Devotions with my (sick) daughter

Getting sick always throws me off my routine. My cold subsided last weekend so I was able to get back on track this week, which includes getting up for my morning devotions. I think I've mentioned before the challenges I've had with this since our son was born 14 months ago. He likes getting up pretty early though recently he's sleeping a little later, which affords me the chance to spend at least 20 minutes in prayer and reflection. That didn't happen last night/early this morning, though.

Our daughter has been sickly lately and last night she cried out to my wife around 12:45 that her stomach hurt. A few minutes later, a trip to the bathroom bore that out. She appeared to be in pretty intense pain, moaning and holding her stomach while lying on the bathroom floor. Is there a more helpless feeling when a loved one--especially your child--is sick? To compound this, I sometimes think the worst. My wife got out a medical book to see if it was something more than the stomach flu and she turned to the "appendicitis" entry even though it said that children younger than 6 rarely have it. Of course, our minds were racing to the point where I briefly wondered, what if she has leukemia? Hey, what can I say, you don't think rationally at 1 a.m. when your child is in pain. Anne stayed with her a while, came back to bed, and then Caroline got sick again around 5 and I went in with her. She wasn't in the intense pain that she was earlier and was, in fact, kind of sweet. I read her some stories, thought about my day, and, yes, held the bucket in front of her while also holding back her hair. I also wondered about my devotions. I realized, however, that I was having them right there. Caring and supporting another person, especially one who is dependent, is about as close an encounter with God that we can have.

Again and again and again

Once a month I get together with a group of other clergy folks to touch base, see how things are going, pray for each other, and laugh with each other about this crazy vocation we've all taken on. Today, we were led through some lectio divina (http://www.beliefnet.com/story/38/story_3879_1.html to learn more about that) and heard the story from John about Jesus in the Temple and some authorities bringing him a woman caught in the act of adultery. What struck me in listening to this passage, though, was the word "again." It comes up twice. First, in the beginning when it says that early in the morning, Jesus went to the Temple again... Second, at the end of the passage, Jesus tells the woman to go on her way and not sin again.

Our lives are filled with agains, aren't they? We go to work again. We come home to our spouse and children again. We eat meals again. We do so many seemingly hum-drum things again and again and again. And yet Jesus also did many mundane things again and again and again.

Our society doesn't necessarily like agains. It likes new and improved and we fight the temptation to see only dreariness in our agains. But it is in the agains, I believe, that Jesus breaks in and makes our agains meeting places with the sacred.

Pump you up

It’s a common joke that I make about myself that I’m not terribly handy around the house. I can change lightbulbs with the best of them and can occasionally take on a plumbing job, but, unfortunately, it doesn’t come naturally. Last weekend, the water pumped out from our sump pump froze in the discharge pipe outside our house. That caused our backup pump to let us know that something was wrong. All this caused much consternation on my part in trying to figure out what was wrong with our regular pump and our back-up and it wasn’t solved until the plumber came on Monday. But one good thing came out of this mini-emergency. I learned something. I now have a better handle on the whole sump pump process and the actual sump isn’t a mystery any more to me.

The sump is kind of scary, to be honest. It’s in the corner of our basement and it has a black cover on it. When you take the cover off, all you can see is dark and water, which, in my mind, is a frightening combination. I imagined a bottomless pit with all kinds of mysterious things lurking at the bottom. But this "emergency" meant I had to unhook the backup and take it in to check the battery and see if it was broken. That meant looking into the sump. When I shone the flashlight down there, I realized that the sump is only a couple feet deep and at the bottom was just water. Your run-of-the-mill home owner probably knows this, but it was a revelation to me. No longer is the sump mysterious. I know what the dark hides. And all it took was shining some light into it. Kind of reminds me of Jesus: “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life” (John 8:12).

