Acts 6-13

All of chapter 10, but especially verses 15, 34-35, and 44-48.

15: And a voice spoke to him again the second time, "What God has cleaned you must not call common."
34-35: Then Peter opened his mouth and said: "In truth I perceive that God shows no partiality. But in every nation whoever fears Him and works righteousness is accepted by Him."
44-48: While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who heard the word. And those of the circumcision who believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles also. For they heard them speak with tongues and magnify God. Then Peter answered, "Can anyone forbid water, that these should not be baptized who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?" And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord. Then they asked him to stay a few days.

Last week, my pastor preached on this text. Then i read it in my personal devotions. Next week, we're covering it in Bible study. That's how it goes sometimes.

The early Church had a problem: were they another sect of Judaism, or were they a new religion? Jesus was Jewish, and He was the Messiah they'd been waiting for. So maybe they were still Jews, but they had just recognized a truth that no one else had seen yet? This meant that a Gentile could convert here and there, but they would have to be circumcised and stop eating bacon-wrapped shrimp and observe their holy days and ritual washings. But then the Jews said, "No, you guys are not one of us. The Messiah hasn't come yet. If you want to worship Jesus, you're worshiping another god and we want nothing to do with you."

So do new converts have to be circumcised? Do they have to observe Passover? Do they have to observe the Sabbath?

Much of Acts deals with these questions -- the book is half Three Stooges/James Bond miracles and prison escapes, and half church meeting reports -- so we'll spend a lot of time talking and thinking about this stuff. What does it mean to be Christian? What are the rules? What do you have to do to be saved? And, having been saved, what do you have to do to stay that way?

poemings

I wrote this draft as part of a multi-genre research project for one of my classes. 

#istillneedaworkshop

these birds are not angry

they’re all twitterpated

tweeting madly for followers

                John Cleese calls them “twats”

                Hannah Hart calls them “tweeps”

                i call them “fans”

                to inflate my own ego

tweet, retweet, favorite

create a hashtag punch line

hope that the Bloggess will see it

                shouting into chaos

                140 characters at a time

                how does one bird

                stand out from the rest?

at least the mafia requests have died down

should i add events before 2007?

i just edited my subscription to you

                are you only friends with me to be polite?

                what is your subscription to me?

                why did you like this picture

                and not that one?

Mark Zuckerberg keeps tinkering

so hard to control privacy

it’s not just my words, it’s my whole life

                how do i separate the ‘book’ from the ‘face’?

                how do i invite discussion without asking for a fight?

                is it better to be stalked or ignored?

                can’t i just sing my song?

Every Tradition Starts Somewhere

Seven years ago, i celebrated Easter at home with my family. We did the whole nine yards: Pancake Day (or Fat Tuesday), Lent, Good Friday services, Sunrise Services, Easter baskets, and egg hunts. That was my last Holy Week at home.

Six years ago, i was in Spain from Fat Tuesday (February 20th that year) until the middle of May. I spent all of Lent and Holy Week in Seville and Badajoz and Malaga (with a day trip to Portugal).

Five years ago, Agelseb's mother came up to Boston for Easter weekend, and we celebrated together.

Four years ago, i had no roommate and all of my friends had gone home for Easter break, so i went to CVS and bought crackers and grape juice and a candle. I lit the candle in my room (even though it was against the rules), and took communion and read scriptures alone as my own Good Friday service. I seem to remember also doing my own Sunrise service that year, but i'm not sure.

For the next two years, i did some variation of this service. Once i played worship music softly in the background, once it was silent. Once i fasted, once i did not. Last year i bought fancy bread and high quality grape juice and prayed quietly in my room.

This year, i am expanding this new tradition a little. On a whim, i invited John to participate. He suggested that i invite Benji and Mrs. Benji as well. And then i invited Pammer and Larissa (though none of them could make it). And i have spent much of my week researching Passover seder traditions and the Haggadah. I've been writing menus and reading scripture and thinking about seating.


