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Repost for Walk With Him Wednesdays: A Lesson in Priorities

This post was originally published in November 2009.

My generation of women is experiencing unprecedented freedom for our gender. But, as Uncle Ben tells Peter Parker of Spiderman fame, "With great power comes great responsibility." One of the tremendous responsibilities laying on the shoulders of women today is the responsibility to prioritize. At the banquet table of seemingly endless possibilities, how do we keep from overindulging? How do we ensure that we do not leave the table hungry or in some other way unsatisfied? How do we know what to choose?

In Matthew 11:29-30, Jesus tells us, "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." This is how I have come to undertake my responsibility to pick and choose what the world has to offer me. The more I read the Bible, the more I learn of Jesus, and the more I come to submit to God's Will with a "gentle and humble heart," the easier I find it to prioritize, and the more at peace I am with the decisions that I make.

The first part of Jesus' yoke that I had to take on was the knowledge that "'Everything is permissible'—but not everything is beneficial. 'Everything is permissible'—but not everything is constructive. Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others" (1 Corinthians 10:23-24). For today's modern woman, everything is permissable. We may strut about in the frilliest dresses or the most masculine pantsuits...or almost nothing at all. We can choose a life of virginity dedicated to the Lord or we may marry--perhaps more than once--or we may opt for "free love" or an "alternative relationship." We can be single working mothers, married working mothers, homemakers, work-from-home-moms, soccer moms, childless-by-choice, anything we choose. That is what the world tells us: we can have everything or nothing. We can have whatever we choose. Choice is the religion of the day, and we are worshippers at its altar.

However, there is one caveat that the world has conveniently forgotten to tell us young, ambitious, starry-eyed women: All this choice comes at a price. In her wonderful book, which I have quoted from before, Lilian Calles Barger poignantly observes, "Today, with much more freedom to choose our own way in the world, we are more likely to lose ourselves in the process. Industrialization and radical individualism have aided in this uprooting" (emphasis my own). Expounding on what she refers to as the "cult of individualism" predominant in our modern culture, Barger continues, "Instead of kinship and place, our identity is based on ‘lifestyle’ choices, from soccer moms to childfree. The move toward identities of choice, instead of those based on relationship and place, is threatening to turn even previously unthinkable practices into a lifestyle."

As a woman navigating a world structure largely designed by and for men, I am discovering that the key to survival is compromise. Not only is compromise key, it is unavoidable. The shoe will drop somewhere; our only real choice is to pick the spot where it falls.

Contrary to the feminist feel-good messages that abound in the media, we have not traded the "prison" of domesticity for freedom and a truer identity. We have simply traded one kind of cookie-cutter image for another. Where once women had to deny that they found any pleasure in activities outside the home lest they be thought "abnormal," modern women are pressured to deny that they find any pleasure in the home, for the same reason.

We may have cut the apron strings and donned a power suit, but was it worth it to cut the ties to our young children for a window office and a title, or more realistically, a meager paycheck that barely covers childcare expenses? More and more women are finding that corporate America is not conducive to being the "fuller" selves that they were seeking by entering the public sphere. The glass ceiling may have some serious cracks, but those left with the splinters are discovering that the typical work-a-day world is not the panacea they once imagined it to be. Meanwhile, those women who choose to opt out of pursuing paid employment continue to be viewed by many as second-class citizens, victims of male domination, or simply unitelligent women who don't know any better. All of this, whether the workforce hostile to women's needs or the destructive negativity aimed at stay-at-home wives and mothers, furthers the age-old attitude that "women's work" is inferior to "men's." To quote Barger again, more at length this time:

"Second-wave feminism encouraged women to leave the private sphere and enter the more significant and productive public sphere…But this reinforced the belief that the work occurring in the public sphere and associated with men was ultimately more important and took priority. By entering the public sphere at the expense of the private, woman legitimated the male world and rejected her own. The ‘elite’ women soon found out that the public world of work, as currently arranged, marginalizes human emotion and vulnerability, especially female reproductive life."

