What I'm Into: December 2015

Linking up with Leigh Kramer as we review the last month {and year - hello, 2016!}.

Reading:

I really should do a final Reading Challenge update and share the last quarter of the year, but I doubt that it will happen as an independent post. So let's just deal with that in our hearts and combine the updates. whatevs. 

"A Book You Chose For Its Cover" - I read The Silent Stars Go By by Dan Abnett, which is a Doctor Who adventure. Yes, I chose a book because Matt Smith's face was on the cover, but hey, that was basically the assignment! This was a light, fun read, and it was especially enjoyable because it takes place during Eleven's time with Amy and Rory - such a treat. 

"A Book Your Mom Loves" - silly Bek. Silly, silly Bek. Let's take a moment and appreciate the silliness of Bek. You guys, my mom reads a lot, but she has read this one particular book probably a dozen times. When I saw the challenge, I knew that book was the book I'd be reading. Why I waited until December to start reading a 1,400-page book, I will never know. Anyway, I'm currently reading "...And the Ladies of the Club" by Helen Hooven Santmyer. It is very enjoyable, but there's no way on God's green earth that I'll have it finished in 24 hours. 

Not related to this reading challenge, I also read:

• Room by Emma Donoghue - LOVED. Terrifyingly innocent and haunting... Don't watch any movie trailers until you read the book first. {I'm hoping that this will make the movie slightly less intense, but I doubt it}
• Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon - also loved. Don't audio-book this one; get the hard copy. There are illustrations {by the author's husband} and details that make the book. 
• Bandersnatch: An Invitation to Explore Your Unconventional Soul by Erika Morrison - this is such a good book. It's one of those soul-stretching, boundary-breaking books, and I highly recommend it. 
• Out of Sorts by Sarah Bessey - cannot recommend this one enough. To borrow her analogy of sorting through an attic, Sarah gently cradles each item and shares what she's learned from her own life and sorting. Gentle and beautiful, and I was thrilled to learn that Sarah spent some time in the Anglican Church!
• New and Selected Poems: Volume One by Mary Oliver - this is maybe probably the first book of poetry I've attempted to read as an adult, and I'm actually really enjoying it. There are a few lines of various poems that just stop me in my tracks, and I was not expecting that. 

Watching: 

• Jayna and I finished "Gilmore Girls" last night - ALL. THE. TEARS. and FEELS. Oh my word. Counting down to the Netflix revival already. Related: I'm going to start "Parenthood" very, very soon in order to get my Lauren Graham fix.
• This week I finished Season Four of "Longmire." This show sure knows how to end seasons on cliffhangers! 
• I started watching "New Girl" last night. I can't decide if it's cute and quirky or cute and annoying. 
• "Doctor Who" - Season Nine just ended. Capaldi is so brilliant.
• "Sherlock" Special airs in less than 48 hours - yipee!

Doula Adventures:

My website is live {check it out!}, I attended my second certifying birth at the beginning of this month, and this week I've been completing and mailing business licensing forms. Also, I submitted my last two BAI homework assignments, so as soon as I attend three more births and get my grades, I'm done! My goal for 2015 was to finish all the non-birth assignments, so yay me!

thanks, Meryl

Listening to:

• "Details" album by Frou Frou {Imogen Heap is part of this dynamic duo!}
• "Hello" by Adele... can't stop, won't stop
• "Satellite Kite" album by Beautiful Eulogy - discovered them because Josh Garrels does a song with them. I love the musical soundscape-esque mixed with the steady rhythm of not-quite-rap {more spoken word}.

Grateful for:

• Samara came up before Christmas, and she and Cami and I got some good reunion time together. I'm grateful for my two best friends!
• Ellen is home for Christmas break {I didn't get to see her over Thanksgiving}, and we are watching the "Harry Potter" movies together. I'm grateful for my sister and our mutual love of Hogwarts.
• My dear parents gave me a peanut ball for Christmas. This is something I asked for that is more for my business than it is for me, but I'm still thrilled. My family shook their collective head at me, but I still squealed with joy. Grateful for family who loves me at my weirdest.

That's it! December and 2015 are almost done, and I'm ready for a great year in 2016!

Doula Adventures: Website is Live!!!

Hey y'all! Sorry for the radio silence the past month. I've been busy cranking out the last few details of my website, and I'm thrilled to share it with you now! I'm definitely still tweaking it as I receive feedback {and please feel free to send me your thoughts!} but as of Sunday, it is live and public and REAL. Jeepers creepers.

