The Point of No Return

You think of martyrs as wild-eyed men with goatskin and beards or ecstatic saints, white-robed amidst flame. You think of them as shuddering in the Arctic winter of a Russian gulag or staring down gunmetal with prayers on their tongues.

You don't really think of them sitting on their couch with their family, holding a son, beside a wife.The picture of Youcef Nadarkhani, an Iranian pastor facing execution for refusing to convert to Islam, resembles more math teacher than religious dissident. He's wearing a white dress shirt. His hairline is receding. He faces the camera with a small smile, his hand resting on the arm of one of his two young sons. He's calm.

From this picture, you wouldn't guess what the man is up against. He's been arrested before, for protesting that his son was forced to read the Koran at school. His wife's been arrested, a pressure move designed to force him to recant. She was released after international justice movements intervened on her behalf but Nadarkhani was sentenced to death for apostasy.

The whole article is here: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/09/28/iranian-pastor-faces-execution-for-refusing-to-recant-christian-faith/

The fact that regimes around the world violently oppress Christianity is not news.

The fact that Christians around the world face death for their faith is not news.

The fact that they do so with grace and courage is the real story.

According to the article, when pressured to repent, Nadarkhani replied

"Repent means to return. What should I return to?

Those words struck me like the sounding of a bell, one that has reverberated through millenia of faith and persecution. Peter said it first-- to whom shall we go, You have the words of eternal life and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God."

That phrase has been repeated before first century Christians in the arena, reformers at the stake, believers in a Communist interrogation cell, and countless others whose names we will only know in heaven. They are heroes not because they are brave but because they are desperate. To whom shall we go?  
Behind is a wasteland, a scorched and sin-blasted landscape of godlessness, peopled by wretches who stagger in helpless oblivion towards the pit of final wrath. Behind is emptiness, the starless night of a dead soul that all the money, comfort, pleasure, and fleeting joy of earth cannot lighten. Behind is the crushing stone of guilt upon the chest, cracking every bone of good intention and self-made merit until the very heart is pressed flat. Behind is life without Christ. Without grace. Without hope. Dead in our trespasses and sins. Walking decay.
Nadarkhani, like so many other Christians put to the same test, looks over his shoulder and sees all this. He sees who he was before and the answer to the question is simple.

"What should I return to? To the blasphemy that I had before my faith in Christ?"
"To the religion of your ancestors, Islam,"
"I cannot,"



He's at a point of no return. There is only Christ. While there is hope that an appeal may overturn the death sentence, it is unlikely that the pastor will be released without a long jail sentence “or worse,” according to the article. As his brothers and sisters, fellow members of Christ's body, we should uplift him in prayer not only for the sparing of his life but for the protection of his family should he be taken from them and imprisoned. But let's not just rattle off a prayer of concern, admire the man's faith, and go back to the Starbucks latte that's getting cold. Let's think a minute, because that question is always for you. And me.

What should we return to? 

 

No one is standing outside my porch with a machete to cut off my hands because I refused to vote for a dictator. When I go to church on Sunday morning, I won't be concerned that soldiers will appear to lock the doors and burn the building down with my babies inside beside me. I can read my Bible. I can invite the grocery store clerk to church without facing arrest. But American Christians, in our life of complete freedom and considerable ease, face a different challenge to our faith. Because our culture is so comfortable, we can forget the underlying chasm. We can turn again to stumbling, grasping at any shiny thing within our reach, angry at God because He took our job, our health, our 401K. We blame Him for our lost dreams, our failed marriages, our angry children. And the Father of Lies is quick to sidle up to our souls and whisper-- repent. Return. Go back. You tried it. He failed you. Give up.

When life is hard and faith is harder, look over your shoulder. Ask for eyes to see, like Pastor Nadarkhani, what lies behind us. Look with eyes of faith to what lies before us. Then answer the Deceiver--

I cannot. 

 

This animation of the song All I Have In Christ pays tribute to those who have had to answer the question at gunpoint. It  inspires those of us who have to answer it within in our own souls every day. I'm posting in in honor of Pastor Nadarkhani and his family. Pray for him when you watch it. Pray for me, that I'll live out my faith in freedom with the same courage, and I'll pray the same for you. 

