Ever since Andrew sent word last week that two students at Virginia Tech had been brutally murdered at a camping area near Blacksburg (story here), I have been scanning the news and the internet for more information.  He had told us these were students involved in Campus Crusade (his housemates are involved with that ministry).

The national media seems to have overlooked this story in the frenzy of coverage over the death of Ted Kennedy and the Michael Jackson funeral, with the unfortunate exception of CNN’s Nancy Grace (who would have given it top billing if she had someone to pin some blame or scandal on).  I missed the “coverage” last night on her show, and the transcript is not available on the CNN site, but I did find this clip this morning and was so heartened by the words of the two fathers of the victims that I wanted to post a link to it here (apologies for the 30-second ad at the beginning).

What a testimony to the Spirit of God living in these two families, that these dads, both of whom I’m sure have spent countless hours weeping over the past few days, would make a point to honor their kids by emphasizing the same thing they believe their children would emphasize if given 30 seconds on national television: that love of Jesus Christ and a saving faith in him is everything.

Nancy Grace is, of course, a master of crocodile tears, so it’s hard to tell whether her emotional response at the end is real.  But whether she gets it or not, I love how the two dads are a clear picture to those who are really listening, that there are things to consider beyond our loss and grief, which are temporal.  Eternity is at stake, and they seem to be speaking from deep comfort and peace that their children are with Christ and they will see them again.  Their words reflect a living faith, and a living hope: “We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13).

May God richly bless them and their families, the friends of these two young people, and all who are affected by their loss with deep peace, unending hope, and strong faith in the Savior, who longs to give even the unknown gunman the gift of new life.

Andrew and Daniel, Andrew's first day of kindergarten, 1991

Gut-wrenching moments always hit you when you’re not prepared, you know?

Like this morning. Who knew that when my full-grown, amazingly mature third (and last) son left for school this morning, hearing his car crunch the gravels on the way out would suddenly make me feel like I couldn’t breathe.

I hadn’t even thought about it until this morning, after he left, but this was the last first day of school for me as a mom. Eighteen years ago I walked two little boys down the street to Westwood Elementary, and came home with only one: the first day of kindergarten for Andrew, giving Daniel and me the morning hours to figure out what to do without big brother to play with. A month later I was pregnant with Jared. And this morning, Jared kissed mom goodbye, grabbed his coffee and his bookbag, rolled his eyes, sighed, and drove off to his first day of his senior year.

Moms all around me are dealing with this same melancholy these days. My sister left her last child at university last week. A friend just found out what a kick in the gut it is to do that for your first one (nothing can prepare you for the power of that kick). Others are letting go of little hands at kindergarten doors. The pains of childbirth are not over when you think they are over.

But here is some encouragement, after you’ve had a good cry: If they come to thrive in their new environment, you have done your job well. Leaving is what they are supposed to do. You receive them, you nurture them and pray over them, and then you give them to the world. If they go out with God, that gift to the world will be a blessing indeed.

So it was good medicine this morning to reflect that before he left, Jared had gotten himself up early for a morning run and then some quiet devotional time on the couch. Last week Daniel e-mailed me his excitement about ministry possibilities at Chapel Hill this year, and asked for prayer. And Andrew just posted a blog update from his new job (ministry internship) at Virginia Tech — the content of which was exactly what a mom with an empty nest needed to hear this morning: God is at work.

But I still miss them. If you’re a newly-sprung gift to the world, do me a favor: call your mama. She misses you.

A friend and I are having on online discussion that is getting very interesting.  I’m sure we are way late to this debate, but it’s just not something I’ve given this much thought to before, and so I am interested in opening this can of worms here to see what others think.

No behaviorists allowed

My friend posted a great piece on the growth of psychotherapy in churches and parachurch organizations.  I agreed with almost everything she said (including the parallel she was making to the fields–plural!–of interior decorating and interior design).  You can read her post, my (lengthy) comment–and her response–on her blog HERE.

After her response to my comment, the question for today is, is there no usefulness at all in studying (and sometimes applying) the findings of experts and writers in psychology and human behavior, if they aren’t starting with a biblical view of man?    

I wholeheartedly agree that any solution to sinful behavior that does not go to the root (sin) is ultimately going to be worthless.  Changing sinful behavior from the outside may help a little, for a little while, but the benefit will quickly disappear because the heart has not changed.  So, for example, if a couple habitually lets their conflicts escalate into ugly ad hominem attacks, they need something more than re-training in communication (though I think that might be useful at some juncture too, a point on which some might disagree with me).

