Marriage and the Modern Sitcom

For the past few evenings I’ve been at our new home unpacking and organizing while Matt is officiating basketball games and other such obligations. I turn on the TV while I work for the sake of background noise (being home alone is definitely not one of my favorite things).

On Wednesday the show I usually watched was postponed, and the next channel up was showing the new sitcom “Up All Night." Less than 5 minutes in I was totally disgusted by it. The main characters are struggling to regain intimacy with each other in the early months of parenthood and attempt to schedule a night when they can have time with just each other. Several nights pass where they can’t make it work. Mid-week the wife comes home exuberant and ready to focus on her husband. He’s sitting on the couch in sweatpants, playing a video game. She starts to cuddle up to him, and he, not even pausing the game, informs her that he has already pleasured himself because he thought she was working late. She stomps off. The laugh track roars. I almost threw a bottle of window cleaner through the TV.

Was that situation seriously just played for laughs? Do you have any idea how soul-crushing that would be for a wife to hear? “I’m sorry, honey. My personal needs were so great that I couldn’t wait an extra half-hour for you to get home. Yes, I’m telling you that I don’t need you in this marriage. Yup, I know that makes you feel unattractive and unneeded. So what if we’ve been planning on this all week? My needs have been satisfied, and now this video game requires my full attention. Go away.”

I haven't been though it yet, but I know having a newborn is no walk in the park. I know that there will be long stretches of sleeplessness and frustration. But that kind of callous act is like tearing stitches out of a healing wound. Pregnancy and childbirth are awesome but also physically traumatic, and regaining the energy and desire for intimacy takes time. Obviously the husband will be ready before the wife is, but taking care of your own needs while completely ignoring your spouse is no way to strengthen a marriage in a time of hardship. There are many ways to be intimate without actually having sex. Focus on that first and rebuild the foundation.

Even if he no longer felt “the need” he should have turned off that TV and focused on his wife. Intimacy to him seems to be only about his satisfaction. Once he has been satiated, nothing else matters. And that will kill a marriage faster than almost anything else.

I could probably go one for hours about this show and several other popular sitcoms, but I won’t (at least not now). I could see some positive elements in the show: their wildly successful friend Ava has become dissatisfied with her glamorous yet shallow relationships and longs for something real. She begins dating a single dad who will hopefully show her what responsibility really means. Reagan and Chris do love each other, but often show it in very crude and self-centered ways. Humor is a vital ingredient to successful marriages and parenting, but true humor should never come at someone else’s expense. Build each other up, don’t tear them down.

Overall, the moments that could be considered heartwarming in that show are few and far between. In the end it is yet another prime-time stab at marriage and the (apparently) hilarity of selfishness and dysfunction. Marriage today is suffering enough already – does it really need to be ripped apart even more?

New beginning

“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end…”

                                                                                         -Semisonic





I think our new beginning from last fall has finally come to an end and we are about to begin again. It’s a life restart. A second chance to make it, really make it, on our own.

Friday we got the call that our application had been approved. Saturday we began organizing our long-stored belongings, preparing for the move across town. Sunday we planned, and Monday we started packing, anticipating 9 AM the next morning, when the new place would officially be ours.

Tuesday at 8:45 AM I sat in the car and sobbed because we had hit an unexpected wall.  I should have expected it with every obstacle we’d been through to get to that point, but it still hit me like a falling piano. My pride crumbled as we called our parents asking for help, then called the realtor’s office and told them we had been temporarily delayed. I sat stiff and red-eyed as we arrived at the bank to ask for a high-interest cash advance on our credit card. The joy of the early morning was gone. I prepared to settle back into familiar disappointment.

But the bank representative who helped us was kind and encouraging. The lady processing our lease talked us through the paperwork with a smile even though we were over an hour late. The keys were put into our hands and we unlocked our front door for the first time. I didn’t show happiness as much as I could have, and I apologize to Matt for that. But quietly, tearfully, I was happy. I am happy.

We still have a long, uphill battle to defeat debt, but we’ll make it. We can’t run out and buy fancy new things for our house, but so what? After having our belongings in storage for 14 months, it will all seem new to us. And new isn’t what’s important anyway. The important thing is what we make out of what we have.

It may not seem like a lot, but it is to me. I’m ready to make that house our home.

Every drop counts

We got rain this past weekend.

While Matt and I were away in Illinois, 2.5 inches poured down on central Texas. Yes, 2.5 inches hardly affects the long-term destruction of the drought, and yes, our room at my parent's house flooded while we were away, but that doesn't change the fact that rain is welcome and wonderful.

I turned on the TV Saturday night and almost jumped with joy that the Rangers game was experiencing a rain delay. The next day our plane bounced through a storm and touched down on a rain-soaked Houston tarmac. The past three days have remained cloudy and cool, and a few drops fell as we left the restaurant after lunch today.

