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.

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

 

The Way to Wellness

 

             The pain awakened me. My feet were throbbing, and the ache reached up to the back of my knees. I lay still trying to figure this out, then realized as I readjusted my body that my back, neck and head hurt too. I remembered swimming in Nantucket Sound a few days earlier. God am I that old? I sighed and lifted my pounding head from the pillow, slid out of bed, and limped into the bathroom. I can find the Tylenol and open the child-proof cap without even being conscious.

            It wasn’t until that evening, when my clothes felt like they were on fire that I realized I was sick, not just sore. Then the shaking chills. I fumbled around for a thermometer. 101.7. I gulped some more Tylenol and went to bed. It was a restless night but I awoke free from fever, although not from the pain. I called my doctor.

            “Hold on,” the secretary said flatly after hearing my story, punctuated by, I have never had a fever that high! for dramatic effect. When she came back on the line she said, “The doctor said, ‘You’re a nurse. You know if you’re sick.'”

            I do? This was my first thought. Because historically I am pathetically unaware of my physical well-being, until my body just drops and quits. I’m a great nurse for you but like most nurses, detached from the signals and sirens going off inside my own body.

            Someone had to tell me when I was pregnant, when I was turning yellow from eating bad shellfish, when I should consider that I might have a concussion. I don’t like to spend time inside of myself. It just never seems beneficial.

            There’s a plus side to my ignorance. My husband marvels at my ability to deflect “vain imaginations,” my resilience under pressure and a forward drive that prevents a morbid preoccupation with inward scrutiny. I stunk at meditating in the 70’s. At a yoga class I took a few years ago, I started giggling then had to leave when the instructor told us to be “mindful.” It sounded like Dali Lama meets Miss Manners.

            But there’s also the flip side. A lack of self-awareness can lead to self-deception; perhaps nothing evil or even un-Godly, but I can easily slide into my old comfy self-reliant shoes – the ones with well-worn scriptures and broken-in prayers.

            Then he said to them, “You like to appear righteous in public, but God knows your hearts. What this world honors is detestable in the sight of God.” Luke 16:15

            Yikes! Detestable? Let me look at another translation… how about “abominable?”

            I recovered from my sickness of unknown origin after six days and felt like I was coming out of general anesthesia. I had lost time, so my natural course of action was to catch-up and get busy. Then one morning early in prayer, I heard God speak to me very clearly. He said this:

            “Don’t take Me lightly.”

            It startled me – it was a warning, just short of a rebuke, and I knew I had to spend some time looking inside, and at how the inside was manifesting outside. I had to take my spiritual temperature.

            Charles Finney wrote in the 1850’s about negative morality – how Christians are inclined to settle for just being good people. We don’t curse, don’t smoke, don’t hurt others. We are nice Christians, assimilating into the mainstream of life, but if we are just good, not sanctified, we stink like last week’s garbage. We become hollow trophies, relics of dead religion and social injustice programs – applauded by mankind and the devil. Detestable to God.

            What was my remedy? Repentance first. I had been “esteeming the things of God lightly” – foremost, my relationship with Him. I had been rushed, distracted, malnourished from “lite” prayer, lazy grazing in His word, genuflecting before His throne room of grace. I felt ashamed. My temperature was lukewarm at best, but in the public eye I spoke eloquently, laughed easily and even loved well. But was it His love, or mine? Could I have loved if they hated me or my Jesus? Or if I speak Truth, not just what someone wanted to hear? Can I rejoice in suffering, when what I think is rightly mine, is taken by a just and sovereign God? I knew all this, but I had begun to take it lightly. We are pulled from the flames of hell, redeemed and set free by a brutal death on a cross and clothed in heavenly righteousness. How can I ever take that lightly? A Love far greater than anything I could return? Yet I was treading softly down the well-worn path of neutral Christianity.

            My worship was indeed sick; not dying or dead but just sick enough to make me useless, just like the fever that haunted me for six days, wearing me out, weakening my reserve. I still functioned, but I was hollow and ineffective. Salt without saltiness, a flame without warmth.

“Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one–the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts,…” ― C.S. Lewis,  The Screwtape Letters           

            I thank God for His warning, that He loves us enough to say, “STOP!” Since that day, I’ve noticed all the places where I can worship Him “in spirit and in truth,” not just in lip-service and the “dont’s”. At work, when a patient’s call light is on again, at home, when my husband who never asks needs to know how much I love him, or looking at the night sky studded with every star my God has named. Funny – once I started looking for places to worship Him, my joy returned. Playing the piano, walking the dog, talking to Jesus before I close my eyes at night. I feel renewed, and so very loved. Thanks, Lord, for pulling me back in, close to You.

Because Your lovingkindness is better than life,
My lips shall praise You.
 Thus I will bless You while I live;
I will lift up my hands in Your name.
When I remember You on my bed,
I meditate on You in the night watches.
 Because You have been my help,
Therefore in the shadow of Your wings I will rejoice. Psalm 63:3-7

 

 

Color-Coded Chaos

            Will finished his cigarette and  took one last look around his yard, his house then grabbed his cooler and shoved it into the back of his black pickup and rode off. I could see him through my sunroom window where I pray every morning, through the thin layer of cedar and maple that separates our two homes. When you live so close, you either love your neighbor or, if you’re a Christian you “have to” love your neighbor. My husband and I did both, for six years, and in return I think Will liked us and may have even been a little sad saying goodbye.

            Now my own life is changing, that much I know. In my excitement, I’ve started way too many things at once and I wake up exhausted. I’m not even working.

“Hi honey! What did you do today?” my husband asks when he comes in from a day of building things, caked in saw dust and sweat.