What’s at issue in our current debate is behaviorism.  Is there any usefulness in, say, a B.F. Skinner-type method of behavior change?  This question is important to me, having been raised by a dad with a D.Ed. in special education who used Skinner’s methods (and their corollaries) on me all the time, and having consciously used these methods in raising my own three boys.  A “specify, praise, and ignore” plaque hung on my dad’s office wall, and I chanted these words many a time when the guys were pushing ALL my “scream!” buttons.  (Don’t worry; old-fashioned punishment had its usefulness too…).

So, given that Skinner (as my friend reminded me) was certainly not a believer, and developed his theories based on animal behavior extrapolated to human behavior (a big leap), do we therefore discard his findings as useless?  Do I need to completely rethink how I have always approached behavior management?  Is behavior management perhaps even countermanded by scripture?

Here are my friend’s good questions:
1) Is behavior modification Biblical? Or is it simply a means by which we as humans come to believe we have the ability to move toward Christ (likeness)?

2) (based on some illustrations I had used) Is smoking or weight loss a behavior problem or a sin problem? Is anger? Does the Bible have anything to say about how children speak?  You have separated certain behaviors from those of the heart, “where all our actions and words come from.”  Does the Bible differentiate between actions of the flesh and actions of the heart?

Here then is my response:

I have been thinking a lot about this recently, partly because of the reading that’s been coming my way for various reasons.  We looked at James 3, for example, in Sunday School this week, and a couple pages by Jay Adams (Christian Counselor’s Commentary) on that passage.  (I love Adams’ approach, by the way, and find him trustworthy.)  James states that it is impossible to tame the tongue (“…no one can tame the tongue” vs. 8), but of course the Bible commands that we have to do it, for all kinds of good reasons.  Since it is humanly impossible, as the tongue expresses the evil that is in our hearts (Matt. 12:34)–and there will always be some evil in our hearts this side of heaven–then our only hope for real, lasting outward (behavior) change is dependence on God, who alone can make an inward (heart) change.  All that, I think, we would agree on.

What I’m wondering, however, is why we’re so quick to discount the usefulness of behavior management. 

Adams himself, in his counselor’s commentary on James, at one point says, “Don’t allow for ungodly speech to be used without reprimand during the counseling hour” (p. 191).  So I’m wondering, what does the reprimand accomplish?  Several things.  One, it makes clear to the counselee what God’s standards for speech are, and that the counselor expects the standards to be upheld in his office.  Two, it may very well diminish that unwanted behavior, at least while the counselee is in the office.  Now, I know Adams does not believe that the diminishment of the ungodly talk has solved the counselee’s heart problems.  But he has used a form of behavior modification nonetheless.  Why? 

I think it’s because we all realize that until a heart is perfected by the Spirit of God in us, we must find ways to mold our behavior–and the behavior of those for whom we are responsible–toward what it will look like naturally when our sinful natures have finally been completely renewed or transformed (Col. 3:10).

For example, I don’t think for one minute that my insistence that a child use appropriate tone and words when he needs something will solve the problem of his core selfishness and demandingness.  God will (by grace) accomplish that over time.  But I think it’s important that I insist he express his needs appropriately anyway, and help him to form that habit until it is inwardly motivated.

So, to answer your question #1:  No, I don’t think behavior modification necessarily makes us believe we have the ability to move toward Christ, but I agree that there is a danger that we will think that.  We must never trust in behavior change and miss the need for heart change.  We cannot make ourselves Christlike merely by force of human will.  And like you, I am wary of Christian self-help books that seem to suggest that we can.

As for #2, that’s a complicated question.  I really don’t think that all the unwanted behaviors that we target come from sin.  For example, a person may overeat or eat the wrong things for any number of reasons (emotional/spiritual, chemical, or simply bad eating habits learned from childhood).  Not all overeaters are looking to food to fill an emotional need.  Of course, if we discover that that is in fact what’s going on, we can and should attack that root as the sin problem it is:  seeking to find comfort and security from the wrong place.  (We might also suggest a structured diet, trusting that as the core problems are addressed in counseling, the learned behaviors of eating better will become less imposed and more inwardly motivated.)

Then again, someone might just need to have some blood tests done.  And sometimes, if a person just stops bringing chips into the house and trains himself to reach for carrot sticks instead, the solution is just that easy.  It happens.  I used to chew on my hair when I was little, for some reason.  My mom expressed her dismay and reminded me when I was doing it until I just stopped doing it.

