Je Suis Bilbo

My middle school students are assigned a "Home Reader" each quarter, a book they are supposed to read at home and complete a response form about. I don't choose the books for their Home Readers, and several of them were new to me this year. I've spent a significant amount of my reading time keeping up with my three grades and all of their readers.

The 7^th grade class read The Hobbit third quarter. That's one I have read before, a long time ago with my eldest in homeschool, but I didn't really remember any of it. And I only saw the first of the movies, so I figured I'd better go through that one one more time.

And . . . it was alright. I think that, for whatever reason, J.R.R. Tolkien just isn't my cup of tea, which surprises me, because he sounds like something I would be all about. Hubby and I tried to watch the first Lord of the Rings movie and never finished it – which is something we never do. It just didn't grab us. I probably will try reading the books sometime and see if I like them better.

But returning to The Hobbit: as I said, it was . . . alright. Some fun parts, some dull parts, nothing that jumped out and really inspired me, frankly.

Other than Bilbo. I can relate to Bilbo. You know what it is about him that I can relate to? He had absolutely no interest in going on an adventure. He was quite content sitting in his little hovel with a very calm, predictable life for the rest of his days. It was comfortable. He liked comfortable. I like comfortable.

Now, once he got out and experienced some excitement, he enjoyed it. He was proud of what he was able to accomplish on his adventure. But when it was over, he was quite ready to go back home to his calm, predictable, comfortable life.

I can't say that I'm happy about the fact that I'm like Bilbo. That's not the kind of person I want to be. I see these people with all this energy and enthusiasm doing all these exciting things and kinda wish that was me. But not so much. I need a shove. I need a Gandalf to come in and say, "What's wrong with you? We're going to do this. This is what you were made for. Let's go."

Lately, it seems to be my kids that inspire me to get out and do. Too often, it has been the case that if I want something available for my kids -- a homeschool drama program, an English class at their school, a book club, a Bible study -- I have to go out and make it happen myself. I'm much more likely to put myself out there for the sake of my kids than for my own sake.

'Cause I'm Bilbo. The comfortable.

But someday soon (too, too soon!!), my girls will be gone, and I won't have that shove. What will I do then? 

Maybe when I get my sleep problems taken care of (when? if? not holding my breath), I'll have more energy and want more excitement in my life. Right now, I love my home and my sofa. I love them a lot.

"Bother burgling and everything to do with it! I wish I was at home in my nice hole by the fire, with the kettle just beginning to sing!"

Me, too, my hobbit friend. Me, too.

The Curse of Productivity

My eldest informed her father and me the other day that we are the reason she despises the word "productivity."

Well, good heavens. "Productivity" is one of my favorite words. Productivity is one of the greatest feelings in the world. Productivity is next to godliness, for crying out loud. I generally define the quality of my day by how productive I have been able to be.

Yet I have caused my daughter to despise the word – and presumably the concept. I'm aghast.

I blame her personality type. In fact, this was the context of her remark – we were talking about our Meyers-Briggs types. This daughter is the lone "P" in a family of "J"s. I was just explaining to everyone that I had read an explanation of those labels that was new to me. J's prioritize the importance of making a decision, getting something done. By contrast, P's are more concerned with acquiring all the necessary information, continuing to consider, tossing around the possibilities, etc.

So, she comes by it naturally, this lack of urgency to get things done. Or so she claims. Whatever.

For my part, I can't imagine NOT valuing productivity. It is so ingrained in my nature – in my very being. Life is about getting things done. If you don't get things done, what bloody good are you? What have you accomplished? What are you here for? What do you have to show for yourself?

Yet, even as I type that, I recognize that I am, perhaps, the opposite extreme to my daughter, and that's not necessarily a good thing. I should NOT define the quality of my day by how productive I have been able to be. It is possible to have a day where I cross nothing of significance off of my to-do list, and yet I might have still managed to be right in the center of God's will for that moment.

Perhaps I interacted with people. That's not a to-do list item, but it is important nonetheless.

Perhaps I regenerated my spirit. Again, quite necessary.

Perhaps . . . well . . . I'm sure there are other things. (My daughter could probably help me out here.)

So, I'll acknowledge, a happy medium may be in order here. I probably need to figure out how to knock the idol of productivity off of the throne of my heart without condemning myself to the ranks of the useless and ineffectual.

BUT . . . my eldest also needs to learn the value of getting things done. Yes. She does.

Self-Love Is the Default, Folks

The Bible tells us to love our neighbor as ourselves. That's a pretty good sound bite. Jesus himself said that if you do that and love the Lord with all your heart, soul, and mind, that sums up the entire law in a nutshell. 

But there is nothing simple about loving our neighbor as ourselves. There is not even anything simple in understanding what it means to love our neighbor as ourselves.

I've heard this biblical command used over and over to teach that we need to learn to love ourselves more. How can we love our neighbor as ourselves if we don't love ourselves? Because, you know, we are SO filled with self-hate. We don't like who we are; we just don't accept ourselves for how we are made.

