Each year, the holiday season brings with it many historic traditions, like the red cups at Starbucks, the bad pop Christmas songs playing in every retail store in the country, and the revived rhetoric among certain Christians about 'keeping Christ in Christmas.' Perhaps you have heard talk of this on the news or seen posts about it in your Facebook feed. I assume the underlying concern is that the removal of any religious references from the holiday might indicate a resistance against or stifling of Christianity in our country. I can appreciate that. But, first, I think it's safe to say that we've got multiple holidays happening in tandem rather than one religious holiday being continually corrupted. C.S. Lewis identified three Christmases in his essay 'What Christmas Means to Me' from God in the Dock: there's the 'religious festival,' which is 'important and obligatory for Christians,' and the 'popular holiday,' which is 'an occasion for merry-making and hospitality' for many, regardless of religion or background. Lewis calls the third Christmas the 'commercial racket' that 'has been forced upon us by the shopkeepers.' He elaborates in typical Lewis fashion'-smart, concise, funny'-if you're interested in reading the entire essay, but I've shared enough to make my present point.
Second, if we want to talk about a 'war' on Christianity, there are more important discussions to be had than whether our barista wishes us 'Happy Holidays' or our city hall puts up a nativity scene on its lawn.
What does it actually look like, then, to 'keep Christ in Christmas'?
A Facebook friend shared a meme a few days ago that said:
Want to keep Christ in Christmas? Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, forgive the guilty, welcome the unwanted, care for the ill, love your enemies, and do unto others as you would have done unto you.
This meme references, in part, Matthew 25, in which Christ speaks of the final judgment of the righteous and the unrighteous. 'When the Son of Man comes in his glory,' the passage begins, 'and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne.' And he tells the righteous that they will inherit the kingdom because they visited him when he was sick, they clothed him when he was naked, they went to him when he was in prison, and so on (25:31-40). Then he turns to the unrighteous. I'm only going to directly quote this portion because I think it's more powerful:
Then he will say to those at his left hand, "Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me." Then they also will answer, "Lord, when did we see thee hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to thee?" Then he will answer them, "Truly, I say to you, as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me." (25:41-45)
In the past few months, some controversy has arisen as cities have begun implementing tighter restrictions on giving food to homeless people. A ninety-year-old man and two pastors in Fort Lauderdale were even arrested for feeding the homeless. Some argue that freely handing out cash does more harm than good, as certain statistics show that most of the cash is used for drugs, alcohol, or prostitution.
But I just can't get away from Christ's words: 'As you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me.' There are no loopholes. Christ is not ambiguous. Of the poor and needy, he doesn't merely say, 'I relate to that person.' He says, 'I am that person.' Remembering this makes it harder for me to avert my eyes from the homeless man asking for change outside my subway stop.
'Give to him who begs from you,' Christ says in the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:42). He does not say to only give to those who have pure motives for asking, or only to those who you're sure aren't going to use your gift for something bad. As I ignored that homeless man on the subway platform, I ignored God. As I did not give to that woman holding the cardboard sign at the stoplight, I did not give to God.
We should be doing things as a society to reduce homelessness long term and to help people find steady employment and recovery programs, if needed. Of course. But as a Christian, clinging to statistics feels too much like making excuses. After all, even if the statistics are accurate, I can't know what the human being standing in front of me will do with that money. (I'm pretty sure I can guess what he'll do with the food I give him, but I suppose I can't know that for sure, either.) And more and more I find myself of the mindset that, on an important level, it really doesn't matter. The two issues'-programs to reduce homelessness in the long term and giving freely in the short term'-feel almost separate to me, and they certainly don't seem mutually exclusive. In the moment when someone in need asks me for something, my actions are between me and God, and God has said what he expects of me in no uncertain terms. It is a matter of human dignity and human duty.
Another friend recently shared (again, on Facebook; good for something, I guess) this quotation from St. Maria Skobtsova of Paris that also potently references Christ's words in Matthew 25:
At the Last Judgment I will not be asked whether I satisfactorily practiced asceticism, nor how many bows I have made before the divine altar. I will be asked whether I fed the hungry, clothed the naked, visited the sick and the prisoner in his jail. That is all I will be asked.
So, are you wondering how to keep Christ in Christmas (and in your daily life, year-round)? Ask yourself: are you keeping Christ fed, and warm, and comforted, and loved? Are you giving to Christ when he begs of you? Because that is all we will be asked.
Mars Hill Church began as a small gathering in Mark Driscoll's home in 1996 and soon became one of the fastest-growing churches in the country. But the church that was praised just last year as one of the 'Top Churches to Watch in America' has been the subject of much controversy lately, stemming primarily from its hyper-masculine, strongly opinionated founding pastor. The Puget Sound Business Journal recently ran an article stating that there are rumors of Mars Hill declaring bankruptcy (the Puget Sound region of Washington was home to several of the church's locations). Even if such rumors are false, they are indicative of the dramatic decline in both popularity and organizational stability the church has seen in recent months. On January 1st, 2015, Mars Hill Church will officially dissolve.
