Lena's First Day

My sweet baby girl started preschool yesterday. 

The first day is a shortened parent day, where one parent stays with the child in the classroom to help them get comfortable.  Some parents play with the kids, stay right beside them the whole time.  But I stand back along the wall so that they can be assured I'm there while exercising their independence. Because Thursday she's on her own, and I don't want that to be a complete shock. 

It honestly could have gone either way with her, my sweet independent drama queen.  But she was excited and shy and attentive and friendly. 

She was a perfect little preschooler.

I had to peel her off my leg when we first got into the classroom and kind of push her toward another little girl playing with a doll house.  But after that she was good to go.  Nearly all of the other kids were relaxed and playful and reserved too, so I know that helped.  After about an hour of playing and doing activities and participating in class, she didn't even want to sit with me when we went to music.  But after a moment's thought she climbed into my lap, joining the struggle everyone faces: finding a healthy balance between our independence and self reliance and how much we need to lean on others. 

She's beginning her journey, so ready to learn and opine and think for herself.  So ready to fill her mind with the facts she needs to learn, to fill her imagination with the wonders the world has to offer, to fill her soul with the beauty of art and music. 

Education is such an amazing blessing. 

 

 

 

I'm so proud of her. 

Lunatic, Liar or Lord?

Hannah Rae posted this link on Facebook and I had to include an excerpt on my blog.  Because when I talk about Christianity with skeptical friends, this is the main thing they come back to.  They say, "Do you actually believe there is a man on a cloud in the sky watching over you?" And while some of them may accept that Jesus lived on earth and was a prophet and a great man and did good things, they cannot take the next step - they cannot believe that he is who he says he is.  That's their hang-up.  That was part of my hang-up when I was questioning.
 
Then I read Mere Christianity by CS Lewis.  And everything changed.

Whoa.  It is not an easy read.  But it intellectually explains Christianity in a way that makes sense. 

CS Lewis said, "I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic - on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. ... Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God."

It's the trilemma.  Was Jesus Lunatic, Liar or Lord?  It's a simplistic way of breaking down Christianity, but it's at the heart of what we believe. 

Bono spells it out below in his own words from an interview a couple years ago.

Interviewer: That’s a great idea, no denying it. Such great hope is wonderful, even though it’s close to lunacy, in my view. Christ has his rank among the world’s great thinkers. But Son of God, isn’t that farfetched?

Bono: No, it’s not farfetched to me. Look, the secular response to the Christ story always goes like this: he was a great prophet, obviously a very interesting guy, had a lot to say along the lines of other great prophets, be they Elijah, Muhammad, Buddha, or Confucius. But actually Christ doesn’t allow you that. He doesn’t let you off that hook. Christ says: No. I’m not saying I’m a teacher, don’t call me teacher. I’m not saying I’m a prophet. I’m saying: “I’m the Messiah.” I’m saying: “I am God incarnate.” And people say: No, no, please, just be a prophet. A prophet, we can take. You’re a bit eccentric. We’ve had John the Baptist eating locusts and wild honey, we can handle that. But don’t mention the “M” word! Because, you know, we’re gonna have to crucify you. And he goes: No, no. I know you’re expecting me to come back with an army, and set you free from these creeps, but actually I am the Messiah. At this point, everyone starts staring at their shoes, and says: Oh, my God, he’s gonna keep saying this. So what you’re left with is: either Christ was who He said He was the Messiah or a complete nutcase. I mean, we’re talking nutcase on the level of Charles Manson. This man was like some of the people we’ve been talking about earlier. This man was strapping himself to a bomb, and had “King of the Jews” on his head, and, as they were putting him up on the Cross, was going: OK, martyrdom, here we go. Bring on the pain! I can take it. I’m not joking here. The idea that the entire course of civilization could have its fate changed and turned upside-down by a nutcase...for me, that’s farfetched.

Bono later says it all comes down to how we regard Jesus:

Bono: If only we could be a bit more like Him, the world would be transformed. When I look at the Cross of Christ, what I see up there is all my shit and everybody else’s. So I ask myself a question a lot of people have asked: Who is this man? And was He who He said He was, or was He just a religious nut? And there it is, and that’s the question. And no one can talk you into it or out of it.

Thanks, Hannah Rae, for posting that.  It's a great reminder that faith doesn't have to be complicated and farfetched.  It's simple truth when we break down the facts and remove our own fear and hang-ups.

Calling Bull on a Misguided and Hurtful Christian Sentiment

A friend shared this blog entry on Facebook today.  And I want to shout it from the rooftops!  Please click on the highlighted words and read this pastor's message.  It's truth.  Plain and simple.

His blog post perfectly debunks the "God won't give you more than you can handle" sentiment that so many well-meaning, but misguided Christians utter to friends going through rough times. 

It's a sentiment I have always loathed and never use.  It's a sentiment that can send a non-believer running for the hills or add further pain to a believer who isn't handling hard times well.  And it can often make the person saying it seem cruel and dim when spoken to a child of abuse or a victim of a violent crime or a genocide survivor...

