Whenever Az the Husband is going to ask me to do something that I do not want to do, he always begins his sentence with "Um." I hate this. The sound of "Um" from his mouth means Impending Obligation, usually one I should have done earlier but haven't, so I feel guilty already. "Um, you said you were going to make that phone call." "Um, remember I have that meeting tomorrow so I can't help with the kids."

I loathe "Um."

One night, standing in the kitchen, he began a statement with "Um" and I visibly shuddered and said, admittedly maybe a little louder than necessary, "Would you STOP saying 'Um.' Every time you say 'Um' I know something unpleasant and burdensome is coming. Would you AT LEAST pick another word?"

Az was a little taken aback. But he has also shared most of my laughs in the last twelve years, so he rallied quickly and, with a twinkle in his eye, he said:

"Listen."

(The link is to a Dara O'Briain bit. He is a very funny man with a very foul mouth, so don't visit the link if foul language offends you.)

But it did. I learned to trust the different wisdom Az the Husband has to offer. I am prone to epiphanies; Az is immune to them. He is all steadiness and slow change, and when I am caught up in the thrill or despair of the moment, he is calm and unruffled.

I have had more than one epiphany in my life. Many times I have been overwhelmed with a certainty of God's presence. Twice I was certain of God's non-existence. Once I felt the same epiphanic certainty that a tree was god. That was quite a moment. I suspect if I were properly medicated, I would not experience such things at all.

Faith is more than a moment of certainty. Moments of certainty contradict themselves. Faced with contradictory epiphanies, a person still has to choose.

I chose faith in Jesus Christ.

Reformed theology tells me that I do not really choose faith: God calls me irresistibly to it. I believe this, but I also recognize that sometimes that irresistible call comes through our apparent acts of bumbling choice.

First it was a Puddleglum moment, then an act of obedience, then resting on my community (especially my husband) to support me when I was weak, and finally a renewed awareness of the presence of the transcendent God. My faith healed, or rather, God, after tossing it around and testing its durability, strengthened my faith.

Recently some of Mother Theresa's letters have been in the news. For those of you who do not know, Mother Theresa had a profound experience of Christ when she was young, but spent most of her life afterward living in that appalling sense of his absence that I felt on that weekend, the desolation that John of the Cross called "the dark night of the soul." Her faith was found in her obedience and her choice of community and her reason, but her feelings were bereft.

Faith without feeling God's presence is a desolate thing. It feels like abandonment. But sometimes God allows us to feel this way and asks us to believe anyway. I cannot explain why.

Even in the midst of doubt, Jesus' demand for faith is a sign of how highly God values us. It is an insistence on relationship with us, a mother lifting her child's chin so they look into each other's eyes. Faith directs our gaze to Jesus, where we see ourselves as we really are in the light of God's holiness, and see God's grace transforming us. Faith is the longing gaze that cannot look away.

I believe.

We were lazing together on that dock, feeling the breeze and watching the waves, when a tension I had been living with inside me built to the breaking point. Suddenly I was seized with the certainty that it was all a hoax: God, Bible, faith - the whole thing. I looked up at the sky, and it appalled me with its emptiness. I was a fly on the roof of the world, and there was nothing above me but the void. I said nothing, frozen and unbearably alienated.

Before the weekend, I had been reading for the dissertation, and sometimes the books I read affect me a little too deeply. In particular, I had spent the last several weeks reading Esther Fuchs' Sexual Politics in the Biblical Narrative: Reading the Bible As a Woman, in which she angrily attacks the Hebrew Bible. Her stated goal in the book is, among other things, to leave her reader unable to view the biblical text as revelation from God or any other form of religious or literary canon.

Spending my days in a silent library with only books for company, when the authors of a few of those books have the destruction of the reader's faith as a goal (I'm not slurring all scholars here - but there are a few like Fuchs who state that as their goal) is hard on a soul, and I sometimes (foolishly) keep these things bottled up inside for far too long. I had talked to Az the Husband about some of the things I was reading, but had not discussed the emotional effect they were having on me.

Now I was uncomfortable and frightened and vulnerable and all those other things a person feels in the midst of a crisis kept secret, but I couldn't keep it to myself. If I kept it to myself, everything about me would be false. And then I felt if I were alone with it a moment longer, I would be alone with it forever.

I looked at the sky, unwilling to look Az the Husband in the eye.

"What if there's no God?" I said, making it a question.

Az did not blink. He may have paused for one count, and then he said, "Let's talk about that. What if there is no God? What in your life would you do differently?"

I thought. Something about the question made me think about Puddleglum. In C.S. Lewis The Silver Chair, Puddleglum the Marshwiggle and two children are trapped in a wicked witch's underground lair, and she is slowly enchanting them, persuading them to believe that there is no world above the ground. They almost fall completely under her spell when Puddleglum stamps out her fire (burning his foot in the process) and says:

"One word, Ma'am" he said coming back from the fire; limping because of the pain. "One word. All you've been saying is quite right, I shouldn't wonder. I'm a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won't deny any of what you said. But there's one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things - trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play-world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia."