So, everything is permissable. In particular, virtually the entire public sector is open to me as a college-educated woman in the twenty-first century. The world is my oyster. But not everything is beneficial. Yes, I can have a job. Yes, I can even have a job and a family, but at what cost? There are only so many hours in a day, and I am only capable of so much in each twenty-four hour period. Where will the shoe drop? What will my prioritizing reveal about what I value? Fifty years from now, will the way that I prioritized have helped me or hindered me in achieving the life that I desire--the life that God has called me to live?

This is where 1 Corinthians 10:24 comes in: "Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others." This is not something we want to hear in our modern me-centric, hyper-individualistic culture. We'd rather hear "Be all that you can be" and "You've got to take control of your own destiny." This self-empowerment sort of thinking may be the Band-aid many of us would like to slap on the cultural wounds of low self-esteem and isolation from true community, but it's not going to solve what really ails us. The true healing we need can only come from the redemptive power and love of Jesus Christ (Matthew 13:15). Jesus never advised anyone to "live it up" or to live in pursuit of their every desire. No, quite the opposite. He said, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?" (Luke 9:23-25). As a daughter of God, I am not called to pursue my own "destiny," my every desire, but rather to lay down my life in pursuit of Him who died for me and to seek "the good of others."

Not long ago, I felt I was being crushed by the burden of choice. Should I go to graduate school to teach? Should I demand that my husband uproot our family and leave his stable and much beloved job so that I could have a chance at success as an actress, the dream I had worked toward since childhood? Where would my children end in the fall-out of my pursuit of my own desires? What would the reprecussions to my marriage in a busy two-career household be? Would I lose myself remaining at home, wasting my life as the contemporary culture so graciously insinuated on a regular basis? Or, would I lose myself by abandoning my joyful domesticity, relinquishing my precious children to the daycare system, and sacrificing the complementary union of marital life I currently shared with my husband for a life lived in parallel, each of us pursuing our own separate paths?

After wrestling with these questions on my own for several weeks, I humbled myself and decided to ask my husband for advice. Flummoxed (his own words) as to how to advise me, he instead suggested that I look back in my diaries to see if I could discover what my frame of mind was when I decided I wanted to leave the domestic sphere and what might have caused me to question that decision. Thank goodness I keep very thorough journals. I highly recommend the practice to anyone, but particularly to those who, like me, are often driven by emotion and are prone to change.

I am going to make a very personal and humble confession to you all: What I found in the pages of my diary was not pretty. It all began last April with some rather vehement comments I received on this very blog about an article I had written on marriage. The biting remarks and patronizing insinuations should have rolled off my back, but they didn't. In fact, I shut the blog down and ran as fast and as far as I could from all the principles and convictions that had led me to start it in the first place. Satan knew how vulnerable I was to criticism such as I had received. He saw his chance, and he latched on quickly and cleverly. Within days of receiving those comments, my journal showed that I was suddenly dissatisfied with the life I had chosen.

I am not proud of what followed, but I'm going to share it because I doubt that I am the only woman who has gone through this journey, and I want to say to those of you out there who can relate: you are not alone!

I became jealous of my husband and resented him his career, even while I benefitted from it. I grew to nearly hate the place that I live, becoming disatisified with everything from my church community to my home to the state of Washington! I became frantic--yes, frantic--to move someplace else. I was desperate to start acting again. I started going for auditions that I knew I wouldn't be able to take due to the distance from my home and the insufficient salary which would not provide enough for decent childcare.

Before long I realized that being a self-sustaining full-time actress in the Seattle area was next to impossible (I checked with many local artists to discover that this was so), and none of my schemes to move to another more "actor-friendly" city panned out. Almost overnight, I turned to the idea of teaching. It was something else I had always considered. After all, only a few short months before, I was eager to homeschool my own children. I knew plenty of teachers who were also wives and mothers--my own mother among them. But, what I refused to see is that the time and energy it would take to obtain a Masters degree and then to spend many hours every day in a classroom and grading papers were in direct contrast with my vision of home and family. Another way to put it is that what I was pursuing was in conflict with the vision God had given me for my life.

