Lift Up Your Hearts!

On this unusual Good Friday, in an unusual Holy Week, in an unusual year, I'm reviving a post I wrote ten years ago.

Is there anything worse than excruciating physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual torture and death?

Maybe, just maybe, it would be watching your child endure that.

It takes nothing from the sufferings of Christ commemorated this Holy Week to pause and consider a couple of other important persons in the drama.

I find the following hymn to be one of the most powerful and moving of the season. For obvious reasons, it is usually sung on Palm Sunday, but the verses reach all the way through to Easter. [Cue WINCHESTER NEW]

Ride on! Ride on in majesty!
Hark! all the tribes hosanna cry;
Thy humble beast pursues his road
With palms and scatter'd garments strowed.

Ride on! Ride on in majesty!
In lowly pomp ride on to die;
O Christ, thy triumphs now begin
O'er captive death and conquer'd sin.

Ride on! Ride on in majesty!
The wingèd squadrons of the sky
Look down with sad and wond'ring eyes
To see th'approaching sacrifice.

Ride on! Ride on in majesty!
Thy last and fiercest strife is nigh;
The Father on his sapphire throne
Awaits his own anointed Son.

Ride on! Ride on in majesty!
In lowly pomp ride on to die;
Bow thy meek head to mortal pain,
Then take, O God, thy pow'r, and reign!

"The Father on his sapphire throne awaits his own anointed Son." For millennia, good fathers have encouraged, led, or forced their children into suffering, from primitive coming-of-age rites to chemotherapy. Even when they know it is for the best, and that all will be well in the end, the terrible suffering of the fathers is imaginable only by someone who has been in that position himself.

And mothers?

The Protestant Church doesn't talk much about Mary. The ostensible reason is to avoid what they see as the idolatry of the Catholic Church, though given the adoration heaped upon male saints and church notables by many Protestants, I'm inclined to suspect a little sexism, too. In any case, Mary is generally ignored, except for a little bit around Christmas, where she is unavoidable. 

On Wednesday I attended, for the second time in my life, a Stations of the Cross service. Besides being a very moving service as a whole, it brought my attention to the agony of Mary. Did she recall then the prophetic word of Simeon, "a sword shall pierce through your own soul also"? Did she find the image of being impaled by a sword far too mild to do justice to the searing, tearing torture of watching her firstborn son wrongly convicted, whipped, beaten, mocked, crucified, in an agony of pain and thirst, and finally abandoned to death? Did she find a tiny bit of comfort in the thought that death had at least ended the ordeal? Did she cling to the hope of what she knew in her heart about her most unusual son, that even then the story was not over? Whatever she may have believed, she could not have had the Father's knowledge, and even if she had, would that have penetrated the blinding agony of the moment?

In my head I know that the sufferings of Christ, in taking on the sins of the world, were unimaginably greater than the physical pain of injustice and crucifixion, which, terrible as they are, were shared by many others in those days. But in my heart, it's the sufferings of God his Father and Mary his mother that hit home most strongly this Holy Week.

This is my father's journal entry for Monday, the 22nd of October, 1962.  David and Alan are my brothers, then five months and three years old.

Spent some of this evening doing some repair work on David's sitting-carrying device in an effort to keep the bent-wire stand from coming out of its assigned place and poking him in the back. Alan worked in the basement with me, sawing, pounding nails, and finally sweeping the floor. The latter part of the evening was spent peeling and cooking apples for applesauce. We probably peeled a total of about 1/3 bushel.

That's it. There's no indication, there or in subsequent pages, that President Kennedy had just told the country we were on the brink of nuclear war.

I'm currently reading Killing Kennedy by Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard. Despite my prejudices against Mr. O'Reilly, I learned from Killing Lincoln that he can produce well-written and interesting books of history. This is my second, and so far I am not disappointed. I'm finding it fascinating to learn more about the times that shaped my childhood, especially those from which I was largely sheltered.

I was ten years old at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and if it had any effect at all on my daily life I retain no memory of it. Sure, I lived in the days where "air raid" drills were as common in school as fire drills, but that was just one of many peculiar things about going to school. No child I knew had any concerns about nuclear annihilation, and if the adults talked about it, they certainly didn't do so in front of us. I really doubt it had much effect at all on my parents' everyday lives; it didn't even make the pages of my father's private journal. And he was far from ignorant, having himself worked on the Manhattan Project during World War II.

In many ways that was a much saner time than today.

This essay was a homework assignment for our weekly Rector's Class (formerly our Church History class; we're now studying Fulton J. Sheen's Life of Christ). I like to make my writing to double duty when I can.

The question was, "How do you meet temptation? How do you respond?"

My gut reaction? "How do I meet temptation? I try not to!"

There's more to that than a glib response. Someone once explained to me that the Bible enjoins us to resist the Devil, but to flee temptation, and I've taken that to heart. I read that Gandhi strengthened his will by sleeping between two beautiful, naked young girls; if true, that seems to me utterly foolish.

Let me give assurances that I believe there is nothing inherently sinful in eating ice cream, drinking alcohol, walking into a bar, or even (for some people) sleeping next to a naked woman (maybe not two). "The gifts of God were made for man." But nearly everything can be sinful when taken in the wrong way, or for certain people at certain times. In my examples below, take what works for you and ignore the rest.

• At what point is it easiest to resist the temptation to eat ice cream? Walking past the display at the grocery store? When the carton is buried deep in your freezer? When it's visible every time you open the freezer door for ice cubes? When your husband gets out two bowls, scoops up some Publix Chocolate Trinity for himself, and asks, "Would you like some?"
• If temptation of any sort meets you in bars, stay out of bars. Meet your friends somewhere else. 
• Do you often regret your behavior when you get together with certain people? Seriously consider spending your time with those who encourage you to be your best, not your worst. 
• Don't go grocery shopping when you're hungry, tired, or depressed.
• If you find that your prayer meetings end up being more about gossip than prayer, maybe your should find a different prayer group.
• We seriously underestimate the effect of the books we read, the movies we watch, the ads we see, and the approval or derision of our friends, on our ability to handle temptations to do or to say that which is wrong. Maybe we should be more careful about correlating our input with our desired output. Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. 

On the other hand, my more honest response to the question of how I handle temptation is, "I rationalize it."

• I'm paying for this restaurant meal whether I eat nothing or everything. It's wrong to waste food.
• It's the Sabbath! It's right to feast, and a bowl of Chocolate Trinity would be a great way to celebrate.
• This isn't gossip, it's a prayer request.
• We have guests for dinner—I have to provide dessert.
• I'll do my work better if I take a break now.
• I'm weary/worn/mistreated/sad—I need this drink/break/bag of potato chips.
• I've worked hard and accomplished something important—I deserve this drink/break/bag of potato chips.
• I know there are dishes in the sink and I have 200 e-mails to deal with, but this is a good book, important for me to read!
• Many of my friends, what I hear in the media, and sometimes even my church thinks I'm foolish (or evil!) to believe that X is a sin. Why fight it any longer? Maybe I'm wrong.
• Etc.

