One wind

I was driving home from my first real job during a blizzard a couple of decades ago. At the time, my favorite thing about the job might have been my commute. While short, it took me past a state park and I enjoyed seeing the lake, the trees and the wildlife for a few minutes. On this particular day, I mostly saw snow. In a fine Iowa fashion, it wasn't so much falling as flying horizontally on gusting winds.

As I passed the park, I saw an unusual combination. A red tailed hawk was perched on the chain link fence not ten feet from a crow. Competitive carrion eaters usually give each other wide berth unless they are squabbling over a kill. They didn't look like competitors in that storm, though.

The hawk was perched on the top of one of the posts. He stood straight and tall. Only the tiniest of his feathers were out of place. His bright eyes were scanning the landscape, looking for prey like it was just another afternoon.

The crow, on the other hand, was clutching the chain link with both feet and his beak. His wings were flapping for balance. His feathers were puffed out for warmth and some of the tiny ones were actually being blown away. He was too busy trying to hold on to do anything else.

At the time, it struck me how two similar creatures could respond so differently to the same event. I thought of how rarely we would stop and think that someone who seems cool and collected might be going through the same storm as someone who seems like they are just barely holding things together. What's inside of us - our strength, grit, wisdom - might have more   to do with our situation than what's going on outside us. One wind. Two very different responses.

Recently, I was sharing this with a counselor. That feeling I had that I was just not as well equipped as others to deal with the storms of life. And even as I said it, I realized I might have been wrong. You see, I was caught up in appearances. The important thing wasn't that the hawk looked better than the crow. The important thing was that they both held on.

Lessons of the first Christmas

No offense to the Who's down in Whoville or George Bailey, but the real meaning of Christmas is something far more complex than family and community gathering with love. In fact, there wasn't much of that involved in the Nativity at all. Mary and Joseph were far from home and family and the community shuffled them off to a stable. Yet the lessons we learn from that humble birth are more precious than anything you can put in a pretty box tied up with ribbons and bows.

1. Be humble -  Our Lord, who is better than any of us, was not born in a palace. He didn't have servants to wait on him. He was born in a stable and laid in the hay they put out for the donkeys or horses in the Capitol of a once great empire that had fallen under foreign rule. His birth was announced, not to Kings, but to shepherds. The son of God was willing to give up all Glory and comfort for us. We should never think, "I am too good to wear this or live there."

2. Obedience to God - The story of Christ's birth begins with the Father telling an unmarried teenager that she will carry the Messiah. Her response was, "let it be as you have said." Joseph, likewise, accepted the word of the angel and embrace God's will. And together they welcomed Jesus, who sacrificed his place in heaven at the Father's order.

3. Service - Nothing Christ did here on Earth was for his own betterment. Likewise, Mary might be honored among women, but at the time she was agreeing to a difficult road that included her watching her son suffer horribly. Joseph raised someone else's child. And they did all these things for others. Do not be hesitant to do for your neighbor, even if it means being uncomfortable. Do not overlook the service of parenting! A child raised well and in the faith is the labor of many years, but one of the best things any of us can give the world.

4: The answer to your prayers might not be what you expect - The people of Israel were expecting a Messiah who would come leading am army to overthrow the Romans and restore Israel to it's political glory. They got a man who lead through words and service and personal miracles  (he healed individuals, not towns). He not only didn't go to war with their enemies, he taught that we should love them and bring them into God's grace. But he was the solution that the Father knew we needed.

5. You can't judge a person's impact by the circumstances of their birth - His mother was a teenager. His father was not her fiance. His country was under foreign rule. He was born in a barn. Yet he was one of the most important figures in human history. The teenager mother next to you at the grocery store might be carrying the next Beethoven. The doctor who cures cancer might have been the tenth child of a welfare queen. Beginnings don't define a person.

6. Peace is not the absence of conflict, but the presence of faith - "And on Earth, peace, good will to men," the angels declared to the shepherds. The peace they were talking about probably wasn't the one most of us think of. The absence of war, conflict, distraction. The birth of Christ did not herald the end of Kings and armies clashing. It did not stop husbands and wives disagreeing. That's not the kind of peace we get from God. He gives us the peace of knowing that we will, someday, be in a world without conflict. The peace of knowing someone greater than us is in charge. The peace of knowing that no matter how dark out world gets, we will always have light and love. That no matter how badly we fail, we will be lifted up in the end.

7 . God loves us even at our worst - The Messiah wasn't sent when the Israelites were on their best behavior. In fact, they were in the middle of a divine "time out" for following other religions and ignoring the warnings of God's prophets. Their leaders were corrupt and power hungry. They didn't deserve redemption. But like us, they needed it. I think we've all done things that left us feeling unforgivable. Fortunately, forgiveness doesn't depend on the worth of the offender, but on the mercy of the offended. Praise the Lord, for His Mercy endures forever.

