JANE:

"This house IS NOT  a democracy!"   How many times did you ever hear your parents say (or scream) that?  And how often do you say it now?

My house is, sadly, a little too democratic.  I have let the little people, the small unwashed, gain too much power.  You might say I am the Democratic Party of Parenting.  Basically that means I am too much of a wuss to get them to do what I want them to do.  They actually think, and act like, they get a vote.  It’s a sad state of affairs.  To ironically echo my own parents, "This house SHOULD NOT be a Democracy!"

Example: my son, who is too lazy to get his ass up the stairs and get his own damned pajamas.  He actually said it was a waste of his time.  HOLY SHIT.   Forget what would have happened to me had I muttered anything remotely like that to my parents, it just would have NEVER occurred to me…

But just HOW is my parenting like the Democratic Party?  Well, for starters, my husband and I have the majority (two older and wiser people outnumbers two young children, right?).  Not a super-majority, mind you… but still.  My kids try to use the filibuster to get what they want.  Whine whine whine, cry cry cry… Endlessly, until we cave.

[Lizzie:  Methinks kids are BORN knowing all about the filibuster technique.  All four of mine have been quite masterful at using it from the age of 15 months on.]

On the other hand, I should be glad they don’t use reconciliation.  Well, I guess sometimes they do.  Okay, more than I like to admit.  It’s not fun to admit your kids will outright refuse to do what they are told, or not do what you tell them not to do, or obstinately stand in the way of family progress.  My son, for example.  His refusal to try new foods could definitely be compared to some wackadoo Republican standing in the way of a bill that might actually benefit himself and everyone else!  Much to their dismay, just like Republicans, if they filibuster and use reconciliation too often, the kids get bad press.  

I suppose the children, pretending to be little Legislators, could introduce a Bill, here or there.  They could even fight amongst themselves to amend it, to make sure the most pork winds up on his or her plate.  Unless they are Jewish, in which case they would be the Knesset… And there would be no pork involved.   Actually, we are Jewish, and I’d be thrilled if my kid ate pork, it would be a terrific gastronomic leap from Chicken Nuggets.

If the little Legislators get out of hand, behave badly, and are generally just naughty, they get time out.  I don’t know about you, but time out in my kids’ rooms is very akin to the White Collar Crime Prison/Country Clubs our actual politicians get sent to for being corrupt and badly behaved.  We need to send our legislators, little and big, to a place that will be a real Thinking Corner.  

[Lizzie:  This may make you feel better, Jane.  If you want to see a White Collar Crime Prison Country Club, check out this "Naughty Spot Loving Discipline Time Out Mat"  He he.  Talk about wussy parenting....]

Hey!  If I am the Democratic Party of Parenting, my offspring are the Republican Party of Children.  Which would really suck, in an Alex P. Keaton sort of way.  This, in turn, would make me the Meredith Baxter Birney tree hugging Liberal mom.  Umm, clearly not much of a stretch.

Another confession: when I’m not the pandering Nancy Pelosi of mothering, I have been know to be the crazed, fascist tyrant.  Think Kim Jong Il.  I have the bomb, and I know when to set it off.
 
Shouldn’t our family be more of a benign dictatorship?  In a perfect world, I’d be the benevolent but all powerful ruler, keeping the peasants in line, working them hard, but not too hard, and generously bestowing kindness and birthday presents from above.   

The problem with being too benevolent is that this ruins the family economy, sometimes causing a huge deficit.  If this deficit got too far out of control, there would be no money for college tuition, or even worse, retirement!  This would lay a dreaded financial burden upon our future generations.  

The family economy is a tricky thing.  Those wanna-be voters want a say in how the money is spent.  (are the commercials they watch akin to lobbyists, influencing family spending?)  But… they do not pay any taxes!  They do not contribute in any fiduciary way to the household economy.  As a small return on our investment, we are waiting for them to be old enough to safely use the rider mower, thus eliminating the cost of outsourcing this service.  Same with plowing the driveway.  

[Lizzie:  Our parents' generation was a whole lot better at getting us to be useful at a young age.  Hats off to them for that...fond memories of my brother firing up the grill at age 7.  The barbecue tongs were bigger than his whole skinny little arm.]

 
What about the Judiciary… Who would this be?
Have you ever gone to the playground, and encountered the Mommier than Thou Mommy?  These are activist mommies, legislating from the park bench,  who think they know what is the best way for everyone to parent, and do not hesitate to tell us.

[Lizzie:  Don't get me started, Jane.  I won't mince words here.  I have no use for that particular form of checks and balances.  Ask me if I care that the mom down the street adds pulverized spinach to the spaghetti sauce that she then freezes in individual portions.]

Parents should be the President, the Executive  Branch.  The agenda should be set by us, and veto power should come from that Oval Office we call our family kitchen.