Sadly, shamefully, I foolishly abandoned all the ideals I once held for being a sacrificially loving wife and mother. I still loved my daughter, but I decided that I didn't want any more children: they would hold me back and ruin my life. I grew terrified that I might become pregnant. I still loved my husband, but I was willing to stop investing so much in our relationship. After all, I told myself, what if something were to happen years from now? I don't want to be left without some resources of my own. I let my vanity get out of control and became obsessed with my body image, though I was perfectly healthy. I became lax in my pursuit of modesty. I spent money foolishly on new clothes and make-up, at times purposely trying to hide such transactions from my husband, something I had never done in our years of marriage. This period of months when I was single-mindedly pursuing my own "destiny" can be characterized by a lot of rather unpleasant terms: selfishness, desperation, anxiety, hard-heartedness, jealousy, discontent, ingratitude... It should have been a wake-up call, but it wasn't.

Worst of all, I had ceased actively pursuing God with my whole heart (Jeremiah 29:13). In the spirit of full disclosure, I am bound to admit that I stopped reading my Bible almost completely. Instead, I turned to theological literature that I chose on purpose (though not consciously) because it was targetted toward validating the rebellion I found myself in. I wallowed in this literary self-help mire, abandoning the life-giving words of Scripture for shadows and lies. I found four-letter words that I had not uttered in years popping up on my uncontrolled tongue. My infamous short temper, kept in check for many years by the power of the Spirit working in me, began to flare up more frequently as I grew lax in self-discipline and rejected accountability. I gossipped unrepentantly. My prayer life became cursory and shallow because I didn't really want to hear what God had to say. I was like a horse with blinders on: it was my way or the highway. The trouble was, I had already turned the wheel of my ship over to Jesus six years ago. Now I was grappling to get it back. But, the waters I was leading myself into were not life-sustaining (Jeremiah 17:8; John 4:14); they were poisonous (Jeremiah 23:15). Myopic in my pursuit of self, I couldn't even see what was right before my eyes.

Thank God that He did not let me wander too long in my own folly, but returned me to the paths He laid just for me, with His Word to guide me along the way. I am convinced now, more than ever, "that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:38-39). I may have gone astray for a time, but He is my shepherd, and when He called--praise God!--I knew His voice, and I followed (John 10:27).

Long story short, it is with great joy and peace of mind and heart and soul that I can announce I will be forgoing the rigors of graduate school and a career in teaching for the present time. Instead, I will continue to remain at home, pursuing my Savior in the "realm of the mundane" as Simone de Beauvoir once sneeringly referred to domestic and family life. Thankfully, others have seen things somewhat differently throughout the ages:

"What you do in your house is worth as much as if you did it up in heaven for our Lord God. We should accustom ourselves to think of our position and work as sacred and well-pleasing to God, not on account of the position and work, but on account of the word and faith from which the obedience and the work flow." —Martin Luther

“The ordinary has been blessed. It is good. Faithfulness ‘in my small corner’ helps to redeem life. Thus we find ‘the glory of the usual.’ Here is true greatness.” ~Susan Schaeffer Macaulay, For the Family’s Sake

I do not wish to be a product of my times but the work of my Lord. I do not wish to seek self-fulfillment but rather to die to self that I might live more fully in Him. I do not seek this in pursuit of asceticism (self denial for its own sake), rather I do so because I believe I am relinquishing a yoke of my own fashioning, which is burdensome, in order to put on the yoke of Christ, which is light and which brings peace.


I do not wish to condemn anyone else's life decisions. We must all act as we feel called by God. As Thomas Aquinas once said, "Every judgment of conscience, be it right or wrong, be it about things evil in themselves or morally indifferent, is obligatory, in such wise that he who acts against his conscience always sins." Each person must determine between herself and God what path to take. I feel blessed that I can say my Savior has set me on a path that led me home again.

