There was a discussion in Reconstructing the Gospel about “the way of the cross,” that feels like a missing link, bridging gaps in me. The author simply pointed out the similarities between Jesus’ ministry and other non-violent resistance movements, like the civil rights movement, ushering in justice with love and truth.

In response I have been looking through the gospels with this question in mind: Why did they kill Jesus? Not why did Jesus die. I believe he made it clear beforehand, his death was a willing obedience. But why were those in power so offended by him that they wanted to kill him?

The thing that awed many about Jesus is how he lived what he taught. Matthew tells us at the end of the sermon on the mount that the crowds were amazed by his teaching, not because it was foreign, but because they’d never seen anyone live these teachings like he was doing. They couldn’t get over what a contrast Jesus was to their religion teachers.

This makes me wonder why he was so different from the revered religion teachers? I think it has something to do with the fact that Jesus was not trying to make a name for himself. Whenever the crowds tried to follow him on their terms, making him their ruler, he gave them the slip. On many occasions he told those he healed to keep quiet, perhaps because he wanted to love them without drawing more attention to himself than necessary.

Yet even though he didn’t seem to be out to impress or win people over to make a name for himself, he was in no way hiding out or intimidated by those in power. He stood up to them, without feeling the need to prove himself. Many chapters in John record these discussions where Jesus flat out tells these authorities on God that they know nothing about God, with no politeness or submission to people he had submitted to his whole life.

I think it’s fascinating that God chose to grow up from a baby into this confident identity. I am listening to Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt, by Anne Rice, right now with Lewis and Stewart. It is a fictional account of Jesus’ return to Nazareth as a boy of seven years old. It’s fun to think about how he was a child, submitting to his parents and the religious authorities. It adds so much to the dynamic to imagine that these authorities on God that Jesus was confronting may have been people he had known his whole life. I wonder if he revered them as a boy, or if he had any idea he was going to die at their hands.

It reminds me of my experience with my high school basketball coach. He was our middle school guidance counselor. When I was in middle school, basketball was becoming my god, and he was the revered and respected authority on basketball. So I couldn’t even raise my eyes to look at him when I passed him in the hallway. That’s how much I revered him. But by the time I was a senior on the varsity team I had lost all respect for him.

I wonder how much Jesus feared and revered those in authority when he was a child. When I imagine how he might have it makes the transformation into what he became that much more amazing, and personally encouraging.

One of my favorite passages is Luke 13: 31-35.

Just then some Pharisees came up and said, “Run for your life! Herod’s on the hunt. He’s out to kill you!” Jesus said, “Tell that fox that I’ve no time for him right now. Today and tomorrow I’m busy clearing out the demons and healing the sick; the third day I’m wrapping things up. Besides, it’s not proper for a prophet to come to bad end outside Jerusalem.”

The sense of humor that he can have when everyone is out to kill him just makes me love him. He knows what he’s about and refuses to be intimidated by anyone.

When Jesus came back from the temptation in the desert in Luke 4, he stated what he was about:

 

“God’s Spirit is on me; he’s chosen me to preach the message of good news to the poor,

Sent me to announce pardon to prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind,

To set the burdened and battered free, to announce, ‘This is God’s year to act!’”

 

Then he proceeded to do it all, relentlessly and tirelessly. Yet he was having such a blast doing God’s work that he was criticized by the religious authorities for partying so much! He healed broken and battered lives everywhere he went, physically, mentally, emotionally, socially, the whole person. He healed anywhere, anytime, even when it ticked off the religious authorities, because he was breaking their rules.

He acted with such practical compassion—bringing back the widow’s son from death, because doggone it who else was going to take care of this poor lady if he didn’t! And the people were amazed, exclaiming “God is back, looking to the needs of his people!” (See Luke 7)

And he forgave. This is what seemed to offend the religious powers the most, that he forgave sins. I get it that they thought they were defending God, saying “only God can forgive sins!” But who are we to defend God? And isn’t it revealing when we don’t like to see someone else forgiven?

Then there’s this whole thing of recovery of sight to the blind. When Jesus healed the man who was blind from birth in John 9 the religious powers were up in arms, attacking the man who was healed, intimidating him, belittling him, and eventually kicking him out onto the street, because he stood up to them. At that point Jesus found him and told him what was going on. He said,

“I came into the world to bring everything into the clear light of day, making all the distinctions clear, so that those who have never seen will see, and those who have made a great pretense of seeing will be exposed as blind.” (John 9:39)

I do think the religious powers were intimidated by Jesus because he wouldn’t back down to them, and he taught others not to. They had a lot of power over the people to defend. He was a threat to the security they had in their sterling reputation. But he wasn’t a threat because he was trying to win the people over to his side in a polarized debate. He was a threat because he was exposing the injustice of their system, the corruption in their hearts that used people to prop themselves up. Surely he forgave any of them who repented, but the whole religious system needed correcting.

When Jesus’ brothers were goading him to go to the Feast of Tabernacles in John 7 they revealed their ignorance of him, because they thought he wanted to be a “public figure,” a politician or worldly leader. But his response is really telling. He says,

“Don’t crowd me. This isn’t my time. It’s your time—it’s always your time, you have nothing to lose. The world has nothing against you, but it’s up in arms against me. It’s against me because I expose the evil behind it’s pretensions.”

So it seems to me that Jesus was killed for fearlessly exposing the evil pretensions of those who abused power over others in the name of God. This has some serious implications for me as I desire to follow him. I believe that taking up our cross is more than just putting up with some discomfort in this life. It’s standing up to injustice, even and especially religious injustice. Standing up for the oppressed, whatever the cost. A lot like the abolitionists, and the civil rights movement, and those today who are continuing to call out the slaveholder religion of our nation.

