The Bad News of Easter

Quite awhile ago, I heard somebody say,

If you were the only person on Earth, Jesus would still come to die for you.

Over time the statement got buried under tomes of theological head knowledge, its gritty truth never really trickling down into my heart.  

Year after year each Easter celebration I would give genuine mental consent and sincere lip service to the events in Jesus’ life that culminated on Friday’s crucifixion.

Knowing how the story ends, we seemed all too eager to hoppity- hop over to Easter with it’s colored eggs and chocolate bunnies celebrations, as if glossing over what killed Jesus is going to make it magically (or, some might say, miraculously) disappear.

With so many bad news in this world, we don’t want to dwell on the negative.  

Since we have the Good  news, we have to share it and have to share it quickly.

But, good news isn’t good unless you are willing to hear the bad news first.

So, with your permission, I'll share some bad news.

The cross of Christ is God’s final declaration on human goodness.

There is none.

If we don't want to take God's word for it, life has a way of convincing us sooner or later.

What this means is that best, most wonderful, kind, industrious, talented, impressive, intelligent, good looking, successful person you and I meet (including the one we see in the mirror) has a dark, broken interior we all try so hard to conceal behind a façade.  Religious façade probably being the most grotesque of all.

Some of us are so convincing that we start believing our own Marketing and PR or Facebook feed.

As if this is not bad enough, it actually gets worse.

Our brokenness is unfixable.  We are irreparably messed up and there is nothing, absolutely nothing you and I can do to fix it. In fact, by trying to fix it, we often make things even worser (does that word exist in English language?)

This truth is so sobering, if we allow ourselves to linger in it for a bit, it has a potential to radically alter the way we see ourselves, the world and people around us. 

Some of us might be driven do despair. 

For some, this despair might be the best thing that happened in the lifetime of escapism and denial.

The Good Friday is God’s final heart-wrenching declaration on human goodness.

There is none. 

The Trusting Cat

As time went on, we presumably met the Cat’s persnickety safety standards.  

When she was hungry, the food was never lacking. 

When she was thirsty, the bowl never ran dry.  

Day after day, night after night, no hidden danger of any kind threatened her life or limb inside our house. No lurking monsters pouncing on her in the dark. Nobody terrorized her in any way, physically or emotionally,  not even those of us who loved her soooo much and wanted to hug her to death. 

As a result, slowly but surely she begun to trust us.

I know, I am the one most amazed by this fact...

The more safe she felt the less time she spent in hiding behind bookshelves or inside the dryer vent. I suppose one might say that she started feeling like our home is her home too, that this is permanent arrangement and she belonged with us.

Her fears and anxieties were slowly dissipating making room for wide-eye cat-sized curiosity.

She begun to watch us, study us, trying to understand us with her small albeit undeniably brilliant cat brain. We were doing nothing really special, just the usual human stuff. Talking. Cooking. Sleeping. Eating. Cleaning. Watching TV. Reading. Wrapping presents. Typing on the computer. Taking showers. Coming and going, leaving and returning.

What a strange life humans live! How fascinating!

She became mesmerized by all things human. Cupboards and lamps. Desks and computers. Chairs and dressers. Walls and windows. 

She would rub her head against whatever object she wanted to grace by her affection,

I love you human-cabinet. You are so amazing! Inside your dark belly you are hiding so many shiny round hollow treasures!

I love you human-leather chair. How soft you are, you feel like you were made of some gentle animal!

And you human-mirror - I love you soooo much. Your purpose is enchanting and beyond my paw's grasp.

One object we used after another, she couldn't hide her rapturous delight, pawing and scratching, rubbing her head against it's magical form. 

But, all this pales in comparison to how she felt when she discovered that at the end of our paws, we have these nifty appendages that give amazing massages!

The Cat learned that not only are we safe, but we are capable of providing endless stream of pleasure by rubbing and scratching her back, neck and behind her ears. Thus kitty yoga was officially introduced into our daily family routine and the cat begun to enjoy and even seek out our presence.

