The R-word

I can't believe that this still needs to be said: Stop using the word retard. Just stop. No excuses. No explanation. Just. Stop.

I was in an argument online yesterday. I know. You can't judge the world based on internet commentary. Still.

It was a rehashing of the story from 2012, when the tediously predictable Ann Coulter made headlines by calling Obama a retard. John Franklin Stephens, an Olympic competitor who has Down Syndrome, penned a beautiful and loving response. The response went viral. Ann Coulter doubled down, ensuring her continued relevancy. I don't know why this story is making the rounds again. The internet is weird.

I get it. People are sick of being told how to speak. People are frustrated by accusations of bigotry. Some worry that whoever controls language, directs the conversation. Some are just tired of being on the defensive. PC vs. anti-PC language wars have been going on for a long time. The list of embattled words is long and diverse.

This word doesn't belong on the battle list. This is not a battle. This one is easy. The word is offensive.

I've had this argument so often I think I could write an automated Beth responder to have the argument for me.

I had not had the argument in years before last night though. I still see the many, many blog posts imploring people to stop, but they sort of felt dated and irrelevant. No one says that anymore, right? Wrong, apparently.

The names are a distraction. It isn't about Obama. It isn't about Ms. Coulter. It isn't about elevating political discourse above schoolyard taunts. It isn't about politics. It isn't even about rudeness.

When you use this word to insult someone, the insult is a comparison. When you use this word to belittle someone, you are belittling a group of people. The word marginalizes this group of people much more effectively than it insults whomever you intended to insult. And it doesn't matter at all if that is what you meant. 

Mentally retarded used to be a medical diagnosis. It used to describe people with various cognitive impairments. Etymologically, it means to slow down or to delay, and it is used in variant forms in music. As a diagnosis, it described a broad category of symptoms. It is not in use as a medical diagnosis anymore. It has been replaced.

Cognitive impairment describes everything from memory loss to learning disabilities. It does not mean stupid. If we are brutally honest, there is an overlap. Both might be used to mean lower than average intelligence. But stupid always has a negative connotation. Stupid is an insult. And cognitive impairment is a broad term, covering impediments to memory, concentration and learning ability. Insisting that they are synonyms is, well, stupid.

This is the hard part, which is not actually hard at all. A diagnosis should not have a negative connotation. That is an uphill battle advocates fight every day. It is really hard to name some things because the things themselves are not socially acceptable. As soon as the thing is named, the new name becomes an insult. Mentally retarded replaced other words which had deteriorated into pejoratives. The first person to do it probably thinks himself very clever. Every time. Bullies always do.

As a society, we don't handle these things well. We don't like to think about mental illnesses or cognitive impairments. There is a stigma. And it needs to go away.

When the world appropriates a diagnosis for use as an insult, the intended target is not the only target. The insult is the comparison. "You fool. You are stupid. You are just like those children with special needs." Wait, what?

Words have meaning, and that is what that one means.

So, no. This is not just another battle over language. This is not one of those times where an argument is directed by evolving language. There is no argument at stake in defending usage of the term. There is just an affirmation of the stigma associated with cognitive impairments and a growing disapproval.

Maybe there is an element of political correctness after all.

If the fact that the word hurts people doesn't dissuade you from using it, social stigma should. We're judging you, you bully.

Evolving or revolving

I've been reading opinions about marriage. What it is. Why it is. If it is. And I have been examining my own evolution of thought on the subject. Obama evolved. I'm evolving.

When I was in high school, many of my peers asserted that marriage was just a piece of paper. Why would anyone need or even want a governmental stamp of approval on their relationship? It made sense to me. Either you love someone enough to stay with them forever, with or without anyone's approval, or you don't. Ah teenagers.

It was the 90s. So, everyone was talking about civil unions (remember civil unions?) and Don't Ask Don't Tell.  Homosexuality was a big deal in politics, and I was as politically active as any high school student.

Once, the school board in my county held a hearing on homosexuals being bullied. I don't clearly remember the details. It was a hate crime kind of discussion. I attended and argued that bullying must be against the rules and punishable, but if you single out one object of bullying to protect them specifically, you do the community a disservice. Either there are adequate rules in place to protect the students from bullying of any kind, or I am not protected. It was not spur of the moment, I had carefully prepared a speech after thinking through my own thoughts and experiences. I had been bullied, though not targeted for my race or sexuality. If my homosexual friends needed better protection, the whole student population did.

