Hippiemommy

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  • Sabbath

    (from http://www.sabbathmanifesto.org/)

    To me, there is something magical about the Sabbath. My religious history is a bit strange. I was raised with a mix of various flavors of Judaism along with pretty much the whole gamut of Protestantism (evangelical, mainline, charismatic…) I am thankful for the diversity that I was exposed to, and it has made for an interesting transition to finding the best fit for worship in my life.

    It seems like every few years I go through a new (deeper) frustration with the evangelical church in America. There is a series on Internet Monk right now that almost perfectly sums up our issues. I am lucky to have an amazing husband who has dealt with the same frustrations. Why does the mainstream evangelical church in America look and feel so WRONG? Why are they (and I can’t even say “we”, because I can’t self-identify with them at this point) living, as the post on Internet Monk says, “of the world, but not in it.”

    We know that we want to be DOING more of what Jesus taught, rather than just sitting in an auditorium and participating in a liturgy-that-pretends-to-not-be-because-they’re-too-cool-for-that. The problem is in finding how to live that out in the midst of our insanely busy lives. We have no problem finding other believers who feel the same way that we do, but they’re all so busy too!

    One solution that has worked well for us (over the past 5 years or so) to reducing the “busyness” is to celebrate a more traditional Sabbath. The site above is nice because it has some bullet points to point you in the right direction if celebrating a Sabbath is new for you. Taking the intentional time to unplug, light some candles, make a special dinner, and enjoy it with those you love can make such a difference. Taking the following day to serve and seek spiritual nourishment is amazing. Those times have given us SO much more growth than any other spiritual practice.

    I am excited to see where God leads us next. Our journey as a family has been so rewarding, and my husband and I have discussed many times how humbling it is to look back. I cannot speak highly enough of the value of traditional spiritual disciplines, especially if looking at the American church makes you feel like crying.

  • Inner Separation Anxiety

    I subscribe to The Daily Groove, and I find that it often contains a little word of encouragement that is just what I need. Some of the wording is a little “out there”, but there is enough good stuff to keep me on the list.

    Today’s Daily Groove was all about “Inner Separation Anxiety”. This is the idea that we can be physically present, but not there emotionally/spiritually/mentally and that our kids can feel that something is not right. That feeling causes them anxiety similar to if you were physically absent and they were having traditional separation anxiety.

    This was a really good reminder for me. As we settle into our new routine with four kids, it can be challenging for me to be completely present during the day. My mind is often trying to sort through a million different things, even while I’m talking to or playing with my kids. One of my favorite quotes from GCM says that we cannot expect our children to be any more calm than we are. We set the tone for our house, and it is important to be mindful of that fact.

    As Scott said in the Daily Groove:

    Today, look for a correlation between your child’s state and your own. Is s/he more anxious when you feel off-center in some way? If so, let your child’s anxiety serve as a reminder to practice centering.

    That is advice that I will definitely be taking  🙂

  • The Laundry Monster

    Laundry. It is my nemesis.

    I am fairly good with everything else, but I just detest laundry. Actually, that isn’t true: I don’t mind washing a load, and I find something incredibly relaxing about hanging my laundry outside. I just hate folding and putting away!

    I read a post from a wise, fellow mama-of-many, and she said that she turned a corner when she accepted that 2 loads of laundry a day was just a necessity. I thought about this and rejected it for a few months, but I recently decided to accept it. Something amazing has happened: My laundry isn’t so bad.

    I’ve realized that I was trying to deny something that could not be denied. It was as if I wanted to pretend that gravity did not exist. It does not help to deny it, because the reality of it is still there whether you accept it or not. Just like with birth, life is so much easier and less painful if you accept it and just ride the waves. Fighting it only makes for frustration.

    And, on that note, it is time to put another load in…

  • Christ and Firing Squads

    Today I was reading this story:

    Condemned Utah Killer Will Face Firing Squad

    http://abcnews.go.com/US/TheLaw/wirestory?id=10455328&page=2

    I am not sure why I clicked on it… I am guessing that it has something to do with how bizarre it sounds to still have people facing firing squads. As I was reading the article, two things struck me that I wanted to flesh out somewhere.

    The article says

    …despite Utah’s strong religious roots — it’s the home of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — most here support the use of the death penalty.

