Advent | Prince of Peace, King of Kings

Ursula Crawford December 19, 2021

I need to confess something and I hope you’ll keep reading even if your opinion differs: I strongly dislike football. I do, American football that is. Soccer, aka football-to-the-rest-of-the-world, is okay. I have tried to watch football many times, but it turns out I’m not interested enough to learn the rules. If I’m going to watch men dance around in tights, my preference would be ballet. It’s very boring to me, and the games are so long. And why is it called football when the ball is rarely kicked?

If you do like football, would you still consider being my friend?

What if we weren’t talking about football at all, but about public health policy or (insert political issue here)?

The circumstances surrounding the pandemic and our current political climate have been challenging and divisive. We’re exhausted. Our relationships have been strained and some of them have not survived this season. I’ve heard the pandemic referred to as “the relationship accelerator,” because it led many new couples towards marriage and some long-term couples towards divorce.

This season has also led me to re-examine and question my relationship to American Christianity. Christians have been a significant contributor to the divisive environment we find ourselves in today, and I am very saddened by this.

If you, like me, are disturbed by the divisiveness we’re seeing now in our culture and the Church, perhaps the solution can be found by going back to the basics of our faith.

Isaiah 9:6
“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given. And the government shall rest on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

During the season of Advent, we remember the miracle of Christmas: that God loved us enough to come and dwell among us in the form of baby Jesus all those many years ago. He was and is and always will be, the Prince of Peace.

If we seek to follow the way of Jesus, this Prince of Peace, what should that mean for us? In the book of Matthew, Jesus says, “Every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit…by their fruit you will recognize them.” (Matthew 7:17, 20)

Later in the New Testament, Paul revisits and expounds the metaphor of fruit, when he writes, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” (Galatians 5:22)

I believe Jesus would caution all of us from pointing fingers at other believers who we perceive as part of the problem, without first examining our own hearts and (in)actions. How have our own actions demonstrated the fruit of the Spirit in our lives, or not? What about the large and small ways that we’ve chosen not to act? Have you ever wanted to tell someone that their joke or comment was inappropriate, but lacked the courage to do so? How well have you loved your neighbor?

To follow the Prince of Peace means to follow the path of love and to turn the other cheek when we are insulted. And yet, I do not believe that the call to follow Jesus is a call to become a doormat, to let others walk over and take advantage of our kindness.

Bringing peace necessitates restoring broken relationships. I believe that broken relationships can only be restored when we stand up for truth and justice, and people are held accountable for their actions. Following Jesus and working to bring peace through restored relationships and accountability is a difficult and scary process. It takes strength and courage. Perhaps that’s why C.S. Lewis chose to depict Christ as a lion in the Chronicles of Narnia.

“‘Aslan is a lion — the lion, the great lion.’

‘Ooh,’ said Susan. ‘I’d thought he was a man. Is he quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.’

‘Safe?’ Said Mr. Beaver. ‘Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the king, I tell you.’’

- C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Jesus isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the king, I tell you.

About the Author

You can read more from Ursula at motherbearblog.com.

Cycles | Deciding What to Do with the Time That is Given to Us

Ursula Crawford September 10, 2021

As we’ve lived through the past 18 months of this pandemic, my emotions have cycled through disbelief, panic, despair, anger, and gratitude for the blessings that I do have. This summer, I began to approach a more steady emotional baseline, but that has changed recently as the Delta variant has surged through our community and overwhelmed our health care system. In recent weeks, I’ve found myself more stuck in negative emotions and struggling to feel hopeful.

One morning I was half-heartedly praying for God’s help through this mess, and I felt nudged to consider shifting my focus away from myself. Despair about the pandemic had led me to negative self-talk about my life in general. So, I felt God reminding me that this pandemic is not only a difficult time for me, and that I should shift my focus on finding ways to be an encouragement to others.

With that in mind, I called my friend whose preschool daughter recently tested positive for covid to check in with her and offer my prayers. I spent time helping my son clean his disaster-zone bedroom. I baked zucchini bread for my family and took my dog for a walk.

The times we’re living through are challenging and it’s easy to become discouraged. We may wish that others would make different choices. We may wish we ourselves had made different choices in the past. None of those things are within our control. I’ve been reminding myself that I can only control my own choices, today.

Last winter, I read the Lord of the Rings trilogy aloud to my daughter. Traveling a dangerous path to Mt. Doom felt like a good parallel for life in the pandemic. One scene has stood out to me in particular. Frodo says to Gandalf, “I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish it need not have happened in my time.”

And Gandalf replied, “So do I. And so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to do is decide what to do with the time that is given to us.”

How then, should we respond to the time that is given to us? Should we give in to anger and vitriol over personal freedoms vs. safety? Should we give in to despair and stop even trying? Or should we try to keep moving forward and attempt to live from a place of kindness, respect, and hope?

I hope I will always choose to keep moving forward, even when we’re unsure of the path in front of us, just like Frodo and his friends did in Lord of the Rings.

I’ve read that the pandemic in the U.S. may start fading away in October, as the Delta surge recedes. I’ve also read that the pandemic may not end for several more years. Which is closer to the truth? We don’t know.

It’s so hard to live within this uncertainty. I wonder, how do we keep moving forward when the ground beneath our feet keeps shifting? I’ve run out of answers, yet it seems there must be a way.

We need to be honest and acknowledge the tragedies of the last eighteen months and the challenges we continue to face locally and globally. Let’s give ourselves a break and recognize that many of us may not be able to function at our best right now. Our feelings of grief, anger, denial, and resilience will come in cycles. At the same time, we can draw inspiration from literature, scripture, and history and recognize that humanity is no stranger to dark times. Our ancestors have lived through world wars, natural disasters, smallpox outbreaks, and the bubonic plague. God put us in this time and place for a reason, and will not abandon us now.

Isaiah 43:1-2
“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters I will be with you, and when you pass through the rivers they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. For I am the Lord your God.”

About the Author

You can read more from Ursula at motherbearblog.com.

Resilient | Rebuilding the Broken Things

Ursula Crawford June 18, 2021

Earlier in the pandemic I had a mental image of entering a cocoon, with the hope of emerging transformed into something beautiful at the end. I tried to picture quarantine as an opportunity to rest and let God work deeply. That may have been wishful thinking. Now as the pandemic is slowly lurching towards an end of sorts, I think I am in fact emerging as a more exhausted and broken self. But, I have survived, and maybe that’s enough.

Recent changes -- thanks to the vaccine -- have allowed my life to resume some sort of normalcy and left me feeling more hopeful. My kids have been able to start going to school part-time, which I am immensely grateful for. My daughter joined a swim team. My movie discussion group was finally able to gather in person around my backyard fire pit instead of on Zoom.

I feel like I am rebuilding my life and I sense there is a general need for rebuilding as a society at this time. God invites us to partner in the rebuilding process.

Isaiah 58:12 (NIV)
“Those from among you will rebuild the ancient ruins; you will raise up the age-old foundations; and you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.”

There are several things I’m watching out for during this season of rebuilding.

Acknowledge the losses. Many of us have experienced a range of losses this past year including sickness and death, mental health struggles, broken relationships, and economic impacts. Many children, including my own, may struggle to rebound from the social and academic losses of the past year. As much as we want to quickly put this season behind us, acknowledging the grief that goes along with these losses is a necessary part of the healing and rebuilding process. If you are feeling despair, I want to encourage you that it is not a permanent feeling. You can seek help from a friend or a professional counselor. God wants to redeem this season of grief, “to comfort all who mourn...bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning.” (Isaiah 61:3)
Maintain empathy and compassion. One of the things I’ve been most struggling with is maintaining empathy and compassion for those who have had a different response to the pandemic than I have. This seems to be the case for many folks. We’re in a heightened time of ideological divides, not just as it relates to public health, but also to general political views. It’s so tempting and easy to have anger towards people who are in active opposition to your views. Brené Brown cautions against what she calls “common enemy intimacy.” Having anger towards whoever you view as the out-group, be they anti-maskers, always-maskers, or OSU Beaver fans*, does not help us move forward. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Darkness cannot drive away darkness. Only light can do that. Hate cannot drive away hate; only love can do that.”
Be the change you wish to see. As we rebuild, things will not turn out the same as they would have without the pandemic. This is an opportunity for us to prayerfully consider our goals and work towards achieving them. You might be working toward big or small changes in your life. After a year of so much sameness, one of my goals is to be more open to trying new things. So, recently, I decided to be adventurous and purchase wasabi-soy snack almonds instead of my usual honey roasted flavor. They were surprisingly good! And today I went for a trail run in a new location (it was too hilly for me and I had to walk a lot, but it made me feel a bit closer to an elite athlete). Those are small things, but I’m hoping that the practice of trying new things will lead me to more fun and adventure over the long-term.

Where do you see the need to rebuild in your own life and relationships? What step is God inviting you to take today?

