thinking of Kara

Kara's second visit with the psycho-educationalist person ended on an amazingly positive note yesterday. For some reason, Kara decided to be herself during their session. It went an hour and a half, during which time she answered questions, matched patterns with blocks, drew shapes, matched like items and things like that. When it was done, the doctor emerged praising Kara for her high intelligence, for her poise, and for the appropriateness and clarity of her speech. On one hand, we were pleased--what parent doesn't love things like that said about their child. On the other hand, we still have the three Kara's: Kara the acutely shy; Kara the jump-about; and the Kara he described, the one we see least. That Kara only comes out at special times. At night, just before bed; first thing in the morning; riding in the car; relaxing in her bath; being the big-sister to her baby brother.

As we approach baptism day, opinions are flying and theological conversations abound. I'm thankful that both kids, as far as I know, have no idea that they are plowing ground which, at least in terms of my family, is a complete novelty. Look I get that many of you--beloved friends and family--even strongly disagree. And though I could employ historical and theological arguments, let me speak to you, instead, as a parent, or more important, as a Christian.

I want Christ for my children, and my children for Christ. Thus, I will not knowingly deny them any benefit of his that they may properly afford, be it baptism or the elements themselves. I see no reason for denial: Our knowledge of doctrine should not deny us participation in the church: the novice is welcome along with the expert (see James 2:1-7). A lifetime doesn't exhaust the contextual depths of the seder meal (the covenantal background of our eucharist) and the same goes for baptism. Grown adults can be as stupid as pagans when it comes to the most basic facts of their confession. Theology tells us plainly: he is the beginning and the end. The new life is ours by invitation, begun and consummated in us by the Spirit's re-creating power ex nihilo. Which exemplifies the greater grace: informed choice or submissive reception? So then if I, a grown man, know how little I add (and more often subtract) to the sum of my own sanctification, why should I expect something else of my children? (see Gal. 2:15-16; 3:3)

Finally, I am challenged to find an explanation of the the Matthew 19:13-15 pericope that allows it to be Scripture instead of resigning it to the sweet candy coating of religious sentimentalism. I challenge you who disagree with this very task. And I ask you also to recall our common purpose: the pursuit of Christ. As we approach baptism day, let us separate our opinion from what is important, and celebrate in the same Spirit a common confession: He was born. He died. He rose again. He reigns.

San Pellegrino in a neat green bottle

The oscillation of the overhanging clouds made a hot and cold of the afternoon. Refusing the extra fuel costs of air conditioning, I drove out to get a haircut at the local barbershop. The shop itself is a hallway of separated stalls, like tiny dens, each with a chair, a mirror, a little TV and bookshelf, assorted magazines, and a stylist--some men, some women. And they only take cash, so my habit is to buy a $1.50 San Pellegrino mineral water and add the cost to my bill.

My father-in-law introduced me to San Pellegrino half a decade ago during our first trip to Germany. Always careful to stay hydrated, he carried a small cooler in his Honda filled with water, and, for himself, nearly always had a Pellegrino nearby. He and my mother-in-law kept a few bottles of the stuff downstairs in an little-used half-kitchen of their three-story home. I remember the red tiles under my socked feet, reading the Gospel of Mark before everyone else was awake, and just being thrilled to the core about being in Germany. Every stone, every brick, every cloud or hill, tree or flower seemed baptized in the waters of Deutschland.

I like the way the carbon dioxide lingers in a San Pellegrino (first bottled in 1899). Its dry wit stays on long after the usual acquaintances have gone to bed. Even flat, the water itself "bottled at the source, San Pellegrino Terme, Italy," still wants to let you know it is an import.

The last time we were in Germany, I resolved to see how much it would take to buy something there. In New England there are camps--seasonal bungalows unusable in winter but good enough in Summertime to make do for awhile. Unfortunately, my German, despite my best intentions, never gets beyond "Do you speak German?" "I would like a glass of water, please." "How much is this CD?" There is a glass ceiling to language learning, a great gulf between the tourist's tongue and a native's. Once, quite pleased with myself, I went a little way into the jungle: I asked a man where the elevator was in German, cobbling it together from bits of this and that. My ruse was volk enough, apparently. He spat back a host of staccato syllables-and-vowels in the rise and fall pentameter that is spoken Deutsch. Best yet: I understood him.

I'd like to think that drinking this San Pellegrino would bring me a little closer to understanding my father-in-law, too. Yet I suspect his choice of mineral water was largely dictated by the commissary and clever product placement. I raised the subject with him--an ex-Army colonel--of the U.S. soldier's who were then on trial for killing Iraqi civilians. "Yeah," he grunted, "It's silly putting people on trial for killing people who ought to be dead in the first place." I just noticed: San Pellegrino has no calories or fat--who can't feel good about that?

A recent pic of the kids! You can almost make out the missing spot in Kara's front row of teeth and, yep, our big guys is walking! 