So. Drumroll, please. Welcome to Uplifted Birth's live website!!!

Thanks, Fred and George {or is it George and Fred?}

Really, please let me know what you think: is the website clear, do you have unanswered questions, could I say something in a different way, etc. I look forward to your response!

31 Days of Something

Throughout the blogosphere, people are starting 31 Days of Writing projects. It's another sign of autumn, right, these 31 days? Get your pumpkin spice latte and write every day for a month.

October 1st sort of snuck up on me this year. I mean, it was a Thursday. Bridesmaid duties had kept me focused on Saturday the 26th, and I wasn't really aware of anything after that date. But here we are, and I'm trying to think of a topic upon which to pour out thoughts for 31 days, and the only cohesive theme that seems to permeate life right now is how everything. is. changing.

And while change is a part of life, this season of change has felt especially difficult to swallow. It is taking me longer to accept new things and reconcile The Way Things Were Before with The Way Things Are Now. This is both a mental and a physical challenge; my weekly schedule is completely different, and I am nothing if not a creature of routine.

I could make a list of all the things in my life that are changing, but I'm afraid that the list would turn into an angry rant about why certain things have changed and why certain things shouldn't change. Mostly I'm afraid that I would write a list and then curl into a sobbing mess on the floor.

Life is so hard sometimes.

There's no neat and tidy way to conclude this; life is difficult especially in the middle of change, and that's where I'm at. I don't have a conclusion or a point to make; I just have my struggles and my confession that I won't be writing every day this month. I will be reading others' struggles, like Micah J. Murray's becoming human series and my dear friend Carla's journey of grieving her stillborn daughter Cora. I will be reading and nodding my head and aching and crying right along with these people, because I am human and I am grieving and life is hard. 

Reading Challenge Update: Three Quarters Done

Fall officially started September 23rd, and we are now three quarters into 2015. Sounds like it's time for a Reading Challenge Update! Doesn't autumn make you want to read?

via Modern Mrs. Darcy

July: a book from your childhood - I re-read These Happy Golden Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I've been growing my collection of the Little House books recently; seeing these books on my shelf makes me happy. My mom read these books aloud to me when I was a kid, and revisiting them has been such a treat!

August: a book recommended by someone with great taste {but taste vastly different than mine!} - Villette by Charlotte Bronte was recommended to me by Julie, and I hated myself for committing to read it...for the first 150 pages. And then! Suddenly I was hooked. No spoilers, but Julie and I had a wonderful rage-fest over the fate of various characters. Bronte is cruel, and I can't help but love it. 

September: a book that was originally written in a different language - The Diary of A Young Girl by Anne Frank is so touching and agonizing to read. It's took me a while to get through it, mainly because I do a lot of my reading right before bed and I really didn't want to have sad dreams {and also because Harry Potter}. Anne was a very aware teenager, and it was touching to read her observations about herself, her family, and the world in which she lived. 

I'm excited for the last two books on this challenge list: a book your mom loves and a book chosen because of its cover. What are you reading these days?

What I'm Into: August 2015

This month has positively flown by! It is crazy to me that September - the beginning of Fall!!! - is upon us.

Reading:

People.... I read the Harry Potter series. All of it. All seven books. I can't even deal with how incredible these books are, how deprived my life has been up to this point, and how much I wish I could read them for the first time over and over again. Augh! Tear count is definitely in the hundreds. {Oh, and I was officially Sorted and I am Gryffindor!}

via

Embrace the Body by Tara Owens {currently reading}: This book has received great reviews from a few bloggers I admire, so I'm eager to get deeper into it. 

When We Were On Fire by Addie Zierman {currently reading}: whoa. Addie gently and beautifully captures the culture of the Evangelical Church in the 90's and 00's... It's like I'm seeing it clearly for the first time. Highly recommend this one, and you can also check out Addie's website.

Working On:

Doula website galore. SO close to hitting publish! It will probably be at the end of September - fingers crossed. And in the meantime, if you feel so moved, you can check out my Facebook page :)

Kitchen cabinets, cleaning and "frosting." Ugh. Taking forever, mainly because this last week of August has been so busy. My goal is to clean the wood of the cabinets with this cleaning goop and then paint the glass. Two doors are done but still on the floor, and I've got two doors by the fireplace waiting to be painted. I know all the chaos will be worth it when they're done, but by golly I wish they were done now. 

