Courage 2010: The Post Behind the Post

“If one is forever cautious, can one remain a human being?”
~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Little Drummer Boy recently informed me that he is no longer afraid of Pinocchio. He received the Disney classic from G-Mo and Paw-T for his birthday last year. He got several movies as gifts, and it took us a while to get around to watching Pinocchio. LDB didn’t make it far into the story before he decided it was scary. We turned it off, put it out of sight and that was that.

Now, if you haven’t seen Pinocchio lately, let me indoctrinate you. There’s plenty for a four-year-old to find scary, and plenty to get me kicked out of the Mommy-of-the-Year running. It’s filled with all kinds of questionable activities: wooden boys coming to life, wiley fox hoodlums enticing boys away from school, child labor forced by one-toothed men, child slavery forced by seedy carnival producers, boys turning into donkeys, cigar smoking (sorry with a smile, #17), lying, ferocious ship-swallowing whales, all those tick-tocking clocks while everyone’s trying to sleep, and the word “jackass.” Yep, plenty to instill trepidation.

So, through what I can only surmise was the influence of peer pressure, LDB announced that he was no longer afraid to watch the movie. “I promise,” he said. It sounds like maybe they watched the movie in his preschool class or read the book, and during that process of comraderie, he overcame his fear of growing donkey ears. That’s how it is with Little Drummer Boy. When confronted with a new and somewhat scary situation, his preference is to wait until he’s suddenly ready–until he grows more or forgets more or learns more, until he can partake effortlessly of the thing he can no longer remember frightened him. He just waits for the experience to sneak up on him.

Squiggle Bug is different. I’m not actually sure Bug’s ever been afraid of anything, which makes ME lose a lot of sleep. He’s apt to put his whole tiny being into whatever presents itself, and caution has never been a barrier for him in making the experience completely his own. When we’re watching Pinocchio, there are a few parts that cause him concern, but they are often overcome by his desire to dance during the musical numbers that surround them. He might get up from his chair and run to the edge of the hallway, peeking around to see the upcoming scary scene from a safer distance. Or, he may run over and sit right next to me in anticipation of a frightening moment. He always continues watching, though. And, he’s somehow always able to overlook those troublesome scenes in favor of choreographing his dance moves for the next song. It’s courage, I tell you. And, I have a lot to learn.

There’s never been a time in this world when courage was needed more than today. It seems like more humans are in hunger than ever before. More in slavery. More in despair of governments and poverty and disease and court decisions. Yes, adequate courage is indeed wanted in nation building, but I’m realizing that just as profound a courage is wanted in basic human living. Can I really maintain myself as a human BEING if I am forever cautious about the being part? Of all the battlefields requiring valor in this day, perhaps the one most insistent is the battlefield of the ordinary, the daily living of life–living connected and engaged with all that such a life entails. That battlefield is the one where I’m required to BE the human being I am, staking claim to each moment with the courage to live it fully, and rescuing real, meaningful life from the abyss of complacency. No, there’s never been a time in MY life when courage was needed more. And, when I come to the end of it, I want to know that I’ve partaken of that courage and built that sustainable life beyond mere existence.

That’s the crux of my 2010 theme word pursuit. I started it with a quick Tuesday 25 last week, and the concept is in dire need of elaboration in the form of a post that’s been staring me in the face, unflinching, for several months now. Courage. I want to find it, to maintain it, to live by it in this one life with which I’m blessed. I want to apply it where the voids of hunger and hope for something more need filling. I want to adopt it where the constraints of routine need more freedom. I want to employ it where the chills of exposure need more covering. I want to speak with it where silence needs more breaking.

Yes, I have a lot to learn. From Little Drummer Boy. From Bug. From Pinocchio. I don’t want to spend my life waiting for the experience to sneak up on me at a time when I might be prepared to live it. To live a life unbounded requires courage–the courage to sit through the hard parts, to stand through them, to raise a fist at them, to grab someone’s hand through them, to run and hide from them, but to come back, to sneak a peek at them, to ask questions about them, to choreograph them and dance around them. I want to have the sheer audacity to move beyond existence. I want courage.

A Boy and His Transformer

I bought my first Christmas gift in October — two, actually.

I’m not one of those early shoppers, but these two were necessary somehow. Little Drummer Boy and I were in Wal-mart looking for a meager prize befitting a 4-year-old in reward for something or another. As we rounded the corner of the car section, there it was. The Transformer Aisle. I tried my best to escape it, but LDB was mesmerized. Disney World has nothing on the Transformer Aisle in the eyes of a 4-year-old boy , at least not this particular boy.

