Kathleen M. Basi's Blog, page 33

Trust Fall

Photo by bdebaca, via Flickr

Marriage is such a trust fall. An eyes-closed, over-the-cliff leap into the unknown. You’re offering your heart, your body, your whole soul to someone else. You’re placing everything you are in someone else’s hands, with absolutely no guarantee that they will take care of it.

 

And they’re doing the same thing with you. Trusting you to care for the heart, body and soul that they have given as a gift to you.

I have a great marriage. Like everyone else, I get resentful; I nag and nitpick and snip and criticize. And yet whenever I look around my world I realize just how amazingly, unfairly good I have it.

I know saying things like that makes people want to hurl. I mean, if you have to go around talking about how good your fill-in-the-blank is, it’s got to be a sign that you’re insecure about it.

And then, too, I often see my marriage through other people’s eyes. Christian and I are well aware that my family thinks he has me firmly under his thumb, and his family thinks I have him firmly under mine.

We figure that means we must have the balance about right.

Yes, we have conflict. Yes, we struggle to understand and empathize with each other. But the very fact that we keep trying, and that we are willing to accept what we can’t ever fully understand about each other, is what makes us strong.

However much I might complain, the fact is that I can trust my husband to be open to me: my hopes, my longings, my preferences, my enjoyment. I can trust him always to have my best interests at heart.

And I, in turn, do the same for him.

But that openness, that willingness to mold his life around me, is a gift. A gift that he could choose at any time to revoke. And if he did, there would not be one thing I could do about it. If, in the course of years and decades still cloaked in shadows, he changes into a different person—if illness or the ravages of age or crushing disappointment turns him bitter and he closes me out–I can’t do anything to fix it.

With marriage, you can only trust that whatever happens in the unknown future, you go there together.

In which my kids continue their inexplicable love affair with the Incredible Hulk

The first “Hulk” story comes from Halloween of 2013, when we all dressed up as the Avengers. We were trying to decide who was going to be what character. Alex knew he wanted to be Hawkeye, and Nicholas had an Iron Man costume. But we had to figure out Christian (Nick Fury or Thor?) and Julianna and Michael. We sort of assumed they’d go with whatever we did. By the time we realized Julianna was determined to be the Hulk, we’d already ordered her a Captain America t-shirt, and we had to tell her no. It was the first time Julianna had ever expressed any sort of preference outside of food choices.

So that’s the background for the next story.

We went to see Marvel Universe Live this weekend. It was a gift from “Santa,” and as we were feeling a bit expansive, we let the kids pick souvenirs.

Julianna wanted—I kid you not—a stuffed Hulk. That’s it. Expansive is one thing, but $40 for a stuffed doll was a little too rich for our budget, so we told her sorry, but she just stood there while everyone else debated. After a minute I looked down and saw her stroking Hulk’s big green arm gently…even reverently. Then she petted his hair and fingered his plastic teeth.

(We did eventually let her get a Hulk t shirt.)

 

Michael was tired—the show started at the end of his nap time, and we’d already ridden the train and had to walk through spitting snow—and I was a little worried that he wouldn’t enjoy it. He was scared and wanted to sit on my lap. But as things progressed, he climbed off down and perched on the end of his own seat, his hands folded in his lap and he back ramrod straight, and he didn’t blink at all. Nor did he respond when I leaned down to ask if he was liking it. He was utterly entranced.

When the show was over, with the Hulk making his one dramatic appearance at the end, I asked Michael, “Did you like the show?”

He turned to me with big, earnest 4-year-old eyes, and said, “Mommy, we saw the HULK!”

“I know! How cool was that?”

“He was WEARING A SHIRT!”

Well, I suppose you have to admit that’s not something you see every day: the Hulk wearing a shirt.

The love affair continues.