Birth Songs

to my daughters

I. Fire

Though we named you for fire, you came to us as snow. In silence and midnight you changed everything in sight; we did not even know you were a part of me until suddenly we opened our eyes and saw a world transformed by your existence. We did not know anything about carrying or birthing babies but our love for you made us brave. We walked the journey toward the beginning of your life determined to birth you in the gentlest, kindest way possible. Only we were novices; we were young. When voices older and-- we thought-- wiser told us to hasten your coming with drugs we listened because we thought we could not trust our own voices. Your birth was not gentle, nor was it kind; the drugs made my rushes unnaturally strong and we chose medicine to relieve the pain so that I could birth you without surgery. I could not feel you move through me toward life but I pushed with the memory of my muscles and you moved. In blood, and chaos, in joy and triumph, you came into the world. Your Daddy says I cried out in joy-- my baby, my baby-- as you passed into the midwife's hands and that the cry, the exultation, was louder than any other groan or sigh I made in your birth.

Ember Rose. Flower of fire, firstborn daughter, burning of my heart.

II. Water

We waited for you, as desert people wait for rain. We danced you down; we prayed. As they search the horizon for any cloud, as they lift their faces for any coolness in the wind, we searched for any sign of your coming. And come you did, rushing in to fill and swell my womb. We had another journey before us, and this time we promised you we would trust our wisdom. We told the midwives that we would not bring you into the world early unless it was to save your life. We prepared to wait, as we did with your sister, we thought your birth would come slow. But you came as a strong current, as a tide rushing to shore. Before we even got out of the driveway, I birthed you into your Daddy's hands. He caught you and gave you to me wrapped in a bath towel. The paramedics had come and again we followed voices not our own and went to the hospital, which was not necessary because you were strong and beautiful and healthy. We spent two days waiting to go home with you but you never left my arms. You slept beside me even in the hospital bed, happy with my breast and our love.

River Lynn. Rain child, ripple of joy, water to my soul.

III. Song

You swept over us suddenly. You rushed in like a north wind, rattling shutters and overturning trash cans and changing me, again. Like a blast of air in my face you stole the breath right out of my lungs. And then turned it into song, into hope as you grew and grew strong inside me. We chose wise women to catch you and knew they would leave room for our voices besides their own. Your birthing began as a little breeze that slipped in through my bedroom window and woke me with the first of my rushes. Your eldest sister waited with me, in the darkness before dawn, until we knew you were coming. Birthing you was unlike any other experience of my life. I walked with your Daddy outside the house and lifted my face to the sun when the rushes came. I knelt in water and moaned, and sang, and even wailed, in those last moments, when your birth was a roaring wind in my ears and body. Then you were here. The midwives gave you to me in my own house, and I closed my eyes to rest in my own room. The house was hushed and holy as your Daddy and I slept with you nestled to my breast. Piper Haven. Little sand piper, little bird girl. Song and wind, music to my world.

Book Review: The Blackberry Bush

The Blackberry Bush, by David Housholder, is not what you'd expect to pick up on the shelves of most Christian bookstores. In fact you may not even find a copy in most traditional Christian fiction venues, which is regrettable because the novel sets out to do something important-- make you think about faith, about its delicately woven threads, rough and silken alike, that bind generations together in a work of grace. In Housholder's novel, these threads bind lives together, through brokenness and triumph, to tell a story of God's presence in even the darkest aspects of fallen humanity. That's a lot of big ideas to cram into a relatively short novel.

But then, you get the idea that Housholder is no stranger to big ideas. His bio describes him as An avid philosophical-spiritual influencer and surfer, who currently leads an indie-warehouse California beach church, where he dreams and works for a better world. This is a guy who wants to peel back the skin of things, who isn't afraid of messy or complicated faith. You can see all of those influences in The Blackberry Bush, though at times they seem convoluted or contrived.

The novel's narrative seems clear enough as we are taken through the lives and struggles of two young people whose family history is powerfully-- and tragically-- linked.

