Hey there, faithful readers,

I’ve got a post on Engaged Marriage today about thinking about time from a more feminine perspective. I discuss the idea that while we are generally encouraged in Western society to be productive – to accomplish as much as we can, to achieve great things, to be efficient – I want to considering the value of being fruitful instead.

Before sending the post to Dustin, I had my husband look over it. When he finished reading, he asked me, “But what exactly is feminine about this way of thinking?”

I’ve been trying to answer that question for both of us. Mostly, I think the answer comes from our instincts: we intuitively know that productivity is a masculine virtue, whereas fruitfulness is a feminine one.* But I thought I’d expand a little on the connections between fruitfulness and femininity.

I was first introduced to the idea of fruitfulness versus productivity when I started looking into New Feminism. I wrote a post on New Feminism, outlining some of the main tenets of the movement. The idea of fruitfulness struck me the most, which was described as a process that requires patience and collaboration. Fruitfulness cannot be measured, only appreciated.

I imagine that fruitfulness involves things like fostering relationships and deepening empathy and understanding. While productivity is concerned with manufacturing artifacts that can be quantified, fruitfulness is like childbirth and pregnancy: it’s organic, slow, painful, mysterious, and immeasurably beautiful. You can’t measure the worth of a new life. You just appreciate it.

I am starting to think that all art is the result of fruitfulness. The creation of art is always feminine – it’s always a kind of birth. I think there’s a reason the Greek muses were female: there’s something inherently feminine about the creation of music, poetry, literature, sculpture, and dance.

I know that I am hopelessly under-qualified to talk about these things, and I hope smarter readers will forgive me for my ignorance. These are all new ideas to me, but I’m excited to explore them some more. I intend to think and write more on the subject in the future, and hope to learn from you guys and from further reading.

Well, how about you check out my post on Engaged Marriage and let us know what you think? What are your thoughts?

*To clarify: I’m not saying that men automatically are or ought to be productive, only that a male-dominated society is naturally going to lean towards productivity instead of fruitfulness.

Image courtesy of Silkegb.

On the way home from work the other day, I heard Kesha’s “Your Love is my Drug” on the radio for the first time. (I know. I’m a little behind the times. That song was probably released weeks ago. I tend not to keep up with this stuff).

For the first verse or two, I was just caught up in how catchy the song was. Your love, your love, your love is my drug. Whoo! Catchy stuff. The deejay had warned me that a Kesha song was coming up, so I wasn’t expecting quality lyrics.

At first, I didn’t pay much attention to the lame drug metaphors – “my heart is fried,” “love sick crack head,” etc – they were too cheesy and unconvincing to catch my attention. Besides, who hasn’t felt a little “addicted” to their partner before? But I was struck by the bridge:

I don’t care what people say / The rush is worth the price I pay / I get so high when you’re with me / But crash and crave you when you leave

Hmm. Really? This is the kind of relationship we are celebrating with this song – a volatile, intensely dependent one characterized by temporary, euphoric highs and pathetic, desperate lows? The “price” she pays is constant emotional “crashes”? I found it troubling, to say the least.

I was immediately reminded of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight. (Confession: I read all of the Twilight books. More accurately, I devoured all of the Twilight books. I ate them for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Yum. Delectable. Yes, I am one of Those Girls). And since of course you didn’t read them because you’re way too sophisticated for that, you might not be aware that in the first book, Bella is described as Edward’s “personal brand of crack.” Despite his better judgment and concern for her safety, Edward can’t stay away from Bella. Edward knows he’s putting her life in danger by entangling her in the world of vampires, but he can’t help himself: he’s desperately addicted. He can’t stay away. Romantic, right? Substance abuse makes for such charming metaphors.

After hearing the song and reflecting on the book, I began to wonder how widespread this love-as-drug paradigm is. Is this the dominant message teenagers are getting about love: that it ought to feel like an addiction? That true love brings wild ecstasy when the beloved is around, but sickness and maddening frustration when he’s not? That any relationship that doesn’t bring these intense emotions is less than ideal?

I find this concerning. I think this is a dangerous portrayal of love, and one that needs to be corrected with much more positive, realistic examples. Yes, the Kesha song and vampire stories and compelling and interesting and all that, and I’m not saying we need to ban them or anything absurd like that. However, young people need to know that these fantasy stories are not the ideal for real life. Real love is not a drug. Not every moment with your beloved is going to rock your socks off. Some time spent apart from your beloved is healthy and necessary. And if you can’t function without your partner, you’ve got some serious problems.

