Random Christmas Notes

One of our Christmas traditions is to buy a new ornament for the tree each year. That all started our first Christmas when one of Diana’s 1st grade students gave her a “First Christmas Together” ornament. The one we selected this year is a good reflection of our return home. It is wood cut in the shape of our state and reads “Christmas in West Virginia.”

One cold delight this year is having a white Christmas. Five years is a long time to go without the splendid beauty of snow falling against a gray backdrop, a show shelter, sledding or a good snowball fight. The girls particularly can’t seem to get enough, while Daniel has been spoiled with Colorado where snow is measured in feet more than inches.

We made a sanity discovery this year too. In the past we decided that Christmas would be more than a one day event on the 25th but instead a season of celebrations. That gives room for lots of traditions. Over the years those seasonal celebrations have included everything from making Christmas cookies to hosting a living Nativity to attending concerts and filling Samarian’s Purse shoeboxes. So what did we discover? That for the sake of an unfrantic and enjoyable Christmas it is not necessary to do every possible tradition every year. That’s a relief!

A good portion of our week has been spent with Diana’s family. We had everyone over for Christmas dinner. Nineteen of us put our feet under the table to feast on turkey and its trimmings. What a treat and what a scrunch.

Here are a couple of Christmas videos we have enjoyed this year. While I haven’t made the leap into the social networking of Facebook, this clip is very creative. The second is a song written by Andrew Peterson and sung by Jill Phillips. We discovered it a couple of years ago posted on a friend’s blog.

The Most Unlikely of Gifts

The other evening I was listening to a segment on NPR concerning the mindset of the American consumer in light of the economic downturn. Their guest was making the point that people were tightening their belt this Christmas and “may only give a child ten gifts instead of the usual twenty.” What a commentary on our society. Materialism aside, we readily carry a mindset of excess. Limitations on the other hand, are at best tolerated and more than likely resented. Who wants to work with limited resources or have a limited selection of cereals or limit their calorie intake during the Christmas season?

Counter to our way of thinking, limits seem to be woven into the essence of Christmas. “Who, although being essentially one with God and in the form of God [possessing the fullness of the attributes which make God God], did not think this equality with God was a thing to be eagerly grasped or retained, but stripped Himself [of all privileges and rightful dignity], so as to assume the guise of a servant (slave), in that He became like men and was born a human being. And after He had appeared in human form, He abased and humbled Himself [still further] and carried His obedience to the extreme of death, even the death of the cross!” (Philippians 2:6-7 Amplified) God-given limits for God. Limited privileges. Limited rightful dignity. Limited to a servant. Limited to a human body. Limited to space and time. Limited to a purposeful death.

Funny, but somehow while celebrating an Incarnation that accentuates limits it’s easy to resent ours. “Suck it up, work harder, figure a way around it…,” we tell ourselves. All the while we refuse to accept that our God-given limits are His imprint on our lives. Seasons of life are not negatives. Personality types are not failures. Emotional/physical/intellectual capacities are not curses. Neither are life situations. Yet they all define us and limit us.

Our limits are His gifts. Strange way of looking at it but true none the less. God gives and uses these to direct our lives into His thoughtful purposes. In our weakness His power is exhibited. It’s not the American way but most definitely God’s way. Maybe this Christmas is the perfect time to embrace the most unlikely of gifts.

Freedom from the Muck

Looking below the surface of our lives can be a threatening, enlightening, scary proposition. There’s a good bit of muck down there, and it takes some courage to even take a peek. We want to be free, but it’s much safer to rationalize that everything is okay, to settle into an uneasy comfortableness that shelters us from changing. Occasionally, however, the pain becomes so great we are forced out of our self imposed comfort zone in search for answers.

Lately I’ve been raking up some of the muck in my own life as I step back to take a spiritual and emotional inventory. It’s not like it’s all bad, there’s sunshine but there’s also some definite mis-shaping. Like the tendency to be anxious - separation anxiety that started as a child and spread to other areas of my life as an adult. And the inclination to need approval from others – resulting in discouragement when it’s lacking. And the propensity to be defensive at honest feedback – rather than asking questions to better understand myself.

The good news is that there’s no need to stay stuck in shortcomings and sin. There is hope, liberation…freedom. An honest assessment beneath the surface of our lives is only the first step. The next step is to realize how our theology is lived.

So, I’m beginning to try to piece together how the gospel with all of its implications does its deep work in me. How does my inheritance as a reconciled son come into play when I feel defensive and unapproachable? Where does my anxiousness or anger meet up with Christ’s transforming power? My position in Christ makes me come alive inside, so how does it release me from internalized lies I’ve believed about myself? If it was for freedom I have been set free, why do I live in slavery to others’ thoughts and approval? How does daily attention to the Lord increase the reality of being a beloved son?

It’s in the willingness to see ourselves as we really are and in the willingness to be continually transformed by the gospel that we are finally and steadfastly set free from the muck of our lives.

Homebodies To Highlights

This may sound a little crazy, but we have always considered ourselves homebodies. We were content to be at home and methodically plod through life. The settled life is the good life. Then like a whirlwind our course changed direction, and we were traveling hither and yon, seeing all kinds of sites.

A few weeks back we were reminiscing about our adventures over the last ten years and decide to rank our favorites. It’s pretty interesting how it all came out especially since each of us seemed to use a different criteria to select our fave five. Here are the highlights:

Family Top Five:
1. Veracruz (Mexico)
2. Sight & Sound (Lancaster County)
3. Whit’s End (Colorado Springs)
4. Grand Canyon (Arizona)
5. Len Su Chinese Garden (Portland)

Christina’s
1. Sight & Sound
2. Ben & Jerry’s
3. Whit’s End
4. Glen Erie Castle
5. Maine State Park

Maria’s
1. Teotiuacan Pyramids
2. Grand Canyon
3. Sight & Sound
4. New York City
5. Colorado Rockies

Diana’s
1. Veracruz
2. Monarch butterflies in Mexico
3. Williamsburg
4. Maine State Park
5. Massanutten

Ken’s
1. Veracruz
2. Williamsburg
3. Pacific Coast
4. Colorado Rockies
5. Grand Canyon