My 2020 Book List

 As it turns out, pandemics are good for readers. I read so many books this year that I'm not even including on this list those that were forgettable and unimportant. But I am including 22 reviews, which makes for a lot of words. I've listed my top six books of the year at the beginning, but there are some good ones further down the list if you're inclined to read that far. 

GREAT BOOKS

I read a lot of good books. Occasionally, I read a great book. This year I read two:

The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother by James McBride. Many book characters don't stay with me longer than it takes me to get the book back to the library. The people in McBride's book will linger in my mind a very long time. Written in 1996, this is a book I can't believe I hadn't read until now. It's become a standard university text, and I love the thought of it provoking college students to think, "I wonder if my parents had a life before me? I wonder where they came from and who they are?" McBride chronicles his journey of discovering his mother's story, and why she, a Jewish woman married to a black man, didn't look like him or his 11 siblings. His account is moving and powerful. It's painful, but also uplifting and a beautiful testimony of how one ordinary woman raised extraordinary children with no money but a whole lot of Jesus. 

The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson. It took 2020 to wake me up to a world I knew nothing about. This was one of a handful of books I read to help me understand what it's like to be black in America. It contains a part of history I never learned, the Great Migration of black southerners to the north and the west between 1917 and 1970. I learned more from this book than from any other this year. Wilkerson's massive amount of research is couched in such captivating storytelling that I breezed through 622 pages in a couple of weeks. 

GOOD BOOKS

Confronting Christianity: 12 Hard Questions for the World's Largest Religion by Rebecca McLaughlin. This was Christianity Today's 2020 Beautiful Orthodoxy Book of the Year, and it is well deserved. If you or someone you know is struggling with questions like the tension about diversity and religion, if science and Christianity are compatible, if the Bible denigrates women, or how Christianity can say it's the only way to God, this book is a good choice. You can just tell that the author is brilliant, but she's also accessible and engaging. Her chapter on the Bible and slavery was an answer to prayer for me. Her goal is not to offer one-size-fits-all answers, but to introduce readers to new ways of thinking about the hard questions of faith. 

Another Gospel?: A Lifelong Christian Seeks Truth in Response to Progressive Christianity by Alisa Childers. False teachers are nothing new. Paul, Peter, and Jude all wrote about them in their epistles, and they find a way into every generation of Christian thinkers and leaders. Today we know them as "progressive Christians." Childers was drawn in by one and on her way to the deconstruction that has become the buzz word of our day. But she didn't stay there. She threw herself into deep study of the legitimacy of the Bible and orthodox Christianity and came out with a fortified, robust belief in all that she'd believed in before. She puts her story and her hefty research into this book, which I will be giving to all the high school girls I have in Bible study. It's readable and relatable, and it will help them critically evaluate the false doctrines they're sure to face. 

New Morning Mercies by Paul David Tripp. Maybe more than any other year, it was good to start each day of 2020 with a shot of good theology. The theme of this devotional is grace, and I needed it every day. 

The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church's Complicity in Racism by Jemar Tisby. The author promised in his introduction that this would be a hard book to read, and he was right. But it wasn't hard for me for the reasons he anticipated. I have no problem acknowledging that the church has hidden its head in the sand for centuries regarding racism. I am not surprised that some of the great theologians of the past were also some of the biggest racists. Tisby did his research, his facts are well presented, and I believe them. My struggle was two-fold. First, I'm not sure it's fair to judge events of the past by the standards of today. In a bold move for his time, Billy Graham personally pulled down the segregation ropes at his revivals. Yet Tisby condemns him for not doing more, because by today's standards, that's not nearly enough. My second issue was one of personal reckoning. If I had been born on a plantation in the early 1800s, it would have been so easy for me to believe the Christian rhetoric that justified slavery: "We're saving souls!" If I was never taught how people were kidnapped from Africa and brought to the U.S. and didn't personally see how cruelly and inhumanely they were treated (and had no Netflix documentaries to show me), would I have taken a stand against something that my culture had always known and embraced? How I pray that I would have, but I fear that's not the case. This book sparked my year of repentance for myself, my ancestors, and the church. 

FICTION

Apeirogon by Colum McCann. This was the most unique book I've ever read. It's fiction? Sort of? It's a novel? Not really? It tells one cohesive story in its 457 pages, but in a most unusual way. I chose to read it because I'm overdue in understanding the Israel-Palestine conflict, and this book went a long way in filling my gaps. It also had me googling words like Nakba and intifada. (If 457 pages isn't for you, Vox.com has a good series of articles that explain the decades-long conflict.) The story is centered on the unlikely friendship between two fathers--an Israeli and a Palestinian who both lost young daughters in the conflict--and their mission for peace. But you'll also get snippets on how many gallons of water a swimming pool holds, where Nothing Compares 2 U was originally recorded, and more facts about birds than you ever wanted to know. I kinda loved it? I think?

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurson. Called by one reviewer "the most widely read and highly regarded novel in the entire canon of African American literature," I read this one as part of my aim to get outside my own world and way of thinking. The story moves slowly at first, and it's hard to keep the characters straight. The dialogue is challenging. It's one of those books where you want to go back and read the first several pages again once you've finished. This was not a light, breezy read. It was perplexing and stretching as I had to put on different lenses to read it. But as I think back on it, I like it more and more, and I realize it had much to teach me. 

Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid. What Hurston's book lacked in readability, Reid more than made up for, even though this book is equally deep. The main character is a young black woman who is questioned in a grocery store for being with her babysitting charge, a 3-year-old blonde girl, in the middle of the night. That event has ramifications for all the characters, black and white, and their relationships with one another. Reid's sharp, insightful writing reveals the true nature of people's internal dialogue (much of which I could relate to, sadly), though a lot of the language is rated R. 

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. This is the fictionalized account of a Nigerian woman who moves to the United States to attend college. Adichie, who herself moves back and forth between Nigeria and the U.S., has much to say about race in the U.S. Rather than a good story with compelling characters, this novel felt more like a series of essays on race. But for anyone who wants to understand how Africans living in America view our country and our racial issues, Adichie gives a helpful perspective. The main character didn't even know race was an issue until she moved to the U.S. In the end, she made the decision to forgo fancy salads and reliable air conditioning to return to Nigeria, where her children would treat adults with respect and be evaluated by something other than the color of their skin. (This one's also R rated.)

The Vanishing Half by Britt Bennett. This book is near the top of all 2020 Best Books lists, and I can see why. It's a fascinating story about two light-skinned black twin sisters who run away from home and choose different directions for their lives. One marries the blackest man she can find and has a daughter with him before escaping his abuse. The other "passes" for white, marries a wealthy white executive, and has a blonde daughter. The story offers a sad look at what it's like to live under the burden of lifelong secrets and shame. I'd recommend this book except that I did not enjoy a secondary plot about a transgender relationship. It was uncomfortably graphic and, in my opinion, added nothing to the story. 

Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout. I remember liking the first Olive Kitteridge book, which I read years ago. This one, not so much, although it opened my eyes to the kind of spiritual questioning, fear, and hopelessness people have. I'm not sure that's what Strout was going for, but as she wrote a book centered around older people, those approaching death and terrified of it, it made me thankful that I don't have to live with that kind of fear.

NON-FICTION

Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover. I guess pandemics make me crave memoirs, because I read three this year. I didn't enjoy this one like I did James McBride's book, but it was hard to put down. The author grew up in a doomsday/antigovernment/survivalist Mormon family in Idaho and never attended a day of school until she managed to get into college. Her story is disturbing on many levels, but especially in how she was raised to see God. This is a story about false religion as much as anything. 

