saturday, as i sat in a sewing class channeling all three braincells left in my head toward learning how to use the serger my mom gave me for christmas, the teacher looked at me, shook her head, and said,

“mary allison, why do you have to be so different?”

she was right. the supplies i had purchased were different from everyone else’s. they were passable but different, and my serger came with it’s own unique requirements for threading. these were the differences to which she was referring. but as i answered, i had a whole host of other experiences in mind.

“i’ve been asking myself the same question for my whole life!” i retorted.

of course i know that in the grand scheme of things, i am not so unique. i know a gal who divides her time between climbing rocks in alaska and farming cotton in alabama. i am just a gal who divides my time between mothering, ministering, and co-owning a fabric shop. i am also probably just like everyone else in the world who is struck, every once in a while, by the overwhelming sense that i am an oddball.

but these days, in the context of church, these moments of self-oddball-realization are no longer an occasional thing for me. i have grown to anticipate and guard against inevitable comments about my clothes (yellow jeans! oh my!) and my hair (an unnatural red). but these remarks only hurt me because they are layered on top of the mean things i tell myself about why i no longer fit in in church. i am a bad person because i don’t believe what everyone else believes. on top of that, i am an ungrateful person because i don’t think that church should exist to glorify the church. clearly, i have not become the person those loving church people had in mind when they were contributing to my upbringing. i am so, disappointingly different.

last summer, my friend erin lane asked me to write an essay for an upcoming book entitled talking taboo: american christian women get frank about faith. i was to write about some aspect of my faith and experience of church that seems too shameful or too risky to admit. i quickly said yes because almost every thought in my head about faith and church feels taboo. finally, i had landed in a field in which i am a true expert! i submitted several topics for consideration, all of which positioned me to speak as a christian woman. each time, erin wrote back and asserted that she wanted me to speak as a christian woman leader… a minister.

i tried this. i tried drawing from the experiences i have had in ministry that i imagine closely resemble the vocations of my more normal, less disruptive colleagues. but this felt so inauthentic that i wrote erin and told her that i didn’t think i could contribute to the project. she left the window open for me to participate, and i told myself that if i woke up one morning with an essay idea that would allow me to speak from a place of sincerity and fulfill erin’s requests, i would give it another shot.

as it happened, i did wake up one morning, several weeks after the deadline, with an urgent impulse to write. i cranked out an entire essay in a couple of hours, turned it in, and marveled for weeks to follow about how wonderful it was to feel so at home while doing something ministry-related. i was able to cherish this feeling for a couple of months before my fears set in. in the months and weeks and days before the book was to go to the publisher, i agonized over whether to withdraw my piece from the project. i was afraid then, and i remain afraid, that the level of truth-telling that shapes my essay will translate into a solid and obvious agreement among all parties involved that there is, indeed, no place for me in the faith community of loving people who raised me. everyone will know what i have known for years: i am a bad person because i don’t believe what everyone else believes. on top of that, i am an ungrateful person because i don’t think that church should exist to glorify the church. i am so, disappointingly different.

the book is set to come out in october. my face and unnaturally red hair are on the cover. and inside, my essay is entitled, “my secret buddhist life.”

there is an indigogo campaign going on now to raise money to host conferences and virtual opportunities for women all over the country to
“talk taboo” with one another. perhaps the chance to talk about the ways in which religion has shaped our shameful inner monologues will result in wonderful, at-home feelings like those i had in the few months after i turned in my essay. if this is something you’d like to help promote, please visit the link above.

meanwhile, if anyone knows of an ashram in india that’s got an opening in late october for a woman wearing yellow jeans, please let me know!

perhaps it was the nonchalant beginning of my new vocational turn that has deterred me from writing about it here. i did not nail any sort of interview or quake at the sound of god’s summoning. there was no light bulb hovering over my head.

there were late-january margaritas (plural) at las delicias. there was the company of my husband and my children and my friend and neighbor, susan. and then, out of some space in susan’s consciousness reserved for the purely hypothetical, there was the suggestion that she and i open a fabric store. twenty minutes later, there was an impromptu tour of a not-so-hypothetical-at-all space that was for rent at 688 south cox.

