I love this piece. Thinking of all of my friends' moms growing up, and the Navy moms on different bases, and my own delightful friends who mother my own kids, too, in their own way.
The New Yorker, My Friends' Moms
Showing posts with label Motherhood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Motherhood. Show all posts
Sunday, May 8, 2016
Wednesday, September 23, 2015
Defending Unborn Infants from Predators
Women who survived abortions as infants testify before Congress in the links below:
Gianna Jessen
Melissa Ohden
I heard Ohden speak at an event last year and she was frank, truthful, and hopeful in the telling of her story.
One spiritual sub-story here is the lack of bitterness these women hold for those who abused them.
(A disclaimer: for these testimonies, I am linking to the site of a woman named Julie Roys who has published both of their testimonies, but I don't know her material otherwise so can't recommend the rest of her site.)
Listening to pro-abortion activists (cue Wendy Davis) feels like some kind of true-life "A Modest Proposal:" What to do with all these babies, coming from nowhere, mysteriously bestowed upon these autonomous women and men -- How will they be educated? How will they be fed and cared for? What to do, what to do here in our rich, populous, first-world nation? I have a proposal! Let's kill them all, and use their body parts for research!
Gianna Jessen
Melissa Ohden
I heard Ohden speak at an event last year and she was frank, truthful, and hopeful in the telling of her story.
One spiritual sub-story here is the lack of bitterness these women hold for those who abused them.
(A disclaimer: for these testimonies, I am linking to the site of a woman named Julie Roys who has published both of their testimonies, but I don't know her material otherwise so can't recommend the rest of her site.)
Listening to pro-abortion activists (cue Wendy Davis) feels like some kind of true-life "A Modest Proposal:" What to do with all these babies, coming from nowhere, mysteriously bestowed upon these autonomous women and men -- How will they be educated? How will they be fed and cared for? What to do, what to do here in our rich, populous, first-world nation? I have a proposal! Let's kill them all, and use their body parts for research!
Friday, February 20, 2015
The Royal Me
Cultural Emblems
Certain book and movie events, such as the recent movie about an abusive relationship portrayed as a romance, are worth considering as believers not because they are unique, but because of the reverse.
I haven't seen 50 Shades of Grey, but my understanding from reports (which emanate and titillate from every possible news source) is that this movie affirms, even valorizes, sadomasochism. If so, this movie, rather than being the cutting-edge phenomenon heralding a new sexuality, is actually emblematic of the long-time sexual identity of our western culture, in which the only boundary or guideline is consent.
The book series sounds like a charter for The Divine Right of the Consenting. The movie sounds like a sermon preaching the one moral value for sexual behavior in western culture today: The First Commandment of Consent. The celebrants snicker and gather to worship with a resounding "Amen-ything Goes -- as long as you have signed here, and initialed here, and here, and here..." (Be sure to read the fine print!)
Believers need to identify pagan and secular creeds in order to answer them. So it's important we at least note these cultural markers and icons as they come along. (And if you've ever read the Old Testament you should not be surprised when they do. A thorough reading of Scripture precludes naivete.)
Emblems both define and differentiate.
When pagan creeds are widely broadcast and affirmed, we are given clarity about the world we live in and our neighbors suffer daily in; they help pinpoint its dark places. They help clear away confusion and foggy thinking and give us an urgency for the gospel.
And as a sort of bas relief or photo-negative, they also help us identify the ideas, practices, and people who are nurturing spiritual, mental, and physical health and wholeness.
The spirit of the anti-Christ has to do with whoring Babylon and an "I did it my way" religion. In other words, if I consent and you consent (though even that latter part's a bit wobbly -- maybe you "consent" under the influence of alcohol or manipulations), who is to say we are wrong? Certainly no god but myself. The Royal Me.
And what is the most natural place for this rejection of the first human relationship -- the one between the real God and man -- to nestle? In the heart of the very second human relationship -- woman and man.
The Garden and the Ghetto
That nascent and beautiful marriage of a man and a woman was founded in a Garden as a bond created for love, intimacy, fellowship, fertility, communication, comfort, co-regency, and, as my friend Bill Mattox points out, as a locus of diversity (man and woman are decidedly not the same).
In a reverse world, this male-female union becomes instead a weapon warped and wedded to fear, domination, aggression, anxiety, and subtler, arm-twisting power-grabs like withholding, silent-treatments, blaming, and punishment, all enacted on the hardscrabble grey pavements of The Land of Looking Out for Number 1. The Garden exchanged for a Ghetto. As C.S. Lewis describes, we are indeed children playing at mud-pies, though offered a vacation at the seashore.
A Better Romance
But I must add that this is also no time to be discouraged. These moments of clarity not only point out what is wrong, but point out what has always been true.
We dwell on the One who gave it all to love us, who suffered that we might live, and who offers a real and true relationship. Christians enjoy the true romance of a Groom who suffered for a Bride.
He walked in our world. There is no new evil here; He came and saw it and conquered it with real, living, divine love -- the kind of love that casts out all fear.
And then we love like he does, because he first loved us. Not left to love on our own, his Spirit makes us lights in the darkness of the world and, yes, even the bedroom. This radiant and wholesome love arcs out into our families and neighborhoods. We are called to share and show all kinds of true love to people really hungry for it. We have good news to share daily not just in how we talk and how we live with our husbands, but in how we love our children, family, friends, and the whole world.
This good news -- the kind spoken in both words and deeds and beginning in our marriages -- is not only true, but healing and wholesome, infectious and irrepressible. Across the ages, even death has not been able to stop it.
Who can resist him?
The article below is by a clinical psychologist, and it discusses what happens to a person psychologically when sexual intimacy, fear, and aggression experiences are fused together in the human mind. (A salient but long quote from the article also below.)
