I haven’t posted in such a long time. It felt overwhelming to redo my site after I deleted it, and all of my free time and dedication has been required to re-launch our local writer’s group, IdaHopeChristianWriters.org. After I built that site, my writing time was frequently directed to the Meditation Mondays portion of the blog over there. You can read some of my writing devotionals here.
The biggest hindrance was that I wanted this website finished before I blogged again—or even restored last year’s recorded posts.
But last weekend I spoke at the first Fall Gathering for IdaHope Christian Writers and I wanted to share my talk here.
Why You Matter—ICW Fall Gathering 2023
You’ll see that I have the bones of my website back up and I’ll be changing things around over the next few months. I guess that could turn into years. Sometimes just doing it is better than doing it perfectly, especially if “perfect” freezes you to inaction.
In the meantime, I have a Christmas audio book coming soon… When it’s available at all major distributors, I’ll send out a newsletter announcement. My son laughed when he heard a snippet. He said it didn’t even sound like me—but like someone who wanted to fall in love at Christmas!
Sorry to disappoint, but there isn’t a recipe in this post. “Sex starts in the kitchen,” was advice I heard. I didn’t receive it before I got married, though. The first time I heard the phrase was decades later and secondhand from my kids. They’re coming to visit from Austin this week, so I’m thinking about them.
I think the phrase could be a cheesy, practical suggestion like, “Do dishes and your wife will be more in the mood.” (If dishes are her responsibility, or acts of service are her love language.) But actually it’s less tangible—more a concept that we cannot build intimacy in the secret place. It starts somewhere else: the place(s) you spend most of your time.
You cannot be mean to each other in the light and expect open hearts and legs in the dark. The secret place is the culmination of the intimacy you already have. Obviously, you can have sex without intimacy—but humans always need the familiarity, trust and devotion that sometimes accompanies sexual intimacy. The intimate act merely represents what you have.
It’s equally significant for non-sexual relationships to foster trust before you can expect the display.
We build our relationships by the way we handle less private things.
For example: conversations. Now that I don’t see my children daily at the dinner table, I no longer have a rhythm of relationship with them. It makes every conversation more important.
If you don’t have children, the following could apply to a lover or a friend. It’s just that your kids will want you to hold yourself to a higher standard than your friends will expect.
Over-sharing
If I’m quick to tell my child details about every person I know—my child will assume that I share their business just as freely. Even if it’s for prayer, they don’t need/want everyone “praying” for them. Prov. 17:9; Prov. 11:13
Pronouncing Judgement
If every word that comes out of my mouth is to describe someone else’s wrong action or belief, my children will feel examined whenever I speak to them. I may never express criticism against them, but they’ll see my continual judgement as proof that I have set myself above the law. Jam. 4:11 Vulnerability with me will not be worth the risk for them.
Striving
If I am quick to suggest improvement every time I speak to my children, they will always feel inadequate. “Congratulations on your job, when will you be manager/go back to school?” and “Congratulations on your marriage—when will you have a kid?” convey a moving target of approval instead of “already justified.” Rom 5:1; Acts 13:39
I think my best conversations with my kids are when I am conscious of these tendencies in me. Do you see any other examples in your own life?
I thought I’d get this blog going again sooner, but I spent the last several months creating a website for our writer’s group and a narrating a new audio book. Now I have more capacity. However, I intend to re-post many of the blogs I accidentally deleted.
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Happy Independence Day!
A few months ago, I was visiting with new acquaintances. We were talking about our journeys: raising & launching children, personal faith-walks and church experience. I’ve wondered if you can live this (modern, western Christian) life without church-hurt and religious trauma. Or is it reserved for second-generation Christians—those raised up in it?
Honestly, the tone shifted to blame. We all had been hurt, and had people we dearly loved driven away from the church. Churches injure so many. Christians are judgemental and hypocritical. Organized religion is one mouth and hundreds of ears—not a healthy body. Really, it’s all the church’s fault…
But part way through the conversation, I felt the Spirit say to me: You are the church.
I am the Church.
I changed the topic.
However, after processing it over the past weeks, I can own it. I’m part of the big-C church, corporate body of Christ. Also, I have sat on pews and folding chairs in the little-c local church. In both places, I’ve been wounded. I’ve also been catty, self-absorbed and mislead people about my own dysfunction. Sometimes it was because there was merely a thread holding me together, but sometimes it was just practice. Either way, I have been more concerned about what I wore than what I said, was dismissive and quick to lash out to protect myself instead of others. And…so quick to judge.
It is the way human judgement functions: If I can place fault on someone for their circumstance, then there is a path to prevent those circumstances from happening to me. I can control my destiny.
And being in control is very American. We control our freedom with the second amendment. (Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad we can help God out there.) We control our freedom by “helping” other countries choose their government as it aligns with our world-politic goals, or destroying them when it does not. We control our freedom to consume by pillaging resources, grateful for “the blessing” that we are on the money-side of capitalism.
Yes… I do eat avocados.
I am American.
Freedom is an acceptable idol we lift up in our sanctuary. It probably isn’t a false god if you thank God-Most-High for it. Nationalism is allowable because our forefathers came here for religious freedom. Certainly not societal equalization, and the opportunity to prosper financially.
From one side of the mouth we condemn immigrants to obey the law and from the other, we celebrate when our forefathers did not.
We have independence because we probably fought harder for it than other countries, or at least we did it in the name of God, so He blessed it. We also toss His name into our anthems and pledges. So it’s fine if He shares the throne with our flag—right? We are part of the redeemed. We can look across the ocean at Babylon. And shake our heads. Forgetting one important thing…
Without Christ, I am Babylon.
In the new sanctuary we are attending, the American flag shares the stage with the cross and the Christian flag. I’m very aware it is privilege allowing me to bristle at the equal prominence—while believers under other flags meet in secret, risking life and family.
In part, I am celebrating the freedom that I have taken for granted this week. And I hope you do too. But, I will be keeping two things in mind:
May we not exercise or worship our freedom at the cost of another’s. Hang on—may we not hold anything more dear than Christ.
I heard recently that the Roman Army swore allegiance to Cesar and the gods before entering service. The action was called a sacrament. The early church took a different sacrament of body and blood, and I think much of the political statements in the New Testament are lost in our context.
Patriotism is not holy. Relinquishing freedom as a devoted slave isn’t sweet affection. It is extreme loyalty. So, while we lift up our country and, hand over heart, swear allegiance to it alone, think of one more thing true citizen of heaven:
“Any society whom Babylon’s cap fits must wear it. Any society which absolutizes its own economic prosperity at the expense of others comes under Babylon’s condemnation.”
― Richard Bauckham, The Theology of the Book of Revelation
A few months ago, I was visiting with new acquaintances. We were talking about our journeys: raising & launching children, personal faith-walks and church experience. I’ve wondered if you can live this (modern, western Christian) life without church-hurt and religious trauma. Or is it reserved for second-generation Christians—those raised up in it?
