Notes on the Second - VII. Horrible, Horrible Thoughts

In the background of our hospital stay, you can think of parenting as a sequence of horrible thoughts. We all have horrible thoughts about the things we care about, like the way my fellow students and I are having exam-time nightmares about impossible questions and train delays. Parents' horrible thoughts are not here for a season, though; they stay background like the colors of your walls. We have (and I think I can speak of "we" here) horrible thoughts, because horrible things happen to people, and when these things happen to babies, to any children, then this new, common, transcendent, and entangling love that I've described elsewhere is ripped out of the chests of parents and communities, irreplaceable.

In my own experience, baby's complete dependence and vulnerability make the horrible thoughts so pressing, because in many cases, I'm the one responsible. What if I slip and fall down the stairs while I'm holding her? What if I nod off on the couch and she slides off my lap? What if she's not swaddled properly and she pulls the blanket over her head? What if the bedroom temperature isn't precisely 18 degrees Celsius, which we read somewhere is the least dangerous temperature for babies to sleep in? What if I touch her after eating peanut butter only to discover an acute peanut allergy? What if I left the coffee machine on because I was in a hurry not to be late for an exam and the house burns down with the three most important people in my life inside it?

Such questions circle my brain like dancing devils, and though anxiety is health-reducing bit devilment, I've surprisingly found these horrible, horrible thoughts to work towards something else entirely. A horrible thought ambushes me when I'm minding my own business, and then I cringe and I say, "Oh, God," not as a swear, but as a prayer. My child is at the mercy of everything from my own powers of concentration to diseases in nature still unrecorded, and so I plead to God for mercy. The babies under my roof have increased my prayers in frequency and intensity, the entangling love for them entangling our very beings into his sovereignty. This is not a get-out-of-trouble card, and I'm under no illusions that these things can't or won't happen to us. Nor is this an excuse for fatalism, and our prayers have the opposite effect, promoting a careful and engaging sort of love between parent and child. Rather, this is a sober kind of hope, not always comforting but always providing a an unanswerable form of joy, that neither death nor life can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

A few days ago, I was walking home, lost in thoughts about my university exams when I was almost killed. I was crossing the street, legally, when a car made a hasty and illegal turn. Had I not been awakened and jumped out of the way, I would have been hit. The car screeched to a halt a good thirty feet to late then pulled over. The driver didn't get out, but I can assume she was as shocked as I was. This experience is not uncommon - it happened to my wife back in the U.S. But it served as a reminder that however adult and in control we are, our situation is precarious.

This precariousness makes love all the more costly, and this is acted out in family and community as we do things to make each other happy, better, and alive. Drinks with friends, jokes among my co-students, an episode of Dr. Who while feeling my wife's warmth against my thigh, playing Frozen with my daughter - all of these things shine through the precariousness like the sun on a summer morning. It deepens the joy of holding my own baby daughter, ten pounds of helpless, human warmth, in my arms. Horrible thoughts are drowned out by the knowledge that this moment with the Second is an unmatchable gift.

This is the seventh and final chapter of a longer post about getting to know our second child. You can read the post in its entirety here. 

Notes on the Second - VI. The First

When the first came, our new family was an insulated little bubble of three people, one of them new. Sure, we had enormous help from family and friends - especially the heroic grandmothers and fabulous meals from our D.C. church friends. But while they were constantly coming in and out of our little bubble, our little family strengthened like a three-fold cord.

Now, the first is five years old, and because of her, if our bubble isn't porous, it doesn't exist. She's blossomed into the richness of life that five years has to offer, the delights of learning and play and discovering things like characters and stories and science. Then, there are the challenges of discipline, disease, and the normal, everyday hassle of getting her ready for kindergarten.

Her new little sister has been thrust upon all of these things, and there's a strange paradox here. On one hand, she's old enough to be aware of what's going on, to know how to behave around her (gentle! quiet!), while avoiding the jealousies of younger older siblings. On the other hand, she's too young to really adjust her own life and habits for the change. She needs help and attention every morning, she needs and wants to play with her parents, she has moods, gets sick, gets excited, and, for the first time in her life, has become a picky eater. This of course, damages the sense of "mama-and-papa-against-the-world" was there for the first week of the First's life, and the Papa's supporting role is something like....

DoSomethingDoAnythingToDistractOrEntertainHerSoThatHerLittleSisterCanFinallyLearnToBreastfeedProperlyInPeaceExceptNotAnotherEpisodeOfSeanTheSheepBecauseShe'sSomehowInABadMoodAfterWatchingSeanTheSheepEvenThoughSheLovesItAndIKnowIt'sMuchTooColdToGoOutsideSoHelpHerPutOnHerPrincessDressAndColorButPleaseDon'tMakeTooMuchNoise!!!!!

Then, sickness entered the picture. The First came home from kindergarten (that oversized petri dish) with a nasty fever and a stiff neck. It got worse, and on Sunday, we took her to the hospital. By the grace of God, our own paediatrician was on hospital duty there, and the stiff neck signalled meningitis to him. The next day, my oldest daughter and I checked into the hospital, where we would stay for the next few days. My wife and youngest daughter stayed at home, still learning to feed and drink. It was a sad, sad situation - separation, hospital food, nightmares darkening our thoughts. There was, though, a warmth strengthening my bones at the time, and I think it was the knowledge that by simply being there I was where I ought to be and what I ought to be, and this confidence is foreign to me. A father and husband, present, within fear and sickness and suffering, standing against the effects of the Fall like a palm tree in a thunderstorm.

I wasn't alone of course - friendly and competent medical staff, my in-laws were heroes, and my wife was able to visit the hospital, and when we brought home a nasty intestinal disease from the hospital, everyone suffered but the baby, protected beautifully by my wife's milk. The antibiotics worked their magic on my oldest daughter, and we still don't know if it was actually meningitis, even though several doctors worked like Dr. House throughout the week to find out. Now, we're healthy, even if rumours of other diseases here in our neighbourhood tempt us to barricade our house 'til spring, and when we actually stop to think about it (and stopping to think is challenging when you have small kids), we're deeply thankful. My mother-in-law is convinced that our prayers helped my older daughter as much as the antibiotics. One doesn't exclude the other, and we did indeed pray.

There's another thought that helps, one that my wife brought home from the midwife that led her birthing classes. Whatever new amount of stress a little baby brings to her older sister, we've given them both an incredible gift. The love of a sister (or a brother) is not something you can easily replicate. And of course, every little girl's favorite film right now is about sisterly love, and from my daughter's Elsa dress to the way she kisses her little sister (gentle! quiet!), we get some nice reminders. As the midwife said, the sibling relationship is often the longest relationship someone can have.

This is the sixth chapter of a longer post about getting to know our second child. You can read the post in its entirety here. 

Notes on the Second

I. The Waiting

Our second child was late. Ok, late is a stupid term. Every doctor, nurse, and midwife we talked to reminded us that the "due date" was really just the middle of a range, and real earliness or lateness can involve a lot of unpleasantness. She came eight days after the due date, which isn't late. It's right on time, like a wizard.

But it felt late, especially when the doctor told my wife, eight days before the due date that "THE BABY IS LOW! GET READY! IT'LL COME AT ANY MOMENT!!!" We spent the following to weeks like Olympic sprinters waiting for the gun, head down, bottoms up, cleats sharp. This stressed us, especially as we invited everyone around us to get in sprint position - my in-laws, who were to pitch in with our first child during the labor adventures, my co-students, who were ready to pitch in with my projects and take copious notes should I suddenly get called to the hospital.

From then on, every conversation began with a look of expectation. "Is the baby there?" My daughter's kindergarten, university, church, street. Texts and Facebook, Email (remember Email?). It could get tedious. "No, not yet. My wife is uncomfortable, but she and the child are healthy. She's due the 13th, but it could be up to ten days after it." Every time. Tedious, but part of me loved it and not just the part of me that craves your approval. I loved it, because it's much better than the alternative. Those around us saw my family - my unborn child, my wife, my daughter, me - as something worth caring about. That old question, "how are you doing?" honestly asked, means something.

II. The Cocktail

We have friends who lovingly refer to one of their sons as their "margarita baby." You laugh, because you know. Your decision to get pregnant may have been lubricated by a cocktail (or three). Well, in Germany (and perhaps other back-to-nature oriented northern European countries), there's a cocktail for the end of the pregnancy. No, it's not Mommy's little Jägermeister to ease the her into a stupor so she can forget the experience. It's the labor-inducing cocktail, and it works. (In fact, don't go googling it and making it for yourself at home, which may be tempting with 9-months and nothing moving. We've heard of mothers going for the home cocktail, resulting in some unwanted, and unsafe, home births.)

