taking it home

Only one more week of shopping at 7 stores to go. I'm not all that excited to go back to "normal." OK, I admit, I am dying to go to a nursery. Those little hostas and heucheras have been crying my name for a month, and I am willing to answer their call. But I have lived just fine without.

And I do miss eating out. With the only restaurants on our list being Starbucks and Jamba Juice, well, let's just say no one goes to either one of those for the food. (Although Jamba oatmeal is unparalleled, if you didn't know.) On the run and wanting lunch, I've felt the limited options. But I have lived just fine.

I've been trying to figure out what all this is teaching me. Giving away things, wearing only seven things, shopping at only seven places--it hasn't been that hard. Isn't something like this supposed to be earthshakingly difficult? Shouldn't the deprivation have formed me into an ultra-generous, Gandhiesque person by now? Shouldn't some life-changing lesson have jumped out at me like one of those pop-up ads that spins and sings? (Good thing it didn't. I would have closed and ignored it immediately, the annoying little bugger.) If an experiment doesn't return immediate observable results, shouldn't the scientist throw it out?

Not necessarily. Sometimes, something stands out not because it's loud and flashy but because it's quiet and slow, in the midst of a world that prefers flash. If every dog in the shelter is yapping like a crazed chihuahua, you may not notice immediately the silent one that just looks at you with eyes that say, "I'm yours." But when you do, chances are good you'll take that one home.

What I'm "taking home" from this month, the last three months, of limited options is the opposite of what it implies. It's that I have a lot of options. And one of those options we often forget is the choice to choose nothing.

I can choose not to stop at a store and get something I don't really need.
I can choose not to answer my phone and be available to someone who doesn't really need me.
I can choose not to keep something just because it's mine.
I can choose not to eat something just because I can.
I can choose not to spend time and money searching for the perfect thing and accept what works fine.
I can choose not to do and just be, especially with my family.

One of the strangleholds of the millennial generation is the plethora of choices they have. So much spread out in front of us paralyzes us to the ability to choose anything. So, learning to choose nothing is a skill I didn't know I didn't know. It's one desperately needed. And I'm glad I get to take it home.

the worst/best place to go

This week, I went Easter basket shopping for three teen-twenty-something daughters at Menards. And it was fun. I realize that does not sound possible. After all, it was one of those daughters who, years ago, gave us this conversational gem:

(Setting: Dinner table, serious family theological conversation)
Child #1--"The worst place to have to go is hell, right?"
Great theologian mother--"Yes, that's right."
Child #3--"No, the worst place to ever have to go is Menards!"

Apparently, child #3 had been on far too many trips with her father, who is known for his need to examine a single 2x4 for 30 minutes to ensure that it is the perfect 2x4 for the job.

Only seven stores to shop at in the month of April, and guess what? Easter generally falls in April. So, off to Menards it was. True, we can also go to Target, so hammers and paint brushes were not all they received. Nevertheless, it was a good time.

Did you know you can get fuzzy pink socks at Menards? And lots of candy? You probably do know this, because it seems you can buy anything at Menards, including your shampoo, right next to the plumbing aisle. I saw the tank tops and camis, but I passed on them. I just imagined the conversation when child #3 wore one to high school.

"Oh--that top is sooo cute. Where'd you get it?"
"Um . . . I . . . I don't . . . remember. Nope. No idea. Really."
To use child #3's favorite word lately, Awkward.

And, I figured, two of them will leave home in the next few years, so they will need things like hammers and screwdrivers and things to patch the holes in the walls that they will inevitably make. (Note: I did not purchase the girly hammer kits. My girls now own real hammers, thank you very much. However, I would definitely use a flowered hammer.)

So the lessons learned in our first week of shopping at only seven stores?

--Creativity. If life hands you Menards, make Easter baskets. It stretches your ability to find value where you didn't think you would and make something out of nothing. That's a good exercise for all of us.

--Simplicity. The baskets were less full this year. And you know what? No one cared. They loved what they got. I didn't go around to twenty different places looking for exactly the "thing" I thought they needed. I had only a couple choices, and they were plenty.

I already love shopping at only seven stores as much as only seven items of clothing. Simplifying my world, one shopping trip at a time.

no one cares

And so we begin April, the month of "We may only shop at seven stores." 


March was not too bad. I must say I was quite successful in wearing only seven articles of clothing. Mainly, because it made life so much easier. Yes, most people react to the idea of wearing only seven things for a solid month with fear and trepidation; easy is the last thing they associate with it. 


But honestly? Waking up in the morning and asking myself, "What shall I wear today?" and having the answer be, "The only clean shirt you have among the three allowed"? Totally freeing. I never had to think. 


