just to clarify

I'm not asking if we should pray about decisions. I'm asking, how much does God care about our comfort? Is He really rooting for me to have a bigger car, or promotion, or house with a pool? That's the question I meant to ask.

interview, Hooters, God's will

Most interviews with writers feel melodramatic and self-aggrandizing to me, so I usually skip them. But, seriously? Anyone who can touch on resurrection, a loving God, the fragility of life, and the perilous joy of parenting by answering three standard questions is just flat-out INTERESTING. Click here to read the interview. It's worth your five minutes, in my opinion.

Also. I can't begin to address why establishments like Hooters are so successful. Or why Hugh Hefner has three young women who live with him, and another three hundred who would gladly take their place. Or why a woman in a bikini can sell a tire or a beer so well. I can't begin to understand the phenomenon that makes women want to pose as scantilly-clad-beautiful-girl-#4 in a magazine, and I won't even begin to try to justify or argue for or against them. All I was saying was this: if you don't want your wife to be treated like meat, don't take her out for a beer in the slaughterhouse. And if you do, you can't complain about the way men look at her. That's all I'm saying.

And this, my friends, is the post that can't sit still.

Last thing - a friend (whom I love dearly, and am not in any way criticizing by bringing this up) and I were talking last night about her recent purchase of a larger home. She was telling me the reasons why she knew God wanted her to buy this particular house. It's a common theology, at least in the Bible Belt, so I'm really not picking on her by saying this. But every time I have a conversation like that, I think, Does God really care what house I live in? Or does he care about how I live my life in that particular house? But if I follow that train of thought too far, I start feeling silly about praying for anything less than world peace. I really would like to just resolve this issue in my own mind and move on. So I'm asking you - how do you reconcile God's will and daily life? I am of the opinion that God cares more about our character than our external circumstances. So is praying about which house to buy or whether or not you should take a vacation foolishness or faith?

Asher was dedicated today.

It was a perfect day.

I'll write more about it later, but for now, the rest of the pictures are on the flickr account. And thank you so much to those who were there. We love you guys.

on hate crimes and the law

Of all the people in my blogging circle, I am the least qualified to write about politics. Most of what I know I've learned from NPR, an AP Government class in high school, three trips to D.C., the West Wing, and you, my friends. So I start this conversation with some timidity, but I'll start it just the same. I'm bringing this up because talking is what I can do.

On May 3, the House passed the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007, which expanded the scope of federal hate crimes to include sexual orientation, gender, and disability. The legislation died because President Bush was going to veto the bill, and there was not the necessary two-thirds majority to override his veto. Click here to read President Bush's position on the bill.

Part of the President's argument is related to the scope of government. Mr. Bush said that most states already have local legislation in place, and are prosecuting hate crimes effectively without federal involvement. As you already know, this is one of the basic philosophical differences that separate the political parties, and I can respect his decision - if it was really made for the reasons he stated - as a valid argument in light of his approach to government.

But I am afraid that President Bush gives states entirely too much credit. Alabama's state government responded the next week when the legislature, in one of the few votes held all year (which is another rant for a later date), voted not to consider state legislation that said basically the same thing as the federal legislation that had just passed. In a state that is still prosecuting Civil Rights murders that would probably have gone forever unsolved were it not for the guilty consciences of dying men, we need all the oversight we can get. We need the FBI to have the authority to prosecute hate crimes for what they are, and not to trust every sherriff, prosecutor, or legislator in Alabama to protect all of its citizens with equal enthusiasm. They made it clear on May 11 they won't be doing that this legislative year.

Focus on the Family lobbied against the bill, claiming that it is criminalizing thoughts and infringing on their freedom of speech. But our judicial system already considers a person's state of mind when sentencing crimes. This is why a drunk driver and a serial killer receive different sentences. Wouldn't expanding the scope of the definition simply allow prosecutors more ways to catch criminals? Isn't safety also a family value?

Finally, the President argues against the constitutionality of hate crime legislation. The Fourteenth Amendment gives equal protection under the law; the claim is that hate crime legislation offers special protection to certain groups. I really can't speak to this (Mary? Can you?). But if there is already hate crime legislation in place for other minority groups, hasn't this question already been addressed? How is expanding the scope of a law less legal than the initial law?

