He makes all things new

It's hard to think about things being "new" when I feel sabotaged by morbid thoughts of sickness and death.  It creeps in everywhere...the prayer request at church for the family of a baby who died after a premature birth...the daily experience of watching my grammy and Clevi watch my grandad slip away toward death...it even sneaks into the books I pick up at the library.

The fact of life is that death is imminent and it effects every one.  It's easy to get depressed.  What is there to really live for?  Is it just plugging along here on earth and then dying?  What are we doing?

But this gives hope:

⁵⁰ Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does corruption inherit incorruption. ⁵¹ Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed— ⁵² in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. ⁵³ For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. ⁵⁴ So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”^{[g]       55} “ O Death, where is your sting?^[h]      O Hades, where is your victory?”^[i] 56 The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. ⁵⁷ But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15:50-57)

There is something else, something new that is coming.  God will make all things new...in a twinkling of an eye (which, as I think C.S. Lewis mentioned, is such a cheerful and wistful action).  There is a point and something better is coming.

So, in light of this:

 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. (1 Corinthians 15:58)

We keep going and in the middle of entropy and death, we look forward to something new.

The game of parenting

I don't know how it is for you, but the internet and the connection it provides between individuals can be both a blessing and a negative distraction for me.  Since having Harriet, I tend to gravitate toward blogs, Facebook statuses, and websites that talk about parenting: attachment parenting methods, healthy nutrition for babies and families, cloth diapering, organic living, classic imagination-friendly toys, you name it.  It's fun and an encouragement to follow other mothers in their quest to raise their children.  But sometimes it can be a distraction.  Sometimes I feel a tremendous pressure to never ever let sugar touch Harriet's lips.  Or I think that her imagination will be instantly stunted if she watches a DVD.  Or she will be emotionally distanced from her parents if we adopt a modified spanking style of discipline or make her sleep in her own bed.  And I freak out at the thought of the little monster that I'm accidentally creating.

(A rational evaluation reveals that while Harriet does eat sugary foods at times, she still adores spinach, strawberries, salmon, oatmeal, cucumbers, eggs, avocados, beans, rice, chicken, pork, beef, carrots, cauliflower, the list goes on and on.  While she watches Baby Einstein on some mornings, she also loves to read books, and play creatively with her baby doll, crayons, or new Fisher Price farm set. :-))

But here is an interesting little analogy that I thought about today.  Recently, Steve and I have discovered a liking for board games - you know, the snotty European board games that you can only order from places like BoardGameGeek.com and cost around five million dollars.  Steve takes them rather seriously, and I play along, trying to beat him but knowing that I won't.  (BUT, there was the glorious event on Monday morning when I beat him soundly by twenty points...while holding down morning sickness nausea!  I win!)  In any case, we have become rather adept at playing a two-person variation of Puerto Rico.  One thing we have discovered over the past twenty-something times we have played is that in the two-person variation there isn't much room for strategical moves, while there is a heavy emphasis on tactical moves.  You basically just have to keep the overall goal in mind (winning victory point chips) and just react to the other player's moves as they happen.  (An example: I might have the initial strategy of settling lots of plantations on my little island, getting lots of products, shipping lots off to Spain, and getting my victory points that way.  But then Steve decides that he wants to do a mixture of settling and building, so I have to react accordingly and build more than I would have otherwise in order to keep abreast in victory points.  In short, there isn't just one particular strategy that is a sure-fire win each time.)

So anyway, while I was folding laundry this afternoon, I started thinking about how the example of a game of Puerto Rico is a neat picture of parenting.  You see, as far as I can tell, there isn't just one perfect strategy for parenting.  There isn't the Never Feed Sugar or Watch TV Method that always works every time.  Neither is there the Plastic Diaper Baby Food From a Jar Method that works across the board.  Each and every parent has to react to the different children (or even just one child) that God has given them.  Things switch up and methods have to be changed, but parents have to keep the over-arching, long-term goal in mind.  The victory points! 

As a believer in Jesus Christ, my over-arching, long-term desire and goal for Harriet Alice (and for her future siblings) is that she knows Christ and follows him and loves him.  Decisions that we make in the practical areas of life like eating and recreation can affect this to a certain degree (I do believe in irresistible grace, but that isn't a topic for discussion right now).  If Harriet eats junk food all of the time and is sick as a result, she can't spend time truly enjoying God and His Word.  If Harriet watches trash on television, she can be tempted to sin and be distracted from leading a holy life.  But I desperately want our practical decisions about her upbringing to be intimately connected to a long-term goal...and not just exist because I feel a need to compete with other parents.  

