A Reflection on Modification

I have discovered a new tool in behavior modification. Well, it's actually an old tool and I've known of its existence many years now--it's a Bible verse--but I've never meditated on it in my life so much until lately. Jesus said in Matthew 25:40, "Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me." Reading that verse always causes me to reflect and evaluate a bit over life just past, in terms of how I've treated others, but I think pulling it out and meditating on it is of great benefit.
It in fact reminds me of a story I remember reading a long time ago (I don't remember any colorful details, anything but the main gist) about a teacher who had students bring pictures or drawings of people they didn't like, and they could throw darts at them. The teacher set up the pictures and they made their attacks with gusto. Then the teacher peeled back the pictures and behind each picture, chock full of holes, was an artist's rendition of Jesus' face--likewise mangled.
This verse illustrates that it's not a question of what we would do, how we would behave, if Jesus were physically in the room or because He is always there spiritually, but that what we do to, for, or about anyone, we are doing to, for and about Him--whether positive or negative. As this verse would indicate, we as Christians represent Christ as we respond to those around us, and Christians around us represent Christ to us in how they receive, or are impacted by, our response.
Well, it's amazing how this one verse, applied to any particular interpersonal relationship, convicts of sin, encourages proper attitude, and requires excellence. I wish I could always remember to apply it to my every thought and word to or about any person that I have met. How it would improve my attitude many times over! And I could be happier to think Jesus would not be bearing the sorrow over my sin, or over any pain I caused another. When we persecute or sin against others, we cause Him pain--when He introduced Himself to Saul in Acts 26:14, referring to Saul's attacks on Christians, Jesus said, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?" The persecution was a personal attack on Him, because it belonged to His own body of believers.
If there's any verse that brings vivid color to loving your neighbor as you love yourself (the second greatest commandment, Matthew 22:39), for me, and I should recite it every morning, noon and night, it is "Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me." The Christian should be a bright, visible, appealing applicator of this verse in every relationship.

A Traumatic Night in a Convent

When I was three, I had one very bad experience that I never came to understand until I was grown. We had a friend who was a nun, Sister Francella. (My dad had met her in a German class.) One night my sisters and I spent the night at her convent. I didn't know why we were there, and no one explained it to me. All I remember is being in this bedroom alone with my sisters, and crying my head off. I think I thought we were being left for adoption. I had the worst headache I remember ever having, and they gave me some of that pink chewable aspirin to solve that. But no one told me why we were there.
I know the experience from the outside, of having a three-year-old scream her head off and not being able to solve it. But I also remember that from the inside! Finally when I was grown, I asked my Mom why we'd been there. She immediately remembered it and said we were moving, and it made it easier to have us spend the night there. Of course, that makes sense. One thing would have solved the whole problem--they could have just told me they'd come back the next morning and get me.
It bears on my present-day life, because I have done a lot of helping in the church nursery. (I just made the conscious connection about this today.) I don't mind the matter of little kids who are used to being there, or who need to get used to being there, screaming their heads off, because it has a considerable purpose. Parents need to go to church. For that reason a nursery is a good thing and screaming may be a necessary thing to endure.
A few times I watched babies, however, whose parents were going to a fundraising dinner. The babies weren't regulars in the nursery, and didn't know why they were there; they didn't know us; and I was of the opinion (I'm told by a friend that I'm opinionated, so I guess there you go) they were better off at least in the comfort of their own homes with a babysitter rather than in this unfamiliar environment. They were traumatized, they made it clear--and it was no easy thing dealing with so many screaming, unhappy and confused little ones at the same time.
So the next time I was asked to babysit for this annual fundraiser, I declined, even at the urging of the very nice lady who asked me; I felt strongly that it would be wrong, knowing I would be instrumental in subjecting those babies to that again. I thought about it later and examined in my mind whether I was unreasonable. In my own mind I wasn't. But it made me feel better today to connect the nursery situation with that overnighter in the convent so many years ago--and I'm truly convinced they were connected.
It is clear in the Bible that the traumas we experience (and to me at 3 that was a trauma, trivial as it may seem) bring us to better consider the sufferings of others. We are put through those things to better understand another's plight, to empathize, and to comfort those in trouble or sorrow. Maybe others wouldn't connect those two situations but it seems very logical to me. (Not that I'm one of those people who gets into memories and traumas and analyzing these things much in a "psychological" sort of way, but I do think my experience at 3 affected my response at 45.) 2 Corinthians 1:3-7 says, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ. But if we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; or if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which is effective in the patient enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer; and our hope for you is firmly grounded, knowing that as you are sharers of our sufferings, so also you are sharers of our comfort."
Actually I have a funny footnote about that nun. She came over one time for Thanksgiving. I don't know in what context I mentioned it at the time, but our family had always called the turkey's tail the "Pope's nose." I'd never thought twice about what that signified, it was just a name. But I used the term and Sister Francella let out a hearty laugh--much to my confusion and my mother's relief.

