Category: culture and current events

this & that

How was your thanksgiving?

I could barely catch my breath, I was so thankful. Every time I turned around, there was a new reason.

Whew. Now, I’m back in the swing (if you call couch hopping and random working and disorganized packing for a move a “swing”) and I wanted to give you a few things to read.

  • C.S. Lewis was born yesterday. One of the most amazing people I never knew… well, except in a literary sense. I imagine I’ll hang out with him one day in heaven, though. Here’s a little article about the man over at Desiring God.
  • I’m sure I’ve talked about Ann Voskamp before, no? Well, now you are officially introduced. She has a book “a thousand gifts” that I’ve started and it is beautiful! She also has a blog and this showed up a couple days ago – like words I might pen about Losing our Language. Check it out (and also her book)!
  • I don’t ever feel the need to make to make the topics of “Christians” and “Alcohol” the center of debate, but if it finds its way there on its own – I’ll bite. This article, “Christians and Alcohol” by Challies is an interesting take.
  • This last one isn’t a link as much as an idea that I can’t wait to see develop. It’s not a new idea, just one I shared with my good friend Alejandra over Thanksgiving and she is equally excited about it. We had some of the most amazing conversations about how we can encourage men to be real men – those who pursue after God with their whole heart. Since we parted, we’ve been updating on new ways that have opened for us to do just that. I’m pumped to see how God will send us opportunities for encouragement!

I know this isn’t extensive, but I had to get SOMETHING up before the piles in my mind didn’t make any sense.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 0

this & that

Another lovely list for a bunch of lovely folks.

  • This is just plain, good sense from Paul David Tripp about how Anger is Essential.
  • I referred to David Schrock yesterday, but if you didn’t jet over to see his series on Gospel Logic, then you should DEFINITELY check it out!
  • I keep loving the excerpts I am reading from Jared Wilson’s new book “Gospel Wakefulness,” so I keep sending you to check it out for yourself. Here’s another snapshot from DesiringGod.org and Crossway that seems to connect to my recent thoughts on Occupying Life!
  • Do you like music? Do you think about music a lot? Do you analyze why you like certain music and not other certain music? There is a great article (Zombies, Wine, and Christian Music) written at the gungor (that’s a band, by the way) website that I hope will prompt a lot of discussion about music… specifically Christian music. They just put out a new album, by the way, “Ghosts Upon the Earth.”
Hm. Well, that’s about it for now.
Oh, and I’m still listening to this:
Posted on by Caroline 0

Occupy Life: Delaney and Roland

We really don’t have a choice – to occupy life, I mean. Every hum-drum, no-good, very bad day and every bust-at-the-seams brilliant day you are occupying physical time and physical space. Did you know that? Did you know you were a part of an occupation movement? Called life? Nobody asked if you would join and you never signed a petition, but here you are stubbornly occupying this day.

With this realization, do you wonder a little bit what kind of statement you are making? I sure do. That’s why I’m starting this little series called “Occupy Life” … because this occupation can indeed be beautiful and meaningful, right down to the most tiny sliver.

we are the 100%

This was a small sliver of this past Sunday, but many slivers make up one 2×4, yes? And many moments make up an occupied life every single day … and this sliver is oh-so-wonderful.

Delaney and Roland are the beautiful children of my good friends from church. I would toss my afternoon plans in an instant to chase them around the rows of frumpy church chairs or to create a world where we walked on rainbows and fought jello monsters with unicorns. You would too, I think.

On Sunday, I walked in to church (uncharacteristically early) and flitted around the fellowship hall, throwing “Oh, hello”s around like cotton candy at a carnival. While I was catching up with someone tall, I noticed two short someones who were waiting for my attention. I turned to see Delaney staring up at me with chocolate eyes and the gentlest grin on her cherub face. She pulled one shoulder in, as children do when they forget they can be uninhibited. But then, as I bent down and settled in for an eye-level conversation, she bloomed. Oh! It was as if she’d been holding the stories in for days and they would have burst out had I waited a moment more. I raced after her as she (with the help of brother Roland) told me about their goings and comings the past week and how they were going to visit their aunt and uncle and how their parents drove “faster.” With Roland, every topic deserves to be explained carefully and every haphazard detail of his imagination finds expression in a (dare I say) most dignified way. I love (LOVE) jumping my reality ship to board Roland’s vessel for a few moments, which is always headed somewhere interesting and emotional and urgent.

