Just Say No...

Human stupidity ingenuity knoweth no bounds. You would be amazed at the creative array of objects placed on and in and around various parts of the body, never intended for such objects.  And yet mankind simply cannot resist the challenge to try. And try they do.

Lest some reader see this and exclaim "hey, that was me!" and try to get me fired, I will not tell you the age or gender of the person, nor the location of the above object (washer).  I will merely issue this warning: if at some point in your life the thought enters your mind, "I wonder if I could fit that around my..." don't. Just don't.  This scenario inevitably ends in an ER room with 3-4 healthcare workers and something that looks disturbingly like pruners uncomfortably close to a body part you'd probably like to keep.

And that is all I have to say on this matter.

For a Home That Lasts

You probably don't have to read too many of my blog postings to surmise that I am a bit of a nostalgic person.  I hang on to phases and memories, I think because I feel the overwhelming brevity of them. So sometimes I muse about my life as though I were an old woman or coming face to face with  my mortality in some way. Not that we aren't all to some extent...

 I was thinking the other day about my childhood home.  My family built that house when I was about 10 on a piece of property that also included my grandparents house and my uncles house.  Family commune and all that.  Anyways, we tiled it, roofed it, and stuccoed it. I even helped lay out the shingles on the roof. They wouldn't let me have a nail gun. I can't imagine why.

Since that time, as you can imagine, a lot of memories were made in that house. I grew up there, came back there during college breaks, and me and my sister (and a couple close friends) were married there in our back yard.  I have every inch of that house memorized. I loved walking across my grandpa's garden to find my grandma with her straw hat, muddy knees and bright smile. Or finding my uncle with his calloused hands and soft heart. Or being greeted in  my grandparents kitchen by wood burning stove, sweet pickles, and invaluable life stories and lessons.

 Being very probably the most nostalgic one of my family (and the only one that moved far away), I think it hit me the hardest when my parents decided a little while ago to move.  I don't know what it is. There is something about things from your childhood remaining unchanged for you to come back to that give your life a feeling of anchor.  Things are always adrift, but this will always be there, holding fast.  But this, of course, is an illusion.  Because nothing - not houses, not people, not cities, not nations- nothing truly lasts.  My own body is only a temporary home.  As is our beautiful planet. Nothing that is will always be.

But I can feel that longing, sometimes intensely, for that home. That lasting home, that will never give way to the pressures of time.  For the fullness of that hope that God will restore and remake.  As I watch the moments and years pass that I cannot hold on to, I remember that I'm not home yet. No, not yet.

The How and the Why

First of all, I'd like to take a moment to say you have no idea how fun it is for me to actually have somewhat of an audience for my many random musings. In the past they just bounced around, lonely in my brain, forgotten before I could really give them shape.  But now I get to inflict them liberally on any poor soul who follows my link! Mwahaha.

Anyways... what brings me to the keyboard today is thoughts on the tension between "religion" and "science". ( I use quotes, because those are both very broad, overarching terms.) Those two entities, supposedly standing in stark opposition to one another. You must ignore one to really believe in the other, or so the common logic now goes.  I, however, think this tension is somewhat unwarranted. 

Why? I'm so glad you asked.  Because I think the two exist to answer two different questions.  Science is about the how, about process.  Religion (and philosophy) is about the why, about meaning.  Often it seems the two get mixed up and start trying to answer each others Question, making things much more confusing then maybe they need to be.

Let's think about an analogy for a moment.  Say there is a married couple who loves each other so much, and now want to share that love with a child, made in the image of the two of them.  So they plan, and they prepare, and they come together and make a baby.  Years pass and this child gets older, and starts wondering about things.  He comes to his mom or dad and asks 'How did I get here?" "Well, dear" the parent replies, "we desired you and planned for you and wanted to share our love with you, so we came together and made you."  Later on this child gets into school and starts learning the scientific mechanics behind how human beings come about. The sperm and the egg and cell division and what not, and concludes that his parents are ignorant liars.

But both scenarios are true.  When the parents where questioned, they were answering the why question, and they answered truthfully.  If they had not planned, and desired, and come together that child would not have existed.  But of course the school books were correct too, only they were answering the question of process, not purpose.

No analogy is perfect, of course, so only take it for what it's worth.  But what I'm trying to highlight is that there are two questions that consume a lot of the human races' thoughts, books, struggles, and quests. And that is why are we here, and how does it all happen? And they are not mutually exclusive questions. Just because we get really good at describing how a process works, doesn't mean we need to throw out the Intention that brought it about in the first place.

The why question of course is much more abstract, which is why it sometimes gets the boot.  But just because something is abstract doesn't mean its unanswerable. Or that there isn't an answer that is actually real.  Perhaps that's why were were given the gift of logic (abstract thing that it is).  After all, if you take away the why, and leave only the how, subtract meaning from process, you take away everything that makes life as we know it truly, intrinsically worthwhile.

When God Says No

The other day I went to Costco with my kids.  My kids LOVE grapes, particularly my little boy (20 months), so I get a Costco sized package of them on occasion.  On the way back from the store, I put the grapes into the front seat with me intending on giving some to the kids to munch on for the drive home.

Now since the age of about 9 or 10 months, my son has been able to say or sign please.  He has been well schooled in the appropriate use and received much reinforcement.  On this particular day, he spots the grapes in the front seat and instantly begins screaming and crying "GAPES!!!" with his little hand held out. He saw, he wanted, he instantly began throwing a fit. I look at my little boy, a little taken aback at the sudden emotional outburst, and say "You have to say please Jackson. Say please and you get some grapes."  His 3 yr old sister has already said please and is happily munching on her grapes, occasionally looking over at her brother and stating, "You have to say please Jaxie. Say please."

But no. Jackson does not want to.  Instead he screams louder and more insistently, "GAPES!!! GAAAPES!!!" So goes the 15 minute drive back to our house.  Jackson screaming for grapes, punctuated by my occasional reminder that he gets no grapes until he tells his mama please!  Finally we pull into the driveway of our house, and I hear a quiet, tearful little voice mutter, "Pease."

 Here I had purposely bought grapes because my son loves them, had intentionally placed them with me so I could give them to him as a treat, and I wanted nothing more than to give them to him!  But because of his fitful, demanding, entitled attitude I had to hold out on him.  Because I care about his little heart more than I care about giving him something he desires.  I had to help teach and reinforce the appropriate attitude before I could give my child the good thing I had already intended to give him from the start.

As I considered the irony of that, it made me think about our dealings with God... and I started to wonder if sometimes God withholds something we desire (and maybe wants to give us!) from us for that very reason.  Because He knows our heart is in the wrong place.  Because we think He owes us this good thing and we demand it from Him and question His goodness if He doesn't immediately respond as we desire.  Maybe He knows that a particular thing or job or relationship or what have you would ruin us. It's possible that there are good things that God has in His hands for us that he desires to give us, but can't because our heart is wrong and giving it would only make it worse.  Just something to think about.  Maybe the times you feel God is silent or is saying No, are times to honestly examine your heart, your motives, or your attitudes to see if they are where they should be.