Real Live Preacher - Children

Hacked

Fri, 16 Nov 2007 16:25:12 -0600

sup ya'll.
this is rlp's homie g.
first star on the belt.
word.
no thoughts going on in this tank.
go see martian child.
kissies!

Savage Joy

Mon, 25 Jun 2007 11:12:58 -0500

About a decade ago I glanced into my middle daughter’s room and found her sitting on her knees, looking out the window with her favorite toys lined up on the windowsill. They were all there: Her blanket - which had a personality and a loose seam for a mouth, various plush animals, a number of Disney characters, a group of small horses, and an assortment of other figures. She had turned her little friends toward the glass as if they were all looking out into the front yard together. She was talking with them, perhaps drawing their attention to something in the yard, or maybe holding court on any number of intimate subjects.

I immediately froze and did not make a sound. This was my second child, so I was an experienced enough parent to know a precious and unrepeatable thing when I saw it. I leaned against the door frame, then let my body slide slowly down the frame until I was on my knees.

She talked to her toys, jabbering about one thing and then another. She moralized, corrected, parented, acted out parts. She was lost in the Kingdom of Shelby, a place made up of bits and pieces of her life tossed about in her mind and dreams. Her kingdom was not governed by rules or laws or physics. The glue holding Shelby’s kingdom together was her own frail and developing view of the world. It was an infantile worldview without borders or categories, at least none that you or I would recognize.

I say “was” because Shelby is now a teen-ager, so she has been banished from the Kingdom of Shelby except at night when all the old things return from the deep waters and shadowed forests of dreaming.

All children have their own play world, and they are able to lose themselves in it. The state of play exists before consciousness. It is an indescribable and intensely personal thing for a child to be deep in play. And if they find they are being watched, they will come back from that world and become shy or start performing. Either way, the magic is lost.

I was getting a peek into the Kingdom of Shelby, and you can bet I wasn’t going to miss the show. I listened, leaning against the doorframe, absolutely enraptured by the sounds of her play. I suppose I was as lost in the moment as she was.

I would have stayed for hours. You couldn’t have dragged me away. Eventually a prolonged silence caused me to open my eyes. She was looking at me with a smile.

“Hi Daddy.”

She was friendly, but clearly waiting for me to leave so that she could go back to her world. I had intruded, and it was time for me to go. Shelby was a kindly landowner who would let you pick an apple and give you a cold drink if you wandered onto her property, but she would definitely show you the way to the gate.

I knew that about her. And I knew there was no use trying to prolong the moment or – God forbid – trying to recreate it.

I was drawn to my little girls in those days in ways that are quickly fading as the three sisters grow into young women. Our biological connection showed itself in my love of the smell of their scalps, my physical and intense need to hold them, and my desire to feel their small bodies pressed against my own as we watched movies together on the couch. And I always had a strong attraction to the sounds they made. Their voices were a kind of OM for me, a sound from below all sounds, a noise from the foundation of my existence. Hearing my daughters play was a joyful thing, and the ache of its absence will never heal. It is a wound I will carry as long as I walk this earth.

The best things are like this, aren’t they? They are savage and untamed. Like a great sunset, they can be discovered by chance and enjoyed, but never owned. Like love they can be received but not bought. The best things in life ride a ticklish wave along the surface of your skin, leaving raised hairs in their wake. They move through the world leaving no visible sign. You cannot follow them, nor anticipate their direction and wait for them in a blind.

You will come across spontaneous, unique moments of joy like this now and again. They are Life’s gifts to us all. They come to the washed and the unwashed, to the common and the sophisticated, to the rich and the poor, to the just and the unjust.

Moments of savage joy are there for all of us to find. If you haven’t seen one lately, you only need to slow down a bit and keep your eyes open. I can give you no counsel beyond that. But if you come across a moment of wild, untamed joy, for God’s sake eat it; drink it; hear it; receive it. This is the stuff of life. It doesn’t get any better.

rlp

Soft True Strong & You

Wed, 31 Jan 2007 13:22:32 -0600

Children are so soft. Their skin is fragrant and pure, like baby leaves. Their minds are eager and ready, their hearts are trusting and open, and their eyes will lead you softly to the very bottom of their souls.

Children know God because God can be found in the soft places of the world. In mother’s hands and in father’s soft shirts. In laughter and at dinner and in the goose bumps that rise when lips slide across skin.

It is a terrible thing when soft, childish flesh meets the hard steel of religion. We cut through children like butter. In our collective unconscious there is a swishing sound. It is the sound of the swords of Herod’s men rising and falling on the children of Bethlehem.

O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie.

Take a deep breath now, and free your mind. Do you remember when your spiritual softness was taken from you?

Did it happen at church?

What sort of church was it? Was it a brick building in the suburbs? Was it a synagogue or a mosque or a cathedral? Was it the secret church of one man’s desire, or the feral church of neglected children? Was it the cold sanctuary of science that stole your myths and left you wounded and empty and suckling at the stars? Or did you construct your own lonely chapel, like Saint Frances, barefoot and one stone at a time?

