More on the Mundane

"Nirvana" by Charles Bukowski, read by Tom Waits.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVVzCURucaA

http://talesfromshangri-la.blogspot.com/2014/09/pleading-case-for-mundane.html

Check Your White, Female Privilege

In the New York Times, Ross Douthat counters Milbank et al's arguments that the only way for Planned Parenthood to provide family planning services is for them also to provide baby-in-the-womb dismemberment services.

There Is No Pro-Life Case for Planned Parenthood

It's good to point out when the actual narrative conflicts with the establishment narrative. In these videos, the antagonists are women, the victims are predominantly minorities, and the hero is a white male. Time for PP to check its white, female privilege.

Paper airplanes

Paper airplanes: warm, sweet ad about a military childhood, and about fathers, sons, and good neighbors.

Paper airplanes

"Behold, I make all things new."

"When we preach the gospel, we preach the promise of new life,
new mind,
new hope,
new purpose,
new union with Christ,
new company of the Holy Spirit,
new pardon of sin,
new affinity for repentance and closeness with God,
new love of the law,
new ability to obey,
new understanding of why God demands chastity outside of marriage and fidelity inside of marriage,
new patience with people who do not yet know Jesus,
new perspectives of suffering and affliction, addiction and change,
new hatred of our own sin and patience with the sin of others,
new responsibilities,
new heartaches,
new friendships,
a new family from within the body of Christ,
new allegiances,
new dangers, and
new grace.

I needed the expulsive love of my risen Savior to whisper in my ear that my burgeoning conviction of sin was truer than what my flesh craved."

-- Rosaria Butterfield in Openness Unhindered 

(with my formatting)

Nothing Like a Fish without a Bicycle

My retrospective on Elisabeth Elliot at The Gospel Coalition blog.

Elisabeth Elliot has died. I didn’t know her, but this feels personal. Her books were influential to me as a young single woman in the early 1990s, particularly Passion and Purity and Let Me Be a Woman. At a time in my life when I had become weary of worldly pursuits, aside from the example and words of my own mom, Elliot’s words most shaped for me a vision of what biblical womanhood could look like.

Vigorous, Gentle Womanhood 

I met her once as a single working girl about 20 years ago at a mission home where she was visiting and giving a talk. She was older even then, sitting in a chair, neatly dressed, hair carefully in place, wrinkly and rather still, with bright, intelligent eyes that betrayed an active sense of humor. 

 

The way she lived her life and spoke about her adventures and marriages displayed a type of womanhood that caught my imagination. She seemed to own a womanhood that was both vigorous—physically and intellectually—and gentle. 

 

The lives of female missionaries are a sort of bas relief against Western wranglings over things like gender quotas and free contraception. Elliot seemed to have a seasoned, sensible knowledge that came from rugged, basic pursuits—a sharp intellect and a sense of context and keen perspective born out of her edgy life experience as a missionary to unreached tribes. (The unentitled at work seeking the unreached.)

A Third Way Woman

Both the anti-feminist and the anti-delicate flower, she taught what I came to think of as a “third way” of womanhood that seemed like Ruth and that Proverbs 31 woman with her strong arms, shrewdness, and nurturing ways. 

 

I recall her description of life in the jungle. Most of the day was consumed with merely trying to live rather than translating Scripture. I recall her description of the focus, effort, and energy required to make sure water was found, hauled, kept, and boiled each day while keeping a toddler from falling into the fire or water. I also recall her frank humility about her failings and missteps. I learned from her books the profound value of the ministry of the mundane, and the efficiency of biblically training indigenous peoples where possible.

 

In her writing she was direct but not harsh, open but not coarse. In her vigorous femininity, and in her teamwork with and delight in the masculinity of her husbands, she seemed more like some sort of American pioneer woman and nothing like a fish without a bicycle. More like Phoebe or Dorcas and nothing like a Diva. 

A Nurtured Faith for the Next Generation

Elliot nurtured her faith with a disciplined mind fixed on selfless service to the world. She approached her marriages with a mind fixed on pursuing engaging, active partnership, and, yes, submission to a husband. And in her books she reached out to countless people with a simple, clear, direct style of writing.

 

I am thankful for her example, and as a 44-year-old mother of three, I want to commend her writings to the next generation of “third way women.”

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.

Sister Talk

Because I can....

Two men lip synch mother and aunt talking

Generous

"Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity" (Simone Weil).

Fully, completely, unhurriedly, until it's all been said, not antsy to make my own point, without agenda, without multitasking, without iPhone on, without TV on, without computer on, without music blaring, without thought for the time, without worry for the traffic, or the future...paying attention.