OK, I had to think the one Sunday I was preaching a sermon. I do feel like people deserve a pastor who doesn't look like she hasn't done her laundry in two weeks and wore whatever fell out of the drawer first. Still, I easily was able to stay within the seven.


I loved the freeness of not worrying about it. Just get dressed and go. There were complications. No one anticipated the 80-degree weather of a March in Chicago when we chose jeans and long-sleeved shirts. Still, I sweated on. Until the evening I fell down the steps and sprained my ankle. Hard enough to make me unable to walk for several days. 


Which means, that since no one else in the house has a genetically programmed code for tossing in a load of laundry, including six of my seven articles of clothing, I had to chose to violate the seven covenant or sit in the living room naked. I really didn't think anyone wanted the latter. Although it might have been enough to motivate some laundry action. 


I considered this a circumstance beyond my control and surrendered to other clothes. Although, some might say that if I watched where I was going on the stairs, it would have been completely within my control. 


It all makes me think, of course, of those wonderfully wise words of Jesus, knowing as he did how much we worry about things that matter so little.

“That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life—whether you have enough food and drink, or enough clothes to wear. Isn’t life more than food, and your body more than clothing? Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are? Can all your worries add a single moment to your life?

“And why worry about your clothing? Look at the lilies of the field and how they grow. They don’t work or make their clothing,yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are. And if God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you." (Matthew 6)

We care so stupidly much about our clothes, and our "style," and our need to put a good fashion show on for anyone who sees us. But I dare say not one person noticed that I wore only three shirts the entire month of March. No one pays as much attention as we either hope or fear. Only we put so much faith in what we look like and so little in the one who created us and called us beautiful. 

Not saying we should all go around looking like we don't care. That's really another form of pride. But maybe breathing in the unalterable fact that he promised to care for us, both in terms of our needs and in terms of being crazy in love with us? No matter what we look like when we wake up? 

I think I'm ready to add some clothes to that pile of things to give away we started in January. I just don't need that much.

embracing the unexpected. Not.

"Word to the wise: You just never know when the Universe is gonna goose ya."


For this post, I scanned the internet for an appropriate quote on the unexpected. I found inspirational quotes on how beautiful it can be to embrace the unexpected, how our paths are defined by doing so, and how inner peace is attained by accepting it. 


So not where I am at right now. Then I found the one above, and it's just about right on the head. Found on a yoga site, no less. I consider that pretty ironic. 


To make the story short and not become one of those old ladies (I am not old) who traps you for 2 hours lamenting and listing her ills, let me sum it up. For the past month, as soon as I start getting up from some physical ailment, another one shoves me down. Pretty much literally, as in, my green chair is permanently imprinted with my backside. We have had a lovely spring, but I have not seen it. And the latest, a sprained ankle, has just made me bereft of any of that "look on the bright side" spirit. Sometimes, life just gooses ya, and it stinks.


We often look at lousy circumstances and ask God, "OK, what are you teaching me here? What am I supposed to learn?" Or sometimes, when it's been a bit much, "Don't you think I'm done learning this *#%@& lesson by now???" (No, of course I don't do that. But some people do.) 


One surprising thing I've learned is that sometimes, it's not all about me. Maybe, someone else is supposed to learn a lesson through what's going on in my life, and I'm just supposed to sit still and let it happen. Or at least, not get in the way. 


Maybe that sounds like I think I'm some kind of amazingly spiritual role model that God uses as his shining example. Um, not . . . exactly. Or perhaps it just sounds like I'm a human guinea pig for God's cosmic experiments. First, I don't believe God messes with people like that, and second, if he wanted to, he's God, so I guess I'm OK with that. He can do what he wants with things that belong to him.


I told my family, for instance, that maybe they're supposed to be learning how to manage to get through a day without Mom/Wife running the ship. You know, about the fifth time you're asked "What's for dinner?" or "Where is my piece of paper I left right there?" you're highly likely to explode with something like, "Yes, I'm faking it. At night when you're all asleep, I get out of this chair and rearrange the house with all your stuff! I haven't stood up in a week, how am I supposed to know what's for dinner???" (No, of course I don't do that. But, again, some people do.) 


Maybe they're supposed to learn to develop a "sight" outside their own little worlds. Seeing places they're needed and ways they should help the world function. Realizing those "other" needs might break into their own agendas. Opening eyes to things that are not in the plan. Maybe starting with the dishes . . . 


I say it half-facetiously, since when asked they are pretty good at helping out, but I'm also quite serious. Most of us are so encased in our personal agendas we simply don't look around to see where we could be stretching ourselves. And I have learned that this is true of myself, as well. 


