Baby Names and Huck Finn
March 2nd, 2010 by Jonalyn
I checked out a book called The Philosophical Baby: What Children’s Minds Tell us About Truth, Love, and the Meaning of Life by Alison Gopnik (thanks to the Franks tribe for the recommendation!) and found a chapter near the end titled “The Wisdom of Huck Finn.”
I turned there immediately, eager to see what makes Huck Finn so wise. The passage shored up memories of my own fearfulness of a character like Huck, someone wild enough to break the rules even the church rules. Someone dripping more with sin than with holy living. Someone I think my parents would have warned me against.
For those unfamiliar with Mark Twain’s tale let me catch you up. Huckleberry Finn runs away from his abusive father and joins the runaway slave, Jim, on a raft in the Mississippi. The stuff of boyhood dreams turns this unlikely pair into fellow adventurers, braving the danger of the Mississippi’s waters, white slave owners’ wrath and defying the rules that dictate that runaway slaves (and those who harbor them) are serving the Devil. Huck wonders about his eternal destiny more than once in the story.
Huck’s friendship with Jim, a face-to-face understanding that outshines Huck’s relationship with his real father brings Huck to a point of empathy and knowledge most adults never touch. In the crucial decision of Twain’s novel Huck must choose if he will give Jim up to the authorities.
Huck’s words:
So I was full of trouble, full as I could be; and didn’t know what to do. At last I had an idea; and I says, I’ll go and write the letter – and then see if I can pray. Why it was astonishing, the way I felt as light as a feather, right straight off, and my troubles all gone. So I got a piece of paper and a pencil, all glad and excited, and set down and wrote:
Miss Watson your runaway nigger Jim is down here two mile below Pikesville and Mr. Phelps has got him and he will give him up for the reward if you send. HUCK FINN.
I felt good and washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever felt so in my life, and I knowed I could pray now. But i didn’t do it straight off, but laid the paper down and set there thinking; thinking of how good it was all this happened so, and how near I come to being lost and going to hell. And went on thinking. And got to thinking over our trip down the river; and I see Jim before me, all the time, in the day, and in the night-time, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we a floating along, talking, and singing, and laughing. But somehow I couldn’t seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but only the other kind. I’d see him standing my watch on top of his’n, ’stead of calling me – so I could go on sleeping; and see him how glad he was when I come back out of the fog; and when I come to him in the swamp, up there where the feud was; and would always call me honey . . . and do everything he could think of for me, and how good he always was; and at last I struck the time I saved him by telling the men we had small-pox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I was the best friend old Jim ever had in the world, and the only one he’s got now; and then I happen’d to look around, and see that paper.
It was a close place. I took it [the letter] up, and held it in my hand. I was a trembling, because I’d got to decide, forever, between two things. I studied a minute, holding my breath, and then says to my self:
“All right, then, I’ll GO to hell” – and tore it up.
In high school, Huck frightened me, he was too edgy and too unsafe. He disobeys that hungering for whiteness and purity from sin, he bucks the systems that tell you how to live long lives of safety and relative lack of discord with your neighbors.
But even then I couldn’t shake the feeling that Huck was a hero, one that I wouldn’t be completely comfortable accepting.
Now, Huck Finn reminds me of my husband, that brave, even rebellious, willingness to follow truth even if the established orthodoxy does not sanction it. When Dale was in high school, when he doubted God (his existence, his goodness, his love) he came to a point where he realized he would follow God, even if God damned him to hell.
As I read Huck Finn, I think often of my husband, the inconvenient rapids he’s had to endure, all of which allow his speaking and writing to gleam with a hard-won luster. In marrying Dale, I’ve watched myself engage with the established order of life, to have kids in the proper amount of time (People often asked, “You DO want kids, right??”), to leave off traveling with him and keep house, to write about safer more acceptable topics, to stay close to family and live near the friends I made in youth, to swiftly surrender to men who prefer I stay out of the pulpits, the spotlights, the stage, to keep on attending a congregational church on Sunday morning between 9-12 am, to maintain a wide circle of friends.
In each, I’m glad to say I followed more of Huck Finn’s road, choosing to listen to the Spirit of God softly calling me down a road less traveled, asking me to love truth, regardless if a host of others understood me. It’s a heritage I want to pass on to our son.
Besides, I find myself delighted to name our son after the qualities I treasure in his father. Honesty, courage, and a refreshingly rebellious spirit.
Beyond this, to name our son Finn Fincher adopts a centuries old practice from Wales, appropriate given the Welsh blood that beats through Dale’s veins. The Welsh name their sons using their last names, creating a repeating, emphasizing device. William Williams and Robert Roberts are Welsh names. So is David Dale Davis, or D.D., Dale maternal grandfather, and first generation immigrant from Wales, David Davies, Dale’s great-great-grandfather. In Wales, all three are variations of the same name: David, Davis and Davies. In Wales, what we pronounce “Davis” is spelled Davies. Americanization dropped the “e” to prevent mis-pronunciation in the U.S.A.
