A Weaned Child

Zero to sixty in 1.4 seconds! This passage came to mind today...

My heart is not proud, LORD, my eyes are not haughty; I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me. But I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me. ...Put your hope in the LORD both now and forevermore. -Psalm 131 This came to mind in contrast with Chloe's typical feeding behavior, especially in the last few days. Another translation represents the last line of verse 2 as, "like a weaned child I am content." So far from that is Chloe! Her hunger cues aren't too demanding until she's in position. Then, it seems, she suddenly realizes that it's time to eat, and she's hungry, she's hungry, she's HUNGRY HUNGRY HUNGRY HUNGRY HUNGRY HUNGRY HUNGRY HUNGRY HUNGRY!!!!!!!! And she always has been, she always will be, and she is starving nigh unto death!!! When the blessed breast, the Giver of Milk, does appear, she approaches it with such desperation that she nearly misses her meal - fists flying, she hits herself in the face and more often than not ends up latching onto a fist, only spit it out screaming when it refuses to provide her with the much-desired milk. At not-quite-three-weeks of age, she has yet to learn to trust us. Of course we'll feed her; always. But she doesn't know this yet - and that's okay. She has plenty of time to learn. Will the same type of frantic desperation still be okay in six months, or a year? Well, no; in fact, it may be a cause for concern. Not because we're any less willing to feed her, but because by that time she can be reasonably expected to know that she can trust us to feed her and to calm herself accordingly (not to say that we won't get a tantrum if a meal is too slow in coming, but that I don't expect the immediate panic I see now). The psalmist, too, has learned to calm himself and rest in the belief that God is trustworthy. Rather than trying to control things beyond his control, rather than worrying about events that surround him or agonizing over personal fears and ambitions, he has calmed and quieted himself. Not without reason: he has chosen God's ambitions over his own, trusting God to provide and direct as God sees fit. He no longer comes frantically to God with his pressing and passing concerns, shouting in desperation and fear that he won't be heard. He's learned that the fearful desperation accompanying Chloe's cries for "MILK MILK MILK MILK MILK!" causes him to dive into his own fists and miss the meal that God has prepared. This season of Lent, I'd like to focus more on stilling myself before God. While I don't think I approach him with the frantic desperation I see in Chloe when she's looking for a meal, I also don't have the stillness of spirit that the psalmist describes here. I'll try to keep you posted with any progress. :)

Japan's Aesthetic

Japan has a pretty interesting sense of public beauty. On the one hand, power lines are strung excessively and haphazardly everywhere you can imagine. On the other, they put flower arrangements in the subway stations. Our subway station has a new flower arrangement near the wickets every week or so. They tend to be simple but technically complex arrangements. This one was on display a few weeks ago and was one of my favorites. 

Intelligent Design

I found this document on the website of a Christian schools consortium in Australia. I thought it was pretty interesting! We hear a fair bit of debate about intelligent design, evolution, creationism, etc. in the U.S. as well. I can't say, however, that I really understood what all those different terms meant and how they compared and contrasted with one another until I read this little document. Cool! I found that site via David Koyzis' website. I'm having fun with these links that I just learned how to create, but I know they haven't all worked properly. If you find one that isn't working, could you let me know? I had trouble linking to that first document above today and couldn't figure out what I'd done wrong - only to discover that they had a typo (misspelled "design") in their code. Never even occurred to me to check that! What do ou know, I fixed that - and it still didn't work! Turns out I'd put an unnecessary slash at the end. Live and learn, folks, live and learn... :)

Ruminations of a Housewife

“Watashi wa shufu desu.”  So something beyond my wildest imagination has indeed come to pass:  I am a housewife.  And while I’m sure I don’t keep the cleanest house on the block, those of you who have known me for some time would be quite impressed with the distance I’ve come from the “Messiest Room” dorm awards and even my last little “single life” apartment.  

Now here’s the big secret:  I actually like it.  Not really doing dishes, or vacuuming, or most of the other “tasks” I’ve tended to associate with housekeeping… but creating a home, which is something a little bit more difficult to define.  I like organizing things so that I can find them quickly and put them away even quicklier; making sure we have toilet paper and tissues; planning meals and making them; gardening; and perhaps most of all, having the freedom to decide when and how I’ll do my work – and when I’ll let it slide and read a book or take a midday bath.  I thought I’d be bored; in fact, I’m more content and often challenged in this than I have been in most jobs I’ve had.

As I was wrestling with this bit of self-discovery, I made an interesting observation.  Because the women’s movement really hasn’t reached Japan yet, being a housewife is still a widely respected (or at least accepted) occupation.  What a difference this makes!  I appreciate all the doors that the women’s movement has opened in North America in recent decades more than I can say.  I wonder what motivates the schoolgirls on the subway here in Japan, who study long and hard to get into a good university, knowing all the while that if they choose to get married and have children they will ultimately be relegated to the home.  They really don’t have much choice in the matter.

Yet I also believe that the women’s movement made a grave error while winning the world for women:  they denigrated the very tasks that women had taken pride in for generations.  Whatever the intentions were, what should have been a battle for every person’s right to occupational choice (men can be homemakers, too!) became a battle to banish housekeeping altogether.  (Can you believe that I’m writing this??)  An overcorrection, if you will.

But it seems to me that the tide is turning.  People are recognizing that something is missing, and that there might actually be value in spending a bit of time caring for a home – whether it’s a man, a woman, or a team doing the caring.  “Keeping house has always encompassed knowing and doing whatever is needed to make the home a small, living society with the capacities to meet the needs of people in their private life:  everything from meals, shelter, clothing, warmth, and other physical necessities to books and magazines, music, play, facilities for entertaining oneself and others, a place to work, and much more…keeping house is a labor of love." From Preface to Home Comforts by Carol Mendelson.

The Day after Christmas The day after Christmas is traditionally known as Boxing Day, though this isn't observed in the U.S. But maybe it should be! As I understand it, Boxing Day derives its name from the boxes of leftover food and perhaps old clothes given to the poor on the day after Christmas. I've run across some other thoughts on the origin of both name and holiday recently, but all basically have to do with giving away boxes of something to the less fortunate. We have a new tradition in the U.S., though. It's called the "After-Christmas Sale." It is, as one ad I saw said, the day to get yourself all the things that you really wanted for Christmas. So on the day after we celebrate the birth of Christ by yes, giving, but also receiving gifts... we follow this up by getting, and getting, and getting some more. It seems a little unbalanced. So what do you think? Is it time to reinstate Boxing Day? Maybe we should take this on as individuals, and make plans to spend this day giving to others in some way. I think I'll put it on my calendar for next year. December 1: Think of ways to serve others after Christmas. Would anyone like to join me?

Advent It seems that all our lives are consumed with waiting. Not long ago, Mike and I began waiting for a visit from our family; the waiting ended, our family came, and now - so quickly! - they've gone. Now we are waiting again, to see them at Christmas. Though content with our lives as they stand, we always seem to be waiting for What's Next. Advent is just such a time of waiting, but it celebrates a final end to waiting. Just as the ancient Hebrews waited four centuries between the last words of the prophet Malachi and the first words of the prophet John, we now wait for all our hopes and longings to be satisfied in Jesus' return and the establishment of new heavens and a new earth. Amazing!