Spencer's Mom

Except a kernel of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.

The Advocate

The door swings open, and I follow the young Victim Services Advocate into the parole hearing room. She’s young and pregnant with her first baby, a girl she said, after she realized it was okay to talk about everyday things with me. She had to keep me separate, in a small conference room with windows and a water cooler until the hearing began and there was not much to say although she warned me that I would hear details of my son’s murder.

            David’s family and “supporters” are separated to the right of the wood paneled room, watching me enter. A rail runs down the middle of the seats that face the parole board, and I am ushered to the left, where I sit flanked by the nice advocate. I notice a large man with a square-shaped head, thick ruddy features, like he’s from Southie. He blocks the door, actually fills the door, then I look to the left and see three more guards, wearing sweaters, to look less threatening is my guess, but you can see the bulge around the belt from weapons and walkie talkies.

            I lean back in my seat, to wave at David’s family. I had spoken to his mom for the first time ever, two nights ago. She called, nervous. “I was scared to call you – I felt ashamed.” When you touch murder, no matter which side you stand on, you get dirty. It has been 17 and a half years since we were all changed in some horrific way. I remembered watching David’s mom at his trial, the angry footsteps, the voice shrill and desperate. Then the father, slumped over on a bench outside the courtroom, the loss bearing down. I had my own pain, a demanding, consuming house-guest I could not shake. I had been treading just above the rising current of a dark and violent nightmare for over a year and i was exhausted. My son was dead, the innocent victim of a senseless murder. There was little else I could think about then.

            David and Rodolfo, another teenager charged with Spencer’s murder, pled guilty to Second Degree murder. They had just watched their friend get sent away for life without parole and decided a guilty plea to a lesser charge was safer. They stood shackled, facing me, as I told them I forgave them. It probably didn’t count for much at that moment. Twenty years. That meant their whole life then – two boys from Cape Cod headed to a maximum state prison. Survival might’ve mattered more.  I was numb with grief; my forgiveness was a reflex, an act of obedience I never questioned or pieced apart. I would not have had the strength or mental acuity. I just obeyed the same Jesus who forgave me.

            The door on the opposite side of the room opened and more guards, then David wearing a crisp blue shirt with a tie and khaki pants. He was shackled, hands and feet. He told me he would be shackled and unable to look at me when we talked the week before. His father’s hair was white now, and his mother wasn’t angry anymore, but had the soft worry lines that carve across a mother’s heart. His sister tried to walk over to my side, to hug me, but was instantly blocked by two guards and I had to remember that a parole room is often a place of visceral and sudden rage. But today, God was there. He was Hope to the convict’s family, Salvation to the soul of the young man shackled.  He was there to open the eyes of those who could not see.

            I had five minutes to speak, the only voice of the Victim’s side of the hearing, but I spoke for Spencer’s family, and for Spencer too. I said we forgive, I said let God continue to use the ground where Spencer fell, bringing forth life from death. Redemption – only He can do this. I couldn’t see anyone except for the parole board, but I could feel my words finding a place to settle in each heart. When I stood to go back to my seat, I noticed the big square guard had become very animated. He was nodding his head at me, then he winked. A minute later, he gave a thumbs up. I could see the side of David’s face and it was wet from tears.

             I was ushered back out as the Victim Advocate spoke to more guards on her walkie-talkie and then was led down the stairs. The big guard followed closely and waited as I checked out at the window on the ground floor.

“I’ve worked here for 17 years,” he said, then he paused, searching. “I’ve never heard anything like that.” His eyes looked puffy and wet. He smiled. “You are amazing.”

            “No!” I shot back, shaking my head. “I’m not. God is amazing!” Then I noticed an older gentleman to my right, who I had not seen, with thick white neatly combed hair and sparkling clear blue eyes that matched his tie. He was nodding and laughing softly, pointing upward. Then the guard saw him too and said,

            “Oh yes! Of course!” 

