50 Shades of Grey, or 500 Shades of Gratitude?

 Despite being warned by a vast and articulate army of bloggers, editorial writers, social commentators, and real-life victims about the destructive and abusive content of the new "50 Shades of Grey" movie, it posted the second strongest February opening ever last weekend--next to Mel Gibson's "Passion of the Christ". 

First, may I point out that there is a sort of dreadful irony about this fact? 

Secondly, I think that a culture which openly embraces (via their movie dollars) the debasement, humiliation, and abuse of women shows itself to be--if not dead--at least terminally ill.  (And this may be the only time you will ever hear me advocate for euthanasia.)

Thirdly, I am heartbroken for the legions of women (the audience was almost 70% female) who have been duped into thinking that there is anything attractive about being stalked, dominated, and violated by a man.  

But I'm not surprised.  Hasn't there been an enemy working against true Love since human history began?  

Do his tactics ever change?

When God says, "Love is patient," Satan whispers, "Lies! Love takes what it wants, when it wants it."

God says, "Love is kind."

Satan says, "Love is cruel."

God says, "Love does not envy."

Satan says, "Love never settles.  If someone has what you want, take it."

God says, "Love does not boast."

Satan says, "Love is egotistical and conceited."

God says, "Love is not proud."

Satan says, "Love is domineering and dismissive."

God says, "Love does not dishonor others."

Satan says, "Love involves disgrace and degradation."

God says, "Love is not self-seeking."

Satan says, "Love is rapacious and predatory.  It looks out for #1."

God says, "Love is not easily angered."

Satan says, "Love is caustic and painful."

God says, "Love keeps no record of wrongs."

Satan says, "Love has a ledger, and forgiveness has an endpoint."

God says, "Love does not delight in evil."

Satan says, "Any dark thing goes, as long as someone is enjoying it."

God says, "Love rejoices in truth."

Satan says, "Forbidden pleasures taste sweetest."

God says, "Love always protects."

Satan says, "Love ravishes and destroys."

God says, "Love trusts."

Satan says, "Better not.  Love is uncertain and dangerous."

God says, "Love hopes."

Satan says, "Love is a farce, a lie, a losing game."

God says, "Love perseveres."

Satan says, "Love is disposable and transient.  An illusion meant for gullible fools."

So whom do you believe?  The Author and very definition of love?

Or the one who has been trying to distort and destroy it from the beginning?

And if we believe in the Author of love, what part do we have with it's sworn enemy?  

But it goes beyond this.

Because if we accept God's definition of love, I think our loyalty ought to extend past the rejection of obvious perversion.

It should reach toward the ideal.  It should fix its eyes on what is good and true and strive to grow in that direction.

The other day, one of my children enlightened me about a curious phenomenon known as "sensory adaptation". 

 During this process (which, he informed me, is not yet fully understood) whenever our noses pick up a constant smell--good, bad, or ugly--for a while our brain attempts to process the odor and classify it as "pleasant", "unpleasant", or "dangerous".  

Eventually, if we do not remove ourselves from the environment, our brain stops identifying the scent, and our olfactory sensory neurons adapt to the repetitive odor stimuli by reducing their rate of firing--so as not to be overloaded with redundant information. 

When this happens, although the odor has not changed, we then perceive the smell to be fading, which allows us to adapt to our environment and discern new smells.  

While this was helpful in explaining how a 12 and 10 year old boy can be oblivious to the stench of their sweaty basketball clothes under the bed for three days, it also brought to mind a similar--but not nearly so helpful--phenomenon in relationships.  

When a romance is in its beginning stages, every moment spent together is infused with magic.  The lover marvels at the glint of sunlight in his beloved's hair and the intoxicating flutter of her eyelashes against her cheek.  

She moves with unparalleled grace and beauty. Her voice is like music.  Surely, no lovelier specimen of femininity has ever walked the earth! 

 And when the beloved gazes upon her lover--behold!  A white knight!  

