The Axe in the Ceiling

It's a story about a young man who is engaged to be married, and one time when he's visiting his fiancée and future in-laws, the girl goes into the cellar to draw a pitcher of beer, and as she's sitting there she looks up and sees an axe in the ceiling. 

"Goodness," she says to herself. "That axe looks dangerous. I wonder if it's wedged in good and tight. What if it isn't? Or what if it is now, but all the pounding from people walking about upstairs loosens it? Why, what if one day, years from now, when my young man and I are married and have a son, we send him downstairs to draw beer, and the axe falls, and it lands on his head and kills him?" She is overcome by grief at the prospect and begins weeping bitterly.

Meanwhile, upstairs they are getting pretty thirsty, and so the girl's mother comes down to see what's the matter. The girl tells her mother the whole story about how someday there might be a boy who might be under the axe when it might fall and thus might be killed, and soon there are two people crying in the cellar.

As nobody upstairs is getting any the less thirsty, the girl's father makes his apologies to the family's guest and heads down into the cellar, but wouldn't you know it, he hears the story and is just as sure of the horribleness of it as his wife before him and his daughter before her, and he sits on down next to them and they're all three of them blubbering like a bunch of babies.

Finally the fiancé comes down to see what all the fuss is about, and he hears the whole story, and wouldn't it be terrible when their son was laid out in the front parlor in his best clothes, dead as a doornail because of that dreadful axe in the dreadful ceiling.

And the fiancé reaches up, and grabs the handle, and pulls, and the axe comes out just as easy, and he looks down at the three people who sit staring at him through puffy red eyes and he says, "I have never met three such ridiculous sillies in my entire life, and if I ever met three more ridiculously silly than you I will be back, but if I were you I would not be expecting me anytime soon."

Well, go out he does and as he does in fact find three more ridiculously silly than he thought possible he does come back and marry the poor girl, and they never have a son but a set of healthy daughters, though send them down into the cellar he will not because he wants them where he can keep his eyes on them so they don't get into their mother's former ways of thinking.

And there's more about the three sillies he finds, and what they do, but the axe is the part of the story that always stays with me, and so that's the part I'm sharing with you.

Interesting phenomenon

Sometimes when I write a blog post specifically about trusting God and why I do trust him, I end up entering a period of time in which I'm strongly tempted to feel very, very sorry for myself for one reason or another (I have learned/am learning not to blog extensively at those times so I don't cringe as often at whininess when reading over old posts). Anyway, then I have to work to put what I just wrote into play in my life.

Sometimes I can't decide if this is a temptation or an opportunity. (That sounded kind of corporate-lingoistic, but I hope you know what I mean.) I choose to believe the latter. Even if things turn out as bleak as I can imagine they will at these sorts of times, I will trust that his ways are just and he acts for my good, because I love him and he says that's because he loved me first (I John 4:19), and ultimate good is in store for those he loves (Rom. 8:28).

Meanwhile, on this side of ultimate good, I've been having a sad sort of week and I'm praying for endurance and patience and perspective. (If you're praying and this happens to come to your mind, I'd appreciate some backup.)

"Weeping may last for the night, but a shout of joy comes in the morning" (Ps. 30:5b).

It always seems soon. Afterward.

Tomorrow will care for itself

One of my company newsletters had an article/editorial this month on the subject of worry. Several broad claims were made without any citations to back them up, which tends to set my Snopes sense tingling. It made for good blog fodder, though, which is something I always appreciate. Below are the main points of the article and my responses to each.

1) Citizens of the United States are more worried now than they ever were in the history of the country. 

• I'd like to see some serious psychological studies from a cross-section of history to back this up. Because from what I recall of my own studies, our history started with feeling disenfranchised from our rulers (the British Empire) and progressed to all-out war fought between seasoned troops and farmers. We had a war over states' rights, partly because we had "citizens" who didn't legally count as full people. We participated in two World Wars that sandwiched the Great Depression. We experienced a major terrorist attack. Seems to me we've had some pretty tense times in our history. Why be so worried now?

2) Anxiety/depression medications are big business.

• Undisputed. But sad. Aren't wealthy people supposed to feel safe and happy? Don't we have more money per capita than most of the rest of the world. What's going on?

3) The media is largely to blame.

• As a song from a favorite childhood record says, "You don't have to read about everything they write / And you don't have to watch everything that's on tonight."

4) Worry is a bad habit "just like overeating, biting your fingernails, or smoking."

• Aren't many of the latter habits connected to worrying? Moving on, though, obviously even emotional behavioral patterns become habits, but somehow they are "okay" habits. People can warn you about the dangers of smoking or overeating, or the sheer annoyance of listening as you bite your fingernails, and you don't really mind. Tell me I worry too much and I may have to make a conscious effort to keep my back from flying up higher than an angry cat's.

