Dialogues with daughters

The other day, as I was reading Is There a Meaning in This Text? I found a passage that I knew my daughter would like.  I emailed it to her, and we had a little exchange about it. This book has been fun for me in that my daughter has studied literary theory already, and she's familiar with some of the things I'm reading.  The love of books; the love of study; it's always been something that connects my daughter and me.

I remember a conversation I had with her when she was eight years old.  It was a mother-daughter date night out.  First stop, the public library.  After that, a nearby restaurant. Her comment to me that night was, "I need books like a lion needs meat."

Yes, I knew that.  I had known it since she was eight months old, and she would sit patiently through chubby board book after chubby board book. I thought this was normal behaviour for a baby.  Imagine my surprise when neither of my boys would do that.

Books and learning have been her passion for a long time.

Yes, I have tried to teach other other things that I love doing.  Sewing, crocheting, knitting, cooking; all of those things I knew to be enjoyable as well as useful.  She didn't enjoy them.  As for crafts?  Well, let's just say that when she went away to university, she had a closet full of beads, bobbles, and trinkets that were well-intended gifts that were never used. When it came to a choice between taking a toilet paper roll and some cotton balls and applying white glue as opposed to reading a book, there was no contest.  And all of this has made for a young woman with a clear goal of what she wants to do: she wants to be a professor. 

My daughter will be twenty-four in July.  I was twenty-four when I gave birth to her. Her life at twenty-four is vastly different than mine was. And I'm not saying different in a way that means her life is somehow wrong, or that her life is in limbo until she gets married.  It's just different, and that's fine. I have a daughter, not a clone.  There will, Lord willing, come a day when she becomes a mother.  It's something she does look forward to. I will be there to help out. 

My goal for my daughter is to live a life serving the Lord whatever she does. And if someone wants to tell me that she's not serving the Lord unless she's married and has children, I'm afraid I'm going to stop listening after a while, because I just don't believe it. When we take that approach, do we realize how many women we exclude? 

My desire for every woman, young or old, married or not, working or not, is to love the Lord with all their hearts, to love their neighbours as themselves (and that means their husbands and children, their nearest neighbours) and to seek God daily in the word, in prayer, and in worship. That is the foundation of what I want to teach as an older woman and as a mother. The details may look different from year to year, but the ultimate foundation remains the same.

Worthwhile links

I didn't do a lot of blog reading this week, but there are a few that I think are worthwhile reading:

Rebecca is sharing some snippets from a commentary like none I've ever read. Here's one and here's another.

Karis started posting regularly this week.  Jessica Thompson talked about Good Works Gone Bad.

Shona reflected on Babies and Bathtubs (1) and (2). 

Aimee talked about being Bigger Than the Box, after hearing Susan Hunt on the weekend.  She talked about wanting to stand up and cheer at Hunt's presentation.  I wanted to stand up and cheer after reading her post.

Social media and the young

Yesterday, I had a lunch date with my daughter, and I was encouraged about her attitude toward social media. She described it to me as a love-hate relationship. She sees the benefit of it, and as an academic, it provides a good venue for information. But she recognizes its weaknesses, too.

As we talked about writing, books, and how social media can help or hinder our writing, she shared with me that she realizes that social media can become a breeding ground for competition and posturing. I'm glad she sees that. It's so true. She recognizes the tendency for her peers to regard something as not really happening unless it's on social media. You didn't eat that hamburger; it's not on Instagram. She astutely reocgnized that social media does allow us the ability to create our own worlds, letting those in we want and excluding those we don't.  She doesn't have Facebook for this reason.

The thing she said that really stuck with me is her comment about how being too forthcoming on social media, i.e., revealing too much about one's personal life, can give people power over you. I had not really seen it that way. What she meant is that when we share too many personal details with people we know only online, it creates a sense that they know you better than they really do. There is still a place for discretion and privacy.

