Regarding Others

I’ve been listening to a fascinating Audiobook* that aims to encapsulate the entire Middle Ages into one volume. I’m loving how much it connects to what I’ve just finished teaching in History 8 and yet also how much new I’m learning. For instance, the name Pope Innocent III already meant something to me as the pope of two crusades and a major church council, but I had never before heard of his “sun and moon allegory.”

What I learned was this: Pope Innocent III asserted that God had put two great lights into the sky, one to govern the day and give heat, energy, and light to the world, and the other to govern the night with coolness and lesser light. Both are valuable, but of course the moon’s light is purely a reflection of the sun, not generating any light from within itself. He interpreted these two lights to be like the two mighty powers of the day - popes and kings. He as pope was the sun, of course. His authority was over people’s souls, which was of eternal value and thus vastly more significant. The king oversaw people’s bodies and thus held lesser authority, much like the moon.

I should be shocked at the hubris of a supposed man of God, but as a student of history, I’ve long learned to roll my eyes at some of these guys. Whenever my students ask why a person made a particularly poor choice or how a leader could be so cold-hearted, I tend to reply with the cop-out shrug of the shoulders and saying “Human nature.” But really, if I claim to be a Christian - a true “little Christ” - can I use that as an excuse?

My housemate has been memorizing 2 Corinthians 5. Every time she quotes it, even before she gets to the famous v. 17 about being a new creation, I’m already struck by the mirror being held up to my life, showing me how I all too often live for myself rather than for the one to whom I owe everything. My human nature has been fundamentally changed; I'm brand new. I get to be the moon now in a universe where Christ is, always has been, and always will be the sun.

Furthermore, beyond even our own choices in living, the author of 2 Corinthians calls us to view others through a heavenly lens rather than to regard them from a worldly point of view. It forces me to ask about how I teach history. While I do find it despicable that Pope Innocent III tried to put down fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, what if, despite multiple crusades and the publication of this sun-moon allegory, he really trusted Jesus as his Lord and Savior? What if I meet him in heaven? I’m not God, so while I do believe I’ve seen my fair share of human nature and while I do still believe some historical figures were capable of genuine evil, I cannot see their hearts nor do I always know the full story. I need to be careful with my regard.

“So from now on, we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come” (2 Corinthians 5:16-17a).

finding WW2 markers in Freiburg with two 8th graders

*Powers & Thrones by Dan Jones

Jim & Lori Visit

Jim and Lori were such good sports when I forced them to choose a dwarf and imitate it for my pictures, but in the end, it added to our laughter as we wound our way through the gnome garden of Salzburg. It was only the next day that we found out we had actually stumbled upon a historic piece of history and that the search is still on for the missing gnomes out of an original set of 28. Not only that, but “the Professor” gnome had been featured in the Sound of Music. We giggled at our own ignorance and sang along with Julie Andrews as we traversed the hills on our way into the Lake District, thrilled to be back in “my” country.

As long-time supporters - more than that: as a second family - they have been invested in my work at BFA and beyond for over a decade. In the support-raising days, they let me live with them for the mere cost of mowing the lawn in the summer. I relish the memories of dinner conversations and book recommendations. Likely I owe more of my knowledge and opinions to them than I know, so it was a real pleasure to get to show them around Austria for 12 days over Spring Break, starting with Salzburg.

The dreary weather on the trip to Vienna felt fitting as we visited the country’s most renowned concentration camp, Mauthausen. The air was heavy in the car as we drove away, my country failing to shine quite as brightly as the previous day. I’d been particularly moved in the area with all the national monuments, most notably the Tree of Life, donated by Israel. When Jim had asked me to read it aloud, I struggled to keep a steady voice, yet we were able to debrief in the car, and I was grateful for their presence to once again discuss, reflect, and even pray.

Vienna saw us bouncing between gleeful joy and thought-provoking discussions as we bounced from museum to palace to concert to the Schnitzelwirt and back to another museum. The days were packed and the hours in the car a bit long at times, but it was such a treat to get to show them the best and worst of the country that has my heart. The highlight was celebrating Easter in Kärnten: the reminder that even the worst that history has to offer, the death of the perfect Son of God, can culminate in the beauty of a resurrected life and the saving of souls. To join with believers and worship God in German was a balm to my heart, and I think meant a lot to Jim and Lori, too. 

Free to Do Good?

 

Shawn White

Middle School Spiritual Emphasis Week was already 2 months ago, and I still have one of the talks rolling around in my head. It started with Robbie Sweet, our speaker, saying “Watch this Gold Medal run from 2010.” The video opened on the view of halfpipe snowboarding, and with a brother who idolized snowboarder Shawn White, I wasn’t surprised in the least to see who it was. With looks of awe, we watched the video in which White executed his flips and jumps with near perfection, even inventing a new move, and earning a record-breaking 48.4 points (out of 50). I wanted to clap; it was such a thing of beauty - and that’s coming from a skier!

