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.

Getting Rooted at the Right Now Conference

Last week, I had the privilege of attending the Right Now Conference in Dallas and hearing some amazing speakers (Francis Chan, Eric Metaxas, and others). I've been digesting what I heard for a couple days and want to summarize the most pertinent points here -- for your and my benefit.

- The parable of the mustard seed. Note that, when we plant a mustard seed, our end goal is . . . well, mustard. But in the parable, what God accomplishes is a huge plant in which birds build their nests. We have one goal -- God uses our work to accomplish another goal, often something that never even occurred to us. God's purposes are far beyond what we have in mind. Cool. (From Mark Batterson)

- If the Spirit lives in us -- if we really and truly believe that -- why don't we allow Him to live through us more often? Why do we insist on doing things on our own strength? (Pete Briscoe)

- We pray best when we're most aware of our sin . . . when we involve our bodies (knees, anyone?) . . . when we pray our gut-honest desires (which is risky and takes courage) . . . and when we remember God's grace. (Jen Pollack Michel)

- Plagiarism is taking credit for another person's work and words. How many of us commit spiritual plagiarism every day? Taking credit for work that was actually God's. ALL THE TIME . . . (Bryan Carter)

- Larry Osborne spoke about Daniel being a model for the Christian in this post-modern age. He teaches us how to live successfully in Babylon. So much to glean from that. Daniel had humility with the pagans around him. He never copped an attitude about how wrong they were; he spoke with respect and graciousness to them. He made Nebuchadnezzar a better king and a better person, just being with him. He had the wisdom to pick his battles rather than fighting everything wicked around him.

Something interesting he pointed out. Daniel and his friends were brought to be trained "in the language and literature of the Babylonians." That means, they were being taught Babylonian religion -- paganism and the occult. And not only did they not refuse to participate in that education, but God gave them "knowledge and understanding" of what they were learning and more, to the point that when their training was evaluated by the king, he found none equal to them. And this was the only reason that they were allowed to be in the service to the king, that they were put in places of such tremendous influence, that they had ANY credibility with the most powerful rulers of the world at that time, and that we even know their names today. A great argument against the "cocooning" so many Christians do today -- as if knowing the theory of evolution or the basic tenets of Islam will transfer heretical germs to the believer.

- When you accepted Jesus, you accepted the call to missions. Period. No further call is needed.

- Eric Metaxas talked about William Wilberforce. When Wilberforce was saved, he assumed he would need to give up politics (which at the time was an even dirtier profession that it is today). But his pastor, John Newton, told him to stay, to be a light in the place where God had put him and with the gifts God had given him. Again, no cocooning ourselves from the world's dirt and grime: go engage, and learn, and salt, and shine your light.

- God's desire is for us. (Francis Chan) Why do we need to be reminded of that? But we do. Often. God's greatest desire is not for a just society or sinless followers or miserable people or even happy people. God's desire is for a relationship with us. Everything else is either a means to that end or a result of that blessing.

Yep. A good week. Thanks, Paul and Jackie.

Our Current Neurosis

A theme of distress has arisen among the females of our household: the theme of Too Much To Do in Too Few Hours of the Day.

It manifests itself differently in each of us, owing to our individual personalities, weaknesses, and neurotic tendencies. But we all are feeling that stress. I need to do this. I have to do this. I should do this. I want to do this. I feel guilty because I'm not doing this. I'm unhealthy because I'm not doing this. And this. And this.

And can I be honest? I don't necessarily look at what we're trying to accomplish in a week and think it's too much. Now, maybe my perception has just become warped -- that's certainly within the realm of possibility. But I don't feel like we're expecting a lot of ourselves.

But maybe that's because when I think of everything I have to do, I think of the big stuff. School, homeschool, curriculum writing, plays and such. That all looks busy, but doable.

Then I add in the once-in-a-while events that come up: the church luncheon yesterday (I'm just helping set up and clean up -- no big deal). Halloween (buy candy, carve a pumpkin -- not so bad). Make my Christmas list (just sitting down and thinking for a while, right?). Again, each of these are stressors, but they are just momentary interruptions.

Here's what I forget: life.

The everyday life stuff. In the midst of the big things are the little things: figuring out what to cook for meals, picking up the house, doing laundry, packing lunches, walking the dog, cleaning out the fountain, backing up my laptop, vacuuming, emptying the dishwasher, making sure we have toilet paper in the house, coloring my hair, exercising, mopping mud stains, Bible study, pulling weeds, paying bills, buying groceries, refilling prescriptions and picking them up, cleaning toilets, dumping bad food from the fridge, watering flowers, dusting, taking care of the dog's nails and teeth, finding missing items, replacing the batteries in the smoke detectors, cleaning out the microwave, showering . . .

The little things are what get missed. And the little things add up fast. And the little things undone make me feel like I'm a crazy woman and failing at life.

How does this happen? Women in my situation from the 1920s would look on my life, with all the modern technological advantages, and think I'm living on Easy Street. Nope. More stressed than ever. And I don't think I know anyone who isn't stressed in a similar way. Do you? No, you don't either.

As I said, the three of us ladies in our home all deal with this in different ways. And none of our methods are wholly successful or healthy. In fact, some of them have become decidedly unhealthy and need to be dealt with.

Which is now another item on the to-do list: fix neurosis.

Sigh. Well, despite it all, I still feel like this is the most enjoyable season of my life so far. I enjoy my family tremendously, and they all enjoy each other. I love the work I'm doing. I love the house I'm living in.

Life is good . . . I just have to remind myself of that when I see more muddy footprints at the front door. Life is good.

