Twas the night before Christmas

Twas the night before Christmas…

…and nothing happened, at least not much out of the ordinary.

The inn in tiny little Bethlehem had no vacancies, and people without a place to stay were surely aggravated with the inn keeper. Nothing unusual about that. Other citizens were likely agitated with all the extra traffic, all those people rushing back to their place of birth to register for the census. Impatience would be the expected, normal behavior in those circumstances. And Roman soldiers in Bethlehem, like ones in thousands of places across the empire, probably griped about being stationed in a backwoods, hick town. It was business as usual in the overcrowded, little town of Bethlehem.

Unlike the Santa who arrived with such a clatter that he awoke the father in Charles Moore’s poem, Jesus’ arrival was quiet, except perhaps for his and his mother’s cries at childbirth. The two unusual, indeed miraculous events surrounding his birth that did occur happened to unlikely people in out of the way places: the angels’ appearance to shepherds in the field outside Bethlehem and the star to the Magi somewhere in the east.  

No trumpets announced his birth. No one was forced to bow to the baby king. No words of allegiance to him and his kingdom were recited.

I think Jesus intended it that way.

It’s just like him.

He doesn't intrude into people’s lives.

Think about the people who missed the first Christmas: The innkeeper, hustling to make sure he had every room occupied and paid for, missed Jesus; the religious leaders, who had been waiting for the Messiah, searching their Scriptures for clues of his arrival, got so caught up in their religious activity that they missed him when he finally came; the Romans missed him too, for they were too preoccupied with their own pantheon of gods. 

It’s easy to miss God when he shows up in the flesh, smelling like a baby.

He did come to us that first time, and when he returns, the Scriptures say his presence will be undeniable.

But what about now, this Christmas? Most people will miss him just as they did the first Christmas.

Instead of staying in the five-star hotel, like we might think, he sleeps under the stars; we expect to find him swaggering down the aisle of the largest church in town, and instead he quietly worships in the shadows; we suppose he will march on Washington, making a powerful statement that he is the man in charge now, but instead he sits down in a park, lets the children crawl all over him, then  shares a meal with the homeless while telling them about life in a different kind of  Kingdom.

It’s easy to miss Jesus, not because he doesn't want us to find him. We miss him because we pass by him on the way to someone or someplace else that’s more important to us than he is, for we mistakenly think we aren't that important to him.

I read about a church in Baltimore that years ago found something amazing right there in the wall of their church, something everyone had overlooked. It had been “hiding” from them for more than 25 years. Someone finally recognized a piece of art for what it truly was: a valuable woodblock print by Albrecht Durer, dated 1493. It depicted The Annunciation, the scene where the angel Gabriel told Mary she would give birth to God’s Son. Many of the church members had a difficult time believing it was a genuine masterpiece, for after all, they reasoned, “Why would something that valuable be in a place like this?”

We ask the same question today.

And so we walk on by Jesus, for surely he wouldn't be here in this ordinary place where plain people like us live, surrounded by the dull, drab walls that encase our dull, drab lives. 

But his Presence, his Spirit, is here, because we are that valuable to him. And so he watches us, waiting for us to recognize him for the Person he really is, so we can know and be the people we really are.

He looks for us to look for him.

He intended it that way.

The Blessing of the Hands

“I don’t think he’s going to make it through the ceremony,” my daughter Madi predicted of her two year old son, Eli.  We were standing in the foyer of Ransdell Chapel for Madi’s Pinning Ceremony. She was graduating from Campbellsville University’s School of Nursing.

I was already proud of Madi and wanted to be there for this special moment but found myself dreading the ceremony itself. All I knew about the Pinning Ceremony was that it was supposed to last about two hours. Not knowing what to expect, and imagining speaker after speaker droning on and on about Lord knows what, I had brought a book as a diversion.

I would never open the book.

First Eli’s daddy, John, and then Eli’s Gigi---my wife, Lori--- tried keeping him calm. But every time the little guy would see Madi on the stage, he would cry out, “Momma, I wanna go see Momma.”

Here I saw an opportunity to exit the ceremony. All I wanted, after all, was to see was the part where my daughter received her pin.

“Come on, let Pop Pop take you,” I said as I lifted Eli.

“Don’t let me miss the actual Pining Ceremony,” I whispered as I tiptoed toward the exit with Eli in my arms.

