heck, why not another!

I had some other updates to share....

1. in case you missed it, tropical storm Melissa has come and gone and unless you are reading this from West Africa you probably didn't even notice. I only get to have a hurricane named after me every five years so it is a little depressing that we didn't make it all the way to "hurricane status." I was just wanting to form and spin off to sea so I guess it's all right in the end. Sigh.

2. we just added pictures to our flickr page (scroll down to the right). You can catch up a little bit on the Bixlers' visit to San Juan Islands and Seattle.

3. This video is addictive so be prepared to set some regular time aside in your daily life to check it out. Ah, Mennonite youth. This is the future, my friends. Bearded man is pretty much the reason the Eley-McClains are able to serve in Latin America. Let us thank him.

The best part are the youtube tags for this video: "Jesus" "poverty" "love" "charity" "Mennonite" "Christian." That about sums it up!

back after a while

Tomorrow I leave for the field experience part of the Civil Rights immersion class which I instructed this semester. Please say prayers for us while we are gone. We will be exploring the heritage of modern and historic civil rights in the South from May 8-28.

I won't be blogging during that time but you can check out our Civil Rights Plunge blog.

We will be posting a few updates. On the "read more" key you can see a map of where we are.

Here's the itinerary:

May 8
Fly to Birmingham, Al

May 9-10
Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, walking tour
Joe Rush Urban Mission painting project

May 11-13
Americus, Ga visiting the Koinonia Community

May 14
Tuskegee University

May 15
Montgomery, Al

May 16
Selma, Al

May 17-25
Habitat for Humanity Project in New Orleans, La

May 26
New Orleans tour day

May 27
Return to Birmingham

May 28
Fly home to PDX!

Can you believe this is my job?

shame and awe

Confession. I have a slight addiction to nytimes.com. To make matters worse I recently received FREE online access to the "Times Select" which has not helped the problem. Fortunately, staying on top of current events is actually written in my job description.

And actually today this job gave me a raise making this an ironic time for this post. Regardless, I did notice an article in the old NYT yesterday.

Women make only 80 percent of the salaries their male peers do one year after college; after 10 years in the work force, the gap between their pay widens further, according to a study released Monday.

The study, by the American Association of University Women Educational Foundation, found that 10 years after college, women earn only 69 percent of what men earn.

They controlled for all likely factors and the result?

"likely due to sex discrimination."

For crying out loud. So, despite having higher GPAs, even in math and science and possessing better and more college education, we're still making less. But here's the real kicker:

Part of the wage difference is a result of people's choices, another part is employer's assumptions of what people's choices will be. ... Employers assume that young women are going to leave the work force when they have children, and, therefore, don't promote them.

Of course I am now at an age when babies seem to be bursting from the seams (shout out to the K-Js). And Jake and I are in discussion about this ourselves. Already we're starting to wonder what the job situation will be like for me post-baby. I don't particularly like the idea of staying at home but the alternative is also hard to imagine.

Here's something I've learned in my first "real job" (listen hard all you soon to be college grads): working 40 hours a week does not mean 40 hours. You really work as much time as it takes to "get the job done." This means un-told hours at conferences, on immersion programs, at school until 9 pm for programs, speakers, films and classes plus the regular 8-4. Some of these activities you just can't do with el nino (which is Spanish for... the nino). Like hang out in Tijuana with Salesians monks or pouring concrete for low-income housing in Birmingham.

I seriously applaud my jefe Tom for hiring me (and my coworker who is also recently married and getting ready to jump on the preggers train) but it also seems wrong and weird to be grateful I was hired because I am of child-bearing years. This article also reminds me that some "formation" needs to happen in our office. Make no mistake, universities are The Corporation, only it pretends not to be which is probably worse.

These conundrums have endeared me to Amy Laura Hall, the sweet Southern theologian from Duke Div. She does some incredible work on women, culture and child-bearing. She has a great article in Christianity Today called "Unwanted Interruptions" (but you need special pay-for-it access to read online). In essence she is tying hostility in the womb to hostility outside the womb. It's no wonder that children are seen as a hinderance to working well and consistently. But it shows very little imagination.