Nominally Speaking

"When a man who accepts the Christian doctrine lives unworthily of it, it is much clearer to say he is a bad Christian than to say he is not a Christian."
- C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

There is a line of thinking, particularly prominent in the American Protestant tradition, that says of the apostate or nominal Chrisitan, "Oh, he was never really saved/born again/regenerate to begin with." Quite simply, he is not a Christian. I have heard similar things said of Christians from other denominations, such as Roman Catholics and even Protestants of other creeds. This assumption (what I believe to be a mistaken one) stems from two different theological principles.

1. The theology of Eternal Security, which looks different depending on which branch of Protestantism you hail from.

• Within the Fundamentalist Evangelical denominations it is sometimes refered to as the Free Grace doctrine or "Once Saved, Always Saved." The idea is that, once you undergo a conversion experience, you cannot be unconverted. Some key verses are 1 John 2:19, John 10:28, 1 Corinthians 8-9, and 1 Corinthians 3:15.
• Within those denominations that descend from the Calvinist tradition, the key theology is the Perseverence of the Saints, in laymen's terms, that God will see to it that those He has brought to salvation will persevere in the faith until the end. Inextricably linked to this doctrine are the concepts of Predestination (God preordains some souls to become regenerate and others not to) and Total Depravity (only God can produce good works in us; we are incapable of doing so on our own).

2. The concept that Sacraments are merely symbolic.

Catholics and other Orthodox Christians believe that the Sacraments instituted by Christ are "outward signs of inward grace," meaning that they really and truly do convey God's grace to the person receiving them. In other words, when administered correctly, they actually "do something."

The Westerminster Shorter Catechism views states things a bit differently, defining a sacrament as "sensible signs" by which "Christ and the benefits of the new covenant are represented, sealed, and applied to believers." In other words, they don't "do" anything in and of themselves; they are signs of things that are being done through the faith of the believer. But, the Reformed Churches who adhere to this Catechism do at least believe that the sacraments are beneficial on the believer's road to salvation.

Such is not the case with many Fundamental Evangelical churches. For example, the Southern Baptist Convention does not even use the word "sacraments" when referring to Baptism and Holy Communion, prefering the term "ordinances," specifically because they believe that these "ordinances" are in no way related to a person's salvation.

Evangelical Churches (and some Reformed and mainline Protestant sects) also adhere to something called credo-baptism, meaning that only those who have already professed belief in Jesus Christ may be Baptized. If a person was baptized as an infant but comes to faith later, they must be re-baptized in these churches. This is very telling. So important is this credo, this profession of faith, to the identity of "Christian" that a Baptized person who has not professed faith is considered not Christian.

The reason for this prerequisite of professed belief for Baptism is incredibly important for this discussion, because it equates the identity of "Christian" with the reality of salvation. This idea of salvation being inextricably linked to religious identity is astonishingly unique to Protestant Christianity, specifically Fundamental Evangelical Protestant Christianity. Allow me to illustrate by taking a cursory look at the other "religions of the Book," Judaism, Islam, and the Orthodox Christian faith.

A Jew is not a Jew because he is saved. He is a Jew because he is Jewish, because he was either born into Judaism or chose to convert to the faith of Israel. He is a Jew whether or not he keeps kosher, whether he goes to temple, or whether he even believes in God.

In Islam, a Muslim is considered a Muslim (either by birth or conversion) regardless of his present confession to the creed of the Islamic faith. This is why it is considered a crime in many Islamic countries to convert a Muslim citizen--whether or not he ever believed in Islam, he is considered a Muslim, and to draw him away from his faith even if he never professed that faith himself is a serious crime.

In Orthodox Christianity, a Baptized person is a Christian regardless of creed or lifestyle. Even nominal Christians or so-called "Christmas Catholics" are Christians. They may be apostate; they may be fallen away; they may be, as C.S. Lewis says "bad Christians," but they are nonetheless Christians.