Why We Can't Sleep by Ada Calhoun. This is a well-written book subtitled "Women's New Midlife Crisis." But not just any women. Gen X women, of which I am one. I identified with nearly everything Calhoun wrote. I remember growing up with the Enjolie perfume commercial, where the woman can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, and never let you forget you're a man. I remember being told, "You can have it all." I was a latch-key kid with minimal parental supervision and dreams of changing the world. Calhoun hits all the notes of growing up in the 70s and 80s, only to arrive in the 90s and 2000s realizing that things weren't quite what we expected. With chapters on caregiving (young children and aging parents), money panic, decision fatigue, singleness, childlessness, divorce, job instability, menopause, and the simple doldrums ("Is this really what my life was supposed to look like?"), the book was insightful but depressing. Her conclusions were to find a good support system, ditch unrealistic expectations, and wait until things get better, like after 60. I find the hope of Jesus much more satisfying. I found myself trying to identify with the mopey discontentment apparently shared among women my age, only to come back to how much difference a transformed-by-Christ perspective makes on, well, everything. 

Doing Life with Your Adult Children: Keep Your Mouth Shut and the Welcome Mat Out by Jim Burns. I have entered the stage of life where this is the kind of parenting book I read. Sigh. The subtitle of this one says it all. While a lot of the book addressed problems I don't yet have, the best advice I got from Burns was to remember that any unsolicited advice offered to an adult child will be heard as criticism. 

White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism by Robin DiAngelo. I reviewed this book on my blog in July. It helped me understand the reasoning of Critical Race theorists, of which DiAngelo is one of the loudest voices. I thought the book started out well. She pointed out things I need to know, and she did it in a mostly helpful way. About halfway through, the tone seemed to change, and I felt like I was being chastised, not educated. 

Get Out of Your Head: Stopping the Spiral of Toxic Thoughts by Jennie Allen. I really like Jennie Allen, and she's written a timely, necessary book. It's an expanded version of "take every thought captive," complete with the author's own story, biblical and scientific research, and practical recommendations. Late in the book it all started to sound the same, so I stopped reading, but I have a feeling this is a book I will return to again and again. 

How We Think by John Dewey. I read this one pre-Covid, which feels like another lifetime, so I barely remember what it said. It centered on why we have closed minds and aren't willing to challenge our own thoughts, including a checklist at the end to help readers think in new ways. 

Moving Mountains: Praying with Passion, Confidence, and Authority by John Eldredge. I'm still processing this one. Eldredge writes about prayer of intervention, listening prayer, warfare prayer, inner healing, and physical healing, among other things. He includes his own sample prayers, which are helpful, but there was something that rubbed me ever-so-slightly the wrong way about how he approaches God. Still, I'm taking it to heart and thinking more about how to pray boldly, powerfully, and confidently. 

Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life by Richard Rohr. I wanted to like this one, but I never quite got it. I resonated with Rohr's argument that we all need closure at the end of every major life transition. I agreed with the idea that we don't really become who we're meant to be until we've suffered. His point, I think, was that falling down is actually moving upward. I got more from the jacket cover than from the actual book: "If you are on course at all, your world should grow much larger in the second half of life. But your circle of real confidants and truly close friends will normally grow smaller, but also more intimate. You are no longer surprised or angered when most people, even institutions, are doing first-half-of-life tasks." 

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion. I keep running into this title in other books, so I finally decided to check it out. If it hadn't been short, I wouldn't have stuck with it, as it wasn't what I expected. It's Didion's story of losing her husband, writer John Dunne, while their daughter was on life support fighting for her own life. Didion is an acclaimed writer, and her words are elegant. But the book felt like wallowing in someone else's grief for 227 pages, which is not what I needed during a pandemic. One really good point, though: Didion defines grief as a passive condition, something that is thrust upon you. She defines mourning as what you actively choose to do with your grief. 

Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino. This was on a "must-read" list of 2019 books, and the author was named "the voice of millennial women." I was up for learning more about millennial women and how they think, so I was game to check this out. I didn't find anything likable about the author or her voice. Now, clearly, I was not her target audience. She grew up an evangelical Christian, but exchanged Jesus for psychedelic mushrooms, which she decided gave her the same religious experience. She is a hard-core feminist and writes about how stupid it is to get married and how oppressive it is to take a man's name. I read this book, like many others this year, to see the world through the eyes of another person. By the time I finished this one, I was extremely thankful to have my own eyes back. 

Two Days Before Christmas

A bi-polar teenager living far away from his family. Another teenager with a compromised immune system and a Covid-induced fever of 102. A bedridden nursing-home resident who hasn't seen her family in nine months, fighting off Covid. A friend's husband, young and healthy, who suddenly finds himself unable to sit, stand, or walk. Friends mourning the sudden, shocking death of their husband/father. An elderly neighbor experiencing seizures and disorientation, placed in the hospital's oncology unit because there were no other open beds. Two little girls in a chaotic, dangerous home surrounded by evil. 

Just a sample of the people I'm praying for two days before Christmas. When I come up for air, I remember all those who are sick, all those separated from loved ones, all who have experienced unthinkable loss this year. I think of church scandals and racial injustice, poverty and violence. 

God, it all feels like so much. And I only know the tiniest fraction of human suffering. You know it all. 

And yet you say: "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light" (Matthew 11:28-30). 

Has there ever been a more welcome offer: "Come to me and find rest for your souls"? Not just my troubled mind, but my very soul? 

I'm also struck by Jesus's words, "Come to me." The Most Holy God invites us to come closer.

It's ironic, because holiness means set apart, separate, other. God is many, many things, but it would be hard to argue that God is anything more than He is holy. The Old Testament is full of examples of God protecting people from His holiness: hiding Moses in the cleft of a rock, keeping His people from climbing up the mountain to meet Him, allowing only one person, the high priest, to enter the Holy of Holies, and even then only once a year. God's holiness is all-consuming. No one can see Him and live. And yet this Holy One tells us, "Come to me." 

Not only that, but He went a step further. He said, "I'll come to you." This completely holy, completely "other," set-apart God wrapped Himself in human flesh and made His dwelling among us. What had to happen in order for this holy God, so consuming that to see Him was to die, to become human? And to become a baby, at that? Philippians 2:7 tries to explain it to us, saying He "emptied himself" in order to be born like all of us were. I can't even grasp that kind of emptying. 

How was it that the One whose face could not be glimpsed was the One swaddled by a teenage mother?

How was it that the God who is a consuming fire touched the eyes of the blind man without burning a hole through his head? 

How was it soldiers drove nails into the hands and feet of One so holy that people had to be shielded from His glory or be killed? 

How is it that this One whose presence caused Isaiah to wail, "I am ruined," not only calls out for me to come to Him, but took the first step by coming to me? 

He is Emmanuel, God with us.

He knew the depth and breadth of our suffering and sorrows, and He entered into it anyway. 

He surrendered His glory and greatness to live among hurting, hurtful people. 

He wept among those people. 

He gave His life for those people.

His yoke is easy and His burden is light. 

What if I had known?

In his most recent online message, our pastor said something about how it's somehow December, but he feels like he's still waiting for the spring break that never arrived back in March. Yes, I get that. I feel displaced in time, like we've been in a holding pattern for nine months, and how can we possibly be putting up the Christmas lights?

Every year when I haul out the Christmas decorations, I can't help but think back on what things were like the last time I saw them, when I boxed them up on that melancholy day somewhere around January 2 or 3. This year, of course, the whole world has changed. It's hard to think of much of anything that's the same as it was in January. My kids went to school. We went to basketball games and friends' houses and restaurants and church. That was just life as we knew it; it wasn't anything we gave thought to. I don't remember ever thanking God that I could walk into a Chick-fil-A and sit down and eat. I've had a lot of emotions while waiting in my kids' carpool line, but gratitude for a completed, uneventful school day was never one of them. Life is so different now.  

