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Identity, Faith, and the Ladies' Room

4/17/2014

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I remember when Reese was a baby, and it used to be so easy.

Reese and I would be in a store together, and the time would come when I had to take her with me into the men’s room – either for my sake or to change her diaper. When Reese was a baby, we would take care of bathroom business swiftly and smoothly without any static from Reese.

But then Reese became a toddler. Then, when it came time to use a public restroom, she was full of protest.

“I want to go to girls’ room. Mommy takes me to girls’ room for potty,” Reese would say.

“I can’t go there, Reese. I am a boy.”

“But I want to. I a girl.”

“I know you would prefer that, Reese. But I can’t go there. And you’re not old enough to go by yourself. I’m a boy. It’s illegal for me to go to the girls’ room. I’m sorry.”

(The conversation would spin around and around like this for another minute or two, and then finally…)

“But, Reese, I’m a boy. I have to use the boys’ room. I can’t got to the girls’ room.”

Then she’d pat me on the leg and she’d say, “It’s OK, Daddy. It’s OK. Someday. Someday.”

The end of the exchange almost made the rest of it worth it. Reese seemed to think that me being a boy was a developmental problem. I think she probably still feels that way and may still have that perspective twenty years from now – depending on the men she meets along the way.

Reese’s toddler resistance had nothing to do with being uncomfortable in the men’s room. Once we would finally get through the debate, and I would win, she would be willing to go with me, and she’d ponder the oddity of men’s room urinals while we did what we had to do.

The resistance had to do, I think, with a growing sense of her personal identity.

Reese wanted to be in the women’s restroom because she was a woman, albeit in early, teeny-tiny form. Of course, to a certain extent, Mindy and I helped educate her into this identity. Surely this training worked in concert with the inborn female leanings Reese must surely have had. In our toileting debates, Reese was beginning to claim that deep identity for herself.

I am (toddler) woman; hear me roar (about going to the men’s room at Target).

This is how it’s worked with other identities, of course.

At the same age, when Reese would see a cross or a crucifix she’d often say, “Jesus is on that. He has ‘owies’. I want him to feel better.” 

When we’d do bedtime prayers, after the Lord’s Prayer, Reese would start naming people in her life she wanted to see receive a special helping of God’s care. She’d often name people we would have never expected her to think of. Then Reese started also giving thanks for favorite toys and blankets. I didn’t see that coming, but I should have.

We taught Reese these types of things. It’s part of being born into a Christian family, I suppose.

But as a toddler Reese began claiming them for herself.

She started to practice the faith herself.

In reality, it’s the same thing I still do in my 40s. I learn more about my faith from others. I sense things from within. Then I try these practices out and take them in new directions that fit with my identity and my calling from God.

Despite our different developmental stages, Reese and I were – and still are – doing pretty much the same thing. We are trying to follow Jesus in the day-in-day-out details of our real lives. I don’t think there’s another way to do it, really.

I just wish that back then, when Reese was a toddler, Jesus would have told her to take it easy on me when out of necessity I had to take her to the men’s room.



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Like / No Like

4/10/2014

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Being behind the times technologically can save you a little money every now and again.

Periodically over the years, Mindy and I have purchased VHS tapes for Reese. Yes, you heard me correctly. VHS tapes. We still have two working VCRs. Yes, you heard me correctly.

You see, we can go to a thrift store and get Reese a movie for a dollar or two. If Reese hates a particular selection, or if the tape breaks, it’s no big deal. Only a buck lost.

One time a number of years back, I had Reese in a thrift store, and we were choosing a movie. She was advocating for this lame-looking and needless sequel to Beauty and the Beast. I was advocating for a lesser work in Disney’s classic animation canon, The Rescuers.

I offered it to Reese and told her I thought she would really enjoy it. She took (literally) a second to look at the front of the box, and said with all the finality of a death sentence, “I no like this.” I told her she hadn’t even seen it, but it didn’t matter.

At the time Reese was very busy dividing the entire world into two categories. I guess it’s a little like how Genesis said God divided the primordial world into day and night. For Reese the categories were “I like” and “I no like”.

Sometimes Reese not liking something meant she was interested in something else at that particular moment. Sometimes it meant she simply hadn’t tried whatever she’d condemned. Sometimes it meant she was scared of it. And, of course, other times it meant the most obvious thing – she had experienced it and found it lacking.

Now I know that this process of evaluation is an essential part of life for all of us. We can’t function without it. I know my “like/no like” meter turns on all the time. Sometimes it seems to switch on all by itself, almost without my knowledge.

One day I saw a movie (on DVD, not VHS) and was telling Mindy about it the next morning. Out of nowhere I mentioned that it was actually a movie where, in my estimation, the male actors were better looking that the females.

Huh? Apparently my like/no like meter was running while I watched the film. This comment was my way of saying “I no like” the looks of the women in this movie. I didn’t even realize I was sizing people up that way as I watched the film.

This “like/no like” is part of life and useful, I suppose, as long as it doesn’t become the only voice we hear or the center of our heart’s universe. I may like something (someone) or not like it (her), but what does God think? What do the Christian virtues of compassion and kindness say? What about the needs of the other person, the one I am so coldly evaluating?

