Woman in the home has not yet lost her dignity, in spite of Mother's Day, with its offensive implication that our love needs an annual nudging, like our enthusiasm for the battle of Bunker Hill.
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Good grief! It's Mothers Day! -Charlie Brown
Charlie Brown has pretty much summed up my Mothers Day sentiments! That's about all I have to say about the day. Though I appreciate John Erskine's take on the day as well :
Thursday, May 10, 2007
My first son just turned 18. He is not my eldest child, but he's my first potentially draftable one. His sister preceded him by 18 months, so this birthday was not a "first" for us as parents, but he is the first young man we've raised. The day felt important to me.
We celebrated in a way none of us would have anticipated 12 months ago - at a Lebanese restaurant in Bukit Bintang, the Times Square of Kuala Lumpur, eating hummus and shish kebab while enduring the undisguised stares of the heavily disguised young woman in a burkha sitting across the room from us. We do make an imposing party, I guess, when all nine of us occupy the same space on the planet. Which happens all too infrequently now for my taste. My son and his slightly older sister are leaving for six weeks of backpacking in SouthEast Asia tomorrow, after which time they will be home for a week or two here or there until college, until life. We'll all have the same address for college bills, but not for much else.
So I wrote him a letter. I wrote it quickly, and did not even have a chance to proofread it, since by the time I was finishing it someone else was clamoring for breakfast, and someone else needed a ride to ballet, and I was afraid if I read it again I might decide parts of it were not just right and I would save it for a rewrite which I knew would never happen. So I sealed it in blue airmail envelope - the only kind I could find at the moment - and tucked it in a drawer where it sat till cake and presents time. I gave it to him along with his gifts of ear pods, hemp bracelets handmade by his sisters, a travel-size sketch book and pencils, his smallest sister's sacrificial cache of Legos, a CD called something about the Wretched Exiles recorded in someone's family room, and some DVDs from the neighborhood pirated movie store.
I wanted to say something to him as he walked out my door, figuratively as well as literally. The literal part is not so hard; it's the figurative part that's killing me. I don't say wise things well, and I don't have really personal talks with my kids often, like Bill Cosby and Meredith Baxter-Birney do on the old TV shows we've been watching lately. Sometimes I even find myself hoping my kids are listening when the wise parents on the show say something significant - parenting by sit-com, I guess. But my son has spent the last seven months on the road already, seeing movies we'd never watch in our living room, and rubbing shoulders with people who won't give such wholesome advice, so I wanted to seize the moment and say something that he might remember sometime when he had a choice to make.
What I wanted to say first of all was be brave rather than safe. That's not an original thought, I read an address a few months ago with this idea as its central theme. But it seemed like the best piece of advice to give a young man on the verge of everything. Be wise, be circumspect, be careful about which countries you hitchhike in, register your presence with the US Embassy, but in the big life choices, choose brave over safe. Dare to do what is good and noble even if it feels risky and it scares you and everyone else you know is making the safe choice.
Take care of the poor and needy; speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, share your bread with the hungry and your clothes with the naked. Don't turn your back on or just forget about the many, many people in the world who do not have the blessings you do. Remember Micah 6:8 - do justice and love mercy. Make it your life's work.
Understand that life is short and that you have only one chance to spend the time you have been given. Time is not like money - if you squander it you cannot repent of your foolishness, pay off your debts, work hard and replenish your bank account. There is no way to get more time once you have spent what you have. So spend it wisely, even now when it seems like you have forever at your disposal. Remember that is an illusion.
Fianlly, remember your true citizenship is in Heaven. No earthly loyalty, ideology, political alliance or cause should ever cause you to forget that you are a stranger and pilgrim here, an ambassador for a kingdom that will never build an embassy in any of the world's capital cities. Don't confuse your loyalties or lose sight of your true allegiance.
And although I didn't say this, I hope he can read between the lines: Don't forget to call your mother every now and then.
We celebrated in a way none of us would have anticipated 12 months ago - at a Lebanese restaurant in Bukit Bintang, the Times Square of Kuala Lumpur, eating hummus and shish kebab while enduring the undisguised stares of the heavily disguised young woman in a burkha sitting across the room from us. We do make an imposing party, I guess, when all nine of us occupy the same space on the planet. Which happens all too infrequently now for my taste. My son and his slightly older sister are leaving for six weeks of backpacking in SouthEast Asia tomorrow, after which time they will be home for a week or two here or there until college, until life. We'll all have the same address for college bills, but not for much else.
