Self-Pitying Blog Post = Friend Raye Comes to the Rescue!

Just when I was ready to throw in the towel, just when I was going to give away all my worldly goods and join the Bruderhof, just when I was considering giving my children to gypsies to raise so I could get away from it all……

Friend Raye comes to the rescue!  After reading my very depressing blog post, all striving and longing…she offered to come and visit and minister to me.  Oh, how I needed minstering to!  She emailed me asking if there was any way that she could help me.  Here is the list I gave her of my needs:

“I would love for you to come and visit. I need some silent worship.  I need someone to do a craft with my kids.  I need space to fold some laundry.  I need someone to talk to me about love and G-d.  I need to eat some food that I didn’t actually have to labour over.  I need to do a Bible Study.  I need to get put back on my path with G-d (teshuvah, repentance).  I need a quiet walk in a beautiful place.  I need someone to be kind to my children and interested in what they have to say……
Take your pick!  If you can help with any of those, I would be grateful!”

Well, armed with a pot of turkey/tuber (my children ate Jerusalem Artichokes!!) soup and gluten free cornbread, Raye arrived with her bag of tricks.  After a nice lunch, she sat down with my two older children, and showed them how to spin wool with a drop spindle.  This was a perfect thing to do, as my children have been washing and carding wool since before they could walk, but mommy could never motivate to learn to spin.  Janka Fairy even wore her “Quaker Bonnet” (which is really a stiff Mennonite bonnet), because she was so excited that a Friend was coming to visit.

After looking at my empty space, where I hope vegetables will grow next year…I put my children in their rooms for quiet time, and in between ten minute intervals of putting them back in their rooms, Raye and I were able to talk.  I was able to unload some of my troubles, and in Quaker-ly style, Raye just listened and did not judge or jump to tell me what I should “do next”.  We joked about how the conservative Quaker community in Connecticut has grown 100 percent since I moved here a few years ago…now that there is two of us….and what AMAZING growth stats those are!
How simple a visit is.  I have often brought a meal over to someone, along with my polite (or sometimes funny and crass) conversation…but I never realized how wonderful something so simple is in the midst of troubling times.  It recharged me enough to turn back towards the WAY I am meant to walk, instead of becoming dejected and shut down, or frantically looking for something else, something better.

So….Raye!  Thanks for you, and blessings on your house!

I will always remember how helpful such a simple thing was to me….and I hope to increase my visits to others.  Even though we are all so far apart from one another, we can still come to each other’s sides.  It was just enough to keep me from giving up, and I hope to do the same for someone else one day.

Janka Fairy learns to wrap wool around the spindle in her Quaker Bonnet.

figuring it out

wrapping spun yarn

Raye with Ferdinand

watching Raye draft (or is it “draught”) the wool

Frenzy of Love

I have been gone awhile.  I have had not an ounce of energy for blogging.  All of my resources, my thoughts, my time have been completely immersed in my latest “esoteric crisis”.  I really think that I am broken in the Love Department.

Maybe everyone is broken in this place?  Is this the human condition?  Is this really the “hole in my heart” that only “Christ can fill”, as I used to so simply believe?

Because of very stressful family circumstances as of late, I have found myself depleted, and just surviving each day.  I cannot sit in silence, because when I am not filling myself up with distractions, and have to face what is inside, I become immediately uncomfortable.  The sounds of my children, which should produce in me feelings of gratitude and joy, have become nails on a blackboard.  The dishes in the sink, the huge hairballs, some combination of dust, lint and dog hair in every corner, and the endless piles of molding laundry weigh on me like boulders.  I find myself always looking to my next break, the next opportunity to sit and check out on the computer or with a book.  When my children approach me for anything, physical needs or emotional…I find myself thinking, “WHAT do you want from me, don’t you know I don’t have anything for you?!”  (please don’t read this wrong…my children ARE being fed and hugged….I am talking about my inner attitude and heart here)

These past two months I have been faced with some of the worst parts of myself.  I have really seen a clear picture of how, apart from G-d, I am completely incapable of love and sacrifice.  Part of my spiritual failings in the past have been that I am chronically self-sufficient.  I always see my opinions and my WAY as right.  Trouble is, that WAY is always changing, because no matter which WAY I go, it’s still ME with all of my struggles and failings.  The moment I face discomfort, I seek to soothe it by finding what is “right”, and what is “true”.  Hence, my inability to commit to a spiritual path or practice.  I plug in my ipod earphones to “make it” through the day…fueling my time and my mind with political and religious talk.  I am addicted to thinking, to looking for more, for something else.  Where others might turn to alcohol or drugs, I turn to overthinking and analyzing.

With all of these mental gymnastics, I have made very little internal space for the things that would produce the Fruits of the Spirit.  Patience?  Forget it.  I want to feel better NOW.  Long suffering?  Yeah right….see “patience”.   Joy?  Doubt it…I would actually have to live in what I am doing to experience it.  Kindness?  Well, I don’t have patience, and I don’t want to feel discomfort, or to feel the present moment….so when someone needs something from me I don’t have a lot of kindness.  Faithfulness?  I give up on G-d every time I turn to my own ways and thinking.  Gentleness?  I am a bull in a china shop.  I am not gentle, least of all to myself.  Self-control?  If I had some, I wouldn’t be writing this.  Then the crowning piece….LOVE.  The all-elusive LOVE.

