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.

for four years and four months, my world has constantly expanded.

motherhood has brought new and interesting people into my life. the day we brought the monkey home from the hospital, i became a member of a diverse group of fellow moms who share something so basic that there is potential for meaningful conversation even in the checkout line at target.

motherhood has broadened my realm of experiences. i’m not just a woman in my thirties. i’m a little boy in the terrible twos. i’m eating ice-cream for the first time. i am wrapping my four-year-old mind around the concept of death. i’m testing limits, drawing on walls, and climbing on counter tops. i am getting my first bicycle with training wheels for christmas.

on the other hand, for four years and four months, my world has constantly contracted.

motherhood has zapped my energy supply. never before have i had the level of connection with friends that i do now. the paradox is that i no longer have the get-up-and-go to make these connections happen regularly. 

motherhood has narrowed my realm of experiences. there are mind-blowing heights and depths in my every day. but most of these events take place within the four walls of my home.

the female body is not the only part that expands and contracts in the process of ushering in and supporting new life. long after the pregnancy is over there is a new largess and a new kind of narrowing with which to contend. the simultaneous awe and discomfort of pregnancy take up residence in the mind for how long? four years and four months? eighteen years? from now on?

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.

*     *     *

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.

a few weeks ago, my friend maryann reminded me of this wonderful quotation about motherhood and ministry, found in the equally wonderful book listening for god by renita weems. i think it can be easily stretched to speak to all mothers who are modifying and trying to integrate their visions of vocation and motherhood. i forgot to breathe while i was reading these words: 

“i will never be the writer i would have been had i not become a mother. nor will i be the minister or professor i could have been if i hadn’t had to suffer the interruptions of a sulking child or the vibes of a brooding husband transmitted under the door of my study. i give up writing the book i might have written or the sermon i might have preached every time i wander out of my study and follow the smell of popcorn wafting in the air, follow it in to the family room, where the rest of the family is watching the lion king for the forty-second time. i’ll never be able to recapture the fine sentences swirling in my head, or the fresh revelations that were about to lay hold of me. but for the joy of getting down on the cold hardwood floor and singing, “hakuna matata,” i’ll settle for bits and pieces of revelation god sends my way, and see what, if anything, i can make of them when i can. because today is today, and that’s all i have.”

and now, in light of a restless night with the bird and the inevitable morning-after fog that now surrounds me, i’m going to “wander out of my study,” as renita writes. happy thursday!

and p.s. renita still managed to be a wonderful professor. i was lucky enough to have her for hebrew bible at vanderbilt.

[the source for this post can be found on the bibliography page located in the sidebar to your right.]

motherhood seems to come with inherent questions to be faced daily, whether we realize we are facing them are not:

are we to measure the truth of what we read against the truth of our own experience, or are we to measure everything we experience against the truth of what we read? motherhood is not without its sacred texts or its powerful experiential learning. how can we weave these things together into an authentic version of motherhood, or moreover, an authentic way of being human?

on most days, for me, experience trumps book knowledge. i tend to draw much of my parenting tendencies from my own experience of being a child. there are many things about how i was raised that i want to duplicate for my children.  i expressed one of these ideals in my post about neighbors, in which i called to mind a time when “there were no scheduled play dates or activities. our parents simply let us loose to waltz through each other’s back doors and live out our days covered in sweat, mosquito bites, and melted popsicle juice.”

but a comment on this post reminded me that we cannot simply transplant the parenting habits of decades past into our lives without having wrestle with our fair share of questions. lane writes:

“I am challenged to find a balance between encouraging the friendships and life lessons of playing outside and the very real dangers that lurk in the spaces that we cannot supervise. How old to ride a bike on the street without a parent? How old to walk four houses down alone to play? How reliable is the adorable dog playing in the yard across the street? How well should you know a family (neighbor, classmate, whatever) before your child has unrestricted access to their house?

