Equinox Gratitude

My mother's spirit is here with me in the kitchen

as Whitney Houston's "I Love The Lord" blares

five feet from where I chop zucchini and carrots 

for an Italian sausage soup about to be shared 

with my spiritual sisters on this Equinox.  

My daughter is having pancakes out of my sight

in the company of friends who take pictures of her 

picking her nose and send them by text. It's hilarious. 

My spouse is pounding the key board 

downtown in his stark office that in no way reflects

all the grunt, sacrifice, and effort he pours into this city. 

My body is full, aching and intense from carrying a pregnancy

that made itself known on Valentines Day. 

"Love child" in deed. Ever since. Coming forth soon (God willing). 

The sounds and smells and sensations 

of this house

are the sacraments of my life. 

I am/we are this music. 

I am/we are this food. 

I am/we are this seasonal change.

I am/we are this laughter.

I am/we are this social justice. 

I am/we are this third trimester. 

I am/we are this love. This God. This gratitude ongoing. 

Writing Isaiah Entry #19

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Writing Isaiah 

Entry #19 

September 16th 2013

Lyssa Howley

I must admit when you asked me to think of a prompt for your pregnancy blog I was both honored, that you believe I could inspire something creative and beautiful out of you, and bewildered because I'm not a parent, because I anxiously await the day I become a mother both with hopefulness and fear. There are a million things I could ask you about parenting Aurora and Isaiah. In fact, there are a million things I want to ask you. But something much more painful and "fleshy" resides with me right now. Co-existing with a sibling can be one of the most life-giving and life-sucking experiences. As an older sister, I carry a deep love for my mini-me, who is nothing like me. Who inspires constant joy and a constant sense of helplessness. Adding another being into the mix will surely bring both joy and helplessness, love and pain to Aurora in the years to come. My question lies in here, somewhere. What truths do you already hold about this whole sibling dynamic? What are your hopes, fears, nuggets of wisdom, and elements of unknown around this new relationship--Aurora as an older sister, Isaiah as a younger brother?

Emily Joye McGaughy-Reynolds 

So, Lyssa, honey, I know nothing. Seriously. I've never had a sibling. Not in the traditional sense, anyways. I have a half brother and half sister, biologically. But I didn't meet them until I was 30. That's late. And the man who raised me until I was 13 had a daughter and son, who came for visits sometimes, but we weren't "related." You know? Feels almost impossible for me to answer this question you've posed given my sheer ignorance, my lack of experience, the absence of context that I bring to this topic. 

Almost impossible. 

I can, though, offer my hope, which is, in essense, born of the absence of siblings in my life. So maybe I do have a context. But it seems like my thoughts are more projections of what can be based on my experience of what has not been. That may or may not make sense to you. Let me be more concrete. I've watched other families all my life. Families that had multiple parents, multiple children, big ole families, the kind where kids had each other as much as they had their parents. And I watched with absolute fascination. Like a total outsider, taken with something foreign, strange, alluring. As a kid I felt so alone most of the time. My mom's presence was the one and only constant, but even in that relationship there were differences that couldn't be bridged--mostly the age difference, but there were others. When I watched siblings, I saw something that I projected "less aloneness" onto. I imagined that those sisters or brothers or sister/brother combos had a love in each other's company that rendered them less alone. And honestly I suspect that I was right in some cases. When I look at J.R. and his sister Susan, I know without a doubt that their relationship makes both of their lives better, more full of love. When I think of how my friend Ian and his brother Pat connected with each other as little one's living in the shadows of parental alcoholism, I know their sibling relationship literally saved them. When my girl Anna talks about the protection she feels toward her sister Emily, I know there is sacred union between them. All this to say: when I was projecting less aloneness onto the various pairs under my observation, I was probably right if their relationships played out like any of the ones I just mentioned.   

But I've also been in the pastoring/counseling business long enough to know that sibling relationships don't always feel like gold. In fact, some feel like shit, from day one forward. That's what I hear anyways. Siblings can fight all their lives. They can betray each other. They can come undone under sibling rivalry, jealousy and the need to be #1 in the sight of their parents. It's pretty relevant, to me anyways, that the first story of murder in the Bible happens brother to brother. The question "Am I my brother's keeper?" resounds as the ultimate indictment of patriarchal, competitive masculinity in the site of God. But I've seen/heard/known some serious unrest between sisters too. 

