What the ALS Bucket Challenge, ISIS and Ferguson Have in Common (and why it matters)

You know what I’m sick of?  

For the last couple of weeks ISIS, Ferguson and now the ALS Water Bucket Challenge (along with the occasional TSwift awkward dancing music video) have been blowing up my Facebook feed… but that’s not what I’m sick of.  

Sure, I’m tired of the bad news, I’m tired of hearing about Christians being murdered and run out of their countries.  I’m tired of how the media has taken Ferguson and turned it into a dramatic spectacle to meet their word quotas.  I’m tired of the diatribes about whether it was a race issue or a corruption issue.  I’m tired of people arguing passive aggressively by posting articles about how the ALS Ice Water Challenge is killing babies or saving lives or a Facebook fad or a meaningful way to fund research.  Yes, these are all serious issues.  

But here’s the deal…
ISIS is not the problem.
Religious persecution is not the problem.
Obama’s level of engagement with the problem is not the problem.
Corruption of the justice system is not the problem.
Racial profiling is not the problem.
Facebook is not the problem.
A debilitating disease called ALS is not the problem.
Ignorant people who jump on bandwagons are not the problem.

There is only one problem.

Sin.

There was a time before ALS was possible.  There was a time before religious factions, before religion itself.  There was a time before we needed a justice system.

There was a time when things were perfect.  The world was beautiful.  Relationships were whole.  There was never a miscommunication or a doubt about good intentions.  There were no I’ll miss you’s or goodbyes.  People lived forever.  The air was clean, and no one worried about GMOs or the state of the polar ice caps.  People talked with God because they knew Him personally, and He talked back, and it wasn’t weird.  

All that changed when we took what was good and broke it.  There was a flicker of doubt that maybe God didn’t know best, that maybe we knew best.  The disobedience driven by our own pride of thinking we were independent drove a chasm between us and everything else.  Goodbye, perfect communion with God.  Goodbye, deep, untarnished relationships.  Goodbye, responsible stewardship of creation.  

Fast forward through a lot of war, plague and famine.  God shows up, literally, in Bethlehem and starts saying some crazy things.  

The Romans are not the problem.
Tax collector corruption is not the problem.
Nationality is not the problem.
Poverty is not the problem.
Even cultural norms surrounding prostitutes attending dinner parties is not the problem.

There is only one problem.

Sin.  

It’s in your eyes, in your words; it pervades every inch of your insides, and I’ve come to set you free from it.  And when you pray, the next thing out of your mouth after “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name” needs to be “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven”.  

Know why He said that?  He knew as soon as our eyes were opened to the stench of sin and death and the freedom of grace, we would understand what beauty is.  The discord between what was and what is would make our souls ache for something better.  It would break our hearts to see the ravaged human landscape with fresh eyes.  As soon as we had tasted the truest love, we would want to do something about all the counterfeits.  He says we aren’t the only ones.  In Romans 8, He says everything else on earth is waiting with baited breath until things are forever set right, until pain and fear don’t even exist, until people know that Jesus is the only one who makes life good and He’s coming back to finish what He started.    

So what does this have to do with you and ISIS or you and Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson or you and your personal policies about raising awareness on social media?  That second little line of The Lord’s Prayer?  The one that you usually breeze through -  “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”?  Yeah, it doesn’t just mean Your will be done on this CT scan, though it does mean that.  It doesn’t just mean Your will be done on my decision on whether to take this job or not, though it does mean that.  

It means crying out, Father, we know you love us and You are the source of every good thing, make things like they should be, how they were meant to be before we broke what You made!  It means begging for wisdom to know what is right and the guts to do it.  It means thoughtful, active engagement in dealing with the real problem, not just the symptoms.  

Practically speaking, maybe “Thy kingdom come” means taking a day off of social media to ask God to slice through your calluses and show you how you can serve people.  
Maybe it means getting the names of ten terrorists and asking the One who made them in the first place to change their hearts and open their eyes to what is right.  (I know, it’s a little unconventional.)  
Maybe it means dumping a bucket of water on your head and committing to find and encourage a real person who has ALS.  
Maybe it means listening to people who disagree with you and treating them in such a thoughtful, respectful way that it encourages thoughtful, respectful conversations in the public arena.  

I don’t know what it will look like in your zipcode for your 8-5.  

What I do know is, if not us, then who?  

Love,

Little Miss Sunshine

How You Know He’s the One

OK, folks.  Here it is.  The blog post you’ve been waiting for, the answer to the question you’ve been agonizing over.  How do you know that guy you’ve been dating for the last 4, 9, 27 months is THE ONE?  You met at small group, things quickly escalated as you went from staring awkwardly across the Bible study circle to sitting next to each other, and from smiling in passing between church services to attending the same service. (Whoa.) You went on your first date to that one restaurant that everyone goes on their first date to, or maybe you went conservative and just “did coffee”.  

