11.10.2009

Mercy

More from "Nearer My God To Thee":
"Then let the way appear, steps unto Heaven,
All that Thou sendest me in mercy given."

Today I am grateful for the wonderful
tender mercies Heavenly Father has sent me:

Wonderful friends
who have gone out of their way in showing their love
A loving, supportive husband
who puts my needs for comfort above his own
Rekindled friendships
with strong, courageous women
My fantastic family
that fills my life with so much happiness
A wonderful ward
that fills my life with opportunities to serve
My amazing students
who make me excited to get out of bed each day
A proactive doctor
who is willing to listen and take special care of my case
A healthy body

that defied expectations and did not need a D & C and anesthesia
The Comforter
for filling me with indescribable peace and optimism

What tender mercies has Heavenly Father sent you lately?



11.03.2009

Dear Santa

I'd love to see this in my stocking.
I love it.
It's made by a woman who has adopted two darling boys.
So she knows the refining beauty of the word "eventually."


Because the miracle of motherhood will come to my life.
Eventually.

10.31.2009

Hollowed or Hallowed?

Once again, it is Halloween.

For most, this means grinning Jack-o-Lanterns, candy wrappers, and late-night costume crafting.

For me, by some nearly incomprehensible turn in life,
my body is spending this Halloween week
in the same process it engaged in last Halloween week:
Miscarrying a baby.

This week has lent itself to great reflection. What might these twin experiences mean to me as I move on purposefully, with direction and insight to guide my life? In this trial, can I find a difference - can I seek the better part - between being hollowed and feeling hallowed?

You see, for a year I have felt that the miscarriage hollowed me.

The symbolism of emptiness abounds following a loss like this. The empty nursery, empty time, empty rocking chair, and empty bath tub echoed my physical emptiness: Where a heart had been beating, remained a hollow womb; when my due date arrived, my arms had nothing to gather and hold. The thought often crossed my mind that someone had invaded and robbed me of my greatest treasure.

As I turned for relief to church attendance, I felt spiritually and emotionally empty: In a church that focuses often on 1) The blessings in a woman's life of motherhood and 2) Faith yielding blessings of healing and wholeness, I felt broken in every sense of the word. Like a shattered teapot with a piece subtracted, how could I be both reassembled and whole? Where was I remiss in my faithfulness? Were not my sobbing pleadings in prayer, priesthood blessings, and diligent searchings of scriptures, all on behalf of the high purpose of giving life, of being a co-creater with the divine, consistent with the path I was exhorted to take?

As an ultrasound yesterday confirmed that this difficult journey needs to be traversed yet again, I have recognized that rather than the hollowing, I should choose to see the hallowing, the opportunity "to make pure and holy" that the Lord has offered me for two autumn seasons.

I see the hallowing of myself begin as I accept that my body is not my own, that of it's outcome I have little control. As Elder Oaks reminded us in General Conference, whosoever shall lose themselves for Christ's sake will find themselves. Pregnancy involves losing oneself - losing your energy, losing your sleep, losing your time, losing your body. In miscarriage, too, I lose possibilities and hopes for the future. But, when I choose to see it as losing myself for Christ's sake, for the sake of all I am to gain in this mortal experience, I find myself in newfound strength and courage, new appreciation for the majesty and mystery of life, and renewed compassion and capacity to aid those suffering around me.

Oaks also quoted C.S. Lewis, who teaches, "The moment you have a self at all, there is a possibility of putting yourself first—wanting to be the center—wanting to be God, in fact."
While on the surface, I focused this past year on the hollowing, in retrospect, all I was truly focusing on was myself, my plans, and my future that was not meant to be. As I embark on this process again, I am reminded that God must be at the helm of my life. Not only will He direct me, but in His grace, He gives me the peace that "all things shall give [me] experience, and shall work for [my] good," that these miscarriages were not losses of life experience, but additions purposefully placed in my path. As I submit my own will, God will light the better way. In volunteering my plans, He will ennoble a greater purpose.

