Just Say No

Some time ago Bob Newhart did a sketch on a program called Mad TV which eventually made it's way, via the internet, to my consciousness.  In the bit, Newhart plays a psycho-therapist both like and unlike the character he played on his first eponymous weekly television show.  A woman (played by Mo Collins, in case anyone is interested) comes into the office.  Immediately Newhart, as the therapist, explains his billing policy -- "Five dollars for the first five minutes and nothing after that" -- after which he assures her that the session would likely not last even that long.  The woman explains various troubles -- phobias, disordered eating, and the like.  To each of the woman's revelations Newhart responds with just two words:  "Stop it!"

What if it worked that way?  Can you imagine?  It would be the best $5 we'd ever spent.

"Doctor, I keep smoking, even though my physician says it's going to kill me."

"Stop it!"

"Every time my mother calls, I hang up feeling guilty."

"Stop it!"

"I think about going for a run, but watch re-runs instead...I spend more money than I make...I eat Doritos instead of broccoli...I'm tempted to cheat on my taxes."

"Stop it!"

If I called that imaginary therapist today, here's what I'd say:  "I feel sad and powerless when I can't do everything someone else wants me to do for them."

"Stop it!"

Here are some things I'd stop doing:  Saving Christmas cards that I'm never going to answer. Worrying about the committees I'm not serving on.  Wondering if I should sponsor a child or give more to the Red Cross.  Thinking I ought to be writing to my congressional representative.

The list could go on and on, but here's the one that gets to me the most:  Feeling guilty when I say, no, to my children.  Sometimes it's when they ask for more stuff, even when I know they don't need it.  Even worse is when they ask me to save them from their own mistakes.  

The truth is, I want to say, yes.  It would be so much easier to say, yes, even if it would be wrong for them or for me.  Whenever it happens, when I say, no, whatever the reason, I tend to feel guilty.  I fret.  "Is my no valid?" I wonder.

Jesus says, "Let your word be ‘Yes, Yes’ or ‘No, No’; anything more than this comes from the evil one" (Matthew 5:37).  

The "more," for me, is the worrying and wondering and thinking and fretting.  Maybe my yes and my no are not enough.  Maybe my yes should be no or my no yes.  Maybe I don't have enough; I ought to have more to give.  

Maybe it is not just what I have but who I am that is not enough.  

That's not what God says.  In the gospel we heard on Sunday, the story of the baptism of Jesus, "a voice came from heaven, 'You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased'" (Luke 3:22b).  As a wise friend pointed out to me, Jesus had not yet done anything.  His public ministry was only just on the verge of beginning.  The Father's affirmation was not for the Son's doing, but for his being.  He is loved and the Father is well pleased because of who he is.

And so it is with us.  I think I spend so much time worrying and wondering and the like because I believe that I am lovable for what I do, for my yeses.  If I can give you what you want, you will be pleased with me.  It stands to reason then, if I say no you will not love me.

To what do we, you and I, say, yes, when, perhaps, we ought to say, need to say, no?  

The Agony of Defeat

I am possibly the only person in greater Colorado -- or at least the Denver metropolitan area -- who did not watch the Bronco game yesterday, but I know they lost in double-overtime.

I imagine that there is plenty of Sunday-morning quarterbacking going on.  Even I know that they decided to run down the clock with 35 seconds to go and let the game go into overtime.  Maybe that will be the source of the second-guessing, or maybe it will be something else.  "If only they had..."  "If only they hadn't..."

I have done a lot of day-after second-guessing of my own life.  I give myself my own dour locker room shake-downs.  I'm both the head-shaking coach and the down-cast, uniformed lineman, my helmet in my hands.

In no part of my life am I harder on myself than in my parenting.

It seems like yesterday (Wasn't it?  Or maybe the day before...) that I had a tiny infant in my arms, full of promise.  Don't get me wrong -- my children are wonderful -- just not in quite the ways I had imagined they would be.

When I held those tiny babes, I thought I could have a kind of influence that I do not.  After almost 17 years as a parent, I am still surprised by my own expectations and the depth of my disappointment when they go unfulfilled.

I suspect all of us do it, whether as parents or in our work.  We -- I -- have a vision for how I want it to be, how it should be.  I used to believe that I could re-make the world by having a family.  I was going to hold out the bad, only let in the good.  As a result, my children would have all the things I wanted as a child and didn't get -- parents who stayed married to each other; piano lessons; all the time they needed to play and be kids before they had to grow up.  I knew how it would all turn out too.  We'd have a close-knit family.  We'd all want to do the same things and be together.  We'd all have exactly the same values.

Mine.

Allow me to say it again:  I have wonderful children.  They have had all those things that I wanted for them and more, by the grace of God.  We are close and we do things together and spend time together and mostly share the same values.

But my children are not me.  I didn't think I wanted them to be, but I did.  I know, because, when they don't want what I want, or what I want for them, it bothers me.  It used to bother me a lot.  It used to make me mad.  Sometimes it still does, but, usually, it makes me sad.

I'm not sad for them.  I'm actually happy for them. They are becoming their own people, and I want that for them even more than I want them to think like I think and want what I want.

I'm sad for me.

I'm sad for my persistent inability to let go.  It's another layer of surrender I'm being called to, and I am still fighting it.  It feels like defeat -- and it is.  I've fought to be god in my children's lives, to control their worlds and create them in an image of my choosing, and I'm losing the battle, and thank goodness for their sakes.

It's still hard, and I still go down fighting.  Then I'm on the turf, dirtied, maybe even a bit bloodied.  The clock is running out.  I have a moment when I want to get back up and keep fighting, because there's a voice in my head that tells me I still need to win.  But that's the lie.  If I win, my kids lose.  I need to go down and stay down.  In fact, I need to take off the uniform altogether, empty my locker, and walk away.

And as I do, the game is over, and everybody else can quit too.  Then there's a chance for us to pick up the ball and play -- without playbooks and scoreboards and winners and losers.  We can all be on the same team.

The Walking Dead

Zombie apocalypse scenarios are all the rage.  I'm not disposed to put The Walking Dead in my Netflix queue or Pride and Prejudice and Zombies on my library hold list, but I'm not above thinking about the living dead.  They are all around us, are us.

I live in the suburbs.  I can't go anywhere without seeing people.  My community is small enough that I'm acquainted with the checkers at the grocery store, the parents at school pick-up, and lifeguards at the pool. It's small enough that I run into the same people at church, at the mall, and at the library.  We recognize each other by sight, if not by name, but few of us know each other.