Here's is the article: Hooked Up and Tied Down
And here is a quote from it, emphasis mine:
Certain book and movie events, such as the recent movie about an abusive relationship portrayed as a romance, are worth considering as believers not because they are unique, but because of the reverse.
I haven't seen 50 Shades of Grey, but my understanding from reports (which emanate and titillate from every possible news source) is that this movie affirms, even valorizes, sadomasochism. If so, this movie, rather than being the cutting-edge phenomenon heralding a new sexuality, is actually emblematic of the long-time sexual identity of our western culture, in which the only boundary or guideline is consent.
The book series sounds like a charter for The Divine Right of the Consenting. The movie sounds like a sermon preaching the one moral value for sexual behavior in western culture today: The First Commandment of Consent. The celebrants snicker and gather to worship with a resounding "Amen-ything Goes -- as long as you have signed here, and initialed here, and here, and here..." (Be sure to read the fine print!)
Believers need to identify pagan and secular creeds in order to answer them. So it's important we at least note these cultural markers and icons as they come along. (And if you've ever read the Old Testament you should not be surprised when they do. A thorough reading of Scripture precludes naivete.)
Emblems both define and differentiate.
When pagan creeds are widely broadcast and affirmed, we are given clarity about the world we live in and our neighbors suffer daily in; they help pinpoint its dark places. They help clear away confusion and foggy thinking and give us an urgency for the gospel.
And as a sort of bas relief or photo-negative, they also help us identify the ideas, practices, and people who are nurturing spiritual, mental, and physical health and wholeness.
The spirit of the anti-Christ has to do with whoring Babylon and an "I did it my way" religion. In other words, if I consent and you consent (though even that latter part's a bit wobbly -- maybe you "consent" under the influence of alcohol or manipulations), who is to say we are wrong? Certainly no god but myself. The Royal Me.
And what is the most natural place for this rejection of the first human relationship -- the one between the real God and man -- to nestle? In the heart of the very second human relationship -- woman and man.
The Garden and the Ghetto
That nascent and beautiful marriage of a man and a woman was founded in a Garden as a bond created for love, intimacy, fellowship, fertility, communication, comfort, co-regency, and, as my friend Bill Mattox points out, as a locus of diversity (man and woman are decidedly not the same).
In a reverse world, this male-female union becomes instead a weapon warped and wedded to fear, domination, aggression, anxiety, and subtler, arm-twisting power-grabs like withholding, silent-treatments, blaming, and punishment, all enacted on the hardscrabble grey pavements of The Land of Looking Out for Number 1. The Garden exchanged for a Ghetto. As C.S. Lewis describes, we are indeed children playing at mud-pies, though offered a vacation at the seashore.
A Better Romance
But I must add that this is also no time to be discouraged. These moments of clarity not only point out what is wrong, but point out what has always been true.
We dwell on the One who gave it all to love us, who suffered that we might live, and who offers a real and true relationship. Christians enjoy the true romance of a Groom who suffered for a Bride.
He walked in our world. There is no new evil here; He came and saw it and conquered it with real, living, divine love -- the kind of love that casts out all fear.
And then we love like he does, because he first loved us. Not left to love on our own, his Spirit makes us lights in the darkness of the world and, yes, even the bedroom. This radiant and wholesome love arcs out into our families and neighborhoods. We are called to share and show all kinds of true love to people really hungry for it. We have good news to share daily not just in how we talk and how we live with our husbands, but in how we love our children, family, friends, and the whole world.
This good news -- the kind spoken in both words and deeds and beginning in our marriages -- is not only true, but healing and wholesome, infectious and irrepressible. Across the ages, even death has not been able to stop it.
Who can resist him?
***
The article below is by a clinical psychologist, and it discusses what happens to a person psychologically when sexual intimacy, fear, and aggression experiences are fused together in the human mind. (A salient but long quote from the article also below.)
Here's is the article: Hooked Up and Tied Down
And here is a quote from it, emphasis mine:
"Sexual Arousal, Aggression, and Fear
Human beings have neural networks related to sexual behavior, and these are shaped in subtle ways by our sexual experiences. We have separate neural networks related to anger and aggression, and these are shaped and strengthened when people engage in violent or domineering behaviors. We have still more separate brain maps for fear and anxiety, which are shaped and reinforced by frightening or anxiety-provoking experiences.
If you think about these three emotional experiences—sexual arousal, aggression, and fear—they are typically quite distinct emotional experiences. There is some overlap between them in terms of physical or bodily response: all three, for example, involve increases in heart rate, respiratory rate, and blood pressure, because all three involve activation of the sympathetic nervous system. And yet, for most healthy individuals, sexual arousal, aggression, and fear remain distinct emotional, cognitive, and physical experiences. This is, I will suggest, a good and healthy thing.
So these neural networks and these experiences normally remain distinct—unless our experiences begin to fuse them together. When this fusion happens, the brain gets confused. And this is exactly what happens when people experiment with sadomasochistic sexual practices. These distinct neural networks and brain maps become fused according to Hebb’s principle: neurons that fire together wire together. Once this happens, aggression automatically triggers sexual arousal. Or fear and anxiety automatically trigger sexual interest. When this fusion of neural networks becomes pronounced, people often will present to the psychiatrist with clinical problems. Patients complain, for example, that they cannot get aroused unless they get aggressive or violent. Or they complain that they become involuntarily aroused whenever they experience fear. Once these distinct neural networks are fused, the person is—at the level of the brain—literally tied down.
....Before making decisions about our sexual behaviors, we need to ask ourselves some questions about what we want to be doing to our brain and our body—what kind of neural tracks and networks do we want to be reinforcing through these behaviors? Do we want to be fusing sex and love? Sex and security? Sex and attachment or commitment? Sex and fidelity? Sex and trust? Sex and unselfishness? Or do we want to be fusing in our brain and in our experiences sex and violence? Sex and dominance? Sex and submission? Sex and control? We shape our brain by our choices. And we develop increasingly automatic and ingrained habits by our repeated choices. But the initial choice of which path we embark upon is up to us."
