because he is good

This post has coalesced from a few conversations, readings, and situations lately…

A friend is worried about a high-risk pregnancy, among other things. Another of her friends and I were commenting to her about trusting God — how scary it is, and how dangerous, because God doesn’t promise that bad things won’t happen to us. It all hinges on the question — is God really good, despite the bad things that may indeed happen, the fears and worries that might come true? And it’s a vortex that can suck me in often enough, and I remember a few things that can help me hang on.

I remember that a toddler has no idea how the shot at the doctor’s office could possibly do her any good. Disease is meaningless to her. And the shot hurts. And mama doesn’t even try to stop it. But mama is still good.

I remember Joe describing a scene in Last of the Mohicans, where a girl (I think) has to trust the hero and go willingly into one dangerous situation (was it jumping across a waterfall or something like that?) in order to escape another dangerous situation, something that the hero can see coming but she can’t. The hero is still good.

And, the old standby, all the mentions in C. S. Lewis’ Narnia Chronicles, about how Aslan is not safe, but he is good.

And that’s also the crux of this other thing, an article another friend linked to, by a fellow named Shane Claiborne. Among other things, he talks about how the reason he turned to God wasn’t so much about fear of hell or hope for heavenly reward, but “because he is good.”

What else has led to this post?

Let me just say that some people I know are dealing with some very difficult things, and some of them do not know the goodness of God. It’s what I most want for them this Christmas — that, between whatever obstacles stand in the way, whatever fears, misconceptions, academic questions, and past experiences, they would see Jesus, as he really is, and see that he IS good.

That his goodness would be evident as the light that shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it, however deep and thick that darkness is.

And, Lord Jesus, show me this, too, more and more.

Sunday reflections

1. Feelings — owning vs. observing.

My friend was telling me how her therapist says instead of owning your feelings, i.e., “I’m depressed,” it’s more helpful to observe your feelings, i.e., “I am noticing depression.” It’s an interesting distinction. It reminds me of mindfulness, one of the core tenets of DBT — when you can step back enough to observe things (including internal things like feelings), identify them, without judging them, the more you can be wise when it comes time to act and evaluate. Without the observation step, you’re more likely to act and evaluate impulsively — according to emotional mind OR rational mind, neither of which is inherently wise.

On the other hand, I think the common psychological advice to own your feelings is in opposition to something else. It is better to own your feelings than to deny, try to transcend, ignore, or suppress them, or project them onto other people, God, or circumstances. Owning your feelings is about recognizing that feelings themselves are neutral, without moral content, and that they’re valid even when they’re out of proportion or irrational. (You can act wisely when your feelings are out of proportion or irrational, but you can’t change or control the feelings themselves, and there’s nothing wrong with the feelings themselves — the problem that makes them out of proportion or irrational is something deeper than the feelings themselves.) It’s okay to have feelings. It’s okay to feel them. In fact, having and feeling them is much healthier than the denying, trying to transcend, etc.

2. Babies and bathwater.

a. In the sermon today at the church we were visiting, the pastor talked about how people seek medication when the real problem is sin — and medication can’t really solve the problem of sin. He also talked about how biblically wrong it is for counselors to tell people they need to forgive themselves — because only God can forgive sins.

I know that there are people who seek medication to cover up or avoid dealing with unpleasant realities, without seeking to identify and work through the root issues. But one of the most important things I learned in therapy is that not all problems are spiritual problems. Some mental health issues are medical, and some are psychosocial. Even those of us who have had our sin problem solved at the Cross might have medical or psychological issues that require something more than the Cross for treatment. I am sure this pastor is aware of that, and didn’t intend to say that it’s sinful or impossible for Christians to have mental health issues, and yet I wish he’d clarified his statement.

As for forgiving yourself — well, in a sense I get that. We can’t actually atone for our own sins. I think the idea is really about not holding on to guilt and shame that is either false (there’s a lot of false guilt in the mental health world) or has already been taken care of at the Cross. If God is for us, who can be against us? In this sense, forgiving yourself is really about fully accepting God’s forgiveness. But I can see that the phrase could be misleading.

b. The pastor and his wife invited us to lunch after church, which was a good opportunity for us to ask questions. At one point we were discussing our views of Scripture.

We believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God, sufficiently clear in matters related to salvation, and without error in matters related to salvation. We also believe that the humanness of the writers shows in many places, that not every action recorded is approved by God or held up as an example to imitate, that there are many genres that need to be interpreted appropriately (poetry vs. history, for example), and that there are errors resulting from translation and copying, though far fewer than from comparable or more recent works such as Homer or Shakespeare.

We believe that our faith stands or falls on the question of whether Jesus Christ is a historical figure who truly died and rose again, but we are less certain about the historicity of other parts of the Bible. Jesus and Paul both talk about Adam, for example, but do they speak of him as a historical person, or as a legendary representative? If the latter, does that really necessarily mean that the doctrine of total depravity and / or original sin is lost? What about Job — Noah — the Tower of Babel?

We believe that the New Perspective on Paul has raised some important questions and ideas, particularly about what the Judaism of Jesus’ day was really like, and especially the place of grace and works and faith in that Judaism. We’re not entirely convinced that N. T. Wright (our main source on NPP, and only via a few books) is entirely right about it all, but again it’s been interesting, challenging, and helpful to read him.

I think we scared the pastor a little bit. I think he names the baby and the bathwater a little differently than we do.

3. The stated meetings of the church.

The two churches we’ve been visiting both have traditions of a morning AND an evening service, and today’s one also has a Wednesday night prayer meeting. Their constitution lists several expectations of a church member, including that members are urged to attend all the stated meetings of the church.

I wanted to know how big a deal it would be. Mark’s work doesn’t allow much time for three trips a week that involve a 40-minute drive each way. We’re also not convinced that multiple church services each week is really that much more wonderful than one, nor that one is necessarily merely a bare minimum. The pastor did say that they understand the work and time issue, but that the meetings serve different purposes and it isn’t appropriate to choose which ones to attend based on which purposes we like best. I don’t think we’re thinking merely about convenience or likes and dislikes… I do miss being in a small group, where there was time for fellowship, study, and prayer in ways that don’t usually happen at the Sunday worship service. If there were a Wednesday night small group at this church, made up of those folks who also commute from Plymouth, I would be interested in attending that.

What I’m especially bummed about is that communion is offered only once a month, and only at the evening service. If we choose this church, we’d likely skip the morning service that day and go to the evening service in order to participate in communion.

(That is, if our edgy views on Scripture and the like don’t exclude us from the Table.)

Faith in the OT

So Jesus tells Nicodemus “You must be born again,” in order to see and enter the kingdom of God. He tells the Samaritan woman he can give her living water, i.e. a spring within her, new life, regeneration.

What would Jesus have said to one who was faithful according to the Judaism of the Old Testament — one who believed God, did not forsake the well of living water (Jeremiah 2), recognized and repented of sin, looked for the consolation of Israel / the Messiah / the fulfillment of the promises and prophets?

Would he have also told such a one of a need to be born again, or to ask for living water?

Or would he have said, “Here I am, the one you have looked for — now I give you new birth and living water.”

Are the disciples good examples? At least the ones who were living faithfully when they were called? Their faith was imperfect and full of holes, but they believed he was Messiah and they put their trust in him as such.

Who else? Simeon and Anna, who recognized the young Jesus at the Temple.

Who else?

All this to say, not everyone comes to faith via a dramatic conversion experience, not even a single identifiable moment of conversion. Some grow up in faith — some grow into faith by steps.

Behavior and faith

I grew up in church. My major awakening was in 8th grade, when I consciously both accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior and felt as though he had “picked me up and turned me around.” Looking back from that moment, I can see that God was preparing the way for me, and yet that moment seemed / seems somehow definitive.

