Getting Ready

Today ends the first week of Advent – a period of four weeks before Christmas set aside as preparation for the Christ Child. So, while on the one hand we are “getting ready for Christmas” in a secular way, in a more spiritual vein we engage in reading, study and prayer preparing our hearts to welcome Christ.

Each year I must get my head and heart into the Advent mode early. During the month of November I compile and edit an Advent devotional booklet. So while turkeys cook and football dominates, my mind is on Christmas poems, carols and essays. Members and friends of First United Methodist Church contribute written  thoughts and memories related to the season and these are arranged into a book with one reading for each day of Advent (28 days this year). This Fall, as I was working on the project, I was also reading 25 Days 26 Ways by Ace Collins. This book is filled with activities to enhance a Christmas celebration.

One I chose this year is, beginning with December 1, to read every day a chapter of the Gospel of Luke. There are 25 chapters in that gospel, so during the days leading up to the celebration of His birth, I will be reading about the life and ministry of Jesus. Somewhere in my studies this past year, I read that scholars believe  Luke received his information about the life of Jesus from Mary, Jesus’ mother. As I was reading the first few chapters this week, I thought of this.  Twice the scriptures said, “Mary pondered these things in her heart.”  And this gospel tells of the child Jesus who said he “must be about his father’s business.”  I can just imagine a mother telling that. And so my fascination in a story I have read and heard countless times has been enhanced by the thought that Jesus’ mother is telling about his birth and childhood.  Writers call it point of view and it makes all the difference in the telling of a story.

The first week of Advent for me has also included attending the Center on the Square production of  “Miracle on 34th Street” and the ASU-Beebe performance of “A Christmas Carol.”  And a spectacular Christmas parade – a mile long with the ROTC, 15 floats and the Beebe High School Marching Band.  I live on the parade route and my yard was full of spectators.

The rest of the month will bring cantatas, parties, potlucks and angel trees.  I’ll keep you posted.

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Royal Wedding

Unless you have been somewhere on a desert island this week, you know Prince William and Kate Middleton are engaged. He didn’t propose on the Jumbo-tron at a soccer game, but I’m sure it was romantic just the same. They gave the exclusive news to a friendly reporter in London and immediately the world media was hot on the story. I Googled “William and Kate” and got 20 million hits.

This will be the third Windsor Wedding in my lifetime. In 1947, Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor married Prince Philip Mountbatten. They are distant cousins, both claiming Queen Victoria as their great-great-grandmother.  Their union was of interest in the United States, though it did not dominate our news as completely as the upcoming 2011 nuptials will.  We saw the images of her Westminster Abbey wedding in the local newspaper and the newsreels a week after the event.  Probably, there was a spread in Life or Look.  Most everything Elizabeth chose was heavy in symbolism down to the flowers in her bouquet – which, after the ceremony, was laid at the tomb of the Unknown Warrior.

Romantics vowed it was a love affair, though there were strict guidelines about who Elizabeth might choose and an arranged marriage between royals was not uncommon. My mother was one of those romantics and she followed the stories with enjoyment and took this opportunity to share with us the story of King Edward and Wallis Simpson, who abdicated his kingship for “the woman he loved.” Without this piece of history,  Elizabeth wouldn’t have been in line for the throne.  After Elizabeth and Philip married, she declared that the family name would be Mountbatten-Windsor. Theirs has been a long marriage of love and partnership.  (Google can find you several sites celebrating their 60th anniversary a few years ago.)

Prince Charles Philip Arthur George Mountbatten-Windsor, first son and heir to the throne, married Lady Diana Frances Spencer in 1981 in St. Paul’s Cathedral. An expert on the monarchy said at the time that “royalty can marry a commoner, but the prince may not marry a common person.” Theirs was the most spectacular wedding ever and bridezillas all over the world have been trying to match it ever since.  A television audience of an estimated 750 million watched the ceremony. We witnessed the full day coverage of the event — Diana in her too-heavy eye make-up, awful bulky taffeta dress she could hardly move in, the natural beauty of this lovely girl completely hidden. A foreshadowing of the marriage that lasted only 15 years. A royal divorce logged another first for the reigning family, which only a generation ago was the stiff-upper-lip sort who gave up personal needs and wants to sustain the monarchy.

And now, again, a royal wedding. We may be sick unto death of the names of William and Kate before it is all over. But the world will ever be captivated with the idea of a prince and his bride.

As an engagement ring, William gave Kate the sapphire ring that was Diana’s.  That is sweet. I just hope she doesn’t wear that dress.

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Mr. Holland's Opus

Mr. Holland’s Opus

While channel-surfing (do they still call it that?) yesterday, I landed on a favorite movie, Mr. Holland’s Opus, starring Richard Dreyfuss.

Glenn Holland is a musician, primarily a composer, who decides to take a position as a music teacher in a local high school.  The plan is to teach for a few years, save his money and compose in his free time.  Anyone who’s been a teacher knows there not that much money to save and there’s no free time. In fact, he realizes almost immediately, “it’s a harder gig than I thought.”

