"It's not about you"

[Note: I'm exposing my moorings in the evangelical subculture in this post. It was originally written as a post on a board within that subculture and is here because it grew into full-fledged ramblings. It's time for something new here anyway.]

I've decided that every time I hear the words "It's not about you" spoken in reference to worship styles, I will make a mental note that the speaker has chosen an extreme position. I know that there is often justification for moving to one extreme in order to provide a counterweight to those on the other extreme, but I still need to be aware that what I'm hearing needs some of that other extreme in order to get good balance.

If you take away all other voices, telling the church that church is "not about you" is exposed as ludicrous. The church of Jesus Christ is composed of his disciples. Those disciples meet together in order to worship as a community and to encourage each other in the faith. How can someone come in and tell those people that their meetings are not about them? Can you imagine encountering that statement in the writings of the apostle Paul?

"In him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spririt (Ephesians 2:22)"

"When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church. (1 Corinthians 14:26)"

"Oh, and by the way, it's not about you (???)"

The church is the fellowship of the disciples of Jesus Christ. We are the church. It's ALL about us! It's what we do. We gather as a community of believers. We worship together. We pray together. We encourage each other. We enjoy the warmth of fellowship. If we're structuring our meetings in a way that hinders those basic activities in the name of ministry to nonbelievers who may join us, something is wrong.

What prompts people to make statements such as "It's not about you"? A concern for evangelism. They want our meetings to be attractive to nonbelievers. They want our meetings to be evangelistic events rather than simply times of adoration and encouragement.

I have a theory that a church made up of people who enjoy depth in their worship and warmth in their fellowship will be naturally attractive to nonbelievers. The only missing ingredient is an open door to those nonbelievers. I think it's the open door that those who make the "not about you" statement are advocating.

So where does the balance lie? I suppose it would be nice if once we became Christians, we no longer needed nuture and encouragement. After all, we have the Bible and our devotional life to feed upon. Isn't God all we need? I know a song or two supporting that idea. But I don't see it supported by Scripture. Rather, the fellowship of believers is a central theme of the New Testament. We don't become instant givers when we become Christians. We move into a give-and-take relationship with other believers. At first, it's mostly take with little to give. Later, we give more and take less. But even the most mature Christian needs encouragement and nuture from the body of believers. They need the prayers of others. They need to be valued and listened to. I don't believe that there is anyone who can't benefit from a listening ear. We are all takers at various times in various relationships. Part of being a giving church is recognizing that there is no one who doesn't occasionally need to take a break from giving and become a taker for at least a few moments.

The "not about you" people discredit the needs of the believers in calling attention to the needs of the lost outside the doors. What they fail to see is that the best ministry doesn't discriminate between "lost" and "found" but embraces all as loved of God.

If we believe that every human soul longs to worship, then we have to believe that true worship is attractive to all. Thus, the goal of church gatherings should be to facilitate that level of worship. At which point, we discover that worship is about the worshippers and the Object of their worship, not the nonbelievers.

The "not about you" people fear that such an approach will take us back to the 1950s, to outmoded music and a vocabulary that makes the old people comfortable but has no attraction to anyone without a background in that era. I'm not so sure. I see a lot of boredom on the faces of those stuck in the 1950s in worship styles. They wouldn't be happy driving 1950s cars with no air conditioning or cruise control. I don't think they're really happy with 1950s worship either. They just don't want to be dragged into unfamiliar territory and left floundering while all the attention is focused on the "lost".

What would happen if we focused on facilitating true worship for everyone in the church, including "you"? It would take some listening and some giving. Is there a chance that people standing outside looking in might be attracted to a group that values everyone equally?

Motivation for biting

A friend was speaking of a situation today and I noticed she was using the tone of voice she uses when I say something annoying. Except I was not the cause of the tone today. It was a whole group of people who had irritated her. Although I’m part of that group and was indeed among the offenders, it took more than me to trigger the tone of voice. As she laid out her view of the reason for this annoying behavior, I was struck by the box that she drew around our motivations for acting as we are acting. We lack commitment. We don’t want to get involved. Our priorities are not as they should be. She was trying to be kind in sharing her concerns with us, but could find no other way to characterize our lack of responsiveness. Thus, the awkward tone. It stemmed from discovering troublesome deficiencies in people who ought to be doing better and trying to address those deficiencies without offending anyone.

I’m reminded of a class I once took on "organizational behavior." The author of the textbook for the class pointed out that we tend to assess our own failures as being a response to outside forces, i.e. circumstances prevent us from doing what we ought to do. However, we tend to assess the deficiencies of others as stemming from inner forces, i.e. they could easily do the right thing if only they had the necessary motivation. This was a classic example of that mindset.

I’m in the group of noncommital people who are not stepping up to the plate to take a turn at bat. If my friend were to ask me why and genuinely invite me to share my thoughts on the subject, I would cite outside hindrances. I’d like to be more involved, but there are obstacles in my path. She’s not asking the question. In her mind, she already knows the answer. And that answer lies within me. Even if she asked and listened to my answer, she would discount the obstacles as much less significant than I’m making them. The bottom line is, I don’t care like I ought to care. If I did, I would pick up my bat and start swinging.

How do we break through impasses such as this?

In another situation, a person is being assessed as being involved in deliberate wrongdoing. I have heard the statement, "He knew what he was doing was wrong," over and over. Not only are those making that statement assigning faulty motivation but a deliberate choice of wrong over right. No quarter is being given. He did wrong and must pay for his deeds. There has even been talk of bringing in the law, or at least threatening to call the media.

Is what they are saying true? Not from the point of view of the accused. I’ve talked to him. He admits that he "screwed up" but truly believes he had the best motivations for what he did and was more right than wrong. I suspect that both the court of law and the media would find his version of what happened more compelling than that of those accusing him of wrongdoing.

I’m in the middle, standing between the mob with their pitchforks and torches and the ogre with his admirable goals but disgusting social habits. How do I persuade the mob to go back to their homes and businesses and give up exposing the onion-like ogre as a monster? This impasse has exposed a rather ugly side of several among the mob. I feel sort of like I did years ago when one child took another’s coloring book and refused to give it back per my instructions and the offended child took matter into his own hands, er, teeth, by biting the offender. I couldn’t decide which crime to address first and how to balance the punishment. It was a watershed moment in developing my skills as a parent. But in this case, I’m not the parent and these aren’t children. Sending them to separate rooms to play apart since they can’t play well together isn’t an option.

In discussing this situation with a team member, I observed that there is some "biting" happening on both sides in response to perceived wrongs. The response I received was that this should not be. Adults should act like adults and not stoop to returning evil for evil. Knowing that the person saying this was a minister, I asked about her beliefs concerning the innate depravity of our species. She seems to think we should suppress our depravity. I don’t disagree with her, but my observation is that our best approaches to suppression tend to develop leaks under pressure.

Are people basically self-centered? The doctrine of the depravity of man would certainly support that position. However, the tempering factor that saves human society is that self is generally best served by at least giving the appearance of being honest and upright and having good social skills. By doing good, we feel good about ourselves, like we’ve earned a right to live on this earth and to be treated decently by others.

My minister friend seems to think that mature people should be good for goodness sake rather than because it yields positive results. My annoyed friend seems to think that we aren’t even motivated enough to be good because of the built-in social benefits of goodness. Meanwhile, it seems to me that we’re all doing the best we can given the circumstances under which we’re living – whether for goodness sake or in response to social pressures is debatable. The crunch comes when the cost-to-benefit ratio of doing the right thing increases. How many will continue to do good when it doesn’t pay well even in intangible benefits?

I don’t know that I have any answers here, but after twelve days, it seemed like it was time to say something and this has been on my mind.

The Piano Tuner

I once read an internet exchange in which one of the participants was a stay-at-home mom. I can’t remember how it came up but she mentioned that it wasn’t like she was so lonely she carried on conversations with service people. I guess I’m that lonely. I’ve always enjoyed chatting with people who come to my house to fix my appliances or do construction work. I try to keep in mind that they are charging by the hour whether they’re working or talking but figure a few minutes here and there won’t cost me an arm and a leg. Most of them are interesting people who are part of my rural community, often with mutual interests such as the school or church. It would seem odd to me to not say anything to them while they were in my home.

One of my most frequent visitors in that category is the piano tuner. I don’t have my piano tuned as often as I ought, but I generally call him at least once a year unless my brother from Florida happens to be on one of his cross-country piano-tuning tours. It has probably been 20 years since the first time he tuned my piano and he and my brother are the only ones that have tuned it since that first time. He told me Tuesday that he’s 81 years old. Not surprisingly, mention of “the fields of Flander” will bring tears to his eyes. He occasionally speaks of the war, not frequently, but with a grief that has endured all the years since he served in Europe as a young man.

The piano tuner is an actor. He has played “Daddy Warbucks” and is an obvious choice for that role. He and his wife are frequently in plays at a small theater in our county seat. I’ve never met his wife and never seen him perform. Their next play is in June. I would like to make a point to be there for one of the performances. Maybe this time it will work out to do that.

The piano tuner is Catholic. He’s a family man. I think he told me Tuesday that his wife bore 12 children. Later I think he mentioned that they raised 11 children. He’s told me about his children enough over the years that I ought to know the count but it slips my mind. His children are multi-talented. Six of his girls sing the national anthem in four-part harmony at major sporting events in Indianapolis. Several have been or are professional musicians. He loves his children and is justifiably proud of them.

