The Margins

Mercy was just fifteen months old when Aaron was born, and around the time I delivered she suddenly decided that she wanted to potty train. It is a bit unusual for kids to have that much interest at that young of an age, but Mercy was adamant: it was time. I have very distinct memories of those early weeks of Aaron’s life, crouching down in the bathroom next to the toilet with Mercy while trying to hold and feed Aaron. I remember thinking: I don’t just need an extra set of arms; I need an extra body.

And so I should not have been so surprised when, in those last brutal weeks of my pregnancy with Elijah, Aaron decided that the time had come: “Pee in potty! Pee in potty!”

Anyone who has potty trained a toddler can attest to the ways that, for most, it is a high-maintenance endeavor. First, the issue of frequency. Then the constant on and off of diapers (I don’t have pull-ups for the guy yet, and I’m not willing to do underwear quite yet). Then there is the helping on and off the potty, though Doug has recently taught Aaron to do this by himself–way to go Dad! Next there will be the accidents and clothing changes, once we do quit the diapers, and of course the occasional clean-up.

Potty training is a great step, developmentally. I am thankful that we have not had difficulty with our kids in this area. And the earlier it happens, the better it is for the environment and the family finances. However, the TIMING of it with both kids has been challenging. They have each chosen to start training themselves at the exact time that my life has become the most complex and distracting: the time when I am most tired, have my arms the most full, and am already losing my mind on some days trying to figure out how life with a new addition works! If I were the one initiating the potty training process (and often it is the parent who initiates), I would NEVER have chosen to start when they did.

I have been reading and hearing a lot of people talking about discipleship of late. Doug took a great class over the summer with Ryan Bolger, and they spent a lot of time talking about what vitality in the church looks like. They read some great stuff about discipleship, and Doug would regularly read passages aloud to me from the books he was working through for the class. Doug also serves on the board for our church now, and that is another place where some great conversations about discipleship are taking place that I get to hear about. And I have seen a fairly robust discussion online recently about models of discipleship in the church following the release of the results of some research done by the folks at Willow Creek.

As I observe and participate in these discussions, I am struck by how my experience with potty training my two kids holds a powerful reminder of some truths about discipleship. The first is this: we ultimately cannot control the timing or pace for growth, maturity and specific developmental steps. We can encourage, we can set out tools, we can model, and we can remove obstacles that would inhibit growth from happening: but it is never something we can force. The timing is not ours to choose, and it is not uniform. Second: it is messy. There are accidents and missed targets. Enough said. Third, and perhaps the most important (and difficult) to remember: the timing is not about our ease or convenience as teachers, preachers, leaders and disciplers. People will not arrive at growth milestones that coincide perfectly with Sunday School schedules, retreats or camps, or small group schedules. People’s growth can not ultimately be managed by programs. Rather, in my experience, they will come knocking, ready to learn and receive when you least expect it (or even desire it!), and the most effective tool they long for: you. Your time, your ability to listen, your availability to pray, and your vulnerability in sharing your own journey with them.

Just the other day, our doorbell rang and someone was there who needed to talk and process some things relating to their own spiritual growth. Our house was a disaster, the kids were all needy, I was trying to feed Elijah and cook dinner, and the phone was ringing off the hook. This was no time for this person to come to us ready to “grow”. But just like Aaron and Mercy before him, he knew when he was being prompted to take a new step and he was seeking out those who could help him do that.

How much easier it would be if we could say to this friend: “oh, that sounds like spiritual growth 102. You can sign up for a class at our church to learn about that. It will run for six weeks and it starts next month. I will make sure and get you the flier and registration form! Goodbye. Go and be well-fed.”

“During the last year or so, I have come to appreciate the “worldliness” of Christianity as never before. The Christian is not a homo religiosus but a man, pure and simple, just as Jesus became man… It is only by living completely in this world that one learns to believe. One must abandon every attempt to make something of oneself, whether it be a saint, a converted sinner, a churchman, a righteous man, or an unrighteous one, a sick man or a healthy one… This is what I mean by worldliness — taking life in one’s stride, with all its duties and problems, its successes and failures, its experiences and helplessness… How can success make us arrogant or failure lead us astray, when we participate in the sufferings of God by living in this world?”

An excerpt from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, via Ed Brenegar in the comment section of this post by Bill Kinnon

Erika: “Aaron, Elijah pooped! It’s so stinky…”

Aaron: “No, Mommy. It’s not stinky. It smells like roses.”

I caught an interesting piece this past week on the L.A. Homicide Blog on Kenny Mitchell, the founder of a group called Gangsters Anonymous. He has launched this organization based on this belief: “We are recovering gangsters who meet to help each other stay crime-free. We believe the gangster mentality is a disease–a mental disorder. We are sick. We suffer from a criminal mentality. But recovery is our responsibility.”