Amazing.  Handsome.  Clever.  His smile makes her catch her breath.  

Surely he is a man of rare wisdom and wit, and--wonder of wonders!--his manly visage is filled with tenderness for her alone!

Fast forward seven years and three kids, and too often the wife now sees her lover as a man of rare tactlessness and vulgarity, and the only thing that makes her catch her breath is the amount of laundry he produces.   

Meanwhile he is marveling at how often his "beloved" manages to block the television screen with her irritating self.  As for her hair, he hasn't seen it out of a ponytail in over two years.  And her voice?  Surely, no crabbier specimen of femininity has ever walked the earth!

What happened?  Are they truly different people?  Was there a "bait and switch"?

My contention is that we are prone to a form of "sensory adaptation" in our relationships.  The attributes and habits which enthrall us at the beginning become ordinary and unremarkable--or even irritating.  

The everyday graces are taken for granted, and the daily grind magnifies our quirks and flaws until we slip...

...into a numb tolerance.  The lover and the beloved have not necessarily lost their charms.  They've just become immune to one another.

Relationship adaptation.

And then comes the steady creep of dissatisfaction, and the hunger for the sweetness of the love that once was, and then...secret, sideways glances at the office, or flickering bodies on a computer screen, or the red hot words of a 500 page "romance" novel.

It is the enemy's answer to sensory adaptation.  "Love takes what it wants."

"Love looks out for #1 (since no one else will)..."

And finally, "Forbidden pleasures taste sweetest."

And we trade the tangible reality of true love for the falsity of fantasy.  

We give up an infinite spectrum of beauty for shades of grey.


Oh, Sleepers, awake!  The cure for this kind of "sensory adaptation" is found in the fresh infusion of a new scent!  

A breath of kindness.  A touch of patience.  A glimpse of grace.  The remembrance of mercy given and mercy received.

The delicate fragrance of hope.

It requires effort in both being and perceiving.

And this is where gratitude gives its gifts.  

Gratitude is like a pair of glasses for the soul.

It allows us to see wonder in the mundane.  

It enables us to move past twitterpation (heart flutters, sleepless pining, and goo-goo eyes) into the comfortable familiarity of functional love--without losing any of the tenderness and affection we started out with with.  

It's a love-preserver!

Intentional gratitude causes the lover to see his wife wipe a dribble of squash off a tiny chin and be moved by her beauty.
  
It warms the heart of the beloved when she watches her husband snoring open-mouthed on the couch with one child on his chest and another under his arm.

It recognizes trips to the grocery store, and mowing the lawn, and changing the oil, and packing the lunches, and making the beds, and driving to Little League, and balancing the checkbook, and folding the laundry as love letters, capable of moving the lover and the beloved from the shallow swirls and eddies of new affection into the deep, powerful currents of committed love.  

That's what we were made for.

That's what I want.  It's what I have.

Not 50 shades of grey, 500 shades of gratitude.

And real love.

Am I Who I Think You Think I Am?

 I recently joined Instagram--primarily to make my annual, end-of-the-year photo book project easier via the handy Printsagram site wherein you can plop your photos (and captions!) into a handy little hardback book with minimal clicking, sorting, dragging, and waiting.

So I've been snapping away on my phone, but as time went by I began to notice something new about my picture-taking.  Whereas before I cared mainly about my own enjoyment of my pictures, with some thought for extended family who might be getting copies of the book for Christmas, suddenly I was thinking about my "audience"--as in, my 30 whole followers on Instagram.  (Oh, Pride!  Is there is no matter too small to be corrupted by your insidious influence?)

There were some pictures I would have taken before I was on Instagram that I suddenly didn't snap because one or more of us (or my house) looked slightly "off".  

There were some pictures I probably didn't need to take, but I posted them anyway because I thought they might get a laugh, or tug on a heartstring, or because they cast my home in one of those rare, golden gleams of heavenly light, which I wish I could say we have more often than we do.  