In all of this dwells the deep danger of “no liking” someone else to the point of treating them like a devil or assuming the other person must have a one-way ticket to Hell since you “no like” them.

There’s an old saying that goes like this: Question -- “What did Jesus say to the prostitute?” Answer – “Jesus never met a prostitute.” The sense is that even when Jesus met a prostitute he didn’t see her that way.

I don’t agree. I’m pretty sure when Jesus met a prostitute, or a traitorous tax man, or a Roman soldier, or his betrayer, he knew who he was dealing with on that obvious level. Like all of us, he had a “like/no like” evaluation meter thing going on behind his eyes.

But Jesus is the Son of God. There were other voices within him. This prostitute was also a person showing him unsurpassed kindness. This tax man could become a sign of how far God’s love can reach. This foreign soldier occupying his country may have faith unmatched even by God’s own people. This betrayer did not have the power to ultimately turn back God’s mission to resurrect the world.

The Apostle Paul suggests this isn’t just for Jesus. The way Paul puts it to the church in his second letter to Corinth, Greece is this:

            16 So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come!”

Saying “I like this” or “I don’t like that” is a necessary part of living in this world. Sure. But allowing God’s Spirit to speak a deeper voice within us to guide us beyond those likes and dislikes is more necessary still. It is a necessary part of living in God’s new world begun in Jesus Christ.


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She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain

4/4/2014

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After a nap when Reese was two and a half and we were living in Phoenix, I took her to Lookout Mountain. I had a plan in mind.

We’d never been there before. It was near the house. The weather was gorgeous. And I figured it would be a few minutes of outdoor fun for both of us. So, I convinced Reese we were going to “a special park”, and she was happy to go along with my plan. At first.

The last time I took Reese to a mountain had been quite a while before. I had carried her up the trail a couple of hundred of yards, turned her around to see the view, let her touch a rock, told her not to touch a cactus, and carried her back to the car.

I knew that Reese was now a little older and more mobile, but I expected the experience to turn out more or less the same as it had before. Seeing that the Lookout Mountain trail was rated “moderate” (not easy) and extended a couple of miles as it wrapped around the mountain, this expectation made complete sense to me. I was sure I would end up carrying her as far as I could, and that would be that.

But that was not Reese’s idea. Not in the least.

She insisted on walking from the start. She moved with her head down as she picked her way quickly along the rocky path. She ran at every opportunity. She led. Over and over she said, “I can do it. I can.”

We came to a turn-around point, at least in my mind. I let her see the view and showed her how far we were above the car. I told her it was time to go back.

She said, “No. Forward.”

I asked her why not back.

She said, “I go around the mountain. I mean it.”

“You’re not kidding?”

“No. I not kidding. I mean it.”

Forward we went. All the way around the mountain we went. She didn’t run out of gas until over two-thirds of the way around. She only fell once. She gave me advice on when I needed to be careful so I wouldn’t fall.

It was amazing.

People grow up. Now I don’t mean that in a negative way, like when one adult says to another adult during an argument, “C’mon, grow up!” I mean it in a positive way, an essential, yet wonderful and often brilliant and surprising way.

The Apostle Paul moved from place to place across the Roman Empire raising the flag of God’s good news of Jesus in public places. He kept his eyes and ears open for people who saluted the gospel flag and wanted to follow this Jesus. He organized them into raw little communities of worship, mutual care, and love to the neighbors around them. He noticed a few people who might make good leaders. Then he moved on.

Paul would stay in touch, answer questions, visit from time to time, and offer input on issues from afar. That’s why we have letters from him retained for us in what we call the New Testament. But, if the Holy Spirit didn’t get into the people, raise them, help them grow up into people who acted as Jesus’ representatives where they were, the whole experiment failed. No church.

A fair amount of what we have in some of Paul’s letters has to do with the harsher, “C’mon, grow up!” that I mentioned before. But, without doubt there were times when the speed and effectiveness with which Paul’s “children” grew up in Christ surprised Paul. There surely were times when he planned to carry them up the trail for a quick view, but ended up going all the way around the mountain with them.

It can be scary to hear that the success or failure of a whole Christian community has almost everything to do with each of our willingness to grow up in faith. Yet it need not be too scary. If generations before us had not grown up, we would never have had the faith handed onto us. But here we are, and so they did.

Now it is simply our turn, perhaps to hand the faith on even more effectively and completely than we received it. Whether the eyes reading these words are in the head of an 8-year-old or an 80-year-old, now it is simply our turn.

May the Holy Spirit grant us the strength and courage for the living of this hour, and for the living of it well. May the Holy Spirit help us all to grow up and walk around the mountain.



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    Author

    Robert here.



    This is something called a Reese Piece. Reese is a nickname for Karyssa, my daughter. 



    Each Reese Piece is a brief exploration of some way I sense God has spoken to me through her.

    God reaches us through the experiences and relationships of daily life. This seems obvious, but I find it’s something which is still easy for me to forget. 


    It is my prayer that “Reese Pieces” will encourage you to look for the ways the Lord is trying to reach you through the life you live each day and the people who populate it.

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