After a while of this slightly awkward “talking” phase (though how much actual talking it involves depends on the two people, more on that here), he asked you to be his girlfriend.  Whoa.  You felt like you had really hit the big time. (Whatever that means.)  At some point you brought him home to meet your family and held your breath hoping your dad wouldn’t interrogate him (in front of you, at least).  You got to know his friends, his past, his parents.  Maybe some of those were messier situations than others, but you stuck it out.  

You kept dating.  

And dating.

And alllll the while, you were (perhaps frantically) trying to decide THE BIG QUESTION.  

IS HE THE ONE!?!?!

[I will pause momentarily here and qualify the term “THE ONE”.  Disney may, perhaps, sue me, but I don’t really care.  Sometimes people (usually of the girl variety) get all wrapped up in this idea of THE ONE being one single, solitary human being in the universe that they must somehow find among all the other human beings who is their one and only match made in heaven.  I think that is a whole lot of stress-inducing, nonsensical hyper-romantic frippery.  When I say THE ONE, I mean the single, solitary human being you want to choose to love even when they decide that growing a mustache is a good idea, or they leave their dirty socks on the floor.  Now that we have that established, let us continue.]  

So, is he?  I mean, it’s kind of an important question, and goodness knows everyone and their mother is going to want to know if he’s THE ONE.  If he is THE ONE, they’ll want to know when you’re getting engaged and if he’s not, they’ll want to know why in tarnation you’re still dating him.  Because they love you, and they're nosy.  

Well, reader, I have one question for you.  Probably you should sit down for this one. 

Does

he

make

you

happy?

*Braces for impact of all manner of theologically sound backlash*

I know, I know, you don’t need to be happy, it’s all about joy, and marriage is about making you holy, not happy, and what about doctrinal compatibility and similar political alignment and and and… 

And are you finished protesting yet?

Ok, great.  

Yes.  You’re right.  Happiness is circumstantial and joy is a product of walking with Jesus.  Marriage tends to knock off your rough edges, and doctrine and politics matter.

But.

Isn’t that all understood?  Do I really have to tell you that you should be dating someone like that?  Do you need someone to explicitly say, look, since you’re going to be married to this person for the rest of your life, you should probably agree on the Big Four (religion, kids, politics and money).  Do you have to have it spelled out to you that if you have a reasonably normal set of family and friends and they don’t like who you’re dating, that’s a PROBLEM?  

So what’s left?  If you agree on red and blue issues, how much money you want to give away, that you like kids, and that chasing after Jesus is the most important thing, what’s left?

Does

he

make

you 

happy?

Because let me tell you, I know puh-lenty of guys that I agree with about the Big Four, but they don’t make me happy.  They don’t include me on adventures or make me laugh or take me dancing or sit and listen and hold me when I’m a blubbering mess.  I don't wake up thinking about them, and have fun just doing whatever with them.  They don't make me melt with the words they say or the things they do.  They don't give me internal fireworks or heart palpitations or any other signs of really liking someone.  They just agree with me about how the country should be run and whether or not John MacArthur is a good author.  That's all fine and dandy, but there's no convincing me that just because we agree on those things, they're THE ONE.  So assuming you’re not on the other end of the spectrum and an idiot dating a bad boy thinking you can reform him or something, the only question you really have to answer is:

Does

he 

make 

you 

happy?

Yeah?  Then probably he’s A GOOD ONE and probably you should marry him if he asks you.  [He’s not really THE ONE until you walk back down that aisle hand in hand having promised to love him on Thursdays and Christmas Days and days when he wears purple socks and every other kind of day there is.]  Rest easy, dear one, it’s simpler than you thought.  

Much love and in love,

Little Miss Sunshine

When I grow up, I want to be a... me

It starts out harmlessly enough.  When I grow up, I want to be a... someone.  Depending on coaching, options could range from the traditional: princess, ice skater, dancer, artist, fireman, policeman, cowboy, to the parentally-induced downright pretentious: surgeon (they're 4, they don't know what that is), diplomat, nuclear engineer, etc.  That's all well and good.  Let the kid aspire to something that only a Lilliputian-sized sliver of humanity will ever accomplish.  They'll figure out soon enough that you usually have to start skating when you're 3 and practically sleep on the rink to make it to the Olympics and that in order to be a princess, you have to find a prince, or at least a fairy godmother and a pumpkin.  

