A round woman in a stick figure world

June 14, 2002

I am a well rounded woman.  I’m five feet nine inches and I weigh 205 pounds.  This means that I have curves.  Curves where my stomach rounds away from my waist and curves where my hips curve away to my legs.  I’m more the classic pear shape than the apple shape.  I am not, by any stretch of the imagination slim, svelte, or trim.  I am soft and rounded everywhere except my elbows, knees, and feet. 

Art had an impact on me as a child.  Not necessarily the impact you would expect.  My grandfather was a hobby artist and he collect work by other people.  At my grandparents house the walls were covered in paintings and the tables supported sculptures.  The artwork was a mix of classical western styles and modern Mexican work.  I was exposed to a wide range of styles and body types in art from modern, squared off people that were more blocks of color to a lush portrait of a woman with curves like the ones I eventually developed.

At my parents home the interest in art continued.  There were four different portraits that shared a common style, some modern word art, and one great big painting of dogs gathered around a pot they had tipped off of the fire (though as a child I was always afraid that the dogs would burn up in the fire).  We also had various carousel animals, antiques, and tin soldiers, and highland supply goods around the house depending on what my father’s second business was at the time.  In addition, to the above mentioned fixtures, my parents kept collecting art as I was growing up.   I grew up surrounded by visual art– from the gaudy art of painted carousel animals to the restrained and dark portraits of the mystery people.

It was a little like living in an art gallery– and since we were in the middle of Wyoming (an eight hour drive to Denver or Salt Lake City depending on the weather) what I saw in my parents and grandparents house made up most of my exposure to what I consider fine art. 

When I moved to the big city and meet many of the good friends that I have now, I was exposed new and different art– between my college studies and my friends I absorbed everything from ElfQuest to Dante Gabriele Rossetti– with a detour into really abstract art courtesy of a painting teacher.  I enjoy portraits the most.  I really like pictures that show people as the were, or that show people doing interesting things.  Not surprisingly, I share some of my father’s artistic sensibilities.  We use the cow standard for judging art.  If I look at a piece of artwork and, regardless of the subject matter, am convinced that the artist has the skills to draw a realistic looking cow then I’m willing to give the art my full consideration.  If it doesn’t meet the cow standard then I’ll look elsewhere for artwork that I want to hang on my walls.

My artistic sensiblities are also shaped by my exposure to and interest in feminism.  I do believe that the way women are portrayed visually affect the way women as a group are perceived by men as a group.  I have seen it happen (that also is an whole different essay).  One of the things that I look for in good stories and good art is an undefinable something that draws me into the piece.  I want complexity and depth and most of what I find is shallow stereotypes and women-as-sex-objects.  I find this very frustrating.

So between the cow standard, my own body type, and my interest in feminism I struggle to find art that I find powerful and moving.  This is especially true because much of the art that I am exposed to these days is in a sub-genre of science fiction that I hang out in.  Furry fandom spends a lot of collective time and energy on what humanized-animals might look like or be like.  One advantage I have is that I am not restricted to convention art show to view furry art.  The project that I work on exposes me to some wonderful artist who take full advantage of the blend of human and animal traits to devise creatures of all different shapes and sizes in locations from the exotic to the mundane.

About two years ago I ventured out into the larger world of furry fandom and was disappointed (but not terribly surprised) to find that the art show was packed, not with what I consider to be art but with pictures of thin human shaped furs in various states of undress– some of them holding weapons of one sort or another.  Xena Warrior Princess aside, (and I was a fan of that show), I know how I would dress if I was planning to go into battle and it frustrates me to see so many female characters posing with weapons– or just plain posing.  

When I walk into an art show I want to be interested and engaged by what I see– and I want to find artwork to take home with me.  Works that reflect the diversity of the human experience and the dynamic nature of the world around us. Artwork that can hold up to being looked at again and again.  Artwork that I can get different impressions off of depending on my mood.  

I am selfish that way.  I don’t buy art to support an artist.  I buy art to support my own interest in art.