When avoiding temptation fails, I have a few other strategies that sometimes help.

• Delay. Yes, I can have that snack, read my book, work on a puzzle, make that negative Facebook post—in 30 minutes. It's amazing how much even a short delay can weaken a seemingly irresistible temptation.
• Distraction. It's Ash Wednesday and painfully obvious that many hours remain before I can eat even the healthiest of foods. What kind of distraction works for you? Today I spent several hours writing this post. Later I might read, or tackle a Sudoku puzzle. Does that mean I'm fighting one temptation by giving in to another? Maybe. Sometimes you have to choose your battles.
• Make the correct path easier. I have a rule about my work: End with the beginning in mind. I try not to leave a task without making it easy to take it up again, which means I get started—even if it's the tiniest bit—on whatever the next step is. Anything to make later procrastination more difficult.
• Talk with someone who understands both the temptation and the importance of not giving in. To be honest, I'm not good at this. I'm more of a solo fighter. But I know it's the backbone of Alcoholics Anonymous, and it's sure better than putting yourself in the company of people who will only encourage you to take the wrong path.
• Find some supportive structure. It's easier to keep on task in an office, when those around you are (in theory) working hard, than when working from home, with all its distractions. Ash Wednesday is traditional for making the discovery that one can, indeed, live a whole day without eating, especially in a community of similarly-minded folks. The structure of Lent can be encouraging for trying out better habits of any kind—particularly since Easter always comes. :)
• If necessary, shut the door. It's often easier to abide by a firm "no" than to handle "responsible use." It's better to be able to control one's intake of alcohol, but the only safe level of alcohol for some people is none.  All of our grandchildren are growing up without television sets in their homes, eliminating one potential battleground for their parents as well as opening their lives to many wonders they would otherwise miss. Sometimes I think it's a shame that the total abstinence option is not available for those whose besetting sins involve eating. A day of fasting can be more bearable than a week of eating less.

All of this may or may not be of more use than Oscar Wilde's "I can resist everything except temptation." But it did keep me all Ash Wednesday morning from dwelling on the lack of breakfast.

I loathe rummage sales. Garage sales, tag sales, used-book sales, eBay listings, charitable donations, call them what you want—if they involve putting anything of mine out for others to paw through and judge, I come out of the process feeling defeated, dirty, and discouraged.

Granted, such entities serve a useful purpose. So do sewage treatment plants. Our lives and our homes must be regularly tidied up, and it's good there are alternatives to storing our stuff till it moulders, or heaving it directly into a landfill. And in theory it's a great idea: you sell/donate to a a good cause something you no longer need, and instead of being discarded it blesses someone else. Sounds good. But....

I think it began with Wormy. Back when our daughter was very young (I'm guessing kindergarten, or earlier), our then-church was collecting toys for children. Their appeal made a big impression on her, and she picked out one of her stuffed animals to give to "a poor child who has no toys." Later, she was very sad because she missed Wormy a lot. We dealt with it, and she survived, but to this day I blame the church leaders for actively encouraging little children to make such sacrifices—and myself for allowing it. Particularly since I later learned that organizations that give toys to children are not really interested in used toys no matter how much love and sacrifice they represent. They only want new-in-box, tags-on toys, or cold-hearted cash with which to buy them. In some ways I can see the point, that children who already feel second-hand should not have to make do with second-hand toys—but I also can't help feeling that it takes love out of the equation.

Back in World War II, households were asked to provide metal "for the war effort," giving up precious pots and pans so that their sons serving overseas could have the aircraft and ammunition they needed. The recording industry even gave up irreplaceable, original recordings to the scrap drives. And for what? A small amount of the material collected helped a bit, but most, it appears, was of no use—meaning your great-grandmother's sacrifice was just wasted. The point, we're now told, was to make the population feel more involved in the war effort, to buy into it, and to believe that they were actively helping to keep their boys alive. I call that criminal deception.

It's okay to ask people to make sacrifices. But to no point? That's just wrong.

Many, many years ago I looked at the books overflowing our shelves and decided it was selfish to keep so many books in our own home when we could donate them to the library and make them available to everyone. After all, even though I love to re-read books, I rarely need them handy at all times; as long as I could check them out of the library at will, that would be fine.

You are all laughing at me for being so naïve. But it came as a true shock to discover that my beloved books were not on the shelves to be checked out, but had been sold (for pennies!) at a library fundraiser. I haven't quite gotten over that. I still donate books to the library, but with a heavy heart and a feeling more of amputation than of the relief that's supposed to accompany "decluttering" a household. Also, our shelves still bulge, because I'm now exceedingly reluctant to get rid of an old book I might want to read again. Modern libraries don't want to carry on the function of providing books that are otherwise difficult to obtain, preferring to stock books that are recently-published and in high demand.

When we moved from a four-bedroom house to a small apartment, we tried to give away our excess furniture. No one wanted it. They would only take furniture in pristine condition, for resale. Our daughter, who lived in Pittsburgh, said it was it was a pity we didn't live near a university. In her neighborhood, furniture left at the curb, no matter how worn, was quickly snapped up by students. But in Central Florida, apparently, no one is poor enough to want someone else's couch.

Have you ever tried to "clothe the naked"? Given the shirt off your back to someone in need? Do you know what often happens to donated clothing? It's not given to someone who needs a shirt—it's sold, in bulk. Maybe someone, somewhere, eventually wears it, or maybe it ends up shredded for other purposes. In any case, it's not what you gave it up for.

But enough of the memories dredged up as I pondered the most recent incident, and back to rummage sales.

I am not generally a hoarder (books may be an exception), and not particularly selfish when it comes to things. (Don't ask about how selfish I am with respect to time. That's a terrible struggle for me.) I can give up a treasure to a good home—to someone who will love and appreciate it. But that's not, I've found, what generally happens at rummage sales. It's a lesson I have to learn over and over again.

The particular event that inspired these morose thoughts was a benefit for our church's Kairos Torch Ministry, which makes a difference in the lives of incarcerated young people. I did not have the stomach to work the sale itself, but we were there to help with the setup, at 6:30 Saturday morning, and the cleanup when it was over.

As usually happens at such sales, everything was priced far under value. I've become somewhat reconciled to that: 45 years of being married to an economist have made me understand the stark monetary equation that an item's value is precisely what someone is willing to pay for it. When a brand-new man's shirt with the tags still attached is priced at $1, and the buyer insists on paying half that, the hard truth is that it's only worth 50 cents.

What I find harder to believe is the people who will drive such a bargain at a charity fundraiser. Not to mention the light-fingered customers who come through and slip pieces of jewelry into their pockets, even when the price marked is only a quarter! Except for the tireless work and quiet cheerfulness of the volunteers, I have not found rummage sales to be encouraging about the nature of humanity.

