It's Just Different

You’re not worthless, they said.

It’s just that your worth is a little bit different.

It’s not better or worse.

It’s just different.

I mean, who’s to say that one number is any more valuable than another?

Different numbers can have the same value, right?

Sure, your number is lower,

But that doesn’t change your value.

Your value is the same as anyone else’s—

Except that it’s a little different.

It’s not better or worse.

It’s just different.

You can do anything you want to do,

And be anything you want to be.

So long as you choose from this pre-approved list.

What you’ve chosen is probably good,

It’s just that what we’ve chosen for you

Is a little bit different.

It’s not better or worse.

It’s just different.

And we’re glad that you’ve accepted the name God has given you.

The name He has given you is all that matters.

It’s just that we *kind of* already had a name picked out for you.

And I’m sure the name God picked is fine, 

But we kind of already made your name tag.

And it’s different.

It’s not better or worse.

It’s just different.

The Mold

I was nine years old

The first time someone told me

That I needed to either conform to the mold

Or be discarded as defective

I would say that they didn’t say it in so many words…

But they kind of did.

You would think comments like that 

Would be more veiled,

But nine-year-olds don’t generally speak in euphemism.

And as I’ve grown, 

I’ve found that nine-year-olds 

Don’t have the market cornered 

On this lack of nuance. 

Any advice I’ve had to fit the mold

Or be discarded as defective,

Even by grown adults,

Has been thinly veiled…

At best.

At worst, it’s been a list of rules

About how to be counted

As simply acceptable—

Not worthy or valuable—

But simply acceptable.

(I would say that they didn’t say it in so many words…

But they kind of did.)

Acceptable—

As an employee

As a member of society

As a good consumer

As an American

As a wife

As a mother

As a Christian

As a woman

As a Christian woman

As a Christian woman and wife and mother. 

As a person.

And if I don’t fit the mold,

I will be discarded as defective.

I don’t have to fit the mold.

I certainly don’t have to fit the mold—

I can break the mold.

They love people who break the mold.

They do, 

They absolutely love people who break the mold.

They will cheer me on if I break the mold.

But then they will come 

Silently in the night

To discard me as defective. 

And I look around

And see huge crowds

Lining up in the factory,

Killing themselves to fit this mold,

Arranging their lives to fill up every crevice of this mold,

Trimming precious parts of themselves off,

So as not to expand outside this mold.

Because if they break the mold,

They will be cheered on,

And people will love them—

And then those same people will come

Silently in the night

To discard them as defective.

Better to expand and trim and grow and shrink,

Than be discarded as defective.

But suddenly, 

The fog dissipates

And I have a Cady Heron moment of clarity. 

The mold does not exist.

All this expanding and shrinking and trimming and filling,

And the mold doesn’t even exist?!

You can’t break the mold because

THE MOLD DOES NOT EXIST. 

In one moment, 

I see us all lined up

In a factory

Waiting to be poured into the image 

Of the latest

Book

Or influencer

Or trend

Or leader

Or personality type

Or model human.

And the next moment,

The smoke clears,

And the factory does not exist.

And the mold does not exist.

And instead

We’re in a potter’s workshop,

And he is taking the time

To form each of us by hand.

And he does not duplicate a single piece.

Or discard a single piece as defective.

And those parts of ourselves

That we were so desperate 

To trim off,

Are the parts 

He would use to make us 

The most unique piece the world has ever seen,

If we would only get out of line

At the fake factory

And let him.

October—At First we Called Her Apple Seed

At first, we called her Apple Seed

Because that’s how big she was at the time.

And with that seed, 

Life grew out of nothing.

And then,

Just like a seed

Falls to the ground and dies,

She was gone.

And the darkness

And the ground 

Were the only traces 

We could see 

Of what was left of a soul.

We sat in the dark,

As though we, too, 

Had fallen to the ground and died. 

There was no escaping,

There was no minimizing,

There was no denying

Death. 

.

.

.