    “I think in Utah, when it suits their purposes, they go back to the Old Testament and the ‘eye for an eye’ kind of thing,” Kalish said. “These people may be the worst of the worst, but if the best we can do is repeat the same thing, it’s so obviously wrong.”

    I am always amazed that the “religious right” is also associated with the death penalty. It just seems so ridiculous. Let me preface by saying that this is a difficult subject for me. I have friends who have had family members murdered, and part of me feels uncomfortable telling them what should happen to someone who destroyed their family. At the same time, I don’t see any way that you can justify it as the “Christian” thing to do. I don’t think that anyone should have a right to have someone else killed just because they did the same. As the quote above says, ‘if the best we can do is the same thing, it’s so obviously wrong.’

    As Shane Claiborne says in Jesus for President,

    Violence kills the image of God in us… Violence goes against everything we are created for — to love and be loved — so it inevitably ends in misery and suicide, either literal or metaphorical.

    When people succumb to violence, it infects them like a disease or poison that leads to their own death. Judas, the disciple who betrayed Jesus with a violent kiss, ended his life by hanging himself… Columbine, the 2006 Amish school shooting, the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Virginia Tech massacre — each ended with suicide.

    …

    It’s in moments like these violent times that grace looks so magnificent. It’s in the shadow of violence that a victim’s grace to a muderer’s family shines so brightly, as in the aftermath of the Amish school shooting. It’s even more scandalous to think of killing someone who kills, for they, more than anyone in the world, need to hear that they are created for something better than that.

    The second thing that stood out to me in the article was the fact that the man who was killed was also a pacifist.

    “Michael would not be happy at all. Michael would have fought against the death penalty. That’s who he was,” said Temu, 62, a Salt Lake City-area funeral director who knew Burdell through their membership in the Summum church.

    A pacifist who was drafted into the U.S. Army, Burdell served in Vietnam but vowed to never use a weapon on another person, Temu said.

    To me, this makes it even more heartbreaking. The man who was killed would not have wanted his murderer’s life demanded in return. It is sad that the cycle of violence will continue on, and yet we know that redemptive violence is a myth. You cannot bring peace through violence. This act will ripple on as more are impacted through this execution.

    Part of me wants to say that I don’t know what the answer is, but I truly believe that we Christians can see the answer by looking to the Bible. Why is it that the church has politically aligned ourselves with an idea that is so far from the concept of grace?

  • Sustainable fish

    Tonight we had baked wrapped tilapia, quinoa, and sweet potatoes.  It was awesome. As I ate, I kept thinking about how I wish the public had more information on which fish are the safest and most sustainable to eat.

    As many of you know, I am a bit of a freak when it comes to toxins. Toxins are highly present in a lot of fish, because fish tend to have longer food chains. Long food chains mean that there are a lot of extra opportunities for the toxins to accumulate.  When a big fish eats a smaller fish, it gets the lifetime accumulated toxin load from that fish and every fish (or other item) that the smaller fish ate.

    Basically, that means that if you eat fish (or anything that had a mother), you want to eat lower on the food chain. Toxins are also lipophilic (attracted to fat), so fatty fish store more. This is why shrimp are less toxic than seals  😉 It is also why the native cultures who eat a lot of blubbery and fatty seafood that is also high on the food chain end up with the highest toxin body burdens in the world.

    (As a side note, here is a nasty story about trash recently found in a whale’s gut. It was a fairly low volume of trash compared to food, but still gross. It contained sweatpants, a golf ball, over 20 plastic bags, surgical gloves, and more goodies….)

    Anyways, so tilapia is one of the few kinds of fish that is considered to be “kid safe“.  That means that it is both low in toxins and sustainable. Tilapia eat mostly algae and aquatic plants, so they don’t have many opportunities to absorb toxins. The “kid safe” designation is really only true for tilapia from the US or other countries in the Americas. It is NOT true for Chinese tilapia (which is what most of the frozen stuff is.) Chinese fish farms have pollution and other environmental problems.

