What's the Best Way to Be Married?

I see a lot to agree with in this sermon by an old childhood friend: The Abundant Life of the Church « Gracious Jots

Here is one of my favorite parts:

Let me be very clear. I do think God wants us to be content. I do think God wants us to have enough food to eat so that we do not go to bed hungry.  I do think God wants us to experience healing and wholeness. However, I do not think that the prosperity gospel is actually good news nor do I think it brings contentment, healing, or even wholeness.

There is abundant life found in the life of the church.  And this abundant life can be experienced by each participating member of the church, regardless of financial situation.

This is a message the American church needs very badly. Too often, we conflate plenty with blessing and lack with tribulation. The New Testament, however, teaches that circumstance should never constrain our contentment or our joy.

As much as I appreciate this sermon's main argument, I do have some concerns with its discussion of Ephesians 5:21-33:

This passage is used in weddings all the time and is used to subjugate women to men.  Let’s acknowledge that this passage has been used for more harm than good.

Abundant life does not flow from harmful hierarchy or even patriarchy within relationships. This model essentially argues for the marriage to be about one person’s needs while another just meets all those needs.  This practice is really unhealthy in marriage.

Furthermore, This passage isn’t intended to explain how to have a Christian marriage in the 21^st century.   No, this passage is talking about the unity and intimacy between Christ and Christ’s beloved- the church.

This passage on marriage is the author using what he had to work with (an understanding of a 1^st century marriage) to explain how much Christ loves the church, and how the church is supposed to love Christ.

I agree that this passage has been used to justify many ungodly actions. However, that doesn't mean we can completely throw out the model of marriage that it describes.

It is true that this passage is, most importantly, a description of the loving relationship between Christ and His bride, the church. But to say it isn't also God's blueprint for healthy marriages is to miss a significant part of the passage's power.

If willing submission to the authority of another is subjugation, then the Father has been subjugating the Son since before the foundation of the world. Christ has been subjugating His beloved Bride for the past two millennia. Church leaders all over the world subjugate the flocks that their Savior entrusts them to protect and feed.

Would anyone argue that Christ's suffering on the cross was centered on His own needs? Or that God the Father's plan to heal His broken people was a self-centered one? Or that genuinely caring elders in a church weep, pray, and minister to their people out of selfish ambition?

Those examples are within the same model Paul advocates for marriage. In this model, there is danger of marriage being all about one person's needs. That person, however, is the wife. (The one "lower" in the hierarchy is always served by the one "above.")


The sermon claims that this passage "isn't intended to explain how to have a Christian marriage in the 21st century."

That's true. It is, however, intended to explain how to have a Christian marriage. Period.

God's standards for life and godliness don't change from age to age, and He says the best way to have a marriage is when a husband loves his wife more than himself and the wife submits to and respects her husband. This doesn't mean life will be perfect -- but it does mean it will be a lot less painful.

I wrote a lot more about inspiration and metaphor and postmodernism, but it seemed like more heat than light, so I deleted it. I think for me, the important thing is that this is how God wants me to live, so I'm going to choose to do it, no matter what others think (or even what I think).

And I guess that's submission, too.

Gifts From Afar

I'm very grateful on this day for my Hutchbuddies, the Warnemuendes. As part of the Rabbit Room's gift exchange, they sent me not one, but TWO fabulous books, as well as a beautiful handmade card and bookmarks!

The two books are Sally Lloyd-Jones's Song of the Stars and an omnibus collection of Asterix comics. The former is a book I have been wanting for some time, and the latter is a delightful introduction to a whimsical, pun-filled saga of Gaulish resistance to Roman rule.

The gifts are lovely and thoughtful, but I am still more thankful for the community they represent. These folks have met me in person maybe once, but they still care for me and want to share beauty with me on the occasion of our Savior's birth. How good and pleasant it is to dwell together in unity with brethren I've barely even met!

Take a look at this post's comments to see other people's gift exchange stories.

Who to Blame

In case you didn't know, a bad man killed a lot of people (including 20 children between preschool and 4th grade)  in Connecticut yesterday. This was an abhorrent act, perpetrated by a strong man in the prime of his youth on some of the weakest people around.

Of course, cable news networks being what they are, the "experts" started coming on within minutes of the event, making intelligent-sounding noises for as long as the show's host would allow them to. They claimed to have the answers for the questions each viewer was asking: Why did this tragedy happen? Where does the blame lie? How can we fix this?

It seems like heartbroken people are most easily comforted when they can pin the blame down. That way, at least you have someone or something to direct your anger toward.

You would be at least partly right to blame any of these:

• People who insist on having the right to obtain and keep deadly weapons, regardless of how this right (or these weapons) could be misused
• A culture that doesn't take mental illness seriously ("If I can't see it, it doesn't exist!")
• Parents who get divorced when they discover that marriage is hard, leaving their children with gaping emotional wounds
• A media establishment that glorifies violence until it actually happens in the real world, at which point it becomes, of course, an unthinkable tragedy
• News shows that run stories with headlines like "Inside the Mind of Evil," trying to define what makes "those people" different from good, normal, upstanding folk like you and me
• A community that doesn't engage people, connect to their places of greatest need, and bring them the deep and abiding healing of true fellowship

As you listen to the "experts," you'll notice a pattern. Most of their ideas involve legislative fixes to perceived problems. 

This is true for the rest of our culture, too. We feel that if we can all just agree on the problem and the solution, then we can simply change the law, and voila! No more problem. So we lobby for stronger gun-control laws, for more mental health funding, for better security systems in schools.

But regardless of how hard we work to fix them, the problems keep recurring. No matter what laws are made, we can't seem to get past the fact that people do terrible things to each other.

So who do we blame for the deeper problem here? The one we can't seem to solve? Here's what I believe: 

The light has come into the world and people loved the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil deeds hates the light and does not come to the light, so that their deeds will not be exposed. (Jn. 3:19-20)

And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what should not be done. They are filled with every kind of unrighteousness, wickedness, covetousness, malice. They are rife with envy, murder, strife, deceit, hostility. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, contrivers of all sorts of evil, disobedient to parents, senseless, covenant-breakers, heartless, ruthless. Although they fully know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but also approve of those who practice them. (Rom. 1:28-32)

 Making laws, starting committees, and working for social change might have some effect on the world, just as a properly applied piece of gauze might have some effect on a gushing carotid artery. But this patient is going to need surgery if we're going to keep him from bleeding out.

