Honest Confessions

I've written before about how every church has a liturgy, a pattern, for worship. In my church, part of this liturgy is a corporate confession of sin. It is a responsive, that is participatory, part of worship. It looks something like this:

Leader:     If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Silence for reflection and self-examination.

Leader:     Let us pray.

All:     Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we have sinned against You and against our fellow men, in thought and word and deed, in the evil we have done and in the good we have not done, through ignorance, through weakness, through our own deliberate fault. We are truly sorry and repent of all our sins. For the sake of Your Son, Jesus Christ, who died for us, forgive us all that is past; and grant that we may serve You in newness of life in the glory of Your Name. Amen.

I did not grow up reciting written prayers and when I first encountered them in a worship service, I was somewhat taken aback. It was pointed out to me that were I to speak with the President, visiting royalty, or some other notable figure of great importance, I would probably have a speech prepared or at least a series of talking points to ensure my part of the encounter was coherent. Why then shouldn't we prepare our words for the Almighty God in the same manner? That explanation resonated with me to the point that I now often write out prayers in a journal as a means of truly shaping my words so they express properly my praise, thanksgiving, and requests.

Another benefit of having a prepared corporate prayer of confession is I am confronted about sinful habits or tendencies I might, if left on my own, gloss over or even ignore. Such is the case with the above confession: ". . . through our own deliberate fault." Ouch. If we're honest, don't we all like to excuse away our sin? It was a mistake, a misunderstanding, the result of incorrect information or some other reason that gives us an out from some or all the responsibility for our failings. A written confession makes us admit there were times when we sinned deliberately. It is very reminiscent of David's confession written in the psalms. The gut-level honest confession and the familial tone of a son to his Father of this psalm makes it precious to Christians:

Have mercy upon me, O God,According to Your lovingkindess;According to the multitude of Your tender mercies,Blot out my transgressions.Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,And cleanse me from my sin.For I acknowledge my transgressions,And my sin is always before me.Against You, You only, have I sinned,And done this evil in Your sight - That You may be found just when You speak,And blameless when You judge.~ Psalm 51:1-4

David was far from perfect, but he didn't let sin remain between him and God. We know from Scripture God affirms David as a man after His own heart. Our corporate confession also ends with an affirmation:

Leader:     Lift up your hearts and receive the sure promise of the gospel.  The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and great in mercy. "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life." To all who believe and repent, this promise is most surely given. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."

That's the beauty of confession; through Jesus we have been made clean and affirmed as loved by our Heavenly Father.

Crafting Sunday School (or God Bless Pinterest!)

My church is small and as such we have only one children's Sunday School class with ages ranging from Preschool to I'm-old-enough-for-the-grownup-class. It's a challenge to develop a lesson appropriate for such a wide age range, but it is one homeschool moms are very familiar with.  Not having kids of my own, I enjoy this weekly interaction and watching the one-room schoolhouse experience come to life before my eyes.  The older kids are wonderful in helping out the younger ones.

Currently, the class has a majority of females; in the past, we've had mostly boys.  The gender difference has had a big influence on occasion in determining crafts and activities.  One activity for which I'm rather infamous happened in October.  We were studying through the Book of Judges and the next lesson would be in Judges 4 where we find the story of Jael and Sisera.

Inspiration struck in the produce section of Walmart!  There was a sale on pie pumpkins and I loaded up my cart with these pumpkins and a package of plastic tent pegs.  The following Sunday, I hauled the pumpkins, tent pegs, a couple of rubber mallets, and box of markers down to our classroom.  We read our story about our heroine Jael's ending of Israel's enemy Sisera.  Then we drew a face on our pumpkins and the kiddos pounded tent pegs into the them!  That year several families had "Sisera" jack-o-lanterns!  One dad remarked, "Only at our church."  I'm not sure it was a compliment.

Sampling fruit

We recently finished a series of lessons on The Fruits of the Spirit. I tried to bring in unusual fruit for the kids to sample from time to time. I am so grateful to various Pinterest users for the great ideas I used in this series. The biggest hit was this song which helped the kids learn all the Fruits of the Spirit.  My boys and girls both love it!.

We just started a new series on The Armor of God.  I found this great poster at Lifeway.  This great web site has some wonderful lesson ideas and this site had templates for wearable armor that I modified slightly. The generosity of these ladies in sharing for free their hard work and creativity is just incredible!  Here's a picture of some of the kids wearing their Belt of Truth.

I'm hoping the kiddos will have the complete armor completed by the time Harvest Parties or Trick-or-Treating comes around.  There is a great song I downloaded for these lessons.  It has a good "hook" which should help the kids memorize the armor pieces.  

I have a board on Pinterest for Sunday School crafts, so if you're a teacher who has drawn a blank please check it out.  

Christmas Trees and Memories

Our Christmas tree tells our story.  The ornaments are an eclectic collection gathered over 23 years of marriage.  For the last few years, we have been blessed to have Mom with us and her story ornaments are also placed on the tree.

When we first married, we were unsure what directions our tree should take, so we opted to play it safe and stick to ornaments which had a decidedly biblical theme (music, angels, nativity, etc).  When I stretched plausibility with a cuckoo clock to commemorate our honeymoon in Germany ("to everything there is a time and a purpose under heaven..."), we had to acknowledge our tree theme had significantly broadened.

Each year, as we take out our carefully wrapped ornaments, we are reminded of moments in time,special trips,pets, friends, and loved ones long passed.  I smile through tears as I hang the ornaments Dad patiently helped his "three girls" (Mom, my sister and me) make.  These simple pine cones mean so very much to me.

There is an ornament on the tree from my childhood and a green bell from Mom's.  Many ornaments were given as gifts by students, friends, and loved ones and they always bring warmth to us when we placed them on the evergreen.  I have a few that remind me of the precious children I teach in Sunday School.

Our Christmas tree helps me remember.  I think I understand a Christmas standard better now than I did in my younger days.  At Christmas, I find myself going home, but it is to the home of yesteryear.  I relieve treasured memories and revisit scenes from a time long ago:

I'm dreaming tonight of a place I love

Even more than I usually do.

And although I know it's a long road back,

I promise you

I'll be home for Christmas.