LIZZIE:

Oh yes, Jane.  I grew up hearing that old saw about the non-democratic nature of the nuclear family…probably on a daily basis.  Of course, as one of seven kids, I am sure that my father was doing his bit to keep raw anarchy at bay.

And, as far as my dad was concerned, there was no need ever for outsourcing when he had seven Lucky-Charms-fed bodies to pluck from the plaid sofa set every Saturday morning.

As for my “form of government” as a parent, I must admit, I have never been less sure of my own leadership.  With kids ranging in age now from 21 to 11, with a divorce just about to be final, with two in college and with two in middle school…I think maybe I need to look outside modern government models for a parallel with my situation.

Hate to say this, but I think I can equate our family “government” at this point to an episode from medieval history.  Ever read about the papal schism of the 14th century?  One pope stayed in Rome, while the other pope set up holy shop in Avignon.  I guess I’m the Avignon pope, since I gave up the home court advantage.  And since subjects were a whole lot more inclined to pay attention to papal bulls coming from Rome than Avignon (no matter how nice the palace, the neighbors, and the local Rhone wines).

I’ve even had visits from tearful saints (a la Catherine of Siena’s appeals to Pope Gregory to pull himself together, suck it up, and go back to Rome).  But I was a stubborn schismatic, and I told my saintly ambassador Avignon was where I’d be staying.

Which means my kids are a bit like the 14th-century Catholic rank and file trying to figure out which Pope to follow.  I don’t want it to be like that, and I’m trying very hard to have open enough communications with Rome to make it NOT like that.  But let’s face it: part of the reason for heading to Avignon to parent is that my parenting philosophy is just very different from that of the other pope.  

It could turn out that my parenting philosophy is as wrong as my ideas about marriage back in my 20’s. 

[Jane strongly disagrees and wishes she could convince Lizzie otherwise!]  

I no longer feel certain of anything except my gut feelings about right vs. wrong, respect vs. disrespect, personal responsibility vs. abdication.  (Try sending THAT up to the Supreme Court…or the Vatican cardinals…so as not to torture the metaphor too much.) 

[Jane: Stay away from those Mommier than Thou Mommies... the SCOTUS and Cardinals of the Parenting World]

So, maybe I’m like a Southern France pope…who really never wanted to be a pontificating figure at all.  Is there a form of government that is based on mentoring?  On hoping that the Golden Rule is catching?  On paying small kindnesses forward?  On sticking to your principles in a way that blends authority and protection with liberty and experimentation?  Hmmm, I might be heading further back into history.  Back beyond U.S. democracy, beyond medieval schism, waaaayyyy back to Platonic ideals of philosopher-kings.  

About as far from Realpolitik as one can get, right?  But I don’t have it in me to run a government right now.  I just want to somehow finish this race knowing that I was a good role model…with a shred of nobility here and there.  Schism teaches you that everyone feels the right to weigh in on what reforms the leaders ought to make.

(Short digression:  Even my home state is forcing me to take a parenting class.  After 21 years of parenting–years during which I reared children whom the state has rewarded with scholarships and honors and mentions.  My divorce will not be final until I can show the judge my “diploma” from a 5-hour mandatory parenting fitness class.)  

[Jane: oy!]

State of Virginia notwithstanding, I had a moment recently when I felt that balance with my 13-year-old daughter.  May I share?

Well, one area where I struggle is that the other pope tends to be the “fun pope.”  The other pope does lots and lots of amusement park trips, island getaways, tennis tournaments, and resorts.  I, for reasons of budget and philosophy, tend to stick close to Avignon.  Avignon IS very nice after all.  

Sometimes I think I need to try harder to be the fun pope in my little half of the schism.  So recently I proposed a Saturday amusement park trip.

My daughter seized upon the idea with enthusiasm.  And, being a very sociable type, immediately started asking about whether this friend and that friend could join us.

Then she got an even grander idea.  Our brand new papal neighbor is going through her own schism, and her daughter is a friend of my daughter’s.  My neighboring exiled pope is a very private pontiff indeed.  I like her a lot, from everything I’ve seen of her so far (especially the fact that she weatherproofs her fence with one hand holding a paintbrush and one hand holding a glass of merlot.)

However, I know better than to push the friendship.  I worried right away that an invitation to join us on an all-day trip to Hershey Park would be pushy.  Let’s just let papal alliances form naturally, y’know?  We could worship chocolate and roller coasters together next summer maybe.

I started to just say no, not wanting to get into all of my adult reasons for making the decision.

My daughter began arguing with me.  “Why not, Mom?!  It’s a great idea.  Why won’t you even ask?!”

I felt my “old answer” come to my lips.  The one I probably would have given her older sisters….

“Stop arguing with me.  That is just my decision.  I’m in charge, and you need to show respect.”

