Herd Jumpers

October 3, 2012 By

Humans are inherently pack animals.  I think it’s bred into our souls to walk together in groups.  Hillary Clinton says it takes a village to raise a child, and even Jesus chose twelve disciples to hang with.  We all huddle together as families, and units, and choose folks that think and eat and pray like we do.  When we stray too far from the herd, we are weak and vulnerable.  Wolves surround us and start closing in.  It’s safer to stay hunkered down in the middle.

And yet safe is boring.  So I start breaking free. 

I’m writing at (in)courage today, an amazing place where faith and community collide.  You can check out the full article HERE.

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photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/horiavarlan/4833864060/sizes/m/in/photostream/

Filed Under: Friendships, Inspirational, My life, Religion, Uncategorized Tagged With: , ,

The Devil’s in the Details

September 17, 2012 By

My very wrinkled sheets, hanging on the line

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There’s so much chatter about making time for God.  Devotionals for the busy mom surround us like a thick hazy fog.  If you don’t have time to dedicate toward [the reason for your entire existence], nataproblem.  God can be compartmentalized for the overworked and overscheduled.  The frazzled and hectic.  Five minutes a day is all it takes to develop a long-lasting relationship and to start to see real change in your life.  Come on!  It comes with an audio CD!

The fact is that middle-class Americans just aren’t that damn busy.  I seriously know zero women who are strapped to the plow, or spend their days scrubbing shirts on a washboard and stripping cotton.

The other day I began to run down “all I do around here,” like I’ve been keeping up some chore scorecard.  There’s the laundry and the dishes and the cleaning.  The errands and pick-up and dental appointments.  I change sheets and answer work calls and put kids to bed every single night.  I was practically seething at the vision of poor little ol me doing all those horrible, wretched things all by my lonesome.  What kind of husband leaves his wife at home and runs off to earn a solid paycheck leaving her with THIS? I most certainly needed to wait through eleven cars at Starbucks and flip through the sale rack at Nordstrom.  I was so busy I thought I’d check facebook, and make apple muffins, and wander around cyberspace reading poetry.  Don’t ask me to pray, or seek truth, or devote time to prayer.  Don’t ask me to be grateful for the small things.  A house to clean.  A family to love.  A warm bubble bath to melt into.  Don’t ask me to verbalize thanks for a life filled with joy and second chances.

To be honest, I’m just too busy.

It’s struck me lately that my priorities are in the wrong places.  I was reminded by Sandra Heska King that thirty bucks spent on your daughter’s flashy Hello Kitty shoes is a month of Compassion ministries wasted.  And every thirty minutes spent on trashy television is time we don’t dedicate to something that really matters.  Like prayer.  Not for unknown people.  Not for generalities like world peace.  This kind of fluff creates a void whereby your brain starts wondering if you’re out of Oregano: you are making meatballs for dinner, right?  Did you use up that leftover chicken?

I’m starting to think of my life as one big Hoarder’s episode.   I’m asking God to start cutting out the fluff.  I want to see the waste around me like trash on the side of the highway.  Only then can I start pruning, and weeding, and getting those thorns out of my fertile soil.   Only then will God reveal the relationship that’s meant to flourish.

I am ripped open with shame that my husband works so hard and never complains.   I want to avert my eyes to that woman who is wrapped up in her own selfishness.  I don’t deserve mercy. I don’t deserve clean sheets.  I don’t do anything but fill up my life with static and yet I feel blessings pour down like warm summer rain when I am so dirty and ugly and don’t deserve the washing.

We all have time.  But the devil’s in the details.

Today is what is laid out before us. Today I will love, and forgive, and spend time being grateful.  Today is the day I start working harder, and pushing farther, and complaining less.   Today, I purge.   And tomorrow, when the sun comes up and light begins to emerge on the horizon, I’ll shed this mask of shame.  I will breathe in the soft smell of the after-rain.

Filed Under: Inspirational, My life, Religion Tagged With: , , ,

Slaying the dragon

September 6, 2012 By

I think of death more than most people.  It’s only natural when you come face-to-face with it so often. My cardiologist can’t explain why my heart rate plummets dangerously low.  My oncologist tells me I’m in the clear now, ten years since melanoma cropped up like a nuclear bomb in my eyeball.  It’s been six years since I was in the hospital with a raging abdominal infection and two years since my heart flat-lined on the table.  I’m good, considering.  But the collateral damage that results is that I’m always pondering the blackness, leaving little notes for my children, and love letters to my husband.  I can’t ever leave enough, like I need to stockpile memories and words and tiny little charms.

