randomness

1. I have submitted my thesis to my full committee. I will present and defend it a week from today. I am almost giddy at how close to being done I am! (Mostly because it's almost done, and a little because I know my graduation gift will be a fancy schmancy DSLR camera that I've been salivating over for more than a year.)

2. I'm sick right now with some sore throaty gunk. Boo.

3. I don't have much Christmas shopping left. I never thought I would be one of those who finished before December, but I'm close. Hmm, maybe I'll even get Christmas cards out before Christmas this year...
nah. That's just crazy talk.

4. We have really wonderful neighbors. They have two middle school and one high school daughter, and all three of their girls love our kids. They bless us regularly in so many ways. A few weeks ago, Maureen was positioned to have a quiet evening to herself, and she instead offered to have the kids come over for the evening so we could have a date night. They have a dog which is enough to make our little guy happy, and they have lots of little girly toys, so the girl was pleased. Maureen even took our picture at her house before we left. It's rare that we get a picture with both of us in it! :)

5. Remember the couch I posted here a couple weeks ago? The World Market sectional? We were going to get it when I realized that some of the construction of it wasn't the greatest. So back to the drawing board...

6. Our sweet girl has started posing for pictures like this. She says it looks beautiful. While I agree that she looks beautiful, I think the pose looks like she's ready for bed.

7. We're hosting Thanksgiving this year for Lee's family, and it's made me think about what foods I love that make it Thanksgiving for me. For example, if there's no turkey, it doesn't feel like Thanksgiving. And I need pumpkin something. And mashed potatoes sans gravy because I think gravy is glorified toilet water.

sooooooo what foods make Thanksgiving for you?
(And do you have any good turkey cooking tips? 'Cause I've never made one before, and I'm a bit intimidated by the big bird in my fridge.)

living gently in a violent world requires Christ

As I've immersed myself in disability theology, I am discovering more and more that those who have studied and written about it don't believe in basic doctrines like the inerrancy of the Bible or the sufficiency of the Gospel. This isn't true for all, and occasionally I'll be highlighting churches and theologians who do it well, as well as practical how-to books that are helpful. It's those - the practical guides - that usually have solid theology, but those aim to answer the "how" of disability ministry not the "why."

And it's the "why" that's sadly missing a Gospel-saturated voice, at least in the works I've reviewed. In the absence of Gospel-rich theology, I have to be careful to heed the words of 1 Thessalonians 5:21, testing everything and grasping hold of what is true and good.

That's how I approached Living Gently in a Violent World by Stanley Hauerwas and Jean Vanier. It's a slim resource that's part of a series called Resources for Reconciliation in partnership with Duke Divinity School's Center for Reconciliation. Each of the reconciliation resources is a short book that is co-written by a theologian (in this case, Hauerwas, a professor at Duke who was named America's best theologian by Time magazine in 2001) and a practicing ministry worker (in this case, Vanier, the founder of L'Arche). I like that approach. It can be far too easy for the thinkers and the doers to be disconnected.

Vanier founded L'Arche in France, and it is now an international network of communities that join together people with and without intellectual disabilities. They live together and eat together and talk together and do life together. The realities of disabilities aren't ignored, as some of the folks living in L'Arche communities do have extensive special needs, but the stigma of disability is virtually non-existent in L'Arche.

As I read about L'Arche in this book and in other research I've done, it makes me think about how little children rarely mae a big deal about a peer's disability. Sure, they notice a difference, but then they get over it.

I found this quote interesting (from the introduction by John Swinton):

L'Arche shows, as the church is called to show, that Christianity is true by demonstrating what community would look like if the gospel were true. Unlike learning moral principles, following Jesus requires a change of heart. "The very content of Christian connections requires the self to be transformed if we are adequately to see the truth of [its] convictions." L'Arche is a sign of hope and new possibilities, but above all it is a marker for the truth of the gopel; it is living proof that the story Christians bear is not fantasy or a collection of abstract principles but real and true and revealed clearly. When we view L'Arche this way, we begin to see how the question, "What does L'Arche mean for the church?" might have implications far beyond the idea that disability theology is a "specialist interest." It is the heart of the gospel.

While I would argue that Christ is the heart of the Gospel and not any specific ministry attitude or action, I do agree that the Gospel demands that we not marginalize people with disabilities as separate from or less than the rest of the body of Christ. We don't do disability ministry out of obligation or pity; it's vital because every person created by God bears His image and has inherent worth.

