the challenge: working through it together

Posted on by February 13, 2023

Every year we choose new books to read (do you do this, too?), but last year we started something different – we did a reading challenge. Sounds fancy, doesn’t it?

But it’s not, really. Just search the internet and you’ll find a hundred variations. Iree joined us and the three of us teamed up together to read 104 books. Two books per week seems like a lot, but between all of us, it seemed doable.

But we quickly discovered that it wasn’t, quite.

the challenge: working through it together

It wasn’t the number of books, but the categories that threw us. And I understand that the point of a challenge is to, well, challenge you, but there was only one slot for “a book you have no interest in” and I own too many books that I actually want to read to bother digging around with so many categories that were on there that I don’t.

So, taking a languid approach to it, we crossed the boring/inapplicable categories off as we went and replaced them with creative ones that were less boring (cough) more to our taste. Because seriously, I value theology and Christian living, but there were SO MANY of them on there, and absolutely nothing on writing, crafts, psychology, ancient history, criminology, or any of the other weird stuff we also really like.

And by the end of the year our list was a mess, but it was much more fun, and yes – we were still challenged.

This year we did it again, but started off with a clean list. We made sure the categories were both realistic and interesting right off the bat. We crowded around the kitchen island, just throwing ideas out there.

A book written by someone you know. A book with a character you’d want to be friends with. A book about a disaster. A book about personal growth. A book Shannon quoted in one of her books. A book of 800 pages or more. A memoir or autobiography. A book by Dickens.

“A book on Napoleonic history,” Vin suggested.

“Uhh…” Iree and I looked at each other.

“Only if you’re going to read it,” she said. (He said he would.)

Cham came in and we asked her for suggestions. And if you don’t know her, you will after hearing her ideas:

“A book about biology…a book on dissecting. Ohh! A book on cadavers!”

Yeah. Well…we only added one of those ideas; I’ll let you guess which.

There’s so much that we don’t know. We’ll read hundreds, thousands, of pages this year, and aside from the people we hang out with and the time we spend in prayer, very few things will influence our growth like these pages. So it’s important to choose good ones, and to enjoy the time spent with them.

I’m not kidding myself; I know I won’t remember most of what I read. I won’t like or agree with everything that I read. But even without remembering all the facts and storylines and characters and historical figures, we will be changed. The pages will leave an impression that wasn’t there last year.

Last year I started reading Plutarch’s Lives alongside Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Several months in, I realized my mistake. I thought they would reinforce each other, but usually I just get more confused as I try to untangle them from each other every week.

But I am learning.

I don’t remember all the individual lives in Plutarch, and I couldn’t tell you the exact timeline in Gibbon. But what I can tell you is an impression of these cultures and times. I can tell you that there were leaders who had wisdom for the ages, including ours. And there were also leaders who were so abhorrent in their depravity and disregard for the lives of others that the horrors they committed are hard to believe.

But they are in the history books. We generally don’t argue with them.

So, quick question, because I have to go there – why do people disbelieve or disregard the horrors we hear about today? Why are we so quick to mock and accuse people of being conspiracy theorists when they share information about celebrities and politicians doing abhorrent things?

Is it because they’re not in the history books yet? Is it because we have no interest in those categories?

Is it because those topics challenge us too much?

Or is it because we are their contemporaries, and their proximity to our own lives makes us uncomfortable? Because if these things are happening in the world we live in (and they are – it takes very little research to discover it, though you’ll have to use a search engine that doesn’t censor to do it, and you absolutely should not do so without being prayed up), then either a) we might be somewhat responsible that they exist, or b) we might need to do something about it so they no longer exist.

And those aren’t good, easy, fun options. It’s much more comfortable to shoot the messenger, lump it all as conspiracy theory and applaud the censorship that silences them, and move along with our noses heads held high.

I’ve heard some people disavow information simply because it didn’t match their personal experience. And I’m grateful they haven’t personally experienced anything that horrific, but our personal experiences do not define or limit the reality of other people experiences. It is arrogant, narcissistic, and foolishly ignorant to act like it does.

We still have so much to learn.

Hear me, friend: Children chained to beds and starved was not in my personal experience until we got involved in adoption.

