Memorizing Scripture Without 3x5 Cards

I'm actually very good at memorizing things, in some ways--I can remember the gist of almost anything I read (although I'm not photographic, I'm close) and I can memorize very accurately what I hear in a context (i.e., a song or a funny movie line).

I fail miserably when I'm trying to memorize text word-for-word.  MISERABLY.

This is a problem, because in order to meditate on Scripture you have to have it at your tongue's end, which pretty much means memorizing.  And memorizing the gist isn't enough for Scripture; you should memorize it exactly.

Enter the glories of the mp3.

Lately I've been memorizing the verses on this album, which you can get at Amazon as an mp3 album download or as a CD.  Well worth it.

I'll tell you why I prefer this to other Scripture songs--there are other products out there, but I have some issues with them.

Steve Green, for instance, makes a set of CDs designed to help kids memorize verses.  They're very adequate, but Steve's speaking voice drives me up the wall, and the music is very...um, 90s Christmas Program-esque.  The problem for me is that if I find the tunes annoying, I just won't be able to listen to the songs enough to memorize the words.  What can I say, it's a failing.  I don't do well with the branch of CCM that sounds like the background music to an assisted living facility commercial.

It's the same problem with Integrity's set.  Sorry, Integrity. Just not my cuppa tea.  Maybe it is your cup of tea, Dear Reader, and if so I have handily linked for you.

Seeds of Character, though, has inoffensive tunes (I don't know that I'd call them, like, outstanding or anything, but they are not annoying, and that's really enough for me), and when the singers speak, it's not Breathy And Dramatic In A Broadway Play Sort Of Way, like you often get.  And the verses in this album are the ones you really do want to have stuck in your head: basic Gospel texts, and verses that will keep you from murdering close family members when they ask for another !@#$ thing ("If I your Lord and Master have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet...").

Mostly I'm bringing this up to tell you that you can find a way to memorize Scripture that makes sense to you.  For years I felt like memorizing verses with a tune was somehow babyish or second-best, like a real solid Christian would use the 3x5 cards that Bible study books are forever harping on.

Then I sort of woke up one day and realized that what matters is getting the Scripture into my brain so deep it's stuck there, not the method used.  (And also that monks who memorized all 150 Psalms back in the day did it by chanting them to a tune.)

A lot of spiritual disciplines are like this.  It really doesn't matter whether you pray with the ACTS method, whether you use a prayer journal, whether you use pre-written prayers or pray hymns or pray through the Psalms.  It matters you PRAY.

It doesn't matter HOW you memorize and meditate on Scripture, it matters that you DO IT.

One more recommendation, this one a book, The Discipline of Grace by Jerry Bridges.  It's fairly heavy going, because it's packed absolutely full of good stuff.  If you are feeling like there ought to be more to the Christian life than not subscribing to the Penthouse channel and going to church on Sunday, you're right.  This book is a really good starting point, and I highly recommend it.

Cheers,

Breanna

February Nights

You're all so patient, dear ones.  What have we been doing lately?  (You're dying to know.)

We had heart-shaped pancakes on Valentine's Day.

Someone came home from the hospital after surgery.

I wonder if you can guess whose lap he sat on.

Or how glad he was to be home.

(The Husband has taken to calling him "The Dog of Destiny" which has a better ring to it than a simple, ironic "Lucky".)

We are religiously picking up our socks.

Tonight we decided to build a spaceship.

The fact that it once was a foam couch is irrelevant.

"Mama, take a picture of me saying, 'silly face'!"

So I did.

"Can I see?"

Everyone in the ship together.

The Husband says he's my dog, but I know better.  He keeps a weather eye on those three beloved puppies in the spaceship, and picks me only as a second choice, or if I'm holding the treats.  He's a good walking buddy, though.  (That's why he's snoring into the arm of the couch.)

Cheers,

Breanna

Well, that was exciting...

As I told Aunt Kenny earlier:

"No matter how weird your day was, you did not have to rush a dog in to emergency surgery because he ate a random sock.  Be happy."

Lesson?  Every item of laundry in a hamper, every time.

Other lesson?  Thank You, Lord, that we put money in our savings account.

