Babble-on

Once upon a time, men thought they could become gods by building towers to heaven. Then they thought they could become greater gods by destroying those towers. So they enabled their enemies to do just that. Their enemies took funny tools people didn’t think could be weapons to destroy the buildings. The buildings came down in a perfect free-fall. Many people died. Heroes went to the rescue and many of them died too.

Facing the destruction day after day, week after week, and even month after month, the heroes knew too much. The enemies working solo could not have accomplished such flawless destruction. So they organized themselves and asked questions, but they were silenced.

The people who built the towers also knew too much, and they asked questions similar to those of the heroes. They, too, were silenced.

The people who operated the funny tools used as weapons also knew too much. They asked questions very different from the heroes and builders. But they, too, were silenced.

Meanwhile, the wanna-be gods continued to babble-on and babble-on.

But the true God in Heaven had the final say. “Fallen, Fallen,” He said, “are those who babble-on.”

Bugs

Spring has “technically” arrived. We keep telling the weather, “Hey, just so you know: it’s spring. Right here, according to the calendar, we have proof: winter has past and spring has arrived.” The weather hasn’t heard us. But our kids have. After counting the days until spring for about two months now, they’re no longer going to let the bitter cold keep them from opening the sand box, finding the outdoor toys, and playing out there. It’s forty degrees and the wind is fierce, but Andrew and Melanie have been out for some time now.

Much of their time has been spent on one of their all time favorite activities: looking for bugs. They name their bugs, make “homes” for them, and attend to them carefully enough to ensure a good and early death.

As I watch their glee with bugs, I can’t help but recall what felt like a metaphor played out before us when we were visiting my mother’s side of the family a couple of years ago. Since we were already so far “east” (Louisiana), why not head to Virginia to visit family we never see? We naïve Northwesterners didn’t expect a 17 hour drive to the DC area, but the time was very worth it. Besides enjoying good food, good company, and good laughs with family we rarely see, I also enjoyed a living parable our God – comedian and chess player – masterfully played out before my eyes.

We were all gathered at my cousin Ed and Pam’s gorgeous home. After dinner, my cousin Linda pressed 8 year old Oliver to play with 6 year old Andrew in place of his cool older cousins, 11 & 14. Poor Oliver made a valiant attempt to get Andrew interested in a myriad of games or toys, especially Monopoly, to no avail. That my cousins and their kids are quite well endowed with high-tech toys, games and technology adds to the humor in this scene because Andrew was far more interested in what youngest cousins, Melanie and Natalie – then 3 ½, both of them – had discovered: bugs. Much to Pam’s chagrin, their elegant home apparently had plenty of them, and they brought great delight not only to Melanie and Natalie, but also to Andrew.

After one more attempt to interest Andrew in Monopoly, Oliver found his mom, grimaced and said, “He wants to look for bugs.” He needed no logic, as Linda should surely know there is something terribly “uncool” about looking for bugs. No self-respecting 8 year old should be asked to demean himself that much. Linda should know that. Apparently, she did, and she released him.

For all the expense of their many toys, their spacious land, and their large home, all the youngest children wanted to do was look for bugs. And there was no question in anybody’s mind who was having the best time. The lesson of the parable was clear: “The joy of life is as simple as looking for bugs.”

Is the parable of Oliver and Andrew a picture of what happens as children grow into adulthood? That the tide mysteriously shifts from wonder of nature’s simplest gifts to a love for the Ultimate Game of American Materialism? Perhaps this is part of what Jesus meant when He said we must “become like little children to enter the kingdom.”

Generally, we hear only hear in part. We listen long enough to hear the Church’s message of “salvation” and do the basics to secure a nice place in the afterlife, but we keep living with the Monopoly board before us and miss the life God has for us here on earth, disguised in the simplest of treasures.

We pray for a silver lining to our current economic downturn: may we finally rediscover God’s greatest gifts of all. Blessings of cost-free treasures to all.

Lost and Found

Last week, we began to file a “stolen vehicle report” on our Civic Hybrid. Thankfully, it was found, appeared untouched, and parked a block+ away from where I had parked it. Could I have not only misremembered parking it – when I had worked so hard to squeeze it into its spot – but also the extra distance I would have had to have walked? According to the officer (and since then, many of our friends), Honda vehicles are notorious for having keys work in same-model Hondas. So someone with a key to a Civic could look at ours and think, “Hmmm . . . that’s one’s a hybrid. Maybe I should see if I can drive off with it . . . (!)”