You can count on me.

Please have snow and mistletoe

And presents by the tree.

Christmas Eve will find me

Where the love light gleams.

I'll be home for Christmas,

If only in my dreams.

What's Doctrine Got To Do With Me? Some Thoughts for Women Married to Christian Leaders, Teachers or Pastors

Till I come, give attention to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine . . .Meditate on these things; give yourself entirely to them, that your progress may be evident to all.  Take heed to yourself and to the doctrine.  Continue in them, for in doing this you will save both yourself and those who hear you.

For any endeavor undertaken by two or more people to be successful, there will need to be a division of labor.  Each person works within their strengths - the salesman sells, the accountant manages the books, and the organizer structures.  However, while your husband may be the theologian of the family, this does not mean theology  is something at which only he needs to work.

In his second book to Pastor Timothy, the Apostle Paul writes, "Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth."  I am fairly certain we have all heard many Sunday School lessons or sermons where that verse was used to motivate all Christians to be diligent in Bible Study - and rightly so.  While the epistle was originally written to Timothy, its message is applicable to us all, in a secondary way, even if we are not pastors.

Tom Wright has some interesting comments on this verse as it relates to pastors and teachers:

In particular, [Paul] wants preachers and teachers to 'carve out a straight path for the word of truth.' Some translations say things like 'rightly dividing the word,' and it's possible Paul means something like that (in other words, 'being able to show how the sentences work, what each part means, and how they all relate to each other').  But it's more likely that the picture he has in mind is of a pioneer hacking out a path through the jungle so that people can walk safely through it.  Part of the job of the teacher is to do what Paul himself is doing in this passage: to see where there are brambles, creepers, and dead trees blocking the path which the word should be following to people's hearts and minds, and to shift them out of the way."  ~ Paul for Everyone: Pastoral Epistles

If we take a quick walk through the Psalms and Proverbs, we will see the theme of a straight path comes up over and over again and the admonition to keep to it is not directed at pastors and teachers alone:

The righteousness of the blameless makes their paths straight, but the wicked are brought down by their own wickedness.  Proverbs 11:5

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.  Psalm 119:105

In the way of righteousness is life, and in its pathway there is no death.  Proverbs 12:28

So you may walk in the way of goodness, and keep to the paths of righteousness.  Proverbs 2:20

Make me walk in the path of Your commandments, for I delight in it.  Incline my heart to Your testimonies, and not to covetousness.  Turn away my eyes from looking at worthless things, and revive me in Your way.  Psalm 119:35-37

Concerning the works of men, by the word of Your lips, I have kept away from the paths of the destroyer.  Uphold my steps in Your paths, that my footsteps may not slip.  Proverbs 17:4,5

So we have established as a Christian, we are responsible for being diligent in the Word and thereby staying on the straight or righteous path.  This path theme is of particular importance to you as the wife of a Christian leader.  If you are not traveling along the same path as your husband, your path could become rocky.

Notice in several of the verses above, the word "path" is in the plural, "paths."  On a personal level, we are all on our own Pilgrim's Progress journey, going down our individual Christian paths.  While people from different denominations are able to stand together and in agreement recite The Apostles' Creed, they do so while traveling different theological paths.  This became of particular importance to me when my future husband switched paths after we became engaged.

Meditate on these things; give yourself entirely to them, that your progress may be evident to all.  Take heed to yourself and to the doctrine.  Continue in them, for in doing this you will save both yourself  and those who hear you.

My husband and I met in my childhood Southern Baptist church. He also attended a Baptist church, but not of the Southern Baptist tradition with which I was familiar at the time.  He used words like "Reformed" and "Calvinism."  Back then, I had no idea what a difference these new words would make in my life!  During our engagement, my fiance presented me with a required reading list.  (Whenever I tell people this, he indignantly says, "Oh, I did not!" but the list was real.)  Here I am planning a wedding, my mind consumed with hearts and flowers, and my sweetheart is giving me Calvin's Institutes, Lorraine Boettner's Reformed Doctrine of Predestination, and other tomes.  Our engagement was full of theological discussions and debates.  I read the books and found myself drifting more and more over to his path.  This would happen again after we married when he found himself in closer alignment with the Presbyterian church.  In short order, this born, bred, and burped Baptist found herself leaving that denomination and becoming a congregant in the Presbyterian Church in America.  It is a good thing my hubby had taken heed to himself and to doctrine, because I confess when first presented with these changes, he did not encounter a quiet and gentle spirit.  I rebelled!  Fortunately, the more I read and the more we discussed doctrines, the more I found myself agreeing with his new direction.  Now I remind him if he can persuade me, he can persuade anyone.

Lest there be any confusion about it, let me state clearly my purpose in sharing this is not to convince you to explore Presbyterianism.  Pastors are to be students. It was because of his studies that my husband changed denominations.  Over the course of our marriage, I have seen him not necessarily change, but refine his theological views from time to time.  These matters are the topics of our conversations and as he shares what he is learning, I can see the way his mind is working and get a good feeling for where he is going.  I have learned it is important that I take heed to myself and to doctrine to be able to be the helper my husband needs and walk in unison down the same theological path.  The book of Amos sums it up nicely, "Can two walk together, unless they are agreed?"  Billy Graham and his wife Ruth, who was a lifelong Presbyterian, may just be the exception that proves the rule.

Continue in them, for in doing this you will save both yourself and those who hear you.

There are other reasons for staying sharp theologically. Church members and others will pose theological questions to you.  Again, church members and others will pose theological questions to you.  The biggies you can easily defer with a sweet smile and, "You'll have to talk to my hubby about that."  However, there will be situations, conversations at church get-togethers or casual parties, where in the midst of a general discussion a theological issue will be raised. This is true for all Christians, but remember your opinion will reflect upon your husband.  You represent him...always.  An off-the-cuff remark can cause him headaches. [Trust me - I have personal experience here.]  That is why it is so important that we are that workman who needs not be ashamed, the woman who is striving to bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.

