Well, that got worse before it got better

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were a flurry. We were actually glad, though, when our dinner for 4 expanded to dinner for 12. First, our oldest grandson and his girlfriend said they'd join us. Then, on Christmas Eve after the grocery stores were closed, our youngest asked if it was too late for her crew to join us, too, for dinner, after all. Good thing I'd bought a way bigger ham than we needed.

I'd convinced myself that it would be okay to support the evening Mass in addition to Midnight and Christmas morning. Fortunately, we used the parish's normal Christmas schedule rather than our normal Sunday schedule. But even so, I really could have used that extra three hours. Maybe then I wouldn't have been par-baking pie crusts at 3:15 Christmas morning, or trying to cook and help with wrapping at the same time on Christmas Day.

Dinner ended up being very nice; there was nothing fancy, yet everything was good; well, the mashed potatoes were a little dry, since we ate about 90 minutes later than scheduled, which was about 75 minutes after everything was ready. It also included a very nice uncured ham that I was able to pick up on sale at Whole Foods when I went for my bulk spices (cinnamon sticks, cured allspice, fresh whole cloves), carrots with a cream sherry and honey glaze, and some canned green beans that our middle daughter and her husband contributed along with half the potatoes to round out enough food for the extra folks. Oh, and my daughter and I were the only partakers of the absolutely delicious cabernet-blueberry cranberry sauce. I screwed up the pie crusts something awful, but the pies were still yummy despite them.

After opening gifts, the anticipated altercation occurred, at least in part because it was anticipated, and two people left mad. Apparently one of the kids left a candy cane lying around, and our dog got it. Amid the already-hubbub of grandchildren excited about gifts, our middle daughter's husband raised his voice to call someone's attention to the situation, our youngest daughter took offense at his raised voice, our son-in-law and middle daughter took offense at her offense and left. Ugh. I may henceforth refer to this as The Catastrophic, Calamitous outCome of the Canine Candy Cane Caper^©.

These adults judge each other too harshly. They have too much a sense of superiority.

I taught them well, apparently, the part of myself that most needs to die.

Incarnation

6/8 Intro/Interlude: |D  A G  D|Bm  |D  A G  D  |F#m 
  A       |D        |A        |D  A   G  D  |(F#m) A     |
Imagine a time, one moment containing ev-ry mo  -  ment
D                        |A      |G          Em       |Bm     |
Poignant, mundane, breathtaking, heartrending  and sublime
     |Em     F#m   |Bm7         |Em       A    |Bm7sus4 Bm7  |
Each joy and every sorrow every heart has ever known
G        Em      |Asus4  A   
Touch upon God's timelessness

Interlude

Picture a |place so |open  it|reaches every |place
from vast |galaxies down to |leptons which our |senses can't per|ceive
|Mountaintops and deep |oceans, shining |stars and prison |cells
Im|merse in God's sacred |presence

Refrain:
     |G   Em     F#m         |Em   A/C#    Bm   |
O my God, You're beyond all imag  - in  -  ing
          Em           Gm          |Bm          
though we struggle and yearn to conceive
      |G   Em    F#m        |Em  A/C#   Bm  
You reveal yourself in your love for    us
        |G          A         |Interlude
Give us hearts that burn to believe

Con|ceive of every con|ception every |one has ever |fathomed
Phi|losophies and in|ventions, |plots, ideas and |schemes 
Each |wonder science dis|covers and |mysteries not yet re|vealed  |
Marvel at God's |boundless mind

Interlude

Consider a |love so |giving it |begs us all to |enter  |
Bearing each hurt and |betrayal, re|turning forgiveness and |peace   |
Shining great light in deep |darkness, bringing |hope to those in des|pair   |
Fall |into God's |loving arms

Refrain

Bridge:
G             Em              |G            A     |
  Since we're told that we're made in God's image
G        Em         |G       A     |
  We assign God our image as well
G          Em              |G            A        
  Bound by physics, space, time, and our feelings
    |G             Em    |G                 |Asus4   |A Tacet 
our minds cannot hope to grasp all that God is

But know this small |child, one |infant who |touches every |person For|saking the glory  of |heaven to be|come as one of |us     |
Born to deliver, by |dying and rising, |all people unto him|self
Come |enter God's |very life

Refrain

© 2015, LifeKnell Music Ministry; All rights reserved.

