Psalm 139

I love Psalm 139.

Take these lines:

If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast.

If I say, "Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night," even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you.

As this and the preceding lines tell us, even death itself cannot take us out of the grasp of the Lord. And no matter what darkness we insert ourselves into (or we are put in) that darkness is not darkness to the Lord. It is all, in some mysterious way, servant to God's light, and part of it, too.

God is unthwartable, unstoppable, relentless in his pursuit of us. And this is a good thing - for weak as we are, it is so tempting to turn away. To hide from God. To do things that put us at odds with him, in the hope that maybe he'll give up on us.

He never does. He is always there, the shepherd searching for the sheep. We are his, and there's nowhere to hide. Broken and dashed on the shoals, we are his. Mired in quicksand of our own making, we are his. Scattered in the pieces of promises I have made to God and not kept, I am still his - I have no choice. He is God, and he still tells of his love for me, whether I want to hear or not, in so many ways. "I try to count them—they are more than the sand; I come to the end—I am still with you"

Our Christmas

I suppose I should report on my Christmas, eh? Blogs are supposed to be personal journals, and I sometimes get so caught up in the little essays and what not that I forget to journalize a bit.

Well, Christmas, what can I say? My daughter (eldest) has a birthday on Dec. 24, as does my brother. I normally participate in the music on Dec. 24 in some way, but because my daughter is working now, I decided not to. There was so little time to actually mark her birthday as it is, and my group's scheduled time would have interfered with that. So we rushed to church to see my younger daughter in the pageant. She was an angel, and read the intentions after in a loud clear voice, that made me realize her adult voice is starting to come in. It shook me to realize I have no little kids left. I miss 'em! At any rate, it was nice to just be in the congregation for a change. It is a lot harder to absorb the liturgy when you are part of it.

After church, we rushed out to meet my elder daughter at the pub she chose. Here in Ontario, the legal drinking age is 19, so there was no question it had to be a pub! We had to order all our food at once, when we got there (including dessert), because the kitchen was due to close at 7 PM. We ate, she opened presents, I took pictures, and then, instead of a birthday cake, she blew out a flaming sambuca!

We got out and on the road to get up to the cottage. It snowed - it always does December 24, always. My wife was exhausted from staying up late and wrapping presents, but she kept her spirits up. We finally got there about 11 PM. My brother in law was sitting in his chair, wearing a red old-fashioned nightshirt and green-suspendered pants. He looked for all the world like Saint Nick taking a break at home!

My younger daughter was fascinated by the preparations, and helped me stuff my wife's stocking. You see, she's never seen this before. It was not until shortly after last Christmas that we broke to her the news about Santa. Since I'm Catholic with slightly Byzantine sensibilities, it was probably a little easier to break for my wife and I than in some households - Saint Nicholas is a revered figure, a bishop known for his tender giving nature to his flock in ancient Turkey. It was easy for her to transition to the Saint Nicholas of Byzantine icons from the Saint Nicholas of gaudy Coke cans. ;-)

At any rate, the fact that she'd never seen this before was a very rare treat for me. It has been a long time since I got to see my daughters do big "firsts" - first steps, first words, you know. To see my daughter stuffing stockings for the first time reminded me of what a happy time it was to see so much newness.

After pulling out the guitar and singing Christmas carols and "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" a few times, I went to bed about one. When I was a kid, my brother and I lay awake excited all night, beginning to pester my parents to get up from about 6 AM onward.

Thank God my kids never picked up this habit. ;-)

Someone, not sure who, maybe even the dog, got us up about 8 AM. We went downstairs and opened our stockings. We wrap every single thing that goes into the stockings, so this takes a while. My brother in law held up well - this was, I'm sure, one of the saddest moments, but Christmas is never completely without joy, never. Then we got into the presents, and outside, the sunlight beamed in like it was summer. Made for some great shots on my camera.

I got to play Santa, retrieving everyone their gifts from the tree. I got a little confused with that, but I think I did OK. After some time enjoying our present-opening, which was enthusiastically assisted by more than one dog, I phoned my brother to wish him a belated Happy Birthday. We'd meant to swing by the house, but the timing just had not worked the day before. It was by now about 11 AM, and when I phoned him, they had just started opening presents. I asked him why so late, knowing the likely answer. And I was right - they had gotten good and plastered the night before, and the much merriment led to a late start Christmas morning. :-)

I phoned my parents. There was a certain sadness in that call - they miss us, we miss them, as they winter in Florida. The people they shared Christmas with in the past decided to stop coming in time for Christmas, and it was just the two of them. Still, it was good to talk to them. I have many happy memories of Christmas in our home, and to talk to them always brings me back to those days. My memories of childhood Christmases or more vivid than any other recollection.

And that afternoon, we played golf on the lake. Little of the snow had settled on the lake surface, it was sunny - it was perfect Ice golfing weather.

Late that night, after a delicious Christmas dinner that my wife's older sister prepared, I took my younger daughter out for a walk. Everyone else, you see, was bloated and near asleep. We walked onto the lake, sliding around on the ice. The moon was full, and with a white, white world to reflect the moonlight, it was nearly as bright as the day. As we walked back along snow, I looked down and saw my shadow.

"I'm being followed by a moon-shadow," I thought, as Cat Steven's song went through my head. Maybe a night like this had inspired him to write the song. Over the next few days, we golfed some more, ate some more, worked on things, walked some more.

