Not so simple. . . .

There are a lot of sticky topics and choices out there. This is a talk that I have with my children, and because I am visual, it comes out in pictures. The gist of the talk is that we want a black and white world. We want right and wrong to be clear and easy and straight across the board for everyone.

But what we want is not always what we get. We live in a world where others have different belief systems, and even those within a similarly described world view have differing outlooks. In Christendom, we point to the Bible as our absolute. In this I am in full agreement. It should be the work that forms our opinions on the basics of right and wrong. I totally agree with this as a foundation. But it is not a simple foundation. The Bible presents complex scenarios, flawed people, and areas that are subjectively open to the reader's interpretation.

 [I often try to figure out where the line is. I know that there is a piece of logic that says an author means one impervious point no matter how many subjective distortions there are upon the reader's interpretations. But in the case of an omnipotent, omniscient God - could he create a work that has different meanings to different individuals? Welcome to my mind folks.]

Ultimately I am confronted with the idea that my guidebook to morality is not at all simple in nature.

In some ways I am heartened by the fact that there is a complexity here. It makes me hopeful that it goes far beyond 10 commandments and addresses the complexity of the life I live in. But it leaves my view of what is right and wrong looking a little more like this:

Then we start applying an individual filter to morality. You see we are all different people with different thoughts, proclivities, strengths, and weaknesses.

There was this video game that I used to play. It was a good game - rated E for Everyone. No violence, no questionable material. A simple game made for children. But for me it became an addiction. I started to be incapable of putting it down and doing what I needed to be doing. My house chores, my family, they started to get ignored for this game. It became a wrong choice for me because of my addiction, even thought it would not be a wrong choice for others who did not have that struggle. This addition of individuality to right and wrong brings a greater change in our "morality map".

And in this case each individual is going to have a little different map. Mine won't look like yours and yours won't look exactly like anyone else's.

It isn't always about big glaring elements. Sometimes the difference between right and wrong is in the smaller details. Some, like motives, may even be unseen to all but God.

Taking a look at the stories we tell, the above two are both about stealing from the rich. Yet one is about a hero and the other is about a bunch of hoodlums. Attitudes, motives, the small details of the situations make these two different stories with two totally different moral outcomes.

When you take the detailed stories of our lives and lay that on top of individuality, and a complex guidebook, what is right and wrong gets increasingly difficult to pick out of the mix.

And then there are value judgments. I'll never forget the time my 2nd grader brought home a school worksheet that had the answer, "I would choose to lie." to a question about what they would do if they were the main character in the story. Needless to say, I started reading that book right away to see what was going on.

The young character in the book was entering America at a time when immigration laws forbade families from entering the country together. The children had to lie about their connection with the parents to remain in their family unit. They made a judgement that in this case family was more important than honesty. You see sometimes our decisions and choices are not about a right vs a wrong, but sometimes about which right we will choose over another. [Just ask any parent of teenagers about choosing to go to the PTA mtg or watch a ball game that their child is in.] And in other cases, life puts us in positions of choosing which evil we think is the least damaging.  And if you think that the Bible does not portray people in the middle of these situations, I would ask you to look at the story of Abraham and Isaac [among a multitude of others]. Abraham chose obedience to God over the life of his son. He had a no win situation and had to make a difficult value judgement.

Life, and morality is turning out to be something pretty complex. And here is where I will make some people upset. Because we also have an adversary out there, and he is subtle. You see there are things out there so vile and depraved that society as a whole will shun. Too often it is the subtle small things that we are willing to overlook that can do damage.

Oooh - told you I was going to get a reaction.

Now let me start out by saying that the Little Mermaid is not the ultimate in evil. My kids have seen and enjoyed it. I enjoy parts of it a great deal (Under the Sea & Kiss the Girl). But so often a catchy tune and likable characters can pull us out of thinking about what a story is actually saying. I really don't want my own teen daughters to have the idea that you follow after "true love" at all costs and that everything will turn out all right. It is a dangerous message. [While we are on the topic, I find it rather disturbing that the King in the movie was willing to sacrifice all the people in his kingdom for his own child - rather  opposite a story that means so much more to me.] So while it isn't the ultimate in evil, it is sneaky, and if you aren't thinking, you are going to miss the message behind the colorful animation in an unexpected place - a children's story.

And this one is a hard one for me. Because I want my children to think, but I don't want them fearful of the world around them, or calling out everything the world produces as wrong. It is a heady tightrope to walk when I add in the presence of an enemy of great experience in the affairs of men. He has an ability to make the lines between right and wrong quite blurred.