We like the original spelling.
We found a business card for Davis Construction, Dale’s grandfather’s decades old business. In the left hand corner, highlighted by blue letters, you can read his business motto, “Things That Last.” D.D.’s work lives on, not only the industrial buildings he built across the world, but in the way he funded strategic spokespeople for Jesus. D.D. was the first financial backer for an articulate Indian evangelist named Ravi Zacharias in 1983. Ravi has written about D.D.’s role in his life as the architect of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.
D.D.’s legacy also lives on in the work we do at Soulation. D.D.’s dedication to lasting work frees Dale and I to worry less about “trends” and concern ourselves with the goodness of the gospel in human life.
To honor Dale’s grandfather, to remember Huck Finn, to bow our heads to God’s wild, free gift of life our baby has been given, our son will be called Finn Davies Fincher.
Little Finn entered our lives last summer, as an unexpected but not unplanned positive on a pregnancy test. I took the test right before our first Soulation Retreat, a time of hectic bewilderment that this was the time God has chosen to give us a child. This time? Right when we had just moved from 3000 square feet to 750 square feet? Really, God?
In those months of battling morning, afternoon and evening sickness I grabbed tightly to the words of midrash expert Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg.
“For to create is precisely not to control . . .”
–from The Beginning of Desire
Zornberg is discussing God’s risk in creating the world with free creatures. Both Dale and I feel this risky business of bringing a child into the world intensified by my own growing tummy.
My mother calligraphied these words for our Christmas present. They hang next to my side of the bed. I see them every morning and every evening.
Nine months after Finn’s conception, we’re all atwit and agog at the life of this one-of-a kind baby boy.
Today we joyfully announcing the birth of Finn Davies Fincher
born March 2, 2010
9 lbs 12 ounces
21 3/4 inches
Posted in Dale Fincher, family, motherhood, pregnancy, soulation | Comments (22)
“Birdie’s Song”
February 26th, 2010 by Jonalyn
I wanted to share a poem my mom recently wrote for our son, who we’re affectionately calling Birdie (because we’re Finchers!)
She rented Life’s Greatest Miracle and was inspired. As I wait (now it’s a day after my due date) for the arrival of Birdie, I felt so grateful for her anticipation, too. It’s like Christmas is peeking just around the corner!
BIRDIES SONG
by Mina Taylor
Beating heart, and pulsing blood
DNA from him from, her
Gathering ancestry long gone by
Fresh expectations mount and stir.
Hold Joni hold
These moments in the nest
Anticipated longed for birth
Hold in Abba’s sufficiency rest.
Half your blood supports him now
All your love supports him come
Parental heart and soul’s shell crack
This child, your hearts, a glorious sum.
Entrust dear God to us this child?
Into your world, into your nest
Fluttering, feeble, failing, fly us
To You, our constant Sabbath rest.
Little birdie so fat so full, come forth!
Can I hear your song upon the height?
Family joy: strength for the day
God’s gift of song and winged flight
Tags: motherhood, pregnancy
Posted in family, motherhood | Comments (3)
What Makes Good Mothers?
February 19th, 2010 by Jonalyn
I’m going to do something rather risky. Immediately before I give birth to our first son I going to get all philosophical and opinionated and public about what it means to be a good mother. In a few years (or a few months) I want to compare my B.C. (Before Children) ideas with my ideas after our son enters our lives. To see if things have drastically changed . . . or not.
Several years ago my therapist, a wonderful woman full of grace and truth, asked me about my ideas of parenting. If I had a child, what would I want to give to him (or her). This was back before I knew I’d become mother.
Many ideas flowed through my mind.
I want to give them a good education. I want them to know about the joy of reading. I want them to write well, to love art and travel and other people. I want them to get the lay of the land when it comes to career options and higher education options. I want them to be kind to animals, especially corgis. I want them to be musical and engaging and delighted with life. I want them to know Jesus’ love.
All great ideas, don’t you think? (Picture by Lord Frederick Leighton, “Mother and Child”) I certainly thought so as these are all things I value.
But how do you give all these to a child? I know mothers who work hard to make ideals like this possible, but can I really hang my good mothering on the success of inculcating all this to my child?
These plans and hopes forget a crucial ingredient in motherhood–the child’s ability to choose. These were outcomes I’d like to see, but not realities I could offer. For instance, I could give my child a reason to love God, but I could not make them love God as I did.