Not only did I begin cherry picking and staging my photos, but I started checking up on who "liked" which pics on Instagram.

"What did people think of that post?  Did it get a comment?  How many of my pictures got a big, red heart at the bottom?  Hmmm...why didn't that one?  Maybe I should edit it slightly and re-post it?..." 
  
And so I am revealed to be the very thing I always accused Facebook of creating--a shallow follower of followers.  And a faker to boot.  

Exhibit 1:  I recently posted this photo of Jamey and me on top of Squaw Peak in Arizona.
  

Do you know how many shots I rejected before this one made the cut?  Nine.  

Nine!

Now, even if I was just snapping for posterity, I would have deleted the one where Jamey's eyes were closed and his mouth was open, as well as the one where two clumps of my hair had flopped down on each side of my head like beagle ears...and also the one where my head was so close to the camera that Jamey looked like a Ken doll and I looked like Godzilla.

But the one where I just looked old and tired?  Truth in photography: I AM old and tired.  

And the one where I am "too squinty"?  The sun was in my eyes, so I was squinting--which, by the way was way smarter than what I was doing in the picture I ended up posting, which shows me trying for all the world to keep my eyes wide open while the sun burns out my retinas.   

Sheesh.   

 Do you see why I cannot be allowed on Facebook?  Instagram has proved my unworthiness for such a test of character.

My humility has been tried and found wanting. 

I'm not saying that I should post a photo of every cat-fight that happens between my kids, or a close-up of the dust bunnies behind my couch, or the way my kitchen desk looks almost all the time (an earthquake aftermath comes to mind)--or any picture of me before morning coffee.

But I could stop pretending that my family lives on a giant, real-life Pinterest board.  

I need to go ahead and post photos of the cute things my kids are doing, even if there is a mountain of laundry in the background or crumbs on the counter.  

Messy hair is OK, as is messy house.  Mismatched clothes are OK.  Goofy expressions--OK.  Squinty eyes?  Also OK.  
 
And I also ought to think less about who might be impressed if I happen to capture a fleeting "halo moment" in my house.  

These photo books are supposed to be truthful, (hopefully) pleasant, but authentic remembrances of our everyday life, made for the enjoyment of our family and a few friends now, and our children's children years from now.  

They should not apply a "don't you wish you could live my life" pressure to other people.

They ought to be sweet, but real.  Honest, not airbrushed.

Am I alone here?  Why do we do it?  Why throw ourselves open so eagerly to the comments of others?  Why do we desire to be known so fully, and yet take such pains to be revealed on our terms?

Oh, I'm so glad you asked;)

As I was thinking this through on our long (and very bumpy) flight back from Arizona, I was brought again to the joyful realization of my position with God.  

He knows me.  I mean KNOWS me.  

He knit me together in my mother's womb (Psalm 139:13)

He numbered my days before one of them came to be.  (Psalm 139:16)

He has counted every hair on my head.  (Matthew 10:30)

He holds me in His sight, every second of the day. (Psalm 139:2)

His heart carries my sorrows.  (Psalm 56:8)

He watches over my comings and goings. (Psalm 139:3 

All my decisions are known to Him.  (Psalm 119:68)

Even my most secret thoughts and desires are laid bare before Him.  (Psalm 139:23)

Yikes.

And the good news?  He loves me anyway. 

Not the version of me that I filter, and photo-shop, and edit, and airbrush.  But ME, as I am.  

The raw, real, ragged me that no one knows, (and no one would love if they did know).

He loved me before the foundation of the world.  He loved me when I did not love Him, and when I did not want to love Him. 

He loved me when I looked at His good gifts, and His open hands, and His beautiful perfection--and sneered and clutched my pet sins and ran toward my own destruction.

He saw me and sought me even after I had come to the end of me--when I was hiding in shame, wounded and condemned by my own words, slain by my own choices.  Hopeless.  Helpless.  Ugly.