Mutually Exclusive

15 March 2002

I'm a hopeless romantic at heart.  I'm also a ruthless pragmatist at heart and have been married for over ten years.  What does being married have to do with anything?  In my case, everything.

When I met my husband-to-be we were both in college, with not a lot of money for extras.  We also didn't `court' each other in anything resembling a traditional manner.  I was in a relationship when we first met and he was coming off of one.  We lived together (with two other friends) for one year, then lived together on our own for another year.  I remember riding in his car from his brother's house and sort of mutually deciding that we were officially `going out' (a fact that everyone around us had know for at least the last 3 months).  I don't remember exactly when we got officially `engaged' though I remember the presentation of the ring.  David brought me breakfast in bed (again at his parents house) and the ring was in my cereal box (I thought it was cute).  The presentation style was the only surprise-as we'd already discussed that we wanted to get married and we used my great-grandmother's engagement ring-so it wasn't exactly a secret.

So we never really `dated' and never had much time or inclination for other forms of traditional courtship.  I think this `meeting of the mind's style' is part of the reason we are still together over ten years later.  

By the time we had extra money to spend on anything, I had realized that I didn't want to spend money on things I would never use.  So even though my romantic side would love to get a spontaneous and expensive gift; my control freak side wants advance notice of any large expenditures.  Also, while I love the idea of jewelry-I almost never wear it.  I wear my wedding band and my glasses and that's about it most days.  I just recently had to stick some earrings in my ears just so the holes I begged for in 4th grade wouldn't grow closed.

This is a long way of saying that I can't have everything.  I know that and I still struggle with it.  I am a married woman with a 3 year-old, a housemate, a job and two pets.  All of which create both opportunity and obligation.  I am fortunate and I know it.

But I also have single friends (including my brothers) who travel a lot.  I have friends who don't have children or pets who can do things on the spur of the moment.  I have friends who live close in to the city and don't have to drive.  I have friends who are courting, and married.  Friends who are single by choice, and single by accident.

What I know is that I can't have the freedom of choice of a single person and still be married.  I can't drop things at a moments notice and still have a child.  I can't fly of to Norway for two weeks with out finding someone to cover my job and water the plants.

What I have is wonderful.  I love my parents, husband, son, and housemate.  I have really great friends who help me with my obligations.  But the fact remains that there is a lot that I would like to do that I simply can't.  I can't have everything because I have to make choices about the opportunities that come to me. 

Once those choices are made I have to live with (and enjoy) the consequences.

A people's public act

18 February 2002

I have not been present for much of the public life of the people of St. George’s over the last few years.  I was recently reminded of one of the traditions of the Anglican Church that resonates with me:  our tradition of public worship and, within that worship, public affirmation and support of the life-changing vows that each of us make, to one degree or another, within the structure of the church.

I was reminded of this when I went to a friend’s wedding reception.  The wedding itself had been a small private affair while the reception was thrown open to the larger world.  When I arrived at the reception, I felt like I’d come in in the middle of things.  I felt off balance for most of the time I was there– until the very end when I volunteered to help with the clean-up and break-down of the room.  Once I had taken an active part in the reception, then, it felt like a wedding.  At that point I regained my balance.

Now that I have had some time to reflect, I realize that what I missed was participating in the service itself.  As an Anglican, I am accustomed to being asked if I will support the newly baptized, or the newly married, or the newly confirmed in their new relationship with the church and with each other.  I had not realized how powerful and important that public witness and support was to my own understanding of what it means to be ‘churched.’  

I took this opportunity for reflection to reread part of “A People Called Episcopalians” by the Rev. Dr. John H. Westerhoff, and I found this quote:  “For Anglicans, therefore, the answer to the question: ‘What is it to be an Anglican Christian?’ is, ‘Come, worship and minister with us.’”