Now, I have no desire to wrestle with sacramental or salvation theology today. That is a much larger topic than I could possibly cover in a single post, and in any case, far finer minds than mine have already done. (You might like to read some of the works cited in this article if you'd like to explore some of their arguments.) No, instead, I would like to pose a question: What do we do with the nominal Christian?

What happens when someone who was clearly a Christ follower falls away from the faith, whether through complacency or apostasy? I'm not talking about a new believer who's worn off their Jesus high but rather someone who has shown evidence of the Holy Spirit working in their lives for years, perhaps even decades. We all know them, these men and women who mentored us, inspired us, discipled us, taught us, maybe even were instrumental in bringing us into relationship with Christ--who have abandoned their faith for an unbiblical lifestyle or who have simply become lukewarm, like the Church at Laodicea. They may still even talk the talk, but they aren't walking the walk.

Disillusionment follows, and we ask: Are they still our brothers? Were they ever our brothers? Are they fallen-away sisters, or no sisters at all?

Now, obviously, I am a Catholic and so I hold with the profession of the Church that a Christian is a Christian is a Christian from Baptism through eternity, whether or not they are ever "baptized with the Spirit and fire," whether or not they ever find a personal relationship with Christ, whether or not they ever undergo a conversion experience, whether or not they are saved. I believe this, and I also believe there is profound value in this and that something incredibly important is lost when we do not acknowledge the membership of all Baptized persons in the universal Church of Christ.

This begs two questions: (1) What is the value of maintaining that even nominal and apostate Christians are still members of the Church? and (2) What is lost when we do not acknowledge this membership?

The value is found, first of all, in truth and second, in charity. The truth is that a Baptized person is a Christian by virtue of their Baptism because a Christian is any person who has been identified with the Church of Jesus Christ. This is how the term was originally used to describe the follwers of Christ at Antioch around the year 40 A.D. Now this identification could come from being born into a family of Christians and Baptized by them in infancy, or it could come from a conversion experience later in life. Ideally, it stems from both, though for salvation only the latter (accompanied by Baptism) is necessary.

Some people would disagree with me, insisting that salvation is necessary for one to identify oneself as Christian. In response, I would ask them to open their eyes. There are millions of people all over this planet who call themselves Christian (or who are called Christian by people of other faiths) who are not regenerate, who perhaps do not even profess a belief in God, let alone in the redemptive power of His Son, Jesus Christ. To insist that these people are not Christian is like saying that an American who is unpatriotic is not an American. That maybe how we feel--it may even be how the unpatriotic American feels--but it is not true. And, it is not helpful. Moreover, it is uncharitable. It strikes at the heart of someone's personal identity and says, "I know you better than you do." How presumptuous and arrogant. How very unkind.

Finally, let us examine one final question: What is lost when we deny the Christian identity of an apostate or nominal Christian? Well, potentially, his soul.

That is a very weighted assertion, so let me explain. I am not saying that any man or woman has the power to withhold or avert another person's salvation. However, I do believe that we human beings often have a major role to play in evangelization; there's a reason it's called the "Great Commission," and there's a reason Jesus left the task to us mere mortals. It is my belief that we are called to evangelize even within the Church, for as I said before, not all the Baptized are saved.

When we deny the fact that a Baptized person is a Christian, we are (perhaps inadvertently) pushing them away from the Church. We are representing ourselves (and thereby the Church) as arrogant and uncharitible in our presumptions. In addition, we are letting the apostate Christian off the hook. This is, in my opinion, the greatest loss and the one most closely connected to the issue of salvation.
When we deny that a Baptized person is a Christian, we are quite literally setting them outside of the Church. We are negating any past encounter they have had with the Living God, whether through the Sacraments, the Liturgy, the Word, sacred music, or fellowship with believers. We are denying their obligation to fulfill their Baptismal vows, whether they spoke these vows themselves or whether they were made on their behalf by parents and/or godparents.