Of course, I’m preaching to the choir with all this. You all know that real relationships are often mundane and frustrating, and that any relationship that leaves you “crashed” when you’re apart is grossly unhealthy. I’m just saying that I was reminded this week why it’s important to tell true stories about relationships. We need songs, books and movies that reflect reality too. They need to include partnerships that are beautiful because they are mature – because they encourage both partners do be more creative and courageous, and because they last through both tragedy and banality.

I’m down with the occasional fluffy fantasy-romance and energetic love song. But we shouldn’t live off of them exclusively. We need a touch of reality every once in a while. And it’s my goal to provide an occasional dose of charming (or not-so-charming) reality.

Dear readers, I have a request of you.

I have decided – rather late in the game, I admit – to try to make the most of my time without kids. I have been focusing so much energy in the last year-and-a-half on trying to have a baby, and mourning the fact that I have no baby, that I have not been fully appreciating the time I currently have. I’m only lately realizing the tragedy of this fact.

I am realizing that every stage of life is sacred and shouldn’t be taken for granted. I know that there are certain freedoms that I have now, while I don’t have any little ones depending on me, that I may lose if I become a parent. So that’s why I’m asking for your help. Could you take a few moments to answer these questions, and help me to carpe me some diem while I have the chance? Yes, I am using my blog to be completely self-serving.

If you currently have kids:

What are you glad you did before you had children, or what do you wish you had done before the munchkins arrived?

If you’ve never had kids:

What are you currently doing to make the most of your childless years? Or what do you hope/plan to do before you become a parent?

What do you think I should do? My passions including writing, theology, history, language, natural living and nutrition, DIY, cooking, garden gnomes and the outdoors. What should I be doing?? Where should I be going? What should I be reading?

Thanks so much in advance. Any advice will be very much appreciated.

Photo courtesy of Stephen and Melanie.

Once gain, I’ve come across a book that I think every woman could benefit from reading.

At first glance, for a variety of reasons, you may not think this book is relevant to you. Maybe you’ve never really thought about your fertility. But if you’ve got ovaries and a uterus, fertility is a part of your life in one way or another, and I think it’s incredibly empowering to understand how it all works.

If you’re married, you’re having sex; and if you’re having sex, you’re probably either trying to get pregnant or trying to avoid getting pregnant. In either case, this book is relevant to you. Also, even if you’re single and currently unconcerned about fertility, but if you suffer from any cycle-related problems like menstrual cramps or PMS, you might find some useful information in this book.

Of course, most Western women today use the Pill to prevent pregnancy, and know about about other medications and procedures to help them achieve pregnancy when they’re ready, and consequently feel little concern for their fertility. But recently I’m finding that many women are looking for a different way to manage their fertility. They’re looking for something healthier, greener, and more natural. And that’s why a lot of women (along with their partners) are turning to Fertility Awareness or Natural Family Planning.

The Trouble with Fertility Awareness

As most of you know, I’ve become a huge advocate for Fertility Awareness in recent months, which I first pursued as a way to help achieve pregnancy. When I started to write and talk about it, a few of my friends got into fertility awareness, too. They bought or borrowed Taking Charge of Your Fertility and quit the Pill and started to practice what they had learned.

But, like me, many of my friends experienced frustration with fertility awareness, especially in the first few months.

“My cycles aren’t anything like the book describes,” one friend confided. “I’m charting every day, but I’m still not sure what’s going on in my body. It still doesn’t look like I’ve ovulated this month and I’m already on day 21!”

“My fluid patterns don’t seem to match up with my temperature patterns,” another friend complained. “I’m not sure what’s going on.”

The trouble is, paying attention to your fluids and charting your temperatures are only helpful if you can make sense of what you’re seeing. And I noticed that both my friends and I were often finding our patterns abnormal, unpredictable, and confusing.

How are you supposed to feel confident that FAM will help you achieve or avoid pregnancy when your cycles are so irregular? This didn’t feel nearly as liberating as we thought it should feel.