Something else I read jumped out like never before. When Jesus is praying for all believers at the end of his life he says,

“Father, I want those you gave me to be with me, right where I am, so they can see my glory, the splendor you gave me.”

What hit me is when he says this. He says it right before he goes to the cross. That’s right where he is. And he wants us to be right there with him. So we can see his glory. I don’t fully understand it, but it seems very significant to me, and desirous.

I have been intrigued by all this talk of sharing in the suffering of Christ since I first started reading the Bible 23 years ago, at age 15. I have felt a lot of guilt for living such a comfortable, upper middle class life, and felt myself getting further and further from this illusive cross that I desire. I have been pretty submissive to authority, outwardly at least, for most of my life. Also pretty isolated from the marginalized and oppressed. I don’t want to be, but I haven’t yet made the effort to cross the inherent divides in place in our nation.

Actually, the one year that I did work with inner-city African American kids in Knoxville, Tennessee it felt disastrous. I was straight out of college, idealistic, and completely unaware of my racial blindness. All told, I felt almost completely ineffective at loving those kids, mostly because I didn’t get past the shock of real world responsibilities after a pampered youth.

There’s a place in John 10 where Jesus is talking about how he’s the Good Shepherd, because he lays down his life for his sheep. The hired hand, he says, just runs when danger comes, abandoning the sheep. This is a really challenging word when I think about what it means to stand up for the oppressed. There is inherently going to be a cost, because they are in danger.

The cost might not be glamorous either. My husband teases me all the time about wanting to get arrested, because I respect those who do stand up to injustice. But there are harder things than freedom to lay down. I can relate all too well to the religious authorities that Jesus accused of living for man’s approval. I also like to try to understand things, and have lived much of my life thinking that I do. So I am thankful to be shown some of the blind thinking I’ve been handed, in my whiteness. Like the attitude that the world needs my help, because I was born into privilege.

My reaction to the recent election in our country was a desire to get back into the workforce and work for social justice. After all, there’s going to be plenty of work to be done helping the oppressed with white supremacy back in full force. But after listening to Reconstructing the Gospel, and seeing the genuine humility of the author when I watched a fishbowl discussion with him online, I have a new desire. I want what he’s got. I want to just learn how to listen.

There was a point in the discussion I watched where a thoughtful African American man asked Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove how it was that he was able to find a different response to the reality of racial injustice. Most whites, this man had observed, either landed in crippling guilt or fearful defensiveness. His response was simple, “I have been the beneficiary of black love.”

Last Saturday morning we were down at the park, cooking breakfast over the grill with some folks from church after the weekly 5k that Chris has been running with them. It had been an unusually busy week for Chris, and I reached the end of my rope with the kids. Chris was stirring some eggs, and I, in a rather desperate moment, took the bowl from him and asked to trade and let him take care of the kids. I was awkwardly upset and uncomfortable standing there among strangers, but a sweet young Indian woman came over and started talking to me kindly. It was yet another moment where I felt the love of Jesus through others, moving towards me in my messiness instead of away.

I think somehow this vulnerability with each other, letting ourselves be loved, is key to bridging the racial divides I long to bridge. I want to be an everyday good shepherd, who doesn’t run from other’s pain, like so many have been for me. I want to learn the lost act of confession that opens doors to actual forgiveness from real people.

 

Once last winter when I was praying, in a time of desperation, I imagined the fear within me as a little, hideous creature. When the presense of God was near, the creature huddled, afraid, in the corner of my heart. But when I chose to listen to it, over God, it was a terrifying creature indeed.

Lately I have been thinking of sin with this kind of imagination. Sometimes in my attempt to flee legalism, which trips me up so easily, I forget how damaging sin really is. Jesus’ words on the matter are so freeing. He is not pointing an accusing finger, like I do so ruthlessly at myself, or allow the enemy to. No, Jesus is coming to rescue and free us from it, because he knows how miserably we are enslaved.

In John 8 he says to the Jews who claimed to see, who claimed their righteousness was in their heritage as Abraham’s children:

“I tell you most solemnly that anyone who choses a life of sin is trapped in a dead-end life and is, in fact, a slave. A slave is a transient, who can’t come and go at will. The Son, though, has an established position, the run of the house. So if the Son sets you free, you are free through and through.”

When I imagine sin as these horrifying and oppressing monsters, out to destroy or lock me up, sin doesn’t look so enticing, or insignificant. And when I imagine Jesus as my rescuer, who is able to defeat them and free me, I finally have real hope, that doesn’t come from me.

It also gives me more compassion, and less judgement, when praying for others who are tormented, just like me.

Here’s some pictures from the month of October. As of today, November 1st, we have plane tickets to fly to New Zealand in January. So I guess I want to savor and catalogue our time here well, because it is flying by!

October 1

Andy Yeh invites us to his house for the public holiday. The kids and I swim in his pool. He shows me around his garden (a year round one!), teaches the boys lawn balls, and grills a great lunch. After lunch we walk down to the park near his house where we feed the birds and all enjoy the unique playground. When we get back, Andy lets the boys all pick a 3D printed toy. I enjoy talking with his oldest son, Oliver, who is finishing medical school. He advises us to poke Wesley’s foot to see if it’s infected.

When we get home we find his foot is infected. Chris does some research, and we spend the rest of the week soaking it 4 times a day in salt water, which heals it completely within a couple weeks.

October 5

For my 38th birthday we take a complicated bus venture to the Daisy Hill Koala Sanctuary. We see some sleeping koalas, chase some cute wallabies through the bush, and learn about turtles in danger from a movie. That evening our friends from school, Lan and Richie, have us over for an excellent Korean and Japanese meal. Their boys, Antonio and Hugo, are good friends with all the boys.

