Christmas

So, do you think Christmas is over? No, Advent is over. It's now the season of the 12 Days of Christmas. You can think of the song if you want to, and there are interpretations of it floating around on the internet. I gave an interpretation last year if you click on December 2007.

But we are now building to Epiphany, January 6 - recognizing the coming of the Magi, Middle Easterners following a star, or a sign in the sky - do you know your sky? There has been a phenomena this month at sunset in the SW sky with three planets close together: Jupiter and Venus, and now Mercury (Mars was there earlier). It's made me think of the traveling Magi.

But Christmas is really all year. Christmas is all about Incarnation. "Be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God." This is incarnational living, day-to-day, moment-by-moment, abiding in God. Not cautious, but extravagant living!

On A Night Like This

After last night's Christmas Eve service, I wanted to post the words to a song written by our Minister of Worship, Kerry Conner. I was only going to post some phrases, but love it in its entirety - 

On A Night Like This

A Baby shivered

When first he felt the evening's cool caress

The creator of the cosmos clothed in flesh

But he must have warmed at the tender touch of a mother's kiss

As the young girl held the Savior in her arms

On a night like this.

The shepherds shuddered

When they heard the host proclaim that peace had come

They left their flocks to seek the virgin's son

They heard the angels sing

In the sparkling midnight mist

And their hearts leaped as they gazed upon the child

On a night like this.

Chorus:

On a night like this

Everything was changed

The Father sent his son to pay our debt

On a night like this

Our ransom was arranged

Because the hand of God became a baby's fist

On a night like this.

The darkness shattered

As the brilliance of a new star split the night

To announce the bold invasion of the light

And there must have been a groan

From the heart of the abyss

Because the chilly hand of death would lose it's grip

On a night like this

The Spirit quickens

And a spark of faith can fan into a fire

A lonely soul can find its true desire

Because Immanuel has come

And he offers us the gift

A restless heart need never stay the same 

On a night like this.

Chorus:

On a night like this 

Everything can change

There's no wound too deep and dark for race to heal

On a night like this

Love can break the cruellest chains

Because the hand of God became a baby's fist

On a night like this

Everything can change

On a night like this

Our ransom was arranged

On a night like this

Everything can change

On a night like this

Love can break the cruellest chains 

On a night like this.

Though written and produced in 1992 by Kerry, it's recorded by his friend Debbie Milligan on her album "Teach Me to Dance in the Rain". Her website is www.healingwings.com

Art The Nativity by Salvador Dali

Adoration of the Shepherds, unknown, and then El Greco

Advent Ending

I've not posted for a few days! Monte got home from Norway at 2am Monday. We went to Travis and Sarah's Tuesday, bearing gifts: Christmas presents and tons of food. We spent the night there and had a wonderful fun family time together - new memories: Las Posadas food. The hit? Yes tamales were good, as was the green mole pork stew, churros ... ha ... we have to perfect ... But the stuffed jalepenos wrapped in bacon and baked, were our first bite, and everyone was lifted into another place. "Oh, man", said Travis. "They are luscious!!!!!!!!!!!" said me. We ate the leftovers, looking forward to them, for lunch the next day (after playing the game "SET".

This is going to post as AM, but I'm finishing writing now in the PM. Dawson woke earlier than I thought, and I put our "Pankaka" (Swedish oven pancake) in the oven, and we spent some time together before he left to carry on celebrating with his girlfriend, Splarah (Sarah's), extended family. So it's just Monte and me, and he's feeling the effects of his long trip without sleep for 24 hrs, so napping. Dawson and me set him up on Facebook, and I'm downloading some pictures for him. So I'm going back and forth.

My emotions have gotten stirred up as the day progresses ... Heather & Bill called this morning to talk Christmas, but also that his date for redeployment could be before their baby is born. Their first baby, and married a year ... I'm bummed ...

So, I was going to give the remainders of my Advent Basket. Maybe as I start typing and sitting with scripture ... I'll feel a little better.

