Of Refugees and Christian Duties
Last week, I posted a reflection on the Syrian refugee crisis. It quickly became on of my most shared pieces--as well as one of my most controversial. To be honest, this surprised me; but it also reminded me of the importance of healthy dialogue. In that vein, I've asked my friend, Eve Marie Barner Gleason to offer perspective on how Christians must navigate the calling to be faithful citizens of their earthly countries and as well as citizens of Heaven.
As a director with Care Net, a network of crisis pregnancy centers offering alternatives to abortion, Eve faces this dilemma everyday--how do we promote Christian values within the framework of a highly bureaucratic and often, less than transparent, government? How can we tackle tough questions without resorting to either pragmatism or sentimentality? How do we pursue truly Christian solutions in both policy and practice?
If you are like me, the Syrian refugee crisis has dominated your news feed. In the days since the Paris bombings, I’ve actually learned a lot through the debate on blogs, social media and between friends. But these debates haven’t impacted me as deeply as the stories of people suffering in a region torn apart by war: 200,000 killed, roughly 11 million displaced, 60 percent of the population unemployed.
The arguments themselves can be overwhelming. Here is a brief summary of comments from my news feed alone (I offer these as examples of the debate; I haven’t independently verified all the statements cited as facts in these comments):
Christians should be as wise as serpents and as harmless as doves. Just because we care about displaced Syrians, doesn’t mean we should bring them all here. Wouldn’t refugees be better off nearer their homeland than adjusting to a new culture after such trauma? Maybe we should try to make them a safe space in the Middle East.
Jesus would welcome displaced people, so Christians should be filled with compassion and even willing to risk our own comfort and safety to love and share Christ with those who are suffering. Anything else is selfish and xenophobic. Even if some terrorists slipped through, shouldn’t we trust God’s protection instead of being fearful, cowardly, and hateful?
Refugees have committed acts of terrorism, including Bosnian immigrants charged with conspiring to fund terrorism.
Syrian refugees from the current war have not committed acts of terrorism.
Our screening process is woefully inadequate. ISIS is smart enough to train a terrorist posing as a refugee to defeat any screening measure we can come up with. And it only takes a fraction of a % to slip through screening and cause mayhem.
It already takes 2-3 years to enter the U.S. as a legal refugee. The process includes a background check and detailed personal interviews. In fact, the screening may be too strict, leaving refugees languishing in squalid camps vulnerable to the influence of terrorist recruiters. Besides, terrorists have easier ways to get to the US: across our southern border or with a student or tourist visa.
Since January, only 30 (1.6 percent of) Syrians who arrived on American were Christian, compared to 1,833 Muslims (97.8 percent).
Christians only make up 10% of the population in Syria. Very few now live in ISIS controlled areas of Syria because if they didn’t leave, they have likely been killed or enslaved already. This makes it hard to know how many Christians are even applying for refugee status.
We should prevent Muslims entering this country as refugees. Islamic faith condones violence and atrocities so we can never trust them.
We should welcome Muslim refugees. Because they are fleeing horrific violence and atrocities being committed in the name of Islam, they understand the evils of extremism more than anyone.
ISIS wants us to take in refugees so there will be more Muslims, who even if they aren’t terrorists, will eventually be loyal to an established Islamic state and caliphate.
ISIS wants us to refuse to take in refugees so they can show the world how selfish and inhospitable we are, and so they can continue to rape, torture, and kill them.
And then there are pictures: A boy washed up on a beach, a bloodied grandfather, bombed out homes, grieving widows and widowers, children sleeping on the ground, orphans trying to protect their younger siblings.
How do Christians process so much suffering? How should American Christians think about displaced people and how many we should allow into our country? Long ago, St. Augustine spoke of believers as having dual citizenship in the city of God and our earthly countries. So, how should our roles as both citizens of heaven and citizens of the United States inform this issue?
Our Duties as American Citizens
American citizens are in a unique position. Not only will the leaders we elect make decisions about how many refugees to accept, from where, and with what restrictions, we can also influence our elected representatives through letters, phone calls, and social media.
Citizens in many countries have no duty except obedience (or civil disobedience if asked to violate their conscience). But it is our duty and privilege as American citizens to think deeply about public policy issues and to pray for and seek to influence those who make policy decisions.
On the complex issues surrounding refugee resettlement, it is important to remember that government does have a responsibility to protect the country. Romans 13:4 refers to civil authorities as God’s servants for the purpose of punishing evildoers. Citizens and leaders alike are called to be just and impartial by Scripture (Leviticus 19:15; Jeremiah 22:11-17; Deuteronomy 16:18-20).
Each elected official in the United Sates takes an oath of allegiance that includes a promise to “support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Because the duties of rulers involve justice, wisdom, and restraining evil, it is entirely appropriate for Christian citizens, policy makers, and Christian citizens who are also policy makers, to carefully examine the conditions under which refugees are resettled in the U.S., to identify where security vulnerabilities may exist, and whether the risks of resettling certain people within our borders are acceptable related to the intended outcome of justice and compassion.
Our Duties as followers of Jesus Christ
What about those Christians who are not policy makers (which is most of us)? We may not have a particularly large say in the resettlement of refugees from Syria or elsewhere. But that doesn’t mean we don’t still have clear duties and privileges: to love our neighbor, to speak up for the defenseless, the foreigner, the stranger in our midst.
