Walk With Me

Mother’s Day Is in the Cards

Wed, 07 May 2008 08:10:08 -0600

My daughter, Alison, sends the world’s best greeting cards. One of my favorites pictures an odd, gangly girl with crooked glasses and teeth coming in at various stages of growth. I keep this card on my desk at work, and whenever I look at the picture I laugh.

A few years ago my other daughter, Laura, sent me a Mother's Day card listing her top ten reasons why I'm the best mom ever. Number six stated, “You always say, ‘You won't always feel like this’ when I'm feeling hopeless, and it instantly comforts me.” She addressed the card to Mama Jesus Kennedy, her nickname for me, and inserted two dollar bills I still have.

I hope my daughters enjoy selecting cards for me. And I wish I enjoyed buying cards for my mother.

Straight Talk About Money

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 17:09:36 -0600

Money’s a topic that makes people squirm. Many couples can’t have a candid conversation about purchases or budgets or checking account balances. Perhaps this reticence explains why the median credit card debt in American households is $6,600, according to CardTrak.com.

Similarly, churches—both their leaders and members—seem to have a hard time speaking plainly about finances. I’ve heard plenty of long, flowery speeches about firstfruits, multiplication, and abundance. And I’ve listened to a few drawn-out threats that God will forcibly take what’s his if I don’t freely give it. One church I visited took two offerings; and several friends’ churches have passed the plate as many as five times in one service.

Snow in April

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 17:56:50 -0600

We’ve had a miserable winter here in Minnesota. And oddly enough, the snow and ice and wind and cold haven’t yet fazed me.

However, in these first weeks of April, my part of the country is awaiting yet another snowstorm. Sadly, April snowstorms aren’t that unusual here in the frozen wasteland.

But this year, winter has tried the patience of even the most stoic Midwesterners. Most of my friends here are irritated beyond words at this weather’s continuation. They’ve endured a long, frigid five months, and just want winter to end. So my undaunted attitude in the face of more snow, more shoveling, more scraping of windshields and bundling of children is quite certainly a mark of astonishing growth.

On Being Questioned About Matters of Faith

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 14:17:59 -0600

I’ve been studying Genesis for the past year and have found the book’s emphasis on violence rather striking. After Cain kills his brother, he worries that marauders in the regions of his exile will kill him. A few generations later, Cain’s descendant Lamech brags about his own murderous exploits. Soon the earth is so “filled with violence,” as God explains to Noah, that God decides “to put an end to all people” (6:13) in a great flood.

What struck me as I squirmed through the horrific flood account was God’s violence in response to human violence. However evil the people of that time may have been—and surely they were no more evil than the people of today—I couldn’t erase from my mind the resulting image of that genocide, the plaintive cries from high places, the gurgling screams and thrashing that must have horrified Noah and his family as all the world drowned. How could a loving God have done such a thing? I wondered. I struggled to understand what God’s violence says about his character, and how it's relevant to my own life.

Spiritual Heart Disease

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 08:41:44 -0600

Ever since my husband’s open-heart surgery last year, I’ve been hyper vigilant about my heart health. Maybe a little too hyper.

I’ve relaxed a bit now, but I was taking my blood pressure several times a day. (It’s always low.) I pop fish-oil capsules and baby aspirin daily. I haven’t eaten pizza in months, and I’m pretty much caffeine free.

Despite my newfound vigilance, I started experiencing heart palpitations shortly after my husband’s operation. So I went to my family physician and told him I thought I had “contagious heart disease.” He told me there’s no such thing, but he took an EKG anyway. When the test results came back normal, he said the palpitations could be from the stress of my husband’s ordeal, and told me I shouldn’t worry so much.

A Partnership Made in Heaven?

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 12:29:52 -0600

If Tree Top, the apple juice company, offered your church a donation for outreach ministries, would you take it? What if Coca-Cola gave a contribution, no strings attached, to your building fund? Or if Budweiser sent a sizable amount for your missions project?

Some of you will consider those questions carefully. Others of you will dismiss them altogether—after all, they pose hypothetical situations that probably won’t happen to you.

A Bitter Taste

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 08:22:07 -0600

Today is a resentful day.

I don’t like to give in to resentment, but right now I’m losing the battle. I’ve even made a list of my day’s resentments:

I resent my work for piling up all at once.
I resent my three-year-old for not napping.
I resent my husband for coming home later than promised.
I resent the laundry for needing to be done five days in a row.
I resent dinner for taking so long to make.
I resent the cold weather for making me hunch my shoulders outside.
I resent the cold weather for being so cold.
I resent my body for getting older and refusing to process fat efficiently.
I resent my house for being old and drafty, and chilling my fingers while typing.
I resent my friend Todd for beating me at online Scrabble five times.
I resent the dog.

Defined by Violence

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 08:46:01 -0600

In trying to decide how much violence to retain in editing my recent food memoir, I got to thinking about the spiritual dimensions of being a carnivore. We’ve lost all sense of this violence in our culture.