I realize that LOVE is not a feeling, although it produces feelings.  I know that LOVE needs to show in actions, and in sacrifice.  Maybe I have it, and I am just not plugged into it.  Do I have some sort of soulish extension chord that I should be able to just plug into the Great Outlet of Love? Have I blown a fuse?

I don’t want to leave a legacy of life evasion to my children.  The legacy that was left to me.  I want to teach them to love life, to embrace it, and to look to G-d, no matter the circumstances.  I realize that my chances of teaching that to them, when I do not do it myself, are slim indeed.  I remember a childhood of being disciplined or silenced for expressing a negative emotion.  I remember thinking that my negative  feelings were the cause of my mother’s stony silences, of my father’s anxieties.  I remember wondering how it was that I came to be the Great Destroyer of Happiness, how I destroyed my family with my SELF.  Oh, how I don’t want my children to feel that!

This human condition is messy at best, devestating at its worst.  I don’t want to wake up one day, with my kids grown and wrinkles on my face, and realize that I wasted so many days just trying to get to the next day.  I want to learn to embrace what is NOW, and to open myself up to seeing the beauty that G-d has placed in it.  Now, just to get out of this trap of a head.  I want nothing more than to pull down these lofty and theological ideals that I hold into the mess of my daily life.

I have been reading “The Way”, by St. Josemaria Escriva (the founder of Opus Dei).  His words have been speaking so deeply to my condition, that I do see a glimmer of sweetness inside.  Here are some of his quotes:

“‘Tomorrow!’ Sometimes it is prudence, sometimes it is the adverb of the defeated.”

“You’re afraid of becoming distant and cold with everyone – you want so much to be detached!  Get rid of that fear.  If you belong to Christ – completely to Christ – he will give you light, fire and warmth for all men.”

“‘If your right eye scandalizes you, pluck it out and cast it from you!’  Poor heart…that’s what scandalizes you.  Grasp it, hold it tight in your hands – and don’t give it any consolation.  And, when it asks for consolation, full of noble compassion say to it slowly, as if confiding, ‘My heart…heart on the cross, heart on the cross!”

“Many who would let themselves be nailed to a cross before the astonished gaze of thousands of spectators won’t bear the pinpricks of each day with a Christian spirit!  But think, which is the more heroic?”

“Your worst enemy is yourself”

“Sadness, depression.  I’m not surprised: it’s the cloud of dust raised by your fall.  But….enough of it!  Can’t you see that the cloud has been borne far away by the breath of grace?  Moreover, your sadness – if you don’t reject it – could very well be the cloak of your pride.  Did you really think yourself so perfect and sinless?”

I hate to end this entry on a negative, self-deprecating note.  I want to end it like a psalm…all misery and longing until the “BUT YOU L-RD…..”.  But I am no psalmist, and my resources are tapped.  Instead I will cling to someone else’s words, I will borrow someone else’s strength and clarity,

“Consider what is most beautiful and most noble on earth, what pleases the mind and the other faculties, and what delights the flesh and the senses.  Consider the world, and the other worlds that shine in the night – the whole universe.  And this, along with all the satisfied follies of the heart, is worth nothing, IS nothing and less than nothing, compared with this G-d of mine! -of yours! – Infinite treasure, most beautiful pearl…humbled, become a slave, reduced to nothingness in the form of a servant in the stable where he willed to be born…in Joseph’s workshop, in his Passion and in ignominious death, and in the frenzy of Love – the blessed Eucharist”.  (emphasis mine)

Peace Testimony For This War-Torn and Restless Heart

I am probably the most un-Quaker-ly person you will ever meet.  I am loud, you know when I am in a room, and I am at many times filled with fight and avarice.  I am always thinking, always planning, rarely stopping either my body or my brain.  I am always hatching a new plan.  Quiet and silence is a struggle for me.  As I plow through my life like a bull in china shop, I throw things at problems like flaming arrows, often making them into catastrophes.  Then, I run bloody murder from the destruction.

It is exactly because of this that I know that I am called to the Society of Friends.  This girl needs silent worship, a simplified life, a view that G-d is in all….a path and a way that opens to the Divine instead of calling it down with demands and force.  Most of all, I need a testimony of Peace.

To be honest, it is the Peace testimony that causes me the most inner friction of anything I have come across in Quakerism.  I have avoided it entirely…never going to a peace vigil, never holding a sign about torture, never even signing a petition about torture.  I don’t know if I have ever even used the word with my children.

After much inner searching as to what could possibly be my problem…I have come to this analysis:

I was raised in a very liberal and secular family in inner city DC, where “activism” was fed to me in a bottle.  Anyone raised in DC as I was (and I’m not talking Bethesda or Arlington y’all) will be able to relate to this.  Most of us Hill-Billies (as we called ourselves, growing up on Capitol Hill) grew up with passion for activism and hatred of injustice as our main functioning emotions and drives in life.  Through facebook (yes, the evil FB!) I can rattle off the types of jobs and lives that my peers have now so you can see what I mean….Female Episcopalian Priest in South Africa, Public Defender, ACLU lawyer, CDC administrator, Obama campaign worker, creators of alternative education charter schools in the inner-city, volunteers for social change through rap foundations for inner-city teens, artists galore….you get my drift.  We were raised to bring “change” and to go to where people needed help the most and fight for them.  We were raised almost as an army of “change-makers”, whether through law, art, religion or education.  We were the ones against guns of any kind, for any reason, against war or injustice in all of its forms.

