Amy Julia Becker's Blog, page 123

Meal Planning with Kids

Meal planning with kids is an adventure! At the beginning of the week, I gave each child the chance to choose what we would eat for dinner one night. They get to plan the meal, select the food, and then they are responsible for helping me cook it. I’m loving the way their personalities shine into these choices:

William went first, with baked tilapia, tortellini, and roasted carrots. He is trying to reduce his carbon footprint by eating less meat.

Marilee was up next, with breakfast for dinner. Pancakes, bacon, eggs, and toast. She decided this should also involve everyone showing up for dinner in pajamas. She also decided it meant she should eat dinner for breakfast, so she made herself a box of mac n’ cheese.

Penny went for the classic. Chicken parm with pasta and broccoli. The only problem is that our grocery stores have run out of chicken breasts, chicken thighs, and roasting chickens. We bought chicken tenders and I’m sure they’ll be fantastic.

Give meal planning with kids a try!

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John Lewis on Nonviolent Resistance, Love, and Hope

If you’ve found yourself with additional time to read in this era of social distancing, I want to recommend Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement by Congressman John Lewis (written with Michael D’Orso). It’s a long book, but for anyone interested in contemporary United States history, the theology of nonviolent resistance, love, hope, and/or the ongoing struggle for justice and equality—these 500 pages are worth your time. And in this current moment, going back to another tumultuous time in our history helps us to consider how we can live by love instead of by fear.

Critiquing with Hope

Throughout the book, Lewis takes an unusual position: he critiques this nation with its history of injustice and brutality against people of color at the same time as he upholds the ideals of this nation and pursues justice and peace through political action. He upholds the beauty and truth of the founding ideals of the United States of America even as he insists that these ideals have not been realized and the struggle does and must continue. Faith in the relentless love of God undergirds both his realistic critique of structural injustice and his hope for a better future. 

Compelling History

I’ve learned Civil Rights history before through textbooks and films, but Lewis gives both an intimate portrait and a sweeping overview of this time period. His stories held my attention and compelled my heart in a way few other descriptions of this time have done.

Our family’s Civil Rights tour 2019

As a young man, Lewis literally walked through the streets of Selma and on to Montgomery, marched on Washington alongside Dr. King, was beaten and imprisoned and witnessed firsthand the horrors of assassinations and violence. Throughout it all—and to this day—he retained his belief in the power of nonviolent resistance and healing love. 

Nonviolent Resistance, Love, and Hope

John Lewis explains this philosophy as he describes the sordid conditions of his weeks in jail and the wounds he endured from the sticks and clubs of police officers:

The struggle was against a system, the system that helped produce people like that. We didn’t see these young guys who attacked us that day as the problem. We saw them as the victims.

Lewis, in other words, has compassion for the people who beat him. He has love for the men and women who shouted curses at him. He cares about the healing of powerful and powerless alike. 

Lewis’ peers began to advocate for a separatist resistance as far back as the early 1960s. They argued for self-defense. They distanced themselves from the ethic of nonviolent loving resistance. Their position makes a lot of sense. Why should they take more abuse from the white establishment that has oppressed and brutalized them for centuries? Why should they deny themselves the right to self-defense? 

But Lewis refused to take that road. He refused to give up on love. He refused to give up on the hope of change, in which both people of color and white people experience transformative healing. Lewis explains the type of love upon which his faith, and his actions, are founded:

It is a love that accepts and embraces the hateful and the hurtful. It is a love that recognizes the spark of the divine in each of us, even in those who would raise their hands against us, those we might call our enemy . . . It is the ability to see through those layers of ugliness, to see further into a person than perhaps that person can see into himself, that is essential to the practice of nonviolence. 

I commend this book for its intimate view of history. Even more, I commend it for a glimpse of what it looks like—in the midst of turmoil, hatred, and fear—to live a life of love.

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Want to read more? Here are suggestions:

What 7 Nights in an RV Taught Me About a Cotton Candy Life
Civil Rights Tour Itinerary
Almost-Forgotten Women and Undoing Injustice

If you haven’t already, please  subscribe  to receive regular updates and news. You can also follow me on  Facebook ,  Instagram , and  Twitter .

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A Three-Minute Invitation to Peace

For all of you who are stressed, and fearful, and worried, for yourself, for your family, for those you love, for our whole world, here’s an invitation to peace.

For all of you who wish you could love other people in person rather than staying in isolation…

For all of you who have given up all time for yourself because you are caring for your kids, teaching your kids, and trying to keep your job…

For all of you who want to believe that fear and stress are not all that define us…

I want to share a practice that has helped me. I invite you to give yourself three minutes today:

Set a timer for three minutes (or longer. Seven is ideal, but even one minute like this can make a difference.).