That's why the story of the school shooting is a perfect accompaniment to Advent. It is yet another example of the pain, sorrow, and utter brokenness that Jesus Christ was born to heal.

In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting people’s trespasses against them, and he has given us the message of reconciliation. (II Cor. 5:19)

I haven't shot 20 children in cold blood, but my sinful heart is capable of such evil. And so is yours. He came to right our wrongs and to bring wholeness to a people sickened unto death. He came to heal the rift between God and man -- a rift that we feel most keenly in tragic circumstances.

His death and resurrection on our behalf offers redemption and restoration to you, me, and others just like us whose faults are more evident (and seemingly more tragic).

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

Chaos, Order, and Creation

It has been a hard week at the LuapHacim home.

Our one-year-old has been -- to put it delicately -- disposing of his stomach's contents more rapidly than is his custom. Much more rapidly. Out of both ends.

Our nearly-three-year-old has been making his first essays into the exciting world of The Potty ("All aboard the Potty Train! Choo choo!"), with a fairly good success-to-failure ratio. Outliers still exist, however.

And the night before last, their mother became violently ill. This has lasted a couple of days so far.

So, between scrubbing "accidents" out of Lightning McQueen underwear, disinfecting vomit-encrusted mattresses, and doing more loads of laundry than you can shake a stick at, I have been quite occupied.

Nonetheless, my existence has not been some toil-laden, grim, unending scene from Upton Sinclair's The Jungle.

I took the older boy to the library, put up Christmas lights in his room, and had sweet cuddles with the younger boy (after giving him several extremely necessary baths). Since my wife has not been eating much, I made myself a nice lentil curry last night. (She does not normally prefer curry.) I even watched a few episodes of a favorite TV show and read a good chunk of The Non-Designer's Design Book, by Robin Williams (not that Robin Williams).

All of it -- the sickness,  the laundry, the bathing of small children, the cleaning, the cooking, the reading -- made me ponder the joy of creating order out of chaos.

I came home from work yesterday much earlier than I had planned, since my wife was incapacitated and the children were needy. Toys were strewn, toddler-style, throughout most of the livable space in the house. Dishes were stacked in the sink, vomit and fecal stains were abundant, and I was the only one who could make it better.

So, from the disorder, I was forced to weave something better. The toys went to their homes. The messes were cleaned up. The defiled places were disinfected. Little by little, chaos retreated and order was restored.  And when that happened, I felt myself re-energized. It felt like I had accomplished something significant.

I was reminded of Genesis 1, where God creates the world. Bit by bit, He forms light, land, the heavens, plants, animals, and people. He sees the work of His hand and recognizes that it is very good. My Bible's notes tell me that the Hebrew word  for "create" in Genesis 1:1 is בָּרָא (bara’), which often means forming anew, reforming, or renewing (see Ps 51:10; Isa 43:15, 65:17).

I think the desire and ability to remake our surroundings are some of the most important signs that we are created in God's image. We clean things up, we put them in order, we drive out the chaos and confusion, and we embellish our work with some Christmas lights and lentil stew, or perhaps a world of stunning biodiversity (depending on our skill level).

Like the Almighty, when our work is done, we behold it and recognize that it is very good. 

A Real and Present Kingdom

My Hutch-buddy Travis (who is, incidentally, one of the world's foremost Harry Potter nerds) posted this fantastic sermon:

There are those who believe that the world is getting worse and worse, and our ultimate goal is to escape it before it all gets destroyed. People pine for the good old days when everyone went to church and believed in God, and lament the tragic state of today. There are others who believe the world is progressing toward goodness, getting better and better as time runs on. People lament the old days of darkness and injustice and celebrate how enlightened we’ve become. Neither the traditionalist nor the progressive view is accurate, because it takes a lot more than progress or magical escape routes to fix the fallen world we live in. It takes the world’s Creator, its King, Jesus. And the way he’s chosen to bring this redeeming, reconciling, healing kingdom to the world is through the cross, and through a group of humble cross-bearers known as the church.

Do I march in lockstep with Travis's theology? Clearly not. I am not Episcopalian, after all.

Do I think he has some very powerful points? Absolutely.

Do yourself a favor and read the whole thing here.

Giving Thanks

A couple of weeks ago, I awoke to the sound of rain on the roof. The sky outside was grim and gray. The rain had driven away the summery warmth of the previous day.

The spluttering, drizzling chill of the day reminded me of Thanksgiving 2004, which I spent in Scotland. I still see, smell, and taste that traditional turkey-and-trimmings feast, prepared by Kansans in the fellowship hall of an ancient church in the heart of Dundee's city centre.

We were a small, curious potpourri of people, all in town for a wedding: the groom's family, half a dozen of his old youth group friends, and another family from our church, temporarily located to Scotland for academic work on cattle.

We were strangers in a strange land, and perhaps because of that, we were intensely thankful. We were glad for the castles in Edinburgh and Glamis, for the beach and ruins at St. Andrew's, for friends of friends who had generously shared their homes and their time to make us welcome.

I was in the middle of a hard semester of graduate school. In fact, I carried my English Grammar term project with me everywhere on the trip. I worked on it during flights and long car rides -- in any spare moment I could find. So this hiatus from school -- indeed, from the land of my birth -- was a welcome one. It distracted me just enough to remind me how very, very blessed I was.

For me, that Thanksgiving in Dundee was one of more intense gratitude than any I could remember. I found myself thanking the Almighty not only for the things that were going well in my life, but also for those that were not going well at all. It was one of the first times I felt like I had fulfilled Paul's command to the Thessalonians: "Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus."

In the spirit of that prodigiously thankful day, I'd like to give thanks publicly for a few things that didn't go according to my plan. Each of these things brought me temporary pain of one sort or another, but time has proven to me that pain can give way to immense blessing.

