What to Do When Your Friend Marries a Jewish Guy

Or…  Reflections for Hanukkah, Part 1

Let’s get this out of the way right at the very beginning.  I have a confession to make.  Our family has been celebrating Hanukkah for years.  The first year, my kids were little and just really excited that they were going to be getting gifts eight days in a row!  We didn’t own a menorah at the time, and our dining room table turned into something of a mess of mismatched candles and random packages.  When they told their friends about our Hanukkah celebration, things got tricky.  My husband was on staff at a traditional, Christian church.  The community flipped out just a little bit.  What on earth was wrong with ‘these people’?  You know… us.  The extended family flipped out just a little bit.  Were we still Christians?  Did we still believe in Jesus?  Was Christmas going to be ruined?  Should there be an intervention of some sort?  After that, I asked the kids to keep it kind of quiet in ensuing years.  We became closet celebrators of Hanukkah.  And our celebrations grew… and grew… and grew…

By last year; we had a legitimate menorah, we had learned some Hanukkah songs, and our gifts had become more intentional.  We are still struggling to understand the dreidal.

Last spring, my very dear friend who goes all the way back to high school (middle school for her, because she’s a few years younger) married an awesome guy who happens to be Jewish.  The Christian community still gets a little bit upset about stuff like this.  At best, people are usually confused.  But I have a different take on it.  I was all like, “Please, oh please, oh please, may I help you build the huppah?”  And I did.  And I loved it.  They had one of the most beautiful weddings ever.  They love each other a lot.  They make each other happy.  And they gave us enough yamakas for our entire family. 

Earlier today, I dropped off candles for their menorah.  Because… obviously… the most likely person to have an extra box of menorah candles is the Christian pastor friend, right?  I also dropped off a hijab pin, with safety pins dangling from it, because I might as well mix as many metaphors and spread as much love around as possible.  Oh friends… we have so much more in common than we know…

But back to Hanukkah, itself, for just a moment.  It’s the festival of lights.  It’s the celebration of the rededication of the temple.  If you’re confused about where our Old Testament Scriptures come from, let’s clear it up.  These are Jewish holy writings.  And if you want to be like Jesus, let’s clear something else up while we’re at it.  Jesus was Jewish!

 

Goodness gracious!  Christians can celebrate Hanukkah right out in the open!

Phew…  I’m so relieved…

L.

 

PS  Hanukah starts on Christmas Eve, this year.  How great is that?

Mother's Day

I'm not really interested in using my limited space with a captive audience to promo stuff like card holidays.  It's not that I don't love mothers.  It's not that I don't love my mother (I certainly do).  It's not that I don't love being a mother (oh goodness, if I could be nothing else, ever, that's what I'd take).  But Mother's Day can be a hard one, and I'm not sure we need to heap pain on people in order to celebrate the blessings we have in our own lives.

There were some years when I couldn't wake up and go to church on Mother's Day, because it hurt so much to watch her pulling her hair out over the antics of her toddlers or sighing because the baby just spit up all over her clothes... again... or watching her swelling belly.  And I just didn't know what to do with the potted flower that I was holding awkwardly, while sitting in the congregation and looking up through tears at the choir of moms (almost every other woman in the room).  But many of you already know this story.

This morning I woke up with something different on my mind.  I was suddenly overwhelmed with grief for those who have lost their mothers.  Maybe this kind of thinking comes with getting older, I don't really know, but I do know this day still really sucks for an awful lot of people.  And I just don't want to add to that.

I wonder what we might do to love the motherless, today.

I recognize that no one can ever replace a mother, especially a good one, but may I encourage you to find someone who might need a hug... or a word of encouragement... or a meal... or someone to lick their finger and wipe the dirt off their face... and meet that need?  OK...  maybe not the part about licking people...

 
L.

Find the Common Denominator...

This is, undoubtedly, my favorite place in our house right now.  And it's not because I love conflict.  No, in fact, it is the exact opposite.  I love this place, because I love peace, and I think we would all do well to remember that, as human beings...  as people created Imago Dei... we have much more in common than we often admit.

“Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests” (Luke 2:14, NIV), "For God does not show favoritism" (Romans 2:11, NIV)... Hmmm...

L.

Things I Don't Want to Talk About Here

On the Christian calendar, it's "Ordinary Time" right now.  Not surprisingly, ordinary time actually makes up a majority of the year.  I guess that coincides with the fact that our lives are ordinary most of the time.  If they weren't... well... ordinary would be redefined.    

It seems that I can never hear the word ordinary without thinking of this particular paraphrase of Romans 12:1-2:

"So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you" (MSG, emphasis mine).

We've mixed up what we're supposed to be doing during ordinary time with what the culture dictates.  I am reminded of that on this American holiday, "Father's Day".

Now, let me be abundantly clear.  I think it's fine for us to celebrate Father's Day.  My family celebrated Father's Day, today, and there is nothing quite like having your kids decorate the envelope for Daddy's card (only to find out you accidentally gave them the envelope for the card you bought and they aren't the same size), or finding the perfect card that is so funny (and not age appropriate for the children) you have to issue a warning about not reading it out loud, or hitting multiple fast food chain stores when the frozen Coke machine isn't working at the first one, or reflecting on how amazing your husband (or father or baby daddy or whatever) is.  It's been a good day like that around here.  But I think "card holidays" are best observed (or not observed) outside the walls of the local church... maybe like birthdays... since we all have unique stories... 

Let me explain.

Father's Day is painful for a lot of people.  I can't tell you how many nice FB posts I've seen today made by families who have wonderful fathers, but they are interspersed with just enough painful posts that I know not everyone is having a good time today.  And let's face it, the brokenness that is expressed in silence is even louder than those. 

Our local churches try to spin this holiday in so many ways.  I have no doubt that every time a pastor gets up on this Sunday in June and preaches about the love of the heavenly father; she means well.  The pastor who uses humor in an attempt to shame (I mean shape) the fathers who are present into being someone they are not?  He means well, too.  And the pastor who desperately tries to make Father's Day as amazing as Mother's Day was, last month, by praising the accomplishments of those dads who do it all right and teach their boys how to hunt, fish, and kill other assorted things?  She's really trying.  But... dads... even really good dads... don't all conform to the same patterns.  Can I please just say that I, for one, am exceedingly glad there is nothing dead hanging in my home?  For crying out loud, my eight year old thought a friend of ours had killed Sven (from Frozen) when we were at a Christmas party last year!

Wow.  I think I just realized what a soapbox issue this is for me.  Maybe it's because my own husband had to endure a video, this morning, that left him thinking about how he doesn't fit the mold associated with all of that "perfect dad" stuff.  Give me a break!  If you read what my thirteen year old daughter had to say about him, you would know it doesn't make a shred of difference whether he enjoys shooting animals or not!

And this is just a quirky little piece of the life of my own family, where we actually have it pretty good.  If we can walk away from a Father's Day worship gathering feeling awkward; the damage done to other people on this day must be devastating.

I think it's sort of like Mother's Day, where our churches have tried to become more sensitive over the years, celebrating all women and not just mothers.  If I may be frank (which I may, since this is my blog and all), some of the absolute worst Sundays of my life were Mother's Days when I wasn't a mother but was still presented with a flower to go home and plant, but, you know, since I didn't do that planting thing, I just watched it die over the next few days, sort of as a slow and painful reminder that I wasn't a mother...

Why do we do this?

Can we not just preach about ordinary time and the ways in which we should all be becoming more like Jesus?  Is it so offensive to accept that most of the days of our lives are not going to be extraordinary, and we shouldn't make stuff up in order to break up the rhythms of life that are actually life giving?  When we allow culture and themes and holidays that are less than holy days to permeate our corporate worship, I think we miss something.  In fact, I know we do, because I recently heard about a pastor who insisted on keeping prayer short if there was a card holiday related video that needed to play, and I know there are churches where Scripture isn't even read on a weekly basis, because there's not enough time to fit it in!

May God help us.  This is not the Church.

L.