Friday, Oct 26, 2018

Part I

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‘It’s hard to hate up close’: Why the partisan divide isn’t really as bad as cable news would lead you to believe

Yesterday’s edition of The New York Times included an article with the headline, “Dissecting the Psyche of the Right.” The article is by Shawn McCreesh. The subtitle of the article, “Alexandra Pelosi belongs to a Democratic family, but wants to understand the other side.” Now, as we shall see, honestly seeking to understand the other side in America’s great ideological worldview and partisan divide, that is an all together too seldomly found motivation. But Alexandra Pelosi, a filmmaker who works primarily with HBO, she appears to have that as an honest intention.

What makes this particular article that appeared in yesterday’s print edition of The New York Times so interesting is that it comes, of course, just one day after the headlines had a great deal to do with attempted violence against major American political leaders, pointing to the baseline radical partisanship of the age. It’s also interesting that this article about Pelosi’s new documentary on conservatives appears in The New York Times that generally has not paid much attention to conservatives in the way that Alexandra Pelosi is in this new documentary.

The article on Pelosi and her new work is very interesting, it’s sometimes even funny. McCreesh begins by telling us that, “Alexandra Pelosi’s schedule over a recent 24 hours read like a liberal elite mad lib. On a Sunday night,” we are told, “Ms. Pelosi, a documentary filmmaker, was at the 92nd Street Y to hear her mother, Representative Nancy Pelosi, in conversation with Paul Krugman, the economist and columnist for The New York Times. The next afternoon, she attended a fundraising lunch for Democrats, at a hotel on the East Side with Hillary Clinton. Then,” we are told, “she popped over to the HBO headquarters at Bryant Park, where she has an office in a power corridor next to Ronan Farrow’s and across the hall from Sarah Jessica Parker’s. Later, she hurried down to N.Y.U. to hear her mother speak on a panel about women in power.”

“Maybe,” says McCreesh, “it’s just what you’d expect from the daughter of the House Democratic leader. But the younger Ms. Pelosi’s cable-news-viewing habits may surprise you.” Well, it does surprise us, as a matter of fact. It turns out that Alexandra Pelosi watches Fox News. It’s not because she is in ideological agreement with Fox News. It is because she believes that most of Manhattan and the cultural elite on the left are living in a bubble. That’s not to say that conservatives aren’t living in a bubble as well. It is to say she is trying from one side to understand the other side. And whenever that happens, it’s worthy of our attention.

Ms. Pelosi said, “If I hear the term ‘blue wave’ one more time, I am going to personally walk up to MSNBC and punch someone in the face.” She was joking, according to McCreesh, between sips of coffee in the HBO cafe overlooking the New York Public Library.

Now, all of that is important. It’s especially important if you understand Manhattan. The addressing here, the context indicates the very heart of Gotham. The very heart of Manhattan elite culture. The very heart of a city where it would be a cultural embarrassment to admit that you had ever, even for a moment, accidentally watched Fox News.

Pelosi explained to The New York Times, “There’s no blue wave in Alabama. There’s no blue wave in Ohio.” She went on to say, “MSNBC is barred from my household, CNN is barred from my household.” According to McCreesh, Pelosi thinks all Manhattanites ought to be tuning into Fox News nightly. It’s not that she’s a Republican, it’s just, she said, “We don’t want our kids to be pod people.”

Now, I think from a Christian worldview perspective, a part of what makes this article so interesting is the language that Alexandra Pelosi uses. At least twice in this article she uses language that all Christians, and in this case Christian parents, ought to understand and pay some attention to. This idea of being pod people. Now that’s exactly what has happened across America. The entire nation has become a nation of pod people. Generally, we listen only to the people who agree with us. Generally, we’re in conversation only with those who share, at least in general terms, our worldview. Alexandra Pelosi is suggesting that she does not want her children, boys ages 10 and 11, to be pod people. Even if they are, of course, the grandchildren of one of the most prominent liberal Democrats in the United States. We’re talking about the former Speaker of the House and the current Minority Leader of the United States House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi.

Later in this article, Alexandra Pelosi notes that, in her words, “The Republican party’s been spending millions of dollars turning her last name into a code word.” But nevertheless, Alexandra Pelosi has tried to out of her own pod, out of her own bubble, and the result is a new HBO documentary entitled, “Outside the Bubble.” It’s due to come out next Monday.