I remember crying at nights over the idea of children not being able to go to school, about weapons being built and used, about racial injustice and children without enough food to eat.  I staged a sit-in at my middle school because we had had no less than three english teachers in one year, and I felt that we deserved a better education, and that they should ensure that we had a proper teacher in our classroom.  (I quickly went back to class after threat of suspension..but the thought was there).  I secretly “sponsored” a child in Africa with my allowance money.  I hosted a bake sale when I was 8 to raise money for a new library at my inner-city elementary school.

I was one of only a few white kids at my school, my mother having sent me to a school that was “reverse integrating”, trying to bring two school districts together, one with a majority of middle class white families and another with mostly lower-class African American families.  Most of the white families took their children out of the school when this merger happened, but not my parents.  They lauded the fact that I was in the minority, as most little white children never have such an experience.

Here’s the end of it…..at this school, I was harassed, jumped and constantly tortured for being white.  I was told I was the cause of slavery, that I talked funny, that I dressed funny…I was called “honky”, told I smelled, had huge groups of children shun me and refuse to talk to me because of my race.  I was cornered, punched in the face, pushed in the halls, had my lunch spilled to the floor.  All the while, teachers and administrators turned their eyes away from this, and never once allowed me to believe that I was a victim of racism.  Instead, it became about me not trying hard enough to fit in and make friends.  Well, I was so scared every moment of every day that I suppose this might have been true.  So, I guess I really did have the quintessential minority experience, as it were.

These years that I had in a “war-zone” sowed into me a hair trigger response to any sort of “fight” or “battle” of any form.  I wanted nothing to do with “social justice”.  Sure, I wanted everyone to be equal, and I wanted everyone to have liberty and freedom…but most of all, I didn’t want to have to think about it at all.  The following years, in high school, college, then my first years on my own were spent in desperate searching for PEACE.

I looked for it in religion, preferring expressions that told me I was “inherently evil” and needed to completely reject who I was.  I looked for it in embracing war, completely duped by George W Bush, and the neo-con movement  into thinking that if we were powerful and “right” that this was the answer for peace, not only on a national level, but a personal one as well.  (sorry, didn’t go back to my liberal roots, though…much more a libertarian now..still to the chagrin of my family)  I tried to find peace in a bottle, drinking and partying…thinking myself funny and clever at how many scrapes I could avoid and how absurd I could act.  I thought if I just got married, just had kids, just had the right house, just knew the WHOLE TRUTH about anything and everything…that I would finally acheive this elusive PEACE that everyone was talking about.

Peace to me has been about my own heart, my own spirit and my own life.  I can’t even look at social injustice…not even someone throwing litter on the ground….without throwing at it every ounce of strife and anger that I carry in my heart.  This is why, when first walking into a Friends Meetinghouse, and heard all of the focus on social justice and the like, I became torn up inside.  As it was being spoken about, I would just close up and think, “wah, wah, wah, wah…..(ie Charlie Brown’s teacher’s voice) okay when are we going to talk simplicity and integrity?”  Yes, I could sit in silence and focus on so many things…but not Peace on any level.  It was just too painful, because I didn’t know what it was.

I recently went to a Meeting where they were going to have a discussion about what might bring more “young folks” into the fold.  I wasn’t invited to this discussion, but I immediately thought of this conundrum.  I wonder if a restless heart that does not know peace is universal to my generation.  This generation with constant stimulation and never stopping to breathe, being fed “reality” by things that are not real at all has a systemically war-torn spirit.  If I was in that room, I would tell them that social justice and Peace on a global level is an amazing thing to talk about, work for, and hope for.  However, I know that at least in my case…until there is Peace in my soul, in my life and in my Self…all I have to “affect change” in the global arena is fight and angst.

I am learning to sit.  I am learning to stop.  I am learning to see Peace not as an agenda, but a birthright given to me by my Loving Creator.  As I open to it, and give it space to reside in my heart, I am able to share it willingly (even without knowing that I am!).  As I sow Peace in my own life, and into my home and my family, I am affecting a change that could never accomplished holding a sign in anger.  The Society of Friends holds an amazing gift for me personally, but also for my generation…a Peace Testimony that begins in the individual, which can then be taken to the world.

Fairy Houses at Kennedy Park

This week I have been taking Janka Fairy to swimming lessons at Kennedy Park in West Hartford.  The draw to go there is that the lessons are only 35 dollars for two weeks worth, and there is a sprinkler park right next to where The Fairy takes her lesson.  I can watch My little swimmer in the water, while the boys play in the sprinklers.

There are also a lot of local camps, run through the public schools, that come to the park.  Today, a large gaggle of them, dressed in matching green shirts descended on us while we played in the little adjoining playground.  They were accompanied by two counselors, women in their 40’s or 50’s.  These women were alternating talking on their cell phones, texting, and yelling at the kids to “hurry”, “get over here” and “stop that”.

Several of the boys were playing with my sons, treating them sweetly like little brothers, helping them on a swing or seesaw.  I began to chat with them and ask them about their camp.

Apparently, today (Thursday) is Field Trip Day.  On this particular day, their excursion was going to be to Hometown Buffet, then to a movie.  At summer camp.  Did I miss something?  I don’t remember camp ever being like this….spending time eating at restaurants and going to movies….  They also told me that they can “do basically whatever they want” at camp, and that they don’t really have any activities.  I am hoping this means they have free play, outside…but I have a feeling it might mean that they are just “basically” supervised while they are shuffled around to one controlled environment after another.

