SYLLABICATION: re·li·gion
PRONUNCIATION: r-ljn

During the time for questions and discussion at the end of my Northern Voice talk, someone shared a detailed observation, describing blogging as a religion. The clock was ticking, we were ending my session and I didn’t know how to succinctly and quickly respond to this complicated statement. Since then, I have heard and seen others repeating this comparison of blogging and religion.

I agree that blogging could be seen as a religion: it depends on the definition of religion. If religion is defined as adherence to a set of rituals, then perhaps my daily routine of publishing posts and reading feeds would fit. If religion is defined as an identifying lifestyle practice, such as the fact that I now carry my camera with me everywhere, then blogging might be considered a religion. If religion brings people together and creates community, certainly meetups and conferences could be classified as religious experiences in that sense. We bloggers may share common values including the often-cited ones of transparency, authenticity and truth. And, as the conference attendee pointed out to me, we are perhaps indoctrinating our children into blogging by starting them at an early age.

However here are some key questions that demonstrate how blogging fails to fulfill my definition – and the dictionary’s definition – of religion:

Does blogging provide a purpose for my life or explain my existence on Earth?
No.

Does blogging involve a belief in supernatural beings or require reverence for any gods?
No.

Does blogging explain what happens when I die or where I was before birth?
No.

Does blogging interpret humanity, community and current events into a holistic picture?
No.

Does blogging fulfill spiritual needs for my family and me?
No.

Blogging is a container. It’s a tool. it can be a way to share and express religion. But blogging is not a purpose in itself. Bloggers might be zealous. Bloggers might be devoted. However I hope we all find more purpose to life than the act of publishing posts.

As Derek Miller observed, there are a number of activities that could be described as religion, with the same qualifications as blogging. Some families raise their children playing tennis. Some families raise their children immersed in art or business. And some families are devoted to NASCAR. There are plenty of these types of indoctrinations.

I don’t like the word religion. I feel it has come to mean a pile of routines and rituals, a list of laws lacking love, hypocrites who hurt others. I don’t describe myself as religious.

Here is a better question:

Is blogging spiritual?

If a blog is a container, then a blog can be spiritual. A blog can be filled with whatever we want to put inside it. I believe the best posts are those that connect us to each other on the deep levels of who we are as humans, what we feel, how we hurt, whom we love. In a face to face conversation we might talk about traffic, cars or coffee. We may or may not dive into the depths. We often hide our souls.

But a blog gives us a voice for these secret sides of our selves, the tender places, the fears and faults, the dreams and desires, the likes and loves. We can show our scars and wash our wounds. We can describe our doubts. We can be desperate. We can be excited. We ask. We give. We rejoice. We sing. We dance. We listen.

We share life. We share death. We share love.

We can become more of who we were meant to be, both as individuals and community. Blogging can remind us who we are and what it’s all about.

A blog is a bowl and we can pour pieces of our souls into it, as an offering to others, for whomever will hear.

Spiritual blogging doesn’t require rituals or routines: indoctrination makes it dull. But blogging of the soul does ask for devotion, zeal and courage.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.

- Serenity Prayer

As a child I would see this serenity prayer engraved on plaques and hung in homes, not at ours, but at others. It seemed a strange prayer to me, a weak one, one that didn’t fit with the way I thought the world or God worked. Accept the things I cannot change? Wasn’t that wimping out on trying to change things? Why can’t everything be fixed or healed? Accept that things can’t be changed?! Courage? Who needs courage? Only those who are afraid. Not me. Difference? What difference?

I didn’t believe in a world where there was a difference, where there were things I could change and things I couldn’t. What couldn’t be accomplished, given truth, zeal and passionate people: so read the summary of my college years philosophy. Even in my childhood, I believed that if I prayed or served God or was good enough, I could help change things. If I prayed enough times and in the right way God listen and change it. He doesn’t have a difference; there’s nothing he can’t do. This was the way I thought the world worked.

