Guilt and Wonder Woman

"I feel guilty a lot. I compare myself with the 

women who are home with their kids. I think I'm a little intimidated. 

Every woman feels guilty about the choices that they make." ~ Sheryl Sandberg

I just decided that my most recent haircut has a definite Mrs. Brady vibe going on, which I kind of like—there was a time I wanted to be Mrs. Brady when I grew up. This made me think about other women I admired when I was a kid. I was a girl, so of course, I went through my ballerina stage—didn’t last long. Both Wonder Woman and the Bionic Woman were heroes of mine—all the athletics I did as a kid were just me working out my Wonder Woman and Bionic Woman fantasies. On top of that, Wonder Woman wore glasses and she was still gorgeous, which made me feel better about my four-eyed status. 

But my all-time favorite television heroine has got to be…Della Street, Perry Mason’s secretary. Beautiful, smart, witty, kind, just the right amount of friendly and flirty, and indispensable. Of course, she and Perry were always on the right side of the good and evil divide. 

Pondering my Della girl-crush, I realized something—I love being “the person behind the person.” I know, not very modern to admit in this age of “leaning in.” Still, I’ve been the janitor and I’ve been the boss, and of all the jobs I’ve had up and down the corporate ladder in between, Executive Assistant has been my favorite—and I’m good at it. This led to a particularly embarrassing moment at a going away party when my soon-to-be-former boss, with tears in her eyes, told everyone that I was the absolute best thing that had ever happened to her…while her husband stood there, mouth agape.

It’s not that I want to avoid responsibility. Anyone who’s been or had a good executive assistant understands that the assistant is the one that makes it all work—even if no one else is aware of it (and they shouldn’t be, if the assistant is good at what he does.)

It’s like that scene in The American President, where Michael Douglas, as President Shepherd, is grumpily harranguing his ever-loyal Chief of Staff, A.J., played by Martin Sheen:

President Shepherd: Is the view pretty good from the cheap seats, A.J.?

A.J.:  I beg your pardon?

President Shepherd: Because it occurs to me that in twenty-five years I've never seen YOUR name on a ballot. Now why is that? Why are you always one step behind ME?

A.J. Because if I wasn't, you'd be the most popular history teacher at the University of Wisconsin!

But back to not feeling guilty about where we are in life, which is really what I’m getting at, in my meandering way. Women should be the CEO, and men, too, but only those who are called to it. Whether you believe in some cosmic idea of the universe or you fall more on the side of divine authorship like myself, the truth is we all have our own unique gifts and calling. Life is about figuring out what those gifts are and using them to the best of our abilities. But, and this is important, no one else can tell you what your place is, and how we use our abilities and gifts may not fit anyone else’s idea of success—and that’s okay.

I admit, my ideas about this sort of thing are heavily influenced by the Bible. You can find the basis for it in Romans 12:

For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them…

In the body of Christ, it’s good to be a mouth. It’s just as good to be an ear or a toe. Not because they are all equal, but because it’s good to be what you were created to be. What’s important is that you’re part of “the body in Christ, and individually members one of another.”

The Apostle Paul talks a lot about the mysteries of the gospel that have been revealed to us. The contentment and peace that comes to individuals in a Christian community walking in step with Christ is mysterious. The world alternates between encouraging us to do anything to come out on top, or trying to make everyone equal, and both ways end up in tyranny. God does community, and we end with each of us fulfilling our unique calling, together we love and change the world, and ultimately there is great freedom and joy. God’s way is always better, but as the state of the world attests, it can’t be done apart from Christ.

I believe God has called me to write, but that’s not all. The kids are growing up and there’s additional work to be done out there. I’ve been praying about where He’s calling me next. I wonder what I’d look like in a Della Street haircut.

Sowing Seeds

Last weekend my men got the tanks in for our latest experiment in urban gardening - our stock tank garden (we couldn't resist the photo op before we filled them with dirt). It reminded me of this essay I wrote a few years back. The boys are older now - a huge help in the garden - and will be doing more manly things this summer than I mention here. But mostly, this essay still resonates. So, back by popular demand (mine!) and "updated for today's English" it's...the spring garden post.

