Book Review: Keeping Faith

Mariah White is the sort of woman who likes for life to be organized and precise with all of the tiny details kept in their places, much like the intricate doll houses she makes for a living. On a particularly bad day when things have been frustratingly straying from her schedule, Mariah returns home to find her husband Colin home early from a business trip. Thinking he is there to surprise her, she embraces him only to discover that he isn't alone when the woman he has decided to leave her for comes out of the shower. The worst part is that Mariah and Colin's seven year old daughter, Faith witnesses the whole ordeal.

Unable to cope with her husband's infidelity (again), Mariah lapses into clinical depression and Faith stops speaking. As they both struggle to bring themselves back together after the ugly divorce, Faith seeks solace in the comfort a friend whom she refers to simply as "her Guard." When Faith begins quoting biblical verses despite having been raised nonreligious, Mariah takes her to see a child psychologist.

After several sessions and an unsuccessful run on anti-psychotic drugs, the psychiatrist makes a startlingly discovery: Faith is talking not to just any guard, but to God. Mariah is disturbed, wondering why God would choose to reveal Himself to an nonreligious, Jewish child who up until recently has never heard of Him.

Oh wait.. .did I say Him? That's right, not only does Faith profess to be seeing and speaking to God, but that God is indeed a SHE not a HE. As Mariah and Faith's lives get tossed into a whirlwind of press coverage, skeptics, and believers Faith develops Stigmata and begins to perform miraculous healings including bringing her own grandmother back from the dead. As if their lives aren't hectic and invaded enough what with continuous visits from priests and rabbi's alike, Colin decides Mariah must be to blame and sues for custody of Faith.

The story is well written and well researched. I have to say that I have a lot of respect for Picoult for writing about God from this angle. Not only does she address the issue of God being female but when the grandmother returns from being clinically dead for 1 hour, she reveals to her daughter that God wore the face of her own mother.

My favorite quote from the book is during the conversation between Mariah and her mother:

"I always wondered why God was supposed to be a father," Millie whispers. "Fathers always want you to measure up to something. Mothers are the ones who love you unconditionally, don't you think?"

While I can certainly how that is true generally speaking, I also happen to know of several examples of Fathers that DO love unconditionally as well. But I understand what she MEANS. There is just something so fierce and beautiful and even a little scary about the way a mother loves her children. It is an entirely different breed of love all together. Incomparable to any other form.

I found it interesting that while researching the book Picoult ran into a lot of people who were so uncomfortable even entertaining the notion of God as female even for a fiction novel, that she was shooed out of offices. I suppose technically speaking, God is neither male nor female and also both but for (in my opinion) social and political reasons has always been referred to as a male or Father by the Church.

I once heard a speaker that opened her speech with: "If man is made in God's image... than woman says, What about me?" That phrase really kind of struck a chord with me. I am just not sure that I entirely jive with the whole Genesis thing. I would like to think that God put a little more thought into creating woman than simply grabbing the nearest rib and throwing together woman as an after thought. After all, God had created male and female in every other creature, even plants have both male and female anatomy. And even if you interpret "man" to mean "mankind" in the whole creation bit, then that still leaves an open door for questioning. If both man and woman are made in God's image, than God must also posses some amount of femininity.

What it comes down to, for me at any rate, though I may end up being attacked for it: is that God is much more spiritual than physical and that it matters very little if you envision God with a man's face or a woman's or even both depending on your need at the time. Isn't there a verse somewhere that reads you cannot see the true face of God and live? That it is THAT incomprehensible. Personally I think that when it comes to envisioning the face of God, that it matters little what you see, so long as you can relate it to how God makes you feel. I personally have no problem with a female God. Heck, sometimes I need a more matronly figure to pray to.

But I digress. In any respect, the story in this book was a GOOD story. I read it in about two days and ended up staying up to nearly 0ne in the morning trying to finish it. If you are interested, even just a little bit, it's well worth the read... unless of course you are a very conservative Jew or Catholic... in which case you *might* walk away offended.

My Silly Husband

Drives me crazy with this kind of thing. Pay close attention to the search box.



He typed it in just before he left for work and when I was cleaning the computer desk (my OCD is STILL acting out A LOT), I bumped the mouse and it popped up. He left it open knowing one way or another I would be at the computer before bed and knowing I hate when he has to work night shifts. We've been together five years, have two kids, bills, worries, responsibilities... and yet we are still the kind of couple who does this kind of thing. The kind of thing that makes other couples gag (they are secretly jealous *winks*). Sometimes I tease him about it, but deep down and all sarcasms aside, I love that he still puts notes in my pockets and occasionally in my search boxes.