In the snow, or in leaves of fall, or in buds of spring, or the flying motor-boats of summer - life journeys on.

"A world we did not make is beyond our control"

Human beings have lived beside the waters since there first were human beings. Paleontology's most poignant finds have included that of a Homo Habilis boy beside Lake Turkana. The garden of Eden is said by Genesis to be at the confluence of four rivers. My own fondest memories all involve being near water, whether that be my boyhood refuge of Carlysle Lake in Saskatchewan, my folks' place on Lake Ontario, or my brother in law's cottage.

So there was a certain familiarity when we turned on the weather channel and saw images of blue waves overrunning seaside towns, waves that look just like bigger versions of the Lake Ontario waves we play in during the summer. As I watched the waves leave the boundaries of the sea, cross a street, lap up almost lazily over the pool deck of a hotel, and splash into the pool, I could imagine the violence water can do; I felt what David Warren of the Ottawa Citizen put so eloquently, “A world we did not make make is (beyond) our control.”

What I cannot imagine, what I can never imagine, is the scope of the suffering and death. Most people know how hard it is to bear the loss of one loved one. How do you understand the death of a hundred thousand people? We see some pictures – rows of bodies, many of them children. But even that doesn't tell us the story – the dead alone would be enough to populate a huge town full of buildings, malls, and traffic jams. There is the picture of Karl Nillson with his note pleading for the return of his family – how many orphans are there now?

For a lot of people, an event like this shakes their faith. I can understand that, viscerally. What is the word salvation when you look at suffering of this magnitude?

I can understand the event intellectually. The cause of this event is the very thing that makes the Earth a planet replete with life. Without the constant shifting of the Earth's crust, causing the release of the gases that made life possible, the release of energy into the wind and water systems of the Earth, we would not be here to debate the matter. But it is one thing to know we are not in charge, and quite another to get such an explicit demonstration of how little power we really have. We are not the “Captains of our fate” as Timothy McVeigh tried to claim from the gurney.

I know I only speak for me when I say that faith actually helps me understand this. No religion on Earth promises its faithful respite from the world's calamities. Jesus certainly did not – in no uncertain terms he told his apostles that wars, floods, diseases, calamities would continue. But he adds to this, that if we persevere to the end, we are saved. Floods and storms may take us, but they can't kill our souls.

But despair can kill the soul. That is why I feel such great pity for those without the comfort of belief. For which is crueller? A world whose creative destruction is redeeemed by the God who wants us to persevere, or an uncaring world that gives us only heartless finality?

I have to choose the former. I cannot be hopeless.

I will have to talk to my wife about what we can do, and how we can help, for the suffering people of Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. There will be many aid agencies trying to help in the immediate future, and their soon depleted coffers will need to be filled again, as I imagine the damage to these countries will be lasting and severe.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

The humble estate of a boy in a manger

The Beckhams, the couple that a wax nativity scene was modeled on had a lavish baptism for their baby. In many respects, this is how a lot of people are. Baptisms have become in some ways a younger version of weddings. I remember after my daughter's, we went to a nice restaurant with family, and had cake. And I know we have that white dress somewhere.

What a different entry into the world Jesus had. It is almost as though the world did not want to make room for him. And I can't help but feel that Jesus was so accomodating to that feeling, that he came in the least intrusive way possible, in a stable with animals. How we've tried to make up for that since! We've built grand cathedrals, painted great pictures, and sung beautiful songs. Could we be less enthusiastic?

But that bright, cheery welcome mat was a bit late. He came humbly. He learned an honest trade, one that did not mark him as a king or a philosopher. And then he preached and healed from place to place, with no place to call his own. And then, for no good reason, we took him, nailed him to a tree, and tortured him to death, right in front of his mother and best friend.

But our good and gentle God not only endured all of this, he did something good with it. All the cruelty, all the rage, bitterness, cynicism, and distrust written on the human heart by years of inflicting suffering on each other focused in on that moment, bearing down on Jesus as though he were an ant under a magnifying glass in the scorching sun. And he took that hatred, and turned it into forgiveness. And not just any forgiveness - not forgiveness for doing this to him, but forgiveness for doing this to each other, to the world, to him. Forgiveness for everything.

God took our cruelty, cruelty that killed Jesus, and planted it like a seed. And Easter morning that seed took root, blossoming into new eternal life, given freely to all who seek it. This new age, an age of forgiveness is not one planted in the White House, in Parliament, at Buckingham Palace, or any Earthly throne. This age is ruled at the right hand of God Almighty.

Centuries earlier, when Moses asked God what his name was, he replied only "I AM," as if to swat aside any need to provide Moses with some narrowing identity. And here at an empty tomb, Jesus rose, and swatting aside the mortal identity of death and powerlessness, Jesus said with his ressurection not only "I AM", but "YOU ARE" to those of us willing to follow him.

No more death. No more despair. No more hatred. Those are the passing things of this world, and in him, we are already promised to and citizens of the next. This world has only the power over us that we let it. That is why the prisoners are set free, why the blind see, and why the dead rise again - because we are free! Gloriously so! If God can save the world through the life of an itinerant preacher-carpenter born in a manger, we can surely accept this freedom with the joy which it deserves.

So I can appreciate baptismal enthusiasm, even if I find the price tag hard to grasp. Like cathedrals and paintings, baptisms are simply the belatedly extended welcome mat to he who truly is the King of Glory! For it is with the angels we are now free to sing "Alleluia" and shine like a star in a Bethlehem sky.

