bekahcubed Some days are just long.
Today was one of those days.
I was at work a little over 8 1/2 hours–but it felt like at least twice that. It was just long. I was exhausted by five–with four more hours to go. I was glad to be done.
It won’t kill me. Never has yet. But some days I wonder.
Have you met my brother Tim?
He’s a great kid. He drove me home from McDonalds a couple of hours ago and came in to chat for a bit.
We’ve been talking ever since. Topics of discussion? Fascism, Communism, and Christianity. The cause, or lack of cause, of World War I. The real reason the Berlin Wall fell. How Communism will fall in China. Economic Theory. Debt, minimum wage, and supply and demand. The record of nature and the Scriptures. Big Bang Theory and how God stretched out the heavens. Point of reference in Genesis 1. Bill Clinton and Kyoto treaty.
I love my brother Tim.
We had a Bunco Party last night for our ladies fellowship.
Bunco is a great game for family gatherings, mixers, and the like. Have you ever played?
All you need is one bell, a pair of dice for every four people, and a pen and piece of paper for each person. Everyone sits down at a table of four with a pair of dice. Partners (sitting across from each other) acrue points together. To start play, the “head table” rolls until they get double. When they get a double, they ring the bell, announce the number they had rolled double (the “Bunco number”), and play begins.
Each table starts rolling to acrue points. A single die of the “Bunco number” is worth 1 point, a double of any number except 3 is worth 5 points, a double of the Bunco number is worth 25 points, and a double 3 drops the team’s points to zero. A player continues to roll until they cease to acrue points (that is until they get a roll that DOES NOT contain the Bunco number or a double.) Then play passes to the next player.
Play ends when a team at the head table acrues 50 points–and has completed rolling. In other words, if the head table reaches 50 points, the current player must continue to roll until he gets a roll that DOES NOT contain the Bunco number or a double. When this occurs, the head table rings the bell. Each table may finish the current play, but may not pass the dice to another player.
Teams now determine table “winners” and “losers.” The “winners” at each table advance to the next higher table. The “losers” stay at their current table and move so that they are sitting next to each other rather than across from each other. This means that you get a new partner for every round. The exception to this is the head table. The winners from the head table remain where they are at, while the losers go to the bottom table. The winners from table 2 remain in their present team when they advance to the head table.
Each player records his or her points at the end of each round. When the final round is played (generally as determined by a set number of rounds or a set time), all players tally up their points. The person with the most points is the winner!
You really should try it–it’s great fun for all–and even the youngest children can enjoy it if they’re paired with an adult who can help them with the math. Of course, it’s also good math practice for those early elementary students!
About a week ago, I returned a DVD version of “Pocahontas” to the library. Later, I opened my DVD player to discover that the disc was still inside. I put the disc in a holder and attached a note to it, explaining what had happened. Then I added the disc to my pile of books to go back to the library.
Well, yesterday, a family friend, whose sister is employed by the library, mentioned that I had been the subject of a library e-mail. Apparently, I had returned a CD in a case that should have held a DVD. John thought the CD was Halvin and Cobb or something-which certainly didn’t seem familiar to me.
Curious, I checked all the CDs I’d also had from the library–and discovered that I was missing one disc of the two disc “Essential Simon and Garfunkel”. From there, it wasn’t hard to figure out what had happened.
So I dropped by the library to clear it all up today. I explained that John had said there had been an e-mail about me. The librarian looks at me–“Oh, yeah, I remember that e-mail. But I didn’t connect it to you.” The joys of being known by face and not by name!
We (just barely) fit ourselves into the Suburban for our trip to Hu-Hot for Timothy’s birthday (a month late).
I commented that people don’t count us anymore–we’re old enough that they just assume we’re a bunch of kids hanging out together. So after we’d been at the restaurant a while, our waitress comes up and asks us, “Are you all brothers and sisters?” And then turning to Mom she says, “So you had seven kids? Like in ‘Seventh Heaven’.”
I guess I spoke too soon.
You know, you could spend lots of money to buy organizers for everything–or you could just use what you have, like I did here:
A Carl Budding meat container turned sink-side scrubber caddy. Just remove the stickers, punch some holes in the bottom, and there you are!
I have often wished that I did not have so many great desires. For had I fewer and lesser desires, I should be less pained when I am called to lay them aside for Christ.
