I already wrote a post, titled “So why not let’s forgive everyone?” detailing most of my argument, and that can be read here. I’ll quote myself in excerpt:

…we are told to forgive as we’ve been forgiven, or else God will do to us as the unforgiving servant of Matthew 18. The man in the parable was forgiven an impossible debt; we likewise, who have been forgiven much, are called to forgive much in return. We’ve been forgiven everything, so we have no excuse for ungratefulness. We’ve been forgiven everything, so why not let’s forgive everyone, everywhere, everything?

That last line is from a song by mewithoutYou, and they’ve written a couple songs I think are applicable. Aaron Weiss, the lead vocalist and songwriter, has described forgiveness as the center of his faith, and this defines the trajectory of their lyrics. In this interview at 3:20 he discusses forgiveness, how we forgive as we are forgiven, and how bitterness hurts only you. I’ll just excerpt them below in closing, and exhort sons and daughters to extend to their parents the same forgiveness they hope for and rely upon, both from God and from others, and live in the humility of realizing their own brokenness.

From “bullet to Binary, (pt. two)” (listen):

we all well know
we’re gonna reap what we sow
but Grace, we all know,
can take the place of all we owe
so why not let’s Forgive everyone, everywhere, everything
all the time, everyone, everywhere, everything

all the time, everyone, everywhere, everything…

From “Allah, Allah, Allah” (listen):

it doesn’t matter what you’ve done…
what effect is without a cause?
so what does it matter what you think you’ve done?
now, lay your faithless head down
in necessity’s Cotton Hand
there’s a Love that never changes
no matter what you’ve done

or if your Old Man did you wrong,
maybe his Old Man did him wrong
so if you’d care to sing Forgiveness songs
come down and join our band
we’ll cut you like Sword
and sing Forgiveness songs

It’s a musical expression of the explosive joy of forgiveness—the belief that in our darkness a light shines, that the darkness has not overcome it, and that the light is God.

Painting by Liz Lemon Swindle

P.S. Yes, this post is reviving a so-called “dead” blog. Break out the defibrillator, huh?

1. Give yourself a break—you don’t need to be so hard on yourself.
2. Just say no! What are your real priorities?
3. Take time to write it down. Journaling will bring clarity to your life.
4. Slow down and savor living in the moment.
5. Plug into your kids so you can really connect with them.
6. Don’t forget about your husband—intimacy is life-affirming!
7. Reach out beyond your family. It will enrich everyone.
8. Make your physical and mental health a priority.
9. Is more always better?  Simplify everything.
10. Be a little selfish—you deserve it, and it will make you a better mother.”

Okay, if I were to address all ten and answer them all, this blog would be transformed into a Creed, the Parent’s Creed. Actually, that doesn’t sound like a bad idea. But I don’t want to. So, I won’t. Instead, let me just break all ten down into one easy to understand sentence, and then attack the baksheesh out of that.

1-10. Parenting is a chore, but you deserves breaks every now and then, so be selfish.

Oh, I know that’s a little harsh. Let’s find the gold nuggets and then tear apart the rest. Point one is a no… Two… I don’t understand. I think prioritizing is great, as long as your family is the priority. Three, well, I don’t see anything wrong with it. Four is good, but again I think as a whole with the family. Five is the best one yet. Every parent should be involved with the ones they love. Oh, I stand corrected. Six… that’s the best one yet. So says Solomon, anyways. Seven can be taken in so many directions, I don’t know what to say about it. Eight… um… “a” priority, okay… but the family? Top priority. Yes, even more than your health. Pregnancy is not good for the body, but it does create new life. That is priority. Nine, I wish I knew just what you were “simplifying.” More children is always better! I do think that the simple life is a good life, however. Ten equals NO.

Yeah, I think that about covers it. So, what is the problem with what I left behind? (Oh, where to begin where to begin…) I got it! Okay, so we covered what Love was last time, right? It’s making your life, what you enjoy, what you desire the good of those said loved ones. Like God does to us, only, with us, on a small scale. I know a family that treat chores like a game so that the kids actually ask to clean the house instead of being forced to. I remember two of their daughters coming in to ask my mother if it was okay if they sweeped and cleaned the living room. Whenever I tell that story, my friends say, “Dude, that’s messed up! They shouldn’t be enjoying work, treating it like a privilege, they should be having fun doing worthless things, like slide, or swing, or running around in circles and falling face first on the ground.” Oh, they do those things too, but that doesn’t mean it should be any less gratifying raking a mop around the floor, getting water everywhere with a purpose.

