Ginger Garrett's Blog, page 3

Ask for the Impossible

I was going to an important meeting, so when I merged onto the highway, I pulled to the far left lane. Some people drive; I zoom.

Too late to exit, I realized that up ahead ALL lanes of traffic were stopped. As I inched forward over the next half-hour, I saw that five lanes had been narrowed down to one. And it was raining.

I was going to be late for my meeting, which drives me nuts. I run on Lombardi time. (If you’re not fifteen minutes early, you’re late.) Thanks to my GPS app, I could watch my ETA grow further and further away. All I could do was breathe.

And pray! I always remember prayer a fraction of a second later than I probably should. After all, I am, for the most part, a Christ-follower. Occasionally my language lags behind but I am also a Texan so I’m sure Jesus makes allowances for that.

I remembered something Beth Moore said about praying for the Red Sea to part when she was sitting in traffic. I felt stupid, but I asked God if He would part the traffic like He did the Red Sea. And I knew of course that this was impossible, unless all cars pulled over to the left and right emergency lanes. Oh, wait—traffic was stopped in those, too. So much for parting anything at all.

But I prayed. And reminded myself not to waste my precious hours on this planet with a grouchy attitude. I knew my prayer was silly but I prayed it anyway because when you are in an impossible situation, you might as well ask that the impossible be done, right?

Suddenly, I saw men wearing reflective vests weaving in and out of the cars just in front of me. Startled—because men normally aren’t walking on the highway—I strained to see what they were doing.

They were moving traffic cones. In the blink of an eye, the car in front of me sped off and I saw that all lanes of traffic were now open. The sea had, indeed, parted.

Because I prayed? Nah. But the timing is suspicious.

Perhaps God wanted to remind me that if my imagination is so limited that I could not foresee such a humanly possible answer, then I really have no idea what “possible” means. And maybe I have no business judging any prayer request.

So, pray boldly. Pray in a way that embarrasses you.

And if you see me in your rear view mirror, pull to the right. I’m probably late.

Irma, Harvey and the Wrath of God

The last blog post I wrote was about my pledge to meet every wound with love. And then, as often happens, it seems I was due to be tested on this principle. Did I really mean that post? Would I really greet my wounds as a chance to let Love make my life more beautiful?

If they are my wounds, yes.

I did not foresee that my son would be in a flour fight (yes, baking products turned into projectiles) and that someone would throw a hard ball at his face, shattering his nose.

That was certainly a wound, complete with streaming blood, a trip to the ER and a head CT.

I did not greet that wound with love. In fact, if you hurt my kids, I will unleash a scorched earth policy that would leave Sherman breathless.

I was furious that the event organizer thought it wise to allow teenage boys to pack flour into bags, creating hard objects to throw. Teenage boys are universally renowned for their ability to turn any object into an instrument of pain and/or destruction.

My own son, in fact, found a way to explode a can of green beans from the inside out, thereby creating an explosion so loud that we have yet to see the birds return to nest in our backyard trees. Adults do not look at canned produce and see the potential for explosions. We just don’t. But if we are in charge of teenage boys, we must think like teenage boys.

But, to continue, my son was injured through the negligence of a third party. It was, in part, a deliberate injury and the fault was squarely on the business’s shoulders. So when the business owner called me in the ER, the Mama Bear in me raged. Even King Solomon, the wisest man to ever live, warned that few things on earth are as dangerous as a mama bear.

However, I tried to make it clear that my fury was at the decision that led to the injury, not necessarily the person who made it.

On the way home from the ER, we listened to the news from Charlotte, and then the dire warnings about Hurricane Harvey. One person opined that America was facing the wrath of God for her many sins. And of course, with Irma making her US debut this weekend, even more people are suggesting that all these events aren’t actual weather: they’re divine punishment.

I know they’re wrong. Because on that night on the way home from the ER, I suddenly understood one of the least favorite references in the Bible: the wrath of God.

I have always hated references to the wrath of God.

Who wants to believe in a raging God?

Not me. Ever.

But…what if the wrath of God is quite different than anything we had imagined?

Follow me on this:

Every one of us yearns for justice. Yearning is now said to be the final stage of grief, in fact. That’s why it’s so silly to talk about closure when we’re dealing with deep wounds. Closure isn’t possible. The two ends can never match up again: what was and what should have been are forever separated in this life.

So we yearn for justice. Real justice, not just prison time. Real justice would go after the root of our suffering.

