Suitable Enough

            Math has never been my strong suit.  Neither have cards or fashion.

            Long before math phobia could claim me, I believed in the mystery of numbers.  As a first-grader, I took a field trip to a second-grade classroom.  Concentrating hard on a subtraction worksheet, I deduced that all the problems mysteriously led to zeros.  Thus, I should not have been stunned later to see a big “zero” on the top of the page:  there is nothing like getting all the answers wrong, in spades.

            My sister and I could while away long afternoon hours as our own canasta club.   What I loved about the game was having so many cards in hand.  I liked arranging them in ascending order according to suit and fanning them out expertly in my hand.  The rules I do not recall.

            One of my more memorable grade school fashion moments involved a pair of jeans and a short length of rope.  I threaded the rope through my belt loops and knotted it tight, imagining my ramrod-straight, grade-school self to now resemble a big-hearted TV star:  the curvy Elly May Clampett of The Beverly Hillbillies.

            “What do all these silly stories add up to?” you may well ask.   In my best pedagogic fashion, I will counter your question with my own:  “What do you think?”  That at least gives me a moment to concoct my own answer—which, to be truthful, revealed itself to me sometime between the opening line and The Beverly Hillbillies. 

It seems that my writing process provides the most suitable answer:  I started with a pun—and no idea where I was going.  But, as I thought and wrote, I found myself in pursuit of details that eventually led somewhere, for me at least:  I am a connect-the-dots type, not a big-picture person.  It’s up to you to figure out which suit is missing.

Simon Says

            I don’t want to be like Simon.  (No offense intended to anyone named Simon out there.)   

             Remember the game Simon Says?  One person plays Simon and the rest discern which orders to follow.  “Simon says, ‘Clap your hands’” demands a different response than “Clap your hands.”  When Simon says it, you do it.  But when he doesn’t, you don’t.  The trick to staying Simon is being quick and authoritative; catch those followers off guard.  The trick to becoming Simon is to pay very close attention; never make a mistake.  I don’t believe I ever lasted long at being the Simon sayer or the Simon follower.

            But I digress.  That is not the Simon of whom I’m thinking.  Simon the Pharisee is the one.  Simon of Luke 7:36-50.

            Now, before you get impressed that I can name a Pharisee with the relevant chapter and verses, let me tell you the truth:  I didn’t put the two together myself.  As I was reading The Fitting Room:  Putting on the Character of Christ by Kelly Minter, her statement about Simon grabbed my attention.  After she quotes the Luke seven saga of the woman washing Jesus’ feet with her tears followed by expensive ointment applied with her hair, Minter tells a personal story about learning forgiveness.  And then comes the clincher that pulled me out of my comfy recliner on this chilly Sunday afternoon to write, I don’t want to be like Simon.  Minter writes, “The main reason Simon the Pharisee couldn’t understand why Jesus forgave that sinful woman’s sin (or even had the power to forgive her) was because he was totally unaware of his own sin, his own need for forgiveness” (83).

            I have spent way too much of my life being Simon, unaware of my sin.  As the younger sister, I learned early to do what my elder sibling said.  And she didn’t even have to say “Simon says.”  The consequences of disobedience to her childish whims were painful.  Oops, wait a minute.  Wrong Simon again.  It’s way more comfortable to cast my sister as the Simon sayer than to cast myself as the Simon Pharisee.  So back to the subject.

            Who wants to admit being a self-righteous snob?   I had the good girl veneer polished so well I saw my outward reflection instead of my inner self.  The stain of sin was worked right into the grain and I couldn’t even see it.  I enjoyed looking for rough wood chips in people around me without noticing the varnished logs I carried around myself.  (Oh, my.  I seem to have wandered into Sermon on the Mount territory now.)

            The clearest illustration I can think of my “Simonness” has nothing to do with wood metaphors even if they were spoken by Jesus.  Instead, it involved a walk around the low-income townhouse complex where we lived.  I was leading the exemplary life of a young wife and mother committed to her legalistic faith:  I was following all of the rules very well.  On that particular day, my prayer uncannily resembled that of another Pharisee (the reference for which I need to look up in my concordance).  It went something like this, infused with smugness:  “Thank You, God, for my life.  Everything is going so well.  I’m such a devoted wife and loving mother.  I know none of us are perfect, but I’m pretty close.  By the way, if there is any sin in my life that I cannot see, I’m asking you to show it to me so I can repent and continue being wonderful.”  (Okay, I’ll admit I’ve embellished that prayer, but all in the name of illustrating my Pharisaic posture.)

            So I asked, and let me just tell you straight out that I received.  A lot.  Over the course of the twenty-nine years between then and now, I have learned more about my utter need for God’s grace than I wanted to know. 

            Sometimes, though, Simon wants to return.  I know he is lurking up on me when I start obsessing over someone else’s sin, when I start focusing on someone else’s faults, when self-righteousness starts wagging its finger at everyone but me, when I stop listening and start issuing commands.

            Okay, so I guess I don’t want to be like either Simon.  I don’t want to play the Simon game, and I don’t want to be the Simon Pharisee, who as Kelly Minter says, “didn’t love the Lord because he’d never let God forgive him.  He saw no need for it” (85).   I’d rather be the woman worshipping at Jesus’ feet, utterly grateful for all he has forgiven me.

Waking Up

            Prayer for each other in groups of three or four is how we begin session.  (“Session” is the Presbyterian term for “board of elders.”)  I wasn’t sure what I needed last night, but faith versus worry over my children seemed a timely request since I had spent part of the afternoon worrying over my son’s situation, my daughter’s short supply of stamina, my son-in-law’s lack of sleep, and my grandson’s bout with stomach flu.

Today, getting my second start on the morning with a second cup of coffee, I sat in my recliner and opened up a devotional book from my daughter-- Espresso for a Woman’s Spirit:  Encouraging Stories of Hope and Humor by Pam Vredevelt.  I have only read the first two chapters so far;  thus, I turned to chapter 3:  “The Gift of Faith.”

            I was most of the way through the reading before my sleepy brain caught up to God’s little surprise:  “Why, this is what I asked for last night!”  New light on an old subject—faith versus fear—brought me comfort.  And it was enough to wake me up.

Father, how often I fret instead of trust.  Thank You for reminding me to put my faith in You.

Driving

            In the dream, I am driving.  Sometimes it is dark; sometimes it is rainy; but always I cannot see out the windshield.   All my senses scream that this is dangerous, but somehow I have not caused an accident yet.  I am afraid someone will be hurt by my blind driving, but there is no way out.  I am helpless to stop the vehicle or to pull over out of harm’s way. 

            All at once, the solution appears.  I notice the white line along the outer side of the lane.  I can see that white line when I look to my right through the passenger side window, though I still cannot see ahead.  It seems a strange way to drive, but as long as I watch the white line, I can steer by it and stay safely on the road. 

            Today as I drove the twenty winding highway miles to church, I understood this dream as an analogy for life.  I never have been able to imagine, let alone see into, the future.  Yet somehow days turn into weeks and months and years, and I still travel along the highway.  The white line is the Word, Jesus Himself.  I may not know what turns my life will take, but as long as I keep my eyes on the line I will drive and arrive safely home.