Point being, one of the things that scared / scares me about having a child is how to raise her in such a way that I both “bring her up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord” (PCA baptismal vow), and avoid having her thoroughly messed up and forever disgusted with Christianity. I used to half-jokingly say that I wouldn’t even mention God until she was 14. It seems there are so many very easy ways to bring up a child in a Christian home in such a way as to make them stumble. I remember reading in college Rousseau’s Confessions. Among other things, he claimed that a religious caregiver (aunt?) so carefully admonished and questioned him about sin that he, well, got all muddled and freaked out about it.

I think that behavioral instruction and discipline should be kept as simple and concrete as possible for this age of nearly three years. Tell and model what I expect. Give the simple concrete consequence when / if she disobeys (such as a timeout or losing the toy she wasn’t cooperating with). Express approval and appreciation when she meets expectations.

Lately when she does something annoying and observes that we get annoyed, she’ll ask “Are you happy with me?” We try to be honest and simple — assure her that we love her even when we’re angry, and that yes, sometimes certain behaviors annoy or anger us. When relevant, we’ll also explain that we’re just in a bad mood and irritable, and apologize.

At this point this is all at a very surface level — she is aware of emotions in herself and in others, can express them, identify them, etc. She’s beginning to link behaviors and emotional reactions. I don’t think she’s aware of consciously choosing a behavior in an effort to provoke a particular response. Yes, sometimes she disobeys while looking to see how we will respond, but I think it’s surface-y, not calculated or manipulative in the same way such behavior would be in an older child or adult.

So I don’t think I’m ready to talk to her about sin — or at least about how sin grieves the heart of God. I’m not even sure I’m ready to talk to her about God’s commandments for behavior. Our parental commandments seem to be sufficient focus for now.

I’ve told her that Jesus died for our sins, to pay the price for them, because he loves us so much. Whenever we take Communion, I explain that again, and remind her that this meal is a special way to remember what he did for us. I think that when she is readier to understand, she will ask about that word “sin” or something else about this. And when she asks, I want my primary focus to be on sin as the condition of being separated from God — particular sins mattering partly because good is good and bad is bad, reflecting God’s own nature and our design, and mattering even more because they break the relationship we are meant to have with him. (I just need to work on phrasing that explanation in toddler terms.)

Sometimes we’ve told her about her baptism, but I’m not very good at explaining that one yet, and since the Walkerton church has such a small congregation, we haven’t seen any infant baptisms to remind us to talk to her about it. We tend to talk about it when we look at her photo album, which includes pictures from her baptism day.

She also has a children’s Bible, and we read in it the stories that she chooses. Again — when she is ready, she will ask more about the Garden of Eden story, or about others.

I want to talk to her about Bible stories, sacraments, praying, and all, as things that are true and that can be left to stand as they are for the most part. I don’t want to intrude explanations where no sense of needing an explanation is felt yet, and I especially don’t want to make all Christian things about some kind of moral application. The best application of every part of Scripture, every bit in the worship service, etc, is to believe in Jesus — to put one’s trust and hope in him, confident of his love and gracious salvation.

Again, not that I’m okay with bad behavior — but at this point I don’t feel it necessary or appropriate to connect behavior and faith.

Not bad, but not best

So I’ve been attending BSF (Bible Study Fellowship) with two friends and our toddlers for about a month.

I like that we are studying the Gospel of John for a whole year — I like that kind of immersion. I also like that we carpool, so there’s an hour or so each way for conversation and enjoying each other’s company.

Sometimes things about BSF rub me the wrong way. Often I have a hard time putting my finger on exactly what’s bothering me about it.

For example, the children’s “Home Training Lesson” for this week. The Scripture is the first part of John 2, where Jesus turns the water into wine at the wedding.

The home training lesson is about teaching children to be considerate of others. That’s a fine goal — one I share. But it would never have entered my mind to connect that goal with this Scripture passage.

It just seems to me that it’s misguided to jump so quickly from what Jesus does to an application about what we (or our kids) should do. Instead, linger on Jesus — understand why he does what he does, what it reveals about him and his mission, and only later consider whether, and to what extent, it implies that we do anything similar.