Where it lands us is that we often open our home to age appropriate material that is questionable. When my children were young we watched the Little Mermaid, but we had conversations about how the choices in the movie might look like in real life. Now that they are teens we are talking about the Hunger Games. Because I want my children to learn discernment. I find it is difficult to learn that when there is a lack of exposure to different viewpoints.

When I start to think about all of this, there are times when I feel a little overwhelmed. We are a long way away from a black and white- right and wrong - list of actions here. I long for the ease of that list. But I am a complex being living in a world of complexities designed by a God who is incomprehensibly complex. I can start to drown in all of this as an adult. So how do I pass on a moral grid to my children?

I know what I want for my children. I want a discernment that is rooted in a full and overflowing knowledge of the scriptures and the complex laws and stories that are contained  in the Bible. I want this tempered with the wisdom and gentleness that Christ displayed in his interactions with others.

I want my children to stand firm in what they believe to be what God has chosen as right and wrong, while at the same time being able to present their viewpoint with a persuasive gentleness and kindness rather than open aggravation and hostility.

I pray that God will guard our hearts and minds, because I have to admit that I don't know how to get to what I want. I often struggle with being judgmental and alienating (case in point, using a well loved Disney movie to make a point). But I am hoping that my desire for this will count a little, and that God will help us a lot along the journey.

www July 23rd - Discouragement, Stink Bugs, & Back Again

Why did I say I was going to blog on Wednesday? Wednesdays are really my least favorite day of the week. By this time I am dragging physically, mentally, and emotionally. I am forgetting which camper goes with which parent, the wrong names come out of my mouth when I look at my co-workers, and sometimes I feel like hiding rather than dealing with yet another hitting, shoving, fighting, not-listening, out of control child.

Oh, that's right - I thought it would be healthy to try and be positive on Wednesdays, that if I told everyone out there that I was going to write about what I saw that was happening that was good, and right, and of God, that it might force me to look for those positives instead of being pulled under by the negatives. Cool in theory, but I can honestly say that I thought several times today, "What in the world am I going to write about tonight?"

Now to be honest given a nice long ride home in a van full of quiet, tuckered out children, I was able to realize that a lot of really good things did actually occur today. A child with anger management issues repeatedly choose to handle difficulties in a right way; some young volunteers are growing in confidence, responsibility, and skill; we got to show appreciation to some of our support staff, and I still look at the team that I work with and am in awe of what a great crew we have, oh, and I got to wear my PJs to work.

Yet during the day today those positives peaked quickly and I found myself lingering in the low spots, the places where you think:

• will this child ever follow a direction - ever?
• we're going to figure out what works only to never see them again after this week - or the next - it's too short of a time, so why bother with this level of input into them?
• kids these days are so disrespectful and defiant - what's going on?     

And those thoughts take you to dark places quickly. Until you figure out how to diffuse them. For me that means thinking them through a bit - because I do that. Other people can listen to upbeat music to pull themselves out of pessimism - me, I need to process mentally. So going backwards let's look at those thoughts:

• kids these days are so disrespectful and defiant - what's going on?    

I will admit that there is such a thing as moral decline. History kind of proves that. However, I am not ready to jump on the "America [or this generation, or the world itself] is going to h*** in a handbasket" bandwagon. Maybe because I believe that no matter where in the ramp of social moral decline we find ourselves, we are individually morally bankrupt behind whatever society we've built to hide behind, and those at the founding of a "just and moral" nation are no less sinners than those at the point where the mortar has begun to wear thin. Yes, the kids are disrespectful and defiant. And I am proud and unbending, given to negative thinking and prone to fall into self-reliance and frustration. God's Word has a lot to say about us both, and to be honest it reads quite a bit harsher on the items on my list than the items on the little ones that started me on a cynical rant of hopelessness about a downward moral spiral that is in reality the crumbling of an outer mask. The problem has always been with us and will continue to be.

The other side of this is that I need to remember that for the dozen kids I pulled aside today for re-direction, reminders, time-outs and talking about consequences - there were a hundred more that I did not have to do that with. There are a ton of sweet obedient respectful children that I ignore completely when I start this line of thinking - and that puts me in a mental /emotional place that is not at all fair to them.

• we're going to figure out what works only to never see them again after this week - or the next - it's too short of a time, so why bother with this level of input into them?