Too Lazy for Due Diligence

I'm not normally a . . . you know . . . activist type. But I had a thought while driving home from Kansas this past weekend.

About an hour north of Austin on I-35 (Austin! I-35! Oh, Texas friends, you know the insanity, don't you), our traffic slowed to a crawl for about twenty minutes. On a Sunday night after 10pm, I couldn't imagine what would be causing a traffic jam other than an accident, and hubby saw some flashing lights way ahead of us, so we assumed that was the case.

But as we neared the problem area, we saw that the flashing lights were on some kind of construction-looking vehicles, not emergency response vehicles. And these vehicles were empty and not moving; they were way off to the side of the road cushioned by three lanes of traffic blocked by orange barrels -- those orange barrels they use to block off construction areas.

Yet, we saw no construction. No construction work going on, of course (as if they'd be out fixing our roadways at night on a Sunday, the least busy traffic time on the highway, as would be logical). But there wasn't even any evidence of construction in progress. Three perfectly good, very drivable lanes were simply blocked off for no apparent reason, and all the Sunday night traffic on I-35 (north of Austin! Insanity!) was funneled into one lane . . . again, for no apparent reason.

Now, I know you all are thinking, "OH, yeah, I see that all the time. Drives me crazy." Because yeah -- we do see that all the time, don't we? Traffic lanes blocked off for "potential" construction zones although they are completely passable at that time and it seems they will be for the foreseeable future. And the flow of traffic is drastically disrupted because of it. We are all aggravated about that.

And my question is, why do we put up with it?

Doesn't the Department of Transportation work for us? If everyone who drove through that single lane of traffic Sunday night -- or even just half of the people -- wrote or called the state highway officials and complained about the situation, wouldn't they have to do something about it? If everyone who ever finds themselves in such a situation contacted the officials to bring the problem to their attention, wouldn't just the extra phone and email traffic be annoying enough for those officials to make more effort to prevent such scenarios from occurring in the first place? You would think so.

So why don't we make such calls? I submit two reasons. One, we are lazy. Two, we assume there is a reason for the blockage that we just aren't aware of. The first reason is obviously unacceptable; citizens cannot be lazy in a democracy. And I'm not sure the second reason is acceptable, either. We're not stupid. We can look at a piece of highway and tell if it is drivable or not. Why do we assume such incompetence from ourselves?

It concerns me a bit that we have this tendency to look at situations created by our government agencies -- situations that seem to all intelligent observation to be useless, wasteful, inefficient, perhaps even unethical or illegal -- but we don't trust our instincts about that. We give our government the benefit of the doubt. Do they deserve that benefit? Perhaps. But I think we lose something important in our lack of diligence in their oversight. And it starts in the little situations . . . the three lanes of traffic blocked off for no apparent reason.

But I'll admit: I'm too lazy to do anything about it. Sigh! We deserve the government we get.

The Salvation of the Strong

Pastor Garrett told the story yesterday. A certain native American tribe lived right by a dangerous rushing river. During a conflict with another tribe, they became trapped at the river's edge, and the only way out was to cross. So, the strong ones took the weak ones (children, elderly, injured) on their shoulders and started to walk across.

And what happened? They discovered that the weight of the weak members of the tribe on their shoulders gave them more traction and they were able to cross the river safely.

The strong were saved by carrying the weak.

You know there are significant life applications to be made here.

However, the American Spirit may not tolerate hearing those applications. We are an independent, self-made people -- or so we want to believe. Americans traditionally have been all about pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps and doing it all on our own.

Unfortunately, for many, this has turned into a contempt for those whose bootstraps can't support such rigorous pulling. A resentment of the idea that I'm expected to carry the weak on my shoulders.

Now, I want to clarify, because this is a criticism that American conservatives get a lot. The vast majority of us do NOT have contempt for the weaker of our society. The vast majority of us do NOT resent helping out those who need help. But we have recognized that this traditional American value has been eroded in recent generations, and many who are expecting to be carried have capable legs if they would use them. Not all, but many. And we also recognize that some of the weak will actually be made weaker through being carried -- that what they really need is someone holding their hand, walking beside them to encourage them and point out the safe path through the raging river. They need help strengthening their legs.

Nevertheless, I won't deny that there are some hard-nosed folks out there who are all about getting themselves across the river. Period. They're selfish. No denying it.

One of the reasons I see capitalism as the best choice for an economic system (although it has its faults and needs to be regulated) is because it is the only system, from what I see, that takes advantage of the natural sinful state of humanity. People are selfish by nature. Yes, we are BORN that way. Capitalism assumes that business owners will be selfish and look out for only their own best interest . . . but it also insures that in order to be successful, they have to meet the needs of their customers. If they don't, their customers can walk away and give their business to their competitors.

This carrying-the-weak business seems to operate on a similar principle. Meeting the needs of others can be in your own best interests.

Believe it or not, helping others helps you. Carrying someone else grounds you -- physically, emotionally, spiritually. Being intimately in touch with the "weakest" of our society puts us in touch with the humanity in ourselves, if we let it.

And we must let it. The strong are often saved by carrying the weak, and Lord knows, we all need salvation.

Lazy Mom

I have a confession to make. For the entire two years that my daughter went to Summit Christian Academy here in SA, the lunch I packed for her to take every school day was . . . a Lunchable.

Yep, those awful little packaged lunch things. I had mom friends at that school who were health food fanatics, so I can't imagine what their kids' lunches looked like. I never dared to ask. My shame would reach its zenith.

This contemptible habit of mine started because our first few weeks of her school, we were transitioning from an apartment to our house and my life was crazy and a Lunchable was mucho easy. But she liked them, and I never stopped. Every lunch.

