Faith, Family, & Focaccia

A faith and culture Mommy blog, because real life gets all mixed together like that.

Author Archives: Serena Gideon Rice


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Lenten Grace: Could We Give Up Whining For Forgiveness?

Tonight Princess Imagination and I attended our church’s Ash Wednesday service. It was a quiet but powerful hour, and a wonderful chance to share a moment with my girl away from her little brother’s sweet but demanding presence. It was even more thrilling to hear her soft but eager whisper in my ear, asking to go up for her first ever anointing with ashes. Best of all to hear her clear, confident explanation of what it was all about on the car ride home.

This was an experience I never had at her young age. I grew up in the tradition-wary culture of California’s non-denominational churches, and therefore the Lenten journey has been a more recent addition to my spiritual walk. Despite the complete centrality of faith in my childhood, I had very little sense of the church calendar and the intentional focus it brings to a yearly progression through defined phases of the life of faith. Other than the carols and pageantry of Christmas, the compelling drama of Good Friday, and the jubilant celebration of Resurrection Sunday (a.k.a. Easter), the rest of the year was pretty much open. The Holy Spirit, or the Pastor’s whim (or more likely some combination of the two) was responsible for directing the particular focus of attention on any given Sunday.

It wasn’t until my adult life brought me to the East Coast and membership in mainline churches that I learned how much more structured much of the Protestant Church is in regards to congregational worship. Both the weekly liturgy of structured services, and the yearly calendar that followed set “seasons” was unfamiliar. At first I pined for the freedom and spontaneity of my familiar faith surroundings and felt stifled by the stiff order of services and the rote, repetitive formulas. How can you pray from the heart when you are just reading words written by someone else? Church felt like reading from a script, rather than worship.

But then I started to notice the way that this structure incorporated disciplines that had been very inconsistent in my church background.

Especially confession.

It’s not that the need to confess my sin had been ignored in my Christian upbringing. I was very aware that my entire salvation involved confession as a crucial element, so that I could repent, turn away from the things that separated me from God, and receive forgiveness to empower a new life. I had experienced this miracle, and understood what true confession meant. What I had missed, however, was the corporate sharing of this awareness as an integral part of worship. Confession was personal – something done in private prayer, or perhaps at an altar call. Confession was not something done by the entire community as a whole.

And that difference makes all the difference when it comes to confession of social sins.

Many readers who know me will probably be expecting me to now launch into a discussion (lecture?) about one of the many social justice issues about which I am passionate. I could certainly do that, and such a topic would probably be germane to my point. My recent repatriation process, however, has been drawing my attention to a persistent itch just under the skin of my native culture that the Lenten call to confession is begging me to scratch.

It’s the itch of unforgiveness, especially the self-righteous disdain for small offenses that we love to rehash.

This might not seem like the kind of hefty spiritual stain that the season of Lent calls us to lay down, but for that very reason, that very insidious, seemingly petty quality, it has grabbed my attention as something that desperately needs an act of corporate confession.

Perhaps I should offer a brief explanation of what I am talking about. A little more than a month ago a random stranger in the grocery store made a snide comment about my son. We were standing behind the woman in the check-out line and my normally happy Gigglemonster was throwing an impressive tantrum over my refusal to buy him a toy car that he had seen and suddenly needed to have. She looked back at his screaming, flailing little ball of frustration and then commented to her companion (loudly enough for both my son and I to hear her), “Well he sure is spoiled!”

The judgment made me more than a little angry, but I had enough on my hands trying to calmly deal with the tantrum and I was just self-controlled enough to not want to set a bad example for my kiddos, so I didn’t snap back with any of the many derisive and/or defensive replies that sprang into my brain. I dealt with my son, made our purchases, and got us safely home.

And then I vented on Facebook… in detail… letting the affirming community of the internet know just how great my put-downs could have been by displaying them in all their snarky glory for the optional cost of a “like.”

