A Cautionary Tale

M. Peevie was pushing the shopping cart through Target. We picked up toilet paper, cereal, dryer sheets--the usual stuff.

We passed two women chatting at the end of the bulk snack aisle. I walked ahead of M. Peevie, and she pushed the cart behind me. When we were about one aisle away, I heard one woman say to her friend, "What's the matter?"

The other woman said, "I just got run over--without an apology!"

M. Peevie heard it too. She looked at me, and tears instantly filled her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. "I bumped her with my cart by accident, and I did apologize!" she said. "She was blocking the end of the aisle, and I tried to get past her. I said I was sorry that I bumped her!" She looked stricken.

"Hold on just a second, baby girl," I said. "Wait here." I walked back to the bulk snack aisle and walked up to the lady that had made my daughter cry.

She was looking at something on the shelf. "Excuse me," I said, and she turned and looked at me.

"Apparently my daughter bumped you with our cart. I'm very sorry that you did not hear her apologize, but she did say she was sorry," I said. "She heard what you said, and now she's crying. She just lost her brother three weeks ago, and she's a bit fragile. She would never hurt anyone on purpose, and I wanted you to know that she did apologize. I'm sorry that she didn't say it loud enough for you to hear."

The woman looked at me with the expression of a paradigm shift on her face--if a paradigm shift has an expression. "Oh. Oh...oh," she said. "I'm so sorry. It hurt, but...I'm just so sorry." I think she may have reached out to touch my arm.

I told her thanks and walked back and wrapped my arms around M. Peevie, who still had tears rolling down her cheeks. We stood, holding each other, for a full minute; and then we held hands and browsed the chip aisle.

I couldn't stay mad at the woman who had made my daughter cry, because I have been her. I have not given the benefit of the doubt. I have taken offense when none was intended. I have made passive-aggressive comments designed to inflict pain or provoke anger. I have not given grace, when so much grace has been given to me.

So the moral of the story is, I suppose, stay out of the bulk snack aisle. Or be gentle, and give the benefit of the doubt whenever possible.

The Meaning of Art and Other Deep Questions

I don't know jack shasta about Art. I go to the museum, and I look at Art, and sometimes I like it, and sometimes I don't. Sometimes I don't even have an opinion about it; it's just there.

Because I have benefited from Mr. Peevie's liberal arts education, I adore Pieter Bruegel (the Elder, as distinguished from his replicator son, Pieter Brueghel the Younger), and I have a passing acquaintance with miniatures and armor thanks to the Art Institute of Chicago.

But that's it. I'm virtually completely unschooled in most forms of visual art, and yet here I am getting ready to comment on the "art" that "adorns" the walls at my place of work. And by "art," I mean random pictures, paintings and crafts that hang from a nail; and by "adorns" I mean "takes up space on, and when you walk past it, you think, "Hmmm. Weird."

I would like to know what went through the mind of the person who put this disturbing piece of alleged art--a grapevine wreath with Mexican dollies stuck to it--on the wall in the work room at my office. It is unfortunate to the point of being menacing.

Here's a close-up of one of dollies lashed to the dried grapevine wreath: She looks like something Stephen King invented. She looks like she'll come down off that wreath at night and pour cyanide into the coffee maker if you smile at her wrong. She makes me shiver, and not in a good way.

And then there's this Thai temple rubbing-esque piece that hangs on the wall by the emergency exit. The style looks like a buddhist temple rubbing--but the content is definitely Christian. What is up with that? I'm so confused. 

If you dare to walk through the rest of the office, you'll see "art" that is unambiguously Christian, like this one, which contains four New Testament story images in fabric splotches. I get this--we're a Methodist organization; but seriously. Is this the best the Methodists can do?

Then there's the obligatory anachronistic painting of two little black children kneeling by a bed, praying. Again--sort of predictable, but also un-original and slightly ironic at an organization that in many ways keeps its faith-based roots firmly in the past. 

And finally, there is a quilt. There is always a quilt. This one has the names of ladies' auxiliary members (or some such secondary volunteer group) hand-stitched on squares that have been sewn into a plain, blue-and-white quilt.

