Knowing God

"How shall we learn to enjoy God? How obtain such an all-sufficient soul-satisfying portion in him as shall enable us to let go the things of this world as vain and worthless in comparison? I answer, This happiness is to be obtained through the study of the Holy Scriptures... The more we know of God, the happier we are... What will make us so exceedingly happy in heaven? It will be the fuller knowledge of God... It is absolutely needful in order that happiness in the Lord may continue, that the Scriptures be regularly read... Especially we should read regularly through the Scriptures, consecutively, and not pick out here and there a chapter. If we do, we remain spiritual dwarfs. I tell you so affectionately. For the first four years of my conversion I made no progress, because I neglected the Bible. But when I regularly read on through the whole with reference to my own heart and soul, I directly made progress. Then my peace and joy continued more and more. Now I have been doing this for 47 years. I have read through the whole Bible about 100 times and I always find it fresh when I begin again. Thus my peace and joy have increased more and more.” – George Mueller

It’s strange how popular Christian culture can have nothing to do with knowing God. We sing, “I want to know you” on a Sunday and go back to lives that don’t carry any real evidence that we mean that. We go to church to be entertained or feel self-helped, without a consciousness of the weightiness of God. The gospel becomes advice, not news—it helps us without transforming us. We want to know God’s will because we want knowledge about what to do, not wisdom about who to be. We want to be spoon-fed spiritual food in a palatable manner rather than learn to feed ourselves. We ask more than we listen in our prayers. 

Recently I heard this quote from A.W. Tozier: “The essence of idolatry is the entertainment of thoughts about God that are unworthy of him. It begins in the mind and may be present where no overt act of worship has taken place… The idolater simply imagines things about God and acts as if they were true.” It is probably inevitable that our culture seeps into our faith, but the dangerous thing is when we don’t see it—and I don’t know any other way to see it than to step outside of myself and my culture and my history by reading the Bible. 

Dave asked me what it’s like now that I’ve finished memorizing Ephesians—what I think it’s really done is taught me how to meditate. I’m in the long-term consolidation part of the process, where I recite the book once a day for one hundred days: what that feels like is stepping into an alternate reality. It helps me see how deep the roots of my culture and selfishness go, and how shocking, how beautiful and powerful, reality is. Meditation is marination, stepping out of our cultural river and sinking into the pool of the Word, sitting with it and letting it surround me.

Lately I’ve discovered a way of doing daily Bible reading that for once seems to stick. It takes reading beyond just the ticking off of a box, that I may or may not get to; beyond the words just glossing over me without entering into me. The technique, from Cordiero’s book The Divine Mentor, is pretty simple. I pick a regular time of day (no judgment, he says, if it’s not the morning: mine never is). I associate it with something good (a cup of tea always, often chocolate or a nice snack). I read the section of the Bible listed for that day in my reading plan (if one misses, he says, forget about the missed day and resume on-schedule). During the reading, I ask that the Holy Spirit speaks to me about one verse, or two verses in a row—many things may jump out, but I pick one. If something I read confuses me, I don’t bother about it. Then I journal using S.O.A.P. (not, as we were taught in med school, Subjective, Objective, Assessment and Plan): I write out the scripture (S), write one paragraph of observation about it (O), write out how it changes my day or any other applications to my life (A), and write out a short prayer (P). Whole thing under one page. Then I think of a brief title, write that at the top, and index that page (listing title, page number, scripture reference, and date). Whole process happens in thirty minutes.

I could write on about all the things I am learning about God—I wish this was something we talked about more, our communion with God, something we asked each other about more—but I do think Mueller’s right. The result of it all is satisfaction in God. I’ve found that’s what I feel like saying to all the problems my friends have: find your satisfaction in God! Let him be your joy! Know him! Will the rest even matter? Much less so. Who is it that we love and worship, anyway? How well do we know Him? Are we pressing in to do so?

Christmas Tree Lights

Eighteen months. That’s how long one of my best friends in Virginia says it takes before a place starts to feel like home.

She might be right. I paused for a moment tonight in our dark living area, looking at the lights on the tree, petting Rosemary as she sat on her favorite spot on top of one of the couches. Dave had taken all the kids out, the older two to swim and the younger two to a date, giving me a rare, quiet moment in the house alone. We got a particularly good tree this year, taller and fuller than any tree I remember having before—it just has presence. The kids wanted to name it.

Holidays always make me nostalgic. Maybe that’s why I like tradition so much. I remember growing up with the rainbow lights on our artificial Christmas tree, lying under it peeking underneath the wrapping paper at my presents. I’d take off my glasses, watch the lights fuzz and blur together, and think, people with perfect vision don’t get to see the lights like this. I remember walking back to my Lawn room in college after a long day out, seeing the Rotunda and colonnades all lit up. I remember coming home Christmas breaks and sitting by the tree in the dark, thinking about what it was Christmas meant to me that particular year.

Having the holidays here feels right this year. That’s what I was thinking, looking at the lights tonight. Last year felt like going through the motions; my parents visited, which was great but triggered several months of depressive loneliness after. I don’t feel so disjointed or jarred anymore; I feel content to be here. This past Thanksgiving was one of the best I remember having, with family but also many friends squeezed around our huge table. We came up with a list of Christmas traditions we wanted to keep and they’ve all felt enjoyable—putting notes in stockings, letting the kids pick out secret gifts for their siblings at the dollar store, making the annual ornaments, converting the thanksgiving tree into an advent tree, listening to Christmas music, picking out and decorating the tree, even getting our photos taken. I’m upgrading some of our holiday décor and that feels fun too. 

Sometimes the holidays feel like they exist in relief, defined by whatever events are going on in life or whoever we’re with as we’re celebrating them—and what strikes me this year is that, for the first time, it’s just us, here on our own as a family, where we will probably be forever, and it feels okay. I feel like I have the mental and emotional space to enjoy it. I suppose I have recovered enough from the move to be okay being who I am, where I am.  

