Hip Punishment

I gave out one of those so-called hip punishments last night. My son was disrespectful with me so I banned him from his farmville farm for 3 days.

As he protested, I took away entire access to facebook, any use of any computer, and his i-pod touch as well. Each thing I pulled the plug on hit him like a blow in the gut. By the time I was finished, he was putty, frail, fetal, on the floor. It didn't have to be that bad. Why did he keep persisting, I wondered. So, I asked,

"Why didn't you stop your disrespectful tone after farmville got pulled?"

"I did!" he screamed as he slammed a door in my face.

"Okay, I guess TV goes too!" I said.

So much for THAT.

Do You Fast...Yet?

This year marks the first year I have seriously fasted in order to draw closer to the Word of God. Do you fast yet?

Ever since I read Starving Jesus and learned how much the experience of fasting clarified the lives of the authors, I knew I could not go forward without a consistent fast.

So far it has become

• a tool for helping me rely on, look forward to, and have complete faith in the perfection of His written Word.
• a tool for giving me a desire to try and live His word to the best of my ability.
• a prayer strengthener.
• a tool for interrogating my threshold for sin.
• a vehicle for strengthening myself against temptation.
• a tool for clearly understanding the exact moment I am choosing something else in place of God.
• a tool for seeing God in all relationships around me.
• a compass for staying on track with His will - even when I don't know what God's plan is for my life.
• a device that helps me speak His word boldly.

Do you fast yet?

I don't know if there is a 'right' way to fast. I plan my fast for consuming coffee, water, or the prepared juices. Here's what I do: I plan for about 3 to 4 days of not eating. I buy a bunch of fresh veggies and fruit and juice them. I make one pitcher for fruit or red juice and one for green or vegetable juice. I carry my Bible with me everywhere. But in advance, I have in mind some passages that are special to me.

Then, I just start. I drink coffee in the morning, green juice in the afternoon, and red juice at night. And I drink water whenever I think about it - but not too much. Every time I begin to feel hungry, I pray into the hunger pang. Specifically, I pray that God would fill my hunger with his Word. Then I read the Bible.

Then I write about what I read - - if I happen to have any epiphanies.

During a fast - remarkably, I have never felt hungry for longer than 5 or so minutes.

Do you fast yet?

Here are the prayers I pray:

• The Believers' Prayer
• The Lord's Prayer
• Habakkuk's Prayer
• My own personal prayers

I usually read a passage of the Bible that is my regular reading (right now I am in Acts) and also I include either the Sermon on the Mount, and Isaiah's Ch. 58 on 'True Fasting'.

Do you fast yet?

Here's recipes for the juices:

Green:

• Celery
• Cucumber
• Kale
• Spinach
• Parsley
• Mint
• Rosemary (just a touch)
• Green Grapes or Green Apples (sometimes)

Red:

• Beets
• Carrots
• Strawberries
• Tangerines
• Sometimes - Blackberries, cantaloupe, red bell pepper or watermelon

Do you fast yet?

Enjoy discovering a new you and letting go of the old you.

Finally: The Sponge

After Jesus was arrested but before he was hung on the cross:

He was spit on
He was beat with fists by a mob of 71*
He was abandoned by his friends.
He was tied up.
He was - by a company of at least 30 soldiers*
- stripped
-had a thorn vine crammed onto and into his head
-re-dressed and paraded around - laughed at, mocked, name-called, made fun of
-struck on the head again and again with a staff (thorn crown still there)
- he was disfigured beyond human recognition.

Then-- after all that-- he was re-dressed and walked through the city, brought up the hill to be crucified, where:
-the cross was laid on the ground, he was stripped again placed on the cross, then huge spikes were driven through his hands and his feet.
-the cross was erected with him on it.
-his clothes were divided up and auctioned off
-he was insulted and yelled at by all the onlookers (including 2 others being crucified at the same time)

Then - he tried to talk. The crowd mockingly said, "he's trying to call to Elijah!" Immediately someone ran to get a sponge with wine vinegar, put it on a stick and offered it to him. Then the crowd said, "Now let's leave him alone and see if Elijah comes to save him."

Question: Were you raised to believe this offering of wine vinegar was a compassionate act? I was. I always thought, "how nice that someone in that God-forsaken crowd tried to care."

Well, did you know that back in those days, there were public toilets? And did you know that one way in which the poor made money was to sit in the public toilets with a bowl of watered-down wine vinegar and after someone would go to the bathroom, the slave would take a sponge, put it on a stick, and then wipe the person? Did you know that was a very common lively-hood for slaves and poor? They made money by getting a tip for doing the wiping. It was just custom. Most likely Roman soldiers and the elite used the toilets.