*

Incidentally, there is this one particular high-pitched, male falsetto stock scream that I’ve heard in a ridiculous number of movies, spanning several decades. I heard it in the original Star Wars movies; I heard it when some nameless phaser magnet fell off the wall in The Two Towers, I’ve heard it in more than one Marvel movie, and last weekend I heard it in the Marvel Universe Live. I am really tired of this particular scream, which has begun to pull me out of the action, but mostly I just hope whoever recorded that scream was well paid, because Hollywood has certainly gotten a lot of use out of his work.

“Sticky” Post: Mercy on a Monday

This year, as part of the jubilee year of mercy, I’m writing a series of posts to explore the challenge of living mercy in everyday life. I’ve created a landing page where all those posts will be archived in one location. I hope you’ll join me there for Mercy on a Monday.

“Kids in Church,” Part 1

We’re going to do something a bit different today: it’s your turn to talk! A few weeks ago, I asked my Facebook community to share their best “kids in church” stories: the good, the bad, the ugly. I got twice as much as I could use for a single post; hence the “part 1” in the title. If you have stories to add, chime in. Use the combox or send me an email at kathleenbasi (at) gmail (dot) com, and I’ll add them to the queue. Who knows? Maybe we can make this a regular feature.

Without further ado, I present:

Kids in church stories, Part 1

 

Photo by Alex Sansão, via Flickr

Lauren F:

A. has recently become very fascinated with being nude. And we just happened to call her “naked butt” while she was running around without clothes one day. Well, she has an incredible memory and continues to call herself that. At Mass one Sunday, she noticed the Crucifix. Joe pointed out that it was Jesus. She yelled out “Naked Butt Jesus!”

Laura F:

7pm Mass, “Teddy” was maybe two, I’m in front doing music. The lector hadn’t shown up that night so Fr. Henry (all 6’7″ of him) is at the ambo, just finished the petitions and there’s that moment of silence after the prayer before he walks back to his chair and I announce the offertory. “Teddy” is sitting with Grandma and Grandpa, far side of the church, 3rd window back, per usual. In that moment of silence his voice rings out, very sing song-y….”Mooooommmy! I poooopy! Come chaaaange me!” Fr. Henry looks at me, I look at him, and say….”Our offertory song is….” (Hey, daddy can deal, right?)

Brian K:

The minister asked a rhetorical question, and S. tried to answer.

Michelle B:

I carried I. up to communion when he was two and as soon as I stepped away from the priest, he started wailing (at the top of his lungs) “I want a snack too!!”

Ruth C.:

One year when my big ones were little we sang Away in a Manger every night during Advent, as part of our Advent Wreath/nightly prayers routine. I taught them hand motions. On Christmas Eve we were stuck on chairs in the back of church and the Offertory was Away in a Manger. They both stood up and started singing and doing the hand motions.

Catherine M:

When my brother was young he thought the priest was Jesus. One day the Bishop officiated the mass and processed down in all his glory and he proclaimed loudly “wow! That must be Jesus in heaven!”

Emily R:

When I was very little, we were all seated in a pew. I was watching everyone walk in before mass. A little old lady walked in with freshly done hair. And you know how it can sometimes get a blue-purple tint when it’s white and freshly permed? Well, I stood up on the pew, pointed and my mouth opened. Mom said she could see the wheels turning. She clamped her hand over my mouth and pulled me down before I could ask why her hair was purple. Mom was mortified!

Carrie E.:

W. was born on December 23. I threw a fit to get out of the hospital for 10:30 (Christmas Eve) Mass. We walked in during the second verse of Silent Night. Fr. John just about fell off the altar (I was due 1/7). At the end of Mass, he came back, blessed us, & carried W. around the church held high like the Lion King. After 18 years, people still tell me how special that was to them.

And finally, today’s winner…

Amy W: My fave is from when T. was about 4, and we saw our pastor (by chance) in Costco. Instead of a greeting, he pointed and yelled in alarm, “Mom! They let that guy out of our church!” Without missing a beat, the pastor answered, “Only to stock up on food.”