As we walked to the car I happily held out my hand to catch the drops. A well-dressed, middle-aged woman with designer sunglasses and stylish hair looked up from her smart phone to enjoy the sight of rain. "Every drop counts, doesn't it?" she said to me with a smile.

"Yes it does," I agreed.

It really does.

Animal Escapades (Part 3)

18.

Since mid-July, 18 raccoons have been lured by the irresistible bait of homemade, hand-cut peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Big raccoons. Little raccoons. Timid raccoons. Angry raccoons. It seems that no matter how many are caught, more will come. They appear at all hours of the day and night.

I got home one Friday afternoon and a raccoon raced past my car and up the nearest tree. He clung to a high branch, panting with exhaustion. How far had he come to reach the cooling waters of our decorative pond? He descended the minute we were inside and sat beneath the pond’s waterfall, soaking up the downpour.

Due to raccoons taking up residence in the eves of our roof, Papa recently set the trap much closer to the house.10 minutes after it was set I heard it snap shut. The porch light revealed a closed but empty cage. As he worked to reset it I noticed the escapee watching from the garden shed roof only a few feet away. The moment the house door closed he came down and began pulling the sandwich out through the bars. Piece by piece he pulled out a full quarter, climbed back to the shed roof and enjoyed his snack. For the second quarter he brazenly walked in, failing to trigger to poor, tired trap. The third he pulled through the bars again. He disappeared after that and we thought he was done for the night.

The next morning he snarled from inside the cage as we left for church. His greed had overcome his common sense, and he’d ventured in to pick up the crumbs. This was no cowering raccoon like the first - he hissed and growled and dashed his head against the bars as I approached.

“I admire your style,” I told him, “But your pride tripped you up.”

How good is a raccoon’s sense of direction? Have any walked the miles back to our yard only to be captured a second time?

I suppose the moral is this: raccoons will do anything for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Jury’s still out as to whether they prefer it cut into squares or triangles.

Living a dream

In Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris,” Owen Wilson plays a shaggy-haired, highly successful screenplay writer who pines for life in the 1920s. Those years, to him, were the golden age of art, beauty and contentment. Longing to get closer to his dream, he tries to convince his fiancé to move with him to Paris. He imagines a simple, beautiful life: writing novels in an attic with a skylight, walking the Parisian streets in the rain, finding artistic inspiration on every corner.

In the movie, his fiancé wants nothing to do with it. Her dream is to live in Malibu with matching $28,000 deck chairs.

But I was smitten.

I think, right now, Seattle is my Paris. Today’s daydream of a perfect, fulfilled life is to live somewhere on the Kitsap peninsula, surrounded by ocean and mountains, close enough to enjoy the wonderful city yet far enough out to satisfy my country-dweller’s soul. I love the rain, so that’s no obstacle, and it will make sunny days that much better. I envision a part-time writing career, leaving plenty of time for wandering city markets and auditioning for plays. I’d memorize lines on a back porch overlooking the bay, serenaded by the rain in the trees. Matt would get home from his theater tech job and we’d cook dinner together and take walks along the edge of the bay. On the weekends we’d go hiking or boating or sell baked goods (me) and jewelry (Matt) at a market booth. Some nights we’d go to the city for sushi and a show. Others we’d stay home and watch movies with friends. We’d have a dog. And a garden. And a canoe in the garage.

And so on and so forth. It’s enjoyable to focus on the details as long as a dream doesn’t become an obsession. I think it helps life preserve a certain sense of wonder. And what would life be like without anything wonderful?

Extremes

Darling, I don't know why I go to extremes,
Too high or too low, there ain't no in-betweens;
And if I stand or I fall,
It's all or nothing at all,
Darling, I don't know why I go to extremes.
                                                           -Billy Joel


Which is worse: a long, slow death by drought, or having everything swept away in an instant by a raging flood?

Every day there are more photos of Texas dying – cattle lying on the parched ground, too weak to stand; farmers forced to abandon their farms; catfish struggling to breathe in the shallows of a disappearing lake.

Then, over the past weekend, the images of a hurricane – water raging down once-inhabited streets; mature trees ripped from the ground; a daughter sobbing into her father’s lap on stairs that no longer lead to a front door.

I think a drought can feel worse because it takes so long for everything to die. A flood comes and goes in a matter of days. The destruction is terrible and yet over almost too fast to think about. Once over, it’s time to rebuild.

A drought drains resources as well as hope. One life after another is slowly shut down; places that may have made it through the battering winds of a storm stand no chance against the deliberate force of time. By the time relief comes, it may be too late.

