When God Shows Up

What’s so magical about Christmas?

What other time of year can you walk the streets, singing at the top of your lungs about Jesus, ring the doorbell of a complete stranger, walk in their house, hand them a gift bag, give them a hug, and pray God’s blessings on them?

We got the idea for Christmas caroling back in June. At family camp, we talked about ways to “push back the darkness” in our neighborhoods and cities, and caroling was one of many ideas offered. We held onto the idea for six months until it was finally time to carry it out last night. Twenty-eight families were invited, and only a few declined. This was turning into something big! I was feeling good! Then I heard the weather forecast.

You can imagine, after six months of thinking about something and a month of actually planning, how sick I felt when I heard heavy snow and strong winds were making their way to us the same time the caroling was set to begin. As a few people dropped out during the day, I feared the worst. I began a swan dive into self-pity, full of “What are you doing, God?” types of questions, before my 10-year-old daughter said, “I think God may be testing you, Mom.”

“OK. Testing me on what?”

I don’t remember exactly what Addison said, but God spoke loud and clear. Couldn’t the name of the Lord be exalted just as well by 12 people as by 80? Was this about me and what a crowd I could draw, or was it about glorifying Him? Oh, the conviction! I also remembered the encouragement of my friend Kate, who said that she doesn’t like being in charge of things either, but every time she is, God always shows up. So I stopped feeling disappointed, recruited more prayer, took a deep breath, and waited for God to show up.

He didn’t show up in spite of the snow. He showed up in the snow. It was perfect. Picturesque. The kind that Hollywood movie-makers would kill for. To all of us, it clearly felt like a gift from Him. We had 72 carolers, 43 of them kids who slid across the streets and threw snowballs and made snow angels in the middle of the road. They also rang doorbells and delivered treats and sang their hearts out.

A lot of the doorbells went unanswered. A time or two we ended up singing to the barking dogs in the yard. But then there were the doors that opened. The old woman who stood outside in her housecoat and offered us cookies. (When Kevin asked her if she was saving them for someone else, she said they were just in case someone stopped by. Thank you, God, for having us stop by!) One woman in an apartment tried to coax us all inside and give us money. One of the few cars we saw pulled over, opened their windows, and listened to us for a minute before driving off with a wave. And how cool it was that when people asked where we were from, we just yelled, “Colorado Springs!” We represented many different churches, but last night we were just their neighbors, people offering songs and cookies and hope and joy with no agenda.

When I’ve walked these streets in the past, I’ve pictured the poor as single moms and filthy little kids and unemployed addicts. Last night I was reminded that the poor are often elderly women who live alone in small, dark, odd-smelling houses with round-the-clock television. These are women that I, the non-hugger, hugged last night. These are women whose faces kept me up in the night. This was a night I will never forget.

“Pushing back darkness” can’t be measured in numbers of doors answered or amount of carolers who showed up—but when God shows up, it's guaranteed.

It's the Most Wonderful Day of the Year!

It must be my year of discovering favorites. I can now tell you my favorite day of the year. It’s the day my kids get out of school for Christmas break. I begin counting down the days some time in October. My heart really starts racing as we reach Thanksgiving break. And then there are those three weeks of school that separate Thanksgiving and Christmas. I feel like the Little Engine Who Could. Only I’m not so convinced I “could” as I keep chugging along, feeling the steam pour out of me, but trying to keep moving on, one step at a time, until . . . we . . . reach . . . the . . . finish.

It’s during that last week that I start to consider homeschooling: an end to all of the frantic costume-making, party-planning, concert-attending, present-buying, lunch-packing chaos. (Then I remember how nice it is to have the kids out of the house while I work on my Christmas letters, wrap presents, and attempt to earn a little money to pay for their presents.)

And then that glorious Friday arrives. (Probably it would be sacrilegious to call it “Good Friday,” huh?) The teachers’ gifts are delivered, the mittens for the homeless are collected, the classroom gift-exchange game is played, the treats are devoured, and it’s time to go home. And crash. For the next 2 ½ weeks. No alarm clock! No carpool! No homework! No sports practices! No lunchboxes! Really, I’m not sure we need presents at all. These are all the gifts I need.

Thank you, Jesus, for coming into our world. Thank you for saving us from our sin. And thank you, thank you for Christmas break.

(P.S. Don’t forget to watch the Bronco game Sunday afternoon. Could be another miracle in the making!)

Football, Faith, and Favor

There’s a bumper sticker we see around here that says, “If God’s not a Bronco fan, then why’s the sky orange?” I don’t think God’s a Bronco fan. I don’t know if He cares about football at all. But I believe He extends His favor on certain people at certain times to teach the rest of us.

From what I’m seeing on Sunday afternoons, His favor is on Tim Tebow. Yes, add me to the list of bloggers who feels the need to share an opinion about this guy. If you don’t care about football or haven’t been following the Broncos' season (shame on you), the past 13 weeks have been like a Hollywood movie: third-string quarterback—Tebow—is unexpectedly bumped up to starter after a 1-4 start to the season, goes 6-1 with all of those wins coming in the last heart-stopping quarter of the game or in overtime. It’s made for great TV, a lot of analyst critiquing, and some fun Sunday afternoons on the Joneses’ couch.

Besides being a fierce athlete, Tebow happens to be one of the most outspoken Christians in all of professional sports. What I love about him is that it’s not his mouth that’s doing the talking; it’s his life. The orphans, the critically ill children, the poor that he serves probably don’t care much about whether he throws the ball funny or not. They’re probably not real interested in what the critics are saying or wondering to themselves if Tim’s faith is authentic or just for show. They don’t have to wonder.

He’s also an unashamed virgin at age 24, believing that sex should be saved for marriage—even when you're an NFL quarterback. He’s humble, giving credit in every interview to everyone but himself. He’s secure; no matter how hard the critics blast him, he stays positive and keeps smiling. And the thing I like most? By all accounts, he’s the hardest worker on the team. His teammates, time and time again, call him “the real deal.”

Tim Tebow does more than provide entertainment on a dreary winter day. He inspires. He inspires me. He makes me think about what kind of Christian I want to be. What if I lived out my values every day instead of just talking about them? What if I smiled and treated people kindly, even if they hurled insults at me and questioned my authenticity? What if I was the hardest worker around? What if I was known for my excellence, my hard work, my commitment to being the best I can be? What if all of us who follow Christ were to do these things? We don’t all have a national platform like an NFL quarterback, but we all have others watching us, wondering if we’re “the real deal.”

Tim’s only 24 years old, but I want to be like him when I grow up. Even if he loses the next four games, is injured, or is traded and never makes another appearance on a football field, he’s affected me and thousands of others. Broadcasters and sports writers keep referring to him as “magical.” That’s not magic, folks, that’s the favor of the Lord. You just wonder how long it will take before they start wondering if there’s not something to all this God stuff.

Less Mouth, More Limbs

I start this entry mindful of a pastor’s wise instruction to begin every prayer by asking forgiveness for our own self-righteousness. I’m sure there’s self-righteousness in what I’m about to write. Forgive me, Lord.

A few nights ago, two messages landed in my inbox at the same time. One was from a Christian organization decrying the use of the term “holiday sales” in Walgreen’s Thanksgiving ads and their triumph when Walgreen’s announced they would switch to “Christmas” in the coming weeks. The other message was from a Christian ministry describing the jobs, accessible transportation, affordable housing, and the hope they are providing for the poor in inner-city Phoenix.

One group of Christians is offering a list of “Naughty or Nice Retailers” and where they stand on the “War on Christmas.” For a suggested donation of $150, you can buy a pack of “It’s OK to Say Merry Christmas” buttons. I wonder what the group of Christians in Phoenix could do with that $150? How many families could that feed? How much gas could it buy to get people to work? Beyond that, I wonder which would speak more to a watching world that is skeptical—even sick and tired—of Christians?

Rick Warren writes in the book unChristian:

“My passion is to help the next generation of church leaders guide their congregations in taking on the world’s biggest problems: spiritual emptiness, egocentric leadership, extreme poverty, pandemic disease, and rampant illiteracy. [Notably absent: winning the “War on Christmas.”] All governments, businesses, and non-profit organizations combined have failed in solving these. The only group large enough to handle these problems is the network of millions of local churches around the world. We have the widest distribution, the largest group of volunteers, local credibility, the promises of God, the power of the Holy spirit, and the inevitability of history.

