While riding the bus to the airport this morning, I met a kind stranger who, after taking a deep draught of his starbucks iced vanilla frappuccino, said, with something of a breathless passion, "Oh thank you Lord."
I smiled, looked at him, and said, "Amen!"
He replied, "Right on...I really do try to say thank you every day..."
I nodded, thought of how many people go through that daily prayer ritual (either verbally, or simply with unspoken devotions) while dosing with whatever is their favorite caffeine delivery instrument.
I added, with a smile, pointing to his coffee: "Its the little things you have to be thankful for." He nodded, agreed, and returned my grin.
It really is about the little things.
It's hard to argue with Grandma.
Of the many "wise sayings," she often told me, one came to mind the other day as I was helping a neighbor clean: "if everyone swept in front of his own front door, the whole world would be clean."
Problem is, though, sometimes others can't sweep in front of their own front door.
So as true as my grandmother's old proverb is, its radical emphasis on the individual ignores the power of, and central significance of, the community.
In the end, neither the individual, nor the community, can exist without the other.
Philosophers have long struggled to answer, or solve, this problem of individual vs community, also known by the technical term, "the problem of the one and the many."
Some theologians have argued that this "problem" can only be solved with the historic orthodox concept of God as "three-and-one."
Sweeping, as it turns out, is a project for the Trinity.
I had an opportunity to power wash our driveway this week and was amazed at how much filth and grime accumulates over time. Tires, bikes, paint, dust and dirt, as well as crayons and other odd leavings (we have children around the house) all were among the off-scourings of my labor.
We're not neat-freaks about our home; it is a tool whose usefulness won't be helped by constant cleaning. But I do occasionally get out to sweep the driveway. I've never cleaned it like this before, though.
Daily cleaning of the soul, as helpful as it is, cannot replace those once-in-a-great while scrubbings that come through special and devoted exposures to God. Its hard to believe what builds up over time.
Now, its hard to believe how clean the driveway is. What an inviting feeling it creates as you enter our home. Our lives.
Anne has just finished her manuscript. As an aspiring author--I probably have a dozen different book ideas rolling around in my head--I appreciate her toil and trouble, and congratulate her! My friend told me last week that I would be haunted by these books until I get them out. That comment struck me; it made book writing sound like some form of verbal self-exorcism...is your head spinning yet?
The AP released a story last month that shows the sometimes tragic irony of life.
A man, on his way to anger management class, while waiting at a bus stop, became angry at a woman and struck her.
Then, while fleeing the scene, he inadvertenly dropped his anger management folder, which included his name and his anger managment homework assignment. Whoops.
When it rains it pours. Or, as St. Murphy has said, "If something can go wrong, it will."
More from Newbigin, on the occasion of Easter:
The truths which Buddhism teaches would (as Buddhists understand them) be true whether or not Gautama had discovered and promulgated them. But the whole of Christian teaching would fall to the ground if it were the case that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus were not real events in history but stories told to illustrate truths which are valid apart from these happenings. (the Gospel in a Pluralist Society)
The Christian message--what is radical about the Message of the Gospel--is that it is not, as with other faiths, other religions, about "truth for life." It is about Truth in History.
The Gospel is not a myth in the sense that it communicates principles or generic notions of truth. Newbigin shows that it is true in the sense that it relates to Events Which Took Place in History.
So, this connects to what a friend said to me yesterday: "I believe all people in all cultures are good." I agreed, and added: some people in some cultures are decidedly better than many professing Christians. Still, something else must be said: it isn't about whether or not I am good or not...or you are good or not.
It is about whether He was dead and rose again. That makes all the difference.
From a Chicago Tribune article in January:
When it comes to wine tasting, pleasure is in the price. Using brain scanners to monitor the minds of wine drinkers, scientists found that people given two identical red wines got more pleasure from tasting the one they were told cost more.
David Kuo has a great post last month highlighting excerpts from a troubling article by Stacy Weiner from The Washington Post. Ms. Weiner's article is called, "Goodbye to Girlhood." In his blog, David laments the "nauseating trend of younger and younger girls being
taught to be 'sexy' with their bodies, their clothes, and their
attitudes."