Some Help

That’s where Fertility, Cycles and Nutrition comes in. This book is all about using nutrition, in the form of food and supplements, to help regulate your cycles so that they are normal and predictable — more like the ones described in the books.

With more regular cycles, you can more confidently use FAM to either avoid or achieve pregnancy. What’s more, a healthy, regular cycle is connected to less painful periods and lessened PMS symptoms. High fives all around! What woman isn’t looking for these things?

What Sold Me

I started to see how this book can be helpful for everyone when Shannon pointed out that if you have, for example, short luteal phases (which I do), it sucks whether you’re trying to have a baby or you’re trying not to have a baby.

See, if you’re trying to get pregnant, a short luteal phase makes it impossible for a fertilized egg to ever implant in your uterine lining, which is necessary for it to develop into any embryo. So that sucks. And if you’re trying to avoid getting pregnant, a short luteal phase sucks because it means fewer nights of worry-free (i.e non-fertile) sex. Booo! Thumbs down! Who wants to abstain more than they have to, right?? So lengthening the luteal phase is desirable for every woman, regardless of what she wants.

So, after explaining how estrogen and progesterone and all that work, Shannon suggests a number of supplements and nutritional choices to help lengthen that phase of the cycle. She backs it all up by citing numerous reliable, scientific studies.

Of course, short luteal phases aren’t the only thing the author offers help with. She offers suggestions for other infertility problems, such as polycystic ovary syndrome, repeat miscarriages, or thyroid malfunctions. She also has chapters on how to have lighter, shorter, pain-free periods, and alleviate PMS symptoms. She has a chapter on nutrition during and after pregnancy, too, and even a section on male infertility. The list goes on.

I just finished this book this week, and haven’t managed to get my hands on the vitamin supplement that she recommends for women like me, so I can’t say yet whether her advice will work for me. But her references to multiple positive studies have given me new hope. The stats for women who achieved pregnancy using these supplements seem comparable to those who went on hormone therapy or underwent medical procedures, so I’m pretty pumped.

The Book in Summary

Fertility, Cycles and Nutrition starts off by giving an overview of what healthy eating looks like, which is great for the beginner interested in health and nutrition. She goes over healthy oils, vitamins and minerals, food substitutions, and how sugar affects hormones and fertility. Then she goes into specific problems and how to deal with them.

I highly recommend this book for all women seeking a healthier approach to fertility, pregnancy, and pregnancy-prevention. It’s easy to read, chock-full of useful information, and incredibly empowering.

And if you buy it through my links, I’ll make about 32 cents. But feel free to borrow it from a friend or the library. I’m all about saving money. (If you’re in Canada, you might prefer this link).

More on Fertility Awareness:

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Natural Family Planning

Attention, All Women Everywhere

Why I Have Become Anti-Pill (And Pro-FAM)

This is my chapter from the Love Everyday eBook, which is on tour RIGHT NOW! Last week we heard from Maureen Shaw at Feeling Flirty, where we learned about sharing responsibility. After reading my chapter, you should go and download this fantastic resource, written by 27 different authors, about making the most of your marriage every day.  Enjoy!

Dinner is what prevented me from turning a single funeral into a double funeral.

It started when I changed my mind and decided we ought to attend my uncle’s burial. The funeral service had just ended and we were in our car with the intention of going home.

“I think it would mean a lot to my dad if we went to the burial,” I told my husband. Dad had looked pretty broken up in there.

“No way,” my husband replied.

I couldn’t completely blame him. The temperature outside was well below freezing, a foot of snow had already piled up on the ground and the snowflakes were still coming down. And we didn’t know the man. My uncle had spent the last eleven years in prison. To say we weren’t close to him would be an understatement.  Plus, my husband pointed out, my dad had nine other siblings left whose burials we could attend. “I don’t think I should have to attend the burial of someone I wasn’t close to,” he argued.

“It’s not for my uncle, but for my dad,” I insisted. “We go to funerals for the sake of the bereaved.”

“I’m not going,” he said.

To say that I was angry would be another understatement.  I was furious.

We continued to fight as all the other vehicles in the parking lot began to leave in the procession. I told him he was selfish and had no sense of familial duty. He told me I was being unreasonable and wasting his time. Finally, as the lot emptied, we pulled out behind the caravan of cars on their way to the cemetery. We yelled back and forth the whole way there. He didn’t understand! No, I didn’t understand! Finally, we arrived, incensed. We parked. We shivered violently as we watched my uncle’s nine siblings shovel scoops of dirt onto his lowered coffin.  We got back into our car and left for home.