Then I heard the voice of Jesus ask,

As though I were the grieving Martha—

Because I was the grieving Martha—

“Didn’t I tell you 

You would see the glory of God 

If you believed?

I am the resurrection 

And the life, 

Do you believe this?”

I did not believe. 

I had forgotten that death is a starting point. 

And so we finally called her Resurrection—

Annie—

For a million reasons.

Because of our stubborn hope.

Because of what was reborn in us. 

Because she set the course of my studies 

On the new trajectory of resurrection. 

Because she resurrected in us

The idea,

The hope,

The absolute necessity,

Of resurrection.

Resurrection was a fitting name.

Because a seed 

Fall to the ground and dies

To be reborn 

And bear fruit.

April—Flipping off Ghosts

I have ghosts that have haunted me for years.

And the irritating thing about ghosts is that you can’t kill them.

But they still hang around and haunt you.

They used to be alive.

But now they’re dead.

But you still can’t stop hearing them.

And you can’t stop being afraid of them.

The ghosts tell me if I don’t stay shut up in their haunted house 

And follow all their advice, 

And answer all their questions, 

And stay scared of them haunting me,

That things will only get worse.

So my ghosts show up all the time 

And haunt me when I’m least expecting it.

Like the stereotypical nagging aunt 

Who inexplicably always has a Brooklyn accent.

My ghosts show up and ask why I accidentally walked into my kid and made them fall and cry. 

They tell me it’s fine and that it happens, 

But not to parents who love their kids just a little bit more.

They ask why I let the strawberries in my refrigerator get moldy again, 

And ask me why I keep getting strawberries when they keep getting moldy. 

They keep telling me that no one will respect me if I’m not the smartest. 

But they also tell me that I’m arrogant (as if I didn’t know) 

And that no one likes a know-it-all.

They tell me that making a joke is the only way I add value to the room I’m in. 

But they also tell me that my jokes are just a little *too much* sometimes.

They ask me why I’m not self-conscious about my looks. 

You are a woman after all, 

You’re supposed to care and be self-conscious about these things I’m pretty sure.

It’s not enough that you’re self-conscious about other things,

You’re really supposed to care about your looks, right?

They keep asking me why I am not cHeRiShInG tHe DaYs a little more.

When I’m working, they tell me that I should be spending time with my family, 

When I’m spending time with my family, they tell me I should be working.

They ask me why I hate bathtime with the kids. 

After all, these are the days of precious memories.

They tell me that my emotions are a burden, 

my boundaries are a doormat.

They tell me that the list of things they nag me about

Isn’t cool enough,

And that other people have way cooler neuroses

That are way more existential.

Mostly they just tell me 

that there’s something that’s not 

*quite* 

right about me.

The irritating thing about ghosts is that you can’t kill them.

But they still hang around and haunt you.

And you can’t stop being afraid of them.

And the ghosts tell me if I don’t stay shut up in their haunted house 

And follow all their advice, 

And answer all their questions, 

And stay scared of their haunting,

That things will only get worse.

Until I have a Clark-Griswold-from-Christmas-Vacation-Moment-of-Clarity and finally say 

“WORSE?! HOW COULD THINGS GET ANY WORSE?!” 

Worse than shutting myself up in a haunted house 

And listening to nagging ghosts with a Brooklyn accent?! 

It’s not possible.

The irritating thing about ghosts is that you can’t kill them. 

So I stopped trying. 

Instead I flipped them off—

Which they found quite distasteful—

And left the house they’ve been haunting, 

And threw away my moldy strawberries on the way out, 

And ran out into the sunshine.

They followed me of course, 

But I took off toward a river.

I made finger guns with my middle fingers,

And shot them at the ghosts as I ran,

Shouting all the time that they could go screw themselves. 

And I ran through the streams and kicked and splashed and played. 

And I ate good food and had a bottle or two of wine. 

And I was full and happy and had nothing to prove to the ghosts. 

And I sang at the top of my lungs,

And danced in a way that ignored all the rules of my childhood dance classes.

