A Photographer's Glance
There are a few times when things just click and you know it is terrific to be alive.
The rocks are terrific.
The light, the water, the colour, the barnacled rocks. It’s the beach.
And the light just glances fabulously off the water around the sand and over the rocks.
When one sees the world with lies, it is never good for oneself and for all.
When one sees the world of beauty it is always a sense of grace that prevails for oneself and others.
On this May Day, a festival of dance and spring, maypoles and cakes, a day of workers’ recognition and honour: Dance this day, full of hope and joy. The creation awaits your participation in its rebirth.
My Love,
On this May Day baptismal day we celebrate not only a small child’s baptism, but all baptisms, including our own: that God is a Gracious and Loving God, to have created this universe, and us with it, knowing what we would do, what God would have to do, what Jesus would suffer, what the Holy Spirit could do, and what we would do with all that to ignore all that God has done for us.
There is a wonder, in you, a miracle of reality. God created as child grown to a respected slim, silver haired elder woman, guided by grace in all you do, with a mind that flips your focused reality from short term to long term memory with concentration and focus, that lives in the world of emotions and sorts them, gives meaning to them and is able to see what others are blind to; and you use that information with grace for people to move forward in life. And your heart of compassion, kindness, grace, generosity, persistence and hope moves you and people around you into a world where God’s grace abounds. You face issues that others shrink from and give space for others to be as they will, yet insist that they hear the vision of justice that you bring, the vision of grace that you bring, the vision of understanding and compassion for all people.
In you our sons have a model for hope against hope. In you I have received my self again. In you God has made a miracle, a reflector of God’s light and music so that the dance, though by broken people shines with colours and rhythm that reveals the infinite in our limited finite reality.
On this May Day, a festival of dance and spring, maypoles and cakes, a day of workers’ recognition and honour: Dance this day, full of hope and joy. The creation awaits your participation in its rebirth.
And this is what it can look like, adjusting the photo for the human eyes tremendous flexibility.
Last evening we went for an ice walk, a date with each other and a camera, after a great meal and getting a mattress that is good for my back, and the kids can use the soft plush mattress, if their backs can hold up to it.
The view of course starts not on the ice in the marina, but across the street, in the eat ..ery called Clarkes
Clarkes General Store and Eatery, where the light plays and the sign begs for activity, hunger, patronage … and stands in defiance to the economy, which is so slowed down with oil prices so low, one wonders what will happen. All will dry up here, companies once robust and bold will become withered remains and reminders of the wasteful years and the Saudis will continue to be beyond belief wealthy, capable, and ruthless. Always the ruthless win, with lies and deceptions, and without conscience or concern for others.
But then freedom from all that as we descend into the Marina from the boardwalk, on to the snow covered ice.
At -14 C with even a slight breeze one needs the correct clothing and protection. And it would be so nice to have my cameras again. But the Nikon D7000 will do, and I did keep the tripod. It’s a tool of precision and stability, a companion with so many photo outings, so light and familiar. A connection with the past before it was so broken, and so powerful, allowing this kind of exposure at night: clear, colourful, dazzling and promising … if only I had skates on and the snow were cleared ….
Facing the other way
There is less draw into than a shove from the golden coloured Marina
away out into the darkness
past piles of snow.
And with ever so slightly a shift on the tripod the scene is less a push and less golden and all around less
Even though it is just seconds later.
The scene is not the photo, the camera and tripod do not make the photo …
The heart and eye and imagination of the photographer make the photo with what’s there and what equipment is brought to along and used.
There actually is a place to skate, cleared from last evenings snow with a tired vehicle but not skated on by seemingly anyone in the oh so cold – which indeed does require the proper clothing, but is simply harsh in comparison to the mild, mild winter we’ve had so far. Really, above zero (freezing for those that do not reference temperatures in Celcius) temperatures in February, I mean even 10 above! It’s been a wonderful break from the potential -20, -30 and -40 that we know is normal.
And what is coming; so often I hear someone marveling at the mild temperatures and then they ruin it all with an anxiety of what is to come: March will for sure be too cold!
