42471 :: It's the small things

Just the other day I happened to see a short video clip about the importance of making your bed every morning. Now, I have had this preached to me since I was a child. I rebelled against it then, I rebelled against it when I was FLYing with F.L.Y. Lady, but this time, it all made sense. His point being, start with one small accomplishment and it sets the tone for the rest of your day. (Or, at least that is my "boiled-down" version of his point.)

As I was dressing the next morning, as I do each morning I straightened my tzitzit and said a short blessing... and began to think about the importance of doing the small things. Like wearing tassels on our clothing. When I began investigating what it meant to live a Torah-observant life, I couldn't help but wonder about the validity of some of the teachings. Many I had grown up with in the Christian church, some made sense to me as I learned about them and could understand the underlying principle of the teaching; but there were others... like the wearing of tassels. I just could not find any way of reasoning a logical answer for why I should do such a thing that was so foreign to me.

And then I read the verses again:

Numbers 15.37 Again the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 38 “Speak to the children of Israel: Tell them to make tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and to put a blue thread in the tassels of the corners. 39 And you shall have the tassel, that you may look upon it and remember all the commandments of the Lord and do them, and that you may not follow the harlotry to which your own heart and your own eyes are inclined, 40 and that you may remember and do all My commandments, and be [set apart] for your God. 41 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, to be your God: I am the Lord your God.”

That's when it hit me: I don't need a "logical" reason. I need to do it because He asked me to. He had a reason, and as I began to do what He asked, I began to understand why He asked it... because apparently, we need a daily reminder. It's really a small thing, to put on tassels, to bless YHVH for speaking to us, for choosing us, for setting us apart. But when we do that "little thing", it sets our mind on the right path as we start our day. I am beginning to understand by doing this one small thing how living out my faith by being obedient is of benefit to me.

It reminded me of another video I watched recently where they asked a very simple question: Which of YHVH's commands are too difficult for us to do? I had to admit, wearing tassels was surely not one of them, so what was I so hesitant about?

The short and simple act of remembering whose we are, and blessing Him for that is a small thing... that sets the tone for the rest of our day. And why would I not want to head in that direction?

If you have further questions, check these out:
Unlearn the Lies
Test Everything
How Can We Implement Tzitzit Today?
Which of the Commandments can we keep today?
Practical Guide to Walking Out the Law of the Fringes

42468 :: The choices we make

A good friend said recently, "This is sure not where I expected to be by now." And I knew what he meant. He recently turned 65, is still working to the best of his physical ability, and believes he has nothing to show for it.

And truthfully, by our society's standards, he is probably right. He owns no home, he drives a 20 year old truck with no prospects of being able to replace it, and has only a meager savings account that would not sustain him for even a year.

This is my same friend who, 16 years ago, sold his home and up and moved to some remote village in Africa and worked with his wife for a year and a half at a small mission hospital because "it was the right thing to do." Many people might look at that and think it was an irresponsible thing to do, but if you talk to my friend (or his wife), they will insist it is one of the best choices they have made in life.

Which leads me to wonder how we shifted our focus from "doing what is right" to "what's in it for me?" At the end of the day, I would so much rather go to sleep knowing that my choices were based on helping others and being of service to my brother than based on whether those choices serve to pad my retirement fund or buy a new car.

I'm not saying that having a healthy retirement fund is bad, but with our limited resources, when we have to choose helping someone with a genuine need or stocking up for a rainy day, I say "to heck with the rain"...

Feed the hungry child in front of you. Cloth the naked stranger in front of you. Tomorrow is not even guaranteed (even if you do have a healthy retirement fund. Just ask those who invested in the dot com bubble or trusted Bernie Madoff), and when the future comes, it is still in our Father's hands. Which brings to mind:

Men of corrupt mind...think that godliness is a means to financial gain...But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that.
I Timothy 6.5-8

42341: The Reason for the Season

It seems like a lifetime ago that I was a homeschool Mom, and in a sense, it was. In 1986, my youngest started Kindergarten, and our family started on the journey of DIY Education. And that in itself is a tale for another day, but it is the preface to my journey away from celebrating Christmas.

I was sold on the idea of "Unit Studies", and what better way to incorporate this most beloved of traditions into our curriculum than to study the traditions of other cultures during this time of year? Remember, this was 12 years before Google was at our fingertips, Wikipedia was not going to be founded for another 15 years, and all we had to rely on was the library and our World Book Encyclopedia.

We had a lot of fun that year, putting out our shoes for Saint Nicholas Day, baking Santa Lucia buns, learning new songs, trying new recipes; we even put water and hay out for the wise men's camels on Epiphany. (Boy, were those camels messy!)