If food did not so interest me, if I did not so much enjoy comfort, if I did not so much long for recognition. If this world did not so much enchant me, the breaking of the spell should leave more of myself intact.
And such is the problem–not my desires but the thing that both produces them and is sustained by them. I am the problem and all my desires are small compared to the desire for self-preservation. Self-love induces me to beg for things for myself–and that, at least, if they must be taken, I might remain.
But that is exactly opposite what Christ has come to do. He has not come to make me an ascetic–free from all but myself–but to make me nonexistent. His dream is not that I HAVE less but that I BE less–in the sense that every jot of identity that I hold of my own and apart from Him is completely and utterly destroyed.
Thus is my struggle. Even in denying itself, my flesh seeks to save itself. If the bewitched self should be destroyed, surely a more noble self remains.
O what folly I am consumed by–to think that something worthwhile dwells in me. For in me dwells no good thing. My righteousness is as filthy rags. Every thought and intention of my heart is evil.
Lord, I do not want You to destroy myself, but please do. I do not want my desires to be denied, but let them be. I do not want to be cut away, but I desire that You would be shown a great. So I bow this clay to the Potter’s hand and only beg that in my place You leave Your image.
Romantic: imaginative but impractical; visionary; not based on fact; imaginary or fictitious
There is no doubt about it. I am a romantic. I’ve always been one with my nose in a book, living my life through the idealistic lens of the fictional world.
Romanticism has served me well for many years. It influences my perception of foods, of cultural items, of the entire world around me. I choose in advance what I like and what I don’t based on my romantic ideals.
I said to myself–“Beer is for loudmouthed slobs, cocktails are for silly socialites, hard liquor is for men behind doors with their cigars. Wine, wine is the only truly beautiful alcoholic drink. It is the ideal.” And so, I drink wine and enjoy it. I don’t enjoy cocktails half as much. And I’ve never tried beer or hard liquor. Romanticism shapes and tempers my taste for alcoholic beverages.
In the same way, my romantic nature has declared opera to be a superb art form, jazz to be a delicious musical genre, ballet to be beautiful. And I swooned over my first opera, listen to jazz on the radio, and delight over ballet. But all of this was determined before I every heard or saw any of these. My idealism told me my preferences and preferences willingly followed suit.
And so I walk through the world with ideas from majestic to mundane. I have ideals for myself–what I will wear, do, become. What is my list of goals but a romantic to-do list meant to mold me into my ideal? I have ideals for girl-guy flirtations. I have ideals about places, foods, activities, people.
And that is where romanticism fails me. No matter how hard I try, I cannot fit people into my idealistic world. Because people wear sweatpants and aren’t always polite to wait staff. People aren’t always intellectual and willing to relate the way I want them to. People, relationships, require work. They require a frank look at reality.
The ideal of an ethereal home filled with friends who constantly encourage one another falls short of reality. Reality is that we’re all busy and some days will pass that we won’t even speak to one another. A roommate will be loud just as we’re trying to sleep. Chores will be done differently than we’re used to, lights will be left on when no one’s in the room.
Reality and ideals collide and I must choose. Will I cling to my ideals and grow bitter toward the people in my life, or will I see reality for what it is? Will I lay down my desire for a perfect world in order to live with and love imperfect people? Or will I live the cold ideal–beautiful, but like an iceberg–sterile, serene, uninhabitable?
Occasionally, I have epiphanies–not regularly, but not infrequently either. Sometimes they excite, sometimes they challenge, and sometimes I don’t know what to think. Today’s epiphany fall squarely in that last category.
I read something that describe Bill Gothard as a cultist and, on a whim, Googled “Bill Gothard” and “Cult”. I didn’t really agree with all the stuff I skimmed, but I did start to remember some of the stuff I heard at the Basic and Advanced Life Seminar. About how milk and meat shouldn’t be eaten together, and how a man shouldn’t sleep with his wife for seven days after her period ends. I thought of how Proverbs seemed to be the basis for about everything–and I realized that something was missing.
And the epiphany–“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.” Matthew 23:15
For years I knew I disagreed with some of what Bill Gothard said, but since I also agreed with some of it, I considered him to be okay. Now I wonder. How different is Bill Gothard than the scribes and Pharisees who were so interested in all their little rules that they missed the Savior standing right in front of their noses? Bill stands and gives tons of “princibles” from the “Sc’iptures” as to why we should not listen to rock music, not eat meat with milk, have sex in certain ways. He teaches all about authority and foolishness and discipline. He speaks of family planning and courtship models. But one thing I don’t remember him teaching on is the gospel, or the character of God.
