Aaaaand A Repost

http://youngoldie.blogspot.com/2010/10/kids-in-church-plea-to-grownups.html

I have another rant about church attendance, but it's still simmering; in the meantime, enjoy the original rant.  And I promise I will try to take some pictures soon too.

Cheers,

Breanna

On Not Caring So Dang Much

As those of you who have been reading for a while might know, there is a movie clip for every situation.



This is clip for "Not Caring So Dang Much About Stuff That Is Transient".

I was tempted to use something stronger than "dang", so bear with me.  This is a bit of a rant; it's been brewing a while.

Here's the thing.  As Christians we know we're supposed to care, right?  We're supposed to be desperately interested in people and their eternal destiny--in preaching and living the Gospel.  And we're supposed to be consumed with God--loving and obeying and enjoying Him.

What we are specifically not supposed to care about is Stuff.   Want some examples of Stuff?

1. Money - whether we're making enough, too much, or more or less than someone else.  We're supposed to do with it what God tells us and refrain from peeking at other people's.

So stop caring so dang much about money, especially the ways other people spend theirs.  God provides, and It Just Doesn't Matter.

2. Things - this should be self evident but isn't, especially because I think we tend to limit "do not worry about tomorrow" to "do not fret about whether a hurricane will flatten your house, but go ahead and fret about whether or not the bulletins are folded correctly, there is enough chairs for Sunday School, and the sound system is working".  (Ask me why, as a preacher's kid, that example sprang to mind.)  Want a less specialized one?  "do not fret about whether you will die in a car wreck, but go ahead and worry about housework, what people think of your Facebook post, and the state of your front lawn". Stupid, right?

So stop caring so dang much about things, and whether they are done the right way.  God is sovereign, and It Just Doesn't Matter.

3. Political outcomes - oddly enough nowhere in the New Testament are Christians urged to revolt against the slavery-endorsing, warmongering, idolatrous, sexually wicked, abortion-performing, Christian-killing, tax-gathering Romans.  On the contrary, they're told to pay their taxes and be good citizens as long as possible without engaging in the sins around them, and if that means martyrdom, we're not shown that there's an option besides "you can try to run away".

So stop caring so dang much about who wins what elections and whether it makes you a better Christian to participate in a protest march (no).  God chooses who gets political power, and It Just Doesn't Matter.

4. Stressful situations - Here is another specialized example.  The Husband is by nature a very organized and efficient person, with a nearly hyperactive work ethic.  If he starts something, he will finish it, and it will be done well.  This is a good trait, one I admire about him, and one I wouldn't change.  But it makes it difficult for him when he works with people who are lazy, disorganized, and who will only work if they are afraid someone with the power to fire them is watching.  (We've all met those people.)  The Husband has realized he has a choice: either spend a lot of his time angry and frustrated with lazy people, or choose not to care so much about their poor work ethic - i.e., trusting again that God is sovereign, and refusing to pick up the slack for people.  God can discipline people if need be, you don't have to do it--nor do you have to do more work than He has given you.  It Just Doesn't Matter.

Why is it important to Stop Caring So Dang Much About Things?

Well, first of all it's very often a good way to obey the numerous "do not worry" admonitions in Scripture.  Worry and stress stem from not trusting God.  Of course it's natural to be anxious in anxiety-inducing situations.  It takes grace and prayer to put anxiety aside.  If you didn't have to choose to trust God, then there wouldn't be any of these admonitions in the Bible.

Secondly, it's helpful if we're trying to obey the admonitions to be kind, gentle, and patient.  (As Miss Boo would chant, in a shout: "BE! YE! KIND TO ONE ANOTHER! EPHESIANS 4:32!")  When we're worried and stressed, it's a fertile breeding ground for irritation, anger, bitterness, grudges and hatred.  Here's the thing.  If we know that allowing ourselves to be stressed (and by that I mean emotional stress as well as lack of sleep, poor eating habits, hormone fluctuations, and anything else that affects us that way) is liable to make us unkind, then we have the obligation to do whatever we can to reduce that stress--just like we have the obligation to flee from other situations that are likely to cause sin.

