Meditations from an Amateur Gardener and Theologian

"Why try to explain miracles to your kids when you can just have them plant a garden?" - Robert Brault

I can't get enough of this view!

Failed Gardens
Two years ago (today, actually) my husband and I saw our house for the first time. It was a perfect fall day, much like today, and we fell in love with it immediately. We moved in in January and that spring we tried to plant our first garden at our new house. We were acclimating to new job responsibilities and caring for a two-year-old and a newborn, so needless to say, details like garden preparation didn't get a lot of attention.

When we did pick up a few plants, I made the mistake of trying to cultivate what had previously been a horse corral. I thought that the soil would be rich from years of manure working into it and loose from horses' hooves turning it over. Unfortunately, the ground was packed so hard that the plants were always either sitting in little pools of water or completely dried out. They didn't stand a chance.

At the end of the season, we chose a different location and did some prep work, but this year's spring was unusually warm, and my plants once again, didn't thrive. Maybe next year, I thought.

But then something happened. A vine started growing out of our compost pile. It snaked its way through the weeds and tomato plants, putting tendrils down as it went.

First there were blossoms. And then, surprisingly, butternut squash everywhere!

Like this

And this

This may not seem all that exciting, but I have a recipe for butternut squash risotto that is one of the few relatively healthy foods that all four people in our house will eat with enthusiasm. We love butternut squash! I usually buy at least one a month. And now, suddenly here they were, growing in our front yard!

And here's the thing that really floored me. I did nothing to make that vine grow. I didn't even plant it! I never watered it. I didn't coax it along from seed to seedling to thriving plant. All I did was just go out every now and then to admire its vigor and health.

Being a Pastor
I have to admit...I was a little surprised when I became a pastor. I wanted to be a "marrying, burying" pastor. I wanted to share in the celebrations and grief of families. I wanted to cheer for teenagers playing football and marching in the band on Friday night and for their little brothers and sisters playing little league baseball on Saturday mornings. I wanted to sit around bonfires on summer evenings and talk about everything from God to good barbecue.

I thought I was planting myself in rich soil by becoming a small-town pastor.

But, as it turns out, my picture of the world was a little outdated. These things are still happening in small-town America--weddings and funerals, football games and little league, bonfires and barbecues--but a good number of people have figured out that they don't really need the church for any of these things.

It turns out that this soil is not as rich as I thought.

But as I've spent the summer watching in amazement as this incredibly productive vine grew out of the place where we throw our food scraps, it's occurred to me that sometimes the most amazing things grow out of the most unexpected places.

Cultivating Spaces
It's worth noting that we did some work to cultivate our garden. We built the compost bin. We laid down newspaper and manure and mulch to create a space where plants can thrive.

This might be a good lesson for this pastor. My job is to create a space where things can grow. My job is not to cajole and manipulate and coax people and programs to maturity. My job is to faithfully cultivate the space and then to let God bring the growth. Even to let God decide what grows.

I had some other plants besides that butternut squash. A zucchini plant that produced one zucchini and then mysteriously wilted. A cucumber plant that started off ambitiously enough but amounted to nothing. Pepper plants that didn't do much at all. Quite a few fairly successful tomato plants.

But it is obvious that the conditions were perfectly suited for that butternut squash. I never would have guessed that.

Pastors spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to define success, measure success, achieve success... It can all lead to a lot of frantic effort. But when the right plant is growing in the right soil, all the gardener has to do is celebrate the results (and maybe try to keep the weeds at bay).

I am praying for the wisdom to cultivate a space where God can grow something. Something that will be healthy and thrive. Something that will produce fruit that is a source of nourishment to all who encounter it.

If God can grow a butternut squash out of my compost pile, then I think God can probably grow something pretty magnificent out of a group of faithful Christians working diligently to cultivate a space where the Holy Spirit is free to move.

The first few

So many!

This tasted as good as it looks!

Concessions for Female Pastors: A Modest Proposal

"But women will be saved through childbearing." - Paul (1 Timothy 2:15)

A few weeks after our first Sunday

I am a female pastor. I have two kids. On our first official Sunday at our church, my son was two and I was roughly six months pregnant with my daughter. I was pretty shocked that a church would want to hire not only a female pastor, but an extremely pregnant one at that. I mean, at practically our first board meeting, we had to create the first ever maternity leave policy for the church! Who wants that kind of headache?

