ugh. moving.

I’ve been complaining that summer was NEVER going to come. Shame on me. Tomorrow we roll into a week of heat wave. 95 degrees and we are moving to a new house.

I tried to move a load on my own tonight and just about lost it. I’ve recently been diagnosed with pregnancy-induced hypoglycemia which doesn’t help (BTW – don’t be too elated that your gestational diabetes results came back so stinkin low. You may think you are a sugar processing rockstar but you are not. Sad).

We’re moving just two miles north of our current NE locale. But at 7.5 months pregnant we might as well be moving to another country.

If you happen to be in the Portland metro area around 10 am tomorrow and want to give us a hand, shoot me an email!

Is John McCain my theological soulmate?

Just when I thought life could not get stranger I find out that John McCain is a closet Mennonite.

Okay, not really. At least not self-professing. But check out this short summary of McCain’s recollection of a “sermon” he gave while imprisoned in Hanoi:

One day I talked about the parable of when they asked Christ whether they should pay taxes and he held up a coin and said, “Render unto Caesar, etc.” My point was and still is that when we were flying in combat, we weren’t doing God’s work. We were doing Caesar’s work. So for us to go to prison and then ask God to get us out was not fair to God, to our religion, to our beliefs and to ourselves. It wasn’t a miracle that sent a SAM [surface-to-air missile] to hit my airplane. It was a guy, a technician at a SAM site.

I think it was important, a little bit for the stability factor, that it wasn’t God who was going to perform a miracle, end the war and bring us home. It was men. It was Caesar. I think the majority of those guys felt the way I did but we just had some, just as people turn to faith healing and that kind of stuff, we had some of that. A lot of times I would pray for strength and I think sometimes I got it. Pray for patience to get through the next minute when things were bad. I just don’t think it’s fair to expect too much out of what is basically not the Lord’s business.

I don’t agree with everything McCain says here but there are some key agreements I never imagined possible. McCain’s conviction was that the Vietnam war was outside the workings of God and that to ask God for a victory or even a rescue was out of the question. There’s some undeveloped but very poignant theology in this, something that points to the difference between Anabaptists and mainline Evangelicals.

According the article 23 of our Confession, Mennonites believe that governing authorities contrast the church in their institution by God to maintain societies. Every nation goes astray in demanding allegiance that conflicts with the demands of discipleship in the body of Christ. “Even at its best, a government cannot act completely according to the justice of God because no nation, except the church, confesses Christ’s rule as its foundation.” Nations call out to the power thirst of Caesar.

The Evangelical opinion is brought up in the NYTimes piece. The op-ed writer contacted a conservative pastor friend.

“As an evangelical, spiritual alarms start going off when I feel myself segmenting any element of my life from my devotion to Christ,” he wrote in an e-mail. Unlike a very personal Jesus providing critical support along a “faith walk,” Mr. McCain’s deity sounds like an aloof neighbor who keeps his lawn tidy and his hedge high, an exemplar of the kind of moderate, mainline Protestantism that launched countless evangelicals on the seeker’s path in the first place.

I don’t think McCain sounds like a mainline Protestant; I think he’s someone who, in some small way doesn’t want God to bless air missiles shooting down planes, regardless of whose side you’re on.

Unfortunately for the GOP this common ground John and I have come to has not changed my vote. This is because I don’t ever plan on voting for someone based on their theological prowess. It would be hypocritical to do so because, at the end of the day, our President elect is going to swear an oath that has nothing to do with Jesus:

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

So I will take the theologically dubious Barack Obama who, I hope, will also interpret the Constitution in a way that protects our weak, hungry and vulnerable.

A Visit with Jean Vanier

I had a great weekend accompanying my friend Joni to the l’Arche at Western Regional Gathering. Each year we have a get together/celebration of all the l’Arche communities in the West (CA, WA, OR). We met in Tacoma this year and had a very special guest. Each year Jean Vanier, l’Arche’s 80 year old founder joins a region for their gathering and this was our year.

 

This was a very special event because this is the last time Jean will be visiting a Regional Gathering. He’s ready to return to his home community in Trosly, France. He spoke poignantly about growing old and the need to spend time being present to his aging body, to give care to others and finally to receive care from others before he dies.

 

There were a couple things that surprised me about his conversations with us. He spoke very passionately about his need for Jesus, the sacraments, times of prayer and meditation. L’Arche (at least in the US – especially in the NW) has tended towards what I call a “lowest common denominator spirituality.” While l’Arche grew out of the Catholic church and the experience of being drawn to the crucified, disabled God, more and more our communities are called to welcome men and women from a variety of faith traditions. This has not been done well and more and more of my friends who join l’Arche are astonished by the secular humanism that is now the rule of our community life.

 

In other words, instead of finding creative ways to honor our diversity while standing near to the heart of the God of Israel who called forth l’Arche, the attempt of our community in Portland has been to try and see what we all have in common and to smooth over any potential controversy with tolerance. It’s nasty political liberalism, basically what a community for the disabled would look like if founded by John Rawls. Damn the doctrinarians.

 

Somehow I was under the impression that this was where Vanier stood on religious diversity. I was wrong. It was pretty clear that he was struggling through this issue and when we talked he directed me to some unpronounceable French theologians who have written on this topic. (Shocking fact 2: French theologians are writing about l’Arche.) But his own deep sense of religious conviction, his rootedness in Catholicism and his very specific call to be near Jesus were all wonderful revelations.