Back at home, we were still angry, but it was dinner time. I decided to slice a couple of sweet potatoes and put them in the oven with a smoked sausage. I tossed together some salad greens with a homemade vinaigrette and some toasted pine nuts. When he smelled the cooking food he came in and set the table in silence. Half an hour later we sat down at the table with dinner and a cold Rickard’s Red between us to share. We didn’t say another word about the funeral.

Finally, he sighed. “It’s hard to stay mad when you have so much good food in you,” he said.

I think my husband spoke a great truth. I wasn’t mad anymore, either. Food is powerful. Sharing a meal unites. Food is more than a source of nourishment: it is the means of fellowship.

I think there’s a reason every culture on the planet celebrates important events with feasting. There’s a reason Christians call the sharing of bread and wine “communion.” The sharing of food is special – some would even say it’s sacred.

When two or more people eat together, they admit that they are both human and need to sustain their bodies with food. They must lay down their defenses and admit their shared vulnerability. They agree to share the sensual experience of eating food and the bodily act of digestion.

My husband and I didn’t resolve our argument that night, but we stopped being angry at each other over dinner. I resolved not to arrange for a second funeral. Tonight.

So this is my advice to you: share meals with the people you love. Do it every day. Don’t go your separate ways when it’s time to fill your stomachs. Sit across from one another and savor the meal. As my husband pointed out, it’s hard to stay mad when you have good food in you.

Next week the tour continues at The Generous Husband, where you can learn about making time for each other.

This is a longer version of a post I wrote about seven months ago, so parts might sound familiar. At the time it was too emotionally sensitive to post in full, but I’ve developed some space from it since. Maybe someone out there can see themselves in this story.

Sometimes I wish to God I had never met Avery. Then I would still be indifferent to children.

* * *

I started babysitting Avery a month before I graduated with my M.A. I had worked two summers as a research assistant for a professor in my department, and she was hiring my dad and husband to build kitchen cabinets for her new house. I drove out to my dad’s shop to join their first meeting. I hadn’t talked to her for a while as she had been on maternity leave for the last couple of months. When she half-jokingly suggested I could work for her again as a childcare provider, I asked, “Really?” I loved the idea. I was thinking about going off the Pill soon and trying for kids. I thought this would be a great opportunity for some life experience.

At that point I still only wanted kids on a theoretical level. I had done the math and decided in my brain that now would be an appropriate time to start reproducing. There wasn’t any emotion behind the decision, only logic.

I had never been drawn much to children. They had never struck me as particularly interesting or desirable. They were needy and irritating. I had never been interested in cuddling or kissing or playing with children. I’d never had a flickering moment of desire for physical contact with a child.

That remained true, that is, until Avery.

The first couple of times babysitting were awkward. I hadn’t handled a five-month old in over a decade, when my littlest sister was a baby. I didn’t know how to coddle or play with him. I just talked to him like an adult – “Are you hungry? Are you in need of a diaper change?” – and watched him as he lay on the floor or sat in his baby chair. It was all right, though. I liked him all right.

One of the most shocking and confusing moments of my life was when I was babysitting Avery for the third or fourth time. I was carrying him in my arms, walking in circles around their apartment to get him to stop fussing, when he suddenly calmed down and decided to plop his weight forward and lay his head against my chest.

In an instant, something completely new and alarming ran through my body. I didn’t know what it was.

I was horrified. Stunned. And permanently altered. I suddenly recognized the feeling: it was pleasure. And I have never been the same since.

I got weak-kneed and had to sit down. I shifted his weight away from me slightly. What was happening to me? I was not the motherly type. I had no idea how to respond to this strange new feeling.

A few months later, something worse happened. When he flung himself against me, as I was now accustomed to him doing, he put his cheek against mine, causing my lips to inadvertently brush against his face. Instinctively, I half-kissed him. I was shocked by my own behaviour. I had never done anything like that before. I was immediately electrified with guilt and shame. My skin burned. I felt . . . almost dirty. I moved my face away quickly and shut my eyes against the tears. I had never felt such intense desire for someone before in my life. It almost choked me.

