WHAT TO DO?

There are people in this world who, when they hurt you and you somehow find the courage to say "That hurt me," their response - "You're too sensitive," "You need to toughen up," "It was just a joke" - their response makes you feel guilty for being hurt, and although they were the one who threw the side punch or made the unkind comment, you end up believing you're the one who needs to apologize, for having been hurt at all.

And yet...

These same people, when you do resolve to not be so sensitive and you do "toughen up," they accuse you of being emotionally distant, so that, whether you express your emotions or you do not express your emotions, you are wrong.

Always wrong.

I understand that now...that there are such people in the world.

I understand now, but, as hard as I try, I cannot figure out what to do with that.

A SMALL THING

Today, my math teacher dedicated class time to a review session for an upcoming exam. As students filed into the classroom, I took my regular seat at the front row of tables and began unpacking my binder, calculator, etc.

"How was your weekend?" I asked the quiet young woman who sits to my right.

"Pretty good," she nodded. After she arranged her notes, paper, pencil, and calculator on the table in front of her, she stood and pulled a small purple box from her backpack. "Here," she smiled as she set something in front of me.

It was a Valentine card...you know, the little paper kind we used to trade in bulk way back in elementary school. Attached to the card, a small piece of candy.

"Wow!" I picked up the card. "Thank you!" Such a simple thing, and yet it significantly brightened my day this gray, rainy Monday.

Then, my young math neighbor stood and quietly distributed similar Valentines to every single person in the class. A whispered murmur of "Thank you!," "Cool!," "Thanks!" rippled through the room. Finally, she set a last simple Valentine on the teacher's lectern and took her seat.

And then, my teacher entered the room and we reviewed for Wednesday's test.

Fifty minutes later, chairs scraped, zippers zipped, and boots scuffed in the chaos of students leaving for another class. One young man paused at our front table before he headed out the door: "Thank you for the candy." My young friend simply smiled her quiet smile.

Dr. S glanced up from the lectern at the front corner of the room. He cocked his head to one side. "Hey..." My young neighbor turned her attention to him. "Hey..." - a broad smile lit up his face - "Thank you."

A single college professor and a roomful of anxious math students - each of us blessed by one very simple, quiet, unexpected gesture of kindness.

I learned so much more than math in class today.

NEED HELP? (Hint: The answer is YES.)

One reason I love my job:

People I meet in the Emergency Department and people who have been admitted to the hospital do not pretend that they are perfectly fine and don't need any help. On the contrary, they come to the hospital precisely because they know they are NOT fine and they DO need help. And, as a rule, they are truly grateful for the help hospital staff provide.

People outside of the hospital? That's another story.

Here's the irony. We are ALL broken, wounded, diseased, scarred, bleeding out our ears, desperately in need of help. ALL of us. And yet, so many people deny they have any problem at all.

Like the chronically drunk uncle who replies, when confronted by family about his excessive drinking: "I don't have an alcohol problem. You are the ones with a problem. You are the ones who need help."

Or the abusive husband: "I don't have a problem. She's the problem. She's the one who needs counseling."

Or the angry teenager: "I don't have an anger problem. It's everyone else - they're the ones with the problem. If they understood me better, they wouldn't make me so angry!"

Here's another irony: people who know they are broken, who know they need help - like the people I meet every day at work - they gratefully receive help, and very often, they get better. They heal; they get stronger; they experience renewed health and vigor.

But those who deny that they need help - like so many of the I-don't-have-a-problem, I'm-fine people I encounter outside the hospital - they refuse help, and they get sicker, weaker, more broken. Often, sadly, they spread brokenness and disease to the people closest to them.

What about you? Are you broken, sick, scarred, bleeding?

If your answer is - "I'm fine. Really. But now, so-and-so, SHE has a problem..." - well, maybe you should get a second opinion. I think maybe you haven't accurately diagnosed your symptoms.

And if your answer is - "Yes. Yes, I am broken. I need help..." - well, I know a really Great Physician.

I see Him at work, every day.

ARE YOU A CLEANER? OR A NOT-CLEANER?

Last year, I tackled the enormous task of cleaning out the boys' room upstairs. It was time. My "boys" are all grown men now, and they all have places of their own.

Several times in the process of sorting and cleaning out, I gave up. I walked out of the room, closed the door behind me, and vowed, "I'm not going back in there. Ever." But then I'd get over my cleaning slump, put the hazmat suit back on, and head back in.

Cleaning wasn't entirely without sweet moments of nostalgia and unexpected flashes of humor. If I encountered something I didn't know what to do with, I'd take a picture and message the boys. "What is this? Keep, give to somebody (who?), or throw away?" For example, I found several heavy steel rods in one of the closets.

Me: "What are these?"
One of my sons: "Rods from a foosball table."
Me: "Why do you have foosball rods?" (We have never owned a foosball table.)
Son: "Because you never know when you might want to make something really cool out of foosball table rods."
Me: "?"
Son: "Ditch them."

Finally, after several months of blood, sweat, and tears, the room was clean. I messaged the young men, "You're welcome." When I die and they don't have to miss a month of work to clean out all that mess after the funeral, they can thank me then.

I am happy to say that now, when friends stop by on short notice and need a place to camp for the night, we have a lovely room waiting for them. In fact, my daughter and I like the room so much, now that it's clean and tidy, that it's become a favorite place to write and study.

But cleaning out the boys' room...that was last year.

This year, I'd like to conquer the closet under the stairs (currently almost a bio-hazard), the laundry room (not too bad, just needs tidying), and the downstairs front bedroom (which is not really a bedroom at all, but an in-house, climate-controlled storage unit for dead computers, busted pottery, outdated textbooks, and other mysterious treasures).

Why am I writing all of this?

I have learned there are two kinds of people in the world. Actually, there are infinite kinds of people, but today, I have two particular kinds in mind: people who clean, and people who don't. People who say, "No one's even thought about those fooseball rods in years. Why bother messing with them now?" - and - people who say, "If no one is going to use these things, why are they still taking up space in the closet after all these years? If we clean out all this junk, someone can actually hang clothes in here."

I am a person who cleans. I don't particularly like cleaning, but I do it anyway, because excessive clutter makes me feel claustrophobic and because STUFF, for some reason, drains me emotionally. Seriously. All that STUFF up there in the attic? I can't see it, but I know it's up there, and it feels like a tremendous weight suspended above my head.