Sunday, January 4, 2015
Old Quotes for a New Year
Stumbled across a few good quotes, the kind that help bring perspective in a sentence or two.
"In my walks, every man I meet is my superior in some way, and in that I learn from him." Ralph Waldo Emerson
This pre-dates a piece of advice I've heard that Newt Gingrich gives about his approach to cocktail party conversation, and captures a notion that has gotten my introvert-ish self through 10 schools growing up, through 24 moves, and through numerous parties and meet-and-greets.
In social situations, you can retire from people and shrink away, you can buck up and suffer through, or you can enter conversation with a goal of figuring out what a person has to teach or share with you. People are brilliant--even (especially?) the boring- or different-seeming ones. Everyone has a speciality or experience to tell. Trying to figure it out acknowledges the image-bearer in each one of us and has a side benefit of making things more interesting for everyone. You can view casual conversation as a treasure hunt or a torture chamber. Humility helps you do the former.
"You want to know the difference between a master and a beginner? The master has failed more times that the beginner has even tried." Unknown [anyone?]
Echoes of T. Roosevelt's "person in the arena" quote. In our hyper-critical, hypocritical, knee jerk, tabloidesque, lack-of-context culture, you can plunge in a do-fail-learn-succeed approach -- and a try-sin-repent-grow spirituality -- or you can shrink back. Courage helps you do the former.
"What you do in your house is worth as much as if you did it up in heaven for our Lord God. We should accustom ourselves to think of our position and work as sacred and well-pleasing to God, not on account of the position and work, but on account of the word and faith from which the obedience and work flow." Martin Luther
Good news for everyday people who are busy doing regular work for God and other people.
The guy administering vaccinations in Appalachia and the guy manufacturing the plastic for the syringes are both doing God's work, if they do it for him. Faithfulness in small, everyday things.
"In raising children, I have lost my mind but found my soul." Lisa Shepherd
The secular, and humorous, version of "Yet she will be saved through childbearing--if they continue in faith and love and holiness." (1 Timothy 2:15) Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
"In my walks, every man I meet is my superior in some way, and in that I learn from him." Ralph Waldo Emerson
This pre-dates a piece of advice I've heard that Newt Gingrich gives about his approach to cocktail party conversation, and captures a notion that has gotten my introvert-ish self through 10 schools growing up, through 24 moves, and through numerous parties and meet-and-greets.
In social situations, you can retire from people and shrink away, you can buck up and suffer through, or you can enter conversation with a goal of figuring out what a person has to teach or share with you. People are brilliant--even (especially?) the boring- or different-seeming ones. Everyone has a speciality or experience to tell. Trying to figure it out acknowledges the image-bearer in each one of us and has a side benefit of making things more interesting for everyone. You can view casual conversation as a treasure hunt or a torture chamber. Humility helps you do the former.
"You want to know the difference between a master and a beginner? The master has failed more times that the beginner has even tried." Unknown [anyone?]
Echoes of T. Roosevelt's "person in the arena" quote. In our hyper-critical, hypocritical, knee jerk, tabloidesque, lack-of-context culture, you can plunge in a do-fail-learn-succeed approach -- and a try-sin-repent-grow spirituality -- or you can shrink back. Courage helps you do the former.
"What you do in your house is worth as much as if you did it up in heaven for our Lord God. We should accustom ourselves to think of our position and work as sacred and well-pleasing to God, not on account of the position and work, but on account of the word and faith from which the obedience and work flow." Martin Luther
Good news for everyday people who are busy doing regular work for God and other people.
The guy administering vaccinations in Appalachia and the guy manufacturing the plastic for the syringes are both doing God's work, if they do it for him. Faithfulness in small, everyday things.
"In raising children, I have lost my mind but found my soul." Lisa Shepherd
The secular, and humorous, version of "Yet she will be saved through childbearing--if they continue in faith and love and holiness." (1 Timothy 2:15) Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Tuesday, October 28, 2014
The Case for the Mundane
(Re-posting)
A letter to a gifted prep school friend
Dear Friend,
You are caught up in a hundred little deaths of your soul these days. You are forced to sit through classes which are beneath you.
You know more about these books, these histories; you understand them better than your peers. You are better read, even, than some of your teachers, at least in a certain academic sense.
In other classes you are made to study material you know you will never use as an adult. Odds are good you won't need that quadratic formula in graduate school or in catching the bus or in cooking your dinner.
And this is an indignity. You, O Suburban Minion, must abide the endless chores of polite conversation, lunchroom shufflings, leading questions, obvious observations, endless chores, polite conversation....
You have better taste.
Every day you are forced to eat food lacking in subtlety, speak to people lacking in insight and nuance, and grind through homework assignments lacking in imagination and spark, taught by adults who punch the card when you include "setting," "characters," and an ample amount of ham-handed adverbial verbiage.
Similes that sit like a knuckle sandwich in your mouth.
What's the use? Where are Sartre and Camus and Kerouc and Woolf in all of this mundane flotsam and jetsam? Where is the Green Knight?
Where is Keats in this tedious homework assignment to analyze Fanny Brawne -- 'til the Bright Star herself becomes thick-limbed, ugly, and graceless with dead eyes? Nothing like the sun.
Oh to be one of those noted intellectuals! Those brilliant sparks, caught up in thought and conversation, and not hampered by The Daily Bourgeois of suburban high school and carpool line and vacuuming the stairs.
Oh to feed that bright fire of the mind, all day, with people who understand and appreciate the heat!
Yet, you are well-read. What about those characters you know so well?
What about Saruman in his tall tower hanging in the thin air far above the plains and the little men and the beasts.