            I am not amazing at all. I am Mary Magdalene, or the woman sitting in the dirt, surrounded by outraged men with fists clutching stones as Jesus writes in the sand beside me. “He who is without sin…” Who can stand?

            Sometimes people say, “How could you do that? How could you forgive?” Because murderers stand under the same fountain of Grace that I do. The black grime and stain of my sin was not a better or easier sin. It costs Jesus the same price.

            Outside the breeze rattles the tired late summer leaves, David’s family and friends gather in a loose circle, relieved, breathing in hope and the sweet cool morning air. I hug some more people then leave, relieved to be alone. I have an hour before Rodolfo’s hearing and I have to eat.

            I pick a small table at Wendy’s with the most sunlight streaking across the  top and open up my salad and chili, thinking about the parole hearing, how God has again kept me and I’m grateful, so very grateful.

He shall cover you with His feathers, And under His wings you shall take refuge; His truth shall be your shield and buckler. Psalm 91:4
            The tables around me fill with office workers, sales clerks, old men who eat slow and look out the window and a young mother with a stern voice and small children who don’t pay attention. I thought of the pregnant Victim Advocate – how her life would change soon and it would be a good thing to be away from the violence, the outrage, the wounds that never heal.

            Then I thought of the little man with the blue eyes, almost turquoise it seemed and how they danced. He never spoke, I realized; he didn’t have to.

             I wonder if he was an angel…I thought as I finished my lunch and got up to leave, to head back to the Massachusetts Parole Board. It would not surprise me one bit. He was a spark of Joy in the midst of an endless sorrow, pointing to Christ, the true Advocate – the One who sits on both sides of the rail. I am not at all amazing, but my Jesus surely is.

 

Beautiful song by Selah : There Is a Fountain

 

 

 

 

 

Set Apart – Not All Set

Jesus People 1970’s

 

“Quench not the Spirit.” 1 Thessalonians 5:19

Sanctification: 1. to set apart to a sacred purpose: Consecrate 2:to free from sin: Purify

This word popped into my mind as I made my way through the woods this morning, lifting my concerns before God. “Sanctified.” But then what God spoke next was disturbing. “They will not be sanctified.” Specifically, believers – I was praying for one in particular who I see as a bit adrift.  I’ve tried to call her in, to reason with her and she hears me, but she does not “heed.”  I don’t think she sees it as obstinacy or rebellion.  She is surrounded by a cloud of other compromised Christians and a group-think of postmodern plurality and half-truths.

        I’ve been making my way through the Bible over the last six months and I’m now in 2nd Kings. After several chapters, you pick up a pattern. Two kingdoms, Israel and Judah with two kings, their reigns overlapping throughout the course of each nation’s chaotic history. Some kings were flat-out evil, laughing at a God they assumed was blind.  Then there were the good kings. They usually had to tear down what the bad kings built. They wanted to please God, but I noticed a disturbing trend with these kings. The Bible states,  “but they did not remove the high places.”

        The “high places” refers to altars that were built to worship strange pagan gods. Solomon’s compromise, as he tried to appease way too many women, led to building pagan altars, a split kingdom and two nations veering off track. An occasional king would tear these places down in order to restore his people back to God, but then the next king would build it again.

        I thought of this as I circled the pond this morning. Sanctified means “set apart.” Not set on a fence, straddling two worlds. If I had to define what disturbs me most about many millennial Christians I meet is a disregard for what is holy. They won’t tear down the High Places.  They want to dine at the King’s banquet wearing flip-flops and pajamas.

Sanctify yourselves therefore, and be ye holy: for I am the LORD your God. Leviticus 20:17

        I know what you’re thinking. Doesn’t Jesus love me just the way I am? Well, it depends. Any wretched sinner, no matter how filthy, who is repentant, is welcome to eat at His table. Come as you are! But when I should know better, when I should be eating meat and I’m still on the bottle, when I know the Truth but fail to speak or live it… I better get it right. “Quench not the spirit.” If I just ate a box of bavarian creme donuts (I did that once when I was slightly impaired) I will pass on an invitation to dinner. All set.

