Review of Peanut Butter and Dragon Wings

The world deserves a chance to right itself, to lumber slowly along in approximately the right direction. The church deserves a chance to find out what happens when I am not the first name on every sign up sheet. . .My child deserves a chance to experience disappointment, failure, inadequacy, mild fear and danger, because that is how growth happens.

In a world where God, the faithful Father, is so slow to jump in and miraculously intervene (unless there is a whistle he responds to that I haven’t found yet – always a possibility), why am I so sure that good parenting, good living, involves instantaneous response? Part of his genius is his patience. I am always with you. But I do not often step in to fix and rescue what you can figure out – or learn from.

--Shari Zook

I really like and appreciate Shari Zook. You might want to know this before I review her new book, Peanut Butter and Dragon Wings. Friendship bias colors my view, as well as feeling like I’ve known her forever since I knew her parents and grandparents. She and I have communicated a lot, but the only time I recall a serious heart-to-heart in person was when we grabbed a blessed opportunity during a session at a writers’ conference at Christian Light Publications when neither of us was speaking.

Sometimes I think we are afraid, at worst, or at least uncomfortable, with honesty and excellence. By “we” I mean Mennonites, Christians, and other groups as well, like Minnesotans, which Shari and I both are, sort of.

Brutal personal honesty makes us uneasy. We don’t want anything to be that bad. Maybe if you don’t say it, it won’t be true. We want the rules to work. Behave yourself, do your best. It’ll all come out in the wash.  

How quickly the expression of blinding grief, overwhelming exhaustion, or maddening irritation is shushed with words meant to make it all better, as quickly as possible.

“He’s in a better place.” “This too shall pass.” “You just need to love them like Jesus does.”

 He bites his brother through the skin and throws apple slices and knocks books off shelves and flashes the darlingest blue-eyed smiles. He writes in crayon on my kitchen door, and in permanent marker on our library books and our carpet, in long lavish streaks. He drizzles breakfast syrup over everything in my dining room, and runs to me for snuggles. He grabs knives and strips leaves off African violets and pushes over floor lamps and drops his father’s technological devices down the toilet.

He isn’t even two years old yet 

We are not comfortable with shocking words hanging in the air like the smell of burnt eggs. We are even less comfortable with what the honest words mean—this person before us is feeling such wild and untamed feelings, such despair and grief, right now, even as we speak.

There there. You don’t really mean that. Get some rest. Please.

If we can’t hear the truth from others, we certainly can’t face it in our own lives or wrestle fully with things not being at all what they ought to be.

I think we are also, many of us, uncomfortable with excellence. Average is manageable. I fit in when nothing I do is too outstanding. I can handle you if you’re not too amazing. Please be a person who won’t make me feel inadequate.

Sometimes we sense our own potential and giftings, and we find them downright scary. How is this possible, this music that burns inside, these words, this passion for numbers? Unless we find encouragement from people who aren’t afraid of us, we often retreat to the safety of average, closing the door and hiding the gift.

Shari Zook is not afraid of honesty or excellence. Or, if she is, we don’t see it, as she steps forward steadily, leaning into the storm. She examines the truths of her own life under bright lights and shares them with us in their full color. Her writing is not cute, trendy, or aimed at the lowest common denominator. It is excellent.

When you look around, you see the smiling Others whose lives seem to work – their bodies, their faces, their families. They seem to skip over the hard bits, or laugh them off, or overcome them. They seem so on top of things, and in the darkness you wonder why you are the odd one out.

I was sent a pdf copy of Shari’s new book, Peanut Butter and Dragon Wings, a few months ago. I skimmed through it, then sent a summary blurb as requested, which appears on the back cover. Now, I’m reading it more slowly, once again gasping or wincing by turns, nodding my head yes or shaking it NO-nonono please say it ain’t so, crying and laughing, because even in the middle of overwhelm and hopelessness, she is hilarious.

A few years ago we vowed sickness and health

But what that entailed I couldn’t have shown ya

The germs staged a coup and attacked us by stealth

The year I had bronchitis and he had pneumonia.

This poem continues on. Then there's this, in the introduction:

 I’m a wife and mother and foster parent and pastor’s wife and firefighter’s wife. (Don’t worry, that’s all the same man. One husband is plenty.)

At the conference I mentioned, Shari taught a class on story writing, since many of us wrote or hoped to write for CLP’s Sunday school take-home papers. “Maybe not every story has to have a happy ending, with everything resolved,” she suggested. “After all, does everything resolve nicely in real life?”

That’s a pretty wild suggestion for us Mennonite writers who like to convince the next generation that everything will turn out ok if Sam and Debbie tell the truth about the broken geranium, even when we know that tidy endings and smooth turn-outs are far less common in real life than in Sunday school stories.

Shari carries that same attitude into her blog and especially into her book. Truth trumps tidy endings. Process beats product.

