Ending the Year with Hugh Laurie!

Hugh Laurie of "House" 

What a way to end the year--could there be a more complicated , bellicose guy than "House" the character?  How about the man who plays him--Hugh Laurie?  He has a career worthy to end the year on--indeed--one that many of us would not guess at. He grew up with a real struggle with his mother for emotional reasons that only he can possibly explain.  His father set the goal post as a physician--for which he could not reach because of academics.  So look what happened--he ended up fulfilling his father's "stature" by playing the most brilliant of physicians--and not this! with the freedom to do whatever he wants (on TV of course).  How do we in fact chase our dreams? 

We are not done with Laurie yet. The difference for him became his sport--crew--which he grew into championship ranks.  Then one day, he discovered int he attic that his father had won an Olympic Gold Medal in crew!  So in some ways--here he is pursuing without a clue his father in sports and (TV) medicine.  The point is at the end of the year--can we really be ourselves? What does it take to differentiate ourselves from the legacy of our parents?  Somehow, I like the fact that he carved out his own medical niche--vastly different from his father-- and became a champion in crew in his own right --not chasing his father at all. 

Coming into our own means being an authentic person.  No masquerade.  No living out another's life. I suppose that if you knew the author of your life you could get some real clues about who you really are and how to become it. 

By the way....
Hugh Laurie became a stand up comedian along the way...and it is said that a sense of humor has been his saving grace ever since.  He can laugh at himself!

Lightning Strikes (again)...

"Holy, Holy, Holy..."

Isaiah 6

I went into the Quaker Meeting House today, and as I sat down, I looked up into the rafters and it was filled with light--or as Quakers understand it--Light.  I experienced the Holy--and please don't ask me to explain what that felt like.  Presence...    Incredible lightness of being... 

Now I want to be clear that of two things.... First that this sanctuary (and that's what it is for me) has played an important part of my life.  God has met me here before and upheld me.  Second that I just finished yesterday's post about lightning striking as God's time breaks into ours.  Unless we look for it, we may walk past it.  This is not to control it, but to be open to it.  Surely that heightened awareness prepared me.  But of the reality of that moment--no proof needed for the one who is gifted by it...even for a moment. 

Where did lightning strike....

Where did lightning last strike during your day?  Oh I know full well for those in the northeast and western winter land that thunderstorms are a rarity--but I am using lightning as a metaphor.  When did your life last fill with electricity?  When did you hear thunder?  Something, anything that stopped you in your tracks and remind you that you are alive?  It could have been a smile on somebody's face, a kind word spoken in the check-out line--both of which said you are alive as a person.  Or, was it just an insight, one of those "A-Ha" experiences when a lot of puzzle parts fell together and you said "wow".  Or just simply the stirring in the soul..a very quiet movement as if you carried a child inside--which of course you do, the child of God which God blesses and calls into life. 

I am saying--"Stay awake in life, don't sleep walk through it--or as Mary Oliver said, "My God I don't want to wake up some day and realize I visited this life."  Some folks keep a journal.  They go through the day, alert, awake, looking, waiting for lightning to strike--and it does--because as the poet says, the world is aflame with the Spirit of God, "like shook foil." And we tend to see it increasingly as we learn what it means to open the eyes and the see the world that God created--full of lightning strikes!

Wings of Eagles!

 A bride and groom were taking their wedding vows, and when they were done, the clergyman turned them around to see the vista over the Potomac River--when right in front of them, two bald eagles landed in the tree for all to see.  The young of Eagles fly under and are sheltered by the wings of their parents.  Eagles are constantly referenced in the Bible--under the wings of eagles does God care for us. What a fitting symbol for those about to be married, for those who undertake the Christian journey that we fly under the shelter of their wings. 

The Angels...

