December with David.

The beginning of December arrives on my calendar and I realize in my head that I should have been more organized a week ago. Not because Christmas is a mere twenty five days away, yet I'm still wearing my crocs, but because it's the beginning of Advent. And Advent ushers in Christmas, and then BANG! 2013 will be here.

I didn't really grow up with any Advent practices. Each year, the presenters of a BBC children's magazine program attached four wire coat hangers together, wrapped them in tinsel (obviously not fire-retardant in the 1970's) and attached candle holders made from sticky-backed plastic to each corner. Dropped a candle in each one, and then proceeded to light a candle on the four programs before Christmas. This crudely constructed and lethal contraption was my introduction to the Advent season. No liturgy or study needed. Yet in recent years I've begun to understand more about this beautiful period in the church calendar as we prepare to celebrate Christ's birth in the Christian faith.

I have several friends who are wonderful writers, bloggers and creative people. (Hi folks, if you're reading this!) They write deeply about Advent from unique perspectives; each day I'm taking time to read their beautiful and poignant words and I feel richer in my spirit as I do so. Please keep them coming, by the way!

And yet, for me Advent feels like such a quagmire of emotions, mostly offering another chance to berate myself for my shortcomings in many areas.  Why don't I have time to sit and write my thoughts every day like my peers - because I manage my time so exceptionally poorly. Why isn't my family sitting down for an hour together in peaceful solace each night as we burn another hour-long notch on our Advent candle and meditate together - because I made dinner too late, that's why. (It's also high unlikely that our kids can even spell meditate, let alone understand it what it means). And the chances that our nativity set will be out of the box before December 10th are either slim or zero. The Holy Family and their stable-mates will be in the box for a few more days and we won't be sitting gazing on them by the light of our candle any time soon.

I've managed to create an ideal scenario in my head. I'm trying to do something that I really know very little about, and I'm attempting to drag my family along with me. And in the same way that my Lenten abstention from chocolate is null and void after 48 hours, I'm already feeling like this season will be filed in the 'I really wanted to do it but failed miserably and maybe next year it'll really happen as I want it to' part of my brain.

In our church community we've just started a monthly families event, where we're exploring God's Big Plan for our lives and our families. Instead of the typical Christmas story which one might expect at an event like this, tonight we're going to be hearing about King David. Sure, we've all heard the verse where the Saviour was born in the town of David, and how Joseph was descended from David. We know about Old Testament Prophecies in Isaiah and from Samuel. And he was chosen by God - a shepherd, warrior, king, father, and in the words of many kids - a Superhero.

And yet, as I've re-read his story, I'm gripped by the part that talks about his heart. David was human, not a superhero. He listened to God, obeyed him, and was a great man who was loved by God and by man. But David was also an adulterer, a murderer, and showed weakness as a parent. He was fallible, and sometimes he chose poorly. And yet, in Psalm 51 we hear David pour out his lament as he repents and asks God to forgive him of his horrendous behaviour. And in many of the Psalms he asks God to CLEAN his heart and refresh his spirit. He doesn't just 'Give it to God', he tears open his heart and confesses his sins. Incredible.

Advent is a period of waiting. I've often heard it described as preparing our hearts and minds for the arrival of our King. I know that on any given day of the year, my heart most likely isn't ready - and that's not going to change just because we're on the run-up Christmas. And as we head into 2013 I'm still going to be waiting for God to come through in several areas. I'll still have unanswered prayers, sick friends, issues in my relationships with people, and my own roadblocks in my relationship with God. Just as I do right now during this time of Advent. But I'm realizing from David's story, his repentance and his willingness to let God perform heart surgery on him, that asking God to check my heart is a daily necessity. Not just something I do because the calendar tells me it's the right month.

So tonight we'll play catch-up as we put the first five characters into our Nativity Advent calendar.  I'll let the kids eat five chocolates from their (other) advent calendars because I simply forgot to give the calendars to them last week. And I'll ditch the idea of making a Jesse Tree with them, because I've never done one before, it's going to add another thing to my pile, and the kids will see clearly that mom is resenting this whole Advent thing. And the Advent calendar will burn down a few notches at some point this week - and I'm actually really okay with all of this.

But what we did do this morning was read a bit of Psalm 51 together. And had a great conversation about whether we would be ready to receive Jesus on any day of the year. And it really looks like Advent in our house is going to be a messy mix - a little bit of Lent mixed with some St Valentine and a touch of Pentecost. And we're okay with that - any day of the year.

Peace during this Advent, and Christmas season.

Walk don't run.

