to mark the season of advent and the accompanying waiting and yearning for new life in all of its various forms, i’m posting a sermon i preached this time last year at shady grove church. it’s the most honest and vulnerable sermon i’ve ever preached, and i’m including it in the MakeShift revolution because it is equally influenced by my ministry and my motherhood. the texts of the day were jeremiah 33:14-16 and luke 21:25-36. interspersed throughout the text are some block prints i did in 2007 for the advent bulletin covers atidlewild church.

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The “baby watch” had begun. The future grandparents called every 12 hours or so to ask about signs of labor. The great-aunt was on standby, ready to babysit the two-year-old on a moment’s notice. The nursery had been complete for a good month, the baby clothes had been washed, folded, and put away, the name had been selected, and the birthing plan had been mapped out. The new car seat was secure in the car. The two-year-old endured periodic explanations about what was about to happen, even though he really just wanted to play with his play dough in peace. And everywhere she went, that is, everywhere I went, I was a walking, waddling, symbol of Advent, pregnant, like Mary, during the days leading up to last Christmas. 

Meanwhile, the season of Advent set the stage with its rich stories. The prophets were prophesying the coming of a new king. John the Baptist was urging his congregation, the brood of vipers, to repent. Mary and Joseph saddled up a pack animal and went to be registered. The young adult Jesus was telling his disciples, and us, to look for the signs of the second coming. The weeks unfurled to the sights of Christmas lights, and the sounds of TV ads meant to herald, or perhaps beg for, salvation for our broken economy. There were the usual to-do lists and the painfully unusual absences left by death and empty nests. I don’t need to tell you what the holidays are like. We all know that strange hybrid of hope and impatience, excitement and desperation that comes when we are expecting God to break into our midst. But for me, last year, it really did all come down to the baby. My baby, who threatened all winter to make an early arrival and beat the baby Jesus to the punch.

I spent some time last year thinking that being very pregnant during Advent gave me a special entry point into this season of preparation and waiting. This brought an added measure of importance to the usual third-trimester symptoms: shortness of breath, night-waking, paranoia about missing the signs of imminent birth, mistaking my own impatience for signs of imminent birth, indigestion, emotional highs and lows, and attempts to conform this miracle to my schedule by eating spicy food, standing on my head, walking laps around the mall, etcetera.

But then I remembered that all of my Advents before had been marked by the same symptoms. Perhaps you suffer from some of these inflictions too: shortness of breath, night-waking, paranoia about missing the signs of imminent birth, mistaking your own impatience for signs of imminent birth, indigestion, emotional highs and lows, and attempts to conform this miracle to your schedule. After all, Advent’s vulnerable waiting wrapped up in the frenzy of pomp and circumstance transforms us all, every year, into people who are expecting, whether we’ve ever been pregnant or not.

But it was not just my pregnancy that connected me so intimately to the Advent story last year. It was another common thread that weaves through the prophecies and the gospels, through my story, and perhaps yours too. I was lured into believing that I knew what to expect when I was expecting.

The people of the houses of Israel and Judah are certain that the coming king will be a ruler, like the rulers of their day. Jeremiah TELLS them that the coming king will establish justice and righteousness in the land, and they just assume that this justice and righteousness will happen in the usual way – by killing off their enemies. They are lured into believing that they know what to expect when they are expecting.

The people who crowd around Jesus in the gospel of Luke, and later many Christians of our time are certain that the second coming of our king will be signaled by the sun, moon, and stars; distress among the nations; and the roaring of the sea and the waves. Jesus TELLS them and us that the Son of Man is coming on a cloud, and from then on our generation of followers has just assumed that this event can be quantified, predicted, screen lit, packaged, and sold. We, that is many Christians of our day and time, are lured into believing that we know what to expect when we are expecting.

The ultrasound tech told my husband and me that our baby was to be a boy. And because we already had one of those — a precious, curly-headed, spirited wonder –  we just assumed that the baby growing in my womb would be another precious, curly-headed, spirited wonder. We were lured into believing that we knew what to expect when we were expecting.