Why, we even studied about non-Christian traditions and that, my friends, is when I first learned that Hanukkah was more than the Jewish alternative to Christmas. It was much, much more! In fact, as we learned about the history of Hanukkah, I found myself saying to my husband, "I don't know why ALL believers don't celebrate this holiday! It's about standing up to persecution and injustice in the face of tyranny and oppression. Isn't that what we are called to do in our faith walk?"

Now, you have to understand that, for our family, Christmas really was about Christ. We did not go overboard into debt to buy gifts, we read the Nativity story aloud as a family, we did the advent wreath and prepared our hearts for His coming... ours was no pagan celebration of the sun. We really did celebrate Christ's birth. We knew that the date was symbolic, that Christ was not really born in December. But we didn't think it mattered. We thought that as long as we were "keeping Christ in Christmas", God knew the intentions of our heart and honored us for honoring Him.

So, we added Hanukkah into our winter tradition, and exchanged our gifts on Saint Nicholas Day, so as to keep Christmas about Christ, and I patted myself on the back that I had one up on these people who got sucked into the commercialism and seasonal insanity that we call "the most wonderful time of the year."

But I have discovered that once I know the truth of a thing, I cannot un-know it. And that is how it has evolved over the years, as my naturally inquiring mind wants to learn more about the heart of a thing, I have gradually become convinced that just because we have honorable intentions, if we are in opposition to what God has actually asked us to do, then we have a dilemma. Do we continue to do things "as we have always done them", or do we find out if God has a better plan? I think you can guess the answer to that one.

The problem comes when we do not read all of the Bible; somehow we like to believe that everything in the front of the book does not apply to us. So, in Deuteronomy 12: 30, when God says, "be careful not to be ensnared by inquiring about their gods, saying, “How do these nations serve their gods? We will do the same.” You must not worship the Lord your God in their way, because in worshiping their gods, they do all kinds of detestable things the Lord hates." we just gloss right over that: "Well, He is talking to Israel. I'm not Jewish. That doesn't apply to me... So what if Christmas was originally a pagan celebration? I'm not worshiping false gods."

Oops. Next I find out that "Israel" really means everyone who is a true worshiper of YHVH. So, over the years the truth has continued to chip away at the layers of "harmless traditions" that have kept me from understanding how He really wants me to worship Him.

Since this is just one more step in my life/faith journey, I want to be very careful to only walk in the way I am being directed and not presume to take over the reins and direct my own path. Where I am now gives me no right to criticize another person for where they are in their own walk. I didn't get here overnight; it has taken me half of my life to get this far. One of the more important lessons I have learned along the way is speaking the truth without love makes me nothing more than a clanging cymbal... and who wants to listen to that? If I can't extend the same grace to others as He has extended to me, then I haven't learned much. 

42178:: Random Thoughts About "Race"

"Ask a geneticist to define race and they will probably stare at you in confusion. Race is a cultural construct that evolved in our country as a way to justify and sustain slavery. It is not much inherited as imposed.
A recent genetic study demonstrated an interesting fact about racial identity in the US. Across the southern states, between one in seven (South Carolina) and one in ten (Georgia) of each state’s white populations carry enough black ancestry to have qualified as black under those states’ Jim Crow laws."-Hip Hop Republican

Recently, someone I have known for most of my life, someone whose opinion I respect on most other topics, offhandedly made the remark in reference to a news report of a black husband who had killed his white wife and their children, "that's what happens when you marry outside your race."

I was stunned. And silent. While I realize that the gentleman to whom I was speaking is a product of his environment, it still surprised me to hear him speak such an ignorant sentiment aloud.

For the past three federal censuses, I have listed myself as "Other: Human" when the race question comes up. I do this for no other reason than this: I truly believe if we are every going to get rid of these artificial ideas of race, we need to see other humans as God see us: We.Are.The.Same.Race. We are not horses, we are not chickens, we are not Martians, we are humans. Why else would Revelations 7:9 describe the people of Earth as: "every nation...all tribes and peoples and languages..."? 

Is this splitting hairs to differentiate between the term "race" and the terms "tribes...peoples...languages"? I don't think so. Tribes (or clans, as some call them) are groups of people related by heritage: Scottish and Irish call themselves 'clans', Indigenous groups often identify as 'tribes', languages is an easy concept to wrap your brain around, and different people sharing the same genetic ancestry can easily speak dozens of different languages (take the Jewish people as an example.) Other Bible translations say "tribes, tongues, and nations", again - "nations" is an easy term to understand. But, throughout history we can see people in one locale losing their national identity as conquerors move through and upset the reigning tribe.

An amazing time-lapse video of Europe from 1100 to today can be quite an eye-opener to someone who boasts of German, Italian, or Polish ancestry. Spend a little time living in almost any country on the continent of Africa and you will soon be made aware that not all "Africans" are treated equal. There is just as much "racism" between blacks and blacks as there are between any other tribe competing for land, resources and power on any scrap of ground on this planet.

