KONY 2012

Our world is broken. It will always be so until that someday when all things are made right again. But in the meantime, we are called and commanded to do something about the brokenness.

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress...." James 1:27a

When I read that, all the crap about "religion" being a dirty word evaporated and the beauty of it became apparent. Because really, what good is my faith if it cannot DO something?! What good is it? And what better thing than to look after the needs of children in distress?!

There are many things about which I am passionate: helping women heal from birth trauma, helping young women find a place of belonging, helping my child grow and learn and thrive, helping my husband by cheering him on in his calling to build up people through outdoor education, helping the orphans and poverty stricken of this world have enough food and shelter and education, helping children in a war torn country have access to education and the truth that sets them free, helping teach beautiful truth to people who want to learn, and this:

HELPING SAVE CHILDREN ON BOTH SIDES OF THE GUN, BECAUSE BOTH NEED SAVING.

Invest the time to watch this video. Share it on Facebook. Blog about it. Write your congressman or MLA/MP. Thank Obama for sending 100 advisors and encourage him to keep them there. Write Stephen Harper and let him know you care about this. If you pray, do the work of praying.

Whatever you do, just be sure you DO something. Don't just let your heart be touched. Faith is only good if it's active. It's worthless if it's not. I don't believe this is optional. In fact, I believe it's commanded. "Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says." James 1:22

What are you waiting for? Let's go DO.

James & My Propensity to Chat

I'm currently in chapter 3 of James. You know, the part where he gets blunt talking about how our tongues are incorrigible. For a long time I've known that I have too many words just itching to spill out, either in conversation or in writing. And for a while now, I've wondered if I shouldn't just hush up the whole blogging thing because for as many words as I seem to have, I don't have a proportionate amount of wisdom.

So that's where I'm at. I'm wishing there were a way to feel connected to the outside world while at the same time remaining quiet as mouse online. I'm wrestling with that. If you only knew how many times I think, "Geez, I should delete that post. I can't believe I said that." Or the more common thought sounds like this, "Gee, I wonder if there is a really big hole where I can crawl in and hide for awhile, like maybe the next 50 years." But then my otter like side of part of my personality comes to the forefront and says, "Who are you kidding? You want to play! You want to chat! You want to connect!"

I'm not sure what side will win out - the side that says I should quietly close this blog and speak less or the side that wants to stay somewhat connected to those residing outside the four walls of my home. Maybe both sides will come up with an agreement that leads to connection and quietness. Guess only time will tell. But let's hope that whatever happens, wisdom and understanding become a part of the deal. Because Heaven knows I need them. =)

Putting a Stake in the Ground

I'm glad Jesus said it's important to come like little children to Him, because I've discovered recently that my complex reasoning powers have evaporated and I'm left feeling like a small child with the simplest of understanding.

It almost feels like I'm back at the beginning, back at that place when I was six and believed what I heard in Sunday school or from my parents without any doubting. Only this time, I've been through the doubt, the ugly arguments, and all the rest. So I'm really not the six year old, untried and never questioning. But I have her simplicity. At least for today.

So many conversations have taken place in the past little while and I see ones dear to my heart embracing beliefs and theologies that I cannot accept as true. At first, it shook me, and I felt like a tippy canoe on a wind tossed ocean in the Broken Islands, destined to capsize and drown. All these people around me, so much more learned than I, with so much greater ability to express themselves and form cogent arguments, drawing from history and things beyond my grasp. And there I am, just listening, wondering if I'm simply not smart enough to draw the same conclusions that they have determined to be true. And if I ought to draw those conclusions even if I cannot understand the linear way to arrive at them. And I wonder if my gut feeling is just a foolish child's reaction to cover her eyes and ears with her hands and not even consider what is being presented.

But then, I make my choice. Haltingly, carefully. Knowing that it will be tested. Knowing that it will cost something. And I decide.

I am content with being a child even though I know it will be mocked and thought stupid and narrow. I hammer my stake in the ground, tongue off to the side to help me concentrate and little arms swinging hammer too big and too heavy. But I do it anyway.

