Donnie and Marie may be a little bit country, and a little bit rock and roll, but I'm a little bit white trash. Hey, throw me a parade and give me a holiday, because I am ready to celebrate my heritage. My daddy may have one of them fancy doctor degrees now, but honey- he grew up sans indoor plumbing and aunts with teeth. When his neighbors took down one of them jacked up cars … well, there goes the neighborhood. (I should mention he married well …)
When I was six, for those of you who haven't been bored with this story, I moved into an RV. Not out of desperation, but out of restoration, my parents decided to sell all of their possessions and follow a calling. I guess that's the thing about growing up without fancy social-norms; it's sorta' exhilarating. I can still remember one of our first cross-country stops: a lady at a church we were visiting asked me where I lived and I pointed at our house on four wheels sitting in the parking lot.
From there, it was an eight-year excursion to Trinidad, Colorado (or as my family fondly remembers it: "the inner-city with no outer-city"). Ah yes, the sex-change capitol of the world, subsidized lunches for all (the poverty rate was too high to make it worth the time to remove middle class students from the equation), and unusually high gang activity, according to a number of Colorado Bureau of Investigation statistics. As the not-so-famous Trinidad theme-song states, "It's a great place to plant your family tree …"
Next stop: Walsenburg. Did I say white trash? Because I am also a ghetto bitch. Thaaaaaaaat's right; tip this one for your hommies, folks; I got kicked out of school for fighting. The thing about gang-bangers is that you can either fight them or join them, and I did both. Good thing my dad was the chief of police where at least he could cut back on the number of police officers allowed to carry their gun to work while intoxicated and then get behind the wheel of a patrol car. Oh wait, he lost his job for trying to correct that problem (do NOT, and I repeat DO NOT mess with a cousin of a cousin's fiancé's cousin …).
After my mother's brief state of insanity, due to her newly appointed title (out of desperation to get her children out of the gang"ish" public schools): Homeschool Teacher, we were off to Hannibal, MO. Yee. Hah. Now, keep in mind, Hannibal was sort of a big deal. I mean a Wal-Mart AND a McDonald's. Living the high life … I was so incredibly impressed to have triple digits in my graduating class, and know classmates who were (get this!) ALSO planning on going to college! But, at the end of the day, I must confess that I dated more than one fellow who wore camo more often than not, and even our nice private-lane included one home with a few jacked-up cars in the lawn.
Make no mistake: my brief stints in Columbia, St. Louis, and Kansas City, Missouri could take the girl out of the white trash, but could never take the white trash out of the girl. No, no – that was saved for my ultimate move "up": I married a suburbanite. Score! CLASSY: I'm talking SUVs, mortgage debt, designer sunglasses, sundresses to the supermarket, and bleached teeth on gals that ain't even preparing for the country-fair pageant! DDDAAAAANNNNNGGG!
And now, before God and facebook, I make a confession: I will not, and cannot, ever fit in with my own newfound constituency: the suburban housewife. Just the other day, at Madelynn's dance class, I made an attempt. As the mothers sat in their Juicy velour, I realized my men's Adidas shorts, baggy husband's shirt, and greasy ponytail were, perhaps, making some people "uncomfortable". In my best effort to "act cool" I said, "Yea … didn't shower today".
Ouch. Okay, no problem Jen, when at first you don't succeed: try, try again. "I mean, because I was looking for a wagon today and the Wal-Mart by my house is kinda' ghetto, because like – our apartment is in between a good and bad neighborhood – so I had to drive all the way down to this Target, and … " Sigh. Maybe I can't blame them for turning their backs and getting right back to their discussion about cruise lines.
As it turns out, living with the cruise-line population has taught me something about white trash. White trash people have substance addictions. They are whole-heartedly committed to the fixes they get from honesty, and from family, and from an honest day's work. When they go to college (which they pay for themselves … because they are not raised with the expectation that it will be covered by their Mommies and Daddies), they have that sort of pride that doesn't come with knowing people expected something out of you, but the sort of pride that comes from people not expecting anything of you. They hug their mamas and their grand-pappies and their cousins not because it's important that everything look "alright", but because they know nothing's always "alright", and that's okay. They get substance. Even if they have no fluff to impress you with … they get substance. They're addicted to it, because in a world where money and image is foreign, substance matters.
