Ten Things I Want My Kids to Know about Facebook

1. Facebook is only a tool. By itself it is neither evil nor good. What you do with it is evil or good.
2. Think of Facebook as a room full of people—some of them you don't know at all, some you know a little bit, and some you are very close to, like family and friends. Only say things on Facebook that you would say in that room full of people. For instance, if you walked into that room and started telling everyone how mad you were at someone, you'd get some strange looks at the least. You'd probably get some stares if you shared intimate details about your health or your feelings for someone else in the room as well.
3. When you post something on Facebook, whether words or images, ask yourself if what you're putting there will bring shame to Christ, to whom you belong.
4. Friends come very cheaply on Facebook. It takes little effort to post a word of sympathy in a time of difficulty or a word of congratulations in good times. Real friends will sit and cry with you when you are sad, and they will hug you and smile when they are happy for you. There are no hugs and tears on Facebook.
5. You can't be a real friend to someone on Facebook. Don't ever think that when you've written a note of sadness or encouragement on someone's wall that you've done your part and been a true friend.
6. Is what you're looking at on Facebook causing you to sin? Are you envious? Lusting? Angry? Better to pluck out your Facebook account than to sin.
7. Are you wasting time to visit Facebook? Are you visiting on an employer's time? Are you spending time on Facebook rather than doing something else you should be doing—like homework, spending time with a friend or family member, reading your Bible and praying?
8. Remember that by what you post you can be a stumbling block to others, causing them to sin.
9. Many people use Facebook much like a manufacturer of a product uses advertising--to create an identity for a product, and in this case, for themselves. You know about that person only what he or she wants you to know. So these people use Facebook to show you that they are popular, sexy, successful, or have a perfect family life. They create a false identity and find value in the affirmations of others. Don't use Facebook for that. Remember that your identity and value are in Christ, not in what you say about yourself or what others say about you. Don't seek affirmation on Facebook because the responses you get will be shallow and leave you craving more.
10. It might not be possible for people to identify you as a Christian by everything you post on Facebook—and that's okay—but don't post something that would cast doubt on the fact that you are a Christian.

Underlining

I'm an underliner. There are people out there (my husband among them) who wouldn't dream of putting a mark in a book. But I learned way back in my college English major days that underlining—with its accompanying notes in the margin in pencil—was much more effective than trying to take notes. It's a record of what made that book good, of what I was thinking of when I was reading it, of what I learned. One of my favorites is an old, beat-up copy of Huckleberry Finn that I bought as a college freshman. I loaned it to friend after I used it, so it has her notes alongside of mine. It's one of my greatest book treasures.

Here are some of the passages I've underlined from books I pulled off the shelf:

From Till We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis:

"The gods have been accused by you. Now's their turn."
"I cannot hope for mercy."
"Infinite hopes—and fears—may both be yours. Be sure that, whatever else you get, you will not get justice."
"Are the gods not just?"
"Oh no, child. What would become of us if they were?"

From Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, as Huck reflects on the tarring and feathering of the duke and the king:

"Well, it made me sick to see it; and I was sorry for them poor pitiful rascals, it seemed like I couldn't ever feel any hardness against them any more in the world. It was a dreadful thing to see. Human beings can be awful cruel to one another."

From Calvin's Institutes:

"Those for whom prophetic doctrine is tasteless ought to be thought of as lacking taste buds."

From Too Good to Be True by Michael Horton:

"The good news is never that one has died, but that death has been ultimately conquered by the Lord of life. At the graveside, neither optimism nor pessimism; sentimentalism or stoicism, tell us what is happening here. Only Jesus' cross and resurrection define the event for us."

Why did I underline these passages? What made them stand out? I underline passages that are full of meaning—that help me see old truths in a new way. I also underline passages that are integral to the message of the book. I also like to underline beautifully written passages. I underline things that I want to remember. I remember being shocked as I read Lewis and realized that God, in fact, does not serve us justice because we would be destroyed. And Twain, via Huck, reminds us of the depravity of man. Calvin's turn of phrase is both clever and truthful. And Horton expounds a profound and comforting truth for anyone who has ever faced death.

So when I learned that the folks at Amazon are keeping an online list of the most highlighted passages in Kindle books, I had to take a peek. If you make the assumption that book readers are thinking people, people who like to learn and who enjoy interacting with ideas, you can form some impressions about our current culture by seeing which books are most read and which ideas in those books are noteworthy to readers.
Which books are people reading? Some that come up often are Outliers (Malcolm Gladwell); The Last Lecture (Randy Pausch); The Shack (William Young); Cutting for Stone (Abraham Verghese); Eat, Pray, Love (Elizabeth Gilbert).

What are the profound thoughts that people are highlighting in these books, the thoughts that have gripped them as they read? Here's a sampling, and I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions about the quality of the thought life of both today's writers and readers:

"Practice isn't the thing you do once you're good. It's the thing you do that makes you good."—Malcolm Gladwell

"Life, too, is like that. You live it forward, but understand it backward."—Abraham Verghese

 "'Pain has a way of clipping our wings and keeping us from being able to fly.' She waited a moment, allowing her words to settle. 'And if left unresolved for very long, you can almost forget that you were ever created to fly in the first place.'" –William Young

"If you work hard enough and assert yourself, and use your mind and imagination, you can shape the world to your desires." –Malcolm Gladwell

"You were given life; it is your duty (and also your entitlement as a human being) to find something beautiful within life, no matter how slight."—Elizabeth Gilbert



So what do you underline? 

Prompt Generator

I was checking out a list of great resources for writers, and I found a couple of links to Web sites with writing prompts. Both of the sites that are included in the list are aimed toward student writing assignments, and I especially like this one, which generates somewhat random suggestions for things to write about until you find one that you like. (Homeschooling parents--this is your curriculum resource tip of the week, by the way.) So since I really don't have anything particular that I feel I need to write about at the moment, I used the prompt generator and came up with this: "If I were the president of the USA, this is what I would do." Here's my response.

If I were the president of the United States, I would recognize, after a year and a half in office, that I was incredibly under-qualified  and inexperienced and was doing a miserable job. I would pay attention to the numerous polls being conducted that show my approval ratings below fifty percent and recognize that my employers--the American people--were dissatisfied with my job performance. I would want to do better and I would start working to improve.

I'd remind myself of all the promises I made during my campaign and acknowledge that many were uninformed and many impossible to fulfill and that I'd simply made them to get votes with no intention of following through. I'd apologize to the American people, and especially my supporters, for being so reckless in making promises that I either never intended to keep or suspected would be impossible to keep.

I'd set aside my own self-serving agenda and put America's best interests first. I'd study history to see which president's policies had worked in the past to strengthen the economy and to make America militarily strong. I'd start with Ronald Reagan.

I'd quit appointing friends, novices, and flatterers to advisory posts and start appointing experts, people with proven success in the fields they were appointed to. I might not always like what they had to say, but I'd respect their judgment and seriously consider implementing their proposals because I'd realize that, after all, they are the experts, not me.

I'd put to rest for once and for all the issue of my citizenship. I'd produce a birth certificate that proves I'm an American citizen. Or, alternatively, I'd admit that I wasn't actually an American citizen and resign from the presidency.

I'd stop smoking to set an example for America's youth.

I'd find someone to coach me so that I could conduct myself in the office of president with more dignity, respecting protocol and tradition where necessary. I'd learn better public speaking skills and get rid of the teleprompter. I'd start using proper grammar when I spoke publicly.

I'd stop wasting energy blaming others for America's problems and own the responsibility and trust that was placed in me by the voters.

I'd stop coddling dictators and tyrants and start dealing reasonably with America's longstanding allies.

You know what? All of this would be a pride-sucking, humiliating exercise in admitting that I am wrong and that the voters who elected me made a horrific mistake that we're all going to have to live with for four years at least. So I think that if I were the president of the United States, I would just resign.

