Padre nuestro, part 4

Saying memorized prayers has its pros and cons. Engaging in any ritual can be an exercise in just going through the motions, in vain repetition.

Yet, as anyone who's endured viewing #14 of the same princess sing-along video can testify, kids love repetition, vain or otherwise.

The other night, after praying my English-language bedtime prayer--the heartfelt, personalized one recounting the blessings of the day and the beauties of our children--I paused.

The half-conscious Brielle nudged me. "In Spanish, Daddy?"

This from a girl who's more likely to tell me, "Ix-nay on the anish-Spay, Daddy" (or something like that) when I try to bless her with bilingualism. But a Spanish prayer she's heard 'most every night since birth? That's different.

I do not like conforming to fashion, doing what is expected or eating at chain restaurants. Given the choice, I'd rather have a bad time doing something funky and memorable than a good time doing something conventional. Something in me--and I'm probably to blame for this tendency in Ashlyn--despises doing what's been done.

I'm not a big Green Day fan, but I dig their chorus, "I wanna be in the minority." Rage Against the Machine is far from my favorite band either, but I absolutely love that name.

I do not like to identify with the majority machine.

How much less do I want my religion to be a memorized revisiting of things traditional?

This is all pretty sad. At twice the age of a high-schooler, I still get stuck in my teeny worship of the trinity of novelty, originality and independence.

But with my kids' help, I am just now unlearning this idolatry. I'm plugging in to prayers much bigger than me, prayed by pray-ers much older than me.

Vain repetition? Sure, sometimes.

But when Daddy's too tired, short-sighted or human to remember to pray for what is near to the heart of God, a prayer that came straight from that Heart sure is nice to have. And when a phrase from that prayer connects with my heart and becomes my own, there is a real sense that God is close.

If but for a moment, God's heart and mine are on the same page. And my sleepy (well, except for Melía) daughters are there too.

The part of the Lord's Prayer that most often brings me to this place is this:

Venga tu reino. Hágase tu voluntad, como en el cielo, así también en la tierra. (Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.)

This used to be a mere wish for Jesus to come back and clean up the mess we've made of things. And of course, it still is that. My kids and I agree that the most exciting part of God's kingdom coming will be when He shows up visibly and takes us back to His big, big house. We groan along with all of creation for the day when Jesus will come and wake the sleeping dead and carry us home to be with them, to kick it with wild animals, to fly with the angels.

It is going to be awesome.

Yet more and more, this line has become for me a cry for help making our house into God's. When they arrive at God's pad, I want my kids to feel at home--not only because God is able to make anyone feel at home, but also because the Bennie house was something like heaven.

Justice. Mercy. Peace. Delight. Glorious humility. Love.

Henri Nouwen wrote, "We can only really wait if what we are waiting for has already begun for us. So waiting is never a movement from nothing to something. It is always a movement from something to something more" (from Seeds of Hope: a Henri Nouwen Reader).

When the Kingdom comes fully (and the sooner the better), I want Brielle, Melía and Ashlyn to experience it as something more of what has already begun for them. I want them to recognize the love they find in God's big, big house as something they knew an inkling of in the little mountain cabin they once called home.

The Kingdom of God is coming--in all its splendor. One day the lifestyle of the Sermon on the Mount will be real instead of ideal. God's will will be done on earth to the same degree as it is now done in heaven.

We can't wait.

But while we do, I pray with Jesus that we will wait actively, not wishfully. I pray we wait for what has already begun--right here in our humble, hopeful little home.

Conformed or transformed, Ashlyn edition

During our marriage retreat this weekend, we chewed on the Message version of Romans 12:1-2, which has always been more familiar to me in the NIV:

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Am I conforming to a man-made pattern? Or being transformed by Someone greater?

Lying on a park bench facing shiny white yachts on Newport Back Bay, I had a good time thinking this through, massaging the challenge and promise of it into the dry, chafed skin of my soul. I even came up with a neato list of contrasts between conformity to the culture as compared to transformation by God, which you can read if you're so inclined. It was a great time.

And as seems typical of this phase of life, God used one of my children to ram home the point in even more living color than my brilliant, tranquil vantage point there on the park bench could offer. On the way home from the retreat, we took our children to their preschool spring concert. Class by class, waves of children took to the stage to dance, sing, shout or at least lip sync their way through songs their dutiful teachers and parents had toiled to teach them. Each class stood up on stage, sang their handful of songs, waved accompanying props, and filed back into auditorium seats to the relief of their cookie-wielding teachers. Illuminated by the camera flashes and proud gazes of their parents, hundreds of children engaged in this exercise.

But not my Ashlyn.

Spurred on by the promise of the cookie, she made it to the stage; I'll give her that. She even held the umbrella as her classmates sang the first song, "The rain is gently falling, falling, falling. The rain is gently falling, showing God's great love."

But from there on, she was all about Saint Paul's "be ye not conformed." She sat, she grimaced, she squirmed, she turned around. She screwed up her face in ways betraying her scorn for any activity in which many people do the same thing at once. Mommy took the stage and nearly mooned the audience trying to get Ashlyn back on her feet in a semblance of rank and file, but it lasted only seconds.

Ashie, my non-conformity sermon in shoe--one shoe, that is. The other had gone AWOL somewhere during her sit-in of the concert.

Of course, after this defiant performance, we didn't allow her to have the coveted cookie. Of course, she screamed in protest. And of course, I threw her over my shoulder fireman-style and carried her outside for a time-out that lasted as long as her tantrum and almost made us miss Brielle's part of the program.

And throughout the punishment ritual, I was glowing.

Part of me knows Ashlyn will avoid a lot of hassle if she learns to go with the flow, especially when it's a good flow, like this concert was. I suppose it is part of my job as Daddy Dearest to hammer the virtue of compliance into her ample skull.

But mostly, I hope she never does get around to picking up conformity.

Conformed or transformed, Message edition

We spent hours today on our marriage retreat basking in God’s presence, which came at no extra charge with a perfect beach weather day—sunny, clear, with just enough breeze and shade to chase away the sweat. Rachelle and I spent a lot of time alone as individuals, and then as a couple, meditating on this passage (Eugene Peterson’s Message-version take on Paul’s words in Romans 12:1-2):

"So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you."

It led me to a contrast between conforming to the culture and being transformed by God. Here’s some of what I pray God will teach me to discern as I grow as a person, a husband and Daddy:

Conformed to the world/culture (“so well-adjusted to the culture that I just fit in without even thinking”)	Transformed by the renewing of my mind (“attention fixed on God, changed from the inside out”)
Lust	Whole-person love
Control	Trust
Worry	Peace
Self-righteous, taking self seriously	Humble, taking self playfully
Alcohol/caffeine for mood control	Prayer/thanksgiving to quiet or wake up the soul
Anger	Compassion, listening
Greed/hoarding	Generosity/sharing
Thinking of me	Thinking of God and His kids (including myself)
Criticism	Celebration/affirmation
Fear	Love, security
Entertainment	Entering God’s playground
Avoiding discomfort	Embracing growth
Doing it yourself	Being it by grace
Excess	Simplicity
Talking	Listening
Isolation	Fellowship
Looking good	Looking at God
Pride in what I do	Gratitude for Who God is and who he is making me to be

God grant me grace to live on the right side of these dichotomies, to refuse to conform to the mediocrity that surrounds us, and be transformed by you. Help us raise our kids in the Spirit of this transformation.