And I respond simply: it’s been a marvelous February, no harsh temperatures. And one month of cold (because April maybe snowy or even below zero, but it would be really odd if it were -30 or even -20!) during March is not something that we do not know how to survive and more than survive, but enjoy and delight in. And then … well then the wonders of Spring.
There is hope. And even optimism.
Hope: the ability to imagine and trust God that the future, despite having no basis in the practical concrete reality and events of one’s days and nights, … that the future will bring goodness, also to us, to oneself.
Optimism: the perspective on the practical concrete reality and events of one’s days and nights that so colours these events so as to block out the negative part of reality so that one is left with overpowering evidence that the future will continue just like this partial or skewed perspective of the past.
For the record, healthy or best is to be always overwhelmingly hopeful, somewhat optimistic and wisely pessimistic and strongly realistic and practical. Another Paradox to describe health, well-being, flourishing, and claiming one’s baptism, that one is a child of God … also a participant in the Kingdom of God on earth … by grace.
Technology and the cross in lights.
Can one be optimistic because of technology, hope because of the cross, and still stand back and wonder at what we’ve done to that symbol of torture of the Romans, the cross. We’ve put it everywhere, even in neon lights on the sky line of our lives.
There are so many lies hurled …
So many lies banked on …
So many lies embraced …
So many lies acted upon …
And there are cracks in everything, and that is how the light gets in (nod to Leonard Cohen.)
When will the light get in?
It was dark and this shows the dark but it misses something unseen while shooting.
This evening I took a walk, short but sweet, to catch the light in the snow.
And there is nothing quite like a wintery night
Frozen but still warm enough to not be dangerous or painful, so that one can delight
Here we can see it, with full light bright throughout the photo, but the sense of night is gone, too.
In
This is the dark, shining brightly through the photo, but not everything is showing.
The little things
And here the action, location and mode of transportation to and back.
That make it all okay.
It is something to be systematically attacked to the point that one has no support left, and then how does one hang on? Like Mandela in prison, Bonnhoeffer in prison, like Ghandi in prison and afterwards, all accused, all braved it out and all had something else in front of them, but Bonnhoeffer never made it back to normal life.
Who will be killed next time, will it be us, or worse them, or we all?
Life, choose life. Please choose life.
There is little in this world that is spectacular beyond breath, but there is much in this world that is spectacular beyond breath!
One needs to listen and hear, look and see, feel and experience everything knowing the Grace of God is always at work, in abundance.
Yesterday I went looking and after a few other stops found the Emeralds, a band with saxophone, voice and keyboards … and more. And their schedule had them playing in north Edmonton. So I called for more details, precious few were available on line.
And we went to dinner and dance.
Great Food! Great Music!!! And SPECTACULAR dancing!!!!!
To be able to dance and move and change the step to fit the music or the density of the dance floor or the mood … it doesn’t get much better. And there were dancer of age, spectacular in what they could do to the music!
Oh, heaven broke through from the infinite to the finite and there was … Grace!
And we worked on this sermon, for this morning. And Linda challenged me with my nose in my phone, thinking I was playing games. And when I explained, she read some and asked that the sermon get posted, shared. So here it is.
Oh, the celebration so precious and costly and over the top?
Ukrainian New Year’s Eve.
We could not stay real late, with this morning looming and plumbing half finished … But it was a part of a wonderful life!
And now the requested sermon:
The banquet of the kingdom of God is not a special snack for a few friends and close associates. It is a huge gathering with the tables weighed down, bursting with good food for everyone. God’s generosity results in spontaneous words of gratitude and praise.
In her book The Spark, Kristine Barnett tells the story of her son Jake.
At a year and a half, Jake started to crawl into his shell, by 2 he was rarely speaking or making eye contact. When he was diagnosed with autism, everyone predicted what was not possible, including that Jake would not speak or be able to communicate at all long before 16.
Instead, at age 16, we see little Jake, a boy small for his age standing and talking animatedly and easy with a math professor. Giving the others a head start Jake waits to join one of the groups of college students working on the problem the professor has given them and then he stands to the whiteboard to write a few equations. He turns and, giving the students leading questions, entices and invites the others to understand what he sees clearly in a multitude of ways.
