All the nights in a tent

Out under those stars

All the days in that sand

Did your heartache leave scars?

 

They say you were righteous

Because you believed

But I see a sad man

Brought to his knees

 

From waiting and longing

And never belonging

You led him to the desert

To hear your soft singing

To hear your tender voice

 

Chorus

Oh, LORD, you are our very great reward

Your promises are just rainbows 

Your presence is the morning dew

Oh, LORD, you are our very great reward

So keep all your treasures

All we want is you

 

The father of faith,

Was broken like me

From waiting and wondering, 

Striving and conniving

But his darkness was helpless

In the warmth of the your light

Your irresistible love

Conquered his dark night

 

You drenched him with faith

In the torrent of your love

Oh how could we imagine 

That this goodness comes from us?

Your love makes us able 

To do impossible things

But we’re merely soaring

Upon your precious wings

Lament for America

(from Psalm 10)

 

Where are you Lord, in all of this mess?

Why are the oppressed the ones dying of this?

When are you going to show yourself?

To defend your name and rescue the oppressed?

 

Us ignorant arrogant trample the weak

It’s the kind of thing that you don’t tolerate

But for 400 years we’ve schemed for power

As ruthless with violence as with deceit

 

There’s no room for God in the American dream

Our confidence lies in our prosperity

When will we see these American idols

For what they are—they rip us away from you

 

Prosperity is an illusion of invincibility

We boast of ambition, and think we don’t need you

Our demands feed the greed of arrogant oppressors,

And our ego for sharing our hand-me-down castaways

 

We curse and blame the other side, cycling the lies

Sneer at the enemy, spewing contempt

And think you’re on our side, or that you don’t see

Just because we’re on top of this precarious heap

 

We scoff at those below, pat ourselves on the back

But the lives of the oppressed are what make up our heap

We clamber on top of them for a better view

Oh Lord, when will we look down to see what you see?

 

We’ve killed them in so many horrendous ways

And crushed them with lies about who they are

Why do you give mortals such power to abuse?

The blood on our hands, Lord, it cries out to you

 

Arise, oh Lord, lift your strong arm for all to see

Break the arm of these awful lies from your enemy

That link your Name to this greed and oppression

When it breaks your heart more than we can imagine

 

You know what you’re doing,

That’s the only thing I know

Healing never comes without much pain involved

So unearth it all, Lord, let the tears fall

 

This earthly power is an illusion of smoke

It will all fall away and we’ll stand naked before you

You hear every cry of the beaten down

Listen to every desire of their heart

 

Your justice is coming, but I think it might surprise us

You didn’t make us to be the saviors

Only your strong arm could do that

By giving your very life, in every possible way

 

But you hear every cry of the beaten down

You don’t just hear, but you listen

You encourage and defend

And this is where we can join you as your children

 

So that we mere mortals may terrify no more

I was walking through a noisy, crowded street, on my way to the markets to get food for dinner. I was in a hurry, always in a hurry, to fill all the hungry stomachs awaiting me at home. The sun felt heavy upon me. I brushed a sweaty strand of hair from my forehead and hoisted my basket onto my other hip. 

That’s when I saw him. I stopped, cold in my tracks. It looked just like Jesus. My blood ran cold. I froze in my tracks and everything around me disappeared. 

How could it be? They had just killed him two days ago. They said the curtain in the temple was ripped in two. I knew why, too, because all our hearts were ripped in two. So many of us, who’d lived for each day with this mysterious man who made us feel so alive. How could it be him? But how could it be anyone else? He was like no one else. 

He saw me, through the crowd, he saw me. And he came over to me. No one else seemed to notice him, the crowds did not part like the sea. I shook my head to clear it. I must be dreaming.

“Hello,” he said, gently taking my basket. “Heading to the markets?”

I nodded, unable to speak. I didn’t want to wake up. I had listened to Jesus for years, but never been this close. I could smell him. I could see the sweat beading on his forehead too, and the smile in his eyes was so close.

“You’re John’s older sister.” He said it without question, but gently. 

I nodded again.

“Do you know where they are?” he asked, running his hand through his hair. When he lifted his hands I saw the scars. My hands went to my mouth and my eyes must have revealed my shock.

He looked into me and smiled. “It’s really me,” he laughed lightly. “I said I’d come back and I have. There’s nothing to fear.” He pulled his hair back from his sweaty face, like I’d seen him do a thousand times.

I started breathing again, beginning to relax a little. “Can you take me to them?” he asked.

I stopped then. I knew he didn’t need me to show him where to find my brothers. He knew everything. 

He smiled at me and laughed, “Liza, you have been waiting for me to ask you to follow me.”

I felt warmth rise in my cheeks. “Now, I am asking you to show me where your brothers are.”

We walked then, in silence. I didn’t want to get there. I didn’t want to wake up. I felt so alive next to him, so unexplainably light and free.

When we reached the door, I lifted my eyes to his. Tears stung. I had longed to be his follower, like my brothers, like Mary Magdalene and so many others who had left everything to follow him everywhere, every day. But I had a large family at home to take care of. 

“Thank you,” he said, turning to go up the stairs. Then he stopped, and slowly turned around. “You know, Liza, you’re welcome to come with me.” 

“But–” I stammered, startled by the sound of my own voice. But he did not disappear. I did not wake up.

“Bring them with you,” he waved his hand toward my home. “You can all eat with us tonight. There is more than enough to go around.” His smile was broad, and mine grew to match it.

“I will!” I said, then rushed home to get my seven children.

 

Note: For years I’ve been wanting to write a scene about encountering the risen Jesus in person. So this year we did it as a writing prompt in my writing group. What came out, with no planning, was some deep frustrations I have had at times, feeling on the sidelines as a woman. But the simple truth is that it’s never been that way to Jesus.

There’s a long list of evils associated with Christianity that don’t make any sense to me the more I learn about Jesus. There have been abuses done to children, endorsement of racism, annihilation of native cultures, oppression of women, and justification of wars. Then there are more specific abuses of power done directly to those I love. Multiple instances recently where the church has defended the abuser instead of the abused. 

My husband teaches college students and has some insight into the next generation. He says that many young adults these days don’t want anything to do with Christianity because they don’t see it making people better, but more judgemental, even hateful. He’s even said a few times that it doesn’t seem like my faith has been good for me.

I have struggled with this a lot, because my loyalty to Jesus is stronger than my loyalty to anything else. It pains me deeply when his name is dishonored, by the church and by me. It pains me that people I love are understandably alienated by these evils. I can’t claim to love Jesus without loving his people. But as a faithful church attender, my whole adult life, I am increasingly heartbroken over the compromises with our culture that I see growing worse in American churches. 

I’ve been searching the Scriptures, desperate to figure out how to love the Church without endorsing or excusing such evils, or compromises, and am finding there’s plenty of help to be found.

 

Not Surprised

When my kids were very young I didn’t read much besides the gospels. I found that when I was reading the gospels the hardships of life were not surprising. I enjoyed The Message because of the joy that I felt from the paraphrase. It was here that I first encountered some clear answers that addressed my frustrations with the church.

“Be wary of false preachers who smile a lot, dripping with practiced sincerity. Chances are they are out to rip you off some way or other. Don’t be impressed with charisma; look for character. Who preachers are is the main thing, not what they say. A genuine leader will never exploit your emotions or your pocketbook. These diseased trees with their bad apples are going to be chopped down and burned.

