HEALTH REPORT
Yesterday. . .
What is the most beautiful sounding word in the English language? Answer, benign!!!
Yesterday Janell went to have a thyroid needle biopsy. She went to the same doctor I went to a year and a half ago. This time the report came back, “benign.” With a smile on his face, Dr. Snyder said: “I am glad that I can give the Atkinsons some good news for a change.
When we learned that Janell had a couple of nodules on her thyroid, I was really concerned. While medical science isn’t positive of how Medullary Thyroid Cancer is contacted, I was concerned that it
might be spread by kissin
g. Dr. Snyder assured me that he was positive that you could not catch thyroid cancer by kissing. Wheeew!!! Kissing Janell would be difficult addiction to break. I’ve been addicted since 1952.
Yesterday I also received news from my quarterly cancer check up. The count of the protein produced by Medullary cancer cells was up slightly from the count in October (up from 28 to 41). At the time of my surgery in 2006, the count was 3500, so, a count of 41 is not significant. In March we will, however, do a couple of scans to see if we can locate the guilty cells, but as we say in East Texas, “The chances are slim to none and Slim left town yesterday.” We will probably need to have a protein count of several hundred before we can realistically expect to find the culprits.
The perennial enemies of the Israelites, the Syrians, had laid siege to the capitol city of Samaria (2 Kings 7:3-14) when a group of lepers discovered that the Syrian army had gotten spooked in the night and retreated back to Damascus. The siege had been lifted, but the people inside of the city walls did not know it. Here is what the lepers said: “We’re not doing right. This is a day of good news and we are keeping it to ourselves.”
Yesterday was a day of good news and I did not want to keep it to myself.
FAITH ISSUES
Esther Arrives In the Nick of Time
HISTORICAL SETTING: One of two of books named for a woman (Ruth is the other)…One of two books that does not mention God (Song of Songs is the other)…One of two books that deals with persecution of the Hebrew people (Exodus is the other)DATE: Persian period—reign of Ahasuerus (Greeks called him Xerxes) 486-464 b.c.
PURPOSE: To explain the historical origin of Purim (say: poor-im), to justify its celebration since it is not mentioned in the Torah, and to regulate its manner of observance. PRESENT-DAY OBSERVANCE: Purim is celebrated amid a carnival-like atmosphere, with masquerade parties, noise making, and revelry. The story is reenacted in synagogues with the audience hissing Haman and cheering Mordecai and Esther - an Old Testament melodrama..And now the story. . .
King Ahasuerus of Persia, otherwise known as Xerxes by the Greeks, is the only person in the Bible whose name begins with an X. That is about all there is to say about him. He was pompous and not the brightest bunny in the forest. You did not have to be a Rhodes Scholar to manipulate the old king and so from the queen on down everyone did.
King Ahasuerus of Persia, otherwise known as Xerxes by the Greeks, is the only person in the Bible whose name begins with an X. That is about all there is to say about him. He was pompous and not the brightest bunny in the forest. You did not have to be a Rhodes Scholar to manipulate the old king and so from the queen on down everyone did.Well, King X, as he was called, decided to throw a party that would set the bar for measuring all subsequent parties, you know, like, “The party was great. I’d say it was about 45% of the X-bash.” Everybody who was anybody was invited and people who were nobody in particular were invited also. It wasn’t much of a boost to your status to receive an invitation, but it was a social disaster to be left off the list.
The sky was the limit on expenses. It was to last for seven days, and the palace was turned upside down getting ready for it. New curtains were hung in all the windows, silver couches were moved in by the cartload, and drinks were served in hand-carved goblets of pure gold.
Vashti, the king’s wife and queen decided that she would throw a party too. The boys arn’t be the only ones who can have fun. One week into the party, the king was so full of sause he could have been buried without embalming fluid. And the old blow-hard, without giving it much thought, decided to give the boys a look at his queen. She was, after all, quite a looker. The boys would be certain to envy him when they ogled the queen as she paraded by. He sent word for her come on down and to “hop to it.”
Well, she turned the King down flat!
Needless to say, King X was not a happy camper. Not only had he been shown up as not being the head of his castle, but if Vashti were allowed to get away with this kind of insubordination, it could reek havoc in the homes and in social order across the kingdom. Who knows what the women would want next — they might even want to drive their own chariots.