To put it another way, let's check out Matthew 28:18-20

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

There isn't a side note here specifying an IQ limit. There isn't a point of clarification that we shouldn't bother teaching those who don't learn like everyone else. Nope. The command to go and make disciples and baptize and teach isn't a command to only do those things to certain groups. All nations includes those who are foreign to us in far-reaching lands...and just down the street.


While I agree with them on the importance of disability ministry, where I diverge from Hauerwas and Vanier is in the execution. I believe our calling is the Great Commission, the verses above. It's about understanding that people with disabilities are part of "all nations" and figuring out what it mean and looks like to put it into practice. Meanwhile, Hauerwas and Vanier seem to put disability ministry first and the Great Commission second. Most L'Arche communities are interfaith, and a requirement is tolerance of all religions. One - Christianity or any other - can't be exalted as the right one. Their community is Bangladesh began with Hindus and Muslims (p. 24). They almost weren't allowed to set up a community in Rome because Vanier, while Roman Catholic, wouldn't agree to restrict it to Catholicism or even Christianity (p. 28). The group in Kuwait is identified as a Muslim group that also welcomes people of other faiths (p. 27).


To me, that ceases to be disability ministry. If it's about love and compassion and community apart from Christ, then it's just social services or non-profit charity. 

Vanier writes, "...there are many complexities in L'Arche. 'Good' religious people don't always come to us; we get the ones who don't quite know what it means to be a 'good' religious person and who will discover simply that to be a Christian is to grow in compassion" (p. 28). While compassion is part of Christianity, I would challenge him to provide biblical support for that statement. Christians should grow in compassion, but being a Christian is about treasuring and submitting to Christ who transforms us so that we can show compassion to others. It's Christ first and always, then compassion.

He (Vanier) talks about "living in a gospel-based community with people with disabilities" (p. 34-35). Hauerwas discusses living out the Christian life alongside people with disabilities as an expression of hope (p. 45). As I pondered those things, I thought about how wonderful it would be to see a community similar to what Vanier has created and describes in this book. Rather than a community that is just gospel-based but then all-embracing of even those religious ideas that contradict the Gospel, though, I would love to see one that is Gospel-based, Gospel-centered, and Gospel-driven.

I know those exist, and in the next year or two I'm going to be researching and visiting some churches and community that could be described in that way. In the words of Psalm 133:1, "How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity!"

Many thanks to the folks at InterVarsity Press for providing Living Gently in a Violent World for my review. They asked for nothing other than my honest opinion of it.

*Edited to add this postscript: If you're interested in another review of this book from a similar viewpoint, I just found this one by Trevin Wax.

A birthday girl, lightly floured

About a month ago, our friends Jenelle and Leiana came over for us to celebrate L's birthday. We put up steamers and hang a (previously used for Jocelyn's second birthday) Nemo banner. We busted out some Nemo party hats from the same birthday. And, in lieu of balloons, I printed pictures of balloons for Jocelyn to color.

And, of course, we poured flour on the floor.

What?!?

That's not part of your birthday party routine?

Okay, okay, it isn't usually part of ours either. But it was on October 20th. I blame it on Gretchen's s'more brownies. (In a word: amazing.) I didn't feel like making cake, but I had the fixin's for the goodness of the brownies. We made them. And then Jenelle and I slipped into a mashmallow-y chocolate-y coma for a few moments.

Which was just long enough for Robbie to grab a bag of flour out of the pantry. As Jenelle and I made nom nom nom murmurings in praise to God for the goodness that is s'more brownies, he and Leiana brought the bag into the middle of the kitchen. We observant mommas didn't notice. They opened it. We didn't notice. They began taking out handfuls of flour and dumping them on the floor.

And then I noticed. I shouted something and scooped Robbie up. Jenelle went for the birthday girl. I tried to figure out the best way to corral the kids with the fewest tears while one of us could clean the mess.

And in a moment of complete and total surrender desire to get back to be brownies acknowledgment of the fun the kids would have, I asked Jenelle, "What's the worst thing that could happen if we just let them play?"

So we went back to the brownies. And enjoyed this for entertainment.

 

You can see some chocolate around L's mouth below, proof that we did share the brownies with the kids.

I know this last picture isn't fantastic quality, but do you see the lightly floured birthday girl? The big girl licking flour from the floor? The little guy shouting in excitement?

It captures the day well.