Here are a few things I've learned about being a cleaner:

My being a cleaner sometimes makes the non-cleaners around me anxious. Just as STUFF makes me feel claustrophobic, STUFF makes some people feel safe. Getting rid of stuff causes them general uneasiness. I need to remember this and to be sensitive to the proclivities of the people around me.

After the cleaning is finished, everyone actually appreciates the resultant order, even the non-cleaners. I need to remember this, too, when the comments and angst of non-cleaners make me feel like giving up. Be sensitive, but persevere.

Routine housework = less work when you minimize clutter. Mopping the floors, for example: soooo much easier and faster when I don't have to shift a bazillion piles of stuff out of the way to get to the floor in the first place.

Not only is a de-cluttered house easier to clean: it often stays cleaner, too. I finished cleaning the boys' room last fall and, amazingly, it has stayed tidy. Not because no one is using it - we are using it, every day. I think it's because we enjoy having a nice place to write and do homework and to share with friends, and we kinda want to keep it that way.

Now, I need to get back to work on the closet under the stairs. I'm super pumped, though - I found a piece of the closet floor this morning! Let's do this!

COME ON OVER

I had the privilege of meeting several members of my oldest son's seminary family a couple of weeks ago. The gracious, open, honest, unpretentious hospitality of his "other mother" and the warm affection between his brothers and sisters - no wonder my son loves these people so!

We've been having lots of conversations in my family lately about hospitality...what real hospitality is, what it is not, obstacles to hospitality, how to create opportunities for hospitality, how our personalities influence the ways we practice hospitality. And in Sunday school, we are working through Scott Sauls's book, Befriend, and discussing the need every human being has for intimate relationship.

I am learning that true hospitality is an invitation to true intimacy.

There is a kind of false hospitality - I invite you into my world on my terms, when I am ready, when I feel comfortable with having you in my space. When my house is clean and the fridge is well-stocked. When I am fairly confident your kids won't break my things or get on my nerves, or when the weather is nice so we can send the little heathens outside to play. When I'm having a good day (certainly not when I'm feeling down or when I'm wearing the same yoga pants I've worn the past three days). When I am caught up on chores and work so that I am not distracted by the pressure of uncompleted tasks - after all, I want to be able to give you my full attention. (Because that's true hospitality, right?)

When I invite you into my home under these terms, I am able to maintain the appearance of some degree of competence. I make sure that you see only the "Me" I want you to see. Oh, I may let you peek a sliver of my humanity - "Sorry about the cat hair on the sofa!" - I wouldn't want you to think I am perfect, of course.

I may even brag about the clutter - "Don't mind the mess. You're welcome here anytime!" - but if I'm honest, I say things like that to assure myself I'm being hospitable, when actually, I'm asserting my control over the terms of our interaction. (My house is a mess, but I know that and I'm okay with that, and if I weren't okay with that, you wouldn't be here.) Maybe if I insist that you are welcome in my messy house, neither of us will notice that you are not welcome in my messy heart.

This is not true hospitality, and it does not foster true intimacy. It creates an invisible barrier: you can come this close, but no closer.

I commented to one of the kids last week that I am so done with the I-need-to-clean-the-house-before-you-come-over routine. Really, I am. Let me be honest: I am a type A, cleanie person. Yes, I would prefer that the floor wasn't crunchy and that every horizontal surface in my house didn't look like the site of an archaeological excavation. But the truth is, if I wait to ask you over until those things happen...well, don't hold your breath while you wait for an invitation! And for Pete's sake, do not show up uninvited!

Go ahead...show up uninvited. Please, show up uninvited! I'm okay with that, really, regardless of what my house looks like.

But while I am okay now with letting you see the mess and chaos that often characterize my home decorating, what I am not okay with is letting you see the mess and the chaos that often characterize my inner house. You are welcome in my house, but not in my heart.

Just as thinking I need to mop the floors and wipe down the counters can be a hindrance to welcoming you into my home, so thinking I need to appear cheerful or spiritually "together" (Praise Jesus! all the time!) can be a hindrance to welcoming you into my heart. Both are hindrances to hospitality. Both are hindrances to true intimacy.

God - with the grace of seven children - cured me of the first. Curing me of the second is taking a little longer.

Can I let you in on a secret? So much of the time, regardless of how I look on the outside, I am an emotional, relational, and spiritual disaster. Like stinky soul laundry, mildewing in the washing machine. Heart fungus, like a pink ring in the toilet bowl. Why bother?, like last week's bacon grease, spattered on the cook top.

If I invite you into my heart - if I practice true hospitality - there's a good chance you will see some nasty stuff. If I say, "Come on over anytime!" and you show up unannounced, I may not have time to shove all my emotional crap into a black bag that I can hide out on the back porch. Am I willing to risk that?

Lately, more and more, the answer is: Yes.

Because it's time. And because I have seen firsthand how incredibly beautiful true hospitality - heart hospitality - is.

SKIN TIGHT

"I feel so angry, and so hurt, and so very sad right now. How is it even possible to have so many big emotions, all jumbled up inside of me at the same time?!"

I don't know how it is possible, sweet sister, but I do know that it is. I know that some people are bigger on the inside than they are on the outside. That wrapped within modest packages of skin and good manners, whole worlds lie hidden, teeming with life, kingdoms in uneasy alliance, creation, festival, adventure.

The four Pevensie children stepped through the door of a rather ordinary wardrobe and discovered a forest, then a country, then many countries, a whole new world of wonders, and eventually, a land without end. They found eternity.

So it is with some people. Some people are bigger on the inside than they look on the outside.

"I'm really very simple. With me, what you see is what you get."

I don't know how this is even possible, but I do know that it is. Some people are so not complicated. Their inner worlds are like cafeteria trays, with little compartments that keep everything nice and tidy: no applesauce bleeding into the mashed potatoes, no juice from the green beans sogging the bread. When asked how they are doing, they answer quickly and easily - "I'm fine" - and they actually sincerely mean what they say.

So it is with some people. Some people are exactly the same size on the inside as they are on the outside. What you see really is what you get.

Since that terrible day that our first parents decided "I will be god" - and thus, necessarily, that you must be less than, since I, being god, am now the standard - since that day, an awful tension has existed between those whose skins fit them well and those whose skins barely contain the worlds roiling beneath. We look at each other as...well...as less than:

"You are so shallow."
"You are too complicated."

