I Heard the Bells.....

by Jewel Leann Williams

So I'm sick today. My back hurts and I have a sore/goopy throat and... blechhh...  so, that could have something to do with my state of mind. 

But... well, I'm sad. It's the state of the world, the state of the people in it.

I feel like what the Pope said. Yeah, I'm quoting the Pope:

There will be lights, there will be parties, bright trees, even Nativity scenes – all decked out – while the world continues to wage war. It’s all a charade. The world has not understood the way of peace. The whole world is at war,

Seems kind of harsh coming from one of the preeminent leaders of Christianity in the world.

I don't think Christmas is all a charade, but I feel a little of the... I don't know, the hopelessness, the tiredness--how long will we keep hoping, praying, working for peace?

It reminds me of the song "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" which actually comes from the 1863 poem "Christmas Bells" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

The story behind the poem is heartbreaking. Longfellow's son had been severely wounded in the Civil War, and his wife had recently passed away. Longfellow was looking around at Christmas preparations, and saw the same thing--a charade.

And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth," I said;
"For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!" 

I feel ya, Hank. I am disheartened by not just the wars. Not just the shootings. Not just the flood of refugees from multiple countries. It's more than that.

It's the generalized hatred I see almost everywhere. Or maybe not hatred, but contempt for everyone. People will jump right on down the throats of anyone who does not echo their opinions (or often, even those that do). Traffic--oh my goodness, I've been certain I was going to witness vehicular homicide like 10 times in the past week alone. Shopping. The news. The Internet. It's everywhere.
Hate is strong, and hate does mock the song--the prayer--of "Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Men."

So do we give in?

Longfellow's lament was answered in the next stanza:

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;The Wrong shall fail,The Right prevail,With peace on earth, good-will to men."

Again, I agree with Longfellow.

As much as I don't feel it right now, I know, in my heart of hearts, in my bones, that the right WILL prevail. Love really will, eventually, conquer all.

God is not dead.

Christ IS NOT dead.

I hang on to that knowledge.

Because Christ was born, and died, and lives(!), all that is wrong with the world will be made right.

It is the answer to the lament: "Christmas is a charade"

With Christmas, we celebrate the hope that is Christ. We acknowledge that even among all of the human-frailty-inspired hatred and chaos of our fallen world, that we can find peace in Jesus Christ.

He lives. Because of that, Christmas will NEVER be a charade.

Comment below: How do YOU maintain the Christmas spirit, even among the sadness and chaos of what's going on in our world today?

Author and Finisher

- a post by Jeanna Mason Stay

When I think of the word “finish,” I think of “end” or “stop.” So every time I’ve run across this scripture in the past, the word choice has always struck me as odd: 

“Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,

“Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:1–2)

Being finished with faith, putting a stop to it—that didn’t make sense at all. But as is often the case in scripture reading, I just passed it by and decided to think about it more “next time.” Well, finally, the “next time” came around. A few weeks ago as I was studying, I came across this scripture again.

As I’ve associated more with writers and thought more about writing, I’ve noticed how many people want to write a novel or think they’ve got a good book in them that they’ll finish someday. There are a lot of us! But for every hundred people who want to write a novel, maybe only seventy or so even start one (and I think that’s an awfully generous estimate).

Now how many people finish one? (I’ll give you a hint. It’s not very many. Just ask the NaNoWriMo folk.)

It’s easy to be an author, but it’s hard to be a finisher. Christ, though—He wrote the book of our faith, so to speak. He brought its purpose into existence by His life. But starting it wasn’t enough. He also finished it, completed it, by His sacrifice on our behalf. He “endured the cross” for the joy of finishing. He gave our faith meaning and reason and wholeness.

You don’t buy a book at the bookstore knowing that the author never wrote the ending (please don’t quibble with me about that one Dickens novel). The reason those books at the store matter to other people is because they were finished. Our faith only matters because Christ finished His mission on earth and brings power into our lives when we follow Him in faith.

Through Him we can “run with patience the race that is set before us” (look! it also works as a running metaphor!).

Through Him we can be finishers too.

Untold Tales of the Nativity

- a post by Jeanna Mason Stay

This Christmas season I’ve been thinking about the stories of the Nativity—the shepherds, the wise men, the baby in the manger of course. But I’ve also been thinking about the Nativity stories we don’t know.*

We know about the shepherds who “came with haste” to the Christ child, for example, and we know that they “made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child” (Luke 2:16, 17). But what about the people the shepherds told? All we know about them is that they “wondered.” Did they then go seek Him?

We know about Simeon and Anna’s poignant reactions to meeting the baby at the temple. These were people who immediately recognized Jesus for who He was. But perhaps there were others, maybe someone who overheard Simeon’s rejoicing: “For mine eyes have seen thy salvation. . . . A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel” (vv. 30, 32). Maybe they were brought to see the light too, and their lives were changed.

We know about the wise men who came to see Christ at some point in the next two years, bringing Him gifts. But what about the wives waiting at home, sending their love and faith but never seeing the child themselves? Or perhaps their families did come with them, but their stories are left untold.