Worse is when items don't sell, even at such deep discounts. After the sale was over, we "gathered the fragments," took the unsold books to the Friends of the Library, and turned the rest over to the local Goodwill site. So there's a possibility the items will eventually find a good home; I cling to that.

Nonetheless, my overall impression is that there is a large disconnect between our family and modern society. Is no one poor enough to appreciate the books, furniture, and household items we have loved but can do without? If I believed that, it would be good news, but instead I just feel awful. Almost exactly the same way I feel when I look at all the plastic and Styrofoam waste that enwraps nearly everything I buy, including our food.

Fortunately, I find writing therapeutic. Thanks to this post and a great church service yesterday—plus, I confess, a bag of potato chips—I have largely recovered from Saturday's depression. I comfort myself with the thought that Kairos Torch did gain from the sale (whether it was worth the effort is another question, and one I can't answer), and in the knowledge that many of the items we had contributed did sell, presumably to people who will appreciate them.

If nothing else, our house at least has a little more elbow room now. The night before, I actually felt pretty good. I'll probably participate in the same rummage sale again next year, perhaps—this time—with more realistic expectations.

The world is going to hell, right? Everybody tells me so, although there are nearly as many different assertions as to why this is the case as there are people with opinions. I hear it from the right and the left, from the rich and the poor, from the smart and highly-educated to ... well, let's just say to the rest of us.

This is Worst-First Thinking on steroids. That's a term I first heard a decade ago from Lenore Skenazy, who now writes at Let Grow, and it means acting as if the worst-case scenario is actually the norm. Why is that a problem? After all, terrible things are happening in the world and we need to deal with them, don't we?

Yes, we do. But whether we're talking about not letting a child walk to the store by herself (which once was considered a good thing, even on Sesame Street), or not working to reduce world poverty because it's a losing battle, or instituting oppressive regulations in an effort to prevent tragic events that are already extremely unlikely, our pessimistic attitudes often hinder the exact behaviors needed to counteract the evil. Children who are over-protected don't learn the skills that would help them protect themselves, and seeing a "gun-free zone" sign makes me feel less secure, not more. Misinformation leads to negative attitudes, which lead to depression, which induces loss of hope and results in paralysis when it comes to positive actions that can really make a difference.

This is a subject to which I will return later, but for now, How Not to Be Ignorant about the World is an enlightening and entertaining TED talk by Hans and Ola Rosling with some encouraging news, and tips on how to assess the world with more success than a roomful of chimpanzees. It's 19 minutes long, but I think well worth it. If you start at the 14-minute point, you'll get their quick rules of thumb for making better statistical judgements, but you really don't want to miss what leads into that.

This is on the surface what they call a First World problem, but it may be symptomatic of larger concerns, so I'll report it.

Recently I decided to place an order at Target.com. Easy-peasy, right? It would have been, had I not noticed, at nearly the last step, that something was wrong with the arithmetic in my shopping cart.

Some of the items were on sale. The subtotal was correct for the regular prices, but I should have received a 69 cent discount on each of two items, and a 79 cent discount on another two, for a total of $2.96. Instead, the discount was a mere 10 cents.

What's more, I found that I could vary the amount of the discount (though never to the correct number) by adding and removing other, non-related, non-discounted items from my cart. I will spare you the details of my calculations, which were complicated by the fact that the Target cart did not show the discounts individually, and kept wanting to assume I was using my Target credit card, which gives a 5% discount itself, while I wanted to use a gift card instead. So the correct discount was not as easy to figure out as I made it appear above.

Finally, however, I was certain enough of my data to initiate a customer service chat. In record time I was transferred to someone higher up the food chain. I was pleased that he understood my problem easily enough. However, when he on his end looked at my cart, the numbers were correct! He wasn't seeing what I was seeing.

I did the usual things: refreshed my cart, got out and back in again.... Nothing worked. I still had the wrong numbers. Finally, he said to go ahead and place the order and see what happened. So I did—and my card was charged the wrong amount. The agent issued me a credit by e-mail to cover the mistake. (It actually was a little more complicated than that, but I'm sparing you the details.)

After about an hour's worth of work, I saved just under three dollars. Was it worth it? In money, no. But supposedly the issue is being reported to the relevant people, and I believe this is more than a three-dollar problem.

Target was friendly and quick both to believe me and to give me the correct discount. (Well, almost correct, but again that's an unnecessary detail.) But I refuse to believe that I am the only one this has happened to. How many others decided it wasn't worth the effort to complain? How many didn't even notice the discrepancy at all?

It's not good when an online retailer can't get the arithmetic right. And is this kind of thing happening in far more critical areas? How many things in this world are just plain wrong that we can't see, don't notice, or don't have the ability, will, or time to check out? 

There's been a change over the years in how software is being implemented. We've gone from "work carefully, and test, test, test so you know it's good before the customer ever sees it," to "hurry, hurry, hurry, get the product out there; we'll make fixes if the customers complain."

Here's my speculation: Target made a change in their system, and it was put in place without proper testing. Instead, they decided to do consumer testing: Have a special promotion—in this case, spending $50 gets you a $10 gift card—to encourage extra traffic, and see how it works. Just a wild guess, but that's what it feels like.

I'll confess: as a programmer, I actually prefer the iterative method of write it-test it-refine it, instead of spending a lot of time perfecting the code before the first test run. But that's on the coding side of the process, well before it goes into production. I'm certainly not a fan of the "we have to pass the law before we understand what it actually says" school. Don't build a bridge and let traffic determine whether or not it's going to collapse.

Let's get it right. Let's not be in such a hurry that we risk major problems, such as a very expensive satellite ending up in a useless orbit because the clock was set wrong. Or far worse.

A few cents at Target? No big deal. But our credit union recently updated their system, and the immediately obvious flaws make it clear that it had not been sufficiently tested. If that's happening at a level customers can notice, what's going wrong behind the scenes?

I know that approaching 100% correctness, or 100% safety, is almost always too costly, even if possible. We all make cost/benefit decisions that require us to take risks. We have elective surgery, despite the dire warnings in the pre-op paperwork; we vaccinate our children, knowing that a few children will have life-altering, maybe fatal, reactions; we even drive our automobiles after watching the daily litany of car crashes reported on the news. I know that life, and business, can't go on without taking some risks.

Whether it's business, government, military, medical, educational, or personal, we must live with the fact that we and others are knowingly making choices that will put us in harm's way. We must act, for our own sanity and that of our children, as if these decisions are informed, wise, and correct.

My Target experience shook that faith, just a little.

This is an actual sign that we encountered in an actual rest stop parking lot in Connecticut. I immediately began wondering:

Is effectively reducing the number of parking spaces available really Connecticut's best solution to inadequate facilities?

How do they know the vehicle is travelling with multiple occupants?