Why did they sew their names on the squares? Why was that important to them? Did they want to be remembered for their good works? Isn't that sort of antithetical to "be careful not to do your acts of righteousness before men, to be seen by them?" 

I guess the purpose is so that when we walk past it, we can realize that even if we take the trouble to sew our names onto a piece of Art, there is still no chance that anyone will remember us, or care that we were a part of making history.

It's sort of a life lesson right there, hanging on the plain white walls right outside the three plastic-coated walls of my pathetic cubicle.

The art in my office is so random and disconnected that it makes me wonder: Who picked it out? Who decided what would hang on the walls, and why? 

Sometimes I just have too much time on my hands.

Mean Girls and Life Lessons

Earlier this week when I picked the kids up from school, after their first cross country practice ever, M. Peevie's shoulders slumped and her feet dragged as she walked across the parking lot. I took her backpack, light with third-grade homework; and put my arm around her.

"You look tired and sad, M. Peevie," I said. "How did cross country practice go?"

"Terrible," she said, frowning. "I came in last every time."

"Aw, honey, I'm sorry," I said. "That must have been disappointing."

"And then MeanGirl said I was fat," M. Peevie continued, "And she told me I was slow, and I would never win a race."

"I will kick her third-grade ass!" I admirably refrained from saying. "Where is she? Let me at her!"

And then my baby angel peanut butter cup opened up a bit more about the MeanGirl encounter. "I'm really confused, though, Mom," she said. "First, MeanGirl said those mean things to me, and then later, when I was helping her with her shoe, she said I was a life saver! I don't know whether she's my friend or not!"

"Wait a minute, M. Peevie," I said. "First, MeanGirl said those mean things to you, and then later, you helped her with her shoe?"

"Yes," said my hero, "she had a bad knot, and I sat down and helped her get it out, and she told me I was a life saver." Oh, baby girl. You showed kindness to someone who treated you badly. You are living the Sermon on the Mount, and you are only eight. You convict me.

And then I kind of ruined the moment by attempting to convert it into a Life Lesson.

"You know, honey," I started, "sometimes kids say mean things because they..."

"I know, Mom," M. Peevie interrupted, rolling her eyes. "Because they are sad. Or to make themselves feel better. Or they're just having a bad day. I don't want to talk about it."

Well, then. Apparently those similar conversations over the past eight years have fallen on fertile soil.

I tried again a little later, because I want my girl to have the tools she needs to deal with MeanGirl today, not to mention tomorrow's mean girls. And mean boys. And mean grown-ups.

"M. Peevie," I said, "What did you say when MeanGirl said those mean things to you?"

"I didn't say anything, Mom," she said, "I just walked away." That's not a bad choice sometimes. Sometimes, you just have to walk away. I tell all three kids that all the time. You don't always need to reach detente. But it's good to have more than one arrow in your conflict resolution quiver, so I pursued the teachable moment.

"What do you think you could say if she says something mean to you tomorrow?" I asked.

Huge, irritated sigh. "I don't know, Mom," she said, going all teenager on me. "I really don't want to talk about it."

"Well, M. Peevie," I pushed, "I just want to make sure you know that it might be helpful for you to tell her, 'Hey, that hurts my feelings!'"

"Yeeeesss, Mom, I know," said Miss Please Stop Wasting My Time. "Can we be done now?" I dropped it.

I mentioned M. Peevie's MeanGirl situation, without naming her name or her gender, after track practice today. All three of the moms sitting on the bench with me immediately asked me if it was their kid who had been mean to M. Peevie, and I reassured them truthfully that it was not.

"Maybe you should talk to the mom," GirlScoutMom said. "I'd certainly want to know if it were my kid." I would, I told her, if M. Peevie had been unable to solve the problem on her own--but, I explained, she didn't even want to talk about it yet. I don't want to go jumping in to solve her problems when she's not even willing to talk to me about it and try to solve the problem by talking to MeanGirl herself.

