Jesus is never too busy for her

In my head, I have a "9-5" which actually much longer than 9-5 but also my unit of productive work. I like to think that at the end of the day when my husband comes home we can share what we did during our "9-5s" My 9-5 has three domains: A) caring for L, B) taking care of the house, and C) academic writing. This week has been a major struggle because time wise A > B > C, but in my heart I was wanting C > B > A. I have a looming deadline to push out a few pages of writing and I am woefully behind. I'm one of those writers who works best when I can "get in the zone". It's not "be in the zone" it's "get in the zone". Getting there takes some doing and frequently, by the time I'm there, L is done with her nap or done with my ignoring her or just done and needing my attention. I grit my teeth and turn to her with unwritten thoughts flying through my head and disappearing into the ether. So that's me: at home but maybe not with my daughter.

In our evening readings this week, N and I read through the Gospel of Mark passing through this passage:

They came to Capernaum. When he was in the house, he asked them, "What were you arguing about on the road?" But they kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest.

Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, "If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all."

He took a little child and had him stand among them. Taking him in his arms, he said to them, "Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me."

~The Gospel of Mark, chapter 9

I blithely tried to put this passage out of my head, but there's no denying the drama. After a stretch of dusty travel, Jesus reveals to his disciples that he overheard them arguing about who was the greatest. They're all sheepish because they got caught, but really they do want to know how they rank because they all think they have personally sacrificed the most and achieved the most. And then Jesus upends everything. What's this stuff about being first and being last? And then he holds up one of Peter and Andrew's cousin's friend's boy and says, "Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me…"

Maybe there are mothers who know in the deepest core of their being at every moment and hour of the day that serving their child is an act of service to God, I am not one of them. More often than not, I think that applying the training I've received over the past 7 years is an act of service to God which is hindered by having to amuse and attend my drooling baby who so wants to be with me that she has crawled under my desk and is sucking on my computer cables. This passage rudely questions my evaluation of things, now doesn't it? It's not that my job as a researcher has no kingdom value, it does. It's more that when she's crawled 6ft from her play area to be near me at the computer, can I put down that work and embrace this little one fully, with an open heart because I wouldn't want to be too busy for Jesus and Jesus is certainly never too busy for her?

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This post is part of an ongoing series I am writing along with the author of On Expecting

Between a rock and a hard place

"Being a mother is hard."

I remember thinking that before I became a mother from watching my friends around me have children. I think mostly the issue was that they were enormous and pondering before they disappeared for a couple months and when they reappeared they looked tired.

"Being a mother is hard."

I feel this now as a mother. The first couple months, it was probably mostly the tired thing that came from frequent feedings around the clock and painfully engorged breasts. But that phase is a distant memory. L sleeps relatively well, and I now get to sleep through most of the night. Feedings are a breeze, both solids and nursing. What's hard is that I feel torn between attending to her and my work.

The trick is that I feel like I shouldn't feel that being a mother is hard because the physical stuff isn't hard anymore. Yea, I have to attend to L's physical needs: food, clean diapers, warm clothes, a safe place to sleep, but really it's her emotional needs of wanting attention and affection that tear at me. I'd rather be writing or reading. Can't she just sit with me and let me do that? We'd still be together, you know?

This past week my husband and I read through the end of the Gospel of Matthew where Jesus talks about the signs of his second coming and the end of the age. And here (Matthew 24), he talks about how at that end time those who are in Judea flee to the mountains… and in that fleeing How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers!…For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now… In all the dreadfulness, pregnant women and nursing mothers are the only named category of people; they are singled out for particular difficulty. That has always struck me as kind of unfair, but this week, I agree.

Pregnant women and nursing mothers not only must keep themselves alive but also are the literal lifeline for their child. You might think that nursing mothers are a somewhat different case than pregnant women but their children also depend on them and not just for physical but also emotional care. Children can nurse into toddlerhood even after they can eat solid foods which suggests to me that their nursing isn't just for physical sustenance but also emotional connection. Reports from orphanages where children were fed but not tended to help us see how important emotional care is for proper development and survival.

Looking at this passage, why are pregnant women and nursing mothers in desperate straights in times of trouble? Because they cannot be substituted for. No matter the upheaval in the world around, no matter how desperate the fleeing, that mother has to care for that child or the child is not likely to survive.

For moms and probably new moms in particular, it is easy to feel a lot of guilt and then to feel guilt for feeling guilt. This text helps me to realize, new motherhood is hard. Not that new motherhood is insurmountably hard and for most of us, it'll never be fleeing from destruction hard. It's a special kind of, special stage of hard. I don't need to beat myself up for not feeling like this is smooth sailing even though I've had great support from family and friends and I get to work at home. And I can remind myself that eventually, I won't be a nursing mother and I'll be out of that special category.

