Incarnational Living: Living With Less Media

Just the other day I had to wait for two of my children to complete a music exam.  The hallways of the conservatory were lined with parents and siblings waiting.  I was struck by the unsettling picture of all the siblings of all ages looking at phones or devices.  Not one child was reading a book or looking around.  When my children pulled their books out to read as they waited, I felt like we were characters from another era who were dropped down into the future. 

My last post was about meditation and the need for less media to enable a life of the mind.  This one is a deeper call to action.  During Lent is a great time to evaluate our lives and change habits to make sure that we are living in what is most Real. 

As we walk through Lent, thinking on the unfolding life of Christ, who came in the flesh, I am reminded of the call to all of us to live as Jesus did--where we are, in the flesh.  All the devices in our lives require some kind of absence to function.  Television, Telephone (prefix, "tele," meaning at a distance) They transport us to another place or another person that is not physically present. Sometimes this is a gift, but it should not be a way of life.  It is almost impossible now for people to be separated from their devices, which sadly and strangely, make them always a little "at a distance," less present to where they are physically in any given moment.

The alarming rate at which this change to constant mediation is coming over our children should disturb us.  Concerns are for young children as well as for teens.

Sociologists are concerned that this is affecting basic attachment in children--attachment, which is the foundation stone to all other relationships and to an inner well being that protects from addictions and mental dysfunction.  They are attaching to devices, not people.

It is so easy to hand young children phones to keep them quiet.  It is the natural course of events now to buy a child his own phone.  This is disconnecting children from the moment, from the people around them, and from their own thoughts.  I watched a mom at the chiropractor's office hand her three year old daughter, who was happily looking around and chatting with her mother, a phone so she could watch scenes from the movie, "Frozen." Children have begun to expect constant entertainment and amusement.  No wonder they have little capacity to sit still, listen, or read a difficult book, much less navigate a conversation about ideas or simply follow the train of their own thoughts.

Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple and so much other technology, severely limited his children's access to technology.  He understood the effects it has on their brain development and on their creativity. His own children hadn't even used the iPad.  Many Hi-tech Silicone Valley CEO's are low-tech parents.  They know that to do all the inventive, creative work they have done, they could not have spent their childhood on devices. See the link to the New York Times article about this: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/11/fashion/steve-jobs-apple-was-a-low-tech-parent.html?_r=0

Children's exposure to technology affects their brain development.  Executive function, impulse control, critical thinking, creativity, all of these require active imaginative play and dialogue with others. 

One of the deepest concerns for researchers is the rise of addictive behavior in children that could be a result of structure, chemistry, and function changes in the brain due to early exposure to technology. The "Learning Paradox" is the term being used for the educational fact that early exposure to technology (which is often done under the misguided idea that in a technological age, children must use it to be successful in a technological world) is not helping children learn. In actuality, children will do much better in learning if they do not use technology in the early years.

This is not a new diatribe.  The research is available, and I encourage every parent to do the reading.

The form itself is a problem--connecting with devices.  But the access to content is another problem. Having access to the internet at all times is an unmanageable temptation for adults, even more so for children. As one high school guidance counselor said to the parents in a meeting, "I hope you understand that when you give your boys smartphones, they are looking at pornography.  It is accessible to them at all times."  And now with Snapchat, sexting is becoming rampant among teenagers, which is the exchange of pornographic photos of themselves.

So what is to be done?  Something radical must be done.  Parents have to believe that the health of their children is more important to them than their children keeping up with the culture.  If more and more parents stood up and said, "Sorry, you can't have a smartphone," or, "Sorry, you can't see that movie," children would have a growing community of "non-users" and wouldn't feel so marginalized.  But parents are afraid to lose their children if they say, "No."  We should be afraid to lose our children if we don't learn to say, "No."

I have sat with my teenagers when they are almost in tears because they feel they are the only one of their friends who has not seen a particular movie.  We have had to say to them, "We are not raising you to be comfortable in this world.  You should feel a certain level of discomfort because you should be different."