So, yes, I carry large fear that something will trigger them into hatred of each other. But fear rarely serves me. Instead I find myself concentrating on/questioning/pondering/curious about how and why sibling relations can turn out so differently? 

Like, why do some siblings connect and deepen their love throughout life? Why do some have a prickly orientation toward one another that just grows worse with each passing year? And all those in between, the more nuanced sibling relationships that contain love, hatred, camaraderie, jealousy, indifference, grief--why do those function the way they do? Since I try to not be compartmentalized in my thinking, it's at this point that I'll admit I think multiple factors influence this stuff: biology, culture, parental expectations, the role of emotion in family systems, religion, class, gender, the list goes on and on. And I wonder given all those different factors, that are each quite complex in their own right, how a parent can influence siblings for the good. I think parents do have some power in this regard. Not all power, but definitely enough to take that power seriously. So the question for me, today, is how I might use my parental power to interact with Aurora and Isaiah, individually and as a pair, in ways that bring about meaning, connection, intimacy and love between them. 

I find behaviorist psychology a rather mixed bag, honestly. But I am a firm believer in the power of reinforcing/rewarding positive behavior and ignoring/punishing bad behavior as a way of conditioning future behavior. I know "good and bad behavior" are subjective and this stuff gets much more complicated as life goes on. But right now, it doesn't feel so complicated to me. Like, things that put Aurora in danger are bad. I make sure to say "no" or to block her from moving in directions of harm. Good things look like exploration, creativity, safe risk, connection with others. I make sure to say "thank you" or "what an amazing thing you just did!" when Aurora does good stuff. One thing I plan to do very early on is reward any/all of what Aurora does to show affection to her little brother. When she exhibits care for him, I plan to shower her with praise and affirmation. When Isaiah gets old enough to do the same toward her, I will, again, very intentionally try to reward that good behavior. Like wise, when they interact in ways that are harmful, I will either ignore it (if it feels like attention-seeking behavior) or verbally put a stop to it. It's not rocket science and even typing this feels overly simplistic. And it won't always work. But that's one of my approaches. 

Another approach to parenting that I find super helpful is one that puts relational modeling at the core of teaching power. Like I really really believe that we learn how to do relationships by watching/experiencing how our care givers are in relationship with themselves, with us and how they are in relationship with others. In essence, I think Aurora and Isaiah will learn a lot about how to be in relationship with each other by watching how J.R. and I are in relationships of various kinds. How we treat others. How we allow others to treat us. How we treat each other. How we treat them, again, individually and as a pair. This will all go a long long way in conditioning their behavior. So obviously relationships of integrity, honesty, authenticity, peace and love are what I want to cultivate in their presence. 

The family I married into is a total bonus when it comes to relational modeling. Sometimes I wish people could see the J.R. I see, not just the public J.R. He is unbelievable with his mother and sister. I think he's grown into this loving capacity over time, as he'll be the first to tell you that he's made some mistakes with family in the past. But now, my God. There's nothing he won't do for his family. He shows up. He spends time. He shows interest. He says kind things and laughs over shared family humor. He gives loving touch. He comes to their aid in times of loss or crisis. He does annoying tasks to help out around the house. He consults their wisdom. He shares his stories with them. It's beautiful. And it's something that I am learning from because I had very little in the way of family or extended family growing up. Our kids will be better for what he brings in the way of family knowledge. I think I offer them incredible resources/tools/experience when it comes to family by choice and relationships with larger community. But J.R. is the expert when it comes to the blood line. I'm so glad we are a team because both are important. I am especially grateful that Aurora and Isaiah will grow up seeing J.R. and Aunt Susan interact with each other. Their sibling relationship inspires me. I hope it inspires my kids too. 