was this a serious suggestion, this fabric store idea? i really did not think it was. in fact, i forgot all about it long enough to get the kind of wonderful sleep that happens when my mind is mulling over… nothing! but slowly, over the next few days, i began to feel an unprecedented level of excitement.

i spent more and more time building up the contours of this hypothetical world, designed to celebrate a craft that generations of women have passed down to the next. susan seemed to be living into the idea too, as we exchanged visions of offering sewing classes, building community around an age-old pass time, and of course, selling fabulous fabric!

i don’t even know when the dream shifted to reality. it was sometime between when we started calling it “sew memphis,” and where we are now, spending each day at 688 south cox pricing over 100 bolts of fabric for our may 1st opening. perhaps it was mid-february when we had this picture taken:

you don’t have a photo shoot unless you are really opening a business, right?

last night i read this new york times essay, proud to be a mompreneur, by jill salzman. as i took in the debate about whether or not female business owners should hide or showcase their roles as mothers, i felt different than i usually do when i read about women in business. i am one of these people now!

and as i quickly scrolled through recent memory, it became clear that i have traded the so-called “professionalism” that some think comes with downplaying the motherhood role for a more integrated, transparent, vocational model.

my children help me paint and stock shelves.

we have a playroom in the shop where the kids spend at least half of their days. i have definitely not, as salzman writes, “rejected the mom label.” i also worry about things that more “professional” women probably don’t worry about, such as the sand that my children transport from the school playground to the shop by way of their shoes, and the toys that must be put away before we leave the shop each day. being a mompreneur is gritty. literally.

but i have to believe salzman when she writes,

a parent who can manage the juggling and the balancing that is both running a company and raising a family is someone who can handle anything.

and i also have to believe that even though this adventure has unfolded with margaritas instead of light bulbs and introspection instead of interviews, it is the right thing for me to do. it comes from a place of deep gladness, as frederick buechner writes. and much of this gladness comes from sharing this creative chaos with my children.

I was depressed in the fall and winter of 2001. There was anxiety too. And as with all depression and anxiety, it felt unbearable. But it felt especially so because I was only 23. My childhood had been happy and fairly uneventful, and I did not yet know from experience about the incredible strength of God and of my community that would get me through. I did not yet know from experience about the incredible strength in me, either. Sometimes the first big obstacle in life is the scariest.

It was scary for my husband too. And so, as I was moping around the house, pondering dropping out of divinity school, Andy coaxed me into the car and then to the mall. The MALL! Home of temporarily relief from all sorts of ailments!

He led me into a store where they sold all manor of sleepwear, and together, we settled upon a pretty, pink, plaid, soft, flannel, pair of pajamas. They were made in the style of those my Dad used to wear… they buttoned down the front and had a drawstring at the waist, but they were feminine too. They fit just right.

And so, I did all the rest of my moping around in the months that followed, in those pretty pink pajamas. They didn’t fix anything. I was still depressed and anxious. And I did drop out of divinity school, for a time. But those pajamas meant that my pain and struggling were acknowledged by the one who waded through it all with me. Sometimes feelings don’t seem real until another person steps inside them too, for a moment. Only then can any sort of healing start to take hold.

This kind of work doesn’t feel productive. We can give comfort, but we cannot fix. This kind of work is not glamorous. We will leave this place tonight with ashes smudged on our foreheads. We will be wearing, on the outside, all that threatens to undo us. But this kind of work is powerful. We will be given the chance to stare headlong into each others’ darkness and acknowledge that it is there. It is our job, as faithful people, not to look away from the ashes. We are not healers, you and I. But God has given us the incredible privilege of being able to truly see each other, to lay the groundwork.

You should know that I packed up those pink pajamas and took them with me to Nashville, when Andy and I decided that it was time for me to finish divinity school. I wore them in the company of great theologians, as I poured over their works in my newly rented apartment. Then a few years later, thanks to the generous drawstring at the waist, I wore them during my first pregnancy. After [the monkey] was born, the button down top was good for nursing. Plus, those pajamas were incredibly soft by then. Too soft, in fact. Threadbare. I took the strong parts, cut them into strips, and sewed them into my first quilt. My mother helped me. Andy and I take the quilt on picnics with the kids now.