But back to the parenting (“ask nicely”) example:  a godly parent prays that God would transform the little sinner’s heart into a less blatantly selfish, childish one; in the meantime, this child MUST ask nicely, as he grows into his more mature self.  And so, when he forgets and acts demanding and presumptuous (orders mom around rather than ask nicely and say “please”), he does not get the juice or a smile from mom.  But when he does remember to ask nicely and say the “magic word,”  voila:  juice, and a smiling mom!  This IS behavior modification.  It may even be done unconsciously by mom, but she’s doing it.

Even when you turn these encounters into teachable moments of shepherding a child’s heart (as you should do, sometimes), and you sit the child down and explain why “please” is important, and that our hearts are demanding and selfish, and that asking something of others should be done humbly, which is what “please” means–that little talk itself just might be behavior modification as well, if the child would rather be playing with his truck during that time instead of listening to mom talk about our hearts.  (I have to give credit to my son Andrew for that idea; we talked about this over the weekend.)  In other words, the little instructive talk can itself feel like (and operate as) punishment (classic Punishment I, in Skinner’s terminology: an adverse stimulus that follows the targeted behavior).

All that to say that despite the truly heinous assumptions Skinner and others made about where man comes from and about man’s similarities to animals, and despite the great dangerous leaps they made about the usefulness and consequences of their methods, some of the human behavior phenomena they observed and described did help me understand what moms do perhaps naturally, and may even have helped me do it more effectively.  By those simple methods (and others, of course), I helped shape my children’s behavior temporarily until such “training wheels” were no longer necessary, as they grew (by grace, by the Spirit) to be more inwardly motivated to be kind, respectful, gentle, etc.  Once they desired to show these traits, they already knew the forms of them, having been in the habit for years.

As for the grown up me, knowing that my heart will always prompt me to say unkind things, I shall continue to attempt to bite my tongue (i.e. modify my own behavior from the outside, “put on” better behaviors, “keep my tongue from evil” even when it’s present in my heart) when my sinful nature would have me spew.  I might even ask close friends to chastise me when they catch me speaking harshly, as a sort of correction for that behavior.  Most importantly, I hope I will remember to talk to the Father about that poisonous well in my heart, and ask him to get rid of it.

I will also continue to keep the ice cream in the OUTside freezer, since walking out there through the heat and cobwebs of the garage makes getting to it just a little bit punishing, and might be enough (sometimes) to make the reward of the ice cream not quite as rewarding. 

Maybe someday I will have a heart that always desires what is kind and beneficial and healthy and moderate.  But since that heart, that better self, is still in process of “being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator”  (Col. 3:10), some temporary outward behavior modification will sometimes be in order. 

Dinner out in Shepherds Market area, London

Not that the icy one in March wasn’t just ducky (see previous post), but come on.  Twenty-five years calls for an outlay of cash at least approaching the price tag of the first used car you ever bought as a married couple.  And I think we accomplished that.

Since my virtual stack of digital photos is absolutely overwhelming to me, and the thought of captioning and explaining all of them even more daunting, I shall simply begin at the beginning, and get as far as I can get before my coffee and my stamina runs out tonight.  This trip deserves a proper debriefing, ruminating, archiving, and these things can’t be rushed.  So, if the many people who’ve asked me to describe and show pictures were really serious about that request, here they will find satisfaction, bit by bit.  Along with some pithy observations on life, travel, marriage, Europeans, and worship.

Part 1:  London with Lynn and Becca

To be clear, this three-week odyssey was not all anniversary.  My dearest and only sister (Lynn) suggested back in winter that I accompany and help plan a trip for her and her graduating daughter (Becca), and Becca wanted to go to England. 

Waaaaay back in 1982, when Margaret Thatcher was ruling and Princess Diana was making babies, I spent a semester studying in London:  living in Bloomsbury, taking classes in British art and architecture and theater, and growing into the adult version of my faith.  This latter happened largely through the preaching and warmth of All Souls Church, Langham Place, just down the street from our digs in Gower Street.  John Stott was still preaching regularly, along with several other very gifted, winsome men of faith. 

All that to say, my familiarity with London goes pretty far back.

Me and my sister

Although Lynn had had part of the same experience the previous year, her semester had been cut very short by a medical crisis at home (a serious flare-up of my mother’s MS, which finally took her from us ten faith-squeezing years later).  So her experience of the place was scant, and that–coupled to the fact that she is memory-deficient and directionally challenged–led her to realize that a tour guide might be a good idea.  Or maybe she just wanted to spend time with her sister.