I understand there are some seasons of life that come with high stress, whether that's sickness, financial distress, many small children tugging at your clothes, or whatever.  But in each case there are things we can do--we can step away from commitments, we can choose to nourish ourselves in the Word of God, we can choose to dwell on uplifting, happy things, we can choose to get enough sleep, deal with physical issues, eat properly, and so on.  We're not responsible for removing all stress from our lives.  But whatever we do have control over, we are responsible for.

See, the commands to be kind, gentle, patient, and not worry are just as forceful as the Ten Commandments.  God really means these things, and He doesn't ask us to do things that are impossible.

Thirdly, it's at least as important to avoid poisoning our bodies with stress as it is to avoid poisoning them with toxic substances.  There are people who are so worried over whether or not they're consuming a carcinogen that they age their bodies in a daily bath of stress chemicals.  This is a matter of stewardship and also common sense.  Take care of your worry so you can do the job God has given you.

Fourthly, Not Caring So Dang Much About Things frees up your emotional energy to allow you to care about things that do matter.  If Satan can keep us focused on elections, our tiff with other believers, whether or not the pew is comfortable and the coffee is hot, whether we like the music, whether our houses are clean enough, whether our kids are quiet enough, whether our weight is the right number, what the abortion clinics are doing, whether our neighbors think we're weird, and on and on and on, we literally won't have any time to dwell on whatever is true, good, and beautiful.  The good stuff, the love for others and for God, will be crowded out of our hearts by all the weeds.

The saddest part?  The weeds are like static on a radio.  They're an illusion.  They'll be gone tomorrow.  They matter not one iota in eternity.  They Just Don't Matter.

Cheers,

Breanna

Springtime Pictuers

I figure I owe the grandparents a picture-heavy post.  Here you go, springtime in Texas!

The Littlest Sasquatch had to get his first pair of actual shoes with soles because his feet are too big for baby shoes.  He's still a little tipsy in them.

It could also be because he insists on going at full-tilt, trying to catch up to his brother and sister.

She has a "dress that floats up".  It's perfect for picking flowers (weeds) in.

Not to mention it makes for nice portraits.

I think so, anyway.

(I told her I was taking a picture of the flowers, but really they're only secondary.)

She put that bouquet together herself. I think it shows a nice sense of proportion.

So does she.

He, meanwhile, was doing Manly Work.

Like moving sticks and telling his brother not to touch them.

(Adding another few sprigs to the handful...)

(And a little twirl...)

He had to take his hat off to smile for me, but it was okay. He put it right back on.  (He says "At", like a little chimneysweep.)

Meanwhile, Little Sasquatch had made his way over to the far corner of the yard by the air conditioning unit, so as to get his shoes nice and gooey.

Because what's spring without a bit of goo?

More flowers.  Because Mama wasn't sneezing hard enough before.

I'm not sure what he was doing with the bucket, but he sure did have fun carrying it around.

Our yard isn't really A Meadow, it just feels like it.

Especially with A Princess to run around in it.

Still doing Manly Work.  (Which requires Really Big Tools.)

Sisters are always getting in the way of Manly Work with their Twirling.

He couldn't steal any of the Really Big Tools, so he just had to keep being happy with the little yellow bucket.

He could run really fast back to the goo, though.

And did, several times.  Playing outside is always an adventure at my house.

"LOOK Mama!  A Blowy flower!"

Silly girls.  Raking is where it's at.

Me? I was just standing around.

Sure I was.

Cheers,

Breanna

Wakeful Babies

So I'll give you three guesses what we've been doing since about 1AM (the Husband's shift) and still at 4AM (I took over).

Hint: it wasn't sleeping.

Or polo. We weren't playing polo either. But that was mostly because we didn't have horses.

I discovered recently that there is such a thing as "the fearful fours", which comes from the same lovers of alliteration as "the terrible twos" and "the terrific threes".

(She's blurry because she's FAST.)

Miss Boo is hitting all her four-year-old stuff in that article except the profanity, and that's probably because the only "bad" words she knows are "butt"and "toot"- she says those as much as she can and makes fart noises in defiance occasionally.  

(Yes. I've had to actually say "do not make fart noises at Mommy in defiance". Yes, she knows what defiance means.)

We're totally experiencing the fear of the dark and random, farfetched danger thing. 