“Love your neighbor as yourself...” (Luke 12:33)
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven . . .If you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:43-48)
“For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing. And you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt.” (Deuteronomy 10:17-19)
We remember that Jesus was a refugee in Egypt as his parents fled from Herod’s slaughter of innocents. So, we love our neighbor: our immigrant neighbor, our Muslim neighbor, our refugee neighbor, our unborn neighbor, our unpopular neighbor. And, yes, even those who hate us and would do us harm.
Such love must be intensely practical. We must start by praying for displaced Syrian people, but we must not stop there. We may post opinions about the refugee crisis, but opinions aren’t life-transforming love.
How do we love? If you have a refugee or an immigrant in your community, welcome them with respect and kindness, rather than suspicion or judgement. Listen to their stories, offer a meal or a cup of tea, or invite them to a community gathering.
And if you have been moved by the stories and pictures of those caught up in what has been called the “greatest ongoing humanitarian crisis”, resolve to show Christ’s love, whether from near or far. One way to help is to give as generously as you can to organizations who are already helping in Jesus’ name, such as Operation Mobilization, World Vision, or Samaritan’s Purse.
Together with her husband, Ryan, and their dog, Coco, Eve makes her home in Loudoun County, VA. She serves as Director of Center Best Practices at Care Net. Eve and Ryan seek to grow in grace in fellowship with other believers and service to their community. Eve would also like to thank Ashley Trim for her skillful editing of this post.
Summer Daze
Chalk it up to the latent truancy that exists in parent and child alike, but I've been less than motivated these last few weeks. From the middle of May onward, I found myself slogging through the final projects, class picnics, and end-of-school year programs. I bought the ice cream, clapped for the perfect attendance awards, and sniffled through fifth-grade graduation. When the last bell rang, my kids weren't the only ones ready to be done.
No more lunches to pack...
No more homework to muddle through...
No more waking up in the middle of the night to remember what I forgot...
At least for the next 104 days or so.
I grew up in a teacher's home; in fact, it was a two-teacher home. Both my mother and father spent their days schooling future generations in the finer points of history and science. For our family, life existed in discreet increments of 9 weeks that gradually worked their way toward the ultimate goal of summer vacation. Dad often had to take odd jobs during his months off to make ends meet, but occasionally, every so often, there was a glorious summer when we had enough. He could stay with us, tend his garden, putter in his orchard, and simply enjoy working at home.
Of course, we still had responsibilities, even as children; but there was something marked about the sense of freedom we felt when school wrapped up. Instead of lesson planning and testing and grade books, our days were filled with berry picking, camping, ice cream, and lounging on the couch watching cartoons. We might go on vacation or travel to see relatives, but the joy of summer was directly tied to the fact that we didn't HAVE TO. Dewy June mornings evaporated into hot July afternoons which eventually gave way to the muggy nights of August. And all of them blissfully unscheduled.
At least, that's how I remember it.
Later in life, I learned that this wasn't exactly the norm. My sense of extended vacation was, in many ways, the result of both my childhood naivete and my parents unusual work schedules. Most of my friends didn't experience summer the way I did, especially if both their parents worked and they ended up at grandma's or in multiple sessions of day camp topped off with nightly VBS. In many ways, our family lived in a world apart, moving to our own rhythms, resisting outside forces. We did participate in church activities, offering up our service at Bible school or youth group camping trips, but for the most part, my parents felt no need to live their lives the way everyone else did.
For me, this meant that I carried some interesting expectations into adulthood, particularly that the world should slow down during the months of June, July, and August. In these times, you'd need only do the bare minimum outside your home. Certainly you must work. Those afternoons in front of the television often included snapping green beans, but somehow it was different. We were working for ourselves. We were investing in our own home and family. We weren't obligated to anyone else.
Eighteen summers of this will shape a person. So that even today, my heart seems to skip a few beats faster when June rolls around. June means freedom. June means family.
At dinner the other night, after a discussion of loose teeth, why ice doesn't sink, and the obligatory knock-knock joke, I leaned over to my husband.
"You do realize," I said, looking conspiratorially into those brown eyes that got us here in the first place, "you do realize that we are living in a Beverly Clearly novel."
A Beverly Clearly novel set smack-dab in the middle of summer.
I tell you all this to explain where I'll be for the next few months. The last bell has rung, and I'm taking the summer off. I might pop in now and again, but don't expect to see much of me. There may be some previously scheduled posts on FB or Twitter, and I might work up the effort to record a podcast or two, but for the most part, it's going to be quiet.
Somebody's got to teach these kids how summer's done.
Lead On: Thoughts on Women, Leadership, and Motherhood
When my husband and I were first married, we fought. It wasn't too much at first. (That came later.) In the early years, we fought about simple things like whether we’d watch TV on vacation or whether he should make a sandwich on the counter. One fight, I remember, was about menus.
A few months into marriage, I'd developed the irritating habit of asking him what he wanted to eat for every meal. I simply wanted to please him and to “follow his leadership,” but one night, he’d had enough. “I don’t care,” he said. “Just make something. I don’t want to have to decide.”
Then he followed it up with this gem:
"Why are you even asking me? You’re so dependent now. It’s like you’re not even the same person you were back in college. Back then, you knew what you wanted and just did it. Now you ask me about everything.”
It was true. I so wanted my husband to be the leader of our home, and I so wanted to be a proper wife that I’d stopped making decisions without checking with him first. Even about what we were going to eat for dinner.