I have been thinking about that quite a bit since our lunch. I was pleased, though, that despite being under twenty-five, she has pretty responsible attitudes about social media. And one thing she said that really encouraged me was that she makes every effort to never complain on Twitter because as she said to me, "What do I have to complain about?  I'm so blessed."

How's that for a word of wisdom from the young?

The unintended legacy

Have you ever wondered why God put people into your life? Have you ever looked back and seen that something that happened twenty or thirty years ago was something that taught you right now, today?  I have.

I knew a girl in junior high named Kathy.  I've written about her before.  Kathy looms large in my memory because I watched her endure something I was also enduring:  being bullied.  

Kathy was a plump girl, shy, with a very soft voice. She had long dark hair that would have benefitted by some attention from a comb. She had a large bosom, but her mother seemed to think it unnecessary for Kathy to wear a bra. To make matters worse, she was regularly penalized for not having her gym clothes: running two laps around the gym while everyone watched and waited.  Kathy's laps were always fodder for the boys' jeering and wisecracks.  The teacher who dished out that punishment to Kathy should have been smacked upside the head.

Kathy was also called "Boss Hog" by one of the boys, and he regularly hurled insults at her, and on one occasion put white glue into her already tangled hair.  I watched all of it.  I watched, and said nothing because I was enduring my own situation.

Penny, Jamie, Susan, Patty, Kelly, and Vicki; those were my major tormentors. It wasn't out for all to see the way it was with Kathy.  It consisted mostly of notes slipped into my locker threatening to beat me up; or hushed comments as I walked by them in the hall, using names a lady ought not to repeat.  It was a situation of them one week being my friends, and then next being totally frozen out, and then harrassed.  Why do girls do these things?  I still don't know. My situation culminated with all of them chasing me home from school one winter day at lunch hour.  To this day, I remember running home right on top of my shadow, and arriving home, breathless, my lungs about to burst.

I watched Kathy because I was afraid that I would only get it worse if I said anything. I didn't think about reaching out to her because I was afraid.  It didn't occur to me what a disservice it was to her until 10th grade when I saw her in high school.  I said hello to her one day, and she was very surprised I remembered her name. My dear Kathy, I could never forget it.  There was an opportunity for solidarity in suffering, and I blew it; big time.

All of those girls' names and faces are close to the surface still, after thirty years.  I see Kathy's face as if I just saw her in the grocery store yesterday.  I still remember the sounds of those boys laughing at her, and I remember the sound of those girls who chased me.

So, why am I telling you this?  Is it because sometimes, when I've had conflict with women, I feel that familiar tightness in my chest that I felt for most of junior high?  No.  I'm sharing it because it is a reminder to me that the notion of leaving a legacy, or leaving a mark, or being a mentor to someone - whatever you want to call it - is not always intentional.  We all leave a legacy whether we know it or not.

Make no mistake.  People will remember us; if we treated them well, the chances are pretty good.  If we treated them badly, it's a certainty.

As a Christian woman, I am visible to others.  What do they see?  What will they remember?  Will I haunt someone's dreams in years to come because I did not treat him or her kindly?  I wasn't perfect in high school; does some 48 year old woman wonder where I am today so she could give me a piece of her mind?

We have a choice as Christians.  What kind of picture will people recall when they think of us, if they think of us at all?  Will they see someone who believed and lived what she believed?  The doctrine that fills our heads and that provides fascination for us must be lived out or it's just a pile of propositions.  I may live for another thirty or forty years, or I may live another two or three; or I may die today.  That's under God's sovereign control. In the time I have left on this earth, I want to live in such a way that the light of Christ is evident; kindness, gentleness, faith, hope, love.  It sounds so easy; but it isn't.

Wherever you are Kathy, I wish I had reached out to you, and above all, I pray your found Christ, and that you learned of His tremendous love for you.  

Kicking off

Karis, the women's channel at The Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood is kicking off its A Walk Through the Word series.  Today, I've been given the opportunity to look at Titus 2.