But the people of the houses of Israel and Judah did not get what they were expecting. Their king was a baby, and though he eventually did work for justice and righteousness, he didn’t follow the military model. Instead, he preached about forgiveness and nonviolence

The people who crowd around Jesus in Luke and even now don’t always get what we are expecting either. There are glimmers of the second coming all the time but the cataclysmic event that hits it big in the box office does not seem imminent, nor does longing for it heal the longing in our souls

And a test in the sixteenth week of my pregnancy revealed that my expectations were not accurate either. My little boy had an elevated risk for downs syndrome. Downs or no downs, he could still be a precious, curly-headed, spirited wonder, but I could no longer cling to the silly notion that my second son would be just like my first.

Twice, I endured procedures designed to tell me for sure whether or not my son had Downs. Twice these procedures failed. I was left with no choice but to move through the season in a sort of embodied uncertainty. I had no idea what to expect while I was expecting, and I realized then that nobody else REALLY does either.

Well, this was an entirely different kind of waiting than I had signed up for. The place in my heart that I was preparing for another precious, curly-headed, spirited wonder slowly died, and in its place grew a reluctant, and eventually exuberant openness to this baby, who would change my life forever. Advent comes each year with its traditions and stories, associations, and plans. We have learned to prepare our hearts for these things, so comforting with their certainty. But only the uncertainty, only the wild prospect of an unpredictable savior, only this different kind of reluctant and eventually exuberant waiting can really open us up to the fullness of new life that is promised. Sometimes our expectations keep us from the radically receptive kind of expecting to which we are called.

My son, [the bird], was born on January 17^th of this year, and he does not have Downs Syndrome. But in my opinion, the real victory in this story lies elsewhere. From the moment the doctor handed me my baby, fresh from the womb, I felt nothing but unconditional love. The question about Downs that had ruled so much of my pregnancy had no relevance at all in the face of this love, so powerful, this baby, so divine. Miraculously, I had made room for him, and all that he is, and all that he will become.

This is how my little [bird] taught me what Advent is all about before he was even 5 minutes old. It’s about opening our hearts to a God who is never limited by our expectations. It’s about embracing uncertainty. It’s about casting aside all of those things that have no relevance at all in the face of love and divinity. But most of all, it’s about making room for the baby, born in the city of David, and all that he is, and all that he will become.

AMEN.

[this is the second in a series of guest posts written by jennifer harrison, who was perhaps the only other person in my high school english classes who joined me in gleeful celebration when called up on to diagram sentences. jennifer’s posts will highlight how her vocation as an elementary school teacher informs her parenting, and vice-versa. her bio is located at the conclusion of this post.] 

Milestones in a school year inspire my inner mathematician to make an appearance. As I wrap up my fall parent-teacher conferences, I think back to the number of conferences that I have conducted as the teacher in the parent-teacher duo. I imagine that the number is now close to 500, which is a fairly remarkable number given that I so clearly remember my very first parent teacher conference. I was a young, new teacher, spruced up in a carefully chosen outfit and neatly applied makeup that I hoped would give me more authority than my 21 years commanded.

image from reason.com

Things have changed a great deal since those early days of my career, and I naturally see that each of these conferences is much more than an opportunity to put my best sartorial foot forward. These meetings, while not without significant amounts of preparation and planning, are nonetheless a welcome respite from parents’ and teachers’ hectic day-to-day schedules, schedules that hardly afford us the opportunity to sit down as a team and talk about the accomplishments and the needs of young children. Conferences are opportunities for me to connect and collaborate with my students’ first and most important teachers.  

I love watching parents’ faces as I discuss their child. I love it when they lean in a little closer to listen carefully to my description of the child, whom they love so much. It is so exciting to watch their eyes twinkle as I share a funny anecdote about their child or reveal a significant accomplishment or contribution; and I delight in seeing them emphatically nod in agreement as I outline what I believe to be their child’s special and unique talents.

Conversely, I feel rushes of compassion and sympathy when conversations turn toward challenges and frustrations in the classroom. I see that parents so dearly want their children to succeed. This is a goal that I share, one that propels me to communicate in a way that inspires positive action and manageable objectives.

My daughter, Elizabeth, is only 16 months old, so I am not quite at the point where I’ll put on the parent hat during parent-teacher conference time. Yet I often wonder what Elizabeth’s teachers will share with my husband and me as our daughter grows from a toddler to a child to a young woman. What personality traits will emerge as she grows up and learns more about the world around her? Will her unyielding determination to figure out how those stacking cups work turn into a love of geometry? Does the way in which she babbles as she flips the pages of her books mean that we will have an eager, voracious reader on our hands? Is her sunny greeting of “hi, hi” to everyone she meets indicative of a friendly, engaging girl? Is her high-pitched, frustrated wail of toddler-hood a harbinger of a stubborn streak when things don’t go her way?

