Welcome. Thanks for stopping by!
Becoming Peculiar chronicles my journey as I try to figure out what a peculiar life looks like . . . for me.
The blog’s name was inspired by 1 Peter 2:9, which says: “But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people; that you should show forth the praises of he who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”
I believe that the way of Jesus — the way of love, goodness, healing, and reconciliation, i.e. the “backwards kingdom” — will always look peculiar to the dominant culture around it. Even if that culture claims to be Christian itself. It is my goal to be “peculiar” in precisely that way.
In the first two years of this blog’s life, I focused primarily on issues like stewardship and creation care, minimalism, gentle parenting, and radical non-violence as ways to bring healing to the world.
Those issues are still extremely important to me. However, my world was turned upside down in 2014 when our son, Felix, was born with a life-threatening immune disease and had to spend most of the next year in the hospital. We were separated from our three-year-old daughter, who had to live with grandparents while my husband and I cared for our sick son in a hospital two hours away. We had to prioritize keeping him alive over things like caring for the environment, advocating for social justice, and forming strong mother-baby attachments. (I wasn’t allowed to touch him with my bare hands or let him see my face, let alone breastfeed and co-sleep. We made more trash in a day in that hospital room than we previously did in a month. And we had to live in strict isolation for the next 18 months to keep our baby safe from potential infection, meaning “community” was an idea we thought about in theory.)
The blog was completely taken over by concerns about his well-being, and served primarily as a way to keep friends and family up-to-date.
Thankfully, Felix has since made a full recovery in terms of his health, and we are all living together under one roof again. I am much more free to think and talk about other things outside cell counts and medication. However, our family is still in a bit of a limbo state as we try to figure out life with a special-needs toddler.
(At the same time, how many things are more “peculiar” than raising a genetically-modified child?)
As a result, this blog is still trying to rediscover and reexamine what it means to live a peculiar life, but after a life-altering trauma experience.
In the meantime, I will continue to explore such topics as parenting for social change, caring for the environment, and simple living where I can.
But I will also continue to grapple with what it means to faithfully raise a child who has special needs, especially when those needs may conflict with your other philosophies of life.
And I will definitely continue to share the stuff I love — books, movies, and hobbies that make me happy — just because I want to and I can.
Thanks for joining me on the journey! I appreciate your patience and support.
(To learn more about the author of this blog, head here!)