Instead, I stopped; and I looked at my beautiful, sociable, brand-new-teenager daughter.  And I told her the truth.  “I’m nervous about asking,” I said.

“But why?  It would be such a nice thing to do.”

“Well, I’m nervous that it would end up seeming like, ‘HOWDY, neighbor!!!  What are we doin’ together THIS weekend?”

“You know, I just don’t want to be THAT neighbor.  I could really use a friend right now, and I like M’s mom a lot. But I think she’ll think I’m weird, or a loser, if I make lots of invitations right from the beginning.”

She was silent for about 20 seconds.  During that 20 seconds, as I watched her trying to decide whether to keep arguing, I had this funny feeling that this conversation was important.  It had everything to do with the schism that had rocked her world.  And I was appealing to a maturity I wasn’t completely sure was in place.  This could easily become the place where one pope gets played off the other.  Where the subjects revolt over the shrinkage of entitlements.  Or, she might just see my loneliness and need and think me weak.

Instead, she looked at me, and she smiled a knowing smile.

“You’re right, Mom.  I KNEW I got my social smarts from somewhere.”

My papal-dissident eyes got moist, and I couldn’t speak for a moment.

I had experienced grace from one of my subjects.  Even a feeling of having gained a bit of social-skills street cred in that moment.

My own hope, as a newly divorced parent, is that there is something that can keep the glue together, even when there is no clear, rock-solid form of family government.

Is there such a thing as “relational democracy?”  

 We’ve all had those times where the the Schleprock Cloud seems to hang over our lives.  Schleprock has actually become a term you can look up in Urbandictionary.com, which makes me feel really old.  (not as old as my friend B.  You know when you use your price card and get coupons somehow generated specifically for you?  Yesterday at CVS hers were for Poise Pads and hair color.  Ye gads!)

So back to the Schleprock Cloud: You can’t get anything right, and it all becomes a little overwhelming.  The house is a mess, the kids are out of control, and Calgon can’t even come close to taking you away.  I call this mood, the "I can’t kill myself because my house is not shiva-ready " mood.   Which is similar, but still different, from the "I can’t just walk away from it all, because my house is a wreck and the inevitable woman who would come in to be sympathetic to my husband would say, "wow – you are so better off without her, just look at the dishes in that sink… here you poor sweet man let me fold that laundry for you" mood. 

I’m trying really hard to not give in to my kids’ eating habits.  (okay, not that hard)  Sure, I’ve continually caved to their demands for  chicken nuggets and pizza, because sometimes you just have to push the Easy Button.  But this past Thursday night I decided to take it into my own hands.  If they had to eat chicken nuggets, well then, dammit, at least there would be real chicken in them… 

Corn flake coated chicken fingers would be the perfect solution.  They love cornflakes!  But we don’t fry anything anymore, right?  It’s not healthy, it’s messy, and at least in my house, we always bake whatever other people fry.   Nonetheless, clever Easy Button Slacker Mommy that I am,  I have a secret weapon up my sleeve.  Unbeknownst to many of my nearest and dearest, in college I worked at a joint called Joe’s Paradise Chicken.  Really, no kidding.  Best fried chicken and buffalo wings in the Happy Valley.  (Joe’s isn’t a fake name, but the Happy Valley is a beloved, if not historically correct, nom de guerre).

That was my college job.  Slinging chicken.  It fed me, it put money in my pocket.  And when Joe’s would close up for the night,  after the last Fry-O-Lator had been drained and cleaned, I’d head to a local purveyor of adult beverages with best bud and fry cook in arms, B.   We’d sidle up to the bar, and inevitably some cute guy would wrinkle his nose, sniff, and say, "who smells like Chinese Food?"  Ahh, I love the smell of peanut oil in the morning.  Very sexy. 

All this to say, Thursday night I made fried cornflake fingers for my kids.  Skipped the eggs, dipped the chicken strips in milk and dredged them in perfectly crushed and spiced cornflakes. For those of you who really know how to fry (and truly tasty fried food is indeed an art) skipping the eggs was my fatal flaw.  The corn flakes flaked off in the oil, leaving bare chicken breast strips.  And "those do not look like the ones in the box, Mommy!"  

It was not a good moment.  They started to demand Eggo Waffles.  Somehow, I pushed Schleprock aside and became Super Mommy, victorious over kitchen disaster.  I resurrected the meal by baking the next batch of strips (if I was Rachel Ray I’d say, yummo, and delish!  Pass the EVO!)  They still didn’t eat them. (Landeaux and I devoured them).

And at that very moment,  I thought of my father.  The guy who considered my college diploma his "receipt".   And why, you might ask, on this occasion did I think of my dear, departed dad? Because after ruining the fried chicken that evening, I realized…  I had failed at the one actual trade I learned in college.   Ya gotta laugh.   