Is The Danger Out There?

The Village is my favorite M. Night Shayamalan movie.  If you haven't seen it, I'm going to spoil it for you.

(It's a lovely song, isn't it, when he finally takes her hand?)

Actually, I think it makes better watching after you already know the twist.

The movie opens in a village that has the technology and, more or less, the culture of the mid-nineteenth century, but with a twist.  Everyone in the village is terrified of Those We Don't Speak Of, monsters in red robes that come to terrorize the town sometimes.  This has the effect of keeping everyone in the village--nobody ventures into the woods that surround it, although they know in a vague way that "The Towns" are out there.

Only the monsters aren't real.  They're actually citizens of the village that dress up on occasion.  They are making the outside world extra scary and enforcing extra boundaries for their children, because they want their children to be safe.

You see, the founders of the village all lost someone to murder.  Their idea was to found a community away from the world, to keep evil away from their kids.  To be safe.  If they just make the kids understand how dangerous "The Towns" can be, then they'll stay in the protected environment and never meet evil.

But, as the movie goes on, we find out that evil--a murderer--is within the village.  The extra boundaries didn't keep them safe after all.

I think the theme of the movie is that evil isn't something that is Out There; it's inside us.  As Christians  we should know this.  But very often we make the exact same mistake as the village founders.

For instance, I've been following a conversation on another blog about the new movie Les Miserables.  I haven't seen the movie, but I know the story; it's a powerful one about grace and redemption.  And also, as it happens, about prostitutes, thieves, and dishonest cops.  I mean, if you're going to talk about grace and redemption, you also have to talk about sin, right?

The blogger recommended seeing the movie for the moving themes of grace, forgiveness, and the love of God.  However, some of her commenters felt that no Christian should see Les Mis because the prostitutes--gasp!--dressed like prostitutes.  This, they felt, was so offensive that it would assault the purity of anyone who watched the film.

(Full disclosure: I did a Google search for the character of Fantine, who was supposed to be the most objectionable.  I may just be not super-sensitive, but the worst I saw was bare shoulders, and I'm pretty sure if there had been anything more overt in the movie, it would have been on Google Images.  Also, any guy who can have his purity assaulted by a character who's had to shave her head and sell her hair and teeth to feed her starving child has issues.)

The argument went back and forth; I thought the blogger was very patient and she did acknowledge that if someone has an issue with bare shoulders they probably shouldn't see the film.  Finally the anti-Les Mis commenter trotted out the old cliff argument: "Why do you want to see how close you can get to the edge of the cliff without falling?  Why not be as far away from the cliff as possible?  Why not stay as far away from sin as possible?"

Well, no one is arguing that we should toy with sin.

But I will insist that if the Bible doesn't call something sin, then we shouldn't.  That amounts to elevating the traditions of men (bare shoulders = PORN!) over the commands of God ("don't look lustfully at a woman" - I'm pretty sure it's possible to look lustfully at a lady in a burqa if you really want to).

This is dangerous for a few reasons:

1. Man-made standards are actually achievable in our own strength.

If your whole idea of chastity consists of not watching certain movies, you're going to be able to achieve that pretty easily.  If, however, chastity means something much deeper--like consciously working to be happy with and overjoyed by your wife's body, even if she doesn't look the way she did when you got married--that's hard.

See, we like achievable standards.  In The Village the standards were simple: no one wore red, no one talked about the monsters, and no one went in the woods.  Those are standards we can keep.  They're pointless, but we can keep them.

2. When we achieve our man-made standards, we look down on those who don't.

This becomes the whole point of having man-made standards.

At first, I'm sure, the standards are really there because we want to be safe.  If looking at a woman lustfully is a sin, we just won't look at immodestly dressed women.*  Done.  (And that means we will never get divorced.  Don't laugh--I've actually read this claim before.)

