Last week Jesse played his last basketball game as a 5th grader. In a gym where I also played as a 5th grader. He lost. They gave him a medal anyway – for losing two games. For most of the night I was embarrassed.

But not because of Jesse. No way. Not because of him.

We had taken with us Marc and Ruth, our friends from Brazil. Two of the most inspiring people I know. They operate a children’s program in Fortaleza, Brazil, that provides education, safe play, and good nutrition to children in some of Brazil’s poorest favelas. Marc and Ruth are some of our favorite people in the world; I can’t imagine ever being embarrassed by them.

I certainly wasn’t embarrassed by the facilities. Even though that gym has been around for as long as I can remember and sort of shows its age, it is a sign of rural America fighting for viability. The elementary school has long moved out of town for consolidation, but the gym still hosts a 5th and 6th grade basketball tournament every year. It’s a niche market, but they know how to work it.

And besides, our friends were right at home in a simple gym without a fancy rubber coated floor or padded seats.

Nope, none of that bothered me. Jesse was his usual competitive but polite self. The gym represented the struggles and small triumphs of a rural economy trying to hold it together. I was proud of those things.

But I was embarrassed by a number of the adults in that gym. The parents and even a coach or two. When we first arrived, my girls sat in front of a woman yelling and screaming for her slightly chubby 5th grader to grab that rebound so loudly it was blowing the girls’ hair straight out in front of their shock-wide eyes. As Ada would relate later, this upset mom was overheard telling the ref to “go to where-the-Devil-lives.” Thanks for that, lady.

It didn’t get much better after our game started. I always cringe at this kind of behavior. Even the kind of yelling that parents think is being helpful often seems like too much to me. In my non-professional opinion, a kid learns a sport better when they have the opportunity to get their own feel for it. They need to learn to trust their instincts and the training of their coaches, not the sound of their mother in the stands shouting for them to JUST SHOOT! Sure, I’m guilty. Even that night I wondered what my spiritual friends would think of me yelling out, “Go, White!” or “Defense, Eagles!” (Cheerleaders die hard, okay?)

Once we all returned to the van for the 30 minute drive home through narrow, dark country roads, I wondered what our international friends would make of our basketball experience. Would they be appalled by our pushy attitudes toward our 10 year olds? Would they be surprised by our willingness to spend time and money on a meaningless game? Would they be shocked by the way we yell and stomp our feet and fuss?

No. Marc’s comment went more like this, “It’s so nice that you have something like this you can all do together. It’s so good for parents to be involved in their kids’ lives. This is something our kids in Brazil just don’t have. It’s a blessing, really.”

I’ll try to remember those words next time I’m embarrassed by a parent who takes things a little more seriously than I think is optimal for his child’s emotional development. I’ll try to be grateful that he’s there. Being there counts for a lot. Probably more than I can imagine.

I think I’ve told you this before that I first became interested in sports when the copy of Sports Illustrated for my dad’s office was mistakenly delivered to our house. Sports journalists have amazing powers. I never thought I could care about a baseball prospect in Texas, but SI writers could make anyone interesting. So it started with stories and then translated into my real life.

It didn’t take long for me to figure out that where there were sports there were usually boys. Boys were interesting. The funny thing is that I didn’t stay as faithful to any of those particular boys as I stayed to our shared loved for the Mizzou Tigers. (And that’s all the information you’re going to get about that for this post!)

I eventually got married (to a non-Tiger fan) and my tolerance for watching sports has played heavily into our successful run of nearly 12 years of marriage. Case in point: This weekend Dan and I sat down for the evening and he said, “I taped a new episode of that drama you like, or we could catch the end of whatever game is on ESPN.”

“Basketball sounds good.”

“I love you so much!”

Now with our son, Jesse, playing on his own teams and watching televised sports with us, the usefulness of those first Sports Illustrated magazines in my life cannot be overestimated!