What about Uncle Andrew and Queen Jadis, and their "high and lonely destiny"?
What about Wells' Invisible Man, and his lone scientific pursuit of autonomy, fed by a withered heart lacking in human connection?
What if Dr. Frankenstein was a monster and the Monster had a soul?
What about Virginia's Lighthouse? Did it help her see the rocks?
And you have read the intellectual greats. What if:
What if many of those ivory tower intellectuals were tiresome bores in the pub or the parlor?
What if it would be insufferable to share just one drink with them? What if they were the ones everyone avoided at the cocktail party or on the street?
What if they were people that made other people look at the clock to mutter about appointments and traffic and "needing to go, so nice to touch base with you...."
What if -- in their rejection of humility, humanity, and the simplicity of duty -- they lost touch with glory, divinity, and the deeply complex?
What if, in their single-minded pursuit of truth and beauty in isolation -- in the rarefied company of themselves and their toadying salons -- they lost both. (Truth and beauty, that is.)
What if we all felt sorry for their wives and children and dogs and next door neighbors?
And more.
What if Mother Teresa was a genius and Sartre was a fool (himself telling tales full of sound and fury, signifying nothing)?
What if Einstein practiced piano scales daily as a kid?
What if the capitalist down the street is a philanthropist, the humanist down the street is a misanthropist, the scholar is a bigot, and the small town sheriff is a sage?
What if theology is the queen of the sciences?
It's complicated, isn't it?
Think:
What if we maintain our connection to the divine, in part, by maintaining our relationship with the human?
What if we love God in part by loving others and performing daily duties?
What if even the Word Himself became flesh. And dwelt among us.
And what if to love and know and learn, we have to go where the unwashed they are, and live where the un-nuanced they live, and eat their casseroles, vegetables, and drink their iced tea, and do their homework assignments?
And in meeting with daily life and daily people, what if we find not just truth and beauty, but also ourselves right there?
What if we find that we, in fact, are just another one of them: merely a co-regent of all creation. (Nothing big.)
My friend, what if we find our best selves in the mundane performance of daily duties that bring order and abundance, done with love, joy, and humility?
Here is your next homework assignment for "Life 101"
* Read the Gospel of John to yourself aloud and slowly
* Read "The Practice of the Presence of God" by Brother Andrew
* Read "Intellectuals" by Paul Johnson
* Discuss with your fellow co-regents. (Ie, your middle class parents, teachers, and friends. You might be surprised at how much they know.)
Sincerely,
An old friend, who once hated homework, wore black turtlenecks, and choked on both gnats and Camels
A letter to a gifted prep school friend
Dear Friend,
You are caught up in a hundred little deaths of your soul these days. You are forced to sit through classes which are beneath you.
You know more about these books, these histories; you understand them better than your peers. You are better read, even, than some of your teachers, at least in a certain academic sense.
In other classes you are made to study material you know you will never use as an adult. Odds are good you won't need that quadratic formula in graduate school or in catching the bus or in cooking your dinner.
And this is an indignity. You, O Suburban Minion, must abide the endless chores of polite conversation, lunchroom shufflings, leading questions, obvious observations, endless chores, polite conversation....
You have better taste.
Every day you are forced to eat food lacking in subtlety, speak to people lacking in insight and nuance, and grind through homework assignments lacking in imagination and spark, taught by adults who punch the card when you include "setting," "characters," and an ample amount of ham-handed adverbial verbiage.
Similes that sit like a knuckle sandwich in your mouth.
What's the use? Where are Sartre and Camus and Kerouc and Woolf in all of this mundane flotsam and jetsam? Where is the Green Knight?
Where is Keats in this tedious homework assignment to analyze Fanny Brawne -- 'til the Bright Star herself becomes thick-limbed, ugly, and graceless with dead eyes? Nothing like the sun.
Oh to be one of those noted intellectuals! Those brilliant sparks, caught up in thought and conversation, and not hampered by The Daily Bourgeois of suburban high school and carpool line and vacuuming the stairs.
Oh to feed that bright fire of the mind, all day, with people who understand and appreciate the heat!
Yet, you are well-read. What about those characters you know so well?
What about Saruman in his tall tower hanging in the thin air far above the plains and the little men and the beasts.
What about Uncle Andrew and Queen Jadis, and their "high and lonely destiny"?
What about Wells' Invisible Man, and his lone scientific pursuit of autonomy, fed by a withered heart lacking in human connection?
What if Dr. Frankenstein was a monster and the Monster had a soul?
What about Virginia's Lighthouse? Did it help her see the rocks?
And you have read the intellectual greats. What if:
What if many of those ivory tower intellectuals were tiresome bores in the pub or the parlor?
What if it would be insufferable to share just one drink with them? What if they were the ones everyone avoided at the cocktail party or on the street?
What if they were people that made other people look at the clock to mutter about appointments and traffic and "needing to go, so nice to touch base with you...."
What if -- in their rejection of humility, humanity, and the simplicity of duty -- they lost touch with glory, divinity, and the deeply complex?
What if, in their single-minded pursuit of truth and beauty in isolation -- in the rarefied company of themselves and their toadying salons -- they lost both. (Truth and beauty, that is.)
What if we all felt sorry for their wives and children and dogs and next door neighbors?
And more.
What if Mother Teresa was a genius and Sartre was a fool (himself telling tales full of sound and fury, signifying nothing)?
What if Einstein practiced piano scales daily as a kid?
What if the capitalist down the street is a philanthropist, the humanist down the street is a misanthropist, the scholar is a bigot, and the small town sheriff is a sage?
What if theology is the queen of the sciences?
It's complicated, isn't it?
Think:
What if we maintain our connection to the divine, in part, by maintaining our relationship with the human?
What if we love God in part by loving others and performing daily duties?
What if even the Word Himself became flesh. And dwelt among us.