We call it empathy. You can’t buy it cheaply in the shops where it’s sold. It is the mingling place where  hurting meets healing, which enables us to handle more hurting, which enables us to share more healing. When once I have been wrenched open, I am less frightened of the cracks of others. I am more resilient, more forgiving. Out of my shattered parenting-idolatry grows a passion to love. 

Shari weighs every word in her hands before typing it out, arranging the sentences like threads forming a fine lace. Her style is an intriguing mix of vivid, shattering details and things left unspoken. She trusts that we are big enough to figure it out, fill in the blanks, and understand.

I was tempted to copy and paste the entire book, because I find it difficult to summarize in one post. Essentially, Shari tells us she’s a wife and mom who appears really good and does many things really well.  Then the storms break, the cracks appear deep inside, and the slow shattering begins.

When the snowplows get through, we host the church’s small group at our house and I make a snack. I am always making food, and it is never filling me.

It gets really bad. It hurts to watch. We wince and gasp.  No no no. Please, no.

Our simple answers are not going to be enough.

How, having lived through such brokenness, is she able to relive and analyze the long journey toward God and wholeness, and the means of grace along the way, putting them into concise words and chapters? But she does, with such skill that it both scares and invites us.

One spring day I sit under trees in a park, the new-blown leaves an indescribable shade of light. I lay back against the trunk, my shoulders on the moss, and I look up into a depth I cannot imagine. Rocked in the bosom of Abraham – this is what they always meant. After a time I sit up and try to journal what I feel, but immediately I lose the sweet sense of presence. I put down my book and pen and lie down, and I come. I am alone in the arms of the Father, and nothing matters but his eyes. There is a roaring in the Treetops.

You want to read this book. Order it on Amazon.

 

How the Dahlia Addiction Began

I’ve heard of exponential growth for many years, and studied it in school, but right now I’m really starting to understand it.

Two years ago, I impulsively bought a few dahlia tubers from Rachel Doutrich, the local flower expert, when she offered them for sale in a facebook group. I also got a few from my friend Pat in Springfield whose husband is another flower expert and has turned their backyard into an Italian courtyard that is a joy to behold during our writers' meetings.

I planted them all in the flower bed along the south side of the house. They grew and flourished, blooming profusely well into late summer. I fell in love with them. Dahlias are so lush, symmetrical, and resilient. They make beautiful bouquets, and the more you cut them, the more they bloom. I was hooked.

The last plant started blooming in September, when I was in Minnesota taking care of my dad. Amy sent me a picture. It gave me hope.

Rachel said to dig up the roots after the first frost. I did so, and found that each potato-like tuber I planted had morphed into a nest of tubers—at least ten per plant, like an oversized hand with gnarled fingers. A YouTube video taught me how to cut them apart and store them in bins of peat moss. Each one would make a whole new plant in the spring. I felt like I’d discovered a source of multiplying treasures.

In spring, when the first shoots were snaking out of the bins in the cold back pantry, I had our neighbor, Darrell, plow up the area where Amy had had a straw bale garden the year before. The soil was crumbly and moist and perfect. There I carefully planted about 35 tubers, and almost every one grew. 

The crucial thing with dahlias is separating the tubers carefully so each one has a viable node on the neck that will sprout in the spring. If it doesn’t have that node, it’s worthless, even though it might be nice and fat and smooth.

I find that recognizing those nodes is like figuring out what gender a little kitty is. I can examine closely, compare it with pictures online, even feel with my thumb for lumps, and still not be quite sure. Is there actually something there, or am I just imagining things? I pick it up again, hold it up to the light, and put on my bifocals. And I’m still not certain.

So I had lots of tubers last year that were in that not-quite-sure category. What if I tossed them on the compost pile and they turned out to be viable? That would be awful—a beautiful potential dahlia plant, wasted.

So I put all the not-sures in pots, and a surprising number sprouted.

I carefully planted and watered and babied them all.

You have to realize here that not only have I come to love dahlias, I am also a Yoder by birth and training. Our particular thread of Yoders loves free things, and we go absolutely crazy about free things that increase in number. Also, we feel sorry for any object that other people might throw away.

The dahlia-tuber situation slotted into my Yoder traits like the perfect tiny gears in a fine watch, or, to be honest, like molecules of an opioid into the hungry cells of an addict. One tuber growing not only into a beautiful plant with dozens of flowers, but also into a massive chunk of tubers that would fill a whole flower bed the next spring! This was heady, breathtaking, addicting!

Last fall, after the first frost, I cut the brown stalks, many of them the size of small tree trunks, and I began to dig. The fertile soil had grown massive clumps of tubers that took all my strength to heave out of the ground. I hosed off the mud and lined them up on the grass.

I used a small chain saw to cut the stalks.
They were that big.