Good heavens. Satan must be particularly proud of himself for that one: turning the second greatest command of God into an invitation to indulge the most basic and greatest of all sins -- pride. Yep, that was pretty brilliant. And what suckers we are to fall for it.

I can't think of a single place in the Word where we are instructed to grow in love for ourselves, to try to love ourselves, or to love ourselves at all. Rather, we are constantly being told to die to ourselves, to put God and others above ourselves. In Jesus' command here, he assumes that we love ourselves from the start – which seems like a reasonable assumption to me, having observed myself and a good number of human beings for several years now. Our problem is never that we think of ourselves more lowly than we ought. Quite the contrary.

I've been reading and re-reading C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity during my nighttime devotions these days. (There's another brilliant one, C.S. Lewis. Not to compare him to Satan -- but yeah, brilliant.)  He talks about this self-love idea:

Do I think well of myself, think myself a nice chap? Well, I am afraid I sometimes do (and those are, no doubt, my worst moments) but that is not why I love myself. In fact it is the other way round: my self-love makes me think myself nice, but thinking myself nice is not why I love myself. . . . In my most clear-sighted moments not only do I not think myself a nice man, but I know that I am a very nasty one. I can look at some of the things I have done with horror and loathing.

So, the Self-Love contingency would say, "See? He can't like himself when he thinks he does horrible loathsome things. How could he?" But Lewis continues:

I remember Christian teachers telling me long ago that I must hate a bad man's actions, but not hate the bad man: or, as they would say, hate the sin but not the sinner. For a long time I used to think this a silly, straw-splitting distinction: how could you hate what a man did and not hate the man? But years later it occurred to me that there was one man to whom I had been doing this all my life--namely myself. However much I might dislike my own cowardice or conceit or greed, I went on loving myself. There had never been the slightest difficulty about it. In fact the very reason I loved myself, I was sorry to find that I was the sort of man who did those things.

Part of this has to do with our definition of love. If you think love has to do with fondness or affection, you might have trouble loving loathsome people. But love is not a feeling; it is an action. Love is acting in another's best interests. (Which, Lewis notes, is easier to do when we are fond of the person, so it still behooves us to try to develop some fondness for folks . . . but it's not a requirement to obey the command.) Even when I hate the things I do, I still act in my own best interests.

And even when I hate the actions and behaviors of my neighbor, I can still act in their best interests. I can love them. I can even have some affection for most of them, if I give it some effort. 

This love command of Jesus' -- it really requires more attention than we give it.

My Unclean Heart

Create in me a clean heart, O God. So sang the choir yesterday.

A clean heart. Wouldn’t I love to have one. I think part of growing in Christ is becoming aware of how unclean your heart really is.

I’d like to think I teach with a clean heart. But the truth is, I have many ulterior motives. I don’t teach only with a desire to help my students. I teach because I like to be in control of a group of people. I teach because I like attention focused on me at the front of the room. I teach because I like being the one in the room with all the right answers. Yes, I care about my kids a lot, but I have no illusions that I do my job with a clean heart.

When I help friends in need, my heart is not all clean. Yes, I am desperate for the well-being of those I love. But I also enjoy the feeling of being needed and trusted . . . and again, of having all the right answers to fix other people’s problems. I know that’s the case, because I find myself hurt and offended when they call on someone else, when I’m not “in the loop” knowing what’s going on. I feel a tinge of jealousy when someone else’s assistance is more effective than mine, or more desired. As if it’s all about me. Such uncleanliness in my heart.

Even my parenting is not done with a clean heart. Here is probably where I come as close as I will ever get to acting completely in another’s best interests, but Self still ultimately reigns. I want my kids to be healthy, happy, and fulfilled . . . and the truth is that is partly because of the benefits I derive from that. An easier life. A good reputation. Again, that feeling of having been right about things. (Notice a theme here?)

I think part of growing in Christ is becoming aware of how unclean your heart really is, and always was, and always will be, at least in this life. And an even bigger part of growing in Christ is understanding the incomprehensible fact that He chose me as His beloved while I still wallowed in my uncleanliness.

And I think the bulk of growing in Christ is being so awed by the fact that that He chose me anyway that I’m filled with love for the God who loves me so infinitely and so completely.

Because only when I love Him . . . really love Him . . . can He create a clean heart in me.

Food, Glorious Food

Here is evidence of a loving God: food tastes good.

God didn't have to make food taste good. He was not beholden to us in that way. Just because the intake of nourishment is required for our survival does not mean He had to make this intake a pleasant experience. It could have been accomplished with something as dry and boring as popping a pill. Or with something as uncomfortable as an IV -- or even more painful than that. Our food that we eat could be tasteless and bland, or even foul and distasteful, something we have to force ourselves to consume to continue to live.

But God didn't do that. He made food, and he made food delicious. He made the nourishment process one that not only satisfies our stomachs but also satisfies our tongues. He made food taste good.