The question of gender and leadership is a sticky one for Christians. Recently, in response to Propel—an initiative designed to"help women internalize a leadership identity & fulfill their purpose, passion, and potential"--someone asked where conservatives fall on the question of developing women as leaders. But I’m not entirely convinced that this is a conservative or liberal question. Our applications of how and where women lead may divide us along certain fault lines, but the fact that women are made to lead isn’t up for debate. Made in God’s image, we were not made to be passive any more than He is.
We are actors. We are agents. We are makers. We are leaders.
During those first years of marriage, I also taught ESL and American Culture in the corporate ex-pat community. Even in my early twenties, I excelled in this environment—as long as I was teaching one-on-one and could leverage my natural ability to form relationships. But the minute I stepped in front of a group, I failed miserably. I simply couldn’t convince them to do what needed to be done.
Fast forward a few years when I became a mother. Like in teaching, I found that the relationship of mothering came naturally—breastfeeding, nurturing, and learning to quiet fussy infants were not difficult for me. What I struggled with was directing them as they grew older, the very same thing that had made me ineffective in a classroom. I simply didn’t know how to lead my children so I ended up parenting them by response.
I’m convinced that part of my problem was that I had never learned the power of my own influence. After all, men initiate and women respond, right? The husband sets vision and direction and the wife implements it, right? "Men are leaders; and women are followers."
Unfortunately, this paradigm left me always in a position of waiting for a command or stimulus before I could act, even in motherhood. When my children cried, I jumped. When they wanted a toy, I ran to retrieve it. When they didn’t want to eat, I gave in. It took me years to fully understand that I was the one in charge of them. It took me years to learn that I was the leader.
But once I realized it, I finally began to grow up. Once I realized it, I transformed from a girl to a woman.
So often the question of leadership is framed in terms of the differences between men and women. But what if leadership isn’t primarily about the differences between men and women but about the differences between girls and women? What if leadership means taking responsibility for those around you and utilizing your God-given gifts to help them flourish? What if leadership is something that all of us do in various places and seasons of life?
What if leadership is simply about reflecting God’s own rule?
When I began to understand the implications of imago Dei leadership, it transformed my mothering. Not only was I made in God’s image, destined to reign over His creation, but I realized that my children were destined to reign over it as well. And it was my job to prepare them for their destinies. It was my job to lead them to their destinies.
Suddenly, I was empowered. Suddenly, I had the gravitas necessary to lead. Not because of my own sense of self-importance, but because of the magnitude of the task and the certainty that I had been called to that task. I had been called to “subdue the earth and exercise dominion over it” right in my own home. I was not the one being domesticated; I was the domesticator.
Today, I still struggle to manage my home and my children—not because my heart isn’t there, but because managing a home means leading and I’m still learning how to do that. But there has been a profound shift in the way I relate to my children. I set the agenda now. I make their bedtimes; I tell them what they need to eat; I control their screen time; and through it all, I'm teaching them how to navigate the world.
Because I am a mother, I am also a leader.
4 Reasons to Blog (and 4 Reasons NOT to Blog)
This post is part of a recurring series about blogging and the art of writing. Check out more here. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Back in August, a friend on Twitter posted the following question:
Several folks offered good advice, but the question made me think about why I started blogging and what I've learned in the process. Here's a more extended answer to Abi's question:
I started blogging in July 2011. At the time, my husband and I were in a period of underemployment, using food stamps, and living in a 950 sq. ft. apartment with three young children. Not exactly the most prodigious setting to launch a writing career. Looking back, I realize that God used this time to provide direction for me. Because of financial constraints, I needed a marketable skill; this meant either returning to school for a technical degree or pursing writing. So I made a deal with God: I would commit 2 years to learning the industry and developing my skills if He would confirm that this was His leading in my life. Since then, He has. But it started with small steps of faith like setting up a blog and pushing “publish.” In fact, the process of blogging was invaluable because it gave me:
1.Accountability: Writers are notoriously unstructured and unscheduled. For all the books that people have inside of them, only a fraction of them actually make it out. (What is this “deadline” that you speak of?) I knew that if left to myself I would have a very difficult time actually pursuing writing. I would think a lot about it. I may even write up responses to other pieces. But without structure, I’d never really progress. A blog provided both an audience and accountability.
2. An Opportunity to Create an Online Portfolio: If you have a blog, publishers and editors can easily read through your work to determine if you are a good fit for their publications. It also shows them that you are a self-starter. Writing isn’t simply a pipe-dream for you; you are committed and have already invested time and effort to pursuing it. At the same time, using a blog as an online portfolio means that you’ll need to privilege quality over quantity. Not every post must be stellar, but you must remember that people will actually read your writing.
3. Practice: Blogging allowed me to explore ideas and become a better writer. When I look back at my first posts, I don’t exactly shudder, but I do have a healthy appreciation for what three years of consistent writing has done. Every post forced me to think better and to communicate more clearly. Especially when I wrote on more controversial topics. The bigger the issue, the more carefully I had to choose just the exact word or make sure I truly understood the issues at stake.
4. To Fill a Gap: Another reason I blog is because I want to promote ideas that have been neglected in the broader conversation. You only need to spend a few minutes on Sometimes A Light to know that I’m passionate about women finding their identity in God’s identity. Some of this passion comes from personal experience, but most of it comes from listening to the prevailing conversations and realizing that we’re missing a huge piece of the puzzle. Having a blog allows me to spread a truth that transforms how we speak about womanhood, discipleship, and service in the Kingdom.