But the pressure of man-made standards is subtle, and it creeps up on us.  Soon we're so sensitive to the issue of looking at women that we begin to worry about the modestly dressed ones.  I mean, couldn't they stand to be a little more modest?  I mean, sure they're covered, but their shiny hair is still visible, and some guys are attracted to nice hair!  If they see your bouncy shiny hair, they will lust after you!  Cover that up.  (I'm not joking, I've read this too.)  Pretty soon the guy who hasn't ever dealt with the lust in his heart in the first place is stuck only looking at women's feet when he has to talk with them.

Then we realize that some people have a thing for feet and now we can't look at feet any more.  We begin saying that really modest dress includes a skirt that goes all the way to the floor, so no one will see your salacious feet.  And men and women should probably stand with their backs to each other while they're talking--that will eliminate any chance of looking at each other at all.

And then we we compare our hyper-"modest" standard to the way that people who don't worry about feet dress, we'll feel like they are indeed naked heathens, even if they're perfectly adequately covered.  This gives a nice flush of self-satisfaction; when we're comparing ourselves with other humans, we can always find someone to make us look good.

You see how it works?

*I don't mean to make light, here, of the very real struggle that men face with visual lust, nor do I mean to say that women don't have a responsibility to dress within the bounds of decency.  My point, though, is that standards of modesty, unlike standards of chastity, are culturally determined.  When we elevate a cultural standard--say, skirts on women--to the place of a Biblical standard, we get into craziness like the stuff I've outlined above.  As an example of how cultural standards change, we no longer require married women to wear wimples (they did in the middle ages), we no longer view elbows as sexy (the Victorians did), and we no longer think that a man wearing a codpiece is okay.

3. Man-made standards have a Forbidden Closet of Mystery effect.

The Simpsons have a quote for everything:

When something is forbidden, it becomes more attractive.  That's just how we are.  If rock n' roll, for instance, is described to you as Very Dangerous Music With Demonic Powers Inherent In The Beat, it's more interesting than if it's just a few guys singing somewhere in a studio.

I believe this is why so many kids from intensely sheltering, strict, man-made-standard-heavy households wind up, as soon as they leave home, deep in everything they were forbidden while they were growing up.  They try one thing--say, maybe, listening to a Marilyn Manson song.  They find, to their surprise, that no demons burst from the speakers to eat their soul.  Nothing bad happens--in fact, some of the music is kind of cool.

That's because it isn't a sin to listen to a Marilyn Manson song.  (No.  It isn't.  I don't like him either, but it isn't.)

But if their parents have drilled it into them that this type of music is the devil, they will begin to wonder about the other things in the Forbidden Closet of Mystery.  And unfortunately, parents who keep such closets tend to forbid a lot of really stupid, harmless stuff along with the really dangerous things--but they don't give their kids any guidance about which is which.  It is all Simply Forbidden.  And so the kid has no discernment that, for instance, premarital sex is a bigger deal than listening to a song--it was all Forbidden, it was all on the same level.

And then...

4. Man-made standards lead to despair.

In The Village, all their careful rule-following didn't protect them.  One boy becomes envious of another and stabs him.  They were looking for the evil Out There--all their power was bent on keeping the world away.  But their concentration was on the wrong front.  They were fighting the wrong battle.  It turns out that rule-following has no power to change our hearts or make us into righteous people; the evil was inside us all along.

And then the satanic nature of extra-Biblical standards becomes apparent: the villagers are trapped in their own lie.  They have no way to get the medicine they know exists outside the town--the medicine that can save the dying boy's life.

Man-made standards isolate us.  Because we've spent so long looking down on people who don't dress, talk, watch, read, and think like we do, we have no one to talk to.  We have no way to find perspective when our system tumbles down.  (And it will.  They all do.)  And then the people who were so sure that they were walking the very closest to God begin to wonder whether He even exists.  Or they wonder if they were ever really His children, or whether He has abandoned them.

Brothers and sisters, it should be apparent from this that the standards we put up are not His.  Truth never, ever, ever, ever leads to bondage and despair.  EVER.

So what do we do then?

Tell the truth. - If you are struggling with a sin, admit it without putting the blame on other people.  Deal with it, even flee from it if need be--maybe you're a guy who really can't ever look at a woman's feet without having issues.  That does not mean you get to insist everyone wears heavy boots--you just can't look at feet.