My dream is that thirty years from now, the church will be known more by what it is for than what it is against. For some time now, the hands and feet of the body of Christ have been amputated, and we’ve been pretty much reduced to a big mouth. We talk far more than we do. It’s time to reattach the limbs and let the church be the church in the twenty-first century.”

Preach it, Pastor Warren! We’re listening.

My New Favorite Holiday

I have always been a Christmas girl—love the lights, the music, the ornaments, the parties, the presents—but I’m considering switching my allegiance. I’ve decided to make Thanksgiving my new favorite holiday.

There are things I’ve always enjoyed about Thanksgiving. Days off school are good for any reason. A holiday that always falls on Thursday is quaint. I like turkey. Being together with extended family is always a blessing. (I especially enjoyed that when I had little babies, having so many people around increased my odds of sneaking in a mid-day nap.) And I’m a huge fan of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. I don’t think I’ve missed it since I was 4 or 5. I used to dream of performing in the parade with the Rockettes—not knowing, of course, that I would grow up to be a short-legged, rather inflexible five-foot-three.

But the real reason for my switch is that I think Thanksgiving just might be God’s favorite holiday. Is there anything that delights Him more than our thanks? Sure, He changed the course of history by intervening in our world, which we celebrate at Christmas. And yes, we remember at Easter how He revealed all His power and glory by raising Jesus from the dead. Those were mighty displays of love by God toward us. But a day dedicated to giving thanks helps us display our love toward Him.

Like all our traditions, Thanksgiving has gotten mucked up with our cultural entrapments, football games and Black Friday shopping, and even parades. But everyone is at least aware that it’s a holiday that exists for the purpose of giving thanks. Our economy may be dismal and our politics may be a mess, but we Americans know we still have more to be thankful for than anyone else in the world.

“And do you see how thankful we must be? Not only thankful, but brimming with worship, deeply reverent before God.”

—Hebrews 12:28b, The Message

Service

“Our future reputation as Christians is intricately connected to our passion for justice, service, and sacrifice.” —David Kinnaman, unchristian

I believe this. Representing the Christian faith by not swearing, dancing, drinking, smoking, or sleeping around may have worked in previous generations—maybe—but a younger generation will only be drawn to Jesus by what we do, not by what we don’t do. Did I grow up with a passion for justice, service, and sacrifice? No way. But I’m trying to get there. If these are the things that keep the faith relevant to the generation behind me, I want to get there. More important, if these are offerings that please my Father, I want to get there.

But service is tricky. Of course there are hundreds of opportunities every day to serve the people around us, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m looking for consistent, ongoing ways to serve alongside my family. A few years ago, Kevin and I tutored some disadvantaged kids, but we had to pawn off our own kids in order to do it. That doesn’t seem right. Our church has opportunities, but they’re often not little-kid friendly, either. We have loads of Christmas opportunities, which we dive into, but what about the rest of the year? We’ve taken our kids to sort clothes at the homeless shelter, but there were more volunteers than clothes, and we ended up just sitting around. We volunteered to work with families at the Salvation Army, but no one showed up. We were team leaders for an elaborate Thanksgiving dinner our church planned for the homeless, and only a handful of families came, ate quickly, and left. We’ve also been involved with the poor individually, but again, this turns into me investing hours into someone while my kids sit at home without me.

I want to model for our children the kind of service, sacrifice, and justice that requires all of us working together. I want them to know the joy of serving with others in community. I want them to see that it takes priority; it happens whether we have piano lessons or a basketball game or not. I want them to see it as a lifestyle—not as something you only do at Christmas or when you board a plane to go overseas.

So I’m praying. God, please show us the way.

Passing It On

My purpose for this blog is to share the things God is teaching me—and I feel like I’m on the brink of something big. Have you ever had that experience where every book you read, every person you talk to, every message you hear seems to be pointing in the same direction? That’s where I am right now, and the topic is passing on real faith, faith that lasts, to our children.

Of course this is something we’ve been thinking about for a long time. We try to follow the instructions in Deuteronomy 6, talking to our children about the ways of God as we walk alongside them every day. But I’m starting to think hard about how we’re doing this. Are we passing on a passionate, life-transforming faith, or just a lot of information about God and the way He wants us to live? Have my children seen firsthand what it means to live out the Gospel? And if they have, do they know they have?

The book unChristian by David Kinnaman, president of The Barna Group, and Gabe Lyons came out in 2007. I’m just getting around to reading it, though it’s been sitting on my shelf for nearly five years. When the book came out, I was pregnant and my oldest was just 7. I couldn’t have received the message in the same way then as I do now. Now it’s very relevant to our lives as we walk through the doorway of adolescence with our son, with our daughters following close behind. This quote from unChristian, which I read just last night, is ringing in my ears as I contemplate the kind of faith I’m passing onto them (I’ve added the italics):

“Eight out of ten students participate in church during their teenage years, but most of them will take a permanent detour from active faith at some point soon after they get their driver’s licenses. . . . The vast majority will cross over to the other side; pronouncing Christianity boring, irrelevant, and out of touch. We’ve tried too long to educate their minds instead of engaging their lives.

“Some of us are convinced the system [of church] is fundamentally flawed because we don’t know what our goal is. We creatively market our programs, design innovative and relevant productions, and organize events that will capture the student imagination so that we can get them into church. What if our goal should not be to get them into church? What if the same energy could be applied to mobilize them to be the church? We have discovered a short window of time during the teenage years when students need to experience something beyond church as a spectator sport. If a young person is not challenged by hands-on personal ministry, their faith will likely be sidetracked and even sabotaged. . . . Faith grows when our faith is challenged to do something.” —Reggie Joiner, Rethink

Pastor and speaker Louie Giglio chimes in with this thought: “I think that is what this generation wants—an action-based worship. There is nothing wrong with jumping to a David Crowder tune and telling God he is great—that is worship. But worship is also doing the right thing and sharing with others in need.”

OK. I’m convinced. And I’m re-evaluating. With fairly consistent church attendance and seven years of AWANA under their belts, I have children who know large quantities of scripture by chapter and verse, who understand the grand “metanarrative” story of the Bible and can answer detailed questions about it, and who absolutely know right from wrong, even if they don’t always practice it. But do I have children who can recognize faith in action, who realize it comes at a cost and are willing to sacrifice for it? Who understand that it is only Jesus who can allow you to love your neighbor as yourself? Who comprehend that worship is more than singing a song and church is more than a building? What am I gonna do about that?

More than a Bystander

Last month I wrote about the eye-opening question I saw in a book and have been asking ever since: “What needs to be done here?” It trickles into my mind all the time. Now if only I can get it to trickle into my behavior.

In my small group a few months ago, we talked about a local incident in which a woman jumped out of a moving car to flee her abusive boyfriend. After landing in the street, she flagged down the car behind her, which happened to be a mom with two young kids in the back. The mom opened her car to the woman, only to be shot at minutes later by the boyfriend. Miraculously, no one was hurt, but of course it leads to the question, did the mom do the right thing? What would I have done?

Would anyone have asked this question 40 years ago, I wonder? Was it a no brainer to scoop a bleeding woman up off the street?

Then I think of a recent experience we had ourselves. My husband Kevin was pumping gas into our van when a “blind man” started walking across the street toward the filling station. He was all over the place, staggering, walking dangerously close to moving cars, until a woman got out of her car to help him. She got him to the curb, and my husband took over from there, walking him into the store and giving him some money to spend. Like a relay race, a man in the store took his arm and helped him around, eventually offering to give him a ride to where he needed to go. (And yes, this guy had a young kid in the back of the car.) Now I put “blind man” in quotes because we had our suspicions. Serious suspicions. Was he really blind, or was this his act, his way to gain enough attention and pity to get dinner and catch a ride?

We’ll never know—but here’s how I know Kevin did the right thing. As we were pulling away, a woman inside the store ran out to acknowledge what he had done. His actions had spoken to her, and her affirmation of his actions spoke to me and to our kids in the car. It almost wasn’t about the blind man. And whether he was really blind or not didn’t matter. What mattered was that a whole lot of people—including drivers who saw one in their midst jump out of her car to help—saw people just like them “doing what needs to be done here.”

Do we pick up a bleeding woman from the street? Yes! Even if it means potential risk to our own children? I still say yes. We do it because it’s the right thing to do, because it’s what needs to be done in order for us to live in the kind of world we all want to live in. A world in which we are servants, not bystanders. Put me in that situation and what will I do? I wish I could say for sure. What I can do is pray for the courage to do what needs to be done, in all situations, no matter the cost, because I know that’s what Jesus calls "love."