Education and the Gospel

An Internet rabbit trail last week led me to a website that I wish I hadn't found: Cedarville Out. Cedarville University, a Christian college near Dayton, Ohio, is my alma mater, and Cedarville Out, the website explains, is a group of "gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered (GLBT) alumni of Cedarville University. We are straight alumni who support our GLBT friends. And we are bound together in our belief that everyone's sexuality is a precious gift from God." The group is not in any way supported by the university.


Included on the website are pictures of the alumni members of the group along with their stories and statements, recounting their experience of finally embracing their homosexuality, many of them believing now that there is no conflict between being a Christian and being a homosexual.


I recognize many of the faces on that site. In fact, one of the women influenced my academic choices, and I'm grateful that I knew her. She was a unit mate my freshman year, and I listened carefully as she advised me to take classes from the best professors--the ones who taught me to think biblically, the ones who themselves were Calvinists. One time she invited me, with a group of her friends, to go to a church where Dr. Grier was preaching.  In a Baptist college where Calvinism was not well respected by most, Dr. Grier, along with several others, helped shape my thinking about theology, and their influence pointed me in the direction of Reformed theology and the faith that informs all that I think, do, and believe.


I'm sad for the people on the Cedarville Out site--both the ones who have come out and those who support them. Although there are many denominations, institutions (Calvin College comes to mind), and individuals who want to debate the matter, homosexuality is a sin. Like worshiping idols, taking God's name in vain, lying, murder, adultery, and coveting, homosexuality is a sin. It's not necessary to be a New Testament scholar to read Romans 1 and understand that the apostle Paul, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is declaring homosexuality to be a sin. It's not a question of whether the Bible says it's a sin; it's a question of whether a person believes that the Scriptures are the Word of God--that they are authoritative and undeniably true when they tell us that homosexuality is a sin.


As I read some of the stories, I found it interesting that one alumna credited professors like Dr. Grier and Dr. Ron and Mrs. Jody Grosh with teaching her how to think for herself, to think "outside of the box," enabling her to realize that God is a God of diversity, of gay and straight people alike, and that He blesses gay people with loving partners.


And I credit those same professors, and one other, Dr. Jim McGoldrick, with teaching me how to think Christianly. They taught me to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. In fact, I remember an exercise that Jody Grosh used in my freshman comp class to demonstrate to us students that truth is not a relative thing--that God is the definer of truth. Scripture alone is the source of truth and morality, and to twist God's Word to suit our own purposes, to justify our own sinfulness, is to believe a lie. I would say that these same teachers helped me develop the thinking skills that help me understand that homosexuality, most certainly, is a sin.


What was re-enforced for me through this experience is something that I already knew: education cannot save us. In our Reformed circles, we value education and learning--and we should. God would have us develop our intellectual abilities as well as we can to bring glory to Him. We Reformed parents take vows at our children's baptisms that we will train our children up in a way that is consistent with the Word of God and our confessions.  Some of us place our children in private Christian schools and some of us home-school and a few of us take advantage of public schools, but all of us are motivated by the desire to see our children grow in the faith that they have been baptized in, to have dominion over the world God has created. We know that it's critical to a life of faith that we learn and develop our minds. 


But lest we become too confident in education and start to believe that the right type of education will guarantee our children's faithfulness, we must remember the true source of our salvation. The most faithful Christian education, the instruction of the most godly teachers, which I believe I received from certain professors at Cedarville, cannot create in us faithfulness and obedience and submission to God's Word. If what we get from our education is the ability to justify our sins rather than repent of them, we have missed the message of the gospel, which is the only thing that can truly save.   

Toys

If you have a pulse, you're probably aware of the variety of toys out there: iPhones, iPods (and the iPod Touch), and now the ridiculously named iPad. (I like Henry's name for all of these--iPoofs.) And those are just the toys that Apple brings to us. My son still is often attached to his Nintendo DS, and when Katie's boyfriend is waiting for her to get ready (often the case), rather than making awkward conversation with the parents or just sitting around uncomfortably not knowing what to do, he pulls out his phone and starts playing games.

So whatever did we do back in the day--before joy was only a start button away? However did parents who had to wait with small children keep them quiet in those pre-pocket computer days?

Someday a children's history book in its section on culture and society will attempt to describe the toys children of the twentieth century played with, those poor, backward souls who knew nothing of pocket-sized electronics, those who thought that color television was an amazing development in entertainment technology and couldn't think of anything that could be better. Here's what it will say:

Children in the mid-twentieth century knew nothing of handheld electronic devices. In fact, none of them even had personal computers in their homes yet--they hadn't been invented! Most of the toys they played with back then cost less than ten dollars, but they didn't come with any apps. It was a challenge for them to find fun things to do because they had to do more than turn on a start button, and yet they managed, like children of any time, to play games and have fun.

Girls especially enjoyed playing a game called jacks, in which they tossed small metal objects on the ground and attempted to pick them up while bouncing a small rubber ball. Sometimes a group of them would get together and stretch out a long rope, and with one girl standing on each end, they would swing it while another player would stand in the middle and jump. Sometimes they would sing a song or recite a fun chant while they were jumping.

Children would play games like you do now, but they actually had boards that they would put on a table or floor. There would be cards they would hold in their hands and plastic pieces that they would move around the board, depending on the game they were playing. Games often involved small cube-shaped things called die that players would throw to find out how many spaces they could move on the board. Another game involved gathering a number of sticks together and then letting them randomly fall. Players would take turns attempting to pick one up at a time without touching any of the others.

There were small pocket toys that they could carry with them, but they weren't electronic at all. They had a cardboard back and a plastic cover on top. Inside were small holes and  small silver beads. Children would move the game around, trying to make the beads stay put in the holes.

And children of this era did have television. But they had only a few channels--two or three at the most. And cartoons were on only on Saturday mornings and for a short time after school.

Sometimes children during this era were expected just to sit quietly, with absolutely no entertainment at all. These were stringent times for children.

Despite these entertainment challenges, children of the mid-twentieth century managed to grow up and become productive members of society. In fact, some of them learned that life couldn't be constant, 24/7 entertainment. Sometimes they did chores, went to school, did homework, and, yes, sometimes they did sit quietly.

How great the technological advances since then! No children today ever have to be without amusement or entertainment--even for a few seconds--like the poor children of the mid-twentieth century.








 

Needing the Resurrection

One of the blogs I read this week asked its contributors to write, in a hundred words or less, why they need the resurrection. It sounded like a great writing/thinking exercise, so here’s my attempt:


Like Eve, I want the things I cannot have. And like Sarah, I sometimes doubt the promises of God’s Word. I often speak without thinking and say offensive things, like Peter. I grow impatient with others like Martha. And like Mary, I’ve stood by the side of loved ones as they’ve died. I’m one of the “none righteous” that Paul writes about. So I need to be made alive like Christ, raised up with him, so that I can bear the image of the man of heaven, so that I can have the victory—with him. I need the resurrection.

A blessed Resurrection Sunday to all! May you know your own need for Christ's resurrection--and know that that need has been overwhelmingly and powerfully met.

Nowhere

About a month ago, our church's youth group came over to hang out in our basement for games and fun. Our basement is a large area with lots of room, and we had set up tables for games and snacks. Jonathan had borrowed his grandparents' Wii for the evening, and we have a separate room with a ping-pong table. There were about twenty people (including the leaders), and there was no shortage of activities. So I found it a curious thing that every time I looked at one of the girls, she was pulling out her cell phone--obviously texting someone who wasn't there.

I couldn't help but feel a little bit bad for this girl. With everything that we had to offer here that evening, it wasn't enough. Not satisfied to be here in this moment, enjoying the friends and activities that were here, she kept looking for something or someone else outside, something more.