Two babies—Kati and Josh—are born on opposite sides of the world at the very moment the Berlin Wall falls. You’d think such a potent freedom metaphor would become the soundtrack for their lives, but nothing could be further from the truth. Despite his flawless image, Josh, an artistic and gifted California skateboarder, struggles to find his true role in the world, and his growing aggression eventually breaks him.

Kati, a German with a penchant for classic Swiss watches and attic treasure-hunting, is crushed with disappointment for never being “enough” for anyone—most especially her mother. Craving liberation, Kati and Josh seem destined to claim their birthright of freedom together. After all, don’t the “chance” encounters transform your life…or are they really chance?

For all its compelling ideas, both fictional and philosophical, and for its compelling characters, The Blackberry Bush stumbles in its execution. Too many plot elements are over-compressed so that key events of the story lack the weight the reader knows they are meant to carry. I especially found this true for Josh in one scene which he is shown committing an act of betrayal without any preceding scenes to develop his motivation for such sudden aggression. Show don't tell could be a rule this author takes more closely to heart. As compelling and vibrant as his characters are, I kept wanting more of them....to see in greater detail their lives and struggles, to go through those struggles with them and experience their sorrow and joy.

But the author's heart clearly is more for the ideas behind his narrative than the fictional narrative itself. He frequently interjects theological musing-- even to the detriment of the narrative-- as if desperately trying to get us to see the tapestry of ideas that he sees and is trying to communicate to us. This is a trap of many "theological novels". What gets more attention-- the Big Ideas or the characters and situations in which those ideas are played out? Housholder does an admirable job of attempting balance, and of addressing issues relevant to today's culture, but his success is mixed. At times I felt I was reading an elongated sermon illustration rather than a novel. Aspects of his attempts to identify with modern culture felt forced, as did the suddenly optimistic ending, though this could have been a product of the overall compression of the narrative.

Taken as a whole, The Blackberry Bush is worth reading. Housholder's heavy emphasis on the impact of family on the shaping of a young person's life will generate plenty of discussion, as will his ideas on the soft relentlessness of grace. I will be interested to see what ideas he chooses to explore in his next novel, and applaud his willingness to challenge the Christian fiction art form.

The Blackberry Bush may be purchased on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. For more information on David Housholder, check out his blog at Robinwood Church

Labor Pops

The temperature is hovering in the 90s and I have popsicles on the brain. This summer I've been adventurous and experimented with making my own. Since tonight is the last night of my birth class, I thought I'd post this simple recipe for Labor Pops. Popsicles are a great way to keep up energy during labor so why not get the most bang for your pop by throwing in a few labor-specific ingredients?

Baby M isn't due until August so I have not tested these and can't tell you whether or not they work but in my mind anything that comes as a popsicle can't be all bad.

This recipe is not my own. I found it at Hakima Midwifery. The original blog post also included a recipe for lactation cookies....check it out to boost your milk supply and satisfy your sweet tooth.

You'll need:

1-2 oz dried red raspberry leaf tea
1 quart water
Quart size jar with lid
Honey and lemon to taste
2-3 1 mg calcium tablets
Ice tray

To make the labor pops, steep 1-2 ounces of red raspberry leaf in a quart of water for at least 20 minutes up to four hours. Strain and sweeten with lots of honey and lemon; these will add much needed calories and lemon can help ease nausea (as well as the red raspberry leaf tea). Crush the calcium tablets and add to the tea. Calcium is a muscle relaxant and can help with some aches and pains during labor. Pour the mixture into the ice tray. When labor commences, eat throughout labor.

Addendum: The blog article shows them on sticks like regular popsicles but you could use a popsicle mold or just pour them into an ice cube tray and suck on the ice cubes.

Stay cool, all you mamas in waiting!

Don't Forget Your Moan

She was angry. Or hurting. Or tired. Or tense. Or all of the three at once-- after all, an almost-two woman is still a woman. I was tired, heavy with the baby in my belly and the weariness of the day, and out of ideas. The bedroom was dark but for the low light of the night lamp. This was supposed to be a peaceful time. We had nursed. We had snuggled. We'd sung Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Hush Little Baby. We'd nursed some more. I'd rubbed feet, kissed her forehead, smoothed her hair. Still she fretted. “Mama, mama, I'm crying. I'm crying.”

