Controversy: The Golden Compass

I read with interest as the emails started flying regarding the movie, called The Golden Compass. The emails I read were on the intra-district network of the rural school district where I spend most of my waking hours five days a week. I’m sure I should pay more attention to what is going on in the media; admittedly I had not heard of this movie until I started reading the emails. I can’t do anything about what my first graders watch or read, and my own kids, thankfully, are adults now so media is just one less thing for me to worry about at this point.

Many of the emails I read were suggesting that children be discouraged from watching the movie, which is, I read, based on a book written by “an atheist author”.  There was at least one email from someone with the opposite point of view. This email discussion ended with one email in particular that spoke with a voice of reason, suggesting that children watch the movie with caring adults and then discuss it.

Sad to say, there was a time when I would have been one of those who would have said NO to this movie solely based on the fact that Christians I associated with, and/or respected, said it was evil. The fact that the book was written by an alleged atheist would have been enough “fact” for me. Yes, I was one of those radicals that wouldn’t even let my kids watch the Smurfs; poor little blue guys, I don’t even remember what evil they were supposedly promoting. I hereby publicly repent of being too lazy to think for myself and act accordingly, as well as being too self righteous to consider other points of view. Perhaps I should also repent of being so overly protective that I drove one of my children straight to some of the things from which I was trying to protect him. God, forgive me.

I love many things about the Episcopal Church, not the least of which is that I am encouraged to think and prayerfully consider multiple points of view and even, at times, admit that perhaps two or more points of view have merit. In the past two years I have acted as quite the adolescent in getting a charge out of reading things that in my past I would have considered to be heretical, or even demonic, and I know I am better for it.

What would I do today if I had children wanting to see The Golden Compass? First, I would read the book to find out for myself what all the fuss is about. Unless I deemed the kids to be too young to see the movie, we would then watch it together and talk about it later. The children would learn things, I would learn things, and perhaps we’d all be better for the experience.

For additional information, readers are encouraged to read this Review of the movie The Golden Compass.

Happy Holidays!……or not….

Thanksgiving dinner was at my house; present being my brother and parents, and our two grown children. Other than the ham being too done and the rolls rising too much I thought things went pretty well. Dad and brother didn’t get in an argument, brother appeared less depressed than is usual on a holiday, hubby was helpful, and I managed not to do anything to inadvertantly upset the kids. Thank you God.

By late afternoon eveyone but one child had left and I could relax. Not only had things gone rather well, but I had managed to get through the day without getting upset myself. Holidays are never easy it seems, and honestly, that makes me angry. Holidays and family time together are supposed to be fun, right? So why is it, I have often wondered, that I would just as soon skip the entire holiday season? It is not fun. It is not happy. Holidays are days to be endured.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not anti-holiday. I love Thanksgiving in principal and I really enjoy this time of year at school, spending more time than is necessary educating my students about the Pilgrims and the reasons they came to the New World in the first place. I’m finding ways to enjoy Christmas within the parameters of the church; the anticipation of Advent, the music, and the beauty of the Christmas Eve service. The rest of Christmas however, the shopping, gifts, music, cards, baking, and etcetera, do nothing but make me feel inadequate and stressed. When it’s over I’m left with a dull ache in my heart that doesn’t begin to dissipate until mid-January.

In an effort to make some sense of the way I feel, I go back to the holidays of my childhood. Holidays were never a huge big deal like in many families. Mom did try to make things special though. Perhaps she tried too hard, because I don’t ever remember her has being anything but very stressed on such occasions. Dad, who worked 3rd shift, was around more during the days on holidays but that was a mixed blessing. He was hard to please, and my mother, and eventually my bother, bore the brunt of his harsh words. We all walked on eggshells. When I picture holidays at home I picture a little girl trying not to cry, or hiding in her room crying in private. It’s taken me most of my adult life to admit it, but while I have a few happy memories overall holidays were not happy times in the home I grew up in.

So the little girl grew up determined that things would be different and better in her own young family. She tried hard, probably too hard because she was always stressed and things never turned out like she hoped. Her husband was a gentle man, but not easy to please, so she kept trying harder. Her children, hopefully, have some good memories of their childhood holidays but have also been left with a deep sense of unrest and grief that holidays in their house were not quite the joyous events for which everyone seemed to hope. The grown up little girl still tries not to cry.

The Fate of Glory

My quiet (at least when I am at home) life is back to being quiet. After a brief 2 1/2 days home dear daughter moved into her apartment near the university she attends, and will begin her last year of college on Monday. I find that I miss her all the time, even when she IS here, simply because she is not REALLY here anymore. The mother/daughter dynamic has been forever changed by this point. Not that this is bad, it just is, and it is different.