       Dietrrich Bonhoeffer said, “Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession…Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.”

        When you get as old as I am, you begin to see cycles. As Solomon lamented, there truly is nothing new under the sun, including the “postmodern” philosophy. As a child of the 60’s, our mantra was  “if it feels good do it.” Why not? We weren’t hurting anyone! But unlike today, we would’ve proudly admitted our rebellion and rejection of all things holy. We built the altars ourselves and partied into the looming darkness. The hangover was immense and the whole nation suffered. Strange that the Jesus People Movement was born out of the midst of this depravity, yet so just-like-Jesus.  

        “A false scale is an abomination to the Lord.” Proverbs 11:1. I read this today, and I know it is talking about a literal scale, but I sensed the Holy Spirit highlighting it before me. What is my false scale? How am I weighing in on sanctification, holiness and the standard that God expects of me? A false scale is a deceptive scale. Do we also think our God is blind?

Much will be required of everyone who has been given much. And even more will be expected of the one who has been entrusted with more. Luke 12:48

         I have been given much – much more than I ever deserved or could even ask for. I want to tear down any lurking High Places and come to His holy altar –repentant, hungry for more of Jesus, abandoning all.  Oswald Chambers says, “Am I prepared to let God grip me by His power and do a work in me that is worthy of Himself?”

        This is the cost of sanctification. It is not cheap. But I want to be set apart for my Master’s use, so that when He needs me, He can joyfully reach for me.

        Perhaps the “Postmodern age” will signal a new revival, a resurgence of the Truth the Way and the Life.  If God is looking for some Jesus People, will we be ready? Worshippers in Spirit and in truth or worshipping before strange gods? Let’s demolish the High Places and return to our first love. There is a fountain of grace at the altar of repentance.

 

” but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, because it is written, “Be holy, for I am holy.”1 Peter 1:15-17 (NKJV)

 

 

O Come to the Altar – beautiful song!

 

And A Lot of Patience

Waiting…

 

If you are really a Cape Codder, you will never admit that the weather is good – at least without adding a disclaimer like, “What a beautiful day! But tomorrow it’s supposed to rain/snow/hail…” True to my 40 years of being what is called a “wash-a-shore” on this sand bar, I will declare that this winter was really…not bad. We had a couple of slushy snowfalls and dustings, some frigid days but hey, it is New England. However, the spring seems to be stuck in March, reluctantly edging over the 40’s, maybe popping into the 50’s on a rare occasion. This IS the Cape, where the icy Atlantic grips 100 miles of shore, stalling out the release of new life from trees and flowers that are clamped down, waiting.

            Forty years ago almost to this day, a young woman left New Jersey, which had exploded in vibrant color and life, and chugged north in a rusted out Volkswagen bus. A steamer trunk with all she owned was shoved into the back with some peacock feathers thrown on top. A down sleeping bag that had been well used for several years was tossed in last minute, just in case.

            She had only been to Cape Cod once, a few weeks earlier in March, and it was cold, sleeting. “Sea frost” someone called it and it sounded mystical and poetic which drew her even more. She crossed the bridge over the canal somewhere in the afternoon and drove until she could find the ocean, then parked overlooking the gray green palette of sea, dotted with whitecaps, stretching into the empty horizon and she felt like she had arrived. She took out her notebook and wrote. But she became aware of a chilling wet cold, much colder than New Jersey and beyond the shelter that the old bus and sleeping bag would provide, so she pushed on – to Wellfleet. There, kismet led her to a tiny cottage near the bay. There was no heat or hot water, but a small wood stove would warm up the little room quickly and the stove could heat up a pan of water for bathing. As the sky turned dark, the peepers rang out across the marsh. Spring is here, they said. Close, anyway. Close enough, I thought, as I pulled the dirty sleeping bag over my head.