Neither is better; I feel guilt watching the news and longing for Vermont’s rapid, raging water to pour down our rivers and refill our lakes. I don’t really want that extreme – I don’t want any extreme – but it can be hard not to reach for extremes when you are surrounded by one already.

A Million Miles

I finished re-reading Donald Miller’s A Million Miles in a Thousand Years today. I read it for the first time shortly after hearing him speak at a church in Tyler, TX when the book had just come out. Many of these stories stick in my mind more than those in his other books – all of which I adore – as I remember the way he told them and the extra details he was able to add.

Don (I know that’s informal, but I honestly think he’d prefer that to Mr. Miller) focuses on stories in A Million Miles. He writes about how his life, his own personal story, doesn’t feel meaningful or complete. He gives examples of people who have grown lazy in their marriages, people who never reach out and take that next crucial step, who stop understanding that there’s something better.

At a crucial point in his story, Don tells of paddling across a seemingly endless inlet in the dead of night. “I think this is when most people give up on their stories,” he writes. “They come out of college wanting to change the world, wanting to get married, wanting to have kids and the change the way people buy office supplies. But they get into the middle and discover it was harder than they thought. They can’t see the distant shore anymore, and they wonder if their paddling is moving them forward. None of the trees behind them are getting smaller and none of the trees ahead are getting bigger.”

I feel like I’ve been drifting between shores for quite some time now. The concise way of summing up my feelings about it is this: waiting is hard. And the detailed version: Waiting is one of the most difficult things faced in life. Lately I’ve felt stuck in an endless loop of waiting: waiting for a job, then once a job was found, waiting for finances to get better. Finances haven’t gotten better, so now it’s waiting for Matt to get a job, waiting to find out if he can go to school, waiting to see if we can afford to fix the cars, waiting through endless calls about debt we can’t pay, waiting for the day we can finally be out on our own again, waiting to feel like an independent adult again, waiting for a feeling of accomplishment, waiting for the next step.

And believe me, this isn’t sitting around, twiddling thumbs waiting. This is constant searching, constant questioning, constantly striving for something to finally go right. This is waiting that attempts to drain all resolve.

Almost every day I struggle to not be crushed beneath the thought that this could all be my fault: that I moved us down here and into this failure because of something I couldn’t handle. Last fall when I finally scrapped my pride and applied for unemployment, my application was denied, saying I had left the position because “the work was too hard.” I had the chance to explain my case, but it did no good. And because of that, those words have never left me.

I worked for that company a total of three days last September, and they felt like the worst days of my life. I crammed the hours trying to learn the policies, procedures, and complicated figures that would help me succeed. But when I got home after 9 PM the third night, knowing my trainer would be leaving the next morning, I knew I needed more time. I wasn’t yet ready to handle that kind of enormous financial responsibility without someone there to double-check my work. I knew could learn it, but not that fast. I met with them the next morning, stated my reasons, and asked for more time. I was denied. I turned in my keys and left.

I drove to the empty mall parking lot across the street and cried until I could barely breathe. Matt and I had made the move on the promise of reimbursed costs, and now we had nothing. We had signed a new lease and paid the fees the day before, and now we had no way to keep it. Our bright new future turned into a backwards tumble down a hill.

After four months of searching, I found a new job. At my current job I make more than I did in Longview, but not by much. The job I left would have doubled my salary and then some. That job would have let us live in an apartment with 1,000+ square feet of space, save for a house, make loan payments on time and send Matt to school with manageable debt. But the other job didn’t happen.
“What if” can be two of the most dangerous words in the world. They have the ability to heal, but also to crush. “What if I hadn’t left? What if I had blundered my way through and eventually got it right? What if this is all my fault? What have I done to us?”

I tell myself to not play the guilt game, but it happens anyway. I know that I'm much happier at this job than I ever would have been there, but that doesn't stop the feeling that I, and I alone, did this to us. That I gave up without good reason. That I destroyed our only path to contentment.

I know God has something in the future for us, but it’s hard to keep up hope when your husband has received dozens of job rejections, your two cars need serious repairs and your credit card is creeping ever closer to the max.

There are times when I just want to give up everything in the hope that our next try will be better. I’m not giving up hope, and I’m not letting doubt overtake me, but I am saying that it’s hard. I anticipate the moment Donald Miller describes, when he and his fellow paddlers reach the other shore and are awed by the glory of the scene around them. "It’s like this with every crossing, and with nearly every story too,” he writes. “You paddle until you no longer believer you can go any farther. And then suddenly, well after you thought it would happen, the other shore starts to grow, and it grows fast. The trees get taller and you can make out the crags in the cliffs, and then the shore reaches out to you, to welcome you home, almost pulling your boat onto the sand.”

I’m impatient, and I’m worn out, but I’m waiting. I don't expect our future to be perfect, but I'm ready to draw closer to the shore and further from doubt.

