Way too often, we think God is locked up in the church or the synagogue or mosque. In my tradition, God became flesh and wandered around like some lost woman in Target, constantly getting sidetracked on this aisle or that aisle, by this person or that, juggling a giant cart of human needs. God is a very involved parent, so don’t ever think you’ve got to line those rubber duckies up in a neat row before God is swimming with you.
Before I returned to work, I shopped at a Huge and Frightening Discount Store, where I often felt overwhelmed by the choices. Most of the time, I wanted one thing and one thing only: to get out of there as soon as possible so I could get home.
The day came when I had to take the triplets shopping, which, unfortunately, was in public. Big Boy was in school. It was the triplets’ first time to go on a shopping haul with Momma at the Huge and Frightening Discount Store. Because I needed so many bulk items, I had to have a shopping cart and a flat cart. So my helper and I put one baby in the basket seat and the other two in the strollers. We took turns pushing the cart and the babies and dragging the flat cart.
As I was retrieving items up and down the aisles, the presence of three babies drew attention. It always does. On this Tuesday afternoon lots of people were stopping to see one baby, another baby, and then finally—you could see it register—a third baby. At that point, the question is usually, “Are they triplets?”
I’m quite accustomed to people saying, “Wow, you have your hands full!” “Boy, Girl, you have your hands full, don’t you?” “Man, I bet you have your hands full.” There are only so many ways you can say it. “Goodness, you have your hands full!”
What I haven’t heard too many times is, “You poor thing!”
An older lady was standing next to my cart speaking to my helper when I arrived toting three large boxes of diapers. She looked my way and gave me her condolences. I could not believe she really said, “You poor thing!” Note to unthinking strangers: at some point young children will be able to understand what you are saying. Imagine if I’d had the three-year-old with us.
This time, I was ready. “Actually, we feel quite blessed,” I said. I smiled, turned, and went down the next aisle. That was about as much conversation as she was going to get from me.
As my helper and I continued shopping, I said unkind things under my breath about a woman who gives condolences to you in public and calls you a “poor thing” because of your children. We both agreed that perhaps the woman was the one to be pitied. That comforted us, Survivors of Triplets. You may not like mountain climbing, Lady, but we find it extremely rewarding and character building and sometimes just sweet, like turning back as you’re climbing down and saying, “That’s an incredible view, People!”
We rounded the next aisle looking for bread, and another older woman stopped us.
“Oh my,” she said. “Are these your precious babies? Why, they must be the most beautiful babies I’ve ever seen. Does the one in the cart have those same gorgeous blue eyes?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, probably a bit too quickly. Aubrey turned on cue and looked at the lady. I gazed over the three and thought about how lucky I am, what sweet babies they are, and how glad I was that I’d hauled them out to shop. We were having an adventure.
The lady went on. “I need to get my husband to come see these beautiful children. Well, you are so blessed!” she said.
Later that day I mused about the two perspectives on my fruitfulness. The glass-half-full lady at the store told me that she, too, had three small children close in age, boys at that. She also remembered how people would see her busy little boys and say, “You’ve got your hands full!” That wise sister said she came up with a way to let people know not to pity her when they saw her busy family. She’d simply say, “Yeah, and so is my heart.”
Sisters, whether you are piled high in Legos or girly tutus, you can still have unlikely moments of womanly grace at the big-box store. Thanks be to God.
Note
James Weldon Johnson, “The Creation,” in God’s Trombones (New York: Penguin Classics, 2008), 15.
CHAPTER 5
WHOEVER THE KIDS ARE, THEY ARE GOD’S
Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this Scripture he told [the Ethiopian eunuch] the good news about Jesus. And as they were going along the road they came to some water, and the eunuch said, “See, here is water! What prevents me from being baptized?”
—Acts 8:35-36 ESV
The things that make me different are the things that make me.
—Winnie the Pooh
It started with a timpani drum, that huge kettle-looking percussion instrument. We had tickets to the symphony. Really good seats in the balcony. At the time, I was six months pregnant with Penn.