The piano tuner loves his wife. Every time he comes he tells me again about how petite she is, yet she raised those 11 children and is still going strong today. He knows that I’m a librarian and asked me Tuesday why I wasn’t working. I told him the library didn’t open until 1:00 pm. Then with a smile I pointed out that I actually was working, just not outside the home. That reminded him of the time someone asked his wife, “Oh, you don’t work?” Apparently, they didn’t think that raising 11 children counted as working. He finds her amazing.

The piano tuner likes to talk. He told me of the time he was at the national piano tuners conference and a young lady was speaking and said that when she went to a house to “talk to” a piano, she explained to the homeowners, that she could not talk and tune their piano at the same time and requested that they not bother her. He nudged the man next to him and noted that his response to that statement would be to ask her to leave. The reason he’s still tuning pianos at 81 is because of the people.

The piano tuner likes me. I try to choose tasks while he’s tuning that keep me within easy earshot of the livingroom. He takes occasional breaks and will make enough noise to draw me back for another short chat. Or he will call my name and ask me for something small such as a table knife or a cough drop. Tuesday he called me back to the room several times simply so he could tell me something that had crossed his mind. I didn’t mind. The tuning takes around an hour and a half including the chit-chat. I can generally get a few things done during that time and it only happens once a year or so.

I like the piano tuner. He’s an interesting person, different from my usual partners in conversation. Plus he likes me. As I wrote out a check to pay him Tuesday he said, “If I’ve never told you before, I’ll tell you now: You’re one of my favorite customers.” He’s told me that before. It still makes me feel good. I’m aware that I don’t always wear well with people. It’s nice to know that at least one person still enjoys talking to me after 20 years. His rates for making me feel good about myself are lower than a therapist and come with a piano tuning and interesting conversation. It’s not a bad exchange at all.

I hope that if I make it to 81, I can find ways to still be a blessing to those around me. Like the piano tuner.

Thoughts while sitting in the dark

A “severe thunderstorm” has passed by and severed our connection with the power grid. I was putting the final touches on an e-mail on the desktop computer when the lights went out and all my carefully constructed words were reduced to a pile of 1's and 0's back in the old bit bucket. Sigh. Will I ever be able to construct them into anything close to the masterpiece I lost? Ok, it was just a simple response to a friend asking about strategies for purchasing airfare on the internet. Maybe I can remember my main points. Still, it’s sad to lose words that have been strung together with care. I’ve had much greater disasters involving computers and writing projects, but even small ones bring some measure of loss.

So here I am on my laptop with 2:21 hours of battery power, which ought to get me into the territory of “reasonable” bedtime. I have an old-fashioned oil lamp lit to soften the contrast between the laptop screen on its lowest brightness setting and the darkness of a house with no power on a rainy night.

The possibilities for evening activities without power are surprisingly limited. What did people do in the days before oil was found to be useful? More, what did we do during evening power outages before the laptop purchase? I suppose I should be playing games with someone. I can’t remember the last time game-playing was at the top of my list of preferred activities. My husband and I discovered early in our relationship that we would remain friends much longer if we never played games with each other. It's not something I particularly miss.

Power outages are interesting revelations of how strong habits can be. No matter how many light switches I flip without any light being produced, I continue to reach out and flip them periodically as I move from room to room. At some level I always expect the next one to work and am disappointed anew when it doesn't.

On the other hand, I’m always surprised that the piano works. The stereo doesn’t. The television doesn’t. The computers don’t. Nor the refrigerator, microwave, or answering machine. The phone on the wall works, but not the cordless phones. The flashlights work but only until their batteries are dead. The portable radio telling us of local storm damage also has limited battery life. My lamp will run out of oil eventually if I leave it on. We have running water but only until the pressure tank is empty. But the piano simply works – no batteries, no electricity, no time limit. It’s a purely mechanical appliance. I don’t know why, but this amazes me. I might even play it if it if my husband weren’t choosing sleep as his way to while away the hours of darkness and the piano weren’t so badly in need of tuning. It finally has reached the point where I called the piano tuner last week. He will be here Tuesday morning. The power will surely be back on long before then, but it doesn’t matter. He starts with an old-fashioned tuning fork and does the whole thing by ear. No external power source needed.

So even in the dark I could be making thunderous music right here in our livingroom without draining power from anything but my own fingers and arms. I wonder what else we could do mechanically if electricity weren’t so convenient? We may never know unless the world forces us to quit using up the earth’s resources and melting the polar ice-cap with our insatiable appetite for electric power.

The Children’s Museum at Indianapolis used to have a stationary bike that generated electricity. It took sustained, high-energy pedaling to turn on a lightbulb and I never managed to get the small television turned on. Just think what it would do to alleviate America’s obesity problem if every television were powered by pedaling. Families could get additional pedals and share the load for extended times of viewing or for a bigger screen.

Our kitchens could be peddle-powered, too. We could put a hot dog in the microwave and pedal like mad until the end burst open. I wonder if we would break even calorie-wise on that deal.

Meanwhile, it has been almost two hours since the lights went out. I can save this but I can’t post. I hear snoring from the sleep-it-off half of the household. It might be time to make sure all the light switches are in the “off” position, blow out the lamp, and call it a night.

Wait ... there’s a hardly-used modem in this laptop. The phone line is live. Yes, I think I can post if I can find my way through the darkness to an appropriate phone jack. THEN I’ll call it a night.

Enjoy your electricity, dear readers. Hopefully, the power outage is over as you read this. There have been a couple of hopeful flickers and I’m confident that our faithful linemen will prevail.

Frustration, Trust, Cooperation, and Synergy

In Stephen Covey’s book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, the author recommends that one teach or at least discuss the material in the book within 48 hours of reading it. I first read the book not long after its 1989 publication date. A few weeks ago I started teaching from it. That’s a little over the 48-hour recommended gap between learning and teaching but it took that long for the teaching opportunity to come along.

As I’ve gone through the book again, I’ve been surprised by how much of it I have retained, not necessarily in my mind as something I read in that particular book, but as a “habit,” you might say. I have a personal mission statement that I first developed while reading that book and have updated periodically over the years. I review it now and again and consider how my default priorities correlate with the goals therein. I try to plan by the month and week rather than one day at a time - when I’m on top of things enough to plan at all. An occasional thought pops into my mind about things like paradigm shifts and emotional bank accounts and the contrast between my "circle of concern" and my "circle of influence", concepts I first encountered in The 7 Habits ...

I’ve also forgotten much of what I read in the book, enough that I’m pretty much stuck at being sort of rather than highly effective. Maybe teaching it will help my retention and I will be able to move up to somewhat effective. Or maybe not.

Last week’s lesson was on Habit #6 – “Synergize®” As predicted, teaching the material is increasing its impact in my own mind. I’ve been pondering the concept of synergy (the whole is more than the sum of the parts) all week.

There’s a graph in the chapter on synergy. I’m a mathematical thinker. Graphs speak to me and stick with me. On the graph, the ‘y’ axis is trust; the ‘x’ axis is cooperation. When trust and cooperation are low, people tend to find Win/Lose solutions to conflict. One side wins, the other loses. Moderate levels of trust and cooperation might lead to compromise, everyone loses a little and wins a little. It takes high levels of both trust and cooperation to discover Win/Win solutions through synergy, a final answer better than any of the initial solutions proposed by those involved in the discussion/conflict.

Set against this concept in my mind are some frustrating situations in my life. I’m banging my head against the wall. I look at the situations and long for an atmosphere that would enable synergistic Win/Win solutions. Instead, I find people who are too bent on winning to care that I’m losing and who are not interested in cooperating with me. As a result, according to Habit #4 (Think Win/Win) we’re all losing. Dr. Covey makes the point in that chapter that those who make Win/Lose choices actually lose. In the end, there is no Win/Lose or Lose/Win, only Win/Win or Lose/Lose.

This frustrates me, to put it mildly. Why can’t we sit down and let synergy do its magic as we come up with a Win/Win solution that is better than any one person can formulate alone? I’m not the only one frustrated by walls being erected in the organization as a result of mistrust. Why can’t we address the issues together and work toward synergistic solutions?

As I’ve thought about this, it has occurred to me that my own frustration is both a symptom of the problem and a cause of the problem. Those building the walls don’t trust me and are not willing to cooperate with me. They simply put up walls and shut me out of the decision-making process. Hearing me bang my head against those walls bolsters their confidence that the walls were a good idea. As my frustration at losing mounts, their desire to interact with me decreases. Shut the door. Keep her out. She can’t be trusted. There’s no use trying to cooperate with her. Take the win. Don’t worry about the losers. Losers are emotionally unstable and irrational. I end up isolated and alone behind the wall. No one hears my cries. Many around me are dealing with their own walls.

There is one other option besides Win/Win or Lose/Lose according to Dr. Covey - No Deal. Neither side wins; neither side loses. The parties involved agree that there will be no solution and either go their separate ways or move on to other priorities depending on the desirability of a continued relationship.

One side cannot force a Win/Win solution if the other side isn’t willing to trust and cooperate. That leaves Lose/Lose or No Deal. However, if a wonderful, synergistic Win/Win solution is lost through No Deal, isn’t that also a loss?

To reach Win/Win, one side has to decide to trust and cooperate with the other, even when trust has been previously violated. I can’t do it. These people have shown a willingness to shut people out (including me), a lack of concern for the interests of others. Even though it may be my own frustration that has prompted them to shut the door on me, I still can’t trust them enough to take the first step toward cooperation while they're still blocking me out.

