little thoughts

{pretty, happy, funny, real} – the beginnings of Advent

Posted on 2015-12-032015-12-03 by kristinabean

Advent is blossoming slowly in our home this year, growing from the seed of a single candle, small and lonely in the darkness, but bearing the power of eternal hope. There’s been a lot more “real” than “pretty” or “happy” this week but I’m realizing that Advent doesn’t have to be a big or glamorous production to invite wonder into my heart or introduce the hushed anticipation of the season to my children.

For me, the most beauty has come in re-discovering the ancient Advent hymns, including one of my all-time favorites:

Let all mortal flesh keep silence,
And with fear and trembling stand;
Ponder nothing earthly minded,
For with blessing in His hand,
Christ our God to earth descending
Comes our homage to demand.

King of kings, yet born of Mary,
As of old on earth He stood,
Lord of lords, in human vesture,
In the body and the blood;
He will give to all the faithful
His own self for heavenly food.

Rank on rank the host of heaven
Spreads its vanguard on the way,
As the Light of light descendeth
From the realms of endless day,
Comes the powers of hell to vanquish
As the darkness clears away.

At His feet the six winged seraph,
Cherubim with sleepless eye,
Veil their faces to the presence,
As with ceaseless voice they cry:
Alleluia, Alleluia
Alleluia, Lord Most High!

I love how it weaves together the themes of all His comings – the Incarnation at Christmas, His coming into each of our lives as our Lord and King, His presence with us in the Eucharist, and His Second Coming when He will completely conquer sin and death. Though right now we’re specifically remembering the waiting for His birth, there’s a sense in which we both wait for Him and meet Him every day – hailing Him as our Lord, consuming Him in the bread and the wine, longing for Him to come finally and fully heal and redeem all things.

In the meantime, while we wait, we do the little things we can do remember Him and prepare for His coming. I may not have a beautiful handmade wreath this year, but I can get out my plastic evergreen backup wreath and still light the candles and sing the hymns and point my eyes to heaven. I may not have any sort of tree to use for the Jesse Tree devotional, but I can still read the stories with my children and see how God has been writing His plan of salvation through all the pages of history.

He is coming. Into this darkness, He is coming with hope. And I, in my brokenness and inadequacy and sin, am holding desperately onto that hope. In this crossroads between my reality and His promises, I am finding the heart of Advent this year.

(Joined to the link-up at Like Mother, Like Daughter today – the theme is Advent this week, and everyone’s first beginnings of the season, so there should be a lot of beauty there.)

musings

the eucharist

Posted on 2015-12-022015-11-29 by kristinabean

I’m hungry for it.

I sat in church Sunday night and sang the Advent songs and read the corporate prayers from centuries past and listened to the pastor preaching on the redemptive hope God brings to the most unlikely people and my heart was filled with a deep ache, a powerful longing, a thirst and a hunger.

They called us up for Communion and they didn’t say what they normally say – that the bread and the wine represent the body and blood of Christ. No, they quoted Jesus and said that it is His body and His blood and I thought, “I wish it was.”

The nature of the Eucharist was (and maybe still is) the strangest of all Catholic doctrines to me when I first encountered it; like the disciples in John 6, it almost made me want to turn away because it is so hard to understand and accept. We’ve had centuries of Christians trying to explain it away when maybe we should be taking it seriously… I thought maybe I would just forget about it and instead study the other points of difference, and wait to see how God would move.

And sitting in a Protestant church, I felt an incredibly deep hunger for the presence of God – to feel Him in me, tangibly, here and now, because here and now is where and when I need Him, in my weakness and in my sin. Broken, I need His wholeness; thirsty, I need His living water; struggling, I need His grace. As I sat there, I hungered for His body, broken for me, for the true Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. I’m not even sure if I believe it yet, intellectually, but emotionally my heart was telling me that I need it.

Sigh.

Show me Your way, Lord, and light my path with Your Word, that my feet might not stray from the truth. I know that You are true, and righteous, and holy; draw me near to You.

musings

some thoughts on the nature of sin

Posted on 2015-12-012015-11-29 by kristinabean

I’ve been thinking about what exactly sin is, lately, and struggling to find a good definition for it. Working in secular academia, especially in medical science, I’ve noticed a major definition for “sin” revolving around a preoccupation with physical wellness: that if something damages your health or the health of those around you, it’s wrong and you should either not do it or make some sort of atonement for it. In my own life, growing up as a perfectionist, I tended to operate with the attitude that a social mistake or an academic failure was a sin – getting a B on a test or being ignorant of something I thought I should have known could send me into a tailspin for days, until I could somehow work my way back to “perfection.”