Now, I know what a lot of you are saying, because it's what I would be saying if I clicked on a random post and read the above paragraphs. "Yeah, but it's all the food that's BAD for me that tastes good. The healthy food sucks!" But that's not necessarily so. That's only because of what we sinful little boogers have done to our taste buds. You can't fault God for that.

I have a friend who grew up in Albania. She craves vegetables and fruit. Seriously. LOVES them. When I give her my customary gift of a bag of caramel popcorn at Christmastime, she thanks me graciously and puts it out for her American husband and children to eat. Not that she doesn't like sweet stuff (she makes a mean baklava), but she can only eat so much of it. And she doesn't have the craving for it, or for the fatty stuff, that we Americans do. Her taste buds were trained well from early on. She eats like we were meant to eat (and you can tell by looking at her).

So, yeah, believe it or not, healthy food tastes good if we eat like we're supposed to eat.

God was also good to make the nourishment process something that satisfies not only our bodies but also our souls. Case in point: we have to sit to eat. I mean, yes -- it's possible to shove food down our throats while running around doing laundry, diapering babies, and responding to emails (and many people do). But we all know that eating on the run is not good for us, digestively or otherwise. Eating requires at least one free hand to do the shoving, and it is much more efficiently done with two hands and in a seated -- or at least stationary -- position.

So, this need for physical nourishment also requires us to take two or three breaks during the day. Which are also good for us.

And since those breaks are required of every human being, and since they tend to come for all of us at similar times during the day, those breaks tend to become a social time. The standard practice in most cultures that I'm aware of is to eat with other people. Meals are for feeding our spirits with social connection as much as for feeding our cells with nutrients.

Again, God didn't have to make any of this work the way He did. Feeding ourselves could have been a lonely, miserable, even painful ordeal that we had to endure on a daily basis. Instead, he made it very pleasurable -- pleasurable enough even to be tempting as an idol in our lives. He was willing to risk that potential competition for our hearts to give us something that gives us joy.

He doesn't NEED to be that kind to us. He just is. It seems He wants us to enjoy our brief stay in this world. We should probably be more grateful for that.

I'm Guilty, Too

Yesterday, Hubby and I joined our daughter at a youth group event focusing on Martin Luther King Jr. The man did great things. I believe the Spirit spoke through him to our country. I still can't hear the end of the "I Have a Dream" speech without tearing up -- I'm a sucker for powerful words containing powerful truth delivered in a powerful way.

But all I could think about last night was an unfortunate fact I learned about him in recent years: he cheated on his wife. Many times over.

I know, I know . . . this doesn't discredit any of the great things he did. All of us have our secret sins that we struggle with -- we'd all be shocked to see the ugliness in the lives of our greatest heroes, I'm sure. But this particular sin has been hounding me lately.

I just finished reading O'Reilly's Killing Patton (if you're curious for a review, a good book, but not as compelling to me as his other three). Patton cheated on his wife. FDR cheated on Eleanor. Everyone knows about Kennedy's dalliances (from one of O'Reilly's earlier books). And of course, history is filled with stories of influential men and women who fell in the same way. Frankly, I'm so tired of hearing about great people who change the world but can't keep the most basic promise they make to the person they are supposed to put first in their lives. Depressing.

What's worse, I seem to be inundated with stories of friends whose marriages are on the rocks right now because of adultery. Several more just in the last month or so.

Good grief. It makes me despair of my own daughters ever getting wed. I don't want to watch them suffer the pain of that kind of betrayal, and I've started to feel lately like it's almost inevitable that it will happen to one of them. If nothing else, I will probably spend their entire married lives watching for signs, suspicious . . . and I don't want to do that.

Why does sexual sin -- in every form -- so permeate our society? Not just our society . . . the world. Throughout history. Sex is a blessed gift from God. Why does mankind consistently mess it up so badly? Why can't we get this right?

A book I'm reading reminds me that the marriage relationship is a picture of our relationship with God. (In fact, every significant relationship we experience in life is used in scripture to tell us more about us and God.) And scripture also uses the experience of adultery as a metaphor for how we, on our end, broke that relationship.

That's sobering. I have just as adulterous a heart as all these philanderers I've mentioned. I consistently turn away from the One I gave my life to, the One I promised to put first in my life, and turn to other gods for relationship and satisfaction. And yet He calls me back -- over and over -- loves me anyway -- never lets go of me. Unbelievable.

If we weren't capable of such profound depths of sin, we would never know the extent of God's love and mercy and grace. What an amazing God we serve. He makes ALL things work for our good, even the sin and rebellion we repent of.

My Other Idol of Choice

I have a to-do list app on my phone. I also have an agenda for school where I keep daily to-do lists, and my lesson plans are basically to-do lists for that hour. And on particularly busy days, I combine all of my various lists into one master hand-written list -- hand-written so I can physically cross items off and watch them disappear rather than swipe them to another day.

