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School starts today. Bear with me while I pause to pontificate.

“What is a capital letter?”

“Does the United States have a king?”

“What city is Boston University in?”

The questions in this post are real.  They were asked of me, in my classroom.  The eleven to fourteen-year-olds who posed them are real children.  Many of those children are now grown, and walk among us as adults, leaders, parents.

I teach middle school.  You’re welcome.

School begins today. Though I have yet to meet my students, I am confident that some things do not change.  They will ask questions that will make me laugh. They will ask questions that will make me weep. I’ve taught kids from a variety of ethnic, geographic, and socioeconomic backgrounds, and they all have this in common—the bizzaro question.

The following exchange happened in my classroom many moons ago.  The discussion was about George W. Bush, then serving as President of the U.S.  You can bet I wrote it down verbatim, before the kids had even left the room. Even if I hadn’t, it’s kinda burned into my brain.

Student: So, when did he (President Bush) die?

Teacher: He is the current President of the United States.

Student: Yeah, him.  When did he die?

Teacher: He hasn’t died.  He is too busy being the current, right now, President.

Student: So, he’s still alive?

Teacher: Yep.

Student: Oh.

This, you must understand, closely followed an exchange in which another student asked if John Adams, the second President of the U.S., was still alive.

Student: So, is he still alive?

Teacher: John Adams was President of the United States from 1797-1801.

Student: So is he dead now?

Teacher: He was president over 200 years ago.

Student: So, he’s probably dead?

Teacher: Yes.

Student: Oh.

“Michael,” you ask me, “how do you do it? How do you teach day in, day out, without becoming brutally sarcastic?”

I don’t.  I am often brutally sarcastic, but they don’t get it, so I get to keep my job.

Don’t get me wrong.  These children aren’t dumb…mostly.  By and large, they will grow up to be  fully functioning adults who comprehend normal life spans and realize that people cease to function in this world once they have passed on to the next.  But at this age, their logic circuits haven’t fully formed. It’s a frontal lobe thing. Their mental world is just random enough to allow Africa to be one of the original thirteen colonies, or for Germany to have won WWII.

And I get to teach them.  More than that, I am called by God to teach them, and I want to be a teacher worthy of that calling.  Now I don’t know how you spend your working hours, but I’m willing to bet that you come across the same basic question that I do from time to time: “What am I doing here?”

I wonder that frequently.  Why am I here? What am I supposed to do?  Can I really make a difference in the lives of these kids?   How do I live for God in a place that doesn’t even let me talk about Him?

I don’t know how well this will work for you, but what keeps me afloat, on the days I manage to stay afloat, is the reminder that God wants me to love these little twerps.  I’m supposed to see them as He does—as people of infinite value, for whom Christ was willing to sacrifice Himself. When I can see them that way—which is not as often as I’d like—I find it a trifle easier to put up with their inability to remember basic facts and their complete lack of common sense.

If I allow myself to dwell on it, I become uncomfortably aware of the similarity between the way I see these kids and the way God sees me.  How often do I miss simple spiritual connections or fail to hold on to basic truths? If God had a blog, would I be an example in it? Let’s think of other things, shall we?

Happy First Day of School, Beloved

It’s been a little crazy the past few days. Please enjoy this Throwback Thursday.

I am Husband.  I am Father. I am called by God to be the spiritual leader in my home.  It’s one of those callings I have received, of which I want to live a life worthy.  Of.

So I make plans to have Family Worship.  You know, a time to read Scripture, pray, discuss, and sing together as a family.  It is a great plan, and I am a great planner, and it never seems to work.

I can envision it perfectly.  We begin shortly after dinner. Everyone is home, the family is settling down for the night—it’s our own private vespers.  I play a little guitar, and my family is transported to the very throne room of God. Then we read the Bible, and I expound upon the mysteries of Truth as my children sit, awestruck at their father’s wisdom, and my bride silently weeps with the knowledge that this spiritual Atlas is her soul mate.  As we pray, we are drawn, singly and corporately, closer to the Lord. In nations around the globe, lives change and darkness is pushed back…

It’s a really good vision.

The reality…not so much.

See, the reality is that we seldom begin Family Worship until bedtime or well after bedtime.  I tend to get unreasonable after a certain hour—that’s about the time we usually start. There’s no time for music, which is fine because my guitar playing is painful for all involved, so we just pray, and it ends up being pretty rote. Occasionally I’ll read Scripture—it takes about thirty minutes to make it through four lines because I am unreasonable and sleepy and because we have raised homeschoolers who like to actually understand what they read.