Our Love for God is too Convenient

I woke up this morning thinking about the recent indignant responses to the cartoons that have been in the news lately, for which a certain element would behead the makers of them. I recoil at that violence, their lust for blood. I respond viscerally to how extreme they are. Yet this morning I realized how shamefully at the other end of the spectrum we are in regard to our God. We are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. Someone comes along and blasphemes our God and what do we do? Maybe we notice. If we notice, maybe we even wince. The most daring of us will say something, but that's rather much. If we go to a movie and God's name is taken in vain, well, that's a clean movie if that's all there is. It makes me think that the passion the Muslim men show is at least heated, and therefore thought-provoking. Do I have so much passion for the God who saved me? Do I even pray for, or correct, the person who blasphemes God's holy name?
I think this subject must have come up in my sleep because last night I was discussing movies with a friend of mine. We were nodding together to the idea that if you didn't go to movies where God's name was taken in vain, well, you probably wouldn't go to movies at all. Well, I rarely enough find movies that aren't too objectionable to go to, but I haven't cut them out because of that one crime.
Crime? Is it a crime to take God's name in vain? No one will go to jail; most people don't even know it's an offense. I remember finding out myself that there was anything wrong with proclaiming His name as a mere exclamation! On finding out it took a while to clean it from my vocabulary, it was so ingrained as a habit. Yet it's listed right there in the Ten Commandments, Exodus 20:7: "You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain." We know, because God has commanded it and stressed that He will not leave him unpunished, that it is indeed a crime severe enough to send a person to hell for all eternity. That's got to be seen as severe in God's eyes. A severe crime and all we do is shrug. I can't be denied my movies, God wouldn't want that...would He? It goes right in line with that truth (where is it in the Bible anyway, it's got to be in there somewhere...) that God wants us all to be happy as much as possible. I love going to the movies...
There's also the example that the Mormons show, of going door to door for two years in spite of people slamming the door in their faces time after time after time...so they can come to you and tell you that you, too, can be a god. You have to admire their fortitude, their perseverance, their apparent love for their god. The JWs, too. It's not a happy time they're having, of going door to door. Probably not very rewarding, as few people as will even talk to them. But they are sure making a good display of living out Matthew 28:18-20, the Great Commission. It takes a passion, I would think, to go so long door to door with so little encouragement. That passion again--do I have so much of it?
I am thankful that I don't have to fear the ongoing wrath of God for the many times that I took His name in vain--even though He promised He would not leave the offender unpunished. It isn't that the crime is going unpunished, either. Jesus has taken my punishment for each and every time I spoke that holy Name in an unholy way--Jesus died on the cross for my carelessness.
How much do I love my God? I had better think about that a while. Matthew 24:12-13 says "Because lawlessness is increased, most people's love will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end, he will be saved." In Revelation 3:15, Jesus declares, "I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth." How warm is my love for God? Could it be declared hot in any regard, let alone all of them? I only know I have a long way to go.

