Literally!

 

“So, what did you do today, Anna?”  I asked my eldest daughter.  It is Christmas break, and I imagined that she had slept in till all hours.

“The big thing I did today was to take a walk,” she told me.  “I literally walked a mile or two and then I was working on the puzzle you all gave me for Christmas.  It’s actually a really hard puzzle.  See, it is a puzzle that looks like a copy of an old manuscript of Fur Elise and all of the pieces literally look the same.  Like, they are shaped differently, but they just have bits of notes on them and kind of a yellow-tan look to them and you can’t tell which part of the puzzle they go in.”

“Interesting,” I said.  “So, you literally woke up, walked, and worked on a puzzle today?”

“Yes,” she said.  “Although it sounds weird when you say it like that.”

Listening to my daughter tell a story these days is an interesting experience.  If she was unable to use the words “literally” and “actually,” I have a feeling that whatever tale she is weaving would grind to a halt.

I suppose most of us have pet words that we use regularly.  These are verbal tics that come out as we speak.  We probably are not even aware of them, while the people around us are very familiar with our use of them.

The funny thing is that Anna doesn’t really mean “literally” when she uses the word “literally.”  She is simply using the word as an intensifier – a way of saying that something was really hard, or really great, or really beautiful.

I suppose that the world expects everything we experience to be dialed up to eleven.  This is the way that influencers in our midst talk, and I suppose that if we want people to listen to us, we need to be equally intense in our expressions of pain, pleasure, and anxiety.

Jesus doesn’t seem to have felt this way at all.  In the Sermon on the Mount, He told His followers, “Just say a simple, ‘Yes, I will,’ or ‘No, I won’t.’ Anything beyond this is from the evil one.” (Matthew 5:38) The point was that He wanted His followers to simply state the truth, not needing to embellish it with extra words or swearing that something was true.

I don’t think Anna is wrong for using lots of intensifying words in telling her stories.  I imagine most teenagers do this.  I do think that people will believe us, not because we use the right words, but because we are known to tell the truth and live our lives with honesty and integrity.

Adding more words actually changes nothing and could literally detract from the story as the people reading it are literally turned off by our overuse of a word, the meaning of which it seems like we literally don’t understand.  Or something like that.

Waiting for Christmas

 

“Mom, where’s the calendar?”  Elise said.

“It’s up in your room where you left it,” Elaine said.

“I didn’t cross the today off yet,” Elise said.  She went and got the calendar and crossed off the 19^th.  “It is just one, two, three, four, five days till Christmas!”  She counted out carefully. 

“Mom,” she said.  “What are you getting me Christmas?”

“I can’t tell you,” Elaine said. 

“Yes, you can,” Elise said.  

I suppose technically, Elise was correct.  My beautiful wife was choosing not to tell her five-year old daughter what her Christmas present was, but she definitely could have had she chosen to.  “Did you get me a doll?”  Elise asked slyly.

“You’ll find out in good time,” Elaine said again.  “The other day you said you thought you could make it to Christmas.”

“Is it a doll?”  Elise asked again.  “Is it?  Is it?  Is it?”  Her voice got successively louder till echoed off the walls.  “I think I need a doll!”

“It will be more fun for you if you wait till Christmas to find out what you are having,” Elaine said.  “Otherwise, it wouldn’t be a surprise.”

Elise didn’t seem convinced and went off to see what she could find in other rooms of the house.  Two of her siblings, Anna and Elliot had locked the door of a bedroom and were busy wrapping presents within.

“Let me in!”  Elise said in a commanding voice, a little like Gandalf in front of the Balrog on the bridge of Khazad dum.

“You can’t come in,” Anna said.  “We’re wrapping presents.”

Elise wasn’t discouraged for long.  She went and got her doll and then stood outside the door.  “Let me in,” she said again.  This time in a funny voice.

“We already told you,” Elliot said.  “You can’t come in – we are wrapping up gifts.”

“But I’m not Elise,” Elise said.  “I’m Ada, Elise’s doll and I really want to come in and help out.”

Somehow Elliot and Anna didn’t fall for the talking doll trick and still didn’t let her in.

I suppose it isn’t too surprising that it is torture for a five-year old to wait the few days for Christmas to arrive.  I don’t suppose patience was my strong point when I was that age either.