"Do you ever really think at all?"
"You think too much."

"You say, 'I'm fine.' What does that even mean?"
"I can't deal with all your emotions. They are too confusing."

I confess that, as one whose inner world stretches out of sight of even my own eyes - in fifty-three years, I have only begun to map the nearer coastlines and contours - I have often felt that something was "wrong" with me. What  is wrong with me that inclines me to puzzle over seemingly-simple questions, that draws my mind's eye to a horizon others do not see, that marries so many conflicting emotions into one tumultuous dance?

This skin is so tight! I have looked with envy at those whose skins fit their inner worlds like tailored suits.

But I am learning...

God made both kinds of people. He delights in both. He uses both for kingdom work.

Does your skin feel tight, like worlds inside strain against the buttons? Or does your skin fit just right? How cool that God made us both imago dei!

ONE BIG BRUSH

A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte
by Georges Seurat

A young friend recently commented to me that we often want to "paint people with one big brush."

It is so much easier, we think, to understand and to relate to people if we can categorize them as purely wicked, or purely good. But people are not that simple. A phrase I've been hearing a lot lately is, "People are so complicated." Yes, yes, we are!

I have a friend who is one of the kindest, most generous, most upbeat people you could ever meet. When she walks into the room, it's like the sun comes out. But my friend also has bouts of melancholy, and she has a thin vicious streak that will cut you to the heart if provoked. My friend is not either/or - sunshine or shadow, sweetness or meanness. She is both.

The same is true of myself. I would really like to believe that I am nothing-but-good. Or, if I'm not all good, that at least I'm 100% not-that-bad. Yet even on my best day, I find great black shards of wickedness in my heart. Knowing this about myself gives me pause when I am tempted to "paint" another person with one big brush.

We are like pointillist paintings by Georges Seurat or Paul Signac. A million-million tiny dots of pure color, applied to a canvas in distinct patterns to create a unique image. So many colors. So many tiny brushes. As paint is applied to the canvas of my life and to the lives of those around me, I must remember to step back from the canvas occasionally to get a broader perspective. Most of all, I must trust the Painter.

God is not sloppy. He chooses each color and each brush, makes each stroke with surgical precision. I must trust that He has some good purpose for both the shadow and the light, the pleasant and the painful. I must rest in the promise that in Glory, all of God's work will be unveiled to reveal a true masterpiece.

THE RECIPROCITY OF HOSPITALITY

Concerning hospitality, I am still processing...

In last Wednesday's post, I concluded that true hospitality requires both a generous heart and great courage, because true hospitality means inviting others into our world to commune with us not as visitors, but as intimates. (Read full post HERE.)

But hospitality is not a one-way transaction: hospitality is a dialogue. True hospitality entails bold, sacrificial action, and that action in turn necessitates a re-action. One person extends hospitality; another person receives that hospitality.

Post Japan, I have been trying to make sense of my experience of hospitality here at home in the hills of Tennessee. While I feel that many of us good ol' Southern folk have traded big, brave, genuine hospitality for its pale, timid, weaker little sister - Good Manners - I fear that many of us have also forgotten the art of reciprocity: we have forgotten how to truly receive. We have lost the gift of genuine "Thank you."

Like hospitality, the genuine "Thank you!" is a big, bold, courageous, sacrificial thing, too. It means laying aside my expectations and preferences, and actively choosing to be content with - no, to even delight in - that which I have been given. It means celebrating with my host, instead of just nodding and smiling politely from the sidelines. It means eating the octopus balls when what I really want is pork chops and gravy...and then realizing that the octopus balls are, yes, actually quite delicious.

Oh, how prone I am to "What I'd really prefer is..." - and - "Can I please have ---- instead?" - and - "Do you have anything else?" But true hospitality means meeting the light in my hostess's eyes as she offers me her holiday best with a reciprocal light in my own eyes that says, "Oh, how lovely!"

Alas! I find that I am prone to be DOUBLY inhospitable - how often I fail at hospitality in both directions!

Extending true hospitality requires a generous and courageous heart. Receiving hospitality requires a generous and courageous heart, too.

I want to be that big and that brave, after Japan.

AFTER JAPAN: HOSPITALITY

Life presents relationships, challenges, and experiences that are best described as before-&-after events.

They create clear lines of demarcation in how we think, feel, relate, and engage - who we were before, who we are after.

Before Christ. After Christ.
Before children. After children.
Before cancer. After cancer.
Before Japan. After Japan.

Two completely different worlds.

So, how am I different, after Japan?

I am still processing, so my answer to that question is not yet fully formed. I do know, however, that I am not the same person I was a month ago. I do not want to be the same person.

While in Japan, my thinking was challenged significantly in two important areas: 1.) hospitality, and 2.) the visible church.

I was born and raised in the South. Hospitality is as much a part of my heritage as grits and cornbread. Everyone's heard of "Southern hospitality," right? We Southerners speak Hospitality fluently - it's our native tongue.

That's what I thought before Japan.

After Japan, I'm not so sure. I'm afraid many of us Southerners have traded true hospitality for a weak impostor: good manners.

Don't get me wrong. I'm all for good manners and polite discourse. We should endeavor to always treat others with courtesy, respect, and kindness.

But good manners - does not equal - hospitality. Let me try to explain with an illustration...

Good manners is greeting the visitor at church on Sunday with a smile and a handshake: "Good morning! Welcome! We are so glad you are here. I hope you enjoyed the service, and that you'll come back again soon."

Hospitality is...

The young woman invited us to her house for the weekend. "Please! Come and stay! I want you to be my guests!" After the six of us arrived at her tiny abode, the woman confided to my daughter, "I am so glad you are here! But I wonder...where will everyone sleep?"

The houses I visited in Japan were small: a compact kitchen/living area, a bathroom/washroom, a sleeping room. Many single college students in America live in apartments that in Japan would accommodate a family of four.

A well-mannered Southern hostess would know better than to invite overnight guests to her house if she did not have space to accommodate them. Better to just smile, shake hands, say "So nice to meet you!" - and leave it at that. Be polite...but don't get all crazy!

But for my young Japanese friend, love for others trumped everything else. Her great concern was not - Do I have enough beds/bowls/cups for everyone? Rather, her great desire was fellowship, conversation around a common table, shared stories and laughter. She raced past "So nice to meet you" and pressed right on into "Please, come into my world, such as it is. I want to share my life with you!"