In college, I don't remember why it came up, but it did. I wrote a very short opinion in the school paper which basically asserted what I took to be self evident: homosexual relationships are not the same as heterosexual relationships. Setting aside questions of morality, they are simply different. Whether or not it is moral isn't the right question; gay marriage is impossible.

It wasn't a very nuanced idea. It wasn't clever or original. It was typical college freshman stuff (I wasn't a freshman). It seemed evident to me, so it must be evident to everyone and it must be true. I had thought about it; it wasn't an unconsidered opinion. It was just, as yet, unchallenged.

Also in college, I had a friend who had some concern about his visa status. I didn't know the details, but I told him I'd marry him, if it would help. I did love him, but not romantically. I said that I didn't actually care about the piece of paper from the government anyway. If and when I got married "for real" it'd be in a Church in front of my family- and that is what would make it real. It didn't occur to me then that these ideas I had about marriage were already in conflict.

A good friend pushed back against my ideas. He challenged me to flesh out what I was thinking, why, and what followed. I wished I had spoken to him before putting my writing out for anyone to read. He forced me to admit that my opinions were formed by my experience and my faith, which while good is not universal. He forced me to confront the question: If I don't think a green card marriage is immoral, then on what ground can I object to homosexual marriage? I had already disassociated what the Church does and what the state does in my mind. I had already decided that what the state does had to do with rights and had nothing at all to do with my definition of marriage.

I remember that my opinion that a civil marriage was nearly meaningless deeply offended a good friend whose parents were civilly married. They loved each other and raised a picture perfect American family. I was blessed to meet them and I cherish memories of their generosity and hospitality. They weren't Christian. He wasn't Christian. He hoped one day to marry, civilly, and love and raise a family. That was the first real emotional challenge. Did I really think his parents weren't married? Did I really think he couldn't be married? What an absurd idea. Of course not.

So, I came out of college with both my thoughts and feelings on the subject a little shoved around and unmolded. My ten year college reunion is coming up this fall, so that is how long I have had to mull these thoughts. Maybe they are over-steeped and bitter.

One more personal story: I found out some time after college that my best friend in high school was homosexual. It was startling. Jarring, even. Not that she was homosexual, but that I didn't know. She didn't tell me. We had been very close. She would have heard all my thoughts, sometimes wandery and indirect, sometimes forcefully political. She knew all my crushes and dreams. She knew the silly stuff and the serious stuff. My closest friend was gay, but I didn't know. Did she? Why didn't she tell me? Did she think I couldn't handle it? More troubling, could she have been right?

I certainly had other friends who were gay. You know when you are 16 and you think 30 is old and you make a silly pact to marry someone you love but not romantically if you are both still single at 30? Maybe that isn't a thing. Anyway. My guy was gay and we both knew it. We joked that we'd teach our beautiful children the alphabet with Mozart's alphabet song. I'd like to say that I would have handled the information about my best friend in some loving way, but I don't know. The idea that she may have felt like she had to keep it secret breaks my heart. How awful and isolating. That she might have been right in her fear that sharing would hurt our friendship is a painful possibility.

One of my more recent blunders was to simply assert that the state should get out of the business of marriage altogether. That simplistic view has the appeal of closing the question. But if the state takes no notice of marriage, what about all the legal issues surrounding marriage? Inheritance. Medical choices. Hospital visitation. Children. Immigration. I am married. I don't think very often about the legal benefits. That is the luxury of having them. I do not want to fight for them. I do not want to lose them.

Here is my point: my views are shaped by my faith, my thoughts and my experiences. That is not to say that there aren't truths, but only to note that what seems obvious to one person may seem obviously untrue to another. Indeed, what seems obvious to you today may crack a bit under tomorrow's light.

I was wrong about what the Church teaches about marriage. I was also clueless about the real benefits of civil marriage and by extension I completely missed the boat on state interest in family and family life.

Marriage is hard to define. Per the catechism: "The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life, is by its nature ordered toward the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring; this covenant between baptized persons has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament."

That is a definition I recognize. Sacrament. Covenant. Man and women. Procreation and education. That is a definition I can claim. But, is it a definition I want parsed and pickled and protracted in law? As it is, in the language of the catechism, I understand it. Within the context of faith- my faith- I recognize it. I aspire to living it. But the thing falls apart of you take Christ out of it. The words don't make sense anymore.

