Something happened to me at Roseanne’s birthday party. She can not sit up on her own let alone stand our walk. She does not speak. She can not feed herself and she can only eat soft foods. She is someone who many people see far more quickly as an “it” than a “hello my name is….” Her birthday party is one of those moments I can point back to and say, this is the moment that changed my life.
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29 Days of Hope: A Resident Alien in Roswell Abducts Me.
I liked going on tour with the college choir. The old music wasn’t much to my liking. I guess I harbored a conviction that the old church songs related to old people, that is was time for new songs and “relevant” songs only. My sent me on a quest to stay with Don Adams when I got to Roswell New Mexico that would be a shift in my convictions. He gave me permission to believe that trying to prove Christians can be cool might be a less interesting endeavor than to learn to live a little, well, alien to what was relevant.
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4 ways to jumpstart the last minute holiday spirit.
Whew! So that was the longest night of the year. I am not at all unfamiliar with its is like to be stuck in a night that does not seem to want to end. Sometimes the darkness is a habit of thinking that is hard to break. This far in to the holiday season there are always a few folks who want to be in the spirit of things but just haven’t got there yet. Well the night is over. The sun returns and I think surprise is an important part of a complete breakfast. So here are a couple ideas to get the ball rolling. 1) Shock yourself: Some gifts you…
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The Better Angels of Juarez’ Nature
I always thought glitter would play an important part in the revolution. In Juarez, Mexico members of a small church put it on their faces and their hand made wings. This is standard for for a lot of Christmas pageants but these angels aren’t about to sing in the annual cantata. They are headed downtown Juarez. What they are planning to do really puts teeth and nails in hope.
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29 Days of Hope: In Defense of Giving Gifts.
Swearing off the exorbitant gift giving of Christmas is something I cannot help but get behind. However, we also run the risk of being, well, scroogey. Giving gifts is something that is fundamentally human and to relinquish the practice to those who trample each other at Walmart might be as much of a concession to consumerism as maxing out the visa cards. “Spend money or don’t give gifts.” That doesn’t sound at all right to me.
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Actually, Yeah. Mary Did Know.
I love the songs that capture what horror it must have felt like to be a teenage girl who God had chosen for, well, anything. I feel both a sense of honor and terror every time I think that there is good on earth God would have me do. So songs like “Breath of Heaven,” by Amy Grant and “Mary Did You Know,” by Mark Lowry tap into our sense of how overwhelming we would have been and how overwhelmed we are right now. Through our eyes we can only imagine such a call to be suffocating, full of fear. This, however, is not at all like the song…
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29 Days of Hope: The promise of Chanukah, we have enough light.
The miracle of the oil is a simple one. There wasn’t enough oil to keep the lamp lit for more than one day, but it lasted eight full days. Just enough time to get more. This year has reminded me a lot of the fragility of history. The “year in review” videos are popping up on FaceBook, websites, news channels. Social stability, the economy, and heck, even the weather seems delicate enough to go any which way. The future has exposed its own uncertainty Sometimes I hesitate to call it until I get a clear sense that “everything is going to be ok. But I usually don’t get to see…
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Christmas Doesn’t ‘Mean’ Anything. Nor could it.
Christmas – or any holiday – does not have a meaning behind it. Of course holidays have certain narratives behind them, but I know of no single holiday that has ever celebrated a story that wasn’t so complex it wouldn’t be summed up in a word or sentence. Nor one that has ever had just one meaning, especially one about the incarnation of God. Tricky…
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29 Days of Hope: Crackpots. I am one, …clearly.
So much of what I have been writing on this season has been giftedness: how you are a gift, and the importance of welcoming the gifts of others. I hope for whatever reasons it is clear to you at least some of what you bring to relationships and how you contribute to the world. But of course there is other the other side of the coin. Some of us live in constant if not overwhelming fear that it is our weakness, our darkness that comes through, or is at least just below the surface. Here is why that is not a problem…
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29 Days of Hope: Day 17, Ten Years of Christmas Eggs
Ten years ago this year, Christmas was trying its hardest to suck. With one family member in jail, this was not going to be business as usual and so we knew there was a lot of work to do to make sure the holiday didn’t crash and burn. More importantly we had to still be attentive to what the holiday means for us as a family. It turned out to be one of the most memorable Christmases ever, and not in a horrible way.
