I was depressed in the fall and winter of 2001. There was anxiety too. And as with all depression and anxiety, it felt unbearable. But it felt especially so because I was only 23. My childhood had been happy and fairly uneventful, and I did not yet know from experience about the incredible strength of God and of my community that would get me through. I did not yet know from experience about the incredible strength in me, either. Sometimes the first big obstacle in life is the scariest.

It was scary for my husband too. And so, as I was moping around the house, pondering dropping out of divinity school, Andy coaxed me into the car and then to the mall. The MALL! Home of temporarily relief from all sorts of ailments!

He led me into a store where they sold all manor of sleepwear, and together, we settled upon a pretty, pink, plaid, soft, flannel, pair of pajamas. They were made in the style of those my Dad used to wear… they buttoned down the front and had a drawstring at the waist, but they were feminine too. They fit just right.

And so, I did all the rest of my moping around in the months that followed, in those pretty pink pajamas. They didn’t fix anything. I was still depressed and anxious. And I did drop out of divinity school, for a time. But those pajamas meant that my pain and struggling were acknowledged by the one who waded through it all with me. Sometimes feelings don’t seem real until another person steps inside them too, for a moment. Only then can any sort of healing start to take hold.

This kind of work doesn’t feel productive. We can give comfort, but we cannot fix. This kind of work is not glamorous. We will leave this place tonight with ashes smudged on our foreheads. We will be wearing, on the outside, all that threatens to undo us. But this kind of work is powerful. We will be given the chance to stare headlong into each others’ darkness and acknowledge that it is there. It is our job, as faithful people, not to look away from the ashes. We are not healers, you and I. But God has given us the incredible privilege of being able to truly see each other, to lay the groundwork.

You should know that I packed up those pink pajamas and took them with me to Nashville, when Andy and I decided that it was time for me to finish divinity school. I wore them in the company of great theologians, as I poured over their works in my newly rented apartment. Then a few years later, thanks to the generous drawstring at the waist, I wore them during my first pregnancy. After [the monkey] was born, the button down top was good for nursing. Plus, those pajamas were incredibly soft by then. Too soft, in fact. Threadbare. I took the strong parts, cut them into strips, and sewed them into my first quilt. My mother helped me. Andy and I take the quilt on picnics with the kids now.

Not all of life is darkness. It’s not all sunny picnics either. The two are wedded together always. This is why we observe church seasons and holy days. So that all within five months’ time, we are:

celebrating new life with manger scenes,

following the hopeful star of epiphany,

experiencing temptation with the grown-up Jesus,

grieving death in the shadow of a gruesome cross,

rolling away rocks to reveal empty tombs,

and on and on.

These rituals and narratives help us to embrace the complex marriage of darkness and light. But even they do not tell the whole story. We all have our own wild beasts that threaten to undo us. We all wander in the wilderness. We all encounter angels. We simply gather here, in the mean time, to truly see each other. To affirm that all of it is real.

Something happens to us when we do this.

Together we make room for God.

every year on new year’s eve, andy and i (and some of our dear friends) set personal intentions for the year ahead by giving it a name.  perhaps the most significant year-naming for me was “the year of rearranging,” which resulted in this proud post.

but the year of rearranging is over. i am now 19 days into “the year of gratitude.”

if you are rolling your eyes with associations of new-agey, blissed-out, shallow pronouncements of happiness, designed to mask all that is wrong with this world, STOP RIGHT NOW. if you were thinking more along the lines of  the dalai lama, you can stop that too. sadly, he and i have little in common.

i simply found myself, during those last few days of 2011, on my knees (not praying but scraping already-chewed-gum off of the kitchen floor); having a mountain top experience (wherein i observed my children happily eating greasy goldfish crackers, on the couch, in my bedroom, under a two-weeks-high mountain of clean laundry); in the wake of a come-to-jesus-talk with my husband (that didn’t involve jesus at all but rather another baby, the third one that we won’t be attempting to have due to our divergent viewpoints about how many people we want in this household); and i realized that much of what enrages me about my life has to do with the way that i form, internalize, solidify, and live by GREAT EXPECTATIONS. and by “great” i mean sometimes soul-killing.

my friend, erika, gave me a little ledger for christmas where there is a space to name what i am grateful for each day. i confess that i have no idea where i put that thing. but it (and she) inspired me to spend the year taking an honest look at the beauty and bounty that is instead of the beauty and bounty that is not.

the best thing about the year of gratitude is that it does not come with any presumptions of forward progress. all i have to do each day is name one moment in which i witness a spark of the divine outside of myself and one moment in which i witness a spark of the divine inside of myself (the latter is the more difficult). i send these brief musings to myself in daily emails, which, unlike all of the other emails in my inbox, i do not expect myself to read unless i want to.

