The Beauty of Grace

I have two amazing daughters.  Abbie will be five in June.  She is funny, caring, and very aware of other people's happiness. Chloe just turned one in December and is headstrong, adventurous, and loves music. (Abbie loves music too- which is good because we often have a variety of music playing.  Both girls favorite toys have been, at some point, those musical birthday cards.  The current one getting play features Wang Chung's "Everybody Have Fun Tonight.")  Both girls bring Andrea and I a tremendous amount of joy and love.

But they are not perfect.

Abbie is in pre-school this year, and because of Andrea's work schedule I have been the one to take the girls to daycare and preschool.  This is generally not a big deal.  But today, Abbie didn't want to listen when it was time to put her coat on.  In fact, she had four or five opportunities to get out of her chair to put her coat on.  So she was punished.  The consequences for not listening was losing her TV privileges.  (Don't read into this, we rarely have the TV on in our house- so when we do it is a treat and a real punishment to lost that right.)

As you can imagine, Abbie cried.  She groaned.  She whined.  She even screamed.  All the way to the car- and continued to cry for the first five minutes or so of our ride north to Dover.

I was nearly in tears.  I hate punishing our kids.  I hate it when they choose not to listen.  It tears me apart to see Abbie (in this case) crying and screaming.

And then I think: Isn't God like that with His children?  God has laid out the expectations for us.  Told us how to live and behave.  Yet time and time again, we choose not to listen.  We fall short of the standard of God's holiness.  We sin.  And there are consequences for our actions.  Sometimes those consequences are immediate.  Sometimes the consequences don't seem too severe.  Other times they feel overwhelming.

I believe that when I sin, when we sin, that God is moved to sadness- just as I felt sadness in punishing my daughter.  Why would God be moved to sadness?  Because God loves us so much.  Because God wants to give us a life abundant.  Because God has shown us the most excellent way to live through Jesus Christ.  But time and time again, we turn our backs on God.

Part way up to pre-school, I reached to the backseat of my car and held Abbie's hand.  She began to show me how see could now reach the ceiling of my car while sitting down (which is better than standing up while the car is moving).  When I dropped Abbie off at school she held my hand, gave me a kiss good bye and we both said, "I love you."

Again, tears nearly filling my eyes.  But this time because grace is such a beautiful thing.  Even as we turn our backs on God- God reached down to earth and gave us Jesus- the fullest displays of God's love.  It is through Jesus that God is continually saying to us, "I love you."

Grace is a beautiful thing.

Movie Review: Inception

I'm am staying at my in-laws this week while I take my final intensive class of the summer.  Last night presented the opportunity to go see the movie Inception starring Leonardo Dicaprio.  Many of my friends had seen the movie and raved about it.  I went in with high expectations even though I hadn't seen much about the movie ahead of time.

***Spoiler Alert....ok, so I am not sure I'm truly giving away spoilers, I'm just want to warn you in case you want to go into the movie with an untarnished mind.  I'd hate to plant an idea in your head about the movie unconcisously!***

I was blown away...and quite honestly don't know where to begin a post about the movie.  The writing was creative and original.  The movie was visually stunning.  The movie connected emotionally as you consider the relationship between Leo's character and his wife.  There was action and suspense.  It was a little strange, at first, to see Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Ellen Page in such a serious/sci-fi movie. I still think of them in 3rd Rock and Juno. But- they were great in the movie. The entire cast was superb.



I thought the movie had a very postmodern feel as the story operated on three (vertical) levels rather than one linear storyline.  I think this mode of storytellling will be employed more in future movies and TV series (see Lost).  The movie, in my opinion, paid some homage to The Matrix with some of the slow motion shots and even the idea of "plugging in" and entering an alternate reality. (Likely there are other movies/books that follow this, I am just unaware of them)

The movie questions what consitutes reality.  Is reality found in our physical world or can it be found in our dreams?  I think the movie showed that there is nothing wrong with dreams, or our dream worlds, that if we are not grounded in reality (the need for a totem in the movie) then we can lose our mind and be unable to function in either world.

The idea of planting an idea in the head of someone while they are dreaming is fascinating . When do ideas form?  How do we determine which ideas take hold and which ones we discard? 

Here are some quick thoughts...

• Guilt played a huge role for Dicaprio's character.  His guilt created a world where he nearly inprisoned himself because he could not forgive himself. 
• Which reality will we choose?  Our physical world or our dream world?  Likewise in our faith- is our reality grounded in our faith in God or in our own worldly ways?  We have to choose which reality we want to live in.
• The whole idea of "Inception"...planting a seed without realizing it.  In Wesleyan thought- this prevenient grace.  In prevenient grace, God's grace is moving in us before we realize it.  That grace grows in our lives, it is watered and nurtured by the people of faith that God places in our lives.  God willing, it blossoms into a relationship with God.

What did you think of the movie? Love it? Hate it? Did you see any nuggets of Truth in the movie? Something else? 

On Vick and Grace

If you log onto the NFL Shops website and click on their best sellers list for jerseys, there you will find Michael Vick's #7 for the Philadelphia Eagles. If I heard correctly on Mike and Mike on ESPN Radio, Vick has the fourth best selling jersey in the NFL so far. No Eagle, including Donovan McNabb, even appears in the top 25. This comes shortly after Vick's reinstatement into the NFL following jail time for running a dog fighting ring.

I live about 90 minutes south of Philadelphia, go to seminary in Philadelphia, and have in-laws who live just outside the city in New Jersey. Even though I am not a Philadelphia fan, I am certainly around the culture a little on a weekly basis. I am not surprised that fans have re-embraced Michael Vick. On one level, Philly fans are never happy with what they got. The first bad game for McNabb, the sports talk radio shows will be abuzz with cries for Vick to start. They also see Vick's tremendous talent. He has the ability to transform the game with his legs as much as his arm. He can be an incredible weapon for a creative football team (unfortunately, Andy Reid is not that creative when it comes to coaching).

On another level, this whole scenario speaks a little about grace. Prior to Vick being reinstated by Commissioner Roger Godell and signing with the Eagles, the question everyone was asking was whether or not Vick deserved a second chance. From what I watched, read, and saw on sports channel was that Vick did deserve a second chance. Certainly there were those who did not think so (Think PETA and dog lovers everwhere), but overall people were willing to extend grace to Michael Vick.

I wonder if deep down, we give someone like Michael Vick another chance just because he might help our team win the Super Bowl, or because we know that we are in need of grace as well. We may not run a dog fighting ring, or run somebody over while driving under the influence of alchohol (see Donte Stallworth), but each of us is flawed. We each miss the mark of God's standard of holiness (Romans 3:23). Even though we deserve the punishment for our sin, we can give thanks to God for Jesus Christ who came to save us from our sin. Jesus came to extend grace to you and me.

I hope that Michael Vick does well and receives the grace that he has been offered to do some good in the world. I hope that you and I will also receive the grace that has been offered through Jesus Christ and in turn extend that grace to those around.