Is yo momma rich?

A couple of weeks ago, a group from our church went to the 'hood and set up a snow-cone stand and a grill and gave out hot dogs and hamburgers, cold water, snow-cones, and conversation to anyone who wanted any of it.  My son was among the group and came home telling me about his conversation with some of the kids who came around.  He said one little boy was really cute.  Their conversation went something like this:

Boy: Hey. Whacha doin?

Bradyn:  I'm texting my mom.  I'm telling her about when I'll be home.

Boy:  Oh. She give you that phone?

Bradyn:  Yeah, she did.

Boy:  Oh. You play football?

Bradyn:  No.  But I like it.  I play guitar.

Boy:  Oh.  You gotta guitar?

Bradyn:  Yes.  I have three guitars.  Do you play guitar?

Boy:  No.  But I like it.  Yo momma buy you dem guitars?

Bradyn:  Yes.  Do you go to school?

Boy:  Yeah.  I go to Huddle.  Where you go?

Bradyn:  Well, I'm homeschooled.

Boy:  Homeschooled. What's that mean?  Yo momma teach you?

Bradyn:  Yeah.  Some of it.  Then another lady teaches me some stuff, too.

Boy:  Another lady teaches just you?  Nobody else?

Bradyn:  Yes.

Boy:  Is yo mamma rich?

Bradyn (laughing):  Oh, no!  Not even a little bit!  It's a little complicated.  But we aren't rich at all.

Boy:  Sounds to me like you be rich.

I have heard sermons about it all of my life.  Dogging the rich, young ruler who valued his wealth more than following Christ.

Sitting in judgment from the pew, from behind pulpits, from a disconnected, third-party stance--he wears the black cape, rides the black horse, has the foggy shroud--he is the bad man, the antagonist of the story line--he is the object of the tsk, tsk clucking of our self-righteous tongues as we think that if it would have been US, we would have had eternal perspective and would NEVER have made that choice.

The sermon ends and we are asked to respond to what we have heard, and we kneel or go forward, we cry, we ask God to please show us what to do, we vow within ourselves to give more in the missions offering, we briefly, fleetingly wonder what it would be like to live overseas or to work with the homeless or to be known as the friend of the 'hood, but know that is IMPOSSIBLE and that makes us a little sad. 

We may go one step further and consider leaving our homes, our families, our security--but only for a few minutes because we rationalize that it wouldn't be fair to our families, to our children, to our parents. It's not realistic...and that makes us a little sad, but we can do all we can from here and then we tell someone to save us a place at the restaurant, we'll be there in a few minutes.

Besides that, WE aren't rich.  The guy in the Bible was rich.  Really rich.  That sure isn't me. We know tons of people who have more than we do.  THEY are the ones who are rich.  We don't even think about the people in our churches in Asia or Africa who pray for their bowl of rice to come every morning.  Whose teeth are rotting because of the bad water they drink and whose children die young because of no medical care. We have no concept of a grass or tin roof that totally disintegrates when it rains.

My only answer to that is that if you are reading this on your computer or iPhone or iPad, you're rich. Don't compare yourself to Mr. Fancy Neighborhood.  Compare yourself to some of the ones I know who are praying for rice and shoes and some medicine right this minute.  You're rich.

Matthew 19.  He asked Jesus what to do. Jesus told him to sell what he had, give it to the poor, and follow Him.  He considered it, maybe prayed a few minutes, thought about his family, his home, his security...and was so very sad because it just wasn't realistic for him.  He really, really wanted to respond to the GO!  But the odds were stacked against him and that made him so sad.  So, he slowly walked away.

I know exactly what happened.  Because I watch people walk away with him every week.  I have walked with him, too.

I am the rich, young ruler.

Are you?

Thoughts from the Chair on the Sabbath

The concept of the Sabbath is something that has been gnawing away at my spirit for a long time.  Eating at it, picking at it, cropping up when I'm very, very busy doing the Lord's work...

Not Sunday.  Not the day of worship and work...the hardest day of the week...the one at which we sigh in relief when it finally comes to an end...the day of measuring for Christians...not that.  


Sabbath.  The concept which is referenced in the Ten Commandments.  The premise upon which God himself operated when creating Creation.  You know...the one which is outdated, out-of-fashion, irrelevant, not cultural.


This is a nice little thought provoker I recently ran across.  Ponder it a second before you hurry on to the next...thing.


If there is no Sabbath- no regular and commanded not-working, not-talking — we soon become totally absorbed in what we are doing and saying, and God’s work is either forgotten or marginalized. When we work we are most god-like, which means that it is in our work that it is easier to develop god-pretensions. Un-sabbathed, our work becomes the entire context in which we define our lives. We lose God-consciousness, God-awareness, sightings of resurrection. We lose the capacity to sing “this is my fathers world” and end up chirping little self-centred ditties about what we are doing and feeling.

The Most difficult command to keep, a most difficult practice to cultivate. It is one of the most abused and distorted practices of the Christians life. Many through the centuries have suffered much under oppressive Sabbath regimes. And more than a few of us have been among the oppressors.

Thoughts from the Chair

Here is the chair:

Why this chair?  Well, because it just happens to be the most comfortable one at the moment.  And having been sidelined unexpectedly by a torn calf muscle 14 days ago, I have been spending way more time than I have wanted to in this chair.  I've been very creative in dreaming up ways to occupy my time.  I have:

• read a LOT on my Kindle
• paid bills on my computer
• played Boggle on my iPhone
• worked overtime Facebooking and Twittering
• found new templates for my blogs
• prayed
• read the Word
• made out all my Christmas lists
• watched a documentary about the Holocaust
• listened to millions of songs on iTunes
• finished my taxes for 2008
• caught up on conversations with my children and husband.  (However, I still have lots to talk about with them.  Won't EVER get caught up on that!)
• thought.  And thought.  And thought.  About lots of stuff.

Some of those thoughts I will share.  Here.  Others you will never know about.  :-)


So, my blogs may come closer together in the next few days.  I still have quite a bit more down time in this chair.  And a lot more thoughts.  Stay tuned...