Spiritual Discipline

“A baseball player who expects to excel in the game without adequate exercise of his body is no more ridiculous than the Christian who hopes to be able to act in the manner of Christ when put to the test without the appropriate exercise in godly living.” -Dallas Willard, Spirit of the Disciplines

I’ve been thinking about spiritual disciplines for some time. For much of my past, that concept was associated with guilt more than action, with repeated, vague readings of Richard Foster’s classic and feeling like I ought to be getting up for morning devotions but never being able to do so for more than a few months at a time. It was all too easy to become subsumed by external pressures and internal torpor and distraction. The last decade has been a kind of spiritual renaissance, though, and one anchor during the adjustment to the move has been pressing more into the Word in various ways, which has lately only made me realize how much more I am missing. How much more there is for me. 

That’s the point of spiritual disciplines—they are not for the earning of grace, but the fuller experience of it. They posture us to more fully receive and be transformed by the grace we have already been given. Pastor Ryan Paulson, at a seminar during Mt. Hermon family camp this past summer, said what it feels like to him is drinking from a well he never realized was there, or positioning his sails to catch the wind. 

Disciplines are surely just as much about training as receiving, or maybe receiving through training. We all know we can’t sit down on stage without preparation and play a Chopin ballade—we could sit there and try and try, but we’d fail. What it takes to play in that moment are not attempts while on stage, but hours and years of prior practice: scales, learning parts hands-separately, then hands-together, then slowly, then up-to-tempo, then with dynamics, then with personal expression, then memorizing the score, listening to recordings of other players along the way for context, receiving coaching from a private teacher.

Yet spiritually, we are forever trying but rarely training. We want to know God’s will when faced with a decision, to be able to forgive when hurt, to control an angry impulse when provoked, but we aren’t engaging in practices that help us listen to, know, and experience God and the workings of the Holy Spirit on a consistent basis, during the millions of moments when it doesn’t urgently matter. Wisdom and character are not acquired in a moment. Do I really desire after the best things?

What is so difficult, of course, is how easily we slip back into our old selves and ways of thinking, into the cultural river in which we are all immersed. Wayne Cordeiro, in his book The Divine Mentor, shares the story of Polish pianist Ignace Jan Paderewsky, who when asked to play for government concerts only agreed to if they allowed him to play three hours of scales a day. “If I skip one day of scales,” he explained, “when I play in concert, I notice it. If I skip two days of scales, my coach will notice. And if I skip three days, the world will notice.” It’s the same with our daily devotions, Cordeiro says: skip one day, and we notice. Two days, and our spouse and kids notice. Three days, and the world notices. It’s that easy to slip back into worldly wisdom, into cranky moods, to lose perspective.

Practically, it comes down to experimenting and experiencing, seeing which work, keeping in mind some have more primacy while others may be for certain seasons. The list that Dallas Willard gives includes disciplines of abstinence (silence and solitude, simplicity, fasting, sabbath, secrecy, submission) and engagement (bible reading and memorization, worship, prayer, soul friendship, personal reflection, and service), but there may be many others. I like how Willard says we need to look at Jesus’ whole life, not just his public ministry but the lifestyle and disciplines that prepared him for that—the same could be said of Paul, Daniel, David, Elijah, and many others—those seem like a good place to start.

I’ve been memorizing the book of Ephesians, using Davis’ technique from An Approach to the Extended Memorization of Scripture (which I highly recommend). Most of the time, it feels like working out. I drag myself to it each day, but afterwards, I feel great. Sometimes phrases get repeated to the point where I see something new in it, or in entire chapters in context, that I’d never seen before. Sometimes the very first time I learn a verse it convicts me. Sometimes nothing happens. Either way, there is surely no better way to meditate on scripture: I’ve never experienced anything like it before, this feeling of the word inside me, all the time, popping to mind during moments of temptation or in response to something I see, seeing how the words underlie or enhance other parts of scripture I encounter. In that sense, it really is like tapping into something that was there for me, all the time, but I had never fully taken advantage of. I think of Jesus, how words from the scriptures sprang to his lips at the most stressful times of his life, when tempted, when dying, and this whole venture becomes a glimpse into his interior life and mind. The daily grind seems a small price to pay for that.

Halloween and Loving the Little Years

I have mixed feelings about Halloween these days. I don’t understand the point of Halloween parades, where parents make a disproportionately large effort, missing work or dragging along siblings, to watch their kid walk in a circle in costume. The overload of candy is understandably exciting (Eric claims it’s his favorite holiday after Christmas), but seems excessive, requiring increasingly complicated negotiations as the kids get older to reasonably manage (this year each kid got five pieces, then the rest were combined and quarantined). I’m always ambivalent about costumes—part of me hates shelling out for premade costumes of commercialized characters on amazon, but I also find myself without the energy to hand-make four costumes or coordinate family costume themes, like I used to. I like the sense of community trick-or-treating in the neighborhood brings, but I also hear about folks increasingly flocking to lucrative, entertaining destination neighborhoods like the Steve Jobs house, and I’m not sure what to make of all that.

The main thing I was struck by this year, though, was how cute the kids were as we walked through the neighborhood: Eric rushing up to every door that had a light. All of them saying “trick-or-treat!” and “thank you” and Elijah taking forever to decide what pieces to pick. Esme putting pieces back if she felt she got too many. The older kids asking how many they were allowed to take. Esme’s costume sliding around to obstruct her vision half the time. Holding hands in the dark. Everyone talking about how heavy their pumpkin buckets were getting.

More than any other holiday, Halloween seems made for kids, and I’m reminded that one day when they grow up, it will make me miss them. People are always telling you, “the days are long but the years are short”—and really, catching the true preciousness of each stage, enjoying them as something that will not be forever, can be so hard to do. Tonight as I was opening my nightstand drawer for something, I saw a piece of paper—it was another one of Esme’s drawings. She’s always covering paper with scribbles, declaring it’s a gift for me, then secretly leaving them on my nightstand or in my nightstand drawer. I felt slightly annoyed at first (more paper I will have to walk over to the recycling bin), but now I’m sitting down to look at it. It has a lot of scribbles, and one little stick figure. It has eight different colors, which means she had to uncap and recap eight different markers. It’s an unused medical billing sheet, her favorite scrap paper to use because the hospital logo has figures which she likes to color in.