The bottom line is that each and every parent needs to make decisions that are right and best for his or her children.  It's their role and responsibility.  But this can be a hard thing to keep in mind.  I'm reminded of the passage in John 21 when Peter wonders about John's future ministry and asks Jesus, "Lord, what about this man?"  Jesus replies, "If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you?  You follow me."  Those words "you, follow me" are what I definitely need to bring to the forefront of my mind when the temptation to compare and contrast distracts me from my parenting task at hand.

I know I have a long way to go in this parenting game that I'm playing (my whole life long, I hope!), and I know there is a lot left to learn.  But these are some thoughts that have been impressed on me lately and I hope they can be helpful.

Now my child is whining.  I'd better tend to her....

Behind a frowning providence

It's been almost two weeks since I last wrote a post and a lot has happened.  I've debated whether or not to blog about it because I don't want to be all sob-story.  But it's an important life event that needs to be shared.

On February 17, we found out that we were pregnant with Rodgers baby #2.  After the initial mental adjustment of Now I Have to Be Pregnant in a New Place, the rush of excited feelings descended.  Harriet would have a sibling close to her age - hooray!  But not too close - hooray again!  As I braced myself for the morning sickness fiasco, I looked forward to the fun of making maternity clothes, signing up for week-by-week emails, choosing a name, and most importantly, having a new little person to adore. 

The morning sickness never came.  Aside from an overly sensitive nose and extreme exhaustion, I didn't feel badly at all.  This is great, I thought.  Maybe this baby will be a chill little creature and balance the dear HarriEd out a bit.  After several weeks of trying to schedule an appointment with a midwife here in IL (to no avail, I might add), I decided to make an appointment with my doctor back in Nebraska during the week that I would be home.  After everything checked out at that visit, I would announce our happy news to the world.

But sadly, that wasn't to be.  The day after my arrival in Nebraska, I started spotting.  This was the dreaded nightmare of my pregnancy with H, and now it was actually happening.  Trying not to panic, I made an appointment for the next morning and then tried to reassure myself that some pregnancies with early bleeding turn out perfectly fine.  I stayed up practically all night praying that this would be the case for our baby, but deep down I knew that it wasn't so.  (In a way I felt as though I were ten-year-old-chubby-Amelia again praying for her kitten to be found...and knowing all the while that he was probably frozen out in the December snow.)

The ultrasound and my physical condition the next day revealed that a miscarriage had occurred.  At first I felt very sad and disappointed.  The baby had died.  All of the hopes and plans were being destroyed.  To make matters worse, Steve was still in Illinois and wouldn't be able to come for another week.  While I was very glad to have the support of my family (and the help with Harriet) it was depressing to be going through a rather traumatic life experience without my husband. 

Like I said earlier, I have argued with myself whether or not to share this rather personal experience.  It feels weird to type it up like it's just some normal day in the life of Amelia, instead of the weird, surreal and saddening experience that it really was and continues to be.  But there are some reasons for sharing that outweigh the weirdness:

1. The miscarriage exemplifies God's provision and loving kindness.  It happened in Nebraska where I had access to my doctor who know my medical history.  It reduced the stress by a million percent to not have to figure out where to go or what to do back in IL.  I had the tremendous support and comfort of not only my immediate family but my extended family as well.  I had siblings and parents who were willing and eager to help with Harriet on the yuckier days.  Those same siblings and parents provided a healthy distraction and external focus so that the clouds of depression didn't stay for long.  Our substantial tax return came several weeks early so Steve was able to come to Nebraska just a day after the miscarriage.  And I didn't have any prolonged physical difficulties.  So in the midst of it all God is very good.
2. I want to be real to the people around me - and that includes the relationships that this blog supplies.  Being real means sharing the hard stuff as well as the jolly stuff.  It's a stripping away of all of the Fake Amelia which so often dominates my relating to others.  And honestly, I don't think I could be all hunky-dory on here without mentioning the miscarriage...because it effects how I feel and how I experience life.
3. Our society deals with loss through miscarriage so poorly.  I wanted to share because I believe that no matter how many weeks a baby lives, it is still a person with a soul who was once alive.  Because of our culture's view of the sanctity of life, pregnancy (and miscarriage) becomes such a sterile and purely physical event.  Our baby wasn't just a blighted ovum that failed to bury into the uterine wall.  It was a baby...a person.  Even though we never knew that baby in a real sense, we can still experience the loss of a life that was close to us.  And while the grieving process may be different, it can still exist.
4. I want to help others.  Even though I hope that none of you will ever experience a miscarriage, I want you to know that if you do, I'm available.  If you don't know what I've experienced, then you'll never know that I can be a listening and (hopefully) understanding ear.  