*Just kidding Beaver believers! The author does not endorse any sports teams (unless of course it’s a team her children are on).

About the Author

You can read more from Ursula at motherbearblog.com.

Love Your Enemies | How Do We Confront the Enemy Within?

Ursula Crawford March 12, 2021

When I taught a middle school writing class, I taught my students about the types of conflict that exist in stories. We learned body motions to go along with each type of conflict to help us remember. Every story has a conflict, both a protagonist and an antagonist. Person versus person is the most common type of conflict — think Cinderella versus her evil stepfamily. Person versus their environment is another one that can come up — Little Red Riding Hood versus the Big Bad Wolf. Conflict with the supernatural can be seen in stories like the Lord of the Rings. And finally, we have internal conflict, when a character’s primary conflict is with themself.

Something I’ve been pondering lately are the ways in which we can be our own worst enemies.

I think this may be the case more than we realize. While other people typically don’t care enough about us to put much energy towards actively opposing our interests, we can easily do this to ourselves. We may be able to avoid a neighbor we dislike, but we are always around to oppose or even sabotage ourselves.

I am my own enemy when I engage my mind in unhealthy comparison with others. I often find myself comparing myself to others in unflattering ways when it comes to my career, my parenting, my home, or anything else that I’m focused on at the time. Instead of appreciating myself for the strengths I have, I compare myself to friends with doctorate degrees and fancy houses and feel that I’ve fallen short. I tell myself that I should have made different choices in the past — gotten a science degree or maybe a law degree or a PhD in literature. On the other hand, I might compare myself to a stay-at-home mom friend who has more children than I do and who still seems sane, with children who listen to her and have clean clothes and brushed hair, and then feel that I’m falling short as a parent.

I need to practice loving myself by not making these kinds of destructive comparisons. One thing I’ve done to help counter this is to stop using social media. I can also choose not to dwell on these types of thoughts and try to bring my thoughts back to the present moment, grounding myself in gratitude for the blessings I do have. I’ve read that Olympic silver medalists are often unhappier than bronze medalists because they are focused on the gold medal they didn’t win, while bronze medalists are happy just to be on the podium.

Romans 12:2
“Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

We can be our own enemies when we tell ourselves the wrong story, like in the above example about how I tell myself I should have made different career choices in the past. This is harmful as well as not being very accurate. Instead, I could recognize the truth, which is that I am and have always been very hard working in both my personal and professional life. If I don’t have a big paycheck or a compliant, hair-brushed child to show for it, and my house looks like a tornado has recently blown through, then that’s just the way it is. Even when we’ve made genuinely poor choices that have actually been harmful, we have to seek forgiveness and move on, if not we become locked in our own mind prison. Again, I believe that practicing gratitude is key to stop ourselves from ruminating on unhealthy stories about ourselves.

We can also be our own enemies when we assume the worst in others, as this can sabotage our relationships when continued over time. I have a friend who communicates only via text message with a family member that he dislikes. He has read text messages to me from this person that seem completely neutral to me, but to him they seem to be full of negative intent. This was confusing to me as it’s impossible to read someone’s underlying intentions in a text message, with no facial expressions or even tone of voice to provide clues. I wonder if this relationship could be restored if my friend just started assuming neutral intent in these communications.

In general, it’s best not to take things personally and to assume neutral or even positive intent in our relationships with others. I’m very sensitive, but I’m trying to take this advice to heart and assume that even if someone seems rude, it’s not about me. There are a hundred different reasons someone may interact with me in a way that seems rude: they could be tired, hungry, sick, depressed, worried about something else, have poor self-control, or just be unaware of the way they come across to others. We should work to assume the best in others.

Even when someone is direct about telling us they dislike us, it may say more about them than it does about us. We don’t have to choose to focus on it. In high school, I heard that another girl disliked me because of the brand of shoes I wore. Did I hold a giant grudge against this person, or switch the brand of shoes I wore to something that might not offend her? I did neither — I felt that someone who didn’t know me and disliked me for such a silly reason was not worthy of my concern. But I bring this up now to say that people will judge us and dislike us for all sorts of reasons in our lives. We can be our own enemies when we fail to fully live because we fear other people’s opinions. We should live our lives the best we can regardless of the judgements of others. I’m reminded of the following quote:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena...who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.”

~Theodore Roosevelt

About the Author

You can read more from Ursula at motherbearblog.com.

Gratitude | Searching for Gratitude in Dark Times

Ursula Crawford November 20, 2020

This has been a dark year, and with the recent switch to daylight savings time, we now find ourselves rapidly losing daylight. So our physical environment now matches the psychological and spiritual darkness we've been experiencing these many months since the pandemic began. Now is the time to increase my Vitamin D intake, and find the happy light I purchased on Amazon last winter. The lack of light can have a big impact on mood, and this year it's already hard enough to have a positive outlook.

I think it's important to be able to name the things we've lost and grieve them. My children have lost 5 months of in-person school and counting. This includes my son's last year with his preschool friends, and the beginning of kindergarten. We've lost birthday parties, playdates, sports, visits with relatives. My favorite special occasion restaurant in Eugene went out of business. I've had to take two months of leave from my job to help manage things at home.

But — I'm continuing to feel cautiously optimistic about the future. For all that's been lost during this pandemic, it's given me an opportunity to focus on the things I still have. Much has been lost, but perhaps some things have also been gained.

John 1:5
“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

I've managed to fill almost an entire journal with gratitude lists since March, in an attempt to stay focused on the positive.

In July, my family and I took a weekend trip to Central Oregon to stay at a lakeside cabin. We'd been there a few years before, and had fun, but this time I was struck by just how beautiful the surroundings were. I hadn't realized how beautiful it was the first time I'd visited — but after months of quarantine, it seemed spectacular.

As I write this, my daughter is doing online school at the kitchen table, and I'm thankful for how far we've come. My daughter and I both hated the online school experience in the spring — it was just a horrible experience for our family. Now I'm just filled with gratitude that it's actually working for us on so many levels. I have the ability to be at home with her to help support and supervise. The district provided her with an iPad to do her work on so she has her own device. She's actually learning and has in fact made fantastic progress in her reading since schools closed in March, and seems to be above grade level in math. Online school is even fulfilling some of her social needs, as they're providing lots of quick opportunities for chatting.

I'm thankful for the opportunity I have right now to take leave from my job. I'd been trying to just keep going and try to make things work, and suddenly a few weeks ago I felt like I couldn't do it anymore. I was getting chronic headaches, the kids were watching way too much TV, Paul was sneaking sweets everytime I turned my back, and my house looked like a disaster zone. So I made a plan with my work to take November and December off (with partial pay). On my first official day off, I spent most of the day doing chores. I tackled the bathroom over the weekend, and am now working on a deep clean of the kids’ bedrooms (not a project for the faint of heart). I could devote the bulk of my time off to housework, but I'm hoping to be mindful of also taking time for myself for things I enjoy like exercise and writing.

As for my candy-sneaking son, he's been spending a lot of time with Grandma, which is another thing I'm thankful for. I'm also thankful that he is enrolled in a low-tech, play-based kindergarten program. He only has three 15-minute Zoom meetings per week, compared to my 3rd grader, who spends about 5 hours per day completing schoolwork on her iPad. I think he's a bit bored and understimulated, but I'm trying to make up for that in other ways. The kids are taking a PE class two afternoons a week this month, so hopefully that will be a positive experience for both of them. I've also discovered that Paul loves crafts! Part of his kindergarten curriculum involves a weekly sewing craft, and it is his favorite part of kindergarten. This month I also purchased a package of 16 craft projects for the month from our local children's museum, and each of my kids will get to do eight of them. Paul and I had fun making a toy watch for daylight savings time and various other crafts over the past two weeks.

I celebrated a birthday recently, and to kick off the day Spencer made me a special breakfast — cornmeal biscuits with shiitake mushroom gravy, topped with fried eggs. This was in remembrance of my favorite breakfast place in Portland, where we lived during our twenties. I had a sweet day with my family, and challenged myself to a long (for me) run of 3.5 miles. I also got some new books that I'm super excited to dig into. Caste by Isabel Wilkerson, The Rosie Result by Graeme Simsion (the end of a hilarious trilogy), The Once and Future Witches by Alix Harrow (loved her last book), and Freckled: A Memoir of Growing Up Wild in Hawaii by TW Neal. Dark and stormy days ahead means the perfect time for curling up with some good books.

Are you able to find gratitude in these dark times?

“People who have come to know the joy of God do not deny the darkness, but they choose not to live in it. They claim that the light that shines in the darkness can be trusted more than the darkness itself, and that a little bit of light can dispel a lot of darkness.” — Henri Nouwen

Bringing light to the darkness on a lantern walk in November. Lantern walks are part of the traditional celebration of the Christian feast of St. Martin (Martinmas), and a precursor to modern-day jack-o-lanterns.

About the Author

You can read more from Ursula at motherbearblog.com.