    We have obviously gone back and forth on whether or not we’ve eaten fish. If you aren’t abstaining for moral or philosophical reasons, then fish can be a great way to get essential fatty acids. It is especially important for women who are pregnant, may become pregnant, or breastfeeding to be aware of what they’re eating, because our children are the highest on the food chain as they are nourished from our body. See this article on mothering.com, SafeMilk.org, or the amazing book, Having Faith for more info on toxins in pregnancy and breastfeeding. 🙂 Happy eating!

  • The Functions of the Orgasms

    I am sure that just including the phrase “The Functions of the Orgasms” in my blog will get me all sorts of unwanted traffic. I apologize in advance if you find my blog when you were looking for something more exciting 😉 But, really, this book is so awesome that you should stay and read about it anyways, lol.

    The basic premise behind this book (which is written by the fabulous Michel Odent) is that we have ecstatic/orgasmic states throughout life, and three important times of them happening are when we have the sperm ejection reflex, the fetus ejection reflex and the milk ejection reflex. Basically, the same hormones are used when you make a baby, push a baby out, and feed a baby. The scary thing is that

    Due to the improved technique of medically assisted conceptions and cesareans, the advances in anesthesiology and pharmacology, and the development of the food industry, women can now conceive a baby, give birth, and feed their infant without relying on the release of ‘cocktails of love hormones.’

    It really is fascinating. The hormones that we release during these orgasmic states help us to bond and even create a state of dependency. Whether you believe in creation or evolution, our bodies have been designed somehow to release these hormones at those times.

    I have a couple of topics that I want to write from this book, but for now I’ll just highly suggest that you buy it. If you’d like to read it along with a group, the unassisted childbirth reading room is currently working their way through it. Come hang out with us! Note that I have never had an unassisted childbirth, but am still active in the group 😉

    Oh, and while I’m at it, I’ll give another plug for Sarah Buckley’s article on this topic as it relates to the hormones of birth:
    http://www.sarahjbuckley.com/articles/ecstatic-birth.htm

  • Many hands make light work

    Behold, I am blogging again!

    I’ve been so busy with… well, life. I’m 32 weeks pregnant, a student midwife (yay!), and of course I have my main jobs: a wife and homeschooling mom to three. So, please forgive me. I really do want to blog… I just haven’t found much time.

    I was inspired today to make a post. My husband was at Barnes and Noble last week with the kids while I had some unexpected dental work done (woohoo, lucky me!) and he skimmed this book at the store. He told me to check it out from the library, and he was totally right. I’m devouring it.

    Better Off is Eric Brende’s story of his own experiment to live without technology. He wanted to find the balance between

    how much–or how little– technology was needed. Was there some baseline of minimal machinery needed for human convenience, comfort, and sociability– a line below which physical effort was too demanding and above which machines began to create their own demands?

    I find this to be a really interesting question. Some of my processes that I used to do entirely by hand, like making bread, I have recently been using machines instead. I originally (for money’s sake) had a hand mill for my grain, and kneaded my bread by hand. Last year I received gifts of an electric grain mill and a Kitchenaid. I sold my hand mill. Ironically, I soon realized that those appliances were too loud to do before the kids woke up in the morning, so I stopped even trying. As a matter of fact, the grain mill is so loud that I feel the need to warn my baby in the womb of the loud sound that is on its way, LOL. I can no longer sneak downstairs and get breakfast going. Now I must warn the children and they run out of the room. Sounds lovely, doesn’t it?

    Anyways, back to the book… So Brende ends up living off of the grid in a community that is similar to the Amish. One of the points that I’ve been meditating on tonight is this one:

    ‘Many hands make work light.’ The statement was true, though hard to explain. Gradually, as you applied yourself to a task, the threads of friendship and conversation would grow and connect you to laborers around you. Then everything suddenly became inverted. You’d forget you were working and get caught up in the camaraderie, the sense of lightened effort. This surely must rank among the greatest of labor-saving secrets. Work folded into fun and disappeared. Friendship, conversation, exercise, fresh air, all melded together into a single act of mutual self-forgetting.

    Brende goes on to talk about this in detail, and shares many examples. I have experienced this myself, especially in physical labor outdoors or in working with my hands (like knitting.) It is interesting that I have felt this far less often with technological work.