If they patrol the lot, giving tickets to offenders, should we leave two people in the car and use the restroom in shifts? On this trip, we could have done that.

However, we are often travelling with just the two of us. A car with two people in it is certainly a "multiple occupant vehicle," but leaving just one in the car while the other uses the facilities might lead to an unpleasant encounter with the guard, since he would see only one person in the car.

Is there a surveilance camera in the lot? There probably is. When you drive in, does it detect how many people are in the car, then automatically mail you a ticket if it records you parking in the wrong spot?

In the end, we just parked in an "everyone is welcome" space and entered the building together.

I don't like liturgical worship. It's stiff and formal, not to mention confusing. It doesn't leave enough room for the Holy Spirit. Prayer should be sponataneous; reciting set prayers is just meaningless repetition. And what's with the "smells and bells," anyway?

That's what I hear from the many people who look with suspicion on Anglican, Catholic, and Orthodox forms of worship.

Those who know how much I love the heart-piercing beauties of traditional, "high church" worship can be excused for thinking I must have been born and raised in one of those denominations. That I'm just an elderly lady clinging to the good old days of her roots.

Not at all.

In my childhood I went to a Dutch Reformed church in a small village in Upstate New York. Since then I've experienced worship in a great variety of church denominations and non-denominations, including an atheist period in no church at all. And I've noticed something.

All churches have liturgy.

Liturgy, literally "the work of the people," is what happens in the worship service of any church. No matter how informal, every church service has a flow, a pattern, a set way of doing things that is comfortably familiar to regulars and confusing to visitors. Even the church I know that proudly proclaimed, "we have no liturgy," only meant that theirs was different from what you would experience at the Catholic church down the street. All churches have liturgy, and arguing over which brings you closer to God is like debating whether Johann Sebastian Bach or Louis Armstrong was the better musician.

In fact, I think music is a good analogy here. If you make music in an orchestra, or a jazz band, or a choir, you're going to feel uncomfortable at first if you're sightreading the music, or even the musical style. You'll play some wrong notes and miss the rhythm and maybe feel awkward and embarrassed. But after a while, with experience, the music begins to soar through you, and there is very little more glorious.

That's how I feel about Anglican worship. The set prayers, the gestures, the standing and kneeling, the chanting, and even the bells and the incense—these are all notes in a complex and beautiful symphony. I'm still learning; I don't hit all the right notes and my rhythm isn't perfect. But the music soars through me.

And when I visit other churches, I need to remember that my awkward, uncomfortable feeling is not because they are all wrong, but because I'm still sightreading their liturgy.

(Unless the music is too loud, as it so often is these days. In that case what I'm experiencing is plain, naked pain, which can't be overcome by time and practice.  But that's another issue.)

This article from becomingminimalist.com is filled with shocking statistics about Americans (and a few other nationalities). I'm naturally suspicious of that kind of survey and what goes into the statistics. But were it only half true, it would still be scary. If you click to the article, you'll see reference links to the sources of each statistic. That doesn't mean the data may not be lacking in veracity, but citing sources deserves commendation, and you can find out more if you'd like.

Did I say these statistics are scary? More than that, they're alien—have I landed on another planet? If this is the truth about our society, then we, our families, and our friends are 'way above average (or below, depending on your point of view). Here's an abbreviated version of the numbers, with commentary.

• There are 300,000 items in the average American home. Hmmm. Since the definition of "items" includes paperclips, I'm not sure that number isn't on the low side. Legos alone might account for it in many families. :) I know we have some 2,000 books on the shelves, and an inordinate quantity of office supplies, kitchen utensils, and computer paraphernalia, so we're probably guilty here.
• The average size of the American home has nearly tripled over the past 50 years. It's ironic, isn't it? Families are much smaller now, but have much larger houses—in which they spend much less time.
• One out of every 10 Americans rents offsite storage. Not us. I can see situations in which someone might do that—such as the folks who put up elaborate Christmas displays and need to store everything for the rest of the year, or someone in the process of moving—but mostly I wonder what can be worth the cost of external storage.
• Twenty-five percent of people with two-car garages don’t have room to park cars inside them, and 32% only have room for one vehicle. Exactly what is meant by these numbers is unclear, and it apparently leaves out people with one- (or three-) car garages, but if the number of cars parked on the streets of our neighborhood is any indication, it seems to be a common affliction. Porter made sure that every time we moved into a house, the car(s) went into the garage the first night. Because he knew that if we didn't make that push, it might never happen.... Still, in our extended family it is generally true that garages contain the indended number of cars.
• British research found that the average 10-year-old owns 238 toys but plays with just 12 daily. Define "toy." Are all 300,000 Legos one "toy"? :)
• The average American woman owns 30 outfits—one for every day of the month. In 1930, that figure was nine. I don't believe it, and if true, it's hardly excessive consumption. You can get 30 different outfits with five blouses, three skirts, and two pairs of shoes, which even I would call a pretty minimal wardrobe.
• The average American family spends $1,700 on clothes annually. Thanks to the meticulous financier in the family (not me), I actually have our data for this—since 1984! From then until now we have averaged $519 spent on clothing per year. For the period from 1984 to 2000, when we were clothing two children as well as two adults, the average was $691.
• Nearly half of American households don’t save any money. Of all these statistics, this may be the most shocking to me. All those two-income households and we're not saving? I won't detail our historical savings as I did our clothing expenditures, but I have noticed an attitude change over the years that I find most significant. For much of my life, saving money was a priority for most of the families I knew. We saved for big-ticket purchases like washing machines and vacations, we saved for medical needs, we saved for retirement, we saved for our children's college costs, we saved for unexpected expenses like job loss. What happens now? We run up credit card debt for those big-ticket items so we don't have to wait for them. "Normal" medical care has gotten so far out of whack that we've redefined "insurance" to cover everything, not just catastrophes. We expect the government to provide for our retirement and unemployment. College has become so expensive that we count on scholarships—where having money saved only hurts one's case—and want the government to provide this also. There is very little of a "savings mindset" left, and almost no thought of economizing by forgoing the things that in the past we have done very well without, such as cable television, eating at restaurants, and the latest fashions in clothing, cars, home furnishings, and phones. Worse, I've all too often run into the attitude that saving money is actually bad—evil. They call it hoarding money. This is not a call to charity, but the belief that if you are not out there buying, buying, buying you are not doing your part to support the economy. Never mind that money saved is still working to contribute to the economy (unless it's stashed under the mattress), and that NOT buying, buying, buying may be the best thing an individual can do to save the earth.
• Our homes have more television sets than people. And those television sets are turned on for more than a third of the day—eight hours, 14 minutes. Sadly, I have to plead more guilty than I'd like to here. We still have but one TV for two people, but for a few years now Netflix has encouraged us to have it on more than is good for us. I miss the days when our children were at home and the television was almost never on. On the other hand, the educational opportunities available now are fantastic, from the many subjects available on The Great Courses (good), to travel information from Rick Steves (helpful), to the education in modern culture gained from watching shows like NCIS and Rizzoli and Isles (fun and eye-opening, but almost certainly bad for our mental health). None of our children, however, own even one television set. They do sometimes watch audio-visual media on other devices, but technically, if you count all our immediate family, that's a 1:17 televison-to-people ratio.
• Some reports indicate we consume twice as many material goods today as we did 50 years ago. That's quite possible, especially considering our houses are three times as large (see above). But what is that figure measuring? What would be even more telling than total consumption would be the material goods consumption per person, since the average family size has shrunk. Personally? I doubt that in our case it's twice, but it's certainly more than when I was growing up, and 'way more than in the days of our ancestors, when estate inventories, even of the rich, would delineate down to the level of spoons and articles of clothing.
• Americans spend more on shoes, jewelry, and watches than on higher education. Certainly not in our case (see above clothing expenditures). It's also a suspect figure: How are they counting the numbers for higher education? If they mean what we spend net of scholarships and other subsidies, I can believe it. But if they are counting the whole cost of college (and not excluding technical schools), I'm skeptical.
• Shopping malls outnumber high schools. How is this a meaningful statistic? Even large high schools serve a very small number of people (2800 in the case of our local school, which is huge), whereas shopping malls serve the entire population.
• Ninety-three percent of teenage girls rank shopping as their favorite pastime. Not me! I've always disliked shopping (except maybe for books), even as a teenager. But even for the rest of the population, I doubt this statistic is as much about consumerism as about the lack of meaningful work in teenagers' lives. Sure, the girls are out shopping, and no doubt buying, too. But is the primary impetus consumerism, or an opportunity to interact with friends? (I suspect that for boys the favorite activity is video games, which serves the same social purpose.) That they're not getting together to go hiking, or discuss books, or volunteer at the hospital, speaks more to skewed priorities and lack of convenient opportunity than to consumerism, I think.
• Over the course of our lifetime, we will spend a total of 3,680 hours searching for misplaced items. Phones, keys, sunglasses, and paperwork top the list. I'm guessing this doesn't even count Google searches. :) This fact doesn't surprise me in the least. Certainly it's a logical consequence of having more stuff and bigger houses. And far too many people no longer believe in "a place for everything, and everything in its place." I've saved myself a great deal of time and effort by having a convenient basket that my keys go into every time I come home. If we always filed (and refiled) paperwork whenever we're no longer actively working with it (sadly, I don't) we'd waste less time keeping track of it. To view this apparently staggering statistic in perspective, however, if you figure a good life of 80 years, the time wasted looking for lost items amounts to less than eight minutes per day. I guarantee we all spend more than eight minutes daily on worse activities.
• The $8 billion home organization industry has more than doubled in size since the early 2000’s—growing at a staggering rate of 10% each year. This is a natural consequence of the previous statistic. I'm sure I've spent more time on organizational activities (reading, thinking, planning, doing, re-doing) than in actually looking for lost items.