5) You can stop worrying if you try hard enough (the article suggests keeping a "worry journal" and clocking your worry times). 

• Oh, great, I'm just not trying hard enough. Something else to worry about. Also, even if a worry journal weren't another thing to add to my list of things to keep track of, I see a greater potential for it to remind me of things to worry about than to make me feel better.

6) Worry doesn't accomplish anything.

• 100% agreement. Or as the best summation of this that I've ever read says, "Who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life?" (Matthew 6:27).

Jesus doesn't just say "Don't worry." He doesn't even say, "Don't worry...be happy!" Instead, he offers a set of "Don't worry, because..." statements. Don't worry, because life is more than food, and the body is more than clothing. Don't worry, because your heavenly Father feeds the birds and because you are worth even more than the birds. Don't worry, because you can't add time to your life by doing so. Don't worry, because your Father—your Father, who cares for you—is by no means ignorant of your needs. 

To worry is to forget all of the above. And yet this notion that worry is a good and effective pursuit has sunk so deeply into us that it shows itself in how we speak. How often I've said something like, "I'm worried the echo in the room will make it hard for the audience to hear the actors," when what I mean is something more like, "I've identified a potential problem with our acoustics and we need to address it." I'm not truly worried. It isn't worry that makes me aware of my surroundings. People who aren't worried don't float through life in a blissful state of constant oblivion to the world around them, they choose not to dwell on such potential problems for too long. They choose to dwell on the big picture instead.

Big picture, my Father holds all of the history of all of the world in his hands. And he knows what I need.

Thoughts for a New President

"Behold, you are trusting now in Egypt, that broken reed of a staff, which will pierce the hand of any man who leans on it. Such is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him." (2 Kings 18:21)

You are buoyed by a tremendous amount of public support, Mr. President. For now. People across the country are happy tonight. Some say they are finally proud to be Americans again. Most, being human, are likely prouder to be feeling in the right than they are about an abstract ideal. Be someone they didn't expect and you may find yourself stabbed in worse places than through the hand. The much-vilified former president probably didn't expect all the shoes, back when his approval ratings were soaring (they were, once).

Don't be tempted to place your trust in people, not exclusively. Not enough to lean your full weight on them. None of us can bear that weight without collapsing under the pressure.

"On an appointed day Herod put on his royal robes, took his seat upon the throne, and delivered an oration to them. And the people were shouting, 'The voice of a god, and not of a man!' Immediately an angel of the Lord struck him down, because he did not give God the glory, and he was eaten by worms and breathed his last.

"But the word of God increased and multiplied." (Acts 12:21-24)

"It's like the biggest church service I've ever seen," one NPR commentator said about the mood at your inauguration. It's become the subject of late-show humorists, this messiah-ship many are trying to foist upon you. 

Watch out; be on the alert. It is a dangerous thing for a human to be venerated. Dangerous both to his worshippers and to himself. Please, please, please, for your own sake...stop and look at yourself once in a while. Look honestly at your failings and remind yourself you are not the god some seem to think you are. And consider that final note, too: a popular ruler died ignominiously despite his way with words, but the Word continued to spread. Quietly. Persistently. 

The rise and fall of kings, emperors, and presidents are none of them as important as we think. Be humble. Know your place, delight in it, and flourish there.

"If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it." (Genesis 4:7)

Seek acceptance from God, not man. Man can't grant it and God won't refuse it when you seek him with everything you have in you. You have so many gifts. Use them well.

I'm praying for you, Mr. President. May God use you mightily.

Something new

I was just listening to a little BNL, which I'll leave abbreviated in case sensitive eyes read this, and thinking about how if I ever get married it will be to somebody who enjoys goofy songs sometimes, and how ridiculously terrific we would be, because anybody who marries me will necessarily be half of the most terrific couple ever, and I realized.... This is new.

Not me thinking about potential marriage in my future, but the way I've been thinking about it lately. (I know I've been writing a lot about this topic lately. It loomed large in my life in 2008 and I'm still sorting through what I've learned.) Here are the main differences:

1) Marriage as one of two equally valid options for the course of my life. Not something to obsess over or freak out about, whether or not I eventually participate in it. Just a potential course God may have me take someday. If I never get married, I will be fine. More than fine. Blessed. Because God doesn't withhold blessings from His children, and it's exciting to see how blessings come in different ways. (If I do marry, no matter when it is, I know I won't regret the wait. And if I never marry, I won't be pressured to give up the best last name in the history of last names. Seriously? Winter? You can't beat that. Apologies to the rest of the world.)