And what if to love and know and learn, we have to go where the unwashed they are, and live where the un-nuanced they live, and eat their casseroles, vegetables, and drink their iced tea, and do their homework assignments?
And in meeting with daily life and daily people, what if we find not just truth and beauty, but also ourselves right there?
What if we find that we, in fact, are just another one of them: merely a co-regent of all creation. (Nothing big.)
My friend, what if we find our best selves in the mundane performance of daily duties that bring order and abundance, done with love, joy, and humility?
Here is your next homework assignment for "Life 101"
* Read the Gospel of John to yourself aloud and slowly
* Read "The Practice of the Presence of God" by Brother Andrew
* Read "Intellectuals" by Paul Johnson
* Discuss with your fellow co-regents. (Ie, your middle class parents, teachers, and friends. You might be surprised at how much they know.)
Sincerely,
An old friend, who once hated homework, wore black turtlenecks, and choked on both gnats and Camels
Wednesday, October 1, 2014
Single Moms in North Texas
I want to draw your attention to two Christian ministries people in our church are heavily involved in here in North Texas.
This is really a "genius scenario" as it turns out -- the first ministry provides counseling and assistance to women with unplanned pregnancies, and the second ministry provides shelter and career counseling for single mothers who need it. In both ministries mothers will receive not only physical help but the gospel. Living water and material sustenance and guidance to help them get on their feet and provide for themselves and their children.
Please consider finding out more about these ministries, sharing information with people who made be in need, and giving if you are led. Both are in McKinney Texas.
Hope Resource Center
Shiloh Place
This is really a "genius scenario" as it turns out -- the first ministry provides counseling and assistance to women with unplanned pregnancies, and the second ministry provides shelter and career counseling for single mothers who need it. In both ministries mothers will receive not only physical help but the gospel. Living water and material sustenance and guidance to help them get on their feet and provide for themselves and their children.
Please consider finding out more about these ministries, sharing information with people who made be in need, and giving if you are led. Both are in McKinney Texas.
Hope Resource Center
Shiloh Place
Monday, September 22, 2014
One Critique of "Courtship:" Or, Why DO We Have to Go Steady?
Mid-century (as in non-"courtship") American dating practices can remove heavy pressure and unwholesome emotional intensity in dating, and promote young people gaining wisdom and knowledge about the kind of person they should marry. This guys asks -- what about the good, old-fashioned casual date of a movie and ice cream? (Remember Elisabeth and Jim Elliot and their "coke dates"?)
Thursday, September 18, 2014
Something Good Happened in Russia
A report from the Russian Orthodox Church on an international gathering of government officials, clergy, and others: "International Forum on the Large Family and the Future of Humanity"
'Addressing the forum, Patriarch Kirill said in particular, “The large family is a phenomenon that influences very many because the large family is an example of how people build a very solid community by dedicating their life to others. The large and healthy family is a factor defining the moral health of the whole society. That is my profound conviction and for this reason I support all the events and the program which you have carried out in cooperation with like-minded people from many countries of the world”.
In his speech, Metropolitan Hilarion stated a demographic crisis in Russia and Europe caused among other things by the crisis of the family, “especially the crisis of the large family. The life of a large family in today’s Russia is an everyday hard work and feat; it is a life against all the patterns of a society of comfort”. Among the acute problems impeding the preservation of moral family climate in Russia is an enormous number of abortions. Metropolitan Hilarion called for solidarity of all religious confessions and all people of good will in the efforts “to safeguard the family against challenges of the secular world thus protecting our future."'
Monday, June 9, 2014
Grief Pondered
Teaching Us How to Grieve
A few weeks ago, our dear friends lost their adult son in a tragic car accident. The young man had a wife and a 2-year-old boy, who still doesn't understand why daddy does not come home. He also left behind a mother and father and sisters and brothers-- all people who loved him in this tight-knit family.
The manifest transparency and courage of these friends grieving deeply is something to behold. It is nothing short of an honor to be near. It is sacred, almost, like peeking in on a cataclysm and a glory.
There are many ways to grieve. We have watched our friends do it well. They grieve openly and frankly in a way that strips aside all conventions and flatly proclaims questions, faith, and courage. They cry during the stories, laugh between the tears, and say, "I believe, help my unbelief." They turn from their tears and encourage another. In the end -- whether they know it at this fresh point of their sorrow or not -- they are teaching us how to grieve and how to collapse onto God.
Not a Tame Lion
Watching a great sorrow up close puts all of my barely-quashed, dark fears on display -- a flickering picture newsreel. I want to look away from my own fears. But when I see someone suffer, I am turned inside out and my insides are revealed. The worst can happen, and does. It's true, and we can't pretend anymore: Here there be monsters.
I believe that this one of God's methods of forcing me to put feet to my faith. He is calling my bluff.
As Mr. Beaver says, "Aslan is not a tame lion." God himself is not safe. He is not a coddling God. This faith we have -- this never was the safe option. At least not now, not with respect to the flesh.
Faith -- believers know this -- is not an opiate, but a cold splash of water on the face. Faith does not allow you to muffle your fears in nice phrases and memories and that "The Circle of Life" song. Faith says, "All is as God has decreed," and "yet I will praise Him." Even a tiny mustard seed of faith is a gift, because we surely could not generate it ourselves.We only need that tiniest of gifts, and He gives it freely.
This faith is not safe, but it is real and true. And part of that realness and trueness is that Death does not have the last word.
A few weeks ago, our dear friends lost their adult son in a tragic car accident. The young man had a wife and a 2-year-old boy, who still doesn't understand why daddy does not come home. He also left behind a mother and father and sisters and brothers-- all people who loved him in this tight-knit family.
The manifest transparency and courage of these friends grieving deeply is something to behold. It is nothing short of an honor to be near. It is sacred, almost, like peeking in on a cataclysm and a glory.