My first year as a camper, I was excited. I still remember the guy who gave the sermons and that he talked about Jonah in a way I'd never heard from my very sedate Sunday School teachers. I remember the polished tree log where they threw mattresses underneath and you got up on it, legs locked around that slippery surface and had pillow fights until one of you dropped to the mattresses below. I remember grape soda, and bats in the cabins. I remember catching frogs - big frogs, the ring of the cook banging a serving spoon against an empty coffee tin, and that camp food tasted better than any other.

But when it comes to meaningful conversations and moments that I had there - I basically remember one big thing. We had played a game where two teams faced off and claimed numbers down one line and back up the other, an old burlap sack was placed in the center of that mountain field between those battle lines and the idea was that you would run out and drag the sack back across the line. When my number was called I ran. And I pulled for all I was worth - and then more numbers were called, but only those from the other team came out. I was drug across that mountain field for at least 10 yards maybe more, on my back, because I was too stubborn to let go until I blacked out. 

When I came to, I was laying stomach down  on an ancient bed with a lot of bandages where the rocks and field grass had managed to get the upper hand over the skin on my back. The activities director was there - he was red faced, I didn't find out till later that he had run me to the nurses station. And to my surprise he sat down and talked to me. Not about weighty spiritual things, but about what I liked about camp, what I wanted to be when I grew up and finally about why I hadn't simply let go of that silly burlap sack. He laughed with me about that, and told me that sometimes being stubborn was OK - but next time if it hurt to let go. 

Outside of his games which he ran with all the campers present, he probably spent ten minutes with me, five of which I was unconscious for. And yet 35 years later I remember that conversation. I guess the point is - that we have the campers for the time God gives us. I cannot give into the idea that it isn't enough - 5 minutes can make an indelible memory.

• will this child ever follow a direction - ever?

Hey self, does it really matter?  Weren't you just the other day telling someone that what we do doesn't matter as much as whether or not we are loved? Yeah, I know that you meant it in the context of special needs, but maybe you just need to start looking at general misbehavior as another form of special needs. After all we are all "on the spectrum" we are all broken people. So yes, follow what you need to to accomplish the purposes that we are striving for, if a child is disruptive or a distraction - yes we have to deal with it. Safety, yes deal with it. But also remember that:

When you look for the 

bad in mankind, 

expecting to find it, 

you surely will. 

(The above quote can be attributed to Abraham Lincoln, or Polyanna or both. And maybe because of the movie Polyanna, it sticks with me.)

I am loving our camp worship songs this week, but there is one particular song that I can't get out of my head. It's bug week, and we have an awesome worship director who found this gem of a song:

It's silly, but yeah so so true. God knows who we are beyond our misbehavior, beyond our pride and self-reliance, and beyond our hurts. He knows, and he loves us all. So whether I am looking at "stink bug behavior" at camp, or my own stinky thoughts and feelings - there is still a whole lot of hope - because we have a big big God who loves little little us.

wwW July 16 - Something is going right here

I have stood on the side and watched Camp Vertical and Camp Zoom since they started. My children have grown up here. I checked them in and hovered, waiting, watching to see what the program was going to be like, listening to see what my children would be taught, picking up staff handbooks left here and there and leafing through them with the intrusive nosiness that only a mom can have.

My kids had fun, lots and lots of fun. And they built relationships with the staff. Camp grew over the years  as did my children and when my oldest daughter first grew out of being a camper and joined as a volunteer, I sat in wonderment as I looked over an amphitheater full of students, lots of them - sitting through training for the summer to come. I was not surprised when they asked for questions and my daughter's hand shot up first. "How old do you have to be to be a counselor?"

I knew then that it would be a lot longer until we grew out of camp. And over the years I started to see something really neat. In a word "retention". The same staffers came back year after year after year. It's not a field that lends itself to that. When I was in college you were considered an "old-timer" at a camp if you were on staff for more than one season. In an occupation that lends itself to volunteer hours, small stipends, or minimum wage and draws from high school and college students to fill the ranks, it is not surprising to have a high turn-over rate - in fact it is expected.

But not here.

Here there is something different happening. The staff keeps coming back. Not only did they come back, but they started getting more applications than they had positions. Students work for a year as a volunteer to be considered as staff the next. Campers grew out of volunteer helpers and into staff in a natural progression. So many of them that the number of weeks middle school volunteers served has to be limited. Vertical ended up with more staff than some camps have campers. It is one of the first times in my life where I have looked at a ministry and said "here the workers are not few".