At one point during the concert—I have no memory of the exact piece of music—Rick, the percussionist, definitely had the rhythm going on the timpani. He was ba-bamming that big old drum with a fierceness that penetrates your whole body. In my expanded state, I could really feel the full-on percussion, but more compelling to me was the response coming from my baby boy. He was kicking it back in time to whatever he imagined was speaking to him: distant thunder, collapsing avalanches, or Mom’s magnificent tummy rumbles.
It’s probably a coincidence that the word timpani means “the hitting of one body against another.” Or maybe the instrument was doing some crazy foreshadowing. We now live, for real, in a home where boys love to body slam one another. Often, I’m collateral damage. I had no idea that having four boys would mean that I am frequently hit in the face, my glasses knocked off, my head bumped, and my neck pulled; and, yes, as I try to calm violent situations, my voice is sometimes strained from yelling three rooms away. I turn on my historic Ronald Reagan voice, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall,” or don’t tear down that wall, because I need the little boys on the other side of it! Too bad there’s no Fitbit to measure extreme mom endurance or how many daily calories we’re burning from sheer physical child management and its related stress.
Back to the baby-timpani duet.
I wanted to make sure I wasn’t imagining the thump-thumping because jacked-up hormones can make you think strange things. I took my husband’s palm and placed it on my big belly. Victor’s hand was somewhere on our baby boy, who was dancing around in there, pumping his feet, like tiny fists of triumph. We smiled. There was a guy in there who liked music or drums or dance or maybe all of it.
After Penn’s in utero concert, he seemed to bounce into the world with a fixation on the church’s drum kit. He had a toddler tendency to cut a musical rug, so we decided to give dance lessons a whirl. My husband is so not threatened by what people think, which is great; otherwise, he might have called the white coats on me a long time ago.
Our oldest son does dance and other musical stuff. These days he’s working on some tiny piano compositions. When Penn fell in love with Satchmo, New Orleans, and the trumpet, we got him a starter trumpet for his birthday.
But the special class assignment is what really got to me. Penn built a set of chimes out of tall bamboo from a neighbor’s yard and played Ode to Joy to demonstrate his instrument. That was one of those moments you realize your children will surpass you. I still think it began with the timpani, or that’s when I took note. After all, he was kicking me. I think this love of music might be inside of him and part of who he is. I think it might be a gift.
Most Times, Sisters, Go with the Flow
Not wanting to label our kid or push him, we tried conformity in the form of T-ball. I’d assumed the boys would be involved in organized sports at some point, and lots of Penn’s friends were signing up for a team. These moments are little boys’ rites of passage, right? Besides, I’m rather romantic about baseball parks: I love sitting in webbed lawn chairs, having slow conversations, and eating concessions. People, I love the concessions! Baseball’s so dang American. It also reminds me of my sweet stepdad, Pete, and the way he used to watch his favorite teams on TV with the A/C window u
nit blowing in the background on those extremely hot, southern summer days when you need gills simply to breathe.
I was sitting at one of Penn’s four-year-old T-ball games on some rickety bleachers, not yet aware I could bring a lawn chair (which assumes you are organized). While watching those kiddos in all their cute clumsiness, I could see that some parents were so into baseball, or maybe so into their kid in baseball. This one little boy made an error (of course, they were all making errors); I can’t remember if he mis-hit the ball, ran to the wrong base, or dropped a ball. Who cared? It was supposed to be fun! As this bitty boy was coming near the dugout, his dad leaned in and said, “You can do better.” I shot a look at the woman next to me, and she, too, seemed stunned.
One of the grooviest things about Jesus is his openness to what’s possible.
I never want to be that guy. Actually, I didn’t have to worry about the snarky baseball dad’s mind-trip affecting my child, because after three seasons, Penn informed me that he had enough trophies and that the uniforms were idiotically hot. It was hard not to laugh. So long, baseball concessions. Guess we’ll have to meet at the cold movie theater in the dark.
