Contentment?

It’s been coming up a lot lately: this tension between knowing God has already given us so much more than we deserve, so to be content with what we have – but also seeing that there are things broken or out of place in our world and lives and for it to be ok to desire healing and progress towards the ideal – while accepting it if God keeps us living somewhere short of perfect through no fault of our own.

Like a lesser example would be food. We are wretches deserving eternity in hell. Instead God gives us new life in Christ and on top of that, daily bread. For this we should be thankful. But also if our bread lacks the nutrition God designed our bodies to thrive on, or if the pesticides used to grow the wheat cause toxicity in our bodies – it is ok to want different food. It could be argued it is good to pursue different food. But if all the food we can get is that same bread – or a little better bread, but still not all the way to the nutrition that would be optimal, God is still faithful and generous and we can trust Him.

I think it is just hard to sort out what times we’re being tempted to wicked discontentment and what times we’re being prompted to go after changes, and if we are, how much of our energy we should put into that. Maybe we ideally need more rain, more back rubs, more time praising God with our friends. And maybe God wants us to endure lack, to find our sufficiency in Christ, to know the supremacy in our hearts of His love. Or maybe He wants us to work less hours or scroll less Facebook and host more worship gatherings? Maybe, at the very least, He wants us to ask Him for the things we perceive that we need.

To God be all glory,

Lisa of Longbourn

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Ratios

My friends taught me to play a board game which starts with each player dividing 100 into three categories: fame, happiness, and wealth.

What if I divided 24 hour vacation days into my own preferred formula? I think I want to sit with my toes skimming the surface of a lake or stream, reading a novel. But if I could choose, I wouldn’t do that all day, and may even do it only one or two hours a day. Because I would also like to hike in a forest. I would want to converse beside a fire drinking something warm. And cook and eat delicious food. Window shop. Play games. Talk some more. Maybe look around at a museum or a few old and beautiful buildings. Maybe take a scenic drive. Watch some rain or clouds or a sunset. Pray. Journal. Maybe write.

And, acknowledging that work is a blessing and calling of life, how would I incorporate such refreshing things into non-vacation life? With what proportions? Adding in investing in community and ministry and weekly chores and job chores?

And if TV and crafts and scrolling Facebook are not on my recreation list, shouldn’t I limit how much time and space I give them in any of my life?

To God be all glory,

Lisa of longbourn

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Hanabi

There’s this cooperative game called Hanabi (that I love), where, in order to play a card, you are dependent on hints other players have given you. I decided early on to play with hope. I will hope that my fellow players gave me good hints and didn’t neglect to give me necessary hints. It can backfire when the constraints of the game limit the available hints, and so my fellow players were between a rock and a hard place. …

Anyway. When a person is first learning, a lot of times they don’t know what hints are the most important, or how to give good ones, or maybe they do, but they don’t know the kind of player I am and how I will respond. And so my preference for playing hopefully may be reckless for one round of play. It may leave the hint-er feeling like a failure. (I am disinclined to consider myself the failure.) Hanabi is a game for playing more than once. It is a game for learning people. In watching me respond in a certain way, even if we crashed and burned, now that player knows more about communicating with me in the future.

And one of the humbling beauties of the game is that not only are they learning how I play; I am also learning about how they give hints. So we adapt to each other. I probably won’t stop playing with hope just to adapt to a cautious strategy, but I may adapt to the things they evidently meant to communicate, and the things they think are priorities.

Yeah. But this morning I was thinking about the willingness to teach through failure. In the movie Penelope, a young woman goes to a bar for the first time and the bartender slides her a beer, but she watches it slide on off the counter. “You’re supposed to catch it,” he smiles at the crashed glass, and pours her another, which he slides to her in a second attempt. More than likely, he thought she’d figure it out the first time. Definitely expected her to not let another one hurdle off the end of the counter. But he didn’t have each of his customers go through orientation. He didn’t show them diagrams and examples. He didn’t hold the first beer a few inches from their hand and then give it a slow push to slide gently into the hand he’d made sure was waiting for the pint. He risked trust. He risked wasted beer and broken glass and embarassment.

I’m not going to just play it safe and have a mediocre game. I’m going to play like I think it should be played, and lose very badly a few times in order to become really great players and get great scores more consistently. I guess I could explain things out, train the game before playing (thinking especially of teaching kids), but that kind of defeats what is to me one of the objects of the game: to practice paying enough attention to other people, and putting your fate in their hands, to communicate and cooperate better and better.

