Girl by Jamaica Kincaid

Wash the white clothes on Monday and put them on the stone heap;wash the color clothes on Tuesday and put them on the clothesline to dry;
don't walk barehead in the hot sun;
cook pumpkin fritters in very hot sweet oil;
soak your little cloths right after you take them off;
when buying cotton to make yourself a nice blouse, be sure that it doesn't have gum on it, because that way it won't hold up well after a wash;
soak salt fish overnight before you cook it;
is it true that you sing benna in Sunday school ?;
always eat your food in such a way that it won't turn someone else's stomach;
on Sundays try to walk like a lady and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming;
don't sing benna in Sunday school;
you mustn't speak to wharf-rat boys, not even to give directions;
don't eat fruits on the street - flies will follow you;
but I don't sing benna on Sundays at all and never in Sunday school;
this is how to sew on a button;
this is how to make a buttonhole for the button you have just sewed on;
this is how to hem a dress when you see the hem coming down and to prevent yourself from looking like the slut you are so bent on becoming;
this is how you iron your father's khaki shirt so that it doesn't have a crease;
this is how you iron your father's khaki pants so that they don't have a crease;
this is how you grow okra - far from the house, because okra tree harbors red ants;
when you are growing dasheen, make sure it gets plenty of water or else it makes your throat itch when you are eating it;
this is how you sweep a corner;
this is how you sweep a whole house;
this is how you sweep a yard;
this is how you smile to someone you don't like too much;
this is how you smile at someone you don't like at all;
this is how you smile to someone you like completely; 
this is how you set a table for tea;
this is how you set a table for dinner;
this is how you set a table for dinner with an important guest;
this is how you set a table for lunch;
this is how you set a table for breakfast;
this is how to behave in the presence of men who don't know you very well, and this way they won't recognize immediately the slut I have warned you against becoming;
be sure to wash every day, even if it is with your own spit;
don't swat down to play marbles - you are not a boy, you know;
don't pick people's flowers - you might catch something;
don't throw stones at blackbirds, because it might not be a blackbird at all;
this is how to make a bread pudding;
this is how to make doukona;
this is how to make pepper pot;
this is how to make a good medicine for a cold; 
this is how to make a good medicine to throw away a child before it even becomes a child; 
this is how to catch a fish;
this is how to throw back a fish you don't like and that way something bad won't fall on you; 
this is how to bully a man; 
this is how a man bullies you;
this is how to love a man, and if this doesn't work there are other ways, and if they don't work don't feel too bad about giving up;
this is how to spit up in the air if you feel like it, and this is how to move quick so that it doesn't fall on you;
this is how to make ends meet;
always squeeze bread to make sure it's fresh;
but what if the baker won't let me feel the bread?;
you mean to say that after all you are really going to be the kind of woman who the baker won't let near the bread?

- Girl by Jamaica Kincaid.

Beauty from the silver screen

"She was never able, after her education in the movies, to look at a face and not assign it some category in the scale of absolute beauty, and the scale was one she absorbed in full from the silver screen."
- Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye

The Distortion of Beauty

Oprah says goodbye

Oprah, she needs no other introduction, says goodbye to her daytime talk show today.

Marmee's Wisdom

One of my favorite books (and movies) in the entire world is Little Women.  I can relate to each character in different ways.  Like so many, I relate most to Jo...akward and clumsy, giving way to late night stories and the characters stampeding thru my head, feeling like the ordinary for some reason doesn't offer the life I really feel called to...always seeking the next adventure.  I would love to be even more like Beth.  Yes, of course my heart reaches out to the poor Hummels, but how often do my actions follow?
  And more often then I'd like to admit, I find myself acting out of passion and fury like precocious little Amy...my temper and selfishness getting the best of me.  But  I would say that many of Meg's struggles and Amy's character flaws have defined much of who I've been most of my life.  The following advice was given to Meg from Marmee:

“If you feel your value lies in being merely decorative, I fear that someday you might find
yourself believing that’s all that you really are. Time erodes all such beauty, but what it cannot diminish
is the wonderful workings of your mind: Your humor, your kindness, and your moral courage.
These are the things I cherish so in you. I so wish I could give my girls a more just world.
But I know you’ll make it a better place.”

