Category: Living my Life

December 26. It’s over. You made it. Now we can go back to business as usual.

I’m talking to those of you who dreaded to see the Christmas season come and are now glad to see it go. If you put up a tree, it’s already down and all the decorations are packed away for another year.

I’m sorry. I know there are many for whom this holiday is more painful than celebratory. I’m glad I saw more acknowledgement of that this year than I have seen before. Hopefully there was also more understanding for those who grieve or are lonely or simply discontent in some way or for some reason. Deep down there may be a certain joy that Christ came into the world as a baby to save us and give us eternal life. But on the surface it’s very difficult to “feel the Christmas spirit.”

Our pastor began the Christmas Eve message with “Christmas is just different this year.” And of course it is. With the anxiety we all share about the world situation, it’s hard to decide which is our reality: the concern in our hearts or the festivities going on around us.

The reality I cling to is this: The world has had some rocky years in the past. We are not the first generation to fear the future and probably not the last. God loves this world. He loves us. And that’s a reason to “celebrate.”

God Bless you on this Second Day of Christmas.

It occurs to me that most of my favorite Christmas music is old.  Like hundreds of years old. The universally loved “Silent Night,” has been around for almost 200 years, as have most of the carols we find in our church hymnals. Even the newer favorite “Mary Did You Know” is thirtysomething.

Even the secular music I enjoy the most is getting on in years: “White Christmas,” 1940; “The Christmas Song” (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire), 1945; and “Santa Claus In Coming to Town”, 1934.

It’s just not easy to come up with a new song that says it as well as the old ones do. My sentiment, at least. Though Michael W. Smith gave us a very nice, “Welcome to Our World,” in 1997 (words and music by Chris Rice).

One day this week I heard a song about a little donkey who was scrawny, had long ears, and the other little donkeys all made fun of him. I didn’t hear all the song as I arrived at work and didn’t stay in the car to listen, but I think I know where it was going. Kind of like the reindeer with the shiny nose, maybe?

A song published last year but I heard it for the first time recently is “I Wonder What God Wants for Christmas.”  When I heard the title, I was thinking that a similar question was asked by Christina Rosetti in 1872, “What Can I Give Him?”

But as a friend shared Darius Rucker’s video of “I Wonder What God Wants…” on YouTube, a bit of the lyrics struck me. The melody is nice and the montage beautiful. Several items are listed that God might want: no empty pews in church, peace on earth, no Bibles covered with dust, and so on. The most amazing line of this song comes somewhere in the middle: “What if we believed in Him like he believes in us?”

Wow. God must believe in us. He trusts us to take care of the poor. He planned for us to love and comfort and encourage one another. He expects us to take care of the world He created.

“What Can I GIve Him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb
If I were a wiseman, I would do my part.
Yet what I can, I’ll give him. Give my heart.”
Christina Rosetti, 1872

“More sister, more brother, more lovin’ one another
By now we oughta know what God wants for Christmas.”
Darius Rucker, 2014

Along my back fence, near my green mini-Dumpster, a different-looking weed appeared a few weeks ago. My BFF Pat — the plant whisperer — told me it was a mum.

“What should I do with it?” I asked, hoping she wouldn’t suggest anything too difficult or horticultural.

“Leave it alone,” said she, “maybe it will bloom.”

And as you see, it has.

But all this is a mystery to me. How did it get there – out of its comfort zone? Did a friendly bird give it transportation, taking it places it would never think to go?

Did it crawl under the fence from the neighbor’s lovely yard of well-tended flowers? Why would it do that? Unless it mistakenly thought the grass was greener on my side of the fence.

Surely this is a little allegory. Sometimes in life we find ourselves, through no fault of our own, in unfamiliar surroundings. While we would not have chosen to be there, we must make the best of it and “bloom where we’re planted.” If we’re able to do that, we can do what God meant for us to do and bring some beauty into the world.

Sometimes we deliberately look for greener pastures. There is actually a diagnosis called GIGS, Grass Is Greener Syndrome, for those who are never quite happy with our present situation. We feel we need to relocate. But when we do, often we find things are not as good as we hoped.

We look for greener pastures and find a trash heap. But when we allow it, God can still enable us to be the best we can be.

I believe this and I have left the mum where it is to remind me.

One morning, after a really bad night, Ebenezer Scrooge said, “I will honor Christmas in my heart and try to keep it all the year through.”

That means that while hunting Easter eggs, popping firecrackers, trick or treating, or yes, even during Thanksgiving dinner, he would experience the joy, love, and wonder that is Christmas.

He would look at the cross at sunrise on Easter morning and think, “yes, this is what it’s all about.” He would celebrate the birth of our country knowing that God alone gives us real freedom. He would enjoy the happiness and excitement of the children on All Hallow’s Eve, remembering the saints who have gone before us.

I doubt he would be so determined to celebrate Thanksgiving Day before having anything to do with Christmas that he would stomp into the holiday season with a chip on his shoulder.

He might love it that the merchants in town began early in the season to remind us to prepare for the coming of the Christ Child.

Keeping Christmas all year long. That is really a good idea.