The irritating thing about ghosts is that you can’t kill them.

And they still hang around and haunt you.

They used to be alive.

But now they’re dead.

And you can’t stop hearing them.

But you can stop being afraid of them.

And you can flip them off anytime you want 

And play and dance and sing in the river.

March—A Moment Around Noon

There’s a moment around noon every Sunday

Where I find my personal needs rushing to surface and consuming all my thoughts.

All of a sudden I am hungry, I am thirsty, I have to go to the bathroom, I am exhausted. 

Call it the life of a pastor's wife. 

For a few hours every week, my mind and my spirit are so preoccupied that not one thought can be diverted to physical needs.

It would feel like stopping for a pedicure on mile 18 of a marathon. 

I’m preoccupied 

with trying to remember chord progressions

and watching my kids

and making quite certain they haven’t fallen into the baptistery

and actually worshipping or learning or connecting

and wishing I could meet every new person

and wishing I could spend a full day with every person

and checking again to make sure my kids haven’t fallen into the baptistery

and wondering where we’re eating lunch.

.

.

.

Deep breath.

.

.

.

There’s a moment 

around noon 

where everything stops

.

.

.

And at the first signs of relief, 

All these other needs 

Come rushing to the surface. 

And all of a sudden

.

.

.

I am hungry,

I am thirsty, 

I have to go to the bathroom, 

I am exhausted. 

And there was a moment today,

On this March afternoon,

When I stepped into the sunshine, 

And recognized that feeling again.

In the winter, I keep my head down and barrel through. 

I put every ounce of strength into getting by and fending off the cold and surviving.

And not one thought can be diverted to my personal needs. 

It would feel like stopping for a pedicure on mile 18 of a marathon. 

But there’s a moment

In March 

When everything stops, 

When I walk into the sunshine 

And feel the first hints of warmth, 

And all my needs come rushing to the surface. 

I need spring,

I need heat, 

I need sun, 

I need color. 

And I stand outside, 

And take it all in.

February—Barely Winter

Call it seasonal depression,

Or regular depression, or anxiety, or a lack of vitamin D and seratonin, 

Or whatever you want to call it—

I tend to feel kind of down in the winter.

So as December came, I looked out for the signs.

But it was Christmas—and most of December 

Is barely winter anyway. 

And in January, I looked out for the signs.

But I was busy settling into the new year.

And setting goals and finding a planner.

And besides, 

It was barely winter anyway.

Now it’s mid-February.

There’s still ice on the ground from an ice storm a week ago.

But it’s mostly thawed now

And there is water everywhere

As patches of ground, one by one, 

Begin to light up their no vacancy signs,

And the melted ice has nowhere to go 

In that over-saturated ground.

Sam asks when it will snow again

and I tell him I don’t know.

I tell him this might be the last snow of winter.

That the weather may just get warmer and warmer.

And calling it the last snow of winter makes me realize that winter has been here.

It’s not “barely winter” anymore.

Maybe it is, but the other way now. 

Winter is almost over. 

And I think about that seasonal depression again.

I stopped looking for the warning signs. 

I was playing in the snow and ice

And planning

And celebrating

And I ignored the signs of winter 

Going on all around me,

Until it began to thaw

And the ground became over-saturated,

And puddles of water appeared

And now they currently have nowhere to go.

So I let them soak more and more into the ground,

Until it’s completely muddy,

And you can’t take a step outside 

Without tracking it all in and making a mess.

Because there will be a day soon 

When the ground will bear fruit 

From taking in all that melted snow.

You Swear You're Nothing Alike

You swear you’re nothing alike,

like petulant preteen siblings who want nothing to do with each other,

but your resemblance to your father gives you away.

There are subtle nuances, of course, 

but there’s no mistaking your origin.

You both say that I have worth.

Of course you have worth.

What would we do without you.

You both value my worth 

at about 78% of what it could be. 

But that percentage doesn’t affect your worth.

Your worth isn’t fractionalized.

You are every bit as worthy.