Im certainly not walking around the house with a clothespin on my nose to reshape it, but like Amy and Meg, for far too long, I  based much of my value on my looks.  I was a cute kid, but hit my growth spurt in the fifth grade before any of my peers.  I sprung up and the kids were relentless.  They called me pumpkin head on a stick because of how thin i was and how big my head was in relation to my body.  What followed were years of self consciousness, followed by a distorted body image and eventually anorexia.  My JR year during an exam, I passed out and ended up in the hospital weighing in at 89 pounds.
   By then though, I had outgrown my awkward stage and young men (and men far too old) were noticing me.  The attention made me feel good about myself.  I eventually started modeling a little and my every thought was turned inward to hoping I looked okay that day.
    Now the strange thing about this, is as much as I enjoyed the attention from men, I hated it at the same time.  I knew that there was so much more to me, God had given me talents and interests and passions, but I was robbing myself of them daily with my attention to my appearance.  And it began to infuriate me when I realized that so much of the attention I was receiving was for something so superficial.  I found myself in situations that, had I been following the self God created for me to be, rather than my outer shell,  I would have never been in.  I dated the wrong men (again and again), I made foolish decisions and my time was misdirected.  I started out of the gates quickly and suddenly came to a halting stop in life because I had started to believe the lie that I was 'merely decorative'.

   When I left college, I left a lifestyle where I walked everywhere and ended up in a place where if I couldn't get there by car, I wasn't going.  A few pounds eventually caught up with me.  In fact, I can remember the moment where I swore off the diets I had been on since 5th grade.  My mom had made a chocolate cake and I can remember saying "enough!" and delighting in that piece of cake like I never had before.  Since then, there's been quite a few more pieces, but the lingering feeling of my identity being based in my looks has come along for the ride.  I don't condone an unhealthy lifestyle, I think we should take care of our bodies, the problem lies when all of our identity comes from outward appearance.  Now that I'm no longer the youngest on the block and the size 6 clothes are tucked away for a while, a new identity is a must.  If I don't reclaim all of the wonderful child of God that I really am, i would remain empty.  And I'm reclaiming that new self every day!

And back to those Little Women, while Beths wonderful acts of compassion is something I intentionally strive for (to me it is the very essence of inner beauty) the wisdom of Marmee is where I really want to be...having learned from her past and her mistakes, developing the kind of confidence the you must have to raise four strong Little Women.

Wrong Turn

On March 23, Albert (59) and Rita (56) Creitchen left their home in Penticton, British Columbia to attend a trade show in Las Vegas. Guided by their new GPS device, the couple decided to take the scenic route through northern Nevada.  The device guided them onto an abandoned logging road in the wild and untamed Humboldt National Forest.   Three days after the van got stuck in the mud, Albert decided to walk to Mountain  City, NV to find help.  Guided by the same device that had led he and his bride into the forest, he took off on foot and disappeared into the wilderness leaving his wife in the car.  For the next 7 weeks Rita survived on a diet of trail mix, snow and creek water.   With temperatures falling below zero several nights, she drained the car battery for warmth.
   I can only imagine her state of being, her body quickly eating herself to survive, the silence of the inside of the car cut by her own shallow breath, the strange and unfamiliar sounds of the forest...the trickling water, the cold wind blowing through the leaves and the hidden wildlife watching the strange metal beast that had come to die in their living room.
   Visions of her beloved husband cresting the horizon...mirages. The calls of his voice, "rita, wake up, we're saved, I brought help."... waking dreams.  Memories playing over and over through her mind interrupted by 'if onlys'.  If only we had stayed on the main road...if only we had told someone we were going this way, if only we had stayed at home.
   But what good are if onlys now?  It's not what the Lord would want.  My last moments driven by regret.  So she read, took walks, devised plans...how to stay alive.  I could climb that peak right there, look over it maybe figure out where I am.  But if I left, he may not find me.  I might get lost, fall down, get hurt.   Best if I stay here with the car.  What if that's what happened to Al?  What if he fell down, what if he's laying there waiting for me?
   And that's where so many might have given way to the elements, to the certain future that lay before them.  Perhaps in a few months someone would find the car and Rita's decayed body.  Think of the Isrealites who wondered through the desert for forty years.  Is this my desert?  How many days has it been?  Lord, please protect him, protect me.  Your name is higher than any other name I know. "In the day of my trouble, I call upon you, for you answer me."

  You have the ability to work miracles.  I believe you.    You are good, this I know.  And this praise would give way to worshiping in song.  Rita was already with her creator on this side of heaven.  He was sitting right beside her in the car.  
"Cover the windows with blankets Rita."
And she did.
"you have fish oil capsules, remember?"
"Oh, yes!"  She did remember.  "they'll provide some nutrition."
"Friday," He said.
"Friday," she repeated. But was uncertain what this meant.  Does this mean going home to my family or going home to be with my Savior?  Either way, Friday.
   It was Friday, May 6, seven weeks after the Cretiens van had gotten stuck, a week after Ritas frail body had become too weak to walk to the creak any longer for water , a week since she had only been able to drink from a puddle of standing water near the car, that  a low growl of machinery whizzed in the distance and seemed to get increasingly louder.  Another mind trick for sure.  But the noise continued growing louder until Rita rolled down the window and peered out.  On the road came three figures on ATVs.  Another mirage?  But, as she was still sorting it out in her mind, she found herself suddenly talking to these strangers, "help me, were stuck, my husband went for help.  He hasn't come back.  Can you help us?

