Taste Trust

After Mary Hannah was born, I began to understand more about God’s parental relationship with me. I am as dependent on Him as an infant is on her parents. I nursed Mary Hannah for about three months, and then I moved her onto formula. Later, as Mary Hannah moved into eating regular, solid foods, I became able to grasp a true wonder. I have fed her hundreds of times, but there was a moment of true understanding one day in the kitchen.

            As is typical with people there were some foods Mary Hannah liked, and some that she did not like. As I was shoveling oatmeal and peaches into her little mouth as quickly as I could, she repeatedly opened her mouth for the spoon. This is not astounding as she was very hungry. But I offered her something new, peas. She willingly opened and closed her mouth and took a big bite of peas. Then as a horrible look spread over her face, she spat them out and shook her head. I wiped her mouth to get those awful peas away, took up the bowl and spoon, and I was surprised when she opened her mouth again. Why? Because she trusted me. In her own little way she demonstrated that she had utter faith that I would not give her something that was bad for her. She opened her mouth because she trusted that I wouldn’t fill her mouth with sand or poison. Even though I had fed her peas which she clearly did not like, she still opened her mouth for me like a little baby bird, secure in the knowledge that I would not feed her something bad.

            This sudden revelation struck me – This is how God wants me to trust Him. He puts good things on my plate, my husband and children, for me to enjoy. When I open my mouth, he feeds me with the foods I am ready for. He puts people in my life to spoon feed me knowledge and lead me to be spiritually filled. He satisfies me with joy and comfort. I eat up his goodness; “my cup overflows” (Psalm 23:5).

            Does this mean that I enjoy every single bite that God has put on my plate? No. I do not like Type 1 Diabetes. I do not like that Sarah only had 14 years to taste her own life and to flavor mine. I do not like measuring every bite of food that my children eat and then medicating them for it. I do not like looking at candy as both medicine and poison. I do not like worrying about their blood sugars. I find poking them with needles, insulin pumps, and glucose monitors distasteful. I chew on worry every time they are ill, wondering if they will need hospitalization. I detest wondering every night if they will wake up in the morning.

            BUT – I open my mouth anyway. I drink and eat of what God gives me daily because I trust in Him. I may not like my daily meals of good and bad dishes, but I can examine each taste of sour bitterness for a burst of sweetness on my tongue. I taste laughter from my children’s jokes; I taste their salty, sweaty tears. I gorge on the purity of their embraces in the aftertaste of their coppery blood. I delight in their sugary, sweet kisses on my face; I taste their tangy bitterness at Type 1 Diabetes. I drink in their successes, their imaginations, and their music; I find their defeats distasteful. And I would not trade the richest most exotic fruit for the multitude of flavors that they bring into my life. How we appreciate the sweetness when bitterness is also present.

            My daughter taught me how to trust God. I may not always like what he serves me, though certainly, I begin to see how a cup of bitterness may complement this banquet that is my life. If I only taste good things, how can I learn to appreciate them? “One who is full loathes honey, but to one who is hungry everything bitter is sweet” (Prov 27:7). I am reminded to hunger after God and trust that he will fill me with good fruits. Like Mary Hannah, I continue opening my mouth to take in whatever food God gives to me.

Metaphors and Onions

I began by reading an article on autobiography by James Olney entitled Metaphors of Self. One of the elements in his analysis of autobiography is a “duplex metaphor” which essentially is the author analyzing himself at a previous point in his life when he was analyzing himself. (Olney is much more graceful in his language. I like calling it a meta-metaphor) I have several examples of this in readings for class, but I am trying to get the idea into my head concretely enough to write about it. This of course involves me thinking about other examples and trying to find a common thread to follow.

Unfortunately, my threads are not at all logical. You might say that my train of thought has no tracks. I came up with one example from The Onion. It was an article about a new game that is available in which you play a character who is playing a massive online multiplayer game: World of World of Warcraft. If you want to see the report click here: http://www.theonion.com/video/warcraft-sequel-lets-gamers-play-a-character-playi,14240/

At any rate I brought this random association up with Jeff, asked for some more reasonable examples, and he offered some suggestions. Here is a sample of how my brain functions (or doesn’t).