Ask any parent in a pediatric cancer ward what they would do to Cancer if they could. Ask a grieving father what he would do to Heroin. Or a victim of human trafficking what she would do to Pornography and Rape.

Their wrath wouldn’t be pretty. But it would be just.

So, I do want to believe in the wrath of God and you do too. But as God’s children, His wrath is for us, not directed at us. He’s not coming to destroy individuals. He is coming to destroy evil.

I like to think that when God’s wrath is poured out on earth, all of humanity will cheer as we see every form of cruelty, all manner of disease and torment thrown into the pit of hell.

We will at last know the truth and the truth will make us free.

It’s time to stop fighting each other. We must fight for each other.

We can’t destroy each other and find justice. There is no Us versus Them. Celebrities speculate that God has already picked sides. I would argue they are right: God is on our side.

So I don’t fear God’s wrath. I hope one day to see it, and finally see the end of all suffering.

“He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

Revelation 21:4

Let Your Wounds Become Windows

May Our Wounds Become Windows

Recently I bought a lantern that absolutely enchanted me. Made of tin, an artist had painstakingly punched thousands of tiny holes in the metal, until a breathtaking design of complexity was evident.

The plain tin box, when lit from within with a candle, was truly lovely. Its light was nothing like the harsh glare of a commercial bulb or even the inconstant glow of an open flame. More than just the light, more than just the lantern: together, they were a thing of rare beauty.

Ironically, C.S. Lewis compared us to objects made of tin. “[God] is beginning…to turn the tin soldier into a live man. The part of you that does not like it is the part that is still tin.”

I understand so well.

Transforming plain tin to rare beauty is a process both painstaking and painful. The more the tin is pierced, the more elaborate the final pattern. If I had been that piece of tin, I would have demanded a much simpler design.

And if I run my hand along the inside of the lantern, I can still feel the rough edges of the strikes. I feel something quite like them in my heart, too. Each regret in my life has left a rough edge, and each loss has created a wound.

The wounds are what I should have been, how I should have acted, and all the terrible things that should never have happened. I am pierced through with the reality of my own failures and the failures of a broken world that promises happiness and delivers scorn.

I am just a plain tin box wishing to be a thing of beauty, but each failure, each loss and regret, is another nail piercing me. I find no pleasure in the process, and no glimpse of a design. Certainly, I see no beauty.

It takes faith, as raw and real as the wounds, to believe that a Master Artist can use all this pain to create beauty. When we look at the news, it seems impossible. But then I take a deep breath and remember that I am not responsible for changing the headlines…just my attitude. I have to meet each wound with Love. I need faith to hold on, and wait for the beauty to be revealed.

I believe the final design of my life will be made more beautiful because of my regrets and wounds, not in spite of them. I believe that there is hope for me, for you, and for this aching world. I believe that Love is still, and always, at work.

May every wound become a window.

Pranking My Mother

Would you like to meet my mom? First, try to imagine Betty White from her Golden Girls role. Now, change her bouffant hairstyle to black. And add a large bejeweled crucifix from an Avon catalog hanging around her neck. Got it? That’s my mom. She’s epic. In the best possible way, or the worst, depending on which side you take when I tell you this next story. In fact, I tossed and turned last night in bed, questioning whether I should even admit to the final phone prank. It’s so diabolically juvenile…

Anyway, my mom is the kindest, gentlest, most trusting woman God ever created. She loves the Lord (since she’s from Oklahoma, His name is actually pronounced The Lard) and for this reason alone, I’ve questioned my own faith many times. After all, what sort of God pairs a mom like that with kids like me and (name redacted) my brother?

One fateful year, Mom decided to get a job. She’d stayed home to raise us but now that we were on the verge of maturity, she decided to leave us without daily supervision.

We were on the verge all right. But it wasn’t maturity.

Her first job was answering phones for a prim, proper and thoroughly uptight Southern Baptist church. Play along with me. Her job involved picking up the phone and answering in the sweetest voice imaginable, “Main Street Baptist Church. How may we save you?” Or something to that affect.

Oh, boy. So much to work with here. For my brother and I this proved an irresistible target. We were delirious with anticipation.

Her second week on the job, we began our first wave of assault. My brother, a master at accents, tried a few voices with me before settling on the one we were sure sounded the most like Satan. Not that we had ever heard from Satan. Which was surprising considering how much of his work we carried out on a daily basis.

My brother cleared his throat, practicing one last low growl. I dialed the phone.

“Main Street Baptist Church. How may we save you?”

