Here in the LightHouse, marriage has been a popular discussion topic for the last several months. We — and when I say “we,” I mean, “I” supported by “we” — spent a large portion of our summer working with the LightUncles to throw a celebration of 50 years of marriage for the LightGrandparents in August. It was a weekend of laughter, fun, joy, and most of all, love. Enormous vats of love. I know that I steeped in it as much as possible. I know that my parents did too.

My parents are still walking more lightly on this earth because of the celebration we all shared together. So am I. So, I would dare to imagine are many of the folks who shared in the festivities together. We gathered together that fine August weekend to remember 50 years of loving well. I had another goal; it was that I wanted my parents to know how their lives had influenced and helped the lives of those around them in their community and family. We are all better for the team of LightMom and LightDad looking out into the world together.

As I reflect on that wonderful (and hectic) weekend I think about the institution of marriage and how it makes families possible. The gender of the parents is not the issue and we should not be creating Sneetches with stars on their bellies, and some without in this case as Dr. Seuss might have so lyrically put it.

THE SNEETCHES , by Dr. Seuss

Now the Star-bellied Sneetches had bellies with stars.
The Plain-bellied Sneetches had none upon thars.
The stars weren’t so big; they were really quite small.
You would think such a thing wouldn’t matter at all.
But because they had stars, all the Star-bellied Sneetches
would brag, “We’re the best kind of Sneetch on the beaches.”

With their snoots in the air, they would sniff and they’d snort, ”
We’ll have nothing to do with the plain-bellied sort.”
And whenever they met some, when they were out walking,
they’d hike right on past them without even talking.

When the Star-bellied children went out to play ball,
could the Plain-bellies join in their game? Not at all!
You could only play ball if your bellies had stars,
and the Plain-bellied children had none upon thars.

When we separate marriages into different sex marriage and same sex marriage and tell our children that some families are “right” but others “wrong” and therefore sort of distasteful, we are creating a new form of racism. Or, perhaps it is a very old form or racism and intolerance. Families are families, they are created by parents and children who love and care for one another.

There are many problems with this from a governmental perspective and from a Christian perspective.

We have a government which claims to value freedom of religion and specifies that there will be no state interference in religion; nor will there be any religious interference in state matters. When our governing documents were written, the assumptions they were based on were that the religion that would interfere would be Christian. That is no longer necessarily the case. While an overwhelming percentage of our population continues to identify with the Christian church, the numbers are in decline and we have rising numbers of other religions who must be accommodated within out borders this includes people who have no faith at all. In addition, if religion is going to be free of the state and vice versa, then it is possible for marriages to be performed by the state, and churches to be free to say “yes” or “no” to whether or not they will perform marriages within their walls. Churches are separate from the state. We need to remember that.

Those of us who claim to follow Jesus Christ have no problem calling ourselves children a Godhead who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit; overwhelmingly male with only female overtones. Yet many Christians cannot conceive of a human family with two fathers. Or two mothers.

It seems to me that the best way to defend marriage is just that. Defend marriage … of all kinds. Make it unassailable. Stop the pretenses and silliness. Build people up. Make them whole. But until the divorce rate in the church is significantly less than that of the rest of our culture, we need to keep our mouths shut and our arms open.

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This is part of the October Synchroblog on Legalizing Same-Sex Marriage.  Please read these other fine writers below for more perspective on this issue –

Kathy Baldock at Canyonwalker Connections – Marriage “I Do” For Who

Dan Brennan at Faith Dance – Sexual Difference, Marriage and Friendship

Steve Hayes at Khanya – Same Sex Marriage Synchroblog

Sonja Andrews at Calacirian – In Defense Of Marriage

John C O’Keefe – Exactly What Is Gay Marriage

Liz Dyer at Grace Rules – Nobody knows why or how same-sex marriage is harmful

Herman Groenewald at Along The Way – Same Sex Debate

Margaret Boelman at Minnowspeaks – What Have We Done

David Henson at unorthodoxology – ban marriage

Erin Word at Mapless – Synchroblog: Legalizing Same Sex Marriage

Joshua Jinno at Antechurch – The Church Is Impotent

Kathy Escobar at The Carnival In My Head – It’s Easy To Be Against Equal Rights When We Have Them

Peter Walker at Emerging Christian – Synchroblog – Same Sex Marriage

K. W. Leslie at The Evening of Kent – Mountains, molehills, and same-sex marriage

Tia Lynn Lecorchick at Abandon Image – Conservative Christians and Same-Sex Marriage

Okay … well … I’m going to use yesterday’s prompt because I think today’s prompt is boring and I blogged yesterday anyway.  Confused yet?  I’m not.  So … here’s the question:

What’s one thing you think it’s worth spending money on? What’s one thing you always cheap out on?