At every step of the way, though, I've been surprised by my church's generosity. They have welcomed us with open arms. All of us. Our tantrums, our diaper blowouts, our pinkeye and stomach flu, our exhaustion--everything that comes with a family with young children. They haven't pressured me to fit into some kind of pre-ordained pastoral mold of keeping specific office hours or pretending like I don't know whose kid is screaming his head off on the front row.

I've wondered at that, but I have a hypothesis about their welcome. We live in farm country, where children still help out around the farm and teenagers still babysit to make extra money. One person after another told me how wonderful it was that I could stay home with my kids.

I, myself, have not so seamlessly adapted to the role of stay-at-home-mom. Faithful readers of this blog will not be surprised to hear it. I have a college degree and a masters. I am well-educated to venture forth into the world and earn a living, right alongside my male colleagues. I studied and worked with my husband before and after we got married. I am still reeling from the shock of graduating, having a baby, and quitting my job in the space of a few months. His life continued on much the same as before: get up, go to work, come home, spend time with the people he shares life with. Mine on the other hand stopped all at once: no more school, no job, and this tiny baby that was both overwhelming and kind of boring. What was I supposed to do with myself? Cook, clean, change diapers, and coo at the baby? I had no idea!

I grew up in a world where someone at some point told me that women can do anything men can do, and I accepted that without question. Of course they can. Why not? Is that something that even needs to be said anymore?

We are one of the only countries in the world that has no mandated paid maternity leave. Why is that? My speculation is because of our eager acceptance of the equality of men and women. Babies are this kind of awkward side thing that no one really knows what to do with. Men and women work side by side in factories and offices, doing the same job, at the same level of quality, for the same pay (in theory). We become faceless, sexless machines. Babies throw a wrench in the machinery that maybe we prefer to ignore.

I've struggled at times with feeling like a failure because of my inability to rejoin the machine. Why can't I produce quality content at the same level and quantity as my male counterparts? How can the people around me tolerate the seemingly endless list of things I'm not getting done?

Ironically, I've found solace in Paul's words. "Women will be saved through childbearing." Now, I haven't done any research to make this connection, but I wonder if Paul is drawing on Talmudic tradition (or at least the same sources), which states:

"...and all positive, time-bound commandments, men are obligated [in] and women are exempt [from]." (Kiddushin, page 29a)

There was a recognition in Jewish tradition that women simply could not perform all of the mitzvot required by the Torah. For one thing, women are unclean for one week out of every month. But then you add into that babies who need to be fed and cared for and the care of children and other household duties, and some things just have to get done now. They can't be put off to perform a religious duty. The expectation, then, was that women fulfill the obligations of Torah around the schedule of their other familial obligations.*

Paul's words and their connection to the traditions of Judaism have comforted me--on Sundays when I was preaching on a few hours of sleep and hoping my words made some sense, on weekdays when my to-do list didn't get done, in conversations when everyone around me seemed to be so much more competent at their jobs. Jewish and Christian tradition recognize that there are seasons in life when it gets really difficult to fulfill all the obligations of Torah, and that's okay. It will not cost me my membership in the kingdom of God.

The next generation: future pastors? farmers? Who knows?

Fortunately, I am in a place where babies are loved, where pregnant women are celebrated, not discreetly avoided. I am in a place where the family life and the working life go hand in hand. Children mean a future for family-owned farms. They are the next generation to keep the work going. They are celebrated and cared for by the whole family.

But I haven't found quite the same welcome when I've ventured outside our little farming community.

The subtle message I've received in various forms has been something along the lines of, "Do you think the rules don't apply to you?"

Well, actually, yes. Yes, I do. Because as a woman, I'm saved through childbearing, not by fulfilling the obligations of Torah. (Thank you very much, Paul!)

Or maybe a little more appropriate response is something like, I get it. I get the rules. I get the policies that exist to promote accountability and participation. I get their importance. But I am longing for some grace, to be seen as more than a faceless machine that is required to perform a certain amount of tasks in a certain amount of time to be worthy of participation in the kingdom of God.