Even then, He loved me--taking upon Himself the punishment I had earned, lifting me from my guilt and shame, and adopting me as a daughter and heir to the full riches of His kingdom!

Romans 5:7-8   "For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."

I cannot say enough about this wonder.  

Instagram and Facebook can provide a pale shadow of this level of acceptance.  They are a forum which answers the need in all of us to "know and be known".  

Certainly we can and should do that for one another!  But as we are reaching out, as we are choosing which aspects of ourselves to reveal, let us not forget that there is One who requires no pretense.  

God knows and loves us perfectly.  He is the One from whom there is no need to hide, with whom we can be completely honest, and by whom we are rescued and cleansed and forgiven and cherished.  

How remarkable!  To say that it takes the pressure off my Instagram followers is a colossal understatement.

I don't have to construct a picture-perfect narrative, and you, my 30 followers, do not have to take on the full burden of my validation;)


Want some more good news?  He is offering this same beautiful love to you!
 

********

And can it be that I should gain
An interest in the Savior’s blood?
Died He for me, who caused His pain—
For me, who Him to death pursued?

Amazing love! How can it be,
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
Amazing love! How can it be,
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?

’Tis mystery all: the Immortal dies:
Who can explore His strange design?
In vain the firstborn seraph tries
To sound the depths of love divine.

’Tis mercy all! Let earth adore,
Let angel minds inquire no more.
’Tis mercy all! Let earth adore;
Let angel minds inquire no more.

He left His Father’s throne above
So free, so infinite His grace—
Emptied Himself of all but love,
And bled for Adam’s helpless race:

’Tis mercy all, immense and free,
For O my God, it found out me!
’Tis mercy all, immense and free,
For O my God, it found out me!

Long my imprisoned spirit lay,
Fast bound in sin and nature’s night;
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray—
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;

My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.

Still the small inward voice I hear,
That whispers all my sins forgiven;
Still the atoning blood is near,
That quenched the wrath of hostile Heaven.

I feel the life His wounds impart;
I feel the Savior in my heart.
I feel the life His wounds impart;
I feel the Savior in my heart.

No condemnation now I dread;
Jesus, and all in Him, is mine;
Alive in Him, my living Head,
And clothed in righteousness divine,

Bold I approach the eternal throne,
And claim the crown, through Christ my own.
Bold I approach the eternal throne,
And claim the crown, through Christ my own.

--Charles Wesley

  

The Wide Mercy of Narrow Focus

 Somewhere around mid-September, Jude (age 7) finally started coming to terms with the hibernation of all the frogs on our property.  It was like watching someone give up chocolate.  Or cigarettes.  

He'd get up in the morning and make 20 comments about frogs--wondering how they were feeling that day, speculating that there might still be one or two that hadn't yet gone to sleep, fuming about the onset of cold weather, postulating about what month the peepers would come back in the spring, snapping at siblings, and moaning about his extreme boredom.  

He brought out his plastic frog collection and set them up and stared at them, moved them around and stared at them again.  

He read books about frogs.  

He made frogs from Play-doh, and beamed when I drew frog eyes on his waffles with syrup. 

Then he asked me to draw frogs on paper.  

Then he started drawing them.

Suddenly a new world opened up to him.  Before this fall, he only held a pencil as a last resort.  (As in, "Here's a notebook.  You can either sketch during your quiet time, or take a nap.")

But once he learned how to draw a frog, he discovered that he enjoyed the feeling of watching the pictures in his head come out the tip of his pencil.  

He started drawing cars and trucks, farms, airplanes, monsters, fish, football players, family members, epic battles, natural disasters, bugs, and of course, lots of frogs.

He has pursued his new interest with the same singular focus as his previous passion--often stumbling straight from his bed into the school room before any of his brothers are up, quietly and contentedly burying himself in piles of markers, pencils, and notebook paper until he is called down to breakfast.  