In an October 31st announcement on the church's website, Senior Pastor Dave Bruskas starts off by saying, 'I am excited to share with you important decisions recently made about the future of the congregations of Mars Hill Church.' The word choice is deliberate: this is about the future of the congregations, not the larger entity of the church as it has been known. Pastor Bruskas also outlines the three options individual locations have:
'becoming an independent, self-governed church,
merging with an existing church to create one independent, self-governed church,' or
'disbanding as a church and shepherding current members to find other local church homes.'
While Pastor Bruskas' language in the announcement is positive and hopeful'-he calls the shutdown 'a new expression of the same mission''-the message is clear: the future of Mars Hill is that there is no more Mars Hill.
Towards the end of the announcement, Pastor Bruskas writes: 'Mars Hill Church has never been about a building or even an organization. Mars Hill is a people on mission with Jesus, and that singular focus continues as these newly independent churches are launched. It's still all about Jesus!'
Absolutely, Christ is the Gospel. Without Christ, his incarnation, and his resurrection, there is no Christianity. I have no doubt that former Mars Hill members will continue to earnestly live Christ-centered lives and seek new churches to facilitate that. However, after all that's happened, it seems clear that Mars Hill has also been very much about Mark Driscoll, and there are lessons to be learned from this.
Driscoll was certainly the face of the church, and his public blunders negatively affected the church as an entity. Attendance at Mars Hill dropped this year as controversies kept popping up, which in turn led to reduced financial giving, now cited as a major factor in the shutdown. As Ruth Graham summarizes in her recent piece for The Atlantic, church spokesman Justin Dean 'framed the dissolution as a 'stewardship' issue: Setting the individual churches free was the only way to save them.' Graham concludes by saying, ''Nondenominational' organizations like Mars Hill, built on faith and charisma alone, will always be vulnerable to the fate of losing the popularity contest.'
Graham's statement highlights an individualistic aspect of (primarily American, primarily Protestant) Christianity that is problematic. Take, for example, the fact that there exist somewhere around 41,000 Christian denominations in the world today, most of them within some sort of Protestant tradition. There are so many variations on how church should be done (Rock band or hymnal? Long sermon or short? Communion every week or just on certain holidays?) as well as what church is for (Bible study? Worship? Receiving the sacraments? Fellowship? Church history class?). The variations extend to church organization, beliefs about administering sacraments (or what a sacrament is), worship and preaching style, and so on.
Such a plethora of options lends itself to a consumerist mentality when it comes to choosing a church. My upbringing included nine years at an Evangelical K-12 school and a short time at a theologically conservative, interdenominational university. 'Church shopping' was not uncommon, as individuals and families went from church to church every few years, or every time they moved to a new town, or if a church did something they didn't like. Christians can now pick and choose from a seemingly infinite array of options, and it's not difficult to find a church that fits your personal preferences.
I have heard the argument that this is a good thing: maybe this opens the door for people who otherwise might not consider Christianity. But there is a danger, too, and I don't think it's outweighed by the potential benefits. Christians run the risk of church hopping whenever they bump into an idea, leader, or style that they don't like. Additionally, in light of Mars Hill's shutdown, if people are drawn to a church primarily because of a particular individual, around which the church itself is built, what happens when that person is gone?
Mark Driscoll's style was polarizing, but it attracted many members who may not have otherwise felt comfortable in a church, like (as this New York Times article mentions) an Afro- and wife-beater-wearing tattoo artist. I personally know many who benefited from their time as members, and I don't doubt that most people involved in the church'-including Driscoll and other leaders'-sincerely love God and want to live fully in their faith. Mars Hill became widely known in part due to its ability to get young people serious about church, particularly young men, a demographic that has often been difficult to reach. It was pro marriage, pro family, pro babies, and generally pro grownups-acting-like-grownups. Ironically, this oft-dubbed 'hipster church' seemed to be offering an antidote to the perpetually adolescent tendencies of the millennial generation.
None of these are bad ideas, but there was bad execution. Sometimes the good things got overshadowed by Driscoll's personal biases or (to put it lightly) poor choice of words (remember his Facebook comment about 'effeminate anatomically male worship leader[s]?'). Other times, the good idea was stretched so far as to be skewed: exhorting men to take responsibility for themselves and their families is a good idea; saying that stay-at-home dads are subject to church discipline is not. Nevertheless, Driscoll's style worked'-for a time. As this 2007 Seattle P-Iarticle states: 'Mars Hill provides at least some of Seattle's legion of young adults, who are often nowhere in evidence in more established churches, a clear sense of direction along with simple rules for getting on with your life,' and the article ends by stating that 'While [Mars Hill] won't be what everyone wants or needs, it seems that it is what many are looking for, even in Seattle.' As time went on, this seemed to be the case for several other cities in Washington along with Portland, Albuquerque, and Huntington Beach.
However, Mars Hill and its contentious leader have declined in popularity in tandem. As the controversies around Driscoll kept popping up, church attendance dropped dramatically over the course of this year (from over 12,000 a week to between 8,000 and 9,000). Earlier this year Mars Hill consolidated three Seattle locations into one and laid off over thirty percent of its paid staff.
