and they rose up to play part two

In my tired fog yesterday I went winding my way around Work and Play straight to children which is what I think about most often since I am so covered with them. But of course, when we are told "and they rose up to play" the intimation is that they rose up to do lewd and inappropriate things with one another all around the golden calf. It's not the playing of children that we're seeing, but the 'playing' of full grown idolatrous adults and it shouldn't, in this day and age be hard for you to imagine what I'm saying without me having to lay it all out. 

But the distinction I made yesterday is still helpful, I think, and so is the garden. Adam and Eve were given to each other for knowledge, intimate knowledge, companionship, mutual help and comfort, and that was not so much about recreation as about work. The person who plays around with a lot of other people is worshiping himself. Whereas the person who sets about to know another is doing work, self denying and sometimes hard, though hopefully very rewarding work.

The kind of idolatrous adulterous play manifesting itself around the golden calf leads necessarily to the opposite of things like mutual help and comfort. At the end of such a play you have ruination, hurt, and in the case of this tragic anniversary of Roe v. Wade, murder. God's mercy in that moment was extraordinary, that only 3000 perished and not the whole camp of Israel. We have endured a similar mercy as a country, as God has forborne our lewd play, our murder. I pray he has more in his hand and will rescue some from the fire of his wrath.  

they rose up to play

Somehow managed to push play on the bible without really being awake and so climbed into a partial consciousness as Israel was eating and then drinking and then rising up to play in the presence of a little gold in the shape of a calf. No big deal. Except then Moses and the Levites were killing anyone with the sword that looked crossways. (That's just my own early morning paraphrase.)

Obviously it is very stupid to be that idolatrous so soon after seeing God's rescuing power but it is the usual human way. We have the staying power of fleas and love to worship whatever we can find as soon as we can possibly get our grubby mitts on it.

The part that jumped out at me, again, was 'rose up to play'. I have a whole gaggle of lovely new little people in my Level One Atrium (Sunday School, Catechesis of the Good Shepherd)--two and sometimes three little boys, and five little girls twirling in their pretty dresses and shouting at each other. My first and main task, apart from the lesson and the singing, has been to develop a culture of Work. The child walks (not runs) into the room and fixes on something to Work with. Sometimes a child will walk in and stand about not landing on anything and then I come along on my hands and knees (feeling very old) and say, "Let me help you find some work. Would you like to work with the Good Shepherd? Would you like to polish? Would you like to trace? " and I run down the whole list of everything in the room that was put there especially for the child. It takes two months, usually, to get children to stop saying 'Play' and start saying 'Work' (longer for grow ups) but the difference is important.

Adam was given useful work in the garden. Useful, that is, for him. The work was prepared for him ahead of time. But the people of Israel rose up to play. They were hanging around not doing what they were supposed to do, and they landed on play. The atrium is supposed to be more like the garden then like Mount Sinai. The child gets to the mountain eventually, but when he is little, the garden of work is prepared specially for him. 

Of course, children should play. But even I know that the playing of children is useful for them as they grow. Their play is a kind of important work that sets them up to do real work later on. But now, in our culture, it is so hard to get anyone to stop playing and do any work. Even me, I chafe to think that I feel like I am always working and never playing. But there, in Exodus, the people were given work and rest, not work and play. But they didn't work or rest, they played. And they worshipped other gods.

This is, I am sorry, an incomplete sketch, but I have to go work so it will have to do.  

happy mlk day

It's so hard not to start every blog post with a weather update....

Maybe because every day in Upstate New York starts out cold and gray except for those in July and August. More so I think because there are so many things to be depressed about and the weather is a nice visual to lay along side each terrible thing that comes through all the various news outlets every morning.

So today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. An important and auspicious day made all the more necessary by the fact that there is still so much work to do to bring rights and equality (and I am a conservative, as you well know, so I don't mean by these words anything that a good 50% of America means by them) to all people in this vast and confused American Landscape. In celebration of this day we have our own governor, Andrew Cuomo, who lately mentioned in a TV interview so everyone could clearly hear him and no one could misconstrue his words, that people who believe that babies (that is, tiny people who nevertheless can't survive without the care and protection of another) shouldn't be allowed to go on living in New York State, likewise people who believe in traditional marriage. They, people who believe that babies are human beings who should not be killed before they are born, should not be permitted to live any longer in New York State.

This is terrible on so many levels but on this day, MLK day, it is even more terrible because the babies that don't survive to be born most often in this country are minority, mostly black, babies. What a legacy we have given Dr. King who gave his life to make a safe and prosperous life for a people with such a tragic and sorrowful heritage. I would say we haven't learned anything. We listen to the speech. We say a lot of nice PC sounding stuff. But when it comes down to it, we don't believe anything we say. 

May God have mercy.

And let me add my faint voice to those who are calling for Governor Cuomo's resignation.

7 quick take: first real week back in reality

one

Last week I blithely went about doing school as if it was the normal and right thing to do when on day two Matt found me wandering around in a glassy eyed stupor trying to coordinate between my right and left hand not to drop a massive vat of coffee on the kitchen floor believing, wrongly, that if a little bit of caffeine is helpful, a great deal more must be of The Lord.

 "What are you doing?" He asked me, since I guess an ordinary person couldn't immediately divine what I was attempting to achieve.

"I'm doing school," I slurred.

"Why?"

"Well, the main reason is that the children seem exceptionally stupid. But also, it says I should on the calendar. If you look at the calendar, it says it's January, and we're supposed to do school in January."

"Why don't you start next week and just go out for the afternoon?" He said. Like it was an obvious choice that I had considered but decided against when actually it was something that had never occurred to me in the whole course of my existence.