These days, meat is a substance packaged on a Styrofoam tray, wrapped in plastic, lined with a sanitary mat to soak up the juices—our euphemism for blood. If we think at all about the violence involved in butchering, we’re put off, so we avoid acknowledging it.

Until my most recent reading of Genesis, I never noticed how violence defines humanity. Cain, Adam and Eve’s firstborn, killed his brother, and soon the earth was so “filled with violence” (Genesis 6:13) that God regretted creating humans and drowned all but a few in the Flood.

“Weighting” on the Lord

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 08:01:31 -0600

In the last few months, I’ve been dealing with two parallel problems.

Problem #1: I’m stuck at a weight-loss plateau. Five years ago, I joined Weight Watchers. A year later, I’d achieved my goal, losing 37 pounds from my five-foot, one-inch frame.

Losing the weight was incredibly easy: Since my husband worked out of town, I only had to cook for myself. For nearly a year, I lost steadily, never hitting a plateau, never yo-yoing one pound up, one pound down.

Christians Behaving Badly

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 09:03:04 -0600

I was shocked and dismayed to hear actor Heath Ledger died last month. Shocked, because Ledger was only 28. Dismayed, because I learned of his passing through an MSNBC.com article titled “Church Plans to Protest Ledger’s Memorial.”

Apparently, Fred Phelps’s family is at it again. Fred Phelps is the founder of Westboro Baptist Church (WBC), a group known for vigorously condemning homosexuality through protests, videos, and websites such as GodHatesFags.com. They believe the Iraq war is God’s punishment for America’s acceptance of homosexuality, and they became infamous for picketing funerals of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq. Ledger became WBC’s target because he played a gay cowboy in the 2005 movie Brokeback Mountain.

Hidden Hurt

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 08:33:11 -0600

I hadn’t seen Cheryl in 20 years. But when we met for lunch last week, we felt we were right back in college. We laughed about the numerous guys we’d liked, the cruddy apartment we’d shared our junior year, and the mystifying way 20 years suddenly seemed like an instant.

I’d been a little nervous about seeing Cheryl. She’s now an important businesswoman married to an important businessman. I knew she’d drive a nicer car, wear better clothes, and live a far more interesting life than mine. None of those accomplishments surprised me. Even in college, Cheryl had always appeared confident and smart—knowing what she wanted and how to get it. She’d stayed focused and above the fray, as if she didn’t worry what anyone thought of her. Cheryl had been ready for adulthood. I, on the other hand, still had felt like a child.

Angel Visits

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 08:31:56 -0600

The other day, while on the phone with an old friend, I confided my struggle to be a better conversationalist.

“I talk about myself too much,” I told her. “I never remember to ask people about their lives. I’m trying to get into the habit of mentally reviewing all the questions I should ask before I call. I’ve got a list near the phone of topics relevant to specific friends in case they call. Even then,” I confessed, “I’m so self-centered, I often get caught up in something I’m saying and forget my lists altogether. I feel so bad.”

“Yeah,” my friend said. “You do tend to monopolize conversations.”

Appreciating Laura

Tue, 05 Feb 2008 10:16:42 -0600

A few months ago, I attended the Laura Isaacs Appreciation Barbecue. Laura’s a coworker at the newspaper where I work. At 24, she lives with her cat, Spock, and loves Hello Kitty and ballerina flats.

I don’t remember what was going on in Laura’s life at the time—boyfriend problems, I think. The impromptu barbecue to celebrate Laura was fellow coworkers Cristy and Shemir’s idea, and it took place at Cristy’s apartment.

Misplaced Faith

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 08:44:23 -0600

News reports indicate religious faith is one of the most important issues in the 2008 presidential election—right up there with the Iraq war, economy, immigration, environment, education, health care, and terrorism. I wonder, When did faith become an "issue"?

I don't know whether pundits, political analysts, or the presidential candidates themselves decided faith would be a hot topic for this election. Maybe the public—or even we Christians—did. In any case, candidates clearly are making their beliefs known. Mike Huckabee's campaign slogan is "Faith. Family. Freedom." Hillary Clinton spoke about faith and works at Saddleback Church's 2007 HIV/AIDS Summit. Barack Obama's website lists a phone number voters can call to pray for him and his family.

All Grown Up

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 17:06:08 -0600

I’ve recently been feeling a bit old. This feeling started when my friend Carrie asked me for relationship advice. “I’m hoping a wise woman like you will have ideas for handling my situation,” she said. The word wise made me wonder when I’d transitioned from the young, advice-seeking girl to the old, advice-giving woman. And the notion occurred to me that maybe I hadn’t suddenly become old; maybe, to paraphrase Sunset Boulevard’s aging actress Norma Desmond, it was the girls who got young.

Granted, I’ve always felt much younger than I am. I’ll turn 42 next month, but I feel like I’m in my 20s. I like to believe my taste in music and movies has remained reasonably hip over the years. I still wear my hair long and unkempt because I refuse to succumb to perfectly coiffed “mom hair.” And while I do indeed drive a minivan, I hit the gas in cool motorcycle boots that are the envy of my 20- and 30something friends.