Murderous Thoughts on Mother's Day?

You shall not murder. Exodus 20:13

This is the message you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.

All who hate a brother or sister are murderers.

I John 3: 11 and 15

Being that it’s Mother’s Day, I guess I was expecting a softer start to the morning than to be confronted by the words, “You shall not murder.” So much for flowery, lacey, pinkish sentiments.

You shall not murder. Yes, as a parent, I have sometimes been frustrated enough by one kid’s antics or the other’s that I have muttered to myself, “I swear I’ll kill him.”

I try to reserve that phrase for the truly serious offenses—not for minor infractions like tracking mud across a freshly washed kitchen floor or swigging orange juice directly from the carton or even losing a brand new L.L. Bean winter coat out on the sledding hill. For these sorts of judgment lapses I tend to resort to extremely heavy sighing and head shaking.

No, I only invoke death threats in scenarios that cause me extreme worry and heartbreak. Like the time my pre-schooler wandered away from me in a 2-story department store that opened onto an enormous shopping mall. He had decided to play Hide-And-Go-Seek, but had forgotten to inform me that the game was on. He ducked inside a circular clothing rack laden with skirts, and the only thing that eventually gave away his location was a muted giggle as I searched frantically, calling out his name. In his glee, little did he know the thoughts that ran through my mind—thoughts of him being alone and frightened, thoughts of him climbing on the railing of the second floor concourse high above the first floor fountain, thoughts of him being lured away by a fellow with Tootsie Pops and evil intentions. Of course, when I did discover the child’s hiding place, I was so crazy with relief that I cried and embraced him. I didn’t even come close to killing him.

Neither did I kill either of my children on any of the subsequent occasions when I may have gotten calls from the school principal, or heard from other parents in the neighborhood about some questionable behavior, or on those very late nights when one didn’t arrive home by the agreed upon time and didn’t have the decency to text me. I may have breathed fire at the time, but I still loved them through the fury.

While working out the rules that would be good for humanity, maybe God Our Heavenly Parent was watching what people were up to and, out of frustration and heartbreak, muttered, “I swear I’ll kill them.” Maybe God Our Heavenly Parent deals daily with this attitude. Who knows?! Maybe this particular commandment first came into being as God was working out God’s own parenting skills.

Love your kids today. Love your parents today. Love your God today. And for goodness’ sake, try not to kill anyone.

Restoration

When you return to the Lord your God, then the Lord your God will restore you from captivity, and have compassion on you. Deuteronomy 30:2-3

Jesus said to the healed woman, “Daughter, your faith has made you well;

go in peace, and be healed of your disease.” Mark 5:34

I have an antique trestle-style library table. No, let me rephrase that. I have the pieces of an antique trestle-style table. Some are splintered, all are dusty, and they are stacked in the corner of my garage.

Once belonging to my Uncle Fritz and Aunt Margie, the skinny table used to decorate the back wall of their vintage Midwest farmhouse living room. Throughout my entire childhood and youth, the table was most often topped with a doily, a lamp, and a filled candy dish. At holiday time, it boosted their 4 foot tall artificial Christmas tree to a grand height and held their tissue-paper wrapped gifts.

Especially in its current state, the table is of no particular worth. Made of inexpensive pine varnished into a sticky blackness, its only value is sentimental. And yet, I’ve carried that small woodpile with me on several cross country moves always with the hope and expectation that someday—when I have time—I will restore the heap into a serviceable item of furniture.

Restoration, of course, means to return something to its earlier condition. But it also means to take it a step further—to refurbish something to a better condition.

Both Old and New Testament verses in today’s Daily Text speak of restoration. In one example we hear about someone being restored to the community following a time of exile and isolation. In the other, we learn of someone’s health and wholeness being restored. In both cases, these acts of restoration are life-affirming and positive. The people effected end up being better than ever because they have come to know God’s compassion.

Struggles in this life are the gritty sandpaper, the grinder that scrapes against the surface and scratches off the old finish. Without the grit, the stain wouldn’t adhere, and without the stain, the beauty of the grain would not be revealed—even better than the first time.

Someday I’ll get to work on that table. In the meantime, I invite God to keep working on me.

The Warmth of God's Blessing

The Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you.

Numbers 6:25

Jesus said, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” John 20:21

I went to a high school track meet yesterday to cheer on my son and his teammates, but only the fact that Dan was scheduled to run in the finale event kept me anchored to my chilled aluminum bleacher seat through the whole contest. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy watching the competitive sprints, the aerial pole vaulting, or the punishing 3200 meter run. All of the kids’ achievements were worthy of ovation.