At the same time… Blogging has also taught me that there are as many reasons why you SHOULDN’T blog. Among them are:
1. Insecurity: If you blog because you need to be heard, stop. Right. Now. Too many of us—writers, pastors, and counselors included—minister out of our own neediness. We need to be respected. We need to be affirmed. We need to feel like we are good people. And we use other people’s needs to solve our own. It’s true that using your gifting will bring a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction, but our gifts were never intended to fill a void that only Christ can. In fact, if you do this, you won’t be a very good writer. Or a very good person. But when Jesus fills your emptiness, you’ll find that you’re free to serve and to serve well.
2. Escapism: In many ways, blogging is an easy form of “ministry.” As messy as the internet can be, online relationships are a whole lot more manageable than those in real life. If someone annoys me, I can simply unfriend him. If someone sends me a nasty email, I can simply block her. And if someone praises me, I can return to that comment whenever I need to re-affirm my own sense of importance. Relationships in real life are a whole lot messier and a whole lot more demanding. I do not get to choose the issues that I want to address; I do not get to control the problems that come my way. I do not get to rely on praise to maintain my emotional stability. Loving a person I see day in and day out is always harder than loving someone I do not. But these “in real life” relationships are precisely how God intends to make us like Himself.
3. Anger: Do not blog to work through your past. This is what a diary or the counselor’s office is for. Certainly, our past hurts lend us insight and the ability to write more deeply about certain issues. But don’t foist your angst on your readers unless you also give them the solution. Do not infect them with your anger and discouragement unless you also offer them the freedom and joy that is found in Christ.
4. Marketing: In the last several years, the blogosphere has been dominated by “building platform” and ‘gathering your tribe.” Writers use social media and marketing tools to promote their voice and their message. I get this. I really do. If God has given you the gift of writing, you need to make certain that your message is heard. Don’t hide your light under a bushel, etc. But for too many bloggers, building tribe has become an end in itself. We start to prioritize platform or amassing a readership over serving our readers well. And in the end, everyone suffers: readers, writer, and message. Remember: If you are gifted to write, you serve your readers best when you do just that: Write.
In the end, Abi did end up starting a blog with this lovely first post: A Handful of Broken Treasure. Also, if you've been blogging for a bit and feel the weight of staying consistent, you might enjoy this group post about why some blogs tend to "go cold." It's written specifically to women bloggers but the concepts transcend gender.
Holiday at the Sea
Two Sundays ago, my husband and I packed our Honda Odyssey with clothes, food, linens, and more beach toys than necessary, loaded up our three kids, and headed off to Virginia’s Eastern Shore on vacation. Unlike other coastal areas, the Eastern Shore is relatively underpopulated, with the exception of Chincoteague, a small island (9 sq. miles small) that thrives on oysters and tourism. You may recognize it from the Misty stories by Marguerite Henry, but the broader area also includes a nature preserve (neighboring Assateague Island), NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility, lighthouses, and miles of sandy beach.
We were lucky enough to find a cottage that was not too big, not too little, not too fussy and not too minimalist. It was perfect for our family and gave us an chance to sample island life for a few days. We took plenty of nature walks (for dad), investigated local history (for mom), and found ourselves at the water nearly every day (for the kids). On our way home, we even got to swing through Washington D.C. for a night.
Still, it wasn’t all fun and games. Being the conscientious (read: fussy) mother that I am, I worried about the kids missing a week of school. There were many reasons we waited until September to go--off-season rates being high on the list--but by waiting, I had to deal with the doubt of whether this was a good academic decision. (My husband had no such qualms.) Thankfully, it quickly became apparent that the kids were learning more than they’d missed, and just to prove it, here’s a sampling of the subjects we covered:
1. Ecology: Scientists tell us that coastal erosion is a serious problem—at one point Assateague beach was eroding a full 35 feet a year. And while there are many contributing factors, mothers know that one cause is of coastal erosion is simply that beaches are being transported further inland via cars, suitcases, tennis shoes, and sleeping bags.
2. Economics: When apportioned a certain amount of spending cash, children will inevitably want a souvenir that is just beyond said budget. Parents will inevitably find a way to make up the shortfall. The US government has been operating on this same principle since its inception.
3. Psychology: In order to ease the transition back home, you must end vacation in a place outside your comfort zone—like Washington D.C. Given the serene pace of island life, 0 out of 5 people want to leave by Friday. But, if you spend at least one night inside the Beltway, studies predict that 4 out 5 people will want to go home ASAP.
4. Cosmetology: Beach hair will only ever look good at the beach. The minute you re-enter civilization, your "waves" will simply look like you haven’t washed your hair in days. The only exception is if you’re a Hollywood A-lister, in which case, your Prada dress and Jimmy Choo shoes will signal that your messy locks are intentional.
5. Sociology: Family vacation is a vacation for the family unit, not the parents. In order for the parents to relax, they will need to book a cruise. (Sooner, rather than later.)
6. Linguistics: Reading can tell you a lot, but it cannot tell you how to pronounce the name of the area you are visiting. Consequently, you will spend several months incorrectly telling people you are going to “Ch”ink-a-teague, only to realize that it is pronounced “Sh”ink-a-teague. You will discover this the day before you leave the island, and as a result, take every possible opportunity to pronounce it correctly in an act of penance.
