Thoughts on Unplugging, Touching Grass, and a Book Recommendation

 I’ve been reading The Extinction of Experience: Being Human in a Disembodied World, by Christine Rosen. Well-written, disturbing, and something I know social scientists are beginning to think and warn about, but I’m afraid not enough of us are concerned enough about this topic.  We’re all feeling it, to some extent, I think – this anxiety, loneliness, and loss of real community and connection with real, live, embodied people as our culture becomes more and more reliant on mediated communication and technology that is making our world more virtual and less “in real life” and “in person” than we’ve ever been.

For all the conveniences and good that we truly do see in our smart phones and other technologies, I fear we are losing some things that should not be lost. I think the problem lies in the fact that far too often we move from using these technologies as a helpful tool to using them as a way of life. There is the addictive quality of the online life that I’m finding disturbing. The irony that I’m hashing out these thoughts and sharing them on my social media platforms is not lost on me.

The problem I’m seeing is that these mediated ways of staying in touch just don’t deliver what we hoped they would, but our addiction to them and our alienation from each other continues to grow. Communicating via Zoom or screen or text just isn’t the same and doesn’t fill us with joy the same as being there in the flesh over a cup of coffee or around a meeting table or in a classroom or sitting in the church pew in person. We are losing the ability to read other people’s emotions. The chapter in the book on that topic actually scared me. The author talks about apps that are being developed that use AI to determine how someone you’re interacting with is feeling based on what the AI determines from all the aggregated data it mines about them, etc. She also makes a compelling argument tying some of the trend we are seeing in an uptick in aggressive, even deadly, road rage incidents, to a generalized loss of ability to be patient combined with a loss of empathy in our culture. It is complicated, but think about it. We spend so much time in our personalized worlds, staring at our various screens, communicating in a mediated way through our screens, with our apps and whatnots carefully mining our data and feeding us what the AI determines we want based on our scrolling and too many other data points to even go into, and we demand faster and faster responses and have less and less patience with slow-loading webpages, and then when we venture out into the real world, we want everything there to react the same way. We become the center of our carefully mediated universes and we have little patience for anyone who may inadvertently get in the way of our instant gratification and what we think we deserve. Somehow, we are becoming more irritable and less able to assume the best of others. Not to mention plain old distracted driving. Too many of us can’t exercise the self-control to wait to look at our phones until we are no longer driving. We can’t be alone with our thoughts even for the few minutes we may be stuck at a traffic light.

The chapter on how we wait spoke to me as well. We aren’t able to sit quietly and just think anymore.  Any empty space must be filled with distractions or we feel we are wasting time. I recently complained about people who sit in a waiting room and rudely listen to loud videos on their cell phones. We’re so self-focused we don’t even care that there are people around us who may not want to hear our loud conversation or video. Again, I think we’re becoming conditioned to live in a little personalized bubble that caters to our every desire that our vision is becoming more and more tunneled inward. How often do we look up and away from our screens and truly interact with strangers in these situations anymore? Are we losing the ability to talk to real people we encounter in daily life? How often have you tried to talk to someone and they have one earbud in, even while they sort of talk to you? How can you truly give attention to someone if you’re only half listening? It’s rude, yet I see it all the time. So much of our creativity comes when we are a little bit bored and allow our minds to wander and just sit with our thoughts. But more and more, we spend less and less time doing that. We almost fear boredom these days.

There is so much to think about after reading this book and I have truly not done justice in my rambling here.  I know this.  I’m not sure this post even makes much sense, but what I hope anyone who has followed my rambling to this point takes away is – read this book.  PLEASE.  I confess that as I was reading I felt discouraged because the thought came to me, those who really need to read this, the people who are in danger of being that impatient road rager, for example, will never read this book or even think about what our distracted, virtual addictions are doing to us. Because people don’t read anymore. It’s too long, takes up too much energy, doesn’t feed the dopamine hit that the next round of the game on the phone or stupid video or scroll through the social media feed delivers. But we really, truly need to be thinking much harder about what this all is doing to us as human beings. We really, truly need to think about how much we need real, face-to-face friendships and fellowship.