Sit with your back straight, your eyes closed. I usually sit cross-legged, but you can also put your feet on the floor. Place your hands near your heart or palms open on your lap.

Breathe in through your nose, with your eyes closed, slowly. As you inhale, use the word love, and imagine the love of God filling your being.

Breathe out through your nose, eyes closed, slowly. Again, use the word love, and imagine the love of God filling the space around you in this room and in your home and in your community and throughout the world. (You can stop here, and just repeat this pattern over again for three minutes, or you can add the next part)

Then breathe in through your mouth, with your eyes closed, slowly. As you inhale, use the word peace, and imagine peace filling your being.

Breathe out through your mouth, like a soft sigh. Use the word worry, and imagine everything that worries you moving off your shoulders and being carried by God for you.

(If you have time and inclination, you can extend this pattern. Breathe in through the nose, out through the mouth, in through the mouth, out through the nose and then start over. And share this invitation to peace with others.)

Give yourself a few minutes to connect to the deeper realities. And then, when the inevitable stress or fear or worry arises in the midst of your day, try to return to that breath and connect again to the truth that grounds you, the peace that guards you, the love that holds you always.

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Want to read more? Here are some recommendations:

For Those Who Worry
Fear, Fearing the Lord, and Walking in Love
Anxiety and the Prince of Peace

If you haven’t already, please  subscribe  to receive regular updates and news. You can also follow me on  Facebook ,  Instagram , and  Twitter .

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Reading Hope in Trying Times Interview

“Reading Hope in Trying Times.” Now there’s an awesome title for you! Brian Allain, founder of Writing for Your Life, Publishing in Color, and Compassionate Christianity, decided to broadcast a series of interviews with spiritual writers, including yours truly, as a way to bring hope into our perilous and frightening national moment, and as a way to introduce readers to books worth reading. 

I had a chance to talk with Brian (interview below) about all three of my books and the ways they connect to today’s news.

I’ve often said that A Good and Perfect Gift is about “dramatic hard stuff”—the unexpected diagnosis of a baby with Down syndrome. And the pandemic sweeping the globe and correlated financial crisis is certainly the stuff of dramatic and hard.

Then Small Talk is a book about the “ordinary hard stuff” of raising small children, and of course there are now tens of millions of parents who suddenly have far more time with their small children than they anticipated. 

And then there’s White Picket Fences. In it, I write about that same dramatic hard stuff and that same ordinary hard stuff, but perhaps it should go under the heading of “pervasive hard stuff”—the invisible forces, systems, and decisions that divide us from one another. 

All of these books land in a place of hope, not because they don’t deal with reality and not because I’m a perennial optimist, but because God does bring hope amidst the hardship. Even now. 

I hope you’ll have a chance to tune in to our conversation on Reading Hope in Trying Times (airs at 11am on March 26), and check out these other awesome writers Brian has and is talking to, including Patricia Raybon, Natasha Sistrunk Robinson, and Kathy Khang, among many others. 

Meanwhile, in the midst of a time of trial, what a gift to talk about reading hope.

Want to read more? Here are some suggestions:

How the Spiritual Imagination Moves Us Towards Hope
The Gift of Reading
Five Memoirs to Read Alongside White Picket Fences

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Social Connection in a Time of Social Distance {Ep 102}

Living in a time of social distance means Penny sets up at home for virtual ballet class. In many ways, for families like mine—relatively young, healthy, and living in a rural area—the social distancing measures implemented recently aren’t fun, but they are fine.

We took a 40-day sabbatical road trip together recently, so we’re used to spending lots of time with just the five of us. None of us feel particularly afraid for our health. As I type, the kids just finished baking cupcakes from scratch. They are learning how to do their own laundry. We’ve been able to take daily walks outside. We are doing just fine.

Other people are having a harder time. Some, of course, are getting sick. Others feel fear for their own health and fear for loved ones. Others are going to work in hospitals and clinics and know that their work will only get harder. We are all off-kilter, prone to drink or eat too much in a time of uncertainty, prone to snap at each other and then judge ourselves for it.

Paul wrote his letter to the Philippians in the midst of his own extended time of social isolation. He literally wrote to this group of people he loved and longed for from a prison cell. This letter he wrote offers us words of honesty, hope, and encouragement in the midst of our current moment. It helps us learn how to connect through prayer even when we are separated by distance. It helps us move from prayer to action. And it helps us grow in love and remain motivated by love rather than fear.

(I talk at length about our current moment of social distancing and the way Philippians 1:1-11 can offer us both grace and peace on today’s episode of the Love is Stronger than Fear podcast. You can listen via the player above or on your favorite podcast platform.)