Some people may say that those who did not profess their own faith have no obligation to fulfill vows made in hope on their behalf, but I would argue that this is simply not so. In times of war, the birth citizens of a country are obligated to defend their nation by virtue of their birth just as much as those citizens who immigrated to that country by choice. In a similar way, the Church is comprised not of citizens but members, and those members are all the Baptized.

Even if you disagree with this and maintain that only those who were Baptized through credo-Baptism have any place in the Church, then you still have to grapple with the reality of the apostate believer. When someone was once a faithful Christian and has walked away, there are only two things you can say of him. You can say either that he has fallen away temporarily and will return to the faith (only time will tell if this is a truthful assumption), or you can say with C.S. Lewis that he is a "bad Christian." What you cannot do is say that he is not--or never was--a Christian. Your own experience will tell you that he is and was what he always was, just as an unobservant Jew is still a Jew and an unbelieving Muslim is still a Muslim.

Perhaps it is because we are American and we Americans are so obsessed with self-made identities that this phenomenon seems so particularly prevalent here. We increasingly fight for the right to define ourselves on our own terms. In a world of sometimes disturbing technological advances, our society now maintains that we can even define our own gender identities, regardless of how we were born, raised, and how we have lived in a gendered reality our whole lives. Many conservative Christians are eager to point out that God made us all a certain way and that to deny or alter this is to defy God's Will. Yet, many of these same people are equally eager to deny Christian identity to many of their fallen away brethren.

Why? Are we afraid to be identified with them? The world already identifies us with them. And, what's more, there is no "us" and "them." Jesus told us that a "household divided against itself will not stand" (Matthew 12:25). What can we reasonably expect to happen to a Church divided against its own members? Proverbs 11:29 warns that he who brings trouble on his family will "inherit the wind." What can we expect to inherit if deny our own brothers and sisters?

In the broader scheme of things, what right do we have to even define who is Christian and who is not? Who is saved and who is not? Time will reveal all truths, and only God knows what is in each of our souls. If someone says she is a Christian, even if she doesn't live like it, why tell her she is wrong? Why not welcome her as a sister and help her to walk aright in the light of the Christ whose name she embraces as a part of her own identity?

As always, I am not a theologian or a Bible scholar. These are merely the musings (albeit the researched and thoughtful musings) of a homemaker, wife, mother, writer, artist. Dialogue is welcomed and encouraged! Surely such dialogue is the very heart of ecumenism, understanding, and charity, which are of worth to all people, Christian or not.

Proverbs 31 Reflections: Verse 16

"She considers a field and buys it; out of her earnings she plants a vineyard."

It's been awhile since I've written an installment in my Proverbs 31 Reflection series. As I read over verse 16, I think about the many articles I have read, the many books that have cited it. Very often, it is used as a "proof text" to advocate women working in the public sector. Alternately, it is grappled with by those who maintain that a woman's true place is in the home. Frankly, when I take a look at this verse, I see neither of these stances.

What I see when I read these words is confidence. The Proverbs 31 woman trusts her own judgment. She is confident in her ability to make decisions. We can reasonably infer from this that she is knowledgeable, for knowledge is the precursor to good decision making. She is confident enough in her knowledge and in her judgment to spend her earnings on something worthwhile; she is not a hoarder or a miser. From previous verses, we also know that her husband has confidence in her decision making. She does not act alone, but rather with the fear of the Lord and with her husband's blessing.

The Proverbs 31 woman is also visionary. A vineyard does not bare fruit the moment funds exchange hands. She must look ahead and walk boldly toward the future she envisions.

To live with vision takes great confidence, especially in a post-modern, relativistic world. In a society where every way of life is promoted as being equal to any and every other way of life, it can be hard to make decisions about how to live, where to put our treasure, and how to spend our time. All too often, we become complacent, doing what others have done, or rebelling against tradition just because we can. But, to live with purpose and vision takes courage.