Not all of life is darkness. It’s not all sunny picnics either. The two are wedded together always. This is why we observe church seasons and holy days. So that all within five months’ time, we are:

celebrating new life with manger scenes,

following the hopeful star of epiphany,

experiencing temptation with the grown-up Jesus,

grieving death in the shadow of a gruesome cross,

rolling away rocks to reveal empty tombs,

and on and on.

These rituals and narratives help us to embrace the complex marriage of darkness and light. But even they do not tell the whole story. We all have our own wild beasts that threaten to undo us. We all wander in the wilderness. We all encounter angels. We simply gather here, in the mean time, to truly see each other. To affirm that all of it is real.

Something happens to us when we do this.

Together we make room for God.

dear friends,

i heard my friend, mark, mention a few years ago that he takes on the practice of writing one letter per day during the season of lent. since then, i have spent several lenten seasons writing letters, and I have found that connecting with others in this way is also a profound (and fun) way to connect with god.

speaking of fun, my friend, susan, and I are up to our ears in the process of opening a new fabric store! We hope to be selling bright, modern, quilting cottons (and much more) at our 688 south cox location at the end of april/beginning of may.

so… in a crazy attempt to combine my love of god and fabric AND gather god energy in our wonderful new space, I am having two…

LENTEN LETTER WORKSHOPS.

tuesday, feb. 28th from 6-8:30 & wed., march 7th from 6-8:30.

$10 per night, and all materials are included.

we’ll talk a little bit about the theology and spirituality surrounding the practice of letter-writing, and then we’ll get out the fabric scraps, sewing machines, etc. and create little works of art, sure to elicit smiles from recipients and postal workers alike!

no prior sewing experience is necessary. We’ll be learning/applying a technique that is foundational in quilting. Space is limited. Email me to sign up (themsrevolution(at)gmail(dot)com).

stay tuned for more info about “sew memphis,” as we will be called. the facebook page and web page are coming soon.

love,

mary allison

every year on new year’s eve, andy and i (and some of our dear friends) set personal intentions for the year ahead by giving it a name.  perhaps the most significant year-naming for me was “the year of rearranging,” which resulted in this proud post.

but the year of rearranging is over. i am now 19 days into “the year of gratitude.”

if you are rolling your eyes with associations of new-agey, blissed-out, shallow pronouncements of happiness, designed to mask all that is wrong with this world, STOP RIGHT NOW. if you were thinking more along the lines of  the dalai lama, you can stop that too. sadly, he and i have little in common.

i simply found myself, during those last few days of 2011, on my knees (not praying but scraping already-chewed-gum off of the kitchen floor); having a mountain top experience (wherein i observed my children happily eating greasy goldfish crackers, on the couch, in my bedroom, under a two-weeks-high mountain of clean laundry); in the wake of a come-to-jesus-talk with my husband (that didn’t involve jesus at all but rather another baby, the third one that we won’t be attempting to have due to our divergent viewpoints about how many people we want in this household); and i realized that much of what enrages me about my life has to do with the way that i form, internalize, solidify, and live by GREAT EXPECTATIONS. and by “great” i mean sometimes soul-killing.

my friend, erika, gave me a little ledger for christmas where there is a space to name what i am grateful for each day. i confess that i have no idea where i put that thing. but it (and she) inspired me to spend the year taking an honest look at the beauty and bounty that is instead of the beauty and bounty that is not.

the best thing about the year of gratitude is that it does not come with any presumptions of forward progress. all i have to do each day is name one moment in which i witness a spark of the divine outside of myself and one moment in which i witness a spark of the divine inside of myself (the latter is the more difficult). i send these brief musings to myself in daily emails, which, unlike all of the other emails in my inbox, i do not expect myself to read unless i want to.

so far i have been grateful for things as shallow and profound as yoga, the bird’s third birthday, trader joe’s dark-chocolate-pistachio-covered toffee, our new montreat house, and this song. andy’s year-naming has given me much to celebrate as well, but more on that later.