Miracles Welcome | Thin Places: Seeking God while Parenting in a Global Pandemic

Ursula Crawford September 11, 2020

This summer, the constant background noise of my mind has been the semi-panicked thought loop of: “The schools have to reopen this fall. I cannot have a repeat of the spring.”

Unfortunately for me, this past week our school district made the announcement that fall will be entirely online. I am in a sad/mad/fearful/confused state about this decision. I am angry at the challenges this poses to my family as well as the wide-reaching inequities this exposes — families that can pay for childcare or private tutors will do so. Other families will be left scrambling and be forced to leave kids mostly unsupervised. In many cases, moms will be the ones figuring out how to juggle childcare and homeschooling responsibilities with work, while dads are able to continue working mostly undisturbed.

Children will fall behind academically, but even more seriously, they will be at higher risk for abuse and neglect as support for families reaches an all-time low. Additionally, many kids rely on eating free breakfast and lunch at school 5 days a week. Even when schools continue to provide free meals, families may lack the transportation to come pick up food.

I do take the risks of COVID very seriously and realize that there is no perfect solution. We can’t avoid risk entirely, but we need to minimize it. I adopted mask-wearing in March and wish that everyone would have done so. As one article I recently read stated, “this isn’t rocket science.” We know what we need to do.

I wish so much that I could change the past, that I could wave a wand and our nation could have developed a better response to COVID that would now allow local schools to safely reopen. I wish so much that I could change other people’s choices in the present, that everyone would comply perfectly with mask-wearing and social-distancing so that this nightmare could be over. I cannot change either of those things. I can only control my own response (and sometimes even that seems difficult).

So how will my family get through this next season of remote learning? I’m not sure. Like, really unsure, and because of this, I’ve been praying for help. It’s one of the most basic prayers, “God if you’re listening, please help.” Save our ship.

Since I’ve been praying directly for help more, a few things have arisen. I put my daughter on the list for a fall childcare option that sounds functional, and made plans for my mom to babysit/homeschool my 5-year-old son. I have had a couple of outdoor meet-ups with friends, and just seeing friends in real life made me feel better. A retired K-3 teacher offered to help me with tutoring. My supervisor at work told me they’re looking into ways to support staff with children under age 10.

There aren’t many bright sides to this pandemic, but one idea that’s been resonating with me lately is the Celtic idea of “thin places” — places where the veil between the spiritual and physical world is thin. These are places where we may feel the presence of the divine, or perhaps experience the miraculous.

I’ve been in thin places a few times, or perhaps I should clarify, places that were thin to me. In the trailer where I taught fourth grade at a tiny mission school in northeast Portland, praying with my students daily about their little and big concerns. On a study abroad trip to West Africa, the Holy Spirit seemed almost as present as the smell of diesel fuel permeating the air. Hiking through Mt. Pisgah Arboretum with my family.

Could the idea of thin places also apply to times in our lives, and could this season become one of them for me? Could it for you? I believe that sometimes, when we come to the end of our rope, when our resources are tapped out and we can’t go any farther on our own strength — those are the times when God is able to work most powerfully in our lives.

I certainly feel thinned out, with so much of my sense of control and normalcy missing. What remains when we lose our illusions of control?

Small moments. Great blue herons fishing in the river. Hummingbirds in my backyard. My son giggling. Reading to my daughter before bed. Knowing that I still enjoy spending time with my husband after 16 years together.

Faith, hope, and love.

About the Author

You can read more from Ursula at motherbearblog.com.

Emotional Well-Being | Behave in a Way You Can Be Proud Of

Ursula Crawford July 17, 2020

“Behave in a way you can be proud of,” is a phrase that’s been running through my mind off and on since March. In some moments I am successful and in many, I am not. But still, this phrase encourages me to keep trying.

Yesterday a work phone call began with the customary “How are you?” I responded with a neutral, “I’m okay.” This prompted my co-worker, who I’ve never met in person, to express concern and ask if there was anything she could do to help. I appreciated her tenderness, but at the same time, I wonder if it’s time to just stop asking people how they’re doing if the only answer we’re willing to accept is a cheerful “I’m good.”

Usually I do give the customary answer. But to be honest, at this point in the pandemic, “I’m good,” would be a dishonest response from me. Even “I’m okay” may be a stretch. And considering the pandemic, it probably shouldn’t require an explanation.

But, here’s a more accurate answer. I have been quarantined at home with my very energetic children for three months. I have been working from my home part-time, while homeschooling my extremely oppositional 8-year-old and also caring for my 5-year-old son. Each day is exhausting and emotionally draining, and often involves breaking up a number of physical fights between kids, being screamed at for setting limits on screen time, and locking myself in time out so I can practice deep breathing.

Those are the personal struggles I’m dealing with on a daily basis. Additionally, I’m feeling the collective anxiety and grief of our nation as we face crises on several fronts — public health, economic, and political.

I think we need to be sober and honest with ourselves in this moment. For many of us, these are dark, dark times. Yes, the COVID pandemic will end, perhaps as soon as next year when a vaccine arrives. But we should not minimize the lives that have been lost and will be lost before this is over. And this other pandemic we are now reckoning with, the pandemic of racism, is also far from over, and has also taken many lives. The African American poet Clint Smith speaks to this moment succinctly in his poem “When people say, ‘We have made it through worse before:’”

Sometimes the moral arc of the universe does not bend in a direction that will comfort us. Sometimes it bends in ways that we don’t expect & there are people who fall off in the process...I have grown weary of telling myself lies that I might one day begin to believe. We are not all left standing after the war has ended.

Reckoning with racism forces many white Americans to face an internal ugliness that we would prefer to pretend has never existed. Acknowledging the prevalence of racism in our nation’s past and present, and being willing to look into our own hearts to confront racism that may exist inside of us is a painful ask. It’s a lot to reckon with, in addition to the grief and uncertainty we are facing right now with COVID. We would prefer to keep racism packed away neatly in a dark corner of our unconscious, because it makes us uncomfortable, so we never ever talk about it.

Black people and their allies have brought racism to the forefront of our national conversation lately, out of necessity. Because racism is a life and death issue for them, as we’ve seen in the many murders of unarmed black people by police officers.

For me, being quarantined has felt a bit like being on a really long airplane ride, and now it feels as though the airplane itself might be crashing. COVID is not done with us yet, and neither are our national struggles with racism. How will we make it through to the other side? And do I even trust the pilot?

I had a good conversation with my friend Britni the other day about self-care and she reminded me why it’s so important — you have to put your own oxygen mask on first. You’re not much good to those around you in the plane crash if you’ve passed out from lack of oxygen.

So, even though the people around me need a lot of help — my sweet children who just want to go to school and see their friends, the low-income families I work with who have preschoolers with disabilities — I can’t effectively support any of them if I don’t take care of my own emotional wellbeing. Even though I may want to dive into anti-racist work and contribute to efforts of racial reconciliation, I also cannot do this effectively if I don’t stay grounded in my own self-care.

These are some strategies I’ve been using to nurture my emotional wellbeing. This time is still a huge challenge for me personally, but these strategies are helping me cope:

Exercise. Running, yoga, and walking have been helping me through this season. Did you know that running can be as effective as anti-depressants in treating mild to moderate depression?
Gratitude journaling. I try to write down things I’m thankful for in my gratitude journal before I go to bed. This helps train my mind to focus on positives.
Spend time reading Scripture. Scripture is one important way that God can speak to us and bring us comfort and guidance. One verse that has helped me through challenging times is Isaiah 43, “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.” This verse reminds me that God has a purpose for me and will guide me through whatever challenges may come.
Mindful breathing and contemplative prayer. This is a practice I’ve been trying to adopt recently. I’m struggling with consistency, but this is an area of growth for me. Even when my mind is unable to stay focused enough for contemplative prayer, I benefit from a few minutes of stillness and deep breathing.
Talking about emotions. In May I read the book Permission to Feel by Marc Brackett, which is all about emotional regulation. One thing I learned is that just being able to label and express our emotions helps us to stay emotionally regulated. Writing can also serve this purpose.
Practicing kindness. Finally, once I’ve put on my own oxygen tank with these other practices, I can practice kindness toward others (which also in turn makes me feel good). Practicing kindness can look as simple as feeding my children or doing chores around the house, but I’m also thankful that helping others is part of my paid work. During this pandemic, I’ve had the opportunity to coordinate delivery of necessities like food, clothing, and diapers to some of the families I work with. Jesus calls us to “love your neighbor as yourself,” and practicing kindness brings us one step closer to this commandment. Aligning ourselves with God’s commandments is an integral component of emotional wellbeing.

How are you nurturing your own emotional wellbeing during this time? My hope for each of us is that by taking time in this season to do some hard internal work, we can emerge transformed and will be able to look back on this season knowing that we did our best to behave in a way that we can be proud of.

About the Author

You can read more from Ursula at motherbearblog.com.

