Merry Christmas, Feliz Natal, Joyeux Noël, Feliz Navidad!

By whatever words we use to say it, we say it.  We wish one another a merry, happy, joyous Christmas.  Of course, part of it is just tradition. We wish a happy day on all our holidays, though I have sometimes wondered about wishing someone a happy Memorial Day.  But that is a topic for another day.

I have been thinking a lot about Christmas this year and what makes it merry – or if we should even consider it merry. I think we should.  So why all this thinking? It may be that for the first time in many years I have time to think rather than to plan or organize or rehearse this or that Christmas event.  It may be that we will be spending Christmas with grandchildren for the first time in too long.  It may be that we are coming to the end of a long year which in so many ways has been anything but merry, happy, or joyous. Continue reading →

I’ve subscribed to the two Christmases theory for a long time.  Two Christmases, and I like them both, though I think one of them is more important than the other.  One Christmas looks forward to Santa Claus coming to town. The other Christmas remembers that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Of course, a growing number of people only celebrate the Santa Christmas, and a very few people – mostly they live in caves – celebrate only the Jesus Christmas.  In between, there are those of us who try to balance the parallel holidays. My version of that balancing act puts more emphasis on Jesus and tries to keep the two holidays more or less separate. Some of you may look at it differently, but, for instance, I really don’t like that famous Santa kneeling at the manger bed painting.  Call me a heretic, but I’m not even sure the Little Drummer Boy should be there, pa rum pum pum pum.

To be fair, many Santa Christmas folks are willing to let a little Jesus stuff seep into their celebrations. Joy always plays well, though it may not be the great joy of the angel’s message to the shepherds. And if you want to be a little more serious about things, you can always add “Peace on Earth.” But like joy, peace on the Santa side of things may not be what the angel choir had in mind:
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,
                “Glory to God in the highest,
                                and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” Luke 2:13–14

When peace has mostly to do with getting along, you might as well cancel the angel choir and bring on Santa and his purple-nosed reindeer trailing a 60s-era peace banner. All we are saying is give peace a chance. Continue reading →

In my high-country backpacking days, we would use topographical maps and a compass to try figure out exactly where we were and how we might get to where we wanted to go. Using the compass to orient the map, we’d determine a couple of distant peaks or landmarks indicated by the contour lines on the map and shoot the bearing of each of them. The theory is that your location is where the two lines drawn on those bearings intersect.

Of course, ask anyone who’s done much high-country backpacking about the time they got lost.  I remember when my friend Norm and I had taken some of the middle school boys from the youth group at church on a Memorial Day weekend trip into the Dinkey Lakes Wilderness of the Sierra Nevada. We were still below timberline, but patchy snow covered the ground and it was not always easy to stay on the trail. A thick overcast filled the sky, so not even the sun could tell us the direction we were headed. Continue reading →

Christmas lights are a big deal in our neighborhood. Becky and I went for a subtle and tasteful string of multiple colors across the railing on the front porch. We think it looks really nice. But subtle is not necessarily the name of the game, so we may have to do something different next year.

Some of our neighbors have displays with thousands of lights and one isn’t even a display. It is a show, and a very impressive show at that. Auburn friends, you should drive by. We are in Bear Creek – off of County Road 52 between County Roads 31 and 35 (that’s how we name the roads between the cornfields here in Indiana – what it lacks in imagination, it makes up in pretty much always knowing where you are).

The word wonderland is much overused this time of year, but a nighttime drive or a walk through our neighborhood is worth the time it takes.

When the sun goes down, our neighborhood becomes something of, well, a wonderland of lights and displays.  I love it. Continue reading →

The first Sunday of Advent.

I have been thinking about Advent. Our pastor here in Auburn graciously asked if I might be willing to create the readings for the lighting of the Advent candles on the four Sundays of Advent and Christmas Eve.  It was a generous offer, and I gladly accepted.

I’ve also been talking with a friend whose background is in a non-liturgical church, but who has a new position this year and must lead his church, like Saint Andrew, an otherwise low church, through an observance of Advent.

Traditionally, Advent is the season that begins with the fourth Sunday before Christmas and continues through Christmas Eve.  The old readings and prayers have a double focus on Christ’s first Advent at his nativity in Bethlehem and on his second Advent at the end of time, coming as judge of the living and the dead and bringing with him a new heaven and a new earth. Continue reading →