Incarnation

(edited 10/10)
At last I think I have finished this song about which I was so excited when I started it, nearly two years ago. It turns out that I needed time away from it to get out of my own way, to figure out how to rework the lyrics so that, while they may actually seem more awkward (at the end of each verse and the bridge) to read, the music and therefore the entire song now flow much better, and the parallelism between the verses is vastly improved. I also have a tentative title that I like at least a little.

I am highly indebted to the motivational influence of other wonderful songwriters. I was inspired to start this song after hearing the talented members of the Heider family share their music in a house concert. I was moved to revisit it after rehearsing for the first time with Keri Edwards, Kris Krumal and Nic Cardilino to accompany their wonderful songwriters' concert.

This is, of course, too long, and way heady, but there is a point to both of these shortcomings, as it's so broad in what it attempts to convey (which may literally be the understatement of all time and eternity).


Incarnation

Imagine a time: one moment containing every moment
Poignant, mundane, breathtaking, heartrending and sublime
Each joy and every sorrow every heart has ever known
Touch upon God's timelessness

Picture a place so open it reaches every place
from vast galaxies down to leptons which our senses can't perceive
Mountaintops and deep oceans, shining stars and prison cells
Immerse in God's sacred presence

Refrain:
O my God, you're beyond all imagining
though we struggle and yearn to conceive
You reveal yourself in your love for us
Give us hearts that burn to believe

Conceive of every conception everyone has ever fathomed
Philosophies and inventions, plots, ideas and schemes
Each wonder science discovers and mysteries not yet revealed
Marvel at God's boundless mind

Consider a love so giving it begs us all to enter
Bearing each hurt and betrayal, returning forgiveness and peace
Shining great light in deep darkness, bringing hope to those in despair
Fall into God's loving arms

Refrain

Bridge:
Since we're told that we're made in God's image
We assign God our image as well
Bound by physics, space, time and our feelings
Our minds cannot hope to grasp all that God is

But know this small child, one infant who touches every person
Forsaking the glory of heaven to become as one of us
Born to deliver, by dying and rising, all people unto himself
Come enter God's very life

Refrain

© 2014, 2015, LifeKnell Music Ministry; All rights reserved.

Conforming (phase 2), The "Hidden Life" and the Value System of Jesus Christ (step 10), session 1

First, some introduction to this step from the manual for this retreat. This step is to call into mind the two standards which compete for our attention:

The meditation puts in front of us the opposing value systems represented by Satan and the world on one side and that of Jesus on the other side in order to reject the first and embrace the latter. - Two Standards: Conflicting Value Systems Defining Our Way

I find myself so absorbed by my current stressors, and in lamenting what I think I will never get from life, that I am often failing to receive Christ in the ways that he continues to come to me.

I realize how terribly behind the calendar I now am, as these next couple sessions clearly fit with the about-to-be concluded Christmas season. But the steps ahead are longer again, so perhaps by simply persevering I will be back on track by Lent. The thing is, God is timeless, so it is sometimes good to consider things out of season, and one may reflect on the mysteries of salvation associated with Christmas and Easter - and the connections between them - throughout the year.

Lk 2:22-29- The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple

And when the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord. - Lk 2, 22

I think it is a testimony to their humility, and a wonderful example and reminder for us, that Jesus' exceptional conception and birth did not leave Mary and Joseph with a sense that they could turn away from the paths which God had ordained for his followers. It is foolish to use the word "required" with respect to God, but I think I have reflected in the past on how Jesus' fulfillment of the law might be facilitated by his compliance with it.

"Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word . . . "  - Lk 2, 29

I pray a sentiment like this often, of late, though not enough in the spirit which the Church invokes by including the Canticle of Simeon in Compline each night, begging the Lord for a peaceful night's rest. Unlike Simeon, I know that neither my labor nor my joy is yet complete, and I selfishly want my unfulfillment to be at an end. I must trust in God to bring each to completion, and stop rebelling against my circumstances, trusting that God is indeed greater than my troubles and that he has not abandoned me or cast me out of his love.

In my uninformed opinion, this is a strange place for this session to end (Lk 2, 22-29). We don't continue with this passage in the next session. I hope that perhaps we'll revisit the remainder of this canticle around the feast of the Presentation of the Lord.

Conforming (phase 2), God So Loved the World - The Birth of Jesus (step 9), session 6

He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation; for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities -- all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the first-born from the dead, that in everything he might be pre-eminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. - Col 1, 15-20

We are fast approaching the end of the Christmas season. In former days, before they removed the Baptism of the Lord (and the wedding feast at Cana) from the observance, it would be over already. Now the Baptism of the Lord closes the Christmas season. Since we cut a real tree each year, ours almost never survives that long. I undecorated it and took it outside the other night. However, we have left the rest of the decorations out until the conclusion of the season.

