Tag: theological rant
Christmastide
Several years ago we began keeping the 12 Days of Christmas. We decorate our Christmas tree a week or so after Thanksgiving and leave it up until the Sunday after Epiphany (Jan 6). These are old ways. They are not nostalgic for us, rather it is a counter-cultural and counter pop-Christianity act.
How will you embody the Spirit of Christmas?
The more I live, Ebenezer’s words ring out a truth like the bells that announce Christmas.
“I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach.”
Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol. In Prose being a Ghost Story of Christmas. (Chapman & Hall: England 1843), Stave 4.
It is how I’m living the spirit of Christmas. It is a way. Maybe it is the best way in times like these; or any time.
You?
Lent: Day 10
What is one thing you own that you should probably throw out?
Stephen Colbert, “The Colbert Questionert.” 2021.
Possession, idea, or both?
I was a pipe smoker for thirteen years. After I quit, I boxed up my collection of pipes, lighters, and the small humidor. Back then, it was probably worth about $500. I don’t think I’ll ever take up pipe smoking again, but I can’t seem to let go of the stuff.
Hope is the cause of suffering in the world. I adopted an idea of hopelessness, intellectually and emotionally, as part of my worldview the third year of college. I know that may be shocking or abrasive to hear from a minister. I might be more “fit” for my vocation were I to embrace hope again. I think hope and guilt have a similar motivational value one time. After that, both are baggage you carry around the rest of your life based on an outcome. So, why not act, no matter what, when it is in your power to do what is right, because it is right. Still, hopelessness is probably something to let go.