It's troubling to me, but M. Peevie has moved right on with her life. Today she reported no incidents, and she also unabashedly reported that she did not run at all during cross country practice because her tailbone hurts from a recent fall.

"You didn't run at all during cross country practice?" I asked, slightly incredulous. "How did you manage that?"

"I walked the monster lap," she said, "but my tailbone still hurts, so I just sat on the sidelines for the rest of practice." OK, A) this is the first time I'm hearing about a tailbone injury and B) that's one way to avoid losing a race and C) could she be any more of a princess?

But she's my princess. And I think I might know where she gets her princess qualities from. Ahem.

Sermon on the Mount: Don't Be Fooled

From The Enemy Within, by Kris Lundgaard:

When prime minister Neville Chamberlain returned to Britain from his meeting with Hitler in Munich, he waved before the crowd the agreement he had made with the Nazi leader and announced, “I believe it is peace for our time.” Hitler had to roll over Czechoslovakia before Chamberlain gave up his wishful thinking. How much death and destruction might have been avoided if the prime minister had been more discerning about his enemy?

Chamberlain’s declaration became an obscene irony when England went to war less than a year later. But as tragic as it was, men and women outdo his folly day after day, to the danger of their own souls. When their consciences are pricked by their own sin, they too quickly declare their own inner peace before God has done his work in them.

Lundgaard uses the example of Neville Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement to illustrate the concept of “false peace,” a dangerous self-deception in which Christians, or those who call themselves Christian, reassure themselves that they are spiritually OK, that they are right with God.

Toward the end of his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus warns his followers against this dangerous folly: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 7:21).

This person who will not enter the kingdom of heaven claims to be a follower of Jesus. He (or she) calls himself a Christian, and he even has orthodox doctrine about Jesus and about God. But in the end, Jesus will say to him, “I never knew you.”

Sometimes we deceive ourselves with a quick and easy doctrine of assurance. “Once saved, always saved,” we glibly assume. Or we look toward our baptism in the Church, our Christian parents, our church-going, our orthodoxy, or the fact that we are generally pretty good people.

These are false evidences of salvation, and if it’s what you are relying on when you say, “Lord, Lord,” you are in for an eternally rude surprise.

So how do you know if you are someone who will say ‘Lord, Lord’—but will not enter the Kingdom? What is the test? The test is not whether you know the Lord, but whether the Lord knows you. Jesus says to the self-deceived, “I never knew you.”

And how do you know if he knows you? Who will enter the kingdom of heaven? “He who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”

The British preacher Charles Spurgeon said, “No man is ever too severe with himself. We hold the scales of justice with a very unsteady hand when our character is in the balance.” Later in the same sermon he added, “Let me tell you that if you have a peace today that allows you to be at peace with your sins as well as with God, that peace is a false peace.”

The way we know that we are NOT clinging to a false peace about our relationship with God is this: That we return to the Cross of Christ again and again and again, every time we are aware that we have failed to do the right thing. We cling not to our confession, or our good deeds, or to anything else; but we cling only to Jesus.

Prime Minister Chamberlain allowed himself to be deceived by Hitler; he allowed himself to believe that Nazis weren’t that bad. Do we, in the same way, allow ourselves to be deceived by sin? Do we, in the same way, rely on a false declaration of peace for our hope of salvation?

Don’t be fooled: cling only to the Cross.

Sermon on the Mount: Practice the Presence of God

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones said that Matthew 6 is one of the most uncomfortable chapters to read in all of Scripture because "it probes and examines and holds a mirror up before us, and it will not allow us to escape. There is no chapter which is more calculated to promote self-humbling and humiliation than this particular one." All-righty, then!

In Matthew 6:1, Jesus warns his followers to "be careful not to do your acts of righteousness before men, to be seen by them." Those last five words do not merely comprise a redundant modifier, but rather they hold the key to understanding the principle that Jesus is laying out.

If Jesus had ended his admonition with "before men," he would seem to be contradicting his earlier words, recorded in Matthew 5:16: "Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven." But instead, he adds, "to be seen by them."