Knowing the correct password—saying ‘Master, Master,’ for instance—isn’t going to get you anywhere with me. What is required is serious obedience—doing what my Father wills. I can see it now—at the Final Judgement thousands strutting up to me and saying, ‘Master, we preached the Message, we bashed the demons, our God-sponsored projects had everyone talking.’ And do you know what I am going to say? ‘You missed the boat. All you did was use me to make yourselves important. You don’t impress me one bit. You’re out of here.’” (Matt 7:15-23)

I had been impressed with charisma, and emotionally manipulated by a preacher at this point. It hurt to lose trust. But Jesus was not surprised. He warned of this very thing.

When I would tell my friends overseas last year about the abuses of power that had left me wondering who I could trust in the church, they were not shaken or surprised at all either. I came to learn that it was largely because they were much more grounded in the Bible as a whole than I was. As I enjoy the Bible as a whole now I see that God consistently warns about false teachers who oppress others throughout the whole of history. He is definitely not surprised. And yet he never turns an indifferent blind eye to this power hungry injustice in the name of religion. God’s heart for justice gives us plenty of guidance for dealing with injustice. 

Jesus shows us here that we can tell who is trustworthy by their fruit, what they do, not what they say. Sometimes it may take a long time to see, but Jesus promises that no one can hide behind a religious mask forever,

“Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roofs.” (Luke 12:1-3)

When I consider all the injustice that’s stained the church I am comforted to know that no one can hide before God. Yet Jesus isn’t trying to comfort here, but to warn us. He persistently warns against this yeast, of the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herod three times in the gospels. Yeast was associated with corruption in his culture. Paul quotes a proverb, perhaps even idiom, of his day in Galatians 5:9, “A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough,” to call out legalistic heresy. I don’t think they’re just warning us about trusting false teachers, they understand how false teaching penetrates a community, or nation, like yeast through dough.

 

Collective Sin

The idea that sin is like yeast permeating a community, not just an individual, has very different implications. The more I read the Bible, the more I sense that everything is much bigger than me, that we are a people, not just individuals. That even our sin is collective, and that some of our thinking on this in America has really gotten off.

At the very end of our time in New Zealand a good friend lent me a book on prayer by an American that had helped her greatly. While I valued the content a lot, I couldn’t help but notice the obsession with ourselves and our feelings that I find hard to escape in American Christianity. My friend said that the vulnerability really helped her, and it was good to see that we can learn from each other. But I found it so refreshing to experience Bible teaching that was more about God than us in Australia and New Zealand. I sense that this obsession with ourselves is yeast in American churches that Jesus really wants to free me from.

The gospel message I have heard in American churches is that I am a sinner, but Jesus loves me and forgives me. Still, I am at the center in this message, as are my feelings. It has often felt like an emotional rollercoaster, something like this: the worse I feel about myself the more thankful I can be for forgiveness. But I fear we’ve crashed into a heresy that Paul warned us about, “…Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?” (Romans 6:1-2)

The truth of the gospel is that Jesus came to free me from sin that torments me, sin that is much bigger than me and my mistakes. It’s parallel to God rescuing the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. They were helpless to save themselves from their oppressors, but God rescued them with a mighty show of his power. This is the kind of rescue Jesus made in his life, death, and resurrection. 

When it’s simply about me being forgiven, I miss out on the freedom from sin. This heresy may be what my husband has been talking about when he’s pointed out that my faith was not good for me. I was stuck in constant, and yet unfruitful, guilt. It may also be why younger generations are observing that church doesn’t necessarily make us more loving people. I’ve seen churches compromising to try to sell themselves, but by trying to be more relevant we’ve become more and more focused on ourselves. And less and less focused on how we are treating others.

While churches acknowledge our sin in general, there has not been an expectation of actual confession or freedom. I think we have a dangerous culture of dismissal. When I have attempted to confess to friends and family, even about hurting my own children, I’ve been told if I’m feeling bad about it, I’m probably fine. But I was not fine. I needed help.

 

Help from Jesus

The idea that “God helps those who help themselves” has deep roots in our American culture of self-sufficiency, but not in the culture or message of the Bible. The Laura Ingalls Wilder books quote it often and show how deeply rooted this idea is in American Christianity. But what I have learned from reading Scripture is that God helps those who ask for help, or quite simply those who need help.

If I could share just one story about Jesus to show others his character it would definitely be this one:

“Soon afterward, Jesus went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went along with him. As he approached the town gate, a dead person was being carried out—the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a large crowd from the town was with her. When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her and he said, “Don’t cry.”

Then he went up and touched the coffin, and those carrying it stood still. He said, “Young man, I say to you get up!” The dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his mother.

They were filled with awe and praised God. “A great prophet has appeared among us,” they said, “God has come to help his people.” (Luke 7:11-16)

Jesus doesn’t help us because we deserve it, but because he loves us. The more I read the Bible I see that the whole thing is about this compassionate deliverance, based in God’s goodness, not ours, hundreds of times, in a myriad of ways. It is his kindness that leads to repentance.

 A couple chapters earlier we see Jesus calling Simon, whom he later named Peter. Jesus tells Simon, who is a fisherman, to let down his nets, even though he hasn’t caught anything all night. Then Jesus miraculously fills their nets with fish to the point of breaking. And Simon responds appropriately, “Away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” 

This is only the beginning for Peter. We go on to read much about his slow transformation, which is in large part freedom from his own ego. Jesus frees Peter to live for others, not himself. 

On Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit comes in power, Peter preaches to a crowd of thousands, from all nations. The people are cut to the heart and ask what they can do. He tells them plainly to repent, be baptized, and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. But the very end of this scene has caught my attention. It says,

“With many other words he warned them; and pleaded with them, ‘Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” (Acts 2:40)

The goodness of God sheds light on our sinfulness, not only our individual sins, but the collective sin we’re caught up in too, and it frees us from it. I have experienced this kind of help most recently through our sabbatical. Before we left for Australia I was dangerously embittered towards the church, anxious about the future, and had no will to live. 

But the undeserved kindness of God has been freeing me, partly through the chance to see our nation from the outside, largely through the goodness of his people pointing me back to the Scriptures. Now I have far more reason to be anxious, we’re meant to be moving across the country in a few months, while the world is reeling from a pandemic. But I want to live. I want to care for my kids and my husband, and whoever else I get to. I want to see what God will do in his power to help. I want to be part of reformation in the Church, because I agree with Peter that we need saved from the yeast of this corrupt generation.

 

Repairing through Reformation 

When Midwesterners think of reformation most probably think of Martin Luther and the Protestant reformation. But there have been many, many reformers throughout history for us to learn from. St. Francis of Assisi is one of my favorites, from 13th century Italy. But the past century has been full of reformation too. Deitrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King, Jr., Richard Foster, John Wimber, and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove are a few who encourage me that God is still constantly reforming his church today. And all but one of those are Americans who have not abused power over others, but lived to serve, like Jesus.

When I look for connections between all the reformers I’ve begun to learn from there is only one. They are all transformed radically by the words of Jesus. So, we turn to his words for practical ways we can reform the church today. 

Given what I learned about the collectivist culture of the Bible in Misreading Scripture Through Western Eyes, I hear him holding us responsible for each other more than we might be comfortable with in American culture. 

In Matthew 18, right after Jesus brings in a child to answer the question of who’s the greatest, he says,

“But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.

Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to sin! Such things must come, but woe to the man through whom they come!” (Matthew 18:6-7)

I am just beginning to see how much this flies in the face of American culture, that we are held responsible for causing others to sin. What about boundaries? I think we’ve gone too far to the extreme, making it a law, like gravity, that we’re only responsible for ourselves when there’s a both/and here. Our extreme boundaries would likely sound very foreign to Jesus in his culture of collectivism, built upon relationships. 

