The Birth of Christmas

“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given …” Isaiah 9:6

Many years ago there lived a young girl; she was probably sixteen to eighteen and betrothed to a village handyman. Some traditions suggest he might have been in his thirties or forties, and possibly a widower. However, it’s more likely he was younger – perhaps eighteen to twenty-one years of age. We don’t know, of course, as the evangelists did not provide those details. Maybe age isn’t important for what followed, but I think it helps set the tone for our understanding Christmas a little better.

In modern-day America, Christmas conjures up images of reindeer, chubby elves, nativity sets, candy canes, and a saccharine yearning for a world that never really was – snow falling at the perfect moment, or families gathered Norman-Rockwell-like around a tree.

Consequently, Christmas can often be a let-down. For many people it is a blue season; it’s a depressing time of year that fits in with the long, cold, dark nights much better than the twinkling delights hung in windows and along eaves troughs, or images of steam wafting gently into the snow-chilled air from a cup of scalding hot chocolate,.

The first Christmas was definitely not a dazzling one for that first couple lo those many years ago. For one thing, while Mary and Joseph were betrothed and supposed to be looking forward to life shared together in matrimonial harmony, she came down with a sudden case of the “preggers.” This did not bode well on many levels, not the least of which was living in a town whose major trade was likely in the field of gossip.

Secondly, since Joseph was not the father, humanly speaking, Mary was seriously at risk of being accused of adultery and suffering lethal consequences. Even if she were allowed to slip away quietly, everyone would know she was “tainted goods” and she’d live out her days with a scarlet letter hung invisibly about her neck. Happy days? I think not.

Still, we are told that Joseph was a “righteous” man. That means he was trusted to act and judge wisely; his primary desire was to always do what was pleasing to God.

He was told in a dream, “Don’t be afraid to take Mary for your wife.” Therefore he did not condemn her, but chose instead to embrace the dream, and through the dream, he embraced Mary, and in embracing Mary, he received as his own the One whom she carried.

Mary herself was no shrinking violet. Although the arts have often portrayed her as a quiet, mouse-like figure “pondering” the words of the angel and puzzling out what they meant, she was not one to let life run her over; she was a typical teenager.

“Hail, Mary, full of grace …”

“What sort of greeting is that?” asked Mary in return. She wasn’t batting her baby blues, biting her lip, and acting demure (and please note, her “baby blues” were no doubt the chocolaty brown of her Semitic heritage). Having God drop into one’s life, whether directly or by angelic stunt-double, never bodes well for the recipient; it means one’s life and plans are being irretrievably changed.

As the old saying goes, God loves us the way we are, but loves us too much to leave us that way.

Mary doesn’t just blithely accept the words of the angel. She challenges the notion she will have a child when she hasn’t done anything to make that happen (and hadn’t planned to until after the nuptials!). But the angel assures her it won’t be her doing, but God’s, and while she has every reason in the world to say, “Thanks, but no thanks,” she doesn’t. Instead, she bows her head, and gives herself to God – who gives himself to her.

Christmas isn’t about the tree, the tinsel, the lights, or the presents we exchange. As with Mary, it’s about God becoming vulnerable, placing his life in our hands, entrusting his own well-being to our questionable, human mercies, and saying, “I’ve got your back; will you have mine?”

And if, like Mary, we’ve got any gumption at all, we’ll accept the challenge, receive the child, and seek to bless the world – making a very Merry Christmas that much more possible in this, our valley – for unto us, the Son IS given.

War on Christmas - Reporting From the Trenches

There will be wars and rumors of wars; do not be disturbed – Matthew 24:6

I see the War on Christmas has returned.

I have good news. It appears to be restricted to the world of Social Media. No one else in the world seems to be worried about it. I presume that’s because it is neither a real war, nor is it even a real thing. It’s a made-up war, mostly made up by people with a surplus of time on their hands.

That’s not to say there ISN’T a war on Christmas. Just because a war doesn’t exist doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.

A few weeks back a well-known coffee company brought out its holiday cup; they had the audacity to decorate it with people getting along peaceably with one another.