His Daddy has a wider range of interests at this point in his life, but he shares Jude's tenacity and focus.  Last night I helped Jamey write up a "brief life history from high school to the present" for a banquet at which he will soon be honored.  

In seeing that telescopic view of his life, I realized how wonderful it has been for him to have the opportunity to pursue medical science for the past 25 years, working primarily with his mind to discover how and why the body sometimes reacts against itself and how to help it start functioning properly again.  

He reads, studies, and listens, and then reads, studies and listens some more, and he is good at what he does because of the fact that after 25 years he is still intrigued and inspired by the vast and beautiful universe of the human body.

Nice stories.  So what's the point?

Well first, on a macro level I hope to inspire gratitude in you for what we have here.  With all its imperfections, the United States is the ideal culture medium for people like Jamey and Jude.  

Because of the time and place in which we live, Jamey has been able to use his specific interests to pursue the research and develop the skills necessary to help push back the devastating effects of arthritis and other auto-immune diseases in his patients. 

Jamey is brilliant at wrestling down tricky problems and a bulldog at following ideas to their logical conclusions, but I'll tell you what he can't do.

He can't use a power tool to save his life.  

He has no instinct for fixing broken things that aren't human (unless it can be done with duct tape).  In fact, he has a deadly effect on electronics of all kinds.  

He doesn't grow things that live in dirt (except children), or raise animals (except children), and his own body is affected by the very disease he has spent his life fighting in others, leaving him with substantial physical limitations. 

If he had lived in almost any other time or place in history, he most likely would have been crippled or dead long ago.  Certainly, he would have struggled to build and maintain shelter for his family, or grow crops, or raise livestock, or work grueling hours of hard, physical labor of any kind. 

And thankfully, he hasn't had to.  Because of the system we have here which allows people to capitalize on their strengths--and make a living doing so--he has lived a dream which so many others have never been allowed to experience.  

I can't help but think of the slaves who would have made brilliant writers or musicians or statesmen or scientists, who were (and still are) instead ground into the dust by stronger wills.  

I think of the beautiful minds and hearts silenced under the relentless crush of tyranny and despotism--in culture after culture, century upon century.  

I think of numberless little boys through countless ages, born with Jude's same, singular tenacity and focus and sense of wonder, pulled under and absorbed in the inexorable grind of child labor and subsistence living.  

And I am grateful, that for all of its faults, and all of its inequalities, we have a system here that allows people to at least make a stretch toward realizing their lovely, God-given potential.  


A society that encourages and facilitates specialization allows folks like Jamey and Jude to laser in on a narrow field of interest without being distracted by a thousand things they are not good at and have no interest or ability to accomplish.  

In turn, Jamey does that for others (and hopefully Jude will too one day:), when he hires a stonemason to build his patio in an artistic and durable manner, or pays a farmer and a grocer to grow and sell food to our family, or buys a car which has been thoughtfully engineered by a team of experts.  

The freedom to pursue one's interests and talents provides humans with an escape from the scratch and scrabble of subsistence living--something to remember as we continue to slide toward a "command and control" system of government.


On a micro level, I want to bring something up with you well-meaning, earnest, industrious, over-achieving mamas out there.  

I have seen more and more of you lately.  I have been you more recently than I like to admit.

It is time to be OK with the fact that we cannot do everything.

Not well.  

Not without risking a break somewhere.  

We are not gods.

And yet, we women put that pressure on ourselves.

And on one another.

"You mean you don't make your own bread?"

"Grow your own organic, non-GMO vegetables?"

"Grind your own wheat?"

"Write your own curriculum?"

"Refinish your own furniture?"

"Raise your own free range, slow-grown, foraged, pastured, soy-free, corn-free, fish-free, wheat-free, anti-biotic free, gluten free, hormone-free, heritage chickens/cows/pigs?"

"Knit your own socks?"

"From your own sheep's wool?"

"While homeschooling your children, running a successful Etsy shop, and working weekends in the PICU?"

What are we doing to each other?

