Some Early Christmas Cheer (or whatever)

My relationship with Santa has been a bit like riding a Christmas roller coaster over the years. There has been twists and turns, hills and valleys, and times when we have just been plugging along as calm as could be, content with our relationship, only to hit a surprise curve or sudden plunge. The roller coaster has more or less settled into a nice, gentle, “It’s a Small World” type of ride in recent years, though with the relatively recent addition of a child to the family I anticipate some bumps and curves ahead.

When I was very little I was, as most kids are, quite fine with Santa. I think I even wrote him a letter or two back in the day. I honestly don’t remember a time when I really believed in Santa, though my parents would insist otherwise (I DO remember a time when I used to humor them about my belief in Santa though). While we weren’t exactly tight, Santa and I had a good, working relationship ion my childhood.

But then I started to grow up. Santa and I gradually became more and more cold toward one another as I didn’t like the way he was infringing on Jesus’ big day. Along around college time I came up with and admittedly mean, albeit I think funny, nick name for the big guy: Satan Clause. The right jolly old elf wasn’t laughing about that one. Besides, the guy was starting to creep me out. “He sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake,” that just screams dirty old man to me. “He knows if you’ve been bad or good SO BE GOOD FOR GOODNESS SAKE!” Scary and threatening I say. It was about that time that I saw a clever little display protesting the commercialism of Christmas:

Ha. Still makes me laugh a bit. But seriously, we are kidding ourselves if we think that Jesus is the reason for the season. These days, your credit card is the reason for the season. But back in the day Jesus wasn’t the reason either-Mithras was. Mithras is a nasty little pagan bull-god whose birthday happens to be on December 25th, and he knew how to throw a good party. So good, that all the newly converted Catholics still wanted to party so the Pope let them, just so long as the celebrated Jesus’ b-day instead.

All this had made me rather cynical toward St, Nick and the phallic symbol we put in our living rooms every December and the holiday as a whole, but then…..I met the man. I met Santa at a Muslim Christmas party; I know, shouldn’t really go together, right? But that’s what it was. A big group of Muslim refugees coming into a church (or more accurately a warehouse with a cross and some ugly Awana banners used as a church) to have a Christmas party, complete with three well adorned phallic symbols and a Santa. The children sat on Santa’s lap, told him their hopes, their favorite school subject, that sort of thing. Then they got a present and very often a hug. There were a few teenage girls who sat with Santa, giggling incessantly the whole time and getting their pictures taken. I saw a community of people who are often lacking in good things come together to receive joy and fellowship from each other and love from the church (the church!). I saw little kids get an extra hug and some extra attention from a caring adult and I got to be part of an event that truly helped people move closer to the love and grace of Christ. Santa wasn’t hindering, he was helping, and at least on this day Jesus was the reason for the season. I gave in:

Oh Santa, you done good. So, what will I tell my daughter about Santa Clause when she gets old enough to ask? And how will I explain the Jesus connection? I really love that little book “Yes Virginia, There is a Santa Clause” and of course the letter to the little girl that is the heart of the book. I’m not going to try to pretend that the man actually exists because, well, that’s weird. But, lest I be “affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age” (from the letter) I will gladly embrace Santa from now on.

What about Jesus? Well, to be perfectly frank, it’s not his birthday and I don’t intend to ever pretend that it is. But what I can do is celebrate the miracle of God himself becoming incarnate to establish a new covenant of grace. I can celebrate the miracle of God keeping the lamp burning for eight days so the temple could be purified when there was only enough oil for one day, I can celebrate the miracle of Nicholas of Myra, a man devoted to his faith in God who consistently displayed both courage and generosity. I can celebrate the miracle of a little girl who tried to be born too early but managed to stay put until nearly her due date. I can celebrate miracles, period.

Santa and I still have a little ways to go in working out our relationship, but I think in the end we’ll be ok-as long as he doesn’t spend too much time at the mall or doing commercials.

Still Got It

In my email: "Hey there, i was just reading your profile i would love to chat with you hit me up on msn my messanger ID is sexygirlluvscam@hotmail.com"

What really amuses me is that her/his/its email could be read as "sexy girl luvs cam," which, call me cynical, is just dirty, or you can read it as "sexy girl luv scam," which is refreshingly truthful.

AWSOME

Scanning the Want Ads

I was just looking at some youth ministry positions because, well, I don't know why anymore. Anyway, I found some things I thought were interesting:

LIAR:
“We desire a relationally strong shepherd who loves students, families and leaders and wants to be part of a great team!”

