Amy Julia Becker's Blog, page 146
December 22, 2017
Love Shows Up on Christmas
Once a week I compile the reflections I’ve offered on Facebook into one blogpost. Here are the thoughts from the past five days:
Sunday, December 17, 2017
This past week has been a week of ordinary hard stuff for us. Snow days and delays, one kid with a sinus infection, another throwing up, all in the midst of preparations for both of them to dance in the Nutcracker (see photo–it was lovely). I woke up in the middle of the night and tried to coax myself back to sleep amidst the worry about getting a talk ready for Monday and getting Christmas presents wrapped and ready and getting my book edited in time for the next deadline.
Today’s Advent post is about welcoming God into the ordinary hard stuff of every day life: “But right now, as I prepare one more time to welcome Jesus into this world, into our home, into our family, I need to learn about expecting God to show up not only when our life is in crisis but also in the every day. I need to learn about contentment in the midst of broken computers and children crying out in the middle of the night and not just broken bodies and broken dreams.”
I wrote those words years ago, but I am still learning what it means to live them out. This week, God did show up. My editor gave me an additional week to finish this draft. I was grateful to read the Christmas story in Matthew and Luke and reflect again about Mary and Joseph and their raw humanity. It snowed three times and made our landscape into a fairyland. We laughed together as a family. We also welcomed a young woman with Down syndrome into our home for a conversation about faith in (and anger with) God, her loneliness and her joys, her hopes and dreams. Family and friends showed up to cheer our girls on in the Nutcracker. God’s love was present to us in all the simple stuff of everyday life.
I still go into this final week of Advent a little bit anxious. But I also go with expectation that even in this ordinary life I am living, we can welcome the God of love and grace.
Wednesday, December 20, 2017
I gave a talk on Monday night for Stanwich Congregational Church in anticipation of Christmas. I talked about remembering that this time of year we are preparing for a party–a huge birthday party to celebrate the gift of light and life and love that came into the world. So as we make our final preparations (and for those of us who aren’t actually fully prepared for what’s coming), I’m glad to be reminded of something I wrote for Monday’s Advent reading:
“If I try to make myself ready for Jesus, I will never be good enough. But just as he was willing to enter the mess of a stable, he is ready to enter my life as it is.
I will never be fully prepared to welcome God into my life.
But He is always ready to come in.”
I am so grateful that even if I am not ready, He is ready, and waiting, for me.
(To read the Advent book, sign up here)
Wednesday, December 20, 2017
“I want you to know, because I know you are watching, that I would not change you for the world, but I will change the world for you.”–says Amy Wright, mother of two children with Down syndrome. Read more: “Advocate for disabled workers is 2017 CNN Hero of the Year”
Thursday, December 21, 2017
How do you know that someone loves you? Whole books have been written on this subject, but I think it’s pretty simple: the people who love you show up when you need them to.
A few days after Penny was born, when we were still in the midst of a really hard time of processing her diagnosis and what it might mean for us, two of our best friends showed up at our door. They didn’t send flowers or wait until we were “ready” to talk to them. Instead, they put their own 4-month-old in the car and drove five hours. We took a walk, we talked, they held our baby girl. And then they got back in the car and drove the five hours home on I-95. They gave up work that day. They endured at least ten hours on the highway with an infant. And they made sure we knew that they would be there for us throughout Penny’s life, come what may. They loved us that day, and it helped us know they would love us in the days to come.
Or to take a less personal example: when Father Greg Boyle, author of Tattoos on the Heart (a book I highly recommend), first moved into a poor neighborhood in Los Angeles, he sat in his office and waited for the people to come and tell him their needs. But they didn’t come. Then he started taking walks around the neighborhood, but he noticed that people either scattered or froze. He finally started to visit people in the hospital and in prison. He started to show up for the people in need. He started to inconvenience himself and put himself in uncomfortable positions. He started to show his neighborhood that he loved them, not when they were on their best behavior, not when they were in church, but when they were in need, when they didn’t have it all together. And that’s when they started to trust him. That’s when some of them started to love him back. And that’s when some lives began to be transformed.
John writes, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” Another way of saying this would be “God became human and moved into the neighborhood.” On Christmas morning, God showed up. He showed up in the person of Jesus because he wanted us to know that he loves us in our times of need.
It’s up to us whether we will receive the love that shows up. But the offer is there. And if we let that love into our lives, it will change us forever.
That’s why we have a party on Christmas. Because the God of time and space showed up and said, “I love you.”
Friday, December 22, 2017
Light in darkness. Throwing a birthday party for Jesus (complete with gifts for him!). The reasons we have to throw a party. These are the themes for the final days of the Advent ebook (It’s not too late if you want to download a free copy). But most of all, since today will be my last day on Facebook until the New Year, I want to wish you a Merry Christmas!
December 15, 2017
How We Can Be Hope at Christmas
Once a week I compile the reflections I’ve offered on Facebook into one blogpost. Here are the thoughts from the past five days:
Sunday, December 10, 2017
Today’s post is about anxiety, and when I first wrote it I called it “What I Learned When I Tried to Stop Drinking So Much Wine.”
I’ll give you a hint, I learned that the wine itself wasn’t so much the problem. It was the anxiety behind the wine that did me in. I’ve learned some things since then about how to acknowledge anxiety, give it over to God, and receive peace in exchange.
To find out more, download the ebook and go to December 10.
Monday, December 11, 2017
Photo Courtesy of Sarah Browning
Today’s reading is about Mary’s encounter with the angel Gabriel, who tells her that she has been chosen to bear God’s son. It’s not entirely good news. Mary bears the shame of her social norms when she agrees to become the mother of Jesus. She knows it makes her more vulnerable to economic devastation and hunger and even the inability to care well for her child. She knows it puts her marriage and her future and her reputation in jeopardy. Ironically, saying “yes” to God might mean rejection from her religious community.When I read Mary’s story, I think about all the men and women who have borne the shame of their societies by saying yes to God.
Tuesday, December 12, 2017
From today’s Advent reading: “What I love about this story is Mary’s humanness. She’s not Alice Wilkerson, perfect and pristine. She’s more like Imogene, sincere and scruffy. Yes, she is a model of strength, which means she is willing to obey and receive and trust, but she is also a model of vulnerability, which means she expresses her real emotions, her real misgivings, her real confusion to God. Her faith and doubt, her strength and vulnerability, invites us in.” (To read more, click here)
Every place of vulnerability in us is an invitation to trust God. That’s the reminder I need this morning. Perhaps you need it too.