A little later he goes on:

“If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’(Deut 19:15) If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan [someone who does not believe].” (Matthew 18:15-17) 

Not only does Jesus hold us responsible for causing others to sin, he holds us responsible for calling out sin. Essentially we are responsible for the community, not simply for being as good as we can be individually. He expects a healthy family to regularly confront, confess, repent, and forgive, to keep the community safe for everyone.

Free and independent Americans have a hard time doing church this way, especially nice Midwesterners. We don’t like to be told what to do, and we don’t want to be responsible for telling anyone else what to do either. But when community accountability breaks down, the weak and vulnerable are not safe. I’ve seen this play out recently in churches, and on school playgrounds, and universities. Our Australian friends pointed out how obsessed Americans are with our “rights,” sometimes at the expense of the community.

The more I read the Bible the more I long for God’s standards on how we treat each other. His heart to “purge the evil from among you” comes up often in Deuteronomy, but can’t be written off as though it was before the grace of Jesus. This heart is just as clear in the early church, after Jesus’ death and resurrection. Annanias and Sapphira were struck dead for keeping a little money back for themselves and then lying about it to make themselves look better. Paul expected the Corinthians to expel people for sexual immorality, saying, 

“Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough? Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast—as you really are.” (1Corinthians 5:6-7) 

While Jesus can forgive and free us from anything, his grace is not a cover for sin. We are all affected by this yeast when we turn a blind eye, or simply pass responsibility off on others. I admittedly have no idea what this means practically, but I want to learn.

 

American Leaders

Jesus teaches us to love our enemies, but he also shows us how to call out people in authority often. A good portion of his interactions are with the abusive religious leaders of his day, who he repeatedly calls hypocrites, or actors.

“Everything they do is for men to see…they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; they love to be greeted in the marketplaces and to have men call them ‘Rabbi.’ 

But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have only one Master and you are all brothers. And do not call anyone on earth ‘Father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. Nor are you to be called ‘teacher,’ for you have one Teacher, the Christ. The greatest among you will be your servant. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” (Matthew 23: 5-12)

From our time overseas I can tell you that Americans are looked up to for our strength in “raising up leaders.” But I cringe at that because of the ways power is abused so often. Jesus had no tolerance for these abuses of power. He shamed them publically to the point that they killed him.     

“While Jesus was teaching in the temple courts…The large crowd listened to him with delight. As he taught, Jesus said, “Watch out for the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowering robes and be greeted in the marketplaces, and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. They devour widows’ houses and for show make lengthy prayers. Such men will be punished most severely.”(Mark 12: 35,37b-40)

The truth is we may be punished for the very things that we consider success in America. Here we think bigger is better, but that has not been my experience when it comes to churches. I have heard pastors brag about their impressive buildings, and their nationally known children’ ministries that I felt were actually teaching children greed through bribery. We are too easily convinced that numbers equal success, but I think churches are looking more and more like businesses, or entertainment venues, or even schools than the family of God described in the Bible.

I think we who call ourselves Christians need to hold ourselves more responsible for the health of the Church. It’s not enough to just silently walk away and shake our heads. Yes, Jesus warns us to take the log out of our own eye first. God is ultimately the Judge of each individual, and we are accountable for our own actions. But Jesus teaches us, by his words and his example, that we are also responsible for helping each other in this battle against collective sin.

 

Yeast Today    

I find it fascinating that the three groups Jesus was warning us against are still visible today. The Pharisees of Jesus day were the legalistic ones, of whom Jesus said:

“Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.” (Mark 7:6-7) 

The Pharisees followed the law flawlessly, but with no real meaningful effect. The whole of Matthew 23 is dedicated to exposing their hypocrisy. It starts with Jesus telling the crowds to do as they say, not as they do. Basically he’s saying listen to the Scriptures they teach, but don’t neglect “justice, mercy, and faithfulness”(Matt 23:23) as they do. They are acting to win the approval of others, it’s all a show. 

I see many parallels here with the conservative religious right in our nation today. Many conservative Christians have used the Bible to gain, or maintain, power for themselves, justifying slavery, unjust economics, the oppression women, and immigrants. There are many abuses here that Jesus would undoubtedly call out. But he wouldn’t throw out the Scriptures that they use to abuse.

The second group, the Sadducees, were more worldly and political. They rejected certain Scriptures and oral law, and have some parallels with the liberal religious left group of our day. I believe Jeus would have some words for that side in our nation today too. When the Sadducees question Jesus about a view they fought for he replied:

“Are you not in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You are badly mistaken!” (Mark 12:24,27)

I have been saddened by the way that many liberal Christians dismiss the authority of Scripture because it has been abused in the hands of those they have been taught to hate. Those in power will forever stir up dissension to protect their own power, but we must not fall for this yeast any more than the others.

The final group Jesus warns about is Herod, the horrendous political ruler of their nation at the time. I think it’s interesting that he includes him in the warning about yeast, or teaching, that permeates. The truth is we are all affected by the sins of our leaders much more than we want to admit. They set a standard of what is acceptable behavior, representing our people group, they embody us. I was keenly aware of this overseas where it was embarrassing to see that American politics is the favorite soap opera drama for many of our friends. It’s not funny, though, for when they break the bonds of trust, it wounds us all more deeply than we know.  

I think if Jesus came to our nation right now he would have the same compassion he did for the people of his time. 

“Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” (Matthew 9:35-37)

This compassion is the work that Jesus was doing and wants to continue through his Church, that can unite us in reformation today. Demonstrating the goodness of God, made known to us through the Scriptures, sufficient for repentance, to each other is what we can do as his children every day, no matter what storms rage on around us.

 

           

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

 

I read a book this winter that’s really clarifying a lot of heartache I’ve experienced as a Christian in America at this time in history. I want to share a book review, wrapped in a blanket of experiences.

I came to this book so hungry to learn the things that are in it. For years I have heard myself saying things like, “Have you noticed how often God addresses his people as a people, not as individuals? I feel like there’s got to be something to this culturally that we just don’t get here.” I have always been interested in other cultures, and admittedly somewhat discontent within my own. 

Last fall my good friend emailed me a photo of the cover of this book from Uganda, where she had discovered it on her hosts’ bookshelf.  I pursued it through an interlibrary loan, and several weeks later it came from some seminary library. The circuitous way that I came across it makes me smile. It’s not a best seller, but it’s a treasure that I am so thankful has found me.

 

The book is written by two American men. This collaboration may be an application of what they have learned, because they shared that Paul often wrote with others in a collaborative effort characteristic of his culture. One author draws many of his experiences from years spent teaching the Bible in an Indonesian fishing village, where it is clear he learned as much as he taught. The other is a younger Bible teacher who has learned about culture from real world experiences, such as adopting an African American child as a white couple in the South. Their goal is clearly not to assert themselves as experts, but to start a limitless discussion out of love for the family of God. I am going to try to summarize their thoughts first before sharing my own, but there’s still some interpretation.

 

Misreading Scripture Through Western Eyes is organized around the image of an iceberg. The first section discusses a few of the obvious cultural differences that affect our reading of Scripture: cultural mores, ethnicity, and language differences are visible above the surface. 

Mores are the folkways that embody our morals, without question. The authors gave some examples of how the church has compromised with the mores of our culture. For instance, money is seen as an unlimited resource in western cultures where Biblically it is limited, meaning one person growing wealthy causes others to be poor. We read our own mores into the text, assuming that any mention of modesty would be of a sexual nature, when actually economic modesty was the issue being addressed in the early church.