Every time this happens - every time our government has the opportunity to take care of all its citizens, and does not - I'm shocked. How can they justify this? is always my question. How is it possibly legal? It's not. But I do believe it will get better. Our generation is in graduate school right now; in another fifteen years my peers will be running for Congress. When we are in leadership, I really believe we'll finally see a shift in anti-gay legislation. Cold comfort, I know, but it's all I've got. So hold on, friends. It won't be this way forever. In the meantime, watch your back.

all we need is CJ

With his friends - Leo, Josh, Toby, and Sam. Their names were not randomly assigned, though. If you can guess which one is Sam, you win.

the comment post that just keeps growing

This - THIS RIGHT HERE - is what makes me squeamish about flying. My clammy hands have nothing to do with being in the air (I buy the bit about being more likely to have a car accident on the way to the airport). It's being trapped with two hundred strangers for hours on end that I don't like. As my mom says, I start to feel like other people are using up all of my air. And what if the person next to me throws up? I'll be stuck. Blech. Blech and yikes.

Also, thank you for this link. I love it. It is the best thing I've read in months. I read a little about Aristaeus, but would still love to hear how the name was chosen, if the author sees this and cares to respond.

Elizabeth, congratulations on your graduation - congratulations on being so so good at finishing what you start and doing what you say you're going to do. It is one of many strengths that will serve you well in your new life.

Last one - I heard similar stories when I was working, but I never get used to them . Praise God for those who are compelled by love.

Part II

Because we love Lane.

You really loved Dogs of Babel? I hated it. Hate is a strong word - I kept rolling my eyes at it. There are so many good stories in the world about young widowers trying to find their way after untimely deaths of their wives that this one felt, well, made up. Readers who liked Dogs of Babel will LOVE Bag of Bones by Stephen King, or Beach Music, by Pat Conroy. And readers who like Beach Music will LOVE I Know This Much is True, by Wally Lamb, but for different reasons than Bag of Bones. This could be a game. The seven degrees of story lines, or something. But sending good books to Janet is always a good idea. And Traveling Mercies is just good television, in my opinion. The scene where the dog eats her son's cupcakes STILL makes me laugh.

As usual, I wait until the most inconvenient moment possible to decide to post, but that's self-inflicted. I wonder what it is about activity that makes me want to SIT, and what it is about sitting that makes me want to move ... anyway, a few miscellaneous announcements for you.

!. Because I am his mom, and this blog is a running commentary on my life, you have to endure a little baby exuberance sometimes. Like now - Asher got so excited about his pears yesterday that he rolled over on them. It was his first milestone that we can now check off the list. He was very pleased with himself, and that was probably the funnest part of all. By the way, baby food is going great. He likes green foods as well as the sweet ones and has enjoyed everything but bananas so far. NO bananas, though; he threw them up and was sick the rest of the day.

@. Freecycle - does everyone know about this? Is everyone doing it? It's a yahoo group where you can give away stuff you don't need, as well as pick up stuff that you do need that someone else is giving away. It's good for the environment, good for being responsible stewards of our stuff and money, good for being active in your community, and generally just - good. So. Freecycle, everyone.

#. I wasn't kidding - there really is a family in our church who is raising 10 kids; 5 of them are foster children, and 3 have just arrived. This family is in NEED of all things kid-related. So, if you spot any bunk beds, kid clothes, bikes, refrigerators, jars of peanut butter, popsicles, Scooby-Doo videos - WHATEVER - please contact me and I'll make sure it gets to this family, where it will be consumed with gratitude.

$. I had the best Mother's Day ever. It included breakfast at a previously undiscovered restaurant (and, considering that we live in Montgomery, which not a sizeable city, discovering new food is both unusual and really fun), a nap, grilled pork chops for dinner, and the entire West Wing collection. Yay for me!

two years later, part 1: why I love my church

Kat asked why I love my church. This is a question that deserves its own post.