After church, my friend Becca told me that Roland asked her, “Is Caroline going to come over here and hug me?”

I couldn’t get there fast enough – where I jumped to my knees to pick up all the delightful little pieces of wonder they had spread around. Roland climbed down from one of the frumpy church chairs when I asked, “Can I have a hug?” and with a most sincere face, he said, “Uh huh!”

This is what occupying life is all about.

I’m camped out in this physical body, from sun-up to sun-down and I want to make sure there is a beautiful ROI.

These moments, my friends, getting hugs and listening to stories and looking into wonder-filled eyes, are a brilliant use of personal funds with an imperishable return.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 7

this & that

Well, happy Monday to you all!

This is kind of a heavy “this & that” post, but I’ll try to throw something lighter in the mix.

  • This article over at The Gospel Coalition caught my eye for two reason – it’s about apologetics (which I love) and it’s for “the rest of us” (which is definitely referring to my layman-trained mind). Appropriately titled, “Apologetics for the Rest of Us,” it’s worth your time.
  • Remember what I was going nutso over last Spring? I’ll give you a hint: The Gospel Coalition National Conference. That’s not really a hint, it’s the whole answer. If I’d been there, I would have heard this message by Mike Bullmore. I’m so thankful I wasn’t, because I was in Honduras watching the Lord work like crazy.
  • I’m a little (A LOT) obsessed with this post, “Fiction for the Common Good,” at Qideas. I willingly followed the little rabbit trail that led me to “wish listing” a whole bunch of books on Amazon. If you like fiction, but are snobby and must always qualify it by saying, “I like good fiction,” then please read this article. And then conspire with me about how we can inspire classic book clubs.
  • Although I think qualifiers like nominal and mediocre are unnecessary to put in front of our identity as Christians, I do think we can benefit from skillfully re-packaged Biblical truth. I think that will be the case with Jared Wilson’s idea of gospel wakefulness. Go ahead and read this little plug over at Desiring God and let me know what you think.
  • Thanks to Tim Challies, I found this little collection of Jonathan Edwards‘ quotes, True Excellency. Not an Edwards fan? Read ’em anyway and see what you think! 🙂
  • Something lighter… Well, you know I like rap, right? I wonder if rap will have this effect on my kids someday. 🙂

That’s a wrap, my friends. I hope you don’t have the case of the Mahndays as you read this. The tried and true solution I’ve always found is to

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

so maybe try that! 🙂 

Posted on by Caroline 0

thoughts on the Tree of Life

I’m here and there today, working on the marvelous pile of “Christmas gift could-be’s” I found in my parents’ storage room. Turns out, after living in Honduras for three years and Austin for one and four years of college in Michigan before that, I let quite a few things pile up there. Old corkboards, frames, half-finished canvas paintings, sketches, journals (that’s a two hour sidetrack right there!), and other knick knacks. Nothing like some good handsaw therapy – throw in a screwdriver and a pair of pliers and you’ve got a world of “what could this be?” waiting for you!

I’m taking a break to return to a topic I promised to write about awhile ago.

The film Tree of Life by Terrence Malick stands out from the cinematic crowd for loads of reasons. The first is filmmaker Terrence Malick. All Movie Guide at the New York Times says, “Terrence Malick is one of the great enigmas of contemporary filmmaking, a shadowy figure whose towering reputation rests largely on a very small body of work,” which is why you’ve probably never heard of him. My intrigue started because I follow Brett McCracken at his blog The Search. I am always impressed with McCracken’s assessment of culture and film, so I thought I would trust his strong support of Malick’s work.

Fast forward to last week when I watched Tree of Life with my good friends in their living room, cradling a hot cup of spice tea. Sometimes (all the time), I get nervous watching films I’ve suggested. I have a complex because in high school I was notorious for picking out lame movies. So, I was almost sweating I was so nervous and hopeful my friends would like/and understand the film. We had heard it was very slow and very deep, so the living room was the perfect set-up. I had my journal handy to write down common symbols, metaphor, and anything that came to mind.