So, I wonder, what would I have told myself last January 2 if I had known what 2020 would hold? What would I have said to that sappy mama who was boxing up the nativity animals, wishing for just a little more time with all the kids home? How would I tell her to prepare for the year that had just arrived with so much hopeful expectation? 

Of course there are dozens of practical things. Make hair appointments for everyone and get the dog groomed. Stock up on meat and toilet paper. Make sure that home gym is ready to go. (Thankfully, my husband had that one covered.) 

I would tell her to let go of the little things that seemed so big at the time--spring break plans, graduation plans, family visit plans, kids' summer internship plans, or basically any plans at all. 

I would say to her, "You know all those times you felt overwhelmed and just wanted to stop the merry-go-round, get off, recenter, and rest a bit? Take heart, because it's comin'." 

I would advise her to put down the frivolous fiction book she was reading and instead ready her mind for the mental battles and faith challenges that were about to land like a hurricane. I would tell her to worship and fellowship at every opportunity, to say yes to every invitation to be with people. I would encourage her to be creative in finding ways to worship on her own. 

I'd tell her never to pray lightly for her kids to grow in resilience. And to watch them, and all the teenagers she knows, when she wonders how to respond when the world is pulled out from underneath you. 

I would try to convince her that days spent in a misty-eyed funk, days in which there is no trace of productivity or accomplishment (except maybe getting the dishwasher loaded for the third time), can still be very good days. Those are the kinds of days where you learn who you are. The days when if you really listen hard, you can hear the still, small voice of God. 

I would tell her that the cancellations and disappointments soon to be punching her in the gut would be met with the equally fierce grace of God. Grace that made what would have seemed inconceivably sad on January 2 or 3 some of our best memories of the year. Like 75 visitors to our driveway to wish a brand new teenager a happy birthday. Or a backyard graduation where every attendee is a speaker and the graduate performs her own Pomp and Circumstance. 

I'd say to her, "No matter how bizarre the day was, watch the sun set over Pikes Peak and remember that God is still on the throne."

Secretly, I would laugh to myself that she thought she was doing pretty well with patience and endurance, humility and surrender. Bless her heart. Let her live in ignorant bliss for a few more months until she learns the truth the hard way. 

Maybe the most amusing thing would be to talk with her about her word for the year: Release.  

This all makes me wonder what December 2021 Me would say to the current me. I guess she's already started speaking. By faith, I just placed an online order for hairspray and mascara. I'm looking at my church clothes with high hopes. I think what she may be saying is this: "Let yourself look forward to the year ahead. Just don't for a second forget what you learned from 2020."

And now it's November

As we begin this month, our ninth month living with the coronavirus and the climactic month of this contentious political season, here are three things I'm pondering:

1. What motivates us to fight so hard for our rights? It could be argued that Americans value their individual rights above anything else. Why is this? Why are rights so meaningful to us that we're quick to do battle with coworkers, neighbors, and strangers over them? Why are they so important to us that we're willing to break relationship with friends and family members just to preserve them? The Constitution guarantees us certain rights, but do we stop to think about what those rights are for? Just so I can be free to do whatever I think is right or will make me happy? Or is there more to it? How should we be using our rights? How do we balance our rights with our responsibilities to others? 

2. We all wish things would just get better already. But I wonder, why do we think that's going to happen? And what if "better" isn't what's best? I'm as fed up with 2020 as the next person. I look back longingly at how things were in the past. But in this bubbling stew of emotions I feel, one of them is excitement. I am excited to see God work. I don't relish the hardship of it, but I long for God to purify His church, His people, and do a mighty work in us. If this is what that looks like, then I'm all in. 

Like most everyone else I know, I am praying for God to heal our land. But I'm open to the possibility that that could look different from what I'm hoping for. Maybe things won't get better. Maybe they'll get worse. What if worse is what we need? The church changes, focuses, and grows under pressure. We have plenty of examples (hello, China) of how God's kingdom advances in times of persecution. We can probably all look back in our lives and see how suffering brought greater devotion. As much as I love the words "easy" and "comfortable," I love "sanctification" and "righteousness" even more. With a big, deep gulp I pray, God, make us holy, by whatever means necessary. 

3. My favorite passage of Scripture recently has been Psalm 103:13-14.

As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed; he remembers that we are dust."

Psalm 103 is worth reading every day. All of it is uplifting. But, oh, am I thankful that God included verses 13 and 14. I need Him to remind me that He knows how I'm formed. He knows I'm dust. No one has lofty expectations for dust. The messaging of my day tells me that I am strong, powerful, capable, ready to take on the world, and sometimes, on my best days, I might feel that way. But usually, I feel like dust, very aware of my weaknesses and shortcomings. God knows that. He reminds me that even though I am dust, I'm "a piece of earth breathing holy breath" as Twila Paris said it, and He has compassion on me. 

He sees us, He knows how we are formed, and He has compassion on us. That's reason for rejoicing, even this November. 

Inspiring Marriage in a "Not-So-Interested" Culture

Marriage is getting rarer. I read this in a well-researched article published by sociologist Mark Regnerus in Christianity Today. The author interviewed 200 churchgoing young adult Christians in seven countries and concluded that the institution of marriage, even within the Church, is "under severe strain." 

This was not an article about divorce. It's about people who don't even get married in the first place. The concept of marriage as a positive life choice is getting rarer. 

It makes sense, doesn't it? We are a people with unending options, terrified of making a wrong choice. We don't want to tether ourselves to anything, especially not for life, without the ability to change our minds. We want to try before we buy, and our world doesn't bat an eye at cohabitation anymore. (What a change from my Three's Company childhood!) We are a people raised on Disney princesses and Meg Ryan movies, indoctrinated with the belief that there is a soul mate out there for every one of us and that romance is the pinnacle experience of life. We are a people afraid to fail, surrounded on all sides by examples of failed marriages. (I recently watched Marriage Story, a 2019 Best Picture nominee. The movie's title says so much about how our culture views marriage. It was actually Divorce Story, portraying the nasty, soul-crushing process of ending a marriage and battling over custody of a child. Parts of it should be required viewing for any married parents considering the dissolution of their family.) 

Perhaps the most interesting finding in Regnerus's study was that marriage has gone from being perceived as a foundational event to being seen as a capstone event. My parents and grandparents and the generations preceding them got married shortly after graduating from high school. It was the logical next step for young adults who were leaving their parents' homes and transitioning to independent lives of their own. Being newly married usually meant being poor, scraping by, and making sacrifices to build a new life together. 

A capstone event, on the other hand, means you've already arrived. On your own. You've gotten an education, a good job, a house; you've seen the world and sewn your wild oats. The capstone of your self-achievement is to find your soul mate, the person who will finally complete you. 

It's no wonder  that author Russell Moore has called marriage today "a vehicle of self-actualization rather than a setting for self-sacrifice." 

My husband and I celebrated our 25th anniversary last month. As exotic travel is not really a thing in 2020, we traveled as far as a restaurant on the west side of town, taking with us our two kids still at home. (It's a beautiful season of life when you actually want your kids with you on your anniversary, versus being willing to invest any amount of money and logistical inconvenience trying to get away from them . . . but that's a story for another day.) When I prodded our girls into asking marriage advice from a couple of veterans like us, Kevin and I both found ourselves saying similar things. 

