'God knows a lot of stuff, but...' she said

Elbow-to-elbow in the Sentra today, questions floated forward, a merciful diversion to savor before the inevitable backseat brawl.

"Daddy, do animals go to heaven?" asked Ashyln.

"I don't know, Ashie. A lot of people think so. The Bible doesn't talk about that at all." My real hunch is that whatever is on the other side will bear little resemblance to what we know here. I suspect that we will live as we never imagined possible, more ourselves and less all about ourselves than ever. And in the midst of that mind-blowing aliveness, the presence or absence of pets will be the least of our worries, if we have any worries at all.

"Hannah's daddy says no," Melía offered. More chutzpah than I've got, that Hannah's daddy, I thought, wondering if my waffling over the pet cemetery question was more about tact or timidity.

"But he doesn't know," said Brielle. She attacked the unsubstantiated rumor as eagerly as I slap scary chain emails with Snopes-linked replies-to-all.

"God knows," Ashlyn said.

"That's right, Ashie-lu," said I.

"God knows a lot of stuff, but he doesn't want to put it all in the Bible."

No joke, Ashie.

Somewhere in late childhood I came to realize that God was bigger than my little brand of Christianity, that all that could be said of the Divine was far more than any single denomination could articulate. Sometime later it became clear that God was bigger than Christianity itself. How could anyone see a Gandhi or a Dalai Lama and say such a soul was godless? Even more recent has been my acceptance that not even a tome as remarkable as the Bible can be the final word on a Being who ignites and inhabits universes.

OK, so maybe I'm a little bit slow.

Certainly, much slower than Ashie.

'All the colors of the rainbow,' she said

If recent posts about Ashlyn's demonic outbursts have led anyone to believe she is anything less than an angel from God, please, do not be deceived. For 23 hours and some 19 minutes a day she is a dancing, shimmering dewdrop of heaven.

Just a tad messier.

Exhibit A. A couple nights ago we were fixing to bed the twins down when Ashie struck up this chorus: "I love you, Daddy! I love you all the colors of the rainbow." (A giggle here. She was serious about the message, I think, but still my silly Ashie, delighted at the funky factor of her metaphor.)

She spread her arms, looked me in the eye, and crooned, "I love you, and I want to paint you all the colors of the rainbow." (More giggles, although here she may have been speaking literally.)

I feel the love. It is wonderful. She is my Ashlyn angel, as always.

And, just in case, I am moving the markers up a shelf.

Quote of the day - No map

Today the girls' role play of choice was some sort of quest for the throne of God. I didn't overhear enough to know if they were playing angels, fallen angels or something more far-fetched for them--like mortals. But I did overhear this admonition from Brielle:

"There is no map to heaven."

One of the younger twins must have asked for one. How she received the news that no such document existed, I'm not sure.

I'm not sure how I receive it myself.

Some days when I don' t trust myself to follow well, I wish there were something more concrete to guide me to glory, maybe even a GPS set for things eternal. I'd like Google to spit out a tidy map with mileage down to the foot and timing down to the minute.

But most days, I kind of like it. The absence of a map to heaven intrigues me, piques my curiosity, brings me to my knees in wonder, primes me for mystery. Without a map, I know I've got to stay in touch with the Guide.

How does it strike you?

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.

Glorious humiliation

Parenthood is the most glorious sort of humiliation.

From its genesis, holiness and filth walk with fingers entwined, forbidden lovers born for each other. From the gooey mess of afterbirth emerges the angel face of a daughter. As I wipe muck from her year-old bottom, she giggles and launches my heart ceiling-high. Mopping up the collateral damage of her potty-training—again—I am caught between curses and praises. Waiting on tiny tables, buttoning princess dresses, washing heart-shaped dishes, breaking up kitten fights, I fight my proud resistance to this daily ordinance of humility.

Work is so much easier than this. And so much more rewarding.

Yes, more rewarding.

Work yields fast dividends: esteem, results, checks on checklists, unprompted thank-yous, a sense of accomplishment. At work I have an office space I control, where books stay neatly in line on the shelves and tools are my toys. People—nearly grown people—come and go in civilized fashion, wait their turn, say please. Stacks of work diminish in size as I solve problems using high-level mental processes. The diplomas I worked years to earn are on the wall, smiling down at me, stretching out an arm to pat me on the back.

It is really quite nice. A happy sort of limbo where neither glory nor humiliation come calling.

But home is the marriage of heaven and hell. The highs are high and the lows are low.

The question is (as it was for readers of Blake’s masterpiece), which is the real heaven and which the real hell? Is heaven when all is mellow, when the kids are napping or hugging me or playing nicely for a change? Is hell when I’m wiping up blood, urine and tears to the tune of children’s wailing?