After interviewing with so many churches and church plants, not to mention our tumultuous experience with the church in Birmingham, I'd grown cynical. I was tired of baring my soul, truthfully, and modern worship as a whole - its language and reliance on experience - was feeling contrived and silly to me. It is a precarious position for a worship leader's wife to find herself, especially when her husband is still looking for a job. Then we met Chuck, our pastor, who respected my aloofness and happily filled up my silence with his sincerity. Even though he reminds me of Ned Flanders, I have nothing but love and respect for the man, and I think he is a talented teacher. Most of all, I appreciate the depth of his sincerity - though our applications of the Scriptures are sometimes different, I have no doubt about Chuck's intimacy with God.

But Chuck isn't why I love my church. I love my church because of the way they love people.

Here's an example: there are three little girls who have been coming to my church recently. Just as I expected, our congregation immediately treated them as if they had grown up there, old women hugging their necks during the greeting, Sunday school teachers putting their artwork on the walls, parents picking them up to play with their children. They are foster children who have recently been taken from their home and put with a family in our church. In fact, their presence on Sunday morning has become so familiar to me that I did not realize until after church today that they had been moved from one family to another (both go to our church). I didn't know it because they were never the Adams' kids or the Whytes' kids - as soon as they walk in, they become Grace Community's kids.

One family has ten children living in their home; only three are theirs by birth. Another family, after raising their children, have adopted two little girls with Down syndrome. They are in the process of adopting two more. Another family has two foster babies that they are in the process of adopting. Chuck and his wife have eleven children (all by birth). We have approximately 130-150 active adults in our church, with an additional 50 children attending regularly (I have no idea how many are on roll). 50!

When I had the c-section, we were so inundated with food that we had to freeze much of it and are STILL eating leftover casseroles. When Brian was looking for full-time work, it was common for us to get checks in the mail. We weren't announcing that he didn't have a full-time job, and we certainly never asked for money. But word got around, as it always does, and the church responded, as they always do. One family bought Brian two suits when he got his job with the state. What's extraordinary is that this is common in our church - there were no announcements, no fanfare, just - help. My church is also multicultural, both in the leadership and in the congregation. There are no tokens, only people and families that are white, black, and Hispanic. There are also several interracial couples and biracial children. In Alabama, in particular, that's an unusual Sunday morning scene. It is also common to see people praying together before church starts or after it's over. Several families open their homes on holidays to single people or to those far from home. They vacation together, they raise one another's children, and still they are open and welcoming every week to newcomers. For all the hype in church plants about community, my church doesn't ever talk about it. They just live it out.

And this is what a church can do for my child, that I can't do alone. I can teach him Scripture, and I can talk about loving and serving people. But I can't show him how on my own. And I can't teach him love - he needs to experience that, in all of its forms. At home, of course, but also from friends and their parents and little old ladies and Sunday school teachers. I can tell him about church, but I'd rather not. I want him experience life, not just recite it. At my church, I am confident he will.

happy mother's day

Don't you know it's your laugh we laugh that pulls us through
And the strength and the love that we carry
We got it from you

- Be Good Tanyas
"Momsong"

When you have a newborn, everyone says, "Don't worry. He'll be sleeping through the night in just a few weeks." And that's true; eventually he does. What they don't tell you is that sleeping through the night is a mirage. You may think you've found it, only to realize at 3:30 am that you've been eating sand and every clue - crying, drooling, runny nose, spitting up - is a symptom of MULTIPLE THINGS, making it not so much a clue as JUST PART OF BEING A BABY and not at ALL helpful in getting to go back to bed.

Even so - isn't he cute?

each of these could be their own post, but i don't have that kind of time.

1. I spent the weekend in Nashville. We hiked and drank gas station coffee on Belmont Boulevard (the irony did not escape me. Apparently no one in the Belmont/Hillsboro area lives by a baby's circardian rhythm, or Bongo Java - or any other of the MYRIAD of coffee shops - would be open before 8 am. I guess they're marketing to a, um, different crowd. One that has no need for coffee before noon) and drank what was left of a bottle of champagne (after it exploded on Mikkee - I didn't think alcohol could freeze!) and saw Jon and Mechelle's supercool future house. I was reminded of what a beautiful city Nashville is, how fun it was to live there, and how much I love the choices we've made. It was a good weekend.

2. Meanwhile, my baby is developing his own personality. It's so much fun to watch. I know that the novelty of my life will eventually wear off, but it hasn't so far.

