Continuing Ed for Parents?

A few years ago there was a popular quiz making the e-mail rounds: which television mom are you?  I was very happy to be aligned with Claire Huxtable of The Cosby Show. Television is far more often ridiculous than helpful or useful in its representations of families but every year or two there's one where the writing is just so perfect you stop in your tracks and wish you had said that perfect thing. Of course, we don't have the benefit of terrific writers who come up with our lines, or do we?

I think there is value in watching television shows and movies about families. Even the silly ones. Television parents have writers who craft words that say exactly the right thing when the important topics come up, can prepare you for those tough questions. If you pay attention, you can have the right words when you need them too.

Some of my favorites:

• Glee: The parents don't appear much but Burt Hummel, father to Kurt who is gay, gives one of the best bits of advice about readiness for sex that I have ever heard. It would work for a son, a daughter, straight or gay. Brilliant writing, and really good advice.
• Everybody Loves Raymond is built on family comedy yet often includes poignant moments that leave you with a lump in your throat and eyes welling with tears because of the truth of family they express. The episode where they decide to hold the twins back in school because one of them needs it articulates parental fears and wisdom with truth and whimsy.
• Parenthood, my current favorite family show, hits a home run more weeks than not.  In just the last few episodes the families have tackled racism, cancer, job burnout, adoption, veterans issues, and salaries. Last week Jasmine's "Talk" with Jabar about racism is sensitive, compassionate, and way better than any parent could do on the fly.
• Even shows that aren't actually about families, but which have families attached to them can sometimes supply words or ideas. The Suarez family of Ugly Betty shows us a remarkably functional family smack in the middle of a ridiculous industry and workplace.

Television families aren't real, but they reflect family life like a fun house mirror that makes us look a little taller, a little skinnier, maybe a little better. Comparing yourself to the Huxtables, the Barones or the Bravermans doesn't help your family in any way, but mining their experience for things you can do better or say more articulately might bless your family by making you a more prepared parent.

As with everything in life, the best preparation is prayer. And if you ask God to show you how to handle this phase of your child's life, and you get to watch Claire Huxtable or Adam Braverman do it well, then perhaps this is the answer you were seeking. Like the man on the roof in the flood who is so confident that God will save him  that he sends away two boats and a helicopter before drowning - let's recognize the answers when they appear. If I, a human parent made in the image of God, will use puppets to teach my children lessons they need to learn, why should I think that God won't use television to teach me?

Go Bears!

I read a great story today.  It seems that a woman who works at Baylor University was watching news of the Bastrop wildfires and began worrying about the kids.  Over 1,500 homes have burned leaving around 5,000 people without a place to live.  So she started researching ways that the staff, faculty and students at Baylor could help.  That's when she discovered that the Bastrop High School mascot was the Bears.  Same as Baylor!  So she organized the Bears2Bears drive which hopes to collect a teddy bear for every displaced kid in Bastrop.  This kind of thing just makes my heart sing.  When a whole bunch of people come together to offer what they can, big things can happen.  I'll be watching to see how they come out, but I expect it will be successful.  How could it fail with all those cuddly elements!

At my church, we're working with all the kids on a project we're calling Sock-It-To-Me.  I rolled it out last week for the parents and they put it down on their to do list and I was sure we'd get some socks.  Last night I rolled it out for my 8th grade confirmation class and was delighted to see how the challenge energized them.  They were told that they could buy socks out of their allowance, beg socks from their friends, swap work for socks, or pretty much anything else they would like to do but that there were people without socks depending on them.  "That's EASY!" one of them said.  "Can we bring more than 12?" was another student's question.  And, as I expected, "Who doesn't have SOCKS?"

No donor fatigue here.  Generous hearts are dancing at the call.  Maybe it's not as efficient to give socks or teddy bears as it is to give money but I think we miss something in the exchange when we just write a check. The kids most certainly do.  Giving goods makes the recipient real.  Knowing that some child's toys burned up in the fire is something a kid can imagine.  Visualizing an empty sock drawer is easier than conceiving of a life without a sock drawer.  This awareness sparks both generosity and gratitude in kids.  It puts them on the path to being compassionate adults.

In the current economic climate we tend toward scarcity thinking, focusing on what we don't have or can't buy rather than on what we still have in abundance.  We are in the midst of deep drought here in Central Texas, but our neighbors to the east are getting flooded.  Maybe there IS enough, it's just not evenly distributed.

Whatever need cries out to you, find a way to respond.  Take your kids along and let them help you help others. Tell them why something makes your heart hurt, or why you want to help in this particular situation.  You will be helping people for generations to come. The Bible says that God loves a cheerful giver.  What isn't explicitly said is that God loves the person in need too - and you're the "bear-er" of that love.  Go Bears!

Big Rain

Over the last 36 hours it has rained about 8-1/2 inches here. The variety of responses to this most unusual event really interested me. Here are a few samples of what I heard:

• I just wanted to stay home and read a book today.
• I went out between showers and pulled a few weeds – it’s so easy when the ground is wet.
• My shoes are ruined!
• I can sit on my porch and listen to the rain for hours.
• 200 pounds of mulch washed down the hill!
• My dogs refused to go outside until it had passed.
• You can thank me for all this rain – I bought a convertible yesterday!

Aren’t we amazing? In the midst of this collectively experienced event, we all respond differently. It’s remarkable that shared experience does not give us shared viewpoints. Some of the people I quoted above acknowledged the rain as blessing, some saw it as an inconvenience and yet others were frightened by it. Even within those broader responses there were many subtle shadings.  Our collective experience only gives us a common memory; the experience shapes each of us differently.

I used to think that as a mother I could shape my child’s world view. I thought that if I consistently described the world in glass-half-full language that would be the way she saw it. It seemed logical that if the unknown was consistently presented as exciting, and the child was made to feel competent, that she would skip off into the future with great expectations and reasonable caution. Looking back, I have to shake my head at my own arrogance. Why would I think I could form a better perspective than the one supplied by the Creator? God knows (and I mean that literally) what we are going to need for our individual life journeys. I’m sure I was equipped from birth with optimism because God knew I was going to need it. I think my acquaintance whose mulch washed down the hill was given a crazy sense of humor because his life was going to require him to find humor in difficult situations.  God, who can control ALL the variables, still made each of us unique.

Another remarkable layer to this rain event: Only last summer Austin had the worst drought conditions in 50 years. Our big lake was so low that there were almost no boats on it and businesses all around it were going broke. It seemed it would take many years of generous rains to even make a dent in the dryness of our region. Today, we sit under flood warnings because of the exceptional amounts of rain we have received and the lake levels are the highest in decades.

The power of the Creator is beyond belief – whether you look at rain that can fill immense canyons to overflowing in a few hours or at human beings, each uniquely endowed with the gifts needed to navigate the future – it defies description. In the face of all these thoughts, I can only exclaim in wonder with the writer of Psalm 104:

24 Lord, you have made so many things! How wisely you made them all! The earth is filled with your creatures. 25 There is the ocean, large and wide, where countless creatures live, large and small alike. 26 The ships sail on it, and in it plays Leviathan, that sea monster which you made. (TEV)

Thanks be to God for gifts of water, and perspective!