The problems only compounded as Driscoll gained authority and lost accountability: in 2007, two elders were fired for objecting to Driscoll's proposed changes to the church's bylaws, which they felt consolidated too much power in Driscoll and his closest aides. Now it looks like their concerns were justified. A discerning observer can pick out Driscoll's personal biases from his sermons and writings; I've also long suspected that his vitriol is perhaps fueled by past hurts (he was raised Catholic, and I've heard several sermons in which he needlessly poked fun at Catholicism).
Just as Christians are not consumers, we are also not free agents. That goes for churches, too; the danger of being an 'independent, self-governed' church is that when the church loses its linchpin'-be it an individual, an idea, a style, or something else'-there may not be much else to fall back on. Mars Hill's mantra was 'It's all about Jesus,' but it was enough about Mark Driscoll that his decline led to his church's deterioration. Mars Hill's fate is an example of a harmful side effect of the individualized, consumerist approach to churchgoing: now that the magnetic presence that drew so many into the church is gone, the church itself will dissolve. Driscoll, at least in the public eye, went from polarizing to alienating and from aggressive to offensive, acquiring descriptors from critics like 'bully' and 'misogynist.' Mars Hill was, for better and for worse, intrinsically linked to one man, the man whose image was beamed into satellite campuses across multiple states every Sunday. A cult of personality, as it's been called. As long as Driscoll was popular, this worked in Mars Hill's favor, but the structure is not sustainable.
Note: a review copy of this film was provided in exchange for a review. Visit the film's website here. See our earlier review from James here. Spoilers follow.
If you've ever been to Texas, you may have noticed the Jesus fish symbols on billboards used (presumably) to alert viewers that the company is Christian owned, or that it only takes a few minutes on the road to realize that there is almost literally a church on every corner.
In the Bible Belt, conservative Protestant Christianity is a significant part of the culture at large, and in some ways Little HopeWas Arson, a new documentary directed by Theo Love, is a snapshot of this cultural mashup hung over the backdrop of a mystery that, at least for the first half hour or so, feels not unlike a suspense drama. It tells the story of ten churches in East Texas (or the 'belt buckle of the Bible Belt,' as one interviewee calls it) that burned down at the hands of arsonists in 2010. The filmmakers make the narrative choice to withhold certain information about the burnings up front (like who set the fires), letting the audience experience the drama as it unfolds. They add some shots to bolster the storytelling, recreating the eerie feel of the events and establishing the film's tone: a lone car driving down a dark country road; a shot of someone flicking open a lighter in the foreground with a bright white steeple illumined in the background. The's a stirring montage early on of news clips and images of the various churches burning, intermixed with wide, sweeping shots of the churches in the dark, all underscored by the creepy indie rock track 'Virgin' by Manchester Orchestra. The cinematography in general is lovely and largely understated, making the film visually pleasant.
When it comes to documentaries, different filmmakers have different goals. In Little Hope, the filmmakers seem less interested in making an argument and more interested in simply telling a story. It is a dark and tragic story, and only grows more so as the film progresses. We learn about the arsonists, nineteen-year-old Jason Bourque and twenty-one-year-old Daniel McAllister, and their difficult pasts. Jason was born to drug-addicted parents and raised primarily by his grandparents, and he later got involved with drugs himself and was expelled from college; Daniel's mother died of a stroke and his father subsequently attempted suicide. Both men became disillusioned with Christianity and God as they grew up. Over the course of the film, we meet various characters who help fill in the story: family and community members, law enforcement and ATF officials, pastors and churchgoers. The filmmakers draw out a lot of emotion and then just let it sit on screen without comment, which is a powerful technique because it gives the audience space to sit with it, too. And there are fantastic characters to move us through the narrative, such as Daniel's father David, a tall, lanky man with a wide, toothless grin.
The theme of forgiveness is strong in the film, and it seems to prompt several questions: what does forgiveness look like? Who deserves forgiveness? How are we to forgive people who have harmed us deeply? These seem to be the questions that the members of the burned churches are left struggling with, and rather than offering direct answers, the film leaves the audience to struggle with them, too. We are given a few options to consider, such as the former Texas judge who, among many others in the film, says that while he believes God will forgive the men, 'we won't;' the churchgoer who says forgiveness 'is a process,' one that she clearly has not completed yet; the pastor who asks for Jason and Daniel's forgiveness if his church failed them in any way; or the men's former Sunday School teacher, who, feeling like he could have helped them more, 'resigned' from church and now drives across Texas, seeking the lost.
There's also a discussion of hypocrisy, and the noticeable irony of so many Christians in the film admitting that they cannot forgive Jason and Daniel. Jason himself articulates this tension toward the end of the film, criticizing the 'uppity-ness' of wealthy churches who snub people they consider lower than them and are not as forgiving as they claim to be.
The filmmakers successfully present the tensions and tragic circumstances of this story empathetically, without passing judgment, and I know this because as a viewer, I am not persuaded to pass judgment. Watch the film for yourself and see if you agree, but I suspect that, like me, you will be moved by this story of loss, humanity, faith, and doubt, and the film will leave you turning it over in your head for some time afterwards.