This book review...

has reminded me that most war-making is an outrageous crime against not only our "enemies" but also ourselves. War may be necessary rarely - such as in World War II. But most of the time it dehumanizes both the people who die in it, and those who wage it.

I warn you not to read these book reviews unless you are prepared to hear of enormous grief and suffering.

The New York Review of Books: On War

Peace is a moral value. God came to us in a manger as Prince of that moral value. We are called to uphold it.

On a far, far less happy note...

SignOnSanDiego.com > In Iraq -- Insurgents launch deadliest attack on U.S. base in Iraq, killing both U.S. and Iraqi troops

I hope GWB comes to his senses and just gets the heck out of there after that election! This is not a way these soldiers and their families should have to do Christmas. Bring them home!

You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll... probably post a lot more.

Try out the Blog post generator. Now you can keep your blog busy as a bee!

Silence

The lake is not entirely frozen yet. So when my brother and I resolved to go ice fishing this last weekend, we crept carefully onto the lake, tapping it with the ice spud to make sure the path we took out was solid enough to walk on. The spot where we fish is not deep, so we weren't as stupid as this sounds.

Once out there, we drilled three holes, and put our gads in the water. My brother in law learned to make gads from a fellow who designed them with doorsprings and hockey sticks - far more advanced than the usual twig with a string design most people use.

As the sky got dark, we could make out an orange light across the lake. My brother in law joked as to what idiots would be out on the ice this time of year. I pulled out my binoculars to take a look, and then I passed them to my brother in law. From what we could tell, they were rebuilding a boathouse, and had a fire on the shoreline to keep warm.

My brother in law said to me, "You know, people say they come up here for the silence. And I don't find it ever silent here. There are always sounds... birds, leaves, do you hear the leaves over there? Sounds like Oak leaves."

"It does not happen often," I said, "but there is silence here. Do you remember that day the northern lights shone? I stood by the roadside that day, and all the birds had gone, and there was no wind, and I realized I have slight tinnitis, because all there was to hear were my own thoughts."

"I always listen for things," He replied.

Maybe the solace in sound that people take by a lake is not really the absence of sound. Perhaps it is the absence of artificial sound - the jarring ringing of pagers, cellphones, faxes; the frenzied beeping of computers and video games; or the endless honking and groaning of vehicles on clogged motorways.

Beside a lake, all you hear are the sounds of creation - the natural song of praise a made world sings to the one who made it. I can imagine that it does sound like silence to some.

Be not afraid

In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.’ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!’ (Luke 2:8-14)

When I was young, my grandmother would get me to read the story of the nativity. And I would do so with a sense of wonder, picturing brightly glowing choirs of angels singing joyfully on wing. It was as magical to me as Santa Claus, and more wonderfully childlike even than the idea of a fat man coming down the chimney to be burnt by the fire my grandfather threatened to leave!

I have long ceased to believe in Santa Claus. And I am not proud of that! I wish I could believe childlike things, as a child.

But I do believe in choirs of angels. And at times, I think I hear them, singing joyfully. :-)

The boy inside the man - ii

A last Advent reflection.

Everyone is familiar with the story in Luke of how Gabriel came to Mary and explained how she would be the handmaiden of the Lord, the one who would miraculously bring Jesus into the world, a Son to God. We are quite familiar with Mary's wonder, but there is another part to this story, and Matthew hints at it - Joseph's sense of rejection.

Joseph was Mary's betrothed, and at that point in time, that was something more than it means today, as betrothal was a certainty. Matthew tells us that Joseph was a "righteous man" who was going to quietly break his arrangement with Mary until the angel appeared and told him this:

"Joseph, son of David,
do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home.
For it is through the Holy Spirit
that this child has been conceived in her.
She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus,
because he will save his people from their sins." (Matthew 1:20-21)

Up until that moment, Joseph is basically out of the loop. The woman he loved, someone who I'm sure he planned for a normal life with, was pregnant. The unexpected shock would have hit him like a ton of bricks, and buried in emotion, it is unlikely he would have heard a word of her explanation, even being a righteous man. Yes, he was unwilling to expose her to shame, and that speaks much of his character, but his plan was basically to leave her. Did he feel abandoned? Left out of a future he thought was his to share? Unloved by the one he loved most?

I imagine he felt all of those things.

But the angel told him that he was not left out, not in any way at all. "You are to name him Jesus" He was told. God trusted His son, the son who would save the world to Joseph's care. The strong but gentle hands of a carpenter were to be trusted with the weight of the world. A simple man would be role model and guide to the saviour who became the role model and guide for the billions of Christians who have lived since. Not only was Joseph included, he was included wonderfully, so wonderfully that Joseph had no idea I am sure that people would still remember his gentle service every time a boy with a staff and a fake beard led a stuffed donkey up the aisle of a church for millenia to come.

So it is with you, with me, with everyone. We are all included with God. Included wonderfully in a way we cannot yet anticipate. And someday we will know fully, even as we are fully known, as St. Paul might say.

The boy inside the man

When I was a young boy, I was not much like other young boys. I could read at five, and we're not talking kid's books. I could regale adults with my encyclopedic knowledge of astronomy, and they would get a kick out of it.