Soon one, two and four students from the other groups come across to Jake’s board. Soon most of the students are there listening, eagerly absorbing what Jake offers them, until first one, then another, and then most of them nod understanding and return to their own whiteboards to work through the problem before them.
God gives us abundance, over abundance, just over the top, overwhelming abundance. It’s amazingly perfect wine flowing freely for us.
In today’s Gospel from John we get a taste of this wonderful stuff: In the Bible being out of wine is not just a social faux pas. It is a sign that God’s blessings have run dry. Wine was a sign of the harvest, of God’s abundance, of joy and gladness and hospitality. So when they run short on wine they run short on blessing. And that is a tragedy. A sign that God did not bless the marriage.
And there is even more to be said. If you don’t know it yourselves yet, here is nugget of wisdom we receive from our Jewish brothers and sisters: for those who are married the blessings of being in love with your spouse is the most important thing. It is the blessing of blessings, the one blessing that makes your whole world right. It is the one gift that’s worth everything you have and are, – the most significant gift that you can pass on to your kids. Nothing else can replace it. And nothing else is out of reach if you have it. So when the wine runs flat out: it’s a sign of sure disaster!
Mary tells Jesus about it. He sidesteps the problem. She places it back on his lap. What follows is Jesus’ first miraculous sign that teaches us what grace looks like: God intends for us to be blessed beyond blessing, beyond imagining. Jesus doesn’t just turn some water into some wine. Jesus turns a huge volume of water into the best wine of all time, and there’s enough of it to last … and last …. and … last.
We human beings are hardwired to pay attention to scarcity. It’s a survival thing. If you have too many potatoes or meat it’s not really dangerous. But if you’ve got nothing to eat, that requires attention and energy focused on it so that you can survive!
So we pay attention to scarcity. Like low oil prices, dropping provincial revenues, dropping house values. We pay attention to failing health, dropping membership in churches, disastrous events in our communities.
We may even feel privileged that in this area the economy may not be so bad. Our attendance is better than most small rural congregations, and we have people who are willing to serve on committees and Council. Yet said that way, it brings to mind a fundamental fear, a fear that elsewhere it is worse than here and it’ll catch us sooner or later! Fear…, fear,… fear!!
But God wants us to live without fear! God wants us to know that there’s enough blessing to transform the world for every million years it’s going to exist! God inundated us with so many blessings that it’s overwhelming!
A man once calculated the amount of water [Jesus turned] into [that spectacular] wine. He presented his estimate to St. Jerome and asked if the guests at Cana had really drunk all that wine. [It was close to an additional 1000 bottles!] Jerome responded, “No, no, definitely not. We are still drinking of it today.”
Love, being in love, not just for a day or a few months, the kind that God gives us when we fall freshly in love; but the long-term kind -being in love for a lifetime – requires choosing to be there each day, choosing to do what it takes to be in love. It means continuing to do the loving thing through everything that could destroy love, and doing those things every day whether you feel like it or not…. That kind of doing love, of making your love … that is like Jesus’ wine, the blessing that God gives us … every minute of every day … of every week … of every month … of every year of our lives.
Knowing this what are we to do?
First pay attention: listen and hear; look and see; notice and feel; fully experience God’s abundance. God’s generosity is something other than what we normally see going on in this wonderful world.
Second – know there is not a thing you can do to change God’s generosity. You cannot earn it, deserve it, do anything right with it, or turn it into something more useful. Not only can we not; we don’t have to. God has already done all that for us.
Third, we can respond, we should respond, and we can respond well … but we don’t have to. God will still place the blessings in front of us, give them to us, shower us with them, and call us to move forward with them, and acknowledge that God is there with us.
This is the fabulous wine that overwhelms, the awesome love that carries us perpetually through every challenge.
And knowing this, we can remain humble and live life full of gratitude. As our second reading teaches, everything is a gift! First and foremost: God gives us faith, faith to see what God is up to, around us, in us, and between us!