In the past year I’ve been forced to face what I can’t change. I’ve grieved what has gone from my life. This heaviness manifested itself in many tears and sleepless nights. It became my inner iron maiden.

Inside I’ve blamed myself. I must not have prayed the right way or the right times, said what I should have said. I believed I must be responsible for these losses in my life. It was my fault things had broken and it was up to me somehow to try to fix it again. Movies from my memories played in my mind, as I analyzed the scenes, wondering what words should have been spoken, scrambling to re-write the script.

However I also felt as I were running a marathon race and hitting a brick wall. Or falling off a brick wall. I had tried everything I could but like Humpty Dumpty’s physicians the broken pieces remained. What else could I do?

I am realizing I am powerless to change these situations. And to some extent perhaps God is too, subject to the laws he has made for his people. We humans have choice and no one can take that choice from us.

This spring, as I have come to accept the things I cannot change, I’ve discovered peace. Serenity. Sweet and bright, light and hopeful, like the crocus and the sunshine I can see.

Perhaps it does take courage and wisdom to know our own limits. Perhaps we have to be brave to accept our inabilities. Perhaps it takes maturity to find serenity.

If your memories of churchgoing are not ones you’d like to repeat or visit on your own kids, how to choose a faith that fits?

Rayne talked with her daughter about religion

Until the rules and the reasons behind them — the dogma, they call it — are less important than the teachings of Christ, we won’t be really Catholic any longer.

So what are we? she asks.

I’m still trying to figure that out. We will set time aside every Sunday to talk about that, and what we can believe, and about what other people believe, and where it came from and why. Like the Beatitudes that Christ taught, and the Eight-fold Path that Buddha taught; these things aren’t very far apart and we should talk about them. Home church ourselves, I guess. Until now, we’ve talked a lot about values, what is good and what is evil, what God is, that we expect you to do good and not evil; but we’ve not talked much about the big picture. Religion is a big picture, where all of these things fall into place, into one big story. I guess we are trying to write the big story we can understand instead of trying to understand very old and broken ones that have been given to us by our families. It’s like some of the antique furniture we have around here, also given to us by our families. It might be pretty to look at, might be worth something, but it’s old and decrepit and can’t hold us. This old clock that won’t keep time, for example; it’s pretty and it sounds lovely when it chimes, but we can’t depend on it if we had to be somewhere on time. Sometimes you just have to use something new that works.

How can we write the big story of faith for our families? How can we use something new that works? How to find a faith that fits?

Ted and I are in the midst of this dilemma ourselves as we raise our daughters. I felt I could understand both Paul’s and Rayne’s points and I was grateful for what they shared in their posts. Blogs aren’t the best medium for this kind of conversation; instead I wish we could talk further together face to face over coffee.

In particular I liked Rayne’s description of religion as antique furniture: it’s old and decrepit and can’t hold us. Her words reminded me of this verse:

And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, he pours new wine into new wineskins.” Mark 2:22

1. Is it a religious holiday to celebrate the birth of Jesus?

2. Is it a reason to enjoy winter festivities, foods and fun?

3. Is it a time to gather together and build family traditions, culture and memories?

I ask these questions because each year I wrestle with the purpose of this seasonal celebration. I find that these three reasons can contradict each other. For example, the preparations for Christmas parties or presents can overwhelm the time, leaving little energy to focus on spiritual significance. Family traditions and reunions can clash with both festivities and religious observation especially if relatives have different beliefs from each other. The spiritual, material and relational can each pull in completely different directions.

Integration is what I desire in life but it’s not always what I live. Or always possible. At first I celebrated Christmas with caution, wanting to preserve the spiritual aspect as much as possible. I feared that lights and trees and excessive gifts would clutter and confuse the children’s minds.

But now I wonder whether this holiday should be seen as winter fun, something our culture does to celebrate the season and make winter warmer. Tonight the girls and I sorted through a box of decorations. The kids liked the lights, so I hung them around the nativity. Now baby Jesus is trying to sleep surrounded by blinking rainbow hues. A culture clash, perhaps, if not a color clash, these modern lights hung around a metal sculpture of a baby who slept in a manger.