It’s like, one time, I was working with my Dad, and he gave me a sledge hammer and told me to break concrete steps until he could get a jackhammer. I know you are all picturing me in a chain gang, singing blues and hammering to the beat, but, man, I felt like Thor crushing that stupid serpent’s head in. Was it tiring? Sure it was. Did I feel super powered? You bet your sweet tanned hide, I did! When those steps split in two after five hours of hammering, I lifted that baby hammer with one hand and screamed, “Righteous!” I could hear the guitar solo in my mind.

But does that carry over to parenting? I mean, it’s not always fun. Or is it? What is fun? Is it a thing? Is it a vegetable? Is it rest? It is hard? Can work and play truly be… attitude? In the Bible, and you knew I was going to bring that up, we find all kinds of things like this. Solomon, for example, writes in one place that there is nothing better for a man to do than to eat, drink, and be merry. But he also talks about work, and the criteria for a housewife and a husband. It sounds harder than those concrete steps I was talking about earlier. But what is the theme of the attitude? Have you ever seen a sad man in Proverbs that was doing the right thing? Someone dreading the hard, and lusting for the easy? Other than the fool, I mean, he didn’t end too well, with all the dieing and darkness and all. Man, what a way to go, beaten by a perfumy girl. Mighty men even.

To complete this voyage, I would like to rewrite those ten rules into three, making some well needed changes.

What to do if you are married and going to have the kiddies:

1. Read the Bible and do what it says, especially in Proverbs, Romans, Timothy, and Song of Solomon. That last one is not so much for the kiddies, but marriage is what is supposed to bring them along, you know!

2. Raise those kiddies up in the way that they should go by reading ALL of the Bible and teaching it to them all day and most of the night.

3. Selfishness is the root of all evil. Don’t do it. Being married means you are no longer you, but you are you plus 1, and your kids are an extension of that. Would you like it if your eyes said, “Hey, I’m tired of looking for the brain, let him look at the sunset himself. I’m taking a vacation.” No, you would not like that in the least. Unless you are blind and you did not have a choice. Than choose something else, a hand, a leg, a head… anything that is applicable to a part of you that you really need.

Okay, that won’t work. That is all way too long. Let me shorten those down to one easy to read sentence.

1-3. Love God and do what He says in the Bible.

Of course, that is really the answer to everything.

A woman named Rahna Reiko Rizzuto (I’m not joking) has decided to write a book about parenting. Or, er, anti-parenting, as it were. In her book, one that I will not deem worthy of naming, she explains how she was afraid to be a mother, never really wanting to be… and had a bunch of kids. That’s not such a bad thing when you are married. Everything is scary and new, just roll with the punches and be a responsible adult. It’s how you were born. But then she decided that she was fed up. That’s right, she walked away. She ended her 20-year long marriage and left the kids at home, ages 5 and 3. She says that her relationship with her kids has “improved,” demonstrating how divorce and living without a mother is actually good for kids. In fact, why do we have wives at all? If this is the case, let’s all just get the women to have the kids and ditch them on the side of the road to go into management or something. Ahem, sorry. Calming down. I didn’t mean that. Really, I’m getting married and I don’t want that at all.

The fact that anyone thinks this is a good thing makes me sick. Who is buying this book? I want to talk to you, because you and the author are both messed up. “Traditionalist!” you yell? Perhaps, but really? “In 2008, she chose to move 3,000 miles away from three of her four children.” I ask again, really? This is a good thing?

“When the time came to get in her packed car and drive away, she says, she felt “‪very mixed.” ‬

‪”Yes, there is a sense of relief. I would be remiss if I did not admit that,” she says candidly. But there was also pain: “‬I used to avoid Target, for instance, because it made me think of shopping for my daughter Serena. Little moments like that, and everything comes flooding in.”

