My hero

So what is it about Holy Week and snakes?!! C killed a three-foot garden snake in the garage today. My hero!

"Is it . . . Saaatann?" ~the Church Lady

Happy Tax Day

I'm celebrating Tax Day today (Friday was a holiday in DC, in case you weren't paying attention.) I'm celebrating roads and hospitals and law enforcement and libraries. I'm celebrating being part of a nation that builds safety nets for the elderly and the disabled and the poor. I'm celebrating clean air and clean water and safe food. I'm celebrating that we value educating all our children and not just those whose parents can and will pay. Even though I'm sometimes uneasy, today I'm celebrating our national defense and the security we have at home and abroad. I'm also celebrating earthquake relief in Haiti and mosquito netting in Africa. I'm celebrating space flight and energy programs and national parks.

You've heard that government is the word we use for the things we decide to do together. I think it's worth celebrating one day a year.

Are we having fun yet?

Well, nobody's taking the T-bird away around here anytime soon.

At lunch on Thursday, I mentioned to C what I had been thinking lately: "We're not having fun." I thought he would tell me about how much fun we have together as a family and I was going to say that what we have is a joyful way of being and what I'm talking about is something different. But what he said was, "I know."

He went on to say that as two ordained ministers with demanding jobs, we aren't always very good at having fun ourselves or with each other. So we've been talking about that for three days now, culminating in long conversation at dinner and then later on a walk.

So what would be fun? Festivals are fun. Creativity is fun (that's Boo's contribution.) Dancing and hammocks and learning new things at a leisurely pace are all fun. Sampling all the food trailers in south Austin would be fun. Having a party would be super-fun (my contribution) but getting ready for it might not be. Going to someone else's party--with food, dancing and all our favorite people--would probably be more fun. Going for walks in interesting places--that was C's idea of fun--along with going to movies and listening to live music. He has tickets for Cage the Elephant in May so that will be fun for him and Mowgli. We're going to San Antonio for two nights later this month, which will also be very fun. Reading an interesting book together with all my friends and then talking about it--fun. Cooking something new for fun would be fun. (Cooking for my family at the end of a long day at work--not so fun.) Playing in the backyard with the kids in the kiddie pool and the sprinkler used to be lots of fun. Having all of us back together this summer will be fun, even just for a little while.

I've decided that we are really blessed that we all have such meaningful lives. I'm truly grateful. But what I'm really craving these days is fun . . . and committing to step outside the productivity routine a little bit to find it.

Happy birthday, Mowgli!

21 years ago, I became a mother. It was a long, hard day and also one of the very best. I could not have imagined then what my life would be--what it would be like to "have my heart go walking around outside my body," as Evelyn Underhill has said. I couldn't have imagined what the sacrifices would be or what the joys would be or how much one would compensate for the other. I didn't really understand that I would become a different person, that I wouldn't be my old self, only with a baby, but that I would become a new person, one that would completely contain the old person but would also never be the same.

The best work I've ever done is being a mom. I wasn't a natural mommy but I worked so hard at it, I got really good at it. I'll be forever grateful for that day 21 years ago when Mowgli made me a mom.

More musings about hell but not really

I listened to a podcast today in which a well-known pastor offered a really articulate sermon about hell, in response to Rob Bell's new book on the same subject. His thinking was nicely expressed, nuanced, and thoroughly orthodox, built mostly around the parable about the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16.

Please understand, I enjoyed the sermon and I think it was well done. However, about 2/3 of the way into it, I could just imagine Jesus smacking his forehead with the palm of his hand and saying, "Um, guys? That wasn't a theological treatise about hell. It was a really poignant story about who God loves and what really matters. I think you missed the whole point." Maybe he even muttered under his breath, "I don't know why I even bother . . . "

As scary as it is to contemplate the doctrine of hell, it is even scarier to take this parable at face value--it's a story about a man who is in hell because . . . well, because he is rich and lived a comfortable life. Jesus doesn't say that he is wicked or that he failed to "pray the prayer" when given a chance. Jesus' point is that he got his good life on earth, oblivious to the needs of others, and that Lazarus the beggar is given his chance at the good life in heaven after he dies.

Don't get me wrong--because I believe that this is a poignant story and not a soteriological treatise, I believe that God's grace extends to all, even the rich and clueless. But as a person who is clearly rich and comfortable and lives a pretty luxurious life, I'm very unsettled by the parable and its challenge to me and my lifestyle. I'm also deeply grateful that God is the kind of God who values the life of a sore-covered beggar as much or even more than he values mine. (The preacher points out that Lazarus is ironically named--that Jesus and his sense of humor!--and is the only character in any of Jesus' stories who is given a name.)

To complicate things even further, an hour after I listened to the podcast, I was dashing into Walgreens to get Advil and a young man approached me with a tentative story about needing money because of something having to do with his girlfriend . . . I didn't give him any money, but I did drive away feeling even more unsettled than I was before.

I love this!

The latest controversy

My friend and I were talking the other day and he said, "All I know is, if I get to heaven and Ghandi's not there, I'm going to be confused. And if Hitler is there, I'm going to be confused." A conversation ensued that has been rattling around in my head since then.

If you have your ear to the ground at all, you know that evangelical Christians are worked up about Rob Bell's new book "Love Wins." Some famous evangelicals have been flippant and rude. Others have launched complex theological treatises. It even came up in my Sunday School class this week (during the prayer request time, actually), so I'm going to say a few things about it. I may come back and say a few more things about it later. Or not.

1. I haven't read the book. Until yesterday, neither had most of the people who were commenting on it. Whether they loved it or hated it, they hadn't actually seen it.

2. Several people have suggested reading it along with another orthodox book on the same subject. I've decided to read N. T. Wright's book, Surprised By Hope. Being pretty firmly non-Calvinist, it makes sense that I would read Wright. Besides, I've been really wanting to pick it up and this bumps it to the top of the list. (As an aside, the "list" is literal--there are about 350 books on my amazon.com wish list.)

3. I love the title. Whatever the book is about, the title is absolutely, 100 percent true. That's the heart of the gospel: Love Wins.

4. Whatever this particular book has to say about heaven and hell, we all need to acknowledge that our thinking about eternal bliss and damnation is far more influenced by medieval art and Roman Catholic theology from the middle ages than any of us realize. If this helps us begin a conversation about biblical thought--in the biblical context--it will be a blessing.

5. Lots of people have had lots to say about this. Quite a few people have had some really thought-provoking, interesting, meaningful things to say. Here are a few: this one from a non-evangelical source and this one from a top emerging church thinker and this one from CT, which is a pretty mainstream ecumenical/evangelical source.

6. Whatever you think about what this book has to say about heaven and hell, don't forget how to act, okay? As my mother liked to say, "We can disagree agreeably." As the apostle Paul liked to say, "Speaking the truth in love . . . " Just because we disagree--and we will--doesn't mean we have to lose our minds and our salvation, you know?