Things begin to change as the pop culture frenzy breaks on the scene (may I suggest limited doses?).  Suddenly it's the hottest, latest, greatest whoever.  The good thing about teen stars is they have a great track record of being good role models.  May I bring to your attention Lindsay Lohan, Brittney Spears, Amanda Bynes, and even good ole Justin Bieber?  Yeah, I don't think you want your kids being them when they grow up.  

Along the way, kids wise up to the fact that they probably aren't going to land a Disney contract, get a platinum album, or have their own reality TV show.  What they don't realize is they are still parroting the mantra, with a few substitutions.  Instead of "when I grow up, I want to be a movie star", it's "when I grow up, I want to have legs like ___ or clothes like ____ or muscles like ___".  You might not ever catch them saying it out loud, but you might catch them mirror gazing, biting their bottom lip with a frown or hollering through the house that they have nothing to wear.  

You'd think that it would all stop when you send them off to college, that haven of higher learning and wisdom.  Ha.  You'd think that they would understand that the heart, the mind, the hands of a person are where the value lies, not in ombre beach curls.  Ha.  

If it doesn't stop in college, then SURELY as adults we'd get our crap together and figure out that most of us will never have hair that blonde/storytelling skills that hilarious/a house that big etc. (Sorry if I've just shattered all your hopes and dreams.)  But we wish, and we pine, and we pout anyway.  

Confession time: just last weekend I was at a concert and saw a group of girls.  They were all wearing cute sundresses and rompers that were perfectly accessorized.  Their makeup seemed flawless even though it was blazing and muggy outside.  I thought, wowwwww, I wish I was that pretty and put together.  If only I was a little more tan and my legs were a little skinnier.  If only I took time to curl my hair and actually put on foundation.  Then I, then I, then I... would be like them and I would be... happy.  

Every so often I tune in to my internal dialogue just to see if I'm saying anything sparklingly profound or interesting that I should, myself, take note of in case I need blog material.  Well, this made it into the blog alright, but it was more because of the downright heresy of the thing than any smithereen of profundity.  It's astounding, really, how I can, in one hand hold the doctrine of Imago Dei, (Latin for: image of God, which means that God made us to have qualities like Him and that people matter regardless of what they can do or what they look like) and in the other hand hold the heresy of comparesy (Latin for: wishing you were more like the people on your Pinterest boards).  

And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good...

Imago Dei

Imago Dei

Imago Dei

Imago Dei

             

God calls this humanity that He designed very good.  And I'm pretty sure that He designed genetic diversity with the intent for it to show up in curls and freckles and stubby toes and high cheekbones and every other way there is.  THE image of God looks like a whole lot of different people, and it shows up best when we are us.  We look the most like our Creator when we act like Him- when we put others first, and make pretty things, and love deeply.  If God made me to be a me, then by golly, I guess that's enough.  If He didn't make me 6 feet tall, then there's a reason.  If He didn't give me the comedic prowess of Zoe Deschanel, then I guess it's OK that I never get to kiss Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

Being a me means something.  I was on-purpose made with straight brown hair and slightly wide size 7 1/2 feet.  I was on-purpose made with an interest in all things that grow.  I was on purpose made with a knack for talking to anyone.  I was on-purpose born in Tucson, Arizona (though why, I'll never know).  It's not as though being me has 45.3 points of importance and being Jennifer Aniston has 23421 points of importance.  It's important that she is Jennifer Aniston.  It's equally important that I am me.   

However, it's not enough to say- well, I'm me, great!  If my purpose is to be me, then I'm all done.  I can do whatever I want because my chief aim is to be myself, and clearly I'm doing a stand up job.  This blog is not decrying the role of heroes or goal setting or role models.  All those things are important.  We were created to be us, which means dynamic, growing, changing, falling more in love with the One who made us, chasing after full, colorful, vibrant life.  That means relinquishing our desires to be someone else when we grow up.  That means letting go of apathy toward change that needs to happen.  That means the coolest, most fulfilling, important thing you can be is yourself, not a half-decent copy of someone else.  

It means all at once being content knowing that you were made on purpose and discontent to eat bonbons on the chaise all day knowing that you're created for a purpose.

When I grow up, maybe, just maybe, I'll be me.

Little Miss Sunshine

The Last Day of Being Miss Neal

And then, all at once, I was standing on the curb outside my little school, a retired teacher.

Friday was a half-day.  Never have I been so intent on keeping all my PCs alive for 4 hours than I was on Friday.  Thursday had been sort of… bumpy, so I was hoping for a smooth Friday.  We had assembly as usual, then recess, then a movie in Mrs. P's classroom, then half an hour of chaos - kids signing shirts and memory books, passing out high fructose corn syrup and Red 40 in its various forms.

All the while, I packed.  Encyclopedia sets I should've used, social studies textbooks, letter charts and flashcards.  I had been packing and taking loads of books and construction paper home all week.  