2) Marriage as pleasantly challenging, even when it's difficult. Last Sunday night Pastor Dale spoke of the importance of fighting for unity with each other, of striving to put others first, of choosing to give in for the sake of the relationship. And I found myself smiling and thinking, "Yes. Bring it on." (Dangerous thoughts fully known to a dangerous God.) 

3) Marriage as sharing. Sharing responsibilities, and joys, and sorrows, and frustrations, and interests, and experiences, and encouragement, and growth. Not one grasping for more, but both eager to give of self and of time and of possessions. 

4) This might be the biggest change...marriage as fun. My favorite aunt and uncle got divorced when I was fifteen. Ever since then, I've focused a lot on how difficult a marriage relationship would be. Nothing but work, work, work, all the time. In the past year or so, and especially since certain epiphanies about the true nature of my character, something has been shifting. Now I think that if I were to get married, it would be hilarious on many levels, not least of which would be the radical divergences from my past perspectives. 

But all of this is not primarily about How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Marriage. This is primarily about God pulling me out of myself, leading me though dangerous valleys and beside still waters, feeding my desire for depth by continuing to deepen me in all my relationships. It's about trusting God and taking risks because of it (risks that sometimes involve waiting and patience). About how looking back over my own life increases my faith that God knows what He's doing. About affirming that what He has for me, whatever He has for me, is good. About living as His child in His family: sometimes leaning hard on each other and sometimes smashing up against each other and showering sparks in the process of sharpening us for the tasks at hand, but always pulling towards the same goal. 

I want to get my hands dirty in this glorifying God business.

Romantic Flash Points (Columbus #3)

It's a good thing nobody wanted to fall in love with me in Columbus, because I was on the edge. (You missed your chance, Beth.) There I was, surrounded by intelligent people with similar interests, and even though most of them didn't live anywhere close to me and apparently spent a lot more time listening to NPR than I do, I could barely bring myself to care. I fell in love with the exotic feel of the whole experience, and I felt the pull to transfer that infatuation to a person. 

In one of my favorite posts from his site Stuff Christians Like, Jon Acuff writes about similar feelings in the context of missions trips. The phenomenon extends beyond missions trips to any intense shared experience. Besides the recent arts festival example, I have been to a few conferences in which the group did a lot of communal soul-searching and heart-baring, and I got obliquely asked out in consequence. (Digression: one of the things that turned me off to this oblique request was that this man had previously expressed in a sharing time that a major goal of his future life was to ask more women out. Thank you for making me a check mark on your list, buddy. I feel so special.)

I have certainly heard the siren call of heightened emotional situations. The danger, of course, is that life is not always emotionally intense. In most lives, there are long stretches of boring in there. Nobody is going to be the same kind of shiny in those times as they were at the conference, or at the festival, or on the trip. And does anybody keep in touch on even a casual level with half of the way cool people that you meet in these sorts of situations?

I have my romantic side, but I don't trust it. Look up "romance" in the dictionary. Here, I'll do it for you. Notice that romance, by definition, lacks a firm base in everyday reality. It's all well and good to throw around little romantic gestures, but they aren't what get you through life. Some days you will wake up with bad breath, or come down with a flu, or just be really irritable for no good reason, and romance won't be anywhere around. Love might (should) be, but love is more about sacrifice than showing off. It could be legitimately argued that there is a place for showing off, a place for theatrical flair, but it shouldn't hold the primary place. 

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with drinking in a heightened emotional landscape. I just don't want to get drunk on one.

Maintaining Appearances (Columbus Post #2)

You know that stereotype about women worrying more about their appearance than men worry about theirs? I think that's a lie. I know several men who are balding and sigh over it. Speaking of hair, hair gel for men is a good example of male attention to their appearance. I have several guy friends who are very concerned about their weight (one of the latter, when talking about New Year's resolutions in Columbus, said his "shallow resolution" was: "Lose some weight, fatty"). This isn't to say that women don't worry about appearance, but that in many important ways, men and women are more alike than we are different.

For a long time, I confused humility with self-deprecation. I thought humility meant never accepting compliments, never believing you could be the best at anything, never letting somebody insult you if you could beat them to it. I ignored everything my parents said about how none of this was good for me. Then I ran into some girls who were doing the same sorts of things I was doing and I found those behaviors to be hugely annoying. Why? 

As strongly as self-obsession does, self-deprecation implies that you are the one who gets to defines yourself. Beware how you go about such work: "For the most part we do not see first, then define; we define first and then see" (Walter Lippmann). Usually, until my friends point out that they've gained weight, or that they haven't had anything interesting to say all night, or that they haven't cleaned in too long, I don't notice any of those things. Once they've been pointed out, even if I don't agree with the statement, I'll spend some time thinking about it. Waste some time. Previously, I was thinking about things like how great their band sounds, or how we can talk about anything, or simply how it's nice to see them. A self-deprecating remark derails the easy relational flow that we had going...or that I had going. It reveals pain I didn't know was there, and it opens up my own insecurity.