Touch Points, Part 3: In A Downtown Nashville Diner

Our family went to Florida after Christmas to spend a few days with Christian’s family. We left on New Years to come back home. At the end of two grueling days on the road, we stopped for dinner at IHOP in downtown Nashville, Tenn. We had three hours to go before we stopped for the night, so we decided to streamline the bedtime routine by having the kids brush their teeth before getting back on the highway.

It was quiet in the IHOP; the only other guests were the six college kids sitting two booths away from us. Julianna was still finishing her food, so it was just the two of us when the boys tromped past the college kids. A moment later, my ears perked up. “How can you not like kids?” said one of the college kids.

“I like them one at a time!” said another. “I just don’t like them, yanno, in a big mob.”

“Well,” hedged the first, “I like some kids. I don’t like the kids who go ‘I’m gonna SPIT IN YOUR CEREAL.’”

It was as if they had no idea their words carried. It was impossible not to overhear. I chuckled, but they didn’t seem to catch that, either.

Julianna went on eating, and I debated joining the conversation from a distance, but I didn’t want to be obvious about eavesdropping, and what in the world was I going to say, anyway?

The boys and Christian returned, and they packed up to go back to the van while I took Julianna to the bathroom for her ablutions. We came back out holding hands and laughing together about I don’t even remember what—I usually just try to make her laugh—and then she let go of my hand and stopped right in front of the college kids’ table to shout, “HI GUYS!”

“Hi!” they all responded in a happy chorus, as if it was perfectly ordinary to be accosted by a small child with an extra chromosome in a perfectly quiet restaurant.

And I thought, Well, I didn’t need to say anything to them at all. She’s a much better ambassador for childhood—not to mention Down syndrome–than I could ever be.

*

According to Google, it should take 17 hours and 24 minutes for us to drive to my in-laws’ place in Florida. Having driven to Disney a year ago, we were comfortable with how the trip would go. What we didn’t realize was that December the 27th is the day the Snowbirds all return to Florida.

Oh yes, and it was raining nine inches here, sixteen inches there.

There were accidents. There were flooded alternate routes. There were three and four lanes full of cars, some hitting their brakes and others trying to drive 90. And there was carsickness. A lot of carsickness.

It took over 21 hours, wheels turning on pavement. Plus stopping to clean out the carsick bucket, get gas, have a bite to eat, pick up what we forgot to pack, etc.

I just needed to get that out of my system before I share pictures, because it was quite a nice trip once we got there.

Click to view slideshow.

 

A Word With No Meaning?

I once attended a workshop on writing liturgical texts in which the presenter challenged us to take out all the church-y words and see if anything of substance remained.

“Mercy” is one of those words. A throwaway word, overused into gibberish. At least, it has been for me. So when I heard about an extraordinary jubilee year of mercy, I went, “Mercy? Why mercy? What does that even mean?”

It was that last question that turned out to be the most important. The problem of this simple, hackneyed word has been gnawing at me until I’ve realized that prising apart its significance for me—both as a recipient and as a giver—is meant to shape the coming year.

I have always viewed mercy as synonymous with forgiveness. The mind, hearing “mercy,” goes straight to sin and unworthiness: I’m a pathetic, undeserving wretch whose sins have been forgiven despite my general loser-li-ness. (I can coin words late at night with the best of them.)

The idea of confronting our own brokenness is really important, especially in these days of “what’s right for you may not be right for me.” Built into our identity as modern men and women is a deeply-held resistance to admitting that we treat ourselves, our fellow human beings, and our world with careless disregard for our/their/its innate dignity. Mercy speaks to the humility of admitting we do crappy things sometimes. It speaks to the recognition that we deserve just consequences for our actions and instead we’re blessed—in fact, showered—no, deluged—with goodness. Goodness we usually fail to recognize, because we’re too busy asking for more, more, more.

But if that’s all there is to the word “mercy,” then what’s up with those “corporal and spiritual works”? How do they fit into all this? What do they have to do with undeserved forgiveness?

I’m not the only person wrestling with this question. I’ve been reading anything I come across on the blogosphere, and this single quote is the one that caught me:

“Mercy is being willing to enter into the chaos of another.”