Having now read Justo Gonzalez' The Story of Christianity, I am condemned to remember the following every time I hear the phrase, "Be reasonable!" This event seems to have been sanitized from everything I previously learned about the French Revolution.

The French Revolution created its own religion, called first the Cult of Reason, and later the Cult of the Supreme Being. ... The revolution wished to have nothing to do with the church. Even the calendar was changed, giving way to a more “reasonable” one in which weeks had ten days and months were named after conditions of nature in each season—“Thermidor,” “Germinal,” “Fructidor,” and so forth. Great ceremonies were also developed to take the place of religious festivals—beginning with the solemn procession taking Voltaire’s remains to the Pantheon of the Republic. Then temples to Reason were built, and an official list of saints was issued—which included Jesus, Socrates, Marcus Aurelius, and Rousseau. Other rites were prescribed for weddings, the dedication of children to Freedom, and funerals. All this would have been merely ridiculous, were it not for its cost in suffering and bloodshed. The promoters of the new religion made use of the guillotine with cruel liberality. 

Religions that grow over time, out of human need and experience, have all been afflicted by great cruelty. However, I also see in them sincere efforts by people to reach out to something transcendent and superior to themselves, and often evidence of God's efforts to reveal His own nature.  But attempts by human beings to create new religions all at once out of whole cloth always seem disassociated from reality, hence ridiculous, and man-centered, hence selfish.

I wrote this in 2011 and it seems no less appropriate now. If you're curious, you can click on this link to see the comments made to the original post. I present no universal solutions to the problems of Christmas stress, just a few thoughts about what helped and hindered us, particularly when our children were young.

A Facebook discussion set me to pondering what I have learned through the years about necessary and unnecessary stress at Christmastime. Yes, I think there is such a thing as necessary stress. The discussion was prompted by this quotation from Ann Voskamp: Whenever Christmas begins to burden, it’s a sign that I’ve taken on something of the world and not of Christ. Any weight in Christmas has to be of this world.

I appreciate the point, but I beg to differ, slightly.

The Christmas season, like all other seasons, has its own burdens and blessings. The work that goes into it, like the work that goes into life, can be delightful and can be stressful. I don't think it's a sign that we're doing something not of Christ just because it's stressful or burdensome. Good things take work. Labor, as in the birth of a baby. The more effortless a work of art looks, and the more joy it brings to others (inspiring musical performance; smoothly-running household; creative, confident, well-behaved children), the more labor you can assume went into it. Yet there's no denying that we can get so caught up in the effort that we miss the point, be it Christmas, or a wedding, or life itself.

Here are some things we've done, or not done, over the years, that made a difference to our Christmas stress level. Your mileage may vary.

Media exposure. One of the best decisions we ever made was to severely limit the presence of television in our home. This included—for good reason—videos and public television, but it was the lack of commercial TV that made the greatest difference at Christmastime. Our children didn't beg for toys they didn't know existed and certainly didn't know they "needed." That wasn't our motivation for banishing children's television programs from our lives, but it was an especially helpful benefit.

Santa Claus. I grew up with the excitement of the jolly ol' guy, but we decided to tell our children from the beginning that honoring the real St. Nicholas had evolved into a fun, but fictional, Christmas story. I won't say that Santa never delivered gifts to our house—there were grandparents' wishes to consider—but we never, ever, stood in a long line, or paid ridiculous prices, or fought over the last Tickle Me Elmo just because our children had asked Santa, and Santa was expected to deliver. (That line never worked in my childhood, but somehow expectations have grown over the years.)

Loss of anticipation. Despite the absence of a too-generous Santa, our children did not lack for presents and other reasons for looking forward to Christmas. But they never experienced the long period of anticipation I remember. In my childhood, the weeks between Thanksgiving and Chistmas j-u-s-t d-r-a-g-g-e-d. Life is busier now, and children feel time flying in a way that was once only an adult curse. Holiday stress has no age limits. [Note from 2019: If you read the comments in the original post, you'll see that our children disagree—they still thought time dragged.]

