Voices: sufferin’ suffrage

Most Christians, impressed with the gravity of human sacrifice in war, conclude that since people have died for democracy, they must exercise the right to vote.  This logic, quite simply, is not logical.  First:  voting for the next executor or lawmaker-in-district has a tenuous relationship with the prospect of improving “our” chances in the next war.  Moreover, the right to vote is completely a secular notion — one that may safely and thoughtfully, if unpopularly, be passed over by those whose hope is in God’s next world.  I do not advocate apathy about this world, but I do place voting in the category of democratic rights, not that of Christian responsibilities.

Having laid that foundation, let’s think with a denominational historian for a few moments about voting, women, and the home.  This “voice from the past” is not likely to fall on hordes of receptive ears.

One cause of deterioration?

“When Tennessee faced the precedent-setting vote on the Susan B. Anthony Amendment in 1920, J.C. McQuiddy led the opposition to the extension of women’s voting rights,” notes Robert Hooper in A Distinct People:  A History of the Churches of Christ in the 20th Century.  Hooper then quotes McQuiddy:

“God pity the child (sic), when they have a motherless home, when they have a mother who is in politics, campaigning over the states and neglecting the purifying, refining, and ennobling influences which she should be exercising in her home!”

“I do not believe that the good women of Tennessee want the ballot; but even if they did, the question which man must determine is not affected by what women WANT, but what they ought to have.”

- JC McQuiddy, Gospel Advocate, 1919 p. 1073 and 1920, p. 715, quoted in Robert Hooper, op. cit.

Could the seemingly backward-thinking conservative McQuiddy have been right?  I hope that those who know me well and/or have read much of my blog would not suspect that I am devaluing women here, but I do want to counter that possible inference:  I am in no way advocating condescending chauvinism in the political sphere.  I am in no way attempting to reserve the “right” to vote for men.  The voting enterprise is not my concern here.

I am, however, suggesting that women’s traditional roles in the home are more important than voting, and that the effects of any (women’s or men’s) work in the home has more ultimate purpose than any political activity.  Societally speaking, it would seem that the deterioration of morals is related, in part, to a lack of solid families.  While this degradation has many causes, and while absent fathers are even more to blame, upholding “traditional” women’s roles is probably not a bad idea, either.

(Ir)reverence, maturation, and heaven

Some weeks ago, while driving, my young son asked about heaven.  With the advice of a book on nurturing faith in children echoing in my head, I more or less steered the conversation away from heaven — a concept probably too deep and too advanced for him, at present.  But before I diverted his attention, a memory or two had surfaced.  I doubt anyone is singing this “camp song” anymore, but it’s still in my head:

Heaven is a wonderful place, filled with glory and grace.
I want to see my Savior’s face.  Heaven is a wonderful place.  

That’s about all there was to it, I think.  The guys had a quasi-doo-wop bass line, and the girls’ melody at “I want to see my Savior’s face” had a matching ascending line.   At the end of a rep, the guys would sing “wanna go there” on sol-la-ti, just before the next go-round.  A bit irreverent in style, it seems to me, but there are worse things than bad style matches, and the longing to see Jesus in heaven is a good thing to sing about.

Another heaven song I learned later, as a teen, was even simpler in terms of text, but strikes me as more reverent, stylistically speaking:

Soprano:  Someday … someday … someday … someday. . . .
Alto and bass:  Peace and joy and happiness; no more sorrow; someday . . . .
Tenor:  Gotta be ready when He calls my name! (3x)  Someday. . . .

I’m still drawn to that kind of mood — a mood created by believers as they sincerely long for the end-times when we will be conscious of nothing else but God and the eternal “place” prepared.  And I’m concerned that Jedd grow up with ample spiritually vibrant experiences that lead him toward such reverent faith.

In related memories with less apparent reverence . . . I suppose I didn’t die spiritually from hearing others add the childish “king-ki-dink,” like a rhythmic ta-da, at the end of the chorus of that ridiculous arky-arky song . . . or from asking God to “give me gas for my Ford.”  I suppose my child will also be able to avoid immune system shutdowns when he hears silly music attached to deep concepts of the Lord.  Still, I will try to steer him clear of “Father Abraham” and the like!