Lots of "can't you teach 4th grade next year?".  Lots of "I'm going to miss yous".  Lots of tight, waist-high hugs.  Then they were gone, leaving jackets and forgotten summer program flyers and a year's worth of memories hanging in the air.

Mom came and did what she does best - the hard work of summoning order from chaos - making stacks, scrubbing surfaces.  My principal initialed my checkout form, murmuring "thanks for taking the time to do this" as he looked through my detailed inventory entries.  We shook hands and he added to let him know if I ever needed anything.  I don't really know what sort of circumstances he had in mind when he said that, but I think he meant it.

As we stood on the sidewalk, Mom and I, she asked how I felt, if it was bittersweet.  I told her no.  Maybe in a few months, but not now.  Not yet.  I was too relieved.  It was too heavy to carry around right now anyway, too sticky with what ifs and should haves.  There were too many knots and tangles, dreams tied up with disappointments, successes and failures intertwined.  But life is like that.

I hugged her goodbye, thanked her again for her help.  I drove home, unloaded my car and spent the next hour digging in my garden.


Love,

Little Miss Sunshine

The Thing about Mothering

He put another parable before them saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field.  It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and comes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.” 
- Matthew 13:31-32

The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed.  It starts unnoticed, like a tiny grain of hope tossed in the dust.  Like a baby in a manger in a tiny town.  It starts small, like a tiny orb of potential fighting against the odds to sprout.  Like a few rough and tumble impulsive fishermen who left their reeking nets because a carpenter said “Follow Me”.  It starts humbly, like an unassuming yellow brown bead who could hardly catch anyone’s eye.  Like a foot-washing session before dinner one day.

You know it by the life it leaves in its wake.  Jairus got his daughter back.  An outcast was healed.  A blind man could see desert sunsets for the first time.  And smaller than that, a father slowly ceased to criticize his children.  An employee paid back funds he was pocketing illegally.  The lonely was no longer alone.     

When it comes to the kingdom, things start small and move slowly.  They grow like the mustard seed, just a sprout at first, hardly worth notice.  Over time, what began as a yellow-brown speck sprawls into a tree.  It goes from easily overlooked to impossible to miss.  

Though the mustard tree started humbly, softly, it is not so anymore.  It is a monument to patience and persistence.  Its roots break up concrete, and its branches provide shelter and shade from an unrelenting Middle Eastern sun.  Over time, it has been transformed from vulnerable to powerful.  

These aren’t really my musings at all, just sermon notes from a sermon by Tyler Johnson this morning.  I’m not sure if he did it on purpose, but it was the perfect sermon to celebrate Mother’s Day.  What endeavor requires more persistence over time than mothering?  What job starts smaller and has the potential to end grander than mothering?

Talk about starting small.  A few cells multiply by miracle into tissues and differentiate into organs and ripple into fingerprints.  That sometimes squalling, sometimes serene baby will not always be 7 lbs. 6oz., 21” long.  Somehow, by means that are far beyond my college education (insert mitosis and meiosis diagrams here) that little person will become a walking, talking, working adult.  

Somewhere between baby showers and baccalaureate, mothering happens.  The thing about mothering is it often goes unnoticed.  Sure, people might notice if you are screaming profanities at your children, but for the most part, no one is going to commend a mother for giving her child a regular diet of veggies while also teaching them to celebrate the use of high fructose corn syrup in moderation.  No one is going to verbally affirm a mother’s decision to place a child outside their comfort zone to nurture an adventurous spirit.  

The thing about mothering is it happens in a thousand moments, like individual drops of water suspended on a spiderweb after the rain.  It’s the driving to soccer practice and showing up to dance recitals with flowers.  It’s the setting of healthy boundaries to propagate healthy relationships, even when those conversations end in slammed doors and rolled eyes.  

The thing about mothering is it is a force to be reckoned with.  Though it happens imperceptibly, it produces adults who have the potential to love well, give generously, and put others first - if indeed that’s the sort of mothering they got.  

In some cases, that sort of mothering was not acquired from the person who physically carried them in the womb, but from someone whose heart was big enough to guide the children of another.  Sometimes intervention by these “extra mothers” is the difference between life and death.  

Thankfully, I have a mother of moments.  She brought Capri Suns to soccer matches, and dropped me off at dance practice.  She said no.  She said let’s go.  She roadtripped.  She gave wisdom (and still does).  She modeled what ministry in the home and outside of it looks like.  She raised us day by day, meal by meal, spanking by spanking, kiss by kiss.  I am the woman I am today because of her.  

Happy Mother’s Day, mom!

Love,

Little Miss Sunshine

#Alt Summit believes every mother counts

The Last PCs

The Last PCs

the story of a change in direction

I don’t really know how to say this.  I feel like I’m about to break up with you.  

