parenting – Page 5 – Lisa Lewton

Advent Week 2 – Expectations

(This week’s devotion is a letter written to the not-my-favorite-person who first added candy to Advent calendars.)

Dear Sir or Ma’am:

Why? Why did you take a perfectly lovely German Lutheran tradition and transform it into a mild nightmare for moms? Whoever you are, I suspect you are not a parent. You might be one of those beloved and sneaky aunts who spoils the kids and runs away before bedtime.

Excuse my annoyance. This is not entirely your fault. It’s just that each year I hope to invite my kids into the mystery of this season, only to find myself yelling over the yelling when one of my three kids might get one more piece of candy than another. Really, you should have seen this coming! What did you expect? You have messed with the expectations. Now my kids expect the wait for Jesus’ arrival to be a road paved with chocolate. You changed the Advent Calendar to a sweet milk chocolate countdown and I have to tell you I’m 95% cacao bitter about it.

I’ve tried workarounds. Last year, I constructed a homemade Advent Calendar with a variety of surprises in individual paper bags. Each day, the kids opened a bag to discover a Bible verse they had to look up, with a small piece of candy (not always chocolate!) or instructions to do something kind for a sibling or a pair of socks or something silly. It was Pinterest-worthy and too much work to do a second time. It will live in my memory as that time I accomplished something Pinterest-worthy.

This year, I hunted for an Advent Calendar on Etsy…until I wondered what it meant that I might spent $50+ to help my kids get ready for the arrival of the Prince of Peace, when actually the calendar becomes a battleground?

Excuse me if I might be channeling too much Cindy Lou Who here, but oh my goodness it is a challenge to slow down the countdown to Christmas Eve! The sweet surprises in the Advent Calendar risk putting us in the fast lane when Advent is a slow lane kind of season. The slowness is necessary to absorb or breathe in the mystery of divine love packaged in a slippery infant body and delivered in an unseen corner of the world by an exceptionally young woman. The addition of chocolate, you see, sweetens the rugged and ragged mystery.

I expect chocolate makes everything better, including the Christmas story. But is it possible the daily dose of chocolate might forget this story is sweet enough without the candy? How sweet it is that God, so far away in the heavens, could not stand to be so far away from you. How sweet it is when God finally threw God’s arms up in the air when humanity kept messing it all up, and finally did what we could not: save ourselves. How sweet that we can expect radical hope every single day, beyond the rugged and ragged scene laid out before us in our everyday lives.

Sheepishly, I will admit to you, chocolate pusher, that in the end I stuffed some candy into 24 little bags and shoved them into a big Christmas cookie tin because it did not feel right to be missing an Advent Calendar! See what you’ve done? You have planted in my brain the expectation that candy must accompany all 24 days of Advent. <sigh>

I will choose to believe your intentions were good. You called attention to Advent using something ordinary and yummy. I will choose to believe you did not expect your idea would become so profitable. It can be tricky to know what to expect when something new is unleashed into the world. In the first century, no one expected a crying newborn to be God’s love unleashed into the world, but God does not adjust to any of our Advent expectations. God’s love for all the rugged and ragged among us does not fit in any of those tiny boxes or bags where sweet treats can be found for 24 days. Its sweetness outdoes all the chocolate in the world.

Signing off, slightly less bitter in North Dakota,

Lisa

PRAYER PRACTICE

Light a candle and make a list of expectations God might have for you this Advent season. God does not expect you to supply your children with daily surprises, or for you to locate the perfect present, or to make everyone else’s holiday a smooth ride. What God expects from you might invite you to be more gentle on yourself and stay in the slow lane.

Advent Week 1 – Promises

(Photo by Cathal Mac an Bheatha on Unsplash)

My daughter finds it funny to remind me of the time her principal called our home during the day to tell me she had fallen from the monkey bars and, we would later learn, fractured a bone in her arm. For whatever reason, Caller ID described the school’s number as “Private Caller,” ostensibly “Annoying Solicitation.” My choice to let the phone ring will be an everlasting tale for her to hold over my head. Forever and ever. “Whatever you do,” she instructs her brothers, “don’t call mom if you break your arm!”

In some way, I had broken an unspoken promise that whenever my six-year-old called or needed me, I would immediately answer the phone. Of course, it did turn out fine after the school called my husband who called me. She did not wait long for her mom to rush to her side! But it did seem the world shifted ever so slightly. She gained some awareness that our lives are not one life but two separate lives.

