopting by Ian Palmer.  I came across the book as I was checking out some titles that I have thought about using for a book, and this was one of the possibilities.  When I saw that it already existed I was outraged, and then I bought the book to see what my competition would be like   (I’m kidding, I welcome every book written on the subject and appreciate the contribution that each of them makes.)  I’m only about 1/2 way through this book, and unfortunately have not really “connected” with the information provided.  For starters, it’s all based on adoption in England.  The process is quite different if you’re in Canada, and then in Saskatchewan, so the particulars of the process in England are of little interest to me.  I have also come across a few statements like this:

You have to be 100 percent certain that this is the right course of action for you, and those close to you.  Dig deep, search your head and heart before committing to adoption; the consequences of getting it wrong are potentially devastating to all involved.

No pressure!  And later:

There is no room for doubt.

SERIOUSLY?  And then:

Accepting infertility involves a process of grief and mourning.  Your adoption agency will want to know where you are in this process as it is important that you have grieved properly.

No offense intended, but this is almost laughable (when I get past the rage that it induces).  The idea that you know where you are at in your grief seems impossible, and even more absurd is the idea of “grieving properly.”  Give me a break!  Also false (in my mind) is the implication that grief will end, and that it should end before you move forward.  I strongly disagree with that.  I don’t think grief of any kind ever ends, but rather it changes.  It will always be there but in different forms, in different ways.  Whether the grief is related to infertility or death or whatever other kind of loss, the idea that you grieve and then get on with it is not something that I can accept.  Ah, if only it were true.

And the idea that there is no room for doubt immediately takes me out of the game.  NO room for doubt?  Do parents who are having a birth child not doubt what they are doing?  How can you possibly not have doubts when the process of adoption is such an uphill battle?  Seriously.  Maybe I’m just overreacting here but these ideas are not ones that I can get on board with.

Ideally before, but certainly during, the assessment it will be important to know that you are settled in your own mind and have accepted you will be unable to have children.  You will need to be comfortable with the changes this will have created in relation to your self-image – as well as issues relating to masculinity and femininity, potency and impotency – and be at peace with their social implications.

Again, I’m finding a lot of assumptions in this paragraph.  The assumption that the people reading the book know that they will not have children.  (If you’re dealing with unexplained fertility you cannot accept that you are unable to have children because you don’t know that.)  And again, the idea that people will accept this and be “comfortable” with it seems far-fetched.  And seriously, I have never before reading this paragraph even thought that I am less of a woman because of this, less feminine, but now I have something else to add to the pile.

That being said, I have also found truth in the book, and small nuggets of helpful information.  For example, the author talks briefly about the reasons people adopt, the reasons people have kids at all.  He discusses the cultural pressures to have children and that was interesting to me.  There are good reminders that people can live fulfilling and valuable lives if they never have children.  He talks about how intrusive the process of adoption is and the scrutiny involved, and how it so strongly goes against the value of privacy that we have in our culture.  So, I will take the good with me and leave the stuff behind that is not so helpful.

I feel like I need to finish with a disclaimer.  I understand that pregnancy and giving birth to a child are not at all easy.  I don’t really see it as either one of them being worse than the other.  It seems to come down to the fact that in general, getting kids is hard.  And I’m sure raising them is even more difficult than getting them!  (So why do people do this again?)  The major problems for me occur when people say things like “You’re so lucky you’re adopting, you don’t have to gain all this pregnancy weight” or “Be glad you don’t have to spend money on diapers for the first year of your child’s life.”  Things like that are problematic for me.  I sincerely recognize and appreciate the difficulties in all of these things, but no, I am not glad, and I do not feel lucky.