Now, I’m looking at those journal pages going, “Whoa. Linear thinking isn’t anywhere in my vocabulary, that’s for sure!”

I know I’ll be processing this film and it’s meaning for a while (which is something I love about what Malick did). Today, I just want to tackle the (maybe) obvious overarching theme in the film of nature vs. grace. Malick pulled us in and then stretched us apart with his shots of nature’s beauty and man’s limitations. At the very beginning of the film, the narration sets up the message of the entire film.

It’s hard to get past this stunning contrast.

Before I start giving my scattered opinion, what do you think?

Watch this. (I’m sorry I canNOT find the nature vs. grace narrative anywhere on youtube)

and then this featurette where people talk through the story of the Tree of Life. (spoiler alert here!)

Here’s a write up over at White Horse Inn, if you need to hear someone’s opinion. I kind of promise I’ll chime in soon! I know, I know… I less than tackled this, but it’s SOOOO big!

Happy Friday!

Posted on by Caroline 1

this & that

I was wondering why I had so many tabs open on my browser, but then I realized it’s because I haven’t done a “this & that” post recently. So, here it is, folks. I hope you enjoy and at least click on ONE interesting thing that pops out at you.

  • If you’ve mailed something funny (or wanted to) you should check out this collection! Here is an example: this is fishing line!!
  • I thought this article over at Tim Challies blog was interesting. Taken from R.C. Sproul’s book, Now, That’s a Good Question, this excerpt brings up some things that have been the topic of several conversations lately. I like what he says here, “If a person is in Christ and Christ is in that person, it is impossible for the Christian not to move, to grow.” Read the rest here.
  • This is … interesting. It’s a video clip where author David Dark interviews musician David Bazan. My friend calls it “The Bazan Syndrome,” characterized by the obsession of asking without really wanting to arrive at any particular answer. What do you think? Watch the video (it’s short) and see if you are encouraged, frustrated, or just confused.
  •  I unintentionally got into a funny little comment war recently. One of my favorite blogs posted a link to an article about Christian singles/dating/blind dates and I wrote something in the comments about disliking what feminism did for my chances and then, “I wish I could just send a memo to theologically sound males: I’m not looking for a stay-at-home dad or someone who takes orders. I’m looking for someone who I can support as he passionately pursues the Lord.” A guy wrote back about how all girls want these days is someone with “a sense of humor” and a gal-pal type who would be a co-wife. Yeah, he said that. Anyway, I didn’t realize this was happening until I checked back and saw there were a slew of comments following mine. All of that to say, this article, “Mentoring Future Leaders: A Priority for Your To-Do List” gets EXACTLY at what I wish was happening more often. I have felt for a long time (I even spoke with my childhood pastor while I was still in college) a passion for men to rise up and lead the church. My heart is that I would be part of the encouragement to make that happen.
  • Have you heard of Adultolescence? It is as lame as it sounds. Listen to this message by John Piper that he gave to college students recently. Maybe it will, as my History teacher used to always say, “put a fire in their bellies.”
  • Last… this is a good one. I love Andreé Seu and her style of writing. Read this article from yesterday about apathy. You might relate to this scenario – there is an invitation to stay after church to hear such-and-such missionary. You decide those ham balls you made sound so much more enticing. Check it out here. Here’s a sneak peek:

But then I thought about Judges, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Haggai. Do you know what sin God inveighs against in all these books? Yep, the sin of apathy. The sin of indifference. The sin of losing interest in God’s work, and slacking off. We are not talking about murder or adultery here, or even grumbling or complaining.

In Judges, the Israelite juggernaut that was so vital in Joshua’s day grinds to a trickle by the end of the chapter one. The various tribes assigned to take out the Canaanites on their respective parcels of land find excuses for defeat.

