Welcome to Ministry

When I was 15 I did the whole "write down what you want in a husband" thing that they have Christian girls inevitably do at summer camp or a youth retreat because a 15-year-old obviously knows what to look for in a forever partner. (On an immediate side note, I suggest we start asking girls and boys to start listing out what characteristics they would like to see in themselves in the future in hopes of starting to form an identity that isn't dependent on their relationship to the opposite sex.  But I digress.)

On the list were the things I knew I "should" put down like smart and funny and loves Jesus.  I listed the things I wanted to put down hidden within my thinly veiled piety such as really tall and good looking.  And I included one thing that I knew I didn't want in a husband, so in bold and underlined letters I wrote: "Not a pastor!"

I wrote that not necessarily because I had lots against pastors, I knew pastors I liked very much.  I had yet to find, however, a pastor's wife that wasn't either quiet, meek, played the organ and was in charge of Sunday School, or stern, unforgiving, legalistic, and in charge of potluck, or simply the town gossip that no one trusted but everyone talked to.  I didn't want to be any of those women.  I didn't want the exp[ectations of being a pastor's wife to define my dreams or my failures.  I saw it happen in a small town, I knew that wasn't the life for me.

So low and behold when I met Noah 14 years ago and he told me he was at seminary, my only response was, "damn."  I wasn't sure if that was because I was trying to convince myself not to date him or if it was because I had to come to grips with being a pastor's wife.  Three years later I became what my naive 15 year old self most thought she didn't want to be: a pastor's wife.

Fast forward to the next few years in Chicago, finishing seminary, forging friendships I am so grateful for and gleaning every piece of advice I could from women in ministry who had lived my future life for decades.  You wanna know what?  Pretty much all their advice was really really depressing.  It centered around loneliness, uncertainty, heartbreak, betrayal by friends and other pastors, and the fickle nature of churches, communities, and faith.  So, naturally, I was stoked to take our first call and find out how I was going to have no friends, no faith and never see my husband.

As Noah and I are embarking on our 9th married year in full-time ministry, I can tell you without hesitation that they were not wrong, but they were also not right.  You see, all of these things are maladies ministry spouses are afflicted with, but they are not always constant, they do not all affect everyone, and thankfully, they do not all happen at once.  But when we give advice to people who are embarking on an unknown journey, we have a tendency to warn them of dangers and pitfalls and hope they learn from our struggles.  Yet when we define something around its contingent of horror stories instead of its potential for joy, we take the human experience out of abundance and into scarcity.  We do this with pregnancies and marriage and multiple kids and executive careers, and in my experience, we do it with ministry all the time.

So, I am going to do my best this summer to write down the pieces of advice I was given by women that I love and respect and shine a light on the falsehoods that plague the idea of being a ministry spouse.

I'm not doing this out of some sort of hope that you'll feel sorry for me and want to babysit my kids for free, I hope you'll want to to do that without me writing a single thing down, but that's just because I like naps.  I'm doing this because I don't think there are many progressive pastor's wives out there talking about life in this particular piece of our identity.  Maybe there are, maybe I should google it, but for now I hope to give people a little window into the life and love of ministry and what it is to be inside this crazy thing called church.

Join me.  Also please keep me accountable to writing more.

Begin Again

A few years ago, an account I follow on Instagram told the tale of when Ernest Hemingway was asked to tell an entire story in six words.  His response still shakes me to my core because it is so good and so raw: "For sale: baby shoes, never worn."

Doesn't that just hit you in the gut?  The same Instagram account challenged others to think of a six-word story that would tell about their lives, not just a story, but a personal tale.  A lot of people just jumbled six words like "Artistic, Fun, Hopeful, Outdoorsy, Dog Mom."  If you can't tell, that's not a story, that's a Tinder bio.

My six-word story was this: "Didn't think I'd begin so often."

Yes I know some of those words are contractions, I never claimed to be Hemmingway.

So here's the thing, I'm beginning again, at least in the sense of this blog.  I started writing here about five years ago and I have now changed the name of it four times.

The first was "She's Talking to Herself."  I thought it was a clever name because I talk to myself all the time and I didn't think I was going to gain much of an audience, so it made sense.

The next was "Grace and Pieces," because I sign my emails Grace and Peace and because I love to write about faith.  But as I tried to start writing about other things, I realized they didn't fit into the title.

The third iteration was "Feminine Feminist," because dangit I wanted to show the world that I could combine my love for makeup and my love for equality.  And then when I wanted to write about birth stories or ministry, it still didn't fit.