Anyone know of a job for a SAHM, former fry cook and English Major with blogging delusions of grandeur?    

We’ve all read/heard/seen tons about the insane catastrophe that is the BP oil rig disaster.  Oil continues to spew into the Gulf of Mexico while BP treats it as a public relations issue that just needs the right spin…  The whole thing is a nightmare, everyone is pointing fingers at everyone else but no one knows how to stop the damned oil from geysering into the Gulf, or how to properly clean it up.  We are all watching, appalled, shocked, saddened, and dismayed.   My admiration and general liberal-biased backing of our current Commander in Chief aside, all I can say is, "heck of a job, Barry!"  But I’m not happy about it, not one bit.

In times of complete reality overload,  Jon Stewart is exactly who I want to get it my news from.    Here is what he had to say about the BP Oil debacle on the May 13 Daily Show… I know it’s eight minutes long, but it’s worth it, I promise.  

Meanwhile, how about those crazy politicians in Arizona, and Texas, huh?  (oh wait, there goes that Andy Rooney popping up in my post, whoops!)  But seriously folks, how about those wacky Arizonians?  First they make it practically illegal to look Latino while existing in within Arizona state lines.  Now they (and that wacky Texas state school board) want to ban ethnic studies classes, to prevent students from learning too much about how other cultures were oppressed by white, European men who took over everything.  We can’t have the truth dragging down little Timmy while he learns about his state and country, now can we?  One of my favorite comments on this came from the monologue at the beginning of Real Time with Bill Maher:  "they passed a bill… banning public schools from offering any courses in ethnic studies.  It’s funny, you know, they never say they’re targeting Mexicans specifically, but I think we get that idea.  Today they passed a bill that said beans can only be fried once"…    Whichever you prefer, imperialism or expansionism; Slave Trade or Atlantic Triangular Trade…  stay tuned…  (I think this one is gonna explode like, well, like an underwater oil eruption).

There is always something on Salon.com for me to read.  If you’ve been scanning my Facebook wall, please forgive the repetition.  I am always always fascinated by the cultural zeitgeist created by a living our lives online.   

Some say, the internet and social network world have ruined our brains.  In the non-stop fast action click click click on-line decision making process (follow that link! To click or not to click, that is the question – wait what was I reading? ) our tiny tiny attention spans have now extended to our appetites.   Many smaller dishes, all serving up a different choice.  Because we can no longer decide upon, or settle for eating merely one.  Tapas culture?  Or the return of human-sized portions?  Is this the end of obesity, or as my friend P commented on my Wall, is it gluttony deficit syndrome?  

 And this gem, specifically relating to Facebook.   Mark Zuckerberg and company are finally under fire for deciding that our online lives should be entirely out of our hands, regardless of any bogus "privacy settings" Facebook leads us to believe we are putting up around ourselves…  and apparently he scans our profiles for his own personal entertainment, foretelling our futures by reading our posts and page hits like digital tea leaves…   Mwaah haa haa!  Forget Steve Jobs being the new Bill Gates, that young whippersnapper upstart Zuckerberg is Anakin in the lava, cleaving to the Dark Side.  

 Rand Paul and the Teabaggers (hey, that would be a great name for a band!) as well as plain ole sane and sensible folk can all agree on one thing:  we all have no trust in our government.  And as usual, with it’s usual snarky perfection, Theonion.com had it’s own take on the American love-hate relationship it has with itself.  The government doesn’t trust the American people, either.  Why would they?  Some of us voted Michele Bachmann into office, and we want to keep the government’s hands off of our Medicare! 

I am eagerly awaiting next week’s entertainment.  I mean, infotainment.  I mean, news. 

Jane: 

Gina Welch’s journey into the world of Thomas Road Baptist Church began with her experience at the Scaremare house of horrors/sins.  Room after bloody, shocking room depicted a multitude of sins.  After being told that finding Jesus was the way out of that twisted maze of sins, Gina tentatively found her way to church meetings and services.  As I definitely would have, she wondered how she would find her place among the people of TRBC, and come to some sort of understanding of this very strange culture.  Her initial hurdles of "passing" as a Christian seeker bumpily worked themselves out, and she found herself immersed in a singles ministry group.  (EPIC, Experiencing Personal Intimacy with Christ).   

And then came Sunday services… 

Lizzie and I once had a great discussion about the lofty, spiritual feeling inspired by congregational singing.  Gina was affected by this as well, and came to describe the sensation as "Feeling X": group prayer as a sort of narcolepsy.  In her case, emotion won out over her political beliefs, and the experience "made the song a kind of hypnotizing rainbow swirl".    I was bowled over by her description of Feeling X, as surely as she must have been.  Even listening to Jerry Falwell’s service on the radio, she imagined walking forward in church to be saved.  What would "it feel like, to come down that aisle through the disorienting billows of all that singing"… finding "Pastor Jerry pulpited at the end… [she'd] …approach him in a nimbus cloud of light as a new believer, even as [she] held down the dark knowledge that [she] hadn’t believed a single word".  