The cool night air was refreshing, and soon Eli and I had found cupcakes in the University’s Student Center. Eli was on a sugar high, and I was congratulating myself for my adroit escape from the preliminaries to the Pinning Ceremony when John text messaged me: “We are getting ready to pin.”

“Drats,” I said as I hurriedly wiped the icing from Eli’s smiling face. “We've got to hustle back over there, boy.”

“Getting ready,” is a relative term when they pin the graduates in alphabetical order, and since Madi Walls is a “W,” we had to keep Eli occupied from A-V. 

As Lori placed the pin on Madi’s collar, I whispered, “We’re proud of you.”  

Then Eli reached out to Madi as John held him: “Momma,” he cried as we stepped down from the stage.

I heard a collective, ‘”Ahh,” from the audience.

Breathing a sigh of relief, I thought we were done.

And then something happened that drew me back in.

“The graduates will now participate in the “Blessing of the Hands Ceremony,” I heard the Dean of the School of Nursing announce.

“Hmm,” I thought, “what’s this?”

Then the Reverend Dr. James Jones took each nurse by the hand, rubbed oil onto their hands, and blessed them.

Since Campbellsville University is a private Christian based institution, I thought this ceremony was unique to this particular school.  But the Blessing of the Hands is a tradition in nursing practiced worldwide by a variety of institutions.  It’s been a part of nursing graduation ceremonies since the time of 19^th century nurse, Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing.

“Blessing of the Hands,” I whispered aloud to myself as I watched the nurses file by Dr. Jones, holding out their hands for him to bless.

I thought of the people these nurses’ hands would bless across the years: touching babies at the beginning of life, soothing people in the throes of pain at other times, and closing the eyes of the deceased at the end of life.

And suddenly being wrapped up in that moment, I didn't care how long the ceremony lasted.

For in their blessing, I had been blessed, blessed with a glimpse of what already is and will continue to be in a future place and time where blessed hands reach out to touch others, giving people hope, perhaps, even healing them, and helping---at least a little---to mend this broken world.

A Simple but Life Changing Way to Get Ready for Christmas

The Bluegrass Country around Lexington, KY., not far from where I live in Lebanon, KY., is home to some of the finest racehorses. It’s exciting to watch the horses bolt from the starting gate as the sound of their hooves thunders across the track.

That’s the picture I have of so many people at the start of Christmas season. Facing a flurry of activities on the way to what appears to be the finish line on December 25, they race until they practically fall flat, exhausted from trying to live up to the demands of the season.

I don’t think it is meant to be that way, do you?

We may not be able to change the consumer driven culture that seems intent on spurring us into a hyperventilating gallop during this time of year, but we can face it with a sense of peace. Instead of racing like a horse, try distancing yourself from the track and maintaining a larger, spiritual perspective. After all, it is Christmas.

It’s the season of Advent. The word means “coming” or “arrival.” Christians look back and celebrate the incarnation of Christ as he came to us the first time even as they look forward to his second coming. We live in this “in between” time. As Bernard of Clairvaux said: “In his first coming our Lord came in our flesh and in our weakness; in this middle coming he comes in spirit and in power; in the final coming he will be seen in glory and majesty.”

What can we do to experience more of him during this “in between” time? Let me suggest something very simple yet something so dynamic it will change your life: Begin and end your day with some quiet time, allowing yourself a moment to repose and reflect as you give your spirit some growing space.

It’s as simple as that. I find that too many people get so caught up with their “to do” list that they leave out the most important “do,” spending time alone with the Lord.

I've learned by hard experience that if I leave out this time, my attitude takes on more of the world and less of the Lord. I tend to forget whose I am, and if I keep on neglecting time with him, I lose the spiritual perspective so necessary to keep on course. I race around and around the track, accomplishing little of true significance, reaping mainly frustration and exhaustion.

During Advent, Lori and I have been starting the day with prayer and meditation.  Then we read the Scriptures for Advent found in The Book of Common Prayer. There are passages there for morning and evening. We talk briefly about them, share readings from several devotional books, and then conclude with prayer.

Christmas can be a challenging time for all of us, especially those who have suffered loss and are lonely. Beginning the day with solitude can help alleviate feelings of despair, keeping us in touch with an eternal source of comfort, reminding us that though we may experience loneliness, we are not abandoned: The one whose birthday we celebrate this season does care.