Parents make many promises to a child, perhaps each of them unspoken. There are basic promises to feed, clothe and show love. And there are social promises to equip a child to make friends and swim in the larger world of peers. There is a promise to be present for the conversation that needs to happen, to listen to a worry, to talk through a dilemma, to help navigate the tough spots, to keep the cookie jar from an empty state.

It could be that parents construct an entire foundation under kids with our promises. No parents keeps them all perfectly, so as we build the foundation with promises, we also build it with empathy and forgiveness. Promise-keeping happens to be the language of Holy Baptism. God promises to hold onto the baptized from this life into the next, and to love us even when we let God down. In turn, hearing God’s unconditional promise of love for us, we make promises, too. Our promises are designed for the well-being of our neighbor.

At weddings and baptisms, I take delight in disclosing to the people making promises (couples and parents/guardians) they are making promises that are impossible to keep. I assure them they will not keep every promise made in the rites of marriage or baptism. They giggle nervously, but I hope my disclosure relieves some pressure.

If we were meant to keep promises perfectly, God would have improved the prototype for humanity. But we are broken people who break the promises we make to one another, even though we know we should not. We act selfishly and out of resentment. We struggle with addiction or get tangled up in an abusive relationship. We get too busy and out of the routine to take our kids to church. Being human requires forgiveness and new starts, or to quote Ann Lamott, earth is forgiveness school. Which is why God’s promise of unconditional love will hang over your head like my daughter’s everlasting tale of the time I chose not answer the phone! This umbrella promise covers you and any mistake you make, including the small mistakes like neglecting to answer the phone, along with the bigger and heavier ones.

In this first week of Advent, we inch closer to a promise God had made long before Jesus was born. Throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, the promise of Jesus’ coming is whispered on each page. The patriarchs of the first book of the Bible tried to follow God and failed, just like the Israelites who entered the story later on, and the promise remained. Through creation and judges and prophets, through insignificant and unnamed people and rich and famous ones, the promise of a Savior is carried from page to page until finally, the promise is a child. On the page we discover an impoverished couple on an obligatory journey into Bethlehem because a king had promised to harm them if they didn’t.

God’s unending promise to love you can be, at times, difficult to hear. The whisper is too low, like a handful of lovely people in their seasoned years who have admitted to me after worship: “I can hear the man’s voice but not yours.” The Bible is like that, too. We can hear God’s promise loud and clear on some pages but not others. We hear it in Isaiah, but turn the pages back and the pitch is too low in the book of Judges (not bedtime reading, that book.) And yet the promise is on that dreadful page, too!

God’s promise cannot be erased or compromised, and I wonder if the is so gracious as to become hard to believe. Can you believe you cannot undo God’s promise of mercy? It is a wild and unwieldy promise, and it is yours to keep.

PRAYER PRACTICE

Light a candle and write a list of promises you are trying to keep. One by one, name them and remind yourself, beloved child of God, how God’s promise to love you is an unconditional promise of mercy. Let God’s forgiveness bring you to forgive yourself, too. With a marker, write “I Love You, I Promise. Love, God” over all of your words.

I Just Texted My Kid During School

Not so long ago, I could not fathom why a parent would send a text message to their own kid knowing that kid is at school. Can’t it wait until after school? I haughtily inner-commented. I mean really, they’re in school!

I remembered those haughty inner-comments this morning when I texted my kid a question related to Thanksgiving break…while he was at school. Thanksgiving is several weeks away, deeming this question non-urgent. And yet, texting often leads to quicker answers which leads to quicker knowing and isn’t that normal?!

Immediacy is the new normal. Would I wait eight hours to ask my son a quick question? If it meant avoiding disruptions in school, absolutely yes. The truth is, however, any number of people outside of the school building also have access to him via his phone. My not sending a quick text does not mean he won’t be disrupted.

Like so many phone-related shifts in our lives, this one happened fast. Suddenly, a student could be anywhere in the world and in a classroom at the same time. With peers inside and outside of the building all at once. Which sounds like most workplaces. We can simultaneously be in a work meeting with colleagues and in a family vacation text string. Digital life often allows/requires us to be in two places at once.

Perhaps texting my kid while he is at school is prepping him for the 21st century work world. Ours is a world unlike any worker or workplace has ever seen before. It requires the ability to maintain eye contact in a conversation happening in the room, and to know how to navigate the other perhaps dozens of conversations unfolding more slowly on your phone. You are constantly triaging which conversation requires your attention.