What *would* that feel like?  Would she go through with baptism?  How far was she willing to go for her story, for her quest to understand? And, which of the two was her leading motivation? 

Her "being saved moment" was dramatic.  It took place the first Sunday that services were held in the new TRBC building.  It was packed, emotions running high, everyone was literally in their Sunday Best.  The songs were "softening her"…  Towards the end of the service, Pastor Jerry invited people to come up for "salvation, membership and baptism".  The music again created that "Feeling X".  So with sensation and  emotion running high, Gina found herself walking, bridelike, down that long aisle. 

The less dramatic, next step was filling out an application card.  

What would be the implications of knowingly being saved under false pretenses?  I wondered if there was a bad karma attached to it.  Or did Feeling X actually create a sudden belief in God?  An illusion of belief?  Did she believe that the death of Jesus relieved her of her sins?  Did she want to believe it?  I’m not being judgmental, because honestly, how many of us go through serious religious experiences, life cycle events, with a  religious, spiritually pure heart?   How different is her quest for understanding than my own desire to follow tradition without (or at least with questionable) belief?

Fast forward several months to her big day.  With terrific wit and great detail, Gina described the ironically comical minutae and mechanics of being baptised in a mega church.  The Baptismal Culotte – not quite robe, not quite pants, designed to  protect modesty when the fabric inevitably floated upwards as you were plunging down and backwards in the water. Or my favorite: being told that she was early, "Ain’t no one up there yet!  Come back at a quarter to six!"   It was difficult to grasp the seriousness of the event while she realized she forgot extra underwear and had to run to a nearby TJ Maxx, for an extra 99 cent pair.   In comparison to my own major religious experiences (becoming bat mitzvah, confirmation, wedding, my kids’ Brit Milot)  the whole thing was rather impersonal.  She had no emotional or educational connection to the pastor who dunked her, she had to wear a name tag so he’d call out her name correctly.   Her mundane details were numerous; the meaning and implications of the event, not so much.

At this point in her story, Gina was still observing and learning in a very detached way, keeping a difficult emotional distance from both the church congregants, fellow members of her EPIC Singles Ministry, prayer,  everything she immersed herself in.  The detachment served her well in this initial "reporting" of her journey.  This allowed her to eventually become familiar with what she referred to as the "evengelical personality" complete with a serious list of do’s and don’ts.  Do submit to sudden prayer, do respond to religious music, palms lifted and accepting. No swearing, no drinking, smoking, pre-marital sex.  No suggestive clothing, no dancing.  She explored the difference between her life in Charlottesville – waiting tables, going on dates, drinking… with her new TRBC life, including Walmart and sweet tea, xenophobia and faith over logic.  It was a pretty daunting dichotomy.  The message she had received from her church experience was, "being a good person doesn’t make you a Christian,  but being a Christian guarantees you will be a good person".   That’s a lot for anyone, let alone a self-professed atheist, to chew on.   But she did examine it, and herself, in the midst of it.  

Whether Gina the atheist Jew realized it or not, there is an ancient tradition in Judaism of questioning everything.  Questioning God, Torah, Talmud, the Rabbi…  That’s a stark contrast to the unquestioning faith of the evangelicals she sought to understand –  to the point of undergoing a faithless act of faith.  Her seeking to understand this particular type of Christianity was an extremely Jewish thing to do.  

And then…  EPIC began to plan an evangelical mission to Alaska.  Which was the point in her story where Gina truly began to immerse herself in the life of Thomas Road Church, in the life of an evangelical Christian.  (Hmm… immersion: church? baptismal pool?) Dichotomies and questions faded (but always poked through at the craziest moments!) as she plunged deeper and deeper.   Would she actually go to Alaska to evangelize?  The question burned in my mind as the EPIC group’s preparations rolled along.  

Part One

Part Three

Well, Jane and I are feeling quite official as book reviewers now–seems our piece last year on Kevin Roose’s Unlikely Disciple was unearthed by a marketing director at Henry Holt Publishing.  And, as a result, we’ve been asked to review a similar book:  In the Land of Believers:  An Outsider’s Extraordinary Journey into the Heart of the Evangelical Church.  The author is Gina Welch–and, like Kevin Roose, she went "undercover" to discover all that she could about the seamy underbelly of Lynchburg, Virginia. 

Okay, I admit, there is really no seamy underbelly involved.  I’ve just been aching for a chance to use that wonderful cliche.

