On the trip home from a visit to Grandma and Grandpa’s farm, Eiledon was deeply engrossed by her Pokemon Diamond and Pearl game on her Nintendo DS. For those of you who don’t know, it’s a hand-held video-game unit—looks like a tiny laptop. Of course, Eiledon’s is pink. Gavin had decided not to bring his DS on the trip but was perfectly content to lean halfway across the back seat of the car to watch Eiledon play. He can do this for hours. I don’t get it, but hey, no one was fighting.
As dinner time approached, there was a bit of commotion in the back seat—whooping and hollering with glee.
“What happened?” I asked.
“You’ll never believe this!” Gavin shouted. The child always talks loudly, but this time the volume was up to 11. “Eiledon caught a Cranidos!!!!”
I couldn’t have told you the first thing about a Cranidos except that it was obviously quite the prize.
“That’s great!” I said.
There were more exclamations of joy from both children, and an excited conversation about how Cranidos had been obtained from a fossil and how it would evolve into a Rampardos and how it could learn Zen Head Butt after it learned Ancient Power. Seriously. Aren’t you totally jazzed by this information?!? Like I said. No one was fighting.
We pulled off the interstate at St. Michael to grab a bite to eat. We hit McDonald’s first as Gavin wanted a “happy meal” with chicken nuggets, apple slices and milk and, of course, the TOY that came with it. This time the toy was a dinosaur from the new Ice Age animated movie. Eiledon, who dislikes McDonalds entirely with the exception of the fries and chocolate milk-shakes, opted to forego the toy for Subway across the road.
Dan and Gavin waited in the car while Eiledon and I went in to order our meals.
As they munched on their dinners, Gavin regarded his “happy meal” and said philosophically, “I think Eiledon’s much happier than I am. She caught a Cranidos. I just got a fake dinosaur.”
And there you have it, folks. You can’t buy happiness. At least, not at McDonald’s.
Monday, July 6, 2009
Saturday, June 13, 2009
A Generational Curse
The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious,
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,
keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation,
forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,
yet by no means clearing the guilty,
but visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children
and the children’s children,
to the third and the fourth generation.’
- Exodus 34:6-7
I know there’s a lot of controversy among Christian evangelicals and fundamentalists about whether or not the idea of a ‘generational curse’ has any scriptural or doctrinal validity. Being neither an evangelical nor a fundamentalist, I find it’s best not to engage in such debates.
However, I am here today to tell you that GENERATIONAL CURSES ARE REAL.
My evidence for this bold pronouncement? Raiders of the Lost Ark.
No, seriously. I watched Raiders of the Lost Ark with my family the other night. My son, who I knew would find it too scary, lasted halfway through the opening scene before retreating to the safety of my bedroom to play computer games. My daughter, on the other hand, LOVED it and was prone to yell “COOL!” and “SWEET!” and “That was AWESOME!”
I was relieved by her enthusiasm. I hadn’t seen the movie in years and there was quite a bit more graphic gore than I’d remembered. And lots of dead people. Lots and lots of dead people. Dead, half-decomposed, cobweb-draped, misshapen and moldy-looking dead people. One with a large snake coming out of its mouth.
Yeah, I know. SWEET!
But then it was bed time.
“Mama, I’m freaked. Can I sleep with you?”
“Too many scary things in the movie?” I asked with a sinking feeling.
“Yeah. It was great. But that part after the snakes with all the dead people…”
“But we made you close your eyes during the melting faces part,” I offered. “Can’t you just sleep in your own bed?”
“I’m too scared.”
What, you might be wondering, does this remotely have to do with Exodus 34? The answer is that my daughter’s being freaked out by Raiders of the Lost Ark is all my grandmother’s fault.
Flash back, if you will, to 1953. My grandfather was not a big movie fan. His wife, on the other hand, adored movies, especially science fiction movies. Since her husband would not go with her to see these films, she would bring along her son, Marty. My dad. He was only 10 in 1953 and my grandparents were careful not to let him see scary movies like Frankenstein or Dracula. But apparently, Invaders from Mars was okay since it was just science fiction. Invaders from Mars scared the knickers off little 10-year-old Marty.