To God be all glory,

Lisa of Longbourn

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Wert

I cried tonight. I didn’t expect it. I was watching a movie that wasn’t sad, that didn’t have me in the least feeling teary, and it ended without anyone dying, and I remembered something I told someone earlier in the day, that I didn’t feel very deeply when I said it. And I just cried. 

I mean, I know that I have had a long and overwhelming few weeks. I know that the whole world feels like it is inevitably sliding toward the brink. I know that I have sadness that is not depression that hasn’t been all the way dealt with. Not that I feel like it’s holding me back; I have a job, after all. I gather and laugh and pray and work and even occasionally meet new people. There was Covid. There still is the strangely rapid totalitarian takeover that is sort of called Covid. I think there’s a lot of sadness in me about that. I know that “captivated by hope” is not currently the best descriptor of me. 

But the tears did surprise me. Hard tears, real crying for a minute or two. Tears that have to do with actual hard things in my actual life, and not just pulled out of me by a sad movie or another person’s struggle. 

Earlier today I told someone I work with that I had wanted twelve kids. 

My job is fine. It’s a job. It’s work that I don’t feel is completely meaningless. I’m probably overqualified, but no one would really know that from a resume. (Not that there are things I don’t know, like how to make the e in resume have that little accent line over it to distinguish it from picking up where we left off.) I actually work really hard, much harder than is strictly necessary, at my job. I try to find ways to make it better, whether it would particularly benefit me or not. 

So after I cried, I was wondering. If I’d had twelve kids and a household by now, that would be an enormous task. I’d probably have cried more over the years. But I wonder if I put so much into my job because I really believe I’m capable of doing more – you know, like wrangling a whole big family. 

I got to be on a team this week. My little sister and her husband own their first house, and I was helping them fix it up by handling a drill and a hammer and all sorts of other things I am vastly underqualified to do. One day in particular a fellow volunteer was someone I’d served with years ago at a ministry, and it brought back fond memories of that teamwork. No joke; I was so grateful to get to be on a team with him again. 

Another team member from that ministry back in the day has had a life really different from what I expected. He’s been doubting things he taught others about Jesus back then. And suffering from life and human betrayals in a way that is undoubtedly all knotted up with the other doubts. That makes me sad. Ecclesiastes says not to wish that we were back in the former days, romanticizing the past. How do you do that when the former days held so much that today doesn’t? People have literally died. Marriages are broken. Doors are closed on hopes. Friends moved away. Comrades in Christ have professed not to trust Him anymore. What is that? 

I know how to obey Ecclesiastes. It’s like a friend was texting me recently: to look to God, to think about Him and His plan and what we know He’s doing. Hours before the crying, I was thinking about that. There is this book I really like but haven’t read in a few years, and the author weaves in glimpses to the plots of demons, like Screwtape Letters, and then the readers get to see their evil plots unfolding, everything going according to plan, and it is horrible, but it is so good for me, because as the story goes on, it so happens that there is a bigger plan by a more powerful Person, and that it is actually His will going according to plan, so that the end the demons hoped for is completely thwarted. In the immediate future, I cannot imagine what bigger plan is going on. But I do know that in the very end the end we hope for is true. The King comes on a white horse, vanquishing enemies and making a home for His beloved faithful, receiving His own due reward and desire. 

I got to work early this morning, and turned on our Pandora while I got things set up. I picked a different station, and was surprised that it played me hymns. I changed it to less overtly religious music when we opened, but it was so nice to have a quiet ten or fifteen minutes being reminded “which, wert, and art and evermore shall be.” 