I visited many beautiful places while I was in Japan: ancient temples, fabulous gardens, parks and restaurants. Nothing was as beautiful as my young friend's home and the hospitality she and her family extended to us there.

After our visit, my daughter commented that true hospitality requires courage, because it demands that we be vulnerable. True hospitality means inviting others into our world, to commune with us not as visitors, but as family.

Politeness, good manners - those, while good, generally require neither courage nor vulnerability. They also don't require much heart. I can be polite even if I don't feel like it, even if I don't like you.

True hospitality requires a generous heart, and, yes, Martha, it requires courage.

I want to be that big and that brave, after Japan.

THIS BIG, BEAUTIFUL BRIDE

When you attend a very small church in a rural community that has little interaction with the world beyond the county line, it is easy to develop a small, narrow understanding of how Jesus's people look and talk and how they worship together.

It is good, sometimes, to step outside the bounds of one's normal routines of interaction, to see Christ's church with fresh eyes, to listen with fresh ears.

Sunday, I was blessed to attend the International Church in Takasaki with my daughter and her family. Among the small group of worshipers were representatives from five continents. The sermon was presented in two different languages. Believers from Italy, Zimbabwe, and Japan raised their voices together in songs of praise to our Redeemer.

It was a long service. Translating a sermon into multiple languages takes time. Singing a hymn in first one language, then in another, takes time. It was a long service; but reluctant to part after the closing prayer, those gathered lingered late into the evening for conversation and fellowship.

I was a visitor, an outsider...and yet I was made to feel very much at home. I, too, was loathe to part company with these precious believers.

I wonder: would these sweet brothers and sisters have been welcomed as warmly and made to feel as much at home if they attended my little church in the hills of Tennessee? Or would they have been too different?

* * *

After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, "Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb." - Revelation 7:9-10

THIS SIDE OF THE CHRYSALIS

A beautiful end-of-summer morning. If I were six years  old, I'd still be in my pajamas, eating Lucky Charms and drinking chocolate milk while watching cartoons at my grandmother's house. Instead, I'm enjoying the weather out on the porch swing as I work, wearing stretchy pants and drinking iced tea, chilling with the cat.

Six of one, half a dozen of the other, as the saying goes.

* * *

"Eeeeew!" This was my teenage daughter's response when she learned that our 80-something-year-old neighbor was dating again. When we drove past J's house, he and his lady friend were riding a four-wheeler together in the field next to the highway. "Old people should not be dating!"

I laughed and tried to explain that, inside our heads, we "old people" feel as young as we ever were. Our bodies may be wrinkled and saggy, but our eyes and our hearts are as bright as ever.

My young daughter remained skeptical. Apparently, she thinks there should be an age limit to new romances. "People in their 80s should not be dating," she protested. "That's just weird!"

I decided it would be pointless to bring up my friend who made the newspaper for being, at the age of 98, the oldest person to apply for a marriage license in Obion County. What about Abraham and Sarah, in the Bible? Well, that wasn't a new romance, so maybe their story didn't weird her out so much.

* * *

There are some songs that, when they come on the radio, you just have to dance to them, no matter how old you are.

"Is that your daughter?" The middle-aged man on the other side of the gas pump nodded toward the van I was fueling.

"Yes."

"Well, tell her I didn't mean to be rude. I was staring at her rather hard when I pulled in next to y'all. She was acting kind of strange," he explained, "and I wondered if something was the matter. She looks about the same age as my daughter. I just wanted to make sure everything was okay."

"Yeah, everything's fine," I smiled. I bit my lip to keep from laughing. Thank you, Jesus, that he didn't notice her mom, car dancing alongside her in the front passenger seat. He'd have thought we were both completely whacko!

Maybe my daughter and I should act more mature when we are out running errands in town and our favorite songs come on the radio. Maybe, but why?

* * *

When Sally directed us into the chair pose at yoga practice this morning, knees around the room crackled like Pop-Rocks in Dr. Pepper, my knees included.

When I practice yoga, I feel like I am about twenty-three years old. I feel strong and alive and positive, like life has many good things and lovely adventures in store.

My knees remind me that I am fifty-three, actually, not twenty-three. Such disparity between the physical me and the me inside my head!

* * *

When the kids were little, we did one of those butterfly garden kits for a science lesson. Eggs hatched into caterpillars. The caterpillars wiggled and squirmed and fed on rich brown goo until they grew large and swollen and stiff.

Like creaky grandfathers, they slowed to complete inactivity, wrapped themselves in small woolen blankets, and slept the sleep of old age.

But in their hearts, they were not old at all. They were young. Young and very much alive.

In fact, these ancient larvae were so young that they had not even truly been born yet, not born as what they were ultimately meant to be.

Then one day, immobility and brown wrinkles gave way to ravishing color and lighter-than-air new life.

Such magic took my breath away.

* * *

Inside our heads, sweet daughter, we are all very young. Does that seem strange? It shouldn't. Not when you think about it, really.

Here, whether we are eighteen or eighty-eight, we are all still this side of the chrysalis, and that is very young indeed.

MANY MEs

I have written here recently about Reginald-the-Lamb's ornery refusal to behave when my daughter works with him each day. I wrote Saturday about Reginald's star performance in the ring: you could not have found a better-behaved lamb!

Guess what? Sunday, back at home, Reginald popped right back into his familiar ornery belligerence. I was shocked. After his fabulous performance on Saturday, I thought Reginald had moved past such naughtiness. I expected him to behave nicely-ever-after. Boy, was I wrong!

I know people like Reginald - people who speak and behave one way in a particular setting, then speak and act a totally different way in the "show ring"...at church or among peers or in front of coworkers.

Then, there are those people who have a "self" inside their heads and another "self" that engages with the world in which they live. This duality is something I struggle with myself - I know my intentions; never mind what my actual actions say about me!

Why am I writing today about these Many Me-s (both my own, and those of others with whom I relate)?

First, because I do not want my good intentions - the Me inside my head - to anesthetize me to the self-deception I practice when I consistently fail to act on those good intentions. My actions testify to what I truly believe. My actions expose who I am, as opposed to who I think I am. Sadly, the ideal me living inside my head often proves to be a fantasy, an illusion.