            Forty years. I am 63 now, and as I look back to that strange girl, I can hear the peepers and smell the salt mixed with pine on the breeze coming up over the marsh. I can remember how my heart needed to run, to keep looking, and the temporary peace I found next to the ocean, with the world and all of it’s confusion behind me. I don’t remember feeling cold, or dirty or worried at all – I had enough money for beer and cigarettes. I had no phone so I would rely on the mail and that was sufficient for someone who really just wanted to be left alone. Yet I craved more than I had. I craved a higher place than survival, a wider purpose – to be filled with more than anger, doubt and a prevailing sense of brokenness.  Maybe it’s here, I would think, looking out over the bay.  Something that could grow and thrive. I wanted to trust in Hope, but Jack Daniels was safer, easier.

            Seven years later, I ran into Jesus. I’d like to say that He wrapped His arms around me and gave me a big bear hug, but that’s not at all how it went. First, I had to die. And since I was literally almost dead from doing things my way, it wasn’t a big stretch to surrender my will, my pride and my mess.

“Listen carefully: Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over. In the same way, anyone who holds on to life just as it is destroys that life. But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you’ll have it forever, real and eternal. John 12:24-25 (MSG)  

              It takes some time for things to grow. At the jail every week I talk to the ladies in green or yellow jumpsuits. Sometimes I get a room full of silence. The expressions can run from bland civility to deadpan to rolling eyes, smirking or smoldering contempt. But the best part of it all is the day I see a spark – so small, you would miss it if you weren’t paying attention. It’s in the eyes and it’s called Hope. And I know once I see the spark, God can build a fire.

            “The cross,” I said, “is a place that represents death and the darkest despair yet also leads the way to hope and freedom and new life.” When I asked for their thoughts, one young woman leaned back in her chair and looked up at the ceiling.

            “This is really deep,” she said and a low rumble of acknowledgement went around the room. She was so right. This truth must penetrate right to the core of our soul. There it will take root, and if we are patient, something wondrous will begin to grow.

            My grandson Eli discovered this first hand after I gave him a terrarium for Christmas. On the cover, you see a tropical paradise bursting from a transparent vase. What you get is a bag a dirt and a small plastic container. A four-year-old has faith to move mountains, but it’s also short-lived. After a few days, he forgot about the dirt. Then a couple of weeks later I got a Facetime call.

“Ama! ” he shouted, his little body trembling with excitement, “LOOK!”

And there it was – well, not exactly paradise, more like ordinary grass, but it was green and growing and so amazing he could barely speak. When I asked him what the secret was, he told me proudly, “A little light, a little water, and a LOT of patience!” Ah, patience!

            Funny that I chose a Cape Cod April as my season to land here. I was as cold and unfriendly as the unforgiving earth. But there was promise just below the surface. I wonder…does Jesus see the small seed of Hope beneath the crusted heart? Maybe He put it there long ago, and is just waiting. Sometimes I think he calls us right to the crossroads of Nowhere-Left-To-Go and Nothing-To-Lose. Let it go – the life that is mine to begin with. Give it to me and I will breathe on it and you will really live.

            I heard the peepers last week, and something in my heart leapt. The young woman I can still see in my mind is an old woman now with joints that are failing and silver strands through my hair. Someone asked me if I was in remission last week, and it took me a moment to realize she meant from cancer. “Well, I’m still here!” I answered. But I thought of another Remission – the forgiveness of my sins, the cancelled debt that was paid for in blood. As I walk through a life that flourishes with the beauty of a heavenly hope, may I never forget the cross, and the deep, unsearchable Love that gave me life, real life.  And the best is yet to come.

Therefore, we who have fled to him for refuge can have great confidence as we hold to the hope that lies before us.  This hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls.It leads us through the curtain into God’s inner sanctuary. Hebrews 6:18-19

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQy4NUZKIeM

 

 

 

Just An Ordinary Superhero

            Steve Rogers. Britt Reid. Tony Stark.