Animal Escapades (Part 2)

Let me start with a couple of Useless Tips for Ridding Your Yard of Raccoons:

1) Put a radio outside and leave it on all night. The sound of human voices will deter coons from entering the area.

Reality: Raccoons are smarter than that. They quickly realize that there are no actual people sitting outside yakking it up all night.

2) Install a motion-sensor light to scare raccoons away.

Reality: The raccoons in our yard must have taken "Humans 101" at the local coon college. The light came on, they scattered...and immediately regrouped when it became apparent that nothing more than light was going to happen.

What we didn't try was my genius idea of large swaths of flypaper around the pool for little coon feet to get stuck on! What? Stop giving me that look. It could have worked. Oh, never mind.

Partial success was reached this morning due to Papa's perserverance. Two nights ago he baited a cage with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and didn't set the catch, hoping to lure them into a sense of security. It worked. Free dinner #2 was set out last night, this time with the cage set to snap shut when entered.

"There's at least 8 of them," he observed after watching them from a darkened corner of the pool cabana. "Two separate families that bicker over food and territory."

Lo and behold, an adolescent-size coon was caught. I went out this morning to look before leaving for work. He scrabbled about, chewing on the remains of a cardboard label advertising "Large raccoon trap! Perfect for raccoons, opposums and similarly-sized animals." As we approached he crouched low, facing a corner, nose nearly touching the wire. My brother and I sat on the concrete closest to him. He met our gaze with his wide, dark eyes, but didn't move.

My comforting instinct urged for me to reach through the tiny squares and smooth his hackled fur, but I knew a snarl and snap would instantly greet my fingers. We spoke quietly to him. It's strange to be faced with an antagonist and have them meet your gaze with fear. It's much easier to be angry at a faceless opponent, to mutter "you darn critters!" when they aren't looking you in the eye.

I am eternally grateful to be the daughter of a man who will humanely trap and release an animal instead of stuffing it or skinning it or turning it into stew. As we sat by the cage, Papa came out with a piece of bread. He tore off small pieces and pushed them between the bars. The raccoon lifted his head, not quite turning around, but sensing the presence of food. As I left for work Papa lifted the cage and carefully set it in the back of the truck, taking him away to a second chance at life.

Mr. Jones

I would just like to pause for a moment and say how awesome Dean Jones is.

Dean Jones. Disney classic. Star of some of the best family films of the 1960s-70s. And he's totally handsome. Personally, a guy like him is much more appealing to me than some 19-year-old with hard abs and hair gel. I wouldn't even know what Dean Jone's abs look like, since he never had to take his shirt off to sell a movie.

Dean Jones is handsome, wholesome, charming, and a strong Christian. The latter part of his career has been spent touring his one-man show "St. John in Exile." He has done dozens of Biblical re-enactment projects, videos, TV series, etc., and done them well.

As a kid we rented "The Love Bug" series over and over again, and I've recently been able to introduce my younger siblings to those movies, "That Darn Cat," and soon "The Horse in the Gray Flannel Suit." Dean Jones usually plays a smooth but slightly flustered character, surrounded by a situation he can't quite control on his own. He starts off as a bit of a hotshot in "The Love Bug," but of course soon proves his heart of gold.

The Love Bug (1968)

That Darn Cat (1965)


So anyway. Dean Jones. Great guy. Fun family films. Go find one today. The end.

Dog story

Before school was out for the summer, I ended up behind the school bus a few mornings each week. There are several “no outlet” streets in our neighborhood, so the bus will often stop at the beginning of the road to pick up the gathered children instead of venturing down each narrow country cul-de-sac. I began to notice patterns for each group: the parents that drive their kids to the end of the road as opposed to those who walk; the mom that goes with her little girls up the bus doors every day, hugging them and straightening their backpacks as they board; the little “thanks for waiting” wave she gives me while heading back to her own car.

But of all these observations, my favorite is the shaggy dog.

The first cul-de-sac stop picks up 3-4 kids, and at least two of them are siblings. One clue is that they stand together, and the other is the shaggy little dog sniffing around beside them. He investigates the ditches and bushes as the children wait, but jumps to attention as the bus approaches. He bounds after them as they walk to the door, circling their feet as they board. The bus pulls away and he, proud to have gotten them off on another days’ adventure, trots stalwartly homeward.

I picture their mom glancing out the window as he trots into the yard each day. Whether she’s busy washing dishes or feeding a baby or gathering up her briefcase and keys, his loyal appearance assures her that her children are safely on their way.

The unconditional loyalty of that little dog assures me that if anything were to happen to those kids, one of two things would happen: he would not leave their side, protecting them with all his shaggy might, or he would run home as fast as he could to bring help. I imagine the tightening in their mother’s chest if he didn’t come back, her thoughts of “what happened?”

