Tag Archives: random

Why Adam and Eve are Ruining my Children

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I think I’ve written this blog before but I’m constantly amazed at what I’ve determined is some kind of naturally born, innate, passed-through-our-genetic-makeup set of behaviors that every kid knows. I tend to credit nurture over nature for most of my children’s habits. But there are some that I know I never taught them and I’m certain that they are not teaching them in school.

I mean seriously when do kids get taught “neener neener neener” or some variation of the same? “Nah, nah, nah, nah, na na”…sticks and stones…I know you are but what am I…

It’s got to be that they’re born with it ’cause I watch my kids on the playground vigilantly and while they learn bad habits from other kids (and also graciously pass them on to even more) I’ve never heard them learn those ones. Even still, even if they did hear some of those classic childhood phrases it’s not as if they’re all sitting down together listening, reciting, and repeating together. If I know anything it’s that children do not teach children these idiotic phrases. And that’s a scientific fact! Yet here I am in life listening to my kids use them to appropriately taunt others. No, there’s got to be a better answer…and I think I’ve found it.

It’s got to be that when God created Adam and Eve he gave them two gifts that they had not eared: belly buttons and a set of childish phrases to use toward each other and their animal friends. I’m fairly certain that when Eve ate the apple from the serpent she was like “Hey Adam check out this apple I just ate from this talking snake.” And Adam was like “No thanks. I’m on the Atkins diet and I only eat our animal friends.” and Eve was like “seriously Adam? Riiiight….neener neener neener I bet you can’t eat one! Nah nah nah nah poo poo I ate more apple than you” and Adam was like “Whatever Eve. I know you are but what am I?” and Eve was like “Oh, good one Adam. I’m rubber you’re glue” and Adam was like “Rubber? Glue? Those don’t even exist in our garden utopia…hmm…maybe there is something to those whole apple thing” and Eve was like “Yeah, that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you” and Adam was like “Hmm…fruit, talking serpent, naked lady, childhood taunting…how could I say no?”

and the rest is history.

Does Hope Live Paycheck to Paycheck? Seriously? Does it?

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If you watch Hulu at all you’ve probably seen this video. I don’t want to say anything negative about Rethink Church ’cause I know absolutely nothing about them and I don’t really have a practice of talking bad about churches–even churches that I might disagree with, it just does not seem very productive to speak poorly about my family (Right? Even if your family sucks you still don’t shame them publicly)

But in the video one of their big questions is “Does hope live paycheck to paycheck?”

Umm…what?

What does that mean?

Does it really live paycheck to paycheck?

…I’m not reasking the question rhetorically, I’m seriously wondering if it does. I don’t know?  Does compassion live paycheck to paycheck? How about kindness? Does kindness put more money in savings? How can we help hope stop its overspending?

Or maybe the idea is that those with hope literally stop living paycheck to paycheck–once they find hope they start making better decisions and start saving more money. Is that the idea?

Or is it a metaphor for how we live our lives when we have no hope. If you’re someone who has little hope in your life do you find that you “live paycheck to paycheck”? Or, in other words, do you find that you’re living moment to moment, expending everything you have as and leaving little legacy behind?

Hmmm…neither of those two options really resonate with me. One would suggest that once you give your life to Jesus you’ll save more. But the reality is that following Jesus invites you to give more and to put your hope in relationship and resurrection not in savings (not that I’m against saving). The other ‘metaphorical’ option doesn’t really resonate with me either simply because it’s tedious and not very clear.

From my perspective here’s what hope can bring (this is by no means an exhaustive list!) Hope:

  • Gives us meaning because it gives us a larger identity that we can find ourselves in
  • Gives us energy because it helps remove that feeling of “what’s the point?”
  • Disappoints. It does. To hope is to raise your expectations and to believe that something beautiful will happen. But on this side of life that isn’t always the case.
  • Is bigger than today. Hope on this side of life disappoints–that’s why those from the Jesus way of life place their hope primarily in resurrection, new life, and a restored creation.
So I still have not solved the mystery before us: what the hell does the question “does hope live paycheck to paycheck” mean! I like hope. I like paychecks. I like that this church is trying to engage in a hope-dialog. I like Hulu. I don’t like commercials. Therefore vis-à-vis, quid pro quo, using the properties of transsubordination, etc. etc. we must deduce that the definitive answer is yes.
done.

Really Bad Metaphors (part 2)

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This is part two in my multifaceted series of really really bad metaphors making absolutely no valuable point whatsoever. So without further adieu…a really poor illustration for life:

When me and my sisters were little my grandma always instructed us to not let the dog lick us. Dogs have dirty mouths of course. She did, however, have one alternative–one way in which dog licking was always aceptable–one way in which she actually encouraged dog licking to happen. “You can let the dog lick your ear as much as you want.” This wasn’t a joke, it wasn’t a tricky way to keep the kids from receiving dog licks. No, she was serious. And so were we. I spent much of my childhood trying to get a dog to lick my ear.

