Okay, I know the title of the post sounds totally anti-God and anti-Bible. That is not all what I am intending to say, but I got your attention, right? I am referring to the danger of using the Bible to get what we want as parents rather than actually parenting our children and teaching them what God's Word has to say. Ephesians 6:1 has been used and over used to the point that some kids can quote it backward and forward, but inside their spirit is angry and resentful.
Mom: "No, you can't wear that outfit." Child: "But WHY? " Parent: "Children obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right." Child: "I can't wait to grow up and get out of here so I don't have to obey you anymore!" (Verbally stated or held internally.) This is not the only verse that is overused or used out of context. Child: "I can't understand my algebra homework." Parent: "I can do all things through him who strengthens me." Child: (sarcastically) "Thanks, that cleared everything up." The examples could go on, but hopefully you get my point. Child is arguing, complaining, or disobeying and the parents response is to throw out a verse and move on like it was a magic phrase that fixed everything. The child has learned nothing other than they needed help from a parent they trusted and that help was not given. Instead they got a quick quote that was empty and lacked love behind it. This is wrong. So what do we do? Should you not teach your kids scripture or avoid quoting it to them? No, but I would assert that there is a way to do it that is gentle and graceful. It will teach them to love God's Word rather than to hate it or twist it to be used for their own purposes.
We can do a great deal of damage when it comes to our handling of scripture and it's presentation to our kids. We can also ruin our testimony by our rants on social media and behavior toward other adults. For now all I can do is try to live out the gospel every day and when I fail, ask forgiveness of my heavenly Father and those around me.
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I am the youngest of six children. There is a substantial gap between myself and my siblings. Three of them were out of high school when I was born. Often I am asked if I was a mistake, which for the record is kind of rude and everyone should stop saying that. Unplanned is a better way to ask the question without implying that someone's existence should not be. Anyway, according to my mother, I was not unplanned. But unplanned or not, my birth, according to The Birth Order Book by Kevin Leman, started a new family. In his book Leman states that after a seven year gap without children being born, a new family begins. Thus according to his research, my behavior is more similar to an only child rather than one raised with five siblings. I am closest in age to my sister Gwendolyn, who is just eleven years older than me. The next closest in age is Paul whose lap I'm sitting on in the picture. As I grew my siblings moved away to various locations around the country. My parents took me as we traveled around the country to visit them. We went to Pennsylvania then Arizona to see Sandy, New Jersey then Virginia to visit Dana, Chicago to visit Paul and Robert, and Northern Michigan to visit Gwendolyn who eventually moved to the Chicago area. I am leaving out their spouses and children here to make things simpler, but our family is wonderfully large. My mother did many admirable things for me as I grew up, but there are two that stand out as life altering and which I see as immensely influential in my life.
You may have tangible wealth untold;
Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold. Richer than I you can never be -- I had a Mother who read to me. Strickland Gillilan I don’t like to work out with friends, because I’m also kind of a loner and I’m also terribly wimpy. Once, I went to a weight training class with a friend and discovered she was a beast! She was upping the instructor’s suggested weights and lifting with ease! Meanwhile, I was struggling with half the weight and staring at the clock waiting for this torture to end. The next day she was gracefully ambling around while I moved with the ease of a ninety four year old woman. By attending the class, I learned to respect my friend’s physical prowess and gained new found respect for her. Did I go back? What am I crazy?! No. No, I did not. But I got a great story out of the experience. See? This whole paragraph would have been empty without that story. So many paragraphs of the story of my life would be empty without having endured painful experiences. Even though I don’t like something while I’m experiencing it, when it’s over I find a way to turn it into a good story. It’s made my life so much more enjoyable. This turning-bad-experiences-into-a-great-story thing is not unique to me. It's pretty much the majority of what you will hear if you listen in on a gathering of Booths. The crazier the story the more we get excited to share it with our audience. These story telling gatherings were my first introduction into why experience collecting was so valuable. We didn't have to be rich in money or possessions. We took the experiences we encountered and used them to enrich our lives. Collecting experiences isn’t as easy as collecting Starbucks mugs, t-shirts, or bumper stickers, but experiences are much more rewarding. They enrich my life as a reader, learner, and employee. Experiences have made me a more interesting person and they have made me a more interested person. I can hold my own at a dinner party with a story to share about one of my experiences and I am interested to