Destination Discipline

“For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.” Romans 9:5-6

I like a good joke and I love to laugh. I love to be silly and to inspire silliness in others. When there are so many dark and ugly things in the world, it often helps to focus on the humorous. Laughter is a great coping mechanism.

That is why I recently found myself making up jokes and sending them to my son, who is in the Marines. He is stuck in a medical platoon with an injury waiting for a medical discharge. He has been there for a year and–as one can imagine–it gets pretty depressing. He was not able to come home for the holidays and while we talked on the phone on Christmas Day, it’s just not the same. So, I tried to cheer him up with these gems…

Me: “What do you call a killer whale that swallows a goat?”

Him: “Stupid cuz it’s not supposed to eat goats.”

Me: Orchid! (get it? Orca & kid?) Orchid! funny! Ha, ha, ha! right?

Me: What do you call a bass that swallows a cell phone?

Him: no idea.

Me: Cell-fish. (get it? Funny! ha, ha, ha!)

Him:  Really?

Me: “I saved the best for last… What does Bruce Lee say when he’s thirsty?”

Him: No idea.

Me: “I need a drink of waaaaaaah……..ter!”

So, I imagined my son sitting there in the barracks staring at his phone and thinking his mother isn’t a very good comedian. I mean, I tried, but I guess I should keep my day job.

Two notable comedians passed away recently, and I find myself asking the question, “Where’s the punchline?” When someone dies, a light goes out, and we find ourselves sitting in darkness. In this case, we don’t even have laughter to keep us company.

Boy, this blog got really dark really fast! Geez, Margaret. Tell us something funny. We don’t want to think about ‘you-know-what’.  It stinks!

I hear you. I don’t either.

But I’ve also been thinking about Betty White. She was the master of dead-pan innocence. She could keep a straight face with the best of them. I grew up watching her wide-eyed stare on The Golden Girls. Often, Bea Arthur, Estelle Getty and Rue McClanahan would struggle to keep their composure. Rose was the heart of that show. Now, they are all dead. Who’s next? Carol Burnett? I know. I shouldn’t have typed that. But as far as I know, the human death ratio is one per person. And those are some pretty depressing stats.

But do you know what doesn’t die? Troll Dolls. For some reason, they keep coming back. Troll dolls are immortal.

Freddie Mercury once sang, “All dead, all dead All the dreams we had. And I wonder why I still live on.” God bless him. He wasn’t much of an optimist.

I miss Freddie Mercury. He could sing the alphabet and I would listen; entranced by his intonations. His untimely death also broke my heart. So how do we respond?

Some would say we should get busy living. We should laugh more. And I agree. Except that so many people are sick and dying around us that I’m still struggling to find the punchline. Even sarcasm and cynicism are little deaths. There is a tinge of pain in the brutal reality of having to bear with things that don’t die but should. Disco. Pleather pants. 80’s smooth jazz. Fad diets. But–I think the crux of what I’m getting at is this: in some shape or fashion, we are all afraid to die. But to deal with it, we all just kind of pretend it’s not going to happen. Then, when it does, we are forced to deal with that gut-wrenching reality. And frankly, it’s crippling.

Peace with God is the only way to eliminate the fear of death. And we can find peace by confessing our sin and crying out to Jesus for mercy. His grace will find us no matter where we are–no matter what we are doing–no matter what we have done. And I have to say, living without the fear of death gives me great joy. That is why I set my mind on the things of the spirit. The Spirit is life and peace.

Today, if you are struggling to find the punchline, don’t lose heart. Jesus has conquered the grave! And one day we will be with Him in paradise. He promised. And He never breaks His promise.

“Love is a sadness
Love is a madness
We are the addicts”

–  Jon Foreman

I love a good cookie. The right combination of butter, sugar and flour create an irresistible concoction to the untamed palate. Not that I am in the habit of eating cookies these days. I disdain them the way anyone with a sugar addiction does – ignoring them and even throwing them into the trash can if given ample opportunity.

Some might think that absurd. Who in their right mind spends hours making cookies only to start throwing them in the garbage?

Years ago, I was a very sad girl who took solace in cookies. I thought that I loved them, but to me, that kind of love was a purely selfish affair. It was utterly one-sided. I hesitated to share (even with my children) and overindulged to the point of misery. Who knew that too much of a good thing was so toxic? The more I ate, the sadder I was. One would think a belly full of cookies would feel fantastic, but alas, it was a sadness. I expected something from cookies they could never give in return; love. The more I confused sensuality with love, the more I felt lost.