As it turns out, the Haggadah is really freaking long. Like, fifteen pages, and most of that is the post-meal blessing. I hope no one will be offended by this, but since none of my guests are Jewish and most of the service is a reflection on Jewish history and culture, i cut it down to about three pages. I wanted to keep some sense of the history, but i also wanted to reflect my own culture and the culture and needs of those i had invited to break bread with me. The Haggadah says that anyone who does not mention the lamb, the matzo, and the bitter herbs has not done their job, so i have included those things. Wherever possible, i kept the original language, and only condensed it. I have written only about two or three lines in this service. The details are still being ironed out, but i'm kind of looking forward to this odd new tradition of mine.


First, a blessing for the wine:

Blessed are You, Lord, our God, King of the universe, who creates the fruit of the vine.

Blessed are You, Lord, our God, King of the universe, who has granted us life, sustained us, and enabled us to reach this occasion.

drink wine

Then, a blessing on the greens and side dishes:

Blessed are You, Lord, our God, King of the universe, who creates the fruit of the earth.

A blessing on the matzo:

This is the bread of affliction. Whoever is hungry or in need, let him come and eat.

A blessing on the lamb:

This is the Passover sacrifice for deliverance. Whoever is hungry or in need, let him come and eat.

A blessing on the bitter herbs:

These are the bitter herbs of suffering. Whoever is hungry or in need, let him come and eat.


A general blessing:

The Holy One, blessed be He, redeemed not only our fathers from Egypt, but He redeemed also us with them.

Thus it is our duty to thank, to glorify, to exalt, to adore, and to honor the One who did all these miracles for our fathers and for us. He took us from sorrow to joy, from deep darkness to great light, and from bondage to redemption. Let us therefore recite before Him Hallelujah, Praise God!

Now eat and drink to your heart’s delight.


After the meal, all who ate recite the Grace:

Blessed are You, Lord, our God, King of the universe, who, in His goodness, feeds the whole world with grace, with kindness, and with mercy. You open Your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing.

Blessed are You, Lord, our God, King of the universe, the King who is good and does good to all, each and every day. He has done good for us, He does good for us, and He will do good for us. To You alone we give thanks.

Even if our mouths were filled with song as the sea, and our tongues with joyous singing like the multitudes of its waves, and our lips with praise like the expanse of the sky, and our eyes shining like the sun and the moon, and our hands spread out like the eagles of heaven, and our feet swift like deer we would still be unable to thank You Lord, our God and God of our fathers, and to bless Your Name, for even one of the thousands of millions, and myriads of myriads, of favors, miracles and wonders with You have done for us and for our fathers before us.


And then Scripture readings:

Exodus 12:1 Now the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, 2 “This month shall be your beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you. 3 Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying: ‘On the tenth of this month every man shall take for himself a lamb, according to the house of his father, a lamb for a household. 8 Then they shall eat the flesh on that night; roasted in fire, with unleavened bread and with bitter herbs they shall eat it. 11 And thus you shall eat it: with a belt on your waist, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. So you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover.

12 ‘For I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the Lord. 13 Now the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you; and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.

14 ‘So this day shall be to you a memorial; and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord throughout your generations. You shall keep it as a feast by an everlasting ordinance.’

Luke 22:19 And He (Jesus) took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.”

20 Likewise He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you.”
Luke 23:44 Now it was about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour. 45 Then the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was torn in two. 46 And when Jesus had cried out with a loud voice, He said, "Father, 'into Your hands I commit My spirit.'" Having said this, He breathed His last. So when the centurion saw what had happened, he glorified God, saying, "Certainly this was a righteous Man!"
48 And the whole crowd who came together to that sight, seeing what had been done, beat their breasts and returned. 49. But all His acquaintances, and the women who followed Him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things.

Why I Don't Have Birthday Parties Anymore

When i reached my tenth birthday, my parents insisted on throwing me a huge, impromptu party. They made a big deal over me reaching double digits. I was excited, too, but got the distinct impression that they were more excited. I didn't understand why until several years later, when my mom was telling stories about what a weird child i had been.

Apparently, when i was very young (maybe two), i told my parents that i would not live past five. I don't remember this, nor do i have any idea where that notion might have come from.

You hear stories from time to time of a child with an "old soul", wise beyond their years, and not long for this world. The child is generally aware of their limited time on earth, and often drops hints or gives warnings to their family about this. The child's predictions generally turn out to be tragically spot-on.

