My dear boy.

My middler son (yes, after the baby born he will be in the middle of our boys by age) turned 4 at the end of March. We just had his party last night. Other than a dud piñata that Daddy had to manhandle to get the candy to fall out and some birthday party blues from Eli, it was great fun. I love that Elijah has so many young friends who are such darlings.

Here he is with his newest round of wooden weapons from Burnt Mountain Crafts (www.rentoys.com). We have been ordering knight gear from them for a couple of years now and have been pleased not only with the quality but the durability of these handmade toys. I am very pleased when my children play imaginatively, and these newest toys have set off a whole new round of medieval scenarios. Modeled after ancient weapons, these are fantastic and fun. They have a new line of durable helmets, and Elijah just got the "Great Helm", the warrior shield, and a one-handed battle axe.

love songs

So there is this Jars of Clay song I found out about recently. It's about love, and called Closer. Yeah, that's right, like the dirty Nine Inch Nails song. This is the sort of song that non-denominational church goers are swaying and crying to. This is the way I was introduced to "Christian worship", by witnessing the rock band playing love songs to God while the followers of Jesus drink it in, moving sensually and rhythmically. At the time, I was extremely uncomfortable...but I wondered if this was really Christianity, and I was looking to know God. Thankfully, I was exposed to much more of the religious spectrum than non-denominational type fellowship. My discomfort with the idea of lovey-dovey praise music hasn't changed. Don't get me wrong, I love God. But it is a reverential love, not the love I have for my husband. Though for me, loving God doesn't mean experiencing God, and "my Jesus" doesn't exist. Jesus Christ the Son of God exists, he is, was, and is to come. 


The lyrics to the song say things like in the following selections: 


'Cause the rockets we're in get so cold and I miss your skin


If you need more love, well you've gotta get close to me

If you want my love, well you've gotta get closer to me

No unreachable itch, if you hemorrhage I'll stitch


I don't understand why we can't get close enough
I want your kite strings tangled in my trees, all wrapped up

I don't understand why we can't get close enough
I'll be the comets that are falling from the sky you light up


And there is more of the same throughout the song. It ends with "I don't understand why we can't get close enough, I miss the shivers in my spine every time that we touch". This is serious stuff, folks, that is what people are gathered together moaning to God. I don't know how anyone reads the Psalms and then thinks the songs we might compose to God in worship should sound anything like "Closer" by Jars of Clay. Have we learned nothing from the VERY IMPORTANT Bible that we tote around in trendy covers?? I guess when there is no place of reverence in the church, there is no reverence to be placed. 


A commenter on the lyrics engine I found wrote: I think that since God is Love; this is a VERY DEEP song. If we want, need LOVE, we are simply needing to get more God in our lives, and we experience that LOVE through other people that also NEED His LOVE. I cry through this entire song and I can't even get past the message of it, yet! God is LOVE! We are His hands and feet and His voice, when a lost heart needs Him. We receive LOVE by giving LOVE. Love is NOT self-centered, however. 


So, uh, we give love by giving physical pleasure to other people, huh? Get more God. A lost heart just needs to get closer and closer. The good concepts here, that we need God, God should be the center of our lives, etc, is so twisted up with the physical and emotional that nothing spiritual can remain. 




Lord, have mercy! I just won't ever understand this kind of undeniably lustful, tearful worship. 


I thank God for the stillness in my church, for the quiet and fearful presence of the cherubim and the seraphim, for the softly flickering candles, the softly written colors of the icons, the quick press of lips against the hand or feet of Christ, the feel of the floor against your head during the prayer of Saint Ephraim. There's more than I can list here, plenty of physical things that are reverential. 






Pray before you start and driving, and THEN play your rock n' roll and bang your head. I love loud, raucous music on the radio, too, but please in church act like something created by a God who isn't your dream girlfriend. 




disclaimer: I know it's Lent and I am probably a little closer to the hell reserved for the judgmental for this post. 

I've been taking many moments to read up on Saint Theodore the General lately. His feast day was just before we found out we are having a boy.

I spent a couple of hours at the pediatrician renewing asthma prescriptions for my seven year old. Her asthma is back lately, after a few years reprieve, and it's back in full force.

I sat in the waiting room listening to her wheeze. She was reading a biography on the life of Walt Whitman to me, and reading his poems which were interspersed through the book. She is a fantastic reader. I've not heard her read for so long in the last six months- when we were homeschooling I heard her much more. Her inflection is soothing to listen to, as she reads more like an adult, pausing mostly in the correct places and reading at a speed that is refreshing. She also has the funniest facial expressions, especially the way she screws up her face when puzzled.

She has always been the hardest kid of them all. We crack heads like there's no tomorrow. I pray a lot that I could learn every day ways to be a better mom to her. She's very smart and sometimes that gets her in trouble. She's also had a hard life. She is my step daughter, and her infancy was not pleasant with a mom that left her and then she lived in a tent for quite some time while she fought RSV.

I'm always driven nearly to tears at how God answers our prayers. Sometimes, it's just in being able to hear a child reading Walt Whitman at length in a colorful waiting room that can change your heart and give you that added strength you've been asking for.

R.I.P.

Our dog died yesterday, in a stupidly tragic way. He was scared by our yard man blowing leaves and, being the renowned jumper he was, scooted over our fence like a gazelle and took off. We looked for him, drove around calling his name, called the shelter. Nothing.

A neighbor came to say she had him in her backyard, and it looks like he jumped her fence, which from the outside was 4 feet high because it backs up to a hill, but jumping down into her yard was a 9 foot drop. Sydney landed on a bunch of clay pots, splintered them all, and died right there.

He was a good dog. We've only had him a year and a half but he was very patient with the kids and calm. They miss him and I can't live without a dog. I have serious doubts we'll find another dog as laid back.