Recently in Theology Category

Twice in the last 48 hours God has winked at me. They were wry little winks - ones of the sort that I might normally miss.

This evening a friend who I haven't heard from in months and months texted me and said I'd been on his heart and that "Our Papa" put me there. This afternoon I thought of my friend and two nights ago he was in a dream I had - first one I ever remember him guest starring in - and last night I picked up The Shack, the little book that is making referring to God as "Papa" all the rage.

This evening, another conversation with another friend was deeply encouraging to me. She referenced a particular book that proved to be very helpful in helping me develop a book project I'm considering.

Little things. Tiny things. Things certainly explainable by chance or quarks or quacks. But things too that have the distinct feel of winks from God. It is all a matter a choice really. Do I choose to believe that God winks? Or do I choose to believe everything is a matter of science and that's that. I choose winks no matter how naive or how much of a simpleton that might make me.

I am haunted by the beauty of Lindsay Lohan's booking photo. I'm not sure I've ever seen a booking photo that is truly art - though, I suppose, each one is art in its own way. Hers is art. It belongs in a gallery.

I look at this picture and am awed by the young woman's beauty. Her objective beauty. And I am heartbroken by the mouth that seems to whispering, "help," and the eyes that are wide and bewildered. Hers is the face of "lost" as in Jesus describing those who are lost.

I don't mean this in an eternal damnation point. I don't know the state of her soul. I just know that she is lost and I suppose the heartbreak I feel is the heartbreak of a father for a daughter.

My oldest, Laura, is only 10 years younger than Ms. Lohan. And I see all around her the pressure and the pull to be just like Lindsay's image - to be cool, and with it and "in." I am so grateful that she - thanks largely to her mom - is able to look at that stuff and say, "silly." She still loves horses more than boys. We encourage that.

I think though that my heartbreak for Ms. Lohan is minuscule compared to Jesus' love for her. I do not here mean the "love" of men who would paint Jesus as a political conservative, the men who would lead people to believe Jesus is more interested in condemning then loving, the men who have made the Jesus of the Gospels into their own image. I mean Jesus. I mean Jesus who would say to Lindsay, "I am peace, I am love, I am safe. Come to me." Lindsay needs that. So do we all.