Imagining my own death is hardly painful – I trust in God and believe there is a better place looming.  But I am utterly paralyzed when imagining it all happening in a different order, that the offspring might pass before the maker.  The thought of burying my own is too heavy a cross to bear, and I cannot place myself in the position of the one viewing the wreckage.

For whatever reason lately I keep stumbling across stories involving this particular tragedy. It’s not like I sought out to read them.  I was looking for a new website designer and found Anna See’s blog, An Inch of Gray, and was immersed in her story of her lost son, and grief, and hope.  A high school friend of mine died before she reached her 40th birthday and her mother still posts little thoughts on her facebook page.  I am spending the weekend with your boys. I miss your smile. And my dear writer friend Melanie Haney wrote a wonderful post on life and loss this week in her blog, A Frozen Moon.

I wonder if it’s good to think such horrid thoughts.  Maybe one just shouldn’t go around borrowing trouble.   And yet it seems as if this topic is pushed in front of me, against my best efforts and my own will.  The other night I was so consumed with sadness that I fell on my knees and begged God to never let this come to pass.  I am not as strong as Job: I would be unable to simply pick up the pieces.  I am not Abraham, who walked his own son to the alter.   I’m not Jesus who can say forgive them, Father, they know not what they do.  I am afraid I could never forgive.  I am so utterly weak.  I can do great things, but not this.  Please dear Lord not this.

So I tried thinking of happy things.  I loaded the dishwasher, read my daughter a book, cleared my head.  But last night I had fitful dreams.  I tossed and turned and kept saying no to some imaginary dragon.  I was fighting all night long and I can’t exactly remember why.  I woke up exhausted and overwhelmed.  Maybe I was fighting the devil himself.

Today, when I picked my son up from preschool, I swept him up in my arms and held him like he had been restored from death.  I stood right there in the little room, crowded in blocks and caterpillars and mothers busy picking up their children, and sobbed.  I peppered his cheeks with kisses and squeezed his body tight.  I walked out fast so the teachers wouldn’t notice, but I’m sure it was futile.  As I put him in the car, he looked at me and said simply, “I sorry, mama.”  Because his beautiful two-year-old heart is filled with compassion, and he didn’t understand my tears.  It’s okay, son.  I just love you so.

I wonder if Satan and God have been having a discussion about me, like they did with Job.  She’ll crumble like a house of cards.  She won’t stay faithful.  Without those two children, she’ll falter.  Let me test her, I beg you. I wonder if God would have faith in me, as he did in Job.

Because honestly, I just don’t know how God could see his only son suffer.  I would die in his place.  I would run and scream and not be able to bear the weight of it.  I would pull out my hair and rip my clothes and crumble to nothing. And yet I am weak, and can’t see the rising.  For in Christ there is always rising.  Through the blackness and cries of disbelief and anger and sorrow, there is light burning.  God knew of this.  It’s okay, son.  I just love you so.

Despite my own weaknesses, the rooster crowing thrice at dawn, and my utter ridiculous failures, I will rest in that hope.   I pray that certain things never come to pass, but I cannot guarantee such a future. My husband is the beam to which I’m tethered.  My children are the brightness and lightness of my very being.  But God is my strength, and without him it all crumbles like a deck of cards.

Tonight in my dreams, I’ll slay that dragon.  I’ll plant kisses and seeds of joy and fight fire with fire.  I will love my family through the tantrums and the screaming.  I’ll keep loving when we don’t speak and when life is all stressed out and messy.  I will show the devil that he cannot take away this love, no matter hard he tries.  So if it’s ever ripped from me too soon, I can say with my whole heart that I did enough.  I loved enough.

God is enough.

Filed Under: Inspirational, Love, Motherhood, My life, Religion Tagged With: , , ,

broken mirrors

August 31, 2012 By

The other night, I spent hours writing an article on inward beauty, and how a gentle spirit matters more than True Religion jeans.  We place so much importance on our appearance that we let the true elegance of our spirit go both unnoticed and unrecognized.  I stayed up late editing the piece, and was happy with how it turned out, and hoped that the national magazine where I submitted it would publish it.

The next day, my six-year-old had a play date.  I had been slumming around all week in workout attire, so I finally fixed my hair, put on a frilly top, and wore a necklace.  I sat poolside and shared with another mom how sad it was that someone I know seemed to stop caring about herself, and how she is just too pretty to let herself go like that.  The vitriol speech flowed like warm honey out of my mouth.  I didn’t even bat an eye.