Celebrating:

My friend Rebecca is getting married at the end of September, and as one of her bridesmaids, I had the pleasure of helping organize and host her bachelorette party! It was really chill and fun and relaxing - how can it not be with a chill group on the beach? We also had the wedding shower and played "the shoe game," which was hysterical.

Listening to:

• Florence and the Machine's album How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful. Can't stop, won't stop.
• Hailee Steinfeld's new single "Love Myself"
• Elle King's "Ex's and Oh's"

Watching:

My sister and I are in the middle of Season 6 of "Gilmore Girls" - yes, we've just made an interesting discovery about Luke!! But that's as far as we've watched, so keep your spoilers to yourself, sweetie.

Speaking of sweetie, Season 9 of Doctor Who starts September 19th!! And River Song is going to be in the Christmas special! Happiness!!!

On the blog:

In August, I wrote a big long post on my thoughts on the Church. While there are no comments on the post itself, I've had conversations with quite a few people, and it's been good. I'm looking forward to continuing the discussion, and I welcome your thoughts and other pieces you've been reading and writing about this topic. 

Thanks to Leigh Kramer for hosting the What I'm Into link-up {that I missed via blog but am joining via Twitter}. See you next month!

Doula Adventures: It's Getting Real Up In Here

This summer has been C-R-A-Z-Y productive for my doula business. I have only 12 {update: 10!!} assignments left to complete {plus 5 births to doula}, and here are just a few of the other projects I'm working on:

• created a website {as soon as it's live, I'll let you know!}
• created a Facebook page {again, I'll tell you}
• drafted business cards {waiting on color matching}
• purchased 6 books for my Lending Library
• signed up for my very first doula workshop {it's in Feb. 2016}
• created a business email address

But wait, you wisely protest, don't you need a business name and logo in order to do 4 of those things? Right you are, dear reader! And so it is with great pleasure I share with you my business name and logo. Introducing...

Isn't it beautiful!?!? I'm freaking out right now. My dear friend Morgan nailed it when I haphazardly described my vision "something with hands," and the color was her inspiration as well. If anyone needs some mad graphic skills, let me hook you up. 

There you have it. It's getting real. I'm going to be a doula. I'm opening a doula business. This. Is. Happening. Huzzah!!

Thoughts on Church

You know how some parts of your life are easy to blog about? Like weekends with friends and reading goals and whatever topic the NAS community chooses.

And then there are the parts of life that are not necessarily more private but are harder to articulate. I think I mentioned once or twice that my church has been going through some changes, but that's it. To anyone who only knows me via la interwebs, that could mean anything. New carpet or new pastor. Because there are people reading this blog who know me and my church, people that I still love and adore, people I do not want to hurt, I've been intentionally vague, smoothing over the ripples on the surface.

But inside my head, under the surface, I feel like a river that's about to break down a dam. I've been swirling around in my thoughts, going back and forth and around and around, wondering if I can stay in the Evangelical/Non-denominational church I've known my whole life, and also wondering if I can leave it.

Before we get too far along, let me give some background. Up until the end of 2013, about 400 people attended my church. This is the church my parents started attending when they first got married. This is the church I was dedicated in as an infant, the church where my chubby baby legs were pinched by the moms of skinny baby boys who grew up to be my friends and classmates. This is the church where I met and played with my best friend when we were in 6th grade.

This is the church into which I was baptized as a 13-year-old. This is the church that had the school that I graduated from at age 18. This is the church with a Master's Commission program that solidified my relationship with Jesus. This is the church I cried for my first several Sundays in Kentucky. This is the church that I happily returned to after the cold winter in Omaha. This is the church that I've always called my home church, with "home" referring to the sense of home I felt at the church.

For the past several months, I've considered myself a part of this church. I've gone to congregation meetings and voted and continued to serve in childcare. I've received emails and replied to them; I've hugged friends when we meet in the foyer, and when other friends asked where I'm going to church, I've quietly and determinedly stated the name of this church.

However, I haven't actually attended a church service at this church for probably four months. Some of the time I was in childcare, hanging out with the tiny people who do not judge {or speak, for that matter}. Some of the time I was at brunch with a friend, reveling in my new-found freedom to not be in church on Sunday morning. And some of the time I was at an Anglican church, weeping through the beauty of a generations-old liturgy.

During these four months, I thought that I hadn't been to a service because of timing or commitments or freedom. I thought that even though things were hard, they would get better and I was a part of making it better. I thought that when the going gets tough, the tough get tougher.

