Texas Trip – Day 1

Today we started our journey to San Antonio, TX, to participate in a 5k to benefit my high school coach, Jay Tolar, who is living with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease). I participated last year with my best friend Laura, while my aunt watched the kids. This year I decided to take them along and drive instead of fly.

Preparation—food and activities—took hours of research and days of implementation. We’re still not “organized” because my kids and I never will be, so the car is a mess. But at least we have so far kept most of the trash in the trash can, a huge step forward! :) And there is plenty to eat.

We left at about 0615 (Eastern) this morning from Augusta, GA  Our goal was to get to Port Allen, LA, just next to Baton Rouge, where I’d gotten a reservation using Expedia. (Never again.)

It rained at least 75% of the drive, and it poured for about half of the time that it rained at all. I mean, pounding rain that made us slow to a crawl with our blinkers on. While there were the inevitable idiots zooming past at 85 (on a 70 mph highway), I was actually impressed by how many Southerners seem to know how to drive safely in the rain. They may be the only group of locals I know who do. Blinkers and headlights are awesome.

It was raining when we stopped at the Alabama welcome center. And I realized we’d left our “car umbrella” in the other car. Joy.



Anna wanted to get a photo with the stuffed fox. (Good thing she didn’t really understand that it had once been real…) Thanks, Timothy, for taking this photo!



And it was raining when we stopped at the Mississippi welcome center.



It was sunny when we reached Louisiana, for all of maybe a half hour.


And here we are tonight, in Port Allen, Louisiana, at the dumpiest Super 8 Motel I’ve ever been in. And I mean dumpy. The carpet over at least 25% of the room is soaking wet—I can only assume from the air conditioner. So I’m trying to avoid fiddling with the controls in case I get electrocuted. (The room temp was set at 52 when we first arrived, so obviously I had to adjust it a little.) There are cigarette burns in the blankets. And the security lock on the door is broken, so I’ve put a chair in front so at least it’s more difficult to enter. Beware, Port Allen thieves!! I have two whiny children who are refusing to sleep, and if you wake them up in the night to try to steal from us or harm us, you will sorely regret it!

At least there is Internet. Well, sort of. It’s taking me over a half hour to try to upload this post, or even try to open Blogger.com.


Yep, we drove 664.6 miles today. Without cruise control. Wow. My right leg is pretty sore.

And tomorrow, it’s the home stretch to San Antonio and a Holiday Inn Express, which is going to be 500% better than this place. Guaranteed.

I was hoping to study tonight, but since Anna is still wide awake at 2200 (Central), which is 2300 according to her body, I guess I’d better just turn off the light and maybe try to wake myself up early to study. (Ha ha. Like that ever worked in college.) After all, I did get a full 5 hours of sleep last night, so I should be fine tonight on the same, right?

As we say in my village, “Sai gobe.” Until tomorrow.

In memoriam

During my first year of college, one of my high school classmates conducted a sociology experiment in which he led us all to believe that he had been killed. It was a pretty horrible time, and he had to eventually come forward to let us know it was just an academic experiment. He was genuinely sorry, but several class members had a hard time moving on from that.

That was more than 12 years ago.

This past weekend, a member of my high school class actually did die.

Jafiya and I had been in the same class since fourth grade. He was goofy and lighthearted from as far back as I can remember--one of the class clowns in middle school who turned that same energy to sports in high school. Like many teenage boys, he was bright but concentrated more on enjoying life than studying. When classes dragged us down, Jafiya could always make us laugh. He had a contagious laugh--really, really loud, the kind of laugh you could hear all over the high school.

While I can't claim that we were ever close, I liked Jafiya. In a class of only 27, you learn to like everybody and be friends as much as possible. Sure, we ran in different circles, but he made me laugh, and he didn't make fun of me to my face, which is something.

I never saw Jafiya after we graduated from high school in June 2000. I ran across most of my other classmates one way or another, either at our high school on visits or at gatherings in the U.S. for weddings or the very occasional funeral. But I never saw Jaf. I often wondered what had become of him.

And now I know.

Jafi-D, I am listening to the U2 song "Grace" and thinking of you. "Grace finds goodness in everything." I pray that God's grace would cover you, making beauty from ashes. I hope and pray that you can rest peacefully now, at the end of all things.