Let me recap.

  1. I wrote an article on how outward beauty is overrated.
  2. I felt all slap-happy proud of myself for writing it.
  3. I dolled up for a bunch of moms who didn’t really care how I looked
  4. I totally slammed on some poor hapless victim about her lack of outward beauty
  5. I went home singing show tunes and eating popsicles

Sometimes I want to poke my own eyes out like one of the Three Stooges.  How can I possibly be such a screw-up?  Can I not go 24 hours without being so downright hypocritical?  I texted the mom I was talking to and apologized for my words, but it fell flat.  I lowered my head to ask for forgiveness.  I realized how flawed I am as a human being, and I wondered why God keeps giving me second chances.

Peter promised Jesus he wouldn’t betray him.  He felt with every fiber of his being that he wouldn’t. And yet he did.  Because left to our own devices, we say one thing and do another. We fall asleep and say hurtful words and fill our lives with vanity.  We give to the church but ignore the poor.  We pray for hours, and then walk out spewing vinegar from our mouths.  It’s a disgrace to our Creator.  It’s a disgrace to others who see us as examples.  It’s a disgrace to ourselves.  Our lives are but a broken mirror with past mistakes and shattered weaknesses strewn around on the floor.

But God repairs, and cuts heal.  I’ll regroup as the new day dawns, as Peter did.  Not due not to my own strength, but of His.

—

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/matte0ne/6328100019/

Filed Under: Inspirational, Religion, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , ,

Rapids

August 25, 2012 By

We are all just swimming upstream.  The moment the wind calms and the food is plentiful and the credit cards are paid off, gusts once again sweep you off your feet.  They swell and pull at you and whistle uncomfortably in your ears.  Kids grow louder.  Your temper grows quicker.  The laundry piles and bills and coping skills get all worn and tattered by all that beating.  Life passes by in a streak of runny watercolor because your vision is full of rushing tide and debris.  Some folks can keep up, with their heads to the sky and their heart full of prayer.  You roll your eyes at those people. It’s all you can do to just keep looking forward, wiping the water from your tired, red, tear-stained face.  Funny thing is, you didn’t even realize you were paddling so hard until you look down and see the white caps of the rapids. Oh, for a moment of peace.  For the winds to calm.  Just a tiny second for your arms to rest.

I think now I’m supposed to talk about trusting in God’s everlasting arms.  To let Him do the fighting and you just roll back in a starfish float like my daughter’s swim lesson and allow all your earthly burdens to melt away.   That’s about the time I stop reading, because I’ve got things piling up and I just can’t hear any more about letting go.  I’m not into vague fuzzy lessons on how we are all masters of nothing and should quit fighting.  If I let go, I’ll drown.  I don’t know about you people, but I just don’t have the luxury of letting go.

So I build up endurance and keep on swimming.  I’m getting pretty good at setting my sights on the distance and finding friends to help make the journey palatable.   I’m growing strong, and confident, and feel I have this life thing figured out.  I thank God for strong arms and a fighter’s spirit and think I’m doing my duty.

But then the storm comes.  Not the everyday storm that makes my lungs sting and my thighs ache from paddling so hard, but the black storm that hits me in the chest until I cry out of fear and pulls me into a hole and makes me think this is so unfair.  I’ve worked so hard. I’ve been fighting the current.  I thought I got this, but now I can’t see or breathe and I’m drowning.

It is then you begin the slow descent to the bottom.  It’s a moment when time stands still, and you have the most peaceful conversation with your creator.  You aren’t pushing.  You aren’t moving.  You aren’t wiping water from your eyes or trying to take in side breaths.  You are simply lying there on the bottom of the river, watching all that rushing water above.  The ironic thing is that fear is surprisingly absent and your heart is strangely full.  And it hits you.  God truly is more powerful than the river.  His hands calm the winds and open your eyes and move the boulders, but all this time you were resisting.  He puts you in a place to allow you to see this abounding truth, even when you were fighting with your fists and elbows and words against it.  I will show you my love even when you don’t want to see it.  Even if it takes you to the brink of death.

When you rise up again, gasping for air, you are astounded by the beauty you see.  Your tears are clear, for through them you can see brilliance.  The winds blow, but they don’t suck you down.  There is a purpose to this struggle.  And just like that, you find yourself letting go. You didn’t read it in some devotional or have it handed to you by a priest or hear it in some sappy Christian song.  You let go because you were there at the bottom of the water, and rose up again.  Because you felt such an overwhelming peace.

Let the gusts come.  No bother.  You can take it.