I’m certainly no expert on the UK, but Larry and I have visited London and various UK spots together every five years or so since we got married, so I do know what to avoid and where some of the hidden gems are.  So we began our stay in London, lodging at the comfortable but (I’ve now decided) slightly prickly Vicarage Hotel in Kensington (I’ll embed links to most of these places, in case anyone needs to plan a trip.  No charge.)  Larry and I had found this hotel to be a nice retreat from the noisy streets of tourist-London, but close enough to either Kensington High Street or Notting Hill tube to get almost anywhere pretty fast.  One magical morning on one of those trips, I remember waking up to the sound of horse-clops on the street, looking out our (front-facing) room window, and seeing a small parade of horses being moved from the nearby Kensington Palace stables to their morning gig.

Unfortunately, the hotel isn’t quite what I remember.  It’s not disastrous, but it’s definitely lost some of its joy.  Particularly the management, who can be hard to track down and hard to pin down once you’ve found them.  Granted, part of the problem was simply a difference in room locations:  fourth floor (no elevator) facing the back alley, rather than second floor facing the picturesque front street.  But service and comfort have declined over the years, as the management no longer seem to take much pride or joy in their business. 

Vicarage Hotel, Kensington

The worst moment, and I am not making this up, was about 8:00 on our last morning there (a Saturday), when we awoke not to clop clop outside the window, but a cacophonous chank chank– a loud pounding of iron on iron–right outside our door, in the corridor.  I crept out of the room to hit the loo (yes, too cheap to spring for an en-suite room), and two workmen were on their knees in the corridor, right outside of the doors to the loo and to the shower, prying up the carpeting and the underlying vinyl tiles with flat irons.  Seeing me in my jammies and figuring out where I was headed, they moved their tools and stepped aside as I squeezed by them and into the WC (wondering how soundproof that door was, if you know what I mean…).  By shower time, the new carpeting had been roughly cut and rolled out but not trimmed or tacked down.  The men were gone, working on another floor.  Opening the door to the shower room meant tugging back the new carpet’s edge as far as I could, so I could open the shower room door just enough to squeeze in–hoping, of course, that when it came time to get back out, I would be able to get it open that far again (or call for help). 

Why all the detail about this fiasco?  TRAVEL OBSERVATION #1:  Britain ain’t America.  This is true on so many levels, but one thing you have to just accept is that unless you’ve paid Hilton or Ritz prices for your hotel room, don’t expect everything to work, and don’t expect the staff to apologize if it doesn’t.  Here they do not operate on a “customer is king” basis.  An American small-hotel owner would have this kind of repair work done in the off-season during a closed-for-refurbishment week, because the typical American guest simply wouldn’t put up with this kind of noise and lack of privacy.  They would demand a refund, or call the BBB, or both.  I guess we’re not the typical American guests.  We let slide the very weak acknowledgment at check out: “sorry about the mess this morning; they were supposed to come and do this yesterday afternoon.”  OHHH!  Well, that makes perfect sense.  Your plan was to rip up all the carpeting on all the hallways and stairs (no elevators, four floors) in high tourist season in a fully booked hotel at CHECK IN time on a Friday, not on Saturday morning.   ’Kay. 

Hungerford Bridge, evening

Fortunately, when you’re in London for just a few days, you don’t spend much time in the hotel room.  The reason we were there was to see the city, walk the city, shop the city.  We also snagged some almost-reasonable seats at Wicked, and some very inexpensive seats at Avenue Q (I am being very brave to admit that one).  And for a teenager who’s new to London, just a walk across Waterloo Bridge in the evening is pretty magical (heck, it’s still pretty magical to me). 

Click the photo above to see all the photos on Picasa Web (once there, click the first photo to scroll through the pix and read captions).

Next vacation post:  Driving tour of Devon and Cornwall.

Frozen citrus in Florida, because the Shanks are in town.

Of all the dumb decisions Larry and I made when we were dating, engaged and newly married, the dumbest had to be the wedding date. Who gets married in early March? During Lent?? But we were young and foolish, as they say, and just couldn’t wait the extra ten weeks until my senior year of college would be over. So we married on the Saturday of the beginning of my Spring Break in 1984, which was March 3. And headed north, to NYC and New England (as I said…DUMB).