Do not be afraid to re-set boundaries that may have slipped.  You can cast a new vision for your children and institute new limits.  Make it a family mission to work together and help one another with this.

Here are some ideas for parents (If Steve Jobs and other creative CEO's can do this, so can we!):

1. Let's put away our own phones and devices in the evening when at home with our children.  We are the example.  If we can't live without it, they'll think they can't either.

2. Let's be honest and confront the deep fear in all of us that we will be left out if we are not in on every thread of chat and text.  Should this fear motivate our choices of how we spend our time, and is there something more valuable that we give up if we are living in a constant frenzy of tele-communication?

3. Consider not allowing your children to have access to phones or any other devices in the evening, including computers, unless it is for school work.  This encourages communication with one another and reading.  One of my friends whose children are in the public school do not have phones but they have tablets they can check at the end of the day after all their school work is done.  These tablets are kept in a common drawer for everyone.  They have managed to preserve a wonderful wholesomeness in their children and a proper investment of their time in reading and learning skills they will use the rest of their lives.

4. Do not allow young children to use devices for entertainment when you are out and about.  They can be in a grocery cart and do what children have done for years--irritate their parents--but also learn what a "sale" means, what bread we buy, why we choose this cheese;  they can count gray tiles on the floor, and ask you endless questions (BTW, this is VERY important).  I can walk into our small grocery store and send all my kids, including my 5 year old out to get items on our list in the store, and they know exactly what to get and where it is in the store.  We need to be casting the vision for our children of the reward of engagement with the community of family and beyond that requires their contribution and hard work, instead of creating an expectation that for something to require their attention it must be entertaining. 

5. Choose to take books with you for meaningful activity when waiting.  But if you get caught up without them, play word games, tell stories, or simply talk to one another. Use audio books or good music in the car.

6. Resist giving your children smartphones.  There is absolutely no need to do this except to be "in."  A dumb phone is sufficient for texting when they need it.  And set limits on when they can use it.

7. Don't accrue new devices or add apps unless it is absolutely necessary for school work.  Teens have to check so many apps and devices all day (Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, Pinterest), and when they are not doing this, they are watching movies or playing video games.  The most impressionable time of our children's lives is open access to anyone who has no real love for them or investment in their future.

8. Try a family fast from all media, including movies, T.V., video games, phones, computers and devices. Use ONLY what is necessary for school or work.  We cannot ask Jesus to come into our world and our regular lives if we ourselves are not in our lives.  It requires us FIRST to have a private inner life that is not at all public, a quiet place for thoughts and musings that are not posted to the world.  It also makes us be fully present to the moment and the people in that moment and give them priority.

9. Have an intentional conversation in the car or at the table about current events or a report from a missionary or an idea or a book that someone is reading, and insist that everyone stay focused on the topic at hand.  Sometimes we will ask at dinner for each one to go around and share something he or she thought about or learned that day.  We have to train our children to think and converse.  Encourage your children to sit in on adult conversation.

10. Have your teens host a social evening that does not include any kind of media.  Have them require that all leave their phones in a basket at the door.  Believe it or not, this takes great courage, but yields great results.  You may find that kids don't know what to do without devices.  So have a plan.  Try to plan parties for younger children that does not involve watching movies or playing video games.  

11.  Pray for discernment and ask for God to reveal to you how to fight this battle in your home, recognizing that it is a spiritual battle.  Be willing to do whatever God shows you, no matter what you think the fallout may be.  Ask God to help you cast a vision for your children of a life lived in the present with meaning that requires reflection, attention, dialogue, and true connection with those beside us.

I don't want to give the impression that I have won this battle.  I fight it everyday.  I do think that the battle can be made easier simply by refusing to have certain devices in your home. I am glad I have not had to fight the battle of video games or cable TV.  We have never had them.  Our children don't have phones or iPads;  when they drive they get a dumb phone.  