Much is made about the angels in the Nativity story.  At first, it was the Angel of the Lord--then it became the whole heavenly host.  The word "angel" literally means "messenger."  They are not objects--but verbs--in the sense that they are active principles of God.  Or, as I like to say--extensions of the Holy Spirit like light rays from the sun.  They mediate a presence of God, which was exactly what the Shepherds experience which made them "sore afraid." (KJV)

We give up on angels in our day and age.  Wasn't that a part of antiquity to explain supernatural phenomena?  Yet, I still say that we do know when God's presence presses upon us--like perfume that suddenly passes under our noses--and for me that conveys the presence of God which may be viewed as angelic. 

All we do know is that something happened which Luke tries to tell in his story.  Throughout the Gospels, angels come and go--and for me, the angel appears at the tomb with the message of the resurrection.  All of us are called to be messengers in our own right. The revelation, the message of the angels did not stop with them or should it with us.  God ahead--and be an angel! 

Celebrate 12 Days of Christmas!

Who does not know the lyrics for the song, "The Twelve Days of Christmas?"  And yet, how do we observe them?  Certainly everything goes on sale--and whatever value there was, suddenly becomes cut.  So I have got to think that the celebration of the 12 Days of Christmas has to be about things that matter, really count--of such great worth, that it cannot possibly be discounted. 

God's love given in Jesus Christ.  Each person is a walking gift of God.  In our unconditional love for that person, we learn who that person is as a child of God, that special, unique creation that can never be replicated. 

Each of the twelve days can be understood through the lens of these words:

This is not just another day

in your life—

It is the one day given to you, today.

It’s given to you,

as a gift.

It is the only gift you have

right now.

The only appropriate response is

gratefulness.

If you do nothing else,

then cultivate

that response to this unique gift,

as if today

was the first or last day

in your life.

                                       Then you will have lived this day,
                                   returning your life 
                                    as a gift for God. 

Christmas Blessing 2013

Lift up yourselves to the great meaning of the day, 

and dare to think of your humanity as something 

so divinely precious that it is worthy 

of being an offering to God. 

Count it a privilege to make that offering 

as complete as possible, keeping nothing back. 

And then go out to the pleasures and duties of your life, 

having been born anew into His divinity, 

as He was born into our humanity on Christmas Day

 – Phillips Brooks.

Christmas Eve Light

Christmas Light

by May Sarton

When everyone had gone
I sat in the library
With the small silent tree,
She and I alone.
How softly she shone!

And for the first time then
For the first time this year,
I felt reborn again,
I knew love's presence near.

 

Love distant, love detached
And strangely without weight,
Was with me in the night
When everyone had gone
And the garland of pure light
Stayed on, stayed on.

The Best Christmas Pageant

Which version of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever do you know and like?  The one I love has the little boy playing the innkeeper.  Half way through his scripted line, “There is no room,” he stops and blurts out, “Oh come on it—we’ll make room!” 

The Gospel of Luke is about making room for a birth.  There was no innkeeper.  Joseph leaves because the room is not suitable for the birth of a child. Inns had one large room, an open air center ceiling for ventilation, and everyone huddle close to the fire in the middle of the room.  Hardly a place to birth a baby! 

So Joseph finds the stable, or as one tradition says, a cave—and there he makes room for the birth.  The Gospel is all about using our lives to make room for others—especially those who differ from us. 

This year we memorialize Nelson Mandela for the act of pure grace of making a space in a closed culture for a new birth.  He opened his life up to those who imprisoned him and emerged with a life to embrace everyone—and that enabled others to follow him.  In Jesus Christ, God makes a space and place for everyone—all who are far off, as the Scripture says, are brought near breaking down the wall of hostility.

May God bless our lives as instruments for the Kingdom—making a space and place for others for the new birth of Jesus Christ.

Phil Robertson the Duck

Phil Robertson of Duck Dynasty

Just my own opinion and comments to stir yours....okay, ground rules are now set?

Let's be very clear that Robertson's comments in the magazine were for me--outright bigotry--and nothing new from what he has said in public previously.  So why does the public and A&E react now as if it is something new? For me, this is long overdo.