Exhausting!

But here we are. We live in this time with particular people doing particular work using a particular kind of technology. It isn’t perfect, but neither were telegrams, or the party line system, or any other kind of technology humans have invented. As always, kids adapt quicker than adults. My kids can probably help me learn how to better find my way, after he answers the non-urgent Thanksgiving question.

Do I Really Know My Kids?

Occasionally I wonder which conversations with me my kids will remember. Will they remember our conversation related to their grades or their friends? Will they remember telling me the story of what happened one day at school? Will our talk after they failed at something stick with them?

Parenting is basically hugs and a series of conversations, both of which become trickier as kids get bigger. At the same time hugs and conversations grow trickier, kids’ worlds rapidly widen. Their friends become more worldly and so do they. There are dangerous rabbit holes on their screens and in all of the places their freedom leads them into. In teenage-dom, there may be a direct proportion between how much kids need to talk and how little they actually do.

This is why I loved the latest podcast by Laura Tremaine called “10 Questions To Ask Your Kids”! Her kids are slightly younger than mine, but her 10 questions still fit. I wrote each down on an index card to park at our kitchen table. Will my kids be excited to discover these questions I will try to ask them? I am sure at least 1/3 of them will! Really, all that we ever do as parents is try things. We try to be present, try to be patient, try to serve vegetables, try to understand. And so, I can try to ask questions that I hope might help me better know these humans whom I see and usually eat with on a daily basis.

While her 10 questions are a tool to hear from kids, they are also a way for kids to get to know their parents (or grandparents). If you were to tell them who your best friends are these days, what might you say? As Tremaine points out, will your kids (or grandkids) know the answer? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe you stay connected with someone whom they do not know or haven’t met. You have a story to tell to explain the people with whom you are choosing to share your time.

You have plenty of stories to tell, and so do the younger people in your life. What an amazing moment for them to know you really want to hear their stories! I hope Tremaine’s questions inspire you, too.

The Snack Dilemma

In the ever-expanding folder of mom-guilt is the quality of snacks my kids consume. Early in their lives this was easy. Their plates were exclusively healthy choices: fruit, vegetables, tiny bites of cheese, a handful of Cheerios. When faced with squash on their plate today, my husband and I remind them they used to love squash, among a variety of other foods they deny ever enjoying! Avocado? Yes! Sweet potatoes? Affirmative.

My oldest son loved Kashi oatmeal for breakfast. If you’ve never tried it , the taste resembled what you might imagine a woodpecker’s breakfast also tastes like. But he LOVED it. It’s all he knew.

And then his eyes were opened to all the snacks he now prefers.

Which is why every trip to the grocery store presents the dilemma of the snacks. My kids told Alexa to add Cheez-Its to the list. Now what?! There is no avocado version that might at least trick them into consuming a healthy version of Cheez-Its. But it’s the cereal aisle that deepens the dilemma. As Captain Crunch and Barney Rubble stare you down, you alone have to muster the strength to take an honest look at the grams of sugar now conveniently displayed on the front of the box. You can follow your nose or go cuckoo and come home to kids who call you Tony the Tiger’s famous line. Or, you can find 13 grams or less to be a fine cereal guide.

In the end, however, what matters more than what I buy is what my kids choose to eat. Like most of the reality of raising kids, I have very limited control. Regardless of my choices, their choices are really their own and not mine to make. Will I always be the one buying their groceries? Nope. The snack dilemma isn’t mine to solve, but rather it is mine to equip them to solve on their own.

Which should make the mom-guilt file stop expanding, right? Why doesn’t it work that way? Only the famous cereal aisle leprechaun knows. I do believe that regardless of the snacks I buy, the cookie jar should never be empty. This is wisdom from my mom. Healthy snacks are one thing; cookies keep us from worrying way too much about it.

When One Feeling Isn’t Enough

Last week, I spent a few days with my colleagues in Western North Dakota at an annual theological retreat. We both retreated by resting and catching up, and engaged in theological learning and discussion. It’s no secret that Western North Dakota is not the most desirable location in the country to do ministry! Lutherans leaders often prefer to land in a metro area, and so what leaders in other areas might miss is a tight-knit collegial community. It is tight-knit because we know we need each other to survive! There is no sense of competition among churches, but instead a culture of support.

And so when the conversation at our retreat centered around processing the past year and looking ahead at the work yet to do, there was a flood of feelings. There was grief and hope, disappointment and gratitude, mercy and frustration, all at once.