A few small things I’m thinking about changing in response to reading this book are, for one thing, I’ve decided the leave my earphones at home when I go out for a walk. I did that today and it was a vastly different experience, one I quite enjoyed. Listening to the birds, hearing the oh-so-satisfying crunch of the acorns as I felt them under my shoes, even hearing my shoes on the pavement as I walked and enjoyed the peace of the quiet around me was profoundly satisfying in a way my walks haven’t been when I’ve taken them plugged up with my podcasts.  I enjoy those podcasts, but I’m changing up how I listen to them. I need more quiet and undistracted time built into my day. I’m also setting aside time to work again on memorizing scripture.  Taking the time to burrow down and really focus on it. And I’m also making a point to handwrite in my journal – spending the time it takes to get into the flow of writing. That was another insight the author shared – how writing with our hands is a different kind of processing than typing, and it’s another thing we’re losing as a culture  – and she’s right.

It’s been a long time since I’ve written a blog post in this space, and this one has ended up being longer than I intended. It’s a little rambly, but it’s all things I wanted to say. I’m a bit rusty, though, and I think my thoughts probably aren’t as fleshed out and clear as I would like them to be. Maybe I need to start blogging again and sharpen up those thinking skills.

Before I go, though this post is already too impossibly long, I wanted to share something that came to mind while reading this book. There is a song that has become popular in the marching band world, and rightly so because it’s a beautiful piece of music. I was reminded of it while reading because the lyrics deal with our discomfort and yet also our eerie draw to the lure of the ubiquitous nature of our virtual technology and datamining social media. The song is “The Hymn of Acxiom” by Vienna Teng. 

To get the full picture I want to share, listen to this adaptation first, which is the marching band version of just the music.

 

Now, read the lyrics by Vienna Teng:

somebody hears you. you know that. you know that.

somebody hears you. you know that inside.

someone is learning the colors of all your moods, to

(say just the right thing and) show that you’re understood.

here you’re known.

 

leave your life open. you don’t have. you don’t have to.

leave your life open. you don’t have to hide.

someone is gathering every crumb you drop, these

(mindless decisions and) moments you long forgot.

keep them all.

 

let our formulas find your soul.

we’ll divine your artesian source (in your mind),

marshal feed and force (our machines will)

to design you a perfect love—

or (better still) a perfect lust.

o how glorious, glorious: a brand new need is born.

 

now we possess you. you’ll own that. you’ll own that.

now we possess you. you’ll own that in time.

now we will build you an endlessly upward world,

(reach in your pocket) embrace you for all you’re worth.

 

is that wrong?

isn’t this what you want?

amen

 

Now listen and watch this video of it being sung:

I think this song brilliantly captures how conflicted I feel about smart technology and social media and how dependent we are on it now. There is the beauty of how useful our media is as a tool for keeping in touch with people, sharing and finding information quickly, yet there are also quite disturbing costs we are only beginning to scratch the surface of coming to terms with, the disturbing ways it is actually changing us and our culture. I hope you can see a bit of the horror I’m beginning to feel with how commodified we, ourselves are becoming. You know the saying – nothing is free. If what they’re offering is free, if there is no “product,” YOU ARE THE PRODUCT. Every smart device we use, every webpage we visit, every social media post we make, every game we play, every video we watch, we are giving them more of ourselves to market and buy. We’ve opened a kind of Pandora’s box, and I don’t think we can go back, but I do hope we can be much, much more mindful and careful and aware of how much it could control us and become a dangerous idol to us. Let’s start thinking about using what good we can as a tool, but dropping it as a way of life. Look up, look out, engage with other embodied human beings face-to-face, with phones put away. Spend time touching grass and taking in all the sensory experiences of touch, sight, smell – see the beauty through your eyes apart from the mediation of a screen. Enjoy something beautiful for the sake of the beautiful, not for the sake of the social media post you could make. Try enjoying a fun experience without posting about it, at least some of the time, let your memory of an event be just that, a beautiful memory without a social media post to go with it.

Think about it.  And go read Christine Rosen’s book, The Extinction of Experience: Being Human in a Disembodied World. My thoughts about it may have rambled too much in this post, hers do not. She brings clarity and a needed warning I hope more people will hear.