Another reason to stay theologically sharp is the opportunities your spouse's vocation will present to you.  Whether it is standing in line at Wal-Mart or making chit-chat in a waiting room, when people find out I am married to a pastor, I am continually surprised by how often the conversation will take a decidedly personal turn.  A complete stranger will share an intimate situation with me and seek counsel as if I were the one wearing the clerical collar!  When faced with a hurting person, I silently pray that I will not be an ashamed workman and ask the Lord to bring to my remembrance His Word.

As husband and wife, we are to be one flesh and I think within that is an exhortation for a theological oneness.  We have a biblical example of this in the pages of Acts:

Now a certain Jew named Apollos, born at Alexandria, an eloquent man and mighty in the Scriptures, came to Ephesus.  This man had been instructed in the way of the Lord; and being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things of the Lord, though he knew only the baptism of John.  So he began to speak boldly in the synagogue.  When Aquila and Priscilla heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately.

Notice:  Scripture says, ". . .When Aquilla and Priscilla heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately."  Priscilla was being a helper to her husband in this circumstance as well.

You are not just married to a theologian, ladies; you are expected to be one.

[Ladies, if counseling opportunities keep finding you, here is a very good resource: Women Helping Women: A Biblical Guide to the Major Issues Women Face by Elyse Fitzpatrick & Carol Cornish, published by Christian Counseling & Education Foundation.  Kindle edition here.]

A Discussion of Zombies & the Movie, "Warm Bodies"

I could actually hear her skepticism coming out of my computer screen as I read her reply, "You're recommending a zombie movie?  Really?  Zombies?"

I understand my friend's surprise at my recommendation of Warm Bodies, the Romeo and Juliet meets Walking Dead film which prompted me to break my vow of no zombies EVER!  As I assured my friend Amy, this movie is about so much more than zombies.  It's about dead hearts being made alive, kindness building bridges, the isolation we often feel in crowds, and maybe even a little about what it means to be human.

And did I mention it's funny?  "R," the Zombie of our story, narrates much of the film.  In the opening scenes he says, "I don't wanna be this way.  I'm lonely.  I'm totally lost.  I mean, I'm literally lost.  I've never been in this part of the airport before..."

[Required caveat:  The film has zombie-esque violence and gore and the F-bomb is dropped a couple of times, which is very unfortunate as it is an otherwise charming movie.]

This review actually touches on a bigger question: Why have zombies become de rigueur of entertainment of late?  What does this fascination with the the walking dead say about our culture.  Screenwriter Brian Godawa (To End All Wars) has written a very interesting piece on this.  He makes a case for zombie movies:

"What? You may ask.  Is there anything BUT a shallow zombie movie?  Oh yes indeed.  If you don't know this, you are obviously not educated on the benefits of zombie movies for cultural enhancement and spiritual values.  And I am NOT being facetious. . .
Zombie movies are a powerful genre to explore some rather penetrating ideas about our humanity and out ethics as a society. . . What makes human exceptionalism?  How are we different from mere animals?  The ethic of survival versus self-sacrifice is played out in a tale of survival against those who have lost their humanity."

You can read the whole article here.

Ethan Cordray has also written a piece, "Zombies Are Us" on the blog First Things where he discusses why we've become fascinated with the brain-eating, slow-moving dead:

"What if this fascination is about more than just gross-out gore and action thrills?  What if it represents a subtle, subconscious understanding that something is wrong - spiritually wrong - with our culture. . . Zombies represent the appetite divorced from everything else.  They are incapable of judgment, self-awareness or self preservation.  Though they still move and act, they are not really alive.  They hunger and are never filled.  And they aren't just hungry for anything - they specifically want to eat the living, and even more specifically the brain, seat of rationality and self control. In Pauline terms, they are the sarx [flesh] in its purest form.  Without a soul to control it, the flesh is slave to its own desires."

You can read this article here.

So, yes.  I really am recommending a zombie movie.

Skunks and Sanctification

When I drive home at night, I usually go slower than I normally drive.  Living out in the country, I know at any time some critter can pop up out of the brush and onto the road in front of me.  So it wasn't too surprising the other night when I rounded a curve to see a skunk in the middle of the road right in front of me.

The little fur ball was in no hurry to get out of my way, so I honked my horn.  The skunk bared its teeth and sprayed!  Thankfully, I was out of range. He was still on the road, so I revved my engine.  He walked a little further, snarled and sprayed again,  We repeat this process twice more.

By now, I'm irritated!  "You little silly thing!  I'm trying to protect you!  You'll get hit if you stay on the road," I yell at the insolent skunk.

Then....it hit me.  The Lord had just presented me with an object lesson.  How many times have I growled and snarled when my plans were thwarted?  I'm sure the Lord looks at me and marvels, "You silly little thing.  I'm trying to protect you."

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."  ~ Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV) 

Daydreams of Being Wealthy

We recently watched the remake of one of my favorite classic movies, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.  Ben Stiller's version was thoughtful and fun, but I still prefer the whimsy and comedic touch of Danny Kaye as he played the mild-mannered man who daydreams himself into exciting situations and opportunities.

I relate to Walter. I often daydream about writing the great American novel or finally making an edible roast beef (don't ask!).  I guess my most frequent daydream is of being extraordinarily wealthy and the opportunities that would afford:  Unlimited travel, treating my friends to things, paying for a great kid's college, buying a boat...the list goes on and on.

I once read a quote by Warren Buffett, one of the richest men in the world, about his multibillion dollar charitable contributions, "There is more than one way to get to heaven, but this is a great way."

I realized then and there that I was already extraordinarily wealthy.  I have the "pearl of great price" that all of Mr. Buffett's billions couldn't purchase.  I have a guarantee of heaven that was given to me because "God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."  (John 3:16)

"For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul?  Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?"  Matthew 16:26

A Week of Devotions: #1 "Can You Hear Me Now?"

A few years ago, I had the opportunity to contribute some devotions to a friend's discipleship ministry.  Over the next week or so, I'm sharing a few of them on my blog.  Here's the first:

I heard the woman's voice long before I reached the terminal gate.  The nasal, strident tone was distinctive above the din of the other conversations in this area of the airport.  At the designated Southwest gate, I felt a frown of consternation forming as I realized the only seat available in "B" section was by her.

