by Christie Purifoy | Jan 15, 2013 | Family, God's Love, Religion, Scripture, Uncategorized
I often have a face in mind when I write out words in this space. To be honest, it’s usually my own. When most of me is stuck in boredom, doubt, or depression some small part of me still sees the truth. I write to remind myself how beautiful life is. How good God is. And how near he is.
Today I have a face in mind, but it isn’t my own. Technically, it’s not a face at all but a voice – the voice I heard on NPR yesterday morning. A young man spoke of how he found Christianity but eventually gave it up because he couldn’t bring himself to believe that those who reject Christ will be tortured for all eternity.
And my heart broke.
I wished I could put both hands on his shoulders, look him in the eyes and say, “You’re giving up Jesus because of a theological position not even all Christians accept? Oh, honey, don’t do that. Trust me. You don’t want to do that.”
I can still remember my shock as a young woman, sitting down to lunch at the Benedictine monastery where I worked, when I overheard the conversation of two visitors sitting a few seats away. “Won’t people be surprised when they get to heaven and see Hitler there, too,” one woman said.
Personally, I will be very surprised if it turns out she’s right, but, today, I am less shocked at the image of Hitler in heaven than I am awed by this woman’s embrace of God’s very big love.
I also remember my shock, that same year, when a fellow church-goer admitted he didn’t think babies who die automatically go to heaven.
Clearly, we Jesus-followers don’t always see eye to eye.
Usually, I’m okay with this. I tend to agree with Augustine that if the Bible leads its reader to be more loving then the Bible has done its job. Augustine isn’t saying that accurate interpretation doesn’t matter, only that it’s okay if we get a little lost on our journeys as long as we arrive at our destination.
As someone who feels at least a little lost, most of the time, I like this idea.
At least, I did, until my daughter stood at the bus stop surrounded by our neighbors and said this Out Loud: “I wonder if Dr. Seuss is in heaven or hell?”
It was Dr. Seuss’s birthday, the kids were geared up for a celebration, but they also knew that Dr. Seuss was no longer among the living. I suppose one thought led to another, and suddenly my own daughter was broadcasting a question that didn’t reflect my own spiritual preoccupations at all.
I was mortified. Here I had imagined myself a Christian unconcerned with guarding the borders of who’s in and who’s out, but my own unconcern left a theological hole that my daughter filled in for herself.
So now, as hard as it is, and as comfortable as I remain with theological diversity, I know I owe my daughter a little more. I owe that young man on NPR a little more.
I want them both to know that whether you are blinded by God’s love or by his justice you are welcome in God’s family. I want them both to know that I’ve wandered to a spot somewhere in the middle. I think when Jesus said in Matthew 10:28 God would destroy both body and soul in hell that destroy means what it sounds like it means. Not eternal torment but destruction. An end. Justice.
In other words, I believe in this good news about hell: there is a place where evil will be confined and where it will be destroyed.
And the really good news? God’s love is big. Very, very big. I may doubt we’ll meet Hitler in heaven, but I’m sure we’ll be surprised at the size of the gathering. Because God’s love? Well, it chases us down. It pursues us. And frankly, where most of us are concerned, my money’s on God.
“And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ.”
Ephesians 3: 17,18
by Christie Purifoy | Jan 12, 2013 | Books, Faith, motherhood, Uncategorized
Last Saturday, I gave you a peak at my bookshelves.
Let’s take another look, shall we?
I found Mitten Strings for God: Reflections for Mothers in a Hurry
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by Katrina Kenison, years ago. It is about neither God nor mittens, but if I could put a copy in the hands of every new mother, I would. Kenison is in search of a less frenetic, more thoughtful approach to family life, and she shares with us her discoveries along with stories of raising her two boys. I’m sure many mothers of young children imagine turning off the tv and scheduling fewer activities. But, then what? This book gives us a glimpse of what might happen next.