hear about others experiences. Collecting experiences has taken me down some rather unusual paths, but that’s the point, right? While in St. Louis with Logan, we were slowly wandering toward our dinner destination. During our walk we ended up splashing and laughing in a park fountain. By the time we were done we were both soaked and disheveled looking, but we had a lot of laughs and made some great memories. (This park seemed to allow this activity. I wouldn’t recommend splashing in random public fountains.) I’ve seen a performance at the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, walked on the Great Wall of China, and stood on the top of the Empire State Building. I've also snuggled a new born baby, cooked with my mom, and danced in the rain. Experiences can be big and grand, but they don't have to be. Sometimes collecting experiences can be perceived as expensive because experiences seem better in exotic locations. But don’t believe that you have to spend big to begin your collection. All it takes is the actions I’ve mentioned previously. You need to be a learner and reader so you know why something is an experience worth collecting and you need to be willing to explore. Why is it worth it to eat a brownie at the Palmer House? Because it is where brownies were first invented. So after eating it you can say that you have tasted the original brownie. Being willing to explore will push you beyond your comfort zone. If your friends are going camping and have invited you, consider going even if you aren’t a camper. This doesn’t mean it has to be a regular thing, but you can say that you did it and create lasting friendships and community along the way. Sometimes these experiences don’t go as you intended. That’s okay. Go with the flow. One time I took students and Logan down to the Museum of Science and Industry for a lecture about Project 120 and Jackson Park. It ended with me climbing in the koi pond to fish out Logan’s toy boat. I could have been really mad. I could have chastised Logan and lamented that the day was a disaster, but what a story. After the lecture we headed out and had a tour of the island given by the president of Project 120 and the director of Chicago’s parks and recreation department. Our group met the president and even took a few photos with him. We then toured the Wooded Island and visited the Japanese Garden. This was beautiful. The cherry blossom trees were blooming and the garden, which was not even open to the public yet, was peaceful and inviting. Our group wandered all over the garden until we heard Logan calling. He had sunk his toy boat in the koi pond. The same koi pond we had just heard about in the lecture. The same koi pond that had just recently been cleared of years’ worth of litter and debris. The same koi pond that the director of parks and recreation department, the president of Project 120, and other official-ish people were now standing around. I contemplated what to do. Logan wanted his boat back. Jason had purchased him that boat as a special present so he would have been disappointed at its loss. I knew wading in the pond probably wasn’t encouraged. I also knew that they had only recently completed the clean-up effort and wouldn’t be thrilled about seeing a sunken toy boat in the pond. The parks director and other officials were staring at me to see what I would do. Logan and my students were watching. I sat down on a bolder, removed my boots, pushed up my leggings, and climbed in the pond. After removing the toy boat and seeing the stricken faces of the officials I held up the boat and proclaimed, “I didn’t want to litter!” One of the representatives of the parks department came over and shook my hand and said it was the most valiant effort in litter removal that he had ever seen. What started as an intellectual outing with students turn into a debacle that included a teacher in the pond. Despite the cold and the embarrassment the day was ultimately a success because we all got a great story. Do things that are unique, fun, and sometimes weird. Push yourself beyond your comfort zone. Sometimes these things scare will scare you, but that’s okay. Face your fears and proceed. Some things, like zip lining were terrifying at first, but then they become thrilling. My experiences also help me better know myself. How do you know if you don't like something if you've never tried it? I have tried to like fish. I really have, but I can say with confidence and authority that I don’t like fish or other sea food. When I say that people often tell me that I haven’t tried it in the right places, but I can respond, “I’ve tried it in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Portland, Maine, Boston, Massachusetts, and Monterey, California.” I don’t like camping and I know it because I’ve done it a few times. I did enjoy sleeping in the tent with my friends though so I’m glad my parents encouraged me to go. I have really tried to like roller coasters, but I don’t. I just don’t. Sorry, Cedar Point. I hope to look back on my life and remember the things I have done and the places I have visited with fond memories, thankful for how each experience has enriched my life. Collect experiences to fill your life with interesting paragraphs that will fill in the boring mundane details of your chapters. Some chapters are duller than others so they need more interesting paragraphs as fillers. So let's get experiencing together! A Few of My Favorite Experiences1. Being at Stonehenge for the summer solstice sunrise. 2. Running a marathon. I'm really slow, but I love being able to say I've done it. I've done a total of 6 (thus far). 