margins

"Go ahead of me, and keep some space between the herds." -NIV Genesis 32:16

I have just come through what was, I believe, the most crammed full, jam packed, strenuous, stress filled week of my year. I am not complaining, really. I just hope that was it and that it is over. And I imagine it was near-so for many of you as well. Getting summer wrapped up and gearing up for another school year is always stressful for families. Our staff has had a double portion getting ready for your families as well as preparing their own for the first day of school. We are constantly trying to streamline our prep week to take as much stress out of it as possible, but in spite of our best efforts, it is what it is: a runway strewn with sharp objects, substantial litter, some stray goats, a few serious potholes, and some occasional landmines. But we got off the ground somehow in spite of them.

Now I am in the business of searching about for some routine in my life whereby I can find and set a pace that I can afford to maintain over the long haul. Another week like the last one would push me dangerously close to taking up coffee drinking or other some-such risky behavior. And it was not all the school’s fault. I was contracting the dropping of trees, finishing a leftover kitchen rehab job, visiting with family passing through, orchestrating a men’s breakfast, overseeing a new roof installation on our back porch, attending a sing-fest, teaching Sunday school, and entertaining church dinner guests on Sunday. I did skip the Deacon’s meeting that week but only because my children from Texas were in for less than 24 hours.

That I survived the week was admirable. That I would consent to such a crazy schedule, questionable. That I would allow this to continue, sheer madness. The word that has come into my vocabulary this week is margin. I am realizing the value and need to build some margins into my life. Margins give hope to any printed page. A page printed from edge to edge is perceived as tedious, tiresome, overly busy, and fills one with dread at the thought. So, we too, need to frame our lives with some margins of peace so that we will not become drained of all life and substance. Americans, by nature, live very full lives. We love to run, build, play, work, and live life filled to the brim. But if we leave no margin for error, no margin of time to refresh and rebuild, we run the risk of a serious crash landing.

I took some serious time off this summer in a deliberate attempt to get ready for the madness that began last week. It helped get me through, I am sure. We know full well the wisdom of saving money for a rainy day so when lean times come, there is something to fall back on. In the area of relationships, Scripture tells us that mercy shown to others creates a well of reserve for us when we need it. Forgive and you will be forgiven. From the beginning of time, God made provision for man to rest one day out of seven. He knew we needed that. But even that is not always restful for us Christians who love to fill that day with church busyness.

I couldn’t help but notice that Jacob sent his flocks ahead in coming to meet Esau for the first time in years and carefully spaced them out to give Esau time to reflect upon his brother’s desire for reconciliation. Our minds need time to process things, to turn them over in our hearts. Quiet reflection is the greatest scarcity of our age.

Margins. Sitting quietly on a front porch is not necessarily wasting time especially if it allows us to be fully ready to respond in full measure when hard duty calls at an unexpected moment. Spending a quiet evening home is not always a wasteful thing if it enables us to face the next day refreshed and ready for battle. May the Shepherd of your soul lead you beside some quiet waters, and may you keep some space between your herds.

play

“I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” John 10:10

The resurrection and play: two disparate terms but beautifully joined together in C.S. Lewis’s classic, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Susan and Lucy witness the resurrection of Aslan who recovers his strength only to indulge in a purely, playful romp with the two girls. “Catch me if you can!” he cries as he leaps across the great stone table. “A mad chase began. Round and round the hilltop he led them, now hopelessly out of their reach, now letting them almost catch his tail, now diving between them, now tossing them in the air with his huge and beautifully velveted paws and catching them again, and now stopping unexpectedly so that all three of them rolled over together in a happy laughing heap of fur and arms and legs.” It is a wonderful portrayal of joy unspeakable and full of glory, wholly suited to the occasion of occasions.

I was challenged by Mark Buchanan’s book, The Rest of God, this weekend. In exploring the proper dimensions of the Sabbath rest, he poses the question, “Do you play enough? Do you risk enough and bask in God’s creation enough and do some things for no reason other than that you’ll be dead soon enough anyhow, so why not live a little now?” As Americans, we are very much driven by the twin taskmasters of time and utilitarianism. Play does not come easy. There is always way too much work to do. Play seems wasteful and uncomfortably close to slothfulness.