Book Recommendation: The Christian in Complete Armour

 I am so thankful for pastors who read and recommend good books. Our pastor in Virginia used to recommend a book almost every Sunday night, and if Pastor Jesse recommended it, I didn't even need to question it, I was almost sure to like it or want to read it. I read and really enjoyed a lot of books I never would have encountered had I not known his recommendations for them. 

Well, our pastor here in Texas also has a habit of reading and recommending good books.  Again, if Pastor Josh recommends a book, I am almost always sure I want to read it. This summer he has recommended we read The Christian in Complete Armour, Volume 1 by William Gurnall for a church book club at the end of this month.

I don’t know why I do always do this, but whenever I think about reading a Puritan author, my first thought is that it will be difficult, dense reading, so that’s what I was afraid of when I took up this book to start it. But, just like with The Valley of Vision prayers, I was pleasantly surprised that reading this Puritan felt extremely current and relevant. The Puritans are NOT dry and dusty. They are NOT the dour, legalistic, unlikable, uncharitable people you were mistakenly led to believe they were in your high school history and English classes. They were real, joyful, lively Christians who wrote about the real Christian life, and this book was so extremely timely as I read it (and just finished it today). How encouraging it is to read from believers who lived a long time ago, but who experienced the same Christian life and loved, worshiped, and followed the same Jesus that we do today. Sure we have technologies and lifestyles and things that on the surface seem very different from life back in the 1600’s, but get beyond those surface differences, and people are just people. We have the same heart issues and we aren’t really all that different. Same goes for the people in the Bible. They are real people, not really all that different from us. And we all need the same Savior, who never changes, who loves His people and works with us and in us the same as He does with all of His people.

I’m thinking I am going to take the discussion questions and type out some of my reactions, for the book club, but it’s a little bit daunting, because I think I underlined something or marked up almost every single page of the book. Good thing I finished with some time to spare.  Haha.

All that to say two things:

1.  Read this book.  You will be glad you did. It is so encouraging. The author is practical and compassionately pastoral as he takes the reader through his logical and carefully made arguments for being a watchful, armor-clad Christian who stands firm in the face of temptations and trials. I walk away from it so encouraged that I have a Savior who intercedes for me and who will never let go of me.

2.  If you have a pastor who reads and recommends good books – listen to him and be thankful! If he’s recommending good books, it’s because he cares for your soul and wants to see you grow in the grace and knowledge of your Savior.

A Short Review of a Netflix Disappointment

 My daughter and I both recently finished reading All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, and we both loved it.  She was reading it for school and kept saying I just had to read it, so I did, and we have had some wonderful discussions about it along the way. It is a great book, very beautifully written, heart-wrenching story, and it left us both feeling a bit melancholy at the end. The Pulitzer Prize it won is well-deserved. So, loving it as we did, we thought we'd try watching the miniseries Netflix recently released.

My advice if you loved the book: DO NOT BOTHER with the Netflix travesty. 

My advice if you haven't read the book yet: Read the book, skip the Netflix mess. 

It's too bad, really, because the casting for the miniseries was excellent, but the screenwriting for the adaptation was terrible, in my opinion. I understand that movie adaptations are difficult and they will necessarily have to leave some things out. But this was just quite bad. The book does a wonderful job going back and forth between flashbacks and the present day of the story to let the reader understand the characters and learn important plot reveals slowly and at the appropriate time to make for a beautiful, heartbreaking story. The miniseries changes important plot points and reveals things much too early that you didn't read until well into the book, such that in the miniseries they just don't make any sense without the background build up, and if you hadn't read the book, I'm not sure you'd even know what was going on or why it was all that significant. It just ends up being a confusing mess, and you don't really feel much of anything for the characters, whereas, in the book, you grow to love and understand them. Werner's character is especially flat in the miniseries, and that is just inexcusable. His character growth arc is one of THE major significant points of the book, and by episode 3, I am not seeing ANYTHING about him yet that hints that the show will be getting any better. Granted, we've only made it to episode 3, but I hate it enough that I just don't care. I am done with it. If it hasn't been able to win me over by this point, well, life is just too short to waste any more time on it, in my opinion.

