A perfect three days

A perfect three days, that's what this weekend was. EBSCO gave its employees Monday off, simultaneous with school vacation (Kara's out of school), thus, from Friday's perspective, what lay ahead was a vacation! God also helped: the weather was beautiful. We went Yard-Sale-ing, picnicing, we ate excellent Japanese food, saw movies, sat out in parks with friends, threw frisbee, and layed on the beach. As Lynn-nore said yesterday, "I'm glad we aren't moving this Summer."

Back to the beach again, yesterday Kara was playing and I got up from the blanket (Lynn-nore was seconds from sleep), to walk with her. She kept talking about "my garden," and, "my bamboo garden that Nanna and I made." The image I had was of a few sticks stuck (no doubt) too close to the water line. Kara was so excited, she insisted on leading, so I followed her padding steps across the wet sand. The breakers were so beautiful yesterday, lifting, first a deep blue, then a jade green, swirling with foam as they swept upon the shore and crested, then a roar as each folded into the whipped cream surf. "C'mon Daddy!" says Kara. She led up and away, rising out of the wet sand, across the rough, and up on the loose beach. Our feet when "Rrrrt - Rrrt - Rrrt" against the sand as we walked. She was moving so fast, I was working just to keep up. "Here it is," she squeals," here is my garden!" I hadn't noticed until we were right on it, but there, opposite the surf and tucked in against the sea wall, was a perfect square of set wooden planks (Joanna must have dragged them over into place), and in their midst a 2' ring of dried sea sticks and grasses poking up out of the sand to make a miniature forest. Kara was very excited to show it to me, and I bragged about it and fussed over it. I found an unusually shaped, hand-length strip of pine and ceremonially added it to her collection. Kara sat cross legged next to her garden, in a corner of the marked out square, and began to lecture me on the qualities of bamboo. "Daddy," she says, "do you know what color bamboo is?" "Yellow," I said. "No, Bamboo is green." she answered, beginning to fold several lengths of stiff sea grass in her hands. "Kara," I said, "Do you know what animal loves bamboo?....Panda Bears." "Really?" she said, very interested in this news. "Then I am Snow White and you are a Panda Bear." I was a Panda Bear for the rest of the day.

Kara read recently of the incident in which Jesus is confronted by the demon-possessed wild man at the tombs and Jesus sends the demons inside him into a herd of pigs. This, combined with several other references, including the line in the Lord's Prayer: "deliver us from the evil one." All have combined to make Satan and his minions a big topic in Kara's nightly routine. "How did the wild man get demons in him?" was last night's question. "Did I ever have demons in me?" Honestly, this is an uncomfortable topic. Most of my "work" in Christianity involves digging out from under false ideas and un-critical ways of assuming and projecting things into the Bible and Christian beliefs that aren't there. Therefore, I'm much more interested in a discussion of Luther's discovery of grace than I am in hearing a lecture on demonology. The Scripture isn't really interested in informing us about realms outside our own in any material way. Sure, it may speak figuratively and poetically - but even in those interests, the choice of doing so suggests great hesitancy. The gospels record how Jesus talked a good deal about the Devil and how he drove out any number of demons, but they only do so to underscore their claim that the King has come, he is overthrowing his enemies and establishing his Kingdom. In other words, it is about Jesus not about the devils. Trying to bring this around, what this means is that I can't say I'm completely comfortable talking about this with Kara. The point is not to fill the world with devils, but to realize who we are as heirs of the True Heir. I don't want to conjure up a world for her that sounds more like childhood fantasy (and therefore something to be put aside) as she grows into adulthood. We have enough time with our own flesh, truly, with its unhealthy, self-destructive and selfish desires. This is the arena of my interest, perhaps one day I'll arrive at the point where demonology is relevant to my experience, but I suspect in no time soon.