One day, I will miss being constantly gifted pieces of art-slash-recycling. I’ll probably miss the knee-level smudges on our glass doors and the treasures-slash-trash (old stickers, cheap prizes, rocks, used toilet paper rolls, empty mint boxes and the like) that gets hoarded. I’ll miss the half-books that Ellie is always starting and leaving around, folding little socks and shirts, having kid-sized utensils and cups in our kitchen drawers. I might miss going everywhere with the double stroller. I’ll miss Esme coming in to snuggle in bed with me in the mornings (a few minutes after 7AM, which is when Ellie lets her leave their room, as instructed—who knows when they actually wake up). I’ll miss seeing Elijah rolled up in his security blanket like a burrito, Eric walking across the school field for pickup every afternoon in his baseball cap while holding his bento lunch box in one hand and eating out of it with the other (apparently he doesn’t actually eat during lunch hour). I’ll miss Ellie’s eagerness to go on dates with me and jumping rope all the way to church. I’ll miss how being held can make everything okay when they’re mad or hurt.

There is so much change in these little years. The person they are right now will be gone next year. I suppose it’s the unrelenting immersion of caregiving that obscures that fact, the living in constant streams of multi-tasking. A piece of paper in a nightstand drawer becomes one more task to deal with—when in reality, it’s a time capsule of this moment, a memento of a little girl’s imagination and heart and devotion. It’s good to pause and see that.

Weather

“We would be together and have our books and at night be warm in bed with the windows open and the stars bright.” – Ernest Hemingway

My two closest friends in medical school went to Stanford for undergrad, and all they could talk about upon moving to Boston was how perfect Bay Area weather was, all the time. It became the launching point for explications on all the perfections of California, and after listening to this ad nauseum for years, I’ll admit I became a bit contrarian. I told myself I’d rather be shivering in my down coat in muddy snow under endingly gray skies than raving on arrogantly about the meteorologic supremacy of some state.

Naturally, I married a guy from California and became potentially the first person to move here predisposed to dislike the weather. I like rain (at least the sound of rain as I’m sitting indoors); I love snow (at least fresh snow); I don’t mind the cold. I knew I would miss the vibrant, crisp autumns of the East, and I do. Autumn here feels slightly fabricated—we’re all still going about in our sleeveless shirts in sunny seventy-degree weather in the middle of October, but oh, it must be fall because Trader Joe’s has come out with pumpkin stuff again!

What I’ve grudgingly realized, though, is that the perfection of the weather here really must be experienced to be understood. There’s the 70-degree sunny days, of course. But there’s also the lack of humidity—at resting heart rates, one never sweats here. There are no mosquitos to speak of. There’s the surreal consistency of it all—months and months and months of predictably perfect climes. It’s not a matter of comfort as much as lifestyle. It has done nothing less than transform our existence. We’re outside all the time, bicycling down the streets or visiting the numerous parks that exist every few blocks. It’s easier to exercise; we can grow all kinds of fruits and vegetables; we leave toys outside and open windows and plan outdoor gatherings without a second thought.

But my favorite thing about the weather happens in the evenings, when a bit of East-coast fall descends every day. It turns a bit cooler; you can slip on a cardigan or shawl, sometimes even a cozy sweater. It turns crisp, a bit breezy. There’s nothing quite so pleasant as opening our bedroom windows or lying in a hammock in the dusk.

I think there’s something about humid green landscapes, brilliantly fiery leaves, blankets of snow, and cherry blossoms in the spring, that I will always miss amid this almost foreign perfection. But well, the weather here truly is a radical blessing. It must be lived in to be understood, as I suppose applies to most truths in life. Somehow I have finally come to a point where I can embrace it without losing who I was. I hope I never lose the wonder of living in it. 

Life Balance

We are on the latest iteration of evaluating work-life balance, that place of pressured reflection which comes after a building sense of depletion. The challenges seem greater here, without my parents, with less flexible and more demanding jobs, greater difficulty finding childcare, and the kids’ needs becoming more disparate as their ages now span three through nine—but in some ways the process is still the same.

Assess for burnout: do we have any of the symptoms (exhaustion, lack of motivation, cynicism and dread, resentment and irritability, or helplessness), and have we built in prevention practices (permission and pacing, community, hobby, physical care, spiritual space) or have those fallen by the wayside? Revisit mission and values: how much margin or focus have we lost? Examine our logistical life and emotional and spiritual health: are we spending our energy and time in a way that is consistent with what we say we believe?

This go-round, I’m being convicted that it’s not primarily about balance, aiming for equilibrium by shifting pieces around on the scales. It’s not about juggling, trying to keep all the balls in the air. There is no growth or joy in that, just survival, and as far as I can tell, Paul never describes the Christian life as a calibration—he uses the language of growth. We are a building growing up, he says, and a building always has a foundation, a cornerstone that provides both stability and direction, that lays out the lines of our lives and provides sure support. Logistical adjustments are okay and often necessary, but ultimately returning to rest and health is not so much a logistical calculation as a reorientation of focus. God is not an item on the list of my priorities; he is the list. My marriage is not a bullet on my to-do list; it is the primary earthly relationship from which so much else, including the health of our family, flourishes.

When it comes to foundational things, there aren’t shortcuts. Manufacturing grace and affection for Dave only goes so far if my heart and mind aren’t truly on him. Resisting the temptation to sin in my thought life or how I treat the kids only goes so far if I’m not closely relying on the Spirit and the Bible through daily engagement. Reposturing is an inward, conscious decision to consistently invest in what is most important, not what is most urgent or clamorous. It can require sacrifice, engagement in disciplines, or expending time or money. But once you have the foundation down, you know what direction to build, and you’re not afraid of how heavy it might be.

Self-Care

So “self-care” is a concept around here. Much has been written about it—my favorite article is one in the New Yorker entitled “The Politics of Conspicuous Displays of Self-Care.” Apparently this concept originated from Puritans and Christian thinkers who talked about the cultivation of self and “care for the soul,” which I found intriguing. In the 70’s and 80’s the term was resurrected in the context of defiant social activism, as marginalized groups insisted they mattered and were worthy of care. Interestingly, there was a resurgence of the concept in 2016 post-election as a kind of coping mechanism, then it boomed into something that was marketed. And now, this “collective social practice” is everywhere, including everything from skin care and diets to planners and tattooed aphorisms.