Ethnic descrimination is everywhere in the Bible, but much of it will be lost on us until we come to terms with our own assumptions, which we are often unaware of. The authors pointed out that our claims to be “colorblind” limit our ability to understand what was really going on or being said in Scripture.

Language is an obvious barrier in understanding Scripture, but there’s more to language than words. There are values and assumptions behind the words. For instance, the fact that we esteem concrete, propositional language over ambiguous, metaphorical language makes it harder for us to understand the Scriptures where the assumption is flipped. The values behind our language are not the same as those of the Bible. When we translate we might add subjects or actions that weren’t intended because our language centers around them. Also, there are words and ideas with no equivalent translation. Each language has a more specialized language to describe what it values. In the Bible there are four words for love, where we have only one.

 

The second part of the book dives below the surface to look at more complicated cultural differences. These are ideas that we may be able to spot, once we’re aware of them, but much harder for us to understand.

Individualism is a defining characteristic of Western cultures, in contrast to the collectivism of non-Western cultures. In individualist cultures the rights and sovereignty of the individual are valued above those of the group. In collectivist cultures the community is the most important entity, not the individual. Our assumptions here greatly affect our reading of Scripture, and consequently the way church has evolved in our culture. Biblically the church is a family, with implications and obligations that our culture has no grid for because of our individualism. The Great Awakening purported that it was the voluntary nature of churches that legitimized them. Consequently, many westerners who claim to be Christians today do not want to be associated with the church, but Jesus would have no grid for our individualistic way of thinking. 

Secondly the authors contrasted the honor/shame culture of the Bible and the right/wrong or innocence/guilt culture of the western world. This is a hard difference to contrast because they do not equate. Wrong is not the same as shameful. Westerners have a habit of dichotomizing, or seeing something as either/or. In Eastern thought they strive for harmony not distinction, so most things are viewed as both/and. In our western world individuals mature by learning and internalizing the difference between right and wrong. In non-western cultures one’s actions are judged by the community, which holds the moral standards externally. 

The idea of an internal conscience began with Plato, but the ideas would not have reached Palestine by the time of the New Testament. So, while we have a hard time imagining a life devoid of inner guilt, the authors of the Bible would not understand our introspective conscience. Our right/wrong perspective makes it very easy for us to misread sins that are not implied, and completely mis sins that were obvious to those writing the Scriptures. For instance, the religious leaders of Jesus’ time killed him because he took their honor by winning every public contest they entered with him verbally. Killing him as a criminal was how they recovered their honor in the community.

Throughout Scripture sin is corporate, not private. Jesus understood sin as yeast that permeates the whole community. The honor of all, and of God who is head of the family, is at stake when we sin. This gives new meaning to a lot of the honor talk in the Bible.

The third discussion in this second section was around time. Unlike money, Westerners consider time a limited resource, a commodity to be saved or spent. Our language reveals our obsession with “when” something happens. We find meaning in sequence, which we prefer to be linear. But the Bible wasn’t written within our western understanding of time. The writers of the Bible used sequencing intentionally and creatively, but not with accurate chronological reporting. Their idea of telling a story was more like cooking than reporting. They were more concerned with the wisdom of timing than chronology. 

 

The third section dives even deeper below the surface into things that influence us below often our level of consciousness. 

Whether a culture is governed by rules or relationships can be very hard to decipher on the surface when every culture consists of a tangle of both. The authors unpacked ways we tend to understand relationships in terms of laws or rules. In contrast, rules in non-western worldviews only describe the visible outworking of an underlying relationship. It’s a difference in what’s below the surface, to use the iceberg illustration again.

During the Enlightenment western Christians translated our new knowledge of nature’s laws into the worldview that God created everything to operate under established rules. Naturalism assumes that the natural world and its laws can fully explain everything. But God is sovereign over his own rules and the Scriptures are full of examples where he bends them for the sake of relationships. Westerners struggle a lot with what we consider “inconsistencies” in Scripture mostly because of our cultural expectation that rules should apply 100% of the time, like gravity. But in the culture of the Bible the relationship dictates the rules, making it possible to live by the Spirit, not by the law. 

The second discussion in this section was around what we consider vice and virtue. The authors pointed out some Western virtues that are anti or non Biblical: self-sufficiency–when we are called to carry each other’s burden, fighting for freedom–when Jesus says to turn the other cheek, “might makes right,” or peace through military force–not the kind of peace Jesus came to give, leadership–when Jesus teaches us to follow and submit to God, and tolerance–when Jesus says the gate is narrow. A final big American virtue that Jesus calls a vice is saving money. God expects us to be faithful in the present, not store away our excess to protect against uncertainty.

The final discussion looked at how “self at the center” is pervasively central to American culture. Our country was founded by immigrants seeking self-improvement, and built on the backs of “free and independent” farmers. American Christians are quick to claim every promise or blessing as personal when God’s promises are to his people at large, but don’t necessarily include everyone. Our assumption that God’s promises are like the laws of nature, with no exceptions, and our infatuation with ourselves leads to plenty of disappointment.

 

In conclusion, the authors had some helpful suggestions for wading through these differences in our reading. They warned against our tendency to overcorrect in our either/or culture. For instance, just because we can’t insist that God’s promises always include everyone, especially me, sometimes they actually do. They also encouraged us to embrace complexity, instead of glossing over what we don’t like, like when the magi’s visit led to the death of many children in Bethlehem. In short, reading together across cultures and generations helps us uncover each other’s blind spots.

 

I find this book a very helpful tool in helping us recover what Jesus intended for his church. Sadly, many of those closest to me who sparked my interest in the Bible no longer trust it any more. They have plenty of good reasons not to trust those who have claimed authority over them, and throw the writers of the Bible into that camp. While I share a lot of their frustrations about authorities who have misused it, I believe the Scriptures are what I can trust to guide me. I still have lots of questions, but the more I read them the more I trust them. 

I believe there’s still much that we don’t understand about the Scriptures, and too much that we think we do understand. This has become a deep passion for me, trying to understand where the writers of Scripture may have been coming from. I love it that God used the labor of ordinary people who were living in historical people groups and cultures to give us his Word. I think that understanding them better can help us recover God’s vision for his people today.  

For years my frustrations with the church in America have been about cultural compromises that are not Biblical. I have had a sense that we’re misinterpreting, but didn’t really know how. Learning a little bit about the culture of the Bible has got me fired up to write more about real reformation for right now. Reformation is necessary to purify the church regularly. A few big events scattered throughout history have not kept us faithful to Jesus’ words.

So, I plan to write several more pieces looking at specific areas of reformation that will draw from and dive deeper into the ideas outlined here.

The Porch

 

The first time I heard their porch music I was weeding the flower beds I had inherited at our new rental. I stopped everything, sat back on my haunches and drank in the sound. I had been praying for months to hear that soul music, on my street, sung by real people, within reach. But by the time I rounded up a couple kids to walk to the grocery store with me, I couldn’t find the source.

The second time I heard that sweet sound, I was walking the kids to school, that first day of school. The sun already had a strong hand on my back, like an old friend who’d come to this new place, a thousand miles from home with me, wrapping his arm around my shoulder.  

I heard them, long before I saw them that morning. I heard their raucous laughter, and strumming, and gradually building, low, slow singing. But I was too bashful to do much more than look that first day, even though my heart was pounding a million miles a minute. 

