Julie's News from Maryland

I read the online magazine Salon fairly regularly and one of my favorite things to read is the advice column, Since You Asked.  Recently, Cary Tennis, the columnist, included this in one of his responses, "If there is a God in your life it is a loving God that will catch you when you fall.  Its attention to detail may be lacking.  You would perhaps prefer a God better at multitasking and more attentive to your instructions.  But if you believe in a God then a God is there for you."  That about sums it up for me at the moment.

I'm incredibly grateful for the gift of my new congregation.  More than one parent, after having met and spent some time with Nicholas, has come to me to tell me what a delightful and bright child he is and then went on to tell me of the difficult challenges that their child has had and the resources available in the area to meet those challenges.  I haven't even had to tell folks about Nicholas' struggles; enough people in this congregation have had to manage various learning and emotional difficulties that they all just understand where we are.  And, I got some feedback the other day that a number of people in the congregation had remarked that our situation with Nicholas really made them feel like I would be able to relate to them and what is happening in their life.  All this time I worried that Nicholas' disabilities would be a curse to my ministry and God put us in a place where it seems to be the opposite.

After much research and lots of phone calls I've learned that the best possible place for Nicholas to be treated is at the Kennedy Krieger Institute at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore.  They have an even better reputation for treating children than the NYU Child Study Center where we were before.  And, they take our insurance.  We will no longer have to pay for Nicholas' treatment out of pocket.  The downside is that it takes about 2 months to get an appt., the intake process is difficult and lengthy.  But, in good news, we found a treatment center in Annapolis that provides only short term care; they are designed to be a place for people like us who are waiting to get into another program.  Oh, and they take our insurance too.

Third grade has been a nightmare for Nicholas so far.  The teacher expects so much more from them in 3rd grade than in 2nd.  His anxiety level is through the roof and he spends various portions of his day screaming.  Yesterday he had to be physically removed from the classroom.  Twice.  Some days are better than others, but every day he is acting out and causing problems in the classroom.  The teacher and I are in constant communication and the principal is great.  We are going to meet soon to discuss revising Nicholas' IEP so that he can get the extra help that he needs to manage his emotions during the day.  I learned at back-to-school night that his teacher has been teaching 3rd grade in that classroom for 16 years.  This is a lady that knows what she is doing.  She told me last week that her first priority with Nicholas is to help him feel safe in her room.  Whew.

There are days that I just don't know how to help this child.  There are days when I wish God was more present and a bit more attentive to my instructions - would it have been so hard to help Nicholas get through at least the first week of school without a major meltdown?   But really, the truth is, we have been so blessed by what God has given us here.  It is going to be a long road and we have much work to do.  I'm already tired and wonder how I am going to continue on this journey with this child, but I know that God has caught us and that we are not going to just fall off the edge.

The Weather Man just said on the news that it has been more than 2 weeks since we've had rain here and "...we are getting a little dry.  We need some rain."  2 weeks!  Hah!  That's nothing.  Try 6 months, baby.  This isn't dry, this is just a little less moist.  Silly silly easterners.

The other day I was sitting on the couch answering emails on my laptop and Ella said to me, "Mom, all you ever do is type on your laptop."  I asked her if it bothered her that I use my laptop so much and she replied, "Yes, it does bother me.  You should be playing with me."

She is right, I do spend an awful lot of time on my laptop.  There is just so much to do here - reading news articles, reading blog entries about news articles, sending email, checking my friends' activities on Facebook, posting my own status on Facebook, chatting with people in IM, playing games, catching up with the Olympics, researching cool adventures for our family in Maryland - the list is endless.

But mostly, I think my recent increase in laptop activity has to do with our move.  Since all of my fiends are now scattered around the country, this is how I connect with them.  No longer can I learn about all the gossip when I bump into someone in the mail room or on the steps into our building, instead I turn to the plethora of communication tools available to me through the laptop to feel less lonely.

Ella is right, though, I do need to step away from the machine more often and spend a bit more time with her and my family.  I've had a few laptop-free days lately and that has worked nicely for all of us.  I'm also trying to be more conscious of using my laptop only after they have gone to bed in the evening.

I love how little kids just tell it like it is.

Is anyone really surprised that the Chinese have cheated at gymnastics?  Seriously?  Is it shocking that they have lied about the age of the members of their women's gymanstics team?  Are we really surprised that they would choose to have a beautiful young girl mimic the singing while the less attractive girl sings in the back where she can't be seen?

All of this reminds me of a scene in the first "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie.  Will Turner returns to his shop to discover that the pirate Jack Sparrow is there.  They begin to fight and as Jack Sparrow appears to be losing the fight, he cheats.  Will Turner says to him, with a bit of shock and surprise, "You cheated?!"  Jack Sparrow replies, with a 'duh' tone, "Pirate!"

Jack Sparrow is a pirate; by definition he cheats.  Duh. 