We pretend to.  You know how many kids I have, and I know what you do for a living.  I know what car you drive, and you know when I walk my dog.  Maybe we know more:  I've had dinner at your home, or you at mine.  Our kids played together at the park and are now in the same math class.  Our husbands trade tools.  We keep each other's spare key.  We know all kinds of things, but not necessarily the things that keep us alive.  Or dead.

We don't wear those stories the way we wear Bronco colors or slap bumper-stickers on our cars; they're not the part of our identity that we want to advertise.  We may think of those parts as the dirty laundry our mothers and grandmothers warned us not to air.  Instead, truly, they are the prize inside our box of Cracker Jacks.

I mean it.  In my ministry work, I meet a lot of women.  Rarely in the beginning do I know the first thing about their every day lives.  I don't know where they live or if they are married.  I don't know their income, their level of education or whether they have children or grandchildren.  I don't know their lines of work or their hobbies.

Instead, I hear their stories of living and dying.  I hear about the things they have dreamed of and hoped for, and I hear a great deal about dreams dashed and hopes disappointed.

I have heard more stories than I could formerly imagine about harm done.  There are stories of abuse and neglect.  In some stories, the woman before me is the victim.  Occasionally, she is the perpetrator.  

These often begin as stories of the walking dead.  These women -- and the men I don't meet, but whom others do -- believe that these are stories of their ugliness, which need to be kept hidden.  They sometimes say, sometimes in these precise words, "If anyone knew, they could never love me."

But it's not true.

It's hard to love the people who shop beside me at the supermarket and sit across from me in the doctor's waiting room.  What I see when I see them is not real.  It is like looking at their reflection in a pool; it's easy to imagine that if I tried to touch it, it would disappear before my eyes.  There is nothing to hold onto, to embrace.

"For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known," says Paul in 1 Corinthians 13:12.  

If I desire to know fully, I must allow myself to be fully known.  I can't do that every time I go out in public.  The risk is too great.  There's no sense in expecting that kind of knowing to happen as we go about our day to day business.  But we need to be aware that what we see when we pass on the street, we see only dimly, as in a mirror.   

Seeing face to face is different.  What we see in our mirrors may strike us as ugly or shameful.  When that same something is reflected in my face looking back at yours or yours at mine, it can be revealed for what it is -- the real beauty of our authentic souls.

It is no accident that Paul's words are nestled within his great hymn to love.  Love requires that we risk being seen, so that we may be permitted to see the faces of our sisters and brothers and at last to see the face of God. 

Then we become another kind of futuristic army -- those who are raised not to walking death, but to resurrection life.

24/7

It's the end of the day.  The dad, tired from a long day at the office, pulls up into the driveway.  As he gets out of the car, he immediately notices the sprinkler running, flooding the grass.  His front door is hanging open, and the kids are sitting on the porch.  The toddler is in nothing but a saggy diaper.  All the kids' faces  are covered with sticky green stuff, and they're chewing on a popsicle sticks.  The children's happy smiles relieve the father's momentary panic, but do nothing to clear up his confusion.  Instead, he becomes more perplexed as he enters the house and hears the television blaring in the living room.  The sink is piled with dirty dishes.  The refrigerator is standing open and milk is pooled on the floor.  Now feeling a bit frantic again, he races through the house, calling for his wife, who is nowhere to be seen.  At last he finds her, to his astonishment, sitting in bed with a magazine.  "What is going on here?" he gasps.  She replies, "You know how you come home and ask what I did all day while you were working so hard?  Well, today I didn't do it."

I don't mean to pick on dads.  We all have our version of doing and doing and yet seeming to have nothing to show for it.  When my kids were babies, I would make my to do list at the end of the day, listing the things I'd done, however small.  ("Clipped the baby's nails" was an especially big achievement.)  That was the only way for me to feel as if I'd accomplished anything at all.

I supposed yesterday that if I didn't spend so much time dealing with my stuff, I'd have more of my 400,000 or so remaining hours to devote to God.  It's both obvious and unbelievable that each of us gets the same 24 hours a day in which to do whatever it is we do.  I know a man, a pastor, a father of twelve, half of whom are still living at home, who, in addition to the unimaginable range of responsibilities required of a man with a large family and a congregation to serve, spends considerable time in private devotions, devotions with his children, and a daily hour on the racquetball court.  I also happen to know that he spends three hours a week taking a night class.  "I don't sleep much," he says.

I think about an Abraham Lincoln, a Leonardo da Vinci, or Mother Teresa or Mozart.  Think of all they accomplished with their lives, even though two of the four were cut down in their prime!

I, for example, spend hours on e-mail  -- three today, to be exact.  (In our current day and age, information is yet another kind of stuff we need to deal with.)  I have never written a great speech, invented anything useful, sat with the dying poor, or composed as much as a melody, let alone a symphony.

I have pondered my daily 24 hours.  I believe that, impossible as it some days seems, they are sufficient to do whatever it is that God wills for me.  Few are the days when I feel as though I have spent all of them wisely.

More often, I feel like I am engaged in a constant and dizzying series of trade-offs.  I can exercise, but then I won't have time to clean the bathrooms.  Or, I can get the shopping done, but then I won't have time to write.  Or, more dauntingly, I can read to the kids, but then I won't have time to pray.

How do we prioritize?  I have prided myself on putting relationships first.  Or so I have imagined.  Here's what I've been learning:  What I want to think of as love and self-sacrifice for others, all too often, is really a kind of manipulation.  If I do things for you, you'll know I love you.

And then you'll love me.

Won't you?

All too often I spend my precious allotment of time doing things for others that they can and need to do for themselves.  I want to believe I've done it for their good, but I'm afraid I've done it for mine.

It gets worse.  What I find is that I do and do and do and do and do and do and...  Phew!  Before I know it I'm overwhelmed.  Then my head kicks in with judgments that end up flying out of my mouth:  Don't you see how much I do for you?  I work so hard!  I wish you would appreciate it.   By which I mean appreciate me.

This year I have resolved to reserve my help for when people ask for it.  Even then I intend to weigh whether my help is really what's wanted or just my presence.  Sometimes my no is actually more helpful than my yes would be.

As I pay attention, I realize that scarcely a minute goes by when I'm not tempted to "help"; often I only realize what I'm doing when I'm already in the midst of doing it.  It's going to take practice to notice before I'm caught in the act.

