“Christmas is saying ‘yes’ to something beyond all emotions and feelings,” writes Henri Nouwen. “Christmas is saying ‘yes’ to a hope based on God’s initiative, which has nothing to do with what I think or feel. Christmas is believing that the salvation of the world is God’s work and not mine.”
Christmas is choosing for a change to take a look through the right end of the telescope and thrilling to the sight of God’s work written large rather than cringing before a universe shrunken, shriveled, and constricted, bounded on all sides by the nearsighted view of mortals almost as blind and dull as me.
Christmas means that the real question is not, “What must I do to be saved?” Not such a bad question for a jailer back in Philippi scared stiff about losing his head because of almost losing his prisoners (Acts 16). But the far better question for me is, “What has God already done to save me?” Christmas means finding that answer all wrapped up in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.
Christmas means bringing the most precious of gifts to the Baby King not to enrich or impress him or add to the net worth of the One who owns the cattle on a thousand hills and who gives me the gift of my every breath, but simply because I love him and want to joyfully place before him the best that I have.
Christmas means finding a fleeting moment of sanity when I’m less full of myself and more filled with Heaven as I focus not on me but on the God of all life and joy.
Christmas means that instead of trying to save humanity theoretically through my unceasingly serious efforts, I sit down with one or two giggling and very specific pint-size children or grandchildren and tell a story about how once upon a specific time in Bethlehem a star twinkled and angels sang, and then I hum them to sleep with “Silent Night.”
If I’ve got Christmas right and know the real story, then Christmas also means I’m free to laugh with the little ones and tell them old new stories about how Scrooges get over taking themselves too seriously and what happens on “The Night Before Christmas.”
Christmas, for me, is realizing that the wonderful writer G. K. Chesterton discovered something as important as the law of gravity when he wrote, “Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.” It was through pride, he wrote, that Satan fell, and “the very skies were cracked across like a mirror, because there was a sneer in Heaven.” Christmas means that sugar plums always win over sneers, that the deadly self-serious always crash and burn, and that angels aren’t the only ones lifted into flight by Joy.
Christmas means that though you may get a tiresome tax form in January, all you have to do is look up on a Yuletide night to see that Bethlehem always beats Caesar and that the twinkling tinsel of Heaven’s stars all point forever to the One brightest, the One eternal.
Copyright 2010 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Christmas Points Us Toward Our True Home
Keeping Christmas is very much about valuing home and hearth, and that is a truth that even your basic, mostly housebroken, pagan understands.
A pox, by the way, on businesses, other than those who truly have no choice, who choose to stay open on Christmas supposedly for the convenience of the consumer. They should think more highly both of their own employees and of their customers. Their employees deserve better of them. And customers idiotic enough to be running about on Christmas Day shouldn’t be encouraged in such idiocy.
One of the many things I love about Christmas Day is that most of us have enough sense to treasure the precious time with our families. Yes, there’s some travel going on even on Christmas morning. But not much. Less than ever, in fact. And what little movement you’ll see happening on the roads on Christmas morning is travel being undertaken specifically so folks can be with family.
It’s rather remarkable. Even as a small child, I remember noticing it. The silence in the neighborhood. The surprising, and lovely, stillness.
If you step out your door on Christmas morning, you’ll probably see hardly anybody at all. Why? Well, again, even the most frenetic and hyperactive of us knows deep down that Christmas morning is a time to be inside with those we hold most dear. Even those who don’t hold Christmas Day holy for the best Reason, know it’s “holy” family time that should be left undisturbed. The phone won’t ring much, hardly at all, on Christmas morning, and when it does, you can bet the call or message will be from folks you love the most.
Oh, we’ll all start to venture out again. By Christmas afternoon, kids will be out on the driveway trying out their new bicycles or tricycles or skateboards or electric cars, playing with all sorts of new toys, and running through scads of batteries, learning how to work the new games and gadgets.
But the morning at least will be remarkably quiet, centered around home and hearth.
