After three-plus years of Blogger, I decided it was time for something new. Besides, this little redesign I did a few months back didn't turn out too prettily.
In a few days, this page will automatically redirect you to my new blog site -- clbeyer.wordpress.com -- but I wanted to give a heads-up to any of you who subscribe to my feed rather than visiting my blog page.
In the church I grew up in, there was this beautiful time of fellowship after the Communion service, when all the members – all 150 or so of them – would lace their way through the pews of the church and greet every other person there. The line would start at the front, with the ministers, and every bench would play “follow the leader” until every person had been greeted by everyone else. It was so beautiful because no one could avoid anyone else. They were – at least for that evening – one body in social unity.
(Disclaimer: I'm feeling a little rusty in the writing arena, so please pardon my cliches and badly flowing prose. It feels like I have something to write about.)
As of Tuesday night, the cable internet at our new house was turned back on, and I indulged in Internet Explorer after being sober for so long. Of course, I got my fixes of connectedness in the past week and a half... like when we stole our new neighbors' wireless signals, and when our dear Peruvian friends lent me their web-connected computer along with the rest of their house.
I was a basket case two weeks ago. We had three days to be out of our house, and we had nowhere to move. The new rental kept being "not quite ready," and despite my optimism in the workers who were supposed to be getting it done, it just wasn't happening. My other sweet drugs of comfort and having a home to ourselves were going to run out at the end of the weekend.
We stayed the week with our Peruvian friends. I had been wanting to get to know them more, but if I could have had my way, God should have made that happen in a convenient time, when we weren't living out of suitcases.
I think I realized that God had better ideas than I when I was sitting down with Mili at her kitchen table in the middle of Friday afternoon. Our conversation drifted beyond "how was your week?" and "how many siblings do you have?" She taught me about money and family relationships. She taught me about being a gracious host to two homeless kids and their baby. She taught me about praise.
And now we're in our own place again (as God would have it, a much nicer place than what we would have had if the first rental had gotten done on schedule). We have our privacy and our internet, and I'm telling myself to control my addiction to comfort for so many more reasons than I've ever had.
I hate squeezing through books. Or whatever you want to call it: plowing through rock-hard-soil books, suffering through agony-books, straining under the weight of books. And it's worst when you know the book is supposed to be good. At least that's what people wrote all over the cover.
I am scraping my way through The Ragamuffin Gospel. What a pathetic book to call drudgery, but it is! It's so thin, not even an inch thick, and I'm sure it's just smack-full of truth that I could relate to, but I just can't seem to absorb it.
And the worst part is that I won't let myself stop. C.S. Lewis keeps saying in Mere Christianity that if a chapter doesn't work for you, just skip it. For some reason, that just freaks me out. You can't skip! What abomination!
So, instead, I read at an excruciating pace, hoping, hoping, I won't be 30 when I finally finish.
Well, look at me, posting my challenge on the first day of the month! Uh. We won't talk about how I skipped last month. I've been berating myself all of October for that one.
First, a report on the living healthily challenge from September: I did pretty well. I slipped up on the exercise thing a couple times because I forgot. I started to adopt the trading-in-something-bad-for-something-better thing as a regular habit during that month, so I don't know if I did it every day, but I think that's okay. I got sick for a few days, so I laid off on the vegetable and fruit thing because all I really wanted was chicken noodle soup. I learned that feeling gross and headachey after a bad meal has more to do with my overdosing on sugar (pop, in particular) than overdosing on greasy pepperoni pizza. I think that's an important discovery that I should have figured out before now, beings I had gestational diabetes when I was pregnant. I am feeling dense and boring tonight, and I think it has more to do with running around after a one-year-old all day than my having just eaten a buttery scone. So, for now, I have no monumental nuggets of wisdom gleaned from my month of living more healthily.
As for November's challenge, it's all about romance. Whoopee!
I missed Sweetest Day. I've never celebrated it before, but I heard on the radio that it was coming up, and I wanted to do something fun as a surprise for Kyle, but things were busy, and I got tired, and, and, and... I missed it.
In general, things are crazy once you have a kid. Even if he goes to bed at eight, you still feel like a sopping dish rag by the time you're finally alone as a couple. At least I do. Really, I feel more like a dry dish rag right now -- the kind that's all crusty and molded into its previously soppy shape. Sexy. Very sexy.
I have no more details for you tonight on my incomparable sexiness, but I'll fill you in on the challenge. (Yikes. It's November. That means I start today. And it's already after 9...)
I resolve to do something romantic for my husband every day. I can't give details because he reads my blog. But I want to surprise Kyle, look and feel beautiful for Kyle, and be nice to Kyle more often.
