Five on Friday
Hi friends! Two posts in one week must be some kind of record on here! Throughout the month I make a list on my phone of things I could possibly write about on here and I realized the list for April got way too long for one post, so I decided to split it up and do a regular 5 on Friday post for ya with all the other things I’ve been musing on lately. So without further ado, here we go! Today I’ve got a longer piece on finding the sacred in something secular, a creative consequence we used recently that worked, my new obsession, my new favorite phrase to be teaching my kids, and the planning I’m trying to do ahead of summer coming. Happy reading my friends!
**One**
When Aidan and I were in New York City over spring break, it absolutely poured rain the Saturday we were there. For about 17 hours straight it rained and set a record for the most amount of rain received in Central Park in one day apparently (over 3 inches on that one Saturday). We walked all over that city that day with our rain coats and umbrellas and other than our wet shoes we did just fine and still saw everything on our list. While we waited for the NBA store and Lego Store to open on that morning we realized we had an hour to kill and standing around outside in the cold wet weather sounded miserable. The only thing really open at 9:00 on a Saturday morning (everything opened after 10!) was St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Aidan hasn’t ever been in a true cathedral, and I haven’t been in years, so I took him inside and we sat in the back pew and he took in the splendor of the building. He kept saying “I’ve never seen anything like this!” I explained all kinds of theological history to him about why cathedrals were designed the way they were—that our worship spaces say something about what we believe about God. I asked him to tell me what he thought the designers of St. Patrick’s wanted to say about God in their architecture and we talked about how these spaces were designed to invoke awe, to incite wonder at the majesty of our creator. We looked at the stories told in the stained glass and the sculptures around the cathedral and it was a lovely way to spend an hour.
Later that day we had matinee tickets to Hamilton on Broadway. We had incredible seats, we were in the dead center of the theater about 15 rows back from the stage and we were both spellbound as the opening beats of the first song played and the actors took their places to tell us this story of ambition, of politics, love, betrayal, loss, grief, and finally forgiveness and redemption. By the end of the show we were both silent, brushing tears out of our eyes and he looked at me with this expression of wonder and said “that was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen in my life.” (And he’s seen Hamilton before, it’s not like this was his first exposure to the story).
We left the theater, back into the rain, and walked the two blocks to the restaurant I’d made us dinner reservations at. As we sat there he mentioned more than once just how incredible seeing the story of Hamilton was—you could just see the awe on his face even an hour later. So during dinner that night I said “you know, we saw a lot of things today, but we saw two things today that were specifically designed to inspire and provoke awe and wonder. Do you know what those two things were?” He knew right away I was talking about both the cathedral and Hamilton. I used that moment as an intro to talk to him about something both Chuck and I took away from one of our seminary classes that we still talk about all the time. (our kids are so lucky they’re being raised by such theology nerds!)
See, at Fuller any Master of Divinity student had to take 1 philosophy class in their 3 years. I hate philosophy. I’ve never understood it, I get completely lost after reading about one page and I never know what anyone is talking about. There were a few more hard core philosophy classes you could take that those who someday wanted to be professors took, and the rest of us always held out for this one particular class that was probably the most popular class on campus. It was called Christ and Culture and the special thing about this class is that it was the only class our seminary president, Dr. Richard Mouw, ever taught. Dr. Mouw is one of the wisest, most gentle, most thoughtful human beings I’ve ever encountered in my life, so the opportunity to sit at his feet every week for a quarter hearing his thoughts on Christ and Culture was one none of us wanted to pass up.
The main text we used for the class was Christ & Culture by H. Richard Niebuhr, one of the 20th century’s most prominent Christian ethicists. He posits in his book that there are 5 main ways Christians can respond to “culture” (by culture he means the things of this world—the “stuff” of creation as Dr. Mouw used to say. When we were told to fill the earth in Genesis we did so not just with offspring but with technology, art, music, food, stories, tools, all the things that make up this world). I’m not going to give a book report here on the 5 ways Christians can respond to culture here. But one of the primary ways we often see people of faith respond to the world around us is by withdrawing—by creating a line of “us” vs. “them” or “the Church” vs “the World.” This falls under Niebuhr’s section on Christ Against Culture—if we are Christians we cannot be involved in anything that looks too secular; we want to boycott movies, companies, books, TV shows, music and anything else that might present words, ideas, or thoughts that don’t specifically align with the way we understand scripture to show that there is a line between sacred and secular and we are clearly on one side while “the world” is on the other.