She's not unlike many other teens and even adults out there who try to escape the here and now. Not satisfied just to be in their cars driving someplace, many drivers must talk on their phone at the same time. Not content just to be shopping, shoppers must be conversing with others on their phones at the same time that they're checking out the clothing racks. The need for constant entertainment has become the school's nightmare, as students leave the now of their classrooms to text their friends--who may be sitting somewhere else in the same classroom.

Henry and I were at a local Indian restaurant Friday night, and we noticed two large flat-screen TVs on the wall. They seemed out of place with the Indian decor. Henry observed, "It used to be that eating out was the entertainment. Now there needs to be entertainment at the place of entertainment."

And that led to his other insightful observation of the weekend, which brings me back to the girl who was here with the youth group and the demand for more and more entertainment. For this young lady, to be here and to enjoy the companionship of her friends and the activities we offered was not enough. Through her texting, she was attempting to be someplace else, with someone else. She wasn't really here, and she wasn't really with her friend. Really, she was nowhere, with no one. She wasn't with the kids here, and she wasn't with her friend.

While I appreciate some of the conveniences that modern technologies have brought to our lives (I'm typing this on my laptop in my comfy chair), it is a little disconcerting to see where some of this is leading us. Clearly many are controlled by the technology rather than controlling it. They are its slaves. And it's never satisfying to be a slave. Slaves desire the freedom to be where they want to be, to be with the people of their choice. And slaves to technology demonstrate this restlessness, this dissatisfaction. The irony is, their attempts to break free of the here and now lead them nowhere, to no one.

Hopefully as this Facebooking, iTouching generation matures, it will break free of the slavery of technology and put it in its proper place. Technology is a good and useful thing, a blessing of God that can make our lives easier and more efficient. As our taskmaster, though, it robs us of our ability to find contentment in the here and now. 

Earthly Things

Henry and I were invited to a New Year's Eve gathering at the home of some new friends this year, and it was an event that included children and adults. I was sitting with the womenfolk, a couple of whom who tending to their young children while we chatted. P., the little boy whose home we were visiting, had pulled out his prized toys, some kind of little animal figures. He was sharing nicely with one of the other little boys, J., when J. decided he wanted to play with P.'s very favorite. Of course a tug of war commenced, and finally, in exasperation, P.'s mom said, "P., it's only an earthly thing."  

I would have loved it if P. had responded, "You're right, Mom. Thanks for reminding me that this little horse thing will soon be corrupted by moths and rust. I'm going to build up treasures in heaven, where thieves don't break in and steal." And even though that wasn't P.'s response and he didn't seem to be overly inspired by his reminder that his toy was only an earthly thing, I found myself wishing that I had thought of that admonition when my own children were small and were tussling over some "earthly thing." I admire a parent who will get right to the heart of the problem, and maybe P. doesn't understand right now the unimportance of earthly things, but someday his mother's reminder will resonate in his memory, and he'll be saved from some financially bad decision or he'll recover more quickly from some material loss . . . which brings me to my own grappling with the concept that something is only an "earthly thing."

The earthly thing that I'm struggling to give up is a little more substantive than a small plastic pony, but the grip it has had on me is every bit as tight as the grip the little pink pony had on P. My struggle began last November. After a little over a year of marriage, we had finally gotten my pre-marriage house cleaned out and fixed up to the point where it was ready to go on the market. It had been a real albatross around Henry's neck, especially since he had been paying the mortgage, utility bills, and insurance for a place that we weren't using--and he had even physically worked hard on several occasions to remove some of the remaining debris from the premises so we could sell it. He was ready to let this earthly thing go.

And so was I. I had a picture in my mind of the new owners--a nice young couple who were going to cash in on the tax credit being offered to first-time homeowners. They'd have the time and energy to fix things up a bit in a way I'd never been able to. Maybe they'd even put a garden in the back yard. And probably they'd turn Jonathan's bedroom into a nursery when that first little one came along.

So we put the house on the market about midweek, and amazingly, before the weekend was over--in this horrible economic mess that is Michigan--five couples went through. By Monday, we had an offer. But it was an appallingly low offer. And I was still reeling from having to set the selling price at over ten thousand dollars less than what I originally paid for the house back in 1998. Henry just wanted to be rid of this earthly thing, but I stood my ground and said I was basically insulted by the offer, and I just knew someone else would come along. It was, after all, a cute house--and there was that tax credit for first-time home buyers.

We countered halfway. At some point, it occurred to me that the people who had made the offer had only gone through the house once. I thought that was a little odd, but who knew what was going on. Maybe it was such a great little house that they were afraid of missing out. They accepted the offer, had already been approved for a mortgage, and were ready to close within a couple of weeks. And they wanted only the furnace inspected. Strange--but maybe that's all they could afford. So far so good.

Somewhere along the line, on some paperwork, we had read the names of the buyers. The names were very Eastern European sounding, and while that wasn't quite the vision of the buyers I had, I had a great new backstory. These people were probably immigrants from Bosnia. They had struggled mightily--back in Bosnia and here in America. But their years of hard work had finally paid off, and now they were going to be able to move out of the overcrowded apartment they were living in and purchase their own home. The American dream. I could hear Neil Diamond singing, "They're coming to America" as I saw the new owners moving in.

So we showed up at the closing, and I was still less than thrilled with the price we had accepted. When we got there, we found out that the buyers would be closing at another title company. We wouldn't get to meet them and see how nice they were and hear about their plans to finish off the basement. I was less than thrilled, and our realtor's rep picked up on that. She said, "Are you missing your house?"

I truly was not. The house Henry and I now have is spacious, beautiful, in a wonderful neighborhood with a park and sidewalks--more than I ever hoped of having. I hadn't missed that little single-parent-with-two-kids-home for a minute. I responded, "I'm just disappointed about the price we're getting. And I had hoped we'd at least get to meet the buyers."

"Oh, they're nice people," she said. "And they already have renters lined up to move in right away."

Renters? In my cute little house? The house I had stepped out on my own to buy--a single mom with two kids? The house we had just dropped a lot of money on, having it painted and putting new flooring in the bathrooms? The house that I had paids to have professionally landscaped after we moved in in 1998?

And so I try to remind myself to be grateful. So many people who are trying to sell their homes have to wait for many months--even years--before they finally get buyers. We didn't even have to wait a week.

And yet the horror stories from those I know who have owned rental properties continue to haunt me: walls with holes in them, stained carpets, strange smells, rusted appliances on the front porch, overgrown yards that haven't seen a mower in . . . too long. And then the poor neighbors--the value of their properties probably has been drug down because my house is owned by a slum lord. They're probably putting up with loud parties and empty beer cans and cigarette wrappers that somehow make their way over to their yards.

Andwhenever I think about this, I get kind of crazy and mad. A nice young schoolteacher bought Henry's house. And you know it's cuter now than it ever has been. And renters live in mine.

And then I think about P.'s mom, and I tell myself, "It's only an earthly thing."

But it was a huge step for me. And a courageous one. I was a single mom, and I bought that house all by myself.

It's only an earthly thing.

We have some great memories in that house--birthdays, Christmases, fun in the backyard . . .

It's only an earthly thing.

It looked so nice when we finally had it ready to sell. Clean, lightcolored walls, new flooring in the bathrooms, a new light fixture in the dining room.

It's only an earthly thing.

I'm working on it . . .

Jane Gets It

I'm getting off to a bit of a slow start this year with my reading list. It's the end of January, and I just finished my first book last week for my book group: Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen. It was an interesting read from the perspective that it was Austin's first novel, and reading it was a study in the growth of a great writer. While it wasn't a well-crafted book, the seeds of Austen's greatness were there, and it was intriguing to see how far she'd come in creating fascinating characters by the time she got to Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and Sense and Sensibility.

Perhaps because the characters and the plot weren't that compelling, though, I paid closer attention to the manners and behaviors of the characters in the book, and it made me wish that our own approach to male/female relationships, courtship/dating, and marriage resembled that era's approach more closely.

