Nathan James Keisling

Few women are more qualified than my daughter to raise three sons, since she helped raise three brothers.

And now my firstborn has her third born, all of them boys. Nathan Keisling joined the clan two weeks ago today as grandchild number seven. According to his grandmother he is a beautiful baby.

And so he must be. Katie has been always quite sparing in her appreciation of appearance. She doesn’t think all babies are beautiful, not even her own. Some of them look like prunes or birds, and she has always been willing to tell me so.

So, if she says this is a beautiful boy I believe her. (She is in Tallahassee visiting the new born, which I haven’t held yet.) But there is something beautiful about the idea of a baby and the reality of a baby, however. And we delight in the marvel of it all.

He is also quite alert and active, she says. And well he should be. Boys are competitive and already he is having to stand his ground against two brothers. We could argue about nature vs. nurture, but for whatever reason boys are more aggressive. And Meg has her hands full.

So here is my short list of tips for raising boys, with no claim at all that I actually managed to do it myself.

Don’t keep score. Bigger, better, faster, newer—these things matter to boys. Winning is important. Status is important. One of the things I said to my sons over and over again is that you don’t always have to keep score. Our job is to teach the particulars about what is wisely left unmeasured or uncounted. We don’t have to teach them to be competitive. We do have to teach them to be gracious.

Do touch them. All kids compete for attention, regardless of gender. But boys tend to need a different kind of attention, more focused and in fact more physical. And this touching is not all roughhousing, which has its place but often reinforces the weakness we must overcome.

It was our oldest son who once took his mother’s face in his hands and turned her toward him. “Look at me, mommy,” he said. We have to work at physically touching our sons, something we do more naturally with girls. And we have to remember the boys are counting. (See status above.)

Do be firm. This is not just because boys tend to be more competitive. It’s because they are bright but fallen creatures who want to be in control. Those who seek authority must understand authority, however, and this best happens by being under authority.

Few things in the world are as sad as an undisciplined young man. Raising sons (or daughters, for that matter) is the business of making and enforcing boundaries. Over and over again. Reinforcing these boundaries is a thankless, exhausting and endless task. But the reward is respectful children who find safety in our consistency and maturity in our example. We give them direction before we give them choices. We give them examples before we give them instructions.

We do all this by pointing to an authority higher than ourselves. It’s not nearly as important that our children obey us as it is that they obey God. We are mere stewards and our work is to teach them God’s ways and engage them with God’s heart. To do this we must ourselves know God’s heart and rest in his mercy.

We must also rest in a peaceful home, even if it’s filled with boys.

I’m praying for John and Margaret, as I do for all my children, that they will seek to know the heart of God, not merely his commands. And I’m praying that they will have wisdom and joy in raising this new and precious child Nathan and his two smart and handsome brothers Timothy and Andrew.

And I’m praying for Nathan too, that he will know the limitations of keeping score, the assurance of love and the security of gracious authority. And most of all, I’m praying that he will find his place in the Kingdom of God, as a free and obedient son, an heir of the grace that is found in Christ Jesus.

Thanks be to God for the potential of this child.

Which in this case is East Tennessee.

I’m actually a fifth generation Floridian, and there is something comforting about being there. The stars seem properly aligned, and the smells of citrus and salt awaken a primal sense of place. Shrimp fresh off the boat for Christmas dinner, a slice of key lime pie,and a mess of fish with grits—these are comforts that beguile.

But even though Katie and I have lived in Michigan for over 25 years, and even though she was from Michigan in the first place, it is neither Florida or Michigan that feels the most like home.

We have no regrets about the choices we made, at least not when sitting on the porch of our farmhouse on a spring morning sipping tea. (Well, maybe there are some regrets in January.) Michigan is the place we serve and work, and it is good to be called to a place and to be content with what one has to do.

But together, for both of us, Tennessee is unique in its charms. We met there. We married there. For 16 years we lived there. And we feel at home there.

There we found each other and in that sense found ourselves. It is the place of our first date, our first house, our first child. It is the place our dreams began, under the shadow of mountains and the promise of the dogwoods.

We were there this last week. I was traveling for the college where I teach, talking about our programs and lecturing about social media.

And we felt a quiet that belongs only to the soul, and a yearning for afternoons beside a mountain stream, reminding us to seek no continuing city and to find no perfect rest.

Home, and all the longing it evokes, only shadows the wonder of a more permanent place, where all tears will be wiped away and the glory of God will appear unveiled. Even if we could move back to Tennessee it would not be what we our hearts truly long for.

But for a brief afternoon, sitting on a porch beside a mountain lake, we were home again.