What will Elizabeth’s teachers say to my husband and me that will make our eyes twinkle, that will prompt us to lean in a little closer?  

 jennifer harrison earned her bachelors and masters degrees at vanderbilt and has taught in public and private schools since 1999. she currently enjoys chicago city life with her ER nurse husband, 16-month-old daughter elizabeth, and dog rowdy. when jennifer is not parenting or teaching, she loves to read, take pictures, travel, and search for the perfect latte.

name: Andi Williams  

age: 44

current city: Brevard, NC (outside of Asheville) 

living situation: Living with my husband and me in our home are two kids: Boy Child (14) and Girl Child (13). We have two rescue mutt/labs from Memphis and the world’s oldest guinea pig, Wilbur.

Boy Child is brilliant, big and strong, older than he should be, and wants to live off the grid. He cannot put his big stinky shoes away, plays three types of guitar, and will ask for Healing Touch when he is hurt. He has a bear skin on his bed from a bear he shot and is tremendously proud when the game he shot is on the supper table. We have discussions on the best way to take out zombies. He swears I could learn to use a shotgun. I prefer to run over them or use a bat or golf club. 

Girl Child is brilliant in her own way, curvy and girly, will always be my little girl but has an old soul. She talks to angels and has moments of profound wisdom. I expect to write a book one day about her and with her. She is living proof that the things that come out of teenagers mouths are genetically and developmentally encoded. She loves us best one minute, then turns around the next and says, “Watch me” in a talk to the hand sort of way. This is usually in reference to more time watching PBS. 

My husband is lovely, wonderful, and (as most) could be the topic of a whole nutha blog. 

The dogs are middle-aged and lovely, except for the increased squirrel patrolling that is occurring this fall. Wilbur should be dead by all accounts, but continues to show no signs of stopping. 

occupation: I am the Coordinator of Integrative Healthcare at Mission Hospital, Asheville. I have a special interest in Whole Person Theory and Healing Touch and have completed certifications in these areas. Maintaining a balanced life between work and home is not always easy with two teenagers (one with significant special needs). 

how do you structure your time and space? My space has become showroom tidy. Our house has been on the market since April, so a lot of my “stuff” is in boxes. Turns out that we didn’t need so much after all, so we have made many trips to Goodwill and had a garage sale. I would like to say I’m very zen with it, but honestly, I don’t like living this tidily. I miss my packed up art studio and the scatter of books, magazines, and art projects. My desk at the office compensates for this.

I have two email accounts (work and home) and two calendars (work on the hospital computer system, home on the fridge). I commute 45 minutes two times a day with our high school freshman to Asheville, cook once a week for the whole week, and schedule “girl days” with our special girl. I work out while Boy Child is at wrestling practice, then we commute back home, at which point I can hear my husband snoring in the bed. We are ready to move to Asheville if someone would buy our house. 

using the metaphor of seasons to describe the phases of women’s lives,

-what are the particular challenges and highlights of your current season? Let’s be literal here. This is the season of SUMMER for me. I am hot often (hot flashes, hot and bothered, hot to trot… you name it). I am often uncomfortable in a new job, new transitions, and new thought processes. I feel new and green and in full bloom in a life role I didn’t really want, but (ha) here I am anyway and stuck to the hot seat.

The highlights of this hot season are learning new skill sets professionally as I switch from being a very task-oriented critical care/resource nurse to being a very holistic nurse/educator/organizer/writer. I am published (as of a few weeks ago) in a national nursing magazine and will be presenting in the spring at a national nursing conference. I’m freaking out (in a very holistic, zen, present sort of way). Breathe….. 

-what season(s) preceded this one? Spring preceded our current season. The kids were young and fresh, and going to the playground was fun and the best part of the day. We were young marrieds then and not worried about much. I was a student, learning and growing and training. There was so much new growth.