I understand that this was lazy and irresponsible on my part. For one thing, Lunchables are expensive for what you get. And I'm generally a pretty thrifty person, so this was out of character for me.

I also realize that this was by no means a healthy lunch for her. Not only was she missing anything even resembling a fruit or vegetable, but it was processed foods all the way. I've come to believe that processed foods are doing great damage to the overall health of our nation. All the chemicals . . . all the carbs and starches and sugars . . . all the lack of any real nutritional value . . . I suspect it is a significant culprit not only in the obesity rate, but very likely in the increased incidences of ADHD, autism, allergies, learning disabilities, etc. etc.

And yet, I fed my kid a Lunchable three times a week.

Here's the reality: I like food. I don't necessarily mind cooking once in a while. But I HATE having to figure out what to prepare for twenty-one meals a week for my family. I would be tempted to find one of those ready-made menus with every meal set for your family for a month except that most of those are made for foodies -- they have "interesting" recipes with bizarre ingredients that my family won't eat and/or that I can't find in the grocery store. We don't really care that much if we eat the same dishes over and over -- we prefer that to "interesting" dishes that we don't like.

But even if we're eating simple foods that we all like, I don't always want to take the time to make it from scratch. Yes, I fill my freezer with frozen foods that my girls can heat up on their own for lunches or dinners when I'm not home (and that I heat up often, too). No, I did not teach them to cook healthy foods for themselves. I'm a lazy, irresponsible mom. I want easy meals.

When I come home tired after a long day, I want an easy meal.

When I've been working on the computer all morning and I'm forcing myself to get off for a little bit and eat, I want an easy meal.

When I'm brain dead and staring at the contents of my refrigerator and kitchen cabinets trying to figure out what sounds good to eat, I want an easy meal.

I wish I were one of those people who is energized and rejuvenated by some time in the kitchen chopping vegetables and all. However, I have noticed that most of my friends who find that kind of personal fulfillment in feeding others also struggle with their own weight issues. Their joy in food preparation leads to over-eating and does not lead them to the healthier choices. That would be me.

Sigh. I keep thinking that I've got to get a system in place that helps me get healthy food out there for me and my family to eat. I have no doubt that our mood and energy problems would improve dramatically. And I'm all about systems and routines. I need a system.

Or a personal chef. If anyone is volunteering, send me your résumé. Or don't even bother with that formality -- just show up with good food.

Breaking Baptist

I grew up in a Southern Baptist church (in fact, I tell people I was a Southern Baptist nine or ten months before I was born). My husband grew up in an American Baptist church (for my unchurched friends, yes, there is a difference). Over the course of our married life, we've attended an Evangelical Free church, a Methodist church, a Reformed church . . .

But we've always been Baptists at heart, and now we're officially Baptists again. Our family joined Woodland Baptist Church earlier in the summer. And a lot of this feels like coming home. Partly, that's because it's a very traditional church: hymnals, robed choir, Wednesday night dinner and prayer meeting . . . it feels a lot like the church I grew up in.

But we're also coming back to a few things that are Baptist in practice. Such as the monthly business meeting. Baptist congregations are run by the congregation. No bishops and denominational overseers who assign leadership and set rules. No elder boards making decisions on behalf of the congregation. Baptists vote. On everything.

I have "fond" memories of the monthly business meetings at my church. Robert's rules of order. Accepting the minutes from the last meeting. Approving the budget statement for the last month. Acknowledging the change of wording in this and that . . . I move we accept the minutes as revised . . . I second that motion . . . Boring stuff, except when punctuated by the occasional fun controversy. I remember once when a youth leader I respected stood up to protest the amount of money we were spending on lawn maintenance. "I mean, green grass is nice, but it don't save souls!" I thought he had a good point. His motion did not carry.

Another Baptist distinctive: committees. Baptists committee everything to death. Within three days of coming forward to join Woodland -- in fact, about forty minutes before we were officially voted in as members at the monthly business meeting -- we were already invited to be on a committee. In our Welcome to Woodland packet was a printout of the committees and their members: the finance committee, the building and grounds committee, the outreach committee, the personnel committee, the missions committee . . . there is even a Committee on Committees, and no, I am not exaggerating, people. (At my home church, that was called the nominating committee -- same dif.)

And then there was the list of Ministries, which are essentially sub-committees of the committees, in a lot of cases. The prayer ministry, the flower ministry, the kitchen ministry, the ushers and greeters ministry, the handyman ministry. There is no lack of places to plug in.

Yesterday, hubby and I had a meeting with the Young Families and Singles committee to finalize plans for a retreat happening in a couple weeks. (No jokes about that "young families" thing; we questioned whether we still qualified for that label as well, but it seems to be broadly applied.) And while I enjoyed spending time with these people, the meeting reminded me of what I learned as a young person in my home church: running things by committee, while very democratic and safe and fair, is also very inefficient.

I had offered to help two ladies plan a teaching session they are in charge of. They wanted to hang around after the meeting and talk about it in more detail. But here was the thing: I knew what they wanted to do, and being a teacher and a writer, I knew exactly how to set it up. I knew I could whip this out at home on my own in a fourth of the time it would take to talk it through with them -- and if I had something wrong, they could point it out and I could fix it. So, I told them that. They said, "Are you sure?" . . . and I know their concern was that they were dumping all the work on me when they were supposed to be sharing the load, as committees do.