And we longed for a better one, like pilgrims do.

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See more images here.

My family has traveled with me at different times and my children have mostly fond memories of Broadway shows and subways. But this year I came alone.

Traveling alone brings temptations of its own. No, not those temptations. I’m talking about cheese Danish and Cuban sandwiches. And being alone is a good thing sometimes; there is certainly no place more lonely than a city where you hardly know anyone.

But for the most part I enjoy being in the city. Getting in and out of the city, not so much. When I arrived Sunday morning about 7:30 I didn’t have the confirmation number for my shuttle from the airport so I had to pay for a ride.

Sunday night on Time Square.

I’ll just take a cab.

But while I’m in the city I enjoy walking around, looking at things I seldom see and thinking about things I don’t understand.

Sunday night on Time Square was a kaleidoscope of sounds and smells. And color of course. It was a beautiful spring evening, and the streets were packed with tourists and vendors. I’m convinced that if Muslims ever take over America, it will be because we finally succumbed to the smell of grilled Middle Eastern foods on Time Square.

I had a cartoon drawn by a Chinese street artist. He drew me with a martini in one hand (I don’t drink) and a bag of money in the other. I was wearing an army style jacket but he drew me in a coat and tie. Is this his understanding of the American dream? Or did he see something in me I don’t see in myself? Should I go home to fast and pray? Was there something in my eyes or in my heart?

I don’t think so. I went back to the hotel and worked on a new Bible dictionary for kids that will be published this fall. Not very many zeros in that check. Teaching is not actually a way to get rich either, and I’ve been doing it for 35 years.

This morning I had no sessions, or at least none where I was presenting, so I took a walk from the hotel to Central Park and back down to Time Square along Broadway before working on the dictionary some more.

It was a gorgeous day and my only regret is that I didn’t walk through the park, but was diverted by the Apple store on 5th Avenue, the ruling master of American retail.

Here are observations from my walk:

• Broadway is a lot more interesting above 58th than down toward Time Square, where it becomes mostly banks and souvenir shops before until you get to the theater district.

• The naked cowboy is no longer interesting. Spray paint artists (see video) are the current hot item, with large crowds gathering to see their work.

• There are healthier food choices than when I first started coming, with lots of salad shops and fresher foods in the delis.

• You can’t really rent a bike for $5, no matter what the signs say. You can’t do anything for $5.

Missed opportunity—Central Park.

Mine is simpler and probably much shorter.

I’ll lecture tomorrow morning on writing as vocation and covering religion as a reporter. Then I’ll go home and sit on the porch drinking tea with Katie, watching the deer in the field across the road, defining “enmity” for six-year olds.

I’m up to the E’s.

And still learning to be content.

I’m tasked with talking about empathy at a conference for student journalists tomorrow. “When are journalists allowed to care? the program asks.

It’s a faith-based track at a thoroughly secular conference, and my audience, at least in the past, has been students at religious schools, mostly Christian, with an occasional skeptic who wonders if Christians should even be journalists.

The skeptic believes Christians can’t be objective. And he is right. No one can be objective, not even the skeptic, whose sometimes visceral antagonism pretty much proves my point.

The idea behind this session is that young Christians journalists may struggle with how to “balance their own human compassion with their desire to cover the news fairly and completely.”

But I doubt they do. Struggle, that is. I know few young journalists who don’t want to save the world, or at least wear Toms shoes. They wear their compassion on their sleeves.

And they will fit in just fine. The best journalists are story tellers, and the best stories reflect a human connection between the writer and the subject, and ultimately between the writer and the reader. No one ever wrote a good story who didn’t care about it.

But while they won’t struggle with this tension, perhaps they should. “Fairly and completely” is more difficult than it sounds.

Finley Peter Dunne, an editor at the Chicago Tribune in the 1800’s, once said that journalists “Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” But it was not a moral imperative. It was just a way to sell papers.

The hard thing is you even have to be fair to the comfortable. You have to treat both sides with respect, and you have to make sure you aren’t being hoodwinked by causes any more than by the commercial interests.

Just this week NPR’s This American Life retracted a story about human rights abuses by Apple in China. The story “contained significant fabrications,” they said. They are sorry they aired it.

But the truth is, they wanted it to be true.

Journalists will continue to decide what story to write, which people to interview, and what to include. That means we also decide what to leave out.

Empathy doesn’t have to be one of those things. It is natural and good that photojournalist Lynsey Addario, who was sexually abused by soldiers in Lybia, says she wept openly when interviewing rape victims in the Congo.