this is less about an attitude change (though one might say that i need one!) than it is about clarity. both of my vocations, motherhood and ministry, take place where great expectations meet mixed messages about the value of tradition and the right way to do things. i cannot distill any of that into something that makes sense, but i can intentionally notice the good in my life.

it’s about doing something daily that is positive, not overwhelming, and just for me.

if you could take a gander into the recesses of my brain these days, you would see something like this:

yes, this is my kitchen. yes, that is a floaty. yes, it’s january. that about sums it up.

the disarray that once marked only my physical world has elbowed its way into my head. i find myself in awe of mothers who are still able to form and share coherent, insightful ideas. when i rummage around underneath the bibs and soccer trophies from two years ago, all i can come up with is a long-winded, ever-growing, increasingly hostile, feminist rant.

i see friends in restaurants and get random emails from folks who are wondering what happened to my regular posts. i tell them about the not-so-nice rant that i am not-so-eager to share. they all tell me to share it. “your blog is all about honesty, they say.” “aren’t you the one who preaches that it’s our generation’s job to tell the truth?”

yes. dammit.

it’s just that i fear that my writing skills aren’t sophisticated enough to temper and organize the fire that could be unleashed on the internet of all places. for example, this is just a small portion of the mess that has exploded into my thoughts.

+++

observation: a husband arriving home from work with eleven grocery items in tow should not be mistaken for jesus christ.

if you are at my house when this happens, there is no need to make a fuss about this display of ordinary responsibility. it is true that grocery shopping has traditionally been “woman’s work,” and i am thrilled to have a progressive husband. but nobody falls all over themselves when i go to my part time job outside of the home, which greatly resembles what has traditionally been called “man’s work.”

furthermore, when i carry on with all of my work, both inside the home and outside the home, i do so with the constant feeling that i am falling short. there are always mountains of laundry on the couch in my bedroom. there are always dirty dishes in the sink. there are always deeper relationships to forge with the college students i encounter at work. my part-time ministry, though it is gaining momentum, looks meager next to the full-time ministries happening all around me.

my progressive husband (who really is a good one!) experiences the opposite phenomenon. he’s good at his job, and he is able to dedicate the proper time and energy to it. he’s involved in the kids’ lives, and he even folds laundry. in all of his work, inside and outside the home, he blows the expectations out of the water. in fact, he walks on water, some would say.

the problem is not that other wives elevate my spouse to divine status. rather, the issue is that in the south, where i live, the sight of a dad pushing a grocery cart is (apparently) still a shocking display. women working outside of the home? that’s ordinary. but men folding laundry? what a miracle!

and here is my profound conclusion, folks. are you ready for it? okay. here it comes: THIS IS NOT FAIR.

+++

end of rant #1. more to come. consider yourself warned.

p.s. you’re welcome, anna.

dear santa,

you and i have a long and significant history that began when my eight-year-old self questioned the existence of you and god in one fell swoop. so i hope that you will not get your velveteen knickers in a wad over the fact that i have chosen you to be on the receiving end of my latest musings.

first, i should say that all i want for christmas is for my life to slow down. i’m not talking about the way that time creeps sluggishly under the weight of anxiety when sick kids are (again!) home from school.

sick bird

i’m talking about the reinstatement of routines that had their own happy, measured rhythm. i never thought i would ask for something like this, but i just want to wash and fold all of the family’s laundry on mondays while the kids eat popcorn on towels in our bedroom and watch back-to-back episodes of the british cartoon kipper the dog. also, i would love for there to be two (TWO!) nights in a row when the adult residents of our house are free from all recreational, church, work, and civic commitments and can resume the deep spiritual practice of falling asleep while watching the latest season of top chef.

p.s. if this slower-paced life could still include the necessary d.i.y. renovations to our newly purchased mountain house that would be swell.

den before and after

"the mermaid room" becomes "the god's eye room"

i am willing to give up running the half marathon this saturday, creating and distributing our annual christmas cd, and, as evidenced by my behavior in the days preceding and following thanksgiving, major components of my self-hygiene routine.

what do you say, big guy?