Among the reasons why not to get married in early March, the biggest has to be that unless you live pretty far south or can take the time and money needed for a very long car trip or a flight, you will be celebrating your anniversary all bundled up, with no flowers or green grass or autumn leaves to color the scenery. And if you do travel south–say, deep enough into Florida to get beach-warm, or to an affordable Mexican destination–you will be encountering swarms of hazed, half-naked college kids, because remember, you got married on SPRING BREAK, dummy. That’s the week college kids have spring break.

Our compromise solution this year was to celebrate this milestone anniversary (our 25th!) with a car trip just south enough to reasonably expect pleasant (if not beach-warm) weather for a few days, and do a bigger trip when our schedules and budget are more cooperative. Northeast Florida is about a 7-hour drive from Charlotte, and the beach there is lovely and NOT crowded with spring-breakers.

Unfortunately, as a married couple we have had incredibly bad timing even when we were thinking clearly. Sometimes it’s just plain bad luck. Examples: both of us graduated into a lousy economy (early 80’s), then Larry’s accomplishment of an MBA missed the beginning of the corporate boom by about a decade (allowing us just a few good stock growth years before the bust). I see this as God’s little way of keeping us from becoming too fascinated with wealth accumulation.

Then there’s the uncanny bad luck we seem to have of scheduling vacations that turn out to be the record week for rain or cold or snow in the part of the country we’re going to. I know lots of people think that’s true of them, but I could give more examples of this than I care to recall. It’s why we woke up to a thin layer of snow on the inside of the window sill in Connecticut on our honeymoon; why we spent a sleepless night on top of a bald (in tents) in a series of three thunderstorms; why we white(brown)water rafted the Chatoogah in a record (and I think dangerous) flood stage that had the raft guide dudes whooping and me white-knuckling my oar and praying please don’t let me lose one of my baby (teenage) boys to this churning brown flood of a river.

And it’s why, the TWO times we’ve driven to Florida for an anniversary getaway, we’ve encountered record cold temperatures.

Fernandina Beach set a record low temperature of 30 degrees on Feb. 28, 2002. Guess who had just pulled into town to celebrate their anniversary?

And now, here we are again, thankful to have barely escaped the freak snowstorm in Charlotte the night we left, only to arrive in Savannah (last night) and in Fernandina (this afternoon) to more record cold (predicting 31 degrees tonight: “bring in those tender tropicals, folks!”) After having paid extra money for the room with a balcony too.

Truth is, though I’m disappointed, we actually have learned to expect this kind of weather luck. You bring winter clothing to Florida because you bring winter weather to Florida…every time. And you wrap your scarf around your neck, lower your head into the north wind, and walk the beach together, shop the antique shops, stroll the cute little streets, and try not to think about how much more fun this would be if it were the 70-degree day it would normally be if you hadn’t brought your stupid bad weather luck to this unsuspecting town.

When you’re married to the right person, lousy timing can’t even come close to ruining your lovely time.

Nothing like a good man and a good cup of coffee to warm up your cold morning. And waving to the guys on the freighter from your hotel balcony is cool.

Yesterday was an unusual one for us Charlotteans:  snow day.  This gave us the opportunity to sleep in a bit, and keep the TV running most of the day to catch the important parts of the inauguration activities (the parts in between the anchors’ commentary on fashion, crowd size, and which door Obama might come out of).  The prayers were–uh–interesting (Rick Warren thinks those in glory would turn their gaze away from Christ and be wowed by a milestone in human history??).  The speech was about what I expected, and the crowds were eerily Obama-maniacal, of course.  How people do need a hero.

Like almost every American watching this historic event, I am rejoicing that Americans can elect and install an African American president, and do it with very little visible protest from bigots.  I rejoice for what this means for black Americans, and for our nation’s history.  I welcome this needed sense of healing from the profoundest disease of its early days. 

I would so love to believe that a changing of the guard can accomplish what Obama supporters believe it can.  And I think it will, to a limited extent:  the world may just give us a fresh hearing, African Americans and perhaps other minorities will take courage and press on in the face of bigotry, and legislators will have to curb their more blatant acts of partisanship and pork, at least until our antennae go back down.  But human nature being what it is, Obama’s honeymoon will soon be over, and he will face the same sticky no-win situations men of similar character and more experience have faced before, and failed.  He will have his failures too.

So, if I could send a message to the new president, it would be this:  Congratulations, Mr. President.  I have already been praying for your protection and wisdom, and will continue to do so.  But I hope that the groundswell of approval and welcome, the tears of joy on the mall, and the heady first night of sleeping in the White House won’t make you forget the promise you made to those who did not vote for you:  “I may not have won your vote, but I hear your voices, I need your help, and I will be your President too.”  For my part, scripture tells me to show you respect (I. Pet. 2:17) and to pray for those in office (I. Tim. 2:1-2), and I will do that.  That means no snide or uncharitable remarks, even when I disagree strongly with you.  George W. Bush may not have been the most effective president ever, but it pained me deeply to hear followers of Christ speak of him disrespectfully, even hatefully.  I pray that I won’t forget that during your term in office.

