Thursday, July 17, 2008

The Prodigal Parent

A few weeks ago my son decided that it was time for him to move out and live on his own. I wasn't ready. My wife wasn't ready. My son, Wonderboy, probably wasn't ready, but ready or not he packed his gear and left for greener pastures. Greener pastures in this case was the neighbouring town. There he didn't need to live by the rules of the house. He could party all night and sleep all day. All he needed was a job, and he could move from a friend's couch to his own apartment.

While Wonderboy explored his freedom, my wife and I fretted. We weren't ready to be empty nesters. Vacation plans were changed, work in the upstairs was started, old bones began to complain.
All of a sudden we had issues to discuss. We were just the two of us now. That meant we needed to be more present for each other - a tough job in a life where we both work odd hours at high stress jobs. We started looking at ourselves and wondering. "Who am I when I'm not Mom or Dad?" "Who are you, and why are you still here?" These are scary questions. I help a lot of people both ask and answer them. I wasn't prepared to have them staring at me out of the mirror in the morning.

Yesterday Wonderboy came home, for a visit, he says. I can feel the atmosphere relax already. The questions move into the background, for now. They are still there. They still need to be answered. But not today.

Today I listen to Wonderboy play his video games, and think about what I will say when he packs his gear again. Will I be ready? I honestly don't know. What I do know is that I won't have a choice.

Thursday, April 3, 2008

Do we need God?

It is a funny thing, but lately we are being told that we don't really need God. Even voices within the faith are saying that this whole Christian thing is outdated and we need to start fresh.

To start fresh means reading the Bible with skeptic's eyes, it means hesitating to swallow the myth of a person named Jesus who came to do and say things that were going to get him killed, it means recognizing that the Resurrection, while a powerful story is only a story.

The problem with starting fresh is that we are left with nothing but ourselves. If we cannot access any revelation of God outside of ourselves, what is to prevent us from worshiping the face in the mirror?

The advantage of the Bible is not that it is the "Inerrant Word of God", but that it challenges us to start somewhere else than ourselves for our spiritual quest. We may search far and wide from that starting point. We may change the way we see God and ourselves. We may change what it is that gives us purpose in life.

We need a God who is outside of ourselves to give us perspective. We need a God who will not let us get away with just being comfortable, but will make us grow stronger, braver, and even, more faithful.

Saturday, February 9, 2008

Sackcloth and ashes

The season of Lent is upon us. For much of our society the beginning of Lent is marked by the Mardi Gras, or for us in the more restrained areas, Pancake Tuesday. The tradition behind these celebrations is clearing out the last of the fat and sweet foods that Christians would deny themselves over the next 40 days - the source of "giving up something for Lent".

In our modern consumer society the idea of deliberately no consuming is a foreign idea. We have come to be so defined by what we buy and use (or throw away), that refusing to buy more, use more, consume more is almost treasonous. How will our economy grow if we don't support it by spending our hard earned money? That is after all the purpose behind the tax cuts.

Unfortunately our society is too sick to be revived by a little bit of extra spending. Our entire economy is built on a house of cards. More and more people are falling off the edges. They are not just poor, they have become invisible. They are like Lazarus the beggar at the gate, and too many of us are like the wealthy man who just steps over him without really noticing.

That brings me to the real purpose for Lent. Repentance. Turning away from the things that have led us away from true relationship. Turning away from things. In the Old Testament, when people repented they put on sackcloth and ashes as a visible sign of their change of heart. In medieval times even the highest in the land put on sackcloth and ashes in penitence for their sins.

Perhaps for the next 40 days we should be repenting our divisions, our comfort at the expense of others, our arrogance that somehow we deserve to have all the stuff we have. Maybe we should bring back the sackcloth and ashes.

Think about it.