She was obviously a businesswoman:  well-tailored suit, laptop, cell phone fused to her ear.  It was via the phone that this one-sided conversation was being held.  Ignoring was not an option due to her volume and distinctive voice.  She droned on for the 30 minutes prior to boarding - a continuous stream of coworker criticisms, boasts, and self promotions, continually denigration of others' accomplishments with praise always followed by a "but...".

I wondered how one person could be so unpleasant!  I wondered if she had a clue how much about her personality was being revealed to the strangers around her.  As my opinion of the woman diminished, a troubling thought drifted in:

How much do my words reveal about my heart?  Would strangers hear my conversations and marvel at how unpleasant I was?

Let no corrupt communication proceedeth out of your mouth except that which is good for the use of edifying that it might administer grace to the hearers. ~ Ephesians 4:29

The Black Genocide of Abortion

Martin Luther King's niece has called abortion the Black Genocide.  For the record, I made this point eight years ago here.

Dr. Alveda King is throwing a spotlight on the dirty little secret that racism and population control efforts were the genesis of today's abortion industry by promoting two films meant to educate the public on this, Mafia 21 and Blood Money.  I became aware of this through Dr. Benjamin Wiker's book, 10 Books That Screwed Up The World (and 5 Others That Didn't Help).  From my review:   

What is clear as you read Wiker's book is how [Darwin's Descent of Man] influenced future generations.   Margaret Sanger's The Pivot of Civalization took Darwin's eugenics and made it palatable, to a degree.  She wasn't as direct as Hitler would be a few decades later, but she had her own way of ridding the world of undesirables - not just genetics, but the vague "unfit" of society.  Sanger's mechanism was birth control, abortion, and forced sterilization.  She is the founder of Planned Parenthood and she thought the intelligentsia should be the ones doing the planning.  For her, a low IQ was original sin.

Abortion proponents like to hide behind the banners of "choice" and "freedom," but as Proverbs teachers us, "...the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel."

Clipping Free Speech

LA Clippers owner Donald Sterling is an idiot.  I think most of us can agree on that.  The days of shock and dismay over biracial couples and friendships are remnants of another time.  There may be a few pockets of ignorance remaining, but that mindset is drawing its dying breath.

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said he would try to force Sterling to sell the Clippers.  The cry to "do something" about Sterling's ownership of the team troubles me.  The fact is in our nation, people have the right to be idiots.  They have the right to make idiotic statements. (Anyone old enough to remember Jesse Jackson's "Hymietown" remark?).  The NBA shouldn't do a thing about Sterling's ownership.  Let the African-American players on the Clippers team and other NBA franchises take action - be it a sick-out on game day, public shaming or other avenues of making their disgust known.  Let the marketplace make its feelings known by fans refusing to attend Clippers games, buy Clippers merchandise or demand refunds on season tickets.

There are ways in which pressure can be brought to bear on Sterling without interference with his right to do business.  The marketplace is perfectly capable of handling these issues without the involvement of the thought police or the infringement of a person's property rights (the Clippers) or freedom of speech - even if the speech reveals him to be a jackass.

Creation's Music

"In the darkness something was happening at last.  A voice had begun to sing.  It was very far away and Digory found it hard to decide from what direction it was coming.  Sometimes it seemed to come from all directions at once.  Sometimes he almost thought it was coming out of the earth beneath them.  Its lower notes were deep enough to be the voice of the earth herself.  There were no words.  There was hardly even a tune.  But it was, beyond comparison, the most beautiful noise he had ever heard.  It was so beautiful he could hardly bear it. . ."  

~From The Magician's Nephew by C. S. Lewis

No other passage from fiction brings me to tears quite as quickly as the above.  There is something sublime in Lewis' description of creation.  Lewis had cause to associate the earth with voices.  In Luke's description of Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem, we read:

     Then, as He was now drawing near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works they had seen, saying:
     " 'Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the LORD!'
     Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!"
     And some of the Pharisees called to Him from the crowd, "Teacher, rebuke Your disciples."
     But He answered and said to them, "I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out."  [Luke 19:37-40 NKJV]

What is more wondrous than Lewis' description is the possibility that creation is still singing to us, still making music that speaks of its Creator.  Jarbas Agnelli has shown that is entirely possible.  The winner of The YouTube Play Guggenheim Biennial Festival describes his entry:

"Reading a newspaper, I saw a picture of birds on the electric wires.  I cut out the photo and decided to make a song, using the exact location of the birds as notes (no Photoshop edit).  I knew it wasn't the most original idea in the universe.  I was just curious to hear what melody the birds were creating...

Here I've posted a short video made with the photo, the music, and the score (composed by the birds)."

Next, I came across this video of a modified turntable reading tree rings as music.

Henry Van Dyke's "Joyful, Joyful" (especially when sung to the 4th movement of Beethoven's 9th Symphony) expresses this beautifully:

All Thy works with joy surround Thee.

Earth and heav'n reflect Thy rays,

Stars and angels sing around Thee,

Center of unbroken praise.

Field and forest, vale and mountain,

Flow'ry meadow, flashing sea,

Singing bird and flowing fountain

Call us to rejoice in Thee.

This Year is NOW

My dear friend Rose often acts as a delightful muse who prompts me to write.  She's done it again.  This time it was the challenge of claiming one word for the year of 2014.  True to her spirit, Rose chose one phrase instead of one word.  I am sticking to the one-word framework and have selected "NOW" as my word for 2014.

How often I have said, "Someday I..."  It has finally occurred to me that, as I am in the midst of my 51st year, my somedays are fewer than they once were and I'd better get to doing!

This year, as much as I am able, I intend to make now my someday and to set in motion plans to achieve those nebulous goals, to act instead of making vague plans.  This has been percolating in the back of my mind for a while.  A friend wrote a blog post on her love/hate of Pinterest and it made me assess my pinning activities.  I realized I was spending more time pinning ideas, crafts, and recipes than I was acting upon those ideas or making those crafts and recipes.  That changes in 2014.

This year, when I think of an old friend or a family member I haven't seen or spoken to in a while, I will stop and write that note or send that email.

This year, I will set aside one supper a month (should be a week, but I'm realistic about my schedule) to make a new recipe.

This year, I will finish any project I start before starting another one. This is a big deal for this over-committed person.