Sadly, I've known women who just opted out. The time-bound commandments were too much for the season of life they were in.

Here is my proposal:

Let's learn from the traditions of Judaism, from the words of Paul, and from the example of my farming community. Children are our future, and mothers are in the best place to teach them about a church that celebrates and cares for them. Mothers who pastor are the best chance we have to raise a generation of both women and men who know without question that anyone called by God to ministry can say yes to that call without fear of rejection by the church. For the sake of the future of our church, let's let go of some of the time-bound commandments and give the women who are leading our churches and simultaneously raising the next generation some help. Here are some quick suggestions. (I'm sure that those of you who have been pastors and mothers for longer than I have can share some other suggestions.)

1. Plan ahead. With kids, everything takes longer. Plan ahead when you have a deadline you want your pastor to meet. A reference letter, a scholarship form, an essay contribution, church reports. I was the person who started my papers at 8pm when they were due at midnight, but I can't do that anymore. I need to know in advance what will be expected of me and when, so I can make a plan to complete my work around naps, doctor appointments, play dates, mealtimes, and all that other stuff that comes with children.

2. Provide as much free childcare and/or discounts as possible. Every board meeting my husband and I attend costs us money in babysitting. Our few dates are to conferences, and our vacations are to district assembly and pastors' retreat because those eat up our babysitting budget for the year. We are fortunate to have a really awesome, affordable babysitter (hey-o Phoebe!), but there are plenty of events we don't even consider attending because the cost of the event increases out of our price range by the additional cost of childcare. Don't fear some sort of snowball effect that everyone will try to get in on this. The years of caring for small children are relatively short. Offer some tangible support to women taking on this important task while also serving as ministers.

3. Talk about maternity leave. I'm not sure how this suggestion will be received, but even if you're a male pastor, take some time to work with your church board to create a maternity leave policy for your church. Admittedly, most women do not accept their first pastorate when they are six months pregnant, but what a gift that would be to have that in place before a female pastor is ever called.

4. Listen. Listen to women. Listen to mothers. Listen to men who have witnessed the challenges faced by their wives. I think I'm finally out of the haze, but I was really tired for a long time after my second child was born. I desperately needed someone to really hear me when I said that something was hard for me to do. If you have a female pastor with children, listen when they say they can't come to a Sunday afternoon meeting. When a woman pursuing religious education or a ministerial license inexplicably just stops meeting deadlines, listen to what's going on in her life. Maybe the time-bound commandments got to be too much, but that doesn't mean that God hasn't called her and that the church doesn't need her voice.

I have been encouraged by the advocacy I've seen for female pastors in our church. I'm really proud to be part of a church that is doing everything we can to make sure that all people, male and female, are empowered to say yes to God's call on their life. But I think we can do more. I think we can take some more steps to open the door to women today and in generations to come.

Attempting to get a decent picture on Easter Sunday

*[Note: There are lots of resources about the role of women in traditional Judaism (which, of course, also varied depending on era and culture). I won't delve into that here except to say that it was and is complicated, including some really positive traditions and some other not-so-great traditions. And Christianity has certainly followed in that complicated path.]

Prayers of the Heart

"'Matthew ten, verse twenty-nine: Not one sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it.'

'But the sparrow still falls.'" - Mary Doria Russell, The Sparrow

I'm a pastor, so maybe I'm not supposed to say these things, but sometimes I wonder what God is doing. Every day, I encounter a world that is broken. Every day, sparrows fall. Sometimes the body count is overwhelming.

I was reading a devotion this week on the story in Luke 7 where a woman "who lived a sinful life" came to a dinner party thrown on Jesus' behalf and washed his feet with her tears and then poured perfume on them. The man who threw the party was a Pharisee named Simon, and when he saw this, he thought to himself, "If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is--that she is a sinner." (Luke 7:39)

The devotion asked two questions: Are you more like the sinful woman, throwing yourself at the feet of Jesus or the Pharisee, looking on? And, the second question, where is Jesus in this story?

