Transitions

This report is long overdue.  Several weeks ago, I was able to take Baby E to St. Paul's for the first time.  Papa D had work commitments, and I was wanted to go to church.  It was a very different experience.

First of all, I felt much less self-conscious.  My attention was primarily focused on my toddler, making sure that he was happy and behaving well.  Boy, did that feel a lot more comfortable than sitting there alone.  While I know that my general discomfort stems mostly from my race, I didn't feel that I was more comfortable because of E's race.  As is usual, I didn't get a feeling that people were noticing E's brownness. Seriously, do I have terrible radar for this sort of thing?  Am I clueless?  Or is it really not happening?  (Maybe I could do an experiment and walk around with E and an friend who is of color, and see if my friends notices any vibes.) I mean, E is ambiguously brown, but he is brown.  Papa D thinks that E really "reads" as Latino, so maybe the congregation members didn't identify with E.

Second, it was just overall a lovely experience.  The pastor called E and I up to the front of the church (what do you call that area with the little banister and cushions for kneeling?) for the Blessing on the Children.  The congregation does this blessing every week, whether there are children present or not.  After the pastor said a blessing over E, then another member of the congregation said a prayer for children everywhere. I came very close to almost speaking, because I felt the Spirit inside me as I realized that it was Orphan Sunday. I was in the middle of a month-long campaign to honor National Adoption Month by educating people about the plight of orphans.  It crossed my mind that a prayer said, in this Christian church, for orphans could have a greater resonance...but I didn't have the courage to speak, and the Spirit wasn't urgent.  I think I knew that our prayers were enough already.

I did feel as if people were even warmer than usual to me.  I had an adorable baby with me, so that just made everything so much more pleasant. My overwhelming memory of the morning was sitting in the pew, nursing E, with the sun streaming through the windows.  I felt like I was bathed in a halo of light.  It was magical.  (And far outweighs the later experience of rushing him out, jiggling him, playing with him in the foyer, taking him outside because he wouldn't hush up during the Word.)

It's interesting to think now that may have been my last day at St. Paul's, a capstone to my six-month journey with them.

I'm now thinking that I'm going to step back from my quest for a spiritual community for a while.  The main reason I am going to stop making church a high-priority for my weekend schedule is that it puts a wedge between my husband and I.  Because it's not something we do together, it pulls me away from him and our marriage.

This seems like the right time, because the pastor announced that she is leaving the congregation due to medical issues.  The transition allows me a graceful exit.

I feel comfortable with this decision because I do feel I have gotten some of what I was searching for:

• A renewed feeling of connection to the divine, 
• A way of getting through the tough times of my former job and layoff, 
• A deepened understanding of African-American culture, 
• Some initial ties into the African-American community in my town, and 
• The experience of being in the minority.   

I feel that I still have St. Paul's as a resource, if I or Baby E need it, but that it's not the right focus for my time and energy right now.

I don't know yet whether this means I will reduce - even further - the postings on this blog.  I am interested in occasionally attending the UU church, when particular topics seem to be of interest to our family, and in exploring other churches in the area.  Perhaps I can journal about those experiences.  Or perhaps I will continue to have thoughts about mothering, race, adoption, and spirituality that I want to record for posterity.

History lesson

I started reading Shannon LC Cate's blog long before I ever had a son with African heritage, and today I thought I'd look up her recommendations for Books Every White Parent of a Black Child Should Read.  (BTW, Love Isn't Enough is a very helpful resource in general.)  I'm not sure whether I have access to those books, because our small-town library in a majority-white county isn't that strong on African-American titles.  But I could try the college library, then I'd just have to find the time to read them!  In the meantime, I'm actually considering whether I could take the Intro to African American Studies course at the local college....

Diverse city

One of the most exciting parts of vising a big city and attending a cultural festival was the abundance of diversity. We saw African-American families and Indian families. Performers from throughout Central and South America displayed every possible skin color. On the subway, there were Asian students. But that's one of the main reasons to visit a city, to get out of our predominantly white area.

Even more surprising, though, were the number of transracial adoptive families we saw. Starting on the subway on the way there, where a family of two women (friends, I think) with four children befriended us. The children were a biracial boy of about 10 or 11, and three younger blonde girls. He immediately started engaging Baby E, trying to play with him. He was a beautiful boy, with skin the same color as Baby E's, and tiny little curls close shorn under his baseball cap. He asked Papa D: "Are you his dad?" "Yes," we said. "Are you his mom?" he asked me. "Yes," we said. I added, "We adopted him." That opened the door. He asked how long we had him, and I said since birth. He explained, "My mom and dad adopted me at birth." When Baby E was holding onto his finger, I said, "You're almost exactly the same color." He answered, "When it's hot, I get black. When it's cold, I get white." An interesting take on climate and racial identity.