I have another prayer today, the day between inauguration and the anniversary of Roe v. Wade:  that somehow God will turn the heart of this president to compassion for the unborn.  News articles and blogs abound chronicling Barack Obama’s alarming comments and actions that suggest a great blind spot in his otherwise compassionate agenda.  His focus has always been for the rights of the mother as opposed to any rights of an unborn infant–or, in the case of his extreme opposition to the Infant Protection Act, some born infants. 

The issue of abortion legislation is tricky and not one I intend to tackle here.  I believe that the state has the responsibility to forbid acts of violence against any human life except when violence is absolutely necessary for the state to restrain evil, and I believe that life is sacred from inception.  I know the issue is not as simple as that, but I think those are two foundations to stand on when weighing the rights of one human against another. 

That’s why I find Obama’s words to Planned Parenthood so disturbing:  “…look, I’ve got two daughters. 9 years old and 6 years old…I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.  I don’t want them punished with an STD.”  Hidden in there is a pretty clear statement about the value of a human being conceived unintentionally as opposed to one conceived intentionally:  a human’s worth is measured in its value and convenience to other humans.  We decry denigration of a race of people, we decry disregard for the suffering of a continent, and rightly so.  Should not our compassion extend to those who are undervalued and brutally murdered because they are not convenient to their parents?  May God have mercy on us.

I find it encouraging that pro-life and most pro-choice proponents, including Barack Obama, agree on one thing:  the high numbers of abortions in this country should be reduced.  I hope at least that we can find some solutions that we can agree and work together on.

20 weeks from conception

I also find it encouraging that polls seem to suggest that the young-adult generation is actually less tolerant of abortion than the preceding one.  In the words of Rev. Patrick J. Mahoney, Director of the Christian Defense Coalition, “Every recent poll shows that America’s emerging generation is embracing a culture of life and desires an end to the violence that has resulted in the deaths of over 50,000,000 innocent children and wounded so many women.”

God grant that this tide would turn in the coming years.  May the inaugural words of our new president truly apply to ALL Americans:  “The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.”

I have just finished establishing a new blog for me and my “Dinner Chicks” friends. This group has been a priceless gift to me. Not gregarious by nature, I could easily hole up and isolate myself, especially in tough times. But these precious women

The Dinner Chicks - my house, Nov. 2008

  (most of whom ARE gregarious by nature, and fellow disciples of Christ as well) have coaxed me into relationship by being gracious and generous and fun, and have shown me what a treasure long-term friendships can be, if you tend them well. Plus, we have enjoyed dozens of chef-quality meals without the chef-driven-restaurant prices.  Click on the link to see our blog, and check back often (you do know how to RSS, right??) for new recipes, meal theme ideas, great foodie websites, and plenty of silly pictures.

I am so far behind in keeping up this blog, that I am forced to do a catch-up helicopter ride over the last four months with this post.  There is no deep theological insight here, except to say that as I’ve been organizing my pictures online today, I have been overwhelmed at how richly God has blessed us. Our boys are believing God, and they are so much fun to be around!! (I miss you two college men.) And He has given us such good friends in this place (North Carolina).  We will have been here ten years this coming June, and those years have been filled with some of the deepest friendships I have known.  Some started almost as soon as we got here (including Dinner Chicks), and others are just beginning.  I’m grateful for all of them.  Sadly, some friends have moved away, but we continue to tend several friendships at long distance (annual fall gathering with Rod and Judy Huckaby and friends).

Here’s the rundown of events. Click on the hyperlinked words to view the complete event albums, and watch the slideshow.

In August, our friends helped me surprise Larry with a 50th Birthday Party.  I left food and supplies hidden here at the house, and while we were at evening church service, friends brought more food and set up the flowers and balloons and goodies for us to come home to.  They all hid behind the garage as we rounded the corner, and…

Surprise!!

The next day we headed for Raleigh and stayed overnight with Andrew’s RUF pastor and family, so we could get up early for our flight to New England. We started in Maine,

moved on to Boston,

 and ended in NYC.

 That whole trip merits a separate blog entry, so stay tuned.