The Missing Cat

The cat joined our family as a three year old stray which shelter described as ‘a nervous little girl’. 'Nervous little girl' is a polite way to say that we were adopting a psycho with three years worth of untracable history.

Three years of untracable history wasn’t necessarily what I was looking for in a cat to add to our hormone-raging family mix.  But, the moment we set our eyes on her, we were smitten. I won't even attempt to explain ‘love at first sight’ and the dumb irrationality that goes with it.  

The moment we realized she had thumbs (!), we knew we could never go back.

All the way home she wailed like a tortured baby goat driving other occupants of the vehicle to near madness. As soon as we arrived home and opened the carrier she clambered out, bounced into the study and wedged herself solid between the bookshelf and the couch. The fact that she chose the study and the bookshelves as her safe place made me forgive her for driving us mad on the ride home and love her even more.

The first week or so, she spent in deep hiding. When I say, ‘deep’ I mean ‘really deep’. So deep that one day we thought she escaped during our crazy early morning routine when kids were rushing out to catch the school bus, accidentally leaving both the laundry room and the garage door wide open.

All that day I searched for her in every possible and impossible corner, crevice, hole, crack, dryer and exhaust vent in our house and found nothing. I finally alerted our neighbors who proceeded to organize a search party eventually returning to their respective homes empty-handed.  

In hope to coax her back I followed a recommendation I found on-line and scattered her litter box content around our house and all over the flower beds! I know how it sounds... I am shaking my head just thinking about it. Our house was stinking like a giant litter box for days...

Still to no avail!

Exhausted and emotionally depleted we were sitting on the couch late that night staring blankly in the direction of moving images on our TV, when my husband exclaimed,

LOOK - the Cat! 

What cat? I mumbled too disoriented from the events of the day.

Swaying her hips like a fresh-baked diva, her soft fur aglow in the artificial light of the TV she strolled in front of us as if it's the most normal thing to do on her way to the bowl with food and water. She didn't dignify us with a single look.

I thank God we were too exhausted for an emotional reaction. We just looked at each other, glad we didn't have enough energy left in us to strangle her for almost giving us heart attack, and just enough left to feel the relief that she was safe.

And we loved her all the more because she was found although in reality she was never lost. 

Guilty Kitty

Some may say that it was unavoidable. That it was just a matter of time, of when not if. Still I am crushed. And confused. I shake my head in disbelief… I didn’t see it coming. Not at all.

Although, looking back now I realize I should have suspected something going awry when our daughter mentioned..... But in the busyness and distraction of the moment, I didn't really hear it, and if I 'heard' it, I sort of dismissed it.

I should have been clued in when I saw her standing on her hind legs, hugging the toilet. I thought she was just stretching, doing her kitty yoga! I even thought maybe we could train her to use washroom instead of the litter box like those smart cats in YouTube videos. I feel so stupid!

Should have... could have...

I don’t know what to make of it…

Despite the fact that she has everything she needs… all the food, water, kitty litter, attention and affection from the family;

Despite the fact that she has free roaming privileges of our (I think) beautiful  (at least by cat standards!)1900 square feet home... I mean she is allowed to go anywhere she wants except the kitchen counter-tops, dining room table and on top of the bed in the master bedroom... 

Despite all of this and more...

… today I caught Palcica drinking from the toilet bowl!

When I walked on her, I was so stunned that I couldn’t even cry out, NO!

I stood there, in the doorway of our bathroom, my eyes bulging out of my sockets in utter horror. The cat turned and looked at me, red-pawed, jumped off the toilet seat and scampered away.

I could tell she felt guilty!

I didn't even know cats have guilty feelings!

Why, oh why would you drink from the toilet bowl, oh silly kitty?? Do you realize how disgusting AND dangerous that can be?? Don’t you have your own bowl of food and your own bowl of clean fresh water from the faucet? What possessed you to do such a thing...???