The Wonder of Monopoly

I notice that this blog entry has been viewed by various family members. It is composed based on not just my own thinking but also some general stories that are part of our family history; I wouldn't have come up with the matter about Donald and the money in the bank because I was too young to be so analytical, but am trusting what I was told. That was something of a family anecdote. I think it's funny. I'm not sure what my family thinks. Still, this particular event made an impact on me.
My family was always very competitive about the game of Monopoly. It was one sure way to find everyone with bright red cheeks and one or two people having stomped off into their rooms. My brother Donald had a trusty habit of accidentally dropping his Monopoly money into the bank. It was uncanny, but he almost invariably won. Now he's a realtor, and he's also, financially speaking, the richest person I know.
I say he almost invariably won, because when I was about 11, my brothers helped a Japanese man named Seijun Kamegawa by pushing his car into the driveway on a snowy day. He was, strangely, the first Christian I remember having met. Strange because Japanese-born Christians are rare; but he wasn't your typical Japanese person. His name Seijun, I've gathered, isn't a typical Japanese name; in addition, his hair was kinky, more like a Fiji-islander. He was the kind of person the average person would clean up his act for--sort of like a nun wandering into a Mafia poker game. We might be fighting like cats and dogs, but when Seijun came over for his fairly frequent, unexpected visits, we'd sweep the teeth and hanks of hair under the rug and, for the time being, pretend we were nice.
We decided we would teach Seijun the glories of Monopoly. He had never played before. Now when we played Monopoly, one of the highlights of the game was to land on someone's property (especially an expensive one) and get off again without paying rent. I don't know whether that's a universal behavior in this game, but it was the only way known to play in our home. But when we taught Seijun, somehow that behavior didn't take. We couldn't seem to make clear to him the necessity of that behavior. I guess it was just the language difference, though he spoke English well enough. When he landed on our properties, he always told us he was there in case we didn't notice. We knew he could not win that way--we were experienced, and Monopoly was a dog-eat-dog world. I know we explained it until we were out of breath. Still he did it this way and we couldn't change it. The funny thing was, he won in spite of all the odds against him. That was proof to me that though I wasn't sure there was a God at the time, whatever there was, was definitely on Seijun's side.
I've lost contact with Seijun. Last time I saw him was at my brother's wedding about 10 years back, and I don't think I got to talk to him. He's married now--I remember him wrestling with the idea of obeying his father, who wanted to arrange a marriage for him. I guess that obedient aspect of Christianity was impressed upon him more than that of being equally yoked. Finally he obeyed, and his father found him a nice, Japanese non-Christian wife. Life's had its challenges for Seijun since then, but I am convinced, thanks to that Monopoly game many years back, that God is still watching over him.

Doctors Don't Know Everything!

Well, here's another pregnancy story--but this one has a happy outcome with the birth of my now-almost-8-year-old son. Until the 7th month, I didn't dare imagine that we might make it to birth; though I wasn't really anxious, I wasn't optimistic. Then I had a dream that was much like the actual birth. From that point I allowed myself to get rather excited about it--and when he was born, I felt such a rush of delight that I could not contain it. The doctor was amazed at my outburst of happy whoops, but she wasn't inside my head all that time and didn't experience the things I had first-hand.