Later August found me once again enjoying the Canteys’ beach house in Edisto with my Dinner Chick girlfriends. This was absolutely necessary, to cure the post-vacation, post boys-went-back-to-school blues.  Belly laughs, good food, and some special entertainment by Mary during a game of charades.

Larry and I had a spur-of-the-moment getaway to Black Mountain just as the leaves were beginning to turn in October. A few weeks later, after the colors had ripened and moved further south, we were back in the mountains, this time with a group of friends who gathered in a great mountain house near Hendersonville. We loved catching up with Rod and Judy Huckaby, who were among our first and dearest welcomers when we arrived in Charlotte all those years ago. They moved to Tennessee several years ago, and we miss them.

When I get sad at the realization that many of the wonderful people in my life will inevitably move away, or move on to other circles or churches or ministries, or even to fairer worlds on high–I remind myself that in heaven, there’s plenty of time for more fellowship.  We literally have an eternity to enjoy each other, over good food, good music, good fires, good hikes … or whatever God has in store for us to do together on the other side.

Blessed is he who has regard for the weak;
the LORD delivers him in times of trouble. - Psalm 41:1

Andrew

We (Larry and I) spent last weekend visiting our boys, who are working at Clemson’s Outdoor Lab camps. Clemson’s beautiful grounds on a finger of Lake Hartwell are home to several summer camps sponsored by agencies such as Sertoma (Camp Sertoma) and the Jaycees (Camp Hope). Sertoma offers week-long camps for kids from underprivileged backgrounds, kids with hearing impairments, and kids with other life challenges. Many of them are foster children who have already bounced from home to home multiple times in their short lives. Camp Hope hosts mentally handicapped adults, for the most part, and these campers by contrast are very often brought to camp by their birth families, who love them well but I’m sure are happy to have a week off from caring for them, knowing that they are safe, and having a ball. Camp Hope is often their favorite week of the year. The Hope staff go out of their way to make it that way for them.

It is truly inspiring to watch the young people on staff at Hope/Sertoma work with the campers. While not expressly Christian, these programs attract young people (mostly college students) who are there to give their lives away, and many of them are indeed believers. You can feel that in the spirit of the place.

Daniel

Many of the campers have been coming for several–or in some cases many–years, and their friendships have developed with the staff over the years. Each one has a unique requirement as to what he or she needs most from the staff: speak to me but don’t try to hug me; hug me and don’t let me go; give me simple instructions one step at a time; speak to me in sign language; motivate me with Mardi Gras beads and I’ll do anything you ask. It’s a learning curve that the staff have to negotiate quickly, and once they’ve mastered the best technique for each camper, the week’s up and it’s time to say goodbye, for this year.

Jared

Our two oldest sons, Andrew and Daniel, are working their second year as counselors. The pay’s not anything like what they might make working a summer job at home (caddying, waiting tables, working construction for Dad, another engineering internship) — but that doesn’t seem to bother them much. Our youngest, Jared, was also there last week with a group from our church (Christ Covenant), serving as a counselor’s helper, or “CIT” (counselor in training). Andrew and Daniel did that in years past as well. Apparently, once the bug bites, you just can’t get enough Sertoma/Hope. Our intention was to bring Jared home from his week at Sertoma, but he asked the staff if he could stay and volunteer for a few more weeks (he’s too young to be on paid staff). That offer was accepted pretty quickly, and we hear that he is actually working in Andrew’s cabin this week, which is cool.

I couldn’t be prouder of my boys. We might tease them about the money they’re not making (and may very well need as poor college boys)–but as Psalm 41 assures us, God will indeed honor those who honor him by caring for the least. Their lives will be blessed in ways that money can’t rival. As one Christ Covenant youth leader said to me during our visit, watching these young people pour out their hearts and energies into the campers gives one much hope about the future. This is the silver lining of the often self-involved Generation-Y. Some of them just don’t fit the mold, praise God.

I encourage you to view the slideshow of images from this amazing place (click HERE, then click on “slideshow”) , and see if it doesn’t bring a lump to your throat too. You can also see more pictures and read about the experiences of counselors by visiting Andrew’s camp blog. If you visit that blog, be sure to leave comments; I’m sure they could use a word of encouragement. They are tired.

I have gracious friends, who graciously invited me to join a book discussion / accountability group centered (initially) around an old book on Christian living (for women) called Disciplines of the Beautiful Woman. My friends have been so gracious, in fact, that they have not kicked me out of this little group, even when my reactions to this book have been less than enthusiastic.