So, that’s about it. Let me know what you think. Meanwhile, I’ll be letting

LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 0

Occupy Life (things one might do while unemployed)

I thought it would be fun to write a post about unemployed life, because unemployment has been getting a lot of press lately (see Occupy Wall Street and my take on it). Feel free to pass this along to unemployed friends you might know or employed friends who might be interested in how the 9% unemployed could be living right now.

I call this list: Occupy Life

  1. Go a-visiting.
    Make frequent trips to visit neighbors, friends, and your siblings where they provide breakfast, lunch, and dinner and delightful conversation. I’ve found that people are not opposed to this one bit. They enjoy the interruption in routine and a reason to break out the cookies (or special recipe) they’ve been saving for an occasion of any sort. If you have got a knack for baking, maybe you could whip up something before you set out, that’s sure to make someone’s day!
  2. Get your give on.
    It’s a great time to go through everything that has piled up with the promise of “getting to it someday” and then give it away! If you haven’t used it in the past 6 months, do you REALLY need it? Could someone else need it more than you? I will admit my packrat tendencies and, even though I love giving things away, sometimes it’s hard for me to part with things (see below).
  3. Go through collections of junior high love letters.
    I read one that said, “Hi, I like you and you probably know that by now. The problem is, I like 2 other girls and I have a girlfriend. But my girlfriend is going to break up with me (for good reasons) and you know I’ve liked _____ all my life! And the other girl won’t talk to me but when we do hang out we just hold hands.” and then the next note from the same boy said, “I don’t know why you showed ________ the note. She was mad. Well, I guess me and _______ are mad at each other and we were supposed to fight. But, I guess we’re friends again.” Oh, junior high!
  4. Read. read. read.
    There is so much going on in the world and it is overwhelming even if you’re reading the news non-stop. I like to mix things up a bit – news, commentary, theology, philosophy, comedy, fiction, autobiography and biography. Right now, I’m reading an 18th century theologian, the “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” and using my internet sleuthing abilities to stalk all kinds of blogs. The most important book you could ever pick up: the Bible. That’s where the wisdom is at, without fail my friends!
  5. Start making Christmas gifts!
    I’ve been in my grandpa’s woodshop – sawing, sanding, drawing and designing and I LOVE what it does for my heart! Spending TIME with people I love making GIFTS for people I love – priceless (and literally doesn’t cost anything because I just scour my parents’ farm for supplies! My brother just happened to get married recently and we used barnboards for decorations…. everyone on my list just might be getting a re-purposed barnboard for Christmas). I smell like sawdust after a couple hours and it makes me feel like I’m working hard to accomplish actions of love. Smells good.
  6. Do what you love doing...
    all day long. If it was me, I would write and/or hang out with kids and/or read. Guess what – being unemployed is technically a dream come true! I already have a computer, internet is free almost everywhere, I have a library of books I haven’t read yet, and there are oodles of ways to make sure I’ve got kiddos in my life!
  7. Deliver pizzas or drive a tractor.
    If “unemployed” means you “can’t find employment suitable to your expectations,” then you most definitely need to make yourself useful in the meantime. Can you drive? Deliver pizzas (as Dave Ramsey would say). Or do what I did – drive a tractor. That’s right. And if you live in a city, I’m sure there are some small businesses that might need extra hands around the holidays! There is absolutely no reason to ask the government to pay you a salary to sit on your couch. Sorry, there are just too many jobs posted for that to make sense. Get humble. It might hurt, but it’s good for you (and me).
  8. Figure out the science of milk foam.
    The key is the milk has to go both up-and-down AND side-to-side. Those fancy machines are so expensive and boring and loud, but the alternative happens to be simple and interesting and very quiet. Just take a beater (one you would use in a hand mixer), heat a small juice glass of milk, and then roll the beater between your hands! Woila! Latté!
  9. People watch.
    Currently, there are some ladies playing a competitive rummy game to my left and a book club to my right (which also appears to be a strategic team to save a local library). I just love imagining what people are thinking or what they are headed home to after coffee. One lady who just left made all her personal/business calls sitting one table away from me. I feel like we’re pretty close now. She has two kids and her oldest just recently joined a sports team, which she is really excited about. She is juggling night college classes with her work schedule and Black Friday might be a hard day.
  10. Cherish the slow moments.
    If there is one thing people like to tell you when you are unemployed, it’s some version of, “Enjoy this time, because you’ll wish you had when you are working full-time.” I get it and I am trying. Complaining doesn’t make me any more qualified, so I’m trying to keep that in mind. The sun shines just as bright on the employed as it does the unemployed (and we have a lot more time to think about it).
  11. Be oh-so-grateful for community.
    This is a serious one. I am part of that 9 percent, but I’m not part of the unemployment movement (can I say that?). I am not waiting and hoping and praying the government will feel responsible for my situation. I am depending on the Body of Christ and they haven’t yet let me down. My friends and family have been so gracious to welcome me into their homes and their lives, showing me love I didn’t ask for or deserve.

