Laying Down Lives

A pastor several months ago was preaching on loving one another and he arrived at 1 John 3:16. "This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers."

Love is laying down your life for someone else. That sounds kind of extreme, like being ready to heroically dive in front of the speeding bus, burst in and climb the staircase of the flaming house, or stick out one's chest to take the bullet. But how often do those opportunities come around? But then maybe it's just a willingness to do it? But isn't that sort of the kind of thing where you don't really know your response until it happens? And even then isn't it often more of an instict-reflexive-gut-reaction than a conscious decision? Is that really what love is all about? Is this really what John was getting at? Is this really the way Christ laid down his life for us?

And so the pastor asked his congregation: What do you think it means to lay down your life for a brother?

The woman in the back row eventually spoke up. "It's like Jesus said, sometimes it's as simple as giving someone a glass of water. An ordinary act becomes extraordinary."

I liked that. And she was right. Jesus did talk about simply giving something to eat to someone who is hungry, something to drink to someone who is thirsty. And this seems more in line with what John was trying to get at, because he follows verse 16 more practically: If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need...

Here we are trying to take bullets or save the world, when really it's much more simple, much more immediate, much more seemingly ordinary. Sometimes it's just sandwiches and bottles of water. Sometimes it's a pair of shoes, sometimes it's a ride across town, many times just a listening ear. But when those ordinary things are truly needed and freely shared, something extraordinary happens.

Why? Maybe it's just because we as humans are typically so self-focused, so self-centered, just so selfish that we don't take time to even see needs let alone try to help them. The simple act of noticing thirst and quenching it is already so unusual in its selflessness, that it is in fact laying down one's life.

In the movie Millions, Saint Peter visits Damian's bedroom and recounts a familiar story:

Anyway, this kid comes up to us—about your size. His name was—No, I’ve forgotten, but I still see him from time to time. He comes up with these loaves and fishes—sardines—and Jesus blesses them and passes the plate around. Now the first person he passes it to, passes it on, doesn’t take anything, just passes it on. Do you know why? Because he had a piece of lamb hidden in his pocket. And as he is passing the fish, he sneaks a bit of meat out and pretends to take it off the plate. And the next person does the same. Every single one of them has their own food, and every one of them is keeping it quiet, looking out for number one. But as that plate went round with the sardines on, they all got their own food out and started to share. And then that plate went all the way round and back to Jesus, and it’d still got the fish and the loaves on it. I think Jesus was a bit taken aback. He says, “What happened?” And I just said, “Miracle!” And at first, I thought I’d fooled him! But now, I see it was a miracle, one of his best. That kid—He wasn’t planning on doing a miracle, he wasn’t planning anything except lunch. Something that looks like a miracle turns out to be dead simple.

A tad sacrilegious and heretical? Perhaps. But the idea of a bunch of people hiding their own lunches in their pockets for fear of losing it is hardly unbelievable. And then this idea of inspiring people to simply share? When sharing is so contrary to our nature, I am drawn to affirm the idea that undoing our selfishness is in fact a greater miracle than bending the laws of science to somehow create more fish and more bread until everyone is fed. Whether that's what actually happened that day, that's for us and filmmakers to debate. But let's agree that the simplicity of sharing--laying down one's life--is the result of a miracle, the result of knowing the one who first laid his life down for us.

A few weeks ago, I was thankful for friends who laid down their lives to load and unload a few boxes. Seemed simple enough, ordinary, and most of them wouldn't question it. But I also recently had the experience to catch a glimpse of a divorced man selling his house and trying to empty it. He was all alone, and the task looked physically, logistically, emotionally beyond him. I realized again just how extraordinary all that help was from our friends.

Saint Peter said something that looked like a miracle turned out to be dead simple. Really it's the other way around. Something that looks dead simple turns out to be a miracle.

Un Tourne-Disque

How much for that, the thing on top, what's that called anyway?
Hey mom, how much for just the tourne-disque on top?
Ah, tourne-disque, c'est ça.
You want just the tourne-disque? You don't want it all? It's 10 euros for all of it.
10 euros for all of it?
Yes.
Can I give you 10 euros for just the tourne-disque?
No, look, it's a radio, CD, cassette, all of it. 10 euros for all of it.
And it works?
Yes it works.
Guaranteed?
Guaranteed. You go try it, if there's a problem, come back.
But all I want is the tourne-disque.
Sorry, all or nothing.
Well, OK then, I'll take it. Let me take all these toys to the car and I'll be back.


This afternoon I'm listening to Damien Jurado, Richard Swift, and lots of obscure instrumental bands, albums I haven't listened to in more than three years...

That in itself is worth the 10 euros (even despite the super fuzzy speakers), but the option to listen to French radio, and record it on cassette with my double tape deck, and make copies for friends with high-speed dubbing, and bask in the early-ninetyness of it all, all that's just bonus. 

(and speaking of breaking cattails)

maybe this is how we should be planting?
Oh Joy! from kut on Vimeo.

Harvest

Today the tractors were harvesting and the air in the car began to smell like the onions that were drying in the sun.

Nearly a year ago I heard a man say that a lot of people are good at planting, but not many people know how to harvest. That has stuck with me.