No Christian could seriously claim to understand the mercy of God who failed to do so. I’m not making a statement about Addario’s faith, though, since I know nothing about it. I’m just making a statement about those who follow Christ, and in so doing oppose oppression and injustice.

But I’m also saying that our emotions can deceive us, and that is a real danger. We have to go beyond our heart to the heart of the matter, which is invariably more complicated than it first appeared.

Yes, as Christians, we must speak the truth in love. But Christ made it pretty clear we have to love the bad guys too.

The danger of “empathetic reporting” is not that it is too hard but that sometimes it is too easy. I’m not saying it is easy to cover rape victims in the Congo, of course. I’m saying it is easy to play off the emotion of those who are disposed to hate the same things we hate.

Truth is harder to find than that.

And even harder to communicate.
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For links on this topic, see my Delicious stack on journalism and empathy.

My dad was born in South Carolina, and named Wallis Cone Metts, Wallis Cone after the doctor who delivered him.

I was born in Ft. Myers, Florida, and also named after the doctor who delivered my father. Actually, I was named after my father. I’m pretty sure that’s what my mom had in mind.

And when my first son was born, 31 years ago, we named him after the doctor who delivered my father too. Sort of. My middle name was a little too weird, so we named him Wallis Christian Metts.

And we called him Christian.

Today his son was born. Wallis Christian Metts the Second. Or Junior. We’re not sure how that works.

And they plan to call him Wally.

That would be four generations of Wallis Metts’, and the third to be called Wally. And I have to say I’m a little proud. With six grandkids now, this is the first boy to carry my last name. And the only who will carry my first name.

And while we are happy for all our grand kids, and love the girls as much as the boys, and love the Keisling boys as much as the Metts girls, it would be difficult to deny that this is a special honor. And a humbling one.

I watched him sleep a few minutes this evening, on Facetime. Katie will go out to see him in a couple of weeks, but it may be this summer before I hold him. Seattle is a long way away.

I also called my Dad’s brothers to let them know Dad’s name continues.

And I prayed he will carry the name well, not so much for my sake but for my father’s sake, a faithful preacher of the gospeland one of the most gracious men I’ve known. Perhaps that’s because my father’s heart rested completely in the grace of God.

Socrates once said, “The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.” Dad didn’t desire to appear anything. He desired to be someone, and that by the grace of God. He was who he said he was. More than that, he knew something few men knew in his day— how to love unconditionally.

My son Christian already knows something of this. And I hope the new Wally learns from his dad how to love sacrificially, speak graciously and serve willingly. I hope he will appreciate his Dad as much as I did mine.

It will be a good thing, then, for there to be another Wally Metts in the world.

It will be a good thing.

Today, the number is one in four, as the rate of divorce among seniors has more than doubled, approaching 800,000 a year.

This is more significant than it appears, since the overall divorce rate for all age groups combined has actually gone down in 20 years. And also significant is that half the people getting divorced after 50 have already had a divorce.

In fact, having been married before doubles the risk of divorce among people 50 to 64, and quadruples the risk for those over 64. This data, reported in the Wall Street Journal last weekend, will be presented in a paper by sociologist Susan Brown this April.

And according to a survey by the AARP in 2004, almost 70% of these divorces are initiated by women. But not for the reason which most naturally comes to mind.

Infidelity is cited as a cause no more often than in the general populations (about 30% of the time.) The main reason for divorce among men and women this age is basically “it’s my last chance to have a new life.”

The boomers have brought their free love to old age and the results say a lot about the destructive forces unleashed by the 60s. Before the 1970’s, Brown says, “no one would have thought to separate the self as being distinct from the role of good wife and mother.”

But late life divorce doesn’t work out as well as one might expect. The wife still ends up more often with the home—including maintenance costs and declining property values. She shoulders most of the financial responsibilities of the kids as well—college costs and holidays. And the fathers have less and less contact with their kids.

What’s to like about this? The highly individualistic self-seeking model of modern marriage is not exactly an improvement.

More troubling, at least to me, is that young women no longer have credible models of what a good wife is, and young men have no clue about what it means to be a husband.

It is with good reason Paul encourages older women to be “reverent” and to “train the young women to love their husbands and children.” And he says “older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness.”

If ever we have sowed the wind and reaped a whirlwind this may be the time.

But why invest this time in helping young people understand these things when there are games to play on Facebook or watch on TV? Where are the reverent women and self-controlled men when you need them? And what would they teach their children anyway? How to we get back to “we” from “me.”

The habits that bring divorce—criticism, defensiveness, stonewalling—are deeply embedded in the boomers. And in the children of the boomers. And in the second and third marriages of the boomers as well.