The latest is something called Urban Farming. When we heard that phrase the other night, Sean started to snicker and said, “Grandma Vivian’s plot of land on the farm in Kansas was over an acre, planted to the gills, and she called it ‘a garden’.”

I suppose it’s easier to see the difference between a farm and a garden when you have a real working farm around you as far as the eye can see. Someone once said, “Unemployment is capitalism’s way of getting you to plant a garden.”[i] So I can see, considering the soaring rate of unemployment in our cities, why folks might turn to their shovels. Taking time away from the madding crowd, digging one’s hands into the dirt, using muscles you haven’t used before, I can tell you from experience, this is very therapeutic.

I guess the idea of a garden was just too tame for some goal oriented go-getters. No simple “plot of ground where plants are cultivated” would do. No, they would turn their city bound pieces of land into Farms. A “tract of land cultivated for the purpose of agricultural production” sounds so much more professional, ultra-productive–it’s something you could put on a resume!

But wait, there’s more. It’s not just a farm–it’s the Urban Farming Movement. Urban Farming is “the practice of cultivating, processing and distributing food in, or around (peri-urban), a village, town or city.” That’s management level stuff, complete with jargon and everything.

So now Aunt Phyllis will be happy to learn that when she drops off that box of zucchini and tomatoes in the church kitchen next fall, she’s not just demonstrating God’s beneficence through a sweet act of kindness. No, she is an URBAN AGRICULTURALIST!! (Can Urban Home Farming federal subsidies be far behind?)

You will be glad to know there is a web-site where you can sign up to join their movement. You can friend them on Facebook, and sign up for their Twitter feed. One wonders when we will have time to water and weed.

How about this? How about just digging up a little patch of lawn in your yard, or filling up a container, and calling your children to come see—not to weed, but to plant. Because, as someone else once said, “Why try to explain miracles to your kids when you can just have them plant a garden.”[ii] Then, send them off to play, or to read, or to swim, or to ride their bikes this summer, and sit for a while. Think about how, in the cool and quiet of evening when the last rays of sun slide behind western hills, you will weed, water, and nurture those little shoots when they appear. No maximizing production. No distribution mechanisms.

In my garden this summer, I will “visit and revisit it a dozen times a day, and stand in deep contemplation over my vegetable progeny with a love that nobody could share or conceive of who had never taken part in the process of creation.”[iii] When the first shoots push out of the ground, I will call the children to smile and exult in great expectation and hope for a bountiful harvest. Because it is “one of the most bewitching sights in the world to observe a hill of beans thrusting aside the soil, or a rose of early peas just peeping forth sufficiently to trace a line of delicate green.”[iv]

Over the years, I've spent a lot of time in “urban environments,” and I understand the desire to turn a vacant, garbage-strewn lot into a paradise. But why isn’t that enough for us? Watching the way beauty and life can spring from ugliness and death on this planet should leave us awe-struck and speechless. I admire anything that gives children in the inner-city something hopeful and happy to do in between dodging bullets and turning down illegal drugs on their way home from school. To have healthy, well-fed children is a good goal. 

But I’m puzzled by our grinding ambition to make ourselves seem more important to the process than we actually are.

Despite what I do in my garden, some things will flourish, some things will die, and there will be many surprises–both the disappointing and the joyful–along the way. Because “there is no gardening without humility. Nature is constantly sending even its oldest scholars to the bottom of the class…”[v]

You see, it isn’t about Production and Distribution. It’s about miracles, and perseverance, character, hope, and joy. In the end, yes, there will be food to share. In the end, we will have more than any of us can eat. Not because we toiled and labored and incited movement.

But simply because The Creator is really good at what He does. “There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;/ And though the last lights off the black West went/ Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—/ Because the Holy Ghost over the bent/ World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.”[vi]

Happy spring and happy gardening!

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[i] Orson Scott Card

[ii] Robert Brault

[iii] Nathaniel Hawthorne

[iv] Nathaniel Hawthorne

[v] Alfred Austin

[vi] Gerard Manley Hopkins