Now, to be concrete about my hope. I hope they love each other fiercely. I hope they find refuge in each other's presence. I hope they come to know their similarities and differences as siblings in ways that make them attentive to the similarities and differences of all people--and that attentiveness makes them appreciative and celebratory of what humans share and the diversity that characterizes our species. I hope they watch each other struggle and mess up and learn compassion, patience, tenderness and forgiveness in those moments. I hope they teach each other how to care deeply and how to let go of what you cannot control. I hope they push each other, hard, to become the best they can be because they have a shared sense of pride about who they are and where/who they come from. I hope they render each other less alone. I do. But more than anything I hope they find in each other's company, a portion of the living God, that can only be manifest in those who call themselves kin.     

I'd really love to hear "how to raise good siblings" advice from those of you out there who have experience to share. Especially you, Lyssa. Something tells me I have a lot to learn from you, big sister extraordinaire. 

A Letter to My Firstborn 6 Weeks Before the Due Date of Baby Number Two

Dear Aurora: 

I hail from Queerville. 

Well, that's not true. But I like to claim it.

I wasn't lucky enough to be born in Castro or Greenwich;

I actually hail from second generation middle class white Los Angeles suburbia.

Queerville saved me. Actually Queerville brought you into being,

which was a part of my saving, but more on that at another time. 

What I'm trying to say is that 

anything I've done right and anything about me that's wise 

came from an accumulated clear-as-a-bell smartness 

belonging to the queers, the gays and lesbians, the bold bi's,

those who cross and switch and twerk and flame, 

the tender and fierce transfolks, the awesome androgynes,

the polys and kink-inclined. All of them--

they taught me true love, Aurora. It's that simple.

And because they taught me true love, I am now struggling 

(in a way that's not foreign to being human)

with what I know versus what I feel. 

Queers also taught me that knowing and feeling aren't separate,

so in a sense, this struggle is quite faithful. So I must listen to it.

Listen, like radically, listen. 

They taught me that there is always enough love

and any perceived deficit 

is probably some kind of trauma-induced pain that needs working. 

They taught me that, yes, there are limits on/to love, but not deficits 

and learning the difference between limits and deficits 

is how you heal that trauma induced pain. 

So for years I've been learning and swimming in and sometimes resisting 

the spaces betweeen my perceived deficits and truthful limits. 

In all honesty, I think I'm doing pretty good these days, at the age of 32. 

Anything the queers taught me about love, you, Aurora, have solidified,

albeit unknowingly, with the grace of your presence in my life. 

Mothering is just a doubling down on any lesson of love you've learned 

prior to the occassion of becoming a parent. 

All this to say: I've learned and I've become better. Thank God. 

But right now, staring into the future, there is something calling out to me

to be rigorously honest about how perceived deficits/limits 

are fuzzing like some impossibly gorgeous horizon 

induced by a sunset that you just don't want to quit.  

You see: you and I have about 6 weeks left together. 

Your brother, Isaiah, is supposed to be born on October 24th

and while every ounce of me can't wait to behold him,

every ounce of me is also grieving the loss of me and you. 

Not that we are going anywhere, but a glacial shift is about to happen between us.

There is always always always loss in change. 

And you're too young to get what this change will entail for us.

I feel kinda guilty about that,

but more than anything I feel responsible 

for our collective grief--yours and mine--

in an anticipatory way. 

I am so fucking in love with you. 

What your little life does to me in indescribable. 

What I see in your eyes

What I hear in your babble

What I feel in holding your toddler body

What I sense in witnessing your becoming--

I am so fucking in love with you. 

Part of me is reluctant to share that love. 

There I said it. 

There's a part of me that still believes,

somewhere down deep, 

even though the queers taught me different,

and i "know" different,

that I only have so much room

and only have so many resources

and only have so much time

and only have so many ways

to love

and that when Isaiah arrives 

some of what's available in me will go to him

and you will be left wanting--

the thought of which makes me spiritually sick

and sorrowful in my guts.   

Is this some capitalist-imperialist ideology in me?

Or as the spiritualists would say: "deficit model thinking"? 

For a long time I thought it would be just me and you. 

Just me and you and you and me. 