So I did. And it was marvelous.

two

So we started in earnest this week. And would you believe, a few days down made such a difference. Feel stupid for having to say it out loud. But there you are. You go along thinking that you're all that, that you can do whatever you want, and do all the work in the world, and then one tiny little holiday brings you to your knees in realization that you're a weak pathetic person who also must sleep and eat food. 

Also, miraculously, I carefully examined my plan and we should be able to finish just on time, if we really work hard. So you can see the fatal flaw almost immediately because who in their right mind wants to work hard. No one that I have given birth to. I feel like St. Paul, threatening, admonishing, berating even with tears to snatch them out of the jaws of judgement.

three

The only people who want to work hard are those who need constant help to do anything. Gladys and Marigold just want to Learn Something! Anything! Whereas those that can do quite a lot on their own just want to lie on the floor and whine and play with Legos. That was the first day. The second day was slightly better and then yesterday was almost sane. Someone even asked a question to obtain knowledge about something they didn't already know. 

four

Foolishly, I decided that Elphine and Alouicious are old enough to make lunch. Elphine for a week and the Alouicious. I don't know what I was thinking. Alouicious made soup from a packet yesterday (we'll start small, I thought) and besides coming in to ask me every tiny question because even though he was able to read the instructions he couldn't believe that they were true, he strewed soup all up and down the kitchen as if he was some sort of barbarian Hun cook coming to destroy civilization with noodles and synthetic seasoning. And then he was exhausted from the effort and couldn't cope with the idea of cleaning up so he just didn't and Matt walked in at the end of his long day and had  to crunch his way across the floor seeking out a broom. 

five

I make it sound like it's all a chore. There are myriad irritations as with everything in life. But they are basically small. I nurtured a glimmer of hope as I sat curled up next to heater toiling with each child through the most basic elements of language and numbers. It may be that they will learn and grow into reasonable people. I fail so much but I may not completely fail. It's the tiny seed of hope and the thin rays of sunshine into the school room that kept me sitting there until my voice was gone each day.

six 

Nevertheless, when I woke this morning to the sound of Alouicious fussing and fussing and fussing and fussing about not being able to find his iPod even though he had carefully plugged it in last night as part of his preparation for Men's Bible Study and so someone must have come during the night and stollen it and how could he possibly be expected to read the bible from something like a book!..I prayed earnestly that he would get himself out the door and leave me with two hours of peace. Well, one hour because the little girls wake up at seven now (not 6:30 anymore!) and they always come in shouting.

seven 

But it's Friday, and so we only have to finish a little list of things we didn't get to and then go play at church for the afternoon. This is our ordinary and life giving rhythm. May it carry me all the way through February and March, those two worst months of the homeschool year. May we emerge on the other side smarter and holier than we are today.

We All Saw This Coming And We Knew It Was Bad {wstcawkiwrb}

I was mulling over the idea of linking up with Like Mother Like Daughter's 

Pretty Happy Funny Real {phfr}

today because it's snowing and I'll be clocking another solid day of school which means there'll probably something funny and cute and I could have taken a picture and carried on with the mundanity of my own life. However, I really wish someone would orangize an internet day for 

Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid {ssss}

or

We All Saw This Coming And We Knew It Was Bad {wstcawkiwrb}

After all the kerfluffle in Virginia last year of an ACNA (that's the group that left The Episcopal Organization TM [see Midwest Conservative Journal] over its apostasy in rejecting the bible and the elevating and celebrating of same sex relationships inspite of what God has so clearly said) rector (that's a fancy word for Main Pastor) first having regular meetings for coffee and prayer and then later going on little organized tours around England with the Episcpal Bishop (that's the person who wears the fancy hat) of Virginia, who, no shock to anyone, married two women together in the Old Falls Church as soon as ever that faithful congregation had been flung out on its ear--after that it is no surprise that the Archbishop of Canturbery would confer special honor on this enlightened and reconciling rector who knows that doctrine and the bible are not so essential as how we all get along with each other. They will know us, you can just hear the muttering, by our love. Love love love. 

Of course the Archbishop of Canterbury wants everyone to just get along. All this division is pointless. It doesn't matter about the Bible, all you mind numbed Neanderthal "Anglicans". What's really important is that we stop fighting and get along with each other. We must reconcile because Jesus ate with sinners.

By bringing in an ACNA rector to preach at regular intervals from the pulpit of Archbishop Cramner who was willing, in the end, to die because of the word of God is a very bold way of saying There Is No Real Division Here. What you all are upset about is a secondary and unimportant issue and you need to Keep Calm and stand and kneel where liturgically appropriate. It's such a clever move. My hat is off to you, your Grace. You've succeeded in making me look like a flapping fundamentalist nitwit, like a divisive dividing divider. Me here with my brick church wall and my northeastern snow covering over the dying and decaying American Spiritual Landscape. Well done. Let's not really talk it out and tell the truth about how bad things really are, about how angry God really is with sin, about how many women around the world are being smudged out in black by a religious system that hates them, about how homosexuality actually kills the soul, about how sinful we all really are. Let's just have another bun and talk more about the weather. It's the Anglican Way and it's worked for a long long time. But guess, what, I'm homeschooling, that is, indoctrinating my children, and so are a whole lot of other people, against this foolishness. And everyone else isn't bothering to have children at all. So eventually it will just end because there won't be any more people to pretend that it's really working.

spoiling children

Matt roasted a chicken on Sunday and, wonderfully, the children only ate half of it because of the potluck, so I cut the rest of it up and did it with onion, garlic, little sweet peppers, thyme, mushrooms and the rest of his gravy and then puff pastry not top. There wasn't any left. Not even a tiny speck. It's becoming so discouraging how much the children eat. There wasn't any breakfast left either--apples layered with brown sugar, butter and uncooked oatmeal and then baked for a while at 350 until bubbling and golden brown. I only made one pan. Stupid stupid. No growing child can be expected to eat only two bowls of baked apple and oatmeal (I'm sure this has already been invented, doesn't it have a name? Three layers. Apple, sugar, butter, oatmeal in that order?) and survive past ten in the morning. And because I guess I just don't have it together, I only have one tray of these for breakfast this morning.