We married by blind, dumb luck. That is not to discount the grace of God, but on the surface, it looks like a lot of luck. We were in the same place at the same time. We were approximately the same age. We had similar values and similar goals. We had strong faith in God. We were ready for the next stage of life. We were attracted to each other. So we said, "Let's do this," and got engaged 10 months to the day after our first date. We had no idea what we were getting into, but we knew it was for life, and we trusted God to help us make it work. And He has.

Are we living a fairy tale? Um, no. Have we mastered self-sacrifice? Are you kidding, it's only been 25 years. We've got miles to go. Did we make the right decision? Yes! Are we better together than we'd be apart? Absolutely. At 24 and 26, we made a half-baked decision and committed our lives to each other in the eyes of God, and we meant it. Til death do us part. Twenty-five years later, I wouldn't trade our life together for anything in the world. 

And that's one thing the researcher noticed. When marriage is viewed in spiritual terms, as a covenant between two people and God, it is more desirable and more successful. This is good news, and it presents Christians with an opportunity. We in the Church are much more likely to characterize marriage in sacred terms. We see marriage first and foremost as a commitment to God, then to our spouse. We see marriage as an instrument of God's sanctification, believing that He is not just asking us to do hard, sacrificial work, but that He's making us more holy in the process. Marriage is also a huge way that He blesses us, as anyone who has ever laid in a dark room laughing hysterically next to their spouse can attest. Being married is actually fun.

Where bad marriages serve as "a sort of vaccine against marriage," according to one participant in the study, good marriages inspire. Younger people don't need the message of Marriage Story, that marriage is ultimately unsatisfying and murders your personal dreams, or the message of Disney movies, that marriage leads to "happily-ever-after" eternal bliss. The next generation needs examples of people who are unwavering in their commitment to God and one another, who have found joy and peace in both the hard work and many rewards of marriage. They need to see what faithful love looks like over the long haul, to desire that even more than a temporary enraptured state of romance. 

Let's be sure to show them. 

Another Christian Scandal and Where It Leads My Thoughts

One of the songs providing fuel for my run a few days ago was DC Talk's "What If I Stumble?" It starts with this quote from Brennan Manning:

"The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and then walk out the door and deny them by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable." 

In light of what's been happening at my son's college, Liberty University, the words hit me hard. I can't control the craziness in the world. I can't control what other people do and say. But I can listen and lean in when God says, "Let's work on you." 

Here are two things He has invited me this week to meditate on with Him. 

First, my own testimony. Do my behaviors match my doctrine? Do I practice what I preach? I am doing a thorough examination to be sure I'm not denying Christ by my lifestyle. I don't have any pool boys hiding in my closet, but what about the way I talk about other people? How do I respond when things don't go my way? Do I live like I trust Jesus?

I've also been thinking about why my testimony matters at all. Are there really people watching me to decide if they'll follow Christ or not? Hard to imagine who that might be. But when I think of the kind of testimony I want to have and why it's important, four sets of watching blue eyes immediately come to mind. My kids have received a lifetime of teaching and preaching from me, and there's nothing more horrifying than to think that I would give them reason to doubt the truthfulness of my message. 

If I were to fall into some hidden, unconfessed sin, I would be embarrassed and ashamed for my friends to find out. I would feel sick at the thought of dishonoring my husband and disappointing my mom. But my children? I would be torn to shreds, done in, for my children to see me as a phony and my testimony as a joke. Lord, give me grace, strength, and conviction every day to not betray my witness to my children. 

The second thing I'm thinking about this week is related to judgment. I can grab hold of Brennan Manning's words, hop up on my high horse, and scream down to the Christians caught in scandalous sin, "What on earth were you people thinking? Do you have no fear of the Lord?!" Righteous anger is legitimate, but for me, it's just a stone's throw away from violating Jesus's command, "Do not judge lest you be judged." 

I am not tempted by drugs or alcohol or elicit sex. I am tempted hourly by self-righteousness, which is just as much a slavemaster as the sins that get more coverage. 

I have recently returned to an article that I read this spring on the prophet Daniel's prayer for repentance in Daniel 9. Without any known moral lapses of his own, Daniel prayed, "We have been wicked." "We have sinned and done wrong." "We are covered with shame." "We have turned away." 

The author of the article, Jeff Peabody, says this:

"I find myself desperately wanting non-Christians to know what I am not. And that seems to be the trend. We decry the despicable brokenness of other believers and encourage the world to turn away from them and look at us instead for a more palatable, truer depiction of faith. But adopting a wholesale separatist approach feeds the lie that we are intrinsically different sheep from the rest of the flock. It deludes us into believing that our proper theology, superior morality, or enhanced sense of justice make us the keepers of God's full perspective. We lean further and further into our own self-righteousness. 

This is where Daniel's prayer is so jarring. Instead of recoiling from the wickedness he sees around him, he places himself squarely in the middle of other people's sin in addition to his own. There is no daylight between his personal failings and those of the larger community."  

This is sobering. It pulls me off my high horse into a place of repentance--for my "me sins" and my "we sins." I am not intrinsically different than the other sheep in the flock.

Another Miracle of Maturity

 I can count on two hands, maybe even a hand and a half, the number of times in my adult life that I've cried so hard I couldn't function. I tear up pretty easily, mostly when I am made aware of the presence of God in my life, but I am very rarely brought to the kind of gut-wrenching sobs that leave you temporarily incapable of participating in the world. The most inopportune incident of this kind came when I was in a movie theater by myself with six young children, including a toddler on my lap, watching the movie Up and crying so loudly that I scared everyone in the room, including myself. 

But the profound weeping incident I'm remembering this week was one from September 2015. I had just dropped my oldest daughter off at Mountain Lab, a somewhat mandatory "team-building" overnight camp for her eighth-grade class. She had been to camp once before, and it had not been a huge success. There are kids who love camp and kids who don't, and she definitely fell into the latter category. She had also been struggling with friendships the past three years. She didn't feel like she had any reliable, go-to friends at the time. She dreaded being with 200 classmates day and night for two days, trying to find a place to sit in a rowdy dining hall, and being forced to do trust-building activities with people she knew she didn't trust. The thought of Mountain Lab had haunted her all summer, and now it was time to drop her off to face her worst fears. 

As I pulled away from the campground, the tears started rolling. By the time I got to the highway entrance, I was in the full-blown emotional upheaval that's usually reserved for sudden deaths. I had to pull off the road. There I sat for several long minutes, weeping from the core of my being. I trusted that God was with her and would use this for her good, but I hurt for how I knew she must feel. I had always felt like this child in particular, out of all my kids, took my heart with her wherever she went. She was my sensitive kid. Her pain was my pain in a way I didn't experience with my others. I remember wondering, as I sat on the shoulder of the highway desperately trying to find something on which to blow my nose, how I would ever be able to send this girl to college. 

That question lingered in my mind the past five years, until it was answered on Monday. That's when we left her 800 miles from home for the next three months. As I hugged her goodbye, the tears, sweet and subdued, came for a couple of minutes. Honestly, they were tears of joy every bit as much as they were tears of sadness. This girl is going to be just fine. My hunch is that she's going to be great. 

My parenting mantra that I've said at least a hundred times: Maturity is a parent's best friend. Those problems you're having with your kid today? Those chronic irritations you notice again and again in your child? Maturity will take care of nearly all of them. Our job is to pray, be consistent, stay engaged and available, love and love some more, trust God, and let His gift of maturity do its good work. 

If you are the parent of younger kids, take heart! Have hope! Right under your nose, maturity is doing its work in those kids of yours. It won't always be pretty, but on the other side, it will be worth every sob session you've ever had. 

