maybe we came from monkeys after all

The boys and I have a standing play-date with our buddies Rachel, Lela & Ellie on Wednesdays. Today we hit up toddler gym time at a local community center for some trike riding, hoop shooting, and general burning off of our kids' endless energy. Now you all need to know that Nate and Lela are betrothed. They adore each other. Rachel and I finally had to tell them no more kissing, only hugs, because a) it was borderline inappropriate and b) they passed the same cold back and forth at least 7 times.

Back to today: we arrived before the girls so Nate was already running around with a horde of boys when Lela arrived. Seeing that he was unavailable for their customary greeting, Lela just walked up to the first boy she saw and gave him a hug instead. The boy was very obliging, and the two of them stood there in slow-dance position for a solid three minutes - it was really cute. Lots of cell phone pictures by their moms, etc. Eventually Nate noticed them hugging and came over to check it out. He walked slowly around the couple. He sized up the other dude. Then he lifted his shirt and hopped around crazily while pounding his chest. Full on primal. It was like an Animal Planet special on mating rituals, right there at toddler playtime. If this is happening now, I am going to need some sort of special training to handle puberty. Pray for us.

I don't have a picture of primal Nate, so here's the next best thing: Dexter with about 3/4 of a banana in his mouth.

rookmaaker had it right

A week ago the Freedom From Religion Foundation put up the above sign in the state Capitol building in Olympia, WA.

Here's what has happened in the week since the sign was put up:

*The sign was stolen.
*The sign was found and put back up.
*Bill O'Reilly got all upset.
*9,000 people did what O'Reilly asked and called to complain.
*Several hundred people rallied outside the Capitol to protest the sign.

Ok, people I get it. The sign is judgmental, divisive, rude, and against the stated policies of the Capitol building administration (A Capitol administration rep stated that organizations may put up a display as long as it isn't considered disruptive or seen as promoting one religion over another.).

But c'mon folks, are you really helping the cause of Christ by stealing the sign, calling to complain, or jumping around with bullhorns outside the building? Here's what bugs me: The general attitude of Christians that we need to fight like heck until the whole world looks like the inside of a Christian bookstore. Ugh, I got a bad taste in my mouth just writing that.

During the election people kept throwing around the phrase "culture war." I didn't really know what they were talking about, but now I think I'm starting to get it. I think it starts with fear. Fear that your side won't win without the right propaganda. Fear that people are too dumb to choose for themselves and need to be told exactly what to believe, or even what to watch, listen to, and wear. Fear that if people hear what the other side is saying, it will sound smart and attractive so it must be drowned out or shut up.

When Atheists do this, I understand. If there is no God, then its all just propaganda. If there is no Truth, then whoever talks the loudest is the one who matters.

When Christians do this, it makes me ill. Our mission is not to make the world palatable to our own weak stomachs. Our mission is to be, live, and do the gospel: Christ crucified, resurrected, and coming again. When I see all this ruckus over a sign, it elicits the same response as when I heard that some guy organized over 4000 people to do the Michael Jackson "Thriller" dance all at the same time: Congratulations. Now please go use those great organizational skills to do something useful.

Hans Rookmaaker (yep, I love me some smart Dutch guys) had a lot to say about Christians and culture. Here's a quote from his essay, Art Needs No Justification:

Christ did not come to make us Christians or to save our souls only...he came to redeem us that we might be human in the full sense of that word. To be new people means that we can begin to act in our full, free, human capacity in all facets of our lives.

Jesus didn't come so that we could go out and make people part of our little club, where we all read the same books, watch the same movies, and listen to the same three chords on the guitar. Jesus came to make us like Him, fully human and fully free. May God forgive me when I act or think otherwise.

today's gems

My funny boy

My mom is always telling me that I should write down all the funny things that Nate says. Here are a few things that made me laugh out loud today:

*We were playing a game where I knock on Nate's bedroom door and when he answers I pretend to be different people who might come to the door (mailman, milkman, Jehovah's Witness, etc... ok not really JW but you get the idea). I knocked and when Nate answered I said, "Hi, I am a repairman. Do you need anything repaired?" Nate thought about it for a second and answered, "Sure I will have a pear!"