And because I'm short sighted and foolish I've fallen into the terrible habit of heating milk for the children's tea and coffee in the morning. And me not a morning person. Matt came in shouting and waving his arms on Monday (Monday is his day for breakfast) at the request that he heat milk. "What have you done!?" He cried. 

"I'm sorry," I said, "I just think the coffee is better with the milk heated."

"Not for a seven year old!"

He's right, of course, but so am I. So, on that note, off I go to the kitchen because the piano teacher will be here in an hour and everyone will be starving to death.

the domino effect or the twirling cupboard, you choose

Matt took Elphine out to lunch yesterday which could have caused a spiraling disaster of jealousy and woe, had anyone else discovered their whereabouts. I stood around in the kitchen lying. " I don't know where they are. Did you look downstairs? Hmmm. Oh well." Then the boys decided they wanted to play something complicated and difficult that would only be messed up by little girls. So the little girls sat on the kitchen floor just whining and whining. So finally I gave them a plate of cookies and a jug of milk and a little metal Malian pot of warm water with a tea bag in it and they sat around for like three hours eating and drinking and pouring tea everywhere. They kept coming back for more sugar even though they started out with a half a cup. But then there wasn't any sugar on the floor when they were done so I suppose I may draw an obvious conclusion. All the while I took everything out of the Twirling Cupboard (the pantry that has shelves that twirl which seems like a remarkably efficient idea but is really more dark and easy to loose anything you're looking for in the midst thereof) and tried to make sense of to all because every time Matt has gone in to cook anything he hasn't been able to find his cinnamon sticks and has blamed me. Every Time. So I found them. And cleaned out all the dirt. Even though I'd said I would spend the time folding laundry. I didn't do that so I will have to do it today. Which means something else that I was probably going to do will have to be put off for another time. And yet being able to navigate through the Twirling Cupboard will make other parts of the day easier. And that is the way it is. If you do one thing that you know you ought to do, you haven't done something else also important. But that's ok. If nobody whines or blames me, I will battle back the incessant feeling that I'm forgetting to do something important and just twirl in my own dark inefficient way.

whacking at the cobwebs

Last week it occurred to me that the internet, upon which I am now posting, is a narrow and confining place, just like lots of other areas of life in January. Everybody gets so excited about the new year and all the weight they're going to lose and all the changes they're going to make. The glow of Christmas is all warm and life giving. Volumes are spilled about how a new year will bring a new dawn of peace and good will. Everyone wants peace, after all, and it will be easier to go to the gym this year than it was last year. It just will. 

And then the first day back to work after all the debauchery and partying and those most ordinary and average amongst us (me) conclude that it was all a bad idea--the world peace, the thinner waste line, the super duper awesome new school schedule. No, life will go on as it did before. We will just spin in our own stupidity and quietness because nobody cares anyway. And the internet is the perfect way to live out this boring and life sapping dream.

After having read everything there was to read about Chis Chirstie and Obamacare and the new Gates book (not that I read the book, oh no no, the internet addict only reads accounts of other people reading books), I went ahead and read about how the Obama's marriage is falling apart and that poor ship full of scientists stuck in the Antarctic in the summer time in the ice (hee hee hee). 

But then it appeared that I had come to the end. There didn't appear to be anything else to read.

Six or seven more scrolls through Facebook and I was filled with deep rebellion. I have already twice digested the 26 things strong minded people don't do. I have looked at all the memes there are to look at and even laughed at them. I have read all the advice and looked at all the recipes and been warned against the massive and horrific evils of vaccinating and not vaccinating, Islamic terrorism, children leaving church, and been twice through the 50 things you can do to make your kitchen more efficient.

And I feel very mentally squeezed into a small depressing box. I've tasted all the fruits the vast interwebs have to offer (well...not all of them...I'm not totally stupid) and at the end of my long search I am bored and not a tenth as smart as Solomon and every other single person in history and the world who doesn't even have a tiny number of the books or written material I have in my own bedroom.

So then I reread Coctail Time (PG Wodehouse as I'm sure you already know) and I feel the life returning to my heart and mind. Vigor and hope are slowly coming into my limbs. I will go clean the girls room. I will write something else in a place where not everyone will immediately read it. I will sweep the floor. Maybe the Obama's marriage is really on the rocks. How should I know? Why should I know? It's not important or interesting. More interesting and important is my own stupefied soul and the ennui that is so constantly pressing in from the gray weather and the church's brick wall. I don't need to constantly be making it worse by looking at pictures of sunsets and duck ponds with words scrolled across the front. I say constantly, for that is how much my wretched phone feels like it is in my hand. And the words are always so bossy--Live one day at a time! Treasure each moment! Don't be anxious! Pray for the children! Care for others!

Give me a break. For real. A real unbossed, unpious, disurgent, slightly more intelligent break. 