October 8

School holidays are over and term 4 begins. The boys have swimming every week now as part of the school curriculum here. They are very serious about water safety here, because it’s warm most of the year and people are in the water a lot. The school pool is a salt water one now, so the kids can learn without goggles, because it’s safe to open their eyes underwater without them. Stewart doesn’t like the taste, but I find it very clean feeling. I start out in the water with Wesley, but quickly learn that I need to back off and take care of Twill. By the end of the month Wesley is going underwater willingly to blow bubbles, which he has never done before!

October 13

Chris turns 38. I don’t get any good pictures, because it rains all day. We still venture out in the rain to the Davies Park markets for vegetables. Chris lets each boy spend 5 dollars, then we return home and have a simple lunch with the good bread Chris finds. (This has become our Saturday routine for the month of October) I sneak out to get the ice cream cake I had on order. In the evening Clayton and Katie come over for a little surprise. Chris doesn’t really enjoy the surprise bit, but we enjoy their company and some Aussie burgers and tropical fruit.

October 19

The second week of the term the rains continue. Wesley has a bad cough and is home a couple days. It slows us down nicely. Friday I write about the day on my blog and appreciate many things I love about our life here. One of them being the Boundary Street Markets, pictured here. Chris talks with James’ parents and their friends from Canada, while the kids chase each other around.

October 22

This Monday is a “student free day.” The kids conclude this means that school is optional, but we learn it is actually a teacher work day. We meet Lan, Antonio, and Hugo at Orleigh Park for the morning. The kids play gang up tiggy and get unbelievably sweaty for the temperature. I am glad I didn’t try to make anyone shower that morning.

October 24

Hot weather arrives! Twill and I hit the beach at South Bank instead of the usual Wednesday library trip. We see a little two year old girl swimming and I am motivated to teach Twill. He blows some bubbles and enjoys being in the water more than he ever has, thanks to the heat. We go back again on Friday!

October 25

Twill and I spend a lovely day with our friends, Helen and Thomas. She is such a gentle soul and refreshing company. Thomas naps on Wesley’s bed so easily, and I wish I had raised my babies in a more relaxed and less isolating way. But I am thankful to be where we are now, enjoying community again.

October 26

WeCreate, the annual school art showcase, has been on the countdown all week for Wesley and Stewart. They both have artwork for sale on display that we purchase for the fundraiser. All the classes also do a class project, pictured here. Stewart contributes some poms and Wesley his hands. There are musical performances and a photo competition as well. Pretty overwhelming for us country folk on a Friday night.

October 28

We celebrate Halloween Australia style by carving a watermelon. Clayton thought pumpkins sounded pretty messy and suggested that a watermelon might be more Australian. I also carve a pineapple, at my mom’s suggestion.

Every day

The month was also filled with many good books, the sound of Chris playing piano on the MIDI keyboard, lots of jokes, and lots of teeth brushing. I am realizing that I should do a joke post. And a church post. We can’t believe we have almost been here for 3 months. Today Stewart asked what day we got here. I told him August 8th. He asked if we could make that a holiday in our family.

I really want to thank everyone who encouraged me to blog. I had my reservations, because I do not live in the world of the internet. I was ultimately judging what I did not know, hoping that people are out there living life instead of reading stuff online. But this is helping me in many ways, and I am humbled.

What I love most about blogging is that no one has to read it. I don’t have to apologize for anything, because no one is obligated to read it. This feels like freedom to me, because I have nothing to prove. I can write for the sake of writing, learning as I go.

The other night I read about “microscopic truthfulness” in Brenda Ueland’s If You Want to Write. It made me pause, and delete a few paragraphs I had written that didn’t feel completely true. But mostly it gave me a great idea to just catalog a day. She showed that hearing true things about real people’s lives is often more enjoyable than reading contrived things with an intended affect.

What I found is that the day was so much richer because I wrote about it. On my run I enjoyed thinking about how I could share this world around me with others. Throughout the day I was more present to both the world around me and my own thoughts.

So this is why I write, simply to share the world around me, and myself, with those I love. And to learn about myself and the world around me. I pray I never try to make it more than that.

Friday, October 19, 2018

I wake to light coming through the curtains. I can not trust the amount of light to give me any indication of what time it is because it has been too rainy lately. I can, however, trust my ears to tell me that it is after 5 am, because I hear Chris out on the couch in his conference call. Most weekdays he leaves at 4 am to walk across the river to his campus where the internet is better. But as it gets closer to the weekend he is willing to battle the bad internet and stay home.

I hear him, but don’t wake up fully. A heartwrenching dream about my estranged aunt reconciling with my 93 year old grandmother lingers. I savor it and pray it will come true. Then I get up and dress in the soft yellow light.

Chris is done with his call by the time I get out to the living room. He asks if I am going for a run and I say yes. He puts his left arm out, indicating that there’s a spot for me inside it. My heart tightens at the gesture and I awkwardly accept. I read a letter I wrote him the previous morning, and tell him I am having trouble coming out of my turtle shell again. He wonders if the world will be slippery and wet for my run.

It is not. It is beautiful and sunny, maybe 19 degrees Celsius already. The day feels way too old for 5:45am. The sun is warm and bright. The earth does not cool off as much at night this close to the equator. There seems to be less disparity between night and day.

As I run down our street I savor the whiffs of exotic flowers, one of the things I know I will miss the most about Brisbane. But when I run by the compost bins at the community garden on Jane St, I have to hold my breath.

