From the very beginning of my literate life, the Bible has been my favorite book. Growing up, we read a chapter of it daily, while the seven of us sat around the kitchen table. Either my dad would open up a chapter at random, or we girls would request one of our favorite stories. (My favorite was the story of Ehud, the left-handed judge of Israel who assassinated pagan King Eglon. Eglon was so fat that even the haft of the dagger disappeared in his belly, “and the dirt came out,” says the King James Version. It’s an intriguing story; you can read it for yourself in Judges 3.) My parents gave me my own King James copy when I was in elementary school, and I devoured it.
Reading the Bible alone in my room, I heard Jesus’ call to his disciples to follow him, and I responded with a wholehearted yes! I kept reading it, and over the years God has used it to transform my life. My hunger for it only grows. I now come to the Bible more open than before, hoping that God’s thoughts will rearrange my life, rather than fitting the text into my own framework. I’m always looking for ways to engage with scripture with my whole heart, soul, mind, and strength.
So when I received a copy of Learn to Study the Bible, by Andy Deane, giddy learner that I am, I eagerly read every word, with pen in hand. Deane has compiled forty different methods “to help you discover, apply, and enjoy God’s Word.” Most methods have a handwritten sample to show you how average Bible readers can transfer the idea to their own lives.
Most compelling to me about this book is the motivation and passion you can’t help but catch from Deane. He loves the Word, and his desire is to see other followers of Jesus have similar passion ignited. He pulls from numerous sources accessible quotes, rhymes, and most often verses from the Bible itself to help his reader comprehend its great riches, beginning with the verse on the front cover: “I rejoice at Your word / As one who finds great treasure” (Psalm 119:162). He openly shares with readers his own practices in Bible study, and his tone, while confident, is never condescending or pretentious. I don’t think even the newest Christian would be intimidated, one reason I recommend this book.
The other outstanding aspect of this book is its great practicality. For each of the forty methods, Deane breaks it down into step-by-step directions. They read a lot like an English teacher’s directions to a class of high-schoolers, and that’s OK. They’re easy to understand, and, just in case you don’t get exactly what he means, he includes a handwritten sample of the method. (All of those samples were lovingly written up by his wife; she must be quite the treasure, too.) The samples themselves are fun and motivating to read: Maybe I could go read the Bible right now and have some exciting or important truths revealed to me, too!
Some of these methods are fairly elementary, such as using the SPACEPETS acrostic to dig into a Bible passage:
S — Is there a sin to avoid, forsake, or confess?
P — Is there a promise to believe and conditions to meet?
A — Is there an attitude to change or an action to take?
C — Is there a command to keep?
E — Is there an example to follow?
P — Is there a prayer to pray or a priority to change?
E — Is there an error to mark?
T — Is there a truth to meditate upon?
S — Is there a specific thing to thank God for?
And some of the methods take more work, such as using reference materials or writing a paraphrase. There is also a useful section of Bible-study methods geared toward youth (those took me back to my English-teacher days!). Most importantly, each method ends with a final step of applying what you’ve learned to your life; the goal is transformation.
My English-teacher background helped make this book appealing to me, but it also made me a harsher judge. Honestly, I think the book’s most substantive weakness is its lack of good editing. Of course, punctuation and other mechanical errors annoy me when they make it into published books, and they embarrass me when those books have been written by Christians. Unfortunately, there were a lot of mechanical errors in this book. More importantly, though, shoddy editing led to a lack of information in this book. Chapter 46 is a list of recommended resources for building a Bible reference library, but it doesn’t include authors or publication information. The “Notes” section at the end, which is usually one of my favorite parts of nonfiction books, is also poorly edited. For example, a John MacArthur book is cited, but at least one word is left out of the title: “How To The Most From God’s Word.” Learn? Get? Glean? I’d be interested in checking out MacArthur’s book, but I’d first have to guess the missing word right.
In the delightful first section of the book, Deane explains why we should study the Bible and general methods for doing so, and cites a lot of Bible verses to back up his arguments. I looked up every verse he referred to but didn’t quote. Most of them are wonderful, but some seemed taken out of context. Just sayin’.
As with any methods book, some of the practical ideas might seem contrived or overly methodical, but I think that’s OK! Some students of the Bible will benefit from those things. There’s a method here for everybody who wants to digest more of the Bible, and with the Holy Spirit’s teaching, those times of study will be life-changing.
Even with its weaknesses, I love this book, and it has informed my Bible study since. It has reminded me of the beauty of the Scriptures and their power to transform my life. I recommend it to most readers. I would loan you mine, but, um, I kind of don’t want to share. Go check out your own copy of Andy Deane’s Learn to Study the Bible, and dig in!

