Saturday, December 24, 2016

CHILDREN EVERYWHERE--BEWARE!

Once again it the time of the year to issue a warning to all children everywhere.  All year long Santa watches what children do—writing down who has been naughty and who has been good.  But Christmas is a day all good children not to let up just because you got all your Christmas presents!  No!  No!

I am speaking of a magical creature who takes a special watch on how you act on Christmas day.  I am talking about the dreaded Christmas Weasel!  Never heard of him?  How lucky you are!  You must have been real good on days of Christmas past.

If on Christmas day a child is bratty, won’t share his toys, talks back to his parents, or throws a fit because he must put his toys aside and go to visit his Grandma and Grandpa, the Christmas Weasel will sneak into your house t night when you asleep and steal all your new toys.  Imagine how upset you’ll be the next day!

Santa gives the Christmas Weasel permission to take your new toys back to the North Pole so that he can give them to more deserving children next year.  So mind how you behave on Christmas Day!

By the way, all you adults aren’t exempt either.  If you give your spouse a hard time because you got a blender, if the diamond isn’t big enough, if you only got a new tie or socks, or even if all you got was a new supply of trash bags so you can take out the trash, the Christmas Weasel will run up a huge bill at that fancy restaurant with your credit card or maybe your 401K will suddenly have no money in it.

So, be nice.  The Christmas Weasel is watching you!

Friday, December 23, 2016

CAN'T WE ALL GET ALONG?

It is now over a month since the 2016 Presidential election and we have been treated to thousands of post-election analyses.  The left—and the some of the right—have issued dark mutterings about the dystopia to come with the Age of Trump.   The left seems to concentrate on their predictions of the ascendency of racism, sexism, militarism, disregard for the poor, and a general atmosphere of division and hate.  Those on the right focus—as they had from Trump’s announcement of his run in 2015—on his disqualifications to be called a “conservative” and the damage he will do to the traditional conservative agenda of liberty and limited government. 

The dissatisfied on the right have uniformly accepted the legitimacy of Trump’s election while being of different minds on why he beat out the host of other Republican candidates and why he succeeded in becoming President in the end.  The host of conservative “never-Trumper’s” still vow to be critical and oppositional toward Trump even though—as they see it-- most conservatives didn’t have the good sense to follow their lead during the election.

The left, on the other hand, has taken a four prong approach.  The first being outright rage involving mass protests and nationwide incidents of violence.  Second, a dissection finding the dark forces in America which allegedly thrust Trump to high office.  The third involved a menagerie of conspiratorial theories from the clandestine exposure of Democrat officials’ emails, F.B.I. head James Comey’s opening-closing-and reopening of Hilary Clinton’s handling of state secrets, and Russian digital interference in the election.  And, fourth, several efforts to undermine the legitimacy of Trump’s election:  recounts of voting in crucial states, questioning the validity of the Electoral College’ authority over the popular vote, attempts to persuade the Electors to switch their votes to Clinton, disqualifying Trump citing possible conflicts of interests between affairs of state and his business holdings, promising mass disruptions of the inauguration, and even issuing threats of impeachment

All this being said, we’d be best advised to approach a Trump Presidency with a little humility and historical restraint.  In all the aftermaths of each American President—whether good or bad-- America survived.  Sometimes for the worse.  Sometimes for the better.  But the Republic still stands.  We have no reason to believe that under Trump we will cease to be a free and self-governing people.  Yes, there is no situation so bad it can’t get worse.  But, on the other hand, many times we have wound up with a better nation—sometimes in spite of ourselves.  Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, the Bushes, Clinton, and Obama didn’t destroy the United States.  Our nation is stronger than that.



On another note, however, one of the unhappiest elements of the election is some folks abandoning their friendships and no longer speaking to one another due to the candidate they supported.  I myself have lost a few friends and have a few family members who no long speak to me.  I hope this is all temporary.  Maybe this folly will come to an end as tempers cool and the election sinks further into the past.  Until then, I leave all of you with this little cartoon.



Saturday, December 17, 2016

RING YE HOLY SANTA CLAUS SILVER BELLS!!!

I’ll going to start right off I say that I love Christmas.  I love nearly everything about it.  I love the whole Santa Claus thing:  elves, midnight sleigh rides, down the chimney, gifts for all the children around the world.  Toys…oh, yes…toys!  I love paper snowflakes.  Christmas programs by children.  Christmas movies on TV.  Charlie Brown, Linus and Snoopy.  Frosty the Snowman.  Christmas trees.  Green boughs and mistletoe.  Multi-colored lights on houses.  Christmas decorations in stores, on lamp posts and mailboxes.  The Christmas hymns and the more “secular” carols (a surprising number actually written by Jewish composers).  Crèches with Joseph, Mary, angels, donkeys and cattle around the baby Jesus. And even the peculiar Indianapolis tradition of turning the Civil War Soldiers and Sailors Monument into the world’s largest “Christmas tree”.