As McCreesh explains, “It’s not just another episode of the learned cosmopolitan descending from the ivory tower to produce anthropological discourses on that strange creature known as the Trump voter and make it back to the big city in time for a martini. Though,” says McCreesh, “she is Democratic royalty, Ms. Pelosi has spent much of her career dissecting, with compassion, the psyche of the political right in this country.”

That’s really important and McCreesh is right. This is not entirely new for Alexandra Pelosi. She has made at least two previous documentaries intending to try to understand conservatives in the United States. And to do so, she’s actually entered into conversation with conservatives. She has left Manhattan, she has gone to places like Alabama and Ohio. And as she says, even as much of the cultural left and the elite media visit Alabama and Ohio when they have to, they often write from a perspective that doesn’t involve them talking to any actual people over any amount of time.

She lampoons the secular left and especially its journalists for going to places like Alabama or Ohio and staying at Four Seasons Hotels or other big luxury hotels and talking to one another rather than talking to those who live in those places. And when she talks to them, it’s not just a quick conversation. She enters into their homes, she enters into conversation, she has dinner with them.

In her conversation with The New York Times, she said, “I was indoctrinated into a Democratic Party cult from a very early age. But I know,” she said, “that’s not the only America and we need to understand the other side.” McCreesh of The New York Times concedes this, “She seems like one of the few trying.”

He documents the fact that on both sides of America’s political divide, in civility and an unwillingness to understand or even perhaps honestly to represent has become the norm. As McCreesh writes, “Mr. Trump now refers to Democratic voters simply as ‘mobs.’ Hillary Clinton said in an interview with CNN this month that “You cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for.'”

Now, I simply again want to credit The New York Times with honestly reporting the bicameral, the bipartisan nature of America’s deep partisan divide and the lack of civility that has now writ large, as if it’s by scattershot throughout the entire American political landscape.

But Alexandra Pelosi goes further as she talks about the project and what she sees. McCreesh summarizes her argument with this, “If bridging today’s partisan chasm seems an Augean endeavor, Ms. Pelosi believes cable news is to blame.” Pelosi is then cited explicitly, “There’s too much profit being made right now on the divide. How many people in those cable news studios ever really go to spend the night in America, not just in the Four Seasons in wherever Trump is at the moment, but I mean really go in to somebody’s house, have dinner and talk to them?”

That’s an incredibly keen observation, not just the last part of that statement, but the first part. She’s making the statement that she sees the cable news industry as fueling the partisan divide. That’s a point that I’ve made many times on The Briefing as well, the profit and cable news is not made in explaining carefully. The profit is made in generalizations and accusations, it is made in criticism and condemnation, it is made in division, not in understanding. It’s really important that Alexandra Pelosi made the statement as clearly as she did because she points to the profit motive. I quote her again, “There’s too much profit being made right now on the divide.” That is extremely important.

This article turns out to be significant if only for the language of pod people and the profit that is now being made on the divide, that means on the American divide.

In the documentary there are some frankly hilarious moments. One of them is when Alexandra Pelosi is conversation about some of the most divisive issues, immigration, abortion, for example. And she’s talking with a man described as a fanatical supporter of President Trump. This fanatical supporter of President Trump speaking to Alexandra Pelosi without realizing, says McCreesh, exactly to whom he is speaking, described Democrats in America, and by that he meant liberal Democrats in America, as “Nancy Pelosi’s grandchildren.” As McCreesh indicates, he evidently forgot he was talking to Nancy Pelosi’s own daughter, who happened to have with her, Nancy Pelosi’s actual grandchildren.

At that point in the story, Alexandra Pelosi actually introduces this man to Nancy Pelosi’s actual grandchildren, boys ages 10 and 11, and of course, he likes them. And as the news article says, the unlikeliest of friendships began to blossom.

But at an even deeper level, Pelosi spoke to this when she speaks of the American divide and she says interestingly, she doesn’t think it’s as bad as watching cable news would indicate. She says this, “I don’t think it’s as bad as people are saying. I just don’t know that we’re as filled with hate as cable news leads us to believe.” Then these very important words, “It’s hard to hate up close.”

Now, just ponder that for a moment, it’s hard to hate up close. That’s really important and makes the entire article worthwhile. It’s likely to make Alexandra Pelosi’s documentary on HBO starting Sunday night also worthwhile and very powerful as we’re thinking about the point that she is making here.