Our little family of four just spent the last week at the ranch, the most peaceful place I can imagine being. It’s out in the middle of nowhere, with scenery out of a classic western. I go there with high hopes of interacting more personally with God than usual and sometimes getting answers from him to big questions I have. I expect to smile more with my kids as the stress of everyday living is left behind in Manhattan.
This time, once again, our trip fulfilled all my dreams. Dan’s teaching and research schedule is such that, with some discipline when he is home, he is able to take the time off without huge repercussions. There was, however, one complication that I had to deal with this time: Ellie had to be taken out of school to go on this vacation with us. I was nervous about this, especially because she had just missed four days due to H1N1, and she was going to miss five more on vacation. I emailed her wonderful teacher, and to my great relief, her teacher responded, saying, “Don’t worry about her falling behind. I know she is academically solid. . . . Family time is the best and I don’t have any worries about her being gone for a family trip. I know you’ll read and talk with her and make it an educational time.”
And of course we did! Our household is made up of compulsive learners. Here’s a partial list of the learning Ellie participated in while we were away from civilization:
– Grandma paraphrased the story of Jonah from the King James Version of the Bible.
– Ellie spontaneously composed about 20 different recipes, with invented spelling, some of it accurate. For example, “Fish. Chloklit, chedr, caritstis” (chocolate, cheddar, carrot sticks). The cheddar is for the body, and the chocolate chips are for the fish’s eyes, and you are supposed to make a fingerprint for the tail, and the carrot sticks for spiny spikes.
– She and Jonathan collaborated to prepare and serve these dishes to the rest of the family.
– Seriously, the girl spent hours every day writing without being prompted.
– She examined the layers in a wash in the pine forest to determine whether there were fossils there. (No, they were tree roots.)
– She discovered a fragmented coyote skull in the grass, collected all the pieces and tried to put it together corrrectly, while Dan and I demonstrated our superior knowledge about coyote skeletal structure and function.
– She played Uno for the first time and loved it. And she played it as many more times as we could. She also learned how to lose gracefully and cheer gladly for whoever won.
– She extended this knowledge of Uno by designing her own game called Uno-At, in which all the cards had different words that ended in “at.” And she made me play it with her. It needed some tweaking, but it sort of worked.
– She learned how to spell “poop.” She practiced writing it a million times and laughed a lot. And then she wrote and read a whole bunch more words that ended in “oop.”
– She read a silly song I composed, made up a melody for it, and performed it a million times on top of a chair, complete with bows and dramatic “thank you, thank you”s.
– She read the book Go Away, Big Green Monster to herself.
– She duplicated Go Away, Big Green Monster, pictures and words, with markers and paper (among other things, she wants to be a writer and illustrator when she grows up). She planned to copy Sheila Rae the Brave and Pinkalicious, but I think the first duplication job ended up being enough.
– And of course, she listened to countless stories, some made up on the spot by yours truly and many more read out of books.
And I didn’t make her do any of this! They were almost all her ideas, and she did them independently. Now, which educational experience do you think was more effective: a week at the ranch with the family, or a week in kindergarten? I love her kindergarten teacher, and I love hearing what she’s learning about, but to me, the week we just had offers the best case for homeschooling (or maybe even unschooling) that I can think of.

