My Lenten Detour

I was considering giving up the sin of judging others for Lent...and beyond. Then I remembered I had jury duty.

I had served twice before. I knew the drill. You show up on Monday, you bring a book -- expecting lots of down time -- and you're released to go back to your own life by Wednesday afternoon. (If anyone thinks we no longer have a draft, I would argue that we do, and we call it jury duty.)

As I walked from the parking garage to the courthouse, I could easily spot my fellow jurors. I thought about how odd it is that we're plucked from our normal lives and kept in the basement of the courthouse for a few days, silently hoping that our names will be called so that we can be released from the boredom of said basement. This time would be different though. This time I would silently pray that my name would not be called.

The last time I served was 25 years ago and I sat on a jury for first-degree burglary, which meant the house was occupied when burglars broke in during the night. We came back with a guilty verdict, sending the defendant to prison. The time before that I served on a civil jury, deciding a case involving car repairs. What I remember most about that first experience as a juror was that by Tuesday afternoon when my name was finally called, I felt as though I had won a trip to Paris. Whether that was my youthful naivete or just the tedious boredom of the jury room, I don't know. I just remember that getting out of that basement felt like freedom.

As it turns out, our city has become much more violent over the last 25 years. When I read the paper looking for jury verdicts following my most recent service, I think there were three murder trails and one rape trial decided by the jury pool that I was part of. When they called panels of 38 and 45 for voir dire on Monday morning, I knew that was a bad sign. Shortly after lunch on Monday, my name was called to another panel of 45.

When we arrived in the courtroom, there was another drawing. Thirty-six of the 45 of us were called into the jury box for voir doir. We soon learned that the defendant had been charged with murder. There were a few of us who had come back with guilty verdicts in previous trials and I think most of us assumed that we would be thanked for our time and sent back to the jury room. The voir dire continued through the afternoon and into the next morning. We were sent downstairs as the attorneys made their final selection, most of us hoping not to be selected. When we were called back up, the names of the final 12 jurors and 2 alternates were read. As we neared the end, I began to breathe a sigh of relief and started to pick up my purse. Then my name was called.

I don't think there was anyone on that jury who wanted to serve on a murder trial. I know I didn't. It was surreal to find myself listening to opening arguments. But we did it, because that's what we were called to do. And it was a privilege to see the lengths that the courts and the attorneys will go to in order to ensure a fair trial. I wouldn't have thought it possible to truly presume innocence, but I learned that it is. That's something I need to apply better in my own life.

On the final day, as we entered the deliberation room, roughly half of us were either undecided or leaning not guilty. As we talked through the testimony and the sequence of events, one by one, we each joined those who were convinced of the defendant's guilt. We talked about the difference between no doubt and beyond a reasonable doubt. After several hours of deliberation we came back with a unanimous verdict of guilty.

I had prayed all week that we would come back with the right verdict. I had prayed for discernment and clarity. For each of us, I think it was something different that persuaded us of guilt. That's how God speaks to us. We each recognize something different in His voice.

Soon after the verdict was read we found ourselves surrounded by deputies. Other jurors had noticed the anger in the eyes of the defendant's family members who were seated in the gallery. We had kind of joked about wanting security as we returned to our cars (which we received), but suddenly the personal ramifications of the verdict began to feel real. It would have been so much easier on a personal level to say "not guilty". But it would have been the wrong thing to do.

As the judge spoke to us after everyone else had been released, he quoted the scripture from Matthew 7 about judging others, and assured us that we had not judged the defendant. We had judged his actions.

Our Christian walk is much like jury duty in that we follow where we're called to follow and we do what we're called to do, even when it's something we would never choose for ourselves. We know our Master's voice, and we respond to His commands. My prayer is that I'll get better (and faster) when it comes to saying, "Yes, Lord."

My first act of following His directives will be to go back to my original Lenten intention and work on that judgment thing, learning to freely apply the presumption of innocence. For I am judged as I judge others.

Until next time,
Margaret

I can do everything through him who gives me strength.

Philippians 4:13

The Grace of God

You often hear people talk about how we choose the wrong people to be our heroes, and they're right. We shouldn't make heroes out of athletes and celebrities. At the same time, we shouldn't be so quick to throw celebrities on life's trash heap.

I didn't realize how quick I am to do that very thing until last Saturday night, when I heard about the untimely passing of Whitney Houston. I always liked Whitney but I was never a huge fan. I recognized that she had been blessed with a fabulous voice, but there was a time when you could not turn the radio on without hearing one of her songs, and I thought she suffered from a bad case of over-saturation. And then there was the messy marriage, the drugs, and the occasional public embarrassment. I got tired of Whitney and her problems and I filed her under "Fallen from Grace".