And here’s a bonus episode to accompany the episode above:

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Want to read more? Here are some recommendations:

Coronavirus Crisis and What the Bible Has to Say {New Podcast Season}
How Can We Love Our Neighbors in a Time of Coronavirus?
Fear, Fearing the Lord, and Walking in Love

If you haven’t already, please  subscribe  to receive regular updates and news. You can also follow me on  Facebook ,  Instagram , and  Twitter .

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When God Looks at Us with Love

Marilee, Peter, and William // 2013

I was challenged recently to imagine God looking at me with love. When I sat down and closed my eyes and envisioned God looking at me, I realized there are two ways it could go. One, the look of delight that a parent has for a child who has done something for the first time, or who has told an unexpectedly witty story, or otherwise surpassed expectations. I could imagine a look of loving commendation. Two, the look of compassion a parent has for a child who has fallen, who has been heartbroken by an unrequited crush or hurt by the words of a friend, who has cried in frustration over not getting her own way. I could imagine a look of care for a beloved and vulnerable child.

God’s Gaze of Compassion

When I first tried to imagine God looking at me with love, I recoiled at the thought of that gaze of compassion. I realized how much I want God’s acclamation. I realized how afraid I am for God to see my neediness. I felt like Adam and Eve in the garden, wanting to cover my nakedness. My gut reaction to the thought of God seeing me in my need exposed my own heart. And then that moment served as an invitation to bring my whole self—including the needs, the hurts, the anger, the frustration—before the Lord. Even more, it served as an invitation for me to see the ways I still don’t understand and trust God’s love for me. 

I suspect some of us are more comfortable with God’s delight than God’s compassion, and others are more able to imagine God’s compassion than God’s delight. Jesus insists that his disciples understand God as a loving Father, which is to say, Jesus insists that we experience the compassionate love of God as well as the delighted love of God. 

All of us are invited to know the fullness of God’s love as the one who delights in our gifts and abilities and who cares for us in our needs and brokenness. We are invited to bring our whole selves to God and to receive God’s love for us in all that we are.

If you haven’t already, please  subscribe  to receive regular updates and news. You can also follow me on  Facebook ,  Instagram , and  Twitter .

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World Down Syndrome Day Movie Night

Today is World Down Syndrome Day, a day in which we celebrate the life of our daughter Penny and of all the women and men with Down syndrome all over the globe. For a variety of reasons, including the current extreme social distancing most Americans are practicing, I want to recommend you celebrate this day with a movie night!⁠⁠

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For our movie night, Penny has chosen chicken parm as her meal of choice, followed by ice cream sundaes. We may throw in a round of Scattergories, which has recently become a family favorite.⁠

And then we will probably make popcorn in William’s Star Wars popcorn maker, and sit down in front of a movie. I’ll recommend two if you’re also interested in a movie night that celebrates World Down Syndrome Day:⁠

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First, there’s Normie, an exceptional documentary about a young woman with Down syndrome exploring the concept of normal with our family playing a small part in that journey. This film is only available this weekend for streaming, so if you haven’t seen it yet, now is the perfect moment.

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Second, The Peanut Butter Falcon is a wonderful story about an unexpected friendship between a young man with Down syndrome and a young man with a troubled past that underscores the value of every fragile and beautiful life among us.

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Ice cream sundaes, cuddling on the couch with our kids, and remembering the relationships that matter—that sounds like exactly the right way to celebrate the gift of our daughter tonight.⁠

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Do you want to read more? Here are some suggestions:

Review: The Peanut Butter Falcon
Clips from the Film Normie & Grappling with “Normal”
Normie – A Down Syndrome Coming of Age Film

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Penny’s Gift of Encouragement is a Gift to Me

Penny’s gift of encouragement is a joy to receive! I received some disappointing news this week (unrelated to the coronavirus) and took out my phone to send my husband—Peter Becker—a text. I shared the news, and soon thereafter got a response from our daughter—Penny Becker: “I am so sorry to hear that tell dad” 

I realized at that point that Peter and Penny share the same initials, and I had accidentally texted Penny. (It still surprises me that I can text Penny at all.) I wrote back (from a few rooms away): “oh funny—I thought I was telling dad!”

Penny: “No you were telling me but you should tell dad as well You should know that I will always care for you no matter what happens and think positive thoughts”

Me: “Thanks! I’m surprised but it’s definitely okay”

Penny: “Good. I don’t want you being hurt though. You are my mom.”

I had forgotten that one of Penny’s gifts is encouraging others. I usually see that gift of encouragement directed towards other people, but I received it with joy and gratitude when it came my way. 

World Down Syndrome Day is on Saturday. In the midst of a troubling time, I am celebrating the gift of life of our daughter and so many others like her who bring light and life and love into this world.

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Want to read more? Here are some recommendations!