I was wounded along the way. It happens to everyone. Life is hazing. It’s one big rite of passage from beginning to end. I grew tough as leather, deeply protected, calloused, and hard. But I worked my leather with the oil of my hands and with tears and time until I became soft again. And soft, worn leather is such a comfort to have and to hold.

Now I guard children’s hearts against all religions, sacred and secular. I will throw myself at you, church man. Stay away from that child’s mind. Let her be a pagan; let her be a skeptic, a scientist, or a saint. Let her be any or all of these, but for God’s sake, let her be.

Let her be because her soul was never yours for the taking. If you lay your hands on her, she will grow hard, and still she will not be yours. But if you love her and let her and listen to her and allow her, one day she may return from the far country, fully grown and newly wise.

And soft, still soft. And strong, so strong.

rlp

To the middle sister, my string of pearls,

That’s a big heart you’re dragging around these days, and you’ve only just discovered how hard life can be.

Play the hand you were dealt.

Be soft.
Be true.
Be strong.
Be you.

-Daddy

Sunday School Boy

Wed, 09 Jan 2008 23:02:08 -0600

I was a Sunday school boy growing up. My parents took us to church every Sunday, and that weekly event included an hour of Bible study designed for children. We never missed unless we were very ill. As far as I knew, Sunday school was a normal part of childhood along with regular school, visits to grandparents, Little League, and playing in the backyard.

My father was a minister who often preached in other churches, so I sampled plenty of Sunday schools over the years. They were pretty much the same wherever you went. There would be a Bible story, of course, and lessons drawn from the text. There was usually some sort of craft project that often involved dried macaroni and might or might not be connected to the Bible story in some abstract way. There was singing on occasion and sometimes games.

When I was in second grade, my family attended a church adjacent to the seminary where my father got his degree and where I would receive mine years later. Our class was outfitted with standard Sunday school equipment. Heavy wooden tables and chairs, large cardboard building blocks colored to look like bricks, art supplies, puzzles, books, and fist-sized plastic animals that came in handy if the lesson was on Noah’s ark.

That year there was a boy in my Sunday school class named Martin. Martin loved dinosaurs and had leukemia, which we were told was a grave and serious thing to have. Martin sometimes brought toy dinosaurs to Sunday school, which made me a little jealous since I was not allowed to bring toys to church. But Martin had a serious illness, so it seemed right that some exceptions were made in his case.

Our Sunday school teacher told us that God gives a special gift or talent to every person, and that it was our duty to discover our talent and put it to use for God’s glory. The whole thing made perfect sense to me because Martin knew the name and habits of every dinosaur, so he had obviously identified and begun to utilize his God-given talent. I wondered what mine might be and began trying to discover it.

There was a spare piano in a darkened room at the church. I stole into the room and sat on the piano bench. I thought God talents would reveal themselves fully developed and ready for use. I pounded on the keys, imitating a piano player and hoping to hear music. A passing adult put her head into the room and told me to quit banging on the piano. I was frightened and embarrassed and slipped down the hall, hoping never to see her again. Clearly piano playing was not my gift. I tried other things but found no talents of any kind. After a week or two, I lost interest and went back to living my normal and seemingly untalented life.

One afternoon I found a length of bamboo in the alley behind our house. It was thicker than a fishing pole but slender enough for me to grasp it easily. I thought it made the perfect spear and spent half an hour running around our backyard, yelling and hurling the spear here and there.

Lying in the grass in the center of the yard was a large leaf. I spied this leaf and drew back the spear until my fist was beside my right ear. With a shout, I threw the spear at the leaf. By some miracle of chance it pierced the leaf and stuck quivering in the ground.

I was thrilled with myself and jumped up and down with excitement. Then it occurred to me that I had found the secret talent that God had given me. Somehow it was ordained under heaven that I should be able to throw spears with perfect accuracy. My faith in my newfound talent needed no further testing. The obvious miracle of the leaf was proof enough, and the lack of practical applications for such a talent did not occur to me.

I decided to immediately begin using my talent and enlisted the help of my little brother in setting up a public exhibition reminiscent of William Tell. My brother was about to enter kindergarten and was remarkably trusting. I positioned him in the center of our yard and backed up about 15 paces.

“Don’t be afraid, Hugh. I’m very good with spears. I’ll throw this spear, but it won’t hit you. It will fly right by your face. I’ll barely miss you. I can do this because I have perfect aim with spears.”

Hugh stood obediently in the yard, and I drew back my arm with complete confidence. At that moment my father walked out the door and into the backyard.

My father knew nothing of my passionate search for my talent. He knew nothing of the bamboo spear and the miracle of the leaf. He only knew that he opened the door of our house just in time to see me hurl a sharp stick at my younger brother, striking him an inch or so below his left eye and causing him to collapse on the lawn, screaming in pain.