He wasn’t mine. I almost felt like an adulterer – enjoying someone who didn’t belong to me.

It was a very confusing moment. I made sure our faces never came into contact again after that.

Ever since then, my desire for a baby of my own has been almost physically painful. I have spent so many hours weeping because I don’t have a little one to kiss and hold. And the sensation was made worse by the fact that it was so new and came on so suddenly. When did I become this person? Who was I, really? How did one deal with such emotions? My newfound desire for children was confusing and disorienting. I’m not a woman, I’m an academic! Or . . . at least, I was. Now that I was out of school, planning to become a mother but decidedly un-pregnant, I didn’t know what I was.

Interestingly, Ben fell in love with Avery, too. We once babysat him together in the evening when his parents went to a concert. Avery liked the feel of Ben’s beard, looking him straight in the face as he patted Ben’s chin, and we let him play on our laps as we watched a movie in their darkened living room. Ben always reflects on that day with a melancholy smile. “I wish we could play with him again,” he’ll often say.

I continued to watch my little borrowed angel on a weekly basis until he was a year old. I went from bottle-feeding him to feeding him solid foods; I cared for him as he learned to sit up and then handle toys and knock down the block towers that I built for him. I learned which books were his favourites and which blankets he liked to sleep with. Then he was old enough for full-time daycare, and I got a good-paying job as a research assistant for a different professor.

I was hopelessly and irrevocably in love with Avery. It was a strange experience, like falling in love with a married man. It was painful to be around him, knowing that our time together was not forever and that he would leave a cavern in my life when the job ended. But I also delighted in his presence. I looked forward to our afternoons together and couldn’t wait to sit with him on the grass at the nearby park. I understood now what it felt like to love someone you could never actually be with.

Through Avery I fell in love with all babies. I see children with changed eyes. I feel a pang in my gut every time I pass a school yard at recess or a chubby face glancing up from a passing stroller. I can imagine myself as their mother. But I’m no one’s mother.

Fifteen months have come and gone since I first met him and decided I was ready to be a mother. Seven months have passed since I last cared for him. I’ve learned enough about my body and fertility to recognize that motherhood will probably not be a part of my life anytime soon. Every month when the menstrual cramps begin to seize my uterus I curse the day I met that cherub-faced charmer with his clear blue eyes and hair that matched mine, making him feel like he could almost be mine.

Just the other day, Ben leaned over me to see a new picture of Avery that his dad had put up on Facebook and he repeated with his adoring chuckle, “I wish we could play with him again.”

I don’t understand why or how God allowed me to fall in love with a child – and through him, all children – at the exact moment when I discovered I couldn’t have any of my own.

It feels like a cruel joke was played on me. Someone was being tricksy and mean. And I do my best to forget that I ever wanted babies. I wish I had never learned to love something I couldn’t have.

Photo courtesy of Hapal.

I don’t talk about my husband enough. I know this because I’ve had male colleagues hit on me after months of being acquainted because they still weren’t aware that I was married. I’m trying to work on that.

Obviously you all know that I’m married, but many of you don’t know a thing about the man I’m married to. And that’s a shame.

So I’d like to formally introduce him to you. I’m pretty fond of him. I decided, though, that sharing things like his age and occupation would be kind of uninteresting and don’t actually say that much about him. Instead, here is a random list of quirks, habits, and a few examples of our regular daily interactions.

***

My husband, doing what he usually does: fixing stuff. In this case, it's my bike.

One of Ben’s greatest desires in life is a cool scar. He thinks it would make him feel uber-manly. So every time he gets a minor injury (which is fairly often, as he works in home renovations and is around saw-blades quite a bit), he gets kind of excited, saying “I hope this leaves a cool scar!”

I don’t really get it. Does anyone know if this is normal for a man?

***

Ben has an inventory of places I’m not allowed to touch on his body. These include his Adam’s apple, his belly button, the hollow beneath his sternum, and the place just above his hip bones. He claims that if I do, he will “throw up.” I take my chances anyway. So far, no throwing up. But he does get very grumpy when I do it.

I’m quite certain that this is not normal.

***

My dear, clever, conscientious husband has rigged up a whole system of clothelines in our laundry room downstairs so that we can always air-dry our clothes. He hands his socks up by the toes . . . “So spiders can’t fall inside.” Not sure if this has ever been a problem in southern Ontario, but he likes to cover his bases.