I've taken a long way around, but I do understand Christians who insist on Christian-centric language even in law. The alternative remains an enigma, at least to me. I know it exists. I've seen it. But I don't know how to talk about it. I don't have the words.

Love is important, but even if it was definable, it is not a definer. Commitment too. The difference between a loving commitment and a marriage has to do with this other word that I don't really want the government to define, but I also don't want them to ignore: family. When you marry, you change your family. You enter a family as an in-law. You welcome a spouse, to your family. And you form a brand new family.

I hear people groaning about a redefinition and it resonates. The only definition I know how to discuss isn't about two people. It's about a creative love. A sacramental union. It's about a Christian union which is the unbreakable foundation of the family. Children are not a relevant afterthought, they are essential. Marriage is "...by its nature ordered toward the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring..."

And so, when it comes to the heart of the thing, I really only know how to talk to Catholics. Divorce. Birth control. Adultery. These things all conflict with the definition I know.

Here is where I am still floundering: I don't want birth control, divorce and adultery to be illegal. I don't think I know anyone who does. The definition I understand is not a definition I want enshrined in law.

Gay marriage is legal now. I cannot think about it using the same terms that I think about my own marriage, the language of the Catechism. It doesn't make sense, in those terms. Unlike the sins listed, gay marriage is not bad, it is impossible. So how do I understand it? How do I talk about it?

So, I am sympathetic to insistence that this is a redefinition.

I am also sympathetic to insistence that marriage comes with rights, and denying rights based on bedroom behaviors is not OK. The practical concerns that I don't worry about, because I am married to the man I live with, are not a side note. They are a government recognition of a relationship which I chose; recognition which matters in real ways.

I don't know how I would design an answer. I read all the articles and blog posts about how it affects me. I even read Matt Walsh. Not a one of them impressed me. It is not that I am a wishy-washy wonderer. I know what I think marriage is. And I don't want a law about it. And I am not entirely sure where that leaves me.

I still don't want to talk about gay marriage.

And Facebook didn't convince me.

I had an eye opening moment several years ago. I was one of the pro-life activists who would pray outside abortion clinics. (Can I mention abortion without derailing entirely?) Every Saturday, we'd meet for Mass, then go to the clinic and pray. And every Saturday a group of women would meet on the clinic steps. They'd don their identifying orange "clinic escort" t-shirts. They'd laugh and joke most of the time, but when women came, they went into security guard mode.

Sometimes they would jeer at us. We prided ourselves on accepting the attack without anger, but among ourselves, we called them deathscorts.

One day during prayer I realized that they were the same as me. Not just in some hugely general, they-are-people-and-we-should-respect-them kind of way. We were women who had decided to volunteer our Saturday mornings to protect women from violence. They were not my enemy; they were me, but with different formation and experience.

Abortion is depressingly difficult to discuss. I want to scream at my would-be allies sometimes. If your impulse is to scream at scared pregnant women, you yield any moral high ground. You are not loving her. You are not loving her baby. You are venting your personal anger. It is not just a missed target, it is an assault. There are bright lights in the pro-life world worth mentioning, like Abby Johnson. But the rage against women is still depressingly common.

I've derailed.

I have my thoughts and beliefs about marriage but I am not ready to argue. I mean, I guess I am prepared. I love arguing, and I have put a lot of thought and prayer and research into my beliefs. I'm armed to win! But I don't know what winning looks like here.

Some issues cut more deeply than others, and this is one of them. Because disagreeing is not a simple surface disagreement where we can just agree to disagree, it is a fundamental disagreement. When you tell someone that their family is not really a family or their love is not really love, its not a disagreement, its an attack.

When you tell someone that their faith is a trivial thing or that it does not belong in the public arena, the faithful are baffled. What does that even mean? All my beliefs are formed in prayer. (OK. That is an outright lie. But it is an aspiration. I'm working on it.) I don't want God out of my head.

This is my blog. This is my soapbox.

In an argument, you listen for flaws. What mistake will they make? Where is crack in the foundation? It is exciting and not always entirely useless. But what is the goal?

We're not very good at listening across lines.

We have to be attune not just to what we want to say, but what is likely to be heard. We can choose our choirs and preach until all the preachers are foamy mouthed generals and the choirs are armies ready to do battle. That's an option. But it's not a good one.

See that guy over there? He stands for everything which is wrong with the world. He wants to take away my rights because he fundamentally hates me and what I stand for. 

Battle lines are neat. And self-fulfilling. You will hate the guy who hates you and wants to take away everything that matters to you.

