Minivan Discrimination! Someone Call the Authorities!

Beth went back to work today after 12 weeks of maternity leave. During her leave, we switched cars - she drove the minivan while I took the MINI cooper. For me, it was a nice change of pace. I started driving the van about three years ago when I stayed home with our girls and wrote my doctoral dissertation. You may think that driving a van is strange for a guy. I suppose so…but I just spent 3 months driving the MINI while wearing an Express for Men wardrobe. Trust me – that raised some eyebrows, too.

I want to discuss an alarming trend in our country today: minivan discrimination. Now, don’t get me wrong – I like the van. However, a certain stigma does follow it. Minivans are known for erratic driving and illogical traffic behavior. I used to hate minivans as well for these reasons. Until I became the van driver: handing sippy cups and snacks over the seat, spending the majority of my time looking in the rear-view mirror to referee a fight, and rifling through toys while driving with my knees. Each van is accompanied by this type of behavior, compounded with speeding since (of course) vans are late to every engagement all the time.

However, as you become what I am now – a van ninja – you can do all these things without signalling to the outside world what is going on. Van ninjas look as if they are driving calmly down the road, never steering into the next lane by accident. But don’t be fooled, people. This state of perfection is more difficult than the game of golf. However, I have noticed a disturbing trend now that I have achieved van excellence. People pull out in front of vans constantly. At least 90% of the time, though there is no car behind me, a driver will pull out in front of me without hesitation.

Most other drivers assume that all van drivers are slow and incapable of efficient driving. That’s hardly the case. I drive my van like Jeff Gordon. Chances are that van drivers are doing twelve things at once – something that most regular drivers would never do…nay…could never do.  And there’s also a good chance that there are no children’s songs blaring in the background. I may be listening to the newest praise and worship CD…but it’s much more likely that we are rocking out to Cheap Trick or the Foo Fighters.

So, this is a plea to all other non-van drivers in the world. Give the minivan a chance, bro. There are van ninjas out there everywhere just looking for the chance to show off their mad skills. Don’t pull out in front of the van. Pull out behind it, knowing that the driving you will be witnessing in front of you is a work of art.

Life Update…

 Life has been drastically different over the last seven weeks or so, mostly because this the view I see when I’m at home. Of course, Beth sees this more than me while on maternity leave. Ella Gray is a sweetie. Her sisters love her and think she’s fun. They are however, a little annoyed when she cries since they immediately equate that with “whining.” After a few weeks, Annagale asked a particularly pertinent question for her. In a moment of sound logic, she asked why we encourage her new baby sister to burp and then tell her that when she does it, it’s rude. I don’t think she found my answer to be satisfactory.

Being thrust back into baby world has also made us aware of something interesting about TV watching. The shows that we get the chance to watch can now be divided in to two categories: baby-friendly and baby-unfriendly. The determining factor between these two categories is whether or not we can follow the plot without listening to the dialogue. Ella Gray has her “fussy time” from 7-9 p.m. each evening. So, what shows are shallow enough that we can watch them in the middle of fussy time? NCIS and Grey’s Anatomy. But shows like The Mentalist and The Good Wife require us to actually pay attention to the dialogue…and they are arguably better shows anyway.

After a rough week or so at work, I took off to the Catalyst Conference this past weekend. In the past, it’s been nice to go…but this year I really needed to go. Turns out it was a great weekend and as always I learned so much from speakers who had already been in the seasons of life I now frequent. Some of my favorites: Andy Stanley, Rob Bell, Malcolm Gladwell, Shane Hipps, and Francis Chan. I also made some great contacts and reconnected with some friends. I also got to meet the Anglican bishop of Rwanda, John Rucyahana – what a gracious and kind person.

I’ve been reading a good amount over the past few months, though that came to a screeching halt when Ella Gray was born. I read several books on violence in the Old Testament – two of my favorites were: Gundry’s Counterpoints book Show Them No Mercy  and Susan Nidditch’s War in the Hebrew Bible. The rest has been a hodge-podge of topics: Vincent Brummer’s Model of Love, Richard Rohr’s From Wild Man to Wise Man, Pam Leo’s Connection Parenting, Richard Swenson’s Margin, and Patrick Lencioni’s The Three Big Questions for a Frantic Family.