I've always been like this. When I taught high school twenty years ago, I had an agenda with a list of things to do when I got to school in the morning, a list of things to do over my planning period, a list of things to do at the end of the day, and a list of things to do at home in the evening. I misplaced that agenda one day and was completely lost for that twenty-four hours -- useless to humanity.

I know I'm not the only to-do list fanatic out there. A young mother friend on FB said that she writes "Keep children alive" on her daily lists so that she can definitely cross that one off at the end of the day and feel like she accomplished at least one important task. Had to chuckle at that one -- wish I'd thought of it.

I also know that I come by this listing urge naturally. Our eldest took an online Meyers-Briggs test the other day, so we all got to talking about our personality types. I'm an INFJ (the rarest type, apparently). The "J" means that I prioritize the decision-making part of my life over the information-gathering part -- I'm focused on getting stuff done. (I, Hubby, and the youngest are all J's; the eldest is a "P". That explains SOOO much.)

But times have come in my life when I am concerned about my focus on productivity. That probably sounds ridiculous to most of you -- who could have a problem with being productive? And I don't really have a problem with being productive. But I think I define the value of my day -- and my own personal value, as well -- by how productive I've been.

When Hubby comes home and asks, "How was your day?", my mind immediately goes to my to-do list. Even if I've had a joyous time with my girls, or had some meaningful conversations with friends, or whatever . . . if the to-do list remains unscathed, I have a hard time defining my day as good. My one focus throughout the day is to get things done. Not to enjoy people, or hear God, or make a difference in humanity, but to get things done.

That doesn't seem right.

There was one Christmas vacation while we were in Iowa when we came home earlier than usual, and I had a couple days at home that actually, truly felt free. I had no immediate responsibilities. I decided to completely set aside my to-do lists for those two days and simply do whatever I felt like doing in that moment.

It was the most bizarre feeling in the world. But it was also a good feeling.

I couldn't sustain that any longer than two days, however. Homeschool was starting up again, and I needed a couple days to get lesson plans done and the home life in order. And much as I enjoyed living spontaneously for a short time, it felt good to get back to knowing what needed to be done and doing it.

I still wish, however, that I could find a happy medium. That I could find a way to choose one day out of the week, at least, that I am not ruled by the tyranny of the list. Sunday should probably be that day, shouldn't it? Sabbath and all. A day set aside to worship God, not the god of productivity I serve much too much of my week.

Might have to experiment with that . . .

Gluttony

My name is Gwen, and I am a glutton.

gluttony (n.): an inordinate desire to consume more than that which one requires

I could have said something like "sugaraholic", because my problem is actually not necessarily with the total amounts of food I eat, but with the amount of sweets that I eat. But the term "sugaraholic" (which I have used to refer to myself many times before) has a bit of the same connotation that alcoholic does, implying some helplessless in the matter. And while yes, I believe I have created a physiological "dependency" in my body to some extent, the fact is, I'm not at all helpless about this.

This is a choice. And it is a sinful choice. You all are my "priests" today that I am confessing to.

I read an article recently that asked the question, what would happen if we, in the church, treated the sin of gluttony the same way we treat the sin of homosexuality? And goodness -- seriously, what would happen? Imagine how offended people would get! There's no denying that gluttony is probably an epidemic in our society and even in our churches. There's hardly a toe in the Body of Christ that wouldn't get stepped on.

But we gloss over gluttony. We make light of it. We even glorify it in some contexts. (How many over-eating Christians out there are livid about the sexual sin running rampant in our society and yet engorge themselves on a daily basis without a second thought -- even thanking God for the food He's provided for them to engorge themselves with?) I can think of friends right now who I know will think it is ridiculous that I am concerned about this problem of mine as a sin. A health issue, yes, but a sin? Come on, girlfriend -- if that's the worst you got, you got no sin problems . . . let me show you my rap sheet.

But anyone who knows their Bible knows that sin is sin is sin. And this is the sin God has been convicting me of for a long time now. It's not a small thing, at least not in my life.

Eating so much sugar makes my body weak, which hinders me from doing the work God has called me to.

Eating so much sugar affects my moods, which hurts my relationships, especially with my family, and keeps me from loving others in the way I am supposed to.

Eating so much sugar probably affects my sleep, which is already an issue and which affects everything already mentioned.

But even more so, eating so much sugar gets in the way of my relationship with God. I eat sugar for comfort, to feel better in a rough moment. I eat it for energy, to pick me up when I'm crashing. And God has already provided something to meet those needs in my life: Himself. HE is to be my comfort; HE is to carry me through difficult times. When I consistently turn to something else to play the role that God is supposed to play in my life, I'm breaking one of the Big Ten: that's idolatry.

It doesn't matter than I'm not obese or diabetic or anything like that. I'm not as intimate with my Father as He and I want to be -- and He's made it quite clear that this is one of the things standing in the way. Simply because it represents a choice I'm making that denies His being who He is. And there's no intimacy with God when you're denying who He is.