So here it is, iteration four: Ali Hormann - More Than One Thing.

I realized that I kept trying to fit myself into a niche so that I could justify telling you about parts of my life.  I kept saying to myself that I just needed to find a great and catchy title to get the right kind of audience. but I couldn't do it.  Each time I hemmed myself into a niche I immediately burst out of it, not simply because I love nachos, but because the tailored approach isn't for me.

I am all those things: someone who talks to herself endlessly, often about faith and religion, I'm a makeup lover and a fighter for equality who still has a hard time with the baggage that comes with the term, "feminism."  I'm also a mom and a daughter, a sister, a businesswoman, a homebody who sucks at decorating, a complete addict at trying new crafty adventures, a fiction enthusiast, and about a billion other things. 

So cheer's to breaking out of boxes and not letting titles define us.  Writing is finger yoga for my anxiety and I need to be faithful to it.  I have often felt like stepping away from writing is the same as stopping exercising, it will take me time, the first few runs are gonna be painful, but they are worth it.

So here I am again, beginning once more, sore and tired and more than one thing.

Donald Trump is not Caesar

Preface: This is political, you might not agree, but I must make two things very clear: The first is I am very grateful to be an American and as my distaste for all things America-First has continued to sour over the years, my gratitude for the ability to discuss my displeasure has only increased my thankfulness that I was privileged enough to be born here.  I am grateful for the servicewomen and men who put their lives on the line every day for that freedom and I pray continually that one day we won't need to fight the wars that take the lives of my friends any longer.

The second is this.  This article was not written out of hate so any hatefulness brought about because of it is a reflection of you, not me.  All hateful comments will be deleted.  If you want to say something, think if you'd say it at my kitchen table with my mom and my kids there and if you would, let me know, I'll invite you over.  Here's the thing, my mom might not even agree with me, but she loves me more than she loves my opinions and for that I am forever grateful.  So, here we go - 

In our heightened political climate, the role of religion and particularly Christianity is continuously more and more tenuous as people use terms like “left” and “right” to nicely fit a person into either an enemy camp or that of an ally.  It is, altogether, very un-ecumenical. People continually pick apart the Bible and point to stories that, in their minds, reflect their point, their opponent or their policies.  Despite the fact the most modern book in the cannon was written more than 1900 years ago, the insistence that the stories can be applied to contemporary culture still exists, especially in the internet’s most sacred church; social media.

We must remember that if the Holy Scriptures are our story, the story of hope and failure and redemption and the God who relentlessly pursues the renewal of humanity, then we cannot make those words a rubric for pithy moral storytelling but instead a recitation of a hymn sung over creation in hopes of bringing peace and order from chaos. You don’t see people making the Kardashians out to be the sisters at the well when Moses shows up, you don’t get to place every political figure into whichever Passion Story character you want.  

But if we are going to go down this road, I’m gonna go down it too because the current political landscape has brought to light a common text from the Gospels and fully taffy-pulled it out of context.  In Matthew 15, in an attempt to trick Jesus into saying the wrong thing, the Pharisees asked Jesus if it is right of them to pay tax to Caesar.  After pointing out the coins they paid their taxes with had Caesar’s name and seal on them, Jesus replied, “So give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s and give to God what is God’s.”

Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s.

So what does that mean?  What belongs to Caesar and truly who is he?

In much of Western Christianity, we see the idea of Rome’s monarch as the evil villain in a Disney movie, veiled in darkness and plotting make our hero fail.  But if Jesus is the Hero, we must remember that Caesar didn’t have anything against him.  Herod, the de facto leader of the Jews, and the Pharisees, the religious fundamentalists, were in a conscious and multi-year plot to kill the Son of God.  

You see, Caesar didn’t care because as long as they were paying their taxes, they could deal “with their own kind.”  This was the Pax Romana, the Peace of Rome.  It was a hierarchy that put pliable and weak-willed leaders in power that were willing to do the bidding of Rome’s whims.  Whether that meant greater taxes to build monuments to the greatness of Caesar or to build armies to plumb the depths of conquerable lands to enrich the resources of an unstable empire.

Jesus didn’t want anything to do with that lineage, with the corrupt politics of Rome.  But that doesn’t mean he wasn’t political, being against corrupt leaders with their own wealth and well being as their primary concern isn’t apolitical, it’s a grassroots campaign that begins with the creation hymn as its anthem and “Love your neighbor” as it’s battle cry. 