Maybe it's because I (mostly) grew up with a single  mom

and learned to trust life in that dyad. Or maybe it's because 

I never thought I'd settle into a romantic relationship secure enough

to also contain parenting alongside romance and knew knew knew

I couldn't parent more than one by myself. But up until J.R. arrived

and then Isaiah came along, I thought it'd be momma and kid, only. 

I was prepared for that. I'm not prepared for this. 

I'm not prepared to share my heart with any other little being than you. 

I want to give you everything I have. 

I don't want to have to choose between you and anything else, ever. 

I don't want to be split. 

I want ultimate harmony with you, 

a circadian dance where your needs, the legit ones,

are met by the innate supply G-d has implanted in mommies

for the eternal supply of offspring. 

I'm not prepared for this. 

This morning you woke up late. 

I brought you into bed with me, 

so you could drink your bottle and I could give snuggles

all at the same time. 

Just lingering in that moment, 

feeling the fleeting seconds go by--

will we have this kind of time in 3 months from now?-- 

was enough to bring me to tears. 

And so I stayed. 5 minutes turned to 10.

10 minutes to 20. 20 to 45. 

I was late for work and couldn't care less. 

And then, then I had to write. 

Because even though you will only be this little for so long

and even though I will only have one child for so long

there is nothing that can take my written words away. 

 

When you are older

and I am gone

or I'm still here but you are curious about what it used to be like,

I want you to read this and know-- 

that in the last weeks before Isaiah was born

you were in my constant thoughts

and i was summoning every lesson from Queerville 

that I could possibly summon

because I need to believe, now more than ever, 

that love will make room, will expand, will multiply,

will unlock places in me that i never even knew existed. 

Because I've never ever ever loved anything the way I love you

and I want every single thing that I do, 

including giving birth to and raising another child,

to make my love of you more palpable, more felt, more real. 

The queers have never lied, never led me astray. 

If you understand, years from now, from the context of our relationship,

or in the Spirit of this writing, the difference between limits and deficits,

and most importantly about the power of love 

to create more of itself from itself,

please be sure to give credit where credit is due. 

That is all I ask. 

Love, 

Momma 

A Snapshot

That's my pelvis. 

Pressure. 

Those are my dreams. 

Tornadoes in the distance. 

These are my feet. 

Swollen. 

This is today. 

A snapshot. 

That's my family. 

Like the best mix tape you ever heard. 

Those are my blog entries. 

Word from flesh. 

These are my hopes. 

Expressed. 

Those are the freedoms I miss. 

Flexibility and time alone. 

These are the hands I cannot live without. 

J.R. 

That's my heart walking around in a body. 

Aurora. 

This is 32.5 weeks, full full full. 

Isaiah coming. 

Writing Isaiah Entry #18

Writing Isaiah 

Entry #18

September 5 2013

Lois Parr

Hey...so many things to think about on this side of pregnancy...with two sons who live on the other side of the country, following dreams and becoming who they are meant to be. There is no wonder that you are always writing about body/flesh-y things, as you are an interpreter of Incarnation (THE Incarnation, big I, of Christian belief; all incarnation, word/God-made-flesh in everyone/living thing. So...because I am (we are) so often thinking/doing the examination of the intersections of oppressions, I am wanting to ask you (a young womyn who could be my daughter) about the unfinished business of the feminist movement of the generations before me and of my generation: which is to say, the way that sexism hurts the men we love. I should back up to say that I so wanted a daughter, and when I had sons, I asked Gloria Steinem (really, I did this in a huge auditorium) "how do I raise my sons to be feminists the way I had planned to raise my daughter?" her response was something like "pretend they are your daughters." But then I had two sons, and you have Aurora & Isaiah...how do we help our sons be the kind of men who understand the fullness of their own humanity (yes, this could be about the body, too, or about queerness...but I am talking about things like the willingness to cry in public, or to listen better, or to re-define what "strong" means...if you know what I mean...