There is a particular brand of self-care in the Bay Area. It’s seated in the cultural ethos: one could see it as a counterpoint to mindfulness. If mindfulness is noticing what is happening around you to more fully experience it, self-care gives you permission to ignore exactly that in the focus on yourself and your feelings. Both are seen as important avenues to the cultural gods of empathy and inclusion: mindfulness because it encourages you to be aware of others, self-care because you can be more compassionate to others when you’ve been so to yourself. As one article put it, “when you endorse yourself as both vulnerable and worthy, especially when that endorsement feels hard, you can grant that same complex subjectivity to others, even to people whose needs and desires are different from your own.”

Self-care also exists here as a kind of response to pervasive anxiety. In a work-hard, play-hard culture, it is the antidote for a lack of natural balance or rest. In the stress that comes from seeking to optimize all options, it becomes another thing to optimize in escaping from that stress. In the struggle for identity and security in a constantly-changing culture rife with better talent, it becomes an avenue for affirmation. Self-care here can also smack a bit of wealthy privilege, as in, let me go “self-care” at Lake Tahoe, or with a custom-made tea, or by hiring a third nanny. 

I have some wariness of self-care as I see it here for some of those reasons, and perhaps ultimately because it evokes an underlying post-millennial cultural current of self-determinism that runs against the gospel. The gospel would say: we can’t determine ourselves; God as creator knows us. We can’t generate our own worthiness; God as savior has shown us. The acts of self-care aren’t where we find our own salvation, but they can be the outworkings of how we worship God. They can be how we live out stewardship of our bodies, spirits, and minds; they can be how we experience and thank God. They can be a liturgy of rest and renewal.

The reality is, I need to learn how to care for myself better. I was raised with what I now realize was an incredibly strong work ethic, plowed through medical training, and now as a mom inhabit a work sphere characterized by regular periods of intensity and no kind of natural break. I need to figure out what Sabbath looks like not just for my family, but for myself. I need to engage in soul-keeping. I need to not feel bad paying for childcare even if I’m not working. And sometimes, I need to paint my nails, get a good cup of tea, or shop for myself. Right now, that just feels like a basic reclamation of my humanness. And that is okay. 

Cultural Engagement

“Worldview is about spectacles, not what you look at, but what you look through. You only stop to examine your worldview, like your spectacles, if suddenly things have gone foggy and you can’t see straight.” – N.T. Wright

I’m always a bit jarred by school culture when the academic year begins. It hits me in not-so-subtle fashion on the first day of school when everyone assembles for an opening ceremony that starts with a Pledge of Allegiance that seems optional—if the barely-audible, dyssynchronous muttering is any indication—followed by a loud and enthusiastic Pledge to the Earth, something about allegiance to the flora and fauna which jumps to world peace. Mothers around me claim they are tearing up and feeling shivers while I suppress a traitorous urge to roll my eyes. And we’re off to a new school year!

There are lots of things I love about our school. It takes the memorization-based, competitive, compulsorily programmatic structure of traditional schooling, and turns it into a problem-solving-based, collaborative, experiential learning experience, complete with an emphasis on growth mindsets, socioemotional skills, and a full-out farm. In short, it is Bay Area elementary educational philosophy at its finest—but the interesting thing to me is how much all of it is steeped in a system of values that is essentially a worldview and religion unto itself. 

It goes something like this: we worship kindness and inclusiveness at all costs; we practice the liturgy of mindfulness through meditation, self-awareness, and yoga; good living is to have zero waste and avoid using gasoline whenever possible. Ellie does mandatory daily eastern-style meditation and regular yoga. Eric hears guest speakers share about every religious holiday except the Christian ones. 

One Christian mom told me she complained to the principal and withdrew her kids from school when she learned they were doing meditation. I understand that impulse, but on the spectrum of protectionistic versus exposure parenting, we’ve chosen to engage the culture with our kids instead of withdrawing from it. Living it out, though, can feel uncomfortable, and involves constant, intentional dialogue. What does the Bible have to say about these topics? What do we fully embrace, what do we participate in but with a different perspective or motivation, and what do we choose to not as fully engage in? Ultimately, how do these world views inform what we functionally believe about our identity, values, and how we live those values out? 

Functionally this looks different for each situation and issue. The kids and I agreed that mindfulness if it means introspective reflection, or awareness of one’s emotions, is a wonderful skill to cultivate and entirely Biblical (in fact, the Bible takes an understanding of the self to new levels); mindfulness if it points solely to a self-help paradigm we may approach more critically. We agreed that meditation if it means filling the mind, posturing the soul, towards God and his word is a valuable discipline; meditation as an emptying of the mind to find centeredness is not (so I slip Ellie verses that she can memorize instead of following the teacher’s meditation instructions). And so on.

Today we were listening to “True Colors” from the Trolls soundtrack in the car, when our four year-old suddenly asked, “Is this true?” I stopped the song and asked him what he meant. “Is this from God?” he clarified. I had to stop and think (so of course, I asked him, “what do you think this song is about?” but he just replied, “I want to know what you think”). And then we had a discussion about identity, love, being understood or not by others, and whether it’s always right to decide what we want to be and let it out, or whether we sometimes don’t if we’re following Jesus and love him first. We decided the song was partly right and partly wrong. He felt it was still okay to listen to it (though by the time we got to that part, we had stopped driving).

I suppose this is the dialogue we should always be having. It’s not about labeling or fear, as much as thoughtful engagement with cultural subtexts. Because everything our kids are exposed to has one. Take Disney, which most Christians automatically label as fine for their kids. Disney movies teach our kids to follow their hearts, to seek individual dream-fulfillment over communal wisdom for self-actualization—is that entirely Biblical? Do we question that, and why not?

Culture is never neutral. But it is often transparent. As a recent transplant, I feel it, and sometimes going to this school feels lonely and jarring, but it’s teaching me to see and be thoughtful more than I ever have before. And somewhere in that is the gospel. Jesus came into the world, after all; he came from an entirely different dimension of reality and functional authority—talk about culture shock! He came to live out inclusivity and kindness and self-insight, ironically, in a way that was completely radical to the culture he lived in. He came to humbly engage. We can do no less.