I actually looked at this yesterday and considered (gasp) blogging twice in one day.  Of course, if I’d done that my answer would have been different off the cuff than when given time to ponder.  My original thoughts wandered towards fabric, coffee and chocolate … because.  Well.  Because I can’t just choose one thing.  And I’m torn between being suspicious of and in awe of people who can choose one thing.

But.

I was sewing and that laid claim to me yesterday.  So I had the chance to let the whole thing percolate while I was fiddling with little pieces of beautiful fabric.  I was able to turn it around in my mind and look at it from many different perspectives.  And wonder about what I consider valuable and worth my money and what do I not.  Is there one thing that I consider worth spending money on?  Yes.  I decided.  There is.  It’s when I can use the gifts I’ve been given to encourage the potential in someone else.  That’s worth spending money on.  When I can buy their art, or help them walk a path they’ve chosen, or nudge them with a book or a magazine or _____, that’s all worth spending money on.

Stuff I cheap out on?  If I’ll have to dust it … then I won’t buy it.  Ever.  Stupid tchokes and useless crap … I usually look at it and think, “hmmm … will I have to dust that?” and if the answer is yes, then it stays in the store.

And a quick plug for my friend Julie Clawson’s book, Everyday Justice, … I do try (and fail most of the time) to live as justly as possible.  What does this have to do with what I consider worth money?  Well … how I spend my money has some tiny impact on the ripples and tides of how people are treated world wide.  If I purchase any old coffee (for example) that drives down the price that individual coffee growers can earn.  It also means that large conglomerates own coffee plantations.  If I purchase Fair Trade coffee which is coffee marketed through co-ops then I’m purchasing coffee which has been grown by individual coffee growers, it has been purchased at a living wage price for the growers, grown in a sustainable manner on the farm, etc.  It’s a way for my money to be used in more healthy fashion.  But it means that I walk humbly and live justly in the land as far as I am able each day.

How about you?  What do you think is worth spending money on?  Or not?

A friend of mine recently posted as her status on FB that just when she thinks she has God all figured out he throws a curveball and they win.  This statement was obviously made as a praise.  Now I’ve known this very kind and gracious lady for nearly as long as LightGirl has been alive.  Her faith is rock solid and she is very wonderful.  But the statement got me thinking.

We have this notion that God is on our side when we win, and we’re being tempted by Satan when we lose.  But what do we do with all of the red words to the contrary … like the first shall be last?  Or he who loses his life shall gain his soul?

What if we have it all backwards?  What if the temptation is in the winning and God is on our side when we lose?  How would that change your faith?

I read something last night that I’m finding difficult to reconcile.  It was an article in CNN.  And I really do not understand how people who claim to follow a person/God who said these things (among many other similar things):

Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.

Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ ³⁹But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. ⁴⁰And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. ⁴¹If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. ⁴²Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ ⁴⁴But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, ⁴⁵that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. ⁴⁶If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? ⁴⁷And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? ⁴⁸Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.  (all from Matthew ch. 5)

That’s just one chapter, one sermon that Jesus preached.  Just one.  No parables.  Nothing out of the ordinary.  Simple words declaring to all that those who follow Him must always keep love for the other uppermost in their minds.  If that’s the case, how is this then possible?

The more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a new survey.

More than half of people who attend services at least once a week — 54 percent — said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is “often” or “sometimes” justified. Only 42 percent of people who “seldom or never” go to services agreed, according to the analysis released Wednesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.  (report in CNN)

Before you go all empire on me, just remember that we who claim Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour are not called to support the kingdoms of this world.  We are render unto Caesar the things due him, other than that, we are called to support the endless Kingdom of God.  So would anyone care to explain this to me in a way that does not include references to defending one’s country, because as Christians we do not have a country, we have a Kingdom.  Anyone?  Anyone?  Buehler?