So, understandably, my parents were nervous. They awaited my fifth birthday with fear and trepidation, and my sixth with inexpressible hope. By the time my tenth birthday rolled around, they were beside themselves. I guess they figured they were out of the woods.

Well, joke's on them. I'm still going to die one of these days. Probably.

Damn. No wonder they didn't want to homeschool me.

After that my parents pretty much gave up throwing me birthday parties. I guess they figured that the mere fact of my continued existence had been celebrated enough.

I would get together with the same group of friends for pizza and junk food every year, but it was never anything more elaborate than a sleepover with presents. I had one "real" party when i was fifteen. We ate flan and i got my first cell phone. I worked on my sixteenth birthday and then i went to New York for the weekend (with my mom, Agelseb, and Agelseb's mom). My seventeenth birthday came right before my big Europe trip, so i don't think i did anything. For my eighteenth birthday, i pierced my bellybutton. For my nineteenth, nothing. And for twenty, i got my first tattoo.

I had one more birthday party, when i turned twenty-one. I got together with Agelseb and our old friend "Fay", and we bought lots of alcohol and watched a movie and then took our drinks out to the hot tub. And then Fay got very drunk and began complaining, in a very bad fake British accent, about how much her life sucks. When Agelseb and i tried to comfort her, she told us she was tired of us treating her like she was dumb (we weren't) and that she knew more about the Real World and Life After College than we did (she doesn't), and that there was nothing she could do to fix her sucky life (bullshit). And then she went to bed, leaving the next morning before either of us woke up. And then she didn't speak to either of us for the next several months, until her boyfriend broke up with her and she needed someone to hang out with again.

So, yeah. This year i will be working on my birthday again. My boyfriend is supposed to cook me dinner or something. Whatever. As long as i can avoid either Jersey Shore-style drama, premature death, or awkward social interactions, i'm happy.

normalcy is relative

The thing about having been homeschooled is that you're not necessarily more sheltered than everyone else. But you always think that you are. You live in a constant state of anxiety, convinced that there is a whole list of normative experiences that everyone else in the world is having and that you are not, and that this lack of normative experiences will seriously impede your development.

Here's the truth: there are certain universal normative experiences. Things like being nervous about your first kiss, or realizing for the first time that your parents have the capacity to embarrass you, or passing an exam. And there are some people (even non-homeschoolers) who miss out on some of these normative experiences. Yes, socialization is different for homeschooled kids.

But i'm beginning to think that missing out on normative experiences is, in and of itself, a normative experience.

Linguistics in Education

This is a reaction paper written for my Curriculum and Methods class, in response to an article called "No Kinda Sense". The article was featured in a book called "The Skin We Speak", by Lisa Delpit and Joanne Kilgour Dowdy.

“There is no more certain a way to insure that people do not listen to you as to not listen to them.”  (Delpit, 43)

Spoken and written dialects have stirred up a lot of controversy in professional and academic environments. Black activists have spoken up on both sides of the debate, some insisting that Black Americans will not be able to rise above their historical oppression until they can prove that they are able to do everything white people can do, including speak Standard American English (SAE). Others recognize the importance and richness of Ebonics, and want Black Americans to be proud of all parts of their culture, including their dialect. Both sides make a certain amount of sense.

The conversation begins to resemble the “English-as-our-national-language” debate; there is no officially mandated standard, merely a long-established habit, and there are a lot of pros and cons on both sides. In an increasingly multicultural nation, English may not be the language of the majority, and making it the official language may be alienating to many of our citizens. In an increasingly multiethnic nation, SAE may not be the dialect of the majority of English speakers, and making it official may be alienating to many of our citizens.

It is important to be able to communicate clearly with others, and some people honestly struggle to understand different dialects. This means that all children must learn to speak, write, and understand the accepted and mandated standard dialect for professional and academic communications, both verbal and written.

Effective communication is a two-way street, however, and we cannot place the entire burden of understanding on the Black kids. There is absolutely no reason that white children can’t learn to speak and understand non-white dialects, including (but not limited to) Ebonics. Indeed, many white children who grew up in predominantly non-white neighborhoods use a non-SAE dialect as their primary means of communication.