Obviously, I don’t think either of those are the Christian understanding of sin. And I’m left feeling like there’s something lacking with the simple definition of sin as “disobedience to God,” as true as that is. There are just so many situations in which God hasn’t given explicit instructions, but in which one choice may be completely or partially sinful nonetheless.

One thought I had recently was of defining sin teleologically; that is, that maybe some things are sinful because they are contrary to our design as human creatures. It would explain why something like drunkenness is always considered sinful in a traditional Christian morality, while in our modern culture it is considered ok unless your drunk behavior endangers or hurts someone else: it runs contrary to our purpose as human beings to surrender control of our beings to anything other than God (see Eph. 5:18). This also has been helping me understand a lot of the reasoning behind historical Christian sexual ethics, including the prohibition of contraceptives, because I think they are based on this teleological reasoning as well. Things are sinful if they violate the created purpose of the human person committing the act, or of the act itself. So, in this test case, what is the purpose of the act of sex? What is the purpose of the human person with regards to sex? Those are the questions to ask when wondering why something specific is (or was historically) considered sinful by Christianity – and I think different answers to those questions will necessarily lead to divergent ethical systems.

That teleological question also opens wide the door of self-examination and conviction, while also giving me a way to evaluate feelings of guilt to determine if there is really a sin issue at play. When I forget to make dinner plans, for instance, that is a mistake that I have to apologize to my family for (especially if we’re out of leftovers!), and find a way to work around, but it’s not a sin – it’s simply a weakness inherent in being a non-omniscient creature! On the other hand, when I lose my patience with my boys and snap at them about some small irritant, that is something I both have to apologize for and repent of before God, because it is a symptom of my fallen and sinful state. It is contrary to the purpose and design with which He created me, and someday, when God has fully sanctified me, that impatience will be gone; the forgetfulness about daily chores may not be 😉

I suppose if this becomes my working definition for sin, my new point of argument/difference with people has to move up to what exactly they think human beings are: what is our purpose, what is our design? Are we intended for certain things, or not? If our ethics is founded on our teleology, we’ll have to examine much more deeply what the Bible actually teaches about who we are and who we’re meant to be – which wouldn’t be a bad thing at all.

family life

a birthday for limerick

Posted on 2015-11-302015-11-30 by kristinabean

Look how big this boy is!

It’s so hard to believe that he’s already a year old. It shouldn’t be that hard since he’s been walking for over two months already… and can say practically anything he puts his mind to (he has 35 distinct words already, that he knows and we know and he can use consistently)… but it really is. At the risk of sounding old (or like my father!), where has the time gone? It seems like yesterday he was just a sleepy newborn snuggled up against me all the time – and now he’s wriggling to get away and play at all times except when he’s tired and ready for bed.

We celebrated with my family at my parents’ house with applesauce cake (in honor of Limerick’s first word, “apple”), balloons, and a few presents. Limerick wasn’t sure about the cake, I think mainly because of the frosting, but he was delighted with the balloons, and quite intensely excited about the presents.

He did have some help opening the presents – I thought it would be both easier and more fun for everyone involved if Rondel was allowed to help, and that was definitely the case. Limerick would rather do everything with Rondel than by himself at this point, and Rondel’s birthday was recent enough that he remembered the excitement of opening presents and was eager to do it again!

Anyway, happy birthday, Limerick! Getting to know you this year, as you have grown and begun to show us your very own brilliant personality, has been such a privilege. Your intensity, your focus, your persistence at accomplishing a task you have set for yourself, your internal motivation, and your confidence are wondrous to behold. The eagerness and delight with which you approach life (especially when Rondel is around to make you laugh) bring me joy every day – it’s hard to stay depressed or angry about life when you are bursting with happiness near me about a ball or a puppy or a baby or your own toots!

You remind me to find the happiness in the simple things as well, just by being yourself. And every day I am thankful that God put you in our family, just when we needed you most, and I pray that we can be just as much of a blessing to you as you grow up. I love you, Limerick.

musings

Advent hope

Posted on 2015-11-29 by kristinabean

Is there any better day than the first Sunday of Advent to feel the heartache of longing?