With much love,

Sara B.

Funny Anna

I’m not the mom who regularly posts funny things that her kids do or say, but I had to share this one, just for comic relief.

I was out with Anna (2)  yesterday, and she said—out of the blue—“I love it, Mommy.”

“What do you love, Anna?” I asked her.

“My job,” she returned. “I love my job!”

I laughed so hard and for so long that she eventually had to say, “Stop laughing, Mommy! Stop laughing!”

And that of course, made me laugh even harder.

Sweet girl.

Letting go - again

Today, for no apparent reason, I am thinking of my foster brother Aaron. It has been over 23 years since he joined our family as a newborn and over 18 years since I last saw him. I think of him from time to time and wonder where he is, what he's up to.

Aaron was my first little brother. While we'd had foster babies prior to Aaron's arrival, none had stayed very long. We had Aaron for the first two years of his life, and he became our brother. When we had to finally say goodbye, it was gut-wrenching, heart-breaking. And that was for me. I can't even imagine how my parents must have felt. They have fostered so many babies since and have always had to let go, except for my adopted brother Luke.

I think of the character on the show Downton Abbey who gave up her small son to his grandparents, knowing that she would probably never see him again. Yes, she believed she was doing it for the good of the child, but I doubt that made it easier.

I know there are so many young women out there who give up their babies for adoption. I suspect that no matter how much of a relief it is in some ways, it is always heart-breaking, too. How difficult to put your child into someone else's arms and give up all (or almost all) rights to her education, her future, her development--to trust her entirely to someone else and to God! But how  much more difficult, after having your child at home for the first two or more years, to present a talking, walking child with a clear personality and very real emotions to someone else's care! I think of Hannah bringing Samuel to the temple for Eli to raise. I think of Fantine sending Cosette to the Thénardiers. How did those mothers have the strength to walk away from their babies, to ignore the tears and cries of "Mama!"? How did they deal with the inevitable guilt that followed? the loneliness and despair?

I think of my daughter Anna, who is two, and I cannot in my worst nightmares imagine having to hand her off to someone else, even someone I trust. I really don't think that even if I believed it was in her best interest, I could do it without shrivelling up and blowing away into nothing (or eating myself into oblivion--more likely). People have had to do it through the ages for varying reasons, and I know it happens today, as in the case of our giving Aaron back to his family. I just don't think that I have that strength or willpower.

I'm sure Aaron doesn't remember any of us. I'd like to think he's better off wherever he is, doing whatever it is he's doing, but my cynical side says it's probably not true. Yet Aaron left us for a reason. God has bigger plans than we do, including a plan for Aaron's life. I don't pretend to know what that is or why it included heartache for all of us (including him, at age two). But I pray for him and ask God to bless him today on behalf of my loving, compassionate, and godly parents who had to, in faith, let go.

May God hold Aaron in the palm of His hand.

More than we can handle

Did God really say He wouldn’t give us more than we could handle?

I’m pretty sure I’ve never read that in the Bible anywhere, although it definitely seems to be a common understanding among Christians. I wonder if they are thinking of 1 Corinthians 10:13, which is written, “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it” (NIV).

I am obviously not a Bible guru who has all the answers, but in there, I see the word “tempted” (also translated “tested”). Could that mean we will never face trials that we can’t overcome with God’s help? Perhaps. But from the context of the verse, I don’t think that’s what it’s saying here. In my limited understanding, the passage talks about sin and always having a way to avoid it if we choose to. That makes sense to me, even though I don’t often enough take advantage of the way (or ways) out that are provided. They’re always there.

But is it equally true that God will never put us in a situation in which we can’t lose? Will we always have the option of being overcomers? I don’t think so, unless you see death as the ultimate means of overcoming. People are put in situations daily around the world for which there is no way out except death, no salvation. Christians who are doing the right thing are persecuted, imprisoned, executed.

Or what about people who face mental illness? Some people—solid, believing Christians—do break after enough bending. Their minds just can’t take any more grief, stress, hardship.

God is with us. Immanuel. I believe that with every fiber of my being, even on the days when I don’t actively see Him or when I hear about another outrage—another abused child or devastated people group or indescribable loss. God is with us no less.