In addition to being the People of the Book, Episcopalians are a people of public worship and public support.  Any person can walk in our door, pick up the book and follow along.  This is part of the tie that binds me to the Episcopal Church– everything that is important to the church is written down for all to see.  But like a script, it only really comes alive when many voices read the words.   We may all have small voices but when we say the words together we weave a rope of sound from our promises.  

Easter is coming, the time to renew our own baptismal vows and renew our support for one another as sisters and brothers in Christ, people of the book, and holders of the safety net.  I plan to make it to Church for the Great Vigil and reaffirm, publicly, my promises to God and to God’s family, the Church.

Cussin'

21 November 2001

I remember the first time I heard my mother swear.  I was in my teens and she had dropped something heavy on her foot.  I was stunned.  A simple expletive was given extra-ordinary force because I had never heard my mother say that word*

That’s how I was raised.  Swear words were to be reserved for the rare occasion when no other word would do.  Swearing in my house, was not allowed and was considered crass and unimaginative.  Intelligent people didn’t swear.  

I don’t know how much of this message came directly and intentionally from my parents and how much came through my grandparents– especially my grandmothers.  I also don’t know how much of the message was directed at me because I was a girl.  I’ll have to ask my brothers some day if they got the same message.  All I know is that neither of them cuss in front of me.

As I got older and moved away from home I tried out swearing and I would say that today my language is much more ‘colorful’ than even I am aware of.

Now I have child.  A child who is very articulate and quick to pick up words adults use around him.  He is especially quick to use words he has heard used forcefully.  He is an aural mirror, reflecting what I say much more accurately than I would like.  I find myself watching what I say and listening to his speech carefully for ‘bad’ words.  fortunately he is not around a lot of swearing so his idea of a ‘bad’ word is any one he doesn’t want you to say.  Words like: bedtime, no more books, time to go upstairs, it’s nighttime, and nap-time are often considered to be ‘bad’ words in his world.

In contrast, I was once working with a younger man and every other word out of his mouth was the f-word.  It was his own special adjective– almost a form of punctuation.  This is a word I might use three times in a year.  It is a word I strongly dislike, but coming out of his mouth it was robbed of most of its power.  

That, I think, is the heart of cussing– words have power and some words have the power to convey very specific and uncomfortable messages.
I am not more intelligent than someone else if I choose not to swear.  I am not more creative if I use mild alternates in place of swear words.  Contrary to the classist messages I received as a child I am not a better person if I choose not to swear.  What I do gain by my choice of language is power.  Swear words repeated lose their ability to shock– to stop someone in their tracks and make them say ‘what did she say?’.  

Shock has its uses– why not save it for when you need it?

*an extremely mild cuss word by anyone’s standards.

Magic

20 November 2001

I believe in magic.

I believe in magic for some of the same reasons I believe in god.  The universe is a big strange place that we take for granted until something either goes wrong or wow’s us.  God set in motion the creation of a wonderful, amazing, magical world where life could rejoice.  Currently a safe-haven for critters that use oxygen as an energy source, the earth and all its creatures is a magical place full of wonder.

Arabella Buckley wrote a book for children called Fairy Land of Science in 1878 it contained some of the most up-to-date information on science of the time.  In it she used the metaphor of fairies to stand in for the unseen forces of nature– to give shape to something scientists of the time were just coming to grips with– to give children a way in to the mysterious world of science.

I think we need more fairies in our lives.  Fairies to remind us of how utterly wonderful the world we live in can be.  It is so easy to forget that a single drop of water can show you the world in miniature– upside down no less!

All the little miracles of life– all the amazing magic of the world is god’s gift to everyone on the planet.  In the rush of human society it is easy to become absorbed in wholly human pursuits and forget the gigantic world outside.

On Saturday night I stood outside a friend’s apartment at two in the morning and watched the stars zoom through the sky.  Our normally rainy Pacific Northwest weather cleared for the best night of the Leonid meteor shower.  I stood in the frosty night craning my neck up at the sky as meteors went by on every side.  It was so exciting that I only gave it up once my neck was aching and my hands freezing.  I had no control over it.  The meteors would come and go– zipping across the sky– dancing to the universal music– not caring if I watched or not and beautiful none-the-less.

