Progressive Means Going Back

When we discover that our plans and ideas won't work, what do we do to find out where we went wrong? We backtrack. We go back to the beginning. C.S. Lewis stated in Mere Christianity, "We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress is doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive." Doesn't that fly in the face of what we usually think progressive means?

"Progressive" reminds me too of C.S. Lewis' vision of heaven in his book The Last Battle. This book is the last book of the Narnia series. In it, the end of Narnia comes and all of the kids who've been its kings and queens throughout the series end of in Narnia-heaven. They watch the complete destruction of Narnia, from stars to earth to utter blackness. They watch Aslan create the new Narnia - one that's somehow more real than the old, even though it has the same hills, trees, and waterfalls. Aslan calls to them, "Come further in! Come further up!" When they get to the center, a garden high up in the mountains, they find that there's a new and bigger Narnia inside the garden, as if Narnia were starting all over again.

Perhaps we think of progressive as moving on to something NEW and better, but when we say progressive, what we really want is something more pure, more holy, better, more fullfilling, and more meaningful than what currently exists.

Sometimes being progressive means moving back to the past. Understanding what women, men and marriage are supposed to be means going back to the past before the first big mistake. When we go back and look at the first marriage, what do we see that God wants for all of us?

Other times, progressive means moving farther into the truth, because instead of being more confining, when we get to the heart of a truth, it opens the world up in a way that makes it larger than before. For example, when we women learn to stop controlling our lives, our spouses, and our kids through our fear-filled attempts to protect ourselves from hurt, we give the control to God. Instead of ending up with less, we end up with more. When God holds the reigns, we discover that we've been limiting ourselves. God created each of us to be so much more than we're living in. It's like driving a car that goes 250 miles an hour around a race track at 30 miles per hour. We're not living in our full potential. I long to live the life of joy and strength that God offers me - if only I can stop grasping for control of my life.

Adoption Party

I went to an adoption party with my kids today. Jennifer, friend I've known since I was 2 years old (she was three), went to China last year. She fell in love with a little girl who will be coming to the US soon as her daughter.

The church she goes to has supported interracial adoption since I was a kid. They just love kids! Two years ago they opened an orphanage in Africa for kids whose parents had died of AIDS. Most of the kids have AIDS too. Several of the couples who are nearing retirement age are planning on retiring to Africa to live at the orphanage and help raise these kids. Thanks to this child-loving church, these kids have a future. In the last link, you can see a picture of the Cooney family, the first family to begin adopting interracially at the church and paved the way for "rainbow families" to blossom in the congregation.

When I went to the adoption party, there were about 10 women there and 4 of them brought adopted daughters from China (others had adoped children from China and elsewhere who are older and were in school during the party). Of course, it's only Chinese girls (not boys), because of the preference of girl children over boys in that culture.

My husband and I plan to adopt children in a few years when ours are a little older. Not because we can't have children, but because we find that the more love we give away, the more love we have inside our own hearts.

May the Lord blossom the love in your heart today.