Tuesday, December 12, 2017
For Connecticut people, I will be speaking at Stanwich Congregational Church and McArdle’s Flower Shop next Monday, December 18th. I’ll be talking about what it means for us that “Love Drew Near” at Christmas. How can you receive and reflect the love of God? Click here to register and find out more.
Wednesday, December 13, 2017
Where does hope come from? When you are in darkness or despair, how does the light break through?
Today’s Advent reading is about hope and affirmation. And yes, it’s about how God brings that hope and affirmation, but not always in the way we expect it. Not always–maybe even not usually–through what we think of as religious practices like prayer and Bible reading and church attendance. But often through people.
Who is bringing hope to you right now?
Who can you bring hope to today?
If you are looking for God to bring you hope, or if you want to be a person who offers hope to a hurting world, read December 13 in the Advent ebook.
Thursday, December 14, 2017
Is it just me, or do most people associate Christmas with hope, peace, and joy and less so with love? This year, I’ve been focused on God’s love and what it looks like when God’s love enters into human hearts. From today’s Advent reading: “Love will make us into people who don’t need to ignore pain and suffering but instead can respond to it with healing and grace. Like the baby who came into the world over 2,000 years ago.” (To read more, December 14 in Prepare Him Room: Advent Reflections on What Happens When God Shows Up)
Friday, December 15, 2017
When my kids were little, I was aware of “developmental milestones” like taking their first steps and babbling and eating solid food. Recently, I’ve been thinking there must also be developmental milestones for middle-school, because Penny keeps surprising me with how grown up she is. First there was the time she came home with a friend’s phone number on a post-it note and gave her a call. They talked for three minutes. I didn’t think much of it. The next day, she called again. 30 minutes later, there was Penny, lounging on the sofa, giggling with her friend and waving me away.
There’s also the increased maturity. This morning, when William was working on a school project and Penny asked, “Can I give you a compliment, William?” or a few days ago when she said she no longer needs to be a part of putting stickers on an Advent calendar. She’s too old for that now.
But then came this morning. I woke up earlier than the rest of the household as usual, to workout in the playroom. Peter went to wake Penny up at 6:30 and she wasn’t in her bed. He found her in the guest room. Eventually he realized that she had moved herself in there in the middle of the night because she had thrown up, repeatedly. She tried to deal with the mess of it, changed clothes, and then found a new bed.
I can’t say I want her to be growing up in any of these ways, and I have made her promise that she will come and get us if she ever throws up in the night again. And yet I’m also cheering her on as she opens up those wings and learns to fly.
(Photo is Penny on her first day of middle-school. I took a break from the Advent book today, but I will be back to talk about Zechariah and George Bailey tomorrow. I know many of you have had trouble accessing it and I’m so sorry. Here’s a new link. If you fill out the form to subscribe, you should receive the ebook by email.)
December 8, 2017
Preparing Room for God as Christmas Comes, and other thoughts on Advent
Once a week I compile the reflections I’ve offered on Facebook into one blogpost. Here are the thoughts from the past five days:
Sunday, December 3, 2017
Twelve years ago, I was pregnant with Penny at Christmastime, and seven years ago, I was pregnant with Marilee. Both times, it was pretty evident that we needed to be prepared for a baby to enter our lives. We fixed up the nursery. We bought new (and brought out old, in Marilee’s case) baby clothes. We moved furniture. We changed our work schedules. Adding new life to our household required us to make some room.
The Advent guide for today (if you haven’t signed up yet) talks about preparing room for Jesus. We can allow Jesus into our lives in a few different ways—through serving others with the love he has shown us, through participating in Christian community (which includes taking communion, prayer, Scripture), and through inviting Jesus into our everyday work.
I’m in a stage in life where I am pretty connected to spiritual practices like church and prayer and Bible reading, and my work is also connected to spiritual things, but I’m not as active when it comes to serving others. So I’m wondering what, if anything, should change in my life, whether I should make room for Jesus in that way.
Is there an area of your life where you want to make room for Jesus?
Monday, December 4, 2017
I write in today’s Advent post about other religions and trying to honor those other faiths while also teaching our kids about our own Christian faith. My intention is to uphold what I see as distinct about Christianity—the grace of God manifested through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus—while also recognizing the beauty and goodness that can be present in other religious traditions.
How do you talk to your kids about other religions? What have you learned from religious traditions that are different than your own?
Tuesday, December 5, 2017
“Jesus is the reason for the season.” “Keep Christ in Christmas.” I kind of disagree.
Yes yes yes the season is about Jesus, but the way we say it can sometimes make it seem like Christmas is only about what we think of as “spiritual” stuff. It can play into the idea that what matters is the spirit, and that we should do away with the physical reality. Except that the physical reality–the gory mess of our world and the physical beauty and goodness of our world–is exactly what Jesus entered and exactly why it matters that Jesus did so in a physical body.
When you think of God, do parties come to mind? Wine and dancing and music and banquet halls and celebration? Does God’s face look like Marilee’s in the photo above when God delights in us and enters our reality?
Or do you have an image of Puritan simplicity? Or of rules or gray clothing or rice and beans or quiet prayers?
While there is certainly a place for simplicity, solitude, quiet, and fasting, when it comes to Christianity there’s also a place for feasting. Today’s Advent reading is about the importance of materialism for Christians at Christmastime. (for a copy of the Advent book.)
What do you think? Is the excess of this season a distraction from what it really means? Or is it an arrow pointing to a God of extravagant love and abundant grace?
Wednesday, December 6, 2017
Photo Credit: Jeff Weese
I’m working on a post for Christianity Today about the stories we tell our children about our history, and whether or not we should tell them the sad, ugly, sometimes horrifying reality of life. I’ll post it here when it comes up, but working on it has me thinking about how we want to tell stories where everything works out. Christmas can seem like one more story where everything works out, one more story that doesn’t engage with the reality of a broken world.But pain and suffering penetrate the Biblical narratives of Christmas, and these narratives invite us to consider God’s reality in the midst of a hurting world. We can try to numb ourselves from pain. We can try to distance ourselves from it. But Christians see Jesus as the one who enters into pain and suffering, the one who invites us to do the same. (Here’s the link to get the free ebook–again–if you want it)
What do you tell your kids when they ask questions about sad or hard things?
Thursday, December 7, 2017
I write in today’s post about one thing we do as a family in order to prepare for Christmas to come. (Check out the Advent book at for those details—especially helpful for families with young children.)
This year, I’ve added a personal practice inspired by Justin Early over at The Common Rule. Justin is practicing the “waiting” of Advent by praying before he checks his phone for email or other messages.