Simply Feline

Our cat disagrees with my assessment of human race. Not only does she think that perfect humans are super-easy to come by, she is convinced that we – I mean the whole all of us,  the Mom, the Dad, the Teenage Boy and the Teenage Girl – every single member of our family, is a perfect human specimen.

She doesn’t see pimples, wrinkles, scars and grays. 

She doesn’t care about the D’s and C’s in report card, missed deadlines, mediocre blog posts, burnt dinners or who ate the last piece of key lime pie! 

She doesn’t care how old we are, how tall we are, how much we weigh, if we brushed our teeth and/or hair this morning, if our clothes match or whether they are appropriate for our age or occasion.

It's truly stunning to think of all the things that our cat doesn't notice or give a hairball about. 

All she seems to see is, Human! Let’s play kitty yoga!

Beyond human playmates she also sees that her bowl is full and her bed is comfy.

She doesn’t even care whether her litter box is clean or not.

The other day I was cleaning her litter box while she was standing right next to me.

What? I ask the cat. She tilts her head sideways.

Play with me! 

I can’t play now. See this litter box. It STINKS! It’s a big, stinky MESS. I HAVE TO clean it!

Why? Cat looks puzzled.

Why?!!?? What do you mean ‘why?’ Because we are HUMANS and NOT CATS! We care about stuff like that!

The cat looks even more confused.  I think she wants to ask another ‘why?’ question, but after thinking for a few moments chooses forlorn,

Plaaaaay with meeeee…. instead.

I look at the litter box, the scoop in my hand, then at the cat.

I don’t care about the clean litter box, she says calmly.

Call me sucker, but with that one look I cast what is left of my human dignity under the bus, set the scoop down, and join the cat for some kitty yoga. I know that now I am a perfect human being (at least to the cat!) again, and ultimately, that's all that really matters.

Come to Me... Matthew 11:28

Return to Me... Joel 2:12

Simply Human

Barely have those words formed inside my brain and found their way out through my fingertips … as they begun to slow-roll around the back of my mind like marbles, I realized with stunning clarity that I have no clue what they really mean!

... return to being simply human again...

It sounded good to return to something unaffected, genuine, unpretentious.

Something we don’t have to try to be, we don’t have to strain at being….

Something that comes to us as natural as breathing…

Yet, somewhere along the way we somehow managed to lose, neglect, abandon, perhaps exchange or trade for ‘bigger and better’ things? In that pursuit, we became dehumanized.  Instead of becoming ‘more of’ we became less human. We became reduced to this one aspect of our being ignoring the entire universe of the rest. 

I am the worst example of all! I am scrambling to find a model, a living, real life model of a ‘simply good human’ and I am returning empty-handed.

All around me, there are a lot of ‘superhumans’. Superhuman moms, superhuman husbands, superhuman teachers, pastors, missionaries, youth leaders, athletes, doctors, supermodels…

Or at least that's what it appears looking from the outside.

Of course, there is the other camp of those who exemplify really well how NOT to be human, at least not on their terms…

But a good, old (or young!) human - unpretentious, genuine, solid through-and-through human is really, really hard to find.

I think I want to be a cat!

Love and Ashes

I can’t help but register the strange coincidence of today. The peculiar quirk of the year 2018 calendar, when  …

The day that so extravagantly celebrates love in all its delightful forms…

AND

The day that publicly acknowledges our utter inability to love as we ought – 

inability to love God as he so vastly deserves...

inability to love our neighbors as ourselves (being we can't even properly love ourselves as we need to be loved!)

But, today these two strange companions come together in one glorious heartbreaking embrace.

Valentine’s Day.

Ash Wednesday.

Side by side. In each other’s arms. Supreme power and absolute weakness.

Love and grief. Love and loss. Love and heartbreak.

It’s hard to wrap my mind around it.  I want to draw a line and say,

Love, you belong in THIS camp.