***

The other day I suggested that he should clean the inside of the freezer, since he’s the one who left pop cans (or soda cans, for you Americans) in there to explode a few months ago. Removing the ice box, I realized there were still sticky brown crystals formed in the crevices. I left it to him. A few minutes later, after having surveyed the scene, I heard him yell, “I’ll do it. But I can’t guarantee I’ll do good work.”

***

“What were you thinking about doing for lunch?” he came and asked me the other day while I was doing some writing.

“Just leftovers,” I said distractedly. “Soup.”

“I was thinking eggs, toast and bacon,” he answered.

I thrust a finger at him while repeating emphatically, “Soup.”

He paused. “Soup-er idea?”

***

Packing for our weekend trip, I told him he was overdoing it. Wine glasses, summer sausage, cheese, a bottle of wine . . . he was wrapping stuff in paper bags and filling up multiple coolers. For a weekend. It was getting ridiculous. But I shrugged, letting him do his thing, and left for the computer room. Again, a yell: “It’s worth it,” he declared. “Cuz if we don’t bring this stuff, I’m going to be the one whining about it later.”

“I’m going to be whining?” I asked, unsure whether I’d heard correctly.

“No, I am.”

At least he’s well aware of his own shortcomings.

***

While I was writing all these things down in our computer room, I heard the mixer going in the kitchen and him murmuring to himself, “Mmm . . . vanilla.”

“Are you whipping up whipped cream for the trip?” I yelled incredulously, getting up and going to him in the kitchen. Ben does not do things in the kitchen. He is almost completely incompetent in the kitchen. But this was for the same trip in which he was pretty sure he would whine about it if he didn’t have adequate victuals for the weekend.

“Well, yeah,” he replied. “For the strawberries.”

I laughed. “You’re my favorite husband,” I said, and went up to him and hugged him affectionately. He kept beating with tremendous concentration.  Like I said, he doesn’t spend much time in the kitchen and this was taking a lot out of him.

“Guess what I’m doing right now?” I asked warmly, looking up at him. I was referring to the fact that I was writing about him.

He thought earnestly for a moment, then suggested timidly, “Lusting over me?”

I don’t have any questions to ask with this post. If you have a marriage blog, maybe you could introduce your spouse to us, too? I would love to hear about him or her. If you don’t, please share an odd tidbit or conversation from your marriage in the comments. It’s fun hearing about other people’s everyday relationships.

The other day a reader of mine — who also happens to be someone near and dear to my heart — left an interesting comment on one of my recent posts. In the post, I describe how my husband and I long to have a child to share our love with, since we have more love than we know what to do with. She said she thought this was interesting, because it was sort of contrary to the way she understood love, marriage, and children. In response, she wrote this:

I’ve always thought that the intense happiness and love I feel in my marriage right now is hindering my desire for kids, where I’m afraid that having kids would harm the already awesome relationship I feel we have now.

And I can’t blame her for feeling this way. In fact, I found this comment intriguing because I think it represents a very common attitude in our culture: that children suck the life out of us. They harm marriages. They’re little vampires, consuming the lifeblood right out of us (and our bank accounts), crippling our ability to be good spouses. So you better get your fun in now while you can, because when children come along the Good Life is over.

Interestingly, the same is thought of marriage. Overall, according to conventional wisdom, life goes downhill after you find your true love. Marriage takes it down one notch, and then kids take it down to the very bottom rung. Which is odd, since the alleged apex of life is falling in love. That and sex.

Romance and sex, then, are the pinnacle of human experience; but marriage and children – the natural consequences of the above – trash everything. That seems to be the dominant (though paradoxical) perspective in North America. And it’s hard not to be influenced by this notion.

The reason I know this attitude is so widespread and influential is because I once believed it. I thought marriage was going to ruin everything that was good in my life, and the birth of children would mark the official end of excitement and fun.

Recently, I heard something interesting from a marriage expert that speaks to this attitude. He said, “I believe marriage is a life-giving institution, not a life-sucking institution.” Marriage doesn’t puncture a hole into your life, draining away its vitality: marriage pumps new energy into life.