Read the book. It is very much worth the time spent. The miniseries is really just NOT. And that is a shame. 

Meditating on The Word - Navigating Our New Life Season

 While reading Genesis 1-2 yesterday morning, I got to thinking about Genesis 2:24, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.” It had never occurred to me before that this is before the fall, before sin entered the world. Which is significant. This means that this concept of a man leaving his father and mother and joining his wife is inherently good, good by design, which also means, if we think this through, that the so-called “empty nest” is a good and proper and expected thing, good and designed to be the way families work before the fall. It means that this is something that is in how our Creator has designed us and our relationships with each other. The thing is, though, that the fall and our now sin nature taints everything. We tend to take something beautiful and good and right and forget how to live in it as good and beautiful and right.

My husband and I are entering the phase of life where we are about to be empty-nesters, with one son having gotten married last May, one son who, having become recently engaged and will, Lord willing, most likely be married before the end of this year, and our youngest daughter about to graduate high school and, again, Lord willing, planning to leave for college in the Fall.  As I meditate on this biblical thought here at the beginning of a new year and at the cusp of our new season of life, I want to think and behave righteously.  Also, as I meditate on this, I find myself thinking about it from a different angle than I did as a newly wed just starting out and learning how to start our new family together. Now I’m thinking about it, not from the standpoint of the one leaving, but of the one being left.

How often do we see the “empty nest” concept as a negative thing, as something to mourn and complain about, among our friends and on our social media and in our entertainment?

 In our fallenness, we are prone to a self-centered, selfish way of viewing life, and we often don’t even realize it. I know for a fact, as I sit here at the beginning of this season of life, that I did not consider my parents and in-laws enough in how they might be experiencing our leaving and cleaving.  I think, through the years, we have had a pretty good relationship with our respective parents, and I am very grateful for that. But there can sometimes be a tendency as we spread our wings to see our parents more as adversaries as we break free rather than as allies to help us fly. It can be especially hard for the in-law relationship if we, as young people, forget that these people loved and raised our spouse, have sought the best interests of our spouse, loved them as a tiny baby and loved them as they grew to adulthood, and love them still now that they are leaving the nest to go start their own nest.  

On the other hand, we parents can have just as much of a tendency to be self-centered and selfish, because we, too, are sinners. Again, how many times have you known people in real life and in our movies and TV shows who cling too hard to their grown children or who meddle too much or make demands/expectations or offer too much unsolicited/unwelcome comments or who just make it difficult for adult children to leave their parents and cleave to their spouses? There is a reason the meddling, difficult in-law joke is a common trope.

What I’m getting at is that as we navigate different life seasons, we would do well to remember that this notion of children growing up and leaving father and mother to form their own home and family is not an evil, not a thing to mourn, but to embrace, celebrate, and handle wisely. It is good. But as we remember this, we also need to remember that in our sinfulness, we can ruin that good thing if we do not have the right attitude about it and forget that all good things are meant to glorify our God and help us to enjoy Him in this life.

While pondering these things, I also read Proverbs 1 yesterday, where I came across verse 8-9, “Hear, my son, your father’s instruction and do not forsake your mother’s teaching; indeed, they are a graceful wreath to your head and ornaments about your neck.” So, I got to thinking about this in light of the Genesis 2:24 verse, that leaving and cleaving doesn’t mean forgetting all that came before. Our parents loved us, taught us, raised us, and, hopefully, if done well, we still want them to be part of our lives. They don’t stop loving us and wanting what’s best for us when we grow up and leave the nest. The training and instruction they instilled in us during our growing up doesn’t lose its importance when we leave their home. But the relationship does change. Hopefully, if we are both wanting to seek God and honor Him, we can move from having the authority relationship of parent to child to having more of a friendship of parent to adult child. 

So, as I follow the encouragement my pastor gave us on Sunday to meditate on God’s Word, and as I enter this season of parent to adult children, having once been that young adult child and now the parent of young adult children, here are a few thoughts I would like to consider, for the young just starting out and for me, the older person wanting to honor the Lord and love my sons and daughter well (and the new daughters who love my sons and the, hopefully one day, young man, who will love my daughter) as they learn to spread their wings.