The day feels old because of how many people are out and about too. When I get to the river, I am never alone. There are people everywhere, of all kinds. Runners, bikers, walkers. Some with dogs, or friends, or spouses, or strollers, or any combination of these. I love to say ‘good morning’ to everyone I can. It is one of the best things for helping me come out of my turtle shell. This morning I pass a large, dark-skinned woman with a very furrowed brow. She does not look up. After I have passed, I wish I had said ‘good morning’ anyway.

At the parking lot in the park people are taking their kyaks out of the water. They are drenched in sweat, washing down their boats and themselves. It’s not even 6am, I think, what a way to start the day! Rowing is very big here too. I count 9 people in a boat this morning, but only 8 at the oars. I wonder what the person sitting in the front is doing. They appear to be along for the ride, but they could be coaching, or looking out for other boats perhaps?

When I get to the end of the park, I turn up the hill into the residential neighborhoods again. I see hoards of bikes before I see a single car. I hear the different sounds of pedalling and coasting. Most people are very obliging and give way when they hear a runner panting up the hill behind them. Groups of large older men walking together are usually the exception. I am thankful that I’m young and spry enough to easily find my way around them. And glad they are walking together, not in isolation.

I run under the awning that spans many restaurants and shops just a block from our house. They are all still sleeping at this hour and I wonder who will be awake in our house now. I stop to catch my breath, and smell the flowers, at the house next door. Here an old Greek man and his son have tended a beautiful flower garden for 60 years. When I ask them about the flowers’ names, they don’t always know, but they clearly enjoy caring for them.

Wesley is the only one up inside, snuggling next to Chris on the couch in his blanket. He tries to snuggle with me, but I am “too wet” with sweat. So I shower first. While I am showering Twill wakes up crying, so I don’t shave. But Chris takes such good care of him that he doesn’t need, or want, me when I come out to shower him next. Wesley has had his turn and Twill’s the last one on the shower schedule today. He runs away, as usual. When I finally get him in the shower he cries, as usual, but it turns into laughter by the end. The water is tickling him.

Then we enter the crazy part of the day, where I buzz around like a bee making breakfast. Friday is the day when the week’s homework is due for Lewis and Stewart. I catch myself getting anxious about it getting in backpacks before the last minute. I take a deep breath, and say nothing. After I calm down, I ask them to get it in their backpacks before breakfast. Inwardly I celebrate the fact that I slowed down.

Breakfast always starts with eggs on a school morning. When all 6 of us are here I have to make 2 batches, because there’s not enough room in the pan they’re cooked in or the cereal bowl they’re mixed in. There is quite a bit of confusion this morning, because Chris isn’t aware of the two batches. He thinks I am slighting myself. He also tries to get me some orange juice, because I am feeling a bit faint, but I like the high pulp stuff and speak up about it. He takes a little breather from breakfast chaos.

I’m not used to having Chris around in the mornings, but we get through the awkwardness. Before long I am celebrating that we are all sitting down together for breakfast on a school morning. We sing our stretching prayer and I hear some young voices. A few weeks ago Lewis started saying, ‘this is just an us prayer,’ meaning that I needed to be quiet so just the kids could sing, and hear themselves, presumably.

After eggs the kids can have oatmeal, toast, or fruit. Wesley loves oatmeal and suffers through a few pieces of eggs to get to it every day. This morning he says it is his favorite food. Stewart is trying to eat more in the mornings so he can get bigger, and not be so desperately starving after school. So, with a little bit of maple syrup, he tries oatmeal again too. Lewis has a peanut butter and jelly sandwhich, with extra jam, every morning. I try not to get too uptight about him getting jam all over his uniform before school. I am thankful that he makes it himself. Twill picks through a good pile of eggs slowly, keenly observing all the hub-bub around him, and trying to chime in when he can.

Before breakfast breaks up, I read a bit of Luke’s gospel. Today we read about Jesus healing the parapalegic that is lowered through the hole in the roof. I am impressed that Stewart knows what a parapalegic is.

After breakfast the kids make their lunches and brush their teeth. This morning I celebrate that Stewart and Lewis brush their teeth without being asked. They both have things they’re working on that they want to get to when they’ve done ‘first things first.’ Earlier this week, when Stewart asked for his own i-pad again, he admitted it was about control more than ownership. I reminded him that he always has complete control, not to mention our support and admiration, over everything he creates on paper. Today I am thrilled to see them throwing themselves into paper worlds again instead of pining over the i-pad.

After lunches are in backpacks and the food is put away, I brush Wesley’s teeth. I haven’t seen his toothbrush since, yet again. I suspect Twill knows something. (Sure enough, he knew exactly where he’d hidden it when I asked him!) Wesley reads me his sight words that he practices daily for school, and I have just enough time left to brush my teeth before we all head out the door to school. It’s an unusually peaceful departure. I credit Chris’ presence. Twill wants to come with, even though he could stay with Chris. So I strap him on my back, with Mama Teddy, and we walk one simple block to school.

Down at the stoplight there is a conflict over pressing the button. Lewis wishes Papa would take them to school, because he doesn’t let Stewart and Wesley race ahead to press the button. I nod, quietly, I hope.

Lewis and Stewart run off to sit with their friends before I can give them a proper goodbye. I sadly wave from a distance, and take Wesley to his room. I speak with his teacher, asking her to encourage water when his coughing gets out of hand. I kept him home Tuesday and Thursday because of a deep cough.

Twill pipes up as we walk down the ramp by the pool, excited that it’s “just the two of us, and Papa is home too!” Last night at dinner Chris asked him if he liked it when Wesley stayed home from school. He said he liked it when Lewis and Stewart and Wesley went to school and Mama and Papa and Twill stayed home. I wonder if Chris took this into consideration when he stayed home today. We all like to be wanted.