“Oh, I was working on the non-profit/ book stuff/coaching website,” whatever the case may be. And he nods respectfully even though I could be creating Frankenstein in the basement for all he knows. In a way I wish I was because I’d have something to show for hours of labor each day. But nothing. Just dreams that make more dreams.

            Will was the best-ever neighbor. He watched our house when we were gone, rescuing all of my plants on the sun porch last winter when the temperature hit a numbing six degrees. He even watched our house when we were home, sending my husband text alerts about suspicious activity in the street. Once he saw me walking my dog at night past his house.

            “You should be careful here at night,” he warned.

            “I’m okay,” I assured him. “I have a big dog.”

            “I have a big gun if you ever want to borrow it,” he offered with a smile.

            Now looking over to his empty house is like looking at a corpse in a casket. He’s not there so it’s just a house, swept clean and echo-ey. Last night my husband and I prayed for good neighbors, maybe ones that we could point to Jesus. We tried with Will, inviting him to church many times.

            “The church would burn down,” he responded. Or he would wave his can of Budweiser at us and yell, “I’m too drunk!” But I have hope for Will as he heads to his new home high in the Vermont mountains. God speaks through His creation and I believe our good neighbor will hear.

            I’m in a season of transitions and I’ve always had a hard time separating things. Same with when I lose someone close. It’s like the whole weight of everyone I’ve loved and lost bears down on me and I’m crushed. My son Miles and his wife and children just packed up their lives and left their home of seven years in North Carolina, to begin a new life in Malaysia.

            “Malaysia? ” people say, with their faces twisted up in shock. “How long are they going to live in Malaysia?” I think only God knows that answer. It’s far, it sounds crazy but that’s how following Jesus often looks. And they are all ecstatic.

            They visited us on the Cape before they left. And to complete my joy, my other two grandsons were here at the same time. Balls, trucks, beach buckets and books lined every foot path inside and out. Joyful chaos. Then it was time for goodbye. As they pulled out of the driveway a small hand pressed against the back window, then they were gone. I know now why my mom hated goodbyes.

See I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the desert. Isaiah 43:19

               A knife, a grenade and three crayons. I move methodically around the room, eyes to the floor that is strewn with the last remnants of my grandchildren’s busy worlds. The big stuffed teddy bear that Leo dragged around the house and yard with him had to go back in the Celtics can with his other buddies. Pipe cleaners, Popsicle sticks and the glue my granddaughters used for the odd jeweled raft they created that was semi-stuck to the small play table, were sorted back to their shoeboxes. I sighed. These kids utterly wear me out in such a glorious way. The bubbles go up high on a shelf and I turn to scan the room, still and quiet. Curious George, missing an eye, winks at me as I turn and go back to my grown-up world.

            I wish my life was as easy to sort as that play room. Career up on a shelf, people close to my heart that I know God wants me to spend time with – maybe they can sit next to Curious George and chat while they wait for me look up from my laptop. The book, speaking invitations stacked neatly in predictable color-coded boxes. Just yesterday I stared at all the messages I had flagged in my mailbox, wondering why they were so disorganized and then it hit me. They were organized by color flag. Only I had picked a random color each time I flagged one.

            “Oh purple looks cute! I’ll flag that purple!” Not a clue that there was an opportunity for some order.

            But maybe, just maybe, I am exactly the way God intended me to be – the same girl that danced on the desktops to break up the monotony of a 2nd grade classroom. Jesus is probably shaking his head at my mess and thinking it would be a good thing if I could sort it all out a little more, and He would help me, no doubt.

            “God is not a God of chaos,” I’ve heard over the pulpit more than once. And it’s true. But I think He’d rather have us doing something, than just being like Will’s house. Empty and echo-ey.

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:16-18

            Renewed day by day. I like that, no, I need that. Yes, there is much to do. Maybe Jesus can help me color-code my dreams. Or we can build a jeweled raft and try not to glue it to the table.

            “Hi honey! What did you do today?” my husband will ask.

And for once, I’ll have something to show him.

 

 

 

The Top Ten Things Mama Taught Me

  1. Manners. I hated learning them and I was the only girl north of Baltimore who knew how to curtsy. I was banished from many meals, red with shame for “smacking my lips” or slipping an elbow onto the table. It was often absurd and out of touch, but included in that package was learning to respect those folks older and usually smarter, and learning to be gracious with the ungracious. Poise. It’s an old fashioned ideology.
  2. How to make the best southern biscuit in the world. Sorry, I’d have to kill you if I told you, and besides it’s learned, not taught. Just stay close by, I’ll give you some warm out of the oven, soft as Gabriel’s pillow.
  3. Every time you say “I can’t,” substitute it with “I don’t want to.” Dang, she was right again. Every time.
  4. The only time it’s okay to lie is when someone gets a bad hairdo.
  5. The only time it’s okay to be rude is when someone talks too much. Oh and she showed us how all right…
  6. Swearing is a lazy use of language. There are more creative ways to express yourself.
  7. Life is short – eat french fries and milkshakes.
  8. There is no sorrow like losing a child – you will not get over it, and that’s okay.
  9. People can be jackasses (her word), but refer back to #1.
  10. “Motherhood is self-defeating; the only way you succeed is to let go.”

            My mom is in heaven now, finally reunited with a son and a grandson. I don’t think she would’ve called herself a great mother but let’s be real – we are winging it, especially when they’re teens.  Love  really does cover a multitude of sins, because Love is gracious, just like my mom taught me. Only God’s love is perfect, but a mom’s comes pretty close. Happy Mother’s Day to all of you beautiful moms out there!

My grandson Eli presenting a rose to his mom.