It's not all about me. When bad things happen to me, it's still not. Saying, "God, what are you going to teach me?" is still rather self-centered. It's still about what I can get out of a lousy situation. What can someone else get? A different perspective, I think.

still our kids

I last walked the Great Wall of China ten years ago. Almost, anyway. It will be ten year in October. I know the date, because I turned forty in the air above the International Date Line, and I have maintained ever since that it never really happened, since the day disappeared.

Ten years is a long time chronologically. But emotionally, it can be a heartbeat, and I feel like I could go back tomorrow and the faces we met at the orphanage would still be there, still smiling, still making me smile. Of course, they are not. They are teenagers now, or even adults, and they have new stories and new dreams. For ten years, our family has kept up with those dreams, because for two weeks we were part of their lives, and now they will always be "our kids."

Our own kids were 6, 10, and 11 when we packed them up to fly halfway around the globe and learn how to eat, sleep, play, and (the worst, in their opinion) use the bathroom in China. Of course, that wasn't the main thing we wanted then to learn.

We live in a suburb. In one of the richest counties in America. We don't fit in, really, but that's beside the point. Culturally, our kids absorb daily the idea that things are gods, you are your successes, and anything (or anyone) that isn't convenient is disposable. That osmosis process is deadly to their ability to be the humans God intended them to be. So, we thought radically and decided a dose of another culture was in order.

We also rebelled against the typical church culture that told kids their main purpose was to be entertained and educated (in no particular order) until they grew up enough to be of use in the church. Where did that crazy idea come from? Definitely not from Jesus. Kids have gifts, too, and we wanted ours to know they didn't have to be sidelined at any age.

I can't begin to chronicle here all the things we experienced that woke us up and rattled our complacent thinking. I still, ten years later, don't know all the echoes that will result.

In fact, it took a book to chronicle it, and I'm very excited it's finally done. No, the entire book is not about us (how boring would that be?). It's about how other families can, and should, have this kind of experience for themselves, whether in China or Chattanooga. And--insert big confetti party here--it's now available on Amazon! In paperback at the moment, though I hope to have the ebook version available this week.

So many parents look at me when I talk about this this and say, "Wow--I could never do that!" To which I want to reply, "Why in the world not?" So, for those who find the entire concept scary and overwhelming, I wrote the book. I thought it was that important to let other parents know it's not scary and overwhelming. OK, it is, but in a good way.

Among the things addressed: how to find the right place, pack, apply for paperwork, prepare your kids emotionally and spiritually, follow up afterward, and a whole lot of other stuff. I am very excited, and when I'm excited, well, I want to let my friends know. So, now you do. And if there is a family, church, organization, etc. you think would also be excited, can you pass on the link? Thank you--you are fabulous. http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Forget-Pack-Kids-Missions/dp/0615581188/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1331567617&sr=8-1

So far in our 7 experiment (http://jenhatmaker.com/blog/2011/12/26/an-experimental-mutiny-against-excess), we're about 3/4 for 2. Or something like that. Month one, January, we were supposed to give away 7 things per person in our family. We got about 2/3 of the way there before we ran out of time. But we continue, so at least that's not a fail. I'd say we got a B for January.

February--eating only 7 foods. D. For me anyway. Maybe a D+ for grace. I tried, really. And the funny thing was, my errors were not so much ones of willpower as simple forgetfulness. I'd be making a recipe, and it said to toss in carrots and mushrooms, so, I did. Or I'd see a plate of brownies at church, and I'd just put one in my mouth. Sometime around the second chew I'd realize. I'm not supposed to be eating this. And we all know it's kind of rude to spit out brownie mid-chew in the middle of church. Especially if said brownie maker is nearby.

When our book group read The Happiness Project last year, the author had a chapter on Mindfulness and its link to happiness. I knew before reading it that would be the problem chapter for me. I am so not mindful. If I ever had to identify for police what my child was wearing this morning, I couldn't even verify that she was wearing anything at all, let alone color and style. I don't pay attention. This is a fatal flaw for a writer and, I am guessing, not too great as a human being.

Thus, the barely passing grade in eating the right foods. What does it teach me? That, yes, paying attention matters. Being present in the moment matters. Telling my daughter she looks beautiful in the morning because I noticed matters. Looking carefully at that food I'm about to eat, or that person I'm about to forget the name of, or that sentence I'm about to let slip that I shouldn't matters.

I will always struggle with this. It's not in my makeup to look outward and notice things. But I'll keep trying.

Now March. That's going to be an A. Wearing only 7 articles of clothing. All month. And no, since I know it's your first question, underwear do not count. You know why I know I can do this? Because I'm already realizing the great month it's going to be for laundry. That, I noticed right away.

things i thought i knew

You are about to hear something most people never, never, ever hear come out of my mouth. (Or computer, in this case.) I want to give up. I'm failing.