King X divorced Vashti on the spot. And as Frederick Buechner said: “That is how Queen Vashti lost her throne but kept her self-respect, and there seems to be absolutely no question as to which of the two she valued more highly” (”Peculiar Treasures,” 1979, Harper: San Francisco).
The advisors to the King suggested that a beauty pageant be authorized to find the most beautiful woman in the kingdom to fill the vacated queen-square. They decided to call it the “Miss Persia Pageant,” and that is how it all got started, the “Miss THIS Pageant” and the “Miss THAT Pageant.” The winner of the Miss Persia Pageant got to wear a real crown—she would be Queen Number Two. Well, the crown was placed on the head of a beautiful Jewish girl named Esther, only no one knew that she was Jewish and her older cousin, Mordecai, who had raised her, suggested she not make a big deal of her ethnic origin—after all their family had been Persian citizens for three generations.
Cousin Mordecai hung out at King’s gate a lot, hoping to get a glimpse of his cousin, now become famous—you know, kind of like a groupie. Well, one day, he heard of a plot on the King’s life. He got word to Esther, who reported it to the King and an assassination was deferred about ten years until there came along a couple of servants more adapt at keeping a secret. Mordecai was hoping for a reward—a bureaucratic, do-nothing, palace job, but nothing developed.
Enter the villain Haman (boo - hiss). Haman was King X’s right hand man with a huge hatred for Jews. His anti-Semitism would get fanned into flame when Mordecai would be the only one who refused to grovel in the dust when Haman came strutting by. He told his boss, the King, that there were people scattered through out the kingdom who did not respect the laws of the land, they obeyed only their own laws and that it was obvious that they didn’t care much for the King or his kingdom.
Remember, I said before, King X’s attick light was a little dim? Well Haman convinced the King that the Jews needed to be exterminated and gave the King 10,000 talents of silver for the concession of selling “Jew Hunting Licenses.” Jew season was to last one day - the 13th of Adar. On the 13th, it was open season—kill all the Jews you want.
As soon as Mordecai got wind of what Haman was up to, he sent word to his cousin/daughter: “You must plead the cause of your people before your husband, the king.” BIG PROBLEM: Anyone who goes into the presence of the king without being summoned would be subject to death unless the king agrees to give them an audience. The reply was four words: “No way!” and “SORRY DAD!”
Mordecai was not to be denied. He put some heavy words on Esther: (EST 4:14) “. . . if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?” Her reply is the reason all little Jewish girls want to be Esthers: “Start praying for me and I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish.”
King X had a rather short fuse, but Esther knew how to handle him. Armed with her best perfume and a rather revealing outfit that inspired the Victoria’s Secrets clothing chain, she interrupted the king and his favorite #1 guy, Haman. The king took one look and said: “hmmm.” She was saved for the moment. Then the king ask, “What is it my dear? We are, after all, busy men.” And she said with batting eyes, “I just wanted to invite you and mister Haman to dinner and then I will ask you for a great big favor.” Well, it was a date!
Mean while, back at the Haman house, old Haman was quite pleased with himself—after all, was he not the King’s favorite, #1 guy? And had he not devised a plan that would not only get rid of that stiff-kneed Jew, Mordecai, but also to rid the whole country of the Jews?
And back at the palace, the old king was having trouble sleeping, so he got up, picked up a copy of the Chronicles of the King and began to read. He read about a certain man named Mordecai who was responsible for saving the king’s neck. “Has Mordecai been rewarded for his patriotism?” he asked the next day. “No,” he was told.
When Haman arrived for work the next day, the King ask Haman what should be done for someone whom the King wanted to honor. Haman, of course being on a roll, thought the King was about to honor him. He thought a bit and said: “For the man whom the King delights to honor, let royal robes worn by the King be placed on him and let him be mounted on a horse ridden by the King, and let him be led through the city by a high official of the King crying: “Thus shall it be to done to the man whom the king delights to honor.”
When the king said: “Great idea, Haman! Take my robe—and put it on Mordecai. Mount him on my best horse. And you lead him through the city reading my proclamation, “Thus shall it be to done to the man whom the king delights to honor,” Well, let me just say, “the peacock’s feathers did not just fall, they fell off.” King X did not know it, but he sure enough rained on Haman’s parade.