It’s at this point that I’m thrown back on my faith. I can’t trust the people involved to care about me, but I can choose to trust God to do so. Jesus taught that those who freely accept Lose/Win decisions that are forced on them are winners in the end. (See Matthew 5:38-41) That Win may be a long time coming. Or maybe not. If I offer cooperation and express trust in God that the wall will not finally defeat me, is there hope that trust and cooperation will be offered in return? It’s something to ponder anyhow.

An old poem whose origins are lost to me comes to mind:

He drew a circle that shut me out
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But love and I had the wit to win,
We drew a circle that took him in.

I need to go look for some circle-drawing chalk.

Karaoke

Some among the powers-that-be at the church to which I belong have decided that those who decline invitations to join our fellowship of Christian believers may be staying away because they find our services less attractive than alternative activities (i.e. boring). The obvious solution is to do something more interesting than lining up on long wooden pews singing “church songs” together and listening to long prayers and an extended lecture about some passage of the Bible. Thus, one Sunday evening a month is being set aside for “fun and fellowship” rather than the usual Sunday evening service. I have mixed feelings about that move, seeing both positive and negative points, but that’s a topic for another time and place. None of those feelings are strong enough to merit a blog entry. After all, I have yet to find the verse in the Bible that commands Christians to attend two church services every Sunday. Primarily, I’m just going with the flow without comment.

Last evening was our second such event. It was a karaoke night. Having led a sheltered life, this was my first exposure to the activity. I was amazed. The high school student beside me at the table insisted strongly at the outset that “I don’t sing!” However, by the end of the evening, she had joined one or both of her younger brothers and young cousin several times behind the microphone. People who have been part of my church family for years and whom I’ve never heard sing took the microphone voluntarily. For some, the result explained why they don’t participate in special music for church services. Others revealed unknown talents and made me wonder why they’ve never responded to requests for more musicians to become involved in our church music program.

By my unofficial count, there were 47 in attendance for this event, double the number present the week before for an “ordinary” evening service. Of those, eighteen, more than a third, took the microphone for either a solo or group song besides the unison “table songs”. Only three of those who performed do special music in our services on a regular basis. Several who have very nice singing voices declined to participate. Most of the 15 who sang other than those three regular church soloists had not previously revealed their ambitions for public performance. What is it about an open mic and a karaoke machine that breaks down the inhibitions people have about standing in front of a fairly large group of people and displaying their musical skills?

Did I feel the pull? Yes, it was there. Knowing that I might not be the worst singer in the group based on what I was hearing was probably part of that pull. I guess that’s the blessing of those whose dreams and ambitions exceed their musical skills. They make it easier for others to take the risk of embarrassing themselves. I went so far as to look over the selections available to see if one would grab me and propel me to the front. None did. I do often wish I had better singing skills because I would love to be able to include the lyrics when I make music rather than just playing the tune on the piano. The selections available didn’t include any of the songs that stir up those wishes. They were more for fun. If I’m going to do things for fun, I’ll stick to the piano -- Henry Mancini, Floyd Kramer, and such. If karaoke included piano music, I definitely would have been up there doing “The Pink Panther” since the remake of that movie is still playing at the local theater and I love playing Henry Mancini music. Instead, I just enjoyed being part of the audience and sometimes sang along softly. Being the interim pianist for church services, I have no lack of opportunity to display what talents I have on the instrument for which I have the most skills – the piano. In truth, I don’t consider a church service the best setting for a performance since the purpose of such a gathering is to glorify God rather than individuals among the congregation, but the challenge of using my skills to bring others into the presence of God is plenty for me. I don’t need performance opportunities.

I went to the karaoke night with apprehension. Would there be arm-twisting to get people to perform? Would the pressure make anyone uncomfortable? Was it really an event to which one could invite someone who wasn’t part of the church crowd?

I was pleasantly surprised. I had thought that recreational singing was pretty much a lost activity outside people sitting in pews in churches. I had heard that public speaking was among the greatest fears of people. Surely, public singing would be an even greater fear.

I learned some things last night. We have people sitting quietly in the pews every week who would share their musical talents with us given the right opportunity. I'm not sure what to do with this knowledge, how to provide those opportunities as an avenue for ministry, but I find it interesting.

Did the karaoke night accomplish it's purpose of attracting people who think our church services are boring? Well, it brought some people back Sunday night who wouldn't ordinarily return for the evening service. And we had a Methodist join us for a while. Other than that, it was just the usual crowd having some fun together instead of doing the usual pew thing. Maybe that's not a bad thing to accomplish.

Good works

I see I passed the one-year anniversary mark of this blog a week ago without notice. I still haven't settled on a theme, a direction, a purpose for the whole blogging experience. The topics I've pondered have been pretty random.

One area I have sort of stayed away is spiritual issues. Maybe it's time to go there.

I was in a Bible study last evening that dealt with Matthew chapter 3 where John the Baptist says to the people coming from Jerusalem for baptism: "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?" The discussion involved the wrath of God. I noticed that the passage didn't actually give the source for the "coming wrath," only mentioned that it was coming. Was it the wrath of God or the wrath of enemies or from some other source? The New Testament deals more with the love of God than the wrath of God. Was it reading too much into this passage to presume that the wrath mentioned was God's wrath?

Asking such a question wouldn't have really fit into the tone of the discussion so I drifted off into my own thoughts. Let's see... are there other New Testament passages about the wrath of God? Yes, Romans chapter 1, verses 18-32. What struck me in this passage, however, is that the consequences of wrong choices were placed in this life. The discussion going on around me focused more on judgment and punishment after death. Does the wrath of God have more to do with eternal damnation or with more immediate natural consequences of godless living? Because the people mentioned chose to ignore God, they suffered the sad consequences of their life choices.

I continued into Romans chapter 2. Ah, here it does indeed talk about the "day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed." So then, if there is an element of "wrath" that is simply the natural result of decisions made and comes in this life, is there a chance that even in the day of judgment the wrath of God is less overt and more a natural consequence of choices being made that reject the love of God? C.S. Lewis, in The Great Divorce, depicted people choosing to forego heaven because the requirements for entry were offensive to them. They could have entered but it would have cost them dearly and they chose to remain outside. In view of John's assertion that "God is love," can we look at alternative views of the nature of God's wrath?

Then I came to verses 6 and 7 in Romans chapter 2. "God 'will give to each person according to what he has done'. To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor, and immortality, he will give eternal life." (The inner quotes refer back to two Old Testament passages that give this same message.)

That was the end of my study of God's wrath toward those who do wrong. What's this about those who do good? I know from other passages that it's not good deeds that put us in right relationship with God. We are saved by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8). However, here's an interesting insight into life beyond the narrow gate by which we enter into relationship with God.

"To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor, and immortality ..." How does one seek glory and honor and immortality by persistence in doing good? Aren't we to do all things for the glory and honor of God? (see 1 Corinthians 10:13) But immortality would be for the person doing good, not for God. Does doing good bring honor and glory in addition to immortality? What is involved in "doing good"? As a young man once asked Jesus (as recorded in Matthew 19:16), "What good thing must I do to get eternal life?" Jesus' response was that he needed to keep the commandments. When the young man pushed for more specific direction, Jesus suggested that if he wanted to be perfect he should sell all his possessions and give to the poor and become one of Jesus' disciples.

Doing good. Valuing people is good. Caring is good. Educating is good. Contributing to the community in various ways is good. Giving is good. Going to bat for the weak and oppressed is good.

Does doing those things result in glory and honor? Possibly. Sometimes it might even be during the lifetime of the do-gooder. Other times the glory and honor might be delayed.

There is mystery in eternal reward. Most paradigms of the modern evangelical church follow a black-and-white pattern. Heaven or hell, which will it be? Eternal reward or eternal punishment? You're either in or out, a sheep or a goat. The Bible isn't nearly so clearcut. It talks about some receiving many blows and others being beaten with few blows (Luke 12:47-48). It talks about great reward in heaven (Matthew 5:12) and being saved but barely and with loss (1 Corinthians 3:15). The parable of the workers in the vineyard (Matthew 20:1-16) ends with everyone receiving the same compensation regardless of the amount of time they spent working, but several other places correlate reward to how one lives, including the Roman passage and Revelation 22:12 where Jesus promises to "give to everyone according to what he has done."

Maybe it's because I'm in a tradition which emphasizes that salvation is obtained by faith rather than works, but I don't hear much about the value of good works. Glory, honor, and immortality. That seems like a pretty good payback for pursuing good works while depending on God's grace for the basic entry level into his kingdom.

One would think that it would be obvious that Christians should do good works. After all, Ephesians 2:10 says that we were "created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." However, that message seems to be lost in the evangelical community. Rather than good works, we're called to focus on evangelism, on saving the lost.

Sometimes I wonder if I need to hole up someplace with my Bible and let it permeate my being without the filter of the church. I wonder how my life would change if I did that and whether it would be a healthy change.

Meanwhile, there is good to be done and little opportunity for withdrawal to lonely places.

Weeds and long-toothed enemies

I see it has been two weeks since I posted anything here. I'm pleased to report that it has been a rodent-free two weeks. At least if there are rodents sharing my living quarters they're smart enough to stay quiet and out of sight.

However... I'm still dealing with the lingering effects of the voles in the corner of the basement.