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

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"?)

How "Courtship" Is Flawed

New Live Eagle Cam

We found a new eagle cam to watch. Mother and father eagle work together to raise babies. Love the babies' big orange feet!

Occasionally, the camera operator focuses on a nearby small island with a nest of goose eggs on it.

LINK: http://mnbound.com/live-eagle-cam/

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

Not Alone: Plenary and Breakout Session Summaries

God with Us (cont.)

The Christian Counseling and Education Foundation’s (CCEF) conference two weekends ago centered on the theme, “Not Alone.” The mission of CCEF is to “restore Christ to counseling and restore counseling to the church.”

In this age (as in every other), despite twitter and telephones, people find themselves feeling isolated, lonely, and adrift from God and their community. This is true for married and single people, men and women, children and adults.

But God is a personal and intimate companion; he came right alongside us in his incarnation. The force and focus of the weekend was for us to reach out and model Christ’s companionship to others (family, friends, co-workers, clients).

David and I attended all but one of the main sessions and many of the breakout sessions, so I thought it might be best to just share a paraphrase of each session I attended. (I attended Winston Smith's talk -- he has a delightful, dry sense of humor -- but I didn't take notes so his talk is not summarized.) After the conference, I felt spiritually and emotionally refreshed from hearing experienced biblical counselors teach and exhort us about relationship – God’s relationship with me and my relationship with others. (I was also physically refreshed by the Cajun food truck, but that is another blog.)

For me, the conference called to my mind Isaiah’s description of the coming Messiah as “Immanuel: God with us.” Indeed much of the conference centered on the person and work of the incarnate Jesus Christ. From him we understand ourselves and others, so that we can counsel and minister personally and effectively.

We enter into others' lives as Christ did in the following ways:

We are builders (David Powlison): “Every relationship is intentional.” Every interaction we have with other image-bearers -- whether that interaction is small or great, light or deep, glancing or permanent -- is either building bridges or building walls. How we speak to people, even in casual and light conversations (which are not bad), either sends the message that we wish to build a bridge to someone or that we wish to wall them off. (And don't do that thing we all do, where a person opens up about something, and your response is to tell them a story about yourself. You feel you are connecting...but you are shutting people down.)

We are Christ-modelers (Elyse Fitzpatrick): Christ entered into humanity, laboring and living in an obscure “hick town” before his public ministry, pleasing his Father in all of his daily activities, from the most mundane daily labor to his glorious resurrection. He did not despise his body, but he joined in the human experience, yet without sin. We are called to be like him: to enter into the lives of others, to listen, and show them Christ. Do not scorn the mundane, but embrace it by serving God even in the everyday, as Christ did.

We are dialoguers (Julie Lowe): As parents, do you value compliance more than engagement with your children? Are you daily seeking to be in dialogue and conversation with them? Do you speak of and reflect on the delights of living as much as the disciplines of living? Finally -- Do you require of yourself what you require of them?

We are listeners (Ed Welch): Do you seek to ask meaningful and probing questions in order to enter into the lives of others, both their triumphs and joys and their failures and sufferings? Our demeanor and perspective, in the joys and the trials, should be, “Tell me more. Give me the details. How can I pray for you?” 

We are reconcilers (Cecilia Bernhardt): God uses conflict to foster character in his saints, and he intends for conflict to draw us closer to him and to each other. We tend to begin conflicts with an eye towards self-service, but, if we see Jesus, we can change that to having an eye towards God’s reality in the situation. If we are interested in God’s truth, we can face conflict with humility rather than self-service.

We are affirmers (Aaron Sironi): The model and command of Scripture is not to flatter, but “to be alert for what God considers good.” (Eg: Jesus with Nathaniel and the centurion, Proverbs 31, Romans 8.) If we only see and verbalize what is wrong in people and situations, we need to repent. God himself condescends to commend a motley group of saints in Hebrews 11 (Gideon, Samson, etc). It is not enough to think and notice good things; we must verbalize those things.

In closing, this conference was replete with wise counsel, challenging our perspectives and exhorting us to truly engage with people in their need.

The basis and foundation of all of the teaching was Jesus Christ’s finished work in life and death and resurrection, and his example of how to enter in and truly love others intimately and personally.

How do we know that we are not alone? By looking at him and his incarnation.

How do we know how to love others and come alongside them? By learning from him, who entered into humanity and who intercedes for us.

Colossians 1:3-8 “We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven.”