So I wrote him a letter. I wrote it quickly, and did not even have a chance to proofread it, since by the time I was finishing it someone else was clamoring for breakfast, and someone else needed a ride to ballet, and I was afraid if I read it again I might decide parts of it were not just right and I would save it for a rewrite which I knew would never happen. So I sealed it in blue airmail envelope - the only kind I could find at the moment - and tucked it in a drawer where it sat till cake and presents time. I gave it to him along with his gifts of ear pods, hemp bracelets handmade by his sisters, a travel-size sketch book and pencils, his smallest sister's sacrificial cache of Legos, a CD called something about the Wretched Exiles recorded in someone's family room, and some DVDs from the neighborhood pirated movie store.
I wanted to say something to him as he walked out my door, figuratively as well as literally. The literal part is not so hard; it's the figurative part that's killing me. I don't say wise things well, and I don't have really personal talks with my kids often, like Bill Cosby and Meredith Baxter-Birney do on the old TV shows we've been watching lately. Sometimes I even find myself hoping my kids are listening when the wise parents on the show say something significant - parenting by sit-com, I guess. But my son has spent the last seven months on the road already, seeing movies we'd never watch in our living room, and rubbing shoulders with people who won't give such wholesome advice, so I wanted to seize the moment and say something that he might remember sometime when he had a choice to make.
What I wanted to say first of all was be brave rather than safe. That's not an original thought, I read an address a few months ago with this idea as its central theme. But it seemed like the best piece of advice to give a young man on the verge of everything. Be wise, be circumspect, be careful about which countries you hitchhike in, register your presence with the US Embassy, but in the big life choices, choose brave over safe. Dare to do what is good and noble even if it feels risky and it scares you and everyone else you know is making the safe choice.
Take care of the poor and needy; speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, share your bread with the hungry and your clothes with the naked. Don't turn your back on or just forget about the many, many people in the world who do not have the blessings you do. Remember Micah 6:8 - do justice and love mercy. Make it your life's work.
Understand that life is short and that you have only one chance to spend the time you have been given. Time is not like money - if you squander it you cannot repent of your foolishness, pay off your debts, work hard and replenish your bank account. There is no way to get more time once you have spent what you have. So spend it wisely, even now when it seems like you have forever at your disposal. Remember that is an illusion.
Fianlly, remember your true citizenship is in Heaven. No earthly loyalty, ideology, political alliance or cause should ever cause you to forget that you are a stranger and pilgrim here, an ambassador for a kingdom that will never build an embassy in any of the world's capital cities. Don't confuse your loyalties or lose sight of your true allegiance.
And although I didn't say this, I hope he can read between the lines: Don't forget to call your mother every now and then.
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
She did what she could
Lately I've been thinking a lot about a familiar Bible story from Mark chapter 14. It's an "old one" . . . I've known it since I was a child in Sunday School in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, where I used to wonder why grown-ups still read the Bible, since I was only 7 and I pretty much knew all the stories that were in there already. Preacher's child that I was, I wondered what there could possibly be left to learn after 8 or 10 years of Sunday School and a dozen years of Hurlburt's Bible Stories every night at bedtime.
Now past the midpoint of my life I wonder at how little I have learned of what the Scriptures contain, and if I will ever do more than scratch the surface. I understand a little better what the Apostle meant when He described the Word of God as living and active - that the words of God, like His mercies, are new every morning. So I often find myself shaking my head over some familiar verse or account, wondering, "Why did I never see that before?" I catch my breath when I glimpse some lovely gem that has apparently been there all the time, but I never really saw it. This passage in the gospel of Mark struck me that way when I read it several weeks ago.
Speaking of Jesus, Mark writes:
While he was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of a man known as Simon the Leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on his head.
Some of those present were saying indignantly to one another, "Why this waste of perfume? It could have been sold for more than a year's wages and the money given to the poor." And they rebuked her harshly.
"Leave her alone," said Jesus. "Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me.
And then Jesus says the words which have been haunting me for several weeks:
She did what she could.