-what season(s) might your future hold? Summer is going to last a while.  

favorite family activities: Girl Child loves to eat out. Boy Child goes along good-naturedly for the most part. The oldest has out grown us both in size and strength and engages in risky behaviors that we are no longer capable of or never dreamed of like rock climbing, wrestling, and jiujutsu. The youngest abhors Mother Nature and would prefer to spend her day shopping, dancing, and dressing up. Both fit their gender stereotypes to the extreme. Therefore, we do a lot of divide and conquer type activities. Boys are backpacking and camping this weekend while girls are shopping and eating. We do switch off. Dad can seriously boogie to Abba and Mom can hike a good eight to nine miles without complaining (whining starts at mile ten). We all also like music (got to meet Ricky Skaggs back stage this summer!) and have family music afternoons with the boys on guitar and girls on vocals (loud, not good).

favorite solo activities: painting, pen and ink, yoga, reading trashy novels

source(s) of inspiration: Anne Lamott’s books, my parents, Janet Menken – the founder of Healing Touch, Lucia Thornton, Brene Brown

best MakeShift moment: For Boy Child’s fourth birthday party, the fire department brought the big truck by the house for an hour and let the kids climb and look and visit. I sent them back to the fire station with brunch. We used to frequent the stations every three to four weeks to look at the trucks and visit with the crews. It was cheap fun and civic involvement (we took cookies). Now my kid wants to be a fire fighter (smoke jumper to be exact). Be careful what you makeshift.

Another day I took both kids out on the front porch and let them finger-paint the entire front glass windows and door with cool whip, chocolate pudding and shaving cream. We then hosed the porch and them off. I miss those days. They were fun! Now i can torture teenagers with threats of putting near-naked chocolate-pudding-covered-toddler pictures on facebook. These days are fun too!

  [if you know someone who would make a good “mothers of invention” feature, check out the nomination process and questionnaire located on the sidebar to your right.]

one of the best parts of facilitating this little makeshift blog is that readers regularly send me recent and provocative articles about the state of modern motherhood. thank you, and keep ’em coming!

the last two articles i received are friction-inciting commentaries on the cultural construction of motherhood. one deliniates the high child nurturing standards held by american women. the other investigates the high career-related standards held by this same set. taken together, these articles reveal a veritable fog of ridiculous expectations obscuring nearly every aspect of women’s lives.

the first is a wall street journal article by erica jong describing the attachment parenting craze as a sort of self-inflicted prison for mothers, who, despite their best kid-wearing, cloth-diapering, baby-food-making efforts are never able to meet the socially accepted standard for mothering, which was created in large part by dr. sears. but no matter what one’s thoughts are regarding attachment parenting, it’s hard to disagree with jong’s lament: “rarely does a new mother hear these golden words: “do the best you can; there are no rules.”

the second article is jessica olien’s slate magazine exploration into the culture of motherhood in the netherlands, where part-time work, outings with friends, and self-care are celebrated ways for moms to spend time. as opposed to the guilt felt by american mothers who remove themselves from the full-time workforce, dutch women do not seem to link their self-esteems to their workforce prowess. the conclusion is that the drive that american women have assumed in order to further women’s progress has “set us up for a world in which none of us is having any fun.”

olien writes,

“…american women as a whole are not getting any happier. if anything, the studies show that we are emotionally less well-off than we were before.”

high standards have the potential to launch us into more meaningful, productive, and useful lives. but perhaps something has gotten lost in translation between our feminist fore mothers, who constructed domestic co-ops and deconstructed glass ceilings, and those modern women who have inherited big tasks that have somehow become detached from the big dreams that birthed them. what was once a grand vision of equality seems now to feel more like a universal clamoring for perfection in every arena. the guilt that ensues squelches the kind of big dreaming that women once had for the state of the world. and so, in the words of jong, we reduce our visions to the scope of our homes and families. “[we] substitute our own small world for the world as a whole.”  

standards ought to be the bi-product of dreams, the way they came into this world in the first place. so perhaps the key to generating a world that is fairer (and for heaven’s sake, MORE FUN) is to leave our faithful posts as the keepers of the rules and ideals. if we join the ranks of the dreamers, perhaps the standards we generate will make more sense in our contexts. perhaps standards will not imprison us but free us. but the only way to get there is to start where the women before us started: with a vision of a better life.

i love me some note cards.

i never leave home with out them. they are the perfect place to record a genius idea, deposit toddler scribbles, and spit out used gum. i wrote all of my school papers, from tenth grade through graduate school, by putting one fact one each note card, arranging them into themed stacks, putting the stacks in order, and settling down in front of my computer in the midst of a veritable note card village. i even wrote my most recent homily this way.