After all, as Orwell once said,

“All animals are equal…”

…I forget the second part.

(It’s that “some are more equal than others.”)

You both insist that how I handle my family and career are the most important things about me.

Whether I forsake one and cling to the other,

or cling to one and forsake the other.

But with both of you, there must be a dichotomy. 

And with both of you, 

my worth is tied to how I handle that dichotomy.

And to you both, my body is a valuable commodity

whether it’s a treasure to be buried—

and don’t you dare dig it up—or a jewel to be displayed,

or a priceless pawn to be played 

for political purposes. 

Either way, 

my body, you say, isn’t mine.

It’s simply a talking point for both of you.

You both insist that sexuality is my greatest weapon.

That beauty is my obsession.

That somehow my identity is tied 

to my relationship with a man,

whether that’s my wholehearted devotion

or my ability to subdue.

You both suggest different ways to handle this power I have,

but to you both, it is my greatest power.

And you both say that I am accepted in your family…

…as long as I stay in line.

You both say that I could be your favorite sibling…

…as long as I stay in line.

As long as I stick to your talking points.

And look right.

And act right

And vote right.

And make family my god.

Or make career my god.

As long as I follow the script on

Individuality

Family

Sex

Abortion

God

Work

Beauty

My role

My being.

As long as I accept myself the way you see me.

As long as I am who you say I am.

You swear you’re nothing alike.

You each swear you’ll set me free from the other.

But you are exactly alike.

And I only know this because when you have heard one voice for long enough,

you get really good at recognizing it.

You swear you’re nothing alike,

but you have three things in common:

1. You look and sound and act the same.

2. You both insist that your brother is the problem (or that I am the problem), and you the solution.

3. I am not your sibling.

Because I have a Mother…

Who has spent a lot of nights with me, sitting on the couch, shouldering my sobs.

Who has spent a lot of days bandaging up wounds.

Who has spent a lot of time saying “I know…I know…I know…I understand.” 

Who carried me, birthed me, fed me, clothed me, protected me. 

And no one—no one—else can make the same claim.

I have a Mother

Who insists that before I was anything, 

I was a child.

I was a person—

I was a PERSON—

That I have a purpose.

That I exist, not as a means to an end, but as an end. 

That I exist not to prop up, but to work together.

That I exist not to follow a script, but to write it.

That I exist not primarily to do, but to exist. 

That my worth doesn’t lie in my body.

That my worth doesn’t lie in being a woman.

That my worth doesn’t lie in the 78%.

Or in the other 22%.

That my worth doesn’t lie in where I find my worth.

My worth lies in the fact that I am created.

That I am loved. 

You disagree with me.

You say that my Mother should have difficult standards for me.

That being part of my family should be hard.

You say that I don’t have a Mother this soft.

Or that I don’t have a Mother.

Or that I don’t have a Mother who is a Mother. 

And all I can say is that I only can say what I know:

That I have a Mother.

Who is good, and tender, and genuine, and just.

Who places the most difficult standard on me of anyone:

to look like Her.

And to bear resemblance to at least a fraction of Her goodness, tenderness, truth, and justice.

And to do it as me—the person as was created,

and not as someone else.

You swear you’re nothing alike.

That you look nothing alike. 

But I don’t care who you look like. 

I care Who I look like.

May - You are the Sun

After a cold winter and a rainy spring,

I took a hike.

And as I started to walk,

I felt the sun on my skin—

Warming me, 

Nourishing me, 

Enlivening me.

As I walked through light and shade,

I couldn’t help but feel a little joy every time I stepped Into the sunshine.

Then I reached a large open plain,

Flat and exposed, with no trees or shade.

And as I walked, 

That once-nourishing sun became an irritation.

My skin grew hot.

My body felt uncomfortable.

I was exposed.

I climbed a hill,

Still exposed to the sun,

Still feeling that weight of the heat and the warmth

That had once been a friend.