In the meantime, I’m OK with Jedd’s periodic questions about eventually being “up with God in heaven.”  Even though “up” is not exactly how I think of heaven’s “location,”  in the 1st century, hoi ouranoi seems to have meant “skies” as well as a more spiritual “heaven.”  It’s probably just fine that Jedd has this childlish, elevated, “other” concept of heaven at this point.  God, keep developing His precious soul.

Pride in a punster-in-training

I am so proud of my son.  I’m proud of his sweetness, his inventiveness, his sensitivity and kindness and sharing, his developing musical interests, his articulateness.

And I’m also proud that he often hears words as I often do — as sounds in addition to their functions as sensical communicative symbols.  What do I mean by this?  Well, basically, this almost-three-year-old is a punster-in-training who has the instinctive ear to turn a phrase.  This makes certain life-moments fun:

• In the car, when Karly and I were discussing a wind band piece by composer Frank Ticheli (pronounced tih-KELL-ee), Jedd piped up from the back, asking if we meant Karly’s sister Kelly.  After a laugh, Karly said, “Jedd, you’re remarkable.”  To which he queried, “You mean our Mark?”  (We have a college friend named Mark.)
• A few days later, we walked into the house after his bedtime.  He was making conversation, not taking his shoes off, etc.  One of us said, “Jedd, you’re stalling.”  He asked, “You mean like a horse’s stall?”

Jedd has a great future ahead in causing groans among his friends.  And his ear for sound and words is a delight.

P.S.  Allen Reynolds, are you out there?  I give you a lot of credit for developing this pun(ishment) thing in me back in DE and PA.  In the words of Richard Lederer, “get thee to a punnery,” and keep this skill alive!

Chocolate is good, right? (Part 2)

This post, contrary to natural expectations has nothing to do with nutritional guidelines, chocolate’s relationship to estrogen, or even with willpower.  It’s actually about black-white race relations.  This is Part 2 of 2 (I’m not insightful enough to write more than 2 posts on this topic.)

I suggested at the end of yesterday’s post that “separate but equal” may be bad in some instances — probably worse than I realize — but is not inherently bad.

Although we all know exceptions, the various races are largely separate and have been so for quite some time–since Noah or Babel, I suppose.  I’m no sociologist or anthropologist, either, but it might be more apt to say that cultures are more philosophically separate than races.  Culturally similar beings naturally flock together.  I’m not one to decry the existence of black churches and white churches, either.  This status quo seems perfectly natural to me, and not a problem to perpetuate, as long as — and I hasten to add this — there are no animosities or disfavorable glances from one ”side” to the other.  Seems to me that periodic get-togethers would be a good idea if a black church and a white church of similar stripe are within reasonable proximity:  the stripes, after all, would presumably represent a good deal of common ground.  However, the fact that people have collected around cultural similarities, whether race is a factor or not, says to me that those natural similitudes and affiliations may be played to, as long as they are not viewed as absolutes for eternity.

In melting-pot cities, I naively, un-observantly wonder if there is actually much integration in any sub-sphere.  2% of me feels guilt when others talk about cities — how God is in the cities and how they love the diversity and feel called to “ministry” in the city, etc., ad culpum (would that be the Latin for “toward guilt”?).

College students where I teach now seem to live somewhat more above racial considerations than I lived when I was their age.  A black student comes to our home every now and then with a group of students, the rest of whom are white.  Sometimes, I think about Mary’s race, but most often, I don’t.  One might say she is more “white” in her  upbringing, and in her current aspect.  She is easy to be around because she is more or less “like us.”  There are other black students, on the other hand, who seem to have chips on their shoulders and who naturally repel me by their mannerisms, their loudness, their dress, and other sub-cultural elements.  I speak here, of course, of only two races, more or less.  The actual situation is more complicated, with multiple racial groups and crossover groups at hand.

