Eleven years ago, I married my best friend. She is still my greatest treasure. We sat in bed tonight reading emails that we had exchanged in the month before we were married, and were pleasantly surprised at how little our feelings and attitudes have changed. It is a constant joy to me to be married to Sara.
Sad
When we're
Apart or
Too busy with
Life and job and kids
To talk, but
Together
Life's a
Joy.
--DJ
Friday, September 30, 2011
Eleven Years
1. Who
2. Would I
3. Be without
4. You? Who would you
5. Be apart from me?
6. Less love, less fun, less faith.
7. So let's stick together.
8. Let's make more faith, more fun, more love.
9. We've spent eleven years together.
10. Another eleven will be a
11. Good start on the journey to eternity.
Darren's gift to me was a commissioned painting by Rachel Estrada.
My gift to him was a tote bag with artwork from his favorite Christian artist.
I love you! You love me! We love each other! Happy anniversary, sweetheart.
-- SJ
2. Would I
3. Be without
4. You? Who would you
5. Be apart from me?
6. Less love, less fun, less faith.
7. So let's stick together.
8. Let's make more faith, more fun, more love.
9. We've spent eleven years together.
10. Another eleven will be a
11. Good start on the journey to eternity.
Darren's gift to me was a commissioned painting by Rachel Estrada.
My gift to him was a tote bag with artwork from his favorite Christian artist.
I love you! You love me! We love each other! Happy anniversary, sweetheart.
-- SJ
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Pip's ABCs
Two important items:
1. We found our camera.
2. This post lets me see that I can post videos
3. One more important item
4. Pip is really cute.
5. Also, he's a Jones kid, which means that he can't say more than a dozen words, but he already thinks he knows the alphabet.
6. This is more than two items. Did you notice?
-- SJ
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Playing with Destiny
Every now and then, I like to play around with my destiny.
Nearly eleven years of marriage has shaped who I am today. If I'd married a different sort of man, I wonder, how would I be different?
Married to someone less bookish and more outdoorsy, perhaps I would be more into gardening and would possibly even spend the night in a tent. If I lived with a sports nut, I could see myself cultivating a taste for football or soccer. A man with a fiery personality could stoke my own tendency to rant and rave. If I married a man who was less romantic, I probably wouldn't miss the surprise dates and the special gifts. Pfft, right.
I play the game with Darren's life, too. With a foodie wife, he'd have long conversations about delicious meals they'd enjoyed. With a politically savvy wife, he might be involved in local elections and attend county supervisor meetings. Married to a high achieving woman who reveled in busy, crazy, colorful life, he'd crawl into his cave and never come out. So just back off, woman. He's mine.
Although it's fun to speculate, I'm pretty happy with the person I've grown into. As Elizabeth said of Darcy, in essentials I'm still very much the same; it's just that Darren has smoothed out and filled up rough places in my personality.
I was thinking of the Destiny Game today after reading this article by Debi Pearl.* The following article, written in Debi's engaging style, is yet another reason why I avoid their toxic take on life.
An excerpt:
She goes on to explain that it's the woman's job to "blend her life" into that of her man's. What she does, how she dresses, how she acts depends on what her husband needs her to be. In fact, it becomes very clear that Debi herself has no real conception of who she is apart from what she does and who her husband is. The only constant is that she "loves God." Otherwise, she is flexible, a "kaleidoscope of colors" designed to "fashion her life" into what her husband "needs her to be."
This thinking is delivered as the Biblical way to live. It's fed to young women who, in the Pearl community, have only marriage to look forward to as their calling in life. No wonder these young ladies are "unnerved by the burdens of marriage." Nothing like the prospect of losing your personhood to fill you with longing and joy!
I've had to adapt and change to live with Darren. But he's adapted and changed for me, too. I can play the Destiny Game out of curiosity, but I rest in the security that Darren married me for who I am, not for what I would do for him.
-- SJ
* I'm officially staking my flag in the anti-Pearl camp. What good they have to say isn't worth the bad theology, worse philosophy, and utter arrogance that they peddle. I've mentioned my allergy to the Pearls' child-rearing ideas before.