I’m modifying his approach as a way to practice the discipline of waiting. I moved email and Facebook off the home screen of my phone. I’m waiting to check them until I’m sitting at my computer. Now that we are a few days into Advent, I’m a little less twitchy about pulling out my phone with every spare second, and I’ve been able to see how I really don’t need to read messages while walking to the bathroom, waiting for our kids to finish getting dressed in the morning, or sitting in line at school. In those moments, I can pray. I can talk. I can think. I can just sit there. I can wait.
The irony is that while waiting implies focusing on the future, this practice of waiting already has helped me to become more present right here and now. More attentive. More aware. More peaceful.
The waiting of Advent has more to it than what I’m describing. But this simple practice has offered me the beginning of a way to understand the grace, humility, and even wonder of waiting (the photo above is our kids at the top of the stairs last Christmas morning, waiting for the go ahead to race towards their gifts).
Psalm 130: 5-6: “I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope. My soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning, more than those who watch for the morning.”
Friday, December 8, 2017
What comes to mind for you when you think of the Bible?
I could write a whole book about my own thoughts on the subject, but as we turn to Luke’s Gospel today, I just want to remind everyone—myself included—that this is a collection of books that were written by different people at different times in different places with different purposes.
Luke wasn’t written as history or science as we know it today, but Luke does claim that the book he is writing is a careful exploration of events offered to “Theophilus” (which is both a proper name and a name that means God-lover).
For any of us who believe that there is a God out there who might be worthy of our love and devotion, this book was written with us in mind.
(These daily posts are meant to be paired with longer entries that offer a Bible reading and reflection in my Advent ebook, which you can access here.)
December 1, 2017
Would You Like to Be Like Auggie Pullman? (Plus an Advent gift for you)
Once a week I compile the reflections I’ve offered on Facebook into one blogpost. Here are the thoughts from the past five days:
Monday, November 27, 2017
Last Wednesday, we took the kids to see the movie Wonder. All three of them had read/listened to the book more than once, so they were familiar with the story of Auggie Pullman, a 5th grader with a wry sense of humor, a loving family, a tenacious spirit, and significant facial deformities. In the book and movie, we meet Auggie as he goes to school for the first time in 5th grade. (He has been home schooled up to this point due to his 21 surgeries.) I’ve commended the book before, and I commend the movie as well, especially because of the conversation it led to at dinner afterwards.
So first we asked the kids, “Who do you relate to in the movie?”
Penny went first: “Auggie. Because, you know, I was born with something too.”
William said, “Jack Will.” He didn’t choose to elaborate. (This is the kid who becomes Auggie’s good friend but who also betrays him at one point in the story.)
Marilee shared, “I related to Charlotte because she was nice but also just being a girl.” (I was very surprised–and a bit relieved– that Marilee didn’t say Via, Auggie’s sister, who struggles with the way her family orbits around Auggie’s needs and feelings and seems to neglect her in the process.)
Then we asked, “Of all the characters, who would you most want to be?”
Again, Penny went first: “Jack Will, because he was kind.”
William agreed. (And I do too. Jack is awesome. Very human in that he does care what other people think, but ultimately someone who chooses meaningful friendship over surface social approval.)
Marilee surprised me. She said, “Auggie. I would want to be Auggie because he was kind and strong.”
Marilee, mind you, literally got hives when she was four years old at the thought of wearing glasses to school since no other kids had glasses. She also routinely asks for gifts in terms of clothing that older kids wear. In other words, if there is any one of our children who cares about physically conforming to social norms, it is Marilee. But she cares about more than social norms, and this movie gave her a vision of what it might look like to take social risks for the sake of true friendship.
Our kids are growing up with the reality of life with a disability. Penny says she has never been bullied, never encountered the teasing that Auggie had to endure in this film, and we hope and pray we can protect her as well as her siblings from the meanness out there. But assuming we can’t actually protect them from meanness we can talk about what it means to be kind even when it comes at a social cost, about loving people for who they are rather than judging them for their appearance.
Nearly twelve years ago, our baby girl was born. Her face looked different than the other babies born that day. Some would call her features abnormal. We would call them beautiful. And if we can teach our children to see the world through eyes of love instead of judgment and fear, they will be able to see all sorts of beauty too.
Tuesday, November 28, 2017
Last month, I wrote an article for the Washington Post about the label “evangelical.” It struck a chord. Numerous people have reached out to me personally, and the article has been republished in various newspapers around the country, most recently in Tulsa (see photo). It was even translated into German.
On the one hand, in this article I was explaining why I once identified as an evangelical and no longer use that term to describe myself. Yes, it has to do with the politicization of the word. BUT the bigger point I was trying to make is that I’m not taking up a different label. I’m not opposing evangelicals. I remain aligned by faith in Jesus with my evangelical brothers and sisters even if we make different choices in the voting booths.
In walking away from the label evangelical and refusing to take up a different label, I’m trying to resist the temptation to cut myself off from other Christians. As I write in the article:
“I am still tempted to categorize my Christian friends with words like “liberal” or “progressive” or “orthodox” or “conservative” or “evangelical.” I am still tempted to judge the faith of other people according to my standards of who and what constitutes Christianity. But when I stop and ask how I see God’s work in their expressions of faith — when I stop and consider the expansive love of God at work in and through countless people, people like me, people who have our theology wrong plenty of the time, people who have our theology right and still behave badly, people who are bumbling around in a world of sin and are still at our core beloved by God and invited to participate in God’s work in the world — when I do that, I start to believe that we are Christians.”
I have been reading Richard Foster’s book Streams of Living Water this fall, (here’s a link to a summary), and I will probably write more about how this book has influenced my thinking on another day. But suffice it to say, I want to rejoice in the ways my evangelical heritage has given me a love for the Bible and for telling people the good news about Jesus. And I also want to rejoice for all the other ways people express their faith in Jesus–prayer, serving others, working hard–and I want to learn from those Christians as well.
Wednesday, November 29, 2017
Tomorrow I’m going to post here about an Advent devotional that I’ve put together. It will include daily readings from the Bible that take you through the stories about Jesus’ birth as well as reflections–some new, many that I have written over the past decade–about those passages and how they relate to our daily lives.
Meanwhile, I’m doing some work of my own to prepare for Advent. That means we’ve moved the boxes of Christmas books and Advent calendars out of the attic and into the playroom, we’ve replaced our broken white lights for the tree, and we’ve started playing classical Christmas music on Spotify.