Like Puddleglum, I mustered suspicion against my doubts. Jesus saved me there on that lake shore, much as he had saved me before. Faced with the sudden flash of intense doubt, I thought of Jesus and flung myself headlong towards hope.

Tomorrow: Part Two.

1. Professor Bhaer from Little Women - He is kind, good, masculine, and thoroughly resistant to pomposity. My heart was in my throat the first time he knocked on the Marches' door and thought Jo had married Laurie. He was so vulnerable and strong all at once. Sniff.

When I first fell for Az the Husband, he reminded me of Bhaer (and also the man born blind from John 9). When I saw the movie version I was utterly disgusted that Gabriel Byrne played Bhaer as a beardless man. If he doesn't have a beard, he IS NOT Mr. Bhaer.

2. Lord Peter Wimsey - He's clever and classy, deceptively strong and devilishly attractive. All the women swoon for him, and I would be one of them.

3. Mervyn Bunter - I suspect he has a hidden rakish side, and I would like to know more.

Of course, he is Wimsey's closest friend so maybe I should not snog them both, but they both are firm believers that a gentleman doesn't kiss and tell, so I think I could pull it off.

4. T.H. White's Galahad - I admire his good qualities, but he is so serious and boring. If ever a man needed a good snog, it's this one.

5. Allan Quatermain - He has a certain adventurous manliness I find appealing, combined with a wistful longing for lost love. I suspect, though, that he is strictly a one-woman man, and since the woman he loves usually dies, I hesitate to become one. Maybe instead of snogging we can share lots of lingering glances, filled with a longing for a love that cannot be.

6. Eve and BubandPie mentioned characters from the Lord of the Rings, but none of them appeal to me. Aragorn has that whole eternal love thing going with someone else, and Legolas, well, I think an elf would make me feel like a bearded dwarfwoman. Faramir is a little too perfect. But Beorn from The Hobbit - now there's a man for me. There is something about the gruff and growly/nurturing and compassionate combo that I find sexy. I'd even become a vegetarian if he asked very, very nicely.

7. Jacob Witting from Sarah, Plain and Tall - He is hard-working and a loving father. His courtship of Sarah is eager but patient, certain he and his family are worth loving, but uncertain whether Sarah will consider them worth the loss of her beloved ocean. The story is tersely told, but I can happily fill in many details, and Jacob is definitely a good kisser.

8. Laurie King's Sherlock Holmes - Intellect and passion carefully disciplined. He would make a lousy father, but not a bad snog.

9. Remus Lupin - Am I the only one who finds werewolves more than a little intriguing? A werewolf who has managed to control his transformations, who knows his own terrible weaknesses and fights them - that is a man I want to know better.

10. Tennyson's Arthur - Lancelot was a schmuck. If I had been Guenivere, it would have been Arthur all the way.

I share a similar theme in my choices to BubandPie's. Strength carefully molded into compassion, passion funneled into faithfulness and patience - it's like Anne of Green Gables said, "I don't want someone who is truly wicked, just someone who could be wicked - but won't." That's not an exact quote but you get the idea. Add a few hypermasculine qualities like hairiness and skill at hunting or fighting, and I am hooked.

And if you think that tells you something about Az the Husband, then oh yes it does, sister.

You might think that I refrained from writing that particular meme because my husband is irrationally jealous. You would be wrong. He is not particularly jealous, but he is extremely fair.

I'm the jealous one.

When Az the Husband saw that meme title, he said, "Would you want me to spend time thinking about what fictional women I would like to kiss?"

And no, dear readers, I would not. I would not at all. I am a little crazy, you see.

But after reading all your comments, and after I reminded him that I called him the name of a particular literary character as a pet name when we first married, he said that I could pass the meme off to you, and IF someone tagged me back, then I could do it and he would be okay with it.

These are the loving, irrational bargains that we come to after twelve years together.

So have at it. Joy, Chrissy, Chantelle, Luisa, Mrs. Who, BubandPie, DaniGirl, Blog Antagonist, Sherri, Eve, Mary Joan, tardyteacher, Shannon, and anyone else interested: consider yourself tagged, if you like, for Ten Literary Characters I Would Totally Make-Out With or whatever alternate title you prefer.

(And maybe someone can tag me back.)

Bill Maher's recent rant against mothers who breastfeed in public. You can read about it at Quiet Room or Suburban Oblivion or Suburban Oblivion again or Velveteen Mind .

But I won't get in the way of Az. Hear the man for yourself.

Bill,

You should have just stolen money from the mob.

Clearly you lack either an internal or an external editor. A competent editor would have told you the rant is funny, but think, first. You are treading into the territory of women feeding their babies. Unless you are loaded for bear and prepared to put yourself between the grizzly mother and her cub, don't do it. It's not funny enough. Even if you think you are equipped to handle it, don't do it. You're not. You are messing with the instinct for the basic survival of the species. They will eat you for lunch.