    I just got back from Honduras in June and I still haven’t allowed myself to fully process what it means to live here now, but I know that there are people around me ready to support me in the process. My church family has been so encouraging, giving me job leads and networking contacts as well as odd jobs here and there. My parents have been amazing. Never, ever in my life did I think I would say, “Well, I’m 27 and living with my parents.” The sound of it makes me grimace a little. But, can I say this is a uniquely United States discomfort? In other countries this is normal and doing anything else would be foolish.

  12. Apply.
    Did you think I would forget? Ha! I’ve applied for somewhere between 75-100 jobs from California to New York. I spend a little bit of each day either searching or applying or emailing. I talk to people who talk to people who know people who might have something and then I track them down. I’ve applied for jobs in advertising, agriculture, publishing, social work, higher education, and as an administrative assistant. I have had interviews and almost-interviews and people who tell me, “You are exactly what we are looking for, but we don’t think this job would fulfill you.” Really? Let’s wait for paycheck one and let me decide. But, with every rejection (there’ve been many) and every cold call and every dead end, I know that God is not confused or frustrated. He is sovereign and He is good – all the time. I trust in His perfect plan and my place in it.

    If you want to make even this interesting, then you’ll apply for some jobs with a bit of whimsy. I once sent this Cover Letter to an advertising agency with an … interesting angle.

Okay, folks. What additions do you have? I know there are oh-so-many things unemployed peeps can be doing with their time that might be more productive than camping out to make a statement that someone should give them more money.
Well, even the unemployed can
let LOVE fly like cRaZy!
Posted on by Caroline 6

“Occupy Wall Street” ruffles my feathers

Occupy Wall Street is quite the buzz lately.

Social media is on cyber fire with it.
Talk radio either worships or attacks it.
Conservative news networks can’t figure it out.
Liberal news networks can’t see any flaws.

Prompted by this article, “Why I Don’t Protest” by Pete Wilson (Pastor of Cross Point Church in Nashville), I decided to join the milieu.

I guess what ruffles my feathers has something to do with the bottomline (another buzzword).

I’ll go ahead and make this personal. If I am passionate about something, I would hope it is something that has three qualities 1) truth 2) significance and 3) possibility.

Let me break it down.

1) Truth
I’m not going to protest a point that has been proven false. Neil Armstrong did walk on the moon, the Holocaust did unfortunately happen, and Al Gore did not create the internet. I like to think we can use the brains God gave us to decipher fact from fiction. There’s a lot that doesn’t get into the news headlines that might or might not be worthy of a protest (personal or otherwise) and that’s where 1 Thessalonians 5 comes in oh-so-handy.

Paul reminds his brothers and sisters of their secure salvation and identity as children of the light. He encourages them to live peacefully with one another, rejoice always, and pray continually. Then he says in verses 20-22, “Do not treat prophecies with contempt but test them all; hold on to what is good, reject every kind of evil.”

Not everything we hear is true.

I know, it sounds crazy. Paul wanted his brothers and sisters to be discerning about everything and holding firmly ONLY to what is good (This begs a more lengthy discussion for what we determine to be good). In Galatians 1, Paul cautioned the people against “other gospels” preached by angels or even himself. We must have a discerning filter, even with people we trust.

Only with a serious pursuit of the Lord (Creator and Living Word) can we have the type of discernment that will allow us to know what is good/evil and true/false. In the same way we can discern spiritual matters of the heart, we are able to discern matters of society.

