Seven Quick Takes — National Holiday Edition

If that were a real band, I’d totally go see them in concert.

Of course, the US isn’t the only North American country that celebrates a national holiday during the first week of July. This past Tuesday was Canada Day, commemorating the passage of the British North America act in 1867, which (peacefully and amicably) constituted Canada as a nation more or less independent of Britain (we get to keep the Queen, but we don’t have to pay for her upkeep, so that’s a win-win as far as I figure).

Anyway, we went out to watch the fireworks on Tuesday, which was a blast…until we came home to find that a certain little boy had opened the screen in his bedroom window, an opportunity the local mosquito population was eager to make the most of.

I saw a great quote today. I’m putting it here because I want to be able to find it again, and because it is too good not to share:

If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart? – Alexander Solzhenitsyn (h/t Devra Torres)

Devra quoted Solzhenitsyn in a post about modesty, emphasizing the dangers in attempting to divide the world up into externally discernible groups of “them” and “us.”

The trouble with this sort of division, as Solzhenitsyn says, is that a focus on “them” out there distracts from the true battleground within. And the Enemy is more than happy to tunnel in behind to find those vulnerable, weak and secret hollow spots inside each of our souls.

I’ve seen and heard of more of this than I’d like—wonderful, well-meaning people with a war mentality, who are so set on defending against the visible ‘enemy’ that they fail to notice the rot within until it eats away so much that even the facade begins to crumble. Too often the rot is helped along be the desire to ‘save’ someone ‘on our side’ from exposure…even at the price of allowing evil to spread and claim more lives. The tragedy is only compounded if there was help freely available—and rejected, because it came from “them”—the world, the other side, the enemy, whoever—and so, in the end, we fall. Because we believed ourselves already sanctified, instead of in need of salvation along with the rest of the world.

All of that is a way of saying that the hardest evil to destroy is the evil within our own families and our own hearts. Because to destroy that would truly mean dying with Christ, and as much as we Christians like the idea of “putting on the new man” and “rising with Christ,” that dying bit is a bit hard to swallow. It does feel like dying, to ruthlessly root out the selfishness, pride, willful blindness, anger, spite, jealousy, covetousness, and indolence rooted in your own heart. It feels like killing the most inward impulses, the things we do and say on autopilot, the motivations that we act on without even fully understanding them, clothing them afterwards in loftier language and assumed higher purpose.

It will feel like throwing your own heart on the fire, when you do it. It will seem like the world must be forever artificial, colorless, dull, unfair. And then, like turning off a flickering fluorescent light and opening a window shade, all of creation will come crowding in, carrying Christ like a crowdsurfing Messiah, to set the husk of your heart to rights and fill it with living, green, sprouting vitality.

And then, in a little while—hours, days, weeks, maybe months or years—you will find that your heart has been again invaded and turned against you while your guard was down, and you will have to do it all again, or so has been my experience. Like a cancer, though, the sooner you catch it, the easier it is to excise.

My 9 year old thinks this is hilarious.

Overheard earlier this week, a dialogue between my daughter’s Little People baby and my daughter’s sippy cup (apparently the cup was being the mama that day):

Baby: Are you the best mama?
Cup: The best?
Baby: Yes, the best! Are you the best mama?
Cup: The best mama?
Baby: Yes! Are you the best mama?
Cup: Oh. Yes, I am the best. I am the best mama.
Baby: You are the best mama! Best best best best best.

In other news, there is now a star named “Putin is a dickhead.” (h/t Simcha)