I think this is especially true for young children. The toddler stage is just beginning to include taking any notice of other people as anything other than providers of something for the child, whether entertainment, comfort, attention, or whatever. I would much rather my little girl hear thousands of words about who Jesus is, how much he loves her, what he has done for her, for every two words about what she should do.

Not that I think we should avoid talk of sin for the little ones — just that it can be discussed differently. Define what sin is — especially that it is a condition of separation from God, and particular actions or evasions are merely symptoms of that condition. Note that God hates sin, but immediately add that God’s mercy and justice meet at the Cross, when Jesus died to pay for forgiveness of sins. Then let the Spirit and natural development and our own example reveal to her that sin applies to her, too.

Even we as adults need to know God’s kindness before we can be led to repentance. We are far more likely to overflow with real consideration and kindness ourselves when we feel how much God has overflowed with consideration and kindness towards us. We already know we should be good and kind — we don’t really need to be reminded of that command as much as we need to be reminded about who was good and kind to us, which is the only thing that guiltlessly, shamelessly, freely, inspires us to true goodness and kindness, the kind that won’t burn us out or feel like death.

Consider this kids’ hymn, “I’ll be a Sunbeam” — here’s a site with lyrics (beware — the midi music plays automatically, but you can turn it off upper left) and here’s a video — my first introduction to this song, actually; people were finding my blog by searching for something called “Little Marcy,” so I searched for it too and found this puppet. (Sorry, any Little Marcy fans — I find her rather creepy.)

What I don’t like about this hymn is that its exclusive focus is on what a child should do for and because of Jesus. The one part about Jesus doing anything is still phrased with the emphasis on the child’s work — Jesus is just the helper. Again — being good, kind, loving, pleasant, and happy are good things. But the best thing is knowing Jesus — not merely as a giver of commands we already know and have such a hard time obeying or even wanting to obey, but as our Lord and Savior, who first loved us, who promises us new hearts, a spring of living water, who frees us from the impossible responsibility of meeting God’s law perfectly, and frees us to love righteousness because he who loves us IS righteousness and gives us his righteousness.

Good repentance

Last night I was up late. I got online to send a message to a friend about something, then stayed on…

I was thinking about the fact that I haven’t been exercising. And I was thinking about the hat I just finished knitting. It started with the top, and I finished it with a cable band. But the cable band turned out to be tighter than the hat itself — so it looks ridiculous when it’s not on someone’s head, and the tightness means it will only fit a smaller head. It was hard to do, with lots of crazy decreases, especially a purl two together through the back loops every other row, which hurt my thumb a lot. So I don’t want to rip it out and try it again more loosely. I don’t even really want to rip it out and replace it with the usual ribbing. But leaving it as is was leaving me feeling disgruntled and not good enough.

I stewed a while, chatted on facebook with a friend, so on and so forth, and finally went to bed.

On my way, I thought with chagrin that I ought to be looking to God first for solace from perfectionism and disappointment, instead of looking to outweigh the negative feelings with positive ones from chatting or reading interesting things.

Not that positive feelings and experiences are bad, of course. Not at all. But they won’t cancel out or assuage guilt or shame or disappointment or inadequacy or frustration. Also, if I seek positive experience in order to deal with negative feelings, that’s going to devalue the positive experience — I won’t be enjoying it for what it is, and if other people are involved I won’t be enjoying them for who they are.

Lying in bed, the good kind of repentance came to me. The kind that feels like relief, comfort, assurance. The kind that involves a renewed perspective, being reminded that my identity is secure not because I make perfect hats, not even because I resolve to “do the right thing” by removing the inadequate cable band and replacing it with something better, but because I am God’s own child, his adopted daughter made holy and blameless and loved lavishly.

Continuing toddler theology

Amy had lunch at a friend’s last week, and the friend’s family sings grace for meals. Amy quite liked the Johnny Appleseed grace, and has been trying to sing it ever since. Her version this evening, from the bathtub, began,

“Oh, the Lord is thanking me…”

Earlier I thought she said “The door’s been good to me” — so I asked her who the Lord is. She thought for a moment, and said, “We don’t have a Lord.”

At bedtime, she said “I love Got.”