So there's my public confession, which I decided was necessary for me to actually lick this thing. First John (a favorite book of mine) tells us that "walking in the light" is necessary for fellowship with God, and fellowship with God has become my top priority. So I'm taking this problem out of the darkness and putting it into the light, where it can actually be dealt with. Feel free to pull your own sins out of darkness and join me in the light in this New Year, friends.

Feeding Myself at Church

Oh, my.

Have you ever read or heard something that so perfectly nailed the unworded sentiments of your heart that you were taken aback for a little bit?

That just happened.

I just read a blog post by a woman I've never heard of named Kate Conner. She's writing about why she's always hated women's ministry. Now mind you, I don't know that I've ever hated women's ministry. That's not where she nailed it. This is:

"I was tired of looking at myself through a Jesus lens. I just wanted to look at Jesus."

Bingo. Nothing but net there.

This is what bugs me about many "worship" songs out there. (Not all of them, but many.)

This is what has bugged me about many of the worship services we visited in the last year. (Not all of them, but many.)

This is what has bugged me about much of the seeker-focused movement in the church over the last couple decades or so. (Not all of it, but much of it.)

It focuses on the seeker. On the worshipper. On me.

A wise and discerning friend in New Jersey once remarked that the church needs to be very careful that we don't try to attract the unbeliever by offering him his own idol of choice -- whether that be materialism, prestige, comfort, pleasure, power, or the grandest of all modern-day idols, Self.

Conner says, "If you're OVER hearing how to be a better person and you wonder what's wrong with you because hearing that 'you are a child of God' doesn't really move or impress you very much - you're not alone. I was there too. I suspect that we are all just starving for The Main Thing."

Starving! Famished! There are churches where I come away from a service feeling like I did over much of our holiday vacation this year -- stuffed to the gills with junk food and sweets to where I can't eat another bite, but still hungry because there was nothing nutritious there to sustain me for the long run.

I think I've given up finding a church where this just happens. I've decided it's not the church's fault anymore. It's mine. The reality is that McDonald's has salads on their menu if I choose to order one . . . and most churches preach Jesus if I choose to look for Him. 

"If you think you don't like women's ministry, or church or whatever, maybe you're just tired of looking at yourself," Conner says.

Yep. Nailed it.

Remembering Mom

As I sit here typing on my laptop in our "music room" (also known as my school work room), I can look to my left and see an old manger scene sitting on top of the harpsichord in the corner.

I say "manger scene" and not the more common "nativity" because "manger scene" is what my mother called it, and this one was hers. When I was young, it used to sit under our Christmas tree. I've kept that tradition up by putting a nativity scene under our Christmas tree every year -- but not this one. Our tree nativity is a cheaper one that won't make me cry if the dog happens to get a hold of a shepherd and chew him up. This manger scene is sitting up high and out of danger.

It's an old set. The paint is chipping off of most of the pieces in spots and has been for a long time. My mother commented one year when I was home for the holidays that she was thinking about just spray-painting all the characters gold or something. I'm so glad I talked her out of that idea. I don't care that the paint is chipped. It needs to look like this.

Just outside the door to this room, I can lean out and see our huge metal clock on the wall which our eldest has decorated with little felt elves climbing all over it. My mom made those elves.

There's also a small tree halfway up the stairs that is decorated with eight or nine sets of different felt ornaments -- ornaments my mother made. A different set every year for most of my growing up years at home.

And on the window by the kitchen table, there are several crocheted snowflakes hanging. I'm pretty sure my mom made those, too.

I get a bit huffy about Christmas most years. At least once a season, I'm overwhelmed by the thing that our culture has turned Christmas into . . . which has NOTHING to do with Jesus coming to earth. I get annoyed that other people's expectations get in the way of my celebrating the Savior's birth in a way that's meaningful to me. (And yes, I know that's my problem and not theirs.)

My point is, I'm very aware of the fact that Christmas (contrary to popular belief) really is NOT about family and kids. We made it a holiday about family and kids . . . and there's nothing wrong with a holiday about family and kids . . . as long as family and kids don't start taking the place of the actual center of the holiday.

And for far too many of us -- even us churchy super-Christian folks who take offense at people saying "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas" and at people writing "Xmas" because "you're crossing out Christ!"-- far too many of us have done just that. We do self-righteous lip-service to Christ and put family in the throne of our hearts every December.

Nevertheless . . . I enjoy getting these Christmas decorations out every year and remembering my mother. And baking caramel corn and remembering my mother. I had a great mother. It's good to remember her. Because she remembered Christ.

The STUFF. Stop Buying the Stuff!

Black Friday is this week. Uuugggghhhhh.

I've never enjoyed Christmas shopping. Wait -- no, that's a lie. I did enjoy it at one time, I think. Way back when. But it's been a long time. I don't much enjoy shopping in general, but particularly when I have something specific that I'm looking for, and that I have to get, and a lot of these types of items.