As a young person, try really hard not to start out viewing your parents and in-laws as adversaries who you need to immediately set up boundaries against.  Try seeing them as allies who love your spouse and want very much to love you. We parents will make mistakes. We won’t want to, but we will. Please be patient with us as we seek to be patient with you. Please choose to assume the very best motives you can, rather than assuming bad motives. How you choose to see your parents and in-laws will very much color how you are able to hear, see, interact, and love them. This is something I wish I had understood better when I was young.

As a parent, God helping me and looking to Jesus, my Savior, and trusting the Holy Spirit as He conforms me to the image of Christ, I intend to choose to treat my children and their spouses as allies, not adversaries, and to try very hard not to give them reason to feel we are adversaries rather than allies. Again, how we assume motives goes a long way to how we then interact with each other. I must always put the best construction on comments and actions that I possibly can, assume the best and choose never to hold a grudge. Our family is not shrinking because our kids are flying from the nest, it is expanding. We get to love new people who, though different, are very, very special and worth knowing well. I intend to see the empty nest, not as a time to grieve what was when the kids were little and life was very busy with all their activities, but as a new season in which to find new interests and new traditions and new places and people in which to serve God’s Kingdom.  I intend to encourage my kids in positive ways, and to try very hard not to put undue expectations or burdens on them. Of course I hope in the years to come that they will want to spend time with us, so I am praying often that I will invest in being the kind of person they will want to spend time with. I don’t want to hinder that for them or make it difficult to love us, and I also very much want them to be free to start their lives together, with our blessing, not our complaining.

May we seek to honor God in how we love each other. May we be loving, forgiving, full of grace and understanding as we navigate new seasons of life together, because we have been forgiven so much by our loving Savior, Jesus Christ.

I am entering this new year of 2024 very grateful for the people God has graciously brought into our lives through the years. May we love them all well. 

My 2023 in Books

It seems that I've reached the end of the books I will be able to finish before midnight tomorrow night, so I am going to go ahead and share my year in books post today. It has been a good year for reading! 

January 2023

• The Thursday Murder Club (Thursday Murder Club #1) - Richard Osman.  I loved this one.  A nice way to start the new year reading this delightful, lighthearted murder mystery. Quirky, fun characters and funny in a thoroughly British sort of way.  I look forward to reading more of this series.
• Tress of the Emerald Sea - Brandon Sanderson (F). One of the best I've read from Sanderson.
• The 10 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time: Decoding History's Unsolved Mysteries - Brad Meltzer (NF).
• The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald (F). I read this again because my daughter is reading it for school and I wanted to remind myself about the story.  The really weird thing is, while reading it, I realized I had completely forgotten most of the book, and it was like I was reading it for the first time almost, and I had totally forgotten the main plot of this story, like I didn't remember that Gatsby had known Daisy before and that's the whole point of the book, the whole you can't live in the past, can't go back to the past idea. I also, for some reason, had it in my head that Gatsby killed himself in the end.  So, I kept asking myself, "Did I even read this thing before?" I know I somehow managed to get through school without reading it, but I am fairly certain I read it some time later because it's one of those "everyone needs to read this, it's part of our culture" books.  But, wow.  I certainly didn't read it very thoroughly that first time.  
• Fetching Raymond (A Ford County Story) - John Grisham (F). I don't know if it's cheating on my Goodreads reading challenge to count this one since it's really more a novella, only 48 pages long. So I'll just have to read past my reading goal.  :-) 
• Sixth of the Dusk - Brandon Sanderson (F).  Another short one, but these last two Sanderson shorter books I've read were really good. He's a good storyteller.
• The Winners - Fredrik Backman (F).  This was a powerful finale to the Beartown trilogy. Backman did not disappoint, and has become one of my favorite authors. 