G. K. Chesterton once wrote of the paradox in his “Christmas Poem:” It’s when we come to Bethlehem in our hearts, to the stable where Mary and the baby homeless lay, that’s when we come truly “home”: “Only where He was homeless / Are you and I at home.”
Only when we seek Him, find Him, worship Him, do we find that we’ve come truly Home,
To an older place than Eden
And a taller town than Rome.
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be and that are,
To the place where God was homeless
And all men are at home.
Home. It’s the best place to be. The Christ of Christmas points us to our true Home.
Copyright 2010 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.
A pox, by the way, on businesses, other than those who truly have no choice, who choose to stay open on Christmas supposedly for the convenience of the consumer. They should think more highly both of their own employees and of their customers. Their employees deserve better of them. And customers idiotic enough to be running about on Christmas Day shouldn’t be encouraged in such idiocy.
One of the many things I love about Christmas Day is that most of us have enough sense to treasure the precious time with our families. Yes, there’s some travel going on even on Christmas morning. But not much. Less than ever, in fact. And what little movement you’ll see happening on the roads on Christmas morning is travel being undertaken specifically so folks can be with family.
It’s rather remarkable. Even as a small child, I remember noticing it. The silence in the neighborhood. The surprising, and lovely, stillness.
If you step out your door on Christmas morning, you’ll probably see hardly anybody at all. Why? Well, again, even the most frenetic and hyperactive of us knows deep down that Christmas morning is a time to be inside with those we hold most dear. Even those who don’t hold Christmas Day holy for the best Reason, know it’s “holy” family time that should be left undisturbed. The phone won’t ring much, hardly at all, on Christmas morning, and when it does, you can bet the call or message will be from folks you love the most.
Oh, we’ll all start to venture out again. By Christmas afternoon, kids will be out on the driveway trying out their new bicycles or tricycles or skateboards or electric cars, playing with all sorts of new toys, and running through scads of batteries, learning how to work the new games and gadgets.
But the morning at least will be remarkably quiet, centered around home and hearth.
G. K. Chesterton once wrote of the paradox in his “Christmas Poem:” It’s when we come to Bethlehem in our hearts, to the stable where Mary and the baby homeless lay, that’s when we come truly “home”: “Only where He was homeless / Are you and I at home.”
Only when we seek Him, find Him, worship Him, do we find that we’ve come truly Home,
To an older place than Eden
And a taller town than Rome.
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be and that are,
To the place where God was homeless
And all men are at home.
Home. It’s the best place to be. The Christ of Christmas points us to our true Home.
Copyright 2010 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
A Christmas Gift From My Mother
I received a nice Christmas present this morning that was truly a surprise: a letter from my mom.
One glance at the envelope told me who it was from. No reading required. My mother’s handwriting was the most beautiful I have ever seen. She could have written the book on perfect cursive and impeccable penmanship. Since Mom passed away in 1992, getting a letter from her was nothing I expected this Christmas.
Well, okay, actually the letter wasn’t written to me, it was just kindly handed to me by my friend Van McCormick. And it wasn’t written recently. Mom wrote it to my folks’ dear friends, Van’s parents, Leonard & Tennie McCormick, on “Saturday, Jan. 31, 1981.” Mom was replying to the note the McCormicks had sent in a Christmas card.
What Mom wrote brought back a warm flow of memories.
My oldest brother and sister-in-law had just returned from twenty years of missionary work in Malawi, Africa, and were moving into their new Stateside home in Houston.
Mom wrote about the beautiful weather they were having in Houston and told of her joy in being able to get back to her yard work. She was a gardening artist and the yard was her canvas. She describes in the letter “lots of azaleas, a few roses, narcissus, pansies, Johnny Jump-ups” and red pyracantha berries “keeping us and the birds happy.”
“G. B. [my dad],” Mom wrote, had recently been “somewhere in Mexico doing mission work. . . . He enjoyed it and feels there is much promise there for a fruitful work.” Understated is the deep relief I hear in her words as she says that “he has no plans to become deeply involved, such as any move in that direction.” But her words remind me again of how Dad loved to teach the Bible in Spanish (and long enjoyed teaching a weekly Bible class in Spanish).