Did you know you can feel at least two feelings at once? You do it all the time. You feel love for your spouse and also utter shock that the two of you are still married. You feel gratitude for your child and ongoing irritation that said child continues to leave a trail of messiness throughout the house. You feel content in your life at the same time you feel curious that there might be something more.

There are so many feelings in the world right now! It might be helpful to remember your neighbor may be as confused about her feelings as you are about yours. I live in one of the Covid-sickest parts of the country, so while I’m grateful people have started reconnecting at the church I serve, I feel deep concern for people’s health. Should we be gathering? I think, yes. Should we be cautious? Also yes. Is it good for our souls to gather in the same space? Absolutely yes. Even now? I think, yes.

Argh. It’s no small task to be human these days, with so many feelings bubbling inside of us. I encourage you today to take note of your feelings. Here is a link with a list of feelings if you need some help. Then, you might ask a friend or people in your family to do the same. My very favorite tool to engage you in conversation around feelings with your own self or with others feelings are GROK cards.

There is a lot going on in your life if you start to dig around a bit. As I learned in a room full of pastors, deacons and a flood of feelings, naming the truth of what we are experiencing is an invitation for Christ’s healing love.

Garden Variety Apocalypse

There is an impressive garden I pass by on my walks with Pippen. The couple who tend this garden have made a serious commitment to the earth. In the spring, they faithfully till and plant and then I get to witness the magical way seeds transform into food. Green, red, purple, and orange stain the growing garden until suddenly sections disappear. It is a vegetable apocalypse with raptured tomatoes! A cucumber diaspora and a scattering of green beans.

The apocalypse occurs in tandem with the first weeks of school. As vegetables disappear from gardens, kids disappear from home (or for homeschool or online students, kids disappear from their summer lives). I felt the change today, my designated day off, when I came home from the school drop off to a quiet house. Pippen greeted me with his eyes on the door in hopes that another human or two would follow me. Surely, he acknowledges the difference, too. A grown-up at home and no kids means his extensive naps will go uninterrupted.

The diaspora of vegetables and school-aged kids are clear evidence that our days are not meant to look the same for any long period of time. The rhythms of a school year and gardening might teach us to hold life lightly and expect it to change. Life is not built for white, clasping knuckles, but for loose grips.

If God is in the details, God is certainly in the plucking of cucumbers from their vines, and in the student’s march from the car or bus to the classroom. Garden apocalypses will continue as sure as your own life will change. There is a steadiness that comes when big and small changes invite you into a long conversation with God.

“God, this is different…”

“God, why can’t tomatoes taste this amazing all year long?”

“God, can you be more generous with the carrots and go easy on the zucchini? Just an idea.”

“God, this part is really nice and this part is hard…”

“God, what might change next?”

“I know, God, you will be there then, too.”

A Christian Way to Talk About the World With Kids

Photo by Miguel u00c1. Padriu00f1u00e1n on Pexels.com

Have you ever noticed how you talk about the world with kids? What age-old words or phrases do you let slip without realizing? Do you call the world “dangerous”? Or explain tragic events by concluding, “The world can be a terrible place,” or, “There are bad people in the world.”

I also wonder how you refer to decision-makers. Are all politicians awful? And lawmakers corrupt? How do your own headlines and editorials shape the way kids around you understand the function of the government?

As any teacher will tell you, kids speak of the world with the narrative they learn at home. Your family’s unique language is their first tongue to articulate an understanding of the world around them. If at home you speak of a corrupt government, your child will do the same at school. If all politicians are distrustful as you process the news at home, distrust may plant a seed that will later blossom into endless conspiracy theories.

The Buddhist are perhaps the first to point out that humankind is aptly named. Our early orientation toward strangers is most often kindness. If you smile at a toddler, that child will naturally smile back. It happens every Sunday during the sermon when people sitting near a baby will hear almost none of the sermon due to the steady, heartwarming exchange of glowing smiles.

We live in a time in the United States when deeply-rooted conspiracy theories are shaping events and nurturing distrust. In my corner of the world, generations-old distrust of the government has placed a filter over information related to the pandemic. And that makes me wonder about younger generations that continue to learn distrust as a first language. I suspect conspiracy theory is handed down and learned at home.