The third time I saw them congregating on that porch they were just talking, all solemn, but I still heard their music. I waved, and smiled big. I think my smile must have taken up more than my whole face. They looked at me, and saw me, me and my silly grin, before one of the kids was pulling me away, saying something. 

The next time I heard them singing through an open window as the warm rain soaked me and fogged up my glasses. I couldn’t see a thing, but the sound was so good, so sorrowful and deep, my heart ached with longing.

Then one day they were out on the porch again when I walked the kids to school and I was determined to say something on my way back home. The sun was shining again, raising steam from the wet pavement already by the time I was walking back up my new street. I walked slowly, head down, wondering what on earth to say.

But she spoke first. “Hey, girl,” she called. “Come on up here and grab yourself a glass of lemonade.”

I looked up. She was looking at me. I wasn’t even quite in front of her house yet. But she was looking at me, with warm, brown eyes and a spicy attitude that I could almost taste. The others were looking at me too, and I didn’t care. 

I fiddled with the old gate awkwardly, my hands shaking with excitement until an old man came down the walk and opened it for me. His smile was warm too. “Good ‘ol Tina makes the best lemonade you ever had.” He winked, “And I’ve been ‘round long enough to know!”

When I reached the porch Tina pointed to a little end table with a red woven mat on it. There was a big pitcher of lemonade, half full of ice, and some old clear plastic glasses. I poured a glass and sipped it. It was real good. Not too sweet, just like I liked it.

When I turned around the old man asked what I thought of it. “It’s real good,” I said. “Not too sweet.” I was working on saying what I really thought, now that I was no longer in the Midwest.

“See, now, that’s what I always say,” he said, adjusting his old newsboy cap. I stared at his cap, because it looked like it was made out of my husband’s grandpa’s 100 year old chair that we still had. The man’s old brown body was shriveled up, but the way he held himself it was obvious he wasn’t. His eyes were a beautiful hazel and when he smiled they seemed to spray light even though the porch was well bathed in sunlight. 

“That’s Hank,” Tina said, “And I’m Tina. You new to the neighborhood?” 

“Yes, I’m Cedar, like the tree,” I said, “We just moved here last month from Wisconsin.” There was a long silence, like they were waiting for more. “I really love hearing your music.” 

“Yeah, I think we could tell the other day,” Tina laughed. 

I almost blushed, but I didn’t. I was here, afterall, on the porch, too giddy to be embarrassed. Looking around I saw that Hank had a guitar, a quiet young woman in the back corner had a large double bass that rested on the floor. She had dark hair and eyes and an aura of mystery about her. She didn’t smile. I thought there had to be more people making all that music.

My eyes continued on. There was a lonely banjo resting in its case under the porch swing. “Do you play banjo?” I looked at Tina.

She laughed a rumbling deep gut laugh that shook her whole body. “No,” she finally said, “That’s Clyde’s banjo. He leaves it here. I just sing and make lemonade.” She sighed a heavy sigh. “But today I could use a good story and you look like maybe you got one in you.”

“What kind of story,” I said, sitting down in the chair Tina pointed at. I noticed that I settled all the way into the chair, instead of sitting on the edge, ready to run, like the jumpy rabbit I often was.

“A true one,” she said. I took a deep breath.

“Yeah, those are always the best kind,” Hank agreed. The mysterious quiet lady looked at me as though she could already see right into my soul, and I felt safe, like I was made for this.

“Okay,” I said, “I can do that.” And I began to tell them about how I grew up on the river in Iowa, wearing dead snakes from the time I could walk, catching frogs and crawdads with my little brother. I told them about eating snow and skiing through the woods; about living with no car and no washing machine, thinking that stop lights were Christmas lights because my world was so small. And about the pond that I would run to back in the woods, with a log out over the water where I would play turtle. When I looked at their faces, I could see that they were fascinated, and I felt lifted, because my life truly is fascinating.

Before long the magic ended and I became suddenly self-conscious. “What about you guys?” I said awkwardly. “I want to hear about you.” 

They all laughed, hard. Then I really did feel the warmth rise in my cheeks, unsure what was so funny. 

“Where’d you say you come from?” Hank asked, still rolling in laughter. 

“Well, I grew up in Iowa,” I started. That was enough.

“We don’t throw around “guys” as loosely as ya’ll do,” Tina explained, wiping a tear from her big brown cheek. 

“Oh, yeah,” I laughed too, longing to learn to laugh like they did.

“So do you play music?” this came from the quiet girl with the double bass. 

It got quiet. All eyes were on me. “Oh, I want to,” I breathed. “I sing, but I want to learn to sing soul music like I’ve heard from this porch. I’ve been trying to learn chords on the keyboard for a few years, picking out songs, you know. But I have had this dream to sing with other people who can teach me. I don’t know a thing, but there are songs inside me, I just know it.”

The girl with the double bass smiled finally, and it meant the world after baring my soul. “I like to write songs too,” she said. “I’m Jasmine.”

“I’m sure I could learn a lot from you,” I started.

“Oh, stop your grovelling,” Tina cut me off. “Yes, the good Lord brought you to the right place, but we all need each other.”

 

And that’s how it all began. Now I’m living my dream, making music with friends for the pure joy of it. My husband even comes along with his guitar. It was his idea to invite the gang over to play board games at our house too. I was hesitant to spoil the magic of the porch, but he told me to stop grovelling. So now I’m living that dream too, getting to host friends in my home every weekend. They make fun of my healthy snacks every week, but they still eat them. And Tina’s girls have introduced our kids to the neighborhood. They can usually be found up in the treehouse in Tina’s back yard. I have had the privilege of learning bits and pieces of their stories too, as they’re willing to offer. This is by far the greatest gift in all of it. 

 

Note: This story was an assignment lovingly given to me by my dear friend and writing group leader. I have been wrestling with unmet longings for community in church for many years and she told me to write about what it is I really want in a community. Interestingly, organized church didn’t even make it into the story. This doesn’t mean that I don’t think it’s very important to be part of the Body of Christ. But I think it’s very true for me that my deepest longings are on a more basic level than what we know as church. I think my definition of church has some growing to do.

Partly this came out of my experience in our huge church last weekend, where we actually know almost no one. The worship felt like a performance. I was wanting to get over myself and really engage, like the multitude praising the Lamb in Revelation. But I couldn’t get there. I felt like a spectator. And this porch band dream started filling my heart, to just praise God with friends for the pure joy of it.

We will be moving over 1000 miles away this coming summer, from Eau Claire, Wisconsin to Harrisonburg, Virginia. And this is the bold dream that I am praying for, knowing that my imagination pales in comparison to the good things God has in store for us there.

 

Audio Player

 

For years I craved to feel understood by my family

Imagining I could find the words to finally help them see

Then I wanted the perfect marriage, perfect according to me

I thought if only I could be a part of the perfect community

I wanted to put down roots, feel like I belong somewhere

But my ideals were my ideas, they didn’t get me anywhere

Just a lot of discontentment, heartache, and despair

 

Chorus

Sometimes disappointment can be the best medicine

Because it shows me where my allegiance truly lies

Sometimes disappointment can be the best medicine

Revealing what my hope is truly resting in

Oh Lord, you know just what I need

To draw me back to you

 

You won’t let it work to enthrone the created

To live for their approval is to enthrone myself

 

So thank you for their criticisms

Though it’s made me sad

And thank you for their over-praising

Though it drives me mad

Thank you for their silences

Leaving room for you to speak

Showing me how empty all this fear of man can be

Oh Lord, you know just what I need

To draw me back to you

 

I never could have imagined that I could feel so loved

You don’t need words, you know my heart, better than I know myself

There’s nothing I could do to reach you, but you adopted me

And now no matter where I am, I’m at home in your family

Oh Lord, you know just what I need

To draw me back to you

 

Sometimes I wonder

Why you sent the flood

Could the good world you made

Have really gone that bad?