August 18, 2009

Ok I am coming to the point where I need to just recommend that if you’re interested in such topics you should really get a copy of The Tangible Kingdom.  It’s still really good.  I’m only on like page 50 or something, but it’s good.  It’s more about the church than I thought it would be, but still good   I read a teeny bit today and it was about the pre-institutional church, what they valued and didn’t value, who they tried to be and didn’t try to be.  They were on the fringes of society, a marginalized group.  And they were certainly not trying to become more like culture or move to the center of society.  As the author puts it in one place, “We might have considered them a tad bit overboard and unrealistic.  In much the same way as some might view the Salvation Army, we’d be glad they were around because they help people and seem to tackle the toughest of social ills, but I doubt we’d quickly sign up for membership.”  Yet they had influence in their culture.  They didn’t hide their values or make them easier, dress them up or down or make them funky.  They showed culture something different.  3 of the values the authors mention specifically are sacrificial community, confrontation, and inclusive community.  And then Constantine got his fingers in it all, mixed church and state and blah blah…what resulted was that church was somewhere you went instead of something you belonged to.  Innnnnnnnnnnnteresting.  Go get a copy and read it for yourself.  Do it.  You can borrow mine when I’m done if you want.  We can mail it around from person to person until everyone gets a read.

August 13, 2009

Ok, this is good…it’s a quote from the same book I quoted from yesterday – The Tangible Kingdom: Creating Incarnational Community.  I actually feel like the authors are going to get somewhere in this book that is different than what I’ve read a million times, which I’m excited about…anyway, to the quote:

As I once heard, “Doing church differently is like rearranging chairs on the Titanic.”  We must realize that slight tweaks, new music, creative lighting, wearing hula shirts, shorts, and flip-flops won’t make doing church more attractive.  Church must not be the goal of the gospel anymore.  Church should not be the focus of our efforts or the banner we hold up to explain what we’re about.  Church should be what ends up happening as a natural response to people wanting to follow us, be with us, and be like us as we are following the way of Christ.

Amen brothers.  Sometimes church seems like nothing more than a distraction.  Sometimes, not all the time.  Sometimes it seems like we make church the point.  I like how the authors of the book say that it should be a natural result of following Christ…innnnnnnnteresting.

The authors later say:

Whereas some would say we need to move past our existing church forms, we disagree.  We just need to see them as they are, accpet their weakness and their strengths, and find ways to help them contribute.  It is true that to try to saddle up the horses and head in bold new directions as a group may be too aggressive and unsettling to the good that is being done within these more traditional church structures.

I like where they’re going here, because clearly we can’t just do away with the current form of church and do something completely different that will actually last.  The statements might sound somewhat passive, but I am interested in what their suggestions are going to be…

August 12, 2009

I recently started reading a book called The Tangible Kingdom: Creating Incarnational Community.  I’m only into the third chapter so far, but I’ve already come across several things that I certainly resonate with.  I’m not sure where they are going with it all, but I’m enjoying the start of the journey.  Here’s something that I read today:

Identity represents who we say we are, and it is important in determining how we act.  When you’re proud of your team, your company, your family, you’ll act proud, and you’ll get off your fanny and work hard to increase the prominence of your group.  But if you’re ashamed or unimpressed with your team, you’ll often not engage at all, simply because you don’t want to be lumped in with something or someone that doesn’t represent who you really want to be or what you value or believe in.

Uh huh.  I totally agree.  And it’s nice that someone gave me those words for it.  For quite a while I have been hesitant to admit to being a Christian.  Am I ashamed of the gospel?  Of course not.  Am I ashamed about God?  No way.  Jesus?  Nope.  Church?  Not even necessarily church.  I am embarrassed to be lumped together with the group of people who identify themselves as Christians.  And so I pretty much keep my trap shut about such things.  To a fault.  But I do not want to be lumped together with “those people” who do not represent me or what I believe in.  It’s easier to avoid the question altogether than to try and explain where I stand and why.  When I don’t even know that sometimes.

This reminds me of a conversation that I had this week with a friend who I had assumed was completely anti-God.  Turns out she is completely open to God.  And even some churches.  But just not churches like mine.  Oh, I get it.  I found her perspective very interesting…she’s been to my church a few times, so I asked her what her take on it is, and she said “Well, it seems like one big group counselling session.  I go to church to find God and religion, not for group counselling.”  That was really interesting to me.  I can definitely see her point.  So I agreed to help her do some church shopping.  Am looking forward to it.