Now a spiritual adviser who writes at Polaris Rising, Liera wrote about her experiences as a non-custodial parent at Literary Mama and Parenting Without a Manual. Her children are 15, 11, and 7 now and, after more than two years of long-distance parenting, Liera says she misses them but feels very connected to them. “‪Now we stay in touch by phone, IM, Skype a few times a week,” she says. “I hear about their lives and give support.‬””

Okay, now why is this a bad thing? Can anyone tell me why being mommy part time is a bad thing? She actually gives us the answer. “”This is the question people will ask me. The question that curls, now, in the dark of the night,” Rizzuto writes in “Hiroshima in the Morning.” “How do any of us decide to leave the people we love?””

What, pray tell, is Love? If we love someone, does that mean we help them out if we can spare the time? Does it mean we give them a little extra? A lot? How does God love us? What does He say love is?

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son…” God gave up His only Son to be crucified. Christ himself took on the sins of the world, all of them, so that we might be saved. God says Love is all encompassing, a fire. The Song of Solomon is a great story of this love, a love that devours all else. If a mother refuses to love her children, the least they can do is not pretend they still do. Oh, sure, she feels guilty, she feels some God given desire to be a mom, but she refuses in order for her to have a… um… what does she get out of this? A different job? freedom to roam? to go to bars and party? Her kids are not as important as those things?

But, who am I to talk. She doesn’t sound like a Christian, though she might be “spiritual,” so I suppose she should take all the good times she can get. Her end is not going to be very pretty.

Your ranter from Romania,

Caleb

Who doesn’t like homemade stuff? From the stick figure drawings that decorate our fridges to the knitted mittens and crocheted tablecloths our grandmas give us for Christmas. Almost never flawless, these items are still of far more value to us than their often prettier or more stylish counterparts in stores across the country. I myself have often received gifts (mostly from little siblings) of three-inch scarves barely long enough to warm my big toe, hats with either the head-hole sewn shut or both ends gaping open like craters (these last DO make nice neckwarmers…a proposition usually greeted by the maker with smiles and declarations of “See, that’s exactly what I made it for. I thought it would work better that way. Bet you thought it was a hat didn’t you? Haha.”) Of course I have always loved and cherished these gifts, evidences of the time and care my siblings have lavished upon me. I have no problem with that at all.

But when we grow up are we not to put away childish things? In our country of instant gratification, Walmarts, shopping malls, internet and factories, it is far too common that adults can do no better than those adorably useless trinkets we smiled at from kids. It’s not quite as cute when you receive from adults two-foot table-cloths that you have to graciously pretend were meant to be placemats, or lopsided curtains that you cringe to see adorning your windows but would offend the gift-giver to take down.

Handmade gifts are great, but we really ought to learn how to make them. We’ve all seen the intricately complicated masterpieces of lace or yarn that have been passed as heirlooms through generations gracing tables with their swirls and families with their histories. Most of us can agree that homemade gifts can be more meaningful than store bought ones, but we should make the effort to see that they are useful and practical too. As I said previously, I am as much at fault as the next person. I’m horrible at knitting, crocheting, sewing and most of these other lost arts. And I’m ashamed of that fact.

So here’s to all those moms and grandmas who love arts and crafts, and here’s one more person that wants to join the group. I don’t want to merely pass on heirlooms. I want to start some of my own. Find some needles, dig up some patterns, let’s graduate from the realm of headless hats and neckless sweaters.

Like most other arts it will take time and practice, but it can be done. And this doesn’t just apply to knitting and sewing…there are tons of arts that are being swallowed up in this demanding commercialized culture. Cooking, canning, drawing, painting, writing, journaling, or making music to name a few. And men (if you’re still here) some of these work for you too and I’m sure there are other things that apply to you as well…wood carving for instance. Put those knives to some use.

yesterday is a wrinkle on your forehead
yesterday is a promise that you’ve broken
don’t close your eyes, don’t close your eyes
this is your life and today is all you’ve got now
yeah, and today is all you’ll ever have
don’t close your eyes
don’t close your eyes
this is your life, are you who you want to be
this is your life, are you who you want to be
this is your life, is it everything you dreamed that it would be
when the world was younger and you had everything to lose

Someday will have to be today at one point or another. Today is all we have. #

This is one of my favorite quotes (often attributed to Plato, but it was probably said by Ian Maclaren):

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.

There are things, many things you don’t know about a person. Of course people vary. But it’s true overall. The heart hides things you might not think can be hidden. But we’re pretty good at this.