On the other hand, I had very few social skills, especially when it came to playing with other kids. I was awkward, and I was often confounded when trying to talk and play with other kids. I had very few close friends – my next door neighbour, and my brother. I was too shy, too socially awkward, too confused by the complex interpersonal social web that underlies all interactions, even those of young people. My parents understood me and knew of my misery, but I think there was little they could do but anxiously observe it from the sidelines, and reassure me once in a while.

I was bullied, regularly, but by different bullies over the course of my childhood – I think the kind of predator instinct within a bully instinctively knows what kids to go after. But what is a more painful memory for me – sharp enough that I feel it physically to recall it here – is just being left out. At swim class, in school, whenever an instructor told us to pair up in groups, I was always, always the one left out, left behind.

In the years since, I have worked hard at breaking out of this shell. I recognized that the challenge of understanding and participating in human interaction was in some part an intellectual challenge; so I studied others, and how they interacted. I learned to make eye contact. I made myself become interested in other people, and worked hard at either having, or being able to accurately simulate, the many social graces that distinguish "weird" people from "normal" people.

And I had a lot of help – compassionate people who recognized things in me that they liked, and were willing to let my missteps slide as they welcomed me into their friendships.

Why am I telling all of this? Because most people have been on journeys of self-improvement, and probably recognize my story in some part as their own. But for all the self-improvement work that has been done on my journey by myself and others helping me, the anxious little boy is still the soul at the core of my being.

Last week, my church's Christmas CD came out. Everyone on the disk, myself included, was thrilled to participate. It means making our music ministry more visible than it has ever been before. And everyone who has heard it has been impressed.

Tomorrow morning, most of the lead musicians on the disc are going to be recreating some of the songs on a local TV station's breakfast show. I found out about this last night at choir, and following choir, some of the musicians participating showed up for practice. I was not invited to participate.

Intellectually, I know well enough that in no way was this meant as a slight. They probably just picked some of the songs that I wasn't on, so there was no need for me to be there. There is the fact that my rendition of "O Little Town of Bethlehem" needs little short of a full rhythm section to perform, and that would not have been feasible in a small broadcast studio on such short notice. And I wasn't the only one left out – nobody from the 11 AM choir is involved in the morning show, as far as I know.

Still, the reaction I had as I put on my coat to go, and my colleague stuck around to get rehearsing was once again that of the little boy left out. No matter how far the distance you travel, some part of you has never left the starting line.

And that, I think, is why I write this. Not to have you feel sorry for me. I don't feel sorry for me – if I feel sorry for anyone, I feel sorry for the little boy from Frazier Park road who lived in Orleans decades ago. I am not him, not really. Not anymore. A small part of me is, of course, or I could not have had the reaction I had last night.

But if God preserves a piece of us at that starting line, it may be for a couple of reasons: to allow us to see, first of all, how far we have come. And secondly, I think, to remind us that we don't die. Our bodies may replace themselves every seven years. And we may reshape our personalities to such an extent that we extinguish all visible sign of our earlier incarnations. But God loves, even still, the young child that every person once was. "For to Him", Jesus once said, "All are alive."

Yes, even that cliché of clichés – the inner child. :-)

Iraqi Christianity is being decimated - Christmas canceled

A Dark Christmas in Iraq

CNN.com - Fire destroys B52's 'Love Shack' - Dec 17, 2004

The "Love Shack" is toast:

CNN.com - Fire destroys B52's 'Love Shack' - Dec 17, 2004

Ice on the rocks

Ice on the rocks
Posted by: leavethelighton.

I had some trouble blogging this over. The button to do so was missing at Buzznet. Now it is back. Here is what the lake looks like - I took this shot on Sunday morning walking with my youngest daughter.

A very helpful Advent site

This site explains most everything - The Christian Season of Advent

Rather than burn Advent candles at home, we have them painted in our kitchen bay window, for all to see. Every Sunday, my wife paints a flame onto one of them. :-)

You've got spyware

Biz Tech Microsoft may charge for spyware tools

Microsoft recently bought a company that makes anti-spyware software. It is important for me to say that I believe that in many ways Microsoft is responsible for spyware as it exists today. You see, in 1996, desperate to catch up with Netscape after arriving late to the Internet, Microsoft released Internet Explorer 3.0, a web browser where you did not have to deliberately install plug-ins using a cumbersome procedure, but you could install little pieces of application via an existing plumbing method that Microsoft had developed for Mac and Windows (COM/OLE.) This was called "ActiveX" and it was meant to compete with Java. ActiveX potentially was far more powerful than Java, since it integrated far more tightly with Windows' existing component architecture than Java did. Pretty soon, everyone offered up ActiveX controls - Flash, Shockwave, Acrobat... and many other lesser viewing tools, games, chatting widgets, you name it. I even developed one such widget at one point at my work.

In the late 1990s, some nefarious operators began to realize that, since people often were willing to let web pages install just about anything, that they could make ActiveX controls that would spy on your Internet activities. It got worse after Microsoft won the browser war decisively. After Internet Explorer 6.0 came out, Microsoft seemed to me to more or less abandon any real continued work on IE. After all, when you have nobody to compete against, why spend the money?

In the last two years, as Internet Explorer languished in this apparent abandonment, hackers and other Internet hooligans began to realize that there were ways of getting spyware and other things installed onto your computer via ActiveX without asking for your consent. If they posed as a trusted computer network, for example, you'd have spyware without even knowing you'd been infected. And a cottage industry has emerged to protect Internet Explorer from spyware - I had to use Ad-Aware a few weeks ago when my eldest daughter found where I'd hidden Internet Explorer, used it, and got my computer so badly infected with something called tibs3 that I could not even run Control Panel!