(A great thing, though, about admitting your struggles, is that Christians will respond graciously without your having to put a fake rule on them to make them do so.  Ladies will quit wearing sandals, in our slightly silly example.  It's what we're supposed to do for each other.)

And feast on the Truth--feast on Scripture, with an open heart.  Don't read the Bible to prove your points.  Don't read it to disprove someone else's points.  Read it to see what it actually says.  You will be astonished at the love and grace that spills from every word.

See, we're not supposed to earn our salvation by keeping the right rules.  We already know, before we start that game, that we can't do it.  This is what distinguishes Christianity from every other religion--they are all about sacrificing the right goat on the right hill to earn a god's favor.  We know that we can't meet God's standards.

So we don't even have to try.  That's the whole reason Jesus came to be punished in our place.  Ironically, the only way we can do the will of the Lord is by ceasing to try to follow "the rules".  The only possible way we can keep His law is by relying on His love.

When you're freed from trying to keep up with dozens or hundreds of man-made rules, you're free to concentrate on the Lord and deepen your relationship with Him.  When you're not so worried about what other people are going to think, you can discern what He thinks.  And when you are sure that He loves you because He chooses to, and not because of the stuff you do, you're free to love Him back, without being worried that He's going to drop you.

Phew.  A long post.

Short version:  Go watch The Village, and then Les Mis, with your Biblical goggles on.  Tell me how Les Mis is.

Cheers,

Breanna

Some Pics - Huzzah!

I'm not sure why this suddenly works.  I deleted some old, non-child pictures in my Picasa albums, but... meh.  Anyway, it's working and that's all we care about, right?

This is a happy black widow spider that Miss Boo drew.  Why we had the urge to draw black widows--smiling black widows--I don't know, but I thought this was a pretty good representation of a spider.  Note it only has a couple extra legs.  (This was before she was clear on arachnids having eight legs, although she knows very well that insects have six.)

This is Bud putting a wary toe on the hearth of our new stove.  It's a beauty, isn't it?  This was the day it was installed.  It's been burning every single day since.

This was Christmas time, obviously, with a fire in the stove, the tree, up, the Nativity set on the top of the TV hutch, and the children cheering hard for Diego to make it to the captive whales.

This is the mother's ring that the Husband gave me for Christmas.  Each stone is the birthstone of one of the kids, in order.  So Miss Boo likes to come up to me, fiddle with my ring, and say, "I'm golden, Bud is silver, and Sasquatch is purple!" (Of course she doesn't call him Sasquatch--just blog rules, you know.)

This is my knee--since I was holding Sasquatch at the time and couldn't get up--and Miss Boo teaching her brother to read.  They were chanting the alphabet here, and she was showing him how to sound out a word.

This is Sasquatch, eating a PBJ sandwich and strawberries!  Not so little anymore--*sniff*!  He turns two in February, which I'm pretty sure is only possible because someone put me in a time machine while I was sleeping.

We will probably be getting some official-type pictures taken in March, so here's hoping I have something to send the patient grandparents, great-grandparents, and aunts.  I realize other mothers do these things, I just forget I'm supposed to.

Cheers,

Breanna

Happy Recession: First Things First Edition

One economic blogger I read occasionally said the other day that Japan's fiscal policies--which are running a couple of years ahead of ours--are "beyond eating the seed corn, and getting into burning the furniture, and maybe the wallpaper".  Those of you who read this blog with any regularity know that I don't think the recession/depression is going to get better quickly.  So we might as well have a Happy Recession, right?

I mean, you read stories about the Great Depression and you hear about hardship, but you also hear about people who, in their own words, "didn't know we were poor".  I'd like to give that attitude to my kids, wouldn't you?

I'm hoping to make this a series--stuff we can do to get us through the Great Recession with the minimum of pain.  I'll be writing articles on grocery shopping, frugal housekeeping, and so on.  But first I wanted to set out some general principles that I think will help folks get through adversity.