There’s not really much else to say until you’ve understood this, seen and known somebody hiding such pain. There was a Mefite who recently comitted suicide. He left a sad, sad note. He never told anyone about his demons and his experiences with professional help were pretty poor.

And he hid it. He was a nice guy. You might not have any idea he was so often in pain, he was so pleasant and kind.

And so he left his story in a note before he killed himself. You didn’t know, I didn’t know, his parents didn’t care. He was ashamed; he didn’t think anybody could care.

It’s so easy to hurt people, to tear them down because you’re annoyed, scared, stupid, not thinking, offended by the front they put up to hide what’s inside, and so on and so on.

Of course you should always be kind, love everybody. But maybe it would be a little easier if you remember that everyone is fighting a hard battle, even the people you don’t think are. Everybody holds inside things you can’t see, perhaps things that are utterly crushing. Everybody’s got a fight somewhere.

Today’s topic – danger. A rather incongruous subject to my present state of safety and repose, but one is always more disposed to discuss dangerous things in security than when actually in danger. And why not? It is danger that makes safety so delightful and terrifying things that make simplicity and mundaneness so enjoyable. Only those who have never experienced danger can be bored by everyday life. And only those who delight in the everydayness of life can truly be ready for danger when it comes. The reason for this, of course, is love.

The person who is content and happy with life, enjoying mundane things and delighting in pure simplicity has a reason to fight. Better a farmer with a pitchfork fighting for what he loves, than a rigorously trained, hardened warrior that doesn’t care. That farmer fights because he loves his chores, his work, his animals, his mundane routines, his sweat, his dirt, his family. He fights because he wants to wake up early in the morning, watch the sun rising to caress his land with a glorious red glow, feed his animals and hear their contented chewing, he wants to scratch a pig’s bristled back and smell freshly cut hay, he wants to revel in the first moments of a newly born lamb and watch the baby horse taking its first steps, he wants to tickle his daughters, chase them around the barn, see their eyes sparkle, their giggles startle the horses, and straws of hay get lost in their curls, he wants to kiss his wife every morning, growing old with her, he wants to see his God in every blade of grass, in every drop of dew, and praise Him for sun, rain, joy, sorrow, laughter, and tears. He wants life with all its tiny, unimpressive feats and everyday miracles. He doesn’t seek out danger, but when danger comes he will meet it head-on, plunge into it with fear, but without a backward glance, because he loves.

The other man has become tired of life, mundaneness irritates him, simplicity bores him, he has no time, but all the time in the world. He fills his life with emptiness, surrounds himself with complexity to hide his loneliness, plunges into activity to mask his idleness. He has lost his curiosity, lost his imagination, lost his love…he seeks danger because he has lost his desire to live.

That farmer, if he loses his life to danger, gives it willingly for love. If he conquers the danger he praises God and comes joyfully back to his mundane life. The other man, if he loses his life, has given it willingly because it bored him. He sacrifices it because he is tired of it. That farmer offers his life back to God saying “thanks for the ride, it was a good one.” The other man shoves his life in God’s face saying “thanks for nothing, take this back, I don’t want it anymore.” If he comes through danger with his life, he is disappointed, the home-coming is anti-climactic and he is already seeking another drink, another draught of danger. In the words of G. K. Chesterton “A martyr is a man who cares so much for something outside him, that he forgets his own personal life. A suicide is a man who cares so little for anything outside him, that he wants to see the last of everything.”

Danger gives spice to life, it makes life worth living. But danger is also…well…dangerous. Let us not be so eager for danger that we forget to enjoy mundane life, and let us not cling so tightly to life that we are unwilling to face danger for its sake.

Sad to say, here I am apologizing for not posting. The thing is, our esteemed ranter Caleb is taking a break. And everybody else has been keeping busy, even including me.

Yep.

I’ll write some stuff. But it could be slow. Stick the blog in your RSS reader or grab an email subscription and then wait for it to cook.

Right, so, first, a slight recap with softer language. Courtship and dating are not sins, but I have a problem with them and a lot of its applications as I have seen. Great results have been done with both, mostly by courtship, but right now, I want to set aside results and go with Scripture. No I’m not saying courtshipers have never thought of Scripture, but that they might be wrong in this particular aspect of interpretation. Last time, I mostly pointed out my love for arranged marriage, but I hardly even touched why I don’t like courtship. Allow me, please, to explain.