I’m sure there are days when he’s distracted by a squirrel or an interesting smell, but I’m also sure he makes a priority of getting home. He’s got the rest of the day to explore and play. At seven each morning he’s there to send them off, and I’m sure that at four he’ll be there to walk them home.

Animal Escapades (Part 1)

Last night Matt and I were sitting out at my family’s pool, dipping our feet in the water and talking. We were seated beneath the one light bulb hanging from the side of the cabana, and the underwater lights were on, providing a shifting, watery glow. I heard a chuck-will’s-widow calling in the distance. I turned my head to hear it better and gasped in surprise as I was greeted by four masked, shining eyes. Two medium-sized raccoons were headed toward the water from behind the cabana. My startled reaction startled them, and their ringed tails disappeared again into the darkness.



Mom has been on a get-rid-of-raccoons campaign due to a recent slew of destructive events, so Matt and I turned off the lights and waited in the dark for them to return. My family has recently gained a pair of archery bows (one compound, one recurve), and Matt recently purchased sharper tipped arrows for just such pest removal (or at least scaring away) purposes.
As we sat in the dark we could hear the coons chirruping in the trees, but nothing reappeared around the corners. While part of me acknowledged the cuteness of the creatures, another part knows just how my mom feels. In the recent months they have inhabited my dad’s workshop (and you thought rats were bad!), eaten fish meant for the pond, stolen household items accidentally left outside, and continually muddied the pool and deck with their little food-washing feet. And if mom’s chickens keep laying in bushes instead of their nesting boxes, they will probably start stealing eggs as well.

I think what surprised me the most is that they were headed for the water even though the lights were on and we were talking. Like the deer, the raccoons seem to becoming more and more accustomed to close human proximity. The deer just don’t care anymore, strolling through yards and across roads at all hours of the day. If you step outside they’ll lazily look up at you, but not bother to move unless you shout or run toward them. They eat the fruit from the trees and chew young saplings to the ground. The other day I saw one sticking its tongue through the garden fence in an attempt to reach a corn stalk. Deer can still be beautiful to watch, but it’s hard to enjoy their majestic nature when they are destroying your summer harvest.

Wow. It's amazing how many results you get by image googling "deer sticking tongue out."

I suppose it’s just a constant territorial battle: as the area becomes more and more developed, the animals adapt and grow bolder in order to survive.
In other animal news, I saw a very large (and very dead) porcupine on the side of the road yesterday morning. I had no idea that porcupines were native Texans!


It looked exactly like this. Only...dead.

My dad saw a guy collecting the quills later that day, armed with heavy gloves and a sack. What are good uses for porcupine quills? Does that guy scour the roadsides for prickly roadkill, or what this a first-time collection?

That situation always makes me a little sad: “Whoa! A porcupine! I’ve never seen one in the wild before! Oh...it’s dead.” Live animals are just…well…most things are better when they’re alive. Unless you’re wearing or eating it. Then I am a firm believer in whatever you are wearing or eating no longer looking like a live thing at all.

So anyway…we’ll see how Raccoon Adventure Part 2 goes. Pretty sure the hubster is going to camp out tonight to try and scare them off more permanently by shooting sharp things in their general direction. Your cuteness can’t always make up for your troublemaking,  you fuzzy little creatures.

June 1st

It's June. My last post was in April. Blaaaarrrrgggghhhh.

Every single day I have multiple moments of  "I should write about that," "that would be a good blog topic," "I should write about this," "or that," "or..."

Why don't I do it? Probably because I'm either driving to work, at work, or driving home from work for 11 hours every day. 11 hours. If we lived closer this would only take 9 hours plus a few minutes out of each day. I love my job, but the long commute is slowly eating away at my soul. It doesn't help that  on MSN yesterday there was a big ol' artice about the downsides of long commutes. Higher divorce rates, health problems, lack of productivity. Yippee.

As well as just making time to write more often, I also need to decide if I want this blog to be mostly contemplative and topic-y (as it has been up to this time), or more focused on daily life, with contempative-ness thrown in every now and then. Would posting daily events prompt me to write more often? The "daily" part of that seems to suggest that it would. But I don't want this to just become a "this is what I ate, bought, watched" blog. I love reading those blogs, and I know I'd have fun writing it, but I also want to keep writing on longer, more complicated subjects in order to hone skills. Writing a monthly editorial was one of my favorite parts of being a college newspaper editor. I still hope to make writing (especially writing a magazine/newspaper column) a career, or at least part-time career, at some point in my life. And, like everything, it means keeping those skills well-practiced in the meantime.

So here's a little of both. For the dose of daily life: I hope to paint my office this weekend. This prospect excites me, as I haven't gotten to decorate/organize/re-vamp a space of my own since we last had our own apartment. And that was over 8 months ago.