My hope is that I can learn more appropriately to give my time away.  I suspect that with enough repetition, certain things that I do habitually will fall away; someone else will do them, the person to whom those jobs properly belong.  Good for them.  Good for me.

If that happens, I'll have more time.  I won't feel like I need more than the 24 hours we all have.  What I have will feel like enough.  What will I be able to accomplish then?  And still get enough sleep.

Too. Much. Stuff.

It's in drawers and cabinets, boxes, bins, closets, and laying around on shelves.  Papers, articles of clothing, cooking equipment, toys, cleaning supplies, linens, candles, knickknacks, and more books than I will ever have time to read.  It is piled, folded, stacked, dumped, sorted and unsorted, useful and useless.  Some things trigger sentimental memories; others I never remember having seen before in my life.  It's mine or my husband's from before we were married and since and the kids' and the cat's and the dog's and all of ours -- except for what we've borrowed and not returned.  It's what we've purchased, inherited, found, and received as gifts.  I don't believe any of it is stolen.  But I could be wrong.  I wash it, wipe it, pick it up, put it down, take inventory of it, move it from here to there or from there to here or one way and then back again. I sometimes lose it, which I particularly hate, because I don't always find it again.  However much I have, I always seem to be buying more.

How much of my life is consumed with stuff?  If I live the average lifespan for a woman in the U.S., I will get roughly 708,000 hours.  A third of those I'll be sleeping.  That leaves approximately 472,000 hours, of which I have already lived more than half.  If I'm lucky, I'll be active for the other 400-odd thousand.  If today is in any way average, I will spend 399,000 of them dealing with stuff.

Does it have to be that way?  Certainly there must be some minimum threshold.  There are meals to shop for and make.  Clothes, towels, and linens need to be laundered.  Dirt needs to be cleaned away. 

There was a time when all my earthly possessions could fit in the hatch of my Ford Escort.  Now I live in a 2400 square foot house and there never seems to be enough room for everything I need to store.

Which raises the question:  What do I really need?

I fantasize sometimes about giving away everything I could live without:  Extra dishes.  My second bathrobe. The dishtowels I bought because I love their colors, but which are, alas, water repellent.  The empty scrapbooks.  The ugly sweaters.

It's not that I'm a hoarder.  I'm not.  I often give away bags full of things.  I have culled our book collection any number of times.

But, somehow, the overall glut of stuff never seems to vary.  Something goes out, but something else has already come in to replace it.

Here's what Jesus has to say about possessions, according to the 12th chapter of Luke (vv 16-21):

And he said to them, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” Then he told them a parable: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”

It's funny, but when I've read "This very night your life is being demanded of you" in the past, I've always assumed that the rich man was about to die.  But what if he wasn't?  I think that my life is being demanded of me this night -- and every night -- by the God who wants me to stop storing up treasures for myself and become rich toward Him.

I don't think it's all about material possessions either.  I may not actually hoard stuff, but I hoard other things -- my time or my attention for instance.  Sometimes I hoard food.  I know people who hoard experiences or their affections.

Christianity, in its earliest expression, reflected the very opposite of hoarding.  In Acts (Luke's Part II), we read:  "All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need" (Acts 2:44-45).  They shared.  And everyone had enough.  They didn't each need everything, like neighbors who have one snow blower for the block or twenty-somethings who car share.

How could my life -- or yours -- be different if I quit storing up so many treasures and shared more of them instead?  If I stopped spending so much time tending my stuff and spent more time tending my soul?

Think of the time I'd save.

Money, Money, Money

I am thrilled to share with you today the thoughts of my dear friend (not to be confused with my dear sister) Stacey.  I'd love to hear from YOU too.  Be a part of the conversation!

Your comments about your financial adviser struck a chord with me.  When my husband and I were about 30, we went to a financial planner whose message was that we were already fucked and our lives would have to be painful and full of financial sacrifice if we were to save enough to avoid our almost certain fate of dying destitute in the gutter.   We never went back to her.  We saw our next (and current) financial adviser before our son was born to discuss life insurance and our financial future.  He matches our approach to life and money much better (i.e. be responsible, live without debt and do the best you can).  That may not be great financial advice, but we are following his plan.

My parents never talked about money other than to share their freak out moments, which I would not recommend as a parenting strategy.  One of my earliest money memories is my dad sitting on my bed while my sister were about to fall asleep, breaking into tears and telling us that he didn't know how he was going to pay his bills.  I had never (and have not since) seen my dad cry.  Needless to say, I didn't sleep much that night.  I remember thinking that I could always eat at my mom's house and I probably would only have to miss two days of food before I was back at Mom's where there was food.

My parents ended up doing fine, but I think that was due to dumb luck.  I don't know that my mom ever had a money strategy.  She was lucky to get the house when my parents divorced which in that California real estate way of the 80s allowed her to have a good nest egg when she sold it.  She then moved, bought a house and again was able to cash in on the exploding real estate market there.  I don't think that plan is available to us or our kids any more.

My dad has had many careers and is doing fine now, mostly because the recent careers are working out.  He also was able to cash in on his parents’ financial choices; he bought the ranch my grandparents had and it is now worth a chunk (see California real estate reference above).

My point is that despite my parents’ financial solvency, I think they did a terrible job teaching, modeling and talking about money which has had a life-long influence on my approach to money.  We are trying not to make the same mistake.  We talk to the kids about our financial choices and why we buy or don't buy things.  For example, when the kids say they hate one of our cars, we explain that we could have a new car or we could take 10 trips to California.  Most importantly, I hope I am passing along the lesson that money is something that can be managed and controlled and It isn't a force that randomly grabs you by the balls and throws you against a wall.  I don't want them to worry about money because that gives up control.  I want them to know they are in control of their finances by the choices they make.  

So, your post made me think about my non-negotiables:

* Organic, local and healthy food
        I shudder to think about how much we could save if I shopped at Walmart, but I really want my kids to have a relationship with the places that grow food or the people that provide us food at the Farmer's Market.  I want them to know what foods grow in different seasons so they can appreciate the peaches, melons, strawberries, etc. when they are available for a limited time.  

* Kid activities and enrichment
        Again, this would be an easy one to cut and I could save a chunk of change but I think it is important the kids learn what they like to do for fun.  So, we spend money on fencing, Irish Dance, music, swimming etc.  I don't care if they are good at it but I want them to have hobbies – something I never developed when I was young.  My husband has hobbies and which offers us an opportunity for some financial negotiating / stress when he needs / wants a new item for his hobby.  

