In the spring our community decided to conduct an experiment with our electronic entertainment. We decided to fast TV and video gaming for the summer. We went unplugged. We did allow for some fun in front of the Tube during one’s vacation and holidays, but generally we went cold turkey from the drug that TV can be. When I use the phrase “watching TV”, I don’t necessarily mean watching broadcast television, which few of us do, but I refer to any time one’s eyes are fastened to the flickering Tube that shoots pictures into one’s brain. Mostly that’s watching DVDs and playing video games.

We’ve been inspired by other communities we know who have “no TV” policies. Also, we wanted to find out just how much of a hold this medium has over us. Admittedly, it was a little difficult for most of us. It’s all too easy to pop in a DVD in the evening when we feel the day has been full of stress, or to let an embarrassing amount of time pass unnoticed while we aim to master a new game on a PC or gaming console. These things provide much pleasure, and in their proper place, a legitimate opportunity to learn, explore, and have fun. But, ah, that illusive concept of “proper place” is the problem. How do you know what that is?

Well, for one thing, the unplugged fast made it a lot clearer. Before the fast, “proper place” was a very subjective idea and all kinds of arguments could be raised to justify spending time with the Tube. “I’m too tired to read”, “My brain is gone”, “I had a hard day”, “I want to see that big news story”, “Just a couple more minutes until I get to the next level”, etc., etc.. But during the fast, those excuses and any others were just not valid. It’s a fast – that means no, none, zippo, nada, not an option! Wow, that’s clear. How many times do I have to tell myself that?

So the fast accomplished at least one thing: It showed us how much we were deceived. We mostly thought that we had a handle on this thing. But, truth be told, TV had a handle on us.

Next post I’ll share how we reacted to this revelation.

Another Mike Mason quote:

“If you want to know God’s unconditional love, try loving Him that way.”

Besides being a pastor at our Fellowship one of my other duties includes software development. I’ve learned a lot about life from coding software. One concept that has me thinking lately is a practice called “rendering”. Rendering is how data is interpreted or “rendered” by a process. In all software are routines or processes, sometimes called functions, that accomplish some task. Often those processes need input or data to perform work on. For example, you can tell a process your age, weight, sex, and other details about your life and it then can calculate how much of an insurance risk you are. But in order to do this accurately, the process must not mistake your age for your weight. It must “render” the input values accurately.

Here’s another example. Suppose a process needs some date information. How you enter the date needs to be understood by the process. It does this through a renderer. The renderer uses a mask to interpret the date. If the mask is, “MM/DD/YYYY”, then the renderer knows that you will enter the date in this format: “08/10/2007”. If, however, you are a European you may enter the date like so, “10/08/2007”. The day and the month are reversed, but the renderer doesn’t know that, so it thinks you are saying October 8th, 2007, not, August 10th, 2007!

What does all this have to do with life? Well, each one of us has a renderer in our head. We hear things according to our own ideas, judgments, and experience. This is especially true when listening to others. They may say, “You are a real friend,” meaning that they look up to you and appreciate how loyal and kind you are. If, however, you have had bad experiences in other relationships, woke up on the wrong side of the bed, or are harboring unforgiveness in your heart, you might hear, “You are a real friend,” with a spin of sarcasm, meaning, that they are upset and berating you. Our renderer can get us into a lot of trouble.

What are we to do? How can we get our renderer to interpret accurately what others say and mean? The first step is to admit that only the person giving us the data can provide an accurate rendering. In other words, we don’t really know what people are saying. “To come to know other people, we must begin by admitting that we do not know them,” says Mike Mason. He goes on to say, “…by abrogating what we know already, we gain the advantage of acquiring new knowledge. We enter the sacred precincts of mystery. Each contact with another person now becomes an opportunity for surprise, for brand-newness, for rich delight, and for the gaining of wisdom.”

Judging one another means holding on to an inaccurate renderer. To love means giving up our prejudices, judgments, and faulty renderer.

Here’s an exercise that prevents an enormous waste of time. Not only does it prevent a loss of your most precious commodity – time, it makes you happier, more pleasant to be around, and stay closer to reality. It has to do with how we think about our mistakes and blunders, and even more importantly, how we think others think about our mistakes or blunders.

The exercise is simply this:

Next time you make a mistake, act irresponsibly, forget something important, etc., OR do something that others could perceive as a mistake, irresponsible, forgetful, etc., choose to believe that no one is really thinking about it or have even noticed it that much, if at all.

