The First Day of Daycare

(For all my other new moms/dad friends experiencing the same thing...)

The First Day. It's here.

Of course, this isn't the first of First Days. There was the first day I met you. The first day we brought you home. The first day you smiled at me--just at me--as I danced you on my knee singing Pretty Woman. There have been lots of great First Days, and all of them flash through my mind now, as I sit here watching you solemnly inspect your oatmeal. This, is the first day of Daycare.

I've left you in the care of other people before, but I knew them all, very well, and I knew they loved you almost as much as I do. (But let's not joke; no one loves you as much as I do.)  I knew they would care for you as they would their own flesh and blood. I knew you were safe--spoiled, really.

But now...now it will be different. There will be other kids, with other needs, and maybe you'll have to wait a little bit before getting some attention. This will be good for you, I know, but it still tugs at my heart. You will make friends, you will learn new tricks, you will start to grow on your own.

And I suppose that's the part that's the hardest--and the best. I know you're supposed to grow on your own; it's actually what I want, hope, dream for you in the long run. I know this is for the best.

I just wish the long run could be a little bit farther off.

Happy First Day of Daycare, my sweet girl.

I'll Take Transfiguration for 5,000, Alex.

The Feeding of the 5,000. The Transfiguration. How do they connect?

Our parish council is trying something new this year. At our last meeting, they chose a theme story to guide us in ministry for the next 12 months. And the story they chose was the Feeding of the 5,000.

Imagine my surprise when that story pops up just a few verses before the Transfiguration as I'm writing my Transfiguration sermon for this week.

You see, in Luke, the story of the Feeding of the 5,000 and the story of Jesus' Transfiguration are separated only by Peter's confession of Jesus' Messiah-ness and Jesus' confession of what that Messiah-ness will look like--namely suffering, rejection, institutional persecution, death, and resurrection.

A confession of faith and a confession of death. That is what separates these two stories in Luke. Or perhaps it's what connects them.

What do the Feeding of the 5,000 and the Transfiguration engender in the people around Jesus? Amazement. Glory. Faith, one might say. Unfortunately, it's the kind of faith that leads to death. Because it's faith in the wrong thing. After the Feeding, Peter's faith bursts from him with the declaration, "You are the Messiah of God!" And after the Transfiguration, Peter wants to put down roots, build a house, and never leave the site of his Messiah's manifestation. And each time, God says, "Stop it, Peter. You're killing me."

"No, seriously; you're killing me." Peter's faith at this point is faith in nothing more than glory. And when glory disappears, when Jesus' prediction has come true and God's Messiah is betrayed, beaten, bloodied, and bruised...there's nothing left for Peter's faith to hang on. There's nothing left for the crowds to be amazed by. And there's nothing to stop the religious leaders from punishing Jesus for stealing their show.

Faith in glory kills. So after the Feeding of the 5,000, when Peter proclaims Jesus to be the Messiah based only on this show of glory, Jesus "sternly orders and commands them not to tell anyone." And during the Transfiguration, when Peter suggests that it would be good to stop this whole journey toward death, God the Father himself puts in an appearance and gives a little...redirection.

So after all that, Peter, James, and John don't really say much about what happened at the top of that Transfiguration mountain. And who can blame them? I'm guessing one of the reasons they keep it quiet is just because things had gotten so darn confusing. It's a heck of a lot easier to have faith in a glorious feeding or a rapturous transformation than a confusing confession of suffering, rejection, and death. But that, of course, is the foolishness of the cross: the absolute insanity that God--the almighty, all-powerful Creator of the Universe--wouldn't use glory to accomplish His goal...but opts for glory's opposite instead.

Power made perfect in weakness. Glory made perfect in shame. Just wait, Peter; you ain't seen nothing yet.