Loss, you go over THERE.

I want clean-cut divide that keeps love pure and simple, safely tucked away from the heartbreak, betrayal, hypocrisy and pain that ashes so powerfully symbolize.

I want to separate these unnatural conjoined twins.

But life doesn’t permit.

Of course, I can choose to ignore the facts. I can ‘focus on the positive’. I can even talk myself into believing it's all true. I can put my imaginary VR headset and live in the VR world, believing it’s real…

Some of us do it more than we are willing to admit...

But sooner or later the RL catches up. One way or another, we find ourselves surrounded by ashes… 

It's only then that the RL - the real love and the real loss hand in hand - can finally begin their quiet journey…back to being simply human again.

The Illegitimate Child of Lent

Today is Mardi Gras, which is fancy French word for Fat Tuesday.

Never before have I thought of this day as integral, even essential to the Lenten season.  I always assumed that most ‘good’ Christians frown upon the excess, the revelry associated with the celebration of greasy food, spiked drinks, loud parties and the rest.  

I treated it more like an illegitimate child of Lent. A bastard well loved and celebrated by those outside the church while God’s holy people begrudgingly have to put up with him.

But, today something clicked for me, and this wild introduction to Lent suddenly made more sense.

Because, that’s who we are, us humans. Without even trying, we gravitate towards excess.

We continually wobble from one extreme to another.

Eating too much.

Drinking too much.

Partying too much.

Sleeping too much.

If I start feeling a bit smug about this list...

...if I feel I am doing pretty good in the 'Self Control Department', I need to remember that  the list goes beyond that…  way beyond that, and it's pretty obnoxious, perhaps even more than the above! 

Because, we also 

Work too much.

Worry too much.

Nag and gripe too much.

Judge and criticize and spiritualize too much.

We opinionate, speculate, pontificate way, way, waaaaaay too much.

And in all this too-much-ness we lose ourselves.  We throw our beautiful, simple, unaffected humanity under the bus and reach out, keep reaching out for more. Far MORE.

Because, More, of course is better, right?

More, bigger, better…?

Our FOMO kicks into overdrive and we don’t know how to stop… until we pass out. 

Or fall apart. 

Or get sick.

Or die!

Sometimes I wonder if I would even recognize Enough if I met him in the street.  I would probably blast right by him, without even blinking an eye. 

We...


... just...

... don't know...

... when...

... enough...

... is...

... enough.

And Fat Tuesday, in its over-the-top celebration of excess, is a gentle, loving reminder to all of us how far into the left field we’ve gone… the whole lot of us…

Like a Red Tesla in Outer Space

In the midst of our messy, disorderly lives where perpetual battle rages between chaos and order (chaos's currently winning by a mile), it hit me like a red Tesla speeding through outer space, 

Lent starts this week! 

It was the strangest, the most ‘out of place’ thought imaginable. 

Immersed in the firestorms of Larry Nassars and the Harvey Weinsteins of the world,  the Winter Olympics and the MeToo movement, the bathroom renovation and the concert preparations, trips to Y and doctors’ offices...

Squeezed between dishes, and loads of laundry, self-imposed and others-generated stress, Lent sneaked up on me like a cat from under the living room armoir. 

It wagged its slender tail and cocked its cute little head as if to say,

I am here again. What are you going to do with me?

It's funny because I already view it as 'tradition' although it's only been few years in the making. I mean my tradition, something I started observing, watching, paying attention to as of super-recently, unlike the rest of the world that is serious about stuff like this and has done it for centuries! 

Regardless of what the rest of the world who is serious about God is or isn’t doing, I must say that my Lenten adventures have been the best, the funnest– if I dare use made-up word – the most refreshing and rejuvenating season of the year…. and this has happened year after year. 

It’s as if God chooses to use this time to rip out the boring, dutiful, demanding, serious, frowning, irrelevant, disengaged mask I put in front of His face, and shines through the dusty windows of my shriveled up soul, does His magic and makes Life worth Living (capital L) again.