When accused that his methods -- touted as the only Biblical way to discipline, by the way -- led to the death of young Lydia Schatz, this was Michael Pearl's response.
Nearly eleven years of marriage has shaped who I am today. If I'd married a different sort of man, I wonder, how would I be different?
Married to someone less bookish and more outdoorsy, perhaps I would be more into gardening and would possibly even spend the night in a tent. If I lived with a sports nut, I could see myself cultivating a taste for football or soccer. A man with a fiery personality could stoke my own tendency to rant and rave. If I married a man who was less romantic, I probably wouldn't miss the surprise dates and the special gifts. Pfft, right.
I play the game with Darren's life, too. With a foodie wife, he'd have long conversations about delicious meals they'd enjoyed. With a politically savvy wife, he might be involved in local elections and attend county supervisor meetings. Married to a high achieving woman who reveled in busy, crazy, colorful life, he'd crawl into his cave and never come out. So just back off, woman. He's mine.
Although it's fun to speculate, I'm pretty happy with the person I've grown into. As Elizabeth said of Darcy, in essentials I'm still very much the same; it's just that Darren has smoothed out and filled up rough places in my personality.
I was thinking of the Destiny Game today after reading this article by Debi Pearl.* The following article, written in Debi's engaging style, is yet another reason why I avoid their toxic take on life.
An excerpt:
As Adam was created in God’s image, Eve was created in Adam’s image. God could have shaped two clay figures and breathed life into both, but he chose to take the woman from the man’s own flesh and bone. I have come to see that tiered process as very significant, making it consistent with nature that the woman should be the helper in the chain of command.
God did not create women as he did men, strongly fixed in one type or another. Being created in the image of man, we are more muted and flexible in our types.
She goes on to explain that it's the woman's job to "blend her life" into that of her man's. What she does, how she dresses, how she acts depends on what her husband needs her to be. In fact, it becomes very clear that Debi herself has no real conception of who she is apart from what she does and who her husband is. The only constant is that she "loves God." Otherwise, she is flexible, a "kaleidoscope of colors" designed to "fashion her life" into what her husband "needs her to be."
This thinking is delivered as the Biblical way to live. It's fed to young women who, in the Pearl community, have only marriage to look forward to as their calling in life. No wonder these young ladies are "unnerved by the burdens of marriage." Nothing like the prospect of losing your personhood to fill you with longing and joy!
I've had to adapt and change to live with Darren. But he's adapted and changed for me, too. I can play the Destiny Game out of curiosity, but I rest in the security that Darren married me for who I am, not for what I would do for him.
-- SJ
* I'm officially staking my flag in the anti-Pearl camp. What good they have to say isn't worth the bad theology, worse philosophy, and utter arrogance that they peddle. I've mentioned my allergy to the Pearls' child-rearing ideas before.
When accused that his methods -- touted as the only Biblical way to discipline, by the way -- led to the death of young Lydia Schatz, this was Michael Pearl's response.
Daphne's Praise Song
Daphne sat down at the piano and "made a song by playing three notes in beautiful patterns to make a tune." Then she put praise words to her music, which I took from dictation. In my opinion, the first line should be cast in gold:
Oh, Lord
How are you doing in Heaven?
Oh, Lord,
How I love how you take care of me.
Oh,
All the days, I look up, and pray
So loving!
I’m so loving to You!
Oh, Lord
How can You be my Shepherd?
Oh, Lord
You are my Father in Heaven!
-- DMJ
Oh, Lord
How are you doing in Heaven?
Oh, Lord,
How I love how you take care of me.
Oh,
All the days, I look up, and pray
So loving!
I’m so loving to You!
Oh, Lord
How can You be my Shepherd?
Oh, Lord
You are my Father in Heaven!
-- DMJ
Monday, September 12, 2011
Mundania 31
* September 11, 2001 didn't profoundly change the way I live. I didn't ignore it -- who could? Even with no internet access (we had only dial-up, and all the servers were jammed) and a tiny TV with very fuzzy access, I followed the story like everybody else. I watched and cried and held my three-month-old baby, shattered at the thought that there were evil people who wouldn't take mercy even on a mother with a child. A month later I walked through airport security, lugging Addie's impossibly heavy carseat, past soldiers with automatic rifles, on my way to my sister's wedding. I cried again.