I’m not going to be a teacher anymore.  

I feel like I’m a writer who’s just killed off a character.  Miss Neal will still be my name, but only on airplane tickets and wedding invitations.  I know you have objections.  But Miss Neal, why?  But Miss Neal, what are you going to do now?  But Miss Neal, I thought you loved teaching precious children?  But Miss Neal, I thought this was your dream? 

Let me tell you, reader, it is not flippantly that I lay this dream aside.  After all, I was the one who read Anne of Green Gables and Little House on the Prairie and Christy and thought - that’s what I want to be.  Little did I know that it was much more complicated than having a “heart for kids”, lots of energy and a college degree.  

Teaching is a weighty thing, and to call it “being a teacher” is like calling the tip the iceberg itself.  Calling it parenting, counseling, organizing, planning, event coordinating, inventing, administrating, and teaching and anything else they ask you to do would be more accurate.  Naturally, you’d agree and counter with “but lots of people do it”.  You’re right.  

So why can’t you do it?  

I wish the answer were as simple as a sentence, that I can’t handle the confinement of “the system” or that I decided to start an orphanage in South Africa or that I had a batch of demanding, unreasonable parents that spoiled everything.  I know you’ll have objections.  

Do you have a terrible set of parents or a bad school?

The parents I had this year were reasonable, kind, helpful people.  I love working with the people I get to work with.  The school is positive, creative, and so supportive of families.  That’s not it at all.

But you’re such a good teacher!

I think I may possibly be a good teacher, but I am most certainly not a good manager, and that, friends, is what matters first.  I don’t think I’m Type A enough.  My small group laughed when I told them that.  I don’t think I had an inkling of how rigid and organized a 3rd grade teacher has to be, or that I want to be that organized.  I thought that I could get away with making teaching easy because I’m smart and have more energy than a power plant.  I thought wrong.  

But the breaks are so nice!

Yes, they are.  They really are.  And by the time you get to them, you need them desperately.  I don’t know that I am wired to oscillate between running 200mph and 0mph.  I think maybe running 60 all year is going to be a better pace for me. 

But it’s such a ministry!

You’re absolutely right.  The only problem is, when your job is ministry and your Monday night, Tuesday night, Wednesday night and Sunday are ministry, it can get a little overwhelming.  I’m not saying we ever ever turn our love for Jesus down or decide when we want to love other people, but there should be a balance between pouring out and resting.  In the teaching field, I feel like there are three options.  You can be a teacher who doesn’t pull 60 hour weeks and neglects her job (not really an option).  You can be an experienced efficiency wizard who manages to get it all done in a 40 hour week.  You can be an 60-70 hour a week die hard who wins awards for her after school homework clubs, house visits, and community projects.  I’m not meeting the middle criteria, and the two bookends aren’t options I’m willing to consider.

But everyone says it’s just a learning curve!

You’re right.  And I think if I stayed in it for another 5 years, I’d get my act together and my kids might be achieving the way they should be, but right now, they aren’t.  A good sized lot of them are in the bottom bracket of testing because I didn’t know how to push 26 eight year olds hard enough.  In another 5 years, I’ll be almost 30, and really, in 5 years, I want to be home with my own kids, not just barely getting the swing of teaching.  

So what are you going to do now?

Well.  I’m staying in the field, sort of.  Last week, I was offered a position at Pearson in their inside sales department selling curriculum to schools.  It’s an office job.  I’ll sit in a cube.  I’ll probably wear heels and a pencil skirt once in a while.  I’ll be able to use my people skills and classroom knowledge to help teachers use their curriculum better and equip them with tools to help their kids succeed.  I won’t be working 60 hour weeks.  I won’t be spending money on my job instead of making it.  I won’t feel like I’m failing my kids.

How are you going to still be involved with kids?

Here’s what I know.  I love kids.  So much.  That hasn’t changed.  If I could teach a class of 5 of my toughest, most disrespectful hooligans, I would.  I know that working with kids is something I’m wired to do.  I kind of have an internal kid radar.  Sometimes I prefer being with them to being with adults.  They don’t take themselves so seriously.  I have a few ideas about how to work with pcs, like coaching soccer, teaching dance, doing a co-op class in the evenings, or teaching Sunday school.  

The truth is, I don’t know.  I don’t know if this is a hiatus or a goodbye.  I don’t know if it’s quitting or just reevaluating what I’m good at.  I don’t know if it’s actually a quarter life crisis, or if it just happens to fall around my 25th birthday.  I can’t see it all laid out right now.  What I do know is I want to try this, and I think I can do it.  I think my best friend got it right when she said not to think of it as quitting something but trying something new.  And that’s what I’m going to do.  I don’t know what it will be like.  I don’t know if you’ll still think my stories are funny if they’re about the secret life of an office girl.  Only time will tell.