Advent day 22's miniature was a dove. And the paper insert reads, "We learned what a cross stands for; what does a dove stand for? Read Matthew 3:13-17." Jesus insisted that John baptize Him. This is a setting where the fullness of God is there: God Incarnate coming out of the water, God's Spirit - looking like a dove, and God's voice. And John the Baptist saying, "Here is the Lamb of God, come to take away the sins of the world".

Day 23 has a little skein of wool. "Where does wool come from? In John 10:1-18 Jesus is the Good Shepherd. Who are His sheep?" When I rededicated my life to God I wore a necklace, till I lost it, of Jesus carrying a sheep in his arms - that was me!

Day 24 has a marble. "This is the world. Read John 3:16. What did God do for the world?" God, so loves the world, He incarnates Himself, taking on human flesh, from the beginnings in a womb, birthed and laid in a wooden feed trough for a bed ... to a death for us, the world; hanging to death on a wooden cross. God asks us to believe IN this, IN Him, so that we might not have to die our deserved deaths, but live incarnately with Him, on into eternity!

Day 25, today, has a miniature baby. "What do we celebrate this day? Read Luke 2:1-20." Remember Linus, his voice was refreshed in my memory, not only from church last night but a radio program we listened to - Linus tells Charlie Brown what the true meaning of Christmas is - reciting this Luke passage from memory. We lit the center Christ child candle in the Advent wreath.

The John 10 passage I so love and have often meditated and journaled on. My favorite phrases? "He calls his own sheep by name ... he leads them and they follow because they are familiar with his voice ... I know my sheep and my own sheep know me ... I put the sheep before myself, sacrificing myself if necessary ... I need to gather and bring them all in ..."

Which reminds me of a story I read -
"One cold night years ago in North Carolina I went outside to check on some animals then housed in my father's small barn. There was a full moon shining down in bright, brittle light above the pines. It was so cold that the water in the horses' trough had frozen over, unusual for the coastal counties. As I went to get an axe to chop through the ice, I noticed a yard chicken, a hen, perched near the trough, with several biddies tucked under her wings. I was impressed with how she had turned her face and frail body of fluff into the icy wind, her wings outstretched and, it seemed to me, surely tired, for the sake of her children. And I was uplifted by what I took to be a gift and encouragement to my faith, this visual depiction of Jesus' care for me.

"But it struck me that those chicks had come to the hen. I don't know if she chased them around the yard first, if some came more willingly than others, or if some were still out there half-frozen. (There were a few late arrivals perched on top of her wings.) I only know the chicks I could see had allowed themselves to be gathered up and protected. They had quit fighting what they had no control over in the first place and said, 'You do it, Mom.'"

Jesus did stand, looking over Jerusalem and wept saying, "how often I have longed to gather you children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings".

The Longest Night of the Year!

Winter solstice is very hopeful to me - cuz from here on out ... THE DAYS ARE LENGTHENING!!!!!

It's going to be a very long night for Monte. Don't know if he slept on his 10 hour flight from Copenhagen. But the plane was late getting into O'Hare. He'd have missed his flight if it weren't for his flight to Denver being delayed too. Why? no bad weather here, but Chicago is such a bottleneck ... and then Denver flights were messed up today too, due to a plane going off the runway last night and catching fire. No one was killed, but they all had to slide out the emergency exit doors and people were injured.

Dawson is picking him up and they probably won't get home till after midnight. Let's see ... midnight here would be 8 in the morning in Norway, which Monte's time-clock has been on for more than a week. We'll see ...

Monte just called ... from the plane ... that's just sitting there in Chicago ...

Advent Sunday 4 & Avent Basket Day 21

The 4th advent candle is the angel candle. Angels throughout scripture announce things. And give hope, support, and strength.

But they don't assure that the world at large and our own individual places of life go on unchanged. Angel visits usually mean detours are ahead, major changes are impending, and lives and destinies will soon be impacted. In fact, there's not one place in scripture where they start their words without "Fear not...". Is it their looks?