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds,  because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.  Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. 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. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.”  

James 1:2-8

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River Rapids

Filed Under: Inspirational, My life, Religion Tagged With: , , ,

Free as a bird

August 15, 2012 By

Last week, my daughter found a dove in the yard.  It had fallen out of its nest and sat there in the grass, looking confused and bewildered.  Of course it’s hard to read the emotions of birds.  It might have been trying to kill itself, inching and pushing and finally managing to throw his distorted body from the tree.  He might have been downright furious at the failed attempt.

Something was clearly wrong with the poor thing.  It was too large to be a baby.  Part of his feathers were grey and thick but his front half was a damp mass of skin and fuzz.  He could hardly open his little beak and looked a little bloated.  I placed him in a box lined with cloth and began to give him drops of warm water with a medicine dispenser.  I set the box in a high place and just hoped he lived. I just couldn’t see him lying there all night in the grass, devoured by dogs or hawks or other preying things.  Leave the guy alone.  Even birds need a place to rest.

I read online that you can mash up egg yolks and wet dog food and feed it to injured birds, so I rushed to the kitchen to make a life-saving paste.  There I was, trying to get the sick little thing to open its beak to take it in.  Once I squeezed too hard and too much came out, his poor eye covered in wet yolky-dog food.  I tried to wash it out but there he sat, wet and dirty, sick and sad.  It was hopeless.

I fretted all night about that bird.  I prayed that it would find a way to live.  That it would fly off and join the other doves, free and glorious and shining with silver radiance. But the next morning it had a fluid pocket jutting out below it’s beak.  I probably choked it to death with a tiny shred of dog food.  Great. My mother-in-law tossed it in the dumpster.  We’ll just tell the kids it flew away, she said. I wish she had at least broken its neck first and put it out of his misery. I hated that neighbors would toss garbage bags on top of him, just another piece of trash like used milk cartons or Frito bags. 

I wish we could all die elegant deaths – not in a movie theatre riddled with stray bullets or driving to Subway in our Subaru to get a ham sandwich.  We should all get to say our piece, kissing the heads of our little ones and quoting Thoreau.  We should all get to make amends and die in our sleep with our best dress on.   It fills me with rage that good people have to go so quickly.  That they are off to the market for strawberries one day and the next they are pinned under a car or lying in a hospital where all the zig-zag lines go flat.  I don’t like to think of living things contorted or bloated or twisted up in bullets. No one should die in the bottom of a dumpster.

But in the end, I suppose it doesn’t matter how we exit.  It’s a temporary holding place, this life, where we muddle through and say our prayers and eat our broccoli.  Someday, if I die a gruesome horrible death, falling out of my nest and landing in unfamiliar territory, no one needs to save me.  No one needs to worry about feeding me mashed up food or dropping water in my parched throat. For I’m off to fly – my elegant wings spread before me, soaring through the air and breathing in the fresh smell of freedom.  Like a bird.  Back home.

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http://www.flickr.com/photos/charlestilford/732688216/

Filed Under: Inspirational, Love, Religion Tagged With: , , , ,

Failure is not an option

August 8, 2012 By

I knew a girl that trained for the Olympics.  She got permission to cut out early from school to spend eight hours in the gym.  Her parents were insanely rigid and no one really invited her to play dates or to have ice cream sundaes.  She couldn’t come anyway because she was training.  She was always training.  Her father died young. I always thought he bottled all the angst and misery and fear of watching his twelve-year old girl fail or turn or miss a handoff and one day he just couldn’t take it anymore.  He put a gun to his temples and blew it all away. Just tiny bits of stress scattered into the ether.

In a tiny way, amidst the cheers and clapping and proud faces, I see the pain in the eyes of all those collective Olympians, their young hearts beating rapidly under their overbuilt bodies with sparkles on their eyelids.  After all – the brass ring of winning looms so high.  Some of these tiny girls – leaping and hopping and tumbling on a national stage before their sixteen birthday – don’t even have arms long enough to reach out and grab it. They haven’t built up the maturity to handle the fleeting moment when the edges of their fingers touch it, but it slips past their grasp.  It reminds me of Gollum in Lord of the Rings, wanting something so bad it becomes a longing that’s seared into you.  After a while it’s nothing but an empty, haunting noise in one’s twisted throat.