All that is to say, what might be the Christian way to talk about the world with kids, particularly at home. Here a few ideas:

Do not avoid the words “I don’t know.” We are inundated with both true and false information and we do not always know the difference. A shrug of the shoulders prevents us from thinking we are always right.
Check out the Bible. It blows my mind whenever I read Old Testament stories of how God used “the bad guy” to deliver his word. Jonah was sent into “enemy territory.” Jesus befriended the wrong “political parties.” The fall of the Berlin wall is a good illustration of how God responded to separating humans based on political allegiance.
Start a conversation. Ask kids, “How is God in the world right now?” As we watch the terror unfold in Afghanistan, how is God with the people? What does God need from us to care for the strangers we see in the news? Even a prayer for people far away makes us more than strangers. Also, asking kids a question reminds us that they know far more than we assume!
Scan yourself for anger. Anger can be productive, but it can also be wildly unproductive. If your anger makes you feel self-righteous, keep that in check. Your kids may learn to be angry with people only because they think differently than they do. Warning: Self-righteous kids are the most annoying friends in high school and college. Try to avoid raising those.
Remind kids a basic tenet of the Christian faith. Our faith does not put our absolute trust in a human leader, but only in our Lord. Only God deserves our total allegiance. Only God will save us. Only God will lead us through this life into the next one. Human leaders cannot promise salvation, so if you sense yourself buying into such a promise, back up a bit.

While it is a challenging time to raise kids, it is an excellent time to be in conversation with them. We all need help processing what we see in the news. It is easy to avoid, but we need to talk about why there are people who drive around our neighborhood with flags in their pick-up trucks for my 9-year old to read F— Biden. I wonder why that person feels so strongly? I don’t know, but I’m sure there is a reason. He/she is a child of God, too.

Waiting For School, Waiting For Cooler Weather, Waiting For Supper

Waiting for the laundry to finish, waiting for mom to buy more granola bars. Waiting for the cookie jar to refill itself, waiting for that device to charge. Waiting for the eggs to cook, waiting for kids to stop bickering. Waiting for the movie to begin, waiting for tomatoes to ripen.

I am impatiently waiting for the tomatoes! So many tomatoes in my backyard. Any moment now, I’m sure, they will show their true colors: red, purple, and yellow. Then I will smile a loving smile and make a BLT.

Impatiently is one way to wait. I can watch tomatoes impatiently and water them impatiently. Waiting impatiently is a sure formula to miss the details. If I am too impatient, I won’t notice the earthy smell of the leaves that have been working hard for months to grow. I won’t notice that sneaky orange cherry tomato I overlooked earlier. I won’t notice how wild it truly is that our food comes from tiny seeds!

Waiting impatiently mutes the wonder. It hurries us through the minute, the hour, the day, the lifetime. Wait impatiently and your frustration might get the best of you. Wait with wonder and your senses might perk up.

In these weeks of prelude to the school year, I am waiting for kitchen counters to stay clean all day long, and for someone else to make their lunch. I am waiting for the return of the beloved routine, and for kids to enter new challenges.

I will take another stroll by the yet-to-ripen tomatoes to avoid becoming too impatient in my waiting. They may remind me that suddenly they will be big and ready to leave the vine. I may never get such a privileged close-up view of their growing up. Every moment I’ve been waiting, they’ve been transforming. And I tell them as I wait and wait, that they are the most wondrous tomatoes I have ever laid eyes on.

The Magic of the 20-Second Hug

When I was a little girl, I had a persistent light cough that was attributed to dust. Among the many tactics we tried to eliminate allergens in our house to limit the coughing was a mostly strict ban on stuffed animals. Only my two plush puppies, Rover and Scrappy, survived the ban.

While no allergy is ideal, this one had its perks. No stuffed animals were allowed to move in. Meaning, my mom could say no to any and every such request.

Thirty-years later, my mom says yes to every such request from her granddaughter, which is how I ended up with a giant, red, heart pillow with the words “100% Huggable” from a garage sale last week. Where, I ask you, does one put a giant, red, heart pillow with the words “100% Huggable” in one’s home? Oy vey.

While the pillow is not my favorite, it is cool because my daughter picked it out for me, and because the words have a ring to them. I recently learned of the 20-second hug. Perhaps I read it somewhere or caught it in a podcast. Simply put, hugging your partner for at least 20 seconds (in one continuous hug) is magical. Consider. You cannot naturally hug someone you are annoyed by for 20 seconds. Eventually in those 20 seconds, you probably decide he/she is not so bad after all.

Please test the theory and if it doesn’t work for you, I have a pillow that could be your consolation prize.

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