To God be all glory,

Lisa of Longbourn

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Mask Decisions: Stacking, Not Choosing Between, Facts

When I am allowed to make personal judgments about how I behave in this pandemic, I am not just considering one or two facts. In the case of wearing masks when out shopping, here is how I would reason it, if the government weren’t superimposing their will:

1. Transmission is extremely rare in circumstances without prolonged close exposure, and
2. Transmission by people without current symptoms is a small portion of total transmissions, and
3. Even among symptomatic people, most infected don’t pass the virus to anyone else: super-spreaders do way more than their fair share, and
4. Cloth masks only filter some droplets and fewer aerosols, and
5. Masks are mostly recommended as source control, which is only relevant if I am currently infected and contagious, and
6. I know I have not had prolonged exposure to the most contagious type of infection, and
7. I know that I am not experiencing any symptoms whatsoever, and
8. I know that I am getting lots of Vitamins C and D, which are shown to be immune-supporting and virus-inhibiting (so the chances that I am capable of spreading the virus should I be exposed are even smaller), and
9. Finally, the statistical likelihood that in the extremely remote chance that I have it multiplied by the extremely remote chance I give it to anyone else, that such a person would experience any long-term detrimental effect is very small – probably as small as with Influenza and many other viruses which have never previously induced me to do everything in my power to reduce any possibility of spreading.

 

I am obeying the requests of business owners and private individuals, and even of governments, for the most part, regarding masks. But that does not make me very carefully take off my mask and not touch it again until I am washing it, or to conscientiously sanitize my hands every time I touch my mask. I don’t believe those things are relevant in a significant way under my circumstances, so I am only complying with what other people demand. It is not personal conviction in the slightest.

 

However, if circumstances were different and the facts about the virus were the same, 

 

I could build a different set of facts for different circumstances, too. 

1. Transmission is more likely in circumstances with prolonged close exposure, and
2. Transmission by people with current symptoms is a higher proportion of total transmissions than asymptomatic carriers, and
3. Cloth masks filter some droplets, if not aerosols, and
4. Exposure to higher concentrations of virus makes infection more likely, and
5. Masks are mostly recommended as source control, which is relevant if I am likely to be currently infected and contagious, and
6. I know whether I have had prolonged exposure to the most contagious type of infection, and
7. I can tell whether I am experiencing any symptoms whatsoever, and
8. I know that certain people I could choose to be around have weak immune systems, are in high-risk categories, live in a place where they are likely to spread it to other health-compromised people, or they have insufficient access to good health care, and
9. Even though the risks are probably almost as small as with Influenza and many other viruses, I would have taken precautions to avoid spending extended time around vulnerable people when I was sick, in those other cases, also.

 

To God be all glory,

Lisa of Longbourn

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Self-Determination at What Expense?

You wake up in the passenger seat of a car. The driver has abducted you. You’re in pain, and disoriented. After a moment, you realize you are bleeding badly. By the grace of God you overcome the driver within a few blocks of the hospital and take control of the car. If you don’t get to the emergency room soon, you could die. The problem is, you’re in traffic; pedestrians are crossing at the crosswalk ahead. If you don’t run them over, you know that your time is short, and you might not even survive to make it to the hospital. You are in this horrible situation through no fault of your own. Is there any way you could justify choosing to run over the innocent people in the crosswalk?

To God be all glory,

Lisa of Longbourn

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Parents and the Barren and Expectations

When people say “before I was a parent, I expected _____ about raising kids, but now…” What it kind of sounds like to me is “don’t bother spending these waiting years preparing to be a good parent; you’ll only get it wrong.” Thing is, I sincerely disagree.

I know preparation isn’t the same as living it. But the solution to the barren thinking they would never let their kids throw fits in grocery stores is to share your experience, not put them down for trying to plan well and aim for good things. I think it is a huge problem that many people enter parenthood with so little experience, training (discipleship), or intentionality. They have no idea what are reasonable expectations.

On the other hand, believe it or not, many childless people have lots of experience interacting with non-ideal children. Some have seen lots of different homes and had more time and less personal investment (defensiveness) to synthesize what they’ve learned. It isn’t everything. It is NO justification for them being arrogant or judgmental. But God seemed to put parents together with non-parents, in community, so maybe we could learn from each other and encourage one another instead of silencing our companions.

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In Defense of Like-Mindedness on Social Media

There is a popular idea coming out of our analysis of the new thing that is social media: that social media’s tendency to make echo chamber, confirmation-bias-reinforcing bubbles is a bad thing for growing as human beings.  I don’t think this concept is entirely without merit. But I think it may depend on the type of person you and your friends are.

 

First of all, I have observed the use of social media for things that have nothing to do with affirming preconceived ideas, unless it is the idea that one’s own children are cute and that their grandparents enjoy pictures of them.  There are other social media users who only exchange amusing morphed pictures of their faces with friends, or who only play games using the platforms, or watch and share Grumpy Cat memes. Some people basically only use their social media as a platform for marketing their business.  The lesson to be learned from this fact is that social media’s effect is, in part, a consequence of how you use it. This is hopeful, because it means we can choose how to act based on the kinds of outcomes we aspire to.