I must make this disclaimer: I am TOTALLY satisfied with my, shall we say, feminine endowments. But when Dan brought home two full, round rutabagas from the store for a fall vegetable soup I wanted to make, I HAD to try this out. I couldn’t help it. It’s in my genes to act this way.
You too could have the same benefits from rutabagas. They’re a mite cold and very, um, firm, but they effect quite the dramatic change. Was it worth the discomfort? Yes, mammary! At least for 10 minutes.

It’s actually my birthday today, and I’m celebrating turning 36! I’m feeling incredibly grateful about the last year! This has been the year of falling in love. . . with Jesus. And I think I would have anyway, even without all the ways he’s blessed me.

Let’s see if I can count to 36 (and these include things I’m pretty sure are meant for me personally, as well as just God being generally lavish with his pleasantness):
1. sunshine today! (Seriously, is there any weather more glorious than this??)
2. a washline outside so I can enjoy the sunshine
3. seeing at least three people I know on a short run today
4. my dear old friend Melinda, who knows me awfully well, and uses it for my benefit, and is this very moment heading Manhattan-ward
5. Melinda’s sweet husband, Matt
6. the coolness of the number 36; I might only have two or three more years of my life in which I am a squared number old; plus, it’s a multiple of the number 4, which is the most perfect number there is
7. a gift of new dishtowels from my mom
8. the fierce strength of my mom, who gave birth to me on this day
9. Mom’s promise to write up my birth story as a guest blogger right here!!
10. the heavenly fragrance of garlic sauteed in olive oil, wafting through my house right now
11. a tomato-basil-garlic pasta sauce mellowing out on my deck right this minute
12. the prospect of the most decadent peanut-butter-fudge cake I’ve ever made. Hey, it’s my birthday, and I can make however many layers I want, and pile on as many calories as I want.
13. I don’t know how many kind birthday wishes so far. I feel loved and cared for!
14. about a ton of Candyopolis candy as a gift from my kids — most of which fell out on the kitchen floor this morning
15. the fact that I didn’t have to clean up the candy mess (funny how eager the kids were to help with that!)
16. joy in God’s presence early this morning (Ps. 16:11)
17. the heavens’ declaration of the glory of God (Ps. 19:1); the beauty of the earth
18. Dan, who told me last night that even if I turned into a fat blob, he would still love me (because I was worried about that, having skipped two days of running due to a cold; oh I am a mess sometimes)
19. stacks of scratch paper waiting to be scratched on
20. more pens than I can ever use up (reminds me of that verse in hymn #289, “The Love of God”: “Could we with ink the ocean fill, and were the skies of parchment made, / Were every stalk on earth a quill and every man a scribe by trade, / To write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry; / Nor could the scroll contain the whole, though stretched from sky to sky.” I love that imagery!)
21. a little boy entertaining himself outside right now by hammering with a rock on our retaining wall
22. a little girl who made three books for me for my birthday (one was actually from Jonathan, but she made it; it was the story of Jonathan walking a dog, and it walks over the sun, so he makes it come back)
23. the extreme joy of getting in on what God is doing! Man! I can’t get over how fun it can be to pray for things he wants and to serve him in other ways!
24. a kitchen that needs to be cleaned up; because that means I’ve been cookin’ and bakin’, and it’s gonna get clean again!
25. a good hair day! not a bad hair day!
26. exclamation points!!!
27. the girlie Bible study that my sisters, mom, and I are doing together, over the book crazy love, by Francis Chan
28. how cool it is that you can play a paper clip like a trombone
29. Jonathan’s “Hello Song” that he just played on the paper clip; really quite shrill and wonderful
30. walnut-throwing contests down the hill (a three-year-old beat me!)
31. racing back to the house (a three-year-old beat me at that, too! oh the humiliation)
32. Pandora radio, playing my Misty Edwards station — no better high these days
33. a mama this close to going into labor, and I get to serve her!
34. lunch here in, oh, five minutes: pasta with homegrown-tomato and -basil sauce, a little freshly grated parmesan on top
35. it’s monarch season!
36. my thyme patch
And that’s just 36 blessings for today! I can tell it’s going to be a happy one!