• I am thankful that every girl I went out with in college studiously avoided going on a second date with me.
• I am thankful for the English faculty at the University of Kansas. Particularly, I am thankful for my advisor, Jim Hartman, who warned me to count the cost of pursuing a PhD, and for the graduate committee, who wisely declined my PhD application as I was finishing up my M.A.
• I am thankful for the potential employers throughout northeast Kansas who decided to "go with another option" when evaluating my applications for employment.
• I am thankful for the manager who humiliated me to the point of tears in a meeting two years ago.
• I am thankful that my wife knows my darkest secrets and deepest flaws.
• I am thankful that I turned out not to be a very good freshman English teacher. 

My current job, my relationship with my wife, and indeed, every direction my life has taken in the past seven years, seem to drip with God's guidance. I have seen my own plans thwarted often enough to recognize that His plans are invariably better. 

May I rely less on myself and increase my thankfulness in every circumstance as I continue growing in wisdom and maturity. 

What are you thankful for on this Thanksgiving weekend, dear reader? 

Slave (Rom. 1:1)

Note from the LuapHacim: I am working through Paul's letter to the Romans, trying to get a little deeper into its arguments. I find that writing free verse helps me to stretch my thinking about a thing, so I'm writing one free verse thingie (I hesitate to call them poems) for every verse or two in the book. The results will be posted here with the label "Romans Indisprosed." Comments and criticism are welcome, with one requirement: they must be in free verse, too. It is impermissible to hate the playa without participating in the game.

Slave

No will, no power, no choice,
Constrained by a master's orders,
Sold into subservience,
Yet, inexplicably, full of joy.

Why?

Zealous, bloodthirsty persecutor,
Hand-picked by a laughing god
To serve the object of his former hatred,
To sing of the love that transformed him
From a Very Important Pharisee
Into a laughingstock and a byword,
That wrested away his last lingering shred
Of poisonous self-importance,
Replacing it, like a bad blind taste-test,
With reviling, ridicule,
Stonings, beatings, shipwrecks,
Poverty, pain, and prison.

And filled him with joy, to hold him there.

Taste the irony. A dignified fundamentalist
Transformed into a heretical buffoon,
An unlikely mouthpiece:
The almighty's favorite kind.

The Kind of Miracle We Overlook

My Hutch-friend Julie wrote a great post about an injury she experienced: Miracle | Greener Trees.

Why do I consistently fail to recognize the healing presence of God in healthy white blood cells, or miraculous mucus, or the very skin that protects my delicate innards?

We don't realize how good things are until they get broken, I guess...

Album Review: Matthew Clark's "Bright Came the Word From His Mouth"

I love epics. Not much makes me happier than trekking with Frodo through Mordor toward Mount Doom or sailing over the bright whaleroad to Heorot with Beowulf. Something about these broad, sweeping stories engages me and pulls me in deeper than other tales can.

So I was thrilled at the chance to hear an advance review copy of Matthew Clark's upcoming project, Bright Came the Word From His Mouth.

This album is a thoughtful, melodious journey from one end of time to the other. It deals with the most significant facets of human existence. In the bard's rhythms and rhymes, we hear echoes of eternity. An epic, if ever I've heard one.

Appropriately enough, "Bright Came the Word" is inspired by Sandra Richter's book, The Epic of Eden. Clark wrote the album as a soundtrack for the book's companion DVD. Richter's purpose for writing the book was to put the Old Testament in a usable order so readers could gain a better understanding of God's redemptive plan.

Clark's album dovetails nicely with that mission. The very first song, "Overture," engages listeners with themes that continue as unbroken threads until the end: sin, sacrifice, redemption, and reconciliation. It foreshadows an album that is remarkably unified, both musically and lyrically.

"Overture" is also a great introduction to Clark's musical style. He creates delicate, carefully measured melodies, consistently backed by his skillful folk guitar as well as understated vocal and instrumental harmonies. His sound, reminiscent of Matthew Perryman Jones or David Crowder, is sincere, honest and dynamic.

Clark's lyrics are no less skillful than his music. They are dense with vivid metaphors and insightful readings of scripture. These lines from "Overture" tell volumes about Abram, his faith, and how he foreshadowed the redemption that would come in the person of Christ:

Abram held the promise close, Raised the blade above his head 

 A son will surely give his life, Know the promise breaks the knife

These lyrics exemplify Clark's commitment to depth and truth without preachiness. It is often difficult to communicate sound doctrine in an imaginative way, but Clark maintains an unfailing balance between orthodoxy and creativity.

It's hard to pick a single high point of this album. From the wistful longing of "Oh Eden!" to the driving rhythm of "Let Go the Floodgates" to the melancholy, expectant strains of "Where I Am You May Also Be," Clark communicates a variety of emotions and allows his music to illustrate the depth and richness of the gospel story.

In many ways, though, "Redemption Song" stands out as the cornerstone of Bright Came the Word From His Mouth. Its chronological scope is very broad, and it shows the continuity of God's plan in an especially eloquent and imaginative way. It weaves the stories of Lot, Ruth, and Hosea together as examples of humanity's desperate need for a savior. The final verse encapsulates the album's entire message in a single brief burst of lyrical beauty:

So the Father sends his only son, to ransom all the lost

From enemies too strong for them, from the poverty of loss

In the squalor of the pit, where the willing faithless sit

To the depths the love of God has sent his Word, redemption

I suppose a reviewer is more or less obligated to find something nasty to say about what he is reviewing. At any rate, that is the idea I get from most of the reviews I read. Well, I have bad news: I don't have anything nasty to say about this album. However, I suppose I can invent something sort of unfavorable to say about one of the tracks, since you insist.

"Let Go the Floodgates" sticks out just a little bit. Its bluesy, rhythmic music is markedly different from most of the other songs on the album, and the narrative voice of its lyrics is also pretty unique. It's certainly no monstrosity, and its sound is positively addictive. Nonetheless, if you held a gun to my head and demanded that I remove or alter a song on this album, I would say, "Seriously? I really don't want to." And you would say, "I'll use this! Don't think I won't! You're on thin ice, scumbag!" And then I suppose I would say this one. Not because it's bad, but because it seems like the album would still hold together OK without it.

Well, that was adequately painful, I think. Let's get back to gushing for a little while longer. 