Forgot to say that he needs to be young, have a wife that plays piano, enjoy basketball and football, know how to play silly games, and say “dude”

TOO MUCH:
“The successful candidate will have a college degree, preferably in Christian Education, Elementary or Early Childhood Education, a minimum of 5 years experience leading a children's ministry program, proven knowledge of curriculum methods and an impressive track record leading, recruiting, organizing and training multiple lay leadership teams.”

I’m wondering, all this for a part time position with almost no pay? Why would someone with all that experience be looking for such a position? Makes me nervous.

NOT ENOUGH:
“tolerance for kids and their parents”

Ha.

AMUSING:
“Title: Pastor or Director of Children’s Ministries. *Position title will be determined based upon experience, education and other demonstrated qualifications.”

Which one is holier? The pastor or the director?

UNDEFINABLE:
“Demonstrate the character traits of Jesus Christ”

Is your Jesus a Republican? A feminist? A Lutheran?

WOW:
“We invite all qualified male candidates from North America to apply”

No Africans allowed.

ANNOYING:
“Musical ability helpful”

Why?! Why must all associate positions include this in their qualifications?

CONTRADICTORY:
“Able to follow instructions of Pastor/Elders, Authentic/Real lifestyle”

What happens when I authentically disagree with the elders? Do you really want a Pastorbot?

Getting the Gays

The question of the validity of gay marriage has become one of the defining political questions of this generation, in the same manner that segregation was a defining political question in the generation previous. The question of a constitutional amendment on the federal level declaring marriage to be between only a man and a woman still lingers, while on a state level the question has already been answered in several places, including Oregon and California. In 2000 California voters banned gay marriage, a ban that was overturned by the California Supreme Court. A few days ago Californians voted on it again and again banned gay marriage, sparking several protests, particularly in front of LDS (Mormon) churches for their very public support of the ban. I think, based on what I have seen in the current youth culture, bans such as this will be relatively short lived. The emerging culture is self-defined as progressive, tolerant, and open-minded, and they will not tolerate what they perceive to be discrimination-and I think they’re right-mostly.

Let me say this, just to get it on the table: I oppose gay marriage. But I also oppose banning it. "‘People believe in the institution of marriage,’ Frank Schubert, co-manager of the Yes on 8 campaign said. ‘It's one institution that crosses ethnic divides, that crosses partisan divides. ... People have stood up because they care about marriage and they care a great deal’" (from Fox News). If we care about marriage, than we need to be supporting it in a way that will really matter as opposed to the nominal support offered by political referendums. The institution of marriage belongs to the church, not the government; no matter how right or just or popular a law is, it will never be capable of sanctifying anything. As one who is attempting to live life in the way of Jesus, I oppose gay marriage and I would never perform a wedding for a gay couple, regardless of whether the law instructed me to do so or forbade me from doing so, it is a mute point.

Having said that, it IS the government’s job to ensure that all citizens, regardless of race, religion, or sexual orientation receive equal rights under the law. This includes essentially benign issues like filing a joint tax return to much more profound, impactful issues such as who has the right to make decisions when their partner cannot make the decisions for themselves. This is what civil unions are for, to establish equal protections under the law for committed couples. To those who would support a ban on gay marriage on religious grounds I would make three points:

1) God already bans it, so what’s the point of putting into secular law? Homosexuality is one of a myriad of issues where my faith speaks but the government is (or should be), rightfully, silent.

2) In getting a government ban on ghay marriage, have you done for the gay/lesbian individual to lead him or her closer to Christ? Do you think that by banning a legal recognition of their partnership they will suddenly repent and come to Christ? If the answer to these questions was no, then what was the point?

3) What possible good are you doing for the Kingdom of God as a whole by getting your state to ban gay marriage? It is trivial, because it is temporal. Collecting signatures, going to the voting booth, holding picket signs, all these things are really rather easy to do, and as is most often the case with things that are easy to do it is also rather meaningless. If we want to support the institution of marriage and make an impact for the Kingdom then we need to do the hard work of building the church up, not the easy and pointless work of tearing outsiders down. Provide premarital/marriage counseling and workshops, mentor engaged couples and young people, provide a safe, non-judgmental, grace filled atmosphere for all people to come to know the love of Christ. Earn the right to speak truth by doing the work of love.

Please, comment.

Show Me the Money

I received a phone call last night from a former professor of mine from my wild and crazy Bible college days (they really were fairly wild a crazy-but that’s a different story). I wasn’t able to get to the phone in time, but he left me a message. He said that he just wanted to check-in and see how I was doing and ask about any prayer requests that I might have that he and the alumni association could pray about. It was nice, considering my not so tight relationship with the alumni association.