This year, there's even more to it. As I mentioned in my post about our trip to Fredericksburg, I'm increasingly finding myself disturbed by the excess and consumerism in our society. Good heavens -- the amount of crap we BUY!!! Really, it's shameful.

We have closets FULL of clothes, to the point that we literally could wear something different every day for weeks and never wear something twice, but we still pick up new stuff once a month or so while we're out looking around in the mall. (Well, some people do. I don't.)

We have kitchen cabinets crammed full of utensils and appliances that we rarely if ever use, but we still find something at the friend's Pampered Chef party that we think we just have to have. We have enough food items sitting on our pantry shelves to keep us from dying for, again, weeks if we needed to, yet we still bring an entire week's worth of food and more home every time we go to the grocery store -- and we probably throw out enough food in a week to keep a starving African child alive for a good long time.

The STUFF . . . just the random stuff that we keep buying because we think we need it -- it will change our life somehow -- it will give us that extra bit of spare time that we need to connect with our family -- it will add that touch of beauty or fun that will bring us joy in our homes -- it will give us health and strength and vitality as soon as we have the self-discipline to do something with it . . . oh, what sorry people we are. It's not magic, for Pete's sake, it's just stuff.

And more than that: we inflict this STUFF on the people we love. We give them more useless items to fill their spaces and fail to fill their voids. We even ask children (and some adults) to make lists for us of things that they want us to give them. Don't tell me you don't need anything -- Christmas is for things you want. Forget how content you feel in your current circumstances: dig deep, create a place of lacking in your life, and figure out something you want, gosh darn it!

My oldest struggles with the Christmas list her extended family requires of her every year. She doesn't need or want much of anything. She doesn't want to get excess junk. She genuinely would rather just have money to use when she needs to buy something later. This year, she put toys on her list that she wants to give to some children she knows who get little or nothing for Christmas. That way, she gets the fun of opening presents on Christmas day and also the joy of giving to someone else who genuinely appreciates it. And she doesn't have to find a place or use for stuff she never really wanted.

I'm proud of her. It remains to see how that will go over with the family.

Disconnecting

So, I'm gainfully employed now, and this job thing is cutting into my Facebook time. I've turned off my mobile data on my phone so I won't rack up time without realizing it when I'm away from home – that means I don't get Facebook notifications while I'm at school. And when I'm on my laptop there, I'm doing schoolwork and, frankly, don't even think about checking Facebook (and when I do, I feel guilty doing so while I'm on the clock).

And you know what? I don't miss it that much.

I really don't. No offense, my beloved Facebook friends, but I can get through several hours without wondering what you might be doing, or reading articles you might be linking, or liking pictures you might be posting. I realize this shouldn't be astonishing news, but judging from my computer behavior this summer, you'd think otherwise.

And you know what else? I actually feel better when I'm not on Facebook so much. I thought FB was a way for me to relax and veg out, but I feel MORE relaxed when I haven't been on. My brain feels better. I feel more in touch with the world when I'm not all virtually connected.

But you know what else else? When I get home and sit on the sofa to rest a minute, I still immediately get out the laptop, click into Facebook, and waste more time scanning my newsfeed than I'm willing to admit here.

Is that not crazy? What the heck's wrong with me?

A friend posted a blog the other day (yes, on FACEBOOK – sue me) that really hit home. The author wrote about her coming to realize that “me-time” is actually more bad for her than good. One reason: it put her in a frame of mind where the activities of her everyday life were a burden that she deserved a regular escape from – not the way you want to feel about the place where God has placed you. But another reason was, she realized that her activities of choice for her me-time (social media, primarily) actually didn't relax her at all.

I think that's what I'm discovering. The things that I do on my laptop to "unwind" don't actually do a good job of that. Social media, games, none of it.

Now, that doesn't mean I need to give up Facebook entirely. As I've said in an earlier post, there are other valid reasons for me to do the social media thing; it has more to offer me than relaxation or entertainment. But I think I need to be more honest with myself about why I'm getting on when I get on, and then stick to that purpose. I need to kick the habit that makes it my automatic go-to when I'm feeling a little stress, because I now realize that Facebook does not relieve that stress, as much as I deceive myself into thinking it does.

And my first step may be to delete the Facebook app on my phone so I don't get notifications all day long that pull me in. Deep breath. I can do this. And you can do it with me, friends. 

How to View Like a Christian

Our youngest is struggling with a decision. This summer, in her copious free time, she began watching and loving a certain TV show, a show with great characters, excellent writing, witty humor . . . but with very inappropriate storylines. (I wasn't sure about her watching the show either, but I didn't stop her. I freely confess my failure in this area as a mother: over the years, I have done a terrible job of policing my children's TV time, and I still do.)