One of our very favorite television shows here in the LightHouse is House.  Well, it’s really LightGirl’s favorite show, and the rest of us are also interested.  So we watch it in re-runs on USA network with some regularity.  Some of the episodes we’ve seen far too often, others not so much.  We watched an interesting episode last night in which the patient turned out to have the Black Plague at the end.  For those of you who do not watch House, the formula is that a patient presents with crazy symptoms and the show is spent with the team spinning through all kinds of wild, and opposing ideas about what s/he has before discovering the true diagnosis at the end.  Usually this is just in time to save their life, but ocassionally the patient dies.   Last night the patient lived.

It was interesting though, because her symptoms were masked in part by some steroids she’d been prescribed for an intense interaction with some poison ivy and by some meds she’d been given there in the hospital.  So the doctors were fooled until they took her off everything, then the charactertistic plague boils began to appear (in the last 3 to 5 minutes of the show and after she’d had a liver transplant).

I was thinking about that patient this morning as I read, yet again, Rich Kirkpatrick’s fine post from Monday about the weaving together of justice and mercy.   Rich does a great job of discussing and questioning what we’re doing when we Christians set out to “do” social justice.  Not that that is a bad thing.  No, not at all!  There really is no one else who has been commissioned to look after those who have nothing in this world, so we must.

It is the **how** we go about doing that, that Rich is talking about and he paints a wonderful picture in his first two sentences:

“The cross was the greatest social injustice in history, but no greater act of mercy has been recorded for mankind and the world.

Most of us, when confronted with the injustice of the world want to act.”

In those two sentences I see Jesus on the cross, with all the power of the universe at his fingertips.  He could have wiped out injustice … the same injustice that we face in our communities and around the world … with a zap, but He did something else.  And I have to wonder why?  In fact, all of His actions and parables throughout the gospels show Him doing something other than what we anticipate or expect from people.  Why?

Then that patient with the plague bubbled up in my head.  And I got to thinking more about her and what happened with her.  You see, the meds she was given suppressed some of her symptoms, but not the disease and the disease (plague) was killing her.  Until they found the source of the disease she was still going to die.

I think that’s they way Jesus thinks about justice and mercy all woven together on the cross.  We can engage in acts of justice quite efficiently for very good purposes and we do all the time.  But if we do not have mercy as the weft to justice’s warp, we will never cure the disease; we will only provide a stop gap to some of the symptoms.  The horrible disease will continue to eat away at our communal body until we figure out how to do both together.

Let me give you a couple of examples.  During the late 1800’s and early 1900’s many Christians lead drives to abolish the consumption of alcohol.  This eventually lead to the passing of the Volstead Act (as it was commonly known) or Prohibition.  Congress and the country amended the Constitution for the eighteenth time in order to prohibit the public possession and/or drinking of alcoholic beverages.  If you wanted to drink in private that was your own concern.  This was done out of wonderful motives.  We all know what ravages the “demon rum” can wreak on people who drink too much and too often … for both those who consume and those who get in their way.  It’s bad for your health, bad for your brain, dangerous to drive, etc.  But those ten years when we banned public consumption and possession also showed us something important; that simply banning it doesn’t dry up the need.  If we want people to stop drinking (because we know it’s not a great idea), then we have to look at it in a different light.  We have to weave justice together with mercy.

Another example came to my in-box this morning.  LightMom sent me information about Dambisa Moyo, a Harvard-educated economist who has worked at the World Bank and Goldman-Sachs.  She was born and raised in Zambia, but spent part of her childhood in Wisconsin while her father worked on a doctorate in linguistics.  She returned for her own education and then employment.  She’s written a book called “Dead Aid” and I watched her interview on Charlie Rose on the subject.  You can view it below or listen to the shorter, less nuanced version on NPR by using this link.