Where is your vineyard? Do you have the confidence and the vision to go and buy it?

Sunday

detail from The Crucifixion by Bl. Fra Angelico

"The custom of holding a crucifix before a dying person has kept many in the Christian faith and has enabled them to die with a confident faith in the crucified Christ."
- Martin Luther

I have heard them called gruesome idol worship, vain pomp, and just plain unnecessary. Certainly a crucifix is not necessary to bring a person to salvation; in that sense, I suppose, it may be considered unnecessary. Like any sacramental (object or practice used to focus a person's spirit upon God and His truths and to prepare us to receive His grace), the crucifix is an aid, not a magic talisman. But, pompous? But, idolatrous? But, gruesome?

For me, the crucifix has always been a sign of powerful beauty, at once redolent of immence suffering and a foreshadowing of bliss, both a sign of awesome majesty and of broken humility. It is, in a word, Christ incarnate. It is the nexxus of the Christian faith: Christ crucified.

Do we need a tangible reminder of this fact? No.

Do we need wedding bands in order to fulfill the covenant they symbolize? Do we need to store the fine, silken lock of our child's hair? Do we need flags to stir patriotic fervor in our hearts? No. But, it helps.

And, the crucifix does more. For its help is eternal.


By the way, you can still join us at the new Silent Saturdays community. I will be leaving entries open all week...until next Silent Saturday

Welcome to Silent Saturdays

I always think of Saturday as a “gathering-in” day. The rush of the week is over, and the glorious rest of the Lord’s Day is on the horizon. Sometimes it can be tempting to cram the weekend so full of projects that Sunday falls upon us before we know it, and we are caught exhausted and unawares and cranky.

But, what if we slowed down a bit?

What if Saturday became a day when our families could draw together in the bosom of our homes to decompress and celebrate togetherness? What if Saturday were a day of going forth to glory in God’s Creation, to bless others, and (yes) to occasionally make that run to the hardware store to finish some project or other before the Sabbath begins? What if, as we dedicate our Sabbath to rest, we committed our Saturday to reflection?

Today, consider carving out a small space of time to reflect on your week, to think of the week ahead. Then, share with this small community an image that evokes the trials and triumphs of the past seven days, or perhaps your hope for the days ahead.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Silently, let us share our stories this day.

Some logistics:

1. Post your picture on your own blog. No words, please. Be sure to use only images that are your own work, that are public domain, or that you have obtained by permission of the artist. 
2. Put the community icon and button code in your blog so that we can find each other. You do this by cutting and pasting the code (found here) into the source (or HTML) code on your blog.
3. Link to your post using the tool below to join the community. You will have 25 characters to identify yourself.

And here is my first entry:

Silent Saturdays Button Code

SOURCE CODE (cut and paste):
<center><a href=http://applecidermama.blogspot.com/><img alt="The Apple Cider Mill"  src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_hBMUPdC5OE4/TESMWnsy0HI/AAAAAAAAEdU/cmYhs4oNFoY/mummondaysbuttonfaded_thumb1.png?imgmax=800" title="Silent Saturdays"/></a></center>

Something's Coming...

I know that Saturdays are usually slow around here, but I just wanted to give y'all a heads up that something new and rather exciting will be beginning tomorrow morning. So, if you have a moment, consider stopping in. The fun begins at midnight, Pacific Time.

;-)

Classic Chicken Caesar Salad

INGREDIENTS

1 head Romaine lettuce, washed, spun dry, and torn
1 large garlic clove (or 2 smaller), pressed
1/2 c. plain yogurt or mayonnaise
1-2 Tbs. lemon juice 
1-2 tsp. Dijon mustard
1-2 tsp. anchovy paste
1/2 t. Worcestershire sauce
1/3 c. freshly grated Parmesan or Pecorino Romano
about 1/4 c. extra virgin olive oil
freshly ground pepper to taste
about 1 cup shredded chicken leftover from a roast (you can use other shredded chicken, but the bits from a roasted bird always taste the best)

DIRECTIONS

Combine garlic, yogurt (or mayo), lemon juice, mustard, anchovy paste, Worcestershire sauce, and grated cheese in a small bowl. Slowly whisk in the oil, adding as much as you need to get a creamy but slightly runny consistency. Add pepper. Just before serving, toss lettuce with chicken and dressing.