In the 2nd reading today we are reminded that the people of the congregation in Corinth are richly blessed. God gives them many gifts for building up the community, but those very gifts become a source of contention. Several of the people accept the conclusion that the gifts varied in value and therefore the gifts reflect the worth of the person. Paul writes to the Corinthians, hoping to bring a healthy kind of harmony to the group. “Your gifts,” he tells them, “are just that, gifts, and they all are from the same Spirit. They have been given to you, not as reward, nor to increase your own personal worth or power within the community. They come as pure grace to be used in the service of the Lord. They are for the common good of the whole community. Their gifts each and every one support our confession that “Jesus is Lord.”
Jake, that autistic boy who everyone, except his own mother, everyone thought would never talk, well that boy got his first summer job when he was 12.
As a research assistant at the university where he studied, the youngest research assistant so far in our modern world, each day he’d get assignments to finish. And finish them he would … on the 20 minute drive home! ! Jake told his mom the LAST assignment was more bothersome, because he wasn’t sure if he could get it done.
His mom just gave him her best advice and encouragement and a bit of fire in the pants by telling him that he needed to apply himself, and to work at it until it was done. Every other night Jake would play outside with his friends. He had lots of free time.
That night Jake went to his room to complete the assignment. Within two hours Jake’s mom looked up and saw him outside playing with his brothers. She called to him. He confirmed that he wasn’t sure, but he thought he had something for the assignment. So she let him play.
The next day the professor called to thank her for supporting Jake through the summer of research. Then he told her what Jake had done the night before. He’d been assigned an open problem in math. No one had ever solved it. In less than two hours, the boy who everyone had given up on and said would not even talk, this boy Jake with autism had taken a problem that no one ever had come up with a solution for, and – in part because his mother didn’t’ know, and partly because she just always trusted that he was given some extraordinary gifts and he was to use them, – Jake solved an open problem!!, a problem deemed unsolvable!!!
Years before (at age 10) Jake had been able to propose a new unique theory of light and relativity that fixes some of the problems left over from Einstein’s theory of relativity. His theory is not complete but it’s possible that this boy may do something more significant than what Einstein did for us all.
God’s gifts are given to each of us, not just Jake, in an astounding over-abundance.
We don’t have to respond. We are not going to get rid of death and illness and decline and decay and poverty and pain and war and abuse and any of the other really horrific things we humans are too good at.
But we can respond well to God’s over abundance for us … if we want to.
And then we can, no, … then we will change the world!
Be not afraid!
Have a wonderful week.
Know that you are blessed to be a blessing. Your cup and your neighbor’s cup, is overflowing with God’s amazing, abundant wine given at that wedding in Cana.
Amen
So far the sermon.
This past year there have been many things, so abundantly filled with Grace:
This for Simon and Cyrus, Simon’s whose passion is soccer, who does math relating to the way he can see the field while he plays, And Cyrus who is always there practicing hour after hour with Simon, giving him a goalie, an opponent, a companion.
And this M’s grandma. A reworking of her old postage stamp photo into gifts for Grandma’s three daughters.
And this: as it turns out, the last opportunity for Phoebe to venture to drive the tractor, and she does with gusto!
Lights
The darkness is immense, wallowing in all the corners deep across the time and space of an ordinary day.
There is no Other that sits so well as oneself alone, with all the others simply servants, not real ones, all lined up to give an illusion of reality.
But there is no goal if there is no Other.
Is there a light to light this darkness like no other? Is there a hope of a cure that everyone says does not exist.
And in the moment that artificial light will hit the trees of snow covered in agony and loneliness.
Where, Oh Where, Is the Hope in the Dark, if not in the Light from the Day.
There were very hard days behind me but this speaks so as if …
As if one understood and knew that despair behind my days of fear
As if the light of hope got stuck on a stick and were thrown ahead.
As if the small grass of comfort between my toes were wrenched from the universe by a black hole.
As if there were no holy water that reacts differently in the font, no broken bread, no blood given.
As if …
But as Carver before the Ways and Means, derided and demeaned,
As Bonhoeffer detained from his flock, asking Who Am I,
As Mandela held on an island, knowing slowly they would get long pants,
I still remember who I am, who I’ve been made, by whom I’ve been claimed, though condemned who named me simultaneously a saint.