My stake is this:

I believe that the Bible is true, all of it. And I believe that it is relevant for today and meant to be lived out. I don't understand all of it, and I don't even like all of it, but I'm trusting that God will explain those parts someday. Just like a child trusts her dad to explain electricity.

I believe that Jesus is who He said He is, and that His main purpose was salvation from sin so we could be reconnected to our Heavenly Father who made us. I believe that His atonement on the cross was a very big deal and the center of the Gospel message. I believe that He gave us directions on how to live, how to love, and how to get ready for the Home He is making for us.

I believe that Heaven and Hell are real places, and not just states of being. I don't know all there is to know about them, but like a little child, I believe that they exist.

I believe that my job is to believe and to live out faith in an active way, loving and caring and serving and being Jesus' hands and feet without favoritism, keeping away from letting my life be polluted with all that is less than the best.

I believe that my finite brain can't begin to comprehend the mysteries of all of this, but I believe that God is exactly who He says He is and that His infinite brain will explain it to me someday.

And then I put down my hammer and go back to living life, knowing I don't have all the answers and can't begin to grasp so much of the knowledge that is around me. But like a little child, I'm trusting that that is okay. Simple? Most definitely. Simplistic? Maybe. If it needs to change at any point, my simple answer is that God will work that out in my heart and mind. Meanwhile, a little stake stands in a bit of ground, waiting to find out what happens next.

Mama Bird & Baby Bird

No, this post won't be about my little boy, though most days he does indeed wake up and tell me that he is not a kid but a baby bird. Days like that he won't respond to his real name or allow me to refer to myself as just plain Mama. No, this post is about something else.

***I have to put in a clarification here. Lately, as I've gotten more involved with the birth trauma group and have begun finding what appears to be almost a calling to help women, I've started wondering how to balance all the parts of Inkling on this blog. In that work, I've met some incredible women who believe and live completely differently than me. And sometimes that has tempted me to edit myself here. Because, let's face it, a lot of people who don't follow the faith I profess look at Christians as weird, backward, narrow, or hopelessly judgmental. And I don't want anyone to think that about me, nor do I want to be that way. But there isn't any way around it: I'm a Christian no matter how hard I've tried to shake that label or the beliefs that follow the term. And the truth is that I'm figuring out all over again what exactly being a Christian means and looks like. The only thing I know for sure is that it does not include looking like those cruel people who protest at funerals of military folks. But it does include compassion and love and thoughtfulness and generosity, and all of those things are character qualities of the women I've met. So though we are different, we are also very much the same.***

Moving on to the whole idea of a mama bird and her offspring.....

There was a blog post over a year ago where a woman wrote about the dilemma of mothering small children and finding time to feed herself spiritually. I remember writing her and saying that I wished there were some way someone could come alongside young moms and feed them, and how the Bible talks about how God gently leads those that have young. Neither one of us ever followed that idea any further.

Until today.

It dawned on me today as I was driving home from a Bible study at a church in the next town that I'm getting that exact thing right now. You see, we're doing Beth Moore's study on James. That means we're watching a video of her speaking each week as she explains the Greek and Hebrew, the Jewish traditions, and the original intent with each passage and topic we cover. And we get a book with homework for each day that allows us to dig in deeper.

It suddenly occurred to me that she is basically functioning as this sweet and diligent Mama Bird, finding the bits of meat and tearing them off, even chewing them a bit before giving them to us, the Baby Birds.

It's like this, I sit in front of a video of her and she explains how the word "greetings" in the first verse of James literally means "joy to you". And later on, she talks about how the term "to look intently" literally means to bend over and look closely. She explains that the seemingly simple term "glorious Lord Jesus Christ" is referring to the idea of the Shekinah glory and just how important that is. And there are a zillion more things she dissects for us and carefully spells them out so we can really grasp what each verse is saying. These are all things one could do if they had an amazing seminary library at their disposal and time to pour over texts, do Greek word studies, and read up on Jewish customs and history.

So this is how God gently leads those that have young.