3. Goat Yoga. This one is just too odd not to love. There are some people who find goat yoga a beautiful expression of connecting with nature, but I found it difficult to fully relax with the possibility of getting pooped on being present. 4. Staying up late to watch a meteor shower. A few of my former students visited me last summer and we sat in the driveway wrapped in blankets to watch the Perseid meteor shower. The photo below isn't mine. That night we put the electronics away and just watched and talked. Also that's WAY more stars than we could see from our home in suburbia. 5. Visiting Platform 9 3/4. My niece and I thought the idea was original. Apparently we were wrong, but nevertheless we had a great time. What are some of your favorite experiences? After many years of teaching and parenting I have discovered something. Attempting to teach something as a negative is extremely difficult. Human nature and our amazing brains can come up with a million other things to do when told “don’t.” Tell a classroom full of most any age students, “Don’t talk,” and soon you will hear whispering, humming, singing, the scribbling of note writing, singing, and using every form of communication other than talking. I’ve asked a classroom full of preschoolers about what our rules should be and they came up with, “No hitting,” but that wasn’t enough because as a little person pointed out, “kicking isn’t nice either.” So we ended up with “no hitting, no kicking, no spitting, no slapping, no hair pulling, no poking, no punching,” and the list goes on and on. After doing this for a minute or so I would stop the class and say, “Yes, those things aren’t nice. Let’s make our rule ‘Be kind and help each other.’” What I was trying to do was to change the negative to a positive. “Don’t run,” is better worded as, “Walk carefully.” I’ve heard people criticize positive wording as being overly sensitive and espousing the idea that kids these days are too soft to hear the word “no”. I disagree and would argue that telling children what we expect from them and what kind of behavior they should exhibit will allow them to succeed. I think we need to apply this to the people we are exposing our children too. I am tired of weak, stupid characters in TV and movies who do what is best for themselves. I am tired of celebrities who speak with apparent passion and authority about social issues then go back to living the lives of the rich and famous. I am tired of video games and apps that mindlessly entertain without instructing our children about anything useful. We tell our girls to be women who are powerful and strong then let them keep up with the Kardashians. We tell our boys to look for girls who are confident and followers of Christ, but we let them lose on social media where the goal of being “liked” by other people reigns supreme. We tell our kids to grow up, be successful, serve God, but then cling to news of celebrities whose version of those things are very different from our own. This must change. Heroes. In our present political and social climate we have lost the love of heroes. We are quick to point out the failures of people and note where they failed. We use the fact that George Washington was a slaveholder to shadow all his other accomplishments. This can be dangerous because when we are done picking everyone apart what are we left with but a bunch of failures? Why should anyone bother trying to be successful. Now, I am not saying that we should blindly worship other humans and never notice their moral failures. Slavery is abhorrent so when we study George Washington we should note his failure in this area but look with admiration toward men like William Wilberforce who fought tirelessly to eliminate slavery, Then we can evaluate Washington's character, acknowledging that flaw, but learning from his other positive character traits. We need to stop telling our kids what not to do and let them find heroes. Heroes who have changed the world and can inspire our children. We are not lacking for heroes. Brave men and women who have stopped diseases, stood up to tyranny, lead countries, boldly lived out the gospel, or pushed their bodies in physical and mental exertion. The following is a list of individuals I’ve found inspiring. I 'm not an expert in their personal lives and you may find they did something objectionable in their life. But, uh, if I could be so bold . . . you probably have too. I'm not thrilled with the idea of my life story being front and center, because just like you I am imperfect. They are human there will be negatives along with the positives. But these are people who have been brave, courageous, and have done something for which they should be remembered. Perhaps their story will inspire you or your child to greatness. I don’t have gender specific lists and here’s why: I want my son to hear stories of brave women who stood for what was right. I want the girls I know to read stories of men who did what was right and loved the world because God loved them. Boys need to learn to respect strong women. Girls need to look at men who possess qualities they can cultivate in their own lives. Here are few of my heroes in no particular order: Gladys Alward Detrich Bonehoffer Corrie Ten Boom C.S. Lewis Theodore Roosevelt Alexander Hamilton Amy Carmichael The Wright Brothers William Wilberforce Elizabeth Elliot Lillian Trasher Harriet Tubman Clara Barton Louis Zamperini Hellen Keller Anne Sullivan Fanny Crosby Malala Eric Liddell John Adams Abigail Adams Charles Lindberg Queen Victoria Abraham Lincoln Nelly Bly Jim Thorpe |
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