And if you have kids nearing high school graduation whose maturity is starting to cast a nice, warm glow in your house, and if you're starting to mourn their imminent departure, be encouraged by this: In my experience, the buildup to the goodbye is much worse than the actual goodbye. We spend their whole senior year dreading what turns out to be a pretty beautiful thing. The two times I've dropped kids off at far-away colleges, my sense of excitement for them has outweighed the sense of loss for myself. 

If I ever wonder about the goodness of God, all I have to do is think of the work He's done in my kids. A shy, scared 13-year-old somehow becomes an 18-year-old who is eager and equipped to live 800 miles from home with 20,000 strangers. That makes me cry. In the best possible way. 

Learning, Thinking, and Praying

Last time I wrote, I talked about how I've sensed God saying, "Let's work on you" in response to the conversation about race happening in our country. In the month since I wrote that, I have certainly seen Him work in me. And, wow, am I praying. I'm praying as I sit down to write this. God, please help me communicate what you want me to say, and let me write from a place of humility.

In the past month, I have read articles, watched movies, documentaries, and YouTube videos, listened to podcasts, and read White Fragility. Because God had still more to teach me, I ended up spontaneously housing a 17-year-old Black girl for the night and getting a peek into her world and then seeing my daughter's mostly Black basketball team called "dirty" by a group of white moms. My learning moved outside of just the academic/intellectual realm and into the practical. God is answering my prayers to open my eyes to new things.

So what have I learned so far?

For starters, a lot about Critical Race Theory, and its parent, Critical Theory. If these terms are unfamiliar to you, as they were to me, I encourage you to study up. CRT is the foundation of much of the response we're hearing today. It's the perspective from which White Fragility and many of today's "must-read" books come from. It provides a ready answer to the heartbreak we feel when we watch the George Floyd video and the yearning Christians have to seek after justice as the Bible commands. It's giving us terms like "whiteness" and "intersectionality" and "privilege" and "antiracism" and "fragility." It is the tidal wave sweeping over our country right now, and it's making us think.

Robin DiAngelo, author of White Fragility, is one of the key spokespersons of CRT. As a white woman, she does a very skillful job speaking to other white people. She knows what she's saying is hard. She doesn't hold back, but she presents her message in a way that shows she knows how hard it is to accept what she's saying. After all, that's what white fragility is--the discomfort whites feel when confronted about racial inequality and injustice. In a mostly tolerable way, she points out that whites are all racist, every single one of us, because we were born into and benefit from a racist system that keeps white people on top and pushes Black people down. She strategically separates morality from racism. In other words, you can be a good person and still be a racist. The CRT definition of racist is different from anything I've heard before. It's not a white person making mean jokes at a Black person's expense or using the "n" word or refusing to use the same bathroom as a Black person. It's everyone who's white, everyone who benefits from the structures that keep whites on the top and Blacks on the bottom, whether they know they're benefitting or not. A white person married to a Black spouse raising Black children is still a racist. The white people protesting as part of Black Lives Matter are racist. DiAngelo argues that it's not a moral term, but simply a reflection of reality.

Her book, filled with stories and examples, brought me new insight. It made me think. It, along with several of the other things I've read and watched, helped me see how my perspective of the world has been narrow. I've seen how I've made quick judgments about people my whole life, how I've believed stereotypes and responded accordingly. One of the most insightful things I heard came from Emmanual Acho in one of his Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man videos. In trying to explain white privilege to whites, he said it's not that we haven't had hardship in our lives; it's that our hardships have not come as a result of our skin color.

So what I'm reading and hearing has made a lot of sense. I have spent good time talking to God about my own biases and repenting of my partiality and prejudice, apathy and ignorance. But something in all this CRT messaging just feels off. It's uncomfortable, yes, but it's more than that. So I kept pressing in and asking God to give me discernment. That's when I discovered Monique Duson and Dr. Neil Shenvi, who brought clarity by holding up CRT to the light of Scripture. At its core, CRT is a worldview. Worldviews answer essential questions like these:

Why are we here and what is our purpose?
What does it mean to be human?
What is our Big Problem?
What is the solution?

My worldview is a biblical one. We are here because we were created by a loving God who wants relationship with us. Our purpose is to know Him, be in relationship with Him, and help others do the same. To be human is to be made in the image of God and deeply loved by Him, so much so that He sent His Son to die for us. To be human is to find our identity in Him. Our Big Problem is sin, and the only solution is Jesus.

I am definitely not an expert on CRT, but my understanding is that it would answer those essential questions this way: To be human is to be made up of several different identities, consisting of race, gender, sexual orientation, age, and physical ability, in addition to other things. What you identify with is what you are. Our Big Problem is oppression. We are all either oppressors or the oppressed. We can be both at the same time. For instance, a white man is an oppressor, but if he is gay or in a wheelchair, he is at the same time oppressed (this is what intersectionality means). At the core of this oppression is whiteness. All whites are oppressors; all people of color are oppressed. Racism equals prejudice plus power, so only whites can be racist. The solution is for whites to sanctify themselves by repenting, becoming woke by educating themselves of the problem, divesting themselves of their whiteness, and repenting of the sin of whiteness. That is our purpose.

CRT is a works-based solution. It has no consideration for grace or the power and necessity of the Holy Spirit. It brings us to repentance before human beings, not before God, when both are necessary and the latter is essential to the former. It does not recognize that partiality is a sin shared by everyone. It forces sides, saying, "There is one way for this to look, and if you're not doing it the right way, you will be silenced and disgraced." Critical Race Theory divides: oppressed against oppressor, us versus them. The Bible unites: "He himself [Jesus] is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility" (Ephesians 2:14).

I'm not ready to say CRT is evil or completely without merit, though I might get there with more study. But at the very least, a viewpoint that allows no room for white-initiated dialogue between races and forbids tears of repentance (there's actually a chapter in DiAngelo's book called "White Women's Tears") is missing the mark. But its proponents have brought a very important issue to the forefront of our national conscience.

It's bringing racial injustice to the forefront of the church, where it needs to be. Malachi Vincent (see resources below) says that before we can talk about unity in the church, and before we can talk about the world being transformed by the unity of the church, we have to talk about sins that the church needs to repent of. We in the church need to care about this as much as God does. And we need leaders who know they are accountable to God and to Scripture and who recognize that if they're not abiding in Christ, they are capable of nothing. More than anything else, we need leaders with deep humility who will call the rest of the church to humble ourselves and seek racial justice from the God who invented justice. Otherwise, as Monique Duson says, we're going to look to the culture and get swept up in its misguided attempts at reconciliation.

Do we in the church have learning to do? Yes. Repenting? Being agents of change? YES. But let's do it with a biblical worldview. "We are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in heavenly places" (Ephesians 6:12, NLT). Help us, Jesus, the one who reconciled us to God the Father and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.

Resources

5 Ways Christians Are Getting Swept Into a Secular Worldview in This Cultural Moment

Alisa Childers interview with Monique Duson

What Do We Do with Critical Theory? from the Colson Center for Worldview

A Conversation About Race and Reconciliation with Francis Chan (three-part series, but I particularly learned from the first of the three videos and from Malachi Vincent, who starts at 7:00 in)

In light of the past 10 weeks

I don't presume to know what to say right now. My heart, heavy since March, just took on an extra ton of weighty sadness in the past few weeks. What a year 2020 has turned out to be.

I don't know what to say, but this blog has never been about giving advice or telling people what they should or shouldn't do. I write about the things God is teaching me, and if someone else gets something out of it, great.

I can't say I've been struck by major revelation in the past 10 weeks, but if I were to highlight one message I feel like God's been giving me between the pandemic and the protests, I think it's this: "Let's work on you."