But as I said, the effort to share the load this way in a committee is usually inefficient. God set up the church (and the world, to a degree) as a Body with many parts. Each part is gifted to do particular jobs. If we find the job we are supposed to do and do it, it all works out well. If we try to do jobs we aren't good at, or try to spread the load out in awkward ways, we may look like nice people but we don't work effectively.

The Baptist church is very American in how it runs things. And while I'm quite cognizant of the need to "share the load" (or rather share the power) on a national level to maintain our earthly political liberties, my Baptist heritage has also taught me the advantages of a benevolent, wise dictatorship. Which is good, because the Kingdom that my real citizenship is in is essentially that.

The Cornelius Decision

So, who else is watching "A.D.", the TV series? I rarely read any comments about it on FB, even from my rabid Christian friends, so I wonder.

It hasn't grabbed me and addicted me (like other shows I'm having to wait until the fall to see again . . . grrr), but it's interesting. Some folks are probably upset about the "extra-biblical" material, angles on the story that were not in the original text. The traveling Ethopian eunuch was involved in a plot against the Romans? James arranged with Caiaphas for the Jesus-followers to be accepted into the temple again? And John the disciple as a black man . . . I understand the desire for ethnic diversity here, but that's really stretching things.

I'm not necessarily bothered by these angles, though. It concerns me a little that the biblically illiterate will watch this and think this is all in the Bible, but because none of it that I've seen yet is contradictory to the important message and spirit of the text, I'm okay with it so far. In fact, as a Bible student and script writer, I'm pretty fascinated by the background stories they are supposing here, based on the sketchy details we are given in the book.

We just caught up yesterday on the episode we missed on vacation. And this was an episode I've been waiting for. From the beginning, when Pilate sent his top centurion out to do some violence and called him Cornelius, I've been waiting for the soldier's conversion -- because I knew this HAD to be that Cornelius. And it was. Great idea to have such a crucial character to the gospel story involved in everything from the start, even though in the Bible he pops up pretty randomly and isn't heard from again.

So, yesterday, Cornelius met Jesus. And he is then immediately called in by Pilate to lead his squadron of soldiers to bring the golden statue of Caligula into the Jewish temple . . . and to kill every Jew that tries to stop them. He's a soldier; he's been given orders, orders he must obey or he will be killed himself. Peter asks him what he will do. Cornelius responds that he will pray that the Holy Spirit shows him what to do. Good answer.

So, Cornelius marches his troops with the offensive statue to the gates of the temple, where he politely asks (there's a change right there) the high priest to step aside so he can fulfill his orders. In answer, Caiaphas offers his throat -- kill me if you must, I won't allow you to desecrate God's temple. Cornelius must decide which master he will obey: his earthly master or his heavenly master. And he must decide in a very public way, with EVERYONE watching. He hesitates.

And in that moment, the mob behind him attacks his squadron, and he is left alone kneeling and praying with his new Christian brothers, while the battle rages without his participation. And his soldiers don't seem to notice.

The episode ended before we found out if there will be consequences for Cornelius not obeying Pilate's orders. I suspect there will be. But isn't it interesting that this episode aired now? An episode that deals with the question of what do I do when doing my job, when obeying governmental authority, goes directly against what I know is God's will?

I'm anxious to see how this will play out in "A.D." I'm even more anxious to see how it will play out in my country.

The Isms

I've been vacationing with the family, so I haven't written for a while. And what I'm going to write about today, I'm a little nervous about, because believe it or not, I don't like controversy. But it's been heavy on my heart, and I feel like I need to say it.

The shooting in Charleston. So terribly sad. But as I joined the online grieving, I was convicted by some of the comments I read. Sentiments along the lines of, "How could this still be happening in our country?" "I thought we had moved past this!" "When will we eradicate racism in our society?"

Sentiments I would have shared in the not-so-distant past, but I don't think I can share today. Because, friends, I don't think we will ever "move past this." I don't think we will ever "eradicate racism." Not really. And so, as much as we need to fight racism, we've really got to focus on a more important task.

I just re-read a book over vacation that I'll be assigning my daughter in English class this fall: The Deadliest Monster. It compares the worldviews of two classic monster stories (which she will also be reading). In Frankenstein, the doctor creates a being who is pure and innocent in its creation; it only becomes a monster when it is treated cruelly by society. In Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dr. Jekyll recognizes within himself a virtuous self and an evil self and tries to isolate the evil self so as to be able to indulge it once in a while without damage to his reputation; however, the evil self, through the indulgence, becomes more and more powerful and eventually takes over.

The question in this book is, which monster do you believe in? Modern society believes in Frankenstein. We are born good -- the only reason we do bad things is because society messes us up. The solution then is to fix society (laws, education, etc.) so that people are never "trained" to do bad things. We need to pass strong hate crime laws, integrate our schools and neighborhoods, and teach our kids that we are all equal. Then we will get past racism. We will eradicate it.

But the reality is that we are not Frankensteins -- we are Jekyll/Hydes. We are not born good -- we are born with an evil self lurking within us. We are born selfish little snits that need to be "trained" to do good. Racism (at least the selfish, prideful seed that becomes racism) is within us from the womb.

There's an old saying that God doesn't have grandchildren, only children. Righteousness is not passed down from generation to generation. It is not a legacy we leave our offspring. Good manners, maybe. Religious traditions, certainly. Moral habits and desires, perhaps. But not righteousness. Righteousness must be re-born in every individual, one at a time. Who was it that said "We are always one generation away from apostasy"? This is truth. One generation.

I long for a day when our world is genuinely color-blind . . . and gender-blind, and class-blind, and blind to every difference between us that doesn't matter. When my friend's dark brown skin is of no more consequence than my other friend's bright red hair. When we stop celebrating women's history month because women's history is just American history.

