Lola

Photo by Melissa Rose  

  There are a lot of famous Lolas out there, but the Lola of my title is the name of a song first released in 1970 by a Beatles-era band called The Kinks. I don’t actually remember hearing Lola for the first time until I was in high school – a good ten years after it was originally released in the UK. A survey of most of my peers reveals similar memories. I think the timeline went something like this: The Kinks were kind of the progenitors of punk rock, and the late ‘70s and ‘80s were when punk went pop. So all the people who wanted to be cool, but weren’t really, were into punk. Of course, that led to lots of Kinks retrospectives in places like MTV and a big Kinks concert tour in the ‘80s, and I guess the rest is history.

  For a certain segment of the population, which I happen to belong to, when Lola comes on the radio, we magically lose our inhibitions and start to sing “Luh, luh, luh, luh, Lola!” at the top of our lungs. It causes a sort of spontaneous flash mob where people stop what they’re doing, sing Lola together, and when the song ends, go calmly about their business. In my experience, this phenomenon can cross a lot of age, cultural, and religious boundaries – despite the fact that the song is about, as Wikipedia so primly puts it, “a confused romantic encounter with a transvestite.”

  It has been argued that The Kinks were the bridge from the rock ‘n roll of the ‘50s to the rock, punk, and New Wave of the ’70s and ‘80s. So I guess it is no surprise that they recorded some music that still makes people sit up and take notice. But my interest in this song goes beyond the academic. To put it simply, Lola rocks. While I would like to say it is the guitar riffs that I love and I don’t really listen to the lyrics, this wouldn’t be true. Of course, I wish the subject matter was different, but the lyrics are extremely clever. As a writer, I can’t help but smile and mentally applaud every time I hear them.

  Then I feel guilty as a Pharisee at a pork festival.  I can rationalize with the best of them, but it’s pretty hard to reconcile my love of Lola with “Whatever things are pure…” I feel similarly conflicted about other aspects of pop culture that I participate in on a regular basis. Being in the world but not of the world. Easier said than done – or is it? Jesus and I have been walking the road together for thirty-seven years, and I still find it difficult to walk this particular line. It affects everything in my life, from my relationships to my writing. So what’s a girl to do? I’ll think about this some more in my next post, but in the meantime, I am interested in your thoughts. Sing it with me now, “Luh, luh, luh, luh, Lola!” 

(Hear the song: Lola )

Father Knows Best

  I’m on vacation this week, visiting family.  Someone pulled out the old home movies and there we are, in all our childish, mid-century modern glory.  Grainy-filmed, year-after-year of tow-headed exclamations, smiles, and laughter as we pull dolls, robots, skates, out of brightly papered boxes.  Birthdays and Christmases, adults and children dressed in our very best, Grandparents clapping and exulting with us at each gift, Uncle mugging for the camera, older cousins helping us put together new toys, pushing us on shiny trikes, buffet tables covered with food and treats.

  Yes, we had a Leave It To Beaver childhood. Mom was June, Dad was Father, and while it wasn’t perfect, neither was it fake, as many in today’s world would want you to believe. It was real, and it was very good. Reflecting on those films and those years with my other three siblings, though, reveals some interesting differences in how we think about our childhoods. Each of us had a unique response to the way we were raised as we started to grow up.

  One of us found the world my parents created for us constricting, dutifully played the expected role, and as soon as possible left to create a very different life for their self and their family. One of us loved, and another enjoyed, the life in which we were raised, and both remember it in an idyllic, star filtered kind of way. These two have spent years attempting to recreate their childhoods with their own spouses and children, with varied levels of success. One of us just found it all somewhat puzzling, and increasingly touched down for only brief visits in between spending as much time as possible with friends.

  I can’t help but think about my own children and how they will remember the life Sean and I have given them. Parents can drive themselves crazy thinking about this sort of thing.  My sibs and I are prime examples of the truth that each of our personalities impacts our perceptions and reactions in a way that no parent can predict or plan for. We parents try to do our best, with the understanding that what is good for one child may not be what is right for the next. It could be that good parenting also means the realization that what was best for us, may not be what is best for our children – that the world they live in calls for a different approach.

  This is my question – can we, blinded by our past, see each of our children as the unique, God-works of art they are becoming? Parenting is an impossible privilege. God does not need us to help Him fashion our children – yet, He gives us the honor to do so.

  Participating in each other’s development – in the lives of our children, siblings, friends, other believers – is referred to in the Bible as a mystery, and it is. The wisdom to accomplish it is beyond us…but with God, all things are possible. That’s how we do it, with God. He in us, us in Him. Father knows best.

Become Beautiful

“Look at your mother,” my dad said, “she’s so beautiful.”