In the course of the interview, as Mitchell describes his own past, the interviewer shows surprise at some of his accomplishments:

Mitchell: I graduated on the honor roll with a 3.3 GPA and lettered in pole vaulting–

HR: That doesn’t sound like a gang banger.

Mitchell: I’m a gangster, not an idiot! You see the low-bottom gang members a lot in the media. But others are well-spoken and doing well in their lives. It wouldn’t work otherwise. Who would want to follow the low-bottom guys?

I was reminded of an incident early in my ministry in Chicago. A young man who frequented our drop-in center had left a notebook behind one afternoon. One of my leaders brought it to me at my office, and her face told me that this was no ordinary notebook. This young man was known for his gang involvements. While only an eighth grader, his size and maturity made him seem like a junior or senior in high school, and he was imposing on many fronts. A natural leader and smarter than his peers, he was also capable of being very sweet and funny. And as if often the case with the troublemakers, he had deeper relationships with many of the teachers and administrators than a lot of the other kids. That was true with me as well.

As I opened the notebook and started flipping through its pages, I realized what I was holding: a handbook of sorts for one of the local gangs. Included were oaths, pledges, contact lists (addresses and phone numbers), organizational charts, and more. As I read over these pages, I was struck by the sophistication, the structure and the complexity of this group. And I realized that my eighth grader was immersed in something so much more intelligent and organized than most people would believe.

After debating what to do with the notebook that night, and after getting frantic calls from this student the next day, I decided to take him out for dinner the following evening. We sat and talked and I confronted him with my concern for his safety and well-being due to his gang affiliation, and he told me that his only way of escaping things would be to go down to Mexico to live with relatives. We talked about the pros and cons of this, and while it was the option his parents favored, he and I both mourned that this was where things had come to for him.

I gave him back his notebook. I don’t know if he ever made it to Mexico.

My husband just emailed me a link to this article. Please tell me this is not for real.

I am a big fan of Scot McKnight’s “Weekly Meanderings” feature on his blog. He consistently links to stories and reflections that engage me on multiple levels, and this past week was no exception. He included a link to a blog belonging to a pediatrician serving in Haiti, and to a particularly compelling description of what it means for this woman to live and serve in the midst of great human suffering.

I was struck by the raw and profound inequality of how life and death look depending on where you live. Reading her account of mothers, desperate in their quest for medical care for their newborns, made me ache, and was especially sobering having just given birth in a room filled with medical professionals just waiting to jump in should there be any crisis or need.

I was also moved by the words of someone in the comments section of the post. This person wrote:

Well every story and every person needs a witness. You are that witness–proof to the world and the person him/herself that the injustice and grief is acknowledged.

Those two sentences captured what I have often felt in my years of living and working among the urban poor. That in those moments when I feel (and am!) so powerless and small, there is something about being a witness. Maybe that is in part how this blog functions as well.

When kids are shot in the ghetto, one of the ways they are mourned is with airbrushed t-shirts bearing their photo, or with shrines, and often through tattoos or even decals on cars. Having walked with my kids in Chicago through the mourning of one of our own, I remember how all of these were used to somehow announce or “witness” that Jamar had existed. And I recall how painfully important that felt to all of us.

We’re all willing to be Christians up to a point. And you know and I know that Jesus calls us to move beyond that point.

Tony Campolo during a recent address at North Park University

On Friday, we packed up the family and headed north on the PCH to Malibu. Doug had a group of DMin students at a retreat center there, and he needed to meet with them one last time before they left. In spite of a lot of traffic it was a beautiful drive, and it was a delight to meet this group of students. They had of course known of the events in our family these past weeks, and they were generous with prayers and kindnesses.

It was also my first real taste of life with three: we came into the classroom with Aaron and Elijah in the stroller and Mercy on foot. Within minutes of Doug standing up front and starting to speak, Elijah demanded a feeding, Mercy spilled most of a large bag of pretzels on the floor and Aaron started throwing his body forward as hard as he could demanding to be let out of the double stroller. I realized how challenging any public outing or appearance really will be from this point on.

After Doug was done, we had a chance to walk around a bit at the retreat center. Perched above the Malibu coastline, the property boasts exquisite views. The monastery is surrounded by luxury homes scattered across the hillsides below. We parked our van in a spot looking down on Mel Gibson’s house. His home seemed almost modest compared to some of the other compounds visible from the property, and it felt a bit ironic to be surrounded by statues of St. Francis (it is a Franciscan monastery), one who renounced material possessions.

The other thing that struck me was the people we saw on the grounds of the retreat center. Every person I saw was hip and beautiful. Lots of black, big sunglasses, jewelry, expensive shoes and handbags, and tattoos. Now, I have done spiritual retreats before. When I lived in Chicago there was this little Catholic retreat center I used to visit, and while I wouldn’t say that the people I would see there were homely, it was a far cry from this. L.A. is such an image place, and I sometimes forget that living where I live. So it was striking for me to see the beautiful people engaging God in this place.

