What We Learn about the Heart of God from a Formula Ad

It's been going around Facebook for about a week, an ad by the formula company Similac. The ad is brilliant. It shows a groups of parents arriving at the park, all in their categories: crunchy moms, stay at home dads, cloth diaperers, formula feeders, working moms, etc. A verbal battle ensues and they all prepare to throw down... As they do something unexpected happens. You can watch it here: 

And the Internet weeps at the beauty of various communities coming together to save one of their children. Well done, Similac. 

As with all things that touch such a common chord across humanity, the image speaks to a bigger truth, something that resonates in us and speaks to our souls. For me, when I watched this ad... I did not see a random neighborhood full of strangers; I saw the Church. I saw Christians standing and greeting each other, not with love and unity, but with bickering and competition. 

God uses his people to do his work, but when his people are shouting their own rightness, they often forget to care for those under their watch. They don't set the brake on the stroller, and the hearts they are entrusted with slowly start slipping down the hill of shame, doubt, confusion, and bitterness toward death in the lake of unbelief. 

But God is calling us, like the person who notices the stroller start to roll... He shouts a warning, begging us to cease bickering and hear. God's people are here to do his work; we have to stop that stroller... And we ought to all be running as fast as ours legs will carry us to grab the hand of God's wandering child, securing them in the grasp of a united community. 

image owned, I assume, by Similac

In the end, the parents at the park all rejoice together as the baby, now safe and warm, is reunited with her mother and declared to be safe. They do not return to their bickering, because they have faced crisis. They have seen firsthand that the tiny choices we make about temporal things just do not matter when we look into the eyes of eternity. So let us look through the lens of eternal grace at those around us, not labeling each other by denomination or belief or political leaning, but seeing every person as God's child and reach out to everyone, beyond petty disagreements over interpretation or application — let us reach out to each other, making everyone feel at home in the embrace of God's love.

I Want Adventure in the Great Wide Somewhere

Someone asked me what I thought of Wild at Heart and my response could not be contained in a Facebook response comment. Wild at Heart by John Eldredge... The book describes itself in this way, "God designed men to be dangerous. Simply look at the dreams and desires written in the heart of every boy: To be a hero, to be a warrior, to live a life of adventure and risk. Sadly, most men abandon those dreams and desires — aided by a Christianity that feels like nothing more than pressure to be a "nice guy." It is no wonder that many men avoid church, and those who go are often passive and bored to death. In this provocative book, Eldredge gives women a look inside the true heart of a man and gives men permission to be what God designed them to be-dangerous, passionate, alive, and free!" (Taken from Amazon.) 

That description points out the thing that bothers me the most about this book... It's extremely gendery. The author is all "men want adventure, women want security; men want passion, women want softness."  Anyone who knows me and my husband will know that our relationship is hardly so black and white. We both desire to do the brave and exciting thing, while both being inhibited by a need for safety and security. If anything, I want loudness and passion and excitement, and he desires quiet and peace and normalcy. So, when I was 19 and reading Wild at Heart it seemed strange that it seemed to be saying that men were created a certain way that women were not. I remember thinking, "Um, has this dude not seen Beauty & the Beast?" Belle famously sings, while twirling in a field of wild flowers (that should satisfy you, Mr. Eldredge) "I want adventure in the great wide somewhere. I want it more than I can tell." And her song resonated with every little girl in America, about a decade before Wild at Heart was released. 

Even though this book was intended for men, I was a fan of his previous works and found myself chapters in and finding that the message of the book spoke went straight to my teenage heart. I decided to overlook all references to gender and to simply see the bigger point of the book (which is a good thing, because had I thought too much about it, I would have wondered if I was actually a man). And that major theme was beautiful. The book, like Eldredge's previous works The Journey of Desire and The Sacred Romance, simply sang into my life. It helped define my path as a young person on the strange edge of who I had been and who I would be. 

I excitedly underlined, highlighted, and scribbled notes in the margin as I read. So much so, in fact, that when we got married, I think we got rid of my copy in favor of my husband's as mine was unreadable. The major themes of the book were so true and inspiring that even now, when I hear the name mentioned, I am filled with warmth and nostalgia and think, "Everyone should read that book." Of course, I think they should read it as I did, as the heroes of their own stories, not as princesses in towers, or as knights who would rescue those princesses and sweep them far away from adventure. But I think everyone, particularly teens and college students will benefit from the messages of finding what makes your heart and the heart of God beat together. This book helped me to see that your world is not defined by societal standards, you do not have to live in the perfectly defined box of 2.5 kids, a dog, and a mid-range income to pay for your house on the cul-de-sac. As Chris Rice sang (at about the same time this book came out), "There's a world out there that we left behind full of souls as important as yours and mine." 

John Eldredge asks, "What is written in your heart? What makes you come alive?" And he also discusses what keeps us from feeling that way. In Wild at Heart he digs deep into wounds — as a teenage girl whose parents were recently divorced, the chapters confronting relationships with parents were particularly poignant for me. Eldredge inspires the reader by reminding us that the battle is ongoing, but the Lord fights for us and that when we are fighting for the Lord, we are always on the winning side. 