In spite of all of this boundary and limitation, we have to be constantly on our guard.  It is movies, YouTubes, the computer access to so many things, the parents' phones that can be used, etc., etc.  We make mistakes in our exhaustion and realize we have to renew boundaries sometimes.  But over all, even with some push back and the constant desire for more media among our children, our older children thank us now, as they see the difference it has made in their lives.  We reap the benefits of these decisions everyday.

I feel battle weary trying to remain vigilant.  It is very hard. This is a battle for our children's minds and imaginations.  This is a fight for who they will become.  "Do not grow weary in doing good;  in due season, you will reap a harvest if you do not give up."

Meditation or Mediation: The power of meditation to live in the moment

This Advent I have been convicted about the Christian discipline of meditation.  This is a practice that requires more intentionality than I have been giving it.  I have been tracking what thoughts I naturally "fall into" when my mind has available time and also been aware of trying to give my mind more opportunity to reflect.

Long ago, people lived in the company of their own thoughts and in the companionship of friends and family.  If there was music, it was live music.   If someone was sharing ideas or thoughts, it was in person, which made real dialogue possible.  If someone far away wanted to communicate with another, it was through a messenger or a carefully written letter that required a level of reflection. Books required time to sit and ingest ideas or stories.

I actually live in the blessing that texting and phone calling has given when my daughter is in college and my family far away.  The geographical scope of the Gospel has expanded because of radio and computer technology.  I recognize the benefit of disseminating information quickly and the time savers that email and other technology provide. But these benefits have come with a grave cost--primarily to our own ability to be present in the moment.

For one, our time is not freed up, for we only expect more of ourselves and others.  We have more devices to check in with.  Teenagers today have to check Snapchat, Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, texts, and maybe email...many times a day.  I don't know of a moment that teenagers have that is quiet with their own thoughts.  Research shows that it is most likely that it is a new kind of addiction. People are unable NOT to check these apps and devices out of a panic that they will be left out.  And yet teens are more lonely and isolated than ever before.

With the advent of Snapchat, comes the constant distancing oneself from one's own life, observing it, sending it out in bites, not living in it, being alive in the moment to what is happening, what someone is saying, what God might be saying. It is a constant, "How might this look in a photograph?  How can I in this moment let others see my life?"  This level of self-awareness can hardly lead to a healthy understanding of one's place in the kingdom of God, a place that requires me to shed self-consciousness and do the hidden but essential work of life.

Over time, technology has made it possible to have a virtual connection with many others who are not present, to spout off ideas that have not had time to gestate, to live with a constant input of thoughts that are never truly explored, encouraged to grow, or allowed to unfold and be challenged. We are never alone long enough with our own thoughts to have a meaningful inner dialogue that can even come under the scrutiny of the Holy Spirit.

Isaiah says, "You will keep in perfect peace him whose imagination is stayed on you because he trusts in you."  Is so much of the anxiety in our lives and the lives of our children because our imaginations are unmoored, controlled by whatever images and words we release through the touch of button?  And then we have no time to pray and reflect on what we have seen and heard and ask God to align it with what he says and what is real.  Are our imaginations rooted in God and do we have a disposition that trusts God?

If not, I think that some of this is the lack of time and space for meditation. Psalm 1 describes the one who is stable and blessed.  This same one is not walking, standing, or sitting in the way of the wicked, the the sinners, or the mockers.  I would say this paints a picture of a progression of commitment and time to what is not kingdom thought in contrast to the one who is rooted, fruitful, and prosperous like a tree.  This one meditates on the law of the Lord day and night.

How is that kind of commitment to meditation possible?  I would say it has to start with available mental time and space that we intentionally do not fill with technology.  The music we listen to should lead us into thoughts that are good, true, beautiful, noble, commendable, pure, just, and excellent (Phil. 4:8--incidentally the instruction given right after the command not to be anxious about anything).  We should have some car rides that are silent, walks that allow us just to be present to our own thoughts.

