Natalie in France

So, yes, I admit it. I'm living vicariously through my daughter. Something parents shouldn't do. Not often, leastwise. Actually, I just loved this picture, and I want to advertise her recent blog posts because, well, I'm proud of her, and also because she's got some good things to say. If you like travel, if you know Natalie, if you want to see how your prayers for her are being answered, go to: Natalie Bernardini

The Shack

Sometimes when I’m walking to work, I do a bad thing. I cut across the grass of a student apartment complex, reasoning that the path is already there, and no doubt always will be. It’s a well-trodden path. Hard as stone. Nothing grows there and even when it rains, the dirt is so hard that the water just rolls off.

That’s what happens when the same path is taken again and again. There’s no avoiding it. It’s true in nature, and it’s true in people. A song that once thrilled us falls flat. We can say something by rote that once took great courage and conviction. We can look upon stunning beauty and yawn. Words that should inspire like truth, love, hope, and joy become meaningless from overuse. We ourselves become dull, inoculated, impervious.

William P. Young understands that. In The Shack, he goes to great lengths to avoid the beaten path in his effort to tell the story of the three-person God and their love for the world. I won’t spoil the story any more than World Magazine did in revealing that his God figure is a hearty black woman who cooks up greens. And instead of, “God so loved the world”, or even, “God loves you, Willie”, we read, “Papa is very fond of you.”

“Fond of you.” It’s quaint. It’s personal. Granted, word for word it’s not as strong a concept as “God loves you”, and no doubt wouldn’t stand up well under theological scrutiny. But because it’s different, because it’s not used very much, it really can say more, especially to those who’ve heard it their entire lives, even preached it. It can penetrate, cut through, make you question if you really, truly understand God’s regard for you.

Since reading The Shack, I’ve found myself thinking, “Maybe He really is quite fond of me.” And not just way up there in Heaven with arms folded waiting for me to get my act together and really do something for Him.

This sentiment goes well with Isaiah 40, “He gathers the lambs in His arm, and holds them close.” And reminds me of the picture I love of John leaning his head against Jesus’ breast. So warm, so alive, so human.

I'm tired of my worn-down soul. I want to be alive to Him, and He to me. I want to leave the dusty bunker of religion and return to the wild meadow with a thousand delights, walking with Him in the cool of the day.

Ultimate Realities

Natalie took this picture while visiting Wales (Worms Head) with my dear friends Rick and Mary Miller. I love it: so rugged, so treacherous, yet so peaceful and beautiful. I feel like it goes with my post.


Most of the time ultimate realities aren’t really on my mind. What I think about is getting the right amount of sugar in my coffee and making sure I put the clothes in the dryer and getting more fiber in our diet and downloading anti-virus software. In short, my mind is on all the things I can handle, affect, create, control.

And because life happens in space and time and I have a family, friends, a church, a job, a house, and now the Olympics, there is enough on any day to keep me preoccupied, living life as if this is all there is, as if life will always be like this.

Because I’m blessed to have responsibilities, refuge, and recourse; because at this moment almost all fronts are quiet, I can and do spend most of my moments on basically steady ground, concerning myself with ordinary, domestic, comfortable things.

But today is different. Today I’m thinking about ultimate realities; the thoughts you have when you watch from the car as your child walks into school on that first day, when your teenager is driving on the interstate in a thunderstorm, when you leave her in a dorm room in another city, when she gets on a plane for Europe.

Time is so strange. While I was holding each baby, fascinated with the swirls of down on their skin, enjoying that good solid feel of their weight in my arms, I had all the time in the world. I had no idea that within moments that baby would be whisked out of my arms, replaced by a toddler with out-stretched arms saying, “Hold you, Mommy, hold you,” who in turn was replaced by a child who wanted to play the violin, and then by a teenager needing braces, each one seemingly swept up and away, alive only in pictures and memories.

And so today the one who once had golden curls and fell asleep while riding “horsey” on her daddy’s back, boarded a plane, backpack, laptop in tow, passport in hand, to travel and then study in France for a semester.

What are the ultimate realities? They grow up. They leave. We don’t go with them. We can’t “make it all better” anymore, and we can’t control the world they step out into. Luggage gets lost, friends disappoint, men leer, money runs out, cancer cells multiply, planes crash. Everyone sins.

As I took a walk and prayed for my Natalie, I prayed for a safe trip. I prayed things would go well, that she would be calm, that she could sleep. I prayed for all the things we ask for but know we can’t always expect. This truth is hard to face: that there are and will be many things in life that don’t go the way we want. Many prayers will be unanswered.

And so I was reduced to the only prayer I know will be answered in the way I ask. And the one prayer I would choose above all others if forced to choose only one.

“Lord Jesus, be with her. Amen.”

Postscript: She made it fine and is making me very happy by posting lots of pictures and writing on her blog, Natalie Bernardini.