I once heard a theologian describe shalom as a kind of integrity: things are what they appear to be. No deception, no duplicity, no confusion. On an individual level, shalom-ness is integrity of person - it is being the same inside and out, in our thoughts and in our practice, in private and in public.

I want my desiring and my doing to demonstrate that kind of personal integrity. Oh, how I long for shalom!

Second, I am writing because - there really are Reginalds in the world. Reginald A, a model lamb in the show ring - is the very same lamb as - Reginald B, who will knock you down and trample you for sport.

I have learned that the Susie I know and the Susie you know may be two completely different people. And when you are crying because Susie broke your heart, I do not need to tell you how wonderful Susie is...I do not need to explain to you how you've got Susie figured out all wrong...I do not need to tell you, "Well, if you would just do [fill in the blank], Susie would be a better friend."

Instead, I need to listen, to grieve with you, and to pray that God will help us all to love more like Christ.

But he looks so sweet and cuddly!

YET MORE LESSONS LEARNED FROM A LAMB

Last summer, my daughter cared for and trained a lamb to show at the county fair. This summer, she is training Lamb #2. Once again, I am learning much from Helen's lamb project. I am learning things like...

Our greatest strength is also often our greatest weakness.

In the ring, an owner wants her lamb to brace. Bracing is a precise, tensed stance that displays the lamb's musculature and conformation. It's sort of like a body builder striking a show-off power pose.

Last year's lamb - Bertie - was a sweetheart. He loved Helen and snuggled up to her like a puppy. That sweet temperament, however, was devoid of the somewhat aggressive physicality needed in the show ring. Bertie was so completely chill that "flexing his muscles" was a completely foreign idea to him.

Last year's lamb - Bertie - was a sweetheart!

This year's lamb, Reginald, is a beautifully-muscled powerhouse full of spunk and spit. He's the cocky sheep version of "Hey, Baby, check out these glutes!" Reggie braces perfectly, almost instinctively. The down side of Reggie's great physicality and energy is that there is no "Chill" setting on his temperament gauge.

This year's lamb - Reggie - is an aggressive stud muffin.
(Um, well, except that he's not actually a stud.)

The challenge Helen faces - the challenge we all face in some area of our lives - is: do I see my circumstances as a blessing/opportunity, or do I see them as a problem/curse? And, am I mindful of how my strengths are also my areas of weakness, so that I can correct my weaknesses as I endeavor to develop my strengths?

Tenacity: the stubbornest girl/lamb wins.

Reginald is not very smart. He IS very stubborn. As Helen leads Reggie around the yard each day for exercise, he bucks, jumps, sits back on the lead and resists her every way imaginable.

If you watched Helen working with Reggie this morning, you would have wondered if that lamb had ever been handled by a human before. Yes, he has. A lot. Still, Reggie begins each workout with the resist-at-all-costs mentality of a 3-year-old human.

Reggie has tried Helen's patience to near the breaking point. She has at times wanted to throw in the towel. But this morning, she was back outside, wrestling Reginald around the yard until he calmed down enough to behave like a civilized lamb. This afternoon, she'll do the same thing again. And again this evening. And again tomorrow morning... (Thanks to Reggie, Helen is developing some awesome muscles herself.)

I admire Helen's tenacity. I am confident she will succeed in training this ornery lamb, because she is determined that - as stubborn as Reggie is - she will be even more stubborn.

Yes, size does matter...and mamas will do almost anything for their kids.

Have I mentioned that Reginald is a moose? And that he's super muscular? And that he has a lousy attitude?

Have I also mentioned that he weighs nearly twice as much as his trainer? That often, it looks more like Reggie is dragging Helen around the yard than the other way around?

If you have ever been to a livestock show, you have probably wondered how on earth tiny little people manage to lead great huge animals around the show ring. Well, let me tell you...

Somewhere in the process of that animal's training, Mama or Daddy looked out the kitchen window and saw her/his precious little baby being dragged across the yard by a stupid, stubborn, ornery excuse of a show lamb/calf/whatever, and Mama or Daddy decided - That's enough of that!

For every kid you see in the livestock show ring, there is a mama or a daddy who has gone smack-down with an animal.

Me - I've got weight, stature, and brains on that lamb. He's got nothing on me. And after raising seven kids, let me tell you, I don't have any problem going head-to-head with his sass.

When life's circumstances drag you through the weeds and brambles, sometimes you just need an almost-200-pound woman with gray hair to step in and yank a knot in somebody's tail. God gives us parents - and He gives us older, wiser, more-experienced Christian friends - for a reason. We all need help sometimes, and it is okay to ask for help.

Pray about everything.

One of the things I love about my daughter Helen is that she prays about almost everything. No concern is too small or too big to take to her Heavenly Father.

Helen and Reggie have their first show on Saturday. That's only two days away. Will Reggie be ready to behave himself in the ring? I don't know. But I'm certain of one thing: Helen - and Helen's mama - will be praying.

If you think about it on Saturday, would you please pray for Helen and Reggie, too?

* * *

What did I learn last year from Bertie? Click on these links to find out!
THINGS I HAVE LEARNED FROM A LAMB
MORE LESSONS LEARNED FROM A LAMB

SMART WOMEN

During a recent conversation with friends about an apparent dearth of doctrinally well-grounded young women at a local college campus, I commented that perhaps some women are reluctant to study doctrine because they feel that this kind of higher thinking will somehow make them less feminine. I related the awkwardness I felt as a "smart girl" growing up - you know, the girl everyone wants to help them with their homework, but that no one wants to date.

Smart girls are dangerous. They analyze things. They ask difficult questions. They blow the class curve. They reap the barbed comments of fellow classmates who are jealous or who feel stupid.

Being a smart girl is kind of like being the tubby, uncoordinated kid who is always chosen last for gym-class relays (yep, I was that kid, too) - people aren't generally out-right mean about the fact that you're "different," but they keep a little distance between themselves and you. Like you might be contagious.

Hannah Anderson, in her article How Brainy Women Benefit the Church, wrote this:

"Our cultural tendency to associate intelligence with gender affects more than a woman's education and future work. It also affects how she views herself and often prompts her to ask: 'If people tend to see intelligence as a male trait, does being smart mean that I'm somehow less feminine than my peers?'"

As a girl, I developed coping mechanisms to hide my disorder. I was naturally quiet, but I became even quieter - talk much at all, and people will figure out you're smart. I created a "ditzy girl" persona for social situations - much more fun on dates and at parties than a smart girl. I did truly stupid things - things no girl with half a brain would ever do.