I"m embarrassed to admit that. No one is ever beyond redemption in the eyes of God, and they shouldn't be in my eyes either. God looks at my messiness, my mistakes, and my crummy attitude, and still, He sees me as His beloved child. His grace is never beyond my reach. No matter how many times I rebel against Him, He welcomes me with open arms. And so He welcomed Whitney last Saturday afternoon when she slipped from this life into the next.

Judging from the hullabaloo in New Jersey over Gov. Christie's decision to fly flags at half-mast this Saturday, there must be a lot of people who dismissed Whitney because of her public failings, just as I had. I understand those who are incensed that the flags are never lowered to half-staff for the funerals of New Jersey's servicemen and women who die in the line duty. I agree that flags should be lowered to honor the true heroes of this nation whenever one is buried to remind each of us to stop for a moment in gratitude for a life lost serving our country.

But I think it's also fair to lower the flags in New Jersey for a favorite daughter who did not choose to be idolized for it's not Whitney's fault that we choose the wrong people to be our heroes. Yes, she made bad choices, and she disappointed, but who among us has never made bad choices? Who among us has never rebelled against God? Who among us has never made mistakes? When Whitney was on top of her game, New Jersey was proud to claim her. They should be no less proud now. For she is a child of God, and she is loved by the Creator of the Universe. She is a reminder that lasting redemption is possible, but we will not experience the fullness of that redemption in this life.

Long before Whitney, another musician cried out the Lord, "Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant a willing spirit, to sustain me." Even as Whitney's life sank into the abyss, I'm sure God could see the exuberant joy of a young woman who loved Him with all of her heart. That girl was still inside the middle-age woman but most of us didn't see her anymore. Then this week, we saw all of the videos once again and were reminded of what had been. None showed her optimism and enthusiasm more than Whitney singing the National Anthem at the 1991 Super Bowl.

http://youtu.be/5jeUINzHK9o

I didn't see Whitney perform that night because I was stuck on an airplane at Hobby Airport in Houston for a few hours as fog rolled in, eventually cancelling the flight. I don't remember seeing the video before this past week. As I watch it, I am filled with conflicting emotions. I'm transported back to memories of how we felt as a nation as Desert Storm began and I'm carried away by the sense of patriotism that clearly filled the stadium. I am overwhelmed by a God who would give her such a phenomenal gift and at the same time give her a mother who would see to it that she knew Him. I see Whitney's youthful exuberance and it makes me smile for just a moment before I remember the sad ending to her life, and I begin to feel tears rolling down my cheeks. And I feel shame for ever filing Whitney under "Fallen from Grace", for she has been redeemed.

Until next time,
Margaret

But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned an fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. ~ Romans 3:21-24

It's Not All About Eve

I'm tired of taking the rap for Eve. Heck, her husband - who was up to his neck in her deed - wasn't willing to take the rap for her. When God confronted Adam and Eve after they had eaten the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, Adam's response was, "The woman you put here with me -- she gave me some fruit from the tree and I ate it." Don't get me started on Adam.

Not that I think for a minute that I would have done any better than either one of them. I know better than that. It's the insinuation by some that the Fall of Man was more Eve's fault than Adam's, when I think the Bible teaches that it was the result of the predilection we all have for rebellion against God. It's the implication by too many that Adam would not have been so easily persuaded by the serpent that offends me. Even if not directly by the serpent, wasn't Adam just as easy to persuade to rebel against God as Eve was?

It's one of those things for which I intend to have a chat with Paul when we all get to heaven. Just what did he mean in I Timothy 2:14* when he wrote,  "And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner"? So what is he saying? Surely he's not implying that Adam didn't become a sinner because that wouldn't be right. Excuse me, but we don't call it the "Fall of Woman".

We each have a certain amount of cultural conditioning to overcome in our walk with Christ, and Paul surely had a boatload, what with having been a Pharisee and all. Maybe he was guilty of what we Baptists call backsliding when he wrote that verse because it doesn't seem to line up with Genesis 3. More likely, I think that he was well aware that he was writing to people who were new Christians, and who, like Paul, came from a religious background that placed emphasis on following Mosaic law. They didn't have the experience of decades of following Christ in their own spiritual walk. They didn't have the example multiple generations before them who modeled Christlike behavior. They didn't have the benefit of 2,000 years of faithful Christians who had studied the New Testament scriptures and written books and hymns about God's unfathomable grace. For that matter, beyond whatever letters each church had received and/or shared, they didn't even have a New Testament. Many of those early Christians had legalistic baggage they had not yet learned to let go of and more importantly, they lived in a culture that was immersed in that same legalistic baggage. Paul knew his audience in the early churches, and he knew the minds of those who had not yet come to Christ. I think Paul didn't want his words to become a stumbling block to a culture that had enough trouble grasping that God's grace was extended to Gentiles as well as to Jews; never mind trying to explain that God's grace covered women as well as men.