However over the years I’ve heard people use the idea of giving to Caesar as an excuse not to pay their taxes, as a tribute to the greatness of America (which is weird because they’re talking about Rome, which fell, badly, a couple times), as a reason to be apolitical, a reason to be overly political and as a reason to either glorify or demonize the current administration.

In fact, on March 9th, Jerry Falwell Jr., one of the most prominent voices in conservative Evangelicalism, tweeted the following to those criticizing Donald Trump’s border policies:

           “You nuts attacking @realDonaldTrump for securing the border need to show me where Jesus told Caesar how to run Rome. Jesus taught personal charity but went out of His way to say render unto Caesar that which is his. Jesus never told Caesar to let barbarians illegally enter Rome.”

When Barack Obama was president, I heard more than my fair share of Evangelical Christians, via their Facebook walls and infowars posts, grumble about paying taxes and quote verses about giving to Caesar.  They detested their certainty that every cent of their taxes was going to pay for abortions or legalize gay marriage.  They spat “Caesar” as an insult to a man they thought to be the very personification of a tyrant: President Obama.

Not so many years later those same people chided anyone who disagreed with Donald Trump, his policies or opinions, because he was the elected leader as Jesus tells us to give to Caesar what is Caesar’s.  I still don’t quite fathom how it is that those people don’t understand that in saying those words, they are admitting tyranny as a preferred nation-state, but I digress.  Because truthfully, I do not believe that Barack Obama or George W. Bush or Richard Nixon or Gerald Ford or George Washington were ever Caesar.  In that same vein, I do not believe that Donald Trump is Caesar.  I believe America, and moreover the ideals of American Nationalism, are Caesar.

Let me explain.

Sure, Caesar was a man, but moreover, he was an idea.  He was the lifeblood of Rome’s economy, prosperity, democracy, literacy and so on.  Tiberius Caesar was divine, he was praised and worshipped first.  His authority was pledged allegiance before any other God, so much so that it was on his money.  Those coins which bore the image of Tiberius said “Tiberius Caesar, Divine son of Augustus.”  His father’s coins read, “Augustus Caesar, Divine Father of Rome.”  The back of Tiberius’ coins read “Pontiff Maxim,” and if your Latin is rusty, that phrase translated that imperial authority was primary to worship.

So let’s get this straight.  Here are the people of the Roman Empire, Romans and occupied alike, whose very existence was dependent on these coins, dedicated to the God Caesar, demanding their trust in return for his coin.  In god they trust.

Not only that but there in their hands were idols to false gods cast of precious metals.  Money, the accumulation of wealth above all else was the goal of many because eating is nice but also think about the fact that a leader of the church, brought a coin bearing a false god, to the Son of God and asked if he could keep it instead of pay it back. (1)

We in America are so desensitized to the idols that surround us every day that we can call those leaders greedy and can’t seem to see the idea of income inequality that leaves 1 in 5 children hungry, as also greedy.  I mean they are in America, shouldn’t they be grateful?  They are watched over by laws and social conventions that further disparage the poor from finding their way out of poverty, but doesn’t living here mean you’re at peace?  When moms have to rub their kids backs, coaxing them to sleep amidst the ache of hungry sobs, when people of color intentionally name their children “white-sounding names” in hopes of making it to the job interview pool, when poor towns have lead or natural gas in their water and oil spills contaminate sacred lands, we still demand gratitude in the name of One Nation, Under god.

The penniless of Rome didn’t care that Caesar wanted to build a new monument to his greatness, they wanted to be able to feed their families, and their animals and themselves without having to make it a rotation.  

The grandness of the Empire made the surrounding world only notice its excess and either praise its greatness or plot it’s downfall, not for the equality of those whose poverty defined them, but to plunder the resources afforded to wealthy.  And there was no room to argue the merits of such authoritarianism.  The ideals of democracy had blinded leaders into believing that rich white men having a vote made things fair and anyone who had the audacity to question the cry of “Caesar is Lord” faced death, even death on a cross.

Which brings us to Holy Week.  The first thing Jesus does as he enters Jerusalem on a colt is head to the temple, where they are trading in these very coins, and overturns the tables.  The coins that were supposed to have been given BACK to Caesar were used to buy sacrifices to God.  False gods buying supplication to God Almighty.

So as Jesus challenged the axiom of Caesar’s lordship, he was killed for it, as was custom.  Because he challenged the grandeur of the idea that Rome was infallible, the greatest nation of all time and therefore unable to be objected.  They were a superpower, Caesar was the figurehead of an arrogant nation-state, that discarded its poor, threatened its neighbors, conquered non-threatening lands, and did so in the name of peace.