When the spear struck my little brother, I was shocked and horrified. For an instant, my childish view of the world hung in the air like a cartoon character who has walked off a cliff. Then it plummeted, and I never saw the world in the same way again.

When a child’s view of the world is shattered, it is a violent emotional event. The mind reels and confusion reigns for a time. Nothing is as it seemed. If this thing you believed is not true, what other things might not be true? In that instant I gained years of wisdom. Now the whole idea of being able to throw spears accurately seemed reckless and foolish to me. I understood the grave risk I had taken. My brother and I fought ferociously at times, but I had no desire to hurt him.

Of course I didn’t have much time to consider these things because my father was headed in our direction. He covered the ground between us in about 2 seconds. He attended to my brother who, as it turned out, was bleeding a bit but not seriously injured. When he was assured that Hugh was okay, he turned his attention on me. I remember that his eyes were locked on mine and filled with anger.

“Gordon Douglas Atkinson, have you lost your mind? What were you thinking? Don’t you realize you could have put out his EYE? Don’t EVER EVER EVER do anything like that again!”

Those were the days when conscientious parents spanked their children. It was what good parents in our part of the world did. We won’t debate the question of spanking here. What I will say is that a bamboo pole broken twice over your father’s knee makes an effective paddle and is a powerful disincentive against repeating the offending behavior. We went round and round, literally.

When it was over, my brother was hustled into the house to be further cared for by our mother. I was left in the backyard. My bottom and my legs were hurting, and I had a strong but unclear sense of injustice. The whole thing was complicated and not the sort of thing a boy can easily explain to an angry father. Obviously hitting my brother in the face with a spear was a very bad thing to do. But I knew in my heart that I had arrived at the moment of transgression innocently and with good and honorable intentions. I believed that I had a talent. I felt like I was doing the right thing by seeking my gift and faithfully using it.

I never told anyone about thinking that spear throwing was my spiritual gift. I was happy to forget about it and move on. I was not a cruel boy, so I suppose my parents counted it as some kind of aberration from the norm. And yet, this event had a powerful impact on me and on my thinking. From that point forward, I was mistrustful of miraculous claims made at church. After the event with the spear, I allowed that what you heard at church might be true, but you should check these things out carefully before you put your life on the line. After all, people can get hurt.

It was a small and quiet change in my viewpoint. But it was important. It was one of the many moments that shaped me and made me who I am.

rlp

When I Become a Child

Wed, 09 Jan 2008 22:57:44 -0600

There is a time in every worship service when I become a child for a few seconds. It only lasts a moment or two, but that's all I need.

It happens right after the sermon is finished. Can you understand this? It is finished. It is over. I lived a week waiting for this sermon to be born. When the time came for it to be delivered, I entered the world of sermons, a world that includes me, the text, the people, and the words coming out of my mouth. It is a time of absolute focus. You enter that world and no other worlds matter. In this regard, preaching is almost like a drug. It takes away whatever else is in your mind. In this regard, preaching is also very dangerous for the one doing it.

I give myself to preaching because that is what it takes to preach. But sermons are not an essential part of Christianity. They aren’t mandated by scripture. And I have a feeling that in the eyes of God, sermons are often very silly things. I know mine must be. They even seem silly to me at times. But how am I to know this? How am I to know about sermons and whether they should or should not be? I never get to hear them. I only speak them. I can't remember what it's like to be out there in the chairs.

Sometimes you are called by your community to do a thing. It is your calling, so you do it. The big questions are fine, but you’ll answer them while you are carrying out your calling. If you are the woodcutter for your village, you may have questions about woodcutting. You might want to explore the possibility of coal. You might fantasize about some kind of rotation schedule where everyone cuts wood. But while you work all this out in your mind, you cut wood because the village needs fire.

I am in a constant state of trying to understand preaching. I wonder what people get out of it in the long run. I wonder if it ultimately does more harm than good. Am I contributing to the idea that the ancient spiritual journey of Christianity can now mean nothing more than showing up at a building and listening to some person talk? I used to think I would work all of this out along the way. And now it's been fourteen years, and I'm still uncomfortable with preaching. I'm beginning to suspect that the day you think you understand preaching is the day you should stop doing it.

The whole thing is very…ummm…adult. Yeah, adult. You know, carrying out your responsibilities in spite of how you feel, thinking about the big picture, all that adult stuff. So I don't think it's any coincidence that I become a child every Sunday after the sermon is over.

At our church, after the sermon, I invite one or two of my little friends to come and take up the offering. They walk among us and pass around the plates. They scamper up and down the aisle, sometimes with bare feet and always with pure hearts. They are children, and this is their calling at our church. They don't understand it completely, but it is their calling and they are faithful to it.

Sometimes it is Anna, sometimes Steven or Kevin or Adam or Jacob, sometimes Lillian or Rachel or Madison. Sometimes they work in pairs. Sometimes it is a child who has never helped before, like last Sunday when Ellie came forward for the first time. I never know who will heed the call.