I still do feel sad and disappointed at times, but we're really doing okay.  Having the drama of a sick Harriet helps with that. :-)  All of this has led me to really think about what it means to let God control your family size.  He really does give children and take away children.  Just because a couple chooses not to prevent pregnancy through birth control or NFP doesn't mean that they will have a baby every year.  Some couples are blessed with many children close in age.  Others struggle to conceive or deal with miscarriages or just with long spaces between each munchkin.  God is truly the one in control.

I find it ironic that our miscarriage happened on the day of the earthquake in Japan.  It was hard to think about an entire country getting crushed when my small little world was being shaken up.  But a post from the Desiring God blog in response to the earthquake and tsunami also served as a personal encouragement to me.  At the end of Piper's prayer was this statement:


O let them not judge you with feeble sense, but trust you for your grace. And so behind this providence, soon find a smiling face.

Review: The Rise of Evangelicalism

I recently finished reading Mark Noll's book, The Rise of Evangelicalism.


This is my review for Amazon.com:

This book was very handy for me in getting a good big picture of the beginnings of Evangelicalism. Dr. Noll's narrative stitches together a clear story, which is easy enough to follow despite the movement's spread across the Atlantic and separation into various (sometimes rivaling) groups. I was especially helped by the comprehensive breadth of the work. Being raised in nondenominational Evangelical Christianity, I had a fuzzy picture of much of the early denominational history of the movement, especially of the Wesleyans and Moravians. I appreciated Dr. Noll's insight into how these groups related to each other and to the Calvinistic wing of Evangelicalism. Another particularly interesting segment was the discussion of the movement's complex relationship with the religious establishment, especially in Britain and New England. I found this placed the whole movement in a clearer setting of American and English history. I look forward to getting hold of the rest of the series.

Interacting with Media: A Method of Approach

I have a method in mind for guiding my interactions with media, and I will lay out something of that method ahead of time here:
Questions
I began with a list of questions. It was about 3 pages long, and no where near long enough to really get at what an artistic, informational, entertaining work is all about. I would need ten or more pages before I really had the makings of the questions we ought to be asking of the things we watch, listen to, or read. This was not working out very well. I went to sleep after typing those questions in a bit of a tizzy, because I knew that no one, including myself or my kids, would want to sit down with a wall of questions getting between them and the most recent Deadliest Catch. This was not going to work.
After a day or two of running various errands, I was going to bed last night, lamenting to Amelia that I had no means of approaching my goals of critical, involved, Christianly media feasting. I said, “I need something organic.” That is, I needed something which lined up with our minds' aesthetic; which made simple sense and could 'click' with most people. So we talked for a while, and began thinking about the basic processes that need to be in place for a mind to really begin to engage the world in the way I had fuzzily envisioned. So, in the end, I have scrapped the questionnaire idea, and I am trying to move on with the concept of a tool-set for critical engagement in media interactions.
Tools
So, I will try laying out a few of the tools which are necessary for these interactions. First, there is the goal of a Holistic Experience. I mean that my interactions with the world via media should intentionally seek to include, not only the physical sensations of watching or listening, but also some types of mental, emotional, and volitional engagement. (I obviously take this from the great commandment, “Love the LORD your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.”) I think that I will be able to break down these four spheres of personal involvement in life in the ensuing few posts, and thereby find some of these tools with which to arm ourselves.
So, we can look at the cycle of inductive and deductive processes, the layers of context in which every datum resides, and the steps of interpreting a document (Kay Arthur-style: observing, interpreting, and applying, but with major adjustments). These would all be part of our mental interaction with media. We could also try to analyze and better understand our emotional interaction by looking at the way different media approach our hearts, and we can look at what Scripture and Scriptural theology teach us about why our hearts respond to certain messages. I would also like to break down the physical elements of various media, and see how our wills are affected by the media with which we interact. In all things, I would like to be seeking this holistic experience, in which these various spheres come together in a whole-self interaction with things outside ourselves, all in happy obedience to the great commandment.