I am writing about cookies because, alas, I ate a few too many again this holiday season. But gone are the days I thought cookies would satisfy the longings of my heart. Still, heart-matters are heavy on my mind. I have been thinking about what it means to love and to be loved and how the very experience changes a person. When I was 18, my mother told me I didn’t know what love was. I thought it was a feeling–and a very powerful one at that. Alas, that was just smoke and mirrors compared to what I have known of real love since then.

Love isn’t hormones. It isn’t a big, fluffy teddy bear or a dozen red roses. It isn’t negligees or heart-palpitating kisses on the bank of a river at midnight. I dare to add, many of our misconceptions about love come from movies.

Last night I was mesmerized by “Shall we Dance”, a Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers film. In the movie, Peter (Fred) falls in love with Linda (Ginger) after he sees a photograph of her. In one of the most ridiculous plot points of all time, they get married to prove to the public they are NOT married by getting a divorce. They “fall in love” in the process. (My husband walked in half-way through the movie and asked me what it was about, but I couldn’t say – that’s how badly the plotted the movie was. But the songs and dance routines were exquisite–especially the ballet sequence at the end with Harriet Hoctor, who performed an elliptical backbend en pointe.)

The song, You can’t take that away from me, was beautiful, but in the context of the movie, it made no sense. Peter and Linda were being manipulated as a publicity stunt and we were supposed to feel sorry for them. They were obviously more impressed with themselves than they were with each other and therefore wholly unsympathetic. Why do I mention all of this? Well, because Hollywood probably had a more accurate portrayal of love via “The Love Bug” than it does in most of its romantic comedies. Why?

Love is not arrogant.

I grew up thinking love was all about me and the way I felt. Big romantic gestures only happened because I wanted something in return. They were wholly selfish. Maybe that is why I struggled to know a God who was self-sacrificial. I thought Jesus came to earth to save me because I was so awesome, not because I was utterly depraved and foolish and needed saving. In the most gracious act to me as a wayward child, God allowed me to eat as many cookies as I wanted in order to see how helpless and hopeless I really was. He allowed me to feel lonely and sad in order that I might cry out to Him so that He might show me what true love is.

What love really means

Perfect love casts out fear because it gives the receiver confidence. Perfect love says that no matter what is done to me, I will still love in return. This takes strength and courage and tenacity. This is no wimpy love! It is mighty and strong. It bears all things, believes all things. Love never fails. That is because it frequently sacrifices its own comfort for the beloved. And in order to truly love, the lover must often overlook and forgive offenses that cause grievous harm. I believe we all want to be loved in this way, but we frequently fall short when we try to live it out.

One of the most powerful stories I’ve read about love is from the book, “The Same Kind of Different as Me.” It is the story of a homeless man who is loved by a married woman who volunteered at a soup kitchen in his neighborhood. She showed him the love and kindness he had never known, and he couldn’t understand it. There was no earthly reason for a married white woman to care for a homeless black man, but she did. And it changed him forever. Her love gave him confidence.

A friend of mine recently divorced her husband of several decades. They didn’t get along and were tired of slogging it out. Besides, she has a good male friend who she is quite attached to. He is her “best friend”. It matters not that he is married. They don’t get along either. He is planning to divorce his wife so they can be together forever. Or so they think. They have even convinced themselves this is “God’s will.” Adultery is, after all, a forgivable offense. But I venture to guess, if they were unable to self-sacrificially love their first spouses, they will not be able to love their second (or third) spouses any better. Their kind of “love” is all about pleasing themselves and has little thought for how it will affect anyone else (not their children, or their parents or their friends or family). What’s “for better or worse” or a stupid vow got to do with marriage anyway? We change spouses like we change our underwear. If it starts to chafe, toss it in the trash.

Love is…not a cookie. In its highest form it transcends feelings or emotions. Or as the apostle Paul wrote in his letter to the Philippians:

“Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but to the interests of others. Have this in mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” – Philippians 2:3-8

First and foremost for a Christian, love is obedience to God. It is our highest form of worship. And until we learn how to obey, we can never love as He loves us. So, with the new year upon us, let’s put down our cookies and take up something beautiful and worthwhile – a love that transcends sugary concoctions – a love that fulfills and satisfies – a love that sets aside self and dies for the beloved.