so far i have been grateful for things as shallow and profound as yoga, the bird’s third birthday, trader joe’s dark-chocolate-pistachio-covered toffee, our new montreat house, and this song. andy’s year-naming has given me much to celebrate as well, but more on that later.

this is less about an attitude change (though one might say that i need one!) than it is about clarity. both of my vocations, motherhood and ministry, take place where great expectations meet mixed messages about the value of tradition and the right way to do things. i cannot distill any of that into something that makes sense, but i can intentionally notice the good in my life.

it’s about doing something daily that is positive, not overwhelming, and just for me.

hello, my name is mary allison, and i am a delinquent blogger. i know you are all attributing my silence to one of the following things:

1. i joined the witness protection program and am now living in boise, working at subway, and breeding cocker spaniels.

2. my children have finally driven me past the point of insanity and i have taken off on an impromptu cross-country drive with no definite plans of return.

3. a pillow fort has blocked access to my computer:

alas, if my life held the drama and intrigue of items 1 & 2, i would have written a memoir by now, and i walk through pillow forts every day. no big deal.

all i know is that since my last post on august 30th, the following things have happened:

1. my children started back to school after labor day and then had a five-day fall break two seconds later.

2. i turned 35.

3. i started re-reading eckhart tolle’s a new earth:

4. my job at the university of memphis stopped resembling the tv show apprentice and morphed into relational ministry. in other words, my makeshift marketing campaign has given way to face-to-face contact with actual students! i believe in miracles.

5. the monkey started taking suzuki violin, and i rented myself a fiddle too. we make terrible, fantastic music together. remember this post about great expectations?

6. i made good on my promise to mask the bird’s wall doodlings with wild designs. if you stand still in my house for too long, there is a good chance that you will be stenciled.

new obsession: www.oliveleafstencils.com

p.s. did you know you can stencil fabric and flat-weave rugs? good times.

7. i discovered that i can download books via the audible app on my phone and wash dishes and fold clothes to the riveting saga of the hunger games trilogy. i actually look forward to household chores now. for the love of clean dishes and laundered clothes and all that is holy, suzanne collins needs to write some more books.

8. andy and i took a little trip to lake oconee, outside of atlanta. the kids stayed with my folks. we each slept for 12 hours, three nights in a row. i wore my vintage polyester house dress around the hotel like a crazy person. what’s the point in changing clothes just to wander down the hall for a glass of wine?

9. i got to serve communion to my children at our church’s family camp in middle tennessee. the ritual of communion is mysterious and multifaceted, and i will never fully understand it. but this i know: it was bread from heaven. also, the bird spit his portion of bread into the cup.

http://www.nacome.org/

i promise not to wait a month and a half to post again. off to polish the silver, iron my underwear, and plant bulbs in the front beds before the kids awake.

just kidding. i’m still not martha stewart. some things never change.

the good thing about having the only children in the city of memphis who have not started school yet is that i have the prolonged opportunity to test out my latest parenting hypothesis by way of an extremely unscientific, completely non-randomized study of one (myself). the theory, and the theme of my last couple of posts, is that parents say ridiculous things to their children because parenting invites a hailstorm of ridiculous situations.

here is a bit of my recently-gathered evidence:

please move your cape so i can bite off your hangnail.

i don’t know what else to tell you. yes, i am the only one in the family without a scrotum… no, i am not sad that i don’t have one… but you should be happy you have one!

and finally,

please stop biting the soap.

and then, there are all the things i dare not send out into the world wide web for fear that my children will bill me for their therapy in 20 years (can you imagine the cost of therapy in 20 years?). but trust me. the best and most ridiculous material is reserved for my own personal fits of hysterical laughter. who needs daytime television when i’ve got a monkey and a bird?

blockprint by mary allison, text from pc(usa)'s "brief statement of faith."

during one of my recent stream-of-consciousness drifts into theology and mom-tology (that’s ontology for moms), something beautiful occurred to me.

i was reflecting on just how much i have changed over time. the essence of me is the same, of course, but when the kids hit the scene, andy and i became full-time adapters to the whims, patterns, needs, and developmental requirements of the little people in our lives. this awareness makes the metaphor of god-as-parent all the more fascinating. does god, as the process theologians claim, change over time according to the movements of the universe?

i was interested in this concept in college and divinity school but now that i am a parent, i find myself embracing process theology for the blessing it can offer mothers. what good is the metaphor of an all-powerful, hands-off sort of god to a mother whose power in society is questionable and who is intimately involved in the details of her children’s lives? i like thinking about a god who would postpone her sleep to help a child out of the fog of a night terror. when i think of the possibility that god has shaped her plans around her children, i remember that what i am doing is valuable.