While they do their work, I sit down on the hearth of our fireplace. I sit like a little boy on a curb. Usually my elbows are on my knees, and I often rest my chin in my palm. I get comfortable; I don’t know how it looks. I wait patiently while the children get the plates passed around. Then the magic happens. Whoever was passing the plates will come and sit beside me while Cathy finishes playing the piano. For just a moment, we are children sitting together in front of the fireplace in complete innocence. During that time I sit very still, and I don't like to make eye contact with any grownups, lest the spell be broken.

In those few seconds, while the piano music is winding down, I am a little boy. I don’t have anything to offer anyone, and it doesn’t matter. No one expects anything from me. Just these few seconds are all I need for the week. Just a few seconds to help me remember who I am. Then we stand together, my little friend and I, and everyone in the church offers a silent prayer. During that prayer I lean down and whisper something in my friend's ear. It is a secret thing I whisper. Only the children and I know what I say.

As far as I know, there is only one picture of me sitting at the fireplace in those few moments while the music is still playing. Here it is.

I look like a man trying hard not to lose something. I look like a man trying to hold onto something precious. Anna, on the other hand, looks like someone who lives forever in that moment. She knows nothing but the present moment, for she is a child.

There is wisdom here, for those who can find it.

rlp

A Desert Childhood

Wed, 05 Apr 2006 17:30:10 -0500

I spent my early childhood in El Paso, Texas. We lived in the desert, literally. If you stood on our front porch and looked across the street, there was sand and cactus and horned toads and tumbleweeds. Desert as far as you could see. Or at least as far as a small boy could see. Sometimes I would say to my mother, “I’m going to play in the desert, okay?” This seemed to me to be a perfectly normal thing for a boy to say.

This is the jumbled story of things that can happen to a small boy in the desert.

Coyotes ate my dog once. We had a little beagle named Missy. One night she heard wild yips, yelps, and howls, in the desert night. She went to investigate and never came back. I hear that coyotes like to eat dogs and cats. They’re easy prey, and wild animals do not have the luxury of being sporting.

My little brother drank desert sand in El Paso. We had glasses and were pretending that we were pouring Kool-Aid into them, only we were pouring sand. The girl from next door and I pretended to drink, but my little brother thought we really were drinking, so he tossed back a full mouthful of sand. I remember him crying and sticking his tongue out. It looked like one of those doughnuts that are rolled in cinnamon and sugar.

There was a huge canyon in the desert across the street. At least it seemed huge to me. If I stood on the edge and looked down into it, it would make my groin and stomach tingle. Later I learned that this was simply an arroyo, a dry gully or creek. The drop was probably no more than ten feet. But I spent the entire time we lived there terrified of falling into the arroyo because I heard that a boy named Chuck went over the edge in roller skates. What he was doing in the desert wearing roller skates was never made clear to me. But I remember the idea of falling with heavy boots and wheels on your feet was something so terrible that it haunted me until we finally moved.

My great-grandmother once visited from East Texas where my parents grew up. She brought grapefruit because she and my grandfather thought grapefruit was one of the greatest miracles and joys in life. They talked a lot about grapefruit and made special trips to places where you could buy it. I don’t think they had much fruit when they were kids, so it was still a wondrous thing to them. One morning I was pushing a small car around on the floor, and I went into the bathroom on my hands and knees, only to be stopped dead in my tracks by my great-grandmother’s toenails. I ran to my room, utterly horrified by what I had seen.

Years later I could still remember her toenails. My memory was that you could lift up her big toenail and there was a secret place underneath it, like a little pillbox. The secret place was divided into two sections by a membranous wall of skin. I became convinced that we all had a space like this under our toenails, but most of our toenail lids were stuck shut for some reason. I used to daydream about what I could hide in my big toe if I could only find a way to pry open the lid without it hurting so much.

When I finally got old enough to understand that our toes aren’t hollow, I also realized that the membrane toe-space divider of my memory looked exactly like the limp membranes of a grapefruit that are left after the meat has been eaten. Obviously our childhood memories, dreams, and reflections have a way of getting a little jumbled.

In kindergarten, I fell in love with a black-haired, brown-skinned girl named Carmen. I loved her because she colored in the lines better than anyone else. When she used crayons she pressed them lightly on the paper, and all of her strokes went the same way. She didn’t push down hard with her crayons and scribble every which way. That was when I came to understand that you shouldn’t color with a crayon held tightly in your fist. You should hold it lightly and at an angle. Carmen taught me that, and I loved her for it. I used to imagine her face, smiling and confident, and her arm moving back and forth over a piece of paper.

Four years later another girl named Carmen became the first kid I ever knew who died. We came to school on Monday morning to find our teacher crying at her desk. She told us that Carmen’s family had been in a car accident and that she had died. Her empty desk sat there in our class, haunting us. I couldn’t keep from staring at it. One little boy who was always mean said, “Oh well, I guess her batteries just ran down.” It made me feel sick when he said that. He was a pretty unhappy boy, as I recall.