So, for all of those reasons I believe it is an absolutely beautiful book. But now, over a decade and much life lived later... I have a different perspective on this book. I think there was a bit of something missing. I happened on it because the thing that made me come alive, the thing where I felt God was pleased with me and my work, happened to be ministry and working with children. Had my passion been ice skating, I think the further truth would have been harder to find... And that is this... Adventure is important, but adventure created for adventure's sake is not true adventure. There's a sense of adventure in climbing a mountain, or winning a game, or running super fast... And that all speaks to a bigger, truer adventure. The real adventure is not found simply by going to China and tasting the food. Real adventure is found when we live in communion with the heart of God. When we interact with the people he cares about, when we make a real difference, when we help build his kingdom through grace and mercy and love. And that doesn't usually look like the super masculine image that Eldredge presents in his book. Jesus did not come waving a sword like William Wallace delivering vengeance and fighting for his rights -- he came with meekness to deliver forgiveness and mercy. He wasn't acting like the hero of his own story, making it about him and his awesomeness; many of his miracles were done in secret. When people asked him questions he did not direct them to his own glory, but redirected them to the heart of those around him. Compare Jesus to the "wild man" that Eldredge describes and you will find little resemblance... and that's okay... because the ideas that Jesus espoused — forgiveness and accountability, compassion and relationship — these things take a lot of strength and hard work, and they are not for the faint of heart.  

So, I wholeheartedly support the idea that we ought to to take risks in the fight for the kingdom. I absolutely believe that the fight is worth it. And I one hundred percent endorse the message that we are capable of having our hearts made whole and fortified for the task at hand by a God who loves us beyond measure. But I do not think that this message is just for men, and that women should focus on being beautiful objects of desire. I think the fight looks a lot different than people expect. I furthermore believe, contrary to what the author seems to think, that Jesus would DEFINITELY encourage you to buy a safe car, because driving fast on an open road helps no one, and you certainly won't further the kingdom here on earth if you die doing it. 

This is from Waking the Dead, another book by the same author that is EXCELLENT and everyone should read it! "The glory of God is man fully alive." 

Watching "Peter Pan" with Peter Pan

I was watching the recent live broadcast of "Peter Pan" with my six-year old boy. At the end, when Peter finds Wendy all grown up, with a daughter of her own... I, in a typically motherly way, got all teary. Saddened for Wendy who is hurt by Peter's characteristic forgetfulness, heartstrings pulled by Peter's disappointment in finding that Wendy was not the same... that things change and he is forced into a new reality, one he did not ask for or desire.

I noticed that my boy was watching intently. He is notoriously bad at identifying emotions, and we do a lot of emotion discussion. Since he was so engrossed, I figured he was emotionally connecting to the play, so I asked, "Is it making you feel sad?"

He looked at me like I was crazy and said, "No, it's just weird that she grew up."

And that is the essence of a little boy, a small child, that J. M. Barrie captured so timelessly. My son was not concerned for the feelings of the characters, he was just confused by the story. Why would Wendy grow up when she could just stay in Neverland? Why would the lost boys choose a mother over their great leader, Peter?

Peter Pan believed that he was the greatest, that he was invulnerable, that his childhood could endure forever... and so it does, for it lives on in the heart of all children who have no concern for the future and who will not grow up... at least, not today.

The Games of My Childhood

When The Internet Archive announced that it was making 900 old arcade games from the 90's available to stream through the internet, I was interested, but not overly excited. I played very few arcade games as a child... we rarely left the house and when we did we were to poor to throw quarters away into arcade machines. A relative had a pacman machine, so I played some of that, but arcade games were never a huge part of my youth, so when I heard about the old games being available it was with a sense of interest that I perused the list, not of nostalgia.

This was not the case when I saw an article stating that now along with these games, one could also find 2,400 DOS games to download or stream. There are not words to express my excitement when I saw this article. Everyone is all excited about Oregon Trail, and sure, I get it, it's iconic... but I never played Oregon Trail, so I wasn't super stoked about that. But I played tons of the other games on this list. Many were "shareware" back in the day... meaning DRM free and open for distribution. As I looked through the list of games I was submerged in a wave of nostalgia. I was, again, a small child on my Grandfather's lap, noting that he always smelled of onions and bitter coffee, listening intently to the best way to defeat evil vegetables with the help of Commander Keen. I was taken back to sitting in "the library" of the house I grew-up in, slogging through the ridiculous load times of the Commodore 128/64 that the same technology loving Grandfather had given us, just to play Marble Madness or Pole Position. I was a child, living in a rural small town with few people my age, whose family had just been given a new 286 PC and couldn't wait to save some Lemmings with her older brother, or find out exactly where in time Carmen was hiding today... and I distinctly remember that game was 6 5.25" floppy disks, 6!

This was the era I was born into, the era of video games, the internet, online community -- working, playing, building together. And going through this game list was like sitting down with a box of books I hadn't read in twenty years, I remember the smell of the pages, the names of the characters, but not how they end - It is all at once old and new... like unwrapping a gift and it being a favorite old sweatshirt. In the same way that Nancy Drew made me a lifelong reader, these games were the gateway to me becoming a "girl who games."

Today I sat with my six-year old and showed him the amazing games of my youth... and let's admit it, they're still great games! He was drawn in by the "vile henchmen" of Carmen Sandiego, stressed out by the puzzles in "The Castle of Dr. Brain," excited by the nature photography in "Duck Tales." That's why these games are preserved, so my children can see my excitement about the games that were to me what Minion Rush is to them. Because even though their graphics and sound quality are obsolete by a couple decades, these games were well crafted, well thought out, and lots of fun. These are the game forefathers, let's pay them a visit and share them with a new generation of gamers.

Disclaimer: DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT let your kids peruse this list of games without supervision. Some are HIGHLY inappropriate!