Not Daniel

I am trying and trying to write a super-meaningful Jesus post because that always seems like a good idea, and probably what with the internet and all, we're going to be Googled by the Lord to get into heaven and I'd kind of like to have something decent to point to, you know? I may have had a dark, judgey heart, but look how I thought about You all the time! See? I wrote about all kinds of Bible verses!

But I don't have anything to say about today's reading in Daniel (Daniel! Have you read that? oh my word. Chapter 12 in the book of Daniel leaves me wondering what the difference is between the Bible and the Book of Mormon. Holy Jeez, the stuff we keep in our pile. Fingers crossed, Jesus doesn't read this part I guess...).

Instead, I want to write about how this week, three different people in my life confessed that they are poor. Poorer than they've ever been. And how that made me feel less alone. About how I thought we'd always be tracking up ye olde socio-economic ladder, but how it feels like we're just sliding all the way down a chute instead. About how sliding backwards in one part of life ends up making me feel like my whole life is sliding backwards. Even though it's not. I want to write about how much I hate giving money the time of day, but how money still ends up being in the mix of every conversation I have with myself.  About how I can't dream about marriage or family or work or play or God without money sneaking up behind me and giggling in my ear, mocking those dreams. I want to write to the bottom of that.

I want to write about marriage, about how I want to put up posters everywhere, "LOVE YOUR HUSBAND!" because I am seeing over and over again women being terrible wives. And about how I feel like I can't say anything to anyone because a) speck of dust/log in eye and b) it's somehow not okay for women to tell other women what to do and c) marriage isn't all that cool anymore, is it? I want to write about how it *is* important though, about how women are being idiots, doing it all and leaving nothing for their partner to do that has meaning that isn't criticized because women are certain they can do it better. And by women, of course I include me, but jiminy cricket, I wonder what women are doing to leave their spouses feeling loved and worthy because I *know* this is important and I suck at it and most of my closest people know it's important and they're only a little better at it than I am.  When did we all get so mean?

I want to write about parenting, and about how I keep catching myself saying, Well just as long as they're kind/polite/responsible/generous/(insert other reasonable hope for possible outcome), that will be enough. And then about how I realize that probably the secret to happy parenting is letting go of even that just one thing because even that isn't a sure thing. And then about how tricky it is to balance hope for who these small people may turn out to be against the radical acceptance of who they currently are.

That's what I want to write about.