Until finally I turned a corner 

And delighted in the shade again,

And felt relief from the sun,

And found a spot to sit down,

To spread out my blanket, and lie down

And enjoy the day.

And as I lay there in the shade,

I felt a breeze

Almost as delicious as that sunshine had once felt.

I found myself thanking God for the breeze and for the shade.

And praying—with no idea, really, what I was praying—

That maybe He would make me like that to someone else—

a cool, comforting, refreshing breeze.

And a voice interrupted me. 

You are not the breeze.

You are not the shade.

You are the sun.

You warm.

You cheer.

You nourish.

You enliven.

You bring growth.

You cause joy.

You give light.

You also irritate.

You also burn.

You also cause discomfort.

You also expose.

Sometimes you shine far longer than people would like you to.

Not because of a fault in your nature,

But as an aspect of your nature.

If you were to stop shining for a few moments,

Things around you would die.

So keep shining light,

And keep bringing heat.

People will need shade sometimes.

People will need a breeze.

And they’ll find it.

That’s not your concern.

You are not the shade.

You are not the breeze.

You are the sun.

January—I am Snow

For 2022, I challenged myself to write a poem for every month (“poem,” of course, being a very loose concept). I didn’t so much care that they described the weather outside, but more my internal weather. And yet, so far I’ve found it’s funny how much the two coincide. Some are fun, some are just descriptive, and some (like today’s) are a little bit heavy. Anyway, here’s my January poem.

It’s supposed to snow tonight

Everyone is excited—

Until I fall from the sky

And hear them all groan.

I am snow

But not what they were hoping for.

They envisioned a day of snowmen and snow angels ahead.

They’re disappointed that their plans have changed.

They were planning to sit by the warm fire,

Cuddled up with soft cozy blankets,

And watch me fall softly and silently on the ground outside their windows.

It’s an idyllic scene

But it won’t happen.

Because I don’t fall silently.

I fall with a constant light clicking sound against their window,

Like a cat's paws scampering across a hardwood floor.

They won’t get their picturesque beauty. 

I am good for making the roads slick and dangerous, just enough to keep you from getting where you need to be.

They’re disappointed.

Be real snow, they say.

Or be rain.

Or be sunshine.

Or be anything else other than what you are. 

But I am snow. 

Just not what they were hoping for. 

I am not silent.

I am not soft.

I am not dainty.

I am noisy.

I am dangerous.

And I guess I’m a little irritating. 

But I’m not sure what to do about it.

I never asked anyone else what they were expecting. 

I never asked what they were hoping for. 

I just came into the world and found that they were hoping for something else. 

And they’ll find it another day.

That, and rain and sunshine too.

But for now they have the light clicking sound against their windows to remind them of what they have now.

I am not what they were hoping for,

But I am snow. 

Burial Spices: A poem for Silent Saturday

I got up in the middle of the night to prepare burial spices—

Ready to mourn and grieve.

It was pitch black, 

Like the absolute joylessness I felt.

I had been duped.

I had been believing a lie.

I was ashamed at what would others think of me,

Now that it was obvious that everything I had centered my life around had come crumbling down.

I was grieving—

For this friend whom I had loved,

For this friend whom I had trusted,

For this friend who didn’t exist anymore.

I was confused,

And angry,

And absolutely joyless.

So I prepared my burial spices—

To honor a now lifeless symbol that I had once clung so tightly to.

Facts were facts.

He was dead.

And, with Him, everything I had believed in.

So I got up in the dark and prepared some burial spices for His lifeless body.

And I walked in the darkness with those burial spices.

And as I got closer, I was suddenly frustrated,
Wondering who was going to roll that damned stone away.

That stone was sitting in front of all the death

That I was going to finalize and certify and maybe eventually make peace with.

I couldn’t roll it away by myself,

Even if I tried for a thousand years.

There it would be when I got to the grave,

Taunting me.

Here I am—mourning, grieving,

Just trying to make peace with the death that's going on—

The death that had happened to my friend, the death that’s happening inside me.