It also means we are getting out some big cardboard boxes. Starting a few years ago, we used the Advent season to “prepare him room” (a line from “Joy to the World” and also an idea from the Bible that the people would prepare their town when a king was coming) by inviting each member of the family to give one thing away through every day of Advent. Books, toys, games, clothes–every day we each find an item and give it away. Yes, it clears out some literal space for the literal gifts we will receive on Christmas Day. But I hope it also clears out some space in our hearts to think about the gifts that Jesus asks for from us, the gifts of love and care for other people and the gift that Jesus gives us in loving us not for our stuff–our appearance, our work, our achievement–but in and of ourselves.
I’ll write more tomorrow about another practice I’m going to take up for Advent this year, and I’ll share a link so that you can receive the free Advent devotional as well.
What are you doing to get ready for Christmas?
Wednesday, November 29, 2017
Lesa Engelthaler in a helpful post about how prayer and action must go hand in hand: Are Thoughts and Prayers Enough for a Troubled World?
Thursday, November 30, 2017
It isn’t always clear whether December is a season of giving or getting. Still, I’m trying to approach it personally and as a family as a time to give and receive. I mentioned yesterday that for the past few years we have given away one physical item per family member during Advent, and we plan to continue that this year.
But we also talk on December 24th, during our “birthday party for Jesus” about the gifts we have given to Jesus over the course of the year. We read the passage from Matthew 25 where Jesus talks about how when we visit prisoners, we visit him, when we feed the hungry, we feed him. In other words, to give a gift to Jesus is to care for someone in need. Or perhaps a better way to say it is that to give a gift to Jesus is to respond to other human beings as human beings.
I just read this article from Christianity Today about giving, and I was struck by this statistic: “Some 60 percent of the people they surveyed who live below the poverty line gave something, versus 32 percent of those above that line.”
I suspect that most readers of these posts live above the poverty line, and the challenge–no, not the challenge, the invitation–to us this season is to give generously. We give out of what we have been given, not only of our money but also our time and resources, and perhaps most importantly of our love. No matter our financial status, Christmas is the time to receive the love of God so that we can freely and generously give it away.
Thursday, November 30, 2017
As the holiday season begins, I have a gift for you!
I’ve compiled 25 days of readings and reflections through the Advent season. Yes, they take you through the Bible stories about Jesus’ birth. They also cover topics like anxiety, drinking too much wine, ordinary hard days, the importance of gift giving, the joy and wonder of the season, and how we can love one another. Some are serious, some are humorous, some are taken from old blogposts and some are new.
Starting tomorrow, every day I’m going to post a short thought and question related to that day’s reading. I hope you’ll join in the conversation.
If would like to join me for this walk through Advent, click this link. (If you already receive my monthly newsletter, check your email inbox for a message from me.)
And please invite friends to join us. This is a free gift that I would love to share far and wide.
November 18, 2017
People with Disabilities Ministering to Others
Once a week I compile the reflections I’ve offered on Facebook into one blogpost. Here are the thoughts from the past five days:
Monday, November 13, 2017
In “Why Insidious Racism is So Much Harder to Navigate,” Reni Eddo-Lodge argues that racism is prejudice with power. Any of us can be prejudiced against another group of people, but only when we have cultural power that functions in such a way as to exclude or demean does that prejudice become racism in a more comprehensively harmful way. In her words:
“Those disadvantaged by racism can certainly be cruel, vindictive and prejudiced. Everyone has the capacity to be nasty to other people, to judge them before they get to know them. But there simply aren’t enough black people in positions of power to enact racism against white people on the kind of grand scale it currently operates at against black people.”
I’ve been thinking a lot about power and how power can be used for evil (plenty of current events to back up that point at the moment), but also how power could potentially be used for good. The thing is, the only way power can be used for good is if it is combined with love, with a genuine willingness to sacrifice. Otherwise, the individuals and the systems just stay the same. Prejudice plus power (racism) deforms. Power alone maintains the status quo. But power plus love transforms.
The thing is, the way power plus love transforms is often–though perhaps not always–through relinquishing power. In other words, the powerful admit ways in which they are powerless and/or willingly give up power for the sake of love.
Tuesday, November 14, 2017
When I was younger, I thought growing up was something that happened from infancy until somewhere around age 25. Then you were pretty much set. You knew what you wanted to do for a career. You were married or close to it. You would attempt to keep your body from growing any more.
Now that I’m 40, I realize that growing up is a lifelong process. But I also realize that now that my body is grown, now that I’ve finished school, now that I have responsibility for my own time and money and relationships, it is tempting to stop growing altogether.
Throughout the Bible, the spiritual life is compared to growth in the natural world. We read that God’s Word is like a seed. We read about being “rooted and established in love.” We read about the Holy Spirit being like water, like nourishment for that sapling trying to climb to the light. We read about seasons of growth. And we read, finally, about bearing fruit.
They are lovely images, and I do want to be like a tree planted by a stream of water (Psalm 1) that bears fruit in season and never withers and can withstand the storms that come my way.
But the thought of growing like a tree challenges me too. The temptations to arrest growth are many. It is tempting to drink another glass of wine instead of asking questions about why I need the wine in the first place. It is tempting to publish ideas that won’t invite criticism instead of digging deep into what I believe God has given me to say about race and class and disability and identity. It is tempting to watch Youtube videos instead of reading books that stretch me. Tempting to feel self-satisfied spiritually instead of learning more, making a habit of confessing my sins, recognizing how much I still don’t understand, how much I still don’t trust.
In the Bible there is talk of pruning, which is to say cutting off branches from vines and trees that don’t bear fruit. There’s talk of storms, which batter trees and either uproot them or push them to grow deeper roots. Growth is not easy.
But in the midst of the pain of growth, there is also the promise of bearing fruit, and that fruit includes joy.
Thursday, November 16, 2017
How many of you have heard of the “Billy Graham rule”? I’m guessing that of people who read this mini-blog it’s split, but the basic idea is that men shouldn’t meet alone with women who aren’t their wives as a protection against anything that could ultimately lead to nefarious conduct. The rule has come into the public eye again recently because Mike Pence follows it. My friend and colleague Katelyn Beaty recently wrote about it for the New York Times.
I recommend the whole piece, but here are a few quotations just to whet your appetite: “…reasonable people know the difference between a business meeting over breakfast and drinks at a hotel bar at night. And what the Pence rule fails to grapple with is that the Weinstein story wasn’t, at its root, about attraction but abuse of power.” And, “The Pence rule arises from a broken view of the sexes: Men are lustful beasts that must be contained, while women are objects of desire that must be hidden away. Offering the Pence rule as a solution to male predation is like saying, “I can’t meet with you one on one, otherwise I might eventually assault you.” If that’s the case, we have far deeper problems around men and power than any personal conduct rule can solve.”