Buchanan argues that there are many things that cannot be proven to be of any utilitarian usefulness but that life deprived of these things becomes dull, drab, and lifeless. Imagine a world without ice cream cones, spring picnics, slow hot showers, fireplaces, and front porch swings. None of these things will add to the gross national product, enhance our intellect, hone our skills, or make us better neighbors. “But they just might make us feel more alive, more ourselves, and that’s use enough.”

At 5:00 AM this very Tuesday morning, I stepped out of a simple and rugged shelter on top of Mt. LeConte in preparation for an early start home. I looked up and was immediately arrested by the drama of that opening prequel to the day. The half-moon was still proud in the clearest of skies making my steps quite known but yet not so bright as to mask a thousand stars sprinkled across the velvet heavens. A trace of a left over vaporous cloud stretched across the lower third of my field of view highlighted by the moon’s deft rays. And uppermost in the unfolding drama was the perfectly straight and brilliant white contrail of a high flying jet who winked his little red light at me while heading for the moon. As far as I know, no one saw it but me, and I caught it at its zenith form of perfect composition. A matter of minutes and the picture was ruined. It was at that moment I felt very much alive. The whole business of climbing 5 miles up some 3,000 feet just to stare at the world below doesn’t make a lot of sense. But it afforded a wonderful taste of that Sabbath rest that restores the soul.

I have to agree that play can be subversive. “It hints at a world beyond us. It carries a rumor of eternity, news from a kingdom where Chronos [time] and utility are no more welcome than death and Hades and the ancient serpent. When we play, we nudge the border of forever.” I trust that your totally useless Spring Break was full of the joy of the resurrection of the One who came that we might have life, and have it more abundantly; a life which includes some time “…producing nothing but adrenaline, laughter, and memories.”

the visual part II

"the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes,” Genesis 3:6 KJV

It is easy, very easy, for my generation to fall asleep at the switch with regards to the dangers of digital addiction. First of all, many of us older fogeys have little interest in video gaming or social web sites as we either are content with our lives, busy as they are, or these things are past our comfort zone in this computer age (yet there is a spike among retired folk who have more time). Secondly, I see where many parents are enamored with anything involving computer skills, and the thought of their children and grandchildren learning how to navigate their way around the world of the web is a point of pride: “My child is learning the future!” Thirdly, we are only now becoming aware of the reality of digital addiction and the threat it has become.

In 1995, a New York psychiatrist, Dr. Ivan Goldberg invented the term, “Internet Addiction Disorder,” as a joke to parody an association manual just released cataloging all the known mental disorders. To his surprise, he received a rash of mail from people and colleagues confessing their “addiction.” It is no longer a joking matter. South Korea is the most wired country on earth with a 97% broadband penetration into homes versus only 67% in the U.S. The S. Korean government now estimates up to 30% of those under the age of 18 are at risk of internet addiction. Internet cafes have proliferated to the level of some 20,000 so-called “PC Bangs” where rows and rows of mainly young boys and men line up to play video games. The Korean government has now set up 200 counseling centers and has trained more that 1,000 internet addiction counselors. Two week camps are set up to treat young people in “p.c. free” zones where the aim is to restore a “lost childhood” with real time activities with real people. China has over 300 treatment centers and estimates about 10 million adolescents qualify as addicted. It has ordered online game operators to install “fatigue” systems that post warnings and diminish point rewards after three hours of play.

The next version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual from the Psychiatric association, due out in 2012, very well could contain some form of disorder designation for digital addiction. If so, it would mean that treatment for internet addiction could be covered by your health insurance. This is the world we are now entering. I cite all these dismal statistics just to make the point that the power of the visual has assumed enormous proportions and poses a very real threat to normal, human health and development, especially among young people. We have created a powerful machine and now must learn how to control it.