For many years, I've noticed a strange phenomenon in the spring. My houseplants sprout weeds. These are indoor plants, never allowed out of the house. Completely domesticated. Yet, in March or April a weed pops up here and another one there. This leads to several questions in my mind. What is the source of the weed seed? Why only in spring? How does a seed that has somehow managed to invade the fertile soil of a houseplant know when its time to grow?

I've never found the answers to those questions. This year, however, things are different. It's only February. Spring is not here yet. Most of my houseplants are wintering under the grow light in the basement. I move them there to make room for the Christmas tree in December and they tend to stay there until I get around to starting seedlings for the garden under the light. Shortly after my last blog entry, I discovered weeds growing in several of the plants. Why? Why so many? Why in February? They were in bunches as though emerging from a pile of seeds. There were many, many little seedlings.

As the days passed, these seedlings opened up their first leaves and I recognized them -- buckwheat. I know those leaves. They are similar to morning glory leaves but not quite the same. I plant buckwheat in my garden to keep the soil busy when I'm not growing other things. (It has to do with the nature and vacuum conflict.) It grows, blooms in little white flowers of no particular beauty, develops seeds, replants itself, and starts the cycle over. The source that recommended it for this use says to turn it under before it flowers in order to prevent it from becoming a nuisance. I don't bother. I've been planting it for years and it has never become a nuisance. When winter comes it all dies. This is a good thing.

Morning glories on the other hand are determined to lay claim to my entire garden. I pull up hundreds of seedlings all summer long. Always a few escape my notice and manage to produce their quite pleasing flowers, lulling me into thinking that surely just one or two morning glory plants in some quiet corner of the garden can't be all that bad and setting me up for another summer-long battle with morning glory seedlings sneaking into every bed in the garden. It's because of the morning glories that I've come to know buckwheat first leaves so well. I have to be able to distinguish between them in order to wage my battle against the morning glories trying to pass themselves off as buckwheat seedlings.

Buckwheat growing in my houseplants. This is not happenstance. This is the work of the voles. Oh well, the houseplants need something. No big deal. I like having things growing in my little basement garden nook in February.

A week ago, I decided to start some cabbage, cauliflower, and broccoli seeds under the grow lights. It's not that cole crops ever actually develop into anything in my garden, but it gives me something springy to do in February when it's still too early to start tomatoes and such.

I pulled out my meager seed cache (reduced greatly by the vole invaders), my seed trays, and potting soil. I had a new large bag of soil which hadn't been opened, but had a hole in the top. When I opened it up, I discovered not just potting soil but, you guessed it, buckwheat seedlings! They were rather light-starved since they'd been growing in a bag of dirt in a cabinet. I decided to ignore them. I'd simply uproot them and bury them in the seed trays. The decaying plant matter could provide nutrients for the new seedlings. I planted my seeds, watered the tray, put it down under the grow lights, and forgot about it for a few days. When I went to check on it, guess what I found. Many, many seedlings shooting up toward the light. Whoa! I didn't plant this many cabbage seeds. As a farmer once said when confronted with a similar situation in a parable told by Jesus Christ, "An enemy hath done this!" Obviously, there were not only buckwheat seedlings in the potting soil, but also not-yet-germinated buckwheat seeds. How would I tell the difference between the buckwheat and my cole crop seedlings? The farmer in Jesus' parable decided to let both the wheat and the "tares" grow together until the harvest lest pulling up the "tares" destroy the wheat plants, but I decided that I might be able to take a different approach. All week, as soon as the little seedlings open up their first leaves and I positively indentify them as buckwheat I've been nipping them off with a thumbnail. It has helped that there are so many of them and they're growing around the edges of the tray compartments rather than sprouting from the center where I put my seeds.

Yesterday for the first time, I noticed a seedling that looked different from the many buckwheat sprouts still sprouting. It was a darker green. It was growing from the center of the compartment. I think it's the real thing. The color difference will make it easier to continue nipping off the buckwheat without being so concerned that I might be killing off my cole crop before I even get it out into the inhospitable garden plot.

Those voles were busy! They stashed buckwheat in the potting soil, my houseplants, AND my laundry. (Fortunately, it was dry laundry and I managed to get those seeds out the back door before they sprouted.) The evidence of their activity is still popping up these two weeks later.

The mousetraps are staying. I ended up throwing out all the remaining buckwheat seeds and included a new supply with this spring's seed catalog order. Although it's a weed in the basement, I'm still open to the idea of planting it in my garden to choke out more obnoxious weeds.

Death to voles that come in the house! I need to get the word out.

Cold-blooded rodent murder

I drowned two small rodents this week. I held their little heads under water until they quit struggling. I don't remember ever drowning an animal before. (This may be a case of suppressed memories.) A darker side of my personality may be emerging.

Critter #1 was a gray mouse with bright little black button eyes. It was clumsy. Rather than being caught in my trap properly by jostling the trip level while enjoying a last meal of peanut butter, it apparently tripped over the trigger in passing and was caught by its back leg. This, of course, was not fatal. I heard the trap snap shut in the wee hours of the morning in the attic-closet beside our bedroom. I heard the trap being dragged across the floor. I heard rustlings. I heard the trap being dragged around some more. I thought of the mementoes and Christmas decorations stored in that attic space and the destruction done to such items when a mouse discovers them. I wondered how much of the mouse was caught and thought about the possibility of it chewing off the trapped body part and continuing to live in the attic. By the end of an hour, I had moved on to meditating my approach to mouse murder.

Trying to make as little noise as possible in order to avoid disturbing my husband (whose chosen form of mouse elimination is poison), I gathered a flashlight, an old sherbert container, and a magazine. The capture of mouse and trap didn't go as smoothly nor as quietly as I hoped (a couple of involuntary "eeks" escaped my mouth when the mouse got too close for comfort), but eventually I emerged with mouse and trap in the sherbert container and the magazine acting as a lid.

Ordinarily, at this point, I would consider release outside. However, there were a couple of aggravating factors. (1) I wasn't ready to give up my trap and couldn't figure out how to release the mouse without getting bitten. (2) I had been home alone most of the week and this mouse had been impersonating an intruder in the night with its rustlings, depositing droppings on the utensils in my kitchen drawers, and then moving into the attic with our family keepsakes, leaving me with less than kindly feelings toward it. I'll spare you the details of what happened in the bathroom, but it was over fairly quickly and the mouse was dead when I disposed of it on the woods side of the house.

Just a few days later, I found buckwheat seeds in my clean laundry. Grrrrr!!! There were two crimes committed here -- messing up my laundry and wreaking destruction in the drawer in the basement where I store my garden seeds. My thoughts turned to that little gray mouse and I was glad I had drowned it and wished I could do it again. However, when I checked my seed drawer, I heard rustlings in the wall behind the cabinet. Grrr. More traps.

This time I caught voles -- little brown mouse-like rodents. The first two were clean killings. Vole #3 ran off with my trap. I searched high and low through the garden clutter before finding it. Another incomplete kill. It should have been dead. The trap had closed over its neck and skull, doing plenty of damage. Yet, it was still alive at 10 in the morning! I admired its will to live but felt obliged to finish it off after doing so much damage. There was a bucket of collected rainwater outside the basement door. I dropped mouse and trap in the bucket and held it down. I waited for the struggling to stop. And waited. The little critter must have had an extraordinary will to live. It lasted much longer underwater than the mouse did a few days earlier.

Two rodents deprived of life in just a few days. Premeditation in each case. I'm hoping the word gets around the neighborhood rodent population.

I put what seeds weren't ruined in plastic boxes and threw out the rest, but I probably need to do a house inspection for entry points. I prefer to live at peace with my furry woodland neighbors as much as possible.

Serving the public

I am the librarian at a small public library in a rural community. Our collection includes microfilm of 125 years or so of the local weekly newspaper. Until sometime in 2004, we had a microfilm viewer with no printing capabilities. If someone wanted to take away information from the newspaper archive, they either had to copy it by hand or request a copy from the state library, which also maintains newspaper archives.

In 2004, thanks to the generosity of a donor and ongoing improvements in technology, we were able to purchase a microfilm viewer/scanner. It uses TWAIN (Technology Without An Interesting Name) to feed a scanned image of what is on the microfilm to a computer where it can be manipulated and printed or sent out by e-mail.

This piece of technology has been a mixed blessing. Our prints tend to be low quality with some areas too dark to read and others too light and most everything a bit blurred. I’ve invested much time trying to find the key to legible copies. The most recent breakthrough was when I discovered that our color inkjet printer gives better results than the laser printer. Things still aren’t perfectly clear, but they’re better. Trying alternative image-processing software has also helped.

This week a couple came into the library wanting to do newspaper research and I set them up on the microfilm reader/scanner, letting them know that we could indeed produce prints using our circulation computer if desired, although we struggle with the quality of those prints. A while later, they informed my coworker that they had found a page they wanted printed and I left my office work to assist with the process.

Could we print the entire sheet? No, only what is in the viewing area of the reader – about half a page at a time. That was a disappointment but they positioned the top half of a page of ads in the viewer and asked for a print of it. I grabbed the computer between patrons checking out library materials and did the scan. This was the first time we’d ever tried to capture the entire screen. I was pleased by the on-screen quality of the scan. I sent it to the inkjet printer and stepped out of the way so that my coworker could process checkouts for the next patron.

We waited. And waited. And waited. I checked to see if the printer was on. It was. Finally, it came to life and picked up a sheet of paper and printed a fraction of an inch. Then stopped. Then printed another small portion. My coworker reported that the circulation software was bogged down. We were obviously taxing the capacity of the computer. Mrs. Researcher found the process annoyingly slow.

