IVP - Strangely Dim

What's in a Name?

What follows is a recap of my Valentine's Day evening:

My Valentine's Day this year is spent with fourteen one- and two-year-olds at my church. Offering free Valentine's Day baby-sitting is a youth-group tradition, and this year, whether out of guilt or out of a noble spirit of Christian love (I'm not sure which), I decide to help.

In the first fifteen minutes of the evening, our adult (me and teenagers)-to-toddler ratio in the giraffe room is about seven to two, and I am ready to send students to other rooms to help. By 7:30, however, our ratio is more like seven to twelve. Diaper bags are popping up all over, sippee cups have appeared on various shelves, and I am trying to remember such details as "Rachel's diapers are in the Bunny room with her sister" and "Nick has allergies so I've brought a snack for him," while holding Little Screaming Ellie and trying to look calm and responsible so parents will trust me.

At first I stand near the door, greeting parents, asking toddlers their name and telling them mine. But soon there are too many kids and too much going on around the room to stay at the door and greet. Also, from pretty early on I am, as I mentioned, holding Little Screaming Ellie, which is not a very comforting way to welcome toddlers ("Hi Ethan, I'm Lisa. I know Ellie here is screaming her lungs out, but I promise you'll have fun!").

So, as the room fills up, I have to try to learn the kids' names from the security tags on their backs as they and I move around the room. Often the cursive is not very legible. Does that say Annie or Anna? I wonder, crawling after one girl and squinting at the name scrawled in pen. Nolan or Nate N.? At one point, in the midst of kids crying and me and the students enthusiastically trying to convince toddlers "how fun!!' puzzles truly are, another adult volunteer stops by to ask if we have Sadie. Sadie? I blankly look around at the waddling nametags and then scan the students' faces. No one seems to be reacting. "I don’t think we have a Sadie," I say. An hour later, after traveling to all corners of the room in an attempt to distract Little Screaming Ellie with some kind of toy and temporarily succeeding (a big shout-out goes to Big Bird and to Sesame Street's puzzle industry), I am sure there is no Sadie in the giraffe room.

By the end of the evening I think I've learned all the names, and all the kids seem to end up with the right parents. I make a mental note to request the three-year-olds next year, so that I'll already know who they are. If I help next year.

The evening helped me see two simple facts that I often ignore: existence transcends naming and naming is important. The kids were all there whether I knew their names or not. But knowing their names made it a lot easier.

I am actually a big proponent of naming material things. Particularly cars (my car is Lucie) and household plants. I am not, however, a fan of having to name what's going on inside of me. Because in order to name it I have to face the fact of its existence. And looking at it means I have to deal with it. And dealing with it will be hard. So I often fool myself into thinking that if I don't name something (a sin, an emotion, a conflict, etc.), it must not exist--or will cease to exist.

But as author Kim Engelmann writes in a forthcoming IVP book called Running in Circles, "Stating [naming] the problem is the first step toward healing." This was made even clearer to me from sermons at my church on mourning--not the most popular topic these days. But that's the point: we all experience loss--loss that affects and changes us--but we don't usually choose to name it, face it, mourn. Naming and mourning take time, and we don't want to stop and be silent long enough to recognize and name what's going on inside us. But if we never mourn and face what's inside, we can't move forward.

The same is true on the flip side. This past Sunday, while I was in Illinois listening to a sermon on mourning, my dad was in Pennsylvania preaching on just the opposite: celebration. I'm guilty of not naming in that area too. I don't stop long enough to recognize and celebrate the goodness and grace God gives in moments. By not naming these, I'm missing out on learning to trust God more as I see his love and care for me, and he's missing out on the praise he so abundantly deserves.

Two days ago we entered Lent: the forty days leading up to Easter that remind us of the agony Christ suffered. Can we set aside some space to slow down, to start recognizing what’s going on inside of us--the good, the hard, the ugly that exists already and needs to be named? I think we'll find, as we name things, a richer understanding of God's grace, deeper knowledge of ourselves and courage that comes as we become more aware of the Holy Spirit in us, with us. And there's a name for what comes after, and often in the midst of, that discipline: it's called redemption.