Not from blogging, of course. Please don't you take a break from reading me. That wouldn't do at all. Just please don't make me, or even let me, read any more drivel. 

baby it's cold out there

In spite of me owning awesome new long underwear, the dog will not go outside for more than 37 seconds, which means I haven't worn it outside for more than five minutes. In fact, he won't even join us for school in the sunroom unless he can be held by someone. Likewise the cat, who normally arranges herself all over the school books, stalked up to me as I sat shouting at Elphine that 'took' is NOT spelled t o e k e or whatever she was writing on her paper as if the English Language can be subject to her every lazy whim or fancy, "English," I thundered, "is difficult and beautiful and you! will rise to meet its standards!"...where was I?...oh yes, the cat jumped on my book and hit me with her vicious claw and then stalked away and I realized that I had done something wrong.

What was it? you ask. 

I had left the curtain in my bedroom closed during the five minutes of sunshine that graced our polar vortexed tundra yesterday. She stared at me with deep deep rage and meowed threateningly as I tied it back lest she smack me again.

Someone posted on Facebook yesterday a list of old words that describe very particular things--like, there's a word for the moment of sun in the middle of winter that provides momentary mental health and physical warmth. I didn't save the post so for three days have been troubled by knowing that there is such a word out there but I don't remember what it is. It's the knowing that's so painful. If I had never seen that there was this word, I would be perfectly comfortable.

Actually I'd just be irritated by something else.

These pictures were all taken by me last night. After sleeping for an entire day, they rearranged themselves and went back to sleep here.

In the morning I had to make the bed with the dog in it.

He would not budge. He bared his ridiculous underbite at me and growled. 

I should have just chucked him out. But I controlled myself as best I could. 

I am not a brute beast. I can rise above the weather and my circumstances to live in beauty and self control. I don't have to stay in bed all day just because it's really cold.

Do I want to? Yes of course. It seems the best and most natural thing to do. But I can cope. I can get up. I can do something useful. Anyway, tomorrow it's supposed to be like 29 degrees so that should better. With snow. More snow. And then rain. And then snow. And then rain. Until baseball starts in April and then it will just be very very very cold rain. So much to look forward to in the days ahead. Maybe I will just stay here and see if I can find that list on Facebook. 

we're not going out today

So we're in Epiphany now. The tree was undecorated and hauled out last night amidst squabbling  and crying and general mayhem. Matt roasted a piece of lamb and we distributed the last of the Christmas cookies. 

I had set the table in the usual way as if it was no big deal but Matt was so crestfallen that I put everything away and started again with a cloth and a nativity in the middle of the table.

And some Christmas Baubles. Since we had no frankincense or gold or myrrh.

I'm the only person in the house who is delightedly thrilled that Christmas is over. It was fun and sparkly, but the pine needles everywhere were grating on my nerves and I'm ready to get everyone into their school work.

I prefer the children when they are working on something. They have become dull and entitled and crying whenever they don't have a candy in their grubby fists. It's a pity lent is so late this year because they could really benefit from it now. 

Read in a variety of places that yesterday, Monday, is the unhappiest day of the year as everyone goes back to work and realizes that they have already failed at their resolutions. I think the children would probably agree today. But I'm so happy. First, as Alouicious would so helpfully enumerate, I don't have to go out in the weather. Second, Matt cleaned out the fridge last night so I don't have to.

Third, we're starting out the new year not behind in school. Fourth, I've worked out a comprehensive chore list so that everything is equal again. Fifth, I don't have to go outside. 

Alouicious is much devoted to numbering everything. It's so careful and orderly. We've all gotten into the habit. And now, I must arise and make some kind of gruel so that the children might discover more reasons to be dissatisfied with their poor wretched miserable existences.

Stay Warm!

reds and greys

Winter Storm Hurcules is bearing down upon us. Well, it's actually already here. Matt is out shoveling, bless him, and I am still in bed. The little girls are raging and shouting in their usual way. Ermintrude is snotting everywhere. I feel, in my soul, that I will soon be joining her--something about the terrible painful feeling in the back of my throat and the wooly fog in my mind and the sense of immanent death. It really feels to me like I am lying here wearing Alouicious' new helmet, even though I'm not.

They all look so exasperatingly healthy. Even Ermintrude is busting with energy. Wretched children.

We all enjoyed ourselves this last week, even to the point of it being just a little too much. Goose, Cornish Hens, an extra Turkey, a Beef Roast, little sweet peppers stuffed with blue cheese and then wrapped in bacon, Trifle. Yesterday, as I inhaled a tub of gumbo handed to me by a friend, I resolved never to eat anything again for a least three days. But then I split open a gorgeous sweet dripping red pomegranate and squeezed it into my glass of champaign.

All the eating, it's so delicious, but I do feel that if it goes on things will begin to unravel in my life and mind. A diet, or a fast, is what's called for in the first days of the new year.

And a fast would be fitting to mark the sorrow of loss, of grandparent withdrawal. We had such a good time with Matt's parents! Ice Skating, Star Wars, meal after meal after meal, little outings to the store, lots and lots of patient loving attention from someone who is not your mother and who thinks you should be allowed to eat as much candy as you want.

The stark cold gray of winter was genuinely suspended for a brief bright week of inside light and gold and red. For a fleeting moment I wondered if God is calling me to give up complaining about the weather in 2014.

But then I thought, that can't be right. Complaining about the weather is really who I am in my essential being. So for 2014 I'm going to just try to read a second book. I read one in 2013 so I feel up to the challenge of reading another one.