Niebuhr’s (and Dr. Mouw’s) main point in the entire class is that this isn’t the best way to operate as believers. Jesus didn’t come into the world and get rid of everything related to secular culture. All the boycotts often do are draw more negative attention to believers, and they rarely actually cause the kind of massive overhaul in a company Christians want to see. Rather they would encourage a view of believing that Christ is always at work transforming culture. This “Christ Transforming Culture” idea was hammered into us over and over again. This might sound a little complicated, but the basic idea of this way of thinking is that because we are all created in the image of God, we are all somehow at our core, also creators. And the “stuff” we create, whether it is specifically “Christian” or not can still give glory to God, can still inspire awe and wonder and majesty.
Have you ever been to a concert by an artist that isn’t necessarily singing anything about God yet you experienced some kind of transcendent moment where you sat up and took notice that something special was happening? I know I have. The idea is that because Jesus is alive and and always on the move, we can find holy ground, where the Spirit is moving, even if the “art” we are consuming in that moment is “secular.” There are so many more chapters in this book fleshing out this theory—of course there are very perverted forms of “culture” in this world, I don’t mean to paint this in too simplistic of terms, or to say that God delights in every aspect of what we’ve created and done on this earth, but the vast majority of music, theater, film, physical art, literature and the like can show us something of God’s character even if the artist themself isn’t aware that’s what they’re doing because they are, by nature, creations of God in the first place. We spent 12 weeks unpacking this idea, so if you feel like there are a lot of holes in this post, there probably are, but hopefully the general gist of this concept came through here!
Back to this Italian dinner Aidan and I were sharing in New York after seeing Hamilton. I asked him out of the things we saw that day which one inspired the feeling that something sacred or holy was happening and he immediately said “Hamilton. But am I supposed to say the cathedral because it’s a church?” Which was the perfect segue into what I just shared with you, that we can absolutely find the sacred in something that wasn’t necessarily created to be “religious” but was created with incredible excellence which honors God as well. He named it, he said “when they sang about loss and forgiveness I got goosebumps.” “Secular” art that tells the story of the human experience is sacred indeed, and we talked about how many things we’ve learned about God over the years from books, films and shows that aren’t trying to tell the specific story of the Gospel but we can actually find fingerprints of the Gospel all over them. As my favorite podcaster Sophie Hudson likes to say when she hears an incredible concert or sees an amazing television show “well the Gospel is all over that if you look for it!” It’s all around us, in all the art and culture we consume because God’s fingerprints are all over this world even if the one doing the creating doesn’t recognize it. St. Patrick’s Cathedral was stunningly beautiful. But it didn’t bring either of us to the place of awe, the goosebumps and teary eyed feeling that we were truly witnessing something spectacular. Hearing the cast of Hamilton gently sing these words absolutely did.
There are moments that the words don't reach
There's a grace too powerful to name
We push away what we can never understand
We push away the unimaginable
They are standing in the garden
Alexander by Eliza's side
She takes his hand
It's quiet uptown
Forgiveness, can you imagine?
Forgiveness, can you imagine?
If you see him in the street
Walking by her side, talking by her side, have pity
They are going through the unimaginable
**Two**
Speaking of Aidan…A couple of weeks ago he made a mistake that we talked through and everyone recovered from but also needed a consequence enforced. We took away the Nintendo Switch but rather than just give him a time period like “you can have this back in a month” Chuck had the idea to try something different. He wanted Aidan to have some autonomy and power over when he got it back, but the challenge he had to complete in order to do so was going to be difficult. We know he’s a happier person when he’s active, when he’s working out, playing sports, moving his body, it’s just how he’s wired and without a sports season he’s currently in it’s been easier and easier for him to slide into wanting to be on screens more and more. So in order to earn his switch back, Chuck gave him a really difficult physical challenge he had to complete—he could take as many days as was necessary, but he had to do 1000 sit ups, 1000 push ups, 1000 squats, 200 burpees, 50 pull ups, and 10 basketball dribbling lessons he has on the iPad. I’ll preface this by saying this consequence would absolutely NOT work for every kid—it would crush Asher’s spirit so much it would do more harm than good. But we had a suspicion Aidan would love this. And he did. Man.