How we begin the day helps set our attitude for the rest of the day. Jacquelyn Smith (businessinsider.com) observes that successful people have a habit of starting their day in certain ways: They reflect, building in quiet time and solitude first thing the morning, pausing to be present before tackling the workday.

Successful people have also incorporated the routine of smiling and laughing at the beginning of the day.

And they begin the day with gratitude. "A great way that successful people start their day is to identify something they're grateful for,” notes Lynn Taylor, national work place expert. “It’s motivational and reminds them to put small things in perspective.”

I begin the day using one of Zen Master, Thich Nhat Hanh’s mantras: “Waking up this morning, I smile. Twenty-four brand new hours are before me. I vow to live fully in each moment and to look at all beings with eyes of compassion.”

The point is, find something---a book of Scripture readings, devotional material, perhaps uplifting music---that you can use at the day’s beginning and end, for how we conclude the day prepares us for the next morning.

Then you will arrive at Christmas not like a spent race horse but like the people Isaiah describes in the Scripture, the ones who trust in the Lord, the ones who “soar high on wings like eagles,” the ones who run and do not grow weary, who walk and do not faint. (Isaiah 40:31)

Who's the party for?

It was our first foray into Christmas shopping, 2014, the day after Black Friday.

I meandered aimlessly through the department store, my wife’s words echoing in my ears: “We’ll just stop for a few things after we take Mary to the airport. At least we’ll get some Christmas shopping started. Don’t worry. I want to get back early too.”

That was an hour a half ago, a passing moment for a shopper; an eternity for me.

The truth is, she is a conflicted shopper: She loves to shop but doesn't like to have to shop.

So much of Christmas is “have to” shopping.

The right gifts have to go to the right person at the right time at the right party.

As we placed the packages in the car and started the trek home, she posed the question: “Isn't it crazy that we celebrate Jesus’ birth by spending money on gifts that have nothing to do with him?”

It was a fair enough question for me, her preacher husband.

“I guess I’m supposed to have the answer,” I thought to myself, picturing frenzied shoppers fighting over the best buys in contrast to the itinerant ministry of Jesus of Nazareth who said of himself, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but he Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”

By “we,” my wife didn't exactly mean just her and me. The average American will spend over $700 on Christmas gifts this year. It’s easily the biggest shopping holiday in the United States.

Although shopping on Black Friday was down from last year, that doesn't mean consumers are spending less. They have more of a choice of when and where to make purchases. That’s partially because more and more shopping is done online.  And the buyer doesn't necessarily have to purchase on Black Friday or Cyber Monday to find a deal. Thus, according to The Economist, the U.S. is expected to spend the second most in the world on Christmas gifts this year, behind only Luxembourg.

Does that mean all that spending is done in honor of the one for whom the holiday is named?

I can hear you chuckling.

The fact is, we don’t know the date on which Jesus of Nazareth was born. If he mentioned his birth date to his disciples, it apparently wasn't important enough for any of them to record it in their accounts of his life and ministry. Maybe that’s because they knew what would happen: Eventually we would establish a festival in his honor, exchange gifts to commemorate it, overspend on ourselves and others, and soon forget what the party was for, all the while engaging in activities counter to his lifestyle and teachings.  

“We should blame it on Mithra,” I said in answer to my wife’s question.

“Who?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Mithra, a god that can be traced back to ancient Persia.  Worshiping him became popular in the Roman Empire a couple of centuries after Christ.”

I tried to remember the details.

The god Mithra was supposedly born on December 25, and the Romans more or less absorbed Mithra into their celebration of Saturn, called the Saturnalia festival, which culminated on Mithra’s birthday on December 25^th. Part of the Saturnalia festival involved the exchanging of gifts, singing, evergreen (the priests of Saturn carried evergreen boughs) and partying (often excessive partying). Unable to stamp out the pagan features of this festival, the Roman Church decided to try and spiritualize it with the Feast of the Nativity of the Sun of Righteousness. It probably wasn't until the Emperor Constantine in 336 A.D. that this pagan festival was converted into a Christian holiday with the December 25th birth date for Jesus eventually replacing Mithra’s.

“So Constantine was really the culprit.” I concluded. “He switched the birth date tags from Mithra to Jesus, and here we are.”

“Sure, Constantine is to blame,” I mumbled to myself as I unloaded the extra evergreen from the car and peeked to see which packages might have been purchased for me.