(Her: "What if someone came to our house and STOLE ALL THE WALLS?!?"  Me: "Why would they do that?" Her:"Because they want all our walls!" Me: "Daddy would make them go away because they are not allowed to steal.  And Pat would bark at them and scare them." Her: "Oh.")

I note that scientists say kids "may become more moody" when they lack sleep.  It's that sort of thing (like the headline in my local paper:"Experts warn: do not drive through flooded areas") that make you want to kick science in the knees.

("Experts warn: do not lick the element in the toaster.")

The Littlest Sasquatch apparently just likes being in on the action.  He's almost always thrilled to be alive and awake, no matter the time. When he's not thrilled, he is NOT THRILLED, but I'd say that only occurs about 5% of the time. (Vs. Miss Boo at his age--she was NOT THRILLED about 80% of the time. Still that way when she wakes up in the night, oddly enough.)

Miss Boo's vocabulary might be keeping her up at night.  The other day she told me she was going to "color properly in the lines" and also, when she dropped her markers because I made a loud sound, "Mama! You made me drop my markers! I am very unhappy!  You are making me so unhappy right now!  I don't LIKE to be unhappy!"  And in a separate incident: "Mama! I am so disappointed I don't have crayons!"

No, we don't lecture her to color properly or tell her that we're unhappy or disappointed.  Nor, however, do I remember to simplify my own vocabulary much.  I caught myself the other day explaining that "smart"meant "intelligent", like that's going to help.  Sigh.  You reap what you sow, I guess.

Today is a day for napping, schoolwork (calms their brains), napping, maybe some outside play, napping, no more cupcakes, and napping.

Here's hoping.

Cheers,

Breanna

Boogity Boogity and My Thoughts on Revolution

Tom Breaker: Look, Bill, if this is about reliving the 60's, you can forget about it, buddy. The movement is dead. 

William Strannix: Yes, of course! Hence the name: movement. It moves a certain distance, then it stops, you see? A revolution gets its name by always coming back around in your face. You tried to kill me ... so welcome to the revolution.

--Under Siege

So I've been reading some books lately, and they brought this video to mind:

Some of the issues I'm about to address seem more apparent living in an area where people see nothing wrong with "Boogity Boogity Boogity Amen".

The books I read include Francis Chan's Crazy Love and Shane Claiborne's The Irresistible Revolution.  I'll analyze first what I thought was wrong with the books, then what I thought they got right, and in the end I'll explain why I got the Songify song stuck in your head for the day--okay?

The basic premise of both books is that the American Church is decadent and apathetic, and that a major indicator of that is that we allow so many needs of the poor to go unmet.  Likewise, we don't tell American Christians about the specific commands of Christ to care for the poor and love our enemies.  Thus we have a lot of people attending church who are probably not Christians.

So far, so good--it's the application that gets sticky.

Of the two, I liked Irresistible Revolution better--mostly because the writing was better and because Claiborne doesn't hesitate to state things that Chan dances around a bit.  (If you've read Chan, you'll wonder how on earth I think he was dancing around anything--but the people he picks in his "good examples" chapter point to his thinking on a number of these things.)  For instance: pacifism, redistribution of wealth, environmental stewardship, and racial reconciliation.  (Dad, you wouldn't like Claiborne's book.)

The Bad:

"The Suburbs"

They are both dismissive and even scornful of "the suburbs" (wherever that is) to a troubling degree.

I think I might live in a suburb, by their definition--in that I don't live in an urban environment, and my neighbors' houses pretty much look like mine, and from the logical way the streets are laid out it seems to be a planned community.  There are any number of black labs and golden retrievers, and kids seem to play on T-ball teams and such.  Another Pleasant Valley Sunday.

But I question whether living in a suburb means I'm not following God's call for my life.  For one thing I didn't pick out my house; for another people in suburbs are presumably just as lost as people on skid row.  They might even need it pointed out to them more vigorously--when you're pretty comfy in your ranch-style tract house it might be difficult to realize that you're a sinner who needs a Savior.

So while I think that there are people who are called to live in "the abandoned places of the empire", there have got to be people whose job is to offer support, raise children, and be the oddball Christians on the block in the suburbs.