Stubbornness being one of my main personality traits (wait, I meant perseverance. That's so much holier, right?), giving up is something I'm about as likely to do as stick my fork in an outlet trying for a new hairdo. But February is only half over, and this only seven foods thing is getting me.


Giving stuff away? Easy, sadly enough. Wearing only seven items of clothing (that's March)? Not too tough. But this? This is hard. 


I imagined it would be great. Three of the foods for us are apples, berries, and lettuces. I would learn things and lose weight, too, right? Win-win for me. 


Nope. In fact, the weight has gone back the other way, and I feel lousy. And I would probably wrestle a salmon barehanded in the Arctic if it meant I would actually get to eat it right about now. 


So what am I learning from all this whining? I am understanding the diet of the poor better, for sure. I already had a mental understanding of the few choices they have and the even fewer affordable choices, but now I empathize, not just know intellectually. Two of our items are bread and pasta, cheap and easy to come by. Also really bad for you as a steady diet. Living the bulk of your diet on bread, pasta, and cheese can really mess with your health. But that is the kind of diet most poor people in this country exist on. It's what they can afford. It's what's available. It's nutritionally disastrous.


According to The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 1) "The highest rates of obesity occur among population groups with the highest poverty rates and the least education." Why? Because 2) "Energy-dense foods composed of refined grains, added sugars, or fats represent the lowest-cost option to the consumer." and 3) "Poverty and food insecurity are associated with lower food expenditures, low fruit and vegetable consumption, and lower-quality diets. Such diets are more affordable than are prudent diets based on lean meats, fish, fresh vegetables, and fruit."


Researching this, I found a blog of someone who had done another interesting food experiment. After realizing the average poverty-level family of 3 has $6 to eat on per day, this person tried to do the same. It's a fascinating and challenging read.
http://sbitigard.com/nutrition/36hourpovertydie


Its hard to look for a job when you feel lousy. It's tough to pay attention in school when you can't stay awake or you're hyped up on refined sugar. I get these things now. So I won't give up. Because they can't. 

by bread alone

I have discovered one thing during the last 13 days of being able to eat only seven foods. OK, I hope I've discovered more than one thing. But this one thing stands out. I would make a lousy legalist. This is good news, since not so many years ago I think I made a fairly proficient one. It wasn't a good idea then, either.

There are so many grey areas in this month's Seven. (See last week's post if you have no idea what I'm talking about.) Like, is tomato sauce a condiment or a separate food? (We call it separate, for the record. Tomatoes just seem so, I don't know, individual.) Is a conversation heart really food? What about drinks? I mean, tea is pretty much dark water, but a Jamba Juice? That's, like, five different foods right there. And, as Pastor Andy maintains, eggs are totally chicken. Who could argue?

I am not cut out to split hairs. Details often don't even make my radar screen, let alone become obsessions. While middle child wishes to maintain a strict adherence to the law, I breezily accept that chocolate chip banana bread is most certainly bread. I repeat—this is not the person I used to be.

I used to want to keep all the rules. I used to want to perform perfectly. I used to want to judge other people who didn't. In my lesser moments, I still do.

But what I want us to learn from 7 is not how to keep rules and hold others to them. It's how a choice of lifestyle affects all of life. How what we think changes what we do. How I can take small steps closer to the human in community God wants me to be. It's not how, if we diligently make sure we don't ever consume one candy heart, we'll somehow be holier. 

That last one is so, so much easier, though, isn't it? It's quantifiable. Check-offable. Black and white holiness. But it has no effect at all on my heart. Or mind. Which, darn it, are the things God always seems to want to change the most. 

So, I'm glad 7 is teaching me that abandoning legalism (but embracing holiness) was a good idea. Now, while I figure out what else it's teaching me, I'm off the find those frozen bananas.

whine and cheese party

I had my last Starbucks until March on Tuesday. It was a tearful goodbye. Which, I think, the guy behind the counter might have found unsettling.

Some of you may remember our family embarking on the experiment of not buying anything but food and toiletries for six months in 2010. It was challenging, fun, and above all, fodder for lots of stories. Our family likes experiments. So when we came across the book 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess by Jen Hatmaker (http://jenhatmaker.com), it didn't take long for us to be all in.

7 challenges families to reconsider American excess, much like our first challenge. Every month, the author chose one area of excess to focus on and radically streamline. Among the areas are: food, shopping, clothing, media, “stuff,” stress, and the environment. We're on our month two—food.

What does that mean? It means we have chosen seven foods that we will eat. All month. No exceptions. When the lady behind me at Dominicks saw my cart full of bread and cheese last week, she asked where the wine was and if she could come over. I told her sure. I didn't have the heart to tell her if she stayed for long, bread, cheese, chicken, apples, pasta, and lettuce were all she'd get. There may be quite a bit of whine, though, I'm thinking. And yes, you are correct, you math whizzes among us. That does add up to only six. Each person is free to choose his or her seventh, we decided. Different people need different diets.