I see why the retreat would remind us, after we have focused so long on the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, that his existence is from everlasting to everlasting. We of course see this in the previous session's reading from St. John's gospel, and will likely get another reminder in the next session, which uses the beginning of the first epistle of the beloved disciple.

Conforming (phase 2), God So Loved the World - The Birth of Jesus (step 9), session 5

In the beginning

This session uses my favorite Gospel from the different masses of the feast of Christmas.  The vigil mass calls for St. Matthew's account of the genealogy of Jesus and the events from St. Joseph's perspective. The midnight mass reading is the only one to use St. Luke's account of the angels and the shepherds and no room in the inn, and is the Gospel that our parish uses at every. Christmas. mass. for the last ten years, because "everybody wants to hear this one," I guess. The mass at dawn is supposed to use the aftermath of the shepherds' visit, still from St. Luke.

For me, the Gospel designated for the mass during the day is the one that best captures the magnitude and context of the events of which all the others are mere details.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. - Jn 1, 1-5

It is as if God himself has delivered these words back to me today, when I have so desperately needed them to overcome my own darkness!

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came for testimony, to bear witness to the light, that all might believe through him.  He was not the light, but came to bear witness to the light.  The true light that enlightens every man was coming into the world.

He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world knew him not. He came to his own home, and his own people received him not. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God; who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. - Jn 1, 6-13

This is the very point of the only-begotten, eternal son of God becoming a son of Adam: that we might be granted our place as children of God!

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father.

(John bore witness to him, and cried, "This was he of whom I said, `He who comes after me ranks before me, for he was before me.'") And from his fullness have we all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known. - Jn 1, 14-18

I love this gospel reading, and my determination to read it on my own on Christmas day faded away in the decompression of our dear grandchildren being gone and the decision to spend the evening with friends. I am so glad that I have now been brought back to a chance to reflect on it a bit (even if it does mean that I'm about two weeks behind where I should be in the Exercises).

Conforming (phase 2), God So Loved the World - The Birth of Jesus (step 9), session 3

The Circumcision

And at the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb. - Lk 2, 21

I suspect they're going to wait to focus on the Presentation in the Temple around the time of that feast day.  But even on this brief scripture there are things to consider. How important it is for us to adhere to what God has revealed as his plan. Though the religious requirement for this tradition has been fulfilled in Jesus, it seems appropriate for Jesus to live under the law if he was going to fulfill it. There is a humility which we often lack in assuming that our own circumstances absolve us of our need to be obedient.

For instance, if someone with whom we are bound in love - covenantally or otherwise - says something that hurts us, the love we continue to bear for them is not mere obligation to which we merely pay lip service or even disregard. Rather God's love in us can carry us through our hurt to continue to respond genuinely to them as we simultaneously deal with our own feelings in an honest and healing way.

Jesus - Yeshua - so named because he delivers his people from our sins, by doing so has shown us how to respond in love rather than in kind when we are hurt.

Conforming (phase 2), God So Loved the World - The Birth of Jesus (step 9), session 2

Oh, I've gotten terribly behind. I should be finished this step by now.

The Shepherds

And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear. And the angel said to them, "Be not afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all the people; for to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord." - Lk 2, 9-11

When Christ comes to us, our first response is often fear of the unknown, unfathomable, wondrous person before us and of what we are sure he is going to ask of us.  Surely the One who leaves the throne of heaven for our sake will not tolerate our shrinking back from our mission, and we know not where it will take us, what he will require of us.

Each year as we celebrate the birth of the Savior, I always consider Calvary, the foreknown path which the eternal Son accepted along with his Incarnation. It is good for us to avoid the trap of romanticizing the glory of angels and the wonder of Magi led by a star, detaching it as we so often do from Jesus' redemptive mission. But while that mission was "finished" at Calvary, it comes into its fullness in the Resurrection, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and the mission of the Church: the birth of Christ in the heart of each beloved son and daughter of God and our formation into the Body of Christ.  The Body suffers passion and death, but the Body is resurrected! This is good news of greatest joy!  Now: how can we be resurrected without dying?

And they went with haste, and found Mary and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger. - Lk 2, 16

Let us not "go, if we must," and worship the eternal Son of God, but go "with haste" and encounter him in his humility, his vulnerability; let us grow with him in infancy and childhood and adulthood; let us enter into his suffering and his resurrected joy! Let us bear lovingly, knowing that it is Christ himself who bears within and through us.