“What on earth has that got to do with Christmas?” cried a number of indignant souls. “Don’t they realize Christmas is about a mass of humanity smashing their way into stores the day after Thanksgiving and crushing all competitors underfoot?”

Yes, I guess one could say there is a war on Christmas; it’s being waged in the trenches of Social Media. Ironically, “social” media has become quite unsocial, if not anti-social: “Happy Holidays? Happy Freaking Holidays? It’s Christmas!!! ‘Like’ this post if you agree to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, or may your bed be filled with the fleas of a thousand Mooses if you fail to paste and post and pass along this Jesus-loving sentiment!”

I would like to offer my services as an Ambassador of Good Will and reflect on this pseudo-war of which I write.

First, Christmas is a Christian holiday. It is recognized for the most part by one billion people. That sounds like a lot of human beings, but there are another six billion or so for whom it does not apply. So while it might be nice to offer a passer-by a cheery “Merry Christmas,” it would not be inappropriate to wish them an equally cheery “Happy Holidays.”

Why? Because there are a bunch of holidays recognized and practiced by people of many faiths around the globe this time of year, and such a pleasant greeting includes Christmas, without denigrating the faiths of our neighbors.

Secondly, “holiday” is an English word combining (and contracting) “holy day.” A holy day is a day set aside. Set aside for what, you ask? It is a day set apart so people can focus on God. So to wish someone a Happy Holiday is a way of inviting them to experience a time of connecting with God – and enjoying the experience. Is that a bad thing?

What happens if we decide not to get worked up into a lather in the Happy-Holiday-Merry-Christmas flap? Will God be upset? I’m talking about the One who sent down a chorus of angels who sang “Peace on Earth, good will to all …”

I know there are some who have been rebuffed for offering a hearty Merry Christmas to someone who snapped or snarled, finding the greeting offensive or objectionable, but that hardly counts as a “war” and, frankly, says more about them than the well-wisher. It also doesn’t mean you can’t say “Merry Christmas,” or call that tall green thing in your living room a Christmas Tree. That’s our prerogative; that’s our option; that’s what the First Amendment allows us to say and do.

Personally, I like using all the tools at my disposal this time of year for offering gentle greetings. If I am talking to known members of a church, I wish them a Merry Christmas; if to strangers and passers-by, Happy Holidays. To change it up, I sometimes tender a Feliz Navidad (even if they aren’t Hispanic), or Joyeux Noel (even if they aren’t French), or God Jul (even if they aren’t Swedish).

The point is, it is a season for grace, and the more graceful we can be with one another, the more likely we will obtain the gift of peace that passes all understanding. I suspect that was the purpose behind that first Christmas some twenty centuries ago.

So let’s restore the social to our social media and greet one another kindly over these next few weeks. There are some folks who need loving in this, our valley. Mele Kalikimaka.

On Eagles' Wings

… (A)cceptance is the answer to all my problems today… The Big Book

My wife and I were out for a drive not too long ago. We were on our way to Sheridan, driving down along the highway approaching Alder. I was keeping an eye on the road, watching for deer, moose, elk, badgers, skunks, and other assorted road-hazards when the one thing I was NOT watching for swooped into view.

Approaching our little tin-can on wheels was the largest eagle I have ever seen. Eagles are magnificent birds, but since I am normally a hundred yards or more distant when I see them, this one caught me quite off guard. I was shocked by the sheer size of the bird. I am sure it was the raptor that rescued Gandalf from Saruman’s awful tower in Middle Earth, but if not, it sure could have been a close relative (referring to the eagle, and not to the wizard).

I think the poor creature was also taken aback to find us in his (or her) glide path; I suspect it was en route to pluck a fish out of Alder Creek, or maybe a marmot along the bank. As it approached the side of our car, it recognized the error of its ways and immediately banked right, like an F-16 avoiding a Russian MIG (and lord knows it was rushin’).

Unfortunately, it was going so fast and was upon us so quickly, tragedy was imminent.