I thought I knew the story. After all, I'm a pastor. I know all these stories. In fact, I recently wrote a reflection on this same incident as told in the Gospel of John. But I decided to play along and go read the story and see where Jesus was.

The answer to both questions hit me like a ton of bricks.

Because let me tell you, I am the Pharisee. I am looking around at a lost and broken world. Sure people are throwing themselves on God's mercy, but I am saying to myself, "Doesn't God know what's going on? Doesn't he see what's happening here?"

There are an awful lot of sparrows falling to the ground. There are a lot of people living lives headed towards destruction, and they are harming the people around them left and right.

ISIS militants are intentionally bombing hospitals in Syria in order to kill as many people as possible at once and to prevent others who are injured from receiving medical care.

Participants in the network of human trafficking all around the world are buying and selling people, kidnapping children from their families or orphans off the street, making promises of good jobs to people living in poverty, and then trafficking these children and adults all over the world to buy and sell--for sex, for unpaid labor, as soldiers in bloody wars.

Broken people are abusing their own children, the children of family members and friends, children that they coach and guide, leaving destruction in their wake as they go from one innocent victim to another.

Doesn't God know? Can't he see?

But the question hits even closer to home. I'm a pastor. Maybe I can't stop suicide bombers or human traffickers in Europe and Asia, but at least I can do something in my community. After all, sparrows are falling here too. People around me are hurting and broken. If I just pray the right prayer, Jesus will look down at the sinful woman weeping at his feet, and say, "Stop it! Just stop it! You are destroying your own life with your actions. You are destroying the people around you. Stop living like you are! Get yourself together and come ready to participate in this dinner like a civilized person."

And so I pray. I pray for people who are lost. I pray that God would keep me on the straight and narrow. I do my religious duty. I write and preach my sermons. I wrangle my children into their fancy clothes to go sit in church week after week. I read my Bible and my devotional book. I do all the right things. I throw a party every Sunday morning and invite Jesus to attend.

But then right in the middle of my party, I look around at a world full of falling sparrows, and my heart despairs. Is this Jesus truly who he says he is? Why doesn't he seem to know what's going on in our world? Why doesn't he seem to care?

Did I mention that I'm a pastor? These aren't questions I'm supposed to ask. So I don't ask them. They may be in my heart, but I'm certainly not going to stand up on Sunday morning and ask them! I'm not even going to ask them as I do my duty, as I prepare my sermons and do the work of the church. Some questions just aren't appropriate for people in certain positions to ask. Positions like Pharisee. Or pastor.

Where was Jesus?

He was right beside Simon. He was listening to the questions on his mind, the prayers of his heart.

The next verse says, "Jesus answered him." Simon's words were not in the form of a question, nor were they directed to Jesus. But Jesus knew the prayers of Simon's heart and he answered them.

He said, "Simon, I have something to tell you."

These words breathed new life into my heart this week. Even when I don't ask the questions, Jesus has something to tell me.

Speak, Lord. Your servant is listening.

What are you doing? Where are you? Do you see what's happening? Do you see all these sparrows falling?

Speak, Lord. Your servant is listening.

What about the people in our community? The people in our church? Do you see their pain? Do you see their brokenness? Do you know what they're going through?

Speak, Lord. Your servants are listening.

We want to hear from you. We want to hear you speak in our language so that we may understand. We want to hear good news.

There are some questions that we are too afraid to ask. There are some questions that we are too afraid to even admit to ourselves. But even if we never say them out loud, Jesus knows the prayers of our hearts. And he has something he wants to say to us.

Speak, Lord. Your servants are listening.

A Bountiful Harvest

"The work is commanded...but the bread is God's free and gracious gift. We cannot simply take it for granted that our work provides us with bread; this is rather God's order of Grace" - Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together

I remember when I first came across these lines in Bonhoeffer's classic work on the community of faith. "We cannot and dare not demand food as our right." I was stopped in my tracks. We cannot demand food as our right? A day's work equals a day's wages, right? Workers in offices, factories, service industries all expect to go to work and get paid at the end of the day (or pay period). How could Bonhoeffer suggest otherwise?