* Travel
        Ug.  This is a huge money suck but I look at this expense as the price of admission for living in a rural state.  If we don't travel with the kids they won't know there are people who are not white in the world.  Our town is a pretty fantastic place, but it lacks any worldly influence, and I think the kids need to get exposed to the big world so they don't get shocked back to our home state when they spread their wings.

* Good jackets
        I have decided that I would rather spend a little more on Patagonia items and have them last for 2 winters rather than buy 1.5 jackets a winter because the stupid zipper broke.  Plus, I get this Patagonia outlet email with super deals so I can buy winter coats when they are cheaper during the off season.  The items we buy are not super pretty, but damn it, we are warm.

* Fun traditions
        Birthday parties, the Easter party (not at all financially responsible but I can't let 75 people down), Christmas traditions, etc.

* Braces for the kids
        I didn't realize this was a negotiable until I talked to my boss who said he wouldn't get his kids braces if they needed them due to the cost.  Spoken by someone who has reasonable teeth I think.

Here are the things I could dump but I don't want to:

* Wireless - I am not sure that I could dump this actually.

* Having my hair cut and colored 3 times a year

* My husband and I going out sans kids 2-3 times a year whether we need it or not.

Here are the things we don't have:

* Nice, new cars
        Yep.  And I really don't care.  I hate spending money on cars.

* A house that is warmer than 68 degrees in the winter.

* New books

       The library is free.

* A 2-dimential TV
        We have a cube which is fine because we don't watch it much.

* Phone-thing-ys
        No iPhone, droid, whatever.  I have a cheap pay-as-you-go phone.  My husband has something nicer from work, but I am not even sure what it is.

* Cable 
        Don't miss or want it.

* A lot of clothes or shoes
        I do a lot of laundry so we don't need as much.  Plus, once I find a pair of shoes I like I wear them every day.  I am a creature of habit.

* Debt (other than the house and my husband's student loan which will be paid off in 3 months)

What are your non-negotiables?  What could you dump, but don't want to?  What do you choose to go without?

Many thanks, Stacey, for your story, and the rich (!) food for thought!

Janis Joplin, Mother Teresa, and Princess Diana

"A healthy soul keeps us both energized and glued together." - Ronald Rolheiser in The Holy Longing

We don't talk much about souls.  Not in casual conversation.  I have a friend who will ask me, "How is your soul?" but she's not exactly typical.  And I don't always know how to answer the question.

What does it mean to wonder about the state of my soul?  In classic, Catholic language, it might mean, "Are you in mortal sin?"  It would be the difference between hope of heaven and despair of hell.  My friend doesn't mean it like that.

It could be as simple as "How are you?"  But how do I answer that either?  How am I?  Do you mean today?  This minute?  In my life these days?  In my life altogether?  Compared with what?

And anyway, when you ask me -- or I ask you -- do we really want to discuss the answer?

I am attracted to the idea that by "I" in the question, "How am I?" we mean the real me, underneath the façade.  Translation:  "How is my soul?"

Maybe the step back, the vantage point from which we could answer if someone really wanted to hear the answer, is to ask, "What is my soul?"

In a chapter his The Holy Longing entitled "What Is Spirituality?" Ron Rolheiser tells us that the soul is what "keeps us both energized and glued together."  This definition made me stop and take stock.  Because it seems true.

It might help -- it helped me -- to start with noticing what an unhealthy soul might look like, that is, one that is lacking in energy and falling apart.  I have to admit, I know that soul.  I know it when I don't feel like getting out of bed in the morning, because the day seems more than I can manage.  I know it when I decide to surf the internet instead of doing the laundry.  My soul isn't holding the energy of my life; it's draining out through my feet (or, perhaps more accurately, through my behind, planted in a chair).  

Then there's falling apart.  I'm reminded from a line in a poem by William Butler Yeats, "The centre cannot hold..."  Here's the context, from "The Second Coming":

             Turning and turning in the widening gyre

              The falcon cannot hear the falconer

                                 Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world...

Yeats was responding to World War I, but there is something familiar to me, something of the war that takes place inside me, inside my soul.  I feel it, the things falling apart, the anarchy loosed.  Here's how I know it's upon me:  I hear myself saying, "Everyone wants something from me!"  I know I cannot give it all.  Instead of resting content with my limited self, I come unglued.  I fuss.  I rant.  I feel panicky inside.  I make people around me unhappy -- much more unhappy than if I'd simply said, "I can't."

Then what does it mean to be both energized and glued together, if that is, in fact, the state of a healthy soul? My same friend, the one who asks about my soul, also reminds me that I sometimes allow my soul to "leak,"  my energy lost to the elements.  My energized soul is contained.  I can see it, a vessel that is whole and intact.  It doesn't much matter whether it's pretty and polished, shiny and fine.  It holds what it's meant to hold, the life energy that is poured into it.  Poured, I believe, in my soul's creation and as it is sustained by the Spirit of God.

Not only can my soul be that strong and solid container, but it can pour out its energy, as Kierkegaard puts it, by willing the one thing.  Rolheiser uses this expression -- Kierkegaard's definition of a saint -- as a way of understanding the difference in the souls of three intensely energized women:  Janis Joplin, Mother Teresa, and Princess Diana.  Joplin, he avers, wills many things -- artistic creation, sex, alcohol, drugs, fame -- and so dilutes her soul energy.  Mother Teresa wills the one thing -- "God and the poor."  Princess Diana he gives as an example of a woman who can will the one thing (God and the poor) but often wills the many (husband, lovers, children, fashion, parties, so on).  

Like us.

Like me.

Finally, Rolheiser offers this heartening thought:  "[On] any given day, we might need more integration rather  than energy, or vice versa."  Aha!

How many days have I spent feeling guilty for needing to be energized (not, perhaps, as Rolheiser suggests, by The Bridges of Madison County (!)) rather than integrated (for which Rolheiser recommends, alternatively, Sense and Sensibility).  But I notice that too much "energizing" leads to numbing out.  Too much "integrating" threatens to burn me out.

How is my soul?  What is my soul?  It's a candle, or maybe, better, a campfire.  Warm enough to cook with and warm yourself by.  Today, I choose to keep it tended, to let its light counter a little corner of darkness.  Maybe tomorrow I'll be low on wood, and I'll need you to lend me a bit of yours.  Another day, it may rage and threaten, and I will need your help to contain the flames.

I'm glad to do the same for you.