second, my children are under the impression that they can ask you for items on their lists without notifying me that they are doing so. goodness knows, at ages five and almost-three, the kids are way too young to start questioning your existence (and god’s), but their unwavering belief in you is making my job difficult. would you mind forwarding me all texts, emails, letters, and telegrams that come your way from our house? thanks. lylas (love you like a sis).

third, and this is a two-parter, when you come bounding down our chimney, would you mind cleaning it out at the same time? ’tis the season. also, how do you feel about entering our home via an UNDECORATED hearth? just think of it as a few less strands of tinsel that ms. clause will have to extract from your beard.

to show my appreciation for all that you do during this busy time of year, i’m going to leave you a little something special to go along with the usual christmas cookies.

peace out,

mary allison

one a weekday morning in 2005, university of pennsylvania psychology professor martin seligman was fortuitously double booked. his contribution to the positive psychology movement had caught the attention of dominic randolph, headmaster of one of new york city’s most prestigious private schools. it had also attracted the company of a pioneer on the other side of the educational spectrum: david levin, co-founder of KIPP charter schools, which exist to “prepare students in underserved communities for college and life” (KIPP website).

seligman combined the meetings. and just for fun, he invited his colleague christopher peterson. the two had just finished co-writing character strengths and virtues: a handbook and classification. the discussion between the four men was an explosion of creativity. randolph and levin found exactly what they didn’t know they were looking for: a breakdown of character strengths thought to produce happiness and success in a variety of cultures.

they found themselves wrestling with questions that have long confounded not just educators but anyone trying to nurture a thriving child or simply live a good life. what is good character? …which qualities matter most for a child who is trying to negotiate his way to a successful and autonomous adulthood? and are the answers to those questions the same in harlem and in riverdale (what if the secret to success is failure, paul tough, nytimes)?

the four worked together in the months that followed to develop a list of character strengths that proved to be even more related to report card grades than students’ IQs. levin points out that the list is not

a finger-wagging guilt trip about good values and appropriate behavior but [rather] a recipe for a successful and happy life (tough, NY times).

so randolph and levin, and those in their increasing realms of influence, began identifying, assessing, and inculcating the following character strengths in their students:

zest

grit

self-control

social intelligence

gratitude

optimism

curiosity

students at levin’s KIPP schools now receive character and academic report cards. newly developed assessment scales for qualities such as grit are routinely used to quantify and improve character markers of success. KIPP students are graduating from college at an increasing rate.

at randolph’s school, the emphasis on character is more subtle. he explains,

i don’t want to come up with a metric around character that could be gamed. i would hate it if that’s where we ended up (tough, NY times).

but it’s randolph’s take on character education that speaks most to me, an upper middle class parent, raising two upper middle class children, in an upper middle class environment that is all about minimizing kids’ suffering and maximizing their success.

faculty at randolph’s school relay that many of their students’ parents hold their children to high standards of performance while they protect their kids from the kinds of hardships that lead to grit, self-control, gratitude, etc. (tough, NY times). sheltered students are deprived of the kind of learning that happens through risk and failure. tough writes,

it is a central paradox of contemporary parenting… we have an acute, almost biological impulse to provide for our children, to give them everything they want and need, to protect them from dangers and discomforts both large and small. and yet we all know — on some level, at least — that what kids need more than anything is a little hardship: some challenge, some deprivation that they can overcome, even if just to prove to themselves that they can.

i’m not sure what this philosophy will look like as i try to put the proper amount of scaffolding in place around my monkey and bird, who are at once rambunctious and sensitive, privileged, and not immune to life’s limits. but perhaps my less-than-perfect parenting will prepare my kids for their less-than-perfect bosses, their less-than-perfect partners, their less-than-perfect surroundings, and their not-yet-realized dreams. what characteristics lead to a successful and happy life? if the answer to this question is the same in harlem and in riverdale, maybe it is the same for my children as it is for me.

hello, my name is mary allison, and i am a delinquent blogger. i know you are all attributing my silence to one of the following things:

1. i joined the witness protection program and am now living in boise, working at subway, and breeding cocker spaniels.

2. my children have finally driven me past the point of insanity and i have taken off on an impromptu cross-country drive with no definite plans of return.