In Germany, the asparagus harvest marks a national celebration. Whole restaurant menus center around asparagus, filling the hearts and stomachs of Germans thrilled by the wonderful harvest season. Asparagus has been an important crop in Germany, so the foundations of the festivities have economic and historic roots. In America, we have a similar celebration of the harvest of a particular vegetable - the pumpkin.
At the same time as we celebrate the pumpkin harvest, we observe a strange practice of abstaining from creating our own pumpkin consumables. Though most of us buy a pumpkin, virtually everyone will see this pumpkin rot while they take canned pumpkin out of the cupboard to make into pie or fajitas or what have you.
Think about that. We celebrate our grand harvest without eating it.
It is as though Germans hung asparagus on the door and placed it around their homes, but only cooked with canned asparagus during the harvest time. The whole point of celebrating the time of harvest is that you don't have to rely on the canned stuff anymore - you have the fresh produce readily available.
Leaving aside the weird place the pumpkin holds in our culture (after all, the pumpkin crop is not of major economic or historic importance to Americans; it's kind of a random vegetable to be the center of national celebration) the weirdness of a harvest festival in an urban culture remains. Our culture has grown increasingly distant from and unaware of the production of our food. Trying to reverse the curse of man, we have attempted to sever our ties with the earth by distancing ourselves as much as possible from the way our food comes to our tables. There was a time when buying a vegetable to rot on your porch while you get the same vegetable out of a jar would have been utterly absurd. A different generation of women would have happily hacked the fresh stuff to bits for their pumpkin linguine and left the canned veggie for another day. But, as much as we want to participate in the cycles of the earth, as much as we yearn to give thanks to God for the harvest we receive from His hand, we nevertheless maintain a rejection of our link with the earth.
As we grow up, many of us are astonished to discover the horrors of our food production industry. These abuses are clearly a problem. But, even if they didn't exist, our distance from the earth would remain a problem, because it means nothing to us when Jesus comes to the fig tree and sees that it is barren. If this store doesn't have figs, we can go to another one and get them. We can find whatever produce we want whenever we want it, shipped from other parts of the world. We have no long wait, no hurrahing in harvest
, no yearning for something exciting to come. We've lost touch with the different seasons of our fruits and vegetables, and link them together only by vague memory or nostalgia. Once, men and women would have greeted the presence of the most recent crop with gratitude. Gratitude comes most naturally where no guarantee existed that the object of the gratitude would happen. We're rarely grateful at what produce we find in groceries stores. They have to set up an artificial system of sale prices to make us excited about different things on different days.
But, then comes Thanksgiving, this glorious day that may be the greatest remedy for consumerism in our culture. On Thanksgiving, we actually celebrate the production of our food. The average middle-class American spends most days of the year only vaguely aware that the apples or asparagus or coffee beans or hamburger he eats had a long journey to get to his mouth. On Thanksgiving, we pause to remember that journey, to put ourselves once more in touch with the origin of our food and our reasons to be grateful for its presence.
The word "Eucharist," the great meal of the church, means gratitude or thanksgiving. Our gathering together to gives thanks for a meal is one of the most Christian activities we could do.
Note: A review copy of this film was provided to me in exchange for a review. I thank especially the film's executive producer, Bryan Storkel, for working to make sure I received this documentary, since I asked for it such a long time ago. In addition, you can check out the film's website here.
There is no easy way to sum up the issues that naturally arise in a film about a pair of arsonists who target churches, starting with the church they grew up in.
We'll start with the merits of the documentary. The easiest way to sum up the film's credentials is to say this: you wouldn't be wasting your time, by any means, if you decided to give this a watch. The narrative is well crafted without feeling contrived-no easy task in a documentary, confined on the sides by reality and compelling rhetorical tricks. The story is not so well known that you'll feel like you know the ending (unless you're from east Texas, I imagine), but also not so localized that it feels as though it is making a mountain out of a molehill.
Mild spoilers to follow.
The tale is heartbreaking, and is told with increasingly painful revelations: first the church is burned, then you discover it might just be arson, then you learn who may be guilty. The film captures a wide range of reactions to the fires: some demand justice, others offer forgiveness, and many sit somewhere in the middle. A few have trouble admitting the guilt of their loved ones, and others act to help bring the guilty to justice.
This variety of viewpoints is precisely why talking about the issues in the film is no easy task.
One puzzling issue has to do with one of the arsonists. In every interview he is featured in, he has trouble admitting his own guilt. But the particular way in which he talks about his guilt is peculiar. At the time of the crimes-both the particular moment of the crime, and at the time in the young man's life-he was on some number of drugs. Some were prescribed, and some were illegal (there is one explicit reference to marijuana, but there is an implication that other drugs may have been involved). When asked whether or not he was guilty, his response amounted to an inability to deny the evidence against him. In other words, he wouldn't declare guilt, nor would he absolve himself. In his drug-induced stupor, he couldn't tell if his actions were real. He doesn't fight his sentence, so far as we can tell, but he certainly thinks he deserves parole, since he wasn't acting in a way that had a real motive.