And I have seen some of the reasons why along the way.

Camp here looks at their people as valuable. They pour time into training, growing, and building their staff. And then after they do that, they listen to them. It is one of the first positions I've held where my voice actually counts. That is valuable. It plays out in the simple things. Asking staffers what their opinion is of a Miley Cyrus song on the playlist. Listening and acting on suggestions. Giving time to talk with staff and be available to them. Scheduling a full week of training before camp starts where the basics are covered and gifts are explored and developed. Making sure that camp is a place for everyone to grow.

That type of valuing and respect from the top filters down through the ranks. And people look to value each other. The environment is supportive and encouraging. And that in turn impacts our campers positively. I am sure that it could all be chalked up to best practices. But here it is more than that. I think it is Christianity in action:

love, 

joy, 

peace, 

forbearance, 

kindness, 

goodness, 

faithfulness, 

gentleness 

and self-control. 

That cannot be powered simply by doing what other successful leaders do.Real Christ-like-ness has another power source - a greater one than human best efforts. So I guess it should not surprise me to see something different happening here. Something bigger and more profound that what I have ever seen before.

But those things that are going right, they aren't limited to keeping staff on. There is a purposefulness here that I find refreshing. There is a type of thinking that slows down to consider that our children are constantly changing and the world they live in is different now than it was five years ago. It is a type of thinking that takes into account that our youngest campers have never known "Hannah Montana" a family friendly Disney TV show - they have only known the Miley Cyrus of the current headlines. It's the purposefulness that keeps a program age-appropriate and safe. It allows for appropriate touch in a way that the public schools no longer can. And  it thinks through how we approach our faith and passing it on. It is intentionality, and this coupled with a look at the details spells out L-O-V-E  -- the first in that list up above.

After a particular thought-provoking dissertation, in staff training I heard the young man next to me thoughtfully say,  "Maybe if we want a relationship with God to be our focus, maybe when we use the Evangi-cubes, our opening shouldn't be 'Are you sure you will go to heaven?'Maybe we should be asking a different question?" Not too shabby of an idea from someone a third of my age. Training, thinking, adjusting. . . it is healthy.

These are a quick glimpses of what I see going right here. There is care, thought, change, support, and community. Sure there are warts in the mix - every place has that. Yet I see something really cool happening at Zoom & Vertical, something that makes dealing with the sticky situations, the occasional frustrated parent, and the children, some of whom are hurting so much on the inside - worth it.

If I could talk to those frustrated parents, those hurting campers; I'd want them to see what I see. A community that is pouring themselves into its youngest members, a community that keeps coming back to care for campers in a way that only God can make possible. I'd want them to experience worship with 4,5, and 6 year olds - an experience that is joyful in a way that most adults don't have the privilege of experiencing. I'd want them to be able to laugh and play and have water fights and eat rice krispy cookies, and use facepaint. I'd want them to see a noisy joyful place that through it's care is pointing to the one who cares for us all. That's what I'd want them to see.

wwW Week 3: Bending not breaking

I'm sitting down to write this post and my first thoughts are that I don't know where to begin. It has been a whirlwind day of biting, hitting, scratching, bullying, toilet accidents, and beyond that some real hard issues. The things you can't fix - at all. The discouragement that comes when a plan to help a special needs child fails. A little one struggling when things at home are tense and intense and there's yelling and fighting from the grown-ups that gets taken out on them. Watching a friend struggle with a debilitating disease that is robbing him of mobility and ministry at the same time.

And a part of me just wants to have a good cry, fall into bed and face tomorrow when it comes.

But,

I made this goal of blogging                                                                                        

on Wednesdays                                                   

about what is going right.*

And God has sent me some pretty straightforward encouragement to keep doing that. From one of my favorite bloggers who talked this week about being a writer and "folding inward" ** to some folks I respect telling me that it was making a positive contribution, I need to write today. And I am praying that He will give me words right now.

Encouraging words.
Maybe even some funny words.
I'd settle, through this fog of fatigue, if what I write just makes sense.


Today on the way home my kids threw a CD in, and I needed to hear the song that came on.

And as I thought about it, I realized that there are still so many things God is putting in my life to make today a bending experience instead of a breaking one.