Now, what about free speech?  Do we say, fine as a private citizen....but not for a public actor whose actions harm A&E and therefore he must be suspended?  Some court will figure this one out.  But it will indeed be a shame if the $$$ invested rules the day and saves this guy's skin after he burned it off others.

A Younger Phil Robertson

Lastly and not least--it was always the public ethic of Jesus to call people by name and without judging them.  The actions of others judged themselves--such as the rich young ruler.  We might make a case for his judgment of the Pharisees--but he did that one to one with them and finally cleared out the temple.

Let's keep in mind.  It is said that people do not remember so much as what you say--but what you do.  Your actions speak louder than words.  Christmas is all about the love of God taking our flesh to love us as we are and without condemnation.  Giving his life away spoke more than anybody;s words and are greater than what Robertson ever uttered against his neighbor. 

Seeing Eye Dog Really Sees!

A remarkable story to say the least...when a blind man fainted, fell into the path of an oncoming train--and Orlando the Black Lab service dog jumped onto the tracks to be with him. Fortunately, they were both in a trough and were not injured.  The point is the story of the dog. 

“He was definitely this man’s best friend. When the train was coming, the dog didn’t move,” said Ana Quinones, 53, of Morningside Heights. “The dog was loyal to his master. He tried to save him. He was trying to pull him away when he was too close to the edge. He risked his own life to save his owner.”

Stories like these give us real in-sight, or true vision into what really matters!  In what way does the Advent Season open our eyes to what matters most -- and will be ever be as loyal as Orlando!  

The Christmas Tree Secret

Some say the Christmas Tree is a beautiful ornament in itself,
a prop for the living room that gives the scent of the season,
and the idol, if that is not too strong--for those into decorations. 
Then I stood in the dark with its lights shining and ornaments aglow,
each with a different reflection of more than me but the One 
who looked back.

Christmas Connections....

John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

My wife and I had Open Houses to visit on Sunday afternoon...before making the mad dash into downtown DC--just making the metro, then JFK Shuttle, of course nobody was at "Will Call" because everyone was already in the theatre--and as we were sitting down---the special Christmas Concert began for a full house!  Now you talk about making every single connection right on time to land in our seats--wow--that was either remarkable or just dumb luck and probably both! 

In all of our flying around to gather and do things, Christmas is after all about a person and all people.  It is about the supreme connection between heaven and earth, God and creation--the closing if you will of that gap in the Sistine Chapel of the two hands coming together--by virtue of the gift of God's Son.  We would do best if we could honor relationships to celebrate the Christ in Christmas.  The reverse leaves a bitter taste for years of broken relationships because we were either blind to them or just hoped for dumb luck. 

The Christmas Promise

 "Christmas"

                  by John Betejam

former Poet Laurete of England

 And is it true,
This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window's hue,
A Baby in an ox's stall ?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me ?

And is it true ? For if it is,
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant,

No love that in a family dwells,
No caroling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare -
That God was man in Palestine
And lives today in Bread and Wine.

Calvin and Hobbes Gospel

 

“CALVIN:
This whole Santa Claus thing just doesn't make sense. 

Why all the secrecy? Why all the mystery?
If the guy exists why doesn't he ever show himself and prove it?
And if he doesn't exist what's the meaning of all this?
 

HOBBES:
I dunno. Isn't this a religious holiday?
 

CALVIN:
Yeah, but actually, I've got the same questions about God.”
― Bill Watterson

Advent 3 Presents...

The Homestead Christmas Tree

I recently visited the resort called "The Homestead" in southwestern Virginia--what an incredible place!  Truly majestic, it is almost as big as Hot Springs, the town where it is located. At the end of a very long corridor in the main entry stands "the" tree--a gorgeous spruce, magnificently decorated with giant ornaments.  Under the tree are the many presents--unnamed but representing all the gifts that we give. My wife (reluctantly) posed for a picture by the tree after I had piled up some of the gifts to be props.  Once I was done, suddenly it really hit me--truly struck me: the gifts were not just nameless, but empty...props at best.  When is "the" gift of Christmas an empty promise? 