One of the ideas that has come out of reading Hall has to do with creating spaces for children in our so-called professional lives. I work at a Catholic university and Catholic's are supposed to be serious about families. So how about making a little space? How about making my hours flexible? How about working from home some of the time? How about having the baby in the office on occasion? How about really only asking the prescribed 40 hours from me?

I keep thinking that if we can take this seriously at University of Portland then maybe it will redeem the idea of the mother-worker. If any place needs this modeling it's the university. So many young women are struggling with this question. It would be great to show them one way.

"your laughter into mourning"

I’ve been feeling a bit sore lately. It’s mostly my back but my whole body feels a little achy. I’ve had some trouble sleeping and most days at work I’m a bit down in the dumps.

This is happening for a lot of people this week, especially those of us who work at university campuses. There is something so shocking about an event you could imagine being replicated on your campus. An angry student, a disgruntled student, a student who just never fits in. And suddenly everything goes wrong.

All the pictures of the students who were killed look like my students. The things they were doing and the things they loved reminded me of all the kids who come through Volunteer Services, take our classes or go on our immersion programs.

I’ve been focused on the Virginia Tech event quite a bit in the past two days, especially the media coverage. But something else caught my eye when I opened up the NY Times this afternoon.

171 killed in Iraq.

I heard the story on the way home, about separate bombings at checkpoints, in a market, at a training center. I see this headline a lot, but there was something a little different in my heart this time. I thought more about what each of those lives meant and it produced a wave of sorrow.

I wonder what it’s like to be an Iraqi living in Baghdad. If anything, the shooting at VT is giving me an increased sense of empathy for the Middle East communities which find themselves daily subjected to the violence we saw on April 16, times 5. Tom Friedman, in his classic Beirut to Jerusalem talks about the psychological trauma and the toll it takes on the body to live in a place where terror is always a threat. I can see my little pains magnified in the great pain of that country.

We will never have profiles and pictures for each of the Iraqis killed today at the hands of their own countrymen. But somehow seeing the information about the Virginia Tech students helped me to remember and grieve all those who have died more deeply and with more conviction. My heart cries out that Christ invade our world with the forgiveness and compassion of the one who laid himself on the cross for our sake.

the place we live....

Five Great Things About Portland
1. The months of March-September. We get sun like we get rain -- in big doses for months at a time.
2. The Time Zone. Most sporting events (like the recent NCAA championship) start showing at 9 pm on the East coast. In Oregon we get to see everything 3 hours earlier! Since we are big wimps about sleep, we see sporting events we would never see if we lived elsewhere in the country.
3. The airport. Did you know PDX has free wireless? And a restaurant that serves ten types of sausages? And 3 alternatives to Starbucks? And plentiful rocking chairs?
4. Green, green, green. Biodiesel stations, restaurants that serve only food grown in a 50 miles radius, a five-cent “return fee” on anything that can be recycled, organic beer, community supported agriculture and 6 different farmers markets.
5. Location. Mount Hood, Columbia River Gorge, Deschutes River, Mt St Helens, Willamette Valley, Pacific Crest Trail, the Long House, Buffalo Exchange, the Hawthorne Neighborhood, brew pubs, Rose test garden, Washington Park, Mt Tabor, L’Arche Nehalem, Stumptown Coffee, Cannon Beach, Newport

Five Things About Portland We Could Do Without
1. The months of October-April
2. The Time Zone. President Bush loves to make press announcements between 9 – 10 am EST, exactly the time when I on the West Coast am getting ready for work. No matter where you stand on the political chasm, hearing W’s voice at 6:30 in the morning is brutal. Hence we have developed a “No Bush Before Noon” rule in our house.
3. Travel. Living a 6 hour plane ride from my family. Jacob’s Iowa hometown is less intense flying-wise but most flights go into Omaha which adds two hours on to the trip. No weekend visits to the fams for us...
4. Misuse of the word Spirituality. We think this is way lame. For some reason the word “religion” went out of use in Portland a while ago. And instead of having the east coast sense to call secular humanism secular humanism, everyone here is into the vogue loosey-goosey term “spiritual.”
5. Couldn’t come up with a number 5…..