"The Poor"

They both don't have much imagination for what loving the poor might mean in a non-urban environment.  Chan and Claibrone speak from a perspective of privilege -- although Claiborne at least recognizes that he does -- that enables, for instance, Chan to say things like "What if you pledged to live at the median US income of $46,000?" like that would be shocking and untenable.

I wouldn't have understood this bias until I moved to Texas, where it seems like poverty is concentrated in definite neighborhoods.  By contrast, in the small western towns I grew up in, poverty was more of an endemic thing.  If you got to know your neighbors, you were pretty likely to run across some poor people.  Claiborne found it necessary to move to downtown Philly to find some poor folks to minister to (not judging him for that--I really believe he was called).

So I think that the call to go find the poor and minister to them must make more sense in an urban setting, where poverty and privilege are removed from each other by distance.  It just seemed odd to me, both because 1) I spent a lot of time being "poor" and 2) a whole bunch of my friends and neighbors were "poor" too, so the necessity of relocation seems weird.

"Environmental Stewardship"

Chan doesn't mention this much, but Claiborne hits it a couple of times, mentioning community gardens, a "veggie bus" that runs on used vegetable oil from fast food restaurants, and "clean energy" (wind energy) as ways that their community in Philly are attempting to be good stewards of the earth.

At the risk of sounding like a hippie, I DO think we ought to think about being good stewards of the earth.  The Genesis mandate to garden the world really never was rescinded; we are not to pillage nature.  I don't think that green options necessarily lead to Gaia worship.  I have cloth diapers, reusable shopping bags, "mama cloth" (TMI!) and I buy veggies from a CSA.

The problem is that I'm not sure that all green options really are the best way to take care of the earth.

For instance, Claiborne's veggie bus may or may not burn cleaner than the equivalent diesel bus, and that vegetable oil has to come from somewhere, most likely an industrial soybean farm where the tractors and combines run on (you guessed it) diesel.  I don't know enough about it to do the math and discover whether the veggie bus is really a good stewardship option--but someone ought to, without assuming it's good because it doesn't burn petroleum.  And even if it is the better stewardship option for Claiborne--which it may be, I don't know--it may not be the better option for everyone, especially if they live where there are not a lot of fast food restaurants wanting to get rid of their used oil.

Wind power, another thing that's presented as a way for Christians to demonstrate their concern for stewardship, is a whole other debate.  My engineer husband points out that someone has to make the turbines and that the turbines are constantly breaking down--he wants to see calculations on wind's efficiency vs. coal or nuclear energy before he will say that wind is "green" compared to the other two options.


The Good:

Ready for the ways I thought they nailed it?  Okay, here we go.

"Pop Evangelicalism"

I'm not sure I'm crazy about the dismissive name, but it's nice to see someone else noticing the phenomenon that my siblings and I noticed when we used to talk about Christian rock bands and their "alter-secular-ego"--i.e., that selling "Christian" commodities is just as big a business as selling secular rock albums and that sometimes the products seemed indistinguishable from each other.

It probably is not good to create a "Christian" version of everything--from birthday cards to fiction to rock to t-shirts--and then insist that good Christians should buy it.  In particular this seems foolish when the "Christian" version is actually inferior to the secular version.  At best Christian commodities are often silly; at worst they can be a distraction and a snare--you begin to think that the measure of Christianity is not whether Jesus is your Boss (as Miss Boo puts it) but how much Christian Stuff you own.

I'm An American, So That Means I'm A Christian

When I married the Husband I met some of his interesting high school friends, including one dude that quite casually informed me that of course he was a Christian, he was an American and white, so...?

(He believed none of the doctrines of Christianity, he just thought it was something you joined, like the Democratic Party.)

This is where I respectfully disagree with Peter Marshall:  I don't think America is a "Christian nation", mostly because I don't think nations can be Christian.  Only people can be Christians.

{Were the Founding Fathers religious men?  Some of them.  (I wouldn't want Franklin or Jefferson or Adams teaching a Sunday School class, would you?)  Did Biblical principles of justice and freedom play into the founding of our country?  Yes.  But the argument that America is chosen in the same way that Israel was is shaky at best.  Sure America is big and rich, but so was Rome.  The parallels there are much more evident.  And the argument that Christians ought to somehow be big into politics because "America is a Christian nation" is even shakier.}

At any rate, I hope I don't have to demonstrate why the idea that you are a Christian because of where you were born or what color your skin is is stupid.  Do I?

