HippieMommy

always learning

Recently finished books

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I’ve been reading so much, but I haven’t had a chance to talk about all of them. Here’s a quick recap though of what I covered in the past month or so…

This is such a nice little book. Joe and I each read it in a matter of hours. It covers some really interesting historical facts about Christmas, and then focuses on ways to bring joy to the holiday without making it all commercial. He explains that “hundred dollar” part of the title was really just because it sounded good with the word “holiday”, and you can use any amount that you pick. I really enjoyed his suggestions and ideas for different ways to celebrate Christmas.

This was another fast read. I really enjoyed it, though. Peggy Vincent and I clearly have a few philosophical differences when it comes to midwifery, but I found her story to be very relatable and encouraging. As I continue to consider a path to midwifery, this book gave me pause and helped me to really contemplate what kind of midwife I’d like to be. Good stuff.

I was really enthralled by Heart & Hands. I couldn’t put it down. The funniest part was that I was taking it EVERYWHERE with me, and I was getting the strangest glances, LOL. I was at a birthday party with my daughter and reading about suturing techniques if a woman tears during childbirth. The other moms around me kept scooting in closer and closer to read over my shoulder. They couldn’t figure out what it was. Finally, one of them asked, so I explained what kind of book I was reading, and then I got a good hour of hearing about other women’s birth stories. It made me laugh, because I remember a quote in _Pushed_ that talked about how a midwife’s life is pretty much the same whether they are in or out of jail: they just hear other women’s birth stories. I have found it so intriguing that everyone wants to share their birth story as soon as I mention anything about birth work. Funny.

I’m not quite done with this book yet, but I’m really enjoying reading about all of the different philosophies and paths that bring women to midwifery. It is really helping me to figure out where my passion lies.

OK, I’m going to have to do a few entries on The Ministry of Motherhood, because it really made me think. I love Sally Clarkson’s writings, and I could read her books all day. Joe and I were talking over the weekend about how there are times when you feel convicted to do something, but then your resolve starts to waiver… until you pick up a book that gives you a swift kick in the butt and reminds you of why you wanted to change in the first place. That’s exactly what her books do for me. I start to slack, and then she reminds me to keep running the race!

I just finished my first, official, group Beth Moore study. I bought Breaking Free years ago, and really liked it, but I had never done a group study with the videos and all that jazz. It was a great experience. I loved the daily workbook stuff, and her teachings really coincided with stuff that God has been teaching me elsewhere.

Sadly, this isn’t even all of the books that I’ve read, but lunch is ready, so I have to run! If you’ve been reading anything interesting recently, please comment and let me know! I’m always on the hunt for good books!

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The Gift of the Enemy

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Continuing on, with my new best friend, Walter Wink. LOL. I don’t think that his ideas are that shocking, but I think it is shocking to see how few of them are applied in mainstream Christian circles.

 

So my last entry was about how we need to let go of the thought of ourselves as God’s favored, and our enemies as unloved. God loves everyone, and “is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked”, so maybe we should try a little of the same, eh? We’re actually pretty sucky ourselves, in our natural state, so its time to get off of our high horses.

On to Mr. Wink (fantastic name, btw.)

Once the spell of the perfectionist reading has been exorcised, we begin to see just how far from perfect Jesus assumed we are. “Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.” (Matt. 7:3-5)

I really do love those verses. I have lots o’ logs.

This is the earliest known teaching of what modern psychologists call projection… The “splinter” in the other’s eye is a chip off the same log that is in one’s own eye. We see in the other what we would not see in ourselves. But why is it a log in the eye of the beholder? Isn’t that backward? Normally we say, “I may be somewhat bad (a splinter), but that person is really bad (a log).” Why has Jesus inverted that conventional way of putting it?

Again, I suck at this. I totally do this all the time. God is working on me, and He is changing me, but I am so prone to this type of thinking. I apparently tend to think that my poop doesn’t stink, because that’s how I act.

Because the log in my eye totally blinds me. I can see nothing objectively. Remove the log, and I can see to help my neighbor remove his or her splinter.

I am super-blinded by my logs. Its pathetic.

