Grace under water pressure

On Saturday, my dear friend Beth and I, and our husbands, were in charge of the 6th grade car wash to raise funds for J.J.’s class trip. Let me just begin by telling you that if you are ever asked to lead a 6th grade car wash – don’t do it.

It was only four hours, but in that span of time I had such a myriad of feelings that I probably can’t explain them all to you.

One thing, however, that I think is worth mentioning is that very few of the kids could work hard.

Hear me out: I LOVE FUN. As a matter of fact, I prefer fun to most other things. I am all for bubble fights and hose squirting and general soap sudsy revelry. I am both happy to participate in said fun, and to allow it. Yet I had some sense on Saturday that there should be some actual car washing going on since we were taking people’s money.

Now, there were a few kids, I must say, who were great workers. They also had lots of fun, but then when a car arrived, they scrubbed and hosed and dried. The majority of kids, though, had excuses and arguments against putting out any sort of effort at all, and I began to wonder if I was chaperoning a school dance or an actually fundraising activity. The even crazier part was that even after they were (gently) encouraged to help, they still did not jump in to participate. At one point, I considered prompting them with a high pressured power washer.

You know what? I want kids to be kids, yes, but I somehow think it is important that they put forth some effort for what they want. These particular kids are going on an out of state class trip, one that will cost quite a bit of cash, and I do not think it is unrealistic for them to help raise such cash.

Perhaps too many parents are just writing checks for their kids’ activities these days. Perhaps a little elbow grease would do us all good. Perhaps I am old fashioned and out of touch.

My children claim that they do far too many chores. I claimed the same when I was a kid, but somehow I survived.

Thank you, Mom and Dad, for teaching me to work.

Offense

Yesterday was our middle school football season opener. The team lost 12 to 8, but it was a decent showing for the first try. My son, Noah, is on the team.

I was on the sidelines, trying to figure out which parents belonged to which players. First of all, with all the padding and helmets, it’s hard to tell which kid is which, but then to pair them with parents I’ve never met is quite a challenge. I have heard my son say some of these player’s names during his tales from school series, and I was eager to meet some of them.

I watched one particular woman who was there with 4 children, ranging in ages from about 15 to 2. The littlest one, a girl, was obviously adopted from China. She was sitting in her stroller so calmly, eating her Cheerios, that during half-time I approached her and leaned over to tell her what a good girl she is. She smiled broadly, and showed me that the Cheerios were all gone.

I then stood up and introduced myself to her mother, a smiling and friendly woman. She told me her name, and I immediately knew who her son was. She told me how the little girl had special needs and was just learning to speak English. I listened to her story – about how she had 4 children of her own and still adopted the sweetheart eating Cheerios – and I instantly liked her. She was open and gracious.

As she continued to talk, however, she started to tell me about the Bible curriculum her husband does with her children. Now, at this point I had only been listening and had not shared that I was a follower of Christ. Telling me about curriculum was fine, but as she continued about a plethora of other biblical activities, pausing to watch my face instead of the game, I realized that she was sort of “fishing” with me, wanting to see how I would react.

All at once I knew I was an outreach project on the sidelines. She was going to either invite me to church or tell me about Jesus.

I know I could of told her about myself right away, but I wanted to see what she was going to do, how she planned to close the deal. I was curious. And even though she was a completely lovely person, all the overwhelming Bible talk was hindering my ability to yell, “Go defense!”

Here’s the thing, dear Christians, I was already so impressed with her mothering and her choices and her open smile, that I was naturally drawn to her from the beginning. It was only the first game, and she has plenty more chances to get to know me. Our exchange ended up being so forced and overwhelming, that we both were uncomfortable and I felt like I needed padding and a helmet.