when i started the re[frame] productivity system for creative people a few months ago, it wasn’t so much because i had friends who had successfully completed the program and were happy with the results. nor was the main draw its enticing low price of $42 for six weeks worth of daily emails explaining a detailed process in simple, attainable steps. it was the note cards, folks. i loved the idea of writing one “to do” on each note card and organizing them in a cute little box under headings for each day of the week. so excited was i about the power of this little box and its contents to transform my chaotic world that i diligently worked the note card system for months.

during this time, i returned emails and phone calls promptly, sent school picture money back on time, made headway on long overdue projects (the sewing room reorganization, for example), and developed a regular schedule for household tasks such as doing laundry and making dinner. i was the very picture of productivity. the problem was that i wasn’t feeling very creative anymore.

there was no time to whip up crazy pants for my boys in my newly organized sewing room. i began having visions of things i wanted to paint or cook, but there wasn’t time to bring them to life. i pictured myself (and still do) dropping by amro music of an afternoon, renting a fiddle, and spending “free time” indulging myself and horrifying others with the excruciating cacophony only a beginning fiddler could produce.

so for the last six weeks or so, i have abandoned my dear note cards. we are living in piles of laundry and dirty dishes but the laundry now contains several pairs of fabulous new crazy pants for the kids, and the dirty dishes are the result of creative cooking experiments. i have devoured a few great books (both the for-fun kind and the brain-stimulating kind) but there are an embarrassing number of unread emails in my inbox.

i generally prefer allowing my intuition to guide me from one task to the next. the only problem is that my intuition is not so good at taking care of business. and after a while, it becomes evident that i need things like friends, and clean underwear, and an unsoiled mug for my coffee. 

so today, i’m getting back on the re[frame] wagon. i’m returning to the world of note cards. however, instead of attacking every piece of unfinished business in my life the way  my dog attacks his breakfast (in an near-violent frenzy), i’m going to take a more measured approach. i have only one goal for the week, and that is cleaning out the bird’s closet. i know there must be clothes to fit this child in there somewhere!

is there any way to be both productive and creative at the same time? or is this particular brand of balance just another part of a mother’s quest for pie-in-the-sky equanimity? i think i’ll just write these questions on note cards and carry them around in my purse.

last tuesday, my husband received his latest hepatitis c test results.

for those who are just now tuning into this saga, we think he contracted hep c during a surgery five years ago, and life since this shocking news hit has never been the same. we were in our twenties, prematurely grappling with our mortality. i was doing in vitro, he was enduring a year-long chemo-like treatment, and syringes and sharpe’s containers were among our regular household items. six months post-treatment, we got the news that the virus was back. there were treatments in the works but nothing new was on the market. hep c is a slowly progressing virus, so andy set out to control what he could control and live his life.

andy had regular acupuncture appointments and took fist fulls of herbs morning, noon, and night. he stopped drinking, stopped eating red meat, and eliminated unnecessary stress. he committed himself to getting more sleep, and he became a force of nature in the weight room and during his frequent jogs. i am still in awe of his determination and persistence.

last year, a hep c test revealed that he had no more virus in his blood. we were told that if he got similar results this year, he would be counted among the small percentage of people who manage to fight the virus off themselves. last tuesday, he joined this modest and grateful category of healthy men and women.

just as we were beginning to process this news, our neighbor and very dear friend, steve, passed away suddenly. steve was an almost daily part of our lives. in the two years since we moved in next door, we have had many meals together outside, in the cove, and inside, around our table. every member of our family loved him.

i was asked to officiate steve’s funeral yesterday, and driving away from the graveside after it was all over, i told andy that i am not sure i will ever receive a higher honor in my ministry. i am including some segments from my homily (crafted from many emails i received from his friends) that describe the kind of person he was. but i think andy really said it best when he said, “you know someone was a good person when his mailman shows up for his funeral.”

Steve was fun loving.

Perhaps this trait was the most obvious in Spin Class, where he always had “his” spot, right in front of the mirror. After leaving several times to change out of sweaty shirts, Steve could be counted on to have a water fight with Liz, or to stand up and start singing to his favorite Spin Class song, which, by the way, “That’s not My Name” by the Ting Tings.

Outside of Spin Class, Steve knew how to find a certain lightness about life and tap into it. And then, with a smile or a laugh, or just the right amount of teasing, he’d bring his friends into this lightness too….