Apparently John the Baptist wondered about what he predicted to be the promise of the Messiah.  He sent word from prison--"Are you the one or should we expect another?"  Jesus sent back word:  "The lame walk, the sick are healed, the dead are raised...."  These were all signs of the Messiah, but not those that John had drawn from.  He came from an Apocalyptic community, preaching the end times...and John saw the Messiah as reigning down the curtain of justice at the end---not the servant Jesus living out the compassion of God (which Isaiah saw and predicted...).

So did John come up empty handed with the false prophecy--like an empty box under the tree?  Or was it more that he did predict the Messiah, but not "the Messiah" who came? 

The point is that we walk by faith.  We can't know God's story fully because we are not God. All we can do is walk up to the line and look carefully because the box that may be empty could very well could open the doors to a Kingdom. 

School Shooting--Again

Karl H. Pierson

Lord have mercy....
Christ have mercy....
Lord have mercy....

for we know what we do and cannot help ourselves......



It is difficult to say anything new except...and this is critical...the abject shock at such a tragic loss of life that happened because a young man wanted it that way.  What goes wrong with the ego that a fight with a librarian becomes a life and death matter that only a shot gun can resolve. And then takes his own life....a final solution to a temporary problem.  For me alone perhaps, the issue is less about gun control and how we identify those young people who need help.  The real control is putting guns under lock and key where they cannot be used by those in such emotional turmoil.

I suppose Jesus did what he has always done.  He walked into the school and carried Karl home. We pray he blesses those who were critically injured. Comforts the parents. We learn again that God givens us freedom even to do what we know we are about to do. 

The Real Wisdom of Scrooge

Ebenezer Scrooge

I am a connoisseur of Scrooges--know them all, and got their lines down!  That's why I sat transfixed at the Scrooge on the stage of Ford's Theater.  He threw out a different line at the very end--or at least the playwright did.  There stand the 3 people who very much in financial debt.  Scrooge forgives them. They are ecstatic--"Oh, Sir we are so in debt to you!"  "No," says Scrooge, "it is I who am in debt to you."  He has learned through them, by being with them--and fully engaged with their spirit just where real wealth lies.  I had never heard that line before--"no I am in debt to you."  What would happen if we had that regard for each other?  Sometimes I fear that the bitter partisanship--the instrument which killed Lincoln at Ford's theater--infects us all in how we treat each other.  How many of us live quite literally with a no tolerance zone--people step into it and "wham!"  A Christmas Carol is the story of the Gospel in a man who turned all of his relationships around simply because he turned his heart and mind around from engaging with those in need.  I never pass up one of those people ringing the bell around the red pot--and that's only where it begins! 

The Candle Tells the Story!

Most Advent wreaths have 4 candles--one for each Sunday on the way to Christmas. But look closely at this wreath--and at the center--the white candle stands for Christ in Christmas.  There is far more to this idea than adding the center, white candle.  It has to do with seeing the fulfillment of what Advent is supposed to do--bring us to the birth of the Christ Child. 

Over and over I ask myself how the present challenge actually helps prepare me for the coming of Christ in a new way in my life.  How is your "to-do" list coming and how does it really relate to your own spiritual welfare? 

Tonight we brought the tree in and got it set up. That's always a very long way in our household to getting it decorated!  But it is still there.  For one moment, I felt suspended and saw two of my sons at work and my mind raced back to all the years we have done this custom--and how many more years we may have together to do precisely this tree setting up.  The counting of days and weeks in Advent reminds me of the Psalmist--"Teach us O Lord to number our days" and elsewhere, "Help us to count our days by your grace." 

Remember the white candle as you walk through Advent and count your days! 

Running into Advent

  "It might be easy to run away to a monastery, away from the commercialization, the hectic hustle, the demanding family responsibilities of Christmas-time. Then we would have a holy Christmas. But we would forget the lesson of the Incarnation, of the enfleshing of God—the lesson that we who are followers of Jesus do not run from the secular; rather we try to transform it. It is our mission to make holy the secular aspects of Christmas just as the early Christians baptized the Christmas tree. And we do this by being holy people—kind, patient, generous, loving, laughing people—no matter how maddening is the Christmas rush…"

                                                                                                                  Fr. Andrew Greely

Let it Snow!