After forty-five minutes I felt we'd established that point already but she insisted on saying it over and over again. Her face scrunched and flushed, her movements restless and petulant.At last I sat up at the edge of her mattress and pulled her into my lap, her head resting over my heart.

“Mama, I'm crying. Crying. Mama. Mama.”

For five years I'd soothed little ones. Why wasn't it working this night? I'd done everything and yet nothing changed.

I listened to her whimper, to her moan, and my mouth opened. I moaned with her, a soft low rumble in my throat and chest. She stopped, but only for a moment before returning to her troubles. I moaned again, following her. And again. For a few minutes, all I did was hold her and share in whatever troubles she was trying to voice. I didn't try to comfort her, or get her to stop, or convince her she was okay. I just moaned with her. After only a few minutes, she quieted. Another few more and she was asleep on my chest.

In preparation for labor, I was taught how to “moan, groan, and sigh.” That the raw and fierce energy of birthing could not be ignored, or diminished by outside distractions-- at some point you had to wade out into it and surrender. You opened your mouth and you moaned. You let it wash over you.

Mothers need to remember how to do that. So much of the advice given new parents seems to focus on how to manage babies-- how to make sure they are pooping and sleeping enough and not crying or clinging too much. And yes, we need to know how to care for our little ones in the best and most kind manner possible. In my five years of mothering, my breasts and my baby sling and my bed had proven powerful tools for nurturing and soothing. But sometimes they aren't enough. Sometimes nothing is enough. Sometimes you simply have to enter into your child's tears and stand with them. Moan with them.

When my oldest entered the world, to a chaotic delivery and a rookie mama, she cried. A lot.

I remember one night, after my first few days of sleep deprivation, when after a particularly painful-- and unproductive-- nursing attempt, I ran from my baby. I set her down by her father and fled to the bathroom corner in tears. She wouldn't sleep. She couldn't eat because the induction had delayed my milk supply. She wailed no matter what I did. My husband followed me into the bathroom, holding my newborn girl, and held her out to me. Take your baby, he said, quietly.

I remember looking at her and thinking distinctly that new babies rather resemble some alien life form, foreign and potentially hostile.

Take your baby.

I took my baby.

I started to learn how to mama moan. How to stay present, even when all the right things have been done and all the right things have failed and the sheer force of a baby's wailing seems strong enough to rip sheet metal. I learned how to look at my baby's cry not as an adversary to be conquered but an experience to be entered. Like labor, you have to wade out and hold on.

I am pregnant again, with my third child, and I expect to moan and groan and sigh plenty during the birthing. I expect joy, and ecstasy, and pain, and surrender, and strength. I also by now expect those emotions to last long past the delivery; in fact I am convinced they are bound around every mother's heart. The anguish and triumph and just plain hard work of birthing a baby is just a preparation for the years of mothering that baby.

Love your little one. Do all you can to comfort them and soothe away the thorny places in life. And when that comfort seems thin, when the thorny places poke through anyway, don't forget your moan.

For Love of Occasion

Domesticity mystifies me.

A complete understanding of what it means is still hiding, drifting in the fog of what society wants me to believe my grandmother's life was like, obscured by fears of Martha Stewart and church lady living rooms. What are womanly arts and what do they have to do with a properly basted turkey? What is delight in ones home and how does it get properly sorted out from the starch-and-scratchy chair sneering I saw from many ladies with beautiful, if somehow hostile, homes? What is it about me that goes all giddy when I look at my freshly made bed, covered in a quilt my great-grandmother sewed by hand fifty years ago? Or when I lay down at the end of a day to see the hushed light of my hanging lamp warm the purple and lavender of my walls? Why does this speak to my soul? The quilt is just old cotton, second-hand even when it was sewn. The lamp and the walls are just wire and plaster, paint and light. What causes such distinct and domestic satisfaction in a well-planned room?

I don't have an answer.
But I think my four year old does.

