Blue Like My Sweatshirt

Two amazing things--no, three that happened to me, or about me, or just happened. No fault of my own. I certainly didn't earn them.
1. I got to have breakfast with an amazing man whom I truly admire and respect. I got to receive his wisdom and share a little of who I am.
2. I had a great visit with my dad.
3. I participated in an interview for an upcoming DVD How Divorce Changes Childhood. I hope it will be released this year.

This morning as I sat and listened to Donald "Not the Rock" Miller, http://www.donaldmillerwords.com/ speak about the evolution, or de-evolution, of the Church since the time of Christ (I believe this CD will be available at www.willowcreek.org/seeds.asp ), I thought, "How simple." How revolutionary his illustration of how our job as Christ-followers was to reunite orphaned or separated children to their father. Hmmm. He even went so far as to compare it to a dating service: setting people up on a blind date with God. Too much sales pitch scares off the potential "daters."

He said that if he were the devil, he'd do two things. First, give really weird people a T.V. ministry. Second, make Christians fight people on CNN. That way all of us look like racists, bigots, and hypocrites. We owe a lot of people an apology . . .



Ben Wilcox

Systemic Abandonment

"Twenty-five percent of the people polled in a recent national inquiry into American morality said that for 10 million they would abandon their entire family; a large number of people are evidently willing to do the same thing for free."
Stephanie Coontz, The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap


Are we abandoning our children and adolescents? In the very acts many parents to take to involve their kids in activities that will "build character," in the school systems that assign students hours and hours of homework (in addition to long sports pratices, clubs, extracirricular activites, all in the name of preparing them for the "real world"), in the fragmented family structures that have resulted from adults taking advantage of 'no-fault' divorces, in the labels we so readily assign to those kids who 'can't cut it'---'aren't athletic'---'are slow'---'are too sensitive,' in the insistence that kids find a job while still in school, in stretching them beyond their developmental capabilities to make us feel like we are really providing a great childhood and 'all the things we never had,' in all of these things and more, is society robbing kids of their childhood?

Thanks to the book Hurt, by Chap Clark, it's clear to me that so many things we do for kids may actually be for us---not them. The oversimplified result of his studies is that our act of being there: providing a safe, consistent, and loving physical presence in our kids' lives, is the best thing we can be doing.

"We have evolved to the point that where we believe driving is support, being active is love, and providing any and every opportunity is selfless nurture. We are a culture that has forgotten how to be together. Rather than being with children . . . or setting them free to enjoy semi-supervised activities such as 'play,' we as a culture have looked to outside organizations and structured agendas to fill [children's] lives. The systemic pressure on American children is immense. Too many of us actually enjoy the athletic, cultural, or artisitic baby-sitting service provided by those paid by the organizations. Even with the best of intentions, the way we raise, train, and even parent our children today exhibits attitudes and behaviors that are simply subtle forms of parental abandonment."

I think instead of conveniently changing the definition of the word family as often as we'd like to suit our dynamically selfish needs, more could be done to see to the real problem with today's youth. They feel lonely, unlistened to, and left on their own to figure out the way life is supposed to work. They feel used and manipulated by the very adults who may be behind the wheel of the minivan they are sitting in.
Ben Wilcox

A Timely Re-run

The Postmodern Prodigal

He just had to get out,
Couldn’t take it anymore;
He was finally gonna see
What this big world had in store.

Life so far had thrown him
Nothing but curves—
He was set to be out from under
& Get what he deserved.

Responsibility and restrictions,
Curfews no more—
Time to sow a few oats;
Life so far: a bore.

Taking only what was his
He walked out the door.
He never looked back—
Never thought all he had left was “more.”

Now years later,
His ‘more’ meant much less.
Could he ever go back?
Face to face, he must confess:

That he’d run away from life’s best;
He’d bought an empty dream.
Sometimes the grass
Isn’t as green as it seems.

“Would they have me back?”
He wondered aloud.
“My family I’ve abandoned and
I’ve been chasing a cloud.”

“I gave it all up:
Love, family, and grace;
I don’t deserve to have
My kids see my guilty face.”

“Please Lord, help me if you can
Make a way for me—
I’ve blown it:
I am the Prodigal Dad.”


Ben Wilcox