Choosing Mediocrity

So, our six year-old plays some chess. At least I believe that’s the appropriate humble-brag. The actual-brag would be: he’s a nationally-rated tournament player.

But the truth is something both in-between and more bizarre. When we first moved here, one of the after-school offerings I rolled my eyes at was the K/1 chess class. I didn’t even play chess! Surely only moronically over-optimizing parents would think their five and six year-olds should!

So the first bizarre thing is that Eric plays at all. Dave showed him the game on a random afternoon and he loved it with the same immediate, inexplicable passion that he had for dinosaurs and Star Wars. Soon enough, I knew about PP-on-the-PP (putting pressure on the pinned piece), Bobby Fischer, and Italian openings the same way I knew about the archaeopteryx and Slave I. There I was, picking Eric up from the same class I rolled my eyes at.

But once the school class wasn’t challenging enough and we looked into the local chess world, we discovered something even stranger—that apparently, Eric was nothing remarkable. We discovered droves of serious-looking east- and south-asian parents inhabiting hotel lobbies every weekend with young boys glued to chess puzzles on their iPads, and probably being coached by private instructors when they weren’t playing all-day tournaments. 

Growing up in southern Virginia, it didn’t take much to acquire the reputation of being a “genius”—just taking some accelerated classes, making valedictorian in a class where no one popular wanted to be one, studying instead of going to the local beach. Where we lived, people didn’t necessarily expect their kids to go to college, much less have their eye on Stanford from birth. I wasn’t challenged much by my peers, but standing out was effortless.

In the chess world here, Eric is strictly middle-of-the-road. He easily beats many kids his age, but neither does he ascend in prodigy fashion to the highest level. I began to understand why no one here has four kids—there’s no way I can put him through the rigors other kids at his level go through with three other kids to take care of. We worked out a way for me to take him to afternoon-only tournaments twice a month; he gets some instruction from a teenage boy he likes; and Dave tries to play him when he can (I’ve given up). Today, they had a pretty even game going until Esme came and moved all the pieces around. That’s sort of his chess life: we try to be intentional, without making it too paramount; we try to keep it fun, but encourage his potential; and you never know when your little sister is going to come along and mess up all your pieces.

A friend once said, when it comes to extracurricular activities in the bay area, pick your poison. No one does anything half-way. Around here, people start their kids early, give them the best resources, and work them hard. Woe unto those whose kids start later, or are just in it for fun, and find themselves surrounded by elite peers—at least, that’s how I feel. Take swimming: I was elated to finally find a sport Ellie likes to do. How graceful she looks, I think, sluicing through the water in beautiful form. But the moment I try to find her some kind of regular opportunity to swim, I’m flustered again by the local offerings, swim teams in which kids her age are already working on perfecting their times. The coach took one look at her in try-outs today and consigned her to the non-competitive younger class. 

But as we were leaving the pool, Ellie was so happy. I get to swim for fun! she told me. I don’t have to compete! And I thought to myself: she’s right. That’s what we’re in swim for: giving her a form of exercise she continues to delight in, while maintaining balance in our lives at this stage. Around here, mediocrity is hard to achieve. You have to work pretty hard at it.

Multiliners on Moleskine

Lemons

I was holding Esme today in our back yard when I suddenly noticed a few lemons on our lemon tree. The house had a huge lemon tree that had to be razed down during renovation so we planted a new one, right next to the sunroom window, but I had never noticed any fruit. I turned and saw two green orbs hanging low off our young pomelo tree. Surprisingly, all the fruit trees were alive—apricot, guava, apple—not only alive, but looking pretty good. I still thought of them as the scrawny things we first planted, but they were sturdier now, with plenty of green leaves. 

On the East Coast, the sprinkler systems are above-ground, spraying water in a big, rainbow-catching arc across the entire lawn. In the drought climate here, lawns are rare; our watering system like most is underground. A black tube runs around to each plant, seeping just the right amount of water into their roots invisibly every few days. You never see anything happening, but here are these plants, staying green, even growing, in the dry, brown landscape.

And of course I’m thinking, look at us. Look at me. Here we are, living in a place that a year ago seemed so wrenchingly far from home that it left a void that could never be filled. Some kind of seismic shift in self that I couldn’t quite name. At one point I resented it all, even the weather that made me feel like I was stuck in an annoyingly perfect time capsule.

Someone told me once, people here are like ducks. They look relaxed on the surface, like they’re gliding effortlessly where they want to go, but underneath they’re paddling furiously. Their kids are in the best schools in the country, but they’re constantly worried about whether they’re doing the right activities and being raised in line with the most recent studies. Their jobs are elite, but they feel inadequate, like imposters in a high-pressure culture. They live on land that cost millions of dollars, but bear the stress of remodeling or constantly fixing up the old houses sitting on them. They live within access to amazing venues for food and entertainment, but have to deal with constant traffic and insufficient parking to get there. 

So I thought when I got here, I don’t want any of that. I want to be me, and I want to be it authentically. If I’m struggling, I want to share it. If I’m putting my kid in an activity, I’m going to be intentional and open about it. I don’t want scheduling every minute of our lives to be our default. I want to have an open door. 

And I kept trying to catalogue what I felt was inevitable cultural assimilation. But my list boiled down to mostly material things (own joggers, addicted to boba, carries sunscreen). I couldn’t really capture the subterranean part of it. Sometimes, it felt like swimming against the current, heading upstream against all the other ducks paddling furiously the other way, which required a level of intentionality that was both lonely and draining. Other times, it felt like discovering something that made a part of me open up: stimulating conversations, a new kind of grandeur in nature, a kind of thriving I could see in Dave and the kids. 

But today, I looked at the lemon tree and felt surprised. This is what it’s like. I really don’t feel like I’m paddling desperately under the surface. There is instead a kind of sustenance that is as sure as it is invisible. Somewhere along the way, I stopped resenting the differences here. It became just like following the same God I had always followed, who knows and loves me the same way on any coast. And who still provides what I need to draw from each day. I hardly even saw it until Esme dragged me outside to show me a purported black lizard she had spotted and we found lemons instead.

