Love, The Main Event

Back in the mid-nineties, there was a popular Christian radio program that aired during drive time in the DC area. I can remember the host categorizing different Christian denominations into neat little packages - saved, not-saved, possibly saved but living in error. If your denomination didn't meet all of his criteria for the first category, well...too bad for you. By his analysis, Baptists and conservative Presbyterians were good, but Catholics and Pentecostals fell into either the second or third category. I didn't even want to know what he would have said about my denomination, which at the time was the Episcopal Church. His pronouncements never sat well with me, but I was a young Christian, struggling with doubt, and I wanted to be sure I had my feet in the right camp.

During that same period, a woman from my work-place Bible study group shared that she had been sitting next to someone on a flight who grilled her the entire time about how she got saved. She'd grown up in a Christian home and couldn't pinpoint a specific moment, but her faith was real. This gentleman wouldn't give up. He insisted that if she couldn't share a testimony about the exact moment she was saved, then she couldn't really be a Christian.

It took me some years to figure out exactly why these things rubbed me the wrong way, especially as I'm sure that in both examples these Christians meant well. But here's the problem...put simply, it is not our job to decide who is in and who is out. We have one job, and that's not it. And thank goodness for that!

But aren't there people out there who are in error? Sure. But I guarantee I don't have my theology 100% correct and neither do you. I am naturally suspicious of anyone who insists they have it all figured out. On some level, we need to be content with not having all the answers. God's purposes are much greater than what our minds can fathom.

Friends, it's not about checking boxes. To me that begins to look an awful lot like the reason why Jesus so often rebuked the Pharisees. Checking boxes to be sure you're getting it right is religion. But Jesus' ministry wasn't about religion, it was about the condition of the human heart, which gets us back to our one job -- Love one another. 

Now, before someone jumps in and points out that sin matters, I will say Yes, it absolutely matters. Sin is deadly serious. If sin weren't a problem, there would be no point in Jesus's birth, death or resurrection. When we mess up, the need for repentance is real. But taking care of sin is God's job, not ours. That's what the cross is all about. And figuring out who's saved and who's not? Also, not our job. Of course there are rights and wrongs, but no one gets it right all the time. Look at King David. He was an adulterer and a murderer. He screwed up big time; and yet, God calls him 'a man after my own heart.'

When God looks at us, he sees the big picture. He knows us better than we know ourselves, and what matters to him is what's inside. Let's be honest. You're not earning points with him by teaching Sunday school, organizing the rummage sale, leading worship or anything else that makes us look like 'good' Christians. But when we encounter God's perfect love, it changes us; it causes a change in our hearts that manifests outwardly as the Fruit of the Spirit -- love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. In short, doing God's will becomes our delight.

I won't pretend it's always easy. We all have people in our lives who are difficult to love -- people who make us throw our arms in the air and yell, "I give up!" That is why we can't do it on our own. We need God's help. As much as it's possible, we need to see things from his perspective. And we also need an impartation of his love.

I believe this world, and the Church itself, would be a whole lot healthier if we would stick to the program. We need to ask God what it really means to love Him and be loved by Him. Once we've sorted out our own hearts (or to be more precise, allowed Him to sort us out), we no longer feel the need to put ourselves in a position of judgment. And we no longer have anything to prove. We begin to see God's own image in others, instead of seeing those who are 'in' or those who are 'out'. Love becomes the main event, and when Love is our primary motivation, miracles happen. Miracles of forgiveness, miracles of healing, miracles of restoration.

As I look ahead to 2019, I want to remain in that place of learning what it means to love and be loved. I want to see others as God sees them, and that can only come as we begin to see ourselves as God does -- as His beloved children. I love how Henri Nouwen describes it, "As long as we continue to live as if we are what we do, what we have, and what other people think about us, we will remain filled with judgments, opinions, evaluations, and condemnations. We will remain addicted to putting people and things in their 'right' place." But living in love brings freedom, for ourselves and others, and that is my hope for 2019 and beyond.