In response to my comment during the conversation mentioned at the beginning of this post, one man at the table replied that he had never personally encountered the kind of negative bias I described. He thought accounts of such bias were untrue or exaggerated, because his experience had been quite the opposite.

He explained how when he was a young woman attending college (I am being totally tongue-in-cheek here), intelligence in females was encouraged and admired, not only by professors, but by classmates as well. Even within the church, he was invited into significant dialogue and his input was respected and thoughtfully considered. Being smart in no way caused him to question his femininity.

Perhaps my friend never experienced the kind of subtle and not-so-subtle cultural bias I encountered because he was not actually a woman.

It saddens me that, without thought or hesitation, this man completely dismissed what one woman had personally experienced as a woman.

Do you see the irony?

* * *

I want to be the woman God created me to be. I want to be a fully-female, uniquely feminine image bearer. With a brain.

God makes men and women who are musically gifted. He makes men and women who have keen minds for business and organization. He gives people of both genders the gift of great empathy, or of giving, or of service. Is it possible for both to also be brainy?

Later in the same article, Anderson concludes: "More than simply allowing for a category of the intelligent female, the Scriptures actively encourage women to develop their mental capacities. Just as much as men, women are called to love God with all their hearts, souls, and minds...It's taken me years, but I finally understand that nothing about my womanhood is at odds with my mind."

I am thankful for the brave, vigorous, intelligent women in my life who have demonstrated that it is possible to be both brainy and womanly. I am thankful for godly women who have taught me that intelligence is not something I need to learn to cope with, but something I need to develop and to invest in kingdom work.

If you are a woman who has felt the sting of being labeled "brainy," listen to me...

The sideways comments and not-so-subtle jabs at your femininity are real, and they hurt. But they do not speak the truth.

Your mind is not a curse or a stigma or a social handicap: it is a beautiful gift from a loving Creator. Use it for His glory.

(To read Hannah Anderson's entire article - "How Brainy Women Benefit the Church" - click HERE.)

* * *

People tell me the bias against female intelligence is not real.

I enrolled in an engineering graphics class several years ago. The first day of class, the instructor singled me out in front of everyone (I was the only female in the class): "Mrs. Kendall, there is no place in the field of engineering for a woman. Upper-level mathematics is too complicated for a female brain to understand."

I blushed and nodded. "Yes, sir."

"I don't expect you will complete this course," he concluded.

To his credit...

He apologized later, also in front of the entire class, when I made the top score on our first exam. I finished the course with an A. My teacher and I both learned a lot that semester, and ended the term as friends.

MIND'S EYE

In my mind's eye, I am thin.

Inside my head, I am also young, agile, and clever.

In reality, I am thick.

I am also middle-aged, clumsy, and I frequently walk into a room and can't remember why I'm there. I know the names of all my children, but it sometimes takes me a couple of tries to pin the right name on the son or daughter to whom I am speaking.

I have a friend who is 97 years old. She is deaf as a clay pot, often calls me by my mother's name, and must use a walker to move around her tiny apartment.

She complains because she wants to "go home" to move her potted plants inside from the patio for the winter and to clean out the boxes in her attic and to transplant the pink azalea from the side yard to the front...things she could not possibly do.

Her world has shrunk so small that it is suffocating her. Jigsaw puzzles and TV shows and card games bore her - she is used to doing on a much grander scale. She can no longer engage in vigorous conversations and debates; she cannot even make small talk with a new acquaintance. She cannot hear.

This woman has lived more in her 97 years than I could live in five lifetimes. She has an active mind, and she is accustomed to being physically active. She should be writing her next book, scheduling her next interview, playing her next tennis match, pulling another barrel roll in an airplane.

All the vigor and passion she ever had - it is all still there, trapped behind watery eyes and deaf ears and arthritic knees.

In her mind's eye, she is as young as she ever was.

I understand.

We sit together on her sofa, squashed close so I can speak right into her ear. I want her to know: the woman in my mind's eye sees the woman in her mind's eye. That dynamic, robust young woman, I still see her. She is not lost. I remember.

INVESTED

I am going to tell you a sad story.

When my oldest was a toddler and I was pregnant with baby number two, Steve and I attended a very large, wealthy church in Knoxville, Tennessee. Steve was a student at UT, and I was a stay-at-home mom. We were very poor, and we lived in ancient, white cinder-block married-student housing that has since been bulldozed.

Steve and I were not like the other people who attended that church, the doctors and lawyers and politicians and university professors. We were misfits, but we attended that church anyway because the teaching from the pulpit was excellent.

We were misfits, but we attended that church anyway because, although our pokey Cavalier station wagon stood out like a sore thumb among the Mercedes and BMWs and Jaguars in the church parking lot, we knew we were part of the body of Christ and that we had significant things in common with these other church members whose lives were so different from our own.

I had an appointment for a prenatal checkup and I needed a babysitter for my toddler. I called one of the moms in my Sunday school class and asked if she could recommend someone. This mom gave me the name of a teenager who attended the church and suggested I call her.


The recommended teen would not babysit my toddler because she did not know me personally (understandable, in these dark times). So, I asked her if she could recommend someone else. She did. I called the next person. This teen would not babysit anyone in campus married housing - she didn't think it was safe. But she recommended someone else, and I called the next number. The same thing happened.

Because I have a perverse streak, I persevered...through over 20 "No, I'm sorry, I can't help you"-s. I talked to teenagers and to their parents. I called other mothers and solicited them for help. The answer was always, "No. I can't/won't help you." I eventually gave up. I never did find a babysitter.

These were all fellow Christians, fellow members of the same church that I attended faithfully. None of them - not one - was willing to help me. That experience broke my heart. I ended the afternoon in tears.

When you experience that level of rejection from the very people who have verbally committed to be in covenantal relationship with you, the brokenness you experience is more than skin deep. You don't "just get over it." Yes, we continued to attend that church, but I no longer felt like I had very much of significance in common with the other people there. I had originally assumed we shared a gospel connection, that these people loved me in spite of my circumstances. The afternoon of 20+ No-s taught me something different.