In workshops on this theme I invite people to name an enemy and list all the things they dislike about that person (or group or movement or nation). Then we ask them to go through that list and ask how many of those characteristics are true also of themselves (or our group or movement or nation). The common elements identify our projections. These can be taken into our meditation, prayer, and spiritual guidance, to see what they have to teach us about ourselves. (Some things on our lists may not be projections. There are people who are objectively hostile, even evil. Not every enemy is a gift. I am focusing only on those enemies that draw our projections.)

OK, so I tried this mentally, and it was pretty disturbing. This is not my first time doing this exercise. I remember doing it in college, and have noticed that i am most annoyed by people who have the same faults as I do. I think this is a great gift in parenting. I recently did an exercise for a parenting Bible study that asked me to write down the things that frustrate me most in my family members. My family members are obviously not my enemies, so that part doesn’t apply here, but I did find the list interesting. The things that I struggled the most with knowing how to handle are also things that I am not so great at handling in myself. Humbling.

Walter Wink gives some examples of things that frustrate you in others that you need to work on. Then he says:

Revelations such as these (and they are precisely that) need to be treasured, because that is the gift our enemy brings to us: to see aspects of ourselves that we cannot discover any other way. Our friends are not good sources of information about these things; they often overlook or ignore these parts of us. The enemy is thus not merely a hurdle to be leapt on the way to God. The enemy can be the way to God. We cannot come to terms with our shadow except through our enemy, for we have no better access to those unacceptable parts of ourselves that need redeeming than through the mirror that our enemies hold up to us. This, then, is another, more intimate reason for loving our enemies: we are dependent on our enemies for our very individuation. We cannot be whole people without them.

How wonderfully humiliating: we not only may have a role in transforming our enemies, but our enemies can play a role in transforming us.

What? I’m not the savior of them?! They help me?! Craziness.

As we become aware of our projections on our enemies, we are freed from the fear that we will overreact murderously toward them. We are able to develop an objective rage at the injustices they have perpetrated while still seeing them as children of God. The energy squandered nursing hatred becomes available to God for confronting the wrong or transforming the relationship.

I have found this to be true, although I think I am still in my infancy in this process. Being able to step back and still see those who hurt you as children of God is so freeing, but so difficult (at least for me.)

An understanding of the Powers makes forgiveness of our enemies easier. If our oppressors “know not what they do,” if they, too, are victims of the delusional system, then the real target of our hate and anger can be the system itself rather than those who carry out its bidding. “For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Eph. 6:12). We can pray for the transformation of our enemies, knowing that even the most intractable opponents may be capable of complete turnabout, and that some have actually done so.

Interestingly enough, this was the topic of my Beth Moore study last night. Once again, when Beth Moore agrees with practically anyone else that I’m studying, then I think that’s a big deal. I’m pretty sure that pretty much the only thing that overlaps between these authors is Christ, LOL.

Joe and I had a discussion about how all of this relates to America’s position in the world, and it was really good. We both realize how much we’ve bought into the myth of redemptive violence – the idea that violence makes peace. Somehow it seems like so much of mainstream Christianity is saying that we can accomplish peace through violence, and yet that was not the way of Christ at all. Are there times when we must stand up against evil and cruelty? Absolutely. Is violence the only way to do that? Of course not.

We can look to history to see example after example of nations being healed without violence. Even our own revolution in America had many non-violent aspects. We just abandoned them for war. The problem is that violence breeds violence, and its not like it really even works. Lets just look around. Does the world look more peaceful? Uh, no. More civilians were killed in the 20th century than in every century before that combined. Clearly our methods of violence aren’t making for a more peaceful world, and we know its not what Christ taught. How is it that Christianity in America has become so entangled with the myth of redemptive violence?

I don’t know the answer. I did find it interesting to try the above exercise with America’s enemies vs. America. We don’t exactly come out looking like roses. 😉 We’re not all bad, of course, and we do a lot of things very well. I also believe that America, on a whole, is trying to do the right thing. I think it is just easy to get misguided.

So… if I come up with a solution to world peace, I’ll let you know. Until then, I’m going to keep working on applying these examples in my (much smaller and more manageable) day-to-day life.

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God’s favor

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I have two entries mulling around in my mind for tonight. I’m going to give this one a go first and then try the other one if my mind isn’t mush yet 😉

 

OK, so I’ve been reading The Powers That Be by Walter Wink. Fascinating stuff. It was recommended in the footnotes of Irresistible Revolution, and it really develops Shane Claiborne’s ideas of embracing pacifism without being passive. Good stuff.