From a simple study in household income demographics, one can conclude that people living in the United States are easily part of the 1 and not 99 percent.

2) Significance
You might say that the second naturally follows the first. If something is true, it is significant by default. Hm. Maybe some things that are true are not significant.

I am sitting on a sofa right now.

Is this truth significant?
(Please don’t answer that it implies such and such about who I am and where I come from… it happens to be raining in the Midwest right now, which means the tractors are in their sheds and we are praying against snow.)

There are certain truths that are significant because they reflect our relationship with our Creator and with others. God has been so good to give us His Word, by which we can grasp (Ephesians 5) His glorious and mysterious redemption story. Significance, I believe, starts there.

Then, we’ve got to take that beautiful gem called discernment into taxi cabs and general stores and news headlines to understand what God would call significant in our everyday lives. What would He say is worth our energy, time, and treasure?

Is the truth that some people in the world make a lot more money than other people in the world significant?
I would say it could be.

3) Possibility
That leads us to quality numero tres: possibility. It would seem pretty silly for me to protest the idea that everyone should sit on refrigerator boxes instead of furniture. Silly because it is not significant, but also because there is slim to none chance that I could ever recruit people to think furniture is a bad idea (apart from the hipster crowd who might jump on the trend wagon until they find something irresistible at a thrift store that would almost be evil to NOT sit on).

Here’s an example (to throw another hot-button issue in them mix): I’m not going to protest abortion clinics and I’ll tell you why (after I give you time to throw up your hands or furrow you brow or decide whether to read on…. done?).

I’m not saying I support the practice of abortion. What I am saying is that the presence of abortion clinics and women who use them reveals an issue deeper than any legislative reform could ever reach. It reveals an issue of the heart. It reveals the way we view the sanctity of human life.

David P. Gushee writes in his article “The Sanctity of Human Life,”

The belief that each and every human being has an inviolable dignity and immeasurable worth is one of the most precious legacies of biblical faith to the world.

It profoundly elevates the way human beings view and treat one another.

It restrains the darkest impulses that course within our fallen nature.

Every day for millennia it has both saved lives and enriched their quality.

Indeed, it provides the bedrock upon which the moral and legal codes of our culture and much of the world have been built.

He goes on to explain why the sanctity of life is worth protecting – apart from politics and debates. Gushee looks at the history of human dignity from the pages of the Old Testament. It is something oh-so-wonderful to be made in the image of God!

What I am getting at here is this: One does not fix a broken chair by getting a new chair (equally susceptible to breaking). The possibility for fixing the chair greatly increases by admitting the chair is broken and that there can be a solution.

The real Wall Street problem is not a few people with big money. The real Wall Street problem is people. The possibility for fixing the Wall Street problem greatly increases if we admit people are sinful. This is a heart issue.

And this, friends, is what ruffles my feathers. We spend a whole lot of time, energy, and perfectly good posterboard to protest … well, sin.

We may not recognize it, but what rumbles up inside of us when someone has what we want… that’s called coveting. A rich man can covet as easily as a poor man. A socialite can envy someone as easily as a nobody. A prosperous businessman can offer a bribe as easily as a shady used car salesman. A millionaire can misuse his money as easily as a beggar.

I’m into bottomlines. Here’s one that is true and significant:

we are of the 100%
we are all sinners

Where’s the possibility?

We can be saved by grace.
And, yes, I can get passionate about that.

UPDATE: Just in case you don’t catch the comments on this post, my friend Scot Hekman at Slow Sand posted this article from the Economist, “Leaderless, consensus-based participatory democracy and its discontents.”

Also check out my series called Occupy Life where I start to unpack some of the ways we choose to occupy every single day.
Occupy Life: Lunch Hour
Occupy Life: Ale
Occupy Life: Roland and Delaney

Posted on by Caroline 5

fighting temptations

I’m probably on my way to Colorado by the time you read this – kind of last minute. I’m off to see some family and spend some beautiful time with one of my past Honduran students. If I was writing with my true excitement, it’d be in all caps, but because people usually read those in a scream, I’ll refrain.

