Tag — cate
Sacred Life Sunday
“Lie back, daughter, let your head be tipped back
in the cup of my hand.
Gently, I will hold you.
Spread your arms wide, lie out on the stream and look high at the gulls.
A dead-man’s float is face down.
You will dive and swim soon enough where this tidewater ebbs to the sea.
Daughter, believe me, when you tire on the long thrash to your island,
lie up, and survive.
As you float now, where I held you and let go,
remember when fear cramps your heart what I told you:
lie gently and wide to the light-year stars,
lie back, and the sea will hold you.”
Phillip Booth, Words of Mouth
Tales from the Urban Abbess: Jesus in My Stomach
Here’s a retroactive post from my life as an non-traditional ordained minister. You’ll find more Magpie posts on spirituality every Sunday from here on out.
Jesus in My Stomach
orginally posted November 10, 2003
Yesterday my sister in law emailed me from Africa. She’s a missionary there, in Kenya. She and her husband work incredibly hard to install water systems and build medical facilities and school houses. They are an amazing couple.
Anyway, she emailed us yesterday to tell us “very exciting news.” Now, when I see this in an email from my relatives, I assume this means someone is having another baby. (We are the only ones stopping at two.) However, this time she was super excited because her four year old daughter had accepted Jesus into her heart.
Now I’m happy about this. This is very, very sweet. But at the same time, this makes me wonder, because even though I am an ordained minister, I have not so much as even offered to pray with my children about asking Jesus into their hearts. In fact, it hasn’t even crossed my mind.
After reading the email, I turned to Cate, who was sitting next to me at the computer and said, “Cate? Where does Jesus live?” “In your bah-dee silly!” Cate replied. (Cate is three.) “Oh Yeah?” I answered, nonchalantly, “Where?” “Here.” Cate pointed to her heart, with an uncapped purple marker, tapping her sweater several times.) “That’s great Catie. Glad to hear it.”
On to the next child, age 5, who’s cutting out paper dolls in the living room. “Eden, where does Jesus live?” Eden answered, sounding very bored and put-out, “In heaven….on the earth in the olden days….in my heart.” Again I try the nonchalant parent voice, “Yeah, that’s good to know Eden. You know, Auntie Jewel says Joanne just asked Jesus to live in her heart.” At this point Eden put down her scissors and looked at me with her head cocked to one side and her mouth scrunched up like she does when she thinks a grown up is trying to pull one over on her. “Jesus lives in everybody’s heart. Everybodies in the whole world, Mommy!” “Yeah, Eden. That’s kinda what I think too. (pause) Unless someone wants to kick him out.” Eden shrugged. Then she went on to her paper dolls and I went into the kitchen, confident that my kids were aokay in the ole’ salvation book.
That’s pretty much how I form my theology. Thirty four years of sermons, 12 years of Christian education, 4 years of Christian college, three years in seminary… and it all boils down to 2 conversations with the 5 and under set. Go figure.
Of course, the next day Cate told me Jesus lived in her stomach…with her baby, “Nina”….not sure what that’s supposed to mean…
The Bunny Zine: in which the girls tell a story all about bunnies
The girls spent the bulk of their Saturday at the PDX Zineposium 
dodging the numerous line drawings of phalluses and severed heads in order to find all that is kid friendly in Zine culture. They gathered plenty of swags–tiny buttons, handmade stickers, and this Volume 4, Issue 5 of a zine consisting entirely of identical bunnies. On the 20 minuted drive back across the Oregon/Washington border (the girls rolled down the windows to kiss the Washington air) Cate wrote a story to accompany the pictoral zine. It basically went “Bunnies, bunnies bunnies. More bunnies and …. Bunnies!!” After a while it did acquire a semblance of a plot. Here’s how she retold the story later in the hotel room, illustrated with the entire zine. [Read more →]
Five Little Speckled Frogs
As pop-up book that just might entice you to sing as reviewed by Cate, age 7:
“Five Little Speckled Frogs book is a good book. It has a Papa and a sister and baby frogs. I like it because it has little things like mouses and baby mouses and mouses that are cheerleaders and also a ice cream truck. There are bugs on a boat and there are mouses and the mouses are on trapezes, and there are swimming mouses and mouses in a hot air balloon.”
A mother’s note: In spite of all mention of mice, this is truly a book about frogs based on the children’s song which teaches kids to count down (and back up) from five. The illustrations are adorable — as you may have guessed from all the mention of the cute mice — and include all kinds of animal friends. This is one of those pop-up books which is part art and part mechanical wonder. There are lots of tabs to pull and the frogs leap, spin, and jump off that log in wonderful ways. Even though it is intricately made, it’s held up well under lots of use. It’s equally loved by our 3 year old neighbor, and 7 year old Cate, who is proud to be able to now read it by herself.