So first, who knew you could get chicken so many ways? Whole chicken, boneless chicken, ground chicken, chicken in a little foil pouch, chicken in lunchmeat. Somehow, I'm not sure that plethora of choices right there really teaches much about excess. Or perhaps it does.

Of course there are the loopholes. I am pretty sure that, in some country, cookies are considered bread. Just have to figure out which one. Then, what about condiments? Sauces? Spices? Chocolate? It's very grey territory. OK, I know chocolate is not a condiment. But there is such a thing as chocolate cheese. And despite the sound of it, it's quite good. Just have to find some . . .

Obviously, we're still working on figuring out details without becoming legalists. Maybe that's part of the exercise. I don't really know yet what we'll learn. But it's exciting to learn it together.

backstory

One of the first things I do when directing a play is have every person fill out a character analysis. Yes, they do think they've stumbled back into high school, and some are none too pleased about it. But fact is, you can't possibly play a character convincingly if you have no idea who the person is. I ask the actors to figure out what drives their character—his wishes, dreams, fears, favorite food. Her height, family makeup, past regrets, and proud moments. Down to the most minor character, they can't go onstage until they know what that person would do in the moment.

It's called backstory, and everyone has one. Recently, one of our lead actors was having a difficult time getting into his role. He found his character boring. So, being a writer, I got busy. I made up a backstory. A really good one. A really, really not boring one. One anyone would have fun developing into a real person on stage.

It got me thinking. That actor couldn't see the backstory. He only saw the words written on the page right there. He had no idea where his character had been, what he'd done, and how those things had affected his life. Thus, he had written off his character based on the little evidence he had.

And we do the same. In real life, with real people. We look at the evidence in front of us, and we make a judgment. Perfectly put together? She must have been blessed with a perfect life. She must think she's better than me. She must have never had to struggle like I have. And boom—she's instantly not my kid of person. With no real idea of her backstory.

Not so perfect? Maybe the woman who just smacked her kid upside the head in front of you in the Walmart line? Well, we know how to categorize that kind of person too, don't we? But truth is, we don't have a clue. Her backstory may be something you'd never want to read in a novel, let alone live. Ditto the young man who stole your gas card and filled up five of his best friends' tanks. Or the young woman trying to learn English and get a job with minimal success. Or the cheerleader you think is a snob.

We don't have a clue. So why do we act like we do? Because categorizing is easier than learning? Because it makes us feel better to compare? Because we're human, and we have our own story? Yes, all of the above. Which is why we need a reminder sometimes.

“The Lord doesn’t see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” (1 Samuel 16.7) I can't see someone's heart. With no Steve Jobs anymore, who's going to ever come up with the technology to let me? So possibly, I should wait until I have a person's backstory to decide what I know is true. All the world really is a stage.

hitting send

After almost five months, I have to unequivocally say that I do love my Macbook. Almost. The one things that drives me around the bend is the autocorrect. You know what I mean. Many of you have been victims.

You type one thing, and you think, when you hit “send” or “post” or whatever, that it has put what you said into writing. But alas, you made a typo somewhere, and instead of telling your spouse you'd like to kiss him when he gets home, you apparently told him you'd like to kill him. Makes a big difference in the mood when he walks in the door.

My computer thinks it knows what I meant. It thinks it knows what was right. It truly believes, somewhere in its Big Apple brain, that it knows what is best. But often enough, it is not at all what I meant.

Sometimes I suspect our own autocorrects work that way. We think we know what is best. We're sure we are following the right path. We truly believe we have the knowledge and understanding to blaze our own trail and get it right. But we get it wrong.

The writer of Proverbs says, “There is a path before each person that seems right, but it ends in death.” Perhaps we should not be so quick to trust our own autocorrects. Perhaps we don't know as much as we think we do. Chances are excellent that you, like me, have quite a bit of past evidence to support that conclusion.

I try to proofread my messages now before I hit “send.” I'll try harder to proofread my life by checking with the Editor in Chief before anything goes out that may not have been the best message I wanted to send.

sit in Starbucks time

Several weeks ago, I sat in Starbucks for my bi-weekly, um, sit at Starbucks time. Sorry, don't have a better name for it. But as an aside, do you think it's odd that spellcheck finds nothing wrong with the word "Starbucks"? They truly have taken over the world.

Anyway, while I wait for child #3 at gymnastics four hours a week, that's next door. And a few weeks ago as I sat working, I noticed something odd above my head. Fireworks. No, not directly above my head. That would be odd. But out the window and right across the street. I mean real fireworks, not a few sparks set off randomly by drunken people who went up to Wisconsin for bottle rockets. A full on, serious fireworks display, in the middle of December. What?