A Lebanese coworker of mine commented how Americans are the most generous nation of people to respond in a crisis, but as individuals, we keep our doors locked tight (figuratively and literally!). We DON’T typically know our neighbors, and we often don’t bother to try. I wonder how we can manage to be both at once?”

these are excellent questions, lane, and ones that move me out of the state of idealistic nostalgia and into a more real and complicated place. in fact, this is the place to which i keep returning, whether i want to or not. this place seems to be on the way to everywhere else i want to go. it’s a place of CONSTRUCTION.

what's a blog post w/out a cheesy stock photo?

i started this blog because i perceived that there is a gap between our cultural models of motherhood and the kind of mother i aspire to be. after looking high and low for models, mentors, and reading material to fill this gap, i realized that no ready-made solution exists. i will have to build one to suit me. we all will. so much of a mother’s job is construction.

and here, in the gap between the outdoor play of past and present and in response to all the questions about bicycle boundaries, strangers, and yard dogs, no ready-made solution exists. again, i will have to build one to suit me. we all will. so much of a mother’s job is construction.

i admit that i would often rather settle for a ready-made model and avoid the messy work and on-the-job training involved in building something new. but just knowing that there are other women out there donning their hard hats, scaling towers of literature, and descending into their own histories, actually makes this motherhood experiment fun. i’m so grateful for the company of so many who are committed to crafting something that is good and real.

motherhood, like every enduring institution, has its catch phrases. currently, most of these phrases seem to pertain to the enterprise of juggling. real life conversations among moms rarely occur without references to “juggling it all,” “keeping all the balls in the air,” “dropping the ball, ” and my personal favorite,”running off and joining the circus.” wouldn’t it be fun to mingle with a group of women and take a tasty sip of your beverage every time someone described her life as the ongoing exercise of hurling people, commitments, expectations, and roles into the ever-loving sky?

but i must concede that the juggling metaphor is a good one. it encapsulates so much about motherhood: the overcommitment, the multi-tasking, the sense that part of it is an act (and one crazy enough to be circus-worthy), and the inherent and inevitable moments of failure.

here are two women’s descriptions of juggling. the first is by ayelet waldman, author of bad mother and harvard law classmate of barack obama:

“i know that someday my daughters will chart their own courses, they’ll make their own mistakes. they in their turn will have to figure out how to keep all those balls in the air, how to maneuver despite inevitable frustration and failure. but just as i burden my daughters with my expectations, i also try to remind them that jugglers invariably drop balls, and no matter the persistent criticism of the Bad Mother police, balls do bounce. whey they fall, all you need to do is pick them up and throw them back up on the air” (41).

and the second meditation on juggling comes to us with a dose of humor by way of the fabulous tina fey, in last night’s saturday night live monologue.

now, if you’ll excuse me, i’m headed off to join the circus.

[source for this post can be found on the bibliography page, located on the sidebar to your right. the image in this post is from http://www.horizonstructures.com/]

i spent a large portion of my young adult years convinced that the object of life is to be perfect. since i am a minister, some of this was steeped in what i thought was the perfection of jesus. in the area of my spiritual life, i was relieved to learn that the word “pefect” in greek really means “whole.” thank goodness!

but some of my drive for perfection was cultural and was fed by the sleek women’s bodies in style magazines, the pants-suit warriors hammering through the glass ceiling, and finally, the mothers who seemed to float along on lofty platitudes pertaining to breast-feeding, tv-watching, organic-eating, penny-pinching, floor-time playing, and the like. i am strangely grateful that my resolve for perfection died (for the most part) long before i became a mother, myself. it was a painful death, mind you, complete with anxiety attacks and some really good therapy.

but in my experience, we don’t move from perfectionist tendencies to normalcy all at once. there are stages involved, and stage one frequently swings the pendulum in the complete opposite direction. what was once an ugly competition to modal impossible ideals becomes an equally ugly competition to denounce them. in other words, the “i suck contest” begins, and in the context of motherhood, it usually goes something like this:

mother 1: “i haven’t showered in two days.”