O Come Let Us Adore Him

“Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.” - Matthew 2:2

Last Epiphany, I recall, I was curious about the gold, frankincense, and myrrh.  Today I am struck by the idea of paying homage, in particular, paying homage to a newborn babe.

It's hard for me to identify with a culture where kings were born and not made.  Nowadays we're all so much more sophisticated, aren't we?  We might enjoy watching royal weddings and getting caught up in the glamour of kings and queens and princes and princesses, but we don't take them seriously.  Especially for us Americans, royalty is a quaint relic of a bygone age.  Real power lies elsewhere.

Not so with our forebears.  Power was seen as so essentially vested in those born to the throne, that the idea of paying obeisance before a cradle was unexceptional.  The office held the power, and it was transferred unquestionably to the legitimate office holder.

In Matthew's telling of the story, the sign of the star and the prophetic words about Bethlehem were enough to confer legitimacy on the magi's claim to be seeking the "king of the Jews."  Herod doesn't doubt that some strange Bethlehem babe might be the king -- he fears.

We could talk about Herod, and how he was violent and paranoid; history verifies that he killed his father-in-law, several wives, and two sons, among many others, all in reaction to real or imagined threats to his life and power.  Matthew even has him killing all the infants in and around Bethlehem, just in case.

What could this wealthy and powerful man have to fear from a baby?  If that baby is the legitimate heir to the throne of Israel, it reinforces what Herod knows already:  He is illegitimate.  Herod was not ethnically a Jew; his father had found favor with the Roman Powers-That-Be.

What does it do to me when I get a whiff of my own illegitimacy?

I want something or want to hold onto something I already have, and I feel like there is something threatening that hold.  I want to control my kids even though they are growing up and need to make more and more of their own mistakes.  I want to live like I'm rich even when the numbers say that means living beyond my means.  I want people to say what I want them to say and do what I want them to do and believe what I want them to believe.  What's more, I want to keep my house and my car, my kids and my husband, my friends and my various involvements.  I don't want any of it to change.  I don't want to lose anything or anyone.

Not one of those things legitimately belongs to me.

I heard a story today at church about a family who just experienced a terrible and unexpected loss.  Far from home, the dad died where he stood.  He was 44.

We all know that three weeks ago 26 innocent people were gunned down in a school.

I want power over all of it.  I don't want dads or kids or moms or daughters or sons to die like that.  I want to be the lord of life and death.  I want to be the king.

But I'm not.  My illegitimate claim smells like fear, smells like anger.  Herod's did too.

I have the same choices Herod did.  When I'm faced with the limits of my power and authority, with the temptation to claim what I want to be mine and isn't, I can succumb to anger and fear.  I can lash out and "kill" those around me -- with my sharp tongue or my icy silence, with my self-centered obsessions and my emotional outbursts and withdrawals.

Or I can go and pay homage.

The newborn king doesn't, in himself, demand worship, only milk and warmth and dry pants and love.  His legitimacy comes from elsewhere, from God.  God tells us, shows us, that reverence is due to the babe, because he is the one whom God has chosen and anointed (in other words, the king or messiah).  God's Spirit doesn't require the tools of death to claim God's power.  Quite the contrary.

It is in smallness and vulnerability, in the cradle, on the cross, that God shows us what true power looks like. There is nothing to be angry about, nothing to fear.  We need only bring our gifts, our gold, frankincense, and myrrh, our talents and failures and wishes and dreams.  Warm blankets and a ham.

More Than 100 Pageviews Today (Why I Care and Want You to Care Too)

When I was a kid, I was fascinated by movie stars.  I don't mean celebrities, the sorts of people that we say are "famous for being famous."  I was entranced with the old stars of black-and-white movie days.  Katharine Hepburn.  Humphrey Bogart.  Jimmy Stewart.  I had their pictures and movie posters on my walls.  They were icons of a sort -- remote, above all the messiness of life.  At least that was the image that the old "studio-system" helped them to project.  It reeled (pun intended) people like me into the movie house.

My experience was even more dramatic, because by the time I was watching those movies, commercial-interrupted (no VCRs in those days, let alone Netflix streaming), sitting on the living room couch on a Saturday afternoon, they were a slice of nostalgia as well -- the good old days that I could imagine, even if I couldn't turn back the clock and go and live there.

Unfortunately, it was all artifice, a building whose foundation was deception.  And I don't mean the legitimate make-believe of the world of movies.

Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracey spent most of their lives in an adulterous affair.  Rock Hudson had to pretend he was straight.  When the truth was in the spotlight, it was used to punish and to shame, like when Ingrid Bergman's career was nearly ended because of her affair and subsequent pregnancy.

Today, everyone seems to live in the spotlight.  "Reality stars," ordinary people who end up (allegedly) baring their souls on national television, are the new model of fame.  Their stories are just as much a sham.

The rest of us have our Facebook profiles.  We dish up carefully curated versions of our lives.  Great party!  Beautiful family!  Funny story!  Fabulous vacation!

The internet is a funny place.  It's a democratic free-for-all and a minefield of advertisements, viruses, and pornography.  It's a place where people can share their most virulent opinions with shameless anonymity (ever read an open comments section on a popular web-site?)  and a place where we can, with a few key strokes, find accurate answers to virtually any question that pops into our heads.

I think, at its best, the internet can be a place where community -- real community -- can unexpectedly blossom.  It's like the plants that stubbornly push their way up through the cracks in the pavement, or, maybe better still, like the suburban trees that crack the concrete sidewalks.

People want to connect.  People want to know and be known.  People want to feel safe and free to be who they are and to know that they are loved just like that.  No design.  No artifice.  Just you and me and genuine relationship.

When that happens, I believe that something blossoms, something that the world needs more of.  That's when we know what's true.

I was talking with my daughter this morning about truth -- not the kind that says, "I'm right and you're wrong."  We were talking about what makes something funny.  I said that things strike us as funny when we recognize that they are true.  We don't have to think about it.  There's a resonance.  Our bodies, our hearts -- our souls -- just know.

It's like meeting someone and feeling like you've always known them.  You have.

Friends, that's what I want this place to be, a place where we connect.  I want to tell the truth not so you'll know me, but so you'll know yourself, and we'll know each other.  We resonate.  That resonance is the truest truth there is.

Once we're living the truth, that truth, we can't help but live it in love -- not the sappy, rom-com sort of love, but the real deal, the kind that carries us through all the suffering and the joy that life inevitably dishes up.