In his article 12 Reasons Millennials are OVER Church, Sam Eaton writes, "Millennials crave relationship, to have someone walking beside them through the muck...We’re looking for mentors who are authentically invested in our lives and our future. If we don’t have real people who actually care about us, why not just listen to a sermon from the couch (with the ecstasy of donuts and sweatpants)?"

I am not a millennial - too old - but Eaton's words resonate with me.

When the very people I trust to care about and for me are dismissive of my concerns or needs, when they betray or belittle me, when they respond to my hurts with "just get over it" or "it's not my problem - deal with it yourself," something breaks deep inside of me.

Christ is sufficient to meet all my needs, including my need for meaningful relationship.

Yes, He is. I know this, because He has been faithful when others have not. He has been near when others have been distant. He has been attentive when others have been dismissive. He has been tender when others have been unkind. He has been selfless when others have been self-absorbed. He has been fearless when others have been cowards.

Christ is sufficient.

But, shame on the one who claims the name of Christ and willfully refuses to love as Christ loves.

God, help me to love like Christ. When I am weary, help me to be faithful. When I am busy or inconvenienced, help me to be available. When I am unsympathetic, give me a heart of compassion. When I am afraid, give me courage.

When I am reluctant to love others, help me to see in them opportunities to love Jesus, the One who has loved me so very well.

WHAT ARE YOU PASSIONATE ABOUT?

A friend told me that whales can communicate with one another over distances of up to 1000 miles. When I asked him what the whales communicated over such a great distance, he answered, "Scientists aren't really sure, but they think the whales are saying, Can you hear me NOW?"

I love words. I love to read, and I love to write. I love to listen to what others have to say, and, yes, I love to talk (It's a Stricklin thing.) But communication is about more than simply reading or writing or hearing or speaking words. It is a two-way process where at least two of those things happen simultaneously. Communication is an interaction between a writer and a reader, between a speaker and a listener, between a performer and an audience.

Communication is tricky business. A person can say one thing, but actually communicate something very different from what he intends. A person can hear one thing, but actually understand something very different from what the speaker said.

I have a friend who frequently tells me that I have a knack for understanding words and for putting into words what I or others are trying to express. And yet often, when my friend tries to communicate something meaningful to me, if I respond with, "Oh, so you are saying such-and-such...," he replies, "No! You are completely misunderstanding me!"

Communication is tricky business.

In Sunday school this past week, Deon began the class by asking us, "What things do you get passionate about? How do you generally express that passion?"

At home Sunday afternoon, I commented that a better question might be to ask other people, especially those who know us well, "What things do you think I am passionate about?" Why? Because like Walter Mitty, we can perceive ourselves to be one way, living in strange little worlds inside our heads, while communicating something very different to the people around us through our words, our actions, and our lives.

I know what I think I am passionate about, but have I effectively communicated that passion to those who know me best? That is the question that Deon's Sunday school lesson triggered in my mind!

The kids were gathered in the kitchen, helping me get Sunday lunch on the table. I had to ask, although, honestly, I was afraid of the answer. I was afraid because the things I am most passionate about - the things I think I am most passionate about - they are so important to me that it would grieve me to learn that I had not communicated that passion effectively, especially to my family. "What things do you think I am passionate about?"

"You, Mom? That's easy. You are passionate about Jesus..."

"...and about the Bible..."

"...and you are passionate about your kids..."

"...and you are passionate about writing..."

Yes! Yes, yes, yes!

I don't always communicate clearly to others. I don't always understand what others are trying to communicate to me, either. Thankfully, concerning the things about which I feel most passionately, the message seems to have come through loud and clear.

What about you, Dear Reader? What things are you passionate about? If you asked those who know you best, what things would they say you were passionate about?

MORE LESSONS LEARNED FROM A LAMB

Tension.

So much of life is characterized by tension.

Last month, I wrote about a few of the things I learned from a lamb this summer. (Read those thoughts HERE.) Yesterday, Helen showed her lamb, and last night she sold him.

We drove home after the livestock sale without Bertie. Helen was pretty stoic - she has no problem with the reality that he was a "commercial" lamb, although she will miss working with him every day. I, on the other hand, was an emotional mess.

I am SO GLAD that we no longer have to drive back and forth to the sheep barn every day (it's a 30 minute drive, one way) - we'll have more time to focus on schoolwork, now - but, dang, I really liked that sheep! Happy/relieved and heart-broken, both at the same time.

So much of life is not either/or - it's both. Tension.

But back to things I have learned from a lamb...

Or, more precisely, lessons learned or relearned in the context of working with a lamb this summer, that have nothing at all to do with a lamb, but with people...

1. There is a huge difference between saying you will do something - and - honoring your commitments. It is wonderful to want to help others; it is even more wonderful to actually follow through on your promises. The Bible exhorts us to let our Yes be Yes, and our No be No. I have learned that it is wise to answer Yes slowly, thoughtfully, carefully...to try to make sure my Yes will indeed be Yes before I speak. This is a HARD lesson to learn. It is also hard to be working alongside another who is learning this lesson, to bear the brunt of someone else's unfulfilled obligations. And it is extremely hard to watch your child have to deal with the frustration of working with others who don't follow through on their commitments.

2. Concerning livestock, there are people in this world who work with lambs/hogs/cattle because they truly love the stock and the livestock industry; and then there are those who care very little about lambs/hogs/cattle, but who care very much indeed about ribbons and prize money. There is room in this world for all kinds of people; but, at a livestock show, the people who are in this for the long haul, the people who actually genuinely love working with sheep/hogs/cattle, the people who care about the future of the industry, those are the most fun to interact with. They. Are. Awesome.

3. Watching the kids who showed animals...Some absolutely loved everything about their animal: feeding, grooming, cleaning up after, showing, everything. Some were there...for I'm not really sure what reason. They were unaware, un-engaged, and obviously wanted very much to be somewhere, anywhere else. Not sure why the heck they were in the barn at all...

4. A junior livestock show and sale takes a TREMENDOUS amount of time, energy, organization, sweat, muscle, and money. And a lot of people in my community give these things freely because they care about the livestock industry and they care about the future of the industry. Extension agents, volunteers, area farmers, feed suppliers, businesses who help underwrite the event and who bid on stock in the sale ring...SO MANY PEOPLE give freely of their time, energy, and resources to encourage young people who are genuinely interested in learning. Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who invested in my daughter this summer as she cared for, trained, showed, and sold her lamb. Thank you. In a day when so many folks seem interested only in taking, it was a blessing to me to see so many whose desire was to give.