The Chinese government is an oppressive, dictatorial, regime.  They oppress their population.  They restrict the flow of information into and out of their country.  They imprison and torture citizens that speak critically about the government.  They take 3 year old children away from their parents to turn them into gymnasts, allowing them to visit their parents only once a year.

The world has allowed this government to behave badly for many many years without any real consequences.  Really?  Is anyone surprised that they might cheat?  Certainly I'm not.

In an effort to find interesting and creative ways to spark conversation at my new church, I've started a new blog, St. Martin's-in-the-Field Clergy Blog. This will be a place for myself and the Rector to post thoughts and ideas and to invite dialogue about issues facing the community and the world. I hope that you'll join in that conversation with us - I think it is so valuable to have thoughtful ideas come from everywhere.

Nothing will change about this blog. I'll continue to post the same sorts of things here that I've always posted. Oh, with the exception of sermons. Since I'm in a parish now, my sermons are posted on the parish web site at http://stmartinsinthefield.org/sermons.html. Currently, they are all .pdf files that require you to download them, but I am working on having them posted as just text pages so you can read them in your browser. My long-term dream is to have them posted as audio files so that you can hear them - it is my firm belief that a sermon is an oral event, not a written event. Unfortunately, I learned last week that the relatively new sound system in the church has the ability to record to tape, but not to the built in CD player. Having an analog recording on a tape is useless for web production, so I need to devise a strategy for recording my sermons. I might buy a personal mp3 recorder and just record them that way. The quality wouldn't be great, but it would be better than nothing. I might also look into buying a cheap recording system that we can integrate into the sound system, but that will take a bit longer. In any case, you'll find sermons posted there, not here.

How can something so full of activity turn me into such a sloth?  I have been glued to the TV since the Olympics started on Friday night.  I was absolutely blown away by the opening ceremonies - such a spectacular vision of light and movement and music.  And running the torch on the ceiling!  Who thinks of that?!  It was so amazing.  I don't know if it was my excitement from the opening or what, but I've been on my couch watching them ever since.  I realized the irony of that this afternoon - lying here like a couch potato while watching all these world class athletes doing what they do best.

I guess the Olympics really draw out all of our emotions, in a way.  I love the little vignettes about the athletes and how hard they have worked to get there. I love to see the expressions of the family members and other people in the crowd as they watch their family members and fellow countrymen push themselves as hard as they can for the win.  I feel the "agony of defeat" (Remember Wide World of Sports?) for the ones that gave it their all but it wasn't quite enough.  I wonder about all of the support staff that has worked so hard to make this happen - the project managers and construction workers and engineers and maintenance people and the pretty ladies that escort the medal winners to and from the podium and on and on and on - what is this experience like for them?

As I watched the opening ceremonies, and was in awe at the talent of every single person who performed, I wondered how long it must have taken to rehearse the routines.  And how did they do it - did they all rehearse together?  Did the choreographers meet with smaller groups until everyone knew their part and then they came together?  How did they make those concentric circles so perfectly?  And what costume designer created costumes that would light up so reliably?  So many people worked so hard to create such a beautiful spectacle to welcome the world to the games.  I hoped that the Chinese government was good to all of those people and paid them well for their incredible efforts.

In the end, I really love that so many people from so many parts of the world - some in conflict, some oppressed, some living in luxury, get to come together and just play for a few weeks.  Maybe it will help remind us to play a little more often.

I was sitting here on the couch tonight marveling at the more than decent selection of shows to watch on television.  I thought to myself, "Gosh, Friday night television has really improved."  And then I realized that it is only Thursday.  You see, my day off is Friday.  So, Thursday night, is sort of my Friday night.  It's the night that I can stay up late and be pretty guilt free about it.  I can put off picking up the house because I know I'll be here in the morning to do it.  I can look forward to pancakes and sausage for breakfast when I get up.  All the signs point to it being Friday night, but alas, it is Thursday night.

I now essentially work Sunday - Thursday and I've been a bit surprised about how turned around it has left me.  I find during the week that I'm often confused about what day it is.  I knew that it would be a bit of an adjustment to recalibrate my life schedule to this, but it is even stranger than I expected. 

I am curious what will happen when the kids start school in a few weeks.  I suppose that it will help to orient me to the week properly, though it will significantly reduce the amount of time I get with them.  With them in school on Fridays, we will only have one day of the week that we are all off work/school together.  I hope that we can be diligent about making that day our sabbath and using it to connect to one another and escape a bit from all the things that the world requires of us.

I read yesterday that Mary Winkler regained custody of her children recently. You can read the CNN news article here. I have been following this case since I first read about it and wrote about it two years ago: The Perfect Wife.