For the "deeper:" I've been thinking a lot about missions lately. What it means to be a missionary. What it takes to be a missionary. Be it long-term or short, missions are something you commit your whole self to. I think about doing short term trips but know we don't have the money. And I don't want to ask other people for the cash when I know they could use it themselves. Is it wrong to choose to pay bills over funding a mission trip? Am I selfish to think, month after month, "I'll contribute when we don't have bills, when we aren't scraping pennies to pay loans, when my husband's education is finally complete." Is that putting my life above God's will? I love hearing the stories of friends and family who have set out on a great adventure for God, reaching those in ways I never could imagine. While for myself, I think, "It's just not possible right now. It's just not me." And then I question it all over again.

Last one, I promise:

Blargh.

                                       

I encourage anyone and everyone to go see “Soul Surfer” over the next few weeks. It exceeded profit estimates on opening weekend, coming in 2 box office slots above the newest stoner comedy. Keep it at the top! Help meaningful entertainment prove its worth!!


“Soul Surfer” is a wonderful, professionally-made film about a young girl who doesn’t let go of God when her world comes crashing down. She isn’t defeated by the tragedy of losing her arm in a shark attack, and while she tearfully wonders why God allowed it to happen, she never lashes out or turns against Him.

Good Christian cinema is, sadly, a rarity. Cheese and better-than-thou acting can overshadow a good story, but that is not the case with this film. “Soul Surfer” boasts an A-list cast and professional filming, script-writing, cinematography...everything.

Filmmakers initially tried to tone down the Christianity of the Hamilton family, but were convinced otherwise at every turn. When they wanted to remove the words “Holy Bible” from the front of the Tom Hamilton’s (Dennis Quaid) book, the real Mr. Hamilton sent a photo of his Bible, those 2 words emblazoned across the well-worn cover. Filmmakers attempted to cut the Scripture reference that Bethany’s (AnnaSophia Rob) youth group leader (Carrie Underwood) uses to encourage her, but Underwood and others wouldn’t have it any other way.

It’s incredible to see a strong, loving Christian family portrayed on screen, not a family with a buffoonish father, sharp-tongued mother and conniving kids. One of the very first scenes is in a church, and it’s natural. Comfortable. The Hamiltons pray before meals, holding hands as a family. There is understandable family tension after the accident, but they work through it and stay strong. Bethany’s friends rush to save her life during the accident and her doctor and church group helps her realize what she’s capable of afterwards.

So, go see it. Let me know your thoughts. I think it’s pretty wonderful, myself.

The Reality of Unfathomable Love: Thoughts on "Love Wins" by Rob Bell

Rob Bell’s new book Love Wins: A Book about Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, was released today. Below are my thoughts on that book, according to the research I have done over the past several weeks. I have not read the book yet, but I will. At the end of this post there are links to several of the articles and authors that I have been following.

Please know that this is not a vendetta against Rob Bell. I have never been a “fan” of his teaching style, but that doesn’t mean I doubted the validity of what he was teaching. I am writing this because I was shocked to hear that he might have turned away from and twisted God’s truth, and because I am saddened that it’s true.

I am writing this because my heart is breaking for him and for those who may take his false teaching as truth.


Unfathomable Love

Rob Bell is very successful at being different. Artistic. Compelling. He has worked to break away from the stereotype of a stuffy, judgmental church leader.

Over the past few weeks, word sped throughout the Christian community that Rob Bell had embraced a universalist view of heaven and hell. There are many different variations to this system of belief, but put as simply as possible: all roads lead to heaven. Hell is empty. God has many names, and everyone will get to Him in different ways.

The rumors are painfully true. Though Bell has left himself openings to escape a strict universalist label, he is no longer teaching a Biblically sound view of eternal life.

Bell uses dozens of Bible passages in his book, but multiple pastors have pointed out how he takes the verses out of context and never fully uses any of them to support his thesis.

Summarized from reviews and excerpts from Love Wins, here is (in my words) what Bell is saying he believes about heaven and hell:

After death, some people are ready to enter God’s Kingdom automatically, while others must wait and first go through God’s refining fire. This burning away of sinful nature will take longer for some than it will for others, but everyone will be united with God in the end. Hell is what we make it, and God allows us the evil things we want for a while, but we will all be purged in time. God’s love will purify everyone. Trust in Jesus is important, but those who don’t like Christianity’s terms will come to know God through their own, personalized path.

As part of his support for this, Bell digs into an alternative meaning of the word eternal, saying that when God proclaims “eternal punishment” it merely means “intense punishment.” This means that corrective fire will be more intense for some than it is for others, but not forever.