Now, she is feeling convicted that she shouldn't be watching this show. And let me start by saying I'm incredibly proud of her hearing and responding to this conviction completely on her own without her parents' interference at all. But she has come to me for advice on the matter, and I'm trying to figure out how to advise her. The easy answer, of course, is to tell her to turn it off. But the easy answer isn't always the best answer. I don't just want her to obey me today; I want her to develop wisdom and discernment on this issue that will carry her throughout her life.

The reality is, there is very little around in the way of video entertainment in our day that has nothing objectionable in it. If we eliminate everything that doesn't conform to our Christian beliefs, we are, for all practical purposes, eliminating everything. I know people who have taken that route and would promote it to others; I just don't think that's realistic for our family. Cocooning yourself from the world is cozy, but your salt and light are trapped in your cocoon with you.

These concerns came up as I assembled my reading list for my Freshman English class this year. Most of the classics one needs to read in high school English classes are not “Christian” literature, and they include decidedly unchristian elements. Odysseus cheats on his wife. Shakespeare's comedies have a lot of bawdy humor. The violence and cruelty in A Tale of Two Cities is painful to read at times.

But part of our being made in the image of God is that we approach life in terms of narrative, and Story is a necessary way of making sense of our world. One of the complaints I have about most “Christian films” I've seen is that, in a well-meaning attempt to not glorify sin, they have sugar-coated the stories to the point of making them unreal and therefore meaningless. They are just as bad as the shows that DO glorify sin. None of them are real, and so none of them serve the purposes that God intends narrative to serve in our lives.

I'll be teaching my students this year that almost all of the stories we read will have an element of truth in them – but it is always incomplete truth, truth that needs to be informed by scripture. We can't avoid storylines with ungodly elements because the world we live in is an ungodly world; we have to learn how to read – and view – with a discerning mind.

Which brings me back to my daughter and her new favorite TV show. To watch or not to watch? The truth is, I have watched some very ungodly shows that have drawn me closer to God because they depicted the reality of sin and made me all the more grateful for a God who loves me enough to rescue me from that reality in myself. I've also watched some ungodly stuff that really messed me up.

So here's the advice I think I will give her: ask yourself, when I watch this show, does it bring me closer to God or further away? Do I find myself making excuses for the behavior of the characters I watch, or do I find myself sorrowful for the pain they don't realize they're causing themselves (like I would for a friend in that situation)? Do I see my standards changing for the better or for the worse because of watching this?

And in the end, really, is there something else that would be a better use of my time?

I am becoming increasingly cautious of ever using television or movies as “mindless entertainment”. We do need mindless entertainment on occasion, but unfortunately, we can't afford to rest our minds while we allow the world's images and stories to enter them.

You're Too Comfortable

"It's the same in coaching we do the basics and fundamentals over and over then when it becomes second nature for them we throw a wrinkle in and it disrupts their rhythm in turn makes them focus and challenges them. I'm sure the same would happen in vocabulary you have to become comfortable with being uncomfortable if that makes since, a challenge always makes you better"  

The above quote came from a fellow student in the online class I'm taking this summer. For now, I'm not going to comment on the run-on sentences and the huge misspelling that screamed at me when I first read it (other than to say that such errors were typical in the comments made by these graduate-level students who all teach in American secondary schools, which depressed me).

No, I want to focus instead today on the flash of brilliance that this PE teacher shared here: You have to become comfortable with being uncomfortable. Not original, but brilliant.

I think I should make this my life motto. It seems to be the answer to so many problems.

If you want to have a healthy body, you have to become comfortable with that gnawing feeling you get in your gut when you want to eat but you know your body doesn't need food. 

If you want a strong body, you have to become comfortable with the little aches and pains and the feeling of exhaustion that come with a good workout.

If you want to learn how to play golf, you have to become comfortable with the awkwardness of swinging the club wildly for a few weeks while your limbs figure out how to make it work.

If you want to speak a new language, you have to become comfortable with sounding like an idiot until the syntax becomes more natural to you.

If you want new friends, you have to become comfortable with the uncomfortable situation of approaching prospect and starting up a conversation.

If you want a healthy marriage, you have to become comfortable with the possible awkwardness of bringing up difficult issues that need to be dealt with.

In his book Addiction and Grace, Gerald May says that one of the keys to dealing with addiction is learning to live with the empty hole in your soul that your object of addiction is filling. Get comfortable with the gap. Don't stuff it with something else that just becomes another addiction.

You have to be comfortable with being uncomfortable.

We're a spoiled race, we Americans. Young or old, rich or poor, white or black or brown, we don't deal well with discomfort, even in the short-term. We smother it with food . . . drown it in beer . . . cover it up with a new dress and adorable pumps . . . distract from it with Candy Crush and Youtube. Sometimes, you just need to sit there and appreciate the feeling. It's the feeling of growth.

During the several months of transition during our move last year, in the midst all the little problems that continually cropped up (and the big problems, too), I found myself saying over and over, "This is not a tragedy; this is just an inconvenience." 

Discomfort is not a tragedy; it's just an inconvenience. And one that, sometimes, we need to welcome. Life begins at the end of our comfort zones.