For the record, I watched the trailer for the film in preparation for this blog entry and I was freaked out. At 37. See for yourself here. If you dare.
So the curse began and was carried through to the next generation. Apparently permanently unhinged by his early movie-going experiences with Grandma Hilda, my Dad developed a love for the same sorts of science fiction as his mom. He loves the Twilight Zone, subscribed for YEARS to Asimov’s Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine, and just seems to have an affinity for the weird and unsettling.
So now it’s the late 1970s. Marty has four kids of his own and a TV set with local channels that show lots of old movies. In complete innocence he shares his passion for science fiction with his children. His eldest, Danny, is haunted by Day of the Triffids (and in an ironic twist, my dad doesn’t even remember seeing that movie.) His second child, Kathy, is traumatized by Hitchcock’s The Birds, particularly when a young, beautiful woman named Kathy is mobbed to death by a flock of deranged birds. To be fair, his fourth child, Peter, was already well on his way to insanseville at birth so I’m not sure if Dad really contributed much there.
Me? The Incredible Shrinking Man. A movie he still insists was “neat.” I have distinct memories of sitting in church, looking down at my feet, and actually seeing them start to shrink. (The mist! The mist!!) I was convinced I would slowly disappear into a world where spiders were as big as monsters and no one would be able to figure out how to stop it.
And now, in 2009, shaggy spear-pierced Nazi corpses covered in tarantulas are going to pop out of my daughter’s closet with the ark of the covenant.
I already feel bad for her children.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
The Power of “Why?”
There’s nothing like an inquisitive nine-year-old to make you clarify your beliefs. And to make you humble to realize that you’re not a history scholar or a studied theologian, that you know only what you’ve heard or read about, and that there are some things in the world that just honestly make you doubt the ability of the human race to understand real love.
Somewhere, Eiledon heard about the book (now a movie) The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. She asked if I’d heard of it and I said I had.
“What’s it about?”
I attempt to explain, at a bare minimum and in as non-upsetting a fashion as possible, the basics of the Holocaust. Eiledon is, understandably, a little upset.
“Why did they do that?”
I briefly touch on the end of World War I, the demoralization of the German people, the human instinct for dumping downward and the dangers of national pride.
“But, why?”
I talk a little about World War II, Hitler and the Nazi party, the dangers of NOT having separation of church and state. Eiledon is surprised to find out that the Lutheran Church (in which she is being raised) had a key role in the victimization of Jews, Catholics, homosexuals and other groups. I reassure her that there were people, like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, for example, who challenged what the Nazis were doing ostensibly in the name of religion. I tell her that even though we are Lutheran Christians who believe in the authority (though not the inerrancy) of the Bible NO ONE can limit God. No one can say they know what God is or how God thinks or what God’s will is for others.
“Then why did they kill all those people?”
I try to make sense of what happened. I talk about racism, mob mentality, looking the other way, denial. I finally come around to fear. I explain, in as simple terms as possible, what I have learned in my 12-step program: that all defects of human character originate with one of two fears: the fear of not having enough or the fear of not being enough. The situation surrounding the holocaust was rife with both.
“So basically, fear leads to hate.”
Yoda would be so proud of my little padawan! I encourage my daughter to be unafraid of people, to try to see things from other perspectives. To accept and embrace those who are different, to learn from them and to love without fear. I tell her that even though there are some people who want to pretend the Holocaust never happened, we can never ever forget that IT DID HAPPEN. Not because we should dwell on the past, but because if we don’t learn from the past, history will repeat itself in the future.
When all was said and done, I think Eiledon “got it” as well as she could. A few thoughtful moments after our conversation she said, “Can I sleep with you? I’m really kind of freaked.”
“About the Holocaust?”