February 2023

• The Tenth Justice - Brad Meltzer (F).  This one was just ok. It is obviously his first book, and he definitely hones his craft in later books, but this one won't be on my favorites list. It wasn't bad, just not as good as his later work. 
• Harlem Shuffle - Colson Whitehead (F).
• Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith From Fear - Jinger Duggar Vuolo (NF). Highly recommended. Hoping to write a blog post on this one soon.
• The Man Who Died Twice (Thursday Murder Club, #2) - Richard Osman. I enjoyed this second book in this delightful series.  

March 2023

• The Maid - Nita Prose (F). I enjoyed this one. It was an interesting, quirky mystery, told from the point of view of a sweet, neurodivergent young woman, and I found it intriguing to experience her view of the world.  The author did an excellent job showing, not telling, and as a reader you could often read between the lines and understand things in a way that the narrator could not, which really helped to see how difficult it was for her when she had trouble reading social cues and understanding people's motives.  I love the message of friendship and loving people well enough to make room and compassion and understanding for what we may see as differences. Well written, enjoyable story.
• The Bullet That Missed (Thursday Murder Club, #3) - Richard Osman (F).
• Simply Trinity: The Unmanipulated Father, Son, and Spirit - Matthew Barrett (NF).  Matthew Barrett is able to write about a complicated subject and make it accessible to the lay person, and I very much appreciated this book.  Much to think about and remember. I love how he is able to clearly articulate what a biblical and Nicene understanding of the Trinity is, and I especially appreciated the discussion about EFS and how that subtly shifts away from a proper understanding and teaching of the Trinity, as I recognized a lot of what I have been taught through the years, especially regarding gender roles and submission, that I have been trying to disentangle as I seek to rightly understand these things in light of who God is and what the Bible really teaches. 
• The Rose Code - Kate Quinn (F).
• The Maid's Diary - Loreth Anne White (F).
• Saints and Scoundrels in the Story of Jesus - Nancy Guthrie (NF).
• Messy Grace - Caleb Kaltenbach (NF).

April 2023

• A Murder of Crows (Nell Ward Mystery, #1) - Sarah Yarwood-Lovett (F).
• To Seek and to Save: Daily Reflections on the Road to the Cross - Sinclair Ferguson (NF).
• Body of Proof: The 7 Best Reasons to Believe in the Resurrection of Jesus - And Why it Matters Today - Jeremiah J. Johnston, PhD. - (NF).
• The Frugal Wizard's Handbook for Surviving Medieval England - Brandon Sanderson (F).
• Why Does God Allow Evil: Compelling Answers for Life's Toughest Questions - Clay Jones (NF).
• A Cast of Falcons (Nell Ward Mystery, #2) - Sarah Yarwood-Lovett (F).

May 2023

• Pride: Identity and the Worship of Self - Matthew Roberts (NF)
• Station Eleven - Emily St. John Mandel - (F).  This was really good. I chose to read it because I found a more recent book from this author that I thought looked interesting, but one review said that book is even better if one has read this and one other book first, so I immediately checked them out from the library for my Kindle. I enjoyed how she wove the story line all together, alternating between the current time and flashbacks, but not in a confusing way, and showing the reader how the characters' lives intersected, even when the characters may not have ever known it. This was one of those books I had a hard time putting down. Looking forward to reading more from this author. 
• The Glass Hotel - Emily St. John Mandel - (F).
• A Mischief of Rats (Nell Ward Mystery, #3) - Sarah Yarwood-Lovett (F).
• Sea of Tranquility - Emily St. John Mandel - (F).

June 2023

• The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - Muriel Sparks (F).
• Swan Light - Phoebe Rowe (F).
• Dead Even - Brad Meltzer (F).
• A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini (F).  Wow. This was such a good book. Stories about Afghanistan absolutely break your heart, and I loved the characters.

July 2023

• The First Counsel - Brad Meltzer (F).
• Hamnet - Maggie O'Farrell (F).
• All the Forgivenenesses - Elizabeth Hardinger (F).
• The It Girl - Ruth Ware (F).
• Call the Canaries Home - Laura Barrow (F).