I thought, Yes! That’s it! I understand that!

It’s far easier to pass judgment on the guy on the street corner begging for money. To say, “He doesn’t really need it, he’s trying to take advantage of people’s gullibility.” But mercy says, “Okay, I will enter into his chaos by contemplating the decades of days and hours and influences I can’t possibly know, the countless steps that brought him to this particular intersection on this particular day, and pry my brain open to admit that I simply cannot know whether he is or is not truly in need, and as such I am compelled, by virtue of his dignity as a human being, to give him the benefit of the doubt…and help him.”

Mercy.

It’s far easier to cling to the distance separating us from the chaos in the Middle East–to say, “We can’t possibly ensure that Those People are not terrorists; therefore it is only prudent to keep Them all out and send our riches Over There so Someone Else can take care of Them.” But surely I’m not the only one whose conscience whispers, If not us, who? Where is there a place of refuge for so many? Mercy responds to worldly prudence with a call to dismantle the geographical wall we’ve been hiding behind for two centuries and enter into the chaos that the rest of the world already knows so well.

Mercy.

I’m finding that mercy, far from being meaningless, is an enormous, life-altering word. Terrifying, too, because it shoves me out of my safe, familiar, comfortable world full of safe, familiar, comfortable platitudes. To live mercy is to enter into the chaos of families shattered by abuse. To enter into the existence of stomach-turning poverty that, if viewed head-on, would force me–even chintzy, never-spend-a-dime-if-you-can-make-do-with-a-penny me–to confront my own excesses and make changes I don’t want to make.

Mercy, I am beginning to realize, is a shortcut to a darned uncomfortable conscience.

But I choose to embrace it this year, and I invite you to embrace it with me. I’ll be exploring—and probably wrestling—with the topic every first and third Monday this year. Are you ready for a journey? I don’t know if I am. But here I go, anyway.

Advent in Pictures

A smattering of pictures from this year’s Advent calendar adventures this year, and a farewell until New Year’s! Have a merry Christmas!

Our choir preparing to go caroling and collect canned food. (How do you like the number of “choir babies” we have?)

 

 

 

Old McDonald’s and other Kid Antics (a 7QT post)

-1-

You know how you can say one thing one time and suddenly everybody has to repeat it every single time they see the object in question? There’s this house, on the corner of this one street, about which Alex said one day, “That’s a 1980s house.”

“More like a 1950s house,” I said, offhand.

And now we cannot pass this house—which lies along the route to Jazzercise—without Michael yelling, “There’s the 1950s house!”

I feel like saying, “I have no idea if it’s 1950s or 1940s or 1960s! It was just a throwaway comment!”

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Photo by JeepersMedia, via Flickr

I’m sure we’re not the only family whose kids see golden arches and scream, “Old McDonald’s!” and burst into moo moos and baa baas. (Right? Please?)

-3-

Christmas songs offer a symphony of possibility for musically creative kids. (You do remember “Percy Jackson Ro-ocks”/”Let it blow”, right?) Well, this is the singing exchange I was treated to earlier this week:

“Grandma got run over by a reindeer, coming home from…”

“No, no, Nicholas got run over by a Reindeer!”

“ALEX got run over by a reindeer!”

“No, no, Nicholas got run over by Alex!”

At which point I hollered that they’d better all stop running over people and get their pajamas on, RIGHT NOW. After a scant few seconds’ quiet, Nicholas started up again: “Michael got run over by a toilet!”

Sometimes my life is like the “good night chorus” on the Waltons…only less friendly.

-4-

Photo by Rooners Toy Photography, via Flickr

Speaking of cultural phenomena, my kids are all in love with the Hulk. I find this puzzling. I mean, Mark Ruffalo = what’s not to like? But the Hulk in general? I don’t get it.

It’s a good thing I have an adult XY to explain it to me.

“He’s big, he’s strong, and he breaks things,” he said. “He’s a role model.”

I think I am doomed.