No, the tough thing about being out there last evening was the raucous wind pummeling the already cool air and taking it down my degrees. By perching high enough up in the stands to get a good look at the finish line, I also set myself up to be pierced by the icy blasts that persisted even though the sun never gave up shining. With gloves on, coat zipped, and hood up, still my teeth chattered.

But then, for about four and a half minutes—only the amount of time it took for one speedy runner to complete one lap of the oval—the wind ceased. The wind ceased and the persistent sunshine immediately heated me to the point where I had to shed the outerwear and tilt my head back to receive the glorious warmth.

Is this what it feels like in the soul when God’s face is shining, when God is being gracious? Is this what it feels like in the spirit when God is offering a blessing? Could be. Could be.

The Lord bless you and keep you.

The Lord make his face shine upon you.

The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

Take a Knee

Before me every knee will bow; by me every tongue will swear. They will say of me, “In the Lord alone are righteousness and strength.” Isaiah 45:23-24

Therefore God also highly exalted him, so that at the name of Jesus every knee would bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:9-11

I find no difficulty, no hesitation in saying out loud, “Jesus is Lord.” The hard part comes with the knee-bending. Whether done physically or metaphorically, kneeling in Christ’s presence is an act of submission, a demonstration of my willingness to yield control to an authority outside of myself. But I’m a control freak, so capitulating never comes easily. I have to work at it.

This evening, I had the opportunity to learn a new skill. I was with my church hand bell choir for our regular Monday night rehearsal when the director asked me to move from my usual position and learn a different part. Now, I have a modicum of hand bell experience, and I’ve mastered the basics along the way. I can read music, I can manage a different bell in each hand, I know how to create the special effects that come with thumb damping and plucking and shaking the bells. I’m proficient.

Or I thought I was proficient until I was asked to ring 4 bells simultaneously. Yes, there is a way to overlap the bells’ strappy handles so that each hand can accommodate 2 bells, and yes, there is a way to strike them independently of each other. Several practiced musicians tried to show me the proper technique that would allow me to accomplish this feat. I would go so far as to say these musicians were experts. They were authorities. Had I simply submitted to their expertise, had I acquiesced to their experience and surrendered to their teaching, it would have been an evening of lovely, full-bodied music pealing through the church.

But of course, I barreled ahead on my own, disregarding their knowledge and wisdom in exchange for my own clumsy clanking and banging. A train wreck would have been a happier sound than the ones I was creating by ignoring good advice and doing things my way. (The director sent us home early tonight. I think it’s because I gave her a headache.)

I have a tendency to charge into life in the same stubborn way, believing I can figure things out for myself. Sometimes I can, but it’s never without a lot of false starts and dissonance. I’m sure I must give God a headache. I know I give myself one. If I could just manage to take a knee sometimes and simply acknowledge that Jesus is in control—and I’m not—there would be a lot fewer headaches to contend with.

Holy Spirit Promises

The Lord will not cast away his people,for his great name’s sake.

I Samuel 12:22

The promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him. Acts 2:39

My china cabinet is filled with stories my male teenage children do not want to hear—like how the antique flat champagne glasses we use for dessert on special occasions were originally wedding presents belonging to their great grandparents, two German immigrants who met and fell in love in Chicago; or how, when she was a little girl, my mom would actually use the Shirley Temple milk pitcher and matching cobalt blue cereal bowl when she would join her father in the kitchen for “a little lunch before bedtime.” I’ve tried to pass along family lore in the snippets and vignettes the dishes bring to mind, but any such telling brings on glazed eyes and slumped shoulders.

When I was a child, I adored staring at the gold rimmed porcelain plates and the silver inlaid Venetian glass decanter with matching cordial glasses. Their origins fascinated me not only because of their beauty, but because they put me closer to understanding my lineage, my ancestry. My peeps!

Though referenced often enough in our household, these cultural indicators do not resonate with my kids. In fact, when my youngest son was in third grade, he came home from school one day and said, “My teacher asked me what my family’s heritage was, and I told her we didn’t have one.” It’s moments like these that I slap my hand to my own forehead in mortified disbelief. I wonder how it is that I have failed so completely at connecting my own child to his own history, his own legacy?