I never did tell her that I used to teach an Evangelism class. I’ll save that for when I get to know her a little better.

completely empty

My kids have this funny thing they do. Often, after playing in a game somewhere, they bring their empty water bottles back to the car with them. On the ride home, they stick the bottles out the window, and depending on the position you hold the bottle, and the speed of the car, you can produce different sounds. The kids are getting so good at it, that they actually had some harmony going the other day. J.J. thought it was an A and an F, but who’s to say.

About two weeks ago, we were driving home from the tennis courts, and Noah had his bottle out the window, trying to make the lowest pitched note he could. It was just the kids and me, and we all smiled as he experimented with it for about 2 miles or so.

We stopped at a red light at an intersection near our home, and suddenly I was completely doused through the driver’s side window of the car with a liquid I later discovered was soda.

Quite shocked, I turned to see a man in a red pick up truck in the left hand turn lane. He screamed something like, “That’ll teach you to try and throw water on my truck…” but my completely perplexed look must have caught him off guard.

“That kid over there,” he said, referring to Noah. “He’s trying to throw water on my car.” He was a VERY angry man.

“The bottle is completely empty,” was my feeble reply while I came to grips with the truth that I was covered in Sprite or Sierra Mist. “He’s just playing a game.”

“Tell the little f****r to play in front of someone else.”

Naturally, the red light refused to change to green. My children and I sat there in stunned silence, just wanting to get away, and he continued to look at us and make sneering remarks. When the left turn arrow turned green, instead of drive away, he sat right there – still staring at us. For a minute, I was afraid he was planning to follow us when our light turned green, but the car behind him starting honking its horn so persistently that he peeled away, screeching his tires the entire way.

The moment still makes me sad. My kids were frightened, I was sticky, the man was enraged.

So much for harmony.

Corny songs and just reminders

So, last week, I got a song stuck in my head. No, that’s an exaggeration. I got two lines I wasn’t sure of and a fairly shaky tune of some remote song I remember from years ago stuck in my head.

My brain chose to “sing” it incessantly, making up lyrics and stanzas – even though I knew the root of what was inside me was vaguely familiar.

I sang my version of said song for a couple of the baseball moms this weekend, and everyone else had some distant memory of it as well, but we couldn’t seem to pinpoint an artist or title.

Yesterday, on iTunes, I typed in the few words I thought were correct, and sure enough, there was the fine (but immensely corny) song by the Bellamy Brothers, “Let Your Love Flow.”

The chorus goes like this:

Just let your love flow like a mountain stream
And let your love grow with the smallest of dreams
And let your love show and you'll know what I mean it's the season
Let your love fly like a bird on the wind
And let your love bind you to all living things
And let your love shine and you'll know what I mean that's the reason

After I finally relieved the insane guessing game inside my head, and even chuckled a little at the answer, I thought of the verse of Scripture in the book of Amos that says:

But let justice roll on like a river,
righteousness like a never-failing stream!

I started to think about a mountain stream after the rain – how powerful and strong and sweeping it is.

And, as corny as it sounds, I felt immense hope at the thought of love and justice and righteousness like that.

Not a bad thing to have rolling around in your head, or rolling around on the Earth, even if the details are hard to articulate.

Broken

I may not be around on Monday because the accident prone Melchior boys need to go back to the orthopaedist - ok, just J.J. He broke his left thumb diving for a baseball today, so we did the whole Emergency Room thing, yada yada, and need to head to the orthpaedist in the morning.

Scary, but I've been there so often that I actually know the correct spelling of ORTHOPAEDIST.

When we were headed home from the hospital, via McDonalds (the sure cure all supper), J.J. wanted to call some of his teammates to tell them that he would be out 4-6 weeks, but then he looked at me and said, "You'd better do it, Mom. I think I'm going to cry."

It made me feel broken too.

Vocab test

This morning, before he got on the bus, I helped my 8th grader study for his first vocabulary test of the school year. Boy, did he have difficult words. I mentioned this while reviewing them with him.

“I don’t think I use any of these words in every day conversation,” I noted. “I’m not even sure I know what convivial means exactly.”