“About all the people they killed.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I can understand that.” I hugged her and handed her a pillow.
I have had the privilege of hearing two holocaust survivors speak. The first, Michael Guonari, when I was in high school, and the second, Elie Wiesel, who gave the commencement address at my sister’s college graduation (a college, I might add, of the Lutheran Church.) But it won’t be long before we have no direct contact with anyone who lived through the horrors of this genocide. And it is up to us to make sure our children can accept the potential for unbelievable evil in humankind without being paralyzed by the facts to the point where denial just seems easier. I certainly hope I did an adequate job of covering the topic at a 9-year-old level, unafraid of the truth of the past but with hope for a different future.
Somewhere, Eiledon heard about the book (now a movie) The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. She asked if I’d heard of it and I said I had.
“What’s it about?”
I attempt to explain, at a bare minimum and in as non-upsetting a fashion as possible, the basics of the Holocaust. Eiledon is, understandably, a little upset.
“Why did they do that?”
I briefly touch on the end of World War I, the demoralization of the German people, the human instinct for dumping downward and the dangers of national pride.
“But, why?”
I talk a little about World War II, Hitler and the Nazi party, the dangers of NOT having separation of church and state. Eiledon is surprised to find out that the Lutheran Church (in which she is being raised) had a key role in the victimization of Jews, Catholics, homosexuals and other groups. I reassure her that there were people, like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, for example, who challenged what the Nazis were doing ostensibly in the name of religion. I tell her that even though we are Lutheran Christians who believe in the authority (though not the inerrancy) of the Bible NO ONE can limit God. No one can say they know what God is or how God thinks or what God’s will is for others.
“Then why did they kill all those people?”
I try to make sense of what happened. I talk about racism, mob mentality, looking the other way, denial. I finally come around to fear. I explain, in as simple terms as possible, what I have learned in my 12-step program: that all defects of human character originate with one of two fears: the fear of not having enough or the fear of not being enough. The situation surrounding the holocaust was rife with both.
“So basically, fear leads to hate.”
Yoda would be so proud of my little padawan! I encourage my daughter to be unafraid of people, to try to see things from other perspectives. To accept and embrace those who are different, to learn from them and to love without fear. I tell her that even though there are some people who want to pretend the Holocaust never happened, we can never ever forget that IT DID HAPPEN. Not because we should dwell on the past, but because if we don’t learn from the past, history will repeat itself in the future.
When all was said and done, I think Eiledon “got it” as well as she could. A few thoughtful moments after our conversation she said, “Can I sleep with you? I’m really kind of freaked.”
“About the Holocaust?”
“About all the people they killed.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I can understand that.” I hugged her and handed her a pillow.
I have had the privilege of hearing two holocaust survivors speak. The first, Michael Guonari, when I was in high school, and the second, Elie Wiesel, who gave the commencement address at my sister’s college graduation (a college, I might add, of the Lutheran Church.) But it won’t be long before we have no direct contact with anyone who lived through the horrors of this genocide. And it is up to us to make sure our children can accept the potential for unbelievable evil in humankind without being paralyzed by the facts to the point where denial just seems easier. I certainly hope I did an adequate job of covering the topic at a 9-year-old level, unafraid of the truth of the past but with hope for a different future.
May we never forget that we need to keep asking "Why?"
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Solidarity
My daughter hates brushing her hair. I don’t blame her. I know it hurts. I know because my hair was just like hers when I was younger. Fine and thin and prone to colossal tangles. With every stroke, the brush yanked strands out of tender follicles and I would yelp.
Now, having kept it fairly short most of my life, my hair is quite thick—still very fine, but, as I’ve been told by several hair stylists, I have a lot of it. It doesn’t hurt to pull it out anymore. That could be because I killed all the nerve endings in my scalp with my childhood brushing. But more likely it’s just because I’ve gotten more hard-headed as I’ve aged.
