Breakfast After the Fall

I just got back from a week in San Diego, mostly La Jolla Cove, a prime intersection between coastal wildlife and pleasure seekers. While there was plenty of wildlife to enjoy, this is about the not-so-wildlife, namely the birds that make rooftop, continental breakfast (code for cheap but decent) a challenging experience. A short pretext from Genesis for the story goes like this; God made people and animals get along in the beginning (people and birds ate happily together). Then we sinned and he cursed them along with us (I can see some room for resentment there). Then, after the flood, God made them afraid of us and we went our own ways (especially after the ark, we probably needed the space by then and there was plenty of it). Today, the mistrust is still there but there's not as much space, especially on the San Diego coast, and we're unhappily eating breakfast togetherish.

Day one, we learned that you can't leave any food unattended, I mean not for one second. There's a hand rail around the entire roof top for them to perch on within fifteen feet of any table and it takes them approximately half an angry arm swing to dive in, grab your food and fly off. Thankfully they prioritize the easier targets, which means that if you listened to the staff's warning about them, you'll get the sadistic enjoyment of watching them steal whole eggs, English muffins and danishes from those who end up several angry arm swings away before they realize the threat.

Day two, their strategy advances with your own. If you're a repeat breakfast eater, they know you're on to them so they stand back and learn your routine - who goes in first, second, etc. - and what each persons plate is likely to contain. They don't need the table to be unattended. They just need half an angry arm swing between the target and the nearest plate watcher. Remember that while an angry arm swing can be understood literally, it's more of a time unit. It's about as long as it takes to bend down and pick up a dropped fork or put a bib on a child, predictable parts of the routine.

Day three. Have you seen all those wildlife documentaries where the predator picks out the weak or small one to go after? By day three, there's little option for the birds beyond direct confrontation and even the children are wise to their tactics so only the avian judo masters are going to get the good stuff. In this case that means landing on the two year old's head and gulping down her oatmeal directly out of her bowl while everyone stares in momentary disbelief trying to make sense of what's actually happening. And then, even if there is someone within half an angry arm swing, the swing comes just a little slower to avoid accidentally smacking the child, which provides just enough time to escape with the goods. Genius!

The Fountain of Childishness

Caution! This is one of those things tricky as a sword swallowing contortionist but equally impossible to not look at when it's put in front of you. It's a little preachy and you'll have to carefully sort it out for yourself. In front of us this time is the teaching that we should strive to be dependent on God. We could split hairs and churches over what that "actually" means (Oh, wait. We already have), but as usual, I'm going to tackle it from its over simplified face value to make a point.

My mom recently told me of a particularly nerve racking time when she was facing the possibility of three children in diapers at the same time. Thankfully, nature (that's code for potty training) ran its course and she narrowly missed that reality. The moral of that short story is that, from the time we're born, it's good to grow progressively independent, and ultimately to adulthood. It's foundational to the joys of watching children grow. Avoiding it is obnoxious like the ceaseless squawking of the adolescent bird that chased its unsympathetic parent round and round our picnic table looking for a handout the other day. Said from a more obvious angle, how quickly and universally do we recognize it as a disorder when someone, especially a child, fails to grow mentally or physically.

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Now imagine a group who are spiritually "born again", enlightened if you will, and from the time of that spiritual birth, they are content or even ambitious to be as dependent as possible, to do nothing without being told, to be spoon fed every meal, to sit in their own waste until the stench compels someone else to take care of it for them. While this may suit those who profit from those services, it certainly doesn't suit those who need them. The very least you would have is an unprofitable person, precisely the opposite of what God has in mind when he encourages us through parables like the talents, the shrewd manager, the vineyard workers, etc. And while a small percentage of us are rightly dependent (children, handicapped and the like), the rest of us are rightly beyond it.

Let's add to all this that dependence on God is an inescapable absolute like gravity, and trying to be more dependent is like trying to be heavier by thinking about it. Go stand on your scale and try it. It's something that calls for humility, not effort. Our dependence is only valuable to God in that we learn our need for him as he perfects and grow us, like an accomplished lioness teaching a cub to hunt or a falcon teaching a fledgling to fly. And while the method is sometimes getting kicked out of the nest and told to fly before the ground hits us in the face, it's still the obviously good and natural order to life and happens only when he knows we're ready for it. So don't let religion trim your claws or clip your wings. God's ambition for you is independence, not to avoid being bothered by each other but rather to have much more to offer when we're together. Child like, not childish. Dependable, not dependent.