That's not original, either. But it's brilliant.

Cell Phone Panic

My husband's alarm woke me from a very weird dream this morning. I won't describe it all (as if you're interested). It had to do with hubby and me going back to college . . . sharing a dorm room with no bed . . . never-ceasing rain . . . and some snotty cheerleaders trying to recruit us into their snot-circle. Weird.

But the key moment in the dream for me was when I woke up in our dorm room (I'd been sleeping on this chair thing we have right now in our game room -- it unfolds into a "bed", but I've had it since my real college days and it's pretty worn out -- I woke up thinking how am I going to sleep on this all year?) . . . anyways, I woke up in our dorm room and my husband wasn't there, and I got my cell phone to call him.

Only my cell phone was messed up. The screen had little dots on it which, upon closer inspection, turned out to be tiny holes. The picture on the screen was too dark to see and seemed to be fading as I watched. I had a vague memory of dropping the phone the day before, but it had been fine when I picked it up . . .

(My daughter's phone did something similar a few months ago. My brain has precedent for the concept.)

No problem, I thought. I'll call him on the regular phone. Only this "regular" phone was some absolutely bizarre contraption that I could hardly figure out, and once I did, I realized I didn't know my husband's phone number. It's saved on my phone.

And then the panic set in. Because my life is saved on my phone.

All my phone numbers. Passwords. Calendar. To-do lists. Everything. (Okay, in reality, my laptop has a lot of this stuff, too, but this was dreamworld and my panic was justified.)

I tried to stay calm. I tried really, really hard to stay calm. I tried to remember that I used to live life quite well without a cell phone, and surely I can do it again. But my mind was a-swirl, and I couldn't put two and two together to make seven, and since we were now apparently poor college students, I didn't know if we had the money to pay to fix my phone, and I was starting to hyperventilate.

That's when my husband's real-life alarm woke me up. The alarm on his cell phone, ironically.

I'm not sure what to make of this dream. There's nothing to make of it, right? Right. Just a dream. A brain fart. No message in there from my subconscious or the Almighty or anyone.

But I'm SO glad my phone works today!!!!

The Facebook Dilemma

Recently, a Facebook friend posted a video of a guy urging people to quit Facebook. (Yes, a bit ironic.) The final straw for him: apparently FB has added (or is adding, I don't remember which) a new feature where they can listen in when you post a status, determine from the background noise where you are and what you're doing, and add that to your status. Something creepy to that effect.

The video post also had a link to another post explaining how to permanently delete your Facebook account. And another explaining how to "quit Facebook without quitting Facebook" -- how to set-up your FB so that you're not unwittingly sharing info with the scary world that could take advantage of it but still keep a very limited presence there for the times you need it.

Quitting Facebook without quitting Facebook. I've considered such a notion in the past.

Privacy wasn't my concern -- although now I'm wondering if it should be. I've always figured that I have nothing on my page that I want to hide from anyone, and I'm a pretty boring nobody in the world. Who would care about my life enough to stalk my page and go through the effort to find something there to use to against me?

No, my concern has been that Facebook has become far too much of a presence in my life. Especially since I got my phone that yells an ugly "DrroOOIId!" at me every time something of any significance happens on my account. I spend way too much time stopping to see who liked my last status.

I spend way too much time reading comments from people I don't know on things I've commented on recently.

I spend way too much time scrolling my newsfeed for the rare amusing or interesting item.

I spend way too much time reading articles my friends have posted that may be amusing or interesting, but most of the time don't add much of real value to my life.

But there are things I would genuinely miss if I quit FB altogether. Things that I really do think add value to my life. For one, my world on FB is much wider and more diverse than my world in real life. If I only interacted with the people I see face-to-face, I would for the most part only be interacting with other straight-laced conservative Christians in our own social class (especially since our move to Texas). Frankly, that may be very comfortable, but I don't think it's good for me -- not socially, not intellectually, not emotionally, not spiritually.

I would also have a pretty limited understanding of a lot of issues facing our country today. Hearing what my differently-minded friends think of what's going on in the world forces me to try to understand issues from another point of view and helps me solidify why I believe what I believe -- and sometimes change what I believe when I clearly need to do so -- and often have more compassion or respect for others with whom I disagree.

I would also miss the connection with scores of people around the country from multiple eras in my life whom I would never communicate with if it weren't for Facebook.

The other problem with quitting? The vast bulk of my blog readers come from the links I post on Facebook. Yes, I mainly blog for my own benefit, but it would stink to do all this writing and nobody read it.

I'm torn. Social media is like a drug. Even when I'm determined to only look at FB twice a day, I'm drawn back in by something that presents itself as important enough to be an exception. I can't partake in moderation. I'm afraid I need to go cold turkey or give up the fight.

Sigh. First world problems. (Note that I didn't put a hashtag on that. Thank God I never let myself even LOOK at Twitter.)