Thursday, November 16, 2017
I’m working on an article about the ministry that people with disabilities can have within their communities/churches/etc. I’m curious if any of you have examples of people with disabilities (intellectual or physical) who have been ministers of some sort in your life or your community? I see Penny as having a “ministry” of encouragement, for example, as I’ve written about here before in terms of her unprompted care for other people through written notes and expressions of love and affirmation. Other people with disabilities might minister through physical acts of service, through teaching, through manifestations of patience/kindness/love. I’m hoping to find examples of individuals but also to reflect on the conditions that enable people with disabilities to flourish and contribute in this way. Does anything come to mind?
Friday, November 18, 2017
My family has been in the United States since before the United States existed. Distant relatives on both my mother’s and father’s sides arrived in Massachusetts and Connecticut in the 1600s and we’ve been here, more or less, ever since. I learned a few years ago that one branch of the family was nearly wiped out on their way to church one Sunday morning when a band of Native Americans killed the entire party, save one infant, a child named Hannah.
At first, I heard the story from the perspective of my family. I saw it as a group of peaceful people on their way to church who were unjustly murdered.
Then I learned more about the history of various Native American tribes and the ways in which white settlers pushed them out of their lands, infected them with diseases, and eventually constructed unjust laws that favored white interests. At that point, I started to see our family as the problem, even, perhaps, the perpetrator.
I recently learned more. One, that this family member came to the US because he was a Protestant in England and was in danger of execution. He was a religious refugee who fled to America. Two, that there was a war going on at the time between the Native Americans and the colonists (King Philip’s war), and it isn’t clear from an historical perspective, who was being unjust to whom at every point.
Were the white colonists oppressing the native peoples or were they negotiating while two groups of people tried to figure out how to live peaceably together? Should the white refugees have fled elsewhere? Were there answers other than separation and other than bloodshed?
I don’t know enough to answer those questions, but I know enough to believe it is a messy and complicated story.
On that day, the Native Americans killed Hannah’s sister, her mother, and her father. Three other siblings had stayed home, so they raised Hannah, and she is my many-greats-in-a-row ancestor who lived not far from where I live now.
As we approach Thanksgiving, I am trying to learn how to express my gratitude–in the past and the present–for all that is noble and good and blessed about this nation while also expressing my sadness and regret over all that is unjust and hateful. I am thankful for a place that received religious refugees. I am troubled by a history of violence towards the people who already lived here. I am troubled by the story of Hannah Keep. I am troubled by the story of the founding of a nation with liberty and justice for all that wasn’t really for all. I am also thankful for Hannah Keep. I am thankful for religious liberty, for a history of welcome to immigrants and refugees, for the ideals of our justice system even when it fails, for the chance to live in this country.
(Here’s some of the historical record.)
November 10, 2017
The Lord’s Prayer is Not for ME
Once a week I compile the reflections I’ve offered on Facebook into one blogpost. Here are the thoughts from the past five days:
Monday, November 6, 2017
I’m not a very visual person. I don’t take a lot of photographs. I often overlook visual details about the world around me (for instance, I missed it when a tree as tall as our house and about six feet in diameter was removed from our backyard…). I have a terrible time trying to come up with interesting images to accompany blog posts. I can tell you what I like and don’t like, but I can’t tell you why and I can’t usually come up with ideas on my own. So providing my thoughts on a book cover (my job this week) isn’t easy.
With A Good and Perfect Gift, I just said “great” to the cover they sent me. The original cover was a black background with a black and white photo of hands holding baby’s feet. Then the marketing folks over at Bethany House said, “Absolutely not,” and we went with the cover with the little girl picking flowers. I now can’t imagine it any other way.
With Small Talk, I was more involved in the process. Zondervan showed two possibilities–the bolder, quirkier, more text-based cover we went with and a different one that echoed A Good and Perfect Gift, with a photo of a little girl from behind. In the case of Small Talk, we figured moms of young children (who might like the image of the little girl from behind) would be interested in the book no matter what. We were trying to use the cover to convey that this was a book that was for a larger audience than just those moms. I love that cover, but I’m not sure it actually served its purpose. I think we created a cover for an ideal audience (moms plus) rather than the real audience (Christian moms of small children).
Which brings me to White Picket Fences. As I consider cover options, I first need to consider the real audience for this book. Not my hopes and dreams of an audience. Not the people who I think would benefit from reading it. The people who are very likely to want to read it, to be excited about it, and to tell their friends. So that’s where you come in. Who do you think is the real audience for White Picket Fences, a personal narrative about the benefits and wounds of privilege? What other books is that audience reading? Are they young, old, white, people of color, men, women, conservatives, liberals, religious or not?
I’ll get back to you in a few months with what NavPress decides. Thanks so much for your help.
Tuesday, November 7, 2017
“Give US this day OUR daily bread . . . Forgive US OUR debts, as WE forgive OUR debtors.” Sorry for the all-caps, but I’ve been leading a Bible Study about the Lord’s Prayer lately, and I thought I knew what it was about and I’m starting to think I was missing so much. The whole prayer is written to be prayed in the plural. It’s not written from a (Western/American) individual, but written as if a whole group of people is praying for their needs. Those needs include food. Those needs include forgiveness.
It has made me think a lot about American individualism and how I am concerned with my own needs and not with my neighbor’s or my town’s or my community. But it has also made me think about how easily we cast blame and point fingers–at the mentally ill, or at the people who own guns, or at the men who sexually harass (and worse) women. I’ve been thinking about what it would mean to say “forgive US” and include those men. Am I willing to be aligned with all the other sinners on this earth? Am I willing to ask for our forgiveness? Am I willing to forgive? Is this what Jesus is calling for us to do in the Lord’s Prayer?
And even though I am not a gun owner, even though I haven’t sexually harassed anyone, I still start to wonder–in what ways have I participated in and even supported a culture of fear or of violence or of dehumanizing and objectifying other people? In what ways am I too guilty even when it comes to crimes that seem to have nothing to do with me?
I’m still wrestling through these verses, but at the very least they have helped me see how much God cares about us seeing ourselves–in our glory and our shame–as a part of the whole of humanity.
And the point of this whole exercise is not shame and guilt. It is freedom, to ask for forgiveness in order to be set free and empowered–collectively–to be a part of God’s loving work in the world.
Wednesday, November 8, 2017
We ordered some Christmas pajamas yesterday. The kids have their lists for Santa ready. We’ve already got parties on the calendar and plans made for travel. We’ve taken photos for the Christmas card. But this year I’m also getting ready for Christmas with a gift for you all and I just wanted to give you a sense of what’s coming.