It works, but it's not delicious, according my wife. The back story: My wife's water broke the morning of my daughter's birth, so we packed what was still left to pack, sent our first daughter with her grandmother, and moseyed on over to the hospital, hoping the labor pains would come soon. Well, the pains were there, but they were too wimpy to take on woman. By the afternoon, the midwife, for no extra tip, poured the cocktail. My wife sipped it down over the next hour - it's mostly nut oils, which isn't exactly "great taste, less filling." But I repeat: it works. Not only does it work, but from what I understand, the labor pains it induces are less painful than those from the medical procedure we were familiar with from having our first daughter in the States. But Labor pains they were, and my wife suddenly became capable of balling up steel beams with her fingers.

III. Woman

Awe is the appropriate response a thoughtful man has to the woman he married. Awe usually requires a certain thoughtfulness. Being thoughtful means using your thoughts to poke through the stress and distractions and day-to-day muddle that makes everything too urgent for awe. When we can't do this,  events come along to bring it out. My sense of awe, neglected like I neglect this blog, focused and compounded upon itself while watching my wife give birth. Most dads would agree with me here.

The cocktail worked so quickly that we had no time for drugs or anything else. The birth was going to be all natural, with the help from a midwife, a doctor, and a hot tub. It's hard for a man not to feel so unessential to the process, even as I brought her water and gave her a shoulder to lean on. We walked back and forth, we tried different positions and "labor massages," and in the end, pretty much anything we planned didn't really work, other than to say: "full steam ahead!" The midwife was a hero, making a little moan every time my wife yelled in agony, which apparently helped, and spoke words of comfort through the torturous fear between labor pains.

The screams came from every part of her body and soul. They contained fear, pain, determination, and love, somehow shameless and proud at the same time. In labor, there's a sense of irrational urgency, and yet a wise, determined patience. In all of these paradoxes, the culmination of the 9-month process of giving life, the woman in labor is more animal, more angel, and more human than a man could ever be.

During the final pushes, she grabbed my shoulder as the doctor and midwife directed traffic. "Grabbed" - no. She crushed my shoulder between her fingers. It hurt for a week, though that'll elicit no sympathy from a birthing woman.

At the end of it all, my daughter emerged from my wife. They let me cut the cord, and they sat her on my wife's broken body for her first meal. There were tears and greetings and pictures and weighings. We had a new person to get to know, but my wife was nine months ahead of me.

IV. She's so Friendly

Part of the purpose of this post is to "treasure these things in our hearts", which sleeplessness, stress, and an unfortunate bout of disease have made difficult this week. The sleeplessness, at least, serves a purpose. The times when I am awake with her are little treasures in and of themselves, the first father-daughter moments where I have her all to myself. Whenever I first look into her wakeful eyes, the first word that comes to mind is "friendly." I never thought an infant could have any sort of friendly disposition, but she does. It's as if she says, "I'm content to let you be who you are, and I want to get to know that part of you better." The sentiment reveals itself in the way she looks, even in the way she coos and grunts when she's hungry. She cries a lot as a colicky little thing, but crying for her seems to be a last resort. She's a friendly person who would rather communicate through less intrusive means. I'll play the little baby games; I stick my tongue out, and she mimics me. I experiment with different voices to see how she reacts. I show her different patterns. And of course, I sing.

Babies aren't carry ons or blocks of wood. They're little people with little personalities, and it's the privilege of a parent to treasure these things so early.

V. Chunk

Five years ago, after the first was born, I chunked up. A lot of dads do. If you don't believe me, go to Facebook and look at pictures of your new-father friends. Then watch from the day of birth until about three months as the papa's cheeks swell, love handles pour over the side of his skinny jeans, and all his shirts start to develop little mouths between the buttons as if screaming for help. The new mom shrinks, the new baby grows, the new dad expands. I never got really fat, but it's enough chunk for me to get a little queasy-cringy every time someone breaks out the photo album. Moving to Germany and regular exercise, among other thing, has kept me reasonably fit sense, and I want to keep it that way. This time around I'm determined to avoid the chunk.

Papa-chunking is hard to avoid though, and there are two reasons. One is a new kind of tiredness; the other is a vague sense of karma. First the tiredness. During stressful seasons at work or study, I'm tired, but I need exercise. There comes a point when my brain can't take it anymore until I put my running shoes on and burn five kilometers like I'm Lola. New baby tiredness is different. It comes from staying up late with a baby intent on exercising her new lungs just to give'em a spin. When she's finally swaddled and asleep, I'm exhausted. Keep in mind, I've done very little physical activity except catch her every time she does those scary little newborn trust falls from my chest. Additionally, I've paced around and sang to her and watched terrible early-morning television that I'd have been better off not knowing about in the first placed. After she's finally quiet, swaddled, and sleeping, I'm not ready to hit the running trail, the weight machine, the basketball court, or however else we men keep our college boy figures. I'm ready to pass out on the hallway floor or ready to eat, and this is where the vague sense of karma comes in.

The vague sense of karma is the big reason for papa-chunking. After all, holding and comforting a tiny little human being for three and a quarter hours while she cries her little heart out is a GOOD. EFFEN. DEED. And because it's a good deed, I deserve seven cookies, three pieces of that good cheese we were saving for New Years, four spoonfuls of peanut butter (plus a couple of illicit swipes with the index finger), a hunk of that good peppery salami, a Magnum bar, and a bottle of beer to wash it all down. And my vague sense of karma tells me that if there is any sense of sovereign justice in the world, this three-and-a-half minute snack will have zero effect on my waste line.

So this time round, I haven't shunned the jogging trail, even though part of me wishes I could stay on our couch until my funeral. And, even though it's the Christmas season, I like to think I've held the binge-eating in check. Stay away, papa-chunk. You're not welcome here.

(At this point, the blogger takes a break to throw away the wrappers from the three chocolate Santas Clauses he took to write this post)

VI. The First

When the first came, our new family was an insulated little bubble of three people, one of them new. Sure, we had enormous help from family and friends - especially the heroic grandmothers and fabulous meals from our D.C. church friends. But while they were constantly coming in and out of our little bubble, our little family strengthened like a three-fold cord.

Now, the first is five years old, and because of her, if our bubble isn't porous, it doesn't exist. She's blossomed into the richness of life that five years has to offer, the delights of learning and play and discovering things like characters and stories and science. Then, there are the challenges of discipline, disease, and the normal, everyday hassle of getting her ready for kindergarten.

Her new little sister has been thrust upon all of these things, and there's a strange paradox here. On one hand, she's old enough to be aware of what's going on, to know how to behave around her (gentle! quiet!), while avoiding the jealousies of younger older siblings. On the other hand, she's too young to really adjust her own life and habits for the change. She needs help and attention every morning, she needs and wants to play with her parents, she has moods, gets sick, gets excited, and, for the first time in her life, has become a picky eater. This of course, damages the sense of "mama-and-papa-against-the-world" was there for the first week of the First's life, and the Papa's supporting role is something like....

DoSomethingDoAnythingToDistractOrEntertainHerSoThatHerLittleSisterCanFinallyLearnToBreastfeedProperlyInPeaceExceptNotAnotherEpisodeOfSeanTheSheepBecauseShe'sSomehowInABadMoodAfterWatchingSeanTheSheepEvenThoughSheLovesItAndIKnowIt'sMuchTooColdToGoOutsideSoHelpHerPutOnHerPrincessDressAndColorButPleaseDon'tMakeTooMuchNoise!!!!!

Then, sickness entered the picture. The First came home from kindergarten (that oversized petri dish) with a nasty fever and a stiff neck. It got worse, and on Sunday, we took her to the hospital. By the grace of God, our own paediatrician was on hospital duty there, and the stiff neck signalled meningitis to him. The next day, my oldest daughter and I checked into the hospital, where we would stay for the next few days. My wife and youngest daughter stayed at home, still learning to feed and drink. It was a sad, sad situation - separation, hospital food, nightmares darkening our thoughts. There was, though, a warmth strengthening my bones at the time, and I think it was the knowledge that by simply being there I was where I ought to be and what I ought to be, and this confidence is foreign to me. A father and husband, present, within fear and sickness and suffering, standing against the effects of the Fall like a palm tree in a thunderstorm.