7. Human development: Even on vacation, children need structure and naps. Five-year-old children in particular.
8. Culinary Arts: If you decide to splurge on one dinner out—say, at a restaurant overlooking the water where you can sample the ocean’s freshest offerings for an exorbitant price—do not expect your children to join in the fun. Hot dogs are on the menu for a reason.
9. Statistics: Given the opportunity to play Ticket to Ride every night, children will ask to play Ticket to Ride 99.4% of the time.
10. Penmanship: The most effective way to learn your letters and numbers is by writing them in the sand with your finger. Unfortunately for our 5yo, writing your name on something (say, the beach) does not necessarily entail ownership of it.
In a day when it’s easy to project false images of our own happiness, I hesitate to post about my family enjoying one the most idyllic vacations we’ve ever had. I don’t want you to think that life is always this beautiful for us. But this week it was. And for that, I am grateful. We came home with our heads full and our hearts fuller for the time spent together.
And now, it’s time to get back to normal.
Home, Sweet, Home
Two weeks ago, my kids headed off to school. One week later they were back home, sick with the first round of school-bourne illnesses. I got the call from the school nurse around 11:30. My eight-year-old son had a fever—slight—but just enough to send him home. By bedtime, the rest of us were beginning to show signs too. Unfortunately, it was the kind of sickness that was just bad enough to make you miserable but not bad enough to knock you out completely. The kind where you can’t muster enough energy to go about your normal routine but you’ve still got enough energy to bicker and fight. The kind that brings out the worst in you—irritability, whining, helplessness.
And that was just me.
As difficult as last week was, I found that it reminded me of the importance of home. Stripped of the externals--the housekeeping, the pinterest projects, the car pools–the purpose of home became clearer; the fundamental purpose of the home is to teach us how to live in relationship with God and with each other. Every day, as we interact with our spouses, parents, children, aunts, and cousins, we are learning the basics of how to interact with other human beings. So when my family is at our worst; when we are not loving or kind or patient; when we have “one of those” weeks, I remember exactly what I am fighting for.
In philosophy, there is a concept called “moral proximity.” Moral proximity says that we owe our greatest responsibility to those closest to us. So when the Scripture says you are to “love your neighbor as you love yourself,” it is teaching you both how to love and who to love. You are to love whom ever God has providentially placed in your life. The genius of Home is that it teaches you how to do this by putting you in close (difficult, irritating) quarters with people who are committed to loving you as well.
Because here’s the rub: Loving people close to you, loving your neighbor, is often more difficult than loving those at a distance. It is easier to love those whose quirks you don’t have to live with, whose Legos weren’t left all over the family room floor (again), who don’t take your hard work for granted. Learning to love those close to you means learning to love in the face of frustration. For my children, this means figuring out how to love their siblings who irritate them and learning to love mommy and daddy who tell them to do things they don’t like.
When the young lawyer asked “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus answered with the story of the Good Samaritan, a parable about moral proximity. In it, both the priest and the Levite fail to show true love because they fail to love the person right in front of them. But the opposite is also true. If today, we learn to love our closest neighbor, the people in our own homes, chances are we’ll be able to love another neighbor when we pass him in the road.
Trust me, our family has our share of bickering and meanness. This last week proved it. But every time I find myself refereeing, every time I get overwhelmed by the work, the sheer work of discipline and correction, I think about my kids’ futures. I remember that the boy who dismisses his mother and sister today will likely dismiss his wife some day too. The girl who pouts and whines to get her way will likely grow up to be a woman who manipulates others in her workplace and church.
But.
But children who learn to love today, children who see grace and kindness and peace modeled, children who are expected to offer grace and kindness and peace in return—these children will flourish. They will flourish because by learning to love the people closest to them they will also learn to love their neighbor as themselves. So that when they finally do fly away, when they leave the safety of home for broader society, the world be a better place because of them.
He Shall Feed His Flock
Over the last several weeks, news has trickled out of Iraq and Syria. News of persecution, of ethnic and religious cleansing, of genocide. We have responded by changing our profile pictures, offering up prayers, and petitioning our political leaders. But the news has continued. News of churches burning, of thousands starving on barren mountain tops, and then this week, of even children being beheaded.
At some point, it is simply too much.
We want to look away, to go about our business, to focus on the world that is near. We want do this--not because we don't feel the weight of what is happening there--but because we feel it too much. We are mothers and fathers, aunts and uncles, grandmothers and grandfathers, and we know that these could be our own children and our own families who are lost, thirsty, confused, and dying. In truth, they are. And when we consider this, when we let the reality of what is happening sink in, we are overwhelmed.
Our souls simply can't handle it.
So we turn away. We cook our meals, we hug our children, and we offer up prayers for our brothers and sisters. But if, for a moment, we consider it; if even for a moment we feel the weight, the unbelievable weight, of their loss, we have a chance to share in their suffering. And when we share in their suffering, we may also be comforted with them. We may be comforted by the One who promises to feed His flock, who promises to gather the lambs with His arms, who promises to gently lead those that are with young.
And truthfully, these promises are all that any of us have.
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(Disclaimer: The images in the following were collected from various media outlets and used solely for the education of my audience. The background music is from a 2008 London Philharmonic recording of G.F. Handel's Messiah.)
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Re-Post: Rest For Your Souls
(Through the process of renovating the blog, I stumbled across some favorite posts from the past. This one is from February 2013. Enjoy!)
