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…

Godly Marriage, Pt. 1: Submission vs. Coercion

My wife and I have been married for about nine years. The first two years were hell on earth. Here’s why: we are both “type A” personalities. When we got married, as strong Christians, we assumed that God would automatically adjust our personalities to mesh in a glorious fashion.  That’s didn’t happen – I was offering her a divorce by the end of the first year!

Slowly over time, we developed an understanding of what godly marriage might look like. Surprisingly it looked nothing like what we saw in the church. The majority of spousal teaching we had acquired over the years taught the exact opposite of what we found to be true for us.  I want to share some of that here and in the next three posts as well.

The biggest problem surrounding Christian marriage teaching is the understanding of the word “submission.” I know…it conjures up images of wives waiting on husbands hand and foot, just happy to be alive serving their spouse and children in the name of the Lord.  I actually saw a blog on here a few months back written by a female that attempted to talk women into exactly that…like if you say it over and over to yourself it sounds better or something.  If wives would just submit to their husbands even when they don’t want to, they would find enjoyment and fulfillment in the act. For the record, that concept makes most women want to puke – and for good reason.  Submission, as it is generally understood in church circles, has ruined the true definition of biblical submission. Mostly because it was made up by men and taught by men to get what men have wanted: their wives to do their bidding.

Rather, what the church has taught is “coercion” or “compliance” the act of making another person do your will even when they don’t want to. I have actually been personally told, “you can’t submit until you disagree.” The problem with Christian men who teach such phrases is that they have no intention of listening to what you have to say in the first place. Most people assume that God requires submission in the same way – a subtle form of coercion. Like a boss at work, he makes decisions that you are expected to comply with even when they rob your emotional and physical vitality for some unknown purpose.  Usually such admonishments to submit by Christians are shrouded in mysterious phrases like, “it’s for your own good,” “you’ll see the benefits in the future” or “all things work together for good…” Who’s good are we talking about here?

We’ll discuss the alternative next post.

The Mystery of Nagging, Solved!

Hello, all you married men out there. As a stay-at-home dad, I wanted to clue you in to something. Why am I subjected to nagging? Curious? Read on, my friend.

Formerly in my professionally-oriented life, I got nagged occasionally, though not very much – my wife is a sweetie and quite adaptable. However, when I came home to stay with our two girls for a while, I realized I’m not a flexible as she is. And I (the guy) began to nag my wife. Seriously. I did. It’s not something I’m proud of, but in the process I have uncovered the secret mysteries surrounding “nagology.”

See, when you’re stay-at-home wife tells you something and you say, “Okay, I’ll get to it.” She wants to believe that you will. But here’s the rub: when you leave for work for 8+ hours a day, never to think about picking up your clothes or fixing that door handle, your wife continually confronts those issues at least ten times a day. If you say, “I’ll fix the door soon,” she is left to think about it every time she opens the door (which will be 10 times a day at least). Better yet, if it’s a danger to your children who she has to keep from killing themselves by accident everyday, she’s gonna think about it more.

So, when you come home and casually glance over at your clothes pile in the corner and think, oh yeah, I need to get those up and keep walking to the fridge, your wife has already past by those clothes a hundred times that week and forcefully resisted the urge to pick them up for you. Why? Because you said you’d do it. Chances are good, if it’s a larger job, you’ll say that you’ll get to it on the weekend. That means she has personally wrestled with her own patience to allow you the chance to help out around the home many, many times over those five workdays. And if it slips your mind over the weekend and you say, “Oh yeah – I’m sorry. I said I was gonna fix that. Oh well, I’ll get to it next weekend,” you have absolutely no idea of the dilemma that you place her in. Do I do it myself? No, he said he’d do it. But what if he forgets again? I can’t take it anymore! I’ll do it myself!

Think about it this way. What if you hear a mildly annoying song on the radio a hundred times to your friend’s one listen. At five hundred listens for you, he’s still gonna want to turn up the volume when he hears it. However, you’ll be ready to jump out of a moving car just to get away from it. Get the point?

Buddy, your inaction has just compounded the irritation of that incident a thousand times along with the guilt she now feels for “teaching” you that it’s okay not to help out. Nagging is (by observation in my personal domestic laboratory ) your wife’s attempt to relieve that tension a little at a time rather than exploding when you walk in the door.  She needs to feel like you’ve heard her. And above all, she needs your help. How does she know that you have heard her? You actually make the issue in question a priority for you. Don’t tell her you’ll get to it, do it right then if you can. It’ll only take a minute. So, pick up your junk before you get your own feature on that show Snapped!

Minivan Discrimination. Someone Call the Authorities…

I’ve had a productive weekend. I finished George Linbeck’s Nature of Doctrine and took down Christmas decorations. Unfortunately, to find a time to do this, we skipped church Sunday morning. Yet, strangely, I still feel that God was delighted with our decision since he no longer has to look upon the Christmas tree in our home throughout the month of February…

I want to discuss an alarming trend in our country today: minivan discrimination. Yes. You heard me correctly. Before I stayed home full time, I used to drive a little two door sedan. But now I drive the van. 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 riffling through toys while driving with my knees. Each van is accompanied by this type of behavior, compounded with speeding since 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. Yet, 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 we are doing twelve things at once – something that most regular drivers could never do. And there’s 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…or I may be listening to Cheap Trick or the Foo Fighters.