Their counselors weren’t engaging with them in any meaningful way, so the boys and I showed them how to make Fairy Houses.  We talked about how the fairies fly around every night looking for a place to rest their heads…and that it’s every child’s job to build houses for them wherever they can.  Even though at this park there was more garbage than leaves and sticks, we managed to forage some acorns, a few twigs and dead leaves to erect a small fairy house in the root of a large elm.  We even broke the “natural materials only” rule, and used a discarded bottle cap as a “sink”.  Perhaps urban fairies must make use of discarded garbage in their homes, as that seems to be a local resource.

People often ask me if, as a homeschooler, I am going to “use” the resources available at the public school…if I am going to follow their curriculums, keep my children “up to date” with what they do there, let my kids join their sports teams….  I think this question has it all backwards.  From now on, I am going to think about what we can give, as a homeschooling family, to children who are herded off into institutional “educational” settings.  Perhaps we are uniquely positioned to show these children how to look at their environments in a different and more magical and deep way…instead of as a mere destination for an “activity”.

I am going to hope for more circumstances where my children and I can share our way of life with others who would not otherwise experience it.  I am hoping that at least some of those children we met today will continue to build fairy houses wherever they go, and teach other children how to do the same.

Reclaiming G-d for the Quakers…an Orthodox Believer’s Lament

I posted the following on a public forum today, but thought it would be an interesting start to a post here on my blog.  As someone who is fairly new to Quakerism, but not new at all to the Emergent Church movement and other such “religious” endeavors….I am amazed at the huge divide that exists within Quakerism.  The divide seems to exist on either side of the liberal/conservative lines.  I’m going to come right out as someone from the conservative camp before I go on.

However, I think that my particular background, specifically coming from strong ties in Orthodox Judaism (and also Messianic Judaism) has given me a different perspective on this divide.  Here is my reply, loosely in response to a post about how Christian Quakers and non-Christian Quakers could view one another to gain better mutual understanding.  (I think mutual understanding is good…what I don’t understand is why there is an argument AT ALL within Quaker circles about the role of Christianity…Quakerism at its outset was a Christian movement…more on that later.)  This blog post is NOT in response to what I read on that forum…this is just a spin-off of what it made me think about.

“Primitive Christianity was Judaism, folks….:)
The disciples came out of the synagogues, however, and went into homes and streets to share with people who would be otherwise unknowing of the G-d of Abraham, Isaac and Joseph…the great love of G-d through the Messiah Yeshua (Jesus). The great spirit of “primitive” Christianity was that it became revealed that ALL people have that Light Within, the Inner Teacher! All have a calling to Messiah, and He came to teach ALL OF US of H-mself. Primitive Christianity opens the doors to all, and seeks to identify for them…..”you hear that still small voice inside of yourself? You see the beauty of this Creation, do you feel the pull of something larger than yourself????….THAT’S G-d, and here is Who He Is….”
Just as in pre-Christian times, when the altar to the “Unnamed G-d” was identified in NAME by Jewish people who had a covenental relationship with H-m…so I see our role as Convergent QUakers (as such)….I never doubt that someone of another faith is actually hearing from G-d. However, I do take it to the “next level”, and think that this G-d, of all faiths, does have an identity, rooted in history and Truth. This will come to everyone at some point…even if after death (yes, I am Orthodox in this way). That doesn’t mean that I don’t have sensitivity to others, or that I can’t relate to what they are saying.
The questions are interesting, and helpful in that they help people evaluate their own “trigger words”, where they hear something with a Christian or non-Christian designation, and immediatley shut down any openness to the speaker of such words. This creates division where there need be none….but there will always be lines that are unable to be broken when you hold to an Orthodox belief as I do. That doesn’t mean I have to shut down to people, or think there is something wrong with them…but I can peacefully choose to disagree! “

So, the way I see it is that “Primitive Christianity” was Judaism as renewed through the arrival of Messiah.  Subsequently….as man began to tag on their own forms and aesthetics to Christianity, Quakerism (among other movements) was formed in response to this “Christianity” that seemed to be far removed from the simplicity of our Great Messiah’s original Message.  In George Fox’s day, it was a given that the G-d of the Jewish Torah and the Christian New Testament was the One True G-d.  The question existed in how it is we are called to follow and worship H-m.  The original intention of these pioneering Quakers was that everything shoud be stripped away so that all that was left was G-d, and Jesus Christ as revealed in the scriptures, and experienced in every person’s heart as our Inner Teacher.  George Fox would be rolling in his grave to know that not only has everything been stripped away, but Christianity ITSELF has been stripped away and demolished.  Then, erected on this demolition site are some flimsy altars to political and social activism, and some “practices” that look no less like Zen Buddhism.

I am not bashing Buddhism or activism…I am merely saying, that at least to these new Quaker eyes, that the originial intent of Quakerism has been replaced in many circles with things that are their own cultural reality that just bear the name “Quaker”.

In this day and age, we can’t take it as a given that the G-d of the Bible is True…because this is the minority belief of late.  However, I also find it strange that within Quakerism there would be time spent on wondering or debating if Christianity, in either liberal or orthodox form, is a central part of Quakerism.