The announcer introduced a young Romanian.  Her eyes had that steely gaze of one who knows exactly what she wants.  She had won silver four years earlier, but not grabbing that ring had left a hole in her heart.  I wanted to clasp that poor girl into my arms.  I wanted to hand her journals of pink butterflies and banana splits and afternoons lounging around under oak trees reading mystery novels.  I wanted to give her back a childhood and tell her it’s just a silly piece of metal, coated with only shreds of worth.  But her stare was so unyielding.   It was a hopeless cause.

She mounted the balance beam so assuredly.  She had done this so many times, and in so many ways.  Through injuries and bad days and being yelled at.  When she was hungry and longed for a day off and when her legs were pinching and burning and red like fire.

And then she fell.

It was just a simple turn – the announcer said.  But there she went, cascading down in slow motion to the padded mat below, chalk puffing up around her tiny feet as she hit. She rose slowly, as if her life’s work had been for naught.  As if all she ever wanted had come crumbling down around her feet.  The grief was printed on her face.  Her arms rose to the beam again to climb back on, but it was a dead baby now.

Her eyes haunted my dreams that night.  I thought of how one might not ever recover such an epic failure.  These are champions.  They overcame great hurdles in their rise to glory.  And yet there is that looming dread of going home empty handed.  The oiled finger that couldn’t grasp the ring.  The missed opportunity that would never again present itself.

As I was telling my husband about it that night, he stopped reading and thought about it for a moment.  He said he felt failure was an overused word.  We might miss opportunities, or do things we regret, or take paths that might later need redirection.  “But failure is final,” he said.  “And it’s not over until the end of the game.”

I thought about our lives.  The raising of our children.  The tenuous bonds of marriage and friendship and being the one others count on.  Our eyes grow so focused on being good at it, and choosing the right paths, and winning.  Sometimes there is that moment you almost let it overtake you.  Like the father who put the gun to his head and gave in.

But God expects more than this.  We are all built to be champions.  And someday, there will be that second we step onto that balance beam and our feet fall flat underneath us.  It is that moment we must find the inner strength to rise again.  Through the grief.  Through the defeat.  Through the brokenness. We must stand proud and tall on that beam, and with all the energy left in our tired bodies we must clap those hands together, look high to the sky as our backs arch in beauty, and land squarely on two feet.  We will regroup.  We will not let this define us.  We will dismount after the fall.

If you look closely enough, you’ll see a shiny little ring dangling from your fingers.  Funny thing is, by then it doesn’t seem to matter.

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http://www.flickr.com/photos/96434059@N00/with/1017675131/#photo_1017675131

Filed Under: Inspirational, Motherhood, Religion, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , ,

Let’s find a way to coexist

July 27, 2012 By

In an abstract world, controversy is fun.  Everyone picks a side and argues their points, shooting down the other side with logic and theory.  It’s high school debate meets law school meets logic games, stirred together with a nerdy competitive streak and a sense of humor.  Someday soon, I’m going to host a dinner party where people are forced to pick a position out of a hat.  They will be forced to argue that particular side over a chocolate flourless torte and coffee and hear the other side’s arguments.  Maybe it will encourage people to think that every coin has two sides.  That we are all made with different thoughts rattling around inside our brains.  And that’s a good thing.

But then there’s real life.  Whether you’re getting donuts or pumping gas or eating waffle fries – you are constantly being judged.  Judged for your appearance, or haircut, or bumper sticker.  Judged for what you appear to believe.  Judged for what you say to your children or what organization you donate to.  You are tarred, and feathered, and left to die.

In real life, you have to pick a side.  There’s no room to scratch your head and see that two differing opinions have their own independent merit.  There is no ability anymore, with the advent of cable news and talk shows and celebrity obsession and facebook, to think someone who has a strict religious code who can’t wear pants or must never cut their hair has the right to think that way.  They are crazy, or need to keep to themselves, and they are wrong on every social issue that varies from yours.  Don’t give those people money.  Pray they don’t vote.   Make sure they keep to themselves – oppressed and put in the corner where they belong.

Aside from being a carnivore or vegetarian, if someone believes differently than you do on an issue such as same-sex marriage or abortion or any issue touching upon race or worship, that person is deemed to be wrong.  They are so wrong that they are borderline evil.  You don’t want your children playing with their children.  You don’t want to live around them.  You don’t really want them to maintain a successful business or have a long, healthy future or even make it through a string of green lights.  They contribute to hate.  They fuel all that is wrong with the world. You want them to fail.

When did we grow so angry?  When did we stop seeing the value of differences, and embrace our ability to come to our own rational decision?  Come on.  Let’s all put our big girl pants on. Maybe we don’t see eye to eye, but let’s find some common ground.  Let’s search for a middle area where we can all walk around without spitting or seething or giving each other dirty looks.  So I believe in God and you don’t.  So I think one way and you another.  That’s okay.  I still like that purple shirt you’re wearing and I think you deserve to a good night’s sleep.

