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Mother’s Day Wkd madcap recap, 10 things I learned

Friday and Saturday I took off to the Poconos with my daughter for a mother/daughter retreat. The whole getaway sneaked up on me, and I realized about an hour before we had to leave that we were due to attend this overnight cabin camping getaway.

Ten things I learned from my getaway:

1. When a female retreat speaker likes to take off her shoes (and has toes that look like man fingers) I have trouble concentrating.

2. Camp cabins have a wet sock meets wet canine smell. This is normal.

3. A retreat menu consists of 300% of one’s daily requirement of carbohydrates. (MMM and uh-oh.)

4. A camping getaway is not complete unless several bugs are captured and treated like members of the family, before they die in captivity.

5. Turkeys wake up at 4 a.m….vocalizing.

6. Even if a mom/daughter hike includes spotting deer up close, friendly fowl, and indescribable beauty, wet pants, shoes, and socks will incur massive amounts of overshadowing whining.

7. Staying up past 11 p.m. for its own sake makes an eight year old immeasurably ecstatic and then immeasurably exhausted 12 hours later. Usually there is crying involved.

8. Apparently, when camping, there’s no such thing as “too much candy”.

9. Unspoken camp rule: carbonated beverages are a right, not a privilege.

10. Mysterious forces beyond one’s control cause one’s washcloths and towels to dry in no less than four days.

What are some things you’ve learned from camping?


photos of our time away.

 

MAGIC Mellon!

Look what I found when I cut open this cantaloupe (or for you people in Iowa, think: “MUSK Mellon” ) .

So, maybe Voldemort practiced on fruit before he got to Harry Potter?

I know what you’re thinking, “Magic!”

Lightening bolt scar on Harry Potter's mellon.

Upon closer inspection I saw the cause of this odd lightening bolt phenomenon. A seed. A seed braking free!

My knife cut the seed in half to best reveal its strange path “toward the edge”. I’ve never seen anything like it, have you? I nearly starting dialing J. K. Rowling for an explanation.

Sometimes leaving the safety of the group, to make a break for it is downright magical. It’s extraordinary. Have you ever had to make a “magical moment” happen?

YOUR mission: Tell me something “magical” you’ve seen lately! I’ll give you until the end of the day!

 

When things get fishy

tuna

I’m not trying to carp, but they say things come in threes:

1. Introduced to “Fish Pedicures”.

2. Our kitchen sink smells like tuna (still).

3. Osama bin Laden is buried at sea.

Now, I’d sooner get a defective Nembutal enema then be correct here, butt (sic.) it seems that things have been pretty fishy. (Read: peculiar and fish-centric) Okay, I sort of made the second one up. I probably should have mentioned dead schools of fish or something.

Today, I feel a well….a “disturbance in the force”. Something just isn’t right…ya know? Maybe in the universe. Maybe in the thinking I read reverberating through social media. It’s not just the caffeine talking. I have some very conflicting thoughts and emotions at this point. Something is the matter.

With this talk of the most wanted wealthy, terrorist mastermind being “brought to justice”, I am reminded that human justice (so-called) is focused on retribution and punishment. Those are its first aims. But, must’n we realize there is no justice qua justice at the hands of human beings?

Can this man’s death heal the wounds of those who lost loved ones on 9/11? Never. There has been no score settled. Nothing can repay or compensate for that type of destruction and loss.

Here is where ultimate triumph can only come through the practice of forgiveness. It is the hard stuff, the stuff that happens supernaturally–not through our strength.

Grace trumps our flawed and immature (human) slant on Justice.

Will we ever get justice right?

God cancels our debt. My debt. Yours. Bin Laden’s. God’s work at the cross and ongoing through his people is the working out of this cancelation which does not overlook the evil, but negates it. It pulls its teeth out. It becomes victorious in the most scandalous way (compared to our standards). This way is very unpopular, I might add. Check out the movies. We like revenge and payback. Our movie stars exact it out for us, so we can feel comforted.

So, absorb the important part. The weight and burden of the disparate of goodness and evilness funnels down and is defeated and overcome by sacrifice, and by grace. Christ Jesus’ death on the cross. This is God’s active dealing with evil and human nature gone wrong. In all cases.

I didn’t think I’d feel this way, but all the bin Laden news and stuff has just left me with the creeps. We need help.

What must we change about our view of justice with regards to God’s holiness and mercy? How can we understand and enact justice better, and our active role in meting it out?

Tell me: What are your feelings about the ways of justice, or the recent events concerning Osama bin Laden? Was “justice served”?

And In what ways can grow from this? (And, Yes, I’m fishing for your thoughts.)

My message to the graduates

27 years ago, my middle school teacher, Mrs. Herbster, had us memorize the poem “If–” by Rudyard Kipling. Kipling might be best known as the author of The Jungle Book, which Disney made into movie that included a brown boy in a loin cloth, a snake with twirling, zombie eyes, and a blue talking and singing bear.

I thought I would really impress my former teacher all these years later by reciting it, as part of my speech to the graduates, during their celebratory luncheon at Christian Fellowship Academy this Monday.

See, I have this great memory. I just have to read things a few times–and boom–they’re in my hard drive. No. This used to be true, but I haven’t upgraded my memory, and my hard drive has loads of non sense on it. I tried it, but could only remember the first four lines. SIGH…. hmmp.

Rudyard Kipling

I still want to read it to them, on Monday, though. It’s GREAT advice. Maybe you’ll get something out of it too.

Tell me what you think about it.

IF–
-Rudyard Kipling

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
‘ Or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!

Evil and the Bad Lands

The Painted Desert, Arizona, USA

On Sunday, I’m addressing the topic of Evil in the Route 66 series.

The desert in Northern Arizona is known as the Painted Desert. Layers of rock stratum beautifully redeem the barren region in swaths of colors. Travelers on Route 66, the Mother Road, look forward to this place as they trek. The famous petrified forrest is another highlight on the trail. The photos look amazing.

Have you ever been to this region of the American West? I haven’t, but I hope to soon.

This bad land spells trouble if you aren’t prepared, yet the harsh area should not come as a surprise. The parallel I draw, in a spiritual sense, is that Evil usually surprises us with its force or sway. Rather than expect it, and live a life that encounters it for the opportunity to redeem it in practical ways, we are often stunned, and then react unproductively by blaming or retorting with dangerous and haphazard all-or-nothing solutions. Sudden kinetic military actions, or ratifying knee-jerk (and effectively impotent) new rules, are two examples that come to mind. Plenty of community and individual reactions apply as well.

What are some others that come to mind?

What “Bad Lands” have you painted? (Where have you encountered redemption during times of suffering or through trails?)

Work with God to paint your desert!