Finally, the finished product emerged. I was amazed. The entire half sheet of newsprint was landscaped on 8 ½ X 11 inch paper and was as sharp as if we had copied the print version of the paper on our copier. I was quite pleased as I handed it to Mrs. Researcher. She, too, was amazed. “It’s so small!” Well, yes, neither of our printers accept 11X17 paper. Placing half a sheet of newsprint on 8 ½ X 11 paper is going to reduce it substantially. Yet, it was legible!

She decided it would have to do and had her husband reposition the scanner to the bottom half of the page. I elbowed my way back into the ongoing circulation process and did a second slow scan while everyone in line waited. I sent that scan off to the printer and waited for the results to be slowly rendered in ink. Mrs. Researcher opined that we need to consider getting a faster printer. I obligingly suggested that we could use the very fast laser printer if she preferred but that we had discovered the quality was better with the inkjet. She grudgingly waited. Again, I was thrilled with the quality of the printout, the best I’d seen since we purchased the scanner. I need to investigate further to see if the secret is in scanning a larger area so that the software isn’t trying to enlarge the area selected for scanning.

Mr. and Mrs. Researcher paid their 20 cents for two copies and went on their way with little in the way of thanks for services provided. I suspect they find no end of low-quality service in their lives. Imagine having to invest two entire dimes plus 20 minutes or so to get a copy of a single page of newsprint split in half and substantially reduced. You’d think they’d have better service at a public library no matter how small. It might have helped if there had been a computer dedicated to their project rather than used for other tasks during the printing process. People just aren’t considerate of the needs of visitors in these backwoodsy areas.

I never cease to be amazed by the contrasts in attitude among various people when requesting services. Most of our visitors asking for prints of newspaper articles are considerate and patient and thrilled to get a copy of the information they came seeking.

Then there are the others. We try to give them the same friendly service we give the congenial ones, but now I’m using my blog to inform the whole world of one couple's insensitivity to their surroundings. If you know someone with a reduced copy of a page of ads from the Odon newspaper, don’t tell them you read this here, OK? Or if you do, tell them only how grateful the librarian is for the renewed hope of being able to produce good prints from the microfilm scanner. Which is the honest truth.

Birthdays

Yesterday was my 48th birthday. 48! How can I have lived almost half a century in so little time? I think I've run into some kind of time warp. This awareness is particularly acute when I have to choose my birth year from a drop-down menu. Scroll, scroll, scroll ... Past the 80s (my children and their peers), past the 70s (all those young parents), past the 60s (my younger brothers), and finally back to 1958. Can it be that I was born in the 1950s, that time of slicked-back hair and leather jackets? I have no sense of connection to the characters from "Grease". Yet, I learned to walk and talk before the 60s arrived. Can it be that I am a contemporary of flower children and Jesus Freaks and draft dodgers? Though I was only a child during those tumultuous years of the 1960s and don't consider myself a part of that era, I have to reach back beyond the 1960s to find my birth year. Ridiculous. Just ridiculous.

One problem with piling up 48 years of living is how the accumulated list of regrettable acts has grown so long and bothersome. I suppose everyone has done some regrettable things and said regrettable words by the time they are 20. If they listed the ten most regrettable memories, they might come up with maybe a few doozies and then some not hardly worth listing. By the time they're 30, they've added a couple more doozies toward the top of the list and dropped off some of those less memorable regrets from the bottom. At 48, the number of memories that still make me cringe long after the actual event has expanded to push those weak entries from my first 20 years way down on the list. I've had time to accumulate quite a number of regrets that, even with years to gain perspective and find healing, make me cry if I look too closely at them. The price I would pay to be able to rectify the most painful and humiliating parts of that portion of my personal history for which I bear responsibility has grown.

I remember a high school teacher once commenting that we remain the same person no matter how old we become, that he or she (fading memory has robbed me of that detail) was still the child s/he had once been within. Now that I'm at a point to better evaluate the truth of that statement, I'm not sure. Am I the same person I was at 11, that fateful year when my best friend moved away and left me to the mercy of girl bullies who declared me a social outcast? the year I discovered that I might find better friends among my fellow outcasts than among the popular crowd? the year my teacher smiled at me personally after years of feeling unattractive and/or somehow invisible to most of the adults in my life?

Am I the same person I was when I turned 20 and was planning my wedding and future? Am I the same person I was at 25 when I traveled alone as a woman engineer working for the US Navy in civil service through the Montreal airport and Canadian customs and drove to a company in Ontario? Am I the same person I was when I turned 30 and was a full-time mother to three preschoolers and took on the responsibility of keeping the financial records for my church? Am I the same person I was at 40 when those preschoolers hit adolescence and one of them closed the windows of his soul to me?

I'm not sure. I'd like to think that the forces that have shaped me over the years, including those regrettable moments I mentioned earlier, have changed me for the better as I've learned lessons and made choices in response to those forces. Although I am the keeper of the memories, both painful and wonderful of that little girl and young woman I once was, I don't think I would tell a classroom of impressionable teenagers that I am still the person I was when I sat in that high school classroom so many years ago. Experience, maturity, perspective, and my spiritual journey have changed me to the point that the people from those earlier times in my life no longer know me.

Yesterday I spoke to a peer whom I had not seen for years. We were once part of an informal college music group and traveled together on weekends. As we chatted about old times, I sensed a barrier between us. It may have been simply the years of distance from when we knew each other, but I couldn’t help but wonder if her memories of our times together made her less than enthused about renewed acquaintance with me. Interestingly enough, I sensed the same thing when chatting with another member of that same group whose path crossed mine a couple of years ago. Was I so obnoxious at 19? Would they like me better at 48 if they knew me? I suspect I’ll never know the answer to that question, although I think the reason I noticed the reticence was because people of similar backgrounds and circumstances don’t generally respond to my overtures of friendliness in such a manner at this point in my life. (Maybe they would if they tried to live with me for a few weekends.)

48 years old. I don’t know how old I consider myself, but not that old. There has to be a mistake somewhere. Right?

The Price of Nonconformity

I don’t know when I decided to become a nonconformist but the tendency showed up early in my life, at least in my choice of literature. I got an early start on reading and read most of the Oz books in early elementary school. (Long books to satisfy my literary appetite with large print to fit my immature eyes.) When my classmates discovered the joys of reading and were excited about the Boxcar Children, I was reading horse stories. When they moved on to the "Little House" books, I yawned and went back to my horse stories. Walter Farley. Marguerite Henry. Those were my favorite authors. I enjoyed the Bobbsey Twins somewhere along the way, but when the other girls started reading Nancy Drew books, I was already a Hardy Boys fan, having delved into my brothers’ collection, and couldn't get excited about a girl detective. I became a fan of the Lone Ranger in books without knowing anything about the radio or television versions of the stories. And I read all the childhood life fictionalized biographies I could find.

Of course, this meant I missed out on some excellent standards in children’s literature. I finally got around to reading the "Little House" books by Laura Ingalls Wilder during a college break one year. I didn’t get to know the "Boxcar Children" by Gertrude Chandler Warner until my son read the series when he was in elementary school. Around that same time, I pulled the Beverly Cleary "Ramona" books out of the elementary library where I was doing volunteer work and read that complete set. I’ve slowly filled in some of the gaps in my literary background from the children’s department of the library over the years as well as sampling new juvenile selections. I enjoy children’s literature. It’s fast. It’s clean. It is often very well written. I can pick up on the underlying message more readily than in adult fiction. (At least I can now; when I read Black Beauty for probably the tenth time but first time as an adult, I was shocked to discover that it was not the horse story I had always loved as much as social commentary.)

Somehow, in my reading as a child and still as an adult, I passed over the Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis, even after being greatly influenced by his books written for adults. I’ve read his space trilogy but not his children’s books! I’ve read the books by Lewis’ friend, J. R. R. Tolkien. I’ve read several fairy tales by George MacDonald, whom Lewis called his mentor, and found them wonderful. Why not The Chronicles of Narnia?

It’s not that I didn’t try. I bought a boxed set of the series and read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe when my children were young. They eventually read the entire set. I thought maybe I made it through the set sometime along the way. I know I read The Magician’s Nephew. Apparently, I never made it further than that.

When the movie based on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was released a few weeks ago, my husband and I went to see it on opening night. I decided it was a good time to (re)read the series. However, by the time I got to The Horse and His Boy, I realized I was not reading again but for the first time.

How did I pass these up? This is the exact kind of children’s literature that most appeals to me. (Since my Oz days, I’ve enjoyed books of magic and I've read through long collections of fairy tales.) They are widely accepted as children’s classics. In fact, they are perhaps the most popular classics in children’s literature I’ve never read.

So, all you Harry Potter fans, what are your favorite selections from classic children’s literature? Have I missed anything else?

What is it about Christmas that makes me go crazy?

Every year in December I lose my grip on sanity. Why?

Ordinarily, I don’t consider myself a perfectionist to the point of driving myself or other people crazy. However, something about the Christmas season stirs up my strongest insecurities and weighs me down with the conviction that whatever I’m doing, it’s not good enough. I’m not baking enough. I’m not entertaining enough. I’m not buying enough gifts. The gifts that I am buying are lame. The ones I bought last week are obviously totally inappropriate. I have ideas that are SO much better this week, but still probably not good enough. Someplace out there is the perfect gift for each one of my loved ones. I just have to find it and then they will see how well I know them and of what value they are to me.