I don’t like setting myself up for a situation where my plans could be easily thwarted. Isn’t it possible that our child would not want to love Jesus? What if they didn’t like vegetables or thinking or reading? What if our kid didn’t care about education or stewardship of the earth? What if our child preferred Sartre to Augustine?
If my child grew up to be very different from me, would I think I had failed as a mother? Would the goodness of my mothering depend on the outcome of his life?
I ended up telling my therapist, “I want to give them a home that is open and accepting. I want to give them the freedom to be themselves.”
And now as I live and move with a 8 + lb baby inside, I’ve been thinking about my words to her over five years ago. I think this is how I will judge myself as a good mother.
I don’t have expectations that our son will be great, nor that he will want to follow in our footsteps. That would delight me, but I’m not depending on it.
He may not want anything to do with soul formation, or philosophy, or women’s unique souls, or equality between the sexes, or our work at Soulation. He may become a hard-nosed patriarchalist or a snobby, narrow-minded Republican–both equally horrific in my mind at the moment.
But these are all possibilities. He can choose.
Can I open myself up to the son God has given us and not require that my son become all that I intend for him?
If so, then I believe I can be a good mother.
I believe wanting to know your child as a unique person is enough to make a mother good. Not the triangle-shaped toasted cheese sandwiches on rainy afternoons, not the private piano lessons, not the full-time care and attention at home, not breast-feeding nor carefully constructed ants on a log (celery stick slathered in peanut butter with raisins on top) or knowing the best technique for clipping fingernails. Though, before anyone starts throwing tomatoes, I do intend to do most of these things.
But I think I could be a good mother even if I sent my child to day care.
Gasp!
I know, I know. The reason being, though, that I’ve spoken with children who come from day care childhoods and it’s not day care, per se, that embitters or harms them. It’s the meaning behind their parent’s actions. Why were they sent to day care?
If they have gripes about their childhood it’s about their parents love or lack thereof. It’s their parents failure to know them that harms them. Day care situations can be as much about a parent knowing their child wants social interaction from a young age as it can be about selfish mommas who want careers more than kids.
I want to find out what is important to my child, to serve him by being attentive to those things in his life. That’s the great risk in opening my life to a child… what he will need may not be what I want him to need. Nor will it, probably, be convenient. It’s so easy to assume that since a child is younger and more pliable that they should always fit around me and my plans.
But if, for instance, our son hates day care, then I want to honor and listen to his needs. If he prefers day care, then I also want to honor that. Of course, that means my number one priority will be to foster a home where his opinions matter, where his ideas are sought.
This does not, I want to be clear, mean our son will be king.
I don’t intend to watch him run all our lives by the whims of his little broken soul any more than I tolerate Dale running my life by the whims of his brokenness or he lets me run his life by my brokenness.
Just yesterday he brought up how I had snapped his head off three different times.
“I can’t tell if it’s just pregnancy frustration bubbling up in you, or if I’m really as out of line as you said,” he told me.
I took his words to heart. “I think I would have been more patient in all these situations if my body weren’t so uncomfortable right now.” I explained. I also apologized for being unkind.
I pray that God would save me from running my family out of a controlling spirit masquerading in my life as a love for order. In the same ways I pray that God would save us from my husband running the family out of his procrastination masquerading as wanting to live in the moment.
I don’t want to be queen (well not on my good days 
) and Dale does not want to be king of this family. We don’t want a parent-centered family any more than we want a child-directed family. I pray we will all submit to God and each other, offering the high courtesy of heaven to each other. We run our marriage without a human final decision-maker/authority because we believe Jesus heads our family. We, as husband and wife, work as a united organism. I want our son to see the way a husband and wife can lean on each other, dependent on one another for life, as interdependent as our physical head and body.
I want to notice and value my son as a person. For buried within the unique combination of Dale and me in his DNA is a one-of-a-kind soul that I am excited to get to know.
As Dale put it in a recent Soulation Seasonal. We feel we’re inviting a friend over to live with us for 18 + years.
We received several concerned emails after we posted this idea.
“Don’t expect to be friends with your children!”
and
“You know you’ll have to be the ‘bad guys’ with your kid, too, right?!”
I think these kindly intended comments missed our point. We do not expect our child to like us all the time, or even lots of the time. Nor do we expect that we will always enjoy him. We are, rather, beginning to cultivate a desire to know our child as a person, a human creation that reflects God, that is worth us taking time to study and love. We want to become scholars of our son.
This might or might not involve the stereotypical ways of being a good momma. I won’t know until I know him.
In high school and most of college, I was convinced that the best way I could impact this world was to raise a brood (about 12) children to love God. I wanted to have kids to mold them into obedient servants of Christianity.
While I will be sharing my love for Jesus with our son, and while I want him to know Jesus, I do not see having a child as a chance to make soldiers of the cross. Not anymore. I’m not having children to continue my legacy. I’m having a child because God asked us to be open to children and then gave us a son.