This could be very difficult if you’re in the habit of worrying about what people think about you. But try it. Force your mind to believe that most people aren’t condemning you. The fact is that we are usually so caught up in our own worries and concerns that we don’t think much about the failures (or supposed failures) of others. We’re just too busy with our own things.

Do people judge us and condemn us sometimes? Of course, but it is much less than we usually think.

Go on. Be happy. Do your exercises.

“If we can simply be sad, there is hope. Sadness is the appropriate response to looking our poor, miserable selves square in the eye, denying nothing yet refusing to condemn. Sadness is the sign that we are finally giving up on trying to atone for our own sin. Sadness is the beginning of mercy. We cannot be merciful towards others until we become tender with ourselves.”

In May we began an experiment in our community. We have friendships with several other intentional communities and one thing many of them have in common is the practice of not having televisions in their homes. All of them watch movies and various programming. None of them think TV is an evil in and of itself, but they recognize the seductive power of television and have chosen to limit its influence by not having it so freely available. Usually, they will have corporate times, either at dinner or in the evening, of watching selective programming together.

Every community member I’ve ever talked to about this practice has emphatically agreed that this is one of the best policies they ever adopted. I’ve never heard anyone in another community complain about it or feel like they are being limited by a “no TV” policy. In fact, the only ones I’ve ever heard raise concerns about a policy like this are from those who’ve never lived in community.

It hasn’t been in our tradition to have a “no TV” policy. All of our families have TVs, computers, video games, and Internet access. We’ve talked a lot about limiting “electronic entertainment” and being good stewards of our time. Our families are generally very careful about this and manage the electronic medium well. Nonetheless, at one of our recent members’ meeting in April, the idea came up to go “unplugged” for the month of May. Even though most of us felt that we’ve been responsible in our consumption of electronic entertainment, there has been a general feeling that perhaps we spend too much time watching the Tube or playing computer games. So, we went on an electronic fast and the results are just amazing.

At our last members’ meeting people testified about how much reading they’ve been getting done, the quality of fellowship they’ve been enjoying, the clarity of mind they’ve been experiencing, how they’re getting to bed earlier, and the change in attitude and behavior of the children. I have found myself, after a tiring day, tempted to just watch something, but because that wasn’t an option, I read or spent time with my kids or fellowshipped with my friends or wife. I thought I was a relatively disciplined person and not addicted to electronic entertainment. But I’ve been deceived. The fact that it was a policy we agreed to, and not just an option under my control, made this revelation possible for me.

I’m seeing that this whole thing has to do with the difference between pleasure and happiness, a concept I learned from Dr. Laura Schlessinger. Pleasure comes from a short-term, instant gratification activity, like eating a donut. Whereas, happiness comes from activities that are more long-term, meaningful, and usually relationally oriented, like fellowship or playing with your kids. Electronic entertainment, with its easy accessibility, sensory appeal, and inherently passive method of engagement pretty much qualifies as a pleasure activity. Pleasure isn’t necessarily bad, it just shouldn’t be our main pursuit.

Well, with the experiment over we have decided to keep thinking about how to manage our electronic entertainment. We’re going to try a few policies and guidelines this summer and see what works best. I’ll blog in the fall about what we finally decide.

Heidi and Jared are one of our couples who, like many others in society, are unable to have children. Community provides an opportunity to fill some of the gap left by infertility. This recent Mothers Day had a wonderful blessing in store for Heidi.

I was musing about this Mothers Day as I arranged silk flowers for our community’s summer mantle. What a strange mix of a day it had been. It started with the realization that I really don’t like Mother’s Day. Ugly sentiment, isn’t it? Especially since I have a great Mother and am surrounded by friends who mother their children in incredible ways. So what an opportunity to affirm these women and the way they give of themselves for their children. And I was trying to focus on this today. NOT the thought that I would like to be a mother or “maybe next year I’ll be a mother” or “I wonder if I’ll ever be a mother”.

I was moderately successful at refocusing because one’s mind can repeat the same mantra for only so many years before one reaches a state of nausea. And not nausea from morning sickness, either. From sick and tiredness of mourning. Surrounded by a wonderful husband and a group of friends who love and nurture me, I didn’t want to waste another day in the downward spiral of self-pity.