My mother was adorable, but she was going through a particularly rough patch of life when Dad made this statement. After spending the better part of two decades raising four children, she'd gone back to work and she was tired enough from a full-time job and still bearing a mother’s share of housework and child rearing. As if that wasn’t enough, her readjusting hormones were less than kind to her skin, and she had frequent debilitating headaches. She was carrying extra pounds and retaining water – you get the idea.

Mom rewarded Dad with a grateful smile. I thought, isn’t it sweet how he comforts her, makes her feel better. Then I looked at my Dad, and then at the two of them gazing at each other, and I realized I had it all wrong.

The look on his face was one of total adoration, admiration, and love. When she looked at him, she reflected all that love back at him. My dad wasn’t just trying to make my mom feel better. It wasn’t even that he truly believed what he was saying. What he was saying was absolutely true. Because he loved her like that and saw her as beautiful, she was made beautiful. “Yeah Dad,” I said, awestruck, “she is.”

Flash forward thirty years. “You’re so beautiful,” my husband of twenty-four years tells me. I scoff. “Well,” I say, “I’m glad you think so.” He slowly shakes his head, a wry smile on his lips. “You really don’t get it – you don’t believe me.”

I’ll tell you something I haven’t told him, though. I am starting to believe it. Seriously, I know I’m not the homeliest woman on the planet, but neither am I a vision of classic beauty, and I have always been okay with that. Yet, when my husband looks at me, I’m starting to see that same look on his face that I saw on my dad’s when he looked at Mom. It’s not the lusty, gusty, love-is-blind look of our early years. Some of that is still there, thank God, but more and more, I see that look in his eyes that sees all of me, knows all of me, and finds it breathtakingly beautiful.

This is a crazy kind of love, magical. The words materialize in my head, what kind of love is this? Then of course, it hits me.

What kind of love has the Father bestowed on us...?

What kind of love is this? It is unconditional love for even the most undeserving, and it transforms the beloved. This love is different from the world’s love like a hug is different from a push. This kind of love is sacrificial – it is an action – I have always believed that. I am coming to understand that it is also a way of being beheld, and it’s how God sees us.

I am very thankful for my father, and my husband. It doesn’t matter, though, who you are or what your situation – young or old, male or female, single, married, widowed, orphaned – if you are His child, you are being gazed upon by the God of the Universe through amazing, transforming eyes of love.

God looks at you and He doesn’t see your flaws, your wrinkles, your screw-ups. It isn’t that He is just overlooking your imperfections. He looks at you and He sees what you will be, finally – His beloved, perfect, in Christ.

What kind of love is this? It’s the power to transform. Believe it. Become beautiful.

Facebook's Greatest Hits: Sing A New Song

 Photo by Melissa Rose 

Welcome to our final week of the Facebook Friend Challenge. Thank you for joining me on this four-week journey. This last one may be the most challenging for many of us, so if you are ready, skip to the next paragraph. If you’re just joining us, we have been thinking about social networking practices. We’ve noticed that how we operate confirms recent research, which says we get out of social networking what we bring to it. This research has also found, however, that what many people bring to social media is a growing feeling of disconnectedness. We have thought about how we, who call ourselves Christ’s, are also called to bring light and hope to the world. We have asked the question, “What do we bring to something like Facebook?” We’re looking to make a difference, even on Facebook, and using Jesus’ example to guide us.

Jesus spent time alone. He had hundreds of needy people, nearly 24-hours-a-day, clamoring for His attention and care. Do you think He wasn’t tempted to spend every moment with them? The Bible says He was tempted with everything we are, yet He still regularly went off on his own to pray, rest, and recharge. If He could do it, we can, too. 

For the last few weeks, I've been thinking about how we can more intentionally connect with our friends on Facebook. In this last week, I'm writing about something a little different. I think this last, though, is crucial to enabling us to have the love and energy we need to really be there for our friends.

In my experience, and I’m not the first writer or researcher to suggest this, one of the most striking results of the social networking phenomenon is that solitude has become nearly non-existent. Thanks to social media, there is a world of people out there who are lonely, but never alone.

Human beings need solitude. We need to have thoughts and feelings that we don’t share with anyone but God. We have to have those times when we see only Him and listen for His voice and the truth it brings to our lives. Without that voice, we start to believe our own press, seldom a positive thing. In addition, the Bible frequently recommends that most of the thoughts that go through our heads should never come out of our mouths and certainly, they shouldn’t appear on our Facebook pages. We need to unplug for our own good, and for the good of our friends.

Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, the Smart Phone – they will all be there when we come back. We will miss a few things. God is the only one who can keep track of everything, all the time, and He does, so rest easy. When you come back to the social media universe, resist moving to the world’s beat. Sing a new song!

Facebook Challenge, Week Four: Disconnect for 24 hours. Bonus points for avoiding screens of any kind. Double bonus if you can get your family or a friend to join you.