i am not saying that god has surrendered the entire universe to human control. nor am i saying that we should surrender our lives to the irrational notions of a two-year-old.

 i’m just saying that it’s possible that we were created in the image of a makeshifting god.

about a year ago, the MakeShift revolution was born of equal parts anxiety and creativity. anxiety and creativity are a likely pairing in most cases of  forward progress, no  matter how big or small. anxiety about the way things are leads to the creative resolve to make things new.

but on the subject of anxiety, perfect madness author judith warner suggests that many mothers are unwilling to be honest with ourselves and others about the sources of this natural maternal emotion:

“basically, it is acceptable to air all your dirty laundry about yourself, your husband, or your children but it is not acceptable to look beyond your family to suggest that there is something wrong with the world. it is not permissible to talk about policy, or economics, or culture… and this is because, i think, policy, economics, and culture are perceived as being things that we have no control over…. and so we fixate on those things we feel we can control — how our child holds a pencil, whether or not she eats gluten — rather than worry about what we can’t control: our economic futures, kids’ education, health care costs, whether or not we’ll ever be able to afford to retire….

the perversity in all this, of course, is that what we’re trying to control is precisely what one cannot control; you can’t shape and perfect human beings, pre-program and prepare them along the way. but you can — ostensibly — exert some control over what kind of society you live in…. you ostensibly have the power, en masse, to set the national agenda” (209). 

i am often guilty of shying away from “setting the national agenda” in favor of setting our family agenda. but today’s post is a venture into a space where the personal and political are intertwined: the issue of educating the children of memphis and shelby county. below is an interview with gretchen stroud, a representative of friends united for school equality (FUSE). FUSE is a group of parents and grassroots activists in favor of the proposed merger of local city and county school systems. read below for a beautiful example of how the collective forces of parental anxiety and creativity are moving beyond the home and into the broken world.  

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mary allison: please introduce yourself and let readers know why are you in favor of the consolidation of shelby county and memphis city schools.

gretchen: I am the parent of an Memphis City Schools (MCS) student in first grade. We have had a wonderful experience with MCS so far and are very happy with his school. However, I support consolidation for a few key reasons:

1. If Shelby County Schools (SCS) were to obtain the special school district status (with taxing authority) pursued by its school board president David Pickler, this would cut funding for MCS and do away with the equitable per student funding that currently comes from Shelby County. In this scenario, Memphis would be responsible for educating approximately 70% of the county’s children with only 40% of the tax revenues. Taxes in Memphis would have to rise substantially to make up the difference.
2. Although the money issue is concerning, the major reason I support the consolidation is that you cannot have “separate but equal” school systems, by law. We are creating a widening division between those students who come from middle and upper class families and those at the lowest end of the economic spectrum. This is immoral, unethical and will ultimately create great harm to Memphis and all the surrounding towns and cities who depend on Memphis as the anchor for our mid-south cultural and economic sustainability. Every single child has the potential to learn, and I can tell you from watching the children in my son’s school that every one of them wants to learn. It is up to the adults to figure out how to do that fairly and equally for all.

mary allison: what is FUSE?

gretchen: FUSE stands for Friends United for School Equality. We are a group of Shelby County residents (which means, of course, those living in Memphis and in the suburbs – we are ALL Shelby County) who believe that for our county to remain viable and competitive in the 21st century we must work together as one to provide quality education to ALL of the children in Shelby County.

mary allison: how did FUSE start? please describe how the idea emerged and how so many mid-south parents became organized and mobilized so quickly under the umbrella of FUSE:

gretchen: Well, it started as a group of MCS Optional School parents who came together on Facebook after Mr. Pickler started trying to scare people by threatening the Optional program. I think that he was hoping that our fear of losing this program would drive us to vote against the merger. However, he definitely underestimated us. We came together to start talking about consolidation and quickly realized that this isn’t just about our kids, it is about ALL of the kids in Shelby County. Every single one of them deserves a great education – not just the ones we are raising. And we talked about how we wanted to reach out to other parents from the county schools because we felt that there were more people like us out there who are committed to the concept that you cannot raise your children in a bubble of privilege. What is good for my child should be good for ALL children, and if it isn’t good for all children then it really isn’t good for my own child in the long run either. I think we have grown so quickly because our group is devoted to fostering kind, honest, and real conversation among parents and other “regular people.”

mary allison: what are some of the reasons that fuel opposition to school consolidation, and what do you to say to parents who are not in favor of merging?

gretchen: Fear and lack of truth. Honestly, people think that MCS are pits of danger and despair. I partly blame the media because they will run a hundred stories about teen pregnancy, a fight at a school, and an underperforming principal. But, I didn’t see a single mid-south news organization cover the news this summer when Memphis was named one of the 21 “overachieving” urban school districts based on a large study of urban school districts in the US. Not just one of the 21, but one of the top five! That is great news for Memphis, and NO ONE reported it. The report can be found in this Education Week article. 