The Gospel of Grinch

Last night our family went to see the new animated adaptation of The Grinch because, if I'm honest, we'll go see anything with Benedict Cumberbatch. We also love Dr. Suess, but I'm often leery of film adaptations of children's stories. It drives me crazy when screen writers try to extend a sweet little story into a feature-length film by writing all sorts extra plot elements or adding their own philosophical or political agenda. So while one part of me was excited to see The Grinch, another part was a little cautious. 

You see, The Grinch is an especially meaningful story for our family. As a self-confessed book addict, one of my first priorities upon becoming a mother was to build a stellar library for each of my children. Naturally, Dr. Seuss books were some of my first purchases. When our daughter was three, she became particularly enamored with How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and we read it frequently. One night before bed, she observed that the Grinch was mean when his heart was small but became kind when his heart grew. We asked her why she thought that was. Her conclusion was that Jesus must have made his heart big so he could love people. Suddenly, she made a connection. "Can Jesus make my heart big?" she asked. She wanted so much for Jesus to change her heart, so we prayed with her and she asked Jesus to make his home in her heart. We were pretty amazed that all of this had come from reading a Dr. Seuss story. Two years later, we were astounded when our son (without our prompting) made the exact same connection. Seriously, there is something about that story!

So it made for a special evening to go and see The Grinch movie with our daughter and son who are now 19 and 17. The animation was a feast for the eyes and provided all the Christmas feels. There were many humorous moments, and we enjoyed the soundtrack as well. However, what really made me love this film was the way in which the screen writers expounded upon the original story in a way that felt organic and authentic. No gratuitous agenda, no ridiculous flights of fancy. (Well, except for what we would expect from Dr. Seuss.) They simply fleshed out the Grinch in a way that made him, well, human. Why was he bitter and spiteful? His heart was wounded. Why did he hate Christmas? It stems from his childhood, but in short, he was lonely. 

We all know people who carry heart wounds that make them less than fun to be around, but a little kindness can go a long way toward healing a wounded heart. Are there people you've noticed on the fringes who maybe just want to be included, to feel welcome? Who are the people in your life that struggle with abandonment or loneliness? How should we respond when someone hurts us or our loved ones? This film invites us to ask those questions. It challenges us to open our hearts to those we don't understand, to ask how well we are really loving our neighbor. In its own way, The Grinch is a wonderful illustration of the Gospel. 

I'll confess, by the end of the film, I couldn't hold back the tears -- and I don't think I was alone. The Grinch strikes a chord at a time like this. We could all do with a little more empathy; a little less 'us' versus 'them'. Concluding that 'kindness and love' are 'the things we need most,' I kind of wanted to jump up and yell Amen! And what a great way to start a conversation with your child about kindness. Plus, it's a whole lot of fun!

Finding Adventure in the Little Things

Yesterday I received a Christmas card from my aunt. I look forward to her cards each year as she is a wonderful writer and always includes an original Christmas poem. This year, she also included a short letter about her recent adventures in Ireland as well as her thoughts on settling into a new home, which we have recently done in North Carolina. She mentioned how she enjoys the "adventure of discovery in a new locale -- favorite restaurants, parks, short-cuts, best coffee..." This is just where I am right now. The little things are indeed an adventure.

Earlier this week, I was determined to redeem my free birthday drink at Starbucks only to discover that every Starbucks within a 25 mile radius was closed due to a few inches of snow the day before. I got a good laugh out of that. Guess I'm not in upstate New York anymore!

Yesterday, I had a truly hilarious encounter with some university students who couldn't tell me where to mail a letter on their campus. They literally had never seen a mailbox and couldn't imagine why anyone would send an old fashioned paper letter. This confirmed that I am officially an old geezer.