This year, I will heed my Dad's wisdom that every ten years your priorities are up-ended.  I will clean out the cobwebs of unrealistic goals, useless plans, and false guilt.

This year, I will read 50 books - thanks to my Kindle and regular sessions on the treadmill!

When I ran this by my hubby, he suggested an ending that was perfect:

DV - Deo Volente - God willing.

On Sunday School, Bleach, and Green Food Dye

I have the privilege of teaching the Children's Sunday School class at my church.  Notice I said the Children's Sunday School class.  One of the challenges of being a small congregation is the combining of a variety of ages in this class; however, it is also one of the blessings.  I've loved seeing the older kids help the younger ones in games or crafts, explain a story element that went over the young ones' heads or encourage them in recalling a story or verse.  It is very much a harkening back to the one-room schoolhouse days (or what homeschooling parents do every day).

I strongly believe that Sunday School should be fun.  I want that hour on Sunday morning to be something the kids look forward to each week; it helps to create their first impressions of fellowship in the body.  To that end, I try to have a craft, object lesson or game of some kind each week. Sometimes these elements are hits and sometimes they are strikeouts!  Even when I've struck out, the oldest of my group will invariably give me an understanding look and a weak, "It was kinda fun."  (This boy has a very kind heart.)

The class that has been the most memorable one for me this year is one that could have quickly become a fiery crash and burn!  We were discussing clean and unclean and the transition that occurs with Jesus.  In the Old Testament, if a person came in contact with something/someone unclean (dead, diseased, etc.), then the uncleanness would spread to them.  We were studying a particular passage in Ezra where the men had married pagan wives and were told to put them away.  This was a hard lesson for the kids to understand, so it was wonderful to show in the New Testament that cleanness conquers uncleanness in regards to marriage  (1 Corinthians 7:10-16).

We then saw how Jesus conquers all uncleanness in the story of an ill woman:

And suddenly, a woman who had a flow of blood for twelve years came from behind and touched the hem of His garment.  For she said to herself, "If only I may touch His garment, I shall be made well."  But Jesus turned around, and when He saw her He said, "Be of good cheer, daughter; your faith has made you well."  And the woman was made well from that hour."  ~ Matthew 9:20-22

To make this clear to the class, I brought in water bottles filled with bleach and a box of food dyes.  We would put a drop or two in the bleach, shake, and watch the color disappear.  This was a hit!  The kids loved it!  We tried all the dye colors I had brought.  In my enthusiasm, I pushed the process a little and put several drops of green dye in with a "no matter how dark our sins..."  Shake and.... the green remained!  My fellow teacher (and mom of some of the kiddos) looked a me with widened eyes and a barely suppressed grin and began thinking of ways to bail me out!  Thankfully, with more vigorous shaking, even the heavy green dye was no match for the bleach.

What had begun as a lesson for kids became lessons for the teacher.  First, always try experiments first at home!  Second, sanctification seldom occurs quickly.  Like that green dye, some sin takes work to eradicate.  I'm fairly certain the teacher learned more than the children that morning.

"Catechisms for the Imagination" N.D. Wilson on the Importance of Story

Do you read for fun?  N. D. Wilson explains it could be the actual reason is a lot more involved:

But the word fun is a simplistic label for what is actually a remarkable and complex experience.  Stories make people feel.  Stories (particularly novels) take control of and govern the imagination, causing readers to feel things on command.  Stories create empathetic and sympathetic bonds between readers and fictional characters, and those bonds are truly real.

Amen, Mr. Wilson!  Amen.  My husband and I have movies we return to again and again because we long to spend time with the characters: Return to Me, The Outlaw Josey Wales, Casablanca, Rio Bravo, Cinderella Man and several more.  There are books whose characters I consider friends (the Harry Potter series and To Kill a Mockingbird immediately come to mind).  There are movies we revisit because they make us think such as TransSiberian and Forest Gump (which uses comedy to explore serious topics).

Wilson speaks of the power of books to shape us:

Let a faithful author guide a child's imagination, and that child will learn (and feel) what it is like to be courageous, to stand against evil, to love what is lovely and honor what is honorable.  Hand them the wrong book, and they could learn to numb their own conscience, to gratify and feed darker impulses.  The wrong stories catechize imaginations with sickness.

I love Wilson's nonfiction books as I've stated over and over.  He is a best-selling children's fiction author and I am looking forward to reading those books as well.  Even in his nonfiction books, Wilson is a storyteller, creating characters and scenes vividly.  He and I are in disagreement over a couple of characters he mentions in the article.  I understand the best-selling 50 Shades of Grey began as fan fiction on a Twilight board and those issues are why I've always been Team Jacob, but I can see some redeeming elements in Edward Cullen, along with the horrid aspects Wilson points out.  I truly disagree with his characterization of The Hunger Games heroine Katniss, but I may be in the minority in Christian circles.

For fellow readers, enjoy this article and over Thanksgiving add one more thing to your list to thank the Lord for - the gift of story.

2013 Word of the Year : Selfie

Something finally moved twerk off the top of the buzzword list.  Thank God.  The problem is the conquering hero is selfie, the smartphone self portrait, recently named by Oxford Dictionaries as the Word of the Year for 2013.  

Selfie's vocab victory isn't all that surprising considering the year began with Dr. Keith Ablow calling out millenials for being a "generation of deluded narcissists."  Dr. Ablow credited this self absorption, in large part, to social media:

     On Facebook, young people can fool themselves into thinking they have hundreds or thousands of "friends."  They can delete unflattering comments. They can block anyone who disagrees with them or pokes holes in their inflated self-esteem. They can choose to show the world only flattering, sexy or funny photographs of themselves (dozens of albums full, by the way), "speak" in pithy short posts and publicly connect to movie stars and professional athletes and musicians they "like."
     Using Twitter, young people can pretend they are worth "following," as though they have real-life fans, when all that is really happening is the mutual fanning of false love and false fame."

This inflated self-esteem slapdown was quickly countered with articles such as this one (which received one of my all-time favorite comments: "I am NOT narcissistic.  In fact, I would say that I am the last narcissistic person I know.  If everyone were as altruistic and humble as me, the world would be a much better place with much better people.  Don't believe me?  Check my Instagram.  I only post pics of my feet like once a week."]