When teachers insist upon SAE to the exclusion of all other dialects, students learn that certain modes of communication are unacceptable; beyond that, they learn that their cultures are less valid, interesting, or important than other cultures. What we forget sometimes is that language is not merely a form of expression, but is an expression in and of itself. Spoken cadences, vocabulary and slang terms, and conventions of grammar are all important and valid expressions of culture and history.

When teachers do not allow their students to express themselves in their own dialects, they are not allowing the students to express every part of themselves. Students learn that certain parts of who they are, of their history and cultural identity, will prevent them from achieving academic success. They learn that who they are is holding them back.

The message contained in that lesson goes beyond academics. Children who are told that they express themselves incorrectly will internalize a life-long belief that they have nothing worth expressing, or that no one cares enough about them to take the trouble to understand them. They will learn that as individuals and as members of a particular culture, they have little or no worth to the world, and that they must either become someone else or accept oppression and indignity.

Proficiency in multiple dialects can only be a benefit in an increasingly multicultural world, as long as all dialects are given equal preference and respect. Learning respect for and gaining fluency in different cultural modes of communication leads to respect for and comfort with different cultures. And gaining confidence in their own cultural dialects will give students the strength and courage to face the world.

If My Filter Ever Malfunctions, Look Out

Recently, one of my roommates invited me to an event. "I'll see," i replied.
"You're very non-committal," she commented.
"Well, i'll be starting classes soon. I don't know what my schedule will look like."
"You won't have classes on Saturday."
"I might have homework."
"No one does homework on Saturdays! That's what Sundays are for!"

There are lots of very rational things i could have said, like this: "This isn't college anymore. This is grad school. I work from 9-5 every day, and my classes are on Mondays and Wednesdays. I'll be getting out of those classes at ten and eight thirty, respectively. That leaves three weeknights a week for homework. Some of those nights i'll be doing fun things with you guys. Some of those nights i'll be going to bed early. Some nights i'll be doing fun things with my boyfriend. Some nights i'll be doing homework, but since these are graduate level assignments, there is a pretty decent chance that i won't be totally finished by Friday night every week. So we'll see if i'm finished on that weekend or not."

But what i really wanted to say was this: "You know what? I left public school in first grade because my math was at a third or fourth grade level, my computer was at a fifth or sixth grade level, and my verbal skills were too high to test. I finished high school in three years, and in four years i graduated magna cum laude with two degrees, while you just barely managed to scrape out one degree, with no honors, and had to do extra work during two different summers. You know what i did during the summer? Audited grad classes. For fun. I'd say it looks like my academic choices have been paying off pretty well so far, so if i feel like i should do homework on a Saturday, i should probably listen to my gut and not yours."

And what i actually said was this: "Well, i'll see what my schedule is like. I want to go, i just can't make any promises."

I love my apartment, i love my roommates, and i love my downstairs neighbors. But sometimes i feel like i've been reduced to the most simplistic interpretations of my least appealing traits. I'm not a caricature of studious nerd. There's more going on here than that. And if they don't stop reacting to me like i'm a cross between Hermione Granger and Mark Zuckerburg, i have a feeling that the filter between my brain and my mouth is simply going to explode. And on that day, you should either run and hide or grab some popcorn and find a good seat, depending on how into Schadenfreude you are.

introversion

This entire post was copied and pasted from here. The annotations in italics are mine.

On Introversion
Linda Kreger Silverman, Ph.D. Gifted Development Center Denver, Colorado

The American dream is to be extraverted. We want our children to be "people who need people." We want them to have lots of friends, to like parties, to prefer to play outside with their buddies rather than retire with a good book, to make friends easily, to greet new experiences enthusiastically, to be good risk-takers, to be open about their feelings, to be trusting. We regard anyone who doesn’t fit this pattern with some concern. We call them "withdrawn," "aloof," "shy," "secretive," and "loners." These pejorative terms show the extent to which we misunderstand introverts.