The truly odd thing, though, was not fireworks in December, odd as that was. It was that no one else in the entire coffee shop noticed. No one looked up. No one seemed to realize that the equivalent of July 4th was going on right outside the window. I started seriously to worry that I had finally lost my mind and only I could see them. But no, eventually two kids noticed, so for the moment at least, I felt sane again.

It made me ponder, though--how many things go on right outside my "window" that I never notice? How wrapped up in whatever trivial thing I'm doing do I get that I miss the fabulous right in front of me? That's why I've enjoyed driving child #3 to school every morning at 7. I would never really look at a sunrise otherwise.

Last year, I went through the book The Happiness Project with a group of friends. http://www.happiness-project.com/happiness_project/  Cannot recommend that book enough--read it in 2012. In it one of the keys to happiness she mentions is mindfulness--"The cultivation of conscious, nonjudgmental awareness." In other words, paying attention. In our multitasking world, how much do we really pay attention to what's in front of us, be it children, spouse, or "simply" a sunrise?

A good goal for 2012.

And by the way, I googled it when I got home and discovered that the fireworks were for the Hindu holiday Diwali. Now I know.

little boxes on the . . . well, somewhere

So, yes, I cleaned the attic. And then I counted. Empty plastic boxes. You know, those shiny colorful boxes they put on sale right about this time of year, for all those people who made a New Year's Resolution to get more organized? The Great Marketing Geniuses know this, and they know they can entice you with color and newness to buy boxes to neatly wrap up said resolution. Probably, you'll put it in your attic.

Clearly, they've enticed me in the past, because I counted twenty-six empty plastic boxes when all was said and done. Twenty-six. All full of stuff we, apparently, didn't need. I have a problem. I have been known to buy new boxes when we had perfectly good old ones just because the new ones were so darn pretty. Even though I knew they would just sit in the attic and never be seen by anyone but possibly a random rabid raccoon.

Is there a recovery program for people with a plastic storage box addiction? I know, I know--recognizing that I have a problem is the first step. The first thing to do is always recognize that we're in denial. I need to get rid of the denial.

But . . . what should I do with it? I know, how about if I pack it up in a colorful plastic box? Denial is pretty messy, you know, and I need to keep it neatly packaged. Then I'll store it away somewhere. You never know when you might need it again. I'd hate to not have it if I ever wanted to pull it out again for any reason.

I hope you're recognizing this as a bad idea. Worse, even, than packing up twenty-six boxes of stuff we'll never use. Some things you shouldn't keep because they're out of date—like those clothes child #3 laughed hysterically at even thinking that her sisters wore those once upon a time. She's currently looking for blackmail photos.

Some we shouldn't keep because someone else could use them and we never will. Like the elementary school supplies still up there when our youngest is almost a junior in high school.

Some we should ditch because they just clutter up our lives with things we don't need but keep thinking about when we should be paying attention to the things right in front of us.

And some, like denial, we need to get out in the open and face and discard forever, before it molds and mildews in the attics of our minds and hearts. Before it causes so much of our lives to be tainted with its faded-to-off-color viewpoints and worn-out beliefs about ourselves.

2012 needs to begin with a clean mental attic. I've got twenty-six empty boxes—what about you? Let's not, in 2012, fill them with things we don't want to carry with us forever.  

the final frontier

I spent two months this fall and winter going where no man has gone before. My attic. And no man has gone there because, quite literally, no one could. The closest one could come was to stand at the bottom of the stairs and gaze upward, assuming that what you wanted probably was up there somewhere, but there was no way you could get past the fifteen boxes of miscellaneous junk, ten piles of play costumes, twelve stacks of electronic things your husband was certain he might need someday, and four bins of craft materials to actually look for it. Honestly, I am not exaggerating when I say that you could not get up those stairs. And if you could, you couldn't move once up them.

But, as one of my favorite movie lines goes, “I am no man.” So up I went. Why? Well, my daughter is to blame. For the past couple years, she has been bugging me to clean it all up with her. She loves to organize. And I've always had an excuse. It's too hot up there. It's too cold up there. It's too nice outside—I need to garden. I'm way to claustrophobic to work in the attic. All true. But none making her happy, as she really wanted to get the job done.

Then she left for three months. And I started to think of what great surprises we could create while she was gone to welcome her home with. You know what I realized was number one. So up I went, for two months, and cleaned that attic. I cannot tell you how many bags of stuff I gave/threw away. We probably could have clothed a small nation. Though my youngest daughter, who helped, would add that it would have to be a nation of girls with no fashion taste whatsoever, given what was in the attic.

