Stepmomming Post 2: The Solitude of the Heart

As stepmoms, we often find ourselves dried up, used up, drowning in a chaotic sea of other people's problems. Our family's issues loom large and threaten to overwhelm us.

We feel lost.

Whether you're a stepmom or not, it's important to ask yourself from time to time where your sense of well-being comes from. Does your contentment depend upon your circumstances, or do you have access to a source of peace within yourself? Does it respond only to events and people outside of you, or does it flow from the depths of your inner life?

If our sense of well-being is dependent upon what is outside of us, we soon spiral into discontent. We absorb what is around us and what is not ours, and our lives feel chaotic.

Stepmomming Post 1: The good part about being a stepmom

When I was first planning to become a stepmom, I scoured the library and the web for helpful information. I was like a first-time parent devouring What to Expect When You're Expecting. Obviously, neither biological nor stepparents can fully prepare themselves for the reality of what's to come, but we sure are determined.

I read everything there was to read till I started running out of search terms for Google. Then, one day, sick of all the negativity out there (and, when it comes to stepparents and stepparenting, there's a lot), I tried out a new question on Google. "What's the good part about being a stepmom?" And you know what comes up? "10 Brutal Truths About Being a Stepmom." "The Six Hardest Things About Being a Stepmom." "Life As a Stepmother is No Fairytale -- I feel sorry for my wife." (Not that these articles aren't helpful; it's super important as a stepmom to be in touch with reality.) When I did find someone listing a few good things about being a stepmom, it was usually just about how you didn't have to do the dirty work of parenting and could escape the chaos of kids at your convenience. Hardly a consolation prize for a group of women who usually would rather just gain insider status in their own families.

So I set out to discover just what it was about stepmomming that was "the good part."

The Worries of Krumpleoakes

There was once a giant by name of Krumpleoakes.  Now Krumpleoakes was not a true giant by yours or my standards.  He was, rather, only relatively speaking a giant, for the universe in which he lived was very, very small.  

It was so small, in fact, that he could reach up his great big arm and bang his fist upon it, very much like your tallest relative might do upon the ceiling of your house.  This pleased Krumpleoakes exceedingly, and he often walked around his minuscule planet (which was about a mile in circumference) happily knocking his fist on the edge of the universe, thinking to himself how very special he was.

For you see, Krumpleoakes's line of thought went like this: because the universe was so, so very small and he so, so very large in it, he must be unbelievably important.  He did live, after all, dead centre in a very tiny universe.  Krumpleoakes felt so good about this.

But, one day, a teeny tiny worry popped into Krumpleoakes's giant brain.  

La Fiesta en El Reino

The Evanses had thought they were out for a normal family lunch at the local Mexican restaurant, El Reino.  Mr Evans had driven; Mrs Evans had sat in the passenger seat, wistfully gazing out her window; in the back seat, Prissy May had tried to conduct her dolls Kevin and Esmeralda's dream wedding; Bobby, Jr. had rudely interrupted the ceremony by causing hot lava breath to descend upon the guests.  All was as usual.

'MAAAM, Bobby's making me suffocate!' Prissy screamed.  Seven year old Bobby squirmed with maniacal laughter.

'Bobby Junior don't suffocate your sister,' Mrs Evans said.

'I'm not suffrickating her,' he said.  'It's HOT LAVA BREATH.'

But

As Jesus was heading out, a man ran up to him and shook his hand.

'Excuse me, sir,' he said, 'but I was wondering what I should do in order to attain the resurrection.  I know you're a good teacher.'

'Why call me good?' replied Jesus.  'No one's good except God alone.  You know the commandments: "Don't kill.  Don't commit adultery.  Don't steal.  Don't swear falsely.  Don't defraud.  Honour your father and mother."'

'But sir,' he said, 'I've kept all of them since I was a kid.'

Jesus looked hard at him, and loved him.  'Oh, and one thing I forgot,' he said.  'Delete your Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter, blog, Pinterest, e-mail, LinkedIn, Myspace, and invite your next door neighbours over for dinner.'

At that, his face fell, and he went off sadly.  He was very plugged-in.

Crossing the Rubicon: One Time Only!

I said in my latest post that I wouldn't flip through thousands of pages of N.T. Wright's works just to tell you where he said that history is a series of unrepeatable events.

But I did.  I couldn't resist.

And what he has to say is just really, really good... as always.

Missing the Forest for the Moral Checklist

In a previous post about The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, I got around to saying that industry, like slavery, has not served us well.

I don't think that Industry and Slavery are perfectly analogous.  Like I said before (in the aforementioned post), there are no perfect analogies in history.  By nature, history doesn't allow for it: history is a sequence of absolutely unique events.  History is not a science, and we cannot treat it like one.  As N.T. Wright pointed out - in one of his Christian Origins books; I'm not about to flip through thousands of pages to tell you right now, but it was probably The Resurrection of the Son of God - 'Caesar's Crossing of the Rubicon' happened once and for all; it is not the sort of phenomenon you can repeat and therefore test.  Science, an empirical art, requires exact duplication.  History forbids it.

I digress. So Industry and Slavery are unique in history and not perfectly analogous.  That doesn't mean we shouldn't be learning by comparing them, because all analogies must at some point break down, anyway - but not necessarily before they prove their worth.