There is evil in the world that must be stopped.  Hitler murdered Jews.  It was not only acceptable, but mandatory, to do whatever it took to stop him.  The same goes with leaders in today’s world that commit genocide or murder children or encourage rape or sexual trafficking.  If one person says, “let’s all hate Hispanics and do them harm,” obviously our overarching moral compass will react with “hell no.  That’s wrong and I’m not going along with it.”

But for goodness sakes.  The fact that one person believes one way and other differently makes this entire world a more interesting place.  If someone supports Cause A that differs from your personal belief system, donate to Cause B that is in line with what you believe.  Take care of your own family, and your own life. Then go about your business.

If only our world was a fairy tale, we could all eat torte and debate about controversial issues and go home happy and fulfilled at the end of the night.  We would embrace the unique talents and styles and thoughts of those around us without being so hateful.  We could simply agree to disagree.  We would find a way to coexist.

You know that funny little plastic bracelet that kids used to wear?  They handed them out at church camp and Sunday school.  It said “what would Jesus do?”  It’s been overused and vilified, but it’s a legitimate question.  How would Jesus handle all these differences?  How would he deal with all these competing moral dilemmas?

I’ll bet he would love, and forgive, and love some more.  Jesus certainly didn’t apologize for his beliefs, but I’ll venture to guess he didn’t walk around tripping those who thought differently. He might have known in his heart they were wrong.  But I’ll be he didn’t stare them down with hate like they had a disease or paper their houses.  I’ll bet he didn’t call them ugly names or start a Disciple-wide boycott.  He did his best to spread his own message of salvation, love, and forgiveness to the poor, distraught, and sick. If others didn’t like it, that was fine.  Let the chips fall where they may.

Let our lives be more like that of Jesus – filled with peace, and logic, and patience.  Let us not fear that which is different.  Let us coexist, for goodness sakes, so we don’t live like a bunch of savages.

—

photo credit: <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/auntiep/407993029/”>Auntie P</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photo pin</a> <a href=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/”>cc</a>

Filed Under: Love, My life, Religion, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , ,

Why Does God Demand Praise?

July 18, 2012 By

Lately, something has been tugging at my heart.  It’s the simple question of why God seeks out his own praise. The very idea that the ultimate creator, healer, and master of our souls has a need for his own people to fall down on their feet for His glory seems a bit preposterous.  Why the demand for it?  I understand that we should desire to worship God, but shouldn’t it just naturally flow from our hearts, like giving Christmas gifts or thrusting a dollar bill out our window to the homeless guy?

This singular thought, along with the absurdity that donuts come with sprinkles (they add no flavor/they are a distraction/what’s the point) have been taking over my brain.  Actually, the donut deal just entered into my head once, while praising God is a constant, in case you think I give God and donuts the same amount of mental energy.

But I needed to dive deeper into the issue of forced praise.  I wanted to bounce the logic around in my brain and get my fingers around the words.  Words that could be strung together into thoughts I could relate to and believe in. I don’t want to just pick the answer that sounds most logical.  I desire to seek truth.  So I went to Google, which is my go-to when trying to determine if a battery is still good or how to get my son to take a nap.

As it turns out, CS Lewis already addressed this issue.  But of course.  He creates magical worlds in closets where children eat Turkish delight and get conned by ice queens.  It’s only natural that he would have tackled this perplexity as well, and better than I could ever do.  But back to my own mental brainstorming, because we are on the topic of arrogance and all.

I devised the following possible reasons for why God demands praise.  They are:

(1)  He’s God, so let’s just not question things.  Wear your best bonnet to church and eat the fried chicken, for heaven’s sake.  K?  We’re good?

(2)  It’s like gravity – we can’t help but be drawn to worship (But why is God asking for it?)

(3)  Praise is pleasing to a parent’s ear (“I love you mommy!”  “This is the greatest beach vacation ever!”) because it shows that the child is living in joy, so God demands praise because He has a desire for us to live in joy (very close)

(4)  We need to submit our own ego and by praising God it’s the ultimate expression of humility. God knows this and thus demands praise for our own good.  (This just sounds patronizing)

(5)   “Demand” is a bit old fashioned.  It’s more like “God desires it.”  (Now I just feel like I’m making things up)

God doesn’t need to prove to anyone else his own self-worth.  Who would he need to prove it to?  There are no other gods, or deities, or higher powers greater than God himself.   But God is completely God-centered.  First he says you shall have no other gods before Him (Exodus).  Then Jesus walks in and says “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John).  Dude.  Every time you turn around you’re reading about how God wants to be recognized, respected, worshiped, honored, and revered.  Doesn’t he get enough praise?  I would like for my children to tell me I make the best meatloaf, but sometimes you just love them anyway without such high expectations.