Where are we?
On a map?
Of convoluted and complicated growth?
We are full of hope and yet desperate to be
welcomed by another saint
rescued by another saint
known past this by all in the light of life.
An old and broken thought invades the will of those with control,
What emptiness grips their fears, and twists them to the dark
Overwhelming darkness like in the caves where bodies lie, dried out, ages gone by.
Where even there the water of life flows unseen
But heard.
And drunk.
And felt as evidence that all is well, connected, blessed.
Even there the grains become body, which is broken and given.
Even there the grapes are fermented into blood, which is poured and shared.
What is my cup?
What is your cup?
What is our cup?
What will we see new today in the light?
Will these ever once again house a family, livid, active, growing, of hope and peace with a smile?
Die schwersten Wege
Die schwersten Wege werden alleine gegangen,
die Enttäuschung, der Verlust, das Opfer,
sind einsam.
Selbst der Tote der jedem Ruf antwortet
und sich keiner Bitte versagt
steht uns nicht bei
und sieht zu ob wir es vermögen.
Die Hände der Lebenden die sich ausstrecken
ohne uns zu erreichen
sind wie die Äste der Bäume im Winter.
Alle Vögel schweigen.
Man hört nur den eigenen Schritt
und den Schritt den der Fuß
noch nicht gegangen ist,
aber gehen wird.
Stehenbleiben und sich Umdrehn hilft nicht.
Es muss gegangen sein.
Nimm eine Kerze in die Hand
wie in den Katakomben,
das kleine Licht atmet kaum.
Und doch, wenn du lange gegangen bist,
bleibt das Wunder nicht aus,
weil das Wunder immer geschieht,
und weil wir ohne die Gnade
nicht leben können:
die Kerze wird hell vom freien Atem des Tags,
du bläst sie lächelnd aus
wenn du in die Sonne trittst
und unter den blühenden Gärten
die Stadt vor dir liegt,
und in deinem Hause
dir der Tisch weiß gedeckt ist.
Und die verlierbaren Lebenden
und die unverlierbaren Toten
dir das Brot brechen und den Wein reichen –
und du ihre Stimmen wieder hörst
ganz nahe
bei deinem Herzen.
(Hilde Domin)
The most difficult paths
The most difficult paths are only alone trod,
disappointment, loss, sacrifice,
are desolate.
Even the deaths that answer every call
and deny themselves no plea
do not stand with us
and only watch to see whether we are able.
The hands of the survivors which extend
never reaching us
are like the branches of trees in winter.
All birds are silent.
One hears only one’s own step
and the step of one’s foot
of the step not taken,
but the step that will be taken.
Stopping and turning about offers no help.
The path must be trod.
Take a candle in your hand
as in the catacombs,
the little light hardly breathes.
And yet, even as you are long gone,
the miracle does not forsake,
because the miracle always happens
and because we without grace
cannot live:
the candle will burn brightly from the free breath of the day,
you blow it out smiling
when you walk into the sun
and among the flowering gardens
as the city spreads below you,
and in your house
the table is set white for you.
And the expendable survivors
and the un-expendable dead
reach you the broken bread and rich wine –
and you hear their voices again
very close
to your heart.
(Hilde Domin Translated Tim Lofstrom)
A familiar path?
For you, too?
New Year’s Eve
A year ago
One date, not so innocent,
Three kids, one hotel, one persistent intrusion,
Followed a few days later with one accusation,
That was impossible,
And now,
What is, is all the result of one be-devilled
Let’s see one year further into the future
And hope the same is bettered with hope
And persistent work to let Grace prevail!
There are cracks in everything, that’s how the light gets in.
There are some things that should not be done.
There are some things that should be done.
Catching light whenever possible should be done.
One shot.
Two shot.
Blaming others for the darkness that
one has chosen for oneself should not be done.
No shot.
Doesn’t depend on anything,
If you live in a darkness that you chose,
then blaming others just buries it under more darkness …
until the light is obliterated and
there is no more hope for light or love or life …
nor joy.
Until God chooses to change you!
And then there is life in abundance!
That’s Grace!