Several observations that are neither profound or new from Austen's era:

• Men didn't consider marriage as an option until they were settled in a career and were confident that they could provide financially for a wife and family. In this novel, the male love interest was in his late twenties and was a minister and Catherine, the female interest, was seventeen.
• If a respectable young man approached a respectable young woman and asked her to dance or otherwise spend time socially with him, that young woman could reasonably assume that he had an interest in marrying her. Not a done deal, mind you. But that was clearly a possibility. Otherwise he wouldn't have approached her. It was all taken very seriously.
• Young men and women who were getting to know one another typically didn't go off by themselves. There was usually a chaperone--a sister, brother, friend--who accompanied them.
• There was a concern for behaving properly and a healthy consideration of what others might think.

Probably one of the things I've taken away from my adult dating experiences is that we really haven't thought carefully enough or taken seriously enough the nature of relationships between single men and women. We've created a system that works well for some, but disastrously for most. From the time we're junior highers, we "hook up" with a member of the opposite sex who interests us, and when that person stops interesting us, we move on. And so by the time we finally do marry someone, we've been involved in varying degrees of both emotional and physical intimacy with several people. We gamble with our sexual purity, and some of us win, but many of us lose.  And now we carry as baggage the hurts of all of our broken relationships--right into our marriage.

On several occasions in my singleness I talked with my former pastor about the strangeness of the dating scene, and one of his observations was that Scripture doesn't depict men and women in an intermediate, try-each-other-out-for-size phase of a relationship. He observed that Scripture speaks about brothers and sisters in Christ and husbands and wives (and familial relationships, of course), but it doesn't ever protray an in-between category where we enjoy many of the benefits of marriage (and I'm not just talking about sex--but companionship, emotional intimacy, and some levels of physical intimacy) without being married or without any intention of being married.

I've tried to discourage my children from getting involved in dating relationships until they're in a position in life where they're ready to get married, but the frustrating thing is that no one, even in the church, seems to think that way. We teach our young people--sometimes by what we do say and sometimes by our silence--that pairing off with a member of the opposite sex is just a reasonable, normal, and, in fact, fine thing to do as we grow up--kind of like getting a driver's license. And so, despite Henry's and my best advice, our daughter has a boyfriend, and, as freshmen in college, they're several years away from even beginning to think about marriage. But to suggest another way is to be countercultural, old-fashioned, and unrealistic.

But what if we taught our young people the Austen/eighteenth-century approach? What if we taught our sons that they really shouldn't think about a relationship with a young woman until they were prepared to get married--agewise, careerwise, and emotionally? What if we taught them that a girl who isn't their family member is a sister in Christ, and she should be treated with respect and dignity? What if we taught our children what we adults all know is true--that it's nigh unto impossible to maintain sexual purity in a male/female relationship where we've invested our emotions, our time, our bodies to some extent? And for that reason, we should wait to make that kind of investment until we're prepared to get married? What if we encouraged them to be friends with one another until they had achieved a maturity level where they were ready for marriage? What if we taught them that the relationship they should be building during their teen and early adult years is their relationship with Christ--which would help them one day to have a healthier marriage relationship?

And now you may be thinking that all of that is unrealistic, old-fashioned, impractical and would never work. And yet I've had dating relationships the modern way, and I've had one--the best ever--the Jane Austen way. Modern dating led to frustration, disappointment, and hurts. The Austen way led me to the most romantic courtship and marriage I could have ever imagined.

Dear Kristi . . .

My sister Kristi went to heaven twenty years ago today. She would have turned forty this past December 6. If I could talk to her, this is what I might begin to say to her.

Dear Kristi,

Wow! Twenty years ago today you went to heaven to be with Jesus. Sometimes it seems like time has flown past in a blur, but other times--when I think about all that has happened in twenty years, the others who have left us, the new people that have come into my life, the fact that I've very nearly raised two children to adulthod--it seems like I feel every second of that twenty years.

You know, of course, about Jon. I'm sure you're with him often--maybe even now. He probably told you about Katie and Jonathan. I'm so sorry that he didn't get to know them very long. I'm so sorry you didn't get to know them at all. Did he tell you what they were like when he had to leave them? Katie in so many ways reminds me of you--good and bad. She really doesn't look anything like you--except for her height--and Jon probably told you about her gorgeous red hair. We've often wondered if you asked God to send us a little redhead. And you know she's named after you--Kathleen Kristi Lynn. What else could I have named her?

She's stubborn like you, likes to talk, loves music, and definitely has her own sense of style--like you. She keeps her room a mess. She takes joy in little children--like you did. Mom says Katie was her "rainbow," her promise that there was still good in this life. It's a little crazy, but she does something else weird that you did--she doesn't wear socks in the winter. Everytime I see her all bundled up--coat, hat, and gloves--I look down at her feet, and she's not wearing any socks because "they don't look good with flats." And I immediately think of you. Even after twenty years, you're not far from the edges of my mind.

And Jonathan! You would have loved seeing him as a little boy. I look at pictures of  him from the past, and he was, without a doubt, the most beautiful little boy I've ever seen. It's hard to tell, at this point (he's sixteen), just who he is and what he will become, but he's smart--like Jon. He loves history and politics. He and Dad are best buddies--and always have been. They watch car races together, go to Taco Bell together (can you believe Dad eats at Taco Bell?), and Jonathan tells him the things he doesn't tell anyone else. It's been hard for him, all these years, having to live with two women, but he's starting to grow up, and I'm eager to see how God will use him and his abilities.

The years after Jon went to heaven were pretty hard. Here I was--early thirties, two little kids, and stuck in Michigan--away from my family. Mom and Dad were still reeling from losing you, and then Jon. They are my heroes, though. They moved up to Michigan, and they helped me raise the kids. We have quality parents. I taught school for awhile, had a brief stint working in a bookstore, went a couple of rounds with depression, dated (ugh!--a topic I'll save till I see you), and finally ended up with a job I love. All those years I couldn't help but wonder why God would take both you and Jon. So many times I've wished I could have my sister to pour my heart out to; to go shopping with; to make me laugh like you always did; to go on weekend getaways; to love on my poor, fatherless kids. I needed you after Jon died, so I guess it's something I'll never understand. One of the times I miss you the most is when I see sisters together--like Mom and Aunt Lou or Aunt Carol. I have some dear friends that I thank God for, but none of them could ever be you to me.

The good news: God is faithful, and He's carried me through all of this stuff. I am a different (and better)person for having suffered loss. Although He's taken away, He's also given--in abundance. I have Mom and Dad and Katie and Jonathan, Tim and Zella and Elizabeth and Garrett. (I'll let Tim tell you about them--but I love to see the cousins together, and you would too.) And I've been surprised by joy, to borrow a phrase. Almost two years ago, God gave me Henry, a better man than I could have asked for or imagined. When we got engaged, Katie said, "Mom, you're like a Disney princess," and that's how I've felt because that's how he always treats me. It's strange that someone so dear to me knows nothing of you, but he knows loss like I do. His younger brother died back in the nineties. He knows pain. He loves music and has a beautiful tenor voice. He's a godly man, and he loves Katie and Jonathan too. By the way--I have my dream job. I'm an editor at a Christian book publishing company. Life is good.

But I do miss you so, and I think about you everyday. One day soon we will all be together again. By then, January 16 will be long forgotten as a day of sadness. I can't wait to join you in the Great Adventure--to introduce you to my children, to sing with you, laugh with you, talk to you, my little sister.

Love,
Annette

New in 2010

Happy New Year! I suppose that eleven days in still qualifies for a new year. It does seem like a long time since we were opening our gifts, celebrating with family, and visiting with friends on New Year's Eve, but even at that, I'm still trying to find my footing again and figuring out what to do with myself since the holiday busyness has wound down. Transitions can be a little unsettling at times

So since all of the possible "best of 2009" lists have been created and forgotten and we're a little bored with them by now, perhaps a better idea for my first post of 2010 is to  recount all of the new things that have come with a new year--at least for me.