Even so, I always took the words of I Timothy 2 blaming Eve for the Fall of Man for granted because after all, Eve did take that first bite. There's no getting around that. But then I had an "aha" moment earlier this year when I was reading Genesis. I'm visual, and whenever I think of the Fall, I always picture an image of Eve talking to the serpent that came from the teacher's packet in my first grade Sunday school class. It looked something like this:

Source: Google Images

Naturally, Eve is prominent in the illustration, as is the serpent, and there's that smoking gun fruit in her hand. You'll also notice that Adam is nowhere to be found. That's why I had always pictured Adam coming home from a hard day's work tending the garden to find Eve wiping fruit juice from her lips. But in reading Genesis again this past summer, something jumped out at me that in all of my previous readings had never fully registered. Adam was with Eve when she took the bite out of the fruit. How had I missed that? Following the conversation with the serpent, Genesis 3:6-7 says,

Source: Microsoft Clip Art

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. 

Now it's not clear if Adam was around for the serpent's spiel, but it is clear from Genesis 2 that before Eve was formed, God directly told Adam not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Genesis 2:16-17 says,

And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”

So I have to wonder, what was Adam thinking when he saw Eve reach for the fruit? Was he curious, too? Had he been tempted to eat the fruit himself?  Did he fully comprehend the meaning of death? Did he think it was something from which you could recover? In that split second, did he decide to use Eve as his food taster just to see what would happen? 

If Eve's sin was the first sin of commission, Adam's was the first sin of omission. They occurred simultaneously. And if those who believe that a gender hierarchy was in place from the very beginning of Creation are correct, then it could be argued that Eve's sin was not the first -- that it was Adam's failure to stop Eve from eating the fruit that was actually the first sin.

The death that Adam and Eve experienced did not come in a physical way the day they sinned. Theirs was a slow death, one that began with expulsion from the Garden. We live in a fallen world today not just because of the failure of Adam and Eve to obey God, but because of all the ways each of us continues to rebel against Him. The Fall of Man isn't about Eve's sin. The Fall of Man(kind) is about OUR sins -- the sins of men and women, alike.

There are lots of things about scripture I don't understand but this I know: despite the fallen world in which we live, the God who forgives me my sins is not still holding Eve's sins against me. That's because my Savior paid for Eve's sins the same day He paid for mine. That's the power of Christ's sacrifice. That's the power of God's grace.

Until next time,

Margaret

This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. ~ Romans 3:22-24

*Revised when I reread this after posting and realized that on a roll, I had inexplicably typed I Peter (not once, but twice) instead of I Timothy. As the governor of my native state would say, "Oops." 

I Have Seen the Light!

As I mentioned a few posts back, I have been listening to Christmas music since Halloween because I need a couple of months to hear everything I want to hear..and I want to hear everything more than once.

Last week I realized I had not yet heard one of my favorites, I Have Seen the Light. One of the things I love about this song is that it's written for men's voices. So often it seems that men at church don't like to sing so I like the encouragement men's voices lend to the guys in the congregation. That and it has a beat a girl could dance to, and listening to it makes me smile.

I found a wonderful version on YouTube. I tried to find one from a Living Christmas Tree because my church had one for years and if you've never seen one, it's a sight to behold. There were several of those, but my favorite version didn't have a tree - it's just fabulous voices from Hunter Street Baptist Church in Hoover, Alabama. (If you look at the background, you'll even see that Baptist choir swaying to the music.) Enjoy!

http://youtu.be/BC8rzT_Fqos

Have a wonderful Christmas!

Until next time,
Margaret

“I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” ~ John 8:12 (NIV)

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Expecting the Unexpected

God doesn't color inside the lines. You know how I know that? Because He chose to use a girl to bring his plan to save the world to fruition. There was nothing about Mary's station in life to qualify her for such a position. She wasn't just a girl, she was a teenager for crying out loud. She was poor. She was betrothed, but not yet married. Her family had no influence.

