If false humility is a vice, and I think it is, then to deny any personal virtue is a vice.  There are ways, therefore, that I might describe myself as a virtuous person, but mostly I want to talk about a nasty vice that’s been haunting me recently. Avarice, greed, self-concern; call it what you will, like ice in the slightest seam that cracks a marble slab, this mammon-loving vice of mine does its damage.

Earlier in the week Becky and I received our most recent stimulus check from the government.  We didn’t need the money and have already gotten rid of it.  More on that in a moment, but first a word about the checks themselves.

The pandemic lockdowns have been economically disastrous for the likes of restaurant workers and airport porters. Many of those in the gig economy have been financially devastated.  I’d go fully Bernie Sanders if there were a way to get money to such as those.  As wasteful and inefficient as this one size fits all or most stimulus system is, however, it is probably the best we can do. But it does mean that some of us who don’t need a check get a check.  Continue reading →

Becky and I recently watched a BBC mini-series produced in 2014 during the centennial of the beginning of the First World War.  The Passing Bells does not necessarily live up to its IMDB description of being “an epic historical drama spanning the five years of the First World War, as seen through the eyes of two ordinary young soldiers.” Less than epic and too-intentionally-meaningful, each episode takes place in one of the five years of the Great War as the two ordinary soldiers, one German and one English, go from being innocent August 1914 volunteers to hardened and discouraged veterans.

In Episode 4 – 1917 – Thomas, the English soldier befriends too-young-to-enlist, but now in the trenches, 16-year-old Derek. In one scene Thomas, who has been encouraging and protecting Derek, dumps all his despair.  Of the war to end all wars he asks, “What if it never ends?” Derek becomes the encourager, and says, “Wars end. It will. It has to.”

For some of us, it seems as if the most encouraging thing we can say about 2020 is “Years end. 2020 will end. It has to.”

Mustering all our courage, we might even say, “Pandemics end. The Covid-19 pandemic will end. It has to.” Continue reading →

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 →