Cleaning House

I recently started reading a book called Cleaning House: A Mom's 12-Month Experiment to Rid Her Home of Youth Entitlement. The author, Kay Wills Wyma, a stay-at-home-mom, points out that moms often want to help/serve their kids by doing too many things for them. However, in denying them opportunities to work and do things for themselves, moms end up doing their kids a disservice in the long run and rob them of the benefits of work, like improved self-esteem and a profound sense of accomplishment. As the title suggests, she went about trying to change that in her own house, with her own kids, by introducing a new area of work for her kids each month.

The first month she reports on, Wyma begins expecting her five children to tidy their rooms every day and make their beds in the morning. They each started the month with a jar full of 30 dollars for each day of the month. Each day their rooms were clean, they got to keep the dollar; each day the chores were left undone, they lost a dollar. At the end of the month, the kids got to keep the money that was left in their jar.

Of course, I'm attracted to this kind of thing, always open to inspiration on ways to improve home life in my house. The kids already know their mother well enough that when they saw me bouncing down the stairs, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed on Saturday morning, brimming with “inspiration”, they started getting shifty-eyed and skittish, knowing that they would probably be implicated in some way in my new “plan” - which, of course, they were.  I laid out the new plan. They were all pretty eager about the additional money aspect, but skeptical about the everyday-ness of keeping their rooms clean. One concession was made for the middle boy:  he could keep his legos out, so long as they remained on the area rug in the middle of his room.

Saturday, the first day of the new program, went as per usual. This is their usual Saturday chore. My 6-year-old daughter had already cleaned her room before coming down for breakfast. My oldest son, who for the most part has outgrown “toys” really only had clothes and books and papers to clean up – which still takes a remarkably long time – but it did get done by lunch. And then, the middle boy. Cleaning up is the bane of his existence. He starts but gets distracted by the very toys he's supposed to be cleaning up. So by the end of the day, he had some pretty amazing lego creations and a very messy room.

Sunday dawned, bright and clear – the first day of morning checks. I reminded them all and pointed out some things that might need attention before I did the official check. Middle boy's room still as messy as it was the night before. Dad threw in the added incentive that he would re-hang his door if he got his room clean before breakfast. I could hardly believe my eyes, but that boy had his room cleaned in less than half-an-hour, with no complaining I might add. This is a job that usually takes him two or three hours! We'll see tomorrow whether it was the door or the dollar that was the main motivation, but I'll take this right now for all it's worth!

Then after lunch, I decided that the kids would do the dishes. I had made a nice meal that everyone had enjoyed and sitting on the couch in the sunshine reading a magazine looked far more appealing than the stack of dirty dishes. I would give the kids another “opportunity” to experience the delights of work. I informed my oldest son that he and his siblings would be doing the dishes in 5 or 10 minutes. He sputtered, “But what about...” then remembered that I had already said his siblings would be in on this too.

“But what about Dad?” he lamely grasped for straws.

“Dad's worked hard all week to provide us with food to eat,” I pointed out. I explained that I had made the meal so they could clean up; we were all in this together. They all dutifully came and staked their claim on their desired roles in the process. There was a break-down when it became apparent that two kids both thought they were washing the cutlery and no one wanted to dry, but even that was overcome.

All in all, I was extremely impressed with the initial success of our little experiment. Now to see if I can keep up my end of the deal and actually provide the dollars and the daily room checks. This is usually where my inspirations fall apart. It's fun to start a new program, but I get weary of being the enforcer of new rules and systems I create, or I forget about them and can hardly blame the kids for not reminding me. As Kay Wills Wyma says, it is the parent who needs to teach the kids how to work and to persevere in work even when it is no longer fun. And this is my work as the mom – to be the person in charge who doesn't forget what the long-term goal is: to raise competent, hard-working, contributing members of society. So I better stay on task too. My kids have already proven that they can live up to higher expectations, if I can just hold them to it.

This evening, I started reading “The Adventures of Paddy the Beaver” to my daughter, and wouldn't you know it, even Paddy knows something about work. There's Paddy, busily working away to build his new dam. “And as he worked, Paddy was happy, for one can never be truly happy who does no work.”

Cafe! Oh, Late!

Our family went to Alberta this weekend to visit relatives. We left Thursday afternoon after a busy morning. I had been trying to pack clothes and food for the trip and get the kids off to school for the morning at the same time and I had been in charge of snack and leading at the ladies' Bible study I attend.

We were driving through the endless bald hills in the middle of Saskatchewan on our way back on Monday when out of the blue, I was struck with that icy sense of dread that accompanies the sudden realization that you have committed a grave error.

I had been thinking back over the last few days when I suddenly remembered that I had forgotten to unplug the coffee-maker at Bible study. This is no ordinary coffee-maker; it is one of those restaurant quality coffee-makers that start heating as soon as it is plugged in. And just the week before, several ladies had been discussing how leaving it plugged in for too long could wreck the machine and how expensive it would be to replace.