Confession: On Sunday Jesse and I watched way too many hours of basketball related TV. Second confession: It was totally worth it, even when (combined with the curse of Daylight Savings Time) we both had trouble settling down to sleep!

March is my favorite for several reasons: my birthday (on the 27th), the arrival of Spring, and the NCAA Basketball Tournament. Sunday Jesse and I watched the Selection Show and began our descent into the time-consumer that is called Bracketology. We mourned and rejoiced over the placement of our favorite teams. We listened to a couple of hours of analysis. We clicked and clicked to fill out our brackets online, knowing that what seems so obvious now will be obliterated by this time next week. We even watched a documentary on the great Duke teams from 91 and 92 (“Coach K was coaching back then?!”). Basically, we breathed in basketball all afternoon and most of the evening.

And we have three more weeks of this! Sing it with me now, “It’s the most wonderful time of the year!”

Thanks, Rick Reilly!

(Alternative Title: What Reading Teaches Me About What I Should Write)

And let me preface this post. I didn’t like reading The Hunger Games, but I did enjoy the story. I’ll explain later.

You’ve read the Ira Glass quote about how aspiring writers are often frustrated because their taste for good writing is usually better than what they can actually produce in their early efforts? Yeah, I feel that a lot.

And I’m also learning a lot about what I want to write based on what I like to read.

I recently succumbed to peer pressure and borrowed a copy of The Hunger Games. I almost put it down after the first chapter. Why? When so many other respectable adults I know had been literally captivated by this book? Two reasons: The first person present-tense perspective and the unpredictable, unrealistic setting.

I’m not a fan of the YA narrator. I don’t mind first person; my beloved Jane Eyre is in first person in places. But when combined with the present tense, it makes me feel, as a reader, that my understanding of the story is severely limited. No sense of objective perspective, no sense of communal understanding. I feel sort of trapped in that person’s head. Katniss is a lovably flawed character, but I kept wishing I could get outside of her and have a long look around for myself.

I also don’t love reading about a world that hasn’t ever really existed unless that world abides by a set of fixed rules. For example, I’m not totally against fantasy (read: Narnia or Rings), but I need that world to seem reliable. In Panem, especially in the games, the rules are random. It seems a little like cheating. Need to kill someone? Let the Gamemakers create a “natural” disaster. Need to save the main characters? Let the Gamemakers make a new rule. Too easy.

I actually became quite engaged in the story and enjoyed the last half of the book. But I realized I’m not interested in reading the rest of the series. Dan is reading and keeping me up to date with the characters. I do care about Katniss and Peeta. I just want a third-person narrator with a sense of the rules of my world to tell me the story! : )

All of this got me thinking about what I want to write. While reading the early pages of The Hunger Games, I felt like I could hear the Gone With The Wind on my shelves crying out for me to pick her up instead. And I wanted to and I wondered why. That’s what made me think about the differences.

So why does it matter? Well, I keep thinking about the old advice that a writer should write what she likes to read. By reading more lately I think I’ve learned a bit more about what I want to write. Besides real-life stories (nonfiction and memoir), I like to learn something when I read fiction. I want the world to be real (either historical or modern or with rules that make sense to me) and to teach me about the culture or social rules of that world. And I want to feel like my perspective on the world of the story is broad and at least a little objective. I need to see a bigger picture than one character can provide. I mean, I’m stuck with a singular perspective my own life story and I fight against it all the time. When I read, I want more.

Does your writing and reading line up like that? Can you NOT finish a book? Will you write what you like to read?

And, just to save my reputation, I am looking forward to The Hunger Games movie. In fact, I saw a full-size cardboard cutout of Peeta in the mall last night and squealed a little. There. That makes me cool again, right?

On International Women’s Day 2012

This week I watched you all open your hearts a little wider. Our friends from all over the world came to visit, as they do every year during our church’s Missions Conference, and you welcomed them joyfully. You tried every food you were offered, shook hands with strangers, and carefully selected handmade treasures from around the world to line your own shelves.