“I’d like to talk to the pastor.” (Make sure you imagine this in the voice of Satan.)

“May I ask who’s calling?”

“The Prince of Darkness.”

“A prince? My goodness. Hold, please.”

Our call went through and we hung up. We stared at each other in astonishment. There was blood in the water now.

And unfortunately, since Dad refused to pay for cable, prank calls were the only available entertainment that summer.

The next day, I dialed again. (On the job training had taught us that prank calls are less likely to be exposed if you space them well.)

“Main Street Baptist Church. How may we save you?”

“I’d like to talk to the pastor.” (again, in the voice of Satan)

“May I ask who’s calling?”

“Lucifer.”

“I’m very sorry, Lucifer, but he’s in a meeting. Would you like to leave a message?”

“No message. I’ll pay him a visit.”

“Wonderful! What time should we expect you?”

“6:66”

“We’re looking forward to it. See you then!”

And then, apparently, the pastor grew tired of having calls put through from Satan and meeting times set aside for the Prince of Darkness.

Mom moved on to more suitable employment.

She was hired by a school textbook company on the sale support team. Her job was to answer the phone and take the orders for textbooks from the field salespeople. Sounds easy. Until you factor in her children, two unsupervised criminal masterminds.

Every day, she would jot down her orders, then walk them down the hall to the warehouse manager, who would instruct the warehouse team to pull the orders and ship them to the schools.

After she established herself as the nicest, sweetest, most patient phone operator in the company, she began receiving the most unusual orders. Since the company’s inventory was not computerized yet, the inventory manager spent hours in the warehouse trying to find the obscure textbooks she placed orders for, including, but not limited to, “Animals and How They ‘Do It.‘”.

I am not proud to type that.

I am ashamed.

Remember, we were children. We were idiots. Worse, we were bored.

That summer my brother and I honed our creative skills, straining the limits of credulity, and slowly, the future began to take shape for us.

I became a writer. My brother has gone on to become a wildly successful fraud detection expert. He buzzes around the city in his convertible foreign sports car, and he still makes prank calls.

To me.

Often while sitting in my driveway.

The last prank call ended in an argument about whether fish have feelings.

He’s that good, people.

Or that bad, depending on where you are in your faith walk. As for me and my house, we do serve the Lord (or the Lard, as the Okies say), and my children have gotten away with exactly NOTHING.

I feel pretty good about that….but there was a price. When the hymn writer wrote, “Jesus Paid It All,” I doubt he had any of this in mind, but I’ve read the fine print in the gospel and indeed, all my sins are covered. Which is why I never miss church, if I can help it.

I figure Jesus wants to keep an eye on me now.

Pranking Betty White

Would you like to meet my mom? First, try to imagine Betty White from her Golden Girls role. Now, change her bouffant hairstyle to black. And add a large crucifix from the 1974 Avon catalog hanging around her neck. Got it? That’s my mom. She’s epic. In the best possible way, or the worst, depending on which side you take when I tell you this next story. In fact, I tossed and turned last night in bed, questioning whether I should even admit to the final phone prank. It’s so diabolically juvenile…

Anyway, my mom is the kindest, gentlest, most trusting woman God ever created. She loves the Lord (since she’s from Oklahoma, His name is actually pronounced the Lard) and for this reason alone, I’ve questioned my own faith many times. After all, what sort of God pairs a mom like that with kids like me and (name redacted) my brother?

One fateful year, Mom decided to get a job. She’d stayed home to raise us but now that we were on the verge of maturity, she decided to leave us without daily supervision.

We were on the verge all right. But not of maturity.

Her first job was answering phones for a prim, proper and thoroughly uptight Southern Baptist church. As I recall, the gig involved picking up the phone and answering in the sweetest voice imaginable, “Main Street Baptist Church. How may we save you?”

Oh, boy. So much to work with here. For my brother and I this proved an irresistible target. We were delirious with anticipation.

Her second week on the job, we began our first wave of assault. My brother, a master at accents, tried a few voices before settling on the one we were sure sounded the most like Satan. Not that we had ever heard from Satan. Which was surprising considering how much of his work we carried out on a daily basis.

My brother cleared his throat, practicing one last low growl. I dialed the phone.

“Main Street Baptist Church. How may we save you?”

“I’d like to talk to the pastor.” (Make sure you imagine this in the voice of Satan.)

“May I ask who’s calling?”

“The Prince of Darkness.”

“A prince? My goodness. Hold, please.”