I had the good fortune to grow up in an agricultural community, where farming was one of the chief occupations. Of course there were teachers, store owners, and--in our particular community--naval employees, but I wasn't blind to the farmers around me. It doesn't take long to figure out that the labor of farming is no sure thing. Few people work harder than farmers, and few people have less guarantee that their labor will bring success.

A few years ago, I read the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, and it seemed like they never could bring in a good harvest. It was always something that ruined their crops--locusts, an early hailstorm, a late frost, flood, drought. Despite lots and lots of advances in modern technology to compensate for nature's attacks, food production even today is still subject to the whims of nature.

It is indeed by the grace of God that we receive our bread.

But the more we become disconnected from the farms that actually produce that bread, the more we demand wages as our right. The more we take for granted that a day's work equals a day's pay.

I've been revisiting this idea recently. As a pastor, success is elusive. How does my hard work translate into some kind of payment?

I do greatly appreciate the financial compensation for my work, of course, but even that is often on shaky ground. If someone doesn't like what I have to say and decides to quit tithing or to leave the church, then suddenly my paycheck is no longer guaranteed.

But there's a lot more to being a pastor than simply showing up to preach and getting a paycheck in return. I want to see lives transformed. I want to see our church thrive. I want to see the lives of the congregants filled with peace and joy. I want to find peace and joy in my own life.

For farmers, there is no harvest without the hard work of planting. But there also is no harvest without the grace of God that provides that elusive element of the natural world working together to provide the right conditions for a bountiful harvest.

The same is true for the church. Success requires both the hard work of planting, of digging deep and putting down roots. And it requires the grace of God granting us success for our hard work.

I am certainly not the first to make this correlation. As Paul observed in his letter to the Corinthian church, "So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow."

My prayer for today:

Lord, help your people to keep planting and watering. Help us to be patient as we wait for growth. And above all, help us to be grateful for all that we receive by your mercy--for the bread that we eat, for the wages we earn, and for the fruit of your Spirit that springs forth in our lives.

Surveying the land

Not Yet: The Faith of a Toddler

"Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see." - Hebrews 11:1

In the vein of one my heroes of blogging, Maeve's Momma, I wanted to take some time to record some of the awesome things our little boy is saying as he's learning to talk.

"Not yet, Mama, not yet."

One of my favorite is "No yay, Mama, no yay."

Amos has a unique personality for a toddler. He's a lot more interested in understanding his world than controlling it. (His little sister is another matter entirely!) He seems to really appreciate it when I list the sequence of events for the day.

"First breakfast, then get dressed, then go to Mama gym, then store, then library, then home, then lunch, then nap."

"Otay, Mama," he'll say.

If I get the steps out of order, he'll say, "No yay, Mama, no yay." Not yet, Mama. We can't get dressed before breakfast!

I've realized that that one little phrase, "Not yet" is magic. He will accept almost anything in the moment with the promise that he will get what he wants in the future.

When we're watching tv, I tell him, Mama show now, Amos show later. "Otay, Mama. Amos show, no yay."

When he wants to eat a cookie, I tell him, the food on his plate first, cookie later. "Otay, Mama. Dee-dee, no yay."

I try to be really careful to follow through on those promises. It's way too easy to take advantage of his acceptance in the moment and then hope he forgets later. In the words of Mary Poppins, I try not to make "pie crust promises: easily made, easily broken."

His faith in the future, though, is a sight to behold. He has no idea when "not yet" will come--in an hour or in two days or two months--and yet he willingly accepts that answer to so many of his requests.

"Baba zoom zoom, door?" (This translates to "Are Grandma and Grandpa coming in the car and about to come in the door?")

"They are coming in their car to see you, but not for a long time."

"Oh, no yay, no yay."

His faith is an incredible example. He trusts me so completely that when I say something will happen, he just accepts it and waits. Often, when the appointed time arrives, he is right beside me ready to receive what I've promised him. As soon as the "mama show" ends, he is right beside me saying, "Amos show now?" As soon as he eats his food, he is ready for his cookie. As soon as he sees that I'm done eating breakfast, he is ready to move on to the next activity. I often think that he's forgotten what he was waiting for and just occupied himself with something else, but no, he's just waiting patiently.