Snow came last night and gently blanketed the backyard,

Revealing the small paw prints of a raccoon in search

Of food on my back porch.  Advent whispers of the little

One who came in the middle of the night with hand prints

Of a baby, the God who gives himself away for food.

Advent Journey

Advent

By Mary Jo Salter

Wind whistling, as it does   

in winter, and I think   

nothing of it until

it snaps a shutter off

her bedroom window, spins   

it over the roof and down

to crash on the deck in back,   

like something out of Oz.

We look up, stunned—then glad

to be safe and have a story,   

characters in a fable   

we only half-believe. 

With acknowledgment to Mary Jo Salter, the full poem may be read at Poetry.org.  It was CS Lewis who used to say, "Imagine Winter without Christmas."  Of course that came from the The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.  The point is that in Lewis' fiction there is the truth we read in Salter's poem--our Advent journey begins in a land and place of fiction and goes to the real Truth of our lives.   Every year, the characters in the nativity story begin in fiction and move toward the Truth that God holds out for each one of us--through the winter of our lives to the household of God, the temple of the Holy Spirit. 

A Bridge for Advent

Our society is looking for a bridge---from one health care system to another, from one relationship to Iran to another, from one economy to another--will we be able to get there from here?  Time will tell.  It is not going to be easy.  

Of all the images for Advent, the one least recognized is the bridge...and it is so very fitting for this year.  The bridge takes you literally from one place to another -- and "you could not get there from here" with it.  The way to salvation is for Christians, Jesus the bridge.  No matter what John the Baptist could do, nevertheless...he could not get his people to salvation--only be the forerunner.  His words could never anticipate fully who would come as the Word.  Do we hear the voice in the wilderness of our world still crying out and pointing the way? 

Day of Infamy

Blow the bugles, stand in silence...
and pray,
for those entombed in the battleship,
the place of war,
reconsecrated,
as the Garden of Resurrection,
for lives lost but
not forever. 

Let us pause in prayer for all men and women who have died in every war for our way of life in freedom....set in the fullness of our faith of the Kingdom we pray to come in Advent. 

Mandella--the Man

Mandella's passing left nobody surprised after he had beaten death once before.  His place in history is secured the leader who beat apartheid. His example as a man is one to hold up--the man who spent 27 years in prison, allowed one visitor and one letter annually, who emerged transformed from the hate and bigotry.  It is said that what does not break you will make you.  I do not believe that happens automatically. Something there was in the character and soul of the man that siphoned the worst and prepared him as a person he never could not have been if it weren't for the experience.  Nobody asks for that life experience.  Once given, it can take you where you could not go without it.  At the heart of the passion of Jesus Christ, his death on the cross, is the love of the Father which made him the Son.  We too never know what we are made of until the worst comes and the opportunity presents itself for us to be born anew.... 

Advent Journey

There is no Advent journey that does not confront John the Baptist.  I like this contemporary picture with a man dressed up like the Baptist --instead of the classical images that seem to remove him from us. John the Baptist walks right into our lives in every generation and asks us if we are ready to meet the Christ.  Nobody is, of course, but the Christ which John could not foresee came with the love and grace of God.  Thomas Merton penned the poem of which the III section is so very poignant. 

III
St. John, strong Baptist,
Angel before the face of the Messiah
Desert-dweller, knowing the solitudes that lie
Beyond anxiety and doubt,
Eagle whose flight is higher than our atmosphere
Of hesitation and surmise,
You are the first Cistercian and the greatest Trappist:
Never abandon us, your few but faithful children,
For we remember your amazing life,
Where you laid down for us the form and pattern of
Our love for Christ,
Being so close to Him you were His twin.
Oh buy us, by your intercession, in your mighty heaven,
Not your great name, St. John, or ministry,
But oh, your solitude and death:
And most of all, gain us your great command of graces,
Making our poor hands also fountains full of life and wonder
Spending, in endless rivers, to the universe,
Christ, in secret, and His Father, and His sanctifying Spirit.