According to her bio (linked above), “Dambisa argues for more innovative ways for Africa to finance development including trade with China, accessing the capital markets, and microfinance.” If you listen to the interview you will hear her argue strenuously that government-to-government (bilateral) aid has hastened poverty in Africa.  We have known this for more than 30 years.  I remember hearing about it from my African friends when I was in college.  I was most taken by this quote in response to a question by Charlie Rose about whether or not aid should be seen as a failed experiment, “I don’t believe that Africa and Africans are a practical experiment in economics.”  It was one of the few moments when emotion was clearly observed on her face and in her voice.  Think about that for a moment, we have excellent motives … the end of poverty amongst a people we have treated poorly for centuries.  Yet with our very attempts at helping them we are continuing to treat them as less than capable human beings.  LightMom, who sent me the interviews, swears she heard Dambisa point out that when a star humanitarian in US sent thousands upon thousands of mosquito nets to Africa, it helped malaria but it put the local mosquito net manufacturers out of business.

So what do we do?  How do we weave justice and mercy together?  Is it really alright to starve a local mosquito net manufacturer in the name of eradicating malaria?  We go in with excellent motives and great ideas, but our horizons are too narrow and we fail to see what the ripple effects are going to be of our actions, though our actions might be excellent.

What is justice in the face of 70% of the population of a continent living abject poverty?  What is mercy?  These are questions we must begin to ask and answer honestly amongst ourselves as we face a new economic future; one in which it will no longer be possible to continue simply halting the symptoms, we must properly diagnose the disease and treat it.  Or our communal body will die.

I probably have better things to think about, but it bugs me when the newspapers glorify religious leaders like Mark Driscoll.  The recent NYTimes article about him, his church and his ministry, entitled, “Who Would Jesus Smack Down?” by Molly Worthen was well-written and fairly balanced. But it bugs me because it’s not an accurate depiction of people of faith. There are so very many of us in churches across denominational lines who care deeply for their neighbors, love justice, seek mercy and walk humbly after God; and do those things in very quantifiable ways. They’re not all sitting in plush theatres listening to a self-aggrandizing hack talk about having sex and calling it love.

I wish the papers would pick up more articles about people stepping up to the plate for the little guy. For the underdog. People like Roy Bourgeois … a now excommunicated Catholic priest.

You may wonder what Father Roy did to get himself excommunicated. It was likely pretty bad. Given the news lately about Catholic priests lately, it would not be unlikely for you to think that he had abused boys in his care. But you would be wrong. Father Roy Bourgeois did the unthinkable. He participated in the ordination of women on August 8 and refused to recant. You can read parts of his letter here (ht Christy Lambertson, Dry Bones Dance). It’s quite beautiful.

So I’m thinking today about leadership and transformation into something more Christ-like. What those leaders might look like and where they might be found.

If you’d like to participate in a discussion about this and other thought-provoking articles that people read this week, come join Missional Tribe and our discussion group, Wisdom Lingers.  We’d love to hear your thoughts.

“It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.” Mother Theresa

That’s a pretty well known and ubiquitous quote by Mother Theresa.  It’s been co-opted by the folks who believe that life begins at conception and would like to pass laws to that effect in our country.  I still remember the sense of shock I had the first time I saw it on a bumper.

I know people who’ve had abortions.  Some are very close to me.  Is that really what they’d done?  I had to think it through.  I knew their reasons very intimately.  Most had gone on to have children later in adulthood.  Having the child would have been disastrous for both child and mother at the time of the pregnancy.  Some of the pregnancies were the result of rape, others the result of very protected intercourse but the protection simply failed.  In every case, mothers (and fathers) go on to mourn the loss eternally.  It is a drastic decision made during a time of crisis in a situation that is kept secret in most cases.  Very few terminated pregnancies are made known before they are finished.

It seems to me that it’s become far too easy to make snap judgements, and reduce a nuanced topic, such as abortion, to a pithy sentence and slap it on a bumper sticker to make your sentiments known to everyone else.  So I was wondering the other day, which was the real poverty?  Who is impoverished?  Where are we now that we have polarized ourselves into tidy camps.  Right and left.  Red and blue.  Take it or leave it.  For us; against them.

Then LightHusband sent me this story about a feral child discovered in Florida a few years ago.  Beware if you read the whole story.  It’s very graphic and full of lurid details about the filth the little girl lived in.  Terrible really.  It’s likely that her biological mother is ill and or at least terribly self-centered.  Because of the neglect she suffered, this girl may never be able to talk or communicate on a meaningful level.  Her brain may never develop past six or seven years old in terms of her ability to process information.  No one really knows.  There have only been two or three feral children in recorded history.  One in France in the 1880’s and another in California in in the 1970’s that were reported in this news story.

