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

The Work of Christmas

I’ve been trying to think of something inspiring or clever or fabulous to write on before the new year rolls in, and frankly, I’m just feeling a bit lazy. As I write this, we’re settling in to our first real snowstorm of the year, and it’s lulling me to the couch with a book, a blanket, and a pair of warm socks. I act like I hate snow, but if I don’t have to haul kids through it, I think it’s a beautiful thing.

So I end 2010 with someone else’s inspiring, clever, fabulous words, more profound than anything I could ever come up with.

“When the song of the angels is stilled, when the star in the sky is gone, when the kings and princes are home, when the shepherds are back with their flock, the work of Christmas begins: to find the lost, to heal the broken, to feed the hungry, to release the prisoner, to rebuild the nations, to bring peace.” —Howard Thurman, American author, civil rights leader, and theologian 1899-1981

Thanks for the reminder, Mr. Thurman.

An Elementary-School Christmas

The Grinch has competition. The one stealing my holiday joy these days is American elementary-school culture.

I remember when I loved the weeks leading up to Christmas. Sure there was a lot of hustle and bustle, but it was fun hustle and bustle, and I loved shopping for other people. Then I had four children. The hustle and bustle quadrupled, but, well, if I stopped long enough to recognize it, so did the Christmas magic. OK, magic is good. I can do this.

Then they all got into school. The magic died, the victim of overachieving room mothers.

Eight teachers to buy for. OK, I can do that. I love our teachers, and their salaries have all been frozen due to budget cuts. No complaints about treating them. One preschool Christmas program. Adorable. Logistically hard to pull off, but adorable. Then come the 35 e-mail messages about the third grade party. Seriously. 35. There’s a sock, hat, and mitten drive for the homeless (Does anyone have a tree to bring in to hang them on because wouldn’t that be so cute?), a book exchange (Please wrap the book 2–4 times, because that will make the game so much more fun!), a collection for the teacher (Wait, didn’t I just buy my own gift for the teacher?), a huge meal to prepare (It won't be a party without Lil Smokies!), and oh, did we mention it’s also the teacher’s birthday? So we’re all going to need to fill a bag, the week before Christmas, with things that begin with letters from the teacher’s name. And your letter, Mrs. Jones, is Z. Seriously, Z.

And there’s a party in first grade with a book exchange, and fifth grade is having a special Christmas brunch (because we all want the kids to feel special, don’t we?) and we’re taking a collection to provide school uniforms for kids in Rwanda.

Yes, I remember my transition generation soapbox, and I’m all for uniforms for Rwanda and mittens for the homeless. How about we just do that? And maybe slap ten bucks into the hands of all the frozen-salaried teachers and call it a Merry Christmas?

But that’s not how it works, so we all subject ourselves to the insanity and exhaustion of elementary school Christmas parties. They’re over now, and truly, they were all lovely. The room mothers amaze me. My kids feel special.

And I feel ready for a long winter’s nap.

The Faith of a Teenage Mom

There are two things I know for sure about God:

• He never works in the ways we expect Him to.
• He always works for our good.

The confusing part is how these fit together. If it weren’t for the former, the latter would be a lot easier to believe. If God did what I expected (and wanted) all the time, it would be a lot easier for me to believe that He is working for my good. As it is, I’m left befuddled and bewildered by His ways most of the time.

As a general rule, most of us try to avoid unpredictable people. Sometimes we even lock them up. And yet many of us have surrendered our very lives to one who never works the way we expect. What’s gotten into us?

Faith, I guess.

Think of the faith it took for Mary and Joseph and the wise men and the shepherds and Simeon and Anna to believe that a tiny baby could be the Son of God, their King and their Redeemer. He was so helpless, so fragile, so . . . human. Not at all what anyone expected. And yet still they believed. Before she even saw her baby, Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.” Sounds like she was too busy rejoicing to doubt.

Can I get to that place? Too busy rejoicing to stew about why God isn’t doing what I think He should do? Too busy magnifying to question whether He’s really working for my good?

If a teenage peasant could believe that the baby she just delivered in a stable in the middle of the night would one day be her Savior, then, OK, I can believe that God loves me, that He has a plan for me and for all humanity, and that He spends every second of every day of every century working it out for our good.