The three hunters who had gotten turned around themselves tried to give her water and chips, but she was unable to eat.  She drank the water.  They tried to put her on the ATV, but she was too weak to hold on.  The trio remembered a cabin owned by an old rancher and promised they'd be back with help.    

   And here's part of the story that reminds me so much of my own mom, and of an etiquette, class and sense of propriety that is all but forgotten today.  I'll turn to the writer at the NCN whose description of this scene first made me laugh aloud in the midst of such a tragic story.

 
   "They directed a sheriff's helicopter to the site and found that Chretien had cleaned the van, packed her bags, and even fixed herself up. She was waiting for them with her purse over her shoulder, ready to go.
"I was shocked to see her like that," Chad Herman said. "She was like a different person."

   Rita was taken to a hospital in Idaho falls, ID where they nourished her body and met with overjoyed family...family that she and Albert had raised and instilled that same strong faith in, family that (along with their church family) had been praying and fasting for them to be found.  Now, they were staring directly into the eyes of the woman they had all but given up for dead.  Their joy was mixed with heaviness.
    Albert was still out there.

    And, so he remains today unfound and somewhere in the thawing 6.3 million square miles of snow capped mountains, steep cliffs and forested wilderness.  The family, the church, two countries and my small family are praying for that next miracle.  As much as we pray, we know that survival under those elements are unlikely.  But we still pray...
   So, for now, as searchers scour the northern Nevada country side on foot, horseback and by air, I reflect on what we can learn from this story.   First, we have to look at the incredible faith of this woman, this strong mother and wife with such confidence in her savior that she did not blame him, but clung to him, praised him, wrote to Him in the midst of her trails and said she felt Jesus sitting in the seat beside her.  I pray for a faith like that.  But, I wonder when I don't even fully trust Him in the smallest things in life, in my daily stresses, how I would trust Him to pull me through such a  situation?  Would I blame Him?  Would I be angry with Him?  Or would those daily prayers and verses echo in that van and give birth to a faith like Ritas?  I pray so.

The second lesson from this blessed sister is her sheer will to survive.  Our first response in such a situation is also to survive.  How many times does that adrenaline kick in when faced with challenges?  Someone breaks into our home and attacks us and our mind starts running through options, devising plans, a way out.  We're diagnosed with cancer, and we immediately begin fighting.  But, I think that given enough pressure, given enough conflict, we face the strong desire to simply give up.  I can't go on, can't take it anymore, can't do it anymore, I won't do it anymore.  And we stop living, we give up fighting, put our dreams on a shelf, were so overcome with an emotinoal, physical and mental exhaustion that we freeze time for months or years at a time.  We forfeit our own lives, loose all hope and simply stop trying.  How easy would it have been for Rita to stop drinking, stop moving, and give way to her situation altogther? But, she did not.
   We can also learn from two of their mistakes, the greatest mistakes in all their life in fact...first, was in not telling anyone were they were going.  Had they shared with their children, their friends, their neighbor even their plans, the route they were planning on taken, and promised to stay in touch, then those friends would have been able to share with the rescue team very early on, where they were headed, where to look.  Without someone knowing where they were going, no one could help.
   I think of Aron Ralston, the young man who went off hiking in Arizona canyon lands and ended up getting his arm wedged in-between a boulder and a canyon wall.  As the hours ticked by, he realized no one knew where he was, he had neglected the most basic survival skill of all.  127 Hours later, he had to cut off his own arm in order to survive.
   Do people know where you are going?  Do you live in community with others?  Do you have at least one person that you confide in, that knows you and can watch out for you?  Does someone have your back?
   The final and worst mistake that they made was in trusting a faulty source for direction.  In their case, it was their new toy, their GPS.  It shows the roads after all, how could it be wrong?  But showing the roads and knowing the roads are two very different things.  Had they stopped and asked someone who had been through the area before, consulted a travel guide they would have surely been given better advice on the backroads, first hand knowledge that would have saved them.
What leads you in life?  What is your road map?  Are you driven by the latest trends and fads or do you learn from those who have gone before you?  Do you seek council from those who have gone before you?  If you are getting married, do you jump in head first or ask a couple married for forty years what their secret is?  If you were given a guidebook for life that would guarantee the correct path, give wisdom and shed insight on life, would you read it, would you follow it?
As we continue to pray for the Creitchen family, please keep the following in mind:
1. Maintain and grow your Faith.
2. Keep the will to survive.
3. Live in community with others
4. Choose your roadmap in life carefully

Why God Made Moms

Answers given by 2nd grade school children:

Why did God make mothers?

1.  She's the only one who knows where the scotch tape is.

2.  Mostly to clean the house.

3.  To help us out of there when we were getting born.


How did God make mothers?