There are times in ones life when the beauty of it all is overwhelming.
When, through the cracks in everything, the light gets in …
and the light that brings life shines all around in the darkness, giving life.
Choose life, please, choose life.
And this from the supper table, piped into a fantastic sound system:
and this article as an explanation: Isreal records in one take
Tonight:
Last Saturday, Christmas, I put this together from pieces from my wife and my thoughts and my wife then edited a few times. And it contains the essence of faith; Faith in a gracious God; Faith proclaimed by our church, the Lutheran Church, the E.L.C.I.C.:
Second Reading: Titus 3:4-7
4When the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, 5he saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy, through the water of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit. 6This Spirit he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
Darkness
We wrote to a friend whose wife, Joan, was diagnosed with a really bad kind of dementia:
“Today, as the snow falls on the still dark fields in the view to the west and as single cars traverse the road on this side of the darker trees,
“I’m thinking of you and all the inspiration you have been to us;
“And thinking how [deleted expletive/]unfair and typical it is that you must face this, as you’ve faced so many challenges.”
Christmas Works
Every Christmas we see people, people, people expecting, expecting, expecting, buying, buying, buying, preparing, preparing, preparing, travelling, travelling, travelling, doing, doing, doing, cooking, cooking, cooking, wrapping, wrapping, wrapping, eating, eating, eating, and then we also see people grouchy and pressed, ornery and mean, exhausted and worn, hurting and torn, hungry in body and soul, upset and disappointed, disappointed, disappointed.
Christmas Grace according to God’s Mercy
God comes into our stress and hectic, joins right in with us, walks with us, runs with us to the store, the bedroom to wrap, the kitchen to cook, the living room to deliver, the drive to shovel, the store for the last minute food or gift, … God is with us, and the greatest gift is not any of our hectic, or our doing, or our meeting expectations, or even our great goodness.
Christmas is God’s Gift to us, to remind us: God is WITH us in everything: there is nothing we can do to make God be with us. God has done this already, and demonstrated it with Jesus’ birth more than 2 millennia ago. Demonstrated it because we humans need it made real obvious.
The rest of the world, even other religions and the Christian churches, and even us Lutherans get so lost in trying to be in control that we preach, teach and live that we need to do the righteous things, that we need to say the righteous things, that we need to believe the righteous things,
All in order that God will be with us.
That’s a formula for disaster in our lives. It is the formula of sin: we take over the place of God … and then all hell breaks loose in and around us, and we wonder why.
But the one True Gift that the Lutheran Church offers our members, the rest of the Christian churches, other religions, and all the world is simple:
First we confess: We cannot make ourselves right with God. We are too far gone, lost to sin, even the seemingly ‘smallest’ sin separates us from God. And we JUST CANNOT DO IT RIGHTEOUS enough, none of us, never, ever, no how!
AND
Second we proclaim: we don’t have to make ourselves righteous enough, because God has already made us saints, even as we are and remain sinners. God COMES TO US, each of us. Though we are lost, God finds us every day, every hour, every second. God finds us, comes to us, and God is with us,
Always. God is with us, God makes us good enough to be in God’s presence! It’s a gift! Free!
And the only thing we can do is respond: we don’t have to respond well, but we can. Knowing God is with us can change our lives, what we think, what we say, what we DO, and what we believe. And God IS with us no matter how we respond! Its grace, its free, its life-giving.
Giving as Giving Life; Because God Gives, Therefore We Give
Knowing God is with us can change our lives: we can give freely just as God gives to us, we can give forgiveness and mercy, grace and hope: love! WE can give others unconditional love!!
Story: Giving Freely
Nancy Gavin tells the story of her husband, Mike, whom she refers to as “The Man Who Hated Christmas.” Now it wasn’t Jesus that Mike hated. It wasn’t the Christian faith that he hated. But Mike hated what our culture had done with Christmas. He hated trees, and he hated presents, he hated “Jingle Bells,” and he hated all that stuff.
And he was a grouch every year at Christmas–not because of Jesus and the manger but because of the way we observe it.
