Peace on Earth

"it covers us like rain
it washes and it stains"
-Andrew Peterson, "Love Enough"

A Merry Christmas to everyone. Hopefully you won't have a chance to read this until afterwards because you're with family.

As it turns out, I wrote the above on Christmas Eve then never got back to finish it until now. Levi and Noah drove up to Amarillo on Saturday and drove back today (Sunday) so we did get to see them, which was nice.

Also, dad's church let me play drums and piano today for their worship service, which is nice. It shouldn't surprise me, but I really do love playing music. I really do.

I go back to work on Wednesday, but I get Thursday off again, then the long dark tea time of the soul (sorry, Douglas Adams) also known as winter. But for now I hope everyone enjoyed their Christmas and got to see family.

Joy to the world; the Lord has come.

3 stories

Last night as we were putting Asher to bed, he told us a story about a man whose curtains would not stay up in his window.  Somehow, this morphed into his whole house falling down, "and do you know why? Because the Israelites needed to go in." He's been into the Jericho story lately (specifically the VeggieTales version), so this wasn't all that surprising. So then he talked about how God made the house fall down, so the Israelites could go in... and then, the best part.  "And do you know what? God is a really big guy, so he makes REALLY BIG MESSES."  I guess Jericho was a big mess, especially after they finished burning all the spoils of the city (not that Asher knows that part), but I'd never thought of it that way before...

Tonight at bedtime, Kurtis told him a story about some giraffes in a circus. And then when it was time for a lullaby, Asher told us, "I have a lullaby to sing tonight. It's from the Bible. It's called, "I will stay in the circus for a few days." And he reiterated that it's a lullaby from the Bible. (I think it might be in the Apocrypha, though.)

And finally, an example of how very socially aware Asher is becoming:  At dinner, Asher announced he was done with dessert, and got down. A few minutes later, he came in and asked for a bite of Kurtis's cookie. Kurtis said "I thought you were done with dessert, Asher." Asher pondered this for a minute, and then said, "Um... well... I... um... but... um... I love you very very much!"  His voice was the essence of innocence and sweetness.  Incredible.  Don't know where he learned it. :)  (He got the bite of cookie.)

Anyway, my whole family is here (yay!), so I'll go rejoin them. 

Family Goes to 11

"sages, leave your contemplation
brighter visions beam afar
seek the great desire of nations
you have seen His natal star"
-James Montgomery, "Angels from the Realms of Glory"

Sharon's parents arrive in Grove City tonight (actually, they arrive in Pittsburgh and then we bring them here, which is still technically arriving to them but it always feels funny for the person driving them in to say it) and they're here through part of the 21st. Sharon's sister and brother-in-law arrive on the 16th, so our new house will finally be full. It should be fun.

On the 23rd we bail out of here and head to Amarillo to see my family until the 30th. I don't know exactly what my family's plans are, but I hoping that during that stretch we'll also get to see my brother and his wife and my nephews and nieces.

I'm glad for Christmas; it gives an opportunity for people to go reconnect with family even if they live far away. Obviously not everybody can, so this isn't to make you feel guilty if you can't. I'm just excited about seeing everybody and celebrating together. Neither of our families are perfect (whose are?) but they're fun and it should be a good time.

(If you don't know the title reference, by the way, watch Spinal Tap.)

Asher is, of course, way excited about everybody coming to his house (that Sharon and I live here and, you know, pay the mortgage doesn't seem to bother this notion in the least) and he's going to show them his toys and his TV and his bear and his blanket and his potty and so on. Obviously that part will wear off after everybody has been here for an hour, but then something else will happen that I bet will take the edge off:

Candy.

Everybody eats at Christmas. I used to not realize this, since the food is so spread out over time. At Thanksgiving, you stuff yourself until you feel like you're going to burst, and even though many people do that at Christmas, it's not really the focus of the holiday so you don't think about it as much. Christmas, on the other hand, already has candy from Asher's advent calendar and the cookies Sharon wanted to make and the divinity candy I wanted to make and the Christmas candy we're gonna buy and the additional cookies or pies or cakes we're gonna make while with family. It's a tidal wave of sugar, and Asher surfs it like a pro.

"The wedding guests can't mourn as long as the groom is with them, can they? But the time will come when the groom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast."
-Jesus speaking in Matthew 9:15 (ISV)

I'm sure it'll be a hard habit to deal with in January when we go back to normal eating, but right now it's fun, and isn't that what celebrations are about?