Part way through, I realized something. That I gladly did for love what I would not do when she nagged me. We know this as parents and spouses, that nagging does not work. But we don't really believe it. I got first-hand experience that it is so true. We don't want to be bound by laws of what we should do. But we joyfully do the same thing if it's an act of generosity to one we love.

Which, of course, is the entire point of the Christmas season we've just celebrated. God knows that. And he really, really wants us to do life with him because we love him like crazy, not because we feel like we must. He wants us to do things his way because we're so glad he's in our lives and we want to see his smile, not because we've been nagged. He wants us to look at what Jesus did for us in the cradle and the cross and say, “Wow. I'd really like to clean up my attic. Just for you. Just because.”  

browning was half right

This week, I used half of a famous quote in a status update to tell family and friends that we rejoiced over the safe return of our daughter after three and a half months. “All's right with the world.” And that's the way I felt, like the world had been put back to its rightful order.

The entire quote, as many know, is, “God's in His heaven. All's right with the world.” As you may not know, it's a quote from Robert Browning's Pippa Passes, a poem published in 1841. Which means, of course, that it has nothing whatsoever to do with Kate Middleton's sister, just as an fyi. She is not that old.

But I got to thinking about the line. And what I got to thinking, at Christmastime, was that, it's not true.

Not that I don't believe in heaven (I do), nor that I don't believe God has things under control (I most definitely do). But that more than anything, I believe that had he stayed in his heaven, nothing would be right at all. 

The unbelievable news of Christmas is that He didn't. He could have—but he didn't. He chose to leave. He chose to come here. He chose to make a way that all could be right with our world. He chose to sacrifice his own perfect world and turn it upside down so that ours could be made whole.

That's not a God who sits up in his heaven and benignly moves a few pawns and knights to make sure all is right, or at least nothing is going totally to hell. It's one willing to go there himself to make sure of it.

That's a Christmas message I can't truly comprehend but one I can get fully behind. It's no cute baby in a manger. It's no warm feeling about friends and firelight. It's a revolution. Which is what we needed. So, all's right with the world.

placeholders

Twenty-one hours and forty-two minutes.

That is how long it will be until middle child's airplane from Guatemala (via Atlanta today) touches down in Chicago. But today, I'm wondering how long it will be before everything lands in order in the world she returns to.

Three months ago, a pretty mature nineteen-year-old left us for her first extended time away from home. Very extended, and very away. Tomorrow, someone else will return. Someone who has seen things I haven't seen, done things I haven't done, and thought thoughts I haven't thought. Someone who is ready to take her place at the adult table and be respected for those thoughts. Even if she is wearing her Disney Princesses tiara. And I wonder if she will find it difficult to make us move over and give her that place.

I've always been somewhat bothered by the phrase in church circles, "Our youth are the church of tomorrow." It has always made me wonder what we think they are today. Just place holders, like somebody's hat or jacket left on a seat to make sure the space is occupied until something more important comes along?

No, they're also the church of today. Here and now. And let's face it, next to God, the difference in wisdom, maturity, and time between 19 and 49 doesn't amount to a whole lot. We're on pretty equal finite footing compared to the omniscient and eternal.

It's time to move over and make space at the table. We might be surprised at what the church of tomorrow has to offer today. I don't think I will be, though. I think I'll just be very, very proud. Including the Princess tiara. Only a truly mature person could carry that off.

In twenty-one hours and 25 minutes.

right down santa claus lane

A few days ago, I posted on Facebook that seeing a trucker driving down the road with a giant light up Santa as his copilot had made my morning. Judging by how many people 'liked' that status, few of you actually judged that statement. But I'm not naïve enough to believe that no one did.

I know that Santa is a touchy subject. I know that tacky holiday decorations can become grounds for divorce. I know that podcasts, blogs, and entire books are written blasting the lack of Christ in Christmas. What I don't know is why we Christians are so defensive about the holiday.

Because it just seems to me that, if we wanted to put Christ back in Christmas, we have the ability to do so fairly easily. It doesn't take a court case. It doesn't require refusing to shop at a place that says “Happy Holidays” to its customers. It doesn't mean telling someone else's kid that Santa is an invention of the devil.

All it takes is meeting people the way he would choose to meet them this time of year. A few thought I've been pondering:

• Jesus is probably more offended by the ways we spend the money he has given us at Christmas time than whether we spell his name 'Christ' or 'X' (a perfectly valid 1^st century shortened form).

• Jesus would likely prefer we work as hard at displaying him in our lives as we do fighting to display him in a manger in public.

• Jesus, I suspect, doesn't care nearly as much about whether we do or do not believe in Santa as whether we do or do not offer people grace and forgiveness whether they've been naughty or nice throughout the year. (Although, in fairness, I'm pretty sure he, too, would be revolted at having to listen to “Santa Baby” twenty-six times in department stores and doctor's offices.)