I wasn't alone of course - friendly and competent medical staff, my in-laws were heroes, and my wife was able to visit the hospital, and when we brought home a nasty intestinal disease from the hospital, everyone suffered but the baby, protected beautifully by my wife's milk. The antibiotics worked their magic on my oldest daughter, and we still don't know if it was actually meningitis, even though several doctors worked like Dr. House throughout the week to find out. Now, we're healthy, even if rumours of other diseases here in our neighbourhood tempt us to barricade our house 'til spring, and when we actually stop to think about it (and stopping to think is challenging when you have small kids), we're deeply thankful. My mother-in-law is convinced that our prayers helped my older daughter as much as the antibiotics. One doesn't exclude the other, and we did indeed pray.

There's another thought that helps, one that my wife brought home from the midwife that led her birthing classes. Whatever new amount of stress a little baby brings to her older sister, we've given them both an incredible gift. The love of a sister (or a brother) is not something you can easily replicate. And of course, every little girl's favorite film right now is about sisterly love, and from my daughter's Elsa dress to the way she kisses her little sister (gentle! quiet!), we get some nice reminders. As the midwife said, the sibling relationship is often the longest relationship someone can have.

VII. Horrible, Horrible Thoughts

In the background of our hospital stay, you can think of parenting as a sequence of horrible thoughts. We all have horrible thoughts about the things we care about, like the way my fellow students and I are having exam-time nightmares about impossible questions and train delays. Parents' horrible thoughts are not here for a season, though; they stay background like the colors of your walls. We have (and I think I can speak of "we" here) horrible thoughts, because horrible things happen to people, and when these things happen to babies, to any children, then this new, common, transcendent, and entangling love that I've described elsewhere is ripped out of the chests of parents and communities, irreplaceable.

In my own experience, baby's complete dependence and vulnerability make the horrible thoughts so pressing, because in many cases, I'm the one responsible. What if I slip and fall down the stairs while I'm holding her? What if I nod off on the couch and she slides off my lap? What if she's not swaddled properly and she pulls the blanket over her head? What if the bedroom temperature isn't precisely 18 degrees Celsius, which we read somewhere is the least dangerous temperature for babies to sleep in? What if I touch her after eating peanut butter only to discover an acute peanut allergy? What if I left the coffee machine on because I was in a hurry not to be late for an exam and the house burns down with the three most important people in my life inside it?

Such questions circle my brain like dancing devils, and though anxiety is health-reducing bit devilment, I've surprisingly found these horrible, horrible thoughts to work towards something else entirely. A horrible thought ambushes me when I'm minding my own business, and then I cringe and I say, "Oh, God," not as a swear, but as a prayer. My child is at the mercy of everything from my own powers of concentration to diseases in nature still unrecorded, and so I plead to God for mercy. The babies under my roof have increased my prayers in frequency and intensity, the entangling love for them entangling our very beings into his sovereignty. This is not a get-out-of-trouble card, and I'm under no illusions that these things can't or won't happen to us. Nor is this an excuse for fatalism, and our prayers have the opposite effect, promoting a careful and engaging sort of love between parent and child. Rather, this is a sober kind of hope, not always comforting but always providing a an unanswerable form of joy, that neither death nor life can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

A few days ago, I was walking home, lost in thoughts about my university exams when I was almost killed. I was crossing the street, legally, when a car made a hasty and illegal turn. Had I not been awakened and jumped out of the way, I would have been hit. The car screeched to a halt a good thirty feet to late then pulled over. The driver didn't get out, but I can assume she was as shocked as I was. This experience is not uncommon - it happened to my wife back in the U.S. But it served as a reminder that however adult and in control we are, our situation is precarious.

This precariousness makes love all the more costly, and this is acted out in family and community as we do things to make each other happy, better, and alive. Drinks with friends, jokes among my co-students, an episode of Dr. Who while feeling my wife's warmth against my thigh, playing Frozen with my daughter - all of these things shine through the precariousness like the sun on a summer morning. It deepens the joy of holding my own baby daughter, ten pounds of helpless, human warmth, in my arms. Horrible thoughts are drowned out by the knowledge that this moment with the Second is an unmatchable gift.

Nothing New Under the Sun

Oh look, my blog! I found it between the couch cushions, next to a bottle cap and a couple of pennies. I had to dust off the cookie crumbs, not to mention two, no, three impermeable gummy bears, plus hair that could be human or teddy bear. I tell you, one day, you put it down, and the next day it falls through the cracks and coats itself sticky with sugar. Well, I rinsed it off in the kitchen sink, because I found something familiar and needed to write about it. This is from Marilynne Robinson's Gilead. It describes the protagonist's mother, mothering in the late 1800s but still familiar today: 

"In many ways, she was a remarkably careful mother, poor woman. I was in a sense her only child. Before I was born she had brought herself a new home health care book. It was large and expensive, and it was a good deal more particular than Leviticus. On its authority she tried to keep us from making any use of our brains for an hour after supper, or from reading at all when our feet were cold. The idea was to prevent conflicting demands on the circulation of the blood. My grandfather told her once that if you couldn't read with cold feet there wouldn't be a literate soul in the state of Maine, but she was very serious about these things and he only irritated her. She said 'Nobody in Maine gets much of anything to eat, so it all comes out even.' When I got home she scrubbed me down and put me to bed and fed me six or seven times a day and forbade me the use of my brain after every single meal. The tedium was considerable."

If she lived today, she'd have a blog. I say this as someone deep in the careful parenting camp. And I'm sure the Internet makes her "health care book" look less like Leviticus and more like a book of nursery rhymes. I know I wield it like a weapon against any potential malady or sign of ill-health that could approach my daughter. And I'm sure a good portion of it is really healthy! Perhaps in a generation or two my daughter will laugh at this area and say "the tedium was considerable." But I hope she'll also remember herself as well-loved.

Speaking of which, you should read (or re-read) Gilead. I've just finished, and I haven't felt this way about prose since I read Breakfast and Tiffany's a couple years ago. I know Robinson is read and loved by plenty of literary connoisseurs, but for the rest of us, well, this book is a feast and there's no shame in being late for it. I won't say too much about it, because it's one of those books that's best left to speak for itself. I'll only mention a couple things. It's the letters of an aging pastor who knows he's dying to his young son. It's beautiful - more like a hike in the country than any sort of action film - with the most nourishing food for thought gently weaved into the narrative. And there's this quote: 

"For me writing has always felt like praying, even when I wasn't writing prayers, as I was often enough. You feel that you are with someone. I feel I am with you now, whatever that can mean, considering that you're only a little fellow now and when you're a man you might find these letters of no interest. Or they might never reach you, for any number of reasons. Well, but how deeply I regret any sadness you have suffered and how grateful I am in anticipation of any good you have enjoyed. That is to say, I pray for you. And there's an intimacy in it. That's the truth."

With this in mind, I intend to write more. 

Surviving the German Winter Part III: Don't Get Sick

This is part III of a four-part series on surviving the German winter. You can read part I here and part II here. 

The most important thing about the winter? Don't get sick. Ban disease from your presence. Avoid it like.... ok, I won't finish that sentence. Winter sickness is spawned in the floors and desks of kindergartens and elementary schools all over the world, where it's then carried to bus drivers, parents, grocery store workers, office drones and government employees. If you have kids, then, or if you know someone who has kids, or, if you're vaguely aware of the presence of children within a fifty-mile radius of your front stoop, then you need to take the appropriate defense measures.

First, flu shot. It's just a pinch, folks! Then, the teas. Here in Germany, flu shots are under-girded by liters upon liters of Gesundheitstee. Gesundheitstee comes from the German words, Gesundheit, which, you probably know from sneezing, means "health", and Tee, which is how I spelled the word "tea" in first grade (someone should probably point this out to the Germans and get back to them once they corrected their documents). Most of them taste like hot, piping vegetable liquid, which is to say they're delicious. Also, innovate Germans like my wife make tea using real ingredients. You know those tea bags full of ginger and honey flavoring you can get at the grocery store? Well, here's a breakthrough - for roughly the same time, cost and effort, you can make ginger-honey tea using... wait for it... actual ginger and honey, which is a heck of a lot healthier than whatever it is they put in those other teas. Ahh... warm hot tea is just what you need after a day of your daughter using your sleeves as a hankie. Put in a spoon full of honey and open a Charles Dickens book if you're really feeling wild. You can also bathe in the stuff, or try to breathe it to relieve your throbbing sinuses. Just remember, don't drink the tea you bathe in.

Then, vitamins. Vitamins, vitamins, vitamins. Germans have many vitamin-enhanced products, often things you fizz up in water or pills or vitamin-enhanced tea, with various combination for every situation or stage in life. Then, Der Spiegel told us that the Pharma industry was lying to us (the title of the piece translates: "The Vitamin Lie," but they should have taken a page from Dawkins to call it "The Vitamin Delusion," which would have been snappier) and that we could get all the vitamins we need from food. So now, I'm eating less vitamins, except the vitamins that I'm getting from food, which I'm told is plentiful.The way to do this is buy those tennis ball crates they use for practice and fill them with oranges. An orange a day keeps the sickness at bay. At least, until you get sick. I don't recommend using the tennis ball shooter though, at least if you want to use the oranges.

