Sneaking in the Back Door

A few weeks ago I arrived home, daughter in tow, and walked through the back door of the house to find a large garter snake apparently enjoying the warmth of our laundry room. Sarah Frances had not yet seen it and so without really thinking I quickly grabbed it with the plan of taking it back outside. A few steps into the garage the poor snake did what garter snakes do best, it wrapped its dangling self around my arm. And it was at this point, I'm a little embarrassed to admit, that I screamed, and dropped it. We both looked at each other for a bit, and I did snap a picture, but before I could get up the nerve to grab it again our visitor slithered into some wood stacked in the corner of the garage and I decided he, or she could just stay there. This story was shared excitedly to everyone by my daughter and ever since one of her friends has been begging me to put a snake in my box. So today I did.

Sometimes, despite our best intentions, something we would rather not have in our house comes slithering in the back door. God knew that being human, we would always have sin sneaking into our lives one way or another. The snake first appeared in the garden and has been with us every since. Once it is in the house, whether from sneaking in the back door or coming boldly in through the front, it can be difficult to get it out again. It takes courage to examine our heart and admit what shouldn't be there. And the hardest sins to be rid of often wrap around us trying to stay put. But take them outside we must. For we have be given the gift of Christ to help us clean even the most vile pests from our homes and hearts. All we have to do is ask.

Dark Glasses

A few years ago I embarrassed myself in the airport. I spent the weekend visiting friends in Nashville. Sunday afternoon I arrived at the airport tired and ready to be home, my mind whirring with schedules and activities for the coming week. When I got to the gate after a cursory glance around I quickly opened a book to avoid making eye contact. I boarded early and watched others file past without really looking at who was on the plane. After we landed as I was walking quickly through the lobby I was grabbed by a close friend. Apparently I had not only not seen him standing near me, I didn't notice that his daughter had been on the plane with me, sitting just a few rows back. I was so wrapped up in my world, I had failed to notice the world around me. It was almost as if I had been wearing dark glasses. 

I think that most of us have had the experience of not recognizing someone. Sometimes it is someone we haven't seen in a long time. It might me the result of a change in hair color, or length. And sometimes we miss seeing someone because he or she is somewhere we don't expect him or her to be. I'm not sure what the reason was for Cleopas and an unnamed disciple walking along the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus. They walked and they talked and yet only that evening when the stranger they invited to dinner took the bread, blessed it, broke it and gave it to them did they recognize the risen Lord. "With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him but he vanished from their sight". (Luke 24: 30-31)

So what happened? What allowed the disciples to see Christ standing before them? I think it is because the resurrected Lord, unlike the human Jesus, requires eyes of faith to be seen. And by taking off the dark glasses that obscure our view of the world, and instead using eyes of faith we too can see the resurrected Jesus in all types of people, and in all manner of places. We simply have to look. 

Stones in the Path

My children have always liked to collect rocks. The rocks don't have to be special, or beautiful, they simply have to be available. We have collected stones from creeks as well as gravel from driveways. Once one of my children once found a huge rock that he had to have. Unfortunately he found it as we were climbing up a mountain in North Carolina. Stubbornly he carried that rock up to the top and back down again, and for years it lived in an aquarium in our house. Typically my car and my purse have rocks in them, along with countless shoeboxes in our house and a small basket in my office. I chose a few of these rocks to put in my box today.

After Jesus was crucified he was taken down from the cross, placed in the tomb and a huge stone was rolled in front of it.When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus' body. As they walked in sadness a very practical thought came to them. It was the stone. The stone was clearly too large for them to move on their own. And without being able to move the stone they would have no way to get to their Lord. Even the smallest children in chapel seemed to know the next part of the story. When the women reached their destination they found that the stone had been rolled away, leaving a clear way for them to enter. No obstacles blocked their discovery that Christ had risen.

As we walk though life we may find many stones in our path. Some will be small, and some will seem to big for us to move, but the path to the risen Lord will always be cleared for us.