At what point does Quakerism become NOT Quaker?  If Quaker identity is all “up for grabs”, and we can pick and choose as we like as to “what this means to me”, what makes it Quaker?  Is it the silent worship?  Well, I find that in many other traditions.  Is it the pacifism?  The Amish, Mennonites, and Buddhists among others all take the pacifist route.  Is it the testimony of Plain Living?  Again…not exclusively Quaker.  Is it the idea that G-d is in all of us?  Again, not only Quaker.  Is it the “government” of the religion…the ways of discernment, etc…  What drew me to Quakerism was the writings of the pioneers of this great faith and Way, and the combination of ALL these things that were part of the first inclinations of this movement.  I have no desire to stand in a cafeteria line to form my faith, but I want to cling strongly to a community and a Way, and then pass that heritage on to my children.  I think there is room within that, as a thinking and open person, to allow sources from all faiths to “speak to my condition”….but just because that source “speaks to my condition” and I happen to be a Quaker doesn’t make it a Quaker source.

I am sure that this will induce ire in many who read this (if any read this….)…but please read my tone not as argumentative.  I am genuinely asking these questions, and I am trying to be as honest as I can in describing a real confusion I have about this Way that my family and I have been called to follow.   I don’t invalidate anyone’s beliefs, nor would I ever think that someone is “not Quaker” because they don’t see things as I do.  I am commenting on the movement as a whole, and my personal confusions about it.

My Plain, or…How I Rock It (For Now, Anyway)

I am completely obsessed with all things Plain.  I own “secret bonnets”, once hidden safely away in a drawer, now proudly worn by my five year old daughter.  I have white aprons for “Baking Days”.  I even own some near-cape dresses, made to my specifications by women who make Plain clothes for the great UNplain masses.

Religious dress has always fascinated me, in all of its incarnations.  Through my many turns in and out of various religious expressions, I have come to love the idea of dressing in a manner that says, “I belong to Something/Someone Else”.  I am a daughter of the King, and I want what I present to the world to be emblematic of that.

Here’s the trouble: as a girl who will sit and watch American Idol while wearing a bonnet and apron in secret, I have to be realistic about who I am inherently.  I am not Amish, and I am not called to being Plain in that beautiful historical Quaker Way.  Having a woman in a bonnet next to me at Meeting (it’s happened ONCE, and she was visiting from some fantasy Quaker land far, far away) is overwhelmingly wonderful.  But I will most likely never be that woman in the bonnet sitting next to you.  I do, however, have a distinct style that is borrowed heavily from Orthodox Judaism, anthroposophy, Mormons, Russian Orthodox, and a small sprinkling of Islam and Old Navy. I don’t think that it could rightly be considered Plain in the orthodox sense, but I approach it in a Quakerly way.  I allow G-d to speak to me about what He wants from me, and I follow H-s leadings, never fearing what he wants from me.  I want to be as authentically ME as He made me.

I first started thinking about my manner of dress long before my Quaker Days as an Evangelical, when I read an amazing book, called The Hidden Art of Homemaking by Edith Schaeffer.  Her husband is the creator of L’Abri in Switzerland.  In it, she speaks about how since we are made in the image of The Creator, it is our birthright as followers of G-d to be CREATIVE.  We can express “art” and “creation” even in the smallest details of our lives.  This includes how we dress.  See how G-d clothes the lillies!  At this time in my life, I was still wearing trends and very modern clothes, without a thought to thinking about if G-d would be pleased with what I wore.  I began to open my heart to seeing my dress as a way to express G-d in my life.  This is why I do not include only muted colours in My Plain.  I do wear colours and patterns, as He clothes H-s Creation.

I have to admit that I place modesty above Plainess.  I think in our present day culture, and this day and age…just to dress modestly is Plain in a sense.  Even children have a hard time finding modest clothes in a mainstream store.  I cover all of my parts.  I wear skirts and dresses….or at least a long tunic over pants.  It’s my personal conviction that when women wear pants, the eye goes STRAIGHT TO THE PANTS, no matter the figure of the woman or the cut of the garment.  So, the skirts-only thing isn’t about not dressing like a man, which G-d condemns…but a personal choice based on keeping private the parts of my body I would like to keep private.

So many Islamic “hijabi” blogs speak about how dressing modestly frees them as women from having to meet certain societal expectations.  They don’t have to look sexy, or thin or stylish.  Men (and women) can really look at them for who they are inside.  This idea speaks to me deeply, and has helped my move towards dressing modestly.  Shukr Online has long skirts that you absolutely CANNOT find in regular stores.  My “Islamic skirts” are one of my more recent favourite things to wear in the summer.

In the Mormon world, where adherents wear “temple garments” which cover them from knees to shoulders, there has begun a new and unique industry.  Women who wanted to be able to wear contemporary clothes from mainstream stores, but couldn’t find things modest enough to cover their garments created a line of “layering” shirts.  These jersey shirts come in a variety of cuts and lengths, and can be worn alone, or under mainstream clothes to make them more modest.  They have recently branched out in skirts, dresses and swimwear.  My two favourite Mormon clothes sites are:  www.shadeclothing.com  and www.layersclothing.com  I always wear these layering clothes, to cover a bustline, or under something sleeveless or see-through.

On to Judaism…my years in Orthodox and Messianic Judaism gave me a love for headcovering.  In Orthodox Judaism, the woman begins to cover upon marriage.  I see it as a wedding ring that you wear on your head.  To save your hair just for your husband is a beautiful and precious thing.  Many women wear sheitls (wigs), but the Modern Orthodox style is to wear a variety of tichels (scarves), bandanas, chaponnes, berets and doorags.  Because I also believe in the Messiah (and therefore the New Testament), I also take seriously 1Corinthians11 which tells women to cover their heads…”because of the angels” and as an outward sign of submission to our husbands, and therefore to Christ.  G-d has called me to cover, and I have recently taken it on more full-time.  I do let my hair hang down, but I always have something on my head….as a reminder.