That afternoon I walked by Carmen’s house on the way home from school. I stood on the sidewalk staring at the front of her house until someone came out and asked what I wanted. I didn’t know what to say, so I turned and ran. After that I walked home a different way.

El Paso is the only city in Texas with mountains nearby. Sometimes my parents would take us up into the mountains to beautiful places where you saw how the desert would look if there were no people and houses. Just natural desert, brutal, stark, and beautiful.

There is an arid joy that comes when you learn to feel the beauty of the desert. It is a joy without frills or margins. An empty canteen or a cactus can take this joy away in an instant, but if you are safe and have time to look and feel, the part of your brain that is at the base of your skull can love the clarity of the desert. You can love the dry air and the way the temperature drops at night. You can love the harshness of it. You can even love the coyotes and all the hard and mysterious things that define our lives. All the things that we never, ever forget.

rlp

Images of El Paso

Dust Devils & Older Brothers

Mon, 09 Jan 2006 10:30:29 -0600

My brother remembers something mean I did to him when we were boys growing up in dusty El Paso.

Unmade Children and Never Written Words

Sun, 13 Jan 2008 18:43:04 -0600

If you think having three children is a lot, consider for a moment how many children I didn’t have.

Yeah.

I think of those unborn children sometimes, when we tell our third daughter the story of how we were only going to have two children, then changed our minds one morning after a single, reckless conversation at the kitchen table. She stares off into space when I tell her that story. She is thinking of her own non-existence. She almost never was.

I know how she feels, for I almost never was. I remember when my mother told me about the miscarriage she had a few months before she became pregnant with the child who somehow became me. I used to think of that lost baby as my older brother. In my imagination he never spoke, but stood by watching. He was shy and unbelievably kind to step aside for me.

The odds of me meeting the woman who somehow became my wife were slim at best. Someone paired us together to lead a small group during freshman orientation at Baylor University in the fall of 1982. There were hundreds of volunteers and someone took her paper and mine and put them together with a paper clip. My God, this person was holding our lives in his hands. He was shuffling children in and out of existence with no more concern than someone tossing a salad.

Think of all those who never were. My beloved Elliot is one of them. He reminds me a little of my older brother. He’s always standing across the street in my imagination, pounding his fist into a tiny baseball mitt. He’s not sad anymore and neither am I. Sometimes we even wave at each other. I think he knows that I remember him every time Mars hangs low near the horizon.

Yeah…

Did I ever tell you that my essays feel like children to me? There are some high achievers, a few with special needs, one or two with attention issues, and several that are just silly rabbits. There is a nursery full of these children somewhere near the soft edge of my heart. If I see someone reading one of them, it feels like a warm hand on the back of my neck.

Sometimes I think of all the essays that might have been but never were. My writing folder is filled with drafts in various stages of completion that only had a brief moment in the sun. Some miscarried for reasons unknown; others were aborted. Some tried so very hard, but just never made it. These potential essays live across the street from my heart, and they wave at me with little arms that are made of the precious titles that hint at what they might have been.

The Prayer of a Penitent Sinner

Madeline’s Silly Onion Hair

The Opposable Thumb Kicks Ass

Grape Soda and the Little Black Fly

Let’s Put the X Back in Christmas

For the Love of Xeno

I Suppose I Like the Idea of People

Four and a Half Pounds of Sunlight

So where do you suppose children and words come from? Do you think of them as existing somewhere before, waiting to be born or gathered together into paragraphs? Do you think of them in a giant queue with only one out of a hundred chosen and the rest going into the abyss? Does the possibility that they might have existed mean anything? Does the scent of these broken dreams linger somewhere like the richest pipe tobacco?

And what of all the love and energy that would have been poured into these fleshly and inked vessels?

Where does that energy come from, and where does it go?

rlp

Click here to meet Elliot, the boy who never was

Best Friends

Sat, 24 Sep 2005 17:59:27 -0500

b e s t f r i e n d s

Looking Forward to Monday

Sun, 14 Aug 2005 22:55:26 -0500

Hello there,

I'm basically killing time until Monday. School starts then, and I begin writing in earnest. I've cleared the way so that I can dedicate a goodly number of hours each week to writing and working with this site. So far I've been hampered by the three sisters who are home and needing to go here and there all the time. I'm tired of summer.

Monday it begins. I'm pumped.

I'm also a little uncomfortable. My middle daughter Shelby is going to a private school this year. Those who have been reading RLP for a long time may remember that Shelby has had a hard time in school the last two years. Her struggles have led to high amount of anxiety and some depression. So she's going to finish middle school (7th and 8th grades) at a small private academy near our home. It's a Christian school. Funny how that makes me nervous. It's probably because I have had some bad experiences with very conservative Christians. That's my problem and not the school's, though this school is connected to a church that is more conservative than I am. They seem very nice, and there are only about fifteen 7th graders in the school. Four teachers for the entire middle school. Lots of personal attention. Very sound academically. She'll be fine.