Jesus didn’t come for Christmas. As far as I know, he never said his birthday should be celebrated, especially on December 25th. So trying to preserve it as a religious holiday in itself seems silly in a sense, and is also swimming upstream.

For those who believe, Christmas should be every day. There are 364 days of the year besides December 25 that are also important for faith. I’m still wrestling with my thoughts and feelings, with how to integrate the various reasons for the season. But this year I’m thinking that it is all right to let the girls like the lights and goodies. Ten years from now they’ll think the blinking rainbow strung across the living room is tacky but this year they’re amused and amazed. It’s a time to gather with family since we all have a holiday. We don’t have many opportunities to make those memories. Christmas in our culture is there for fun and for family.

I can’t deny that there are things that have nothing to do with Jesus that sweeten the season. But I also can’t deny that there are deeper reasons beyond candy canes and presents and that there are reasons to celebrate every day: it is true. There is a truth that is wondrous and amazing, a gift that still glitters long after all the others have become abandoned and boring, one that is always surprising us the more we unwrap it…

Deuteronomy 6: 5 – 7

What I love most about these verses is the family lifestyle they describe. Talking about God with your children is to happen when you are sitting at home, walking on the road, lying down and getting up. Spiritual instruction isn’t supposed to come in chunks on Sundays or Saturdays. It’s not something that can be scheduled for certain times and not others. Our children learn about love and about God through what we do with them every day.

This week while Ted was gone, the girls saw a sign for an evening library pajama story time and wanted to go. So we ate dinner early and I changed the girls into their pjs. We headed to the library.

However, afterwards, we had to make a trip to Home Depot. A quick re-caulking of the shower had turned into a larger project when I discovered I needed grout also. After searching all Monday on the island, I realized that night that we needed to drive all the way to Home Depot in Silverdale.

I expected that the girls would fall asleep on the drive. I figured I’d play the stereo to keep myself company, as I often do on long trips. Instead, perhaps because it was an unusual occasion or they were energized by the story time, the kids stayed awake. It was one of the moments in a busy month where we weren’t rushing somewhere. It was relaxed, perhaps even a bit silly, considering the pj attire.

And I found that the girls had many questions for me. They wanted to know how phones ring. But they also had deeper issues. They asked spiritual questions. They wanted to understand life.

In the van that night, I remembered these verses from Deuteronomy. I wonder what a “modern” translation might say. We don’t walk along the road as often as we drive it any more. And car trips can become opportunities for great conversations if I am willing to listen.

Twice now Ted and I have taken a daughter to the ER. Abigail’s trip happened before her fourth birthday. Michaela’s turn happened Wednesday while we were visiting family in Los Angeles.

She slipped on the floor at a relative’s house, hitting metal railing in her descent. From the gush of blood and cut near her eye, Ted and I both knew we were headed to the hospital, wherever it was. Uncle came with us and provided directions.

On the way over, I held a bag of ice beside the gauze pad on her brow as we drove to the hospital. I tried to keep Michaela chatting by asking her questions. She answered me but seemed quiet.

It was an efficient ER, much faster than our previous visit. A triage nurse interviewed us before we registered and then saw the doctor. It was also one of the most masculine medical experiences I have had: I saw only one woman working there amidst many men.

The wait wasn’t long and soon it was our turn. Michaela was incredibly brave: “the best of the night”, the nurse said. The doctor had hoped to use dermabond to glue the wound together, but then determined that it would require stitches. He moved fast, perhaps too fast, before the anesthetic had had much effect, but courageous Michaela lay quiet and still, even when the stitch had to be removed and re-done. As the needle went into the skin, she said “owie” but that was all: no wiggling or thrashing or screaming. Later, when praised for her bravery, she would say she “relaxed” in the ER.

