Heading to the Motherland

by | Jun 18, 2010 | Learning Story

Speaking of children-of-the-year, I thought I’d let Jackie, eldest daughter, hopefully in London by now, speak for herself on what Tuesday was like.  Always interesting to hear stories from different perspectives.  Pay special attention to the PRAYER REQUESTS.  If you want to read more of her blog about her summer missions trip with World Harvest, check it out at Camden Town, or Life across the Pond.

Jackie writes:

Now to the good stuff: departure.
I left home yesterday morning at 415 am after a pleasant, oh, 3 hours or so of sleep. Originally, I was supposed to go to bed by 10 but after I decided the suitcase I spent the whole day packing 8 weeks worth of junk just wasn’t gonna cut it (Why Jackie. Why.), I had to exchange it for a green suitcase, same size, repack it, etc. As it turns out, the plastic that makes the suitcase a stiff square is broken at the bottom, and the wheels turn sideways. What this means is I basically drag the suitcase. Oh yeah, and the handle thing is ripping away from the fabric. Smart for me to check that out before leaving. Anyways, once I did go to bed I couldn’t sleep.
Not important, anyways. Flight went smoothly, I made it to the World Harvest ‘sending center’ only to find that my phone conveniently fell out of my pocket on the train from the airport. (LUCKILY I ended up getting it back, long story). At the sending center, I get to meet my teammates, Joy, Sarah, and Linda, who are. Freakin awesome. So excited to get to know them and work with them.
More IMPORTANTLY, Im more excited than ever about being in Camden. Goooooosssshh. Where I will be in approximately… oh… 10 or so hours. Half an hour and counting till we board the real plane. Ok, this is probably the lamest blog I’ve ever written, but I figured I’d kill some time. But until the next one, which I prrrromise will be more interesting, here’s some prayer requests that me and my intern sisters formulated:

– health, obviously.
– safety, obviously.
– pray that we would be made strong in our weaknesses, many of which I am suuuure we will discover along the way. And many many more.
– there are some fears that I feel like will be death if I have to face, such as, rejection. Vulnerability. Loss of control. But I really want prayer that God would make me face those so that I would cling cling CLING to him.

Plenty more to come I’m sure, as we start to feel it out. But one more tiny specific one actually. I’m TIRED. My body always hates me when I get it off rhythm and routine. Pray that I would find strength and rest and find those in Jesus, not in the routines or whatever stupid things I put my comfort in. Very much love from Philly, and soon LONDON.

What about My “Children-of-the-Year?”

by | Jun 16, 2010 | Learning Story

Going to accept our award:) [Before church on Easter Sunday 2010]I’ve received so many comments about the Mother-of-the-Year post from Monday, AND our story produced a new chapter yesterday, so I thought I’d add a thought about “Children-of-the-Year.”

Now, since this is a public blog, and since MOTY’s NEVER blogflog their children..I will not reveal any of their minor deficiencies…In fact, some people (like their grandparents) think my children ARE the children-of-the-year, and I don’t want to disillusion them.

I just want to go back to Monday’s post and say that when we burn the harsh measuring sticks we use for ourselves, and begin to view our mothering through the lens of the gospel, our kids notice. If I am truly convinced that the gospel asserts that, while I am “… much worse off than I ever imagined,” I am also “far more loved than I ever believed,” my children live out of that belief too.

Instead of measuring themselves by grades, popularity, ability to keep their rooms clean (my kids certainly never had any desire to win that award!), or general capacity to walk through life neither erring nor sinning, they begin to live out of the freedom of their righteousness in Christ.

That’s a mouthful for a little or a big kid, so what does that look like in daily, lived reality?

Two vignettes from yesterday. Three of my children are traveling, two on choir tour, one on her way to London via Philadelphia for 6 weeks on a missions internship (PLEASE NOTE: Highly acceptable, SUPERCHRISTIAN activities for COTY candidates!).

Around lunchtime, I received a text from my youngest son. Did you know fifteen words on a glassy screen can crack through with the author’s pain? He wrote: “Mom, I don’t know what to do. I’m always losing SOMEthing. And my wallet isn’t in my carry on. I feel so bad.” So there he was on a bus from Phoenix to L.A. hoping his wallet was in his suitcase under the bus, but feeling pretty low about himself.