A few weeks ago, I heard a story — told by a black student with terrific comedic timing, incidentally! — about a faculty member’s child who, when passing a black student on the sidewalk, called out “Look, mom!  There’s a slave!!!”  (Major embarrassment ensued — far surpassing awkwardness.)  No slight was intended by the young child, of course.  It was merely an application of a recent learning, without wisdom or perception.  The problem comes not in the event but in the adult baggage surrounding the event.

The other night, I had Jedd on campus, and we went to the library.  A very dark-skinned female student came up to the counter as we were leaving.  I suspect she was Jamaican or Sierra Leonian or something — not a light-brown, American “black.”  The girl had an attractive countenance and was larger than life to my 34-month-old son.  He looked right up at her and warmly assessed, “You look like chocolate!”

She smiled and talked to him a little more.  Jedd’s comment was genuine, patently un-racist, and was probably at least marginally conciliatory.  I smiled and said nothing, trying not to look embarrassed or too anxious to get out of there.  Chocolate is good, right?  I mean, to say someone “looks like chocolate” is a positive, or at least neutral, thing.  Trying awkwardly to “correct” my son would have been inappropriate, I quickly thought, and I was pleased with my lack of overt reaction, although I was inwardly feeling pretty awkward.

As we walked away, I thought about race and tried not to carry my adult baggage too muscularly.  I hoped the girl was doing roughly the same.

I don’t like to think about race.

I’m not sure Jesus thought much about it in His human time, either; after all, He really only lived and moved among people of one race.  There’s not a lot of direct scriptural advice when it comes to race.  It’s up to us to apply principles of grace, love, and … well, of Jesus.

Chocolate is good, right?

This post, contrary to natural expectations (and that is of course the way this shaker-upper likes it!), will have nothing to do with nutritional guidelines, chocolate’s relationship to estrogen, or even with willpower.  It’s actually about black-white race relations.  Stick with me to the end of Part 2, if you don’t mind.

I might first confess that in my years, I haven’t given all that much energy to race relations.  A brief personal travelogue in this sphere would include a mention of Maggie, a “colored” woman who, in the 40s through the 60s, was certainly no “slave,” but who worked for various households of my maternal extended family under an evolved, tacit agreement.  Maggie was trusted, much loved . . . and rode a bus to work instead of living on any Tennessee plantation or property.  She cooked, she took care of children, and she cleaned.  I think Maggie was probably very appropriately treated in that context and was certainly well regarded, but rarely could such an employment arrangement “work” in the current decade.  It seems to me that race relations are in a way more sensitized among civilized folks than they were 50 years ago, notwithstanding the extreme wrongs of Central High, high-profiled assassinations, and the doings of the KKK.  At any rate, when Maggie Perry died, the Ritchie family mourned, having felt very connected in love and in history.

My grandfather, who taught at Harding, a Christian college-turned-university, from the late 40s through the 70s (incidentally, or perhaps not so incidentally, not all that far from Little Rock’s Central High), was on the good side of the thinking at the college.  There were for some time major fissures on that campus related to race, premillennialism, and other complicated issues.  As I have it, the president of the college was a symbolic caricature of the white citizen of the U.S. during the 60s–he championed a mission in black Zambia, but refused, for a while, to admit blacks as students to Harding, saying “they have their own college.”  It’s one thing to recognize that your primary clientele is white; it’s quite another to refuse admission to a person of another race.  This institution is my alma mater, as well, and although I don’t recall any particularly strained relations, there was no real integration, either.  Veronica and Angela were black students in my discipline–about 1% of the whole, I’d say.  Another Christian social club (no fraternities or sororities, of course) was formed and given the name “Skotia”–Greek for “darkness.”  While there might have been a token white person in the club, integration was not clearly not yet a reality.

I was later an employee of Highland Community College, an institution that had famously denied entrance to one George Washington Carver.  Big mistake.  And one that was not talked about much while I taught there.  I wasn’t ever sure whether it was public embarrassment for having made a stupid move 100 years before, or just that no one wanted to talk about the implications, because the school was lily-white still, save for a few imported football and basketball players, and a couple students from urban Kansas City.  From reports, the integration that has occurred at Highland in the last ten years has been more along lines of sexual activity/orientation than along lines of race, which is curious.  The Midwest/Heartland location isn’t all that receptive to a lot of any kind of change in thinking, but I would have thought race things would be easier to deal with there than gays.  It’s a basically hardworking, family-values kind of Americanism that rules in Kansas, although it’s more lapsed-Lutheran than bona fide Christian.