Love Purified | Love Casts Out Fear

Ursula Crawford March 13, 2020

I’ve never been able to have conversations over my daughter’s head, the way you usually can with small children. A precocious extrovert now nearing 8-years-old, Marie always wants to be part of any conversation going on around her, regardless of topic. She even has watched several Democratic debates in their entirety, with great enthusiasm. And so, it was not too surprising when she told me recently that she’s scared about the coronavirus and has been for the past month.

I prayed with her that day, laying claim to God’s promise that perfect love casts out fear. I would like to extend that prayer to all of you reading this - I pray that God’s perfect love would cast out fear and provide you with peace.

This is not to say that COVID-19 is not a serious threat to us here. We should be aware and not complacent. Now, while we are still in the early stages of this outbreak locally, we have the opportunity to save lives by being proactive about hand washing, social distancing, and absolutely staying home when sick. It is essential to take these steps in order to avoid overwhelming our health care system’s capacity.

Now is the time for action, not denial of an unpleasant truth. Even if you’re not worried for your own health — take these precautions as an act of love for those around you.

At the same time, we need not be consumed by fear. God is with us in this challenging time. He loves us and will see us through this to the other side. God is love and we carry that love with us wherever we go.

1 John 4:18 (NIV)
There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear.

About the Author

You can read more from Ursula at motherbearblog.com.

Oneness | It Takes a Village

Ursula Crawford January 24, 2020

Being a parent has underscored for me just how deeply fragmented our sense of community is in American culture. When I was pregnant with my first child, I thought I had ample community support. My husband and I were very connected with our church, we had family nearby, we had work, and we had other long-lasting friends around the city. Our work and social calendars were full, and surely the people and events that filled our days would continue to be there for us after our child was born.

Unfortunately this turned out not to be the case, at least for the most part. Thankfully we did have friends drop off dinners for us for the first week after our daughter’s birth. But then it seemed friends quickly started to fall away. Maybe it was just that I was too exhausted to reach out, combined with people assuming I was unavailable for socializing (a fair assumption).

I also got laid off from my job, so I didn’t even have the structure of work to go back to. We still had our church, but its service met on Sunday evenings, a difficult time for a fussy infant, so our church attendance became sporadic. I was faced with long, isolated hours alone with a preverbal baby. This took a toll on my mental health, which was already declining from extreme sleep deprivation and postpartum hormones. In truth, I likely had PTSD from a difficult labor and first few weeks postpartum. I didn’t have health insurance and was over the income limit for Medicaid, so I couldn’t seek medical or mental health care for myself.

There were a few things that saved me during that difficult time. One was having help on the weekends. Between my mom and my mother-in-law, usually one of them was there each weekend to spend a night or two and do some night-time bottle-feedings so I could sleep.

I also figured out some outings my daughter and I could go on during the day. By the time she was 5-months-old, I’d cobbled together a weekly schedule that included library storytime, mom + baby yoga, baby sign language, and even a mom + baby writing group. I had a zoo membership and we’d frequently go for long walks through the zoo. My husband and I started inviting various friends over for dinner about once a week, and we had a group of friends that I arranged monthly weekend breakfasts with. I arranged playdates with other moms at our church. Still, I spent most of my time alone with my baby, and I was very lonely.

I’d mastered the art of getting out of the house with a baby, but I was too exhausted to really connect with people during those outings. I needed a community that I didn’t have to try so hard for. No one – especially an exhausted young mom with a postpartum mood disorder — can be the constant host and initiator. Relationships need to be reciprocal.

In Matthew 15:12-13, Jesus said, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” We are called as Christians to be good friends. Being a good friend should be a high priority, but it often gets buried in our busy schedules and various commitments.

A friend who lived nearby during this time told my husband and I later that we should have asked for more help. I suppose this is true. I accept responsibility for that and I have no blame for anyone. But I was too busy surviving each day to ask for help. Besides, asking for help was not something that naturally came to my mind. And I couldn’t even think of what to ask for. We’d been gifted many of the material things we needed, and I was grateful, but it didn’t fill the hole where community should have been.

Ultimately, my husband and I decided to move to Eugene. Living in Portland wasn’t working out for us economically, and I didn’t have the emotional support system I needed. We needed to be nearer my parents, as well as to find more affordable housing. One thing that I’ve really appreciated about having my parents around is that they assume we need help with our kids. I sometimes let them know when I have a need, but they usually offer before I ask. They’ve provided us with an immense amount of free childcare, and even let me share one of their cars for a few years until we could afford to buy a second vehicle.

I wish that all parents had supportive grandparents living nearby. Many do, and many do not. I can tell you with certainty that humans were meant to raise their children in community, with supportive family and friends nearby. It absolutely does take a village to raise a child. Community in our culture is fragmented, but we can work to change that. How? I invite you to build community by:

Being an initiator. Invite a friend or acquaintance to join you for coffee, dinner etc.
Reciprocating. Do you have a friend who often reaches out to you or invites you to do things? It’s your turn to invite them back.
Saying hello to your neighbors.
Expanding your circle. Be intentional making new friends.
Volunteering at church. Church cannot happen without the support of volunteers. Volunteer to help lessen the burden and prevent others from burning out!
Asking for help. Yes, sometimes we all need to show our vulnerable side and allow others to help us. People don’t know that you have a need unless you ask.

What are your ideas for building community? Let us know in the comments below.

About the Author

You can read more from Ursula at motherbearblog.com.

The Advent of Revolution | The Revolution of Kindness Starts with You (and Me)

Ursula Crawford December 6, 2019

I believe that we are facing a crisis of hope both locally and globally. Eugene has the highest per-capita homelessness rate in the nation. Oregon schools are facing an unprecedented spike in behavior problems. American life expectancy has been declining since 2014. And the kids’ music video “Baby Shark” has been viewed on YouTube more than 4 billion times. (If you haven’t seen it...you’re really not missing anything).

Hope can be hard to come by. I feel overwhelmed when I think about some of the huge problems our world is facing. I’m distressed about the human rights crisis at our southern border, and the horrible living conditions in developing countries that are at the root of it. I am distressed by climate change, and the knowledge that it will only create more refugees.

I am also upset that the church isn’t doing more to address these issues. I am not pointing the finger at CitySalt or any individual church in particular. I am instead pointing the finger at the larger church body of American Christians — and even at myself.

In this Advent season, my heart turns to the story of the Holy Family, young parents who were forced to flee their homeland to escape political persecution. A young family of refugees. I am not attempting to make a political statement, but just this: that all people deserve kindness. Remember that Jesus himself was a refugee, and that He always stood with those who were most marginalized and outcast by society. I hope that when we think of refugees, street people, those experiencing disability, and other marginalized groups, we can remember that those are exactly the people that Jesus liked to spend time with.

Last year, during a church gathering at my house, I could hear my daughter loudly singing from the backyard, “The Revolution starts now in my own backyard, in my own hometown.” It was a song taught to her by her first-grade teacher, a gentle man who plays guitar and sings folk songs to the kids. He told the students that we needed a revolution of love and peace.

There’s a movement afoot in Eugene to become a City of Kindness. Coordinator Doug Carnine was quoted in The Register-Guard saying, “We want to uplift people through kindness.”

In the face of the massive-scale problems our world is facing, is kindness enough? How much difference can it make? Isn’t it just a drop in the bucket?

The mayor of Anaheim, California is a leader of the cities of kindness initiative. More than one million acts of kindness were reported over eight years in Anaheim, and the city has seen a reduction in homelessness, gang membership, bullying and violence in schools, and crime.

I believe that practicing kindness has the potential to make a bigger impact than we might think. Kindness is the practical expression of Jesus’ mandate to “love your neighbor as yourself,” as well as a powerful antidote to the hope crisis we are facing. One act of kindness may be a drop in the bucket, but many acts of kindness by many individuals can add up to something big. A bucket of kindness that overflows. We can embody the spirit of Christ by bringing His light into dark places. We can bring real change, resilience, and hope.

What are some practical ways to show kindness?

Pray for the person you have in mind. If you have a hard time feeling love for that person, pray that God would help you see them through God’s eyes.
Donate gently used items to St. Vincent’s or another favorite charity.
Donate money to your favorite nonprofit, such as Food for Lane County.
Help make burritos with CitySalt for homeless youth on December 10 at The Box.
Invite your neighbor over for dinner.
Write a note of appreciation.
Forgive someone.

What are your ideas for acts of kindness? Share in the comments section below.

About the Author

You can read more from Ursula at motherbearblog.com.

Adventuring with God | Journeys

Ursula Crawford July 26, 2019

One of my favorite childhood adventures was visiting my grandparents each summer in the Ozark Mountains of northwest Arkansas. I would fly with my parents from Eugene to Denver, then to Tulsa, Oklahoma. From Tulsa we rented a car and drove several hours to my grandparents’ home in Eureka Springs. In Eureka Springs, we spent our days visiting country music shows, touring the Onyx Cave, and having talent shows and Go-Kart racing contests with my aunts, uncles, and cousins. Our trips always included eating at southern buffet restaurants, with favorites like mashed potatoes and gravy, fried chicken, fried cornbread, and biscuits. My grandfather took me fishing at Lake Leatherwood, and in the evenings we sat on the screened-in porch watching fireflies and keeping our eyes out for armadillos.