The last several weeks have been particularly busy ones, and as a result, I’ve found myself feeling out of sorts, irritable, and generally put upon. You know the what I mean: when every “Mommy, can you help me….” feels like an obligation instead of a privilege; when each new opportunity weighs on you instead of energizing you; when you reach the end of your endurance and just want people to stop asking anything of you.
The last several weeks have been perfect for nurturing a martyr’s complex.
Truthfully, it’s my own fault. As careful as I am to protect my husband’s schedule and ensure that he takes time away from his pastorate, I’m not as careful to protect my own. So that when we have several busy weeks like the ones we’ve had recently, I often feel a martyr’s complex creeping up; and more often than not, it’s directly related to the fact that I haven’t taken time to rest.
If you know me, you will know that I am by no means a perfectionist. (If you don’t know me, one unannounced visit to my house and you will quickly agree with those who do.) But despite having zero OCD tendencies, I do have a tendency to be busy all the time. I have a hard time saying no, a hard time winding down, and a hard time truly resting. Multi-tasking is a virtue, right?
Over the years, I’ve had to admit that this inability to stop is a weakness and have had to commit tocultivating quiet space in my life. I’ve had to learn that rest is an act of faith and accept that I can stop working precisely because I believe that God will work for me. What I hadn’t understood until recently—recently being just this last weekend—is that rest is also an act of self-control. It’s a way exercising dominion over your own schedule and your own body precisely because you are made in God’s image.
The first time that the Scripture mentions the concept of rest is when God rested after creating nothing less than the entire universe. Most of us understand that in doing this, He wasn’t resting because He was tired, but He rested in order to model rest for us. And yet, something more was happening. By resting–by abstaining from work–God was also expressing a form of mastery, of purposefully limiting His creative power. He rested to show that He is not mastered by anything—even His own creativity.
Simply put, just because He could have done more didn’t mean He had to.
So that for us, His image bearers, resting is not only a form of trust, but it is also a way to reflect God’s own control. Resting is a way to express the freedom and power that He has given us through the gospel. Because when we actively stop, when we purposefully abstain from work, we declare that we are mastered by nothing but Him; we declare that we are no longer slaves to our baser selves. We are no longer driven our desires. We are no longer driven by our fears. We are no longer driven by the demands of those around us. Because unlike slaves, who have no control over their work or schedule, we can rest precisely because we serve only Christ Himself.
And His yoke is easy and His burden is light.
So when those feelings of helplessness, those feelings of being used, those feelings of martyrdom creep up inside you, you must not push them aside and soldier on. Instead you must take the opportunity to evaluate whether or not you have subjected yourself to something other than His kingship. Whether or not you have become enslaved to something or someone other than Christ Himself.
Because more often than not, this is precisely what we do and it is precisely why we don’t rest like we should. Often we don’t rest because we are driven by other people’s expectations or our own sense of perfectionism; and when we are, even our good works can become a form of slavery–with bitterness, discouragement, and martyr’s complexes the reward for our labor.
But this is not the call of Christ.
When Christ calls, He calls us to full-humanity–to be conformed to nothing but His perfect image, to allow His nature to mold and shape our own. So that when we follow Him, He promises that our souls—just like His–will be free from the weight, free from the strain, free from the feeling of being driven like a pack-animal. Instead He will replace our spirits of fear with spirits of power and love and self-control. And in this new-found freedom, when we are no longer mastered by anything but Him, we will finally and truly find rest for our souls.
Little Golden Book of Theology
I’m entering a stage of life where my hands aren’t quite as full as they once were. Almost ten years into this adventure called “parenting,” I rarely deal with diapers and midnight feedings; but yesterday, when I watched a friend’s three-year-old and one-year-old for a bit, it all came rushing back.
The irony of small children is that they have absolutely no ability to entertain themselves and yet every ability to be destructive and bring harm to themselves. So during this season, parents learn to never look away. You learn to get down on the floor and build train tracks and play princess. You learn to put lesser things aside and grab a pile of books to read about Horton andLlama Llama and The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
Well, at least, that’s what we did yesterday. One of the books we read was the story of Tootle by Gertrude Crampton. Tootle is a young train who dreams of becoming the Flyer on the New York-Chicago line. But in order to do this, he must attend train school. He takes classes in “Not Spilling the Soup in the Diner” and “Stopping at Waving Red Flags.” But, according to the headmaster Bill, the most important class, the one that every little train must master, is “Staying On the Rails No Matter What.” Tootle must get a 100 A+ in this class.
Things are fine for a bit, but eventually the lure of the meadow is too much. Day after day, Tootle sneaks off to dance in the daisies and frolic with the butterflies. Bill becomes aware of what Tootle is doing, but instead of reprimanding him, instead of insisting on obedience, Bill makes a plan. He gathers all of the townspeople, gives each of them a red flag, and then hides them in the meadow.
Eventually Tootle comes to the meadow again to play. But as he’s enjoying himself, he suddenly sees a red flag in front of him. He stops and turns to the left. But there is another red flag. And then there is one on his right. Soon the only thing he can see are red flags. He is caught and helpless. The one law he knows to obey--the law of Always Stopping for a Red Flag—has trapped him.
But then he sees it. A green flag! A green flag means freedom. A green flag means “Go!” A green flag means race. A green flag means he can fly. Bill is standing on the tracks, waving a green flag with all his might, beckoning Tootle to come to him.