1. Trust in the Lord

This should go without saying, but it's very easy to get anxious when you're contemplating a job loss, or a huge price increase.  For instance, the cost of propane in Nevada is astronomical, since a very cold winter coincided with a supply breakdown.  The governor has declared a state of emergency.  Our heater runs on propane--I'm so thankful the Lord provided us with a wood stove.  But even if the Lord hadn't seen fit to enable us to buy a stove, He would have provided us with some way of keeping warm.  He takes care of His own.  The solution He provides may not be just what you want--you may have to wear long johns and a hat inside, and jog in place to stay warm--but He WILL provide.

For encouragement, I highly encourage you to read through the Psalms on a regular rotation in addition to whatever Scripture reading you do every day already.  The Psalms emphasize God's response to human trouble and emotion, and our proper response back to Him.  They will get your attitude straight in a hurry.

2.  Embrace Creativity

Many people I've met have said, "I'm not creative."  Here's the thing: if you're created in the image of God--the Creator--then you are creative.  You're just not used to having to be creative.

Force yourself to practice on a daily basis.  Every time you want to buy something, stop for a second and think hard about whether you already have something will do the work.  (Do you really need a new teakettle, or can you use your coffee maker--without coffee--to brew hot water?  Do you really need new boots, or can you repair your old ones?)  And then think about whether you can make the Whatsits that you want to buy yourself.

Incidentally this is a great way to limit sweets.  At my house we try hard to only eat cake, pie, cookies, pudding, and the like if it's homemade.  That way we know there isn't icky junk in the stuff, and because I don't want to fuss with making a cake or pie very often we don't have dessert every night.

But it works for a lot of things--do you need to go buy salsa, or can you make your own with stuff from the pantry?  (A can of chilies, some spices, some hot dried chilies, a can of tomatoes, some fresh chopped onion, voila.)  Do you really need to go and buy hamburger buns, or can you makes some rolls yourself?  Here's an advanced one: do you need to go and buy doughnuts, or can you fry them yourself?  (Sort of takes away the desire for doughnuts, doesn't it?)

Don't get intimidated.  There's a how-to article for anything you can imagine on the internet.  We're very blessed.

3. Let Go of Perfection

Will your homemade yogurt taste just like the stuff from the store?  No.  Will it be good?  Most likely.  Will the repaired boots look just like the ones that are in fashion this year?  No.  Will they keep your feet dry?  Yes.

Try to focus on functionality and let go of perfectionism.  Your bread doesn't have to be picture-worthy, your mending doesn't have to be invisible, and your coupon use doesn't have to look like those weird TV shows.  You need to keep your priorities straight: loving God and loving your family.  You will NEVER have a responsibility that makes it impossible to love God and love your family.  If a "frugal" activity is making you snap at your kids and resent your husband, you've got to change something--and it's probably your attitude.

Getting everyone happily through this recession isn't going to be effortless, but you are the one in charge of your emotions.  You can decide to view the work that you have to do as a terrible, awful drudgery, or you can choose to thank God that you have resources to work with and a beautiful family to provide for.  That's all you.  Do not get stuck on a picture in your head that you're trying to match.

The "perfect" is the enemy of the good.

But...

4. Don't Fool Yourself

You will have days when going through the grocery store grabbing everything that looks crunchy seems like a genuinely okay idea.  It isn't.  It's important to honestly evaluate how hard you're trying.  For instance, right now we are not cutting to the bone at my house.  We don't have to, and we really enjoy our satellite TV service.

But I have a running list in my head of ways we could, in the terminology of an 18th century novelist, "retrench".

Don't think you're being super frugal because you're shopping at JC Penny's every month instead of Nordstrom's.  You don't need that many clothes.

Don't think you're being super frugal because you buy books on Amazon instead of Barnes and Noble. You could be going to the library.

Don't think you're being super frugal because you're on the "basic" cable package.  You don't really need TV.

Is there anything wrong with TV, clothes, or books, if you have the spare money?  Of course not.  But you need to know how much you're really spending on these things, and evaluate whether you are truly getting the value from them that justifies the cost.

For instance, if I'm going out somewhere and I need a nice outfit, I have a few options.  I could wear a dress I already have, but that's a couple of years old--that would cost $0.  Or I could go to K-Mart and buy a new dress, which would be about $30.  Or I could go to JC Penny's and buy a new dress for $60.