Personally, I was subjected to a rather late iteration of “desegregation” (it was pasted in the headlines and in our hearts with this pejorative notion and has basically retained a negative identity) in New Castle County, Delaware.  Forced busing was the most obvious manifestation of the governmental fiat to make schools “equal”–which of course isn’t possible and will always result in problems at least as great as the ones it tries to solve.  There was not much real integration.  According to Wikipedia, “The requirements for maintaining racial balance in the schools of each of the districts was ended by the District Court in 1994, but the process of busing students to and from the suburbs for schooling continued largely unchanged until 2001.”  Schools were generally perceived to be weakening for years, and charter, private, and “magnet” schools have proliferated.  Further on the personal side, I still laugh about the unusual manners and habits of the urban black students who were forced to come to my school in the suburbs.  My father — ever the impartial, kind, see-the-gold-in-everyone sort of teacher — came home with a story of a city black student who reacted strongly to a teacherly hand on the shoulder, but other than that, I remember only positive or neutral references to his new black students.  It probably didn’t hurt that he was also a coach.

Although we still hear of isolated instances of unfair treatment by police, by racial profiling at borders, I think so-called “Affirmative Action” as a matter of policy, in our country, should now be obsolete.  Racial quotas in places of employment ought not to be allowed anymore.  And yet I know there are extant pockets of deep prejudice that lead to injustice rather than mere separation.  I’m not a political scientist or philosopher, and am only thinly connected to philosophies in our country’s educational system, but I don’t really think “separate but equal” is inherently bad.  It may be bad in some instances — probably worse than I realize — but it’s not inherently bad.

To be continued . . .

Fear

My Jedd, now 2 & 1/2 years old, is not afraid of jumping or falling.  “Boo”ing still delights him, and being left in the car for a minute while we bring the groceries inside doesn’t give him any anxiety.  He is not afraid of new people or of the dark.  However, he does seem to be afraid of thunder.

The other night, we had a pretty good thunderstorm going on, and it was still somewhat active when I was putting Jedd to bed.  I could tell he was uneasy as I hugged him and rubbed his back and laid him in his bed.  The conversation started something like this:

Jedd:  “But I don’t like the thunder.”

Me:  “Don’t worry, son.  It’s far away, and you will be all right.  I will be here, and Mommie will be here, and God will take care of us.”

Jedd:  “But there’s no God in my house.”

I’ve thought about his comment ever since.  In a way, he’s right; in a more important way, he’s wrong.  But what do we do with this?

Jedd made it through the rest of the thunderstorm just fine and wasn’t afraid of the night.  But I am afraid of the possibility that Jedd could grow up struggling with belief in God, since God cannot be seen “in my house.”

Don’t try to tell me not to worry because this is “normal.”  As a parent, I am afraid.

Seasons

I’ve been a in a busy season for more than six months now.  Just about the time I think things are about to get a little less busy, things pile up again, or I get lackadaisical for a day and let things go, or a combination.  Hesitantly, but without any particular anxiety, I’ll say that I think things are about to get less busy for a couple of months.  We’ll see how this season goes!

I haven’t been too busy to notice four straight glorious fall days in the Southern Tier of New York.  Sunny, clear, crisp air.  Leaves swirling gently.  This is the best season in this part of the country–there being about six months of winter, and a couple months each of the other three (summer and spring, not entirely recognizable).

I like having seasons.  And yes, this is the season here.  It may not last long, but it’s here for a few days.  The snow will start its flurrying in a couple of weeks and will stay in the air through most of March and into April at times.  God’s solar and lunar rhythms do make life more interesting when we live in places that experience multiple seasons.  (God, please don’t take me to Florida or the Yucatan or the Yukon.)