Perhaps many of you have already read Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis
by Lauren F. Winner. I think I’ve mentioned it before. It was one of my favorites of the past year. In a previous memoir, Winner describes her journey from Judaism to Christianity. That was her beginning, and it was marked by enthusiasm and optimism. In this book, she describes the middle of her spiritual life. It is characterized by doubt, loneliness, and even boredom. This is a quietly beautiful book. It is a book about remaining faithful even when faith falters.
Sharing this final book with you is a bit like handing you my heart on a platter. Well, maybe not exactly, but I imagine if I ever find someone who loves this book as much as I do then I know I have found a friend. Unfortunately, Penelope Fitzgerald may just be the best writer you’ve never read.
You might find The Bookshop at your local used bookstore. Or, you can pick up this three-book edition (this is the copy on my shelf) from amazon: The Bookshop, The Gate of Angels, The Blue Flower (Everyman’s Library)
. The Bookshop is short, beautiful, and sad. It’s also funny. We are in a small English seaside town in the 1950s. A middle-aged widow defies the complacency and pettiness of her community and opens a bookshop.
Even a seemingly small thing like opening a bookshop can be an act of courage. Alas, the bravest and wisest among us do not always emerge as victors.
Still unconvinced? Let me just add that even the spirits have aligned themselves against our heroine. The bookshop, it turns out, is haunted.
What are you reading?
by Christie Purifoy | Jan 9, 2013 | Family, Jesus, motherhood, prayer, Uncategorized
I sometimes wonder why God gave me boys.
Recently, my oldest son had to wear a team sports jersey for “spirit day” at his elementary school. I’m sure whoever came up with this idea imagined it to be fairly inclusive. Who doesn’t have at least one shirt for some kind of team playing just any kind of sport?
Well, our family, actually.
Jonathan and I would rather watch Masterpiece Mystery on PBS than college football, so if we raise a sports fan it will be despite ourselves.
The more children I have, and the bigger and more “boyish” my boys become, the more helpless and inadequate I feel as a mother. You might expect it to work the other way. Don’t I have years of experience tucked under my belt? This is true. However, if you look closely you’ll find years of doubt, years of second-guesses for every parenting decision I’ve made, and many spectacular failures. Nine years after becoming a mother, I am less confident than ever.
I’ve decided this is a good thing. It is good because I am praying like never before. I am praying daily and in desperate bursts. I am praying spontaneously, and I am praying systematically, bowing my head over scribbled prayer cards.
Lord, hear my prayers.
I’m praying, yes, but I’ve been struggling to pray for these boys. Who are they made to be? Who do I hope they will be?
I think a lot of mothers pray for “leaders.” They pray their sons grow up to be leaders in their families, in their churches, in their communities.
I try praying this, and the word leader feels like a pebble in my mouth. Whose word is this, anyway? Where did it come from?
Is this the right word for the boy who prefers the edge of the crowd to its center? The gentle boy who loves his baby sister so much he’ll spend thirty minutes trying to make her laugh? The compassionate boy with the quiet voice who would rather play alone at recess than roughhouse with the other six-year-olds?
I try out the word servant-leader. I hear a lot about that one, too. But there’s the pebble again, and I ask myself, “What’s wrong with just servant?”
In my mind, I see Jesus. He is kneeling in the dust of the floor washing feet. I may be uncomfortable with what counts as masculine in our culture, but even I find it difficult to pray this kneeling-in-the-dirt way of life for my boys.
But my son is teaching me how to pray for him.
Here he is beside me. We are bathing his baby sister. I watch as he takes the washcloth and leans across the edge of the tub. Slowly and carefully, he wipes between each little toe.
Lord, hear my prayers.
by Christie Purifoy | Jan 3, 2013 | God's promises, Home, Joy, motherhood, One Word, Pennsylvania, river, Uncategorized
There is a river, and it has washed my slate clean.
New home. New baby. New friends. New church. New weather. The year is new, and my days are full of new things.
Strangely, not one bit of it feels new. These are déjà vu days, and everything in them feels familiar and comfortable. As if I have already worn deep grooves into this daily life.
