Gift Tag: Lessons in Recklessness

July 9th, 2008

I was sitting on the floor of the living room–not necessarily an easy task at the moment with a 7-months pregnant belly out to there–and 18 months of pure squiggle (a squeal-fueled giggle) energy were coming at me full steam.  

Running at maximum toddler capacity, my little guy flung himself into my arms with a resounding super squeal.  I gave him a little squeeze, a big “I love you,” and a few cheek nibbles as the various oversized wooden screws in his hands made contact with eyeglasses, ears, nose, etc.  Then, it was full steam back to the wall at the other side of the room to start again.

We repeated the process more times than I can count, with my little guy alternating between Mommy and a left detour to give Daddy a turn.

Full steam.  Turbo drive.  Volume 10.
That’s how my little 18-month-old gift does everything.  He’s on a personal mission to prove that no matter what you do, you can have more fun and be more successful at it if you are also squiggling at the top of your lungs!

Despite the household craziness his approach sometimes creates, I often find myself just soaking it up.  He’s reckless, giving himself completely over to whatever he’s feeling at the moment–whether it’s the trying times of hurt feelings, frustration that a toy won’t work right and disappointment at hearing “no” or the joyful times of shouting newly-learned words, a full speed, fully squiggled chase with brother and the ever-popular hug episodes described above.  There’s no doubt that whatever it is, he’s completely abandoned himself to it.

It want to cultivate that caliber of freedom, to act without hesitation when I feel strongly about something.  Or, to elevate the mundane to that level of love, joy and excitement.  I can imagine it most powerfully chrystalized in that moment of an 18-month-old flinging himself into Mommy’s arms.  No reservations.  No holding back.  No fear.  Just pure joy and pure love. 

It reminds me of another love:
“In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our sin, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us.”  (Ephesians 1:7-8)

Can I be the one to fling myself without fear into the Father’s arms and bathe in His lavish love and grace?

Can I open up my arms and receive the one in need, ready to give His lavish love and grace in human form?

I hope so.

 

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

“Increased Religious Security”

June 25th, 2008

Cultural Context:  The explanation given in a FoxNews.com article by C. Welton Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance, for some of the findings about Americans and Religion from a Pew Forum study surveying 35,000 adults.  The results of the study were recently released. The quote:

“It shows increased religious security.  People are comfortable with other traditions even if they’re different.  It indicates a level of humility about religion that would be of great benefit to everyone.”

Really?  Hmmm…

What does it mean to be secure?  
My dictionary widget tells me that “secure” means 

  • fixed or fastened so as not to give way, become loose or be lost
  • not subject to threat, certain to remain or continue safe and unharmed
  • protected against attack
  • safe, stable and free from fear or anxiety
  • certain to achieve

When I read the article highlighting some of the Pew findings, the word “security“  as revealed in these definitions did not spring to mind.  In fact, my first thought was “all over the map.”  Reading the article was a study in contradictions.  Looking at some of the actual statistics, there seems to be no mistaking the rampant confusion that exists with Americans regarding their own professed religious “beliefs”.  We have become a belief-addicted culture ready to accept anything because the act of “believing” is the answer.  Just believe.  The object of belief apparently doesn’t factor in. 

Some of the statistics:

70% of those with a religious affiliation said there was more than one way to gain eternal life (even when that belief was contrary to their own professed religion’s teachings).  This percentage includes 57% of evangelical christians, 83% of protestants, 79% of catholics, 82% of Jews and 56% of Muslims.

Don’t even bother picking a “way” because they all lead to the same place.  Don’t bother learning what your own religion believes.  You don’t have to believe to believe.  Just believe.

92% of those studied professed belief in God.  But 1 in 4 also express doubts about His existence.
21% of professed athiests said they actually believed in God - 8% are “absolutely certain” of it

Not believing just doesn’t measure up to believing.  Make no mistake, it takes just as much faith to believe there isn’t a God as it does to believe there is one.  For sure, almost the same percentages in both camps have achieved the same level of confusion about the issue.  Oh, who needs that kind of scrutiny?  It doesn’t matter if you jump around from one belief to another.  Just believe.

44% of those with religious affiliations felt their religion should preserve its traditional beliefs and practices, but many believe in multiple interpretations of their religion’s teachings.

Keep the old ones, interpret new ones?  It doesn’t matter.  Just believe.

 

D. Michael Lindsay (of Rice University) offered a very astute evaluation of the report:

“The survey shows religion in America is indeed, 3000 miles wide and only three inches deep.”

Not exactly the picture of stability.  At three inches, we have no roots, no foundation.  Without a full depth of truth, we have no hope to withstand being “tossed about by every wind and wave” (ephesians 4:14) and the rudderless doubt that inevitably ensues.

It seems that Mr. Gaddy’s coveted “humility about religion” really translates as a meandering lack of commitment.  In our culture, commitment has now been deemed intolerance, and a lack of commitment has been transformed into a virtue.  This mentality grossly underestimates the God-given mental capacities of human beings and completely negates the political ideals we so stringently seek to uphold.  To imply that non-commitment is the only viable option in maintaining “tolerance” is preposterous.  To assume that a person can’t whole-heartedly disagree with another’s beliefs without persecuting him is a complete injustice to “freedom” of religion.

When, in our culture, did it become questionable to stake yourself, your words, your money, your free time — your life on something you believe and stick to it?  

Alexander Hamilton said “Those who stand for nothing fall for anything.”
Hook. Line. Sinker.