mother 2: “oh, please. i haven’t showered in two weeks.”

mother 1: “well, my children watched six hours of pbs today.”

mother 2: “cry me a river. my children watched seven hours of dora today, and my son speaks only in spanglish.”

these conversations are rampant, partly because they are funny and easy. i have participated enthusiastically in these “i suck contexts” because the other common ways in which moms frequently commune (through defending or bragging) are truly abysmal. i am happy to be the very picture of imperfection all day long if the only other alternative is depleting fellow mothers or feeling depleted myself.

but surely there are healthier ways for mothers to be together! there has got to be a way for moms to come clean (pardon the pun) about the daily struggle for balance and sanity without all of this self-deprecating language. this is so difficult when language like this is popping up everywhere and is frequently opening pathways of connection between us. how can we embrace the “i suck contest” for its value and then move beyond it into something deeper and more life-giving?

cognitive behavioral therapists would say that we have to modify our thoughts and language first, and changes in our behavior will follow. so, to that end, i’ll go first.

my name is mary allison. i’m a mother. i am not perfect, nor do i suck.

who’s with me?

[to get the mothers of invention ball rolling, i’ll be the guinea pig…]

first name: mary allison

age: 33 

current city: memphis, tn

living situation: i live in a house in the heart of the city with my husband, two little boys (ages 12 months and 3 years), and a dog.

occupation: presbyterian (u.s.a.) minister

how do you structure your time and space? i lead a study group once a week at one church and once a month at another. i also preach once a month. i prepare for all of these things in 15-minute increments while my children are napping and/or writing on the walls. this kind of ministry job is rare because it allows me to do the elements of the vocation that i love and also spend most of my time at home.

i don’t really have a schedule for taking care of household chores but i cook, grocery shop, do laundry, and sew in little snatches of time that emerge here and there. my standards for cleanliness are very low. i trade a messy house for more time to spend working and playing with my kids.

my husband and i get a sitter for one night of every weekend so we can have a dinner to ourselves, and my mom keeps my kids one day each week. the weekly “day off” allows me to lead a study group that morning and have that afternoon to myself. my husband is on kid duty on sunday mornings when i am preaching. my oldest is in school three mornings a week, and occasionally, i’ll hire a college student to care for my kids for a few hours during the week so I can exercise, catch up on writing, and do other career-related things.

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

-what are the particular challenges and highlights of your current season? working part-time and from home really gives me the face time i want to have with my kids. i also like that i can take advantage of unexpected windows of free time to write sermons and prepare for study groups. however, this kind of flexibility comes with a significant pay cut and very little professional recognition. sometimes i long for the kind of positive regard from the community that my husband receives as a traditional full time employee and businessman. when i’m at my worst, i spend a lot of time multi-tasking. i am at my best when i draw good boundaries and emphasize quality over quantity in terms of things that do not involve my children. the satisfaction from this season comes in experiencing the world through the eyes of small children, working with a boss who understands the demands of motherhood, planting sunflower seeds with my sons, et cetera.

-what season(s) preceded this one? before i became a part-time minister and full time mother, i was the full-time minister to students at a small liberal arts college. i loved this job, and i miss it very much.

-what season(s) might your future hold? perhaps, when my children get a little older, i will take more time to write, travel, or finish the license requirements to be a marriage and family therapist. i hope the next seasons surprise me though. i love life’s unpredictable good fortune!

favorite family activity: riding the trolley in downtown memphis. it costs our whole family a total of $2, the kids are contained and full of glee, and there are plenty of opportunities to stop, eat, and observe along the way.