Thanks for listening and for understanding,

Little Miss Sunshine

Noah: Floating on a Sea of Criticism

Have you seen that Noah movie?  The one that has Christians up in arms because it's not Biblical and liberals up in arms because everyone's white?  No?  Well, I think you should see it, and I'm about to tell you why. 

*SPOILER ALERT*

Take a seat.  Before you go see this movie, you should probably think through a few things.  For example, who made it?  The world's finest Old Testament scholars and archaeologists?  Nope.  They call those documentaries, and you can watch them on Netflix.  Was it made by a conservative Christian indie film company?  Nope.  Those aren't  usually big budget or well-made movies, and they certainly don't star Russell Crowe and Emma Watson.  Paramount made this movie.  You know, the same guys who brought you Kung Fu Panda,  Mission Impossible, and Paranormal Activity. 

Now, just so I know you're a thinking sort of person, let me pose a fairly simple question.  Why do you think Paramount made this movie?  I'll even throw in some multiple choice options for you.

a.) To make money

b.) To make money

c.) To declare God's sovereignty and undeserved faithfulness to mankind and tell the story of a man who "walked with God"

d.) To make money

If you said C, you're a bit naïve and should probably think about engaging with culture a little more.  If you answered anything else, you're right.  Companies make decisions to please their stakeholders so the company, in turn, will make money.  Movie companies, though in the arts industry, and can afford to take a few more risks than most companies, are still driven by dollar signs. 

Paramount wanted to produce a movie about a story that would make them money.  Now that we've established that, your expectations for what this movie is like should be a little more reasonable.  If you sit down at the closest Harkins thinking you're about to see a movie about a fascinating story loosely based on the life of Noah, you'll probably it. 

*Spoiler alert* (I know I already said it, but this is your last warning!)

Aside from the fact that they made the Nephilim (Gen. 6) weird rock robot monsters, 

Ham and Japheth didn't take wives on the ark (Gen. 7), 

Tubal-Cain was a stowaway, 

they have the serpent's magic snakeskin from Eden, 

Noah tries to kill his twin granddaughters, 

and Noah actually got a week's warning before the rain came (Gen. 7), 

the story line is pretty spot on. 

They take two kinds of liberties with the plot.  They take obviously non-Biblical liberties, and they take reasonable artistic liberties that just aren't included in the Genesis account.  Most of these artistic liberties are tastefully taken and lend themselves to helping people put a story in context and give flesh and bones to an ancient text.  (Remember, most people know next to nothing about the book of Genesis, much less antediluvian cultures.) 

The character Tubal-Cain (Ray Winstone), for example, was the real great-great grandson of Cain.  It doesn't say much about him, except that "he was the forger of all instruments of bronze and iron" and that his father is quoted as saying "I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me.  If Cain's revenge Is sevenfold, then Lamech's is seventy-sevenfold." (Gen. 4)  It's not much of a stretch to cast Tubal-Cain, then, as a violent, nasty, armor-clad chieftain. 

As much as I loathe Tubal-Cain for all his barbaric villainy, I love Noah's wife (Jennifer Connelly) for her grit and grace.  Surprisingly, her character is that of a submissive wife in all points but one (in which I agree with her, ha).  I use the word submissive, but don't for a second picture a wan, withdrawn sort of waif wife.  The woman takes care of three sons and a husband, ok?  She follows Noah on a cross country trek (Iceland, actually) because she trusts that he is obeying God's call.  She works on building a giant ark.  She never undermines his work or his faith.  She holds him together when his task threatens to overwhelm him.  She forgives him when he's been an idiot.  In short, she's a boss.  And she has awesome hair.  And she likes to garden.

One dialogue that I did not anticipate was that conversation between Noah and his wife during the building of the ark where they wrestle with the duality of the total depravity of humanity (Rom. 3) and being created in the image of the Creator (Gen. 9).  Noah's wife argues that their sons are men of integrity and selflessness, while Noah counters that their motives and motivations are crooked, regardless of their actions.  The producers handled it in a way that concludes men are basically evil (surprising, right?). 

Another idea the characters wrestle with is that of justice and mercy.  It is just to destroy the world because men have wrought havoc on creation, killed stuff, broken the careful balance of order, and have abandoned their worship of the Creator, except Noah and his family.  Evil must be dealt with in some way (foreshadowing for a Savior King).  That's clear enough when Tubal-Cain's army of brutes is feasting on raw flesh and dragging away women and children as items of trade. (Side note, their treatment of evil is poignantly destructive and dark.)  It becomes a bit muddier when the ark is surrounded by shrieks for mercy from these same people.    