My usual solution to the gift dilemma is to wait until the last possible moment to commit to anything in gift-buying so that there’s no time for second thoughts. Then I realize that the perfect gift was the one that I should have ordered two weeks ago and can’t be bought in stores anywhere the week of Christmas.

One thing I do because I want to during December (as opposed to the many things that I do out of obligation) is send Christmas cards. Even in that area, though, this temporary insanity sucks much of the joy out of sending them. A form letter? Can’t do it. How can one write a one-size-fits-all letter? That’s not good enough. Cards out of a box with our names under the pre-printed greeting? What’s the point? It’s the chance to actually communicate with long-lost and not-so-lost acquaintances that is attractive to me. Why give up that chance to communicate? So I write multiple letters that contain the same basic information but which are each somehow customized to their recipients. The problem is that this requires a substantial time commitment, even with the aid of a wordprocessor and cut-and-paste. The list of people who get letters isn’t very long.

My church family has a tradition of exchanging cards each year by dropping them in a special box in the church foyer. It’s rare to have a note included with the card. Again, I ask: What’s the point? If all we’re doing is wishing each other a generic Merry Christmas, why bother putting so much time and effort and money into it? Why not just wish each other a Merry Christmas in person and be done with it?

This year I came up with a partial solution to the church card exchange. I created my own "church families are special" greeting card in PrintMaster (by Broderbund). Ahh... much better. Hallmark doesn’t make a card that expresses the appreciation I feel for this group that so often has filled the role of extended family for me and my husband and children. But I can feel good about creating one card that embraces each family group individually but equally and expresses my appreciation for them in a special way during the Christmas season.

So I made the card. I printed multiple copies of the card. I signed our names. I wrote names on envelopes. I piled up the cards to take over to the church for distribution. I even went so far as to carry them into the church. Then I carried them back home. I realized that I had failed to include children when putting names on the envelopes. I realized that there was a chance that a few of the people might ask, "Dave & Marsha who???" I realized that just one slight modification would have made the card so much better. I realized there was a flaw that will likely be pointed out by a few. Perfectionism caused paralysis again. I had to push it aside, add the children’s names and our last name for the cases where there might be doubt and take those terribly imperfect homemade cards back over for distribution. It’s only a pile of greeting cards to people I see every week, often multiple times each week. Why would I let myself get in such a twist over making them perfect?

Making my own cards has allowed me to expand my mailing list by providing opportunity to customize the greeting itself to fit various groups. In this first year of the empty nest, I’m missing the interaction I’ve had over the years with my peers in the community, the parents of my children’s classmates. I made a special greeting card for my favorite people from that group. I’ve completed around 60 cards (mostly going to people either in the church or the community) and have another 30 or so to go. Most of the cards that will actually include a letter are left and I’m beginning to feel overwhelmed, wondering if I’ll ever complete this task. And this is one of the most enjoyable parts of Christmas for me! I don’t even want to think about the gifts!

Christmas is a week away and I’m not even close to ready. I have a bare evergreen tree in my livingroom and colored lights running down the banister. That’s the extent of my decorations thus far. There are no Christmas goodies in the house and all my kids are coming home in the next 48 hours. (Yea!)

Maybe it’s the absolute drop-dead deadlines of the Christmas season that do this to me. Not only are there multiple obligations that could be done with excellence if there were a little more time in which to do them, but the deadlines are mostly non-negotiable.

Obviously, blog posts need to go way down on my list of priorities. In defiance of my compulsiveness during this season, I will now post this in its imperfect first-draft form. Maybe. After I fix up just a few minor problems.

I’ll see you after Christmas.

Me, Me, Me

Blog (Weblog): An online journal.

Journal: An account of what happens or of what one thinks, feels, or notices, such as a diary, a ship’s log, or the written account of what happens at each meeting of a society or town meeting. (World Book Dictionary, Thorndike Barnhart, 1984)

Ponder: To consider carefully, think over. (1984 World Book Dictionary again)

Ponderings: Considerations, personal analyses. (Not in dictionary)

So I have a blog, an online account of either what happens or what I think, feel, or notice, carrying a title coined from a term meaning personal thoughts. I think that takes the focus off of actual happenings and leaves me with just thoughts. My thoughts. My feelings. What I notice.

I was sharing my feelings on a particular matter with someone this week while trying to resolve a conflict which had popped up unexpectedly. It felt so self-centered. Does it matter what I think on the matter? It would be foolish to think that anyone else thinks exactly like I do. There’s NO one who thinks like I do on every subject. There may not be many who share my feelings on most subjects. If I’m the only one who is bothered by something, is it even worth mentioning?

Perhaps I should check to see how others feel on various subjects so that I can report their thoughts, feelings, and observations instead of focusing in on my own. Of course, I’d have to make sure I completely understood what they told me so that I could report it accurately. And I’d need permission to broadcast those thoughts and feelings on a public blog site. Even if I’m not planning to share those thoughts publicly, there are still difficulties in accurately understanding and reporting what other people think and feel. I may THINK I know how others are responding to something, but I don’t really have a complete grasp on their thoughts even after they attempt to share them with me. Sometimes the thoughts don’t fit well into words. Sometimes I look behind the words for hidden meanings and guess incorrectly as to what the unspoken undertones are saying. Sometimes I have filters installed that interpret the meanings of the words and give them a slightly different hue. I might filter them to be more in keeping with my own thoughts. Or I might give them more or less charitable interpretations.

Back to this week's conversation. I shared that a particular approach to management makes me feel a certain way. I was guessing that maybe other people respond in a similarly negative way but I don’t really know that to be the case. If it’s true, it might be helpful to the person doing the managing to hear my thoughts as representative of those of other people. But if my response reflects personal hangups, maybe I’m better off trying to disarm my ‘hot buttons’ rather than complaining to the one who pushes them. Even if my thoughts and feelings are representative of how others respond, will the person with whom I share dismiss them as springing from my own personality problems?

The thoughts, feelings, and observations I know best and am most authorized to publicize are my own. Some of what I share might reflect a common thought process. Other times I might verbalize the unformed thoughts of others. Much of what I share may simply seem like it’s coming out of left field. My thoughts are not always rational or ‘correct’ or helpful. They may not even be particularly interesting most of the time. They’re just the ones I have. If anyone would like to share some of their own thoughts here (in the comments), they’re welcome to do so. Meanwhile, it's a blog. It's all about me. Which may get pretty boring after a while.

The Reason for the Season

I see it on church signs, on greetings cards; I hear it in various Christian settings: "Jesus Is the Reason for the Season". In response, something within me suggests, "If Jesus is the reason for all this, why do I associate myself with Christianity? If the values of the Christmas season with all it’s tinsel reflect the heart of Christianity, I need to find a new faith."

Is Christmas about Jesus? No. Not now. Not ever. Christmas didn’t begin in a manger in Bethlehem. The life of Jesus Christ began in Bethlehem, but Christmas began in the dark lands of the north.

I recently heard someone say that they are glad Christmas comes at this time of the year because the lights are so beautiful on dark winter nights. Hello! That’s not coincidence, you know! December 25th is not the historic date of Jesus’ birth. Rather, it’s the first day of perceptibly longer daylight after the winter solstice. The winter solstice is the reason for the season. Think how dark and cold and depressing December would be without Christmas. Winter is a time of darkness and death. We need help to make it through. What a momentous occasion when after weeks of each day being a little shorter than the previous one, there comes a day that is just a wee bit longer. The tide has turned. We’re heading back to warmth and light. It may be a long time coming, but we’ve made a start. It’s a reason to celebrate.

Even though it’s dark now, the light will return. In the meantime, we string up lights all around city, town, and country. We change our decor to a Christmas theme. We bring evergreen trees inside and hang lights and ornaments on them. We have social gatherings. In the midst of the darkest days, our electric meters hum as we light the world in defiance of the darkness.

There’s more to Christmas than bringing artificial light into the darkness of December. We also shop! We fill the streets with traffic and the store aisles with shopping carts as we go out and spend our money on the commercial offerings of our culture. We buy gifts and wrap them in bright paper and adorn them with ribbons. We pile those gifts high under and around the trees in our homes. We buy gifts for people we love and for people we hate and for people we barely know and for people we don't know at all. We buy gifts for people who ask us not to buy them gifts. If we don't know someone well enough to select a suitable gift, we buy something that we would like or that we think they ought to like but which may have no actual value at all to them. Or we buy what other people tell us our gift recipients will like, whether the gift seems of true value or not. (Sometimes we make sure they’re returnable.) It gives us something to do in December. Go out and enjoy the lights and the cheery music. Mingle with other people. Collect the gifts. Wrap the gifts. Anticipate the distribution of the gifts. Chase away the darkness.

In the midst of this comes a group of people saying, "Jesus is the reason for the season." The lights? They’re about Jesus, the light of the world. The music? Jesus, the reason to sing. Christmas trees? Jesus again, bringing us eternal (evergreen) life! The wreaths? Symbols of God's unending love. The gifts? Celebrating the greatest gift ever and reminding us of those who brought gifts to Jesus on his birth. December 25th? No, not the first day of perceptible increase in length after the winter solstice (who even knew that?) but the day of Jesus’ birth.