Because if something like a little weight fluctuation or a lull in the conversation or a few dirty dishes are important to my friend, then what do they notice about me? I'm not perfect, either.

None of us are. We know it. Somewhere below the worrying over what other people think is the knowledge that none of us is perfect enough to be loved for everything we are. We cover up, praising or shaming ourselves in turn, trying to distract others from our real problems, foolishly imagining that our problems preoccupy everyone else the way they preoccupy us, when in reality everyone else is busy looking for cover, too.

When Adam and Eve chose to partake of the forbidden and found it wasn't all the serpent promised it would be, they went looking for fig leaves to sew into clothing. I wonder if they searched in separate directions. I wonder if they could stand to make eye contact before God came looking for them.

When He came, He didn't tell them they were wrong to seek covering. He showed them they had chosen the wrong way to go about it, that He was the one who covers in a meaningful way. Later, He would send perfection personified, a person who wasn't all that much to look at but who brought perfection as clothing for those who saw how much they needed it and that He was the only one who could give it to them.

Here's the bad news: We can't ever be pretty enough, or thin enough, or smart enough, or charming enough, or enough enough, to merit or hold onto love.

Here's the good news: Grace abounds. Real love covers a multitude of all kinds of failings, from a bad hair day to harsh words hurled in anger. "We love, because He first loved us" (I John 4:19). You can't earn it...but you can't stop it, either.

As for me, I have repeatedly found that when I choose to define by love instead of looks, I get the fringe benefit of that choice thrown in: love makes people beautiful like nothing else ever can.

Places old and new

"You get a strange feeling when you're about to leave a place," Azar Nafisi recalls telling someone in Reading Lolita in Tehran, "like you'll not only miss the people you love, but you'll miss the person you are now, at this time and this place, because you'll never be this way again."

This idea was on my mind this morning as we held our first church service in our new building. Many people, if not most of them, were excited about it. I was a bit trepidatious. There are new rhythms to figure out, especially in regards to the movements of my first grade class but also for things like how I sit in the chairs and where I will find people and how I can try to pick out the best hymnal without a hymnal cart. 

The transition will be made easier by the fact that the people are the same. Mostly. We're not the same, not entirely. An era has ended. A period of my life—of our lives—is over. A new chapter has opened. Still, we're heading into it together, and that's no small thing.

I feel strangely about this coming year. It swirls with half-seen possibilities (good and bad alike) in a way previous years haven't for me, in a way that make it seem appropriate that I have already done so many things I've never done before. I've eaten a goat cheese omelet. I've talked to several people I didn't know well, and purposely sat by someone I didn't know at all. I've worshipped at the new building, where I shared a hymnal with somebody whose name I didn't know. (These might seem like small things. Unless you know me.)

I loved the old building. There are certainly things I will miss. But I'm ready for the new one.

New Year's Resolutions (Columbus post #1)

[Going to Columbus for the Wild Goose Creative New Year's Festival (henceforth to be known as the NYF for short) was like going to Harrisburg for Jeremiah and Dorothy's wedding in that there were a lot of post ideas that came out of it. That's why I'm using the same title format I did for the wedding, which I'm not done blogging about yet.]

When I was a kid, I used to try to make New Year's resolutions, just because everybody else did it and I thought maybe I should give it a try, too. I can't even remember one that I made, though, because my heart was never really in it. As I got older, this solidified into the thought that if something is worth doing, it's worth doing now. I don't store up resolutions for a calendar date.

In Columbus we made New Year's Resolution pendants, two small pieces of felt sewn together around a piece of paper on which you were encouraged to write a New Year's resolution. A lot of ideas for this were rattling around in my head, things I had already "resolved" to do before January 1. I went with the most traditional option, the one for which I most felt the need of a deadline.

Afterwards, as we were standing around before the next event, Morgan was asking people what their resolutions were and getting a little annoyed that most were responding that they couldn't tell him, as if they were birthday wishes. So much for accountability, he said.

We have a love/hate relationship with accountability. We know it's good for us, and sometimes we feel motivated by it. But on the other hand, what if we are feeling lazy and want to slack off? What if we declare an intention and fail to turn it into an accomplishment? What if, perhaps worst of all, we reveal something of our hearts and are laughed at, or looked down on?

Well, what if we do? The potential positives outweigh the potential negatives, don't they? Why live like we're in a Thomas Hardy novel, governed by "chance" that is always malicious?

On my slip of paper I wrote: "New Year's Resolution 2009: Pursue publication."

Feel free to check up on me.