I might also add that he was searching how to make a blogger account just so he can read my blog since I don't post much on myspace anymore (over it!), and he knows how much I enjoy this site. Yeah, so sorry if this post made anyone queasy... but sometimes I just have to show this sort of stuff to other people just to make sure it's all real.

Just a Suggestion

Anne Shirley's Apprentice

Wherein an old childhood friend posts a beautifully written piece about the amazing powers of Can't Trees.

Black Friday

Can I just say how incredibly STUPID I feel for waking up at FOUR AM to go shopping on the WORST shopping day in the history of EVER at the WORST establishment known to mankind?

I feel about {{{{{{{{this}}}}}}}} stupid. I have NEVER bought into the whole "black friday" thing. I have never even left my house on black friday. I have major issues with large crowds of people, especially frantic crowds of people, but I totally sold out this year and got up at 4 am to meet my older sister, Nollie for 4:30 to do a little christmas shopping. There were only 2 things I really wanted to get for B that were going to be on sale SUPER cheap this morning.

So was it worth the $30 dollars I saved on her gift? Eh.... yes and no I suppose. It was bad and frantic and CRAZY and STUPID, but even being all of that it still wasn't as bad as I feared it would be. After all, people were, for the most part, polite barring a few exceptions. The gobs of people was completely ridiculous and I felt like an idiot as well as vulture while hovering around the un-opened display of V-smile hand held systems which I thought for sure no one would be interested in considering the Nintendo DS's were on sale as well.

Side note: I NEVER had video games as a kid. My parents didn't even spring for a computer until I was in high school and even then they waited a few years before getting the internet. I'm only 24, so do the math: I'm not saying they didn't have those things when I was in school... just that parents were always about 20 years behind on updating. My parents never bought video games or systems of any sort and quite frankly, I didn't really, and still don't, feel as though I missed out on much of anything. The Hubs, however, being a boy, grew up with the video/computer game phenomenon, even if he didn't own any himself. He just played at friends' houses and such. I would have been perfectly happy to not to do the video game thing for my kids, but as I said, Tim is into the stuff so we have them. We have an x-box that primarily acts as a dvd player, but B loves to run around on Fable... mostly because her character (Tim's character) has a dog that she can throw biscuits to (poor unfortunate overfed animal). She loves to play Tim's lvl 80 character on W.O.W. (otherwise known as the World of Warcraft). She can't actually PLAY, but she loves to put him on the mount and "ride around on the pony" and she loves making the character swim. She once swam him so far out into the ocean that he died of fatigue.

Recently she has been really into PBSkids.org. and playing the seek and find games on the DS (the only video games I enjoy are seek and find puzzles). We pull up PBSkids on the computer and she plays the little freebie games. She loves Caiou and Clifford. I actually really like PBSkids.org. I was fascinated by dinosaurs as a kid and so is the B. The Caiou game section has a game where you can dig up dinosaur bones and piece them together to make the dinos. When you get it right it pops up a small video clip of the dinosaur you built as a prize. She can do those puzzles too. I never thought I'd believe in educational video games, but she has seriously learned a lot just in the last week that we've let her play around them. However, I do have to set a timer and monitor her time spent playing the games because I don't want her bottom glued to a couch or chair all day, educational or no.

We decided to go for the little V-smile game after we brought back the leapster one that was supposed to have games but didn't. You remember... the one from the hell-mart post? Yeah. The V-smile is the same thing, has the same kinds of games and everything, but is much cheaper.

Even amongst the vultures, I still managed to get one and two games without getting punched or bitten or elbowed out of the way by another adult on a toy frenzy (if you don't believe that humans have animal instincts... just go to hell-mart before dawn on black friday...). By the time I had gotten the v-smile and games (it only took me about 30-45 seconds), all of the other displays surrounding it were empty. The motorized scooters displayed next to the v-smiles were gone before they even finished opening the v-smile display. (no exaggeration)

All in all though, I have to say that this was by far and large the quickest trip to hell-mart I've EVER made. I got there, I got the one or two things I wanted to get that were on sale, a stocking for the baby, and one or two stocking stuffers. I should have taken a picture because this is the ONLY time I have EVER seen more than 5 registers opened at one time in hell-mart. It was also the shortest time I've ever waited in line at the register. The sale started at 5 am and by 5:15 I was walking to my car with only a few minor scrapes and bruises and the only person I ran over with my cart was my sister, Nollie ... and it was totally by accident! So I suppose it could have been far worse than it was... but I still feel like an idiot.

Thanksgiving Misgivings: Part 2

Ahh... the holidays! The packing up enough food and gear to keep a four year old and a 3 month old busy and taken care of for an entire day; the running to the store at 6 in the morning because the baby has been up since 3 to get a few last minute items for the day, the travelling way out into the sticks and wilderness to visit the hubby's family! *record screeching to a halt* Eeeerrrrt!