I will never forget seeing a young, struggling mama come into a conversation at one recent ladies' gathering I attended.  Week after week I had watched her sitting at the feet of other well-meaning mothers, who were telling her what she should be adding to her family's diet, what she should be purging from her pantry, where to buy (very expensive) environmentally and ergonomically proper toddler shoes/lunch pails/cloth diapers/water bottles.  

She was a new, eager, earnest, but overwhelmed mother of several young children, and I could tell by the questions she was asking and the look on her face that these suggestions were adding to the list in her head of what she needed to do to be a "good mom".  

All of the advice didn't come from one person, and I am sure it was well-intentioned.  These other moms each had their passions and convictions and hot-button issues, but without realizing it, they were conferring their personal lists onto her.  And it was a burden. 

So she came in one day with shy, expectant look on her face and announced, "I made my own chicken broth yesterday!  Meijer had a sale on whole roasters and I made and froze enough for five or six meals."

"Not grocery store chickens!" was the immediate, horrified response from one listener.  "Oh, Girl!  I need to tell you where to get birds that aren't full of vaccines and antibiotics!"

And I saw my young friend's face fall in disappointment over yet another perceived failure, and an opportunity to encourage a fellow mother go up in flames.  

Now, we all have our own personal passions and interests, and that is as it should be.  I am not against learning about yours and I like sharing mine, but is it possible that they don't all have to be the same?  

That we don't all have to be involved to the same degree in each other's pet causes?

My guess is that all of you don't scroll through photos of abandoned children on the Michigan Adoption Resource Exchange website every week and cry and pray over the photos.  

I do.  

Because God has burdened my heart that way, and so those little ones have become precious to me. 

But how would you like it if I made you feel guilty over not sharing my heightened level of concern over the plight of orphans?

(Maybe I have, and if so, I am sorry.   Last time I checked, I was not the Holy Spirit, and I no doubt need to leave the more of the work of conviction to Him.)

Yes!  We should all care about orphans, but maybe your real fire is lit for elder care, or politics, or the arts, or post-abortive ministry, or family counseling, or earth stewardship, or meeting the needs of refugees, or eradicating sex slavery, or serving in your local church ministries, or homeschooling, or being a good neighbor or an involved PTA mom.

The truth is, we can't all be ignited to the same level about the same things, or we would burn out.  Or go crazy.  Or both.  

As a Christian, I desire to live with an open-hearted attitude toward God's will.  I want to be moved if He is ready to move me, and I trust that He will enlighten me on the direction my passions should take me.  I do want to know what other women are doing to live out their callings, but I do not want to be buried in impossible expectations.  

There are no extra points given to ladies who "do it all".  While it is true that some women seem to be "Janes-of-all-trades", I think many of us are "specialists", with hearts designed to care for the specific needs of a finite number of causes and creatures. 

Now, if you want to (or need to) grow and make everything from scratch and trace the source and content of every bite of your food and every stitch of your clothing all the way back to the Garden of Eden, by all means, do so!  I personally love eating the food that my "cooking from scratch" friends make!  (Keep it coming!) 

And I fully support you ladies who are front and center at the Capitol Building, or putting in long hours at the homeless shelters, or building orphanages in Guatemala, but right now, if I spent more time in those areas my house would be in shambles, my husband would be wearing Ohio State t-shirts and sweatpants to work, and my kids would be filthy and ignorant.  At this season of life, I know I need to use my time in other directions. 


I think God gives us the GIFT of specialization--or narrowed vision--so that we can best utilize our unique talents and energy.  We have limited hours and years, and yet there is so much pain, and so many to care for, how else would we avoid becoming paralyzed by the enormity of the task?

Only God can comprehend the true immensity of the need, but every one of us can catch hold of a small part of the vision--slender thread here and there, where we see it--and pull together in the same direction for the good of one another and the glory of God.

**************

1 Peter 4:8-11

Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. 

 Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. 

Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. 

If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. 

If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. 

To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. 

Amen.