Today I went for a walk. I put on my running shoes and headed off into the glory of a joyously warm September morning. One of those bright and beautiful days that promises summer warmth but with just a taste of freshness in the air. Around the neighborhood I trotted, my ears firmly filled with the sounds of my gospel-themed playlist. Feeling uplifted in spirit, and my eyes feasting on the beginnings of a New England Fall amongst the local foliage, I walked for five, ten, fifteen, minutes and more. I watched as the distance on my fancy i-phone app increased and I breathed in a sense of accomplishment as I crossed streets, cut thru the cemetery and meandered thru the neighborhood.

For the past few months I haven't been able to do this. My runners have been on the shelf in the mudroom. I've driven round the neighborhood rather than traveling a la pied for short distances. Since the spring  I've experienced the inconvenience of continual tingling sensations and muscle spasms in my legs and feet. I get tired when I try to work out. And after many blood tests, MRI's, CT Scans and numerous trips to Dr's, I'm none the wiser as to why. And neither are they. I'm thankful that I know I don't have a disease, and  I don't have something growing where it shouldn't be, and everything is allegedly working inside of me just as it should be. But in the mornings after fractured hours of sleep, and when I need to take a nap at 2 in the afternoon just before it's time to get the kids, what I don't have is a sense of peace about feeling slightly incapacitated. And my overall perspective is that it's simply not fair to feel like this when I have so many things to do and places to be.

Today felt like a great day and I felt an urge to try and get back into the swing of  walking. An article I read online talked about keeping active and keeping your muscles stretched. So why not?

As I walked along the side of Main Street, a man of about 30 years of age 'drove' by me in his motorized wheelchair. He wasn't driving along in the gutter but about 3 feet into the lane, avoiding the bumps and debris that could stop him short. He was unshaven, slightly disheveled, and 'tatty' looking. He stopped, thinking I needed to cross in front of him, but I waved him through, and on he went.

About 20 feet further on, he stopped. His shoe had come off and was lying in the middle of the traffic lane. He turned his chair around, and looked at me for help. I ran over to him, beckoned the traffic to come around me, and picked up his shoe. I don't know what I expected next. Perhaps I thought that he was going to bend down and put it on his foot. Maybe I thought he would raise his leg high so that I didn't have to kneel on the asphalt in the road. For a second I probably imagined he was going to stand up from his chair and get the shoe from me. But in a split second by looking at his face, I realized that I was his only help to recover his shoe and restore some self esteem. His legs and feet did not work.

I held the shoe in my hand and gently picked up his cold, slightly swollen foot. And it was obvious that this shoe wasn't going to fit his foot easily. Do I force it? Should I just give it to him and let him take it away to someone that could help? Or do I leave it hanging half off because he won't know the difference after all. He can't feel it.

Thankfully, I got the shoe to fit, and stood up. The cars were driving slowly round us still. 'Please can you tie my shoes?' the man asked. I obliged, asking if there was anything else he needed. He said no, followed by a thanks, and off he moved ahead of me.  I stood back on the pavement and needed a couple of minutes to compose myself. It was truly the most unusual thing I have encountered whilst out walking. As he drove off I felt a thunderbolt of emotion hit my chest. Intense sadness that this man was so incapacitated. A sense of thankfulness that I was there at that moment when no other pedestrians were. And a large measure of guilt that I had lost a sense of perspective about my own situation.

Tonight my 8 year old daughter cried when I told her the story. She cried out of sadness for his situation. And together we said a prayer for this man. I told her that I had also cried earlier in the day.

We know that we're told to love one another, and to take care of the poor, the sick and the downtrodden, but I hadn't expected an opportunity to land right in front of me on Main Street. It wasn't expected, I wasn't prepared, and to be honest, it felt uncomfortable and weird to be holding a lame man's foot in my hand in the middle of the road.

And I guess I cried at the guilt of my response to this, the most.



 

The Ultimate Road Trip

Like most parents battling the tail end of a harsh New England winter, I scoured a local freebie parents newspaper to check out local events and happenings as the February vacation approached. In between articles providing foolproof methods to get kids to eat more veggies, and highlighting first signs of depression in a pre-teen, I was struck by how many advertisements it contained. Not only tempting offers to purchase delightful designer children’s items, or to investigate wonderful sounding educational institutions for my kids. It was stacked with adverts for programs and services which could improve, nurture, and train my child beyond recognition and into super-human perfection. Around thirty classes which could help them improve their grades. At least twenty programs or institutions which would evaluate their mental health problems, psychological well-being and improve their self-confidence. More than forty five programs to make them the best dancers, artists, athletes, or chess players they could wish to be.