Facebook's Greatest Hits: I'll Be There

Welcome to week three of the Facebook Friend Challenge! If you’ve got this down, move to the next paragraph. If you’re just joining us, we’ve been thinking about social networking practices. We have noticed that how we operate confirms recent research, which says we get out of social networking what we bring to it. This research has also found, however, that what many people bring to social media is a growing feeling of disconnectedness. We’ve thought about how we, who call ourselves Christ’s, are also called to bring light and hope to the world. We’ve asked the question, "What do we bring to something like Facebook?" We’re looking to make a difference, even on Facebook, and using Jesus’ example to guide us.

As everyone knows, Jesus enjoyed a good meal with friends. He hung out with people and shared their lives. Sometimes it was dramatic – probably with Jesus, it was never boring. Most of the time, it was just life together.

It could be argued that Facebook was originally created to help people connect at a certain time and a certain place in the real world ...okay, it was created by a guy in order to keep track of which cute girls were at the best parties at Harvard…but we’re about redemption here, right? There is no substitute for real-world, human contact. I love that I get to see a picture of the awesome steak my friends barbecued for dinner last night. They had a great time, and it makes me happy to know they were happy. However, we could only truly bond over that steak if I was there, eating it with them, and they live on the other side of the continent.


Last time, we considered the question of how many Facebook friends is too many, and I suggested that each of us has to determine that for himself. Since then, I’ve wondered, how do I make the tough decisions about which requests to accept and which to ignore? The principle that we’re looking at today can help answer that question.

We are innately curious creatures, we humans. We were created this way and it’s how we learn. Just like most things in life, though, it can be two-edged sword – fulfilling our curiosity can also become an unhealthy addiction. Researchers have discovered something interesting about people who use Facebook to coordinate and reflect on real-world contact. They tend to be more satisfied and happy in general than people who use social networking to keep track of those they never see in real life. The results are in and, clearly, there are better ways to spend a life than trolling the halls of Facebook but never connecting. Chatting and commenting on people’s posts are good, getting together in real life is better.

So, if I have to make a choice between accepting a request from an old high school friend that I haven’t seen for twenty years and won’t talk to again until my 30^th High School Reunion – or, accepting a request from someone I just met at church last Sunday – familiarity might incline me to go with the old high school friend, but it would be way better for both of us to accept the local new acquaintance. Facebook is a great tool for arranging help, encouragement, and connection with local friends. Let’s use it that way.

Facebook Challenge, Week Three: Use Facebook to arrange a meet with local friends in the real world…of course!

Facebook's Greatest Hits: Someone To Watch Over Me

Welcome to week two of my Facebook Friend Challenge. If you've been with me all along – thanks, and move on to the next paragraph. If you’re just joining us, we’ve been thinking about social networking practices, and noticing that how we operate confirms recent research, which says we get out of social networking what we bring to it. This research has also found, however, that what many people bring to social media is a growing feeling of disconnectedness. We’ve thought about how we, who call ourselves Christ’s, are also called to bring light and hope to the world. We have asked the question, "What do we bring to something like Facebook?" We’re looking to make a difference, even on Facebook, and using Jesus’ example to guide us.

Last week, we thought about looking beyond the image people project, not comparing our lives to others, and generally keepin’ it real. This week, we’ll go deeper into how we might better support each other.

 Photo by Melissa Rose 

Jesus spent the majority of His time with His closest friends, serving them, teaching them, listening to them, and encouraging them. Sure, Jesus had thousands of followers, and hundreds of disciples. But the Bible gives the impression that He saved the best of Himself for twelve guys, one of whom He knew would ultimately betray Him. 

Consider these facts: 

On Facebook, commenting on a friend’s status actually creates a greater sense of connectedness, for both of you, than hitting the like button - yes, people have researched this. A robot could hit the like button. It takes a real friend to make a thoughtful comment based on mutual affection. Being able to act on your friends' updates is especially great. For example, if a friend posts a request for prayer, don’t just tell them you’ll pray. Try to stop and pray for them – and then let them know you did. Finally, realize that Facebook is set up so that the people who post the most are the ones that show up front and center on your home page. If you haven’t seen a friend’s post for a while, they may be on vacation in Belize, or they may be taking a break from the social network – more power to them! But it’s also possible that they aren’t doing well and need to hear from a real friend. It’s easy to take a peek at their wall, or better yet, give them a call, and check in.

In light of the above, and Jesus' example, I’ve been wondering – how many people in a social network can each of us emotionally invest in without spending our entire lives staring at a screen? I’m talking primarily here about personal Facebook use, not professional networking (and we all know the difference…right?) From what I can tell, my friend from Junior High (who I’ve mentioned in previous posts) actually seems to be able to take care of his 998 Facebook friends much to their satisfaction. Ditto with my niece and the many followers of her photographic posts. Don’t ask me how these two I’ve mentioned do what they do – it’s just important that they do it.