Among the multitude of Transformer options, I was amazed at how many LDB recognized and how much he knew about them. I must admit that my only frame of reference for Transformers is the big boy underwear LDB loves and the need to turn OFF the Super Bowl last February as a result of LDB seeing one of the movie’s advertising spots. Needless to say, that particular reference was a little unimpressive. But, apparently one of his preschool friends is the consummate authority on Transformers and had been kind enough to share that knowledge with my little guy. J’s tidbits of information and Quiver’s modern-day version of “more than meets the eye” were all the requirements for a full-fledged Transformer love. Apparently.

As it turned out, 12″ versions of the robots complete with sounds and movement and eyes that light up all blue and menacing when you push the buttons were conveniently located on the bottom shelf of Transformer Aisle. Thank you, Wal-mart and your mass marketing machine. The toys had Mommy red flags all over them–mean voices, weapons of mass destruction, weapons of any kind, scary sounds. But, Little Drummer Boy was enamored. I let him know that they were too expensive for the “prize” we really came for and that I would think about them for Christmas. That’s all it took.

There were two transformers I vetoed right off the bat. They were all black with even weirder names and only mean monster-like sounds. I just couldn’t do it. But, I was more open to the other two. I guess Little Drummer Boy could tell because he began his sell pitch: “Please! Can we please, please get it for Christmas?” “They only kill bad guys.” “I won’t push the buttons.”– all very transparent attempts to comply with Mommy’s toy idiosyncrasies, while letting me know how much his heart was set on Transformers. I knew right away that this was a desire from which he would not be distracted. Time and distance from the Transformer Aisle would not squelch his memory or longing for these particular 12″ varieties.

It was the first toy Little Drummer Boy had ever really, really wanted–at least wanted for more than the ten minutes he was faced with the experience of being enticed by it. It was the first time it had actually registered in his mind that he would be getting presents for Christmas. We left the store with his hopes firmly in tact and my delimna brewing. LDB wanted something and I had the power to give it to him. Was there really anything else I needed to know?

Don’t you wish that’s how it always worked? Somebody wants something, and they have the audacity to ask for it, to actually articulate that desire, that need. I think the world might be a very different place if that’s how it most often happened. Unfortunately, it’s a little unusual for people in this world–the ones in my house, the ones in line at my Wal-mart, the ones in my InBox and in my neighborhood. It’s sadly unusual for folks to exercise the courage to say what they really want, what they really need. But, the reality is that hearts’ desires are often common between us at our most basic. It’s simply up to me to pay attention sometimes.

I’ve been thinking about gifts lately, it being the Christmas season and all. More specifically, I’ve been thinking about the far-reaching impact of gifts given inspite of yourself and the responsibility borne by those who are gifted, which we all are. We all have a sphere of influence at our disposal. The question is whether we are willing to engage it. We all have the power to give the gifts people we know (and those we don’t) really want. Mercy, freedom, shamelessness, forgiveness, absolution, courage, time, words, affirmation, attention, kindness, love. They are gifts relatively easy to give, if I don’t mind giving myself.

The gift of myself is the most natural one of all, but so often like those Transformers, I must do it inspite of myself, inspite of my own idiosyncrasies, my own self-absorption, my own hang-ups and hot-button issues, my own needs. I’m learning slowly but surely that it can be done. If I’m willing.

Back to October. Little Drummer Boy’s questions and hopes remained alive. He must have asked me fifty times a day, every day: “Can we just go LOOK at the Transformers?” “After tomorrow will it be Christmas?” “Can I please get those Transformers for Christmas?” The next week I went to Wal-mart on my lunch hour to buy my first Christmas presents. A twelve inch wing-spreading, trash-talking “Optimus Prime” AND a yellow bad-to-the bone “Bumblebee” Transformer. Wrapped in plastic bags, they found a place on the top shelf of our storage closet.

Fast forward to Friday, Christmas Day. I love the moment of truth on Christmas morning when my gifts get to see all the presents I’ve chosen for them and through much love (and a little frustration) unpackaged and carefully arranged for their wonder. When Little Drummer Boy rounded the corner of the couch and saw his particular stack, the shiny, red bicycle was completely lost as his smiling expression mouthed, “the Transformers.” He just turned around and looked at me. Then, before even approaching the gifts, he stopped to give me a hug and say “I love you, Mommy.” He hasn’t stopped pushing the buttons and banging their heads together since.