As we were leaving, the nurse brought her two stickers. One is a picture of snake with stitches in its tail and the other says “I was a star in the ER”. Michaela was tickled. Soon she was her old self, smiling about the stickers, happy to show them to her sisters later.

But I don’t think I am my old self. Going through these ER experiences as a parent changes me. While the doctor was stitching up Michaela’s face, he asked “anyone…getting ill?” My stomach felt sick later, when I realized what had happened to her. I cringed when the needle had to be used for a second stitch. I started crying but I didn’t want her to see. Perhaps she is braver than I am.

Seeing her lying on the ER bed, I realized how little I can protect her. As a mom I’ve made many choices, seeking what would be best for my girls, pursuing what would ensure their safety and health. But the truth of parenting is that I can’t control everything. I will see them suffer at times and I won’t be able to fix it.

In recent months I have doubted God and wondered why He allows what He does to happen in the world. Looking at Michaela’s face though, Ted and I were amazed that she had not gotten a larger wound. She could have gouged her eye. She could have broken her nose. Or she could have received more trauma to her head. The fall could have taken teeth.

It could have taken her life. Perhaps it is a large leap to jump from a single stitch to death, but these emergency trips remind me how fast it can happen. Here one moment then gone the next.

Suddenly it became easier to see what God doesn’t allow.
Something or someone must have caught Michaela and kept her from further harm.

Psalm 91 makes bold claims about God’s protection and it is a hard psalm to read when one is wondering and suffering.

For he will command his angels concerning you
to guard you in all your ways;
they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.

I’ve never seen an angel lift me up so I would not strike my foot against a stone. But I believe an angel must have lifted Michaela so that she would not strike her eye against a railing. And when I see this in faith, I can begin to see other ways God protected us. I can be grateful for what has not happened.

If I could go back in time I would keep Michaela from falling. I wouldn’t want it to happen again. However, this small but deep cut on my daughter’s face has spoken to me in deep ways.

Earlier in the week Ted and I had discussed whether our children would remember this trip to LA. Two-year-old Elisabeth is probably too young. But Abigail would remember, we figured, at age six, and now Michaela probably will too, whenever she sees the scar.

And whenever I see Michaela’s face, I will remember what I learned when we visited the city of angels.

Ted was in Portland at OSCON. Abigail was ill with a fever but we had made reservations and spent money for the weekend in Astoria already. Also Ted was depending on us for his ride home from the conference. I didn’t know what to do about the plans we had made months ago.

As my mom and I had planned though, she came over to watch the kids so I could paint. Abigail was happy cuddling on the sofa with her grandmother. I needed more tape and got in the car to head to the store. I was exhausted, frustrated and grateful for the quiet time alone to calm my tears and fears.

The streets near my home are under construction. It takes at least a few extra minutes to make it through the obstacle course of SLOW and STOP signs. I try to remember to change my routines, but I often find myself stuck waiting for a truck, frustrated with myself.

Sitting there in the car, I wondered whether we were supposed to go on the trip. Maybe we were supposed to stay home. Maybe this was Someone’s way of telling us to cancel our plans. Maybe God had other ideas about how we were to spend the weekend.

I don’t know. I don’t know how to explain Life. I don’t have all the answers. I don’t have any answers some days.

But I know that sometimes I need there to be Someone bigger than me in the universe. Someone who makes sense out of suffering. Someone who can give me help and hope. Someone who is wiser than I am and who can see more than I do. Someone who is lacing together the fragments of life, putting the puzzle pieces in place, sewing the seams of a fantastic quilt.

Maybe there are people out there who get everything they want out of life. They’ve got the perfect complexion, the Barbie/Ken spouse, the 2.1 kids with the white picket fence. They’ve got jobs that pay for easy work and bosses who always forgive and promote. They are continually healthy and happy.

But I don’t know if I’ve met many. I’m not one myself. And I don’t know what to do with the missing jigsaw pieces of life. How to make sense when it doesn’t make sense. Unless there is a God.