 

But when I put the question to you

And take a good look around

At all of us devouring one another

I know it breaks your heart

 

If I refuse to hide my eyes

I feel the crushing weight

Of all our sin against the oppressed

As the tears rain down I think

Maybe it’s a glimpse

Of where the flood came from

 

But the story doesn’t end there

You rescue and redeem

Washed, we begin anew

 

Before long it all unravels again

History repeats itself

But you keep your promise

To work with us as we are

 

Then the fathers in Egypt

become the enslaved

for 400 years they cry out for help

And you delivered them

 

But where is Moses now?

It’s been 400 years!

When will you come and deliver

those we have enslaved?

I’m so ashamed of my heritage

 

I hear you say

The story isn’t over

You have been fighting for them

all of this time

through salty people,

mostly unnamed

And I’m welcome to join you

You choose to include us

Your mercy goes that far

 

My story’s far from over

But long after I’m gone

Your story will keep repeating

To free the oppressed

To humble the proud

 

I want to be silent

Until you give me voice

For I’ve nothing to prove

or justify before anyone

 

But you are never silent

Your Word created

Your Word inhabited

earth, body and soul

Your Word will always be

There’s no end to your story

 

Our first month home was quite an adjustment. For the first few days I was my nice and laid back New Zealand self. But eventually I felt the urgency of our Midwestern work ethic creep in and take over my body. I observed this in myself, as though I was on the outside. Suddenly the blueberry bushes and strawberry plants needed weeding, the lawn needed mowing, and everything needed ordered around the house–NOW. I became consumed with all that needed done, irritated by interruptions. But I was able to step back, appalled at myself. This is not who I am anymore. This is the culture I have grown up in.

I randomly decided to start reading the Laura Ingalls Wilder books to my boys about this same time. Reading this fictionalized autobiographical account of those who settled this land is uncovering a lot about how we got where we are, where this Midwestern work ethic that I long to shake off comes from. It was nonstop work to survive for anyone brave enough to settle this land. There was incredible urgency, largely due to the extreme seasons that come and go so quickly.

I was keenly aware of this difference when we were living in milder climates last year. What felt so odd to me was the constancy of the climate, when I am used to such drastic swings. I experienced the way climate really does affect people’s frame of mind, because I slowly grew into the relaxed attitude of those around me. What was missing was the urgency that things needed to be done NOW. There’s no need to “make hay while the sun shines” when every day is 70 degrees and sunny.

Reading Laura Ingalls Wilder’s first book, Little House in the Big Woods, also helps me understand the history of our gun culture. This is something I was self conscious about living overseas. The rest of the world can’t understand our obsession with guns, they are curious and baffled. Quite honestly I haven’t really understood it either. But Laura tells us there were large predators in these Wisconsin woods that settlers feared. They feared ever being caught without their gun. Our culture of fear is something I was also very self conscious of living overseas. But reading this simple children’s book helps me understand a little bit about where we come from as a nation. Even where a little bit of the fear that I despise, in myself and my nation, comes from.

Anyway, we were home for a couple weeks, just enough time to get the tractor working and the lawn mowed. Then Chris left for Northfield, Minnesota, where he was teaching the same three week summer camp he taught last summer. This time they didn’t have housing for all six of us, so the kids and I happily spent the weeks at my parent’s house in Iowa, visiting Chris on the weekends.

My parents are going through the ups and downs of trying to sell the house they’ve been building for 38 years. It’s incredibly hard to leave the cabin at the end of the lane where they lived out their dreams on the river. But the river has grown too unpredictable and flood prone.

I grew up out there on the river, a river rat of the purest kind. We didn’t have motor boats, but canoes and kayaks. I knew the river as a kid. I knew the dangers of snags, still I floated safely down it in nothing but a life jacket. We jumped off the drop offs on the sandbars, then floated down to where we could touch. We waded in shoes, because of all the broken glass. We caught frogs and baby turtles, crawdads and snakes, making our own little zoo in the backyard, for a day.

But my kids do not know the river I knew as a kid. I have taken them home to it, but I have not trusted it since the big flood that filled the house with 5 and a half feet of water. That was in 2008, the year our oldest son, Lewis, was born. They have enjoyed the sandbars, but they don’t know me as a river rat, only as a fearful, untrusting, protective mother.

When I floated the river with my kids a few weeks ago, I couldn’t get over how much the river has changed. The floods have cut away the banks so much that it almost felt like a different river. I don’t know it anymore. There are cutbanks where there used to be sandbars, right off our backyard, where we used to catch frogs. There are new drop offs on the new sandbars that I don’t feel comfortable letting my kids jump off. Life is always changing, just like the river, and I guess it makes it easier to move on sometimes.

But I felt completely different when I finally got out into the woods behind the house. There are miles and miles of riverbottom forests and bluffs that I grew up exploring as a kid. We didn’t own most of it, but were on friendly terms with the neighbors and so had access. We enjoyed the woods in every season, cross-country skiing in the winters, dressing for mosquitoes and poison ivy in the summers. My little brother and I had forts where we played house for hours. Our family named many places, like the old Granddaddy Tree, Owl’s Mountain, Linger Longer, the Valley of the Ferns, Corkscrew, for a start.

When I was a child I felt safer in the woods than in the house. I knew that if anyone ever came to our house at the end of the lane with ill intentions I could run into the woods. I felt I would be safer there, because I knew it so well.

As a teenager my love for the woods didn’t wane, but deepened. I began running the trails along the bluffs every morning before school. When the rising sun streamed through the trees at the end of the big pond I would take a picture in my mind, knowing that picture would carry me through whatever happened that day. Every day that I ran out there was a good day before I ever left home.

In high school my brother and I even undertook the challenge of making a platform in the Peek-a-boo Tree that was 16 feet off the ground. We used the old lumber from the swing set my parents had made for us as kids. We admittedly didn’t spend a lot of time up there, because we were sitting ducks for the mosquitoes. But we wanted to be out there. Even though we were busy with sports every season, we wanted to be out there still.

When I set out on my adventure in the woods a couple weeks ago things had changed there as well. The old trails I used to run were mostly unrecognizable because of all the downed trees. But I soon found the deer trails, and felt giddy with excitement as I followed them to see where they would take me. I still knew my woods.

One unforgettable day when I was in middle school I stayed home sick from school by myself. I was regaining strength from a pretty bad flu, if I remember correctly. It was spring and I went for a very long hike in the woods. The dutchman’s britches were blooming, but the bluebells weren’t out yet. I left our trails and followed the deer trails that day. As I was doing so, seeing signs of them everywhere, I heard a gunshot. My feet leapt with my heart and I took off running. I know it sounds strange, but I felt such a connection to the deer that I knew their fear. It was mine too, instinctively. I didn’t stop to think about the fact that no one was hunting me for quite a few yards.

I sensed the connection with the deer following their trails a couple weeks ago too. I trusted them to show me my woods again. I had questions, places I wanted to see. Were there still ferns in the Valley of the Ferns? No, the increased light from massive windstorms had turned it into a valley of berries instead. Were there turtles sunning themselves on the logs at end of the big pond? Not at this time of day, I should have known that. I felt honored when the trail lead me to a place where many of them clearly bedded down at night and sheltered their young.