My response: Okay, We’ll pray. Dear God, let Robert’s wallet be found. And comfort Robert.

Second text: “Robert, worse case, we lost some money and a learner’s license [yes, careful reader, the same one that nearly put me under trying to help him procure.]. It’s not like you hurt someone. “

I won’t take you through the whole conversation, but his next text said, “Thanks, I feel better.” (Followed by a little bit of self-condemnation about irresponsibility.) I reminded him that he is responsible in the things that matter (I know, people reading this who know Robert are stunned at the thought Robert could be ‘irresponsible.’ Others, like his 5th grade teacher, know how much recovery he has made in certain arenas.)

Okay, I am running out of time and space (given the average reader will read at most, half a screen☺), so I’m going to write part 2 tomorrow. Let me end here by preaching the gospel to myself and to you.

What should I have done? Let him know that he just can’t make mistakes like these because the next one might be much more costly? Or reminded him that God shows unlimited grace for mistakes and infinite mercy toward our sins.? If I don’t believe this for myself, can my kids believe it for themselves? I am a recovering judge, my self-critique the harshest, and my children have heard me say, “How could I be so stupid?!” But they have also heard me say, “Yes, you’re right, it was just a mistake. Let’s see how God redeems.”

More tomorrow on how that kind of thinking really does groom them to be “Children-of-the-Year.”

“The Lucky Merciful” by Eugene Peterson

by | Jun 12, 2010 | Learning Story

Two more of Peterson’s poems on the Beatitudes:

IV. The Lucky Hungry
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness”

Unfeathered unbelief would fall
Through the layered fullness of thermal
Updrafts like a rock; this red-tailed
Hawk drifts and slides, unhurried
Though hungry, lazily scornful
Of easy meals off carrion junk,
Expertly waiting elusive provisioned
Prey: a visible emptiness
Above an invisible plenitude.
The sun paints the Japanese
Fantail copper, etching
Feathers against the big sky
To my eye’s delight, and blesses
The better-sighted bird with a shaft
Of light that targets a rattler
In a Genesis-destined death.


V. The Lucky Merciful
“Blessed are the merciful”
A billion years of pummeling surf,
Shipwrecking seachanges and Jonah storms
Made ungiving, unforgiving granite
Into this analgesic beach:
Washed by sea-swell rhythms of mercy,
Merciful relief from city
Concrete. Uncondemned, discalceate,
I’m ankle deep in Assateague sands,
Awake to rich designs of compassion
Patterned in the pillowing dunes.
Sandpipers and gulls in skittering,
Precise formation devoutly attend
My salt and holy solitude,
Then feed and fly along the moving,
Imprecise ebb- and rip-tide
Border dividing care from death.

Eugene Peterson, Theology Today

“Holy Luck” by Eugene Peterson

by | Jun 11, 2010 | Learning Story

Today, Eugene Peterson’s poetry on the Beatitudes.  Read it slowly, perhaps one in the morning, one at noon, and one in the evening.  Let the words roll around on your tongue and the blessing seep through your body out into daily life.

I. The Lucky Sad
“Blessed are those who mourn”
Flash floods of tears, torrents of them,
Erode cruel canyons, exposing
Long forgotten strata of life
Laid down in the peaceful decades:
A badlands beauty. The same sun
That decorates each day with colors
From arroyos and mesas, also shows
Every old scar and cut of lament.
Weeping washes the wounds clean
And leaves them to heal, which always
Takes an age or two. No pain
Is ugly in past tense. Under
The Mercy every hurt is a fossil
Link in the great chain of becoming.
Pick and shovel prayers often
Turn them up in valleys of death.