• The biggest new thing is pictured above to the right. I wrote in my last post that Katie had an accident while she was driving my car to work. The Monday after Christmas, we learned that our insurance company had determined the car was totalled, and so the Tuesday after Christmas Henry and I--after some diligent research--went car shopping. I ended up with a 2007 Toyota Corolla, a car that we agree suits me much better than my Subaru Forester (which was an excellent car and served me well for eight years). My Toyota looks much like the one above, only it is black, my favorite car color. Also new is now getting used to driving a car that doesn't have all-wheel drive or an ABS, a challenging adjustment in a Michigan winter. It's all working out well.
• I have a new responsibility at our church. I have been asked to serve on our church's library committee, and since book buying is definitely one of my spiritual gifts, it's all going to work out well. Unfortunately, our committee chair broke her ankle right before Christmas, and with only a few days left in the year and lots of book money left in the budget, I asked if she minded if I purchased the books that my pastor (a great list that was about a page and a half long) and another Bible study leader had requested. It's been kind of exciting coming home from work to yet another box of new books. Now we need to process them and get them on the shelves.
• Another new thing is a responsibility I've completed. For a little over a year now, I've been editing grade 5 and 6 catechism curriculum for a new curriculum that has been developed by Pastor Scheuers and others in Chino, California. It's been an exercise in perseverance because often the last thing I'd want to do during the evening was yet more editing. But it's a worthy project, and it will be gratifying to see children in my own church, especially in fifth and sixth grade, carrying around the books that I edited next fall. It's new to come home from work, fix supper, and realize that I don't have to work on the catechism. And this leaves me open for some more new editing opportunities for Reformed Fellowship, the organization that my own Henry is president of.
• I have new book review published in the January/February issue of  Modern Reformation magazine. Last year I submitted my review of Why We're Not Emergent, and it finally made it in.
• I'm starting a new reading list. I actually exceeded my reading goal for 2009: reading one fiction and one nonfiction title a month. I'm going to keep the goal the same this year. I failed to meet my goal of reading Calvin's Institutes during the Calvin 500 year celebration, but I got about halfway through, and I'm still plugging away.

So these are the things that are new for me in 2010. I'm sure there will be more, because if there's one thing that isn't new, it's that everything changes, often faster than we can keep up.

When They're Down Part 3

As promised, I'm going to close out this series by talking about something that is admittedly negative, but necessary. There are ways that we can respond (or not respond) to someone who is need that can add insult to injury. Those who have endured hardship know that for every kindness sent their way, there often is an unhappy story of insensitivity because of the way someone has responded to their pain. Just as there are as many ways to be a blessing as there are difficult situations, there are probably as many ways to cause pain on top of pain. Those that I mention here come from my own experience or from the experiences of people I know. While most people don't want to "kick someone when he or she is down," sometimes we do just that out of a lack of understanding.

1. Don't think that you must comfort someone by coming up with some clever new thought or some inspirational words that will cheer that person up. Often, there are just no words. And our feeble attempts to cheer someone often result in the opposite effect. If you find yourself talking with someone who is suffering and you sense yourself starting a sentence with, "At least . . ." you might just want to stop there. For example, we might be tempted to tell someone who has just lost a job, "At least you have your health." It may be true, and that person should be thankful for good health, but that probably isn't the best time to mention it. I've heard of situations where a parent has lost a child, and someone may say, "At least you have two other healthy children." As much as we'd like it to, gain doesn't compensate for loss. Having those two healthy children doesn't take away the pain of the lost one. Rather than trying to find that "right thing" to say, we would do well to offer help (see my last post), give a hug, and tell that person we love him or her and are praying for the situation.

2. We shouldn't set a time clock for someone else's grief. Often those who have never experienced a tremendous loss become impatient with another's grief. We really don't have any right to tell someone else how long they may grieve a loss. There is grief that is both healthy and unhealthy, and when we see a grieving person shutting him or herself off from the world, unable to hold down a job, and generally unable to cope, we should be concerned and see about getting that person some help. But grief is a part of loss, and there is no one timetable on grief. I realized earlier this month that my sister who died in 1990 would have been forty this year. And at the same time, I realized that this January will mark twenty years since her death. Twenty years later and I still miss her very much. And there are times when I still cry for the pain of losing her. My mom recently talked about a former co-worker who gave her a very difficult time after my sister died. Our family spent a lot of time on the phone with each other after Kristi died, just being there for each other. And our pain didn't necessarily wait until work hours were over. Apparently I had called my mom at work one afternoon, struggling over my loss. The whole time my mom and I were talking on the phone, this co-worker kept walking past my mom's office. After the call was over, she nastily informed my mom that she shouldn't be spending all that time on the phone. She thought she knew just how long our family should grieve our loss and wanted to assign the times when we could express grief. This same person later suffered a miscarriage and, having suffered a significant loss, apologized to my mom for the way she treated her. We need to be patient and compassionate with those who are suffering and not impose our own ideas about how long they're allowed to grieve.

3. We shouldn't abandon those who are suffering. This is, perhaps, the most difficult thing my children and I have faced. It's hard to imagine that close family members would actually abandon those who are hurting, but I'm here to tell you from personal experience that it happens. There are some close family members who basically have cut themselves off from us. One excuse I've heard is that when one family member is in contact with us, it reminds him of his own pain at losing Jon (my children's dad and my first husband). We've also heard through the family grapevine that others have abandoned us because they haven't heard that we've been experiencing anything particularly difficult, and "no news is good news."  Those same family members ignored Katie's high school graduation and couldn't be bothered to even send her a card to congratulate her. So I guess that means that "good news is no news" as well. This selfish abandonment has been a great source of pain for both Katie and me especially. We feel like we have been punished because Jon died. These same people, had they been able to look beyond their own selfishness and superficiality, could have been a great help and encouragement to the children and me in those difficult financial, emotional, and spiritual times. Instead, they increased our pain with their callousness. And they've missed out on knowing what great people Katie and Jonathan are. I know that my parents also have family members who abandoned them after my sister died, and I've heard of others who have experienced this as well. Jesus had something to say about this kind of behavior in the parable of the Good Samaritan. As difficult as it can be to "be there" for someone who is suffering, we need to remember that Christ did not abandon us. How much more, then, should we continue to stand by those around us who are in pain?

Being able to minister to someone who is going through a difficult time is a calling, a privilege, and a great blessing. It is a thrill to think that God might use us to be a help to one of His children who is in need. There will always be those around us who need help because Jesus reminded us that in this world there would be trials, and we need to be prepared to support those who are down rather than "kicking them."

When They're Down Part 2

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post about our duty to reach out to others when they're going through a time of pain. We tend to think in terms of whether we should help someone or not when, in fact, it really isn't an option for us as believers. In 2 Corinthians 1:4, Paul tells us that God comforts us in all of our troubles so that in turn we can comfort others who are in trouble. Sometimes we persuade ourselves that our help isn't necessary--maybe the sufferer has a supportive family or maybe we assume that there really isn't anything that we can do, and there are probably others who will pick up the slack.

But if we were all soldiers fighting a literal war and one of our comrades was injured, we wouldn't stop to say, "Do you need help?" If we were passing by and saw someone bleeding, we (hopefully) wouldn't keep on going because we figured the next person who came by would take care of the situation. We need to feel that same sense of obligation for those going through life's injuries.

Do you know anyone experiencing the following:

Death of spouse

Death of close family member

Divorce

Marital separation

Jail term of close family member

Personal injury or illness

Loss of job due to termination

Change in financial state

If you do, then you know someone who needs help. These circumstances are among the most stressful life events that a person can experience. So the question isn't whether people in one of these situations needs help--they do; rather, the question is what position are you in to offer assistance. What can you do?