It is hard to hate up close. Why would that be case? Well, this is where Christians come to understand we are made as image-bearers of God, we are made relational creatures, and even in our fallen state, we have a disposition to like rather than to dislike. And that’s especially true when it comes to children.

It’s hard to hate up close. It’s one thing to dismiss liberal Democrats by describing them as Nancy Pelosi’s grandchildren, but you really don’t mean any injury whatsoever to Nancy Pelosi’s actual grandsons and instead you’re likely to discover that if you were to meet them, you would like them. And you might even like them a lot.

Now, again, just remember that what makes this story really interesting is that Alexandra Pelosi is herself, well, best described, it would appear as a liberal Democrat. She is the daughter of Nancy Pelosi. She did show up, as this article begins, in all of those places where the liberal elite will show up. She is the daughter of Nancy Pelosi. Even if this article also makes clear her mother is not exactly sure what to do with her or with her professional work.

The former Speaker and current Minority Leader said of her daughter, “Well, she’s interested in the American people, she’s not particularly interested in politics. She thinks,” said Representative Pelosi, “basically, she’s told me that we’re, meaning politicians, talking heads and we’re largely boring.”

If we step back a moment from this article, we understand that there’s a lot here to be seen. Some of it is implicit rather than explicit. For example, rather implicit in most of this article is the fact that when The New York Times talks about a documentary made about American conservatives, it’s still a long way from the The New York Times even having a sustained conversation with American conservatives. This is instead a news article in the Style section about a documentary maker who has made a movie about conservatives and The New York Times finds the making of the movie perhaps far more significant than the movie itself.

Then we think about the three big statements that Alexandra Pelosi makes in this argument. The warning against becoming a pod person. She speaks as a parent, not wanting her children to become pod people. Then she speaks of the fact that there is a partisan profit to be made in increasing the divide in cable news. That’s also very important to recognize. But more important than the previous two is her third insight that it’s hard to hate up close. That’s indeed true, it is hard to hate up close. And this is something Christians understand is not just some kind of evolutionary tactic, it’s a reflection of the fact that we are made in God’s image.

And conservative Christians should understand that we face the equal and opposite danger of being pod people. We face the equal and opposite danger of failing to understand just how partisan and how imbalanced much of the news that we consume might be. And it’s good for us to remember that it is indeed hard to hate up close. Which is why we, as Christians, have to take the risk to develop relationships and enter into genuine conversations, not just with the people who agree with us, but perhaps even more importantly with the people who do not.

It’s also in large part why I do The Briefing, which leads to yet another irony. A conservative Christian theologian reading The New York Times, talking about a documentary filmmaker who’s the daughter of the liberal Democratic Minority Leader of the United States House of Representatives. By the time you think about all the dimensions that lead to the conversation we just had on The Briefing, you understand that everything we’ve talked about can come full circle in a big hurry. That’s a part of what makes life interesting and is also part of the reason why I do The Briefing in the first place.

Part II

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Exchanging laughs for applause: What are we looking for in entertainment?

But next on this Friday, we’ll continue to think about popular culture and how it plays into all of this, including the fact that politics now doesn’t stay out of anything and that especially includes popular culture and television. One of the most interesting manifestations of this is the return of the television program on CBS known as Murphy Brown.

Gary Levin, reporting for USA Today reports the story this way, “The ‘Murphy Brown’ gang is back, and you can thank Donald Trump. The hit sitcom set in a TV newsroom, which spanned the Reagan, Bush and Clinton presidencies with a decidedly left-leaning bent, returns to CBS as a Trump-era palliative.”

“Although creator Diane English,” he writes, “flirted with a brief revival when Sarah Palin ran for vice president in 2012, ‘we wouldn’t have brought back the show if Hillary (Clinton) had won.'” That according to Candice Bergen, who stars as a strong-willed Murphy Brown. “All of us felt that now, we had a lot of things to say, and Murphy can address those things in a way that most shows couldn’t.”

There’s so much loaded in just that paragraph in USA Today. We are told that the Murphy Brown remake that’s coming back, it’s now back on CBS, has been occasioned by the election of Donald Trump. We are told straightforwardly by Candice Bergen, the star of the show, that the show wouldn’t have come back had Hillary Clinton been elected president. Why? Because it wouldn’t have had a message. It has a message now and it also tells us something very important and that is that a program like this sometimes doesn’t just arise out of a political opportunity, this article makes clear with Murphy Brown, there is the intention to create an opportunity, to create a platform for a message.

