jumble of junk.

One thing you may not know about me is that I'm semi-obsessed with and love the Duggars. That giant 21-person sized family with the long hair and long skirts? They fascinate me and are delightful. So I've watched past seasons of their show, read their first book, and I'm currently reading their second book "A love that multiplies". Early on in their marriage, Jim-Bob and Michelle Duggar used oral contraceptives and planned on having between 1 and 3 kids. They had their first child, and decided to wait a few years and use oral contraceptives before going for another one. Apparently, during this time Michelle got pregnant, and due to the use of birth control pills, she incidentally miscarried. This devastated the couple, and prompted their decision to leave family planning up to God. They decided to let contraception go and leave it to God whether they would become pregnant or not. 20 or so years later, they have 19 children. What's amazing about this isn't the sheer size of the family. Michelle, Jim-Bob, and the little people they have created exude happiness, self-assurance, brightness, intelligence, and well-mannered good ole' fashioned wholesomness. A beautiful testament and feat in this world for any size family. Despite the size of the family, they are the most optimistic, positive, genuine people in the media today. The children are well-fed, bright, well mannered, happy, funny, playful, and seemingly well adjusted. They are all talented musically, and all have their own sense of aspiration and ambition for the future. They aren't unthinkably rich, but they are provided for and do not want. They manage money wisely. Despite the untraditional size and extremely conservative values, there doesn't seem to be any funny business, any weird creepy cultish scary dark undertones to this family. Compare the Duggars to other untraditional families in the media: Jon and Kate plus 8? divorce, trauma, tabloids. The Sister Wives? They had to move their brood of half-brothers and half-sisters to a new state to avoid being incarcerated, and the children seem deeply distressed. The Duggars attribute all their success to God.

I'm a fairly liberal person when it comes to religion. I tend to have feelings of suspicion, discomfort, and bitterness towards extremely conservative or "fundamentalist" points of view. There is a history of pain and injustice there. (Which can be said for any religious tradtion). This is an instinct I am actually working on overcoming so as to be an open-minded person in all aspects. But, based on appearances, one might assume I would be put-off by some of the Duggar's life choices and convictions: they take the Bible very literally, and therefore the women do not cut their hair, they only wear long skirts, they wear "wholesome" bathing suits that cover the body from the knees to the elbows, they have conviction against birth control, they do not date or kiss until "I Do", they adamattly do not acknowledge evolutionary sciences, they don't dance, they don't drink, and they are constantly dishing out Bible verses for every occasion. A scene like this would typically make me raise my eyebrows.

But these people are so cool. They have an unending source of optimism, hope, peace, strength, endurance, and enthusiasm. When faced with challenges and adversity, they are creative and perservere. They are incredibly kind and warm hearted. Despite the severe extremes of their personal convictions, they don't ever seem judgemental or preachy towards anyone with differing points of view. They don't write "God says birth control is evil and therefore thou shalt not use it!", they say, "for our family, we came to the conclusion that all children are a blessing, and so we felt that meant to leave it up to God"... they speak from their own experience and point of view, rather than imposing their experiences, choices, and points of views on others as a universal truth. And yet, they never shy away from expressing their convictions and Christian status. They focus their attention on helping others, making mission trips as a family each year to El Salvador, as well as countless other altrusitic daily activities. Perhaps it is what Christianity is meant to be... (not neccessarily the skirts and no dancing) but the focus on helping other people and being warm and kind and trying to do what they percieve as right-- meditating on what what is right. Even though I find some of their practices a little kooky, they are genuine and authentic. I find myself wanting to be like them. I honestly think their family is a ministry of sorts, even if they aren't trying to make it so.

One reason I desire "starting a family" is from the Duggars' tele-influence in my life! It sounds silly that a reality TV show would cause me to think so much about "deep life". But Oh Well! Michelle never raises her voice, she thinks creatively to come up with positive ways to raise her kids and instill sound values in them, and it looks like a blast. The Duggars' homeschool, and if I were ever to actually do that it would require loads more research, but it does look fun! The more I contemplate the reality of having children, the more I want to raise them in a "Christian home"... going to church and such. I write on this blog all my doubts, my wonderings, my uncertainties and my issues with the long-lived-long-loved-overloaded look at "Religion/Spirituality/Christianity/ECT", but to exist without honesty and without room to express these things would be suffocating. I believe it can all co-exist. And if a faith full of certainty is ever the goal, it won't be achieved by just faking it. In any case, my experience being raised Christian was completely positive. It imbedded in me a compass of goodness, stability, and altruism. Plus it was fun. Even if I'm not being good, feeling unstable, and being selfish, I can at some point come to recognize that and seek to change because I've seen and heard and learned of opposite. Even though not all religious people act morally, Religion, or, as I must try to speak from my own experience, Christianity, seeks to instill Morality. Whether or not it gets properly installed, or whether it's in working order in one's own life is a whole other story. I would want the deep messages of Christianity for my kids. Even though "christianity" fails some people, and unspeakable acts of evil are conducted in its name, unspeakable acts of evil can also be conducted in other names, and I don't think "Christianity" itself is the cause of the unspeakable acts of evil. Christopher Hitchens, RIP, was a great and passionate thinker, but this is one fundamental point where we completely disagree.