What I really want us to create together is a community.  I want us to clear the ground and make space in the world for more roots to spread and push up through the concrete and blossom into acts of love.

Are you in?  Start telling your stories. Tell them imperfectly, but tell the truth. Tell about how you tried and failed and tried again.  Tell about how you succeeded beyond your wildest hopes.  Tell about how somebody else helped you along the way and how you helped somebody else.  Tell about what was funny or hard or unexpected or incomprehensible.  Tell about the times when hope, like those roots, started pushing through the concrete.

Tell how you are living the truth in love.  I know you have them, lots of them.  Let's see what happens.  Post your stories on our Facebook page. Send them to me, and I'll help you edit them.  Spread the word.

Why It's Time for My Kids to Go Back to School

We home schooled for many years.  School vacations would roll around and wind down, and I would hear my friends say it:  "I'm ready for the kids to go back to school."  I didn't understand.

Having my kids home all the time wasn't perfect, believe me.  A lot of the time, it was hard.  We argued.  We were always in each other's space.  All too often it seemed that formal learning was overwhelmed by the tasks of daily living (most memorably when I was down with a bad case of double-pneumonia).

Now that all three are in full-time school, I sometimes wonder if I enjoy our 24/7 time together only in retrospect.

But there were good times.  We read so many wonderful books together (after the requisite twenty or more minutes of me nagging, "Come to the couch!" and them calling back, "As soon as I get something...").  I think those are everyone's favorite memories.  I fantasize that someday they will read those same books aloud to their own children, recounting when they first heard me or their dad read to them.  ("This is the part where Mom always got choked up."  Doesn't matter which book.  It happened every single time.)

There were other good times too.  Most parents appreciate being there for their child's first steps or first words; being there when they began to grasp phonics or fractions or Latin declensions or how to punctuate a quote was just as special.  While it was time, it was hard to send them to school.

We're on the cusp of the first anniversary of my emancipation from being full-time teacher as well as mom.  I still miss them when they are gone, but I understand better -- differently -- why it's time for vacation to end.

It's not so much that I want them gone -- although I find myself missing my space and my quiet more than I care to admit.  The past couple of days (as my family would emphatically confirm), my mood has deteriorated markedly.  But it's not just a longing for my now-familiar peaceful and quiet days.  My kids need something to do.

When we home schooled, my vision (never fully realized, it's true) was to have a feeling of seamless integration between living and learning.  There were always rhythms of work and rest -- much easier to manage without what I've come to think of as the tyranny of the school schedule, with its early start and homework that keeps my teens up past my bedtime.  The days had a sense of ease, but we still needed breaks from the formal school work.  We took as long as we needed, but when we grew restless with resting, we'd start up again.

We've come to the restless place.  Too much fun.  Too much Christmas and sleeping in and Netflix.  Not enough sense of purpose.  I'm ready for them to be challenged again.  I'm ready for them to resume the grappling with expectations and deadlines.

That's been a real gift of the school grind.  When we home schooled, I wanted them to learn that life is all learning.  Now we get to help them to learn that, even with early mornings and homework, there is still time to make a life worth living.  It's time for them to get back to the hard work of discovering how to live for the moment and for something beyond this moment.

It will be a challenge to remember the gift when we're back to packing school lunches and rising to pre-dawn alarm clocks.  The calm in between their leaving and their return will have a little extra tinge of loneliness at first.  But it's time for my kids to go back to school.

Rich Girl Problems

"The world is too much with us; late and soon

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers" 

- William Wordsworth

As an English major I read a lot of poetry, most of which I don't remember, but these lines from the Wordsworth sonnet run frequently through my thoughts.  Today was one of those days.

After writing yesterday about how making ends meet feels like a more daunting task than usual right now, I spent today paying dental bills (and getting the "good faith estimate" for the extraction of four teenage wisdom teeth times two), confronting the expiration of the Social Security tax cut (Who knew?), and wondering what became of the sixty odd dollars in cash I lost track of in the past month.

Alongside my personal financial angst, I got word that our CSA ("Community Supported Agriculture" for the uninitiated) farm, the place that taught us to love (okay, appreciate) kale and the wholesomeness of eggs from pastured hens, has filed for bankruptcy.

"Mom," said my teenage daughter, "does your tax bill make you think you should have voted differently?"

No.

I will confess to a new-found level of awareness, and attendant horror, at the bite Uncle Sam is taking from my husband's take-home pay.  I will further suggest that what the federal government needs to tidy up its own financial house is to employ some mom who is accustomed to juggling the costs of organic food, choir fees, piano lessons, a mortgage, and fuel for the mini-van.  (I see that I am qualified, but I'm sure the job wouldn't pay enough to compensate for the aggravation.)

I know very well that my woes are "rich girl problems."  I have never -- nor, God-willing, will I ever -- worry about feeding my children, keeping a roof over their heads, or accessing medical care if they become injured or ill.  And I am, truly, grateful.

But today I feel tired.  I'm tired of the world as it is.  It's too much work.  It lays waste our powers.

I know a fair number of Christians who, along with their counterparts on the KLOVE hit list, talk in heartfelt and well-meaning ways about how this world is "not our home."  They imagine, if I understand them correctly, that Christianity is a great escape plan from this wearying place, a one-way pass to a place called "heaven."  That's not how John puts it in his Revelation.  In the first verse of chapter 21, he says,

"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more..."

New heaven and new earth.  Not, allow me to emphasize, "We're blowing this popsicle stand called 'earth,' and moving our operation to heaven."  No.  John continues, in verse 5:

"And the one who was seated on the throne said, 'See, I am making all things new.' Also he said, 'Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.'”

All things new.  New heaven and new earth.  Here's what else is trustworthy and true:

"Now if anyone builds on the foundation [that is, Jesus Christ; see v. 12] with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— the work of each builder will become visible, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each has done. If what has been built on the foundation survives, the builder will receive a reward. If the work is burned up, the builder will suffer loss; the builder will be saved, but only as through fire." (1 Corinthians 3:12-15)

When the day comes, the day when God finally -- finally -- makes all things new, we'll see what has already been made new.  There are things that we're doing and building, here and now, that constitute the first fruits of the new earth.  We're not leaving it all behind.  We're taking some of it -- the good stuff -- along with us.

There are things I'll be glad to leave, and not just the tax bill.  I'll be relieved to be done with the violence that tempts my sons and the pressure to perform that tempts my daughter and the pride that tempts me.  I won't miss the endless tasks and worries, the getting and spending, the wood and hay and straw.