But I think sometimes people in life do face more than they can handle. I think there are no-win situations. I don’t believe that there is always hope in our mortal lives. I think the only hope we can hold onto is that our mortal lives are just that: mortal--hope that the suffering will end eventually, and we will be ushered into God’s glorious presence.

Musical heritage

I would never really consider myself a musician. I enjoy singing and have been told I have a nice singing voice, but although I've dabbled in piano, guitar, penny whistle, and clarinet, I don't actually play any musical instrument. And I've never taken a music theory class. Sure, I can read music in a very average way, but I can't tell key signatures to save my life. 

Still, that doesn't mean I don't appreciate music. I grew up with music. We had music playing in the house and/or car more often than we did not. We had a record player, and when I was really little, we kids even had a toy record player that played plastic records. We'd get small records from our Sunday school class on occasion. Of course, we also had a cassette player and eventually a CD player. My dad had a nice stereo system with box speakers and a high-quality amp. We were always listening to something, be it Peter, Paul, and Mary; Nightnoise; Simon & Garfunkel; Amy Grant; or Evie.  

We also listened to the radio a lot, mostly for music but also for A Prairie Home Companion. I remember when we moved to Nigeria we took several cassettes of radio music with us, and some of my favorites were from 94.7 "The Wave." Back in the '80s and early '90s, the station played mostly what we'd call today "New Age" or possibly "easy listening." Today the station is smooth jazz, which--pardon me for saying so--is not the same thing. 

Our favorite album as a family was not in fact an album at all. It was a cassette tape of radio favorites that my parents had recorded off the radio sometime in the '70s. It ranges from folk to rock and includes songs such as "Africa" by Toto, "Sound of Silence" by Simon & Garfunkel, "Memory" by Barbra Streisand, "Your Song" by Elton John, "Fire and Rain" by James Taylor, and "Cat's in the Cradle" by Harry Chapin, I found that song so moving that I memorized it at the age of 10, something I'd never done with a non-Sunday-school song before. Considering how many times we played to that tape, it's a miracle it lasted long enough for Dad to make a CD of it for each of us kids. That CD is priceless. 

One of the radio shows we used to listen to (and record) was "Thistle & Shamrock" with Fiona Ritchie. I don't remember much about it from my early childhood, to be honest, but I did love the fiddle and flute. One summer in high school when we lived in Nigeria, I went through Dad's boxes of tapes and pulled out a bunch of "Thistle & Shamrock" tapes and started listening to them. I fell in love with Celtic music and its derivatives in American music. There was one song I particularly liked about a terrible storm, but I cannot for the life of me remember it now or even enough lyrics to find it on Google. (Believe me, I've tried.) [Addendum: My dad pointed me to the song, “White Squall” sung by Stan Rogers, which you can listen to here.]

In my last two years of college I was steeped in Celtic music. My junior year, I was invited to join a group of older students and alumni who gathered monthly for folk dancing and music. I was enraptured, to say the least. Most of my favorite memories from college days are from those folk sings, with Kirstin on the fiddle, or playing guitar while she and others sang. Some of my favorites were what we called "The Dead Lover Song" (about a man seeing his drowned lover, who rises from the river to embrace him with cold arms--*shudder*), "My Nine to Fives are Over," "Bonny Lighthorseman," and "Molly Malone." One time, Anders sang "Iowa" with his sister, and every time I hear that song to this day, I think of them. The folk sing after Eddie got engaged to dear, sweet Hannah, he proudly sang one of my favorites, "Take Her In Your Arms."  

My roommate that year was an MK from France who had been born in Ireland, and she was also enthralled with Celtic and folk music. We went to these folk dances together, and they were the most peaceful moments of my entire college experience.  

So I was pretty stoked to recently discover the Thistlepod, NPR's podcast of "Thistle & Shamrock" (which is not on my local NPR radio station). I'm having a little trouble getting podcasts onto my mp3 player, but I'll figure it out eventually. I did get one on there to listen to on the way to work, even though it was only about 15 minutes long. Between the songs, Fiona asked her guests about the way music has become about performance. Her guest, Mark Williams, talked about folk music and ballads from Scotland and Ireland being about sharing music together, participation and not performance. I thought of the oral tradition of our folk sings. No one ever had sheets of lyrics. You just learned a song by listening to it more than once. It wasn't ever about Kirstin or Lisa or anyone else, about their talents and musical abilities. It was about the music and the stories, about the community we were building those nights. And I do think with albums and concerts and iPods, we lose that.I can listen to those same folk songs on YouTube or one of the CDs Lisa made for me, but I can't recreate the fellowship and warmth of those nights in a cozy home in central Illinois. 