Shortly after graduating from Bible college I received a nice letter from the association, which said two things: 1) Congratulations of graduating, and 2) Please send in your dues right away. Now, I’m not sure if that’s how it was supposed to work, or if all alumni associations do business this way, but I couldn’t help but notice that there was never any invitation to join. I remember being so caught off guard by the tone of the dues request (there was a definite sense of “you owe us this money”) that I even looked through past mail and asked around to see if I or anyone else had been asked to join, or if they had simply been asked to pay up. I think it wouldn’t have been such a big deal had we (me and my small merry band) ever been invited to join anything at the school. As I neared the end of my time there I met with the academic dean who commented, rightly, that we had always been a bit of a separate group. I told him, “At the risk of sounding juvenile, they started it.” You see, before being invited to join, we were told to conform, but my long haired, New Living Translation loving self couldn’t do it. (I realize there is probably more than one side to this, but it’s my blog so it’s my side).

I never did send in any dues, and after several attempts they stopped asking. I check-up on the college from time to time, but we never really hear any news from them, I don’t know if all the good dues payers hear more information than us. I have always been a little sad that I didn’t have a closer relationship with the school (though in saying that I’m not sure how a human and a school have a relationship, but I think they can), so it was nice to hear from them the other day.

The problem is, he kept talking. “We’d like to hear any prayer requests you might have, and don’t forget that we still need help finishing the new men’s dorm! You can send……” Thanks for the call, guys.

Evil Bastards and Pagans

Two blogs for the price of one. Lucky you.

Evil Bastards:

We received a political mailing the other day that invited us to “look into the mind of so and so.” I didn’t read it, the cover was enough for me. Under the guises of this somewhat benign title was a picture of the candidate whose mind I was supposed to look into, except that half of his picture was gone, replaced with a skeleton. Clever. Look into his mind, ha. I get it. CLEARLY the image was NOT meant to invoke the idea of peering into this candidates thought process but was, rather, intended to portray him in an ugly, scary, evil way and hopefully plant that image in my head when I think of him. This candidate was of course not the only victim of such caricature nor was the political party behind the ad the sole perpetrator of such things. Watch the political commercials with a discerning eye (it doesn’t actually have to be THAT discerning) and you will see that the images of the opponent are always the worst ones possible and the sound bytes are always taken out of context. Even the music used is chosen for the purposes of creating either a feeling of dread or joviality. Can you imagine if the politicians we send to Washington (or Salem) really were the evil bastards like their opponents tout? (Yeah, some are). If we really were to believe everything they say, and everything we act like we believe when talking about the “other side” then we really have to admire the separatists in hills of Idaho and Utah.

Pagans:

Pagans aren’t evil bastards, they’re just pagans. But that’s not the point.

Once upon a time, a long time ago, for an extremely brief moment, I debated internally whether or not I would one day allow my child to participate in the festivities of Halloween via trick or treating and jack o’ lanterns and so on. I debated it, because at the time I was part of a very conservative, and frankly rather legalistic church where that’s ort of thing simply wasn’t done. The rationale behind this is that Halloween is or at the very least is based on a pagan holiday where demons or dead people (or sometimes both) are invoked and worshipped and Satanists really like that day. Well, there is a bit of truth to it. There are some pagan belief practices that honor October 31st as a holiday, as do bona fide Satanists. However, they do not celebrate Halloween (unless they do it with their kids after worship). Halloween, as we know it today, is entirely a kid’s holiday. I will grant that October 31st is a pagan holiday, with some similarities, but what is practiced as worship is not nor has it ever been Halloween; that some people have some peculiar beliefs about pumpkins should not stop the rest of us from carving funny faces into them.

Another problem I have with the “Halloween is pagan” argument is that most of those who make that argument celebrate other pagan holidays too, either out of ignorance or because over the years we have cleaned it up enough for it to be palatable to them. The prime example of this is Christmas. Now hear this: Jesus was absolutely NOT born on December 25th, or any time close to that. Jesus, in other words, is not the reason for the season, Mithras is. The followers of Mithras celebrated his birthday on December 25th (they even called it Mithmas—seriously) and when the Roman empire became Christian the church had to decide what to do with all these feisty former pagans who wanted to party so they declared that everyone would celebrate the birth of Jesus instead of Mithras. We even celebrate with fertility (phallic?) symbols in our living rooms every year! Is this not pagan?! Now there are those who don’t celebrate either Halloween or Christmas, and are not Jehovah Witness’s, and I respect that (though you need to party sometime, right?). But seriously, if we are going to sit around our phallic symbols every winter and open our celebrations of greed, can we not take our little ones out for a bit of candy?

India dressed as a little kitty, by the way. SO CUTE.