Social media does enable all of us - my generation and before all the way to the millenials - to do what comes naturally:  be self-absorbed, self-centered twits.  We may need to make Romans 12:3 our Memory Verse of the Year for 2014:

For I say to every man that is among you, through the grace given unto me, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith."

Dad & the Belted Galloway

Every time I drive into Lexington, I pass a field of cows and they always make me smile.  Well actually,  not all of them make me smile, just one of them.  This one:

This is a Belted Galloway.  How I know this is a Belted Galloway is why it makes me smile.  And now...the rest of the story.

My Dad was determined that while his daughters may have grown up in a more urban location than he did, they would have a knowledge of and appreciation for farm life.  Growing up, we had over an acre of a garden every summer and my parents did their best to teach my sister and me about planting, fertilizing, and caring for crops.  Some of my favorite memories from the month of August is going to the State Fair and walking through the animal barns with Dad while he explained the differences of each breed of cow, pig, etc.

After Bobby and I were married, we rented a cabin with both sets of our parents on the outskirts of Gatlinburg.  On the way home from this trip, I was in the car with my folks.  After we passed a field of cows (that were now out of sight), I said, "Dad, what kind of cow has a white stripe around its belly like one of those pigs?"  Dad replied he had never heard of a cow like that followed by, "I never thought one of my daughters wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a cow and a pig!"  He continued to tease me about this all the way home.  Everyone was convinced I was mistaken about my white-striped cow.

Several weeks later, Dad and his best friend were driving in a more rural part of Jefferson County.  As they approached an exit on the Gene Snyder Freeway, off to his right Dad saw a whole field of cattle with a white-stripe around their bellies!  He and his friend found the farm and asked what breed this was.  When he arrived home, Dad prepared himself a plate of crow and called his eldest.  That mea culpa phone call was worth all the teasing I had endured!

That's how I know what a Belted Galloway cow looks like. . . and why they always make me smile.

Death By Living: A Review

Although I'd be hard pressed to prove it based on my recent Goodreads entries, my reading list does actually include intellectually satisfying and edifying books as well as the fluff I've devoured of late.  I'm beyond happy that counted among the more serious entries is Death By Living: Life is Meant to be Spent by N. D. Wilson.

If it is possible to have a love affair with a book, I had one with Wilson's previous offering, Notes From the Tilt-A-Whirl: Wide-Eyed Wonder in God's Spoken World. I recounted some of the reasons I loved it here.  My friend Amanda did a much better job than I and you can read her review here. After finishing Wilson's latest effort to bring us to a more full-orbed appreciation for the One in Whom we live and move and have our being, I've realized, comparatively, my affection for the previous book was puppy love when considered in light of the profound attachment I have for Death by Living.

The book is not without flaws.  On several occasions, Wilson stretches his writing to include just-one-more clever turn of phrase when perhaps restraint would have been better.  His writing style is that of his generation and younger and, I'm betting, is grating for some.  I'm sure there are other critiques that can be made, but the bottom line is - I don't care!  Looking at stylistic concerns in this book is missing the glorious canopy of an inviting forest because of those pesky trees.

"Story, story, my life is a story," says the hipster to his Twitter feed.

Right.  Narrative.  Story.  Boy, it sounds nice and groovy, but it's coming from someone who barely has enough of an attention span to get through a Web clip over four minutes. . .

No matter how trendy it might be when some people say it, life is a story.  All of history is a story.  Every particle has its own story trailing backward until it reaches the first Word of the One and Three, and all of those trailing threads - those many - are woven into the one great ever-growing divinely spoken narrative.

As I read Death by Living, I kept remembering a previous book I treasure, A House For My Name by Peter Leithart.  Leithart's book follows themes and symbolism seen in the lives of people throughout the Old Testament to help his readers better understand the New Testament.  I remember thinking while reading that book that I am just an extra in this Divine Play, but I add color and background to the story, so I need to play my small part well.  This thought ran through my mind again as I read Wilson's words:

Understand this: we are both tiny and massive.  We are nothing more than molded clay given breath, but we are nothing less than divine self-portraits, huffing and puffing along mountain ranges of epic narrative arcs prepared for us by the Infinite Word Himself.  Swell with pride and gratitude, for you are tiny and given much.  You are as spoken by God as the stars.  You stand in history with stories stretching out both behind and before.  We should want to live our chapters well, but doing so requires that we know the chapters that led up to us in our time and our moment; it requires that we open our eyes and consciously begin to shape those chapters that are coming after.

And for parents, Wilson reminds you that you are shaping the chapters that are coming after for your children as well:

. . .Other real live souls are now depending on you.  You are the creator of their childhoods. You are the influencer of their dreams and tastes and fears.  You are the emcee of all reality, the one to introduce those small people to the true personality of their Maker (as imaged by your life more than your words).  The choices you now make have lives riding on them.  Always.  Their problems and struggles are yours to help them resolve.  Their weaknesses yours to strengthen.  Or not. . . 

I imagine that realization has caused more than a few moms and dads to have sleepless, but prayerful, nights.

Now that I'm in the 50 and above demographic category, I can look back over my life and say a hearty amen to this:  "As a rule of thumb, when older people tell you something, believe them.  It will save you the shock of discovering later on that they were right (and also helps you dodge their smug gloating)."

Part of the blessing of getting older is the wealth of experience you have with God's providence, both the good and the hard.  You are farther down the road to a wholehearted trusting than you were in your youth.  For me, who has been known to cry over McDonald's commercials, tears seem to be always there when considering His great kindness to me.  Wilson paints this picture well:

My wife and I tend to overgift to our kids at Christmas.  We laugh and feel foolish when a kid is so distracted with one toy that we must force them into opening the next, or when something grand goes completely unnoticed in a corner.  How consumerist, right?  How crassly American.

How like God.

Wilson recounts his grandfather giving, instead of getting, gifts on his birthday:

He chose a passage of Scripture for each of his children and their spouses, for each of their children and their spouses, and for each of their children . . . he wrote a note of marginalia to each of us in the sharp, perfect handwriting of another time.