Sunset

We just returned from a week at the ocean, our “reward” trip for living, somewhat successfully, with one bathroom and no natural lighting. Our apartment in San Diego had two bathrooms and floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the beach, enabling us to watch the surfers by day and the moonlit waves by night. But it was the time in between that was most interesting to me. The sunsets were amazing.

The sun sets every day, even in Colorado. I realize this, but I never notice it. Day just somehow turns into night while I’m shuttling kids, making dinner, or checking someone’s math homework. I can’t think of the last sunset I witnessed at home. But at the beach, sunset is an event not to be missed. It’s like the world stops for a few minutes—surfers stop surfing, runners stop running, people stop talking, children stop fighting—while the sun drops off into the ocean. (I don’t care about all the science that tells us that’s not at all what’s happening; anyone who’s watching it would describe it as the sun falling into the ocean.) It’s captivating. Mesmerizing. You can’t not watch, even as your eyes are stinging and your good common sense is reminding you that it’s never a good idea to look directly at the sun. Everyone watches. Everyone marvels.

To me, the response to the sunset was as interesting as the sunset itself. How often does everyone stop what they’re doing and pay attention to the same thing? Only tragedies and catastrophes come to mind. But how often are we universally held captive to something so glorious?

It’s another glimpse of heaven on earth.

One day we’ll stand in the presence of God—terrified to look, unable to look away. There will be no thoughts of e-mails to send, calls to return, dinner to make. Undistracted, in unison, we will stand captivated by the glory of God. I can’t wait until that day when His name, His glory, are not taken so casually but are something at which we all marvel in stunned silence. Nothing can prepare us for what that will be like, but sunset at the beach comes as close as anything else.

A Mom Like Me with a Kid Like Brooka

She’s never said it more clearly than she did today: “I think God wants me to live in Indonesia.” Not just go to Indonesia, but live there. She used the words “mission” and “preach.” In Indonesia. And she’s only seven.

We’ve always had that “one-of-these-things-is-not-like-the-others” feeling about our third child, Brooka. She is comfortable with everyone. She walks into a room and believes everyone there wants to be her friend. She’s freakishly confident. She requires adventure. She can’t remember ever feeling afraid. She doesn’t much care about privacy or quality of restroom facilities. She does sick better than anyone I’ve ever known. She prays passionately. (Of course she also picks her nose, runs off in parking lots, fights with her siblings, and is generally way too hyper. When she was two, all that independence and adventure caused me to consider drinking.)

The Indonesia thing started a few years ago. She was reading books about tigers, her great love, and learned about the islands of Java and Sumatra. She started talking about Indonesia, and how she thought she might live there some day. It came up at random times. My youngest daughter would say, “Mommy, I will always live next door to you and take care of you,” and Brooka would chime in, “Not me! I’ll be clear in Asia and you’ll never see me.” She also says things like, “Gee, Addison, I hope I can make it to your wedding, but you know I’ll be in Indonesia.”

I’m starting to think there’s something to this. And if there is, then I wonder how a mom like me, whose world is so small, prepares her child to live in a world so big. Or how a mom like me is supposed to develop her daughter’s natural confidence and independence when those things are so foreign to her. It seems almost laughable. I’ve barely been out of the United States, speak only English, and won’t try a new food on a bet. I had to look up Indonesia on a map! I have a strong preference for things that are familiar and comfortable, and yet this is the child I get to raise? It’s almost like God’s trying to make a point. Like this is going to happen because of His strength and skill and not my own.

So, by the grace of God, a mom like me is going to do her best to help Brooka find her calling and prepare her for it. I’ll do that with all my children, it just might look different with Brooka—like buying Indonesian language tapes or setting up meetings with missionaries or finding world travelers who can teach her the ins and outs of catching trains and exchanging currency. We’ve already stumbled upon the perfect Indonesian pen pal for her, and today she ate her first Indonesian candy, sent by the pen pal, whose mother says Brooka always has a place to stay there. She’s seven, and it seems like the wheels are sort of in motion already. I’m still teaching her to wash her face and load the dishwasher and tie her shoes, but all the while I’m preparing myself to watch her leave for good some day.

The only thing sadder than the thought of one day putting Brooka on a plane and sending her across the globe is the thought of holding her back because of my own fears. I won’t be that mom. She’s all yours, Lord.

We Are the Draw

In my last entry, I mentioned how my daughter Addison and I were in Denver this summer to celebrate her 10^th birthday a little early. It’s a big deal for me to have alone time with any of my kids, so I wanted to do this right. I made reservations at a nice hotel in downtown Denver. Our room was on the top floor. We stayed for two whole nights! With all my inherent cheapness pushed aside, I tried to create a real event for my daughter, something she would remember for the rest of her life. But it wasn’t quite what I had pictured.

I let her pick the restaurants, thinking there might be some fun new food she’d want to try. We ate fast food. (Her food highlight was getting her own Jamba Juice and not having to share it with another kid. I guess that’s a big deal when your inherently cheap mother has four children.) I asked if she wanted to get her ears pierced. She thought about it, and we made it as far as Claire’s, but instead just tried on funny glasses for a few minutes and left. “Do you want to go for a ride in a horse-drawn carriage, Addison?” I thought this might be the thing that made the trip for her. “Well, the horses look a little hot and tired,” she said. “Maybe we should just walk.” So we did, hand in hand, for a couple miles.

“Do you want to get a manicure, Addison?” This would be it! A lifelong nail-biter, she had worked hard all summer to grow out her nails, and now they were beautiful. “Hmmm,” she said. “Maybe. But maybe you could just do my nails.”

I’m stumped. What is up? I’m trying to create an event here, and she’s declining my every offer. Then I realize she’s been looking up at me with these googley eyes—the look she’ll someday give to her first love. But today, when she’s nearly 10, I’m her first love, and those googley eyes are reserved just for me. She tells me again, as she has pretty much every seven seconds since we got here, what a wonderful time she’s having. And I start to get it. I’m the draw here. I’m the event.

A friend had asked me, before our trip, if I was taking Addison to see a show or a play in Denver. I hadn’t even considered it and felt a little disappointed that I wouldn’t be able to do that for my daughter. But what I didn’t realize then was that walking hand in hand with her mom, eating cheeseburgers with her mom, snuggling in bed and watching TV with her mom was all she wanted. And here’s the thing: I don’t believe Addison is any different from your son or daughter. Parents everywhere need to get this. WE ARE THE DRAW for our kids.

The American advertising machine has done its best to convince parents we must buy more, spend more, eat more, travel more in order to have children who will remember their childhoods fondly and treat us decently during their teen years. It’s a lie! We know it’s a lie, way down deep, but do we live like it? Do we live like it at the end of the day, when we’re tired and just want to crawl into bed, but are cornered by a 10-year-old who just wants to talk about life now that the house is quiet?

Let’s not miss out on this, parents! We are the draw. They want us more than they want stuff, no matter how many messages we get to the contrary. It’s us they want—our time, and even better, our focused attention—more than anything else. I don’t know how long it will last, but I’m going to try to make the most of every minute. For right now, those googley eyes are all mine.

What Needs to Be Done Here?

Time to start writing again. I enjoyed the break, and needed it, but my mind is filled with new ideas to explore and thoughts to process, and this is how I do that best. I pick back up with a reminder to myself of why I started this blog. It’s not my personal soapbox, not my forum in which to convince others of my beliefs or to share my great knowledge on life, God, parenting, or how to attractively wear sweatpants. I write because this is how I process what God is teaching me. He’s teaching me every day, and if I’ll just slow down and pay attention, I’ll grow. By making this public, maybe someone else can grow alongside me. That’s why I write. Simple as that.

So with that ground covered, I will launch into some of the things I’ve been thinking about this summer. But first, I have to applaud President Obama for his “speech” at Ground Zero yesterday. They were the perfect words at the perfect time. Just a few days ago, I saw the stupidest bumper sticker I’ve ever seen (and that’s saying something): “He’s not MY president.” See? Stupid, huh? You don’t get to substitute your own reality about something as cut-and-dried as who the president is. He is your president, foolish driver, and he’s mine, too. That’s a fact. And I have never been more impressed with our president as I was yesterday morning.

OK, moving on.