How big is this business in the U.S.? Studies say 97% of American teens aged 12-17 play video games using a variety of devices and half of them do so every day. We know that boys are especially cued to the visual and, not surprisingly, 99% of them are players versus 94% of girls. 65% of males are daily gamers versus only 35% of females. 27% of teens play games with strangers on line. About one third of parents do not or only occasionally check the ratings before they allow their children to play a game. In 2008, World of Warcraft was the most played game in the U.S. at about 11 hours per week per gamer.

Houston, do we have a problem? Sorry if this is depressing. I wanted to get your attention.

(to be continued)

Childhood Revived

It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter. Proverbs 25:2 KJV

I promised last week that I would review a book that I awarded my “Stocking Stuffer of the Year Award” as my pick for “best gift of Christmas, 2008.” It is The Daring Book for Girls by Andrea J. Buchanan and Miriam Peskowitz.* It is an all encompassing book of everything you ever wanted to know about as a pre-teen girl but didn’t know how to ask. In one volume, your young ladies can find out about pressing flowers, how to whistle with two fingers, double Dutch jump rope (complete with rhymes), how to negotiate a salary, bird watching, how to make a stink bomb, reading tide charts, snowballs, and Abigail Adams’ letters to John Adams. I was fascinated with the wealth of eye-opening information it contained about both the off-beat and the profound.

It took me back to my childhood when, as a boy of 8 & 9, my family lived in one of those old two-story, four bedroom homes that, to my delight, had a full basement and a full standup, walk-in attic. It was the basement and attic that drew me like a magnet on Saturdays and summer days as I indulged a strong sense of curiosity. The basement contained my brother’s hamster cages and my dad’s workshop where I made my first woodworking project, a small boat modeled after the large iron ore cruisers on the Great Lakes. I still have it.

The attic was where I discovered a fully illustrated, hard-bound edition of Gulliver’s Travels, a ready adventure for any slow afternoon. There was also a box of old National Geographics that took me around the world. But ever fascinating was the old, stand-up radio that stood facing the top of the stairs. It had a large, green eye at the top of the circular dial which lit up whenever the set was turned on. There, at the turn of a knob, were various wavelengths that advertised such exotic locations as Moscow, London, and Tokyo. I would spend hours scanning the airwaves and reading into even the most obscure static evidence of life on other continents. Those were magical days spent in stuffy attics or cruising the neighborhood on a beat up wagon, conquering the kingdoms of vacant lots, building clubhouses, or taking off on 2-3 mile walks downtown with my buddies to cruise the pet shop, model store, and ride the elevator at the five & dime.

I identify completely with the following introduction to the Daring book:

We were girls in the days before the Web, cell phones, or even voicemail. Telephones had cords and were dialed by, well, actually dialing. We listened to
records and cassette tapes—we were practically grown-ups before CDs came to pass—and more often than not, we did daring things like walk to school by ourselves. Ride our banana-seat bikes to the local store. Babysit when we were still young enough to be babysat ourselves. Spent hours on our own, playing hopscotch or tetherball, building a fort in our rooms, or turning our suburban neighborhood into the perfect setting for covert ops, impromptu ball games, and imaginary medieval kingdoms.

Girls today are girls of the twenty-first century, with email accounts, digital cable, iPods, and complex video games. Their childhood is in many ways much cooler than ours—what we would have given for a remote control, a rock-climbing wall, or video chatting! In other ways, though, girlhood today has become high-pressured and competitive, and girls are inducted into grownup-hood sooner, becoming tweens and teens and adult women before their time.

In the face of all this pressure, we present stories and projects galore, drawn from the vastness of history, the wealth of girl knowledge, the breadth of sport, and the great outdoors. Consider the Daring Book for Girls a book of possibilities and ideas for filling a day with adventure, imagination—and fun. The world is bigger than you can imagine, and its yours for the exploring—if you dare. Bon voyage.