At the stoplight Twill says he wants to play a “real” game when we get home. I ask him what that means and he says hide-and-seek. So I run off and hide from him as soon as we get in the door. He finds me in my closet, putting in my earrings. Twill hasn’t exactly learned how to hide yet. He perches on the back of the couch, where it’s pretty easy to see him. I try to teach him to hide in good hiding places by going in the closet in Lewis and Stewart’s room, but it doesn’t work. Chris has to keep goading him to go find me, because I am hiding too hard. I enjoy the quiet and finally start beeping pretty loudly.

We play one more round of hide-and-seek before Twill tires of it and wants to just play on the big bed in my room. Our beds here are camping mattresses on the floor, which couldn’t be better for little boys. We find somersaults to be completely safe, and wild horsey rodeos as well. I try to teach Twill to tickle me. Mostly he just laughs, for a really long time. At one point he tells me not to sing that song or he will send me to my room. We laugh pretty hard, because we’re in my room. We both ride pillow trains around the room, and he tries to slide down pillow slides. Pillows don’t make very good slides. It reminds Twill of sliding down the breakroom stairs on camping pads back home. He tells me that he misses home, and I am thankful for a moment of seriousness from him.

I consider going to a park, because I really miss getting outside. But I value this time at home too much, doing nothing but giving Twill a tiny bit of control over his world. I enjoy his presence and imagination, but don’t feel fully present the whole time. I am confronted by a looming fear that I am growing more like my maternal grandmother in some undesirable ways. I believe she acted out of what she thought was best in her mind, but didn’t always come across as warm and loving. She seemed to grow more and more unhappy as life dragged on. I wonder if she struggled with feeling trapped inside her mind, like I do. I wish that I could read her writing and try to understand her more. I miss a lot of good things about her too, and wish I could talk with her still.

At lunch I bravely come out of my turtle shell and tell Chris about my fear that I am becoming like my grandmother. He says I’m much taller than she was. And that she had a lot less control over her life, because of the day and age she lived in. So she had more reasons to feel powerless and grow bitter than I do. It helps me to see her in context, instead of as a static personality. I am glad I came out of the shell.

After lunch I write another letter to my paternal grandmother, because I still can. I haven’t mailed the one I wrote the day before yet. I try to tell her about my dream, with as much sensitivity as I can. Then I write more about the boys, because I know she loves hearing it. I treasure all the wisdom and encouragement that still comes back in her letters. Twill happily looks at books while I write.

After Twill and I read a large stack of books, he settles in for nap time. I tell Chris that I really like our kids. I like it that they can be silly, and know they have value. I relate a time at breakfast this week when Wesley said, in an amusingly cocky tone, “Kids are the most important to Jesus.” And Stewart really wants his own name tag at church. I tell Chris I’m glad we don’t have kids who only speak when they are spoken to, but ask unashamedly. I know Jesus obeyed his parents, and wants mine to obey me. But I also see Jesus as someone who really likes kids, as they are. I tell Chris that I told Wesley to hang on to that truth as he grows older, because Jesus loves us all as messy kids, even when we grow up, not for all we bring to the table, but simply because we’re His. Chris mostly listens.

I start writing about the day when Chris goes to get the boys from school early so he can look for Mama Teddy. Mama Teddy was missing at nap time, so Chris offers ice cream after supper if we can find her. He did not find her between home and school, so if she’s not in the house, she’s lost.

A wild hunt ensues on Twill’s behalf, that we ironically have to tame so we don’t wake Twill. When we’ve all given up hope I take Wesley into my bedroom to hear about his day and help him calm down a bit. He bounces off the walls as he talks, but makes better eye contact than he has in weeks.

Afterwards, as we’re all mulling about, listening to Chris do a piano lesson, I go into my bedroom to get a book off my bed and notice a cancerous lump on my pillow. It is Mama Teddy! Twill had put her inside the pillowcase.

Before we go out to dinner the boys do their chores. Lewis sweeps under the kitchen table, Stewart puts away clean laundry, and Wesley washes everyone’s lunch containers. Then we file out the door, with water bottles this time, to the Boundary Street Markets. Stewart and Wesley race ahead as we pass their school, and Chris reigns them in by waiting until they catch on and run back to us. I take notes. Lewis was right, we’re all much safer with Chris around.

Every Friday night they have pop-up stands, as Chris calls them, with international food down on Boundary Street near the huge lizard statue that the kids love to climb. The cooks there are clearly sharing the food of their people and you can hear many native languages. There’s food from: France, Malaysia, Brazil, Turkey, Sri Lanka, China, Transalvania, Romania and many others that I can’t name. Those are just the ones we’ve tried. I get the vegetarian sampler from Sri Lanka. Twill gets a Chinese chicken bao, and Wesley a duck bao. The baos are very little sandwiches, but they both enjoy a lot of my plate as well. Chris and Stewart get Romanian samplers, and Lewis the Char Kuey Teow from Malaysia that he has gotten a few times already. The woman he orders it from is impressed with his pronunciation. She makes him tell her how much change he should get back from her.

While we’re eating Wesley whispers in my ear and points across the tables at his friend James from school. Chris takes him over to talk to the family. James’ mother is from Japan. They have friends visiting from Canada. I am very attracted to my husband as I watch him light up in conversation with strangers, from a distance.

We learn the hard way that splitting plates, as we’ve always done, is more than just a good idea. Chris says there’s no ice cream if we can’t finish all the food, so we stuff ourselves painfully. In the end we all agree that ice cream is out of the question in our present state. It is postponed. We all walk home through the noisy streets of West End in the dark. There are buskers on two corners of the Boundary and Vulture intersection. I carry Wesley, even though it hurts to set him on my already uncomfortable belly, and Chris carries Twill.