Our call went through and we hung up. We stared at each other in astonishment. There was blood in the water now.

And unfortunately, since Dad refused to pay for cable, prank calls were the only available entertainment that summer.

The next day, I dialed again. (On the job training had taught us that prank calls are less likely to be exposed if you space them well.)

“Main Street Baptist Church. How may we save you?”

“I’d like to talk to the pastor.” (again, in the voice of Satan)

“May I ask who’s calling?”

“Lucifer.”

“I’m very sorry, Lucifer, but he’s in a meeting. Would you like to leave a message?”

“No message. I’ll pay him a visit.”

“Wonderful! What time should we expect you?”

“6:66”

“We’re looking forward to it. See you then!”

And then, apparently, the pastor grew tired of having calls put through from Satan and meeting times set aside for the Prince of Darkness.

Mom moved on to more suitable employment.

She was hired by a school textbook company on the sale support team. Her job was to answer the phone and take the orders for textbooks from the field salespeople. Sounds easy. Until you factor in her children, two unsupervised criminal masterminds.

Every day, she would jot down her orders, then walk them down the hall to the warehouse manager, who would instruct the warehouse team to pull the orders and ship them to the schools.

After she established herself as the nicest, sweetest, most patient phone operator in the company, she began receiving the most unusual orders. Since the company’s inventory was not computerized yet, the inventory manager spent hours in the warehouse trying to find the obscure textbooks she placed orders for, including, but not limited to, “Animals and How They ‘Do It.‘”.

I am not proud to type that.

I am ashamed.

But that summer my brother and I honed our creative skills, straining the limits of credulity, and slowly, the future began to take shape for us.

I became a writer. My brother has gone on to become a wildly successful fraud detection expert. He buzzes around the city in his convertible foreign sports car, and he still makes prank calls.

To me.

Often while sitting in my driveway.

The last prank call ended in an argument about whether fish have feelings.

He’s that good, people.

Or that bad, depending on where you are in your faith walk. As for me and my house, we do serve the Lord (or the Lard, as the Okies say), and my children have gotten away with exactly NOTHING.

I feel pretty good about that….but there was a price. When the hymn writer wrote, “Jesus Paid It All,” I doubt he had any of this in mind, but I’ve read the fine print in the gospel and indeed, all my sins are covered. Which is why I never miss church, if I can help it.

I figure Jesus wants to keep an eye on me now.

How to Define a Patriot

Last week I drove my teenage son to a United States Marine Corp recruiting office. Enlisting has been his dream since he was a toddler, but encouraging the dreams of a toddler was easy. Seeing your son step up to defend our country in an age of terror and brutality? That’s hard on a momma’s heart.

And then I remembered a story from long ago, one that gave me courage.

Several years ago, my parents sold their sold their ranch in Texas and moved to Georgia to be closer to their grandchildren, including my three kids. My kids were always begging to go over and raid Grammy’s pantry, or build something in Grandpa’s workshop.

One afternoon I picked up James’ little sister, my five-year-old daughter Elise, from their house after another fun day with my parents.

On the way home, I noticed that Elise looking out the minivan window, a sad expression on her face. “What is it, hon?” I asked.

“It’s Grandpa and Grandma. I just feel really sorry for them,” she whispered.

“Why?”

Elise sighed. “I was just wondering, aren’t they ever gonna have kids of their own?”

I laughed all the way home.

Elise understood that her grandparents were also my parents but she was not yet able to really comprehend the meaning of that fact.

Of course, I knew that, in time, Elise would understand. But children can know facts without understanding them. I wonder, then, if I am like Elise in my understanding of the founding of our country. The story seems familiar. The holiday has a set routine. Every year, I grill out. I watch the fireworks. I buy sparklers and of course I wear red, white and blue.

I understand July Fourth so very well…or do I? Or am I like Elise, with an understanding of the facts but no ability yet to grasp the greater implications? What if the gift of freedom is a gift so profound that the world is still discovering what was accomplished so long ago?

I wonder, too, if on that night when the rockets really did glare red, and bombs did burst in air, if those patriots understood the transaction that was made. By their blood, we live in freedom. That’s the oldest story ever told, isn’t it, that by another’s blood we are set free? And yet, although it’s a story I first heard in a nursery, I still do not fully comprehend the gift.

On those many years ago when the skies exploded with smoke and fire, and the ground trembled as mothers clutched their hearts for fear of ill news, the world changed forever. I want to pause this weekend and reflect on the change, because soon my son will take his place to hold secure what was won. Like the others beside him, he won’t be there for fame or wealth.