Then, a little later, “I’m too grumpy for God.”

A selection of thoughts

1. I registered for BSF (Bible Study Fellowship) yesterday. Will be going with two ladies from playgroup, along with our kids, who have a parallel class. Did my first daily lesson today, reading a handout of notes. Some familiar, some possible tiny red-tinged flags. The whole year we’ll be studying John — looking forward to getting into the book.

2. We continue to go to the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Walkerton. In Sunday School, Glenn (the pastor) is leading us through the Westminster Confession of Faith. So far the weeks we’ve been attending have all been about baptism. It’s good to be refreshed on the rationale for infant baptism, something we both grew up with, grew out of, and hesitatingly returned to.

This week we talked about the perspective or attitude with which we look at, interact with, consider, our children — as already, in a sense, children of God, children of the covenant — not as heathen to be converted, but children to be raised up.

I find this idea challenging both to my old evangelical-fundie roots (gotta have a concrete, distinct experience of making faith one’s own) and my modern sensibilities (gotta respect and encourage the child’s right and responsibility to test ideas, explore, and choose).

I also find this idea beautifully inclusive and appealing.

3. Playgroup was at the park today. There were moments of clinging and moments of roaming and even some moments of direct interaction with other children. Normally I’ve required her to stay in the old-tire-mulched area where we are, but this time let her roam, within sight, to the pavilion, the other tire-mulched area, and in the grassy places in between and all around. It was fine.

4. The closet is progressing. All the contents are piled in the room. The new shelves are in the car along with their hardware. I’ve cleaned, patched, sanded, and painted. Tomorrow I hope to cut the hang rails to length, and perhaps start hanging.

5. I’m going to do a hammered dulcimer concert, Saturday October 24, at 7pm, on campus. Looking forward to it, mostly, but also dealing with the usual nerves, insecurities, etc. Gotta get the closet done so I can get the dulcimer out and start planning and practicing.

Momentary prayer

Lord, fill and replenish me.
Nourish the neglected, shriveling bits.
Lavish me with mercy and grace and love,
Until no fear stands still quivering,
Until no irritation can provoke silly defensiveness.
Open wide my arms to the abundance of life,
Gently let my hands neither grasp nor push away.

Align me with your rule
I thirst for order
For each thing to be in its rightful place
Harmonious
Rightly related
So that the dance be unhindered
So that nothing entangle freedom

Restore me.
(And then
I will be kind to Amy (and others)
Feel less threatened by her needy smallness
Less worried about the balancing act
Only outflowing the kindness pouring in)

Anger. And Truth.

1. Do you think there is an important distinction between anger and the way one expresses anger?

I tend to think so. I think anger the emotion is like any other emotion — having no moral content in itself, as valid as any other feeling, just as permissible. Even when the anger is irrational, or out of proportion, it’s still just a feeling — it’s possible to recognize its irrationality or disproportion and still acknowledge the fact of the feeling.

How one expresses anger is different, though. I don’t think it’s generally okay to hit or kick or bite or yell at people, for example. And I think one should be careful about banging and slamming and stomping, too, making sure that nothing important is broken or hurt. It does seem that anger needs some sort of forceful physical outlet, but it still needs to be a safe and appropriate one: chop wood, punch a pillow, go running, throw darts (at a dartboard, of course), etc.

It’s not pleasant when someone is angry at you, whether their anger is rational or proportional or not.

But it’s more manageable when the someone can still speak with respect, and can delay the physical expression until a safe time and place. There have been times when I’ve been so angry I can’t speak with a pleasant tone of voice, but I CAN tell the other person that I’m speaking to communicate, not to attack, even though my voice sounds nasty.

What do you think?

2. The children’s lesson in church today was about the armor of God metaphor in Ephesians. One item is the belt of truth. It has never occurred to me to associate it with TELLING the truth — for me it’s usually connoted KNOWING the truth.

Not that I think telling the truth is unimportant. Just that what we need to stay strong in faith is not so much keeping our behavior up to a certain standard, but in knowing the Gospel and being open to it speaking to all parts of our life.

What do you think?