I’m working on an ebook for Advent which I will make available here and on my website right after Thanksgiving. It will contain 25 days of reflections on the stories in the Bible about Jesus’ birth and about the spirit of the Christmas season. Some of the reflections will be from old blog posts and essays. Others will be new writing. All will hopefully help you to walk through those days leading up to the celebration of Christmas Day with more love, hope, joy, and peace in your hearts.
Thursday, November 9, 2017
I sometimes struggle with the purpose of my life as a writer when there are so many important causes out there. With my background, I could be teaching or working for a non-profit or pastoring a church. Instead I hole up and read and write and hope and pray that the joy it brings me will in turn bring goodness into the world.
So it was good to be reminded about the importance of art through this talk by Jordan Peterson.
Whether or not you are an artist, these 12 minutes are worth watching/listening to as a reminder that utility and productivity isn’t what makes us human. We need truth and beauty and transcendence. Art gives us these things, in literature and music and paintings and sculpture. I hope you’ll find it as encouraging as I did to try to contribute something beautiful to the world.
Thursday, November 9, 2017
I was just writing to a mother of a toddler with special needs who had asked how middle school is going for Penny and I wrote, “Middle school has been fantastic for Penny. Better than I ever could have imagined. I keep thinking we will face huge obstacles with her, but every new thing has really just been a good one.” And then a friend shared this video, which is only one minute long and YOU HAVE TO WATCH IT because it is so amazingly great.
Here’s the thing. It is easy for me to think that Penny is doing so well because we’ve done a good job as her individual parents. Or I could think that these 4-year olds are so cute because that’s just how kids interact with each other. But then I remember that within my parents’ lifetime kids with Down syndrome were not legally required to be admitted to public schools. And within my lifetime, we have seen a tremendous shift from “self-contained” classrooms to inclusive ones.
Yes, Penny has benefitted from her family and her church and her therapists and medical team. But I want to remind myself and everyone else that her development and maturity has also been built upon policies that have allowed her a place in school alongside her peers.
This isn’t just a feel-good story or a feel-good video. This is a reminder that the way we spend our public money matters, and that all kids–the ones with special needs and the ones who are typically developing–can benefit from growing up together.
November 3, 2017
When Fear Becomes Gratitude
Once a week I compile the reflections I’ve offered on Facebook into one blogpost. Here are the thoughts from the past five days:
Tuesday, October 31, 2017
A few weeks ago, Penny and my mom had a conversation where Penny shut down. It happens every so often. We aren’t sure whether she gets overwhelmed by an emotion or just can’t express whatever she is thinking or feeling in words or if it is something else, but she gets really quiet and her big eyes get even bigger and she won’t talk.
So later on that day, I asked her about what had happened, and she said, “Mom, can we write about it? Like, you can write your questions on a piece of paper and then I can write my answers.”
So we sat side by side in the kitchen and went back and forth and she explained that when my mom told her they were going down the road, she felt sad because it would leave my dad all alone so she didn’t want to go. She later took the paper to my mom so that Mom could understand it too.
Since then, we’ve had conversations about a boy on the bus who said something that made her feel uncomfortable, she’s written with her teacher about her concerns before running a timed mile, and, most recently, a comment I made about Down syndrome. In that most recent exchange she asked, “Why were you and Dad scared when you found out that I had Down syndrome?”
In honor of this final day of Down syndrome Awareness Month, here’s my reply:
“We thought Down syndrome would make you sick. We also didn’t know anyone with Down syndrome, so we thought maybe you would be really different from us or that maybe we wouldn’t be good parents for you. We were afraid that other people would be critical of us or make fun of us. Instead, we found out that people with Down syndrome live great lives–with lots of love and happiness. We found out that we love being your parents. We found out that you are a lot like us–you love reading, like me. You get distracted easily like your dad. There are also some differences and ways you have taught us things. You are a really hard worker and you don’t get easily discouraged. You are more easy going than we are and more patient and joyful. You are really kind and set a good example for me with how you care for people.”
Almost twelve years from the day Penny was born, I do not feel fear. I feel gratitude.
Wednesday, November 1, 2017
Yesterday, John Kelly made the news when he said the Civil War could have been avoided through compromise. Many people pointed out that decades of compromises actually preceded the war, and that those compromises were predicated upon the egregious idea that white people have greater value than African Americans and that human beings can be held as property. Read more.
That said, in a time of increasing polarization of views, many people are pointing out that if we can learn how to listen to people with whom we disagree, even when they are offensive to us, we might be able to participate in growth and healing and bridge building that decreases the polarization and increases care and community. Three recommendations of sources that have helped me to think about how we can move forward from this polarized time:
1. Christena Cleveland’s excellent book, Disunity in Christ: Uncovering the Hidden Forces that Keep Us Apart. This book explicitly addresses the forces that keep Christians separated from one another–forces that usually come down to culture rather than theology. She offers multiple practical suggestions and lots of examples of how we can challenge one another to become more unified as those who follow Jesus. I highly recommend this book for any individual or church group seeking to understand and unite with other Christians who seem separated by culture, race, or other factors.
2. Jonathan Haidt’s interview with Krista Tippett. Haidt has done a lot of research into why we believe what we believe and also why we are separated from each other. He talks here about why conservatives understand liberals more than liberals understand conservatives, and how his own (very liberal) views have changed by doing this research.
3. TED Radio Hour on “Dialogue and Exchange” in which a civil rights activists shares about talking with a KKK member, and a woman who participated in the Westboro Baptist Church (the small church that protests regarding gay marriage and abortion in particularly hateful ways) talks about leaving her church and her family once she recognized that their views were wrong.
Thursday, November 2, 2017
I’m beginning to think about the cover art for White Picket Fences (my upcoming book about privilege for NavPress). So I’m thinking about the main idea of the book (unacknowledged privilege harms everyone, but acknowledging privilege opens up possibilities for healing), the audience for the book, and then what images can convey a hopeful message to that audience. So for you all who check this page every so often–what do you think? Are there things you look for in a book cover? Colors? Fonts? Do you like photographs/realistic artwork or graphics or books with lots of type on the cover and not so much by way of images? And what might intrigue you enough to pick up a book with this title and topic?
Thursday, November 2, 2017
Per my post earlier today, here are some covers I like for non-fiction books (mostly–I also just liked that Huck Finn one!). Which ones do you like? Continue reading on Pinterest.