Now I know I said I don’t like it when people force the metaphors to fit the stories of Scripture, but I’m this far, might as well wrap it up.

I don’t believe that Donald Trump is Caesar, I believe he is the criminal element produced by Caesar.  In this story, Donald Trump is Barabbas.

He is infidel the people cried for because the one who said peace was greater than war wasn’t popular.  He is insurrectionist whose fate was sealed by the audacity of his existence and crimes and yet was given ultimate freedom to silence the peacemakers, the believers, and disciples. 

And before you ask, no I don’t think Hillary Clinton is Jesus in this scenario.  Christ is the sober self-assessment that says that as a Christian, your allegiance is pledged to a King and Kingdom that does not cast out its neighbors, that does not put children in cages, that does not kill black people because they are black.  It does not strip Indigenous peoples of their culture and rights and dignity for the oil beneath their grave sites.  It does not blame women for the atrocities committed against them simply because of their gender and it does not make excuses for leaders whose violent rhetoric threatens the lives of the very people he was tasked with saving.

The Kingdom of God is ruled by the Prince of Peace, the kind of all-encompassing peace that does not fear being conquered because peace surpasses understanding, outwitting it’s opponents while simultaneously welcoming all within its boundless nature.

The rise of white-supremacy, racism, ableism, sexism and so on is perpetrated by a figurehead whose idolatry is only to himself and the heaviness of hatred.  

So here we are, called to give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, handing back the idols we hoard.  Something I have a really hard time doing, but I’m also aware of that fact.  But the command goes further, give to God what is God’s.  In other words, give back to God what bears His image.

In case you weren’t sure, that means you.  And not only you but your neighbors, your co-workers, your children and the children across the border and across the ocean.  Every person that draws breath has the image of the One True God emblazoned on them, our job is to recognize that image as valuable and give sacrificially in the name of the God whose image we bear.

(1) This is a paraphrase of an idea in John Gleason's 2013 blog article found here:

 https://mindrenewers.com/2013/03/26/whose-is-this-image-and-superscription/

Bad Boyfriends, President Trump and the danger of “I Told You So.”

We all know friends who have been in relationships that we just couldn’t explain.  No matter how hard we try to point out the blaring red flags in the other person, some sort of fear based concoction of low self-esteem and the desire to belong, blinds our friend to the dangers of that relationship.  It’s heart-breaking and soul-sucking and eventually apathy-inducing to all who can see the mire-laden labyrinth our friend is convinced looks like a happy home.  In time we simply walk away, no longer able to stand the awkward dinners, the side-stepping of real conversation and finally the attempts by our friends to justify bad behavior by pointing out that we aren’t perfect either.

We all want to stay available for those friends.  We want to say we will be there when everything comes crashing down around them.  But here’s the thing I’ve learned from watching too many of my friends forego what they know to be right for what they found to be immediate; they are more afraid of my “I told you so” than they are of losing themselves entirely.

But that’s most of us, isn’t it?  We hate being wrong and what’s more is we hate being told that we were wrong by the people we didn’t listen to.  There is a sense of judgement we avoid with all that can muster because in our minds, intangible judgement is harsher than tangible pain.  So we watch as people make themselves small and insignificant in hopes that boosting the ego of the bad boyfriend will one day make them nicer, or make them wake up to their responsibilities.  And all that occurs is a cycle of abuse, belittling, confrontation, and eventually a small gesture that puts the rose colored glasses firmly back in place and the circle completes itself.

Those small gestures are crucial to the bad boyfriend.  They aren’t grand gestures, they are the kinds of things that a co-worker would do for you if you asked, but coming from Mr. Worst Ever, they seem thoughtful and humanizing.  I distinctly remember a friend whose go-to story about how sweet her boyfriend was, was that he did her dishes when she was sick one time.  Was that nice of him?  Yes.  Is that a good enough reason to have him treat her like garbage the rest of the time?  No.  Never.  One small humanizing act on his part does not negate his constant dehumanization of her.

That is how I feel about Republicans and President Trump.  

I grew up in a very conservative part of the country.  I probably know more Republicans than I know Democrats and, you know what?  I like my friends who happen to vote differently than me.  I even love my family members who don’t wince at the term “Crooked Hillary.” But I can feel my apathy beginning to set it and that’s where I need to watch myself.  Because for every scandal, every illegal inquiry, every horrible thing Trump has said, my desire to shout “I TOLD YOU SO” would never be heard over the immediate defensiveness they have for their Presidentially bad boyfriend.  