When my house is a mess, I’m exhausted from the holidays, our family routine is in smithereens, the babies aren’t sleeping, my emotions are riding a roller coaster, and I’ve yelled at or spoken sharply to the boys so many times that I can’t see why they even want to be around me anymore, it is good to know that God is bringing hope and healing even into the middle of these messy, ugly, details.

He is coming.

Coming to break through our sinfulness, our weaknesses, our hard hearts, our apathetic spirits, and our pride.

In beauty and vulnerability He is coming.

Let us prepare our hearts for His birth, and make room in our minds and our lives for His coming: let us light the candle of hope today, and remember His promises of redemption. All this, even these endless and mind-numbing failures played out in each hour’s trivial details, can be restored and made beautiful. That is the hope that gives me strength to rise up again in the morning and try, once again, to live in the love He has given me.

(all pictures are from a friend’s wedding, in lieu of actual Advent pictures, since I’m a bit behind on that… they fit my mood though)

family life

riding the light rail

Posted on 2015-11-272015-11-25 by kristinabean

On Tuesday I took the boys to the big park on the light rail train instead of walking the mile to get there like we have in the past (I have a pass since I take the train to work every day, and the boys are still young enough to ride free). The children’s museum we frequent has had a train exhibit up for a while, and part of it is themed after the local light rail train, so Rondel has been even more fascinated by it than usual. I have to admit, I used riding on the train as a sort of bribe to get Rondel to leave the museum when it closed for the day…

Anyway, Limerick just wanted to run around and explore the inside of the train, and was upset that I wouldn’t let him do that, but Rondel was completely entranced by just being on the light rail train. Every time it would start moving again after a stop his whole face would light up and he’d exclaim, “it’s driving!!!” He loved it so much, in fact, that when we got off the light rail after our return journey, he almost broke down in tears because he wanted to get back on and ride some more “right now.”

I was worried that it would be a hassle taking two babies and a stroller on the train but now I see that my worries were baseless, and I’ll have to find more destinations for us to ride to 🙂 It’s such a simple thing but it brings so much happiness.

family life, musings

my gentle parenting thanksgiving day mission statement

Posted on 2015-11-262015-11-26 by kristinabean

Today, I will love my children for who they are, the way they are, and not act as though I would rather them be someone different.

Today, I will advocate for my children’s wellbeing instead of feeling embarrassed when they are unable to adjust to unreasonable adult expectations.

Today, I will be the safe place my children need when they are overwhelmed, overstimulated, tired, hungry, or uncomfortable, instead of ignoring them to focus on my own conversations or activities.

Today, I will be mentally and emotionally present for my children, so that I can observe the warning signs before a meltdown ensues, and protect their privacy and dignity by giving them the rest or space they need to recalibrate.

Today, I will do the best that I can do to ensure that my children remember Thanksgiving Day with the whole extended family as a day of joy and togetherness, despite the potential for chaos and stress. And I will do this not by emphasizing to them what Thanksgiving ought to be about, but by equipping them to handle the special challenges of the holidays with confidence and grace.

family life

help! I’m becoming a critical parent!

Posted on 2015-11-252015-11-24 by kristinabean

Not critical of my kids, though – critical of other parenting styles! A couple incidents a few days ago stood out to me particularly.

Limerick and I were playing at a children’s museum by our home and a little girl about his age was there with her parents. She seemed like a sweet little girl but I never really got to see her personality or how she would interact with Limerick because every time they got within two feet of each other her parents would both say, “Share! Share!” in tones reminiscent of the seagulls in Finding Nemo. So she would extend one of her toys to Limerick, and he would typically look at it, take it and set it down next to her, or walk away. She was holding blocks identical to many others on the floor surrounding them, so he wasn’t approaching her out of interest in the toys per se – he was interested in her, who she was, what she was doing, and so on. But her coached response was essentially, “take this toy and leave me alone.” What can you do with that? Limerick eventually gave up and left her alone.

Not twenty minutes later I was playing with trains with Rondel at the same museum and a couple of older boys (maybe 8-10 years old) came up and started touching and trying to move the train he was playing with. When he said “No!” and moved it away from them, one of them looked up at me and commented on how selfish Rondel was. My response probably surprised him: I said, “Not really – he was playing with that toy and you tried to take it from him. You wouldn’t have liked it either if someone did that to you.” The boys then proceeded to play with a different train in a loud, attention-getting way, trying to get Rondel to notice and think the other one was better, and he did start to notice, but since he doesn’t just walk over and take toys from other kids they weren’t achieving their goal of drawing him away from the first train. Finally I stepped in and told Rondel, “Those boys are wondering if you want to play with the steam train so they can play with the electric train – do you want to switch trains?” And as soon as I asked him in a reasonable and respectful way he agreed to switch and the boys were quite happy.