First off, why don’t we as reformed peeps like dating? In general, I mean, not as a whole. It is because it takes the authority away from the father, has dangerous alone time, and seems too casual, blah blah blah, we got that, and agree. Why do “we” (not I said the fly) like courtship? That alone time is gone, usually, because of chaperons, it is considered serious, and it puts the authority back to the parents. Perfect! I like these aspects, by the way.

Now, allow me to diverge into a different headship discussion. Pastors. We complain about many Baptists because they take the authority away from the pastor and still give him the responsibility. With husbands, it’s the opposite complaint, they may give the authority to the wife while still having responsibility for the household. Both are bad. Agreed? I hope so.

Okay, back to courtship. Let’s ask some questions. I love Q and A.

Q. Who has the authority? A. The fathers.

Q. Who has the responsibility? A. The Fathers… don’t they?

In some cases, perhaps, but never in my experience or witness. Who is expected to be the one with the most pressure, who is being the one who gets blamed when it all falls apart, and who is getting the run over to see whether or not he is a mature, financially stable, righteous individual? (In what I have seen among reformers, not in EVERY case, I am sure!) A. The one who gets it in the end is usually the boy. Not that the girl doesn’t get hurt in the process, but that hurts the boy too if he is a Christian. Like I said earlier, I couldn’t care less how it goes down if they are infidels. Call me racist. (AH! Slipping into callous jerk again! Drink another beer… ah, that’s better.)

Here is the problem, the man is supposed to go after the girl through the father, right? That sounds great, except for this is a boy we are talking about. A big boy, but a boy never the less. I don’t care who it is, if he is male and he is under 45, and not married, he is immature and in serious need of a woman to set him straight. He cannot be a well rounded, stable individual unless he has a reason to… like the few that God has chosen to be celibate. If you are one of these men, please stop reading this, this is not directed at you in ANYway shape or form.

Look at us, guys! We are men. We go out to explore, we fight wars, we protect and club and yell and sweat. A man is not rooted down until he has his first child. Until then, they are warriors, they might miss home, but they are destined to leave the home… unless they are those particular nerds who are thirty and still live with mom. (No offence to nerds or Mom.) This happened to my once crazy brother-in-law, and everyone else that I now that has a kid now. (The maturing after their child’s birth, not the nerd.) It is not isolated, it happens in America, Romania, Italy, England, India, and I’m sure a lot of other places that I have not been to have the same thing. Family changes a man, and a woman… but in different ways.

The great thing about arranged marriage is that the father looks to the other father to see what the son WILL be… if the father trained the son for the job. The son is not the father, but he is an extension of him, and if he has good report, a brief discussion should be all that is needed to find out compatibility with his daughter, whom he knows intimately… right?

So man up, father! (Not that you aren’t, but if you are not, do so.) Don’t put all the pressure on the lad, for this should be new to him, and he is scared. He might have “feelings,” but you can smash them and turn them to darkness very easily. Don’t allow this to happen, you be the initiator! You go out and find your daughter a husband that get’s along well with her, that is her friend, perhaps, and whose father is an upright, Christian man who says his son would do well for your daughter. Trust each other, and trust God. The bud of friendship will bloom from brother and sister in Christ to a household worthy to serve the Lord. Your job is not to raise your daughter to be a perfect woman, but to raise her up to be a suitable helpmeet for a man who needs help. The two will make one, and they will be that mature, Christian family that unites your two households. A perfect picture of Christ and the Church to form… The Kingdom Complete!

Whoa, I don’t know what happened there. I got carried away, big time. At least I was honest.

This does not give the boy an excuse for being a rapist, or a thief, or a complete moron, but it’s a reminder to the fathers that the boy… is a boy. Get over it.

But is all that a legitimate reason? No, it is not. If the Bible says otherwise, then let all my words fall to ash!