So I think it takes a certain degree of audacity that Microsoft would charge for spyware removal tools, considering how I feel about their culpability in causing the problem to be there in the first place!

My way of avoiding spyware has been to switch from Internet Explorer to the new Firefox web browser. And the reason for that is best summed up in this joke that computer security experts like to tell each other.

Two campers are walking around up in the mountains. Suddenly a bear comes running out of the woods only a hundred feet away. But instead of running away one of the guys throws down his pack and takes out his tennis shoes. He then changes out of his boots. "What are you doing asked his friend? You can't outrun a bear." His friend looks up at him and replies... "I don't have to outrun the bear... I only have to outrun you."

Since all the guys designing spyware are targeting the juicy targets of Internet Explorer and ActiveX, if you join the tiny minority of people using something a little better and safer, you will escape their notice.

MSNBC - Hitler was a tax dodger, researcher finds

Check out this headline - MSNBC - Hitler was a tax dodger, researcher finds

Hitler - psychopath, dictator, man who tried to murderously extinguish an entire people and their religion - and a tax dodger! (Um... one of these things is not like the other?) Reminds me of a cartoon I saw from the sixties of a guy at an anti-nuclear protest holding a sign saying "Ban firecrackers!"

On being an old wineskin

I learned today an interesting way of looking at this passage from Matthew (9:14-17)

Then the disciples of John came to him, saying "Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?" And Jesus said to them, "The wedding guests cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away and then they will fast. No one sews a piece of un-shrunk cloth on an old cloak, for the patch pulls away from the cloak, and a worse tear is made. Neither is new wine put into old wineskins; otherwise, the skins burst, and the wine is spilled, and the skins are destroyed; but new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved."

Now I have heard this passage many, many times - I've read it, and I've heard it proclaimed in church. But I had never really even wondered what it meant. But when I heard someone admit that they did not know what it meant, I realized that not only had I never thought of this passage and what it could mean, I didn't really see what he was getting at.

But there is a meaning to it. John's disciples were likely Essenes, ascetics who lived lives of privation out in the desert in the manner of John the Baptist. Like certain disciplined orders of monks today, their manner of worshipping God was to deny the self and focus only on God.

The disciples of Jesus, on the other hand, were with God. They did not yet know it, but when I think of one day meeting God face to face, I don't picture fasting as my reaction. That will be a moment of pure joy. And I imagine that this is what life with Jesus was like. It was a hard life of itinerant preaching and healing, but to be in the blessed presence of the holiest one the world had ever seen had to be a joy. And given how Jesus himself says that he came "eating and drinking" I am sure that there was much joyous fellowship in his company.

How strange that must have seemed to John's followers. They had gotten used to a style of worship that was a self-imposed hardship, and it could not have been easy to see a new movement arise around someone who worshipped in a celebratory, joyful way.

And I think what Jesus is saying to John's disciples is that he understands that it is hard for them; he empathizes with them. The Essenes had a long established discipline that was intense, ascetic, and challenging. And yet here was someone with a similar message, but who did not have harsh disciplines for his followers: on the contrary, they had a festive approach. John's followers were old wineskins. Jesus knew that they could not do the things his own disciples did; he understood, and so he brought his festive style of ministry to new disciples, and not to John's movement. It illustrates his profound respect for the religiosity of John's followers, all the while explaining that the freewheeling ways of his own disciples was quite justifiable.

Change in our lives needs to be organic. We can't overturn everything about ourselves and establish something new in its place overnight. Just as Jesus did not expect these Essenes with John to handle the jubilance of the Gospel, God never gives us more than we can handle; it has a downside, because when the time comes, and we are able to handle a lot, he will give us a lot. But we need not fear; for the Lord will not give us a burden we are not able to bear.

The holiday that dare not speak its name

Cast me in the middle on this one.

I do not wish to be wished "Happy holidays," as I will not be wintering in Acapulco. Nor is it labour day! On the other hand, if people are not comfortable with the quite-specific Merry Christmas, then they do not have to wish me anything. After all, it is Advent right now, and the twelve days of Christmas don't start until December 25.

Christmas is a religious holiday, so I certainly do not demand that stores wish me a merry Christmas. It would be nice, as they no doubt want me to buy gifts from their stores, but I won't be put out of joint by a lack of "Merry Christmas" (although I am not fond of 'season's greetings' - I'd rather you greet me with summer than winter. :-) And the reason I do not insist on a reference to Christian faith from store clerks is because you cannot serve God and mammon. The commercial aspect of Christmas is just that - commercial. Shopping is not the point of Christmas. Not for me, anyway: I don't like to shop. The point is much better expressed in the love that goes into what you buy and make for people. (We're doing a lot of made gifts this year.)

I do take a secret delight in wreathes and Santa, because I know that these symbols are ones malls trot out thinking they are secular. But they are not.

Saint Nicholas (which is phonetically where "Sinter Klaus" is derived from) was a great man. History tells us he was a bishop who wanted to help a family he knew needed a dowry, but was very shy and did not want to be seen trumpeting his generosity. So he dropped gold coins down their chimney, which fell into stockings which had been hung on the mantle to dry, and he was caught in the act. And I believe God wants it so, because in imitating Nicholas' generosity as we now do by tradition on Christmas morning, we also imitate Jesus who said that it is better to give than to receive.