Then, of course, there's prayer. I can't say if prayer gives me some sort of psychological advantage in the face of disease, but that's not the point. I wish prayer worked like a magical incantation, where I get to use supernatural forces to bend the world to my whims. Otherwise, I would have waived my wand to straighten my teeth like Hermione Granger did instead of suffering through five years of braces. It works like this. I pray for my health, which could affect my family's health, or finances and much more, and I find myself trusting God with these issues. This introduces peace into my life. Then, I pray for the health of my wife and my daughter. My wife has been sick this winter, and my daughter could easily get sick and get us sick. But I trust God with this. Some more peace, usually, but even better, praying them leads to think of them more, realize my thankfulness for them, think of them more than I think of myself, and love them in ways even deeper then before. This happens as well when I pray for those in our community, especially for those who've gotten sick.

The problem starts when the prayers turn into actions. I had a roommate who hated prayer. He was from Mexico, and he believed the church there just prayed about problems instead of taking steps to solve them. That hasn't been my experience. The best pray-ers I've known, the ones who've really done it and stuck with it, have been the ones who were quickest to put love into actions. That's why a friend of mine got sick. While another friend and her husband suffered through the flu, my friend took care of their daughter and caught whatever bug they had. I think she's near recovered, but as I write this, my wife is watching her daughter while she's at the doctors office. With such actions, my wife's liable to find herself sick this winter. Which is no fun. I pray she doesn't get sick she's been fighting a cold already. But giving your body for love has a president in Christian history.

Phone Home, Elke and Sven, Phone Home

What a powerful, counter-cultural post by Elke Naters and Sven Lager on Zeit Online. What a rare modern, public witness to the radical love of Christianity. What a testimony as to why these poor but sexy Berliners who moved to South Africa and embraced the faith of the "transforming power of love,"' to use their words. Haven't read it yet? Click on the link and read it. Don't know German? Pop that baby into Google Translate and let'er rip. It's worth it.

Naters and Lager moved to South Africa, because, among the rhythms of their Berlin life - "writing books, having kids, going drinking" - they went, comfortably enough, "with any particular pain, but without any particular depth." In contrast, I moved to Western Europe. Growing up in a family who always heard from international people and international places, Western Europe was like a storybook of endless chapters that I could step into. Heck, eventually I married into it. The food, the trains, the culture mish mash, the hoards of bright, artistic people who valued not just producing things but the moments where drinks and walks and bike rides are shared with friends. These things just weren't as abundant in the land of individualism and energetic economy.

That life of drinks and art and conversation - well, I wouldn't have given that up for South African excitement, myself. Maybe that was their storybook place. I read "Cry, the Beloved Country," and believe me, I want to see the country, but I'm not sure if I'd be ready for the pain part. But for Naters and Lager, they needed to taste more life. Something (to paraphrase their words) more radical than punk, communism or whatever isms we stuff in our soul to make the world better and our morals correct. In Africa, they found a land that was not just Christ-haunted, but Christ-bathed, a land of amazing healing, yes, but of even more amazing forgiveness and reconciliation, repentance and belief.

I'm glad they wrote their piece, not in some right-wing rag, but in one of the most respected German-language newspapers. I like that they included conversations over wine with their bewildered Berliner friends. (The title of the piece is, after all, "You actually believe in the Bible?") I like that, judging by the 760 (my last count) comments, many full of snide and bile, that they seemed to hit a nerve, a nerve I'm so often afraid to touch. And, believe me, I hope all of this is a sign that Naters and Lager haven't forgotten where they came from. Not everyone can travel for their spiritual journey, and we desperately need to hear their stories. We need to know what radical forgiveness looks like, lest we think we don't need it. We need to know that God is moving and just, that he loves us, that he hasn't abandoned us. Phone home, you strange, foreign, Bible believers. Tell us more.
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For what it's worth, I've sat with him here. I sat with in him those comfortable street cafes in Western Europe, between classes or meetings or days off breathing second-hand smoke while nursing a Spanish coffee and the kind of book that melds mind and soul. I held his hand with a tiny band of praying Italians at a Pisa train station, at an Easter morning worship circle in Eastern Germany and with my own child in a church here in Plochingen. And for the many here who do not know him, who keep him at a comfortable distance, I've felt God's dancing love for them, his desire for reconciliation. May we, to quote the old prayer, see Christ more clearly, love him more dearly and follow him more nearly, wherever our journey takes us.

The Train to Stuttgart

One of the best parts of my weekly routine adventure is Wednesdays, when I take the train from Plochingen to Stuttgart. It starts with a brisk, 10-minute run to the train station (hey - I'm a parent and I happen to enjoy breakfast) where I'm usually just in time to catch the Regional Express. The Regional Express only stops three times along the Neckar river before we hit the Swabian metropolis. Sometimes I hit the Jackpot and land an Interregional Express, which is a nonstop trip to the mighty Hauptbahnhof (main train station).

I love speeding through past the Neckar hills as they wake up to the gentle glow of the Eastern sun. The hills and the buildings and the trees get thicker as we approach Stuttgart, a testament to Germany's lively effort to weave nature and civilization. I love that I'm not driving so I can watch them. I love that I can read the enormous book that I got at the library and that I'll regret bringing later as I lug my backpack down Koenigstrasse (hmmm... Kindle?..nahhh). I love that I can go through my prayer cards, which help me better love all of those who I think about and who are not on the train. I love that I can see the people.

People on the train are the best. Students buried in their iPods. Hippie punks with dread locks, patches and tattoos. Businessmen with ties and glasses and important newspapers. A bouncy Japanese woman with bouncy hair who bounces her son on her lap while singing a bouncy Japanese song. It's a strange thing about public transportation. During the commute everyone is equal, united in a sense of purpose and destination. Everyone is close. Sure, we try to be far away, choosing the seat furthest from any possible contact with strangers, especially if we have strategies for when we arrive and which car we take. But eventually, the train fills up and people from every tongue, tribe and nation are packed together like a game of human Tetris. It's awkward, funny, uncomfortable and humanizing. And it sure as heck beats vehicle Tetris on your local highway.

Of course, the camaraderie ends at the train station. That's the moment we stop, well, ok, many moments before, we race to the door like it's a fire drill, everyone aware of the trouble each day has and how everyone else should learn patience.

But before that, there's the serene moment of speeding with a book, a prayer and so many flavors of human to look at. The train speeds ahead like a mechanical wild horse. We run parallel with another train, this one carrying cargo cargo instead of human cargo. It's hard to tell which train is faster, but they both seem to be enjoying the chase. I imagine that they greet one another with a sunrise smile, glowing that they're doing what they were created to do.

Whitney Houston and the Joyful Noise

It's a strange sadness, the sadness I feel at the news of Whitney Houston's death. I've never been much of a pop music guy, and I could never be called a real Whitney fan. I never bought an album, and I only know the songs that the casual radio listener would know. I remember my mother singing along to "I Wanna Dance with Somebody"in the kitchen back in the day - probably having a welcome respite to those incessant children's albums (as I am now all too familiar with). I remember being annoyed as a Middle Schooler when it seemed like "I Will Always Love You" was the only thing they played on the radio. Yet even with my distance and preteen attitude, Houston's voice always stuck with me more than her fellow pop divas and more than pretty much all the other voices that haunt my speakers.  

I think I know why. In several places, the Psalmist invites us to "make a joyful noise to the Lord." Houston sang with an unhinged joy, the kind of joy you see in a two year old girl when she dances to her favorite song. As far as I can see, none of her talented contemporaries had that. Maybe they could match her in attitude or showmanship or however else you measure divas, but they couldn't match her in joy. The joy recalls that famous scene in Chariots of Fire where Eric Liddell, the Scottish missionary who was preparing for the 1924 Olympics is accused by his sister Jennie of ignoring God's work to run all the time. He tells her, "I believe God made me for a purpose, but He also made me fast. And when I run, I can feel his pleasure." (And for what it's worth, Ian Charleson beautifully captures Liddell's joy in the film)

Houston sang as if she could feel God's pleasure, and it was infectious. Yes, her problems were legion - a bad marriage, drug abuse and all the trappings of deification. I can't say I'd have done better. I can only pray the same prayer I pray for any of us: God have mercy on her. I can only hope that she has been found with Jesus, where her voice can soar with the joy of the heavenly hosts. 