An introvert by nature, blessed or cursed with an interior monologue that just won't quit, I have spent my life second guessing my choices, comparing my life to any and everyone else's and always coming up short. I have wished and wished I could just lighten up, that I could be happy with who I am and where I am and what I've been given, but I find at the end of the day it is never enough. I have spent a lifetime shivering in the winter of my discontent. . . all the while feeling guilty because I have been snowed under with blessings that I struggle to enjoy. I am my own worst critic and my own harshest judge. So that is why Jesus' words to the woman whom every one condemned sounded so sweet in my ears: Leave her alone. She did what she could.
No, I have not held down a fascinating job while simultaneously raising lovely, talented, smart kids like some women I know; being a full-time Mom was about all I could handle. I have never served on the rescue squad or coached a team, or run the women's program at the local mission or even led a successful, well-attended Bible study. I've felt happy many days to just get dinner on the table and a load of laundry half-done. I have never run a marathon or been the state power-lifting champion like some real women I actually know; I feel like I've won a great victory if I manage to get in a walk most days of the week. I'm not a musician, not a philosopher, not an author, not a beauty, but Jesus appeared to be happy with the woman who "did what she could." She didn't resue the poor or realize huge profits on her investment; she did what she could. She didn't do what Jesus' other disciples would have done with the resources she had, but Jesus told them to leave her alone - she did what she could.
What sweet praise for someone who was trying so hard to do good, but was criticized all round for her choices. For a woman who may have had limited resources, and perhaps limited imagination, who could not see beyond the moment, but really loved Jesus. For the woman who may have felt she had only one thing in her hands, only one thing to offer. For the woman who did not fund the homeless shelter or volunteer in the hospital, or do anything that seemed to have lasting significance. Jesus recognized that she did what she could, and it was enough for Him.
Now past the midpoint of my life I wonder at how little I have learned of what the Scriptures contain, and if I will ever do more than scratch the surface. I understand a little better what the Apostle meant when He described the Word of God as living and active - that the words of God, like His mercies, are new every morning. So I often find myself shaking my head over some familiar verse or account, wondering, "Why did I never see that before?" I catch my breath when I glimpse some lovely gem that has apparently been there all the time, but I never really saw it. This passage in the gospel of Mark struck me that way when I read it several weeks ago.
Speaking of Jesus, Mark writes:
While he was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of a man known as Simon the Leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on his head.
Some of those present were saying indignantly to one another, "Why this waste of perfume? It could have been sold for more than a year's wages and the money given to the poor." And they rebuked her harshly.
"Leave her alone," said Jesus. "Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me.
And then Jesus says the words which have been haunting me for several weeks:
She did what she could.
An introvert by nature, blessed or cursed with an interior monologue that just won't quit, I have spent my life second guessing my choices, comparing my life to any and everyone else's and always coming up short. I have wished and wished I could just lighten up, that I could be happy with who I am and where I am and what I've been given, but I find at the end of the day it is never enough. I have spent a lifetime shivering in the winter of my discontent. . . all the while feeling guilty because I have been snowed under with blessings that I struggle to enjoy. I am my own worst critic and my own harshest judge. So that is why Jesus' words to the woman whom every one condemned sounded so sweet in my ears: Leave her alone. She did what she could.
No, I have not held down a fascinating job while simultaneously raising lovely, talented, smart kids like some women I know; being a full-time Mom was about all I could handle. I have never served on the rescue squad or coached a team, or run the women's program at the local mission or even led a successful, well-attended Bible study. I've felt happy many days to just get dinner on the table and a load of laundry half-done. I have never run a marathon or been the state power-lifting champion like some real women I actually know; I feel like I've won a great victory if I manage to get in a walk most days of the week. I'm not a musician, not a philosopher, not an author, not a beauty, but Jesus appeared to be happy with the woman who "did what she could." She didn't resue the poor or realize huge profits on her investment; she did what she could. She didn't do what Jesus' other disciples would have done with the resources she had, but Jesus told them to leave her alone - she did what she could.
What sweet praise for someone who was trying so hard to do good, but was criticized all round for her choices. For a woman who may have had limited resources, and perhaps limited imagination, who could not see beyond the moment, but really loved Jesus. For the woman who may have felt she had only one thing in her hands, only one thing to offer. For the woman who did not fund the homeless shelter or volunteer in the hospital, or do anything that seemed to have lasting significance. Jesus recognized that she did what she could, and it was enough for Him.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)