Being addicted to no substance, I suppose, must give an incredible high. Man, a person must get an awful boost of adrenaline when they can look straight into the eyes of a friend, a co-worker, and sadly, their own family, and say, "Everything is GREAT. I am FINE. I look good, I sound good, I AM good … better than you, in fact". But damn, when I run out of substance, I know where to find more. But you - you house-broke, empty-inside, Botoxed, sad soul … when you're out, you're out. And I'm not sure what you'll have to show for your induced happiness.
Some reading this will nod their head and know they need to get off the computer. They've got children waiting to roll in dirt, uncles waiting to play poker, and a dog to walk; their addiction calls. Others will feel offended because they are suburbanites who live above the illusions. They are justified, because they are wonderful, wonderful, deep people, who don't deserve to be lumped into a stereotype. Still others will be offended for a whole other reason, a reason that cuts deep and fears the exposure of an addiction to no substance. And to you, I say, "Who cares what I think?" After all, I'm just poor white-trash.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
An Addiction to No Substance
Sinners in the Hands of a Healing God
Most generally, I come up with some darn good thinkin' when I am ticked off. Call it a talent (my conflict-management professor calls it a "concern"); I have tremendous mental capacity when someone says something that just gets my craw. Humbleness, poignancy, and reverence, however … those things leave me speechless. And so it is, in my helpless reflections and moments of nothingness … that God speaks.
Many of you realize my daughter spent a week in the hospital. For those of you who have never had this experience, the doctors ask that you hold your child still as tubes, measuring devises, and general pokey-things are used to check vitals and examine "the patient". The burden of holding a child who cannot possibly understand why you would allow this is a heavy one.
Brothers and Sisters, our God is always holding us. And no better than my not yet two year-old daughter can understand why I would allow a nurse to poke and prod her can we understand how God is holding us, all the while allowing human suffering and sadness. If parenting can offer even a glimpse into the vast heart of the Savior I serve, we can trust He takes no pleasure in our destitution, but knows our needs better than we do.
One morning as I stood solemn in front of Madelynn's monitors, I wondered how I would make it through another evening in the eerie lights of a hospital room. Hoping for encouragement, I logged onto facebook to read and reread the kind promises of prayer so many friends left on my wall. I updated my status, asking for prayer – that Madelynn's oxygen levels would continue to rise. I checked a few other items on facebook, and then logged off.
Madelynn's numbers were up by the time I set down the laptop. My first reaction was, "I feel kinda' silly telling everyone on facebook she still needed prayer, when she turns out to be doing well!" And then it hit me. I logged back on … Brad Strait, "I am [praying] right now", Kara Dameron, "You are in our prayers", Dana Capranica Gurlue, "Praying she goes home today" … the list goes on. Do you have any of those friends who promise to pray for you, just to be polite – but never do? I don't.
I am not sure how it is that the God of the universe (who designed the intricacies of the very little lungs we were praying for) works in such a way that the prayers of such a feeble and fallen people matter, but He does. Oh, how He does. And they matter beyond our intentions. If the Son of God was able to multiply two loaves of bread and a few fish to feed tens of thousands of people, how we must rejoice as we think of His power to multiply the small gift of our prayers!
Friends, your prayers did not simply aid in the healing of my precious daughter, but they shook me, they stirred me. Those prayers brought tears to Keith's face, and gave us perseverance to continue our own prayers. Those prayers renewed my desire to tell those that I come into contact with that they need not be afraid; they are sons and daughters of the one true King. Those prayers sent me crying on my knees, pleading with the Messiah to not allow me to forget that there are mothers all around in the world, and in my neighborhood, who cannot take their little girls to the hospital. Father, make it a daily burden, a constant thorn in my side – that I would reach out, pray for, and assist in the healing of those without.
I am reminded of a quote from Mother Theresa, "It is poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish". The quote is in reference to abortion, but as I ponder the millions of children in desperate need of healing – I question whether or not my daily decision to purchase "things", instead of giving all I have away, is not a decision that a child must die so that I may live as I wish.
Great Healer, may you bestow your generous mercy on those who are ill, those who are starving, those who have nothing. But Lord, may you not forget to heal others of us from our spiritual blindness, our desires to serve ourselves, our desires to collect luxuries as others gasp for necessities. And may we praise You, because we are healed daily, saved daily, touched by grace daily. To You alone be the Glory.
Paradigm Lost
There was a kid in my sixth-grade class, named Mike, who was nice, but not necessarily gifted. He is most famous for his misreading of the word, "Virginia," as "vagina." We did not fully know the meaning of this word, but we recognized it was funny to think of it as the home of the first American settlers.