Mary was the last person anyone would have expected God to use in such a miraculous fashion, yet she was an integral part of His plan. Religious leaders of the day certainly weren't looking for an unwed teenage mother to deliver the Child through whom the entire world could find deliverance. Despite the prophecies, they weren't looking for an infant in Bethlehem. Their preconceptions about who God could use led them to miss the Messiah.

There were exceptions, of course. The shepherds who were out minding their own business were easy converts when an angel showed up with a story to tell, soon accompanied by a heavenly host praising God. There were also devoted servants of God who understood the prophecies and who immediately recognized Jesus for who He was when He was just a few weeks old.

From Luke 2:25-38:

Source: Microsoft Clip Art

Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was on him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the Law required, Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying:


“Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you may now dismiss your servant in peace. For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all nations: a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel.”


The child’s father and mother marveled at what was said about him. Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.”


There was also a prophet, Anna, the daughter of Penuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, and then was a widow until she was eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying. Coming up to them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem. (NIV)


Simeon and Anna recognized God's handiwork, even when He colored outside the lines. They understood that it's not our job to tell God who He can use, or how He can act. They understood that when God says that something will happen, it will happen, even if His methods don't make sense. They understood that when it comes to God, you have to expect the unexpected...especially if He's already told you exactly what He's going to do.

Until next time,
Margaret

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel (God with us). ~ Isaiah 7:14

In the Eye of the Beholder

I have a confession. I adore Christmas sweaters.

I know, I know. Popular opinion has deemed them ugly, tacky even. I blame the GenXers and Millennials who put them in the same category as mom jeans. They'll never know how fun it was to dress as gaudy as you pleased for 3 weeks out of the year without looking like a hooker. What's next? Are they going to tell me that Santa's not real?

I'll concede that a lot of Christmas sweaters are quite ugly. As for tacky, well, I'll give you that one, too. That's precisely their appeal.

Maybe it's the same reason I'm drawn to pink flamingos (I don't own any, mind you) and pink tinsel Christmas trees. (It's just possible that I have a small pink tinsel tree. Just ignore the picture on the right.)

Until the War on Christmas Sweaters was launched, I never had a problem wearing a Christmas sweater in public. I didn't feel as bad if I hadn't put my tree up (the regular green variety) if I could personally be bedecked and bedazzled. Now if I wear a Christmas sweater, I'm afraid I look like the eccentric old aunt that no one wants to claim. Sigh.

Savannah Guthrie did a story on ugly Christmas sweaters this week and I actually own one of the sweaters she featured during a trip to a thrift store. (It's the green one that Savannah deems "pretty" in the video. I suspect that means her crazy old aunt has the same sweater.)

http://allday.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/14/9439521-anchors-don-ugly-christmas-sweaters-whose-was-the-worst

I particularly liked the one Matt Damon put on, although viewers voted it the ugliest of all in a poll, which I would like to stress was non-scientific. It was cuter on Savannah when she wore it to deliver fruitcake to Brian Williams but it really wasn't the best look for Matt. (The striped tie is the crowning touch.) Despite its ranking in the poll, I think it would make an adorable Christmas pillow. It would look so cute with the pink tinsel tree that I may or may not own.

http://allday.today.msnbc.msn.com

Since I will no longer embarrass my family by wearing them, my Christmas sweaters are all in a corner of my closet, waiting for a Tacky Christmas Sweater Party excuse to come out and see the light of day. And since everything comes back sooner or later, their day will surely come again. If not, I'll eventually become old enough and eccentric enough that my nieces and nephews will just have to deal with having an aunt who wants to look like a bloomin' Christmas tree. ;-)

Until next time,
Margaret

“The LORD does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” ~ I Samuel 16:7

Hope: To Expect With Confidence

"Hope is some extraordinary spiritual grace that God gives us to control our fears, not to oust them." ~ Vincent McNabb

Sometimes I wonder if our collective memories are all shot. We seem to have forgotten much of our (relatively) recent history.

Exhibit A:  Readers of Men's Health magazine recently voted Jennifer Aniston  "The Hottest Woman of All Time". All time??? OK, it turns out that they only included women who had been photographed, but still, it seems that Jen beat out a lot of other women from decades past. I will confess that I found a certain satisfaction on Jennifer's behalf when I saw that she had garnered the Number 1 spot while Angelina Jolie came in at Number 10. Then I realized that Madonna came in at Number 5, further evidence that I have no earthly idea what men find appealing. It's not that I begrudge Jennifer Aniston's placement at the top of the poll but I wonder if it's a sign that the men who voted have frightfully short memories...or maybe they are all just very young.