III. The Lucky Meek
“Blessed are the meek”
Moses, by turns raging and afraid,
Was meek under the thunderhead whiteness,
The glorious opacity of cloudy pillar.
Each cloud is meek, buffeted by winds
It changes shape but never loses
Being: not quite liquid, hardly
Solid, in medias res. Like me.
Yielding to the gusting spirit
All become what ministering angels
Command: sign, promise, portent.
Vigorous in image and color, oh, colors
Of earth pigments mixed with sun
Make hues that raise praises at dusk,
At dawn, collect storms, release
Rain, filter sun in arranged
And weather measured shadows. Sunpatches.

IV. The Lucky Hungry
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness”

Unfeathered unbelief would fall
Through the layered fullness of thermal
Updrafts like a rock; this red-tailed
Hawk drifts and slides, unhurried
Though hungry, lazily scornful
Of easy meals off carrion junk,
Expertly waiting elusive provisioned
Prey: a visible emptiness
Above an invisible plenitude.
The sun paints the Japanese
Fantail copper, etching
Feathers against the big sky
To my eye’s delight, and blesses
The better-sighted bird with a shaft
Of light that targets a rattler
In a Genesis-destined death.

From Theology Today, 1987.

Upside-Down They Turn Us: The Beatitudes IV

by | Jun 10, 2010 | Learning Story

It’s been too long since I visited Philip Yancey.  Here is a short excerpt from the Jesus I Never Knew about the Beatitudes.  Be sure to find this book and read the whole thing!

“Blessed are the poor in spirit,” said Jesus. One commentary translates that “Blessed are the desperate.” With nowhere else to turn, the desperate just may turn to Jesus, the only one who can offer the deliverance they long for. Jesus really believed that a person who is poor in spirit, or mourning, or persecuted, or hungry and thirsty for righteousness has a peculiar “advantage” over the rest of us. Maybe, just maybe, the desperate person will cry out to God for help. If so, that person is truly blessed.

I now view the Beatitudes not as patronizing slogans, but as profound insights into the mystery of human existence. God’s kingdom turns the tables upside down. The poor, the hungry, the mourners, and the oppressed truly are blessed. Not because of their miserable states, of course – Jesus spent much of his life trying to remedy those miseries. Rather, they are blessed because of an innate advantage they hold over those more comfortable and self-sufficient. People who are rich, successful, and beautiful may well go through life relying on their natural gifts. People who lack such natural advantages, hence underqualified for success in the kingdom of this world, just might turn to God in their time of need.

The Already/Not Yet of the Beatitudes

by | Jun 9, 2010 | Learning Story

As you reflect on the Beatitudes, which I hope you have been doing with me, you may feel that tension between wanting to live in this way every day all the time and the fact that clearly you don’t (Well, I DON’T!).
Again, as followers of Christ, we are asked to live in the tension of justification and sanctification, of being declared righteous and yet needing lots of growth, of waiting to be what we are. Here is what N.T. Wright says about the Beatitudes regarding that tension:
“They [the Beatitudes] are announcing a new state of affairs, a new reality which is in the process of bursting into the world. They are declaring that something that wasn’t previously the case is now going to be; that the life of heaven, which had seemed so distant and unreal, is in the process of coming true on earth….


How does the ultimate promised future correspond to the present practices and habits Jesus insists upon? In two contrasting ways.
On the one hand, there is a direct correspondence, where the future state is exactly anticipated in the present habits of life: humility, meekness, mercy, purity, peacemaking. When the final kingdom arrives, we won’t stop being humble, meek, and pure. (“That’s enough of that! Now we can be what we’ve always wanted — namely, proud, arrogant, and impure!”) No: these qualities will shine through all the more powerfully.


What Jesus is saying…is, “Now that I’m here, God’s new world is coming to birth; and once, you realize that, you’ll see that these are the habits of heart which anticipate the new world here and now.’ These qualities — purity of heart, mercy, and so on — are not, so to speak, ‘things you have to do’ to earn a ‘reward,’ a ‘payment.’ Nor are they merely the ‘rules of conduct’ laid down for new converts to follow — rules that some today might perceive as somewhat arbitrary. They are, in themselves the signs of life, the language of life, the life of new creation, the life of new covenant, the life which Jesus came to bring. As we shall see, they are part of that radical Christian modification of the ancient Greek notion of virtue, the modification that quickly settled into the overall pattern of faith, hope, and love.”