Holy Spirit and Alcohol: Do Not Mix

So I was just reading Luke 1:5-20, as instructed by Dr. David Lose's daily devotions from his blog "...in the Meantime" (great blog and great devotions, check them out if you're looking for that). And as I was reading the story of Elizabeth and Zechariah  (Mary's aunt and uncle), I came to the part where the angel appears to Zechariah and announces the birth of their son, John. This verse struck me in a way it never has before:

"...[John] will be great in the sight of the Lord. He must never drink wine or strong drink; even before his birth, he will be filled with the Holy Spirit." (Luke 1:15, NRSV)  And seriously, isn't that hilarious? As if the combination of the Holy Spirit and strong drink would just be too much for any one person to handle, and they'd just explode!

I'm guessing that's not actually what Luke intended to convey when he recorded the angel's words, but hey, it gave me a good chuckle.

Perks of Having a Baby

When you accidentally drool on yourself in public, and it leaves a water stain on your shirt, you can always blame it on your daughter, even if she is asleep in her carseat next to you.

The Theology of a Pregnant Stomach

So one of the things I've heard from multiple sources (friends, articles, books, magazines, random strangers) was that once your stomach gets big, get ready for Stranger Danger: random strangers coming up to you and touching your stomach, with or without asking permission. I heard warnings, complaints, laments, and annoyances, the most descriptive and apt one probably being, "I just don't understand how when a woman gets pregnant, it means that her body becomes public property."

So I braced myself. And had two surprises.

The first is that very few people--stranger or known entity--has touched my stomach without asking. I can only think of one complete stranger in the past 9 months. Most seem afraid to even ask permission. This could be in part because I'm a pastor; my parishioners are for the most part very respectful and sensitive people. I smile to myself when I see some of my older ladies' hands start to gravitate toward my stomach, and they catch themselves and pull them back. There's a definite respect for my personal boundaries at war with the desire to touch that big, irresistble belly. It's fun to watch that battle play out. It also could be the place that I live; personl boundaries are very highly respected in this part of the country, along with the flag, 4-H, and anything to do with corn.

But the second surprise for me has been discovering that I actually want people to touch my stomach. At least I certainly don't mind it.  It was hard for awhile to put my finger on why I might be feeling that way, and it didn't become clear until a Mission Trip I took in July with our awesome youth group. We took the train out to a Native American reservation in North-Central Montana. On the way, we were thrown together with complete strangers in that bizzarely intimate way that travel in closed spaces engenders. And the comments were not slow in coming.  "When are you due?"  "Is this your first?"  "Do you know what you're having?"

This was another aspect of pregnancy that I was warned about--the incessant and repetitive questions. And again, I found myself not minding them at all. At one point, I was walking down the aisle (trying to get some circulation back in my swollen feet), and passed an Asian family for about the third time. The mom looked up at me, smiled, and said in a beautiful accent, "When...is you due?"  I smiled and told her. She grinned and nodded, then turned to her 10-ish-year-old son and addressed a question to him in a fluid tongue. He looked up at me and said, "Do you know what you're having?" I told him no, that we wanted to be surprised. He translated to this to his mother, prompting a flurry of head nods and a huge smile. She said one more thing to him, and he beamed at me and said, "She says to tell you congratulations!"

And it hit me, the reason that I don't mind the belly-touching, the repetitive questions, and the blatant belly-stares; the pregnant stomach is a very visible, very obvious sign of something to be celebrated, and it's one of the only things that I can think of that generates an immediate desire to share in that celebration among strangers. It's a condition that inspires hope, happiness, joy across the board; gender, race, culture, income--language even!--you name all the barriers that separate us today, and there isn't a single one that pregnancy doesn't surmount. It's the ultimte equalizer. But instead of equalizing us down to a level playing field, it raises us all up to a state of excitement and expectation.

And isn't that an awesome theological place to be? Sharing joy with strangers, the joy and expectation of something good to come, something beautiful that will happen in the future, something we can't see for certain right now, but by golly we can see the signs that it's coming.

Advent isn't here yet, and neither is this child which we've been expecting. But we know that both are coming. And we wait in happy anticipation of what they will bring.

Why I Love My Town: Reason 1

It seems that one of the most widely accepted truisms today is that kids can't just be kids anymore. They can't run wild from dawn until dusk; strangers can't be trusted, and you just don't know what trouble they'll get into unsupervised. They're never outside playing. And their imaginations are sorely lacking.