 Christmas parties. Every organization or activity we or our children were involved in felt it necessary to have a Christmas party, complete with gift exchange, during the busiest and most expensive season of the year. I don't know why: the secular organizations had no need to celebrate Christmas, and the churches should have realized that Advent / Christmas Eve / Christmas / Epiphany worship services are a much better excuse for a celebration than "we have to have parties because everyone else does." I realize that some people are energized by such events, but I could have drastically reduced my stress level by declining at least half of the Christmas events we were invited to. I would much, much rather have baked and decorated cookies at home than attended parties, yet more often than not the latter squeezed out the better.

Christmas traditions. Frankly, I don't have any answers here. I still grieve over not having established our own family's holiday traditions, and for letting some treasures from my past fall by the wayside. For years we celebrated Thanksgiving with my in-laws; after that, we joined my family's gathering at my sister's house. Our children have wonderful memories of time spent with our extended families, which is of infinite value ... but no memories of Thanksgiving at home. Christmastime was usually spent at our house, but always with company, usually my in-laws. This was a great treasure, and I wouldn't trade it. But it was also stressful, as we accommodated their desires (e.g. Santa Claus), and in the time crunch I dropped some of my own cherished Christmas traditions. Why stress ourselves with making and decorating cookies (precious memories from my childhood) when we knew Grandma would bring piles of wonderful food with her? This was one of the "if only I were more organized" stresses: couldn't I have fit it all in, somehow? Without a doubt, family is far more important (and fun) than a particular cookie tradition. But there's still a loss, and a stress to deal with. [Note from 2019: Here's grace for you: Our children apparently picked up and passed on a number of family traditions, including those from my own childhood, despite my feelings that I mangled that rather badly.]

We've been part of our church's Christmas services for nearly as long as our kids have been alive, in some combination of childen's choir, adult choir, Christmas musicals, Scripture reading, and/or setup and takedown. Overall this is a great thing, and I find it hard to "do congregation," especially in churches where congregations don't do all that much. Active involvement is both educational and inspirational. But it also has its losses and stresses, from missing the neighborhood Santa drive-by (small loss, I think, but the kids loved getting the candy he tosses); to staying up into the wee hours of Christmas morning finishing tasks, having returned from church well after midnight; to burdening our guests with the choice of (1) be at church with us for a long time, sometimes attending multiple services, (2) providing their own transportation (difficult when the church was a complicated 40-minute drive from home), or (3) staying home without us, whom they had come long distances to be with. On the plus side, what with the exhuastion and staying up late, we rarely had to deal with early-rising children on Christmas morn. [Note from 2019: In 2011 we were new at a church that is only an eight-minute drive away from home. Eight years later, I can heartily recommend that situation. What a difference it makes in the stress levels.]

Gift giving. This deserves a post to itself, but I'll try to keep it short. A gift, whether inexpensive or costly, can be a precious expression of love, or at least appreciation. But there's no question gift giving can be a problem, even without Santa in the picture.

• For a long time I was embarrased about the number of gifts under our tree, but I've gotten over that. Even though we had only two children, we always had visitors for Christmas to swell the present pile, and we have many generous relatives. We also made a point of wrapping as gifts things most families probably just buy as a matter of course, such as clothing (yes, even underwear), educational materials, and other necessities of life, just because it's so much fun to watch people unwrap presents—and they were never ungrateful, not even for the underwear. Most of the generous relatives were good about sending useful presents, too.
• The number of presents wasn't the only reason it took us all morning and most of the afternoon to open our gifts. It was important to us to treasure each gift (even the underwear), so we opened gifts slowly, and two gifts were never opened at the same time, no matter how many people were in the room. All attention was focused on one person, one gift. I can't say strongly enough how wonderful this custom was for us. Every gift was treasured, every giver thanked in person (or the gift carefully noted down if the giver was not present). The ungrateful do not deserve gifts. Thankfully, we never had to enforce this.
• Unfortunately, we were pretty bad about thank-you notes. We almost always got them out, but much later than we should have. I don't know why it was so difficult. The children were truly thankful, but getting them (or, to be honest, myself) to put pen to paper was a battle. But, really, how hard can it be? If I were doing it over, I'd include under the tree a special box of notecards for each child, and make a point of sitting down at the beginning of each subsequent day and writing one thank-you note. Even with our generous family, they'd have been finished before Epiphany. Let me add that, in these days of multiple means of communication, I wouldn't insist on hand-written, need-a-stamp notes, although those are always lovely to get. But whether expressed through letter, e-mail, phone, Skype, SMS, IM, or Facebook, what the giver wants to know is: Did the gift arrive? Was it broken or defective in any way? What do you like about it? What don't you like about it? Here is a great opportunity for a lesson in basic courtesy: how to thank someone for his thoughtfulness and generosity while letting him know that at age 12 you really don't want any more pink elephant slippers. Trust me, the giver has better things to do with his money than to give you presents you don't want. And please, mention gifts individually. "Thank you for the presents" meets the bare minimum requirements, but does not satisfy a loving and generous heart.
• If I were doing it again, I'd fret less about some of the gifts our children received that didn't fit well with our priorities and values. There was never anything truly awful—though in my opinion, a Barbie doll comes close—but I don't think they were scarred for life by being given stick-on plastic earrings and play nail polish. Relatives are good for expanding one's horizons.
• Charity gift catalogues (e.g. World Vision, Compassion, Heifer Project) are a gimmick, I know, but nonetheless a very effective and educational way to involve children in contributing to those in need. And I think the donation of a goat, or a bicycle, or an anti-malaria bed net would be just perfect for those otherwise meaningless Christmas party gift exchanges. I wouldn't go as far as this family (the same Ann Voskamp mentioned above) and have no gifts at all under the tree: receiving gifts is not only a joy for children but also a lesson in thankfulness. And anyway, what would we do without underwear? But the basic concept is worth working into our gift-giving, one way or another. Buy a few extra items to keep on hand during the year, too. They won't spoil (you get a card; the gift has already been given) and you'll have an easy present to pull out when needed.
• When I read, years ago, about a woman who had all her Christmas shopping done before Thanksgiving, I knew I could never be so efficient. Deadlines inspire me, but they must be real deadlines: I'm no good at mentally determining to be done by a certain time if my gut knows I really have another two weeks. But for the past several years, Thanksgiving has been a real deadline, because that's when our family gets together, and we all like to save on postage. True, it's a soft deadline—I can and do still shop in December—but it's solid enough to spur me into action a month early. It's an awesome feeling to go into December (and Advent) with much of the labor completed!
• What I really want to do is gather Christmas gifts slowly, all year 'round. This is harder to do for children of a certain age, whose interest in a particular item may not be sustained from February to December, or for things that people might buy for themeselves in the interim. But that still leaves a number of possibilities, from consumables (food, sandpaper, crayons) to items you know someone would love but would not treat himself to.
• We need to get over our embarrassment about homemade gifts. Few things say love like something that takes time and effort rather than a credit card. Homemade jam and hand-knit sweaters were always big hits at our house. Just don't take anything homemade to a Christmas party gift exchange, where for reasons I still don't understand, mockery is frequently mistaken for humor.