Come back for Thanksgiving

Do you know the story of Jesus’ encounter with the ten lepers? Because leprosy was contagious, people who had this potentially deadly disease were required to stay away from other people and to announce their presence if they had to come near. So, as Jesus entered a village one day, these ten lepers stood at a distance and cried out to Jesus to be merciful and heal them.

But after he miraculously cured them, only one returned to give thanks. 

You've seen it happen. People get what they've been praying for and then forget to come back and say, “Thank you” to the One who answered the prayer.

It’s happened to me. I've prayed for traveling mercies for loved ones, for instance, only to forget to thank the Lord after their safe arrival.

An answered prayer for travel safety doesn't seem nearly as dramatic as an answered prayer for deliverance from a deadly disease, but the principle is still the same: It’s easy to enjoy the gifts God has given us---in my case the loved one for whose safe journey I prayed---and forget the One to whom we prayed.

I know nothing about the faith of Ashoka Mukpo, who contracted the Ebola virus while working in Liberia as a freelance cameraman for NBC. But he seems to have a grateful heart. After being released from the hospital, he said, "I feel profoundly blessed to be alive, and in the same breath aware of the global inequalities that allowed me to be flown to an American hospital when so many Liberians die alone with minimal care."

Being grateful for the blessing of life is an everyday thing. So, the best way to make sure you express thanksgiving this Thanksgiving is to practice being grateful on a daily basis. Thanksgiving shouldn't be reserved for one day of the year. In fact, I believe that if people aren't grateful on days other than Thanksgiving Day, it’s unlikely they will suddenly wake up on the last Thursday of November with a grateful heart.

Giving thanks is really rather simple. Maybe that’s why it’s easy to forget to do it. We have to be intentional if we are to develop the habit of giving thanks.

Here’s my challenge to you:

If you aren't doing this already, practice giving thanks every day.

Here’s how it works: Begin and end each day by giving thanks. I mean, as soon as your feet hit the floor each morning, give thanks. I usually do this before I even get out of bed. Often, if I awake during the night, I’ll do it then too. I simply thank the Lord for the gift of life. I am, as Ashoka Mukpo put it, “profoundly blessed to be alive.” So I tell God how grateful I am.

I thank God in advance for the opportunities he will give me that day to bless others and make a positive difference in their lives.

Then at the end of the day, I thank the Lord for much the same thing: the gift of life and the privilege I've had to love others (even those who are not easy to love) and to be loved. Of course, there is a place in my prayer life for much more: I ask for forgiveness; I intercede for others; I sit quietly and meditate.

Here’s what I've found: Thanking the Lord each morning and evening invariably leads to thanking Him through the day. You will find yourself thanking God for the brown and orange colors of fall foliage, for the early morning fog, for the smile of a baby, the handshake of a friend, the beauty in a sunset, for the people who prepared your food and the land from which it came, for sleep and restoration.

The list for thanksgiving is endless.

Coming back for Thanksgiving isn't so difficult when you've enjoyed thanksgiving every day.

  

Saying goodbye

Goodbyes can be frightening when they hold the possibility of prolonged separation and being forgotten.

You don’t have to be on your deathbed to feel that.

I can see it already in my two year old grandson, Eli Benson.

I let him drive my car. Don’t worry, he doesn't really drive. But don’t tell him because he thinks he does. Eli meets me at the front door with determined eyes and declares, “Eli drive Poppop’s vroom vroom.”

I stand him in my lap while he leans forward and puts his hands on the wheel. It’s okay, my hands are on the wheel too, and we stay on our quiet, dead end residential road. Our speed limit is 3 m.p.h. For entertainment we like to roll the windows down and turn the volume up on the radio. Then we bee bop to the beat of rock n’roll as we cruise down the road. Jack Kerouac has nothing on us.

Oops, I forgot one important detail.

Eli grins from the car window to his Gigi, Mom and Dad and proudly shouts, “bye,” drawing the word into two syllables, “ba-i.”

He repeats it several times, as if to say, “I’m not kidding. I really am saying good-bye. I’m a big boy now.”

Then it happens.

Eli sticks his head out the window and cranes his neck, peering back as Gigi, Mom and Dad dwindle into specks.

As if the impact of that word, “bye” suddenly dawns on him, he turns to me with furrowed brow and whispers, “Go back.”

It’s the fear of goodbye: He doesn't want to be separated or forgotten.

And neither do you.

Eli doesn't understand we will be reunited in just a few minutes; his concept of time doesn't extend beyond “now.”

