Scenes from Our Day

I know I'm not supposed to touch the phone by the bed, but Lizard Green made me do it.

It's like being pregnant but without the special treatment!

Lambie's dipsomania is worse than ever, I'm afraid...

I think this is really a pickle dish, but it looks good with lilies (12:00, 12:00, 12:00)...

...and I cut my hair. Myself. Do you think it worked? :)

Cheers,

Breanna

Perceptions

When I woke up and saw the alarm clock flashing 12:00, 12:00, 12:00, right away I knew what had happened--time had frozen for everyone but me.

--Johnny Bravo

I was thinking the other day about the turn of the millenium and a piece done by some news agency (or all of them) about "greatest events of the millenium". Of the "greatest" events of 1000 years, better than half of them supposedly happened in the 20th century (they threw the sixteenth century the sop of the printing press and modern drama), and better than half of those happened from 1980-1999. Now, even at the tender age of 16, it did seem to me like this was an obvious failure of perception. The twentieth century might be a very interesting century indeed, but it's hard to believe that it had more important events in it than the last nine combined. And having a distressing habit of reading old books, it did seem to me that people in 1930 might have quarreled with the idea that nothing much really happened (besides a couple world wars) in the 20th century until around 1988 or so.

It's easy to make fun of Johnny and the news gang, but the reality is that we all make mistakes in our perception. It's easy enough to see them when other people make them, but not so easy when we ourselves are walking around, amazed at how time has frozen for everyone but us. Two mistakes that Christians make as a group have been before me lately.

The first one is what I'll call the We Must Protect the Republic mistake. Any of you who read this blog with any kind of regularity will know that I don't advocate that Christians stay out of public life, but politics is sort of like eating: good and lots of fun when you do it right, can take over your life if you do it wrong.

Christians in America have a tendency to think that it's our first duty to legislate right and wrong in the country. I won't repeat the old saw "you can't legislate morality" because, obviously, you can--we wouldn't have laws against murder if we didn't think you could--but we go about it backward. We get all upset about something like gay marriage or whether or not the courts are deeming it constitutional this week to have the Decalogue in public buildings. We mobilize support and write our congresspeople and make speeches on television.

What ends up happening is that we expend a great deal of energy that is, therefore, NOT spent on preaching the Gospel. (No, "Gay marriage is an oxymoron" is not the content of the Gospel.) This is surely a failure of our perception-- in 1000 years, it won't matter one whit whether or not Americans had some legal form by which homosexuals could leave their property to each other. It will matter, however, how many people became Christians. You see, those people will still exist, either in heaven or hell.

(Sometime I will write a post and deal with gay marriage in more detail; for now suffice it to look at the oxymoron point above.)

So, politics can be a fun hobby and even something we do for a living, but running the most successful political campagin there ever was is less important than raising up one godly child. If we dwell on eternal things, our perspective will reflect this.

The other failure of perception isn't unique to American Christians or even to modern Christians. I mean the easy way we forget that we have another, eternal life coming and that this life is just Freshman Orientation for that one, as it were.

We get all tangled up in how we're going to pay our mortgage, or whether we'll be able to send the kids to college, or if we're "fufilled as a person", or if we have a "normal" marriage, or if the country is going to the dogs, or fill-in-the-blank. Not that these things should be ignored, but if we have an accurate perception, we'll be able to put them where they belong: primarily, they are just opportunities to learn to obey and trust the Person we'll spend the very real rest of our eternal life with.

This is why the Lord told us to watch birds and lilies as a specific reminder that we're not to worry about material provision or the future.

Me, whenever I see a lily from now on, I'm going to think: "12:00, 12:00, 12:00."

Cheers,

Breanna

Well, That's One Way to Lose These Walking Blues

Miss Boo has been liking this video lately:



...though we quit when it degenerates into a drum solo at the end.

Today we got up with Daddy because, well, he's way cooler than letting Mama sleep a little longer.

Brother had sympathy for me and helpfully went back to sleep after only a complete change of clothes.

Stickers...

...a little light morning reading with our "maulsh" (a Boovian mix of German and English)...

...and we have to feed our new friend, Lizard Green, because he's soooo hungry. He has to sit at the high chair, because where else would anybody eat?

(He is plastic, by the way. I'm not that crazy yet.)

Cheers,

Breanna

Happy Birthday, Graps!