We don’t really have a tradition of eating pancakes on Saturday mornings; that’s just when we have time to spend on syrup-delivery devices. These are my favorite pancakes of all time, thanks to my generous friend Emily, who gave me her recipe, modified from The Joy of Cooking. My recipe is slightly modified from hers. I make these hearty pancakes with 100-percent whole grains — obviously a health benefit, but also they taste better that way!
They are infinitely variable. This morning, my kids made happy faces out of blueberries in some of the pancakes, and I made some with chopped homegrown apples, toasted pecans, and cinnamon. Jonathan prefers his plain, and those are delicious, too! I’ve added bits of strawberries, bananas, chocolate chips, spices, and raisins in the past — and I’m sure some other things I can’t remember. Thanks to Dan’s parents, we have a griddle that can hold eight pancakes at a time; it makes pancake cooking a lot more efficient.

MULTIGRAIN FLAPJACKS

Whisk together in a big bowl:
1 3/4 c. whole wheat flour (I’ve often used part whole-wheat, part white whole wheat, part spelt, part. . . um. . . whatever flour caught my fancy at the whole-foods store)
1/3 c. cornmeal (stone-ground is wonderful here for the texture, but the regular stuff is fine)
1/4 c. oats (steel-cut are the best, but the regular stuff is fine, too)
2 T. sugar or honey
2 t. baking powder
1 t. salt
1/2 t. baking soda

Mix together in another bowl:
1 3/4 c. milk
1/4 c. oil
3 large eggs

Add wet ingredients to dry and stir just till combined. Pour in about 1/4-cup amounts onto hot griddle (I use a 1/4-cup measure); flip when top is bubbly and some bubbles have popped. Makes 16-18 pancakes.

I’m excited to announce the rebirth of my doula-business website, Gentle Birth Doula Services. It’s just a start for now. I look forward to adding much more!

This post is from one of my favorite blogs, Stand and Deliver: reflections on pregnancy, birth, and mothering. Rixa links to her June ‘08 post on the BirthTracker, and also to Nursing Birth’s recent post on LaborPro.

I find this terrifying and pray I never, ever see one in use.

Since when has labor been easy? That was my first thought upon picking up the book Easy Labor: Every Woman’s Guide to Choosing Less Pain and More Joy During Childbirth, by William Camann and Kathryn J. Alexander (Ballantine, 2006). However, in an attempt to learn about birth from all different perspectives, I kept grinding through this book.
I can barely choke down the title, because I don’t agree with it. Does less pain really equal more joy in childbirth? Can labor ever be easy, even the “princess” version, where you don’t feel a thing? Is “easy” defined only by the lack of pain? Isn’t there any value at all in labor pain? OK, ideally, there wouldn’t be any pain, and you wouldn’t have to put yourself or your baby at risk to get a pain-free experience. But since this isn’t an ideal world, maybe we can acknowledge some value in labor pain — such as the fact that it often leads a mobile woman to find the position of most comfort and greatest progress. How about the feeling of empowerment some women get from participating actively in their babies’ births? (I just had to say that, doula that I am.)
Easy Labor’s reliance on and explanation of medical research is commendable. Some of the studies cited surprised and reassured me, such as this factoid: “The emergency cesarean delivery for a distressed baby is not more common among women who have had an epidural.” And this: “Recent research has shown that women who receive an epidural early in labor do not have an increased risk of cesarean or instrumental delivery.” (Now that one has me skeptical, because it doesn’t fit with anecdotal evidence I have observed or heard. Other birth workers, chime in here.)
Camann and Alexander more thoroughly explain the procedure of placing an epidural than anesthesiologists ever would in the labor-and-delivery room. They also name the pain medications likely to be used in an epidural, a pudendal block, general anesthesia, an IV, etc., a point greatly in the book’s favor. The chapter on complementary and alternative approaches (Lamaze, Bradley, acupuncture, doulas and midwives, hypnosis — a very mixed bag) really tried to be unbiased, although I must say having all these approaches relegated to the misc. category implied a bias from the start. There were actually some positive testimonials for all of the approaches.
The book includes two whole chapters of birth stories, some told by birth workers (OBs, labor nurses, anesthesiologists, a midwife) about other women’s births, and some told by birth workers about their own births. Of course, those were riveting, and I think it’s always helpful to see another woman’s decision process about her birth, no matter what your own goals are. (I still haven’t stopped wanting to hurl the book across the room for having a chapter called “Birth Stories From the Other Side of the Stirrups!”)
It was hard for me personally to read a whole book that assumed all pain was bad. While it did discuss the pros and cons of various types of pain relief, I felt the risks of medical intervention were dealt with somewhat flippantly: Any side effect you might experience from an epidural can be dealt with by giving you yet another drug! No worries! It bothered me that the epidural was presented as nearly always effective; that has not been the case at the births I have attended. (I would estimate epidurals placed in my clients have gone exactly as intended only about 60 percent of the time.) Finally, the psychological aspect of birth is downplayed in this book. Of course, I’m sure it’s hard to get reliable research on this mystical, spiritual stuff, but it is a very real part of what happens with many mothers. To ignore it is to dishonor women’s experience.
If you’re needing more information about medical approaches to relieving labor pain, this book might be very helpful and reassuring to you. It does cover details I haven’t read in any other book aimed at birthing mothers. I won’t, however, be recommending it to my clients.