I don’t object to any of these in theory, and daresay if I were drowning in dollars, my seven year old would be bouncing from dance studio to pottery class then trampolining across town to a cupcake-making session at a local bakery. And if my teen was battling an eating disorder, I’d be desperately finding ways to help them beyond what my bank balance could manage. Because I’d do anything for my child. What I find hard to process is how important this has become in our culture and how we put our trust into hour-long sessions of participation and evaluation to ensure our child is going to be the fulfilled person that we want them to be. Physical, emotional, and social well-being can seemingly be taken care off with a check book and a willing parent with a mini-van. But what about our child’s spiritual training? I don’t see any three-by-three inch paragraph promising to ‘train up your child in the way he/she should go’ for a monthly fee. And what exactly does that mean?

We all heard last year's interview with a Hollywood Dad as he condemned a well-known Media Empire and its ‘people’ for the destruction of his famous daughter and ultimately his family. What I saw was a glossy admission of his fairly catastrophic failure as a father. And perhaps more sadly, his open declaration that any faith they had been shaken because of his lack of judgment. As I put down my parent info paper, I questioned myself. When did we start putting our hope in coaches, experts and managers to raise up our kids rather than in the creator God who gave them to us in the first place? And why should their spiritual journey towards Jesus receive much less attention and coaching from their parents than their earthly journey towards recognizable achievements? Secular research suggests that a child’s moral compass is set by the time they are nine years old. If that doesn’t scare the bejeebers out of most parents I don’t know what should. Personally I think that there’s a whole lot more that my kids need guidance with than a sense of right or wrong and it’s going to take a lot more than 9 years to work on it. I pray, however, that their spiritual compass will be set towards Jesus a lot sooner.

During our last Christmas vacation, we squeezed in a brief lunch visit with some old friends. The kind who you do not see for a long time, but when you do it is as if you were never apart. They’d been hosting guests for a couple of nights. We arrived early and as the guests hadn’t left yet, we shook hands and introduced ourselves as they packed up their belongings and corralled their children. This smart, forty-ish couple had four beautiful children ranging from a toddler to a 12 year old. The father, a successful business man who gave off an air of authority in all his mannerisms, stepped into his expensive, shinning, powerful chariot of a vehicle and swept out the driveway. Mom loaded the four kids into her large, expensive and very practical SUV. She strapped them in, and dealt with whines and complaints about who was sitting in the front, and then got out of the driver’s seat to retrieve something from the house. Smiled, waved, and left about five minutes after her husband with the usual melee and noise that accompanies most journeys when the kids just left somewhere that they didn’t want to leave.

I questioned our friends about whether this was normal practice; did Dad distance himself from the practicality of driving in the family vehicle on a regular basis? Why did they both come in separate cars in the first place? And wouldn’t it have been nice if he’d taken his (only) son with him in his car? Oh yes, came the reply. He’s loves his kids, but he just doesn’t do the hands-on stuff. He provides well for the family but leaves the practical details to his wife. It’s just not his thing. And they live about 5 miles away.

I know that as parents of the Christian faith it is tempting to be like that father and leave the practice of leading our kids towards faith in Jesus to someone or something else. Think figuratively of that mom as any Sunday morning kids program, a Vacation Bible camp, Bible story DVD or worship cd. They play a huge and important part in our kids’ lives and are driving them towards where they need to be spiritually; safely, with a bunch of friends, and with some fun on the way. But there will be days when ‘Mom’ needs to take time away or hand off to a third party to watch her kids for a time. And who knows who that will be. Hopefully not the ‘people’ of a certain media empire. It’s important that we’re all in the same vehicle when it comes to our kid’s journey of faith. I don’t want to keep looking in my rear view mirror to see how my kids are progressing separately in a different vehicle. I don’t want to meet them back at the house and ask them how their drive was. I want to enjoy the view out of the same windshield and the sunroof, seeing the same things as they do. I want to hear them ask questions about driving and navigation from a childlike perspective. Just in the same way that I want to re-learn from them how delightful a child-like faith in Jesus can be.

Road trips are exciting. You never know what you’re going to see out of the car window as you clock up mile after mile. There’s an anticipation of reaching your goal by a certain time. The landscape can be breathtaking. They can also be tiring and frustrating and the car can be a complete mess when you’re riding together for a long period of time. Sometimes we can take the long way around and there are times when we’ll go in the wrong direction. But we will get to our final destination with careful navigation. If we share the driving with someone else we can often be there ahead of schedule.  


As parents, it’s our responsibility to be the driving force in our kids’ faith journey towards Jesus. We can definitely use some help with the navigation and driving, and it’s important for our faith community to take a responsibility for loving and leading our kids in that direction. But our children learn most from us, and as we reflect Jesus in our own lives they’ll be able to discover something greater than any class, program or therapist can ever offer them. A God who knows them by name, who loves them just as they are and who cares about every detail of their young lives.

No check book required and mini-vans are entirely optional.

By Royal Appointment.