Emily Joye McGaughy-Reynolds

This prompt elicited two immediate responses from me: grief and sluggishness. For many many years, from a place of unmistakable woundedness, I had no investment in men understanding their humanity because in all honesty I didn't think they had any. So when I read your prompt I felt grief for that period of my life and for the ways in which I can still lose hope in men (which happens more often than I would like to admit). Then I felt sluggish: can I even write about this? Can I write about the way "sexism hurts the men we love?" I feel like such an amateur at loving men, like truly loving them. And when it comes to my feminism (and the unfinished business of the movement), I feel much safer working in the realm of loving/empowering/serving womyn. However, I know, because I've listened deeply, again and again, to your generation of feminists and to my own conscience, that we cannot leave men out of feminist practice/theory/realities/movements. It only serves to solidify patriarchy. And having said that, there's still a little voice within, an old begrudging voice, that claims: 'just don't make them the center of everything because they already are, everywhere.' Just the other day I was talking to J.R. about how hard it is for me to witness other white anti-racist activists get all buddy buddy in communities of color but refuse to do the work among their own kind. It seems to me a disavowal of where 'some' of the 'real' disruption of oppressive dynamics and infusion of loving subversion needs to take place. I guess what I'm saying is that I hope to see and act, clearly and decisively, where oppression actually is. And since I know so much oppression exists inside of men and gets enacted through men, I cannot possibly hold up the feminist banner without being willing to hold/fight/love them. 

And, having said all that, the big queer in me, capital Q, wants to deconstruct the very premise of the conversation by pushing back on the notion of static gender. But that's not what you've asked me to do here. I'm going to employ some 'strategic essentialism' (to use Spivak's theory) in the full knowledge that doing so runs risks, probably does harm, and limits me but it's risk, potential harm and limits I'm willing to face. Why? Because I've done lots of work around gender deconstruction, but very little in the way of parenting a  feminist son (if he indeed becomes a son, which he might and might not). I think I need this exploration for the sake of parenting prep and spiritual maturity. 

About a year ago I was invited by a lesbian couple from Koinonia to attend their middle child's baseball game out in the country between Battle Creek and Union City. Kolin, their son, was one of my favorite youth of the church: spunky, curious, outspoken, active. I wanted to show up for him and, as you know, I love baseball. So this was a no-brainer. When I came up to the ballpark, I noticed right away that these were all rural, working class families, totally white and with the exception of Kelly & Bene (the mommas), totally gender-conforming and hetero. As the game  started, I settled in but I was on-guard, particularly as I listened to one of the assistant coaches (a dad) berate his own kid and use rather demeaning language with Kolin's entire team. I asked Kelly & Bene about him and they both confirmed that he was quite a piece of work. Once he was on my radar, I became hyper-vigilant about watching him. Every time one of the kids made a mistake on the field he would scoff, verbally lash out, or enact some kind of disapproval with his body language. At one point, two players from the outfield--ten year old boys--took too long getting to their positions before the inning started because they were busy chatting each other up and this man yelled out "what are you two girlfriends or something? get to your positions!" What finally made me have to get up and leave is when this man's own son got hit by a pitch in the arm, hard, came walking off the field in tears, clutching himself in pain, and his dad told him to stop being a little "bitch" and to "be a man" after taking a brief look at the kid's injury and surmising it wasn't cause for tears. The entire scenario felt like a case study in "Why and How Men Get Fucked Up Before They Hit Puberty." I left feeling sick to my stomach. I also left wondering if I should have said something--for Kolin's sake, for that son's sake, for Kelly & Bene's sake, but I didn't have enough love in me to say something for that man's sake, so I didn't. I also left with this deep suspicion that the man himself, the dad who couldn't handle an iota of vulnerability or intimacy or injuriability or emotionality in/between men, was gay. And I've gotta say: this was my experience with men at the VA again and again. The most hyper-masculine men I've known have often been drawn to homosocial space (the military, the church, sports) without having to confront the 2 basic drives motivating their need for homosociality: 1) their relentless agenda to prove their masculinity because underneath it all there's a fear of the feminine within & 2) they truly desire time spent with other males but can't just admit that desire without opting into some kind of institutional logic that condones it to the larger public under the guises of service/sacrifice/competition/heroism (read: patriarchy). 