My parents are great explorers, and tales of their pre-parenting exploits were woven throughout my childhood, including stories from the two summers my dad spent volunteering in Ghana and Lesotho, the time a bear followed my parents on a backpacking trip in the Great Smoky Mountains, and the summer that my mom rode to Oregon on the back of a motorcycle.

In addition to visiting Arkansas, summer road trips were a regular part of my childhood. We drove to Yellowstone and saw Old Faithful spout on time. In San Francisco, I saw the Golden Gate Bridge and asked, “what’s the big deal with that?” We hiked in Sequoia National Park and passed a group of black bears in a meadow. We unsuccessfully attempted summiting Mt. Whitney, the lower 48’s tallest peak, in one day. We visited Disney and rode all the roller coasters.

These experiences left me with a passion for travel that has been mostly unfulfilled in recent years while our energy and finances have been invested in raising young kids. But my heart longs for travel and adventure, and so journeys are a constant theme in my dreams. I’m enough of an adventurer at heart that I carefully considered accepting an international teaching job in Kuwait when my daughter was only a few months old. In the end, my husband and I agreed it seemed too big of a leap for a family with a new baby.

I’ve come to accept that travel is expensive and often too exhausting to be worthwhile with a young family. I also wrestle with the ethics of travel when so many in our world live in poverty and struggle just to meet their basic needs. Still I’m hoping to find a way to incorporate adventure more into my life.

This doesn’t have to take the shape of an expensive plane ticket. This summer I’ve been trying to fulfill my thirst for adventure in small ways, such as a weekend camping trip to Belknap Hot Springs, a visit with my husband to the colorful hippie-land of the Oregon Country Fair, and this morning’s family bike ride along the wetlands in west Eugene.

Life can seem so ordinary and routine when you’re stuck in the day to day. I am always rushing through my tremendous to-do list, achieving highly at work in part-time hours, and constantly doing chores and caring for my children when at home. I need to find better ways to achieve balance in my life. My to-do list still needs to be tackled but I need to incorporate time for fun and rest.

The other day I was in the middle of teaching a parenting class, which has been a routine part of my work for the past six months. Suddenly I was struck with an odd sense of anticipation, the feeling I usually only get when waiting for a plane at an airport. I felt like God was telling me that new adventures are coming for me through work, and perhaps in other areas of my life as well. God is inviting all of us on a journey with Him, so perhaps the first step of the journey is listening and the next step is to say yes to the invitation.

About the Author

You can read more from Ursula at motherbearblog.com.

Perpetual Creativity | Fear of the Wild

Ursula Crawford June 7, 2019

“Aslan is a lion – the great Lion.”
“Ooh,” said Susan. “I’d thought he was a man. Is he – quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”
“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver. “Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King I tell you.”
-C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

In my mind, there is quite a bit of overlap between the creative heart of God and the wildness of God. Could one exist without the other? The creative process, at its best, requires the writer or artist to tap into their unconscious mind, the part of their psyche that remains untamed; just like Aslan, the Christ figure in the Chronicles of Narnia.

How do you feel about the wilderness? Many people are drawn to its beauty and removal from the noise and busyness of civilization. Others are frightened of wild places, for valid reasons. Today a New York Times headline reads “Hiker Lost in Hawaii Forest is Found Alive After 17 Days.” We’ve learned from our childhood canon of fairy tales that the forest is a magical and often dangerous place where wolves and witches may be waiting to lead us astray. And although I no longer believe in fairy tales, I do agree that the wild can be scary. Even well-traveled natural areas can be dangerous.

As a child, I climbed Central Oregon’s South Sister with my parents and was at the summit when a lightning storm came in. We scrambled down an exposed ridge and were able to find shelter by crouching against large boulders. We escaped without incident, but it was a stark reminder of the risks of climbing even a popular mountain that doesn’t require technical skills. Years later, my parents were camping at the base of South Sister when a young hiker fell to his death.

Another summer, my husband Spencer and I planned to climb Mt. St. Helens with friends. This climb requires a wilderness permit of which a very limited number are available daily. I injured my knee that summer so I gave my permit away to a member of our group. I hiked with Spencer and our buddies to the treeline, then turned back to spend the day with my friend Holly while the others summited the mountain. Holly and I were playing cards in the tent when Bob popped his head in.

“I couldn’t keep doing that hike,” he said. “You didn’t tell me how serious of a climb that was going to be!”

I had to laugh a bit, because we all lived in Portland, and could easily see Mt. St. Helens on a clear day. You can tell from looking at its high, snow-capped summit that it is likely an arduous climb. But my friend Bob apparently had not taken this trip seriously.

The wild needs to be taken seriously. Don’t go out without plenty of water, snacks, a raincoat, and a whistle. Encounters with God also should be taken seriously. The Bible makes it clear that God is not safe, and encounters with the Lord were feared in Old Testament times. My Google search brought up 34 Bible verses on death related to proximity to God’s presence. In Exodus 20:19, the Israelites tell Moses, “Speak to us yourself and we will listen; but let not God speak to us, or we will die.”

Thankfully, Jesus brought us a new covenant with God, a covenant of grace where we can now seek God’s presence without fear of death. Still, an encounter with God is something that should be revered and taken seriously, as an encounter that may not be all that safe. God may ask you questions that you are not ready to answer, or to do something you do not want to do. A journey into your creative process also may not feel safe — you may encounter memories or emotions that are painful and still need to be processed. You may learn new things about yourself or God that are difficult and challenge your pre-existing ideas.

The unknown is always scarier than the known. It is the idea of encountering the unknown that always leaves me feeling a bit unsettled in a truly wild place. I suspect that I’m also a bit afraid of encountering the unknown in myself, as well as the wild side of God. The version of God that exists in my mind is a loving, kind, wise friend who would meet me for long chats over tea. This wild side of God, who harnesses the power of the wind and sea, who carved our mountains and rivers, who would look me in the eye and ask ‘why did you leave me to die?’ — this side of God is too much for me.

“When the wild god arrives at the door,
You will probably fear him.
He reminds you of something dark
That you might have dreamt,
Or the secret you do not wish to be shared…

You do not want to let him in.
You are very busy.
It is late, or early, and besides…
You cannot look at him straight
Because he makes you want to cry…

‘Why did you leave me to die?’
Asks the wild god and you say:
‘I was busy surviving.
The shops were all closed;
I didn’t know how. I’m sorry…

Sometimes a wild god comes to the table.
He is awkward and does not know the ways
of porcelain, of fork and mustard and silver.
His voice makes vinegar from wine
and brings the dead to life.”

-selected from Sometimes a Wild God, by Tom Hirons (listen to the poet read the entire poem here
(https://tomhirons.com/poetry/sometimes-a-wild-god)

About the Author

Ursula and her husband Spencer have two young children, and their family enjoys playing hide-and-seek and dancing in the living room. She works as a communications and events coordinator with the University of Oregon. Ursula is also CitySalt’s Children’s Ministry Director.

You can read more from Ursula at motherbearblog.com.

Beauty From Suffering | You are Here: Use the Force for Good

Ursula Crawford April 5, 2019

Yesterday was the first day of spring break. When the weather forecast changed at the last minute to mostly sunny in Florence, my family and I made a semi-spontaneous decision to go to the beach. I thought we should try a new beach, and I remembered a hike my parents and I had often done when I was a child. I looked up Tahkenitch Creek on my phone, and it showed a kid-friendly 1.4-mile loop. Sounded like a scenic and easy way to get to the beach by hiking through some dunes!

After paying our $5 at the parking lot, we grabbed some snacks, towels and beach toys and set off on our walk. We brought one small water bottle, figuring we could drink more water when we got back to the car. The hike wound through dunes and coastal forest, and after awhile we came to a sign with a cryptic trail map. “You are here,” it said, with a red dot showing us on a looping trail that did not appear to lead to the beach. The sign also showed a picture of another, larger loop, which also did not appear to lead to the beach. Then there was another, much longer trail that looked like it might lead to the beach.

The map didn’t show distances. I tried to scan my childhood memory. I knew we had hiked to the beach on this trail many times. But how long was it? And hadn’t my mom recently recommended I try this hike with my 6 and 3-year-old children?

It couldn’t be that long.

We decided to keep hiking in the direction that we guessed led to the ocean. Eventually we did come to a sign that said “Beach” and had an arrow. Someone had scratched “1.7 miles” into the sign. Did that mean the beach was 1.7 miles from the sign? Or that it would be 1.7 miles round trip to the beach and back from the sign?

