Last week was Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. Every year I am asked how I explain Lent to younger children. Traditionally Lent was a penitential time for Christians and included prayer, fasting and repentance. Many of the children in chapel can tell me happily what they are "giving up" for Lent, but few can tell me why. So today, in order to try and explain what these 40 days are for, I put a small chair in my box.
As a parent I struggle with discipline as much as anyone. I first try asking offending child to change his our her ways. I then move on to counting, as in, "I'm going to count to three, and then you are going to stop doing whatever you are doing". The big gun is always the time out chair. It typically is reserved when someone can't control his or her actions, and needs a time to calm down and think about the situation. And for my children, being given the opportunity to pause, and breathe, and think about what they have done eventually leads to apology and reconcilliation, as well as at least a brief change in behavior. Today I described Lent to the children, as an opportunity to sit in time out.
We all make bad choices. We all sin. It is simply part of being human. We sin by things we do, and we sin by things we don't do. And our lives are full of meetings, and lunches, and work, and carpool and a million errands that pull us in as many directions. What a gift to be able to have a season where we strip down to the essentials, give up what we don't really need, and take some time out to think about our behavior, apologize, and seek reconcilliation with our loving Father. Lent is a time to breathe, and pray, and prepare our hearts for God.
During the next few weeks, try scheduling a time with no activities. Spend time in Bible reading or prayer with your children. Think about how much God has given you, and how you can spread his love to others. At the beginning of each day and before you go to sleep remind yourself to embrace this time out.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
10,000 Hours
Today was Father's Chapel at St. Mark's, so all the dads were invited to join us for chapel. I really thought about what my lesson would be today. What does the Bible say about being a father? And finally, I put a calendar in my box. For this talk I could have put a stopwatch, or an alarm clock, but I thought a puppy dog calendar would most illustrate my point.
I love to read, on a wide variety of subjects, and when I thought and prayed about what to say today I started thinking about the book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. Outliers is about what makes some people so successful in sports or business or other aspects of life, and Gladwell's argument is that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to really master a subject. That's 10,000 hours where you are working to get better at something, whether it's golf or piano, mathematics or law. When you think about all the demands on our day that is an incredible amount of time. What Gladwell does well is tell story after story of the lives of those who are successful and show how they spent those hours. Sometimes those hours came by chance, in that certain individuals were in the right place at the right time to have an opportunity for that much practice. Others worked to make the time. But each success story started with 10,000 hours of practice.
At this point I am sure you are thoroughly confused as to where I am going. How does this have anything to do with fatherhood, or the Bible? As a parent, we have the opportunity for lots of practice at loving our children. There are 8765 hours in a year. Even taking out say, 8 hours a day for sleep, (wishful thinking), that's still 16 hours a day to love our children so in 625 days or just 1.7 years we have reached the 10,000 hour mark. And I'm not even including the 960 hours of pregnancy that came before that. So just think... in just two puppy dog calendars, before the second year or your child's life you were an expert in loving him or her.
For our Father, 10,000 hours is but the blink of an eye. God loved us before we were born and will love us after we are gone and the Bible is full of compelling stories that illustrate just how great God's love for us truly is. We are called to model our lives after God's only son. Which is an awesome task. We are called to become experts in love.
I love to read, on a wide variety of subjects, and when I thought and prayed about what to say today I started thinking about the book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. Outliers is about what makes some people so successful in sports or business or other aspects of life, and Gladwell's argument is that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to really master a subject. That's 10,000 hours where you are working to get better at something, whether it's golf or piano, mathematics or law. When you think about all the demands on our day that is an incredible amount of time. What Gladwell does well is tell story after story of the lives of those who are successful and show how they spent those hours. Sometimes those hours came by chance, in that certain individuals were in the right place at the right time to have an opportunity for that much practice. Others worked to make the time. But each success story started with 10,000 hours of practice.
At this point I am sure you are thoroughly confused as to where I am going. How does this have anything to do with fatherhood, or the Bible? As a parent, we have the opportunity for lots of practice at loving our children. There are 8765 hours in a year. Even taking out say, 8 hours a day for sleep, (wishful thinking), that's still 16 hours a day to love our children so in 625 days or just 1.7 years we have reached the 10,000 hour mark. And I'm not even including the 960 hours of pregnancy that came before that. So just think... in just two puppy dog calendars, before the second year or your child's life you were an expert in loving him or her.
For our Father, 10,000 hours is but the blink of an eye. God loved us before we were born and will love us after we are gone and the Bible is full of compelling stories that illustrate just how great God's love for us truly is. We are called to model our lives after God's only son. Which is an awesome task. We are called to become experts in love.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Healing Touch
Over the weekend we had a wonderful St. Mark's Women's Retreat. Our speaker was the Reverend Becca Stevens from Nashville, TN. Becca has done many things, including founding a program called Magdalene, which provides women trapped in lives of drug abuse and prostitution a way to escape and regain their lives. The women have created Thistle Farms, a cottage industry which creates bath and body works and provides jobs for Magdalene graduates. One of the many products I bought was a tub of lavender body butter. It is thick and as it melts into your skin it makes the whole room smell like lavender. As I showed it to the children and rubbed some into my hands I spoke about the power of Christ's healing touch.