We don't need another argument. We need a dialogue. We need to learn to listen generously.

I don't want to talk about gay marriage.

I don't want to talk about gay marriage. It is not that I am uninterested. It is one of the most important issues of my generation. But I am struggling to navigate.

Thoughts are barely afloat, drifting in a sea of feelings. 

Who is saying what and why? Why can't people hear each other? 

At church last night, the priest preached about persecution. He was talking about how sometimes God allows bad things to happen so there can be good fruit. I hear that but I am not totally sold. God's ways are not always fathomable. That is clear in scripture. Sometimes we don't get it. Sometimes we see good fruit. Sometimes we don't. Whether or not there is a broad truth to be found, it is demonstrably true that God can and does bring good fruit from unlikely places. 

This priest told a story about another priest. The man was accosted by some gay rights activists, not far from their parade. They spat on him, apparently for being a priest. The story was about courage and persecution. Martyrs, the great heroes of the faith, are born in persecution. If we are going to be persecuted for our beliefs, we should not cower. We should revel in the glorious truth of Christ triumphant. 

It was a good message. But with a blind detail, which undermined the whole thing. He said that if the victim had been a gay man, society would have taken notice. And he jumped off from that point into an end-times diatribe about culture wars. Us vs. Them. It tied neatly with his previous points, and it wrapped up his homily well. But he lost me.

I was distracted. I didn't know the people in front of me. They were warm and lovely with my kids. They sang with palpable enthusiasm when the Church was singing. I wanted to know them. When the homily made that turn, something changed. It might have been an irrelevant coincidence, but when the homily went from preaching about God's unpredictable grace to culture war, they seemed suddenly uncomfortable. They exchanged glances. Not eye-rolling, but something. I saw pain, though they were smiling. I briefly considered offering a hug or something. I also considered talking to the priest after Mass. In the context of preaching about having the courage to do the right thing, maybe there is irony that kept silent. I chickened out. 

Like I said, I don't know them. Maybe I saw something that wasn't there. Maybe I saw something that was there but had nothing to do with the homily. Maybe. 

Or, maybe one of them was gay and the 'Us vs. Them' message hurt. 

I wondered, would he have preached the same message in the same way if he was preaching to a room full of homosexual people? What if it was half the congregation? What if it was only a tenth of the congregation? Would he have preached the same homily if he had been aware that one person in the room was homosexual? 

It doesn't matter a bit how often we insist that everyone is welcome, if the message is that homosexual people are an unwelcome "them." 

I keep hearing Christians go on about how they don't hate gays and they don't understand why having newly unpopular views is characterized as hatred. I share these newly unpopular views, so I hear this frustration. But listen carefully. 

The priest wanted to focus on an incident absent history. If you want to hear a story about being persecuted simply for being openly who you are- for choosing to dress in a way that tells the world something about who you are; something that they would rather you not be; something that if you are, they think you should at least have the decency and common sense to keep it to yourself- if you want to hear that story, ask a gay man.

Maybe there is a coming persecution. Maybe this story is a sign of things to come. Maybe. Maybe it was an ugly expression of a just anger from people that have borne violence for too long. There is no justifying it. But can we understand? Do we want to? Are we listening?

On the one hand, the parish priest was right to say it could have been him and he was right to preach that it might take courage to be visibly Catholic. On the other hand, to claim, as he did, that this kind of attack it unprecedented and if the victim had been gay, it would have been news- that is willful ignorance. That is the kind of ignorance which trumpets hate. 

At this moment, society seems to have turned a corner. It is not OK, anymore, to spit at gay people and denigrate them. It is not OK, anymore, that they be laughed at and bullied. It is not OK that their suicide rate is exponentially higher. Society has decided to stand up to that bully. Or at least to stop being that bully. There are still bullies. The world is still fallen. 

I guess I do want to talk about marriage, but we have to start somewhere. I want to start here. If you set up an Us vs. Them dichotomy, don't be startled when the "them," who have historically been bullied, hear hate. Don't cry foul. If you are talking about gay rights history, and you are pining for they way things used to be, think about the way things used to be for "them" in the good old days when gays could be mocked, humiliated, and beaten, before you play your persecuted victim card. 

And lets get this one right. Everyone is welcome in Church. If you start excluding people, you might as well slam and lock the doors. No one is worthy of the grace offered. If you tell people they are welcome, only to denigrate or isolate them, you are lying. First things first, homosexual people are people. Love them and see Christ in them, or repent. 