Back home we all brush teeth and split up for reading. I finally get a turn with Lewis and Stewart at bedtime again, now that they have finished The History of Mankind. We listen to Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt by Anne Rice. It is the imagined life of seven year old Jesus. Stewart tries to clip his nails while we listen, but it falls apart. So I send him out of the room to do it and enjoy some much needed quiet time with Lewis. He tells me about school science experiments, teaching fractions to other classmates, and his friends. I am so thankful to get to hear it. Lewis asks me to sing “I Love You, Lord,” an old camp song, and to pray for them.

As I come back out to Chris I am so thankful for the day and sit down to write about it.

This week I have been wrestling with my own worldview regarding authority. Chris has made some off hand comments about how the schools here feel rather authoritarian. It’s an observable difference that is opening my eyes to some things about my own culture. It feels like there’s an underlying trust in authority here that permeates everything. Even if people blatantly break the rules, they still believe that the authority in place is for their own good. This kind of trust is very strange and unfamiliar to me.

I was taught from a very young age that authority can’t be trusted. My father, who had just lived through the JFK assasination, the Vietnam war, and the Watergate scandal, understandably passed on a deep distrust in all human authority. My heart breaks for the whole generation who lived through this. I think it would have been much harder for them to start out trusting and be so let down. Like an innocent child who trusts their parents, only to be abandoned and left to fend for themselves.

It’s a rather unpleasant thing to come to terms with, though, that the rebel challenger I have prided myself in being is merely a product of my culture. And one that is not necessarily serving me well.

Before coming to Australia I went through my own little history of losing trust in the church. I won’t get into details, but I saw abuse of power after abuse of power, in many churches, on many levels, and started to believe that the church is just another human institution that can’t be trusted.

Partly I can see where it’s been very circumstantial. We have landed in larger churches and not integrated into the community because of the intensity of raising four very young boys. When I have seen things that didn’t seem right we weren’t in a place, on the fringe, to call it out. So we just left. And each time it’s felt like an exponentially bigger part of my heart has hardened.

Thankfully, God has heard my prayers and is healing my heart here in this beautiful, authoritarian church in Australia. I knew I desperately needed to learn how to love again. But I am surprised by how deep God is going in this healing. Sojourn Bible Church is all about God’s authority over all creation and our call to love the world by proclaiming it. I have been ashamed to proclaim it because of the messiness of people, mostly my own. But I am learning, on a deeper level, that God can be trusted. His goodness is not wrapped up in ours.

And I am seeing here in Australia once again how this is related to God’s authority, because it’s what He says about me that ultimately matters. Both when he shows me where I am in the wrong, and when he chooses to forgive me with absurd love and mercy that never gives up on me.

It’s hard to face how my distrust of all human authority is damaging many things. But I know Jesus won’t leave me here. My lack of faith in the authority God has given me over my children has hurt them, and left them to fend for themselves. My distrust in my husband has done plenty of damage as well. God doesn’t make rules just to stay on top, like we do. When he says kids should obey and honor their parents, whether they deserve it or not, wives should respect and honor their husbands, whether they deserve it or not, husbands should love and cherish their wives, whether they deserve it or not, God knows what He is talking about. He’s the one who made the world and gets to tell us how things are going to work best.

I can see where there’s some order and mutual submission to one another in family. But I have really wrestled with human’s having authority over one another in the church. Jesus warned his disciples many times over of the temptation to lord authority over one another. He made it very clear that in His kingdom to be great meant to be a servant and lay down your life, as he did. His words here seem to be the only thing I can trust, but I am realizing that if I throw out the rest of the New Testement, and the church, I am not really trusting him.

I have long sat in both awe and judgement of the early church. Some of it seems so ideal, like the community that shared everything in common, with no personal possessions! The depth of community life described here is one I hunger for. But there is evidence of human deviation from Jesus’ words too, of defensiveness and rule making that don’t sound like Jesus to me.

But I don’t get to, or want to, be the judge. If God wants to start his church, and continue his church into eternity, through messy, sinful people then I can just be thankful, because I’m one of those and I want to play too. So I am just beginning to learn again what it might look like to trust and submit to admittedly sinful people who God has called to feed his sheep.

The first thing I’m learning, through Paola, from the Bible, is that anyone who isn’t admitting their sinfulness is not to be trusted, but called out as a false teacher. This is a huge comfort to me when I consider all the offenses made by church leaders in power who have not been repentant, but defensive. If they are sorry and willing to take the consequences then we can rejoice in our merciful God who has a history of forgiving every offense. But if they are not repentant we are not expected to follow them. So it’s not okay for priests or pastor’s to sexually abuse others, no matter what anyone says about covering up their reputation. This makes me feel a lot safer, knowing that God is ultimately the judge, and He gives discernment through his Holy Spirit regarding who I should trust. He does not ask for blind trust at all, but warns us many times that there will be false teachers.

The other thing God is doing is showing me the love that is in the church, how his upsidedown kindgom is working when we get together and love each other. Last Sunday at church I was a big mess, crying and overwhelmed by my own sinfulness in all this. It just felt too big to face alone, but I was feeling alone and stuck in my head. A young woman from Singapore, whom I had just met the week before, was sitting in front of me and heard me crying. Afterwards she sat beside me and hugged me and gently asked questions to draw me out. She loved me exactly how I imagine Jesus would have loved me. After talking with her all the knots were untangled and I was free to move forward. This is how God heals us through church, how God is healing me through Sojourn, little encounters between messy people willing to love.

I have also been remembering that 8 years ago, when Stewart was born, our pastor back in Ames brought us a meal. I was on bed rest for four weeks before his birth, so we actually had meals brought to us by people in the church for 6 to 7 weeks straight. But this day it was our pastor and he had made the meal himself, not his wife or mother. It was ratatouille, because he shared a love of gardening with us and knew how much I loved the vegetables. This really stands out to me, that he was not above this service. And I remember how I took comfort in his authority, because of fruit, or vegetables, like this. It gives me hope that I can learn to trust again.