Neither of these scenarios would have bothered me at all a few years ago; I probably wouldn’t even have noticed. But now they both really bother me. In the first, I just wish those parents would shut up and let their daughter make friends with my son without their constant interference! In both, I felt like I really began to understand what “sharing” is for a child that young: giving up the toy you were playing with (or worse, having it taken away from you) so that someone else can play with it instead. Even at Rondel’s age sharing is a difficult concept: taking turns (he can have that when I am done with it; I can have this when he is done with it) or exchanging (he can have this toy if he gives me that toy) are much easier to understand and implement. So please, parents, don’t ask your young toddler to “share” with my sons – I don’t want them to learn that it is ok to go up to someone and take their toys because they should be sharing them! When Rondel and Limerick are the age of those other boys at the museum, I want them to be able to ask another child for a turn with respect, not expect the other child to immediately give them what they want.

Sigh. I don’t think any of the parents or kids that I encountered were bad (they all seemed pretty nice and well-intentioned, actually) – they just didn’t see my toddlers (or their own toddler) as little people capable of understanding and independence and deserving of basic social respect. I never felt so different in my life before I started trying to let my children unfold naturally instead of pushing and prodding and protecting and reminding them all the time…

family life, musings

facing thanksgiving with a mood disorder

Posted on 2015-11-242015-11-23 by kristinabean

While the general joy of the holiday season begins to creep upon me beginning with Halloween and my birthday, the anxiety of it doesn’t really start for me until now, in the week between Limerick’s birthday and Thanksgiving. I don’t know if everyone has to fight down panic attacks during the holiday season, or intentionally pursue joy while the black tentacles of depression and apathy are pulling them down; I don’t know if everyone feels trapped between the potential of the season and the expectations for the season, faced with a list of people to visit and chores to complete, wondering where the beauty and the significance went. I would imagine there are a lot of us, but I personally only know one other person with any certainty.

With that in mind, what I want to do is to ask the rest of you to be kind and gracious: to realize that we really do love being with family, participating in the festivities, carrying on the fun or meaningful traditions we’ve built with you over the years, but that sometimes the weight of it all is just to great for us to carry. Sometimes the chaos of a joyful family is too overwhelming, the social pressure too intense, the smells and sounds and expectations a perfect storm that threatens all our normal coping mechanisms. When we have to leave early, or take a few moments of solitude to recalibrate, or drop out of the conversation and activity for a while, it’s not because we don’t want to be with you. Will you believe me when I say we’re making a huge effort to be there with you, because we love you and you matter to us?

And for anyone who’s trying to navigate the holidays through anxiety or depression, I feel you. I’ve been there – some years more so than others – and there really isn’t anything positive about it. It’s incredibly hard to stay engaged for hours of small talk, with stress-inducing levels of ambient noise and who knows what other irritants (low light and allergens, anyone?), when your insides feel like a black void or when every defense system in your body is on high alert. It hurts to try so hard to be happy and present only to end up feeling like you’ve failed, and ruined the holidays for someone else.

So please don’t feel guilty about taking the space you need to be you, to be joyful, to remember the big ideals or the little traditions that are meaningful and important to you as an individual. Please don’t feel guilty about advocating for yourself and your own well-being – if it helps, think that there are probably others who will be glad you spoke up because they’re running on fumes as well.

You are loved. You matter. Even if you can only be around for five minutes on Thanksgiving Day because you’re having an episode or an attack, the day will be brighter for everyone else because of those five minutes. When you’re fighting for each moment, sharing it with another person is one of the most precious and valuable gifts imaginable, and anyone who understands will value it accordingly.

family life

a boy and his monkeys

Posted on 2015-11-232015-11-22 by kristinabean

One day, Rondel realized we had three stuffed monkeys in the house.

Despite never showing any attachment to a stuffed animal previously, he decided that these three monkeys were incredibly cute snuggly companions and that they needed to accompany him to as many places as possible.

They sleep on his pillow at night and during naps; they ride in the car and the stroller right next to him; they sit with him on the couch while he plays cars. They even managed to teach him the concept of “three” as opposed to “two” or “many.”

He calls them the Daddy monkey, the Rondel monkey, and the little Limerick monkey (which I think is how I named them months before this sudden rediscovery he made).

They make him happy, and that makes me happy.