If I can succeed in knowing and loving him without expecting him carbon copy Dale or me, I will count myself a good mother. The rest is gravy.
I look forward to you peppering me with your comments. All of us have mothers and we all have ideas. What is key to being a good mother?
Posted in gender roles, love, motherhood, pregnancy | Comments (25)
Women and Their Wonderful Bodies
February 3rd, 2010 by Jonalyn
During one of the last golden days of summer I watched the sun illuminate a forest of changing aspen leaves. Each aspen glowed as a piece of God’s handiwork. As I sat into the silence I didn’t hear any aspen bemoan their figure or their hair or their height.
God says he made the trees of the fields. He also said he made women. Female bodies are his handiwork, beautifully and wonderfully made by the same Maker of aspen trunks and leaves (see Psalm 139:14). But, if you and I stood for hours before a light that illuminated our hair, chins, breasts, waists and legs, would we glow with joy in the light?
Wouldn’t our conversation turn to self-critique, if not of our bodies, then those of our neighbors? The impulse to pick apart the female body has become a regular temptation to me in my 17th week of pregnancy. As God knits my baby together, is he still delighted in my body, the vessel for this new life? My breasts, my belly, my feet, are they still wonderfully made?
All created things bask in the light, unconcerned about their physical bodies, from aspen, my three Welsh corgis, even honey bees. I mean, can you imagine aspen talking like women do?
“I can’t get my leaves to lay right, HER leaves are always perfect.”
“Her trunk is the perfect figure, doesn’t matter what I do mine will always be thicker.”
The sturdiest, thickest aspen soaks up the sunbeams, honoring God as much as the sleek and svelte one. None complain.
Our bodies, Paul says, are the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:19). I think back to Solomon’s temple and Moses’ instructions for the original tabernacle. In these places God designed everything, curtains of twisted linen, embroidered blue, purple and scarlet yarn, bronze clasps, silver bases, gold hooks, fine gems, pomegranates and bells—all for glory and beauty (Exodus 36-40). Our bodies, the new temples, are also meant for glory and beauty.
If you or I saw God’s tabernacle, we would not leap to criticize its girth or color or stonework. If we came upon the trees of Mamre and saw a sign that read, “God’s trees,” we would not disparage their size or height. But when we read, “Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit,” we think this means something about serving God with our bodies, but we don’t afford our bodies the same reverence and intentional appreciation we reserve for other sanctuaries.
Women’s bodies don’t seem like temples because we’re always bucking our sacred statues. We have free wills which most of us employ for dyeing, dieting, squishing, stuffing, ignoring, berating or generally ignoring our bodies. We’ve marred the handiwork God made in our flesh. Our shame haunts us into buying cover-ups for our hips at the beach, concealer for our acne scars, creams for stretch marks. We’ll buy pills to lose weight, shoes to lengthen and tone our legs, styles that flatter the parts of our bodies we want others to notice. But we all have places we firmly believe are not wonderfully made. Nothing I write will disabuse you of your conviction.
And honestly, few people can convince me that Jesus still calls the parts of my body I’ve marred myself. Thinking that my body is God’s holy temple only deepens my shame. Surely, God doesn’t not want my scars.
The poet and rector, George Herbert (1593-1633), in “Love” still gives me hope that my marred female body is something marvelous to God. If you’re not much of a poetry reader, take these lines of verse as a story and read them aloud. Do not let the old English keep you from trying to imagine yourself in the poem.
Love
By George Herbert[i]
LOVE bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lack’d anything.
‘A guest,’ I answer’d, ‘worthy to be here:’
Love said, ‘You shall be (s)he.’
‘I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,
I cannot look on Thee.’
Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
‘Who made the eyes but I?’
‘Truth, Lord; but I have marr’d them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.’
‘And know you not,’ says Love, ‘Who bore the blame?’
‘My dear, then I will serve.’
‘You must sit down,’ says Love, ‘and taste my meat.’
So I did sit and eat.
The God of love invites the broken and marred bodies of his children to dine with him. One line in Herbert’s poem has echoed in my mind for a decade now, “And know you not, Who bore the blame?” His eyes are not shocked by my marred body and disgusted thoughts for myself, for Love’s body is also broken and marred. He wants scarred women, for he is the scarred Savior.
Now, in the power of this Love, my body is for the Lord and my Lord is for my body, my task is to ask how, precisely, I am fearfully and wonderfully made (1 Cor 6:14). I ask it daily, especially as I watch my body swelling and a baby being formed inside of me.
