Trying to Keep Lent

So I thought I'd write up a little progress report on my Lenten fast of electronic entertainment.  Some of it has been very easy, and some, not so much. 

• Giving up TV has been a breeze.  I've been reading more, and definitely turning the light out to go to sleep much earlier.  Not that I'm getting more sleep.  Baby S is changing up meds, and thus not sleeping much, so though the lights are out, I am not necessarily sleeping.
• Giving up radio in the car is pretty easy as well, and I have actually been remembering to bring along my CD's on occasion.  I have also become very familiar with the latest Florence and the Machine album, as it is the only one that currently resides in my car.  A teen has forgotten it.  It's pretty good, except for tracks 5 and 6.  They won't play due to a big scratch.  
• Next up...the computer.  This has been more complex.  Essentially, turning off the computer for communication is a lot like saying to my family, "I'm giving up all of you for Lent.  I'm going in my room now.  If you need me, I will not be available.  See you in forty days!"  It's fairly easy to give up mindless surfing.  Giving up communicating with real people that I love?  Maybe not so healthy.
• And then there's Faceb**k.  It truly does seem to have a life of its own.  And generally I am doing pretty well here, with a few snags along the way.  Again, I am trying to confine myself to genuine communication.  I stay off my wall and my news feed, and it is helping me practice the discipline of cyber silence.  This is to say I cannot leave a bunch of clever (I think) comments sprinkled about my friends' walls and photos.  Or argue politics.  Or post silliness in the form of statuses...stati (?).  Though I have had to be on FB daily still, because two of my teens have been allowed to get them just this past week, and I admit I feel the need to FB stalk them.  My surveillance has turned up nothing interesting yet.  Really.  They are very boring.

And that's pretty much it.  My Lenten fast does not seem to be making me more spiritual.  It does not really pinch enough to remind me much of Christ's sufferings.  It has however, been a good exercise in learning how I use media, otherwise known as "How I waste time and fill my brain with rot."  Surprisingly, much of what I do in regard to evil technology is very good, and I will cheerfully pick up again in a couple of weeks. 

Ungrateful Children

Lately I've been meditating on the concept of thankfulness, particularly on how it pertains to our teens and young adults.  So often I hear parents, myself included, launch off into a tirade of how ungrateful their children can be.  It seems to come to a head in the teen years, because as parents, we find ourselves living with these huge, able bodied people that demand so much from us, every hour of the day.  We thought babyhood and the toddler years were hard.  No one warned us about this.  And through it all, they seem to take for granted most of the things we do for love, all the endless sacrifices we make for them.  It's enough to make a person crazy, and my children have seen more than a little bit of my crazy side over this matter.

As aggravating, and disappointing, and heartbreaking as this stage may be, I submit to you (gentle reader), that this may be proof that we are doing our job well.

In my experience, there are three sorts of children.  Two of these types come from hard places...children of trauma if you will.  They are exactly identical in that they are raised up in trauma, neglect, abandonment, deprivation.  They learn that parents and other caregivers are not willing or able to meet their basic needs, or protect them from the harshness of a cruel world.  

The first child never escapes in childhood.  They suffer all through their youth, and no one ever plucks them from their situation and teaches them that this is not how things were meant to be.  They may sense it, and resolve to be different themselves when they are the parent raising children of their own, but they never experience it for themselves.  Any gratitude they may feel for the tiny scraps they were thrown is a perverted version of true thankfulness.

The second child begins the same, but somewhere in their youth, someone intervenes.  They provide stability, support, and nurture.  The child experiences something different, and when they are able to receive it, they also experience gratitude.  They know the contrast, and they are thankful that their life is not what it once was.

The third child is not a child of trauma.  They have received attentive care all their lives.  They feel nurtured and safe.  Every opportunity that can be purchased by sacrifice and hard work, has been bought and paid for on their behalf.  They breathe this like air, and drink it like cool water.  The thought that life could be very different only skitters across their brain on rare occasions.

It makes me sad that some adults are struggling to raise their own children differently than they were raised.  I know daily they dig down deep into empty places, and try to find what their babies need.  They allow their children to feed off their own lives, and find themselves scraped clean of everything good and nourishing.  In the end, they end up starving both their children and themselves, like a woman in a famine zone, with a skeletal baby suckling at an empty breast.

It makes me sad that some children are so very grateful for basic necessities of body and soul, because they have experienced such hunger.  It may look pretty, to see a child behave thus...but I don't like to think of how this pretty picture came to be.  It certainly does not gratify me as a parent.

As we teach and model the virtue of a grateful heart to our children, may we pray that they continue to be a little bit ignorant and annoying.  May they breathe and drink our love and provision, so that they truly only realize how we have laid down our lives for them, when they lay down their own lives for others.  May they appreciate our marriages when they sacrifice for their own spouses.  May they appreciate our parenting, as they raise up their own children.  May they be so well nurtured and nourished that they have deep wells from which to draw.  And may they have a house full of ungrateful teens of their own some day.  It will make me deeply happy, and grateful, and a tiny bit entertained.

Keeping Lent

Having not grown up in the liturgical tradition, keeping Lent is unfamiliar to me.  I always heard of people "giving up" things for Lent, and never understood how giving up chips or pizza deepened one's understanding of the sacrificial love of Christ.  But lately I've been thinking of doing a fast, and since Lent is fast approaching, it seems very traditional, and appropriate.  I am considering giving up the recreational use of electronic equipment/media.  Like Faceb**k.  And television.  The radio.  It really seems like I fritter away far to much time half-heartedly pecking at keyboards, surfing from site to site, looking at the same old nothing.  Or I turn on the TV as I crawl into my bed, and half-heartedly click from channel to channel, until some bit of nothing catches my interest.  Or I'm driving in the car, and I want some noise, so I seek, and seek, and seek until something familiar comes flickering across the radio waves.  OK, I live in the country, and radio listening in the car is a bit spotty, but I'll listen to some dreadful eighties pop music fading in and out, over the sound of the car and my own thoughts.