Nothing to Say

Last week, just one month in to this blogging venture, I started to panic that I wouldn’t be able to keep it up. I was overwhelmed by commitments outside of work and stressed out by projects at work and short on sleep. But mostly (yes, after just a month): I didn’t have anything to say.

Now, I’m all for being quiet. I really do think silence is golden, and not just at the movie theater. But “silence” (read: nothing to say) doesn’t work so well for a blog, for obvious reasons. I was feeling the pressure and starting to sweat.

My mild panic reminded me of an experience I had a few weeks ago during a daylong personal retreat at my church. Most of the day was spent in individual time with the Lord. Very rarely do I set apart that much time to spend with God, completely away from the normal routines and activities of my days. I didn’t go into the retreat with specific expectations or individual questions I wanted God to answer. However, as a college mentor honestly expressed once after a day of personal retreat, when you intentionally set aside that much time to be with God, you want to have something to show for it: some epiphany, some word God spoke, some insight and direction. In addition, I was also feeling pressure to use the time wisely, to make the most of the time I was setting aside, so that God and I could get the fullest possible benefit out of the day. (I clearly have completely escaped the influence of a consumerist, production-driven culture!)

The reality is, epiphany or not, setting aside time to be with God is invaluable; I’m reminded of it every time I do it. And, among other invaluable moments during the retreat for me, one that stands out most was a point in the morning when I sat before the Lord in silence and felt his almost overwhelming delight in my simple presence, nothing else. In that moment, I felt the worth of my being apart from any doing or knowing or speaking. I didn’t have anything to say—and I felt the freedom of not having to think of something to say. I was free to simply be.

Don’t get me wrong; words are necessary and powerful. I wouldn’t write or work at a publishing company if I didn’t think so. But the relief and grace I experienced in that moment of retreat made me aware of how often I feel pressure not just to say something but to say something clever, or funny, or thought-provoking, or revolutionary. If we kept track of our words, I think we’d find that, based on what actually comes out of our mouths, we value humorous or informative words even over kind, encouraging, affirming words. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I more often speak to try to make others laugh or to give information than to affirm others. But what a valuable reminder God gave me of the worth of my being, even in my silence. It’s a gift I couldn’t have received without having nothing to say.

Sometimes having nothing to say is the most valuable gift we can give each other too. Author and pastor John Ortberg preached a sermon on the book of Job a few years ago. He takes a different angle on the book than other sermons I’ve heard. His focus is on Job’s friends who, granted, will not win any “Great Friends in History” awards. However, he expounds not on their hurtful counseling attempts or jabbing accusations but on their first response to Job’s pain: they weep, and then sit with him for seven days and nights in ashes and sackcloth and—silence. At the sight of his grief and pain, they have nothing to say. So they don’t even try. I don’t think anything else could have spoken more grace and healing into Job’s raw and broken soul. Their folly came when they said something in an attempt to sound wise and spiritual.

So, at the risk of contradicting myself by writing about the goodness of not saying anything at all, maybe these words will help us reframe our thoughts on why we speak. Words, of course, are good and valuable and necessary—fallen, too, but able to be redeemed and to bring great redemption through Christ. But probably more often than we realize, the greatest gift we can give to God, to others and to ourselves in a given moment is the gift of having nothing to say.

Nuff said.

Slippin and Slidin

(Note to reader: to liven up your reading of this entry, try clenching your teeth and furrowing your brow.)

This week I received a citation for a traffic violation. The suspect (me) allegedly failed to come to a complete stop at a stop sign. The scene of the crime was two blocks from my desk; the time was 7:45 a.m. Good . . . morning . . .

