What Was From The Beginning

What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands concerning the Word of Life…

Picture the apostles, the struggle and responsibility. How to communicate the truth of their life-changing relationship with Jesus? Inspired by God, yes. Still, they were faced with the challenge of explaining what they had seen and experienced while Jesus was with them, and all that they had come to understand about the infinite breadth of God’s love for us. Far away from those other believers struggling to understand, somehow, the apostles had to speak the truth of it – in writing. Did they think, “How much will they really understand? How much can we hope for?” They wrote, and covered their words in prayer.

I hesitate to write about being a Christian and a writer. Even after forty-some years of trying to do it creatively, twenty of those semi-professionally, I still consider myself a novice. I feel the same about my relationship to the Word of Life. The two are bound up together and inextricably linked. I want both to be whole and healing, but how much can I hope for in this life?

…and the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us…

How to communicate the seminal experience of your life, to those who have known only a fraction of the same experience, if at all? The apostles came to understand God’s eternal nature, His power, love, and sovereign goodwill toward us, as they walked the earth with God manifested – with the man, Jesus. They saw Him, touched Him, spoke with Him, heard the words from His own lips. They loved Him as a friend before they loved Him as their God. “You can, all of you, have this same rich experience of God,” they seem to be saying. “Listen! You can know this fellowship, too, and for an eternity.

Do I feel like such a novice because I’ve barely begun? Will I continue to ponder and illuminate my eternal relationship with the Word of Life through a heavenly version of creative writing...forever? Will I continue to improve, always increasing in understanding? “Further up and further in.” Infinitely? A heartening thought, that endless possibility.

...that we have seen and heard and proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. These things we write, so that our joy may be made complete.

It seems the apostles never stopped trying, even to the point of death, to explain what their experience of Jesus and His death and resurrection mean for all of us. In every way they could think of – metaphorically, poetically, creatively, scholarly, in simple language and lawerly, sometimes just the straight, unvarnished facts – no holds barred, all genres employed, to communicate the truth. They believed that these things they wrote, and the results of their writing, completed what was begun the day they met Jesus.

A God who knows us and wants to be known by us is a miraculous thing - it is almost unbelievable. It is also the only thing that makes sense, our only cure, and our only way home. It seems I, too, am compelled to keep trying to explain the joy and freedom I have found in this fellowship with the Word of Life. I struggle to do it in every way I know how, in my relationships, my work, as I “come in and go out,” as I write. There isn’t just one way. It doesn’t have to be chapter and verse. Except sometimes. Sometimes it does. These things I write, so that my joy may be made complete.

Lola 2

This is the second in a series, catch the first one in the archives on the right to catch up!

 Personally, one of the things I most love about God is His incredible creative genius. We, being created in His image, are also made to create. When I see what we humans come up with, imperfect as it is, it makes me happy. It makes me glorify God. I can honestly say, part of what’s going on when I’m enjoying The Kinks’ song, Lola, is that I admire the creativity it exhibits, and it makes me think about the Creator who created the creator who created Lola.

  I don’t have this experience with all art. There is a lot of really bad art out there – a surprising percentage of which is created expressly to mock God and another percentage that’s created to do the opposite, but because it isn’t well thought out or true, it ends up mocking God all the same. However, I don’t believe this is true of Lola, or of a lot of “secular” art in general. Yes, I believe that God would probably be grieved at the lifestyle and culture that a song like Lola comes out of, and I should be, too. But Lola doesn’t glorify the lifestyle – in fact, part of the genius of the song is that it makes fun of itself. 

   It tells a story that people have loved in all its different forms for more than a thousand years – the country rube goes to the city, and he thinks he’s all that, because he got away from the sticks-in-the-mud in his small town. Practically the minute he gets off the bus, he makes a huge mistake due to his ego, stupidity and naïveté, that most people (including the audience) could see coming a mile away. Ultimately, the mistake leads to greater self-knowledge.

  

 By 1970, this story has been told a hundred different ways – everyone has heard it more than once. Yet, Ray Davies takes it and sets it to the bizarre chorus of the life he found himself in. With one bold, humorously self-effacing song he and his mates exhibit a cutting edge musical style, an amazing set of lyrics, and an astute commentary on society in general. I would say that’s worth admiring and, yes, even emulating.  Because there isn’t much new under the sun, and if Christian artists were striving to do what the Kinks did, and setting it to the chorus of their lives in Christ, think what kind of art we Christians would be producing. It’d be different than most of what we have currently – it would be better.

“…Girls will be boys and boys will be girls.

It’s a mixed up muddled up shook up world…”

  The words still apply. Seriously, I’d rather not struggle with this. I’d much rather play it safe.  It wouldn’t kill me if I never heard Lola again. I could go all Amish and walk away from pop culture altogether, it would be easy. I have that kind of personality – I home school my kids – I’m half-way there already.

  Except…except…Jesus never played it safe. Not once that I know of. It seems like most Christian artists are happy to do so, though. We’re pretty sure we know what we shouldn’t do, but that doesn’t get us anywhere until we hit on what we should be doing. Kind of reminds me of some other lyrics, by another of my favorite bands, 

“…The trouble is

We don’t know who we are instead…”

  I could walk away from Lola and all of pop culture, but that wouldn’t change anything, because I’d still be the girl who loves Lola. Isn’t that the heart of it – my desire? If Lola is wrong to listen to, it’s not that there needs to be less Lola in the world – there just needs to be less Lisa.

Thanks to Erika and her friends for the awesome picture!

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!