One of the sections that I’ve really been enjoying in this book is all about God’s favor and the idea of God hating our enemies. Here’s the funny thing about that thought. God is love. He loves everyone. We know this. Let’s take a look at Luke 6.

Love for Enemies

27″But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. 29If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic. 30Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. 31Do to others as you would have them do to you.
32″If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ love those who love them. 33And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ do that. 34And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ lend to ‘sinners,’ expecting to be repaid in full. 35But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. 36Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

OK, so we’ve all read those verses a thousand times, right? So how is it that the church, and particularly “the religious right”, seem to forget about them when it comes to policy-making? God is “kind to the ungrateful and wicked”, but are we? Ha. So often the church is too busy focusing on a God that will favor the good based on their righteousness. We know from scripture that the rain falls on both the righteous and the wicked. Why does the church forget this so often? Walter Wink talks about it:

God’s all-inclusive parental care is thus charged with an unexpected consequence for human behavior: we can love our enemies, because God does. If we wish to correspond to the central reality of the universe, we will behave as God behaves–and God embraces all, evenhandly.

Well, crap. That’s not something I do very well.

Our solidarity with our enemies lies not just in our common parentage under God, but also our common evil. God “is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.” We too, like them, betray what we know in our hearts God desires for the world. We would like to identify ourselves as just and good, but we are a mix of just and unjust, good and evil. If God were not compassionate toward us, we would be lost. And if God is compassionate toward us, with all our unredeemed evil, then God must treat our enemies the same way. As we begin to acknowledge our own inner shadow, we become more tolerant of the shadow in others. As we begin to love the enemy within, we develop the compassion we need to love the enemy without.

Let me just say that I have found this to be so true in my life. It is at my most humbled and broken moments that I can love those who hurt me. It is so much easier to have compassion for others when you realize just how much compassion you need.

If, however, we believe that the God who loves us hates those whom we hate, we insert an insidious doubt into our own selves. Unconsciously we know that a deity hostile toward others is potentially hostile to us as well. And we know, better than anyone, that there is plenty of cause for such hostility. If God did not send sun and rain on everyone equally, God not only would not love everyone, God would love no one.

I am finding this to be so true in my life. I have been through a lot of hurt in the past year, and I feel like God has really used this time to show me all of the compassion that I have (undeservingly) received.  He has also helped me to love those who hurt me. I am so far from perfect that it is not even funny, but I am really enjoying the journey. I love serving a God who loves everyone without them having to act a certain way. That’s how I want to be too. Its an amazing journey to try to get there, and I am thankful for God’s unending patience with me. He knows I need it!

I love hearing voices like Walter Wink’s in the Christian community, because I think this is an area where we could really stand to be challenged.  If we think of God as an angry deity who picks sides, then how will we ever see the image of God in those who are our “enemies”?  Its so hard, but we know that we were ALL created in God’s image, even those who hurt us the very most.  It is only when we can see that piece of God in them that we can reconcile and live the kind of life that Jesus told us to live.

Good stuff.

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The many faces of self-righteousness

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I am currently reading Irresistible Revolution and I am really loving every minute of it.  The amazing thing is that God is bringing together my convictions, what I’m learning in my Bible time, what I’m reading in Irresistible Revolution, AND what I’m reading in my Beth Moore Bible study.  Seriously.  Any time Beth Moore and Shane Claiborne intersect, I think it is good to shut up and listen, because that can’t possibly happen that often, LOL.

I have so many things that I’d like to write about from this book, but today’s quote is sponsored by our upcoming presidential election.  I’m so sick of it.  I can’t even tell you how sick of it I am.  I am a fan of neither party, and I am pretty much just dreading this whole thing.  I just pray that the fans and followers of whoever wins (which I assume will be Obama) are able to win graciously.  Ugh.  I’m so not excited.  This whole political season has driven me nuts, because everyone is spending lots of time making villains of the other side, and I think everyone is screwed up.