So, this is plea to all other non-van drivers in the world. Give the minivan a chance, bro. There are 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 is a work of art.

Trusting Your Spouse into God’s Hands

My wife is on a business trip for a few days.  She travels pretty often and I’m fine with that, although I hate to not have her at home. In the past, I have prayed with people who ask for God to be with a person and give them “travelling mercies” (whatever that means). One day, it dawned on me that such prayers were not really prayers for protection a much as they were resignations to be okay with whatever God chose to do with the travellers. They were trusting their spouses to God, not knowing whether God’s providence would lead their loved one into safety or distress.

As I was praying for my spouse last night, that idea of God never entered my mind. You see, I believe strongly that what you believe about God determines what you will ask of him. That’s why people are often afraid to pray too boldly – they don’t know what God’s gonna do. So, a simple “if it be thy will” covers all the bases.

But I have come to understand that any desire for my wife’s protection is far eclipsed by God’s love for her and desire to keep her safe. I am not trusting her to some mysterious Providence that is lost on human understanding. I am entrusting her to her Judge. She finds greater protection in God’s hands than she could ever find in mine. What if something happens to her? I know this: it won’t be because God desired her harm for some “greater good.” God has tremendous power…but it’s a power guided by his goodness toward his children. Now that’s someone I can pray to for protection.

I think this idea spills over into other parts of life as well. God really can’t bring spiritual maturity to my wife, children, or any other person I know unless take my own “talons” out of their spiritual life. Once I create an environment where that person receives no judgment or criticism, God can move in to deal with them. Until that time, he stands by patiently waiting for me to step out of the way. I believe we don’t give him access to others because we’re not sure that he will do sometimes. And, once again, that’s a character issue, not a power issue, concerning God that everyone has to confront for themselves.

I don’t mind praying specifically for God to protect my wife on business trips. I believe he wants to do that more than I do. Why reserve that right for myself when I can entrust her to the most powerful being in the universe? Oh yeah, and he happens to love her more than I could ever hope to lover her.

A Woman Needs a Man like a…

First off, thanks for all your comments over the past two days. Your feedback is important to me including in the areas where you don’t agree…

 I want to tie some things together from the previous posts on marriage and family from a theological perspective. I promise it won’t be too painful. Then I’m moving on to something else.

First off, many of the problems that surround Christian marriages stem from the subtle tendency of spouses to draw their identity from each other. We all do it to some extent, climbing up and down the ladder of happiness based on whether they listened, yelled, complimented, criticized, hugged, kissed, or threw something at you. For the stay-at-homers, this is compounded by the routine of maintenance: nothing gets checked off a list, you just maintain things (like the idea that you have to vacuum every week…and there it is next week, ready to be vacuumed again!). These are compounded by moments of sheer brilliance, like a few minutes ago when I defied laws of physics and actually cut my finger on the diaper genie.

To me, this need to draw identity from one another is the root cause of the tendency for males to dominate their spouse in a marital context. They are essentially drawing their identity from the fact that they can control their wives, rather than letting the submission naturally flow from their wives’ trust in them. Similarly, women find their identity in their husband’s prestige and recognition. On the opposite end she may loathe him for his inability to meet her expectations. Either way, no one is ever happy and no one is ever off the hook. “Submitting to one another in the fear of the Lord” allows us to relax those expectations of each other so that we have room to allow God to change us personally.

I read an article on the “heresy” (he actually called it that) of mutual submission by an internet “scholar” (you know the type) that stated that the verse I just referenced was taken out of context and there was no other scripture that supported that idea. Really? Those who taught mutual submission were catering to modern culture and not to the Bible. Is that so? Okay, how about Genesis 3:16 – “Your desire shall be for your husband and he will rule over you.” This is not a command to keep; it’s God describing the curse that seized humanity after the fall. He wasn’t approving of it – he was lamenting it in Hebraic poetic fashion. The idea of husbands ruling over their wives is not part of God’s divine family plan - it’s a result of the fall of man. Well, how about that! Jesus (who spent a lot of time with women in the gospels, particularly Luke) came to liberate both men and women from that need to control one another. God initially had a better idea – we find it in Genesis before chapter 3. There, a husband and wife lived in harmony together, not wrestling for control. God had given Adam authority to name and govern the earth, but Adam honored Eve by involving her in his adventure with God. To honor means to invest with authority on another’s behalf.

So who is meant to fulfill that inner craving for identity and romance that we feel as humans? Though a spouse or children maybe be able to do so to some extent, we burden our family with something they can never fill when we choose that option. I’ve got a better idea…how about God? God is the divine romancer – He alone fills the deepest most intimate parts of our soul, not a spouse or a child. That doesn’t make sense to a lot of Christians because most have been taught that God’s love is nothing like human love. And it’s not in quality…BUT that doesn’t mean it can’t fill our deepest inner needs. It is perfectly acceptable to see God as the lover of your soul – one who knows your intimate thoughts and sweeps you off your feet with his tenderness and thoughtfulness. You should get “butterflies” in your stomach when you think of God – an infatuation that never goes away.