Beyond that, I plan to just take whatever God sends. Snow? I'll try to deal. Suffering? Hopefully that won't be what he sends but I won't say no. Inclinations to Prayer? Those I'll take. More work? Well, that's to be expected. Good rich things? So many good things were given in 2013 and God was so good, I know there will be many good things to accept from his hand.

Happy New Year! 

sermon from sunday: john 1:1-16

Lord, I pray that you will focus our minds and hearts on the great gift you have given us in your Son Jesus. I pray you will help us to receive this gift and carry it out into the world. Amen.

John 1:1

In the beginning

John the evangelist means for you to hear

in the very first line of his gospel

the first line of Genesis.

In the beginning,

God.

We are not next to the manger,

there are no shepherds here,

no Herod,

no wiseman,

no star.

We are beginning before everything came into existence,

when there was only God hovering over the face of the deep.

In the beginning there was only God.

And God spoke.

This is where John begins,

that primordial ancient first moment.

But so much has transpired since then.

We have hundreds of pages of history recounting the destruction of that original creation.

Now, at this moment,

In the beginning,

John wants you to be both at that first moment

but also thousands of years later at this second moment.

This is a new creation.

Watch how John builds just in this first verse 

In the beginning--creation

Was the Word--tuck this aside for a moment

The Word was with God--the Greek is more nicely rendered

'face to face' with God

looking at him,

like two people look at each other when they are talking,

two people who care for one another,

facing,

not eyes drifting up and around and away,

scattered,

uninterested,

that would be me when I'm talking to my kids--

shh, I'm on Facebook.

No, God and the Word are Face to Face.

They have communion with one another.

They understand each other.

This means they are distinct from one another.

Then the final note in the line,

The Word was God.

The Word was there in the beginning.

The Word is distinct from and intimate, face to face, with God.

The Word was God.

So what is the Word?

John is uses a Greek word, Logos.