*I was out running this afternoon with the boys in the jogger and over the music in my headphones I heard Nate yelling something. I turned off my music to hear him yelling, "Mommy! I'm lucky!!" (Why are you lucky Nate?) "Because I saw a garbage truck!!"

*On the run Nate asked me to pick him a dandelion. He smelled it and said, "Mmm, Mommy this smells like a candy cane!"

*At dinner he said, "Can I please have some more vegetables?" Ok this one isn't funny, but it made me supremely happy so I thought I'd record the moment!

I love that kid.

unreasonable beauty: a follow up

Whidbey Island, Washington

Last night Jon and I went to the once-a-month prayer gathering at church. We've been going to these each month for several months and as our pastor likes to say, "It is a sweet, sweet time." To begin our time last night, the pastor read a poem entitled Christmas, Whidbey Island, by Loren Wilkinson. Here is the poem:

Not in the waves, nor in the wave-torn kelp;
Not in the heron by the lake at dawn,
Nor owls' haunting of the wood,
Nor rabbits browsing frightened on the lawn;
Neither in the widening whirl
Of seashell, galaxy, or cedar burl,
Nor in the mushrooms' bursting of the humid ground:
In nothing of his bright, shy world
May God the fathering be found,

If not found first in Bethlehem,
In thirsty hay, on hoof-packed earth,
Where a girl, cruciform with pain
Grips manger boards in childbirth.
There in the harsh particular
In drafts and stench of cow manure
The squawls of Christ, Creator sound:
Where God grasped not at Godhead in a child,
There only will the God of life be found.

Now: if we upon this wave-shaped bluff
Stand in the straw of Bethlehem
Then God shines out from everything:
The agate in the surf, the withered flower stem,
The fish that gives its body for the seal
The flesh, the fruits that form each common meal,
The dance of pain and love in which our lives are wound:
Since God was flesh at Bethlehem,
In all the world's flesh may God be found.

I hear in these words a new perspective on what I wrote earlier about beauty. The beauty of creation is always glorifying God, but our eyes are fully opened to it when we see and understand the Incarnation. I wish I had more eloquent things to say about that, but Wilkinson has said it all. I won't take away from his words by adding too many of my own.

the advent conspiracy

What does Christmas mean in America today? A crowd of shoppers in New York began the Christmas season by trampling a Wal-Mart worker to death on Friday. Is this what it has come to?

Let's do something different.

unreasonable beauty

We had a stroller picnic this morning. The kids have these amazing bibs from Baby Bjorn which I filled with cereal and cut-up fruit and we hit the road to enjoy a gorgeous morning. It is breathtakingly beautiful here. I'm tempted to qualify that sentence by putting 'in the Fall' on the end, or maybe 'when it's not raining,' but I won't. It is incredibly beautiful here every day.

I've been thinking about beauty. The dictionary says that beauty is the quality present in a thing or person that gives intense pleasure or deep satisfaction to the mind. I agree with that definition, but I also see beauty as pure gift. It is a reflection of God's grace. There is no other explanation for the extravagant, immoderate, and unreasonable beauty in this world. Surely God could have made a natural world with all the same function of this one, but none of the form. Instead he chose to create fiery orange leaves, crimson red berries, emerald green grass blanketed by a shiny ice-blue layer of dew... and this is just what I can see from the sidewalk today. He chose to give us the gift of 'intense pleasure (and) deep satisfaction' through the beauty of creation.

I'm thrilled and astounded daily by the beauty I see around me, but what blows me away even more than this is the beauty I don't see. This is the true extravagance of God, that He creates the most exorbitant beauty even where no one will ever see it. How many flowers bloom each Spring completely unseen by human eyes? How many salmon jump at sunrise each morning while the world sleeps? There are uncountable moments of beauty happening all over the world at all times, some seen and some unseen. All of this leads me to the realization that beauty glorifies God, whether we witness it or not. God never ceases to be glorified in and through His creation. Even though we can't see it all, let's drink up what we can each day and give God the glory.

why we live here

this was last july. i may need to watch this once a week until next july.