When the kids were little, we used to all climb up on the bed together for Family Worship. It was cuddly.  These days we are all larger than we used to be, so we end up cramped and cross. We jostle each other and jockey for position. Holding hands is always entertaining, with teenage siblings in the mix.

At about this time the dog usually comes wandering in to lick any exposed feet, which transports you back from the Throne Room really quickly.  If the offended flesh happens to belong to one of my ladies, screaming and leaping ensues. Meditation is replaced by pandemonium, and lives are not changed so much as threatened.

And yet…

I’ve got to figure that God is more pleased with our pathetic attempts than with my glorious visions.  We are a real family—frighteningly, annoyingly real—and I know that’s a priority for God. I’m not saying we can’t do better, because I know we can.  He deserves our prime time, not our leftovers. Still, we bring him what we have, and who we are, and he does not turn us away.

As a Dad, I want to be a better leader.  I want to inspire my family, and, frankly, impress them with my spiritual manliosity.  It doesn’t often work out that way. I’ve heard leadership described like this: If you think you are a leader, take a look behind you. If someone is following, then you are leading. If not, then you are just out for a walk.

I look back, and they’re still with me.  So, for better or for worse, I am the spiritual leader of my family.  I will do all I can to do it right, and I will drink deeply of grace.

I’m not pleased with our worship. Praise God, he is.

Happy Thursday, Beloved.

My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place.

When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body.

All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be (Psalm 139:15-16).

Abortion

I’m totally, thoroughly, decidedly against it.  

Now, you have two choices at this point.  You can write me off as a misogynist who wants to control women, or you can read on to see why I believe as I do.  Your call, and hey, no hard feelings.

Still here?  Sweet. So, here we go.

My thanks to Greg Koukl of the organization Stand to Reason for pointing out what I find to be a beautiful piece of common sense. It goes like this:  When it comes to abortion, there is really only one question, and that question is…

What is it?

Exactly

What is it that you are trying to kill?  You see, if that is not a human being in there, if it is not an actual living baby, then we have no argument with each other.  I mean, you don’t need a “right” to get a bunion removed, or a cyst or a tumor or a polyp or a goiter.

Do they remove goiters?  I’m not really sure, but you get my drift.

If that thing in your uterus is not a human life, then no one has the right to tell you what to do with it.  If it’s in your way, if it’s annoying, then by all means get rid of it.

But

if it’s a baby…

We don’t kill babies for the sake of convenience.  If we did, few people would make it out of the toddler stage.  I’ve helped raise two of the little creatures, and I can tell you–they can be really inconvenient at times.  Yet no one fights for the right to retroactively abort because their kid drew with crayon on the walls or their teen totaled the car or their “young adult” forgot to take out the trash before you left on vacation and now the house smells of rotting mysteries.  

But Michael, there’s a big difference between a fetus and a child.

Really?  And what difference would that be?  I mean, a fetus doesn’t look fully human, but neither do a lot of the baby pictures I see posted on Facebook. The fetus can’t survive on its own? Neither can an infant.  Or a three-year-old. Or most teenagers. The fetus is inside the body, the baby outside? That would mean that we can abort a full term fetus, but a child born prematurely is protected, even though it is younger.  I can’t see the sense in that.

But Michael,  is it really alive when it’s still in the womb?

Um…yes.  Again, common sense.  The DNA doesn’t magically change.  From the time sperm hits egg and–SHAZAM–begins to divide, it is genetically identifiable as an itty bitty teeny human, with the same genetic coding it will have when it is old and paunchy and bald.

But Michael, just being alive doesn’t make you a “person.” You have to be more than a bunch of cells to be a person.

You’re right.  There’s more to personhood than just a physical body.  But how do we define it? My grandma died of Alzheimer’s.  She was bedridden, unable to care for herself, completely unaware of her surroundings.  She had lost all of her personality, all of her ability to interact. Had she lost her personhood?  Sorry, my friend, but I think it is arrogant in the extreme to assume that we can decide what constitutes personhood.  I’m going to stick with life.

But Michael, what about a woman’s right to control her own body?  Her right to choose?