If there's one thing I miss most about college--and high school before that--it's participating in music as fellowship, singing not just in church because it's on the schedule or in choir or other expected places, but singing for fun and togetherness. Folk music gave me that, and to this day, ten years later, I am wistful, longing to have it again someday.

Mrs. Jesus

I've never read The Da Vinci Code. But today, the biology professor I have come to greatly admire handed me an article from TIME titled "Did Jesus have a Wife? A new fragment may provide fresh clues" (Meacham, 2012). [Note: The full text is not officially available online without a subscription, but you can read the beginning here, and the full text can be found by using Google. I actually read a photocopy of the original.]

While I consider myself moderately conservative (religiously, not politically), I try to keep an open mind about Christianity, the Bible, and science. I read the article with skeptical curiosity, but in the middle of the article I remembered something I'd read in an ethics textbook yesterday:

Dogmatists tend to disagree about the actual issues--which would be amusing if it were not so common, since the whole point is supposed to be that the Truth is so simple and obvious that it needs only mentioning to be instantly decisive. Dogmatists do agree, though, that careful and open-ended thinking about moral issues is not necessary. After all, if you already know the answer, there is no need to actually think about it, is there? If you need to argue for your position, you admit that it needs defending, which is to say that people can legitimately have doubts. But that cannot be true; you already know that your position is the only right one. Therefore, any reasoned argument for your position is unnecessary. And any reasoned argument against your position is obviously absurd. So why listen? (Weston, 2011, p. 7-8)

I really don't want to be a dogmatist. That's just not on the list of future aspirations or even current desires. So I stopped reading and tried to look at it from another point of view. I asked myself, "Even if Jesus had been married, how would that change my beliefs, my faith?" Maybe it's something I'll have to process, but when the Bio professor and I discussed it, my first instinct is that it wouldn't change anything at all about my faith. Even if the Bible doesn't mention Jesus' wife, does that necessarily mean he didn't have one? Would Jesus not be just as fully God and fully man if he were married? In some ways, wouldn't that make him perhaps more able to sympathize with us as humans?

Let me clarify. I am not saying I believe Jesus was married. I haven't studied the topic enough and have not read enough evidence to support the theory. But when I think of how adamant conservative Christians are that he was absolutely not married, I have to wonder why? What about that theory is so infuriating? So disturbing? So sacrilegious?

I'll be honest. I'm glad I don't live in a day and age in which heresy means being burned at the stake or otherwise executed. When I think of other religions that are not so tolerant (or our own a few hundred years ago) of professed believers expressing different ideas or doubts, I breathe a sigh of relief. Literally. It's nice to live in a time and place in which we can bounce ideas around and discuss them openly.

So was Jesus married or not? I have no idea. Does it matter? Something to chew on.

References

Meacham, J. (2012, October 1). Did Jesus have a wife? A new fragment may provide fresh clues. TIME.

Weston, A. (2011). A practical companion to ethics (4th ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.

Survivor in the hands of a gracious God

It's been just over ten years since I last really contemplated suicide.  

It was January 2003, and a friend of mine had just ended the weird relationship we had. I'm sure now it was the brave and right thing to do, to save us from the pit of codependency into which we'd fallen. His timing was terrible (the night before spring semester started), but it was the right thing. 

But I took it pretty hard. So hard that  my sister literally drove after me in the middle of the night to make sure I would be OK. So hard that my parents ended their trip to another part of the U.S. and returned to Wheaton to make sure I was coping. I wasn't coping. I hit rock-bottom. The only thing--or so I tell myself now--that kept me from turning on the gas and going to sleep during those weeks when I had the house to myself was that the home was a duplex, and I was worried about the people next door. My roommate that year was a gift from God. She would turn on U2's "Grace" and just let me cry. We'd listen to it on repeat until I finally fell asleep. 