As Christians, we believe that God has promised us so many good things. But we are not nearly so patient in our waiting. Sometimes we wonder if God has forgotten us. Or we get tired of waiting on God and just start doing our own thing. Or we try to force the outcome that we want without God's help. It's pretty embarrassing when my toddler is better at waiting than I am, when his faith in the future is more unwavering than my own!

The other half of the theological statement of "not yet" is "already." "Not yet" have all things been made right, but "already" has Christ defeated sin and death. "Not yet" has all of creation been made new but "already" God has demonstrated his love for us.

Looking out the window at the library

The "already" is an important part of Amos's "not yet." He has already experienced the fulfillment of lots of promises. He already knows that he is loved and cared for. He already knows that his life is full of good things. His "already" is the foundation of his faith in the "not yet."

We have a similar foundation. Time and time again, we have received the fulfillment of God's promises to us. We've experienced his love, mercy, peace, and forgiveness. We've witnessed broken relationships and broken bodies healed. We've "already" seen God keep his promises and respond to our requests.

May we say with the faith of a child when we are faced with a broken and hurting world, "Not yet, not yet," and wait patiently for the day when all will be made new, when pain and sorrow will be no more, when we shall see our Father face to face. "Not yet, not yet."

A few other random things Amos says

These are completely unrelated to the above. I just want to record these because they crack me up.

All of Amos's favorite things are blue. We have no idea why this is. It started when we were painting our interior doors blue. Amos was fascinated by this process and latched onto the idea of "blue." But when we painted the screen doors green, he still called them blue no matter how many times we corrected him. He's starting to learn his colors, but he still has his "blue water" (which is actually yellow), his "blue blanket" (which is actually blue), and "blue Bob and Larry" (his favorite VeggieTales episode).

Things that are not quite as good as blue are yellow. This morning he asked to watch "yellow Mary Poppins," which is apparently The Sound of Music. He also has "yellow toys" and "yellow water." I have no idea where this system of ranking came from, but he is remarkably consistent!

"Oush" = ouch (that is super cute!)

I've tried to teach him to say Eva. That goes like this:

M; "Say Eeeee"
A: "Eeee"
M: "Say 'vaaaa'"
A: "Vaaaa"
M: "Eeee-vaaa."
A: "No! Baby!"

He loves to proclaim that he is awake in the morning. When I walk into his room in the morning (after he's been yelling "Mama" for five minutes), he rubs his eyes and says, "Mama! A-vay!" with such surprise that I think he is surprised every morning by the mystery of transitioning from sleeping to being awake.

He also loves to tell stories. They go something like this:

"Mama, baby, baba. Zoom zoom zoom. Vaaaaa! Sssssss. Ooooh. A bee-bo. A bee-bo. Mama, baby. Zoom zoom."

I think most of his stories consist of various combinations of people in his life riding in a car together and then getting attacked by a monster. They have lots of sound affects and go from a calm tone to lots of hand gestures and loud noises, but for the most part, I have no idea what he's talking about.

I remember reading that toddlers have a "language explosion" somewhere around 18 months. Amos is lagging a little behind, but he is eagerly trying to make up for the all the time he's missed!

Heading out into the world!

Tuesday Thoughts: The Most Important Job in the World

"Being a mom is the most important job in the world." - Every Christian Mom Website

"Children are a reason to get up in the morning." - Robin Simon

In some ways, this post could be a follow up to my last one on happiness. I'm still mulling over Jennifer Senior's excellent book, All Joy and No Fun, an examination of modern-day parenting from a variety of disciplines.

This post also comes out of something I'm kind of tired of hearing. "Your first job is to be a mom." Or, "Being a mom is the most important thing you can do with your life." Or, "Nothing is more important than taking care of those children!"

To all (5) of you faithful readers, you may already be prepared to disagree with me, but give me a chance. Wait until the end before you slam down your laptop or jab your finger at the "home" button in anger at the outrageous words you are about to read!

Earning their keep!