Bloom Where You're Planted

“Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters… multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare [shalom] of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare… Do not let your prophets and your diviners who are among you deceive you, and do not listen to the dreams that they dream, for it is a lie… For thus says the Lord: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord…”  - Jeremiah 29: 4-11

I’ve been meditating on Jeremiah 29 this week. The context of the chapter is really the entire story of God’s people in the Old Testament: the choosing, the covenants, the deliverance, the journey to the promised land; the judges, the kings, who eventually stopped following God. The strife that led to a split into north and south; bad king after bad king; repeated sin and idolatry despite prophets’ warnings, which eventually led to God’s judgment as the northern kingdom was conquered by the Assyrians and the southern by the Babylonians. 

This was undoubtedly one of the worst points in the story. The land was lost. The temple plundered. The law long ignored. Judgment had come. Those who were not part of the remnant that stayed found themselves forced into life in a foreign land and culture. I think the majority exilic thinking at the time would have been: we’re not where we’re supposed to be. It was not supposed to be like this. Life will be better when we get out, when things change. And false prophets like Hananiah (Jeremiah 28) were promising that very thing: imminent liberation within two years! You’ll get your lands and your king back!

That’s why Jeremiah’s letter is so radical. Generally the Israelites were warned not to co-mingle with Gentiles in whatever lands they were entering; here they were amongst enemies; and lastly they were hoping to get out soon—but Jeremiah says, build and live. Plant and eat. Marry and have kids. They had been told, you’ll be out in two years—but Jeremiah says, it’s going to be seventy. Most of you will die in this place. They probably thought they were seeing the last of the covenant—but Jeremiah says, the story has not ended. There will be restoration, of relationship and shalom and land, so have hope.

We are so much creatures of circumstance and expectation. It’s so easy to think, “my life will be better when…” It’s so hard to be present when we think things may change. It’s so hard to cope when things don’t turn out like we wanted. Depression, withdrawal, or resentment can creep in. I think about Jeremiah’s strange mix of good and bad news. He was basically saying, look, your current circumstances are going to be worse than you were told. But your ultimate future is going to be far better. He was saying, look, circumstances are secondary to relationship. In your worst place, God visits you. His thoughts are towards you. He hears you. Call on him, come to him, find him with all your inner self, all your understanding and will and feeling. You will have hope, not based on circumstantial manipulation, but that is given to you.

I like Jeremiah’s definition of being present. On the one hand, it’s imminently practical. Build, live, plant, eat. Grow families. You can’t do that without living in community, without engaging daily. On the other hand, it’s imminently spiritual. Don’t seek cultural norms and the dreams of the majority. Be intentional about how you define meaning and success. Seek shalom, wholeness, peace and realize that this only comes from God. Be spiritual engaged in prayer. Don’t lose your worldview. 

It’s ironic that verses eleven-on are so often quoted out of context. Interpreted in our individualistic, circumstantially-focused culture, it’s often read in prosperity-gospel, self-deterministic fashion—when in reality, it’s a promise given in community, and preceded by harsh news. The more I read it, the less it seems about fortune, than about a God who is radically faithful. Who keeps all his promises to us solely because of who he is. Who is completely sovereign. Who reached out to a people crushed by circumstances, through a man who had himself suffered repeatedly for the sake of what he believed, to renew a covenant and hope. The same covenant and hope that we have now.

The Humble Surgeon

Cutting into someone’s body requires a certain amount of braggadocio. Everyone wants their surgeon to be confident. There’s no room for simpering vacillation, even though you know much more than the patient how badly it can go. You have to be willing to live with risk and own whatever happens on the table, whether you directly caused it or not. 

But the reality is, part-time surgeons can’t afford braggadocio. There probably aren’t many of us out there, precisely because we are in the rare position of living with a constant handicap. When you work with your hands, cognition only goes so far: there is a degree of proficiency gained by sheer hands-on experience, and in that I will always fall short. I have heard cataract surgeons say they feel it when they take a two-week break—I take breaks that last twelve months. I might be lucky to do as many cases in a month as full-timers do in a week.

And so I find myself walking in this place of conscious humility. I recognize that my surgeries radically improve my patients’ lives, that complications are still the exception, that it is probably good to maintain skills that I invested so much training in. But I routinely struggle with dread and anxiety when operating days approach, and at times those feelings seem to outweigh the pleasure of operating, or spill too much into my home life.

And of course, surgeons don’t like to talk about their fears of complications. Discussing our fallibility is really not done. Someone once said in residency, having a complication is like losing your virginity—you want to get it over with, but you don’t want to get a reputation for it. 

But what I am learning is that it is possible to walk in this place and allow it to make me a better surgeon and person, rather than let it cripple or paralyze me. It’s hard to describe, even harder to do, but I am grasping it more over the years. 

One aspect of walking well in this place is learning how to handle anxiety. It starts with recognizing it, particularly when it spills out in subtle ways like dreams at night or bad moods at home. I then ask myself whether it is pointing me towards any helpful action, and if not, I pray to choose to let it go. What that actually feels like is choosing to believe in God’s sovereignty. In his sovereign goodness, he uses mistakes to help me learn much more effectively than I would have otherwise—or he uses unideal outcomes to work something more important in my patient’s life—but whether I see the reason or not, the fact remains that ultimately, I can’t control everything. And that is okay because I know the God who does. 

Another aspect is learning to measure my empathy. My mind would enter so much into the imagined sufferings of my patients, sufferings directly caused by me, that I would be unable to sleep. Why couldn’t I have a job where a mistake resulted in, say, an incorrectly made cup of coffee, rather than blindness? But I’ve come to realize there is an empathy that is healthy, that leads to compassion and kindness—and there is an empathy that is unhealthy, that conflates and distorts reality. The reality is, all of my patients are informed of the risks they face. The reality is, other jobs bear just as difficult responsibilities. The reality is, I don’t know what my patients’ sufferings entail—nor am I required to bear it for them without boundary. I try to reign in my imagination and pray for them instead, because God is the only one who does know and see their experiences, and he is fully able to bear them.

Sometimes God surprises me. This week, I was struggling with some subconscious anxiety. The night before my surgeries, something nearly magical happened while I was tucking in the kids. It was as if I could suddenly see how precious each of my children were, in a way that pierced through the haze of routine. Each of the kids were particularly sweet in their own way: Esme in her chubby hug and request to be kissed, Ellie in her open talkativeness, Eric in his slow smile, Elijah in his wriggly enthusiasm. I just felt simply that God was telling me, this is worth it. Whatever happens in your work because of the choices you’ve made, this is worth it. And I slept well that night.