The thing is, when you’re talking about a president, those small gestures can mean the world to some people.  In January 2018 President Trump signed into law the Family Caregivers Act to create a national plan to support family caregivers who word tirelessly to care for their loved ones with disabilities.  That was and is a really good thing.

In March 2018, President Trump signed into law the FOSTA act which allows people to to prosecute the proprietors of websites that promote online sex trafficking, effectively shutting down the Craigslist personal ads as well as the horrendous backpage.com.  This was and is a very good thing.  

I am grateful that the President was able to look past his need for nationalist rhetoric and constant self-engrandizement in order to truly help the vulnerable and marginalized populations of the country he has sworn to protect.

But that does not justify the rest of his behavior.  And we all know that.  We now that if a child says he’s sorry for hitting his brother in the face and goes and gives his brother a toy that doesn’t justify him continuing to torment his brother.  

So I have a plea for those who feel some sort of angst and and unease about supporting the man they voted for.  You can leave him.  You can walk away.  You can speak out against misogyny and racism and classism and utter laziness.  You can do all those things without having to point out all the things the democrats do and did wrong.  You can be free of him.  

I’m not asking you to join the ACLU and get a DFL sticker for your bumper.  This isn’t and “either-or” situation.  You can leave him and still be a Republican.  You can fight for a candidate that appeals to your passion and not your fears, one whose intellect matches that of previous members of your party that made you proud to be a Republican.  

And you can do it all without being afraid to hear me say “I told you so.”  Because I just want to be here for you when you walk away from the abuse.  You don’t have to support him just because you voted for him.  You aren’t beholden to his antics because if there is anything he’s shown the world, it is that he is beholden to no one but himself.  

We can disagree and still love each other and I love you enough to see you walk away from him and rediscover your true selves.  He isn’t the benchmark for goodness or rightness or party politics.  He definitely isn’t any sort of martyr for the Christian faith.  He is lying to you, all the time and you’re letting it happen by saying it’s “not that bad” or that “he misspoke.”

I’ve had friends who’ve had those boyfriends who “didn’t mean it” when he said horrible things or “it was just one time” when she showed up with a bruise on her cheek.  We stay for fear of what we don’t know, but I promise you the freedom exists and so do people who will truly honor yours instead of simply furthering theirs.

And for those of you whose votes listed to the other side of the aisle, those who saw the red flags and got tired of pointing them out and instead huddled together, laughing and point and scheming against your friend's bad boyfriend, you are not in the clear either.  This is not the time for Facebook memes stating what you said all along.  This is not the space for public demands of apology from private individuals.  This is the time to give encouragement, honest to goodness encouragement.  Not patronizing and belittling language of understanding they "just didn't know any better."  Taking shots at the identity your friends have built in the wrong person isn't going to win them over, it's just going to build more walls.  And unless you've forgotten, you're against walls, remember?

I dislike bad boyfriends because they hurt people I care about. But the worst thing is they convince my friends I don't care about them and sometimes my friends believe the bad boyfriends.  And therein lies the greatest danger in all of it, the misinformation that is never clarified by the courage of facing an awkward interaction or asking a tough question and then we are left thinking we hate each other.  

I don't hate you, I don't even hate him, I just know he's not good enough for you and I love you too much to see you end up like him.

Aksel's Birth Story

Somedays I can't believe I haven't written this down yet and then somedays I remember I now have three children and I haven't gone to the bathroom in the last 12 hours.  So, before my last three brain cells are used in the attempt to remember something even further back than Aksel's birth, I thought I would write it down here.

On Saturday, May 6th, two days before my due date, Noah and I were deciding whether or not he should preach the next day because, who knows, I could be in labor.  Not to mention, I had made sure to move as much furniture as possible on that day to help move things along, but as we sat in our living room that night, it had made no difference.  So we decided he should preach the next day and that was that.

Then, of course, beginning at 6 am on Sunday, May 7th, I was having contractions I couldn't sleep through.  All I could think was, "Really?  You couldn't wait a few hours?"  So as we began rushing around trying to make substitute plans, I called my parents and said I was in labor and if they wanted to head down to the cities after church that day, that would be wonderful.  Then, I called the midwife on call and to much rejoicing, it was my midwife I'd seen a handful of times, her name is Valor.  I told her my contractions were 7 minutes apart and didn't change if I stood or laid down or anything.  She said "Great!  Let's have a baby!  Come in when the contractions are five minutes apart."