"Reprise" is a perfect way to end the story. In it, Clark closes out his epic journey by returning to its beginning. Creation, once corrupted by sin and death, has been restored by Christ's redemptive work. Eden, once lost, has been regained:

Rest your sword by your side, fling the gates wide, at ease you cherubim

Dance you City of God, trees clap your hands, God and man home again

It is a marvelous, triumphant finish to a consistently excellent album. If you don't feel like getting up and dancing during "Reprise," then you are probably way too uptight and should loosen up, man. Seriously.

From beginning to end, this is a noteworthy album, full of truth, light, life, and hope. It is an epic, but more importantly, it is a clear, beautiful, and powerful account of a loving God who gave His all to bring His wandering children home.

Bright Came the Word From His Mouth is slated for release in January 2013. You can learn more about Matthew's music at his Web site. If you want to help him recoup some of the cost of recording the album, take a look at his indiegogo fundraising site.

God's Polity

The other day, I posted a link to Sara's thoughts about election night.  Here are some more ideas that I respect regarding our election outcome. I guess what they have in common is that each one exemplifies a genuinely Christian way of thinking about power and politics.  

• One unabashed theocrat on U.S. Election Day 2012 and the Crown Rights of King Jesus « Morning at the Brown Brink
• The Election is Over: Long Live the King! « The Colossian Forum
• On This Dying Land « The Little Boots Liturgies

I can't add much to these thoughts, except for a few basic points that I'm sure you've heard before:

• No matter who is in charge, God wants me to:
• Submit to them (Rom. 13:1-5)
• Respect them (Ibid.)
• Pray for them (I Tim. 2: 1-4)
• Pay my taxes (Rom. 13:6-7, Mk. 12:13-17)
• Obey human law, as long as it isn't in direct conflict with God's (Rom. 13:1-5, Acts 5:27-29)
• Live quietly, work hard, and mind my own business (I Thes. 4:10-12)
• God's kingdom is not of this world (Jn. 6:14-15, 18:36)
• For believers in Christ, He is the only ruler we need (Php. 2:5-11, Rev. 19:16)

I vote not because I think legislation will change the sinful hearts of Americans, but because doing so is part of giving Caesar the things that are Caesar's. As Sara said the other day, "our salvation does not reside on Capitol Hill." Praise God for that! Can you imagine entrusting all your hope to the inefficient bureaucratic morass that is the United States Federal Government?

Our hope and our citizenship reside in the person of Christ, who is enthroned at the right hand of God. Because of this, we put aside the dark deeds of the flesh and follow the light that emanates from our great leader. We do not (and cannot!) legislate righteousness; it comes only from utter dependence on Christ. (See Col. 3 for more on this.)

One more quote before I stop rambling. This one is from Brave Saint Saturn (one of my favorite bands of all time): 

Real change doesn’t come from a mandate

Real love you cannot legislate

Amen, amen, and pass the IRS Form 1040.

My Name is LuapHacim and I Agree With This Message

Hey, a thoughtful post on politics, courtesy of one of my wife's friends!

Day 6 « My Ears Are Tired:

We can know that we are called to respect and honor and pray for our leaders.  Every single one of them.  May we all find hope, strength, and peace in the knowledge that our salvation does not reside on Capitol Hill.

Check out the whole thing at the link above.

Poems Inspired by John's Gospel

My Hutch-friend Rebecca has written some really good poems about the Gospel of John. I have been meaning to link to them for a while.

Here are some lines from her latest one (The Little Boots Liturgies: John 20):

They sat in blanked silence,
retracing the death of all known belief,
yielding to every aftershock,
as it rolled through the dry earth of their bodies.

“It is finished!” 
They had heard it with their own ears.
They had watched
while each last hope pulled shut

like a bolted door,

through which
Hope passed (even yet)
and stood among them.

“Peace, be with you.”

See Him there,
transposing physics.

OK, so I wanted to go on quoting, but pretty soon I would have posted the whole poem, and then you would have no reason to click on the link to her site.

Don't just sit here; there's poetry to be read! What are you doing still reading this?!

On Potato Salad

One of my Hutch-buddies wrote this post on life, death, and funeral food: Feasting in Life | The Quirky Redhead. This reminded me of an essay I wrote a few years ago and have been meaning for some time to post here. So, here it (finally) is.

I have been suspicious of potato salad for as long as I can remember.

Nonetheless, I love it: The soft, satisfying chunks of tuber, the gentle bite of pickle juice, the sweet, smooth, tangy mayo, the occasional crunch of onion. Its texture is every bit as wonderful as its taste. It's pleasing to the eyes, too, garnished with careful slices of hard-boiled egg, perfect parsley sprigs, and vivid dashes of paprika.

I remember sitting in the kitchen one sweltering Fourth of July morning, watching my mother drain a pot of steaming, brown-jacketed potatoes ("If you skin them before you boil them, the texture isn't as good," she explained). I remember my small fingers laboring to peel an egg, exasperated by the tiny bits of shell that never seemed to trouble my mother. ("It sometimes helps if you peel it under running water.") I remember cutting the eggs very carefully ("Never toward your hand!"), forming perfect circles of rich, crumbly yellow inside perfect circles of smooth, solid white. I remember teasing the boiled skin off the soft potatoes, using my clean fingernails ("Always wash your hands!") to pinch and pull, trying to remove every last bit of brown.

And, after the mysterious alchemy of mayonnaise and onions, of parsley and pickle juice and paprika, after the mixing and seasoning and stirring and garnishing, comes the glorious eating. 

If anything is more delightful to the palate than potato salad, it must be potato salad that you yourself have had a hand in preparing. It goes into your mouth and, as you chew, attains a miraculous homogeny, a wondrous e pluribus unum of flavor and texture.

So you see how enormously it pains me to suspect potato salad of anything besides being the perfect side dish for any informal dining occasion. Nonetheless, the circumstantial evidence is simply too great to ignore.

***

Exhibit A: Grandma's potato salad in a green Tupperware bowl sitting on a battered folding table in the cool, dark basement fellowship hall of the Belleville United Methodist Church, Belleville, KS, October 1986.

Great Aunt Marjorie, Grandma’s sister, has just died, and we are celebrating. 

That, at least, is how it seems to my five-year-old mind. I cannot fathom why this death, this ceasing-to-be of a human being, would be cause for rejoicing. But there it is, the delightful potato salad, just like it was at my birthday a week earlier, when Aunt Marjorie wasn't dead in a box upstairs.