While legally it seems he did have intent (I'm not a lawyer, but the action wasn't 'accidental,' as if a stray cigarette were carelessly tossed), the moral status of his intent is a little trickier to work out. Presumably he chose to take the mind-altering drugs, especially the illegal ones. Does his decision to do something that places him in a compromised state of mind impart an ethical 'decision-made' status onto his inebriated actions? Is a drunk driver as responsible for his or her actions as a sober one?
Another-and, to me, trickier-issue is that of retribution. Some of the church members reacted rather well. One pastor even showed up to the sentencing, not only to forgive, but to ask for forgiveness. In what struck me as the most powerful moment of the film, the pastor addresses the two young men, just sentenced to multiple concurrent life sentences. He began by saying he came to offer hope, and I worried he would offer an empty platitude about how the church had forgiven him. Instead, he asks forgiveness. There is a sense in which this could still be fairly safe, since the boys are not likely (if it is even possible) to get out of prison. But the pastor seemed earnest, and did offer forgiveness. I hope he continues to visit them (provided either of them have any wish at all to see him).
But not everyone reacted so well. One woman says that forgiveness is a process, and that shows throughout. Some church members admitted that they were not at a place of forgiveness yet, but others spoke more harshly. "God will forgive them, we know, but I know I can't." The sentiment is understandable; a total of ten churches were burned down in a forty mile radius. This is small town Texas-they self-describe their part of the world as the Bible belt buckle. Their church buildings mean a lot to them, but strong opposition in the form of what must have felt like home-grown terrorism has to be devastating. I wouldn't venture to say I could react with more grace, despite what I believe is our calling.
All in all, the film is a well told drama. You'll squirm a little, you'll gasp, and you'll come away with some strange mixture of compassion and a desire for justice. The controversy is subtle, and takes place in a way that feels authentic, rather than with the sneaking suspicion that the director has an axe to grind.
Can we change the world? As often as modern young adults are regarded as entertainment seekers, today's 20- and 30-somethings are also driven by a laudable desire to see the world become a better place. The modern Awareness Raising that 'white people like" derives from that desire, and gets some things right and others wrong.
For a case study in Awareness Raising, let's imagine two YouTube videos out to change the world. One is a video of child laborers making rugs to be sold in America. Another is of a woman begin showered with catcalls while walking through a city. Such things are common enough that, without a specific example, we can easily imagine both of them gaining viral status on YouTube and making the rounds on Facebook.
Here is the biography of the first video: someone thinks it is awful that child laborers are being forced to work in slavery to make rugs for the homes of unsuspecting Americans. The average American does not want something made by slave labor, particularly child labor, so when the video circulates, those who see it write letters to the company and messages to the each other and probably some letters to senators. Since the video goes viral, even the people who don't see it know someone who did, so they hear that this rug company is using child labor. The rug company, worried about the bad publicity, makes a public announcement that they will be verifying their rug sources from now on to avoid slave labor, and they contract with an outside company to investigate their factories in a few months to ensure that all of their rugs are fair trade. Other rug companies see the pressure put on the first company, and they investigate their own producers so that they can put the "Fair Trade" sticker on their rugs.
Now, let's look at the biography of the second meme, the one of the woman harassed by catcalls. This will circulate among a large number of people. Some of them will be feminists, male and female, who grow righteously indignant about the savage treatment of the woman. A few will be men who think to themselves, 'I never realized how much unwanted attention women get simply walking around." If it reaches the perpetrators of the catcalls, they will most likely high-five the men around them, excited that they made it onto YouTube for their demonstrations of masculinity (as they perceive it). If anyone writes to their senators, the senators will have nothing to do to help; how do you eradicate boorishness at the state level? The people watching the video who agree with it will become angrier than they were before; the people watching the video who disagree will continue to do so. The only group that will experience any change is the unknowing but sympathetic men who were not perpetrating the catcalls to begin with. In short, there will be no less harassment because of this video.
Why is the first meme able to bring about change while the second is not? Both of the videos demonstrate aspects of an unjust, cruel world. Both show man-made evil within our own country; this isn't the comparison of a natural disaster with a culture of slavery, this is simply people being bad people. But, the first meme created a better world and the second didn't.
For whatever reason (perhaps our shrill and constant campaigns of Awareness Raising) our generation is uniquely unable to differentiate between bad things that we can change and bad things that we cannot. We are rightly concerned by the existence of evil and injustice, and the more of such things show up on our Facebook news feed, the greater our concern becomes. However, our sphere of influence is only marginally increased by Facebook. This is the great difference between the videos: as consumers, we have influence on companies. As people who don't harass women or associate with those who do, we have no influence on harassment.
The optimistic but ill-grounded belief that we can educate the evil right out of our society pumps enthusiasm and energy into the Awareness Raising impulse. When we come across a sordid tale, we assume that the virtuous response is to pass it along. If everyone knows about it, it will be less likely to continue. In some cases, this is true. In others, it is not. And, in most cases, a moment's reflection would do everything needed to distinguish the two.