One of my favorite discoveries has been a local coffee shop that does fantastic toast. Avocado toast, blueberry goat cheese toast, almond butter banana toast... I confess I have a toast problem. Oh, and they do a Prosecco bar in the evening! How's that for a great idea?

Lately, I'm loving just walking my dog and waving at new neighbors. I was giddy when I discovered a tiny "Give a Book -- Share a Book" library in my neighborhood. I also learned that one of the most popular restaurants in the area is a stellar Lebanese carry-out place. Can you say YUM? I've enjoyed seeing everyone dressed up for game day. Wolfpack, Tar Heels, Blue Devils -- y'all, these folks are serious about football. Christmas shopping in a new city is different, too; and there's all sorts of wonderful little boutiques to explore. Now if I can just find the best display of Christmas lights!

When you arrive in a new location, things are different. Some differences you love, others you don't. But if you keep the right perspective, it can be a lot of fun. In many ways, it's a journey of self-discovery, perhaps not to the extent that I have experienced while acclimating to places like Madagascar, but it is still an adjustment. 

Experiencing change keeps us moving forward. It keeps us from getting stuck. I don't know about you, but it makes me feel alive. If I'm still living here in ten or twenty years, I hope I can keep looking at the little things with fresh eyes. I hope that my tiny neighborhood library will always bring me joy. I pray that I hold onto that feeling of excitement that I have for the adventure and the gratitude I have for what God is doing through it.

Fearless?

I recently purchased a necklace from a trendy jewelry company in California. It features a nickel-sized burnished gold pendant on which is printed the word fearless. You can choose any word you like for your imprint, but the company's website has a rather long list of suggestions. As I scanned through the list,  fearless jumped off the page at me. Why? It is not that I honestly believe I am somehow immune to fear. Rather, it is a statement of faith. You see, for many years fear was my constant state of being.

I loved the necklace as soon as I opened the box, and I have been wearing it often. However, I did wonder what other people might think if they looked closely enough to read the word. Would they think I was being arrogant or prideful? Really, how many of us are truly fearless? Well, I've come a long way toward not worrying as much about what other people think about me, but I still wondered.

I've read articles from authors reminding me that the goal of the Christian life is not fearlessness. Fair enough, I get it. Love is really what it's all about. But when we are transformed by love, the most amazing thing happens -- fear can't stand where love abounds. It's right there in 1 John 4:18, "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love." The truth is, I knew these words in my mind, and repeated them often, but I didn't understand them with my heart.

Of course, none of us are perfected in love -- yet. The path of love is a journey that lasts our entire lives, if we are willing. For years, I thought that if I could just focus my mind enough on God's promises, then my heart would respond accordingly. I found myself disappointed again and again. Disappointed that I couldn't love the way I desired. Disappointed that I couldn't step out of fear. Disappointed in my own weakness.

In my late twenties, following a particularly rough period in my life, I was diagnosed with OCD. I don't mean that I just liked to have all the picture frames on my walls perfectly straight or that I compulsively organized my closet. (I suspect the latter would have been enthusiatically welcomed by my husband.) No, this was a degree of fear unlike any I had ever imagined. My thoughts and my behavior were irrational, and although I could recognize this at times, I was powerless to do anything about it. Fear became the driving force in my life to the point that it consumed the outgoing, confident and generally optimistic person I had once been. Fear was my constant companion.

What changed? Little by little, as my heart received healing, I began to encounter a love so powerful that fear could no longer remain. And it didn't begin in my mind. When you can't control your own thoughts, how on earth is that supposed to happen? The love that I found is a substance that entered my heart and then began to renew my mind. As the author Bob Goff would put it, I discovered that I was "becoming love."