Claire Grace and Annagale have been enjoying a strange selection of music lately. They are really into Sam Cooke’s Greatest Hits and Shania’s Twain’s song “Up.” But the most interesting CD playing at our house right now is an Opera sampler. The girls enjoy it, particularly some of the up-tempo pieces like “La donna è mobile” – Puccini, Verdi, Bizet and the rest – they totally dig it.

Various Thoughts, Faux Pas, and Improprieties

While still writing more on faith and science (more on Monday hopefully), I thought I would bring you up to speed on other things. Obviously, as evidenced by the pictures in my last post, daughter #3 was born – she’s quite easy going compared to the first two as newborns. Still that doesn’t stop me from spending a lot of time awake at 2 and 3 a.m. The more this occurs the more I am reminded for the third time in my life that being awake at such a time is very unnatural. Possibly demonic. Still the child needs to eat and I cannot deny her the opportunity. Why doesn’t Beth get up you may ask? Well, for starters, Beth carried our child and birthed her. I think she’s been through enough, don’t you? The least I can do is feed Ella Gray now that she’s here. Besides, I like her. I am back in the church office on Monday. Sadly, though I was able to leave the church alone for a week, the church could not do that for me. Alas, such is the life of ministry.

Keeping me occupied at 2 a.m. feedings is my new Blackberry Tour 9630 Smartphone. I had a Verizon VX6900 for almost two years and I wore that puppy out so bad that it basically refused to work anymore. In the past, I have used Palm and Windows Mobile platforms, resisting the urge the jump on the Blackberry bandwagon. Why? The same reason I refuse to join Facebook. But I must say this phone is the best I’ve ever owned. I am in love with a machine. So I prop up the child and bottle with one hand and surf the web with the other. At first I was watching TV but there is very little on to watch at that time. I did see a riveting documentary on UFOs. It creeped me out a little and so I turned on a light…

 

I’ve told you in the past that I spend a good amount of time thinking about strange (though often insignificant) questions. These questions can occupy me for weeks on end. I don’t tell my wife about these questions simply because I want  her to stay married to me. And discussing them would certainly run her off. My first strange question is one that any self-respecting religious person should ask themselves: would I make a good cult leader? After mulling over this for several days, my answer is mostly definitely yes. I personally believe I have what it takes to embarrass God.

 The second mental riddle is a little more complex. DNA consists of four bases that are abbreviated A, G, T, and C. I begin to think that all of my daughters have at least one (if not two) of these letters as their intials: ARN, CGN, EGN. I begin to think: would it be cool if I could work the initial “T” into a fourth child’s name? Then all DNA four bases would be represented in my children’s names. How cool would that be? Now that’s genetic coding, my friend! So, I began to make a mental list of male and female names that could complete the “sequence.” I doubt seriously that Beth is going to allow me to complete my own personal family of nucleotides. My only hope is that next time we’ll have twins and my dream of naming them Bonnie and Clyde will come true…

What Constitutes “Good” Parenting?, Part 1

I’ve been thinking about what makes someone a good parent – or better yet, what we should consider good parenting skills. I’m finding there aren’t any hard, fast rules that determine whether your child turns out to be a Nobel Peace Prize winner or an ax murderer. And most kids end up somewhere in between anyway. A couple of books have brought this question to my attention.

The first was Freakonomics. One of the chapters attempts to determine the bearing of different parenting styles on children. What the authors find is that socio-economic status has significant bearing in a specialized way. Children in middle to upper income families do better because of the opportunities that money gives them. Intelligence has little to do with it. For example, a child who reads children’s books in his/her home is likely to do well in life. But it’s not because they read better than another child. It’s because a child whose parents have enough money to buy children’s books are also going to have enough money to buy piano lessons, art lessons, etiquette classes, a private school education, etc. Baby Einstein videos don’t do much for your kid, but a parent willing to spend the money on those videos will most likely spend that same type of money on other things to make sure their children succeed. Interesting point. But it says nothing of spiritual or character formation.