A picture of the snow angels they made with flour might have captured it even better, but I failed to get any decent ones of that. I might have had better pictures with less blur, but I was distracted. Did I mention the brownies?

waiting for superman

Nope, not the education documentary, though I'm looking forward to seeing that.

The daddy. Because to the little guy below, Daddy is Superman. And Superman is worth waiting for around lunchtime (we are so stinkin' spoiled to have him home for lunch most days!!!) and at the end of the day.

And evidently it helps to lick the glass. Hmm, maybe I should clean the windows more often...

The extra window cleanings are worth it for this guy, don't you think?

learning how to grip a writing tool (and other homeschool-esque ramblings)

We've started with some preschool stuff in these parts. It's nothing too formal, but our girl had been almost begging for a little something. Some days it's crafts and memory verses. Some days it's nothing more than reading the week's story from her AWANA book. Some days it's nothing. (Just keeping it real!)

The plan for a typical week involves:

• memory verses from AWANA and from the kids' program for our church's weekly Bible study (and sometimes another one), 
• a few letters from the Hooked on Phonics pre-K curriculum (which I got on major clearance last year when they were updating packaging, maybe $10 or so), 
• activities centered around a book (often books from Before Five in a Row, which uses older classic storybooks and provided suggested activities and biblical connections - it isn't necessary, but I like having a starting place), 
• some play with the Lauri Math Discovery Kit, and 
• some nature- or kitchen-based science stuff. 

We also do little non-school things that help with learning too, like sorting laundry (an early math skill), watching educational TV (not the greatest activity, but I'm amazed at what sticks in her mind from PBS shows), talking about pictures as we look through the newspaper together, and lots of unplanned, on-demand reading together.

I wasn't expecting much from the Hooked on Phonics stuff, to be honest. Someone had given us the toddler set, and it stunk. Then I realized that the pre-K one, while better, relied heavily on workbook pages. As a teacher, I hated workbook pages. Sure, students knew what to expect, but usually they were bored and I was more bored. Our sweet girl LOVES the workbook. She's all about it. She thinks it's the coolest school thing we do. Who knew?!?

One thing I noticed was that she held her crayons in a fist. That never bothered me when she was coloring, but I was thinking about how we could get a better writing grip when the natural order of things in our house helped me out.

What do I mean? Well, if you're like us, you probably live in the land of these, too.

Yep, the land of broken crayons. (With the occasional teeth marks, but that's irrelevant to writing grip.) When she had intact crayons, she held them in a fist. With broken ones, she does this:

Now she doesn't even hold full-sized crayons in a fist anymore. I know because I tried to get a picture of what I meant. When I handed her a big crayon, though, I got this.

So, to show you what I'm talking about, I demonstrated (with a Pepsi Max because my favorite homeschooling mommas have taught me, among other things, that homeschooling involves caffeine.)

Problem solved, somewhat accidentally. Good stuff.

And as an extra note...
Our homeschooliness is super flexible, and I have no idea when we'll opt for something else. We just knew, after lots of prayer, that it would be unwise for our family to do preschool this year. Between AWANA one night, the kids' teaching program during my Bible study one morning a week, and church on Sundays, we didn't want to add more on, especially because it would crowd out playdates and museum trips and other fun stuff we love. We know that we live in a culture that is perpetually busy and doesn't encourage white space in the calendar, so we didn't want to allow overcommitment to slip in this early!

(And, in case you're not from around here and are wondering why I'm explaining our choice not to be preschool for a three year old, let me clarify that most of our friends' kids are in preschool. My new hair stylist asked me the other day which preschool our daughter goes to, which is the typical question - it's rarely a "does she?" but more often "where does she?" I don't mind all that, but I wanted to clarify for friends of mine who don't live in heavily preschooled areas.)


So, quick question after this rambling post...is this helpful or interesting? Do you even care? I don't mind making occasional posts like this, but it's one of those more mundane parts of our lives that I'm not sure anyone else wants to know. If your answer is no, it won't hurt my feelings; it'll just spare me the time of writing posts like these. And if you answer is yes, it's not much more work for me because I'm writing down this type of stuff anyway to have a record of it. What do y'all think?


(And let me add here that I don't think you ought to be concerned if your three-year-old doesn't have an ideal pencil/crayon grip. It'll come in time as the small muscles it requires develop. I just stumbled across this - literally, as I stepped on crayons! - and it worked for us, so I wanted to share it!)