Or is something else going on? Are the inconveniences of parenting that feel like hell purging the pent-up inferno of my self-centeredness? Are the quick rewards of work that seem so heavenly sustaining the life of my parasitic ego, the one that sucks dry the God-imaged me? Are the moments of peace paradise’s reward to me, or breaks in the boot camp in which God has lovingly enrolled me?

When did we decide that the best thing to do is the one we find most “rewarding” anyway? Did Jesus wash filthy feet for the rewards? Was Calvary his quest for paradise?

Caring for my children exposes the rawness of my nerves, the frailty of my facades, the poverty of my soul. It catches me red-handed. It brings me to my knees in ways that my rewarding job never could.

I do not like this part of the Daddy gig. It infuriates me daily. I fight against it, I whisper curses. I slam the wall with my open hand, hoping it will knock sense up through my arm into my heavy heart.

I pray desperately. I hug my girls, pressing my cheek in hard against theirs. I breathe in the bouquet of their hair and kiss the blonde curls atop their heads, hungry to be filled with the kind of love they were born to enjoy.

Through the anger of vulgar self-interest—my real hell—I emerge with a sort of peace. Humiliated. Gloriously.

Bedside prayer

Last night I put Brielle to bed an hour late.

This is hardly an aberration. But usually it happens because they’ve fought more, kicked the pajamas off an extra time or two, gritted the teeth harder than normal through tooth-brushing time, and come up with more creative excuses to keep us waiting on them once they’re in bed.

But this time, child and parent both lost an hour of sleep just because I could not resist lingering with Brielle for the sublime conversation she had to offer.

The twins were down, and Mommy was down the mountain at her women’s Bible study, leaving just Daddy and the girl who first named me that. Kneeling by her bed, I had just told the parable of the talents, and had broken down how God shares so much good stuff with us, and wants us to use it, not bury it.

Brielle was pensive. “We use a lot of God’s stuff,” she observed.

“Verdad, Brielle. All the stuff we have is God’s, and He likes when we use it for good things,” I agreed.

“Yeah.” She laughed and stared ahead, lips pursed, her deep thinking evidenced by the tiny movements of her cheeks and jaw. “And God is even a girl too.”

I smiled. “Yeah, Brielle. God is way too big to be just a boy or just a girl. He is everything,” I chimed in, delighted that she had already surpassed most of the Christian church in her thinking on the gender of God, but wondering how.

Somehow the topic turned to the Second Coming of Christ, more popular than ever since losing two Papas and a kitty. I said something about the nonlinear growth we would experience when Jesus came and completed our ultimate transformation. Only I think I told her we would not do bad things anymore or have ouchies anymore because Jesus would do magic on us.

At this, her eyes glowed, cheeks swelling the way Ashlyn’s do when she is imagining herself to be a bride. “I can’t wait for God to do stuff to us. He might even give us wings, I think.”

“Maybe He will. Or maybe He will teach us to fly without wings, like Jesus can.” I have this irrational burden to prevent her from disillusionment if heaven’s transformations do not include wings.

Presently we were on to angels. She pointed at a spot on her pillow about six inches from where she sat. “Our angel is RIGHT-THERE,” she said, the last two words running together. She grinned—“RIGHT-THERE,” and giggled. “Our angel is right next to us and God is in our heart. And God is everywhere. God is even in my shirt.” She pulled her pajama top away from her and spoke through the neck toward her belly button. “Hi, God! Where are you? God! Where are you?” She giggled some more, and then turned back to a more sober question.

“Why is God everywhere but we can’t see Him?”

No response from Daddy beyond a mystified sigh.

“Daddy, why is God everywhere but we can’t see Him?”

I wasn’t going to get away with pleading the fifth. “I don’t know, Brielle.” I searched my heart for what I really believe about this, and realized that to this question I have no satisfying answer. Another sigh. “Maybe it’s because God is so big and strong and bright that it would scare us if we really saw Him. It would hurt our eyes. We can see God in people when they love like Jesus does. But sometimes I really do wish I could see God more right now with my eyes.”

“I think when we go to heaven God will give us eyes that are strong so we can see really bright stuff and it won’t be ouchy.”

“Sí, Brielle. I think He will. Jesus even told us that if our eyes are good, our whole body will be full of light. But if they are bad our whole body will be full of darkness.” As cool as that verse is to me, it was kind of a non sequitur here, I realized, so I didn’t bother preaching it further.

Brielle offered me another paradigm. “I think God is like electricity.”

I liked this. “You do? Why?”

“Because electricity has power and God has power.”

“Yeah, Brielle. That’s right. And even though you can’t see electricity, it works—just like God.”

“Uh-huh,” said Brielle, relieved, I’m sure, that I was catching on.

Somewhere around 10 p.m, the back door opened and Rachelle walked in. Sheepish about how late I had our daughter awake, I moved toward prayer.

Actually, we moved our prayer on to its next breath.