Perhaps Aunt Marjorie is hiding in the basement closet that holds the musty old choir robes. Any moment now, she will burst gloriously forth into the fellowship hall, and we'll all know it was just a trick, a magnificent joke that fooled everyone but me. We will see that the life really hasn't ebbed from her wizened old body that smells of peppermint and lavender soap, and we will offer her some of Grandma's delectable potato salad.

I begin to grow uneasy as the festivities die down without event. The joke has become less funny; when will Aunt Marjorie return from the closet to the land of the living? She must be awfully hungry in there. I wonder if I should take her a plate of food.

"Micah, find your jacket. It's time to go." My mother's voice doesn't sound quite normal. She must be tired.

"Mom," I want to ask, "when will Aunt Marjorie stop hiding?" And I almost do ask, but then I am afraid of the answer.

The last bite of potato salad sticks in my throat as I search the basement for my jacket. I sneak a peek into the robe closet. Nothing is there but ancient, faded cloth saturated with smells of armpits and mildew. I decide not to ask for potato salad on my next birthday.

***

Exhibit B: An educational electronic display at the Exploration Place museum, Wichita, KS, June 1996.

The museum display features an electronic screen with a large, colorful drawing of a picnic, complete with a number of cartoonish people. In front of the screen is a bank of buttons, including a big red one labeled "Start." The sign above the screen tells me that I am a detective who must solve the case of the mysterious illness that afflicts the people in the picture.

I am intrigued. I have just finished the complete works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In my mind's eye, I am Sherlock Holmes, wearing an overcoat and deerstalker and smoking a pipeful of rough-cut tobacco (which I took from my Persian slipper before leaving Baker Street this morning). I am ready to come to the aid of the poor, ignorant denizens of the drawing.

I follow the instructions and press the red button. 

A disembodied voice assesses the situation for me: "The Smith family is in trouble! Their day of picnicking and fun in the great outdoors has been ruined by upset stomachs. Some of them feel nauseated and miserable. It's up to you to find out why they're sick. For information that might help, press a button that corresponds to a family member's name. Good luck, detective!"

I have not emerged from my education with Sir Arthur without learning a thing or two about observation. 

Before I go any farther, I take careful stock of the scene. Several happy digital children play Frisbee in a field of pixelated grass. Nothing seems to be wrong with them. 

Nearby, there is a table with some adults sitting at it. Two of them look greenish and uncomfortable. Spread across the table are plates, napkins, and a variety of food: Hot dogs, buns, condiments, chips, vegetables, cole slaw, potato salad, cookies, and canned soft drinks. 

Off to the other side of the picture, an adult and several children lie in the sun on blankets, watching the clouds. One of the children looks as if she will be violently ill in very short order.

My stomach sinks as I begin to suspect the reason for the mysterious illness. The first button I press, next to the name “Betty,” confirms my suspicions. 

A young girl’s voice comes over the speaker: “We’ve been here all afternoon. After having a picnic lunch, Tom, Mike, and Amy went over to toss he Frisbee around. Meanwhile, Mom, Dad, Cindy, and Uncle Bill went for a walk together, and Toby and I decided to watch the clouds with Aunt Cathy. When Mom, Dad, and Cindy got back from the walk, they were hungry, so they had seconds. Uncle Bill stopped to pick wildflowers, but he got back later and joined Mom and Dad at the table while Cindy came over to watch the clouds with us."

Even Dr. Watson couldn't get this case wrong. It's obviously food poisoning. And I have a very good guess about which food is responsible.

Cindy's account leaves little doubt in my mind: " I was sooooo hungry! I don't eat meat, but I really liked the cole slaw, veggies, and potato salad. Ugh! Now I’m going to be sick!"

That narrows it down to three. Even though I don't need any more clues -- sometimes a detective just knows -- I am sure Holmes wouldn't stop until he had eliminated all other possibilities, so I interrogate the other witnesses anyway.

Dad Smith, one of the sufferers, informs me that he "can't stand cabbage," and the green-gilled Mom Smith tells me, "Even though my diet doesn't normally allow it, I splurged a little bit and took some potato salad to go with my hot dog." 

To clinch the matter, Uncle Bill (who is feeling perfectly well) says he wanted potato salad when he got back, but it had all been eaten.

As I press a button to confirm that potato salad is the culprit, something within me protests -- how could such a delightful dish cause so much discomfort? How could something so delicious harbor such danger? Nonetheless, once one has eliminated all other possibilities, whatever remains, no matter how unlikely, must be the answer.

And it is. The display goes on to inform me that potato salad is the picnic food most prone to feed bacteria and is consequently the most common source of food poisoning at picnics. The screen says that potato salad, if not kept under 40 degrees Fahrenheit, can be contaminated with dangerous Latin words like Bacillus cereus, Staphylococcus aureus, and Clostridium perfringens. The very sound of them makes me queasy, but I set my jaw and act as if it's not a big deal. Just another case solved.

As I walk away from the exhibit, I wistfully puff my imaginary pipe and wish the cole slaw had been the guilty party.

***

Exhibit C: A stack of green plastic serving bowls beside the dishwashing sink in the back of the kitchen at Kansas Bible Camp in Hutchinson, KS, July 2001.

I have been here at camp all summer. Most of that time, I have been the dishwashing crew chief. I coordinate the cleaning of 150 plates, glasses, forks and spoons per meal, along with 28 pitchers, 14 serving utensils, two water coolers, a dozen pots and pans, sundry cooking implements, and occasionally the monstrous, greasy old grill wedged into the corner between the mop sink and the convection ovens. I also ensure that the kitchen and dining room get mopped and that the groceries get put away where they belong.

This afternoon, I have made the mistake of letting my dish crew go early so they can see the Fourth of July parade in town with the families (including my own) that are camping here this week. I assumed that I would have very few dishes to do, since we ate lunch on paper plates out on the lawn in front of the rambling old camp building. The meal was quite simple: Hamburgers, potato salad, and watermelon, with cookies for dessert. Normally, the only dishes for such a meal are the forks, serving dishes, and utensils, so I reasoned that I would be able to handle the dishes without my crew’s help. Unfortunately, I forgot about the grill.