This is a problem to me. I don’t mind celebrating Jesus’ birth on December 25th. But I mind it very much when people try to match up the over-the-top excesses of our culture’s holiday season with the life and values of Jesus Christ. To say that Jesus is the reason for frenzied shoppers trampling each other trying to grab the last hot item available in town is a terrible affront to the Christian faith, denying the most basic values of Christianity, such as simplicity and generosity. To say that He’s the reason for the piles of often-thoughtless gifts that are so soon broken or discarded trivializes the value of the gift He gives to us. To say that Jesus is the reason people string up lights is to presume that we know the motivation of people who may be simply enjoying the beauty of the displays. We don’t do all these things because of Jesus! We do it because it’s December and it’s dark and we need a way to cope with the darkness of winter.

Maybe I’m deceived here. Maybe other people truly trace all of their winter holiday activities back to Jesus. Maybe the joy of their relationship with Jesus Christ inspires them to put up lights and a tree in December and go out and buy gifts for everyone they know. I’m not one of those people. The joy of my relationship with Jesus Christ doesn’t make me do anything in December that I don’t do at other times in the year. Celebrating Jesus’ birth, even if I do it in December, does not require more preparation than celebrating the greater wonder of his resurrection a few days after the spring equinox. Being a Christian doesn’t prompt me to make an annual pilgrimage to the mall to buy gifts of dubious value for my friends and acquaintances. Only the cultural pressure of the winter solstice celebration prompts me to do that.

For many years, I have dreaded the arrival of December. Stress is caused by unpleasant circumstances that are beyond our control. Christmas in my adult years has involved multiple sets of unpleasant circumstances beyond my control. Thus, for me, Christmas is the ultimate source of stress. One thing that has helped me is to realize that American (or European or any other) Christmas traditions are not nearly so sacred as Christians like to make them out to be. Very little of what happens at Christmas time in the 21st century truly traces back to the birth of Jesus Christ.

If I regard Christmas as simply a cultural response to the cold, dark days of winter, it is freeing to me. I like the lights. It’s dark in December. Lights are good. A Christmas tree is nice. Christmas decorations brighten the atmosphere. Special food and social activities lift my spirits. A few gifts exchanged with loved ones is a pleasant winter event. Taking time during December to send greetings to friends and relatives near and far is a good use of this month when the darkness gives us more time inside. Commemorating the birth of Jesus during these dark days adds a special touch to the winter holidays.

No, Jesus is not the reason for the season. My commitment to Jesus Christ is not measured by how much I spend at the mall. Nor by how many social events I host or attend. Nor by how much fruitcake I make and give away. Not even by how many hours I spend in church either celebrating or preparing to celebrate Christmas. I actually appreciate the shift from saying "Merry Christmas" to "Happy Holidays". Not only do I favor descriptors other than "merry" for the commemoration of the advent of Christ, I think the latter greeting is more appropriate in light of the overwhelmingly secular nature of our winter celebration. Giving our blessing to the excessiveness of the holiday season by referring to the entire frenzied season as "Christ’s mass" is offensive to me as one who seeks to follow that humble carpenter.

So to those of you who will marvel at the miracle of the Incarnation this month, may the season be blessed with warm gatherings and a fresh wonder at the amazing love that prompted that event. To those of you who are more focused on other aspects of the season, I wish you "Happy Holidays." May the lights and the music and, yes, even the shopping bring you good cheer during these dark days.

The First Empty-Nest Thanksgiving

We went from five around the table last year on Thanksgiving Day to two this year – my husband and me. The kids all found other places to be. One has moved too far away to come home for a 4-day weekend. The other two spent the day with friends. We could have pressured one to stay home but let her go as the others submitted their negative RSVPs. Dave’s extended family is in Florida. Mine is doing Thanksgiving with the "other side" today. I was going to have them here Saturday but my brother and sister-in-law offered to host the event so we’re going there.

This all started to fall into place a couple of weeks ago. That’s good. It helps to have a little notice that a holiday isn’t going to follow its usual pattern in order to bend my mind around it before it arrives.

I asked Dave what we were going to do for Thanksgiving. He suggested cutting firewood. That didn’t set real well with me. Gathering firewood has been a frequent activity lately. It seems that there should be something special to do on a holiday, something that we don’t do on ordinary days.

There are always stories about people who invite intellectually-stimulating guests to join them for Thanksgiving gatherings. I tried to think of all the intellectually-stimulating people I know who wouldn’t be celebrating with family and drew a blank. I thought about the less-than-stimulating people I know who might not have a family gathering but then remembered that hospitality is not exactly my best talent. I envisioned bored people sitting around in our livingroom with nothing to entertain them -- no television for parades or football, no stimulating conversation. Suddenly, the firewood idea started looking better.

We went through the list of possibilities. We’re not particularly interested in parades or football. There are no soup kitchens in the area where we could volunteer. The schedule at the movie theater is only mildly interesting – "Chicken Little" or "Harry Potter". We don’t hunt, although we do have four acres of woods. Cooking a big dinner seemed pointless with a church turkey dinner last Sunday evening and my family gathering on Saturday. Some people from church invited us to join them at a steakhouse 35 miles from home. Stuffing myself with restaurant food didn’t sound all that inviting. Television bores me. Sitting by the fire reading good books bores him. Playing games doesn’t appeal to either of us.

A co-worker told me this week that she and her teenage daughter were going to lounge around in their pajamas all day. That sounded cozy and relaxing. Maybe large family gatherings and turkey dinners on Thanksgiving are over-rated. Still, it seems like the day requires more than sacking out on the couch all day.

We came up with a plan. A tornado ripped through our county last week and did enormous damage along its 12-mile path. Fortunately, there were no deaths and only one serious injury, but 60 houses and 10 businesses and high-voltage towers and wires were strewn across the area. The roads were closed in the area for the rest of the week but opened up to sightseers last Sunday and we joined the gawkers, amazed by the awesome destructive force of nature. It was a spontaneous outing and we didn’t take our camera. We could go back and take pictures today. Then maybe an outing to the theater would round out the day.

We never left the driveway. Nor is the pile of firewood in the back yard significantly higher. We slept late and took naps. I caught up on some reading. We had sliced turkey from the deli on sandwiches for lunch and pot pies from the freezer for supper. I baked a pumpkin pie just because it was Thanksgiving, they're easy (with pie crust from the dairy case) and I wanted to have one in the house.

Thanksgiving seemed like a good day to tromp through the woods and I took some pruners with me to maybe tackle some undergrowth as I went. I ended up rescuing a few trees along the woods side of the yard from vines that were threatening to strangle them. It felt good to be out in the cold doing enough work to end up warm rather than cold. (Maybe I should have signed up for the firewood idea.) We watched part of a movie on the small television in the kitchen. We cleaned out an area in the basement where we’re going to install a small, modified furnace to circulate heat from the outside wood furnace that’s supposed to arrive next week. We talked to family on the phone. We were on the verge of heading out to where the tornado went through but didn’t quite make it out the door. When darkness arrived, an evening at home started to sound better than driving the 25 miles to the movie theater.

This probably sounds like a terrible Thanksgiving to someone with an extroverted personality who thrives on social activity, but it worked for us. It was a good mix of relaxation and accomplishment. We won’t end the week lacking for social interaction.

Like some other parts of the empty nest experience, it’s something that I think I could get used to but perhaps shouldn’t quite yet.

On blogging

Last night I was talking to someone who referenced something I had written here. It always startles me when that happens. The internet is a big place. While there are a few internet sites, including some blogs, that include a link to bring you here, it still surprises me when someone who knows me in 'real life' happens across one of those sites and follows the link, particularly when that person is an adult.

The blog that sends the most people here -- The World of Sondra -- is maintained by my college-age daughter. Thus, I'm not quite so surprised if her friends stop past. Besides the conversation I mentioned above, I also chatted with one of those friends last night, a young man whose blog also has a link on my daughter's. I noted that I enjoy his posts. He indicated that he has stopped past here, too. Then there was an awkward pause in our conversation. It seems that neither of us could find anything further to say on the subject of our blogs.

I've participated in internet discussions on topical forums for probably ten years -- eons in computer time. I've developed relationships of various degrees, met some of the people behind the posts in person, shared much with others whom I've never met in 'real life'.

Internet relationships are interesting. They tend to have fewer dimensions than 'real life' relationships. I might know someone's 'hot buttons', how many kids they have, what they're passionate about. I might think they're hilarious or that they whine too much or are too sensitive. I might have a mental picture of them that resides entirely in my imagination if I haven't seen a photo. (There are a couple of people who exist in two forms in my mind -- the person I imagined them to be before I met them personally and the person I now know them to be. When I remember early exchanges with them, I have to go back to the earlier image in order to recall the nature of those exchanges.) If I've seen a photo, I don't have to rely so heavily on my imagination to flesh them out, but I still don't have a complete picture of them.

When I meet someone new in 'real life', I think it's safe to say that most of the information I gather about them in that first exchange comes from my observations rather than their words. I can look into their eyes, observe their facial expressions, check out their personal appearance, their posture, their gestures, etc. and make multiple assessments, many of which will later turn out to be totally erroneous. As I get to know them better, I modify my first impression to more closely match what I continue to learn about them, still using my observation skills as much as listening to the plain meaning of the words they say.

When I meet someone on the internet, all I have is their words. Beyond the plain meaning of those words, there aren't many other things to assess -- spelling skills and sentence structure, maybe. There's not even tone to consider, except for the tone I add to the words as I read. I might be able to say they are skillful at expressing themselves in writing or that I find it hard to follow what they're saying. What does that really tell me about the person behind the words? I may know them very well as internet friends and yet know nothing about what they're like in a social setting. What takes only a few short moments to pick up on in face-to-face exchanges may take much longer to gather via the internet, if it's even possible to detect without personal exposure.