In 1986 my great grandmother, Alice, turned 90 years old. She'd moved in to her assisted living apartment, and it was due to be opened officially by Her Majesty The Queen. As 'Gran' was the oldest resident she was selected to have HRH visit her apartment. Gran was pleased, but in her usual enigmatic style didn't get overly excited.

On the big day, only residents and officials were allowed near the complex. Queen Elizabeth toured the facility, took tea with the residents and then visited Gran's apartment. This powerful woman, head of a vast Empire with millions of subjects, who had shaken hands with Kings, Emperors and Presidents stood in my Gran's tiny apartment and talked with this frail white-haired old lady. A lady born into Victorian poverty, whose husband fought in the trenches in World War I. Who never had an inside toilet or central heating before this new home.

Afterwards I asked Gran what she has said to the Queen. Perhaps she'd admired her dress or asked how her children were. In fact Gran told this woman quite directly that she prayed for her everyday. To which the Monarch reportedly replied; 'Thank you for praying for me. That is good to know. It is a very hard job'.

I never really appreciated till now how profound that conversation must have been in that moment. A tiny old lady telling her Queen, also the Head of the Church of England that she prayed for her everyday, which she most definitely did. And the graciousness of the Queen to respond with genuine thanks. Maybe HRH knew that her son's marriage was already headed for disaster. Perhaps shifting political alliances in the 1980's threatened the stability of the Commonwealth and gave her concern for the security of her people. Maybe she was really tired and didn't feel like traveling the length of Britain on that day, waving at a sea of nameless faces and not able to spend a moment alone.

When Gran turned 100 years old in 1996 we celebrated with a thanksgiving service at the apartment complex. On the mantel was the card that the Lord Chancellor sent on behalf of, and signed by, the Queen. I'm sure she had no idea that this was the same woman she'd met in the tiny apartment a decade before. Gran took it all in her stride and got on with life until she passed away three years later just before the millennium. With few possessions, and very little money, we watched her slip away gently and without fanfare.

Two women with whose lives followed very different paths, yet very alike. Both mothers. Both with long marriages. Both concerned about the state of British society. Both benevolent with their time and their money. Elizabeth is the figurehead of many charities. Gran sent home made Christmas cakes to missionaries and quietly supported the London City Mission for many years. Yet both recognized the need for spiritual connection with their God and the importance of prayer. In that tiny kitchen I like to believe there was a unique moment of connection between the two women before The Queen's entourage pulled her away to continue her duties.

Maybe as the Queen celebrates her Diamond Jubilee next month she'll meet another little old lady who will tell her the same thing. And maybe it will be just at the time she might need to hear it.

Happy. Glorious. Party time.

June 1977. A little girl with pigtails stands in a photograph with other neighborhood kids. Wearing a dress made of fabric so itchy that it could be used as an instrument of torture, sporting immaculately proportioned pigtails she holds a Union Jack flag. The dazed look on her face probably gave away the fact that she didn't really understand what was going on. Apart from the fact that there was no school that day, she was sitting in the lounge of a local public house (which was a departure from normal family life) and there were plates of sausage rolls, sandwiches, and fairy cakes as far as the eye could see.

It was the Queen's Silver Jubilee and I was that six year old party guest. My son is now the same age, turning six just as the Queen is about to celebrate her Diamond (60th) Jubilee next month. As the United Kingdom erupts in rivers of red, white and blue, it prepares to celebrate this incredible monarchical milestone (as well as the impending London Olympics). And I know that British ex-pats around the globe are looking longingly at their homeland and wishing that they could be there to enjoy the celebrations.

I know that, because I am one of those people. And because I'd love my children, born in the USA to British parents, to experience a total nation in celebration. It's not about monarchy versus democracy. It's not about birthright versus election. It's about celebrating a nation's culture and heritage, being proud of an unbreakable British spirit and acknowledging an amazing achievement by a remarkable woman.

As our children get older, they talk more about their dual nationality. Sometimes they say they feel totally English. When a child has poked fun at their strong English accents they'll retreat and say they feel more American. Our daughter will talk about studying at MIT. And when a care package arrives bearing Cadbury's treats we'll hear repeatedly that they want to move to England because the chocolate is better. Sam calls football 'soccer' because we're in America. And we're really okay with that. We've always told them that they can use British or American words and never influenced their choices to do so. What we want them to be in comfortable in their own skin, and to be able to 'bloom wherever are planted'. Whether that's on the east or west side of the Atlantic, we don't mind.
  
And now, I think I need to go and plan our own celebration of the Queen's jubilee in our own little corner of North America. Perhaps we won't be able to close the road and have a street party circa 1977 but I'm planning on hanging my bunting, breaking out the fine china and let my kids stuff themselves to the point of explosion on homemade British goodies. And not with an itchy item of clothing in sight......