Few Christian articles for women celebrate our unique female body parts, the ones that God made. This does not mean that Christian women don’t have opinions about their womb, breasts, vagina, legs, height and weight. Christian’s silence and perhaps embarrassment means that we end up turning to fashion magazines to tell us what to think about our sexuality. We will learn quickly how laugh lines on our faces and stretch marks on our breasts cannot be honorable badges of this long warfare, earned because we have seasons and wisdom. Feeling ashamed, we hunt out any product to “fix” the evidence of where we’ve been. Without Jesus I will demand my “pre-pregnancy” body back as a need and right, forgetting to honor my body as God’s temple and a vessel that brought us our firstborn.
I’d like to include our Savior in on my body image. I’d like to ask him, “How do I live into my born identity as a woman, observing my body with more awareness and delight?” We need more discussion about women’s bodies, the way our hips and legs, hands and height, our womb and breasts are unique ways we can own the heritage of being made female, reflecting the image of God. I want companions who help me ask Jesus questions about my body’s value and wondrous power, my scars’ worth and distinct advantage in this broken world.
If we are called to influence, why not begin with influencing women to value the heritage of their bodies, these gifts from God, that now belong to God? If our God made us to stand in the light, like the aspen, then let’s rise and enjoy the warm brilliance illuminating our bodies.
[i] The New Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1950, edited by Helen Gardner (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972), 253.
“Women and Their Wonderful Bodies” first appeared in Kyria’s Inaugural Issue, Fall 2009.
Posted in beauty, body image, comparison, contentment, female embodiment, shame | Comments (3)
New Body, New Blog Location
January 27th, 2010 by Jonalyn
I did something a bit unusual tonight; I stepped on our scale.
The scale was dusty and difficult to lug out without spilling the dog’s bowl of water. After wiping it down with Simple Green, I stepped on top. It read 162 lbs. I almost gasped, that’s almost 50 lbs more than I weighed this summer.
Then, I recalled something, someone else gained 50 lbs in her first pregnancy.
My very tall, very dignified, very lovely grandmother gained 50 lbs with her first child. She was only 17 years old, and when the baby was born she wanted to name her firstborn after her husband, John. Since the baby was a girl, she made up the name Jonalyn. I’m named after them both.
This all delights me, even more so as my grandmother (still) brags about her measurements in her younger years.
“I was 38, 24, 36,” she’ll say. And yet she gained 50 lbs in her pregnancy. She still cuts a lovely figure. In a few more weeks, I’d say, I’ll be able to boast the same amount of poundage gained.
I told Dale the new updated weight number this evening and he kind of looked at my body suspiciously like, “Where exactly is it?”
He told me last week that he woke up in the wee hours of the morning, rolled over and saw my body’s profile from the back. He thought for about 10 seconds, “Holy cow! I just dreamed that Jonalyn was pregnant, what a realistic dream!”
But this large butterball in front keeps reminding me that Birdie is coming soon and very soon. Tomorrow I enter the 36th week and I’m frankly dazzled by how well my body is doing. If it needs some extra pounds to do so well, then I’m not going to worry or scrimp on all the fruit and yogurt and milk and avocados I’m eating!
Carrying extra weight in such a concentrated area means it is getting much harder to move, today’s snowshoe hike was more discipline than sheer pleasure. Notice my unusual back-bending pose here on our snowshoe this morning. It was to balance my weight A
ND keep out of the sun. Dale was blocking it’s rays for me. Also please notice Dale’s hat, which I newly knitted for him last Sabbath. I started another one this evening, in miniature for Birdie.
I hardly ever forget I’m pregnant anymore, except sometimes when I’m sleeping on my side and my belly is fully supported by the mattress and I wake up in the middle of the night. The thought lasts less than a second.
For the last few days, Zondervan (our publisher) sent out their audio produce, Brad Hill, a fun-loving hard worker who has become our friend, to record the audio version of our new book. As of last night at 5pm Coffee Shop Conversations: Making the Most of Spiritual Small Talk is completely recorded. It should be available in audio version about the same time the book comes out (May 2010).
To celebrate finishing, Brad took us to our favorite restaurant. I got all dressed up (as much as my pregnant clothes allowed) and even whipped out a favorite silver bracelet. It got stuck halfway around my hand. “AAAAAH!” I yelled to Dale. “My hands are bigger!” It was easier to jam it on than take it off, but I had a heck of a time getting it off.
This new body of mine is still working well, I can still enjoy food without heartburn and walk on long snowshoe hikes and even do my prenatal yoga. So, no I am not complaining, nor do I want the baby out of his little cocoon. I’m still enjoying this process and amazed at how fast he’s growing. But there are some non-ideal things about being pregnant, too. A few things that I miss about pre-pregnant life
- laying on my tummy
- wearing silver bracelets without bruising my hands
- running
- jumping up and down at a moment’s notice without having to strategize
- tying my shoes in a snap
- clear nasal passages
- sleeping through the night without 2 am treks down our ladder to the little princess room
- hugging Dale close
But I do not miss the wondering if I will every be a mother. These last 8 months have been like waiting and wondering about when and what it will be like to have our son coming to live at our house.