Guys I’ve never seen my kid more motivated, with the BEST attitude, he just rose to this challenge and was excited to take it on. It took him right at 1 week, but for that 1 week he was moving—we’d be watching TV as a family at night and he’d be on the floor doing sit ups. I’d get up in the morning and he’d be out in the garage doing pull ups and dribbling drills. He loved this challenge. He didn’t complain once, he loved having some ownership and control in when he earned his games back, and while he was sore he did the math and split up the exercises into how many he needed to do each day to get it done when he wanted to have it done. We were in awe and so proud of him and how he responded to this consequence—he said “oh it’s totally fair, and I’ll remember this, I’ll never do XYZ again.” He felt the loss of his technology for sure, I could tell that bugged him, but he loved that he was in control of when it came back.
A week ago he and I were chatting with his counselor and Aidan told her about his consequence and how it was hard but he didn’t mind. She said “that’s because boys your age NEED challenges. They need to be presented with something that feels hard because you need to learn you are capable of doing hard things and then you get to experience the pride that comes when you accomplish that!” After Aidan left the room she told me that was one of the most creative punishments she’s ever heard but she loved it, and said it obviously wouldn’t work for everyone, but for a kid who is as physical and active as Aidan is this was perfect. I think this whole experience showed us it’s sometimes GOOD to be creative in our parenting strategies, that it’s not only okay, but so good to set a challenge before them and let them rise to it. I have a feeling over the years this kid is going to be doing a lot of burpees as he makes mistakes and needs to learn some lessons, but I also know that this is actually good for his mental and physical health and motivates him in a way we hadn’t quite seen before. Feel free to borrow a version of this idea if you also have a very physical kid who loves a good challenge!
**Three**
Okay. If I haven’t lost some of you by now, this one might do it. I have a confession. In the past few months I have become a pretty hardcore Taylor Swift fan. I know, some of you are already rolling your eyes. I knew her music a solid 14 years ago when Chuck and I were youth leaders and I spent an exorbitant amount of time with 9th & 10th grade girls. I loved those girls. I loved watching the movies they were obsessed with, I loved taking them on house boating trips in the summer and dancing with them at 3 am during a lock in. I went to their Sweet 16 parties and high school football games, and yes, I listened to their music. It was impossible to avoid, and their obsessions back then were Taylor’s Fearless and Speak Now albums, those were the ones that released while I was living life with these girls and I learned all the words alongside them. But then, I moved, had babies, got a job not working with teenagers, and spent the next decade listening to preschool worship music. I missed basically everything that happened in terms of music for a solid decade.
Fast forward to this past year when the Eras Tour was all the rage and a whole new generation of teens were falling in love with Taylor—including all my nieces. It was so fun to hear friends and family members who attended the concert talk about their experience, but I still didn’t really relate. What is a Folklore? Who is Evermore? I missed all these albums and didn’t know anything about her “Eras” past 2011. Finally in December it was a rainy day and the kids were at school. I had a huge pile of Christmas cards to address and her concert had just become available to rent on Amazon Prime. I wanted to see what everyone had been talking about for months, so I rented it knowing absolutely none of the other people in my house would ever want to watch this with me, and I spent that morning happily addressing cards while watching this 3 hour spectacle.