When angels appear, something of the divine breaks in upon our human history. Something beyond our understanding and definitely out of our control. Something that shows us there's more to life than what meets the eye - another realm beyond - another story larger than the small one we live in and tend to think we write.

What fears prevent or distract me from receiving a message wholeheartedly? My hearing it does not depend on how cute or striking the messenger might be. Do I have faith? Can I trust the God-graced words, seemingly in the dark and I can't see everything around me? even in the light?

"Hey, unto YOU a Savior is born," announced the angel Gladys Herdman. Just writing this makes me smile, thinking of the book it's out of. Every year since it came out we've read The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (which there's only used copies of now, starting at $49!). It's such a fun and great book for a fresh look at the Christmas story. It was a healing story for me the first year I read it!

"I bring you good news of a great joy which shall be for all peoples." The Savior, Christ, is God's gift. In giving His Son, He gave Himself. He loved us first before we loved Him.

In today's Advent Basket bag is a miniature jar of mustard seeds. "A small seed. Read Matthew 17:20. These grow into a very large plant."

Candy Cane Legend & Happenings

Monte just called me from Norway. He's been there for a full week now and will be flying home tomorrow. All week I've been imagining 8hours ahead ... he's in geology meetings ... he's sleeping ... he's out eating supper. He typically calls me just before going to supper.

I've been planning our Christmas foods. With Heather not here, the sentimental one for tradition ... Our typical meal is Scandinavian. Monte said he's had ENOUGH Scandinavian Christmas foods, including several meals with lutkefish! So after remembering that Travis and Dawson don't even love some of our meal's foods, we're going to do Mexican! After writing my Las Posadas post on Dec 16, I got hungry for tamales.

So I'm currently cooking up field corn kernels with lime and water - for fresh masa. If you've ever had fresh made corn tortillas from fresh masa ... :-P !!!! And in my post I had mentioned churros, so I found a recipe. I've eaten them before, but not made them. Rather than typical doughnut shape, it's strips of dough dropped into some hot oil from a star shaped piping tip, then sprinkled with cinnamon-sugar.

Chanukah begins tomorrow and oil is an ingredient in their menu. Besides latkes, doughnuts are a more current food you can get in Israel today. So churros is good. We can remember the miracle of the oil as we make them and eat history!

Watch this for a well done presentation on the history of candy canes.

Advent Basket Day 20 & Jesse Tree

Not many bags left to open in my Advent Basket! 5 days to Christmas. Bag number 20 has a crumpled piece of foil in it. I'm trying to remember comments the kids would make with these miniatures and readings. Written on the parchment paper: "Can you try and smooth this and see yourself? Read I Corinthians 13:12. It may be fuzzy and hard to understand, but one day it will be made clear."

If you do the Jesse Tree Advent readings you're about to leave the Old Testament stories and prophets. Today's reading is about Nehemiah returning to rebuild the Jerusalem walls. 

Just thinking of this brings the memories of the returned Jews cleaning out the temple and finding the scrolls. Because the stories had not been told for generations, festivals had not been celebrated - where the retelling and re-living their story happens, the people did not know. They stood the entire time of the reading of their story - standing, listening, and weeping.

The coming of a Messiah is what the prophets foretold. Jesus comes, and yet there's still a lot of unknowing, non-understanding. I can imaging weeping in the seeing and understanding of the whole Larger Story - some sadness, but I bet, primarily love and joy!

Advent Basket Day 19

A miniature shamrock is in today's Advent bag. "This is a symbol of good luck. With Jesus we don't need good luck." Read Romans 8:28. (Do you remember this Heather? You used to always say you "hate the word luck!")

Some things don't seem to work out as 'good', but what do I know! And do I see and know it all? And so often I get so tired in the waiting.

The context from verse 18 with the "pregnant creation" is so pertinent to this season. "Waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting ... joyful anticipation/expectancy."