The older I get, the more I realize that I have control over just about nothing. I can't control the world's leaders, my neighbors, my husband, or my kids. I can't even control my dog with a collar and a leash. Until recently, I thought I had some control over my schedule, but in the face of endless cancellations, I've realized that even that was a myth.

I can only control me. I've heard this for years, but I've never been so personally aware of it. So I sense God saying to me, "Let's work on the one thing you can control. You."

If I'm being honest, I do a pretty bad job of controlling me. The stay-at-home orders have shown me in new ways that I am quick to judge, I am impatient, and I find a lot of misplaced identity and joy in the things I do and the relationships I have with people. I get restless easily, and I'm looking for the next fun fix to get me through the monotony of life. God is showing me these things about myself, saying, "Let's work on you."

When I turn on the news at night, He is showing me that some of the realities I've known my whole life are matters of perspective and privilege. Through books and articles and documentaries, He is showing me what injustice looks like and how it's so ingrained in our world that I don't even recognize it. He is pointing out my own prejudices, biases, and partialities, and I am having good, hard, repentant conversations with Him about it. He is showing me how some of the quick judgments I've made in the past, the quick defenses and rationalizations I've made in order to uphold my own paradigm of what is good and what is bad, who is good and who is bad, grieve His heart. He wants something different for me. So He says, "Let's work on you."

He's changing the way I pray. I pray more for humility than direction these days. I want to be wise, but even more than that, I want to be teachable and correctable. I'm asking Him less to change the people and circumstances around me and focusing more on how He wants to change me.

Some would say there's a lot more I could and should be doing. I would have a hard time arguing with them. Despite what Michael Jackson said ("If you wanna make the world a better place take a look at yourself and then make the change"), working on me feels difficult, slow, and not terribly productive. But maybe in the long run, it's the most useful thing I could ever do?

Neighbor Loving in the Time of Corona

There was a time--it seems like ages ago, but I guess it's just been 7 or 8 weeks--when I thought the Coronavirus might be what brought this country back together. A profound, difficult, shared experience can have that effect on people, no matter how hard it is for them to get along. I remembered 9/11, when for a couple of weeks one September, people were kinder to each other. We waved to strangers. We united by flying our flags off our front porches. We were all in the throes of shock and grief, and we treated each other carefully, gently. I thought that might be the case this time, too. And I think it was for a couple of weeks. But 9/11 lasted a day. The Coronavirus has lasted two months in the US, with no sign of letting up. We seem to have grown weary of treating each other gently.

The two ruling philosophies of the day are no longer Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals, but "open ups" and "stay locked downs." They both have a pile of evidence to defend their positions. I can be convinced by either side. But since no one philosophy is completely doable, we've landed in some sort of wishy-washy middle ground where everyone just does their own thing. It doesn't take long for someone's "own thing" to collide with someone else's, and the result is usually not pretty.

Early on in this strange new life we find ourselves in, I went to Sam's Club with my youngest daughter. About a quarter of the people there were wearing masks. At that time my "own thing" did not include masks, but in the cold produce area, we collided with someone who saw things differently. While I was some distance away, an old man wearing a mask approached my 12-year-old and shouted at her, "You're killing people right now!"

My kids spend a lot of time at school talking about rights and responsibilities. Part of their school's creed, memorized since elementary school, is putting responsibilities ahead of rights. The man at Sam's surely had the right to say whatever he wanted to whomever he wanted. But as an adult, he also had the responsibility to not frighten a child. Or accuse her of murder.

The second it happened, my mama-bear instinct roared to life in a way I hadn't seen in years. I wanted to punch him, or maybe just hit him between the eyes with an oversized strawberry. That response lasted for about a second. Then I saw him for who he was, a scared, fragile old man living in the most disorienting, terrifying time of his life. My mama bear went back to sleep, and I only felt sorry for him.

Today I have a different perspective than I had that day in Sam's. It's my right to breathe freely in public, unencumbered by a mask. It's my right to visit a restaurant that has decided to challenge the order to stay closed. It's my right to hang out with a large group of friends. It's my right to attend church in a building with other people. Rights are important. I do not want to live in China. But responsibility is important too, and my chief responsibility is to obey God, who calls me to love my neighbor as myself.

I was not loving my neighbor in the produce section. I didn't know it at the time, and he didn't respond correctly, but I can now see it from his perspective. People are scared, especially those who are most vulnerable. They're scared, and they need a head of lettuce. They need to get out of the house to keep some shred of sanity. By wearing a mask in public, I'm not saying I'm scared of the virus or other people. I'm not kowtowing to the government. I'm saying, "I care about you." (I'm also thinking, "I feel absolutely ridiculous wearing this thing," but I'm hoping that feeling will fade.)

Isn't it strange how the smallest decisions these days seem like major ethical dilemmas? Do I really wear a mask to run into the post office for 10 seconds? Do I let my kid go to the park with four friends? How close do I get to the person who crosses my path on a hiking trail? With no hard and fast answers, we're all left to use our best judgment and do our own best thing. Let's give each other a lot of grace. And let's ask ourselves, "What would it look like to love my neighbor right now?" That may be our best hope for coming out of this thing better, kinder, and gentler.

To my senior

My friend Christa recently said to me that her parenting arsenal has been reduced to two sentences during this pandemic: "I'm sorry" and "I love you." Yes, so true.

And so, in light of our school district's announcement yesterday that in-person school is cancelled for the rest of the year, I say this to my daughter Addison, a high school senior:

I'm sorry that your senior year ended on March 13 and you didn't even know it. I'm sorry you didn't get to say goodbye or have any of those "lasts" that all the rest of us took for granted. 

I'm sorry you didn't get to give your senior defense, the capstone project of your K-12 education at one school. I'm sorry you gave it eight months' worth of brain space and hard work, only to see it cancelled with so many other things. You would have done such a good job with it.

I'm sorry you're missing the senior lock-in, the senior scavenger hunt, the senior breakfast, and the senior assembly. I'm sorry that your graduation will be a drive-by diploma pick-up. I'm sorry that you have a brother who did all these things two years ago so that you know exactly what you're missing.

I'm sorry for the little things you'll never get to do again--drive your sisters to school, eat lunch in the band room, muster up your courage to share your thoughts in a Socratic seminar. I'm sorry I didn't get one last picture of you in your school uniform (or what you've been wearing the past couple years that we've called a school uniform).

I'm sorry that the hours, days, months, and years you've put into practicing music will not end with the senior recital we had planned.

I'm sorry for the senior girls in your class who have unworn prom dresses in their closets, for the senior baseball players and soccer players who got one game in before their season ended, for the track kids who were hours away from their first meet. I'm sorry for those hopeful athletes who needed one more season of highlight film to send to that college recruiter.

I'm sorry that you feel like life is too easy now for an introvert who loves to be alone, and that you feel like you're not stretching and growing like you used to every day when you went to school.

I'm sorry that you're trying to make a decision about college in the midst of the craziest days any of us has ever seen. I'm sorry that no one can guarantee you'll get to go to college in the fall.

I'm sorry that all of this feels so unreal that you can't even cry.

I'm sorry that for years we older people have doubted your generation's grit and resilience and that it took such a severe test for you to prove us wrong. You and every senior I know have blown me away with your resilience.

I'm sorry that I completely underestimated your ability to deal with the hard parts of life, when most days you're doing so much better with this than I am.

I'm sorry that you feel bad about feeling bad for your losses. I'm sorry that it feels selfish to mourn your graduation when people are dying and businesses are crumbling. Please know that loss is not a competition.