Mr. Peevie said that when he was in college, he and his peeps would go running. They'd make sure that their course took them across the center of campus so they could log some "face time"--an opportunity not only to be seen, but to have their healthful virtue admired by professors and peers alike.

Jesus says, essentially, don't do your good deeds with the motive of face time. Don't do them to be seen and admired by other people, and in fact, don't even let your left hand know what your right hand is doing! Don't dwell on them in your own mind; don't congratulate yourself for giving your left-over sandwich from lunch to the homeless guy at the train station. Don't think twice about what a good person you are because you gave up your seat on the El to a blue-hair.

This, for me, is way harder than it might seem on the surface. My favorite theologian, John R. W. Stott, wrote, “So subtle is the sinfulness of the heart that it is possible to take deliberate steps to keep our giving secret from men while simultaneously dwelling on it in our own minds in a spirit of self-congratulation.” Ouch. That is me to a T.

The positive expression of the principle that Jesus is getting at here is this: aim to please God only and always. This is, as Brother Lawrence put it, practicing the presence of God.

Sermon on the Mount: Manifesto for Kingdom Living

I'm teaching Sermon on the Mount, Part 2 (Matthew 6 & 7) starting tomorrow, and I thought I'd post weekly (or sporadic) updates on what I'm learning in the process of teaching.

In the spring we studied the first part of the Sermon, Matthew 5. That's all I was able to cover in nine weeks. I reminded my class that there is nothing more ironic than me teaching other people about meekness, being pure in heart, and hungering thirsting for righteousness. (Just ask Mr. Peevie, or any of the Peevies, for that matter.)

Fortunately--blessedly!--the Sermon is all about grace. It's not about my own level (or lack of) spirituality. It's not about how Jesusy I am. It's all about grace, about knowing that--thank God!--what Jesus wants is not for me to grit my teeth and swear I'll be more pure in heart tomorrow. Jesus wants the Sermon to bring us back to the reality of the cross.

Look at the beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-12) if you don't believe me. I like to call them a Manifesto for Kingdom Living. The manifesto is a description of the character of the believer--and yet none of the characteristics and behaviors it describes are natural human tendencies.

None of us is naturally poor in spirit. We don't automatically mourn over our sin, or meekly put the well-being of another person ahead of our own well-being--especially that guy that just cut me off in traffic.

Instead of hungering and thirsting after righteousness, we pursue substitutes that we desperately hope might fill us. Sometimes these substitutes are legitimate, harmless, or neutral in themselves--like watching TV, or drinking wine. But for me, these substitutes often spoil my appetite for righteousness.

We'd rather punish than show mercy; and we are painfully aware that our hearts are far from pure. Look at our world--at the relationships between nations, between partisan segments of government; look at our violent cities, our segregated neighborhoods, our broken relationships. We are not natural peacemakers in any sense of the word.

None of these characteristics is a natural personality trait or temperament. Each one is produced by grace alone. They are fundamentally spiritual, and they can only be produced by the Spirit.

OK, I've gotten carried away. I didn't mean to preach a sermon. (Jesus already did that!) I'll keep you posted--but in the meantime, I'd love to know what you think.

It's A Ballet Thing

OK, back to the ballet body image issue. It turns out that it was good that I didn't go off on the little dance teacher.

I related the conversation that M.P. had with her teacher to two of the other ballet moms, and got a whole new perspective on the deal. They think that it was likely that the ballet teacher was concerned about proper ballet form and posture, rather than chubby tummies sticking out during a ballet routine.

It still warrants a conversation with the teacher, because it's still not good that M.Peevie came away thinking that her teacher thinks she's fat--but now it seems likely that the teacher may have had an appropriate motivation for saying what she did, but that she needs to rethink how she communicates the concept of ballet posture to six-year-olds.

This is a completely different conversation, with a completely different tone, than the one I was prepared to have.

So this whole situation is yet another reminder to me that I need to hear all sides before forming a judgment, and especially before making things worse by going on the attack. That's my first inclination, of course--to jump in swinging, and ask questions later.

It's very Sermon-on-the-Mountish: blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the sons of God.