Maybe we needed a wetter sport, I thought. I’m a beach queen, and water is so my thing. Even the baptisms I perform as pastor are all messy and splashy. Wheee! Remember your baptism and be thankful—and drenched.
After summer swim lessons for a few years, Penn’s coach—a tough, lovely woman known locally as the Swim Nazi—said he had to join a swim team. It was his sport, she insisted. Victor said, “Linda, you haven’t seen him do ballet!”
It was true, though. Penn loved the water. It’s such good exercise, so we signed him up for the big pool and real-live swim team. When I watched him, I marveled at his freestyle and breaststroke and how fast he picked it up. This was going to be his sport.
After a year, he asked to quit. He hated swimming laps. I asked him to finish the season, and it was one of the longest laps of my life. It was hard to let go of my dream, especially since he has a Michael Phelps body, but competitive swimming was not his thing. I asked his dad if we were being too soft. I mourned. I thought about a lost opportunity for a scholarship. But I also had a mother who, thankfully, told me she couldn’t care less about my college major and more about my education, less about that one vocational thing people get hung up on and more about who I was becoming.
Our firstborn’s tastes are not necessarily what I expected boydom to include, but he’s not the only nonconformist in the house. No other boy has shown an interest in soccer or basketball or football. Two of our guys recently asked if they could learn weaving. They’d brought home school projects that were certainly nicer than the pot holders I made a trillion years ago. Score one for Mr. Baker, the art teacher. I’m seeing a pattern, especially after Aubrey insisted on cooking lessons with his Aunt Gayle. He is rather secretive, so maybe it has more to do with trying out cookie dough.
What finally proved we might not be mainstream was the boys’ complete conversion to ice skating. It started with Wyatt, and then the other three fell, like dominoes, and I found myself freezing to death every Saturday morning for an hour and a half. You’d think that we knew Olympian ice skater Scott Hamilton or that we’ve got Nordic roots or that we live near tons of ice. OK, we have watched Frozen a lot.
It’s OK if your boys like ice skating or dancing, and it’s OK if your girls like building things and playing with trucks. Dang. I always wanted a slot car racetrack, so when my young nephew got one, I had to play with it. I fanatically wear cowboy boots, I don’t ride horses regularly, and I don’t live in a rural area. I also love football, action movies, and craft beer. I secretly want a tattoo, which means it’s no longer a secret. I’m getting on up there, full-fledged midlife, so I’ve worried way too much about what my roomie at the nursing home will think.
However, life’s awfully short. And God just loves creativity and diversity. So if we’re dabbling in stuff that helps us grow and isn’t dangerous, then it’s probably OK to see where the train is headed.
Not So Vanilla, Mom
There’s a great promotional video of Idris Elba, the British actor, asking adults what they want to be when they grow up. When he poses the question, there’s lots of nervous laughter. But Elba gently reminds each adult, “You do realize that you’re still growing, right?” After chewing on that, people begin to share dreams: make quilts, be a football coach, play drums, act, pilot a hot air balloon. When asked why they haven’t pursued the dream, most say time is running out.
That may be accurate, but what’s also happened is that adults forget how glorious the world we live in actually is. Children, however, are in the thick of it, seeing life for the first time. They haven’t learned to tame their dreams or say no to possibilities. And if they are very fortunate, they haven’t absorbed the insidious assumption that they are and must be like everyone else.
And this is where I find Jesus to be very groovy. (I hope you still like me, but yes, I sometimes say groovy.)
One of the grooviest things about Jesus is his openness to what’s possible: new life, change, growth, breathing fresh air, breaking some molds. When you read stories about Jesus, you begin to see patterns that a lot of people find alarming. He’s simply not your run-of-the-mill, vanilla Messiah.