The premise of the book:  a young secular Jew from Berkeley, California, Gina Welch joined Jerry Falwell’s Thomas Road Baptist Church and spent two years gaining an insider’s view of the congregation. 

Seamy (or seamless) underbellies aside, I’ll open our conversation with a whimsical little thought that fluttered across my mind when I dived into this book.

Wouldn’t it just be very funny indeed if the student population at Liberty University–AND the congregation of Thomas Road Baptist Church–were, at this point, nothing but a teeming mass of competing undercover journalists?  Think of the implications.  One Northern California hipster trying to pose as a buttoned-up Sunday School teacher says to himself, "Hmmm, I’ll bet if I make a really intelligence-insulting, cutesy, alliterative PowerPoint about the plan of salvation, that’ll really help me to pass as an Evangelical Christian."

And then the newest Sunday School student walks in–another faux believer, of course–all ready to cast a jaundiced eye upon the silly fundie PowerPoint slides.   And to write about it.  Because she’s got a book contract too! 

And both leave the church that morning completely unaware that everybody in the room had a book contract to find out the real deal with the Evangelicals.

 Okay, now that I’ve gotten three cliches and that little flight of fancy (oops, make that four cliches!) out of my system, let’s go ahead and talk about this book.

Gotta say, Jane and I chatted on the phone yesterday–and we thought it might be interesting to begin by offering some context.  The ambient noise, if you will, surrounding the actual experience of carrying this book around town.  We both found ourselves doing some reading in our respective neighborhood coffee shops.  I’ll let Jane tell her own story, but here’s one interesting little encounter that I had as a result of burying my face in this book in public.

There I was, reading and underlining and chuckling over Gina’s account of the Scaremare (i.e., Evangelical Halloween haunted house culminating in salvation invitation).  And my favorite supermarket checker walks in and asks if he can join me at my table.  "Jim" is a colorful character–interested in everything and everyone, an artist with stories of living on a barge in France in his youth, and (as I discovered in our conversation) an outspoken religious skeptic.   He bears a striking resemblance to Santa Claus (except with a beret), and he has a booming voice and laugh.

"Oh, you’re reading something about believers and Evangelicals.  Not one of them, are you?"

I give a slightly cagey answer, letting him know there is a "history" there for me–and that it’s sort of a personal matter that I’m not sure I feel like talking about at present.

Jim proceeded to tell me a story that involved his very young son being told by an Evangelical that his daddy was going straight to Hell.  The son had taken some time to process this information–and had then approached his father (Jim) solemnly, saying, "I hear you’re going to Hell, Daddy–and I want you to know that I’ll be running down there too whenever I die so that I can always be with you."

Jim isn’t the type to get choked up over things.  In fact, he gave a big belly laugh as he explained that he’d told his little boy he expected to have so many pals with him in the Big BBQ Pit that his son just ought to plan to rest easy in his own heavenly reward.  Daddy would be ju-u-ust fine, kiddo.

Maybe Jim wasn’t about to get misty, but I did start to well up after he finished sharing that anecdote.  Horror over anyone telling a little boy such a thing about his daddy…and oh so many memories of my own pressing anxiety for the "unsaved."  (As if I could determine such things by sheer virtue of knowing where someone went to church–if at all–and what lifestyle and political affiliations they had chosen.)  And I was also reminded of something–with a pang.  As much as I may smile and chuckle over the scenes in a book like Gina Welch’s (whose smart, ironic voice does resonate with me), it will always be a little painful for me to read an outsider’s perspective on where I have been.  Especially if the Christians end up looking kind of dumb and zombified. And, yes, if, while not realizing they’re being written about, they demonstrate lazy thinking and say stuff about who’s on the express bus to Hell.

Gina has a good eye for people and places, and she tells a story cleverly.  And I do like–and identify with–the soupcon of snark in her voice.  As well as the honest curiosity behind her endeavor.  But I do hope that this book, like Kevin Roose’s, ends up being a story of personal change and increased understanding.  And that the initial ridicule gets balanced with some genuine warmth.  That is what I’m expecting, based on the back-cover blurb:  "a call to comprehend–rather than dismiss–the impassioned believers who have become so central a force in American life."

People are complicated.  Their reasons for belief are complicated.  Evangelicals’ ache to share their worldview can make for easy sport.  Enough said for now.  Gina, if you’re reading this, I am intrigued, and I want to love your book.  Bear with us, please, while Jane and I have our little pre-review coffee klatsch first. I’m looking forward to reading the rest and giving a fully informed review.

Your turn, Jane.