Anyway, I plan to write pretty hard Monday and Tuesday. I'm hoping to have something for you and for Christian Century. I have at least 5 irons in the fire; surely one or two will come inspire me.

I may or may not post over the weekend. See you next week for sure.

rlp

The Three Sisters

Email From Moldova

Tue, 09 Aug 2005 10:48:39 -0500

The following is an email I received from Ben, one of the four people from our church who went to Moldova with CERI (Children's Emergency Relief International) They have gone to work with children in a camp setting, but toured some of the orphan facilities on their way.

Good Sabbath friends,

Just to share some impressions from our first couple of days...

Visiting Internat II, the orphanage in Chesinau where the kids live during the school year. 631 kids currently. Orphans, including "social orphans" whose parents are alive, but who have for a variety of reasons abandoned them. We're met by Ms. Galina, the director of the orphanage and principal of its school (orphans stay until they complete 9th grade; usually by 16 or 17). She is 53, though she looks older. Drill sergeant exterior, but as she talks on through the interpreter she more and more divulges her humor and genuine warmth. She faces a complex of deteriorated buildings (yes, the pictures of the latrines on the Covenant bulletin board are just what I observed walking through the "dorms") and a pitiful budget from the Moldovan government (basically $1 per day per child). But I don't hear hopelessness, or even cynicism. Just realism, (she says that 60 years of state-enforced atheism has left much of their culture spiritually impoverished) and an amazing faithfulness to her role. As if from no where, I absorb the full scene, including my material blessings in some impossible comparison to what I am experiencing here, and I have to step away for several minutes as I weep hard for the first time. We tour the school buildings and the dorms, and move on.

Steve Davis shows us a large, unfinished building just outside of Chesinau. Beautiful views of the rolling hills countryside. CERI has just bought the land and this building shell, and Steve shares his dreams of it serving as a transition house for the orphan girls who have finished 9th grade at Internat II and are headed into what for Moldovan girls are pretty dramatic risks of prostitution, including the slave traffic profiled recently by 20-20 (young women from this tiny country comprise a whopping 60% of the violent prostitution export that the country's police are at this point clearly incapable of stopping). The transition house idea Steve knows well from his work in South Texas has already begun paying dividends here, with several of the Internat II graduates living in CERI sponsored apartments while they learn sewing, quilting or other skills that may make them self supporting. I begin to understand the value of our "grandmotherly" team members. Turns out San Antonio builder David Weekly has put up a challenge grant of $50,000 to help finish out the transition house. Steve is excited.

Am introduced to women whose passion and perseverance are making a difference. We visit "Speranza", a facility in the middle of Chesinau where a mother of 2 disabled kids has over several years built a pretty modern rehab facility to mainstream disabled kids. It's the nicest facility we've seen by far, funded by private entities. How has this very common single mom (touring us though the facility barefoot, willing to spend all day if we could've) pulled this off? Tammy, a mother of 2 from Nashville, TN, has been staying at the team house for going on 3 weeks now, tenaciously returning to the bureaucracy trying to get officials to finalize a student visa they've promised for the 17 year old she has committed to bring to the United States to finish college prep work and then hopefully attend an American university. I realize I wouldn't bet against Tammy, even up against the bureaucracy. The third woman (fourth I guess if I count Ms. Galina) is Jen Gash, early 30s lady who came to Moldova on a CERI trip just a couple of years ago. She was haunted by the beds in the Internat II orphanage (among other things) and has returned to the US and raised the money to fund a new bed building and eventually replace every bed in the place. Her efforts have sparked a new ministry under CERI called "Sweet Sleep,' and it employs boys who have finished the 9th grade, learn carpentry skills, and work for Sweet Sleep. How did this young woman have the nerve to think she could do this? Even Ms Galina gets gushy when she talks about this American woman and the new beds. OK, so the deal is "no despondency" no matter what we experience. Got it. Or at least I'm trying.

Final stop just outside Chesinau at an "infant orphanage", where some kids from birth to about 4 or 5 live. This is the only time we will see them, so the team brought candy and simple toys for a 30 minute party of sorts that turns into an hour of course. Yep, they are absolutely precious. Digital cameras are suddenly worth it, as they love to instantly see the picture you just took. I ask about these red and blue blotches all over their faces, hair, legs and arms, and learn it's medicine for various ringworm type sores. No, it doesn't stop anyone from loving on them. Several surround Danielle, who is doing some great acting like they're "getting her" with the little puppets they just got. One 2 year old comes up to me for a hug, and then just buries her head in my neck for 2-3 minutes straight. Finally, I see her beautiful little face (a lot of the children here are strikingly beautiful, and danged if I don't worry more about what that may mean when they are older) and her "blue teeth" smile from the ring pops Brittney gave her a little earlier. As we leave, we realize we brought candy and toys to 27 little ones who don't even have a pair of shoes. At dinner, the team votes to pass the hat for shoes for them, and we offer a team gift to Ms Galina - $725. That will cover the shoes and the rest will be way more than Ms. Galina expects. Hey, there ARE some things we can do.