It has been an extremely long and trying day and I'm starting to understand why people choose to abstain from celebrating the holidays. For the most part, everything went fairly well. We didn't get much sleep as the baby was very much awake for the vast part of the early morning hours, but one double shot Starbucks vanilla iced coffee later and I was good to go. I packed up the huge bag for the kids with everything I could fathomly need for a day out and then some, we loaded up the young ones into the car and headed over to the Wade compound.

Since we actually got there early this year, they were just setting out the food which for once wasn't cold and badly prepared..... well... at least not ALL of it anyway. Tim's cousins were there and I really enjoy his cousins and his uncle and some of the out of town relatives and everything with the grandparents was going very well and polite .... AND THEN.... *sighs*

As I'm searching for butter for the B's roll, I get cornered in the kitchen by Tim's grandfather who then proceeds to ask me to bring both of my children to his church so that the congregation can pray over them. Now... listen: I am a very spiritually open minded person. I am trying to teach my children to be open minded and respectful of people and their differences in religious choices. But there are some areas where I draw the line. I never mind when people ask if they can pray FOR me or my family, but I have a huge problem with people wanting or trying to pray OVER me or ON me. I just kind of stood there, flabbergasted and taken unaware and feeling backed into a corner like a small furry animal about to be devoured. On the one side is the fox, and on the other is the pack of praying wolves.

If I say no, then his grandparents officially believe that I must worship the "debil" but I really, really, REALLY do NOT want to say yes. I CAN'T say yes and let me explain why. I do NOT have issues with prayer. I LOVE prayer. I pray all the time, every day. But I have issues with fanaticism in ANY religion. Extremists in any religion or philosophy are dangerous people and Tim's grandparents go to a church that is one snake handler away from being a creepy religious extremist group. (serious) Every time that Tim and I have attended with them I have been forced way outside of my comfort zone. I fail to feel anything spiritually moving when I'm surrounded by people who are screaming and twitching and blabbering "in tongues" (another issue for another time). I fail to find anything of God or divinity in that kind of carrying on.

As I said, I try to be open minded and respectful of other people's religious choices. I have never expressed my distaste or disagreement with Tim's grandparents over their beliefs. I have never tried to debate or negate their religious practices. That aside, I REFUSE to put my CHILDREN into a circle of GROWN ADULTS who will then scream and twitch and babble and touch them and "pray." That is certainly one traumatic experience that both of them will be better off without. The B, I KNOW would FREAK. The last time we attended a service with Tim's grandparents the woman in front of us was "moved by the spirit" and B, who was 2-2 1/2, kept asking two questions for the entire THREE HOUR service: 1) Can I go to the bathroom? (because she was smart enough to know I would not say no and she got to leave for five minutes) and 2) What is WRONG with that lady?? We are talking about a child who gets freaked if more than one person in the room is looking at her.

I ended up just muttering something about how I wasn't sure when we would be able to make it out there due to B having Sunday school at Mom's church on Sundays and her hating to miss it. (both true) And how I help with the youth choir on certain Sundays by providing piano accompaniment (also true). Then I had a brief frantic talk with Tim on the front porch after which he disappeared into one of the back rooms with his grandmother to discuss the state of our souls apparently. Basically this is coming from the trying to "save" our children's souls and being completely disrespectful and criticizing of our religious choices and practices.

Tim pretty much told her it was a no go, that it would scare the children and that it was unnecessary and that we simply did not believe in the same things as they do. She seems to think this is still open for discussion and that we all talk about this later. Tim told her that probably wouldn't be a good idea because she has a tendency to step on toes. He's right. This is not open for discussion and is not going to happen. I really hope that they don't continue to try to push the issue or I could just go another year and a half without visiting them in order to get my point across that I won't be bullied (the only thing that has worked in the past).

The long and short of it is this. If you/they want to pray FOR me and my kids every morning, every night, and sometimes in between, then YES! Do so! I am grateful! It's WONDERFUL and BEAUTIFUL and just amazing that you would do so. BUT, no one will be praying ON or OVER me or my kids. I just don't believe in that kind of "prayer." *sigh*

So after I was sufficiently "fit to be tied" and frustrated and offended... we gathered up the kiddos and headed over to Mamma's where Tim got irritated with me for bringing up the issue and discussing it with Mamma and Papa and my sisters and brother and kept trying to change the subject. Now we are finally home, really tired, cranky, and the baby STILL hasn't slept more than 20 minutes the entire day and all I can think about is... I REALLY want to put my Christmas tree up today. Happy Holidays!