Conversations with My Daughters
My girls are attending half-day church camp this week. It’s sponsored by one of the biggest churches in town (Presbyterian) and features lots of lovely things like super-fun teenage group leaders and all the silly songs you could shake a stick at. One of the downfalls of this particular camp that makes it tip into the “indoctrination camp” category at least once each year, is that mid-week the group leaders give the kids a piece of paper asking them to sign if they’ve made a decision “to accept Jesus as their personal Savior”. (Thus the reason none of Cate and Eden’s friends-who-aren’t-Christians go to this camp anymore.) Today in the car Catie waved this purple “commitment” sheet around started this conversation:
Cate: “Our teacher says this is the most important thing in our whole lives, and it’s NOT!”
Me: “What is the most important thing in life Cate?”
Cate: (sounding disgusted at my ignorance) “Your FAMILY.”
Me: “Oh, right. Well, some Christians believe that people will go to hell if they don’t know and love Jesus. So your teacher was probably just worried and wanted to make sure you know Jesus.”
Cate: “Mom. I already love Jesus, so this piece of paper is still not the most important thing in our whole lives.”
Eden (piping in with equal indignation): “I don’t even believe in hell.”
Me: “Well, some people do and we should be careful not to make fun of their beliefs. For instance _________ and _______ believe in hell.”
Eden: “That’s because they’re Republicans.”
Pin the Eyepatch on the Pirate
Something about this makes me hope none of these children grown up to be surgeons.
Of All Things Catie
Dear Cate Shalom,
Today you are adding another year to your age, and as much as I’d like to freeze frame each adorable stage, the reality is that you are now 7 years old. It hardly seems possible that nearly 8 years ago I was standing shell-shocked with a baby on my hip and a pregnancy test in my hand. But here you are celebrating on this one calendar square both your last day of first grade and your first day of being seven. (Too bad you had that s’mores overdose and threw up last night or this day would be a whole lot more fun!)
This past year has been wonderfully, typically Cate – full of giggles and good humor with just a touch of stubbornness thrown in for good measure. This year you learned how to read and how to make scrambled eggs. You fell in love with your favorite subject, math, and your favorite friend, Claire. Most cunningly you developed the fine art of manipulation in which you push your sister until she yells some mean name at you, resulting in one parent or the other telling Sissy to let you have (fill in the blank) – which was your clever goal all along. You love all things food – growing veggies, cooking together, and trying all things adventuresome. You love tuna fish, sushi, and the fancy turkey sandwiches from our favorite coffee shop with cranberries and sprouts. When I ordered that one for the first time, you drew a diagram of it with labels in my notebooks so that we could make it again when we got home! Most of all you love going on “Daddy-Daughter dates” to all the local bakeries in search of the perfect donut.
This year you finally got those drum lessons you’ve been planning since you were three. The first thing you said about your teacher, Lacey, was that “she has such SPARKELY eyes!” As soon as you got home from your first lesson you played the drums for Monkfish Abbey while wearing the Esmeralda costume Rosie gave you, complete with a hip scarf trimmed in gold coins. This Summer you’ve been giving the neighborhood free drum concerts while you practice every night on my bedroom balcony – usually while wearing a rainbow striped poncho and your purple-and-raspberry beanie. Our musician neighbor David says you are a perfect beatnik drummer. (Right on!)
As a six year old you took on some big responsibilities like: watering your own lettuce patch in the back garden, walking Neela and Sam’s dog Merlin while they were away, and feeding Samson each night. I feel very proud of you! I hope you feel proud of yourself too!
My fondest memory of you this year is our “4 minute cuddle” that we have each morning, just you and me! (I like how you’ve managed to bump it up from the 3 minute cuddle we used to have!) I love your infectious laugh that often rings through the house. I adore it that your birthday party this year is “pirates and tea sandwiches;” that you went all by yourself with Daddy to see Great Grandma in California; and that any time I say “I don’t know how to make that, Catie” you just grab scissors and tape and make it yourself. I even love it that you so often “get distwacked” in the morning! (Once, when Souren asked what distracts you so much in the morning, I said, “Oh, anything!” Then I went upstairs to find that you still weren’t dressed because you were carefully walking around the outline of the Hello Kitty on your beach towel. I’m glad you’ve got your priorities straight!)
You kiddo, are really great! I’m so glad you came to us as a surprise to fill up our lives with laughs and wonder. Here’s to wearing out another year’s worth of brown boots!
Love, Momma
Magical Thinking
Cate to her sister, Eden: “If you can lick your elbow with your tongue you are a fairy!”
Eden: “Nuh-uh. If you can lick the tip of your elbow, then you are a fairy.”
Cate: “No, if you can lick this part of your elbow with your tongue you are a tree fairy, and if you can lick the tip of your elbow with your tongue you are a sky fairy.”
Me: “Did you guys read this in that book Fairy Dust and the Quest for the Egg ?
Cate: “No.”
Me: “Did you two make it up?”
Cate: “No. (pause) It’s true.”
Teaching Compassion to your Kids on a Monday Morning
Cate to her sister: “Eden, when we go to your orthodontist, you still have to have Spanish, because your Spanish is in the morning. But I don’t have to have Spanish becaue my Spanish is in the afternoon ha-ha-ha!” (she actually said Ha, ha, ha,)
Me to Cate: “Well this week we don’t have any orthodontist appointments so you don’t have to miss any Spanish.”
Eden: “So you have to suffer as I suffer! Bwah-ha-ha-ha!’