Realizing we haven't even met the kids we will be working with all week yet (around 150 or so who are staying just for the summer at Internat II's camp facility outside Chisinau), I'm feeling somewhere between emotionally drained and strangely empowered.

Got to go now. Will write again, hopefully with pictures (we do already have a bunch, but I need Jenny to do the downloading for me and she has been the "one armed paper hanger" busy thing as team leader; so I will have to wait my turn. Damn I'm proud of her).

Love from Team Moldova

PS You guys must be praying; it's just too obvious. I have my first sense why missionaries invariably just go on and on about that. No doubt the matter of knowing you have no chance of controlling any part of this sinks in pretty clearly.

rlp

The Dignity of Children

Fri, 03 Feb 2006 16:48:22 -0600

I'm back. Where were we?

Oh yeah, so anyway Anna had a little trouble with the offering plate a few Sundays ago. Most people who put checks in the plate politely fold them in half. Someone didn't make a very good crease, and one of the checks opened up and was waving in the air like a tiny sail. Anna, who takes ballet and is almost five, tends to skip and run and bounce as she goes up and down the aisle, so the check caught a little breeze and flew out of the plate. When she bent down to pick it up, a few bills fell out. When she retrieved those the check fell out again. This sequence kept repeating itself until our worship service was beginning to look like a Marx Brothers' movie.

Finally, a kind and smiling adult helped her gather everything back into the plate, and she swished up to the front where we sit together and wait for the music to end. I noticed the check was still waving in the wind, so I pulled it out and gave it a good crease so that it would behave. When I leaned over to drop it back in, I let my cheek brush Anna's hair - sort of on purpose - and I couldn't help but whisper, “You're sweet.”

Church can be a little messy when the children take up the offering. I remember when a little girl named Natalie did this for the first time. Instead of handing the plate to the person at the end of the aisle, she went into the aisle itself and stood in front of each person, waiting for them to make a donation. The third person along didn't have anything to give. Natalie stood there looking at him. He shrugged and shook his head. She looked down at her plate, then back at him with a puzzled expression. Finally someone from the row behind handed him a dollar, and he dropped it in.

Natalie's mother, somewhat anxious and embarrassed, stood up and got her daughter's attention by whispering and waving. She jerked her head sideways and made little “scoot along” gestures, but Natalie had no idea what she was talking about, so she continued to stand in front of every person and wait for them to give something.

There was some tittering and quiet laughter, then a general panic as people started clawing through their purses and pockets looking for spare change and bills. Those who had extra shared with those who had none, rather like the early church in the second chapter of Acts. In the end everyone managed to find something to drop in the plate. We're a small church and we all know each other, so things like this are actually rather precious.

Having children help in worship introduces an uncertainty principle into the whole affair, making Sunday exciting and unpredictable. You can force children to stay in their seats, gaining some control over the velocity of worship, but losing something of its essence. Or you can let the children be a part of worship and accept the inevitable loss of control. It's like a lot of things; there is "give and take" and the constant search for balance.

Worship is something that happens when humanity and divinity come together. The intersection does not produce perfection, but understanding. We are only human, and worship is meant, among other things, to remind us of that. The main idea behind worship is that we come to a good understanding of who we are and who God is.

So away with the idea that worship is meant to be produced by experts and performed by professionals. Away with the idea that worship takes place up on a stage where it can be carefully orchestrated, controlled, and reproduced week in and week out, like some sort of TV show. I don't want order in church; I want dignity. And dignity comes not from control, but from understanding who you are and taking your rightful place in the world.

Children bring their own innocent dignity to worship, I've found. So let them come to the front and sit by the preacher. Let me lay my hands on their heads and whisper little blessings in their ears.

Better yet, let me become a child again myself. Let worship be a time of remembering who I am in the world. For I am just another little boy with messy hair, holding an offering plate at the front of the church, and wondering if anyone will whisper something nice in my ear today.

rlp

Acts 2:43-47

Note: It's May and I'm back, as promised. I've missed you A LOT. Clearly I'm not going to be able to survive without this wonderful outlet for my soul. A lot has happened to me in the month I've been away. Good things and a couple of hard things. I've learned something important about myself. I'll share that with you when I'm ready.

I'm heading for Dallas this afternoon to be a part of the Wilshire Baptist Church annual Preaching Practicum. I'll be back Wednesday.

Daughters, Daddies, and Broken Hearts

Fri, 03 Feb 2006 16:50:38 -0600

I remember when I was 27 and our first daughter was learning to walk. I told an older friend how hard it was to watch her fall and hurt herself. He said, "Just wait until she comes home from school with a broken heart."