What would happen if I stopped drifting from image to image, soundbite to soundbite?  Would I think on spiritual things more often?  Would I find my attitudes changing?  Would I have more time to do productive things?  Maybe I would just sleep more and be more well rested, and thus less likely to be cranky and fall into sin.  Really I'm not sure at all.  What if it revolutionized my life?  Would I just slip back into the same-old same-old, just as soon as Easter came and went?  One thing I know for sure.  I would need to set myself ground rules, or before long I'd be making myself exceptions and justifying my slip ups as necessary.  I know how weaselly I am.  Here are some rules I've considered:

• No Faceb**k at all.  Once a week (probably around midweek) I would check the PM's as I get camp info and scheduling info for my kids via that method.  But I would ignore newsfeeds, walls, and notifications.
• I would check my email once a day to delete all the junk, and respond to all necessary correspondence (which I do actually get there).  I would ignore silly forwards and intriguing advertisements.
• I would use the computer for necessary research/purchases such as homeschooling and airline tickets.
• I would not use the computer to read random Wiki articles and plan pretend vacations.
• I would not watch TV, with the exception of watching a movie with family.  Which generally puts me to sleep.
• I would not turn on the radio in the car.  If I want music, I would remember to bring a CD with me.  Which I won't.
• Would I read blogs?  Probably not.  I like to waste time on blogs.  And Wiki random article.
• Would I blog?  Maybe.  Maybe I'd find more time, or be full of deep thoughts, and blogging would seem the natural thing to do.  Or maybe I'd forget I had a blog, since I'd be away from my computer so much.  Not really sure on that one.

Will you be keeping Lent, and if so, how?

Wonderful People

"Paul did not say that God separated him to show what a wonderful man He could make of him, but 'to reveal His Son in me. . .'  (Galatians 1:16) " ~Oswald Chambers

Some days, revealing Jesus in me results in people thinking I am a wonderful person.  But some days it offends people.  Some days it makes people think I'm stupid.  I'm all about being wonderful.  The other stuff?  Not so much.

Making Room

"And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn."  Luke 2:7

From the instant He was born, Jesus was identified with the lost souls of this earth.  He was born in an inappropriate place, because there was no room in the usual places.  He and His mother became "at risk", turning a filthy stable into a delivery room.  I assume they did not have a lot of material resources.  Material resources would have likely secured a more appropriate place and attendants.  Yet the owners of the inn gave what shelter they had to offer the poor young couple.  And the poor young couple wrapped their child in the cloths that they had, and made room for Him in the manger.

Making room is what makes or breaks us.  Someone in this world must make room for us, or we may be lost.  Someone must be willing to allocate times, spaces, and resources just for us and our use.  It does not matter if we are a day old or ninety years old.  Making room is the essence of true love.  

In our culture we are not about making room.  We believe that people need a minimum number of square feet, and dollars, and whatever.  We limit how much room we are willing to make, based upon the formulaic mandates of the American dream.

Making room is risky business.  What if that poor young couple sues me because their baby picks up some illness in my stable?  What if I make room and that person robs me?  What if I make room and I find myself impoverished, exhausted, infected?  What if making room leaves me brokenhearted?

Making room implies something that we often do not consider.  Making room requires sacrifice.  If I decide to make room, I must reallocate my resources.  I must give up some of my precious spaces... spaces I have filled with beauty, or usefulness, or things.  I must give up some of my material resources.  It costs to add a place to the table, a seat in the car, a bed under a roof.  Where must I trim my budget to make room for this person?  I must give up some of my time.  My day is already full.  The demands on my attention are daunting, and yet I must carve out the time.  A bed and meal is not enough.  Boarding houses do that.  Homeless shelters do that.  Prisons do that.  Families are different.  Families make room, and this is how they love.

Risky, messy, costly love.  The only kind of love that can save us. 

Are You Feeling Old?

I don't believe we give young people enough credit.  Our hearts and minds are moved powerfully when we are young and have very little power of our own.  When we are old and powerful, we find our hearts cold and dull.  It is not strange.  It is the way of the human race.  We must wake up each day and force our old bodies and tired minds to do the work we began when we were young.

We have not changed our minds, or given up, or failed.  We have not necessarily grown older and wiser.  We are exactly the same as we used to be, only now we have the power to do something about it.  

Back then no one took me seriously because I was so young.  Back then I had no money, no education, no experience.  Back then I was scattered and disorganized.  Back then I was selfish and easily discouraged.

What now?  My back hurts when I get up in the morning?

Still Here

I find it unbelievable that it has been over three months since I have posted here.  Even the format for posting has changed, so I shall have to overcome that as well.

Life is moving at a breakneck pace, and I am currently just hanging on for dear life, waiting for this ride to slow down enough to get my bearings.  Life is good, but very full, and very overwhelming.

We are never ready for what is coming at us, but we are as ready as anyone can be.  And then we just have to learn how to do it.  

After a time of doing, we realize we are not very good at it.  Then we get down to the business of disciplining ourselves to becoming a little better at it each day.  

A little better each day is better than wowing the crowd.  But it is tiring, and doesn't leave much time for luxurious activities like blogging.

I miss blogging, and I want to make time for it.  Maybe if I stop showering I can bang out two short posts a week?  No?  

We shall see how it goes.  But for now, the two of you who still check in will know I have not entirely abandoned this endeavor.