At the festival, everywhere we turned there were adoptive parents with their children of other races. It was so exciting and empowering. I know that Baby E wasn't getting much out of it, but someday he will.

What he was getting was lots of attention from people of color. From the toddler girl who was drawn to him on the dance floor ("baby" she kept saying) to the mother on the subway who played peek-a-boo with him, he charmed them all. I had to remind myself that he doesn't know he has a color yet, but then I realized that the other people do, especially the adults. They were responding to him and interacting with him.

I don't know whether that will continue as he grows older, but it is a very compelling reason to continue to visit the city as often as we can.

History and change

As I started to think about the hymn, “We’ve come this far by faith” took on more meaning. I know these spirituals have a long history in the black church, reflecting the yearnings for, struggles toward and celebrations of freedom. When I think of how far Africans have come, from the slave ships to the presidency, I am humbled. And I know faith – or at least the churches – played a large part in those achievements.

I decided to learn a little more about the church I attended. From the AME Zion website:

“…the AME Zion Church made the salvation of the whole person--mind, body and spirit--its top priority. At the crux of its ministry lay racial justice, peace and harmony, thus earning it the title, the Freedom Church….”

I certainly like the focus on the mind and body, as well as the spirit.

“Devoted to religious, educational and social causes, the AME Zion Church and its members have been instrumental in many of the freedom struggles of this nation, dating back to the days when former slaves Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman led the first wave of Black social activism. Since that time, AME Zion members have made other significant contributions. AME Zion Bishop Alexander Walters, along with Dr. W.E.B. DuBois, helped to found the NAACP. Bishop Walters was also a pioneering member of the Pan-African Congress. And many of the denomination's clergy and lay people were active participants in the Civil Rights Movement of the '60s.”

Wow, that’s an impressive heritage.

In my town, the little church I attended seems to have been very active in the 1800s for black education and abolition. The members actively assisted escaped slaves, and the original building was possibly even a stop on the Underground Railroad.<

Despite the song, it wasn’t faith alone that brought our country this far. It took bloody battles, eloquent speakers, tough times, and mighty struggles. Many many people had their hearts and minds changed, and it took incremental changes over many generations to get us here.

I have to remember this in my own journey. I must combine faith and action. It is not enough to sit around and wait for the Lord to make a way, but I also cannot think it is only my works that make change possible.

Harriet Tubman

Blessings and disguise

During the service, I was reminded of how blessed I am. The congregation was invited to give testimony, and they spoke of illness and trauma. It was not hard to see myself as having so many advantages in life. These were people who appeared to be old and poor.

I can call to mind my blessings easily: a devoted husband, a precious child entrusted to me by an amazing woman, first-class education, a large house, financial security, relative health, a successful career. This is one of the key lessons from the difficult adoption process. When things were bleakest, I learned to count my blessings, to appreciate what I have in life.

Even before that, speaking with expectant mothers considering adoption sparked deep thoughts about the advantages I had in life. They were struggling with so little to get through so much. Simple things that I took for granted - like a telephone - were challenges for them. They had multiple young children, mental illnesses, drug addictions, prison sentences. And on top of it all, the unplanned pregnancies.

Before I met any of them, I had thought that women chose adoption because one thing in their lives wasn't conducive to parenting. Like the man wasn't involved or they were still in college. I began to understand that these women were considering adoption because they had not one thing in their lives that they could count on. Their families were abusive or absent. They had no jobs, no health insurance, and no funds. They had no partner and no friends to rely on. They had no car or telephone.

I tried to see my husband and I, and our life, through their eyes. We must have appeared so rich, so fortunate, so advantaged. And this is with domestic adoption! One of the reasons we chose it was to minimize the differences between us and the birthfamily. When I tried to compare our situation to that of a third-world woman, it seemed as if a mountain separated us, with us at the pinnacle of wealth and she in the valley of poverty.

I had entered the church feeling nervous about being welcomed, a white woman entering a black church. Unfamiliar territory - would I be viewed as an interloper? I expected to stand out, marked as different.

While it was slightly awkward to be in a new church, it was really no different than many a cocktail party or networking group where I didn't know anyone. There were three other white people already there when I arrived, which was about one-third of the congregation in attendance on Sunday.

But as I sat there, I needed to accept that I have another advantage in life: being white. While the members of the congregation didn't speak about it, I could imagine that their struggles included being of color in a racist society.

Seen through this lens, I have to face other questions:

How much of the challenges faced by the expectant mothers with whom I spoke were because they were Latina and black?

Is my becoming a mother, one of the greatest blessings of my life, built upon the foundation of racism (that gave me the staggering amounts of money needed to adopt and robbed her of the opportunities to parent her children)?