Can we learn to talk about things which will hurt people? Can we preach hard, counter-cultural messages? I think we can, but not until we learn to love, and that starts with listening. 

I got one of those awful phone calls yesterday. Remember a year ago when we lost our secondary insurance and because of that we lost nursing for several months? Yesterday Our nursing agency called to inform me that they had not yet received payment for the month of June last year. I wanted to scream, but I calmly asked, why is this the first time I am hearing about this? I didn't scream. In fact, I made the nice man on the other end of the phone laugh sympathetically. If only sympathy paid the bills.

So, I was irritable at dinnertime. My sweetheart daughter decided to make dinner, and hubby supervised. So, I was off the hook. Lily made chicken Macanicken (her recipe). She is the best six year old chef I know. It was really an impressive meal. I threw together some Strawberry shortcake, because it is still May after all. I checked the cake when the timer went off and decided it needed another two minutes. Lily and I had made hot lemon and strawberry syrup with fresh strawberries- the house smelled amazing. Two minutes later I went into the kitchen, but before I got the stove there was a very loud POP! I was not looking at the stove, but I thought I saw a flash out of the corner of my eye. The oven and stove had turned off. Dear hubby, after making sure nothing was on fire, went to the shed to check the breaker. It had not flipped. The stove is the only thing on that breaker, so he flipped it off. We are all trying to stay calm. But Becca kept plodding into the kitchen, and I really wanted her out until we knew what had happened. Finally I asked her, "What is wrong?" "I need a potty change." Which is Becca code for, diaper time.

To her credit, she had stayed calm, and it was the kind of diaper that would set off a lesser toddler. I think I'll keep her.

"OK. I'll be in in a minute. Wait for me in the living room." And off she went, pitter-patter. Toddler scurrying is really cute. I turned back to Josh so we could make a plan regarding the stove, when, "THUMP!"

"Mom!! Sarah fell!"

Sarah had been sitting on the floor. When I came into the room, she was on her back with a growing bump on her forehead. I don't know. Physics are not universal. Ask any toddler anywhere.

So, I am comforting Sarah and peering intently into her eyes and checking for any neuro signs when Becca reminds me that she is in need of attention. So, I ask Josh to handle the mini and her mess when suddenly we realize, we are out of diapers. Not low. Not down to the last one. We are out.

(Poor Becca) So, as soon as we are reasonably sure there was not an imminent 911 call, he scooted out the door to go buy diapers.

It was *that* kind of a day.

Here is the thing. Since I was asked to participate on that panel, I had to go back and read some of my earlier blog posts. The four years since I started writing have felt like a blur, but I have changed. My perspective has changed. My tone has changed. Yesterday, I was wondering if I could reclaim my earlier optimism. I know more- can I still face it, trusting God?

I don't know. But I'm singing again.

"No storm can shake my inmost calm, while too that rock I'm clinging!
Since love is Lord of Heaven and Earth, how can I keep from singing?"

I participated in a panel on the dignity of life last night. I was humbled by my company and by the topic. This was my talk:

I have to be honest, I had some trouble preparing for this. Writing is what I do. It is how I work through difficulties. It is how I sort my thoughts and face my fears. The past four years have not been easy for me or my family. I was trying to muddle through why I could not find the right words when I realized that I had been trying tell two intertwined stories as one. My story is about being the parent of a child with special needs. My story is about facing medical decisions and fears. Her story is different. Hers is about living in a world which devalues her. As her advocate, a big part of my job is to assert and reassert her dignity. The pains, the medical decisions, the sacrifices, the toll it all can take on my family- independently, they are hard to value. But the lens we use to understand them is the dignity, the inherent beauty and worth of an incredible kid.

I found out I was pregnant the same way I always find out. I had the flu. When it got so bad that I was dehydrated, I went to the doctor expecting to get an IV. They wanted to do a pregnancy test, but of course, I was dehydrated. So, they stuck an IV in and made me take a pregnancy test.

It wasn’t the flu.

I went home and wrote about Perfect Joy. In one of my favorite books, The Little Flowers of St. Francis, there is a chapter about Perfect Joy. St. Francis is teaching Brother Leo. He talks about the joy of giving, the joy of healing, the joy of knowledge. But he says that perfect joy can only be found in suffering.