Bell leaves himself a way out of the universalist label by never saying that absolutely nobody will stay in this refining period forever. But he strongly leans toward the view that everyone, no matter how long it takes, will be able to share in the glory of heaven.

This sounds wonderful at first, but if it were true, God would be nothing like the Bible says He is.

The Bible tells of a God who is angry. Jealous. Loving. We are created in His image, so our emotions reflect His, but our puny range of emotions is nothing compared to His. We struggle to forgive a cashier who short-changes us or a driver who runs us off the road. God forgives us of EVERYTHING. It’s unfathomable. We use the term “God-fearing” not because we need to cower in constant terror, but because God is more powerful and all-encompassing than anything we could possibly imagine.

If God loves the way that Bell claims He does, then Christ’s death on the cross is severely diminished. This ultimate sacrifice was all a show, a metaphor for the people of ancient times. If God truly is a wrathless God, and all our suffering is man-made and completely reversible, then Jesus’ death is just a nice example. We don’t need the blood of Christ to wash us clean.

Think about it this way: What kind of horrible, sadistic father would put his son through a torturous death for nothing? Is that a God you'd want to follow?

If what Rob Bell is teaching were true, why would Jesus tell the parables of the unprepared servant and the virgins who were not ready for the bridegroom’s arrival? (Matthew 24 and 25).

If what he’s teaching were true, why would God command us again and again to reach out to the lost, to minister to the ungodly, to live our lives as a reflection of His glory?

Why would the call to evangelism and missions be so desperate if there aren’t nations perishing without Him?

Why would we take up our cross and follow Him?

Christ’s death on the cross is the ultimate sacrifice. It is the only reason that God hasn’t wiped out the earth a hundred times. God loves us so much that He gave part of Himself to die and be reborn in our place. That is love. A get-out-of-hell-free card isn't love.

Some will choose to never to see His grace, and this breaks His heart. But it does not diminish His glory.

Bell still seems to urge people to live good lives and make the best decisions they can while they can, but in his mind, all our mistakes mean is a little more time spent in God’s refinery at the end.

There will always be theological questions that need to be asked, but Bell is not asking them. He is providing answers. It’s not rhetorical or contemplative. He is stating this as truth. And that’s what is so damaging.

This is the chance that God has given us. He sent His son to us HERE so that we may find and follow the truth before our deaths.

History is tragic, but not because God “isn’t getting what He wants.” Not because His greatness has been diminished. Because of us. Our selfishness. Our pride. Our unwillingness to put ourselves in hard places, to reach out to those that don’t know of Him, to stand up for His name in the face of adversity.

Saving everyone would be easy for God. Do we really want a God that takes the easy way out?

Nothing can diminish God’s greatness. God is not only “sort of great” because some of His children are lost daily. God has saved us all. We condemn ourselves when we choose not to listen. When we refuse to share His grace with those who don’t know. When we believe that it doesn’t matter how we live.

The song Our God is an Awesome God has long seemed like a Bible camp cliche to me. But when it came on the radio this morning I was struck by the power of its words. Words taken for granted are words that proclaim the truth.

“When He rolls up His sleeves
He ain't just putting on the ritz;
Our God is an awesome God

There's thunder in His footsteps
And lightning in His fists;
Our God is an awesome God

And the Lord wasn't joking
When He kicked 'em out of Eden
It wasn't for no reason
That He shed His blood
His return is very close
And so you better be believing that
Our God is an awesome God

Our God is an awesome God
He reigns from heaven above
With wisdom, power, and love
Our God is an awesome God

And when the sky was starless
In the void of the night;
Our God is an awesome God

He spoke into the darkness
And created the light;
Our God is an awesome God

Judgement and wrath
He poured out on Sodom
Mercy and grace
He gave us at the cross
I hope that we have not
Too quickly forgotten that
Our God is an awesome God

Our God is an awesome God
He reigns from heaven above
With wisdom, power, and love
Our God is an awesome God.”

In his book Radical, David Platt describes how the true message of Christ has never been the popular one. Jesus taught that to follow Him meant persecution, ridicule, and abandonment. He told people to leave their homes, sell their belongings, and follow Him, whatever the cost.

Jesus didn’t teach people to believe what feels right and to call Him whatever name we choose.
“Narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.” says Matthew 7:14. There is one way, and it is difficult. There is judgment. And there is a God who loves us more than we could ever imagine.

I pray that Rob Bell will not lead his church to destruction. I pray that he will find his way back to the way, the truth and the life that is God’s perfect and unfathomable love.

____________________________________________________________________


A few of my sources:

Burk, Denny. http://www.dennyburk.com/revising-hell-into-the-heterodox-mainstream/

Challies, Tim. http://www.challies.com/book-reviews/love-wins-a-review-of-rob-bells-new-book

DeYoung, Kevin. http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevindeyoung/2011/03/14/rob-bell-love-wins-review/

Platt, David. Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream.