Notes on a Funeral

1. The Deceased

On December 30th at the age of 90, Oma Lore died. My wife's grandmother was the last remaining on either side of the family. Here is what I wrote about her in an email informing my parents' of this significant event.

I wanted to let you know that [my wife's] grandmother (and [my daughter']s Uroma) went to be with the Lord last night. She passed away in the apartment below us while we were fast asleep after our weary travels. She leaves a big hole in all of our lives - she always reminded me of our Granny, sweet and devout, someone who allowed Christianity to work in her heart her entire life so that she truly loved and treated people well, even as she didn't now who they were. This morning, her nurse (who, not knowing the news, came for her usual visit) told [my father-in-law] that she was one of her favorite patients - a breath of fresh air after treating so many people who spend their last moments bitter and resentful. I'll especially remember her for the pure delight with which she received [my daughter]. The two of them were good friends (and sometimes partners in crime when it came to sneaking chips and sweets). She rarely remembered me, but she always remembered [my daughter], and [my daughter] was always happy to see her. At breakfast this morning, I told her that Uroma is "away" and is now with Jesus. I'm not sure how much she understands, but between the emotion that fogged the room and the all the jetlag, she's been both clingy and especially sweet. 

There's sadness, but there's relief and joy in her parting. She was in a lot of pain, and she had often said that she wanted to go home. We had a sense that she was simply waiting for it to end. [My father-in-law] and his sister gave her so much love at the end of her life, taking turns caring for her that she never needed to be sent to a home and making good use of the flexibility both of them have. That being said, I'm also happy for them that this work is complete. She was, of course, a quiet housemate (and she was old enough that she couldn't hear our music or baby crying or whatever), but we would hear her praying every night.  While age had broken down most of her faculties, she never lost the ability to pray. Every night, she would sit in her bed and talk to Jesus, blissfully unashamed that her neighbors could hear her. Now, just like Mary, the sister of Martha, she's sitting at his feet.

She is on the tail-end of the war generation. The scars of the Third Reich and World War II can still be seen and felt in Germany, but those who have lived through it are becoming fewer in number. One of those scars was on her husbands' eyes. He was just twenty when he was called to defend Germany in 1945, and combat with the Allies cost him his eyesight, bringing him into the community of the Kriegsblinde, war blind. Oma Lore was the nurse who would escort him home from the center where he learned to function. He loved her, and was delighted to learn that they were from the same town. His first marriage proposal was rejected, because she was not sure if he was strong enough in his Christian faith. When my family talks about him, he reminds me of GK Chesterton's thankfulness and wonder. Blindness from a war that wasn't his idea to begin with (and killed some family members) could have embittered him, and everyone would have understood. But he remained thankful for life, working as a masseur, growing his garden, reading Tolstoy and searching for wonder (my wife said he was always great for conversation). He's a model to me, the blogwriter who can dwell on failures, bad decisions and bitter pills. Perhaps that's what convinced Oma Lore to become a blind man's wife. Now both of them stand before the Lord in a place with no war or blindness. Their bodies healed.

2. The Organ

I don't get to traditional churches that often - you know, the ones in the middle of most European towns and in American towns in Norman Rockwell paintings with huge, beautiful towers (we go to a more modern church), but the organ and organist at St. Blasius's in Plochingen are lovely. C.S. Lewis, who cut his teeth on Wagner and classical Greek poetry,  had a bias against organ music and hymns, but my tastes are simple enough to delight in the beautiful sounds which played Oma Lore's favorite hymns to bring comfort to my family. In fact, as someone who plays a mere guitar for church, I was a bit envious that one man could make so many sounds and combine them so beautifully. With almost every other instrument, you need the support of others to reach those deep basses and soaring trebles of competing volumes. One organist, his arms, legs, feet and fingers dancing effortlessly across the great machine, filled the church with the sounds of an entire orchestra.

3. The Sermon

The pastor told Oma Lore's story from her perspective (think what I wrote in the email, but as if he were channeling her to tell it in sort of a spoken-word poetry). It wasn't a theological treatise (though I enjoy those on any occasion) nor was it an old time religion alter call (here I'm less of a fan), but her life was a Gospel message. The pastor knew that by simply echoing her years, he was casting seeds at the hearts of all of us in the pews, shivering in the January cold between pieces of art. I hope we listen.

4. The Cemetery

The Cemetery at St. Blasius's is a beautiful record of history of this town. So many names marked, memorials to the war dead to a classmate of my wife's who lost her life to a car accident a long time ago. Oma Lore's family grave is on the front row, right next to the path. But in one of her later acts of charity, she asked that she and her husband be buried a few rows back. Why? Well, the Germans are very good at tending their graves, and there's a special pressure to keep the tombs on the front row spic and span. She felt that pressure herself with the family grave and didn't want to extend it to her descendents. Of course, given her love for everyone and their love for her, not to mention her husband, I trust that this site will remain well-visited and well-flowered.

We lined up in the rain a few rows back. There was a funny moment when the wind turned my large, red umbrella inside out. Everyone else stood in line and waited to scoop dirt into the grave while I hopped around like Charlie Chaplin trying set things right. Though if I made a scene, no one behind me was in the mood to comment on it. I was in the front of the line, because I married into it. There were plenty of people behind me who knew Oma Lore better than I did. One of the mysteries of marriage is that it's a mystic bond, not just to one person, but to her family as well. My umbrella, properly scolded, was now in place and I leaned against my wife as she, with a beautiful expression (this was a sort of sadness that shown through as beauty) dropped her flower into the hole in the ground.

5. Coffee and Cake

After the ceremony and burial, the family and the guests met at a local restaurant for traditional coffee and cake. This included delicious buttered pretzels and yeast buns with raisins. My 2-year-old daughter, who took her nap during the ceremony, rejoined us. After devouring rolls and pretzels (please, please don't give her coffee!!! I don't think anyone did...) she ran around the restaurant. I followed her, watchfully. Once again, I told her that Uroma was with Jesus. It's still hard to tell if she notices the loss of her good friend, the one who would sneak her potato chips while her health-conscience parents weren't looking, the one who she last saw being carried out of the house by medics. She ran around the restaurant like she would run Oma Lore's apartment, delighting in good food and the attention from older relatives. Having already been through a huge move and a couple of long family visits, she is indeed aware that large parts of her life (like the American side of the family) are not here, but they are elsewhere and can be seen in pictures and skype conversations. At the restaurant, she tested the different steps and doors and tried to sneak into the kitchen. How does a two-year-old feel the absence caused by another kind of distance? The mood at the restaurant was light, all things considered. This was not the funeral of a life cut short, but of a life well lived and loved.

6. Should we mourn?

Sometimes, we Christians become concerned when we find ourselves doing something natural. Often, it's in our pleasure - can we enjoy good food and drink, for example? (Yes, if we do so well) But there's also the question if we should mourn at a funeral. There was a charismatic guy at our high school who would lead prayer meetings at the flagpole. He once said he wanted his funeral to be a big, wild party (and presumably, no frowns). Then he would go on to prophecy about his future children. Less flamboyantly, Oma Lore herself once told my wife not to cry at her funeral. She would be in a better place, and I believe that she is. I wonder if, on her last day, Oma Lore saw a vision of Jesus, scars and all, telling her, "today you will be with me in paradise." 

But mourning has precedent. We know it does, and we ache with the loss of people we know and even some of those we don't know. In the Bible, Paul writes to the Philippians that had his friend Epaphroditus not survived his horrible illness, he would have experienced "sorrow upon sorrow." Jesus himself wept at the funeral of a man he would call back to life only moments later. (C.S. Lewis beautifully pictures this at the end of The Silver Chair in the Narnia series, with the lion/Christ-figure Aslan crying over the death of King Caspian. I wanted to quote it, but it seems my copy of the book is on a different continent.) Death is a final reminder what the fall hath wrought, that this world, full of sin and separation from God, is not as it should be. Death reminds us that it took a death to be reconciled to God, and though death is defeated, though Paul mocks it by asking, "where, o death is your sting?" we cannot help but be sad. There is nothing contradictory in a crying Christian, but our tears lead us to our Comforter. A Christian funeral is a bitter drink of mourning and hope, of sorrow and joy, of cross and Resurrection. We cry, yes, we mourn deeply (it's ok to!), but we are comforted.

Do Not Hinder Them

We ran some errands in downtown Plochingen today. We walked downtown – the weather was too beautiful not to do so. The sun, already autumn gold, warmed the ever-enchanting view of my wife and daughter ahead of me on the sidewalks. They looked like icons from an ancient Eastern Church.