So my pendant is not intended to imply that I've got it all figured out or that I don't ever have moments of fear or doubt. Heaven knows it would be a real miracle if I suddenly lost my fear of snakes. But what I do know with absolute certainty is that fear no longer rules my life. I am freer now than I have ever been. When fear begins to creep in, I have a wellspring of love from which to draw confidence, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Embracing the Adventure

Reflections on CS Lewis's The Silver Chair

I’ve been a lover of Narnia since I was ten-years-old, long before I became a Christian. The magic just grabbed me and pulled me in. After becoming a Christian in college, I revisited Narnia and discovered that it had taken on a whole new dimension, a depth that of course I had missed as a ten-year-old.

 Many Christians I know have a favorite chronicle. For my husband, it is The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. He identifies strongly with the selfish and disobliging Eustace Scrubb being “undragoned” by Aslan. Not that my husband was really ever selfish and disobliging, but he recognizes the magnitude of the work that God did to bring healing into his own life.

For me, there’s just something about The Silver Chair that resonates deeply. At its core, it is a story about the dangers of unforgiveness. The reader is brought into the search for Narnia’s heir to the throne, Prince Rilian, who has disappeared while pursuing vengeance against a serpent that killed his mother. Much could be written about the powerful message conveyed by the story of Rilian’s subsequent bondage and deliverance, but it is a different aspect of the story that first grabbed hold of me.

In my late twenties, after our second child was born, I struggled with severe postpartum depression and mysterious autoimmune issues. Fear and hopelessness became a crippling feature of my day to day struggle. During this time, I began to reread The Silver Chair, in which a kinder and wiser Eustace Scrubb returns to Narnia with a schoolmate, Jill Pole, for whom Narnia is entirely new. As I read through Eustace and Jill’s adventure, a quest to find the missing Prince Rilian, Jill’s fears felt almost too real. At one point, Jill, Eustace and their trusty travel companion Puddleglum are forced to enter a cave to escape from giants who would like to eat them for dinner. They end up sliding down a slope into utter darkness. Bruised and bloody, Jill lands at the bottom with no idea whether her companions have survived. She fears she is trapped and alone. Her despair is palpable.

The darkness was so complete that it made no difference at all whether you had your eyes open or shut. There was no noise. And that was the very worst moment Jill had ever known in her life.

Jill’s story brought me to a place that was the very depiction of my state of depression and fear. At that moment, it was so terrifyingly real that I had to stop reading. I didn’t have the courage to go on. I prayed. I begged. I asked God to lift the darkness and let me move forward.

Eventually, after discussing with my therapist the somewhat unusual panic induced by a children’s book, I was able to pick up where I left off. Jill and her companions carry on with the adventure but are now trapped in a murky underworld. Again, Jill’s narrative feels like my own. On approaching a dark, narrow cave through which she and the others must crawl, she exclaims, “I can’t go in there, I can’t! I can’t! I won’t!” But with the encouragement of the others, she makes it through.  

            Throughout the story, Jill and Eustace are repeatedly faced with situations that seem insurmountable. They have a choice. They could certainly give up on the adventure altogether, or they can trust in the one who placed the adventure before them and proceed, one step at a time, with the hope that there is a purpose to the struggle and that they will once again step into the bright spaciousness of Narnia. As  their wise companion Puddleglum reminds them when they begin to question the path they have taken, “There are no accidents. Our guide is Aslan.”

            Indeed, Aslan’s plan involves redemption and deliverance. Spoiler alert: The quest to find Prince Rilian is successful. He is found in Underland and delivered from his ten-year captivity. But for me, the real beauty of this story is that as Jill is delivered from her fears, she is used by Aslan to deliver Rilian from his bondage. She is described in the final chapters as a “conqueror,” a “deliverer,” and a “damsel of high courage.” And it is Jill who overcomes her fears to poke her head through a hole that turns out to be the exit from Underland. She is the one who ushers the party out of darkness and back into Narnia.

            After their Narnian adventure, Aslan sends Jill and Eustace back to their old school in England where they once again must face all their everyday fears, including bullies who had sent them running from school before their journey to Narnia. But Jill and Eustace are not the same children they were before. They are changed, and Aslan allows them to return to school and briefly appear as the warriors they have become, with glittering clothes and weapons, courageous and intimidating to their foes. It is a glorious glimpse of who we become when we say yes to the adventure with all its challenges, struggles and triumphs. We are never left the same.