My point being, we need to see past this "artificial construct" that we call "race" and see our interpersonal relationship problems for what they really are: fear, lust and greed could easily top any list. 

Until we see ourselves and each other in the way that we were created, we are doomed to this way of destructive thinking. 

Food for further thought:
Social Definition of Race

42099:: In which I mull over telling the truth

Not so many years ago, I would have been spending this day like many others: wedging myself into an already over-crowded church, wearing a new outfit and shoes that turned out to be a bad choice, wondering who all these "new" people are in church today, to be followed by a rousing hunt in the garden with dyed eggs and too much candy, followed by photos of children in their frilly dresses and over-flowing baskets of booty.

Instead, I am sitting in my robe with my cup of tea at the kitchen table listening to the dishwasher work its magic on yesterday's dishes, watching the cat freak out and run inside at the bursts of wind and blowing leaves, and laying out my paperwork to get the taxes finished.

So what happened to me to turn me into an anti-Easter, church-ditching Scrooge? I guess you could say, "Truth."

Looking back, I think my search began long before I became aware of it. I recall a discussion with my then brand new sister-in-law about my discomfort with lying to children about things like Santa Claus and the Easter bunny. My reasoning was, how can we expect children to believe us when we tell them that God and Jesus are not made up stories when we mix the truth of "important holidays" such as Christmas and Easter with Santa and bunnies and eggs. Her reply was, "Just wait until you have kids of your own." Meaning, I suppose, that the pressure to conform to what other families and churches and children are doing during these seasons is enough to make you lay down your questions and convictions. And she was right.

I did not have the strength to be "that mother" who spoiled the fun for her children by denying them the innocent fun of wearing K-Mart costumes while dragging pillowcases around the neighborhood to stock up on candy that I did not want them to eat, followed by sitting on a stranger's lap in the mall to get a piece of candy after drilling them about never taking candy from strangers, followed by pasting heart-shaped doilies and stickers onto cards made of red construction paper to give to others in exchange for cupcakes with so much red dye that it came out looking like they'd eaten beets the day before, followed by wearing green clothing to placate imaginary arm-pinching leprechauns and eating cupcakes with so much green dye that it came out looking like they'd eaten... well, green dye the day before. And on the heels of all this mindless, sugar-filled frivolity was the capper: dying eggs no one will eat, filling plastic eggs with candy no one will eat, and arguing about "who ate the ears off my chocolate bunny" until Mom or Dad takes them all away and puts them in the freezer - while all the while pretending that these activities are harmless because we have turned them into opportunities to teach our children about "Jesus."

Until I wondered why my children walked away from church and its hypocrisy.

How do we get ourselves into that place where we sacrifice truth and our convictions for fitting into whatever is currently perceived as "the norm"? I have even heard it preached from pulpits that "even though this holiday started out to mean that, it now means this." I suppose the idea is that we can redeem practices that originated as worship of false deities by slapping a Jesus sticker on them. That's what it meant to them, but this is what it means to us now, so now it's O.K.

Then I read this: Deuteronomy 12:29-32 - When the LORD your God cuts off before you the nations whom you go in to dispossess, and you dispossess them and dwell in their land, take care that you be not ensnared to follow them, after they have been destroyed before you, and that you do not inquire about their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their gods?—that I also may do the same.’ You shall not worship the LORD your God in that way, for every abominable thing that the LORD hates they have done for their gods, for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods. “Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take from it.

It saddens me that I did not have the confidence to live out the truth I believe in and lost many opportunities to impart that truth to my children. It does not escape my notice that we might all be in a different place spiritually had I not knuckled-under to the pressure of being "normal" and accepted by people whose opinions do not really matter in the scope of eternity.

339 :: When Life Gives You Lemons, Pull Out the Cookbook

A funny thing happened last week. I made Gigi's Lemon Love Notes for Shabbat dessert... in which our guests called in sick, and just as well, since I burned the lemon bars whilst leaning up against the stove as I pulled lamb off the bone for the soup... but that is another tale.

Not to be deprived of his mom's famous lemon bars, DH ate them anyway. "A little charcoal is good for what ails you", I suppose.

So, to redeem myself, I decided to make an un-burned batch. And who better to help me than Anthony Bourdain?
Alas, he couldn't make it. Nevermind. I have the next best thing (if not better!)

Our Own Rosie-Toes was not only happy to pick the lemons herself from Grandma's tree, she virtually made the lemon bars herself (with a little help from Nana - reading GiGi's writing.)

I think GiGi would have been very proud.

278 :: A Walk in the Park - Redux

A little time with the Little.

A few lessons in rock-skipping. Bread for the ducks.

And much time spent remarking (read: lamenting) about Our Drought, and the sad state of Horseshoe "Puddle". 

It's a sorry state of affairs if we don't get some rain soon.