Wreathes were originally meant as an Advent church decoration. Because wreathes are circular, they can't be said to have an end. And in this, they show us the love of God, which also is without end.

God gave the world His only Son, because He so loved the world. And he gave us families and friends, so that we could share the joys of the gift of life. It is a fleeting gift here on Earth, of course. And because of that, this Christmas will be a very melancholy one for us. But it is still Christmas. For when God gave us the gift of each other, he gave us the ability to remember, and the ability to love. And when our love is pure, it reaches beyond the world, and joins the joy of the Heavens, where those who have left us await, and from whence angels came to sing to shepherds so very long ago.

May the peace of God, come to us as an innocent and helpless babe in a manger, be with all of you.

Advent, week three

I love the lectionery readings for Advent:

The utterance of Balaam, son of Beor,
the utterance of the man whose eye is true,
The utterance of one who hears what God says,
and knows what the Most High knows,
Of one who sees what the Almighty sees,
enraptured, and with eyes unveiled.
I see him, though not now;
I behold him, though not near:
A star shall advance from Jacob,
and a staff shall rise from Israel. (from Nehemiah 24)

In our scientifically minded world, we sometimes can spend a lot of time puzzling on the miraculous elements of the Bible. We wonder if they even happened, or if they did happen, what was their cause?

One of the ones people puzzle over is whether there was a star over Bethlehem on a night two thousand years ago. Scientists have spent a good amount of time trying to figure out what celestial event might corelate with the 6-4 BCE date that is suspected for Jesus' birth.

From my perspective, this prophecy gets it right - the star we really have to focus on is not a celestial light, but the light that entered the world, and which the darkness has never extinguished. Just as another prophet predicted the people of Gallilee, living in darkness, would see a great light, so this one has predicted a star in the line of Jacob.

It came - and today, we are the bearers of that light. We are to be the light of the world, and the salt of the Earth. At our best, we should be the light over the manger, for all to see, people of faith who bring hope to those who need it, and light to those in the dark. It is what Jesus meant for us - he didn't die so some shmoes could get a free ticket into heaven. He meant to set an example of love and selflessness.

So this Christmas, let each and everyone do his or her part. Be a light to your family, your friends, and even a stranger. If we do, then nobody will doubt about a star over Bethlehem.

For they will have seen it.

Winter arrives... and my camera is ready!

If you can't melt it, photograph it...

You can also check 'em out via the little picture thumbnails down the left hand side.
(Edited to fix URL)

In case it is not apparent...

My frequent resort to rhetorical fire and brimstone, such as in my last post, is not something I literally believe. I am hoping to be sardonic. Is it working?

I think the scope of God's forgiveness is very great. Even the hardhearted will probably see mercy. While I do not doubt that "narrow is the way," we are given many opportunities to find it, and every once in a while, most of us find a a way to be among the few to stumble through it. And as He said, "He who is righteous in a little is righteous in much." :-) (Luke 16:10)

"Emotionalism" is valid

One of the criticisms I have heard of a number of Christian movements - from Charismatics/Pentecostals to my own Cursillo movement - is that it relies too heavily on "emotionalism."

Well I for one am an advocate of emotionalism when it comes to faith, especially Christian faith. What was Thomas the skeptic's reaction when Jesus finally took on Thomas' forensic skepticism - his demand that he see not just Jesus, but one with all the right wounds? He fell to his knees and said, "My Lord and my God!" As Christians, we are called to be emotional. St. John tells us that "God is love." Jesus tells us to "Love one another, as I have loved you." He tells us that the woman washing His feet with her tears is the more loving, because she is the most forgiven (and obviously also the most repentent!)

If you can't feel, and don't even want to, why would you involve yourself in a faith like Christianity?

Don't get me wrong - it is a faith with an excellent tradition of scholastic theology, great thinkers like Thomas Aquinas, C.S. Lewis, St. Augustine... but each of these men also felt, and felt deeply. Listening to Augustine's heartbreaking account of his mother's passing is unbearable to read.

We are called to love - even St. Paul, whom the legalists tend to scandalously appeal to, tells us that the highest virtue is Love, in 1 Corinthians 13.

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.

So be emotional. Feel. Love. Hurt. God gave us feelings and empathy for a reason - not to wither on the vine. But to take root in the spirit. It is why bards sing, and lovers mope, why cantors sing, and why daughters elope.

Love another, truly and fully, and you are doing His word - Love one another as I have loved you. Let the would-be Scribes and Pharisees keep their coldness. They'll need it in the very warm place where such things lead.

Frosty the snowman

My daughter (younger one) is a girl guide and my wife is her group's leader. Last night, they went to a care home for Alzheimer's patients to sing Christmas carols. They tell me that some of them sang along, some patted their knees in time, and one lively fellow got up and danced a jig! They had great fun, and it felt good for them to momentarily restore the patients.

Music has so much power, it really does. It soothes, or it moves you to outrage. It hurts, even as it comforts. I remember one melancholy period of my life when I got tremendous solace from Suzanne Vega's "Solitude Standing" and Dire Straits "Love Over Gold." And yet both albums are largely about terrible misery!

Christmas music has so much power. It is not hard to place yourself in a manger on a starry middle eastern night when you hear "Silent Night." Unfortunately, I don't think I'm going to be involved in the Christmas choir this year...