Here I am, just trying to use up these burial spices, 

That tenderness that’s still left in my soul towards the friend who doesn’t exist anymore,

The friend who tricked me and gave me hope and then died.

Here I am, trying to use up all these spices,

But it looks like when I leave today, I’ll leave with a jar full of burial spices—

With nowhere to put them, but still filled with the grief.

Then all at once, I wonder if I’m delusional again, 

Because I see things change.

As I walk, the sky goes from black, 

To grey,

To pale blue,

Till finally there is a band of orange on the horizon. 

And the tomb is in the middle of a garden.

And the ground shakes in the most cataclysmic sign I’ve ever seen—

Well, the most cataclysmic signs I’ve seen since the day that my friend died.

And the earthquake is so violent that I drop my burial spices.

And, for some reason, the stone is gone.

I can make my peace in peace

And move on.

But, just like the stone, so, too, is the body.

Gone.

I’m not convinced of anything.

But I have to go see what happened.

Then, I can either make my peace, or be surprised by something incredible.

So I’m going to go see what happened.

And I’m going to let my burial spices stay on the ground.

Because I’m not sure what to do with them.

But have you Tried Cherishing the Days: My Very Wise Guide on Parenting an Infant

A while back, I wrote a very wide guide to surviving morning sickness. But later on it hit me: my wisdom doesn’t stop there. I have a three-year-old and a baby which, these days, makes you a Certified Parenting Expert™ So here I share some of my very wise advice about parenting an infant. I hope my wise and unique advice serves you poor, plebeian parents who know nothing about parenting. 

• First of all, cherish the days, soak up the moments. One day, you won’t have anyone around telling you to cherish the days and you will look back and miss people telling you to cherish the days all the time.

• But have you tried doing a small load of laundry every day?

• Breast is best. All the books say so. Unless you have trouble breastfeeding, in which case fed is best. All the books say so. But if you have trouble, it’s probably your fault and you could probably make it work if you just hated yourself a little more. All the books say so. But don’t feel bad. Fed is best, I guess.

• In the early days of parenting, your husband may even give you breastfeeding advice. It’s okay, you can kill him, all the books say so. But remember, while all things are permissible, not all things are beneficial. Later you may want your husband around to give more breastfeeding advice. 

• But have you tried crying it out? 

• Do you force your baby to do tummy time? It’s a great way to get them to do something they will absolutely hate. But it’s important. No one really knows why. No one knows what will happen if you skip tummy time. But again, it’s like, super important. All the books say so.

• At some point in your parenting journey, you may need to see a feeding, sleep, or discipline expert and you’ll think you can’t afford it. But you absolutely can afford it. Just ask a question about what’s troubling you on Facebook. You will get a thousand expert opinions and all it will cost is your faith in humanity.

• But have you tried attachment parenting?

• Cherish the days, soak up the memories. Treasure the moments. Smell every dirty diaper. Put every spit up stained rag in a shadow box.

• Breastfeeding is fun because all of a sudden everyone either: 1. Gets super awkward around you, or b. asks a bunch of questions. Is it working? Are your breasts doing a good enough job? Why is the baby crying? Maybe your breasts are doing a bad job. Why are you stopping to burp the baby? Why are you wearing a cover? Why are you not wearing a cover? Why are you getting up to go nurse in a different room? Is it because of all the questions?

• But have you tried laying your baby down drowsy but awake?

• Cherish the days. The dishes and laundry can wait. Soak up the memories. One day your child will be heading off to college, and you’ll be glad that you never once did the dishes or laundry while they were around. Of course, you will need to clear a path through the 18-years-worth of unwashed dishes and unwashed laundry. But you can do that together with your child. And then you’ll be creating a new memory you can cherish.

• But have you tried sleeping when the baby sleeps?

• For the love of everything: cherish the FRICKING moments. WHY ARE YOU NOT CHERISHING THEM?! What the FRICK is wrong with you?!?! You wasted a lot of time reading this. Hope it was worth it. You could have been cherishing the moments.