These habits reflect self-centeredness and inattentiveness, of course. The Gottman Institute, founded on data that helped predict divorce, encourages couples to “turn toward” each other, responding to requests to reconnect.

That’s a good idea.

But we have to see a bigger picture and see a greater need. The very fabric of our culture is at stake. We are being watched by our grandchildren.

And I say the solution is more basic. And more urgent.

We just have to get over ourselves.

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See video coverage on WSJ

See also:

Seeking sanctuary

Love is no fairy take

Where the self dies

I went to your party yesterday and was reminded of how very loved you are. Your other grandparents and your parents were beaming with joy. Lady and I were too. You are walking and chattering. We are so glad that you are healthy and smart. You have so many blessings and we are so blessed.

So today, I’m praying you will soon realize this is all a gift. And that understanding what grace looks like, you will come to know what it is. And where it comes from.

It’s the first Sunday of Lent and I’m preaching about how deep the Father’s love is. I trust you will rest in this reality as soon as you can understand it, and that the love you now sense will be but a shadow of the love you will come to know in Christ.

Happy birthday, Elena.

Santa

The truth is, I am a Baptist preacher’s kid who grew up without any understanding of Lent whatsoever. I thought it was about something you give up.

But I expect it is more likely about what God gave up. And anything that causes us to contemplate the sobering significance of the cross is worthwhile.

The danger is that we might think our piety atones for our sins.

It doesn’t.

I’m not suggesting everyone who observes Lent believes this. But some do.

I understand the importance of self-denial, of course. I understand the need to conquer those habits that have conquered us. There is even scientific evidence that “the more you practice it to control one behavior — say, overeating — the more it starts to apply itself to other parts of your life like exercising more or drinking less.”

But Lent is not about our self-control. It is about the cross, and calls us to consider its glory and its power. In fact, when the cross of Christ is emptied of its power there is no gospel at all. Lent can do this, if it substitutes our sacrifices for the one Christ made.

We may want to bring our meager offerings and placate an angry God. But God brings his own offering because ours is not sufficient. God brings his own sacrifice because ours is too small.

The doctrine of the cross is, of course, the atonement. Christ died for us, a full and fitting substitute. Christians rest in this and hope in this.

But the cross of that doctrine is equally real. It towers above us in this Lenten season, reminding us that we have sinned. And that we can be saved.

So what did God give up for Lent?

He gave up his Son. There was no ram in the bush, as there was for Abraham. There was no mercy. As Isaiah prophesied, Christ was bruised, beaten, blamed. He was pierced. Punished.

In fact, the prophet tells us, it was the will of the Lord to crush him.

My God, my God, why have your forsaken me? Christ cried.

But the Father did not answer and He did not look, because He made Christ to be sin for us.

The sobering reality is that we have sinned. Our righteousness amounts to nothing. We are unclean and undone.

But are we ungrateful? Or unrepentant?

Lent points us to questions like these, but only if every urge or self-indulgence reminds us of our weakness and causes us to grieve our sin and mourn the sacrifice it required. The very thought of the cross should take away our appetite and break our heart.

And then it should move us to rejoice. The Father loved us. The Son redeemed us. The Spirit fills us.

This too is the message of the cross.

Hallelujah.

Photo from wikipedia

They do well to be confused about the significance of this holiday, since the romantic notions have little to do with Saint Valentine himself. Whoever he was.

Actually there are 14 Saint Valentines, but only three have been attributed to February 14. The most likely candidate is Valentine of Rome, who was deleted from the General Roman Calendar of Saints in 1969 by Pope Paul VI.

Here is what the Pope said, although he probably didn’t write it himself:

“Though the memorial of Saint Valentine is ancient, it is left to particular calendars, since, apart from his name, nothing is known of Saint Valentine except that he was buried on the Via Flaminia on February 14.”

He died around 269 AD. But the Valentine of Valentine’s Day could also be Valentine of Terni, who was also buried on the Via Flaminia in 197 AD. Both were martyrs, although that hardly explains the romantic aspect of the holiday. Unless, of course, being a martyr explains it entirely.

Anyway, there are no romantic aspects in either of their medieval biographies. By the end of the middle ages, however, legend said Valentine (the one from Rome) was executed for marrying couples when the emperor outlawed marriage because he wanted single men for the army.

If you believe that story, I can sell you a book about Santa Claus.

More official accounts say Valentine was actually killed for trying to convert the Emperor to Christianity.

The whole couple thing more likely owes its origin to Lupercalia, a Roman fertility rite around the same date when young people ran up and down the street naked, striking each other with their thongs.

