Serious faith for misfits, lousy joiners, and other homesick souls
I always thought glitter would play an important part in the revolution. In Juarez, Mexico members of a small church put it on their faces and their hand made wings. This is standard for for a lot of Christmas pageants but these angels aren’t about to sing in the annual cantata. They are headed downtown Juarez. What they are planning to do really puts teeth and nails in hope.
Swearing off the exorbitant gift giving of Christmas is something I cannot help but get behind. However, we also run the risk of being, well, scroogey. Giving gifts is something that is fundamentally human and to relinquish the practice to those who trample each other at Walmart might be as much of a concession to consumerism as maxing out the visa cards. “Spend money or don’t give gifts.” That doesn’t sound at all right to me.
I love the songs that capture what horror it must have felt like to be a teenage girl who God had chosen for, well, anything. Â I feel both a sense of honor and terror every time I think that there is good on earth God would have me do.
So songs like “Breath of Heaven,” by Amy Grant and “Mary Did You Know,” by Mark Lowry tap into our sense of how overwhelming we would have been and how overwhelmed we are right now. Through our eyes we can only imagine such a call to be suffocating, full of fear. This, however, is not at all like the song Mary actually sang.
The miracle of the oil is a simple one. There wasn’t enough oil to keep the lamp lit for more than one day, but it lasted eight full days. Just enough time to get more.
This year has reminded me a lot of the fragility of history. The “year in review” videos are popping up on FaceBook, websites, news channels. Social stability, the economy, and heck, even the weather seems delicate enough to go any which way.  The future has exposed its own uncertainty
Sometimes I hesitate to call it until I get a clear sense that “everything is going to be ok. But I usually don’t get to see everything, let alone be assured that it is ok.   The miracle of Chanukah is not that the entire outcome of the future was revealed. The miracle was not the sudden appearance of endless amounts of oil. It was just enough oil each night for one more day, for just enough days… until they could get more oil.
I have come to believe  hope carries itself with us like a small lantern: Just enough to see the step you are on, and the next one you need to take. It turns out that kind of light can take you anywhere.
Christmas – or any holiday – does not have a meaning behind it.
Of course holidays have certain narratives behind them, but I know of no single holiday that has ever celebrated a story that wasn’t so complex it wouldn’t be summed up in a word or sentence. Nor one that has ever had just one meaning, especially one about the incarnation of God.  Tricky…
So much of what I have been writing on this season has been giftedness: how you are a gift, and the importance of welcoming the gifts of others. I hope for whatever reasons it is clear to you at least 
some of what you bring to relationships and how you contribute to the world. But of course there is other the other side of the coin. Some of us live in constant if not overwhelming fear that it is our weakness, our darkness that comes through, or is at least just below the surface. Here is why that is not a problem…
Ten years ago this year, Christmas was trying its hardest to suck. Â With one family member in jail, 
this was not going to be business as usual and so we knew there was a lot of work to do to make sure the holiday didn’t crash and burn. More importantly we had to still be attentive to what the holiday means for us as a family. Â It turned out to be one of the most memorable Christmases ever, and not in a horrible way.
Whenever I watch the little drummer boy, I don’t stand a chance. Â I’ve cried every single time I have seen it as far back into my childhood as I can remember. I tried to be strong. Â I vividly remember that awful literal lump in my throat. But at least one tear always snuck out. That is because It is an extraordinarily beautiful tale.
In contrast to American Christmas traditions, for Christians, Advent is a season of repentance, 
or paring down, making room.  It might seem like a bummer to have to dial back when all of the holiday festivities are just winding up. But there is a rhythm to this madness that has made Advent my favorite times of year and  it has a lot to do with the color pink.
Apocalypse. We live in apocalyptic times.  The earth has a fever. The hemispheres have grudges. The Hatfields are back to hating the McCoys.  Everything is “occupied.” Our rivers have dried. Our streets have flooded.  Our earth has shaken and given way. Tea parties are more likely to have guns than cucumber sandwiches and if there wasn’t already a class/holiday/drug war, we sure seem like we want there to be one.  It all seems apocalyptic and we may be right about that, but things are far from over…