By widening the sphere of awareness without widening the sphere of influence, Awareness Raising positions its adherents for educated despair rather than the hoped-for, well-read utopia. In a world where awareness and concern have run wildly beyond the barriers of our individual influence, two good options remain for those who wish to change the world: they may work on likewise widening their sphere of influence, or they may focus their time and awareness on the sphere of influence they have, now. One thing is certain. As long as the sphere of concern maintains the majority of our focus, there will be no world-changing.
God be with Christian parents of non-Christian children. They are heroes of the faith. In their Bibles, the edges around Proverbs 22:6 have grown once frayed and untouched, again, with memorization. Once, they read those words daily, 'Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.' After years, it grew harder to read. It certainly seemed like they had raised up their children in the way they should go. And it certainly seemed their children had departed. It was in the Bible, and how could it be wrong? Suspicion drew shadows of self-doubt at the edges of thoughts and sermons with the question, Where did I go wrong?
Finally, someone confirmed the parent's suspicions, telling him as kindly as it could be said, 'We must pay attention to genre when reading the Bible. Proverbs are wise sayings, not prophecies or promises.' Gray-haired heads nodded in a long-worn defeat. At least it didn't seem like the Scripture lied, anymore.
That shook some of the earnestness of the questions. Yet, in the dark hours, they still returned. Did I really train him up in the way he should go? What about those times I lost my temper about frivolous tasks? What about my laziness? What about all of the millions of instances my sin overran my sense, leaving me selfish or godless? Where did I go wrong?
Still, on their most objective, honest days, the Christian parent knows that every Christian household consists of people, and every person wrestles with his own sin. It wasn't a perfect place to grow up, but nowhere is a perfect place, and their home was among the good kind for gaining a Christian childhood. Still, the accuser in the back of their mind hisses that this is only an excuse, but the stable, honest Spirit dwelling in the heart vouches for its truth. The parent did the best job anyone could expect.
So, Proverbs turned into a memory, and the edges around the chapters on the prodigal son started to take on a comfortable, well-worn look. Prayers rose up, not in the tricky confidence of repeating a proverb to God, but in the yearning pain and hope of the father of the prodigal, and, after years, more frequently in thoughtful, answerless silence.
It's a strange prayer, made fervent by standing alongside God and asking something for Him, rather than something for ourselves.
Maybe the world of heaven sees this process differently. Maybe the parent's status is not due to distance between themselves and God, but due to closeness.
Perhaps God in His love knew at the creation of the world which future souls would be the most likely to turn to Him, and which would be the least. And, loving those rebellious souls with a love grand enough to create the cosmos, He wanted to pour into their lives everything He could that might turn them to salvation. So, He paired them with faithful Christian parents, knowing that those parents would give the rebellious children the greatest possible chance of turning to Him.
We would do the same if someone we loved were terminally ill; we would take him to the best doctors and give him the best medicine. It wouldn't matter that it was a hopeless cause, because love demands that the lover do everything imaginable to save the beloved. In all the doctor visits and all the soothing balms, our love is spelled out.
Christian parents were the best witness God could put in the lives of these beloved souls. Eighteen years of daily exposure to Scripture and scriptural living provided their best chance of connecting with God. And, even if it was hopeless, His love was so great that it demanded that He give them everything He could.
He opened wide the doors of heaven to the prodigal children by opening wide the hearts of couples in whose heart He was center.
When the children left the faith, the parents grieved and God grieved. Yet, in the midst of their pain, He knew that those parents would continue to pray for their children, love them, reach out to them. For some, it brings them back. For others, it at least serves to soften the children's hearts. For all such parents, it serves as a cross.
Maybe the question isn't one of where the parents went wrong, but rather where they went right. Maybe the reason God gave them the children He did was because God trusted them to do exactly what they did. God be with those parents, praying at God's side daily.
I often find that, from Sunday to Sunday, I am struck by different moments in our church service. Last week, my husband and I made a short autumn getaway to Vermont (referred to simply as 'God's Country' in our house). On Sunday morning, we stood side by side in a small Russian Orthodox Church outside Montpelier, on what can only be described as the perfect autumn day: the sun was bright; the sky was clear, intense blue; the air cool and fresh. The morning sunlight softly illuminated the smoke from the censor as it gently wafted and curled around the altar table. The deacon took his place facing the altar doors and began reading off prayers, and one in particular struck my heart:
To complete the remaining time of our lives in peace and repentance, let us ask of the Lord.
The choir and congregation responded:
Grant this, O Lord.
It is a humble request: not for fame and fortune, not for material comfort, not for grand success. What struck me about this prayer, though, was just how profound of a request it is. Peace and repentance. After the service was over, I still considered that prayer. In it's way, it sums up the goal of the Christian life. At the end of my days-whenever that comes-if I'm able to look back and say I lived a life of peace and repentance, I'll have lived well.
When asked the questions, either internally by myself or externally by others, 'What do you want to do with your life?' or 'What do you hope to accomplish?' my answer usually resembles a resume: I'd like to make a living as a writer; I'd like to work from home, doing freelance and online stuff. I'd like to complete a book. Of course, there's also what you could call the resume of my personal life: I'd like to have a few kids; to raise them in a little home with a little garden; to continue to travel and experience new places. None of these are ignoble goals, necessarily, but they are selfish and secondary. At worst, they become idols for me: I'll be content, fulfilled, satisfied...if only. This prayer pulls me back from my endless lists and re-centers me on what matters.