When Christ called his disciples and began his public ministry, healing was a central part of his work. In Mark 1: 40-42 Jesus touches and cures a man of leprosy, in Mark 7:32-35 he lays hands on and cures a man who is deaf and mute, and in Mark 8: 22-25 he restores sight to one who was blind. Jesus travels the countryside healing those who are sick, and preaching God's kingdom. He takes the hand of a girl who has died, calling to her to get up, and she does. (Mark 5:41-42). While Jesus can heal without the gift of touch, as he healed the woman who simply touched his cloak, Mark 5:25-29, it is clear he was generous with his physicality, allowing a broken and sick world to feel the embrace of the God they had seen only previously as a plume of smoke or a pillar of fire.
And so in chapel today we reached out and touched our friends on our left and on our right. We then touched our friends who sat in front of us and behind us. Teresa of Avila told us, " Christ has no body now but yours, No hands, no feet on earth but yours". Our world is still broken. Many of our friends need healing. They need a hand, a hug, a reminder that their faith can make them well.
When Christ called his disciples and began his public ministry, healing was a central part of his work. In Mark 1: 40-42 Jesus touches and cures a man of leprosy, in Mark 7:32-35 he lays hands on and cures a man who is deaf and mute, and in Mark 8: 22-25 he restores sight to one who was blind. Jesus travels the countryside healing those who are sick, and preaching God's kingdom. He takes the hand of a girl who has died, calling to her to get up, and she does. (Mark 5:41-42). While Jesus can heal without the gift of touch, as he healed the woman who simply touched his cloak, Mark 5:25-29, it is clear he was generous with his physicality, allowing a broken and sick world to feel the embrace of the God they had seen only previously as a plume of smoke or a pillar of fire.
And so in chapel today we reached out and touched our friends on our left and on our right. We then touched our friends who sat in front of us and behind us. Teresa of Avila told us, " Christ has no body now but yours, No hands, no feet on earth but yours". Our world is still broken. Many of our friends need healing. They need a hand, a hug, a reminder that their faith can make them well.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Caught
Today I told the children I brought something that was full of holes. It wasn't a barbie, or a fire truck, instead I brought a casting net. I didn't grow up in Florida and I think that the children who grow up along the coast have such an advantage when visualizing the many scenes and parables that involve fishing. When I was a child I had never seen anyone throw a casting net. I'm not sure what type of fishing I imaging the future disciples were doing, but I am sure as a Tennessee girl it involved bait, a hook and a pole.
The gospel of Luke shares a great fishing story. Jesus is already being followed by crowds, so he asks Simon (Peter) to row him a little way off shore so that he could teach the crowd. After he finishes he asks Simon to row to the deep water and lower his net for a catch. Simon objects, saying that he and his partners, James and John have fished all night and caught nothing. But he agrees, and lowers the nets, which become so full of fish they are close to breaking.
Although I loved this story as a child, I appreciate it so much more, and in so many different ways now. Fishing with a pole is often a solitary experience. A lone fisherman or woman, heading out to his or her favorite spot, reeling the fish in one by one. If an unwanted fish is caught it can be carefully removed and released. In contrast, Simon Peter and James and John were partners. They typically rowed out with two boats, casting the nets between them and hauling up everything they managed to swim into the net. Everything in the net, the good fish, the bad fish, all are brought back on board. They will be sorted later, but at first everything is kept.
At different times I'm in different places in this story. Sometimes I'm Peter, complaining that I've worked hard and yet going out again one more time. Sometimes I'm the friends, called to help with the abundance that can only be found through Christ. Most often I'm the fish, caught with so many others in a net that is cast wide.
The gospel of Luke shares a great fishing story. Jesus is already being followed by crowds, so he asks Simon (Peter) to row him a little way off shore so that he could teach the crowd. After he finishes he asks Simon to row to the deep water and lower his net for a catch. Simon objects, saying that he and his partners, James and John have fished all night and caught nothing. But he agrees, and lowers the nets, which become so full of fish they are close to breaking.
Although I loved this story as a child, I appreciate it so much more, and in so many different ways now. Fishing with a pole is often a solitary experience. A lone fisherman or woman, heading out to his or her favorite spot, reeling the fish in one by one. If an unwanted fish is caught it can be carefully removed and released. In contrast, Simon Peter and James and John were partners. They typically rowed out with two boats, casting the nets between them and hauling up everything they managed to swim into the net. Everything in the net, the good fish, the bad fish, all are brought back on board. They will be sorted later, but at first everything is kept.
At different times I'm in different places in this story. Sometimes I'm Peter, complaining that I've worked hard and yet going out again one more time. Sometimes I'm the friends, called to help with the abundance that can only be found through Christ. Most often I'm the fish, caught with so many others in a net that is cast wide.
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