I don't know about you but, right now my life feels like it could use some ‘refreshing’…

Right now, my soul feels like it could use some ‘rejuvenating’…

Right now, I could use some fun, some good news, if there is any good news at all to be found, because it’s been a lot of heartbreaking, disappointing, devastating news… and with such influx, I tend to forget that God is still good and He cares about me and the hurting people I love…

Old Dogs New Tricks

I somehow managed to injure myself during last yoga class, so today it was either skipping gym altogether or taking it easy by attending Senior Fitness class. I've never been to this class and I could feel all kinds of little discouraging devils bubbling up in my mind, but I shoved them resolutely aside and decided that in this case something is better than nothing. So I dressed out and went.

I wasn’t quite sure what I would find when I got to the exercise room and how I would feel about it.

With the world in many ways understandably enamored with youth, ‘old’ people (and my kids think 30 is old) seem to have very little to contribute to the bustling table of life . The 'grumpy old men (and women!)' stereotype has sufficient support in real life grouches to make the label stick.

This class proved the assumption seriously wrong. 

First of all, there was energy in the room of the kind that could put to shame TurboKick, Zumba and BodyPump combined. A different kind of energy, though, more like genuine joy to be there in the moment, moving, swinging, lifting, even breathing! And, it was more contagious than the flu at the peak of the season. 

At the end of the class everyone burst into a spontaneous applause, the way passengers honor the pilot for landing the airplane safely and bringing them all to the desired destination.  Then our (VERY young) coach was instantly surrounded by grateful clients and showered with compliments for the job well done. As if that wasn't enough, while some were waiting in line to express their thanks, others got busy and were putting away not just their own, but chairs, mats and weights that others were using during the class.  There was atmosphere of mutual support and encouragement and a delightful sense that we are in this together.

As people were leaving, greetings were exchanged,

So glad you made it - see you next time!

I've never witnessed anything even remotely like it... I do like my Zumba peeps and my yoga peeps and my BodyPump peeps...  but I realize that beyond the workout, these old dogs still have a few tricks up their sleeve we all would do well to learn. 

Chicken Coop for the Soul

For those who imbibed the words of poets and dreamers along with their mother's milk…

... I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space…

For the resident aliens and the homeless…

For the artists and outsiders…

For all the oddballs that don’t fit in a box...

... in a system...

... in a formula…

… life can get...

... complicated.

Because things are not always what they seem and the soul can wear many disguises.

Some people  live in chicken coops and have the souls fitting for a royal mansion… beautiful, even breathtaking, spacious and inviting… with plenty of room for all who care to come in… especially for all the ‘others’ that nobody else wants, the cast-outs and orphans, the prodigals and the prophets.

They could be bounded in a nutshell, and count themselves kings and queens of infinite space…

True sons and daughters of the living God.

Nobody can judge the size of the soul by the size or shape or the condition of the chicken coop that soul inhabits.

Conversely, some people live in enormous mansions and have souls that would get lost in a chicken coop...


Or inside a shell of a nut.

One must wonder,

What happened to you poor soul that you shriveled up like a dead leaf tossed around by the wind? 

What hardship have you suffered? 

What neglect? 

What trampling of most precious?

Which abandonment of body and spirit? 

What trickery of men or angels did you succumb to that you shrunk like an old hot dog forgotten on a grill?

Right Place Right Time Wrong Place Wrong Time

Ms. Fiony, our daughter’s preschool teacher used to say that I have a special knack to be at the right place at the right time.

What she meant by this was that I would often walk into her room just in time to witness the peak of an emotional meltdown of a tired mom. 

Or at the end of nasty temper microburst of a busy dad, dropping off his preschooler on his way to work. 

Sometimes I would walk into her room, Ms. Fiony alone in the center, motionless,  as if struck by lightening or a fire truck. The storm might have passed but the emotional debris still swirling all around.