Whenever I think about this, I think about Jacob, who encountered God and left with a limp. A limp, but a name. And I think, well, if being a humble surgeon means I have to live with a stronger sense of purpose for what I do, a consciousness of weakness that keeps me from pride or makes me more willing to listen or learn, a constant reminder of my limitations and God’s character—then maybe it’s not a bad thing. 

O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go

“My hymn was composed in the manse of Innellan on the evening of the 6th of June, 1882, when I was 40 years of age. I was alone in the manse at that time. It was the night of my sister’s marriage, and the rest of the family were staying overnight in Glasgow. Something happened to me, which was known only to myself, and which caused me the most severe mental suffering.

“The hymn was the fruit of that suffering. It was the quickest bit of work I ever did in my life. I had the impression of having it dictated to me by some inward voice rather than of working it out myself. I am quite sure that the whole work was completed in five minutes, and equally sure that it never received at my hands any retouching or correction. I have no natural gift of rhythm. All the other verses I have ever written are manufactured articles; this came like a dayspring from on high.” – George Matheson

I have a fondness for hymns (which are great for teaching children; I have BSF to thank for that) and their stories. Our church sang the Robbie Seay Band version of O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go on Black Friday and it became the song that stuck with me through that whole period.

George Matheson was born in 1842 in Glasgow, graduating first in his university class in classics, logic and philosophy. Towards the end of that time he learned he was going blind; his fiancée at the time left him, saying she could not go through life with a blind man. He went on to study for and enter ministry as he had resolved to do, with the help and support of his sister, as by his early twenties he had gone completely blind. In 1866 he became assistant pastor in Innellan, where he wrote several works and became a theologian of some repute.

Matheson wrote this hymn in 1882, on the evening of his sister’s marriage, alone while the rest of the family had gone away. Perhaps he saw the dark years stretching out before him without his companion and helper. Perhaps the wedding reminded him of his own failed engagement. He never did marry, but in 1886 moved to Edinburgh, where he became minister of a church for thirteen years.

O Love that wilt not let me go,

I rest my weary soul in thee;

I give thee back the life I owe,

That in thine ocean depths its flow

May richer, fuller be.

O Light that followest all my way,

I yield my flickering torch to thee;

My heart restores its borrowed ray,

That in thy sunshine’s blaze its day

May brighter, fairer be.

O Joy that seekest me through pain,

I cannot close my heart to thee;

I trace the rainbow through the rain,

And feel the promise is not vain,

That morn shall tearless be.

O Cross that liftest up my head,

I dare not ask to fly from thee;

I lay in dust life’s glory dead,

And from the ground there blossoms red

Life that shall endless be.

When Trouble Comes

“I live to show his power, who once did bring my joys to weep, and now my griefs to sing.” – preacher George Herbert

“For it is you who light my lamp; the Lord my God lightens my darkness.” – Psalm 18:28

For three months earlier this year, I went through a period of emotional depression. I have always had a perennially optimistic disposition, and I am not only not very emotional, but tend to be easily critical of people who are. Dave is equally optimistic and even less moody (he is in a bad mood maybe once a year). Needless to say, this was quite a novel experience for both of us.

The whole thing happened very gradually. Without really knowing how it happened, I came unquestionably to a place where I found myself living with constant sadness and depressed feelings I could not shake. At heart I was lonely and homesick. I think we had strategized for this move for so long, then been so caught up in the logistics of settling in, that I had never really allowed myself to say that I was sad. I missed my parents, my friends. I missed the culture back East. I missed my old sense of self. 

It all sounds kind of inane, almost childish, but it was very real in my feelings, whatever my head thought, and for once in my life my feelings would not be overruled. I cried every day. I never felt like eating much. It felt like a big effort to connect with anyone. I didn’t feel like talking. It was hard to receive advice. I felt insecure about how people perceived me. I recall standing off to one side at a school party one morning, next to the stroller with the younger two, feeling like here I am yet I don’t belong and I don’t feel anyone cares. I remember Ellie coming up to me and giving me a hug while I struggled not to cry. 

I remember Dave asking what he could do one night, while I was lying in bed crying. I asked him to hold my hand and not say anything, and that helped more than anything. I didn’t want any words; I just wanted to feel I wasn’t alone. The fact was, I had lost a part of my life and myself, forever. No rightness of decision or future promise could change that, and no one on either coast could really understand how it felt. And it was something I had to feel, not analyze. It was something I had to walk through in an acutely solitary way, yet it helped to hold someone’s hand.

The most helpful practical advice came from my sister, who sent me an excerpt of When Trouble Comes by Philip Ryken. He talks about how it helped him to keep up outward routines when he was feeling down—to exercise, eat something healthy, be present with his kids, go to worship, share with close friends, ask for prayer, and pray himself. I did those things and in retrospect it undoubtedly helped.

But the main thing that helped was pressing into God. Maybe some people feel at these times like God is distant, but I never felt him closer. Who else truly understood me? Who else had been there through every other change in my life? Who else saw every tear? Only God. 

God showed up for me in the most unexpected of places. One time it was in Leviticus 8. I was reading in a café during lunch break at work, and suddenly I felt like every word about Aaron was about me—being washed with water, clothed carefully, set about with precious stones and a holy crown and anointing oil—it was all some love poem from God, to me. I could have done some inductive analysis about how the office of high priest pointed towards and was fulfilled by Christ who then imputed that to me—but what came through wasn’t cerebral at all. It was just a feeling, a feeling speaking into my feelings, and there I was, crying in public over Leviticus (a first).

Another unexpected place was in a sensory deprivation pod during a balance float (another first). I was praying, which those days meant praying my feelings because I didn’t have much else to say, and I felt filled with an unmistakable sense of security, that my identity was both fully seen by and deeply secure in Christ. I hadn’t even wholly realized until then how insecure I felt about who I was here. Again, it wasn’t some kind of self-generated rationalization: it was a conviction of feeling being given to me, and more than anything, it felt like a release. Coming out of that period happened as gradually as it started, but that moment was as much a turning point as any.