I remember many times when my parents (missionaries to Brazil) had to wait in line, a daily activity.  I would ask, "Do you have anything to do?  They would say, "We'll just pray."  They taught me to pray through the alphabet, one letter at a time, all names in my life that I could think of that started with that letter.  (This is a method I use to help me get to sleep sometimes).

Giving oneself available mental space is only the first step to meditation.  This does not imply that being alone with one thoughts will not produce anxiety.  Sometimes one's meditation is frought with anxiety.  That is when the help of beautiful music, books, community, constant exposure to God's Word and the Church will help shape the meditation of one's heart.

Pope Paul VI said, "We know perfectly well that in order to listen to [God's] voice, a bit of calm and tranquility must reign.  We must keep ourselves far from all intimidating excitement or nervousness and be ourselves."

As we come into Christmastide, consider carefully whether or not you want to give your child that iPhone.  Be countercultural and stand up against the onslaught that such technology brings into the home.  Give them the gift of being more able to be present to their own family, their own lives, their own thoughts, and their God.  After all, God came in the flesh.  We have to be looking up to see him.

An Elegy for Gender? The Encroachment of Androgyny

"REALLY? You think you received something different from your mother and father?" is a question my college student daughter was recently asked in disbelief by a group of young women and a professor. These are all Christians.  In their perspective, mother and father are interchangeable in terms of what they give their children--neither has something unique to give that the other could not just as easily give--if it was in their personality to do so.  Man and woman are just not that different.

So here we are, having to defend the uniqueness of gender.  In spite of having all of art history and the canon of literature defending in image and story the uniqueness of man and woman, as well as biology itself,  it is a difficult conversation to navigate.  It is not in a list or a description of roles that one could outline the differences in the two genders.  It is captured in the heart.  But we are now pressed into definitions out of desperation to preserve something so precious that is being lost in this generation.

I cannot understand why it is so attractive for men and women not to have unique contributions to the world. And the people that are pushing hard for this are women...and the men that take up their cause.  Do we really need to begin a different kind of feminism: The need for Woman?  I think that probably women just don't want the unique aspect of Woman to be what it is.  Power, influence, recognition, worldly reward seem stacked on the other side.

This position--that women and men are not essentially different is nothing other than gnostic. Gnosticism is a shunning of the material in favor of the spiritual.  It is an elevation of mind and soul over the body.  It believes in a special knowledge that frees us from material constraints.  This is an ancient heresy that the early Church had to fight against in its understanding of Jesus.  Gnostics were uncomfortable with the idea that God came in a body.  It is likely that this is what the Apostle John was identifying as the spirit of the antichrist, specifically that Jesus did not come in the flesh.

People are not disembodied minds and souls.  They come in bodies.  Male bodies and female bodies. Rather than be ignored, these bodies have something to say about our mission and meaning in this world, in the same way that Jesus' body, conceived in and born through the body of a woman, had something to say about his mission.

The primary metaphor in Scripture for God's relationship with humanity is marriage.  The Bible begins with marriage and ends with the great marriage feast between God and his people.  This image is completely disrupted as our culture lists toward androgyny.  When we move toward believing that gender is a cultural construct, we miss a world of meaning that God is revealing.

The next generation is the group of people we should be concerned about as we work on "enlightening" the world that men and women are not distinctly different.  That is because we are saying that children don't need fathers and mothers, just parents.  It is only a construct of society that a mother would be nurturing the next generation and the father fighting for it.  I am concerned that in this worldview, the next generation is neither being nurtured or fought for--the next generation is not really being considered.

My husband and I have been involved in years of healing prayer, and deep in the core of so many is the loss of mother or father love or blessing.  The older they get, they are awakened to the unfilled longing to be known and loved in the unique way that a mother loves and knows and a father knows and loves. They become more aware of the holes in their own souls. And though personhood or love or well-being is not scientifically measured, the lack of them is crippling.