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This post is part of an ongoing series I am writing along with the author of On Expecting

Fiat Lux

Yesterday night, we (almost) rang in the new year watching Space Cowboys. The movie describes the efforts of four men to finally make it into space 40 years after they were ripped off the program. Of course, they make it to space and one turns to the other and says, "This was worth the wait." The cosmos is awe inspiring, and the mere footage of earth below never ceases to grip me.

Today, I read Genesis 1-5. It feels like it's been a long time since I read over the familiar words of Genesis 1. This passage gives an account of God creating the universe. "Fiat Lux" is the concise Latin rendering of "Let there be light." In fiat's verb form there is imperial power where speech and will are transformed into substance and action. It's like the curl of the conductor's baton that sets the orchestra in motion. That power is unleashed repeatedly as God forms and fills the earth.

The magnitude of that power highlights my miserly faith. Instead of living confidently that such a God can take care of me, I doubt and laughably attempt to apply my will and my force to bend the universe to my needs and wants. What a joke. Right? Reading the creation story is always like spiritual chiropractry.

But then comes verses 26-28, "Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.' So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, 'Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.'"

Just as I am feeling exceptionally small, feeling in absolute awe of a being with the power to hang the earth in its orbit, I read about being made in the image of God. I imagine that if I were kneeling before the Queen and she told me to stand, that these might share similar feelings. I want to poke myself and say, "My flesh and bones are made in the image of God?" Not that I know precisely what that means. I mean, up to that point, all that has been discussed about God is his ridiculously amazing, creative power. Does that mean I have something like that? Whatever it exactly is, it feels ennobling like I've been given a mission and responsibility. As it turns out, after designating humans as creatures made in his image, God designates them rulers over the earth and tells them to be fruitful and increase in number. Mission: be fruitful and increase in number; responsibility: rule and subdue the earth.

While I don't think that every couple has to have kids, it does seem that a goodly portion should if that increasing in number thing is to happen. Another new mom and I are wondering what the Bible has to say to us as mothers. We are both highly educated professionals who feel a lot of tension between our child rearing and our careers. I think this passage affirms the goodness of our role and responsibilities as mothers, an affirmation we do not receive professionally. I also think it affirms our professional work insofar as our labor extends the dominion of God, something that can be discussed at greater length another day.

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This post is part of an ongoing series I am writing along with the author of On Expecting

Knowledge and living

Yesterday I came across this interview with NT Wright who's book Surprised by Hope I'm reading through rather slowly. What struck me about this interview is how much I don't think about the matters being debated between Wright and Piper. And that got me to thinking why I have resisted the encouragements to go to seminary.

You don't earn a doctorate without some scholarly bent; and being someone who likes to think about the life of faith, a number of people have thus suggested that seminary might be a good thing. I'm not here to suggest that seminary can't be a good thing. However, I'd like to use some of my experiences in the language classroom to explain my resistance.

As I've spent time on both sides of the language classroom as both a learner and an instructor, it is obvious that rule knowledge is not the same as being able to converse with people. I have a love hate relationship with learning grammar. It's neat in a "hmm. They chose to express things using that way. Interesting." kinda of a sense. It's maddening in a "ARG! I need to squeeze my thoughts into those rules and its just.not.fitting.right!" My learning style has typically been to learn a massive amount of rules, try to speak but be overwhelmed by all the rules I'm trying to keep track of and apply, get frustrated, and then actively try to forget most of the rules, selectively apply a few of them and sting words together.

As an instructor, I've seen that sometimes my grammar nuts are my best language users, but frequently that's not the case. Peter MacIntyre a language researcher has proposed that "Willingness to Communicate" is a trait that varies from person to person, can be fostered or discouraged, affects language learning outcome. So my students with ok grammar knowledge but enthusiastic willingness to communicate tend to improve a lot faster (and are more fun to work with). My grammar freaks with low willingness to communicate can surprise me with bursts of fluency, but frequently do better in writing tasks where they can be methodical but scared stiff in speaking activities.

When I say that I am resistant to the idea of seminary, I am resistant to the idea that more knowledge necessarily helps me live a life of faith more coherently. As I read 10-20 pages a week of Surprised by Hope, I do think that Wright's explanation of resurrection will ultimately change my outlook on life and how I make decisions. But I don't think that resolving the debate between Wright and Piper will. To me going to seminary would be like my experience of studying Latin grammar intensively for 3 years and then attending a 45 min class on speaking Latin and only being able to produce "The soup is hot. The soup is cold." (True story.) It's far, far too much information at once to integrate into practice.

When I tell people I'm a linguist they frequently think that I know many languages. As a personal preference, in the past I have studied quite a few. However, on a day to day level, I don't study a particular language at all. I am not learning a new language. I look at language use with little reflection about my own experience. I don't want this to happen to my spiritual life. I don't want to dissect, examine, and write about other people's thoughts and experiences on the matter. I actually want to live a faith-filled life. So I'm taking it slow. I appreciate the hard work of others, but I only digest a bit at a time.