The majority of Americans are extraverted (about 75%), but the majority of gifted children appear to be introverted (about 60%), and the percentage of introverts seems to increase with IQ (Silverman, 1986). In addition to the problems encountered with being gifted, these children are frequently misjudged because they are introverted. Introversion is a perfectly normal personality type identified by Carl Jung. It is actually healthy to be an introvert. The only unhealthy part of it is denying your true self and trying to disguise yourself as an extravert.

Introverts are wired differently from extraverts and they have different needs. Extraverts get their energy from interaction with people and the external world. Introverts get their energy from within themselves; too much interaction drains their energy and they need to retreat from the world to recharge their batteries. People can be extreme extraverts, extreme introverts, or a combination of both. Since extraversion is the dominant mode in our society, there are no "closet extraverts," but there are many "closet introverts," people who are so ashamed of their introversion that they try to be extraverts.

Here are some tips on the care and feeding of the introverts in your family or classroom:

HOW TO CARE FOR INTROVERTS

• Respect their need for privacy.

This refers both to physical privacy and informational privacy. Introverts need to be alone, but they also need to have secrets, and they need to feel that those secrets are respected. They will share when they feel ready, but you shouldn't try to force them to divulge information in the name of intimacy and sharing.

• Never embarrass them in public.

To you it may be a minor event that everyone can laugh over in a few days. To the introvert it is a moment that will haunt them to their dying day, and their hearts will be full of bitterness toward you for the part that you played in their humiliation.

• Let them observe first in new situations.

My mom always tried to get me involved in things right away, convinced that i was not having fun if i was not participating. To an extravert, part of the fun is making a fool of yourself with a bunch of other people while everyone is getting to know one another. To an introvert, part of the fun is observing the social dynamics of the group, and they won't be able to relax and have fun without this prior period of observation. There are many situations where i have more fun watching than i ever would participating (and yes, i have learned this through trial and error).

• Give them time to think. Don't demand instant answers.

You know how some people like to think out loud? They may simply need to hear a voice speaking in order to form their thoughts, or they may need to bounce their ideas off of another person. Either way, they process externally. Introverts, on the other hand, process internally. A long pause before an answer means that they are thinking, not that they are ignoring you or zoning out.

• Don't interrupt them.

You may have gathered at this point that it is rare to hear an introvert speak. When they do speak, they are rarely babbling thoughtlessly. They are usually divulging something about which they have thought long and hard, something that is important to them. For you to interrupt those words is deeply hurtful and frustrating.

• Give them advanced notice of expected changes in their lives.

I do really well in two situations: when i have a tightly regimented, extremely detailed schedule that i follow exactly, or when i have no plan at all and simply make it up as i go along. Anything in between these two extremes causes me deep anxiety. If you have given me a schedule and you need to change it, do your best to inform me well ahead of time. Even if the change is better and easier, it will freak me out if i find out about it at the last minute.

• Give them 15 minute warnings to finish whatever they are doing before calling them to dinner or moving on to the next activity.

See above.

• Reprimand them privately.

DO NOT "make an example" of an introvert by reprimanding them publicly. This is the same as public embarrassment, and far from teaching them to behave themselves in order to avoid such humiliation, it will simply make them hate you.

• Teach them new skills privately rather than in public.

This should need no further explanation at this point.

• Enable them to find one best friend who has similar interests and abilities: encourage this relationship even if the friend moves.

Okay, i am not this pathetic and i don't know any other introverts who are. We have more than one friend, and often more than one best friend. However, if a very good friend does move away, it can be very difficult, though introverts are often pretty comfortable with and skilled at maintaining long distance relationships.

• Do not push them to make lots of friends.

When it comes to friendships, or really any social interactions, introverts prefer quality over quantity.

• Respect their introversion. Don't try to remake them into extraverts.

This one is HUGE. I know it is difficult and confusing for extraverts to see their introverted friends sitting quietly in the corner at a party. I know you think you are helping them when you push them to socialize or to try new things. But introversion is perfectly healthy and normal. Believe me when i say that it is far more enjoyable for an introvert to sit quietly at a party and watch everyone else "have a good time" than to actually participate in what is going on. Don't ignore them completely, but let them be.