Yep, I caved. To mass marketing, to total boy-dom, to overpriced merchandise, to fighting robots, to epic battles and impending doom.  I completely gave myself to the innocent attempts to comply with cease-fires, to the sweet smile and “I love you, Mommy”… to a boy and his Transformers. And, it was worth it. Giving gifts inspite of yourself almost always is.

11th Day of Thanksgiving: The Ugly Word

As I’ve been thinking through a summary of this year’s Thanksgiving experiment, I’ve realized that thoughts have not come as easily as they did in the 2008 rendition. Some years are just like that. Some days. Last year, my mind was hopping with post ideas. I was still high on the joy of a new Baby Girl, and one day’s post produced a whole list of other ideas for the next. This year, thanksgiving thoughts have not come as freely. The process has been a little more labored, and it’s required more discipline to fulfill my commitment of posting on twelve consecutive days.

Discipline. What an ugly word. It implies actual work, actual intention, actual effort, actual choice.

It’s so easy to think about giving thanks in terms of circumstances. And circumstances can be challenging. This year has been hard for our family. In some ways it carries a sense of loss. And loss does not readily co-exist with gratitude.

In February, my father (Paw-T) suffered a fairly severe stroke. As severe strokes go, it happened in the best way possible, and he has been recovering nicely. Still, it represented the loss of some skills, the loss of a carefree way of life, the loss of comfort, the loss of the familiar, and I suppose the loss of my last “fragments of childhood” as I wrote at the time.

This summer, for finanical reasons, Quiver decided to close down the small landscape design business he’s had for the last four years. The challenge of finding a job to use his incredible design and construction skills has been difficult in these times, and he has been so diligent and humble in the process. Still, it represented the loss of his dream (at least temporarily), the loss of his control over a very full “Daddy” schedule, and I suppose the loss of some confidence in his own decisions.

With the weight of loss, how can I find a way to be grateful?

As I’ve forced myself to look at that question in black and white as opposed to in the hazy abstract of my mind, I realize it’s shamefully easy. For, these things are true:

The loss is not as great as some have experienced this year.

Dad can walk. Dad can speak. Dad can think. My parents can spend the night with us and keep their grandchildren on a day like today. They can travel with us to the zoo. They can laugh. We can visit the farm and enjoy it’s carefree experiences. We have them.

Quiver has work. He can play despite the stress. He can give baths at night and read stories. We have a home we enjoy. Our gifts are vibrant. They are healthy and growing–laughing and singing and dancing. We are here. We are alive. We are together.

We are blessed. And to recognize blessing is perhaps the most treasured of disciplines. Yes, there’s that ugly word again. As I sum up these 12 Days, I’m not at the same uninhibited place of joy I was last year. But, I AM at a place of joy–once again at a deeper, more tested and, therefore, richer place of joy. And I find it’s very natural to say “thank you”– to God, to one another, to new friends, to old ones, even to loss. The lesson of these 12 Days:

A thankful heart is a discipline that can flourish independent of circumstances.

1st Day of Thanksgiving: A Thread of Joy

“O come. Let us sing for joy to the Lord. Let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving. Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms.” (psalm 95:1-2)

A year ago I began my first 12 Days of Thanksgiving quest with this same verse–with the phrase “come before His presence with thanksgiving.” In looking back at the writings from that time, I saw a consistent thread through the posts. It was a thread seeking to assuage doubt and fear in troubled times, to embrace trust in God anew and more fully. And, the gateway I found to do that was thanksgiving. This year, as I’m beginning the same 12-day adventure, I looked more closely at the entire verse and found an echo of where my heart has been of late. It’s funny how that works.

While the last year’s reading of this verse found a connection between trust and thanksgiving, I’m wondering if 2009 will show a thread of connection between joy and thanksgiving. This past year has been one of many changes for our family, and I’ve noticed a greater emphasis in my inner workings on life beyond just living. It’s possible to survive a life of just existing, of just getting by, of floating through experiences from one crisis mode to the next. But, survival isn’t really the same as living. As I’ve been seeking to pay closer attention and to make conscious choices about how my time, energy and love are spent, I’ve realized that one of the greatest blessings our Creator has giving his children is the opportunity to live a life of joy. Throughout the Bible, we are reminded that God is not a half-way being. His work doesn’t center on just enough. His love and grace and blessings are lavished, not simply doled out on an as-needed basis. Yes, they usually seem to come just when we need them, but I’ve found they are rarely limited to just squeaking by.