It is a delicate balance. The very act of my surrender feels like an emptying, the hollowing I fear. And in the absence of my control, I must remain vigilant to prevent fear from filling what I viewed in the past as a void. As I leave that space for the Lord, for Him to fill me with His grace and purpose, I grow to be what He wants me to be. So rather than a hollow space I crave filling with another pregnancy, I know the Lord can make me whole and hallowed with whatever experiences He sees fit to bless me. Though I know that the physical pain will be great, I think of the beautiful insight I gained two weeks ago from this powerful prose I've sung hundreds of times, from "Nearer my God to Thee":

Nearer my God to Thee, Nearer to Thee.
E'en though it be a cross that raiseth me.

It is our personal crosses that raise us heavenward, that minimize the chasm between our ways and God's ways. Though the pain is often great to bear, it acquaints us with the divine -
both that which is directing us and that which is within each of us.
And with that acquaintance, born of the Spirit, I am never truly hollow.

A beautiful knowledge to gain this All Hallow's Eve.

10.19.2009

A lecture by Prof. Frederico

Welcome to class, friends. A few of you have stopped by to listen to a lecture, which is so kind. I hope you've enjoyed my little class. I love teaching. I do not love being tongue tied with 50 pairs of eyes staring at me, but I love the feeling of a finished lecture and knowing that someone learned something from me. I have so much to learn and practice, of course, but I'm enjoying the experience immensely. Few things make me happier than a student who emails me a link off a news site and says, "I thought this related to what we talked about in class yesterday (or last week or whatever)." To me, that says that students are 1) listening, 2) thinking about the topics we discuss outside of class, and 3) making connections between our class and their world. It's such a rush to watch learning take place and impact lives!

Anyway, today I'm giving you a mini-lecture. So, bust out your notebook and best pen - let's get to work!

Today we'll be discussing the fathers and the gendered nature of carework. In the US, the norm (in middle-class, heterosexual couples) for parental care falls on mothers (even when mothers themselves aren't doing the care, it is often their responsibility to arrange alternate care, which is frequently paid for from their wages). We often operate by the notion of separate spheres - the market as the domain of men, the hearth and home as the distinct domain of women. Unfortunately, fathers often are not encouraged (due to the constraints of masculininty and the ideal worker/breadwinner model) to develop warm and responsive relationships where they nurture their children and work side-by-side in family work with their wives. Of course, this is not to say this is the case in your household. I'm talking about large-scale household trends. According to a landmark study by Sanchez and Thomson (1997) called "Becoming Mothers and Fathers" using National Survey of Families and Households data, in families with 1 child, fathers' paid labor + household labor hours averaged 79.9 hours a week, while mothers' paid labor (which was lower than their husbands', but most all mothers work for pay - no matter if it's a part-time or from-home job) + household labor hours averaged 99.7 hours weekly. At the end of the month, mothers have worked 2 additional full time weeks over fathers! Whew!

I love media clips, especially humorous ones. In order for them to be funny, they have to be tapping into existing stereotypes and conventions about "the way things are." Since sociology's major pursuit is to critically examine the taken-for-granted in our social lives, media clips give me a great opportunity to represent (or, "present again") the things we see, laugh at, then largely forget about in our lives.

Here is a video clip that can be analyzed in multiple levels. Certainly, at the interaction level, the advertiser's attempt is to connect with you in a funny way to sell a product, but at the ideological level, it is clear that this clip is "funny" because it taps into our conventions about mothers' and fathers' work.

As I analyzed from this clip (thanks to Socimages blog for posting it!), mothers and fathers are not seen as equal partners in raising their son. Rather, due to mothers' time spent in caring for the child, fathers see the child as in direct competition to one-on-one time with their wives. This situation could be largely alleviated if fathers see themselves as responsible for the work that goes on at home, rather than fall on the doctrine of separate spheres, and lighten the load that is disproportionately placed on wives (an extra 20 hours, remember??).