So there I was with this clutch in my stomach. What was I going to do? It was by far too late to call anyone to check on it. It did no good to wish on Monday that I had done something the previous Thursday. I was doubtful as to the effectiveness of retroactive prayer, although you never know. I could even see rationally that worrying about it was even less effective in affecting the outcome of an event in the past. But what if my neglect caused the church to burn down? What if I would be facing a $1000 bill when I returned home?

The next morning when we were home, I checked Facebook first thing to see if there were any posts about the church burning down over the weekend or personal messages telling me I was responsible for the destruction of the coffee-maker – there were none. I phoned one of the Bible study ladies who assured me that the church was still standing when she was there on Sunday, but she couldn't say whether the machine was still in good working order.

So here I sit, a week after my grievous error, and I still don't know how the story will end. Did someone nobly remember to do the thing I forgot, or will I be buying the church a new coffee-maker? I was worried about that coffee even before I made it (I don't drink coffee and I have a real complex about making it) and now this coffee could really put me in a difficult spot. And there is nothing I can do about it except wait.

I will admit that I'm tempted to worry. Waiting, with all the details out of my control, tends to invite worry. And this is such a little thing in the grand scheme of things, but even from my vantage point, I can see that worrying is just as effective in accomplishing small things as grand things. So what to do instead until tomorrow? I guess I'll try to take Jesus' advice on the matter:

Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

But seek first God's kingdom and God's righteousness, and

all these things will be given to you as well.

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow,

for tomorrow will worry about itself.

Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Matthew 6:27, 33-34

Perhaps the thing I will be given tomorrow will be a bill for replacing the coffee-maker, I don't know – but that is tomorrow's trouble. For right now, I can practice not worrying so that I will be more prepared for the bigger troubles that will come in my life. And perhaps, the next time I am asked to bring snack, I will just bring a big bag of Coffee Crisp chocolate bars and that will have to suffice for all the coffee drinkers in the group. 

Why This Pacifist Wears a Poppy

The other day, I heard my 6-year-old daughter singing a song and I joined in...

Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.

Let there be peace on earth, the peace that was meant to be.

With God, our Creator, children all are we.

Let us walk with each other in perfect harmony.

Let peace begin with me; let this be the moment now.

With every step I take, let this be my solemn vow:

To take each moment and live each moment with peace eternally.

Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.

“How do you know that song, Mommy?” she asked when we got to the end of the song and she had instructed me on the modern updates (God, our Father changed to God, our Creator, and brothers all are we to children all are we).

“Well,” I said, “I learned that many years ago to sing at the Remembrance Day service when I was in school. How do you know that song?”

“Oh, we're learning that in music class so we can sing it at the Remembrance Day service, too.”

And so, there we were, the two of us, a few days later, singing that song together with the rest of the school and various members of the community. That same song that has likely been sung for decades at our local Remembrance Day services. That song of peace in the midst of remembering war. That call to peace and harmony while honoring those who responded to the call to arms. How do we reconcile these two things?

Last year, I was waiting for this same service to begin and was sitting next to another mom whom I knew slightly. She is the friendly sort and struck up a conversation with me. She told me of her uncles and grandfathers who had been in various wars over the years and then she said, “How about you? Do you have any veterans in your family?”

“Actually,” I said, somewhat awkwardly, “I come from a long line of pacifists.”

Whoa! Now there's a way to hijack a pleasant conversation! She looked slightly aghast then quickly recovered and asked if I was a pacifist too and if so, why I was here at the Remembrance Day service. I could have taken the easy way out and said I was there to watch my kids recite the perennial poem, “In Flander's Fields”, which in fact, did cross my mind to say. However, that wouldn't have been true nor would it have been fair to respond to her serious question in a flippant way.

And so I had to go about trying, fumbling, nervously, to articulate why it is that I, who belong to a people who take literally God's command not the kill and Jesus' instruction to love one's enemies and pray for those who persecute, would want to be at a service commemorating soldiers who were committed to defending their country.

And I mumbled and tripped over my words and maybe didn't make very much sense in the end to her, but for me it was galvanizing event. And as I thought about it more over the next few days, and year, what I think it comes down to for me is Jesus' command: “Love your neighbour as yourself” (Mt. 19:19).

It is so easy to isolate oneself from one's neighbours with whom one doesn't agree. But when one doesn't know one's neighbours, it's hard to love them. When one does know them, and engages in conversation with them, and has a vested interest in the relationship, it is both easier to love them and harder to see divisive issues, like war, as clearly black or white. There can be no reconciliation between opposing neighbours without conversation; conversation is unlikely without actually having a relationship with one's neighbours, personally or globally.