August 2023

• The Covenant of Water - Abraham Verghese (F).
• Nathan Coulter - Wendell Berry (F).
• Why God Makes Sense in a World That Doesn't: The Beauty of Christian Theism - Gavin Ortlund (NF).
• Blessed: Experiencing the Promise of Revelation - Nancy Guthrie (NF). I loved this. Such a refreshing and beautiful study through Revelation. 

September 2023

• David Copperfield - Charles Dickens (F).
• The Spanish Daughter - Lorena Hughes (F).
  

October 2023

• Christ from Beginning to End: how the Full Story of Scripture Reveals the Full Glory of Christ - Trent Hunter and Stephen Wellum (NF).  This was an absolutely beautiful walk through the Bible and the glorious revelation of Jesus. I loved this book and have much to continue thinking about. 
• The Last Devil to Die (Thursday Murder Club, #4) - Richard Osman (F).
• Demon Copperhead - Barbara Kingsolver (F).
• Trust - Hernan Diaz (F).

November 2023

• The Spy Coast (The Martini Club #1) - Tess Gerritsen (F).
• Where the Light Fell - Philip Yancey (NF).
• Another Gospel?: A Lifelong Christian Seeks Truth in Response to Progressive Christianity - Alisa Childers (NF).
• Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking - Malcolm Gladwell (NF).

December 2023

• When We Were Enemies - Emily Bleeker (F).
• The Berry Pickers - Amanda Peters (F).
• Stepping Heavenward - Elizabeth Prentiss (F).
• Hello Beautiful - Ann Napolitano (F).
• The Christian Manifesto: Jesus' Life-Changing Words from the Sermon on the Plain - Alistair Begg (NF).
• Long Chills & Case Dough - Brandon Sanderson (F).
• Shutter - Ramona Emerson (F).
• The Question Habit: The Art of Building Resilient Relationships With God and Others One Question at a Time - Mandy Pallock (NF).

Endings and Beginnings

 "The Last Goodbye" came on my playlist this morning as I was dropping my daughter off at school, and it was kind of perfectly fitting somehow.  I tend to have songs that fill out the background emotions of my life. Today is her last marching band competition, the last time she will ever march this show - or any show - in high school. Tomorrow is her last football game, and it is the Senior Game, so her dad and I get to escort her for the senior honor reception at half time. 

Senior year is hard. It's a time of bittersweet endings, so many "last times," and for the senior it's sad, but also hopeful as they look forward to the exciting things to come. But those "last times" are so hard. Our director has this thing he always says to encourage them, "Last time, best time," and that's always bittersweet, but the truly last time is when it's hard to hold back the tears. Senior year is hard on the parents, too, especially having been through it twice before with our older boys. But this last child thing, oof. I'm struggling with it. 

Band has been a big part of our lives for a really long time now, ever since our oldest son got to march with the high school band as an 8th grader in Kentucky, and then how excited he was when we moved to Texas and he got to march with the insanity of Texas marching band where truly the best marching bands in the country compete at the highest level. And now, with our youngest halfway through her senior year, finishing her last marching band season, it's coming to an end, and, y'all, I am not ok. She seemed excited this morning for today, but sad that it is the last. I am holding back tears as I type this. Band is fun for the students, but also great for the parents.  I have met some very cool people along the way in the various schools' band programs we've been blessed to be part of through these past eleven years. My oldest son even met his (now) wife when they went to sister/rival high schools and their schools had a mixer event at a big national marching band contest. So, band has been a big part of our lives and I'm sad to see it coming to an end. 

My daughter's band director invited her to participate in the full orchestra during concert season this year, so I'm really excited for her that while marching band may be ending this weekend, she still has lots of great music to look forward to this year. And of course, she is already looking forward to the exciting things the future holds for her. So, there is so much good to look forward to in the way of new beginnings, but goodbyes and endings are hard. 

Parenting is so sweet. I have enjoyed being a mom with kids at home. And I will miss it incredibly. Every stage came with its own challenges, sure, but abundantly more so, so, so much joy and good things.  I love these people I've gotten to watch grow to adulthood.  What a blessing God gave my husband and me when He allowed us to be their parents. And, though I'm crying bittersweet tears right now, I am so excited to see how He continues to work in their lives into adulthood. So, I know I said I'm not ok, and right at this moment, I would be lying to say I'm not struggling with the sadness of "last things," but overall, yes, I am ok, and I am so extremely hopeful for the new beginnings on the horizon. God is so kind and so good, and I am grateful for these blessings. 