The other two books were religious. The first was George Barna’s Revolutionary Parenting. This book was pretty adamant that a particular type of parent turns out spiritual “champions” on a regular basis. The type of parenting? Evangelical and conservative. That wasn’t that surprising either – Barna is an evangelical. The point was that these parents modeled a Christian lifestyle for their children and gave them multiple chances for response. But I began to think about many of the Christians I know today…and whole lot of them were not brought up in a Christian home at all. And the more serious ones had a horrible upbringing. Maybe that’s because they actually understand the gravity of salvation since they were so far from God to begin with. Or maybe they understood the ravaging effect of sin in a more personal way. There is some truth to the idea that great sinners make great Christians. So Barna’s approach leaves out a whole lot of people.

The final book was Tony Dungy’s Quiet Strength. In the second chapter or so, Dungy talks about the exceptional example his parents provided for him. They were strong, church-attending Christians and both had higher level educational training (the holy grail of secularists). Both were teachers. By our society’s standards, that’s the one-two punch. It’s easy to talk about how great his parents must have been and that surely this was the reason for Dungy’s successful coaching career. But the last paragraph of the chapter throws a wrench in that scenario. Dungy stated that it wasn’t until years later as an adult that he made a commitment to Christ. Huh? Wait a minute. If anybody should have been a great Christian from the start it should have been him. He had Christianity and education. But it didn’t impact him as much as we all assumed (or hoped) it would.

So what am I trying to say? As parents we have to believe that our parenting makes a difference. Otherwise, it’s an overwhelming task. By secular standards, socio-economic status determines our success in life. But for Christians, it has to be more than that. Yet in both of the Christian books I described, the spiritual formation of any child goes beyond what even the best parents can do. In fact, some Christian parents who do everything right, end up driving their children away from God. As much as parents would like to believe that model parenting matters (and it can certainly help things), ultimately each person on this planet has to recognize the pursuit of God in their life and be willing to respond. I’ve come to understand that there is no way I can really introduce my children to God. Now, I can surely model the importance of personal relationship before them. I can also place them in environments where the Holy Spirit can draw them to him. But in the end that’s between my child and God. And there’s nothing I can do about that.

But there’s hope. I also believe that God will go to the same extremes that he has done with me and my wife in order to develop a relationship with my children. God doesn’t pursue a relationship with my children because I want him to. He pursues them because he wants to. And his desire for their salvation far outweighs any hopes I may have for my children. So I model my Christianity, not because it’s important for them to see it. I model it because my Christianity is important to me. And as God pursues them, one day their Christianity will be important to them as well. Not as a cultural condition, but as a genuine love response to the overwhelming goodness of their Creator.

My Children Cause Me to Sin!

Children have a strange effect on their parents. Mine do. I thought I’d discuss one of the most unique ways my children have impacted my life.

Most Christians were taught to not take the Lord’s name in vain. After all, it is one of the commandments, you know. We normally assume this means not saying the phrase, “Oh my God” or something similar. Of course if you believe taking the Lord’s name in vain has something to do with stringing a particular set of words together, you may be missing the point of that commandment. It might have something more to do with actions than words alone (just a thought). But in the deep South, we have acceptable forms of “taking the Lord’s name in vain” that don’t apply everywhere else in the world. We have phrases like “Lordy, Lordy!” or my personal favorite: “Oh, good Lord!”

I say, “Oh, good Lord” all the time. My children elicit this colorful, yet worshipful response from me, particularly when attempting to get them dressed, to clean up their room, and most often at bedtime (specifically after the third call after I have told them to go to sleep). But I’ve noticed something. My traditional phrase has slowly developed a life its own with extra words being added depending upon the severity of the infraction being described. First came, “Oh, good Lord in heaven above!” Then came, “Oh, good Lord of heaven above and creator of all we survey!” No joke; I’ve actually said that.

However, last week, I hit the pinnacle of Southern “name-in-vain” taking. In a moment of abysmal desperation (caused by Annagale, no doubt) I said the following words: “OH, GOOD LORD IN HEAVEN AND CREATOR OF ALL WE SURVEY WHO HAS WROUGHT WITHIN OUR SINFUL HEARTS THAT BLESSED EVENT AFFECTIONATELY REFERRED TO BY MANY AS SALVATION!!” Or something like that.