Transition Generation, Part II

“We look back on slave-owning churchgoers of 150 years ago and ask, ‘How could they have treated their fellow human beings that way?’ I wonder if followers of Christ 150 years from now will look back at Christians in America today and ask, ‘How could they live in such big houses? How could they drive such nice cars and wear such nice clothes? How could they live in such affluence while thousands of children were dying because they didn’t have food and water? How could they go on with their lives as though the billions of poor didn’t even exist?’” —David Platt, Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream

The transition generation. I think we’re it. My generation has learned to function and benefit from life in a global society; my children’s generation will learn to care about it.

Disney theme parks offered a free one-day pass through its “Give a Day, Get a Disney Day” volunteering program this year. Glee, the trendiest show on television, invites its mostly young viewers to be part of Members Project, which raises awareness about the environment and promotes volunteerism and donating to charity. One lucky winner will even get to spend the day serving beside the Glee cast members in Los Angeles!

Our kids are being mobilized by the secular media. So what will we do? Encourage them to jump on board the “recycle/plant-a-tree/serve-Christmas-dinner-to-the-homeless-so you-feel-less guilty” bandwagon? Yes. These are good things. But I think Jesus calls us to even more.

It seems like a watershed moment for Christians, especially those of us who came out of the self-centered, indulgent 80s and 90s and are raising children who will lead us through this century. Will we continue to be a people identified by what we don’t do (drinking/smoking/swearing/dancing)? Or, as David Platt suggests, will we become a people known for what we do? Like reduce global poverty. Take in orphans. Care for the sick and the elderly. Serve radically. Give sacrificially. You know, change the world. Will the people of God be leaders in this? Am I pouring juice and folding socks for those very leaders right now? Wow, how cool would that be!

Wouldn’t it be amazing if we could raise teenagers who care more about providing fresh water in rural India than which Nickelodeon pop stars are dating each other? How incredible would it be if our college students happily spent their spring breaks in Guatemala instead of Daytona? Do you think it’s possible that we could raise a generation who defines success not by how many degrees they earn or how many toys they own, but by how many lives they can save by putting others ahead of themselves?

Parenting is a monumental job. For the transition generation, it’s a world-changing job. It excites me. It also scares the bejeebers out of me. Who will I have to become for them to be all I hope they will be?

Transition Generation, Part I

My great-grandma was born in 1902 and died in 1999. By the time I was born in 1970, she had seen the whole world change around her. She was a little girl who used an outhouse and rode in a horse and buggy. By the time she died, people were sending messages over the Internet. When she was about 90, I interviewed her about all the changes she had seen in her lifetime—driving a Model T for the first time, getting a washing machine, watching the moon landing. I remember thinking how unremarkable it all seemed to her. She was just living her life in Akron, Colorado, raising kids, then grandkids, then great-grandkids, playing paper dolls with us, cleaning up our messes, making jello.

I believe that the changes I will see in my lifetime will be just as profound as what my grandma witnessed. And maybe it’s just my innate need to feel special, but I have the sense that my generation, in particular—Generation X or whatever you want to call it—is the transitional generation.

Here’s what I mean by that. The first two decades of my life looked pretty similar to that of my mother’s and grandmother’s. Of course there were new inventions (TV comes to mind) and social changes (civil rights, women entering the workforce), but our day-to-day lives and thought processes were not vastly different.

Then came the 90s and everything changed. I graduated from college in 1993, and I can count on one hand the number of students I knew who had personal computers. I knew one person who had a phone in his car, and it rarely worked. A decade later, people would communicate differently, learn differently, shop differently, date differently, and, most significant of all, think differently.

People just ten years younger than me have minds not only influenced but actually wired by the technology that now permeates our culture. It seems that my generation stands uniquely with one foot in the “old world”—the way we learned to think and function when we were young—and the “new world,” in which our three-year-olds use a mouse with as much proficiency as a spoon.

My children’s world is much different than the one I grew up in, and I’m responsible to prepare them for the grown-up version of this new world, whether I like it and understand it or not. Even more important, I have to teach them to function beyond technology, to be comfortable and thrive in the real, flesh-and-blood world.

Yet my days, like my grandma’s, are still filled with paper dolls, messes, and jello. I just hope I don’t miss out on the bigger picture, that I don’t let the minutia of parenting overshadow the serious task of preparing the next generation to not only function in the world, but to make it better.

More on this next week . . .