Adoption v. Abandonment: Court is now in session.

There is a hard to quantify, yet hard to deny reality that the spirit world operates something akin to mathematics at times. Truth works no matter how you approach the equation. X is elusive, yet it is the glory of kings to search it out. And for every positive action or number, there is an equal and opposing reaction.

We are seeing that play out in a very real, very tragic way.

The prophet Malachi delivered an oracle from God describing the time nearing the end of days:

Malachi 4:5,6
Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD. And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.

We may not agree on what the great and dreadful day of the Lord means in specifics, but most of us agree that a) today isn’t it and b) it’s closer today than it was yesterday. In light of those two points, it would do us all well to take a long, hard look at the things God says are to come.

One of the positives to come will be a great adoption movement – figurative and literal – as the hearts of the generations turn 180 degrees to face one another and the church rediscovers a wholeness lost long ago.

Not many years ago, people primarily adopted because they were unable to conceive. That’s no longer the biggest reason. Increasingly, I’m meeting people who are adopting for more proactive, spiritual reasons – as prophetic declarations of God’s heart for children. I believe is a foreshadowing of Malachi’s promise.

Of course, there is a negative reality as well. Even as the church discovers the spirit of adoption, there is a radical display of child abandonment happening in Nebraska. Not long ago, Nebraska instituted a Safe Haven Law, promising clemency to anyone who, unable to care for a child, would surrender them to a hospital or police station.

The thought was they would safe a number of infants from poor care or abuse. Never in their wildest dreams did they expect what would happen next. Rather than infants being delivered to hospitals by teen parents, children as old as seventeen are being flown across the country and dropped off by parents who are at their wits end as to how to deal with them.

In the past few days alone, three teenagers and a five year old were brought from as far away as Miami, Florida by four different parents. In one case, a 17 year old girl and her 14 year old brother were dropped at an Omaha hospital. When the girl figured out what was happening, she ran way, preferring to face the world on her own than in state custody. Her brother did not go with her. It’s hard to tell who got the better deal.

State lawmakers are in shock. “Please don’t bring your teenager to Nebraska,” Gov. Dave Heineman told CNN. “Think of what you are saying. You are saying you no longer support them. You no longer love them.”

There’s no way to tell the conditions from which these kids may be being spared. In some – if not most cases – they actually may be better off in a foster home. I can’t imagine a child living long term with an parent who would prefer to abandon them.

That being said, the greater issue is what this says about our culture. Kids are commodities, not responsibilities. Parenting is a magazine, not a life of sacrifice. When it gets hard, help is only as far away as Nebraska.

Good God, what have we become.

The church must embrace these kids and thousands of others with spiritual and temporal adoption. It will not be pretty, easy, or fun. It will be obedience. They are not the prom queens or football stars we thought we would raise…but their reception by the body of Christ will be the barometer of what will come.

Hear the words of the prophet, and the warning therein.

And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.

Didn’t feel that one coming.

I’ve often mentioned my overall disdain for television. For a hundred reasons, we kind of checked out of TV land about ten years ago, and every time I peak back in, I find a reason to cringe. I’m only saying that to point out the unlikeliness of what’s happened.

I have been binge-watching the canceled CBS series Jericho during the twins’ late night feeding. By bing-watching, I mean four times a week or so, although I will admit to one or two nights of watching a two-fer. Don’t panic, it can’t last forever. They only produced two seasons of the show.

This is especially odd given that about a year ago I watched an episode from season two out of context and immediately pronounced it dumb. Don’t get me wrong – I still don’t think of it as great television. The acting can be bad, but the storyline is intriguing. Essentially, the US is victim of a mass nuclear attack. The plot follows the small, Kansas town of Jericho and how they deal with the aftermath.

All that to say that last night, I watched a scene that hit me far differently than I would have expected. In this particular episode, Johnston Greene, former mayor of the town and patriarch of the Greene family, is shot in a gunfight with a rival town and later dies on a friend’s kitchen table with his two grown sons at his side.

His boys, in their early 30′s, are stereotypical – the good, dull son who stayed in Jericho and the younger, exciting, slightly bad-boy who returned to redeem himself by knowing the ways of war. Together, these three pulled off one of the most touching death scenes I’ve ever watched. What surpised me, though, was not their emotions – it was my reaction.

My dad died when I was 28 years old. Knowing full well it was coming, I stood at the foot of his bed and watched the heart monitor flat line. I clearly remember telling Kelsey “I’m too young to not have a dad.” Thirteen years later, I still feel that. I miss him every day.

Under normal circumstances, upon seeing this scene, I’d relate to the sons…their emotions, their pain, their loss. Unexpectedly, last night, watching there on the couch with a daughter in arms, I found myself relating to the dying father.

In saying his goodbyes, he grabbed his younger son’s hand and whispered “I was too hard on you. I was…too hard on you, son.” His dying words – the most intentionally chosen of any man’s life – reflected a tenderness and very real pain.

It’s interesting that in this case, almost no one would say “I wish I would have been harder on you. I wish I would have punished you. I wish I would have whipped you into shape.”

“I was too hard on you.” That was his dying emotion…the sum of all feelings regarding his son.

I swallowed hard and relived a few scenes of my own in my head.

We’re all living out our death scene, in some respect. Admit it. We’re dying. Now or later, we’re dying. Why would we talk one way now and another later?

I looked at my boys differently this morning. I know what I want to say to them, and I don’t want to wait to say it. It”s far less harsh than it would be if I were going to live in this state forever.

Amish Law and Order

In the criminal justice system, the people are entertained by two separate yet equally important groups: the Amish, who presume their own guilt, and the cows, who wear the RFD’s.

These are their stories.

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From the Wired Blog

The Bush administration on Thursday urged a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit brought by a group of Amish farmers in Michigan claiming RFID chips required on cattle “are a mark of the beast.”

The Amish farmers claim Michigan regulations requiring them to use radio frequency identification devices on their cattle “constitutes some form of a ‘mark of the beast’ and/or represents an infringement of their ‘dominion over cattle and all living things’ in violation of their fundamental religious beliefs,” according to the farmers’ lawsuit (pdf) filed in September in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

read it all here