 

We can be the kind of people about whom the sociologists warn, who use Facebook only to get “likes” from people who agree with us, and to read the simple slogans of others who are stating thoughts we’ve already had (or adopted).  We can steer clear of anything that we’re not sure our group would agree with, and berate anyone in our network who dares to publish statements or photos or videos that the “group” hasn’t accepted.

 

Or, if we want to be the kind of people who learn and are able to be corrected, we can pursue that goal.  

I am struggling with the argument that in order to be this kind of social media wielder, one must network with people whose ideas are radically opposed to one’s own.  I believe my struggle comes from two main places: that I am a minority among my friends, when considering the kinds of topics I like to discuss on Facebook; and also that it is proper to discriminate in personal friendships against people who are fools.  

 

I know that, relative to Americans at large, my circles look like a very small-minded bubble.  Most of my friends are, like me, Christians, pro-life, compassionate, and lovers of freedom. But I am actually in a minority for my beliefs and morals even among my own several hundred Facebook friends.  My religious and political views, standards of human behavior, ideals for life and society, principles of economics – are all things that I am at odds with almost everyone about. The differences may be nuanced, but they are real.  This being the case, I experience being almost constantly challenged by my associates. And where I am not contradicted, I am exposed to aspects of the topics that I haven’t considered before, or haven’t delved into. I hypothesize that most people who are interested in thinking deeply on these subjects, and applying them to life, have a similar experience.  

 

Also, I have exposure to the larger world’s ideas through colleagues and clients at work, through shopping, watching TV and movies, and advertising – enough to know that there are ideas different than mine and different than what I witness on social media.  In addition to being a comfort when I feel inundated by foreign values and beliefs in my larger culture, it is also helpful to have some people closer to my values to help me evaluate and respond to these disagreements with the world around me in a constructive, insightful way.  

 

My familiarity with the “other sides” isn’t complete!  I still have moments where I realize I had assumed most people had a common experience or universal understanding of a thing – and it wasn’t true!  Everyone lives in a sort of social bubble, no matter how hard we try!

 

The Bible teaches that the people that we spend a lot of time with will have influence over us.  It warns that “the companion of fools will be destroyed” and “he who walks with wise men will be wise”, that “evil company corrupts good morals”, and “what fellowship has light [those made alive by the work and grace of Jesus] with darkness [those who remain in rebellion against God and its corresponding delusions and weaknesses]”.  Thus, I think it is wise to exclude from among my frequent influencers and counselors those whom I discern to be wicked and foolish. I lament that this is the state of our nation: that there are millions who would debate about simple and obvious things like whether to allow murder of some humans; that there are people so given to their own pleasure that they do not care to evaluate their desires or philosophies (but talk about them anyway).  I wish that we could instead be pooling the wisdom (or at least humble curiosity) of God-fearing and thoughtful* people in order to solve harder questions.

 

*Not every God-fearing person can be classified as thoughtful, and that’s just fine, as long as it is moderate, and as long as non-thoughtful people aren’t trying to have public, in-depth dialogue on subjects where thought is needed.  Being a thoughtful person, I believe it is good to have at least some substantial portion of my acquaintance also be deep thinkers.

 

I believe it is OK, if you are using social media for discussion of important topics, to have some friends who aren’t wise and good.  I’m not a strict isolationist. I would advocate that we keep a prayerful, vigilant watch on the balance of friends and those we follow or subscribe to who are, on the one hand, able to sharpen us and, on the other hand, those who pull us away from good thinking and good acting.  This is true even if social media is, for you, a less profound venture, because any shared experience can build bonds that sway your priorities, even shared fun or simple everyday comments. It may be fine for the proportions to be different if you use the platforms for more lighthearted purposes. But because of the power of words and precepts, it is more important to have the majority of those whom you engage on that level be good companions.  If the majority of your interactions on these deeper issues are outside of social media with a group of friends whose influence is more positive, it may also be acceptable to dabble in social media exchanges with less upright people.