I’ve been reading a book called Spiritual Parenting by Michelle Anthony. It would be more accurate to say I’ve been “whooped upside the head” by this book. It falls along the lines of Crazy Love and Radical but within the context of parenting. Plenty to feel missing-the-boat-worthy about here, but it’s also got some very practical take-aways. One of the things she writes about that I’ve been practicing with my kids is to walk through life asking, “What needs to be done here?” Is there a breakfast plate I could take in, even though it belonged to my sister? Is there a door that needs opened for a mom pushing a stroller? Is there some trash in a parking lot that needs picked up? Is there someone who needs some encouragement? What needs to be done here?

Of course the idea is that these little acts of service will become a way of life in our children, so that in a decade or two they are asking, “What needs to be done about poverty in my community?” Or “What needs to be done about AIDS in Africa?” It makes sense that children who think this way and become adults who think this way are the key to changing the world.

So I’ve been working on introducing “What needs to be done here?” into our children’s thinking. But more than anything, I’ve been wondering about this question in my own life. Am I myself willing to be a person who goes through life with this mindset? I think I am, but then I consider the evidence to the contrary.

This summer, my daughter and I were walking down the 16^th Street Mall in Denver eating Dairy Queen Blizzards. I took one bite of mine and realized I had only gotten it because she wanted ice cream. I didn’t want ice cream, yet here I was, preparing to slurp down 16 ounces of it. At the same time, we walked by a man rifling through the trashcan for something to eat. He was filthy, stinky, scary looking. My heart went out to him. My ice cream did not. It actually didn’t even cross my mind until I was about a block down the street. Why had I not given him my Blizzard? Instant justifications came to my mind. Well I had already taken a bite—and licked off my spoon. It was second-hand ice cream! How pathetically middle class of me. A man digging through trash for food is probably not real concerned about germs. I felt horrible. My ice cream melted, uneaten, as we continued to walk and I frantically searched for someone else to give it to. But we didn’t see anyone. We saw only people like us, happily eating their own ice cream and hot dogs and coffee, unaware that six blocks away, someone was pulling his dinner from the trash.

Am I willing to do what needs to be done? I wan to be. Am I aware of what needs to be done—at the moment it needs to be done? That’s where I’ve got so far to go.

Life Changing?

Years ago, my three-year-old son stumbled upon an unwrapped Christmas gift, and I heard him whisper, “This is going to change my life,” of his new Spiderman costume. Funny how even a preschooler would utter those words. “Life changing” is a phrase tossed around casually in our society. As someone who cares about words and their meaning, I try to use it carefully. Still, there are weeks in my life that have stood the test of time and have earned the name “life changing”: the week my dad died, the week I left for college, the week I started my first job, my first week of marriage, my first week with my first baby.

I think it’s likely that June 19-25, 2011, will join that short list.

Family camp was a blast. It also felt life changing. High in the mountains, away from anything that required a power cord, surrounded by a small group of like-minded families—and with delicious meals that appeared like magic—it felt a little like heaven. The challenge now, as with any “mountain-top experience” is to bring the experience off the mountain and to make it part of real life. Only then can it be life changing.

We spent a lot of time at camp talking about the tactics of the Enemy, how one of his best strategies is to keep us busy and distracted. Perhaps his most tactical lie is to tell us we’ve got all the time in the world; we don’t need to be in any hurry to work on the hard issues in our lives. Maybe they’ll just work themselves out. We’ve got plenty of time to be intentional with our kids. They’re still so young. We’ve got all the time in the world.

Last week, we drew a line in the sand. We said we wouldn’t believe the lie, that we would start dealing with our hard stuff, that we would strive for oneness in our marriage, that we would not let a day go by without being intentional about making disciples of Christ of our children, that we would look for new ways to push back the darkness together and in community with others. We decided to change our lives.

And now we’re home, down off the mountain, where the test of time begins. Will our week at Sonrise Mountain Ranch truly be life changing? Or will it be just a great memory accompanied by some vague sense of guilt and remorse for lack of implementation? Ask me about it in six months or a year, will you? Ask me if it was a really fun week where we played hard with our kids—or a week that changed our lives. I think I’ll say it was both.

Hiatus (of some sort)

School got out Wednesday. Today is the first day in a long time we’ve awakened to a bright, blue sky with no clouds or rain. Flip-flops are on sale everywhere, and I bought my first watermelon of the season yesterday. Summer is in the air.

This will be our first full summer in the Shome, our odd little living space above our business. It’s also the first summer in a long time that holds so much work for me. I didn’t work at all last summer; now I’m in the midst of one of the biggest book projects of my life. It’s pure joy, but it’s also tricky to manage with four kids who can’t even go outside without my supervision and transportation.

We do have many fun outings planned, and I’m most looking forward to Family Camp in a few weeks. I’ve never been to a family camp—or any outdoor camp at all—but I’ve heard great things. My five favorite people will be there, we sleep in a cabin, not a tent, and we’ll be in the most beautiful part of the state. Can’t be all bad, right?

I don’t plan to write much this summer, at least not here. As God puts burning thoughts in my mind that my fingers feel they just must type up, I will write. But I’m looking forward to being still. To quieting my heart. To slowing my pace. To doing some good listening.

Off I go.

Have a joy-filled summer.

On Hard Work

I am so glad God came up with the idea of the two-parent family. I know it doesn’t work out that way for everyone, but in the case of my children, it is a very good thing. My husband fills in my gaps in a million ways, but one of the things I’m most thankful for is his work ethic. By third grade, he was an independent business owner. He delivered newspapers in the dark, in the snow. (It used to snow in Colorado.) The hardworking man he is today was cultivated in those dark, early mornings schlepping heavy papers in the wind and rain and snow.

My childhood was very different. My dad required hard work when it came to sports, and I did help my mom clean toilets and peel potatoes. (If I had a buck for every potato I peeled growing up, my hardworking husband and I would be living off interest right now.) But that kind of rolling-up-your-sleeves-breaking-a-sweat-and-getting-filthy physical labor? Not part of my childhood. I was more likely to break a sweat tanning in the backyard.

Everyone talks about how today’s kids lack the work ethic of generations past. I see it in my own kids, and that’s when I’m so grateful for my husband. And for living at the shop, too. He has them mopping the shop floor and hauling out scrap metal. He recently had Braden help build his own bed using Kevin’s childhood trampoline as the frame. How many 11-year-olds get to make their own bed? Out of 30-year-old material? I just think that’s cool. I think Kevin’s cool. And a rare breed. He’s Norweigan more than anything else, and I can picture him following in the footsteps of his Viking ancestors—resilient, rugged, courageous, strong, masculine.

In an age in which men get pedicures and carry man-purses—I’m not judging, I’m just saying—I’m so thankful my kids have the dad that they do.

Sportsmanship

I know you don’t need to hear my two cents on Osama bin Laden. Every blogger on the planet, I’m sure, has weighed in with their comments, not to mention every TV and radio personality and the guy at the water cooler. But what I have on my mind is sportsmanship.

The first images I saw, after I heard the news, were of celebrations. Somber, touching images of firemen at Ground Zero mixed with crazy ones of college students running through the streets with beer. I saw people singing “Hey, hey, hey, goodbye!” and tattooed girls in sports bras making celebratory peace signs. These images were zinged around the world at lightening speed. And I couldn’t help but think of the Muslims watching.

I wonder how many Muslims there are in the world whose disdain for Osama bin Laden is matched only by their disdain for “heathen, immoral, arrogant Americans”? Then we send them images that only confirm and strengthen their beliefs about us and wonder why they don’t like us.

Times are hard. Our nation needs reason to celebrate. We need some good news. I get that. We should celebrate and we should exuberantly express our gratitude to our military men and women. I just wish we showed good sportsmanship in the process, especially when the world is watching. We parents try to teach our kids to be humble winners, not to flaunt their achievements and sing their own praises. Celebrate, absolutely. But celebrate with humility and dignity. And please wear more than a sports bra.

Strangely Dim

When I was a teenager, I didn’t know families like mine. We went to churches where people raised their hands, spoke in tongues, and occasionally ran through the aisles praising Jesus. None of my friends went to these churches. In fact, I don’t remember my friends going to church at all. And this was a problem, because more than anything, I desperately wanted to be like everyone else.

My mom was a real problem. She didn’t seem to care at all about fitting in with the cool kids’ moms. She didn’t even know them. She spent a lot of time reading her Bible and praying. She even did really weird things like fast a week out of every month. And she listened to Christian music ALL the time. I remember blatantly lying about it. When a friend came over and asked what this music was we were listening to—David Meece, Kim Boyce, Second Chapter of Acts, and the like—I answered, “My aunt and uncle work for a church, and they send us this music so we can tell them what we think of it. We sort of have to listen to it.” My aunt and uncle were in ministry, but they certainly weren’t sending us David Meece tapes. I was just too embarrassed to explain why we weren’t listening to the same music as everyone else.