Yes, thankfully, there is The Dangerous Book for Boys which is the male equivalent. I have not seen it, but the introduction promises much the same from authors Conn and Hal Iggulden:

Boyhood is all about curiosity, and men and boys can enjoy stories of Scott of the Antarctic and Joe Simpson in “Touching the Void” as much as they can raid a shed for the bits to make an electromagnet, or grow a crystal, build a go-cart, and learn how to find north in the dark. You'll find famous battles in these pages, insects and dinosaurs—as well as essential Shakespeare quotes, how to cut flint heads for a bow and arrow, and instructions on making the best paper airplane in the world. How do latitude and longitude work? How do you make secret ink, or send the cipher that Julius Caesar used with his generals?

You'll find the answers inside. It was written by two men who would have given away the cat to get this book when they were young. It wasn't a particularly nice cat. Why did we write it now? Because these things are important still and we wished we knew them better. There are few things as satisfying as tying a decent bowline knot when someone needs a loop, or simply knowing what happened at Gettysburg and the Aamo. The tales must be told and retold, or the memories slowly die.

There are a couple of pages you will probably wish to excise with a razor blade before giving them into the hands of your children. Palm reading and Yoga are not something we wish to perpetuate, but the overwhelming majority is wholesome and exciting. You will need to read through yourself to check for content, but that will not be a hard job as you will find it telling all the stuff you wish you had known in 3rd grade. You can learn more about these books at http://www.daringbookforgirls.com/ and http://www.dangerousbookforboys.com/. The Walters family already has both books and Vashti adds:

"The Daring Book will make you long for rainy days! It was a birthday gift to our third grade daughter, Amelia, last year, and it instantly became a treasured resource. Together we've learned how to make the 'Coolest Paper Airplane Ever,' tried one of 'Three Silly Pranks,' and are longing to soon put the chapter on 'Snowballs' to good use! When asked what her favorite part of the book was, Amelia told me about a 'very pretty poem' and showed me the page. I read with new eyes, 'A Bird Came Down the Walk' by Emily Dickinson. It is such an unusual wealth of information all in one very nice hard-bound book. We gave our son the companion book for boys this Christmas and although we have not finished reading the entire book, it promises to be just as wholesome and enjoyable."

*Harper Collins, 2007, sell for @ $18.00 each on Amazon.com

Spring Break

The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life. - Job 33:4

So what did you do with your Spring Break, Mr. Moe? The gift of several days free time is an awesome gift that brings with it awesome responsibility. I cannot help but judge myself for how well I spend such free time. I have wasted enough of it to know that doing so leaves me feeling empty, spent, angry, and cheated all at the same time. “Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of,” so says the old American sage, Ben Franklin.

Some of my time was commandeered by forces outside of my control. There were daily visits to the hospital as my mom struggled through some surgery. I dare not bear resentment over the constraints of obligations bearing upon my time for no man is an island unto himself. Only the totally self-consumed are so and condemn themselves to shriveling souls that hoard their time like secret gold. And so, there were still duties to perform which tested whether or not I viewed my time as strictly my own. Any and all vacations should start there: a living gift placed upon the altar and precious all the more when it is given back in whole or part. There is nothing like gratitude to awaken the senses.

With the remainder (and there was plenty), I purposely set about to give refreshment to body, soul, and spirit for each have needs unique unto their own. For the body, I elected replanting a number of dead shrubs about the house and mulching them accordingly. Not very glamorous, I admit, yet there is a certain amount of satisfaction from turning the earth, restoring nature, and pure common labor. It did please others and could have been considered one of the above obligations, yet my body felt refreshed from working it so, and I rejoiced for having the strength to accomplish these mundane tasks. Later in the week, I broke free of all obligations and hiked up the Rich Mountain Loop Trail above Cades Cove. My lungs and legs strained under the load of pack and winter fat as I slowly climbed the miles up to a lofty campsite. My spirit was refreshed as well by luxuriously lunching while laying in a bed of leaves with my face to the warming sun. No expensive restaurant was ever so rich as that hillside spot in a quiet wood. And then to sit around a dying fire while the moon rose to bathe our little company in its magic light was pure joy.