Assistance is as individual as the need. We need to be creative about helping others. Put yourself in their position, as best you can, and think about what you might need in that situation. Ask that person how he or she is doing and really listen. As you pay attention, you may get an idea of how you can help. Above all, don't just say, "Let me know if you need help." Simply saying that doesn't mean you've now done your duty. People who need help don't know what you are willing and able to do. And sometimes they're too emotionally weak to even ask for help or know what they need until you suggest it. Open-ended offers are no offers at all.

Here are some of the creative ways that people are helping others:

~Henry and I were recently visiting with an elderly couple. The husband is terminally ill and is so weak he is barely able to talk any more. The wife was telling us that a young couple--fairly new to our church--was asking them  if they could be of help in any way. The incident occurred earlier this fall, so the younger man asked if he and his wife could come rake their leaves. And with gratitude, the older couple accepted their offer. I love how the younger man made his offer real by stating something specific.

~A family in our church has had a very difficult year. The problems of job loss were compounded when our friend fell and shattered his elbow. The family heats their house with a wood furnace, and winter is upon us. On two Saturdays, members of the youth group and their leader cut wood, and this past Saturday a group of men got them well stocked so that they will be able to get through most of the winter now.

~A friend with a large family has had to take on a part-time job to make ends meet while her husband is out of work.  One day another woman from our church just showed up at her door with lasagna and bread for the family's dinner. Note--she just took action and didn't even ask my friend if she needed help or would like a meal.

 ~After my first husband died, I was single parenting two small children. Our pastor and his wife set aside an afternoon a week to take care of my kids so that I could run errands, get groceries--do things I needed to do child-free.

 ~Before I was married to Henry and while the kids and I were at our previous church, a deacon called me to see if we had any needs. I explained that we really had no financial needs at that point but that I would appreciate it if the deacons could find a young man who would like to be a "big brother" to Jonathan--do "guy" things with him. I would be happy to pay Jonathan's way if someone would spend time with him. And the deacons sent us Tom, who did just that for several years until he got married, had children, and became a deacon himself.

 There are other ways we can help:

For those in financial need--gift cards to grocery stores, for gas, cash gifts. As one who has been both the recipient and the giver of these kinds of gifts, I prefer anonymity. It can be awkward to receive the charity of another, and, as a giver, I'd like to think the receiver is thanking God for what I've given rather than me.

For those who have just lost spouses, especially the elderly--invite them to your house for a meal. It can be so very lonely; companionship may be the best thing you can offer. And don't feel that it's necessary to serve an elaborate meal or offer riveting entertainment. That lonely person will be happy just to be able to eat with other people and have someone to talk to. For widows--does she need help with home maintenance, car maintenance, financial concerns?

Can you help a single parent or a family struggling with illness by offering child care?

If you know of someone who is out of work, watch for openings at your company and let him or her know if a job is available. Do you have any home maintenance projects that you could hire an unemployed person to do?

The possibilities are as numerous and various as the problems that people have. I know I will never forget some of the kindnesses that have been shown to me and Katie and Jonathan during the difficult times. While we may not be able to solve others' problems, we can and must do something to help carry the burden. We mustn't kick people when they're down with our own indifference. And that leads us to my next post where I will describe some of the ways we actually hurt people who are down by our attitudes and actions.

But before that, if you have any creative suggestions for how we can help one another or special ways someone has helped you, please put them in the comments.

Kicking People When They're Down, or Going Rogue on Someone's Pain

My friend and I have been throwing around the idea of writing a book about what not to say or do to people who are going through a time of crisis in their lives. While thankfully my life is relatively pain-free right now, I spent a lot of time in the nineties grieving the illnesses and deaths of my twenty-year-old sister and my thirty-five-year-old husband, so I know a little about pain and suffering. My friend has been having an extremely difficult year (an understatement) and is (unfortunately) an expert in suffering as well. I have to credit her with the subtitle for this post.

As old as history itself is the reality that we aren't always very good comforters in the body of Christ. Job's friends set a bad precedent, and we often follow their poor example--if we make any attempt at all to provide relief and comfort. Sometimes we hold back because we don't know what to say, so we don't do or say anything at all. Other times we spew cliches like "at least you have your health," "God is working this for good," or "God won't give you more than you can bear," thinking that we can somehow neutralize the bitter pill of God's providence with a syrupy sweet sentiment.

If we Christians are soldiers in a battle, why do we tend to shoot our wounded by spraying them with Hallmark-sentiment BBs? If we were in a literal battle and our comrade was gushing blood, we wouldn't try to help him by giving him jelly beans. And we would never commit the worst offense imaginable but one that happens often: abandonment. We add insult to injury, delaying recovery for the sufferer.

It is difficult to know what to say when someone tells us about a crisis he or she is experiencing. What we'd like to do for our friends or loved ones is take away the problem, but that's usually impossible. The best we can hope to accomplish is to provide some relief, but that's an important accomplishment--one that is our duty toward our brothers and sisters.

So what can we say? Unless someone comes to me asking for advice, wanting to talk through a situation, I restrict myself to the following, depending on the circumstances:

*I/We love you.
*I'm/We're praying for you (if I really am).
*Can I help you by? . . .

That last one is the key, I think. James tells us to show our faith by our works, and so if we truly see someone with a need, we'll do something about it. And because so many people are going through difficult times right now, I mean to share in future posts suggestions about what I've learned from my own experiences about what helps and what hurts.

I was thinking a few days ago about the things we say to people, and one of the favorite verses to quote is Romans 8:28, truly a beautiful promise that God will work all things for good for those He loves. I used to dread hearing this verse, even though I knew it was true. Those of us in the body of Christ are one, and we tend to forget (because we're not directly affected) that that person's job loss, the death of that person's spouse, her cancer diagnosis, their rebellious child--all of these are our sorrows too.

Is it possible that God is not just using that pain for the good of the one most directly affected but for my good as well? How can something that isn't happening directly to me work for my good? The Holy Spirit's work is often a mystery to us, but what I do know is that another's pain gives me the opportunity to show love, compassion, to be hospitable, to be a servant, to offer tangible gifts--all working for my good as I'm conformed to the image of Christ.

 We need to work on being better comforters.

Words Mean Something

This weekend, many churches around the world will celebrate Reformation Day,a commemoration of Luther's nailing the 95 Theses to the church door at Wittenberg in 1517, the event that launched the great Reformation of the church. It is not overstatement to say that Western culture is what it is, in many ways, because of the Reformation. If you are Protestant, if you have the Bible in your own language, if you are middle class and educated, if you live in the assurance that you glorify God in your work, whether you're a pastor or a banker or a realtor or a mom--and these are just a few things--then you have experienced some of the blessings of the Reformation.

Perhaps one of the simplest truths that Reformers like Luther and Calvin recovered is that words--God's words to us in Scripture--mean something. He has communicated with us in meaningful ways so that we can come to an understanding (not complete, of course) of him and the salvation he has provided. As a Roman Catholic monk, Luther wrestled with the church's teaching that salvation was to be earned by man's good works. He realized that even though he would perform good works, he would still sin, and he could never feel assured that he was righteous, that he would be saved.

And then he began to study the book of Romans, where the apostle Paul tells us that in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, and the righteous live by faith. Simple and profound at the same time, these words, "by faith," meant something--something very different from what he had been taught. He also learned from Romans that no one was righteous, and that eternal life was a gift--not something that he could earn. Anyone who has had to work to get a paycheck knows the difference between a gift and something earned, two very different things.

Luther began to see that God's words were different from the words that he had been taught. God said salvation is by faith in Christ's work; the church taught that salvation was by good works. God said salvation was his gift; the church taught that salvation was something that men had to earn.

As Calvin pointed out, it has to be one or the other: "Faith righteousness so differs from works righteousness that when one is established the other has to be overthrown." Because words--and the concepts they represent--mean something, they cannot co-exist. Both the church and the Reformers understood that.