This is all common knowledge among archaeologists who have uncovered these public toilets in and around Jerusalem. Did you know one of the locations of one of these public toilets is right at Golgotha?

After all that happened to Jesus from his arrest to his death, do you really think it would follow logically to have ONE act of dissent - one act of compassion in the middle of all the vitriol? I always did. But now his death has a whole new meaning.

Re-read the events and tell me if you think someone was trying to be compassionate to a dying Jesus, or if this sponge on a stick wasn't simply the last and worst insult of all...

To cram in his mouth a sponge dipped in the dirty public toilet rinse-water that had been used by countless people...imagine that sponge, heavy and wet with unflushed dirge...think of all the port-o-potties you have been in, the thick stench. Think of all that - on a sponge - being shoved in your mouth.

Now tell me what you think of Jesus' crucifixion.

"They said, 'he's calling Elijah!' Immediately someone ran to get a sponge with wine vinegar, put it on a stick and offered it to Jesus to drink. The rest said, 'Now let's leave him alone. Let's see if Elijah comes to save him.' " (Matthew)

To hear a meaningful account of Jesus' final hours - listen to Mark Driscoll's Easter message on 4/4/10 broadcast on location in Jerusalem - you can get it on itunes.

* these quantities are the historically recorded numbers of how many made up: the 'whole Sanhedrin' - the group Jesus was first brought in front of; and a company of soldiers who Jesus was brought to after the Sanhedrin.

Barbie or Cosmo: What's the Difference?

My friend never told me about it directly, but she was pretty upset a few years ago when I sent her (then) 3 year old daughter a Barbie Princess for her Birthday. I found out later from a mutual friend, that my friend threw away the Barbie and movie that came with it, claiming that it was perpetuating and forcing a stereotypical, backwards, 1950's, female role model onto her daughter.

Flash forward 3 more years and I visit my friend and her child. The kid has tons of Barbie's and a chest of dress-up princess dresses, tiaras, slippers, boas, and you name it...her room is covered. The girl is a frilly girly-girl who loves dolls, dress up, and especially Barbie Princess. Seems over time, my friend learned (possibly from her other friends who listen to Terri Gross) that ultimately, it's okay to let your daughter play house and dress up.

Flash even more forward to today and my friend visits me with her (now) 2 daughters. During the course of the visit, my friend floods my house with: People Magazine, O Magazine, Cosmo Magazine, The National Enquirer, and various other glitterati magazines.

So, here's the thing: I have two sons who are - I believe - too young to have headlines like, "TEN WAYS TO PLEASE YOUR MAN IN BED" glaring at them in the living room. In addition, all the magazines were full of 'news' about who looks best in a particular brand of dress, what super model is wearing the cutest shoes, how to wear your make-up, what clothing lines are popular, how to look sexy, and on and on. I felt a huge double standard emerging along with a blinding hypocrisy.

Am I wrong, or aren't those magazines just another rhetorical version of today's BARBIE? Isn't my friend teaching her child - by way of making those 'training manual' magazines available, and also by studying them herself - isn't she perpetuating and forcing a female standard on her daughters? Just like giving them a Barbie! But these stereotypes come in the form of written instruction and photos - to make sure you have no confusion about what you need to look like, act like, dress, and desire, as you develop into a young lady, right?

I don't have daughters, so I don't know what it is all about. But I do know Barbie is a WAY better stereotype than growing up to be/look like a stereotyped pop diva from People. Barbie doesn't come with the baggage of hitting-bottom-and-bouncing-back headlines...or driving-drunk-but-building-an-orphanage; or five-marriages-8 kids-and-a-reality-show-makes-us-cool-cause-we're-real baggage; at least with Barbie, you make it what you want it to be...kind of.

However, I bet, when my friend's daughters grow up and strive to look like some archetypal 'woman' --because they will, who do you think my friend will blame?

Yep. Me and my feeble attempt to send a doll when the kid turned 3.

Does Oprah Read Ancient Writings of Eye Witness Accounts?

I really want to know. With all the reading she does - Confucious, Dali Lama, etc., when was the last time she read ancient writings of personal eye witness accounts of a man named Jesus? When was the last time she studied personally, the ancient Jewish manuscripts collected and currently informing over 5 billion people on the earth? I am sure with her current religious-leader status that she is very well informed, super educated, really wise, super well-read. Just wondering. Is her opinion of Jesus based on current personal study? I really want to know. Anyone?