Well, Haman was no fool. He knew his goose was cooked. It was little surprise that when he turned up for his dinner date with the King and Queen, the evening was a disaster from the start. The Queen was crying her poor little heart out for her people. She then pointed Haman out as the enemy who was behind a ploy to exterminate her people, the Jews. It probably came as a bit more of a surprise that his sentence was to be hanged on the very gallows he had constructed for Mordecai. Has last words before the trap-door was sprung were: “Mordecai will probably be given my job too.” Which, of course, he was, along with Haman’s house and his possessions.
And what of the 13th of Adar and Jew hunting season? Well the King couldn’t hit the delete key on a proclamation he had made, so he leveled the playing field—he gave the Jews permission to hunt their hunters—kind of like arming deer with 30-30’s in November. That year in Susa it was, Jews - 800; Anti-Semites - 0. The next day there was a victory dance. And every year since that time, on the 14th and 15th of Adar the Jews throw a victory party. It is called the Purim Party. And as Paul Harvey says, “Now you know the rest of the story.”
Here is my take:
Esther speaks to us of a God who is hidden and silent, but whose will for justice gets worked out in the stuff of history through very human instrumentation. And is this not the God we experience most of the time?. . .a God who is present in the natural and in the redemptive process in which human beings are His co-partners? Let’s hear it for Esther!
FAMILIES MATTER
This is a Leap Year
This is a Leap Year. It is the year of the Gregorian Calendar when an extra day is added (February 29) to off set the quarter_day difference between a calendar year and the astronomical year. It is called “leap” because in a calendar year, the numerical day advances one day of the week. On Leap Year, the numerical day advances two days, seemingly leaping over one day. March 1, 1007 was on Thursday. This year March 1, will leap over Friday and fall on Saturday.
Tradition has it that this is the year that it is permissible for the woman to ask the man to marry her. My judgement is that ours is a day when women do pretty much as they please without feeling they need to get permission from tradition and certainly not from us men.
Egalitarian is the term used to describe marriages where each is an equal partner in the marriage. Both husband and wife have shared power. I like to refer to this as a Partnership Marriage. Partnership is preferable to me over the term democratic. Democratic implies all members of the family are equal voting members. My feeling is that power needs to rest firmly in the hands of the parents and that power needs to be shared between husband and wife.
In our day our culture no longer defines roles for husbands and wives such as who is the “economic provider” or even who is the principle “economic provider.” Our chosen living standard coupled with our earning power has dictated that most families become two pay check families. Questions of who does what task to make the home function are negotiated. And this negotiation best takes place between two equal partners.
When negotiation takes place from a power_up/power_down position, destructive tendencies result. The partner that is power_up is tempted to try to live “OVER” his/her mate___to dominate, to use, to control, to force. This inevitably leads to contempt. We tend to hold in contempt those we dominate.
The partner that is power_down is tempted to live “UNDER” his/her mate—to manipulate the mate and to belittle the self, to make the mate into an idol. This inevitably leads to resentment. And sometimes that resentment smolders for years getting in the way of sexual fulfillment and emotional growth.
It seems to me that the intent of God in his creation of male and female is that they live “WITH” the other in truth and love. This takes place most likely in a partnership of equals. Genesis 2:18 states, “Then the LORD God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.’” The word translated “helper” is used elsewhere in Scripture to designate God as Savior: “…hasten to me, O God! Thou art my help and my deliverer…” Psalm 70:5. Woman was created to save man from his aloneness, not to be his slave. She saves him from his aloneness when they live “WITH” the other in coequality, complementarity, and community.
Rabbinic tradition has a beautiful thought here. It goes something like this. God did not take woman from man’s head that she might lord it over him. Neither did He take her from his heel that he might walk on her. He took woman from man’s side that they might walk together___close to his heart that he might love her___under his arm that he might protect her.
Leap year___women getting to do the asking___women and men living “with the other”___a partnership of equals—it’s an idea whose time has come!
FAMILIES MATTER
All Mothers Are Working-Mothers
ALL MOTHERS ARE WORKING-MOTHERS! Some work outside the home and some work inside the home, but all mothers are working mothers. Some mothers work two shifts - one outside the home and then when they get home, the second shift begins. Some mothers who work the equivalent of two shifts are single moms. Some are married to men who mistakenly think that they are the sole financial provider of the family and that they are entitled to the privilege of coming home at the end of the workday and doing nothing that is needed to make the home run smoothly.