As Candice Bergen said, there are things to say that Murphy Brown “can address in a way that most shows couldn’t.” That point, that political point, was made even more emphatically by the show’s creator, and you might say re-creator, Diane English. She said, “We felt like it was something that would make a new version of the show very relevant.” Listen to these words, “It’s time to give a voice to the resistance.”

Now, just pause for a moment. Here you have the creator, or the re-creator, of the Murphy Brown television program on CBS telling us that the program itself is part of the resistance. That means political resistance. That is something we simply need to note that not one of the major American television networks would have admitted as even a contributing factor just a matter of a few years ago. That tells us how quickly the politicization of our popular culture has advanced. What would have been a charge that would have been outrageous for television networks in the past is now something they brag about, as Diane English did in this news article.

Writing about the reappearance of the show after a 20 year absence, John Koblin, reporting for The New York Times says, “‘Murphy Brown’ is re-entering a TV space very different from when it first aired three decades ago, and it may,” he says, “face the biggest obstacles to success out of any of those recent revivals.”

“Consider,” he says, “TV news is currently a less trusted institution than banks, the medical system and the criminal justice system, that according to Gallup, far different from the 1990s.” Remember, I have to interject here, that Murphy Brown is, as a character, a journalist set in a television program. And then Koblin asks the question, “Can ‘Murphy Brown,’ and its comedic celebration of TV journalism, resonate in this environment?” That’s a very legitimate question.

And then there’s another question, even from the cultural left, would a comedy based upon a revival of Murphy Brown be funny? Even to those who want to cheer the resistance?

James Poniewozik, writing also for The New York Times, describes the situation this way, even about the comedy, “The audience applauds, and applauds again. You see the pattern. The revival on CBS is feisty and eager to meet the Trumpian moment. But,” he says, “it’s become the kind of sitcom that prefers applause to laughs.”

That’s really, really interesting. It seeks applause rather than laughs. What’s the point? It is politicization. Whereas traditionally comedies have tried to make people laugh, this particular show still branded as a comedy instead is trying to gain political applause. As Poniewozik writes, “It’s the kind of laughs audiences award like merit badges for validating their beliefs.”

Now again, Christians should look at that for a moment because it raises all kinds of questions about cultural products and entertainment. Do we want entertainment that makes us laugh? Are we looking for entertainment that’s something of escapism? Are we looking for entertainment that tells us deep truths? Or are we looking for entertainment? Are we increasingly trying to shape the culture around us just in order to stay within our pod and join in applause for the reinforcement of our own political beliefs rather than enjoying any kind of genuine comedy. The exchange of laughs for applause is actually a very sad commentary on our age.

In an analysis that somehow seems to echo Alexandra Pelosi’s concern, Poniewozik writes, “Politics aren’t all that’s changed since the Bush-Clinton years. TV is different. The first ‘Murphy Brown’ had the late 20th century concern that TV news was mushing into bland infotainment. Now,” he says, “it’s a nonstop, splenetic opinion and anger machine.” Again, very important words for us to note.

But next, as we stay on the theme of popular culture and the larger worldview implications, I turn to an article that appeared this week by Sara Petersen. It appeared in The Washington Post. It again is important and it returns to some of the things we’ve discussed previously on The Briefing.

The article’s headline, “Mama Bear knows best: The enduring problem with children’s picture books.” Now, let’s just remind ourselves again, this is appearing in The Washington Post, a liberal newspaper writing from a generally Democratic, secular, rather liberal perspective. And there’s a headline, “Mama Bear knows best,” and then the following words, “The enduring problem with children’s picture books.”

Now, as Sara Petersen makes clear, from the cultural left for some time there has been criticism of so many of the historically popular children’s books and children’s book series that they have presented gender stereotypes. Stereotypical understandings of men and women, boys and girls, moms and dads. Of course, that’s complicated even further in the context of the LGBTQ revolution where we have an entire new universe of children’s books that are intended to subvert even traditional understandings of gender and sexuality and marriage.

That’s not so much in the forefront of Sara Petersen’s article in which she describes the enduring problem with children’s picture books. She is, in this article, very concerned about sexual stereotyping. Again, there’s no surprise in an article about that making that kind of a charge in The Washington Post.