Children who weighed 24 pounds at age four were not in my personal experience until we started our adoption paperwork. We converted kilos to pounds in astonishment; it had to be a miscalculation. But it wasn’t.

Children who were so neglected that they were only nine pounds at nine years old were not in our personal experience until we got involved with the people who were adopting them.

Our lack of personal experience did not prevent their existence or the abuse. It only proved our ignorance.

Our personal experience is not the epitome of reality. It is arrogant to assume that our x amount of years in any field (professional, personal, or otherwise) qualifies us to deny the reality of someone else’s differing experience, especially when it comes in the form of testimony with evidence and witnesses.

Just because something is so devastating that it is hard to believe, doesn’t mean it isn’t actually true.

And just because you don’t find information about fraud, horrific child abuse, or other crimes perpetrated by the elite on mainstream media (which no longer even attempts to hide how blatant their censorship is) doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. It just means they want us to think it doesn’t…and that should lead us to some very important questions about what they have to lose.

There are many things that are hard to believe, but are nevertheless reality, regardless of how uncomfortable they make us feel, or how much we hate those categories.

And coming to understand that – and working through it together, with respect and love – may be the real challenge we all go through this year.

keep it: the only way we maintain good times for future generations

Posted on by January 18, 2021

Over the last week with few exceptions, I’ve posted nothing on social media except scripture. I haven’t wanted to add to the noise. He has good things to say about this season, and that’s what I’ve wanted to focus on and draw attention to.

keep it: the only way we maintain good times for future generations

It’s been an interesting experiment and a good move for me, sort of like a fast.

Fret not yourself because of evildoers;
    be not envious of wrongdoers!
For they will soon fade like the grass
    and wither like the green herb.

Trust in the Lord, and do good;
    dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.

– Psalm 37:1-3

It’s been Psalm 37 all week long. But if you’re paying attention (I know many of you are) you know that really, it’s been Psalm 37 for much longer than that. The events over the last few weeks, and even leading up to election week in November, weren’t huge surprises and they’ve been in the making for a long time.

Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him;
    fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way,
    over the man who carries out evil devices!

Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath!
    Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil.
For the evildoers shall be cut off,
    but those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land.

– Psalm 37:7-9

On January 6th, we took the day off work and prayed. And then we went to church and prayed. Our pastor talked candidly about the risk of civil war, and I’ve thought many times about how we are facing this blend of civil and revolutionary war – civil because it is among our own countrymen, but revolutionary because of the cause and the nature of it.  But our pastor also talked about the grievous things it could mean for our kids and future grandkids, and I had not fully considered it in that vivid light.

Then one of the elders prayed, and he repented for his generation that allowed so much of this to happen. They were comfortable, he said; things were easy. And they took advantage of it, and the generation that came after took the ease and comfort for granted.

It made me think of this saying that I’ve been hearing a lot over the last year:

Hard times create strong men.

Strong men create good times.

Good times create weak men.

Weak men create hard times.

And it’s so true, I know it is, but surely we must be able to break the cycle. Because if we can’t, everything seems so hopeless – why should we work to create good times if it only results in weak men who ruin it for our great grandchildren?

Or worse, there’s that other argument we hear all too often: Why bother bringing children into the world at all?

But then, the same week, I also read this:

“What sort of world is this to bring them into? That’s another consideration.”

“A very cowardly consideration, dear. A mere shirking of responsibility. It’s a heavy responsibility, of course, a double one, responsibility for the children themselves and responsibility for the world they must live in. But I know of no better incentive for the building of a decent world than the possession of children who must live in the world you’ve built.”

– Elizabeth Goudge, Pilgrim’s Inn

God creates a beautiful, strategic curriculum for our lives: The warnings and repentance, the prayer and the challenge. And I realized again that we are not headed for war; we are already at war.

We always have been. But we lose ground every time we forget it.

What hasn’t changed is that we are occupying the land of a cleanup operation: We are in the middle of a spiritual war in a physical place, and it manifests itself in both ways. We see the spiritual and physical aftermath all around us.

So even when we get back to “good times” – the corruption is revealed, the fraud is overturned, the guilty go to prison (hashtag: we’re gonna need a bigger Gitmo) – we still need to remember that we are at war. We are always at war. Our hearts and culture are the battleground, and never more so when it looks like things are safe and easy.