Here, in this season, the final outdoor cleanup efforts can occur now with little pain.  Gloves and jackets, but no hoods or snowblowers or boots.  This is the season between the World Series and the snow … the time of the final mowing of the lawn … the time when the neat look of a freshly mown lawn with leaf bits strewn is made all the better by the sight of the most terrific little helper on the planet!

The Gershwins’ call

In the words of Ira Gershwin (with music by Tin Pan Alley songster and brother George) … who could ask for anything more?

I have a little boy who, pretty much every morning, when I walk into his room between 7 and 8, lifts his head and immediately says, “Oh, good morning!”

Not only is he pleasant and personable, but he also apparently has my penchant for wordplay.  A couple of weeks ago, he gently poked Karly with a stick a couple of times and then queried, “Mom, I sticked you.  Are you sticky?”

Who knew someone less than 2.5 years old could be a punster?  :-)

Thank You, God, for this delightful boy.  Oh, and help Karly as she has to keep up with his energies for many more hours per day than I do.

Yet another reason

Our son Jedd asked two “what’s that?” questions within seven seconds last Sunday.  He wanted to know what a shoe horn was and what the shoe trees were.  (Incidentally, two distinct objects go by the label “shoe tree.”  I was dealing with this type.)

Have you ever thought about explaining words with obscure or double meanings to a toddler?  I mean, he knows what a tree is, and what a horn is.  What on earth could these odd objects have to do with trees and horns?  I suddenly felt more inadequate than usual.

This little interaction highlights once again — for me, anyway — that in church, we need to avoid the KJV, especially when dealing with the uninitiated or lesser-experienced, and especially when the scene calls for understanding and meaning.  While I can try to explain “shoe horn” to Jedd, there’s simply no time to explain “concupiscence” or “similitude”  or “upbraideth” to a new, adult believer.  Why stumble over, and grin about, “hath” this and “doth” that?  Would you really know what the following passage from Romans 12 means if it weren’t for more modern versions?  “Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits.”  There are better things to do with our Christian time.

Once in a while, the majesty of KJV poetry is in order.  But most of the time, please, use a more modern version of the scriptures.

Differing perceptions

Differing perceptions. Life is full of ‘em.  I’m afraid I’ll chap 15 or 20 people with this brief post, but here it is, anyway.  I need to speak.

Word is out that someone’s doing a remake of the “cult classic” movie Dirty Dancing.  While the world frets and answers straw polls about who would star in it–because they have nothing better to do with their time?–Christians ought to stand above.  The first one was trashy, so how could the second be worth any believer’s while?

Now, I know things affect people differently.  Violence on TV and movies didn’t used to get to me, but it’s getting to me more now.  I recently commented about being sick of gunshot wounds and street fights, and an ordinarily thoughtful person quipped, “There’s a lot to be said for street fights and gunshot wounds…”  I demur:  there’s nothing new and inventive about blood.  It’s just the amount and the direction it spatters or flows, and whether someone screams when she sees the dead body.  I’m just tired of the violence.  It’s laughable in one respect, annoying in another, and downright low-class in yet another.

Bad language (in movies and in real life) has always been hard on my ears, but my standards are admittedly lower now.  Having grown up in a non-mixed-swimming environment, sex scenes and scenes-that-lead-to-sex scenes have probably affected me more than they affect those who were raised differently.  I acknowledge this.

One might make a case for using segments of Dirty Dancing as “object lessons” or as teaching tools.  However, in order to uphold Christian standards, I would suggest that we should not intentionally watch either the old or the new version of this movie as entertainment.

Who knows how my son will react later in life to scenes such as some in Dirty Dancing … I do know I want to be careful, for his sake.

Pick-me ups # 3: a triumvirate of “stop” consonants

Saturday, Jedd and I had three terrific fruits at breakfast.  They just happened (honestly, I didn’t plan this) to form a consonantal triumvirate:

1. kiwi
2. (k)antelope, and
3. kumquat.

The least familiar one is actually the most fun:  it’s tart.  Try it.  You pop the whole little grape-sized citrus thingy in your mouth, skin and all.  Oh, and did you know you can eat the fuzzy skin on a kiwi?  I learned that a few months ago, and I do it about half the time now.  Really not bad!