There are many ways to grieve. We have watched our friends do it well. They grieve openly and frankly in a way that strips aside all conventions and flatly proclaims questions, faith, and courage. They cry during the stories, laugh between the tears, and say, "I believe, help my unbelief." They turn from their tears and encourage another. In the end -- whether they know it at this fresh point of their sorrow or not -- they are teaching us how to grieve and how to collapse onto God.
Not a Tame Lion
Watching a great sorrow up close puts all of my barely-quashed, dark fears on display -- a flickering picture newsreel. I want to look away from my own fears. But when I see someone suffer, I am turned inside out and my insides are revealed. The worst can happen, and does. It's true, and we can't pretend anymore: Here there be monsters.
I believe that this one of God's methods of forcing me to put feet to my faith. He is calling my bluff.
As Mr. Beaver says, "Aslan is not a tame lion." God himself is not safe. He is not a coddling God. This faith we have -- this never was the safe option. At least not now, not with respect to the flesh.
Faith -- believers know this -- is not an opiate, but a cold splash of water on the face. Faith does not allow you to muffle your fears in nice phrases and memories and that "The Circle of Life" song. Faith says, "All is as God has decreed," and "yet I will praise Him." Even a tiny mustard seed of faith is a gift, because we surely could not generate it ourselves.We only need that tiniest of gifts, and He gives it freely.
This faith is not safe, but it is real and true. And part of that realness and trueness is that Death does not have the last word.
Grief Pondered: At the Back of All the Stories
Good News is only really good when the first set of news is really bad.
I just finished "Til We Have Faces" by CS Lewis. I read it in college and missed its depth then. (I kept worrying over the mechanics of the metaphor.)
Expressly, it is a retelling of the myth of Cupid and Psyche. However, in the end it is about Psyche's sister, who is an aged monarch of an ancient kingdom.
Telling her strange story for posterity, an old queen seeks to make a water-tight case against the gods. She lays out her case against them -- their cruelty, their hidden-ness, and jealousy, and teasing trickery. But as she writes, something happens. We figure it out only slightly before she does. She realizes the case she is making is against herself.
Righteously indignant, she finds she was the cruel and unjust one, after all.
Coolly logical and academic, she finds that she was the liar and deceiver, after all. (The worst lies she tells are to herself.)
Pragmatic and effective as a ruler who has built a solid empire, she finds her kingdom will pass to a distant relative she hardly knows, after all.
Meanwhile, the One behind the stories was always drawing this withered queen to meet Him. To show her that truth never was found in shrines and magic, or book learning, or politics. It was always, only, and forever found in Him. The story was about Him. All the stories are about Him.
He wants to meet her. He will meet her. He comes to her.
"You have seen the torches grow pale when men open the shutters and broad summer morning shines in?"
As she reflects on the events of her life and her grappling with the gods,
"I knew that all of this had been a preparation. Some far greater matter was upon us...'He is coming,' they said....The earth and stars and sun, all that was or will be, existed for His sake."
Our God is personal. He is intimate. He is far too much concerned with loving us to let us idle along forever in indolent accusations, or in the opiates of endless logical disputes or smoky mysticism or worldly pragmatics.
Christianity has laws, but it is not a religion of laws and rules. Christianity has miracles and mysteries, but it is not a religion of magic and smoke. Christianity is reasoned and wise, but it is not a religion for the proud academic and all-knowing logician. (The Greeks seeks wisdom, the Jews look for miracles. But we His people, both Jew and Gentile, seek something else. Him, crucified. It's a stumbling block.)
Christianity is a most intimate love story of a Groom for His bride, a Father for his child, a King for his subject, a Doctor for his patient.
Communion with Christ is a most uncomfortable and invasive surgery, a nakedness, a subjection, and a knowing.
We're sick and oozing sore, and He is our Doctor. We are weak and defenseless, and He is our protecting King. We are lost and crying out, and He is our shepherding Father.
We are ugly, unloved, wrinkled, bitter, barren, sour, and cast-off. We wear a hood to hide our ugliness. And He is our beloved Groom, making us radiant, smooth, strong, healthy, and whole. He removes our masks and shrouds, looks in our face, and clothes us in white.
"Let the bones you have crushed rejoice." Jesus, lover of my soul.
Just one last thing the old queen learns: He doesn't answer to her. She answers to Him.
I just finished "Til We Have Faces" by CS Lewis. I read it in college and missed its depth then. (I kept worrying over the mechanics of the metaphor.)
Expressly, it is a retelling of the myth of Cupid and Psyche. However, in the end it is about Psyche's sister, who is an aged monarch of an ancient kingdom.
Telling her strange story for posterity, an old queen seeks to make a water-tight case against the gods. She lays out her case against them -- their cruelty, their hidden-ness, and jealousy, and teasing trickery. But as she writes, something happens. We figure it out only slightly before she does. She realizes the case she is making is against herself.
Righteously indignant, she finds she was the cruel and unjust one, after all.
Coolly logical and academic, she finds that she was the liar and deceiver, after all. (The worst lies she tells are to herself.)
Pragmatic and effective as a ruler who has built a solid empire, she finds her kingdom will pass to a distant relative she hardly knows, after all.
Meanwhile, the One behind the stories was always drawing this withered queen to meet Him. To show her that truth never was found in shrines and magic, or book learning, or politics. It was always, only, and forever found in Him. The story was about Him. All the stories are about Him.
He wants to meet her. He will meet her. He comes to her.
"You have seen the torches grow pale when men open the shutters and broad summer morning shines in?"
As she reflects on the events of her life and her grappling with the gods,
"I knew that all of this had been a preparation. Some far greater matter was upon us...'He is coming,' they said....The earth and stars and sun, all that was or will be, existed for His sake."