To the youngest of all, my sister's two-month-old son, he handwrote a simple message next to Colossians 1:9-12: You may not remember me.  I remember you and prayed for you when you were one day old.  Great Grandpa

What a gift!  What a wonderful foundation for that boy's life story.  How many of our ancestors have prayed for us, years before we were, and have had their prayers answered in the unfolding of our stories?

In the ending chapters of the book, Wilson writes of the people who shaped, saved, and steered his grandparents. This section resonated with me.  My dad once saved the life of a coworker.  The man had become tangled up in a machine and Dad, quite literally, held his body together and stopped the bleeding until the EMTs arrived.  Flash forward years later and I'm sitting in a high school classroom meeting a friend's beau.  When I tell him my name, he asks if I'm "Bobby Dean's daughter?"  When I nod, he says, "Your dad saved my dad's life" and recounts the story for me (one I had never heard from dad).  My girlfriend's future husband was here because my dad was there.  What we do echoes in eternity.  God's good providence for us extends to us before we are even born.

But what they did, they did unto the King (because they did it unto his brethren).  And they tipped tremendous scales as they did it, shaping lives and generations in ways that can never be undone. . .A ten-year-old boy.  An insecure girl.  A lonely neighbor.  Anyone thirsty.  Anyone hungry or sick.  Lives and generations and history are there for the tipping.  You have hands.  You have words.  You have something.  Touch the scales.  Touch the least of these.

I've shared four passages from this book; I wanted to share forty!  I'll share one more while begging you to get his book and devour it:

Ride the roaring wave of providence with eager expectation.  To search for the stories all around me.  To see Christ in every pair of eyes.  To write a past I won't regret.  To reach the dregs of the life I've been given and then to lick the bottom of my mug.  To live hard and die grateful.

And to enjoy it.

[You can watch a video promo for the book here.]

What I've Learned From Craft Fairs

1 - People do make things on Pinterest.
2 - Slap a monogram on something - it will sell!
3 - Chevrons are all the rage (so expect lots of out-of-style chevron items at yard sales in the spring).
4 - Craft fairs aren't just for buying handcrafted items - they're also for showing off your dogs.
5 - Paint it Wildcat blue, put a "UK" on it and an empty soup can will fetch $5.

Review: Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert by Rosario Champagne Butterfield

One of Them became one of Us and wrote a book about the experience - Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert.  In doing so, Rosario Champagne Butterfield has chastened and offered correction to how We interact with Them.  However, her book is more than a manual for evangelical interaction with the LGBT community.  Butterfield's stark honesty and service-oriented heart challenges Christians to fully grasp what it means to live what we believe.

Butterfield, a tenured Syracuse literature professor grounded in "the philosophical and political worldviews of Freud, Marx, and Darwin" whose specialty was "Queer Theory (a postmodern form of gay and lesbian studies)," was radically transformed in her 37th year of life:

How do I tell you about my conversion to Christianity without making it sound like an alien abduction or a train wreck?  Truth be told, it felt like a little of both . . . I didn't read one of those tacky self-help books with a thin coating of Christian themes, examine my life against the tenets of the Bible the way one might hold up one car insurance policy against all others and cleanly and logically, "make a decision for Christ."  While I did make choices along the path of this journey, they never felt logical, risk-free, or sane . . .Heretical as it might seem, Christ and Christianity seemed eminently resistible.

Nothing in this book is sugar coated - not her pre-conversion life or the pain and loss she experienced with her conversion, nor the glaring deficits and flaws she sees (pre- and post-conversion) in the experienced life of the evangelical community.  Often her critiques ring so true the evangelical reader feels his/her face sting from the literary slap across the face the pages have just delivered.

Christians always seemed like bad thinkers to me.  It seemed that they could maintain their worldview only because they were sheltered from the world's real problems, like the material structure of poverty and violence and racism.  Christians always seemed like bad readers to me, too.  They appeared to use the Bible in a way that Marxists would call "vulgar" - that is, common, or, in order to bring the Bible into a conversation to stop the conversation not deepen it. . .Their catch phrases and cliches were (and are) equally off-putting.  "Jesus is the answer" seemed to me then and now like a tree without root.  Answers come after questions, not before.  Answers must answer questions in specific and pointed ways, not in sweeping generalizations.

While the left side of your face is still burning, here comes a swat across your right cheek:

Too often the church does not know how to interface with university culture because it comes to the table only ready to moralize and not dialogue.  There is a core difference between sharing the gospel with the lost and imposing a specific moral standard on the unconverted.

Butterfield's recounting of her journey to Christ is riveting.  I often felt I couldn't turn the page quickly enough.  It began with a pastor and his wife whose lives she couldn't easily pigeonhole:

During our meal, I remember holding my breath and waiting to be punched in the stomach with something grossly offensive.  I believed at the time that God was dead and that if he ever was alive, the fact of poverty, violence, racism, sexism, homophobia, and war was proof that he didn't care about his creation.  I believed that religion was, as Marx wrote, the opiate of the masses, an imperialist social construction made to soothe the existential angst of the intellectually impaired.  But Ken's God seemed alive, three-dimensional, and wise, if firm.  And Ken and Floy were anything buy intellectually impaired. . .If Ken was the "Bible-thumping" pastor, he was also a good listener, a balanced interpreter, a lover of good poetry, a reader of culture and politics, and a husband who clearly adored, relied upon, and valued his wife's counsel.  These people simply didn't fit the stereotype and I simply didn't know what to do with this.

This pastor and his wife met this unlikely convert where she was - unconverted - and put in practice the biblical call to "Come now, let us reason together."  It struck me how often we expect the unconverted to interact with us as if they were converted.  We tsk tsk their unconverted lifestyles, unconverted language, etc., oblivious to the fact they are unconverted!  Ken and Floy Smith accepted Rosario the person where she was, while not compromising convictions.  That's a very hard path to walk successfully.

Butterfield shares a conversation she had with a closeted lesbian in a Bible-believing church that broke my heart.  This woman had shared her struggles with no one and had no one supporting her because, "Rosario, if people in my church really believed that gay people could be transformed by Christ, they wouldn't talk about us or pray about us in the hateful way they do."  Butterfield doesn't let this passive reproach suffice: "Christian reader, is this what people say about you when they hear you talk and pray?  Do your prayers rise no higher than your prejudice?"