The first time I wrote about my daughter Sarah, it was a simple meditation.  It was an easy and happy meditation. I felt miserable, but I was joyful. Joy is not isolated from pain.  There is peace in the knowledge of Christ's love for us.  There is joy in each and every suffering which we lay at his feet.

[It was my second child, and with the first everything had gone smoothly and relatively easily. So, I thought I knew what to expect. I was very excited when it was finally time to do the first ultrasound, at about eighteen weeks. The tech who did the ultrasound was quiet, but I didn’t know her. Maybe it was her personality?

My doctor called me in for a follow-up to the ultrasound. Surprised, but not alarmed, we went in. Something was wrong. He wouldn’t tell me what. He said we needed a specialist to do more in depth imaging, but he wouldn’t tell me why. I did not know what he was looking at.]

So, we made an appointment and saw a specialist. I don’t know what I expected. My mom was with me. The doctor was in the room and a tech was using a sonogram. For about an hour, they murmured at each other and measured inexplicable things on the screen. They looked concerned and ignored me and my questions. It was awful. I was glad I was not alone because it was about to get worse.

When he finally deigned to speak with me, the doctor explained that he thought it was a Chromosomal disorder called trisomy 18. He could do a test, but if he was right, we would want to abort. He said it might not be trisomy 18, but some other awful disorder, in which case we should abort. He could do all kinds of tests and get all kinds of information and he didn’t want to push me into anything, but really it didn’t matter. We should abort the pregnancy.

I don’t think he was trying to hurt me. I don’t think he had any idea how much he had. How could he know I already loved her?

Our world can be really harsh with pregnant women. I mean, most of the time, a pregnant woman can expect people to give up seats and open doors and that’s nice. The world hasn’t met our babies yet, but we are already getting to know them. People are startled when women grieve miscarriage.

I flashed quickly back to my first pregnancy and my first mother’s day. I was visibly pregnant- about seven months along- and after Church I went to get my carnation. The man handing them out smiled and handed me one and he joked, “close enough.” Close enough? It was innocent, but it hurt. I was not “close” to being a mom. I was a mom! Everything had already shifted. My life, my body, my relationships, my world- everything.

Now, again, a man observing my unborn baby saw something other than what I felt. I don’t know what, but he did not see a child.

We did get the tests done, with another doctor. And Sarah does not have trisomy 18, she has Apert syndrome. I told that doctor at the outset that abortion was off the table, and he was respectful.

When Sarah was born we knew she was going to need help. I had done two fetal MRI’s, weekly sonograms, and a smattering of other tests. We had already met with a team of doctors at Children’s hospital, including a plastic surgeon, a neurosurgeon, a geneticist, a radiologist and a genetic counselor. I delivered at a hospital in DC which we chose because it was close to Children’s hospital. There was a respiratory team on hand, which was good because she turned blue and was quickly intubated and resuscitated.  As soon as she was stable she was whisked away to the NICU at Children’s.

The first time we almost lost Sarah was only a few days later, while she was in the NICU. The team was worried about Sarah’s heart, her lungs, her kidneys, and her liver. She needed a surgery right away to relieve pressure on her brain, which was already damaged, but they were not confident she was stable enough to go to the OR. They recommended we make our peace and let her go. We called our pastor, who came to the hospital to baptize her, and we decided we would not do any more intervention. We would not take her off the vent and we would not stop feeding her, but we would not send her down to surgery either. We were heartbroken and scared. We prayed harder than I can ever remember praying. We didn’t always have words, and for the first time, the charismatic prayer that sounds like gibberish made sense to me. It isn’t what I did, but it made sense. He is listening, and he knows and I don’t have words, but he still hears.

Sarah did get better. She was able to go in for surgery that week. And I should skip ahead or we’ll be here all night. Sarah’s medical record is not short. There have been dozens of miracles, and that was the first.

Now, Sarah is three years old. It is true that she has nearly died several times. She has been on two emergent helicopter rides. Her medical chart reads, “Chronic respiratory failure.” I have lost count of her surgeries. I know the medics who show up in ambulances. I know the ER and the Pediatric ICU. Once, I showed up the ER and the triage nurse recognized me and waved me through without even asking what was wrong.

As Sarah’s mom, I have learned a lot of things. I know more about hospitals and medicine than I ever cared to know. There are a lot of machines and numbers and measurements and medicines. But at the end of the day, she is just a kid. A sweet three year old, chasing her sisters and snuggling and throwing tantrums.

Society wants to ask about value. They want to talk about productivity. What does she have to offer?