To complete the remaining time of our lives in peace and repentance, let us ask of the Lord.
It grounds the heart.
The prayer is also all encompassing. It applies to all Christians, regardless of our specific circumstances or life paths. No matter what else is going on in life, we can always strive to live in peace with God and our fellow man, reaching outside of ourselves to help the poor, the sick, and the needy, because we love God by loving his children (Matthew 25:40). No matter what else is going on in life, we can continually practice repentance. Spiritual disciplines and sacraments facilitate sanctification and growth: prayer, fasting, confession, communion. They help properly orient us toward God and bring us closer to him. Reciting the Jesus Prayer throughout our daily lives is a simple way to focus our spirits and adopt a repentant mindset:
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner.
Maybe my thoughts were affected by the endless beauty of Vermont's hills and winding roads, all gold and red and green with the changing leaves, and the idyllic simple life that every country market, grazing cow, and quaint farmhouse (complete with smoking chimney) seemed to represent. But I was moved by this prayer and the realization that a life of peace and repentance is all we truly need. It's plenty to hope and work for. Maybe it's all we should ask for.
Like a cool morning mist, fall is gradually settling on New England. Having been raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico, it's a different and enjoyable experience for me to now live in a place that has proper seasons. In New Mexico, summer lingers until about mid-October. The fall leaves are lovely'-mostly golden cottonwoods'-and the fall temperatures last until almost Christmas. Winter lasts all of two months, if that, and it starts to feel like spring again in February.
Not so for New England. The seasons up here are more evenly matched in length, and they differ distinctly from one another. I've been looking forward to another fall, because it's when New England shines brightest: the light is soft and golden and every tree is on fire with color. I love it. And yet, as we get further into the season, the reality of the oncoming winter looms. Last winter was unusually long, and I've heard that we're in for another rough one this year. Soon it will be time to hunker down, stay close to home, and endure the cold until spring comes again.
Not unlike the seasons of the year, we experience different seasons in life: seasons of joy, excitement, or newness; seasons of sadness, loneliness, or grief; seasons of boredom, aimlessness, or uncertainty. We live in a constantly progressing rhythm, and it varies and fluctuates. Sometimes the seasons bleed gradually into each other, and other times we are jarred unexpectedly from one to the next. And we can't just have one season perpetually in life: we can't have joy without other times having loss, or now good fortune without other times struggle. It all goes hand in hand.
In A Severe Mercy, Sheldon Vanauken writes about how the heights of life cannot be separated from the depths, but it's worth it to endure trials and pains so we can partake of the joys. Recounting a realization he'd had as a teenager (before he found Christianity, it's worth noting), he says (referring to himself in the third person):
How did one find joy? In books it seemed to be found in love'-a great love'-though maybe for the saints there was joy in the love of God. He didn't aspire to that, though; he didn't even believe in God. Certainly not! So, if he wanted the heights of joy, he must have, if he could find it, a great love. But in the books again, great joy through love seemed always to go hand in hand with frightful pain. Still, he thought, looking out across the meadow, still, the joy would be worth the pain'-if, indeed, they went together. If there were a choice'-and he suspected there was'-a choice between, on the one hand, the heights and the depths and, on the other hand, some sort of safe, cautious middle way, he, for one, here and now chose the heights and the depths.
I'll learn more as I continue to grow older, but this is starting to ring true for me.
We humans seem obsessed with always being 'happy.' We also often improperly tie happiness and goodness to ease, as if something will only truly make us happy or is only worthwhile or genuine if we don't have to fight for it. This idea is commonly applied to romantic relationships, but it's easy to mistakenly apply it to religion, too. The thinking seems to go that if we have to force ourselves to love God, even if we only have to do so sometimes, do we really love God? Perhaps we're just going through the motions and putting on a show of authenticity when our heart isn't in it.
But whether or not an activity is good and necessary for us is thankfully not determined by our mood. There are plenty of times I've been sitting in church or trying to pray and just not feeling it. I must drag myself out of bed and go for a run even when I don't feel like it, because I'm not going to magically get in shape if I don't put in the work. So also must I continue the work of cultivating my relationship with God (as two chief examples) even if my heart doesn't feel fully in it. It seems easy to believe that our hearts dictate our actions'-maybe because emotions can be unpredictable, so it implies a lack of control over, and therefore responsibility for, how we behave'-but we forget that our actions guide our hearts. Go through the motions if you have to; your heart will catch up.
Until it does, though, we must endure when difficult seasons come, as they do for all of us in time. Last February, we literally had a snowstorm every single week. As we moved through March and then into April the iced-over snow piles lingered and the air was still bitterly cold. I was weary. We all were. But we endured, even if it was harder than it should've been. We knew that spring was coming, even if it was coming late.
