Swing low, sweet cheerio...

I've been thinking about how much of life is about misperception, about how things aren't always what they seem.

I guess there are lots of illustrations that I could give--how, for example, a part-time contract doesn't mean you actually work part-time (apparently). Or how paying a gazillion dollars to build a house doesn't mean that your well pump always works (we have no water today.)

But the thing that stands out in my mind really has to do with church--which I don't generally write about. Two weeks ago, I told my Sunday School class (in the middle of a long, long political discussion during which I was mostly fuming) that I was a registered Democrat and planned to vote for Obama. All I wanted to do was to curb the whole "he's really a Muslim, he's for a one-world-order, he's the fourth horseman of the Apocalypse" type talk that was going on. I mean, really. But after I lobbed that verbal grenade into the conversation, you could have heard a pin drop. It's like I stood up and said "I'm a Democrat, a card-carrying member of Satan's entourage. My goal in life is to make sure every American woman has an abortion. Preferably two."

Soon after, the class dismissed, and I was absolutely certain that everyone in the class now thought that I was a) crazy b) possibly demon-possessed, or c) both.


Now, keep in mind that we now live in a very conservative area. I know this. If North Carolina is a red state, Lincoln county is, like, infrared. And I value that fact, in many ways, insofar as conservativism has something to do with individual rights (although obviously the two are not identical). I mean, I get po'd at the guy who flies his rebel flag at the end of my driveway, but by golly, I support his right to do it. Still, I really regretted saying anything--I mean, we're new to the area, and since I've worked from home all this time, it's hard for me to get to know people. Should I have stayed in the closet?

I was really dragging my feet about going back to Sunday School this week. I felt sure that everyone was going to avoid me, or at least treat everything I said with complete suspicion. But see, this is where misperception enters in.

When I got there, everyone was really gracious and loving. That's not to say that they don't think I'm a) crazy b) possibly demon-possessed, or c) both. Possibly the kindness they showed was the sort given to very feeble-minded senile people, who simply aren't responsible for their actions. But in any case, I appreciated the fact that they are loving the sinner, if not the sin. And who knows--maybe there are other closet Democrats in there?

As Ginny's version of the song goes,

Swing low, sweet cheerio,
come in the fort to carry me bone...

Or as she sings at other times,

Jesus loves me this I know,
for the Bible tells me so,
little ones can be long...

We can be long, and we can be wrong. But He loves us anyway. And, apparently, at least some of his children follow His lead. We're trying, anyway. ;^)

Having it all...and then some

So these past two weeks, I've been doing the part-time contract at work, although really I've been working full time, trying to finish up a couple of reports that were part of my original contract. But by the end of the month, I'll be at home with Dan, and will hopefully be able to work out a part-time slot at Ginny's daycare, so she'll have the best of both worlds. Anyhow, the gradual slow-down with my work (I mean, the idealized future slow-down, as it hasn't happened yet) begs the time-honored question: can anyone truly have it all?

I know it's a hackneyed topic, but this question is something that people, and perhaps women especially, really wrestle with. Case in point: my dear friend Ashley is looking for a job (this is the rock star girl, the really young Ph.D). She wants something that will fulfill her academic potential, but will also be flexible when she gets around to starting a family. Not actually an easy task. Academia, and even your average College of Education (the context she and I are most familiar with), is still somewhat hostile to women with families. Of course, there are very successful moms working in these places, but getting and KEEPING a tenure-track job is tough, and when you have to take time off for maternity leave, etc, it can be difficult to keep up with your male peers.

My situation is a little different, as I've always had a non-tenure track job with the university. Still, I know I'm nowhere near as productive as I was BC (before children). Does this mean that my male colleagues are superior employees? No, actually--most of them have some sort of personality disorder, or are pretty good at pushing their work off onto their lower-ranking female colleagues, which keeps us treading water career-wise, in perpetuity.

But I don't mean to be negative. The question of 'having it all' is more of an existantial problem. We are finite beings--we cannot occupy more than one space at a time. Yet, paradoxically, we occupy the past, present, and future, all at once. We have ambitions that outpace our abilities; our reach always exceeds our grasp. Yet, we still feel that more is more. It's part of the human condition.

So maybe we can't ever have it all. Maybe it's just not possible, or even desirable, when you get right down to it. But maybe the point is to die trying.