It is interesting how innocently or easily prejudice can have a hold on you and the way you see the world. I’ve only just this morning realized that due to Lady and the Tramp I’ve had a dislike of siamese cats for most of my life.
Are they really as sneaky and sinister as I’ve always thought?!
Quite possibly not!
The reality is that I’ve been caught
–not caught smoking pot
(of which I do not
partake)
But caught up
like throw up
in this messed up
world.
Thanks Disney, I blame you.
I’m sorry, but I’m just not a good enough Christian to be into this. There’s just something offensive to me when we work so hard to make sure that our kids understand their own depravity. I also find it offensive when the greatest story ever told is used instead as some kind of controllable tool to manipulate others behavior.
Don’t get me wrong I’m sure that the people who put this together (in addition to those who use this product) are good people with good intentions. We just see things very differently. They would be equally grossed out by many of my views on theology and childrearing and I’m comfortable to just ‘agree to disagree’.
And don’t get me wrong, using the aforementioned child raising tactics probably means that their children are more ‘appropriately’ behaved than mine–but isn’t it time that we stop defining “well behaved” as “you operate according to my rules when I want you to or else…” and instead think in terms of children learning to make good choices not out of fear of punishment (getting hit over the head with a Bible is definitely punishment) but out of experiences that validate the worth of a health and good choice? If a child makes a bad choice he shouldn’t fear getting lectured to death but should instead experience the consequence that fits that unhealthy decision.
And regardless of parenting preferences, do I really want my children growing up understanding the Bible as a tool used to make them feel bad? Because I should clarify that this blog isn’t (shouldn’t be) about parenting styles or preference in discipline, etc.. No, to me the greater offense is the way in which people are invited to wield the Bible. The Bible is the greatest love story ever told, it is a narrative that gives us a glimpse into God’s overtures of love to his created humanity! Wouldn’t you much rather your children understand the Bible as a grand love story than a rule book? Which one fits better with the life and words of Jesus? And isn’t the point that we want our children to live like, with, and for Jesus? We want them to learn what it means to die to self, to love their neighbor, to know that they are completely loved, to know that they are created perfectly in the image of God, and to know that God does indeed desire them to live free of destructive things such as deceit and laziness (but its not because they’re doing it wrong but because God cares for them and wants them to live free!!!)
While I am intrigued to read the scriptures associated with “tattling” I don’t think I’ll be buying this Bible. I think its important for my children to interact with the story of the Bible–but not this way. I want them to see the life that oozes and drips from its pages, I want them to see the whole of Scripture through the lens of Jesus (’cause he is the perfect image of God himself and therefore the best paradigm we have of understanding God’s activity both past and present), I want them to see the Bible as more than a set of quotable verse to be used to prove your point, and I want them to understand that the Bible’s not about being right but about showing love.
Being right can sometimes be wrong.
I don’t claim to know much about the Israeli/Palestinian crisis nor our awkward involvement in it. But for a show that follows a collection of adult cartoons on the Comedy Central network the Daily Show often seems capable of asking some pretty good questions. These two clips are worth watching for sure.
This is part two in my multifaceted series of really really bad metaphors making absolutely no valuable point whatsoever. So without further adieu…a really poor illustration for life:
When me and my sisters were little my grandma always instructed us to not let the dog lick us. Dogs have dirty mouths of course. She did, however, have one alternative–one way in which dog licking was always aceptable–one way in which she actually encouraged dog licking to happen. “You can let the dog lick your ear as much as you want.” This wasn’t a joke, it wasn’t a tricky way to keep the kids from receiving dog licks. No, she was serious. And so were we. I spent much of my childhood trying to get a dog to lick my ear.
Don’t we all want to have our ear licked by a dog? Imagine in this illustration that you are me, that your ear represents your heart, the dog represents your father, and the tongue represents his love…No, wait, you’re me, the ear is your fear, the dog is God, and the tongue is the BIble…No, that’s not it…hmm…
Just like trying to get my childhood ear licked by my grandma’s dog so too we often spend much of our life trying to get our ears licked by dogs…no, that’s not right either…
Turns out there’s no metaphor or illustration here…turns out my grandma was just a bit crazy and my sisters and I looked just a bit awkward.
I’m thinking it’d be fun to write random posts that are plain and simply really really bad metaphors making absolutely no valuable point whatsoever. Turns out it’s a bit harder than I first thought! So without further adieu…a really poor illustration for life:
I’ve put on about 40 pounds since this whole cancer thing started. Most of it is water weight due to taking steroids. Some of it is actual fat due to inactivity. Regardless I found that it came quite in handy while snorkeling. Turns out I can’t sink. No, seriously, I was so buoyant that as hard as I would try I couldn’t possibly swim three feet below the water. So there I floated for about two hours looking at sea creatures of all kinds. I could barely walk in the water due to the manner in which my legs work/don’t work (we liked to say that I looked like a toddler pretending to be a clown) but boy could I snorkel!
Buoyancy.
Sometimes all we want in life is a little buoyancy. Often times we feel as though we’re walking through life like a toddler pretending to be a clown–stagering and stammering as we swear everyone around us is watching and smirking. Maybe we stammer because we got cancer in our spine that made our legs not work…or maybe we stammer because we drank too much the night before. Regardless, we look awkward, like Jack Sparrow on a tilt a whirl or child who’s dad spun him too fast on the merry go round. If only we could float. If only we could fly. If only we could soar high above the water that causes us to fall. If only.
The answer is simple: drugs. Not drugs in a literal sense, but metaphorically. We all need to be drugged out in life so that we can gain a little weight and thus become more buoyant so we can float above our problems and view the wildlife below. So drink the Koolaid, pick your drug of choice…and may I suggest the drug of love? It’s a pretty good one and I hear it causes havoc on the waistline.