October 27, 2017
A Day in the Life with Down Syndrome
Once a week I compile the reflections I’ve offered on Facebook into one blogpost. Here are the thoughts from the past five days:
Tuesday, October 24, 2017
“Anyone who has been raised in a Christian context has been taught that human beings are sinful. From every early on (in the Biblical story), we chose ourselves over God. We chose—and we keep choosing—self over love… Sin is a huge and serious problem. Sin fights against love. Sin separates us from love.
“But sometimes we forget that sin and love are not equal powers. Sin and love are not two forces in constant and equal opposition within our natures. Love existed before sin entered the world. And when Jesus died on the cross, love conquered sin. Sin is a fact of human existence—any newspaper will demonstrate that—but it is also a temporary condition that does not have the same power as love.
“Sin is a grievous interruption, a tragic interlude. But we need to remember that before sin existed, love was present and real. And at the end of time, sin will be gone and love will remain. Only love will remain.”
I preached on love (again) last Sunday at the Presbyterian Church of Old Greenwich. Here’s a link to the audio version.
Tuesday, October 24, 2017
For those of you who speak German, my Washington Post article from last week was translated and published over there yesterday. Let me know if anything seems really off! And if you missed it in English, here’s the link.
Wednesday, October 25, 2017
Anyone out there concerned about how technology is affecting us? Personally? As a family? For our children? We are asking all sorts of questions–when should Penny get a phone (she, age 11, says yesterday. I say when she’s 14. Peter says “how about never?”)? Should we let William save his money to buy his own “electronic”? How much screen time on a daily/weekly basis? Is there a difference between watching a show and a movie? Between different types of video games? Does socialization in the 21st century depend upon screens? What is the proper use of social media for kids? How do we control technology instead of allowing it to control us?
I led a conversation at our kids’ school today where we tried to parse out what we affirm and what we are concerned about when it comes to screens. Then we talked about “best practices.” You can see our white board discussion in the photo. Meanwhile, here’s some additional reading if you want to join the questions around this brave new world:
Saving the Self in the Age of the Selfie: An article from The American Scholar about the need for healthy stress in our lives and how smart phones make us too comfortable for our own good.
Our Minds Can be Hijacked: The tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia: An article from the Guardian about people who have worked in the tech industry and decided to walk away.
Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? The Atlantic’s viral article about social media use and isolation and depression among adolescents.
Three Fears about Screen Time for Kids and Why They’re Not True: This TED talk by Sara DeWitt, who works for PBS Kids, challenges the idea that screen time is detrimental to kids.
Do Our Devices Control More than We Think? TED speaker Tristan Harris talks about why he doesn’t work for Google any longer because of the ethical issues he confronted while there.
Thursday, October 26, 2017
What is a day in the life of a kid with Down syndrome like? I had a chance to write about Penny for the A Day in the Life with Down Syndrome blog today. I reflect on Penny’s life right now and some of the questions I used to have:
“Years ago, I wondered what life would be like right now. I worried about other kids—Would they be mean to her? Would she be left out? I worried that I didn’t hear much from other parents of kids with Down syndrome this age. Was it because their kids weren’t cute any longer, as some readers of things I wrote when Penny was little told me to expect? Was it because life with Down syndrome in middle school was hard and no one wanted to tell that story, or no one wanted to read about it?”
October 20, 2017
Why I Dropped the Label Evangelical
Once a week I compile the reflections I’ve offered on Facebook into one blogpost. Here are the thoughts from the past five days:
Tuesday, October 17, 2017
Marilee slept late this morning. At 7:30, I rubbed her shoulder as she lay curled up under the covers on her side. When she opened her eyes, though, I could tell she hadn’t really been asleep. She just hadn’t wanted to get out of that comfortable bed. A few minutes later, she had tears streaming down her face. “I don’t feel good,” she said. But she didn’t seem sick.
“Is anything else bothering you?” I asked.
“I don’t want to do the mile run!” she wept.
It turned out that she knew today was the day her class would run a timed mile at school, and apparently it was causing her enough distress to stay in bed, feel sick, and burst into tears.
We sorted it out–I prayed for her and then told her I’d be in touch with her teacher and she probably could just run for part of the time. I told her I would walk her to the bus stop. She skipped her way there.
As it happened, I also read a chapter from Walter Brueggeman’s The Sabbath as Resistance this morning, and the chapter had to do with how intentional, communal, and regular rest protects us from anxiety.
Brueggemann writes about how the first three commandments–which are all about worshiping God and God alone–might very well have seemed to the Israelites like they had a new Pharaoh. Just as Pharoah in Egypt demanded their allegiance to him and him alone, so too God requires worship.
But while there are three commandments about worshiping God, there are also six commandments about loving our neighbors. This God, this “new Pharaoh” is different because he isn’t focused on himself but rather on the whole community, and especially the ones who are likely to be mistreated.
And the commandment that links worship of God to love of neighbor is the the fourth, the one that takes up the most words and draws most deeply on Israel’s history both in believing in a Creator God (God rested after he created the world in Genesis 1) and believing in a salvific God who rescued them from Egypt. The link between worshiping God and loving one another is the Sabbath.
Brueggeman’s point is that celebrating the Sabbath–taking a full day to rest from work–frees us from anxiety. It frees us to trust God. It frees us to operate differently, not in an economy of production and relentless striving for more and busyness and pushing, but instead in an economy of caring for one another and trusting and being vulnerable and rejoicing.
I didn’t tell Marilee about the Sabbath as a way to counter her anxiety about the mile run. But I did think of how God’s love can free her up so she doesn’t need to prove herself in the classroom or on the athletic field. The same is true for me. I can rest in the love of God as I enter this day, free to work , and free to stop working, and free to give to others, not in order to prove my worth but in response to the love that has already been given to me.
Wednesday, October 18, 2017
For those of you who are Christians, do you use another label to describe what type of Christian you are? I used to. I wrote for the Washington Post today about why that changed: Why I am ditching the label ‘evangelical’ in the Trump era
Friday, October 20, 2017
If you’re anything like me, you have hurdled through the beginning of the school year and are close to collapse. Our household has cycled through colds and coughs and a sprained ankle and pink eye (that was me). We’ve started middle school and run the mile and I’ve finished a draft of my book.
We’ve lined up our activities for every day of the week and more or less attended them and done homework and piano practice and edutyping and apple picking. It is so easy to focus on the sniffly noses and weariness and the to-do list that is always too long. They are all little things. Nothing dramatic and certainly nothing traumatic. But they can so easily drag me into despondency.