• I need fairies and magic and the unexpected to remind me that there is joy in this life and that very little is up to me.
• I hear god whisper when I am alone, I made this– it is beautiful.
• I hear god whisper when I am with friends, life is beautiful.
• I hear god whisper when I watch the world, make my world beautiful.
• I hear god shout when I hold my son, look mom the sun came around to our side of the planet!  It’s time to get up!

I think god speaks most clearly through a child’s voice. The world is beautiful. The son is with us on our planet.  It’s time to get up and witness the magic.

Presents!

18 November 2001

I find it interesting how what’s going on in my friends lives (and their friends lives) bounces around creating ripples of conversation.  This week’s topic is presents.  Presents for birthdays, presents for Christmas, just plain presents.  

I used to have very mixed feelings about presents.  Getting presents where people seemed to read my mind about what I wanted was thrilling, getting socks was a bummer.  Not having money to buy good presents bummed me out, not having a clue what someone might like bummed me out.

Now I just like getting them.  And giving them.  Whenever I can.  To whoever I want to.  

The watershed for me came when I realized that for me giving presents is part of my overall relationship with a person.  If the only time I thought of them was at Christmas and the thought was along the lines of– gee, I’d better get so and so a present or they will feel bad– then I wasn’t much of a friend to that person.  Also, if I limited my gift buying opportunities to The Holiday Season then I missed out on the opportunity to buy gifts that leapt off the shelf at me and said “take me to so-and-so’s house– he needs me!”  

Part of this change came about after I had my one-and-only child.  Every new thing is a delight to him.  It doesn’t matter if it is the newest or the keenest or his to keep or just on loan.  He is enchanted by the world.  I realized that I used to be that way– when I was two.

All through my 3rd decade I struggled with my ambivalent feelings about birthdays, Christmas, and gifts.  I also struggled with a personality change that would hit a week or two before my birthday and hang in there until January or February.  I don’t know how to explain it to someone outside my skin but a switch would flip and I would change on the inside.  

A few years ago I found a solution by accident.  I was over at a friend’s house and we watched a sad movie and I cried– a lot.  Then I felt better.  And that year my fall weirdness was a bit less weird. 

So for the past few years I’ve been having just one or two friends over, a box of Sees’ Chocolates, and a five-hankie movie, as a sort of strange birthday antidote that has, for the most part, helped.

This year, everything was different.  The local Furry-Science-Fiction Convention was going to be held on my birthday.  I hadn’t been for several years and my mother-in-law offered to talk our son for the weekend so both my husband and I could go.  Many of my friends were going to be there– and best of all– they had a table in the dealers den that I could help staff.  Having a table to hang out behind and a reason to talk to people is a wonderful thing for an introvert like me.  I hate introducing myself to random strangers but love talking about the Tai-Pan Project and this way I could have a reason for being there.

We went and had a great time.

My actual birthday I was playing pinochle and other strange games with four good friends (including my husband) when the fire alarm went off and chased us into the parking lot.

Which brings me back to presents.  The-World’s-Greatest-Parent’s-in-Law had given me the gift of watching the grandson so I knew he was safe and loved while I went off and had fun in a way he won’t really grasp until he has children.  My parents sent me flowers from one of the nicest flower shops in Seattle. (I love getting flowers especially in the dark months).  And at the convention, as we were packing up our part of the dealers room, one of the folks who I know through the Project gave me a sweatshirt with one of his designs printed on it.  It’s a really nice sage green with a piratical mermaid hanging out on a rock.  It was a really neat piece of art and he gave it to me out of the blue.  

I was thrilled.  It made me feel warm and fuzzy.  I think it had much more impact than the giver may have known.  I wore it for the rest of the day and thought happy thoughts.

Spending that weekend with friends, and friends of friends, was wonderful.  If the  difference between heaven and hell is the company you keep then I was in heaven all weekend and was the best gift of all.