Finally I found the place I was looking for, the little pond that had been my secret place, along my running trail. There was a tree that had fallen out into the little pond where I would play turtle as a teenager. I would just sit there, watching, until the frogs and the fish and the turtles that lived there were comfortable with me. I never wanted to leave that place.

When I found that little pond and sat by it again, I was flooded with love and joy. The pond was so glad to see me again. I felt its joy, and it was mine. The tree I used to sit on over 20 years ago was gone, but it didn’t matter, there was another one there for me to sit on. There was no guilt, only love and joy I can’t explain. I felt the truth of The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. I know those woods will always love me, no matter how far I roam, I will always be home there.

As I reluctantly pulled myself away and headed back to the house, to my children, I promised to come back. I said goodbye 20 years ago when I left home to go to college. But I have come back. Almost all my children have seen this place, the youngest was in the womb. But I will bring them back again. It is a huge part of who I am.

I was floundering when we first got back home, because the bugs were a shock after living in New Zealand where they aren’t a nuisance at all. They were bothering me more than they had before, and the fact that they were annoying me was upsetting me more than anything! On one of our weekends in Minnesota we got to hike at Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve where my brother, Forest, works. Forest was excited to show us the bison he introduced there right before we left for Australia last year. I was thankful to get out there, but I was having a minor identity crisis, because I’d forgotten our hats and couldn’t get past the deer flies. I let them ruin my time out there, even though I’m Forest’s sister, and my name is Cedar. But visiting my pond, dressed to deal with the mosquitoes that whined in my ears, reminded me of what is true.

The truth is that I feel God’s love through nature in ways that words cannot explain. It is where I am most able to receive God’s love, to hear Him in the quiet of beating wings, even when they whine and buzz. I am the daughter of the King, but I am also a child of the wild. Yes, I still have an irrational fear of wasps. I don’t like mosquito bites any more than the next person. And it is disconcerting that so many of my friends’ children are coming down with Lyme’s disease.

But just as I learned a lot about receiving God’s Word on God’s terms this past year, I feel like I need to accept the fallen creation as it is too. I long for the day when it is restored, when Jesus will put an end to all this eating each other. An end to the fear that makes us turn to guns to protect us. In the meantime, I don’t want to miss all the love God has for me out there in the wild, because of fear, or annoyance.

This week I’ve gotten to enjoy our wild woods here in Wisconsin with my own kids. We were hiking the other day when Wesley said, “You know what’s sad, Mama?” When I asked him what he said, “That we own this place.” He was sad that other people who might want to enjoy our woods can’t because we own them. He wanted to make our land a park. This floored me, because I have been feeling the same way, but haven’t really verbalized it.

I am thankful that I’ve gotten to raise my boys out here in the wild, for sure, but for the past couple years I have not felt good about owning so much land. I really enjoy going to parks and seeing other people who are out enjoying nature too. I feel isolated out here, and miss being around people. I struggle with guilt that we don’t enjoy it enough to justify keeping it as just ours. So I agree with Wesley. I would be happy if our land became a park, as he dreams of, content to take up less space, like we did overseas, and share nature with others more.

Actually, that day sparked a new dream in me. My new dream job is to somehow take kids who haven’t had much contact with nature out into the wild. I’m so thankful for my roots that run deep in those riverbottom lands. I hope that the branches above ground will reflect their depth by the time I’m done growing.

June 3

The Queen’s Birthday gives us a holiday. It rains solidly the first couple days of the long weekend. But Monday is sunny, so I take the younger three boys up to the Sign of the Bellbird to hike. Afterwards we go to Cave Rock (previously we called it Castle Rock…still not sure which it is officially) at Sumner Beach. It’s only nearing 50 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius), but plenty of kids are in the water, including mine! We play hide and seek in the sand dunes, then Stewart and Wesley run from the waves in the cave.

June 5

On the way to school it is very frosty and the boys want to see if I can catch their breath on camera. Or maybe I asked them to try. I think you can kind of see Wesley’s in this one. They love drawing with their breath on the wooden rails on frosty morning walks to school. If we had coats we’d likely wear them many mornings, but we’re getting by just fine without them.

June 7

After school I take the boys to Judith Bell’s music theory club where Chris has been showing them Deltaphone, a language he’s creating to program musical notation. Afterwards our boys get to try out the instruments in the band room. Lewis is happy to sit at a full keyboard again. And Chris and I wonder what can of worms we’ve opened letting them at the drum set! Judith and Tim then have us over for dinner. Tim, who was instrumental in getting Chris the Erskine Fellowship, makes an wide assortment of vegetables for dinner, while the boys all play the ukuleles Judith brought home for them. Tim reiterates many times how much they would love to have Chris in the department here in Christchurch. Their delightful company, along with so many others,’ makes it sound enticing.

 

June 8

Stewart turns 9 years old! We start the day at parkrun in Hagley Park, where Lewis, Stewart, and Chris have been running the 5k race consistently on Saturday’s again, like we did in Brisbane. The younger boys and I haven’t been yet, but we thoroughly enjoy cheering for all the runners. Many of them seem rather tickled, and surprised, by our cheering and Chris says it could become a ministry. It is only slightly made awkward by the hot water bottle under my shirt. I threw my back out a few days before, but the medication and hot water bottle help immensely.

After parkrun we head over to the Riccarton Bush Markets, as the runners usually do, but are unable to withdraw cash. So we head back home for breakfast, banana pancakes, then head to Stewart’s birthday surprise, Orana Wildlife Park. I have been scheming about taking  him to a zoo for his birthday since we went to Willowbank with Terry in February. He loves feeding the giraffes, and seeing a real kiwi bird! We also see lions, gorillas, rhinos, and a cheetah. But the New Zealand birds are what captivate us mostly. At the end of the day we buy a family of New Zealand bird puppets to play with as a family.

We get home late, so I put Lewis on the cupcakes while I make dinner. I’m thankful for the opportunity to see what he’s capable of, and tickled that he made them all by himself for Stewart! Stewart has one wish, to blow out his candles in the dark. This is not something he can do in the Northern Hemisphere with a June birthday! But we don’t remember until some of us are already eating our cupcakes. I willingly concede to a redo of the candle blowing, with the remaining cupcakes. That’s why you don’t see 9 candles in the picture. There were 9 the first go round.

June 10

Twill and I have Hiromi, Kuni, and her flatmates, Mizuki and Hikonuan, over for a taco party, along with Naomi and Angeline. Funny that tacos are the most American dish I can think of to share with them! Hikonuan loves playing with Kuni and Twill, taking them outside to climb trees. I find it magical to share a kitchen with Hiromi. She cleans up so fast that it feels like magic. I am thankful for the chance to share meals and everyday life, to learn from her. They like the tacos enough to take home the leftovers too!

 

June 13

The Thursday morning Women’s Bible Study has an evening social send-off for me. It is an “American Party,” complete with decorations, costumes, games, and desserts. Judith has come up with a photo recognition game, American trivia questions, spice smelling, and chocolate tasting. Katie, also American, brings a key lime pie, and I bake sweet potato pie. It tastes just like pumpkin pie, which everyone associates with America. Jessica also helps me make my grandma’s abelcog, a Danish apple dessert. I feel incredibly loved by it all. Especially when Jessica asks me to share my favorite blue grass music with them. We listen to Gillian Welch most of the evening, and it really helps me associate with my homeland again.