Wishes for my children

I suppose it’s at least somewhat normal for parents to want their children to have some of their same interests. As my two children get older (though they’re still fairly young), I keep telling myself that I want them to realize their own gifts and interests and then support them in those pursuits. But there’s still a little excitement I feel when one of them seems to take an interest in something that I really enjoy.

Case in point and a classic case at that: Volumes have been written about pressures that fathers place on sons to, for example, pursue a certain career or a particular activity, especially sports. Just because I was involved in sports as a youth, though, doesn’t mean my son or daughter will be so inclined and I’m already cognizant of not trying to forcefully steer them to a place they don’t want to go. It’s a struggle, I must admit. My 4-year-old likes to go over to the track near our home and run around it (great!), but when I told her about the opportunity to play t-ball this spring, she expressed little interest (why not?!?). I was probably a little too pleased when I watched my 1-year-old, who has recently taken to saying “bah” when he sees any kind of ball, having great fun putting a soccer ball in his clothes hamper. He’s 1, for goodness sake, and he’s delighting in simple play. But I briefly got caught up in, Oh, he’s going to be a basketball player! What it comes down to, I suppose, is knowing what you want for your child, making sure that that desire is healthy, and staying true to your own desires and dreams, i.e. your child’s life doesn’t completely become your life.

Our church administrator is a great writer and she recently wrote a letter to the editor at the Chicago Tribune in response to a question that the Tribune posed: If you could give any (Christmas) gift, what would it be? She powerfully wrote about her desires for her teen-age children, one of whom has autism. What it came down for her was this: “The gift I most wish for my son, for both my children, is that they will always know how deeply they are loved, how profoundly they are cherished, just the way they are.” What a wonderful wish for any parent, no matter what interests their children have. I have a sense that God wishes the same thing.

Pray without ceasing

Even though I was only gone a couple days, it’s always hard coming back from time away. At least for me anyway. There’s something attractive (I assume for most folks) about being in a place where you have no responsibility and no schedule. When we got back home on Sunday afternoon, there was a bit of a lull and I thought about the various things I could do around the house, but I had little ambition to do them. That sluggishness has stayed with me this week and it's seeping into my devotion time. It is a challenge to do my devotions in the first place these days because many times I’ll take our talking/crying son with me in the morning. He used to play or wander in our basement when I read, but now he immediately heads for the stairs and wants to explore elsewhere. But I can usually get a little bit of prayer and reflection in. This week, though, it’s been easy to give a cursory read and mumble a few prayers to myself.

The command in 1 Thessalonians to pray without ceasing is helpful here. Even though I’ve read this advice many times, I still sometimes get discouraged when my prayers don’t fling open the doors of my heart and the exuberance of the Holy Spirit comes rushing in. Sometimes it feels as if I’m simply calling out and I only hear an echo. But prayer doesn’t always usher in a particular feeling. Prayer fosters faithfulness.

That toddlin' town

I haven’t been very devoted to the blog lately, so for the handful of you who occasionally check in for entertainment (inspiration?), my apologies. Things have been hectic. I also do appreciate responses to what I write, but, again, often don’t have time to respond to the responders so I encourage other readers to engage with what others have to say/write.

My wife and I spent our annual winter weekend in the city last weekend, which has become something we both look forward to as much as any time of the year. My mom comes out to stay with our kids and we traipse downtown to eat out, get some uninterrupted sleep, and experience the arts. This time around, we stayed at the Hotel Allegro, watched “Wicked” (which has had an interesting impact on me—many great themes of grace, exclusion, and call are in this musical and, for the life of me, I can’t get the songs out of my head) and “Good Night, and Good Luck,” ate breakfast at Ina’s and Orange, ate dinner at the Mambo Grill, and spent about three hours at the Art Institute Saturday morning. We decided to get the headphone self-guided tour at the Art Institute and it was the best $6 we ever spent. A new world opened up to me when I was able to get some context and background for a lot of the pieces.

Someday I hope we can move into the city—there’s a vibrancy there that you simply can’t get anywhere else.