The grill is my perennial enemy. Each time it is used, I must attack it with my degreaser and scratchy pads to rid it of its greasy, baked-on residue. The process, helpfully outlined on a filthy 3” X 5” card Scotch-taped to the wall behind the grill, is both simple and demanding:

1. Pour water on grill to cool it off
2. Using rubber gloves, spread grill with diluted de-greaser
3. Scrub with grill block; rinse degreaser off
4. Repeat 2 and 3 as needed
5. Wash grill with soap and water; dry with paper towels
6. Apply a coat of Crisco to season grill

The grill is hot this afternoon. As I pour water on it, a burst of steam hisses upward, almost stifling me. 

I sigh, wipe my forehead with a paper towel, and start scrubbing the grill down. I don't bother with the gloves or with diluting the chemicals. The stronger they remain, the sooner I'll be done.

As I finish the grill, the smell of leftover bits of potato salad mingles with the odor of the degreaser to create a new and horrible olfactory sensation. It makes me envision deadly little Latin words swirling around the room, all clad in tiny rubber gloves. 

Moving on to the dish sink, I decide to clean the serving bowls before doing the silverware.

I don’t especially like camp potato salad. It’s made for 150 people, so it isn’t prepared nearly as lovingly or carefully as my mother always made it. Besides, the cooks here use mustard instead of pickle juice, and that gives it too much kick. I’ve never enjoyed potato salad that bites me back. Nonetheless, it’s better than no potato salad, so I had a generous helping at lunch.

As I start spraying the residue off the bowls before washing them, I begin to wish I hadn’t eaten quite so much potato salad. The heat of the day is lukewarm in comparison with the scalding water that shoots from the sprayer. It doesn’t have a temperature control, since no cold-water pipe goes to that part of the kitchen. 

I suppose whoever plumbed the building decided he didn’t need to run two pipes to the sprayer when the dish crew would just want hot water all the time anyway. He obviously did not foresee how uncomfortable it would be to stand in the kitchen on a July day and feel the steam rising from the sprayer. And I’m certain he didn’t know that the hot water from the sprayer could lift the scent of potato salad from bowls and disperse it into the miserably warm kitchen. 

At times, I am so overcome with the all-permeating odor and heat that I almost gag.

Finally, after hours of battling the hamburger grease on the grill and the potato salad residue on the bowls, my last dish is done, and kitchen’s unpleasant smells have all but dissipated. 

I drain the sinks and glance at the clock above the kitchen doorway: 3:15. Just enough time to jump in the camp’s cool, clear swimming pool before the staff prayer meeting at 4:00. I smile and leave the sweltering kitchen to change into swim trunks. I wonder if the families have gotten back from town yet. I haven’t seen my brothers very much today, and they went to the parade earlier. I hope they’re at the pool – they always make my day better.

As I walk into the poolyard, the first person I see is Sam, my 13-year-old brother. He looks as if he’s fighting back tears.

“What’s the matter, buddy?” I am concerned. Sam is normally easygoing and good-natured. If he is distressed, something is severely wrong.

“Something bad happened to Tim.” 

I notice that his eyes are red.“How bad?” 

I think of all the times Tim has been hurt in his 15 years: he has always been the brother with bandaged arms or legs, the one who cracks his head open on playground basketball courts, the one who constantly tries to tackle guys twice his size when we play football in the park. He is wild and reckless, and I love him for it.

“Real bad.” The tears break through Sam’s defenses, and I pull him into a rough hug to help him recover.

Between pauses to regain his composure, Sam tells me the story. They were canoeing and decided to stop at a little sandbar about a mile upstream. The sand there is bleached white, so we’ve always called it Fiji Island (even though it’s neither an island nor especially Pacific in appearance). 

As Sam and the others were writing their names in the sand with sticks, they heard a splash and noticed Tim was missing. When he looked at the creek, Sam saw a bit of Tim’s swim trunks sticking up from the murky water – an air bubble, he quickly concluded.

Thinking that Tim was playing a joke on them, Sam waded across the creek to where Tim was and picked him up out of the water. Tim seemed dazed.“Are you OK, Tim?” Sam asked.

Tim mumbled something that Sam thought was a “Yes,” so he let him go. Tim dropped back into the creek with an unnatural-sounding splosh. That’s when they knew something was wrong.

Sam ran to the camp building to call 911, then ran back to Fiji Island to await the ambulance’s arrival. When it came, the paramedics determined that Hutchinson’s hospital would probably not be able to keep Tim alive, so they called in a chopper to take him to Wichita. Sam stood and watched it until it had gone, and then, half-dazed, walked alone back to the camp building.

As Sam finishes the story, Mom enters the poolyard. She seems peaceful, but her eyes are red.

Letting Sam go, I turn to her. “Mom, what’s wrong with him? Do they know? Will he be OK?” I can’t ask the questions quickly enough.

“Well,” Mom replies, “the paramedics think it’s his neck. He probably broke it when he dove into the creek. He can’t move anything below his collar bone.” She forced a smile. “I’m sure it’ll be all right; God is in control.”

I want to scream, to curse, to blaspheme. How could God allow this to happen? Where was God when my little brother’s vertebrae snapped, crackled, popped like a clichéd breakfast cereal commercial? What God would allow tiny Latin words to terrorize us in the very potato salad we eat? Is this the same God who allowed my dead Aunt Marjorie to go into that wooden box and never, ever come out again?

What are we to that kind of God but a speck, a tiny bit of grease caked onto the very corner of the grill? What are we to Him but flies gathered around a gob of rotting potato salad in a dumpster behind some deli? Does He care about me, that God who created this horrible, ugly little world?

I don’t explode; I withdraw. I nod my head wisely, I say, “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away,” I act like my faith isn’t disintegrating. I am still a good little Christian. But something sharper, harsher than mustard begins to eat away at me.

Mom and Dad leave immediately for Wichita to sit anxiously in the waiting room while doctors try to cut, poke, and probe the life back into my little brother. 

Everyone else at camp goes to the chapel for a special prayer meeting. I can imagine what will be said: “Gracious Father, we know You have a purpose for this event.” Or maybe, “Lord, we know You’re just using this to show us Your grace in Tim’s life.” Or even, “Lord, we don’t know why you’re doing this, but we know that You are good.”