Dead Birds

There's a passage in The Bible meant to help us not worry about life that compares God's value and care for the birds to His greater value and care for us. It struck me a little differently this morning as I admired the beautifully colored variety of birds on my house and trees adding a pleasant song to the start of my day and then looked to the ground and noticed one of those same pretty birds dead at my feet. Awkward.

I've had conversations along similar lines this week with several veterans I'm blessed to have in my circle of friends. One who worked as a sniper fondly recounted the day of his longest shot as, "... a beautiful, clear, still morning with low humidity, birds singing in the background and the sun in his eyes back-lighting his target." It struck me that one of his happy memories was shooting someone. Think King David and Father Abraham. Awkward.

Another group of believer veterans I talked with made the point that there definitely seems to be many more believers on the battlefield than in the safe zone. They had no doubt that many of the "enemy" their forces had killed were indeed unknown brothers in Christ as well. Along with myself, they all love peace and are very glad to be out of the fighting but can't avoid the logic that, perhaps, in the present world, nation against nation saves more eternal lives than peace does. Awkward.

I went back to the corner of my house when I got home from breakfast with a friend and looked for the bird. My guess is my cat also had breakfast while I was out. If the Bible is clear about anything, it's clear that our current reality is a war zone, physically and spiritually, man against man, cat against bird, whether we realize it or not. Now that makes quite a bit more sense of what I actually see even as it raises it's own set of difficult questions. A little less awkward... and, back to the point, nothing to worry about.

Water and Weeds

If you've ever pulled weeds, you know how frustrating it is when the tops break off and the root is left in the ground where you know it's going to grow a bigger, badder weed in a week or two. If you've ever had kids help you pull weeds, you know how hopeless the battle is to not break the weed tops off all over the yard you're trying to keep nice for them by pulling the weeds in the first place. Adding insult to injury is when the kids discover the whimsical, snowy looking weed blossoms that are so easy and fun to blow all over the place. It's a loosing battle.

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Okay. So it's entirely possible that I'm too uptight about my nice little patch of green here in the Arizona mountains but it's a vice I'm not ready to give up yet. And doing it in the name of the kids (even if they're not so secretly working against me) is how I'm going to keep justifying it for now. But I do have an ally, monsoon rains. What's normally a steep, uphill battle (steep enough it would be more accurate to call it a wall I bang my head against) becomes a joyfully doable chore when the ground is thoroughly soaked. While the grass still holds its ground, the weeds slide out so easily even a kid can remove them successfully.

Our heart is easily compared to a yard full of weeds and the Bible frequently compares God's Spirit to water, an inexhaustible supply of it accessible through the spigot of prayer and scripture even when there's no rain. What's impossible to remove under normal circumstances and even made worse by our efforts becomes a satisfying and successful endeavor when the ground is well watered. But even after we've achieved a nice patch of green, keeping it nice still takes the diligence of watering and pulling weeds (You'd be surprised how much can blow in from your neighbors heart... I mean yard). You might end up wanting to offer them some water and possibly the help of your children... as long as there's no fuzzy blooms on their weeds.

Drawn and Quartered

Reading through some scripture as a family before breakfast, we were considering the passage, "Turn my heart toward your statutes and not toward selfish gain." As we recognized the obvious point that selfishness and Godliness are opposite directions, I made the point that we can't go both directions.

"Well, we can for a little ways," my oldest son answered pointing his fingers opposite directions and crossing them as far as reach would allow.

One of Christ's teachings was, "...unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." This time, that starts with acknowledging you can in fact go opposite directions with no negative effect (for about half your body length). But this truth has a rather abrupt stopping point, one that my children complain about daily when they yank or pull on each other too hard. A little harder still and the game is over on account of pain. A little harder than even that and you're in the realm of medieval torture.

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Especially when we accept the new nature that God offers us, one that pulls strongly opposite of selfishness, we really do become the rope in a tug of war. Thankfully we also control which side has the advantage. It's when we avoid assigning that advantage that we risk being torn apart as both sides continue to pull in deadlock. A quick think through scripture takes me across Baalem, Jonah and Ananias and Sapphira as a few casualties of this tug of war. If it didn't kill their bodies, it killed their faith.

Sorted out at the level of crossing my arms as far as they can go, I usually end up letting go of things like uninterrupted hours of personal time, big budget toys and job satisfaction. They get replaced with serving others, serving others and serving others. While my new nature is gratified by that, my old nature is a sore loser and would like you to know how justified its tantrum is. Thank you to those who who follow Christ's example and endure being selfless friends with me anyway! You may have to yank on my arms pretty hard but I'll turn back to his statutes before my arms come off.