Presents can be love personified.  No matter how weird or awkward or wonderful or strange.  Even gifts of obligation can transform a relationship and give you something in common with your weird relative or something to talk about with your co-worker or an excuse to go to a white-elephant party and give more presents and get more presents.

Love and caring improve with time.

“Tests are gifts and great tests are great gifts.” Lady Cordelia Vorkosigan, “Barrayar” by Lois McMaster Bujold.

Powerful Birthdays

26 September 2001

November 22 is my mother's birthday.  She was 22 years old when President Kennedy was assassinated.  That event transformed the day of her birth so that it would always be associated with a terrible act.  Every year as we approached her birthday I would notice the Kennedy retrospectives on television and the whole terrible event would be rehashed to my annoyance.  I was not born until 5 years after his death so it was all ancient history to me by the time I was old enough to notice.

The first public tragedy I remember was the mass suicide/killings at the Jones compound in Guyana.  I don't remember the exact year but I do remember reading everything I could find about cults.  I remember trying to understand how such a horrible thing could happen.  I remember asking my parents to explain and finding out, for the first time, that they could not.  That there was no rational explanation for evil of that magnitude. 

I write letters for Amnesty International on behalf of prisoners of conscience.  In the September letters I learned about a woman and her two-year-old son who were arrested as a result of the woman's political activities.  She and her son were tortured and held by the authorities.  This happened two years ago and the letters are an attempt to get the government to investigate and punish the people involved and to secure reparations for the harm done to the woman and her son.

One of my friends is HIV positive.  The available medications have worked very well so far but they are not a cure.  The drugs have both short- and long-term side effects and once they stop working he will die unless a cure has been found by then.  He is one person who I love and who I want to live to see my two-year-old son grow into an adult.  Every day he lives is a gift and every day we don't work for a cure is a waste.

Each day, each person chooses good or evil.  We choose to spend resources on life or death.  We decide, as a society, whose life is valuable and whose life is expendable.  I still hear rumblings from the so-called-Christian right that HIV is a plague brought by god and that those that have it deserve to die.  No one deserves to die.  No one should have the right to take away someone's life.  Without life there is no hope of repentance, forgiveness, or change.

I hear of preparations for a long war against terrorism and I think about all the people in Africa dying untreated of AIDS.  I think of people in the United States beaten to death because they are the wrong skin color/gender/sexual orientation.  Where is the massive response for these victims?  Where is the 40 billion dollars for food and medicine for the poor, for decent housing, and for support for the mentally ill?  Why does our world culture keep turning to death to try to bring back life?

September 11 is my father's birthday.  He turned 61 this year.  Just like my mother's birthday 38 years ago, his birthday was overshadowed by the horrible choices made by others.  I love my father more than I can express in words. I am glad of the day of his birth and all the good he has done in the world.  His love has made the world a better place.

Horrible things are being done on your birthday by people who have turned away from love.  People who look at their fellow humans and see objects that they can use or destroy.  We cannot force them to see our humanity.  But we can make our own choice not to follow them down their dark and lonely path.

Take back your birthday.  Live and love every day.

Nice, and...

1 July 2001

In High School I had a very clear self image.  I was nice, naive, prudish.  I liked this image and went to great lengths to avoid anything that would threaten that image.

I had some very firm ideas about what I did not want to do and thought in my muddled teen-angst way that if I defined myself in opposition to those things then I would be safe from them.  I was deathly scared of drinking and pregnancy.  

I know why I was afraid of alcohol.  I'd been told at a very young age that alcohol and the medication I was on for epilepsy should not be combined. I equated drinking with dying.  

I don't know why I was so afraid of pregnancy and the sexual activity it implied.  Partly I took in all the messages society was trying to send about teen-childbearing and why it's a bad idea.  Partly it's because I knew from a young age that I would go to college.  Mainly it was because I grew up in a small town and saw what happened to young women who had children. They became "mothers" in a very exclusive way.  Now that I am a mother I understand that their lives were much more complex than I ever guessed, but at the time it seemed like they got a giant "mother" label pasted on their foreheads and that was all they were ever going to be. 