8. God's timing is perfect - The Jews waited a long time for their Messiah. But looking at history, it's hard to imagine a better time for Christ to arrive. Not only did the Roman empire provide the travel routes that allowed the good news to travel quickly around Europe, Asia and Africa, but they also introduced the idea that you could join a tribe or nation you weren't born into. We take it for granted today, but the Roman empire was the first to allow conquered peoples to be full citizens. It was the perfect place for the idea that we could be part of a religion that wasn't the faith of our parents or tribe, but one that supercedes nations.

An unequal transaction

Sex is in the news again. Hollywood's dark "secret" of pedophilia, sexual assault and abuse of power has been pulled into the light. I've been reading a lot of blogs about this or that celebrity who abused their position to take advantage of someone or another. It's tragic, but the real eye-opening part for me came when reading the comments.
Most of them condemn the offender, promising to boycott his work or never let their own loved ones hear the film industry. There was also a significant minority who suspect it's all a case of "he-said-she-said" (or "he-said-he-said"). A whole community of primarily men exist who are clearly distrustful of sexual relationships because of experiences with "morning after regret" that turned into an accusation of rape or awkward sexual advances being called harassment. Men who thought they understood the rules of modern sexuality but have become aware of an element no one can explain to their satisfaction.
Almost everyone in modern American society views sex as a transaction. That's what our schools teach. That having sex with someone is like trading baseball cards or shaking hands. If both parties consent and birth control is used, the transaction is complete and it doesn't have to mean anything more than scratching each other's backs.
So why is there so much "buyer's remorse"? To abuse the baseball card metaphor, it's because women are giving up a Babe Ruth rookie card and getting a nobody from the local farm team. It's not an equal trade. And it never will be.
Physically, women are so much more vulnerable in the sex act, both to immediate violence and long term consequences. Yes, diseases go both ways, but only women get pregnant (no matter what the Trans community claims). Even if you view abortion as a solution to that problem, it's not a painless procedure. And no form of birth control is 100% effective. If a woman chooses to have the baby, she will spend the rest of her life trying to compensate for her child's lack of a father. That may be her choice, but it's still part of the package she has to bear when she has sex.
And it has nothing on the emotional damage that casual sex does to women. Our language doesn't really have words for it, but a little bit of history may help. Our idea that two people get to know each other, fall in love, and then decide to get married is very modern. Historically, woman were far more likely to be in marriage arranged by their families or to be captured (either by a local man who was attracted to her or as a spoil of war). At best her new husband was a casual acquaintance. And yet, most of these marriages worked. Some of it was a difference in expectations, but a lot of it is female chemistry. Women are designed to love the men they have sex with. No matter what their brains might tell them, their bodies flood with chemicals telling them to cling to this man like a barnacle. They make it nearly impossible not to be with him. Women who watched their village burned by their husbands who then dragged them off to some strange place and married them without consent still manage to love these men. That's a powerful force. And you don't have to read a lot of Harlequin romance novels or watch many romantic comedies to realize it's still alive and well.
No matter what her brain and her culture tell her, women's chemistry wants the one night stand to be the start of something. For women who have thoroughly convinced themselves that's not what they want, it's a cognitive dissonance that sometimes leads to mental health issues and substance abuse. Or at least a nagging sense that something is wrong, even if she can't quite figure out what.
The nameless morning after feeling is not something a woman can choose. There's no device or drug to prevent it.
The physical and emotional costs are high, and so are the social costs. We can insist that judging women differently than men is sexist and call it slut shaming, but that doesn't fix the reality that middle class morals are more the source of the middle class than the creation of the middle class. Sexual liberation has come at the cost of the number one wealth builder that an individual can create: the nuclear family. Men who can choose casual sex are less likely to invest the time and effort it takes to build a real relationship. You don't have to read many comments to find them. The result is a normalizing of single parenting, a system that hurts both sexes, but once again is a burden born unequally by women.
Most human cultures throughout history have agreed that the fair trade value of sexual access to a good women is a lifetime commitment of partnership, monogamy and shared parenting. No one should be shocked when women feel cheated by today's transactions, even if they have convinced themselves they will be getting a fair deal. No one likes to realize they paid top dollar for a lemon even if the dealer didn't realize it.
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I know this is going to come up, so I need to say this doesn't excuse women for making false rape accusations or sexual harassment claims. But it does explain why our system of viewing sex as a one-to-one transaction leads to so much anger and misunderstanding. Knowing they have agreed to be cheated doesn't make it any less painful or confusing and if you start with someone who is unstable or vindictive, you're playing with fire. Do yourself a favor and stop.