“You use words like this,” my son replied, “maybe not these exact ones, but big ones.”

“Really? Nuh uh,” was my well spoken response.

“Mom, sometimes people don’t know what you mean, at least I don’t. The other day you said it was a ‘taxing’ situation and I was sure it had something to do with money until I figured it out.”

I laughed, but you know what? I want to be an easily understood person. Of course, that doesn’t mean I have to use the vocabulary of an 8th grader all the time, but the words and inflections and posture I choose can either be easy or difficult to relate to.

I want to be easy (in the most appropriate sense of the word).

Time to take a vocab test. As a Christian, do I choose words and language that that creates distance or safety? Judgment or acceptance? Defensiveness or peace? Am I cool or warm?

…or perhaps I should say, am I supercilious or convivial?

“Lazarus, come forth….loose him and let him go.”

I am reading a work of fiction entitled, “The Lazarus Project.” Truthfully, it got great reviews and the cover was cool, so I bought it. I have only just started, so I have no idea whether I recommend it or not.

The author, Aleksandar Hemon, has a beautiful command of language – that I do know. On the second page, he writes about a man visiting a street he has never been on before:

Someone peeks from behind a curtain of the house across the street, the face ashen against the dark space behind. It is a young woman: he smiles at her and she quickly draws the curtain. All the lives I could live, all the people I will never know, never will be, they are everywhere. That is all that the world is.

I have often sat and contemplated all the people I do not know. Sometimes, when I am in busy traffic, I watch the drivers fly by and marvel at the fact that they all have names and facts and circumstances and people that they love. I mean, how many people do you think are peeing at this very moment? All over the world, peeing right now?

There is something so bonding and so isolating about being a member of humankind, isn’t there? It is a mixture of knowing you belong because of shared experience, but also wondering how to avoid being lost in the sea of it all. So many people, so many names, so many feelings – generations upon generations.

Maybe some of it is answered by choosing to draw the curtain or simply smile back.

Rescue

I saw a commercial on TV for Lending Tree recently. It depicted a man, who apparently has financial difficulties, looking at his own reflection in his car window. Even though he was in a suit and tie, his reflection showed him dressed like a super hero – just like the Green Lantern.

The general idea was, instead of being helpless during financially stressed times, take your future into your own hands. The tag line read, “YOU TO THE RESCUE.” Well, you and Lending Tree, of course.

I smiled at this particular thought – you to the rescue.

Then I had breakfast with my mom this morning. It was a really nice time together and we proceeded to solve the world’s problems like we usually do. I really love my Mom.

One of the ideas we discussed was how we, as Christians, have come to believe that God gifted us in particular ways to help solve problems – in the church, in the world, in our lives. While I think it’s true that God does not put us in a canoe without an oar, I also suspect that we have come to rely on our own problem solving skills and sense of logic far too much.

Hear me out. GOD HAS ALREADY SOLVED THE WORLD’S PROBLEMS. He always goes first - goes ahead. Wendy’s ingenuity, or lack thereof, is really not a factor unless I am using my gifts to follow His already paved way. Does that make sense? There is not only satisfaction for my creativity, thinking and skills in His plan, but there are real, honest and working solutions as well.

So, where I do agree with Gandhi when he said, “You must be the change you wish to see in the world,” I also must insist that the pattern for that change – the template, if you will – has already been discovered.

Yes, me to the rescue in the world. But only after I acknowledge Who has rescued me, grabbing on to the life preserver and letting it drag me in the well worn path of Jesus.

Speaking of love and dogs

Yesterday was a good Monday in Philadelphia. Our Phillies are leading their division, our Eagles had a big win Sunday, and I actually saw a dog wearing a Michael Vick jersey. All is well in The City of Brotherly Love.

I am coming to the conclusion that the world is so complicated that it may be naïve to believe that I have an informed opinion about anything at all. This leaves me in a pickle, frankly, because the natural next step is to remain opinionless, but then that often is interpreted as apathy to the rest of the human beings I coexist with. Don’t ever encounter a group of Christians without being armed with an opinion, believe me. Accusations of pluralism and relativism aboundeth.