Plot twists, weird rock men, and pulsing forbidden fruit aside, most movies end with either a comfortable resolution that tells us how things should be or leaves us with a question to answer.  Noah is no different.  The question producers leave us with, however intentionally is What will you do with the call? 

Throughout the movie, Noah is reminded that his birthright and calling is to steward creation and be fruitful and multiply.  Sure there are some secular undertones there (evolution time lapse video, anyone?), but the focus is on the birthright of humankind.  We have been tasked with caring for the land and what inhabits it (or what will soon inhabit it - even the unborn).  We are called to create and be fruitful and work. 

This is a general task to humanity, but as people who love and obey Jesus, we have an additional call from the Creator.  Go make disciples.  Go take care of people and things.  Go be fruitful and multiply on a spiritual level.  Make sure that people know My story and that My love for them is deeper than their sin and wider than their despair. 

-Little Miss Sunshine

We have been entrusted with a task much greater than our desires. - Noah

Thank you, Summit Ministries, for teaching me how to think about the arts through the lens of worldview.

If you're interested in reading more about the idea of calling, read The Call by Os Guinness; it's fantastic. 

The Legacy of Babel

Sometimes I do that church girl thing where I sing lyrics and raise my hands and swear I realllllly mean what I'm singing when the band is playing songs like

You're all I want, You're all I need, You're everything, everything...

You are the source of life, I can't be left behind, no one else will do...

In Christ alone, my hope is found...

You are the only one I need, I bow all of me at your feet...

And I go home, and I get on Pinterest and I start looking at pictures of glamorous models wearing flowy, oversized shirts with print leggings and $200 boots.  I get on SteepandCheap and I think my Awesome Quotient would definitely improve if I bought Columbia and Marmot (even though I probably spend -.3% of my year hiking).  I click away without buying anything, thinking I've won an antimaterialism victory and should probably be given a badge of honor.

I hang out with my small group, and I really hope that they think I'm well-read and well-spoken and spiritually mature.  Sometimes I toss in a C.S. Lewis reference to seal the deal.  I try not to mention allllllll the wonderful things I'm involved in because, well, THAT wouldn't be humble. 

Prone to wander, Lord I feel it.

As humans, we're born with hearts that wander.  We're hungry.  We want stuff.  I don't just mean stuff, as in the latest and greatest iThing.  I mean we want to be thought of as important.  We want to succeed.  We want our kids to behave in public so people don't know we struggle with disciplining them with consistency at home.  We want husbands who earn "enough" or have a sense of style, or work out or are "good enough" for our _______________ (parents, college reunions, coworkers' Christmas parties, etc.). 

Here's my heart, Lord, take and seal it.

So I resisted the urge to buy the Black Diamond rock climbing harness (that I might use once a year).  Yay wallet.  You've lived to see another day of not being emptied by woeful materialistic impulse.  But as soon as I think that's my victory, I've tricked myself into thinking the symptom is the problem.  Spending money on stuff isn't the evil to be avoided here.   

See, the thing is, I live under the legacy of Babel. 

We are a species of intellect and spirit and ambition, and those things require an object.  I mean, when's the last time you heard about milk cows protesting the unfair advantage that organic cows have and fighting for equal grazing rights?  Or about a grizzly bear carefully removing the meat from the salmon so he could stuff it and post it on the mantle in his cave to show off to his bear buddies.  It just doesn't happen. 

This isn't something that emerged with social media.  James, the first New Testament book written, by the guy whose name we used for the book even says

"What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you?  Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?  You desire and do not have, so you murder.  You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel."

We are passionate people, and rightly so.  We are sensory and relational and spiritual and dynamic.  We are chasers and supporters and builders.  But to what end?  We have the capability of pouring out heart, soul and paint on a canvas to communicate something that authors try desperately their whole lives to say.  We start clubs, form bands, rally behind organizations.  But to what end? 

This is the legacy of Babel - the appetite of the human heart for glory, the chasing after the wind. 

Augustine said "You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you."

Lewis said "It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."

The trouble, see, is not the appetite itself, but the object we set before it. The people of Babel were content with setting the whole of their desire on raising a tower to make themselves famous.  The failure of Babel to choose something worthy of their affection became their downfall.  Mortar and stone crumble to ruin.  Cars are wrecked into twisted, mangled heaps of metal.  Even the finest paintings set under lock and key can be stolen or destroyed in a fire.  To willfully ignore the finitude of what is tangible is to consciously choose a life of settling.  