So I endured the humiliation of the drawn-out ticket-writing process, as countless cars passed me and, I might add, failed to come to a complete stop at the stop sign immediately in front of my car. I think they were just rubbing it in. Then I hurried, as fast as I could go without allegedly violating yet another traffic law, to the parking lot of my office building, where I accidentally banged my head on the roof of my car and then very nearly locked my keys in said car with the engine still running. Then I went inside the office with seconds to spare for a morning prayer meeting. Good . . . morning . . .

It was an odd juxtaposition, moving so quickly from hurling epithets at the universe for the rotten luck I'd experienced on my way into work, to begrudgingly thanking God for the gift of a good job and nice people to work with. Perhaps I hadn't had enough coffee, but I was not in the ideal frame of mind for praying.

I was reminded of a psalm of Asaph:

Surely God is good . . .

to those who are pure in heart.

But as for me, my feet had almost slipped;

I had nearly lost my foothold.

For I envied the arrogant

when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. (Psalm 73:1-3)

Now, I tend to read this psalm and think, Ah yes, I mustn't envy the arrogant; I mustn't covet the prosperity born of wickedness. It's a quick way of reminding me not to get so mired down in envy and bitterness.

But when I invoke this passage and cast myself as the pure in heart, I'm effectively casting anyone around me as "arrogant" or "wicked." That could be a relatively harmless exercise, I suppose: all those people rolling through the stop sign in front of me couldn't read my thoughts, so far as I could tell; and I'll likely never see them again, since I will never drive by that intersection again. But then there are the folks I work with, who I know to be far from arrogant or wicked (most days, anyway), but whom I look at with different eyes on a day such as this.

Not to mention the fact that casting myself as "pure in heart" is a somewhat arrogant thing to do. I mean, let's be honest: I have a pretty enviable life. I have a house and a car and a job where I get paid to read. I have a nice family life and a nice church community and a safe neighborhood to live in. I have broad political freedoms and, relative to the majority of the planet, a ridiculously extravagant life. Given the right circumstances, any number of people could steal a passing glance at me--particularly when I'm being exceptionally twerpy--and find themselves losing their foothold.

The fact is, I wasn't envious so much as I was bitter. So perhaps in the future, when I find myself slipping, I should skip about twenty verses and direct my mind to a later verse in the same psalm:

When my heart was grieved

and my spirit embittered,

I was senseless and ignorant;

I was a brute beast before you.

Yet I am always with you;

you hold me by my right hand. (Psalm 73:21-23)

That's probably about as much as I could call to mind on a particularly irritable day, but who knows? Maybe it will be enough.

Rabbit

Something you should know about Lisa and me: for the better part of a year we've been playing a silly ongoing game that I learned from my brother.The game is simple: whoever says the word rabbit to the other first on the first day of each month, wins. To be honest, I've been secretly plotting this post since Lisa joined Strangely Dim.

My brother played this game in college with a classmate who happened to have the same last name, grow up in the same town and belong to the same church. I always enjoyed watching them play this little nonsense game from month to month, a regular opportunity to be silly together set against a backdrop of trying to track down your calling and be faithful to it. College, I found--and now life, I've since discovered--is hard enough that it virtually demands a bit of silliness now and then to take the edge off.

Lisa and I and our coworkers here seek out silliness in a variety of ways: by how we decorate our workspace, by which e-mails we choose to forward, by what subjects we deem blogworthy. My department takes a break together each week to eat popcorn and catch up (not "popcorn and ketchup" but "catch up and eat popcorn," in case you're inclined to podcast this entry). It's a nice time together, a kind of "tea and sympathy," and almost invariably the time is at least one part meaningful and one part silly. Sometimes the two are so commingled that I daresay the silliness is what gives the time meaning.

Likewise with the game "Rabbit." You're all welcome to play along; it's a nice distraction from month to month, much like rabbits themselves. They don't labor or spin; they just hop along and twitch their noses--they live and move and have their being. We could learn a lot from them, actually: I'll leave you with a line from an old folk song titled "Mr. Rabbit":

"Bless God, I'm made that way! Every little soul must shine."