We don’t like being apart from those we love, and seeing them recede in the distance brings with it the lonely awareness that a permanent separation is a possibility, if not now---someday.

You want to reach out and take them back in, turn the car around and “go back.”

But goodbyes, as painful as they can be, are also necessary if we are to move on along life’s road.

Baylor University, in Waco, Texas, where I went to college, was a 5 hour drive from my home, Altus, Oklahoma. On those rare occasions when I would come back for the weekend, I would hang around and hang around on Sunday afternoon before finally leaving. Lori, my high school girlfriend, would be there, moping around, daubing her wet eyes. It was like the trail of tears at our house.

On one of those drawn out occasions that lasted half the afternoon, my granddad, perhaps a tad irritated because my failure to exit was cutting into his afternoon nap time, pulled me aside.

“Son,” he said, “just leave.”

I didn't want to hear that, but he was right. Sometimes you just have to leave.

If we never leave, at least for a while, we are apt to miss the challenges that spur us to grow.

As someone said, “He who never leaves home thinks Mama is the only cook.”

And then there is that final goodbye, the one we dread the most. All the others are dress rehearsals for this one. And there is no escaping it.

We’re like the prisoner in Edgar Allen Poe’s The Pit and the Pendulum, watching as first the pendulum and then the pit threaten us. Only there is no General Lasalle and the French Army to rescue us.

We are bound to tumble in.

But succumbing to the final goodbye doesn't have to be like descending into a pit or being tortured by a swinging pendulum. It can be a warm welcome from the One who lovingly awaits us there in the Great Beyond.

I’m like Eli; I know very little about what time is, so I too want to “go back,” chaffing at the thought of “goodbye.”

After that last goodbye we are “here,” apart, and then “there,” reunited.

And how long is that, really?

The final goodbye can be the first greeting at the entrance of a joyful Forever.

After all, the origin of the word, “goodbye” is “God be with you.”

And I believe he is.

In each goodbye.

From the one with a child in the car.

To the last one on that road to the Everlasting Tomorrow.

The universal game changer

“I can’t believe they lost,” I moaned after my favorite college football team went down in defeat. “Now they for sure won’t make it to the new four-team playoff system,” I continued to grumble.

Sensing I was descending into a sports fanatic’s funk, my wife suggested we rent an uplifting movie, “Million Dollar Arm.”

Good movie, but it was about baseball, which reminded me that my favorite major league baseball team had been eliminated from the National League Playoff Series earlier in the week.

I was still working through the grieving process.

“Why don’t you go get the mail?” Lori asked. (Yes, I know, she was trying to get me out of the house.)

Bills, bills, political flyer, advertisement, personal letter addressed to Lori and me.

I opened it as I walked back toward the house.

“Just a little note to let you all know how much I appreciate your devotion, service, and prayers for my family and all the families of our church,” the letter began. The writer then shared a Scripture and closed by asking God to bless us.

Simple, to the point, and a game changer for my day.

I immediately thought of something I had read years ago about Dr. R.W. Dale, the nineteenth century Congregational minister in Great Britain.

One day Dale was in the doldrums and couldn't seem to get out from under his dark cloud of gloom, (serious stuff, I’m sure, more weighty than that his favorite sports team had lost a game) so he decided to take a walk.  Along the way, a woman approached him and declared, “God bless you, Dr. Dale.” She quickly told him how his sermons had helped her hundreds of times. And then she slipped away.

The encounter took less than a minute.  But it had a long lasting effect on Dale. He later wrote, “The mist broke, the sunlight came, and I breathed the free air of the mountains of God.”

The psychologist and philosopher William James once wrote, “The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.”

When we feel like we are appreciated, we are encouraged. And when we are encouraged, we are more likely to face life boldly.

I like to think of encouragement as the universal game changer.  A game changer changes the way something is done, or made, or perceived. It can change the landscape of a situation. It’s the transformational magic that can take a relationship or situation from average to excellent, from ordinary to extraordinary.

With encouragement, people blossom; without it, they shrivel.

Mark Twain once said he could live for two months on a good compliment.

I've found that when I show my appreciation to others, encouragement, like a boomerang, returns my way.

“What are you grinning about?” Lori asked  as I walked in from getting the mail.

I noticed she automatically returned my smile.

Handing her our letter I said, “My teams may have lost, but this is a game changer for me.”

For at least two months.