February 2022 – Paul's Blog

The Box on the Board

I once had a teacher do the following.

At the start of class, he walked silently to the board. He slowly drew two parallel horizontal lines, and then connected them into a rectangle with two vertical lines. (By this time, we were all quiet, watching.) He then asked us a question: “What do you see?”

Every answer tried to describe what he had drawn. A box? A TV? A picture frame?

After some time, his response to us was: “Why are you all only talking about these four lines? My question to you was ‘what do you see?’ You could have chosen anything in this whole room, yet you are all fixated here.”

He was right. He had never told us to describe or even look at the rectangle.

The point of the exercise has stuck with me: we allowed what he drew on the board to corral our thinking, to limit our vision and conversation. And this led to the even more important question: how, outside of the class, do we unreflectively allow our vision to be limited?

If we allow [insert dominant cultural narrative] or [insert news outlet] or [insert social media platform] or [insert cultural turf battle] to frame our thoughts, it will surely limit how we see and think and live.

Relying on outside sources of information is, of course, inescapable, but it is always worth it to consider how a given source corrals the conversation and might get us stuck in an unproductive pattern.

Every day, we can choose to get unstuck by choosing a wider frame and starting a new conversation.

The Capacity for Paradox

A paradox is a statement that seems at first consideration to be self-contradictory but, when lived into, can reveal an exquisite truth.

That desire can lead to pain, but also is the heart of a vocation.

That children can both raze and resurrect the life of a parent.

That I have to be ok being alone in order to be free to love another.

And the big one: That life can spring from death. (That is, that the cross is our hope.)

I find that the people who are capable of living with paradox are able to live with extraordinary love. Let’s pray for this capacity every day.

Endurance and Finesse

I love the Olympic biathlon. Skiers negotiate a grueling cross-country course and, at varying levels of exhaustion, must stop and take aim at a tiny target that sits half a football field away.

It is a brilliant challenge of two aspects of physical excellence: endurance and finesse.

That is to say, it is like parenting. A parent, like a biathlete, must develop endurance. (The job is never done, really.) And, while quite tired, the parent must be able to switch gears in a moment to attend gently, care tenderly, or deeply consider a deep, unbidden inquiry.

Let’s pray for parents to have the grace to develop both capacities generously.

No More Days

One Saturday afternoon some months ago, our five-year-old and I were doing puzzles. Then, with a wild non-sequitor, he said something I will never forget.

He asked: “Papa? What happens when we have no more days?”

Assuming (correctly) that he was asking about death, I evaded awkwardly. “You mean…like… when we have no more days in the weekend? When Monday comes? Or no more days in this house? Like when we move back to the US?

I felt panicked. I could think of nothing to say.

He was thoroughly (and appropriately) underwhelmed.

I surely failed to answer his inquiry that day. He has, though, asked at other times and in different ways. My answer has slowly improved.

And as he asks these questions, I consider the life I want to live before I have no more days. I pray that my “lived answer” to this challenge is improving also.

Our son’s questions focus my mind and my guts on the things of ultimate importance, one more way in which he has been God’s grace to me.