Maybe it’s because the weather here is so bad and so predictably heavy that I am finding blessing in cool foods this summer.

Ministry of helping

Recently, Jedd wanted to help Karly and me load 4×8 drywall sections into the pickup.  That would have been a little much for him, but a single grocery bag is doable!  He has also “helped” with picking up branches and weeds, collecting little toads and bugs — and, in a coup that many parents of two-year-olds will envy, in picking up his own toys.

Whether he has a concept of his limited ability truly to help is beside the point at his age:  his sincere desire to be involved and to help is encouraging.  I don’t think he’s all that unusual in this respect.  Most little kids seem to love to be involved in the “ministry of helping,” don’t they?

When do we lose this attitude?  When do we get so overburdened, repressed, jaded, callous, tired out, etc., that we lose the desire to help others?

The ministry of helping may just be more important than the supposed ministry of “leadership” (2 Opin. 56:3).

Somewhere up there

Yesterday’s post was #747.  I thought it was appropriate that I fly high today.

I caught this beautiful glimpse of sky a couple of days ago.

Isn’t that a hopeful picture?  Doesn’t it suggest that something is behind the scenes?  Psalm 19:1-6 begins, “The heavens proclaim the glory of God. The skies display his craftsmanship . . . their message has gone throughout the earth.”

Although I tend to be drawn to “heights” — great mountain scenery, Montana’s “Big Sky,” scriptures and songs that have God “high above,” etc. — I suspect that this kind of talk is over-indulged in.  It’s probably not a bad idea to suggest to a child that God is “up there,” but as one matures, we should grow to know that God is not only “up there” but everywhere, right?

Still, if He didn’t want me thinking about Him when I see a beautiful sky, He shouldn’t have originated the rainbow … or lightning … or clouds … or the sun….  :-)

Eyes To the Sky (vs. 1 and chorus)

Eyes to the sky, my spirit flies.  I breathe the air.
Sun’s warming gleam, cool mountain stream–You’re everywhere!
Fragrance of pine.  Green hills enshrine
The One Who made it all.

Montana, land of the Sky!
Montana, who can deny
That it’s the hand of the Creator,
That He’s the Originator
Of all that we see?

(c) 2005 Encounter Music.  W & M by Brian Casey

Inhabitants of worlds

Jedd is in my world, as I write this.  He is in my home office, or “study,” as I used to call it.  This “intrusion” was caused when I retrieved the bright, loquacious little guy from his crib and brought him in whilst I compute.  He is in my world.  I brought him in.  It was my choice.  While here, he gets stuff, and he messes around with it, and sometimes it’s OK, and sometimes it’s not as OK.  He talks about stuff, using newfound labels and learning about stuff.  He tries to be good, but sometimes he just meddles.

God chose to bring all of us into His world.  It was his choice.  The disturbance was caused by His infinite love and grace.  We aren’t all that bright, but we are very loquacious as a race.  We multiply words, saying stuff all the time and trying to figure out what we can figure out.  It’s not our world, but we sometimes act as though it is.  We get stuff, and we mess up or drop stuff, and we talk about stuff.  Most of us try to be good most of the time, but often we’re just meddlers.

…

Jedd sensed that I was stiff this morning and suggested, as I started down the stairs with him in my arms, “Go backwards.”  (He knows my rigid foot joints work better that way.)  Then he added, “Careful, Daddy.”

Later, he was asking to “bite some” of Karly’s food after he’d already had his own.  I reminded him that he doesn’t always get other people’s food, and that he’d already had his own.  He’s not perfect, and he did ask for her food and my food again, but he didn’t throw a fit.  He’s correctable, shapeable.  What a nice little guy.  What a delightful gift he is.  Did I mention that earlier, he lay in his crib by himself for close to an hour, just playing quietly and talking to himself before I went to get him?  Later, we played with him for a while, enjoying his giggles and his words.  Jedd is really easy to like and to love.

When I consider the spheres in which we exist, and the ways we go about living—Jedd in my little “world” and under my care, and me in God’s world, and under His care—I think my son is a lot easier for me to love than I must be for God to love.