Eiledon, poor child, is only 9 and still has hair that is fine and thin and prone to colossal tangles. It doesn’t matter how often I remind her that if she’d brush it every night and every morning, she could minimize the agony, she still waits until I walk away and “forgets” to finish brushing. When I stand over her and insist, the outcome usually involves lots of threats and screaming, gallons of detangling spray and heartfelt promises never to let that happen again.
Sunday morning was the last straw. As we got into the car to go to church, I handed her a brush and said, “You have until we get to church to brush your hair. Then I’m going to brush it.” I stayed very matter-of-fact about it. In fact, I was ready to congratulate myself on my wonderful parenting when she exploded into a paroxysm of rage. My nerves, already shot through with hairline cracks, completely disintegrated. I checked the self-congratulation and launched into my unfortunate parenting fallback. I screamed back at her. This is a highly effective parenting technique. For other people’s children. With Eiledon, it just escalates things.
I pulled into the church parking lot mentally tallying the medical bills for my extreme TMJ flare-up. I left her in the car and went in, fuming. (Gavin, while he can be just as belligerent as his sister, adopts this very Eddie-Haskell-like persona when Eiledon flies off the handle. It’s as if he knows he’ll be cut off at the knees if he so much as ventures an opinion in the middle of our face-off. Instead, he becomes the perfect angel child and says, “yes, Mama” and “Can I get the door for you, Mama?” and “I'll carry your bag for you, Mama” in the most ingratiating manner.)
Not that cutting Eiledon’s hair would be a simple solution. We’d been down that road before. Every time I told her she either had to brush it or we were going to have it cut short, the result was a fairly substantial meltdown. Once before—two years ago maybe?—I had followed through and convinced her it was the best (and her only) option. It was time to go there again.
After a healthy cooling-off period, I sat down with my daughter. “Eiledon,” I said, “I’m sorry I was such a bear this morning. But we need to come up with a better solution for your hair. If you’re not going to brush it and take care of it, you really can’t keep it long.”
“But you do,” I insisted. “Maybe it’s time to cut it again. It will grow back and it will probably grow back thicker and stronger like mine did.”
“Fine,” she scowled. “One more time and that’s it forever!”
“I can’t promise that. I had to wear my hair short a lot for it to get this thick. And it doesn’t even hurt when I pull it out anymore.” Inspiration struck. “What if we donate your hair to Locks of Love? They make wigs for kids who lose their hair because of illness.”
“Megan did that once,” she said, warming to the idea. “That could be cool.”
Feeling relief, I said, “I’ll check it out on line and see what I can find out.”
I found out that our local Fantastic Sam’s would do it. No appointment necessary. I went to bed Sunday evening with a sense of real accomplishment and the promise of significantly reduced drama in my household.
The next morning, when I was in the shower, God said, “You know, Rebekah…” I hate it when He does that. “You know, if you really love that little girl, and if you really want to show her, you could donate your hair, too.”
My hair. My grandmother’s hair! The hair I’d been growing for EIGHT YEARS. My long, thick, wonderful, luxurious—well, crap!
I wandered out of the bathroom with a towel on my head. Eiledon and Gavin were munching on cereal and watching cartoons. “Eiledon,” I said, “how would you like it if I got my hair cut for Locks of Love, too?”
I know she can be a real challenge to me, but let me tell you, when that little girl gets excited about something, the entire world brightens three or four shades. She just lit up with a huge grin and yelled, “AWESOME!” We went straight to the salon after I picked her up from school. An hour and 21 inches of hair later, it was done. They didn't even charge for the cuts.
You know, not many things in life are completely clear. But this decision, this show of solidarity with my wonderful daughter, this was the best decision I’d made all year.
Now, having kept it fairly short most of my life, my hair is quite thick—still very fine, but, as I’ve been told by several hair stylists, I have a lot of it. It doesn’t hurt to pull it out anymore. That could be because I killed all the nerve endings in my scalp with my childhood brushing. But more likely it’s just because I’ve gotten more hard-headed as I’ve aged.
