The Top 4 Things I Learned in Juvi – Part 1 Johnny Cash Was Right
Some of you may know that back in my college days I volunteered in a juvenile prison outside of Chicago. The group I was involved in put on a weekend retreat three times a year for groups of boys. We also did bible study with them off and on. A lot of the boys were from the various ‘hoods in Chicago with others from various rural communities and trailer parks around the state filling out the lot. It probably sounds bizarre, but I was so excited when I first saw the signs looking for volunteers. My Catholic education, at least as I remembered it, mainly consisted of memorizing things. Like the Our Father and Hail Mary and Beatitude and . . . Works of Mercy! Visiting the imprisoned is one of the works of mercy! So being the good, geeky, God-girl that I am, I jumped at the chance. As you can imagine, it turned out to be quite the experience. One day I should write properly about it, but for now, I’m just going to devote a few posts to the top 4 things I learned about life and people from the kids I worked with in juvi. Today’s lesson is the tritest of the 4, but it’s something I feel must be said: Johnny Cash was right – don’t name your boy Sue. Continue reading “The Top 4 Things I Learned in Juvi – Part 1 Johnny Cash Was Right”
Honor Your Father and Your Mother
Recently I asked a dad I know how the teen thing was going for him and his 16 year old step-daughter who lives with him. “She seems to be doing well. But it would be going much better if she’d just do what I told her to do!” he replied. He was quite serious, but I had to laugh. He’d be happy if she did what he said and she’d be in therapy later learning to think for herself after years of misery. Such is life.
I suppose there are dads out there who have actually heard the words, “if only I had listened to you!” But those are probably the fathers of recovering intravenous drug users and people who get into relationships with the psychotically violent. The normal course of things seems to be that we find our own way down paths that nearly put our parents into an early grave and are glad for the experience. Later we complain that our own kids don’t listen to us. (All this is coming from a person about whom her mother’s most bitter complaint has always been, “not that you ever would have listened to us anyways.” Just so we’re clear where my own sympathies lie! LOL) Continue reading “Honor Your Father and Your Mother”
Mary, The Bondservant Who Waited
Sometimes I think about Mary. When she was told that she would bear a child who would be “Son of the Most High” she agreed by declaring herself a “bond-servant” of God. Shortly after, while visiting her sister-in-law Elizabeth, she spoke what is known as the Magnificat. Her poem or song shows that unlike many of her contemporaries, Mary understood that the purposes of God were social, personal and redemptive – not political. She really got it – the redemption, the care for the least of these, the re-ordering of the world into the Kingdom of God. As Scot McKnight put it “Mary’s vision is the realization of the long-expected hope when God will create the society he promised to his people and through his prophets. This society will marked by justice and peace, by fear of God and holiness and mercy/love.” This was the mission she was signing on for when she agreed to God’s will for her life. Continue reading “Mary, The Bondservant Who Waited”
A God of Love, A God of Hate?
You know that old canard that love and hate are not opposites, but two sides of the same coin? Neurobiology seems to have confirmed that there is a lot truth to that idea. It turns out that we have something that neurobiologists refer to as a “hate circuit” in our brains. It is a set of three structures in the brain which all light up together when we experience hate. And the more intense the hatred, the more intense the activity in these structures is. (Each structure is also involved in other activities so it’s not that they exist purely for feelings of hatred. It’s just that when we experience hatred these three work together.) Interestingly, two of these structures are also involved in the feeling of intense love.
Christianity and Giftedness
When I was putting together my book The Upside Down World ~ A Book of Wisdom in Progress last summer, I went back and forth and back and forth about including an essay I had originally published here titled “How Being Gifted Means Being Different”. It was one of the most popular posts I had done. And many people had contacted me since I put it up to thank me for writing it. However, it didn’t seem to fit. The book is very grounded in my faith and the post is about being gifted. The two seem incongruent. But every time I went to take it out, there was that little tug that I’ve learned to listen to telling me to leave it be. So I did without really know why it was there. And I’m sure that those who read it wondered what it was doing there as well.