In her book, Jennifer Senior chronicles the history of American views of childhood, specifically highlighting the change that happened when child labor was outlawed, mostly in the early 1900s. At that point, children stopped working to help support their families, and instead the focus shifted more towards their education. Not to say that children didn't go to school before that or that they stopped working after that point, but that marked the beginning of a new era for children. Children started putting their time and energy into doing work that did not directly benefit their families. Of course, one could argue that a good education would benefit their families in the long run, but they were no longer contributing labor or income to the family in the present. As Viviana Zelizer put it, over time, children became "economically worthless but emotionally priceless." Furthermore, parents moved from seeing children as their "employees" to seeing them as their "employers." Parents (more specifically moms) became their children's chauffeurs, cooks, maids, secretaries, and social planners. There is a mentality that says, "I will do whatever I can, no matter what it costs me, if it is what is best for my child."

I mean, I get that. My kids are great. They're super cute. I want to do everything I can to give them all the advantages I can as they grow up and learn how to live in a hard world.

But the problem is that I'm not so sure what is truly advantageous to my kids. Is it best if they know that my world revolves around them? Around their growth and development, care and consideration?

Who wouldn't want to do everything in
 the world for this sweet kid?

I was talking to a good friend last week who shared that her daughter left home at 17 to attend college. She struggled to find a place all through her high school years, and both mother and daughter finally just decided it was time to move on. She said, "At a time when parents are holding on more tightly than ever to their kids, I was sending mine out into the world. It was a little scary!"

I've worked at a few different educational institutions, and I've encountered overprotective parents of kids from age 14 to age 35. We moms are taking our job seriously!

As my friend and I talked, we were both worried about our kids. If we treat them the same as all their friends' parents, we worry that they will grow up with some of the same character traits that people sometimes criticize in young people: an ever-increasing sense of entitlement, a lack of work ethic, etc. (Old people always criticize young people. There's nothing new in that!) But, on the other hand, if we treat them differently, we worry that they will be outcasts, the weird kid, etc.

I was discouraged about the prospects for my children's futures, but then I encountered these words from Psalm 106:35-37:

"They mingled with the nations
   and adopted their customs.
They worshiped their idols,
   which became a snare to them.
They sacrificed their sons
   and their daughters to demons."

That's when it hit me. By obsessing over good parenting and bad parenting and how to give my kids the best advantages, I was worshiping the idols of our culture, and at risk of sacrificing them to the demons of popular culture that will ultimately destroy them.

The most important job I have is, in fact, not being a mom; it is being a faithful follower of God!

Honestly, I can't emphasize that enough. Especially to those of you who are moms, I wish we could all sit down together and talk about what that means. For like hours. Or at least for the amount of time that I've spent reading articles on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, etc. about how to be a good parent. What can I say? I'm a good student; I want to learn from the experts!

But all too often, the "experts" have mingled with the nations and adopted their customs. The experts have accepted a paradigm for raising children that accepts that the care of our children is absolutely the most important thing we can do. But it's not!*

Well, I'm still trying to figure out what it really means to be a godly mom, raising godly kids, but I want to end by thanking my mom. To this day, my mom still quite often gives up video games for Lent. That probably encapsulates her pretty well. Most moms never played video games. Or gave them up when parenting became their most important job. But I still remembering my mom playing The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy "text adventure game" (which according to Wikipedia was released in 1984 for the Commodore 64 and Apple II) and staying up way too late to try to save poor Arthur Dent. She probably sees that as a useless waste of time, but as a kid, I saw that moms could do cool stuff, like beat video games. Moms didn't just have to cook and clean all the time.

I don't always know what it means to be a good mom, but I am relieved to know that ignoring my kids while I write a sermon or even while I sit and play a video game might not be the worst thing I can do for them. And my kids might be the weird kids whose mom doesn't pack a bento box for their lunch or shell out cash for an endless number of fundraisers. But I'd much rather they be the weird kids than to sacrifice them to the demons of popular culture.

Happily playing on her own

*If you really want a perspective that flies in the face of popular culture check out the text of the martyr Perpetua who was nursing a baby boy. Her family begged her to recant her faith so that her life might be saved for the sake of her child, but she refused even then!