Introverts need to learn about the positive benefits of their personality type. They need to be taught that reflection is a good quality, that the most creative individuals sought solitude, and that leaders in academic, aesthetic and technical fields are often introverts. Parents need to know that more National Merit Scholars are introverted than extraverted, and that introverts have higher grade point averages in Ivy League colleges than extraverts (Silverman, 1986). Contrary to public opinion, success in life is not dependent upon extraversion. Introverts also have an advantage at midlife in that long, hard journey to the soul which heralds the second half of the life cycle. The time has come to respect the introverts in our families and classrooms, and the hidden introvert in ourselves.

I recommend the book Please Understand Me for parents, teachers and students to gain a better grasp of the different personality types in our lives. Great for family reading!

REFERENCE
Keirsey, D., & Bates, M. (1978). Please understand me: Character & temperament types. Del Mar, CA: Prometheus Nemesis Books.
Silverman, L.K., (1986). Parenting young gifted children. In J.R. Whitmore (Ed.), Intellectual giftedness in young children. New York: The Haworth Press.

roots and wings

I spent the first seventeen years of my life on the Eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. It's a beautiful area of the country, with Colonial houses, majestic rivers, sailboats, wildlife, cornfields, star-studded skies, and lots of rednecks.

I loved growing up there. I loved living near the river, smelling the marsh mud (nostalgia always smells sweet, whatever the reality) and watching the herons. I loved the feeling of endless space, of clean horizons. The corn and soybean fields went on forever, except where interrupted by deer or some picturesque trees. I loved eating fresh fish and venison. I loved eating corn-on-the-cob from my great aunt's garden, and steamed crabs from the Bay. I loved the black-eyed susans, the brick sidewalks, the heavy humidity, the scrapple, the biscuits with dried beef gravy, and the Ravens. (How can you not like a team named in honor of Edgar Allen Poe?)

I love my family. My mom's side of the family is large, loud, and invasively affectionate. They will feed anyone who enters the door (or even anyone who comes near the property line; my grandmother has frequently made plates of sandwiches, watermelon, and leftover cake for the garbage men). They all live within a twenty-mile radius of one another. They all talk at the same time. They all bicker constantly. They all pry into my private life. Several of them are outstanding cooks. They have all given me money at least once, whether as a gift for graduation/birthday/other special occasion or just because i am young and sometimes tight on cash. I have crashed on their couches, bummed rides to work with them, accepted hand-me-down furniture from them, politely turned down hideous hand-me-down furniture from them, and become friends with them on Facebook. And i have only had to put one of them on restricted access so far.

I love my immediate family, too. But my dad lives in Delaware. My brother is in Afghanistan. One of my sisters is only a year away from graduating and starting college, and the other one is seven and a half years younger than i am. As we both grow older, that gap matters less and less, but twenty-one and fourteen are still worlds apart. My mother's recent marriage to a guy i barely know makes the house even more awkward to be in. I no longer have my own bedroom, so i stay in my brother's room with all of his half-packed things from college and childhood.

And after a while, those endless horizons start to feel oppressive. Sure, you have no limits, but that also means that you have nowhere to go. My town has one movie theater. The second nearest one is thirty miles away. The nearest mall and Walmart are in the same town as the second movie theater. There are no museums, no concert venues, no public transportation, and no Starbucks.

Yeah. That's actually the whole town.

I have spent the last four years of my life near Boston.

I can see Boston from my roof (though not as clearly as in the above image). There are four coffee shops within walking distance of my apartment, as well as two cupcake shops, several bars and restaurants, and a Marshalls. And a five-minute walk brings me to the train, which can take me anywhere i want in Boston. I can go to theaters and museums, attend concerts, shop, tour the historic Red Line, eat fabulous food, and pretend that i go to Harvard. This 4th of July, my roommates and i hosted a cookout which culminated in watching fireworks from our roof, over the Boston skyline.

My family isn't so very far away, and they're not even in a different time zone, so it's not terribly difficult to talk to or visit them. The only real difficulty is that, as i mentioned before, i'm not the only one who no longer lives in my mom's house. But we make it work.

I have lots of friends here. I have a job here (for now, anyway). I'm enrolled in grad school. I have a church family. I have a boyfriend. I have a cat.

There are a lot of things that keep me here. There are a lot of memories, a lot of possibilities, and a lot of really delicious cupcakes across the street from my apartment.