May 4, 2009

Here we are at Monday again. Weekend was ok. Nothing spectacular, but ok. It’s never really a great idea for me to go into a weekend with no people plans, but it turned out that I was able to see some people anyway which saved the day. Did some yard work – yuck – but the nice weather kind of cancelled out some of the torture. Did some reading. Reading this book called unChristian that is pretty good. It’s written by a guy who works with George Barna (I think his name is David Kinnaman or something?) and does research on things like the religious beliefs of Americans, etc. The book is kind of about how “outsiders” see Christians (which is very similar to the way I see us), and gives some thoughts about what we need to do and who we need to be in order to advance the Kingdom instead of making it seem irrelevant. Pretty good so far. Worth a read. I got it from the library so I’d recommend that. I love buying books and having them on my shelf, having them surround me wherever I am…BUT I’m trying to reduce reuse recycle more, and for now, I’m making an attempt at just getting the books from the library if I can. <sigh>

Still feeling a bit blah bleh. Been thinking about that lately…You know what I think it is? I think it’s just one of these transition things. I think transitions can be hard no matter what it’s about – good/bad/ugly. It’s going from what you know to something new, and so it can be tricky. I was just thinking last night that in the last year I’ve had a lot going on. Overcame some crazy stuff in my personal life, ran a 1/2 marathon, went to Africa, graduated from seminary, have been going through this crazy adoption process (we still need to talk about that people! ‘Tis no secret, just not sure what to say. I guess, stay tuned for more)…etc etc. The last year has been really busy, but now I’m totally not busy. My schedule is open. I’m not pushing myself. It’s just really different. Not how it’s going to stay…but it is what it is for now. So, that being said, I’m on the lookout for new things to begin. New things to become involved in. We’ll see where it all goes!

April 30, 2009

Got a few books from the library the other day (guilt-free, might I add, since I’m DONE SCHOOL), and one of them is called Enough: Breaking Free from the World of More by John Naish. I’ve been skimming it a bit and it’s actually pretty good. I’d say it would be worth at least a skim. Here are some of the things that he says early in the book…

We have some evolving to do. And quickly. We need to develop a sense of enough…We have created a culture that has one overriding message – we do not yet have all we need to be satisfied. The answer, we are told, is to have, see, be and do even more. Always more. But this is bearing strange fruit: levels of stress, depression and burnout are all rising fast, even though we live amid unprecedented abundance. Our planet doesn’t look so happy either…We urgently need to stop over-stimulating the powerful ancient instincts that make us never satisfied. Instead we must nurture our capacities to appreciate the unprecedented wonders now at our feet.

Enoughness requires us to accept that the carrot of infinite promise will always dangle just beyond our noses.  Embracing this fact is a path to contentment.

What charatcterizes [our species] most is our capacity to want, to desire, to covet, to yearn for, and generally lust after.  We want to know what lies over the hill, we want to see it, and then to possess it, along with everything that lies above and below the ground…and after that, we want to know what lies over the next hill…

He talks about evolution a lot, maybe too much.  I don’t really believe that too much of anything is caused by ONE THING.  But he makes a lot of what I would call valid points.  This culture, mixed with our natural instincts to hoard and eat as much as we can when it’s available and compare ourselves to others to see who we can beat when it comes to a fight to the death, IS NOT GOOD!  I might post more from this book in the next few days.  Some of the chapters so far have been on enough stuff, enough food, and my particular favorite – enough happiness.  Anyhoo, all of this to say, I’d recommend the book, at least to skim

April 15, 2009

Now, I hesitate most of the time to say anything about the marginalization or inequality of women because many times it seems like people roll their eyes and write me off.  I get grouped in with those crazy feminists…When I talk about the equality or inequality of women, I’m not saying women need to be “above” men or considered to be “greater than” or anything like that.  What I think is that men and women cannot function properly, society can’t function properly, unless the fundamental equality of men and women is acknowledged and practiced.  And if we think that that is happening already, we have been fooled.  This is not a woe-is-me thing.  It is a desire for truth and justice.  ANYHOO enough about that from my brain for now…I’m reading this book FINALLY called “She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse” by Elizabeth Johnson and I totally can’t wait to get into it a bit more.  I’ve read a few pages so far, and here is some stuff that I couldn’t agree with more:

Speech about God shapes the life orientation not only of the corporate faith community but in this matrix guides its individual members as well…The women’s movement in civil society and the church has shed a bright light on the pervasive exclusion of women from the realm of public symbol formation and decision making, and women’s consequent, strongly enforced subordination to the imagination and needs of a world designed chiefly by men.  In the church this exclusion has been effective virtually everywhere: in ecclesial creeds, doctrines, prayers, theological systems, liturgical worship, patterns of spirituality, visions of mission, church order, leadership and discipline.  It has been stunningly effective in speech about God.  While officially it is rightly and consistently said that God is spirit and so beyond identification with either male or female sex, yet the daily language of preaching, worship, catechesis, and instruction conveys a different message: God is male, or at least more like a man than a woman, or at least more fittingly addressed as a male than as a female.  Upon examination it becomes clear that this exclusive speech about God serves in manifold ways to support an imaginative and structural world that excludes or subordinates women.

I really believe that this is true.  Take, for example, the book “The Shack”.  Someone makes a suggestion that perhaps God is female, and Christians all over the place lose their minds.  Take, for another example, how often when people refer to God as “she” they feel like they need to explain themselves.  It’s all silly, really.  Silly in a growth-stunting kind of way.  Stay tuned for more…

April 9, 2009

I read a book while I was away called Jesus Wants to Save Christians.  Rob Bell and someone else are the authors.  I’ve been meaning to read this book for a long long time and finally got to it.  Because I didn’t have to read a bunch of school-related books.  Say it with me now – holy shit I’m done!!  Anyway, the book was okay and there were a few really interesting things in there.  In general, it has once again fuelled my frustration with churches and with Christians in general.  Adding to that fire is the billboard I drive by every morning on my way to work that is advertising some Bible Prophecy Conference.  Aaaaaarg.  When I really separate myself from and think about church and churches and our little Christian subculture, it boggles my mind.  I mean, in one sense I love the church – if by “church” we are talking the Body of Christ.  I think that that is our community, a source of life.  That church I love.  The church that non-church people observe and the things they see us doing are pretty unusual, and I do not believe they are at all what being the Body is about.  I wish I had that book with me right now…I’d throw down a few quotes for you from it.  Some specific things I remember are some things they said about the book of Revelation and how we make that into information about “end times” but how it’s really not about that.  Like for example, when John says don’t take the mark of the beast, he’s talking to people in that day in that culture about the mark – which all had to do with the economy and merchants and buying and selling.  You needed the mark to participate in the screwed up economy.  Another random example is this: When Jesus said “Do this in remembrance of me” he wasn’t necessarily talking about communion…he may have been talking about the way he lived – his whole way of life.  I like new ways of thinking about these things because we are so marinated in our old ways of thinking about them that we start to think that those old ways are THE way…This would be a much better post if I actually had that little book with me…anyhoo, the point of it all is that I think Christians are weird sometimes…I think the institution of the church is very weird.  And that’s where it all ends because I certainly don’t have the answer or too many solutions.  Yet. 

I have another book on my shelf to read soon that’s called “Christianity’s Dangerous Idea” by Alister McGrath…don’t know anything about the book, found it in the bargain section at McNally.  But from what I gather, part of it is about how what we have done to Christianity is pretty ridiculous.  Like, for instance, how we are taught to think that the Bible is to be read on our own, to ourselves, by ourselves, for ourselves when it fact it is meant for communities, spoken to communities, etc. etc.  We make all of these things so individualistic…what else would we do when that is the dominant theme of our culture.  There seems to be a lot of history stuff in this book which does not always capture my attention, but in this case it might be pretty interesting.  I think we’re off track by a ways so anything that brings me new info. is welcome.  Anyway…gotta get back to some work!

More thoughts from “Unfettered Hope” November 14, 2008

Here’s another excerpt from this book that I found interesting:

The early Christians recognized the Empowerer’s [Holy Spirit's] forceful work through them because, under oppression and coming primarily from the lower classes, they didn’t own much or have much influence by themselves.  The Church in nations of poverty, conflict, and disease experiences it similarly today, for in those places Christianity is flourishing.