Worshiping The Shadow

Here's a fun game to play if you're a little obnoxious (yes, I am and, yes, I have). The next time you're with a friend in lighting that casts a clear shadow, acknowledge nothing but their shadow, as if it's actually them. Play it out as far as you can no matter how they react. Marvel at how the shadow sounds so lifelike when you didn't expect it to talk at all. Panic when they move and it disappears or gets obscured. Then be even more aghast at the voice now coming from nowhere. If they try to get your attention and their shadow becomes visible again, treat them as a distraction that's preventing you from getting to their shadow, the thing you really care about. Besides being fun for as long as you can keep it up, it also rapidly descends into obviously bizarre and irrational behavior.

If you actually try this, or at least put some honest effort into imagining it, I think you have the platform for some exceptional insight into why faith is such a troublesome topic. As Christ approached us in time, he cast a shadow that reached from Genesis to The Incarnation. A shadow so long that it was visible long before he was, and everyone got used to seeing him that way, as something that shifts with the light or disappears on a cloudy day, something stretched out so far across the landscape that no one could really discern the shape of of its source. Finally, they decided God was the shadow itself and they adjusted their religion to match.

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What made this the bizarre and irrational game we started off with was refusing Christ as the source when he finally arrived. He marveled in person at how they accepted the scriptures (especially the prophecies) but not him. And just like our irrational game, that mindset should end if we're not truly deranged. But some of the prophecies themselves assure us we are deranged, that we tend to prefer shadows to real people or, especially, a real God. Shadows are quiet and immaterial. They won't braid whips or flip tables or rebuke you for not understanding them, all real hazards when the source arrives. But a shadow can't take you by the hand and encourage you either. When we need help and we know it, we go straight to someone real.

So here we are with our thoughts still largely revolving around the shadow. God is the shadowman that we shape and manipulate with "scriptural" reasoning rather than letting him speak and act for himself in person. Accepting the source means we don't have to guess how God would respond to many things. With very little extrapolation, we can look at how he actually responded. And even still, I think our comfort zone is closer to WWJD than WDJD (What Did Jesus Do). It keeps him a little more like a shadow. Love the Real.

A Silly Little Boat

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There was a lake just out of town,

Accessible from all around,

Where rules had all been voted down

And men did as they pleased.

Along its shorelines, one could find

Diversions of most every kind,

The basest to the near divine,

Where satisfaction teased.

And boats of course with pomp and bling

As bases for the basest things

Or bases where the moral cling

To all that’s good and true.

But best of all a boat could show

What you thought everyone should know

About how well your boat could go

About the water blue.

Of course, sometimes, a boat was lost

To storms or thieves or maintenance costs

And everybody’s nerves were tossed

In search of something stronger.

Some put armor underneath

And some on top for all to see

Or boats in boats in boats to be

In fear of loss no longer.

But one man knew the whole parade

Was shallower than where they wade

From boat to shore where he got paid

For fixing boats and barges.

He’d seen enough and done enough

To know that none were quite as tough

As all their window stickers bluffed

With much inflated charges.

He’d also learned a thing or two

About the water deep and blue

And thought he ought to share the truth

With all the anxious boaters.

But as he tried and tried and tried

With any he could pull aside,

They seemed to hear nothing besides

The sound of their own motors.

And so he took his little boat,

In view of those who loved to gloat

Who said, “That thing should barely float!”,

Out to the deep to show them.

“His test will fail,” they all thought

When he pulled out his gun and shot

A few rounds through the floor and brought

An ax out quick behind them

And chopped the rest to little bits

Until they thought he’d lost his wits

As, stroke for stroke, he didn’t quit

While everyone was guessing.

And then he stood where once it was.

The talk began to hum and buzz

About what must be left because

The boat was clearly missing.

He walked back and tried to explain

What now he thought should be quite plain

But found them rather vexed and strained

And bothered by the show.

“And reason says obviously

You have a boat that none can see

And that’s no use to flaunt what we

Think everyone should know.”

“And, still, it makes you walk about

As if a boat you’re still without.

That silly little boat can tout

Nothing that would sell us.”

And then his friends encouraged him,

“Continue not this silly whim.

Replace your boat. It’s rather grim

To hear this awful fuss.”

He let them finish. Then he spoke,

“Perhaps it’s better that I don’t.

Not that I couldn’t but I won’t

Forget about the water.”

His friends went on a little more

With arguments he’d heard before

Till satisfied that their implore

Wasn’t worth the bother.

And so he went on fixing boats

And fixing thoughts that didn’t float

But always found the common vote

Against what he would bring.

And rare it stayed that boaters cared

Of more than boats on waters where

Distraction kept away the scare

Of losing useless things.