Blessed are the uncool

I had cool thoughts coming together this weekend to write up. But then I read this in Brennan Manning's Furious Longing of God and realized this was better than anything I could do. 

I say to you,
Blessed is he who exposes himself to an existence never brought under mastery,
who does not transcend,
but rather abandons himself to my ever-transcending grace.

Blessed are not the enlightened whose every question has been answered and who are delighted with their own sublime insight,
the mature and ripe ones whose one remaining action is to fall from the tree.

Blessed, rather, are the chased, the harassed who must daily stand before my enigmas and cannot solve them.
Blessed are the poor in spirit,
those who lack a spirit of cleverness.

Woe to the rich, and woe to the doubly rich in spirit!
Although nothing is impossible with God, it is difficult for the Spirit to move their fat hearts.

The poor are willing and easy to direct. Like little puppies they do not take their eyes from their master's hand to see if perhaps he may throw them a little morsel from his plate. So carefully do the Poor follow my promptings that they listen to the wind (which blows where it pleases), even when it changes. From the sky they can read the weather and interpret the signs of the times. My grace is unpretentious, but the poor are satisfied with little gifts.
~Hans Urs Von Balthasar; Heart of the World (Fort Collins, CO: Ignatius Press, 1980)

Summer oatmeal

We eat a lot of oatmeal here. We buy 10lbs at a time.

Anyways, I've been just pouring boiled water over my old fashioned oats and leaving it alone while tending to the kids. By the time, I've got them going, my oats are ready. I've now done 1 cup of boiling water over 1/2 cup of oats enough times that I can eyeball the amount.

For the kids, I've been doing baked oatmeal because I could dump in eggs, oil, and milk which bumps up the fat and protein in their breakfast which I like. But now it's summer and I don't feel like turning on the oven, plus our oven has gone wonky.

So today I tried this:

6 cups of oats
3/4 cup raisins
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup butter
cinnamon

And then I poured over boiling water to the level that I usually see when I make my own oatmeal. I would guess that I was in the neighborhood of 8-10 cups of water. I think the box would call for 12 cups of water.

Anyways, I put a lid on the pot and walked away for 15 min while changing the kids and getting the breakfast table set up.

Turned out pretty good. I poured some milk over their portions to cool it off. I later added a big scoop of protein powder since I didn't add eggs.

As a no bake alternative, I liked this. We'll see if the kids take to it.

Special enough to be ordinary

In a past life, I taught English as a second language. One summer in LA, I had an Italian student who marveled that LA Lamborghini drivers would get out wearing t-shirts and flip flops. He said in Italy they always wore nice suits. My first thought was if they owned a Lamborghini, who cares what they wore?! It was a Lamborghini!

Likewise, I think about the apostle Paul, who said he'd learned the secret to being content whether well-fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want (Philippians 4:11-12). Or how after listing his exalted resume, he said it was garbage (Philippians 3:4-9). There was no need to dress up because of who Jesus was to him. T-shirts or suits, PB & J or filet mignon, Motel 6 or the Ritz Carlton, whatever! because he was in Christ.

That, however, is not the world we live in. Every message we receive is about the exceptional. Part of it is that our very nervous systems give more attention to the extraordinary and new. So we're more aware of and seek those sorts of things.

But then we add a layer to the exceptional--we try to tie our worth and value to experiencing or owning the exceptional. The logic might be something like this: "If I am noticeable, then I am valuable." And conversely, "If no one notices me, I'm not valuable."

And off we go to buy the right stuff, date the right person, earn the right degree, get the right job, so that we'll be noticed and valuable. Or we can buy the wrong stuff, date the wrong people, have the wrong degree, work the wrong job, and poof! We're nothing.

But the story of the Bible is one of intimate noticing. God talks to Adam and Eve in the garden and notices when they try to hide. He notices Hagar when she runs away from Abraham and Sarah's abuse. The people of Israel, not powerful or mighty, are the object of his noticing, pursuit, protection, and judgment throughout the stories of the Old Testament.

When we join with Paul in grasping our "In Christ" status, that we are the objects of God's loving care and noticing, I think we can become t-shirt and flip-flop wearing Lamborghini drivers. We can be graciously ordinary. We've got nothing to prove. We can have nothing worth posting to facebook, nothing worth writing a news story about, no star stickers or merit badges, no 26.2s on our cars, no designer clothing, no alumni rings. Instead, we can wear our raggedy t-shirts, and not-so-skinny jeans, make non-organic mac & cheese for our kids, take a modest car camping vacation on a muddy, used-to-be-a-lake, and sing off key on Sundays in our not-that-hip church.

In fact, I think that ordinary, not-crazy, everyday love is what Paul encourages the believers in Thessalonica toward. This he says is how to live out loving our neighbors as ourselves.

 Now about your love for one another we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other. And in fact, you do love all of God’s family throughout Macedonia. Yet we urge you, brothers and sisters, to do so more and more, and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody. ~I Thessalonians 4:9-12

As children of the King, we're already special. There's no need to be more special, in fact, we can't make ourselves substantially more special. Sure we can gain notoriety, but only temporarily. So we're free to just live and love the people around us in the most everyday, unnoticeable, not-facebook-worthy ways.

Photo: PacificCoastNews.com

The Ministry of Silliness

With preschool aged kids around the house, I'd say our lives are a mix of the sweet, sour, and silly. Lately, we've been in high friction mode with a lot of "That's my toy!" and "But I was playing with that!" followed by "Waahhh!!" Drives me nuts, but also makes me more aware of when the house rings with laughter and cackles. It might only be for 30 seconds, but it's gold.

This week, I've been meditating on Hebrews 4:14-16, particularly this idea of approaching God's throne with confidence.

Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.~Hebrews 4:14-16

In the text, this confidence appears to rest in two things: first, that Jesus has ascended to heaven as our great high priest, and second, that Jesus lived our human life and "gets" it. An Old Testament high priest offered sacrifices on behalf of himself and the people of Israel for their sins. But the blood of animals had to be offered regularly to cover sins. Jesus, as the high priest, offered himself as a sacrifice not on his own behalf, but on behalf of all humanity for all time. So that's one part of our confidence, that in Jesus, we are expiated, our sins have been paid for and do not prevent us from coming before God's majestic throne.

The other part of our confidence is supposed to be in the fact that Jesus walked the earth and lived human life and can understand our weaknesses. I'm making a bit of a leap here, but I think this works out in all the language used to describe our new relationship with God as one of adopted children.

For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry,“Abba, Father.” ~Romans 8:14-15

Yesterday, we were out at a big birthday dinner, and our kids were at one end of a long table happily into all the sprinkly condiments. There was salt and pepper getting shaken out, there was sugar and pepper, pepper in water, sweet n low and who knows what. The parent-self wanted to chastise them for doing it wrong. But the kid-self remembered all those grown-up dinners my brothers and I attended where we entertained ourselves in the same way albeit Chinese style: tea and soy sauce, tea and chili paste, chili paste and mustard and green onions, and so on.

As I think about this and I think about approaching God's throne of grace with confidence, I think this confidence we're to come with is not the confidence of triumph and ability, but the confidence of relationship. It is like the confidence my children have that we find them delightful, that we are after their good, that we desire to help them*. In this, I think we need to spend more time meditating on Jesus' call to have faith like a child.

*We do have punchy parent moments where we screw this up.