To our modern sensibilities, the moral of Tootle’s story—Stay on the Tracks No Matter What—could sound a lot like conformity. Won’t this make children feel guilty about pursuing what they love? Doesn’t this reinforce legalism? Shouldn’t we teach children to think outside the box? But the moral of Tootle isn’t quite that superficial; it isn’t about conforming to societal expectations and it isn’t about legalism. In fact, the moral of Tootle is deeply teleological; it’s rooted in who Tootle is. Tootle has to stay on the rails, not to please Bill, but because he is a train and he is destined to become a Flyer. The horse can run in the meadow. The bees can buzz around the flowers. But a train stays on the rails.
A lot of times we can believe that God’s standards are a barrier to our happiness. Like Tootle, the idea of “Staying On the Rails No Matter What” can feel unnecessarily confining. Worse still, some of us have been taught that we have to choose between making God happy and making ourselves happy. So when we do conform to His standards, they weigh heavily on us and we can begin to believe that we’re missing out. But we trudge on, committing ourselves to keeping “the rules” out of fear or self-righteousness. Some of us can’t handle that kind of pressure and eventually end up rushing off to the meadow.
But the truth is that neither of these paradigms is right. A train is not made for the meadow, but it not meant to trudge down the track either. A train is meant to fly down them with joy.
In Made for More, I write about this tension:
Because God's boundaries reveal His nature, they also reveal our own... Instead of a barrier to keep us from being ourselves, God’s law is intended to guide us back to our true selves… Apart from God’s law, we would ruin ourselves because we would keep living in direct opposition to what we were made to be.” (53-54)
But as we all know, and as Tootle learned, a standard by itself is not powerful enough. We need Jesus. Just like Bill stood on the track to guide Tootle back to where he belonged, Jesus stands waving the green flag, inviting us to the abundant life that only He can offer.
But it takes faith to live in our true identities. The world tells us that we will only be ourselves when we do what we want, when we do what we love. Faith tells us that we will never be more fully ourselves until we live as image bearers of God. But when this happens, when we are conformed to His Image through Christ, we are free to race. We are free to run. We are free to fly down the tracks.
We are finally free to be who we are meant to be.
All God's Children
It’s been a very confusing week.
And like many of you, I find myself trying to parent through it all. Because as much as I’d like, I cannot shield my children from the world they live in. Within a matter of day, they have been confronted with our history of slavery; they’ve learned about the racism that up until fifty years ago was institutionalized in our governments, schools, and churches; and they’ve heard about a society that allows women to kill their unborn children. (And just to round things out, we also had a conversation about the restaurant Hooters this week too.)
This past Sunday as we celebrated the sanctity of human life, I finally began to fit the pieces together. Our history of racism, our present struggle against abortion. And I began to wonder if it wasn’t time that we needed to recognize that we created this. As much as we like to believe that abortion is simply the fallout of the sexual revolution, as much as we like to blame radical feminists, it’s not that simple. Because when--for over two hundred years--we chose to see minorities as less than human, we created a culture that would one day allow us to view our own children the same way. When we refused to see the image of God in our African-American brothers and sisters, we lost the ability to see the image of God in our unborn sons and daughters.
We have sown the wind and we are now reaping the whirlwind.
When we speak about the sanctity of human life, we must remember that we are not simply speaking about abortion. We are not simply speaking about euthanasia. Honoring the sanctity of human life means embracing God’s image bearers where ever they may be and whatever they may look like. True sanctity of human life means understanding that all human life--every man, every woman, every boy, every girl—is precious to God and should also be precious to us.
So that when we take a stand for the sanctity of human life, we are also taking a stand against all racism, all sexism, all elitism, all sectarianism—any ideology, any prejudice that would say that another human being is somehow inferior or somehow unworthy of our love, somehow unworthy of Christ’s love. When we celebrate the sanctity of human life, we are saying that because of Christ, “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male or female." There is no born or unborn.
The work of fighting abortion doesn’t begin with legislation. It doesn’t begin with marches or protests, and it doesn’t even begin with crisis pregnancy centers. The fight to sanctify human life begins in our own hearts; it begins as we root out the vestiges of pride and hatred and selfishness. It begins as we accept the fact that young minority women (who are disproportionately affected by abortion) will be hesitant to trust us when we offer them alternatives to abortion because for the last two centuries we have judged them simply by the color of their skin. It begins when we recognize that our own daughters chose abortion because they didn’t believe they could come to us without feeling this same weight of judgment.
The fight to end abortion must begin with grace. The grace to believe that all of us are made in God’s likeness. The grace to believe that none of us have any righteousness apart from Him. And the grace to believe that no matter what we have done—whether our sin is racism or promiscuity—that the power of Christ is great enough and the love of Christ is strong enough to reconcile each of us to Himself and to each other.
Hometown Wisdom
In the end, the judge in the case, a dog lover himself who had brought his new Jack Russell puppy to court that day because he was “too young to be left alone;” decided to extend mercy to these delinquent canines on the grounds that they behaved themselves for the next year.
But Floyd’s also home to an earthier set and has been a gathering place for clean living, free loving, mystical creative-types for the last several decades. The town’s streets, once populated by professional offices, are now lined with alternative shops, art galleries, and music venues. And so one morning while we were there, my husband and I took advantage of that lovely phenomenon called “grandparents” to slip out to a local coffee house run by a high school classmate. It’s an unusual blend of rustic and groovy with the service and atmosphere as smooth as the coffee.