My children are being educated (at least in large part) in Waldorf Education, which is based on anthroposophy.  In anthroposophical philosophy, there is a lot of importance placed on the “archetype”.  As teachers (which I am as a homeschooling mother), we are to present ourselves as much as possible as an archetype.  We can be the archetype of “Mother/Madonna”…working calmly with our hands, while we gently hum and escort our precious charges through transitions from one activity to the next.  We preserve the dreamy wonderland our our children’s lives by approaching them gently, completely open to them.  We want to “hold” them with the arms of our love and spirits.  The archetype of Mother provides a spiritually rich and warm domestic environment, where the children feel safe and at peace inside of themselves.  I feel this falls so much in line with Quakerism (but more on that in another post).  All kindergarten teachers in Waldorf Schools wear long skirts and aprons.  Some even wear kerchiefs on their heads.  They wear this “uniform” because it helps them to represent the ARCHETYPE.  It’s a mantle of Madonna.  So…even though as a mother to three little ones, I can in no way access this archetype with any great regularity…I find that dressing in this manner helps me a great deal.  On really stressful day, where I feel like I am going to pull my hair out and call my husband at work crying from him to come home, I may even “amp it up” with one of my secret bonnets and a prairie dress….all the while chanting “I’M ACCESSING THE ARCHETYPE, I’M ACCESSING THE ARCHETYPE”.

The Tall Man likes me in modern clothes, so I don’t wear the prairie dress and bonnets out.  G-d calls me through my Dear Husband as well, and I want to be sensitive to that.  I want to be the bride that is desirable to him, not just follow my own fantasies without care for the one who should mean more to me than myself.  So…I dress in modern clothes, in that they cannot be placed in a particular historical era.

My Plain also encompasses what materials things are made from.  As much as possible, I try to buy things used, or make things out of other used things.  I have a great jersey skirt I made from used t-shirts.  I make most of my children’s clothes in this way.  I use only natural materials, using the resources that G-d gave us in a responsible way.

Sometimes I become muddled and envious.  I want something that I see in a magazine, or I wish I could look like a good friend who does not stay up at night praying about what she should wear (oh, to be so unburdened….).  However, I bring these temptations to G-d, where they are levelled to the ground in H-s Great and Magnificent Presence.  I am willing to be on a journey with My Messiah on this one…and to watch H-m slowly unfold H-s will for me moment to moment.  I remain open to scratching all of these ideas and putting on a cape dress at any point…when He tells me to!  Until then, I will continue to pour over those great blogs of women who dress in a True Plain manner, while I sit in my Mormon shirt, Islamic skirt and Jewish doorag.

I’ll post some pictures soon, maybe a little gallery of examples for the curious folks out there…or maybe as inspiration to those who feel called to adopt a more “Plain” style of dress.  Ultimately, I know that PLAIN is not just about clothes, but it is an approach to life.  If I were to immediately say, “Forget it, I am throwing out all of these clothes, and I am only going to….(insert rules here)”, I would give up.  Trust me, I have done it.  I want to always look first to my heart, to see if I have sufficiently removed all of the obstacles and distractions that prevent me from hearing G-d’s Voice.  I desire first an uncluttered and Plain spirit, one that is singly devoted to G-d.  The clothes should reflect that, and hopefully give reason for people to wonder about why my heart swells with gratitude and love for H-m.

*caveat….I have never been a Mormon or a Muslim…after reading this post, I realize it looks like I really have been in a ton of religions! 

Turning Off the Television

Although my children rarely if ever watch the television, mommy can’t resist the box so well herself.  In my latest “be-the-grown-up-I-want-my-children-to-grow-up-to-be” journey, I have finally decided it’s time to kick the television.  All this Waldorf Education and giving my children a protected REAL childhood, apart from the influences of a rapid flicker rate is good…but then sitting every night in front of the same thing I think is bad for my children….not so good.

“OH, but you only have three weeks left of So You Think You Can Dance”!  “Who will win Hell’s Kitchen” this year”?!  “What about all those great On Demand Movies, Intervention….oh my gosh, that means you’ll miss the new season of Big Love, Dollhouse, The Office, Project Runway”!!!!  my brain protests.

The trouble is, once I am in front of a television, I can’t seem to turn it off.  I can’t fall asleep in front of it either, it wires me up, and makes me keep searching for “something else”…”there has to be SOMETHING interesting to watch”.  Since our move to this little house in Glastonbury, the TV has been moved to my bedroom.  As Tall Man snores in front of it, I stay awake until the wee hours, catching snippets of Lifetime Movies and cooking shows.  I’ll even read in front of it.  What a waste of time.

I think that the only thing to do, that will drastically change my relationship with this electronic beast, it to get rid of the cable/channel reception altogether.  I don’t know if I can convince dear husband to trash the box outright (maybe some movies on DVD…with a clear start and end), but to make it inaccessible would be a step in the right direction.

Some of the many motivating reasons to kill this thing are:

-a study (sorry, no footnotes here….google it!)  showed that your metabolism while watching television is actually slower than when just sitting and doing nothing.  Add to this the large amount of adrenaline and cortisol watching telelvision produces in the body (the flight or fight hormones).  So, your body is completely slowed down, but has coursing through it very powerful hormones that makes your body think that it is in danger.