The weather was cold and wet, and my fingers grew numb from the spray from the hose. The clumps accumulated into a shocking and delightful harvest.

The online experts said I can wait until spring to cut them apart. Wonderful. Steven bought me two 50-pound bags of peat moss. I buried the enormous clumps in peat moss in big Rubbermaid tubs and stored them in the chicken shed, where they rested in peace all winter long.

A few weeks ago, Rachel told me it’s warm enough to start planting. I opened the totes in the shed. A forest of shocking pale shoots greeted me, desperately rising above the peat moss, seeking light and air.

I felt so sorry for them.

Matt hauled the tubs to the porch. I got a good pair of plant snips and a sharp knife. I began to pull clumps out of the dirt, ripping apart the masses of roots that had grown all around, then examining, cutting, and sorting.

I had dahlia tubers everywhere. I filled baskets, ice cream buckets, and plastic organizers.

These were for sure sprouting, these were definitely infertile, and these others were as ambiguous as a small kitten's backside.

Darrell came by and tilled up a big patch of ground. Filled with joy, I planted 114 dahlias.

It hardly made a dent: I had hundreds left over, and at that point I realized I might be in a little over my head, that this blessing was going to keep multiplying, and it might completely take over my life. 

I told my kids how this project had expanded in only two years, and Ben calculated that they were increasing by a factor of 3.5, and if I stayed on this path, in five years I’d have 10,000 plants, and in ten years I’d have 3 million.

But I am a Yoder. Nothing must be wasted.

Amy decided to have a garage sale, since she’s moving to Thailand soon. Hey! Maybe I could sell some tubers there!

I didn’t realize until I was at least a year into this venture that dahlia people are all about specific names of different species. “Foxy Lady” and “General Sherman” and so on. It seemed a bit pretentious, like people who are into fine wines or fancy dog breeds. I had completely lost track of any specific titles, and all I had managed to document was the colors for maybe a third of my tubers. White. Peach. Purple. The rest had gotten separated from any labels I had tried to tie on. 

So, would people buy them if they didn’t have names? In addition to being frugal, we Yoders are also resourceful. I decided to take a page from my grandma’s book. When she was a teenager, she and her sister Katie picked cherries off their tree and took them to Portland to sell door to door. The housewives all wanted to know what kind they were, and the girls had no idea. Finally Katie and Anna ( my grandma) had a little consultation and decided to say the cherries were Black Pippins. Then they sold them all.

All right then. I made signs. “White Knight.” “Purgundy Pride.” “Peachy Princess.” And so on. On each one, I included a photo of the flower.

A number of tubers sold.

Then who should come by at the end of the sale but Rachel, the expert herself? She looked at my tubers and picked out a few that didn’t have nodes, which was kind of horrifying. I hope no one bought non-viable tubers. And then Rachel looked at my signs.

I waited nervously. Would I get by with this, or not?

“White Knight? But that looks like . . . Wait. Purgundy Pride??” And she started laughing. “Did you just make these up?”

“Yes?” I squeaked.

She laughed some more. Then she told me the actual names of these specimens, since I had originally bought them from her, and I wrote them down. So now I know.

Later, Rachel texted me that she was still laughing.

I still have countless ambiguous roots and dozens of viable, sprouting tubers. Last night I packaged up two big envelopes of them to send to two Yoder family members who had expressed a bit of interest. I realize that with our genes, it’s like giving the first shot of cocaine to a vulnerable victim, but what can I do? The tubers are sprouting, and they can’t go to waste.

Tomorrow I’ll give some to Simone, Darrell’s wife. 

Paul just pointed out to me that there’s an area along the fence that's not shaded where I could plant some more, if I like. He’s a classic enabler. I love that about him.

I am looking forward to endless supplies of gorgeous symmetrical blooms in late summer. I am not going to think about digging up over a hundred clumps of tubers in the fall, or what I will do with them all, or how I will keep myself from having 3,000,000 clumps to dig up, ten years hence.

As Emily says, that’s a problem for future me. Right now, I need to figure out which remaining tubers on the porch actually have nodes and who I can give them to so they can get hooked as well.

In ten or fifteen years, the Willamette Valley should be full of blazing dahlias and addicted gardeners, because that is the magic of exponential growth.

The dahlias bloomed right through the forest fire season.
The smoke seemed to kill off all the bugs.

Ask Aunt Dorcas: Boundaries for a Woman at Work

 Dear Aunt Dorcas,

What are some good guidelines for interacting with men in the workplace? I work for a business where my interactions are primarily male. I enjoy what I do, but at the same time, I think/worry about crossing professional boundaries.

This is in the context of mostly married men. I grew up without a lot of male interactions, so I feel like I’m navigating new territory in some ways. Some ways that I’ve tried to think about this in the past: I try not to say anything that I would not say if his wife was standing right there, especially if we are talking about my personal life.