Of course I was listening to everyone else’s music. I was doing everything everyone else was doing. My dad and brother were, too. I remember us even sort of mocking my mom, talking about how she didn’t live in the real world. She thought about Jesus all the time and gave our stuff away to the poor and the needy. Definitely not the real world. The real world was where you watched Dynasty and practiced the moon walk and stressed out over prom. There was a place and time for Jesus, but He didn’t exactly fit in with my everyday life.

And now I, like so many other women before me, have become my mother. I still have a subscription to People magazine, I watch a little TV, and I will watch the royal wedding later this week with mild interest. But the things of this world are growing more dim. I care less and less about popular music, popular books, popular culture. I care more and more about the fruit of the spirit, serving the poor, and waiting anxiously for Jesus’ return. I don’t really listen to anything but Christian music. It anchors me in truth and chases away my anxiety; I can’t not listen to it. I read Christian books. I read the Bible because I actually enjoy it. I journal my prayers to God. I talk to Him throughout the day. I talk about Him throughout the day. I find it hard to have conversations without bringing up His truths and teachings. I’m still a mess of a sinner, certainly no holier than anyone else, but this has become my real world. And you know what? I don’t think it’s just because I’m 40 now. I think this was the “real world” all along. Go figure. Mom was right.

Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face. And the things of earth will go strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace.

Feeling Easter

My city is home to several megachurches. That earns us our share of negative publicity, but it also means we have opportunities to attend world-class events. Braden and I went to one of these on Friday night, New Life Church’s production of The Thorn. Kevin and I went to it 12 years ago, when I was pregnant with Braden, and as Jesus’ blood splattered on us, I remember thinking, “I will never take my child to this.”

But there I was, sitting with him on Friday night, front and center, inches away from Jesus as he carried his cross, his skin ripped and bleeding. Braden and I clung to each other through most of the performance. It’s a sensory marvel—much more Cirque du Soleil than 12 years ago—but very intense. I’m not sure if it was Braden clinging to me or the other way around. I started crying at the story of creation and continued right through the resurrection.

I cried over the great love Jesus showed, especially to little children. I cried at the miracles, especially at the blind man, who had lived in darkness every day of his life, opening his eyes for the first time to see the face of his creator and savior. I wept over Judas’s decision to betray his friend Jesus. You could see his regret, almost feel his remorse as he embraced Jesus in the garden, guards in tow. And the most poignant scene was one I don’t think much about—Barabbas, in chains and sentenced to death, being set free because Jesus took his place. He was the first to understand that miraculous exchange. I wonder what the rest of his life was like?

I’ve not seen The Passion of the Christ. I’ve basically been too scared. I hate watching torture scenes—Braveheart made me nauseous—and I hate being disturbed. The portrayal I saw Friday night was definitely disturbing, especially when I recognize that it happened for my own sake. But that’s the reason I need to watch it. I need to be disturbed. I need to understand how great is my sin, how deeply it separated me from God, and how great is the payment for it. If I’m not disturbed, then I miss the point of Easter.

But the tears didn’t come because I was disturbed; they came because I was sorry. And thankful. And profoundly moved. Despite the layers of busyness, distraction, sin, and self-sufficiency that I allow to build up within me, despite the familiarity to the point of nearly taking it all for granted, I am still deeply moved and affected by Jesus’ life and death. There is a holy and just God who sent His only son to die for me. As I watched the story play out with my only son, I felt the cost in a new way. I felt Easter.

Can You Feel Your Mind Changing?

There are very few things more pleasurable to me than sinking into a good book. I mostly read non-fiction, but occasionally I will choose fiction for the pure fun of it. Movies and TV shows allow us to escape to an alternate world for a time, but nothing does this like a book. It’s a world that I create, with the author’s help, for myself. I am the designer, and I bring all my own real-life experiences to bear as I bring people, places, events to life in my mind. It’s an experience like no other.

Writer Sven Birkerts calls the time spent engrossed in a novel “deep time.” In his 1994 book The Gutenberg Elegies, he argues that without the kind of deep time—deep thought, resonance, and reflection—that comes from reading, wisdom never forms.

This is the opposite of the kind of reading we do on the Internet, which rewards quick, shallow reading. An endless flow of information, punctuated by countless hyperlinks to even more endless information, produces in us a type of “bottom-up distraction,” in which we are so preoccupied with trivial information that we never arrive at deep thought at all. We are becoming a civilization not of readers but of power browsers, “suckers for irrelevancy,” says one Stanford researcher, who are “training our brains to pay attention to crap,” says another.

Now, honestly, I was paying attention to crap long before the Internet came along. It’s not that there’s less crap in print than online, but it’s how your brain processes whatever it is you’re reading that’s the point. According to Nicholas Carr in The Shallows, study after study has shown that the mind of an experienced book reader is a calm, focused mind. The Internet, on the other hand, fosters a state of constant buzz and distraction.

Is there wisdom to be found on the web? Of course. But I tend to agree that you can’t just glance at something and become wise from it. You have to process it, churn it around in your brain. You have to take time to reflect. And that seems to be the biggest way technology is cutting into our lives. We’re too busy browsing, juggling, surfing, seeking out entertainment, to sit quietly and reflect. Kids play video games in the car instead of looking out the window and wondering why there’s one black cow in the midst of all the brown ones. They grab their parents’ iPhones any time any kind of wait is required. We sit down at Red Robin and there’s a screen with Internet access available to us so that we don’t have to make our own conversation. There are apps for one-year-olds so they’ll learn early on to stare at a screen instead of studying the world around them.

Wisdom comes through reflection. You don’t have to be a book reader to find it, but you do have to have a calm, restful, focused mind.

“When we go online, we enter an environment that promotes cursory reading, hurried and distracted thinking and superficial learning. . . . It’s not just that we use the Net regularly, even obsessively. It’s that the Net delivers precisely the kind of sensory and cognitive stimuli that have been show to result in strong and rapid alterations in brain circuits and functions. With the exception of alphabets and number systems, the Net may well be the single most powerful mind-altering technology that has ever come into general use” (“The Juggler’s Brain,” The Shallows).

We’re thankful for it, we can’t imagine our lives without it, and we’re not going to stop using it. But let’s not use it without recognizing what it’s doing to us.

And that, for now, is all I have to say about that.

Frenzied Souls

I am addicted to checking e-mail, I’ll just admit it. It’s one of the last things I do before going to bed and one of the first things I do when I get up. I am occasionally guilty of greeting my computer before my kids and husband when I walk in the door. I recently got a smart-ish phone—it’s only as smart as its user, and in my case, that’s not saying much—so I'm never away from my e-mail for longer than a gym workout. I curse all those texters on the road, but I’m ashamed to admit that I am guilty of occasionally checking my e-mail at a stop light. (This is one of the biggest reasons I avoid Facebook. Another addiction—and an additional 800 friends to keep up with—is not what I need.)

I’ve never been much of a shopper, so surfing the web for deals doesn’t hold much appeal for me. I rarely download or upload anything. I google things here and there as I need to, but it’s really e-mail that’s the draw of the Internet for me. Connecting with people is what I do. And if I’m honest, it also feeds my need to feel important, needed, included. That’s why this paragraph from The Shallows felt familiar to me:

"Because we’re often using our computers in a social context, to converse with friends or colleagues, to create ‘profiles’ of ourselves, to broadcast our thoughts through blog posts or Facebook updates, our social standing is, in one way or another, always in play, always at risk. The resulting self-consciousness—even, at times, fear—magnifies the intensity of our involvement with the medium. That’s true for everyone, but it’s particularly true for the young, who tend to be compulsive in using their phones and computers for texting and instant messaging. . . . If they stop sending messages, they risk becoming invisible.”

It doesn’t take much for a stay-at-home mom who now only dabbles in work remotely to feel socially invisible. But is habitual texting, Facebooking, and e-mailing the way I want to solve this?

Author Nicholas Carr argues that the Net makes us hungry, and the more we feed our brains with it, the hungrier we get. (Sounds like addiction, eh?) In the process, our minds get busier and busier, our to-do lists longer and longer. I find myself composing e-mails in my sleep and waking up to a list of 15 messages I need to send before I can even get out the cereal or open my Bible.