In a survey of U. S. work habits: Forty percent said they work more than 40 hours a week. Twenty_one percent said they work more than 50 hours a week. And working mothers were too busy to answer the survey.
For most households with children under 18 years of age (68%) the mothers work outside the home. This is compared to 40% in 1970. Many of these women bear a load of guilt about neglecting their children. I have good news for working moms - inside and outside the home.
In a survey of 1005 children and their mothers, funded by the Michigan-based Whirlpool Foundation, a “report card” was given to the moms by their children. Although balancing work and family is harder than ever, evidence from the survey indicates that children are getting what they need. Children said that their physical and emotional needs were being taken care of in both categories, at-home and away-from-home working moms.
Another finding from the survey was that mothers remain the primary emotional and spiritual care givers whether or not they worked outside the home. With all they do, most of the mothers think they fall short. Seventy percent of those surveyed said they would like to spend more time playing with their children. The children, however, described their mothers as “loving” and “there for them.” Moms continue to provide most of the chauffeuring, most of the help with homework, and most of the teaching of moral and spiritual values. This is true whether a father is present in the home or not.
Dads, while this report reflects wonderfully upon our wives, it does not reflect well on us. But we have better stuff in us than we have shown. Perhaps while this year is still young we could resolve to be more involved in the lives of our children and more engaged in the physical tasks of making our households work. If you would like to get your wife really excited, make the above resolve and tell her over a cup of coffee, early in the morning, before the children arise.
FAMILIES MATTER
All Children Are Home-Schooled
Those who publish curricula for home schooling are doing a booming business. There was a time when those who purchased materials to school their children at home were missionaries who lived in out of the way areas and did not want to send their children to boarding schools. Today, there are many families who choose to home school their children for many reasons: fear for the safety of their child, their child has needs that cannot be met in a classroom setting, disagreement with the curriculum of the public school system, a conviction that the education of children is a task given by God to parents, etc.
But isn’t it true that ALL CHILDREN ARE HOME-SCHOOLED? Virginia Satir, in her book People Making said: “Parents teach in the toughest school in the world__The School for Making People. You are the board of education, the principal, the classroom teacher, and the janitor . . . You are expected to be experts on all subjects pertaining to life and living . . . There are few schools to train you for your job, and there is no general agreement on the curriculum. You have to make it up yourself. Your school has no holidays, no vacations, no unions, no automatic promotions or pay raises. You are on duty or at least on call 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, for at least 18 years for each child you have. Besides that, you have to contend with an administration that has two leaders or bosses, whichever the case may be__and you know the traps two bosses can get into with each other. Within this context, you carry on your people_making. I regard this as the hardest, most complicated, anxiety_ridden, sweat and blood producing job in the world” (p. 197).
ALL CHILDREN ARE HOME-SCHOOLED and here in is our problem. We are not all using the same curriculum. There was a time when a majority of the home-schools in a given community were teaching the same basic curriculum. Values of honesty, industry, responsibility, patriotism, and respect for authority were woven into the curriculum, with the lesson being delivered verbally by the home teachers: mom, dad, aunts, uncles, grandparents. And perhaps most powerful of all were the lessons that were acted out with these basic values being the themes.
Evidence continues to mount that children come to our public schools with a set of values firmly in place which they have learned in their “home school”: big people beat up on little people - don’t get caught - if you do get caught don’t admit responsibility - get by with as little effort as possible - learn to beat the system - no one has the right to tell you what to do.
Public schools can be expected to reinforce the curriculum taught in home schools if that curriculum includes the following: honesty, industry, responsibility, patriotism, and respect for authority. It is unrealistic, however, to expect our public schools to eradicate lessons learned in our home schools, especially when these lessons are reinforced over the years by countless repetition.
There is one institution that is designed for reformation - THE CHURCH. The church is designed to put people in touch with the power to create changes in their “home schools.” How long has it been since your family worshiped together? Well, that is too long!
FAMILIES MATTER
To Resolve Or Not To Resolve
“To resolve or not to resolve, that is the question” that many face in January of each year. I confess that I have not made any resolutions this year which is a digression from my usual New Year pattern.
Some avoid making resolutions because they have such a poor track record in keeping their resolves. My lack of resolution this year, however, is not from fear of failure. It is procrastination, pure and simple. I have simply not sat down and done the thinking that would allow me to identify an area or two in my life where change would be beneficial to me and all of those around me.