Dandled on her knee

12 For this is what the LORD says:
"I will extend peace to her [Jerusalem] like a river,
and the wealth of nations like a flooding stream;
you will nurse and be carried on her arm
and dandled on her knees.

13 As a mother comforts her child,
so will I comfort you;
and you will be comforted over Jerusalem."
~Isaiah chapter 66

This is a strikingly maternal passage from the Bible, amazingly tender in a passage and indeed a book with a lot of harsh imagery.

As a researcher before I became a mother, I studied infant attachment and hypothesized that the neurobiology of affiliation could be seen as an "Interactional Instinct." In my head, I knew that the nervous systems of infants and newborns even were tuned not just to biological needs but social needs. Just feeding and cleaning a child without interacting with the child would likely leave him/her like Harlow's monkeys or the tragic Romanian orphans.

Nevertheless, as a new mother, I am shocked at how much my child responds to my attention and care. Typically, when she cries around 6AM, I nurse her assuming she's hungry. This reliably calms her. This week, at 3 months of age, I tried holding her and sitting quietly with her. Amazingly, this also calmed her and we sat together quietly for 10 minutes, and then I nursed her.

As I sat there holding her marveling at how rapidly her nervous system moved from an aroused state to a resting state, I felt I had new perspective on the verses above. When I first encountered this passage, I was the distressed child desperately seeking rest. I longed to be dandled and delighted in. Now as a mother holding her child, I am experiencing tremendous satisfaction and joy from seeing her experience rest. I realize that all those times I was hoping for consolation, God was there longing to provide it, delighting to be able to comfort.

Hiatus

I should explain the current hiatus.

I'm wrapping up my dissertation. I will be back in June when all this has blown over.

We'll never get March back

--Has it hit you that you're a MOM?
--No. Keep asking me and I'll let you know when it happens.

New motherhood is weird. Newly married was weird and actually also disrupted my sleep patterns because it took some getting used to sharing a bed, but new motherhood takes that to a whole new level. My life in the day is punctuated by feedings after which my mother takes the little one and I get back to my dissertation. At night, I'm on my own for three feedings: midnight, 3AM, and 5AM (more or less). Pee and poo are whatever, breastmilk everywhere? Ugh. Inconsolable crying? [tears hair out]

My newborn turns 1 month today, and it's supposed to take 30 days to start a new habit or so I heard. But normal still feels like March, just me and my husband, our morning routines, our evening routines, our outlook on life and planning. Starting today I have finished the Chinese month of postpartum recuperation and can leave the house. I've left the house to go to the pediatrician's, but have otherwise been house-bound. Frankly, I haven't minded it one bit partly because it furthers the illusion that life is as it was. (Having Mom prepare my meals and others go grocery shopping for me is pretty nice too.) I don't have to think about how to run my errands with a newborn in tow. I don't have to schedule everything around her feedings. I don't have to worry about her and the vagaries of "out there". It's May, but I keep thinking it is March.

This reminds me of that verse about being "new creations"

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!
~Paul's 2nd letter to the folk in Corinth

I've been a follower of Jesus for most of my life, way, way longer than I've been a mother, yet I find that I can also have the mindset that "normal" is my old life. This new life is strange and not real. What does it take to embrace a new identity and to own it?

About 2 years ago, 5 years into my PhD program, I realized that I wasn't an entering student anymore. I was willing to be called a scholar or researcher and could self-identify as that. Some time in the past 3 years, I've grown accustomed to being married. I don't identify with my maiden name; I don't find myself trying to assert my independence and "singlehood". How did these happen? Well, they certainly didn't happen in a month. For the PhD, I worked with some new students and the contrast in their thinking and my thinking was so different even though I could remember being in their shoes. That helped me to see that I had changed. In marriage, I'm finding that I'm doing "being married" more reflexively. I don't have to tell myself to consider my husband too. Not that I'm a wonderfully considerate person all the time, but I'm not reminding myself that I'm not single all the time. I've probably also finished grieving over the things I did as a single person that I've basically given up, like dragonboating and going out late. These have been replaced with other things I enjoy like Saturday morning pancakes and hosting tacos & SciFi night.

So what will it take to embrace new motherhood and being a new creation in Christ?

For new motherhood, I think it will first take time because in that time I will collect experiences. For new creation-ness, the time has been there. I think what it will take is perspective. What makes me feel like not a new creation are my stellar moments of NOT Christ-likeness. Yelling at a 2 wk old for stuff she can't control will make you feel pretty crappy. But just as I am not a perfect wife but still a wife, I am not a perfect "new creation" but still a "new creation" nevertheless. "New creation-ness" makes me feel like I should have it all together, to have left all the old stuff behind. I wonder if I need to consider new creation-ness as a process of growing into a new identity rather than the perfect, immediate adoption of Christ-like living.

Identity is a weird thing and something I thought 20 year olds dealt with. But here I am staring down 30, going through the another topsy turvy identity change.

Guess it doesn't matter cuz any way you slice it we'll never get March back.