Try try again...

Last year I also had resolutions but I don't remember where I listed them. When you set goals of any kind there should be a way to see if they have been accomplished. I can remember a few but maybe what I should do is write them in a public forum...like ...a blog, then maybe a year from now I can look back and see.

#1. Dance...I think this is important for many reasons. In my older age I am becoming way to serious and cynical...this may literally loosen me up.

#2. Simplify ... Throw away or give away something everyday and not garbage but items in this house that are not is use.

#3. Intentional...about relationships. Things don't just happen, most of the time relationships need a boost of intentionality.

This may be it for the resolutions...because another one of my new goals is not to make too many.

Happy 2012 folks...let's look for the new treasures or as a friend of mine said...get rid of the old to make room for the new.

This is the time to sweep the old year out !

A Redeemed Holiday

Most everything we use to celebrate the Christmas holiday is taken from something inherently not holy. I have spoken a lot about how funny I think it is that Christians get so upset about the secularization of this holiday when from its conception it wasn't really ours to begin with. I am surprised those who are not Christians are not all up in arms about keeping Christ out of Christmas and putting this holiday back to what it was in the beginning. A mid-winter pagan holiday that celebrated the solstice.
What I love is that we have taken what it was and redeemed it... restored a holiness to this holiday.

It really isn't Jesus' birthday, He really wasn't born on December 25th, the Christmas tree isn't sacred, the stockings and gifts are just that, Santa clause is a universally held fairy tale that helps the retail industry. We fight every year to take back from the overt commercialism to a sacred realism, a holy tug of war of sorts.

What is a wonderfully true lesson about this holiday is that redemption is possible for nearly anything that the 'pagan' world celebrates. We CAN take things back, every square inch, and claim it back from the enemy. We need to fight this more often instead of being content in our encampment.
We have taken this holiday...one for us...let's keep going! Next...Halloween, New Years, 4th of July, Memorial day...What would these holidays look like if we re-did , or redeemed them?

Merry Christmas all...May this time of year bring all the happy a good party brings, all the peace contentment offers, all the good will to men that truth engenders and all that victory produces when we have won one more year a Christmas celebration !

A clean rescue...

Luke 1:71 Deliverance from our enemies and every hateful hand;72 Mercy to our fathers, as he remembers to do what he said he'd do,73 What he swore to our father Abraham -74 a clean rescue from the enemy camp, So we can worship him without a care in the world,75 made holy before him as long as we live.

Most of us do not live under threat of an enemy in a literal sense. We may have people who do not like us or that we have offended in some way but not usually an enemy. The Jewish people...they have enemies. When Zacharia sings his praise he is expressing every Jewish hope to be free from their enemies, literally.

I love that picture of a clean rescue from the enemy camp...

We do have an enemy though and he is cunning, precise, malicious, thorough and full of cold rage. We are his targets and we always have been. When we talk about being saved...I don't know if we picture an enemy camp. Habits picked up as a prisoner are difficult to let go. Fear being foremost.

In our freedom we can worship without care in the world, made holy before him as long as we live. Fear lingers and maybe that is why throughout the Christmas story we keep hearing not to be. Fear not I bring you tidings of great joy...I realize angels can be scary, but Jesus also kept telling us not to be afraid. Fear is a habit we carry from the enemy camp...maybe because we remember the enemy.

Today I want to remember that it was a clean rescue...

Fear not, Heidi, I bring you tidings of GREAT joy...you are free.

I see it all now...

38 And Mary said, Yes, I see it all now: I'm the Lord's maid, ready to serve. Let it be with me just as you say.

Perspective changes me. When I understand something, see it come together, hindsight...I am so much more ready to go ahead. When I see what He has done, I see that what He can do. Often we think faith has to do with leaping out into an unknown...No, it is often in context of perspective. Mary was told what had happened to Elizabeth so she was ready to trust. If God could be so tender with her old cousin and give her such a gift, this God would also be kind to her. Hard things to ask in the context of love. Both mothers would lose their miracle sons, whether Elizabeth was around, we do not know..but lose them they would.

Faith is walking forward on that path of peace , out of the shadows because we know Who we are following. He has been a good guide before, he will be again. To say like Mary, 'let it be with me as you say' takes a perspective on knowing the Who saying it.
I see it all now, I get it, I know who you are...I am ready to serve.

Beautiful...

28 Upon entering, Gabriel greeted her: Good morning! You're beautiful with God's beauty, Beautiful inside and out! God be with you.
29 She was thoroughly shaken, wondering what was behind a greeting like that.30 But the angel assured her, "Mary, you have nothing to fear.

God has a surprise for you

I like it that Gabriel gave her a compliment first. I had meeting this morning with seniors for their presentation come May. I knew some would sleep in and I was right. One came in...bowing in a fake apology. Then as I was telling him he was late...he said ..."You are beautiful, Mrs. Price". Give a compliment true or not...somehow makes the message or the excuse better. That's what the student was hoping...maybe so was Gabriel.

You , Mary, have nothing to fear... God has a surprise for you! What followed was the biggest surprise EVER! What could she have known or understood? Common Jewish teenage girl we always say, maybe on the outside, but God knew something about her on the inside. Beautiful...he called her, inside and out. Was that enough? What difference was it that she was beautiful?
God's beauty... takes your breath away, God's beauty humbles you, God's beauty defines what is awesome. God loves beautiful ...it's His signature.

Be careful...He defines beauty, we don't. When we look out ..the mountains, sunrise, flower, ocean, stars, God's beauty is spectacular. When God calls you beautiful, that says something.