I don’t know where these next 12 Days will take me, and I don’t want to presuppose. But, when I read the verses above, I can’t help but see a thread of joy, the fibers of which are thanksgiving. From the looks of things, it seems that thanksgiving offers (once again) a passageway for all kinds of singing and shouting as we follow it into the presence of Providence and behold the depth of who He is. Joy.

I begin this year’s 12 Days of Thanksgiving with another prayer, similar to where I’ve started before. It seems like a good place:

1. I repent of a complaining and murmuring spirit, and ask God’s forgiveness for taking His character and blessings for granted.

2. I ask God to open my eyes to His goodness that is evident in my life, His faithfulness, His love and mercy.

3. I choose to thank Him for what He shows me. I thank Him for His works. I thank Him for His character.

4. I ask that this Thanksgiving season be one of experiencing the life of greater joy His word describes as I give credit where credit is due. Let me shout joyfully this season.

Gift Tag: Sing!

It’s hard to muster up a song sometimes. The tiredness of the day, the busyness of the schedule and the frustration of the combination sometimes just sucks the song right out of me. Then, I hear the simple, sweetly spoken request. “Sing!”

Our nightly bedtime ritual includes a beloved lullaby CD that I made for Little Drummer Boy and Bug from iTunes downloads several years ago. The CD is worn and the sound is crackly from use. The songs are so familiar that any time we hear them on the radio, a chorus of “our bedtime song!” follows in unison. Each night as each boy takes his turn reading with Mommy, then climbing in bed, I cover them with blankets, rub their backs and start the music. Invariably on the weariest nights, the nights when supper was late on the table and baths took longer than expected, the ones when I’ve been the most impatient or the most haggard, I hear it. “Sing!”

It’s hard for an impatient heart to sing a song of peace. It’s hard for a hurried heart to sing a song of rest. It’s hard for a heart screaming with a million and one distractions to sing a quiet song. Still, in this heart of indulgence toward my precious gifts, I try. I sing. “Come to Jesus. Come to Jesus. And live.”

Something happens when I ignore the resistance amid yawns. When I lay aside the fatigue and the irritability and offer the frequently off-key and misregistered melody of “yes” to my little ones, I find that my heart actually opens to believing the lyrics anew, to embracing the words I impart. And in my spirit, I say “yes.” I sing.

Sometimes God allows me a special blessing akin to the one He enjoys from His children. Every now and then my gifts sing along–their minds following and anticipating, but only able to release the last words of each line. Often the only word they sing clearly is “Jesus.” Their tender hearts, unstained by cynicism and self-consciousness, sing out to Him. Ever open, all that they are calls out to all that they know of Him. In that moment, unhidden, it’s His name. In song.

And in that moment, opened by their openness, I find that I sing. Broken down and revealed, in desperate restlessness, pronouncing peace, I sing. To these gifts. To this God of all seasons, of all days. And, all that I can know of my heart calls out to all that I recognize of Him–summarized. In His name.

I sing.

Untitled Hymn by Chris Rice (our personal favorite)

Weak and wounded sinner
Lost and left to die
O, raise your head, for love is passing by
Come to Jesus
Come to Jesus
Come to Jesus and live!

Now your burden’s lifted
And carried far away
And precious blood has washed away the stain, so
Sing to Jesus
Sing to Jesus
Sing to Jesus and live!

And like a newborn baby
Don’t be afraid to crawl
And remember when you walk
Sometimes we fall…so
Fall on Jesus
Fall on Jesus
Fall on Jesus and live!

Sometimes the way is lonely
And steep and filled with pain
So if your sky is dark and pours the rain, then
Cry to Jesus
Cry to Jesus
Cry to Jesus and live!

O, and when the love spills over
And music fills the night
And when you can’t contain your joy inside, then
Dance for Jesus
Dance for Jesus
Dance for Jesus and live!

And with your final heartbeat
Kiss the world goodbye
Then go in peace, and laugh on Glory’s side, and
Fly to Jesus
Fly to Jesus
Fly to Jesus and live!

Gift Tags are the tiny messages God continues to include with our gifts — 2 little joys of boys and 1 little jewel of a girl, each with open eyes, open ears, open hearts, and much to teach. “Behold children are a gift of the Lord…” (psalm 127:1)