Okay, I admit, even at 9.14 p.m., this challenge sounds like it could be just a little bit... fun. ;)
I line the grocery carts with my padded cart cover. I bought it when I first suspected that Isaiah got sick from sucking on a cart at Target. Using the cart cover meant I didn't have to say "no" every other second when Isaiah was in the peak of his sucking-on-things stage. As a mom, you choose your battles.
We walk down the freezer aisle at Kroger, and Isaiah decides to stand up in the grocery cart, just in time for the Kroger floor sweeper to see him.
"There are straps. You should buckle him in," he tells me.
"Yeah, I should," I say, wrestling Isaiah into a sitting position. "I've just never tried to figure out how the straps on this cart cover work."
The Kroger man sets aside his broom, and fits the backpack-looking straps over Isaiah's shoulders. Isaiah stares at him. I watch the Kroger man figure out the easy buckles that I've never once thought about buckling. I feel dumb, so I play dumb.
"I guess it's not too hard," I say. "Thanks."
"You gotta buckle 'em in," he says. "Especially the climbers."
Two aisles down, Isaiah tries to stand up again. No problem. He just takes the cart cover with him. With that big, navy cloud strapped to his back, he looks like he's about to go parachuting out of there. I laugh. Take that, Kroger man!
But then I notice the Kroger man heading toward us again with his broom. He sets it aside again. He shows me how to tie the cart cover onto the cart. Isaiah stares at him again. I should probably remind myself how kind it is of the man to stop and help.
"I guess if all else fails, Mom's gotta hold onto him."
"Yeah, I guess so," I say. Duh.
There are pieces of me I'm afraid to tell, out in the open like this. I'm afraid to tell of my jourrney in the Apostolic Christian Church, afraid to tell of my journey away from it. I'm afraid to talk about my family too much, except the parts that exude joy. I'm afraid to name names, to describe deep hurts, to delve into the details of marriage and money.
But I am a writer. Sometimes I think I can only be a true writer when I am willing to lay it all out on the table. In a way, to describe my deepest thoughts and pains and longings is to expose my jugular for anyone who comes along. Or maybe it's more than that. Maybe it's also exposing the jugular -- or the private parts? -- of the people closest to me. My family, my husband, my former churchmates -- they didn't sign up to be written about like any old fictional character.
I wonder if creating is the most vulnerable profession in the world. There is no taking back, no unpublishing, no privacy. Unless, of course, you don't write with full abandon.
Sometimes I wish that the stuff I wrote for others didn't have to have a sense of anonymity about it. I wish I could write whatever was calling to be released from my soul.
We took Communion in joy--
for once--
drinking that bitter cup
with jubilation.
"Drink and enjoy."
And I did,
looking up at my Saviour
with adoration.
Madeleine L'Engle died last week, at age 88. There are so many quotations from her I love, but this one is enough because it magnifies two of the biggest themes in all her writing -- love and faith:
"In the evening of life we shall be judged on love, and not one of us is going to come off very well, and were it not for my absolute faith in the loving forgiveness of my Lord I could not call on him to come."
An hour or two ago, I ate a Schlotzsky's pepperoni pizza for lunch, along with a Barq's root beer. Now I feel sluggish, and a headache's coming on. Maybe they're not related, but the idea that they could be inspired (if you can call it that) my September challenge. I'm going to let this one go till October eighth, to fairly give it a full month.
If you read my blog, it's pretty clear I'm on an Omnivore's Dilemma kick right now. Michael Pollan isn't a Christian, and his book doesn't preach that you should eat whole, unprocessed foods in order to honor Christ and your body and the earth; but for me, the book was all about that. Implementing what I've learned has proved to be a whole 'nother baby. It's just too easy to live unhealthily in this culture. A girl's got to go to great lengths to eat whole, healthy, locally grown food from sustainable farms.
(Completely unrelated sidenote: A pick-up pulling a trailer just drove by our house. The trailer had a lawn mower sitting on it. The lawn mower had a man sitting it. I laughed out loud. You don't see that every day.)
My spiritual challenge this month to honor my body through eating right and exercising is a bit of an experiment. I want to see if some of my grogginess (which I've been attributing to being a mother) dissipates. I want to see if I have more energy to do the things I "should" be doing.
Rules for the month:
1. No pop!
2. Exercise for 15 minutes every day, even if it's only a walk.
3. No fried fast food.
4. Eat fruits and/or vegetables at every meal.
5. Every day, substitute something not very healthy for something healthier (e.g. whole grain bread for white bread).
6. Limit sweets and fats.
I didn't do much research on these rules, but they seem to make sense. Please leave a comment if you have suggestions for me.
To good, God-honoring health!