The two basic drives I've named above make sense given how male supremacist, heterosexist, homophobic and sexist our world is. It's also true, however, that everyone, absolutely everyone, needs institutional, cultural, public, social space to work out their identity and to form relational bonds. So when it comes to feminist parenting of a son, my hope is to both provide space and to help my son locate/navigate spaces of his own where identity formation and socialization can happen with integrity. But there's a problem: many of those spaces simply don't exist for men. This is partially their own fault. Many of them, even the best of them, have been conditioned not to create those spaces because the stuff of social life has been considered womyn's domain. They buy into that lie at their peril. But they also spend way too much time fleeing those spaces because their privilege would be threatened by authentic intimacy with others. I've had more than one man bicker and complain that there are "so many options for fellowship/intimacy for womyn at church but nothing for men." But those same men do nothing to organize spaces for themselves. And I think underlying that is a fear of the intimacy that at once promises to comfort and challenge them. True relational engagement requires authenticity, intimacy, vulnerability, a certain level of emotional porousness & precarity (to use Butler's language)--all the stuff we strip men of from the get go. Their levels of physical guardedness, emotional shut-downness, and spiritual defensiveness--and there are exceptions to this generalization--can often smack me in the face when we are in a room together for less than 5 minutes. If they aren't willing to hear about that, I don't want to be in space with them. And I'm not alone in that. Many of the womyn I know, trans/queer/gay men and emotionally integrated cis/straight men too, often comment that being in the company of men is hard because there's no there there. That's what privilege does. It strips us of our capacity to be real because we are busy holding up some facade that in some how/some way appears to 'benefit' us. This is true in predominantly white circles too, I'm afraid. Anyways, all this to say, finding genuine community, spaces for identity formation and socialization is what life, real fucking life, is all about. But that is nearly impossible for those of us who swim in the kinds of privilege and supremacy that cut us off from authentic, honest intimacy with ourselves and each other. Patriarchy is a number one offender in this regard. 

You add to this dynamic the way black men, in specific, are criminalized and sexually fetishized in this culture and it's a recipe for disaster. I fear, dreadfully fear, the intersections of oppression my son will face. But I do not fear more than I believe in and take hope from the power of a Liberator God at work in the world. I'm not just thinking about feminist parenting these days. I need to be a freedom/peace activist and anti-racist parent up in my household too. It's all connected right? So up to this point I've been looking at external/ish dynamics. But now I want to perhaps implicate myself a bit more. What is at the heart of feminism? What would it look like to enact feminism as a mom to Aurora and Isaiah (knowing they will learn both from direct experience with me and from watching me parent the other)? What would it look like to enact feminism as a spouse to J.R. who is spouse to me and father to them (one by choice, one by blood)? What would it look like to enact feminism in my daily walk with God? I think it's true that you teach/ingrain values more by living them than by talking about them. So. Here's my plan. 

The central messages of feminism are, for me, about equality and love of womyn. That is: all genders are equal and loving womyn is important/good/holy/necessary. Maybe I will get into a little gender deconstruction after all. 

There's this passage in Isaiah (the prophetic book) that comes to mind. It's about a time when "they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." (2:3-4) I often think of the human body as the terrain where the gender wars take up swords on each other. That is, I think all of us are pretty gender multiplicitious yet live in a gender binaried system that prioritizes the myth of bodies being one gender (innately "complimentary" to the "other" gender). Judith Butler has said this so much better than I ever could. So I won't go any further. But I will return to Isaiah. I long for the feminist/prophetic time in history when bodies will no longer be at war within themselves or at war with each other, when we can put our swords down and not cut any gendered reality out, and in fact love love love the many gendered nations within and around us. So: i want to love my sons gendered embodiment in its multiplicity. I want to love my daughter's gendered embodiment in its multiplicity. Same goes for J.R. And for myself. And the congregants I serve. And I want to love them all equally, no matter how impossible that may seem/feel/be. What does that love look like tangibly? Looking, listening, affirming, touching, sharing. Being open to change. Being open to what's foreign. Being open to what's true even when, especially when, it challenges me. Being open to (more/new) love. Being open to being loved (in return). Being open to feedback about the shit I'm not being open to/about. Being a plowshare instead of a sword, which is actually quite difficult for me because i still sometimes believe in and have engrained fear of the constructed masculine and hatred of the constructed feminine and reluctance to w/holy-lovingly-embrace what's Queer/non-conforming/crossing/transgressing in me and you and them and us. Being honest about how hard it is to be a plowshare in these systems even when you honestly and desperately want to put down your sword if for no other reason than you're tired of bleeding yourself. Yeah, I think we stop going to war when we do the hard work of loving equally. Feminist parenting of son rule #1: love all genders equally. 