I see evidence of our short memories everywhere. I see it in the endless political polls. I see it in fashion. (Five inch heels will mess up your feet in ways you've never imagined, they're bad for your knees, and we've known these things about five inch heels for a long, long time.)

People seem to be particularly downcast these days and as the effects of the recession linger on, many seem to think things are the worst they've ever been. Christmas is just a few days away, and it seems that far too many people are filled with despair. It's more than the economy. It's the sense that we don't quite know what our place is in a rapidly changing world. There is fear for the future. There are people who are convinced that things have never been this bad when the truth is that there have been times that were far worse, and yet people got through them largely because they never quit dreaming of a brighter future. They never gave up hope.

I wonder how my paternal grandparents dealt with the worst period of their lives. Beginning shortly after Pearl Harbor, they watched as all of their sons and some sons-in-law left home to fight in World War II. They faced Christmas of 1944 with the realization that their oldest son would never come home and undoubtedly feared for the safety of their remaining sons. It was the most painful loss that any parent can experience and I'm sure they felt the full depth of that pain with every breath. If hope was gone for them that Christmas, it would return as their faith played a significant role in leading them to find hope and healing.

Source: Google Images

All four of my grandparents struggled to raise their families during the Great Depression. They went through year after year of lean times. Any gifts were modest, and each Christmas the stockings were filled with fruit and a few pecans. They felt blessed, never giving up hope that things would get better.

Their own grandparents had lived through what were truly the darkest days of our nation's history, a time when we were at war against ourselves. As I write this post, there is a Victorian loveseat just a few feet away from me that was in my great-great-grandparents' living room parlor during the Civil War. I wonder what their feelings were as they sat on that loveseat...were they filled with hope, or did they feel despair? Did they turn to God for comfort, or were they consumed by fear?

The journal of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow makes it clear that he was filled with despair during those years. Shortly after the war began, Henry lost his wife when her dress caught fire and she was soon consumed by the flames. That Christmas he wrote in his journal, "How inexpressibly sad are all holidays." The next Christmas, in 1862, he wrote, "'A merry Christmas' say the children, but that is no more for me."  There was no entry for Christmas of 1863. Not long before that Christmas, Longfellow had received the news that his eldest son had been injured in the war. Perhaps it was because Lt. Charles Longfellow survived his injuries, but by Christmas of 1864, Henry was evidently feeling more optimistic. That was they year that Longfellow wrote a poem that has become a favorite for many, Christmas Bells.  In 1872, John Baptiste Calkin set the poem to music, deleting verses specific to the Civil War. Today, we know the poem as I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.

This is the poem with all seven of the original verses. It echoes the ups and downs of Longfellow's life and his reflections on the war, ending with that glorious verse brimming over with hope.

Christmas Bells

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I heard the bells on Christmas Day

Their old familiar carols play,

And wild and sweet

The words repeat

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,

The belfries of all Christendom

Had rolled along

The unbroken song

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Till, ringing, singing on its way,

The world revolved from night to day,

A voice, a chime

A chant sublime

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Then from each black accursed mouth

The cannon thundered in the South,

And with the sound

The carols drowned

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent

The hearth-stones of a continent,

And made forlorn

The households born

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

"There is no peace on earth," I said;

"For hate is strong,

And mocks the song

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:

"God is not dead; nor doth he sleep!

The Wrong shall fail,

The Right prevail,

With peace on earth, good-will to men!

The last verse is one of my favorite verses of any hymn. "Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: 'God is not dead; nor doth he sleep!'" May those words encourage anyone who looks to the future with trepidation to remember that God is in control, and that with Him there is always hope for the future.

Until next time,
Margaret

Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified...for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. ~ Deuteronomy 31:6

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” ~ Jeremiah 29:11

It's Not the Name That Matters

Once upon a time, and not all that long ago, "the holidays" referred to the period from Thanksgiving to New Year's. It was the stuff of which movies and songs were made. We looked forward to watching "Holiday Inn" on TV and we listened to Steve and Edie sing, "Happy Holidays". We openly wished our friends, "Happy Holidays!" as often as we said, "Merry Christmas!" and we didn't feel a need to apologize for either greeting.

We all understood that for many of us, the most important holiday in the aforementioned period was Christmas but we didn't feel a need to make it an issue because we also understood that everyone was not a Christian. Then something happened. Someone decided that the word "holiday" was an assault on Christianity and they found lots of people who agreed, that yes, that's what it was...an assault on Christianity.