Martyr Anne Askew understood that. At age 25, Anne, living in England during Henry VIII's reign, denied the Roman Catholic teaching regarding the Lord's Supper. The true words of Scripture meant so much to her that she refused to recant when she was tortured on the rack. And when she was carried (because she could no longer walk after being tortured)to the stake to be burned to death, she still refused to recant and died.

And so today, when we say that we believe something, our words have meaning, and that meaning is either consistent with God's words, in line with his truth, or it is not. In this century, with its emphasis on unity, finding common ground, and tolerance, we like to blur the lines and minimize the difference between God's words and the words we and others like to use. Sometimes we'd like to believe that words really don't mean what they mean. Works righteousness or faith--it really doesn't matter, we tell ourselves. But we must learn this lesson of the Reformation. God speaks to us in his word. His are the words of truth. And words have meaning. Salvation cannot be both a gift and something earned. We can't be made righteous both by faith in Christ's work and faith in our own works.

This realization should lead us, as it did the Reformers, to gratitude and a desire to deliver to others the meaningful words of the gospel.

Autumn

I've been sitting here staring at my blog, trying to think of something to write about. I think I'm experiencing a personal autumn, although the results aren't nearly as lovely as some of the trees I see around me. It's an autumn in the sense that nothing new is growing at the moment, and I'm just basically hanging onto what is there, like the remaining leaves clinging to a tree branch.

Part of my problem is just some minor (and I underscore minor) health problems I've been wrestling with for a while now. Nothing life threatening--certainly not like cancer or heart disease--just annoying. And draining. Leaving me with little energy for writing. And I feel like a complete whiner even mentioning it when I think of the many people around me with real problems.

Hopefully spring will return to me faster than it does to Michigan. Maybe I'll even personally bypass winter. I think that there's probably some flexibility in our personal season changes. But in the meantime, I'll remind myself that autumn isn't just dying leaves; it's also apples and cinnamon, beautiful golds and reds, pumpkins, children dressed in costumes, and snuggling close to someone you love in front of the fireplace.

Nine Eleven

It's hard to believe that it has been eight years since we watched those terrible images of fiery planes and crumbling buildings over and over. It's still a frequent question among conversing groups: "Where were you when you heard about 9/11?" And everyone always has an answer. We can't forget something that horrible. Can we?

I was teaching at the time at a small school in Hudsonville, Michigan. I was tired that morning because the night before I had been out late--an infrequent occurrence for me on a weeknight. I had been at the Allegan County Fair at a Michael W. Smith concert. It had been one of those balmy, beautiful late summer evenings. The weather and music combined made for a wonderful evening. Whoever would have dreamed what we would wake up to?

Since I was tired, I stopped at a drive-thru coffee place near school for a caffeine boost. As the woman at the window handed me my coffee, she asked,"Did you hear what happened?" What had happened had just happened, so all anyone could say at that point was that a plane (or two) had flown into the Twin Towers. When I got to school, I asked David, the principal, if he was aware of what was happening. Phone calls from parents and wives kept coming, and finally David called all of the students and teachers out onto the lawn to tell them what he little he knew and to pray--while we weren't sure what we were praying for, we knew where our Help had to come from right then.

Later, I drove home on 44th Street, usually a busy east/west road that runs past a mall, restaurants, office buildings, and, after several miles, the airport. The mall had been closed, as had all buildings that day that could accommodate large crowds. There was no one on the streets. There were no planes in the sky. It was like one of those eerily quiet times that occurs before a big storm strikes, except that something had already struck.

Our family had no personal knowledge of anyone killed in the 9/11 attacks. We shared the grief of the nation. My son, only seven at the time and in first grade, probably was impacted the most. His reaction was like one who passes an auto accident--horrified, fearful, and yet he couldn't seem to stop watching. We lived in a small tri-level house at the time, and his bedroom was on the upper level, next to mine. For weeks afterwards, he insisted on sleeping on the lower level, "in case a plane came." We eventually had to keep the newspapers away from him because he couldn't stop reading--and being terrified. It will probably be a memory he shares with his own children someday.

I've visited the site where the Twin Towers once stood, and I'm amazed at how ordinary it all looks. There really aren't any signs of the terrible scenes that we watched on TV of firefighters and other emergency personnel, black smoke everywhere, and people with fearful expressions running . . . somewhere. An old, colonial era church stands near the site--during the crisis a place of rest and triage for those who were injured and those who needed a break from their work. It's hard to believe that in a such a place of quaintness and quiet that something so terrible could have happened.

The big question is whether our children will remember this, the way some remember the assassination of JFK or the explosion of the Challenger. And, sadly, there are reports that some of the children who were Jonathan's age and younger already have forgotten the events of that day. But they need to remember--not in a morbid sort of way but in the way that memories serve us as a defense--that we can be attacked, that we can be vulnerable, that we do have enemies. A sad thing,that our children should have this memory. But sadder still if they would forget.

Christian Fiction

Before I became a book editor, I worked for about a year and a half at a local Christian bookseller. It was an interesting job, and I learned a great deal that has helped me in my current job as an editor. I had an opportunity to learn about current popular Christian authors, Christian book publishers, Christian music--and a lot about the consumers of it all who came into the bookstore.

One of the perks of working in the store is that we were able to borrow books to read so that we could familiarize ourselves with the product. I had never developed a favorable impression of Christian fiction--being an English major who studied Shakespeare, Milton, Hawthorne, and Twain--but since I had access to shelf after shelf of Christian fiction material, I made it my goal to find a well written Christian novel during my time there. One reason was that fiction was the overwhelming favorite of many of the customers, and they often asked for a recommendation. I always steered them to C. S. Lewis but had a feeling they'd be disappointed when they got home. Why take days to read a Lewis novel when you could whip through a Karen Kingsbury series in a week?

Frequently ladies would tell me that there was one novel that I just had to read--Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers. Those who loved the book just couldn't say enough good things about it. Many said that it was one of the best books they had ever read. Finally, I broke down and read it. To that point in my life, I could honestly say I had never read a Harlequin romance. But with Francine I discovered a new genre: Christian Harlequin romance fiction. And I was shocked. And it takes quite a lot to shock me.

The well-written jacket copy tells the reader that this is a "powerful retelling of the book of Hosea . . . a life-changing story of God's unconditional, redemptive, all-consuming love." The story is set in California's gold country in 1850, and the main characters are Michael Hosea (get it?) and Angel, a bitter young woman who was sold into prostitution as a child. God tells Michael to marry Angel and love her unconditionally. Being a handsome, godly, near-perfect man with the patience and sensitivity of a Christian fiction main male character, Michael does just that. Angel, following in Gomer's footsteps, puts up a barrier to deflect Michael's love and runs away several times during the course of the novel. Michael always goes after her and brings her back.

It all sounds very Christian and very spiritual, and yet as I read the novel I sensed that there was something driving the plot that wasn't quite appealing to the "whatever is pure" part of my thought processes. Rivers makes it very clear from the beginning of the story that Michael--despite his handsome, manly appearance and character--is a virgin. Angel--beautiful, mystifying, distant, and a prostitute--is not. Although the couple marry, Michael--again with the patience of an uber-Job, waits for Angel to put her guard down, to love and be loved--before consummating the marriage.

There are many wistful glances, lips brushing, longing gazes, suggestive conversations, and skin brushing against skin incidents that occur long before Michael and Angel physically become man and wife. In fact, I finally discovered why all those ladies were so in love with this novel. I have to confess that I've watched R rated movies with their nudity, groping, clothes flying, clutching, and panting, but I don't think I've ever encountered much in any media form that compares with page 156 of Redeeming Love, the page where Michael finally meets Angel on the "marriage bed." It finally dawned on me why all those ladies were so excited about this novel. And it also reminded me that words can be more powerful than visual images in stirring the imagination.