Conversely, I shouldn't have to point out that patriotism is separate from Christianity, should I?

I don't think patriotism is a bad thing, nor do I think praying for the military is evil.  But we can fall into a way of talking that is just as stupid as "Boogity Boogity Boogity Amen" - where we assume that our minor allegiances (like to our country, sport, or political party) are as important as our Great Allegiance (to Christ).

(No, I don't think that means all Americans are arrogant asses that should apologize for existing and having stuff.  The attitude that Americans are automatically wrong and oppressive is another Boogity Boogity--just as dumb as assuming that all Americans are automatically right.)


*Edit: I wrote this earlier today with three children hanging off me simultaneously.  I realized I never actually said that both Chan and Claiborne make the point that conflating Christianity with American citizenship is wrong, and that I agree with them on that--I just ranted for a few paragraphs.  Sorry about that.*


Loving Christ Will Make Us Weird


It's supposed to.  Both Claiborne and Chan point out that God will probably ask you to do some stuff that you otherwise would not have done, and that some of it might be very weird.  Both Chan and Claiborne cry out against a homogeneous Church, but I guess I haven't seen it.  All the churches I've been in--except the one I attend right now, ironically--have been little and full of weirdos and poor people.  Welcome to the revolution.

This is an eerily similar predicament to the one I found myself in reading Radical Homemakers, where I discovered that I am apparently a radical.  Now I'm a revolutionary.  And I don't even have a Che t-shirt.

There you have it, folks!  Go read the books for yourselves, why don't you?  Even if you disagree with huge sweeping portions of them, at least they will make you think about what it DOES mean to love Christ.

Oh, and if you're related to me, just email and you can borrow them from me.

Cheers,

Breanna

Random Cute Babyness

1. Buddy demanded "mancakes" for breakfast yesterday.  Because, I suppose, they are more manly than waffles.  He let me eat some anyway.

2. Miss Boo can apparently tell time.  With an analog clock.  I don't remember teaching her.  She told me, when I asked how she knew how to do that, "I LEARNED," with elaborate patience.  Mama is sometimes not too quick about these things.

3. The Littlest Sasquatch still has musical opinions.  He likes to sit by me on the floor when I play the piano and bop.  He's in favor of those swingy 1920s hymns in 3/4 time, Eric Clapton, and Milli Vanilli.  I'm pretty sure that if he's going to be a prodigy he should have more refined taste, but alas, he was born to this mama, and I'm not going to play all Mozart all the time.

I'll have some pictures for you soon, of our plane odyssey to the wilds of Nevada.  In the meantime, enjoy your mancakes.

Cheers,

Breanna

Happy Birthday, Little Sasquatch

Have I explained why we call him the Littlest Sasquatch?

It's because he has giant feet, only a half inch smaller than his big brother's.  I predict a height explosion like that of his uncles.

Yes, I am aware the pictures are a full week late.  We've had busy doings round these parts.

You can't really see his cake five o' clock shadow, but it was there.

Luckily we just had cupcakes--Mama's no dummy--and a high tolerance for fingerpainting with them.

Birthday dinner/lunch?  Dinosaur chicken nuggets.  The Littlest Sasquatch's siblings chose for him, since he hasn't totally mastered English yet.

And Fritos.  Chicken nuggets and Fritos.  We are a very healthy household.

At least we're happy.

Oh, and by the way, I cut my hair.  Myself.  I think it turned out okay.

I also gave in and bought industrial floor mats for my entryways, being sick of sweeping up pounds of debris every day that were in no way caught by the teensy mats I used to have.

This is what you need, when you have dead grass, a dog, and three littles who like to come tromping in and out.   They've already saved on sweeping and the kids and dog, for some reason, absolutely love sitting on them.

Here is Buddy doing some "school" - i.e., color and letter recognition.  (That's not plague on his cheek, just a spider bite.  It's almost gone now.)

Here's Miss Boo, trying to show you the picture of a fish with the light behind the paper.

Nothing more exciting has happened *yet*, but in the next couple of weeks things might start happening.  I will keep you all posted.

Cheers,

Breanna