Character building

I've been thinking a lot about integrity lately... So today when I opened the book I'm reading, this really caught my attention!

All this means that the Sabbath rhythm leads to an ethics of BECOMING (how our character is being developed) and not of DOING (how we react in specific situations.) ...

Sabbath keeping changes our character. We will be irrevocably transformed by the commitment to a special day set aside for our relationship with God, and that transformation will result in thinking and attitudes and emotions and behavior consistent with the character of God who is the focus of our Sabbath keeping.
...
Resting provides the necessary time for the Spirit's molding of our characters.

- from Marva Dawn's 'Keeping the Sabbath Wholly". Pages 95, 96.

We need time for reflection in our lives. It seems more and more that evangelical churches can be so much hustle and bustle... perhaps there is a need for a little less action and a little more quiet.

Taking oneself too seriously!

... many executives suffering from burnout returned to the same work after an extended leave and again exhibited the same burnout symptoms within sixty days.

 

Perhaps that is why a weekly cycle of work and physical rest had to be commanded by God rather than merely suggested. As Eugene Peterson, author of "The Pastor's Sabbath," insists, "Nothing less than a command has the power to intervene in the vicious, accelerating, self-perpetuating cycle of faithless and graceless busy-ness, the only part of which we are conscious being our good intentions." Peterson describes the Sabbath as that uncluttered time and space in which we can distance ourselves from our own activities enough to see what God is doing. If we are not able to rest one day a week, we are taking ourselves far too seriously.

 

- Marva Dawn in "Keeping the Sabbath Wholly"

Out of the Attic

The other day when Anna was back to visit with little Erin we went exploring in the attic looking for baby clothes left over from my babies and while I was up there I brought down the remnants of Anna's life in Ajigasawa. (I'm trying to convince my married children that they should finish moving out of the house - of course I still have a box in my Aunt's attic!)

In with a box of Anna's books was the "Creed of Goldia"... what memories that brought back!

Creed of Goldia

There was a map, and a club with minutes - Anna was the Scribe and exercised great creativity (and sometimes revenge on the Chairman!) Even when she went off to university, Sarah was still reading those minutes - fascinating reading it was! - to anyone who would listen to her. Oh, the hours they spent with their LAMMS Club and the Kingdom of Goldia!

Kids have time when there's no tv!

How to Play

I finished Michael Ende's "Momo" a couple of days ago and before I return the book and move on, I'd like to remark that the 7th chapter had excellent insights into the nature of toys and things...

"You can't play with a marvellous doll like this the way you'd play with any old doll, that's obvious. Anyway, it isn't what she's meant for. If you don't want to get bored with her, you have to give her things..." p.84

I never really did buy our children toys - although they inherited a enough - but their imaginations furnished them with endless hours of pleasure.

Elliot & Ghent children "fishing" from our shed roof

Pleasure that I hope has built resistance to the world's prevailing philosophy:

'All that matters in life,' the man in gray went on, 'is to climb the ladder of success, amount to something, own more things. When a person climbs higher than the rest, amounts to more, owns more things, everything else comes automatically: friendship, love, respect, et cetera. ... '

My Daughter, the Artist

While looking for a good photo of Sarah I stumbled on the folder of her art work and I couldn't resist showing off a little.

First Day of Class - Sarah with the paint bucket

Mask transformation project from first semester

Notice Sarah's painting in the first panel!

Final Project

Disclaimer: She's not really a very morbid person - she had to work within the constraints of the course objectives.

Why Sarah doesn't dance...

Mary and I were telling our Monday Bible Study group about Sarah's latest email when one of the member's interupted me by asking, "Does Sarah not dance for spiritual reasons?"

Her question rather caught me by surprise. We don't have any rules in our family about dancing. Most of my daughters dance one way or another. I've even seen Sarah folk dance! But Sarah does have my sense of rhythm - she doesn't care for churches where they clap to the music. That didn't seem like a very spiritual reason for not dancing.

Then as I fumbled an answer it occurred to me that Sarah probably doesn't dance for the same reason Sarah doesn't drink. She doesn't believe in opening doors she doesn't want to enter. That's a spiritual reason!

Sarah

At that point I threw in a red herring about hymns which took the conversation far, far from where I wanted to go.

My thought, which was still forming when I muddled the point and lost my chance to say something useful, is that music also opens doors people don't want to enter.... so why do they keep on opening the doors?

The 1970s me

The music I listened to in the 1970s (folk more than rock) was probably neither as sensual (with notable exceptions like Bob Dylan's "Lay, Lady, Lay" and Simon & Garfunkel's "Cecelia") or depressing as much of what some of the people I love enjoy. But it did take me where I didn't want to go emotionally.

Of course, I don't think I really made this connection until it became obvious to me that more than once through her Olivia Newton-John album shot my college room mate into the depths of melancholy and made her (so I thought) unliveable. Somehow its always easier to see this in other people!

I think we posted a moratorium on Olivia Newton John.

Then I took a look at my own music life - and decided it was time to develop a taste for classical music!

To be perfectly honest, I still enjoy a brief encounter now and then with some of the old music... Simon & Garfunkel; John Denver; Neil Diamond; Joanie Mitchell; Gordon Lightfoot; Peter, Paul & Mary; Judy Collins; Leonard Coen ... but a little goes a long way.

And the Baroque music I subsequently came to enjoy does much better things for my psyche!

Mr. Figaro's dilemma (and sometimes mine!)

Meanwhile, he was becoming increasingly restless and irritable. The odd thing was that, no matter how much time he saved, he never had any to spare; in some mysterious way, it simply vanished. Imperceptibly at first, but then quite unmistakably, his days grew shorter and shorter. Almost before he knew it, another week had gone by, and another month, and another year, and another and another.

Michael Ende's "Momo", p. 65

The real purpose!

Walls and billboards were plastered with posters depicting scenes of happiness and prosperity. Splashed across them in fluorescent lettering were slogans such as:

TIMESAVERS ARE GOING PLACES FAST!

THE FUTURE BELONGS TO TIMESAVERS!

MAKE MORE OF YOUR LIFE - SAVE TIME!

The real picture, however, was very different. Admittedly, timesavers were better dressed... They earned more money and had more to spend, but they looked tired, disgruntled and sour, and there was an unfriendly light in their eyes... In their view even leisure time had to be used to the full, so as to extract the maximum of entertainment and relaxation with the minimum of delay.

Whatever the occasion, whether solemn or joyous, timesavers could no longer celebrate it properly...

It had ceased to matter that people should enjoy their work and take pride in it; on the contrary, enjoyment merely slowed them down. All that mattered was to get through as much work as possible in the shortest possible time...

Michael Ende's "Momo", p. 66-7

Parents and churchworkers - take heed!

People never seemed to notice that, by saving time, they were losing something else. No one cared to admit that life was becoming ever poorer, bleaker and more monotonous.

The ones who felt this most keenly were the children, because no one had time for them any more.

But time is life itself, and life resides in the human heart. And the more people saved, the less they had.

Michael Ende's "Momo", p. 68.