We had a group of Germantown moms send us a list of questions that they honestly wanted to ask (but were a little embarrassed and afraid to, I think). They wanted to know if our elementary kids in MCS have art or music or libraries. I was blown away! But, the sad fact is that the myths and stereotypes people have been hearing about MCS for years are in many cases their only exposure to the city school system. We were able to answer those questions in a non-threatening manner that encouraged further dialog. And, in case your readers are wondering, yes, MCS elementary students have art, Orff music, P.E., and library every week. And most elementary schools also offer foreign languages starting in first grade. In addition, the gifted program in MCS begins in kindergarten. They start instruments in fourth grade too.

What I say to parents who oppose the merger is, come and see what MCS is really about. Our kids are great kids who want to learn, just like yours do. We have wonderful, hard-working teachers, just like you do. Great things happen in Memphis City Schools every single day. Beyond that, I would say consolidation is the RIGHT thing to do. Shelby County cannot survive with this crazy  us vs. them mentality. And, you aren’t creating the kind of place where your children will want to live when they grow up if the city that is the keystone of this entire mid-south area is left to decay and decline because we cannot come together as one community.

mary allison: what actions do members of FUSE take to affect change?

gretchen: We have some really great members! We write letters to the newspapers, and we are working with Stand for Children to host educational events for the community about the pros and cons of consolidation (although I should note that FUSE supports the consolidation and Stand is non-partisan on this issue). We had a very active email campaign to city council last week ahead of their vote. We contact our state legislature and the governor to try to give Memphis a voice in this process. We educate others about what consolidation could look like. We reach out to parents across the county to start the conversation now about what we parents want a unified school district to offer. Do we want smaller sub-districts? Do we want magnet schools? Do we want smaller class sizes? Do we want every child to get foreign language instruction starting in first grade? What do we think our children need to be competitive in the 21st century? I’m not saying that I have a position on all of these issues, but so far no one is asking parents what WE want in a new, unified district. And they should be asking.

mary allison: could you describe in layman’s terms the timeline and political process that is currently structuring the consolidation decision?

gretchen: Ha, ha, ha!  If I could do that, I’d be rich!  As of this moment, the city council has accepted the charter surrender, but Memphians STILL need to vote in the referendum (early voting begins Feb. 16). Shelby County Schools has filed a federal lawsuit against a whole lot of people, including (but not limited to) MCS, Memphis City Council, US Dept of Education, Education Secretary Arne Duncan, US Dept of Justice, Attorney General Eric Holder, Tennessee Department of Education, Education Commissioner Patrick Smith (and others). And, that is just the beginning.

But, and this is important, it is time NOW for all of us in Shelby County to seriously contemplate whether we want this issue tied up in federal courts for the next five to ten years. Who does that serve? Certainly not the children. It really just serves our fear and our prejudices. And, if we want to come together and try to figure out the best way to educate all of the children in this community in the best way possible, then we need to tell our elected officials that we want to come together and fix this now.

mary allison: how might others who are interested in FUSE become involved in your work?

gretchen: First, let me say that we would love to have anyone join us who is interested.  You can find us at www.fuseshelby.org or on Facebook.

[source info for perfect madness is located on the bibliography page, which is listed on the sidebar to your right.]

you never know when a piece of obscure information will turn out to be useful.

take the paragraph in my human development textbook on the subject of “the birds and the bees” chat with children, for example. when i read it six years ago, i could not have predicted that the time would come when this paragraph would be the tiny little rope of rescue that would save me from (yet another) dark abyss of parental cluelessness. how was i to know then that the words, “do not offer more information than your child is requesting” would emerge from the depths of my memory at just the right moment, the moment when the following comedy of errors ensued?

monkey: “mom, how do babies come out of their mommies’ bellies?”

mary allison: “they come out of the vagina, monkey.”

monkey: “mommy, what’s a vagina?”

mary allison: “you know how you have a penis? well girls don’t have penises. we have vaginas instead.”

monkey: “you mean that little hole?”

mary allison: “yep. that little hole.”

monkey: “where the poop comes out?”

mary allison: “nope. a different little hole.”

monkey: [after a ten minute silence] “so… that big old baby comes out of that little bitty hole??”

mary allison: “yep.”

monkey: [shaking his head] “well that’s not good AT ALL!”

mary allison; “tell me about it.”

hilarious that a four year old is able to recognize when the laws of physics are not working in one’s favor.

i suppose the monkey will store these fascinating new insights into the recesses of his memory, and i suppose they too will surface at just the right moment. after all, you never know when a piece of obscure information will turn out to be useful.

but lord help us if my four-year-old has any use for any of this information any time soon!