There is the goal for this study, and the beginning of a method. Perhaps God will be pleased to see us through to some profitable outcome for his people.

Interacting with Media: Goals and Guidelines

As we attempt to Christianly interact with media, I believe we need to strive after the following: finding media outlets and providers which entertain us; worshiping God; living blamelessly; and learning about God and the world he has made.

Seeking Entertainment

I will try to illustrate what I mean by this by contrasting it to a pair of errors. These appear to be related, in that I think that the first error will usually lead to the second. 
The first error is a type of asceticism. This is the practice of flogging oneself with the need to abstain from pleasure. Not many Christians in America function as ascetics, but a great many people hold such asceticism to be a Christian ideal, and feel guilty whenever they partake of simple pleasures. This asceticism leads to the second error, that of intentional tastelessness. Working under the presumption that he is already acting unspiritually in entertaining himself, the Christian will form his media diet wholly from the vast stores of junk food presented him. The attempt to develop good taste is useless and possibly ungodly, says this error.
However, I do believe that we ought to look hard for those things which cause us pleasure, and I think that developing good taste in this can help us to keep our brains engaged while watching tv or reading blogs. A gourmet restaurant needs only to serve a small serving of very rich food to satisfy a gourmand, who will then ruminate on that dish's interplay with the wine, its place in the meal, and its development in his mouth. Similarly, we can learn to spend less time turning off our brains with massive quantities of media if we learn to seek out the highest quality of entertainment.
I could note that this is what true Epicureans have always been about. Epicurus did not teach that we should simply fill our lives with excesses of food and drink, but that we should educate ourselves in the very best of life, seeking the most pleasurable moments possible by careful study of ourselves. I believe that Epicurus was right in this regard, though I think he missed the mark when he missed the fact that knowing God himself (and being known by him) is the highest and best pleasure possible. In fact, I think we ought to find that it changes all our other experiences of pleasures, invigorating them with new life.

Worshiping God

The goal of worshiping God should be a part of everything we do. If God is our highest joy and worshiping him is our aim, shouldn't we just listen to worship music and watch sermons? How can we waste our time on secular media?
The answer is that media are not grouped by God into secular and spiritual boxes. These categories are artificial and usually arbitrary. The Christian ought to worship God in everything he does. When he sees a great singer or chef on tv, it should be clear in his mind that all her cleverness is but a reflection of God's creativity on display. If we are reading a Marxist interpret history, we can praise God for his creative use of language and ingenious working of the data, even if we disagree with his conclusions. In fact, the reading of history is a particularly instructive way to partake of media, since we can glorify God in the workings of his providence, we can praise him for the gifts of the historian, and we can even see God's Law working on the conscience of many unsaved historians, as they drive to discover truth and to make moral judgments on the decisions which men of the past have made. In all these things we can worship God while we educate and entertain ourselves. If this is true for history books, I believe we can apply a similar grid to watching sports or listening to music.

Living Blamelessly

This should always be a Christian's goal. We were made (in part) “for good works,” according to Ephesians 2:10. God's grace teaches us to live “soberly, righteously, and godly in this present age,” says Paul in Titus 2:11-12. Peter exhorts the saints to be holy, since God who called us is holy (1 Peter 1:15). A Christian's life is not a life of unrepentant profligacy, but one of growth in holiness. Therefore, a Christian's interactions with media need to be guided by this line (this guideline, if you will) of holy, blameless living. If we enjoy Foxnews, we should critically engage our brains as we watch a little O'Reilly Factor, but if it makes us frustrated with the world so that we kick the dog, we should not watch it. 
This obviously applies to the areas of violence and sexual sin in tv, movies, fictional books, and increasingly in newscasts and histories. I would caution strongly against setting rules for other believers to follow in their entertainment choices, but I try to keep a few for my own benefit. When it comes to Harriet Alice Rodgers, I will be trying to shield her from a lot of this garbage until she is ready to set some boundaries on her own (with guidance from her folks, I hope). When our minds are actively involved in media interactions, we will be better equipped to deal with the sinful behavior displayed on the screen or in print. However, it is wise to avoid a steady diet of coarse and careless language (not only cussing, but loud and disrespectful arguing like on all the cable news channels), of violence (even historically-accurate violence can be gratuitous), of sexual temptation (which commercials have to an art, and sitcoms are probably the worst offenders of all, imo), and of blasphemy (an easy one to forget in a pluralistic society, but we need to remember that God takes blasphemy seriously).
We ought to be careful to avoid sin, and we need to know that such attempts are far from the legalism the Bible condemns. As long as we humbly remember that these guidelines do not make us more spiritual than our brother, we will be in good shape to set up rules to help us stay blameless in our interactions with media.