My daughter has not been raised in an ideology but within a theology.  So when someone tries to categorize her and dismiss her arguments as "complementation" or "you just think that because..."or she tries to have a genuine discussion free of labels and power moves, she is shocked to find that even among Christians there is a politically driven way to think, and any thought outside of that stream is dubbed "unintellectual" or "narrow."

I want to explore who has a narrow view of women.  I think my daughter has the more expansive view, as she thinks that women actually can do things men can't do.  She actually believes that women are so important that they better not sabotage their own contributions.  She believes that a mother is so important that not to have one is a travesty that only God can redeem.

I am not saying that every child who is missing a mother or a father is going to limp through life.  A single parent who understands the masculine and feminine and the limitation of what he or she can give, can also search for other ways for the church at large and for spiritual fathers or mothers to bring that blessing into a child's life.  I have seen many single parents live this out in the context of prayer, presence, and the community of Holy Church.

In a debriefing of these conversations, Madeleine expressed that feeling of being called on to defend something so elemental and primal as "woman" or "mother" and being at a loss for words and feeling like an idiot.  I know the feeling.  Defending the calling and person of mother as unique from father is like explaining the universe, a cosmos with sun and moon--both of which are absolutely necessary to sustaining life.  Once we have to quantify, dissect, and chart mother love, we have already lost something so profound, I'm not sure where to begin.

Karl Stern, in his book Flight from Woman, describes two ways of knowing.  Whether or not one agrees with the labels he gives them, the paradigm is helpful.  One way of knowing is by analyzing parts of a whole, thereby coming to know the whole.  The second way of knowing is by embracing the whole, thereby coming to know the whole.  He calls the first a masculine way of knowing and the second a feminine way of knowing.  He goes on to show how since the Enlightenment we have been fleeing from the feminine way of knowing and exalting the masculine way of knowing.  By doing this, we only partially know our world and the people in it.

In an amazing twist, Stern takes on four philosophers who exalt the masculine way of knowing over and against the feminine way of knowing and shows how they came to their very positions THROUGH a feminine way of knowing--through dreams and revelations.  So even as they dismiss the feminine and exalt the masculine, their own ideas depended on the feminine.

In our exaltation of the masculine way of knowing over time, it is possible that we are even losing the capacity to receive something that is not scientifically verifiable as real and true, which is so much of our human reality--love, forgiveness, nurture, and so on.

This is not to say that women cannot know in masculine ways or men in feminine ways.  The hope is that we are blessed by our mothers and fathers in such ways that we have an integrated capacity to know. Nevertheless, there is a special way that women represent the transcendent movement of the feminine in the world, and that men represent the transcendent masculine, and both must bless the next generation with their powers and instincts that young men and women might not be trapped in a very small universe,  such as the one they are living in now.

The disregarding of feminine ways of knowing naturally leads to a disintegration of our understanding of first: women, and secondly: men.  This is because personhood, while it can be studied and appreciated even from a scientific perspective, is also mysterious and often best expressed in and through art and poetry.

Women's bodies are not just different.  The way they think is different.  The way they know is different.  The way they see is different.  The way they process is different.  And I would hate for all of this to go out of the world in our day.

The disintegration of Feminine and Masculine as movements in the universe will lead to chaos in family and culture.  If children don't need mothers and fathers but only loving caretakers, then why not same sex parents? And eventually...why not polyamorous families in which three people marry each other--isn't the love of three better than the love of two? After all, we have reduced child rearing to making sure the basics are covered: food, clothing, sleep, shelter, education.  A mother being bodily present in real time is no longer of primary importance in the shaping of a person.

Mothers impart something of LIFE that is not recoverable somewhere else.  Yes, a mother has a womb, and though science may someday be able to grow a baby outside of it, I think we still have the remnant of understanding that some deep psychological piece would be unformed in a child grown outside the body of a mother.  So we still agree that being in a mother's body is essential for the first nine months of a child's life, and that the mother is imparting something other than the cells and food. She is providing personhood.