I know the people here will pray doctrinally correct prayers, I know that they have good, biblical reasons for telling God what they do, and I suppose I even agree with them intellectually, but if I went to the meeting, I’m afraid I’d shout, “Jesus Christ! What the hell were you thinking?!” 

That prayer is probably not so doctrinally correct, so instead of going, I sit on my bunk in the staff quarters and quietly sob like there’s no tomorrow. (I’m not sure there is.)

***

My family drives to Wichita to visit Tim the next day. We have a cooler full of leftovers from camp for lunch. I am not hungry.The hospital’s parking garage is labyrinthine. I’m glad my older brother Andrew is leading the way; I know I’d just get lost. He doesn’t, though. We find the room just fine. 

On the way, we see a bereaved Mennonite couple crying outside their son’s room. We learn later that he was crushed beneath the body of a half-tame horse he was saddle-breaking. Doctors are crowded around, telling the family how sorry they are. I pretend I do not see them.

My imagination could not have prepared me for what I see in Tim’s room. A metal halo is screwed into his head, he is flat on his back, and his face looks like it belongs on a bloated corpse. He looks nothing like the boy I saw at lunch the day before; I wonder if this is the right room.

Andrew leads the way to the bed, with Sam close behind. I stand back behind Mom and the rest of the kids and wait my turn to talk to my brother, to let him know how glad I am that he has cheated death (for now). 

While I wait, I overhear a thin, nervous doctor whispering to Mom that “the prognosis, quite frankly, is not very promising, although, of course, anything can happen.” Something in me hardens even more, and it is all I can do to avoid smashing his smug, benevolent M.D. face in.

Finally, it is my turn to talk to Tim. I notice that he has not been very talkative so far; crushing several vertebrae and undergoing a couple of life-saving operations probably has that effect on a guy.

“Hey, bro.” I’m not sure what to say to someone so close to death.

“Hey. Did I worry you?” His words are slurred. He tries a laugh that comes out more as a gurgle.

“Nah. We’re used to you getting hurt.” I smile and blink several times. Hard.

“Don’t cry, Micah – it’s merely a flesh wound.” He knows I have a soft spot for Monty Python.

I smile despite myself. “Seriously, you doing OK, Timmy?”

“No offense, Micah,” he begins, his voice thick and soft, “but it seems like you’re having more trouble with this whole thing than I am.”

How can he see right through me when his eyes are swollen almost shut? No use lying to him. “I am having a hard time, bro. It seems so…” I struggle for words. “Unfair, maybe?”

“Listen, Micah.” He suddenly seems a little sharper. “I’ve thought about this. I know I might die. I know there’s nothing I can do about it. I’ve had a good life, and I’m thankful for everything I’ve been able to do. If this is the end, I’m fine with that. If I recover completely, I’m fine with that. I accept what God is doing in me, and I keep on going. If I tried to take control myself, I’d just be frustrated, right?” He pauses, breathes hard. “I’m not feeling so good… I’d better take a nap.”

“Yeah, buddy. Do that.”

“Thanks for visiting me.”

“No, thank you, Tim. You’ve helped me a lot. Feel better, OK?”

“I’m trying.” Another gurgle-laugh.

On the way back to camp, Andrew drives while Mom hands out leftovers. She goes through in reverse age order, asking us all what we want. I come almost last, right before Andrew. “Micah, what would you like?” She offers me sandwiches, chips, day-old lasagna.

“Just potato salad, please,” I reply. “I’m not all that hungry.”

I know it hasn’t been stored below 40 degrees, but I eat it anyway, and despite the mustard’s bite and the unpleasant memory of its steamy odor the day before, it is the most wonderful thing I have ever tasted.

***

The really tricky thing about potato salad is that it should not exist in a world filled with death, disease, and pain. 

The sweet, comforting smoothness of mayo has no place in the presence of heartrending anguish. Soft, substantial chunks of boiled potatoes do not belong in a realm where health can turn so suddenly to sickness, where happiness can dissolve in the blink of an eye. The intermingled flavors of spices and pickle juice and half a dozen other things should not have the ability to delight the taste buds of people whose existences could be eradicated with the next gust of wind, shaking of the ground, or sudden flood. A boy who has eaten so marvelous a side dish as potato salad should not have his strength sapped, his body crippled in a heartbeat.

That is why I am suspicious of the food. It is not merely a delicious blend of flavor or something to help fill out the menu at a picnic or church social. Rather, it is a constant reminder of mortality, of suffering, and of the destruction inherent in our lives. Potato salad promises things it cannot give: peace, pleasure, relaxation, an underlying sense of rightness. It belies the fact that the world around it is nowhere near as perfect as the salad itself is. 

And yet, I'm beginning to suspect that the promise isn't a false one after all.

Perhaps potato salad is more: a reminder of God’s perpetual grace. Or, if you prefer, a reminder of the possibility of goodness somewhere, somehow, through some means. That reminder can seem insignificant in a bleak and frequently hopeless world, but sometimes – if we’re lucky or blessed or have good enough karma, maybe – it is enough to help us through the darkness. It can pull us from despair and enable us to stand back up in the aftermath of reality’s brutal knockout punch. 

And, as we taste the sweetness, tanginess, smoothness, and wholesomeness of potato salad, somehow it may help us learn to accept the tragic miracle of our humanity.

What Passes for Omniscience

It really bothers me when someone says, "You know what happens when you assume: It makes an 'ass' out of 'u' and 'me.'" And then looks immensely pleased with himself as though it were a Very Great Thing Indeed to be able to spell a six-letter word and turn it into a juvenile pun.

The very existence of this irritating little joke has made people assume its truth, to the extent that you don't even need to deliver the punchline anymore. You can just say, "Well, you know what happens when you assume," and everyone around the table will nod sagely at your impressive display of folk wisdom. Heck, you might even get some forced snickers.

I had a boss who once did this to me in a meeting room full of people. What I wanted to respond was, "I was going to say it makes an 'ass' out of 'u' and 'me,' but you're there already, so I'm not sure." Happily for my gainful employment, I did not say this to his face. But I was thinking it.

A better response might be, "It allows us to begin making sense of a very chaotic world." The ability to assume is vital to hypothesis formation, without which scientific inquiry could not occur. It is not overstating the case to say that if we could not assume, we would not be able to learn.