But here's what I'm not sorry for: that we are getting such sweet time with you, that instead of frantically running off to another senior event, you're playing dumb board games with us, watching 2012 episodes of Survivor with us, having a Tuesday-afternoon picnic in the park with us, playing basketball on rollerblades in the driveway with us. These are not the memories any of us expected to make in the last two months of your senior year. But they are good memories. We are not suffering here. God has been so good to us.

For what it's worth, sweet girl, I'm sorry for all you've lost. I'm sorry and I love you.

Ten Days Ago

I remember ten days ago...

• when the Coronavirus seemed like an Asian, Iranian, and Italian problem
• when the biggest concern at my kids' school was maxing out our snow days
• when we were wondering how to balance soccer, track, and club basketball without losing our minds
• when no one was home for dinner at the same time
• when my girls didn't see each other enough to argue
• when my daughter's looming college decision seemed like the most important thing in the world
• when only weird people wore masks
• when I assumed all these preparations we're making for the Class of 2020 would pay off in glorious memories
• when I was starting to plan parties for my April birthday girls
• when my college student went to college
• when I didn't spontaneously cry throughout the day
• when I had never in my life been on the CDC website
• when I didn't really talk on the phone
• when I didn't give much thought to people who live alone
• when I wondered why I had picked up TWO library books I was never going to be able to finish in three weeks
• when my husband's small business seemed fairly predictable and wasn't something I prayed about all day long  
• when going to church required a drive in the car and at least some degree of personal grooming
• when I wore makeup nearly every day
• when I got up at 5 and went to the gym
• when I was productive and got my work done and had my computer all to myself
• when I was a little disappointed about our lack of spring break plans
• when we couldn't wait for nine days of sleeping in
• when saying yes to sending my kid to a friend's house wasn't a monumental decision
• when partnering with the school to educate my children meant proofreading a paper now and then and taking in muffins for Teacher Appreciation Day
• when you couldn't get a one-way ticket to Nashville for $15
• when the Great Depression seemed completely irrelevant to our lives
• when the sniffles were just the sniffles
• when toilet paper didn't come up in every single conversation
• when my sister-in-law's family was having a great time at Disneyworld
• when I had no idea which restaurants delivered 
• when I had some idea of what tomorrow would be like
• when I prayed, "All to Jesus I surrender" and thought I meant it
• when I lived under the illusion of control
• when new mercies every morning were something I took for granted

Cursing or Mourning?

As timing (God) would have it, the March 12 heading in my daily devotional was this: If you mourn the fallenness of your world rather than curse its difficulties, you know that grace has visited you. 

A few hours later, I learned that the Colorado High School Activities Association has cancelled all sporting events and music festivals until April 6. No track meets for my girl whose first meet was supposed to be Saturday. The one whose outlook in life is directly tied to how much athletic competition she's getting. No All State Band for my senior on April 4. It's her favorite event of the year. Our school's chili supper, which raises $10,000 a year for the band, was cancelled. Seniors are watching their last sports seasons disappear. College students are being sent home. The elderly are scared to go out of their houses. There's no toilet paper to be found. We were told to prepare for serious disruption, and here we are.

We can curse or we can mourn.

From Paul David Tripp:

"Cursing is all about our comfort, our pleasure, our ease. Cursing is fundamentally self-centered. Mourning embraces the tragedy of the fall, that the world is not the way God meant it to be. 

Mourning calls for God's redeeming, restoring hand. Mourning acknowledges the suffering of others. Mourning is about something bigger than the fact that life is hard. Mourning grieves what sin has done to the cosmos and longs for the Redeemer to come and make his broken world new again. Mourning, then, is a response that is prompted by grace. 

This side of eternity in this broken world, cursing is the default language of the kingdom of self, but mourning is the default language of the kingdom of God. Which language will you speak today?"

I have always welcomed disappointments into my kids' lives. I don't like it when they show up. I don't ask for them. But when they inevitably come, I try hard to be thankful for them. They are opportunities to trust God in a bigger way, to choose to be grateful. When we're all around the dinner table tonight, we'll try to talk about that. But for now, I'm going to mourn for just a bit longer.

Parenting in the New World

I've said before that I think my generation has a unique place in history. We entered adolescence using typewriters, and before our prefrontal cortexes were fully developed, we could send an email across the world. For free! The Millennials might think they're special in this regard, too, but they never had to max out the telephone cord down the hall and into the laundry room so they could have a private conversation. (People actually used to have phone conversations. But the long-distance ones had to wait until after 10 p.m.) Millennials didn't go from vinyl to 8-track to cassettes to CDs over the course of their childhoods. They don't remember tumbling around the back of a station wagon before anyone had heard of child restraints. These are privileged memories held by Gen Xers, the generation that straddled antiquity and the media age.

We're also the first generation to parent teenagers in the media age. And we are blindly feeling our way through it, day by day. Because it changes every day. The junior high world my 7th grader functions in today is vastly different than the one her brother inhabited (at the same school) seven years ago. 

We're the first generation to have online school as an option for our high schoolers. We're the first to raise teenagers at a time when everything from free SAT prep to graphic sex is just a click away all the time. To raise kids who don't need adults to teach them things, because surely everything they need to know can just be googled. To parent in the shadow of social media influencers who make more than I'll ever make in my life by putting on makeup or playing video games in their bedrooms. To parent in a world in which 10-year-olds carry something in their pockets that cost more than my first car and goad other 10-year-olds to just kill themselves already. A world in which we have to decide if we're going to track our kids 24/7 (and let them track us), and then decide what to do when a 19-year-old living two time zones away doesn't make it back to the dorm when we think they should. There are no handbooks for living in this world. We can't learn from the people who have gone before us. There are plenty of opinions, but very few absolutes. Most of us are trying to figure it out day by day, knowing tomorrow it will change.

My kids' school is feeling its way through the media age. Our seven campuses, K-12, are preparing to completely remove cell phones and other digital devices for the duration of the school day (or at least attempt to). It might require more staff. It might chase students, parents, and staff away. It might be impossible to enforce. But they're going to try it, and I fully support their efforts. My kids are less enthusiastic.

We are feeling our way through it in our own house. We use cheap, off-brand phones. We don't track anything--our fitness, our sleep, our Amazon packages, or our kids. We've been as slow as we could realistically be in handing out cell phones, but it's gotten earlier with each kid. The oldest got his first phone at 16, the next at 15, the next at 14, and it will be challenging to make it to 14 with our youngest, who's currently 12 and sharing my phone. (Yes, that's as fun as it sounds. I love the 6 a.m. texts asking me how I'm planning to wear my hair that day.) All of us have stayed off of social media. All of us are significantly less in the know than our friends. Our younger girls get teased, mostly in fun, about it. Their friends probably think their parents are either 95 or Amish. So far, it seems like it's been a good call, but I question myself all the time.

You know those families that don't do sugar, and then their kids go to college and OD on it? Will our kids be like that? Are they not learning essential social media skills that would serve them well later in life? Should we follow the advice of multiple experts and be walking through it carefully with them while they're still under our roof? Are we just hiding our heads in the sand? Are we making our family archaic and completely out of touch?

I honestly don't know. I recently checked in with all my girls, a senior, a sophomore, and a 7th grader, to see where they're at with all of it. My youngest thinks it's dumb when everyone pulls out their phones at a birthday party, but she wishes she could choose for herself to be the one not pulling out her phone instead of having that decision made by us. That seems like a pretty fair and mature assessment to me. My older girls who both have phones but no social media said they feel out of it, but they think it's worth it. One said, "Life is stressful as it is. I can't imagine adding that." The other said she has plenty to make her feel insecure and self-conscious, and she doesn't need social media helping her out. They don't need to read studies about the rise in anxiety among teenage girls. They see it all around them. And they feel like staying out of the social media scene has saved them a lot of envious moments and sleepless nights. But it's not fun feeling like you're on the outside, even when you don't really want to be on the inside. At this point, neither of them thinks they'll jump in when they're out on their own, but they say they'll just have to wait and see.