When I set my heart on dance or Instagram or literacy, I will be disappointed, for the object of my passions is exhaustible and finite.  When I set my heart on the One who is the all-powerful, glorious, wholly incomprehensible Creator, Sustainer, Rescuer of the world, there will never be a moment that will be wasted, not a second of regret.  Your passions are only as grand as the object they pursue. 

So, dear heart, who loves to desire and pursue and create, how exhaustible is the object of your affections?  Do you honestly think you can do better than a wild, passionate God who rages over injustice yet dispels fear?  One who sees that the finch is fed and the rainbow always appears with its promise in ROY G. BIV order?  One who knows what you want, but gives what you need?  This One only could captivate our hearts for an eternity.

Little Miss Sunshine    

Why you hate Christmas

                                                                                 All is calm,

All is bright.

I should say not.  Not in the slightest.  There's nothing about Christmas that is calm and bright.  Well, maybe bright in a few places, but most certainly not calm.  That's why secretly you don't like Christmas.  You think it's supposed to be all silent night and calm and bright and peace on earth and mercy mild.  No wonder you don't like it.  You eat more than you should.  You have to hang out with people you may or may not like.  You have to show up to work Christmas parties that have the potential to be awkward and boring.  You probably have to clean your house.  Traffic is crazy because everyone's Aunt Mathilda from Milwaukee is in town and lost on the freeway.  Your neighbor has better Christmas lights.  Your neighbor's kid is getting the Gismopieceofcrap 2500 and your kid is only getting the 2450.  You have to decide with your significant whoever whose family you're spending time with when, and who you'll offend if you don't. 

On top of all that, you've got all this Christmas music trying to convince you it's the most wonderful time of the year and that your life should be calm and bright, not to mention in order.  Everyone should be getting along and enjoy spending time together.  You should have a beautiful Christmas photo and letter that you send out to your 200 closest friends heralding all your accomplishments this year.  You should be holly and jolly - whatever that means. 

All this is about the Baby, right, the one born in a manger, which really wasn't a feed trough and laid on hay that was fresh and practically sterilized.  He was lulled to sleep by angels' songs, greeted by jolly, grandfathery shepherds and thrown a baby shower by wise men who were there the night he was born. 

Ha. 

Well, I have some good news, and some bad news.  The bad news is, if you celebrate that kind of Christmas, you will probably do your best to convince yourself it's not a miserable holiday, and you just might succeed.  You might do such a good job of tricking yourself that you just love the holiday stress  bustle and spending more money than you have gift giving that you just have yourself a miserable little Christmas every year.  That is bad news, indeed.

The good news is, the real Christmas is a great deal less calm, peaceful and most wonderful time of the yearish.  In fact, aside from the fact that the Messiah was coming, it was really quite a mess. 

Four hundred years of silence between God and His people. 

An oppressive Roman rule.

A (probably teenage) mom who wasn't married yet, but claimed that she hadn't slept with her fiancee, that the child was really the Son of God because an angel told her so.

The condemnation of a whole town, not just on her, but on all the people she loved (talk about starting off on the wrong foot with the inlaws). 

Lots of traffic on the roads because of the Roman decree to be registered.

All the inns are booked, sorry, there's a barn/cave/nasty hole out back, sleep in that.

Giving birth to a baby without sisters or a mother or probably even a midwife, just a carpenter husband and a donkey or two.

Dirty, smelly, redneck shepherds scared out of their socks by a "heavenly host" (a whole flipping lot of supernatural warrior dudes - not girly angels with folded hands and long, flowy hair) telling them to go to Bethlehem because after 400 agonizing years, God has literally broken the silence with the Word, Immanuel, God with us.

A bunch of redneck shepherds showing up to the delivery room/barn/cave/nasty hole asking a lot of questions and probably making a lot of ruckus, and adding to it by exuberantly shushing each other.

A bunch of some of the best storytellers scrambling through hill and dale to spread the greatest story ever told.

More questions than answers about how this tiny, hungry God/baby was supposed to be the Savior of the world.

That's the real Christmas.  God showing up to carry out a rescue that the best tactical operations team couldn't have dreamed up.  Instead of just speaking from heaven and commanding everyone's obedience, let's send someone in.  Not an angel, let's send Jesus.  No, We won't send Him on a flaming chariot coming in from the sky, we'll have Him start from scratch, as a baby.  Let's have Him be born to someone who isn't married yet so they don't think He's just a normal kid.  We'll arrange it so everyone's welcome.  There will be shepherds and kings (but they'll come later) and grownups and kids.  He won't be what they're expecting.  What they want is someone to save them from the Romans, someone to show up and lead a rebellion.  What I'm going to do is save them from their brokenness, save them from the inside out. 

Now that's a Merry Christmas.

May your days be full of real Christmas, and may all your Christmases be a color appropriate for the climate in which you live,

Little Miss Sunshine