I was getting in touch with my inner seventies, when I strolled over to the bulletin board. Like the town, the notices were a mix of the practical (For Rent: 3br, 2 bath mobile home on 1 acre) and prophetic (Yoga classes, eastern remedies, and progressive schools).Then I saw it--stuck among the fliers and cards was an 8 ½ x11 sheet of paper typed with the simple words:
“Try forgiveness: renew somebody else, regain yourself.”
For some reason, placed as it was alongside an advertisement for meditation classes, I got the sense that it hadn’t been posted by the local Baptist church.
Still, as I read it, something about the power of forgiveness rang true and I couldn’t help but recognize that all of us—no matter what creed or background—long for the certainty that our wrongs have been made right. It’s a drive so deep, so fundamental, so human that we can’t be at peace until the person we’ve wronged sets us free. And the need to forgive is so equally powerful that if we don’t, we end up enslaving ourselves.
Left at that, few of us would argue. From AA to the local synagogue, we all acknowledge that bitterness over past wrongs can consume us and turn us into one dimensional people, ever driven, ever absorbed by them. But is that enough? Is it enough to embrace the power of forgiveness, to know that it is worth pursuing? Is it that we need to be convinced of its value--or is it that we need to be empowered to actually forgive? Because the reality is, how am I--a broken person herself in need of renewal--going to find the inner strength to forgive another broken person also in need of renewal?
It has to start someplace other than me.
And this is where Christianity turns all other philosophy on its head. While other religions may express truth (see above), Christianity says that Christ Himself is Truth, that His life and death embody it all. So when it comes to forgiveness, it is His perfect life and self-less death that renews us, releases us, and enables us to do the same for others. It is His forgiveness that makes all other forgiveness possible. It is through Him that we are no longer defined by sin, and it is through Him that we are new and we are free.
So yes, by all means, please take the advice of a flier in a hippie coffee shop: do “try” forgiveness because really, there is life-changing power in it, just like there is deep magic in redemption. But know this—hope in this—because it doesn’t start with us, it won’t end with us either.
Stormy Weather
A lot of it has to do with the weather. The official forecast is a high of 52 degrees with steady rain showers throughout the day.
And the delicious truth is that I. love. it. I love bad weather—from dreary, damp, bone-chilling days to flash summer thunderstorms to fierce nor’easters that blanket the countryside white---I revel in them all.
I think it’s mostly because bad weather has the remarkable ability to force us slow down, to be still, to rest. And true, not everyone has the luxury of staying in today; my own husband had to head out to work this morning, and as he did called out over his shoulder, “Hey, do we own an umbrella?” (yes, we’re that sort of family). But for the rest of us, bad weather interrupts our plans and forces us to remember Who’s really in charge. Almost as if God Himself were saying, “For heaven’s sake, would you just please slow down? Would you just please be still? Would you just trust ME to take care of things for a bit?”
So in the slug and the slosh of muddy, drizzling days, I’m happy to let Him. And will always consider them one of His finest gifts.
Fears Within
Of course after several weeks of this, my justifiable fears, kicked in. Had he had a bad experience recently? Was he fearful of someone in particular? Had he been harmed and we didn’t know it? So one day, after yet another battle to enter a crowded room, my husband and I decided to talk with him, our own hearts equally terrified by what he might tell us.
The conversation went something like this:
Why didn’t you want to go into the room, honey?
There might be a bad guy in there.
*sharp fear, remain calm*
Well… what would he look like?
I don’t know. Big.
*more fear, this time accompanied by stomach churning*
Have you ever seen a bad guy in that room before?
No. But he might be there.
*yep, still fear, breathe deeply*
What would this bad guy do if he was there… (*small voice* ) would he hurt you?
No, he would steal the money and run away.
*?!?! what?!!?!*
The money?
Yeah, like on Superman. Are we done? Can I go play the Wii?
So for now, we’re putting away the Batman and the Superman and the video games until his overachieving imagination can distinguish between fantasy and reality.
But all this has only reminded me how powerfully controlling fear is. How it can paralyze us and make even the most everyday occurrences absolutely terrifying. How, in a very real way, we can get sucked into a vortex of emotion and possibility and even begin to fear fear itself. And as if our own minds weren’t predatory enough, how other people can manipulate our fears and use them to intimidate and oppress us.
Each one of us has our own set of “bad guys in the room.” For me, it’s worrying whether my children will grow up well, whether we’ll ever settle down in one place, whether people will like and approve of me. Some days I’m the courageous warrior leading her small army onto victory; other days I just want to hide behind my mother and retreat from the world.
And when I let my fears dictate my choices, I end up doing just that – retreating from situations that are uncomfortable, from people I don’t know, and from opportunities that are uncertain. I end up retreating from life in all its glorious, messy complexity. And in the end, I teach my children to do the same.
But I’m also discovering that there is something tremendously empowering, something unexpectedly emboldening about faith. Because when you believe that there is a God in heaven, there is purpose and meaning to this life, and there is joy in loving other people, suddenly instead of retreating from the world, you can take it on. When you believe that all things work together for good, that He has plans for your future, and that He loves you with an everlasting love, you can risk finding out what that future is.
And when you believe that He is the everlasting, almighty, just judge of the universe, you realize that even if there are bad guys in the room, they won’t be there for long.