Who Cares When Life Begins?

A friend of mine volunteers her time on the phone banks for Planned Parenthood. It's a centralized bank of phone counselors located in one city but where all the incoming crisis calls are received for an entire region of the US. As you can imagine, some of the calls she receives are from pregnant teens who don't know what to do.

"After I hear their circumstances, no finances, no family support, and they are so young, I just want to scream into the phone, 'Get the f--king abortion!', but I can't." She says. "We aren't allowed to tell callers what to do - we are just supposed to let them know all the information about all their options."

"So you wouldn't hesitate to tell someone to get an abortion?"

"No. If I could, I would tell a lot of them to do it."

"Wow." I said quietly.

She paused, "In my faith," (she's Jewish - maybe doesn't realize we have the same doctrine-rulebook-scripture...you know, Christians and Jews all follow the same foundational writings), "...we were taught that life begins at birth, yes, that God breaths life into you at your first breath. So I don't have a problem with abortion at all."

Later, I was confused by this. Was she really taught that? Jews out there, help me out. Where in our ancient writings - The Torah - does it say that life begins at our (earthly) birth? All I could figure is that she was talking about -without knowing it...without having personally read it herself - was when Adam was made out of mud and God 'breathed life into him'. But, why do we think that 'breathing life' is the same as 'breathing air'? How simple is that? When God breathes life into something, do you really think it's something as simple as AIR? What if it's something done on a molecular level? An emotional level? When is the computer chip programmed? When the computer is turned on? Or when the chip is designed? Like a computer chip, God may program us (breath life into us) way before we are formed into a physical thing, way before we survive in the earth's atmosphere on our own. I really don't believe 'breathing life into' a being is the same as 'breathing air out of' lungs.

My friend may have never read the Torah herself, but rather, relied on someone else's interpretation in it's umpteenth-or-so generational iteration. We all do it....rely on churches, religious leaders, parents, friends to inform our intelligence when it comes to faith. So many of us grow up without reading any historical writings ourselves. We rely on the verbal passage of faith...which can really screw things up if we don't ALSO qualify the stories told with direct personal study of what's been written and left for us.

You know, verbal history is pretty dicey. Have you ever played 'telephone' with kids? It's where you get a line of kids and at one end start a story, then that kid tells the next, and so on, and so on. Until you get to the end, and behold, the story is all screwed up. I think God left so many ancient writings in tact, and made it so we would collect them, bind them, and call it our Bible, Torah, Book of Law - - -just so we would stop the madness of screwing up His intent. So when any given generation relies solely verbally on the previous, it's problematic. This excuse for sanctioning abortion in a guilt-free way is an obvious example. We use mis-informed teachings to help us hide from morality.

Aside from the obviously ridiculous reason to be OK with killing a fetus, if you're a person of faith, do you really think God did not know Adam before he was formed? Do you really think He did not have a plan for Adam? How old do you think Adam was when God formed him out of mud and breathed life into him? 0? 1? 2? Adult? If he was 0, why doesn't the Torah mention Adam's infancy? If he was an adult at 'birth', does that mean life isn't breathed into people until they are adults? I mean following my friend's line of logic to it's end, it would mean that murder is ok up until some undetermined adult age...the same age Adam was when life was breathed into him.

It's wacky to think about. All I know is God says on more than one occasion that He knows us in the womb, that our names are etched in his hands. And if someone is accounted for before they are born who are we to snuff 'em out? Is our plan for someone else's life greater than God's?

If our kids think a sleeping puppy is dead, then throw it in the garbage, what is our first response?

Exactly. You would save the puppy and explain to your child how sleep is different from dead. You know the puppy has 'life breathed into it' even though outer appearances speak to the contrary to someone simple like a child.

Don't you see how simple-minded it is to try and pinpoint when life begins for the sake of deciding someone's life or death? You're either for killing or against it. You're either gonna do it or not. But don't, please don't, hide behind God or your limited understanding of God. His position is clear.

We must be responsible for reading ancient scripture ourselves - first person- if we are going to use our faith to sanction or defend our actions. The same reasoning my friend used for being OK with abortion is exactly what is wrong with religion - too many generations have had their faith informed by a childhood memory of what they were told.

I couldn't tell my friend that she was allowing a childhood version of herself - essentially, a little girl, guide her decisions about her faith, and other people's life or death. It would have killed our already kind of not-yet-fully-developed relationship, I think. But I do think of her a lot. I think of her being on that phone with scared teenagers and her opinion, though not stated, blaring through the phone lines in her tone, her pauses, her passion. I think about it a lot.