It's easy to throw a seed in the dirt. Sometimes it's strategic, methodic, carefully planned, but other times it can be haphazard, spontaneous, even accidental. Maybe it's as nonchalant as blowing a dandelion, breaking a cattail, tossing a core out the window. A lot of things can be considered planting.

But harvesting. It's waiting. Watching. Cultivating and tending and maintaining. It's knowing when the time is right.

Do I grab this tomato before the groundhog does? Or do I let it ripen one more day?

What's really going on underneath the soil where the onion greens are growing? Are they big enough? Too big? Stunted? Rotten?

Sometimes the harvest happens in multiple steps as it does with wheat. Sometimes it requires the right engineering, or just a skilled hand, to get only the desired fruit. It can demand labor and precision.

I remember picking strawberries with my mom. "Is this one ripe enough?" I remember digging carrots with my dad. "Why are they so small?"

Harvesting is more complicated than planting.

And so we don't prefer harvesting, we're not good at harvesting, we don't know how to harvest.

But then what's the point of planting?

Comedic Relief

 

Super Dad

It's a humbling thing, this fatherhood gig. Because it doesn't take long to realize your son thinks you can do anything and everything.

The Olympics never fail to inspire, as previously mentioned. But the kid doesn't know what an anti-jock he has for a dad. We watch taekwondo. "I wanna see you do that Papa." We watch the extreme kayaking. "I wanna do that with you Papa." Tonight's the pole vault. "Look, he made it over!! It's because of his big muscles. Maybe you could do that, Papa."

And so what does a father do? Go with it? Tell him the truth? Try, but disappoint?

Ignorance is bliss, I suppose, for the both of us. Give him another 10 or 15 years and he'll only be able to see all the things I can't do, all the things I do wrong.

Summer Break (Not a bad gig.)

Haven't been writing much this summer. Lack of inspiration maybe, muddied thinking, bigger fish to fry. So instead, and since you have another 8 or 9 months of waiting for these to appear elsewhere, I'm going to let my wife's photography do the talking...

 After a visit to this museum, the kid is obsessed with bones.

Stopped to take a photo of the sunset. Photos of wheat--which farmers have had a hard time harvesting because of wet fields--turned out more interesting.

Found a new forest to walk through. Trees just about everywhere lately have been making me want to watch Tree of Life again.

 Fairly certain the Tour de France raced past these hay bails the day after we drove past them.

Those fountains I was telling you about. Not only did I allow my 1 year old to break the rules and play in them, but he isn't wearing safe foot attire either. If the Promenade Moms knew they would surely be gossiping about me over their half caf skinny soy latte frappes. 

 

One of my new favorite parks in Paris is the underrated Parc Georges Brassens. OK, so half the reason I like the park is because it's named after a singer I like more all the time, but the tiny vineyard, bee hives, flower gardens, wandering paths, giant climbing rocks, and fun playground equipment help. On Saturdays and Sundays the book market is open right next door, and that helps too.

We walked through the Paris Plage and because we never really have opportunity to just walk through Paris we kept going until we got to this pedestrian bridge. People in love write their names on a lock, attach it to the fence, and throw the key in the Seine. After explaining that to him, the kid asked, "What is love?" I had a hard time responding. The other kid just fell in love with all the locks. Can't blame him.

We drove past this on the way to our new town. Made me kind of happy to be moving to the country. I find sunflower fields to be incredibly mesmerizing.

Olympics Day 1

Televised Olympics in France are not quite the same as in the States. It's been a long day of judo, fencing, cycling, and badminton.

But even that doesn't fail to inspire. After cycling, the kid asked to go on a bike ride, and he pedaled that tricycle like a gold medal depended on it. After a few short minutes of gymnastics, we saw successful 180 degree jumps with attempts for 360, and confident, capable somersaults which he insists on calling, "push up rolls."

As for badminton--surprisingly intense--only one logical question remained: "What's bad about it?"

And now the men are about to swim in the same size pool he has his swimming class in, but he has already worn himself out. He's qualified for the finals in the falling-asleep-on-the-couch event, but I'm sure to give him a run for his money before the end of these next two weeks.

un Petit Oiseau et un Matématicien

Turns out that show I discovered the other week is in fact a weekly event, and it has quickly become part of my routine.  I'm loving some of the discoveries it's providing...

Two of my new favorites singing together:


Then there's this fella singing a trick of a song. Still not really sure what he's saying, and if you don't get it either, just try saying "Ta Katie T'a Quitté" as fast as he does and your admiration will quickly grow. He was called a mathematician, and it's true that these lyrics are perfectly, ingeniously calculated:

Raising Photographers

One of the great responsibilities of parenting is knowing the reality that kids learn the most from you not from what you say or teach but from what you model.

That probably means a lot of things in this case, like my boys won't grow up to exercise, nor will they wash their cars, but they might whistle fairly often.

When our little engineer started asking his mother how her camera worked last night, he took it up in his hands, spun the zoom back and forth, framed up the photo, and took one of his first shots on this digital SLR. Such was his pride and interest that we realized photography is one of the things we model most consistently in these wild lives of ours, and so it will make perfect sense of these boys grow up to be photographers.

And we proud parents would like to think that if this shot as a 4-year-old is any indication, we could be on to something good...