Tortured sentence of the week

Donald Rumsfeld: "I don't know what the facts are, but somebody certainly is going to sit down with him and find out what he knows and make sure he knows what they know that he may not know." (Regarding a soldier's complaint about armouring vehicles.)

But you can make a difference...

A friend of mine did.

Human inhumanity

I heard this report and I could not believe it - half the world's children do not have what they need to survive.

Empathy is the essential human skill, the reason we have such large brains and language - what use are these things if not to understand the conditions of others? Knowing that, how did this happen?

And we cannot look askew at third world countries - even in the industrialized countries, we have kids who go to school hungry, who are preyed on by adults they trust, or live in fear of some bozo shooting up the school.

What's scarier than the negligence that allows so many to be hungry is the deliberate misuse of our young - from mustering them as soldiers to selling them as sex slaves.

Jesus said it as plainly as possible - anyone who harms a child would be better off being cast into the sea with a stone around their neck.

Children are the epitome if innocence - they look to us with trust, and instinctively expect any adult to help them. And as a parent, I know that I have to explain to my kids that this is not so! How sad it is that I am not explaining to my kids that they have to fear bears, wolves... but members of their own species! Adults will enslave them, send them to war, beat them, sexually humiliate them, use them, kill them, exploit them... how is this possible?

How is this possible?

New blogging tool...

It was only a matter of time. Microsoft has gotten into the blogging business at spaces.msn.com.

It is pretty cool that they offer such easy use of pictures. It is overly complicated here at Blogger, where you either have to pay for FTP services, or you have to use that weird "Hello" tool that is not work-safe.

Hopefully the competitive pressure will motivate Blogger to make that easier.

Don't try this at home kids...

Scientists have postulated that the reason Tin-Tin has never gotten older in his fifty years of appearances is that he keeps getting knocked on the head. Seems like a dubious way to stay young to me... and I don't plan on trying it. More curious is why these scientists refused to consider the possibility that Tin-Tin's ageless nature has something to do with his status as a fictional comic character. And apparently they do this every year. :-)

Alexander the Great

Has anyone seen it? And is it any good? The only movies I've seen recently are the Incredibles and Spongebob.

Why am I dreaming of beaches and summer?

Because it is frickin' cold outside, Mr. Bigglesworth. December weather can be both damp and cold, and the result is a kind of cold where you just can't get warm. I haven't felt truly warm in days.

Funny - you know, there are some winter days, often in February, where a sunny three degree celsius day feels like the warmest, best, sunniest day of your life. We had some of those in late December, last year. I have told the story of our ice golf, before haven't I?

We golfed out on the frozen lake, and I was wearing short sleeves, and the sun was burning hot. I even got a bit of a tan going again. The snowy north is not always snowy, or cold! if only that were true today...

We joked that day that we were going to start an ice golfing resort - a place where you could boast about that three hundred yard drive with a nine iron (you don't have to tell them the last two hundred yards were because golf balls slide on ice...)

Funny the things you find in a blog...

I was browsing the profiles of Ottawa bloggers, in the hopes of finding something new and interesting to read, and I saw this picture of a guy standing on the beach. I realized quickly that he was standing on a beach right in front of my parents' house, on Quinte's Isle! It made me wish that I was there and that it be summer again...

Overanalyzed Relationships

I am always truly puzzled by people who overanalyze personal relationships. I see people who spend hours dwelling on which partner gives more to the relationship, or try to predict the long term future of a relationship based on present day indicators. And it saddens me because the people who do this suffer from an unquenchable grief - they seem to mourn the partner or friend they never have, because they've spent so much time on the issue that the idealized partner or friend they've conceived in their mind is as real to them as the flesh and blood people these constructs were meant to improve on.

Let me say this straight up - you can't change someone else, and you can't know the future of the most complicated interaction nature has ever produced. God gave us great intelligence so we can manage our interactions with other people, it is true. But this is the crux of it - we only have the ability to manage our own part in those interactions (unless you have a mind control ray gun.) There is little point in trying to analyze the role other people play in those interactions, in the hope of getting them to play the part you feel they should play. Each of us has an individual culture, a specific belief about how relationships of both the friendly and romantic kind work. And these beliefs are hard for any of us to shake. That is one of the reasons where mating is concerned that we pair-bond - in theory, we are picking like-minded, or at least compatible mates. All you can do is spend a lot of time recommending 1 Corinthians 13, the ultimate model of love, to people.

As for trying to plan the long distance future of a relationship? Well, it can be fun to try and pick out what cruise ship you're going to take at fifty. But spending too much time on the future sacrifices the present. I know of so many older people who spent years sacrificing for a future they were robbed of - I remember some neighbours my parents had at the farm. The husband died months after retiring, and they had spent years preparing for retiring.

I'm not suggesting not having savings. All I do suggest is not to get wrapped up in a future that may not come. And who knows? Your future may be far better than the one you have planned! (My future includes the next Star Wars movie. :)

Procrastination

I am a serious procrastinator. I put off so many things. I've put off projects I have to get done. I put off my Christmas shopping. Right now, I'm putting off hopping in the shower and going to work.

Be careful what you put off. I say this from experience. Someone you forgot to love is someone you may never get the chance to.

Awful, awful choir

After the weekend retreat, I did my regular churchly duty, and showed up for Sunday night choir (folk group.) After a weekend when I had been able to move many with music, soaring musically in ways I never had before, my folk group was just awful. We were terrible. Still, everyone knows us, and they just laughed. We weren't unhappy or worried - it happens.