“So I arrive at the conclusion
Love isn’t made
Love doesn’t sell or pay
But we buy and sell our love away”

Jon Foreman

It was a warm and sunny day in Missouri when I walked into the thrift store. It was also two days before Christmas. The store was all abustle with shoppers and employees rushing around in mass confusion. I tried to be calm. I was looking for something specific and it does no good to get distracted by all the stuff (treasures?). And then I saw it. The most amazing sight! A fluffy, wooly fleece. It was beautiful. I picked it up and began to hug it close to my heart. It was so soft. In that moment, it was everything my heart desired. But there was no price tag. So, I asked an employee for help. She said she would sell it to me for $4.00, but another employee said, “We should ask the manager what the price should be.” So, she took the fleece from my arms and disappeared into the back of the store. A few minutes later she returned and said, “The manager said you can’t have it. He is going to buy it.” Then she shrugged and walked away.

I am pretty ambivalent about the holidays. The mass commercialism is off-putting. I celebrate Christmas because it is the birth of Jesus and my faith centers on his life, death and resurrection. But many people celebrate Christmas for the gifts. They love to buy and sell and give and receive….stuff. I have struggled in recent years to reconcile receipt of Heaven’s greatest gift, namely Jesus, with the giving and receiving of socks, electronics, and cash. What does that have to do with faith anyway? And while I suppose there are Christians who will rationalize it, I bear up beneath the weight of it and participate in a ritual I’m not entirely comfortable with. It’s not that I don’t love my family or friends. I do. And I love to give and receive gifts. But there is something tainted about using the birth of my Savior to rationalize spending money we don’t always have to buy stuff we don’t really need.

Ferdinand and Babe steal the alarm clock from Farmer Hoggett.

I drove home from the (religious) thrift store with a singular hatred in my heart for the manager that (stole) refused to sell me the fleece. And I thought of Ferdinand the duck (from the movie, Babe) running around screaming, “Christmas means carnage!” He was, of course, referring to the day Farmer Hoggett and his family consume a roasted duck (one of his friends). Poor Ferdinand. All he ever wanted was to be a rooster. But ducks can’t cock-a-doodle-doo, can they? (Though he certainly tried.)

I love the movie, Babe. I quote from it frequently. The farm animals all seem to understand “the way things are.” People…eat pigs. But Babe doesn’t settle for that. He wants to be a sheep-pig. He loves his adopted mom, Fly, and strives to provide value to the farm to which he belongs. He befriends the sheep after he saves them from wolves (wild dogs) that attack Farmer Hoggett’s flock. He speaks their language. And they come to love each other. The scene where he weeps over the loss of Ma, the flock matriarch, is one of the saddest in the film.

Mrs. Hoggett prepares to eat the Christmas feast.

In much the same way Babe longs to be a sheep-pig, I long for a world that refuses to buy and sell love. The brokenness around me causes a deep chasm of pain in my heart. The gift of love should be free and given every day in a burst of self-sacrifice. Instead, many of us walk around feeling lonely and sad because of the very real pain in our lives. Some of us have broken marriages. Others endure that first (or second or fifth) Christmas without a loved one. Others stare at screens hoping to distract themselves or even to connect with other humans. We long for more. We need hope. And a big screen television won’t solve that problem. But if I’m honest with myself, neither will a soft and fluffy fleece.

A friend came to visit me last night and we were talking about a rather sore situation in my own life; marriage. She is twice divorced and has never known a faithful husband. I told her a husband should be a man and fight for his family. He should never abandon his wife and child. She argued that if they don’t love each other, they should divorce. She said to force a man and wife to stay married is to make them hate themselves and each other. She said, “Don’t use God to force people to stay married. Let them divorce.” I told her, “I disagree,” as I got very angry.

I view marriage as a covenant promise through the eyes of faith. I see marriage through the lens of the bible as illustrated by Jesus’ sacrifice for the church. I see divorce as the ultimate failure to forgive. And I told her, “I believe love is a choice–not a feeling.” I have endured that dark night of the soul and I speak to the power of God’s love to bring about reconciliation. I see love as it should be–not how it frequently manifests in our broken, sinful world. I see a baby in a filthy feeding trough surrounded by cow dung and smelly beasts and a man dying on a cross for the sins of the world. And I can almost hear his voice speaking on the mountain, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.”

“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way, it is not irritable or resentful, it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” 1 Corinthians 13: 4-8

I have decided to forgive the unscrupulous store manager, though I doubt I will shop at that store any longer. I did pray for him and for the people who work for him. God knows. God sees. I forgive because I am forgiven. I love, because I have been loved. It is not because I am super righteous or holy. It is not because I am seeking favor or trying to be good to get into heaven. Indeed, I probably deserve to have the fleece stolen considering all of the ways I have sinned against others in years past and present. But the love of God has changed me. It has filled me with hope and joy and peace in a way nothing in this world ever will.

Christmas does not mean carnage. Christmas actually means love. Love came down and dwelt among us.