I found this just for you. :)

Cheers,

Breanna

For the Aunties

MY Aunties. I figured some of you (or all of you) might enjoy this:




Because really, who doesn't want to see Peter Frampton and the Bee Gees do Beatles covers in crazy costumes? And don't you feel bad that this lady singing "Strawberry Fields" never had her own album, when she's one of the better voices?

Cheers,

Breanna

We've Been Busy!

We've had company, but working company--Uncle Deve (his Boovian name; you can figure out who he really is if you reflect that S is a hard letter but D is an easy one) has been fixing various and sundry things around the house that have been needing fixing for months. The kiddos and I have been getting stuff done inside since we aren't needed to hold the gap outside. So...

Brother has been working on his extra chins...

Miss Boo has been figuring out how to smile cheesily at the camera when the red flash warning light goes on...

Brother is a bit distressed that his legs might be too thin for his future sumo career...

Miss Boo has been trying to shove Lambie into the camera case...

...and Brother is tired from all that extra eating he's been doing.

Poor Uncle Deve has been working his fingers to the bone, but I can't find it in my heart to pity him on account of I'm actually getting a real clothesline and a happy husband out of the deal. (Things like garden fences tend to weigh on him, whereas I'd be happy to use the cobbled-together version for approximately 900 years.)

Cheers,

Breanna

America is Good

So lately I picked up and read this book by Glenn Beck, who in spite of being a television personality sometimes makes a good bit of sense. It's an easy read, like the pamphlet by Tom Paine that inspired it, and in the back it contains a list of nine statements and twelve principles which Mr. Beck believes will help preserve the Union. I thought it would be an interesting vent for my politicktical (ten points for the Homestar reference, if you get it--have you been tallying your points?) writing to go through his statements and principles and examine them. So this is the first article in the series; lucky you!

(If my politicktical opinions bore you, please skip. I won't be hurt. I'll post some baby stuff for ya'll soon.)

The first statement is:

1. America is good.

By this I don't think Beck means that America never makes mistakes or even that our national sins are small, since most of his book is about how America has gone off-course. Rather I think that Beck means that what have classically been American ideals (personal freedom, participation in government, hard work, etc.) are good. I think Beck also means that frequently throughout its history America has been on the side of righteousness. I agree with him.

If this makes your hackles raise, remember that there is a difference between patriotism and jingoism. Jingoism might be summarized as "our country right or wrong", which is a dangerous and most wicked idolatry. Patriotism, on the contrary, is never so grieved as when "our country" is wrong. Just as there is a kind of "love" which has nothing to do with the good of its object, but only the satisfaction of the lover, so jingoism has nothing actually to do with the good of the country. Patriotism, and true love, will both take measures that make the beloved uncomfortable or even unhappy if those measures will ensure the ultimate good of the beloved.

The uneasiness which many Americans feel at claiming any pride in American accomplishments results from a charming but mistaken sense of unworthiness. National sins (and they exist) aside, many Americans have a mistaken idea that a badge of a really enlightened nation is to fit in with Europe (i.e., the Cool Kids).

Why this should be, when we are not part of Europe, is something of a mystery; America was, after all, settled by people who couldn't get along in Europe. It's also a separate continent, with its own distinct culture, idiom, and ideals. It makes only slightly more sense to say that America should be governed by European opinions than it does to say that say, Japan or Tibet should.

This is not to say that Americans should make themselves obnoxious or officious in Europe. European (and Asian and Australian, for that matter) countries should be free to run their own business in their own way. When America is really sinful--for example, in our abortion laws, or while slavery was legal here--then Americans have due cause to blush for her and indeed to urge the mercy of God with tears and fasting. But where Americans are simply behaving like Americans in another country, their countrymen shouldn't wince. "American" is not synonymous with "boor" or "uneducated". Neither should Americans be held accountable for their nation's foreign policy until it's been actually determined they agree with it; I wouldn't hold a Russian to whatever interesting ideas have emerged from Medvedev's mouth lately.

So those of you who are Americans reading this (presumably any others will have gotten bored a long time ago and are scrolling down to watch the "Africa" video again) can feel better about feeling good about your country. Remember, true love acts in uncomfortable ways sometimes for the good of the beloved. If you love your country, you must ask God's mercy for national sins and be sure you do not participate in them. Abortion seems defensible now; slavery seemed defensible at the time. Something to think about.

Cheers,

Breanna