For me, it was a valuable lesson, and I think God made an important point to me through it. When we soar, we soar on wings He gives us. We should never be too impressed with our own abilities, for they have their source in Him. That is not to say I advocate self-mortification after a job well done - certainly anyone should feel satisfaction after doing something well. But with it, I believe in adding a healthy dose of humility. Anything we are capable of doing well, we are also capable of doing badly. And the difference between a job well done and one thoroughly botched can be quite thin.

All we do well comes from God, and serves His glory. We should offer it back up to Him. He is happy to give us good gifts, and I believe He is pleased when we do well with our gifts. But like any parent Christmas morning, He wants our eyes to light up with wonder when we unwrap the gifts He gives.... and I imagine He's not adverse to a well-earned thank you. :-)

Advent

I love advent, the season when churches go purple. Actually, I like church seasons in general. Just like the seasons of the weather, they provide different flavours of worship as the year progresses.

Advent is a season of anticipation, for me. It is not just about the promise of Isaiah that the messiah would come, a commemoration of an ancient anticipation. It is also about the promise that Christ will come again!

And while it may be hokey in our modern scientific age to think that Jesus would (or even can) visit the Earth again, it is a hope worthy of keeping alive. Can you think of an age that needs Jesus more? And by Jesus, I don't mean people talking Jesus. We need Jesus. Because so few listen to him anymore.

We need to understand that when he told his disciples that "every hair on their head is counted," that we can and must interpret that as a signal that God loves every single last one of us deeply and intimately. He knows everything there is to know about us, from our virtues to our flaws. And he is prepared to remember the latter no more, if we also will let go of our pride, our arrogance, our un-humility. Remember the parable of the slave forgiven his debt who refuses to forgive his own debtor! (Matthew 18:21-35)

If only the hard-hearted, the legalists, the cynics could understand that what is most important to know about God can be summed in a single word - LOVE! And to such a large extent, love is why Christianity flourishes in some parts of the world, even as it dies out in others. Anywhere you find Christianity flourishing - much of Africa, South Korea, South America - you see a Christianity focused on good works, and spreading a hopeful message of salvation and a personal God willing to do so much for the humblest person. And when you look at any place where Christianity is failing, you see a Christianity that has become the purview of the hard-hearted, the dour, the exclusionist, the turn-a-blind-eye wealthy... even though it happened centuries before I was born, I am deeply grieved by the fact that centuries of Christian internicine fighting... wars that pitted Catholics vs. Protestants, Catholics vs. Catholics, and Protestants vs. Protestants... that all this destroyed Christianity as a moral power in Europe. Aside from aging empty cathedrals, our faith has nearly disappeared from that continent. And Christianity is failing in Rwanda, a decade after Christians failed Rwanda so completely.

And I worry very much that some cheerleading corners of Christianity today, particularly the kind that supports militarist interventionism, will do so much damage to Christianity in general. Because any time you go without God, God leaves you to your sin. Jesus never bombed or shot anyone, and had much to say about giving your cloak to those who ask for your shirt, going two miles with they who demand one. And he lived it - the saving sacrifice we venerate, his death on the cross - was a death of complete pacifism. He even berated Peter for pulling the sword from his scabbard, telling him that to live by the sword was to die by the sword!

Go with out God, and you go alone. And powerless and weak, what remains of us? For we can do nothing without Him.

Morning has broken

I wish I could describe what this weekend was like. But of course, I can't. The trouble with the insights you gain when you participate in a retreat is that these insights are profoundly personal, and difficult to translate into words. That, in some ways, is the beauty of a retreat, or an experience like a retreat; rich layers of meaning are created in your being that can take weeks and even years to fully grasp.

The one thing I can say is that "It is better to give than it is to receive." (To echo Jesus' words.) I felt very privileged to be able to sing of God's glory, and His love to people who were ready for that message, because I think that song is one of the most powerful ways you can make God audible to people who need to hear Him. I am very grateful to my wife, who has been a rock of support to me as I prepared to do my small part in the weekend.

And I came out of the weekend with new songs to learn myself. I have resolved to find and learn a song I heard about Paddy McGinty and his goat. Long story. :-)

Yellow Skies

I just finished breakfast with my younger daughter, in the kitchen alcove, looking out at the yellow sky. Funny how I only really ever notice it do that in winter, usually when it is colder. Maybe it is because the sun always beats me awake in the summer. I've taken the day off work today, because I have to... it was just not in me to rush off after work to the convent and put myself in the Cursillo frame of mind. I also have to practice all the music I will be doing.

The music actually started last night with the Grand Ultreya. The Ultreya was a tough hurdle I had been nervous about crossing. I was quite frightened about how that would turn out, and not without some reason. I always write songs that are too hard for people who just strum guitars casually to play. But it worked out, and one of the fellows in last night's group is a great guitar player who knows how to take songs and simplify them for others. The group's keyboard player was the featured speaker last night, and he focused his talk on music, and the part it played in his faith journey - so I was glad I had been moved to invite him into the group.

I saw a lot of old friends last night. I was so busy with the music I hardly had a chance to speak to them, but I do think they understood. And I am so relieved to have one of the big hurdles out of the way - now I can relax and watch God take care of the rest. Tonight I will be staring out at the hills where I grew up from a convent window, and I know it will bring me great peace.

I would have lost heart, unless I believed
That I would see the goodness of the LORD
In the land of the living (Psalm 27:13)