You see to some people, our heritage is defined by what we’ve achieved. But Americans are patriots, and patriots are defined by our sacrifices. What we sacrifice determines who we become, as individuals and as a country.

So on this July Fourth, I will put my hand over my heart for the mothers whose hearts were broken. I will lift my face to the skies as fire once more lights up the dark night. And I will say to those patriots of long ago, to the patriots of today, and to our enemies everywhere whose day of reckoning will surely come:

God bless America. Let freedom ring!

On Father’s Day, I Celebrate the Miracle of Survival

My dad’s parenting style can best be described as “No Lifeguard on Duty.”

He was and is an inventor who holds several patents, including a timing mechanism for military-issued explosives and another patent for children’s toys. That pretty much gives you an idea of what I was dealing with growing up.

(And for the record, he is my absolute all-time hero, although I believe one of my therapists once referred to that as Stockholm Syndrome, which was

clearly wrong because I grew up in Texas, not Sweden.)

Now, I had one burning desire as a kid: I wanted a dog, just like my friend Heather’s. She had a Cocker Spaniel named Toby. His fur was the color of butterscotch and his ears were like cool velvet. He had expressive brown eyes and followed us everywhere, always wagging his tail.

I thought all dogs were like Toby. I begged my dad for years to get me a dog like Toby.

Then when I was seven and my brother Steve was nine, my dad gave us our very first ever dog.

The male dog had been found abandoned and starving. His breed was already notorious back then for being used in fighting rings. He wasn’t in the best of humors. Dad left us in the backyard with the dog and returned to his workroom. We were not permitted in the workroom.

I bounced toward my new Best Friend Ever and he bared his teeth, the fur standing up on his back.

My brother Steve was the first to realize I was in trouble. He held the door and yelled at me to slowly back up into the house.

We knocked on the door to my dad’s workroom. “Dad, the dog you gave us just tried to kill us!”

“Go tell your mother.”

The problem was, Mom was not currently in the mood to let us live.

You see, the day before, she had returned home after an afternoon of serious dental work. Her cheeks were swollen, packed with cotton and she was unsteady from the meds. Steve and I quickly discovered she was verbally helpless, so when a plumber arrived a short while later to replace a pipe, we carpe diemed. Hard. Steve got to the door first.

“Hi there, son. I’m looking for your mother, Mrs. Garrett?”

Steve stepped outside while I held the door, nodding with a mournful expression.

“No one told you?” Steve asked. “You cannot call her that. EVER. It sets her off really bad, sir.”

“Really bad,” I echoed.

“Uh…what should I call her?”

“Snuffy,” Steve replied with a somber expression. “She only answers to Snuffy.”

So all afternoon, the plumber yelled things like, “Hey, Snuffy, can you bring me a towel?” Or, “Snuffy, come in here, I think I found your problem!”

My mom would brace herself against a wall, garbling furious but unintelligible rants while Steve and I looked at the plumber in sad desperation. Our eyes downcast, we’d sigh heavily and nod, as if to say, “Yes, this really is our mother.”

So now Mom wasn’t going to save us from our new dog.

However, when the entertainment value of the plumber and my mom wore off, Steve and I snuck outside and found (found being a loose term for seeing nice things left unguarded) a stash of long thin metal tubes.

Our eyes met and we both knew…

We ran around back and slipped the tubes over our arms, then slowly approached the dog. His eyes glowed with hellfire as he bared his teeth. We approached cautiously. When his body went completely still, every muscle frozen, we braced for impact.

Sure enough, the dog lunged for us, attacking me first, those jaws of death clamping down like vices on my arm as he shook me side to side like a ragdoll. He crushed the tube from every angle but he just couldn’t get to the juicy filling inside.

I was screaming.

In delight.

“That was so awesome!” I yelled to Steve. “You try!”

So he did. And it became a thing. If we wanted to play with our dog, first we’d cobble together makeshift body armor. That dog mauled us for countless summer hours. Talk about family fun!

Soon I wondered what I had ever seen in Toby; what good is a family pet without that rush of adrenaline, or the delayed-onset muscle soreness from fighting a mighty battle the day before?

We loved that dog. He was and is, to this day, one of the best memories from childhood that I still carry.

However… I would NEVER let my kids get anywhere near an animal like that. I’m pretty sure in this modern age my dad would have been arrested. But things in the day were different. There was no lifeguard on duty. Anywhere.