            It took me several years to eventually step out of the darkness and discover the spacious place that God prepared for me. I can look back and see that He has indeed been my guide throughout it all. There is always more with God, and I look forward to what lies ahead. When I look at my life now, I hardly recognize the person I was before. The struggle, the darkness, it all had a purpose. I have embraced my adventure, and I can delight when God uses me to help lead others into freedom. As Galatians 5:1 tells us, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.” When we step into freedom, we are free to live our God-given adventure. Buckle up for the ride!

            

Beauty from Ashes

How does one write about children who live in
a garbage dump? It's not a Lemony Snicket story
or some dark dystopian tale. This is real. These
children are real. In 2017 we still live in a world
where children live in garbage dumps...in
Madagascar, in Cambodia, in the Philippines, in
Guatemala. The list goes on and on.

Today, Bruce and I went with an Iris medical team to visit children living in Antananarivo's garbage dump. We had been wanting to experience this aspect of Iris' community outreach for some time, but I can honestly say I didn't know quite what to expect. Were these children simply abandoned? Did they have parents who were too sick/disabled/drunk/lazy to work? Truly, I had no idea.

The dump itself is situated on a sort of island in the midst of the city's rice paddies. And it's not just a dump, it's actually a village with a road running through the middle. There are small, crumbling homes and some shopfronts. The people who live there comb the dump for items that can be made into handiwork -- colorful mats, baskets, even shoes. As we walked down the street, we saw many of the residents sitting in front of their homes sorting, cutting or weaving. They were literally creating beauty from ashes! These people were certainly not lazy. They were industrious and creative, but most were desperately poor and some were outcasts from the community, people who believed they belong in a garbage dump.

During the day, their children wander the dump in search of useful items. It was shocking to see them walking through heaps of burning rubbish in bare feet. Until recently, school had not been an option for any of these children. But the chief of the village is a compassionate man, so he offered two rooms of his small home to become classrooms. He could not pay for supplies or teachers, but our friends at Iris, knowing that the need for a school was great, have worked with a church in the US to sponsor this little school, which now has thirty students and two teachers. It was a joy to sit in the classroom with some of the smiling students who had their very own backpacks and notebooks.

We concluded the day by visiting the mother of one of the children involved in the Iris program. She had been suffering from severe abdominal pain for a week, and her husband was quite worried. With the Malagasy doctor who had accompanied us, we entered their tiny one room home and prayed for her. We don't know God's plan for her, but we know how much He loves her, and we know He has the power to heal. She wept as we prayed. We then took her husband to a pharmacy across from the US Embassy to get a prescription, which we hope will provide relief.

So what were my conclusions from the day? Poverty like this is hard to witness. Human beings, loved by their Heavenly Father, should never believe they belong in a dump. And yet joy was not absent. And the work that I see Iris doing here brings hope.

Before Jesus went to the cross, He said, "Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the work I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father." (John 14:12)  If we are to do what Jesus did, then we are to bring his love to those who are suffering, to those without hope. And thankfully He empowered us to do so by sending the Holy Spirit. We are to be His hands, His feet, His heart. In His love is great power -- power to heal, power to restore, power to achieve the impossible. So hope is never lost, but we must accept our calling to be messengers of hope..."to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair." (Isaiah 61:3) This is our hope!

Masina*

The road has the appearance

Of velvet ribbon,

But feels like a washboard.

In the distance only fires

For cooking, for warmth.

Wind smells of smoke and grass

Stars like pinpricks overhead,

Not enough to compensate 

For the absent moon.

The night is ink 

Spilled across the dusty land.

Nighttime envelopes Madagascar.

His presence is here.

*The Malagasy word for “holy"