But the truth is, IF that day were to ever come, there would still be those who find a reason to hate a group of other people and use guns or bombs to kill them. "Racism" may not be the cause, but there will always be an "ism". No matter what laws we pass . . . no matter how we educate . . . there will always be an "ism".

Because God doesn't have grandchildren. Racism is not a result of bad training; it is a result of an unrighteous heart. The re-birthing of righteous hearts: that's what will stop the isms.

IMHO: The Biggest Fix for Education

My eldest just told me that on one of her college-associated tests (ACT? CLEP? She couldn’t remember which), she had to write on this question: should high school be extended to five years instead of four? Well, that led to a lively discussion on our part.

She could see pros and cons. On the one hand, some students need more time to learn what they need to learn in high school and to mature enough to be ready for what follows. On the other hand, she wasn’t confident that they would simply be allowed more time; she suspected the powers-that-be would just add more to the load of what they were expected to learn.

Here is the root of the problem with our society’s system of schooling, in my humble opinion: it is bound by time restraints. It is no secret to anyone – teachers, administrators, parents, students, psychologists, educational researchers and experts – that students learn at different rates. One student learns at a different rate than another student. A student learns one subject at a different rate than he learns a second subject. And a student may learn at one rate at one time of life or stage of development and at a very different rate at another time of life or stage of development.

The time involved to learn is a constantly changing variable. But our system of schooling does not allow for such a variable.

In order for a teacher to teach something to a group of students, all of the students have to be at about the same place academically, ready to absorb this particular new skill or information. If that teacher is going to teach that same group of students over a stretch of time, then over that stretch of time, the whole group of students needs to remain in about the same place academically.

So for one teacher to teach a class of twenty second graders seven hours a day for nine months, that means that all twenty of those students have to be at about the same place academically – in every subject – and progress at about the same pace – in every subject – for nine months.

What a ridiculous expectation! No wonder so many students struggle . . . and so many others are bored. And so many teachers burn out.

In a recent discussion about a math class at our school, I made the suggestion that the teacher could slow down the pace, since all the students are struggling at the moment. “But then they would be behind,” was the response I got.

Behind what, exactly? Behind the arbitrary point in the typical math curriculum that every student in the country of this age group is expected to be at by the middle of April? Should that really be our goal?

Maybe it's the homeschooler in me, but I so want to free all of our students from those time restraints. I want to tell them, "The goal is to learn Algebra -- the full content of it, and to learn it well. It isn't important how you learn it. It isn't important when you learn it. If you could do nothing but Algebra in an online course for six weeks and get it down pat, great. If you stretch it out over two years, sitting with a private tutor twice a week but get it down, awesome. The goal is mastery of the material, however and whenever that happens for you."

But people are so afraid of their kids being "behind" the rest of the kids their age. What if -- gasp! -- they don't finish high school in four years? Well, what if they don't? What if they are a year older and more mature when they start college? What if they actually have the skills and knowledge they need to succeed in college when they start rather than having to fake and float and eventually fail when you're paying thousands of dollars for the education? What if they come out of high school knowing that they know something and not just that they worked a system to get a signed document that everyone seems to think means something (but they know it doesn't)? 

What's wrong with taking more time in high school? 

Frankly, if we would have this mindset in the earlier years, it might prevent a lot of kids in high school from having to worry about "graduating late." I have all sorts of thoughts for how elementary school could be done differently. Not being an elementary teacher, I hesitate to promote my ideas much, but I still have them.

Can we just stop with the race to adulthood and give our kids some time? I'm sure they'd thank us for it, and I think we'd all enjoy life so much more.

The Obligatory Fast Food Gig

My eldest has been looking for a job. Kind of. She's had her eye out for places that seemed to be hiring and put her application in at a couple, to no avail. So a couple Sundays ago, when we were picking up a gift card at Freddy's, she saw the "Help Wanted" sign and filled out an application. Two days later, she started training.

And life suddenly changed very quickly.

Here's what I don't get about this job: she never knows exactly when she's going to work. She's given a start time -- like, 11am. But she doesn't know when she gets off. She just gets off when they tell her she can go. That meant that last Saturday, when she started at 11am, they didn't tell her she could go until 8pm.

A nine-hour work day -- that's a long day, to begin with. But more than that, how is she supposed to plan her life around this? How can she make any commitments for activities in the evenings if she has no idea when she gets off work? That particular evening, she had agreed to babysit for a neighbor (agreed to it before she even got the Freddy's job), so she had to get her sister to cover for her until she could get there -- and then she was babysitting for three hours AFTER her nine hours doing fast food.

Is this legit? Do all fast food places run this way? I understand that they have to deal with unreliable workers who will choose to show up or not show up as their mood strikes, but still.

And there's more. The weekly work schedule begins on Thursdays. As of today (Wednesday), she doesn't know when she is scheduled to work beyond just today. We're hoping she finds out the upcoming week's schedule when she goes in at lunch. But again, how is she supposed to plan her life when she doesn't know more than a couple days ahead when she's working? How can she ever agree to babysit for anyone again if she doesn't know if she'll get off work in time? This is Easter weekend -- her boyfriend is flying down for a visit -- and she has NO IDEA when she's free for anything. We may not be able to do any Easter activities together as a family. He may spend all that money to come see her and hardly ever get to see her (a good possibility since she's at the bottom of the totem pole there and most likely to be scheduled on a holiday weekend, I would assume).

I remember a woman on my drama team in Sioux City had the same problem with her job at Chik-Fil-A. We couldn't schedule rehearsals with her more than a week ahead because she didn't know her work schedule. (But at least she knew what time she was getting off!)