    One of the things that I love about group knit nights or working with my family in the garden is that you forget the job that you’re doing, and pretty soon the job is done and everyone is happier and closer. I learned in my doula training that when a group of women get together and talk, they release hormones that make them happy. I think that God made us that way for a reason. We are social creatures, and it is a shame that we often have to split the things that we must do (chores, work, etc.) and our social time. It is so much nicer to be able to work together and accomplish these goals at once. I can’t tell you how many times I have wished that the women in my neighborhood could get together and work on laundry together like women did 100 years ago. Wouldn’t that be great? I think it’d be awesome. 🙂

  • So many good books, so little time…

    I’ve been reading like nobody’s business, but unfortunately I haven’t had much time to update my blog.

    One book that I read this month is Misconceptions by Naomi Wolf.  It was the monthly selection for the Unassisted Childbirth Reading Room. The reading room is one of many sponsored by AAMI, and I really enjoy them.  I haven’t agreed with every word in every book that I’ve read, but that makes me appreciate the reading rooms even more  🙂

    Naomi Wolf writes this book from a very particular viewpoint: a feminist who is experiencing the world of motherhood for the first time.  As someone who had my first baby pretty early in life, I really enjoyed reading her perspective.  I find that these kinds of books really help me to understand where women in different circumstances may be coming from, and I love that.  I’d much rather be initially exposed to these views in the “safety” of a book, where I’m not going to put my foot in my mouth, LOL.

    So, although this book focuses on the things that our society tends to hide about motherhood, there is actually a really good amount of science in it as well. One section that I particularly enjoyed talked about some of the things that we don’t understand that babies in the womb feel.  Here’s one great quote.

    Dr. Michael Lieberman’s research possibly showed that a fetus might react in an associative way to mothers who smoke: measured by accelerated heartbeats, the fetus grew agitated when its mother reported she had considered having a cigarette, before the mother had even lit a match.  The authors hypothesize that the fetus learns to react this way because maternal smoking is so unpleasant to it — causing a drop in the oxygen supply in the blood passing through the placenta — that the fetus learns to associate the mother’s smoking with heightened distress.  How it registers agitation when the mother merely anticipates lighting a cigarette, even before the inhaled smoke has affected her bloodstream, is anyone’s spooky guess.

    Isn’t that crazy?  I remember reading years ago about a study where breastfed and formula-fed babies and their moms were put in separate buildings.  The moms were exposed to negative stimuli that would create stress.  The breastfed babies reacted and cried (from the other building) when the moms were under stress, but the formula-fed babies did not.  They couldn’t figure out why, but it is fascinating to think that there could be (or is?) a connection on a higher level that we just can’t explain.

    A lot of my other reading has been on brain chemistry stuff, especially as it relates to medications in childbirth, but also just the normal brain chemistry changes that happen during pregnancy.  I was excited to see that this book touched on the same subject.  I especially liked her lengthy discussion on hormones during pregnancy that make us act decidedly more “feminine”.  Naomi Wolf talks about how much she took pride in being independent and strong, and how bizarre it was to suddenly feel so emotional, clingy, and even fearful of being unprotected. I can relate to that, because I think that my personality has really changed since having my kids.  In one section, she says.

    At the end of my pregnancy, I was aware that I was nesting, cuddly, and more traditionally “feminine” in my responses.  I felt more maternal toward helpless dependent beings, but especially toward babies and children.  This could be seen as part of “women’s eternal nature,” the excuse given for various antiwoman decisions.  Or it could be the result of this temporary chemical brainbath.  From thirty-four weeks on, hormonal changes take place to prepare the uterus for labor.  Estrogen stimulates the rise of oxytocin, the “love hormone” that promotes labor contractions and stimulates the let-down reflex in breast-feeding mothers….

    …”From rodents to primates,” writes anthropologist Sarah Hrdy, “oxytocin promotes affiliative feelings.  A monkey mother whose brain receptors to these natural opiates are blocked makes fewer overtures toward her infants, is less likely to put her face near the baby’s and reassuringly smack her lips.”  Hrdy calls oxytocin a “natural opiate” that guarantees mothers greet their new offspring in a “broody, mellow mood.”