Let’s be honest. Jesus hung out with anybody, like anybody. It didn’t matter if they had money or health or a good reputation or were less than marginally religious. It didn’t matter if the people he visited scammed the poor, had a different worship style, were divorced, were the wrong ethnicity or gender or age, or basically were all-out unclean according to the prescribed rules of his own religious tradition. Jesus would literally eat with anyone, and it got him in trouble with certain religious authorities, and it might get us in trouble. I’m pretty sure that Jesus would get some haters on Facebook with all his jazzed-up coloring outside the lines: “You have heard it said, but I say . . .” Picture the opposition leaning in, heads shaking, tut-tutting, “Really, Jesus! Who do you think you are?”
I love Jesus precisely because his ministry startles our comfortable, settled lives. Jesus’s ministry is like the arched rainbow that the boys and I saw as a rain shower passed through one afternoon. We saw the entire rainbow, end to end. It’s fascinating to consider that the rainbow occurs because the light hits the front of a water droplet, bends upon entering, then bounces off the back of the droplet and heads back toward us, transformed. Plain old regular white light is actually rainbow sherbet. Jesus’s love is light that bends toward way more dreams, beauty, diversity, and possibility than I ever could alone.
I have a particular image of Jesus in my mind. As Jesus encounters all these exotic people and ministers to them, he says to himself, “That Sister just blows my mind. That Sister is an original. Oh wow, that Brother, wow, he’s so unique.” Jesus notices and embraces the colorful difference and uniqueness of creation, all that God said was and is good, which makes us very fortunate because we are part of the good stuff, whoever we are. That is also good news for our kids.
One of my favorite stories about Jesus is a real family bombshell and, frankly, a real turnoff if you like to have the inside track and are more comfortable with vanilla. Three of the Gospels tell a version of this awkward incident, but I think Mark’s version is the most intense.
Jesus has been going about his ministry, hanging out and healing all the wrong people at all the wrong times. It’s even gotten back to his family. Thinking he’s lost it, his mother and brother and sisters go to retrieve him: “When his family heard what was happening, they came to take control of him. They were saying, ‘He’s out of his mind!’ ” (Mark 3:21).
We’re not going to find joy or authenticity or contentment when we constantly look for the next big thing.
Do you have the type of family who would try to keep you quiet on occasions? I share way too much for my own good and others’ comfort. The older I get, the worse it gets. I almost bought a shirt that r
ead, “Don’t hate me because I look this good at fifty-five.” My brother, Steve, keeps me in check: “TMI, Sis. TMI.” Secretly, I like to push it so he’ll rein me in. All of us kids need to know that someone’s watching, that someone cares enough to make sure we don’t totally fall off the edge.
Let’s consider why Jesus’s family is upset. The Gospel story says they want control of Jesus, which strikes me as a real live stuff-hitting-the-fan situation. Because, obviously, Jesus practices unconditional, unlimited love, they think he’s going too far, even for his family, and they know what’s best, right? Sometimes, your family means well when they meddle. After all, the people who raised you usually know you better than anyone. Maybe Jesus’s family was afraid for him or their reputation or his reputation or that he would trash his future or have regrets about the night he ate with that [whisper] adulterous woman. I feel for the family. What Jesus was doing was not what everyone else was doing, and who knows where that would lead?
That happened once or twice in my immediate family—that not doing what everyone else is expected to do.
My oldest brother, the patriarch of our family these days, went to seminary way before I, the baby, did. Jack left home to become a pastor and studied at Southern Methodist University in the mid-1960s, at a time of great social unrest. While there, he became involved in the civil rights movement.
When the national evening news began reporting about the violence taking place in Selma, Alabama, Mom phoned Jack’s dorm. His roommate answered and told her that her son was not there. She demanded to know if he’d gone to Selma. He had.
My parents got in the car and drove down to Dallas to meet with the dean of Perkins School of Theology and some other professors. The meeting was cordial, but my parents wanted to know exactly why their son’s seminary was teaching him to get involved in dangerous and deadly activities.
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