First and foremost I wanted to be me.  Not a label. 

Ironically, I wanted it to be so clear who I was and what I stood for (and would not stand for) that I pasted labels firmly and proudly on myself.  Prude, Naive, Nice.  Three labels I carried with me into my adult life.  Labels others tried to stick on me I peeled off and left behind-congratulating myself on my self-awareness and maturity.

I was in my early twenties when I realized that by giving myself the prude label I'd defined myself in a very narrow way.  Prude brought with it many underlying assumptions not the least of which was that I was heterosexual.  After some personal exploration I determined that no label I could devise would be complex enough to describe my feelings about love and sex.  I love my husband, my son, my housemate, my parents, my friends, and my pets. I show and share that love in different ways.  My feelings about sex are too complex to fit on a bumper sticker but the fact that my first true love was bi-sexual should have been a clue much earlier.

In my mid-twenties I realized that death and alcohol were not as interchangeable as I had believed.  My underlying assumption was that if you used alcohol or tobacco you were either a bad person or you would die very soon.  That either/or thinking did not allow for people who could drink in moderation, and safely.  My first few encounters with sloppily drunk people in college were a mixed bag that gave me my first inkling that things might be more complicated than I thought.  Later I met people who I felt were nice people and then I found out that they had the occasional nip of alcohol or that they smoked.  Gee, you could be nice and drink or nice and smoke and not die immediately.  What a revelation!  I still don't drink (I'm still on the medication) and I do still get anxious if too many people around me are drinking but I've come a long way.

Now, in my thirties, I'm learning the cost of being nice as I had defined it.  Nice to me meant never disagreeing in public, giving in at the first sign of conflict, and not competing for anything.  Nice also had a lot of positive virtues that I plan to keep.  It is the dark side of nice that I am working expunging from my life and habits.  Instead of nice but... I want to be nice and... competitive, firm, principled.  I want to fight for my right answers and if some else's right answer works better, then be gracious in defeat.  In the past I have  aggressively surrendered and been gracious in defeat before the other person even knew I had a different idea of how things should be done.

In the 15 years since I left high school I have learned a lot about myself and the world I live in.  The most important lesson being that AND is more powerful than OR.

A cycle of life

19 February  2001

I am spending some time truly alone for the first time in months.  I am at the Oregon Coast while my house-mate and dog are at Pandora House and my husband and son are in Eastern Washington visiting family.  On Friday I loaded my computer and overnight bag into the car and, after work, headed down the road.

I forgot one thing.    

Now– what I'm about to discuss isn't generally considered a polite topic for dinner conversation– or for conversation in general. 

I forgot my supply of maxi-pads.

I remember thinking to myself as I was packing that I was due for my period any time now so I’d better pack supplies.  

I got to work and realized I’d forgotten to pack that much needed item– so I told myself to remember to bring my stash from work.

I forgot.  

I realized I’d forgotten at 1100 Saturday when my body said, in unequivocal terms, that Things Were About To Begin.  I searched the house for anything left by a previous occupant.  No luck.  So instead of walking into town and having a leisurely lunch, I drove into town, bought maxi-pads and came home.

I have a hostile relationship to my period.  I often think of my period as thing– no, more a person and I know why it was called a ‘visitor’ in the past.  

It is a disruptive visitor and has been since I had my first cycle.

My relationship with my period began July 4, 1980.  I remember the date exactly because my family was in Oregon visiting some friends of my Dad’s and we were watching the Fourth of July parade from a vantage point in front of the friend's office.  I was 12 years old.  I was very glad we had the spot we did because I kept having to use the toilet– and so kept trekking into the office to use the facilities there.