Last year the debate over the use of the H-word brought national attention to my hometown. It all started when one of our US Senators decided he would not ride his horse in what was formerly known as the Christmas Parade of Lights but had been renamed (a year earlier, a point he evidently failed to notice) the Holiday Parade of Lights.

The controversy that followed did not escape Jon Stewart's attention. As Stewart pointed out, Christianity survived the Roman Empire, and it will surely survive the renaming of Tulsa's parade. But goodness me. When Jon Stewart makes fun of the hullabaloo over your parade, you know things have gotten out of hand.

There was a mixed reaction to the parade controversy. There were Christians who sided with the senator, saying they were glad someone was "taking a stand". Other Christians felt that the fact there was a controversy at all over the H-word was an embarrassment.

I leaned towards the latter. I thought the Christian community looked like a petulant 2-year-old who has a toy they don't want to share. There are two problems with that. One is that Jesus does not "belong" to His followers. We belong to Him. The second problem is that we are called to tell others about Christ, and I believe that Christmas is a time when some are more open to the message of a light shining in the darkness of their lives. That message is often drowned out by Christians who are busy screaming, "Mine!" every December. There are Christians who bristle at the inclusiveness of the word "holiday" but if we're called to share Christ, doesn't He demand inclusiveness?

Source: Microsoft Clip Art

It's been 15 years or more since I've been to the parade, but I have no memory of baby Jesus being the star of the show. There were always a few church floats, business floats, school floats and bands, local TV anchors, and of course, the main attraction, Santa. But despite the parade's name and the presence of some churches, the parade was never about Jesus. The change from a daytime parade to a "Parade of Lights" came about not as a way to allow Christ's light to shine, but because the main sponsor was the local electric company. I have to think Jesus is totally cool with not being featured in a parade that's primary purpose is well, commercial.

Indeed, I think there are times when Christ would probably just as soon we left His name out of things that don't really honor Him, at all. As much as our economy is driven by consumerism, and knowing that businesses rely on Christmas shopping to make a profit, I don't think Christ feels particularly honored when we use the celebration of His birth as an excuse for extravagant giving in order to impress others. I don't think He feels glorified by Christmas parties that have nothing to do with God's love for us. I don't think He is impressed when we "stand up for Him" in a way that builds walls that prevent others from coming to Him. (While I hesitate to say how Jesus would respond to those of us who profess to follow Him but who build walls to keep others away, I suspect it would start with the phrase, "Woe to you...")

Which brings me back to the parade. This year, there will be competing parades, held on the same night and at the same time. The Holiday Parade of Lights will be held downtown, as it always has been.

There will also be a "Christmas parade", which will be held at a local shopping center. Supporters of the Christmas parade say they will attend because the parade has honored Christ in its name. However, according to the Tulsa Beacon, the location was selected "because there are almost no retail shops downtown." Really? I didn't realize retail shops were required in order to honor Christ. An organizer - who happens to be running for office - went on to say, "Our new...shopping center is becoming the more frequent first choice for shoppers. We have chosen this location for our first (hopefully of many) annual Christmas parade." Is it me, or does this parade seem to be about retail businesses? There's nothing wrong with a parade being centered around shopping, that's how our downtown parade began back when most stores were located downtown. But don't pretend it's something spiritual when clearly, it's not.

As He prayed at Gethsemane in His final hours, Christ prayed for future believers who would  come to Him through the message of those who already believed. He prayed for us in those early morning hours as He waited for the soldiers who would lead him to the Cross. Christ prayed that we would hear His message and come to know the grace of God. Now it's our turn to spread the message, and that message is one of love and grace. Is that the message we're sending?

May you experience the love of Christ throughout this holiday season.

Until next time,
Margaret

My prayers is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one -- I in them and you in me -- so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. 
~ John 17:20-23

Angels and Men Rejoice!

My maternal grandparents were extremely legalistic about the Christmas season. It lasted exactly one week. They never put the tree up before Christmas Eve and it absolutely had to come down on New Year's Eve. I always wondered if they had any idea how much joy they missed by limiting Christmas to such a narrow window of time.

Maybe that's why I start listening to Christmas music around Halloween, something for which I refuse to apologize. What baffles me is why it disturbs so many people. A couple of weeks ago I heard someone at the mall complaining about the Christmas music. "It's too soon," she said. "I'm already sick of it." Sick of Christmas music? In my mind, that just doesn't compute.

It seems to me that despite all of the options available, most of us tend to listen to one or two specific genres of music. Our preferences might be country, jazz, songs from our youth, or current hits, but we still listen to basically the same songs over and over and over again throughout the year. But there are a lot of people who want to restrict Christmas carols to a period of about four weeks. They have no idea how many different songs I want to hear more than once...it can't be done in four weeks.