There is intrinsically something beneficial in being able to conceive of a “better me.” This is true even when there is modest success in efforts at change.
Some people are incapable of imagining that there could be a “better them.” They can, however, readily conceive of the people about them changing for the better and often point out the changes that are needed. There is not much hope for such people since conceiving of a better me is the first step in creating a better me.
Here is an amazing truth about family systems - change in any part of the system forces all parts of the system to change. If one member of the family makes significant changes in his/her life, all of the other members will have to change to accommodate the differences in the changed member.
Here is a strategy. If you detect needed change in your family for 2008, think of changes you could make in yourself. For example, suppose there is a lack of respect among your family members. Children are disrespectful toward parents and parents are verbally abusive toward children. Your resolve for 2008 is to act and speak respectfully toward others in the family. This would involve resolving to avoid sarcasm, putdowns, and name-calling. I think the Bible’s way of putting this is “kindness” - “Be kind and compassionate to one another. . .” (Ephesians 4:32).
Here is your best chance for your desired change to be put in place and have it last through out the year. Formulate your desired change into a resolve. Make the resolve measurable so that you and others can know if you have kept your resolution. Share your resolve with your family and ask them to remind you if you fall back into your old ways. This way, you are building accountability into your desired change.
If two people are dancing and one takes a step forward, the other must take a step backward. If one person refuses to take a step backward (that is, act in the expected manner) then the dance, as it has been, is over. The couple will be forced to learn other steps.
GOOD NEWS - Change is possible! BAD NEWS - Change, real change, is difficult and requires effort and intentionality. The old ways are strong and tenacious.
So, my New Year’s wish? I wish for change that leads to our being better marriage partners, parents, children in 2008 than we were in 2007.
FAMILIES MATTER
Ningun Quarto En la Posado
This is the title of my first sermon in Spanish. I will deliver it as a devotional sermon at a Christmas reception for ESL students that Janell and I tutor through our church. I have been on a quest for several years to preach in a secondary language. I have an invitation to preach at First Baptist Church in Cancun, Mexico that has been in effect for ten or more years - as soon as my Spanish was ready. Maybe a trip to Cancun next Christmas with sermon in heart — we will see.
The sermon is a take off on the popular understanding of the words “no room for them in the inn.” You can find a more Biblical understanding in last week’s post. There is no way that I could have translated last week’s post and delivered it. The sermon will last about ten minutes or less. I tend to be far less verbose when speaking Spanish.
Here is the English translation of “Ningun Quarto En la Posado:”
No Room In The Inn
I will be speaking to you in Spanish tonight for two reasons: 1. I want to preach a sermon in Spanish before I die. This is my first sermon in Spanish. So after tonight I can die in peace because I will have achieved my goal. And 2. I want to identify with you who are learning another language - I want to be able to empathize with you.
We are going to think about Christmas tonight. Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ and that story is told in St. Luke, chapter two. Listen to verses 6 and 7: “While they were there (in Bethlehem), the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.”
Remember those words, “no room for them.” I will return to them later. But now, here is the story behind those two verses:
An angel came to a young woman named Mary and told her that she was favored by God and that she was going to have a baby.
She said: “This is not possible. I have never known a man.”
And the angel said: “The child in you is of the Holy Spirit. You will give birth to a son and you shall call him Jesus.”
Now Mary was engaged to a man named Joseph. In Mary and Joseph’s day, if a woman was unfaithful to her fiancé, it was the same as if he were her husband. And the law was clear. An adulteress was to be stoned to death.
When Joseph discovered that Mary was pregnant, he was hurt and troubled. And while he was trying to decide what to do, he was visited by an angel in his dream. The angel told him that Mary had done nothing wrong, that the child in her was of the Holy Spirit, and that he should marry Mary and name the child Jesus because the child was going to save us from our sins.
The name “Jesus” means “God is salvation.”
At this time, Caesar Augustus made a decree: All males must return to the city of their origin to be counted for the purpose of taxation. Joseph went to Bethlehem because this was the home of his ancestor, King David.
Bethlehem was sixty miles south of Nazareth and even though Mary was in the ninth month of her pregnancy, Joseph took Mary with him. Why did he do this? I don’t know! Perhaps he wanted to protect Mary — from the town — or even from her family. The hand of God was guiding them because six hundred years before the prophet Micah said: “The Messiah will be born in Bethlehem” (Micah 5:2).