JANE

You know,  Lizzie, I have to say, we are going to have a great time talking about this book.  Discussing and dissecting the evangelical Christian world, comparing it with others, has been an important part of our ongoing conversation.  So it will be a return, of sorts, to Pandoration’s religious roots… (mine, by the way,  need a serious touch up)

And while you laugh at the thought of everyone at Liberty University or Thomas Road Church being undercover journalists and authors – I see an opportunity for an enterprising and literary young Christian student:  spend a year at Yeshiva University in New York City, immersed in the mostly Orthodox Jewish culture and school.  Really, unless someone’s already got a book contract, or a Rolling Stone article in the works, it seems like the next logical place to insert oneself as part of a journey towards understanding Others.  Just sayin’… 

Ambient noise over carrying the book around, indeed.  Was that a major stink eye the latte-drinking man at the other table just shot at me? I am not usually in the habit of carrying books with the words EVANGELICAL CHURCH emblazoned across the cover in a very large font, complete with crosses.    Not that there’s anything wrong with that…  Let’s just say I felt a little funny later,  carrying it into my synagogue to catch up on my reading while waiting to pick up Lulu at Nursery School.  I kept hearing the ensuing commentary and clucking:  "Oh my, Rachel, isn’t that our first grade Hebrew School teacher sitting there, reading that book with the CROSSES all over the cover?  Isn’t your little Sarah in her class this year?"    Hmmm… One would think, after reading The Shack, and Unlikely Disciple, this wouldn’t even be a talking point.  One would think.  Of course this would never happen, but I have a very over-active imagination, which I often indulge with a scooch of paranoia.  More about the paranoia, when I get to the whole Scaremare thing.  Oy…

As I begin this book, I too am impressed with Gina Welch’s descriptive writing style, her clever turn of a phrase, and yes Lizzie, her "soupcon of snark".  I understand the slight catch in your appreciation, your hope for Welch’s sincerity.  I am quite positive our discussion of this book would have been vastly different when we first began our correspondence.  Like Gina Welch, we can now employ the snark with the sensitivity and sincerity.  

Let the Scaremare begin!  

Part Two

Part Three

In the midst of this small crisis, I got an email.  It was from a close friend of my father.  He is my Dad’s old school buddy and colleague; he wanted me to know that their mutual friend had suddenly passed away.  It was someone my Dad had been very fond of – they had enjoyed one another’s humor, wit and intelligence.  He thought I would want to know.  

There were so many sadnesses that hit me all at once.  Sadness for the suddenly dead woman who had made me laugh out loud during various social gatherings.  I’d loved listening to her talk.  A strange, almost empathetic sadness for my father, who in his absence, isn’t here to witness this unexpected news.  And as always, the residual, never far from the surface grief for my father, who has been gone over five years.  

There was a startling realization: my Dad died before most of his peers and colleagues.   My connection to so many of his friends (whom I ‘d enjoyed so much),  is very sporadic, tenuously second hand, or virtually non-existent.  They are going to start getting older and older.  I’d lost so many of them, these friends whom I’d loved hearing about and occasionally seeing, when my Dad died.  Many of them knew me from the time of my birth or childhood.  The very small group of people on this planet who can make this claim is now ever-shrinking.  

Why was I wanting to feel the loss of this friend for my father, who isn’t around to go to the funeral, to mourn his friend?  This is his friend, this group of people are his, not my, social and professional peers.  But losing them when he died represented a final passing of a big part of my life – measurable in years as well as in an almost tangible, solid volume.   They represent a certain era, a certain place in time and space that is shrinking and will someday be gone, at least to me.  The death of this particular woman opens up that wound, which I now realize will be the case whenever I hear this kind of news about my father’s friends.  More so when I stop hearing it.   (hopefully a long time from now)

My step-mother is going to the funeral.  She shared their friendship.  Enjoyed her company, and they had all socialized quite a bit.   Perhaps she will feel a bit of my father’s presence there, reflected off the grief of their many friends.    I am glad she is going – I feel as though she will be there to "represent".  For all of us. 

in memory of the Honorable Sylvia B Pressler

What I learned from Holden Caulfield, whom I got to know in Mrs. Levinson’s 11th-grade English class (where Jane sat a few seats behind me, by the way)….

As a reader:

• An honest-to-goodness unreliable narrator is my favorite kind of narrator. Because, after all, isn’t every narrator unreliable when you get right down to it?  The ones you have to watch out for are the ones that actually believe themselves to be trustworthy and 100% sane.
• An alienated protagonist requires a little work to understand.  If the novelist is doing his or her job right, you’ll feel richly rewarded at the end for going tot he trouble.  If not, you just feel vaguely annoyed and frustrated.  I’ve always been glad for the chance to get to know strange, lonely, outraged, damaged, noble Holden.
• First-person stream of consciousness is both seductive and jarring.  A strange mix of whole-hearted identification, and the sheer strangeness of being inside another mind as it relentlessly churns away.
• The archetypal heroic quest can belong to a modern-day, socially alienated teenager every bit as much as it belongs to Odysseus or Sir Gawain.  Nobility andworthiness take many forms.
• Reading about Holden’s rite of passage was oneof my own rites of passage.  True for me, true for most of my friends—and now for my children.  How rich and wonderful.
• Sometimes the books that get banned are the ones containing the greatest sense of the holy.