It’s become a popular axiom in recent years to say “Stop ‘shoulding’ all over yourself” when Christians go on and on about how they should be more patient and should forgive their siblings and should be more like Christ. All true things, but we know that merely telling ourselves we “should” rarely works. I’ve been trying something new with the girls in my small group. Whenever we get to the application part of what we’ve learned or discussed together, I try to avoid saying “Based on this truth what should we do this week?” to instead asking “How can we live out this reality in the coming week?” I know the shift is subtle, but it’s already been instrumental in my own heart to think of my sanctification process as more of a life-matching-what’s-already-true rather than a be-better-at-being-more-like-Jesus effort. I’m exposing holes where my heart doesn’t actually believe the reality of something Scripture teaches as true, and I’m much more secure in my position as God’s child because the reality of who I am is a small step removed from what I do. And it’s been motivating. I want what I do to match who I am.

Throughout the whole week he was here, one of Robbie’s recurring themes was the idea that because we’ve been given freedom, we are free to choose good things. Choosing bad things is actually an expression of captivity. “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery” (Gal 5:1). 

What he didn’t share with us until the very end about Shawn White’s record-breaking halfpipe run was that White had already won the gold medal. His previous run had earned 46.8 points, which was already the highest score. He had won. He could have laid flat on his back for his second run and slid the whole way down, but because the gold medal was already certain, he had the freedom to risk all the good moves stored up inside of him.

Jesus has already won the gold medal for me and for my girls. We could lay flat on our backs and sin all the way to end, and our salvation would still be assured. But he has placed all his power for good and beauty inside of us when he came to dwell in us. We have all the freedom to live out this truth, not because we should, but because we are.

ice skating with my Small Group girls (cheaper than snowboarding)

February

In 48 hours, I’ll be back in one of my favorite little nooks, tucked behind one of our dilapidated black flats that I love so much, giving cues to actors and passing out props before they head out onto the stage. The goal? To entertain. The means? Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance. I was wholly unfamiliar with this story, I’ll admit, but it has made me laugh many times.

One of the plot twists happens to the main character, Frederic. (Spoiler!) He had been indentured to a band of pirates, but at midnight on his 21st birthday, he immediately left them behind and started to fight against them. However, his old pirate master shows up to inform Frederic that his birthday is February 29th, and thus he’s really only 5 and a ¼ years old and has to go back into servitude.

February gets a bad rap in this musical. I believe the exact words in the song are “such a beastly month as February.” People are more than ready for Winter to be over, and here is just one more month standing in their way of spring. Now, I’ve heard that as a rule, we tend to feel somewhat partial toward our birthday months, so I fully admit that this is at play here. But I do believe this month has an undeserved reputation of being dismal and blah. 

February speaks to me of promise and hope. There are “teaser” days that hint to us that perhaps spring is coming. Some people call it “false hope,” and having spent 9 winters in Minnesota, I get that. True Spring doesn’t arrive until April, at the earliest, and that feels a long way from February, but to me those random warm February days aren’t false at all. They are the certainty of Spring that has never failed to show up yet, and those early foreshadowings stand as messengers. They’re the early inhales of nature waking up, remembering to stretch out roots, testing and proving that it’s going to be safe to bloom again soon. In the grand narrative where Autumn represents the death of Good Friday and Spring is the resurrection of Easter Sunday, February is those early hours of 2 - 5 am on Sunday. The day is here. Resurrection is assured. Just look at that sunset inching past the 6pm mark, feel those golden rays on your face (even if just for a day), hear that lone birdsong as you brush your teeth in the morning. February is anticipation.

Much as I will stand in the wings in 48 hours and fist-bump the cast and crew over a job well done, I stand watching the first rays of hope stretch across these 28 days we call February. And I dare to call it good.

Getting ready!

An Ideal Saturday

The automatic doors swung open, and I couldn’t help the smile on my face as we walked in. Kelly looked around, “So what makes this place so special?” I pointed up and down to the 7 floors that we could see via the open atrium in the middle, then swung my arm around to all the books that lined every open wall space and pillar. “Look! It’s heaven on earth!” And I took a hard right into the newest release section.

The colors were vibrant here, modern images leaping off hardback covers. Titles ranged from absurdly long (The Hundred-Year-Old Man who Climbed out of a Window and Disappeared) to a single word (Swashbuckler and Faces). Most names belonged to authors I’ve never heard of and will never master, but every now and then I recognized someone. “Ooh, the cute historian from Netflix has written a novel,” I elbowed Karen and grabbed a copy off the shelf.