I did pull through, obviously, after a special sunrise in Michigan while listening to K-Love, followed by four months of weekly counseling and meeting biweekly with a senior psychology major. ("I'm not a peer counselor," she'd say, but really she was.) Things did get better. Life got brighter. And over several months, I was finally able to see him again in social situations and not spiral into pain. 

Ten years. 

It wasn't the first time I'd had suicidal thoughts. I was only 11 when I first thought about suicide. We had moved back to the U.S. in the middle of my sixth grade year. I was starting a new school in urban Los Angeles. I had gone from a middle school of about 110 to one of 1700. I showed up wearing the wrong clothes. My cute lunch bag that my mom had gotten me was stolen the first week I used it (with my lunch in it). I said the wrong things in class and got funny looks. I went the whole first three weeks or so in Language Arts writing in a journal every morning without realizing there were prompts on the board (behind me, of course). I was lonely, ostracized, out-of-place. And the worst of it was that my older brother and sister had gone back to Nigeria without me so that my sister could finish up her senior year of high school. I resented their being there in my world without me, and even though I fought with them like cats and dogs when we were together, I missed them terribly when we were apart. Even church activities did little to boost my spirits. The youth minister, Mike, was young and lively and forced me to play all the active games--games my sister had adored when she was in the same youth group but that I detested. I dreaded youth group many weeks; all I wanted to do was sit on the bench and watch the games, but Mike would drag me onto the field and make me play. 

My mom tried to hard to help me that semester. To be fair, she and Dad were overwhelmed with a lot of other things going on, like my dad's cancer treatment and my siblings' being 7000 miles away during a very important part of my sister's life. Mom did her best to cheer me up. She was always there when I needed her. She made me cookies and amazing lunches with sweet notes. She baked me a Cat Who birthday cake for my 12th birthday. I remember walking to Jack-in-the-Box after school on a minimum day. And we did have a few foster babies that spring, too, which helped. But there were certain points when I wondered what would be the most efficient way to die. Pills? Getting run over? 

It was a pretty awful time. 

But that, too, got better. I did eventually make one friend toward the end of sixth grade who helped me get through the first part of seventh grade before we went back to Nigeria the next January. And youth group got a little better. The best part was that my brother came back from Nigeria in the summer and stayed until we all went back home in January. We bonded in our loneliness and together fell in love with Star Trek: The Next Generation (and later Star Trek: Voygaer). We'd watch Get Smart on Nick at Night. We went to see Star Trek: Generations in the theater together.  

There were also two ladies from church who would invite me to do sundry fun activities--shopping at the mall, walking on the beach, visiting a bookstore (one of my favorites!), and of course playing Hell Fudge. I don't think I would have pulled through that year without Irene and Geri (may she rest in peace).  

But I did pull through. 

And once in high school I thought about throwing myself in the midst of traffic outside our school when I had particularly low self-esteem. Between a friend insinuating that I was fat (which--looking back--he didn't actually do; it's all about perception) and a few neighbor girls saying my face looked like a pizza, I just wanted it to end. That didn't last long, though, and everything was once again peachy. Or at least as peachy as the average life is for a 14-year-old girl. 

I often think, though, about these times. I still occasionally feel the pain of the loneliness, the ridicule, the rejection.  

I got a prayer chain notice recently about a family whose 12-year-old daughter had committed suicide and was found by her older sister. While I prayed, a flood of emotion overcame me. I was so, so blessed to have a loving, attentive family and caring people around me to get me through my crises. God saved me from myself. I don't know why sometimes, but He did, and I'm glad. My heart aches for the families  of those who gave in, who surrendered to the darkness. And I grieve for those who are struggling daily just to keep from giving in, usually in silence and alone (at least, in their minds). 

Now that I have two children, I can't afford to think of suicide. Sure, some days are low days, others are really, really low days, but I would guess that at least 80% of my days are bright. Tiring and stressful, sure, but not hopeless days of despair. I only wish I could somehow reach out to those who are walking in darkness, to let them know that they are not alone, that they are beautiful, that life is worth fighting for, that it does get better. To listen and understand because I've been there.

I'm a survivor, but only by the grace of God.