This is aggravating. I don't like that kind of unpredictability.

Her first week of training was hard. It's her first "real" job. She was nervous. Her trainer was apparently not a great trainer (even the other workers told her that). And that nine-hour day while she still felt so uncertain about what she was doing really did her in. She came home from babysitting in tears about what a failure she was at this job.

We tried to reassure her -- you're still learning. Think of all the friends you know who have half a brain in their head and still work successfully in fast food. You will get the hang of this. But I felt her pain. I wrote a while back about my unsuccessful two weeks at TCBY when I was her age. It's a terrible feeling when you are given expectations and not given the means to meet those expectations.

But two days ago, somebody from corporate (in Wichita! my hometown!) was in our Freddy's here to observe. And apparently, this man told the manager, "We need more people like this girl here" -- indicating my daughter.

Boo yah! Told you, hon.

Mainstreams and Margins

Our Sunday School teacher used that phrase yesterday. Mainstreams and margins. Our society tends to refer to "majorities" and "minorities," but I think these terms are more accurate. You can be a statistical majority and still be on the margins of society. It's not about the numbers.

In the context of our discussion, the teacher asked us to consider situations in our lives when we have been in either camp. When have you been in the margins? And when you were, what were your thoughts and feelings about those in the mainstream? Conversely, when you've been in the mainstream, how did you think and feel about those in the margins?

We were examining passages in Acts about conflict resolution -- specifically Acts 15, when the Council in Jerusalem had to make a decision about circumcision. Do Gentiles who trust in Christ have to become Jews before they become Christians? Is Christianity just a new branch of Judaism, or is it something else entirely?

At that time, the Jewish Christians were the mainstream. Gentile Christians were the margins. Kind of interesting, when you think about it.

In the United States, Christianity has been the mainstream since Europeans began settling the land. And most people will insist that it still is. Look at all our churches. Look at all the Christian holidays we celebrate. Look at all the surveys indicating how many people identify as Christians, believe in God, attend Christian worship services, etc.

But you see, that's about majority. I'm talking about mainstream. And I contend the national waters are started to flow down a different stream.

Oh, I don't think churches are going to start disappearing right away. Blatant atheism isn't going to be running rampant around here anytime soon. But I'm convinced we're headed the direction Europe has gone. I haven't ever been to Europe, but from what I understand, churches are mostly historical artifacts around there. Very few active members. And very few churches that are serving as salt and light in the dark worlds around them.

John Piper said in a recent sermon, "The Christian Church in America suffers from about 350 years of dominance and prosperity. . . this has deeply ingrained in us a massively unbiblical mindset, namely, a mindset of at-homeness in this world and in this age." It has been easy to be a Christian in America, and that easiness has created a feebleness that will be our downfall.

I vividly remember the words a couple decades ago of a missionary from a country in the Eastern block that had been freed from Soviet control and was experiencing new religious freedoms. His believing friends in that nation were bemoaning to him, "Why did God take away the blessing of persecution?" Easy Christianity was making for weak Christianity. Ineffective Christianity. Faux Christianity. What makes us think our faith was supposed to be easy?

The blessing of persecution. Dare we ask God for that blessing upon our nation? I'm coming to suspect that the Church was always meant to stand in the margins rather than float in the mainstream.

Can We Celebrate This?

The Butler was on this past weekend (at least in our house – Hubby DVR’d it). And I was once again moved by the scene at the end when Cecil Gaines watches Barack Obama winning the presidency.

Because as much as I am opposed to the man’s politics and policies – as much as I disagree with the direction he has taken our country in the last six years – I was and still am quite moved by the fact that our country finally elected an African-American to its highest office. Seeing a movie like The Butler, which reminds us of how bad things were at one time for blacks in our country and how hard the fight was to turn that around, only makes me the more grateful.

My daughter, on the other hand, was surprisingly complacent about the whole thing. Maybe it was a big deal, she said, but it really shouldn’t have been.  It shouldn’t have mattered what color his skin was. Well no, honey, it shouldn’t have – but it did. That’s the whole point. And the fact that it doesn’t matter to you now is kind of the whole point.

Can we take a moment to celebrate the fact that – despite the whole “black lives matter” controversies of recent months – we are raising what is probably the most colorblind generation the United States has ever seen? My children had to be taught that some people see blacks as inferior, and they found this fact strange. There’s a victory right there. I don’t remember being taught that. I just knew. It was part of my experience; it’s not part of theirs.

In 1995 and 1996, I worked as a temp in an MCI sales office in Springfield, Missouri, with an African-American receptionist named Belinda, who became a close friend. This was during the O.J. Simpson trial – and in a city about an hour north of the Arkansas border where a road sign informed you that the local Ku Klux Klan chapter sponsored the clean-up of that stretch of highway – so she and I had a lot of talks about race relations during that year together.

I remember the day she told me that her parents believed that every white person in America thought like Mark Fuhrman – that all white people hate black people. I was stunned. You mean to tell me that, if they walked in this door and saw me sitting at this desk . . . didn’t know me from Adam . . . knew nothing about my background, my faith, my beliefs, my experiences, my heart . . . they would look at the color of my skin and immediately assume that I hated them?? Yes, she said, they would. That had been their experience.

Stunned, I tell you. I was completely stunned.

She was quick to tell me that she certainly didn’t believe that – her life experiences had been quite different. And her daughter’s experiences had been better yet – her biracial daughter had never experienced any significant prejudice that she was aware of in her fourteen years to that point (despite living in a city where blacks were a very small minority). My friend had much hope for the future of race relations in our country and in that community in particular.