I had hoped to post more extensively on birthy things after I returned home from the DONA conference a couple of weeks ago, but as usual life intervened. I just haven’t had the disk space in my brain for writing thoughtfully. I might put myself out there soon and post this little writing I’ve been belly-aching over for a week now.
I’ve been kind of envying those of you who post sweet, funny, happy things. Then I thought, “Hey! Why don’t I post something sweet or funny or happy? What a revolutionary thought!” So here are some good little blips:
My sister Carrie and her husband, Kyle, are at this very moment in Ethiopia finalizing the adoption of a beautiful little boy. On Thursday, Lord willing, they will be bringing him home to meet his two-year-old brother, Isaiah. This trip is the answer to a lot of prayers and is a total testimony to the real-life way in which Carrie and Kyle follow Jesus.
My Ellie, who has recently decided to go by her “real” name, Elanor, is a KINDERGARTNER! I am impressed by her teacher and feel every day that I am leaving her in good hands. Her favorite part of every day is lunch, because she gets to take her lunch in a lunchbox. I think she also really enjoys the games she’s been learning in music and P.E. I’m glad we’re still getting in lots of snuggling, and there’s hardly anything that can make me happier than to see her beautiful smile. It did my heart good to hear her saying clearly and with certainty her memory verse from Sunday school yesterday: “I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me. Isaiah 46:9.”
Jonathan, meanwhile, is getting more of my attention than he ever has. It is so peaceful around our house! I miss Ellie when she’s at school, but I really enjoy the lack of arbitration and how Jonathan lights up when I can concentrate on him. He’s been learning to dribble a basketball and is doing a lot of role-playing lately. His favorite role was Thomas until today, and now it’s getting a bit more complicated. Today he was the boy black widow, and I was the mama black widow. Then he was Baby Bear, and I was Mama Bear. These alter-egos tend to be much better behaved than Jonathan would be — except for tonight, when he was the squid who didn’t like to go to bed. The mama squid and the papa squid had to make him go to bed.
God seems to be in the business of fulfilling dreams lately, as a few families I know who have longed for babies have been blessed with them. I have been really convinced of his kindness as I watch him compassionately care for us needy folks here on earth.
For the last several months, it has been my practice to get up before 6 to do a little yoga before I settle down with my Bible and journal. The yoga is partly to wake me up and partly to worship God with my body and mind. I stumble outside, bleary-eyed, onto the deck and do it under the early morning sky. These days, it’s still dark, and I’ve been able to see stars still twinkling. Sometimes I’ll see a spider who has built a perfect, lacy web during the night (I am very careful not to walk into these webs — that would totally negate any centering achieved through the yoga!).
The stars, the new babies, the spiders and their webs, the imagination and spirit of my kids, my husband — they’re all confirmations of a very, very good God. I hope you’re seeing his goodness in your life, too.

