Royalty

I watch my daughter, nearly eleven months old, struggle to crawl. She is on the floor between wonderful old German toys, the kind of toys that make adults weep for an idyllic past but, if memory serves me, puzzle children. Why these antiquities when there are wonderful, colorful things advertised on television?

In any case, my daughter is too young to be seduced by the boob tube. For her, nothing is antiquated. Everything is something new, to be held, examined, touched, tasted. In particular, any mirror is absolutely enthralling. Magically smooth and cold, sometimes containing images of a smiling waiving Papa, Mama, Oma or Opa, always containing that beautiful, baby girl with deep brown eyes who smiles back and imitates her every movement. Such wonder is just worth a rigorous crawl across the rug in the living room. It's not easy, almost unnatural, requiring plenty of grunts and coos along the way, but she makes progress, just learning to crawl on those soft little arms.

Sometimes she stops. She sits up, which always brings her a foot or two back, and sucks her thumb with a frowned expression. Sometimes the expression is, "Keep going, you can do it." Sometimes it is, "well, good try, ol' sport, but enough of that." I can never tell until she either continues her quest, or, thumb still in her mouth, she fixes her attention on an object within her grasping range. Or, she looks at me, waives her arms and with a part-cry, part-squeal, demands to be picked up. There are, after all, quicker ways from point A to point B.

In all this, I reflect that I am royalty. With all my problems, with the weight of life, responsibility, future, money, relationship and other uncertain necessities, I ask myself, what a kingly privilege to be the father of a near-eleven month old girl, who crawls, babbles and explores between wonderful old German toys. What have I conquered, in what great city have I celebrated my triumph, with parades of chariots and golden scepters, to have deserved such a prize?

Fraport

Earlier this week, my wife, daughter and I landed in Frankfurt Airport, owned and operated by Fraport, which is fun to say and looks good on the local soccer team's jersey. If you are a world traveler, chances are, you've been there too. Fraport is sort of an industrial Wonderland maze of stainless steel and colored lights. It somehow feels both unmanageably huge and cramped at the same time, like hidden passages in the Death Star or the layer of a 60's James Bond villain. Can't you picture Bond, pistol in hand, bikinied foreigner by his side, racing through the passages to dismantle some sort of exotic weapon of mass destruction before it's too late?

And yet, in spite of these discomforts, I love it there. There's no other building that awakens my Reiselust in the same way. Fraport is a journeyman engine moving travelers of all kinds, uniting us briefly along the way to Munich, Chicago or Johannesburg. The silver labyrinth somehow produces people of every size, shape and color, every tongue, tribe and nation. Stressed but determined, tired but adventurous, business suits, sweat pants, hijabs, high heels, jeans, cowboy boots, turbans, baseball caps. All of us, regardless of where we come from, united in that we are going somewhere, pulling, pushing and bearing our belongings with expectation.

My Father's Robe

It's been edifying to read Valley of Vision, a collection of Puritan prayers compiled by Arthur Bennett. Puritan prayers are great because the puritans are of the "Big God party," and each word is carefully and generously bathed in His wonder and majesty. They really believed that God is eternal, present and very involved, and reading them helps me to do the same. I commend it to you - try a few prayers on for yourself see if love and holiness, grace and truth are, to your senses, larger and nearer.

The book is divided into sections under different themes (Trinity, Redemption and Reconciliation, etc...), and I have assigned a different theme to each day of the week. The reason I do it this way, rather than just read the prayers straight through, is I do not believe I could survive reading the "Penitence and Deprecation" section all at once. As it is P&D are confined to Tuesdays. A fair criticism of Puritans and personal difficulty (among several) I have with them is that in their emphasis on Total Depravity, there can be so much self-flagellation that the reader forgets that by another's stripes we have been healed. It is worth and necessary to weep and morn in our repentance, we cannot taste Grace and remain somber.

But on this particular Tuesday I prayed a beautiful prayer that I wanted to share, mostly for the imagery. Feel, for a moment, your sin as garments caked with filth indescribable (at least in a family-friendly blog), and feel yourself washed clean, and clothed in the Father's robe (if you own Valley of Vision, it's on page 76):

"I am always standing clothed in filthy garments, and by grace I am always receive change of raiment, for thou dost always justify the ungodly

I am always going into the far country, and always returning home as a prodigal, always saying, Father, forgive me, and thou art always bringing forth the best robe.

Every morning, let me wear it, every evening return in it, go out to the day's work in it, be married in it, be wound in death in it, stand before the great white throne in it, enter heaven in it shining as the sun.

Grant me never to lose sight of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, the exceeding righteousness of salvation, the exceeding glory of Christ, the exceeding beauty of holiness, the exceeding wonder of grace."

A Request

Can we please hold off on public displays of Christmas until the Advent season actually begins? Or at least until the day after Thanksgiving?

Not to be a Scrooge, but as the Fed tries to prevent economic deflation, our own country has begun to suffer from Christmas cheer inflation. Holiday colors have been out at retailers since mid-October, and they turned on the carols as soon as the spider webs and jack-o-lanterns were taken down. I can't go shopping without seeing unwanted visions of sugar plumbs and prematurely decked halls. Call me weak, but I'm not sure of my poor lungs can handle a three month sprint of holiday hustle and bustle.

Yes, I realize that finishing Christmas shopping and decorating before Veterans Day allows the American woman to achieve Martha Stewart Nirvana, where household, hosting and holiday turn blissfully in a gingerbread-smelling ethereal plane.

Yes, I realize that troubled retailers are desperately competing to get you in the holiday shopping spirit as soon as possible.

Yes, I realize that in troubled economic times like these, the best response is to buy early and often to get our nation back in the black.

But one of the things that makes a holiday special is the simple fact that it doesn't happen all year long. The more something happens, the less special it is. And considering the weight of what this holiday actually symbolizes, i.E. God Himself, entering the world for redemption and rescue, wouldn't it be worth it to keep the wonder, a bit more confined, and therefore more potent?