Steve made Midtown better.

According to one business owner, “He didn’t just own the buildings in Midtown that so many popular businesses occupy, but he participated in our success. He patronized us all and helped so many of us become or remain successful.”…

If the grass got too high at Peabody Park, Steve would arrive on the scene with his lawnmower. Because of things like this, even those who didn’t know Steve personally have suffered a loss….

Finally, Steve was a “passionate participant in life.”

In other words, whether it was yoga, spinning, cycling, running, tennis, art, or [his granddaughter], Steve approached everything with passion and had a blast in the process. He truly enjoyed life and set a great example for all of us.”

He once told one of you, “I love my life, and I look forward to waking up every day.”….

It is with enormous grief that we gather here. But we do not have to say goodbye to Steve. Time will bring back that sense of lightness Steve loved to show us. The grief will fade. And we will remember him with nothing but gratitude.

name: Virginia Reed Murphy

age: 41

current city: Memphis, TN

living situation: I live in a house with:

• my husband, Joe
• boy one, Abel (age five)
• boy two, Harlan (age three)
• man child,  Josh, ( age 21) (He’s a college student and an actor in my theatre company.)

occupation: I am the director of Playback Memphis, a professional improv theatre group that animates audience members’ personal stories using movement, music, metaphor, and the spoken word. In addition, my husband and I co-direct an interactive children’s music program called Music for Aardvarks, Memphis.

how do you structure your time and space? Our life mirrors our Playback work in that there is a loose structure and a lot of room for variation in the moment. One constant is that, for the first time ever, both kids go to school every day from  8:30 to 3:15. Before, both boys got out at 11:30 a.m. and honestly, I have no idea how we ran two small businesses with that scenario. It was pretty nuts.

Another constant is yoga. I go three times a week — usually twice to Bikram, which is stinky and sweaty, and once a week to Lou Hoyt’s Iyengar class at Eastern Sun. Yoga is essential for my neck, it counteracts my extended computer time, and it also prevents me from being institutionalized. (I really believe that I would be a danger to myself and others without the practice. It’s incomprehensible to me how people live without it.)

We have an office at First Congo, a church that is a  block and a half from our house. Sometimes I work there and sometimes I work at home. I would like to make better use of the office. But when I feel pressed for time, I usually stay home to save myself the 15 minutes it takes to pack up the computer and make the block and a half. Very silly. I really do long for my home to be a refuge from work, but when you run your own businesses, that just isn’t reality. It’s with you always.

In addition to their time in school, my children spend time with my mother and Josh. This is awesome. I think every family with two small children should have a Josh living with them. He’s wonderful with the kids and very responsible and creative. I just love that my kids are learning from and relating to him.

My days are completely improvisational and never look the same. The seasons of work dictate much of how I spend my time with the tasks of fundraising for Playback, promoting a new semester for Aardvarks,
meetings with clients, doing administrative work, vision questing about how to grow Aardvarks and Playback, putting together a Playback promo video, and my least favorite activity: bookkeeping. I wear a lot of hats and would very much like an assistant, but we can’t afford one. I’m exploring the intern option.

My homemaking happens in spurts. I really love the idea of living in a space where I experience beauty and creativity as well as order. However, this just feels impossible for me to maintain for any length of time. For example, I had piles of found Mississippi River bank drift wood sitting around my house for months. My kids would be chasing each other with five-foot-long pieces until I finally I made a sculpture for the wall. There is often laundry strewn all over the house, and although I have a system for separating clothes when we wash (towels, our clothes, kids clothes), most of the time the clothes never get put away, so it’s really a pointless system. And I have NO idea how anyone ever puts matching socks on their kids. I’m lucky if a find two socks. I’ve also never brushed my kids’ hair. Fortunately, they can pull it off – I think I would be in a bad way if I had girls.