I am a very outgoing, cheerful person. This seems to add an extra challenge. In turn, people seem to feel safe with me. Just today, I had a conversation one on one and later I wondered if it was okay for him to tell me that.

What about messaging outside of work? Is it okay if its casual? For example, if someone sends me a message like, “You wanna come join us for supper tonight?” or “I appreciate your cheerful personality in the front office.”

Do we cross boundaries if the messages get too personal as in, "I think I miss you when I’m gone," or "I don’t wanna play favorites at work, but girl! You’re pretty awesome!"

Can I ever trust my gut? This feels okay/this doesn’t feel okay? I’m sure that there are things and situations that vary. But seems like there are some pretty standard things to keep in mind. From your repertoire of wisdom, what would you say to me? Where does blessing each other as people come into play? Does Jesus' life in the New Testament give us any insight? He certainly wasn’t afraid of women!

--Katie

 

Dear Katie—

I showed your question to some of my adult children who have more experience in the workplace than I do. Our son Ben said, “Instead of answering her question, you need to clarify the context. I don’t know what she’s asking, which means she probably doesn’t know what she’s asking.”

I’m guessing you’ve been embarrassed, accused, or otherwise burned by personal experiences you can’t share publicly. You are naturally friendly and engaging, but you know that a woman being too friendly with men at work can get complicated and end badly.

Reading between the lines, I think you are a caring person who can be fully trusted.

You know your heart and intentions, but you also know others can only see your actions.

The obvious question is your first one—" What are some good guidelines for interacting with men in the workplace?” But other questions are implied: “Are my words going to be misconstrued? Is my behavior appropriate? If someone thinks I’m flirting, does that automatically mean I am? Am I responsible if someone texts me inappropriately? Where, exactly, is that invisible line that has loads of trouble waiting on the other side?

As a housewife, I can’t answer you as someone who’s been in the work world. However, I can share my experience as a writer, an observer, and a wife and mom of people in the work force.

I meet and hear from both men and women. I’ve had many conversations with male readers, and I accept facebook friend requests and messages from men. My husband is free to read all those messages. I’ve learned to quickly sniff out who is a nice, interested reader as opposed to what my children irreverently call a SOOM—Slightly Obsessed Old Man.

Those are the ones who shake my hand a little too long and gush a little too much at book signings. Or they send a nice message about an article, and then the next message says my husband is such a lucky man. Out you go, Sir.

I also share your trait of being someone that people confide in, which carries its own rewards and dangers. Again, experience has helped me discern what’s ok and what’s not. I’m not able to give needy people lots of my time, unfortunately, and no man gets very far telling me about his troubled marriage.

I created my current boundaries gradually after learning that I can’t be all things to all readers and that certain words give instant clues that a man is a SOOM.

You asked if you can trust your gut. My answer is yes. That’s what I do, but my gut has been informed by long experience, input from others, and a commitment to Jesus and my marriage.

Your dilemma comes from a number of factors, I think.

1.     You’re naturally a bubbly, caring person, and people confide in you.

2.     The rules at work don’t seem to be clearly defined.

3.     You worry that your intentions will be misconstrued and your words taken wrong.

4.     You feel responsible for how you’re perceived and how others respond to you.

5.     Your work life seems to overlap with your life outside of work. For example, an employee invites you over for dinner, and people text you outside of work.

The first boundary to draw here is around your own heart. Only you can know what your motives and intentions are. You can define your goals in your work relationships, evaluate messages and conversations, ask for help, and know if your conscience is clear. You have the power to adjust and change.

Then, I feel you need to consult a source outside of yourself for defining expectations at your workplace. If your boss can’t be troubled with this, talk to friends in similar situations or look up sources online. A list of rules at similar workplaces might clarify things for you.

My kids with jobs out in the big world said that their policy is to not mix work life and personal life at all. However, this can get fuzzy if you’ve gotten to know people so well that conversation is easy and you know about their babies, political views, family crises, and so on. Also, if you go to the same church, or an employee is married to your cousin, a list of rules makes less sense.

Here’s where we hit that strange swamp of intentions and perceptions. You are obviously responsible for your intentions, but are you responsible for how they take your words?

On the one hand, we have the people who like to tease and joke annoyingly and hurtfully. When you finally confront them, they say, “Hey, I was just joshin’ ya. I didn’t mean anything by it!” We don’t care about their intentions. We just want them to take responsibility for how they come across.

But then there’s the guy who sent you the [inappropriate] text that you’re so awesome. If you confront him, I would bet money he’ll insist you flirted that morning by offering him a cup of coffee, and how was he supposed to know you didn’t mean a whole lot of other things by doing that?

You both know your intentions were honorable, and it isn't wrong to offer a cup of coffee. That's what really matters here.