I did not think I would attend my first service in four months and have a panic attack.

My lungs seem to be allergic to Christianese. I was at a training for Care Net when I had my first panic attack. The lady was a lovely woman sharing about her work in adoption ministry, and one of my fellow volunteers asked about "affecting the generational line" and the lady's response was, "we place the children in Christian homes," as if that solved all the problems. My lungs shrunk to about 50% capacity as the words left her mouth.

If I had been able to breathe, I would have asked how her ministry addressed the savior complexes of her adoptive families.

In hindsight, my panic attach at the Care Net training may have been related to the overwhelming, stifling heat in the room. It may have been that I was not prepared for the relatively neutral topic of adoption to contain such a strong sense of righteousness/rightness. It may have been that it was a Monday, and an emotionally exhausting Monday at that. Any of these factors may have made my first panic attack a fluke.

But sitting in the sanctuary of my home church? Not a fluke.

Rachel Held Evans described her relationship with the Evangelical Church as "an ex-boyfriend that she still checks up on via Facebook," and I think I may get to that point someday. Right now, though, my relationship with the Evangelical Church is like learning the older sister I trusted to give me good make-up advice has actually painted my face like a clown, and I've only just seen how I've been walking around my whole life.

I'm sure that somewhere underneath all the abrasive colors, there is some quality make-up, like a great primer or some awesome eyeliner. But in order to find it, I have to remove the face paint. And the wig. And the red nose in the middle of my face. There is much more to this get-up than I ever realized; it affects and covers so much of me.

And my older sister lied to me.

She led me to believe that life was a certain way, that everyone was wearing make-up like this, that if they weren't wearing the make-up, they weren't following God's will.

Writing that now, I think my god, that sounds like a cult.

Personally, yes, there were aspects of my specific church body that were cult-ish. The sources of that influence have been removed, and fresh air is moving through us now.

And on a larger scale, yes, sometimes I think there are aspects of the Evangelical Church that are cult-like. Not everything, and not every little-c-church, but I think there are a few shared characteristics that make the Church....not Christ-like, to be honest.

• the way the Church wants everyone to fit into "traditional" gender roles
• how the Church asks people to change before they come to Jesus, instead of letting people be changed by Him
• the "us versus them" mentality, and the language used to be "in the world but not of it"

And I'm over it. I'm breaking down the dam. I'm ripping off the wig and scraping off the face paint.

This does not mean that I'm burning my bridges. To the contrary, I still feel at home driving into my church parking lot. I love walking into the building, seeing the transformed foyer and welcoming center, and I really love how the Children's Ministry has been completely revamped. I love the people that go to my church. Hell, I still refer to it as "my" church!

But I don't think I can go back into the sanctuary, because it has ceased to be a sanctuary - a place of refuge - for me. And I think that's true of the Evangelical Church at large.

This is a hard realization to grasp, and it's an even harder one to stay grasped.

The optimistic part of me wants so badly to go to my church on Sunday and believe that things will change, that more and more healing will take place and that all my concerns and fears will work out and be resolved.
The part of me that still remembers how hard it was to breathe through the fifteen minutes I was in the service, the part that reads articles about the foundations of Evangelical Church Culture, the part of me that wishes when the going gets tough, the tough could leave.... that part of me realizes that the Evangelical Church has some fundamental {I use this word ironically} flaws and that my continued participation is hurting me more than it is healing the church {or the Church}.

It hurts to be hurt by my church/Church.

I guess this is where Rachel Held Evans got her ex-boyfriend analogy, because while I want to move on, a huge part of me is still intertwined with the Evangelical Church. Its hand and mine are still connected, and most of the time I don't even realize  that I haven't let go. And worse: at times I've let my hand go limp, but the Evangelical Church hasn't let go of me.

I've started going to therapy, because as much as I love and adore my friends and family, I realized that we are all too close, both to each other and to the transition in my church, to be of much help. My therapist is absolutely wonderful, and she's helping me wipe off the make-up, determine my new relationship with my church and the Church, and sort through everything else in the periphery.

I've also started attending an Anglican church, and I wasn't kidding earlier when I said that I cried through a third of the first service I attended. You guys, I felt so refreshed. This church is awesome, and I'm excited to see what God does, both in me and in this body. And I'm also excited for my home church, because I know that God is working there, too. God is big enough to handle transitions and changes and make-up remover and broken dams, and with His help, I can handle them, too.