Once I had a stack of books up to my chin, I made my way up to the 5th floor Cafe where I found a single table in the corner that was still free and dumped off my books. After a quick trip to the counter for a pot of tea and a cream scone, I settled into my customary routine at Foyle’s Bookstore: read the first chapter of each book and make a “never” pile, a “maybe” pile, and a “definitely” pile. This is my favorite part. I completely submerge into all kinds of stories and writing styles and allow myself to just react. Do I like it? If not, no need to analyze; just move on to the next one. No agenda or pressure, merely reading interrupted by sips of tea and a bite of scone. It’s my ideal Saturday.

Sadly, time passed. The tea got cold and eventually the stack of books was down to one. Karen and Kelly returned from their adventures outside the shop, and I moved toward the check-out counter. Of course that meant being forced to peruse my way through the gift section through the Lord of the Rings bookbags, Sherlock Holmes pencil cases, and a Jane Austen puzzle that somehow found its way into my arms. We exited through the automatic doors, my backpack distinctly fuller than when I had come in, and began to make our way home where I promptly plopped into my overstuffed chair and continued reading Cloud Cuckoo Land.

my new puzzle purchase

Grace to Listeners

I stopped wiping the tears from my eyes. It was pointless as every time a new person grabbed the microphone, fresh tears replaced the ones I had just removed. The focus of the attention was on the couple sitting just in front of me, retirees who had given the last 44 years of their lives to gospel-advancing work in this part of the world: my parents.

The praise was gushing - kind praise upon kind praise - but it was obvious that underneath the simple words were layers of lived-out stories, full of heart and hard. I only knew a glimpse of them: children failing out of their schools, police interrogations, men chasing vans with machetes, medical flight emergencies, entire schools being evacuated, car accidents, sickness, mistreatment, war, and one airport bombing. The presence and prayers that my parents provided over the years had been invaluable to many in the room, and as I heard praise after praise, my heart was filled up.

And I had to wonder about that. Why was it that merely witnessing words intended for someone else could fill me up? A quick cursory google search implies that hearing others be praised tends to fill us with jealousy and hatred. Was the night different only because the focus was my Mom and Dad? That didn’t seem to be it because several people came up to me afterwards and commented on how special that time had just been for them. Was it meaningful because I too had been on the receiving end of some of that Custer love? The more I’ve reflected on that beautiful night, the more convinced I am that the answer lies deeper. I’ve come to believe that hearing someone else’s thanks is designed to give life to anyone listening. It’s a building-up, a truth-speaking, an acknowledgement that a life wasn’t lived in isolation and shouldn't be. To be a witness to someone else’s praise is to be reminded that kind, helpful choices can lead to another’s good. It’s grace.

Ephesians 4:29 says, "Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear." That's what I experienced: the reality that unmerited good came to us because of what Jesus did on the cross. My parents lived it out for 44 years, and people's recognize of the good they saw out loud passed on that unmerited good to all who heard. If that doesn't fill me up, then what will?

Time with the Parents a few days before that special night

Equality with Man

The flame was dancing on the table in the early morning light. Our plates were pushed back with nothing on them but pumpkin muffin crumbs, courtesy of Paige, and maybe a greasy stained napkin from the bacon Ellen had brought. It was the time of our weekly Prayer Breakfast when Bibles were opened and we moved toward the goal of our gathering.

Harrison was praying from Philippians 2. And do you know that feeling when you’re listening to someone speak and they start down a familiar phrase, so your brain already tunes in to what you expect to hear? But then the person changes it? I was primed and ready to hear “Thank you that you didn’t consider equality with God something to be grasped,” and instead what Harrison said was, “Thank you that you didn’t consider equality with man something to be avoided.”

My brain stopped. It’s the same thing but totally different, right?

There’s still the acknowledgment that Jesus sacrificed a lot for the incarnation, but the new wording forces my brain to shift view points. There is so much about being human that Jesus probably wanted to avoid: the physical limitation, the imperfection of our bodies, the relational messiness, the pointless political squabbles, the family dramas, the let-downs of close friends, the lack of generosity around resources, the racism and corrupt justice systems, and a broken spirit - to name just a few. If anyone had perfection at his fingertips and could look at humanity from an outside perspective, would he willingly choose it?

Jesus did. What a humbling, magnificent thought this Christmas. His rescue plan involved a level of sacrifice I will never understand until I can see with my own eyes just what he gave up, but I can know a tiny fraction, across time and culture, of what he entered into. And I’m grateful he did.

a mini reenactment of that incarnation moment in MS Chapel last week