Trueman, Carl. http://www.reformation21.org/blog/2011/03/an-accidental-optimist.php

Rarity

Glimpsing a complete stranger in a moment of pure happiness is very rare. Waiting at a stoplight while running errands, I noticed the driver of a trash truck as he turned into the lane next to me. There was unashamed happiness on his face, his mouth wide with a smile and laugh, teeth brilliantly white against his dark skin. It may have been caused by something his coworker said or something he heard on the radio, but this wasn’t a passing smile of amusement or a chuckle at an appreciated joke. This was joy.


What made him so joyful on a rainy midweek morning as he drove his battered green truck through the neighborhoods of north Austin? And why don’t I look that way? I have plenty to be joyful about, but I doubt I show it. I even TRY to exude an air of busyness or distractedness when in public alone. I know it’s a shield. We work so hard to keep people out that when someone’s true emotion shines through, we are stunned. Flabbergasted. And ...jealous.

“He who trims himself to suit everyone will soon whittle himself away,” says the popular quote by Raymond Hull. How many whittled-down, gouged-out people do we encounter every day? And how whittled-down and gouged-out am I?

We begin to forget ourselves as we strain to fit into the world’s stereotypes. As a relationship grows we may begin to fill out in each other’s presence, but there are often personality pieces that are never shown, dreams never shared, hopes kept silent.

People do grow and change, but some things remain constant. The ability to feel and show joy is one of them. I think we should use it more often.

Smartphone insanity

Something that makes me shake my head with a “really?” is the note of origin stamped on every email sent from a smartphone. “Sent from my iPhone” “my Andrioid” “my Blackberry” “my Windows Phone!” they shout. Really?? I have never in my life gotten an email declaring the computer of origin, or a letter declaring the quality of pen.

Just imagine that in other situations:

Person 1: Have you got the time?

Person 2: Yes, it’s 3:15, provided by Rolex.

Person 1: Do you have any gum?

Person 2: Sure, here you go.

Person 1: Um...why is this gum stamped with the words “Carried by Gucci?”

Linty spearmint will taste the same no matter what brand of purse it is carried in. So why are messages sent from phones touted as the best words on the planet? It’s so absurdly narcissistic.

Thoughts? Contradictions? Other examples of smartphone insanity?

The Story of St. Valentine

Long ago, Roman Emperor Claudius II was a fierce conqueror as well as a persecutor of the Christian church. As his empire grew, Claudius needed more soldiers in his armies. He believed that many young men were not joining the army because they were afraid of what might happen to their wives and children if they were killed in battle. So, in an attempt to increase his armies, Claudius passed an edict banning any new marriages.

Valentine was a bishop in the Christian church at that time, and continued to perform secret marriages within his church. Eventually he was caught and dragged to prison. Claudius was impressed with his bravery and told Valentine that he would be freed if he declared his belief in the pagan Roman gods. Valentine refused. Enraged, Claudius sentenced him to death.

As he awaited his execution, Valentine befriended his jailer, Asterius, and his blind daughter. They came to love Valentine as he shared his faith and told beautiful stories for the blind girl. When the day of his execution came, Valentine wrote a last letter to the girl telling her to be strong in her newfound Christian faith. He signed the letter “from your Valentine.”

St. Valentine was martyred for his faith on February 14, 270 AD and has become the patron saint of love and marriage. Something to remember is that Valentine’s Day is not only a day to celebrate romantic love (eros), but also brotherly love (philo/a) and the unconditional love (agape) that God has for us.

Time, part II

Today, I was able to delete my Google Doc that contained over 80 job applications. Applications that I had filled out, prayed over, stressed about and crossed off, one by one, since late last September.

Because today, I started my new job.

Yesterday, I was baptized and announced, along with Matt, as a new member of the church we’ve been attending since mid-October.

Yesterday, as I walked from the baptismal to the sanctuary, I was told I had been offered a position at the church.

Yesterday, my just re-applied mascara got smudged as I cried with happiness.

Yesterday ended a 4 month period of being unemployed, and today starts an incredible new section of our lives.

Today we get to stop speculating and start planning. Over the new few months we will attack our debt, save for Matt’s education and search for a place to live that’s closer to work and school.

New beginnings also bring endings: I have savored the time spent living with my family and getting to reconnect with my siblings after living for the past 5 years in a city over 300 miles away. I’ve enjoyed the simple pleasures of helping Mom with the grocery shopping, going on morning walks with Matt and feeding ducks in the park with Noble on a Friday afternoon. There have definitely been stresses - married and living with family isn't always easy - but it has been a wonderful time as well.

Looking back, heading forward, and ready for the adventure ahead.