For our Christmas thought, a long passage:

"When the Gospel was first preached, Roman laughed at the idea of a God become flesh. Oh, sure, a god might have a little fling with a mortal woman and then disappear to better realms, but no real mixing, please. You know your side of the tracks, the gods know theirs. God become flesh — hilarious!

Instead of laughing, we've done a sleight of hand to turn the celebration of the Incarnation — presto chango — into Christmas. Into the hat we stuff a fleshly God; out pops tinsel, wrapping paper, photos of children with starry eyes. The incarnation? Hocus-pocus backwards — no, this is not my body, not my blood, God's very flesh tucked up my sleeve.

Dig under the stockings, credit card bills, Christmas concert programs. Pull of layers of carols, drifts of snow, a gingerbread house recipe and — oh, my God! What is it? A baby! Not a silent, glow-in-the-dark symbol of benign blessing on farm animals. The merconium, the squalling cries, the desperate need for warm breast, for eyes to search his; God is naked and not ashamed.

The feast of the Incarnation is the time to celebrate God weak, a day to dance to the descending scales of God's throwing off omniscience and omnipotence. We skirt past this powerful little pile of cast-off clothing. Like the magazine reflection of a starving boy's eyes, the bruises of an abused girl on the news — our eyes cannot adjust to this. We do not want this God, whose glory is so dim we strain to see it."
-Mary Ellen Ashcroft, "Dogspell"

Night of Christmas Music

"she sang of things that pleased her soul
she questioned life and made it known
she stored her knowledge deep inside her mind"
-Michelle Tumes, "Life is Beautiful"

Sharon and I are home rushing to get weekend things done because we've spent so much extra time this weekend on stuff for the FCC Night of Christmas Music that was tonight. We played an arrangement of "I Saw Three Ships", and then I played a couple of songs ("Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence" and "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen") with the two worship leaders of the church. It was a fun time, though as Sharon will tell you I was a basketcase right before and I messed up our piece a little (though it went well in practice, so I really can't complain too much.)

Asher sang in the Children's Choir, and oh dear was that cute. I promise pictures, but the intense look of concentration on his face for most of it is inexpressible. At his young age (3) he was watching the directors face the whole time, making sure he was singing right along with her, singing all the words right and everything. Very cute, if a little disturbing in its intensity. (Then again, I guess I just talked about being a basketcase right before, so I guess he comes by it honestly.)

Now we're set for a visit from Sharon's family followed by a visit to my family, so it'll be a busy last few weeks of the year. Sharon's got exams to give and grade, and I've still got a project to see through, but despite the amount of stuff to finish, there's only a limited number of days until 2009, so I'm sure it'll all get done and next year will start right on schedule.

I'm gonna add another part to my blog postings for the rest of Advent: small quotations or thoughts of other about Christmas. The Incarnation is the most powerful of Christian claims, and it deserves reflection from a number of angles.

"The Self-revealing of the Word is in every dimension: above, in creation; below, in the Incarnation; in the depth, in Hades; in the breadth, throughout the world. All things have been filled with the knowledge of God.

For this reason He did not offer the sacrifice on behalf of all immediately He came, for if He had surrendered His body to death and then raised it again at once He would have ceased to be an object of our senses. Instead of that, He stayed in His body and let Himself be seen in it, doing acts and giving signs which showed Him to be not only man, but also God the Word. There were thus two things which the Savior did for us by becoming Man. He banished death from us and made us anew; and, invisible and imperceptible as in Himself He is, He became visible through His works and revealed Himself as the Word of the Father, the Ruler and King of the whole creation."
-Athanasius: On the Incarnation (Translation by Sister Penelope Lawson)

Chance for the Chancers

"everything's gonna be okay
He's gonna wipe those fears away
and before the night is through
this is all going to make sense to you"
-Poor Old Lu, "Chance for the Chancers"

Christmas is still a few weeks away, but already I'm tired of the "put the Christ back in Christmas!" chant.

It's not that I think it's a bad idea. On the contrary, like Paul I'd love nothing more than to see my countrymen come to faith in Jesus Christ. The fact that there are people in America that don't know the story of the Incarnation is surprising, and I'm all for efforts to try to change that.

But we live in Grove City, PA. It has spiritual issues to be sure, but I think you'd be awfully hard pressed to find somebody who doesn't know that Christmas celebrates the birth of Christ, regardless of their beliefs.