In fact, I don’t think lifeguards had been invented yet. But danger? Well, that’s the universal language of childhood and we were fluent.

Happy Father’s Day, Dad. It’s a miracle we all survived.

What the Campers Saw

While we’re on the subject of body positivity and big bottoms, I’d like to share a cautionary tale.

One year I was scheduled to lead a group of little girls on a camping trip in the North Georgia mountains. The evenings would be chilly.

While shopping for a fleece pullover, I spotted the cutest pair of jeans on the clearance rack. Miraculously, the jeans were my size. Then I read the fine print on the hang tag: Ultra Low Rise.

Hmmm.

Worth a try, I thought, as I yanked them on. My waist was like bread dough. Fluffy white mounds kept rising out of the waistband. I kept mushing them back down, to no avail. Clearly, in your late thirties you retain more than water.

Then I turned around. Plumbers Crack doesn’t adequately describe the sight. Think: Swedish fjord.

However, I loved everything else about the jeans: the whisper-soft denim, the magical spandex blend, the heavy stitching that acted as a discreet guardrail for my thighs.

But the waistband was too low. Ultra low.

Suddenly, I had an epiphany.

(I always regret epiphanies.)

I could buy the fleece pullover and only wear the jeans while wearing that top. The fleece hung well past my bottom line. I could be both comfortable and modest. Ultra Low Rise would be my secret.

Fast forward to the second night at camp. I had run out of ideas to entertain the girls. I had already taught them how to ding-dong ditch, although ding-dong-ditching a tent requires more creativity and we may have been mistaken for a bear once or twice. But oh, the memories! If you’ve never seen a troop of nine-year-olds racing down a mountain path carrying flashlights and running for their lives, well, you should have been my co-leader.

Except for the moment this next thing happened.

We decided to build a fire and roast marshmallows.

My co-leader and I selected a site near a Park Ranger’s station and the public restrooms. She got the fire started as I hauled our supplies to the site.

The girls wiggled and danced with anticipation of an actual marshmallow roast. Their first ever!

At the edge of the seating area near the fire, I dropped the last load of supplies, then bent over to rummage through the pile looking for the marshmallows.

As I bent over, my fleece top fell forward and up, exposing the fluffy white muffins.

AT THAT EXACT MOMENT, a wasp flew down my pants. Into the fjord.

I jerked straight up, sealing it in between my cheeks.

It stung me. I screamed and swatted my rear end.

It stung again.

I screamed, swatted my rear end, and added a hop.

The wasp stung me repeatedly as I danced around the fire, swatting myself in the rear and screaming.

The girls all stood slack-jawed, watching.

“What’s wrong with your mom?” one of them asked my daughter. “Is this a thing she does?”

No one moved or offered assistance. I was in unbearable pain and completely panicked.

I bolted for the public restroom, still screaming. The other leader screamed my name, asking me what was wrong. I was unable to speak. My girl ran behind me yelling, “Why are you doing that? I don’t like this game!”

I yanked opened the door to the Women’s Restroom at the same moment a Park Ranger opened the door to his office, stepping out into the melee.

Once inside, I fumbled with my button and zipper before wrenching my pants off. “A wasp got stuck in between my cheeks,” I managed to gasp to my daughter. “It keeps stinging me!”

“Ma’am, this is the Park Ranger,” the poor guy yelled through the closed door. “Are you all right? Do you require assistance?”

“Stay back!” I screamed like a savage. “Don’t come in!”

Next, my hands went for my underwear.

Terrified the wasp was going to fly out from my bottom and sting her, too, my daughter turned and flung the door open to run away.

The wasp fell to the ground, dead. Flat as a pancake. Perhaps he died happy. I don’t really know.

What I do know is that a Park Ranger got a lesson in first aid that will chill him for years to come. He may have made the sign of the cross, or been reaching for the walkie-talkie on his shoulder. I don’t really know that, either.

“I see your mom’s butt!” someone yelled.

My daughter slunk away from the crowd, the night stars reflecting the hostile glare in her eyes. I had ruined her life. Or at least the part that involved outdoor activities with other people.

The Park Ranger grabbed the door and shoved it closed.

“Sh…sh…should I bring you some ice?” he stammered.

“And plenty of it!” I snapped.

My cheeks were swelling up. I would never be able to get those jeans back on. Plus I had to pack my cheeks with so much ice that even the crew of the Titanic couldn’t miss me.