After a few checks off the to-do list, our company parted. My wife would run to the little discount grocery store to buy a Knoedel for today’s lunch, and my daughter and I would stay in Plochingen’s pedestrian zone. The plan was to free my daughter from the confines of her stroller and let her little legs run up and down the street, as she had done in the past. But she wanted to go somewhere else. “Jesus!” she cried, pointing at the downtown chapel.

We were at the chapel the Sunday before. There was a children’s church service put on by the Protestant church. They sang wonderful little songs and learned about how, when Jesus was twelve, he stayed at his Father’s house. There were paintings of Jesus on the wall, medieval-style sketches from his life and death and life. At the front, like so many other European churches, there’s a statue of Jesus on the cross. (The comic highlight of the morning was when she pointed out that the Crucified One was “naked.”)

“Jesus!” she said again, matter-of-factly, still pointing at the chapel. At first I did not want to go in. Why go into a stuffy room with Europeanized Jesus pictures when we could still enjoy Germany’s September sun? “Jesus!” she insisted. Nervously, I looked at the stern sign on the chapel door warning people to be quiet and reverential while in the building. “Jesus!” she said. Then I remembered something Jesus himself once said: “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them.” I opened the door and we went in.

My daughter pointed to one of the paintings. “Jesus!” she said again. This time she was not insisting but acknowledging. She hurried down the center aisle to the statue of Jesus on the cross. “Jesus!” she said. “Cross!” she said, pointing. I had never heard her say the word “cross” before. My daughter excels at pointing and acknowledging. Perhaps, in this case, it was her own way of worshiping.

In some ways, I find it strange that a child finds Jesus so interesting. When I was a child, I knew Jesus was good, but I had to grow into him. I preferred more adventurous Sunday school stories, like David fighting a giant or Samson’s action-hero invincibility. It was only later that I realized how Jesus, in his ministry of reconciliation, was so much stronger than either. I don’t know if my daughter’s child-wisdom will remain. Maybe, with age and other distractions, her interests will go elsewhere.

What I do know is that one of my responsibilities as a father is to show Jesus to her - to tell her about Him and to teach her what he said. I am to model Jesus for her. For this task, I am insufficient; we both need grace. One day, she will decide for herself if she will live up to her Baptism, if she will live up to this moment in Plochingen’s downtown chapel, if she will abide in Jesus and participate in his ministry of reconciliation. One more thing I know: if she is truly interested in Jesus, at any point, the worst thing I could possibly do is hinder her.

Neurotics Like Us

Over at First Things, Bryan Wandel describes “Christian Neuroticism,” which is particularly acute among American Evangelicals given our historical tension with modernity and the impact of the Pentecostal Movement. Bryan explains: “Thus, many American Christians have had their minds wrung by the challenges of extrahistorical standards (due to the fundamentalist response to modernity) while their epistemologies have been strung out on the throes of immediate communication with God. This is not an enviable situation.” (Read the whole thing, for a fuller explanation of both the history and the psychology involved. I should also point out that I knew Bryan in D.C., and was thrilled to see his name “On the Square”)

It may not be enviable, but he goes on to write that it may not be so bad after all. An advantage to this acute state of being in but not of the world is creativity in line with the likes of Lewis, Elliot, Kierkegaard, Solzhenitsyn and Tolstoy. He goes on to conclude:

“Is the neurotic Christian unhealthy? Possibly. But you would have to judge him according to the norms of both his cultures. Moreover, this tension may be merely an enhanced version of the tension that all people are susceptible to when living in a finite, hurtful world. The world is good, and yet it is bad. People are spiritual beings, but find themselves far from God. The Christian neurotic, with the right guidance, might have the best experience to relate to when the world seems cruel and contradictory.”

I link to this, because Bryan provides a good angle on some of the tensions of Christianity that ceaselessly and with various levels of distraction occupy my mind, but his essay gave me two additional thoughts.

First, if modern American Evangelicals have a tendency towards neurosis, then we’re in good company. Aside from Bryan’s all-star lineup of writers, I know that Baptist Preacher C.H. Spurgeon suffered depression, and modern psychologists would have probably diagnosed Martin Luther with bi-polar disorder. We might even see a little neurosis when we read about Augustine’s spiritual search, and while I am insufficiently read in the old saints, I suspect that these tensions are a common theme. In scripture, we find that Jesus tells us to expect difficulties and opposition when we go out in the World, and the behavior of his disciples (gyrating between cowardice and courage, faith and fear, bold commitment and hesitation) is, in my eyes, comfortingly neurotic. Much of Paul’s pastoral instruction seems to be guiding his flock through the inherent tension between the world and the Gospel of Christ (I’m reading through 1 Thessalonians right now, whose message seems to be “glad to hear you’re doing well, Jesus is coming back!, so be good, keep calm and carry on). Then there are the cries of the Psalms and the prophets, not to mention ancient Israel’s struggle to be a people set apart from the pagans. So, I suspect that if we are a bit neurotic, then we are only experiencing what God’s people have experienced throughout the ages, with our own cultural and historical context to give it a different flavor.

Second, other than creativity and possibility having “the best experience to relate to,” I can think of one more positive result Christian neurosis, one that, used well, will benefit the Christian neurotic as well as those in his life: prayer. Such conflict, such tension, such unresolved stress between our desire to see God’s kingdom come while still live and thrive in our own world should cause us to see our insufficiencies and (if you’ll pardon the cliché) bring us to our knees. A prime benefit of Christianity is that we, by the Son and through the Spirit, get to commune with the Father. Prayer seldom resolves our tensions or fills our lives with ease (though how often we wish it would). But prayer does deepen our relationship with God. We drink living water from the source, and in that, we taste richness of the life He has given us.

Thoughts on True Belief

I'm taking "The Response," the much-publicized prayer and fasting rally starring Texas Governor Rick Perry, with a grain of salt. I've grown up in American and Evangelical culture, and both strands are prone to hyperbole. The website reminds us that we are in a "historic" moment that demands a "historic" response and that this "historic" prayer rally will start a "historic" movement towards... what? Prosperity? A more Christian nation? More Christians in the nation? A revival of sorts? Did this "historic" rally go above and beyond all the other "historic" rallies? I've sat in various stadiums and hotel ball rooms to be told how America was on a crossroads so many times that it doesn't really stick anymore.

This is not to downplay the problems in the U.S. or anywhere else. Debt, division and war are serious and sobering things. Prayer and repentance are appropriate responses. But I fear (and I hope my fear is wrong) that much of the hyperbole is to blaze a path for a great man (to rephrase the website), so that Governor Perry or someone like him will be a new Evangelical David, casting stones at Philistines with different political opinions, a legion of praying voters behind him.

These thoughts on The Response were first provoked by Frank Bruni's recent NYTimes column entitled "True Believers, All of Us." After commenting on the media response to, well, The Response, he begins to critique faith in ideologies all together, left and right, religious and political, corporate and private. Aren't we all like those silly Evangelicals in Texas, holding on to our little beliefs and refusing to face reality when challenged? Why do people hold such beliefs? Of course! They want easy answers in tough times. Bruni writes:

"Clarity seduces. So does simplicity. We don’t want to hear that different skills produce different results in different contexts, but rather that there are “7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” the number specific, finite. We like to believe that triathlon training will trump genes and keep all major illness and minor sagging at bay, and that the metabolic alchemy of a cabbage-soup diet or a no-carb diet or some other diet will work wonders and obviate humdrum moderation. Magical thinking, all of it."

As for America's troubles, Bruni has a response of his own.

"And right now, with the stock market floundering and our credit rating downgraded and millions of Americans stranded in unemployment and Washington frozen in confusion, the temptation to look for one summary prescriptive — for certainty, even miracles — is strong. We’d be wise to resist it. To get us out of this mess, we need a full range of extant remedies, a tireless search for new ones and the nimbleness and open-mindedness to evaluate progress dispassionately and adapt our strategy accordingly. Faith and prayer just won’t cut it. In fact, they’ll get in the way."

I share his skepticism of clarity and simplicity, five points to happiness, diets that claim you won't feel hungry or pre-canned political solutions. But like it or not, some form of ideology will always drive politics. If Bruni wishes to separate politicians from the ideologies of those who elected them, then he doesn't have a prayer.