And so I have more questions than answers as recent life events force me to once again consider this genre of Christian fiction. What makes a Karen Kingsbury or Amish fiction novel or Francine Rivers story Christian? A plot line that leads to the unregenerate main character "getting saved" in the final paragraphs in the book? The fact that there are no "bad words" in the text? Is a writer writing Christianly when she describes sexual activity (between a man and wife, of course) in a sensual way that could potentially arouse emotions in readers in a less than pure way? Does basing a story on a biblical account like Hosea necessarily make it Christian?

I've long had a concern for readers who fill their minds with Christian fiction to the exclusion of anything else. I'm not convinced it's much healthier than a constant diet of soap operas or chick lit. And while I admittedly found some enjoyable reads in the Christian fiction section, my craving for quality craftsmanship would not be met there. The question we must ask of Christian fiction, just like any other media/art form we encounter, is does it stir thoughts that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, or praiseworthy? Or does it just present worldly notions in a seemingly more acceptable package?

It's Just a Theory

A very long time ago, when I was a junior high and high school language arts teacher, I used a common exercise that many teachers of language arts use to encourage their students to write creatively and imaginatively. In this exercise, the emphasis was not on grammar, spelling, punctuation--the mechanical things that bog student writers down--but on allowing ideas to flow from brain to paper with ease. Usually on one day of the week, I would provide my students with some type of writing prompt that they were to respond to in a journal. Topics were things like, "What was your favorite birthday gift?" Or "Write about your favorite vacation." One subject that comes up in nearly every teacher resource book is this: "What would you do if you were the principal of your school?"

Students would inevitably write things like: "Have pizza and candy for lunch every day." "Get rid of math class." "Have recess for four hours every day." "Let students sit wherever they want in their classrooms." Students usually responded impulsively and really didn't give much thought to what the consequences of their policies would be if they ever actually were put in place. It wasn't the point.

At the end of the year, I'd send their journals home with them, and if the journal even made it home, it was probably stuffed in a drawer or thrown in a closet. (I know this because this is what my children did when they brought their journals home.) Years later, probably during spring cleaning, the journal emerges from the crowded drawers or the back of the closet. Now an adult, the journal writer reads through his childish notions and laughs at his immature ideas about what would have made a good school to a junior high student. The adult realizes that it wouldn't have been nutritionally healthy to eat pizza and candy everyday; that in fact it was important to learn math skills; that having recess for four hours wouldn't leave enough time to learn what was really essential; that sitting next to his friends in class probably would have made it even more difficult to pay attention to lessons. He realizes that the consequences of his childish policies would have had a devastating impact on his life.

So I'm imagining a young Barack Obama journaling away on the topic of what he'd do if he were to become president of the United States: "I'd take over the auto, banking, and heathcare industries"; "I'd make abortion as accessible as possible to anyone who wants one"; "I'd spend more taxpayer dollars than all the previous administrations before me"; I'd say whatever I wanted whether I had all the information I needed to comment intelligently." "I'd have the best, most expensive vacations ever, and I wouldn't care about what anyone else thought." "I'll appoint justices to the Supreme Court who think the Constitution is an antiquated document that has nothing to say about law in the twenty-first century, who will create legislation from the bench that will benefit minorities in the interest of fairness."

At the end of the school year, instead of throwing his journal away, shoving it in a drawer, or pitching it to the back of his closet, young Barack left it open on his desk, and he read his policy ideas over and over and thought they were good, but he never quite made it to the maturing part that allowed him to understand that silly policies have terrible consequences. And so years later, he implements what he believes are great policies and doesn't really care about the consequences. The consequences are beside the point.

And somewhere, a language arts prep school teacher in Hawaii is kicking herself for using "What would you do if you were president?" as a writing prompt.

Solving the Problem

A brief, but interesting article by Mark Honneger in Modern Reformation's May/June 2009 issue entitled "The Problem Is the Problem" asserts that the gospel solves a problem. Honneger then considers which of the world's many problems it does, in fact, solve. And then simply, clearly, Honneger answers his own question: the problem is that the wrath of God has been revealed against all ungodliness. To make it simple, God is justly mad at sinners. Honneger points out that like Pilate of long ago, people today aren't interested in the problem that Jesus came to solve. The church's response to this has been to figure out which problems people want solved, and then appeal to them on that basis rather than simply tell them the brutal, ugly facts: people are sinners who need God's forgiveness. They need a Savior. Honneger goes on to describe current evangelistic appeals that the church uses today and why they fail to get to the heart of the matter.

I started thinking about the instances in the Bible where Jesus, Paul, and the other apostles confronted people with their sin and then explained the solution. One that came to mind was Jesus' conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well. If there ever were a person with "issues," this woman was one. She had had five marriages that had either ended in death or divorce. When Jesus meets her, she is living with a man who is not her husband. She's clearly a societal outcast; she comes to the well at the hottest time of the day to draw water to avoid the other women of the town. And there are issues of race as well. As a Samaritan, this woman was part of a racially mixed group--partly Jewish, partly Gentile. As a result, both Jews and non-Jews were disdainful of the Samaritans. This was a person with a lot of problems, someone who clearly needed Jesus (as we all, in fact, do).

So how would today's church attempt relevancy with this woman? Honneger describes the different approaches that the church today takes. How would this exchange look in the twenty-first century?

Clearly this woman has character flaws and is in need of moral or character reform, a problem people today care about. They want to improve themselves. We might appeal to her on the basis of her need to improve her character. She probably does feel guilty--and rightly so. So the church could teach her how to be a better person: how to be a better wife; how to communicate with her partner better; how to form a lasting relationship. But in the end, she would still be guilty before God, so character reform would not resolve her problems.

Another strategy is felt needs. Churches don't want to appeal to people on the basis of their sin because that would turn them off and drive them away. We could appeal to her concerns, and then she might hang around long enough to hear the gospel. She's probably lonely, in need of girlfriends, so we could invite her to the coffee bar and just talk with her. Coming to get water is difficult for her; we could arrange to have it delivered so that she doesn't have to come out in the heat of the day to avoid the other women. Honneger points out that Jesus healed people not to avoid delivering the message of sin but to fulfill prophecy and to show that He was, in fact, the Messiah. He fed the crowds bread, but when He knows that they are following Him simply because of their felt needs--more bread--He drives them away. He urges them to turn their attention from earthly needs to eternal life. Likewise, meeting the woman's felt needs would not drive her to acknowledge her need to seek forgiveness of her sins.

Honneger points out that many use an appeal to people's needs to acknowledge past hurts before they can come to God and be saved. This woman, with five husbands in her past, no female friends, and race issues probably had a few hurts. But Honneger again points out that what separated her from God was not her past hurts but her guilt. To start to discuss all of the hurts in her life would turn her focus onto herself. She would be reminded of others' shortcomings. She wouldn't be driven to consider her own guilt before God.

According to Honneger, the church has lost confidence in the power of the gospel to transform lives when it adopts all of these other types of appeals. We've stopped believing that the simple message of the gospel can change the world. We need something more creative, relevant, updated, current.

And yet how does Jesus approach the woman at the well? Does He offer her "7 Tips on How to Improve Relationships?" Does He acknowledge her hurts, empathize with her, encourage her to work through it all so that she can come to Him and be saved? Does He try to help her figure out a way to get water more easily into her home so that she doesn't have to come out in the heat of the day?

Jesus tells her that He has living water to offer--the Holy Spirit dwelling in her, making her alive. He tells her He can give her living water that will satisfy eternally. And He lets her know, gently and compassionately, that she is a sinner, and He knows it. And then He tells her that He is the Messiah, the one who has come to deliver her from her sin and guilt. And she, then, goes to share the good news with others. No programs, classes, coffee bars, or food pantry. Jesus, with a gentle whisper, shows her grace that forgives and resolves the problems of guilt and shame, demonstrating the power of the gospel to resolve our biggest problem.