When Mary and Joseph arrived in Bethlehem, Mary was beginning to have birth pains. Where can they go to have the baby? Many people were in Bethlehem because of the edict of Augustus and there was no place to rent. Some kind couple let Mary and Joseph stay in their stable which caused St. Luke to write: “She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn” (St. Luke 2:7).
Pardon me! No room. . . ?
No room for Jesus Christ? Horrible!
No place for the King of Kings? Shameful!
No time for the Lord of all Lords? Shocking!
Do not be too condemning of the people in Bethlehem in the first century. We are like they, are we not?
They were very busy. The city had many tourists because of the tax edict. All of these visitors were an opportunity to make money. They did not have time to notice Joseph and Mary and their need.
We are busy, are we not? You worked all day and tonight you are here learning English. There is no time for anything else. There is no room in your crowded schedule no matter how important. It is easy to over look the birth of Jesus Christ.
But I promise you, if you make room on your calendar for Him; if you take time for Him this year, this will be the best Christmas ever.
Now, how do you make room for Jesus Christ on your calendar? How do you take time for Him this year? Two ways:
#2 Reach out this Christmas and do something for someone who is less fortunate than yourself.
Amen!
All of the teachers and I wish you a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS and a prosperous New Year.
FAMILIES MATTER
No Room In The Inn
We are two weeks away from Christmas Eve and this next Sunday I will be teaching a Bible study on the birth narratives of Matthew and Luke. December 24 is the date that most of the Church celebrates as the day that Mary and Joseph arrived in Bethlehem looking for lodging and received accommodations with the animals. I am thinking of homes today and what it takes to make a home. I am indebted to my son Gordon in his pastor’s column of several years ago and to my friend, Dr. David King, former New Testament professor at East Texas Baptist University.
“No room for them in the inn” is the way the biblical account reads and this has spawned a number of images of Mary and Joseph going to all of the motels in Bethlehem only to find “No Vacancy!” signs in all of the windows. Dr. King, who spent 26 years in the Middle East teaching New Testament at the seminary level, told me that
in the Near Eastern culture, it would be the worst imaginable of insults to go to a town and stay anywhere other than with your kin. Bethlehem was Joseph’s home town. He would have had relatives living there with whom he and Mary could have stayed.
Dr. King also told me that “old-time” Palestinian homes had two sections: a floor level section in the front with dirt for the floor that served as a barn in which to keep the family’s animals at night so they would not wander off or be stolen. And a raised level (about four feet) covering the entire back half of the house that was covered with a smooth plaster that made for ease in cleaning.
Dr. King also pointed out that the word (kataluma in Greek) translated “inn” in Luke 2:7 is used one other time in the New Testament (Mark 14:14 and Luke 22:11 - same event), and is translated as “guestchamber” or “guest room.” The guest room of an early Palestinian home was an “upper room” built on the roof with stairs on the outside.
Here is Dr. King’s explanation of that first Christmas Eve. Mary and Joseph go to the home of one of his relatives. There was no room for Mary and Joseph in “inn” (guest chamber on the roof) as other family visitors were occupying that facility. So Mary and Joseph stayed in the family house, close to the animals and manger and close to those who loved them.
Mary and Joseph were not homeless refugees when Jesus was born. They had all of the essentials of a home - shelter, family, and lots of love. Home is, after all, the place where we are loved. Home is where family is. Some homes are big and fancy. Some homes are small and modest. Some homes are not even real clean. But if there is shelter, family, and love (the only essentials), that place is home.
My son, Gordon, pointed out that the reverse of the above observation is alarming: “If a home can be a barn, then homeless people can live in mansions.” This Christmas I want us to be aware of the homeless. Some of our homeless lack walls and roof to shelter their family. Some of our homeless have splendid structures, but they are void of family and love.
Please pray for our homeless:
PEOPLE WHO HAVE NO SHELTER FOR THEIR FAMILIES.
PEOPLE WHO HAVE NO FAMILIES FOR THEIR SHELTER.