“Let us walk with each other in perfect harmony.” When people sing in harmony, they rarely sing the same note. Walking in harmony, people will rarely agree on everything, but at least if we're walking together in the direction of peace, there is hope. “Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me.” That peace needs to begin with the individual, with me, personally, with active steps towards relationship-making, in hope that the peace will spread to my family, my neighbours, to my community, to my society, to the world. It is a small act, maybe an inconsequential act, perhaps even a misguided act, but I wear a poppy – and attend Remembrance Day services - for peace, to be involved in a conversation with my neighbours with whom I may agree or disagree, but whom I am seeking to love.

Birthday Blessings II

It was early May when I graduated from university with a degree in Education with two months left in the school year. This was conveniently the time when the Hutterian teachers at a nearby colony stopped teaching and went to university for the summer to work towards their degrees. And so, since I had a connection through my mom, I had been invited to fill in for the Grade 1-2 classroom for the remainder of the school year. But first, the leaders wanted to meet me and have a bit of an interview to ensure I was an appropriate candidate. My mom, being a known commodity, was also invited to this event.

So the evening came and mom and I went to the house of the Hutterian leader in charge of education at the colony. We had barely sat down on the couch offered to us when he exclaimed to me in English laced with their unique Tyrolean German accent, “You look like you're dead!” I was rather taken-aback and unsure of what to make of that comment. I mean, yes, I was a little nervous about this interview, but I didn't think I looked that bad. Should I be insulted? It didn't take long for me to realize, as he kept talking, that what he had really said was that I look like my Dad!

This is a comment I have received often throughout my life. Which I take as a compliment. But while I'm pleased to look like my dad in some ways, what would be more satisfying is if I could be like my dad in other ways: he is a man of deep faith and humility, a man of prayer, of firm conviction and kind understanding, a man confident in his God and in who he was created to be. I admire those things in him and would seek to develop those characteristics in myself. I feel this passage describes the way my Dad lives his life, which I pray will be long and fruitful. I am honored and blessed to have him as my Dad. Happy Birthday, Dad!

Trust in the Lord and do good;

dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.

Delight yourself in the Lord

and He will give you the desires of your heart.

Commit your way to the Lord;

trust in Him and He will do this:

He will make your righteousness

shine like the dawn,

the justice of your cause like the noonday sun.

Be still before the Lord

and wait patiently for Him.

If the Lord delights in a man's ways,

He makes his steps firm;

though he stumble, he will not fall,

for the Lord upholds him with His hand.

Turn from evil and do good;

then you will dwell in the land forever.

For the Lord loves the just

and will not forsake his faithful ones.

The salvation of the righteous comes from the Lord;

He is their stronghold in time of trouble.

Psalm 37:3-7a, 23, 27-29, 39

Bird in the Hand

I like animals well enough – in their place.

I don't particularly care for animals in people places.

Flies, bugs, spiders, rodents of any sort (what was I thinking in grade 5 when I had gerbils?), fish on the floor instead of the tank, birds. I like birds when they're flying around in the sky or sitting in a tree singing happily. I don't like birds when they swoop. I'm always afraid they will swoop into my head – and it's not like they haven't tried: that territorial crow that dive-bombed my head when I was going for a walk by the lake, those barn swallows that think they own the building where they want to build their nests, that large brown bird that somehow got into my bedroom this summer.

So I was a little disconcerted this week when I came to set up for a party in a local seniors' drop-in center and the lady in charge told me I was in for some excitement – a bird had flown in an open door when they were hauling things to their car. I was very grateful that she seemed to be taking charge of the situation by hunting for it and moving things around to get it out from the corners it was cowering in. I'm not a great help when it comes to trying to get swooping birds out of places – I'm too busy cowering myself – but I did what I could: I went to get my 8-year-old son to see if he would be willing to try to catch the bird in a corner and carry it outside.

He dutifully came and did his best, but though he was braver than I, he was still a little hesitant about touching a live bird and hesitation tends to diminish one's success in catching a bird. The lady kept chasing the bird with a broom from one end of the room to another, but the bird was scared and wouldn't fly out the open doors. This went on for a few minutes and then the lady had enough.

“Well, I guess we'll just have to kill this bird to get it out,” she said as she proceeded to squash it with the broom. She didn't have time for any other options and she was sweeping the half-dead bird towards the door before I could do or say anything about the grisly scene. When it stuck against the door jamb, she picked it up and threw it outside. “Well, that's one less sparrow,” she commented. And immediately, that children's song popped into my head:

                      God sees the little sparrow fall,

                      It meets his tender view.

                      If God so loves the little things,

                     I know he loves me, too.