But let's not wish it all away.  What about the gold and silver and precious stones that are all around us?  What about the good jokes and the chocolate cake and the warm blankets and the stories that touch our hearts and the pillow talk and the hope and the love?

It ever bears repeating:

"So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love." (1 Corinthians 13:13)

And that is trustworthy and true.

My Budget Stubbornly Refuses to Balance

We've been meeting with a financial planner.  He is a very nice man.  It's not his fault that my proposed budget doesn't balance, so I am trying to stop secretly projecting my anxiety onto him, as if it's his fault.  His affable apologies suggest I'm not the first of his clients to want to blame him for telling me the truth.

The thing is, I thought I didn't worry about money.  One of my parents was a very careful saver and spender,  the other a spender who has chosen to live for the moment.  I tend by my nature in the direction of the latter. Thankfully, I married the former.

In the early years of our marriage, like many people, we scarcely had two nickels to rub together (as they say).  He was a volunteer right after college, just before we got married.  Then he worked for peanuts while I did a little more school.  Then we both worked for peanuts, me only part-time.  Then we had a baby, and I stopped working altogether.  We didn't have much extra cash in those days.

I wasn't a good sport about it.

During the few years of young adulthood I'd already put behind me, I was practicing "living in the moment" -- by which I mean, doing whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, even if I couldn't afford it.  I had accrued a little debt, but before we got married I came to my senses and paid it off.

What I couldn't put behind me so easily were some bad habits.  I liked (still like -- let's be honest) to eat out.  To go places.  Do things.  I didn't like (don't like -- more honesty) to be told, No.  We ended up in this vicious cycle where I would whine and feel sorry for myself, in classic-child-mode, and he, having to Dad-up, would end up feeling like the bad guy.

Over time things improved.  I decided to grow up.  He could then loosen up.  But we still operated for years on a budget plan that could be summed up as Don't Spend Money.

Of course, we spend money, and over the years, we've steadily spent more.  Some of it is about having kids.      Some is about putting our money where our (ahem) mouths are and buying organic.  Some of it is just spending-creep.

We've stayed out of debt.  While we owned a business, we squirreled away a tidy sum.  We live in a modest home and have modest stuff -- cars, one (27") T.V., clothes from Goodwill and Target.  I thought we were doing great.

I was wrong.  At least according to my financial planner.  And my budget, which still doesn't balance.

I like to think that I trust the God who feeds the birds of the air and clothes the lilies of the field (Matthew 6:25-34).  My recent panicked consideration of the Craig's List job board suggests otherwise.

Jesus does not mince words on the subject:  "But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well" (v. 33).

I brought my calculator with me to Costco today, because facts are facts.  But I'm trying to remember that time spent striving for the kingdom of God will reap a lasting reward that worrying over last year's receipts cannot supply.

And if you're looking for a financial planner, I know a very nice, honest guy.

What do you have to say for yourself?

"So they asked him,'What are you then? Are you Elijah?' And he said, 'I am not.'' Are you the Prophet?' He answered, 'No.' So they said to him,'Who are you, so we can give an answer to those who sent us? What do you have to say for yourself?' He said:  'I am the voice of one crying out in the desert, "Make straight the way of the Lord.  Make straight the way of the Lord," as Isaiah the prophet said.' Some Pharisees were also sent. They asked him,'Why then do you baptize if you are not the Christ or Elijah or the Prophet?' John answered them,'I baptize with water; but there is one among you whom you do not recognize, the one who is coming after me, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to untie.'" - John 1:21-27

On New Year's Eve we wondered together about who we are, and more pointedly, who Jesus says we are.  Isn't that what the scribes and the Levites and the Pharisees are asking John?  Who are you anyway?

Other people want to tell us who we are.  Our parents.  Our friends.  Spouses.  Children.  We do it to them too.  It feels somehow easier if we can fit everyone into a category, give them a label.  Who are you? they ask John.  Messiah?  Elijah?  Prophet?  They want to get a handle on him, to know what they're dealing with.  

We've got our standard ways of engaging once we can fit someone into one of our comfortable boxes.  Maybe we know just how we will think about and react to a messiah or a prophet.

But John won't give.  He won't be squeezed into anyone's tidy little category.  Not Messiah.  Not Elijah (appearances to the contrary).  Not the Prophet.

John's interlocutors are not so easily dissuaded.  They try to pin John to what he does.  Who else but a messiah or prophet would be out here baptizing?

Is that how we identify others or ourselves?  Do we feel stuck with labels that define us from the outside in?  What happens to us when we identify who we are with what we do?  

I think we make ourselves too small.  Those labels -- occupation or role or ability or disability or race or status or education or income level -- box us in.  We allow ourselves to be stereotyped.  We caricature ourselves.

I wonder if this is why Jesus admonished his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah (e.g. Matthew 16:20).  People of Jesus' day had ideas about what that meant.  They had a Messiah-shaped box full of expectations, but Jesus knew that the real version that he was here to embody wouldn't fit in that box.

John knows it too, and notice what he finally does to answer his interrogators.  He defines himself in terms of the one whose way he is making straight.  In the end, John says, as John always says (see John 3:30), It's not about me.

The scribes and Levites and Pharisees are asking the wrong question.  If they want to understand who John is and what he is doing and why, they need to look beyond John to the One to whom John's actions point.  Only then can they understand who John is.

It's the same for us.  Where are our lives pointing?  Are we making a straight path for the Lord?  The path is not only for us to follow; we lay it for others to walk.  If someone traces the path of my life, or yours, where will it lead them?

When the king would come in ancient days, he would tread the path laid by others and all the faithful subjects could follow behind.  How are we laying that path today?  And how are we following the King as he comes?

The Only Resolution You'll Ever Need

Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God

"And Mary kept all these things,reflecting on them in her heart." - Luke 2:19

The temptation is enormous, isn't it?  January 1st is a new opportunity to get it right.  This year will be different.  I won't eat so much.  I'll exercise more.  You'll quit smoking.  She'll finish that project she's been putting off.  He'll learn that thing he's always wanted to learn.  We'll all be more faithful about praying every day.

We all know how those plans will work out, at least if past performance is predictive of future performance.  The first day or few or week will be great!  This year will be different!  Then something happens.  It doesn't matter what it is.  Let's call it life.  We go to my mother-in-law's for dinner, and she has made this fabulous dessert.  It's cold and snowy, and I miss my walk.  Your mother calls and gives you that same old hard time, and all you can think of is how a cigarette would take the edge off.  The project is taking so much of her time.  Learning something new at his age is so hard.  And as for prayer...