My daughter is better than I am at many things, not the least of which is the way she treats  houseplants.  Yes, houseplants. I’ve never been very good at houseplants and even the ones that are easy to grow generally fail to grow much for me. I did once have a plant called a ‘prayer plant’ for over 10 years, but that may have had more to do with the fact that the plant folded it’s lovely leaves in prayer each evening when the sun went down than it had to do with my care of it. Anyway, 2 years ago daughter and I each bought a small philodendron at the grocery store. We repotted them with the same soil. She took her plant to college with her, talked to it, water it, carried it home in a box when she came for holiday breaks, and named it Glory. I watered mine and hoped for the best. Two years later, Glory is huge, several feet long, and my little plant has grown maybe 6 inches. At least it is still alive.

I lamented to daughter over the fact that her plant was a giant, while mine still a midget. “Do you talk to it?,” she asked. “Did you name your plant?”  No and no.

I was left in charge of Glory this summer while daughter worked at a camp in another state. With some trepidation I accepted the challenge. I watered her and talked to her at the same time. Sometimes I’d just go in to say ‘HI’. I prayed for God’s blessing on the little, or rather not so little, plant.  Hubby even said ‘good morning’ a few times. Glory made it through the summer with only one yellow leaf. What a relief! Then yesterday, when I am helping daughter unload her car which she had parked the day before in front of the apartment, what, or rather who, do we find forgotten in the car? A very wilted and slightly cooked Glory. I was shocked! Not only that, but little Braveheart (Jade plant sprout) was there, forgotten, as well. Shaking my head I carried the poor plants to the kitchen and poured cool water on the soil and the leaves and urged them to live in spite of it all. What will happen to poor old Glory is now in the hands of her Creator. I told daughter that she’d probably need to prune Glory rather severely to save her, but I thought she might make it. We’ll see.

I’m sure there is a really profound spiritual point to this story, but it hasn’t come to me yet.  The only thing I can come up with is “don’t forget about something or someone you care for”, or “a little neglect can lead to a quick death.”  I don’t know. I think it’s time to go say a prayer for daughter and her plants.

Anticipation

My daughter is coming home tomorrow. I’ve only seen her once, briefly, all summer. She’s a Kent State Univ. student and worked at a camp in PA for the summer. Anyway, she’ll be home tomorrow evening and we have her here for two whole days. I’m excited. I look forward so much to seeing her and hearing about the things that have been happening in her life. I want to know how she is doing, and what God is doing in her life. I enjoy her company and cherish each moment I get to spend with her. The occasional phone calls have been nice and much appreciated, but to have her sit next to me on the sofa and chat, to put my arms around her….. that’s what I’ve been looking forward to since the day she left.

My own anticipation has me thinking about my relationship with God. Could it be that God looks forward to spending time with me, his child, as much as I look forward to being with my dear daughter? Daughter is a wonderful young woman but she is not perfect. Her imperfections do not make me love or appreciate her any less though, and equally so my flaws do not make God love or appreciate me any less. I miss daughter when she is away, and the missing becomes painful at times even, especially when she seems too busy to communicate with me. Does God miss me when I don’t take the time to pray and seek out his/her presence? Is that possible? Perhaps God does not feel emotions in the sense that we do, but it’s still something to ponder. Does God anticipate time with me? How much do I look forward to time with God?

My Father

When I was a kid I honestly thought that my dad could fix anything. He’s a very competent man, extremely handy, and a workaholic. He knows a lot about a lot of things, something about many more things, and what he doesn’t know he tends to make up as he goes. He worked 3rd shift for all of my growing up years, and when he wasn’t working at his factory job as an electrician, he was doing electric work on the side and taking care of the yard and maintenance work not only at our house but also at my grandparent’s home. He did take time to sleep, of course, but didn’t seem to need as much as most people.

Dad was on a bowling team when I was quite small and I liked to wait up until he came home wearing all the exotic smells of a smoky bowling alley. One of my fondest childhood memories is of sitting on his lap on our back porch one hot summer evening when he had returned from bowling. We watched the heat lightning and he taught me about electricity in the sky. Once a month or so mom would dress up and go out to a meeting for the evening, leaving Dad to babysit. We would always have ice-cream topped with marshmallows, chocolate chips, candy sprinkles, and anything else we could find in the cupboard.

Born early in 1929, Dad had had a rough life and his goal was to be sure that his own children had the things he was denied as a child. Along with two older brothers, Dad’s mother had left him at the county children’s home when her husband died leaving her penniless. He was not much older than one. When he was around 12 he was adopted by a childless couple who needed labor on their farm. Having been treated harshly by some of his caretakers at the home, he then found himself in a home with harsh parents. Before he graduated high school he joined the Navy to escape the farm. He learned to be tough, to survive, and to work hard to make a good life.