    I just love to think about how miraculous the whole thing is.  The fact that there are so many interconnected things going on in our body, and yet science thinks that we can just pump some artificial hormones into our bodies and make it all happen on our own time.  It is such a delicate dance, and each part is so important.  In another article I read this week (which I fully intend to make a separate blog entry on), Sarah Buckley discusses how

    Second, oxytocin, synthetic or not, cannot cross from the body to the brain through the blood-brain barrier. This means that Pitocin, introduced into the body by injection or drip, does not act as the hormone of love.

    These hormones are so amazing, and they change us in so many ways… But artificially pumping it into our blood does NOT do the same thing as when our body and our baby create these hormones.  We cannot alter one part of the system and think that we can make nature follow our command.  It is so humbling, and yet so scary to think of what is being done on a mass scale in our country, and around the world, to the delicate balance of new families.

    OK, I’m going to stop here for now, because it is bedtime for my babies  ;)  Hopefully I’ll get to come back and write more about Sarah Buckley’s amazing article, because I could just gobble it up, LOL.

  • Internal Fetal Monitoring

    (Do you know how hard it is to find a picture of these things? My goodness! No wonder I didn’t know what they looked like before :P  Almost all of the pictures contain the end that the mother sees.  Very few show the part that the baby feels.)

    Last weekend I had the great privilege of attending an ALACE/toLabor birth doula training.  It was such an empowering experience.  In many ways it gave me confidence in my self-study abilities, and in other ways it was a great reminder of the benefits of group and experiential learning.  The hands-on parts of the workshop were wonderful.  I really loved them.

    One of the great things about the workshop was the way that we covered all of the major interventions and the pros/cons of each.  The many lessons learned during my births, as well as my reading, had given me a great foundation, but it was so interesting to get to touch and explore the different pieces of equipment that are used in most hospital births.  It is very different to look at it from that perspective.  My other experiences included me being in labor, so obviously its not like I had the chance to investigate each piece of equipment.

    I was surprised to feel a flood of emotions during one part of the training.  It happened when we passed around the internal fetal monitor.  I knew (in my head) that it attached to the baby’s scalp.  I knew that it could cause permanent damage, according to the nurses who were at my son’s birth.  I knew a lot in theory.  Holding it in my hands and touching the screw that goes into the baby’s scalp was a whole different thing.  It really struck me in a way that I did not expect.  I did not expect this to be the thing that would make me emotional.  I spent the rest of the weekend thinking on-and-off about that stupid screw.

    I am so thankful that I had this experience during the training, rather than on-the-job as a doula.  I can’t imagine if I was trying to process through my own feelings about this WHILE trying to support a mom.  I am so thankful for the healing that has been able to come in the past week.  I didn’t realize that I had an area that still needed healing, but it was so great to be able to talk to my husband and friends about this. I’d really hate to bring any emotional baggage into it with a client, so I truly appreciate that I’ve been able to think about it in a safe space.

    Before I decided to go with ALACE, I was seriously considering a correspondence-only course for my doula work.  I felt so sure about my ability to self-study that I thought that a workshop might just be boring.  I really think I underestimated the value of being able to share, interact, and experience with other women as you learn about birth.  This weekend has made me such a believer in this type of learning, even for those of us who do not qualify as kinesthetic learners.  I really think that the moms that I serve will benefit from many of the things that I was able to process through this weekend…  Not to mention the fact that I don’t think my husband would’ve wanted to attempt re-enacting labor positions with me as the support person and him as the laboring woman, LOL!

    I still plan on doing a correspondence course to become a childbirth educator.  I think there is so much value in that kind of learning.  I am not bashing those courses at all.  I was just surprised at how much I enjoyed the group learning experience that came with the workshop  🙂

    P.S.  I am now officially a Professional Doula.  I hope to be launching a new website soon for my business, but I’m kind of backlogged on website work, so I’m at the back of my own line. I’ll post when its up!

  • Living More with Less

    Things in my life keep pointing to the Mennonites. I truly have no idea what that means – no conversion plans in the future – but Joe and I really like a lot of what they stand for. I checked out Living More with Less from the library after I saw it recommended on mothering.com. I had no idea that it was a Christian book. Joe grabbed it from the book basket and practically devoured it. I read it next, and we had so much fun discussing it.

    One of the really striking things in this book is how oddly “ahead of the times” the Mennonites were when this book was written. It was published in 1980, and it is filled with “green” ideas that are just now becoming popular.