 

I tend towards viewing interactions with wicked fools as condescending (hopefully with as little hypocrisy as possible), and as rescue missions.  This can be a good way to guard against taking them in as “companions”. But, since even “blind squirrels find nuts” – and because in many ways, I am yet also a “blind squirrel”, it is useful to be open to new revelations brought through these people.  At the very least, conversing with them can improve our understanding of them and the experiences that have formed them (and may have formed others in our society, including ourselves).

 

How do we know if we are discerning which people are wise and good, versus which are foolish and wicked?  That’s not something I want to write about right now, but it is something worth considering, with an allowance that we may not be perfect at it, in principle or practice.  

 

In conclusion, I appreciate my social media (primarily Facebook) experience, but also benefit from reminders to be careful that I am using it to build wisdom, rather than pride.  And I hope that others can, as well.

 

To God be all glory,

Lisa of Longbourn

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Love Begotten

Love.

On the surface you think it makes sense.  You love someone because you click, or because it’s convenient, or because they love you.  And you do the things that go with love: you spend time, you give things, you make sacrifices.  But then time goes by and it’s become something else, too…

It isn’t that you’re lost in it; you become something else, maybe.  You go through seasons when you can’t remember any of the reasons.  You feel like you don’t have anything in common. You feel like so much of your relationship has been you hurting the other person, and you can’t take those things back, and maybe all the other love-things weren’t worth it.  You can’t think of anything about the person that inspires you – you can’t even bring to mind things that used to inspire you.

But in the middle of all that – and you feel like you’re drowning, feel like you’ve been crazy to have ever thought differently – in the middle of it, you realize there’s still love.  It’s there with a pulse, abiding even when you have nothing to feed it, no reason to believe in it. And it’s hard to even define what it is that’s present that we name love, but you know it is love.

Opportunities come, and they’re wrenching ones, to see some things that this love does.  The person you love gets sick and you’re surprised that all you can think about is rushing over to hold the puke bucket and rub their back.  Or you’re half awake but the first thing you think about is whether they’re ok. You hear them say that they don’t feel loved, don’t believe they’re lovable – and sometimes they don’t even say it, you just find it out – but you get the sensation that you were made for this: to prove that someone is loved, and you want to prove it with everything you have and are and do.  Or they’re in such a dark place spiritually and you can’t stop praying, and the only things you can pray are that God will rescue them.

There are border-lands of this feeling, where you’re conscious of some reasons, where you enjoy loving them, even though it’s still hazy.  You’re not sure what you’re dealing with, so you’re not sure how to act, but love isn’t about figuring everything out and making a plan.

But you know you’re in this state where whether you get anything out of it or not, whether it seems successful or not, whether there’s hope for things to be better ever again.

Or.

Not.

Youknow that none of those things will change the fact that you care about them more than you care about yourself.

It doesn’t mean that your life will end up entwined with theirs, nor that you’ll be asas significant to them.  It just means that love doesn’t go away. You can choose to start loving; you might be able to choose to quit loving; I don’t know.  I do believe, though, that you can’t just fade out of loving a person. Once you’ve invited it, it’s there.

You can still do the not-loving things.  Your love can be weak or it can be caged by all sorts of other feelings and choices – but if it is, you’re going to be miserable, because the love will still be aching inside you.

It’s like a miracle, like begetting children: you do contribute, but you’re not doing it.  You haven’t a clue where to begin to create love, and you’re not powerful enough to do it if you did.  It’s a grace. God gives it.

To God be all glory,

Lisa of Longbourn

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Priority

I had an emotional crisis a while back.  Not a breakdown or anything hospital-worthy.  Something confidant-worthy.  Due to circumstances, accessing a confidant was trickier than normal.  It struck me, for the first time in this way, that there is no one in my life to whom I ought to be a priority.  My friends ought to make their own spouses and children their priorities.  I still don’t have a pastor, though I have several acquaintances who serve congregations of their own.  I have a lot of friends, and they are the good kind who make sacrifices to love others well, even if we aren’t their topmost priority.  I even have parents who help me with car emergencies, or when I am too sick to drive myself somewhere.  So usually I can find someone to help single, grown-up me out if I need.

 

But this is what I was realizing: each time something comes up, I have to sort it out and select which people I ought to reach out to.  There is no one person that I ought to go to first.  That can be exhausting and lonely.  Just being honest.

 

To God be all glory,

Lisa of Longbourn

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