In that moment I tried to imagine my little girl as a teen-ager, sobbing in my arms because she thought she was ugly, or because she was lonely, or because someone had been cruel and wounded her heart. I remember that I could just barely imagine the sadness, and it took my breath away.

These days I live with that kind of pain all the time.

The amount of love and care my wife and I have invested in these three little hearts is unthinkable. We've raised them so gently, nurturing their self-esteem, walking carefully with them through every stage of life. And now that two of them are in secondary schools, we must turn them over to the savages. Middle school is Lord of the Flies. High school is a little better, but still brutal.

Last year Shelby was selected by the girls in her class for special torment and pain. My little Shelby whose every look and mannerism is known and loved by me. Why Shelby? She's socially gifted and able to relate well to her peers. But she was the new girl in school and she was chosen. It was like watching the hyenas cut one gazelle out from the herd and take her down.

Some days before school she would almost throw up from fear. I had to take her to school and let her fight the battle herself. You can't let your children die, so there are times to step in. But mostly they have to get through these things on their own. We met with teachers and counselors to help, but for the most part she had to deal with it herself.

Watching it was so painful. My little sweetie. How can anyone want to hurt her?

This year has been better. She's established herself with the kids in her school and has friends. Well, she thought she had friends. Yesterday one of the girls in her group told her that they had talked about it and decided that they weren't going to be Shelby's friends anymore. She was strong at school but fell apart at home. She has learned not to let them see you sweat.

I gave her a hug and tried to be strong too. Under my breath I cursed. "Dammit! We did this last year, and I don't want to do it again."

But this is the way it is. This is what it means to be a parent. You cannot save your children from pain. If you try, you will only bring a different kind of pain to them. They must grow, and they must walk, and they must go out into the world and take their licks.

And you must sit at home and imagine what is happening. You must root for them, cry with them, and feel what they feel. This is the way of parents. No one can tell you this ahead of time. You can't know it until you know it.

And of course I know that there are much worse things out there for children. Shelby will be fine. She has marvelous ego strength, and this season of her life is just one of many.

But knowing that there is worse pain doesn't make present pain hurt any less.

rlp

What Children Bring to the Table

Fri, 03 Feb 2006 16:58:10 -0600

What children bring to the table is pure love, like a fifty pound nugget of gold a yokel hefts onto the bar in full view of everyone in the saloon.

One-by-one we leave the gambling tables, the liquor, and the player piano to sidle up to the stranger with the pretty rock. In that instant, love comes over us like the rush of a mighty wind, filling the room and touching us as if with tongues of fire. The irresistible pull of our desire sucks the air from our lungs and leaves us weak, panting, and forever addicted.

The yokel says, “This is love. Do you understand now?”

And your heart says, “Yes!” But this is no ordinary yes. This is the yes of your bones, the ontological yes of your being, the yes that existed before all time. This is what you were made for and only now do you see it. You cry out, and your body shakes, and you fall to your knees in submission. This is the world's most powerful drug, the one that all others can only imitate. Once you have tasted it you will pay any price for more, or wander the earth to honor even the memory of it.

This is what children bring to the table. They dance into the room dragging the greatest power in the universe behind them like a toy on a string. All of your petty sophistications are swept aside, and when they are gone you do not remember the substance of them or how they once held power over you. There is no going back. Here you stand; you can do no other.

You know you have handed over the keys to your kingdom, but the transaction is complete. It happened in an instant; it happened before you could draw a breath. And now the power to break your heart lies out of your control and in the hands of a child.

And they will hurt you, children will. They will take everything you have and give you only sips of what you desire. And then they will harden in time and become more and more like you. They will become guarded, and they will lose love. Then they will leave you to seek it in distant lands. When they leave, you are forever changed, forever hungry, forever seeking. You are deeper, richer, more capable, more able to love.

And if there is someone who shared this love with you, and if the two of you worked hard to stay connected through the firestorm and through the grief, and if both of you were equally determined not to lose each other in those long years, then one day you will turn to your beloved, lay your hand on her aging cheek, and discover that love has not left you after all.

And everything you gave for love will be returned to you. And you will become children for each other, dancing again in the Garden of Eden. You will see with new eyes. You will know Wisdom. You will bless the world.

And it is said that you will walk together in the land which the Lord has given you until it is time.

rlp

The Gospel According To Anna

Fri, 03 Feb 2006 17:01:04 -0600

There is no such thing as The Gospel in the same way that there is no such thing as a circle. The Good News, like the perfect circle, lies forever beyond us and out of our reach. What we have is the gospel according to. Nothing more and nothing less...

Click here to read this essay at The Christian Century Website
NOTE: Look for the Real Live Preacher graphic on the right and click on it.

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After you've read the essay, don't miss the mysterious gospel according to Anna, online at its own website. Anna.RealLivePreacher.com

rlp