In other news, this blog, that I’ve come to love and enjoy so much is going to be MOVING. I’m integrating everything here into our Soulation site. In a few weeks, I’ll be deleting this blog. You can view my blog in it’s new format right now, but I won’t formally move until February 1st, only four days away. Please do NOT comment on this new blog site until Feb 1st. Before my move I will transfer ALL comments from this blog (www.jonalynfincher.com) , so feel free to comment here until then.
If you’d like to subscribe to this new location you will have to re-subscribe (see the top right column of my new blog and choose either posts or comments or both).
Benefits of moving:
- You will be able to search all my blog’s content by keywords- Go to my new blog site and try to search by a word, such as “pregnancy”, and see what I mean!
- In one month I’ll have a new comment engine that will allow you see all the recent comments on the front page and therefore more easily join the discussion
- A new fresh look that ties into all our Soulation resources.
- In a month, quick access to Dale’s blog and a new blog we’ll be running together called “Hurdles of Faith” where you can share and read about how other people struggle in their love for Jesus.
I look forward to seeing you at my new blog site. Until then, all 162 lbs of me is delighted to wish you a very good night!
Posted in body image, motherhood, pregnancy | Comments (12)
Mary and Minute Rice
December 21st, 2009 by Jonalyn
I’ve been identifying with Mary lately, expecting a boy, the inconvenience of being pregnant and having to travel. Nazareth is 80 miles from Bethlehem, a distance in the first century that she could have covered in one week at best.
Today, Mary’s journey to Bethlehem would be tantamount to me learning that a new tax law required Dale and I to fly stand-by to Alaska for registration a week before my due date. The kicker–there’s no room in any inn, so we’d have to stay, and give birth to our firstborn son in the janitor closet of a Motel Six.
If that was what God had in store for his son I’d certainly wonder, “Couldn’t you, the Maker of all things, orchestrate the arrival of the Son of God a little more majestically?”
Mary only got one dream from the angel Gabriel, only one customized message for her ears only, ordered by God to explain this Holy-Spirit-produced baby in her body.
Joseph got four dreams, explaining where to move, when to leave, how to find safety and what God was up to. I think I would have felt a little gypped, but Mary didn’t.
How did she do it?
How did Mary have the strength to bear the Son of God and the serenity to respond to Gabriel’s shocker of a newsflash with, “I am the Lord’s servant, may it be to me according to your word”? (Luke 1:38).
Mary was not just a teenage woman pregnant outside of marriage. She was a good Jewish woman pregnant outside of wedlock.
As a Jew, she would have been familiar with one passage in the Jewish Scriptures that must have made her last minute trip to Bethlehem a little easier to swallow.
“But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.” (TNIV, Micah 5:2).
Mary could see how the pagan Roman census was actually accomplishing God’s promise for Israel. Mary knew about the God of Israel, the God who was faithful to Abraham, the God who could lift the humble up out of the pit. Mary knew her God, she also knew what her God wanted out of her.
Around Christmas time, I notice women running around with lists of things to do. Minute Rice put together an advertisement in 2008 that summed up the way I often feel around the holidays. Surrounding a package of Minute Rice with a Santa Hat are hundreds of things to do, including things like:
get decorations out of the attic, sew angel costume for Molly’s pageant, write annual holiday letter and try to sounds modest while bragging about the kids, drop off food at church, buy poinsettia plants, hang candy canes, try not to eat candy canes, clean house, keep tinsel away from cat, shop online during lunch hour, buy stocking stuffers, drive around and look at lights, plan menu for Christmas Eve, make punch for party, have patience when visiting in-laws, read “Night Before Christmas” outloud, attend candlelight service with family, remember reason for the season, pray for peace on earth.
Minute Rice, however, is here to help.
That last item on the list makes me stop and wonder,”How on earth can you pray for peace when your life has no peacefulness in it? There’s no shalom, the kind of peace that envelops every dimension (spiritual, physical, political, economic, emotional, social) in this ceaseless running-around living.
I think that if Mary had a Minute Rice list, she must have scrapped it so she could make time for the Son of God to enter her life.
I recently found that Micah doesn’t merely contain prophecies about Bethlehem, it also has a better to-do list. One that I’d like to recommend this Christmas to all those women (and men) out there who find there is just too much to do.
Micah 6:8
“He has shown all you people what is good. What what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly
to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.”
Three items.
What would it look like if we acted with justice this Christmas?