Butterfield makes it clear the transition from radical lesbian to being a member of a Reformed church was anything but easy.  "Because conversion, in scripture and in my personal experience, is arduous and transformative, I fear the consequence of easy believism that typifies modern evangelical culture."  She warns of the dangers in "the Disneyland of evangelical culture" and what she sees as "misrepresentations of the gospel [that are] dangerous and misleading" in self-described purpose-driven and seeker-friendly churches.

This book has helped me apprehend anew what the process of sanctification truly requires.   She writes, "I would learn how to grieve through repentance without feigning false innocence . . . Even when faced with the blinding sting of someone else's sin,it really is not someone else's sin that can hurt us.  It is our own festering sin that takes the guise of innocence that will be the undoing of us all."

Butterfield's conversion cost her.  She was viewed as a traitor by the community she called home.  Her career  trajectory was threatened.  In the fall after her conversion, as a new and still questioning Christian, she gave an address to the incoming graduate students at Syracuse University.  The planned lecture on Queer Theory was scrapped.  This lecture would be her coming out as a Christian woman.  "Thousands of new students would hear my first, fledgling attempts to speak about Christian hermeneutics at a postmodern university.  I was flooded with doubt about my new life in Christ.  Was I willing to suffer like Christ?  Was I willing to be considered stupid by those who didn't know Jesus?"

She does more than write of her conversion.  As she continued in her Christian life, Butterfield married and she and her husband became foster parents and adoptive parents.  Her writing on adoption is beautifully written, as one would expect from an English professor.  It is also starkly honest and enlightening for Christians who have all been adopted into the family of God:

A man walked up to me, not knowing I was the preacher's wife, and said, "So is it chic for white women to adopt black kids these days?"  I took a deep breath and stood up to meet his gaze. 

Are you a Christian?" I asked him. 

"Yes, ma'am," he replied. 

"Did God save you because it was chic?"  We locked eyes until he dropped his head.  He stammered something unintelligible and backed away slowly, seeming to understand that even when the bear does not look like the cubs, the trauma of having one's head ripped off by a protective mama can be bloody business.

I loved her a little more after reading that.

Rosario continued to use her gifts of hospitality and service she had exercised while in the LGBT community, this time in her community of faith.  She speaks of how exhausting that can be at times, an honest admission that resonated with this reader.  She writes eloquently of her interactions with students and why we need to be culturally aware to be able to reach our communities.  She writes,

We encountered families who feared diversity with a primal fear.  They often told us that they didn't want to "confuse" their children by exposing them to differences in parenting standards among Christians.  I suspect that they feared that deviation from their rules might provide a window for children to see how truly diverse the world is and that temptation might lead them astray."

About students at a local Christian college, she writes,

The students were smart and devout in their faith.  They also were sheltered.  They imparted to me in a firsthand way the serious dangers of isolating our children from real life.  Adult children can appear obedient when they are tuning out instead of acting out.  College life tends to bring out all the fears and doubts and perceptions of contradictions and hypocrisies.  Between this hypersensitivity to authority and rules, and a growing sexual awareness, we met students who were struggling with real moral issues.  Their unsuspecting parents had no idea how their over-protection had dangerously ill-prepared their beloved, overly-protected children from all this.  Sin - especially sexual sin - has a sneaky way of triumphing in an environment of secrecy and shame.

I am profuse in my praise for this book; however, it is not without flaws.  While I respect how much the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North American has meant to her and the perspective she has on the regulative principle of worship, her defense of that denomination and particular perspective at times felt like brow-beating.  I, too, label myself an adherent of the Reformed faith.  I believe in the regulative principle of worship, just not as she defines it, and I have several strong disagreements with her definition of that principle.

With the above small caveat, I cannot recommend this book highly enough.  It will move you to tears and laughter.  It will shame you and strengthen you.  It will make you very glad you read it.

On McLuhan, Media, and Free Books

Marshall McLuhan is spinning in his grave.  

A recent Facebook conversation on children's literature had me remembering back to classes at the University of Louisville where I was bombarded with the writings of that particular communication theorist who famously stated "The medium is the message."  McLuhan predicted the end of the written/printed word.  He is credited with prophesying of the Worldwide Web before it came into being and of coining the term surfing, randomly moving from one thing to the next in research or, in our case, while playing on the www. -  World Wide Waste of Time.  

McLuhan suggested the electronic media would create a global tribal community where we would develop a collective identity instead of the fragmentation and individualism of the old print media which produced, he maintained, such concepts as capitalism, nationalism and democracy.  He even suggested Protestantism was brought about by the print media.  (This is probably true.  What would have come of Luther's 95 theses if a printing press hadn't been available to distribute them to the masses?)

While McLuhan maintained the digital world would produce a more collectivist mindset, I think the opposite is happening.  Print media hasn't disappeared; it has evolved.  Digital books still maintain their bookish essence in that you still "flip the page" of your Kindle, iPad, Nook, etc.  Digital books still support a democratization of sorts as eBooks are on the whole cheaper than their hard-copy cousins thus allowing access to more people. Digital lending libraries are beginning to pop up..   Individualism is still encouraged as each "ism", hobby, political view, etc., can cheaply and quickly spread its message to its particular segment of interested parties. And, last but not least, Protestantism, as well as other religious perspectives, is still being supported by the medium as the Web offers evangelistic opportunities in areas that may be politically forbidden to missionary efforts. 

Taking its cue from England, the literary world is shouting, "The Book is dead!  Long Live the Book!"  The written word continues.  The e-Readers have even made the activity cool again.  Sorry, Marshall.

To cheaply enjoy the evolved book, check out Amazon's free Kindle books here,   You can subscribe to a variety of clearinghouse sites for cheap e-books such as BookBub.  [Disclaimer:  I've found the occasional gem on BookBub, but most of the time its offerings are drivel. To subscribe, you have to have the patience to wait days for an interesting offer.]  There's also FreeBooks.com which offers a wide range of genres and includes some great books such as Productive Christians in an Age of Guilt Manipulators and  Days of Vengeance.  A quick search of the web will reward you with lots of sources for digitized classics.