-brain waves/patterns of synapses firing while watching television are identical to those of someone with severe depression.  So, it mimics depression.  You think that you need it to feel better, but actually makes you feel worse…going back again and again to the same contraption that sucks your time and energy, and literally changes you physiologically.  This seems to be a very insidious addiction.

-Neither of the above points have even touched upon CONTENT.  So, it doesn’t matter if you are watching a show about Mother Theresa or Hitler.  It could be porn and violence, or bunnies and angels…it still has the same physiological effects.

-Once your body and mind are put into this semi-hypnotic state, commercial television then makes suggestions that your brain readily accepts.  How much of what we television watchers believe, or how much of what we perceive to be reality is actually a suggestion that has been placed in our minds through this very powerful medium?  How much would we change if we were to stay away from it entirely for an extended amount of time?

If you have never seen it, watch the 20 minute documentary The Story Of Stuff:

http://www.storyofstuff.com/

You can watch the whole thing on their site.  This is another compelling reason to reevaluate our televisions, and our posession entirely.

Okay, I think I have convinced myself…now to get rid of it before I fall asleep again…..

Rose’s Berry Farm, Blueberry Buckle and Moving Towards Self-Sufficiency (at least in my mind)

Little Crazy Matas eating all of his berries

picking

Our berry bush

The view looking down into the little "valley" where the berry fields and orchards are.

I’ve heard that Glastonbury is the center of all things “U-Pick”, but have yet to pick anything.  So, we went on a search for a U-Pick farm, and discovered Rose’s Berry Farm.  We followed the signs along New London Tpke., through residential neighborhoods, past some building that looked a bit like a warehouse of some kind.  When we turned into the drive to the Berry Farm, we were met with a beautiful view of the road cascading down into the berry patches.  The view was so beautiful, and I was surprised to find so much farm land ahead of us.  I was expecting some dinky little patch.  This instead was an enourmous operation.

To the right at the bottom of the drive is a playground, with ample room to picnic and play.  To the left is the store, a gazebo, and the place where the truck comes and picks you up to take you to the patches that are farther away.  A woman gave us a big bucket, and shuffled us off in the right direction.  We were met by a teenager, who showed us the four blueberry bushes that were to be “ours”.  What a well oiled machine, and no competing with other customers for a place to pick.

Little Crazy Matas didn’t allow even one berry to make it into his box, and he was blue around the mouth and fingers by the time we were done.  The older two helped me fill my large pail halfway.  All told, we left with three pounds of blueberries, and probably ate a pound’s worth more while picking.  We hope to go back next week to pick raspberries.

We ate a lot of them just plain, alongside some nuts for a snack, and also on top of some vanilla ice cream as a treat.  I decided to try my hand at a Blueberry Buckle, to bring to the Quaker Family Sabbath Meeting that we were attending on Sixth Day evening.  I found a recipe on the Food Network site.  It turned out wonderfully, although slightly raw just in the very middle…although no one seemed to mind.    I tend to overcook cakes and muffins, so I think I jumped the gun on this one.  It was served after a meal of curried lamb, brown rice and goat’s milk yogurt…the lamb and the yogurt from the farm that we had the Meeting on.  More on this Meeting in another post, it was lovely beyond expectations.

Seventh Day morning, and I woke up before the Tall Man.  The children and I made “Adirondack Flapjacks”, which is really just a nostalgic name for pancakes…although it did involve separating eggs, and whipping the whites until stiff to fold in the batter.  We used up the rest of the berries (I would say about a cup and half’s worth) with about a 1/4 cup of honey and 1/4 cup water.  I boiled them down to make a syrup for the flapjacks.  It turned out beautifully, and I am wondering if there is some way I can can this syrup for use in the winter.

When I am out with the children doing something like picking berries under the sun surrounded by farm land, I am almost immediately able to lose my hardened “Mean Mommy” exterior.  When we are gathered with some common purpose, away from the distractions of a house filled with junk, we get a glimpse of life as it is meant to be.  We were just playing at “work”; our survival certainly did not depend on these berries that we picked.  However, it reminds me that our family’s goal of becoming more self-sufficient (where the berries ARE something we depend on to add to our food stores).   When I read the Little House books, I see such a wonderful picture of a family living and working not for some secondary gain (money, entertainment, and “self-fulfillment”), but because G-d told us that we were to live by the toil of our own hands.  The meaning and purpose of life really was about G-d, family and the very simple blessings (and toils) of an authentic life. 

I want it, I want it!  But I realize that if all of a sudden you were to pull the plug out on modern living for me, my family would die very quickly.  I do not posess the skills to live self-sufficiently.  It is a lost art on this generation.  If the groceries stores and U-Pick farms were to close down, we would be about two weeks from starvation.  In this day and age, I think that we need to be prepared for a situation where the grocery stores are closed.  We are working towards it, but still so obviously far from the goal.

JB Williams Park, Splashing in the Creek…A REAL Childhood Memory

When Janka Fairy was in ballet camp last week, the boys and I discovered JB Williams Park.  This 160 acre park on Niepsic Rd. looks unassuming from the parking lot.  However, when you start walking along the trail, you discover so much more.  Walk to the right, and you walk over shallow creeks on the way to a small fishing pond, stocked with trout and other such fish.  Also is a heavily shaded playground.  If you walk to the left along the trails up the hill into the woods, you come upon a beautiful little red clover “field” cut through with a babbling brook, just the size for wading. 