The interesting thing is that I'm carving out time to do my homework when my son naps, and he knows he HAS to have a rest time even if he doesn't sleep so that mama can do her Bible study. And I'm attempting her suggestion to commit the book to memory while working out on our elliptical after the dishes are done and the male portion of this household is asleep. That is so much more than I ever did with any other study back in the day when I actually did have a seminary library at my fingertips and time (not to mention syllabi and course requirements) to get me digging deep into homework. Maybe it's the desperation and the feeling of starvation of the past long while that has made me like a frantic Baby Bird, eagerly waiting with open beak, ready to eat up anything placed in my mouth. Fortunately, Beth Moore is a wise and good Mama Bird, so the food she offers is good and filling. It's like the more food she offers, the more eager I am to eat.

It reminds me of the Oregon Juncos we watched some months back when the adults came with their babies after there had been a mishap with one of their nests. We put out food and watched the adult birds feed the babies. But as each day passed, the babies began learning how to eat bigger bites and open their mouths wider, and then they learned how to find and pick up food for themselves. But even after they were big enough to do that, the adult birds were still diligently feeding the babies, just at a more relaxed pace.

I wish I could say that this study is going to "change my life", but I can tell you that the only way it will is if I actually make a habit of doing the things I'm hearing. I look back at too many of my Bible study books and see my notes and wonder why they fall flat and seem lifeless. It's because I didn't actually do too much beyond just listening and letting it touch me. So check back with me in a year or so to see if I'm actually "doing" what I've been hearing.

But in the meantime, know that there is one tired mama who has been so very grateful to assume the role of hungry baby bird. Yes, it is true. He does lead those gently that have young.

When Community Works

It's been a year, more than a year actually, of yearning for a community that works, a community that feels like home. In the past little while, some neat things have happened that have given me a glimpse of the good parts of community.

A card came in the mail awhile ago from a friend in the States. In it was some cash with the specific instructions to use it for a date night. I figured we would use it to order take-out one night when we could put our little guy to bed early, and then just curl up on the couch and watch a movie or chat without the resident three year old asking questions. But then the phone rang last week. It was the girl who used to come to our house on a regular basis to be my mother's helper. She had just been to youth group and they had told the kids that they were cancelling youth for Valentine's Day and encouraging them to go out and find someone to serve, specifically in the form of babysitting so a couple could get a date night free of charge. She was offering that to us. Talk about perfect timing. We had our first real date since October when my parents took Grasshopper for an evening so we could get out for a few hours while we were visiting the States.

Sunday morning I dragged myself out of bed and got ready for church, even though I was longing to snuggle in my warm bed because I'd been up far too late reading a good book. It was a good thing I went. Some friends of ours from our old home group were visiting from their new home a few hours away. I hadn't seen them since late summer, and it was good to catch up. We made plans to have them over for dinner this week while they were still in town. Some real community happened with them when they were in our group, but I can't write about it publicly. Still, memories of that shared community are meaningful to me.

On our way home from church, my husband put a white envelope made of taped typing paper in my lap and said that it had been given to him by a friend of ours with the words, "Someone told me to give you this." I opened it and tears gathered in my eyes as I saw that it was a gift of money. As work is very scarce at the moment and has been for quite awhile and we've had a few cancellations for my husband's outdoor adventure education business, it hasn't been the easiest. This gift of money meant we could head to the grocery store and pick up milk and a few other things, and it meant we could take care of another obligation looming in the immediate horizon. Community at work, and we don't even know who gave it.

It is moments like these that remind me to keep on persevering through the mess of building relationships and building community. It reminds me not to give up, not to think that I'm the only one giving sacrificially, not to believe the lie that says we're too broken to have community. And it reminds me to keep on being the positive participant in community without growing weary and giving up.

James says a lot about how real faith is active. It's times like these that I know there are some people of real faith out there. And I'm grateful to be on the receiving end of their kindness.