I’m guessing you’re Mennonite, although I don’t know for sure, and I want to insert here that in Mennonite male-female relationships, women have borne far too large a burden for how both men and women interpret their words and actions. A friendly girl who likes to talk to the guys is often accused of flirting. That was the case when I was young, limiting my skills in having normal talks with guys. My youngest daughter informs me that that standard still applies.

At best, this makes for awkward conversations fraught with self-consciousness. At worst, it makes women responsible for men’s sins. Some of us find conversations with non-Mennonite men easier, more comfortable, and less stressful.

So, you need to be aware of the culture you’re in and how you’re coming across, and adjust accordingly, but you can’t change someone’s heart. Someone with an evil heart will interpret anything you do or say through their own lens.

Finally, give yourself grace. Maybe you were needlessly nervous or you shared too freely. You can learn from your mistakes and do it differently next time. You mentioned Jesus and his relationship to women. If your heart is guided by Jesus and accumulated wisdom, you’ll be able to read a situation and respond appropriately. Eventually, you won’t need to rely on a list of rules or on feedback from others. You’ll be the blessing you want to be, both in the workplace and outside of it.

That’s what I think. I wish you all the best.

Aunt Dorcas

PS—I shopped your question around to my kids to get a variety of perspectives. Here are some of those conversations.

JENNY

Our daughter Jenny is about to graduate from college with a degree in mathematics. Originally, her major was engineering, so she’s been in male-dominated classes for years. She’s also done lots of formal and informal tutoring. When she and Amy were both at Linn-Benton Community College, Amy said she’d sometimes walk across campus and see a picnic table full of nerdy engineering majors, with Jenny teaching them how to do their physics homework.

“So,” I asked her, “How did you navigate good boundaries in this setting?”

She said, “One benefit I had is that none of the guys felt like options. Me being ‘religious’ and them being non-religious created a barrier. I’d never talk about personal stuff or crushes like I would with girls.”

“I didn’t agonize about if the stuff they told me was too personal. What they tell me isn’t my problem unless it’s something I’d rather not know, then I’d let them know I was uncomfortable.”

“I often ended up in an informal tutoring role. We’d work on homework together. Often I’d figure things out and explain them to everyone else. Apparently I was notorious for not just giving out the answer. My friend Brian was talking to another friend about me and said, ‘Yeah, you can ask Jenny for help, but she’ll still make you work for it.’”

“There were a couple of times I felt uncomfortable with how close they seemed to feel to me. I never felt like it was my fault. I just tried to avoid them for a while, not in a rude way, but just intentionally not being where I knew they’d be.”

I asked, “Do you feel like Mennonite culture makes heavy weather of girls talking to guys?”

Jenny said, “When I talk to a Mennonite guy, there’s this thing in the back of my mind—ooooh are you being flirtatious?? I even make the same judgment about other Mennonite girls when they like to talk to guys.”

“Overall, it’s fine to be friends with guys and talk about things, but don’t get emotionally invested, and the deepest matters of the heart you should discuss with close female friends.”

BEN

Ben is a grad student studying combustion at Oregon State University. I asked him about relating to women at work/school.

“There’s not that many women in my field. I guess there’s one woman in my lab. I don’t get that personal with the people I work with. Some of them do stuff together outside of work, but I have more outside friends so I don’t as much.”

I asked, “Did female students make you uncomfortable?”

Ben said, “No. We’d mostly talk about school related stuff, maybe have a discussion on how we all solved #5.”

PHOEBE and MATT:

Matt is our oldest son. He used to work for the Navy and now works for NASA. Phoebe is our daughter-in-law and has worked in a variety of settings, including jobs in Washington, DC. They focused more on situations that make you uncomfortable. Phoebe emailed the following:

A lot of the boundaries one might set in the workplace have to do with personal comfort levels, not absolute right and wrong. Personally, I’ve leaned toward sharing minimal personal information at work. I can say, “ I’m not comfortable sharing that.” Or “I don’t share that kind of information at work.” I can also change the subject. That goes for men and women.

It’s difficult to set hard and fast rules. To me, it seems like quantity and frequency of information shared might matter more than content.

There are also professional, rather than moral factors to consider. Depending on her role in her workplace, chatting about personal things (like weekend plans, kids, pets, etc) with coworkers/clients could be seen as appropriate or even as relationship-building. In others it might seem distracting and irrelevant.

I think phrases like:

“Wow! That sounds so difficult.” “It seems like you’re handling that well.” “Thank you for helping me with X.” can be used safely with pretty much anyone. But if someone is complaining or venting, some phrases I’ve found helpful are:

“Well, I should get back to working on X.”

“Have you mentioned that to (the person they’re complaining about)?”

“Well, I’m on my way to the (printer, restroom, etc.). See you later.”

Monotone “Hmm” and “Oh” are also good conversation-enders.