Don’t for a moment make the leap that I am suggesting this child would have been better off aborted.  Not at all.  No, I am suggesting that we are all impoverished for not knowing.  Not knowing our neighbors.  Not loving our neighbor.  When we do know, we do not take their hands and walk with them, we call CPS.  We rely on the law to transform, rather than relationships.  We want to make laws, call policemen, stand at an arm’s length away and point out the flaws in one another.

What struck me most about this story was the unknowing.  The secrecy.  The darkness.  The lack of love.  That is the nexus that this story has in common with mothers who face the choice to terminate a pregnancy.  They make choices in secrecy, without the love and support of most of their network, in crisis; hard, difficult choices that hurt everyone including themselves.

The biological mother in the Florida case had been trying unsuccessfully to keep her family together.  She failed catastrophically.  When the little girl was found both mother and daughter were nearly in a catatonic state but with different origins.  The mother was arrested and convicted for breaking various Florida laws concerning child welfare.  She was given a suspended sentence with the proviso that she rescind her maternal rights.  So the little girl has been adopted into a home with very caring parents, who are doing their best to help her develop on a more normal trajectory.  In many respects the story has a happy ending.  The little girl is learning, growing, loving and is loved.  Her biological mother is alone.  Alone with regrets, blame and an empty home.  Many would say that she earned all of that and then some.  Maybe my heart is too soft.  But then I read Larry Vaughn and I wonder what might have been …

My theme becomes concrete: What would it be like to be known fully and loved completely? Most people know of this tension. Most adults, anyway. Fortunate children know what this is like. But because they don’t know anything different they take the situation for granted. Somewhere along the way to adulthood we start putting price tags on people and become capitalists of humanity. We also pick up a few undesirable qualities along the way.Another meteor.

I am known and I am loved. But not completely. I think my brain would melt from sheer pleasure if the confluence of these two principles ever occurred.

The air is brisk and I cannot hear another sound except for my breathing.

Another meteor.

And then I feel it. I am being watched. My anxiety rises. You have had this feeling before, haven’t you? Out of necessity I have become good at paying attention to my surroundings. It is a casualty of my profession.

I look around expecting to see a deer or a raccoon. Maybe a person. Maybe (it’s 2:00am) the dead owner of the abandoned house. Nothing.

Another meteor.

My anxiety ebbs but the feeling of being watched doesn’t.

I used to enjoy watching my girls play when they didn’t know I was there. Sometimes they would talk to their dolls or draw pictures or play house. Sometimes they would sing silly songs or have conversations with the air. I always felt a sense of magic when I could witness this play unnoticed. When they played without an audience I always got a sense of purity. Whatever they were doing or saying was complete truth. If you’re a parent you know exactly what I am talking about. Like the feeling of sneaking into the movies, I had a sense that I shouldn’t be here. I wasn’t invited to the tea party or the dance or the play. But as a parent, I couldn’t look away. This always, always made me smile. I tried so hard to be quiet. Partly because I didn’t want to interrupt the beauty. Partly because I didn’t want the tea party to end, which it surely would if my presence were made known.

Another meteor.

My feeling of being watched begins to transform. My mind begins to slow down and I stop thinking about thinking about thinking. I am quiet. And still. And small.

Another meteor. Another tear of St. Lawrence.

I am being watched. And the person watching is smiling. Hiding behind a cosmic door. Peeking around the corner.

Another meteor. Another tear.

I am not alone.

Another tear.

My brain begins to melt.

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This is a synchroblog on poverty. Please read what my fellow bloggers have to say on the subject below:

• Sonja Andrews: Fully Known and Fully Loved
• Phil Wyman at Phil Wyman’s Square No More
• Adam Gonnerman: Echoes of Judas
• Cobus van Wyngaard: Luke: The Gospel for the Rich
• Lainie Petersen at Headspace
• Steve Hayes: Holy Poverty
• Jonathan Brink: Spiritual Poverty
• Dan Stone at The Tense Before
• Jeremiah: Blessed are the poor… churches…
• Alan Knox: Boasting in Humiliation
• Miss Eagle: Poverty and the Hospitable Heart
• Jimmie: Feeding the Poor
• K.W. Leslie: There’s poverty, and then there’s me without cash.