First visit with the educational-therapeutic-psychologist guy

Maybe we're just making this up in some kind of shared hallucination," I said to Lynn-nore as we looked about this psychiatrist's office. An Auburn clock and mug. A Pampered Chef timer. A Crack the Case game. "Don't even say that," she shivered. Dr. Howard's office was amazingly familiar in nearly every respect. Indeed, he himself could have been Dr. Davis' brother. A little taller, yes, and more laid back, as in the off-hours. I don't even remember how we got started, but we had an hour and a half to talk about our Kara, and we sure did. Dr. H. was friendly. He took notes. He made observations and asked questions. When he asked, "Can she stand still?" Both of us just stopped and thought. Surely I can think of one occassion . . . We hit every communicable tale, plot-point, characteristic, atmospheric detail--everything!--that was possible in that ninety minute space and felt good about it. I think this man is going to help. He nodded when we described, oh, the inability to stop putting her feet on us during prayer; to stop leaning on me during dinner; to not go limp and lazy the minute any mental question becomes slightly difficult. "My hypothesis," he said, "is that she's somewhere on the border between ADHD and sensory integration issues." And now he'll meet with Kara a few times and we'll see where we go from there.

A handy checklist

I love checklists, don't you? If so, you'll love this. The 164 (June/July 2006) edition of First Things was kind enough to include an oppressive regime checklist. One should keep this handy in one's wallet or pursue for quick consultation--especially on Sundays!

___ Extreme hostility to "outgroups." You are either for us or against us. Dialogue or civil conversation with the "enemy" is betrayal.
___ Complete submissiveness to "ingroups." Our party and its leaders are to be supported without question. Criticism of our side is breaking ranks, and breaking ranks is treason.
___ All relationships are subordinated to the criterion of what will advance the "cause."
___ The most important thing to know about the world is that it is divided by the conflict between them and us.
___ Purely theoretical ideas that do not clearly serve the cause are to be repressed.
___ The expression of sentiment is a sign of weakness.
___ We and our group can survive only by the manipulation of others, who are there to be manipulated.
___ The triumph of the cause will result in a harmonious world without conflict.

A post-out-of-place on Schleiermacher

Friedrich Schleiermacher /FREE-drik shLIE-ur-mah-kur/ (1768-1834) is on my mind these days, and, believe it or not, he's on your mind, too. Profoundly influenced by the anabaptist tradition, Friedrich lived at a time when religious faith was understood as something alien to humanity; something it could do without (and probably should.) Not so, he shot back in his influential On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers (1799). Human beings are religious by nature, Friedrich argued. Rather than put religion aside, it is more human to cultivate it! Everyone is aware of God; everyone carries within themselves a "feeling of absolute dependence." It is only obscured by the humdrum cares of daily life. The best kind of human life consists in cultivating our natural God-consciousness. Sin, he said, is the obscuring of this consciousness.

Now, I ask myself how far away from Schleiermacher we have come? The truth is: not far, despite the 171 intervening years. How far away from the realization and cultivation of God-consciousness and a feeling of absolute dependence is "having a personal relationship with Jesus" or "getting a lot out of that worship service?" How many books are written on "finding God in the everyday?" Though we have long since forgotten Schleiermacher, he has not forgotten us; and his arguments dictate very much the shape of the way we moderns are religious--for good and for ill.

I read Ephesians this morning. (John G. and I have been circling like wandering planets around this epistle for well-over three months.) Schleiermacher is notably absent. Ephesians isn't about the cultivation of God-consciousness, but the display of the divine victory in personal acts. And for what purpose--to grow in one's awareness of the divine? No, rather it is to display the goodness and wisdom of God by what one is and through what one does. The Kingdom is more about the outward act than it is about the inward state. One has been saved by grace; one is to do good works and so overcome evil. One does from what one is. There is no need to achieve some special insight. There is no gnostic Aha! which lays open hidden and secret rhythmns behind our normal experience of the material (created) world.

How much, then, of what counts for a Christian lifestyle is about the drumming up of this God-consciousness, the seeking of a direct experience of God, the discernment of hidden providences and wills? We divide things into sacred and secular and thus become a voodoo people--forgetting that God made all things and has said they are good. Rather than denying creation, we should be people of creation. We are a secular people who need to put the sacred behind us. Let's leave sacredness to the Hindu's and the New Agers. God came in the flesh.

Oh, I have gone too long. Few will make it this far. Understand that this little sermon is part of the adjustment which informs the recent adoption into the liturgical, Anglican tradition. There is an affirmation of the body--that's the way theologians would talk about this--that is needed: the body and mind need their praise. The mind may take in the truth, but the body is limited. It needs to kneel and to stand. It needs to eat and drink. The body needs its dance, for it, too, must celebrate what it hopes for--to be clothed. Musicians, dancers and others talk about "muscle memory." The body, too, needs to be reminded and to confess what God has said about it. The body, too, demonstrates the goodness and wisdom of God.