But as for realizing life's uncertainty, facing the fact that there was evil in the world, and appreciating every day of life I had... I already lived like that. I lost two fathers by the time I was twenty. I grew up Baptist, which considers everybody capable of terrorism unless redirected at an early age. I come from a very down-to-earth family that doesn't rage against the cosmos very often. (Well, we do, but only about topics like stupid baby names and Daylight Savings Time.)
There aren't soldiers in my family, and DC, PA, and NY don't have anything to do with our daily lives.
I did let go of the thought that I need to do all the right things so God will protect me, and that it's up to me to defend God from critics. If He's the God of all the Universe, He can handle His own arguments.
Ultimately, the attacks rocked my world, but not my foundations.
* We start school today. I'm a mixture of excitement and dread. Addie and Stuart are doing fourth/fifth/sixth grade (homeschooling is too flexible for The System, which is part of my mission statement), and I'm feeling the weight of responsibility. We're doing two Alpha-Omega SoS classes and Teaching Textbooks (also computer-based) for math, freeing me of preparation and teaching in three subjects.
Daphne starts kindergarten/first grade/second grade. Maybe instead of "flexible," homeschoolers should be considered "fluid."
* Men who have time to listen to podcasts (as opposed to me, a woman who has no time to listen to podcasts): check out my friend Mike's "The Married Man Podcast" on Facebook. As he and his buddies say, they're not licensed counselors, but they ARE all happily married so that counts for something.
* In the last two weeks, Phillip's vocabulary has expanded from two words (Mama, Dada) to at least seven: ball, juice, bee, yeah, no (which he says as "mo"), cheese, fish, and -- my favorite -- "Diddy" for Addie.
* What he can't say is, "Oh, Mama, here's where I put the camera when I played with it last week and lost it."
* In other news, we lost the new camera we bought two weeks ago. This replaced the one we broke on vacation in June. Which replaced the one we lost back this winter. Now my friend Deidre understands why I reacted with horror when she offered to let me borrow their camera to take on a day trip with us.
-- SJ
But as for realizing life's uncertainty, facing the fact that there was evil in the world, and appreciating every day of life I had... I already lived like that. I lost two fathers by the time I was twenty. I grew up Baptist, which considers everybody capable of terrorism unless redirected at an early age. I come from a very down-to-earth family that doesn't rage against the cosmos very often. (Well, we do, but only about topics like stupid baby names and Daylight Savings Time.)
There aren't soldiers in my family, and DC, PA, and NY don't have anything to do with our daily lives.
I did let go of the thought that I need to do all the right things so God will protect me, and that it's up to me to defend God from critics. If He's the God of all the Universe, He can handle His own arguments.
Ultimately, the attacks rocked my world, but not my foundations.
* We start school today. I'm a mixture of excitement and dread. Addie and Stuart are doing fourth/fifth/sixth grade (homeschooling is too flexible for The System, which is part of my mission statement), and I'm feeling the weight of responsibility. We're doing two Alpha-Omega SoS classes and Teaching Textbooks (also computer-based) for math, freeing me of preparation and teaching in three subjects.
Daphne starts kindergarten/first grade/second grade. Maybe instead of "flexible," homeschoolers should be considered "fluid."
* Men who have time to listen to podcasts (as opposed to me, a woman who has no time to listen to podcasts): check out my friend Mike's "The Married Man Podcast" on Facebook. As he and his buddies say, they're not licensed counselors, but they ARE all happily married so that counts for something.
* In the last two weeks, Phillip's vocabulary has expanded from two words (Mama, Dada) to at least seven: ball, juice, bee, yeah, no (which he says as "mo"), cheese, fish, and -- my favorite -- "Diddy" for Addie.
* What he can't say is, "Oh, Mama, here's where I put the camera when I played with it last week and lost it."
* In other news, we lost the new camera we bought two weeks ago. This replaced the one we broke on vacation in June. Which replaced the one we lost back this winter. Now my friend Deidre understands why I reacted with horror when she offered to let me borrow their camera to take on a day trip with us.
-- SJ
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