And don't get me started on the connection between masculinity and violence. Ugh. Another lecture for another day.

Take-home question (I have one on my last slide every day - go ahead and post your thoughts in the comments if you'd like to play along): When fathers are more involved in the care of their children, how do both children and mothers benefit? How can we start a dialoge to create more involved fathers throughout society? (For starters, can we get marketers to start depicting dusting, vacuuming, dish washing and laundry as something that men can use their two hands and do just as easily as women?? Can I get an "amen"?!)

10.01.2009

This little pig stayed home

The good piggy:

The bad piggy:
(well, Curtis doesn't think so)



The ugly piggy:


I have the piggy flu*.
I do not recommend it.

I'm looking forward to:
A house without tissues strewn everywhere
Getting my throat/voice back
No more coughing
Breathing freely from, not one, but two whole nostrils!
A picnic up the canyon to see the fall color

p.s. In my fevered state, I cracked up at this funny site
attempting to rebrand the Swine Flu.
Can't decide which I like best among
"Baconic Plague", "Swinus Infection", and "The Aporkalypse".

*Disclaimer: This is a self-diagnosis. But I fit every symptom on this CDC website.
Tangent: Go ahead and check out that CDC link and look under the FAQ, "What is CDC’s recommendation regarding "swine flu parties"?" Did anyone else's parent take them to a "chicken pox party" as a child? Please tell me I'm not the only one. Gotta love being an 80s kid!

9.27.2009

Are we human? Or are we at a rock concert?

On Friday night, Nathan and I were settled in about to watch the Choir Showcase (where Adam, Nathan's younger brother, gave a flawless performance as the accompanist) when Nathan pulled out his phone to show me something on Facebook. We noticed a friend had just posted that he had Killers tickets he wouldn't be able to use. As the lights were dimming, I quickly commented,
"I want those tickets!"

After 24 hours and...
Two bright green wristbands
One phone call to Mom ("You're where??")
Hundreds and hundreds of sweaty 17 year-olds
One water bottle (can't emphasize how great that water bottle was)
Hundreds and hundreds of smelly 17 year-olds
Innumerable shoves, making me uncomfortably close to those 17 year-olds
Two odd cover bands (including one Mariachi band. Seriously.)
....

we began one amazing night 10 feet away from The Killers.
We were so close. These pictures don't really do it justice.
I loved all of Brandon Flower's facial expressions and mannerisms.

He would jump from mic to mic,


piano to keyboard (the keyboard is behind the K).
Had to have this picture since I'm a fan of the letter 'K'


Brandon Flowers is an amazing performer.
And he's active in the LDS church, did you know that?


I loved hearing my favorite Killers songs
(including some they've borrowed, like "Fools Rush In"... which I'd like to dedicate today to my husband on the 5th anniversary of saying "I love you" to one another - it was fast but as the song goes,
"some things are meant to be")

I'm ashamed to say that I'm not so good
with the lyrics of their new songs.
But the high school kids didn't know
"Somebody told Me" or "Mr. Brightside" very well.
So I sang really loud on those songs to make up for it.


Nathan and I had the best time.
(But admittedly, we have fun when we're cleaning the house and making dinner.
We're easily amused when we're together)

I especially loved...
singing and jumping together
using his shoulders to launch me to really high jumps
having to talk right into each others' ears
(it's a nice way of having a close conversation)
having his hands around my waist the whole night

It's always fun to hang out and do something
different and daring with your best friend....
and The Killers!
Catch them on their next tour! They're amazing!

9.15.2009

Finding hope after 9/11

Nathan and I watched this for FHE last night.
What a marvelous testimony of the Lord's outstretched hand to
help us through life's challenges if we are strong enough to admit our
frailties/weakness/failings/short comings/insecurities and reach for Him.



I hope this touches your hearts like it did ours.