• Jesus probably sees that cashier who said, “Happy Holidays” as an overworked, potentially hurting, person he loves, not someone to be snipped at for being too slow and offending my Christian sensibilities.

I want to be the kind of Christian who makes people want to celebrate Christmas the way it should be. I believe that comes from showing them that the baby in the manger changes lives—starting with mine. So, I think that's a little of what it would look like.

Finally, I'm fairly certain Jesus would not pepper spray anyone. Just an fyi.

my worst secret

So, my friend Jeanette recently aired her besetting sins in her blog (http://jeanettelevellie.blogspot.com/). Which gets me to thinking that perhaps I should reveal my greatest dark secret. Prepare to be shocked, ladies. (And gentlemen, too, I suppose, given what you might assume about women.)

Ready? I really didn't like The Notebook. I know--it goes against all known laws of chickdom, apparently. Child #3 loved it, and she convinced me to sit down with some popcorn (kettle for me, butter for her) and watch every girl's favorite flick.

"He climbs the ferris wheel, mom, and tells her she has to go out with him or he'll fall! Isn't that romantic?"

Being a mom, my reaction was slightly different. "No, it is not romantic; it's kind of stalkerish, and if anyone ever behaves that way around you, I'll probably call the police." Way to quench the budding romantic in my child, right?

Now, I have read plenty of romance novels in the past. I love princess movies. I would cry at a good Walmart commercial. So I am not unromantic. But I don't get it. And here's the crucial problem for me--I really don't want a man who would turn into a sad drunk hermit just because he lost the girl. That's not romantic. I want a guy with more self-worth than that. I want to be a women with more self-worth than that.

I have to wonder, if a man isn't strong enough to live without me, even if he desperately doesn't want to, will he be strong enough to live with me through the struggles of life and marriage and family? Just a question for my daughters. Any daughters. A question I hope they ponder carefully when romance seems like the ultimate goal and thoughts of life thereafter hang out in that hazy place called, "Oh, nothing like that will ever happen to us."

So where's the balance? Watching and reading things to escape is fun. Sometimes necessary. But I guess I don't want my three daughters getting their notion of what it means to be female and find romance from most of them. Sweet nothings are great, but as someone else put real love better--

"Dear children, let’s not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions." 1 John 3.18

spin

Some people are really good at that “finding the silver lining” thing. Annoyingly good, some of them. As in, you just want to whack them upside the head occasionally to give them something to complain about. But they would probably thwart you in that, too, and just come up with some cheery reason they needed to be whacked and how it gave them great perspective on what it feels like to be whacked or some such drivel that makes you feel guilty and annoyed simultaneously.

Anyway, I want to see how good you all are at it. No, I won't whack anyone. Really, I promise. I want to know what you can come up with as the positive spin to put on things we normally don't give a positive association to.

For instance, getting up early is not a positive thing for me. When I married 25 years ago I gave my husband two rules. No discussing gross anatomy class at the dinner table. And NO talking to me for the first hour after I wake up. This was for his own safety, believe me. So, I'm not a morning person.

Nevertheless, I do get up each day to get child #3 to school by seven. And the fall is when I realize that it has some great perks. Like the photo above. The streetlights are still on for a bit, while the sun begins its pink and yellow ascent over our cobbelstone street through town. It's a sight, every day, that never gets old. Then, if we're lucky, the fog sits over the river or the nearly lake. It looks so soft, like it also knows not to be too harsh on me too early. It's a beautifully gentle way to ease into a day. Plus, I have a thing about driving into fog. I actually love it.

So, I'd like to know what the silver lining would be in this situation for you. What makes getting up early worthwhile?

peacocks we have heard on high . . .

Some of you will hate me for this post. I have an admission to make. I don't mind Christmas decorations in October. I may be only one year shy of getting to join the red hat society, but every year I still love to walk through Christmas displays at the store. Yes, I do. I always will. There is something about twinkling lights that makes me joyful every time.

I do not and will not ever do plastic or blow up lawn decorations. I think my husband might actually consider that fair grounds for separation, so even if I wanted to, I would not do this. But lights? The more the better, as far as I'm concerned. They make me happy.

So this year, I fell in love with the light-up peacock lawn ornament at Menard's. Yes, tis true, as far as I know, peacocks have nothing to do with Christmas. Absolutely nothing. I cannot even think of a remote, random tie in. Even my imagination is coming up blank here. Maybe the Twelve Days of Christmas? Nope, no peacocks there, amidst all those other birds. But still, I love it. I shouldn't. I know this. But I do.

And now that I've admitted this, you must share. What is your guilty holiday pleasure?