Sitting there in my car, waiting to go to the paint store, watching the STOP sign and the trucks move down the street, I wondered whether God had something else for us that weekend. And I wondered whether I would be willing to let go of our plans to go to Astoria so that I could see what He had planned.

I started to think about the past year of our lives, the crisis our family has experienced, and how it has shaken my faith to the foundation. I’ve wondered whether God exists. Why He allows pain and destruction.

The road ahead of me was a mess of destruction. Dirt. Clouds of dust. Felled trees. Rocks. I realized that if I didn’t know what was happening, I would think that the forest was being destroyed. It was difficult to see that a sidewalk was being built. But things had to be removed and taken down before something new could be put in its place. If I looked for the path along the road, I could find it.

Then I wondered whether, like the weekend, I could try to see the past year, the past several years, of our life from God’s eyes. Maybe He has some other purpose. Maybe He has other plans. Maybe He had to take things down before new things could be built. I had hoped something else would happen. I don’t want to be in the time and place where we are now. But perhaps this is what is supposed to be. And I need to let go of my own expectations, dreams and hopes. I need to let go of what I wanted to do and wait for whatever God wants to do.

Waiting and watching the construction worker, I thought about traffic signs. Three came to mind…

SLOW: I certainly felt that Abigail’s fever was slowing me down. Perhaps I need to slow down more.

STOP: I need to stop thinking about how the past years of my life haven’t been what I wanted them to be.

YIELD: Yes, I need to yield.

We will never have enough time with family in this life.

When someone you know, or even a friend of a friend, who is twenty years young dies while playing in the pool, it makes you want to cling to those you love, especially your children and parents, sisters and brothers, aunts and uncles. We should savor and cherish each other.

Then again, we can’t spend every moment 24/7 with all of our relatives. We can’t live by fear. We shouldn’t suffocate each other.

If I believe in a life after this one, a life that is eternal, one that never ends, then I should put my hope and effort now towards spending the life to come with those I love. There, in eternity, there will be no clocks. No ticking of time towards a finite limit. No hearts that stop or lungs that exhale and expire.

A friend of ours mourned his brother last week. Reading Jenny’s story on Monday, learning how her friend J. lost her 7 year old daughter M. also emphasized this lesson more to me. It seems to be a sober week. A sad week. But a week to remind me that no matter how long we live, we take our last breath too soon. When I close my eyes for the last time, I don’t want to say goodbye to my family. Instead I want to say see you later…

Note: as I prepared to publish this post, I saw that Liz Lawley has experienced sudden loss this week also. My sorrow, sympathy and prayers for all who are grieving and missing those they knew and loved.

I went to sleep thinking about Noah. Thinking about his ark. What it was like to live in that boat for days in the rain and floods, bobbing about with all the animals of the earth.

How strange it is that Noah had to build his own ark. Why couldn’t the God of the universe have given him the boat? God can do all things. He had created the universe with the words of his mouth. Certainly he could have made the ark for Noah. He could have spoken it into existence with one breath.

If Noah had been alive in this day, I don’t know if he would have built an ark either. Maybe he would have bought a pre-fab kit on sale at Wal-Mart. Or hired some subs to do the work for him.

But there was something else Noah was building when he was building the ark. As he hammered the wood and nails, he was constructing a vessel of faith, both tangible and spiritual. It seemed foolish. It seemed strange. It was lonely labor. But as he built, he created a safe place inside as well as outside.

I feel that is where I am now in my faith. I’m building an ark. It seems stupid. Strange. Too much effort. I wonder why I’m doing this. I wish God would just give it to me instead of making me hammer through it. I don’t like all the labor. I hit my fingers instead of the nails and I yell. I wonder if it’s worth it. Maybe I’ll stop.

But I sense that what I’m doing is building a safe place for the future. I can’t see it now. Yet when the floods come, I will have shelter. I will be warm and dry. I will be able to stay afloat in the sea because I built a boat. And I hope to invite others to come along with me and find shelter here…

Ecclesiastes 4:12