The Greeks,
you might remember,
had a pantheon of gods,
a dizzying array of interesting deities to appease.
Zeus, Hera, Aphrodite, Apollo.
Each god had something they did for humanity.
They were distant,
living in the clouds of mount Olympus
but they interfered and meddled in the affairs of man.
They were not the embodiment of all that is good and pure and true.
They were glorious, but they looked and acted awfully human.
As the Greeks went along some of them noticed,
Heraclitus for example,
that in spite of the capriciousness of their gods,
there was an internal order to the physical universe.
There must be an omnipresent stabilizing influence or force that holds everything together.
Not a personal or knowable god,
but a force inherent within many of the attributes we find within God.
Heraclitus called this force the Logos.
John takes this word
Logos,
and uses it as a capstone for his own Hebrew knowledge of God.
God, John knows perfectly well,
is not just an impersonal rational force.
God is a Being who has not a body like men,
he cannot be seen because he is so holy.
He is in himself the definition of all that is good,
true, holy, beautiful, right and just.
And, moreover,
he is a covenant making God.
He relates personally to his creation.
Part of this relating is self revelation.
God reveals himself to his people primarily through language.
He spoke in creation and all things came into being.
He spoke to Adam and Eve in the garden.
He spoke to Noah and Abraham and Moses 
and Isaiah and Daniel and a whole lot of other people.
With words.
That were then written down.
Moses, for instance,
hearing words from God,
took an pen and wrote them in books.
These words were understandable.
It was possible to hear the law,
understand it
and then try to do it.
When you failed,
it would be clear that you had so failed
and clear what you needed to do about it.
God was not a capricious malleable manipulable impersonal force.
No, his words formed the world and the character of Israel.
God communicated through language that he wanted Israel to know and follow him.
To be face to face with him.
But Israel treated God like a capricious force whom they did not know.
They treated him like a stranger whose language they didn't understand.
Now consider the ordinary first century Jewish person
sitting in church next to the ordinary first century Greek person.
You're all stuffed in together in some catacomb,
the Romans are raging over the face of the whole earth,
you've been invited by a friend,
some guy gets up to read the gospel.
He holds it up and announces that it's God's Word,
and he unrolls it and says,
'In the beginning was the Word, Logos,
and the Word was face to face with God,
and the Word was God.'
Both of you together
Jew and Greek,
have your sandals shocked off of you.
The Logos, the rational force that holds the universe together,
is with God,
so distinct from him,
but also is God.
The Greek is shocked that the Logos is a relatable divine figure,
the Jew is shocked because it sounds like there's two gods when he knows there's only one.
The man reading the gospel continues to read, verse 2
"He was in the beginning with God."
So the Logos, the Word, is a he.
He was always there,
distinct from God,
because you can't be with someone if you are him.
Not an emanating avatar spirit force
but a person, a being.
Just as a little aside
it isn't any accident that our post post modern worldview
makes it hard for us to accept
The Word of God.
Both the book and the Person.
The attack on language,
the undermining of the ability of people to believe that they can know what words means,
that it doesn't matter what a person intends to say
it matters what you the hearer hear,
you can pour any meaning you want into any word because language is in itself incomprehensible.
This undermining of language is so subtle.
We can’t really know what the Bible means,
you might have heard someone say,
you interpret it one way,
I interpret it another.
It’s such a huge lie.
God designed you to understand words
with the ultimate plan that you would know and understand The Word.
So the Word was there in the beginning.
Not his beginning, our beginning.
Verse three, All things were made through him.
Not by him.
All things were made by the Father through the Son.
The verb, were made, indicates a one time thing--
this is the initial moment of creation.
The Father created through the Son, the Word.
Then John flips it around to the negative,
And not anything was made that has been made.
Has been made is perfect tense,
it indicates the going on of things.
This is what Paul has in mind in Colossians 1:17 when he says,
"and he is before all things, and in him all things hold together."
The Word is the Rational Logical Person,
not force,
whose power and will hold all things together.
The continuance of the created order is through the Word.
As you carry on with your everyday life
God is holding all things together through the Word.
As you go to work,
pay the bills,
scrape snow off the car,
waste a few hours on the internet because someone is wrong,
scramble to do something important you forgot,
muscling your way through each day,
so often a prisoner, a captive to your own mind,
your own world,
your own 'reality'
your very existence is in the palm of God's hand.
Or rather, in his mouth, his Word.
That you continue to draw breath is because he is exerting his power so that you will.
Do you ever worry that when you cry out to God in prayer
your voice is lost in the empty abyss of chaos and disorder?
I read after Mother Teresa died
that she had gone much of her adult life without feeling the presence of God.
But she didn't let that feeling inhibit her knowledge that God was there and true.
Without him, the Word, was not anything made that has been made.
Verse 4 And in him was Life.
It doesn't say,
In Him was death,
even though I always assume that to be the case,
assuming that God is out to get me.
No, in him was Life.
In creation God designed Adam and Eve to live forever.
Not a circle of life that includes death.
No, an unbroken line of life from your conception to all eternity.
Death is a shattering of God's creation.
The Word is Life.
That is why, when death was meted out on the one who is Life,
not only was the whole cosmos shaken,
death itself was shattered.
And his Life was the Light of men.
John loves all his words to have two or three meanings.
I think he means every kind of light here.
Real physical Light.
It was the first thing created.
And when all the lights go out, the Word will be the only light.
But John also means spiritual light.
His life was the light of men.
His life brings light to our spiritual darkness.
The light shines [present tense] in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.
The darkness has not destroyed the light.
It is not hard to feel sometimes like the darkness is awfully overcoming.
I've been reading Job over and over again accidentally all month--it's a long story--
and the darkness of his suffering is so immense.
He cannot heal himself.
He cannot get his children back.
He cannot get away from his grief.
He is helpless.
It feels like a great black cloud that can't ever lift.
Until God breaks in at the end of the book.
The darkness, however huge, however black, cannot overcome the light.
The cross, the moment of the greatest most profound darkness
could not prevail against the light.
The Light of the Word that lives in you through the Holy Spirit
cannot be overcome by your own darkness.
Sometimes we try to put out the light,
or we shove it in a corner.
But there's no wick that will eventually end,
no oil that will run dry.
You can't flick a switch.
You cannot destroy it.
Better not to try,
however painful it's illumination is.
I wish we had several weeks to spend on John the Baptist in verses 6-8
but there’s just one point I want to draw out.
Matthew 11 records John's disciples coming to Jesus to find out if he, Jesus, is the Messiah.
Jesus says this about John, verse 7 "what did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? Vs 9 a prophet? Yes, and more than a prophet....
Truly I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist."
In other words, John the Baptist is the greatest person ever to have lived.
Not Job, not the guy down the street, not you, no, John the Baptist.
And how well does the best person ever to live measure up to the Word?
Look over at verse 27. John the Baptist says of himself "I am not worthy even to untie his, Jesus’, sandals."
The lowest of the low, a slave or a servant would be the one to untie everybody's sandals.
But here, the greatest and best person ever John writes, verse 8 is Not The Light.
Verse 9 the True Light, the Word
This light was coming into the world.
Now watch the word World.
He was in the World--I think he means the physical created material world.
And the World was made through him--it belongs to him. He owns it.
But the World--now it narrows down to mean People--did not know him.
Not intellectually know.
No, Know like Adam knew Eve.
The world wouldn't be with him, face to face.
Then it narrows some more.
He came to his own people,
people he had made and revealed himself to,
had spoken with by the words of his mouth,
and his own people would not receive him.
They treated him like a stranger whose language they didn't understand.
I ran across a website last week set up by homeschooled children
who hated being homeschooled.
And hated their parents.
Boy, if you want to keep me up at night
tell me stories of children being irreparably estranged from their parents.
That's what we did to the light that came into the world.
We should have known him because he made us and spoke to us.
We did recognize him
but we chose to treat him like his language is incomprehensible.
This is so tragic.
But, verse 12, to all who did receive him
To be allowed to receive the light after having once rejected it.
To believe on his name. And not just the name.
The name encompasses the whole person.
To believe on his name is to believe in him.
To trust him, to accept him, to be face to face with him.
To those who are willing to receive him,
not like a stranger, or a guest,
but like your parents on Christmas Day, with joy and relief.
To those who believe in him he gives them the right
We're talking legal right, like in a court of law,
but the word indicates also something like authority.
He gives them the Authority to become children of God.
Not children born of blood, the old creation way, 
Nor of the will of the flesh--not by anything you can achieve or decide to do on your own
Nor of the will of man--nobody else can do it for you
But of God. God gives the right.
Verse 14
The Word became flesh.
God, the Word, became human.
The word flesh is just as it sounds, physical.
He didn't just look like a person.
He became a real person,
and his name was Jesus.
And he dwelt among us.
He pitched his tent.
Tabernacled.
Just like in the wilderness of Sinai when Bezalel and Oholiab
fashioned the Ark and the Tent
and then God,
in his glory descended
dwelt
in the tent sitting on the wings of the cherubim overshadowing the ark.
The Word tabernacled in a body
dwelt,
walked around,
ate dinner in the evenings,
spoke words.
And we have seen, says John, his glory,
the glory as of the only son--the unique, the single, the only--son of the father.
The people of Israel saw the glory of God in the cloud that led them through the Red Sea.
They saw the glory of God covering the mountain.
When Solomon consecrated the temple the glory of God filled it.
On the mount of transfiguration Jesus unveiled his glory for the inner circle of disciples.
But I think John means even more than that.
The glory of God, the Word was fully present in the flesh of Jesus.
When you saw Jesus walking around you saw the glory of God.
Vs 15 is important but it will have to be for another year.
Vs 16 From his fullness we have received grace upon grace.
The incarnation of the Son, the Word, the taking on of a body, was enough.
It was the fullest most complete revelation of God.
You take all the ocean of words that is the revelation of God in this book,
God's perfect revelation of himself,
that none of his words come back empty or void,
and you pour all these words into The Word,
into Jesus the Son
and nothing is lacking.
It is full.
There is a full complete revelation in Jesus for you to know to him, God, face to face.
You look at him, the Light,
and you receive more grace than you can ever ask for or imagine.