As I write this ... I'm thinking I wrote something like this before. Yes, I did a Birth Post last year, read it. It has my "Transformation" felted piece, which I'm posting again here.

The new birth in me is that I can now anticipate. A defense mechanism I developed growing up has been transformed by God, Who began a good work in me, calling me by name, and is completing what He began. 

Advent season always seems to bring me back to this aspect of my growing faith as it relates to birth pangs and new birth. God knows me better than I know myself, knows my pregnant condition, and keeps me present before Him. Thus every detail of life works into something good.

Trusting ... as I gaze at my Bean Bag Nativity with the empty manger. 

Wedding Anniversary Reminiscing

Today, one year ago, our Heather married Bill Lavender II in Texas, just a few days after his coming home from Iraq. So, it's been picture day today. I almost never post pictures on my photoblog, but am going back through certain things I want to save on specific days for remembering. It's the same photoblog Dawson has posted on daily for more than a year and I've made mentions of and links to occasionally.

Well go to my photoblog and look back at Heather's shower and then wedding pictures a years ago. Thanksgiving this year with the whole family together is there. My day with my family together in Tucson is there.

Going to the Thanksgiving pictures, you can see Heather pregnant. Their baby, William Lavender III, is due January 18. My birthday is the 13th ... we'll see. Since we were all together on that day, we captured a family picture! not easy these days.

Monte's been in Norway this week. The ocean buffers the temps where he is, so it's been colder here - record breaking!! They do say if the temps stay below freezing a couple weeks it'll kill the pine beetle that's killing our woods - ugly mountain sides of brown! He calls me everyday around late morning - 8 hours ahead, he's finishing up at meetings and back at the hotel readying for supper. So right now ... he's sleeping!

Advent Basket Day 18 & Jesse Tree

Little stones are in today's Advent bag. The reading is Matthew 4:1-4. The parchment paper says, "Can you change these into bread? Jesus could". This scripture reading through verse 11 is a good yearly visit for children (and us adults!) to remember Jesus was tempted, and that the devil can quote scripture. Jesus answered back with scripture. I think I'd add Hebrews 2:18 and 4:14 into the reading as well.

I have mentioned that if you were doing the Jesse Tree Advent readings, by now you've read through the Bible's beginnings and the patriarchs of Israel's story up to king David. This week's readings are of prophets. Isaiah is called the Advent Prophet.

Yesterday's Advent reading quoted Isaiah, referring to the ears not hearing and hardened hearts. "Why do you tell stories?" "I tell stories to create readiness of hearts, to nudge the people toward receptive insight," said Jesus. And further on said, "A lot of people, prophets and humble believers among them, would have given anything to see what you are seeing, to hear what you are hearing, but never had the chance". That said to the disciples. Think of all we've seen and know!

Are our times today that different from Isaiah's? Their lives, homes, nation, families, wealth, and positions in society were threatened by an impending political disaster that would throw them all into ruin. They were in no spiritual condition to go through it all. Repent, turn to God in true conversion, proclaimed Isaiah. Put your hope in God.

Isaiah lived in the presence of God. Isaiah was asking for a restoration of true worship that results in justice and compassion. He saw that we can't simply decide to repent and be done with it. He asked God, "Why do You make us wander and our hearts hard, so that we don't fear You?" Repentance comes from God.

We can turn from wrong living and prepare for a breakthrough from God. We're not ready to celebrate the birth of Jesus in a manger - that's Christmas. We're Adventing - a preparation time to long for the coming of the Savior, a longing for redemption. We should use this time to soul search. Advent is a time to yearly review where our faith is placed and how our lives are lived. What powers might hold me: bad habits, undesirable relationships, vices - anything a blockage to my living by the spirit of joy and generosity. Advent calls us to meditate on the re/birthing of Christ in our hearts.

Jesus left us examples to follow, like even his desert temptation, that paschal mystery power is there for us. Prior to Jesus' desert trial, He'd been baptized by John the Baptist. So as John and Isaiah said, "Repent and prepare for God's arrival!"