She looks, for example, at the very popular Berenstain Bears series and points out that there’s a lot of sexual stereotyping going on. From the stereotyping of dad to the stereotyping of Mama Bear, and then of course, the two bear cubs, one a boy and one a girl. She is not pleased with the kind of stereotyping that is a part of that storyline and frankly wasn’t even controversial when the storyline of the famous series first appeared.

But there’s yet another concern that Sara Petersen raises and this has to do with the depiction of Papa Bear. She writes, “It’s clear to all readers that Mama knows best and Daddy is a bumbling fool who forces Mama to parent him in addition to her children. To the cubs,” she says, “Papa Bear is decidedly the fun one. He lets the kids eat too much candy, stay up way past their bedtimes, and follow all of their most base impulses. He models a way of life,” she accuses, “that any of us might envy, a life in which all of his emotional, dietary, household and even psychological needs are met with no effort on his part, but by his eternally patient, kind, wise wife. In this case,” Petersen writes, “the word ‘partner’ can hardly be appropriate.”

Now, part of her background concern here is that she and her husband want to have a basically egalitarian structure in their household and about raising their children. And thus when Petersen looks at the Berenstain Bears series, what she sees is actually not two parents, but one parent. Only Mama Bear is an actual adult, she is the center of gravity and moral influence in the family. Papa is, if anything, just a larger version of the two kids. He is, we might say, a bumbling idiot.

Now, I also want to say that to her credit, Sara Petersen seems to understand, and this ought to be very controversial you would think in the worldview of The Washington Post and its editors and its readers, Petersen seems to understand that children really do thrive by having a mother and a father. And even in the egalitarian picture that she tries to present, she indicates that she looks with affection at the fact that her children need the father who is often very fun. She’s a bit put off by the fact that her own children see the father as more fun than the mother, but she understands that they also see the father making a genuine contribution to the household and after all, we might paraphrase, she has an understanding of the fact that their children understand that their father is an adult and a parent.

Now, here’s something interesting. For decades now, conservative Christians have had some of the very same concerns. And this tells us again of the kind of cultural conversation we need to have. My wife pointed out years ago that the storyline of the Berenstain Bears really is subversive of the understanding of a Biblical family, of a mother and a father who follow a Biblical order. And of a father who takes responsibility and is a grown up adult.

There is something missing in the Berenstain Bears’ universe and as Christians we understand that it’s a bigger absence even than Sara Petersen recognizes in this article. But it’s important and this is the point on this Friday edition of The Briefing, it’s important to recognize that thoughtful people all across the political and ideological spectrum understand that the stories we tell our children, the books we read to our children, they really have a great deal of moral importance. It’s very urgent that all of us understand that.

Part III

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Berenstain Bears and the moral importance of the stories we tell our children

But next, as we stay on the theme of popular culture and the larger worldview implications, I turn to an article that appeared this week by Sara Petersen. It appeared in The Washington Post. It again is important and it returns to some of the things we’ve discussed previously on The Briefing.

The article’s headline, “Mama Bear knows best: The enduring problem with children’s picture books.” Now, let’s just remind ourselves again, this is appearing in The Washington Post, a liberal newspaper writing from a generally Democratic, secular, rather liberal perspective. And there’s a headline, “Mama Bear knows best,” and then the following words, “The enduring problem with children’s picture books.”

Now, as Sara Petersen makes clear, from the cultural left for some time there has been criticism of so many of the historically popular children’s books and children’s book series that they have presented gender stereotypes. Stereotypical understandings of men and women, boys and girls, moms and dads. Of course, that’s complicated even further in the context of the LGBTQ revolution where we have an entire new universe of children’s books that are intended to subvert even traditional understandings of gender and sexuality and marriage.

That’s not so much in the forefront of Sara Petersen’s article in which she describes the enduring problem with children’s picture books. She is, in this article, very concerned about sexual stereotyping. Again, there’s no surprise in an article about that making that kind of a charge in The Washington Post.

She looks, for example, at the very popular Berenstain Bears series and points out that there’s a lot of sexual stereotyping going on. From the stereotyping of dad to the stereotyping of Mama Bear, and then of course, the two bear cubs, one a boy and one a girl. She is not pleased with the kind of stereotyping that is a part of that storyline and frankly wasn’t even controversial when the storyline of the famous series first appeared.