Are we making the right decisions? I don't know. But I see my kids on their phones a lot, and I wonder what it would be like if they had TikTok and Snapchat and Instagram. I see how tricky it is to juggle endless homework, yelling coaches, needy friends, college searches, jobs, feeling left out, body image, insecurity, and honoring God without social media, and I think of how much more complicated it could be with it. I read articles and watch shows (Hulu's Jawline and the fictional movie Eighth Grade were so eye-opening) that make my heart break for today's teenagers. I don't want naive kids, but I want kids whose identity comes from God, not from how their phones make them feel. So this is our answer today. And to those parents who have thought through all of this as long and hard as I have and made totally different choices, I say, "We're all in this together. There's no room for judgment here."

The one thing that unites all parents of all generations is our need for wisdom. I cling to James 1:5, "If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you."

What's at the top of my flagpole?

I've never been totally comfortable with the "idolatry" terminology we use in Christian circles. I know it's biblical, but it makes me think of gargoyles or fat, shirtless Buddhas. When, as a young mother, I was confronted with the possibility that my children could be idols, I was even less comfortable. That hit way too close to home, especially when more than one of my babies bore some resemblance to a fat, shirtless Buddha.

Still, whatever word we use for it, idolatry is a real danger to faithfulness. My family, creature comforts, entertainment, work, workout schedule, opinions, and credit card can all steal my focus from God. But a message I heard recently helped me picture these things in a new light, to see them not as ugly archaic statues, but as flags.

Not that I have any great affinity for flags, either (except to continually wonder why they always seem to be at half-mast), but Ken Robertson from International Anglican Church used them in a way that opened my eyes to the things that threaten my first allegiance to God. (The original message, much better than my recap will be, can be found at springsiac.org. The message is from January 5, 2020.)

Flags are displays of allegiance. We salute the American flag because it represents our loyalty to our nation. The neighbors fly a Nebraska flag to tell the world they're Cornhuskers fans. Flags unite people ("Oh, you're a Cornhusker, too? Come in for a drink!") while also separating people ("CU fans not welcome here."). And while many of us don't literally fly flags, we all carry banners of allegiance to certain things. This might be for a certain political mindset or a parenting style or a hobby that's become a passion. Or it could be for a cause--gender equality, the environment, animal welfare, fostering children, or, in my case, good grammar and properly used semicolons. We all have multiple flags, and for a lot of us, our biggest, brightest banner is reserved for our families. We hoist that one up the pole and will die to protect it.

The thing I love about this metaphor is that flags aren't inherently bad. They're not ugly. They can even be quite beautiful. But they were never intended to fly at the top of our flagpoles. That spot is for Jehovah-Nissi, a name that means "the Lord is our banner" (see Exodus 17:15). The Bible talks about banners in a number of other places, but most interesting is the banner mentioned in Isaiah 11, the "Root of Jesse" who will unite not just Cornhuskers fans or Americans, but "all nations." This flag is Jesus, of course, and Ken Robertson pointed out that Christianity is the most diverse institution in the world. Its adherents are found in every country of the world and span the spectrum from Palestinian Christians to Messianic Jews, Orthodox Russians to Nigerian Pentecostals.

It's not that other flags are bad, but we have to keep an eye on them. If we're not mindful, they start creeping up the flagpole. When our allegiance to Jesus stays higher than the other flags, the others stay in their places. The highest flag actually brings order and rightmindedness to lower flags. When I am living with Christ as my highest banner, I can be the best mom, wife, employee, friend, community member, and champion for causes that I can be. But I have to keep watch over letting any of these things climb too high on my flagpole.

One of the easiest ways to identify flag creep is to notice what I'm stubborn about. In other words, am I willing for my flag to look different? Am I willing to live with less money, a smaller house, or fewer friends? Can I let go of a job I love? Can my support for a cause be challenged? Am I willing for my role as a mom to change? (Um, yes, that's the question in my face as my children rapidly become adults.) The tighter my hands are grasped around one particular flag, the more likely it is that I've let it get too high on the flagpole.

My flagpole has room for lots of beautiful flags. But am I willing to change them, lower them, and swap them out if I need to? Is my highest flag steadfast in place at the very top, the place from which it can purify and shine through my other flags?

Release

I have to show some restraint not to write continually about all the things I learn about God from my dog. I realize not everyone loves dogs, and not everyone spiritualizes all of life like I do. But this one I'm sharing.

Oakley is a hunter. The kind that hunts through the window pane. And there is a lot of window-pane hunting to be done at 7 a.m. as the squirrels and rabbits chase around our yard and the neighbor dogs free range into our driveway. Because Oakley is confined to the small space between the table and the window, the only way to express his hunting enthusiasm is to whine, bark, and paw at the window. Essentially, he loses his mind. He did this the other day, using his high-pitched little-girl bark that makes us want to hide when we're in public and makes my husband wonder why he ever acquiesced to a poodle mix. In an effort to save the wood on my windowsills, I jumped up from my spot next to him and walked into a different room. And just like that, he followed me. Whatever he had been obsessing over a half-second earlier vanished from his mind. The bark was gone, the windowsill was safe, all because he has this compulsion to follow me wherever I go.

I'm still trying it on for size, but I think my word for 2020 is release. I have an obvious connection to this word because I'm in a releasing season of life. One definition of release is to allow something to move or flow freely. Faster than I can keep up, I am releasing my kids: "Kids, you are now free to move safely about the big world." Their seatbelts are unbuckled, they've grabbed their bags, and off they go. This is tremendously exciting and I love it, but it's also hard. Devastatingly hard, if I'm honest. I will get much practice releasing over the next 5 1/2 years, which means it's a word and a concept that I want to make friends with.

But there's another reason why the idea of release is resonating with me. I can easily get stuck in holding patterns of negative thinking. I've never been one who can stay mad or sad for any sustained amount of time. I hear a good 80's song and, boom, I'm dancing around, joyful and carefree. But what I can hang onto is envy, wishing someone else's experience was my own. (For some reason, I'm more envious of experiences than material possessions.) I can also hold onto my desire for control, wanting to make people who I wish they would be. By people, I am of course referring to my children. I can hold onto my desire for applause and affirmation from other people. Envious, controlling, and needy for affirmation are not the me I want to be. God and I are in agreement on that.

So I'm thinking a lot about what it means to release. Merriam-Webster's first definition of release is to set free from constraint, confinement, or servitude. Here's where Oakley comes in. I could give him what he wants and open the door, but he's never going to catch a rabbit. All he would do is spend a lot of energy chasing something that doesn't really satisfy him. But when he followed me away from the window, he got true release. His mind was free. He could focus again on how content he is just being with me, watching me unload the dishwasher.

What if I got my way? What if I could have all the experiences and the praise I think I want? What if I could shape my kids into exactly the people I think they should be? Would it satisfy me for even a day? Or would I just find new ways to be the me I don't want to be? The best kind of release is not to free my mind to think on whatever it wants, but to release those thoughts to God and follow Him into another room.

Not all the negative thoughts in my mind are purposeless. Some of them are there to teach me something. With some God says, "Hey, let's dig a little deeper and work through this together." But some just need to go. Sometimes I just need to stop fixating on the rabbits in my mind and follow the Master into the next room, where I can enjoy His company, my mind at ease.