 

The other surprise was how often he spoke about the impending crisis the disabled in our communities will face in light of the new eugenics. Based on what I’ve heard, most people in my community are pro-choice, pro-eugenics, pro-euthanasia political liberals. Jean spoke about the consistency of our commitment to care for the weak – the unborn, the soon dead, the critically injured, the genetically compromised. I never hear anyone in l’Arche talk about the larger witness of our life to producers of knowledge. That’s because we have lived mostly cloistered from these issues.

 

I was very encouraged by meeting Jean and experiencing his unbelievable gentleness. Seeing him interact with our friends was the closest I’ve come to being able to understand God’s preferential option for the poor. Jean lavished his love on our weakest, our most profoundly needy. It was a beautiful thing to see, not only from Jean but from all the assistants. To see 200 people, half with disabilities and the other half finding joy and promise in them – it was the kingdom, my friends.

life together

I just finished a really fascinating article from the NYTimes magazine called “When Mom and Dad Share it All.” It’s a piece about how couples work to equally share household responsibilities, most notably chores and childcare.

The author is pointing to a noted phenomenon called “Second Shift” wherein women, even women with careers equal to their husbands, end up working a whole extra day more than their spouses once they get home. The ratio is generally 2:1 with chores. For childcare (hiring a babysitter, driving to soccer practice, getting baby ready for bed) a woman does 15 hours for their husband’s 2.

I really wanted to see how this fleshed out in my marriage. So I came up with a list of chores we did and J and I both wrote out the percentage we thought the other worked in each category. The first set is my assessment, the second his.

Florer-Bixler Household Chore Breakdown
	Jacob (M)	Melissa (M)	Jacob (J)	Melissa (J)
Laundry	90	10	90	10
Dishes	45	55	55	45
Bathroom (sinks, floors, mirror)	45	55	35	65
Bathtub	1	99	5	95
Plants	90	10	97	3
Worms	99	1	99	1
Vacuuming/Floors	80	20	95	5
General pick-up	50	50	70	30
Finances	90	10	87	13
Shopping and groceries	10	90	20	80
Meal preparation	20	80	15	85
Family maintenance	30	70	40	60
Car/bike maintenance	70	30	90	10
House repairs	100	0	100	0

We have a baby coming which will mean I end up taking on a lot more responsibility, at least initial, for child rearing (Breastfeeding ratio 0:1). I’ll also be at home with The Babe for more days of the week thanks to my accrued sick leave. Jacob will still get to be home at least one day a week, a rare treasure for any American family. This is one reason I do not feel extremely guilty about these stats.

The other reason is that there are a lot of X factors involved in the process of figuring out who does what. My general percentage is low because I don’t value cleaning as much as Jacob. If you came over to our house and it was a messy I would not feel bad at all. J is more sensitive (and in all holier) than me about this. He feels bad when things are out of order. While I empathize enough to keep our world much cleaner than I would as a single person, I have no clue how this feels.

There are other things we like to do or don’t. I tend to think money is an invention of Satan and find finances depressing. Jacob takes that one for the team. And we both know that he can navigate a junkyard for a tire plug in a way that would put me to shame. I like cooking and the grocery store is on my way home from work. And even though my stats look bad, my despise for cleaning the bathtub should also register somewhere.

All in all, it was an interesting experiment, one I would recommend as a dose of reality around how embedded traditional householding roles really are, even for those of us who try to be intentional about sharing equally. I also know that some of you lavish your traditional role and God bless you in that endeavor. Most women, the Times points out, are extremely discontent to be put on the second shift.

doula!

This week we interviewed and hired our doula, Carissa. For those who are unfamiliar, a doula is a support person who assists a family through the labor and delivery process.

You may be wondering, why do you need a doula if you have a really amazing and supportive husband who also happens to be tall and gorgeous and named Jake? Unlike us, the doula has actually been present at births before – lots of births. Our doula is just starting out but has 9 births under her belt and 2 birth experiences of her own. While we expect to have very little idea about what is going on, what’s normal and how to make important decision, Carissa will know. She can also assist with different laboring positions, massage and to provide space if we need to make a decision about a complication.

Doulas also provide some consistency in the crazy HMO world. Chances are good that I will never have met the midwife on-call when its time to go to the hospital. That midwife and the nurses might have to switch shifts half way through my labor. The only professional who will be there, from start of labor to birth, is Carissa. I just give her a call and within 2 hours, she is at my side. She’ll come to our house, help us transition to the hospital and will be around to support us throughout labor.

Doulas to not give and are not trained to provide medical advice. They will work to support you and your birth plan. Yet, their presence has a remarkable impact on the way women labor and their outcomes.

• 50% reduction in the cesarean rate
• 25% shorter labor
• 60% reduction in epidural requests
• 40% reduction in oxytocin use
• 30% reduction in analgesia use
• 40% reduction in forceps delivery

For someone with doctor-phobia the mental benefits of having a doula on hand, someone who can help get us through the difficult parts of labor, assist with pain-coping techniques and guide Jacob to be the best birth partner he can be is invaluable. Carissa is also available for a phone call 24 hours a day from now until 6 weeks postpartum. And she will go to prenatal appointments with me. We also get her for one postpartum visit.

If you’re looking for a doula, make sure she is certified by DONA International. They can also provide you with a list of doulas in your area (which is how we found Carissa).