The Communion of Saints

 

“Christ is risen!”

“He is risen indeed!”

Social media has its downsides, and they are many, but it also has some pretty cool upsides.  One of my favorite things about social media happened yesterday, as Christians all over my newsfeeds shared the traditional Easter greeting with each other. One would post, “He is risen!” Then many would respond, “He is risen indeed!”  All day, all over social media this was repeating, and it is glorious. That declaration expresses our shared hope, joining myriad Christian brothers and sisters together in precious communion and shared faith that has continued and been passed down across the centuries, it joins us with the great cloud of witnesses who have gone before and will join us with the generations of believers to come.   This is our hope.  Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!

One of my very favorite things about Easter is joining with my fellow believers, my church family, my brothers and sisters in the faith, as we sing with joy about the foundation of our faith and rejoice in the Resurrection, which, honestly is what EVERY Sunday is celebrating, but in a very focused way on Easter Sunday. Yesterday was no exception.  Singing songs that affirm our faith, praying in expectant hope and faith, listening and responding to the Word faithfully preached, Sundays are vitally necessary refreshment, and yesterday is still singing in my heart.

But I do have one, very gentle thought I can’t help pondering today. I was raised in a Southern Baptist Church, so I’m no stranger to it. We have not been members of an SBC church in a long time, though, having joined other solid, Bible churches the past many years, and, truth be told, I didn’t really ever expect to be a member of an SBC church again. Lesson learned, never say never, and we found the right church for us here where we live now is a precious Baptist church and we love our family here, and are grateful to be members of this little church, thankful for the rich community and faithful teaching and weekly refreshment we find here. However, yesterday something happened that sort of reminded me how weird we Baptists are.  The worship leader welcomed the congregation yesterday morning by declaring, “He is risen!” To which I and a few others I’m guessing, though I didn’t hear them, said, “He is risen indeed!” Mostly what I heard was a bunch of jumbled, “Amens,” and, “Yes,” and even a “Hallelujah,” or two, all of which are definitely appropriate responses and heartfelt emotions, but a part of me found it jarring that the congregation didn’t seem to know the traditional response, the response that millions of Christians were responding all over the world yesterday. I love my Baptist people. We love Jesus, truly, deeply, we love His word and teach it well. But having been a part of different biblical Christian traditions recently, I can’t help but feel like we are poorer and we miss something by being so fiercely autonomous that many of us are basically ignorant of ancient traditions and we seem to have an almost allergic disdain for knowing anything about the rich beauty of the creeds, which were a product of, sometimes quite literally, the blood, sweat, and tears of earlier generations of believers to carefully set out and guard the right understanding of the biblical doctrines of the faith.

Part of the wonder of Christianity is that we are the Body of Christ. When we read that wonderful passage in Hebrews about the great cloud of witnesses who surround us, it’s a reminder that we are joined with the great invisible church, the saints who have loved Christ through the ages, those who have gone before us and passed the faith down to us and from whom we can learn so much, those faith filled brothers and sisters around the world today, and those who will follow behind us in future generations until Jesus returns, the saints from all ages with whom we will join around the throne with our gaze fixed on Christ, our voices joining with the multitudes from every language, tribe, and tongue in singing, “Worthy is the Lamb!” for eternity. We really need to be careful not to be so autonomous in our church vision that we forget that the Body of Christ is bigger than just our local church, we are part of something awesome that spans the ages and the nations. Christ is building His Church, and we get to be part of it, our little local congregation is a part of the multitude of living stones that Jesus is raising up, and we do well to remember and appreciate all who have gone before us, to appreciate the rich heritage we have in the faith, open up our eyes and learn from those who have gone before us, appreciate what they have contributed to the rich heritage of faith,  and turn our eyes to our Savior in wonder, love, and praise.

He is risen! He is risen indeed!

 

“Therefore, since we are surrounded, by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus,  the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” – Hebrews 12:1-2