Even though I’m a fan of all the work for justice and social equality (Many of my posts are about the inequalities I see specifically with regard to women), one way I see women in particular refusing to act justly is in the manner in which we make time for ourselves. Women are perhaps the worst at taking a day off, of honoring the Jewish law of the Sabbath. Womens’ souls are impoverished and run down because we try to love others so much we have no idea what Jesus means when he says, “Love others AS YOU LOVE YOURSELF.” We don’t know how to love ourselves, to let God love us one day of the week so we can love others the other six.
I don’t think Mary had this problem with refusing to rest.
As soon as Mary learned she would carry a child without a husband she left her hometown of Nazareth and took a retreat. Not for a weekend or even a week, but for three months. Mary spent this time with her cousin Elizabeth (who was miraculously pregnant in her grandmother years) and I’m sure they cried and talked and grieved and laughed and rejoiced together. I imagine Mary did a lot of processing.
One things is certain, after her time away, resting and thinking, Mary sings a song that has gone down in history as Mary’s Magnificat–a testimony to Mary’s experience with the God of Israel (read it in Luke 1:46-55). It seems likely to me that Mary’s time of rest provided the margin for something like the Magnificant to just bubble out of her.
So my challenge to women: take time to do justice to yourself by accepting God’s gift of rest. At least one day in seven, 24 hours of true rest. If you have questions about what this might look like, write me a comment.
Number 2- Love Mercy
Isn’t it interesting that Micah writes that we ought to love mercy? This means an ongoing relationship with mercy, not a one-night-stand, or even a hot/cold relationship. Loving mercy means steady dating, maybe even marriage.
I’ve lately been musing on what kind of relationship I’ve cultivated with mercy. With others? With myself? Do I love mercy as a friend? Or do I just use it when it makes me look kind and “Christian-like”?
Number 3- Walk Humbly with Your God
I’ve been doing a little more walking than usual lately, not much jogging at the moment. And often our three corgis come along for the walk. When we are walking together we encounter the same sights, smells and obstacles. Walking with God means much the same thing, bringing God into our days, our hours, our minutes.
So, for instance, Mary noticed that surprising events surrounding her son’s birth and Luke says she treasured these things, “pondering them in her heart” (Luke 2:19).
This year I learned that I was pregnant with a boy the very same day I learned my husband has a form of skin cancer. I felt torn with two very opposite kinds of expectation. My hope clouded with fear. In sharing how anxious I had been feeling with a friend, I heard some wonderful advice from her.
She suggested I pray, “Jesus, I receive your peace.” And then wait for God to show what this “peace that surpasses comprehension” is really like. I’ve had to pray that hundreds of times, inviting Jesus to walk along side me during the valley and the mountain top of expectation.
In the process, I’ve found that walking humbly with your God is a gerund, which, for you non-English nerds, means that it’s an active verb, we’re constantly doing it. There’s always a new sight or smell or experience to share with our God.
We all need more of the Son of God in our lives. I imagine Mary as she walked the long road to her next destination (remember it was in Egypt), praying that God would help her do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with him.
Her son gives us the power to do just that this Christmas. Make this list your new to-do list for the next week!
An abbreviated version of this post can be read at Fullfill
“Mary and Minute Rice” originally appeared at the Christmas Banquet at North Coast Calvary Church in Carlsbad, Christmas 2009. To hear the talk visit soulation.org after the New Year.
Posted in Messianic Jews, abiding in Christ, peace, pregnancy, women | Comments (10)
Musings on Pregnancy- Weeks 27-29
December 14th, 2009 by Jonalyn
Walking down an icy hill to give a piano lesson, I keep getting distracted by what feels like air bubbles of pressure popping around in my stomach. But all I have to do is glance down and see my stomach rippling. The baby boy in my womb, who we affectionately call ‘Birdie’ is stretching.
Today was not one of the days I basked in my pregnancy. I still believe carrying life in my body is a privilege and honor, but as I ran an errand by myself I felt miserable, large and slow.
As I walked across the parking lot to give piano lessons I had to stop twice. Perhaps I was just exhausted from a full morning of dusting the house, cleaning the bathroom, writing blog comments, and writing 20 emails. Perhaps I felt blue because the skies were gray and sad. Perhaps I was just disgusted with my cumbersomeness, the heaviness I feel in my legs. Today was a day I would have loved to stroll briskly, but I physically cannot do anything briskly.
As I rested from the hill, walking carefully to avoid the icy patches I had slipped on the week before, I wondered about the way God designed things. I felt utterly amazed that a woman went through something like this for every single person who is alive.
You don’t get human life without this experience.
It is a privilege, but it’s also a task, a heavy one at that. My stomach has been unhappy all day long. I’ve felt both full and weak.