Dinner is this whole other beast in home-making that I never manage to get a hold of. Sometimes I feed the kids hotdogs and tater tots and let them watch something on Netflix. (We have no TV, but again, what’s the point in having no TV if you park your kids in front of Netflix? I guess rules and structure exist to be broken in our household.) On these evenings, Joe and I drink beer and forgo plates as we stuff ourselves with pita and hummus. Then there are the nights where I get super ambitious and start something from Moosewood Simple Suppers at five o’clock and forget to feed my kids anything. Naturally, by 5:30 they are writhing on the floor in tandem tantrums (usually one of them is naked), the kitchen is a disaster, and I’m thinking, “why in God’s name did I decide tonight was the night for Navajo Stew? My kids won’t even eat it.” And then sometimes I manage to put together some deliciousness that everyone enjoys, and we manage to clean all the work off the dining room table and hold hands and sing the Montessori blessing and the world is right again. All case scenarios are equally us. I guess you could say we have wide range.

using the metaphor of seasons to describe the phases of women’s lives,

-what are the particular challenges and highlights of your current season? The biggest challenge is that we don’t make enough money, and I am tired of going into Walgreens and having to think for ten minutes if buying a new toothbrush is a “need” or a “want.” Also, more financial stablility would decrease stress and allow Joe and me to have some more time for just us. For example, we could have date nights that do not entail consuming hummus, pita, and beer while the kids watch TV. Among the many highlights of our current season is the fact that the nature of our work allows us to have a lot of great family time together. Our personal and professional lives are very integrated (meaning we’ve made amazing friends from both the Aardvarks and Playback worlds) and we feel very rooted in our community. We are trying to be the change we want to see in the world (and especially in Memphis) with both Aardvarks and Playback, and although this is challenging at times, it’s an incredible journey for us and our lives are so much richer for it in all the ways that matter.

-what season(s) preceded this one? Imagining and planning the garden I wanted to grow.

-what season(s) might your future hold? I’m hoping that now that the harvest is coming in, I can find some people to give me a good price so I can keep the farm.

favorite family activities: In nice weather we like to bike ride or go to the sandbar at Shelby Forest —  a ridiculously underutilized, best big nature experience in Memphis. We also go camping a lot in Arkansas. This takes a crazy amount of work , but our life is just kind of one crazy production anyway, so we’re used to it. My husband is from farm stock, so he is really good at this kind of thing and the payoff is huge when I see the boys in their full nakedness throwing rocks in that beautiful stream. Joe and I have far too few date nights due to lack of funds, but if I could I would take him to Las Vegas to see Cirque de Soleil’s LOVE. I went with my sisters-in-law a couple of years ago, and now I have this whole new appreciation for the vision of an adult playground. I always snubbed my nose, but if we could take a weekend that would be up there for a top pick.

favorite solo activities: I’m sorry what?

source(s) of inspiration: humanity, our playback company, Aardvarks families, and amazingly talented friends

best MakeShift moment: Harlan used to be obsessed with pretending he was driving in the parked car. Sometimes I would bring the New York Times in the car and lie down in the backseat while he drove. Sometimes I would actually just leave him in the car while I did something inside. One day I came out and he was gone, which completely freaked me out. Every worst case scenario imagineable was running through my mind. It turns out he had found his way into our neighbor’s sports car and was behind the wheel (a much fancier ride). Hilarious, but really not. You shouldn’t leave your two-year-old unattended in a parked car. Creative perhaps, but quite foolish. Good story though. I walk a fine line.

virginia invites memphians to enjoy this weekend’s playback performances:

find virginia on the web:

• music for aardvarks, memphis: http://www.memphisaardvarks.com/
• playback memphis: http://www.playbackmemphis.com/

[if you or someone you know would make a good “mother of invention,” please check out the nomination process and questionnaire located on the sidebar to your right.]

if i could imbue my children with one virtue, one tool to be used in the face of life’s wonder and challenge, it would be CREATIVITY. it takes creativity to do things like improve the economy, convey truth and meaning, patch an oil leak, develop a vaccine, negotiate a real estate transaction, keep a baby off the stairs, generate personal narratives of hope and healing, wire light fixtures, and the list goes on.

though i want my children to be creative, this does not mean that they are required to be artists, chefs, or musicians, though creativity might very well encompass such delightful propensities. i want the monkey and the bird to be capable of “divergent thinking (generating many unique ideas) and then convergent thinking (combining those ideas into the best result).” this is the language used by e. paul torrance  in his longitudinal creativity study that began in the fifties. according to a recent newsweek article entitled the creativity crisis by bronson and merryman, torrance’s assessment of children’s creative tendencies (CQ tests) proved to be accurate over time and are still the “gold standard” in measuring creativity today. however, while IQ test scores are on the rise, CQ test results show that the creativity of american children has been on the decline since the nineties.