{phfr:pushing back the panic edition}

Every year I resolve to do more ahead of time and not freak out in these Last Days before Christmas. It's like the sun coming up. I make the resolution with monotonous regularity and then every year chuck it out in a wail of hysterical panic involving tears and recriminations against God, myself, Matt and reality. And then the next day I discover it's not so bad, carry on in a more measured way and then commit the same freak out on Christmas Eve. It is, as everyone knows, The Reason For The Season.

{pretty}

Some day, when I'm old and lonely and have a clean house and too much time on my hands (does that ever happen?) I want to live in this house with this tree and this beautiful Christmas Star and the snow coming down, exactly the way they've done it here. It's felicitous, serendipitous, beautiful, lovely. It almost makes me want to take the dog outside for a walk sometimes so I can see it. But not enough to actually go into the cold. Fortunately I took this picture so I can just look at it and mourn the loss past when it used to be warm enough to walk the dog (last week) and anticipate a glorious future of being able to do it again (maybe the weekend because it's getting up to 50 and all the snow is going to melt.)

{happy}

Because of the basement flooding the day before Thanksgiving, a moment Matt keeps describing as "a real blessing", his words, not mine, we had to throw tons and tons of stuff away and we managed to move all the toys up into the school room and the children's bedrooms, which started off a long domino effect of cleaning out the bedrooms and throwing almost everything away there also. And then, because it was so clean and uncluttered I turned my guilty gaze once more upon these hideous flowers I fitfully and distractedly painted on the girls wall last Good Friday after having a root canal.

As I painted I realized what a horrific thing I was doing but I couldn't stop and couldn't go back. Many of you who have visited me know that I don't normally do this. My living room is pretty well put together, I don't have perfectly foul taste, I'm not terrible at all I put my hands to. What Happened?

No one knows. Well, maybe God does. It's the result of sin in the world and in my life. But God is gracious and merciful and so last Satruday I tore apart a pile of old calendars and affixed them to the wall, covering the great offense.

And then I plunked some stuff on the boys wall so it looks less like a mental institution.

Someday this year we'll repaint the girls room totally. I hope. Maybe. May God give us a spare minute and a good color of paint.

{funny}

All these bins used to be filled with toys. Can you imagine? Wet toys. And now they're empty everything is washed and either put away or given away. What else is there to do but climb up into the bin?

"Get out!" I shouted as I snapped pictures.

And then, "No No! Don't get in!" as I snapped some more.

"Agh!! That's so dangerous!" I cried, snapping away.

"Ok! Now don't stand up!"

I had Elphine haul them out. And then I told them to never do that again. Ever. Ever. Ever. 

{real}

Nonnie (my mom) is flying home to Kenya on Sunday. 

As I was writing in wonderment my long post about what a calm and reasonable advent we've been having and how orderly and clean everything is it dawned on me that I owe it all to my mother. Not least for deciding to have me in the first place, but also for coming back to America for baby after baby and then for having to have new teeth and then for working so hard even while she's been in pain and woe. I will say. I am a bad person and I've enjoyed very much how cute and funny she is without front teeth. But apart from all the hard work keeping this place going along smoothly, we've had a really good time. I'm going to miss her and so will all the kids for different reasons. May we all gather in a lot of money and go visit her and my dad in Kenya sometime soon.

Until, have a Happy Christmas if I don't get back here before then!

the cat and the baby

blessed art thou

Now that Marigold is four she is doing and saying so many things that four year old children do--like obsessing over death and using language to express herself. So now in Sunday School (Catechesis of the Good Shepherd) instead of wandering around breaking things and rolling on the floor and whining and making me wish she was still in the nursery, she is breathless and engaged and often flapping her arms with excitement. All the lessons are hitting her little soul like a tuning fork and she can't stop talking or pause for breath or contain herself. Indeed, she doesn't speak here at home all that much, but in the atrium my whole hour is taken up with saying things like, " Please be quiet Marigold, it's my turn to talk. Shh. Let's be still for a minute and listen to Jesus." And so on and so forth. 

Last week we did the Annunciation, this week the Visitation. First off, as we gathered in a circle, Marigold was shouting and flapping, "Where is the Angel? Where is the Angel? "

"There is no Angel this week," I said.

"Mary is in the forest. Where is the Angel?" shouted Marigold.

"She's not in the forest," I said. 

I told the story, lit the candle, read the story, used the material, asked the wondering questions.

I wonder how Elizabeth felt when she heard the sound of Mary's greeting?

I wonder how Mary felt when she heard Elizabeth's beautiful words?

I wonder how Elizabeth's baby knew and recognized Mary's baby?

General silence.

"I don't know," said one of the boys.