You can add croutons if you like (or make your own), but my family is not fond of them. We prefer to serve this with a fresh loaf of olive bread. A bowl of fresh berries makes the perfect dessert for this simple, no-cook summer meal.

Giving Singles a Place of Rest

"The Harvester” by William Bouguereau

I have met so many single Christian ladies (and not a few single Christian gentlemen) who can find no rest. They have been given from birth an image of marriage as the only way to fully (or at least most fully) experience the Christian life. I have noticed that women, in particular, struggle with this. They cannot conceive of a way to grow into Christian maturity without a husband, children, and a home of their own.

But, Jesus offers rest to us all, just as He made us, just as He called us, right where we are.

Some weeks ago, I reflected on this over at LAF. I invite you to join me in this dialogue, that we may make a place of fellowship and rest for our single brothers and sisters.

For the Love of It

My husband is an incredibly task-oriented person. He likes to work concretely on concrete things that solicit concrete results which can be measured, tallied, and crossed neatly off a list.

In many ways, I am like him. But, I am also an artist, and as an artist, I have had to learn--sometimes through trial by fire--that sometimes a thing must be done purely for the love of it.

I have poured my heart and soul into theatrical performances that, when the curtain falls at the end of the night, are gone forever, preserved only in the memories of those who were there. As an artist, I have written entire books that may forever go unpublished, unread, and unremarked. Certainly, unpaid. Some people scoff at this and think, "Oh, those silly starving artists." But, I wonder if this is not precisely what Christ calls us to.

Do you realize Jesus never wrote a single word in His entire life? Everything He ever said was left unrecorded until after His death. He was a carpenter, and yet we have no artifacts, no bowls He carved or carts He built. When He ascended to Heaven, He took even His body with Him. He left behind only His message and His love.

What was it all for? Where was His list of accomplishments? Where was His concrete proof that it had all been worthwhile, that He would be remembered?

He hung on a cross and blood and water flowed from His side, and He said, "It is accomplished." No tally mark. No finished product. Only love.

If your daily vocation is filled with easily recognizable tasks and goals, then consider yourself blessed. For the rest of us who tackle ever-growing mountains of laundry, cook suppers that will disappear in less time than it took to prepare them, pray for hopes we may never see fulfilled in this life, who bless and serve and listen and create and wait...

Well, we must learn to live for the love of it and to live for the Love of Him.

My First Multitude Monday

 

Ann Vos Kamp over at Holy Experience has a wonderful little gratitude community going, and I have decided to join it.

Here are some things I am thankful for today:

#1-16…

birthday joys

the boundless compassion of a just-turned-three-year-old

baby boy cuddles

boys with guitars (i.e. my husband strumming hymns)

fresh Rainier cherries, fresh tomatoes, fresh apricots, fresh everything!

sprawling on a quilt in the sun under the shade of a tree and the clear blue sky

picnics with real wine glasses

having my mama near

finishing manuscripts and starting new ones

24-hour pharmacies

incredible healthcare

new marriages

old marriages

the grace of my own marriage

the gift salvation by grace

the beauty of the Face of Jesus

Sunday

 

Hospitality

has nothing to do with your dishes or your decor.
has power.
is especially for strangers.
is more about you than me.

is more about Him than us.

Happy 3rd Birthday, Sophia!

“And where was I before the day
that I first saw your lovely face?
Now I see it everyday,
and I know…

that I am,
I am
I am

the luckiest.”

- “The Luckiest” by Ben Folds