She hasn't had enough years to absorb, through whatever terrible osmosis, all of the domestic shame we as women build up in today's culture. She doesn't know that she should be liberated, or that her mommy is living a dreary and repressed life of household servitude. She doesn't know that her joys should be more sophisticated than homely pursuits, that instead of homemade jam and homemade twirl skirts she should covet five hundred dollar shoes and three hundred dollar handbags. Because she is naive, she is wise.

I watch her order her little domestic sphere, from the precise placement of beloved animals to the "decorating" of her room with scarves and ribbons and scraps of paper, I see her joy. She loves to plan, to select just the perfect treasure for the perfect spot. I watch her turn ordinary things into special occasions and I reclaim my own, still timid, love for everyday excellence. When did we as women believe that to orchestrate our homes is less worthy than orchestrating our careers? When did we stop being excited about the tiny, special things that surround us-- the breakfast plate with flowers, the lace edging of a napkin, the pleasing arrangement of a room so that it breathes peace and harmony to those who enter? I do not have to justify loving those things because they are part of who I am as a female reflection of God.

A week ago, I sat in a rocking chair outside a vintage-inspired general store, eating mint ice cream and staring at pansies. The color scheme was perfect, each petal a blend of pearly whites, blushing mauve, and deeper purple. As I looked at the other flowers-- tangerine orange against crimson red, bright yellow and white-- I realized that God is intentional about his colors. I have never seen a flower and thought oh, that doesn't match. He chose well and He chose deliberately, even though flowers are common, ordinary little things. He gave them beauty anyway. We have a love of occasion-- of detail, beauty, planned and executed well-- because He has filled a world with those domestic touches. When we fill our homes with the same, we are mimicking Him.

If you are anything like me, you're trying to understand this and all you keep thinking is the image of the 1950s Woman. You're not sure if you've ever met her or if you've just heard about her but images of plastic pearls and disturbingly red lipstick come to mind, along with mohair sweaters and a polka-dot apron tied at the waist. Her blue eyes gleam with manic energy as she tells you all she does to get her home to a waxy, gleaming, artificial beauty common to fake fruit. Every ounce of her is consumed with the tyranny of details, having the couch cushions turned just the right way, making sure the curtains are ironed once a week. Enter and admire but don't touch the good china. She obsessively pursues perfection and defines herself by the cleanliness of her carpet or the trendiness of her wall decor.

This is not the woman who understands God's domesticity.
Nor is it a woman who understands the true pleasure or love of keeping a home, of those touches that elevate the most basic elements of existence-- shelter and food and clothing-- into something special. My great grandmother, when she was sewing by hand dozens and dozens of patchwork quilts made from discarded dresses, knew the secret. My grandmother, who could make a coconut cream pie that will be served in heaven at the Lamb's supper, knew the secret. Even my daughter, when she runs to give me a handful of wildflowers-- aka weeds-- to place at the lunch table, knows the secret.

I am listening to them. I am learning. I am delighted and unashamed by it.

Image taken from a house tour featured on Parlour

You Might Be A Terrorist If....

According to a Department of Homeland Security list, you might be a domestic terrorist if...
you exhibit the following:
* Expressions of libertarian philosophies (statements, bumper stickers)
* Second Amendment-oriented views (NRA or gun club membership, holding a CCW permit)
* Survivalist literature (fictional books such as "Patriots" and "One Second After" are mentioned by name)
* Self-sufficiency (stockpiling food, ammo, hand tools, medical supplies)
* Fear of economic collapse (buying gold and barter items)
* Religious views concerning the book of Revelation (apocalypse, anti-Christ)
* Expressed fears of Big Brother or big government
* Homeschooling
* Declarations of Constitutional rights and civil liberties
* Belief in a New World Order conspiracy

According to Those Who Know, "People engaged in the above activities or mind-set may be considered "extremists" or "militia groups" that exist in our communities and are "hiding in plain sight, ready to attack."

Quick, hide your Ron Paul bumper stickers and Left Behind series. Also please refrain from declaring your constitutional rights, religious views, distrust of government and for heaven's sake enroll your children in public school.

Nothing like a healthy dose of paranoia to wake you up in the morning.