I think Shane Claiborne agrees  =D

The stuff Jesus warned us to beware of, the yeast of the Pharisees, is so infectious today in the camps of both liberals and conservatives.  Conservatives stand up and thank God that they are not like the homosexuals, the Muslims, the liberals.  Liberals stand up and thank God that they are not like the war makers, the yuppies, the conservatives.  It is a similar self-righteousness, just with different definitions of evildoing.  It can paralyze us in judgment and guilt and rob us of life.  Rather than separating ourselves from everyone we consider impure, maybe we are better off just beating our chests and praying that God would be merciful enough to save us from this present ugliness and to make our lives so beautiful that people cannot resist that mercy.

This quote really gives a very skewed glimpse of what is contained in this book, but I was just reading a bunch of election stuff, and it summed up my feelings quite well.

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Colorado gifted and talented conference

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After my big, bad VBAC post, I thought it’d be nice to have something a bit less controversial, lol.

I am trying to get together some other homeschool mommies to join me at the upcoming Parent Institute that is being offered as part of the Colorado Gifted and Talented Conference.  (Both links are pdf files.)  I wouldn’t mind attending the conference too, actually.  My parents will be in town, and my mom is a gifted teacher, so I thought she might be up for it.  Its not cheap, but some of the sessions look really interesting.

So, if you’re looking for a date for the gifted conference, let me know, lol.  I’m in the market too!  If I don’t make it this year, then I may try again next year  🙂

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Reproductive rights and amendment 48

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–This may not be a post for pregnant mamas–

This issue is extra sensitive for me right now, because one of my very dear friends is dealing with it head-on. I was present at her HBAC, and she inspired me to have my own homebirth. She is being told that she won’t be able to have another homebirth because she is currently living in a country that doesn’t allow VBACs. I don’t normally make posts about political issues, but this is really frustrating me. Grrrr.

I just finished Pushed: The Painful Truth About Childbirth and Modern Maternity Care by Jennifer Block. Its really well-written. I highly recommend it. She does the best job that I’ve seen in explaining the modern maternity system. I could write dozens of posts based on this book, but I want to focus on the last chapter because it relates directly to an issue that is on the ballot here in Colorado this November.

Amendment 48 is being billed as a pro-life initiative, although I don’t think that a lot of the members of the pro-life community understand the way that similar amendments have been used in other states. Case law is an important thing, and I fear that the Focus-on-the-Family-backed initiative may do way more harm than they intend.

Jennifer Block devotes her last chapter to the reproductive rights of women. She’s not talking about abortion, contraception, or any of the issues that are typically called “reproductive rights”. She’s talking about the right to decide what is best for your baby and your body when it comes to giving birth. The current system leaves many moms in a position where they are forced to make riskier choices because the hospitals and doctors don’t want to deal with liability issues. Women should have the right to birth as they want. Women don’t choose dangerous births just for the sake of it. Women will choose what is best for themselves and their babies if they aren’t forced between two options that they don’t like (such as a repeat c-section vs. an unassisted home birth after Cesarean). In those kinds of cases, many moms are left to choose between two options that are not statistically their safest. If hospitals don’t allow VBACs, then what shall they choose?

Well, for many moms, the choice isn’t really a choice at all. Many moms have made the choice to attempt a VBAC, based on the statistics and the worldwide recommendations, and yet the hospitals have forced them to make different choices by getting an emergency court order demanding they have a c-section.

Block opens the chapter with the stories of several women who have been through this experience. She starts out with the story of Laura Pemberton. (You can read more about her story, including the legal decision). Laura decided to attempt a VBAC, and initially found a doctor who was supportive. The doctor changed his mind when she was about halfway through her pregnancy. Her only option was a repeat c-section, or an unassisted HBAC. She decided to try it at home alone.

Laura labored for 2 days, and was starting to get dehydrated. She decided to go to the hospital for IV fluids and then to return home. The nurses reassured her that she was doing well. The baby’s heart tones were great, she was dilating, her blood pressure was great, and the baby was descending. The attending physician insisted that she have a c-section though. He refused to give her the IV fluids unless she agreed to a c-section.

The nurses helped her to get dressed and showed her a back door for her to escape. She drove home, feeling reassured from the nurses, and confident about having her baby vaginally. When they arrived home, the police were after her. The sheriff and state attorney were at her house, and they had a court order issued by a judge. They strapped her onto a stretched by her wrists and ankles, put her into the ambulance, and took her to the hospital.