And yet, the sparrow still falls. And tragic things still happen to individuals and families; whole communities still struggle under the burden of deplorable social conditions or natural disaster; societies collapse or spiral into corruption. In my humanness, it seems that safety and security and life free from pain and sorrow would be a pretty sweet expression of love. But God's love transcends our puny human imaginings and blazes through all those things we would prefer to avoid. In that confusing place where a fallen world and freedom of choice meet the love of God, God can use those things to enlarge our souls and make our hearts hungry for the God who is all the security we really have or need.

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?

Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father.

...So don't be afraid;

you are worth more than many sparrows.

Matthew 10:29, 31

Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine,

according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church

and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever. Amen.

Ephesians 3:20

Eyesight

I took my son to the ophthalmologist this week for the last time.

My son has had prescription glasses for almost four years, but I could probably count on my hands the number of days he's actually worn them. Since he first got them, he has claimed that they don't make a difference. A couple years ago, his eye doctor became concerned that his eyesight was deteriorating for no apparent reason and referred him to a specialist.

The first time we went to the ophthalmologist, he confirmed what my son had been saying all along – his glasses did not, indeed, make a significant difference to his eyesight. In fact, he has probably had fairly poor vision his entire life and it is unlikely to improve. He has never seen clearly and so he sees as well as can be expected. For whatever reason, corrective lenses don't improve his vision appreciably.

On this final check-up, as usual, my son was instructed to read the eye chart on the wall, the larger letters on the top, and then decreasing in size. First he read as far as he could without his glasses and then he tried with his glasses on. I sat there, watching my son, a voracious reader, read the first and second line correctly, and by the third row, struggling to make out the letters, sometimes mistaking one for another, regardless of whether he was wearing glasses or not. He could say with conviction that the G was a D, but that did not make it so. He could believe that a K was a Z, but reality was unaffected. What he saw was different than what was really there.

I have to wonder if this isn't a picture of how life on this earth is. I see bad things happen to people to whom I believe they shouldn't, and I see the letters B-A-D or

W-R-O-N-G or U-N-F-A-I-R. That is all I can make out on the eye chart and it makes me angry or anxious or afraid. That is what I see and that is what I can choose to believe. It is in those times that I have to instead choose to trust that God's vision is clearer than mine, that God can read farther down the chart than I can, that to God, the events of life aren't just a mad jumble of random letters, but that they spell something more, something meaningful, perhaps in a language I do not yet know.

For now we see through a glass, darkly;

but then we shall see face to face:

now I know in part;

but then I shall know even as also I am known.

1 Corinthians 13:12

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for

and certain of what we do not see.

Hebrews 11:1

Inheritance

I collect stories of people the way some people collect stamps or hockey cards. All my life I have done this. But there is one story that has captured my imagination more than any other. It is the story of my paternal grandmother. I never knew her; my father never knew her; my aunt and uncle cannot remember her; there is virtually no one left on earth who has any memory of her. Perhaps this is why her story has so captivated me my whole life – the intrigue, the mystery, the urgency to ferret out any details that can be found that tell me of a history that has shaped me despite my knowing so little.

Her name was Sara.

My grandmother died after giving birth to my dad. His siblings were just toddlers at the time and they grew up in a home where her story was not a topic of conversation. For me, however, finding her story has become a bit of a passion and a pet project. In a certain sense, it feels like not knowing her story has somehow denied me of my inheritance. And so, I am doing what I can to scrape together any details of her life I can find, mining relatives minds for any scraps of memory they have of my grandmother or even things people said about her, having knowledgeable people dig through archives, reading historical documents and comparing them to genealogical records an uncle gave me.

It is difficult to describe the anticipation I feel on the brink of a new discovery – looking over the shoulder of the archivist as he scrolls through a microfiche of an old newspaper, reading the one tiny little book recounting the development and disbandment of the settlement where my grandmother grew up and where her father was shot and killed – and the gratitude and elation at finding a new detail. And yet, there is still a sense of dissatisfaction because I still don't know who she was or what she was like. I know facts of her life, but I don't know her.

This week on my way to the archives in Winnipeg, I was wondering about this. I had fully five other grandparents whose stories I haven't investigated with this kind of determination. Why is that? I think perhaps it is because they were part of my story. I knew them all, had experiences with them, talked to them. Our stories were interconnected. I still know people who know their history. It feels like I still have time to find out about them. I took their presence in my life for granted.

And then I was thinking about God's story. Am I investigating that with any passion? Do I feel that same sense of anticipation of finding something new when I read God's story? That sense of urgency to find out about God, that desire to know God personally? What benefits and blessings am I robbing myself of when I limit my relationship with God to the metaphorical hug and kiss I gave my grandparents on our way out the door after having spent the afternoon in their basement or watching their TV? It is too late to know any of my grandparents at any deeper level, to pursue a more intimate relationship with them. But it's not too late with God. And the stakes are higher. Will I do something about that?

I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened

in order that you may know the hope to which [God] has called you,

the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints,

and his incomparably great power for us who believe.

Ephesians 1:18