We had already been hiking for awhile. But the beach had been promised. We reasoned we might as well keep going, although our small water supply was dwindling.

James 1:2-4 (NIV)
“Consider it pure joy my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”

Persevering, eventually we did reach the sea. We made it! Our kids had walked the whole way with only mild complaining (and a few tears). We enjoyed resting in the sun on the beach and playing in the sand. Spencer and Marie walked off to explore. Paul, our 3-year-old, started following them and I stayed near him to make sure he was safe. Suddenly Spencer called to me and pointed behind me. A freak sneaker wave had come up to where we’d been sitting, soaking all of our stuff and pulling some of it back towards the waves. We ran back and grabbed everything. Nothing was lost or ruined, but I now had to carry a bag of heavy, soaking wet towels 3 miles back to our car.

So we decided it was time to head back. By now I had a raging headache, and the straps from the canvas grocery bag I had turned into a makeshift backpack were digging into my shoulders. Still we kept going, with Paul being carried much of the way. Now that we had figured out the trail, we went a slightly different route home. Part of it was through hills of sand dunes, and we pretended we were hiking through the Sahara Desert. It helped that I was very thirsty. The tension from my headache was now radiating through my whole body and my back was burning with pain. But, walking through the dunes, Paul and I decided we were Star Wars jedis and that we had light sabers out to protect us. Then Marie created her own story about being a mermaid. Eventually, our rag-tag Jedi/mermaid team made it back to our car where we had more snacks and water waiting for us. It had been a 6-mile hike, yet my kids had barely complained.

I was suffering in pain for a lot of that hike. I have a high pain threshold — I have experienced natural childbirth twice — but the headache and back pain I was feeling during this hike was still pretty awful. I could have complained a lot. Or just gotten really cranky. That would be a legitimate reaction to pain. Instead, I did what I often do in challenging situations, which is to try to make things easier for those around me. I entertained the kids by telling them fairy tales. I made sand castles on the beach. I made jokes about how silly and typical it was that my mom would recommend such a long hike for our wee children. I became a Jedi knight, wielding a light saber and using The Force for good. My husband also was a good sport, not blaming me for the misadventure and carrying our little one for miles on his shoulders.

As a result, I don’t think this day will be recorded in our minds as a bad memory. It will be remembered as an adventure, one of those “remember that time when?” stories that will bond us together.

Last week, I spent an entire day in a training about trauma in early childhood. The presenter talked about how we may not experience difficult events as traumatic if we have adequate support during those events. The way that the people around us support us – or don’t – during challenging events, affects the way that our memories are encoded. Not that hiking equates to a trauma, but it still could have easily ended up a bad memory.

Suffering can be beautiful in that it gives us the best opportunity to develop perseverance and character. It gives us an opportunity to choose to turn towards God when things are hard. It can also bond us together, giving us the chance to give and accept help as needed. Remember, the greatest Jedi warriors have turned their suffering into strength.

May the Force be with you.

About the Author

You can read more from Ursula at motherbearblog.com.

The “Aha” Moment! | What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

Ursula Crawford February 15, 2019

A few weeks ago I was faced with a dilemma. My 6-year-old daughter was finishing up the month-long introductory piano class I had given her for Christmas. I needed to decide if we should continue with piano lessons or not. The problem was, Marie had also recently started a dance class, and it seemed prohibitively expensive to continue both. I’d assumed she would naturally gravitate to one or the other and it’d be easy to choose, but it wasn’t. She loves music and her best friend had joined piano. On the other hand, she also loves dance and the hip-hop class was well-suited to her (very) high energy level and enthusiasm.

This may seem like it should be an easy, low-stakes decision, but I always overthink and analyze the angles when it comes to decision-making. Piano seems like a better long-term investment. I always wished for piano lessons as a kid and never had the opportunity. On the other hand, Marie had been asking for a dance class for months and months.

I prayed about it and Marie and I came to the consensus to keep on with dance and drop piano for now. There was no big ah-ha moment and I don’t know whether or not it was the best decision for her. In ten years will she still be dancing, playing an instrument, both, or neither? Time will tell. But for now this is the best decision for me. The dance class is an after-school program at her school. That means I don’t have to make extra trips in the car, coercing my 3-year-old son to get buckled in his car seat, and finding ways to keep him quietly entertained during a 45-minute piano lesson.

I’m always hoping for truth to be revealed to me in a big epiphanous moment. I wish that God would clearly tell me which choices to make when it comes to things like long-term career goals, friendships to pursue, and which extracurriculars to invest in for our kids. Even an ah-ha moment about where to find my son’s missing mitten would be appreciated. If I’m really honest, I may especially hope for epiphanies to come to politicians I disagree with or people I perceive to have wronged me in some way.

Still, I’ve found that it’s rare for us to learn much in isolated moments. Most of the time, growth happens slowly and gradually. We become the product of the small choices we have made day after day over the years.

A few years ago I went on an overnight silent retreat at the Benedectine Abbey in Mt. Angel. I thought that surely this would be the place that God would speak to me and reveal vital information about Big Life Choices. In the end, I felt that it was a worthwhile time of rest and reflection, and that God was with me in the silence. But I did not get any answers or detailed revelations.

Except, well maybe. I felt that God did have a message for me that weekend. And it was this: Be Present. I had been hoping that God would give me ideas for new life assignments to take on, and all I got was — Be Present.

That strikes me still today as the big reveal for me and perhaps all of us in the distracted and distracting world where we live, especially if we are parenting little ones. Put down your smartphone. Turn off Netflix. Be here, in this moment, where God has placed you.

I’ll leave you with some lines by Mary Oliver, my favorite contemporary poet, who passed away in January at age 83.

I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
— excerpted from The Summer Day, by Mary Oliver

About the Author

You can read more from Ursula at motherbearblog.com.

1st Sunday of Advent | Hope: This House Has Good Bones

Ursula Crawford November 30, 2018

Isaiah 9:2, 6
The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness, on them light has shined…For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulder; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

My children and I noticed Christmas lights popping up around town just after the switch to standard time in November this year, which seemed earlier than usual. “Why are people putting up their Christmas lights now?” my daughter asked me.

“Maybe they want more light,” I told her. “It’s dark so early this time of year.”

When the above scripture talks about darkness, it is talking about more than a lack of light. It is speaking of a deep spiritual darkness, one that is relevant to us today as well.

Last year I gave up reading the news for Lent, and continued my ban on news for several months longer. It was great. I could have happily gone on that way indefinitely, not knowing about migrant children being separated from their parents at our border, or the random episodes of violence that so often make the headlines. Ignorance can be bliss, at least temporarily.

But we are not called to live in ignorance, cut off from the troubles of the world. The world’s troubles continue, whether or not we recognize them. And at some point, we are all affected. We might choose not to think about climate change, for example, but it’s hard to ignore when our air becomes heavily polluted by wildfire smoke every August.

In a poem titled Good Bones, writer Maggie Smith proclaims that,

Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real dump, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful, right?
You could make this place beautiful.

We can’t ignore that we live in a land of deep darkness, as scripture says, or as Smith puts it, that the world is in large part terrible. But in spite of it, I do have an unshakeable sense of hope. I always picture a positive future for us on earth, just as it is in heaven.

Advent is here and with it we remember the coming of our King. Two thousand years ago our God chose to enter into our world in the most humble of ways, born in a manger because there was no room in the inn.

Do you wish that Jesus was here among us now, that you could sit across the table from him and get a straight answer about your big questions? I know I do. But Jesus wouldn’t give a straight answer anyway, preferring to teach through story and metaphor. Preferring to answer with a question.

Jesus was a light in the darkness. He came as our Savior, and he came to bring hope. Scripture tells us that when he left our world and ascended to heaven, we became his hands and feet.

This is an immense responsibility. We are Christ’s hands and feet. We are called collectively as Christians to be the light to the world. On a bad day, when we’ve read too many sad stories in the news, or when tragedy has touched us directly, we may say it’s too hard. We may say it hurts too much, there’s too much work to be done, I don’t know where to begin.

I imagine that if Jesus were sitting across from us at the table, he might simply say, “This place could be beautiful right? You could make this place beautiful.”

Friends, I invite you to partner with Jesus this Advent season in bringing hope to the world. Here are a few concrete ideas for how to do just that.

Do random acts of kindness. Brighten someone’s day with an unexpected act of kindness. Write an encouraging text message or email, leave quarters at a laundromat, bring cookies to your neighbor, take time to recycle, send a Christmas card to your grandma, donate your used winter clothes to our Eugene Mission Warm Drive. Small acts of kindness to others (and the planet) do make a difference.

Serve your church or other local nonprofits. If you have a heart for service, there are many opportunities within our church as well as in the community. Food for Lane County, the Eugene Mission, and Habitat for Humanity are just a few local organizations that often need volunteers. Connect with Pastor Mike for details on serving our church or ideas on connecting with local nonprofits.