At the hospital, a nurse led her to a room and gave her a hospital gown to put on. She and her husband went into the bathroom and locked the door. Pemberton remembers squatting there, bearing down as hard as she could, willing the baby to come. “I reached up and could feel the baby’s head in my hand,” she says. She pulled at the water bag, still intact. It slipped out of her grasp. They were knocking at the door, and finally she opened it.

Two doctors, the sheriff, two attorneys, and a judge crowded into the small exam room, with Pemberton in a hospital gown on the exam table, and conducted a hearing… At no time was Pemberton offered an attorney.

In between contractions, Pemberton argued in her own defense. She said this was an informed decision based on months of research and preparation… The judge said that my unborn baby was in the control of the state and that it was the state’s responsibility to bring that baby into this world safely,” says Pemberton.

…Pemberton’s obstetrician did one final exam before he began operating. She was 9 centimeters dilated, the baby was literally inches from being born, yet the surgeons went ahead with the surgery.

Laura Pemberton is not alone. Women are often forced to have a repeat c-section when they want to attempt a VBAC.

Some women will labor in the parking lot of a hospital known to be anti-VBAC, arriving on the L&D floor just in time to push the baby out. The “showing up pushing” strategy is discussed in full on the ICAN list. Fully aware that the hospital would have required them to plan a repeat cesarean, they try to time the birth so that when they get to L&D it’s too late. This doesn’t work for everyone, though. Susie Nalbach showed up at a Coral Springs, Florida, hospital ready to push in 2003. Instead, she was pushed into a wheel chair, separated from her husband, and taken into the operating room. Then she remembers two nurses arguing with each other. “The younger one was telling me to push, and the older one was telling me not to push. I kept pushing because I couldn’t help it,” she recalls. “I remember being told to breathe into an oxygen mask. But it wasn’t oxygen, it was general anesthesia. I did not consent to it. I never signed anything. I woke up later with a son.” She says on her medical chart, the indication for the cesarean was “failure to progress.”

Amber and John Marlowe were attempting a vaginal birth to their seventh child. All of their children had been delivered vaginally. A triage nurse did an ultrasound and decided that the child was too big, even though their previous kids had been large – one 12lb 4oz, and she had never had a problem. They tried a second hospital, and things became even worse.

Marlowe spent 14 hours at this hospital, refusing a cesarean section. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the couple, hospital attorneys were petitioning a local judge for custody of Marlowe’s fetus so that the hospital could legally compel its surgical extraction–and they won.

Before anyone could execute the order, however, the Marlowes were in their car driving to yet another hospital, Moses Taylor Hospital in Scranton, where Amber swiftly pushed out a perfectly healthy 11lb, 9oz baby girl, with nary a tear.

Hospital attorneys are able to petition for custody of your fetus, and can legally compel you to have a c-section if they decide it is in the child’s best interest. A 2003 survey of directors of maternal-fetal medicine programs found that 14% of them had used the court system to compel women to have cesareans. That’s really disturbing. What’s more disturbing, is that many of these hospitals get their powers from amendments like #48, which give rights to the fetus.

The campaign for fetal rights, led by those intent on re-criminalizing and stigmatizing abortion, has been a detriment to women who decide to carry their pregnancies to term.

The states that have had these kinds of initiatives have also been the ones to decide that a woman is not acting in the best interest of her child when she decides to give birth at home (or even just a hospital vaginal birth, as in the case of the Marlowe’s). The statistics disagree with these judges and hospitals, and some courts have later gone back and said that the judges were wrong in most of these cases, but it keeps happening.

I want to be clear that I don’t think that these cases are the norm. I understand they are rare, and Jennifer Block is very clear in her book that these are not normal cases. The fact remains that hospitals and states are using poorly worded legislation and amendments to take away the rights of women to birth as they choose. For amendments like 48, I just don’t think there are enough benefits to be worth the risk.

Joe and I were talking last night, and I was telling him that its not like I think that amendment 48 will make abortion illegal in Colorado. Its a federal issue right now, and I don’t think amendment 48 is the right way to go about abortion reform. I plan on voting against amendment 48, even though I am pro-life. I encourage everyone to look at all of the possible ramifications of this amendment and to weigh it against the possible benefits.

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