favorite solo activity: yoga, jogging, hiking, quilting

sources of inspiration: people who are authentic, creative, and loving; gee’s bend quilters;  my kiddos

best MakeShift moment: i used to take my newborn with me to visit parishioners who were ill or unable to leave their homes. i quickly learned that his presence was much more healing to folks than my own! i have also sacrificed many rolls of toilet paper for the sake of my children’s entertainment while i am sermon-writing.

find mary allison at www.themsrevolution.com

the first two photographs in this post were taken by carol curry reach.

the mothers of invention segments of this blog will feature moms who are using the resources they have (tin foil, computers, education, intuition, empathy, scotch tape, etc.) to do everything from potty training toddlers to excelling in their workplaces. their common thread is the search for balanced lives for themselves and their families, not the lives prescribed by the narrow models of motherhood that currently exist.

this is revolutionary for two reasons:

1)the people highlighted on these pages are not (nor do they aspire to be) martha stewart, sarah palin, hillary clinton, or june cleaver. they are a far cry from the iconic mothers, homemakers, and business women whose lives have become the fabric of many women’s self-expectations. our mothers of invention do not necessarily see themselves as revolutionaries or radicals. they are simply authentic and at peace with a middle-ground sort of life. the real revolution comes when these stories become the cultural norm, and these types of women are recognized for their innovation.

2)the mothers of invention series will display a variety of life-giving models for motherhood in hopes that these models will be used to construct new, more realistic expectations. often, women are our own worst critics as we try to patch the gap between our ideals and our realities by putting one another down. there will be no deconstruction here. this is a space for building each other up.

stay tuned to learn about the real lives of moms who are also, among other things, yoga teachers, counselors, potters, fitness instructors, photographers, and writers. if you want to nominate yourself or a friend for our mothers of invention series, check out the sidebar to the right of this post. there you will find links to our questionnaire and instructions about the nomination process.

it was christmas eve, and my husband was at the grocery store stocking up for the following morning’s family gathering. young couple nate and nicole sat before me in my living room as they perused sample prayers for their upcoming wedding. i, their officiating minister, had envisioned a professional chat, wherein i would outline their choices for the service and the theological significance conveyed by each. i would pay careful attention to the dynamic and energy of the couple’s relationship so that i could craft an honest and fitting wedding homily for their big day.

i think it is safe to assume that nate and nicole afforded their minister many glimpses into their relationship during our time together but, sadly, i did not take note of any of them. instead, i held my fussy 11-month-old in the wake of his failed nap and tried hard to ignore his obvious need for a new diaper. the eternally gracious couple would have accommodated my need to dash to the nursery for a quick pants change, but such a trip would have left my three-year-old under the christmas tree, where he was already beginning to open countless presents, despite my sternest of mommy-stares.

when i was raised in a culture, influenced so heavily by women’s progress and the promise that women could “have it all” (a fulfilling career, a joyous family life, and time for self, others, and matters of the spirit), this christmas eve circus and the superhero existence required for such fullness of life were not what i had pictured. i am a full-time mother and a part-time minister, whose partner is as supportive financially, domestically, and emotionally as he can possibly be. even so, i confess that if this chaotic and often isolating juggling act is the picture of “having it all,” then i no longer want it all.

there is such a vast territory between the ultra-traditional women’s roles of long ago and the ultra-idealistic standards for women’s success that are still prized by our culture and dangled before us like distorted fun house mirrors. who lives in this territory? are there women out there who are blazing a new path to a more balanced existence, who are replacing these old models for motherhood with the creative hum-drum of their daily lives?

it is my hunch that many wonderful, creative women live in this territory, and i am hereby making it my job to highlight as many of them as i can. it is my hope that by putting our stories together, we could go from creating healthier lives for ourselves, to creating a healthier culture of motherhood for the world.

let the MakeShift revolution begin!

the first picture in this post was taken during my brother’s wedding, an experiment in chaos wherein i was the officiant, my eldest was the ring bearer, and my husband was a groomsman. the second picture reveals the mess my children made during the last dinner party i hosted. good thing our guests had a sense of humor!