When Jesus was born in the little town of Bethlehem, the world had waited impatiently for thousands of years.  The need was for a Savior, a once and future king who would bring peace on earth and good will to men; an anointed one who would bring sight to the blind, set at liberty the captives, and preach the acceptable year of our Lord.

For all of the world’s impatience waiting for Christ’s birth, when they finally opened this divine gift, they were dissatisfied with it.  This Savior looked nothing like the king they expected.  He was poor, traveled everywhere by foot, and never won a single military victory.

I’m guessing that most of them would have been standing in the long lines on December 26^th with the others returning the gifts that didn’t quite meet expectation.  “Can I just get store credit?  I’m looking for a Savior capable of military victories, not one who commands me to love my enemies…”

I don’t know that the 21^st century has changed much.  People have a picture of the Savior they want.  They want freedom to pursue their own pleasures and desires, to live comfortable lives, and attain their Constitutional rights.  They want a Jesus who looks like them and likes the same things they like and votes the way they vote.

And still, Jesus calls us, asking us to lay down these rights and pleasures, giving up everything that we are and everything we have.  After laying all this down, He asks to bend down, take up the cross – a symbol of suffering – and follow only Him. 

Christmas is coming, whether we are ready or not, but I pray that we would understand the gift we have received.  For peace on earth will come, not through swords or armed militias, but through men and women who choose to love as their Savior loved them.

Threatening Reflections

 

I was sitting at my desk, in my office, when a noise attracted my attention.  Strangely, it wasn’t coming from the hallway, where people bustle up and down and the nurses offer to tell the patients how much the weigh in pounds (since our scales are set to kilograms).  Instead, it was coming from the large window that looks out on a bit of scrubby woods and the parking lot behind our office.

Usually, there isn’t much out there, maybe a squirrel or two.  Very occasionally, a cardinal will add a splash of scarlet to my drab winter days.

This morning, there was a different visitor.  A small songbird sat on a branch outside the window.  He seemed to be watching me through the glass and then I noticed a crown of crimson on top of his head. 

I watched as he flew from his perch and floated towards the window and then fluttered up and down against it, then, flew back to the twig where he had rested before.

I realized that the bird wasn’t trying to visit the amazing family practice doctor he had heard so much about in Brookneal, but rather was upset by his reflection that was conjured up in the window.  Clearly, he believed that here was another ruby-crowned kinglet trying to move in on his territory and like an Italian mob boss, he wasn’t having any part of it. 

“I think I’ll call him Bill,” I said to myself, certain that this plucky little fellow hadn’t been given any such birth name by his parents.

For the next two days, Bill spent an awful lot of time outside my window.  I didn’t really have time to track all of his movements, after all, I am a physician not an ornithologist and my patients would get discouraged if I made them wait hours simply because I was bird watching.

Bill spent most of his time eyeing the intruder.  Occasionally, he would move to attack, but this was worse than sitting on the perch, because no sooner did he fly towards his reflection, but lo and behold, the bird in the reflection flew towards him and not being very aggressive, he didn’t like that much.

Finally, on the third day, apparently, he decided he had vanquished the visiting bird, and flew away, thinking no more on the intruder or the famous physician he had visited.

I missed Bill, although I was glad, he had stopped flying at his reflection.

It struck me that many people in our world today live their lives looking for threats.  They rose to power in their organizations by tearing down others and now, they fear that someone else will gain an advantage over them in just the same way.

Many a dictator has had to order the execution of family members simply because he was afraid that they were going to usurp his authority.

It makes me sad when I see these sorts of machinations in a church setting.  Jesus told His followers at the Last Supper, “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” (John 13:35)

Churches should not be places of politics and power grabs.  They should be spaces filled with love – both of God and for fellow church members.  The greatest of us in this space is to be known as the ones who serves the most.  Together, we are so much more than any one of us is separately.

I am afraid that many of us forget this, and we port the power structures of the world into the church setting.  Boards and elders and pastors rule, ostensibly under the leadership of “King Jesus.” 

In the church, we should not see fellow servants as threats needing to be attacked and kept down, but rather as people who need to be loved.  Even as we embrace them, we will discover that they are like us – not a threat, but someone made as a reflection of our Creator.