We are still occupying and stewarding the land, on mission, until He comes.

There are quiet victories and struggles, great sacrifices of self, and noble acts of heroism, in it…done every day in nooks and corners, and in little households, and in men’s and women’s hearts – any one of which might reconcile the sternest man to such a world, and fill him with belief and hope in it, though two-fourths of its people were at war, and another fourth at law; and that’s a bold word.

– Charles Dickens, The Battle of Life

People’s hearts – ours, and those around us – are always and still the battleground. Hearts and identities and relationships will always need wholeness and fullness, in good times and bad, and that is where God wants to stake His claim. We till the soil regardless of the weather and circumstances because strong men create good times, but strong men can also create strong children. And those strong children will continue to inherit the land.

There were still children in the world, and while there were children, men and women would not abandon the struggle to make safe homes to put them in, and while they so struggled there was hope.

– Elizabeth Goudge, Pilgrim’s Inn

When the Constitutional Convention closed in 1787, Benjamin Franklin was leaving Independence Hall when a woman asked him what kind of government they had just designed. His answer was, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

And that is still our challenge today.

Turn away from evil and do good;
    so shall you dwell forever.
For the Lord loves justice;
    he will not forsake his saints.
They are preserved forever,
    but the children of the wicked shall be cut off.
The righteous shall inherit the land
    and dwell upon it forever.

– Psalm 37:27-29

In good times or hard times, we are still loving our kids and teaching them. We are still learning more and growing. We are still passing on values and standards and true education. We are still in the Word and abiding in prayer. We cannot let up and grow soft when times are easy, and we cannot let go and become calloused when times are hard.

The only way we do that is to remember that the war is never over – it is always raging in the spiritual battleground. We are not only meant to inherit the land, but to keep it.

over the top: trading our agenda for God’s peace at Christmas

Posted on by December 21, 2020

Well friends, I’ve broken my streak: Until this week, I’ve successfully avoided all stores since…oh, February, I think. It has nothing to do with the agenda of social distancing or illnesses or government plots to overthrow the world; it’s just because I utterly hate shopping.

But the other night Vin and I took the Chimichangos – that’s Kav and Finn to you – to the store near our house to grab some stocking stuffers and other essentials. You know, like tortilla chips.

over the top: trading our agenda for God’s peace at Christmas

And Kav still doesn’t say much, so secrets are safe with him. But Finn, who talks all the time whether anyone is listening or not, is a security risk when it comes to gifts. And as soon as we got back home, he had an announcement.

“Afton!! We got you a NEW WATER BOTTLE!!”

Afton, scandalized at this breach of confidential information, waved him off, yelling, “Stop! Don’t tell me! Shh!!”

Undeterred, Finn plowed forward. “It’s BLUE!”

So that’s how that went. (For the record, he’s only partly right. It is blue. But it is not for Afton.)

My birthday was the following day and I woke up to fresh snow – it’s still one of my favorite gifts, though it’s not one I get every year – and the familiar back-forth, back-forth sound of the neighbor snowplowing his driveway. Christmas songs were playing downstairs.

Tell how the angels in chorus,
Sang as they welcomed His birth,
“Glory to God in the highest!
Peace and good tidings to earth.”

My phone rang, and I knew the name but was stunned to see it on the screen. Her eyesight is shot and I’m always the one who calls her these days.

“How many years are you now?” Grandma asked me.

“Forty-four,” I confessed.

“Fooorty-four!” She drew it out into long syllables. “How many years does that make me?”

“Well, you just had your birthday, and you turned…” I can’t remember, because the number coming to mind doesn’t seem like it could possibly be true. “You were born in ’31, right?”

“Right.”

“So…you’re 89.” And I think we were both shocked. “If you behave yourself, we can have you for many more birthdays.” She’s had two fancy helicopter rides in the last five years, and that’s enough for me.

“Behave myself?” she scoffed. “Is that required?!”

She said Michael, my uncle, remembered my birthday and reminded her to call me. She asked if the kids were helping me have a good day, and I told her they were all playing outside and leaving me alone for a few minutes, so, yes, they were. She asked if we had our tree up already. I said yes, and told her how Iree sewed a bunch of little bird ornaments that were all over the tree…although at first she gave them to Finn to put on the tree, so they were mostly just congregating on three branches. (Obviously the birds were too shy at first to mingle with the other weird ornaments. I bet if you let them loose in the store, they’d hate shopping, too.)