When we look inside; joy, kindness, peace, patience, goodness, humility, forgiveness, gentleness...
spectacular beauty!
Mary...she was something else in all her normal humanity.
So are we when we reflect God's signature.

Always in shadows

Luke 1:78 Through the heartfelt mercies of our God, God's Sunrise will break in upon us,79 Shining on those in the darkness, those sitting in the shadow of death, Then showing us the way, one foot at a time, down the path of peace.

Death seems to shadow everything. Christmas can be a spotlight to those who are missing and pain laces each light on the Christmas tree. God' sunrise will break on us though, that is what Zachariah said when finally his tongue was loosened. Shining a light on those of us sitting in the shadows of death...showing us a way out, one foot at a time.
Poignant is what Christmas becomes and that is OK because it was that way the first Christmas. Shadows only mean that there is a bright enough light shining...and when we look through that Sunrise..or Son rise, death has to be in shadows. Poignant though is painful...and that is why some Christmas music is so haunting and candles and quiet lights so meaningful. We are left at those times alone with our own longings and our own sorrow. What I like is that the path is not away from pain but into peace. Again, like shadows can't be seen without light, peace is best understood or savored after pain or often right on the path of pain. Peace is not the absence of pain , but on the path through.
There is a caveat though...just like death can't be in shadows unless it is seen through the Sonrise, peace in pain is walking with Someone.
This Christmas, peace is Jesus... I was watching a pageant , one of many I am sure I will see...but what centers me every time in every song and dance is the story of Jesus. He is the peace I so desperately long for this season. I want Him to show me how to walk out on this path to peace: towards Him, with Him, because of Him...that's all.

Another Reason

This past Thursday I spoke in chapel. This is always a fun and terrifying time for me but if there is something I embrace with all of myself is the desire to tell a story in a way that encourages people to stop a moment, think awhile and nudge a soul towards things that are eternal.
I spoke on Zachariah in the temple but when I studied this portion again something else struck me about Zachariah's response. Gabriel was telling Zach about the coming of the messiah but more then anything Gabriel was telling Zachariah that the prayer that Elizabeth and he had been praying for years and probably had stopped was being answered. Maybe the reason he did not believe was because his heart has been broken for so long. Disappointment with unanswered prayer makes the heart sick. Maybe the 'no' from Zachariah was his fear that hope would again disappoint especially for his Elizabeth who had carried this shame every day in every conversation in every family gathering.
Today...that prayer was to be answered.
One little boy taking away the shame of one mother and one father.
In a few months...one little boy would take away the shame of everyone.

Really? Seriously?

Zachariah said to the angel, "Do you expect me to believe this? I'm an old man and my wife is an old woman."
But the angel said, "I am Gabriel, the sentinel of God, sent especially to bring you this glad news.20 But because you won't believe me, you'll be unable to say a word until the day of your son's birth. Every word I've spoken to you will come true on time-God's time."

Incredulous is the word to describe Zachariah...so not like the response that Mary had a few months later when Gabriel came with good news of another baby coming. Mary had questions about the obvious....how, I haven't been with a man..etc. But Z man...."Really, you expect me to believe this?" I get this quite often when I am trying to explain something about the Bible to our Bible illiterate International students. With respect, they get that look on their face, kind of smirking, "really...you expect me to believe this?" I know, when you step back from the story and begin to hear it for the first time, it sounds a bit out there. I don't know about you but when I hear the story through the ears of non-believer, it sounds a bit out there as well.

I love Gabriel's anger and frustration in response but at the same time I wonder what I have lost when I have responded in unbelief? What silence I have had to endure in relationships because I did not believe that forgiving was the only way? What separation because I did not believe that letting something go was the best way? How many morning lay silent as I pounded heavens door because I would not believe?
I am so Zachariah !
I want to be more Mary.

Christmas parenting

Luke 1:

15 He'll achieve great stature with God.16 He will turn many sons and daughters of Israel back to their God.17 He will herald God's arrival in the style and strength of Elijah, soften the hearts of parents to children, and kindle devout understanding among hardened skeptics-he'll get the people ready for God.

Interesting that part of the message of John the wild one :) is that his message will soften the hearts of the parents to children. Eugene Peterson, who paraphrased this, lost a bit though...everyone else says, turn the heart of the fathers back to their children. I am a pro co-parent advocate ie: I believe that Mom's and Dad's mission in life is to parent in tandem. One is not more important than the other, nor is one more valuable...both are needed to balance the picture of God's image. BUT is does seem that fathers have to work harder to engage in the heart part of raising children. I think it is part our culture, but the scripture seems to hint that it is a fundamental problem. Fathers can loose the softness required to parent well.

Jesus was never a father and throughout his whole life here on earth, Joseph is not a part of the picture. I don't remember any pointed sermons at or for fathers but I do remember that children loved being with Jesus. As far as we know, John wasn't a father either nor does it seem that his parents were around long after he was born. Neither of these men had long term earthly father or were fathers in the natural sense. Yes...Jesus had his Father in Heaven, I realize this but I am talking about his time here on earth. So what did these men know about fathering?

It seems that the gospel is supposed to make men better fathers not just having a good father. What is supposed to happen is that this gospel, good news, is supposed to soften the hearts of men to their children. NOT make them more rigid, distant, per-occupied, absent, ultra-disciplined, angry...But more kind, present, engaged, grace-filled and gentle. The strength of a man and the kindness of the gospel...a heart softened to his kids. Unfortunately, some men believe that this is the job of the mothers...the soft part of parenting. This is not feminine, this is humanity bathed in the grace of the gospel. We both raise, love, discipline and nurture within the gifts we both have to raise our kids.

Christmas and parenting...who would have thought !