Dad was nearly always kind to me, but I did fear his anger. I was into my teens before I could see, that dad wasn’t always so nice to other people. He was very critical of my mother and my brother; no, more than critical. It was not until my 30’s that I understood that Dad was abusive to my mother and my brother. He never hit them, never harmed them on the surface. It was his words that did the damage, though I never heard him swear. He’s mellowed a lot in his old age, and as far as I know he no longer treats my mother badly and does not purposefully say things to anger my brother. My brother however, has never recovered from the effects of the abuse, and is in fact more like his dad than he’d ever admit. For reasons I will never know, I was spared from the verbal abuse. It left it’s mark nonetheless, and is something I’ve had to prayerfully deal with.

My dad is 78 now and I am grateful that he is still with us and in reasonably good health. I admire his determination, his perseverance, his intelligence, strength, and his sense of humor. He tried hard to be a good dad, and he was to me if not to my brother. He has been a wonderful grandpa to my children. I am proud of the man my dad became, by sheer determination and the grace of God, and am thankful for the “good” life he created for his family.

I pray that God will bless you, Daddy. I’ll always be your girl.

Mixed Blessing

Everyone is home for Christmas……..and I find myself wishing I could go away. (Everyone as in son, daughter, and husband who is always here…at least in a physical sense.) I was so looking forward to seeing the kids! I love my family more than any people on the planet. It is equally true that my family causes me more stress that do any other people on the planet. What a paradox. At present I have one mad at me, another upset and crying, and another saying he doesn’t want to be here. Merry Christmas.

When I was young I dreamed of a close knit family who could genuinely enjoy being together. A family with healthy emotional connections. A family that communicated. I admit that I am secretly jealous of families that seem to be like that. I never had that with my family of origin and I really thought I could manage to do better. I tried and I failed. Some dreams are destined to die a slow and painful death.

Throw into this mix the fact that I am very aware that I must protect myself. I am still physically and emotionally weak from my illness and recent hospitalization. I feel spiritually weakend too but am not aware of the cause of this maladay. Things were getting very tense at the dinner table and I just got up and left and went to the library for 2 hours. I would have stayed much longer but the library closed. Probably not the best way to handle the situation, but I didn’t know what else to do. I simply do not have the energy to do battle of any kind, even the keep your mouth shut and just don’t say anything kind.

Lord, have mercy. Please.

Twenty-one

My “baby” turned twenty one today. Wow. Where has the time gone? I was 25 when I gave birth to her, yet in some ways less mature, or perhaps just more naive, than she is today. Times are so different now. I have always felt, from that very first day of her life, that God has a special calling on her life. The cord was wrapped around her neck three times upon birth and she was blue; she could have died. She’d had a bowel movement in the womb; she could have never breathed a breath. I had been very ill early in the pregnancy and found out shortly before delivery that the medication could have killed her before the second trimester; yet she lived. As a young child she managed to tumble down a set of stairs twice with no visible injury. Another time she fell off the edge of an incomplete set of basement stairs straight into her grandpa’s arms; death or disaster averted once again. And these are just the things I know about.

I was as devoted a mother as anyone could have been to my daughter and her brother. Not a drop of formula ever touched their lips. I figured God gave me breasts for a reason and that my own milk was the only milk good enough for my babies. I worried over them both constantly, determined not only to be the best mother to them, but to provide them with a life that was better than that of my own childhood…and that was not really all that bad. Alas, I failed as a mother in more ways than I knew it was possible to fail, so I take little credit for the way my babies have turned out, so to speak. It is the grace of God, his merciful and loving grace, that has formed those good and precious things within my dear daughter. I am more than grateful.

So here I am, 21 years my daughter’s mom and realize once again upon this milestone occasion that I must let her go. She’ll always be my baby. So will her brother. Flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone, my blood flowing through their veins. Yet, completely separate; as it must be. On some level I am aware that spiritual/emotional entanglements between mother and child can be crippling, or at the very least restricting. I am all too aware of the reality of my own “issues” and my intense struggle for freedom, and it is in this spirit that I desire to let her go, this dear daughter of mine. I desire for her to know a level of freedom even now that I’ve yet to experience. I find myself beginning to weep even as I write this. It’s hard, this letting go. I’ve had to do it so many times already, and secretly live in fear that I will be forced at some point by unimaginable circumstance to relinquish everything of her. Lord, have mercy!

Happy birthday, my dear Angel Girl. Be who God made you to be. Go where the Great I AM leads you. Be not afraid, but rest always in the Peace that can only come from the Ultimate Light. Live your life fully and feely.