Can we take a moment to celebrate the differences in life experiences in the three generations of that African-American family?

I’m not so ignorant or sheltered as to believe racism has been eradicated in America. Frankly, I’m realistic enough to believe that it never will be eradicated in America . . . in this world . . . or in this life. Humanity is just that sinful. But in the midst of difficult times in our country, I would love to hear more people celebrating that, by the grace of God, we are not who we used to be.

Doing Violence to our Sin

We reached a troubling passage of scripture at BSF last Tuesday. The part where Israel creates the golden calf. But it's not the calf itself that troubles most people, interestingly enough (frankly, we're all quite comfortable with the idea of a dramatic falling away from God -- we witness it in our own lives all the time).

It's God's response that troubles folks -- and troubled me. He has Moses call anyone "on the Lord's side" to come to him, and then instructs them to take swords and walk through the camp killing. In the end, about 3,000 rebellious Israelites are slain that day. That's less than one percent of the group, but still a significant number. Our BSF lesson notes said that it was the "ringleaders" of the group who were killed, but I personally didn't see anything in scripture that indicated that was the case. (I'll keep studying this passage. I assume they come to that conclusion based on other scriptural principles and how they would apply here.)

In any case, such a massive slaughter understandably disturbs many. It doesn't sound like a "God of love." But I was reminded in our lesson, and in my pondering it this week, that we need to be careful in our exultation of this one glorious characteristic of our God to not forget about His other characteristics. He is also a God of purity. And a God of justice.

Our teaching leader compared this to a case of gangrene. When I first learned about gangrene, and how soldiers who acquired it in the battlefield would have to have limbs amputated, it horrified me. But that's the nature of the infection: it spreads very quickly and is absolutely destructive. There's no playing around with gangrene . . . no dabbling with methods to slow it down . . . no patient "tolerance" . . . you have to cut the stuff off completely. This was truly the only loving way to help the infected soldier. Any weaker response in the name of kindness meant death.

We even see Jesus promoting a similar principle. "If your right hand causes you to sin," he said, "cut it off. If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out. It's better for you to live your life a bit maimed than to lose your life completely later in eternal punishment."

I used to gloss over this passage, trying not to think about how . . . primitive Jesus' approach sounded. I mean, it's not our physical hand or eye that causes us to sin. It's a dumb command.

But then I had a friend tell me about her husband. Her husband who had just confessed to her that he was addicted to internet porn, and who told her (this was twenty years ago or so) that they needed to get rid of their internet connection so he wouldn't be tempted so much. AHA. Then I got it.

If your internet connection is causing you to sin, cut it off.

If that TV show you enjoy is causing you to sin, cut it off.

If your friendship with your old college buddy is causing you to sin, cut it off.

If your job . . . where you pass that tempting woman every day who has made her willingness abundantly clear . . . where you have little or no accountability for your time and whereabouts and opportunity for indiscretion abounds . . . yes, even that job that is putting food on your family's table . . . if your job is causing you to sin, cut it off.

If Jesus expects us to be willing to give up an appendage, how much more these things?

Because we simply don't take sin seriously enough in our society. Not other people's sin -- many of us are quite obsessed with other people's sin. We don't take our own sin seriously. And it's our own sin that we're told to do violence to. Cut off your own hand. Set aside your own friends (even family). Excommunicate your own church members. Exterminate your own people.

If we see things from God's perspective -- the infinitely holy God whose primary purpose is to re-establish relationship with defiled humanity -- it makes more sense.

The sin in our lives deserves a dramatic response. Even a violent one.

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.

Reality TV Christians

Apparently John Luke Robertson is engaged. And apparently he and his fiancee are staying abstinent until marriage.

My first reaction: I would never want to put myself in a position where I felt such information needed to be shared with the world. I have NO desire for fame.

My second reaction: it saddens me to no end that being abstinent until marriage is a big enough deal to be a news story.

Seriously.

A friend was telling me a while back that, at the church we attended together a couple moves ago, most of the young people we loved and respected have no qualms at all about living together and having sex before they get married. None at all. Christian young people. It's just no big deal.

I cannot tell you how sad that makes me.

I suppose I would expect that of unbelievers, but even in them, it makes me sad. It's one thing when you have an ideal in your head to save yourself for your wedding day, but you fail to live up to your ideal in the end. That's a sad thing, too. But it's quite another to go into your dating years without even having the mindset that saving yourself is a desirable thing worth the effort. Without feeling any sense of shame or guilt AT ALL about crossing a line that the God you claim to worship and submit to has clearly drawn for you. Clearly.

How in the world did we get here? How did the church manage to raise a generation who has so little regard for the word of their God?

Ugh. If I think about this too much, it really discourages me.

So back to John Luke. I haven't seen "Duck Dynasty" for a while -- my girls kind of got off of that kick. They're more interested in the Duggar crew these days and their various courtships, engagements, marriages, and baby-birthing.

I don't know what to think about the Duggars. If nothing else, they at least are putting some important topics out in the public eye to be discussed. Like modesty, healthy relationships, and such. And for the most part, they don't seem really pushy about things.

They just seem annoying. Are friends going to hate me for saying that? The Duggars annoy me. They're the kind of people that, if I knew them in real life, I would admire for some things but would avoid having to spend too much time with them because they just flat out turn me off.

Maybe they're different in real life -- maybe they would seem a little more genuine and natural than they do on TV. I can't imagine living your life in the public eye like they do: staging conversations and situations for the ever-present cameras (because yes, I have no doubt most of those are "staged", even if they are conversations and situations that would have happened for real without the cameras there).