I don’t know if I will ever go through a period like that again—I sort of hope not—but part of what I take away is that emotional low points, sometimes beyond one’s ability to outthink or control, can be a normative part of the Christian life. I will also take away small kindnesses, from close friends and family, Dave and the kids. A God that can speak over and into feelings. The comfort of wordless presence. 

Having It All, Part 2

“For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.” – Philippians 3:8

Every so often I think through the matter of career versus family again. I posted about this six years ago when leaving academia to enter what became a relatively ideal private practice gig, where I was able to work short days, maintain good surgical volume, and have my own cohort of patients. All while working two days per week with a good salary. Benefits of working in a non-competitive, high-need area.

Needless to say, the career landscape is different here—intentionally finding jobs that allow us to prioritize marriage and family has involved taking a lot more career hits. Dave, who was a rising state-wide superstar in public health, only considered jobs that did not involve a long commute, which seriously restricted his options in a relatively specialized field. He’s had to step out of the limelight in some ways and maintain flexibility with job changes. I have found two part-time gigs with amazing flexibility, but have lost surgical volume, autonomy, and having my own patient cohort to varying degrees.

The decisions to take these hits feels different this time around. Six years ago, it felt like a watershed moment. Looking back, the elite academic environment I habituated prior to that was a bubble in which pushing myself to do everything I could to excel was simply assumed. I was constantly surrounded by the ultra-intelligent and insecure about my own abilities, haunted by anxiety and driven by the need to prove myself, to everyone else but also to myself. Coming out of that was nothing less than transformative.

I’ve since realized that ultimately, the answer to how one balances career and family is one with no clear, practical right or wrongs. You can work for the right and wrong reasons, just like you can stay at home for the right and wrong reasons. 

For me, the process has been a progressive realization that the time I spend with the kids while they are young makes a real difference; that the physical, mental and emotional energy I have when I work less releases me to invest in my marriage, my health, in friends and ministry in a way that feels eternally-purposed and personally fulfilling. Somewhere along the line, it stopped feeling like I was giving something up to stay at home, and more like I was giving something up to go to work.

It’s not a process that is totally without angst. When we don’t have great childcare, it’s really hard to work, to be one of many ophthalmologists my patients could be seeing, instead of the only mom that my kids have. Working itself is a walk in conscious humility—not being as immersed in the field as my full-time colleagues sometimes feels like a functional handicap. I have to be willing to ask for help, to not have the same status or office space. Being a part-time surgeon carries its own dilemmas and difficulties.

But overall, considering this question of whether one can “have it all” feels different than it did six years ago. It seems even more fundamentally like the wrong question to ask. For one thing, it’s a query without comparable outcome measures—maybe career success can be measured by publications, promotions, grants, committee and talk invitations—but how does one measure success as a mother? Churning out obedient kids who go to Harvard? Or who go into ministry or missions? Feeling less guilty when you leave the house? Being able to breastfeed, or make school parties?

Parenting, of course, isn’t about achieving self-oriented outcome measures, just as career shouldn’t primarily be about that either I suppose, and so this question actually misses the point. As a believer, life is not about getting what I want, or what I feel I am due, or what compares well to someone else. My desire is not to have it all, but to follow faithfully; my hope is not in career or family achievements, but in the person of Jesus; my decisions are not born of calculation, but of my relationship with Him. And in that relationship, every decision I make for Him is a privilege and joy.

I think this is why Paul can say what he does in Philippians 3. He rattles off a perfect resume—like the Jewish version of “owner of a startup valued for billions” or “all my kids got into Stanford”—and has the gall to say, I count all of that as literally excrement, compared to gaining Christ, compared to knowing and becoming like him. Did that mean he never leveraged his education, eloquence, or pedigree for God? No. Did that mean he never worked in his field of training to earn a salary? No. But he was clear on what life was about. He was clear on what mattered in the end. Be like me, he says. If you’re going to calculate, do it this way. Keep your eyes on what matters.

Family Mission, Vision and Values

“7 in 10 parents say they have an explicit set of values for their family, but less than 3 in 10 have written out that purpose or mission statement.” – Andy Crouch, The Tech-Wise Family

One thing that has been important to our family is coming up with mission, vision and values statements. The idea came up about seven years into our marriage, when Dave mentioned having recently walked his department at work through formulating their mission, vision and values; I had recently listened to a Focus on the Family podcast about doing one for families, and we decided to give it a shot.

The first time we did it, four years ago, it took about half a day. We drove down to the Outer Banks and sat at the Wright Brothers Memorial. To formulate our mission statement, we asked: what is our purpose, what do we want to accomplish in our lives together, for the next five years? For our vision statement, we asked: what is our long-term goal over the next several decades? For our values statement, we asked: what are the shared core beliefs that we’ll always try to reflect while in pursuit of our mission and vision?

For each question, we brainstormed a list of ideas separately and together, then developed or eliminated various ideas until we arrived at the most concise statement possible that encapsulated everything we felt was important. Values often involved a little more give-and-take in finding the ones we both agreed were important, and we tried to keep the list to just a few. 

Three years later, as we faced a move to California and our kids entering a slightly different stage of life, we went through the process again (this time it just took a few hours at the local Barnes & Noble). We incorporated anticipated cultural challenges, our vision for making the move, and individual and family changes in what we valued. Maybe because there has been so much change since the move, we have actually looked back to what we wrote more than ever before, to help us make decisions about how we spend our time, energy and money; what we persevere in praying for; and big and little details of how we live our day. Here is that latest version, which is up on our wall:

Mission

To live counter-culturally and missionally by deepening in unity and enjoyment in our marriage, providing a stable foundation for and investing in the character growth of our children, and intentionally building a committed and genuine community.

Vision

Our home is a place of strength and health that brings hope and blessing to those around us.

Values

Growth: being aware of changing needs and development as individuals and as a family; investing intentionally in inward growth over outward appearances.

Simplicity: maintaining space and margin; being fully present and content

Joy: having a home full of light, fun and hope; enjoyment of our environment and friends

Generosity: giving our time, money and resources; practicing hospitality; engaging in community