For the soul, my wife and I indulged ourselves in some hours of kid-in-the-candy-shop pure fun at the Friends of the Library Book Sale. It was the last day and books were going for $5 a box. We poured over hundreds and hundreds of books rejoicing each time we found a “keeper.” We finally left with five boxfuls feeling like lottery winners. The joy continues as we have been able to delve into our new treasures and feed upon stories taking us to far places and times and consider whole new worlds of ideas.

It is hard to tell where the soul ends and the spirit begins. Some would laugh and say it foolish to think them different. Of little matter, I guess, but the Easter Season enriched my break as indeed it always used to before our calendar keepers turned so secular. A special Maundy Thursday service left us reeling from the beauty of such sweet sacrifice. And this, followed by the smashing power of the resurrection. Rich!

There were other things too, a couple of movies, catching up on correspondence and bills, a couple of lazy morning breakfasts, some family dinner parties, several good bike rides, three birthdays, sadly a couple of funerals, a car washing, the stopping of a leaky faucet, and lunch with some friends. In the end, no regrets; no looking back on wasted days. I take it as the proof of loving life; most satisfactory.

No Child Left Inside

“But whereunto shall I liken this generation? It is like unto children sitting in the markets, and calling unto their fellows, and saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented.” - Matthew 11:16-17

In speaking to the people of his day, Jesus pulled up an image well known to every adult person: that of children role-playing in the streets, acting out and mimicking adult behaviors in group situations. Way before Fischer-Price or Sony Play Stations, child’s play involved other children and the great outdoors. It was the privilege and passion of children to run the neighborhood streets, walkways, yards, driveways, bushes, and vacant lots. Who would even want them in the house?

Not yet 5 years old in 1863, Theodore Roosevelt’s family moved to the countryside for the summer where this future president discovered “the ‘enthralling pleasures’ of building wigwams in the woods, gathering hickory nuts and apples, hunting frogs, haying and harvesting, and scampering barefoot down long, leafy lanes.” “Teedie,” as he was nicknamed, soon became the leader of the children’s play and improvised countless stories. His sister, Corinne recalled tales “about jungles and bold, mighty and imaginary fights with strange beasts . . . there was always a small boy in the stories . . . who understood the language of animals and would translate their opinions to us.” At the age of nine, ‘Teedie’ began the Roosevelt Museum of Natural History out of his bedroom and back hall. The washer-woman complained, “How can I do the laundry with a snapping turtle tied to the legs of the sink?” The good-natured cook declared, “Either I leave or the woodchuck does!” referring to a carcass she was ordered to boil for 24 hours.*

All of this child’s play has become an endangered species today and verges on extinction. Central heat and air brings blessed relief from the heat but imprisons us within our houses. Scenes of neighborhood children romping through backyards and playing under trees have all but disappeared. My memories of neighbors gathering in the cool of an outdoor shade tree around the ubiquitous back-yard swing are very distant. My congressman included a concern about “indoor children” in his newsletter. Seems that the Washington Post has run a lengthy article reporting both the physical and mental problems that come when young people spend too much time staring at TV screens or playing video games. “Concerns about long-term consequences affecting emotional well-being, physical health, learning disabilities, and environmental consequences—have spawned a national movement to ‘leave no child inside.’” This has even become the subject of some Capitol Hill and state legislative hearings.

Our children’s clubhouse sits idle now, a nesting place for spiders and junk. But our kids have many fond memories of tea parties downstairs, walnut wars fought from upstairs, trips down the fire pole, and campouts in the loft. It was a kid-magnet for the neighborhood, a launching pad for friendships and adventures, and headquarters for plots and counter-plots. Of course, the near-by overgrown lot was also a real plus. It became riddled with trails and foxholes where many a battle was waged against the forces of evil. All of this was horribly unsafe, of course. Who knows what creatures inhabited the woods though I think they all evacuated quickly at the sound of children. And the Nord-mobile was a 3 wheeled rattle trap that was guaranteed to scare both parent and child as it noisily careened down hills and across yards. Improvised from the front end of a small bicycle and the cast iron wheels of an old welding cart, it makes even me wonder today if I should have been arrested for child endangerment. But oh, what fun. “No child left inside.” I am not much one for crusades, but I kind of like the sound of this one. Think about it.