That moment in time was a personal best for me. “Ninja skills” in taking the Lord’s name in vain, if you will. I believe Napoleon Dynamite would be proud of my newly acquired skills. The girls certainly were. The above phrase is at least the Southern equivalent of that time-honored Catholic phrase: “Jesus, Mary, Joseph and all the saints!” It also may replace my previous personal best: “Son of a motherless goat!” which sounds much worse than it actually is.

Just another example of how my children push me to new heights of greatness. It is in these moments that I am most thankful for my children.

A God of Discrimination and Nepotism

Mother’s Day has come and gone. Father’s Day is just around the bend. So, in honor of those celebrations, I thought I’d delve into some theological “musings” surrounding God and parenthood.

I read and interesting passage in the Bible the other day: Genesis 49. What struck me was the unusual words of Jacob as he says goodbye to all his sons. All the remarks are “colorful” but the remarks said about Joseph stand out above the rest. After giving mixed reviews of the other sons, Jacob gushes over Joseph and blesses him to the “heights of the eternal hills.” In the last moments before his death, his favoritism for Joseph was so great that he couldn’t even see it anymore.  That’s what got everyone in trouble in the first place. And the other sons had to sit around and politely listen to Jacob’s unchecked favoritism and put on a good smile for the old man. Over the top to say the least – nevermind how it made the other sons feel.

How it made the other sons feel. That’s the part the stuck out to me. We don’t think about the feelings of Jacob’s other sons too much, though we go out of our way to make sure we preach about their deceptions, mistakes, and fits of rage. But they also experienced the actions of a parent that would infuriate even the most docile of siblings: favoritism. Every parent tries to fight it, but often (to no avail) we end up “choosing” one sibling or family member over the others through our words, gifts, time, and consideration. That’s nothing new. Every family deals with it. Personally, I’ve been on both sides of that coin. You probably have, too. How do you think Joseph’s brother’s felt? The guy could do nothing wrong. Jacob favored Rachel and her two children over their own mothers and them. Things got bad when Joseph started to believe his own press in the form of dreams and visions. The Bible cleans this up a little for us, but honestly, it’s just a downright ugly scene. I’ll be honest: I’d get rid of Joseph, too.

But here’s what’s so great about that passage. What seems to be the most irritating human trait in our own families is critical for the world’s salvation in God’s family. God discriminates, favors, shows prejudice, partiality, and unashamedly proclaims his one-sided bias towards us. In fact, he would do anything for us – like a parent in love with a child that can do no wrong. In humans, it’s obnoxious. In God, it’s beautiful. All parents are hard-wired this way. I love my children in moments of incredible disrespect, fits of anger, and moments of extreme freak out.

God’s greater than that. He loves beyond what any normal parent could ever do. This is driven home by the fact that we can’t seem to love other children like our own. But his love is extended with that same intensity to all of us. We are all his – and that’s the point. God discriminates blatantly on a infinitely expansive level. Right now, we all stand in the center of his deeply personal bias towards us. Now that’s  a God I can worship.

Still Driving the Minivan…

As I’ve said before, as a man who normally drives a minivan, life can be complex. Gender issues crop up on a regular basis. Now, don’t get me wrong. I like the van. It’s the people who drive in the lane next to me that I don’t like…

I pulled up to a stop light the other day. After a few seconds, someone in the other lane pulled up next to me. Initially they were out of my line of vision. But then (as all minivan drivers know) they began to creep up next to me slowly. Why? Because there were guys in the car. And guys always assume that there is some cute (and possibly bored) soccer mom driving that Honda Odyssey just waiting for the chance to flirt with them. Guys think this for several reasons (e.g. low intelligence, hormones, an over-estimation of their own good looks because they worked out earlier that day, etc.) but mostly because they watch too much TV.

Anyway – back to the story. This exact scenario happens to me at least once a day. I haven’t told my wife about it because it’s just too ridiculous to occupy our evening discussions. So, I took control of my life in that moment when those guys creeped up next to the van, craining their necks in hopes of oggling some domestic beauty. They got me instead. Before they realized I was a guy, I turned to them, pointed at myself and mouthed the words “HEY GENIUSES! I’M A DUDE!!” They quickly looked away in embarrassment.