I was up until midnight writing this last night, and this morning encountered this in Galatians.

“For in Christ, neither our most conscientious religion nor disregard of religion amounts to anything. What matters is something far more interior: faith expressed in love.”

Mirror

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Like Peter, I’ve denied you

But Lord you know I love you

More than anything on this earth

So many chances I have had

To show you’re good, not bad

But all I seem to talk about is me

 

So come Holy Spirit

Come with your fire

Make me a mirror

Reflecting your truth

 

One day you’ll come in glory

This is all your story

Lord help me tell things as they are

We’ll all answer to you

In everything we do

Oh Lord it’s on your mercy that I fall

 

So come Holy Spirit

Come with your fire

Make me a mirror

Reflecting your love

 

 

This phrase, living in skin, has been mulling around in my head for several days. It’s a concept Jonathan Hartgrove-Wilson is teasing apart in Reconstructing the Gospel. He is beginning to show how uncomfortable white American Christians are in their own skin. And how this is in stark contrast to the African American culture that he is learning from on his journey of faith.

This severing of body from soul opens the door to a lot of brutality and oppression, from the church justifying slavery itself to the present day sexual abuse that’s rampant and defended in many American churches. I guess anytime there’s abuse against another person’s body there is a severing of body from soul, whether it’s justified by religion or not. But I do find it especially disturbing when Christians dismiss abuse against another soul. Because you can not separate them, body and soul.

I think Jesus is very clear on this, based on how he spent his time. I know he taught, but I get the picture that he might have lost more sleep healing people’s bodies than he did preaching to them. I have no interest in ranking, only in looking at why I have so much trouble with this detachment from body when Jesus clearly cared so much about them. I think Jesus knows that we are one, body and soul, so a felt need in the body is a felt need in the soul. Those who are hurting know they need healing.

This to me explains this disparity between my priveleged white culture and the cultures of the oppressed in our nation. Those of us on top are not only numb to our own felt need, but to the pain of those we oppress to protect our comfort.

Twelve years ago Chris and I visited a dump in Managua, Nicaragua. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of people were living on a burning trash heap, and we took them a little bit of food one day. It struck me to my core that this degree of poverty is the spirtitual reality of every soul before God. But when we are surrounded by luxury and our primary concern is our own comfort, it’s hard to see it.

This whole idea has got me examining my own life, and how detached I can be from the world I live in, and my own body. I’ve long had a growing desire to learn from the passion I see in African American music, and I believe this whole idea of living in my own skin is striking those chords, showing me what I’m missing. A few weeks ago when I went for a walk down by the river well before it was light out I prided myself on having no fear of what men could do to me. And my husband called it out as an eerie detachment from this world.

Last night we had a new friend come and join us at game night upstairs with the Coffeys. He was sharing some traumatic experiences they had been through with their youngest son and his severe food allergies. I felt a small tinge of his pain, but afterward I was so saddended by my actual response. I shared how we had been through a lot of hardship with our boys’ bodies when they were younger, but they’d outgrown it and I’d learned to roll with it. I felt like I needed to minimize my hardship in light of theirs, but I also was sadly detaching myself from one of the greatest growing experiences of my life.

The truth is that physical pain in my children’s bodies grew my prayer life like nothing else can. All those nights I held a baby screaming in pain, crying out for mercy, mercy. And then getting to see it, and even expect it. I have seen God heal so many little and big things in our bodies. I believe He delights to, and loves when we ask. In many ways this has made my faith tangible and real like no discussion ever could. So you see how sad I was to have dismissed this so quickly, when it’s not a felt need right now.

Sunday after the message someone asked how to help someone who is uncertain in their faith. Chris said afterwards he would say that confidence comes with need. I have felt this in my body.

This morning the older boys went back to school after the holidays, so I took Twill to the park for awhile. I just followed him around to see what he’d do. All the while I was thinking about how good he is at living in his own skin. How every inch of him squirms at a swarming ant mound. How he sees terraced stairs from across the park and has to climb them. How he will seek out shady grass to mow with his stick, because leaves and wood chips are not grass, and he doesn’t like the hot sun beating down on him.

There’s a verse that talks about women being saved through childbearing that I’ve pondered a lot this decade of motherhood. For years I have seen it as a matter of purification, because motherhood is so humbling and draws out depths of evil deep within me. But today I saw it more as a gift. I was saved somewhat today from my own self-importance by the chance to learn from Twill what it looks like to live fully present to this world, in our skin.

With all this, I do believe there is a tension we are called to hang on to. We anticipate Jesus’ return when all the pain and suffering in this world will be relieved, and yet we do everything we can to relieve all that we can until then. That’s what Jesus did. He didn’t just say, “Bless you, it will all be made right someday.” He attended to felt needs. I think, just like in Jesus’ time, the church of the priveleged desperately needs lessons from the oppressed about need.

Twill has also shown me how this hope that we have is bodily too. When we read the storybook bible he will point to Jesus and say, “He’s inside me.” And I say, “Amen, brother, you know it!” It’s been a concept he has grappled with quite a bit at 2 and 3 years old. Many times he has looked down his shirt, looking for Jesus. “Where is he again?” he’ll ask. “In your heart,” I say, like a dull adult. But he needs to know where, literally. So I touch his chest. “In my belly?” he says. And we laugh. I love how much he needs to know.