As a person:

• Innocence and childhood are fragile, precious, and worth protecting. 
• People in positions of authority will let you down.  Often.  Get on with your own quest as best you can after meeting up with knuckle-headed gatekeepers.
• Alienation can be greatest for those whose ideals are loftiest.
• Phoniness can be looked at as a kind of moral assault.
• Irony is a useful tool for dealing with agonizing absurdities.
• Profanity can, paradoxically, be a way of expressing appreciation for the sacred.
• Adolescence is a grand, grueling, and perilous journey.

Written in memory of J.D. Salinger,  1919-2010

Jane: 

So last week found me lagging in my reading of Committed.  Lots to do around the house, with the kids,  I wasn’t making the time to sit and read.  As opposed to the way I devoured the spiritual travelogue that was Eat Pray Love.  This is the reverse of Lizzie, who couldn’t completely get into Eat Pray Love but couldn’t stop reading Committed?  And what does that say about where we two are along the marriage spectrum?  As Lizzie so beautifully recounts here, she has been separated from her husband, awaiting the legal finalization of her divorce.  As for me, well,  I’m on the other side of the shore – swimming along, sometimes floating, sometimes sinking, in the high and low tides of my 11 year old marriage.   And as I write this, I am actually away, no kids or hubster, for the first time in way too long.  Finally, there is time to read.  Time to consider.  I’m a little more than half-way through the book – but ready to comment.  

Committed finds Elizabeth Gilbert traveling for a year with her soon to be husband, Felipe.  Various immigration snafus and rules are at once forcing the marriage, as well as delaying it.  Gilbert’s goal during that time is to examine marriage.  To conquer her fears of.  One of her first stops in this year long journey through Southeast Asia, is a small town in the mountains of North Vietnam, near the Chinese border, where she visits with some Hmong women.  

Gilbert describes the Hmong as a "small, proud, isolated ethnic minority (what anthropologists call ‘an original people’) who inhabit the highest peaks of Vietnam, Thailand, Laos and China… nomads, storytellers, warriors, natural-born anticonformists and a terrible bane to any nation that has ever tried to control them."

Here, Gilbert questions the women of this beautiful and remote river valley.  She discovers an extended family where the well-being of a married couple is intrinsically tied to the well-being of the community.   Questions about how couples met, when they first knew they were in love, and most of all about happy marriages, are met at first with polite bafflement, then twinkle-eyed mirth, and finally with out and out howling laughter.  Men and women, whose paths either crossed or not, married.  If they didn’t know each other prior, they did after the marriage.  They didn’t spend tons of time together, they were too busy doing what needed to be done.  Gilbert realizes the language and concept of Hmong marriage is vastly different than Western marriage. 

We want our spouse to be the perfect reflection of the best parts of ourselves.  We often expect our spouse to be our emotional support, primary source of satisfaction, lover, best friend, confidant, entertainment, co-procreator and co-parent of our children, sometimes even a source of income and economic stability; most often, a definition of who we are.  This is a mighty tall order.  And come to think of it, a mighty impossible order.  Perhaps it’s only in contrast to a people and community like the Hmong, that Gilbert even realizes this.  Certainly the contrast hits the concept home for her.  

As for myself, I have always been blessed with the ability to create family around me.  This is a skill born out of necessity, from a very early age.  So I went into my marriage knowing that I had a pretty good safety net of friends and created family – especially necessary in the glaring almost absence of blood relatives.  But I probably hoisted many of the above expectations upon Landeaux.  (I am still not wholly sure what his expectations were when we first married).

Lizzie and I often discuss the various seasons of our lives.  Different stages of parenting, of relationships, of friendships, of our own personal development.  This would seem ridiculous to the Hmong granny who laughed and was puzzled by Elizabeth Gilbert’s list of questions.  It is self versus community.  Individual emotional well-being versus functioning as one part of many.  

As Lizzie  is embarking upon and moving out of one season to the next, unknown and exciting time of her life, I am struggling to define myself within the current season of my marriage, as a wife  and mother.  Where did the lost parts of my identity go?  Which of those do I want back?  How can I retrieve them, and are some of them irretrievable?  As my children are growing out of the youngest, physically neediest parts of their childhood, how must my parenting change and how can I optimize this opportunity to change myself?  (note to Lizzie: this also requires a pause to suck down a long swig of Diet Coke!) 

The book is hitting close to home, indeed.  In a totally different way than it’s hitting Lizzie, but close to home nonetheless.  

part 1

part 2