The Other Me

Do you ever wonder if there’s a better you somewhere? A you that would:

Wake up like a toddler and run to the window and announce, “The sun is shining! Just for me!” instead of groaning, burying your head under the pillow, wishing for just five more minutes.

Say to your husband, “You’re right. I’m sorry. I’ll try to do better,” instead of thinking, “Why do you care so much about a little toothpaste spit in the bathroom sink when you leave crumbs all over the kitchen? And what about all that broken junk in the garage? And how you have so many faults I never even mention!"

Give money to a person in need without even considering whether it’s wise to do so.

Never say things like, “I guess I’m the only person in this house who knows how to empty a dishwasher.”

Not notice that the woman using food stamps has a $120 hairstyle.

Laugh when the upstairs bathroom floods because you left the faucet on while the water was turned off so your husband could fix yet another plumbing leak in a week in which 10 other things had broken. And then decide to have dinner guests anyway because they were having a hard time. (My sister and her husband did this– my heroes.)

Say yes to any request to go on boring errands just for the pleasure of being with a family member instead of staying home to “get things done”.

Listen gratefully to the sound of your husband’s snoring, proof that he’s alive, that he’s there.

Forget to ask how much it cost, or will cost, or if the checks were deposited.

Join your husband who is dancing in the much-needed rain instead of just watching from the window.

Cling to the feet of Jesus, refusing to let go, loving Him, wasting precious perfume, oblivious to decorum.

Look at people like the ones who go on Dr. Phil and, instead of getting angry, weep. The way Jesus did over Jerusalem.

Hug people so hard it takes their breath away.

Wish like Pilate in Toni Morrison’s "Song of Solomon", If I’d a knowed more people, I’d a loved more…

Every now and then something stirs. I hear a far-off hymn. I hum Paul McCartney’s “The Other Me”. Something calls me to break out, to stop measuring, calculating, guarding, withholding, being the same person day after day. To believe, really believe, He “makes all things new.” Even me.

Sameness

“It took a woman to write a song like that,” Ron Man, our worship leader, said as we were putting our music away and saying how much we love singing, "Before the Throne of God Above".

I loved his saying that. One, because I’m a woman. Two, because he, a man, said it. Three, because it’s so gloriously politically incorrect. And four, because it’s a great lead-in for the thoughts I want to share.

In my ESL class, we’re reading Lois Lowry’s, "The Giver", a story about a community in which everything is safe and painfree. The people have opted for "sameness" and control over risk, choice, and emotion. Adventure, art, romance, even love have been sacrificed in order to create a world without danger, war, poverty, crime, or suffering.

No reader of the book would conclude they want a world like this, but I see many parallels to American life today. We have a remedy for almost every difficulty; many pursue a trouble-free life at the expense of true fulfillment.

But the idea that I want to explore is this idea of Sameness, particularly as seen in our culture’s move towards androgyny. The Sameness in Lowry’s world was intentional, and ultimately rightfully opposed. I’m afraid the Sameness in our world goes largely unchallenged, having been churned out as the latest deception designed to blur, smear, ultimately destroy the beauty which is the creation of two sexes. Male and female, created He them.

It’s as if, after centuries of failing to wipe out truth entirely, the strategists of hell said, “Let’s go back and start at the beginning.” With Bible spread out as maps in a war room, they mapped out their course.

IN THE BEGINNING.... “Except for the few philosophers and scientists we’ll have to deal with separately, let’s make sure the humans don’t think much about this. If we can shorten their gaze, cause them to live out their lives in cubicles and schedules, filling their days with appointments and improvements and looking forward to the next pleasure, then most of them won’t even ask why they’re here, or “What’s it all about?”

GOD.... “We can do a lot more with this. Our pagan gods have been found out. Atheism, like martyrdom, backfires. If we can’t eliminate the concept entirely, let’s stretch it so thin that it can mean anything and everything, and therefore nothing.”

CREATED.... Later they said, “Now that was a stroke of genius. Who knew it could be so easy? Almost unopposed, the humans accepted that the world was a lucky byproduct of an explosion and their earliest ancestors lived in goo. Our job has never been easier.”

And more recently we can imagine:

MALE AND FEMALE.... “No need to spend all our efforts stirring up trouble over their differences. The differences themselves provide too much joy, too much tragedy, the stuff of literature and romance, things we need to eliminate if we’re ever to keep them from thinking about Them. All we have to do is convince them the differences are onerous, frustrating. It won't be long until the very words masculine and feminine will be met with scorn. Oh what a day! What delight we'll have in defacing His precious beauties, in destroying the distinctions He so loves.”

"Was It Really Meant to Be?"

I’m not sure why when someone says, “Everything happens for a reason”, or “It was meant to be”, I feel like I need some Mylanta. Is it because the people who say that read horoscopes or forward emails with the letters J-E-S-U-S dancing across the computer screen? Is it because it’s brother to things like, “He’s in a better place now”, and “It’ll turn out for the best”, or “It’s only because God has something better planned”?