There was a town sponsored “camp” for 3 year olds up at the playground.  I had the boys at the creek, wading and splashing.  They were pulling leaves to float downstream as “boats”, and stepping on the skunk cabbage to make it “stinky”.  When it came time for pick up the campers, all the parents passed us by on their way.  So many of them smiled and made comments like, “oh, that’s so wonderful” “I remember doing that for entire summers when I was a kid” “that’s what you’re supposed to do in the summer” and “OOOO, looks like so much fun”.  I tried to be open and friendly with all of them, actually hoping to make some connections, as I know absolutely no one here yet. 

About five minutes later, camp was dismissed and the mass exodus began.  The comments from parents completely changed.  All of the children saw us in creek and thus began the “mommy, can I go in the water?”  “I want to do what those kids are doing”.  The parents all hurried by, only two of them saying that tomorrow they would bring their wellies so that they could go in after camp.  One father, obviously irritated, dragged his daughter (who was clad in shorts and crocs) across the little footbridge saying, “you don’t have the right shoes”.  Other parents were in a rush to get to another activity, “oh no, you have your tennis lesson now” …”mommy has an appointment”.  Some refused to look at me.

What happened to these parents…on the first pass of the bridge, they were reminiscent of their long-gone childhoods, smiling at the sight of two children just “hanging out”…on their return trip they turned into hurried, irritated grown-ups with much more important things to do.

I decided to return the next day, to see if some of the parents brought the kids boots.  This time, on the way to pick up the campers it was, “you guys again…are you going to start sleeping here too?”  “you guys are pretty hard core?” “I guess if it was good one day, might as well do it again?”.  The departure was even quicker and more curt….except for one mom, who stopped at the end of the bridge with three little children and one baby in a car seat, and opened her large sack.  Out of it she pulled three pairs of boots…..”thought we’d join you today, I’m glad to see you’re back”.

Picking Leaves to Float downstream as "boats".

Splashing

At the fishing pond, a short walk from the lower creek. Second day at the park. We brought our boats on ribbons.

Who needs a playground and a summer camp?!

Little Crazy Matas Turns Two…a Simple Birthday Celebration

Birthday parties for children are completely out of hand.  I have been to birthday partires for two year olds with ponies, pinatas, bounce houses, huge water slides, kegs, catering, tents, and hired babysitters.  I have seen children flail themselves upon colourful package upon colourful package, ripping the paper to shreds, then casting the disposable and pointless gift to the side, just to see what’s next.  I have then seen that same child sit upon a pile of opened presents so that none of the other children at the party can play with them.  I have seen children drink three juice boxes, eat two pieces of cake, and then nothing but chips and candy for snacks…then exhaust themselves in wild and semi-supervised play.

I have to admit that as an adult, I have fully enjoyed myself at some of these parties, in close comraderie with other parents, as we watched our children’s party clothes get covered in dirt and chocolate.  I’ve sat by the keg, or at the foot of a water slide, making small talk and ripping a 20th piece of candy out of my child’s hands.  I’ve not wanted to leave, I was having such a great grown-up time.

However, I can never sit well with how this environment is for children.  Little children, who do not censor what they experience, become overloaded and spoiled.  What does the birthday mean, but a chance to over-indulge the “I WANT” monster that each of us has inside of ourselves?  It’s a life moment sacrificed at the altar of materialism.  It was that way when I was young, and it only seems worse now.  My generation of parents seem largely asleep to what they are creating when they make an event out of giving a child every fleshly desire amidst an orgy of stimulation and overindulgence.  If something is marketed for “Children”, then it must be okay, right? 

Where has our inherent human and spiritual wisdom gone?  Do we even authentically see the souls of these little ones entrusted to our care?  Have we abdicated our parental responsibilities so much that we just do what the Jones’s do, accept whatever the “experts” are telling us today?  Where is the awe, the sacrifice, the willingness to change our lives because now we are PARENTS?!

Because of this, we decided to celebrate Crazy Matas’s second birthday with just us, at home, actually on his birthday.  We didn’t need to send any invitations, get cheap party favours, or rent a clown.  No expensive cakes or kegs.

We woke up in the morning, and woke the little Birthday Man with a “happy birthday, now you’re two”.!  We talked about it through the day.  We told the story of the day he was born, starting when he was in Heavenly Garden with G-d, looking over the earth for parents he could call his own.  Then, the children and I went walking to a place where wildflowers grow along the side of the road.  We picked a nice bouquet, and went home to decorate his birthday table together.  I asked him what he wanted for his birthday dinner, and he said “pasta and salad”.  So that’s what we made.  When daddy came home from work, Janka Fairy and I went out to buy him a small 10 dollar cake.  In restrospect I would have made him one, but I wanted the day to be easy.  We had a lovely family meal, then special books of Crazy Matas’s choosing in mommy and daddy’s bed.

He has been asked, “what did you get for your birthday”, and he proudly answers, “I’M TWO!”  That’s what he got for his birthday….an experience and celebration of his turning two.  That’s all it was about, and as of now, it is the most precious birthday memory I have so far since having children. 

I have definitely “seen the light”…and all of our birthdays are going to be celebrated like this.  So, if you are invited to a celebration at my house, just bring a feather, a rock, a personal story, a little picture drawn with crayons, but we don’t want any STUFF.  Just share with us in this beautiful marking of a life growing before our eyes…G-d’s own miracle.

Lighting the Candles for Crazy Matas's Birthday Blessing