We tend to align praise with compliments, such as “you sure are beautiful,” or “I really think you are a wonderful housekeeper,” or “I sure wish I could be more like you.”  These are praising statements, and no one should really ask for them because that’s just plain rude.  But if you tell me these things, I won’t exactly throw you out on the street.  I might just pour you more coffee and invite you over more often.

Think about the things you really love.  Praise comes escaping from your lips before you can even think about it.  As Lewis puts it, “the world rings with praise.”  Think about a book you recently read you just loved.  The words fell off the page like brilliant jewels, and the story captured you from the first page to the last.  You can’t wait to sing its praises.  You can barely stand not to talk about it, and refer your friends to it. “I think we delight to praise what we enjoy,” Lewis continues, “because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed. It is frustrating to have discovered a new author and not to be able to tell anyone how good he is; to come . . .upon some mountain valley of unexpected grandeur and then to have to keep silent . . . to hear a good joke and find no one to share it with. . .”

God is self-centered.  He has nothing to hide.  He has no errors to overcome or blemishes to patch.  He truly the center of the universe.  And God knows that not only do we come into communion with him through worship, but that the consummation of our relationship with Christ requires such praise.  Not if we want to.  Not if we have time, but all the time, every day, when the sun rises and the oak tree branches sway.  This is something God expects because he loves us so extremely, and so passionately, that he will seek us out through the cold depths of unbelief and sin.

Only by diving in full throttle, with our souls open, can we begin to comprehend such a love.  Such a bitter ache.  Such a bleed that did not come rushing out, but dripped out one drop at a time while salt was thrown on the wound.  Because through the sting, we begin to see what’s coming.  We feel the salve of his glory.  He is inviting us into his kingdom, and that is the very opposite of selfish.

I’m not sure why donuts have sprinkles, or why my children don’t stay in their own beds at night.  I don’t know what God’s ultimate plan is for my life or why I stay up until the wee morning hours pondering such things.  I only know that God is so glorious that it makes my heart want to rip apart in little shreds. I want for people to know of Him, and sing to the rafters, and dance with joy. I feel complete and full and happy. I suppose this is me, praising Him.

That God.  He’s a sneaky one.

Filed Under: Inspirational, Religion, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , ,

sparkling pink unicorns

June 27, 2012 By

I sometimes wonder what religion must sound like to non-believers.  This whole “I live for Jesus” business a big fat excuse so that bonnet-clad women won’t feel so bad about their lot in life, selling rosemary soap and black currant jelly, sitting on rickety wooden seats next to their overbearing husbands.  To those who haven’t been raised in church, or even worse, have been burned by the allegedly faithful, religion a hard pill to swallow. I get it.  It rings false.  It’s just something to make us all feel good in the dark, cold nights. “They are church folk,” we want people to say, like it makes us honest or All-American. It’s what we cling to when we have cancer or when children die in car accidents.  It makes the unfair fair again. It washes the ugly clean.

To many, it’s not real.  Talking of Jesus is as crazy as circus clowns or unicorns.  Which made me think of the following imaginary conversation one might have at a dinner with a girlfriend, right after the talk of Oprah’s future and the importance of shellac pedicures.

“What the heck is that?” The check came and you had pulled out your wallet, which was naturally covered in pink, sparkling unicorns.  “Don’t tell me you’re into that sort of thing,” your friend said.  Her mouth was hanging open like a carp. “Is that a rainbow antler? Good gosh.”

“Back off,” you said.  “It’s complicated.” You stuff the wallet back into your purse, embarrassed.  “I went to a retreat.  I was touched by magical power. Whatever.”

“I can’t believe you fell for that crap,” she said.  Perhaps your friend thinks she’s being helpful. Enlightening you on your errant ways.

“It’s just the way I want to live my life. Geez.  It’s not the end of the world.  Unicorns believe in peace and love and the power of healing.  What’s so wrong with that?”

“Because you are a smart, strong woman,” your friend said, “and although you can believe in whatever you want, I think you’ve gone a little bonkers.”  She waved at the waitress for a to-go box and muttered something about anti-unicorn therapy.   Acupuncture, perhaps.  You reached for your pocket and felt the unicorn sayings, tucked safely inside, out of reach.