Don’t we all want to have our ear licked by a dog? Imagine in this illustration that you are me, that your ear represents your heart, the dog represents your father, and the tongue represents his love…No, wait, you’re me, the ear is your fear, the dog is God, and the tongue is the BIble…No, that’s not it…hmm…

Just like trying to get my childhood ear licked by my grandma’s dog so too we often spend much of our life trying to get our ears licked by dogs…no, that’s not right either…

Turns out there’s no metaphor or illustration here…turns out my grandma was just a bit crazy and my sisters and I looked just a bit awkward.

Really Bad Metaphors (hopefully a four part series)

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I’m thinking it’d be fun to write random posts that are plain and simply really really bad metaphors making absolutely no valuable point whatsoever. Turns out it’s a bit harder than I first thought! So without further adieu…a really poor illustration for life:

I’ve put on about 40 pounds since this whole cancer thing started. Most of it is water weight due to taking steroids. Some of it is actual fat due to inactivity. Regardless I found that it came quite in handy while snorkeling. Turns out I can’t sink. No, seriously, I was so buoyant that as hard as I would try I couldn’t possibly swim three feet below the water. So there I floated for about two hours looking at sea creatures of all kinds. I could barely walk in the water due to the manner in which my legs work/don’t work (we liked to say that I looked like a toddler pretending to be a clown) but boy could I snorkel!

Buoyancy.

Sometimes all we want in life is a little buoyancy. Often times we feel as though we’re walking through life like a toddler pretending to be a clown–stagering and stammering as we swear everyone around us is watching and smirking. Maybe we stammer because we got cancer in our spine that made our legs not work…or maybe we stammer because we drank too much the night before. Regardless, we look awkward, like Jack Sparrow on a tilt a whirl or child who’s dad spun him too fast on the merry go round. If only we could float. If only we could fly. If only we could soar high above the water that causes us to fall. If only.

The answer is simple: drugs. Not drugs in a literal sense, but metaphorically. We all need to be drugged out in life so that we can gain a little weight and thus become more buoyant so we can float above our problems and view the wildlife below. So drink the Koolaid, pick your drug of choice…and may I suggest the drug of love? It’s a pretty good one and I hear it causes havoc on the waistline.

Pirate Jesus

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It’s a double edged sword this Christian belief in the incarnation (that God became human in Jesus) because in one sense it takes this massive concept of GOD and gives  him a family, a city, a time and place, it puts dirt under his nails, and even gives him a Jewish name. God becomes very local, knowable, and somewhat specific. He is Jesus. In another sense, though, the incarnation allows us to understand God as one of us. We learn that God isn’t particularly Jewish as much as he is knowable, that God desires to be known by his creation and to be forever and intimately associated with his creation. So we often visualize Jesus as looking like us…and that’s not wholly bad because incarnation demands localization.

but.

We’ve gotten weird about it haven’t we? We’ve created all these Jesus’s that are caricatures of Jesus and we’ve duped ourselves into thinking and believing that it’s “the right Jesus”.

  • Spooky Jesus is the one with the creepy halo who looks a little alien-like. He usually glows…which is kind of cool.
  • Bearded-lady Jesus is usually overly feminine and very very pasty white.
  • Little baby Jesus is usually worshiped at Christmas time or while watching Talladega Nights. This Jesus never pooped his diapers, didn’t cry (isn’t that what Away in a Manger teaches us?), and usually makes us feel nice.
  • Jesus is my boyfriend is the one that churches like to sing about and the one that Southpark likes to make fun of. This is the Jesus typified by worship songs that are actually love songs to girls with Jesus’ name inserted in.
  • Jesus as the celebrity rockstar doesn’t accomplish much and doesn’t necessarily know what he’s doing but he sure does sing well…think Jesus Christ Superstar.
  • Ultimate Fighting Jesus is the new cool Jesus where he likes to punch people, shoot guns, and hates gay people and women. I think that many rockstar pastors these days like this Jesus ’cause it justifies their own baggage and underlying hate of people who are different from them.*

It’s a little funny what we’ve done to Jesus. It’s a little scary too ’cause in many ways these depictions of Jesus have bastardized something pretty cool: that we can know God.

Anyway, I like the rockstar Jesus ’cause he’s aloof and fun…I’m aloof and fun and I like my Jesuses to look like me.

I wish I could love Pirate Jesus but, alas, even though I’ve got piratey earrings now there’s just something about Jesus with an eye patch that weirds me out. It’s like if Superman had a goatee.

 

* Thanks to Alan and Debra HIrsch for their valuable and fun chapter about Jesus in their book Untamed where I borrowed some of these descriptions.