I started up Project M for that exact reason: because I discovered, contrary to popular belief and contrary to my prior assumptions, that marriage expanded and nourished and deepened my life rather than stunted it.

And I’m starting to believe that children do the same thing.

I think we are one of the first and only cultures in history to believe that children are a burden rather than a blessing. Think about how God chooses to bless Abraham in the Old Testament to show him that he is pleased with him: he makes the promise, I will make your descendents as numerous as the stars. One of the best things God could promise Abraham was lots and lots of kids and grandkids.

* * *

I’ve been warned that it’s not a good idea to have children with the expectation that they will give you something, like love, purpose, or meaning. These wise and experienced parents have told me that children don’t really give anything. They aren’t very good at making you feel loved or important or competent. Children are takers. When you have children, it’s all about what you can give, and you shouldn’t have kids until you’re sure you have enough to give them. I assume that this is true.

But Jesus teaches us something interesting about giving. He tells us that there is gain in giving. It’s a paradox: the more you give, the more your receive, but not necessarily from the person you give it to. Something mysterious and profound happens when you give without expecting anything in return: you sense a fullness in your soul.

Since I’ve never done anything particularly selfless, I wouldn’t really know; that’s just what Jesus says. But I trust him. So I believe that giving all my energy, love, time and resources away to a child would somehow nourish my life, even if the child never pays me back for what I have given him or her.

That’s why I am convinced that having children would be a life-giving experience, and I hope God will grant me the opportunity to participate in that kind of life some day. If not, I will have to find someone else to give my extra love to. And I encourage other couples who have some extra love to give away to offer it to a child. I think it will only enrich your marriage.

What do you think, especially you parents? Have I totally missed it? Do you find that children do, in fact, give? Do they suck out the life of a marriage?

Photo courtesy of Sean Dreilinger.

When you come across something mind-blowingly rad, you want to share it.

That’s part of the reason social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and Delicious are so popular: they enable us to share rad stuff with other folks.

I don’t know about you, but as soon as I finish reading a truly brilliant article or watching a riotously funny video online, I want to share it. Immediately. I want to pass it along to someone else to enjoy. Sometimes I’ll call Ben into the room and have him watch it with me again, and other times I link it on Facebook or email it to my little brother or sisters to enjoy. It gives me pleasure to pass it on.

It’s like that in real life, too. If I’m taking a stroll around the block and all of a sudden the warm scent of a blossoming clover field blows over me, I can’t help wishing someone else was there to enjoy it with me. When I see some adorable animal doing something hilarious in the back yard I wish I could catch it on video to show my husband or friends.

There’s an impulse built into the human psyche to share something when it’s good, otherwise that good thing seems to get trapped inside your soul and it begin to eat at you.

It’s as though the enjoyment isn’t complete until you’ve shared it with someone else.

* * *

Without question, the best thing in my life is my marriage.

University was fun and meaningful; blogging is enjoyable and educational; and I have some pretty fantastic friendships that give my life fragrance and colour. But my marriage is where it’s really at.

My husband is my favourite person alive. He is just such a pleasure to be around. He lets me babble on and on about the things that interest me, even if they don’t interest him all that much, and then he babbles about the stuff that interests him. We chat and joke and smile and talk and cry and smooch and cuddle. I love it.

Around my husband I feel sexy, witty, intelligent and cute. He seems to be in constant awe of my talent and brilliance. Which astonishes me, because he is easily the cleverest and most highly-skilled person I know.

We have fun together: we tease each other and take bike rides and road trips together and quote our favourite comedians. We talk about books and God and food and philosophy. We complain about our bosses and friends, and feel understood by one another.

And after five years of having so much fun and intimacy together, the joy starts to feel a little . . . incomplete. Unfinished. It feels like it needs to be shared. The intense love that we share feels like it needs to be passed on, the way the genius of a brilliant YouTube video or a haunting melody feels like it’s incomplete until it’s shared with someone else.

And that’s where our desire for a baby comes in.

There seems to be so much excess love between us that it feels as though somewhere along the lines, some of it is getting lost. It is leaking out into some unfeeling void. The excesses of our love are just disappearing, unappreciated. There’s too much for just the two of us to contain and enjoy – to the point where it’s almost becoming uncomfortable. It hurts a little bit. Our hearts feel bloated, lethargic. We’ve been feasting on love for almost five years now and it’s getting to be a little much.