For instance, when Jessa's boyfriend (I forget his name) approached Jim Bob to ask for permission to propose. They did this on camera. I don't believe for a moment that Jim Bob walked into that room without knowing that this discussion was going to happen. It was awkward; it was weird; it was a personal moment that did not need to be acted out for the world to watch. And it annoyed me that they did act it out for the world to watch.

I suppose I should be happy that there are confessing Christians out there living a Christian life in the public eye as a testimony. But I'm not sure that I am. I think I'd rather there were more confessing Christians living a good Christian life in their homes, neighborhoods, and workplaces for their friends to see as a testimony.

And dear friends, that would most definitely include saving yourself for marriage. Sigh.

Old Testament Law, Justice, and Slavery

Our BSF study this year is about the life of Moses, and it covers the Old Testament books of the law, the complicated parts that everyone gets bogged down with and argues over. I've been particularly looking forward to this study. For one thing, I've always wanted to understand those books better -- to know how to apply them to our modern life. But more than that, I had many friends back in my early years of BSF who said that this particular year of BSF was life-changing for them.

So, last night was our first lesson actually starting to get into the specific laws (Exodus 21-24). And because we're just getting into it, I'm not yet going to claim any grand revelations or insights. But I did find some things interesting . . . and I did get hints of grand revelations and insights that may be to come.

- There are three types of Law given in the Old Testament. The first is the Moral Law, represented by the Ten Commandments. These were described as laws about "how to live as individuals." They are binding upon all people at all times, throughout history and throughout cultures.

-The second type were the civil laws. These were about "how to live as a nation", and they specifically applied to Israel in its theocracy at that time. Many (probably most) people argue that these laws do not directly apply to us today. However, they reveal the character of God, and therefore the principles behind them should be applied today.

- The third type were the ceremonial laws. We haven't read these yet, but they involve the sacrifices and so forth which maintained Israel's relationship with a righteous God. Jesus' sacrifice fulfilled all of these. They do not apply anymore.

- But going back to those civil laws: these are the most controversial because it takes discernment to figure out what to do with these. But again, if you are looking at the principles behind them, a couple things stood out to me.

- There is a whole group of laws that apply to personal injury and property rights (Ex 21:12 - 22:15). Here is where we find the first instance of that old adage, "An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth." And what's interesting is that, this does seem to be the first instance of that concept. Like, ever. In ancient times, retaliation was the rule. If somebody did you wrong, you got back, and often in a really big way. This principle was given to ensure that punishment was equal in proportion to the offense, and it was rather revolutionary in that respect, apparently.

In other words, the laws were an attempt to teach the Israelites (and through them, the rest of the world) about Justice, a primary trait of God's. God is just . . . in fact, He is Justice; the only understanding we have of the concept of justice comes to us from where God has inserted Himself into our world and our understanding. On our own human understanding, we only get retaliation. But when we are taught justice, we recognize it as good, because we are made in God's image, although that image has been corrupted.

Now, when Jesus was on earth, he went even further: "You have heard it said, 'Eye for eye and tooth for tooth.' But I tell you . . . if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other one, also." Jesus taught mercy and self-sacrifice. Not that justice was now invalid . . . but Jesus' coming was the beginning of the era when we can be indwelled by the Spirit and enabled to do beyond what our human nature allows . . . when we are enabled to be Christ-like.

- Another note: this passage talks about slavery, and I know many are troubled by the fact that the Bible seems to "endorse" slavery. But slavery as discussed in the civil laws given by Moses is a different animal than our modern notion of slavery. First, the law called for the death penalty for anyone who kidnapped and sold any person. Clearly, this type of slavery (which is basically ALL modern or recent forms of slavery) is out of God's will. Hebrews, it seems, took slaves as payments on debts or punishments for crimes -- that kind of thing. Slavery as it happened in the United States, and as it continues around the world today, would have been unacceptable in the ancient Hebrew state.

Second, permanent, involuntary servitude was not allowed among the Hebrews; slaves were to be freed in their seventh year -- and even given a share of the flock and food to be able to start a new life and avoid falling into slavery again.

Third, a slave's family was respected and considered. Families were not torn apart, as often happened in slavery in America.

Fourth -- and this is most telling to me -- slaves were offered the option of choosing to become a permanent slave to their master rather than taking their freedom in the seventh year. And this option was often chosen. Apparently, slavery was not always undesirable. Hebrew slaves were treated well, considered part of the family, were protected by strict laws about their care, and were often quite devoted to their masters. (This particular concept of choosing to become a permanent bondservant is a model of our relationship with God as believers. A topic for another post.)

And again, we see new standards set in the New Testament, after Jesus ushers in the Age of the Holy Spirit, when we are enabled to "be holy as He is holy." In the New Testament book of Philemon, Paul writes to Philemon on behalf of Onesimus, Philemon's slave who ran away and then met Paul and became a Christian. Paul is encouraging Onesimus to return to his master and submit to him . . . but he is also encouraging Philemon (also a Christian) to see his relationship with his slave as changed. "Perhaps the reason he was separated from you for a little while was that you might have him back forever -- no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a dear brother."

Paul doesn't call for the elimination of the slave/master relationship -- as practiced in Israel, that institution actually revealed important things about God and about man. But just as Jesus encouraged us to go beyond simple justice to godly mercy, Paul encourages Philemon to go beyond his rights as a slaveowner to a relationship based on brotherhood in Christ.


Just a few things I noted . . . none completely digested and analyzed yet . . . more insights to come as the year progresses, I'm sure.