Our God is personal. He is intimate. He is far too much concerned with loving us to let us idle along forever in indolent accusations, or in the opiates of endless logical disputes or smoky mysticism or worldly pragmatics.
Christianity has laws, but it is not a religion of laws and rules. Christianity has miracles and mysteries, but it is not a religion of magic and smoke. Christianity is reasoned and wise, but it is not a religion for the proud academic and all-knowing logician. (The Greeks seeks wisdom, the Jews look for miracles. But we His people, both Jew and Gentile, seek something else. Him, crucified. It's a stumbling block.)
Christianity is a most intimate love story of a Groom for His bride, a Father for his child, a King for his subject, a Doctor for his patient.
Communion with Christ is a most uncomfortable and invasive surgery, a nakedness, a subjection, and a knowing.
We're sick and oozing sore, and He is our Doctor. We are weak and defenseless, and He is our protecting King. We are lost and crying out, and He is our shepherding Father.
We are ugly, unloved, wrinkled, bitter, barren, sour, and cast-off. We wear a hood to hide our ugliness. And He is our beloved Groom, making us radiant, smooth, strong, healthy, and whole. He removes our masks and shrouds, looks in our face, and clothes us in white.
"Let the bones you have crushed rejoice." Jesus, lover of my soul.
Just one last thing the old queen learns: He doesn't answer to her. She answers to Him.
Sunday, April 13, 2014
Monday, April 7, 2014
The Art of Saying Thank You
The New York Times' Guy Trebay discusses Jimmy Fallon, emoticons, and thank-you notes.
It's hip to write on a little paper square.
"'What they want...is to draw a distinction between the tossed-off, compressed nature of electronic messages and a form of ritualized communication that gives material evidence 'that the person really did appreciate something.'”
It's hip to write on a little paper square.
"'What they want...is to draw a distinction between the tossed-off, compressed nature of electronic messages and a form of ritualized communication that gives material evidence 'that the person really did appreciate something.'”
Thursday, April 3, 2014
Spring Poems: Emily Dickinson, "A Narrow Fellow in the Grass"
A narrow fellow in the grass
A narrow fellow in the grass
Occasionally rides;
You may have met him—did you not
His notice sudden is,
The grass divides as with a comb,
A spotted shaft is seen,
And then it closes at your feet,
And opens further on.
He likes a boggy acre,
A floor too cool for corn,
But when a boy and barefoot,
I more than once at noon
Have passed, I thought, a whip lash,
Unbraiding in the sun,
When stooping to secure it,
It wrinkled and was gone.
Several of nature’s people
I know, and they know me;
I feel for them a transport
Of cordiality.
But never met this fellow,
Attended or alone,
Without a tighter breathing,
And zero at the bone.
Spring Poems: Robert Frost, "The Pasture"
The Pasture
I'm going out to clean the pasture spring;
I'll only stop to rake the leaves away
(And wait to watch the water clear, I may):
I shan't be gone long. -- You come too.
I'm going out to fetch the little calf
That's standing by the mother. It's so young,
It totters when she licks it with her tongue.
I shan't be gone long. -- You come too.
I'll only stop to rake the leaves away
(And wait to watch the water clear, I may):
I shan't be gone long. -- You come too.
I'm going out to fetch the little calf
That's standing by the mother. It's so young,
It totters when she licks it with her tongue.
I shan't be gone long. -- You come too.
Spring poems: AE Housman, "Loveliest of Trees"
| "Loveliest of Trees" |
| LOVELIEST of trees, the cherry now | |
| Is hung with bloom along the bough, | |
| And stands about the woodland ride | |
| Wearing white for Eastertide. | |
| Now, of my threescore years and ten, | 5 |
| Twenty will not come again, | |
| And take from seventy springs a score, | |
| It only leaves me fifty more. | |
| And since to look at things in bloom | |
| Fifty springs are little room, | 10 |
| About the woodlands I will go | |
| To see the cherry hung with snow. |
Tuesday, March 18, 2014
Trailing Clouds of Glory: Expansion, Inflation, Space, and Time
I think in Astronomy you see both the profound limitations and the amazing creativity and resourcefulness of human beings.
I am interested in the idea of the Big Bang. In college I wrote a paper for my Cosmology class on the findings of Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson. Please note that Cosmology at my college might have been subtitled, "Physics for Struggling People Who Came Here to Study Yeats but Somehow Have to Get Their Area Science Credit."
I think this article is a nice, accessible, readable explanation of the work of Penzias and Wilson, the implications of the Hubble telescope findings(why Hubble is such a big deal), and the implications of recent findings in Science.
LINK in Wired Magazine
I am interested in the idea of the Big Bang. In college I wrote a paper for my Cosmology class on the findings of Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson. Please note that Cosmology at my college might have been subtitled, "Physics for Struggling People Who Came Here to Study Yeats but Somehow Have to Get Their Area Science Credit."
I think this article is a nice, accessible, readable explanation of the work of Penzias and Wilson, the implications of the Hubble telescope findings(why Hubble is such a big deal), and the implications of recent findings in Science.
LINK in Wired Magazine
Monday, March 17, 2014
St Patrick's Breastplate
Legend says that St. Patrick wrote the words which Cecil Alexander made into an English hymn. Here is part of it:
I bind unto myself today
the strong Name of the Trinity,
by invocation of the same,
the Three in One, and One in Three.
by power of faith, Christ's Incarnation;
his baptism in Jordan river;
his death on cross for my salvation;
his bursting from the spicèd tomb;
his riding up the heavenly way;
his coming at the day of doom:
I bind unto myself today.
I bind unto myself the power
of the great love of cherubim;
the sweet "Well done" in judgment hour;
the service of the seraphim;
confessors' faith, apostles' word,
the patriarchs' prayers, the prophets' scrolls;
all good deeds done unto the Lord,
and purity of virgin souls.