• My family, a husband who thinks nothing of loading the dishwasher and throwing clothes in the dryer.
• My girls who, tired from camp themselves, are willing to pitch in.
• Left-overs for dinner and cookies for breakfast.
• Playing dead ant tag. Only to be beat out by toilet tag.
• Worship music with preschoolers - who are singing and dancing. For real!
• Air guitar.
• Bible stories illustrated in legos: so very cool! Yep, I get as excited as the kids.
• Hot dogs, freeze pops, duct tape and puppets. Yes this line all goes together. "are we siblings?" I am still chuckling.
• The absolutely ingenious idea to sit in cardboard box "cars" and watch a movie pretending that it is a drive in. I believe God has a hand in Pinterest , because I so needed that respite today.
• Friends - the ones you can tell anything, and the ones you are getting to know better every day. And the ones who like Hee Haw.
• Still being able to find my sense of humor when a camper calls me grandma.
• One camp nurse who has unending patience, and office staff who have huge hearts.

The details that God brings into your life, the things he allows you to see and experience, from a snippet of misbehavior, that gives you a window on a child to the deep things buried from the dark places in my own childhood. I just cannot get away from the idea today that he has this all in hand. That it is orchestrated in this micro-cosmic scale by a God that knows about the bird that got hit by a car today on the road in. The God who knows how many blue hairs I have, how many bleached and how many were really grey before all of that.

Because I wouldn't have thought that my childhood ghosts could be used as a good thing. But today they were.

I wouldn't have taken seeing yet another camper misbehave as a good thing. But today it was.

                             bending
                             not
                       breaking

Insecurities, disabilities, scars from wrong choices - God can make it all work. And I am convinced that some day we will get to look back on this bendy path and see it as an amazing thing of beauty.



* I've had a few folks ask what the wwW stands for - it's a convoluted explanation that can be found here.

** Enduring and After - one of my favorite blogs, Deb has a true gift.

wwW - July 2nd

I love this time of year. And I'm loving the weather. Cloudy skies and refreshingly cool winds are my glory, and the dogs too on our morning walk through the park next to our house. There is a little thrill as I cross the bridge and go up the footpath on the hill to see the ferris-wheel and the flags and steel girders of the county carnival set up for the coming holiday. I love the 4th of July.

Don't get me wrong, I would probably die for the meanings behind Christmas and Easter. Those incredible, important holidays that have deep foundations in my faith - or at least the core of what they started as. But the little kid inside me can't get enough of the superficial fun at Halloween and the 4th of July. And yes I know celebrating concepts like national freedom, and the sacrifice it takes to obtain and maintain are not at all superficial. But if I am honest, most of my holiday will not revolve around that - though I am deeply indebted to our servicemen and women and the government that holds those values.

The 4th of July is about getting my house clean (yeah!). It is about having friends over. It is about good food. And yes around here it is about parades and carnival rides and fireworks.

When we moved into our home eight years ago over Thanksgiving weekend with the help of our friends from game group, we had no clue that one of the best fireworks displays in the state would be lit a half a block away in the park, or that the same park would host the carnival rides and food booths, and musicians that come with such civic celebrations.

I have loved sitting so close that you can see the firefighters lighting the rockets, you can feel the sound as well as hear it (a little bit left over from being raised by a military explosives expert I guess). And I love that every year we seem to get a new color thrown into the mix.(Last years was a bright turquoise.)

I am loving that it is a chance to entertain, to cook and bake. And this year I am really proud and excited that my children are undertaking key parts of the kitchen work. Fred 1 is going to be running the grill, Fred 2 has already made a batch of outstanding cookies, and Fred 3 is all lined up to help with the traditional deviled eggs. It is a neat thing to see your children growing into young adults.

I love it that we can open our home to friends. Our family is often too far away to come, but it is a neat thing to have friends that enjoy the holiday with us. For two introverts who grew up with very few friends, it is actually a surprising thing. 12 years ago we met a group of people who posted about getting together to game in our city on an internet bulletin board. I remember how nervous we were as a couple  to go and try that out.

We still meet regularly. We've been a part of weddings and housewarmings. We have talked the talk of parents with kids in the same age group, who all like games too. It is a joy to have friends. Some things from childhood hang on in that you find yourself consistently surprised. I will always be surprised how green Wisconsin is having been raised in a desert. And in this odd undercurrent of thought I am always happily surprised that every 4th of July we have friends who enjoy coming to our house.

So Christmas and Easter, they point me to those basal  things that God has done things that give a depth to my life that I cannot imagine being without. But the 4th of July points me to what I have to be thankful for within life itself: the fabric of friendships, calendar events, celebration, and the quiet walks in the park where there is a magic in the air before the rides start to twirl and the music starts to pound.