It’s bad enough that I have not stirred my children’s imagination when it comes to tales of their forebears. But what might even be worse is if I’ve failed to stir their longing for something magnificent not in the past, but in the present and future. Have I shared my faith in meaningful, memorable, powerful ways, and have I helped them to understand that the promise of the Holy Spirit’s power and presence is right there for them if only they take an interest, if only they claim it?

It was awfully generous of Peter to tell his Pentecost audience that the full blown energy of God’s Spirit would be available not only to them, but also to their children and even to people at a distance (in other words, you need not be present to win). What is implied in Peter’s speech, however, is that it would become a parental responsibility to convey to the next generation just how a wildly outrageous encounter with God’s Spirit is transformational.

Yes, the promise is for our children. Yes, God’s Spirit works in crazy, unexpected ways. But it is also our joyful obligation to help our kids make the connections that will light up their souls.

Being Earthy

For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, says the Lord, so shall your descendants and your name remain. Isaiah 66:22

Be faithful until death and I will give you the crown of life. Revelation 2:10

Tomorrow is Earth Day, and as I look around the room I’m sitting in right now, all the components I’ve been assembling for “A Spirited Gathering Honoring God and Creation” at beautiful Tuscora Park are right in front of me. There’s a stack of song sheets printed on recycled paper (30% post-consumer fiber), packets of flower and vegetable seeds we’ll be planting in little pots made from an accumulated pile of old newspapers, a poster featuring that iconic photo of the earth taken from Apollo 17 back in 1972, and an amazingly clear and detailed version of the globe reproduced on a beach ball.

The focus of Earth Day has been upon environmental awareness and activism since it was established in 1970 under the leadership of Senator Gaylord Nelson from my home state of Wisconsin. I was six years old and coming close to the end of first grade on that first Earth Day. I remember making a collage from wildlife pictures torn from Ranger Rick Magazine. My class may have planted a tree.

Forty years later, I’m pleased that Earth Day is still around, and that there is a strong emphasis on environmental responsibility in our society right now. I don’t have to harp on you to recycle, to “go green” or to work on reducing your carbon footprint because it’s all the rage. The message is everywhere!

But while bringing renewal to our planet is a current trend and popular cause, the invitation for human beings to do the right thing by the environment is hardly a new crusade or a passing fad. Stewardship of the earth has been a priority of God-honoring people since. . . well, since Genesis was first spoken aloud and passed from one generation to the next. As the story goes, God conversed with Adam when the world was fresh and new, telling him that it was his responsibility to tend it, guard it, keep it.

Isaiah 65 and 66 speak longingly and dreamily of a time when there will be a new heaven, a new earth. But those passages don’t mean that there’s anything wrong with the original Earth. The problem, per usual, is that the people living on the planet are sometimes rotten. Isaiah looks forward to a time when people finally pay attention to God’s intentions, when they live in harmony without trying to get ahead by exploiting anything or anyone. When that happens, it will be LIKE having a whole new earth because it will be so wonderful.

Earth IS wonderful. Let’s keep it that way, not only because there’s a governmental proclamation instructing us to do so, but because we are inspired by God’s phenomenal project called Creation.

P.S. If you're anywhere near New Philadelphia, Ohio tomorrow, April 22, please join us for "A Spirited Gathering Honoring God and Creation" at Tuscora Park beginning at 6:00PM. Contact me if you need directions or more information. It will be wonderful, and I'll let you play with the really cool Earth beach ball.

Chosen

Israel, you are my servant, I have chosen you

and not cast you off. Isaiah 41:9

You did not choose me but I chose you.

And I appointed you to go and bear fruit. John 15:16

To audition for the part and be cast in the role. To try out for the team and make the cut. To apply for the position and get the job. To be chosen. With it comes a rush of elation—a breathlessly ticklish pleasure in the gut and a swelling sense of accomplishment. It feels like the good part of a roller coaster ride—not the buildup of terror or the wide-eyed frenzy that comes with knowing there’s no turning back, but rather the fleetingly delightful part when you can’t help but laugh with pure joy. Is there any better sensation available in the range of human emotion?

Maybe one. How about the tingly warmth that spreads like honey when you’re chosen not for what you’ve done, but for who you are? The sensation that comes with recognizing you are loved wholly and completely by another human being is what we crave, and what we cherish once we’ve known it.

If being chosen for something or by someone brings so much happiness and fulfillment, then contemplate on the bliss that comes with being chosen by God.

This will be my mantra for today: God chose ME. God CHOSE me. GOD chose me.

That is a pretty fine thought for a Monday.