But there’s yet another concern that Sara Petersen raises and this has to do with the depiction of Papa Bear. She writes, “It’s clear to all readers that Mama knows best and Daddy is a bumbling fool who forces Mama to parent him in addition to her children. To the cubs,” she says, “Papa Bear is decidedly the fun one. He lets the kids eat too much candy, stay up way past their bedtimes, and follow all of their most base impulses. He models a way of life,” she accuses, “that any of us might envy, a life in which all of his emotional, dietary, household and even psychological needs are met with no effort on his part, but by his eternally patient, kind, wise wife. In this case,” Petersen writes, “the word ‘partner’ can hardly be appropriate.”

Now, part of her background concern here is that she and her husband want to have a basically egalitarian structure in their household and about raising their children. And thus when Petersen looks at the Berenstain Bears series, what she sees is actually not two parents, but one parent. Only Mama Bear is an actual adult, she is the center of gravity and moral influence in the family. Papa is, if anything, just a larger version of the two kids. He is, we might say, a bumbling idiot.

Now, I also want to say that to her credit, Sara Petersen seems to understand, and this ought to be very controversial you would think in the worldview of The Washington Post and its editors and its readers, Petersen seems to understand that children really do thrive by having a mother and a father. And even in the egalitarian picture that she tries to present, she indicates that she looks with affection at the fact that her children need the father who is often very fun. She’s a bit put off by the fact that her own children see the father as more fun than the mother, but she understands that they also see the father making a genuine contribution to the household and after all, we might paraphrase, she has an understanding of the fact that their children understand that their father is an adult and a parent.

Now, here’s something interesting. For decades now, conservative Christians have had some of the very same concerns. And this tells us again of the kind of cultural conversation we need to have. My wife pointed out years ago that the storyline of the Berenstain Bears really is subversive of the understanding of a Biblical family, of a mother and a father who follow a Biblical order. And of a father who takes responsibility and is a grown up adult.

There is something missing in the Berenstain Bears’ universe and as Christians we understand that it’s a bigger absence even than Sara Petersen recognizes in this article. But it’s important and this is the point on this Friday edition of The Briefing, it’s important to recognize that thoughtful people all across the political and ideological spectrum understand that the stories we tell our children, the books we read to our children, they really have a great deal of moral importance. It’s very urgent that all of us understand that.

Part IV

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Beauty, morality, and Disney princesses: The real danger of associating good and evil with cultural conventions of attractiveness

Finally, on this Friday edition of The Briefing, we turn to yet another item of cultural production, a very important item. And here we look at the Disney series of princess movies. From the cultural left for a long time there have been similar charges, urgent charges of gender and sexual stereotyping. But there is another charge, and this charge has originated mostly from feminists or for those who indicate feminist concerns. But here is where Christians need to understand, we very much share these concerns.

The concern comes down to this, recent conversation in the media about the Disney princess movies. How is it that Disney has gotten away for so long with demonstrating good characters portraying the good princesses as beautiful and more evil characters as, let’s just say, less beautiful. Some of the articles actually use the word ugly.

What’s going on here? Well, Christians need to think about this for a moment. Again, all of these stories and the way we tell these stories, even the way we draw and watch these stories, it has a great deal of moral impact. We, as Christians, ought to share the concern of those who are coming from the left and from the feminist perspective in this case, they are presenting someone who is by cultural conventions attractive as a good figure, a morally good figure. And someone who is conventionally less attractive as an evil figure. There’s something basically wrong with that. And again, it’s even more wrong, as Christians understand, than a secular worldview can understand.

It is injurious not only to reality, it is injurious as we would understand to the dignity of what it means to be human. Every single one of us possessing that dignity and to the beauty, that as Christians understand, is measured first of all in truth and morality, and not by physical attributes of cultural attractiveness. This is where Christians understand one of the most basic distinctions of the Biblical worldview is between what is merely attractive and what is genuinely beautiful.

So nothing we watch, nothing we read, nothing we see, nothing we hear is without moral importance. And that’s true for ourselves. It’s extremely true also for our children.

That should give us plenty to think about as we head into the weekend. Scripture teaches us that God has fashioned each stage of life with precious glory. That’s why we’re summoned to not only recognize the stages of life, but to live in them as God intended for his glory.