More to the point, his criticism of ideology is guilty of the same simplicity admonishes us to avoid. Ideas often come from people with worldviews, and we have a lot of those. If he wants to see a "full extant of remedies" for our economic woes, then he can peruse the websites of various think tanks, newspapers and faculty papers. Few solutions would be faith-free, and I would be suspicious of anyone who claimed no bias. They come from people with different views about government, commerce, responsibility, economy and morality. Most of them are be well-reasoned, logical and accompanied by graphs. All the data, of course, must be interpreted, and here is where humans cease to be computers. We start debating how many angels can dance on the head of a deficit. After all, we don't have labs to test every economic idea in academia and advocacy (and, for good reason, we don't give our government the dictatorial power to do such things). We have data, ideas and history, all of which are opened to interpretation based on what we believe. True believers, all of us.

Rather than encouraging the impossible task of jettisoning belief for the ideal of rational social science, let's encourage our politicians to take Bruni's Times colleague Ross Douthat's advice. No American political party has the majority or the capital for a sweeping ideological victory, Douthat argues. They should not give up on their beliefs nor cease to hope about the future, but while America (and those who represent us) remains divided, they need to remember their responsibility to govern effectively.

Bruni is correct that we long for simple solutions and quick clarity. It sells well, and people in business, politics and religion have all taken advantage of it. But true belief is grittier. Among the reasons I remain a Christian is that Christianity refuses to be the bag of goods some folks sell it as (see the prosperity gospel, for a worrying example of this). Christianity never promises ease, health or worldly political conquest. The Biblical picture of Christianity is one of relationship: often parent to child, husband to wife, even friendship. The best of these relationships, from whatever perspective you experience them, are not a series of simple solutions easily replicated on PowerPoint. But they make life deeper, richer and more hopeful. When these relationships are perverted, we taste hell. Christian faith is a difficult, refining, fiery, trying, dynamic, wonderful, loving relationship with God through Jesus Christ, reconciled by His blood and sealed with His Spirit. It's complexer than the finest of wines, and it's worth drinking deep.

This leads us to prayer. Prayer is not a vending machine button to a better life or a better America. It's a the communication essential for the relationship to function. (For further reading on prayer, I highly recommend A Praying Life by Paul Miller, which I wrote about here). A life of genuine faith and prayer does not "get in the way." More often, it allows us to see clearly and humbly face our problems.

This leads me back to The Response. Again, I'm underwhelmed by hyperbola and weary of any political use of Christianity. But if 30,000 of my brother and sisters genuinely practiced repentance and prayed for their country, then a good thing happened underneath it all. If The Response enriched their relationship with God and sent them back into their communities in humble faith and prayer, then may they be examples and proclaimers of true belief.

Would You Believe Him If He Told You?

I once met a man who saw Jesus in a vision. Let me explain.

Some years ago, I took a weeks vacation to Istanbul with a group of friends. The Turks are always hospitable, but the tourism industry was especially happy to see us. First, the weather was cold and snowy, which is not something we associate with onion-domed mosques and Ottoman palaces. Second, most tourists were doubly scared because of a terrorist attack on Istanbul just two weeks earlier. Needless to say, my group of friends plus one lusty Australian backpacker were the only lodgers at our youth hostel.

The youth hostel itself had seen better days, not just from the weather or the bombing, but 9/11 had hurt the tourist industry worldwide. They had failed to pay their taxes, so the government had sealed their front door shut. However, the hostel owners were chummy with the man who ran a dry-cleaners downstairs in the basement of the same building. To get into the Youth Hostel, we had to walk, almost crawl, through the dry cleaners between rows of hanging coats and white walls and climb a stair case into the comfortable lodging, presumably helping our new, grateful friends to stick it to the man.

The youth hostel owners were a group of five or six men. Actually, I don't know how many of them worked with the youth hostel and how many of them were just friends there to hang out. I did know that they sat in the lobby, ate delicious Turkish food and drank Vodka and water and gave us Turkish beer to drink. Istanbul was a great city, but hanging out with these guys each evening was a highlight of the trip.

I know that the youngest of the group did help manage the hostel. He was particularly suave and handsome, and charming as he was, he was the first to offer me a beer and a bowl of the most delicious lentil soup. When he found out that we were Christians, and that we were working in Christian ministry, he began to talk with me about Jesus. He told me how Jesus appeared to him in a dream.

You see, during his stint in the army, he fought Kurdish separatists in southeastern Turkey. He had seen death and explosions, and he feared for his own life. Every night, before we went to sleep, he pleaded with Allah and Mohammad to let him live, but he found no comfort. Finally, in a dream, he saw a man he had not seen before, beckoning him to follow. He knew exactly who it was. It was Jesus, and from then on, he prayed for Jesus to save his life. He finished his military mission unharmed. Since then, he always talked to travelers about Jesus, and my friends and I were not the first Christians who had passed through. Smiling, he showed me his plastic bag full of Gideon Bibles and evangelistic tracts.

I'm told it is not an unusual experience for people in the Muslim world to have visions of Jesus. Personally, I know one other Turk who repented and believed after seeing Jesus in a dream. The difference between him and the handsome youth hostel manager is that the manager did not repent.

You see, beside his Gideon Bibles, he had another collection: girlfriends. His suave good looks and his position managing a youth hostel allowed him to collect girls from all over Europe. He showed me his photo album. A girl from Finland, one from France, one from Germany - they all could have been Bond girls. He knew this was sin. The reason he approached me about Jesus was, like a lawyer reading a contract, he wanted to find a way to be a Christian and continue his conquests. "Can I still be a Christian and have the sex?" was how he put it. I told him God's grace was free, that this sin would not prevent God's love. I told him to commit himself to Christ, and to trust him with the rest. I told him that to repent from his sin, he would need to be willing give up that part of his lifestyle. I told him it would be impossible on his own, but with God, with the support of other Christians, he could. I told him if he would contact me, I would do some research and find a good church for him. I wanted to tell him about God's design for sex. I never heard from him.

Last Sunday, my pastor highlighted Jesus' response to the question from the religious authorities, "are you the Messiah?" in Luke's Passion. Jesus replied, "If I tell you, you will not believe me." In other parts of the Gospels, different people ask Jesus for signs, and he rarely concedes. Why? There's a skeptic in me that wonders why Jesus doesn't simply do something wonderful and magical to silence his critics once and for all, as if the Resurrection was not enough. The Turkish hostel manager is a good example for me as to how signs and wonders are insufficient for true faith.

Think about it. He was utterly convinced that he saw Jesus in a dream, beckoning him. He knew for certain that it was Jesus, not skill, luck or circumstance, that preserved his life in combat. Yet, he refused to follow. He did not trust God for the intimacy and satisfaction that he found having sex with pretty backpackers.

Would you believe Jesus if he told you who he was? Messiah. Savior. Son of God. God's Word made flesh. All in all. All that you need, all that you want, beyond anything we ask or imagine. Would you believe him if you saw him resurrected? Would you believe him if you witnessed miracles?

I'd like to say yes, but I'm not sure that would have done it for me either. What did it for me was love. What did it for me was that, whenever I saw myself, I saw something unlovely. But I learned that, as Zephaniah prophesied, God is with us. He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in us. He will quiet us with his love. He rejoices over us with singing. In our unbelief, when we refused to acknowledge God, whether we experience him through word, creation or miracle, he died for us. He rose again, all that he could be with us. He calls us, and whether we see him in a dream or not, he beckons us to follow him.

I hope something finally clicked for the Turkish hostel manager. I don't know if it would have been the message of love - I heard somewhere that "God loves you" isn't the best place to begin with someone from a Muslim background. Clearly, miracles were not enough for him. I hope he repents, and I hope he believes, that he may follow Jesus in life, in death, and, as we celebrate every Easter, in Resurrection.

A Poem Worth Reading, Especially This Week

I randomly bought a book of Gerard Manley Hopkins poems at a used bookstore (a dangerous place for me to carry cash). Many of his poems are a chore to read and don't conform a lifestyle of glowing screens and busyness, but every time I practice concentration to read one, I find it well worth the effort. They were full of complexity - complex verse, complex thoughts, complex Christianity. I wish I could say I read him more often, and I won't see my book again for at least six weeks.

Fortunately, one of my pastors posted a Gerard Manley Hopkins poem, both a chore and a joy to read, that is better than anything I read in my book. It's especially worth reading this week (which is why he posted it), as we remember death darkest, resurrection and new life. Read it.

Love Songs for Grown Ups

Not quite a decade ago, Over the Rhine was finally coming to Orlando, my hometown. I was still there at the time, and I couldn't wait. The state of Florida can be a geographical inconvenience for smaller indy-bands, not worth the gas and the effort to travel all the way down the peninsula somewhere between Atlanta, Athens, Birmingham and New Orleans. Besides, Orlando doesn't quite have the cool indy reputation for such acts. This time, however, with the wind of their epic record Ohio filling their sails, husband and wife duo Karin Bergquist and Linford Detweiler were heading to the sunshine state.