Our society, in contrast, stifles the Spirit.  It seduces us into thinking that hte perfect life for which we yearn can be found in accumulating and achieving more.  But the only perfect life is new birth and Holy Spirit empowerment for a resurrected and centered life.

I can say that when we were in Kenya I learned a lot about what the Holy Spirit does, how God works, when you have to depend on Him in desperate ways…They have a different level of faith there than I do in my own life.  They know that God will provide, and if He doesn’t, they have no way of making it on their own.  These people who in the world “shouldn’t” have any influence at all have all kinds of crazy influence.  Take Lucy, for example.  She’s a 30 year old woman who is running an orphanage with 250 kids and has all kinds of influence in her community and country.  You would never guess it from meeting her…she’s soft-spoken and gentle, and God uses her in amazing ways.  She depends on Him for life.  Very cool to see how God works there…He’s the same God here, but I depend on Him so differently – for sure not in the same desperate kind of way.

Here some more from the book…

The technological environment can easily insulate us from the true plight of those who are poor and forgotten – and often that leads to astonishing hardness of heart.  Instead, constant questioning by means of our focal concerns [loving God and others] enables us to find just ways to respond to grace by using our specific resources for the sake of the neighbor.

…Albert Borgmann cites William Ian Miller’s definition of courage as “the willingness to suffer discomfort or disgrace in the defense of what is right and good.”  When such moral courage is regularly employed by means of many decisions against the inroads of consumerism, it develops into the practice of fortitude for the long haul.  It is that willingness to suffer that we seem to lack these days, and therefore the abhorrent economic injustices of our world remain.  However, we will not be able to change and get serious about altering our way of life if we beat ourselves mentally or load ourselves with guilt about living where the standard of living is high.  That is also not the way of our metanarrative, which starts with grace and frees us with hope to be generous in pursuing actively and lovingly the well-being of our neighbors near and far.

Making decisions against consumerism does mean discomfort.  It is so hard for me to not get suckered in by consumerism.  I think it takes a very strong person to do this well in our culture.  I also think it takes a community of people doing this together in this society…this kind of living would definitely need support.  You’d think that we’d find that kind of support in our churches, but I haven’t seen that yet.  Overall, in general, I’d say most of us church people live in the same way as most of the world people…Actually we could learn a lot from a lot of the world people.  This is my idealism coming out again, but I wish that the church people could be the ones being an example to the world people – know what I mean?  Now where in my life am I going to start weeding out consumerism…hmmm so many possibilities.  ARG

The Shack July 24, 2008

I generally stay far, far away from Christian fiction just because it can tend to be a bit, well, lame.  I picked this book up because Darren recommended it, and I trust his taste.  At first I found the book kind of uninteresting, not very well written, but I kept going and was pleasantly surprised.  The writing never really turned out to be that great, but there was some theological ideas in there that still have me thinking…  Like what if God would actually present himself/herself as a black woman, even though God is beyond gender and humanity…That has been an interesting change of thinking for me, because God as an old man seems to be really ingrained into thinking even though I have put a lot of thought into the fact that that’s not really true.  Another thing I really hadn’t considered before is that God was probably right beside Jesus as Jesus died on the cross…I think I have generally thought that God was absent, and I’m not sure why I thought that.  There was a little bit in the book about prayer, and the idea that maybe God limits himself/herself/themselves(?) in some way so that it is essential that we talk to them and tell them what is going on in our lives.  I struggle a lot with prayer a lot of the time…why tell that to God when he already knows everything?  So that has been an interesting idea to me.  The author also got my attention with the way he wrote about the community amongst the members of the Trinity and how they relate to each other.  Just some things I hadn’t really thought about, I suppose.  There were quite a few little tidbits like that in the book, and I really should have wrote them all down to think about some more.  Maybe I’ll have to read the book again or something.  I’d recommend it, but not because of the fiction writing part; more because of the theological ideas that are there.