Conforming (phase 2), God So Loved the World - The Birth of Jesus (step 9), session 1

The Birth of Jesus

Conforming (phase 2), God So Loved the World - The Birth of Jesus (step 9), session 2I'm glad I waited to start this step until now. I really wouldn't have wanted to get into today's reading (Luke 2, 1-14) any earlier. In a sense, I already did, on Monday at the Christmas at Fairhaven service.

I'm pretty far right now from being able to reflect effectively on this Scripture. The angels may have proclaimed peace on earth among those with whom he is pleased (Lk 1, 14), but the lack of peace in my heart causes me to wonder whether he is the slightest bit pleased with me. I don't know how to proclaim his love into the lives of those around me, especially the one who thinks she is hearing judgment and condemnation and an accusation of weakness instead of a call to live in God's love and strength. But when we think we know what we need and that we aren't getting it, the birth of a baby in a manger two thousand years ago can remind us that God meets our needs in ways we'd never think possible, let alone expect.

Conforming (phase 2), God Prepares a Way for Our Salvation - The Mystery of the Incarnation (step 8)

"Now we turn our attention from the Trinity to the entire earth, all inhabitants and all countries of it, and then slowly focus our attention on the image of Mary with the angel in Nazareth. This exercise of imagination is like to watching a movie with this opening closing down of the camera. With this visualization we have three big pictures to use in contemplation, the Trinity, the world and the scene in Nazareth." - Manual for the retreats, as quoted by Step-by-Step Retreats

This seems like the right transition at the right time. For two weeks we have recalled the longing of Israel for the Messiah and our longing for Christ's return, in the context of the parable of kingdom. Come to think of it, I probably need to wrap up the seventh step a bit in this context.

The people of Israel were of course waiting for the promised king who would restore the glory of their nation. The Lord had worked such amazing deeds for them, and they must have longed for that work to resume. But God never seems to do his marvelous works in the same way that he did them before. He always seems to have something bigger - and often less obviously spectacular - in mind. So the kingdom he has established is far beyond what the children of Israel anticipated with longing, and therefore those who were most invested in the ways that God had worked previously mostly failed to recognized it when he began to bring his plan of salvation to greater fullness.

So yes, it is good for us to prepare to celebrate this great mystery by taking the view described in the manual for the retreats. (I haven't included a direct link to the manual because the link from Step-by-Step's site appears to be broken.)  By first considering God's perspective and the eternal, infinite love for the universe which he created in love - and which, in his love, he desires for each of us to enter - and then allowing God to bring us into the presence of this young girl and angel in Nazareth, we begin to approach the place where we might consider the surprising ways he might be coming to us today. Recognizing each encounter's true nature prepares for us to give our own fiat in response to the circumstances that otherwise annoy and trouble us. And this allows the Holy Spirit to make the Son ever more incarnate in our own lives - conforming us more fully with our King whom we have been considering in the previous step.

More from Augustine on what this feast means

What man knows all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden in Christ, concealed in the poverty of his flesh? . . . How great are the blessings of his goodness which he reserves for those who fear him and shows to those who hope in him? Until he gives them to us in their plenitude, we can have only the faintest conception of them . . . from a sermon by St. Augustine, bishop

No matter how much we think we know God, on this earth we remain mortal, finite beings trying to understand the eternal, infinite maker of all things. We try to understand God's love and God's motives in terms of our own, because we have been told that we are made in his image and likeness, and yet our limited time, knowledge and power and our profound selfishness fundamentally distort our experience of love. Thus we reject God because he doesn't do what we think we would do if we were endowed with infinite love, knowledge and power, and if we were unbound by time as God is. If we consider more closely the things that we say we would do (better, of course) in God's place, our stated choices would invariably contravene the free will which he has bestowed on us, unhindered by any fear of us and motivated by a love for us which is greater than we can understand.

. . . but to enable us to receive them, he who in his divine is the equal of the Father assumed the condition of a slave and became like us, and so restored to us our likeness to God. The only Son of God became son of man to make many men sons of God.  

And, again, St. Augustine leads us to the true miracle of Christmas. Too often we focus on the manger, shepherd, angels and wise men, and fail to consider what it means for the eternal Son to become a mortal son. That may be best. Even the most faith-filled mind struggles to understand how such a thing can be. But let us not forget the reason: not just a baby born two thousand years ago, but our own adoption and transformation into what would otherwise always be beyond us.