The less famous Mike-story, but one I remember as clearly, is that of the tremendous time he tacked onto any peer-grading session.
Teacher: The answer to number seven is violet.
Mike: Okay, but Jenny wrote, "a shade of purple." Do I mark that wrong?
Teacher: No, Mike. That's fine.
Teacher: The answer to number eight is bovine.
Mike: Oooo, Jenny wrote, "cow" . . . wrong?
Teacher: No, Mike. That's acceptable.
Teacher: The answer to number nine is sphere.
Mike: Excuse me, Jenny has here, "ball."
Teacher: -Sigh- Yes, Mike. Ball is okay.
As I heard a speaker once explain, Mike was confusing, "blue rules" for, "red rules." (During the speaker's presentation, he asked us to make a list of rules that don't always matter .. several employees raised their hand to ask exactly how many examples needed to be included on this list . . . )
In Mike's scenario, the "red rule" would be that if a student answers oppositely or irrelevantly, it needs to be corrected. This rule cannot be broken; it would interrupt the learning process. The "blue rule" would be that the answer must be verbatim to the grading key. This rule can be broken, and no one dies.
Mike is not alone in his non-essential rule-breaking paralysis. I once had a part-time job at Kohl's, and as I was counting change one evening, a supervisor exclaimed, "Oh no! Not like that! You have to put all the pennies on the counter, and then slide then off one by one, see?" Thank God she told me.
Besides the occasional annoyance, I accept blue-rule enforcers as part of life. What concerns me beyond that simple annoyance, however, is the reality that much of Evangelical Christianity has been reduced to blue-rule enforcement. In a world dark and dying, a world that cries out for food, shelter, and hope . . . have we as Evangelicals become little more than hall monitors?
This concern came to its head in my life some time ago. My husband and I interviewed for a ministry program called, "Apartment Life," a supposedly non-denominational Christian organization that places couples in apartment buildings to reach out to people through kindness and relationships.
We were rejected. Our interviewer's "prayerful consideration" took the entire drive home. Call it a hunch, but I believe this had something to do with Keith's "wrong" answer about his salvation experience. A Catholic throughout his upbringing, Keith told her about his confirmation and the personal commitment to Christ that grew out of that tradition.
Perhaps the greatest insult was that our interviewer waited until Keith had left the room to express to me her concerns about the legitimacy of Keith's salvation.
I cannot claim to know this woman's heart, and believe with sincerity she carries with her the purest of intentions. But, somewhere in the book of Evangelical Blue Rules is a chapter on "Accepted Forms of Expressing One's Faith." In case you're curious, the guidelines state clearly that salvation stories must fit the following format: "I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior on fill in the date at fill in the name of the Baptist church." See Chapter Seventeen for acceptable denominational backgrounds.
Teacher: The answer to number ten is that we become Christians by believing that Jesus is, "The Way, the Truth, and the Life."
Mike: Okay, but what if she said, "I believe that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life . . . ," but she also put that she was taught that at a Catholic church?
Not for the purposes of boasting, for the purposes of defending what I know to be true, let me tell you about the man I married - one who loves the Lord with all his heart, with all his mind, and with all his soul.
Keith is a man who will open three or four books after church, if he has to, out of a desire to fully understand and take a stance on something the pastor mentions. He is a man who rejoices in the comfort of like-minded authors who strengthen his journey in Christ.
He is a man who once risked his own life to defend an acquaintance who was being beaten in an alleyway. He once scolded an NFL player, in public, for not treating a woman kindly.
Keith is a man who works fifty hours a week so that I can stay home with Madelynn, and never complains when he has to do the dishes on top of all that. He is a man who prays aloud every night that his daughter might grow to one day serve the Lord, and that he may continue to grow closer to me, through Christ.
How the angels must have mourned at the loss of an opportunity to place such a servant in a position of ministerial leadership. But I know they were comforted, as I was too, when God reminded them that he has placed Keith exactly where he needs to be for such a time as this.
In the words of the great St. Augustine (who, by the way, would probably get a rejection email from Apartment Life), "In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity."
Perhaps St. Agustine knew a few blue-rule enforcers...
Busy with Blessings
Kansas City with my brother!
Shopping with Miss Stacie!
The GREAT Naomi!!!
Tori and me at Miss Teen Colorado World!
Great friends, Jennifer and Joss, Mrs. CO America prelims!
At Mrs. CO America finals night with Makayla and Brenda!
Coffee with Joss, Carmela, and the Michelles!