            Do any of these names ring a bell? Okay…how about Peter Parker? Bruce Wayne. Here we go – Clark Kent!

            Yep…you got it. Superheroes, in their not-so-super everyday selves.

            I haven’t given this much thought since the days of watching Clark Kent dash into a phone booth where he would transform from a bumbling geek into the Man of Steel, until a phone conversation I had last week with my son Jake. Eli, my four-year-old grandson has an unwavering love for superheroes, which now spans, oh at least two years. But the thing that caught my attention was when Jake told me that Eli has taken to not only learning all of the superheroes “real” names, but pretends to be them through out the day. Not Batman, but Bruce. And when he is Iron Man, he asks to be called Tony.

            I liked that – that a four-year-old can recognize that even Super Heroes have to wash their uniforms. And it made me think about Jesus, the Ultimate Super Hero. I mean, He was God. But He made his entrance as a helpless baby, through a dirty barn and grew up in a po-dunk town called Galilee – a carpenter! I bet He got splinters and His mom reminded him to wear a coat. When it was time for Him to step into His three-year ministry before His death, people said, “Wait a minute! Isn’t that the carpenter’s son from Galilee?” He was disqualified by His humanity. He was just like us, even ordinary.

 – who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. Philippians 2:6,

              It was almost like God was pointing to us, with all of our desire for pomp and position and saying, “You missed it!” Jesus is reclining at a table with sinners, He is crossing a lake to pray for one crazy lunatic that lives in a graveyard. He’s playing with kids. Then just when you think you know Him, He’s raising someone from the dead, healing the blind and casting out demons. Whoa! Super hero action! But what I love is He didn’t have to change costumes or assume a new identity. He was showing us that this is what following Him looks like. Sometimes thinking about what you’ll make for dinner, sometimes praying for someone to be healed – from sickness, addiction, depression or fear. It may be just taking the time to love and listen.

            Oswald Chambers said,

We have a tendency to look for the marvelous in our experience, and we mistake heroic actions for real heroes. It’s one thing to go through a crisis grandly, yet quite another to go through every day glorifying God when there is no witness, no limelight, and no one paying even the remotest attention to us. If we are not looking for halos, we at least want something that will make people say, “What a wonderful man of prayer he is!” or, “What a great woman of devotion she is!” 

            Sometimes you feel like a Super Hero when you follow Jesus, and sometimes you feel like the loneliest person on earth. But when we allow God to use our lives in any way, at any time and He is glorified, you need nothing else on this planet. There just is nothing better.

            Eli and his brother Leo both have Hulk masks, and when they put them on I have to pretend that I am terrified of a four-year-old and a two-year old. I scream and ask them what happened to Eli and Leo and they whip the masks off with sheer joy shouting, “Here we are!” and I sigh in feigned relief. Even they understand that you just can’t sustain a Super Hero life for long. We need naps.

            Intuitively we know there’s more to this than what we see; there’s power, supernatural power just beyond our reach, but I think we also know there’s a price. They followed Jesus for the miracles, but when He challenged them in their faith, most walked away sad or mad. It costs, and He never chased anyone down.

            Eli might be Bruce Banner or Peter Parker today but he’s got it right. Though we all want to be a super hero, true heroes are made in the everyday grind of life. If my life is hid with Christ, then you will see Him, and His glory, no matter what I do. The task itself is unimportant. I’m just Robin (no relation to Batman) but He is the biggest and best Super Hero ever;  Mighty to Save, to Rescue and Redeem – and to use just ordinary folks like us.

            He is Emmanuel – “God with us.”

https://youtu.be/as5ubS6oNp4

Bruce Wayne? Definitely NOT Peter Parker.

Unfriending Facebook in Three Not-So-Easy Steps

 

 

A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. Proverbs 18:24

             Four clicks and done. The directions to delete a Facebook account seemed simple enough. But alas – by the third click, the plan was unraveling. Why? the Facebook folks wanted to know. A list of reasons were displayed. I quickly scanned them, then clicked on I spend too much time on it. Oh? How about we send less emails, those pesky Friend requests and reminders to post, to wish someone I haven’t seen in six years a happy birthday.