This is ultimately my hope, that Jesus has given me his Spirit, in my physical body, and a promise that I will get to be with him, physically, one day. I long to see Jesus face to face, body to body. This is why my favorite movie is The Shack, because it put real skin on my Savior. But recently all the need for justice around me is helping me not wish this life away. I want to be part of what God is doing here and now, to experience life in Him here, in this body. I have much to learn about it and I know I need help from those who know they need him.

I have been sharing a lot about what’s been on my mind, so I want to share more about the rest of the family!

Lewis just turned 10 this week! When I mention milestones, Stewart reminds me that it’s kilometer stones here in Australia. I think Lewis is pretty excited to be entering the double digits. He wanted to invite a couple friends to play tiggy (Australian for tag) in the park for his party. He made the invitations himself and drew mazes and puzzles on them. His best friend here, Sonny, came and they had a blast all morning. Sonny is in the grade above Lewis, but they have bonded over handball at recess. Sonny gave Lewis 5 handballs as a birthday gift and totally made his day, as you can see below.

Lewis’ other passion, besides handball, is chess, at the moment. He and Stewart have been making their own boards and pieces out of paper and playing nonstop. The danger in paper pieces is that if you breathe on the game, it’s over. So Chris got him a magnetic travel chess set for his birthday and he’s had it with him ever since.

Yesterday we took the chess set on the train to see the ocean for the first time. First time for the kids, that is, but I don’t think Chris and I have been to the ocean since our honeymoon 15 years ago either! It was such a perfect day. I felt like a kid again, enjoying their wonder, and the waves. I have a picture here that captures a bit of Stewart’s excitement.

Chris and Twill were more into the sand than the water, the perfect pair. And their enthusiasm attracted a crowd.

When we asked Twill if the waves were scary he said, “No, they were wet.” He sounds confident that he will like it when he gets bigger.

Twill is often obsessed with the idea of getting bigger. Today at lunch he told me that he wants to be a teacher when he gets bigger, so that he can stay at school all the time. He was talking a lot today about his desires to be out in the world on his own. He likes people and talking to them, but not when I am around, as he says. Hopefully we can get him in some sort of preschool a few days a week in New Zealand. I told him not to wish away these last four months that he is not in school, because if he becomes a teacher he will be in school for most of his life. He was by far the easiest to potty train, because we told him it was a prerequisite for school. He’s given up diapers for good and already wants to sleep in underpants all night.

Wesley is thriving on all this adventure to be sure. Here’s my little mountain goat in heaven at the beach yesterday.

This week the kids have been on holiday from school and it has been fun to have them home again. One quiet day Wesley lost his marble (that he found at church) under the fridge. Before I knew it he had taped together 6 pencils into a contraption to fish it out. Another day he found a kangaroo drawing I had done and spent a full hour of concentration drawing his own kangaroo from mine. He is Mr. Can Do. I told him that when he grows up he’s going to be that guy that everyone wants around, and we’re glad he’s in our family!

Wesley is loving school and wasn’t exactly excited to get a holiday already. After 4 weeks, he was just settling in. A lot of days he reminds us that he needs to do his daily reading practice. According to his teacher everyone adores him since he’s new, and he’s got a few budding friendships.

I find it both sad and comical how concerned I was about the kids starting in the middle of the school year. We had parent teacher interviews recently and it sounds like all the boys have “slipped in as though they’ve been here all along.” All of their teachers said something to that effect.

Stewart is the one who was most concerned about starting school, but he is thriving, whether he will admit it or not. He does a lot of comparing and missing home and his kitties. But he is also thankful to be here. His sense of humor has been a real treat. His jokes have improved 100%. That might sound harsh, but it’s a growth mindset. He has been trying to make jokes for years and his determination and perseverance have paid off.

Speaking of perseverance, at Lewis’ birthday party Stewart was proud that he had conquered the monkey bars. He wanted me to get a video. It only took about 31 tries, but he did it on the 32nd! He is quite the chess master too and can beat me rather quickly.

Stewart asks me to take a picture of him and his personified food pretty often. Here’s a little Tim Tam character.

Monday we took the free boat ferry down the river for the morning. It was another first. They’ve only ever been in a canoe before. I had no idea how long it would be, because just as we got down to the river it was arriving. So we hopped on and didn’t get back for a couple hours. They all did very well with it, but we slowed down and had some good home time before Lewis’ birthday excitement.

Today a friend from church took Chris and the older three boys for a hike in the mountains with caves and waterfalls and a view all the way out to the ocean where we were yesterday. Twill and I stayed home and went to the farmers market. Then tonight we walked downtown after dinner to see the huge fireworks show on the river.

It was the tipping point, not surprisingly. As we were walking home tonight Lewis said that was too much birthday fun! Ironically, that’s exactly what he said two years ago, when we just had a couple friends over to our house. Chris suggested laser tag with his friends here in Brisbane, but Lewis said he just wanted to play tiggy in the park. He loved the ocean, but he is really so easily pleased and prefers simply making his own fun out of nothing. I absolutely love this about him.

All of them are very happy just to have each other. When Lewis was making his birthday invitations Stewart made one for Wesley, to invite him to a kitty party at Lewis’ birthday party. That day I told them I wanted to make a post about why everyone should have four kids. It’s such a treat to see them love each other.

So that’s a bit about how the kids are doing.

Chris has been working as hard as ever, but the game he’s been working on since April ships this coming week. He has picked up another one that should be completed in November, but it’s not as intense. He’s also giving some talks on campus here in Brisbane about the things he’s been making. Just in the last few weeks he’s created a new language for making musical notation called Deltaphone. If you take the “/cedar” off this blog you can see his website. It’s pretty incredible how capable and creative he is.

I am enjoying the sunshine so much, as you can see by my tan lines.

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Like A Flower

 

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Psalm 116

 

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Songs are for Heartaches