I'm not talking about Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer here. Heavens, no. If I hear that once a season, it's one time too many. I'm talking about songs that herald the joy of Christmas.

It can be Bing Crosby and Davie Bowie singing Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy or a choir singing Joy to the World. It can be a contemporary artist or it can be Rosemary Clooney. It can be be secular...I love John Lennon's Happy Christmas (War is Over) and the hope it represents. It can be the ancient sound of O Come, O Come Emmanuel, the familiar strains of For Unto Us a Child is Born, or the more recent Breath of Heaven. All of these songs remind me of a season that represents the full depth of God's love for us, that He would send His only Son to live among us and to be a living sacrifice for us.

When you think how long the world waited for the Messiah, is it really too much to spend a couple of months a year anticipating His arrival all over again through music? Is it ever wrong to rejoice over the reality of Emmanuel...God with us? Is it ever too soon to sing, "O come, let us adore Him?"

One of my favorite Christmas songs is a newer song, All Is Well, by Wayne Kirkpatrick with music by Michael W. Smith. I love the music, and I love the words. You can listen to it on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAyplzXmjVE

How early do you start listening to Christmas music? What are your favorite Christmas songs?

Until next time,
Margaret

For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given,

and the government will be on his shoulders.

And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God

Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Isaiah 9:6

  

Change, One Step at a Time

I've been thinking about the part of my childhood spent in Mississippi over the last several months. It was over 40 years ago, but it many ways, it seems like yesterday. "The Help" brought back many of the memories -- a combination of fond memories specific to Jackson, and others that reflected the ugly face of racism that could be found anywhere.

I once read a book about generational differences. The author maintained that much of how we view the world as adults is shaped by the events that took place when we were 10. I think there is some truth in that. I'm not the person I would have been if my family had stayed in Oklahoma instead of moving to Jackson in 1968 because the short time we lived in the deep South changed me forever, just as that period began to change the South itself.

Source: Google Images

The year I was 10 was the year that Jackson's public schools were closed for two weeks in January for reorganization. When the schools reopened at the end of the two weeks, they were no longer segregated...for the most part. My school was the exception with no black students that year, but we did have black teachers for the first time. At that point, we had lived in Jackson almost 18 months, and most of that time had been permeated with talk about whether or not Jackson could avoid integrating the schools. Most of the talk was awful, and it was hard to escape, even at church.

It's difficult to believe now, but for people who had grown up under segregation, it seemed normal. Many believed segregation was ordained by God. They looked to scripture in Joshua where God instructed the Israelites not to mix with the Canaanites. They referenced New Testament scriptures that talked about keeping light separate from darkness, and they genuinely believed that meant that God intended for all races to be separate, and for all time. In that atmosphere, it wasn't surprising when my Sunday school teacher and my missions leader -- both public schoolteachers -- asked us to pray that they would not be taken from their white schools to teach black children. Not surprising, perhaps, but I couldn't help but wonder how "love your neighbor" fit into the way my teachers at church saw the world.

When the community finally realized that they could no longer ignore a ruling from the Supreme Court, panicked families began searching for ways to start their own schools, just about anywhere. They started them in their homes, in abandoned buildings, and in churches. When our church held a meeting to discuss the possibility of joining the white flight movement by starting a school within the church, my dad was one of the members who spoke out forcefully against the proposal. Thankfully, the idea of a school failed.

I was blessed with parents who managed to set aside their own upbringings and who taught me that racism was wrong. When neighbors and friends abandoned the public schools, my parents held firm. We would not give in to white flight. When my dad's company picnic was held at a state park outside of Jackson and our group -- made up of white and black families -- was threatened with violence, my dad and the other company managers were forced to make the decision to leave peaceably rather than risk harm to their families. My parents used the incident as an opportunity to teach me about the ugliness of racism.

I knew that although my parents taught me the right thing, they struggled with racism themselves, as I sometimes find myself struggling with it. Each generation comes further than the one before, and while my generation didn't defeat racism, the role we played on the front lines of desegregation made it easier for the generations after us.

In recent years, I have heard my peers in Oklahoma say things like, "Busing didn't change anything." Whenever I hear someone say that, I look them in the eye and say, "I disagree. Desegregation changed everything." I remind them that we were born into a world with separate restrooms, separate water fountains, and separate sections in movie theaters. There were restaurants where blacks could not be served, parts of cities they could not enter. There were people who were murdered for no other reason than someone didn't like the color of their skin.