I am so grateful that she has regained custody of her children. I can't imagine what a living hell these past two years have been for her. Or for that matter, the horrible things that happened to her previous to killing her husband. As I suspected, and wrote about when it first happened, her life was not perfect. She did not live in a loving home where she was valued and respected. Instead, she lived with someone that belittled her and abused her. While her life appeared on the outside to be "pefect" and she appeared to be the "perfect wife," that was far from reality.

When will we learn that we need each other? When will we learn that we can ask for help? Our culture has taught us that we are to take care of ourselves - pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps - and not burden others with our problems. In this case, as with so many others, hiding the secrets and not asking for help ended with tragedy for this family. So many people suffer in silence when that just doesn't have to be the case.  Though, I'm sure that as a pastor's wife it is much harder to ask for help in such a situation.  I would bet that her husband was so beloved that anyone who dared suggest that he was less than perfect, even his wife, would have met with resistance and maybe even retaliation.

I hope that Mary and her children are able to heal and find a new life together. It will be a long road for them, but I do hope that love and joy are in their future.

I stopped by the kids' new elementary school this week to enroll them for the fall.  I filled out all the paperwork they needed - emergency forms, general information forms, a language form, on and on.  I brought with me identification to prove that we do all exist - birth certificates, immunization records, two proofs of address.  The office staff was very polite and helpful.  As I was walking out the door, I remembered doing that for Nicholas when we arrived in New York.  I had this very surreal moment that somehow my life (and maybe even my kids' lives) would contain these strange markers of school enrollment as we go from one place to the next.

Enrolling in a new school is sort of stange to me.  As a child, I went to exactly 3 schools: public school for kindergarten (because the catholic school didn't have one), St. Mary's of the Assumption for 1st-8th grade, and then St. Joseph's High School for my four years of high school.  I never really went to a "new school."  In fact, I went all the way from 1st grade to the end of High School with about 20 of the same kids.  Granted, we had other kids that came and went from our core class, but the rest of us did the whole thing together.  So going to a new school and having to make new friends is a totally foreign concept to me.

Though, the kids starting in a new school means that we as a family start in a new school.  In New York, it took almost the entire 3 years we were there to really get to know people and feel like we were part of the school community.  In our last year there, Rick started volunteering to do things and we finally felt like the staff knew who we were when we were on the property.  Going to a new school means that we'll have a new staff to meet, new parents to get to know, and new kids to learn about.  I hope that we do a better job of getting connected to the place more quickly here than we did in New York.  I suppose we'll see how that plays out.

As I was walking to my car, I imagined the next time that I will do this for my kids.  What will that parking lot look like?  How big will that school be?  Will we feel as positive about that school as we are feeling about this one?  It is strange to be thinking ahead like that, especially since we just got here 2 months ago, but still, there it was - all these questions about what it will be  like the next time we do this.

Tonight, while I was up in my room working on a document that I'm writing, Nicholas called to me to tell me that there was a squirrel on our deck.  I went downstairs to join him in his observation of the squirrel and learned that he had already opened the door to talk to the squirrel.  It would seem that this squirrel was not at all frightened of us, since it just stood there a few feet from us staring at us. 

Nicholas and I decided that it must be hungry, so we offered it some cat food.  The cat food was my suggestion - I thought it not very healthy to give the squirrel crackers or bread as Nicholas suggested, but the cat food bowl was nearby.  Nicholas grabbed a few pieces and tossed them in the direction of the squirrel.  It scampered over to the food with enthusiasm, but after sniffing the cat food decided it wasn't hungry enough to eat that.

Nicholas and I proceeded to have a conversation about what we could offer the squirrel.  He thought bread might be ok.  I wondered aloud if we had any apple slices in the fridge.  Then I remembered that we had grapes on the table.  Nicholas ran over and brought a few grapes back.  We tossed one towards the squirrel and it landed right in front of it.  The squirrel sniffed the grape and then picked it up and began pecking at it.  It became obvious that it would be a bit of work to eat the grape, so the squirrel decided to take it somewhere else to eat it and scurried away.

After the squirrel left, Nicholas thought maybe we could leave a few more grapes on the patio, in case the squirrel came back, so we did that.  Then he said that maybe every Tuesday we could go out on the deck and feed the squirrel.  Every Tuesday.  I found that so fascinating that in his head a squirrel would return regularly, on Tuesday apparently, to be fed grapes.  We've never seen a squirrel on our deck before and I don't imagine that there is much guarantee that it will happen again - well, it is probably more likely now that we've fed one.  Once word gets out to the squirrel community that grapes can be had on our deck, we'll probably have a flock of them daily.  But, I digress.  I think I said something to Nicholas along the lines of, "Well, we don't know if the squirrel will come back next Tuesday, but we can keep an eye out for it."

Later in the evening, when I was tucked back in my room working again, I overheard Nicholas telling Rick about the squirrel and the grapes.  As he concluded the story I heard him say, "Mom and I were thinking that maybe every Tuesday we could go out and feed the squirrel on the deck."