In the 1950s, some accidental prophet named Martin Heidegger wrote that “the frenziedness of technology threatens to entrench itself everywhere.” (And this was in the ’50s, for Pete’s sake!) Nicholas Carr ends The Shallows by saying, “It may be that we are now entering the final stage of that entrenchment. We are welcoming the frenziedness into our souls.”

I feel it in my soul. Do you?

Coming Up from The Shallows

Spring break has afforded me the opportunity to finish reading The Shallows, and I’ll probably camp out here for a short while in my blogging. If my incessant ramblings about the dangers of technology bore or irritate you, consider yourself forewarned.

This book, subtitled What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, is one of the most fascinating reads I can remember. I’ll go so far as to call it mandatory reading, especially for those of us who are raising children in this new world. Author Nicholas Carr is not all gloom and doom about technology; in fact, he spends a whole chapter explaining his own adaptation to and reliance on it. He’s not out to get us to cancel our web service or abandon our iPhones. He’s simply warning us not to “go gently into the future our computer engineers and software programmers are scripting for us. . . . We owe it to ourselves to be attentive to what we stand to lose.”

I’ve been questioning if one of these things we stand to lose is depth of human relationships. I’m not sure what God thinks about technology, but I do have a good idea how He feels about relationships. They are His primary tool for growing, shaping, and transforming us.

One of the many scientific studies Carr cites in his book includes a USC Brain and Creative Institute finding that “the higher emotions emerge from neural processes that are inherently slow.” The emotions he’s referring to are empathy and compassion—bedrocks in the world of relationships.

Carr writes: “The experiment, say the scholars, indicates that the more distracted we become, the less able we are to experience the subtlest, most distinctively human forms of empathy, compassion, and other emotions.”

(I don’t need a scientist to tell me this. If I’m alone with a child who falls and skins her knee, she’s going to have my undivided attention and sympathy. I’ll wash her ouchie, bandage it, kiss it, sing to it, and make it the center of my world for the next five minutes. If, on the other hand, I’m at a park with eight other kids, two barking dogs, rap music blaring from a car in the parking lot, and a client on my cell phone, she’s probably going to get a pat on the shoulder and a breezy, “Go play, honey.”)

Back to Carr: “It would be rash to jump to the conclusion that the Internet is undermining our moral sense. It would not be rash to suggest that as the Net reroutes our vital paths and diminishes our capacity for contemplation, it is altering the depth of our emotions as well as our thoughts.”

In exchange, we have the ability to “conduct 34 conversations simultaneously across six different media” as one magazine writer lauded in his article, In Defense of Distraction. I get that breadth of relationships is also a good thing and that people are more connected—with old high school friends, forgotten second-cousins, and fellow Labrador enthusiasts—than ever before. But I can’t help asking, along with Nicholas Carr, if these new relationships come at a cost to our old ones.

Machine-Built Relationships

I’m reading a book about what technology is doing to our brains, but I’m more interested in what it’s doing to our relationships. When you relate to others through machines instead of in person, there are a lot of things you don’t have to be:

Vulnerable. I’m a writer. I know how good it feels to be quick-witted with words, how easy it is to mask who you really are through clever writing. Why would you want to be dull and awkward in person when you can be sharp and interesting in writing? (And the trooly gr8 thing iz u don’t even half to no how to spel! No 1 cairs!)

Selfless. We’ve all been looking for the place where it’s all about me, and we’ve found it online! If you’re typing or texting, you can rattle on about yourself all day. The person on the other end becomes nothing more than an audience for our own performance.

Patient. If someone else is rambling on about himself, you simply walk away. Bored? No need to make excuses or exercise decorum, just shut ‘em down.

Compassionate. People are quirky. Technology lets us engage with people without having to deal with their annoying habits and idiosyncrasies. Who has time to listen to people stutter and stammer?

Generous. Virtual friends don’t need your help moving. They don’t need to crash on your couch or borrow your car. They probably won’t ask you for a loan or take up a bunch of your time. They’re available when you feel like chatting and are otherwise conveniently absent from your life.

Sensitive. No cumbersome attempts at reading other people’s nonverbal cues. Just say what you want to say however you want to say it, and if they shut you down, move on to the next “friend.”

Honest. You can be anyone you want to be with someone you know you’ll never meet. Add four inches to your height, a few academic degrees, and a string of successful business ventures, and voila! You’re the person you wish you were instead of the person you actually are.

I know. Technology is not going away and it does have its virtues. I am the first to admit how grateful I am to correspond with so many of my oldest and dearest friends through a computer. But I spent years learning to be vulnerable, honest, generous, compassionate, and patient with these friends in person. I’m still learning, even though the relationships have moved primarily online.

It would also be foolish to argue against the value of some virtual friendships. I have developed meaningful bonds with people I’ve barely met while editing their books. (Shout out to you, Linda!) God can use these relationships to shape our character, too.

But what frightens me is to think of a society in which the majority of children and young adults grew up sitting mostly alone, relating to the world through a piece of equipment. I hope I can teach my children that while there’s nothing wrong with playing a game with a “friend” in Australia, the relationships that make us better people usually happen when we’re in the same room together. I’m not sure how to go about it, but I’m wondering about having them earn their online hours by logging “real-life” hours. School would count to some degree, but even better would be sports teams, clubs, spending time with extended family members, and especially serving.

Ideas, anyone?

(By the way, in the interest of fairness, I have asked for a rebuttal from a 14-year-old. I hope to post it if he responds.)

The God We Don't Often Think About

If I’m ever uncertain what it means to “fear the Lord,” I don’t need to look any further than the book of Exodus. I’ve been reading it in the Contemporary English Version, and it quotes God this way: “The priests and people must not try to push their way through, or I will rush at them like a flood” (Exodus 19:24b).

So, OK, we want to get to you, God, we’re desperate for you, but we can’t just run up the mountain and meet you? Isn’t that what you want us to do? We have this nice picture in our heads of God as our big granddaddy in the sky, arms outstretched, huge grin, like a proud parent beckoning us joyfully to home plate, ready to scoop us up and lavish His goodness on us.

How we underestimate God’s power. He couldn’t allow the Israelites to rush up the mountain because He would literally plow them over with His greatness. God has to hold Himself back from us. I recently read a statement paraphrasing Dallas Willard. He says that God actually has to hide from us so that we may hide from Him. Otherwise, He would overwhelm us with His greatness, and there would be nowhere to get away from His presence.

Add to this Larry Crabb’s view that “our Christian culture has weakened our understanding of the holiness of God by introducing too soon the idea of grace.” We forget that He is the “Holy God of Passionate Wrath,” as Crabb says. He is a jealous God—one who requires that nothing be put ahead of Him—and a God who violently hates our sin. And uh-oh, here I am, a sinner, wanting to rush up and fall into his grandfatherly arms.

He does beckon me. His love for me is infinite, unchanging, and everlasting. But He is not my grandfather. He is a holy, all-powerful God, and the mere glimpse of Him could turn me to a heap of rubble.

This awareness changes everything about how I relate to Him. I go from expectations and complaints to silence and awe. From thinking I deserve something to clinging to His mercy. From strutting into His presence whenever it suits me to creeping in on my face. Without understanding what it means to fear the Lord—a concept not often taught to today's grace-hungry Christians—I'm not sure we can ever be in right relationship with Him.

Who's My Neighbor? Part 2

“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”

—James 1:27

My last entry seems to have struck a chord. I had requests to reprint it, and I know it was well forwarded. My conclusion is that others are struggling with the call to serve the poor as much as I am.

It’s baffling to me that I heard nothing on this discussion while I was growing up. Like everyone else, when the Sally Struthers commercials came on—the children always seemed to have runny noses and flies buzzing around them—my family quickly switched the channel. I don’t remember hearing a single sermon on taking care of the poor, though probably if I had, I would have assumed it applied to someone else.

As a senior at UCLA, I took a class called Intellectual History of the 20^th century and heard the term “social gospel” for the first time. (Isn’t “social gospel” a redundant term? What is the gospel if not social?) Interesting, because I’d spent the two previous years at a Christian college. There we had been encouraged to go on missions trips, but again, I always thought that was for other people, for those who planned to actually be missionaries. I guess I believed there were enough people in the world caring for the poor—Mother Teresa did it so well—so why did I need to be involved? I had other gifts God would use.