That’s when the poor bird did everything she needed to do for survival. The incident took on one of those slow-motion effects one sees in movies when life is happening too fast for the naked eye to keep up. My mouth opened up to shout some “oh, shoot” sort of expletive, as my wife balled up into a fetal position and made herself as close to her birth-size as possible. There was a shriek to be heard, too, but whether it was the eagle, wife, or me was too hard to tell with any precision.

As all of this was going on, the eagle continued her turn and made an effort to ascend. She flapped her great wings with power and purpose, and then … then the miracle happened!

She lightened her load explosively, which enabled her to streak skyward. She left her payload sprayed across the front and top of our car, but the mother of all collisions was avoided.

Simultaneously, our poor little Suzuki (which is a beautiful shade of black) took on the appearance of a skunk rolling along the highway atop a skateboard!

The good news, of course: we survived an accident that never happened due to the eagle’s quick thinking (and the fact birds lack a control mechanism in areas not spoken of in polite company).

In any case, time returned to its normal pace and we finished our journey, returning home none the worse for wear (after giving our car a run through the local carwash).

I am truly grateful that neither bird nor humans were injured or killed there along the Alder Gulch. I am also grateful I was able to see the magnificent grace of an American Bald Eagle up close and personal. I probably could have done without it costuming the car early for Halloween, but better to have it splashed on that than m’love and me, eh?

I learned a long time ago that it is quite helpful to “let go and let God” (as the old cliché puts it). If the bird hadn’t “let go” – there’s a chance God would have entered the picture for one or more of us sooner, rather than later. I’m looking forward to the trip through the pearly gates, but I’m not in THAT big a hurry, I must confess.

Sometimes we think of letting go as something of a sacrifice – of giving up things we like and appreciate. But sometimes it is the other stuff, the stinky stuff we have to be willing to give up, and in doing so, come to find our lives are better for it. I’m thinking of things like resentments, frustrations, or events from our past.

Giving those things up could be really good for us – our health and vitality, and dumping that stuff might just allow us to soar higher in this, our valley. 

A Parable for the Times

There was a man who needed to get to the Capital. He had a choice between two drivers.

The first was a two year old toddler who could not reach the pedals and see out the window at the same time. The boy was guaranteed (best case scenario) never to succeed in exiting the garage in the course of four years trying. The worst case scenario would involve crashing the car into the house, rupturing a gas line, blowing everything up and everyone dying.

The second driver was Ma Barker. She had years of experience driving successfully under both normal and abnormal conditions.

Who does the man choose to drive the car?

Silly question!

The toddler, of course. Women have no business driving!

The End

Beautiful Minds

The wisdom of the prudent is to give thought to their ways … Proverbs 14

The other day I was wandering around the internet, aimlessly flitting from one site to another. My wife asked me what I was doing and I told her, “I’m killing time.”

It’s a funny saying, isn’t it? “Killing time.”

I have finally gotten to that age where I am more aware of my body than usual. Every now and then I reach to grab something and there is a twinge in my shoulder that was never there before. I wonder whether it is muscle ache or joint pain and, frankly, can’t tell. I’d have to be more in tune with my body, and that would take paying attention – something for which I haven’t got time!

I’m coming to realize that it isn’t time I’m killing as much as time is killing me! As I approach the Golden Years (at the pace of a sloth on speed), I find myself wondering how it is this “gold” has gotten itself wrapped in a crust of rust!

That’s one of the problems with a relatively sedentary life-style. I’d like to think I am an active sort, but maybe flipping the channels with a remote or wandering the world via the World Wide Web isn’t as active as it sounds. Flipping is a word we hear in gymnastics, but I’m not sure what I do qualifies as a gymnastic maneuver. I would also venture to state that logging onto the internet is less physical than logging a forest, so maybe I need to consider a change in life-style.

This idea of time killing us is nothing new, of course. The Greek word for time is Chronos, named for a nasty minor deity who was best known for eating his own children. He is depicted by artists as a ravenous old coot whose appetite is never satiated – always consuming, but never satisfied. That’s a scary-good picture of time, if you ask me.