    This book is split into two sections. The first section is more of the “why’s” of voluntary simplicity. The second section is filled with chapters that start with some words from the author on a particular subject (transportation, clothes, eating together, recreation…), and then there are pages of ideas from fellow Christians on how to live out simplicity.

    One of the underlying principles that I really liked about the book was the focus on learning from those who live in countries that we consider to be developing… Countries that we think we need to swoop in and save. For all of our advances, and all of our technical knowledge, we are becoming more and more like the humans in Wall-E 😛 We are divorced from natural processes, and if we were forced to live without our conveniences, we certainly wouldn’t look like the advanced society that we like to think ourselves to be. This is how the author, Doris Janzen Longacre, discusses this topic.

    If you as a North American travel to an economically poor country such as Haiti or Bangladesh, your first reaction is likely to be shock. You have heard of poverty, and seen it in pictures. But to find yourself face to face with hungry people jars your soul with feelings for which you are unprepared.
    After a while, shock gives ways to ideas for development projects typically conducted by church agencies. These usually promote better education, nutrition, agriculture, sanitation, family planning, small business investments, and, increasingly, a concern that people receive just access to resources….
    These reactions are certainly warranted. God help us when poverty no longer shakes us into action. But how rarely we realize that persons from other countries often go through a similar thought process when living with us!

    It does seem that we want to swoop in and save everyone, but we could really benefit from making this a two-way street of assistance. They have as much to teach us as we do them, and it seems easy for Americans to overlook this fact. I say this as someone who did this EXACT same thing when I was overseas on a mission trip, and I wasn’t even in a poor country.

    For we, of course, have problems too. No one wants to hear the whole sordid list again, but it begins with materialism, violence in streets and homes, family breakdown, drug and alcohol abuse, automobile accidents, poor diet and degenerative diseases, waste of material resources, pollution, and nuclear proliferation. What if we became as concerned with our own overdevelopment or maldevelopment as we are with the underdevelopment of poor nations? … Could they help?

    Then she begins with quotes from foreigners who were shocked when they saw the blindspots of Americans. Here are just a few.

    “America is a wasteful society. In every store you see disposable things. People want everything to go fast, so after using things once, they throw them away.” –Jusef Sumadi, Indonesia

    “People in North America don’t care to repair things once they are out of order. There are few repair shops. I cannot imagine how many TVs and refrigerators are put into junk which are repairable.”–Guillermo Abanco, Philippines

    “When we first walked into a North American church, my friend from Indonesia said, “The cost of this carpet alone would build a beautiful church in Indonesia.”–Sammy Sacapano, Philippines

    “Children don’t like vegetables? No, I never heard of that in my country!”–Taiwanese nutrition student, Kansas State University

    “American communities are beautiful. But instead of growing vegetables or fruits, the people prefer grass and spend money taking care of it.”–Guillermo Abanco, Philippines

    So you get the idea. A lot of the ideas in the book come from missionaries who learned simpler ways of living when they were overseas. One, in particular, has happily been adopted in my home this week. This was the tip (actually, there were two on the same idea…)

    Cordless Crockpots

    “During our stay at the Thokoza Conference Center in Mbabane, I saw demonstrated what I’m calling an African crockpot. This is a fairly deep, simple grass basket stuffed full of crumpled newspaper. You make an impression at the top to hold the pot. In the morning, boil soaked dry beans for fifteen minutes. Then nestle the pot down in the newspaper inside the basket. Put a heavy blanket or pillow on top to keep in the heat. At suppertime the beans are soft, hot, and ready to eat.” –Darlene Keller, Mbabane, Swaziland

    So it turns out that this is a pretty popular idea. I found some information here – http://solarcooking.wikia.com/wiki/Heat-retention_cooking – that I used to cook both rice and beans this week. They turned out delicious, and I only used a very small amount of electricity and gas to make them. It was so cool!

    There were tons of other great ideas in there, but this post is getting rather long-winded, so I think I’ll wrap it up, lol. It really is a good book, though, and I recommend it if you can grab a copy. Joe particularly liked the ideas on transportation and ways to simplify around the house. I really liked the sections on eating together and homekeeping. We both liked a lot of the ideas for simple celebrations and recreation. We’ve already implemented quite a few, and its been wonderful. 🙂

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