Speech and silence

I’ve been feeling weirdly restrained lately, especially online. There's been a lot of news online that I’ve had powerful feelings about that I’ve just—swallowed. I haven’t blogged about it and I’ve barely reacted to it on Facebook, either (aside from some passive ‘likes’ of things other people have posted, and even those I’ve scaled back). And it’s been wearing on me—while I tend not to get super opinionated online, having a voice to talk about the things on my heart is essential to me, even if no one’s reading. It’s not like I made a conscious choice to be quiet, either—I just keep choking when I want to talk.

One reason is that I’ve had a lot of things going on in my life that I’m not ready to talk about online yet, but they take up so much head space that they keep encroaching on the rest of the things I want to talk about, and it’s hard to untangle things. So sometimes it’s easier to just be quiet. The other reason is that I’ve found myself afraid of my audience.

While we were visiting family over Christmas, I found out that a couple (somewhat distant) family members had gotten upset by something innocuous I had posted on Facebook that revealed that I supported (or at least, didn’t not support) a political candidate they found appalling. So appalling that they felt compelled to tell another (closer) relative how appalled they were by my post, and this other relative then relayed this information to me.

It came at a time when I was already feeling particularly overexposed (due to those other things going on), and I wanted to shrink back in myself and hide. It wasn’t the fault of the person who told me (or really even the people who were upset by my post)—if I had been in a different headspace at the time, I would have laughed it off and maybe cheerfully (and invisibly) flipped off the offended party and gone on writing. But now I’m scheduled to preach during one of our church’s mid-week Lenten services, and as I started writing my sermon I realized how much I hadn’t been saying lately.

Ironically, the post that got people upset isn’t even the sort of thing I can control or predict—it was a sci-fi joke comparing a presidential candidate to an Asimovian robot—and there’s no way I can self-censor enough to prevent that kind of misunderstanding or overreaction. But I don’t want to unnecessarily provoke conflicts, either. So it’s got me thinking about what sorts of posts I would be willing to risk hearing, “So-and-so was really upset by Thing you wrote last week” at family gatherings (because there’s a difference between Anonymous Jerk online and Real Person you actually know).

I have some thoughts, but none particularly settled yet. Friends who post things on Facebook beyond recipes and pictures of cats/kids/dogs/bunnies: how do you decide which things are worth posting and which things are worth letting slide?

3rd and 4th graders are awesome

My 3rd and 4th grade Sunday school students are officially some of my favorite people. They jockey for more verses to read aloud and they ask ferociously indignant questions when they don’t understand something, whether or not it’s related to the actual reading. Sunday we read about Jesus’s baptism:

“Wait—this book is called LUKE!! Why are we reading about JOHN?!?!”
Me: “Different Johns.”
“Oh! That makes sense!!”
(Later) “What happened with Jesus’s crucifixion and resurrection? Where’s that?”
Me (after pointing out which chapters in Luke tell that part of the story): “Don’t worry—we’ll spend LOTS of time on that later.”
“Oh good!...But WHY was Jesus crucified?!?”
Me: “…..You mean, why did people crucify him, or why did God—“
“The first one!”
“Well, that’s a long story [tells the long story]”
“That WAS really long!”

They’re all brilliant, and even though they’ve all grown up in the church, so much of the story is still weird and wonderful and confusing to them. We never get to the activities on the handouts because there’s so much to talk about. I’m really ok with that—yesterday the suggested activity involved flicking water at each other as part of the baptism discussion, and I’m thinking that it’s 5° degrees outside and the only reasonable explanation for someone thinking a children’s lesson in January should involve playing with water is that the author is Australian.

So yes, I sometimes play fast and loose with the lessons. When I saw the reading for today was Luke 3:15-17, 21-22 with a big gap in the middle, I decided that darn it, we were going to read the whole thing! I’m a bit of a completionist, and I think it’s important that kids be introduced to what kind of a person Jesus submitted himself to be baptized to—a loudmouth in the middle of the desert who wasn’t afraid to call out the powerful, but of whom the powerful were so afraid that they locked him up and eventually executed him. That matters. So we read that part too, even though it wasn’t going to be the focus of our discussion. And it was initially a weird digression, and they were confused about why Luke stuck that piece of the story there in the middle, but when my student asked (entirely out of the blue) why Jesus was crucified, having that context helped explain why powerful people might have it out for people like John the Baptist and Jesus (no one likes being called a “white-washed sepulcher” or a “brood of vipers”).

I take these stories for granted—I’ve been reading and hearing them for so long (for years I was even taken midterms on them!) that they’ve seeped into my subconscious. But then my students ask questions about something that I always assumed was obvious and I realize it wasn’t really obvious at all—they know individual stories, but they haven’t seen the connections between them. And by having to fill in those gaps I’m reminded of pieces of the story that I barely think about anymore, and suddenly realize how important they are.

Basically, everyone should spend more time talking with 3rd and 4th graders. Especially about stuff that matters.

My kids still complain that I don’t bring them candy every Sunday, but not as much as they used to, and I’ve promised them a LOT of candy if they can memorize the books of the Old and New Testament. Honestly I would be happy with them just being able to identify which book goes in which testament, but I won’t tell them that because they’re smart cookies and I’m sure they can do it. 

The view from the 9th day of Christmas

Christmas (ok, actually most of the month of December) isn’t really a time that lends itself to sitting and writing blog posts. Mab’s home from school, we’re often sleeping in (so B can’t be depended on to take his usual afternoon nap), and my down time is spent on Christmas shopping and sewing projects for gifts, not to mention all the family visiting and cookie-eating. And now it’s 2016 and I’m supposed to go straight from first to fifth gear and resolutely reform all the bad habits I’ve picked up as the weather’s gotten colder and I’ve burrowed deeper and deeper under a thick layer of sweaters, wool socks, throw blankets, festive baked goods, and hot cups of tea with way too much honey.

I do in fact have some healthy practices I dropped last year that I want to restart, but with the new year beginning on a Friday, I’m actually going to start on Monday when our family gets back into our usual routine.

Right now, though, it’s still Christmas. The little hand wheel lectionary calendar I use with my third and fourth grade Sunday School students labels tomorrow “Christmas 2,” and the 12^th day of Christmas isn’t until January 5^th.

The tree may still be up, but I gave up replacing all the ornaments
B pulled down about a week ago.

My daughter and husband are still on break, so our tree is still up and we are still sleeping in and having pancakes almost every morning (when we’re not making egg+bacon+cheese sandwiches on the English muffins my husband baked. He’s fabulous). We’ve gone to the Museum of Science and Industry to look at all the Christmas trees twice, and we’ve been doing a few projects and made a couple big purchases for the house, but only the fun ones (like taking out the little white ceiling fan in the kitchen that tried to illuminate the entire room with only a single inadequate bulb, and replacing the whole thing with a glorious chandelier. I am obsessed with chandeliers—our house currently has four and I’m angling for more).

Let there be light!
Also, the ReStore is the best place for chandeliers.

I moseyed my way through Advent to Christmas, and now I’m continuing to ramble on through Christmas itself. There’s no rush to get back to everyday life if I don’t have to. My best friend and I were discussing how rituals that reinforce different values can help us get ourselves back into balance after a time of getting ourselves out-of-whack while scrambling through a difficult patch. And while my life has, on the surface, been pretty serene, inside I have been all kinds of worked-up, for many reasons. Taking some extra time to drink coffee in the morning with my husband in the light of the Christmas tree and going sledding with the kids has been exactly what I needed to slow my racing thoughts down. Hopefully on Monday I’ll be ready to spring back into action.