So I’ve been thinking this week about the little things that are gifts to me: the leaves turning yellow on the tree outside my window, the new planner I got (Michael Hyatt’s Full Focus Planner-I love it), the Nomad Podcast with conversations about theology and the church, coconut yogurt with granola and berries, hot cups of tea, hugs from my children, date night with Peter, lunch with a dear old friend, crisp fall air.
The little things can drag me down. The little things can lift me up.
What is one little thing that is making your life better right now?
(I should add that the photos are all from the summer, but they do stand for things that were making my life better two months ago, which is the last time I took any pictures. It’s been a busy fall.)
October 13, 2017
Are You an Anxious Person?
Once a week I compile the reflections I’ve offered on Facebook into one blogpost. Here are the thoughts from the past five days:
Friday, October 13, 2017
I’ve written a gazillion times about how my enduring concern for Penny is friendship. I now realize I’m praying for good friends for all our kids, and making and keeping good friends is an issue through all our lives. Still, a persistent problem for people with Down syndrome is loneliness, so having friends is a serious concern and need.
I have also written about how Penny’s two best friends from elementary school didn’t make the transition to middle school with her–one moved away and another went to a different school. So I was worried, again, this year. And, again, it has been great. Penny has gone over to friends’ houses and had them to our house. A friend is coming home after school today and they will go to a homecoming game together. I walk with Penny in the hallway of her school and multiple kids go out of their way to say hi or run over to her to give her a hug. She talks about sitting with different people at lunch–some old friends and some new.
My friend Jennifer Grant has told me about her daughter Isabel, who has been friends with Sam–a young man with Down syndrome–for a decade now. Isabel’s and Sam’s relationship has been an image that brings light and hope to me as a mother, seeing that a true friendship exists between the two of them in which both of them give and receive. My friend Margot Starbuck interviewed them recently. I think you’ll love seeing them together.
Thursday, October 12, 2017
I used to think that I wasn’t an anxious person. I don’t worry about germs and dirt. I don’t worry about calamity. I don’t worry about lyme disease or sunburn or cancer. I don’t worry about our kids’ futures.
But recently I have realized that I worry about all sorts of other stuff. I worry about getting everything done. I worry about being late. I worry about how I look and what I weigh and whether people think I’m a snob. I don’t worry about big stuff, but I worry about small stuff all day long.
My hunch is that some of my worry is a product of privilege, of being insulated–both protected and cut off–from some of the historical human concerns like where will I live and what will I eat and will we survive. Wealth, education, safe neighborhoods, marriage, WASP heritage–all these things provide a measure of stability and security that most human beings throughout history haven’t had. And yet even with these measures in place, even with this practical assurance of stability, I worry. My natural human instinct is to turn in on myself rather than to allow that security to free me up to turn outwards towards others.
I’ve written a whole chapter about this in my new book, but I thought I’d raise the thoughts here and also share this article about anxiety in teenagers.
My hope is to turn away from anxiety and towards peace, towards the source of all peace, so that I can be freed up both for my own healing and to be an agent of healing in a wounded world.
Tuesday, October 10, 2017
I am allergic to change. I realized this back in September, when we were driving back from the beach and my head began to fill with fluid and I sneezed a dozen times in as many minutes. The air quality in the air-conditioned car hadn’t changed. But I was headed into the school year, and my body responded as if an alien substance had invaded my nostrils.
We talk about sickness as something we need to fight, like an alien has invaded and we must come at it with everything we’ve got. I’ve started to wonder whether sickness, and pain, are instead messengers I need to listen to.
I have recently realized that I start to get congested when I’m under stress of some sort. I used to always see it as sickness. An inevitable process that would probably land me in bed for the better part of a week. But three times in the past six weeks I have come close to the brink of illness and walked away.
There was the “allergic reaction” in the car on Labor Day, which I mentioned above. Then, I kept telling myself that I didn’t need to be afraid. I listened to the message my body was telling me, and I prayed about it and thought about it and took care of myself, and by the next morning, I was fine.
I can’t remember what happened the second time.
But last week on Friday, I was driving with Penny back from a doctor’s appointment in Boston. The traffic was horrible, which meant I was going to be two hours late to a dinner party for forty people in our home. (I had known I would be cutting it close. But two hours late!?!) My throat was tight and itchy and my head started to fill with fluid. I texted my husband with frantic updates and he assured me that it would be just fine.
And then I started to recognize that I was anxious about something that I couldn’t control, and that I had prioritized our daughter’s health over the dinner party, which was as it should be, and I realized that I wasn’t perfect and I never would be and I was still loved and there was still grace.
I came home and joined the end of the dinner party and had a cup of tea and got a good night sleep. And I was all better in the morning.
I don’t know how this all works, and I don’t mean to say that sickness or pain are things that we control or that we should blame ourselves for or that we would all be healthy all the time if we just got our thinking straight. But I am starting to see all the little pains and illnesses I bump up against not as foes I need to fight but as messengers I need to listen to.
Monday, October 9, 2017
I found out recently that Penny might need hearing aids. She’s had mild to moderate hearing loss since birth, and that hasn’t changed. But now that she is in middle school, and given how much of a difference hearing clearly can make, it is probably time to give her ears some support.
Penny has a lot of minor supports—orthotics in her shoes, glasses, a retainer, thyroid medication to take daily, physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy at school. And then she also wears a brace twenty hours a day to try to keep her back straight and prevent her scoliosis from progressing. All of this amounts to a lot of time—lots of doctor’s appointments and lots of phone calls and lots of record keeping.
I’ve been asked whether it feels unfair. Like she has already been given the raw end of the deal because she has Down syndrome and now it has been compounded with all these devices. She already has more doctors to see than the typical kid, and we keep adding more. She already has social challenges and learning challenges and physical challenges and now there are more.
And yet.
And yet she doesn’t see her life in terms of its limitations. She has taught us that we don’t need to see it that way either.
I’m not saying I never get grumpy about the amount of driving we do, or the five hours in traffic last week, or that I never feel overwhelmed by the sheer responsibility of keeping all these appointments straight and making sure we follow through. I do.
And I’m not saying she never wells up with tears over having to put the brace back on, or that she never resists wearing her orthotics because what girl wants to wear sneakers all the time and not the fancy silver flip flops that are terrible for your feet?
But I am saying that she expresses the disappointment, and then she does what she has to do without complaining or resisting. And so I try to do the same.
I mentioned last week that I have compiled a series of essays I have written over the years of being Penny’s mom. The final “essay” is my favorite of the collection because it is not an essay at all. Rather, it is an interview with Penny. There I asked her a question about her life and she answered, “My life is filled with caring, loving people and joyful happiness.”