In clumsy attempts to comfort, I’m guilty, too, of pulling out trite comments. That need to say something, to weigh in like one of Job’s counselors, to hurriedly slap a Bandaid on a ragged and ugly wound, makes us say things that are at best sentimental if not downright untrue.

Remarks like that make me feel this vague sadness, much like the way I feel when I hear the word “devotional”, or see “Precious Moments” in gift shops, or peruse the Christian fiction in our church library. It’s that sense of quasi-religiousity, of there being the suggestion of something holy and good, but it’s wafer-thin, worn-out, cheaply or poorly wrought.

Comments said so nonchalantly, automatically, bother me because I believe that world views and eternal destinies hinge on the veracity of these statements. Does everything happen for a reason? Calvinists, Muslims, Hindus, and Darwinists can all say yes to that, and that’s why the statement is irksome. It pretends to be something when it’s nothing, but then again it could be something really big, because it could actually be true.

It’s just that these things are said so easily and so often that they’ve become lingo, and as such do more harm than good, because they’re applied to situations that beg for real answers, not platitudes. And I think that platitudes have been churned out by demons below for the purpose of keeping us from actually thinking. (Yes, I’ve just re-read Screwtape Letters.)

We want to whisk the pain away, paint a rosy future, answer the questions swiftly before they have a chance to penetrate, explain life without really explaining it. We give a little nod to the gods, or fate, or old-time religion, so that we don’t have to face the one God, who, as God, cannot be contained, made-to-order, tamed.

The Corset Reconsidered

Several months ago I had the wild idea to wear a corset. Prompted by feeling lumpish and then spurred on by the hope of lofty insights and a potential waistline, I did indeed wear a corset for a month.

This wasn’t the first time I’ve done something with full assurance that it was perfectly reasonable, perhaps even brilliant, only to later find myself mystified if not mortified by my earlier enthusiasm and certitude.

I can’t even bring myself to go back and read the corset posts; doing so might cause me to delete the entire blog and swear off writing forever.

So, why do I bring it up? Because I did learn something from my corset that relates to my latest phase, which I hope isn’t really a phase, but with me one never knows. I won’t ask my friends and family if they think this is just my latest fad because I hate hearing “Duh!” It’s my earnest desire that this isn’t like that, but a solid and lasting new direction.

My husband had been prodding me to exercise because he has been working out and loving it. I had a month off from work, an eager partner in my daughter Natalie, and Jupiter must have been aligned with Mars, so, for the past 6 weeks I’ve exercised more and harder than I have in many, many years.

A corset will not make you fit. It will not keep you from overeating. (My research showed that some personality types actually eat more because of the discomfort, actually growling at the corset as they consume cookies and snacks they don’t even want just out of spite. “This blasted thing isn’t going to stop me from eating!!”)

The problem with the corset is that it was on the outside pressing in. Like laws and rules, it was a reminder. But in the same way that speed signs don’t stop speeders, the corset didn’t accomplish anything internal, intrinsic. For me, it was a gimmick, a diversion, and as such, destined to fail.

Ah, but exercise! Hearty, blood-pumping, sweaty exercise that demands much of long-unused muscles. Focused work on stretching, strengthening. Coaching by trained leaders who call forth that extra push you didn’t know you had. The comraderie of working out with a group, of doing more than you’d ever do alone. Kick-boxing next to a 70 year old man. Cycling with middle-aged women with thick middles who are giving it all they can.

The instructors keep talking about “The Core”, the very area of my body the corset was supposed to help. But, of course, pressure from the outside doesn’t strengthen muscles. Nor does it help much to just try to practice good posture. Although I’d remind myself time and again to hold my stomach in, sit up straight, I could never keep it up. My natural physical state was simply not strong enough.

In this, too, I see analogies to life. Practicing good posture apart from making the muscles strong by hard work is superficial. It’s easier to wash the outside of the cup, to make a few adjustments so we appear a certain way, but like rouge on the wrinkled skin of an old lady, the attempts to change something externally can't belie the inner reality.

And so, after these weeks of concerted effort to “make my arms strong” (Prov. 31), by Cycling, Pilates, Yoga, and Kick-boxing, I’m delighted with how my mind and body are being challenged and in the rapid improvement I’ve seen.

I attribute my success to three things: First, this 50 year old body can do much more than I knew. God has created muscles that respond to work, and I’ve been amazed at how “fearfully and wonderfully made” our bodies really are.

Second, I know that I wouldn’t have this momentum, wouldn’t have improved so quickly, if I hadn’t jumped into this full force, exercising at least 5 times a week for the first month. Soldiers need boot camp. Smokers need to quit cold turkey. People are more likely to succeed when doing something really hard as opposed to just dabbling. I always made my highest grades in my toughest classes.

Third, being in classes with other people at varying fitness levels, led by excellent instructors, has helped me work harder and better than I ever would alone. It’s axiomatic. It’s Biblical. It works.