What has helped—or hindered—your celebration of Christmas?

A phrase from George McDonald sums up how I'd like to approach this season of blessing and stressing. Labor without perturbation, readiness without hurry, no haste and no hesitation. For the visual thinkers and chart-minded among us, I've created a graph that I find helpful in determining whether or not a particular Christmas activity is worthwhile for me.

The y-axis, Duty, represents the importance of a project or activity, whether in my own mind or imposed by others; the x-axis, Delight, is a measure of the joy received as a result of my participation. There is nothing mathematical about the placement of the adjectives within a quadrant; they are merely suggestive.

A given type of event may fit into any of the four quadrants. For example, the Christmas party.

The first quadrant is all positive; this is where you want to be. For me, it would be a small gathering of good friends, where we take our voices and various instruments on a carolling tour of the neighborhood, preferably on a still, quiet night with a few snowflakes falling. Then we'd repatriate and warm up by a cheerful fire with cups of steaming cocoa and an assortment of snacks and cookies. (Yes, I'm aware that I live in Florida.)

Quadrant Two might be your office Christmas party, which you dread, but you know that if you don't show up—with a smile and a gag gift—your boss will consign you to the "not a team player" abyss. Grit your teeth, take a good attitude with you, and please try to stay out of trouble.

The third quadrant is bad all around: no fun and no good reason to be there. Perhaps it's your church's production of The Young Messiah, served with Crystal Light lemonade and peanut butter cookies, which you know will distress your ears, your brain, your stomach, and your musical sensibilities. You like to support church activities, but they're expecting an enthusiastic crowd of three hundred and you will not be missed. Cross this one off your list with gratitude and a sigh of relief.

Quadrant Four is where you'll find the chocolate cake of life: Not good for you, but not harmful in limited quantities. Perhaps your neighbors are staging a back-to-back showing of your favorite Christmas television specials. No one will be offended if you stay home, and you don't anticipate any benefit, not even a chance for conversation—no one but you appreciates pausing a show to discuss the philosophical implications of the Ghost of Christmas Present, or the symbolic significance of the Island of Misfit Toys—but you would love to see A Charlie Brown Christmas again. The greatest danger with activities from this quadrant is that it is too easy to let them accumulate until they've multiplied stress by crowding out Quadrants One and Two.

I see the Ann Voskamp quotation as unrealistically one-dimensional: Anything that is not in Quadrant One must be in Quadrant Three. I suggest that the Christmas season, like life, cannot be reduced so neatly—not even to my two-dimensional analysis. But in any case, a reasoned consideration of what contributes to a joyful celebration and what detracts should lead us in the direction of a

Merry Christmas!

Which is an appropriate activity for Advent.

Rick Steves' audio tours were a mainstay of our recent visit to Rome. They tend to be a bit flippant for my taste, and sometimes a bit raunchy, but they come with a lot of great information, too.

The following paragraph pulled me to a complete stop, however, right in the middle of the Pantheon.

[Italy's] Victor Emmanuel III ruled for 44 years but lost favor because he collaborated with Mussolini and the Fascists. During World War II, instead of standing by his people, the king abandoned Rome to the Germans and fled. After the War, the Italians voted for a republic, and proclaimed that no male Savoy could ever again set foot on Italian soil. In 2003, descendants of the Savoy kings were allowed back into Italy for the first time. But they've demonstrated a knack for bad press relations, and saying stupid things. They still complain that Italy owes them money, even while they live in stunning wealth in Switzerland.

What's wrong with this? Why did it have me scratching my head? It's the final sentence: They still complain that Italy owes them money, even while they live in stunning wealth in Switzerland.

Maybe it's the math major in me, but I hate logic that isn't logical, and that sentence—and even more, the derision with which it was spoken—makes no sense.

Perhaps the Savoy descendants are stupid and rude; many of us are. Perhaps they do live in stunning wealth. What does that have to do with whether or not Italy owes them money?

There's a Rockefeller somewhere who owes me 25 cents. Her children and ours were in the same YMCA swimming classes. This was back in the days of pay telephones—when not even Rockefellers had cell phones—and she borrowed a quarter from me because she didn't have the required coin. I expected her to pay me back at the next class, but she forgot, and I didn't ask. The amusement factor of being able to say that the Rockefeller family owed me money was well worth 25 cents.

Technically, she still owes me the money. And if the situation had been reversed, and I owed her the quarter, my debt would still stand, despite the fact that the wealth of the Rockefeller family is now estimated to be some eleven billion dollars. If that's not "stunning wealth," I don't know what is. (Maybe their famous ancestor's wealth, which in today's dollars would make him more than three times as rich as Bill Gates.)

You can argue over whether or not Italy really owes money to the Savoys. But that question is completely independent of how much money the Savoy family has or does not have. In Switzerland or elsewhere. As it stands, Rick Steves' statement is a travesty of both justice and logic.

Does it matter? In a light-hearted tour guide, no. But I'm afraid there are all too many people today who would not have been stunned by the statement, nor would have descried any inconsistency with logic, justice, and reason—and that's a problem.

I recently rediscovered this video from 2014. I loved it then, and I love it now. It was originally a Christmas commercial, but it's appropriate for Veterans Day: a reminder that our enemies are human beings, like us.

Evil must be opposed in the strongest terms, and sometimes by force of arms. But oh how often the foot soldiers in the working-out of the world's evils are simply ordinary people, with families and jobs and otherwise ordinary lives, at heart not that different from our own. They are not innocent, any more than we are innocent, but they are human, they are the "neighbors" whom we are commanded to love.

The surgeon who removes a man's leg to prevent the spread of gangrene does not hate the leg, nor the man; he hates only the evil that is destroying him. This is why it is right, and perfectly consistent, for a soldier to shoot a man in the course of war, and then, coming upon him dying on the battlefield, to offer him a drink of water and make him as comfortable as possible.

We who oppose war and protest killing, do we hate, revile, despise, and sneer at those with whom we disagree? Do we rejoice when they suffer?

I remember, from the years of the Vietnam War, a former draftee telling me how they were forced to march to a cadence of "F**k VC!" (Viet Cong) This, and much like it that happens during training, is a terrible thing. The job of a soldier (sailor, airman, and all) is a noble one. We must teach our people to kill, but we can at least refrain from teaching them to hate.

If we forget the importance of this, we are lost.

The Man He Killed

Had he and I but met
By some old ancient inn,
We should have set us down to wet
Right many a nipperkin!