This past weekend, I was privileged, blessed, perfectly provided for to attend the 2009 DONA International conference. For those unfamiliar, DONA originally stood for Doulas of North America, and it is the premier doula organization in the world. About 1 1/2 years ago, I was certified through DONA’s relatively exacting birth doula training program, earning the right to add some initials after my name: Rachel Andresen, CD(DONA). DONA is an organization I’m proud to be part of, as it encourages evidence-based practice and respectful relationships among all members of a birthing woman’s support system.
And DONA puts on a heck of a good conference. I returned home yesterday with my head about to explode from two and a half solid days of learning and my whole body about to ignite from the glow of having been in the presence of such famous people as Penny Simkin, Marshall and Phyllis Klaus, Dr. Robert Sears, and Suzanne Arms. (OK, if you’re not into birth, women’s studies, or newborn stuff, you might not have a clue who they are; so sad. ) Since there was so much good information shared, I really want to pass some of it on to you. Not that the topics were that esoteric or cutting-edge; they were just really relevant to people involved in birth — you know, like mothers and babies and those of us who love mothers and babies — and I figure that covers a lot of us.
Susan Ludington-Hoe, a neonatal nursing researcher at Case Western Reserve University, had to be my favorite speaker, with her gritty, irreverent humor, her obvious joy at the person she is, and her intelligence. She spoke on kangaroo care, the practice of putting the baby skin-to-skin, chest-to-chest, with the mother or the father in its early hours and days. Her research has shown that kangaroo care is safe for preterm babies, contrary to the popular belief that only a machine can keep newborns warm enough. It may surprise you to learn that a mother’s breasts respond instantly to the baby’s temperature. If the baby is even one degree Celsius too cool, the mother’s breasts respond by growing warmer until the baby is at its ideal temperature. They can also cool down a too-warm baby. In fact, when the subject was a mother of twins, one twin being too warm and the other too cool, the mother’s two breasts responded individually to moderate each baby’s temperature. Is that not amazing?
Not only does this skin-to-skin contact keep babies’ thermostats in the right range, but it also facilitates early breastfeeding. Astonishingly, babies know how to breastfeed without being taught. It shouldn’t surprise us, because every other mammal knows how to find its mother’s nipple and be sustained by her milk. You might argue that humans are less developed than other mammals at birth, which is true, but you must consider what human babies can do when given the chance.
Put a newborn baby — including one who has emerged from his mother’s body mere seconds or minutes ago — on his mother’s bare chest, and he will crawl to her nipple, latch himself on (correctly!), and have a good meal! I know it’s hard to believe in our culture, where we think we are the only ones who can ensure success. The way we jam the mother’s breast (yes, this is usually done by the caregiver, not even the mother herself) into the baby’s face on our own terms, it’s no wonder babies and mothers get upset and develop unsustainable breastfeeding habits. The good news is that stopping the madness can lead to great benefits — and not just in the realm of breastfeeding. The “breast crawl” has even been used to fix latching problems that have been established for weeks already.
Unfortunately, the reality is that there is so much chaos, and so many people, in what should be a quiet, sacred first hour, that I don’t know many mothers who would feel they have the space to do this. Our society places too many expectations on them to be “proper” (and this is a whole ‘nother screwed-up thing). After proving how strong and capable they are by giving birth to their babies, they should have earned the right to rip off any remaining vestiges of clothing in order to bond with their babies.
Instead of getting mired in angry thoughts, like the ones I just vented, I encourage you to indulge in a little dreaming. This six-minute movie is produced by the World Health Organization and UNICEF, who are pushing for more breastfeeding around the world, for all those wonderful things you know breastfeeding can provide. See how a beautiful, brand-new baby finds her mother’s breast for the first time. Cheer (or shed a tear) when she finally gets what she wants. Admire her perfect latching form.
Believe.