And on an unrelated note I couldn't help but add this amazing Colbert clip. I think we've watched this fifty times...

on the border

On Monday I got back from spending a week with the Salesian priests and fourteen students in Tijuana. We were there with Los Embajadores to explore border issues, particularly identity, immigration and service. The Salesians are pretty amazing. They work at the oratorios (community centers) from 8 am to 8 pm, six days a week. Their dedication to the church and to the people they serve was a sign of faithfulness that touched all of us.

We also worked real hard. I was in the "concrete mixing " crew while the other half of our group pick-axed a mountain into sandbags to reinforce a hill. We were also forced to jugar futbol with all the ninos which was a painful experience. We were pretty bad. Or I should say, I was pretty bad.

One of the most stirring moments of our trip was visiting the Border Beach. This is the only place on the US/Mexico border where families on each side can come to meet. On the US side there is a big sign that says the water is toxic. On the Mexico side it's one of the hotter tourist spots in the area. Ironically this area is called Friendship Park. We learned that the greatest economic disparity between any two borders in the whole world is between Tijuana and San Diego.

We also spent some time at Casa del Migrantes, a homeless shelter for people who've been deported from the US. The guy I had dinner with was in he states for 35 years, made $25/hour as a construction worker, has a wife and kids still in California. It was uneblieveable. If he ever wants to visit his sons he has to go to Border Beach (which is only open on the weekend) and talk to them through the fence under the watchful eye of the Border Patrol. See pictures below.

Diane Lane is on my street -- RIGHT NOW!

Yes, you heard right. THE Diane Lane is filming a movie about a serial killer who posts images of his grizzly murders on the web. The murders are happening literally two houses down from us. Although we do live in an apartment complex for retired nuns, our building must have been here for a long time because all the other houses in Irvington are real nice. It will be a little creepy seeing our neighbors house is a horror film but also really cool.

How strange also that last night we were watching Hollywoodland, also starring Diane Lane. It is offically "Diane Lane Week" in our house and as such, I give you the following "did you know."

1. Diane Lane was a child star who first appeared on the scene in 1979
2. Her first film was in French
3. She is an Aquarius
4. She's a filmed in another city where I have lived -- Gloucester, MA ALSO when I was there
5. Francis Ford Coppola had a crush on her
6. Lane dated Jon Bon Jovi
7. Her mother was a Playboy model
8. She was born in New York City
9. She was nominated for an Oscar in 2003

Baby talk

Guess what! We're not pregnant. We're two cycles through the Fertility Awareness Method and not a fetus in sight.

What I can say is that NFP has truly been transformative in the way we think about childbearing. I was reminded of this for a couple reasons; once during my Augustine class. We are reading Confessions and Gus is sharing with the reader the time in his life when he was in a starter marriage to a concubine. He was sexually faithful to her for 18 years, they lived together and had a child. For all intents and purposes, it was a marriage but he goes on to say this in Book IV:

"This experience taught me at first hand what a difference there is between a marriage contracted for the purpose of founding a family, and a relationship of love charged with carnal desire in which children may be born even against a parents' wishes -- though once they are born one cannot help loving them."

These first two months have been a transition from the latter to the former. When I completed my first post-marriage cycle we were both so relieved! We talked about putting "a star on our chart" and how we were proud of being so careful.

This month things have been a little different. It started out with the fact that my mensis would begin a little later than usual because of a plane trip I took to a conference in D.C. Because of the trip, I ovulated about three days later than usual. The rule with NFP is that, if you are still having high temperatures three days after your leutal cycle ends (which is very consistent and not affected by stress, sickness, planes, etc) then you are most likely pregnant.

Jake and I were talking about this the night before I thought I would start mensis. I said, "but if I don't get my period by Thursday, we're probably pregnant." We both paused for a second but the conversation ended. The next day, indeed I found I had not conceived. When we "debriefed" the experience Jacob told me that the night before he'd had a dream about a baby in our lives. He remembers feeling completely at peace.