It's dangerous to rely so much on particular feelings or states of being: happiness, ease, comfort. If we do, we'll be tempted to pack it in when we hit a season that doesn't complete our comfort checklist. I don't abandon Massachusetts just because it's cold in the winter. I don't abandon my husband just because marriage is hard sometimes. I don't abandon God just because I don't always have nice feelings about being a Christian.
Let us endure but not despair. It's not always easy and effortless, and it requires us to struggle and even force ourselves sometimes, but God is doing good work in us. He honors our struggle, and he meets us where we are. And when our souls are in the midst of winter, we ought to stay close to home: go to church, pray, and continue in communion through the Eucharist, fellowship, and intimacy with God and the people who share our life and our faith, our co-laborers, enduring together until the end.
In my day job, I work as a nanny for three adorable children. The brother-sister twins are almost a year and a half, and their older brother, Sam, is four. I've learned some things that I more or less expected to learn after taking this job: how to change a diaper, how to prepare bottles, how to spot from across the room a baby chewing something he's not supposed to chew. However, I've also learned some things that I didn't expect as much.
Caring for small children provides a sharp insight into what it means to be human, often on a daily basis.
For example:
Children reveal aspects of human nature that are present in adults; we're just better at hiding them.
One characteristic I've come to appreciate about young children is that they speak exactly what is in their hearts: they don't dilute or filter their feelings like we grownups do. A typical example could be Sam becoming distressed that one of his siblings has commandeered a toy of his (that he may or may not have been playing with), say, a piece of the wooden train set. Perhaps on the verge of tears, Sam will say, 'But I don't want him to play with my trains!' The pure confession of a child. Even in children who are not my own, I see our shared humanity and flaws: my selfishness, my narcissism, my sometimes overwhelming desire that things will just go my way. It's easy to believe that we all have a four-year-old within us, a small version of ourselves that rants and raves against authority, that never wants to share, and that resists responsibility and things that are difficult. Really what I see is our shared sin, our shared tendency to turn away from good things.
When we direct children, we are also directing ourselves.
This one I'm stealing from a mother friend of mine who shared the thought on Facebook. As a nanny, I've also realized this (although to a lesser degree, I'm sure). When it's your job to tell a child what's okay and what's not okay, what's good and what's bad, and how they should behave, you realize that such directions apply to yourself, too. You've got to have a larger frame of reference for why you are telling a child not to push his little sister, or not to throw a tantrum when he can't watch television, or even why it's important for him to always wash his hands when he's done going to the bathroom. Even if it's just implied, even if only the adult is aware of it, we direct children on how to live well based on deeper beliefs about what it means to live well. Underlying (almost) every direction, there's a bigger reason, a bigger life lesson: you can't push your sister (because we have to be kind to each other); you can't throw a tantrum (because you have to learn to respect authority and that things don't always go your way).
Which leads me to the next lesson I've learned as a nanny:
There's nothing quite like a questioning child to force you to define your beliefs.
I read somewhere a wry comment about parenting that went something like this: 'I realized in a panic a few months before my first child was born that I needed to throw together some sort of morality.' As grownups, it's easy to take the world and what we believe about it for granted. We don't stop to question everything we don't understand; who's got time for that? It's also easy to skate through our day-to-day without really considering our deeper beliefs about the important things: family, relationships, God, death, sin, redemption. We fall into the sometimes mindless rhythm of work, cleaning, errands, and to-do lists, and it's easy to let ourselves get away with it. After all, confronting our beliefs about life's biggest matters and forcing ourselves to define and refine them is hard and painful and takes time and effort. Why would we seek that out?
But that changes when a child enters the picture, if it doesn't before. Being the Adult In Charge often means that it's your responsibility to explain everything from the laws of physics to appropriate interpersonal behavior to who God is to a little person who has every right to be asking about such things. After all, in Sam's case, he's only been on the planet for four years.
A child will ask about all of the things we don't really think about anymore, that we were once taught but have forgotten the teaching, like: 'Why is it raining?' or 'Why do I have to share?' or the big ones, like 'Who is God? Why do people die? What is sin?' The questions are harder to ignore when they're asked of you directly by an ever-questioning child. And when a child who trusts you and looks to you for direction is asking the question, it's a reminder of the importance of the answer. You take things more seriously when you're responsible for helping guide another human life.
Children are scientists and explorers, and they make no assumptions. They don't take things for granted like we grownups do. They don't ignore a question just because they don't understand it or have a good answer. Children are thirsty for knowledge, and they continually ask 'Why?' and 'What's that mean?' and 'What does that say?' Oftentimes, I must admit, I am exhausted by the questions. But when I've had some time to rest and reflect, I'm thankful for them, in a way. It's as if little children are simply giving voice to the big questions of life and the universe that are always there, but just so often left unasked. We grownups don't challenge each other or ourselves as much, although we should, both for our sakes and for the sake of the children in our lives. We must consult our priests and pastors; we must study Scripture and the Church Fathers. We are told to always be prepared to defend what we believe (1 Peter 3:15).
Sam has not yet asked me any question as big as 'What is sin?' or 'Why should we love God?' Perhaps he never will. Those are questions better answered by his parents, anyway. But I hope and pray to have children of my own one day, and if I do, I know such questions will come.