I believe a woman has the right to choose.  She has the right to choose whether or not she will have sex.  If she chooses to have sex, she does so knowing that pregnancy is a possibility.  Frankly, I think society is being disrespectful of women when we assume they aren’t capable of rational, cause-and-effect decision making.

But Michael, what about rape?

Rape is a horrible crime.  For what it’s worth, I’m open to the death penalty for a rapist.  But not for the victims of his crime. A little girl conceived in rape–or incest for that matter–had no choice in her conception.  She is a victim, as is her mother. Frankly, I would never counsel a woman to keep and raise a child conceived in rape or incest. I can’t fathom the difficulty and pain involved in that.  I would counsel a woman in that situation to give the child up for adoption, where she has a chance to be raised by parents who can look at her and not be daily reminded of the darkest day of their life.

Look, I’m not being frivolous about this.  I can’t imagine asking my daughter to spend nine months growing the baby of an evil man who viciously attacked her.  To endure the changes–some irreversible–to her body. To go through labor and childbirth just to bring a reminder of humiliation into the world.

But it’s not the baby’s fault.

She doesn’t deserve to die for the sins of her father.

But Michael, what if the life of the mother is in danger?

Here we have the one time that, in my worldview, abortion is a reasonable option.  When it is a question of one life or another, I believe that the mother makes that choice.  And yet I wonder what percentage of abortions are due to rape or incest or danger to the life of the mother?  A very small percentage, I would imagine.

Michael, you are a man. Who are you to decide what happens to my body?

I’m not dictating what happens to your body.  If you want to get tattoos, shave your head, pierce your parts, that’s none of my business.  I’m discussing what happens to that other body that is in your body. If a stranger attacks a pregnant woman and kills her baby, we call it murder.  If a doctor kills the child at her request, we call it choice. How is that rational or moral or good?

We live in a Me First world.  It wasn’t supposed to be this way.  It’s not what the Father designed, nor what his Son taught.  We see this attitude reflected throughout our culture, but nowhere more than in the area of abortion.  It is the height of selfishness to sentence an innocent to death to avoid inconvenience.

Do my words condemn me as a misogynist?  I don’t think so, but I’d love to hear from you.  I know I haven’t covered all aspects of this debate–feel free to comment and tell me what I’ve missed, where I’ve gone wrong.  But I hope you see that my beliefs have come from careful consideration, and not from fear or hate or a need to control.

I don’t hate women…I just love babies.

Note:  Time to celebrate Holy Week.  Not that every week isn’t holy, but you know what I mean.   

Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion!  Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey (Zechariah 9:9).

Jesus was arriving in Jerusalem for the Passover.  This week would be the climax of his ministry, and would represent the very reason he came to live among us.  The time had come to declare himself the Messiah. (“Messiah,” by the way, is a Hebrew word that means “anointed one,” or “chosen one.”  The same word is translated “Christ” in the Greek.)

So, Jesus did what anyone would do—he sent for a donkey.

This really does make sense.  Zechariah had prophesied that the Messiah would arrive as a king, and would come to claim his throne riding on a donkey.  By arriving in this manner, Jesus was sending an unmistakable signal to the crowds. Now I know that a donkey is not the manliest of animals…certainly not very king-like.  But to the Hebrews, the donkey was significant. A king used a stallion when he rode to war, but a donkey when he came in peace. Thus, Jesus came as the King of Peace, to make peace between man and God.

The crowds loved it.  They spread cloaks and leafy branches on the ground for Jesus to ride upon—sort of a red carpet treatment. They cried out “Hosanna!” which means, “Save us,” and, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”  They were quoting Psalm 118, essentially acknowledging Jesus as Messiah and pledging themselves to him.

Crowds are so fickle.

As he descended the Mount of Olives, Jerusalem was spread out before him.  Jesus wept over the city, knowing that, though they praised him at that moment, they would soon turn on him.

Are we fickle, Beloved?  Do we praise him when the crowd is cheering and waving palm branches, but turn away when they scream and reach for the hammer and nails?

Serving this King is a serious business indeed.

Serve faithfully, Beloved.

Happy Monday

**This here’s a reprint from a few years ago, when I felt as remarkably unwell as I do today.  

There’s no use denying it—I’ve got the crud.  For the last few days, I have hardly stirred from my big green chair.  I have slept, eaten, napped, read junk novels, snoozed, scrolled aimlessly through Facebook, slumbered, and slept.