“And can you ask my daughter to find me some pants I can wear?” I called out, wiping the sweat from my forehead. I stared at the underwear and jeans crumpled on the floor at my feet, together with the flattest wasp I had ever seen.

Turns out, glute muscles are also an incredibly powerful flower-press.

Not that I was going to suggest that to the campers.

I wouldn’t want to see that badge.

Not incidentally, that was my last time leading a camping trip. And I have never, ever bought or worn ultra low anything since that day.

And so, while I lecture my daughters on modesty, I always break out in a cold sweat, remembering that fateful evening.

The modesty test in our household is simply this: would you want to get stung on that part of the body?

If not, keep it covered.

And please, friends, for your own safety, beware the Ultra Low Rise. Mother Nature always gets the last laugh.

What Third-World Children Taught Me About Body Positivity

My 11-year old daughter flopped down on the couch, frowning, eyes downcast. I was reading (see also: how to avoid household chores) so I nudged her with my elbow.

“What’s up, shorty?”

She was wearing running shorts, having just completed a 3-mile run with her older brother. My girl was a born athlete, lean and lithe. Still, she jabbed her lean little thigh and groaned.

“I’m fat. Look at my fat move!” She jabbed her thigh again.

“Of course it moves,” I said. “It’s flesh, not bark.”

She was visibly distraught, however, and young girls—or perhaps all girls—are incapable of distinguishing the nuances of the word “fat.” Fat is what our brains are made of. Fat keeps us alive and gives us that bewitching wiggle when we walk. Fat even makes salads worth eating. But I understand that fat can leave some of us distraught. The good news is that as we get older, it shifts in the dead of night to places we can’t see, like the back of our arms.

However, I needed to put an immediate stop to this ridiculous cycle of declaring your body to be your mortal enemy. It was time for a truth bomb. Or a story.

Frankly, I’m better at stories.

“Have I ever told the story of the time my butt joined the pantheon of minor gods in a faraway country?”

She wiped her nose, dabbed her eyes and sat up a little straighter. “What?”

Nestling my book against my built-in bookshelf, also known as a tummy roll, because who needs Ikea once Mother Nature realizes you’re over forty?, I began the absolutely true tale.

“Long, long ago, your mother traveled to a distant land to teach English in a small village. 26 hours by plane, two hours by jeep, and a long walk through rice fields and roadside temples. The people there had rarely seen a white woman, let alone one with flaming red hair and a Dallas Cowboys jersey. Their religion was unknown to me and we barely shared two words in a common language.

Nonetheless, I was led to a tiny hut where a class of kindergarten-aged children sat cross-legged, anxiously awaiting their new teacher’s arrival. The windows of the class were holes cut into the walls, and the teacher’s lounge consisted of a closet with a sink, a toilet and a giant lizard who made his home in the bowl.

I began the lesson plan, working on counting and a few simple words. If these kids learned English as a second language, they’d have a chance to escape poverty by finding work at one of the many resort hotels along the beaches of the area. English lessons were a big deal.

And, apparently, so was my rump.

When it was time to line up and walk to another hut for lunch, the children whispered to each other behind cupped hands, their little eyes casting furtive glances between their friends and me. Something was amiss.

Suddenly one boy was pushed to the head of the line. I’m not sure if he won or lost the argument.

I turned to lead them and felt a finger push in at the center of my rump-cheek. Whipping around, I caught this boy, index finger extended, obviously having just poked me in the rear.

His eyes were wide as he looked at his finger in disbelief.

The entire class was silent, spellbound by the experiment.

Surely it was a prank. I scowled at the boy and turned back around…and then he used his finger to push in at dead center of that cheek, again.

I turned back around, angry now to be the object of the joke, and then I realized: They weren’t making fun of my rump.

They were in awe of it.

They’d never seen a rump so…plentiful, we’ll say, a cornucopia of Western abundance, as if the gods were sending a message to the people of the humble village: Nothing was impossible for the dreamers among them.

In fact, I believe my rear end came close to being deified while there. The children would dance in their seats as they drew pictures of it. Their little faces lit up whenever one of them had a chance to stand next to me, or it, I should say.

In that culture, they knew the truth: fat is not a four-letter word. Sometimes it is an impressive achievement. And truly, to them, my rump was an omen of good fortune, like the birth of a white bull.

After I left, I wondered what the teachers in the future would think, seeing drawings of enormous fluffy rumps and rays of light streaming from all sides. Future generations would hear the legend of the American Rump of Splendor, the White Moon of the West that eclipsed the sun.