“There’s no evidence they ever existed on this planet,” your friend finally says, as if reason might prevail.

“I just have a feeling.  Don’t knock it. We all have our thing.”

I was wondering, as I was shampooing my hair and imagining this conversation, if that’s how it sounds.  Like Jesus and unicorns are in the same category, full of magic and miracles, made up to make life more beautiful.

It might be easy to convince half-starving folks in third-world countries that Jesus Christ was real. The weak and helpless have nothing else to cling to.  They need to know that this world isn’t all there is.   But well-educated Americans who have mortgages and favorite bands and trust funds?  Well, not so much.   I guess they think Christians can’t stomach the thought that dying just means dying, our flesh rotting in the ground for all eternity.  We just can’t handle this life being all there is because we’ve messed it all up so royally, so we made up a place like heaven and God and the angels and prophets to give ourselves something to live for.  To give us hope.  The Bible makes us feel good, like sparkling rainbow unicorns, full of love and happiness and forgiveness and the like.

To these people I just don’t know what to say.  Being a witness and sharing my faith is a weakness of mine, and I admit it.  Before I started blogging, putting my thoughts on paper for the world to see, many folks didn’t even know I was a Christian at all.  I felt it had no place in the world of law, or when I was giving speeches, or in any of my professional circles.  I knew a doctor for five years before she said once to a colleague “This is Amanda.  She’s great.  Very religious, but you’d never know it.”  Like that was a badge of honor.  Like I kept my crazy wallet hidden away so no one would ever see.

In the small, Texas town I grew up, it was so normal to go to church, or say you believe in God, or have a wrist band bearing “what would Jesus do?”  But as I grew up and moved away, I’ve seen the cynicism grow.  I have seen grudges against the faithful turn slowly into valleys of hate, like one side is right and just and intellectual and the other is mind-blowingly stupid and sheep-like in their blind acceptance of the unseen.

I’m not perfect.  I love my children and my husband with a fierce, protective love, and I can’t imagine walking away from them for anything, even if I heard voices telling me to in the name of God.  If I were put in the position of Abraham or Job I’d probably commit myself to a mental institution.  And for heaven’s sake don’t make me sell my home and live in a trailer or give my Whole Foods slush fund away to the poor. Sometimes I just beat my hands against my forehead at so many missed opportunities. For thinking my faith is just something to be shared on Sundays and locked up the rest of the week.  I can be just as disingenuous as the next guy.  I think at times I might even give religion a bad name.  I hate that.

But despite all this, I still believe.  I believe that God has directed my life since the moment I was born.  With every sinewy muscle in my body I throw myself into prayer, my heart exposed and raw, my failures unmasked.  I don’t do this because I feel I need a crutch, or because I need something to cling to, or because the thought of rotting in the dirt seems incredulous.  I do this because I have felt the power of God ripple through my soul.  I heard the words of a nurse in the hospital, after four long weeks of post-partum infection, when I felt so lost and broken, that “you are God’s child.  He will never leave you.”  She came at night.  My husband was asleep and never saw her. It was as if I knew, at that moment, that my life was not my own.

I have no magic words that I use to convince people I’m right.  That Jesus lived on this very earth that we walk upon.  That the era of Jesus wasn’t some made-up time period, squeezed into history books with quotation marks.

I just believe.  I don’t know how to make it sound any more legitimate than that.  I suppose you can reason that one single man in the history of the world has never made more of an impact.  That people of great intellect and credibility and heart that profess to believe in Jesus can’t all be stupid.  But in the end it’s not about these things. It’s not about what others think or feel, or how much you’ve done to earn your wings.   It’s not at all about your ability to evangelize. In the end it’s just you and God.

I suppose it’s not possible to change everyone’s minds.  To some, I’ll forever be talking nonsense.  They shake their head and chuckle under their breath.  I hope these dear friends are not forever lost.  That God cracks the armor of their hardened hearts.  I pray that the love and grace and mercy of God pierces their anger, and all that disbelief comes flowing right out.

Life is not a fairy tale.  It’s gruesome and unfair and messy.  God is not some magical beast that dances around with sparkles, and Jesus is not some knight in shining armor.  I certainly don’t profess to be a Christian so I can win points with neighbors or look good to the book club girls.

God is simply God.  Jesus is simply life.  And that’s about as magical as it gets.

Filed Under: My life, Religion Tagged With: , , , ,

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