One December when their son, Kevin, was twelve years old, Kevin was wrestling on his Junior High Wrestling Team. During that month of December they had an exhibition match against a church team. [A] church team … from … the inner city, a team made up of the poorest of the poor …. When the day came for the wrestling match, Kevin and his team came out in their sparkling wrestling uniforms…. [E]verything was as high tech and glorious as it could be. The [other] team … came with sneakers that weren’t really wrestling sneakers. …they didn’t even have the helmets that wrestlers wear to protect their ears from being pinched and pulled and scraped [while] wrestling.
As the match progressed … the church team [lost] every match. Mike… leaned over to [Nancy] and said, “I wish they could win just one match. They have talent, but they don’t have any coaching.”… [It took some doing but somehow] a light bulb went off in Nancy’s head.
The very next day she went down to the local sporting goods store and bought wrestling headgear and wrestling shoes and sent them anonymously to the church whose team her son had wrestled the day before. Then on Christmas Eve she wrote a little note to Mike: “Dear Mike, I know how you feel about Christmas. … Remember that wrestling team from the inner city church? This Christmas, they have headgear and proper shoes … as your Christmas present.”
She put the note in an envelope and stuck the envelope up in the branches of their Christmas tree. When morning came, the children unwrapped all their presents, and there was the usual festivity. Then one of the children spotted this envelope up in the tree and said, “Look! What is that?” Mike took the envelope down and opened it and read the note. With tears in his eyes, he looked at Nancy and said, “This is the best Christmas that I have ever had.”
It became a tradition in their family. Every year there would be an envelope, with no name on it, just an envelope in the tree. One year Nancy sent a group of mentally challenged kids to camp. Another year she sent some funds to a family whose house had burned down during the month of December. Year after year after year some sort of gift like this was Mike’s Christmas present.
Then, Nancy wrote, there came the fall, about the time their children were grown, when Mike died of cancer. When Christmas rolled around, Nancy could hardly put up the tree. But she did, and somehow in his memory she felt that she ought to once again put an envelope in the tree to make some sort of gift in Mike’s honor, just as she had during his lifetime. The three grown children came home, and Christmas morning came. And there in the branches of the tree were four envelopes. For, unbeknownst to each other, each of their three children had also made a gift in honor of their father.
And that too has become a tradition in their home. Nancy Gavin writes, “For generations … as my children become adults and have their own families, there will be an envelope for Mike in their tree.” And when her grandchildren have families of their own, there will probably still be envelopes for Mike in their tree. For the Gavin family is a family that “got it.” …. (SERMONSHOP December 1999, JOE PARRISH)
They began to understand Christmas, God’s gift of life for us.
Giving as Works
But our giving gifts at Christmas, not even an envelope in Mike’s memory, is not supposed to be our way to earn love from others, or from God. It is supposed to be BECAUSE we love them, and we love them because God loves us first, even though we do not deserve it, never, ever, no how.
Giving as Response to Mercy, to Grace
This Christmas, not in order to gain anything from God, nor from others, but because we recognize all that God has given us, let us Give to others. Give something just because God loves you, accepts you as you are, forgives you, and because God walks with you.
Christmas Grace
But whether you give because God loves you unconditionally, OR NOT; whether you are caught up in the hectic of making it perfect so that the traditions are not lost and are there as a loving structure that gives life to you and yours, OR NOT; whether you have quit giving gifts and you hate Christmas, OR NOT; whether you love the snow and the possibilities of the Christmas season, OR NOT; whether you have or will give all the right gifts to all the right people, OR NOT;
NO Matter What: God walks with you each day, each hour, each minute, and loves you unconditionally.
Christmas Light
We ended that note to our friend with these words:
“As the light of Christmas dawns, and the details become clearer, of the landscape before us, it is with deep gratitude for your gifts, part of God’s gifts for us, that we say,
“Know we pray for you and Joan,
“Know that if you need whatever, we will find it, in ourselves or organize it with others, to provide for you, as you have provided for so many people, us included.
“May the light shine even now brightly for you and Joan.”
Christmas Blessing
Breathe easy; you’re in God’s hands also this day. So let God’s light of love shine through your heart, mind and soul to all those around you.
Have a blessed Christmas!
Amen