Even before this week, you’ve been so faithful to try the Lenten experiment with us. You’ve given up favorite foods and helped me learn how to make rice and beans. Joyfully! You are the best the world has to offer.

Sometimes I’d like to put parental controls on your world the same way I put them on your television. I’d like you to only see lovely, pure, and true. But that isn’t the way it goes, and so I’m learning to trust you into bigger hands than my own. This helps me, remembering that the love of God can find you just the way it found me. Just the way it found anyone who wraps themselves in its protective yet empowering strength.

Anyway, you already know the world is imperfect. But you make the best of it. In your games you kill off your parents right away and then find ways to employ yourselves (even as “teenagers”) and raise your rowdy children, all while wearing tutus and princess costumes. In other games you turn the staircase into an orphanage and line the babies up, each step a crib, and then sing lullabyes to them as they drift off to sleep under your watchful eyes. I wish every orphan had this opportunity to grow under your care. I have few doubts that someday at least a few of them will.

Today I thought I might introduce you to some great women. I considered finally writing down some of the stories in my own heart of your long legacy of faith. Your mothers, great and grand, have lived lives worthy of celebration; there is so much you could learn from their stories of horseback rides for new opportunities and the years of passing out love along with public school lunches. I also considered writing down the stories of some great international women that I’ve read about, strong women fighting injustice even while living under its oppression. Even international women that I know, bowing low over open fires to feed the hungry or standing tall inside school room gates to educate learners, have stories that should be told.

And I’m probably going to write them someday.

But today I think I’ll just celebrate you, my little international women. I’ll celebrate your hearts of love and joy and passion. I’ll celebrate your resourcefulness and your creativity. Because of who you are, I imagine someday the stories will be about you!

Love,

The first of March seems like a good time to update on my One Word challenge. My word, if you remember and as you can see on my sidebar, is DARE.

This week I received the good news that a poem I submitted to a small literary journal was accepted for publication! It isn’t that I was up against a huge pool of talent or anything, but I am thrilled to see a little bit of fruit from my intentional pursuit of writing opportunities this year.

My submission was an exercise in discipline. I had submitted to this journal before, once with a critical essay and once with a short story. Neither were accepted. This year I thought I’d try a new category: poetry. I don’t regularly write poetry, but I thought I had a few images and metaphors hanging around in some of my other writing, specifically my memoir about Claire’s birth. I chose one that I thought would work best for a poem and titled it “On Memoir.”

See what I did there? I wrote a poem about writing memoir! : ) And they liked it. I like it too. I’ll share it here when I can. I have to check out the details of rights and so forth.

So, I’m proud of my progress on the One Word Dare. I feel especially lucky that “submitting” was one of my exact challenges to myself in my original post and I’ve been rewarded so soon. I hope that doesn’t mean the rest of the year is a bust! : )

If I had to give you an account of my fears right now, being caught in a tornado and having my wisdom teeth removed would both be near the top of that list. And that’s even before this weekend’s deadly tornadic activity across the Midwest and Southeast.

But the interesting thing about most of my fears is that they are usually based in the future. I worry the most about what might happen. C. S. Lewis, in his satiric book The Screwtape Letters, says this is because human “passions point in that direction already, so that thought about the Future inflames hope and fear.” But mostly fear. : )

In the same letter from the demon Screwtape to his underling Wormwood, Lewis’ narrator explains that God’s desire is for us to live in either the Present or in Eternity. These are our truest realities – the places we can be surest of – and the place where He offers us full grace. (Even for a non-Christian, Eternity is a fairly fixed reality. Atheists at this point believe they will simply cease to exist. I guess the agnostic might be fairly uncertain of Eternity, but Christians, even with their own misunderstands of what exactly it will be, are certain that Eternity will be good and fulfilling.) Because of this, the powers against us (in Lewis’ book: demons and their Father Below) would rather keep our attention focused elsewhere.