Learning About God and His World

The final goal I lay out for interactions with media is a greater knowledge of God and his world. Every Christian desires to know God better. We can see him most clearly in his Scriptures, which we see as speaking primarily about his Son. However, there is a great deal we can learn about him from the world around us. We can learn about who is (and especially who is not) by learning about other religions and philosophies, and comparing them with Scripture. We learn about what he has done in observing the beauty, grandeur, and intricacy of creation and its history. We can learn a great about the places where the Bible took place by visiting Israel, but we can also learn by watching some of the excellent Christian- and non-Christian-produced programs in that land. Our study of God's care over his church is greatly enhanced as we partake of media surveying church history and its interplay with the rest of world history. We can compare scientific grasping after the great questions of “why?” to the Scriptures' clear statements of God's purpose in his design. And we also see a lot of God's hand in seeing how he has guided mankind's course on the earth. All these things should be seen within the framework of the Bible's teaching about Jesus Christ, and in that framework we can learn even more about God and his World.
So, with these goals in mind, I will attempt to lay out a set of guidelines of interactions with media. I will try to find questions we can ask as we interact, and hopefully this will help Harriet and Amelia and me (and maybe other people too) to critically engage the world around us.

Luther's 95 Theses

Here are my reflections on the 95 Theses, which I recently read for my Reformation and Modern Church History class. Just some thoughts...

Warfield (from class notes): "The strength and purity of the evangelicalism of the Theses is manifested in nothing more decisively than in their clear proclamation of the dependence of the soul for salvation on the mere grace of God alone."

I agree with Warfield. Luther's evangelical leanings seem to show through in theses such as 36, “any truly repentant Christian has a right to full remission of penalty and guilt...” Another move away from traditional Catholicism can be in Luther's treatment of the pope. While he still supports the pope and carefully avoids an outright criticsim against him, Luther's tone seems to gain an edge near the end of the document as he balances the pope's approval of the indulgence racket (thesis 73) with a call to protect “holy love and truth” (thesis 74). He gives voice to “the shrewd questions of the laity” in theses 81-90, and claims that these “very sharp questions” need to be answered reasonably and not merely hushed up.

While there was a long way to go for Luther to actually reject the pope's authority, he showed in the theses that a man's hope is to be placed in the Cross of Christ and his repentance and contrition are sufficient means to be assured of forgiveness. The pope's indulgence could not forgive sin, but only remove penalties which the church had placed on sinners. Also, there is a hint in the many theses which are phrased as questions from the laity that Luther believed the church was accountable to satisfy the faithful by demonstrating with Scripture and clear reasoning its teachings and practices were from God.

Favorite Theses

1. When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, “Repent,” he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.

28. It is certain that when money clinks in the money chest, greed and avarice can be increased; but when the church intercedes, the result is in the hands of God alone.

36. Any truly repentant Christian has a right to full remission of penalty and guilt, even without indulgence letters.

43. Christians are to be taught that he who gives to the poor or lends to the needy does a better deed than he who buys indulgences.

44. Because love grows by works of love, man therefore becomes better. Man does not, however, become better by means of indulgences but is merely freed from penalties.

45. Christians are to be taught that he who sees a needy man and passes him by, yet gives his money for indulgences, does not buy papal indulgences but God's wrath.

55. It is certainly the pope's sentiment that if indulgences, which are a very insignificant thing, are celebrated with one bell, one procession, and one ceremony, then the gospel, which is the very greatest thing, should be preached with a bells, a hundred processions, a hundred ceremonies.

62. The true treasure of the church is the most holy gospel of the glory and grace of God.

63. But this treasure is naturally most odious, for it makes the first to be last.

90. To repress these very sharp arguments of the laity by force alone, and not to resolve them by giving reasons, is to expose the church and the pope to the ridicule of their enemies and to make Christians unhappy.