When I first got the positive home pregnancy test, I started trying to find a pro-life, high-risk ob-gyn to help me. I needed pro-life because I wanted someone who valued life as any doctor should; the high-risk because of my previous troubles and my age; I was 37. It wasn't easy to get much information on the doctor's stand on life. I called a number of offices and when I asked if the doctor was pro-life, I almost always got an icy and/or vague response from the receptionist. I was under the strong impression that the doctor I chose fell into the pro-life category; I don't remember exactly what convinced me. I went for my first visit, and she had me undergo an ultra-sound. At this point I only felt assured, as at 6 weeks I saw a healthy heartbeat and I was given no bad news by the technician.
We had been meaning to go to Yellowstone for a long time; since Gary was going to a trade show in Coeur d'Alene, we headed off in that direction and were planning to go straight from the trade show on our trip. I had every aspect of the trip planned out. We were so excited!
The last day of the trade show came. We would be gone in another hour, but we got a phone call in our room. It was Gary's brother Dave. He had tracked us down and was calling to tell us that Gary's mom, who was deeply affected by Alzheimer's, had fallen and broken her hip just after a long surgery to fix it when it had been broken shortly before. She was fading fast and we were wanted in Portland. So we cancelled our reservations, finished packing and left for Portland, but she was gone before we got there.
From the motel room there, I called my doctor because I'd been bleeding. I could immediately hear the alarm in her voice, but not entirely from what I was telling her. "I've been trying to get hold of you! Where are you?" I told her we were in Portland. She said, "Good. You need to go right away and get a good-quality ultrasound. It looks like you have what is called a cornual pregnancy, and you could bleed to death. I think I'm going to have to ask you to terminate this pregnancy."
I was devastated. I could not do such a thing; I'd been pro-life since shortly after becoming a Christian. I'd researched the development of the unborn in detail and knew that it wasn't just a "mass of tissue" and that unlike what women are told, the unborn do feel pain. I knew that from the first cell the unborn is identifiably human. Also the development was happening fast and what didn't originally look visibly human at a glance was quickly becoming distinctly so. But I could bleed to death! It didn't matter if they had to hang me upside down to make it last, I had to hang on to this pregnancy.
I went for the requested ultrasound. At the same time, Gary's dad was at the same hospital discussing some of the details of his wife's death. It was something of an encouragement to him that while one family member had died, one was just beginning a new life. This ultrasound, however, didn't reveal anything conclusive except that it had started as a twin pregnancy, but one wasn't developing. With this news I didn't react as much as I would have expected--at least there was one that was viable. I had grieved over previous losses and I was going to rejoice in this pregnancy while there was life in it!
At home my doctor told me to stay on bed rest until they did another ultrasound, but that wasn't for another couple of weeks. During that time, I regularly read Psalm 139, the one with "You hem me in--behind and before" which then spoke to me of His boundaries that He has set for those who trust in Him; also, more famously, "For You created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are wonderful, I know that full well." Significantly, it also says, "Where can I go from Your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence? If I go up to the heavens, You are there; if I make my bed in the depths, You are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there Your hand will guide me, Your right hand will hold me fast." Nothing I would do would be hidden from His loving and watchful eye. Even now, to read this Psalm is like visiting an old friend. The funny thing was that when I was reading it, I could easily flip a chunk of pages to the right and turn to Isaiah 45:19, which appeared almost like it had neon lights around it: "I have not spoken in secret, from somewhere in a land of darkness; I have not said to Jacob's descendants, 'Seek Me in vain.' I, the LORD, speak the truth; I declare what is right." When I go to that old Bible, and go to Psalm 139, Isaiah 45 is still the easiest page to flip to from there. The message I heard from it was that God doesn't speak to hear His head rattle. He makes His promises, His story, His proclamation of love for us with purpose and in truth. He wants us to take Him at His word. When I pondered the unthinkable possibility of "terminating the pregnancy" as my doctor suggested, my stomach would wrench. When I thought of not doing it for any reason, I was at peace.
We had a friend who had in previous times discussed pro-life issues with me, and it was clear she thought I was a bit extreme. At this time, she said, "I guess this makes you re-think your stand on abortion." I said, "If anything, it makes me surer of my stand." It wasn't that hard to choose the only side that gave peace.
The next ultrasound revealed that the position of the placenta was no trouble after all. They didn't know why I was bleeding, and that problem continued throughout the pregnancy, without effect. I had gone to this ultrasound alone, and to my surprise, when I got to the car, my knees nearly went out from under me. It's the only time I've ever experienced that. I didn't realize how much I was affected by the whole ordeal until then.
This pregnancy was my son Tim. With the previous pregnancy losses combined with the bleeding, no one felt sure that he would make it to birth. When his birth was announced at church, I gather that the whole congregation applauded. They had been praying for us the whole way through.
Now sometimes when I look at Tim, I marvel at how easily the doctor said to "terminate" him. Easy for her to say! I am thankful that we didn't panic and take that route. We never would have known the great potential of the birth of this healthy boy. He's almost 8 now, full of mischief, and I can't imagine life never having heard his voice or suffered his pranks. I guess he had to cause mischief before birth as well; had to develop his own m.o. early in life. It has occurred to me that perhaps Satan opposed Tim's birth because of some great thing he might do later in life to glorify God. That is what I hang onto--suffering all this mischief, before birth and since, will be worth the end result if Tim grows up to glorify the God who made his own life's value known to us!