Specifically, they want us to live in either the Past or in the Future. Between them, the Future is their favorite place for us to dwell because it is “the thing least like eternity.” The Past, as you know, is more concrete and real because it has already happened, no matter how we might color it with our own interpretive lenses.

In a word, the Future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity. It is the most completely temporal part of time – for the Past is frozen and no longer flows, and the Present is all lit up with eternal rays.

It reminds me of Jesus’ admonition that we don’t worry about tomorrow because tomorrow would have its own problems. He wasn’t saying He couldn’t help us tomorrow, but He was sort of saying that He couldn’t help us if we’re worrying about something that may or may not even exist. We can only receive the grace we need in the moment that we need it. What happens is that we end up being afraid of fear itself. We let tomorrow’s worries rob us of today’s peace.

So today I’m going to live in my Present. Take joy in the simplicity of my coffee and the sounds of my children around me. Relish the opportunity to write and publish words that express my heart and my understanding about life. And my heart remains sure of the reality of Eternity, even if I can’t describe its specifics. When I live in these two places, the Present or the hope of Eternity, then I’m living in the reality that God desires for me.

And I feel a lot better because – you know what? - this time the tornado passed by and the wisdom teeth appointment isn’t even made. If I spend my day scared about these future realities then today’s joy has been stolen by the future.

What about you? Are your worst fears based in the Future? Or, if you want another insight from Lewis’ book, maybe your hope for joy is based on how great the Future is going to be instead of enjoying the reality of the Present moment. That’s a trap to cover on another day . . .

This is a basic breakdown of how we are living during Lent:

1. At Breakfast we are avoiding Pop-Tarts for the kids and bagels with cream cheese for me. Instead we are all eating toast, cereal, and/or fruit. Dan and I still drink coffee but we’re skipping the flavored creamer and using milk and sweetener instead.

2. At Lunch we’re adopting an “eat what is offered to you” mentality. The kids eat at school. Dan and I are trying to eat sandwiches at home unless we have lunch meetings. For meetings we are trying to choose salads or simple meat and vegetable combos in one plate only portions.

3. For Snacks we have oranges and bananas and applesauce for the kids. They also take cheese sticks to school.

4. For Supper we’re rotating basically three meal options: rice and beans (which we made for the first time on our own), spaghetti with sauce, and sandwiches or salad.

So far this is working great. We feel the tension of wanting more options but still feel satisfied. My greatest struggle was giving up Diet Coke. I really thought I was going to die on Day 2. Since then, though, I’ve thought it sounded good but I haven’t craved it like I was those first two days. I’m actually enjoying water. I also drink juice with some meals.

Our first Feast Day was on Sunday. It was a special time. The girls were out of town with Mom – see here – so just Dan and I and Jesse went out to eat together. We enjoyed the buffet (limit of one dinner plate and one dessert plate) and Dan lead us in a time of celebrating each other and offering prayer. That night was a party with Serenity – see here – so I was truly feasting all day! I think I’ll stay off Diet Coke even on my feast day, though; the book we’re reading recommends you avoid trigger foods even on your feast day.

Each night at supper we read the passage in A Place at the Table about a child in another part of the world. Then I read the prayer for that day and one of the kids follows with a prayer for the child we learned about. Not surprisingly, Ada, our 8 year old, is most involved, but the other kids are enjoying it as well. The first night I served only salad and Macy cried. At first I thought to myself that this was going to be a long forty days, but then I put on my tough face and told her that there are many children in the world who cry about their food but for very different reasons. Then I told the other kids not to baby her. (You can’t imagine how she’s wrapped them all around her finger.) It didn’t take long for her to join in and eat!

Tonight I made a banana cake from the browning fruit on our counter and I felt like a pioneer or something! We each ate our thick slices with so much appreciation! It was a big change from the usual way we scarf down Little Debbie snack cakes on our way out the door or while we watch something on Netflix. The tone we were trying to establish with this Lenten fast, one of gratitude and compassion, has certainly happened this week. I’m grateful.