In any case, in order to raise a family I have to be in good working condition. To be able to answer hard questions, instill a faith, lead a child, and relieve another's anxiety, I've got to have my ducks in a row. Perhaps that's what all this existentialism is all about. It's my biological, emotional, and intellectual response of the growing reality of soon having children. I've been trying to get my body to a place to deliver children, which means for me being sans-medication, and the past few days that goal has been extremely challenging, violently so. For whatever reason, I want to have kids. So I want to be ready to "leave it up to God" as the Duggars say. I hear from most people that you can "never be truly ready". That makes me feel better. It's good to hear no one else is perfect, and that no one else has ducks perfectly in a row. Then I don't feel so hopeless! The Duggars seem like an "imperfectly perfect" freaky family, but they're all just humans doing the good fight.

The Duggars, and how I want to adopt some of their ways: I simply can't be completely like them. It wouldn't be genuine of me to grow my hair out and stop dancing and wear a long skirt and disregard the theory of evolution. I can't just imitate it and, voila, I'm a transformed mortal. But the Duggars seem to earnestly search for purpose, meaning, truth, light, love, and peace. I am glad for them that they find these ideals in the Bible, in Christianity, and through their lifestyle choices.

I do think, though, that the earnest searching of my own might reveal different interpretations of not only how to live life and wear my hair, but what I hear through the Bible. Could one be wrong and one be right?

I personally don't quite think so. I can't honestly say I believe that there is "One" essential "Truth". Except that maybe the "one essential Truth" is the search for Truth itself. If "One Essential Truth" does "exist", it's got to be a bigger notion than the one implied on the giant billboard off the side of a Missouri highway in the Bible belt, glaring down at passerby's with condemnation and judgement. A search for truth must involve, I suppose, clarification on what the word truth means. I find this word Truth to be misleading because for me it conjures up images of "right and wrong", sin and blessing, heaven and hell, in or out-- a tool for segregation, separation, and division. Truth can be attributed to the "correct" interpretation of a verse, a bible, a religion. I think this type of truth is a diversion from what the idea can actually embody. I feel that Truth might mean something more like the word "authenticity". A mix of emotional honesty, bravery, searching, and peace. If Truth can't mean this, than maybe Truth just isn't that important. If "Truth" doesn't come hand in hand with Peace and Love, than what good does it do? If I must "accept" or "believe" a certain event in history as a factual occurence, or declare a line from a book as the one set of words that can eternally determine the state of one's soul, then accepting or believing it won't do me any good if I'm not at peace with that conviction, and if there is no meaning found in how that line or how that event can actually change my life here and now for the greater good.

I would rather not give a hoot about what happens after death, as I might spend all my time looking past all the wonders of the present world for something that could just as well be complete nothingness. However, just as humankind has deliberated throughout all of its species history on the mystery of death, I too am not immune to that aspect of the human condition. It seems unavoidable that part of life involves the imagination about and at times, fear of, death. And since there is no way I can "know" what comes post death anymore than anyone else can in any quantifiable way, I do see I have a choice in the matter as to what I prefer to imagine. I think humans are fairly lucky and it is a trait of survival to believe death can possibly lead to eternal heaven, peace, nirvana, moksha, whatever. Perhaps there is a more mysterious, God-given reason as to why humans have perceived a metaphysical reality inside and outside the realm of "this" life. I personally do think so. I wonder if conciously choosing to imagine heaven after death or "believing in" heaven are terribly different? I think there's some cross-over there, as what we choose to believe can shape our attitudes and become a deeper part of us. If I'm upset, but choose to not yell and instead calmly express my emotion, that calm may wash over the upsettness and chemically change it to a sense of understanding. In the same way, if I choose to address the mystery of death with a vision of peace in heaven, perhaps that deep contentedness will infiltrate my being and be more than the answer to a multiple choice question. Whether one comes to this conclusion through conscious choice or through a sense of deep conviction or by God communicating it to them personally... does it matter? Maybe. I'm not sure.