Blogs add a new dimension to the world of internet relationships. Reading a blog is like reading a person's diary. You know what makes them laugh and what makes them cry and what makes them angry. Unlike topic-based internet discussions, you get a broader picture of the person's interests. However, it's a one-way exchange. The blogger pours out their life into the blog. The reader might make a comment now and then, but it's certainly not a two-way street with equal traffic in each direction. Thus, the reader gets to know the writer quite well while the writer is often unaware that the reader is even reading. This can lead to some awkward moments.

Last spring, I watched a ping-pong match while seated next to a young man who had received a college degree the week before and whose blog I read regularly. (We were cheering for opposite teams in the ping-pong match.) I know him as a talented writer dealing with some serious issues in life in ways I admire. He knows me only as 'Marissa's mom' -- after I introduce myself again. So what are we going to talk about? I feel like I know him well and would love to chat with him. But the most I can think to say that wouldn't be 'weird' is, "I enjoy reading your blog." Even that might be too intrusive. Does he really want to know that there's someone the age of his parents reading his blog?

Even when you know someone and are pleased that they would bother to read your blog, it still makes for some awkward moments. Last night I brought up something and my friend said, "I know. You said that in your blog entry." Yes, sure enough, I did. Do I have anything else to say on the subject at all? Or did I totally exhaust my thoughts on the subject in that one post. How inconvenient to have indulged in a monologue and have left myself no resources for a dialog.

It's all right, though. You all, whoever you are, can keep reading. If I didn't want people to read what I write, I'd confine my writing to locked diaries. I just hope you'll overlook the awkwardness if we meet in 'real life' and I realize that you already know my innermost thoughts on some of my favorite topics and find myself struggling for something to say.

Why I go to church

First, I should maybe confess that I am a follower of the teachings of Jesus Christ – a Christian. Since church buildings are designed as places for Christians to gather, it would seem obvious that I would associate myself with a group of other Christians and gather with them in a church most every Sunday (the Lord’s Day). Followers of Jesus Christ have had such gatherings since the day of his resurrection, although Christian church buildings came a little later. And, indeed, I have such an association and I habitually gather with the group twice on Sunday and again on Wednesday evening, as per long-standing tradition.

Being part of a church is not always easy, however. The portrait of Jesus Christ and the God of the universe that I encounter when I attend church sometimes stands in stark contrast to what I find in the Bible – God’s revelation of himself to us. Sometimes the contrast irritates me. Thus, my previous posts concerning going to church without getting angry.

So why do I keep going if I often come away upset about what I encounter in the church? Why do I continue to gather so frequently with people who sometimes blacken the character of God, who sometimes make me ashamed to be associated with them? As someone once asked me, “Why would I continue to go someplace where I am consistently offended?” Why indeed?

There are several reasons:

1. “Lone ranger” Christians are likely to develop a view of God even more skewed than one finds in the church. There is balance to be found in a group of believers. Even when I don’t agree with what I hear at church, the introduction of a different perspective helps me hone my own beliefs and check them against the Holy Scriptures. I need the shaping that the church provides. I need to make myself accountable to a community of believers.

2. The church is my family. These are people who care about me. If I’m in the hospital they’ll come and visit me. When I’m grieving they extend sympathy. When I receive blessings they rejoice with me. Sure, some of them are scallywags. Isn’t that the case in every family? They’re still family.

3. Fellowship. When someone steps through the doors of the church, they are indicating at least some minimal level of interest in spiritual things. The church brings me into intentional contact with such people. I find encouragement along the way as I interact with others who have chosen to live as Christians.

4. Ministry. The church is a place to share my spiritual journey with others and hopefully encourage them in their own walk. Just as my church family ministers to me in my times of joy and grief, I too can minister to others. Perhaps I can encourage someone who is searching for God and having difficulty finding Him. I can weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who are rejoicing.

5. To worship God. I left this for last because I find corporate worship challenging. My most focused worship times occur in solitude. Generally, the only way I can carry worship into the church is to have it begin at home. Still, occasionally I am surprised by a glimpse of heaven even within the church.

As I mentioned in an earlier entry, the author who wrote about going to church without getting angry achieved his lack of ire by finding a church that better matched his worldview. There are several reasons I don’t attempt to do this.

1. There is no perfect church. If there were, I wouldn’t be allowed to join it because then it would no longer be perfect.

2. I am basically in harmony with the official doctrine of the church of which I’m a part, at least more than with other churches around where I live.

3. There’s a possibility that I can be a positive voice in the church, ministering to those who come to church looking for the God of love and instead encounter the misrepresentation of God that I find so irritating. Perhaps when I'm at my best the church is better because I'm part of it.

4. I am not alone. There are more people than I involved in this decision. Leaving the church would mean letting multiple people down.

So I stay and get involved and continue to show up on a regular basis. And I find family and fellowship and a place of ministry. Sometimes I even catch a glimpse of God in the church! It’s a good place to be.

Standing on the Threshold

Lately, I’ve been thinking about the questions to which I’m asked to respond. This was initially prompted by a survey administered at my church. There were 160 statements. The five choices on the answer sheet ranged from strongly disagree to strongly agree with the middle option being “no opinion/don’t know”. I chose the middle option for statements concerning the thoughts of other people. (If you want to know what other people think, ask them. I’m not a mind-reader and haven’t interviewed enough people on these topics to make a categoric assessment of what ‘everybody’ thinks. I’m not even sure of my own thinking on some of them.) I also chose it for statements that could be either true or false depending on various factors. Do I like the music in the church services? Yes. And no. Some of it I love (particularly the songs I choose to play). Some of it makes me want to leave and never look back. I have strong opinions about music but they pretty much cancel each other out at church and leave me in the ‘don't know/no opinion’ crowd.

I was sailing through the survey pretty well until I got to the last set of statements, which were obviously designed to test the orthodoxy of my beliefs. The first one that made me balk read: “Prayer works.” ‘Works’? Works for what? Prayer is conversation with God. Does talking to one’s spouse ‘work’? Does talking to the boss ‘work’? Does talking to your children ‘work’? Does talking to God ‘work’? None of those questions can be answered without defining the goal of the conversation. Talking to the boss might not ‘work’ if there’s tension in my marriage and I’m looking for a solution. Talking to my husband doesn’t ‘work’ when I need to clear up a disagreement with a friend. Talking to God doesn’t ‘work’ when my goal is to get my own way. I could neither agree nor disagree with the statement without clarification. Nor could I say that I have no opinion on the subject or that I don’t know whether prayer works. I have definite opinions on what prayer does and does not accomplish. I just need a definition of the word ‘works’. I left the answer sheet blank on that one and six others. There is no good answer to a bad question. If the statement had read, “Prayer is an essential part of my life,” or even, “Prayer makes a difference,” I would have gladly agreed. But I don’t even fully agree with the old adage, “Prayer changes things.” Sometimes prayer doesn’t change anything about a situation except my own view of it. Does that count as changing ‘things’?

After refusing to respond to seven of the statements on the survey on the basis that none of the choices reflected my beliefs, I’ve been noticing other questions that bother me. The one behind the title of this post comes from a Bible study book. It is: ‘How would your life be different if you really surrendered everything to God and sought His ways above your own?” As I considered the question, I heard echoes from other discussion questions. “What would happen if we really prayed?” “What would happen if we really cared about people?” “How would things change if we had our priorities straight?” “What if we really believed in heaven – or hell?”

These questions all assume that we’re standing outside this possible attitude or activity looking in at the possibilities without stepping over the threshold. The ‘correct’ answer generally seems to be that stepping over the threshold would bring amazing improvement to our lives. So ... if surrendering and praying and caring and believing bring such wonderful things, why would we stand outside discussing the possibilities that lie inside? Shouldn’t we be stepping over the threshold and experiencing the glorious results of doing these things? Shouldn’t the question be: “How is your commitment to God changing your life?”

I can see where some steps might take consideration. For example: “What would happen if we truly revealed our hearts to each other?” It might leave us vulnerable to unpleasant attacks. People might not understand us. Or, at the other extreme, it could bring us unity and a closeness we’ve never experienced before. It might be good to weigh the various possibilities before taking the step of transparency. But I think it’s safe to pray, even to “really pray,” without a lot of discussion first.

The odd part is that when the question puts us on the threshold, any answer that casts oneself as standing inside the doorway smacks of arrogance. Example: “What would happen if we really prayed?” Uhm ... I do pray. “Yes, but what would happen if we really prayed?” Uhm ... I do “really pray”. It’s a rare day when I don’t devote part of the morning to intentional communication with God. “But what would happen if we all prayed longer and more fervently?” Uhm... I guess I don’t know. Amazing things happen in my life when I pray. I’m not sure longer or more fervent prayer is what God wants from me, but I can talk to Him about it if you think I should. As to others, I guess the only way to find out what happens when we all pray is to try it and see.

None of these responses are acceptable when the ‘correct’ answer is, God would bless us with astounding results if we really prayed. Claiming to ‘really pray’ without demonstrating such results rings hollow, particularly in light of reports of how God responded to prayers in other times and places.

Still, I would rather wade deep into the experience of being fully surrendered to God and praying and believing than to stand on the threshold and only speculate as to what might be inside, even if the reality when my human frailties get involved doesn’t measure up to the ideal picture being drawn by those who never seem to move past speculation.