So, then I look to the Scriptures for some sort of mandate to inform me, and there I find Jesus saying that the greatest commandment is:

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Opinions and discernment and judgments are all tricky things, aren’t they? Sometimes we rationalize one to be another, and at other times we ignore the need for clear perspective.

When I am confused about which is which, I try to love. Letting God fill in the blanks, either way, just seems best.

I wonder if they are selling Vick jerseys in doggie heaven?

Spam

Last spring, my sons joined a free fantasy baseball league online and used my email address for their contact information. Since that very second, I have been inundated with spam. I have won the lottery in the UK several times. I have been promise that Viagra will give me the much needed boost I need. I have been invited to study online to become a cosmetologist. And I have been guaranteed to lose 50 lbs. this week using the same method Oprah did.

Spam must work or it wouldn’t be so prolific. But it sure is annoying.

I nosied in on a back & forth on Facebook last week that was interesting. I did not comment myself (amazing self-restraint, huh?) but the whole thing left me puzzled.

A Christian friend of mine posted something about being proud that her 1st grader was saying the Pledge of Allegiance every day, and that the words still included “Under God.” Nice and no big deal, right? WRONG.

Another gentleman, an agnostic, took opposition to her post and made plain his feeling that people shouldn’t be forced to say something they simply do not believe – after all, “this is the United States of America.”

A firestorm began, with tons of folks jumping in. I read the comments with interest, especially the Christians defending their faith. I read everything from, “You have chosen to put intellect over faith, but I have chosen to put faith over intellect…”

Sheesh. I hope the two are not mutually exclusive.

Then there was, “I will pray that the Lord Jesus reveals Himself to you….:” without any discourse or acknowledgement of what the agnostic man believes to be true.

Naturally, there was the whole “Christian nation” and “God Bless America” business as usual – even a little sprinkling of “our founding fathers built this nation under God…”

It almost seemed like spam, but it certainly wasn’t working.

Then, in an unrelated post, a pastor friend of mine posted this on Facebook: Welcoming diversity doesn't just mean inviting other folks to the table - it means giving up our unilateral right to choose the menu.

Please don’t hear me watering down Truth. There is Absolute Truth. But just like spam, a little research reveals our biases weren’t truth at all.

I hope the Lord Jesus reveals Himself to us all.

Rambling on

So, today is 9/11. For Americans, this day is burned into our memories. I noticed on Facebook a few minutes ago, that lots of folks are posting comments like, “We will never forget” and many are thanking the men and women in our military.

9/11 was a horrific day to be sure. And Pearl Harbor. And the Oklahoma City bombing.

And the day an atom bomb fell on Hiroshima.

My son’s middle school hosted a First Friday Celebration this morning. Parents were invited to attend homeroom and first period, and then join the administration in the cafeteria for refreshments and conversation. We observed a moment of silence in homeroom to remember.

Right afterward, I watched the students interact with one another. One particular young girl was wearing a T-shirt covered in peace signs – kind of a retro 60s sort of deal. Funny though, even as she wore the peace symbol, she wasn’t making peace at all in the classroom. The teacher had to speak with her a couple of times, and it was obvious that she was a bit of a bully. The girl sitting next to her seemed to me that she was afraid to look up – hoping to stay invisible lest the “peaceful” girl noticed her presence.

I sat there and thought about Jesus’ words about Peacemakers. It’s not enough to be against war, we must be FOR peace. We must make it. Peace is not merely the cessation of hostilities, it is actively and intentionally promoting the well-being of others.

I, too, am thankful to the men in women in our military and I recognize the realities of our world. But, on a macro level, I must wonder if making bombs constitutes making peace. What would constitute making peace?