The Scriptures are not a set of “rules” or even “principles” by which to live. They are a testimony of Christ. In John 5:39, Jesus says, “You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me.” But what is the one thing that for all of his Scripture quotations Bill Gothard fails to talk about? He fails to speak about Jesus Christ.
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay the tithe of mint and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law.” Matthew 23:23
The month has arrived and, as usual, I am well on my way to becoming in a high dudgeon over something or the other.
The month, of course, is February–or in Z-360 speak–the “love month.” And as usually happens, coverage of the “love issue” isn’t as comprehensive or balanced as I think it ought to be.
For instance, what compels happily married people to declare to a group of single teenagers that God has the perfect mate out there for them? Says who? Where do you find a promise of a mate in Scripture? I’ve never found one. And sorry, but I don’t think the “desires of your heart” can be taken as a definitive promise of a spouse. It’s just not there. Statements like that do little except create disillusioned single adults who think that somehow God is holding out on them.
But bringing that up only creates another morass of indignation within me. For the response to my assertion will be–“I’m sorry, that statement is not correct. God does call some people to never marry.” Talk about opening another can of worms!
I do believe that God does call some people to never marry–to remain celibate. But more than that, I believe that God calls many people–all people, in fact–to be single for at least a portion of their life. And I believe that this call of singleness should be regarded highly, as a call in and of itself.
Singleness is not a waiting room for marriage–a place where every event brings you closer to the blessed appointment. Instead, singleness is a calling in its own right–even if it is followed by marriage! Take the example of my former pastor as an illustration. Pastor Rodney Hinrichs received a call from God to become a pastor many years ago. He went to seminary and pastored in a number of locations before coming to Lincoln, NE, where he pastored Rejoice in the Lord Church–the church I grew up in. When I was still in my pre-teens, Pastor Rodney and his wife Malinda felt a call of God into the mission field. They took on that call and Rodney stepped down as Pastor of Rejoice. Currently, they minister in Africa, India, and around the world.
Now tell me, was Rodney not called to be a pastor, since he was called into missions later? Did he not hear God clearly when he heard the call to pastoring? After all, that wasn’t the calling he ended up with. To say that Rodney was not called to be a pastor just because God later called him out of the pastorate and into missions is preposterous. Likewise, to say that singleness is not a calling unless it is lifelong is preposterous. Just because God may call a person out of singleness into marriage does not mean that they were not called to singleness in the first place.
Some of you may now be thinking that I’m going off the deep end–making a mountain out of a molehill. Surely it’s not that big of an issue whether singleness (even for only a period of time) is seen as a calling or not.
I contend that it is a big issue. It is a big issue because it effects our view of and value for the vast and growing single population within the church. If, in general, people are called either to be single for the rest of their lives or to be married, the singles can be one of two things–either they are “lifers” or they are “waiting”. The “lifers” we view with awe–How on earth could they do such a thing?–while the “waiting” we regard with pity–How sad that they haven’t found anyone yet. In both scenarios, these men and women are defined by their lack of a mate.
The “lifers”, having ruled out marriage as their calling in life, are now free to pursue what their real calling and place might be–without regard to marital status. They may explore what profession, what ministry they fit into–the purpose for which God has called them to singleness.
The “waiting”, on the other hand, have only one charge–anticipation and preparation for the day when their status will change. These single persons are given one singular mission–finding a mate. Little thought is given to ascertaining the purpose for which they are single. Instead, their current single state is seen only as a speed-bump or a detour on the path to marriage. So rather than seeking God for His will today in their singleness, the “waiting” population seeks to prepare themselves for the possibility of a mate, and to pursue the procurement of a mate. And when the mate does not materialize, the “waiting” are forgotten, discarded, an unhappy reminder that sometimes God’s plan doesn’t always fit the fairy tales we’ve created.
Why is it so important that we begin to see singleness as a calling–even if it is not a permanent one? Because until we see singleness as a precious, although perhaps seasonal calling, we will continue to marginalize the precious single people in our midst. Until we see singleness as a gift from God–even for those who eventually end up married, we will continue to waste precious years of our lives–years that could have been productive, but were lost, pining for a different calling.