Daily Christmas

In the very act in which we are reverencing the birth of our Savior, we are also celebrating our own new birth. For the birth of Christ is the origin of the Christian people; and the birthday of the head is also the birthday of the body. - from a sermon by Saint Leo the Great, pope

We may generally consider Pentecost as the "birthday of the church," but in the eternal scheme of things there is probably no single event of Jesus' earthly life which by itself represents the beginning of our life in him. There may be a single point in our own lives to which we might point as our conversion experience - that is certainly the case for me - yet many of us can also identify ways in which God was already at work in our lives preparing us to accept him as our Lord and Savior. So each of the historical events in Jesus' life that have significance for us can be celebrated with reverence for their connection with the life of Christ within us, without which we need not bother celebrating any of them! Saint Leo continues:

For every believer regenerated in Christ, no matter in what part of the whole world he may be, breaks with that ancient way of life that derives from original sin, and by rebirth is transformed into a new man. Henceforth he is reckoned to be of the stock, not of his earthly father, but of Christ, who became Son of Man precisely that men could become sons of God; for unless in humility he had come down to us, none of us by our own merits could ever go up to him.

There are at least two parts of that last sentence that I feel as if I should spend a little attention on. I believe I'll address that latter one first. The modern rejection of the concept of substitutional atonement seems to reduce Christ to the role of teacher revealing the way to God, rather than Christ actually being the only Way himself. All we need, some suggest, is to follow his example. They reject as quaint and outdated the concept that we are born into a kingdom in which our sinfulness is the central truth of our existence and transferred to the kingdom of God by the grace that flows from Jesus' life, death and resurrection. I believe that our rejection of this concept is a great hindrance to our effective preaching of the gospel. 

Our being the stock of Christ rather than our earthly heritage is a truth that comes to greater fulfillment as we walk with him throughout our lives. It isn't that we're saved a little at a time, or gain our new heritage little by little, but it is often true that we are transformed in it through a lifelong process of growth. For the longest time following my own conversion I continued to act in - and experience the impact of - the earthly influences that abounded in my youth and early adulthood. I did not know all the ways that my former nature had its roots still sunk into me, if you will, and I often nurtured those roots either intentionally or unwittingly. It is good for us to take stock of our stock, and to allow the Holy Spirit to reveal those ways in which we must continue to grow into our new heritage and kill off our old one.

This Christmas rebirth which we celebrate is not a singular historical event in Jesus' earthly life nor in our own. Rather, we should seek to embrace our rebirth each day so that its roots may kill off what remains of our old ones.

On that day . . .

Had to deal with a Blue Screen of Death this morning, first thing, so couldn't take time to reflect. But today's readings were full of that day when we come to our fulfillment in him.

I can't wait.

This is, of course, the true meaning of Christmas which we celebrate. The birth of Christ would be meaningless 2000 years later were it not for the new nature he has brought us.

Lessons from Nazareth

I'm not going to quote Pope Paul VI directly here, but in today's Office of Readings he mentions three things we should learn from Nazareth. I'm paraphrasing, and maybe referring to others (certainly there's a Matthew Kelly reference here):

1. God speaks many lessons to us and gives us growth and maturity in the school of silence, which we cannot receive if we do not come away from the clamoring cacaphony of the world. This is even more true today than it was in the 1960s and '70s when Paul was our holy father. No matter the size of our domestic church, it is too easy for us to become distracted by the noise of daily life. But in that life's rhythm, if we are careful to carve out time for it, there is a quiet transformation that can take place in the midst of the routine, a daily living in love that undergirds and gives context and new meaning to all of it. This will not happen without our conscious participation, if we fail to actively listen for the voice of the Father.
2. Family is central to God's plan for each of us.
3. Work is valuable, not for its own sake but for its effect on us and in context with the first two lessons. It is not a mere drudgery that we cannot avoid, but a gift God gives us. 

Maybe it's the sugar crash and lack of sleep . . .

I know the link between Christmas and St. Stephen's day, and I know I should be able to celebrate the latter more ebulliently. Yet I inevitably find myself a little disappointed in today's reflection, even though Stephen's martyrdom is the very sort of victory which the Babe was born to win for us.

And I also know this says more about my own lack of spiritual maturity than of anything lacking in the Church's calendar during the Christmas season.

Merry Christmas, 2013

Sadness should have no place on the birthday of life. The fear of death has been swallowed up; life brings us joy with the promise of eternal happiness. 