The article itself reads long, and pits one side vs. the other. But, there are some startling statistics that emerge; brace yourself--here are a couple of the more disturbing claims:
Ten-year-old girls can slide their low-cut jeans over "eye-candy" panties. French maid costumes, garter belt included, are available in preteen sizes. Barbie now comes in a "bling-bling" style, replete with halter top and go-go boots. And it's not unusual for girls under 12 to sing, "Don't cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me?"
and:
...in 2003, tweens -- that highly coveted marketing segment ranging from 7 to 12 -- spent $1.6 million on thong underwear, Time magazine reported.
David Kuo finds himself angry and dumbfounded after reading the piece. (Here is the link to the APA's original report.) As the daddy of four precious girls, I can't help but resonate with his initial reaction.
But then, as is always the case, there is a bright lining to this cloud. Statistics aren't people. And girls who are doing this respond to love and acceptance. The statistics sit there unmoved, but these girls blossom when they are welcomed into families where real beauty and strength are prized, not in a formula, or a home-brewed recipe, but in the grace-lived life of the Gospel.
He is risen! Resurrection power still has the last word.
James Martin's article in Slate yesterday (Happy Crossmas? Why Easter Stubbornly Refuses Commercialization) offers an insightful look into the troubling nature of contemporary Christian celebration of the birth of Jesus.
He also asks: why is it that Easter hasn't gone that same route? His answer is the Easter message doesn't sell:
Despite the awesome theological implications (Christians believe that the infant lying in the manger is the son of God), the Christmas story is easily reduced to pablum. How pleasant it is in mid-December to open a Christmas card with a pretty picture of Mary and Joseph gazing beatifically at their son, with the shepherds and the angels beaming in delight. The Christmas story, with its friendly resonances of marriage, family, babies, animals, angels, and—thanks to the wise men—gifts, is eminently market
able to popular culture. It's a Thomas Kinkade painting come to life.
On the other hand, a card bearing the image of a near-naked man being stripped, beaten, tortured, and nailed through his hands and feet onto a wooden crucifix is a markedly less pleasant piece of mail.
Martin suggests that it isn't only the cross, though, that defies crass commercialization; it is the resurrection story of Easter that won't easily budge:
Even agnostics and atheists who don't accept Christ's divinity can accept the general outlines of the Christmas story with little danger to their worldview. But Easter demands a response. It's hard for a non-Christian believer to say, "Yes, I believe that Jesus of Nazareth was crucified, died, was buried, and rose from the dead." That's not something you can believe without some serious ramifications...
Seems to me that some good, old-fashioned temple cleansing is in order.
I loved the movie Juno. It was simple. It was authentic. It was a glimpse of broken folks getting better. It had great music. (I kick myself for missing Kimya Dawson's concert a couple of weeks ago here in town.)
Still, the movie was troubling--as all good movies are, at some level. What about having babies out of wedlock? The movie addresses the complications, but not the convictions, of this notion--leaving the rest of us to pick up the conversation.
In a profound article in Slate, columnist Emily Yoffe writes here about the dangerous trend that de-links procreation and marriage. Citing one letter she's received along these lines:
My boyfriend and I have a 4-year-old son. We've broken up but realized that we truly are meant for one another. My father was diagnosed with stage four cancer last year, and I've made it known to my boyfriend how important it is for me to have my father with me when I get married. When I bring up marriage to my boyfriend his reply is we will get married, I promise, but he has not asked me.
And then, towards the end, she describes a scene from the movie and concludes with a significant challenge:
There is a scene in the teen pregnancy movie Juno in which the title character, a 16-year-old who has decided not to abort her unplanned baby but to give it up for adoption, is having an ultrasound. The technician, thinking she has on the examining table another knocked-up teenager planning to raise her child, makes disparaging remarks about children born into those circumstances. We are supposed to loathe this character and cheer when Juno's stepmother puts her in her place. But I found myself sympathetic to the technician. Why is it verboten to express the truth that growing up with a lonely, overwhelmed mother and a missing father is a recipe for childhood pain?