The same is true for war protestors. Are they peacemakers in their everyday lives? The end does not justify the means and so protesting something that we do not make creates not only a systemic problem, but an individual one as well.

I will never forget 9/11. But the memory must teach me something.

No answers, just ramblings.

Peace be with you.

Easy answers?

CLICK HERE and read an interesting article.

Thoughts?

Propoganda

My children start school today – but just barely. Our local teachers’ union announced last week that they would strike because they were unhappy with the contract proposed by the school district. In Pennsylvania, there is a law about how much notice the union must give the community, so last Friday a judge ordered the teachers to show up today.

In this dispute, as in every dispute, there are two sides to the story. I try to educate myself with the “facts,” but honestly, when you read the information that both sides are disseminating, the facts are hard to discern. I learned last week that the school board is spending $7,500 a month to the Public Relations firm it has hired to create the right image during the negotiations.

When discussing the same letter, or the same contract items, the two sides are so different and the language used is so inflammatory that it’s hard to believe they are talking about the same thing, let alone imagine an eventual resolution to it all.

I started to think about this particular phenomenon and I think it is pretty common. You know what I mean - do we actually manipulate each other to the point of deceit, or do we really believe that our perspective is valid and true even if it’s not? I suspect both are sometimes correct.

I want to be the kind of Christian that sees relationships and communications differently. When challenged or afraid, I want to hesitate – to pause and simply consider another person’s point of view – before fiercely defending my own position. I think there are even times that I do not need to defend at all, but I can go ahead and be misunderstood in order to love someone well. Easier said than done, I know.

Imagine not needing any PR.

I think I’ll go on a propaganda strike.

Really scary stuff

Labor Days

Labor Day weekend has officially begun at our house – the last hurrah of summer. The kids are asking if they can work the phones and have a bunch of school friends over to swim and have the final big baseball game in the yard before climbing on the bus next Tuesday.

I considered cleaning my house last night, but figured that was a futile task with kids coming, so we grabbed ice cream and went to my parents’ house to watch the Phillies game.

I love having my parents close by. My children saw both sets of their grandparents yesterday, and I was thinking how important that consistent interaction is in their lives. Generations of love and investment, all of which reinforces who my kids are in the world and who they belong to. One of the things that I say to my kids all the time is, “Remember who you are and Whose you are.”

I’ve never been able to figure out the correct way to spell Whose or Who’s or whatever, but mostly I say it anyway. I capitalize it because my children know I am not only referring to their family, but I also mean God. I want them to understand now, that no matter what happens or where they find themselves, they are grounded and they belong to Someone.

Giving birth to them was a treat, and raising them is even more, but ultimately they were gifts that were loaned to me – to us, their family. Letting them grow to be what God intends, guiding them to discover their own path, is the greatest task I’ve been given.

And modeling how God feels about them, well, that’s a labor of love.

Anticipation

I have been holding out on you a little. We found out, in early July, that my husband’s 44 year old brother has Stage 4 cancer in his liver, lungs and colon. His name is Chris, and my husband shared a bedroom with him for 18 years growing up.

His family has wracked their brains for where this may have come from with no clear answers, only a cloud of questions and bewilderment. Chris is a crazy healthy guy, an exercising nonsmoker, so his diagnosis brought shock and disbelief with it.

I began to fervently pray, anticipating what God will do.

Here’s the thing though – later this week, after 8 weeks of radiation and chemo, Chris has a scan to determine where things stand. As I wait for the results of that test, my anticipatory prayers are themselves embattled. I want to have the kind of faith that anticipates ANYTHING that God allows, whether healing or otherwise. I want to be the kind of Christian who recognizes a bigger picture than the here and now. I want to really get it, you know?

But as I watch my husband, his parents, Chris’ wife & children suffer in anticipation, my yielding to God’s will falters a little and I find myself wanting to dictate to Him the right thing to do. Please make Chris better.

And even though this isn’t even close to being about me, I tell God that after Diana’s death, I’m just not sure how much more my heart can bear.