A baby comes along – not part of the plan, but okay. Then it happens that the child, Cole, is deaf. Not only does this suck up any extra money but Glenn feels like he is unable to communicate with his child, can’t share with him the thing he loves most, music.

Ultimately, Mr. Holland spends 30 years at that high school and becomes a real teacher, finding enjoyment and reward working with  young musicians.  He and Cole learn to understand and appreciate each other.  A sweet story.

Kudos to the make-up department for making 48-year-old Dreyfuss look 30-40-50-60 so naturally.

The first movie I saw Richard Dreyfuss in was Goodbye Girl with Marcia Mason. (He played a musician)  I also loved him in The Education of Max Bickford, a television series in 2002 where he played a history professor in a small college.  It lasted 22 episodes – that’s not quite an entire season, I’m thinking – and a pox on the TV executive who canceled this excellent show.

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In His Steps

A book I neglected to list on my “15 books that stick with me” (see July 2009 post) and that I have read at least three times, is In His Steps by Charles Sheldon.  In 1896, this Congregationalist pastor wrote the novel that spawned the question: What Would Jesus Do?

The story centers around Rev. Henry Maxwell, a pastor of a large church. One Sunday morning, at the end of the 11:00 service, a homeless man asks to speak to the congregation. He relates a commonly heard story of the day and asks some probing questions – then falls on the floor and dies. The last years of the nineteenth century was a time of depression in the United States, the beginning of the industrial age when many men lost their jobs. During this time, if you had no job, you had no income. Zero. Zilch. There was no welfare, no rehab, no stimulus package, nor any of the other programs that people today love to hate. When you were evicted for non-payment of rent, you moved in with family or you were homeless. Not living in a shelter. Homeless.

Churches had their mission projects but the worship services in the large affluent churches were for the rich. As the destitute man stood before the congregation that morning, he related how he was a Christian, knew he should follow Jesus, but he was puzzled as to how Jesus would have him live. What would Jesus do? Would he starve rather than beg? Would he watch his child go hungry rather than steal a loaf of bread? When employment opportunities came, were there certain jobs Jesus would have turned down regardless of his family’s need?

After this incident, Henry Maxwell was led to challenge his congregation to take a pledge to live one year asking themselves the question “What Would Jesus Do?” Many volunteered to take the vow and the book tells the story of what happened to those who undertook to live as a true disciple, following Jesus’ steps as closely as they could.  As I said, this was written in 1896, contemporary to the times. Some who pledged could not stick it out, found such a lifestyle impossible. Some suffered, all were changed.

In the early 1990’s a youth director in Holland, Michigan was taken with Charles Sheldon’s In His Steps. After sharing the story with the youth, she had bracelets with the words “What Would Jesus Do?” or “WWJD” printed on them, as a reminder to the youth to live as Jesus would. The idea caught on and you probably remember seeing displays of bracelets, key chains and magnets with this message.

Charles Sheldon had never copyrighted his work, and it has been reprinted numerous times without any compensation for the author or his heirs. Since the slogan WWJD was in public domain, the youth director was able to use it without cost. Though the opportunity was there, the youth director also did not seek to copyright the slogan. It’s not clear why, except that perhaps she, as well as Charles Sheldon, thought the message was more important that any profits they might see.  The youth director was later able to gain control of the WWJD Trademark in order to protect it from being misused or defamed.

Charles Sheldon’s book, In His Steps, has had 20 million copies published in 20 languages.

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As Others See Us

This week at First United Methodist Church, we will be taking pictures for a new church directory. It is needed because our last directory was made four years ago, and we have grown and changed (especially the members phone numbers!).

However, this is a particularly traumatic time for me because I take a terrible picture. Occasionally a photo is snapped that is acceptable to me and I will use it for a decade as my official ‘head shot’ anytime one is needed. When it becomes obvious that is is not a recent picture, I look around or hope for another. I’ve begun to notice that snapshots taken when I am having a pleasant time and only semi-aware of the camera turn out the best. What I do not do well is ‘hold it.’  You know, the photographer spends five minutes with ‘put your hand there, tilt your head this way,’ then says, ‘Hold it’ and walks back to the camera and starts making adjustments, looking through the view finder, etc. Excuse me?  My ‘held’ smile slowly melts and becomes something between a sneer and a grimace. I widen my eyes, try to keep from blinking, taking on the expression of someone who just witnessed one of those Halloween jokes that jumps out of the computer.

My oldest granddaughter, who I love very much, posted such a picture on her Face Book Page.  It was taken at one of those photo ops at a family gathering where everyone brings a camera. We keep re-organizing the groups (now the first cousins, then each family unit) We pose and flashbulbs flash – all but one whose owner yells, ‘Wait a minute, I didn’t get that. Hold it.’ Why don’t we designate one person photographer and share pictures by email? Who knows.  The results this time were classic. And my sweet grandchild, who I love more than chocolate, has put it out there for all to see.

I can only hope Olan Mills will a bit more discriminating.

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