Then, before the tour came to any palm trees, they sent an email out to all of their fans. Their marriage was suffering, and that was more important than concert-hall serenades. They cancelled the remaining shows went back to their southern Ohio home to work, to talk and to reconcile. Once again, no Orlando concert (and when they finally came a couple of years later, I was across the sea and literally over the Rhine), but ever since that season of forgiveness, reconciliation and redemptive love, Over the Rhine's music aged like French wine. Their love songs, already some of the best on the market, grew up, taking on new dimensions of desire, regret, pain, healing and beauty.

There have been several albums since, and the latest manifestation just came out on February 8. Some albums, I like at first listen and then later realize we have less in common. There are other albums that feel uncomfortable at first but win my heart as the CD spins and I begin to understand. I have loved The Long Surrender since I first heard a few clips on an NPR interview and continue to do so after saturating my work and my leisure with every track (you can listen for free by clicking the "record player" link on their website. Let me know if you agree - hopefully my enthusiasm hasn't damaged impression by way of expectation).

Working with producer Joe Morgan for the first time, The Long Surrender is full of musical adventures not previously explored on Over the Rhine records. Keys are pressed, strings are plucked, percussion instruments are tapped, tickled, pattered and beat in places new and refreshingly unexpected. The feel of the album is an old Paris nightclub full of smoke and expatriates. Or perhaps a 1920s Cincinnati speakeasy, full of jazz, smoke and women in flapper hats. In fact, I think that cities and municipalities should lift their smoking bans whenever Over the Rhine roles into town, just to give their concerts a proper ambiance.

It opens with a call of sort: in "Laugh of Recognition" Bergquist sings out: "C'mon boys! Time to settle down/What do you think you'll gain from all this runnin' around?" The journey of love, relationship, pain, hope and brokenness continues. And of course, a major theme is their own marriage: honest love songs to and for and about the other. Yet their story, unique as it is, is full of universal thoughts and emotions, left unexplored in so much of today's art about love. In interviews, Bergquist and Detweiler remark that while most love songs are about the beginning of a relationship, theirs are about what happens next. And the truth is, what happens next is a majority of the time. Those of us in what happens next need songs, stories, support and celebration.

It would be easy for such art to be lovey-dovey kitsch. It would be just as easy to focus on the darkness, to despair of marriage, relationship and long-term love. As I've alluded to before, the art that appeals to me is complex enough to include for better and for worse. Thankfully, somewhere between Disney and films like Revolutionary Road stand mature songs like "Undamned," "Oh Yeah, By the Way" and that deliciously wordy history of the Berkquist/Detweiler marriage, "Infamous Love Song." These songs are balm for those of us who believe marriage is so much more than a piece of paper from the city hall, for those who believe marriage is beautiful, earthy, spiritual and sacramental, for those of us who believe it is God's artwork: wonderful, full of depth and sadly tainted by the fall. We rejoice with relief when in "Days Like This," we hear Bergquist sing:

"All I wanna do is live my life honestly/I just wanna wake up and see your face next to me/Every regret I have I will go set it free/It will be good for me."

Given all of this, it shouldn't surprise us that grace is another reoccurring theme. The album's closing anthem, "All My Favorite People," is the sort of song you can sing waiving a Bible or a bottle of beer. Book or beverage, we sing along:

"All my favorite people are broken/Believe me, my heart should know... All my friends are part saint and part sinner/we lean on each other/try to rise above/We're not afraid to admit that we're still beginners/We're all late bloomers/When it comes to love."

One of the most honest lines you'll ever hear is the title and chorus of the song: "Only God Can Save Us Now." The song is inspired by the nursing home where Karin Bergquist's mother lives. "Only God can save us now" was the exclamation of one of her mother's fellow residents. The song describes the crazy antics of the seniors and reflects that there's a good chance that will be our final stop as well. When we get there, we remember there are some things only God can do.

The Long Surrender navigates the joy and pain of love honestly and carefully. With its detailed production, I will say it lacks the spontaneous power of Drunkard's Prayer, the 2005 album that was born when they stopped their tour before I could see them in Florida. Drunkard's Prayer, along with the German worship music of Andrea Adams-Frey and Albert Frey (another married music duo), helped me to take courage and begin the journey of my own marriage. (The title track if that album, incidentally, has one of my all-time favorite lines in song: "You're my water, you're my wine/You're my whisky from time to time.") But, The Long Surrender makes me root for Over the Rhine as a band, because their songs speak to thing in ways so many others don't express, in ways that continue help me. It since they lay it all out there, The Long Surrender also makes me root for their marriage, for my marriage and for other marriages, infinitely more important than any music a marriage may produce.

And whenever I root, I pray. I can't help it. I believe, as much as I believe the chair on which I sit will continue to hold me, that our Lord entered this world and sympathizes with our weaknesses. All his favorite people are broken, because, we all are. We lean on each other, and we all lean on Him, to rise above. And He, the ultimate lover, love incarnate, intimately understands the joys and pains of love, in marriage or otherwise.

Pastures and Valleys

During a sermon, our English pastor said that of all the books on prayer he has read, A Praying Life by Paul Miller is the only one that actually helped him pray. Plenty were great books which helped him better understand prayer, but this relatively short text brought him to his knees.

I started Paul Miller's prayer journey while on vacation in Germany and just finished it next to our house's new and still-naked Christmas tree this afternoon, and so far I agree. I pray more. By God's grace, I am confident that I will continue to do so (I know, I know - ask me in a few weeks).

The last book on prayer I started was Richard Foster's beautifully-written Prayer, which moves from elementary to graduate school level praying. I quit half way through. I write this blushing; I'm not proud. I learned good things about prayer, and I gained wisdom from the saints, and Foster's one of the few living Christian writers whose prose is worth the price of admission. But with each chapter came a new level of method and petition that was not going to happen in my life, between early rises and baby cries, Metro rides and computer screens, work, church, marriage, rest, reading, writing.

I read With Christ in the School of Prayer when I lived in Germany several years ago. How I remember it, it was almost the opposite of Foster's book - plenty of passion with less method. My own passion was inadequate to the challenge, and I put the book down feeling tired and thirsty. A good posture for prayer given my need, except I didn't pray any more than I did when I started.

Given my history, I was reluctant to start another one, even after my mom, my pastor and my wife all said I should read A Praying Life. My mom even bought us a copy. The tag line on the back cover, "Let's Face It, Prayer Is Hard!" did nothing to encourage me. It sounds like the squeaky slogan of some Christian salesman who is about to insist that it really isn't hard. "Shields up!" I thought.

If what I just wrote resonates with you, ignore the cynical instincts that protect the old wounds of misplaced hope. Read a book by someone whose experience, suffering and growing care for others has taught him to pray. Paul Miller, without pretense or arrogance, presents himself as someone we can learn from, not because he is an ueber-saint but because he is human. And yes, he honestly and graciously addresses cynicism, wounds and hope deferred.

Here are a few reasons I could stick with A Praying Life. First, he acknowledges reality and reminds us of God's grace. He gently reminds us that in our imperfections, our distracted minds (mine seems particularly prone to distraction), God loves and will meet us in our imperfect offerings. In one chapter, he describes his morning prayer routine. It requires coffee and is interrupted by his autistic daughter and conversations with his wife. No matter. God meets him there, anyway.

Second, Miller keeps us from chasing the rainbow's end called "experience God," and instead reminds us that prayer is to build a relationship. God is there, whether or not we are "feelin' it," and prayer is our way to build nearness and intimacy to One whose love beyond all our asking and imagining.

Many of Miller's prayers are people focused, which helps me. Rather than formula's or recipes, he shows how he prays for his family, his friends, the lost He shows how that in praying for others, he can trust God with them. In doing so, his trust in God grows, as does his love for others. None of the prayer books I've read took me in such specific and intimate prayer journeys.

I could go on, but read the book instead. If it does not help you pray, put it back on the shelf or give it to someone else this Christmas. But I suspect it will. I am thankful for A Praying Life. In it, Miller not only tells but shows how the Lord is our shepherd, how he is there in green pastures and dark valleys.

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."

Prayer

Whenever I lead worship, it helps me forget myself and my performance and truly sing in praise (which is the first job of a worship leader) when I see someone close their eyes, lift up their hands and remember they are in the presence of a powerful God, a loving Father. There's a little girl in our church, not yet three years old, who dances with delight to the music. She reminds me why I'm up there. Now, she is gravely ill and immobilized.

If you are the praying type, please pray for Aubrey and her family. And if you're not the praying type, now's a good time to become just that. You're welcome to join us.