Last week, I posted this link to a blog by Dane Ortlund in my this & that post. During a conversation I had tonight about Christian perfection and sanctification and temptation, I read it again.

It’s still amazing.

I love that we find this little Clive Staples gem tucked away in correspondence he was writing to a friend who had some questions about evil. Oh! If my correspondence were only half as significant!

this is how I always like to imagine him - with round glasses, wise face, and a big ole book

So, if you missed it, here it is (I just took this straight from Ortlund’s blog, so go check it out his stuff!):

On September 12, 1933, 35-year-old Clive Staples Lewis wrote a letter to his dear friend Arthur Greeves. The letter is located in the Wade Center at Wheaton College–just down the street from where I am typing right now.

Greeves had written to Lewis asking about the degree to which we can speak, if at all, of God understanding evil in any kind of experiential way–as Greeves had put it, ‘sharing’ in our evil actions.

Lewis begins with an analogy (all emphases original)–

Supposing you are taking a dog on a lead past a post. You know what happens. . . . He tries to go the wrong side and gets his head looped round the post. You see that he can’t do it, and therefore pull him back. You pull him back because you want to enable him to go forward. He wants exactly the same thing–namely to go forward: for that very reason he resists your pull back, or, if he is an obedient dog, yields to it reluctantly as a matter of duty which seems to him to be quite in opposition to his own will: tho’ in factit is only by yielding to you that he will ever succeed in getting where he wants.

Now if the dog were a theologian he would regard his own will as a sin to which he was tempted, and therefore an evil: and he might go on to ask whether you understand and ‘contained’ his evil. If he did you could only reply ‘My dear dog, if by your will you mean what you really want to do, namely, to get forward along this road, I not only understand this desire butshare it. Forward is exactly where I want you to go. If by your will, on the other hand, you mean your will to pull against the collar and try to force yourself in a direction which is no use–why I understand it of course: but just because I understand it (and the whole situation, which you don’tunderstand) I cannot possibly share it. In fact the more I sympathise with your real wish–that is, the wish to get on–the less can I sympathise (in the sense of ‘share’ or ‘agree with’) your resistance to the collar: for I see that this is actually rendering the attainment of your real wish impossible.’

Lewis then goes back to the original question to bring his analogy home:

I don’t know if you will agree at once that this is a parallel to the situation between God and man: but I will work it out on the assumption that you do. Let us go back to the original question–whether and, if so in what sense God contains, say, my evil will–or ‘understands’ it. The answer is God not only understands but shares the desire which is at the root of all my evil–the desire for complete and ecstatic happiness. He made me for no other purpose than to enjoy it. But He knows, and I do not, how it can be really and permanently attained. He knows that most of my personal attempts to reach it are actually putting it further and further out of my reach. With these therefore He cannot sympathise or ‘agree.’

Lewis then relates his point to how we think about past sins, and then how we think about future sins (temptation).

I may always feel looking back on any past sin that in the very heart of my evil passion there was something that God approves and wants me to feel not less but more. Take a sin of Lust. The overwhelming thirst for rapture was good and even divine: it has not got to be unsaid (so to speak) and recanted. But it will never be quenched as I tried to quench it. If I refrain–if I submit to the collar and come round the right side of the lamp-post–God will be guiding me as quickly as He can to where I shall get what I really wanted all the time. It will not be very like what I now think I want: but it will be more like it than some suppose. In any case it will be the real thing, but a consolation prize or substitute. If I had it I should not need to fight against sensuality as something impure: rather I should spontaneously turn away from it as something cold, abstract, and artificial. This, I think, is how the doctrine applies to past sins.

On the other hand, when we are thinking of a sin in the future, i.e. when we are tempted, we must remember that just because God wants for us what we really want and knows the only way to get it, therefore He must, in a sense, be quite ruthless towards sin. He is not like a human authority who can be begged off or caught in an indulgent mood. The more He loves you the more determined He must be to pull you back from your way which leads nowhere into His way which leads where you want to go. Hence MacDonald’s words ‘The all-punishing, all-pardoning Father.’ You may go the wrong way again, and again He may forgive you: as the dog’s master may extricate the dog after he has tied the whole leash around the lamp-post. But there is no hope in the end of getting where you want to go except by going God’s way. . . .