No one is shut out from that joy; all share the same reason for rejoicing. - from a sermon by St. Leo the Great, pope

Indeed, in these days when I have been missing my loved ones so much, I have also been feeling united with them in the one Hope that we share. I know others whose hearts are heavy this Christmas season, whose grief or fear is perhaps too fresh to be dismissed by today's glad tidings of great joy. I pray that you will touch their hearts anyway, Lord, and draw them into your presence in a way that transcends and includes their current feelings and circumstances.

May your heart too, dear reader, be flooded with a deep and abiding sense of God's loving presence, as we are united in him and all those we love in the eternal moment.

("Transcends and includes," in regard to God's work, seems to be my idea of the season. I just used it last week in a letter to a friend, too.)

Holding fast to grace

I tell you again: for your sake, God became man.  

You would have suffered eternal death, had he not been born in time. Never would you have been freed from sinful flesh, had he not taken on himself the likeness of sinful flesh. You would have suffered everlasting unhappiness, had it not been for this mercy. You would never have returned to life, had he not shared your death. You would have been lost if he had not hastened to your aid. You would have perished, had he not come. - from a sermon by St. Augustine, bishop

I love St. Augustine. When he was converted from his profligate life, he became a well-suited witness to God's grace and mercy. Knowing he had no place to claim for his own in Christ, be merely accepted the place which Christ himself purchased for him. He would have eagerly replaced "you" and "your" with "I" and "mine" in this sermon had he been giving his own testimony rather than an exhortation. He goes on:

Let us then joyfully celebrate the coming of our salvation and redemption. Let us celebrate the festive day on which he who is the great and eternal day came from the great and endless day of eternity into our own short day of time . . . .

For what greater grace could God have made to dawn on us than to make his only Son become the son of man, so that a son of man might in his turn become son of God? 

Ask if this were merited; ask for its reason, for its justification, and see whether you will find any other answer but sheer grace.

I have quoted this last section in the past without commenting further on it. It seems so self-sufficient. But it is good to remember that nothing else we seek from God is so great as this gift that so many disdain, indeed which even we, the (so-called) faithful (for God alone is faithful; indeed, our faith is a gift from God) sometimes take for granted. We reject the perfect Gift of himself which God has given in our longing for some other gift which we deem more estimable.

On this eve of Christmas, in the holy season when I write these words, or on whatever day it may be when you read them, let us instead embrace the unfathomable grace which allows us to be what we could never deserve to be, precious children of our loving, holy God.

Okay, talk about *slow*

I wasn't able to think so much about this last year as our wonderful first trip to Hawaii loomed, with the celebration of our anniversary at the luau and the preparations for Christmas surrounding it, but the progression of December has begun again.

In thinking about it this morning after wishing my cousin a happy birthday, something just occurred to me that I have somehow never noticed before.  It has taken me 33 years to realize that my wife and I were married on my parents' anniversary. How could I have never noticed that?

Seriously.

How is it that I have never noticed that??

Intentions matter

Realizing that I need the quiet time with God that I've been neglecting this Christmas season - why do I always seem to follow up a great Advent or Lent with a letdown of my guard? - I began the day with a bit of prayer time in the dark.

At the end of my work day, I find myself far removed from my peaceful beginning.

But I must remember that time with the Lord is not primarily a means of making my life better.  It is primarily for its own sake, primarily because God is deserving of my attention and also because I am better off for it.

A year after . . .

. . . The Saga of the Two Trees:

We had a much better tree hunting experience this year.

First off, there was no way we were putting our dog at risk again, so he stayed home.

Secondly, there was no way we were putting my wife's surgically repaired knee at risk, especially with our vacation on tap for the following week, so she stayed home, too.  She and the dog kept each other company.

Thirdly, because we were leaving on vacation and would be gone the next two weekends, we got our tree earlier in the season than we ever have before.  The selection was way better, and middle daughter and I found a pretty nice tree after only about ten minutes of walking and another five or ten of looking.

I was a little concerned that cutting it down so early in the season would cause it to start dropping needles pretty badly before we were ready to take it down, but that wasn't the case.  It held up really well.  The decision to use the stand with the larger reservoir proved fortuitous ("for-chew-ishus," as Bert said in Mary Poppins?) when our daughter had to quit taking care of it while she was in the hospital and we were still out of town.  It had slowed its uptake by then, and the stand never ran dry.  Still, we didn't leave it up through Epiphany as we have in past years, but took it out on Saturday of that weekend instead.

So it looks like the secret to finding a suitable tree isn't to go on a bitterly cold day, as I'd concluded in the past - it was actually pretty nice day on December 1st, when we got it.  Rather, in the future we're just going to have to go before everyone else does!