I present to you Case Study #1: The Little Boys.

Our backyard connects with the backyard directly behind us. There are no fences in this town--at least none that I've seen. The family that lives behind us has 4 boys: a 6th grader, a 3rd grader, a 2nd grader, and a 1st grader. Or The Little Boys, as Tim and I have dubbed them. They defy all of the above truisms. They run absolutely wild from dawn until dusk, and sometimes beyond. They certainly do get into trouble unsupervised, but the nice thing about a town of 70 people (very soon to be 71) is that they rarely are actually unsupervised--one of us always kind of has an eye on them. They are always outside playing, and by always I mean always. In fact, I don't think the 1st grader wore shoes the entire summer. No seriously; I can't think of a single time I saw him with them on. And their imaginations are always going.

Take this morning for example. Tim and I are sitting at breakfast, in our usual spots: me facing our neighbors to the south, Tim facing our neighbors to the east, which happens to be the Little Boys. We're eating quietly, when I hear from Tim, "What in the...what are they doing?!" I lean over the table (no easy feat 5 days before your due date) just in time to witness a bizarre spectacle; Jaydn and Isaiah (the 2nd and 1st grader, respectively) are busy tying a gigantic rope between their two bikes. The rope is about 14 feet long and about as thick as a couple of gas hoses. Isaiah still has no shoes on. When they've accomplished the task of connecting the two bikes, each boy slings a green reusable shopping bag over a skinny shoulder, and off they go.

Tim bursts out laughing. When they round the corner in front of our house a few minutes later, they've gotten the rope tangled in Isaiah's tire and have to haul the bikes over to the side of the road to avoid a grain truck. "Go ask them what they're doing," Tim urges. "It's bound to be a good story!" 

So I grab my cup of coffee and tromp outside in my pj's (reason #2 why I love this town). As soon as I get outside, I get a cheerful wave from Isaiah and a shy smile from Jaydn.  "Alright," I say when I get close enough, "You've got your bikes tied together and a shopping bag on each shoulder. I gotta know; what are you doing?" 

"We're pulling each other on our bikes," Jaydn explains solemnly. 

"Yeah, and we've had a couple of crashes, too!" Isaiah adds cheerfully, as if that explains the purpose of connecting the two bikes. "And the shopping bags we found in the road." He displays his proudly, Menards tag still attached. 

I rip off the tag for him, and by the time that's done, the rope's been untangled and they're ready to go. Isaiah starts off, pulling Jaydn behind him. As they go, I get a couple of happy waves, and then I hear Jaydn start his motor car impression, the one that you can hear a couple of blocks away; "Vrrruuuuuuhhh, vruh, vruh, vruuuuuuuhhhh!"

Tim just laughs and shakes his head when I tell him their logical explanation for their behavior. As I watch them make their wobbly way down the road, I can't help but smile and think, "That's why I love this town."  Then as I turn to make my way back into the house, another thought makes me freeze.

"God help us when they get their licenses!"

How Pregnancy Prepares You For Kids: Lesson #1

Disclaimer: I have not yet given birth. Our baby is still in the incubation stage. But here is one experience I've been having lately that I imagine is a crossover lesson from pregnancy to kids:

1) Balancing what they think they want with what you know is good for them.

I'm referring specifically to my stomach at this point. I can recall (and maybe you can, too) being a small child and insisting that I could handle another scoop of ice cream, no, that I needed another scoop...and then getting it, eating it, and realizing that was a bad idea. I thought I'd mostly grown out of that as an adult, but it turns out that having a pregnant tummy is much the same as having a 3-yr-old tummy. Especially if I go too long without eating. Then all of a sudden, I'll hear about, smell, see on tv, or even think about a food (could be any food, really), and all of a sudden, I HAVE to have some of that NOW. I don't consider these cravings, more just a very volatile belly that is very easily influenced. I begin eating said desired food, and the message I get from said stomach goes like this:

"I need more. More. More. More! TOO MUCH! TOO MUCH! TOO MUCH! TOO MUCH!"

Sigh. Perhaps by the end of nine months I'll have a sufficient handle on this to be able to translate that experience to a child.