I am so grateful for the stories that we do have, and doubtless more stories would provide us more riches of wisdom and truth. But the story most relevant to us is the journey we take ourselves.

Let’s be honest: Most of us will be forgotten to history. My name is never going to appear in a book of scripture. Hey, forget my name—I’m not even going to appear as “the woman at the store” or “the obsessive copyeditor.” Aiming for a lowlier goal, I’m unlikely to ever write a NYT bestselling novel or invent any new punctuation.** In general it can sometimes feel like we’re really not doing anything that will be remembered at all.***

Maybe we’re not. Our stories may remain largely untold, except to those who know us.

If our journeys bring us to Christ, though, it doesn’t really matter if the stories are forgotten to the world. They are remembered to God.

Merry Christmas!

* In writing this, I realize that this may be some of what The Forgotten Carols is about. But aside from hearing “Let Him In” (which I love), I don’t really know anything else about the show. So if this is all old hat to you because of The Forgotten Carols, just know the thought was new to me at least. :)
** Although new punctuation would be sweet!

*** Especially when you compare yourself to every other person on the internet.

Embracing the Other

by Merry Gordon

My daughter made this in church a couple years back.

When all the other little Sunbeams churned out cute little Sugardoodle versions of themselves, mine managed to take the same raw materials and produce a vaguely homicidal-looking clown with a mock turtleneck and a sunken skull. Oh, and two left ears.

(For the record, the daughter in question is a doe-eyed, waiflike pixie of a thing with a perfect Valentine face and blonde curls.)

Fortunately, my parental combat training kicked in before I could recoil in horror and/or crack a smile:  “What the—honey, how…interesting! Tell me about your picture.” <insert generic mommysmile here>

“It’s me!”

Gulp.

“I am a child of God!”

Truth be told, I hadn’t even seen the caption until she pointed it out (I was a little preoccupied with the pink-lidded serial killer stare). At this point, I finally lost it and doubled over in fits of laughter.

That my daughter would depict herself in that way was hilarious. Disturbing, and hilarious. But that wasn’t really why I reacted the way I did.

The absurdity of an ugly cartoon mug shot proclaiming itself a child of God was too much. If I was being honest, my gut-level reaction was that if this was a child of God, it was definitely not the same kind of child of God I was.

That’s when I stopped laughing.

Because if I could marginalize a simple drawing, I could marginalize a person.

 

In fact, I probably already had.

***

It’s easy enough to do these days. A glance at the headlines will tell you that there’s growing factionalism both inside and outside of the church—and the trolling in the comments underneath the articles will reveal plenty of otherizing going on.

Don’t recognize the word? 

You will.

Otherizing is responsible for a lot of the ugly in the world.

Otherizing takes differences—of opinion, of race, of religion—and blows them out of proportion to the point of contention and stereotyping. We stop seeing people when we otherize them; instead, we see typecasts, two-dimensional caricatures without intricacy or humanity, people Not Like Us. Otherizing makes difference look like deformity.

The problem is that to otherize someone is to devalue them.

And devaluing them only devalues us.

It’s like this:  if we believe ourselves to be children of God then we have to believe that statement applies to everyone else—equally. It’s not an exclusive club. Our membership in the church makes us no more or less children of God than anyone else we meet.

Perhaps the worst thing about otherizing is that it happens even when we’re trying hard to avoid it. For example, can we stop saying we’re “taking the high ground” every time we repress a snarky one-liner? That phrase reeks of moral superiority. It suggests we’re not even travelling the same road as the people around us when nothing could be further from the truth.

Getting past otherizing is hard.

It’s tougher than fast Sundays and subbing in nursery. This is Christianity in the trenches.

It means we must listen—not just hear—because we can learn something valuable from everyone. We must offer compassion without condescension and service without self-congratulation. If we’re smug, or dismissive, or even mildly patronizing across the ideological divide we reduce Christ’s message to a bunch of Pinterest clichés. Choosing to see divine potential and worth in those we disagree with does not compromise us—in fact, it strengthens us.

And once I realized this, I never judged another person again.

 In fact, I became a shining bastion of tolerance and Christlike love scattering empathy like manna to the masses. I burst forth from the heavens on the wings of a Pegasus:  wars ended, flowers bloomed, trumpets sounded. Roll credits.

***

 (Actually, that’s not true. I sort of cussed out the guy who cut me off on the freeway this afternoon. “Stupid tool of a California driver” may or may not have been among the more printable epithets I had for him.)

But I am making a stand today, and it’s not about gay marriage or Ordain Women or anything else that seems to make the church newsworthy lately. It’s about looking inward instead of pointing outward. I may not always get it right, but I’m trying.

Because I owe that to my brothers and sisters.

Because Christ, who taught us to be one, is the opposite of otherizing.

Because we are all—and I’m looking at you, vaguely homicidal-looking, turtleneck-wearing clown—children of God.

The author and her daughters. Note the strong familial resemblance.