Christians carry a heavy burden.  Our words and deeds are scrutinized more than most.  Every educated kind word has the capability of sparking God's light.  And every stupid insensitive flub could extinguish it.  I've been on both sides, giving and receiving both helpful and hurtful sentiments.  And I can attest to the effects of both. 

This pastor's blog is a reminder to me that when someone is going through crisis, I as a human, as a woman, as a mother...and especially as a Christian, need always to be thoughtful and gentle with my words. 

Because words have power.

What is Wisdom?

"The more I live, the more I learn.
The more I learn, the more I realize
The less I know."

I assumed that as I aged, I would gain more understanding.  That somehow my experiences and education would gradually amass to provide me with a certain amount of enlightenment.  Not that I would become brilliant or something.  But I was holding out for wiser. 

However, it seems a world that I assumed would become more black and white as I accumulated years is just getting grayer. 

For instance, the more I learn, the less I understand people and their actions, including my own sometimes.  But at the same time I seem to give them more room for error now.  I don't judge them as often or as harshly as I used to, which I think is good.  Where I seem to be losing insight as to why people do the things they do, I'm gaining appreciation for the fact that I don't know what that person's world is like, where they come from, what they have endured or survived or witnessed. Not that that excuses certain behaviors.  But it does help me assimilate information, which gives me some sense of comfort in these very uncomfortable times. 

There are a few things I feel more certain of now than in my younger days.  My faith is one of them.  But just as with everything else, while my conviction of God's love solidifies in my soul, my mind is less able to explain why.  Maybe it's because the vastness of God and the infinity of his love and his peace are unexplainable, especially to those who haven't felt it.  Now that I'm older, I accept the fact that I will never be able to comprehend it all.  I've done my doubting and studying and questioning and learning and searching, and have arrived at a place where the answers I have found are steadfast enough for my mind to justify accepting the truths I cannot grasp. 

Business, hardships, religion, disappointments, love, war, technology, politics, death, life...I don't intellectually understand much more than I did ten years ago.  But I do feel like I've grown.  Matured.  Where I've accepted my mind's limitations, I've made up for by expanding my...what...spirituality?  humanity?  maybe both. 

Maybe that's what wisdom is.  Maybe it's not merely the edification of one's intellect, but also the illumination of one's soul.

With All There Is, Why Settle for Just a Piece of Sky

I’m a sap. I’m a dreamer and an idealist and a big juicy sap which, if you ask Rich, is evidenced by my love of Yentl.

I believe that a dream of what a person wants for their life can set them free and inspire and motivate them to do the work to make that dream come true. Nothing more complicated than a dream can do that.

But I also believe that a person’s dreams can be squashed by other people who, for whatever reason, tether and break that person instead of supporting them and their goals and dreams.

Watching Yentl always reminds me of that and of what I want for my kids – to dream, to want, to learn, to appreciate, to risk, to love, to understand the importance of education. I want them to know that not so long ago, many people not only didn’t have the opportunity to learn, but many people weren’t allowed to learn. I want them to remember that and to not take their freedoms for granted. And to know that where their dreams leave off, education and knowledge can take them the rest of the way, can fulfill those dreams and allow them to soar to any height they can imagine.

Yentl is an only child of a widowed Rabbi who secretly teaches Talmud to Yentl, because girls were not allowed to attend school in those days. Yentl’s passion is learning and it’s the one thing at which she excels. But, when her father dies, she is alone and not allowed to continue her secret education. So she decides to leave the village disguised as a boy to get admitted to a school far away so she can continue studying the texts, traditions, subtleties and complexities of Jewish law.

It’s a tragic and funny and deeply inspirational movie. I pray that my children can see through my lame-o sappiness and appreciate the profound meaning behind it, especially in these words Yentl sings at the beginning of the movie.


Where Is It Written
(Prayer: God, our merciful father, I'm wrapped in a robe of light, clothed in your glory that spreads its wings over my soul. May I be worthy. Amen.)

There's not a morning I begin without a thousand questions running through my mind, that I don't try to find the reason and the logic in the world that God designed. The reason why a bird was given wings if not to fly and praise the sky with every song it sings. What's right or wrong? Where do I belong within the scheme of things?

And why have eyes that see and arms that reach unless you're meant to know there's something more, if not to hunger for the meaning of it all. Then tell me what a soul is for? Why have the wings unless you're meant to fly? And tell me please, why have a mind if not to question why?

And tell me where- where is it written what it is I'm meant to be? That I can't dare to have the chance to pick the fruit of every tree, or have my share of every sweet-imagined possibility? Just tell me where, tell me where?

If I were only meant to tend the nest then why does my imagination sail across the mountains and the seas, beyond the make-believe of every fairy tale? Why have the thirst if not to drink the wine? And what a waste to have a taste of things that can't be mine.

And tell me where- where is it written what it is I'm meant to be? That I can't dare to find the meanings in the mornings that I see. Or have my share of every sweet-imagined possibility? Just tell me where - where is it written? Tell me where- or if it's written anywhere.