FROM MY FAMILY TO YOURS
Keeping ChristmasTwo weeks ago we celebrated Thanksgiving Day. We saw Macy’’s Christmas Parade which officially begins the Christmas season and tomorrow is the second Sunday of the Advent Season. “Advent” means “coming” and it refers to the coming of the Christ child to Bethlehem. The church begins four Sundays before Christmas to help us get ready to celebrate the birth of the Savior.Advent says: “Something wonderful is about to happen. Get ready so you don’’t miss it. Expectation and waiting heightens the meaning of that which is anticipated.
Every year I begin a journey on the first Sunday of Advent, a quest to be captured by the “real spirit of Christmas.” Christmas is not about consumption of material things. No, it has to do with the human spirit made strong by God who comes (Advent!).
Christmas is about good will and family closeness. It is about kindness and generosity. In short, it has to do with spirit, not material. Every year, I try to immerse myself with music, drama, literature, and movies that move the heart toward a certain spirit at Christmas time.
Here are some of the things I do each year. I watch “It’’s a Wonderful Life” staring James Stewart and “Miracle on 34th Street.” I try to find a company nearby putting on the “Nutcracker Suite.” I read or see a dramatic production of Charles Dickens, “A Christmas Carol,” and I am present at my church for our children’’s Christmas music and dramas and I feast on our Adult Choir’’s cantata. And usually, I have the opportunity to host out-of-town friends, a serendipity of the season.
And very importantly, some time during the Advent Season, I try to do something for someone who can not return the favor. I choose an activity that costs me my most precious commodity - my time. My Christmas gift is aimed at picking someone’’s spirit up, of giving hope.
As a result of the above activities, I almost never miss the “Christmas spirit.” Of course with a name like “Hollie,” I guess I have a “leg up” on all of you except those of you named “Joy.”
Sadly, it is possible for a person - for a family to miss Christmas. Some missed that first Christmas: A king did. Those who had “no room” did, religious leaders did and so did a host of others.
Herein lies the frightening possibility of Christmas 2007. We can miss the promise of Christmas. We can take part in the activities that celebrate the birth of one who was more than just an ordinary baby and be our same old selves. I pray not!
Henry Van Dyke reminds us of what it means to “catch the Christmas spirit,” - “Are you willing to forget what you have done for other people, and remember what other people have done for you; . . . to put your rights in the background, your duties in the middle distance, and your chances to do more than your duty in the fore ground; . . . to stop asking how much your family and friends love you, and ask whether you love them enough; . . . are you willing to do these things even for a day? Then you can KEEP CHRISTMAS.”
Now my question to us is this, “If we can KEEP CHRISTMAS for a day, why not keep it all through the year?”
HEALTH REPORT
A YEAR AGO. . .
A year ago today I was involved in a surgery that lasted fifteen hours. The ordeal began around 8:30 am (of course, I had to be at the hospital at 7:00 am) and lasted until a little after midnight.
I don’t remember much about October 18, 2006. For me, it seems like I went to sleep and woke up three days later in a hospital room. But for my family and friends, it was long time of anxious waiting.
While I don’t remember much about the eighteenth of October last year, I remember a lot about the three weeks leading up to that day. The news, “You have thyroid cancer and it is of the Medullary type,” came on September 28. I later learned that if you were going to have thyroid cancer, you would not want it to be Medullary Thyroid Cancer because the only effective treatment for this type of cancer is surgery - radiation and chemotherapy are totally ineffective.
During the weeks that followed “the announcement” I learned that my doctors feared that my cancer had spread to my liver. I was told that I needed to get my affairs in order. This news nearly wrecked my 49-year marriage when I proceeded to put Janell on a crash course to learn to pay our bills on Quicken.
I learned something about myself and my relationship with God during this ordeal — the Anchor holds! This would not have been a time to try to work up a speaking acquaintance with God. This was a time to make use of a relationship that I had been working on 53 years — at age sixteen I trusted Christ as my Savior and committed my self to be a follower of His.
This would also not have been the time to rush around trying to get caught up on relationships with family and friends. This was a time to let friends and family hold me in their arms and lavish me with the love of which they seemed to have an abundant supply. As I look back, I am amazed that there was no sense of panic — trying to catch up on “I love you’s” long neglected or yet to be said.
Here is the truth that comes from the first three weeks of October 2006 — “You can’t cram for the final, but you can prepare for it ahead of time!”
And now one year later. . .how have I used the year that I have been given? I have been trying to practice what I have preached for fifty years — “Take no thought for the morrow. . .try to live one day at a time in a way that pleases Him.”