I’ve been sick.

There are no spectacular symptoms I can point you to.  No raging fever, no projectile vomiting, no delirium—at least, none that I’ve noticed. I’m not bleeding, either internally or externally.  Neither pox nor pustules are in ready evidence.  It’s just a cold.

Frankly, I almost wish I had some better symptoms.It would kind of justify the time I’ve been out of commission.  When you tell someone that you’re sick, they invariably respond with some variation of, “Oh, I’m so sorry.  What’s wrong?  Is it your stomach? Is it your head?”  It’s great to have a solid response, like “Yeah, it’s my head.  I’ve been bleeding from the eyes for several days now…fever’s at about 107,” or, “It’s weird…I’m covered head to toe in some kind of itchy purple fungus.  The doctor gave me some ointment, and that seems to be helping…”

Instead, I’m stuck with, “It’s just really bad cold.”  See,  even to you I had to add the “really.”  And I qualified the statement with a “just,” as though to admit that I know I sound like a punk. And you may say, “Oh, that’s rough.  I know what that’s like,” but inside you’re thinking

“Wimp!”

“Lazy bum!”

“Weenie boy!”

“Haul your bacon out of bed and get something done!”

Well, maybe you’re not thinking that, but I am.  Because I’ll tell you, Charles Ingalls wouldn’t have called in sick today.  Virus? Ppfeh! That man worked a full-time job at the mill and ran a farm. Weekends?  That’s when he worked in his barn, hand-crafting furniture to put in the house he built with his own hands.

My plan for today is…maybe…to change from pajamas to sweats.

It’s humbling to be sick.  Frankly, I think that’s one reason God allows it. The occasional virus serves as a reminder that, not only is life not all about me, it’s not up to me.

Unless the Lord builds the house

its builders labor in vain.

Unless the Lord watches over the city

the watchmen stand guard in vain.

In vain you rise early and stay up late,

for he grants sleep to those he loves.  (Ps 127:1-2)

I don’t know about you, but I can get way too caught up in my own importance.  It’s not that I don’t matter.  As a husband, and a father, and a teacher, God has given me very important duties.  My problem (and I suspect yours, though I’m too polite and subtle to mention it) is that I start to think that I alone can and must accomplish all that has been set before me.  Though I don’t forget God, I do sometimes relegate him to the position of cheerleader.  Of course, it’s when I think I have to accomplish everything that I feel most powerless.  When I let myself rest, or when plague forces it on me, I am reminded that there is a God who is knowledgeable, capable, and on my side.

Hmmm.

I’m going back to sleep.

Happy Tuesday, Beloved

Yesterday’s post got me thinking about how I sometimes wish God were not so gentle with us, that he would just muscle his way past our sins and fears and worry and guilt–and will–and make us what he has called us to be.  I know that’s not his way, and I know that his way is infinitely better.  But still…sometimes…

Anyway, the following poem by John Donne came to mind.  I’ll let him be our guest blogger for Friday.

Batter my heart, three-person’d God, for you

As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;

That I may rise and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend

Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.

I, like an usurp’d town to another due,

Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end;

Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,

But is captiv’d, and proves weak or untrue.

Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov’d fain,

But am betroth’d unto your enemy;

Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,

Take me to you, imprison me, for I,

Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,

Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

Happy Friday, Beloved.

Hey Everybody!

As some of you know, I have written a book for the Easter holiday. It’s called Easter: Beyond the Bunny, and it’s a nifty little devotional that takes you from Palm Sunday through Resurrection Day.  The tone and style are similar to Thanksgiving for the Dad-Man–some history, some Scripture, with a little Michael-thought in the mix.  I’ve included games, traditions, and recipes, so the Dad-Man (or Mom-Lady) is thoroughly equipped to lead the family through Holy Week.

There are two ways you can obtain this book, should you be so inclined.  You can get the Kindle version by clicking here or on that cute little bunny off on the right sidebar. Download and enjoy!

For those of you who prefer the print version, you can click here to go to Createspace and order your very own holditinyourhandandflipthepagesyourself copy.

Warning:  The print version costs more, because, you know, paper and ink and shipping and stuff.  I put in a lot of pictures, and that adds up.  Rookie mistake.  Still, I think it’s pretty cool.

Anyway, if you choose to pick one up, I hope it blesses you and your family.  If you choose not to, I guess my heart will go on.

I guess.