I started packing my hospital bag (don't judge, third baby) and about five minutes later my phone rang, it was the hospital.  I answered it and Valor sounded just defeated.  She proceeded to tell me that Woodwinds Hospital (where I had planned on delivering) was "in divert."  Essentially that meant the hospital was understaffed and was sending all Labor & Delivery patients to different hospitals in the same system.  I was pretty heartbroken, so I prayed and asked God to slow down my contractions enough to keep labor at bay until they could discharge a few patients.  Then, I texted my sisters and asked them to pray for the same thing.  And within 30 minutes my contractions were 12-13 minutes apart.

So, I told Noah to go to church and preach and take the boys with him.  I stayed home while he preached, keeping his phone on him.  I laid down on the couch an watched a movie and when the clock hit 11am and I knew that Noah could be home anytime after that, I decided to get moving.  I put on some 90s hip-hop and danced like a fool while cleaning my living room, doing the dishes, sweeping the floors and wiping down countertops and tables.  I could feel the contractions start to pick up.  Noah brought home lunch and everyone ate and took naps, even myself.  When I couldn't sleep anymore through the contractions, I called Valor and found out Woodwinds was open but I should probably get in before they went into divert again.

So, I took a shower while Noah got the boys ready and when everything was packed we headed over to our friends', the Kleinjungs, where we dropped off Soren and Jude to play with their good friends until my parents got there to pick them up.  From there we headed to Woodwinds with a necessary pit stop at Starbucks because even in labor; but first, coffee.

So there I was, showered, napped and caffeinated, ready to meet our son. We checked in, got our room and met our nurse, Katie #1.  I call her that because over the next 48 hours we would have three nurses named Katie.  By this time it was about 4pm and my midwife, Valor, had just finished a delivery and was in the middle of "a really extensive repair." Ouch.

It was all good, I was drinking an iced latte and waiting to get checked.  When Katie found out that Valor wasn't going to be in anytime soon she checked me around 5 pm.  She then admitted she wasn't yet very good at determining how far along laboring moms were and asked if it was OK if she had a more seasoned nurse check me.  I said that was fine and the next nurse came in, Katie said she thought I was at a four.  The older nurse looked at her and said, "Are you crazy?  8 and 80."  Woohoo!  I was well on my way.  That's when I told them, my plan was to try do this with just the nitrous oxide.

So they got the nitrous set up and we met Katie #2, who introduced herself with a Tommy Boy quote and we knew she was the nurse for us. Over the next hour I attempted to get the rhythm down to make the nitrous effective against the stronger contractions and it just wasn't working.  And then the fear started in.  I'd had an epidural with Soren and it wasn't awesome.  I didn't have any drugs with Jude and I called my sister afterward to have her remind me that it was truly awful.  I didn't know what I was going to do.

So I asked Katie (#2) to step out of the room and I looked up at Noah and said "I want the epidural.  Sara (a good friend who had just delivered at the same hospital) told me they gave her a really light one that just took the edge off."  He, obviously, said absolutely and I told him I needed one more thing, I needed him to step up to the birth shamers who were going to tell me I failed because post-partum me would just cry in a heap without an ounce of strength to stick up for myself.  He gave me an amazing smile because asking my husband to fiercely defend the people he loves is like asking a fish to swim, it's just a part of who he is.

So we were set.  Nurse Katie kicked butt getting my IV in and pumped a liter of fluid into my body with astonishing rapidity.  Then Dr. Wendell came in and was spectacular and talked me through everything, unlike my anesthesiologist with Soren who was apparently annoyed that I had the nerve to be in labor at 3am (I'm looking at you Craig from Great Falls, MT).  He gave me an epidural that left me mostly in control of my feet and legs and took the edge off perfectly.  I got the epidural at 8:15, they broke my water at 8:30, we called to say goodnight to our boys at 8:45 and at 9 I told my midwife I needed to push.

I was in a state I had never before experienced, I was alert, aware of my body and ready to go.  I was completely present so when I started pushing at 9:05, I held Noah's hand and 7 or 8 pushes later, I smiled and I'm pretty sure yelled with glee "he's here!"  I gazed up at Noah with total excitement as my midwife placed Aksel on my chest and I was enraptured.  I had never felt anything like that before.  I wasn't tired, I wasn't shaking in agony, I was simply in the moment with my new son and I was experiencing every second of it.  I loved it.  It was perfect.  It was totally me.

Aksel started nursing right away and was a total champ.  I'm sure he cried but all I can remember is just being so excited.  He just stayed on my chest and after a while I handed him over to Noah while I got stitched up.  Everything was lovely.   He was 7lbs. 3 oz, and 19 in making him the smallest of our boys for sure.  And wow, was he ever a good snuggler.