Community Living

Lately I've been thinking a lot about what makes a community work well. This week there have been more than a few reminders of how it looks when community doesn't work in a healthy way. The post I'm about to plunge into writing is a hard one, because all too often I'm guilty of exactly what this post is about. So just know that as I write, I'm listening too.

Up until recently, I reserved the worst of my anger about this for the church culture, for that was pretty much my only experience with messy and dysfunctional community. And then I joined a couple local kids items swap/sell groups for moms on Facebook. Boy, has that been an education.

As it turns out, what ugly things often happen in the Christian community, happen elsewhere too. Duh. You'd think I would know this by now. So I've been thinking about why this is so, why groups we form turn ugly, whether it's a church thing or a mom's swap group.

When people are involved, brokenness will follow. That's just the way it is. Our struggle then, is to work to put things back together until that Perfect Person comes to make everything right with the world again and make all things unbroken.

The core behavior at heart is unkindness. It comes about in many forms, from snide remarks to cliques to downright cruel actions. I think, perhaps, the core cause might just be pride. We would rather be right and have our own way than to ever give a bit of undeserved grace or cut some slack on another fallible human being.

That is just sickening for so many reasons.

The first reason obviously is that we hurt another human being created in the image of God when we act with unkindness and lack of care or concern. Our focus is so inward-bound that we forget the person we are hurting has a heart, has tears, has loved ones who could be hurt as well by our selfish behavior. We look at that person as expendable, merely a commodity to be traded for a better one. We do this in friendships. We moms do it all too often with each other. And sadly, I know all too well that the Christian community does this all too often. What happened to "they shall know you by your love"? Instead, it's become, "they shall know you by your infightings, splitting, excluding, and unkindness".

The second reason that my heart feels sick about the way we tear down each other with our words and actions is that there is a whole broken world out there that needs our touch, and it's foolishness to get caught up in petty unkindness and having to be right. Is it really the most important thing if the item you bought from a swap doesn't meet your standards and you have to go out of your way to rectify the situation? Is it so necessary to tear down the poor mom who did that? Meanwhile, there are children being starved, abused, trafficked, left homeless or orphaned. And that's just the beginning of all the broken things going on outside our little homes. Part of changing our hearts and behavior includes enlarging our focus so we can see more of the big picture.

I don't know if any of this makes sense or not. I find it difficult to articulate very well. But what I do know is that it is so much more wonderful and satisfying to learn how to be nice to each other. (Cue Boz music here.) Seriously, if preschoolers can get the idea of "be nice to each other, be nice and you'll see how nice being nice can be...", surely we grown-ups can put a little more thought into our words and actions before we type that post on Facebook or alter the course of someone's life in a moment.

There are moments when we will have to make hard choices that will cause pain to another, but surely we can learn how to do it in a loving, healthy, caring manner. Can't we?

Creativity and Repurposing: A Purse for Mama & a Stick Horse for Grasshopper

Since deciding we'd make our Christmas gifts this year, I've had so much fun getting back into being creative on a regular basis. Add in a little under-employment with very little money and you've got the makings for wanting to pretend that I'm living in a chapter out of the Little House books. It's actually quite fun.

I had this sweater from Land's End, a three quarter sleeved, navy blue, cable knit, cotton sweater that I no longer wore. I had tried to consign it, but they didn't want it. I donate a lot of clothing, but decided to hang on to this item. I'm glad I did. One rainy day I was in the mood to make a purse for myself. Originally, I was going to use a wool one that I could felt, but I've donated so many wool sweaters that the only ones I had left are ones I'm quite attached to and still wear. Then this navy sweater came into view and I formulated a plan to use it even though I'd have to change my original design, as you cannot really felt cotton.

I decided to use a scrap piece of yellow cotton broadcloth I had to line it. Because I would be using a sweater that would easily unravel once cut, I decided to completely sew it to the yellow lining and then begin forming the bag. I wish I'd taken pictures of the process, but will try to summarize quickly.

