Month: December 2009

The only words I caught before our 30 lbs. 3-year old was plopped on my lap at 10:50pm. We’d just finished a movie, and I’d thought were both getting ready for bed the way we do (I stoppin’ by to check NHL scores and glimpse the e-mail, she washin’ her face all proper-like). But Sarah had, mother that she is, peeked in on Addie, who wasn’t feeling well earlier.

Sure enough, it was like holding a human furnace. The thermometer told us “103.7”, which is pretty stinkin’ high from my experience. While I was thinking about what we should do, Sarah was launched in doing things. Cold milk, ice water, and putting our shaky little girl into the tub while I dialed our poor Pediatrician. The fever relented a little.

In retrospect, I’m able to relive those moments with more appreciation…and fear, at the same time.

Holding our fragile, 30 pound, weak and trembling sick daughter in my arms….burning and groaning with fever…I felt without control. I remember being a teenager, or even a young adult…and having circumstances where I felt out of control. I’d take gettin’ dumped/rejected by a girl, or denied a job ANY day, over this feeling. It’s the kind of powerful, compelling fear that brings me as a parent, broken before God….and asking for His help with this whole thing. Scary stuff.

But it’s also amazing. Seriously. This has meaning. Taking care of this little girl, this future young woman, this future woman, this future mother and grandmother….whoa. Encapsulated. Pregnant within this 30 pound 3-year old is a life full of potential, hope, and Future. The infinite number of possibilities I comforted, held, and offered ice water to this evening….whew. And I have three of these girls.

Lord, be with me as I aim to be Faithful to all of the awe that continues to fill this home, and our family….(even when the girl talked about above totally napped so much during the late day/evening that she didn’t want to go to bed at ALL after the above moments. 🙂 )

Those were the words at the end of an important prayer in our family’s life. Many of them, actually, but one in particular for this post. It was the prayer spoken when we moved into our very first house that would become our home. Praying that God would bless it for His Kingdom, and protect it from any kind of evil. That it would be a home, with Christ as a foundation, source, and direction. That the people who enter would sense something different about the very way “existence” happens within those walls, something intangible and from God’s Spirit.

I’ve always been a fan of “thin places” in Celtic traditions. Even with the post-modern movement of de-emphasizing physical locations and the “holiness” of places or objects. Not that I believe my house is a thin place, but I believe in the power of prayer, and consecrating something to God’s use…setting it apart as “Holy”.

The question I’ve been thinking about/praying about lately, is when and how this topic collides with a virtual world. Personal computers and laptops are a bit like “spaces” that we spend a lot of time these days. Especially when we bring the aspect of the “internet” and the fact that you can “visit” other people’s “spaces”, and even spend time “with other people” in those spaces.

Unfortunately, Augustine, Luther, Wesley, and even NT Wright haven’t done much writing on the topic of God making virtual locations “Holy”. Maybe I’m missing it, but there doesn’t seem to be much theology worked out on God’s “virtual” (online) presence, or interaction. Maybe that’s okay, because this is all silly nonsense.

And yet…I pray. I enter the page you’ve created….your “space”, and see how you’ve decorated it. What you’ve “hung on the walls”. What words you’ve given to those who visit. I visit your facebook, and pray. I visit your myspace, and pray. I visit your blog…& pray. Not only for you, your family, your life….but also for that page. For your interactions with it. For those who visit it. That God’s presence would collide with that “space”.

Again..maybe it’s all silliness. But I guess my faith is that if God doesn’t function in a non-existent “virtual” space….then He’ll understand the heart of such prayers is for His presence in your life. And my own life. Perhaps using social networking tools that offer to cheapen relationships and deteriorate the very fabric of actual human interaction, as a participatory and active way of staying involved in what would normally be a list of names to pray over. To be praying as we move through the virtual spaces of others, for their lives and beyond. May God offer redemptive interactions with these things and more….