I don’t think it was as bad a year ago, when we first decided we wanted desperately to have kids, as it is even now. The love just keeps expanding and spilling and pooling at our feet. My husband just becomes more lovable, more saintly, and more intelligent, and the intense love for me that I sense from him feels almost unbearable to keep all to myself sometimes.

I want so badly to share it with someone. Someone who can enjoy it fully. No outsider could understand or appreciate our relationship to its full extent – it’s nothing remarkable to look at from the outside, I’m sure. It needs to be someone on the inside. Someone in our home, in our daily lives, to partake in the feasting. It feels like it needs to be a new family member.

And that’s just one of the reasons it hurts so much to find myself childless, month after month after month.

Image courtesy of fikirbaz.

I’ve been baking my own bread for the last year. Which is to say that all the birds in the neighbourhood have been extremely well-fed in the last twelve months. For an entire year now I have been putting various flours together, mixing them with various different ingredients, kneading them, baking them, and then taking the misshapen bricks of hardened dough to the back yard and pitching them into the neighbouring field.

I suck at baking bread. I have created enough flour bricks to build a small palace for my gnomes. I have munched on stiff rectangles of baked dough at the table with my husband while we reassure each other, “It’s not so bad. Just needs to be doused in oatmeal. It would probably make good croutons?”

But for some reason I’ve kept at it. And occasionally I have made excellent loaves. Every once in a while, I get a beautiful, fragrant, springy warm loaf of wheatey goodness that quite possible makes the angels sing. And I cut away steaming slices straight from the oven and eat them gloriously plain, coming back and coming back until the thing is half gone. Ah, yes; I have made some wonderful loaves. I just glory in the beauty of homemade bread.

Today was one of those days. I made two perfect, delectable little loaves with lightly golden tops. And I realized that this was the third heavenly batch I’ve made in a row. And before that I had made at least four fantastic batches of baguettes, one after the other. And I had finally landed on a perfect recipe for rye bread that made mind-blowing veggie sandwiches every time.

In short, I was starting to become a pretty good baker. My time of total suckiness was coming to a close. I was beginning to master the art of bread-making.

As I was cutting up one of these lovely little loaves to store in the freezer (I’ve learned that slicing before freezing is essential), I thought about all those dreaded failures. I thought about all those sunken brown tops and hard crusts and burnt bun-bottoms. I had had to make a lot of crummy loaves before I was finally able to consistently make good ones. And yet I realized that a year of frequent mistakes was a small sacrifice for a possible lifetime of frequent successes. It may have been an expensive year, but from now on I’ll be able to make healthy, economical, satisfying bread of my own.

All of a sudden, as I was standing there in my kitchen with the serrated knife in my hand, I heard a “ding” go off in my brain as I realized I had learned a life lesson: sometimes you gotta make a lot of horrible loaves before you can make a lot of good ones.

This is an obvious lesson which I have already heard a bajillion times, but one that I have never really felt or experience until now. I generally assume that if I suck at something the first few times I try, it’s not worth doing. It’s a waste of time and resources. But for some reason I was stubborn with the bread and eventually got good at it.

Here’s my problem: I want to be good at things, but I often forget that being good at things usually takes a period of being sucky at them first. Or even just mediocre.

In mastering bread-making, I learned the secret of being good at stuff: taking a good long time to totally suck at it. There are no short-cuts, no free passes to awesomeness.  Whether it’s cooking, painting, writing, parenting, driving, or washing laundry, you’ll have to screw up a couple of times or a couple dozen times.

I like to imagine that there was a kind of quota for suckiness I had to fill. Like, if I want to be a really awesome blogger, I have to fill my quota of sucky blog posts before I become really good at it. If I want to become a fabulous portrait artists, I have to paint a couple of crappy portraits where everyone looks like monkeys before I get to the really good ones.

When I admire another person’s talent and feel a twinge of envy, I just have to remember that there are probably plenty of failures stashed away in their closets or rotting in dumpsters, too. They didn’t get that good the first time they tried, either.

If I think about it this way, hopefully I’ll be able to take my failures more in stride from now on.

What kinds of things have you been lousy at in the past, which have enabled you to be awesome? Is there anything that you feel you suck at now, but are hoping to be good at in time?