We asked friends to pray and some of them were actually praying that if someone did steal it, their conscience would get the better of them and they’d return it. Whatever actually happened is a mystery, but the experience represents for us both how fleeting everything is and also how much we feel blessed by God. How very true Jesus’s parables are on the joy we experience when we find what we’ve lost! Coupled with the remarkable story by which God blessed us with a hybrid (something we wanted, but gave up on seeking due to sticker-shock), we now feel that our vehicle is a double-blessing from God.

This story also reminds me of our marriage’s greatest “lost and found” story. At the very moment that our marriage was enduring its greatest test, both Chris and I lost our wedding rings. Literally, within a week and a half of each other, we both lost them and that was during the same two most challenging weeks of our marriage. Coincidence? I don’t think so. People who say I “over-spiritualize” need to look at “statistical significance” of incidents that are too much for “coincidence.” Anyway, off my little soap box and back to the story: we rebuffed our vow to never put anything on a credit card we couldn’t pay in at least three months and went shopping for new wedding rings. We found one beautifully symbolic for me: the desired circular ¼ carat in the middle, but then to the left of it, four very little diamonds “following” it. So I tell people, the carat is Jesus, followed by Chris, me, Andrew & Melanie. The kids, of course, love this story and show people theirs: “This one’s me!”

We never found Chris’s old ring, but six weeks later, mine turned up, buried under some papers in a drawer in the office. Ahhh, I think I know what happened. The ring was slightly small for me, so I would take it off to type at the computer. Little Melanie (then a toddler) probably found it and stuck it in the drawer. The story gets better before then, though. About a week and a half after we ordered the ring, a check came in the mail for me from a very old employer who had closed business. I had had some dividends with them, so the employer calculated what they were worth and sent a check to me for the exact amount of my wedding ring! What a surprise! Coincidence? Again, I don’t think so . . . ! The check didn’t cover the sales tax, though, so I always chuckle when I tell this story that “God doesn’t pay taxes!”

The best part of the story, of course, is that when my ring arrived, Chris proposed to me all over again! That happened to be a moment when we needed that romance, so we both think of what Joseph told his brothers when they were reunited, “What the enemy planned for evil, God turned around for good!” :-) Thank you, Lord!!

Grieving in Gaza

Hello to anyone who’s still reading this blog after so long a silence. Since we returned from Baton Rouge, almost all of the blogging has been from me, Karen, as one way to let a bit of the writer in me seep out. But writing teachers get writer’s block too, though I’m not sure if “writer’s block” is the right phrase. Maybe “what-do-I-tell-people block” is more like it.

Personal blogs are usually about what’s happening in our own lives . . . so, yes, our community did get some flooding and, yes, I did do some work with the Red Cross on that, and, yes, I could blog about that. I could blog about Chris’s band, newly re-named “Blue Café,” and how they are really going places – probably even to Jazz in the Valley (congrats guys!! ). I could blog about how much Melanie loves her dance class and how she’s already reading or about Andrew’s amazing creativity or about our attempts to get Melanie not to irritate Andrew and Andrew not to hit her when she does. Or, by contrast, I could blog about how much they absolutely adore one another and work together to build palaces with blocks, make joint books, or put on shows for us.

But my heart, soul, and mind are not in the same place as my body. My body teaches, leads a Bible study, raises my children, and volunteers a bit. Thankfully, all of these help my body to get closer to where my heart, soul and mind are. I guess the goal is to connect the body – what everybody sees and misperceives as the “real” person – to the true person, which people can’t see. So I’m glad I’m not working a desk job where the mind-body disconnect would be so severe it would cast me into craziness. But that dissonance is still there – as it is, of course, for all of us living on earth, whether or not we are aware of it.

Lately, my heart, soul and mind have been in a place both too complex and too far from my body to blog – grieving in Gaza. Better than a post of my own is a link to another blog that truly can and does describe Gaza grief in a deeply personal manner:

http://www.a-mother-from-gaza.blogspot.com/

I commented to it and here is the central part:

“I'm a Christian who has been praying for peace for quite some time and who has been torn up over the present crisis. Your blog definitely deepens that, but gives me clarity and motivation to keep on praying. May God do His miracles to set the Gazan people free! May Israel "remember" from the Torah and "care for the foreigners" in her land. Of course this is much easier said than done, but God is a big God and He can do great miracles. The greatest miracle of all is a transformation of our heart. May the Lord transform all of us -- to transcend violence, to love our neighbors, and even to love our enemies. Deep prayers are going up for your people.”

The above comment truly over-simplifies both my thoughts and the reality, but it’s a start for a prayer and a post. For now, deep groanings go up to the Lord; may the Holy Spirit interpret them and bring them forth. Amen.