And, no, that’s not some faddish way to recast God in terms that complement feminist ideas. It’s been around a lot longer than blogging has. Female mystics of the High Middle Ages used terms like “the fruition of God,” “indescribable joys,” “insatiability,” “insanity,” “ecstasy,” and ”melting into the arms of Christ” to describe their spiritual experiences. Of course they were executed for such language, because it made God too personal. And if you think that’s steamy, you should check out what men like Bernard of Clairvaux, Richard of St. Victor, Francis of Assisi, and Bonaventure said about their moments of spiritual ecstasy. Luckily for them they were men, so they usually got to live. John of Avila used phrases like “burning of the fire of charity” and “unwavering love…leaping from the heart” to describe the relationship God designed for humans to have with him.

In reference to my title, does a woman need a man? The answer is no… “like a fish needs a bicycle.” Does a man need a woman? Once again, nope. The only thing we need is God. We are to enjoy our spouse. We need God’s love to fill us to overflowing so that he can love our spouse through us.

What’s it like being a stay-at-home dad?

About two years ago, I undertook one of the most rewarding and difficult challenges of my life. Various circumstances led me and my wife to make the decision to reverse roles. She had previously quit a job in the healthcare industry to stay home with our two daughters. When things changed, we switched places – I came home to finish my doctoral dissertation and look after our two toddler girls. She went back to work. Though we feel we made the right decision, I now know that you never really understand what you are doing until you’re in the middle of it. Boy, were we in for a surprise…

When we switched roles we decided to completely switch roles. That means for two years now, I have cleaned the house, washed all the clothes, done all the grocery shopping, cooked all the meals (actually cooked…not pulled something out of a box), and been the nurturer for our two girls. I get up in the middle of the night, I hold them when they are crying, I discipline them accordingly. For all intents and purposes I have taken on the role our culture normally assigns to a mother. And my wife, possibly the most self-sacrificing person I know, has devoted her life to those aspects that culturally are considered the domain of men. We have encountered every stereotype (Christian and secular) that has ever existed concerning those gender roles.

When I finish (hopefully my rough draft will be finished this week so my doctoral committee can destroy it so I can write it again), I will go back into the work force in a pastoral role. But my experiences at home have radically shaped how I will minister and approach people permanently.

I want to give you a few examples of how our life has changed. Certainly we will never take each other for granted again. I know what it’s like to cook a meal from scratch only to have the working parent tell you they will be an hour late. My wife also knows how wonderful it is to come home to a clean home with a hot meal on the table…she actually tears up when she talks about it. I also never thought I would say things like, “Geez, I just mopped this floor!” I’ve also learned some bigger lessons than that – some that will give guys some insight into what it’s really like to stay at home full time.

First, what I once thought was “helpful” to my wife previously I have learned is not very helpful at all. I remember when she would call me at work and talk about going into town to pick up a few items at the store. I quickly stated, trying to be helpful, “Oh I’ll pick it up for you and bring it home at lunch!” She always acted grateful and I thought I was a really awesome husband. BUT now that I am home, what I realized is that my wife desperately needed human interaction and a change of scenery. She needed the outing, not the items. My help was no help at all – it actually made things worse.

Another example: I struggled tremendously with the fact that I no longer had any criteria by which to judge my daily self-worth. Before, I leaned heavily on my Palm Pilot task list and ministerial abilities. But all that went away when I moved home. I was “out of sight, out of mind” for most of the people from whom I had drawn my identity. As such, it created a huge identity crisis in me – I craved any and every bit of human interaction I could get, particularly from my wife. She was highly reassuring, but it wasn’t enough. That’s when God began to take me back to what he had been dealing with me about for several years – finding my identity in him alone.

You see, self-esteem is deeply tied to God-esteem. In other words, what you think about yourself is a reflection of what you believe God thinks about you. In the midst of our change, I had began to draw my identity from places other than the one place that actually mattered – God. I had to constantly remind myself that God was not impressed by what I did or didn’t do…he was impressed with me because he loves me unconditionally. That means he loves me simply because I’m breathing his air.

Now, I live by the motto I tell my overly-cautious and detail-oriented three year old every morning: “You know what we have to do today, sweetheart? All we have to do is love God, love each other, and have fun.” And I honestly believe that – my goal in life is to love God, rest in his full and total acceptance of me, and have fun doing it!

Previously as a pastor, I spent a lot of time telling people how to peform for God rather rest in his love for them. That scares ministers sometimes because they think that such an approach gives people license to be spiritual bums. But I have found that those who know how to rest in God’s love find a safe and secure environment that allows them to move forward in their relationship with him. They are not always worried about when God’s gonna smack them for making a mistake. Safety promotes growth and the full trust of another empowers us to change. I pray that you will find the same level of trust in God that I have found as a stay-at-home dad.