Me? I’ve been on Facebook for a couple of months, now. I made a few friend requests. Mostly, I’ve just been experimenting with how many people find me through my maximum privacy settings and minimal profile information (because that’s how I roll). My friends are adding up, and I will soon hit my limit. Only you know how many people you can and should maintain meaningful contact with – but I think it’s important to consider it.

Facebook Challenge, Week Two: Think of a friend who hasn’t posted for a while. Find out what’s going on with him or her. If your friend is having a hard time, hang out with them, on the phone or in person, until they feel better. Alternate Challenge: If it’s been a while since you left more than a thumbs up or a smiley face, take some time and comment on your friends’ posts. Your comments must be more than one word – “nice”, “great”, “cool” don’t count.  “Love it” – one of my personal favorites, is also an automatic disqualification.

Facebook's Greatest Hits: Somewhere Over the Rainbow

                                                            Photo by Melissa Rose 

First, thanks for coming this far with me on my Facebook journey. If you've been with me all along, skip to the next paragraph. If you’re just joining us, I’ve been thinking about our social networking practices, and noticing that how we operate confirms recent research, which says we get out of social networking what we bring to it. This research has also found, however, that what many people bring to social media is a growing feeling of disconnectedness. I’ve thought about how I, who call myself Christ’s, am also called to bring light and hope to this world. I’ve asked the question, “What do I bring to something like Facebook?” 

Last time, I suggested four examples of how Jesus related to friends. It’s interesting to see how Jesus’ example seems consistent with what recent research suggests is the healthier approach to social networking – healthy for us, and our friends. That is what I’ll be looking at for the next four weeks, and if you’re up for it, we’ll give following Jesus’ example a shot with a weekly challenge. Ready? Here we go.

Jesus saw beyond the image that people tried to project. Rather than tearing them down or simply calling them out, He encouraged them in their real heart’s desire – to be the best version of themselves – to be the person God created them to be, in Christ.

One article I’ve read about the Facebook phenomenon equated people’s Facebook pages to the airbrushed photos of models on the covers of fashion magazines. Both are projections of an ideal – but neither is real life and never will be. As Jesus also made clear, comparing ourselves to other people isn’t helpful for anyone. It’s particularly damaging when we compare our lives as a whole to someone else’s few, stellar moments.

At the same time, it is helpful to know what our friends think are the best moments in their lives and the best versions of themselves. Of course, everyone wants to be articulate, interesting, witty, and upbeat with fulfilling jobs, fabulous vacations, dear friends, cute kids, and great spouses. But no one’s real, day-to-day life is actually like this, no matter how successful, rich, or famous they may be.

While I know that the “air-brushed” Facebook phenomenon is a common one, I can honestly say that my Facebook friends have also confronted a mountain of adversity in the last few weeks. These challenges have included career changes, chemo-therapy and other health issues, and the loss of close family members – and my friends have felt comfortable sharing their struggles with me and their other Facebook friends. In return, they have received a lot of encouragement and support, and this is a very good thing.

However, even these tragic times in our lives do not (thankfully) really represent the truth of our day-to-day existence. Sharing them with our Facebook friends is informative, can be helpful, and can result in opportunities for encouragement and comfort. But in the end, our really low points don’t represent the truth of who we are any better than our really high points.

Isn’t it true that life is not about these dramatic moments, anyway, but about the struggle in between? When I say struggle, I don’t just mean the really challenging trials. I mean the day-to-day struggle to be kind  and patient when we feel stressed, to not make our bad day someone else’s, to get up in the morning and go to work (or look for work) and come home and love our families, and then get up the next morning and do the same thing over again. The struggle is how we grow. Persevering through that struggle affects our maturity – it’s how we become the people God created us to be. The beautiful moments – the unexpected joy, the laughter, the sunsets and rainbow views – are just some of the ways God lets us know it will all be worth it.

So this is what I’ve decided to do: Join my friends in taking joy in the beautiful or dramatic times they post about. Comfort and sympathize with them through the really low points. Remember that the rest of their lives are filled with days of tedious struggle, just like mine. Keep my Facebook page as real as I can, and encourage others when they do the same. The self-portraits that my photographer niece posts on days when she’s not feelin’ it, when she does (and wears) nothing of note, are some of my favorites – puffy eyes, torn t-shirt, greasy hair, unmade bed, computer camera and all – that’s my girl!

Facebook Challenge, Week One: Compose thoughtful status updates this week that give your Facebook friends insight into the day-to-day reality of your life. Alternate Challenge - Find a recent friend post that seems particularly real to you. Encourage the friend in a comment and thank them for sharing. Bonus points if no one else has commented.