I got a lot of likes, and it was very gratifying. Friends affirmed my rejection of the stranger’s critique, and praised my parenting skills, and shared similar stories of public meltdowns, and sympathized about the unholy judgment of ignorant strangers. My wonderful cousin even linked to a very funny blog post by a parent-blogger who rehashed an encounter in a supermarket with a similar judging stranger. I appreciated the link because it reinforced my satisfying sense of self-righteous offense toward the inconsiderate stranger. It felt so very good to join together and verbally lambast the people who insult hard-working parents. We’re doing our best, and it’s the hardest job in the world, and if you feel you have the right to demean me or my child for trying to figure out a problem that just isn’t solvable, then you should be prepared for the vitriolic consequences.

Right?

And then a sweet and gracious friend made a simple comment that gently brought me face to face with the poison of my relished anger: “You have to imagine it’s really just her own insecurities rising to the surface.  You never know what she’s going through.”

And there it is. We never do know what the other is going through, do we? I’d felt quite comfortable, up on my high horse, scorning this stranger’s inconsideration for what I and my son were going through. But I had never considered her position. I’d never wanted to. I much preferred to brew my anger at her words into a tempting tea to offer to my friends. What is more, the act of sharing the cup with them had increased rather than slacked my thirst for unforgiving sniping. Shared anger is so much more fulfilling. Or, at least, it fills the mind and leaves very little room for grace.

And while my example highlights my own culpability in this trend, I am very aware of how much my own reactions reflect the culture around me. American culture is not unique in this regard, certainly, but as a recent re-entrant to these United States, it has struck me how very imbedded this reflex is in our national psyche. So much of our daily conversation, and talk radio, and reality TV is consumed by the compelling magnet of stories about what has been done to us, with precious little talk about forgiveness.

And this is why my Lenten reflections have me thinking about the need for a societal confession: a confession of how we like to relish wrongs in the public sphere. It is an understandable instinct, and one I clearly share. But wouldn’t it be miraculous if we could give this up for lent? If we could glory instead in stories of forgiveness? If our social dialogue could be about extending grace to the other, and maybe even finding out what they are going through, instead of jumping straight to condemnation of its result?

The sermon at tonight’s service highlighted Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and his work with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in post-apartheid South Africa. As an example of forgiveness and its power, it is hard to think of a more compelling story. The wrongs addressed by the Commission are heinous (murders, tortures, bombings, to name a few), and the kind of forgiveness offered is truly breathtaking, including not just amnesty for wrongs but a goal of reconciliation between victims and perpetrators. It makes my little reflections about not harboring a record of wrongs all seem small and insignificant.

But if that’s true, if relished grievances are nothing in comparison by what has been done by a society that truly understood the need for forgiveness, then maybe it’s not too much to ask of our society, or at least our church, during lent.

So there is my Lenten challenge: give up anger over petty wrongs; practice communal efforts at forgiveness. Let’s see how much grace can abound in 40 days.

Who’s with me?


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Waiting for the Bus: A Poem for Everyday Motherhood

With our return to the States, my little family has been introduced to a classic American ritual: the twice daily wait for the school bus.

Not only for Princess Imagination, but also for me, this is an entirely new experience. Having had a relatively unique elementary education in the comfort of my own home, my limited experience with school buses had been transportation for summer camp day trips. These memories are fuzzy: mostly involving the slightly sweet smell of childhood sweat, the uncomfortable sensation of legs in short cotton shorts sticking to vinyl seats, and the awkward anxiety of hoping to find a seat buddy who would be friendly to the shy, gangly girl who didn’t really know anyone.

Thankfully, Princess Imagination is forming much different associations with the school bus. The news that she would finally get to take the bus to and from school (rather than suffering – apparently – under the chauffeuring of Mommy) was one of the greatest benefits of moving back to the States and a new school. In her mysterious world, the chance to take the school bus is unaccountably afforded a rank of high esteem. She had repeatedly begged for this privileged transportation to her expat school in Italy, but that service came with a heavy price tag and I liked the chance for regular contact with the place and people who filled her day, so her pleas were emphatically refused. When we finally arrived in the US only to be marooned temporarily in out-of-district transitional housing, she visibly chaffed at the delay. It was unclear whether the chance to take possession of her fondly remembered “flower room” and be reunited with all her toys from the overseas shipment, or the chance to finally start taking the bus, was the more desired objective.

