So my family went to the mall late this afternoon so Shonda could get a massage to ease her migraines that cropped up again late this week. The Chinese acupressure guys do a pretty good job when we can make the time and have an extra $20.
So my daughters (who are 9 and 11 years old) and I are returning from Clair's and Build-a-bear where we amused ourselves while patiently awaiting the acupressure masseur to finish relieving my wife's meridian snags. We're sipping on our drinks and looking at stuff when I stop at the watch vendor to look at the Zippo lighters they have spinning in their display case.
Understand that I don't smoke, but I do like quality tools and there is no finer lighter in the world in my professional opinion as a gas line specialist. I can check for gas leaks easy peasy quick as a wink just by running that rich orange flame around a pipe and fitting and voila' if there's a pin hole I find it - boom! ROFL My favorite line in the gas code book is "thou shalt not check for a gas leak with an open flame." That line is in the code book for a reason: someone's done it and property was damaged or someone died. There are other, less dramatic methods to finding leaks - but the truth is every old timer will tell you they've done it in a pinch under the right circumstances. So I don't smoke but I do own two Zippo's and wear one on my belt every work day. My current one has an Icthus logo with Jesus' name in the middle. Ironic, I know. Jesus is the light of the world after all, and working around smoking construction workers I get the chance to light the occasional cigarette with it and spark a conversation about why a non smoking Christian preacher has a lighter... The secondary uses I find for it in relighting appliances, cauterizing wounds and such pale in comparison to those break time conversations where I'm able to talk about the Lord.
So back to my daughters and I at the mall, looking at Zippo's to purge the ambiance of Clair's from my mind:
In the course of a few moments at the lighter case my 9 year old Kira spots the cute pink lighter with the bunny on it and promptly announces it in her musically happy NOT AT ALL SUBTLE voice and draws her big sister's attention to it with smiling delight in her eyes that there are even 'girl' lighters. "Look Ashley, they've got a pink one with a bunny - aawww it's soooo cute!!" Ashley agrees that it is, in her introverted less than belligerent voice, that nevertheless conveys amazement with a lighter obviously affirming girls. Which causes the clerk and his two actual customers to knowingly chuckle at the uncomfortable circumstance I've unwittingly walked into. So Kira inhales to begin her barrage of questions and I quickly and efficiently head her off with: "Girls, I'll explain the bunny lighter to you later, at home - not right now... do you understand me?" Which elicits nods and 'yes sir's' from them and more muffled chuckles from the clerk and customers whose body language and eye contact fully convey that though they don't envy me, they would love to be a fly on the wall for that conversation.
So we return home, I've mowed the lawn, momma's cooked supper and we're nearly finished. I recall the need to give them an explanation rather than losing a teachable moment so incredibly foundational to them growing into responsible, healthy women who truly know how to honor God with their lives and have healthy marriage relationships free from shame or guilt or condemnation.
Heavy. Awkward. Why did we become parents again? Who am I as a man to attempt this conversation? What kind of damage might I do here? What do I say to keep from wreaking havoc and sowing mixed messages? Why did we become parents again? Why couldn't their momma have been there when it happened - she has no idea what I have to tackle here and it slipped my mind to pull her aside and prime the pump before attempting to put out this fire?
I stumbled into some kind of awkward intro wherein I announced that we needed to talk about the bunny on the pink lighter we saw earlier... and then I froze because I had absolutely no idea where to begin. I held eye contact with my wife who, looking into the windows of my soul, realizes everything and more than I wrote in that last paragraph and that I'm stuck. Shonda, not being a stranger to seizing teachable moments herself, morphs into a petite Linda Carter and then spinning with sound effects only we superhero parents can hear transforms into Wonder Woman right before my eyes. She lasso's the girls attention with this question: "Do you girls see that V on daddy's shirt? What does that mean when you all see that particular V?" To which the girls chime "Valvoline." and "Valvoline Oil." Shonda explains that the V logo represents something, a company, a line of products used in cars and racing engines all over the world, and that when people see that logo it means something, they recognize it if they have any familiarity with oils and car maintenance products.
I love my wife. She opened the door for me and set the stage better than a troupe of experienced stage hands supporting a complex theatre performance in between scenes. And the girls may be able to look back in decades to come and realize she was the real life Wonder Woman they've only watched on DVD.
I was able to pick right up and loose my momentary stage fright, speaker's block, man treading on dangerously thin ice paralysis... whatever you want to call it. And then she was Shonda again, without the super bracelets, coronet, and red white and blue bathing suit/unitard thingy. Ahhh the mystery that is Wonder Woman...
I explained in simple terms the whole of the Playboy and Playgirl culture, what the bunny represented, the unspoken messages taught by the magazines themselves and the attitudes of the people who wholly accept that logo, that lifestyle, that cultural attitude of empty freedom. I explained that the whole package is a twisted claim of freedom and artistry in celebration of God's creation of human beauty to justify what is truly just worship of small g gods and goddesses of sex and beauty that leaves them enslaved. We talked about faithful marriage such as their mother and I have modeled for 16 years, and the security that provides them as our daughters in comparison to the culture exemplified by that bunny wherein people are disposable and you just get a new one next month rather than work things out. We talked about the images of the models and mannequins displayed throughout the mall, the clothes they modeled, and the unspoken yet incredibly powerful messages blatantly portrayed by all these things. We talked about the women and girls we all noticed wearing translucent and nearly transparent blouses and shirts with only the occasional layers to conceal their bras, the fidgety tendency to tug and pull at pants and shirts that just don't cover parts of your body you don't want viewed. They were chiming in and pointing out things they saw that they didn't think were kosher, and seeing the whole spectacle through eyes that had been opened for the first time. And they found affirmation that beauty is indeed wonderful, but that it should not be merely outer adornment and physical beauty - but that of the inner Spirit welling up from within and creating a radiant and pure display of who they are truly created to be.
Never miss a teachable moment. Good night friends.
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