            No, that’s not enough I thought. I scanned further down.

            I don’t have any use for it. Yes! That’s true too!

            A long detailed reply popped up suggesting I should be a better friend to my Friends. By now I was getting annoyed. This was supposed to be easy, clean.. instead it was turning into a sloppy break-up. I hovered above the Deactivate Account button and clicked. It’s over, Rover.

            But…the word “Deactivate” was somehow unsettling to me, like when you tell the guy “maybe we can work things out down the road.” No, I wanted it over. I searched some more. Turns out there’s a difference between Deactivate and Delete. I wanted Delete. So I tried to sneak back onto my deactivated Facebook page and instantly a “Welcome back to Facebook!” message popped up in my email. AAARRGH!

            When I was a child and we moved to a new neighborhood, I would set out to troll for friends. I’d knock on a door and ask, “Is there anyone here to play with me?” And usually, because it was the 60’s and every home had a minimum of four kids, the mom would yell,

            “Susan? Cindy? Billy? There’s someone here for you! ” And an avalanche of raw energy would burst through the door, spilling out into the yard where we would play until the lightening bugs flickered on. It was pure and simple. We fought, we made up and fought again at least three times a day. We were friends.

            I entered the world of FB about two months ago. I had launched a non-profit called Higher Ground Outreach and Facebook seemed like a logical platform for it. But I had to first start with a personal page, so I gingerly stepped into the world of Friends and Likes and Unfriends I’d heard so much about over the years.

            “We’re Facebook friends,” someone would say to explain how they knew someone they didn’t really know.

            “Oh.” It seemed a tad silly but I would be silent. I did not belong.

.           But here I was now, one of them. Instantly the friend requests came tumbling in, My first thought was: Where were you guys when I was in eighth grade? And I noticed that a lot of my friend requests were from men named Mohammed. Okay I had to do some weeding. Soon I was staring at photos of people I had known and loved who had disappeared or people I didn’t know well, at all, but now befriended me – I mean Friended me. It was an odd mix of joy (reconnecting with one of my favorite girls from our Pawtucket church), wonder (I saw a side of my little sister that was clever and hysterically funny) and then downright depressing. Friends I thought I knew were far from where I thought they were. I grieved the disappointment, but I couldn’t really even grieve because every emotion on Facebook is about two inches deep. Friends who once gathered in my home or around a fire pit, giving thanks and praise to the God who rescued us now seemed to be worshipping around a strange fire – money, little league, politics and position. Not bad things, but where’s Jesus? It reminded me of those Where’s Waldo books that challenged you to find Waldo in the midst of ridiculous chaos and confusion crammed into every page.

            I’ve had to take a hard look at the busy-ness of my own life, the subtle nagging feeling I’ve had over the last few months that, despite doing “good” things, I am missing something so important, like the sleeping baby in the car seat. I felt justified in my good works. I even hung the Jesus sign on it. There! But I began to see the slippery slope. I was using His name to endorse my own will.

            If Jesus came back and walked the earth again among us, I’m pretty sure He would pass on social media. He doesn’t need it. In fact His true friends were not many as it turned out, even though He told us, “I call you friend.” I think it’s because He wants us to follow Him, not the other way around. And He knew it would be hard, that many would walk away sad, like the rich young ruler. I wonder what that guy did next? I bet he bought something he didn’t need or maybe started a non-profit or a big charity. Yet in his heart, he must’ve known he missed it. But the scariest thing is, I think once we start to walk away, the cross gets smaller and smaller, until it’s not even on the horizon. You can still quote the Bible and bless the food, but your heart is stone again. “Come to me,” Jesus said. Not now, too busy. God help us.