I bind unto myself today
the virtues of the starlit heaven
the glorious sun's life-giving ray,
the whiteness of the moon at even,
the flashing of the lightning free,
the whirling wind's tempestuous shocks,
the stable earth, the deep salt sea,
around the old eternal rocks.
I bind unto myself today
the power of God to hold and lead,
his eye to watch, his might to stay,
his ear to hearken, to my need;
the wisdom of my God to teach,
his hand to guide, his shield to ward;
the word of God to give me speech,
his heavenly host to be my guard.
Christ be with me,
Christ within me,
Christ behind me,
Christ before me,
Christ beside me,
Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort
and restore me.
Christ beneath me,
Christ above me,
Christ in quiet,
Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of
all that love me,
Christ in mouth of
friend and stranger.
I bind unto myself today
the strong Name of the Trinity,
by invocation of the same,
the Three in One, and One in Three.
Of whom all nature hath creation,
eternal Father, Spirit, Word:
praise to the Lord of my salvation,
salvation is of Christ the Lord.
Words: attributed to St. Patrick (372-466);
trans. Cecil Frances Alexander (1818-1895), 1889
the strong Name of the Trinity,
by invocation of the same,
the Three in One, and One in Three.
by power of faith, Christ's Incarnation;
his baptism in Jordan river;
his death on cross for my salvation;
his bursting from the spicèd tomb;
his riding up the heavenly way;
his coming at the day of doom:
I bind unto myself today.
I bind unto myself the power
of the great love of cherubim;
the sweet "Well done" in judgment hour;
the service of the seraphim;
confessors' faith, apostles' word,
the patriarchs' prayers, the prophets' scrolls;
all good deeds done unto the Lord,
and purity of virgin souls.
I bind unto myself today
the virtues of the starlit heaven
the glorious sun's life-giving ray,
the whiteness of the moon at even,
the flashing of the lightning free,
the whirling wind's tempestuous shocks,
the stable earth, the deep salt sea,
around the old eternal rocks.
I bind unto myself today
the power of God to hold and lead,
his eye to watch, his might to stay,
his ear to hearken, to my need;
the wisdom of my God to teach,
his hand to guide, his shield to ward;
the word of God to give me speech,
his heavenly host to be my guard.
Christ be with me,
Christ within me,
Christ behind me,
Christ before me,
Christ beside me,
Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort
and restore me.
Christ beneath me,
Christ above me,
Christ in quiet,
Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of
all that love me,
Christ in mouth of
friend and stranger.
I bind unto myself today
the strong Name of the Trinity,
by invocation of the same,
the Three in One, and One in Three.
Of whom all nature hath creation,
eternal Father, Spirit, Word:
praise to the Lord of my salvation,
salvation is of Christ the Lord.
trans. Cecil Frances Alexander (1818-1895), 1889
What's Your Temptation?
Interesting post from Justin Taylor quoting some writers on the erosion of religious liberty in America.
Interesting to consider: which temptation are you more likely to face in cultural adversity? Silencing/suppressing your conscience OR reacting in anger or pugnaciousness?
LINK: Erosion of religious liberty
Interesting to consider: which temptation are you more likely to face in cultural adversity? Silencing/suppressing your conscience OR reacting in anger or pugnaciousness?
LINK: Erosion of religious liberty
Friday, March 7, 2014
Not What Betty Friedan Had In Mind: The Working Mother Underclass
Caitlyn Flanagan (an uber-upper class working mom) writes a frank (slightly coarse language alert) discussion of feminist history, unintended consequences, and, as she says, the cruel self-service of the "smarty-pants" upper-class feminist ennobling of prosperous mothers by conflating their lot with working class and domestic laborer mothers.
For the purposes of this article, she only addresses two extremes: 1. upper-class women working strictly for self-fulfillment and 2. working-class women doing menial work full time to put food on the table. Basically -- those who hire nannies and those who are nannies.
How Serfdom Saved the Women's Movement
For the purposes of this article, she only addresses two extremes: 1. upper-class women working strictly for self-fulfillment and 2. working-class women doing menial work full time to put food on the table. Basically -- those who hire nannies and those who are nannies.
How Serfdom Saved the Women's Movement
Friday, February 21, 2014
Beguiling
Here is a video you may have seen going around, perhaps back during the Gosnell trial. (Warning: graphic clinical descriptions and some tragic pictures in the sidebar of the YouTube clip.)
First of all, the clinical discussion of what goes on in a late term abortion is the best argument against it.
(And for the record, let's hope the person who posted this "literally" did believe what she saw and heard, or she wouldn't have posted it, right?)
Second of all, in this scenario, the white male government "suits" stick up for the rights of little babies, while the educated young doctor and bespectacled grandma-type want to make sure you personally aren't "tortured" over the fact that your mutilated, born-alive, aborted baby may be left to die on a table.
We must be shrewd. Evil does not often look evil. It does not always look like Lord Voldemort or even like Hollywood's tired stereotypes. Evil is good at being beguiling; it can seem like the kindly, warm, and gentle option. It is very interested in "killing you softly."
As C.S. Lewis once wrote, addressing things in his day and age:
First of all, the clinical discussion of what goes on in a late term abortion is the best argument against it.
(And for the record, let's hope the person who posted this "literally" did believe what she saw and heard, or she wouldn't have posted it, right?)
Second of all, in this scenario, the white male government "suits" stick up for the rights of little babies, while the educated young doctor and bespectacled grandma-type want to make sure you personally aren't "tortured" over the fact that your mutilated, born-alive, aborted baby may be left to die on a table.
We must be shrewd. Evil does not often look evil. It does not always look like Lord Voldemort or even like Hollywood's tired stereotypes. Evil is good at being beguiling; it can seem like the kindly, warm, and gentle option. It is very interested in "killing you softly."
As C.S. Lewis once wrote, addressing things in his day and age:
The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voices.
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