And in a final, powerful, delightful reminder–

I think one may be quite rid of the old haunting suspicion–it raises its head in every temptation–that there is something else than God–some other country into which He forbids us to trespass–some kind of delight which He ‘doesn’t appreciate’ or just chooses to forbid, but which would be real delight if only we were allowed to get it. The thing just isn’t there. Whatever we desire is either what God is trying to give us as quickly as He can, or else a false picture of what He is trying to give us–a false picture which would not attract us for a moment if we saw the real thing.

–Walter Hooper, ed., The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, Volume 2: Books, Broadcasts, and the War, 1931-1949 (Cambridge University Press, 2004), 122-24

Posted on by Caroline 2

a la orden: iowa

Okay, let me give you the skinny:

a la orden (in spanish) means at your service

In some Spanish speaking countries, you’ll hear it as much as you hear “Hola,” which was the case when I lived in Honduras for the past three years. Bus drivers, taxistas, people in cafés and people on the streets – they all say “a la orden” for one reason or another. But it wasn’t the common-ness of the word that got me hooked, it was a few particular instances.

I noticed, when I hung out with my high school girls, they would ALWAYS compliment each other on the clothes they wore. The girl wearing the complimented clothes would nearly always respond with, “a la orden.” After a little investigation, I found that this translated to, “Oh, thanks! If you want to wear it – it’s yours anytime! Just ask!”

This was their way of saying thanks for the compliment:
Girl 1 compliments Girl 2 on her blouse
Girl 2 recognizes the compliment and then makes the blouse available to Girl 1
Girl 1 could then ask to borrow the blouse if the need came up

Pretty simple.

So, I started wondering what would happen if we did the same with our spiritual gifts AND the material things we own. I wrote about it here and here and here. What would happen if we offered the things about our lives that draw out compliments? Because, generally, the things we are complimented on are things we get pretty excited about. A shirt, a car, an art project, guitar playing skills, hanging out with kids… you can fill in the blank with a possession or talent that has sent some compliments your way.

THEN, you take that compliment and turn it around to say:

a la orden

Yep. You make that gift, talent, or possession available to whoever recognized it was good in you.

There is nothing good in me (I know that for certain), save Christ. So, whatever is good about what I do, think, say, or have is only good because of Christ in me and I can’t be selfish about Him.

This is the a la orden philosophy that I realize is not anything new or revolutionary (my friend and I found GOBS of a la orden examples in the Old Testament). But, it was something that put flesh on the bones of “put others ahead of yourself” and has kept me accountable to keep at it.

In Honduras, my friends and I kind of went crazy. We made “a la orden” a verb and a noun. We would have a la orden parties, a la orden discussions, a la orden clothes (if you so much as mentioned you liked it). We carried food and toys and clothes in my car to a la orden to the kids at stoplights. We tried to remind each other of the things we needed to make available to others – that we shouldn’t and couldn’t hoard the good things God has given us.

Now, I’m taking this sweet Spanish phrase to the great plains of the Midwest.

It’s been interesting, but I guess it means helping with wedding plans, talking beside a campfire in the middle of the night, babysitting, meeting for coffee, calling my Honduran students who are now in college, talking on skype, driving to Colorado to encourage a sister who is struggling, functioning as a taxi for church events and a shuttle service for a mission conference. It means farming (and providing some un-farmer-like comedic relief) and writing and jumping like popcorn during game time at AWANA. It means letting a future missionary take me out for coffee and answering all her questions about “how to get there” with “Trust in the Lord, my dear.”

It means a lot of things I never thought it would, but it always means thinking less of me and more of others. If I’m holding on to something to tightly, it might be something I should try to give up – like time and physical treasures.

I’m excited to find out there are OH-SO-MANY ways a la orden lives on here. I do miss doing a la orden lifestyle with my community in Honduras, but I figure we’d better spread the love around and what better place than Iowa?

Here are some of my favorite a la orden buddies.

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Here is a beautiful tune for your Tuesday! Enjoy!

Posted on by Caroline 3