Today, we will clean up and put away the blue halter and the feed and water bowls (and, yes, I will cry - I am crying right now, writing this). Today, it's back to physics and art history for Helen and me. But, man, we have learned so much this summer, so many valuable lessons working with a lamb.

Thank you, Bertie.

THINGS I HAVE LEARNED FROM A LAMB

While my youngest has been away at 4-H Round-Up this week, I have been pulling lamb duty. Every day, I feed and water Bertie (and his companions) and I take him for a walk. Lambs need exercise, too, you know.

As Bertie and I were strolling down the road on Wednesday, an air-conditioner repairman parked at a house along our route called out, "Funny looking dog you've got there!" When we strolled back past the house on our way home to Bertie's pen, he added, "He's got a funny bark, too!"

Bertie is a 130-pound, mixed-breed market lamb/dog. Yeah, he's got a funny bark! But he has a great disposition, too.

Bertie is smiling as big as Helen in this picture - he loves his girl!

After a week of tending sheep, I want to share a few things I have learned from Bertie and his companions:

1. People say sheep are extraordinarily stupid. On Wednesday, I found the lambs all packed in a knot in their shed, panting from the extreme heat. They were in the shed, I think, because of the shade it provided. However, they could have opted to stand outside in the shadow cast by the shed and still been in the shade - plus, they would have had better air circulation outside. It was much cooler outside in the shade than inside in the shed, but they didn't seem to have figured that out.

I don't know if that makes them stupid or if it means they are creatures of habit. Either way, when we humans are likened to sheep in the Bible, I don't think we should necessarily take that as a compliment.

2. Lambs seem to take on the personality their handlers display when working with them. Helen's lamb Bertie is sweet and agreeable. Some of the other lambs in the pen are cranky and cantankerous. Funny thing is, the cranky lambs seem pretty sweet, too, when someone with a little patience and a kind voice is in the pen.

Maybe this is another way we humans are like sheep - we respond differently to different people, based on how they treat us. Body language and tone of voice matter.

3. Lambs know their owner/caretaker. At least Bertie does. When Helen walks up to the sheep pen, Bertie perks up and notices. The other lambs don't seem to care a bit. This week, Bertie recognized Mom as his caregiver, and was quick to trot up to meet me. He would stand patiently while I slipped the halter over his head, as if he was eager to head out on his morning walk.

Lambs may not be smart, but it doesn't take them long to figure out who really cares about them. And the cool thing is, they seem to return your affection. (Maybe that's the "dog" coming out in them, Mr. Air-conditioner Repairman!)

4. Bertie loves to be scratched. If you scratch him on the side of his barrel/rib cage, he will lean further and further over until he loses his balance. If you scratch him between his shoulder blades, he kicks his stomach with his hind leg, like a dog. If you scratch his knobbly head, I swear he smiles.

Ummm, I don't know how this translates to human experience.

All of this to say - it has been a fun week of sheep tending! Like Helen, I have fallen in love with this sweet lamb. He is pleasant and cheerful and a delight to care for.

I think Helen's lamb would make Bertie Wooster proud!

I DO NOT WANT TO FORGET

I do not want to forget.

Helen and I were heading home after running errands in town one day last week. As we pulled out of the Wal-Mart parking lot, she asked, "So, what are you thinking right now?" This is one of Helen's favorite questions.

"I was thinking," I answered, "that, if I am ever successful as a writer...financially successful...I want to throw a really nice party for the cashiers at Wal-Mart."

When I worked at Wal-Mart, we called the shift from 5:00-11:00 pm "the crap shift" - a crude term, but accurate. All the customers are tired and crabby and in a hurry to get home. All the cashiers are working their second jobs, and they are also tired, crabby, and wishing they could get home.

Wal-Mart at 1:30 pm on Monday is one kind of store. Wal-Mart at 2:30 am on Tuesday is another kind of store. Wal-Mart at 6:30 pm Friday is different kind of store altogether, and it is definitely not the place you want most to be.

During my short stint at Wal-Mart, I learned a few things about the cashiers who work the crap shift. Many of them are coming straight from their minimum-wage day jobs, or they are stepping into the register after a full day of classes at the university. This evening job is their second job, the one they work to just-not-quite make ends meet.

They finished pulling a 9-to-5, and now they are pulling a 5-to-11. Tomorrow, they will do it all again. They are tired and struggling financially, and yet they are some of the kindest, most encouraging people I have met.

They work part-time, so they don't rate many company benefits. They work evenings, so they get the picked over, cold left-overs when the store provides a thank-you lunch in the employee break room.

They negotiate the twilight zone between the day manager and how he wants things done, and the night manager and how he wants things done - it's a bit of a tightrope, figuring out who's in charge at the moment and which protocol to follow.

They process a crush of customers, with their problems and returns and price challenges, just as the Customer Service Desk closes for the night.

There is not much that is very nice about being a crap-shift cashier.

So - that day when Helen asked - I was thinking, "I don't want to forget how hard that was, working evenings at Wal-Mart. I don't want to forget how tired I felt all the time. I don't want to forget the despair I encountered when, working so hard and feeling so weary, I barely had enough money at the end of the week to pay for gas in the van so that I could drive back to work the next day, and the next."

I was thinking, "I don't want to forget how kind my coworkers were, even though they were often exhausted and discouraged, too. I don't want to forget how under-appreciated they all were - by customers, by their supervisors, by the time-clock at headquarters."

I was thinking, "God, please don't let me forget. Don't let time and distance and ease make me forget. Help me to remember, and to be grateful. Help me to remember, and to say Thank You to the woman behind the register."

I was in a crabby mood this morning because I have to put off grocery shopping for another week, and even then, I will probably have to choose between shopping for cleaning supplies and healthcare products or canned goods and produce. I am tired of having to decide whether laundry soap and toilet paper are more pressing needs than potatoes and eggs.

But then I remembered...

I have enough gas in the van to last the rest of the week. We have milk and bread; we have shampoo and dish soap, too. And, I am not scheduled to work the crap shift at Wal-Mart tonight. Thank you, Jesus!

I forgot to be grateful.
God, please don't let me forget.

But then I remembered.
God, help me remember to say Thank You.

And when I finally do make another grocery run...
Lord, remind me to encourage the woman behind the register. Remind me to tell her how much I appreciate her service.