The book is just chock full of motherly advice about how to simplify and organize your life, from wardrobe to bedside table to daytimer. Sounds healthy, right? And of course, the task can be overwhelming, so here’s a sympathetic encouragement from the end of the book, where author Anne Ortlund imagines what her overwhelmed reader might be thinking about all the organization systems she has presented. Read it in your best Sue Ann Nivens voice:

“But here I sit,” you say, “with a girdle in the middle of the floor, dishes in the sink, and unanswered mail strewn on the bed. Where do I start?” (p. 123)

Did you catch that? There’s a girdle on this poor reader’s floor.

See now, I too would be truly bothered by the presence of a girdle on my floor, but not for the reasons Ortlund may be thinking.

Before I go off on why this book is not for me, let me recommend it to SOME of you. If you can get past the dated examples she gives (it was published in the 70’s, after all) and the privileged life she leads (at the time of writing, she had a housekeeper three days a week, and traveled all over the world sitting in hotel lobbies and on cruise ship decks writing books while her husband had speaking engagements), you might find the organization systems in this book useful. You will especially warm to it if:

Well now that I read that list, objecting to this book kind of makes me feel like a heel, especially considering the stellar reputation this dear woman has as a speaker and author, and the fact that she lost her husband, Ray Ortlund, just last summer. I truly wish this sister well, and I hope her books and hymns continue to inspire for decades. 

But for me, this book throws up some red flags.  Take a second look at that second bullet point. It’s that link between our (or our home’s) outward appearance and our inner godliness that gives me pause. Occasionally she states this outright, but more often she implies it, in a hundred little ways. Here’s a classic one, on meeting with God in the a.m. before you’ve brushed your teeth and otherwise made yourself presentable: “don’t you feel sorry for God when daily he has to face all those millions of hair curlers and old robes?…It seems to me the ultimate test of grace” (p. 43).  It’s silly notions like this that make me wonder, “do books on men’s issues read like this??”

The unfortunate thing is that she has so many good principles to offer: “eliminate and concentrate” (a version of Thoreau’s “simplify!”); reflect on and write out your life’s guiding principles and priorities, and order your days by them; purpose to share Christ with non-believers as often as possible, and to disciple new believers until they can be disciplers themselves. I did actually find some of her practical ideas useful and have even implemented some of them (albeit in my own non-fussy style).  But there is that disturbing undercurrent in the book—so much so that while I wanted to learn from her ideas, reading the book was for me a prolonged exercise in eye-rolling and repeating to myself, “it is for freedom that Christ has set you free … it is for freedom that…”.  There are an awful lot of “oughts” and “shoulds” in this book that don’t seem to have any basis in scripture. Having been raised in churches with lots of oughts and shoulds, and having long since diligently and joyfully shed the underlying legalisms of all those voices in my head, I find I balk at this kind of tone.

In the chapter on cleaning up and organizing your immediate surroundings, for example, she begins with the assertion that your closet, your bathroom counter, your bedside table “should reflect the order and peace of your inner life with God” (75). It should? Why? Are people assessing my inner life by the orderliness of my bedside table? And if it’s messy, just what are they assuming this announces about me and my God? A cluttered table equals a cluttered soul? How about I just don’t value tidy housekeeping as much as I value the books that are stacked on that table, and given a spare half hour I will almost always choose reading over dusting? How about if my husband and my boys find me way more interesting that way? Come to think of it, maybe my messy bedside table reflects my inner peace with God (and the resultant peace within myself) perfectly.

When someone writes that dirty laundry is “unworthy of lying around, untended to, in the life of a child of God!” (p. 75), I have to ask the question (and I think it is oh SO healthy to ask the question), “why is this presented as a moral issue?” When someone tries to tisk-tisk me into their pet (but extra-biblical) virtues–in this case, tidiness, fastidious organization, and charm-school appearance and manners–my attennae go up. And hopefully, my heart reminds me to be nice, but to firmly insist that they stop shoulding on me.

In her defense, I have to say that the chapters on kingdom priorities and discipling show me that this woman’s heart is in the right place. For her, the outward appearances are important, probably because of the way she was raised and the people she’s around, and I really believe that she devised her organizational systems and wardrobe planning in an effort not to be bogged down by what she sees as the demands of good housekeeping and feminine grooming, so that she can get to the Kingdom work. But I am grateful that in my generation, God’s women aren’t expected to wear coordinating outfits and have tidy bedside tables to be considered “beautiful.”

And I’m glad that my gracious friends probably won’t be too miffed that I ragged on the book online too.