If you’re comfortable being more direct and it’s an ongoing situation, you might try: “I’m uncomfortable with the amount of time we’re spending talking about X.”

Or “Let’s not talk about this.”

If she feels uncomfortable with something someone else is saying/doing she should feel free to trust herself and bring her concerns to the attention of the person, or someone who supervises them (or her). If the other person has good intentions, they will want to act in a way that makes her comfortable.

Matt points out here that people being creepy will usually do so in a plausibly deniable way.

“Oh, I didn’t mean it like that.”

“It was just a compliment.”

“You’re taking it the wrong way.”

“I’m just being friendly.”

If you feel uncomfortable, it’s ok not to believe the person and to report, avoid, or distance from them even if they claim good intentions.

It is also ok to make rules like, “I don’t share my personal phone number at work.” Or “I don’t privately message coworkers/clients about non-work information.” And it is ok for these rules to apply to some people and not others.

I had a conversation about this with Matt and took down the following thoughts of his (since he’s driving).

Matt recommends that the writer think about how she would act toward a man in her workplace that she likes. Does she treat him in a way/talk to him in a way/let him talk to her in ways that feel ok because he’s attractive, but wouldn’t otherwise? That could give other guys in the office ideas about what is ok/not ok with her.

Matt also thinks it’s important for women to understand that men have an almost innate desire for attention from an attractive woman. If you suspect he is unconsciously seeking attention, do not respond in kind. If you receive a long heartfelt message about how much he misses you when you’re not at work, your maximum response should be, “Thanks.” Assume he’s a SOOM.

In Matt’s observation, men who have healthy relationships with their wives are less likely to interact inappropriately with other women. If he is complaining about or “joking” about his wife publicly, or in private messages, that is a major red flag.

Your boss, if he is a man, may not be very sympathetic to a report that another man is behaving inappropriately toward you. Your experience is so far from anything he’s experienced that it might be very difficult for him to understand and sympathize. Even if he is well-intentioned, he may not intervene in the way you’d hope for because he has no concept of how the situation feels to you or is affecting you.

If you bring it up and that is the case, you might consider whether you can bring the situation up with (depending on the workplace structure) his wife, or another woman who can help get through to him.

Aunt Dorcas has four children with degrees from Oregon State University.
The fifth, Jenny, graduates in a few weeks.
Here she poses with Emily in 2017.

Ask Aunt Dorcas--The Pushy Woman

Dear Aunt Dorcas,

What advice would you give for this situation?

Recently we bought a home and my husband remodeled it. It’s a beautiful house, and we love to open our home to people. We are always hosting and we enjoy it very much.

However, there are certain people from our church that seem to want to be invited just to see the house so they can later talk about it. When we are around these people they talk a lot about how much people's cars or houses cost, and whether women are good housekeepers or not, and how they keep up the outside.

They have been finding excuses to stop by the house, so my husband goes out to the car to talk to them. But they are very pushy and they'll be in the house before we know it. I just don't know how long we can avoid them.

It’s mostly one woman I'll call Mary (a widow) and her son and two daughters who are in their 20s and living at home.

Soon after we moved here, we were driving home from a funeral and someone followed us all the way. We drove in our driveway and so did the car behind us. It turned out to be Mary. She wanted to see where we were living.

Since then she's been dropping off different items for my husband to fix. He does construction so she brings things like broken flower boxes or kitchen chairs. Or she says she wants advice for how to redo her kitchen or what kind of wood she needs for raised beds.

When my husband says he doesn't have time to repair stuff she pushes it on him anyway. She will call and ask, where are you? I need to bring you something. She even asked her son to call him on Christmas Eve asking if he could fix a crack in her enamel roaster!

I feel like she is controlling my husband. He has many times tried to politely decline but was pushed into it anyway. 

My husband knows how much I don't like it. We have talked a lot about it, but we don't know what to do about it. We have a very communicative relationship and happy marriage.

My husband has wondered if she was a burden we had to bear and we need to learn to be humble and kind to her. He is a very humble man and she knows it.

She has a number of grown children. The ones at home are just as nosy as she is but her son from out of the area told us one time he doesn’t want us to invite them in or do things for them. But she STILL pushed my husband into coming over and spraying out the ditches by their place last fall.

Sorry this is so long. I mainly wanted advice about having them in my home. I want to be loving, kind, and hospitable. Do I humble myself and invite them or do I protect myself and my home from more pain and gossip? 

How do I respond to nosy people when they ask to see my home? 

--Wendy

 

Dear Wendy—

I think this is essentially a boundary problem.

Some of us bristle at that word, assuming that setting boundaries is the same as fighting for our rights rather than being unselfish and giving. 

That’s not what it means, and I’ll try to explain. I was introduced to these ideas by Henry Cloud and John Townsend’s books. I’m sure I won’t explain their concepts adequately so I encourage you to read Boundaries for yourself.