The dress from Penny's would probably be a nicer dress than the K-Mart dress, but would it be twice as nice?  Would it last twice as long?  Usually the answer is no.  (Sometimes the answer is yes, but you have to think about it and make sure.)

Here's the kicker: would either dress be $30-$60 better than the dress I already have?  Again, usually the answer is no.

5. Calculate Everything

Otherwise you'll end up trying vague tips and not being really sure whether they work.  Compare totals when you shop with coupons vs. when you shop without.  Do the coupons really save you money, or do they induce you to buy more stuff?  (There's a reason the manufacturers give them out, you know.)  How does turning the heat down or up affect your fuel bill?  (Here we can save a cool $300 by using the wood stove and keeping the house cold at night.)  How about using the dishwasher vs. hand-washing your dishes--how does that affect your electric and water usage?

You must also keep track of where your money is going.  Write it all down for at least a month--everything, even when you buy a candy bar or a coffee.  I knew one man who would get an energy drink every day that he worked--each drink was at that time about $4.  By itself $4 doesn't seem like much, but we calculated that this habit was costing him $700 per year.  That's enough to put a significant amount of food in the pantry!

This stuff isn't that hard to figure out, really.  If you have your receipts and a calculator, your shopping habits are pretty simple to analyze.  If you have the little paper that your electric company sends, you can easily figure out how much an appliance costs to run (or go to their website). Once again, I'm not judging you for keeping your house warmer at night or for using your dishwasher.  Just know what it costs you, so you can see whether you're getting that much value out of it.

7. Are You Giving?

One thing that reading the Psalms so regularly has been reminding me of is that the Lord places a huge importance on giving.  Not just your tithe--although that's very important and, I believe, not at all optional--but giving to the poor and to the defenseless.

I'm still not sure what the best way is to give to the poor, but a pretty safe and painless way is to start inviting folks that might be having trouble with their grocery bill to your house for dinner.  That little old lady down the street who lives, alone, on her Social Security?  Why not have her over for soup and hot bread?  That single mom with three kids and three jobs?  Why not show up one evening when she pulls in the driveway with an "extra" pan of enchiladas that you happened to make that afternoon, that you "don't have room in the freezer" for?

I'm becoming convinced that this sort of giving--taking care of widows and orphans and the poor--is not optional for Christians, any more than tithing is optional.

Once you've done all of the above...

You will probably notice some low-hanging fruit right away--money leaks that you didn't know existed.  Or you may discover that you have a really bad attitude about money, and you're not quite sure why.

I suggest that your next step is to stop and pray about what to do next.  Then listen to the direction from the Lord.

It's usually pretty clear; very often you can discern the will of the Lord by looking at what it is you have to do.  If you have to make more things from scratch to stretch your grocery budget, then you can do that with a happy heart--the Lord is the one asking you to, after all.

We'll get into more specifics soon.  Until then,

Cheers,

Breanna

Things I'll Be Praying For in 2013

There's nothing revolutionary on this list, but maybe it will inspire you to make your own.  And it will help me keep accountable.  Here it is, not in any kind of order:

1. I'm praying that the wars end and the troops come home.

2. I'm praying for the health of several family members to improve.

3. I'm praying that several people dear to me meet the Savior and recognize Him for who He is.

4. I'm praying the prayers we're commanded in Scripture, as many of them as I can find--i.e., I'm praying for my leaders, for peace in Jerusalem, for the Lord to send workers to the harvest, for my enemies, and so on.  (Can you think of any others?  Let me know if so.)

5. I'm praying for my children, that they will love the Lord and for several specific goals.  I'm also going to try to use this resource from Inspired to Action, which gives Scriptural prayers for each day of the month.

6. Likewise, I'm praying for the Husband--with another helpful resource and with prayers out of my own head.

7. And, since my daily Bible reading takes me through at least a Psalm a day, I'm going to pray through the psalter.  You should try it sometime--it's kind of amazing.

That's enough, I think, when you add in the prayers that arise spontaneously and the others that I pray as regularly as I can.  What's on your list this year?

Cheers,

Breanna