Enough

Today is a special day.  It marks two years that we have been caring for a very real, visible, breathing Jedd Garrett Casey.

Some days we feel Jedd is a “handful.”  He’s into everything.  He’s not really a climber, and he tends to be careful.  No falls down the stairs yet.  But he takes enough risks for a healthy little guy, and loves thrills like riding fast on the back of the bicycle and being turned upside down and being chased and tickled.  He bounces balls and hits things to hear the loud sounds.  He does get into a lot of things, and you have to watch him.  Yet when we’re around other kids around his age, we know that caring for him has been relatively easy.  We don’t know, but we’re guessing that he’s been easing into the so-called Terrible Twos for a few months now, but it really hasn’t been that bad….

If this is “terrible,” I think the whole two-year-old thing has been trumped up, but still, I wouldn’t want another one in diapers right now.  I don’t really get the desire to have a whole passel full of kids.  I know the scriptures say you’re blessed when your quiver is full of child “arrows,” but that was a different time.  For us, one is enough. One perfect, sweet, handsome, cool, compliant, fun little guy is enough.

God never seems to have any trouble caring for all His children.  Lilies of the field and birds of the air know He can handle it.  The Duggar family makes me dizzy. (I won’t comment on “Octomom” Nadya Denise Doud-Suleman since all the bits I have seen about her leave me disinterested in adding to the hype.)  But God can care for hundreds of millions more easily than any two of us can care for one, so I guess a few unusual families who try to please Him can be explained.  Even the old TV sitcom Eight Is Enough was overkill; ONE is enough for us (especially since our one is so wonderful).  God never has too much, and even though we often feel unequal to the task of raising Jedd well in this uncertain world, we trust that He will continue to guide us in parenting our Jedd.

Happy birfday, son.  We’re glad you like cupcakes as much as you like papaya and bunny pasta and watermelon.  We’re glad you love talking and being around other people.  That you can name so many instruments is so cool.  That you have preferences (giraffes and elephants and zebras, but not the black horse, please) is intriguing.  That you are excited over pickup trucks and tractors and basketballs and baseballs is fun for me as a dad.  That you have already squinted your little eyes and reminded us both to talk to God is humbling.  That you have courage to listen to thunder after it scared you the first time is inspiring.

Jedd, you are a constant light—a real delight, and a pleasant, bright little person who makes us smile in wonder.  The joy you give is enough, and we thank God for you.

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Constant

I haven’t been much of a constant for Jedd lately, or so I feel.  We’ve all been on a musical ensemble tour, and Karly has had an even greater percentage of the childcare load than usual, because of my responsibilities with the group.  Even a couple of the students have probably spent more time with Jedd than I have.  In my defense, I have a wicked whole-head cold and shouldn’t have been around him much even if I could have, time-wise, but I still feel bad.  If there’s anything a little guy needs in this world, it’s a father who is present, who is constant.

A song by Christine Dente (now an “oldie,” I suppose, but then again, I’m not one to care a whole lot about whether something is up-to-the-minute current) comes to mind once in a while.  It had struck me years ago, and I arranged it for Lights to sing a cappella.  Here are some of the words–words that speak both of the Father’s constancy and our lack of it:

Constant, this stream of distractions runs constantly
Under my feet.  I keep tripping along,
Wishing I were stronger,

But I know somewhere up ahead is a place where
Waters still run deep, they’re whispering “come”—
Beckoning me on . . .

Constant is my Father’s calling me
To follow Him against the current.
I continue on in His promise to be constant.

God did what I could not do—
He stayed faithful when I was untrue,
So you see I must follow.
Where else could I go?

Advancing

So we’re pretty sure at this point that Jedd is a special child.  (What parents wouldn’t say that?)  But I was raised to avoid every appearance of pride or self-centeredness, so it’s difficult for me to have a perfect toddler boy and not shout it from the mountaintops.

Karly checked some “benchmarks” last night, not having done so for a while, and discovered that Jedd’s past three-year-old speech patterns, in some cases.  Using words like “of” and “different one” and forming plurals are just not things a 23-month-old “should” be doing.  This verbalness of our little boy is exciting (OK, once in a while, it’s exhausting!).  He just keeps advancing.  From one week to the next, as Sarah pointed out recently, there seems to be something new in what he’s saying (or doing).  We’re not really doing anything special–just the usual talking with him, reading with him, and affirming things in general.  But Jedd keeps advancing.  It’s a natural part of growth.

