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Trees and Storms and The Christmas Child

We've had two babies born into our family in the last two months.  It's not hard for us to imagine the fear and wonder felt by Mary and Joseph on that day two thousand years ago.  What a splendid Christmas this is!

Worldly riches have mostly passed us by, but in the Lord's books we are wealthy beyond measure.   So even though other parts of my life have been a challenge, I've been dancing my way through the days and singing "All I want for Christmas Is You."   

Baby Girl, Baby Boy, you bless us with yourselves.  And you remind us of that one perfect Baby who opened the doors of salvation and renewal to every person who ever was, or ever will be.

Last week a huge storm blew through here.  You probably saw the pictures.   I have lived most of my life around Seattle, and I have never before seen so much damage, so many thousands of trees down.  Power was out for the majority of us.  Roads were under water or closed off by fallen trees and downed power lines, schools closed, entire towns dark.  Cable tv and internet was disrupted, grocery stores and gas stations sold out.

Just a mess.  And so frustrating, so close to Christmas.  Then the modern equivalent of the Three Wise Men showed up.  Not on camels with spices and gold, but in power company trucks with splicing gear and spools of cable.  From all the nearby states they came, and they've been working around the clock ever since. 

Neighborhood angels shone.   Men with pickup trucks and chainsaws converted road hazards to firewood right away.  Kids took the branches to make holiday decorations.  People who had power, or with wood stoves, took in the elderly and the sick and the families with little ones to keep warm.  Milk, bread, soup, candles and diapers were shared out.  People fed pets and did laundry for each other.  Carpools and daycare were arranged overnight.

It's great to know we can get hit so hard and bounce back so quickly.  Reassuring that people were responsible and cooperative.  Some consolation to know that the beautiful lost trees are being recycled as fuel, wreaths, compost.  And mostly it's good to be reminded, in the middle of the high tech, high clutter, high maintenance lifestyle that threatens to consume us, that everything that truly matters can be seen in the face of a newborn baby. 

This is the miracle of Christ, born 2,006 years ago and still the greatest news ever.  That each of us, every day, can be that newborn baby; with a brand new life and all the world before us.  Buffeted by storms and soiled by our sins, then made clean and whole again.   Frail and fallible we may be, but also perfect in the moments that we repent and try again.  Again.  And again.   

Made by God, loved unconditionally and forever.

Merry Christmas. 

 

 

    

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Just Who Do You Think You Are?

My father was one of many who used to thunder at any misbehaving child: "Just who do you think you are?" 

My family, not unique but unfortunately of a dwindling kind, celebrated Easter as we do every holiday in comfortable tight-knit eccentricity.  Firefighter oldest son has decided that the proper attire for manly men is a kilt. His had multiple cargo pockets.  Next son incessantly bragged up HIS new thorn-proof, teflon coated, built-in kneepad pants.  Fraternal scuffling about garment superiority was avoided through strategic baby deployment.  Tasteless jokes about breezes and ruffled underwear set the theme.

High-school niece's sweatshirt says "Mini" since she is the youngest, and at 5'8" by far the shortest, of many family members on that track team.  Kylie, the grandchild of Pit Bull ancestry, wore a baby pink collar and leash to complement her 65 pounds of muscle and ten billion PSI jaws. 

Sad to know we weren't really doing it the American way.  Niece, insulated by her track records and her parent's love, thought her "mini" designation to be an honor, not the subject of a lawsuit.  Grandma, a little rambling and a little cross, was still given the best chair and the most perfectly browned rolls, along with an ocean of attention, care and smiles.  She came in second at Scrabble, too. (Maybe we should have left her alone at the Blue Hair Mansion.) Inconvenient Baby was there and much loved, not abandoned through abortion into the slipstream of life.

Sons resting up from hard physical jobs swarmed cheerfully to fix a neighborhood mechanical problem when union gospel would have blessed them for blowing it off.  Another niece's reputation as a grind, with few friends and a place on the national honor roll, was affirmed not pitied.  Kylie will stay, even after we learned she's a politically incorrect breed of Canine American.  Graveyard shifts bracketing Easter Day did not excuse me from going to church, or from making 10 dozen rolls and being there to help eat them.  God was repeatedly praised and thanked.  Allegiance to America, to our friends and to our wacky, wonderful selves was openly spoken. 

We know who we are.

At work others told a different story.  Sisters hadn't wanted to drive for an hour "just for dinner".  Cousins were "busy with a new computer game". Grandma was "all the way across town and that place she lives gives me the creeps".  Mom and Dad, of course, were off in other states, or galaxies, with their latest whoevers.  They don't have phones there, we know that, because they hadn't called.  They left it to me to wish their kids Happy Easter and hand out homemade cookies.

Just who do they think they are?

Secular American culture is an excuse for every kind of cheap indignant mewling,  spoiled self-indulgence and entitlement-excused pillage.  Our remorseless creep towards debauched disintegration scares any thinking person.  Now the cutting edge of privileged vaporoids are seeking to launder betrayal and treason into a spiffy new cloak of multicultural colors.  We have become a nation, not of men or even mice, but of drooling drones racing only for the bottom of our own souls.

The brilliant Gerard Van der Leun calls them out  here in his meticulous deboning of the "Gospel of Judas".  Just go read it.  After he maps the destination we're set for, on our comfy little path of careless omissions and justifiable slights, you'll be scrambling for the GPS and a better road. 

Just turn around and lower your sights. See that dusty, humble little carpenter who's been trying to catch up to you on your headstrong thrashing flight to oblivion? 

He can teach you who you are.

Easter Week: The Reboot Button

Multiculturalism amuck in the streets is a reality well understood by everyone. Well, by everyone except the overeducated fools who invented it to start with.  And I'm not talking about the recent immigration rallies, diversions that are loud and fun, fun to do or fun to criticize.  Those are essentially meaningless since we all know the Hispanics aren't going to be gunning down schoolyards full of kids. Ever. They're CATHOLICS, for Pete's sake. 

Nope, it's Easter Week and it's time to talk about the real multicultural travesty.  The one that pretends all religions are equally good or bad. The one that assumes mankind under Islam will be no better or worse than mankind under something else.  The one that can't recognize danger and doesn't believe in evil.  The one that finds excuses for slaughtering children and would give religious fanatics - ISLAMIC fanatics - the right to veto our choices, our rights, our LIVES.

Regardless of what the diversity police say, rational people know there is a real difference between the religion of peace and the religion of pieces.  Only one can be the dominant religion of the world and determine the future of mankind.  The struggle is already on, the casualties are mounting, the fight will come to your hometown soon as it already has to London, Madrid, Paris, New York.

Will it be the religion of pieces, the religion of the delete key: Delete dignity and equal rights for women. Delete tolerance and respect.  Delete mercy and compassion. Delete science and technology.  Delete protected childhoods. Delete free markets. Delete unbelievers by whatever and every means available.

Or will we choose the religion of the reboot key:  Get over yourself and reboot the whole program to God. Reboot your self-respect.  Reboot your courage and commitment to the good and right. Reboot your innocence and virtue. Reboot your connection to your fellow man. Reboot your family, community and country. Reboot the future.

Sunday is Easter, the declaration of liberty for the entire world. Jesus did what needed doing so that we could start new every day, walk away from our lesser selves, be better every day.

There is a superior culture, a superior religion, and this is it.  Believe. Choose. Reboot.