After about an hour or so, Katie helped me get up and go to the bathroom and get in the huge soaking tub in our bathroom.  I legitimately fell asleep for a few minutes in the warmth of the water and the lavender salts.  However, I woke up to Katie telling me I needed to get up because it was clear my bleeding hadn't subsided.

I got back into bed and she immediately hooked a bag of pitocin up to my IV and set the pump to whatever the medical term for "really fast" is.  When the bag was in, she said to me, "most nurses would do one bag and wait but if you were my sister I'd want them to do two, so I'm going to do two."  She was fantastic.

Eventually the bleeding stopped, I got some food in me and we got to the business of attempting sleep.  Honestly, the next 36 hours in the hospital were just marked with amazing things, like having my parents bring the boys to meet Aksel, and meeting great people, and also with things I can't even remember.  I don't think I could've imagined anything sweeter than when Jude got to hold Aksel for the first time and he launched into "The Very Hungry Caterpillar," a story he had told Aksel nearly 100 times while he was in my belly and now he could tell him in real life.  Also, the when my dad got to hold Aksel for the first time, that was really special because my dad and Aksel share a middle name, Luther. 

Also, our third nurse Katie ended up being a friend of a friend from Bluewater and we got to make a really fun Minnesota connection. 

Eventually we were discharged by a nurse whose son is the pitcher for the UMC baseball team and we got to go home to a quiet house because my parents had taken Soren and Jude to Crookston for a few days, which was and absolutely incredible gift. 

It's now nearly 8 months later and I know I have forgotten some details but somethings I will never forget and one of them will always be the amazing way God answered prayer after prayer that day and our baby boy came into the world, healthy, happy and full of love.

They Can't All Be "Teachable Moments"

Life with three boys is rarely dull.  Monotonous?  Yes.  Dull?  No.

As a work-at-home mom, I realize that my life is crazy blessed.  I have a business (I take pictures, do you need pictures taken?  Let me take your picture!) that allows me some flexibility to be home during the day with my kids and work while they are having "quiet time" or, more realistically, are being parented by PBS Kids. (Lord Jesus, bless public television, may it never be defunded.) Also, I have a husband who, as a pastor, has a pretty flexible schedule and as luck might have it, loves our kids in the "I don't call it 'babysitting' when I am parenting" woke-dad kind of way.
I am able to do things like, have my kids help when I am baking and teach them about why bread rises and why licking the chicken before it is cooked is going to make you sick and why licking the spoon and putting it back in the bowl is just disgusting.  I let them vacuum the floors with a little carpet sweeper when they spill their cereal and we do our best to make sure the legos are picked up every night before bed.  *That last part is mainly so I don't step on them when I inevitably take my 3-year-old back to bed after he wants to "snuggle." (Read: Kick us repeatedly in the ribs with his sharp toenails) 

Life is full of teachable moments and that's the main duty of a parent, right?  We are unconditionally loving teachers who praise the likes of other people who choose to be teachers so we can take a break from teaching for a few hours each day.  (If you're the kind of parent who doesn't thank the universe for teachers, stop it, you're making the rest of us look bad.)

We teach them how to say please and thank you, how to fold clothes and which drawers are for pants and which are for shirts.  We teach them how to tie their shoes and how to tell us when they have to poop.  We point out letters on a stop sign and then inevitably get honked at for spending too much time at the stop sign because our kids are learning.

But in the day to day onslaught of knowledge and hand-washing and realizing that Ready Jet Go has taught my kids more about the solar system than I know, there is one thing we need to remember: They can't all be teachable moments.

There will always be times when we need to get. stuff. done.

Sometimes the toys just need to get off the floor.  Sometimes the clothes just need to be folded correctly in under fourteen minutes because eventually, we will have to go out in public and should be dressed for such a function.  Sometimes we need to make dinner without any help because seven teaspoons of paprika is just too much and last time the cap fell off the spice jar and everything tasted .... interesting. 

So, yes, there are times I clean my boys' room because I swear their socks came in pairs and Lord help me if I have to buy another ten pack just to send them to school in matching socks.  (I am not the mismatched sock mom, I tried, I can't.) . There are times I relegate the teaching to ABC Mouse so that I can clean the stovetop since the other day there was so much dried food on our stove, my husband sliced open his finger trying to wipe it off, true story.

I will always advocate for teaching them how to make life happen for themselves, but one lesson they also need to learn is that moms get stuff done.  Eventually, they will be granted hindsight and they will realize how much they learned while emptying the dishwasher or stirring the soup or separating the toys into their bins.  The gratitude won't be immediate but hopefully, the impression will be lasting. 