In some small way, I hope my actions that day helped women all across America fight the prevalent minivan myth that only they can drive a van…

Exactly How Does God Discipline?

I initially posted this over a year ago.  It continues to be one of the most popular posts I’ve ever done:

I read a book a while back where the author was attempting to illustrate godly correction. He quoted Hebrews 12:6-10 (”he whom the Lord loves He chastens/disciplines”) and then made the following statement: “God does not hesitate to hurt us if this is necessary to help us become mature sons and daughters of His.” He then told a personal story of when his two year old son had foot surgery. Each night, the father had to stretch the foot as a type of physical therapy. Of course, it was tremendously painful for the son, but in the end the father said it was “worth it” – an illustration of how our heavenly Father disciplines us. The surgery was a success. At that point, I stopped reading and thought to myself, “hurt us to help us?” I just can’t agree with that. But I wasn’t sure why. So, after some serious thinking, this is my answer.

Most people assume that God’s correction is painful. And sometimes that may be the case…but I’m not really buying it. Here’s why. Godly discipline and punishment are not synonymous. And God never said that they had to be in order for his will to be done or for discipline to be effective. After all discipline means “to disciple” not “to punish.” Disciplining brings about transformation. Punishment only brings outward conformity. Hebrews 12 talks of love correcting or disciplining us, but that verse also should be taken within the entire context of the New Testament. For example, 1 Corinthians 2:9-14 (NLT) gives us another clue to the “discipline” puzzle. “That is what the Scriptures mean when they say, ’No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.’ But it was to us that God revealed these things by his Spirit. For his Spirit searches out everything and shows us God’s deep secrets…And we have received God’s Spirit (not the world’s spirit), so we can know the wonderful things God has freely given us…we speak words given to us by the Spirit, using the Spirit’s words to explain spiritual truths. But people who aren’t spiritual can’t receive these truths from God’s Spirit. It all sounds foolish to them and they can’t understand it, for only those who are spiritual can understand what the Spirit means.”

Paul is making a unique point often lost when answering this question. The question is not does God discipline, but how. To me, God’s discipline is radically different than the father/son illustration above. And 1 Corinthians backs me up here. First, no plan is ever more important than people – “hurt” for the sake of correction is not okay with God. Secondly, if God does use natural circumstances to correct us, they are at best a second option. God’s first and foremost choice to adjust any Christian’s perspective is the Spirit of God speaking to our spirit. That’s “how we can know the wonderful things God has freely given us.” That’s always God’s first choice and he doesn’t need to create painful circumstances to get our attention.

The problem with our understanding of God’s discipline is that we pass it through the grid of our own parenting – just like the author I quoted did. Plus, we often derive a spiritual lessons from our personal circumstances. And some of those circumstances are so painful that if we don’t create a “greater good” scenario from them, we can’t handle the pain. But when we teach others that God “uses” circumstances to get our attention, we are also saying that he can’t get “close” enough to tell us otherwise. To relegate contact with believers to natural circumstances assumes that God is incapable of direct contact. Or worse yet, God doesn’t want direct contact or happily uses pain for our advancement even though another, more personal route of communication exists.

Old Testament scholars sometimes talk about “controlling metaphors” in the Bible. These are ways or concepts of describing God that disclose his nature or personality that run through all of scripture. And Jesus picks these up as well. He’s not just any father, he’s the good Father. He’s not just any old shepherd, he’s the good shepherd. That’s the problem – when we hear that God is Father, we assume he is just like any other father. But he’s the good Father…and that means he does things in a way that the rest of us dad’s cannot even grasp. That’s what the verses in Hebrews 12:7-10 are attempting to show. The good Father is not doing the “best he knows how” – he’s doing way more than that, bringing correction and discipline exclusive from harm. Jesus says the same thing: “If you being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more…”

Let me use another less-sanitized father/child illustration in contrast to the first one. My oldest daughter just turned 5. She’s conscientious and really tries to do what  her parents ask of her. What would you think of me as a father if I had the distinct option either to “hurt her in order to make her mature” or teach her personally how to be mature…but I still chose to hurt her? What if rather than conversationally teaching her about meekness, I back-handed her hoping to achieve the same affect. Make your stomach turn, huh? Mine too. The issue is in the choice. Many people who assume God uses circumstances, do so thinking that the Spirit speaking to our spirit is really not a viable option. But if it is, then direct communication is God’s desired method of disciplining you. 1 Corinthians says it is. And that doesn’t have to involve punishment…it never should.