The mother also has breasts that were put there to nourish the next generation, and her body tells us something of God's intent.  But the breast is not just to make the healthiest food for a baby. Something happens in a baby's person when he or she is held close to the mother hour upon hour, when her body says, "You cannot be away from this tiny person for very long or else this little one will go hungry." The father was not given the body to nurture the next generation in the same way. Mothers have a unique calling to nurture the next generation that involves their bodies.

The more we conveniently reduce our own unique contribution to the next generation, the less responsibility we feel, and the more children suffer from anxiety, depression, and lack of direction. And the less we want to be with them.

I have written more extensively about womanhood on this blog in my article, "What is a Woman?" In that article I speak to the conclusions that can be drawn from the importance of the uniqueness of a woman's body for all women, not just those who will nurture children.

The loss of our understanding of Man and Woman is real.  But even more real is the God who created Man and Woman in his image and is always at work in restoring what has been lost.  So we can never lose hope, and we have to live into our callings in such a way that we awaken that true desire in the world for Father and Mother, which, even in deprivation and loss, can lead one to God, the Father, and Holy Church, the Mother.

Naming a Child's True Self

Several years ago I looked out the window to see an eighteen month old child in only a diaper walking down the street drinking a coke.  Then I realized it was my child.  I wasn't sure where he had found a coke, but this was the least of my worries.  Twice this child had been delivered at my door by strangers who guessed he came from our house.  Once the police had been called and had to take a statement, which ended with the police saying Nathanael needed a bath.  For weeks I defended myself to the police...in my mental dialogues. No matter how we locked our doors, the garage, the gate, this little Houdini could find his way out.

Twice when I was trying to leave the first service at church, he had run into the second service all the way down to the front where he waved his bag of snacks, laughing, challenging anyone to catch him, smiling at his dad who was trying to lead the service.

A bath, now, was out of the question, as that would have set off more neighbors calling the police for all the screaming and yelling, wailing phrases like, "Why are you doing this to me?" We started every bath by closing all the windows.

The difficulty with this child was that when he wasn't escaping he was clinging.  It was the strangest of combinations.  He would have to be touching me at all times, his preferred place to put his hand being in my armpit.  The only way I could make a meal was to sit him on the counter where he could keep his arms around my neck while I stirred from side to side.  When I had to work at the stove, I would send an older sibling out pushing him in a stroller around the block several times...often with him crying the whole time. When I took a shower he would cry outside the door for the full duration.  When I got up during the night to use the bathroom, he would follow me and have to stand by me the whole time.  This went on for four years, yes, four years.  I was truly desperate.  As an introvert, I was about to crack with the lack of physical and emotional space. Behind his back we secretly called him, "the Triplets."

As I prayed about him, begging God to change him, move him to a different stage, or something, God spoke to me the same thing over and over, "Receive him. For him to be the adult that he must be for my kingdom, this is the kind of child he must be."

The understanding the Lord extended to me and the vision for what Nathanael would someday be as an adult, carried me during those days.  I realized that his life would be one of high risk, stepping out and going far afield into places God would call him, but this would all be balanced with a high degree of connection, of knowing his rootedness at home.  Undeveloped, these qualities are difficult in a child, but shaped and directed, these qualities make for a great combination of independence and interdependence.

The Lord has shown me this in all of my children.  The nascent stages of many virtues, in a child, are raw, unformed, and challenging.  Perseverance in a child is frustrating, especially when he won't give up begging for that snack he must have.  Empathy in a child requires extra parental caution so that she doesn't see anything that will upset her equilibrium.  Artistic gifts in a child often mean an unfiltered imagination plagued by disturbing pictures or ideas. A high sense of justice in a child means he will monitor everyone, including his parents. A leadership gift in a child means she will assume she always knows what is best.  These potential virtues will drive us insane if we cannot see them as exactly that, potential virtues.

