bleeding out loud

“You say grace before meals.

All right.

But I say grace before the play and the opera,

And grace before the concert and the pantomime,

And grace before I open a book,

And grace before sketching, painting,

Swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing;

And grace before I dip the pen in the ink.”

The Prayer of a Man Walking

I thank thee, O Lord, for the stones in the street.

I thank thee for the hay-carts yonder and for the houses built and

half-built.

That fly past me as I stride.

But most of all for the great wind in my nostrils

As if thine own nostrils were close.

Me (taking a shower)

Braylen (walks into the bathroom): “It’s just me. I’m going potty.”

Me: “Cool.”

Her: “No, it’s not cool!”

Me: “No, I mean it’s cool. It’s not a problem.”

Her: “It is not cool! I have to go really bad!”

Me: “I mean it’s okay for you to be in here to use the potty. Just remember to shut the door on your way out.”

Her: Annoyed Sigh. Flush.

Me: Scalded by suddenly hot water

I’ve read the Bible straight through 4 times so far this year. I should clarify: 1) it’s the children’s version and, 2) no, I’m not a weirdo.

Last year when my then 3 year-old son asked for his own children’s Bible, I quickly popped one into my cart online and with the magic of Amazon Prime it was at my door the very next day. My kids were off the wall with excitement (it doesn’t take much!). They begged me to start reading right then while we ate our lunch. I agreed – and being only a week or so before Easter I thought, “We’ll start with the New Testament… and if we work at it we could get all the way up through the resurrection in time for Easter”. I love tidy little plans like that.

Well, we started reading. And reading. And reading. I kept waiting for them to get bored or to ask if we could switch to Spiderman books, but every day at lunchtime that little Bible was waiting for me at the table. By the time Easter rolled around we had blown past the resurrection and were rounding the creation story. Who knew?

An interesting thing began to happen as we continued to devour this book time and time again. My kids were taking it all in as a grand story. Characters developed and family lines grew – themes emerged – action rose and fell.

Now, being a combination of theologian, mom, and over-thinker, I’ve spent countless hours mulling over ways to teach my children narrative theology. I’ve worried not if they’ve been exposed to scripture, but how they’ve been exposed to scripture. Yet it never occurred to me that by sitting down and simply reading the story, as a story, they would hear just that: a story.

When we read the Bible as a story, themes emerge – we begin to understand who God is, what he is doing, and who we are in light of that. Rather than coming at a passage as an isolated event from which we will extract a moral saying, or trying to pull a few words to build a case, we see the character and movement of God in a dance with his people. We see God wooing and engaging and saving and guiding and disciplining… all in order to bring restoration and reconciliation to a world he loves.

In this way we now have a story, our story, from which to engage the world. We’re not searching for a chapter and verse to tell us ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to dilemma x-y-z. We’re asking, “How does this line up with who God is? Does this fit my identity as his child? Am I forwarding his restorative mission?” Rather than just reading the Bible we have ingested it, it is a part of us – and we understand that we are living the story.

During our daily lunch routine it is not unusual to find scraps of paper with (very primitive – an artist I am not) drawings of the Biblical story. These little scraps contain few details – still, they tend to be my answer to a number of questions that pop up. “Why _____?” “Well, because remember, all these years…_____.” I love our little scratch pad sessions – I love visually reinforcing this story and passing it down to my kids as our family story.

Who are the Wises? We are children of God – we are agents of his work – we are world changers – we are a restorative force – we are cultivating his life in this world and sharing his love. We are a part of his story that is being played out at this very moment.

The first page of our children’s Bible says,

“In the beginning, the world was empty.

Darkness was everywhere.

But God had a plan.”

I love this page. Every time I read it I feel a sense of thrill, a sense of ‘I am in on this plan.” My prayer is that as children of God we will ingest his word, make it a part of ourselves – and live out his story toward the restoration of the world.

written by Jen Wise

Jen is a compassionate theologian, obsessive foodie, constant hostess and voracious reader. She is the managing editor of Restoration Living and writes articles and curriculum for various ministries around the country. Jen lives with her husband and their two sons in the Twin Cities. Catch up with her on twitter @jenlwise.

“All peddler’s of God’s word have that in common, I think: they tell what costs them least to tell and what will gain them most; and to tell the story of who we really are, and of the battle between light and dark, between belief and unbelief, between sin and grace that is waged within us all, costs plenty and may not gain us anything, we’re afraid, but an uneasy silence and a fishy stare”

“The story of Jesus is full of darkness as well as light. It is a story that hides more than it reveals. It is the story of a mystery we must never assume we understand and that comes to us breathless and broken with unspeakable beauty at the heart of it yet by no means a pretty story though that is the way we’re apt to peddle it much of the time. We sand down the rough edges.”

Frederick Buechner, A Room Called Remember

This is an Ash Wednesday reflection written by pastor Kyle Lake, Mars Hill’s Kids Programming Director, about his experience imposing ashes and reminding people of their mortality. You can follow Kyle on twitter @kylemlake.

It’s a strange thing we do, isn’t it? This Ash Wednesday thing. For most of our lives we spend an exorbitant amount of time, energy, and money trying to look and feel young, and to extend our lives as long as possible. In trying to extend our lives as long as possible, we somehow miss the beautiful moments that we are working so hard to get more of.  Our attempt to insulate ourselves from death ends up insulating us from life – real life that is beautiful, messy, and fragile. Perhaps that’s why we continue this tradition of reminding ourselves once a year that, “For happens to the children of man and what happens to the beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts, for all is vanity. All go to one place. All are from the dust and to dust all return” (Ecclesiastes 3:19-20).  As a pastor of twenty-five years of age, reminding those older than me of this circle of life seems natural. However, the moment a child or adolescent steps forward I am hit with the profound and disturbing reality that yes, me too – and them too. Death does not discriminate and it has no limits. We are all inextricably bound to this cycle of birth, life, and death. I don’t need the cross on my forehead as much as I need it on the forehead of my wife, friends, and enemies to constantly remind me that every moment, each precious breath upon breath, is a gift. The cross on their forehead calls out in solidarity to me and speaks the truth that we were all bought at a price (1 Corinthians 6:20) and there is a love that is greater than death. Death has been overcome. Pain and suffering, like this life, are only temporary. A new word has been spoken about us and a new day is here. With that hope, when the men, women, and children come kneeling before me, I can speak those somber words and smile back.