Lizards and a Hint of Patripassianism

I am so proud of my two daughters. They are both geniuses. I know, every parent says that…but that’s where the similarities end. Mine actually are geniuses.

We were on the back deck cleaning up Saturday and we spotted a  lizard on the patio furniture. My girls have been properly trained in lizard catching etiquette by their mom. But on this extraordinary day, Annagale did something no three year old should be able to do. She caught the same lizard by the tail three times.  Count ‘em: three times, people! That’s got to be some sort of record or something. Steve Irwin is smiling down from heaven…

Claire Grace impressed me just as much later that day. We were driving down the road listening to some worship music. The song said, “you gave your life away for me.” Let me preface by saying we’ve been working on understanding the Trinity a whole lot at our house. The girls are pretty good about seeing that and recognizing that God is three in one. I never really understood the Trinity growing up and the separation between God (by which I meant the Father) and Jesus made me afraid of God. I had to relearn the Trinity later and I never want my children to feel distanced from their Creator based on bad theology. Okay – back to the story…

When that line in the song came on, I asked the girls: “Who gave their life away for you?” Annagale responded, “God died on the cross!” I said, “Right…but which person in God? I mean God is three persons in one, right? So which one gave their life away?” Claire Grace said (and this is an exact quote): “God the Son…Annagale, smell my feet…” I have never been a prouder parent. Notice she didn’t say Jesus…she called him by his Trinitarian role: God the Son. People have trouble understanding that – the idea of a crucified God still sounds strange to evangelical ears – most need God and Jesus separated for their atonement model to work. But there’s no escaping the beautiful reality that Jesus is God. God died on the cross…God the son.” There’s no reason to fear such a wonderful God. Some theologians would quickly point out Patripassianist leanings within that line of thought. That’s not my intention. But I will say this: we could stand having God a little too close – he’s been at a distance far too long.

As for the “smell my feet” part, there’s really no theological significance to that.

Godly Marriage, Pt. 3: What Does a Christian Family Look Like?

Okay, on to the famous marriage passage in Ephesians 5:18-33 (NLT):

“Don’t be drunk with wine, because that will ruin your life. Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, and making music to the Lord in your hearts…And further, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ…For wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of his body, the church. As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything.

“For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word.…In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies. For a man who loves his wife actually shows love for himself. No one hates his own body but feeds and cares for it, just as Christ cares for the church. And we are members of his body.

 ”As the Scriptures say, ‘A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.’ This is a great mystery, but it is an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one. So again I say, each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.”

 There’s a lot in here to digest but let’s just pull some of the most overlooked parts out for a minute. Most pastors start with verse 22 – the part about wives submitting to husbands, passing over the preceding verses that qualify it. The whole passage starts where Paul talks about being filled with the Spirit.  What does he mean? He gives us an example – drunkenness, actually. When someone is inebriated, they have assigned their will over to a chemical that makes their decisions for them.  We call this impaired judgment – others call it being smashed.  In the same way, being filled with the Spirit is to allow the Spirit to affect your decisions and life strategies.  Make sense? We are to be “filled with the Spirit” to the point where it affects our judgment. Though I’ve never studied it out, I’ve heard that the grammar in the original here has a fluid, loose feel to it almost as if Paul was writing in a drunken way to convey his point. You Greek scholars out there can let us history people know if that’s accurate or not.

Next, before Paul says anything about wives submitting, he states in verse 21 that we are to submit to “one another in the fear of the Lord” (NKJV). Here we have mutual voluntary submission - a state of equality and interdependence under the Lord (similar to the concept of the social Trinity I might add…). Paul doesn’t say anything about the husband being higher up on the ladder of spiritual maturity than the wife. They receive equal investment under God.  After addressing this mutual submission under God, only then does Paul delve into the specifics of marriage.

I’ll finish up next post…