While I was running last week, this idea struck me: assumption is one of the tools that allows us, as time-, space-, and learning-bound creatures, to behave like the eternal, omnipresent, omniscient God in whose image we are made.

As I see it, our experience of the world goes something like this:

1. Our senses detect things in the world around us.
2. We use prior experiences as a frame of reference for the new sensory input.
3. We categorize the new input: We either place it within a previously created category or define a new category in contrast to a previously created category.
4. We build and re-build these categories recursively. The more input we receive, the more specialized the categories can become.
5. The categories will never become more specialized than we need them to be. They are based on useful distinctions, and if a distinction is not useful, it should not be retained within our category definitions.

As we see, smell, hear, taste, and touch the world us, we impose useful mental frameworks on it (thus emulating omniscience, or dominance over knowledge). And as we organize our ideas about it, we gain the ability to manipulate it in advantageous ways (thus emulating omnipotence, or dominance over matter). And as we observe and manipulate, we tend to organize our observations and actions into a chronological, sequential order (thus emulating eternity, or dominance over time).

So, assuming, you see, is much more than just an excuse to make a stupid joke. It's one of the linchpins of human knowledge, and perhaps even a key part of what it means to be made in God's image.

One last thing: I love it when people say, "Well, you know what assuming does." My perennial response? "Poor Ming! And poor U!"

Tips For Dads: How (And Why) to Remove Poop Stains

The Easy Part: How

Ingredients (Stage 1):
1 poop-stained article of clothing¹
1 willing papa
running water
dish soap

Ingredients (Stage 2):
medium mixing bowl (full of water)
Borax (or your favorite stain remover)
bleach (if the stained area is white)

Process (Stage 1):
First things first: rinse it off as soon as you can after The Event. I prefer cold running water in a sink with a garbage disposal. (Cold water is best for body fluid stains; warm water is better for other stains, such as strawberry juice.) Your goal is to get any chunks and all of the slimy stuff out while keeping the affected area as small as possible (avoid spreading it around).

Don't be afraid to get your hands dirty. You have soap and water in your house for a reason, and you can wash up after you're done. If you are Exceedingly Weak of Stomach, try to think of the feces as just a highly processed, disagreeable-smelling food. That's what it is, after all. And remember: the quicker you rinse, the quicker you can forget precisely what you're cleaning up.

Once it's rinsed off, I apply some dish soap directly to the stained area. Rub it into the stain, again being careful not to spread any remaining fecal matter around. Lather, rinse, repeat as needed. Your goal at this stage is to use your fingers to rub out as much of the stain as possible. About half the time, this will do the trick.

If the stains don't come out after about five minutes of vigorous rubbing, rinsing, and repeating, it's time to step up your game.

Process (Stage 2):
Fill a bowl with water. Let the garment soak for at least half an hour. If you got most of the stain out in Stage 1, soaking can often help you finish the job. After the soak, return to your dish soap and water tactic.

If soaking doesn't help, it's time for stronger chemicals. Always read and follow the directions on these. I find Borax is often helpful for getting stains out. There's also bleach, but be careful: regular chlorine bleach will discolor just about anything, including many shades of off-white. Color-safe bleach is a better bet for most garments other than white onesies. Clorox2 is an example - it has a milder, oxygen-based bleach instead of the chlorine one.

Don't go overboard on chemicals; too much can cause your colors to fade.

I've found some combination of soaking and solvents to be successful 99.9% of the time. Patience is a virtue, here, fellas.

Good luck!

The Harder Part: Why

I wish I had a dime for every time I've said to myself, I'm a highly skilled, well-paid technical professional. Why am I standing in front of a kitchen sink washing poop stains out of clothes again?

For many people in my position, the benefit simply don't seem to be worth the effort. Why not just dispose of the filthy clothes and be done with it? My time is worth much more than this. This is beneath me. I'm an important, dignified person, dadgum it!

So here are some answers I came up with the last time I was rinsing my son's feces out of a sleeper:

1. I am cheap. I'm not sure I know of many cheaper people than me. And clothes (even baby clothes) can be very expensive. When I visit Babies "Я" Us, I see outfits that cost more than a week's groceries. Besides, it rubs me the wrong way to discard a perfectly serviceable piece of clothing.
   
2. It shows my wife that I care about her. Sure, we could buy new clothes, but she's attached to some of these outfits. Plus, I'm not the only thrifty one in the family -- she appreciates me helping to stretch the clothing budget a little bit farther.
   
3. It demonstrates to my sons that I love their mother and don't think her desires are less important than mine. I want my boys to grow up knowing what a loving husband and father looks like. These poop-stained Onesies are an opportunity for me to show them.
   
4. It brings me down closer to where I ought to be. I believe that God resists those who are full of their own importance and gives grace to those who realize their imperfections and their need for a Savior.² Bringing myself low to serve my family is a way for me to be like Jesus, who humbled Himself to serve those he deserved to rule over.

So, that's why I do it. I'm sure these reasons aren't compelling to everyone, but they are to me.

And now off to start a load of laundry...

Notes:
¹ Onesies, sleepers, t-shirts, jeans -- you'll probably see them all, if your children's bowels are fairly healthy.
^{2 See James 4:6}

Give This Guy a Listen

Heath McNease, a a hip-hop and acoustic folk singer from Atlanta (I don't know how this is possible, but it apparently is), has released a new EP on his bandcamp page. Losing Daylight is the name of this new project, and it's unique in at least two significant ways.

Here's his description of the project:

This is an EP that I recorded in one day (15 hours to be exact). I wanted to make an album that conveyed the fleeting nature of autumn, and I felt nothing could convey that feeling of melancholy and urgency more naturally than to produce the songs in one single day. Every second was precious. There was no time to mull over decisions or bring in extra hands. The end result is a project that is both organic and polished...raw and full.

A little bit astounding, no?

Well, here's something more astounding: Out of Heath's last eight projects, this is the only one he hasn't given away for free. You can check his stuff out at heathmcneasemusic.com or on his bandcamp site. It's really good, and it's amazing that he has given so much of it away to his fans.

He's asking for $5 to download Losing Daylight. That's less than some bowls of chili, so I don't think it's too much to pay for what promises to be a delightful taste of autumn.