Mom writes, “I’m just praying [for] God to help us know where he wants us to spend our remaining little day of life.” I know now how that prayer was long ago answered.
Mom wrote on about a visit she and Dad had enjoyed with the McCormicks. She just wished it could have been longer.
She wrote about my 89-year-old grandmother’s failing health, and expressed her sympathy for Tennie’s recent loss of a brother. She waxed philosophic about some “loneliness that can never be cured on this earth.” But she said, “We wouldn’t want to remain here on this [present] earth forever.”
Yes, this letter from my mom was quite a nice and unexpected gift this Christmas. In two little half-pages of her beautiful hand, she talks about what really is important in life, the joy and beauty God gives us right here, and our confident hope that God has in mind something far better that will never end.
The most important gifts my mother gave me still bless me every day. But it surely was nice this Christmas to get to open up this new one.
Copyright 2010 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.
One glance at the envelope told me who it was from. No reading required. My mother’s handwriting was the most beautiful I have ever seen. She could have written the book on perfect cursive and impeccable penmanship. Since Mom passed away in 1992, getting a letter from her was nothing I expected this Christmas.
Well, okay, actually the letter wasn’t written to me, it was just kindly handed to me by my friend Van McCormick. And it wasn’t written recently. Mom wrote it to my folks’ dear friends, Van’s parents, Leonard & Tennie McCormick, on “Saturday, Jan. 31, 1981.” Mom was replying to the note the McCormicks had sent in a Christmas card.
What Mom wrote brought back a warm flow of memories.
My oldest brother and sister-in-law had just returned from twenty years of missionary work in Malawi, Africa, and were moving into their new Stateside home in Houston.
Mom wrote about the beautiful weather they were having in Houston and told of her joy in being able to get back to her yard work. She was a gardening artist and the yard was her canvas. She describes in the letter “lots of azaleas, a few roses, narcissus, pansies, Johnny Jump-ups” and red pyracantha berries “keeping us and the birds happy.”
“G. B. [my dad],” Mom wrote, had recently been “somewhere in Mexico doing mission work. . . . He enjoyed it and feels there is much promise there for a fruitful work.” Understated is the deep relief I hear in her words as she says that “he has no plans to become deeply involved, such as any move in that direction.” But her words remind me again of how Dad loved to teach the Bible in Spanish (and long enjoyed teaching a weekly Bible class in Spanish).
Mom writes, “I’m just praying [for] God to help us know where he wants us to spend our remaining little day of life.” I know now how that prayer was long ago answered.
Mom wrote on about a visit she and Dad had enjoyed with the McCormicks. She just wished it could have been longer.
She wrote about my 89-year-old grandmother’s failing health, and expressed her sympathy for Tennie’s recent loss of a brother. She waxed philosophic about some “loneliness that can never be cured on this earth.” But she said, “We wouldn’t want to remain here on this [present] earth forever.”
Yes, this letter from my mom was quite a nice and unexpected gift this Christmas. In two little half-pages of her beautiful hand, she talks about what really is important in life, the joy and beauty God gives us right here, and our confident hope that God has in mind something far better that will never end.
The most important gifts my mother gave me still bless me every day. But it surely was nice this Christmas to get to open up this new one.
Copyright 2010 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.
Monday, December 6, 2010
For Those Who Believe, All Joy is God's Joy
You think it’s cold here? I just got back from the North Pole and . . .
Well, actually, it wasn’t that cold. And it wasn’t even north. It was more southwest. From Lubbock, Texas, to Brownfield, Texas. On the Polar Express train, complete with a conductor and hot chocolate and elves and Santa himself, and, most important, a two-and-a-half-year-old giggling granddaughter.
I don’t know what Brenley will one day remember about that train ride, but I’ll remember big brown eyes wide with delight. I hope it might become for her one of her earliest of a great many wonderful Christmas memories. It’s certainly added something precious to mine.