Me: I read about autobiography theory and the critic speaks about metaphor simplex (just a basic metaphor) and duplex (kind of a meta - metaphor. It is analyzing yourself analyzing yourself.) I am trying to put that into words and context that make sense to me

Unfortunately all I have come up with the the Onion Article about playing World of World of Warcraft.

Jeff: Meta thinking is simply thinking about how you think. When I talk to families about hidden family dynamics, I raise their awareness about unspoken rules and help them think about how they think as a family and how it affects their behavior. (He’s a therapist.)

Me: Yes I know. But I think there is an error in my positronic nets which does not allow me to make reasonable and valid associations. Maybe I should stop reading the Onion . . .

Jeff: Catcher in the Rye is a good example, because Holden is on a trip where he learns about himself and even thinks about himself and his behavior. The self-analysis of a character of a story, who is also subject to analysis would be a good example, I think.

Perhaps the movie, Being John Malkovich would be a good example of duplex metaphor.

Me: I have several examples from the reading that we have done, and I even like the concept. I just seem to only be able to think up to a point and then I hit my head into the same story or idea over and over without moving deeper into the layers of the concept. Of course an onion has layers . . .

Jeff: So do ogres.

Me: Great. Now I want a parfait.

Jeff: Everybody likes a parfait.

How about Groundhog Day?

In a sense, Murray's character has to analyze his performance from the day before in order to change himself...

Me: Now I'm thinking about sailing. . .

Jeff: Random . . .

For those of you who don’t follow my very tenuous leaps of logic that last one is from “What about Bob?”

Someone please tell me that I can turn my brain back on so that I can make actual literary associations.

Similie, Internet and food

Mary Hannah (10) takes after me in many ways. One particular way is her love of language. She enjoys wordplay and making odd comparisons. Last night she was complaining about how slow our wireless is at home.
She said, "Matt's internet is like drinking a glass of water. Leah's internet is like swallowing a pill that gets stuck but eventually goes on down. Our internet is like chewing a really fatty piece of meat. It's not going anywhere."

Where does she come up with this stuff?

Am

Wordle

My boss called me a little while ago and asked if I had heard of "Wordle." So I looked it up. It is a really cool application that makes "word clouds" based on word frequency. You can paste in a text or type in your own words. I made this one just for fun. But now I am thinking about printing it (or one like it) out and hanging it in the living room.

So now it is your turn. Go to http://www.wordle.net/ and have big fun!

Specificity

In past years I wrote everyday. Much of that time I was in school writing for an assignment, in a journal, and sometime just for fun. Then I taught school and I wrote to provide examples of writing for my classes. Then I had 3 kiddos and the writing basically just stopped. Now I am trying to restart my "writing engine" but I find that the idea supply has also stopped. The other night I was sitting on the couch with my very hyper 4 year old. After turning a few flips and jumping on me she looked at my blank legal pad and the pen I was holding and asked what I was doing. I explained that I was trying to think of things to write about and asked her for suggestions. (This was not a brilliant move on my part.) So she thought for a minute and said, "Plants, Momma, you should write about plants." I thanked her for the idea and tried to explain that I wanted something more specific. "What's spapacific?" came her reply. In my great wisdom I explained the word specific to her. I told her how there might be a broad topic and that I was looking for one idea or one detail from that topic. After a few moments of glassy-eyed stare she nodded and said, "So what does spapacific really mean?" I tried another tack. I suggested trees for a topic, and went on to say that I could write only about mesquite trees or crepe myrtles. Her little brow furrowed in concentration. In an effort to clarify I said, "Instead of writing about the whole tree, I could write about the bark. That would be specific." She nodded and said "ok." We sat in silence for a few moments, then suddenly the ideas began to flow freely from my daughter.

"Momma, you could write about flowers; no just the petals. Or Pumpkins, no just the seeds I like pumpkin seeds momma. I know, you should write about unicorns; wait just the horn" I got the giggles from this very "spapacific" list which only encouraged her more. She hollered, "Cows? Ducks? Fans? Blinds?"

Obviously at this point the conversation had deteriorated so much that I just put down my pen and cuddled my baby.

Even though I didn't choose any of the topics that she suggested, I gained a great topic, and a lot of insight into the mind of a 4 year old. Her world is very concrete. Where the world of adults is quite abstract.
I don't think I am going to try and tackle that one just yet with her.

Love on your kids. They are precious.
Am