New Year's Resolution: Be Happy

"The trouble with happiness is that it can't be sought directly. It is only a precious by-product of other worthwhile activities." - Dr. Benjamin Spock

A few months ago, I preached a sermon on Song of Songs. For years, Robert Alter has been a great source of understanding for me of Hebrew literature and poetry, and he did not let me down in my study of Song of Songs. In his book, The Art of Biblical Poetry, he dedicated a chapter to this short book of the Bible. The chapter is called "The Garden of Metaphor."

I moved to this house just so I
could take Instagram pictures!

The book of Song of Songs is all about pleasure. It's about good food and drink, love and beauty, parties and music. It seems like it would be a perfect complement to our world today with our prolific Instagram pictures of artfully arranged food and drink, the underlying (or overt) sexual tension in nearly every tv show and movie, and even my generation's return to their grandparents' record players and music. We excel at "appreciating" food, drink, love, beauty, gatherings, and music.

But do we?

I've been reading a book called All Joy and No Fun. It is an excellent survey of how we understand parenting in our culture. I keep discovering myself in the pages of the book. I was startled to read, however, that kids are boring. I hadn't realized how boring kids truly are. But you know, it is boring to watch the same YouTube video one hundred times, read the same book every single night, pretend to eat the pretend food my kid brings me over and over and over until I can't stand to say, with enthusiasm, "Nom nom nom nom" one more time because I am bored out of my mind. There are thousands of pictures of cute kids doing cute things, lists of the hilarious things kids say, opportunities to buy clothes and toys to make your kids even cuter...but no one tells you how boring they are!

Robert Alter demystified some of the metaphors in the book of Song of Songs, and I was a bit scandalized at the graphic sexuality portrayed right there in the middle of the Bible! But he ended his chapter on "The Garden of Metaphor" with an interesting observation. Yes, this book subtly and sometimes not-so-subtly describes physical attraction and sex along with other very physical pleasures, but it is also a book about a garden.

We are surrounded by imagery in our culture that appeals to our physical appetites--giant, juicy hamburgers on billboards, scantily clad women on the covers of magazines in the grocery store check-out line, internet ads for the best ridiculously rich, chocolatey dessert. But I don't see nearly so many images of gardens. Gardens have a more subtle attraction, a beauty that takes time and patience to appreciate. Gardens, like kids, are boring.

Authentic Barbie

Too often, we frantically go from one activity to the next, one new bar or restaurant to the next, one new relationship to the next, one pair of shoes to the next--looking for the perfect moment so we can take a picture, share it, hold on to that moment in some way while we frantically pursue the next moment. We find ourselves on this increasingly frenetic pace, accruing followers and likes, pursuing the "authentic."

But when do we have time to cultivate our garden? When do we have time to be? To let the moment go by without taking a picture or desperately trying to hang onto it in some way?

"Enough is as good as a feast," says Mary Poppins. When do we have enough?

It is easy to look at the world around us, at our friends and family and think, "If only I had what they had, I'd have enough. I'd be happy." But let me tell you something about gardens. They are boring. They can be beautiful, but they are mostly boring.

Let me tell you another secret. They are also free.

Maybe you don't believe that. Maybe you immediately start thinking about land, soil quality, irrigation. But it's not as complicated as that. You can find a plant that is dead or dying, harvest its seeds, discreetly dig up some dirt from a local park or street corner (if you don't have any of your own dirt), put it in an empty milk carton or other discarded container, set it where it gets some sun, give it some water, and you will have a garden. A single-plant garden, yes, but a garden nonetheless. And you can watch it sprout and grow and enjoy its beauty. All it requires is time and patience and a little care.

According to Song of Songs, that is the key to happiness. It is not about what you pursue. It is about seeing what is in front of you. When you can look at a lily and find joy in its beauty, when you can stop pursuing and just be and even be bored, then you will start to find a little piece of that ever-elusive sense of happiness.

I love this quotation by Annie Dillard:

“There is no shortage of good days. It is good lives that are hard to come by. A life of good days lived in the senses is not enough. The life of sensation is the life of greed; it requires more and more. The life of the spirit requires less and less; time is ample and its passage sweet. Who would call a day spent reading a good day? But a life spent reading -- that is a good life.”
― Annie Dillard, The Writing Life

Happy new year! May you be bored enough to find happiness.

A moment of happiness