Give relationally. If you’re like me and you haven’t yet completed your Christmas shopping, consider giving fewer material items and more relational or experiential gifts. This serves to strengthen relationships and create positive memories as well as cut down on waste — and it may even save you money. Relational gifts can vary widely depending on your budget, but it could be as simple as cooking a special dinner for family members.

Donate globally. Consider a donation to a nonprofit that helps the poor and marginalized in the developing world, where your dollars can make the biggest impact. One of my favorites is the Fistula Foundation, which provides life-changing surgery for women with devastating childbirth injuries in parts of Africa and Asia. Look for charities with high ratings from a reputable third party like Charity Navigator.

Visit adventconspiracy.org for more resources on living missionally during the Advent season.

About the Author

You can read more from Ursula at motherbearblog.com.

Tension | Between Two Worlds

Ursula Crawford November 2, 2018

It was near the end of our senior year, and it had been a fun night out with my high school friends, staying up late, watching movies, laughing over inside jokes. Still, a feeling of melancholy washed over me as I dropped my friend Giselle off at her house. “Do you ever just feel like something is wrong?” I asked her.

I didn’t have the language or emotional maturity to articulate myself clearly at that moment. But what I meant was that in spite of my insulated middle class life, my weekly church attendance, my close group of friends, and my college plans, I still felt the brokenness of our world seeping in through the cracks around me. And it was scary.

Maybe it was the fact that the Twin Towers fell that year, or that my dad was struggling with a secret addiction, or that I was sensing the impending loss of these friendships. I’m sure I was feeling all of that, and this too — creation was broken in the fall. We are living in the ruins of Eden.

I know so much more of the world’s (and my own) brokenness now than I did during that car ride home at age eighteen.

My response to brokenness has generally been to try to fix it. So, I spent a year as an AmeriCorps volunteer, recruiting mentors for children of incarcerated parents. I’ve spent Christmases serving meals to the unhoused in downtown Portland. I’ve handed out hygiene kits to prostitutes. I let my cognitively disabled, low-income neighbor borrow my vacuum, only to have it returned with fleas. I tutored a Somali refugee girl in math and reading. I became an elementary school teacher, praying with my students every morning to begin our day, about things both big and small.

In all my efforts to improve the world, I’ve learned an important lesson: I can’t fix it. I can’t, in fact, fix anything.

God grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change
The courage to change the things I can
And the wisdom to know the difference.

But this I can do. I can choose my response to the circumstances around me.

I still get sad sometimes about the world’s brokenness, but I see so much more of God in it now. That’s the miracle of Jesus, that He would come down into our messed up, broken world and live among us; that He would love and forgive us, pay the price for our sins and offer us the keys to his kingdom.

We may be living among ruins, but God’s kingdom is present here too at the same time, a sort of alternate reality. As Christ-followers we are dual citizens of this world and of God’s kingdom. We live in the tension between these two worlds.

Since my life centers around work with children, perhaps it’s not surprising that C.S. Lewis’ Narnia books play a strong role in my understanding of theology. When we become Christians, we too enter through a secret door hidden in the back of a wardrobe where we can encounter the living God.

“I am [in your world].’ said Aslan. ‘But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.” - C.S. Lewis

About the Author

You can read more from Ursula at motherbearblog.com.

Forgiveness | Learning Boundaries Within Forgiveness

Ursula Crawford September 7, 2018

I had several close childhood friendships that began in first grade and lasted into my college years. Every long friendship has its ups and downs, but one of these was particularly challenging. Our first grade teacher often confused “Anna” and I because we looked similar with our long dark hair and olive skin. We had a lot of fun, going to Brownies meetings, celebrating birthdays, getting muddy during soccer games, and having New Year’s Eve sleepovers where we stayed up late playing Mario on the Nintendo.

But this friend had a cruel streak. During one of my sleepovers at her house, she wiped her spit all over a toy I was just about to play with. In middle school she stopped talking to me for more than a year because one day I chose to have lunch with another friend. In high school, she put gum in her toddler sister’s hair and lied to her mom about it when she tried to explain what had happened.

Anna became the high school friend who would tell me mean things other people said about me, who would never bring me along to a party, but would tag along with my group of friends if she didn’t have anyone else to hang out with. I stayed her friend despite her meanness, and perhaps in part because of it. I knew she did not have many close friends; no one wanted to be treated so poorly. As a new Christian, I felt it was my duty to forgive and forgive again in order to show God’s love. I was a Christian doormat in my effort to be a life witness to that friend.

Still, I knew Anna was not a person I could trust. I was willing to practice kindness towards her and spend time with her, but over the years I put up more and more internal walls between myself and her. She stayed in touch with me through college, but when it came time to plan my wedding I didn’t include her in the wedding party. I know this hurt her feelings, although she wouldn’t let me see that.

That decision showed the limitations of my forgiveness. I could forgive, and I could be kind, and I could spend time with her if she needed. But as a repeated witness and victim of her mean streak, our friendship could not be restored to what it would have been had my trust not been broken time and again.

She ended up not coming to my wedding, and not returning my phone calls afterward. That was the end of our fifteen year friendship. I’ve wondered at times if I made the right choice not to have her in the wedding party. Would there have been any harm in including another person? Or does her decision not to come to my wedding or talk to me afterward prove that I made the right decision?

Maybe the wrong choice was actually in allowing the friendship to continue as long as it did without standing up for myself.

In the book of Romans, Paul writes, “Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Carefully consider what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible on your part, live at peace with everyone” Romans 12: 17-18.

Yet, there is a difference between living at peace with everyone and allowing people to treat you cruelly and take advantage of your kindness. A friendship is something that should be mutually enjoyed and beneficial to both parties. My friendship with Anna had morphed into something that was not actually a friendship; it was more akin to me subversively attempting to mentor her or be her free therapist.

This was not fair to me, but it was also not fair to her. By allowing our friendship to continue for so many years without confronting her negative behavior, I was being an enabler. For my part, our friendship was serving the purpose of making me feel like a Super Nice Person and a Good Christian.

After all was said and done, was it worth the many years I attempted to be a life witness to Anna, the times I brought her to church, the times she treated me as the ugly and forgotten Cinderella

The last time I’d seen her was a month or so before my wedding. She was visiting me at my parents’ house in Eugene. Anna said she wished she went to church because there were so many beautiful churches in downtown Portland near her apartment. That year she had gotten a cross tattoo on her ankle. We talked about my wedding plans, her job at Stumptown, about my upcoming college graduation. She said she wanted to start reading the Bible and asked if I had an extra one she could keep. I looked around and found an old one I was no longer using, with a hardback lilac cover that featured butterflies. She gave me a hug and was on her way.

Years later I bumped into her at the grocery store, when my eldest child was still tiny. I hugged her and introduced her to my toddler, then chatted briefly before taking off. She seemed bewildered — by what exactly?

My friendliness? My motherhood? My glossing over of the past?

Yes, it was all of that. All of that, and so much more.

Forgiveness and relationships go hand in hand, and both are often more complicated than expected. No friendship can be sustained in the long run unless both friends are willing to forgive each other their mistakes. And yet sometimes we are not forgiving in order to restore the friendship — sometimes the friendship unfortunately cannot be restored. In these cases, we forgive in order to bring healing to ourselves.

About the Author

Ursula and her husband Spencer have two young children, and their family enjoys playing hide-and-seek and dancing in the living room. She works as a communications and events coordinator with the University of Oregon. Ursula has also just become CitySalt’s new Children’s Ministry Director. Congratulations, Ursula!

You can read more from Ursula at motherbearblog.com.

Interruptible | The Interruptions of Motherhood: From Empty Calendar to Giggles and Kisses

Ursula Crawford July 6, 2018

When I visited Ghana as a college student, I was overwhelmed by culture shock. Goats and chickens wandered freely, most people lived in shacks without plumbing or electricity, and open sewers lined the streets. The smell of diesel fuel permeated the air. Everything was unfamiliar. When I returned home to the U.S., I wanted to hug the customs officer who stamped my passport and greeted me with, “Welcome home.”

About six years ago, I entered another new country, but this time there was no passport or return ticket. When my daughter was born, I was again overwhelmed by the unfamiliar territory I found myself in. I struggled with postpartum mood disorder after a difficult birth and breastfeeding challenges. I wish I could say I quickly recovered, but it was a long journey, made more difficult by the social isolation I faced as a new stay-at-home mom.

I remember looking at my empty calendar and thinking about how it used to be filled with work and social activities. There was no schedule anymore, other than my daughter’s schedule of sleeping, eating, and diapering. Most of my friendships seemed to fade away. I didn’t know what to do with the long hours alone with my preverbal baby. I walked all around our southeast Portland neighborhood with my daughter, wishing for opportunities to talk to people.

I slowly discovered activities I could do with my baby. Mom and baby yoga class. Visiting the ducks at the rhododendron garden. Baby sign language class. Walking around the zoo. Mom and baby writing group. Storytime at the neighborhood library. These became the activities that filled my schedule.