But sometimes, when i'm sitting on the roof and gazing at the Boston skyline, i hunger for stars. Sometimes, when i'm at the beach with friends, i think of Maryland blue crabs steamed with Old Bay and my mouth waters. I long for thunderstorms that make the windows rattle and that last for hours. I long for humidity so intense you can barely move. I long for old men in pickup trucks who wave (in a friendly, non-creepy way) when they see you out for a walk. I long for my family, blowing my personal bubble to smithereens with their very presences. I long for goose-calls in the fall, for Queen Anne's lace in the summer, for mild winters where school is canceled because of forecasted flurries, for springtime full of wildflowers.

My roots run deep and my wings reach far. At times i feel like i will be torn in two by the opposing forces.

When i was sixteen, my dad took me out to dinner to give me a blessing, Old Testament-style. He said a lot of really great things, but the one that stuck was that i was a willow tree. He told me that willows look beautiful and graceful and delicate, but that their beauty conceals an iron strength. The roots of willow trees often force their way through concrete barriers into swimming pools or drainage pipes, all in a quest for water. They are tough enough to break mower blades. They are very tenacious and difficult to remove.

My dad said, "You are a willow. You won't let anything get between you and the things that you want and need. You will break through any barrier, block any blow, and hang on to the very end." The way that he talked about roots made them sound almost like wings. I liked that.

I have written before about my swallow tattoo, about how the swallow uses its wings to return home. When i read about swallows, their wings sounded almost like roots. I liked that.

I don't know what the future holds. I can't say that i will never again live in Maryland. I can't say that i will live in Massachusetts forever. I can say that, wherever i live, i will be torn. I will feel out-of-place and homesick. I will dig in my roots, desperate for sustenance and refreshment, and i will spread my wings, longing for the next horizon.

My Mom's Wedding

When i told people i was going to Maryland this weekend for my mom's wedding, most people responded with enthusiasm. "Oh, you must be so excited! Your mom is getting married! Are you in the wedding? How long will you be there? That's so wonderful!"

Very few people realized instantly that there might be some awkwardness associated with that. If my mom is getting married, that means that she's not married to my dad. So either he's dead or they're divorced. It is possible that she's marrying my dad, but outside of the Disney Channel, the chances of that are not exactly promising.

And maybe the divorce/death happened years ago and i never even knew my dad, or maybe he was a monster and we're all better off without him. But there is no reason to assume, right off the bat, that my mother's wedding will necessarily be an occasion of unmixed joy.

And it wasn't.

My parents decided to separate the day that i moved into my freshman dorm. By fall semester finals, they had decided to divorce. My dad moved out on New Year's Eve. My mom soon had a new boyfriend. I've never been able to pin down to my satisfaction the exact start date of their relationship. And i'd really rather not.

I haven't spent much time in my mom's house since freshman year. Massachusetts is my home now. Therefore, i really don't know her new husband all that well. And i've been dealing with it okay, but there have been some issues between my mom and i that will probably never be entirely resolved.

But she's still my mom, and when she asked me to be in her wedding, i couldn't say no.

It was a lot harder than i thought it would be. I was okay up until the toasts, and then her maid of honor said that she had never seen my mom so happy before. The maid of honor saw my face and quickly covered by saying that she hadn't known my mom when her kids (my siblings and i) were little, and that she missed out on a lot of that early happiness. But her words unintentionally tapped into a lot of my deepest pain surrounding the divorce.

My parents were not a good match. Individually, they are decent people, but they were not a good couple. They should never have gotten married. It was not a good idea, and it was not God's will.

It's really hard to know that and to not begin to believe that i am not supposed to be here. It takes a lot of faith to know that God can bring good out of even the worst  situations. But it takes even more faith to know that and to not feel like i am an afterthought, like God looked at my parents' marriage and said, "Well, shit. What am I going to do with that?"

I spend a lot of time feeling like i don't fit in, feeling like i'm being excluded, feeling like i'm forgettable. It's hard to feel like i might be an afterthought to God, too. I know that i'm not. I know that. But there is a difference between the things that we know and the things that we feel, and sometimes i feel like God's afterthought.