In Their Own Words: William and Penny on Technology
Embracing Our Common Humanity
5 Things I Wish I Had Known When Our Daughter was Diagnosed with Down Syndrome

If you haven’t already, please  subscribe  to receive regular updates and news. You can also follow me on  Facebook ,  Instagram , and  Twitter .

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Coronavirus Crisis and What the Bible Has to Say {New Podcast Season}

Love is Stronger Than Fear Podcast Season Two

The coronavirus and the Bible are separated by centuries. Yet, amidst stock market plunges and coronavirus, the Bible’s ancient wisdom shows us love is stronger than fear. It was after the election of President Trump in 2016 that I first wrote the words, “Love is stronger than fear.” I wrote a blog post about the fear that both Clinton and Trump supporters felt about where our nation was heading. Those fears haven’t abated in the past few years, and they only increased in the past few weeks as we faced an unprecedented medical and economic crisis across the globe.

Podcast Season Two

Season Two of the Love is Stronger than Fear podcast starts today, and throughout this season I’ll be looking at our current moment of the coronavirus crisis in the context of the ancient wisdom of the Bible, and particularly the book of Philippians. Philippians was written by the Apostle Paul. Paul wrote this letter, which is often called an “epistle” (a fancy word for letter) “of joy” from prison. That’s right—Paul was cooped up in a situation far worse than those of us who are unexpectedly at home with our kids, and he was writing about joy. 

That said, Philippians is not a letter of denial in the face of the reality of suffering and sorrow. It is not a letter of positivity that refuses to acknowledge the pain in the world. It’s a message of hope, love, joy, and peace in the midst of a world of sorrow and fear. 

Coronavirus and the Bible’s Ancient Wisdom

Paul, and Jesus, and all the other writers of both the Hebrew Bible and the Christian New Testament, all lived in times of serious medical and economic uncertainty. And they all wrote about the way they were able to handle that uncertainty, face those fears. They did so by turning and returning to the love of God. 

So in this week’s episode, I’ve recorded my thoughts about our current moment with the coronavirus and about the ways the Bible can guide us through this time. I hope these words offer some comfort, some truth, some solidarity, and maybe even a little bit of humor as you go through your day today. In the weeks to come, I’ll be walking through the book of Philippians as it applies to our contemporary moment.

Please take a moment to subscribe to the Love is Stronger than Fear podcast in iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts. And please join me in trusting—even amidst stock market plunges and coronavirus spread—that love is stronger than fear. 

If you haven’t already, please  subscribe  to receive regular updates and news. You can also follow me on  Facebook ,  Instagram , and  Twitter .

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Fear, Fearing the Lord, and Walking in Love

Any biology textbook can tell us that fear brings a lot of energy. In the face of threats (or perceived threats), adrenaline courses through our veins and helps keep us focused and alert. Right now, it is easy to feel energized by fear. There’s fear of the economy crashing. Fear of infection, suffering, death. Fear of uncertainty. On a far more benign level, for those of us who will be home with our kids for the next few weeks, fear of the tedium, the likelihood of fighting and impatience and the worst versions of ourselves coming out.

Fear Changes Our Behavior

Fear changes our behavior. What we fear determines how we live. If I’m afraid of upsetting my kids, I let them get their way even if I know it isn’t best for them. If I’m afraid that we will get sick, I hoard essential goods rather than sharing them with others. If I’m afraid that I will lose my job, I’ll compete harder for it and worry more about it. 

Psalm 128 begins with the words, “Happy is everyone who fears the Lord, who walks in his ways.” Two things stood out to me here.

One, the things I fear bring misery, but fearing the Lord brings happiness.

Two, fearing the Lord and walking in the way of the Lord are one and the same. Just as fearing death, fearing financial ruin, fearing discord in our families changes the way we behave, the way we “walk” through life, so, too, fearing God affects every step we take.

Fearing the Lord

Fearing the Lord is different than fearing anything in the human realm. Fearing the Lord doesn’t bring selfishness, worry, and bad parenting. It brings happiness. It leads to behavior in step with who God is: love, peace, gentleness, faithfulness…

Fearing the Lord is walking in the way of the Lord.

Fearing the Lord is not cowering in terror of a Mighty God.

Fearing the Lord is knowing the God who is Love.

Fearing the Lord is loving the Lord. 

Fearing the Lord brings the energy to love others, to love God, to love ourselves. It brings the energy to make decisions on behalf of the common good. It brings energy to pray instead of worrying. It brings energy to bless others. My hope and prayer is that in the days and weeks ahead, we will live not in the fear of coronavirus, not in the fear of an erratic stock market, not in the fear of kids at home, and not in the fear of empty shelves at the grocery store.

My hope and prayer is that we will live in the fear of the Lord, that we will walk in the way of love.

If you haven’t already, please  subscribe  to receive regular updates and news. You can also follow me on  Facebook ,  Instagram , and  Twitter .

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