My sense is that evangelicals today are paying more attention to James 1:27 and others like it but are stuck in how to implement it. I know I am. How exactly do you find widows and orphans, and what does it mean to look after them? Who exactly are the “needy” we’re supposed to be kind to? Aren’t we all “needy” in some way? Does kindness mean a smile? A ten-dollar bill? A cheeseburger? The offer of a shower and some clean clothes? (And how does one offer that with a car full of kids?) How do the Bible’s commands translate to the guy sitting outside Walmart with a tin can and a sign asking for money? The first things that come to my mind in that situation are personal responsibility and enabling dependency. How very American of me. It seems like one thing to love and support my Compassion kid in Ethiopia, and a different thing entirely to love the man at Walmart. But does God see them the same?

I have no answers. I’m just trying to learn. I’m trying to step outside my comfort zone occasionally and attach names, faces, and stories to the term “the poor.” I’m not talking about hundreds. I’m talking about a paltry few. It doesn’t seem like enough. I like taking action and seeing fast results. I’m learning to settle for hard conversations, multiple frustrations, and the rare ah-ha moment.

What I know for sure is this: God’s commands to “spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry” and “defend the cause of the poor,” list no exceptions. Not for those publishing Christian books, not for those who lead Awana at their church, not even for harried moms raising children. The commands are for us all, regardless of our stage in life or our busy schedules. These commands are for me, and I’ve got to figure out what to do with them.

Who's My Neighbor?

“Whoever is kind to the needy honors God.” —Proverbs 14:31

Last Sunday was a study in contrasts. Watching the tribute to America that preceded the Superbowl, I teared up at the reading of the constitution. Watching Colin Powell and others recite the premises on which our nation is founded, I was filled with patriotism, pride, and hope. What a great country!

Just a few hours earlier, while doing my pre-game grocery shopping, this was not what I was thinking. I wonder if Colin Powell has ever been to the Platte Avenue Walmart?

I’m pretty sure it’s my least favorite place on earth. By its standards, I should be a grandma. It seems that every tattooed, pierced 20-year-old in the store is toting a kid or two, and usually they’re shouting at them. I have seen men proposition women in the produce aisle. (I’m not kidding.) Nearly every time I go I am asked for money in the parking lot by some man who has his every possession strapped to his back.

So why do I go there? Because this is where the poor hang out, and God says whoever is kind to the needy honors Him. So I go to be kind. I don’t preach on the sidewalks or talk about Jesus with everyone I see, but I try to be kind. That may sound noble, but not when you hear what’s going on inside my head. Inside, I’m whining and judging and sinning all over the place. It’s so much easier to love the abstract poor than the real poor.

These are a few of the questions—stumbling blocks, really—that occur to me as I stand in line at Walmart, listening to my “neighbors” discuss the tattooes of previous lovers they wish they could get rid of:

• Are these people really even “the poor”? They’re hauling out TVs nicer than I’ll ever own, and their cell phones look like they require an engineering degree. Are you sure these are the people I’m supposed to love, God?

• It’s so much easier to care for the poor in Africa or India. Can’t I just send a check and keep shopping at Safeway?

• Are we really fighting wars to protect the liberties of these people? So they can have babies at 15 and fill up on medical marijuana and cover their bodies in pornography? Is this really my America? Are these people really my neighbors? Do I really have to care about them?

But God’s answer is clear: “Command those who are rich in this present world [and yes, that’s me, even though my pockets are filled with coupons and I put back the raspberries that were just too expensive] not to be arrogant [judging and condemning, in other words]. . . . Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life.”

In other words, yes, these are your neighbors that you should love as yourself, yes these are the needy, and yes, I expect you to be kind and generous with them. God gave this command millennia ago, but even then He had the Platte Avenue Walmart in mind.

Messy Thoughts on Messy Business

Late-night thoughts on parenting after a taxing, too-long day:

You grow up hearing that parenting is the hardest job in the world. Then you decide, “Well how hard could it be?” and you decide to try it for yourself. And you get to start out with this cute little baby, and sure it’s hard and he cries a lot and sleeps at the wrong time of day, but he really is cute and he seems to think you’re pretty amazing, so you decide this is so wonderful that you’ll have another. And it gets a lot harder because the needs seem to have tripled instead of just doubled, but you’re still managing and having a reasonably good time. Then one day you become arrogant and foolish enough to believe that you really know what you’re doing and that you’re actually good at this, and so you keep going and end up finding yourself with four. You’re exhausted and crabby and overwhelmed, but you have big dreams and a family mission statement that get you out of bed every day to face a new challenge, to teach your great lessons, to impart your great wisdom. And you do this day after day after day after day, only to wonder if anyone at all is listening to you and is there some great conspiracy among them that keeps them from getting the dirty clothes in the laundry basket and the clean ones in the drawer? And no matter how much you threaten, discipline, reward, reason, plead, the same ugly character issues keep popping up again and again, which only serves to remind you of your own ugly character issues, thank you very much. And even though you love spending time with each of them one on one and you see new things about them each time and you finally catch a glimpse of some long-hoped-for maturity, it disappears the minute they’re all together again, and besides those days are very few and very far between because you’re stretched so thin and time goes so quickly. And why is it that no matter how much you preach grace as the highest value in your home and despite the fact that your children have collectively memorized more verses than a room full of chanting monks, they can still be so rude, unkind, and downright awful to one another? And it makes you understand the deprivation of man (and women and children) more than any childless seminary student ever could. And when you finally get to the point where you can get in the car without someone crying about something, you find that your car is now full of pouty preteens who didn’t get their way last Tuesday and are still holding a grudge. And though you say you’ll never eat dinner in front of the TV, you do, and though you passionately crusade against entitlement culture, you find its most articulate disciples sitting at your own table demanding more dessert. And though deep down in your heart of hearts you don’t want to be the mother who screeches at her children for going out of the house with uncombed hair, you become that anyway, in spite of yourself, because no matter how vehemently you deny it, you really do seem to care what other people think of your family. And you keep thinking, “But I have the easy kids—the ones with no recurrent illnesses, no learning disabilities, no ADHD or attachment disorder. So why doesn’t this feel easier?” Then you remember that thing about parenting being the hardest job in the world and you agree and you end up feeling like you’re failing a good amount of the time. But then you get their report cards that praise their character just as much as their school performance, or some random parent sends you a message commending some deed they saw committed by the child you’d almost given up on, and tears come to your eyes and you thank God and you find the strength to get up one more morning, to pick up one more dirty sock from the floor, to give out one more consequence in hopes that someone is learning something from it, to give one more hug, to be available for one more conversation that you hope and pray will by some miracle lead to some life-altering growth in this young life that has been entrusted to your care.

Brain Power

I have never been a big student of science. I stumbled through high school biology and physics. As a communications major in college, my science choices consisted of Our Amazing Universe, Earthquakes and Other Natural Disasters, and AIDS and Other Sexually Transmitted Diseases. (It was the early 90s, I was in L.A., and Magic Johnson had just made his stunning announcement. Pretty much everyone took this one.)

Still, it’s a little surprising that I’m learning more about brain anatomy in preschool than I ever learned through higher education. During our preschool’s parenting classes, we’re doing a series on brain development. At the same time, I’m reading Nicholas Carr’s book, The Shallows, which is a quick study in neurons, axons, dendrites, and all the other things I’m fairly certain I never learned anyplace else. Rather than summarize what I’m learning (because wouldn’t it be amusing to hear someone like me attempt a science lesson?), I though I’d just share a few of the conclusions I’ve come to as a result of my preschool education:

1. My 3-year-old’s brain is enviable. Her brain activity runs circles around mine. She has spent the past three years wiring the connections in her brain, and now she’s in the “sluffing off” process. Her brain is shutting down the wiring she’s not using and ramping up what she does use. Use it or lose it, baby, which is why for Christmas she received a bunch of puzzles and spatial toys. I pray she’ll not end up like her mother, who lives in fear of the words “some assembly required” and can’t for the life of her figure out which Tupperware the leftovers will fit into.

2. Every mental exercise leaves something behind. A quote from an article titled “How the Brain Rewires Itself” in Time magazine says this: “Like sand on a beach, the brain bears the footprints of the decisions we have made, the skills we have learned, the actions we have taken.” This happens every day, whether we’re living life with great intention and purpose or just “killing time.” This makes me more aware of how my children and I spend those “killing time” hours and the impression they’re leaving behind on our minds. It also helps me rein in wayward thoughts that I don’t want trampling through my pretty sand.