Last week while skimming the headlines online, I caught a BBC report on maternal deaths (women dying as a result of pregnancy or childbirth) worldwide that included some staggering statistics on the number of women who still die regularly during childbirth. In Sierra Leone or Afghanistan, women have a one in eight chance of death as a result of bearing children.

Reading this gave me some perspective on my own recent experience bringing Elijah into this world. There was a lot about his delivery that was terrifying and certainly disappointing; disappointing in the way that it was not the easy, quick, complications-less birth we had all imagined it would be. There were mishaps and crises that we never could have anticipated, and as purely delighted as I was with my new baby, I carried a bit of sorrow about his delivery.

The BBC article reminded me how lucky I am to live where I live with immediate access to the kind of medical care I received on Elijah’s birthday. For as best as I can tell, if I lived in Sierra Leone or Afghanistan, I would have been that one woman in eight.

I don’t know anyone who has died in childbirth, or as a result of pregnancy. And while people like me sit in childbirth classes and hire Doulas to help us achieve the most natural, intervention-less births we can, there are women around the world dying because they lack even the most basic obstetric care. Women in the states have to do battle with medical professionals who are too quick to utilize medical interventions in childbirth (whether for liability reasons or convenience), while women in other parts of the world die with no access to those same interventions. It’s a bit like the millions Americans spend on weight-loss while millions die worldwide from not enough to eat.

I am reminded how quickly I can take things for granted. I am reminded how easily I live with inequality. I am reminded to give thanks for something that is truly a miracle every time.

Aaron the Baron has been particularly amusing of late. He is one of those kids whose verbal skills developed early, and we are consistently shocked by some of the things that come out of his mouth. The little baby development books and websites tell us to expect two and three word sentences from him, so when he whips out entire verses to songs we cannot help but be surprised and often very amused (”I’m bringing home a baby bumblebee” is his current favorite–thanks, Auntie Anna…The song is really gross, and now every time any of the kids see any gooey or messy substance, like whatever Mercy got on the bottom of her shoe the other day, they are quick to announce that it is a smushed-up baby bumblebee).

The day after Elijah was born, Doug went to our house to spend time with Mercy and Aaron, and when he told Aaron that Elijah had been born, Aaron’s response was this: “Baby Elijah! Aaron pick him up, hold him.” And then he paused and with big eyes and arms thrown up over his head he exclaimed: “Kick him the ball!” Anyone who has played ball with my son can testify to the power (and accuracy) of his kicks. We’re going to have to be very vigilant…or maybe have Elijah fitted for a helmet.

One of Mercy’s birthday presents was a doll-house with little pieces of furniture and people and pets, etc. Needless to say it has been THE TOY since. Yesterday, Aaron came up to me holding the little man figurine from Mercy’s doll-house. Now, there is no shortage of weird nicknames and rhymes and general silliness that come out of my mouth on a daily basis, and the day before I had addressed Aaron by saying: “Aaron is the man, he’s the man with a plan…” So yesterday, when I asked Aaron who he was holding, he answered without hesitation: “The man with a plan.”

In addition to a new baby brother, the other object of recent and great significance in Aaron’s world is the Goodyear Blimp. Because of our proximity to USC, on game days we can actually hear the marching band at our house. We also lie beneath the flight path of the blimp. It was right before Elijah’s birth that Aaron saw the blimp for the first time. We were driving home from church (I had finally reached the point in my pregnancy where I could no longer push the double stroller that far) when suddenly, there was the blimp in all of its noisy, bloated glory right above us. It was like Aaron was paralyzed. He sat frozen, speechless while I excitedly pointed the blimp out and I drove around the block a few times so that we could continue to see it. Now, the reaction I would most expect from him would be: “see it”, or for him to comment about its size or noise or how it is like an airplane or helicopter. Finally, in a hushed voice Aaron spoke: “DRIVE IT.” Truly his father’s son.

Anyone who has spent time with my son can also attest to his absolute love for noodles. He can seriously out-eat any of us when it comes to pasta, so the other night when I had fixed salmon and a side of rotini, Aaron was quick to finish off his noodles and ask for more. “Eat your fish and you can have more noodles,” we told him. He frowned and grumbled about it and flat-out refused to eat his fish. We tried various methods of persuasion and play (”Aaron, here comes a fish-blimp…eat it!”) to no avail. The rest of the noodles were still in the pot on the stove, and as he started again to plead for more noodles, we repeated: “Aaron, eat some fish and you can have more noodles.” Frowning, he looked at us and, before complying, demanded: “Show me the noodles…”