It wasn’t until some time later that I began to understand why it was there. The fact is that the church as a whole does not do a good job of making room for or embracing those parts of the body which are smarter and more creative than the norm. We see this in those parts of the church which fiercely oppose science and will even claim that those who engage in the work of science are doing the devil’s work. It is present in those who insist that a “plain reading” of scripture is good enough and refuse to consider context, history, translation or any of the other issues which affect the way that we read and understand the text. It shows up in how churches deal with their members who produce art, literature or music. Continue reading “Christianity and Giftedness”
Smart Kids Being Dumb
I homeschooled my two boys, Noah (17) and Collin (13) from 2003 to 2009 before putting them in school. The school thing did not go well. Collin got on the B honor roll once which was the extent of either of their success with the whole thing. Noah seemed to think that not getting straight Fs was a high enough goal for him. Collin was bullied by both students and teachers. Noah contented himself with trying to make everyone scared of him so they would leave him alone. This last year I allowed them both to start doing online schooling which came with its own new set of problems, but they are finally getting the hang of it. Of course, for those who always KNEW I was making a mistake with homeschooling them, their lack of performance is proof-positive that homeschooling them was a horrible mistake which has most likely ruined their ability to become productive human beings who don’t live in someone’s basement playing video games.If I had it to do all over again, I would never have put them in school. I would have gone straight to online schools once I could no longer continue homeschooling them myself. Noah had been on track to finish high school a year early had we continued homeschooling and now will barely eek out graduating. Collin discovered that he really was smarter than most people, including a lot of adults, and became nearly insufferable. After being in school, both of them are extremely concerned about the moral and intellectual development of their younger sisters who are just finishing kindergarten and 1st grade this week. They were not impressed with the end result of the school system to say the least.
The Will of God – A Poem
The Will of God
“I always think of a story I heard
on Christian radio,” she says
crossing her large arms
washboard hands
“About a woman
abused for years
by her husband.
He became a Christian.
It’s all worthwhile then.”
ThewillofGodThewillofGodThewillofGod
Abundant life
beat your wife
or girl Continue reading “The Will of God – A Poem”
Loving Yourself, Loving Your Neighbor
Several years ago, I had an odd experience while in prayer. I don’t remember what I was praying about, and I’m afraid my explanation won’t do it justice, but the essence of it was God showing me what he loves about me. This wasn’t a generic “love of God washed over me” experience. Rather it was quite specific; God was showing me the particulars of how I am “fearfully and wonderfully made”. These were things about me that are precious to him and that he has purposed into me. Not only would I not be me without those things, but God would not be able to use me according to his purposes if I did not possess them. But here’s the rub: all of those things God showed me have caused me a great deal of difficulty and pain. I had often wished I could change or even be rid those things altogether. Or at least have them be less-so. And as he showed me these things, it was the gap between God’s love for how he has made me and how I felt about it that really struck me.
At the time that this happened, I had a spiritual advisor who I met with monthly. When I shared this experience with her she murmured, “the touch which reveals desolation.” Yes. That it was. (I forgot to ask her where the phrase was from and have never been able to find its source. If anyone knows, please do share!) You would think that having God show me these things as what he most loves and finds precious about me would have changed how I felt as well, but it’s never quite that simple. (My infuriating complexity would be one of those things God pointed to, of course. “You have hidden these things from the wise and learned” indeed.) Instead, what that touch did was say, “this is my view of you. I want you to learn to view yourself the same way as well.” Continue reading “Loving Yourself, Loving Your Neighbor”
Suffering and Stories
“Then it was you who wounded Aravis?”
“It was I.”
“But what for?”
“Child,” said the Voice, “I am telling you your story, not hers. I tell no one any story but his own.”
~ The Horse and His Boy, C.S. Lewis
This will probably sound absurd, but there have been times that I have found myself seriously affected by the suffering of people I have never met and could do little or nothing to help – sometimes to the point of sitting up at night crying. War crimes victims, tsunami survivors, women in Afghanistan, parents of starving children. Such are the perils of being ridiculously sensitive. What finally helped me to avoid being emotionally overrun by the terrible suffering which plagues this world was the passage above. The Christ character of the Narnia Chronicles, Aslan, is explaining to the young Shasta a series of difficult, frightening and seemingly unfair events that had occurred. When Shasta asks about his friend, Aravis, he is informed that’s part of her story. I love that concept. We all have a story to live. “I am telling you your story, not hers. I tell no one any story but his own.” Those people who live on the other side of the world and are suffering sometimes unspeakable things? They have stories to live as well. Continue reading “Suffering and Stories”
A Fishy Story
After Jesus and his disciples arrived in Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma tax came to Peter and asked, “Doesn’t your teacher pay the temple tax?”
“Yes, he does,” he replied.
When Peter came into the house, Jesus was the first to speak. “What do you think, Simon?” he asked. “From whom do the kings of the earth collect duty and taxes—from their own sons or from others?”
“From others,” Peter answered.
“Then the sons are exempt,” Jesus said to him.“But so that we may not offend them, go to the lake and throw out your line. Take the first fish you catch; open its mouth and you will find a four-drachma coin. Take it and give it to them for my tax and yours.”
I wonder if Peter actually went out fishing after this conversation? Most commenters on the text assume that he did and found his coin and paid the tax. Another of Jesus’ miracles. But the bible doesn’t say anything about it. You would think that it would at least add, “Peter did as he was instructed and found it just as Jesus had said” or something. I kind of think that he didn’t do it. Continue reading “A Fishy Story”
The Upside Down World 