C. S. Lewis once put into words a wonderful truth about our lives and our faith. Early on, he said, it’s quite natural that a child can make no distinction between the religious meaning of holidays like Christmas and Easter and their merely “festal” character, by which he means Santa and Easter eggs, and all those many delightful traditions.
Lewis said he’d been told about a young boy who was heard on Easter morning “murmuring to himself” a poem he’d come up with on his own about “chocolate eggs and Jesus risen.” Lewis commented, “This seems to me, for his age, both admirable poetry and admirable piety.”
But he went on to observe that the time would surely come when the child would learn the difference between the “ritual” aspect of Easter and its “festal” aspect and then “chocolate eggs will no longer seem sacramental.”
And with that time will come a decision. He must “put one or the other first.” And here’s the important point: “If he puts the spiritual first he can still taste something of Easter in the chocolate eggs; if he puts the eggs first they will be no more than any other sweetmeat. They will have taken on an independent, and therefore a soon withering, life.”
It’s true, you know. If we discard the deepest truths of our faith, it’s pretty hard to find much deep or lasting joy in Easter eggs and “Jingle Bells.”
But if our faith is in the Christ of Christmas and Easter, and if we really believe that God entered our world at Bethlehem and that death itself was no match for our risen Lord, then we live all year long in the wonderful glow of those deep truths. And those holidays become joyful holy days.
As long as we know what really is central to the seasons, well, then add in as much tinsel, as many lights, as many Christmas and Easter traditions as you like. Hunt the eggs, and take a ride on the Polar Express, and beam with delight as your little granddaughters fill up on hot chocolate and dance around the tree. You might occasionally run across someone toxically religious and afraid of experiencing too much joy. But our God has never been afraid of genuine joy. He is the Source of it.
Copyright 2010 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.
Well, actually, it wasn’t that cold. And it wasn’t even north. It was more southwest. From Lubbock, Texas, to Brownfield, Texas. On the Polar Express train, complete with a conductor and hot chocolate and elves and Santa himself, and, most important, a two-and-a-half-year-old giggling granddaughter.
I don’t know what Brenley will one day remember about that train ride, but I’ll remember big brown eyes wide with delight. I hope it might become for her one of her earliest of a great many wonderful Christmas memories. It’s certainly added something precious to mine.
C. S. Lewis once put into words a wonderful truth about our lives and our faith. Early on, he said, it’s quite natural that a child can make no distinction between the religious meaning of holidays like Christmas and Easter and their merely “festal” character, by which he means Santa and Easter eggs, and all those many delightful traditions.
Lewis said he’d been told about a young boy who was heard on Easter morning “murmuring to himself” a poem he’d come up with on his own about “chocolate eggs and Jesus risen.” Lewis commented, “This seems to me, for his age, both admirable poetry and admirable piety.”
But he went on to observe that the time would surely come when the child would learn the difference between the “ritual” aspect of Easter and its “festal” aspect and then “chocolate eggs will no longer seem sacramental.”
And with that time will come a decision. He must “put one or the other first.” And here’s the important point: “If he puts the spiritual first he can still taste something of Easter in the chocolate eggs; if he puts the eggs first they will be no more than any other sweetmeat. They will have taken on an independent, and therefore a soon withering, life.”
It’s true, you know. If we discard the deepest truths of our faith, it’s pretty hard to find much deep or lasting joy in Easter eggs and “Jingle Bells.”
But if our faith is in the Christ of Christmas and Easter, and if we really believe that God entered our world at Bethlehem and that death itself was no match for our risen Lord, then we live all year long in the wonderful glow of those deep truths. And those holidays become joyful holy days.
As long as we know what really is central to the seasons, well, then add in as much tinsel, as many lights, as many Christmas and Easter traditions as you like. Hunt the eggs, and take a ride on the Polar Express, and beam with delight as your little granddaughters fill up on hot chocolate and dance around the tree. You might occasionally run across someone toxically religious and afraid of experiencing too much joy. But our God has never been afraid of genuine joy. He is the Source of it.
Copyright 2010 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.
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