There is another Greek word – a better word – for time: Kairos. This is sometimes called “God’s time.” This is time as an opportunity, a gift; time with a purpose. This kind of time does not steal life, but gives life. It is the sort of time Solomon referred to when he wrote: To everything there is a time and a season – a time to laugh, a time to mourn; a time to be born, a time to die; a time to speak, a time for silence, and so forth.

If we look at time this way, we find the questions we ask tend to change. Instead of asking what time it is, we ask what this time is for. How should I use this time that God has given me? Instead of crying, “Good God, morning,” when we awake, we shake off our sleep and declare, “Good morning, God!”

What I have discovered is that it isn’t time that needs to change, but my attitude toward time. Instead of grousing about where time has gone, I look to see how best to use the time I’ve got, and at the end of the day, admire the things I’ve accomplished, or how much less there is to do next time I get started.

That’s quite a difference, isn’t it?

Solomon said, “The wisdom of the prudent is to give thought to their ways,” and I suppose one of the things he had in that beautiful mind of his was the idea that if we are wise, and if we are prudent, we will give thought to not just what we say and do, but to how we use our time.

When that computer of mine isn’t behaving properly, I find I sometimes have to reboot it; turn it off, unplug it, remove the battery, and after a minute, put it all back together, start it up, and it’s good as new. Maybe we need to do that with our lives, too; unplug and reboot.

It may not remove the arthritis and muscle strain one acquires with age, but it could well remove the twinge of guilt that arises when we find ourselves killing time instead of redeeming it for the sake of the kingdom. That could create in us a beautiful mind in no time at all, and wouldn’t that be a pleasant thing in this, our valley?

Poll Cats

It is more blessed to give than to receive – Jesus of Nazareth

I am seldom asked for advice or asked to express an opinion. I know, for instance, that when it comes to my sense of fashion, all my taste is in my mouth. If my wardrobe is at all coordinated, it is due to the good taste of my life-partner. Without her, I have no doubt I would mix checks with stripes, and goodness knows what wretched combination of colors I could come up with if left to my own devices.

However, times are changing and folks increasingly say they want my opinion. Some months back we became a “Nielsen” Family and got to share our television-viewing habits with the world. I presume that’s why your favorite shows have disappeared, and worse ones are airing to fill the void. I offer you my sincerest apologies.

I’ve also been receiving phone calls from researchers wanting to know my political views on things. Their stunned silence (at times) has suggested that perhaps my thoughts on such weighty matters are possibly skewed outside the group they’re working for, but that’s OK. I did a telephone survey one morning and that afternoon had another request for an interrogative poll. I told the poor soul I was limiting myself to one survey per day, and I am sure I left him holding the phone on his end with mouth wide open and a look of shock permanently frozen upon his face.

The fact is that I do have opinions, but have generally restricted myself to keeping most of them private. I learned early on that there are dog lovers, and there are cat lovers, and if one identifies with either group, one may become a pariah, viewed with deep suspicion by the other.

That has begun to change, however. As my bones have become more brittle, my perspective on matters has become more apparent and is sometimes expressed in a more prickly form. I am more prone to shoot off my mouth than ever before. It’s not that I want to place myself over and against anyone else; it’s just that there is more fatigue involved in holding one’s tongue. The muscle mass needed just isn’t there to support silence anymore.

That doesn’t mean I must become mean or cranky in expressing my mind (what little is left of it). It’s just that if there is discourse on some matter that affects me or the organizations and groups to which I belong, I don’t want folks to confuse my silence on such things with consent (Qui tacet consentit).

The challenge, of course, is in learning how to disagree without being disagreeable (as the old saw puts it). An old deaf couple were seen arguing one day and, like their hearing counterparts, as they got angrier, their gestures got bigger. Finally, one of them said to the other, “You don’t have to yell; I’m NOT blind!”

Anger, we’re told, is a secondary emotion. That means our anger is driven by something else – fear or shame, for instance. When your child runs into the street and nearly gets hit by a car, you scream at them in anger, because you’re scared out of your mind.