But let’s not dwell on that. The earliest Christian tradition of the romantic element (if there is one) goes back to Chaucer, who wrote a poem to celebrate the first anniversary of the engagement of Edward the Second to Anne of Bohemia:

For this was Saint Valentine’s Day,
when every bird cometh there to choose his mate.

What he actually said was:

For this was on seynt Volantynys day
Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make.

But not for nothing did I take a graduate course in old English, the fact that my translation looks exactly like the one on wikipedia notwithstanding.

Chaucer wrote the poem referring to a treaty announcing their engagement on May 2, 1381. It’s unlikely he was referring to February 14, since birds are unlikely to be mating in England that time of year. Fortunately, there was another Saint Valentine, Valentine of Genoa, whose feast day was May 2.

Later John Donne repeated the bird theme in a poem about the marriage of James the First’s daughter, who actually was married on Valentine’s Day. It’s a perfect day for love birds, apparently.

The idea took hold, somehow, and on Valentine’s Day in 1400 a High Court of Love was established in Paris dealing with love contracts and betrayals. Judges were chosen by women based on their reading of poetry.

This is probably better than Valentine’s Day Cards. At least the poetry was probably better. Or maybe not. It’s been a long time since anyone read Elizabethan love poems with a straight face who wasn’t a high school sophomore. Or a tenure track literature professor. Gather ye rosebuds in deed.

In 1797, a British publisher issued The Young Man’s Valentine Writer, which contained sentimental verses for men unable to compose their own. And now here we are, with a $116 billion dollar holiday and over 144 million cards exchanged annually.

That doesn’t include the little starter kits that come in boxes, designed so elementary kids can experience early angst.

My advice? Pick your Saint before you pick your Valentine.

It will take a long time, and it won’t cost you a dime.

Isaac blesses Jacob, Govert Flinck 1615 – 1660

Here’s a guy who was almost sacrificed on an altar by his father, but turns out fairly normal.

He was a practical man, digging wells and making treaties. And he was a faithful man, who built altars to worship the true God.

He was also a true monogamist, rare in his day and unlike his father and sons. He loved Rebecca from the day he met her until the day he died.

It’s one of the tenderest love stories in the Bible, except for the time he tells the Philistine ruler that she is his sister.

And except for the little spat about which son gets the blessing. It is hard to imagine she never told him God had chosen their youngest son Jacob to receive the Promise.

But what’s a couple of arguments among lovers?

Except in this case we are talking about the Promise with a capital P, the one given to Abraham. This covenant frames the entire story of the Bible, and yet Isaac is determined to give it to Esau.

But why?

We are told in one place he loved Esau because he loved the taste of the game Esau hunted. This is a theme that runs throughout the narrative, not just the taste of game but sensory stimulation of every kind.

He not only wants to taste “delicious food,” but also to smell, touch and kiss his son. He says “the smell of my son is the smell of a field that the Lord has blessed.”

We’ve seen his lack of self-control before, when the king of the Philistines looks out the window and sees Isaac “laughing” with his wife, a euphemism for sure. In some translations he is “sporting” with her, or “caressing” her.

Even the blessing he gives Jacob (thinking he is Esau) focuses on sensory detail, the dew of heaven and the fat of the earth. There is nothing wrong with any of these things. Pleasure is not a sin, but a gift.

But Isaac reached out to touch his wife when both their lives may have depended on his restraint. He wanted to bless Esau when the king of heaven wanted him to bless Jacob.

I understand that Isaac loved his hairy, outdoorsy son. And I’m not excusing Rebecca’s scheming or Jacob’s lying. I’m just saying our appetites make a poor master.

You have to wonder if Esau’s own weaknesses reflect his father’s? Esau trades his birthright for a pot of savory soup. And even though he has two Canaanite wives, when he looses the blessing he is so depressed he goes out and gets another one. As if that could help.

And Isaac’s own appetite is both unwise and urgent. He acts as though this will be his last meal, even though he lives another 40 years. Does he choose Esau over the Lord’s own choice because he let his appetites rule his passions? Even his decisions?

He wouldn’t be the first man to do so. Or the last.

The recently released story of JFK’s affair with an intern adds to the list of highly respected pastors and politicians whose sensory focus led to bad decisions, if I can be euphemistic again. Perhaps this process begins with an extra helping of desert.

Sin often begins with something good, like a juicy steak or even a kiss. But our principles must master our passions or we fail to know and do the will of God.

Our appetites must yield to His authority; only then can our true delight be in God himself.

And in His will.