I’ve lumbered up and down the grocery store aisles and leaned heavily on the cart for balance. I spoke with the owner at Vino, a wine and cheese store, requesting some brie. I told him I was pregnant and so didn’t want to buy a whole wheel of it, given that my doctor has encouraged me to limit my intake to one portion a week.
“Are you sure you’re pregnant?” he somewhat pointedly asked.
I smiled wryly at him. He has little idea what it’s like to go from having to tell everyo
ne that you really are pregnant to watching others stare at your abdomen and ignore your face–all in a matter of a few weeks.
The prospect of traveling to speak in San Diego Tuesday, Vail on Friday and then to Diego again the following Tuesday feels enormous. I’ll have Dale with me on the first two trips, but will probably travel alone next week.
I’ve never felt my vulnerability as much as I do now. The world is not designed to be navigated and successfully engaged for seven month pregnant women, sidewalks are too slippery, parking spaces too far, terminal corridors too long, grocery stores too big, luggage too heavy and snow too thick.
Pregnancy makes me think of the interdependence of men and women, as Paul says,
“For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. It is for this reason that a woman ought to have authority over her own head, because of the angels. Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. For as woman came from man, so also man is born of woman. But everything comes from God.” 1 Cor 11:8-12
This mutual interdepence is something I feel every day now. Of course, this is one of my hard days where I feel my dependency on all those stronger than me. But my weakness is due to the work my body does in making a home for a boy, who will one day be a man, who will one day (I hope) help others who are weaker than him.
At home, after getting the mail, a process more involved out in the country than just opening a mailbox, and then putting the groceries away I did manage to ask for help from the man in my life.
I asked Dale to help me finish my laundry which involved a lot more instructions due to silk long-johns and wool scarves and other unmentionables that required special care and attention. He did it all beautifully. Meanwhile I finished putting my clothes away.
I watched the Incredibles and sat glowing in expectation for my dinner meal, which is the payment I receive for the piano lesson I gave earlier today.
Another glimmer was a package in our mailbox I just opened, a beautifully hand-crocheted baby blanket from my dear friend Jodi Holman, a woman I’ve been friends with since we were in diapers. Along with her exquisite labor of love came a baby size pair of blue jeans, a red flannel collared shirt, a matching faux fur trimmed aviator style hat lined in the same red flannel.
Little moments like these make the days more than just tolerable.
A few weeks later . . . (after learning that some of my fatigue was due to a sinus infection and completing the crazy week of travel to San Diego 2 times and once to Vail in which I rediscovered my love for speaking, ministering and then resting at home again) . . .
Little did I know that these last few days I’ve been actually training myself for a late night evidence that my body is actually stronger than I thought. Coming home from San Diego the 2nd time I decided that I had the strength to work out in some manner every day, even if this “working out” means a short walk.
So this last Friday I went on a snow shoe with the dogs and yesterday I actually swam 12 laps at the local pool, even while popping out of my pre-pregnancy tankini. Feeling very proud of myself yesterday I did another snow show before the snow fell by multiple inches.
There was over a feet covering our road by the time we made it home from our house church celebration late last night. Dale had just commented on how he worries on nights like this about getting stuck on the final steep “S” turn before we turn right into our driveway and having to walk up the rest of the way.
“I don’t think you can walk up that far,” he explained as he navigated the slippery road.
Indignant I disagreed.
Less than five minutes later we slid off the road into the ditch. We tried several times to power out and get back on the road, but the snow was like whipped meringue, it pulled us farther backwards, farther to the side until I felt more horizontal than vertical in my passenger’s seat. I wound my scarf around my neck, jammed my gloves and hat on and clambered out of the car on the driver’s side. My side would have left me waist deep in a snow bank.
You know, given that I had to walk over a 2/10 of a mile in knee deep snow, up a steep road, at 10 pm at night, in a tight pencil skirt and platform boots (waterproof, incredibly stable and comfortable, mind you!), in 25 degree weather (which, crazy as it sounds, really felt mostly warm except for the occasional wind), I did very well.
I’m very proud of my pregnant little body today, amazed at the strength I still had in me, amazed that my legs carried me and Birdie steady and true up, up, up the road, up, up, up the driveway, through the path into our warm house.
I’m determined to keep enjoying the tremendous compact feeling of having a child in my womb without having to worry about keeping him warm, fed, clothed, changed or burped… how marvelously compact he is. I’m delighted that pregnancy is so self-sustained that Birdie could stay warm and safe while I did the work of hiking.
I can get up for a 6am flight and not worry about waking him, I can swim laps at the local pool and not worry about watching over him, I can take all the leisure I need to get myself ready and not worry about bathing him. Of course when I get to worry about all these things, I plan to embrace them, but for now, I’m enjoying the portability of my son.
Posted in pregnancy | Comments (12)