-5-

Last Friday we went to Christian’s office party. We were the first to arrive, and when the next guest walked in—a grad student—Julianna greeted her with, “Where are your people?” This was a matter of great hilarity the entire evening, and apparently it’s become the standing office joke this week.

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Rocking new-to-her polka dots

Speaking of Julianna: I finally figured something out today. You can’t trust any answer she gives you to be true; e.g., “Did you use the toilet? Did you hit your brother?” I finally realized that this is a stunning example of EQ versus IQ. See, Julianna can instinctively understand what is the right answer to such questions, even if she doesn’t know the actual answer. So when you ask Julianna a question, you will ALWAYS get the right answer.

“Did you use the toilet?”

“Yes.”

“Did you hit your brother?”

“No.”

“Do you understand me?”

“Yes.”

But it’s just as likely that the answers are no, yes, and no, respectively. Unless it has to do with food, of course. Julianna’s food IQ handles food questions just fine. (Tell me again how she is so skinny that she can WEAR HER UNDERWEAR SIDEWAYS????)

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But back to the office party. We hold our kids to pretty high behavior standards—in general, but for this event in particular—and they did a beautiful job that night, even by our measure. We sent them out to the van while we said our goodbyes. “I can’t believe how well behaved your kids were!” Christian’s boss gushed. “Where’d they go, anyway?” She glanced out the door and said, “Oh. They’re running around in the street.”

Yup, that sounds about right.

-Bonus 1-

Because I can’t stop myself…my favorite Advent moment so far? Michael asking when it’s going to snow, me saying I didn’t know, and him chiming in, “Maybe it’s in the Advent calendar!”

-Bonus 2-

And just to prove that I can tell stories at my own expense…

Sunday afternoon we trekked out to Bass Pro to visit the Big Red Guy. It was raining hard, and my kids had been standing still complaining about getting wet instead of, yanno, walking to shelter. By the time we got inside I was in full German Shepherd mode. (Nobody can German Shepherd like a German mommy.) I was putting hands on the back of one child and the next and the next, going, “Move it, move it, move it, let’s go let’s go let’s go!” And I couldn’t figure out why this one kid WOULD NOT MOVE. Until I glanced down and realized IT WASN’T MY KID.

Now you all feel better about your own parenting skills. You’re welcome. Happy 4th Advent.

First World Problems (repost)

I have a lot of posts started, but this one, from two years ago during Advent, caught my eye a few days ago. It is every bit as timely now as it was then, right down to the reference to famine in North Korea (to say nothing of humanitarian crises in other parts of the world), and so I share it again today as food for thought.

****

Sudan, 2010. Image by cliff1066™, via Flickr

I was pulling into Macy’s yesterday afternoon when a story came on NPR about the food supply, or more accurately the lack thereof, in North Korea. When I think of North Korea, I think of world security, nuclear weapons and a hostile dictator–but I’ve never thought of starvation. Until now.

“I saw one family, a couple with two kids, who committed suicide. Life was too hard, and they had nothing to sell in their house. They made rice porridge, and added rat poison,” he recalls. “White rice is very precious, so the kids ate a lot. They died after 30 minutes. Then the parents ate. The whole family died.”

I sat in a parking place, preparing to go into Macy’s and buy a pricey gift for someone who doesn’t need it, and my stomach flipped over. I started thinking about the things I was worrying about. A missing cell phone that I hardly ever use. The noise the car was making.

Eating few enough calories to allow me to have gingerbread for dessert.

I don’t even know what hunger is.

When I was twenty weeks pregnant with Alex, I woke up on the floor of the bathtub, Christian bending over me. I had been on metformin (to treat polycystic ovaries) for two years, and it was a new enough treatment that there wasn’t an established protocol for how long into pregnancy to continue use. Well, now we knew. For the next six weeks, my body went crazy as it tried to return to regulating sugar on its own. I felt horrible all the time, and learned to dread low blood sugar to the point where I never allow myself to get very hungry–I grab a slice of cheese, or some carrots, or a cracker or two.