The torso of the sweater became the body of the purse, with the hemline forming the bottom of the purse. The arms were used to make a shoulder strap. If I did this project again, I'd use cording to make the shoulder strap and thread the cording through the sheath I made out of the arms. That way the strap wouldn't be so stretchy. I used ribbon to make the drawstring, although I imagine I'll need to replace it with something stronger eventually. It turned out to be a really cute, functional purse. And I love that it only cost me my time.



I've been wanting to make a stick horse for Grasshopper for quite awhile. At Christmas, I ran out of time, plus I'd made him so many other things. But a chance find of a bag of stuffing at a thrift store for $1 and a rainy Sunday afternoon turned out to be the perfect motivation to get me started.

First, I gathered my materials from around the house. Twine and leather cording leftover from a church project, the stuffing/quilt batting from the thrift store, scraps from my cable knit sweater purse project, old buttons, ribbon and thread from my sewing box, sand paper, a scrap of dowel rod leftover from a closet building project, yarn leftover from a scarf I'd made Grasshopper last week, and a wool sock all completed my supply list. (I had purchased a package of wool work socks for my husband when we were first married but bought the wrong size. Since I waited too long to return them, they were just hanging out in my cedar chest for something. Today turned out to be at least a partial answer to what I will do with them.) After that, I just gathered my sewing tools and cleared off the kitchen table so I could get to work.

First I had to sand the bottom of the stick and a bit on the side where some splintering had occurred.

Then I stuffed the toe of the sock with as much stuffing as it would hold up to the heel. I wrapped quilt batting around the first six inches of the dowel rod and stuffed it carefully into the sock up to the heel. Then I packed bits of stuffing all around that until everything was firm and filled out. I took twine and tied it tightly around the bottom of the sock to secure it to the dowel rod, wrapping it around a few times and tying a few knots. After that was secure, I took a long length of leather cord and wrapped it once and tied a good knot, leaving a four inch length to help me with my end knot. Then I wrapped the long cord around and around until the length was nearly used up and finished with a secure knot, trimming the ends.

Two wooden buttons made eyes. At this point, my son named the horse Pete and then went to take a nap so Mama could finish "helping Pete the horse be born".

The leftover scraps from the arms of my sweater were perfectly shaped for making ears. I sewed them together and turned them inside out. I did not trim the edges after sewing, because I knew the added bulk would help the ears be more stable and give it good shape.

Then I sewed the bottom edges closed using my machine.

After that, it was time to hand sew them to the horse. I placed them on a slight curve so they'd stand up well.

It was at this point that I wondered if Pete would turn out looking more like a donkey, but I knew the hair would help a lot. Always have faith in the hair.

Here is a picture of the completed forelock. It took a bit of trial and error to figure out how I wanted to attach the hair. I had read one blogger's idea, but her entire horse was sewn by machine, and that method was not going to work for me. So I came up with a workable solution that reminded me a bit of a hair weave.

To help illustrate my solution, my husband took a quick video of me attempting to explain what I was doing.

Grasshopper was certain his horse needed a bridle and not just reins, so I devised something out of grosgrain ribbon and two buttons. I made two loops - one for the horse's mouth area and one for just behind his ears. I slid those on him and then threaded the rein length of ribbon through both sides of each loop, pinning them carefully and being sure to leave a good length. Because the loop by the mouth easily could come off, I was able to machine sew the two pieces together. But the loop just behind his ears would not have been easy to come off, so I hand sewed it and then covered up my work with a cute button on either side.

The finished product. I was so excited with how it turned out. It took a few hours from start to finish. It is utterly adorable.

Pete and I went into Grasshopper's room to wake him up from his nap. He was so excited to finally see Pete "finished being born", and immediately took him out to the living room to hold him and introduce him to the world. (And yes, he's sitting on a crib mattress in the middle of our living room. We have to drag it out from storage almost daily so he can use it as a trampoline. My child may not have been much a crib sleeper, but at least we have gotten lots of use out of the mattress.)

All in all, I'm thrilled with how both projects turned out. They were both fun to design and make. The satisfaction gained from using items found in our little abode is also very nice. January has been a month of creating memories without spending money, and I have to say that it has been so very fun.