I’m not sure if I’m clearing the way for such “natural” patterns of spiritual growth these days.

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Grace to you and shalom be multiplied in the knowledge of God and of Yeshua our Lord,

seeing that his divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and virtue;

by which he has granted to us his precious and exceedingly great promises; that through these you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world by lust.

Yes, and for this very cause adding on your part all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence; and in moral excellence, knowledge;

and in knowledge, self-control; and in self-control patience; and in patience godliness;

and in godliness brotherly affection; and in brotherly affection, love.

For if these things are yours and abound, they make you to be not idle nor unfruitful to the knowledge of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah.  (2 Peter 1, Hebrew Names Version)

The light side

Psalm 119 says the word of God is a lamp for our pathways.  Since the Bible, as such, wasn’t available when those words were written, the expression can’t have the precise meaning that reading the “Bible” illumines our life-decisions.  However, God’s word, His voice, His message does come in scripture, and that message, when truly attended do, can and does illumine.

Revelation 21 has the Lord Jesus as the lamp of the “city.”  The city may best be thought of as the Bride of Christ, the called out Church, as in Rev. 21:2 and 21:10, not so much as a heavenly place of final abiding, according to how I read Revelation, anyway.  But either way … well, both ways! … Jesus is the light.  He is the Sun and Moon, the “Bright and Morning Star.”  There is no need for candles or artificial light of any kind in the church, and certainly not in heaven, because Jesus does the illuminating.  Looking to Him as Light is at once adoring and worshipful.

Artificial light these days comes in at least three flavors:  halogen, incandescent, and fluorescent.  While the last option is supposedly the most “green,” we are not convinced, feeling rather that the claims of longevity in new-fluorescent bulbs are exaggerated, and being averse to the nature of the light these bulbs produce.  I tend not to prefer any fluorescent light at all, actually.  It seems to hurt my eyes and give me headaches.

Halogen headlamps on cars are common, if not prevalent.  (Our cars are 6.5 and 22.5 years old, respectively; I really have no idea what kind of headlamps today’s cars are using.)  Incandescent light is my second choice, behind the natural light God put in the heavens.

I thank Him for the sun that’s been peeking out lately, and for my son, who just this morning thought s(S)omeone was turning it “on” and “off.”

Priorities

Last night Jedd and I were playing, talking, reading books, etc.  I looked up to see him ripping a cover of a musical score.  I think lots of kids rip pages out of books, experimenting with being destructive.  For the first time, though, Jedd was doing that.  He wasn’t seeing it as a problem, but I quickly communicated to him that it was a problem and that we don’t treat books that way.  I said “No” several times with grave earnestness and pretty intense correction in my voice.  It didn’t take much vocal correction for our sweet little guy to pout and almost cry.

I sat him down alone in a chair for a minute or so while I taped the cover, and then we talked about it some more.  “How do we treat books?  Do we tear them?  Noooo.  Do we rip them?  Noooo.  We turn the pages and we read them and we take care of them.”  Etc.  I think he learned something.

This morning, I’m wondering, though, about the priorities he perceives.  We do correct him when he doesn’t do what the other parent says, and we feel strong that he should not learn to defend himself by hitting back, so any hitting impulses get shaped in another direction.  Those things seem far more important than how he treated a single book, but I’m not sure how he could sense an appropriate priority based on the shocked, disciplinary tone of my voice last night.  In other words, I’m afraid I communicated too much intensity last night, and if that is a pattern, I might end up teaching him that treating books well is more important to me than treating people (his mother, his friends) well.

All this makes me remember once observing a mother correct a little girl rather over-emotionally over carelessness and a food spill.  The annoyed, annoying (although on target) retort from another adult was “My goodness, Peggy.  What are you going to save for the Holocaust?”

Priorities.  Levels of importance.

Protected: Work (4): the effects of rancor

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