It is important, of course, to be clear that children have sinful hearts.  They will be rebellious, disobedient, and mean, simply because they are sinners.  But as we discipline these children, we must be in dialogue with the Lord to know what clearly just needs to be "put to death" and repented of, and what we can call forward in the true self.

Seeing the truest self in a child involves disciplining what is not the truest self.  As I discipline a child, I sometimes use the terms of Scripture, "This is your old self that you don't want to live out of."  Disobedience, selfishness and disrespect must be nipped in the bud, along with any dishonoring of others.  While disciplining, we are casting a vision for submission, love, and selflessness as the truest and new self they are to live out of.

We named our Becket after Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury who refused to let the state dictate to the Church and was martyred for standing on his convictions.  As our world moves into greater conflict with the Church, we wanted our child to be strong and not capitulate.  Also the name Becket means, "one planted by the river," and when I was pregnant, our family was always singing the song, "Just like a tree planted by the waters, I shall not be moved."

In my worst moments, I wonder what we were doing to ourselves.  Becket is the childish embodiment of "I shall not be moved."  I don't know if I have seen a stronger willed child.

While Becket HAS to be disciplined for saying to us, "I will not listen to you," I at the same time am praying that he will say just that to the temptations of this world.  He has to learn submission to God and to authorities God has put in his life to be able to stand and say, "I will obey God rather than man."

And so, with each of my children I ask God to help me see the truest self underneath the behavior in order to call forward that which must be shaped and matured.  At the same time, I try to cast a vision for my other children to do the same for siblings.  So when Ellison was so difficult as a child, I used to act out scenes for my children of what it would be like when they were in college.  I would have a pretend phone ring, I would answer it and stage a dialogue between Madeleine and Ellison that showed a deep connection of love, fun, and trust.  They would laugh, but I think they caught the vision that someday if they gave each other grace, they would be mature and close.

We have to do this now with our older kids when they are putting up with Becket.  They would refer to him as "the monster." We put an instant stop to that.  We said if you want to call him a "strong boy who needs to learn how to control his strength," feel free.  I think we have allowed "Rajah," and "Norwegian Princeling," only because we all need to have some outlet of humor for what we deal with from day to day.  And we all share in the struggle together, praying for him, enjoying him, and even laughing secretly at his attempts to rule the world.  The olders now have perspective, too, because they have seen Nathanael slowly, and I mean slowly, emerge as a delightful, hilarious, athletic, engaging brother who adds so much to our family.

When the Angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, Gideon was hiding from the Midianites.  The Angel addressed him, "The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor." God called forward in Gideon what he could see and what Gideon could not even see in himself, before he was anything resembling valiant.  How we label our children is extremely important.  We need to make sure that all labels call them outward and upward to something greater.  If you call a child shy, he will be.  If you call a child anxious, she will be.  If you call a child naughty, stupid, selfish or mean, he will be.  This does not mean that you don't say, "You are being mean right now.  I don't think that is the kind of person you want to be."

And if you call a child thoughtful, kind, intelligent, a hard worker, he or she will become all of these things over time.  Of course, you say what is real, but be aware that you have an immense power as a parent to shape what "real" will be. One of my greatest joys now is to see siblings blessing one another by saying, "You are really good at that." Or they might tell someone else, "My brother is amazing in this way," or "My sister is so good at..."

Years ago I remember a sociology professor in college sharing that when he was in elementary school his parents were called in to the administrative office where the school shared that this boy had scored in the genius category for math but was not showing it in his math performance.  So for all his school years he knew he was a math genius.  When he graduated from high school, his files showed that there had been a mistake.  His scores had been confused with another student's, and he had so long ago only tested average in math.  But it didn't matter.  He had since become a math genius.  So much more could be said about the biblical testimony of our becoming what we believe we are.

May God give us his eyes to see our children for what they can and will be, even in the midst of behaviors that belie their truest selves, and may we walk in faith, calling forward in them the man or woman they are created to be.