I want to see it with God’s eyes. I even sometimes do. Jesus healed some people, and He walked by others. I can’t always answer why He did so, especially when disease seems to be sitting in my lap this year, but I can acknowledge that it is true. My struggle then, is not with why God allows suffering, but why He chooses to intervene when He does – or doesn’t. And not just in my world, but in the world.

So, while I attempt to answer the unanswerable, I will declare my anticipation – believing my heart will follow.

Huge

My family and I went to dinner last night with one of the most treasured people of my life. My Aunt Genny is 86 years old now, but you’d never ever know it. Beyond being physically well, she continues to be the model for grace in my life.

My mom was an only child and my father’s family was in Canada, so people from the church were I grew up “adopted” us as their own and we called them aunts and uncles. Aunt Genny, short for Genevieve, was one such person. When I consider what a heart after God's own is like, I have hers as an example. In recent years, she has moved to South Carolina to be near her daughter, but she is here for a brief visit.

After dinner, she wanted to visit another old friend, a man I called Uncle Seth, and so we hopped over to his place unannounced. He was pleased to see us and we learned that he had recently suffered a stroke and was recovering. He was still his funny self though.

When I walked into Uncle Seth’s home, I had an experience that I have had several times in recent years. Have you ever visited a place where you haven’t been since you were a child, only to discover it is far different – smaller, changed – from what you remember? Stepping into Uncle Seth’s kitchen was like being in a time machine in some ways. Even though his wife, Aunt Betty, has died – her drapes and pictures are all the same ones that I remember from childhood. I used to stay with Aunt Betty when I needed to stay home from school because I was sick, and even last night I could picture the couch were she had me rest, her Chihuahua snuggled up with me.

And yet, if you had asked me to draw a picture of the place before I visited, I would have seen something much larger than what is really there. In my mind’s eye, I still see it as a child, and my perspective was much smaller then.

I stood there, thinking it all through, and listened to Aunt Genny and Uncle Seth catch up. One thing I know, using my grown up eyes, is that the influence these people have had on my life is not small at all. As a matter of fact HUGE comes to mind.

Not one of them was educated beyond high school, and Aunt Genny was recalling an assembly line job that she worked for many years. They never had much to show for their efforts – small homes, modest furnishings, practical cars. In some ways, now that they are growing older, the world may not notice their seeming ordinary lives. But what their faithfulness meant to me was nothing short of miraculous.

And here I am, in the middle of the night, wondering if my life reflects the impact they have had on me. I want to be sure their time and effort has come to fruition in my heart and in my person, and being with them has reminded me of what is true, and real, and HUGE.

I don’t want to be a grown up with a still small perspective.

Sharpened

We bought school supplies yesterday.

Each of my children walked through the store deciding what they needed in order to have a productive year. I walked around imagining the supply drawers in our kitchen – now full of broken crayons and markers without caps and dried out glue sticks from last year’s school escapades. I filled my cart with new items – including poster board – and couldn’t wait to get home and clean out.

At the register, J.J. asked why I had gathered all “this stuff.”

“Mom,” he said, “Most of this we won’t need until we are assigned a project or book report. That won’t happen for a while yet.”

I looked at him and smiled because I remembered the times when he and I were out late at the store the night before a project was due – frantically trying to find the right color construction paper because he had “forgotten” to mention the supplies he would need and I did not have them on hand.

“I guess I want to be prepared,” I answered him. “It’s nice to be ready ahead of time.”

As I continued to think about his comments, I realized that I read my Bible for some of the same kinds of reasons. Yes, I love the poetry and storytelling and drama it provides (it really is a work of literature) but reading it everyday also somehow prepares me for things – for life.

It’s not that I face every situation able to quote the scripture that is relevant, but by reading my Bible often I begin to innately know the story of God – the way of God – and His heart. In essence, it supplies me with what I need even before I need it.

It’s so much better than a frantic search the night before.