Thankfully, God helped bring new light into the day through what two people shared in our Sunday service. First Butch thanked God for his wife, but also for all the ways his children have mothered by many people in community other than his wife. Then Betty talked about Jesus has won the victory over death – including any loss involved in giving your life away.

It all came back to me then. The memory of the fear of being alone and rejected that haunted me when I was single. And how Jesus carried me through those years so tenderly that in the end I was able to embrace singleness as a beautiful calling. Now that was miraculous! He triumphed over my fears and made “ a home for the lonely” (Ps. 68:6), surrounding me with these families here in community.

In the light of that, how ridiculous this fear of missing out on motherhood is. I am surrounded by children to mother. He gave me these maternal longings not to frustrate me, but as a gift to give away. I saw these last 16 years of loving and teaching and playing with the children here in a more intimate light. My Father doesn’t call those years barren. And even though I haven’t always opened my eyes to the beauty of the opportunities before me, I have loved these babies. Last year I saw the preschoolers I taught when I first came graduate from High School. They’ve always called me “Aunt Heidi”. And being a part of this rich family has been more than just a role. But in today’s service I started to realize that I am an honorary mother, also.

At a break in our service one of my friends came up and thanked me for mothering her through the years. I held her and cried, remembering holding her as a nine-year-old and appreciating the dear friend she has grown to be. I also knew this was an affirmation of what God was saying to me. Maybe Mother’s Day wasn’t so dreadful after all!

So here I was at the end of the day putting all of this together as I arranged flowers. And I wished I had an outward way of recognizing this Mother’s Day as a new beginning in the way I saw mothering. Since my husband was traveling today, I wanted someone to share this newness with. Then in came five of the teens with beautiful flowers and a Mother’s Day card for me. “We wanted to thank you for being a mother to us all these years,” they said. Wow. I was stunned and amazed. How did they know? I hugged them and blubbered out thank-yous and told them they couldn’t possible know how much this meant to me. How incredible, that they would do such a lovely thing on this day.

After they left I was free to cry out my praise to God. He has seen me be an emotional basket case before and isn’t embarrassed by it! How like my Father to pour out blessings on me in this loving and generous way. I have spent many years longing to be a mother and have been one all this time to these children. What delicious irony! In God’s economy I discovered today that I am not barren at all. I am a Mother. Incredible.

“He makes the barren woman abide in the house as a joyful mother of children. Praise the Lord” Psalm 113:9

Those silk flowers I was working on might need to be redone. You see it has a wildly ecstatic feel to the end of it – far too unconfined for a floral arrangement. I had to take out this exuberant joy on something! And I think I’ve changed my mind about Mother’s Day, after all.

One of the blessings and challenges in community is growth. Often that growth involves families expanding through the birth of children. As a community of hospitality we welcome these “strangers” into our midst with love and joy. Part of that welcoming also involves expanding our housing, which we’ve been intensely doing for about a year now.

We’ve been renovating one of our buildings to make room for our families and other guests whom God may bring our way. Our “back building” (we need to come up with a better name) will now house five families. The renovation will create two 3-bedroom apartments and three 2-bedroom apartments. Originally, the building was designed as dorm housing for singles. We still have a number of singles, but we are short on apartments for families, hence, the renovation.

Here’s some before and after pictures:

Side A:

Side B:

Gable:

We love the high ceiling and the dormers…

…and the bay windows

Some inside shots:

We can’t thank God enough for seeing us through this project!

Over Spring Break, the 4^th through 6^th grades were led in an egg drop project by our principal, Butch Harding. The task they were given was a three-headed problem. First, they had to make a device that would be capable of protecting an egg from a twenty-three foot drop. Second, they had to make their design capable of being able to hit a certain target on the ground when dropped. Third, their design had to have a “coolness” factor, meaning their device had to have class (versus a hodge-podge of drinking straws, Styrofoam, and tape). For the construction of their designs, the students were allowed to take from a variety of scrap materials that have been lying around, such as cardboard, soda cans, PVC pipe, etc.

In the end, the children came up with some very creative designs, including parachutes, planes, and rocket ships. When put to the test, all of the designs were able to keep their egg from breaking. As for the target, all landed very close, but no one was able to hit it straight on. All of the students thoroughly enjoyed the project and are looking forward to a few similar activities that are being planned for them this summer.