If I had just watched this concert I probably would have come away saying “this was a visually stunning production.” The dancers, the costume changes, the staging, the whole thing was incredibly impressive but probably wouldn’t have turned me into a big fan. Except for this little detail…we have the closed captions set to always be on on our TV no matter what we are watching. I don’t know when we started this but it’s been like this for years and I love it and yes this probably makes us old but we don’t care. And it’s this dang closed captioning that turned me into a huge fan. Those of you who are already big fans are probably rolling your eyes like “duh!” But man that woman can write a lyric. She has an incredible grasp of language, allegory, metaphor, her allusions to classic literature, religious texts, and poetry man it all blew me away. Yes some of her songs are just fun bops to belt out in the car. But some of her songs have some depth to them that really surprised me. I fell in love with some of her ballads I’d never listened to before and well, since then I’ve pretty much curated my own playlist of all the songs of hers I love and it’s on all the time in my kitchen and car (well now that Aidan sits in the front seat he often overrides my music choices because the one subset of our population who is NOT on the Taylor fan-wagon is the middle school boy subset…”ick mom! This is awful!”). On repeat in my house right now are You’re On Your Own Kid, All Too Well, Champagne Problems, Long Live, But Daddy I Love Him, Clara Bow, Timeless, Marjorie, and Evermore. Did I order a shirt recently that says “In My Knitting Era?” I did. I’m all in, I like her new album even if it’s not my favorite, but I am all in on her writing and have found so much joy in her music this spring.
**Four**
One of the things I’ve been experiencing a lot lately, or that has come up in many conversations, is how in many situations, two things can be true at the same time. I think our tendency is to have some experience where this might be the case but brush it off, failing to hold both realities in our hands at the same time because we don’t love feeling that tension. Recently one of my kids had a situation with a classmate at school where this classmate said some very unkind things that I know hurt. After sharing about it the initial response of my kiddo was to say “whatever, it’s fine. It’s no big deal, I’m fine.” It struck me how quickly he wanted to move from anger and grief to being “fine” even though nothing about this situation was truly fine. I don’t even know where this came from, most likely the Holy Spirit as I was silently praying “God give me wisdom as to how to respond to my son in this moment!” but I said to him “Two things can be true at the same time buddy. You can say this hurts, this is cruel, I hate the things this person said, and also, I am strong and resilient and know the truth about who I am enough to know these words aren’t true and don’t define me.” And also. In that moment I saw this look of understanding come over him. He didn’t have to pretend the words didn’t hurt. But he also didn’t want to stay in the hurt place, he wanted to, and does have the ability to move past this and see the truth about this kid, how hurt people are the ones who hurt people. Two things can be true at the same time.
I was having lunch with a friend recently and said this phrase about something completely unrelated to my kid’s situation and she stopped me and said “I love that phrase, and also…” She said she found herself often using ‘but’ which doesn’t really communicate the same thing. I want to show my kids as they grow we can hold two things in tension with one another—yes something is hard or feels hard or unfair. And also, you are strong, you are resilient, you have what it takes. I have a feeling we’ll be reaching for this one a lot as we continue parenting through the years!
**Five**
With 3.5 weeks of school to go we are starting to seriously start thinking about SUMMER! Yes, it’s long and hot and about July I’ll be ready for everyone to go back to school, but man I’m looking forward to some downtime! A couple of things we like to do in the month of May to start getting ready is make our summer bucket list (which I’ll share later in the month when we finish ours—we are trying to do an A-Z one this year and are struggling with some of the letters!) and use our Essential Calendar quarterly calendars to map out our summer together. (underneath this spring quarter is the sheet with the rest of the summer so we can see the whole thing at once). This helps everyone know when to expect which summer camps or trips we are doing and lets me see what everyone is doing from week to week. I don’t put all our piano lessons or karate classes on here, this is mostly just for those out of the ordinary things, but it has been SO helpful—this is our second summer with this calendar and I am a big fan!
Every Sunday I post the schedule for that particular week on the refrigerator where literally everyone sees it multiple times a day as they get water out of the fridge which helps people see the details of karate, piano, appointments etc in a smaller scale instead of looking at a whole month or quarter at once. I keep our whole family’s calendar on my google calendar now (I know, I’ve started going digital, who the heck am I?? But to have ALL our dates with me at all time has been so helpful that I’ve started using a hybrid of digital planning and paper planning and it’s worked really well this year). I’ve found though that the 3 guys in my house can’t handle much beyond one week at a time, so me just using this weekly planner pad has been really helpful for everyone—if they need big picture info like when is our summer trip they can look at the big calendar on the wall, but for the most part this one week at a time has been a game changer for us helping us know what’s going and I’m sure we’ll continue throughout the summer as our schedule will change from week to week with camps and whatnot. Until then though if anyone has any good A-Z summer bucket list items let me know!