Personally, to make it personal… I don’t think this is the only way. The Bible has other ways, such as with Ruth and Boaz. I like their story, and so does God. He says so. The law chose them. Why are we so afraid of the different? Why is it that if I say these things, many look at me like I am a freak? Show me the arguments’ errors, brothers, do not yell at me. If this is the better way, why not chose it? If you don’t want to, fine, go on and do what you want to do, but why? Are we not here to raise the Kingdom up to what is more perfect? Are we not here to bring Kingdom to Earth? Is this not what Reformers stand for? True ones? Remember, we are His, and we are not to rely on other’s understandings alone, but Scripture is our stronghold, as it was with Martin Luther, Calvin, Augustine. This may be the last time on this blog you hear me be this serious with no sarcasm, so enjoy it. Remember where we have come from. It is the smallest compromises that make Rome fall. It is the desire for something better, not the best, that brings Russians to Romania’s door. I am not saying “my” way is better, I am saying that what is in Scripture is the best. I am not sorry if that offends anyone… for if it does, we are lost.

Your friendly reminder,

Caleb

(Disclaimer: I do not own this photo! I found it on the internet, just like everyone else, so don’t sue me, please. It’s from qwickstep.com, FYI. [Editor’s note: replaced with a bigger version ripped from daylife.com. Heh.])

I think I want to smash a hornets’ nest. Yes, I think I do, so let me step into the room with a statement that will knock reformers’ socks off. Why is courtship so great when arranged marriage is everywhere in the Bible?

Oh, yes! I said it! You have no idea how long I’ve built the courage to say that. As soon as I thought of it, it took me at least fifteen seconds of going back and forth before I decided to bring it up. A new record of hesitation for me.

Let’s go with the first marriage, Adam and Eve. God created them and said to be fruitful and multiply. Pretty intense stuff, huh? But didn’t they have a choice? What if they only wanted two kids? Could they afford more? Well, considering the first two we hear about were male, and one killed the other, it doesn’t look like that would have worked in the long term. I’m just saying is all.

Let’s look at another one. Isaac got married. Yeah, I like Isaac. You know, Abraham’s son who got married to a girl whom the servant chose with a sign from God. Her parents seemed pleased with the deal of payment.

But what about all those horror stories we see in movies of aristocrats giving their daughters away to jerk princes just to make peace between those countries? Doesn’t that make them a commodity? Does this not dehumanize them? What about love? Don’t they have to love each other before they get married?

Where is that in Scripture? Yes, it commands husbands to love their wives, but if they are husband and wife already, does this mean they loved one another before hand? I’m not saying it is a bad thing for them to love one another before hand, but hey, God set the institution up, so shouldn’t He have set up a clearer system?

Ruth and Boaz chose one another, sort of… not really. They didn’t have a real courtship period either. Never mind, bad example for a counter point.

Ah! Here we go. Jacob and Rachel… and Leah… hmmm, interesting. He was put through a fourteen year courtship period. Doesn’t this mean that courtship is the better way to go?

Discounting the fact that the marriage of the three caused a civil war in Israel for a huge part of its history, what if only Rachel got hitched to Jacob. Isn’t this a Biblical example anyway? Only if the idol stealing Rachel did was just as Biblical. Just because it happens in Scripture by sinning people doesn’t make it Biblical.

Samson chose Delilah! Oops, never mind…

Um… we don’t know if Joseph chose Mary… at fourteen… but we don’t want to go there, because then we would have to say the age of fourteen is appropriate for marriage for young ladies. (It is, by the way.)

Uh… um… ah… oh… It is not UNBiblical. Neither is dating, right? My parents dated and are now a healthy Christian family. They said they wouldn’t let us ever date, but hey. That’s right, my and my sister’s significant others were chosen by the parents of both sides and presented to us, not the other way around. Gasp! I’m a freak! A sappy-happy freak, no less. Can it be abused? Yes, fathers can force daughters into an unhappy marriage with a rapist/murderer if they are unGodly, and dating and courtship can lead to happy marriages. But who knows the children more than the parent if they are in a Godly home? The UNGodly don’t have to get married as far as I’m concerned. It’s a God centered institution after all. Let them be hot or cold, let them be as heathenistic… heathenastic… forget it, bad as possible so that the simple may have a clear choice between good and evil. As for me and my house, we will choose the most Biblical way, not because of some self-righteousness that says we are more holy than you, but because we like God’s examples better than the “reformed” self-righteous path to holiness. Strange considering I’m reformed… I think so anyways. Bring on the rants, I still want to address this issue, but I’m tired for now. Screaming internally does that.