Do you remember the pictures a few years ago of Pope Francis hugging a kid who had cerebral palsy? It was a beautiful picture, it played well on both secular and religious media. Do you remember what the boy’s father said? He said, “He is here to show us how to love.”


We like to talk about love and make movies about love. We make life decisions based on love. But what is love? What does it look like? How does it act? On the cross, we have a perfect example and the Bible tells us to follow that example. What does it mean?

 I don’t know the answer. That’s a big question. But I can point.

Being in public with Sarah means facing a potentially unfriendly crowd. You hear stories about bullying- in my circles nearly everyone has an ugly story and advice about how to respond. This is one of our hardest realities. The one and only thing I ever wrote that went viral addressed this. How should people react when they see someone who is visibly different? I was addressing parents about kids, so I presumed innocence. It resonated. First, all my friends who have children with special needs shared it. Then I saw it popping up in other places. My friends would tag me when they saw it. Finally, Yahoo picked it up, and for a day on the Yahoo header there was a picture of my kids linking to a story I had written. My blog went from counting page views in tens to tens of thousands. What I said was pretty simple, but it resonated. Differences are not as troubling as you think. Kids will get over it quickly, if you let them. Ask questions. Say hello. Let children ask uncomfortable questions. If you don’t the questions don’t go away, they just reform as unchecked biases. Here at St. Paul’s, I have to say, the community is awesome. There are not a lot of places I can go without some level of fear, or without working up the energy to decide to respond in a positive way to negative reactions. This is one of them. I expect smiles and hugs and warmth. I expect people to talk to Sarah. I see love, not fear, in the eyes of strangers.

I don’t want to answer questions about quantitative value, but it isn’t because I am worried about my daughter. The asker, inevitably, cannot measure up. What does she have to offer? Hope. Inspiration. She is here to teach us how to love. She is here to teach us about joy.

This episode of Mommy wars is brought to you by Swiffer Wetjet

I have a friend who runs an online housekeeping magazine.  It is great fun.  (Seriously. You should check it out!) I have written for her before, but sometimes I wonder if my posts belong.  I mean, if any of you actually saw my house, you would not want my advice about keeping house.

What is real housekeeping?  There are all kinds of posts. Gardening. Kids. Cleaning. Finances. Crunchy advice. I laugh. I learn. And every once in awhile, I judge.  (Don't tell. They'll kick me out!)  That's real??  People do that?

I went to a dinner party a few years ago.  As sometimes happens, before sitting down to the meal, the men and the women gathered separately to chat. The women collected in the kitchen. I don't want to get too bogged down on the obvious gender issues here, but the subject up for discussion was floor cleaning.

Woman #1: I always get on my hands and knees and scrub. There just isn't any other way.
Woman #2: I know! Right? Me too.  If you aren't on the floor you don't see all the dirt. It is gross!
Me: Are you kidding me?  Liars! If you literally have to get on your hands and knees to scrub the floor, your standards are too high or you have a stupid floor.  Maybe both.

I didn't really say that.  I'm polite and I bit my tongue. Really hard. I might have bled a little. I smiled and I let them believe that I approved of their insanity. I was tempted to share my own kitchen floor cleaning method, which employs a once over with the vacuum and then a quick Swiffer, but there was more emotion than generally belongs in a floor cleaning discussion. Was I prepared to defend my objectively inferior standards?

I am now.

This conversation has replayed in my mind often.  It was a dinner party with folks I did not know well.  I was barely vested in the conversation at the time.  Still it comes to mind about once a month. Once, maybe twice a month, when I am on my stupid hands and knees scrubbing my stupid floor.

I still don't have compulsive standards.  You can eat off the floor in my kitchen if, and only if, you would also eat off the bottom of your shoe.  That's OK with me.  We don't eat on the floor. The floor in the kitchen is linoleum. It is one of those bland tile-like patterns that hide dirt well. And that, my friends, is the beginning and the end of what we like about that floor.

The rest of the house is carpeted.  We bought the house with dreams of hardwood that fluttered away like autumn leaves. Wait. No. Autumn leaves don't flutter away.  They make their way into my house to be crumpled and crushed into my carpet.

I could do some things better, I suppose. I could insist that people remove shoes, for instance. But I don't want to remove my shoes and besides, then there would be a perpetual clutter pile close to the front door. I'd hate that! I don't have a house big enough for that to be out of the way. There are also things I definitely cannot change. For instance, Sarah is going to come in and out of the house in a wheelchair. If she is not taking off her wheels, I'm not taking off my shoes.