What is it about consistency in prayer that can seem so hard?  I wonder if we make it hard.  
There is so much advice about prayer.  We're told to set a special space and a special time.  We have devotional books and journals, techniques and procedures.  Get it right!

The truth is, God is always available.  Do we believe that?  Do we believe that prayer "counts" no matter when or where we turn to God?  How do we understand what prayer is?  Is it, can it be, enough to open ourselves to the God who is always and ever open to us?  Does it count just as much if I open my heart in my car or my kitchen or my desk at work as if I do it in my special chair in my prayer corner?  Can I imagine my life as an offering of ceaseless prayer (1 Thessalonians 5:17)?  It can be that, if I am willing to allow it to be.

The real question might be:  Do I want my life to be a life of prayer?  Prayer changes things.      Chiefly, my prayer changes me.  I like to think that what I do is going to make the real difference.  It'll be the new diet, the gym membership, the nicotine patch, the finishing, the learning that will make things -- make me -- better, right.  

Mary, twice in Luke's nativity stories, does nothing except to "ponder...in her heart" what God, through his messengers, has had to say about her, her life, her child.  She doesn't resolve to live differently.  She takes in the word and holds it there, in her heart.  She reflects, maybe for years, maybe for a lifetime.

That is the example of Mary's faithful trust.  She allows.  She receives.  "Let it be done to me."  She doesn't have to do anything else in order to be transformed in the ways that really matter.

Neither do we.  Real transformation isn't something we accomplish.  It is something that happens to us.  We allow it.  We, like Mary, say, Yes.

How might things be different this year if you resolved today -- and tomorrow, one day at a time -- to receive whatever it is that God is ready to offer to you?  How can you open your heart and offer to God an unequivocal, Yes? 

May your Yes be the only resolution you need to make.

A New Year's Invitation

"He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’" - Matthew 16:15

Jesus asks the disciples.  Simon answers -- bold, impetuous Simon -- presumably for them all, and for us:   "‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.’"  And Jesus praises him and renames him Peter.

Simon tells Jesus who he is.  Jesus tells Simon who he is.

Who do you say that I am?

If we ask, we'd best be prepared to hear the answer.  Simon didn't become the Rock in that moment.  Peter is who he always was.  In claiming what he knows to be true about Jesus, he opens himself to what is true about himself.  As do we.  Like Paul reminds us in Galatians 2:  "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me."  No longer I, but Christ.  No longer Simon, the old man, but Peter (cf. especially Colossians 3:9-10).

The old man -- woman -- is familiar.  She knows who she is.  Limited.  Mistake-prone.  Proud.  A bit vain.  Kinda lazy.  I know her.  I know her past, what has led her to this moment.  I know what she does and doesn't do.  I know her name.

But who do you say that I am?

Israel was awaiting the Messiah because it meant that the exile from the promised land would finally be at an end and God would become king.  Israel's true nature would finally be made known; the whole wide world would recognize Israel as God's chosen, God's Son.  And what is true of Israel is true of humanity, of which Israel is the chosen remnant.  So -- follow me here -- what is true of the Messiah is true of Israel, and what is true of Israel is true of humankind.  And what is true of humankind is true of me.

Because of Him.  No longer I, but Christ.

Who does God say that I am?

What is it that you know, in your deepest place, is true of you.  What is the grace that you hide?  That you hesitate to name?  What are you gifted to do?  What are you blessed to give to the world?  What is your passion?  What brings you joy?  I cannot say it better than theologian Frederick Buechner, but allow me to make it a question:  “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”   Where is that place for you?

We are on the eve of a new year.  I love new beginnings, probably because I make a lot of mistakes and like the chance to start fresh.  Fortunately, as the author of Lamentations says (3:2-23a): 

"The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,   his mercies never come to an end;  they are new every morning..."

We stand, you and me and the whole wide world, on the cusp of a new morning, a new day, a new year.  Join me in asking the very one who gives us our names:  Who do you say that I am?  And be ready to embrace the answer.  And live it.

Feast of the Holy Innocents

When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men.  - Matthew 2:16

They were only trying to do the right thing.   They saw the star, some astrological phenomenon, a sign.  They discerned its meaning as best they could.  They responded to the summons revealed in the sign.  They conferred with the local authority.  They spoke honestly of what they knew.  They completed their journey with the worship of the new king.  They even went so far as to heed the warning of the dream, avoiding making any further revelation to Herod as they departed.

As a consequence of their actions, Herod, in a fury, orders the slaughter of the innocents of Bethlehem.

How might I have felt as one of the Magi, had I heard about this massacre?  I might have believed, It was my fault.  If we had not gone to Herod...

Maybe I would blame God:  Why the second dream, the dream to flee, and not a first dream, a dream warning me not to go to Herod in the first place?  Why send me to Bethlehem if this, this, was to be the consequence?

Why is Jesus alone spared and those other children allowed to perish?

Of course, this tale, historical or not, is a loud echo of the Passover narrative of Exodus 12, a story in which God allows the deaths of the holy innocents of Egypt.

And it is a sad echo of Damascus, Syria, and rural Kenya and Newtown, Connecticut, which so recently witnessed the slaughter of more holy innocents.

The questions today are the same questions that those foreign astrologers might have asked:  Why, O God?  Is there something else we might have done?

Those two burning questions haunt this world broken by sin.  Why does God allow evil to persist?  What are we called to do, as the Body of Christ, in the wake of evil?

When I was younger, I believed that good actions necessarily would lead to positive consequences.  If I did right, I and others would be blessed, by which I meant we would receive a happy reward.  One the first lessons of my adulthood was the realization that doing God's will doesn't necessarily lead to temporal happiness.  Quite the contrary.  The Biblical view is clear:  Following God's will perfectly leads to crucifixion on a Roman cross.  

What's more, doing God's will doesn't necessarily look to the world like doing the right thing.  Could it look like revealing the fulfillment of a prophecy to an evil king?  Like being the only survivor amidst the wreckage?

Our lives go on in peace while others suffer.  I have a happy Christmas with my children while other parents bury theirs.  

All we know is this -- that the Son of God, born in a cave, is spared this tragic end only so he can suffer a different tragic end, and that, by the cross, he is present to every tragedy, there in the horror and the suffering and the grief.  And by his resurrection he does -- and we can -- bring the hope that proclaims that even in the death of innocents, evil will never have the final word.