ABCs

W is for Whole

October 28th, 2008

A whole defies mathematics.  It adds up to so much greater than two halves, especially in hearts.  Just the added “w” makes it the opposite of hole.  Where a whole is given, there can be none of the empty void of hole.  A whole is full and complete–the thing in its entirety.  A whole lends importance to anything it touches.  I should do, see, love with my whole, or not at all.

S is for Squiggles

July 16th, 2008

Squiggles are squeal-fueled giggles–the language of toddlers who haven’t quite learned the words.  Some sneak out, burst, or even explode.  They have an uncanny power to multiply without effort.  They are joy that needs no articulation

C is for Cobwebs

May 15th, 2008

Cobwebs are what creep up in corners when you’re not paying attention.  A moment of shame. A mistake. Something you can’t remember or can’t forget.  They are sticky and catch things that brush against them by accident.  It helps to sweep out your cobwebs.

Eye Candy

October

November 2nd, 2008

I Was Born.

October 28th, 2008
CultureSpeak

“Unspeakable”

August 15th, 2008

Cultural Context: The word used by Peter Geren, secretary of the U.S. Army to describe the sights seen by Private James Hoyt on April 11, 1945 when he was one of four American soldiers to discover the Buchenwald German concentration camp.  Mr. Hoyt died on Monday, August 11 and was the last surviving member of the four man team.

“Unspeakable” was right, for the CNN news account/tribute to Mr. Hoyt’s heroism indicated that he had kept his involvement in the liberation secret from many he knew for much of his life.  The story indicates that Mr. Hoyt still suffered nightmares and attended post-traumatic stress disorder support meetings for veterans 63 years after his experience.  Mr. Hoyt had begun to share his memories with author Stephen Bloom.

From the article:

“It’s important that we don’t allow ourselves to lose him,” Geren told CNN by phone. “It’s the memory of heroes like James Hoyt and the memories of what they’ve done that we must ensure that we keep alive and share with the current generation and future generations.”

Captain Fredrick Keffer, commander of the small mission to locate Buchenwald later wrote:

“Memories of evil get erased, for life must go on, and new generations cannot be locked in the past. But they would do well to remember the past.”

It was interesting to me that when army files about the liberation were located, Mr. Hoyt, who was a veteran of the Battle of the Bulge and the recipient of the Bronze Star, had been asked to account for his greatest achievement.  He listed his accomplishment as the 1939 Johnson County Iowa Spelling Bee champion.  The word he spelled to win, ironically was “archive.”  As his story, his sights are now archived, I’m confronted by our need to speak the unspeakable.

We don’t want to.  We want to “lose” the memories, to push them away, to look away from ourselves and the realities of who humans are.  But, history shows us–today’s media shows us–that there is no depth to the unspeakable that man can and will perpetrate on man.  God tells us through the prophet Jeremiah that the human heart is “more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?” (jeremiah 17:9)

I have always been fascinated by history and mystified by the surreal circumstances of the Jewish Holocaust of World War II.  The accounts are overwhelming in their depravity.  But, they are not unlike countless other situations in the history of our world.  And, it is not easy to point a finger and single out perpetrators over there somewhere in the great category of “someone else”–not when you see the seemingly endless reports of bizarre and cruel crimes that grace the rotating “featured stories” of today’s news.  For all the writing and teaching on our race’s “evolution” toward the best of ourselves, we remain depraved.  And, if “evolution” is man’s way, a chance betterment of our species, then we are doomed to depravity.  For, survival of the fittest inevitably means the destruction of the weaker.  Even the rules of the theory of evolution don’t allow for the possibility that our deceitful and sick hearts can be made truthful, healed, compassionate toward one another.

Beyond the hopelessness of our own evolution, there is a cosmic intervention available.  It’s not by chance.  It’s not accidental.  It’s a desire by a Creator God to take his beloved handiwork back to the communion of Eden.  It’s the new ancient reality that all is not lost, and we can change.  We can BE CHANGED.

“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.  And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes… so you will be My people, and I will be your God.” (ezekiel 36:26-28)

Eye Opening Quotes

Curveball

November 1st, 2008

“November resembles a curveball.  Just when you think you know where the ball will go over the plate it shifts on you and you’re swinging wind.”

~ Outfoxed by Rita Mae Brown

Ornament

October 5th, 2008

“When Eve was brought unto Adam, he became filled with the Holy Spirit, and gave her the most sanctified, the most glorious of appelations.  He called her Eva, that is to say, the Mother of All.  He did not style her wife, but simply mother,–mother of all living creatures.  In this consists the glory and the most precious ornament of a woman.”

~ Martin Luther

steady

August 14th, 2008

“troubles they may come and go
but good times, they’re the gold
if the road gets rocky, girl
just steady as we go” 

~ Dave Matthews
“Steady As We Go”

Word Pictures

The Vendors

August 21st, 2008

as I come from the train, they all appear
offering their wares to see and buy:
a cup of hurry, a bag of fear,
a handful of nothings, a schedule to apply.

I stand at their carts distracted and drawn
from my chosen route to the vendor’s stand
I spend all I have on what is shown
and go my way with my nothings in hand.

along the path there’s a merchant I meet.
a craftsman, he too has items to sell:
a coat made of love, jewels of peace,
shoes full of wisdom, treasures avail.

I stand at the treasures, empty, unkept.
I long to buy, but I’ve nothing to spend.
I stopped at the vendors, and all that is left
is a fist full of nothings piercing my hand.

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