I was a 12 year old girl in a perpetual state of low-level embarrassment simply because I am twelve.  Add to that the anxiety of being in a strange place and constantly having to use the toilet.  Mix in finding blood in a place I've never seen blood before. And top it off having to go back out into the crowd and get mother's attention– which is hard because I couldn't speak above a whisper because I’d gone way past embarrassment into fear.

The story has a happy ending.  My mother– to my undying gratitude– had apparently been watching for just this event and had come prepared.  It was with a tremendous sense of relief that I donned my first menstrual pad and rejoined society secure in the knowledge that I was not going to bleed to death.

Now, before you think my parents had somehow neglected this aspect of my education– let me reassure you that I knew the theory of a menstrual cycle before mine began– but having no prior experience– I was not able to match the theory with the practice the first time out.

As I grew into a teen-ager my period got more and more disruptive– to the point where I passed out once from the pain.  We finally settled on birth control pills as the remedy– they worked.  My cycle was regular, and I could control the pain with normal doses of over the counter pain-relivers.

When I went off birth control to have my son my cycle had stabilized and things never went back to being a bad as they had been.

I heard a rumor that having children gives some women relief from menstrual pain.  I got 18 months worth– while I was pregnant and breast feeding– that was it.  

I liked not having a menstrual cycle.  I liked being able to have mood swings and not having to wonder if I was truly angry or if I was freaked out on hormones.  I liked not having to carry ‘supplies’ around with me or guess if I was going to need them. 

So now my son is nearly two and I am nearly thirty-two.  I've had twenty years to develop a relationship with my body and it's cycles and I still find my period an intrusion.  

If I were a good little essayist I would wrap this up in some sort of positive message about listening to our bodies and resting when they tell us to rest.  I’d say something about how our industrial society treats all of us– men, women, children– as machine parts rather than as people.   And I’d say something about my cycle reminding that I really have very little control over what happens in my life.

Sometimes, I am not a good little essayist.  Welcoming my period into my life is not going to make it any less messy, painful, or disruptive.  

And I don't have to be happy about it.

Stewardship

24 September  2000

As the trees put on their fall colors, I am reminded that this is the traditional time of year for “stewardship campaigns” in the Episcopal Church. 

I grew up in a small-town church in Wyoming and so had a child's eye view of the Episcopal Church.  Stewardship drives happened every year and were mysterious things to my young self.  Notices would go up on the boards along a theme.  The one I remember in particular involved saddlebags being passed from one Stewardship lead to the next.  Depending on the year, there were either pledges, commitments, or goals. 

As I grew into an awkward teenager I realized there were two sub-texts to the steward ship campaigns.  The first message was that the church is a corporate structure with obligations.  The second message was that each person has gifts and is supposed to be a good steward of those gifts.  

Both of these messages have given me problems over the years.

The “corporate message” seemed hypocritical to me.  It takes a lot of money to build a church, maintain the buildings and grounds, and pay a priest.  And who benefits from having the building?  The congregation.  As a teenager I felt it would be more sensible to have a membership fee to support the budget.  Why not be honest with ourselves (one of my favorite phrases when I was sixteen) and admit that the  church is for our own benefit and plan accordingly?

The “gift message” was even more agonizing.  I remember talking to my mother and saying that I had no identifiable gifts.  I remember dreading stewardship campaigns that included asking me which of my gifts I would use for the church that year.  It was depressing to look at that blank page and not be able to think of a single thing to write down.  I felt poor in spirit and overlooked by god.

What I have realized by reflecting on my stewardship past, is that my whole notion of stewardship underwent a transformation as I walked the path to adulthood.

The stewardship that I claim as my own is much larger than just supporting the Episcopal Church financially.  My stewardship is acted out every day of my life.  It has influenced my choice of profession, encouraged me to value relationships, and motivated me to grow into myself by realizing that no one else can do the job of being uniquely myself.

Stewardship defines my relationship to god-because even on those days that I do not believe in god or cannot relate to the Christ figure-stewardship guides my feet on the path.

My name for stewardship is the Holy Spirit and the Spirit is with me all my days.