Many Christians will demure from the mixing up the birth of Christ with all Santa Claus/winter wonderland business; but I see no reason in getting superior about the matter.

In one congregation I once belongs to, a large number of parents believed it was their holy duty to raise their children to be unattached to material things and disdainful of our culture of American consumerism.  So toys were reserved only for Christmas and for Christmas only—often times only grudgingly at that.  For birthdays, presents consisted of clothes, shoes, socks, and underwear.  I don’t know what they were thinking but oddly enough, these adults were absolutely bewildered when during Christmas-Eve services their charges were practically bouncing off the walls in wild excitement.  One can only wonder if, when these children grew up, they were somewhat muddled about the “true meaning” of Christmas.  In seeking to discourage materialism, did the parents inadvertently end up promoting it?

On another occasion, I came to meet an itinerant Lutheran pastor.  His undertaking was to aid and nurse other Lutheran pastor who were troubled and emotionally exhausted after many years in the ministry.  Among his other curiosities, he did not…as he put it…”keep Christmas”.   He was not reticent in looking down his nose at other Christians who did and he answered contemptuously when other Christians asked why.  As I understood him, he believed the spiritual pursuit of holiness (“walking in the Spirit”) mandated a rejection of all human traditions—Christmas being one of those traditions.  Christmas, he believed, had been so imbued with pagan Teutonic influences it was virtually a spiritual deathtrap.  I’m sure this man had many fine qualities and he was after all a precious lifeline for many distressed pastors; but for the most part, those sitting the pews thought he was a jerk.

No.  Getting all superior over the “American Christmas” is misguided at best.  You are liable to get yourself at least labeled a Grinch.  You run the risk of actually being a Grinch.

Christmas in America (a.k.a. “The American Christmas”) is one big thick sloppy mess.  It is uneven contradictory, spiritual, and materialistic.   It celebrated by believers and unbelievers, crooks and lawmen, spendthrifts and moneygrubbers, the generous and con-men alike.  It is another instance of an annual national occasion being a mercurial concoction of the sacred and the mundane at the center of its soul.  It’s what happens when human beings live together over time and over generations.  It is that unwieldly thing called culture.   Meanings appear, diminish, and over-lap.  However much one tries to keep the bits of meat, fruit and vegetables separate on the plate, it all turns into one mash in the stomach.

“Ah!”  It is said.  “Put Christ back in Xmas!” 

OK.  We all know what they mean by this.  “Remember the reason for the season!”  Any good Christian…and many a bad one for that matter..will have more than a little sympathy for this admonition.  But, in truth, this reminder itself has become as routine and predictable as the atheists’ annual lecture that Christmas is just an echo of earlier pagan celebrations at the same time of the year and just as pointless.  A bit of barbwire in the white noise of the season.
The truth is—no matter how sincere—we can’t put Christ back in Christmas.  We can’t “put” Christ anywhere.  It is not in our ability to do so and, left to our own devices, we wouldn’t really do so if we could.  We couldn’t and wouldn’t choose such a God.  He can’t be pulled off the shelf to give our holiday meaning.

Such a God…Christ Jesus…must be heard.  The only thing that cuts through the white noise is the Proclamation.  It is His Word that goes out and does not return to Him empty.  The true Christmas Spirit…the true Christmas faith really…comes in the hearing.  Come and hear:

At that time Emperor Augustus ordered a census to be taken throughout the Roman Empire.  When this first census took place, Quirinius was the governor of Syria.  Everyone, then, went to register himself, each to his own hometown.
Joseph went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to the town of Bethlehem in Judea, the birthplace of King David. Joseph went there because he was a descendant of David.  He went to register with Mary, who was promised in marriage to him. She was pregnant,  and while they were in Bethlehem, the time came for her to have her baby.  She gave birth to her first son, wrapped him in cloths and laid him in a manger—there was no room for them to stay in the inn.
8There were some shepherds in that part of the country who were spending the night in the fields, taking care of their flocks.  An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone over them. They were terribly afraid,  but the angel said to them, “Don't be afraid! I am here with good news for you, which will bring great joy to all the people.  This very day in David's town your Savior was born—Christ the Lord!  And this is what will prove it to you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”
 Suddenly a great army of heaven's angels appeared with the angel, singing praises to God:
 “Glory to God in the highest heaven,

    and peace on earth to those with whom he is pleased!”


 When the angels went away from them back into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us.”