Loving womyn, specifically. I answered this question for Chris Kindy, kind of, and so I want to go down a different rabbit hole. I've been thinking a lot lately about what it means that I've married a man. And what that will say to my children about where my priorities lie in terms of love. And I've been thinking about the fact that J.R. married a white womyn and what that will say to his children about where his priorities lie in terms of love. Can I still embody a same-gender loving ethic within a heterosexual marriage? Can J.R. love blackness in the midst of a mixed-race marriage? There's a part of me that wants to scream out "YES, of course we can!" But/and. We must contend with the fact that our choices do signify a kind of prioritization. But/and my hope is that the priority is love over identity. Yikes, that's scary to write. My hope is that our love for each other stands next to the other powers of love we hold, and that they stand next to each other in ways that strengthen and cross-pollenate as opposed to erase each other. I think part of that is how well J.R. embodies feminism and how well I respect and highly regard blackness. If you've chosen to love someone who loves what you are, that says something about how you love yourself. I hope Isaiah and Aurora can see the love of womyn and the love of blackness, albeit lived out very differently, through both of their parents. Wouldn't that affirm their own realities? I gotta hope so. There's more at work in them than color and gender and, again, there is more than one gender and more than one color at work in this family, so obviously it's bigger than just these slices of life, but these slices of life are highly contested and so they require a whole lot of attentive, focused, specific love. Right? Feminist parenting of son rule #2: love womyn (and all other marginalized spaces/bodies/life) specifically. 

One last thing. Last night in a womyn's group at church, where we are studying Geneen Roth's book "Women Food and God," a bunch of women talked about the significance a certain passage had on them. It was about how feelings just need tender room to be acknowledged and expressed. Like, what if our mothers and fathers and coaches and teachers had said "come here, sit down. what's wrong? what hurts? tell me all about it. i want to know more" when we were in pain? It took me back to the day on the baseball field. It took me back to that dad who was berating his son for being in pain and shaming his son for expressing that pain. I bet his dad did that to him and his dad's dad before, and so on and on and on. I want to offer something else. I want to coach my son's baseball team and receive every painful tear lovingly along side cheering every home run jubilantly. And when the father's witnessing a new kind of coaching of their sons begin to weep for the parts of themselves left abandoned, berated, and shamed on the little league fields of their childhoods--I want to receive every painful tear of theirs too, in the embrace of authentic, honest love between equals. Something tells me if my son sees that, he'll be okay. And if he doesn't play baseball--well--that's another blog entry for another day.

Thanks friend. 

Sabbath Gratitude

Exodus 20:8-11

⁸ Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
⁹ Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:
¹⁰ But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: ¹¹ For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

Thank you
God
for the Sabbath.
For this moment of watching the Tigers play the Red Sox.
Thank you for sending my spouse home
on his lunch break
so that he can eat the sandwich, vegetables and beet chips
I have lovingly prepared.
Thank you for Fall encroaching,
for what I can smell and sense of it already in the air.
Thank you for the email I just received from Sandra,
a simple check in, but profound to me nonetheless.
Thank you for a day off. For a day off. A DAY OFF.
Thank you for the growing boy in my belly,
whose kicks are getting stronger by day
and harder to ignore at night.
Thank you for my daughter, my daughter,
this sensational daughter whose laughter is a light
a lift and drift into love like i've never known it.
Thank you for a home
where calm and quiet surround me, unbind me, soothe me.
Thank you
God
for the Sabbath.
Thank you
God
for my life,
my perfect life.
Thank you
God
that on the Sabbath
I can return to the truth of my life's perfection
and rest in the luxury of gratitude.
Thank you
God.