Sometimes, though, I think we scream because we want to show we mean business. “I’m mad as (heck), and I’m not going to take it!” thundered the character in the movie NETWORK.

I’ve come to learn, however, that one can express an opinion without getting angry or defensive if one realizes that it’s OK for everyone to have their own outlook on things. As one wag says, “Everyone’s got a right to be wrong. It’s not my job to change them or correct their perspective.”

The key, I think, is self-restraint. First of all, not everyone needs to know what I think or how I feel. Some folks have an insatiable appetite for speaking their mind. They have little or no self-restraint, and often evince that by then arguing every point with everyone. Their goal seems to be more to win than to learn.

That leads to the second point: conversation should be viewed and practiced as an opportunity to learn. When we value the experience, strength, and hope of our neighbor, we each win, and that’s a valuable commodity. Of course, that’s just my opinion in this, our valley.

Lights and Shadows

“Never fear periods of darkness in life. They are the atrium to new phases of life, the threshold to new experience, the invitation to move on from where you are to where there is more for you to learn”  Joan Chittister

I’m not much for driving at night anymore. It isn’t the darkness that bothers me, but the brightness of oncoming headlights. Today’s headlights seem to be a reflection of changing attitudes in our world.

Back in the day, standard headlights were round and held in place by a ring of light aluminum or steel. They were mounted so you could adjust them up, down, left, or right. They had set screws for “aiming” them so you wouldn’t blind oncoming traffic. There seemed to be an understanding that roads were meant to be shared, and as important as it is and was to see at night, it was equally important not to blind those with whom we shared the roads.

In the 1970s, automakers began to upgrade headlights, transitioning from the sealed beam headlight technology that had been developed in the 1930s to halogen and other brighter lights. They were technically illegal when I was a cop, for the state code specifically required “sealed beam headlights” – but that was a throw-back to the days when sealed-beams were an improvement over the carriage lamps cars used to have.

I suppose I could have written tickets to folks with halogen headlights, but I suspect prosecutors and judges would have questioned my sanity before questioning the code, so I exercised the better part of valor (and common sense) and decided to keep legislators in the dark on the matter.

I have no idea if the code has been re-written to permit the various crazy headlights we see “out there” today (I presume it has), but things sure are different.

Headlights now come in every shape and hue imaginable, and I sometimes wonder if many of them do the job they’re intended to do. What’s worse, they don’t seem to be adjustable – there is no apparent mechanism for aiming them as in days of yore. Drivers are at the mercy of engineers. They seem to be designed more to make a car look cool, than to function as illuminators of the night-time road.

It also means it does little good to flick our lights at oncoming traffic at night, for as often as not, they may or may not be running with their high beams on. It’s a sad state of affairs when the automaker is more interested in form than in function, because the driver is at the mercy of the machine and courtesy, as an option, is taken away.

There’s not much we can do, of course. No one wants to spend a fortune buying a motor vehicle, simply to then turn around and spend another fortune reverse-engineering it to be more courteous and kind. And I am certain we don’t want to return to the days where an automobile driven at night is required to have someone walking in front of the car, lamp or lantern in hand, to show the way.

No, for good or ill, we have what we have – and we’re stuck with it until some better option comes along.

Until then, there are several tried-and-true alternatives we can employ when driving at night. The first is simply to slow down. If one is driving a tad slower, one has more time to react to dangers in the road. I know that goes against the grain as we all want to get to where we’re going as quickly as possible, but slowing down works.

Secondly, when cars approach with their lights glaring, look away (toward the fog-line on the edge of the road). This protects your retinal nerves from being overloaded with the light, and allows your eyes to recover more quickly when those oncoming lights have passed.

Jesus once said, “If your eye offends you, pluck it out.” He was exaggerating, but the point he was making was: Take responsibility; be responsible!

We can’t change the auto industry (at least not overnight), but we can change what we do and how we do it, so we may as well use our heads, protect our eyes, and enjoy our nocturnal journeys as best we can in this, our valley.