Eiledon, poor child, is only 9 and still has hair that is fine and thin and prone to colossal tangles. It doesn’t matter how often I remind her that if she’d brush it every night and every morning, she could minimize the agony, she still waits until I walk away and “forgets” to finish brushing. When I stand over her and insist, the outcome usually involves lots of threats and screaming, gallons of detangling spray and heartfelt promises never to let that happen again.
Sunday morning was the last straw. As we got into the car to go to church, I handed her a brush and said, “You have until we get to church to brush your hair. Then I’m going to brush it.” I stayed very matter-of-fact about it. In fact, I was ready to congratulate myself on my wonderful parenting when she exploded into a paroxysm of rage. My nerves, already shot through with hairline cracks, completely disintegrated. I checked the self-congratulation and launched into my unfortunate parenting fallback. I screamed back at her. This is a highly effective parenting technique. For other people’s children. With Eiledon, it just escalates things.
I pulled into the church parking lot mentally tallying the medical bills for my extreme TMJ flare-up. I left her in the car and went in, fuming. (Gavin, while he can be just as belligerent as his sister, adopts this very Eddie-Haskell-like persona when Eiledon flies off the handle. It’s as if he knows he’ll be cut off at the knees if he so much as ventures an opinion in the middle of our face-off. Instead, he becomes the perfect angel child and says, “yes, Mama” and “Can I get the door for you, Mama?” and “I'll carry your bag for you, Mama” in the most ingratiating manner.)
My poor father was the first one to ask, “How are you?” and I’m sure he regretted it at least a little. He and my mom kindly reminded me of my own childhood hair-brushing issues, which I had to concede. Then my mom said something like, “You know, I didn’t just keep your hair shorter because it was easier. I kept hoping it would grow in thicker and stronger.” “It did,” I replied, thoughtful.
Not that cutting Eiledon’s hair would be a simple solution. We’d been down that road before. Every time I told her she either had to brush it or we were going to have it cut short, the result was a fairly substantial meltdown. Once before—two years ago maybe?—I had followed through and convinced her it was the best (and her only) option. It was time to go there again.
After a healthy cooling-off period, I sat down with my daughter. “Eiledon,” I said, “I’m sorry I was such a bear this morning. But we need to come up with a better solution for your hair. If you’re not going to brush it and take care of it, you really can’t keep it long.”
“I wish you didn’t have to brush long hair,” she replied, sullen. It was her mantra.
“But you do,” I insisted. “Maybe it’s time to cut it again. It will grow back and it will probably grow back thicker and stronger like mine did.”
“Fine,” she scowled. “One more time and that’s it forever!”
“I can’t promise that. I had to wear my hair short a lot for it to get this thick. And it doesn’t even hurt when I pull it out anymore.” Inspiration struck. “What if we donate your hair to Locks of Love? They make wigs for kids who lose their hair because of illness.”
“Megan did that once,” she said, warming to the idea. “That could be cool.”
Feeling relief, I said, “I’ll check it out on line and see what I can find out.”
I found out that our local Fantastic Sam’s would do it. No appointment necessary. I went to bed Sunday evening with a sense of real accomplishment and the promise of significantly reduced drama in my household.
The next morning, when I was in the shower, God said, “You know, Rebekah…” I hate it when He does that. “You know, if you really love that little girl, and if you really want to show her, you could donate your hair, too.”
My hair. My grandmother’s hair! The hair I’d been growing for EIGHT YEARS. My long, thick, wonderful, luxurious—well, crap!
I wandered out of the bathroom with a towel on my head. Eiledon and Gavin were munching on cereal and watching cartoons. “Eiledon,” I said, “how would you like it if I got my hair cut for Locks of Love, too?”
I know she can be a real challenge to me, but let me tell you, when that little girl gets excited about something, the entire world brightens three or four shades. She just lit up with a huge grin and yelled, “AWESOME!” We went straight to the salon after I picked her up from school. An hour and 21 inches of hair later, it was done. They didn't even charge for the cuts.
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