3. Studies show that 40 percent of variation in people’s memory skills in genetic. That means 60 percent isn’t! Memory is shaped by use and experience. If I stand firm and refuse to use a smartphone as my calendar, my phone book, or my shopping list, my brain will have to keep working to store and recall information. I spend a lot of time working my muscles. Why wouldn’t I put that same kind of effort into keeping my brain in shape?

4. Human memory and computer memory are very different. My memories are not nicely stored in some file that looks the same every time it’s opened. They’re scattered, triggered by different things, and they look different every time I open them. This discovery affects me at a very personal level. For years, my memories associated with my dad, who died when I was 17, have been negative. I mostly remember the yelling. But if I go deeper into my memory, I can find some really positive things, too. And if I focus on these, my brain is trainable enough to rewire itself to go to these thoughts first. (I’m already trying to figure out how I can use this to my advantage with my own children.)

5. I have a Creator. He made me in His image. I am not a machine. My brain is flexible, trainable, perceptive, feeling, and powerful beyond any machine. He gave me the mind I need—not only to keep my heart beating and my blood pumping—but to know Him and have relationship with Him.

“…be made new in the attitude of your minds; and . . . put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.” (Ephesians 4:23-24)

One More House Entry, Then I Promise I'm Done

The house is sold. It is finished. And in the end, after all the other emotions had done their work, what I am left with is gratitude. I am grateful God gave me such a beautiful house in which to spend my 30s, raise my young children, and grow into more of the person He wants me to be. I’m grateful for every time that He met with me there—during peaceful early-morning quiet times, over frantic, middle-of-the-night pleas to please make this baby stop crying or coughing or throwing up, on long runs on the neighborhood trails.

No matter how many fingerprints covered the windows, how many dandelions grew in the yard, how many piles accumulated upon every horizontal surface, how nasty the baseboards got, or how much the basement wall slipped from the foundation—no matter how achingly long it took to find someone else who wanted to live there—I am grateful for each moment spent in that house.

We live in America where we have houses far beyond what we need or deserve. No matter what your house looks like tonight, please just be grateful.

Bittersweet

If you have no patience for sappy nostalgia, read no further. I understand.

It’s just that I’m in a sappy, nostalgic place. We close on our house on Friday. Yes, I know, YIPPEEE! This is the day we’ve been waiting for for the better part of two years. And it is a day we will celebrate big time.

I’ve heard that Easterners (like people who live east of Europe, not east of the Mississippi) are able to hold two dichotomous thoughts or feelings at the exact same time. We Westerners are more uncomfortable with that, thinking that if one is accurate, then the other must not be. Like you can’t be hot and cold at the same time. Pick one. Well, I guess I’m feeling pretty Eastern right now, because I am equal parts euphoric and heartbroken as this house-selling day approaches.

Blame it on this cursed historical personality of mine. Today I had to haul the kids over to the old house and walk around with a videocamera, forcing them to recall some of their favorite memories as we strolled through the empty house. Won’t it be fun in 20 years to watch them all twirling and doing somersaults and telling jokes while their mother holds the camera with a shaky hand and chokes on her own words? Oh, I can’t wait.

But it’s not just the memories—the nights I spent rocking my tiny little newborns in this house, the birthday parties, the first steps, the bears in our garage—that I’m mourning. The memories aren’t going away; I can take them with me anywhere. I think what I’m most sad about is the loss of home. Not to take anything away from the place we live now, but it’s a Shome. It’s a completely fine place to live and I’m very grateful for it, but a Shome does not feel like a home, no matter how many pictures you hang on the wall.

I think there’s some deep-down female gene that craves that abstract feeling of “home.” Maybe everyone has it. Maybe it’s the gene God gave us that makes us long for our true Home. All I know is that it doesn’t matter how many times I say to myself, “It’s just a house. It’s just a house,” I can’t help but mourn the loss of my home. While I rejoice. And praise God for selling it. At last.

Call me Eastern, I guess.

Who's rich?

The most interesting thing I’ve heard so far in 2011 is a definition of “rich.” (And I apologize if you go to my church and heard this already from our guest pastor, Jimmy Dodd. I am flagrantly stealing this from his message.) If you meet these three criteria, then you can assume you are among the world’s richest inhabitants:

Do you have choices? Do you shop at a grocery store and have to choose what to buy there? Do you have to choose which socks to wear? Which car to drive today? Which presents to buy for your children’s birthdays? If so, you are rich.

Do you have opportunities? Can you learn to play a new sport? Take up a new instrument? Do you have opportunities to learn, to read, to write, to get an education? Are you able to focus on making yourself better or improving your life? (Not do you, but can you?) If so, then you are rich.

Do you have privacy? (This is the one that’s most eye-opening to me.) Do you have a place where you can get alone by yourself? Can you find a quiet place? Do you have a place in your house that’s just yours? If so, you are rich.

This means that my friends on food stamps are rich. The poorest Americans—those who sleep in homeless shelters and wonder where their next meal will come from—even they are rich. They have opportunities and choices. If nothing else, they can go to a public park or a library and sit alone for a bit. And me? I must be crazy rich.

Sobering.

My 2010 Reading List

So my goal was to read 15 books last year, and by including the books I read aloud to the kids, I made it!

First, the “kid” books, which I ended up loving as much as they did:

Three Chronicles of Narnia books: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe; The Magician’s Nephew; and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. If you haven’t read Magician’s Nephew, the first in the series, I highly recommend it. We’ve started The Horse and His Boy, and I plan to finish up the series in 2011. I also want to check out some of C.S. Lewis’s grown-up books. Recommendations, anyone?

The first three Harry Potter books, which have my older two kids wide-eyed and begging to spend time with me. So far no Harry-induced nightmares, which I was afraid of. I know a lot of Christians take issue with the wizardry of it all, but I am sure that when my kids look back on their childhoods some day, reading these books together will stand out as a major highlight. That can’t be a bad thing. And we’re reading C.S. Lewis, too, so there.

Fun pop fiction: The Help. Completely engrossed, I read it in a couple days and cried at the end, the marks of a good book.

Memoirs:

Love Song Journey written by my college friend Mike Wolffe—actually a fiction book, and the only book in which I make an appearance.

A Million Miles in a Thousand Years—another great Don Miller book that got me thinking about how to live a better life story.

Look Me in the Eye—John Elder Robison’s story of living with Asperger’s Syndrome. Droned on in places (as Aspergians tend to do), but his insights about assimilating into “normal” culture were fascinating. I read this book as a result of the next entry on my list:

Okay, Then—In 2009 I edited Linda Richardson’s book about living with cancer, Don’t Waste the Pain. In 2010, I edited this yet-to-be-published book, which describes her life as a mother to a son with Asperger’s. Her style is so readable and her story so engaging that I feel like I’ve known her family forever. It also made me a whole lot more informed about autism and more sensitive to those who are living with it.

Based on my emerging interests, I added these two titles:

Flickering Pixels: How Technology Shapes Your Faith by Shane Hipps (worth reading)

Preparing Your Daughter for Every Woman’s Battle: Creative Conversations about Sexual and Emotional Integrity by Shannon Ethridge. The first of my three daughters is nine, so I have a feeling this is a theme I’ll be on for a long time.

And finally, in the category I’ll call “Life-Changing Jesus Books”:

Forgotten God: Reversing Our Tragic Neglect of the Holy Spirit by Francis Chan. Didn’t love this one as much as Crazy Love, but it’s a good read on a topic that’s probably fuzzy for most of us. Plus I’m just a huge fan of Francis’s style. Can I call him Francis? I think so.

Shattered Dreams: God’s Unexpected Pathways to Joy by Larry Crabb. Applicable to everyone and full of ah-ha moments. I have a journal full of notes from this one.

Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream. For years, I’ve been silently pondering the incompatibility of the American dream with authentically following Jesus. David Platt has written the book I was craving, only it’s better. And his style? He makes Francis Chan seem passive and unopinionated. Just read it.

On my list for this year (and yes, some of these keep carrying over from year to year):

The History of the Ancient World by Susan Wise Bauer is a lively read, all 863 pages of it. This is my car book, read during car pool. I’m at about 1750 B.C., so perhaps I’ll see Rome fall by the time my kids are able to drive themselves.

Celebrations of Faith by Randy and Lisa Wilson (already working on this one)

The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr

Stones Into Schools (the follow up to Three Cups of Tea) by Greg Mortenson

A Long Obedience in the Same Direction: Discipleship in an Instant Society by Eugene Peterson

Raising a Modern-Day Princess by Pam Farrel and Doreen Hanna