1.  He used dirt, just like for the rest of us.

2.  Magic plus super powers and a lot of stirring.

3.  God made my mom just the same like he made me.  He just used bigger parts.


What ingredients are mothers made of?

1. God makes mothers out of clouds and angel hair and everything nice in the world and one dab of mean.

2. They had to get their start from men's bones.  Then they mostly use string, I think.


Why did God give you your mother and not some other mom?

1.  We're related.

2.  God knew she likes me a lot more than other people's mom like me.


What kind of a little girl was your mom?

1. My mom has always been my mom and none of that other stuff.

2.  I don't know because I wasn't there, but my guess would be pretty bossy.

3.  They say she used to be nice.


What did mom need to know about dad before she married him?

1.  His last name.

2.  She had to know his background.  Like is he a crook?  Does he get drunk on beer?

3.  Does he make at least $800 a year?  Did he say NO to drugs and YES to chores?


Why did your mom marry your dad?

1.  My dad makes the best spaghetti in the world.  And my mom eats a lot.

2.  She got too old to do anything else with him.

3.  My grandma says that mom didn't have her thinking cap on.


Who's the boss at your house?

1.  Mom doesn't want to be boss, but she has to because dad's such a goof ball.

2.  Mom.  You can tell by room inspection.  She sees the stuff under the bed.

3.  I guess mom is, but only because she has a lot more to do than dad.


What's the difference between moms and dads?

1.  Moms work at work and work at home and dads just go to work at work.

2.  Moms know how to talk to teachers without scaring them.

3.  Dads are taller and stronger, but moms have all the real power 'cause that's who you got to ask if you want to sleep over at your friends.

4.  Moms have magic, they make you feel better without medicine.

Mothers Day 2011

   There can be no argument that one of a woman's most important roles is that of a mother.  It is one of those roles that comes as naturally as the seasons.  There are no classes, no school, no forcing it, a mother love simply 'is'.
 As we come off another mothers day weekend where moms around the country are adorned with Sunday morning corsages and pastel suits toting pink construction paper cards with globs of glue, glitter and macaroni, I can't help but think of my mom.  No matter the gift I get for her, I have never felt that any mothers day token of appreciation, no matter how extravagant or heartfelt can express the love and gratitude for all that she has done, for all that she is.
No matter the way they express it, there's something innate about a mothers love and protection for her child.  For my mom, love is shown in cleaning.  She spends hours upon hours cleaning her home before I come to visit.  And when she comes to my house, you can bet, even if I have hired Mary Poppins herself to put my house in order, that within 24 hrs, she will be on her hands and knees with a bucket of ammonia and a rag rewashing my kitchen floor.  It used to drive me nuts, insult me, make me feel inferior as a housekeeper, but now I know...she does it because she loves me, it's as simple as that.
   I've just been flicking through the channels and stumbled across the inevitable nature program...man sitting in a field, mama bear and 2 cubs walking within 5 feet of the man.  As the curious cubs come closer and closer to him, the man nervously whispers to the cubs, "that's right, stay right there, don't come any closer."
   As much as we all would like to reach out and cuddle with the little cubs, we know as well as the cautious nature host, "mamma won't be happy if I mess with her babies!"
   As the show progressed, the cubs bounced along behind their mamma through fields and rivers learning the very basics of 'all things bear'.  What followed reminded me once again of the extent of a mothers love for her children.  The mother found a quiet strip of river, far away from the salmon filled buffet line further downstream.  Though a catch would be certain there, the danger of the other bears would be too much of a risk for her little ones.  So, upstream she went to a quiet area where the waters would put her skill to the test, but her two cubs would be safe.
   As the cubs stood on the bank observing their mothers every move, a large male charged toward the  cubs.  Before the cubs even sensed the danger they were in, the mother had turned and rushed the male bear. Less than half the size of the male, the mother jumped onto the back of the predator...biting, clawing, growling...fighting with all that was in her to take down the enemy.  Her life or his...if it comes to that.  Her life for her cubs, she would fight to the death to protect her family.  No thought, simply a primal instinct that took over.  The same instinct that takes over in us, for our children.  Three jobs to put our kids through college?  So be it.  Whatever the cost, a mothers love knows no boundaries.
   As the mamma bear drove the beast twice her size from their hunting ground, I felt myself suppressing the urge to leap to my feet, "go mamma bear," my heart sung!
    And I could almost hear the little ones thoughts..."that's MY mamma.  Hey did you see MY mom?  She's the best!"  The cubs, so proud of their mom, their protector and the one on earth that loves them so very much.
   However your mom shows her love for you...whether its in the whisper of a reaffirming word when your world has fallen apart, kisses on a scraped knee, three time clocks punched in a day or in the reflection of a sparkling kitchen floor; cherish her and try with all your might to show her what that means to you this week.