torrance

the cause of this decline is unknown, though there is speculation that kids’ increased time in front of the television and video games could be a culprit, as could the school system’s rigid and standardized measures of success. but it’s also possible that common misperceptions about creativity have contributed to its decline. one such misperception is that creativity is something that pertains to the arts, not the sciences. another is that it should be separate from actual, factual learning. and finally, many folks falsely believe that creativity cannot be taught, a notion successfully disputed by three recent university studies conducted in georgia, oklahoma, and taiwan.

such  information is enlightening to this mother, whose home is filled with music, cooking projects, and art supply explosions at every turn. but fostering my boys’ creativity is about more than making pumpkin bread with my children (something we do often). it’s also about helping them to solve problems by engaging all the parts of their brains (something we do much less often). this means that the constant “why is the sky blue” questions are more than just annoying. they are gateways to more questions, brainstorming, further research, an atmosphere of continuous learning, and the celebration of curiosity. according to the above mentioned newsweek article,

“highly creative adults tended to grow up in families embodying opposites. parents encouraged uniqueness, yet provided stability. they were highly responsive to kids’ needs, yet challenged kids to develop skills. this resulted in a sort of adaptability: in times of anxiousness, clear rules could reduce chaos—yet when kids were bored, they could seek change, too. in the space between anxiety and boredom was where creativity flourished.”

 i’m not sure how to provide for my children “the space between anxiety and boredom.”  but i am going to try to introduce them to this thought sequence developed by creativity theorists: problem-finding, fact-finding, idea-finding, and solution-finding. and because i am making up these policies as i go along, there will still be pumpkin bread and art supply explosions. this is not about getting these boys into college. it’s about teaching them how to get themselves out of trouble. it’s about helping them to construct meaningful lives in the face of life’s wonder and challenge.

 for further reading on this subject, check out“more than cupcakes: supporting your child’s creative potential,” an interview with dr. don treffinger.

first grade, for me, was when the curriculum ceased to be play-based. the active life of preschool and kindergarten, with all of its hiding and seeking and cooking and dancing, became fodder for my daydreams as i plugged away at my little wooden first grade desk at what was unabashedly called “seatwork.” i resisted this stationary kind of learning so much that i almost failed the first grade, but in the face of at least eleven more years of school, i learned to expand my knowledge within the confines of the system. unknowingly, i separated the parts of me that were once beautifully integrated in childhood: mental and physical exercise. there were spelling tests and there was recess. there was long division, and there was sports practice. there was contemporary theology and there was jogging. as i was being created into a contributing member of society, there was evening, and there was morning for approximately 4,140 days.

as i was riding my bicycle on the greenline yesterday with the bird in tow, i lapsed into the guilty reflection that is common to upper middle class mothers. i calculated how many days i have spent formally acquiring knowledge in educational settings, and i came up with the above number. then i commenced to worry that “my brain is turning to mush.” i thought of my diplomas that are not framed in an office but are still tucked away in their little black folders between photo albums of my kids’ first years and behind a colorful butcher paper masterpiece that the monkey created at school. i thought of the staggering amount of guilt that is experienced as women like me, who have spent the majority of our lives doing “seatwork,” are plunged into the unfamiliar world of mothering, where equations and essays are irrelevant. i started plotting my next vocational move once the kids are in school, work that would justify my masters degree and present a reason to frame those diplomas. and then i remembered another stark contrast between life in educational systems and life as a mostly stay-at-home-mom: the former is future-oriented by design. the latter can only be fully embraced by living in the present.

i went on like this for an hour — enough time for the bird and me to ride to shelby farms and back into town. i reflected on the way that my life now involves so much physical activity — schlepping kids, groceries, and laundry, pushing the steam mop, averting disasters, rushing to disentangle the climbing bird from all manor of hanging garage tools. the seatwork smarty pants in me unleashed more judgement. “what a waste,” she said.

and then, miraculously, i remembered who i was in the first place, before the confines of first grade hit, before i spent 4,140 days compartmentalizing mental and physical excercise. i am someone who loves a play-based curriculum and an integrated life. and that is precisely what i’ve got right now.

so as the bird and i finished up our bike ride and went on to schlepp the week’s groceries, i laid the guilt to rest. perhaps mothering young children is a chance to return to a more natural state of being, a time to collect all of the scattered parts of me and put them back together.