"Have either of you boys ever been around a new tiny baby before?" I said, trying to get the boys to care. 

"Oh yeah," said one of them, "I have a baby brother."

"What do babies do?"

"They cry and stuff" he said.

"Do they know and recognize you when they are tiny like that?" I asked.

"My brother knew me."

"Did he know you before he was born?"

"Nah," he said.

"I wonder how John knew Jesus?" I asked again.

Bored Silence.

"Maybe somebody told him," said the other little boy.

"That's a very good thought," I said and then broke all the rules. "I'll tell you who told him, The Holy Spirit told him."

General silence interrupted by Marigold flapping and breathing heavily and muttering about Jesus and the Angel and Mary and the Cross.

Then she shouted, "Jesus came forth from Mary!"

I fell back in astonishment, "that's very true. Would anybody like to pray?"

Marigold launched right in. "Thank you for the candles and Jesus dying on the cross and thank you for Baby Ermintrude who is a baby who cries. I'm not a baby who cries. Thank you that I'm not a baby like that baby over there," she continued," that baby who cries."

7 quick takes: various festivities, jumbled week, tra la la

one

Romulus, just now as he was being hurried along by his father to men's bible study, justifying his choice of shoes...

Matt: You shouldn't wear cleats over to the church. It's not good for the cleats or the floor.

Romulus: Well, it's the only way I can really hurt anyone even though I'm not going to.

Matt: You shouldn't wear them to church.

Romulus: Well, I was planning just to wear them just this time.

two

My mother took it into her mind to make cookies with the children.

I know! Crazy! 

I was totally amazed. She made several kinds of dough and kept the children organized so that they worked in shifts and came out each with a large bag of cookies. It was calm and orderly and a good time was has by all. Extraordinary.

It won't happen again until she comes back. But now none of the children will be able to complain that they didn't make Christmas cookies as a child.

three

And last week she presided over the making of Ugali and Da.

You can't really see the Da in the back. Da is basically dried hibiscus flower that you can make into a  beautiful  Christmas drink or dole into little cups for communion in Africa. Ugali is corn meal mush molded into a ball and eaten with sauce. Maybe sometime I'll do a whole post. I sat and finished if off myself and drank the remaining Da out of everyone's cups when the philistine children had all left it and run off to play. The whole moment was one of true nostalgia for me because, again weirdly and uncharacteristically, I sat down to play the piano while the Da was wafting over the house and as I pushed my sore thumb into a horrible hard key I was transported back to the moment at age of 13 or 14 when I sat down to play a piano recital mere moments after having my hand beat apart by a cat. So painful. So long ago. Same feeling in the thumb.

four

While the children were quietly and calmly cutting out cookies in turn the remaining ones made little femo nativity figures. They did a whole scene which I have yet to bake, and they will probably give it as a present which will be wonderful.

Such a strange advent this has been. Children making things. Cookies baked. The house decluttered and cleaned. Everything sorted through and two cars worth of stuff taken out of the house. For real. All gone. Stuff I kept thinking I'd get rid of but never got around to. All my shopping, such as it is, is done.

And

five

We've even had time and energy to do a little advent devotional some evenings.

We read the actual bible, have an interesting discussion about it. Sing a song. We have even prayed. I'm not kidding you. One night, everyone took a turn praying. I can tell that you don't believe me, nor should you, but I took the picture to prove it.

six 

And this last Monday, as a way of grieving over the loss of our Magic of Christmas Prelit Snap Together in Thirty Seconds No Crying Children Tree, we went to lowes and shelled out money for a real fat beautiful tree that has to be watered and everything. We decorated it and watched part one of the Hog Father.

Of course, in my heart, I wish we lived in a Tasha Tudor world where we wander out into the woods and cut a tree and decorate it on Chriatmas Eve. Or rather, watch a paid staff decorate a tree. Indeed, I expected to "decorate" on Christmas Eve because I expected to be busy, out of control, running like mad, freaking out in my usual Advent way.

Decorating at the end of Advent is what happens to people like me who can't get their lives together and who are trying to do too. many. things.

Christmas decorating is the cake topper on the cake of a life lived in insanity and woe.

Wanting to fulfill everyone else's hopes and dreams. Not awknowledging that you have any yourself. Believing wrongly that you are a selfless life giving mother who only worries about what every else wants. Not admitting to yourself that you have some kind of hope and desire yourself that you can't fulfill because you haven't figured out what it is. So then it is impossible to make anyone else's dreams come true because you yourself are a muddle.

seven

For me, when we were standing around in the freezing cold at Lowes I realized as I rummaged around in a bin of evergreen all wound together that what I really really really wanted was to hang evergreen right here. That's what I wanted.

It's what I want every year but I never think it can actually happen.

Of course, it truly doesn't matter what I want. The whole point of Advent, in my mind, is that we have time to come up against reality. The whole world is rushing around saying one very clear thing about what is important and what matters--namely, fulfilling and adoring me, sometimes even through the giving of gifts to other people so that they will like me as much as I like myself. It's The Reason for the Season and I can fully get on board with it. Me me me. I am totally in the 'Spirit of Christms' all year long. Meanwhile, God is also saying something clear about what is important and matters. He does desire for me to be fulfilled and loved and he was willing to do whatever it took for that to happen. He laid aside everything to come be with me. But the only way for him to love me and for me to love myself is for him to pry my dead lifeless ego out of my clenched fists, prying one hurting finger apart at a time so that I can let go and he can take away. And when the hand is finally open and all the unmet and ridiculous expectations are lying in a heap on the floor, he can step into that empty space himself.