But ranged as infantry,
And staring face to face,
I shot at him as he at me,
And killed him in his place.

I shot him dead because—
Because he was my foe,
Just so: my foe of course he was;
That's clear enough; although

He thought he'd 'list, perhaps,
Off-hand like—just as I—
Was out of work—had sold his traps—
No other reason why.

Yes; quaint and curious war is!
You shoot a fellow down
You'd treat, if met where any bar is,
Or help to half a crown.

— Thomas Hardy

Psalm 22:21, New international Version (NIV) translation: Rescue me from the mouth of the lions; save me from the horns of the wild oxen.

Psalm 22:21, Coverdale translation: Save me from the lion's mouth; thou hast heard me also from among the horns of the unicorns.

No doubt the NIV, product of both modern scholarship and better understanding of Hebrew, is the more accurate rendering. But there is something appealing about Coverdale's version.

And you thought unicorns were pink, purple, sweet, and girly. Clearly they were previously understood to be powerful, fierce, and dangerous.

Watch out next time you underestimate a girl.

Of course, if you've read The Rithmatist, you already know that about both girls and unicorns.

It's funny how often when we react against something we nearly always throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Having had my cultural-formation years, and well as my Christian-formation years, steeped in Protestantism of the more Reformed sort, there were two things it never occurred to me to do: (1) show any particular respect for Mary, the mother of Jesus (except briefly, at Christmastime), and (2) read the Apocrypha—those writings from "between the Testaments" that are considered to be part of Holy Scripture by Catholics but not by Protestants. (I'm simplifying the situation somewhat.)

I think the greatest reason for the first was that Catholics make so much of Mary, often—or so it appears to Protestants—making her seem more important, and more venerated, than Jesus. To avoid that error, it was safest to ignore her. Plus there's no denying a certain historical bias against women. In more than one church of my experience, certain (male) saints are highly venerated, especially St. Paul. Also St. Peter, though he's a bit tainted because he's so important to Catholics. But Mary? Almost no mention at all, and very little honor paid. In fact, we once were called on the carpet over an instrumental-only version of the beautiful and famous Bach/Gounod Ave Maria played during the service. Did I mention that it was instrumental only, i.e. no words, offensive or otherwise?

It's not surprising that I never heard anything from the Apocrypha during a church service. Church readings tend (rightly) to be from Scripture, and if you don't think a book is part of the Biblical canon, better skip it. But these books (more or less) were included in the Bibles used throughout most of Christian history, including by Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Knox, and John and Charles Wesley. Luther called them "useful and good to read," though not equal in value to the canonical books. The Anglican "39 Articles" accepts the Apocrypha "for instruction in life and manners, but not for the establishment of doctrine." What's more, they were part of the world in which Jesus lived, and one can see their echoes in the New Testament.

But none of these reasons are why I decided to—finally!—read through the Apocrypha. I was tired of being culturally illiterate. In the world of art, music, and literature, many important works reference stories from the Apocrypha. Even if we consider them completely fictitious, why do we not learn their stories the same way we learn the ancient Greek, Roman, Egyptian, and Norse myths? We know about Apollo and Daphne; why not about Judith and Holofernes?

 
Apollo and Daphne by Bernini, Judith Beheading Holofernes by Caravaggio

Cultural literacy aside, what did I think of the Books of the Apocrypha? Mixed. Here's the list, as they appear in my Revised Standard Version Bible (Catholic edition), followed by my reactions. (I deliberately read these books without learning anything about them, wanting to collect my own first reactions, unprejudiced.)

Tobit, Judith, The Additions to Esther, Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, Baruch, The Letter of Jeremiah, Song of the Three Young Men, Susanna, Bel and the Dragon, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, 1 Esdras, 2 Esdras, and The Prayer of Manassah.

The reading started out well. It was exciting to read the stories, such as those in Tobit, Judith, and Susanna. Several of the others seem to fit in with Old Testament books, but apparently are not considered authentic enough to be included.

The Wisdom of Solomon reads very much like Solomon's writings in Proverbs. Sirach (also called Ecclesiasticus) is a collection of similar proverbs, but feels as if written at a later time than Solomon's. Proverbs is one of my favorite Bible books to read, but I found Sirach, on the whole, boring—sometimes even offensive.  Many of the proverbs show wisdom, but others are strange. For instance:

Better is the wickedness of a man than a woman who does good, and it is a woman who brings shame and disgrace.

This one's better (emphasis mine):

Speak, you who are older, for it is fitting that you should, but with acccurate knowledge, and do not interrupt the music.

Speaking of music, how about this one?

Do not associate with a woman singer, lest you be caught in her intrigues.

On the other hand, this is an interesting anticipation of the language of the Eucharist, which if you first encounter it in Jesus' words seems more shocking than it probably was for his disciples.

[Wisdom speaking] Those who eat me will hunger for more, and those who drink me will thirst for more.

Sirach is also the source of the familiar line, Let us now praise famous men. Many such revelations pop up in the Apocrypha: "Oh, so that's where that came from!"

The biggest disappointment was the Maccabee books, not only because they are much like my least favorite parts of the Old Testament—war and more war—but mostly because the story of the miraculous eight-day supply of oil, which is the event celebrated at Hanukkah, is not there, where I expected it to be. Apparently that event, though it occurs in the time of the Maccabees, was not written down until much later, in the Talmud.

I very much enjoyed the between-testaments "feel" of the books, particularly in the ones that are not just additions to Old Testament books. You can see how Jewish thought is evolving, in particular to include belief in resurrection and life after death, and in the Messiah whose coming was fully anticipated to bring military triumph to the Jewish people.

1 Esdras reads like normal Old Testament history, but 2 Esdras is just plain weird. If you enjoy Revelation, you'll love 2 Esdras.

My verdict on the Apocrypha? I'd say Luther was right. It is "good to read," though not as infallible Scripture. It is at least as interesting, helpful, and important as the history, wisdom, and stories we read from other sources without thinking twice about it.

I see no reason why the books of Apocrypha, honored in religion and culture for most of their history, should in modern times be in such disfavor. I won't be reading them annually the way I do the Old and New Testaments, but I'm glad I finally made their acquaintance.

What's next?  I'll begin my yearly cycle again when Advent comes, but in the meantime, since I just finished reading C. S. Lewis's book, Reflections on the Psalms, I think I'll run through the Psalter. For this purpose I'll step briefly away from the Revised Standard Version and pick up my 1928 Book of Common Prayer, which retains the Coverdale translation of the Psalms. I think I'm still reacting to my two years with The Message. After this, I'll revert to the more middle-of-the-road RSV. Lewis says,

Even of the old translators he [Coverdale] is by no means the most accurate; and of course a sound modern scholar has more Hebrew in his little finger than poor Coverdale had in his whole body. But in beauty, in poetry, he, and St. Jerome, the great Latin translator, are beyond all whom I know.

What a pity we can't get both modern scholarship and beauty!