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.  No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. John 15:13-1

                  When I deleted my FB page, I had 335 friends. Not bad for a short time. But at least 325 of those friends were gained with a click and lost with another. “Life’s more fun when you live in the moment!” Snap Chat boasts. But are you really living life or posting the parts you want all of your “friends” to see? It’s hard to be in the moment with your phone in your hand.

How deep the Father’s love for us

How vast beyond all measure

That He should give His only son

To make a wretch His treasure

                      Come to me, Jesus calls. Friend. Stay awhile and rest. He will even give you real friends, maybe not a lot, but what you need. Bear one another’s burdens, He tells us. And when I can’t find just one, when no one will come out to play, He is there at the door, knocking, even after the fireflies come out at night. I just have to be able to hear Him, then go and open the door.

Feeling Young Again

*** I am so pleased to once again, share a  post with you from my son and favorite guest blogger, Miles Macleod. It is a beautiful and insightful take on Matthew 18:3. You can follow his family blog on macleodsonthemove.weebly.com. Enjoy!

 

Can you find the monkey?

 

So it’s been about six weeks in Malaysia and I’m feeling young again. But don’t get too jealous. I’m not talking about the grip-life-by-the-ears-and-drive-off-into-the-sunset-with-reckless-abandon type of young; it’s more like the I-can’t-read-this-menu-do-you-have-any-photos-of-your-food-so-I-can-point-to-the-pictures young.

It’s infuriating at times and good for a few laughs at others, but mostly it’s just embarrassing. Like the time I couldn’t figure out how to turn the water back on in my house and had to seek my neighbor’s help, or the time I drove down the wrong side of the road (they drive on the left here), or the time I did that again, or the times I pick up Quincy from daycare and can’t understand what his teacher is asking me to do so I just smile and nod and leave and don’t do what they ask, or the time I accidentally drank pond water from a spigot and the nearby guards laughed before showing me how to get filtered water, or how it’s taken me two weeks (and counting) to replace the only lightbulb in my bathroom (Erin showers in the dark every morning), or how I sometimes say “Good morning” (“salamat pagi”) to my neighbors when I see them walking in the evening (“salamat petang”).

Whatever confidence I had gained as a successful member of society while living in the States has quickly disappeared. Now, I’m more unsure, more unaware, and more pensive. More child-like.

There is a verse in the Bible, somewhere in Matthew, where Jesus tells a bunch of people to be more like children. It will help them, He says, get into Heaven. Whenever I’ve heard this verse mentioned, I assumed he wanted us to have more faith — child-like faith — a faith rooted in trust and untainted by the limitations of empirical evidence and the cynicism of adulthood.

Now, though, I’m thinking I had it wrong. Why would He want us to have the same type of faith that led me to put my trust and my bloody teeth and my cookies and milk into appeasing some mythological creature (see tooth fairy) or cultural apparition (see Santa)? That can’t be the same faith that He wants us to have, right? I would think He wants a more adult-like faith than that, one that has been tested and refined. So why be like children then? Well, in light of my six weeks in Malaysia, I’m thinking what Jesus likes so much about children isn’t so much their faith; it’s their helplessness.

I think about Quincy and his own helplessness too. At one years old, he relies on me for pretty much everything and because I come through more often than not, his love and his trust for me grows. I’m there to carry him on my shoulders when he tires and grab him from his crib when he wakes. To kiss his boo-boos and read his books; to teach him boundaries and open his doors. To him, I am everything. My identity — in his eyes — is defined by his own limitations.

And so it goes with world travel. For those who have yet to do it, I strongly encourage you to give it a try. There are numerous benefits, but perhaps none more so than the spiritual clarity that comes with it. My can-do American attitude has quickly been replaced by a please-help Malaysian posture. And through this transition and in the midst of my helplessness, my Father’s identity has been redefined by my own limitations. He is made strong in my weakness. My place in this crazy, amazing world has never been more clear. I am child-like. But for my Father, that’s okay.

Quincy in Cambodia making a new friend