Trumpeting that cause here just seems like a way to increase the volume of the debate, and makes us look foolish: we claim a victim's stance when we, as American Christians, might be the most privileged, protected Christians in the world.

"Somehow or other, and with the best of intentions, we have shown the world the typical Christian in the likeness of a crashing and rather ill-natured bore — and this in the name of one who assuredly never bored a soul in those thirty-three years during which he passed through the world like a flame."
-Dorothy Sayers

Paradoxically, it might be that giving non-Christians space on this issue is the best way to improve their relationships with Christ. Share with them their Christmas and take an interest in their lives. Jesus spoke with authority, but I don't think that people would've come to him unless the expected him to actually listen to them. He gave the chancers the chance they needed.

The rich, young ruler story is instructive here: the man went away sorrowfully. People who get turned off by the "get rid of the X in X-mas" lobby don't go away sorrowfully. It is left as an exercise to the reader to ponder the difference.

Pride and Sin

"why are you so downcast, O my soul?
why so disturbed within me?
put your hope in God
my Savior, my King
when nothing satisfies you hold my hand"
-Jennifer Knapp, "When Nothing Satisfies"

I had lunch today with Pastor David Harstine, the pastor of our new church here in Grove City. The conversation (like many I have) ranged all over without a focus, but over the course of it I was reminded how much my perception of Christianity and sin in particular have changed over the last ten years or so.

When I was young in the church, things were always explained in the most abstract cosmic terms or in very specific warnings. We seem to shy away from recognizing our true fallenness, casting it in grand (but ultimately unhelpful) Miltonian terms or harping on sins that are more infamous. I remember in college sitting down with a campus minister who asked me what I was really struggling with, and I said pride. He responded, "you're kidding, right? You can be real with me Kurtis."

Don't get me wrong, I have struggled with a lot of things in life. I'm not going to put the laundry list here; some of you know them and those that don't can play along for now. The problem is that, truthfully, what affects my life (and the life of those around me) more than the individual indulgences of wrongness I've engaged in is the source of those indulgences: a very ego-centric, prideful view of life.

I'm not unique; on the contrary, this problem is quite common. Increasingly, for instance, I notice that pride and ego is a major factor in many of the technological obstacles that my employers face. I'll go further: I'd say that pride and ego are central to most of the hard to solve problems I've seen in software development. I doubt any of you would take issue with the statement that a huge bulk of marriage issues are caused by thinking of ourselves as entitled to certain things. One could recast many of the issues argued about in this last campaign as a war between perceived entitlements and personal "rights".

It's not just our culture. Our condition is one of myopia; so shortsighted in fact that we hardly ever even see outside ourselves at all.

Obviously this is an oversimplification of sin to call it all pride, but I was reminded today of how many problems humanistic philosophy tries to solve merely by turning our focus from ourselves to our common humanity, or that political orientation tries to solve by turning our attention from ourselves onto country. It is amusing that despite radically different world views atheist and agnostic and religious can agree that it is we, as selfish individuals, that are our own worst problem.

At Hyde Park Alliance, Jim Smith preached a sermon series on the seven deadly sins. On reflecting and praying about them, Trilisa commented that all the sins were really gluttony (an over-indulgence in an appetite) and I responded that all the sins were really lust (and indulgence in forbidden desire). Or maybe it was the other way around. On further reflection, we really saw that all the sins are all the sins (every sin is a lie of some kind, every sin is a murder of something, every sin is an idolaty, every sin is a despondency) and so it shouldn't surprise me that the bent-ness of the world around me makes me reflect on sin and pride. Every sin is pride, too. And vanity.

Turns out there really is something to original sin.

"Surely I was sinful from birth, from the time my mother conceived me"
-Psalm 51:5

I think I can, I think I can....

I started making this tree skirt 4 (maybe a bit more) years ago, at Trilisa's parents' house in the Chicago 'burbs. Then I didn't work on it for a few years, but now it's finally done! (Well, okay, I still have to do one hem and snip the extra thread off a few places... but it's within epsilon of being done.) I'm pretty proud of myself, even though I think Jeanne would die of shock if she saw some of the bad seams and so on... but I like it!

And Asher likes it too. He was worried we were going to put it over the whole tree, but when he found that it just went over the holder, he warmed up to the idea. This is his "smile, Asher!" smile. It looks just like his cousin's camera smile. But even with the weird grimace, he's a cutie.

Merry Christmas, everyone!