I have three kids. A six year old, a three year old, and a one year old. We have all the normal kid stuff happening. (Tell me again, how we get juice out of the carpet? Where did this tomato sauce come from? WHAT DO YOU MEAN SHE TOOK HER DIAPER OFF?)

We also have some, um, other than normal messes. One of my kids has a feeding pump. The mechanism is simple. You tell the clever little box how much food to give and at what rate, and it pumps it through her feeding tube into her belly. Except it really isn't a clever box. You see, the pump does not know when the child has disconnected her tube. Notice quickly. Because the not so clever little box will continue to pump Pediasure. And your child, being the delightful child she is and relatively newly mobile, will drag this dribbling, squirty mess all over the house. Why, you ask? Why do three year olds do anything?  Messes are fun! This is a mess you will not forget. It won't happen again. Or a third time. It definitely won't happen so often you lose count of how often it has happened.

I had a couple people in the house to do a health assessment.  (On the kid, not the house.) One remarked on how clean my carpet was.  Was it new? Oh, how I laughed. Then I thought... maybe I am qualified to write for real housekeeping!

Wouldn't you like to know how I keep my carpet so fresh and pretty, so long as you visit on the right day?

I spot clean, of course. I mean, what kind of person would leave a coffee stain on the carpet for several weeks? Not I, said someone with higher standards than I.

About once a month I have to drag out the carpet cleaner. I get down on the floor with soap and and a toothbrush and I scrub. And, here is the secret, I really, really enjoy it. It is quiet mind time. The vacuum is blaring, so I cannot hear anything. (Which means I only do it when someone else is responsible for the kids.) It is just me, white noise, a mindless task and my windy mess of a tangled mind.

I have tried all kinds of things to keep up with my carpets. Windex worked for me for most things most of the time, but once I used a generic which left a blue stain. I tolerated the expensive, specially purchased rug cleaner for awhile, even though the smell of it made me ill and took hours to air out. I have used laundry detergent with some success, but not on all my stains. Peroxide works pretty well on a lot. None of these things work on a turmeric stain. (What, you don' t have turmeric stains?)

The working method
Prep: I dilute dish soap for stubborn stains in a spray bottle and I fill the tank of my carpet cleaner with hot water and several drops of lavender essential oil. I find an old toothbrush and I don my favorite elbow length gloves.

Sometimes, I do the whole carpet with the lavender water. It is just like a vacuum, only it is heavier and it smells nice. Then I go after the stubborn spots. Sometimes I skip straight to the spots; the rest of the carpet is clean enough. This method has worked on every manner of disgusting soil. I spray soak the spot with soapy water and I scrub it with the toothbrush. Then, with the hand attachment, I vacuum up the soapy water and rinse the spot with lavender water. That usually does the trick. Once in a blue moon, I have to repeat the process. Coffee and Pediasure stains are very common, and I am delighted to share that both will come up with just lavender water. Even if they are a week old, not that I would know that.

I am pretty well settled on this method, and I won't change it up unless I encounter a stain I can't remove. This one has everything I want. It is easy(ish). It is cheap. There are no single use special purchases. It's a winner.

Lavender oil is magic. There are three pros, and one con.
1. It is antimicrobial. Can't hurt, right?
2. I do not entirely understand why, but with every other cleaner I used, it was a chore to clean the dirty water tank. There was always a funky sludge at the bottom. With the lavender water, I dump it out and the tank looks fresh and clean. Nothing to clean. Weird. I rinse it anyway- but it is still easier!
3. You know the musty smell that emanates from carpet cleaners? Gone. Relaxing, wonderful lavender wafting in its place. And not just when I am using it, but when I turn it on the next time. There is no smell at all until I start spraying the lavender water.

The caution: essential oils and plastic do not get along. You cannot leave the lavender oil in the tank, and you might consider rinsing the hosing with just fresh water. I dump some fresh water on the linoleum floor and vacuum it up. I have not had any issues. I can pretty much guarantee that your carpet cleaner user manual has some instruction about using only their brand of detergents. It is not crazy- some cleaners break down plastics and there are small bits which have to keep working. I ignore it anyway, but I rinse.

I have used other oils, but lavender is far and away my favorite. I use a pretty inexpensive brand from Amazon for this purpose.

So, that is how I clean my carpet. I get on the floor and I scrub. Don't judge me.