3. Everybody needs a Sabbath.

4. I have developed a peculiar sensitivity to the way the South is represented in books and movies. The characters are usually flat, and this bothers me. Or, if they develop at all, it's a movement into the realization that they are capable of more than passing cornbread and drawling cliches. Come on, folks. Spend a little less time on the accents and trailer parks, if you please, and I will spend a little more time reading your book.

5. Having said that, my mom just published a book that I haven't yet read for entirely different reasons. I think my mom is brilliant and an excellent writer who has surpassed every goal she's ever set for herself. I learned both to read and to love reading from her, and I've read enough embryotic versions of Alabama Listening to know that I would love it. If it were just a story, that is. But for me it's not - it's about my family, too, and that changes everything.

6. I have become a mama bear, and Brian says I'm more bear than mama most of the time. Consider yourself warned.

7. Mikkee and I had a great conversation this weekend about being made in the image of God, and His encompassing nature that includes the maternal desires to nurture us. It was good for me to remember that - I'd become so aware of God's holiness that I was feeling pretty silly whenever I prayed. Remembering the tenderness of God helped. I could say much more, but once again, my time is up.

Happy Tuesday, everyone.

I had more to say today, but I got sidetracked by literacy and Buffy and homeless bloggers.

Two blogs that I regularly visit have mentioned an article in the New York Times about book reviews moving from newspapers to blogs. Here is the full article, if you are interested. Both bloggers are authors who feel somehow dissed by the New York Times. Here's what Joshilyn said about it: ... because to say, as the NYT did, that BOOK REVIEWS have moved to BLOGS alone is to say that reading is for well off people, a middle class pastime, and only those of us with who have computers in our homes and at our nice office jobs are READERS. You, little poor kids, go rob something, reading is for Muffy and Buffy, not you. Wait ... What?! I'm sorry Joshilyn, you're incredibly funny and occasionally poignant, but to suggest that the NEW YORK TIMES influences poor kids to read their books so they can grow up big and strong is, in my opinion, wrong.

The internet has become a part of most of our daily lives. If this guy can keep up his blog by accessing the public library, you can be certain that the "poor kids" Joshilyn is referencing are also spending their after school hours in libraries doing the same. Also, can I make a confession? Most of my favorite books and poets were at one time assigned to me by a teacher. Those that were not were recommended by Oprah or a friend. A few might have come from my mother. One came from the Today show. Every now and then, I'll pick up an unknown book with a good cover and love it. But never once has the New York Times influenced my decision on what books to read or buy. I guess the argument could be made that the teachers are reading the reviews that are influencing their syllabus choices, but this seems like a long way for information to travel to get to the hands of working-class book lovers. Trickle down literacy, we'll call it. If you want kids to eat their veggies and grow up to go to Harvard and write books that can be sold on Amazon.com, encourage their librarians and English teachers and 101 professors to read - and buy - your book. Or, put the information on the internet, where it is more likely to be accessed by the general public. And leave Muffy and Buffy alone. They're trying to finish today's issue of the Times.

life at home

First of all, HAPPY BIRTHDAY STEPHANIE!

Now. As I’ve said earlier, the hardest part about working at home is the routine nature of extraordinary tasks. So I’ve heard myself saying several times lately, “I should get an award for this!” I keep imagining a Harry Potter-esque scene, in which an owl swoops through a window and drops a roll of parchment. As I open it, trumpeters begin their fanfare and rabbits salute and a chorus sings, “Congratulations! You’ve just won the (insert appropriate award) Award!” I know, it’s like The Secret Life of Walter Mitty around here, but it gets me through the day. Here is an example of what I mean.

Because I followed my instincts - however reluctantly and after much encouragement from friends smarter than myself - my son naps beautifully now. Little fussing, flexible yet structured, and able to sleep wherever we are (except sometimes restaurants, because they’re always so loud and lively and what if he missed all the fun?). Had I not followed my instincts, the two of us would still be screaming and whimpering our way through the day. Congratulations! (cue the rabbit) You’ve just won the Happy Napper Award.

Trumpeters and owls notwithstanding, I’m really enjoying my life right now. Four months old is SO FUN. It’s full of sweet potatoey hands and squeals and chuckling at the dog (he’s always been a funny dog). In general, all is well in the Gates home.