Do we do it all for them?  Nope.  Do we show them the awe and wonder that is a mom rage-cleaning her house in preparation for anyone else to cross the threshold, inevitably putting the fear of God into their aim while they pee?  Yes, yes we do.

The Stuff of Nightmares

Not long after I found out I was pregnant with my first son something started happening to me every night that made me avoid the respite of my bed. 

I had nightmares.

Now, these weren't "bad dreams" and they weren't unfounded stories of monsters beneath bed frames.  They were truly and disgustingly terrifying.  Every night I would close my eyes and pray that I wouldn't dream.  I would beg God to let my heartburn wake me up enough that I wouldn't fall into dream sleep.  With each subsequent pregnancy, I would fall asleep only to watch my children die in front of me.  I would stand helpless as scenes played out in which my husband left, or drove off with our kids, or drowned just out of my reach.  And with each startled wake, I would be lying next to my sleeping husband, overwhelmed with the emotion of his death or the deaths of our children and I would weep because it wasn't real but it still hurt.

Throughout the days, small triggers would send images of those dreams hurtling back into my life and it was nearly paralyzing.  It came to the point where, with bleary eyes and an exhausted body, I would type out emails asking people to pray that I could sleep without fear.  And they did.  Without question, they saw that I was hurting and offered help in any way they could.  With sincere hearts they volunteered to watch my kids so I could take a nap, they offered prayers and wise counsel and they even offered to pay for any type of counseling I needed in order to no longer fear something as blissful as sleep.

I can't tell you that those people did those things because studies had shown the effects of pregnancy on dream life.  I doubt any of them had postulated any major theories or written dissertations on the realities of sleep deprivation and perceptions of fear, real or imagined, in the first and second trimesters of human gestation.  I know that no one I asked for help questioned my intentions, asked why I didn't just "get over it," or assumed I was overreacting.  They just helped because they loved me and I was afraid.

Here's the thing; at no point would any of those dreams killed me.  I would always wake up and those tragedies would be erased into firing neurons only I could recall.  But nevertheless, I had helpers, people desperate to see me well and living free from the terror of the ordinary.

So tell me, world, WHY IN THE HELL CAN'T WE DO THIS WHEN THE FEAR OF DEATH IS REAL?

Up until this point, you read a story in which your friend, or a woman you've heard of maybe once, had a really horrible side effect to pregnancy and you had empathy for me.  But now, if you are someone who defends a citizen's right to own assault rifles your empathy is gone for the more than 600 victims of one man with an arsenal.

SIX HUNDRED.

Let that number sink in.  That is more than the population of my mom's hometown.  If the news headlines read "Man shoots every member of small Minnesota town" you might think of it differently.  But instead people are honestly saying it wasn't as big of a deal because the people were at a concert of someone they didn't like, or they were in Vegas which is notorious for being "sinful" or because they weren't properly armed to take on a sniper at a country music concert.

ENOUGH.  Lord have mercy on us, sinners by lethargy, dedicated to placing the blame on anything other than our own failings to those around us who were literally dying and we said "Sorry, there is nothing we can do" because doing something meant resisting harder than we ever had before. 

In the Old Testament sacrifices were necessary for sins of omission.  The kind of thing where you should have done the right thing but instead you did nothing.  The only way back to righteousness was a sacrifice of something that cost you dearly and the physical effort to stand in front of one who might intercede for you.  And here we are, praying for justice to be done in hopes that the blood of the nearly 1,000 mass shooting victims we don't know personally is enough for us to walk away and be declared innocent again.

It isn't and it won't be.

My son's pre-school has protocols for shootings.  If that isn't fear in the ordinary I don't know what is.  He shouldn't have to have an armed guard in order to learn how to write his name.

Assault rifles weren't owned by the well-regulated militias of the 1780s.  They weren't fathomed by Thomas Jefferson so either stop quoting the founding fathers or start believing that John Adams was psychic.

Common sense gun control doesn't mean no guns, in the same way portion control doesn't mean no food, it just means you won't die from high cholesterol.  Let's stop saying gun control won't work or we can't do it.  We just don't want to resist that hard, it's too hard, it hurts too much, there are no funny memes and it makes us uncomfortable. 

You know what else is apparently uncomfortable?  Getting shot by a sniper whose right to own that gun is prized above the rights of the people below him to live.

We need to mourn, we need to beg for mercy and then we must answer for our inaction with reform and repentance.  We need to do better.