Paul Walker Memorial

Paul Walker s sudden death stunned family, close friends and fans.  Van Diesel memorialized him by saying: 

"To live in the hearts we leave behind, is not to die." 

How else do we deal with the pain of death's reality?  Platitudes.... and then go on with our lives:?

 The line between life and death is thin indeed, even for the celebrities.  The irony is that the very person who lived by Fast & Furious died the same way.  

As I was writing this--some person in the world just died--a complete unknown--not known long enough to be mourned.  Yet is that person's life any less precious in God's eyes than Paul Walker?  In the eyes of faith, there is an equality before God which speaks of the infinite worth of every human being--all the same, all of eternal worth.  God stands by them as they die, he dries their tears and welcomes them into a Kingdom that none of us can dream of.  Such was the dream of Isaiah, the witness of John the Baptist and the coming gift in Advent for everyone.  

 

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

NYC Train Crash

The holiday rush got off to a painful start with a train crash in New York City, a police helicopter crash in Scotland and then a 65 car pile up outside Boston--all due to human error.  We simply cannot get there from here--as the expression goes--without some human error.  That train was going over 80mph when it hit the curve marked 30mph.  Yet in it it all, I see a metaphor of people with lists to cover between now and Christmas--and the wrecks are people bumping into people, emotional; wrecks by the time it all gets done--and for what, Jesus' birthday?  The only recorded time when I saw Jesus deliberately bump into others was in the clash with the temple money changers--and perhaps when he rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.  For the most part, he engaged people to raise the dead, heal the sick, set the lame to walking, and feeding people in many different ways.  Instead of the wreckage, his was a new life made out of the lives he touched.  He named those lives as part of God's Kingdom as it became reality in Advent to be born on Christmas Day. 

Cyber Monday!

Ready, Set, Christmas!

No telling what the take will be for Cyber Monday.  The past has shown remarkable sales, perhaps to the chagrin of employers as employees are online on their time.  So, what's the real harm--other than for the employers?  Christmas goods are bought and sold, right?  That's the point....

Or is it?  There's a saying--"We become what we give...."  Follow that truism--without much thought going into the gifts, we become another to-do list. We get it done--but does that also finishes us off?  Not much joy there.  Take time to find just the right gift, and how does that feel?  A lot different!  Be Christmas in true giving and truly, Christmas comes to you. 

This also happens to be the Hanukkah Season--the festival of lights....and perhaps Christians need to remember who said that He "is the Light of the world."  How do we let light into this world--at the end of a computer, a gift that scratches off something to be done?  The reason for the season lies precisely in how we answer that question. 

Wisdom for the Books

Not just another sports analogy....begin Advent with this wisdom: there is no advantage in this world that cannot be turned into an unexpected disadvantage. Let me set the scene for you....

Alabama cruised through the season crushing opponents--mercilessly--and they came into the last game against Auburn, no slouches at #4.  On the very last play of regulation time, with the score knotted at 28 a piece, Alabama Coach Nick Saban argued for just one more second. He challenged the last call and justifiably got his last second.  To everyone's shock, he sent a red-shirted freshman out on the field to kick a 56 yard field goal--how much do you believe in miracles? Now, now you would think that Saban had milked the last second for his advantage--right?  And hey, the kid did get his foot into it.  But the tables turned as it was fielded and then run back for a 100yd game winning touchdown.  Saban had fielded his over-sized linemen to protect the kick (the last one was blocked)--so his advantage turned into sudden disadvantage and demise. 

The first season of Advent begins with an emphasis on the second coming.  Jesus tells how everything in the world will be turned on its ears--the game will suddenly change--and all that people trust will be overthrown but God and God's Kingdom.  He says that the Kingdom is the only game in town to bet on...the only team to join.  Ask Nick Saban....