“He is such a sweet boy.” Then she tells me again: “Babies that come later in life are so special.”

She told me how she shoveled snow around her house that morning; it was a beautiful day and the temperature was perfect. Not too cold, not too warm. And if you’re curious what the perfect temperature for shoveling snow is to an 89-year-old Alaskan grandma, it was 24 degrees.

Tell me the story of Jesus,
Write on my heart every word;
Tell me the story most precious,
Sweetest that ever was heard.

Last month when it was her birthday, I called and tried to arrange dinner plans. Here’s how that went:

“I don’t know if I have plans,” she said. “Let me ask Michael when he gets home.”

“I already checked with him. You don’t have plans.”

“I don’t?”

“Nope. We’ve been calling and texting already.”

“You have?”

“Yeah. I told you, we’ve been working on this.”

“Oh. You’ve been working on this.”

“Well, yeah, a little.”

Then she tried a different tack. “Are you tired from all that work?” And then she giggled. Such a rascal.

But she was right – I am. I am tired. Tiiiired, you can say it in long syllables.

This month had birthdays for Kavanagh and me, and by that second week, the month already looked like it was headed off the rails. As I type this, three things are due by the end of the month, including a big new project. And we’re hoping to take a few days off before Christmas.

I want to make cookies and deliver gingerbread to the neighbors. Vin wants to make tamales and deliver them to friends. There are sewing projects and presents to wrap and a scarf I’m making for Iree. And I also want time to just sit and do nothing, provided that “nothing” means I can work on the puzzle in the library.

It doesn’t look super promising, when it’s all put down like that.

And as I start to feel the tension rise in my chest, there’s a check in my spirit.

Fasting alone in the desert,
Tell of the days that are past,
How for our sins He was tempted,
Yet was triumphant at last.

I know this feeling; it’s striving. It’s the overachiever, the ambitious list maker, the I-can-do-it-by-myself independence, the get-it-all-done-and-cram-it-all-in flesh that I’ve been (mostly) delivered from for years, but it comes back at certain seasons…like Christmas.

I get the feeling that in five years I’ll look back on this the same way I look at my kids when they get all stressed out and take things too seriously.

Tell of the years of His labor,
Tell of the sorrow He bore;
He was despised and afflicted,
Homeless, rejected and poor.

But right then, looking at the list, was not five years from now. Right then I was thinking of all the things I needed to do and how the week kept shrinking. I was trying to figure out how much time I had before we had to leave for an event that night, and whether it would take more than five minutes to do my hair. And I was wondering what that Facebook notification was, and whose email just dinged in my inbox. And I needed to go to the bathroom.

Tell of the cross where they nailed Him,
Writhing in anguish and pain;
Tell of the grave where they laid Him,
Tell how He liveth again.

So this to-do list and I are staring each other down, and I’m filtering it through the sieve of God’s agenda versus my own. The work projects – those are His assignments. The downtime with the kids is, too. But the social media is not, all the events are not, and the striving and stress are not.

As I lay my agenda down, the Lord’s agenda becomes clearer:

Focused work. Undistracted evenings. A few projects with the kids. The puzzle at the table, maybe some baking, maybe some sewing.

And whatever can’t be done, doesn’t need to be done. When that’s the agenda, I can look forward to Christmas.

Love in that story so tender,
Clearer than ever I see;
Stay, let me weep while you whisper,
“Love paid the ransom for me.”

– Frances Crosby, Tell Me the Story of Jesus

A couple of days after my birthday was Kavanagh’s, and that morning I woke up slowly while nursing him in bed. He had fallen asleep with his hands folded on my chest. This boy has stretched my parenting and my trust in God, teaching me that it’s okay to push ourselves to the limit as long as it is God’s agenda and not our own.

And I was struck with joy over this Christmas baby who, like another baby before him, was so unexpected and unplanned, but is such an over-the-top beautiful part of our lives.

It’s not the first time God sent that message to His people.

His own coming crossed the bounds of all our agendas, proving again that He still knows best, and He will go over the top to show His love for us.