3. a pillow fort has blocked access to my computer:

alas, if my life held the drama and intrigue of items 1 & 2, i would have written a memoir by now, and i walk through pillow forts every day. no big deal.

all i know is that since my last post on august 30th, the following things have happened:

1. my children started back to school after labor day and then had a five-day fall break two seconds later.

2. i turned 35.

3. i started re-reading eckhart tolle’s a new earth:

4. my job at the university of memphis stopped resembling the tv show apprentice and morphed into relational ministry. in other words, my makeshift marketing campaign has given way to face-to-face contact with actual students! i believe in miracles.

5. the monkey started taking suzuki violin, and i rented myself a fiddle too. we make terrible, fantastic music together. remember this post about great expectations?

6. i made good on my promise to mask the bird’s wall doodlings with wild designs. if you stand still in my house for too long, there is a good chance that you will be stenciled.

new obsession: www.oliveleafstencils.com

p.s. did you know you can stencil fabric and flat-weave rugs? good times.

7. i discovered that i can download books via the audible app on my phone and wash dishes and fold clothes to the riveting saga of the hunger games trilogy. i actually look forward to household chores now. for the love of clean dishes and laundered clothes and all that is holy, suzanne collins needs to write some more books.

8. andy and i took a little trip to lake oconee, outside of atlanta. the kids stayed with my folks. we each slept for 12 hours, three nights in a row. i wore my vintage polyester house dress around the hotel like a crazy person. what’s the point in changing clothes just to wander down the hall for a glass of wine?

9. i got to serve communion to my children at our church’s family camp in middle tennessee. the ritual of communion is mysterious and multifaceted, and i will never fully understand it. but this i know: it was bread from heaven. also, the bird spit his portion of bread into the cup.

http://www.nacome.org/

i promise not to wait a month and a half to post again. off to polish the silver, iron my underwear, and plant bulbs in the front beds before the kids awake.

just kidding. i’m still not martha stewart. some things never change.

it is no small wonder that in our culture, a pregnant woman is referred to as a person who is “expecting.” not only are the cells of her child multiplying rapidly in her uterus, so too are the visions of her future multiplying in her consciousness, along with the imagined qualities of a little person who has yet to meet the world. for ten months, expectations build super-human momentum; they crouch, waiting to bully the hell out of the reality that begins on birthing day. starting with variations from the birthing plan, breastfeeding troubles, meconium diapers, and the like, new parents quickly learn to expect the unexpected. but this difficult work is a breeze compared to its necessary and slowly-unfolding inverse:

learning to unexpect the expected.

every day of my last five years has been fraught with compromised parenting ideals in the face of the most unpredictable embodiments of wonder and mischeif. i have not bid farewell to all of my expectations. this is a life-long challenge, i think. but i have gotten used to the exercise of unexpecting in the same way that i am used to my blue jeans. every day, i pull them on. every day, i zip them up. every day, they poke me in the gut just a little.

a few weeks ago, andy and i piled the kids into a canoe and paddled to a swimming hole in arkansas’ sylamore creek.

we enjoyed a picnic while the boys practiced skipping rocks. the monkey, encouraged by his more daring cousins, dropped from a rope swing into the deeper water. we hiked for a mile or so on a creek-side path before cooling off in the water and returning to the canoe.

as we paddled back to our cabin, andy and i had the same thought at the same time.

“this is what i thought having kids was going to be like,”  i said.

“me too,” he said.

and the strange thing is that the summer has afforded us several moments like this — cherished, surprisingly familiar moments. and as we are meandering down a wooded path, or piled into our car on the blue ridge parkway, or looking out from atop mt. mitchell, it dawns on us that these scenes are familiar to us because they are straight from the postcards, sent to us through time from our pre-kid selves. after committing ourselves doggedly to the exercise of unexpecting, we have been shocked when little bits of the hope we’ve released come boomeranging back to us with more majesty and hilarity than we dared to pen in our dreams long ago.

perhaps this is the beauty of unexpecting. when we are occasionally able to stand down the crouching bullies, who loom before us with idealized pictures of ourselves and our children, we will be able to glimpse a life that is really pretty sweet on its own terms.

it’s enough inspiration to keep me paddling on.