While the Civil Rights Act changed laws, it was integrating the schools that led to changed hearts because it allowed opportunities for interaction that otherwise never could have happened. And it was changed hearts -- much more so than changed laws -- that led to changed behavior. Today, I'm praying that God continues to change my heart where He sees I need to change.

Until next time,
Margaret

"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." ~ Matthew 22:36-40 (NIV)

Shake, Rattle, and Roll

Two weeks ago this Saturday night, I was starting to doze off when it sounded like a semi had pulled up outside my window. Then, just as I was beginning to process what I thought was the sound of thunder in the distance, I realized my bed was shaking. And it wan't just my bed. The walls were shaking, and it seemed as though I could hear the sound of everything - and I mean everything - in my house shaking. The pictures on the walls made noise, my closet doors rattled, and it sounded like bee bee pellets were rolling across the attic.One of my cats, who had been sleeping next to me on the bed, took off for the stairs as my other cat came out from under the bed and followed in hot pursuit.

And I just lay there thinking, "So this is what an earthquake feels like." Well, that was my first thought. My second was, "We don't have earthquakes like this in Oklahoma."

Apparently, we do now.

It turned out it was a 5.6, and while there was some damage near the epicenter -- which was about 60 miles away -- it didn't do much more than rattle people (pardon the pun) around here. There had been a foreshock much earlier in the day, while most of us were asleep. A number of people I know felt some shaking during the night, and I was a little disappointed that I had slept though it. That was before we knew it was a foreshock -- I didn't even realize there was such a thing. (Blogger's spell-check doesn't know there's such a thing either.)

By Monday, as tornado warnings were in effect over parts of Oklahoma which we're accustomed to -- but not so much in November -- the joke was that we still had a few weeks left in hurricane season. Could a hurricane be next?

Not a normal Oklahoma snow!

It's been that kind of year. We had snow in February that would rival snowstorms in Chicago. As a matter of fact, the same storm hit Chicago later in the week. It actually paralyzed snow-savvy Chicago, although not nearly as long as it paralyzed us. By the following week, with close to two feet of snow on the ground, we had temperatures that would rival those in International Falls, Minnesota. Thanks to the heat island, Tulsa only got down to about 13 below at its coldest, but outlying areas were 20-30 degrees below zero.

That's not anywhere close to a normal Oklahoma winter, and I knew that did not bode well for the coming summer. Sure enough, July and August brought temperatures that would rival those in Death Valley. My sister pointed out to me long ago that whenever we have extremely hot summers, they are either preceded or followed by extremely cold winters...and vice versa. I pulled my phone out and called her at her home in Minnesota one afternoon in August when I got into my car and the thermometer read 125 degrees. It was a rare summer in that it seemed few people had tans because no one wanted to spend time in the sun, and even a fake tan was too. much. trouble. Area lakes brought no comfort because the heat and the drought (oh, yeah, we're still in the midst of a drought) combined to cause algae to grow on at least 3 of the nearby lakes. Yuck.

While we have the occasional colder-than-normal winter, the occasional hotter-than-usual summer, and even the occasional drought, this year's extremes exceeded anything I've ever experienced in Oklahoma. While we have the occasional record-breaking snowfall, this year's snow totals broke records for the entire season. It was particularly jarring in that most of it came over a 10-day period. And while we're used to tornadoes and the uncertainty they bring to our lives, we were stunned when a large portion of Joplin was destroyed just across the state line on Mothers Day.

But the earthquake was different. While a 5.6 is big for Oklahoma - the biggest ever recorded in the state - it doesn't compare to earthquakes in California, or Japan, or Turkey, or Chili, or any of the other places that have experienced much larger earthquakes. It didn't kill anyone, or cause anything more than minor injuries. It damaged some homes and buildings, but it didn't destroy large portions of cities, or take out entire neighborhoods. It was different largely because it wasn't something we're used to dealing with. There was an aftershock a couple of nights later that was the same magnitude as the foreshock, a 4.7, but it came early enough in the evening that most of us felt it. It wasn't as loud, and it didn't last long, but it sure got our attention.

As the ground stopped shaking and as I realized my second experience with an earthquake was over, I thought about how God sometimes reaches into our lives and shakes things up to get our attention. And while that can be a little scary, it can also be exciting...like an earthquake.

I just hope he doesn't have a 6.0 up his sleeve. ;-)

Until next time,
Margaret

"I will shake all nations, and the desired of all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory," says the Lord Almighty. ~ Haggai 2:7

Today, We Remember...