And maybe that’s not such a bad thing, I told my daughter. Maybe the one thing we’d change about ourselves becomes the set piece in a really good story, the one thing that makes us beloved to someone else.

Or a whole village.

So, don’t write the narrative for your body, not just yet. Someone else will enter the story who has a completely different version.

“And you know what?” I asked my daughter. “I like their story so much better.”

My Butt Joins a Pantheon of Minor Gods

My 11-year old daughter flopped down on the couch, frowning, eyes downcast. I was reading (see also: how to avoid household chores) so I nudged her with my elbow.

“What’s up, shorty?”

She was wearing running shorts, having just completed a 3-mile run with her older brother. My girl was a born athlete, lean and lithe. Still, she jabbed her lean little thigh and groaned.

“I’m fat. Look at my fat move!” She jabbed her thigh again.

“Of course it moves,” I said. “It’s flesh, not bark.”

She was visibly distraught, however, and young girls—or perhaps all girls—are incapable of distinguishing the nuances of the word “fat.” Fat is what our brains are made of. Fat keeps us alive and gives us that bewitching wiggle when we walk. Fat even makes salads worth eating. But I understand that fat can leave some of us distraught. The good news is that as we get older, it shifts in the dead of night to places we can’t see, like the back of our arms.

However, I needed to put an immediate stop to this ridiculous cycle of declaring your body to be your mortal enemy. It was time for a truth bomb. Or a story.

Frankly, I’m better at stories.

“Have I ever told the story of the time my butt joined the pantheon of minor gods in a faraway country?”

She wiped her nose, dabbed her eyes and sat up a little straighter. “What?”

Nestling my book against my built-in bookshelf, also known as a tummy roll, because who needs Ikea once Mother Nature realizes you’re over forty?, I began the absolutely true tale.

“Long, long ago, your mother traveled to a distant land to teach English in a small village in the furthest reaches of Thailand. 26 hours by plane, two hours by jeep, and a long walk through rice fields and roadside temples. The people there had rarely seen a white woman, let alone one with flaming red hair and a Dallas Cowboys jersey. Their religion was unknown to me and we barely shared two words in a common language.

Nonetheless, I was led to a tiny hut where a class of kindergarten-aged children sat cross-legged, anxiously awaiting their new teacher’s arrival. The windows of the class were holes cut into the walls, and the teacher’s lounge consisted of a closet with a sink, a toilet and a giant lizard who made his home in the bowl.

I began the lesson plan, working on counting and a few simple words. If these kids learned English as a second language, they’d have a chance to escape poverty by finding work at one of the many resort hotels along the beaches of the area. English lessons were a big deal.

And, apparently, so was my rump.

When it was time to line up and walk to another hut for lunch, the children whispered to each other behind cupped hands, their little eyes casting furtive glances between their friends and me. Something was amiss.

Suddenly one boy was pushed to the head of the line. I’m not sure if he won or lost the argument.

I turned to lead them and felt a finger push in at the center of my rump-cheek. Whipping around, I caught this boy, index finger extended, obviously having just poked me in the rear.

His eyes were wide as he looked at his finger in disbelief.

The entire class was silent, spellbound by the experiment.

Surely it was a prank. I scowled at the boy and turned back around…and then he used his finger to push in at dead center of that cheek, again.

I turned back around, angry now to be the object of the joke, and then I realized: They weren’t making fun of my rump.

They were in awe of it.

They’d never seen a rump so…plentiful, we’ll say, a cornucopia of Western abundance, as if the gods were sending a message to the people of the humble village: Nothing was impossible for the dreamers among them.

In fact, I believe my rear end came close to being deified while there. The children would dance in their seats as they drew pictures of it. Their little faces lit up whenever one of them had a chance to stand next to me, or it, I should say.

In that culture, they knew the truth: fat is not a four-letter word. Sometimes it is an impressive achievement. And truly, to them, my rump was an omen of good fortune, like the birth of a white bull.

After I left, I wondered what the teachers in the future would think, seeing drawings of enormous fluffy rumps and rays of light streaming from all sides. Future generations would hear the legend of the American Rump of Splendor, the White Moon of the West that eclipsed the sun.

And maybe that’s not such a bad thing, I told my daughter. Maybe the one thing we’d change about ourselves becomes the set piece in a really good story, the one thing that makes us beloved to someone else.

Or a whole village.

So, don’t write the narrative for your body, not just yet. Someone else will enter the story who has a completely different version.

“And you know what?” I asked my daughter. “I like their story so much better.”