Now that this elusive goal has finally been grasped, she is glorying in the possession of it. No longing for a bus buddy for Princess Imagination. Despite my perpetual fears that my shy, introverted daughter will be haunted by my own childhood traumas, she has had no trouble making friends for the circuitous ride through the neighborhood. I hear more about these girls than most of the children in her class; each day her backpack is crammed with little notes and art projects they have made together on the ride; and today, when one of these girls was absent, she came home with a present from an entirely new friend whom she had never met before today but who was apparently captivated enough by my sparkling daughter to give her a color-change pencil.

Clearly, the bus is living up to all of her glorious imaginings.

My feelings for the bus, however, are not so sanguine. I am no longer fearing that she will endure the painful social awkwardness I faced. I am not suppressing panicky anxiety at the thought of my sweet baby stepping out of my protective sphere of influence (Little Miss Independent’s confident attitude – and the strong safety record of the school buses – make any such fears feel absurd). I am not even missing the sense of connection to the world where she spends her days (thanks to a teacher who is highly accessible via e-mail and several chances to get involved in class parties and PTA activities in the first few months). No – none of these typical and understandable associations with bus transportation are polluting my pleasure at the arrangement’s convenience and the satisfaction my daughter finds in them.

Instead, I am struggling with a banal but nevertheless alarming frustration. I hate waiting for the bus. It’s boring. It’s this weird, brief interlude in my day that gets under my skin and itches just enough to make me realize how pampered and self-centered my life can become in the blink of an eye. So this poem is both my confession, and my appeal to all the other moms out there who struggle to find meaning in the moments of daily drudgery.

Five Minutes

It’s only five minutes to stand on my driveway,

eyes fixed on the curve of the road;

squinting to read the black, block numbers in relief on school bus yellow;

the number that will distinguish her bus from all the others that lumber past;

alert for one whose speed slows just a bit more than the bend demands,

for the signal of my relief: the slow, quiet flash of yellow lights.

*

It’s only five minutes to stand in the cold, or the sunlight

not seeing the evergreen trees that line the drive;

not thanking them for the oxygen they give to fill my lungs;

not noticing how the fresh, clean air has cleared our habitual winter sniffles;

not marveling at the play of light and wind that make

the small ice crystals dance across the white expanse of winter lawn.

*

It’s only five minutes to shuffle in empty irritation,

without activity to keep me moving,

without tasks to keep accomplishing,

without the comforting jolt of anxiety to keep pushing me to do,

without the distraction of a broom, or a box, or a phone

that can fill any empty space in my soul with the command to attend to outside demands.

*

But…. I could be five minutes to breathe in the beauty of my surroundings;

eyes stroking the soft and sharp lines of snow on pine;

ears dancing to the rhythm of small animals rustling in the dense brush across the road;

senses drinking in the intoxicating scent of freshness;

skin relishing the chill that very soon will be removed with jackets

as our warm, dry home embraces me and my daughter together.

*

It could be five minutes to anticipate my daughter’s return;

to savor the sweet curve of her smile in my mind,

to know how it will float down the steep, bumpy steps

propelling her toward me with news of her day,

and also to remember the content of her daily schedule so that,

if her words lull, I can be ready with questions that will speak of my eagerness to know.

*

It could even be five minutes to commune with my God;

to contemplate the beauty surrounding me, and it’s source;

to appreciate the provision of this space to stand and wait;

to know, to really know, that I am blessed;

and to allow my heart to well and overflow

with thankfulness that changes simple moments into shining drops of time.

*

But it is only five minutes;

and so, most days, I stand and wait in shuffling impatience,

straining against inactivity,

made jittery by wasted energy that can’t be bothered

to fill up five minutes

with meaning.