Fast forward six years later and my life looks quite a bit different than it did during those early days of motherhood. I am now a mother of two very talkative and active young children.

As I write this, my three-year-old climbs up next to me, and says, “Mom, I am glad to see you!”

My calendar is no longer empty and now verges on being overfull. Balancing my family life, part-time job, church and social activities can be a juggling act. Instead of long unscheduled hours alone with my child, my life now requires a high level of efficiency. I am the family chauffeur, maid, grocery shopper, cook, accountant, and activity scheduler.

As I write this, my son Paul grabs my arm and says, “I’m kissing you.”

Parenting continues to be a journey of being interruptible. As a highly-scheduled, task-oriented achiever, embracing interruptions is hard for me. I always have a place to be or a to-do list to work through.

I think many of us, myself included, allow ourselves to be overscheduled because we’re afraid of the same empty calendar that I experienced as a new mom. We’re afraid of being lonely and disconnected. We’re afraid of missing out and not living our best lives. I get it. But sometimes I wonder what we might miss out on as a result of being overscheduled.

Romans 12:2
“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is — his good, pleasing, and perfect will.”

Our Western culture places a high value on busyness and efficiency. We also greatly value certain types of work over others. The work of parenting is of very low value in our culture, and I often undervalue my own contributions to my family as the primary parent. During my early years of motherhood, I went through a lot of deconstructing of my identity and self-worth. Was parenting just an interruption from my “real” paid career? Was I contributing enough to society and to my family by staying at home with my children?

But the Bible instructs us not to conform to the pattern of this world, that instead we are to conform to God’s will. The values of this world often do not align with the values of God.

Today I know that parenting is incredibly difficult work and should be valued as such. I was deeply encouraged by a dad who told my mom’s group that in his opinion, “Moms who take their role seriously are the backbone of Western society.”

I want to do a better job of being in the present with my children, and being more patient and interruptible. When my children interrupt me from a task I’m working on, I want to remember that being their mom is in fact my most important work. Today my children are giggling in the background as I finish writing this post. I’ll take the sound of their giggling over silence anytime.

About the Author

Ursula and her husband Spencer have two young children, and their family enjoys playing hide-and-seek and dancing in the living room. She works as a communications and events coordinator with the University of Oregon. Ursula has also just become CitySalt’s new Children’s Ministry Director. Congratulations, Ursula!

You can read more from Ursula at motherbearblog.com.

Seeing the Other | When We Were Young

Ursula Crawford April 27, 2018

“Tattoos and no-tattoos can be friends,” my 5-year-old daughter interjects into our small group’s conversation about tattoos on a Tuesday evening.

Yes, I assure her, we can be friends with people who look different from us.

We live in divided and divisive times. We can categorize our neighbors into endless groups. Red states and blue states. Christians and “non-believers.” Protestant and Catholic. Evangelical and mainline Protestant. Blue collar and white collar. Black Lives Matter and Blue Lives Matter.

I met my childhood best friend when she invited me to her sixth birthday party, as we stood together on the steps outside our elementary school. She was friendly and open in that way that only young children can be. I eagerly accepted the invitation and began a friendship that would last through high school and into the early years of college.

She was brown-skinned and I was white. Race wasn’t something we ever talked about, unless she brought it up in a joking way. “I don’t like white people,” she sometimes said, “except you and my mom.” She called herself a Nigerian princess.

I remember lots of sleepovers, Michael Jackson dance contests, endless rounds of Monopoly. I remember playing soccer in the Oregon rain. I remember going to see the Dave Matthews Band play in the Gorge, and the time the WOW Hall advertised our theater troupe on the same poster as a Slick Rick show. I remember writing rap songs for the band we started in third grade, and in college when our drunk friend got locked in a dorm room stairwell overnight. I remember never laughing so much as I did with her.

I don’t remember ever asking my best friend about race, about what it was like to be one of the only brown-skinned kids in our school. Was it hard for her? If it was, she never let me know. Our high school group was a microcosm of diversity for Eugene, with three of my closest friends being ethnic minorities with immigrant parents from Nigeria, Korea, and Mexico.

Our friendship ended as suddenly and inexplicably as it began, with her one day choosing to stop returning my calls without any falling out or slow drifting away.

In college and beyond, my friendships seem to have become more and more homogenous. We are a 99 percent white, upwardly mobile, advanced degree holding, NPR-listening group of folks. We like to talk about social justice. We have backyard chickens and drink kombucha. We go to church, or used to before becoming disillusioned with organized religion. If we do have tattoos, they are discrete.

I tell myself that my friends are similar to me because I don’t have many opportunities to get to know people who are different. But is that entirely true?

Matthew 5:14-15 (NLT)
“You are the light of the world — like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand, where it gives light to everyone in the house.”

It’s certainly easier to be friends with people who share similar backgrounds and interests as ourselves. But Jesus calls us to be a light to the world, something I can’t do if I remain cloistered in my kombucha-drinking, NPR-listening corner of the church. For my part, I want to be more intentional about widening my circle of acquaintances to include more diversity of race, religion, socioeconomic status and sexual orientation. Within the Church as a whole, we also need to do a better job of promoting dialogue between Christians with different political views and scriptural interpretations.

I wish I could go back to the openness of childhood, when it was so easy to make friends with anyone regardless of what they looked like or who their parents were. Fourteen years after my friendship with my Nigerian princess best friend ended, it still hurts to write about her. I wish we could go back to being friends like we used to be, but time has changed us, and we can’t ever go back to that place we stood, two first graders on the steps outside our elementary school, fulfilling Martin Luther King’s dream without even knowing.

About the Author

Ursula and her husband Spencer have two young children, and their family enjoys playing hide-and-seek and dancing in the living room. She works as a communications and events coordinator with the University of Oregon. You can read more from Ursula at motherbearblog.com.

Lent | Embracing Discomfort

Ursula Crawford February 9, 2018

It seems odd to say that I enjoy Lent. Lent is probably not a favorite to win “Most Popular Liturgical Season” anytime soon. But there is something that feels deeply necessary about this season of fasting and penitence, when we are surrounded by a culture of constant excess.

I am not against celebrations. But after the ongoing celebrations of the holiday season, I am ready for the opportunity to observe this quiet season of reflection and fasting. In our culture, we are constantly encouraged to put ourselves first and seek instant gratification. Anytime we feel hungry/sad/lonely/bored we can distract ourselves with our smartphones or grab some food at the drive-through. Taking a break from that, even in a small way — like temporarily giving up chocolate or social media — can allow us to slow down and look to Christ for the gratification we would typically get from the object of our fast.

And what happens when we do look to Christ — when we pray, meditate, or read the Bible but we continue feeling hungry/sad/lonely/bored?

Is it possible that Christ wants us to feel these feelings from time to time?

Is it possible that Christ wants us to feel?

Is it possible that, while living a life of instant gratification and comfort, we have grown numb?

Perhaps we have to sit in the discomfort awhile. Christ was uncomfortable, a homeless wanderer who was betrayed by a trusted disciple, then beaten before being executed in an incomprehensibly painful way.

Isaiah 53:3
“He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.”

The word excruciating literally means “from the cross.” So then, crucifixion was so painful that it led to a word that now describes the worst pain you can imagine.

Most of us don’t really know what it means to suffer. I’ll never forget when I was studying abroad in the capital city of Ghana. One afternoon, as my Ghanaian friend was attempting to help me navigate the public transportation system, she turned to me and said seriously, “Ursula, we are going to have to suffer today.”

I looked at her confused, and she explained that the bus was not running, and I would have to find a way to walk the many miles home. But I had no idea how to walk home from where we were, and I had no intention of suffering. I didn’t have to — I had plenty of cash. I told her I would take a taxi, and she was surprised I could afford such an extravagance. But for only a few American dollars, I was able to escape a difficult situation.

I will never have to know the suffering of walking home for hours across a polluted African city, dodging traffic and open sewers. I will never know the suffering of the poor in Ghana or in other developing countries around the world, who don’t have welfare or financially stable relatives to turn to.

If I didn’t choose to, I would never have to know even the discomfort of going a day without chocolate or Internet access.

Matthew 7:13-14
“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow is the road that leads to life, and only few find it.

There is something else that stood out to me in Ghana, besides the extreme poverty. It was the deep Christian faith possessed by many who live there and the pervasive sense of dependence on God. Perhaps our comfort and material wealth in America has distanced us from God. Maybe during this season of Lent, Christ is inviting us into a deeper relationship with Him by allowing ourselves to be a little uncomfortable.

Maybe that discomfort will be the place where we finally find peace.

About the Author

Ursula Crawford and her husband Spencer have two young children, and their family enjoys playing hide-and-seek and dancing in the living room. She works as a communications and events coordinator with the University of Oregon. You can read more from Ursula at motherbearblog.com.

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