Sincerely,
Az

Left Piece

I am driving down the highway, Antique Mommy sitting beside me. My baby is in a carseat behind us. Az the Husband and Antique Daddy and Sean are in the car ahead of us.

I am talking. I am talking a lot. Nervously and non-stop. I gradually become aware that in my gabbling, I am telling AM every scandal my family has ever had. Why don't I stop talking? O sweet merciful stars, did I just tell her that?

"I should probably warn you," I say, half-joking, "that I have only been driving an automatic for about two weeks now, and there is a possibility that at some point my foot will jam on the brake, looking for a clutch that isn't there."

"Oh. Okay," she replies evenly, and grips the door handle with white knuckles.

Well, at least she didn't leap screaming from the car. Maybe this will go well. Maybe we will even do this again sometime.

We'll have to. I've thought of two family scandals I haven't told her yet.

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Hinge

An interlace of the diaper bags I forgot, the diaper I had to beg off Antique Mommy and the large piece of basil I found in my front teeth after we said goodbye.

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Center Piece

We are all sitting together at lunch. The baby is crying. I try to feed her, but she refuses. She wants to be moving.

I stand and sway and bounce and we try to continue the conversation.

"...blogging brings us so many different voices that we never heard when publishers controlled things..."

Antique Mommy offers to take the baby. She, I and Az take turns walking the baby, circling around and around the table, into the bar, catching new snatches of words on the return trip, passing the baby onto the next person.

"...feels like such a privilege to get to know people who would never let us get so close in person once they knew who we are..."

I take the baby and pace, walking round the tables, pausing for a few grandmotherly women to adore her. I return to our table, bouncing, and Az takes her and starts walking. I sit down once again, distracted but at home with these other parents, Antique Mommy and Antique Daddy, who have also stumbled upon this truth:

The uninterrupted life is not worth living.

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Hinge

An interlace of pacifiers on ribbons, ribbons turning to vines, vines blooming into sweetpeas.

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Left Piece

At meeting, Sean is in his daddy's arms, head buried in his daddy's neck. Occasionally he raises his head enough to peep at me with one eye, then burrows deeper into the safety of his father.

After our meal, we are sitting at the table, and Sean climbs down from his chair and begins to dance. Whirl and stomp, skip and swing, full of glee, joy radiating out his fingertips. He asks AM to dance, too.

"I think people would rather see you dance than me," she declines, smiling.

We say our farewells, and Az and the baby and I drive home. "That is one little boy," Az says as we drive, "supremely confident in his parents' love."

The rain continues to fall.

"Fifty dollars," he said, giving me my spending limit. I laughed. I am strictly a bargain hunter of books, and have not spent $50 at once on books in years. But it is my birthday (I'm 35 and feel 50, thank you very much) and there was a sale and we are not moving after all so I get to fill up my shelves again. I still didn't spend $50, but I definitely indulged myself.

So without further ado, here is a promising way to spend $31.50:

We are not moving. We will stay here in the Midwest.

My brother is in the army and he received word last week that he will be deployed to Afghanistan soon. While he is gone, his wife and their three young children will move in with my parents. We are in prayer for his safe return and for his family.

Obviously this has disrupted the family in many ways, and one small outcome of it is that we will not be moving south. In many ways the decision is a relief - we were not sure we could sell the house in the current market, and now we don't have to - but we wish the decision had a different impetus. My sister-in-law says she is rather weepy, and her oldest child is sometimes sad her daddy is going, and sometimes excited to live with Grandma and Grandpa and so close to their cousins. We hope for the best and pray. For now we will unpack our boxed-up books and settle back into life here.

Sure enough, when we came home from our errand, the squirrel was lying stretched out on the lawn, dead. I told her we must be careful not to touch the dead squirrel because it might make us sick. When we got inside I told Az about the squirrel and asked him to take care of it so the girls could safely play in the yard.

I assumed (rookie mistake) that Az would probably toss it down the hill behind our house. Our lot includes lots of trees and a steep hill, backing up to a few acres of urban forest. The girls are not allowed to go into the trees, so the squirrel would be out of reach, and I would have the pleasure of watching the birds of prey that glide into view whenever an animal carcass shows up in the woods (on the disposal of wild animal remains, I am strictly Zoroastrian).

I should have known better. Az said he would take care of the squirrel and he headed outside. I saw him pass the window carrying a shovel. He was gone for an hour before I managed to get the kids down for their nap and trudge outside to look for him ( I was thinking, "Where could he be? Is he lying in the garage gasping for help? Has he had a heart attack?" I am a worrier).

Az was complacently standing next to the spot we have used a few times for a campfire circle. There was a crackling fire, glowing with hot coals and white ash, burnt down from the large pile of brush and fallen tree limbs that had been there an hour ago.

He was immolating the squirrel.

I started to laugh. You see, if I had thought about it for one full childfree moment, I would have known he would involve fire. For years he has said that his preferred funeral would be to pile all his stuff around him in a longboat, set him adrift and set it on fire.

He saw me laughing. "I guess I'm lucky you didn't build him a little boat first," I said.

"I would have if I'd had the time," he replied.