When God made humans, it was important to Him that they make choices. He wanted us to freely choose to love and serve Him. He gave each of us jurisdiction over certain things. We own them, make decisions about them, and have responsibility for them.

These things include our:

Bodies

Possessions

Time

Homes

Emotions

Affections

Choices

Responses

Consequences

And, most of all, our hearts. God wants our faith and love to be freely given. He does not force or coerce us.

Others are responsible for their own bodies, possessions, etc. They are not responsible for yours, nor you for theirs.

There are lines, or boundaries, around each of these things. Many of them are related to privacy and identity. You get to say yes or no in each of these areas.

If someone crosses a line without your permission, your feelings naturally range from annoyance to resentment to shock to utter devastation. 

If you feel that you don’t have the liberty to say “No,” then your “Yes,” will come with resentment. For example, we’ve all had the enthusiastic friend who talks us into teaching Vacation Bible School or baking 25 dozen cookies for the bake sale when we’re suffering from chronic fatigue and struggling to keep up at home.

So we take on the assignment out of guilt, but we resent every minute we spend on it. It was not a freely given Yes because we didn’t feel that saying No was an option. We unwisely let someone else decide how to spend our time and energy.

If we were sinned against and are struggling to forgive, and we admit this in a Bible study group, and then get pressured into saying we forgive them, our boundaries are trampled. God wants forgiveness to be freely given from your heart. It should be your decision, between you and God. Others can support you, but the forgiveness isn't their decision.

Did you ever invite a guest for a meal and then they wandered upstairs uninvited? It feels bad because they’re crossing privacy boundaries in your house. You might feel the same way if someone tells you that you shouldn’t feel what you’re feeling. You own those feelings, and it isn’t their responsibility to make you feel something different.

If you’ve ever had someone peeking in your windows at night or breaking into your house, you know the awful feeling of violation that comes with it. Your house is your safe, private place. Someone crossed those ownership lines without your permission.

Probably the most devastating example is when physical and sexual boundaries are violated, and someone exposes and uses your body by force or manipulation. Even “small” violations are shocking and horrible, like a strange man putting his arm around you and saying something sleazy.

In contrast, your husband was invited to be intimate with you because of his love and commitment. It was your choice to say Yes and share your body with him. If he puts his arm around you, it is a safe and positive experience. He belongs there.

The New Testament has lots of commands to be unselfish, sacrificial, and giving. It can feel like those commands take away our choices, and we are powerless against people taking advantage of us.

My impression is that your husband is in this category, a nice, humble Christian man who sees this situation as a burden to bear, giving him no real options.

I feel those commands, such as the one to also give up your cloak if your coat is taken, recognize that you have jurisdiction over your possessions. It matters to you because it was yours. It was wrong for the other person to take it.

However, if something is taken by force, maybe giving something extra actually returns some power to you. You are not a helpless victim. You can still make choices.

I don’t feel that these commands of Christ mean that no matter what anyone else tells you to do or give, you have to do it. 

Maybe you’re someone who feels that no matter what someone—especially family or church—tells you to do, that is the will of God for you. If so, you’re going to be yanked around like a ship on the high seas, driven of the wind and tossed, because you’re going to get conflicting and opposite instruction for just about every decision you ever make.

Many people don’t understand what is their business and what isn’t. It’s amazing how many people want to make decisions for you, even if you’re a functioning adult, and feel they have the right to dictate your life. You need to be clear before God about His calling to you. It probably won't look like other people think it should.

So many life lessons can be learned from Pride and Prejudice. Our example this time is that queen of boundary crossing, Lady Catherine de Bourgh. She commands Lizzy to send word to her parents and stay for two more weeks, and then to be sure to take the Bromley post to get home. Lizzy, being wise and healthy, mostly ignores her. However, Lady Catherine also tells Maria Lucas the right and only way to pack gowns in a trunk, and Maria goes into a complete tizzy, repacking all her gowns before they leave in the morning. Lizzy whispers, “Lady Catherine will never know!” and poor Maria is all confused, feeling that whatever Lady Catherine says, you have to do, even if it’s none of her business.

Unfortunately, it's never easy to push back against these line-crossers. It's awkward, embarrassing, and difficult. Often, it's much easier in the short term to give in to the Lady Catherines, because they are so intimidating. Usually, they know very well how much you want to be nice, and they take advantage of that. Your energetic bake-saling friend knows very well how hard it is for you to say no. The neighbor making inappropriate jokes knows you hate to make a fuss. And Mary knows that stopping her will take more strength than you and your husband have had so far, plus probably a big scene besides, which you desperately want to avoid.

Ultimately, your decisions are God’s gift to you--your little kingdom, so to speak. Work, marriage, college, what to plant north of the house, and who should or shouldn't be a guest in your home. You can get insights, but God wants you to rule wisely in your little jurisdiction and learn from the consequences of your choices, because those are also yours to own.