My baby daughter looks exactly like her sister, my firstborn. Holding this baby, nine years disappear, and I am a new mother again. I sit in the same rocking chair, she wears the same pink dress, and I sometimes can’t tell who is in my arms, the first baby or the last.
I tuck her into the same blue pram, and we walk beneath maple trees on our way to meet the school bus. I remember this stroller cutting through the icy winds on Chicago’s sidewalks, and I think I must have always known, somewhere deep within, that I was headed to this good place.
It is simply too familiar. I am not surprised by any of it. Only grateful. Deeply grateful.
I once wrote that I was living the first half of this verse: “Just as I watched over them to uproot and tear down … so I will watch over them to build and to plant” (Jeremiah 31:28).
Now I am living the second half.
My firstborn was a firecracker of a baby, and she broke me. In so many good and necessary ways, she broke me.
My fourth is like gentle rain in spring. One fierce and one gentle, they have both been good gifts.
There were years when all was uprooted. Now new things are growing. Both are necessary. Both are good.
I have been hearing this whisper for months, but now it is a shout: “Return! Return!”
I have said, “Yes, Lord, I am coming,” again and again I have said it until this moment, having just tipped over into this new year, I know I have arrived. I have returned.
And every day of this year, I will wake with one word in mind: return.
The poet T. S. Eliot says “We shall not cease from exploration / And the end of all our exploring / Will be to arrive where we started / And know the place for the first time.”
I have journeyed to my own beginning, and there is no surprise in this. Haven’t I always felt most at home with the One who names himself Alpha and Omega?
He is my beginning, and he is my end, and I have come home. I have returned; I am, every day, returning.
“My eyes will watch over them for their good, and I will bring them back to this land. I will build them up and not tear them down; I will plant them and not uproot them. I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord. They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me with all their heart.”
Jeremiah 24:6-7
by Christie Purifoy | Dec 31, 2012 | Amish, motherhood, peace, Pennsylvania, prayer, Uncategorized
On the Friday after Christmas we piled our over-stimulated, over-sugared children into the car and drove. We were chasing peace and quiet down the backroads, and we found it.
The three-year-old had fallen asleep and the big kids in the backseat had stopped pinching each other when we drove straight into a flock of children.
Startled, I noticed a one-room Amish school on the top of the hill to our right. The schoolday had just ended.
Slowly our car parted a sea of boys in straw hats. Next, we inched our way past a dozen little girls circling the tall figure of their teacher.
One tiny girl with a heart-shaped face tilted her black bonnet to flash a smile through my window. She gave a little jump and waved both hands in greeting. The wind caught her cloak, and I saw a flash of its royal blue lining.
She looked so much like a little bird.
Our car moved on, but I kept thinking how vulnerable they seemed. All those small children flitting like birds on the edge of the road.
I turned back to look again at my own little birds, two of them sleeping, two of them staring outside at the passing farms.
So vulnerable.
I’m not sure I would have given it much more thought, but Sandy Hook is branded on our hearts, and I can’t stop seeing the flashing blue of that little girl’s wings.
How do we keep them safe?
It wasn’t that long ago evil invaded a classroom of Amish children (did those girls also skip and smile like little birds?).
Some say our schools need guards with guns. I have no rational argument to make against that proposal. All I know is how much it hurts me even to imagine it. I love our public schools, but I don’t think I will ever send my children out to classrooms guarded with guns.
I want my children to live unafraid, but I don’t want them to find that courage in a gun.
When I imagine that Amish schoolhouse – when I see it again silhouetted against a blue sky at the very top of a high hill – I see forgiveness. I see love.
I see children who may not be safe but who are free. Free from fear. Free to love the stranger in their midst.
I have always said I believe love is stronger than anything. Stronger than hate. Stronger than death. Stronger than whatever weapon humanity will come up with next.
I have always said what is only now being tested.
Because now I send my children out into the world with only the protection of an old, old prayer.
Lord, make us instruments of your peace.