While there was still a sense of relief, this month I think we also feel a slight sense of sadness. For all the will-be-grandmothers in the house, fear not. We definitely still feel relieved! But I think we are coming to a sense of the awe of the gift, of how precious it is to bear the image of God in your bodies and wonderous it is to be fully in the grasp of that potential. Perhaps, though, the greatest gift of all is that peace Jacob felt, the peace that transcends fear and want and falls helplessly into the arms of our creator. What a gift indeed.

ready for more?

It's always hard to know people's tolerance for wedding photos. But in case you had a hankering to relive that day gone by, here is the link to our photos on snapfish courtesy of the great Phil Jones.

Wedding photos

And if you're really feeling ambitious or bored, check out photos in slide-show format.

saints, bridges and beer

Today was the feast day of Polycarp, a first century dude who was burned at the stake at age 86 for refusing to bend the knee to the king of Turkey. I like Polycarp and I like him even more now that I am taking Augustine. You may not have seen much “book blog” movement from us lately. Fear not. We are still reading, Jake the Narnia Chronicles and me tons of the bishop of Hippo.

One of the things that sticks out most from Peter Brown’s biography of Augustine is his assessment of how the saint got so darned introspective. Brown explains that in the first three centuries Christian histories focused exclusively on the last years of a saint’s life because Christians were getting martyred all over the place. It wasn’t until the fourth century, when Constantine and the Church picked up the sword that Christians plunged headfirst into their interior castle.

In other words, early on Christians’ lives were something the state feared and repressed. The witness of Christ created fear in those in authority. After Constantine the only real devil was inside. I think it’s a remarkable insight, the psychological change that came with embracing the power of this world.

Other news: I gave a natural family planning talk last night along with my (ironically) very pregnant Catholic friend from campus ministry. There are now quite a few UP students who know much more about my reproductive cycle than I ever thought they would. The hilarious note: I was the “medical ethicist” on the panel. Secondary note: get a degree in religion; you can pass as anything at all.

J has also started some temp work which has been good. We’re also trying to ride the bus more often which has led to some very funny transit experiences. Today I managed to go over the Steel Bridge a total of four times in my commute. Not sure how that happened.

After work it was meeting downtown for pints at Kell’s, $3 curry chips and yes, another trip back over the Steel Bridge. Just another week in paradise!

green wedding article

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/11/fashion/11green.html

I found this is a great article in the Times with some very helpful tips. While our wedding ended up being more "Trader Joes" than "CSA" we did our best to make it sustainable. It's a hard job, especially when you are committed to getting married at a church in the suburbs of Washington DC. But for those of you still on the way, chech this out.

www.portovert.com

Wish that was around when we were planning our wedding....

new life

Me: "So how was your day?"

J: "great! We got this beautiful kind of pearly plate in the mail."

M: "that sounds nice."

J: "and something else amazing happened."

M: "really? What!"

J: "Yes. You know that enamel coated cast iron pan. Get this. I let it soak overnight and this morning when I emptied it, the egg came off without me scrubbing at all!"

M: "wow. That's really great."

J: "I just got way too excited about that didn't I..."

That's life in the home, I guess. Excited about our new pans. I'm glad someone is here to be. It is very nice to have Jacob at home cleaning up odds and ends. We know the party can't last forever and we are hard on the job search. Keep us in your prayers.

Besides that, we're back in the day to day. The wedding seems like several years ago with all the normalcy that has kicked in. We're enjoying being together!

yeah for marriage!!

Thanks to everyone who came out to witness our vows and to party down with us last week. We had a great wedding/reception in Fairfax and an equally lovely reception in Iowa. We're back in Portland now after a few short days on our very cold "mini-moon" to NYC. We had a great night at Lincoln Center watching the ballet and did the tourist stuff Jacob hadn't done in the past. He liked the dinosaurs.

We felt so loved and supported last weekend. Our five flowergirls were the life of the party and we really enjoyed meeting our two new baby friends, Ella and Adelaide. What a blessing to have so many people who love us and care about us make time in their schedules to journey out for the wedding. Also, some special thanks to Phil Jones our enthusiastic and wonderful volunteer photographer. I am adding some of the photos he sent us below.