You and your husband own money and possessions. God has given you the responsibility for what you own. You get to decide. God would like you to tithe, take care of your family, lend freely, help others in the church, help the poor, and so on, but He wants your decisions to come freely from a heart of faith, trust, and responsibility. No one else can tell you exactly how those numbers ought to come out. He doesn’t want your giving to be coerced.

That brings us, at last, back to your specific situation, Ms. Wendy.

The boundaries of your home are being violated, or you feel they soon will be. Your home should be your safe place, where you get to decide when to open the door, and to whom. You are quite sure that Mary and her family will find a way inside against your wishes. It brings you anxiety, dread, and a sense of violation.

Your husband should be protecting you, just as he should protect you from the violation of a neighbor peeking in your bedroom window or a stranger stroking your back and making sleazy comments. I would suggest discussing it with him in these terms, because the resulting emotions are similar to what you're feeling now.

You are also acutely aware that your husband is being pressured and guilted into helping this woman. She is deciding for him how he spends his time, and he continues to spray ditches even against the wishes of her one son. He will likely soon bring them into the house. He apparently doesn’t see that her behavior is completely bizarre, unhealthy, and creepy.

Here is the tough thing about boundaries: your husband has to decide for himself how he will spend his time and how much he will let these people dictate his choices.

You cannot decide for him. He is the only one with that power.

Thankfully, you are not powerless. You are able to communicate with your husband and explain how you feel. You can pray hard, as I’m sure you already have.

You can do the coat and cloak thing, if you wish, deciding to invite them in and not only serve them a meal but take them all around the house, opening closets and medicine cupboards.

You can set boundaries. If you don’t feel they should come into your home, then decide what will happen if they do. Explain this to your husband, so it’s clear.

And you can ask for help. I feel your marriage could use a good session with a counselor to explore why your husband prioritizes pacifying Mary over protecting you. Also, how he can get the support to say no to such inappropriate requests from such a pushy person. You also need to learn how to be united in addressing this problem. A counselor can help you see just how messed up the situation is. You are not imagining things or over-reacting.

The non-crazy son should be consulted, I think. Maybe he can push for a mental health evaluation. Mary's pastor, which is also yours, should be informed and asked for assistance. Consider talking to law enforcement. Getting a restraining order is completely outside the pale for Mennonites, but I feel this woman’s behavior is sliding toward criminal and/or insane if she is obsessed enough to follow people home from a funeral.

Even though I’m happy to dish out my perspective and advice, this is yours to live and deal with. You own it--an unwelcome gift I’m sure. If you do nothing, which may be easier in the moment, that is your decision, and there will be consequences. If you do something, which could become really ugly in the short term, there will also be consequences.

You have what it takes to figure it out, and I wish you much wisdom.

That’s what I think.

Aunt Dorcas

Aunt Dorcas enjoying an iced coffee in San Diego.

The Bathroom Remodel--Part 3--The Results

 I am not naturally gifted in decorating, nor am I good at making decisions. Remodeling involves a terrifying number of decisions, all of which involve the outlay of dollars and the installation of fixtures difficult to change or replace.

I figured midtones in neutral colors were the safest bet, so I was agonizing over paint and vinyl colors. Did medium gray go with medium taupe and tan?

Finally my daughters got involved. Amy told me I want either really dark or really light, not midtones. And she was right. That's what I wanted. It was so nice to have someone inform me.

That made the decisions easy. Light marble countertop. Dark fixtures. A combination for the floor.

We really like the results.

The flooring is vinyl with the look of tile. I don't like the cold feel of tile underfoot, plus the weight of it would make me nervous about accelerating the rate of the bathroom falling off the rest of the house, no matter how much the carpenters in my life assure me that won't happen.

We planned to make a tiled shower area and set a clawfoot tub inside. That way if we ever needed a handicapped shower, it would be relatively easy to switch. However, we've enjoyed that walk-in shower so much that I don't know if we'll ever install the tub we bought.

Pretty sure the real decorators remember to close the toilet seat before they shoot pictures.
This was after the tile was in but before the floor was finished.

We kept the mirror but added a frame.

Choosing a shower curtain used up a lot more mental energy than the decision deserved. One day I washed all my veils and Emily told me she heard that short, lacy, black shower curtains are really in style now.

I thought this shower curtain coordinated well with the dark/light look.

I chose dark bronzed fixtures. 

Paul got a can of spray paint and painted all the fixtures like light switch plates and registers.

Great-grandma Anna would be proud of this ceiling, I think.

We are happy with our new bathroom and hope it lasts until our children or maybe grandchildren decide to remodel someday.

No, we aren't 100% finished.
But the bathroom is functional and we can finish these things when we're ready.