June 14

Twill and I play at Hiromi and Kuni’s house in the morning, building neat houses with magnetic walls. Afterwards Twill comments many times about the walls of our house staying up because of magnets. Hiromi and Kuni give Twill a fascinating and hilarious lesson in blowing out his nose!

After school we stay and play on the playground. Jessica’s oldest and Wesley make mud with water from the fountains, which is very ironic because the whole playground is already mud. Eventually we pull everyone away and bring Wesley’s friend Lev, and his mother and sister, home with us. Wesley falls out of our tree in the backyard.

June 16

For Father’s Day we take Chris on a hike from the Sign of the Kiwi to the Sign of the Bellbird in the port hills around Christchurch. We begin above the clouds, looking down on the cloud that envelops Christchurch. Twill is not excited about another long hike, but he is easily distracted by singing Raffi’s corner grocery store song. We all enjoy the stunning views of both Lyttleton Harbor and the snow covered mountain range on the opposite side. I am still surprised by how many people are out enjoying the trails every time we hike, and by how many, many trails there are up there! Later in the week I find out that Hiromi was at the Sign of the Bellbird at the same time, but heading down a different track. We enjoy lunch at the Sign of the Kiwi in the sunshine.

June 17

Naomi hosts a baby “sprinkle” for Jessica, who will have her fourth baby at the end of July. Twill and I go early and help decorate. We all sew on a teddy blanket for her little one and pray for her. They’re preparing to move back to their hometown before the baby’s born.

June 19

I pick the boys up from school and get the chance to see Wesley’s tree house where he likes to play and climb at lunch time. Lewis also gets us all playing a game of soccer briefly.

June 21

Nature Play is at Governor’s Bay, on Lyttleton Harbor. Twill and I have never been, and need some fresh air, so we take Hiromi and Kuni. Hiromi teaches us a Japanese song, to the tune of “Are You Sleeping,” that creates animals out of rock, paper, scissors hand motions. I will never forget them. I meet Simone, who is thinking of moving to Perth, and tell her how much we love it here in Christchurch. It reminds me that contentment is really what I want, more than anything in particular. Twill still isn’t keen on holding crabs, but he has definitely grown bolder since we started coming to Nature Play.

 

June 22

Chris, Lewis, and Stewart head to parkrun and the rest of us enjoy a quiet Saturday morning. Wesley and Twill enjoy making messy nests for their birds inside, and then take the fun outside when we clean up for the others. They end up decorating the tree in our backyard by taping flowers and shells to it.

When the others get home Stewart talks us into taking a picnic over to the Ilam Gardens to play a game he’s invented: Marco Polo/Virus/Hide and Seek Tag. We find a patch of sunshine to picnic, then take off to play the game. Unfortunately it is cut short when Lewis loses his shoe in the muddy stream. It actually takes me quite awhile to find it, surprisingly deep in the mud.

After we get Lewis another pair of old shoes we drive to Spencer Beach. It’s the last thing on the kids’ wish list to do before we leave Christchurch. The older boys missed the first trip when they were watching Lord of the Rings movies over the holidays and have been wanting to go ever since. Chris and I enjoy watching each of the boys make their own fun before it all eventually turns into a big game of hide and seek in the sand dunes. I love that that’s the way it often goes with us.

June 23

First thing in the morning we decorate Twill’s ladybug pinata. I have the body done when the boys come down to breakfast and they jump in to help. Wesley and Twill make the spots. Lewis creates the whole head with mandibles and eyes while I work on the legs. Stewart wants to get in on the fun so he adds antennae. Twill is pleased that it looks like the one on the book.

Afterwards we head to morning church because Hiromi and Kuni want to visit our church before we leave. It’s great to share our community of friends, even though we usually go to the evening service and don’t know our way around all that well. They are all very welcoming and loving.

After church we head downtown to the Lucky Ninja where Hiromi’s husband Daisuke makes some great karaage (Japanese fried chicken). Her flatmate, Mizuki, has a little stand beside it where she is selling delicious crepes as well. Naomi, Luke, and Angeline join us too, and we meet many others there who are all amazed by Naomi’s Japanese (because she grew up in Japan). It’s fun to see how our whole family has improved with chopsticks since the last time we came to the Lucky Ninja.

June 24

Twill turns four years old! He helps me decorate the chocolate raspberry kitty cake that he’s been dreaming of since we helped Jessica with Bethan’s castle cake. At 10am his friends, Kuni and Mary, arrive and the fun begins. Twill is excited to share balloons and Raffi music, and I am so thankful for how much he’s grown in loving others since we’ve arrived in New Zealand. Chris stays for the morning pinata excitement and lunch. I am quite self conscious of the violence in the pinata tradition we were excited to share. Kuni and Mary are not eager to bash. Twill takes it down on his third try. We enjoy the whole day with our friends, until after 2pm. I love the quality and quantity of time we’ve enjoyed with them here.

After Twill’s birthday dinner we celebrate with his brothers. Twill decided to save the kitty’s head for them. They handle missing out on the fun surprisingly well.

June 25

Twill and I head to the Canterbury Museum gift shop to buy gifts for family back home. Twill behaves beautifully while I hem and haw for over an hour in the shop. The woman working there is very kind and gives Twill a free kiwi stamp to play with. After I am finally done Twill wants to explore the rest of the museum. So we venture in, having no idea how much is there, and end up spending the whole day there! Fortunately, the parking meter was broken, so we get free parking all day without having to worry too. Twill seems to have a way with this horse, even though it’s not actually real.

June 26

After dinner we all walk back to school for Matiriki, the Maori new year celebration. There are lights that feel like Christmas time outside, but inside there are children dancing and singing in Maori. They even get all of us doing the Matiriki macarena. I hear three or four different languages spoken by parents sitting around us. After the program we get to see the kids artwork. I sneak a picture of Wesley with Lev, his first good friend at school.

June 27

Our last day of Bible Study they honor me with gifts and an interview. I feel thankful, but a bit emotionally numb and wish I could feel things a bit more in big transitions. We spend the rest of the day at Jessica’s, as we have nearly every Thursday for the past few months. I help her baste her quilt while Twill and Mary play beautifully with toy horses. An incredibly relaxing way to spend the day!

June 28

I don’t get any pictures of the boys last day at Ilam School. But it is a very big day. On the walk there Wesley is already congratulating himself for making it through almost two terms. He has acknowledged that it’s challenging many times and he’d rather be home. But they have all thrived at the school and will miss it a lot. Wesley’s teacher is very sad to see him go. A few months ago he wasn’t speaking loud enough for anyone to hear him and had no interest in friends. But he’s really coming into his own now with a friend and confidence from giving speeches. All the kids classmates showered them with thoughtful cards and pictures and well wishes. Many of Lewis’ classmates want to keep in touch. I am so thankful that they had the opportunity to go there!

June 29

Moffat and Stephanie have us over for tacos at their house out in Rangiora. The kids enjoy a movie while we talk about teaching. It’s strange to think that I met them at our place in Eau Claire two and a half years ago. The world is feeling smaller and time is sneaking by faster as I get older!

June 30

We get Teresa and her family back from Germany, just in time to say goodbye and give them back their car. I really hope to see Teresa and Hiromi again. The world just feels so small now, and I am accepting that my friends are scattered across it.

Wesley and Stewart walk with me to Lev and Karina’s house to say goodbye and pass off school uniforms. They have fun kicking the ball in the yard while I talk with Elissa and Grant. They have a family cabin near Eau Claire and may be up to see us there in a year. Like I’ve been saying, the world is getting crazy small!  It makes it a little easier to say goodbye, but I still really don’t like goodbyes.