Build a Bear

Today was a very special day in chapel because we had a guest chapel leader, second grader Brian Sheridan. Brian not only helped lead chapel, he also helped to select our songs for the day and picked our what would be in my box. Brian spent a lot of time thinking about this over the past few weeks. Yesterday his father showed up in my office with a much loved stuffed dog, Timmy. Timmy appears to be a border collie, is dressed in a military uniform, and carries in his mouth a puppy, Little Timmy. Brian was very proud to tell me he paid for Timmy with his own money and picked out everything about him at Build a Bear.

I loved having Timmy in my box. My own children have loved going to Build a Bear where they were able to be creative and design a stuffed animal all their own. The idea of carefully selecting a specific bear, or dog, or cat, or dinosaur, filling it up on the inside, adding a heart, and caring for it afterwards is a wonderful way to view God's love for us. In Jeremiah 1:5 the Lord says "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you". Our God calls the stars by name, (Psalm 147:4), we can rest easy in the assurance that before we were born he knew the color of our eyes, the curliness of our hair, and the number of freckles on our  nose. And yet, more than all there is to us on the outside, we are formed in God's image, which means we are created with a heart that can be filled with God's love which we are called to share with others.

Timmy's final example to us of God's care for us, is that he can carry little Timmy in his mouth. The Lord loves us just as much after we are born as he did before we were created. No matter what we do, what choices we make, through good times and in bad, God is always there to carry us through.

Thank you, Brian.

Children and Tragedy

I have a had several conversations about the tragedy at Episcopal School of Jacksonville and how we should handle this as parents, especially those of us that are parents of young children. I have a few thoughts that are mine, but I also urge you to speak to any of the priests here at St. Mark's if you need more guidance.


First, I think we have to talk about tragedies like this as a family. I think we sometimes assume younger children are oblivious to the world around them, but children with older siblings will hear things, as will any child who is exposed, as most are, to any news broadcast. The extent of the conversation will depend on the age of your children, but I tend to think answering questions honestly with simple facts is better than trying to pretend nothing happened. Encourage your children to ask questions. When I was a young child, a close friend of my parents with a daughter my age was held hostage and then killed by someone he had fired. I remember being incredibly curious about things like where he was shot, not because of some morbid curiosity, but because at that age I didn't understand death or what caused it. By allowing me to ask questions and talk about what happened my parents helped me process the event at my own speed in my own way.

We need to pray at all times, but especially at times like these. Our children need to see us calling upon the Holy Spirit to be with us and all those involved. It is alright to express our frustrations in prayer, look at many of the Psalms. Our Lord can handle it. It is important to take the time to pray together and to explain that God doesn't cause bad things to happen, but in all the brokenness of this world, in the violence, natural disasters, disease, that God is with us and mourns with us. Tragedy offers us a way to share our faith with the world.

Recognize that there is both evil and forgiveness in this world. Part of the baptismal covenant we make on behalf of our children is that we renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, the evil powers of this world that corrupt and destroy the creatures of God, and the sinful desires which draw us from the love of God. Our children know that there is good and there is bad. Remind them that God calls us to be a light in this world and to renounce what is bad, and yet whenever we fall into sin he will be waiting with open arms for us to repent and ask forgiveness. As Christians we are called upon to pray for those who have been harmed by evil, and for those who have caused the harm. We are called to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. AS the old hymn says, "they will know we are Christians by our love".

I am going to close with one of the prayers we used last night at our prayer service at St. Mark's. The whole service may be found on our website and I encourage you to check it out.

Gracious Lord, the hardest part about being your children is that we don’t get to see the big picture.  You see everything.  You know how it all turns out in the end.  You see the completed puzzle while we sit here with one small piece in our hands and cry.  Give us the faith to believe that you have it all under control.  Give us the strength to get up and move in the morning.  Give us the love to support each other.  We want to run into your arms and have you hold us like children.  Tell us it’s going to be okay.  Hold us, God.  It’s lonely down here right now. Amen.

Time Out

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.

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.