The process of slimming my caloric intake has made that more complicated, but I realize now I can’t tell the difference between “hungry” and “sugar imbalanced,” and I’m too scared of the second to risk the first.

[image error]

“Famine” (Photo credit: Anosmia)

So the voice coming out of the radio yesterday was like a mirror. I suddenly saw my family’s life, modest (even miserly) by cultural expectations, as wanton–our Thanksgiving feasts and Christmas cookies, the plethora of gifts growing under the tree, golf and scrapbooking. I thought of the five homeless men I’ve passed by lately because I was in the far lane, and the one to whom I gave a dollar. They’re all the face of Christ; how far does my responsibility extend? How do we strike a balance between enjoying the bounty we’ve been given and being wasteful, immorally profligate at the expense of others starving to death because we won’t simply give our excess to save them–because we think we need Thanksgiving feasts and new cars and acid-free scrapbooks?

The existence of poverty stretches so many fingers in so many directions, inserting uncertainty and questions into so many other issues. Half the population objects to genetically modified food, but the industry insists it’s necessary to increase yields to feed the world–that natural and organic is a path to world starvation. Is that true? Or is the real reason we need those kinds of high yields the fact that we’re a nation of gluttons? We ate at the Olive Garden on Sunday, and I scoured the menu for calorie counts ahead of time. You could easily–easily–consume 2500 calories in one meal, and not even be aware you’d done it. I ate half an entree, two fried zucchini medallions, one bowl of salad, and half a breadstick, and I consumed over 750. And was still hungry, mind you.

Last night, our Advent calendar activity was to take coffee and cereal to a local homeless shelter. It was the first really cold night of the year, and the place was full. The director invited us to stay and visit a while, but we were too uncomfortable. In the car on the way home, we talked about it. We need to do that, I said. We need to spend time with them, not just sail in like benevolent aristocrats and drop our tiny donation and escape. There were men in that room I recognize after three years of Advent visits.

What is the answer to these conundrums? I’m not claiming an answer–I’m only struggling with the questions. What is the Gospel-driven response to poverty, to hunger around the world? How far does my responsibility and yours extend? Are any of us meeting it, or are we all hoarding most of what was given to us to ease others’ suffering? Where is the line between saving to prepare a stable future for us and our children, and simply being greedy by not passing on what we aren’t using to those who have nothing?

Related articles

Advent: On Seeing Light and Poverty

The Babies I’ll Never Have

Nicholas, March 2009

It is Saturday afternoon and I am folding baby clothes—new, soft, tiny baby clothes—and layering them lovingly into a gift box for one of our choir members. I had forgotten how much I love baby clothes. I love everything about babies. You know, I don’t even hate the diaper changes. Did I get tired of them? Yes. But that was also play time. Tickle time, raspberry time, rubbing-noses time, sing silly songs time.

Besides, I was a breastfeeding mom. Those diapers are different.

Sitting on my bed, assembling this gift, it’s almost crushing, how much I want a baby.

I have to remind myself that I sometimes can barely breathe. How little people are constantly yelling “Mom I want” and “Mommy help me,” how I fluctuate between a wild frustration that they don’t help more than they do and a desire to do it all myself because it’s easier than teaching (and battling) them to do it. How there aren’t enough hours in the day and how long Julianna’s homework takes, and how this year I hardly even weeded my flower beds because I was so busy.

My favorite picture ever taken of me.

I have to remind myself that the price of four C sections is “irritable uterus” and the risk of rupture. I need to remember that my primary responsibility is to the family I already have. My job isn’t to keep having babies, just because I love them. It is to raise holy and happy adults. And sooner or later, you have to leave off the former because the latter takes so much time and energy.

My life has entered a new stage. But it’s a sweet pain, folding these baby clothes. I think this is what people in the natural family planning community mean when they say every month you grieve the child you could have had, even though you know it’s not the right time.

I feel it every month now, although some are worse than others. And I wonder if it will eventually fade, or if this is part of who I am now.