There I discovered that perfectly nice, calm, poised parents are capable of producing powerful weather conditions on any given day. I guess parents are humans too. 

Not to disagree with Ms. Fiony but  I feel my special knack is more along the lines of being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Maybe that’s what she really meant but being too nice she didn't put it into those words. Funny how words work like that sometimes. They mean exact opposite from what is said. I find that extremely confusing.

Anyway, back to the story…

I am pretty sure it’s safe to say that I wasn’t supposed to overhear the conversation between two of our guests that day.  It was a large party with lots of people around, everyone, I naively assumed, enjoying themselves. 

I just happen to be... I don't know if it's at the right place and time or the wrong place and wrong time. Only God knows that...

And, being God... he can certainly take wrong - horrible, terrible wrong - and make it right.

Just as we can take right - perfect, beautiful, amazing, awesome right - and ruin it. Make it all wrong.

So, good or bad, right or wrong, I learned something new that day.

I found out that what I considered a wonderful, lavish mansion some people, our guests, in fact, saw as something akin to a ... chicken coop!

A chicken coop unsuitable for human enjoyment... or at least some humans... 

I was stunned.

Hotel Chicken Coop

As long as I can remember, our home was ‘a place to be’ for all our friends.  It started with 240 square feet no indoor plumbing, wood stove shack where I was born. My sister’s classmates would come regularly for an evening of Pictionary and eating my mom’s krempita, piled up on top of each other inside a single all-purpose kitchen/living room/bedroom that took most of the square footage of what we affectionately called ‘chicken coop’.

From there we moved up doubling in size to a 5^th floor 490 square feet apartment with indoor plumbing AND central heating. Not only did we have all this SPACE but I also got my very own room, which became ‘a place to be’ for all my friends. We would pile up on top of each other, eat snacks and drink coffee,  talk and philosophize until our brains hurt, which indicated it was time to crank up the record player and quibble over favorites.

We loved having people over, making them feel loved and welcome, enjoying their company. The space (or lack of!) never seemed to be an issue nor did the shabbiness or absence of any recognizable decorating style. I was blissfully oblivious to both.

You can only imagine my happiness when I moved to the States, and we bought a 1900+ square feet mansion with a giant back yard.  I had such huge plan for such enormous space. So much room! So many people to have!

We did just that. Flung our doors open wide  and invited anyone who cared to come in. When we were not around, we handed our keys to friends, family, neighbors and complete strangers.

No furniture? No problem! We improvised with cardboard boxes, curbside mall, castaways and hand-me-downs. The carpet was worn out, but who had time to notice! The dishes were mismatched, but who cares?? The walls were bare and cabinets dated. So what?

My relaxed approach to hosting seemed to work very well, or so I thought, until…

Radical Christmas

Trailing behind its more glamorous, more popular twin…

…After most of the western world has already moved on with life…

…Curbs lined up with stripped down, unadorned, waste pile ready trees…

…Crumpled up wrappers and empty boxes filling the garbage cans…

… The healthier, more organized, more fit New Year’s resolutions in full swing…

…comes Orthodox Christmas.

If one didn’t know they came from the same playbook, it would be easy to conclude it was two completely different holidays celebrating birthdays of two completely different persons in two very different styles.

Whether it’s cultural or personal, we each gravitate towards one or another.

Some find the energy and pageantry of one exhilarating others exhausting.

For some the soft-spoken unobtrusiveness of the other is boring and so-last-century, while others feel it's refreshing and restful.

Clearly each of us sees Jesus through our own lens, welcoming the aspects that suit our taste and preference, while if not shunning then simply (or barely?) tolerating the rest. 

Some of us can turn this into an argument, or even a war of words.

The US Jesus vs. the THEM Jesus.

Jesus for the shallow and superficial and Jesus for the deep.

We pigeon-hole Jesus for ...Catholics, protestants, sinners, saints, prodigals, hypocrites, missionaries, atheists, married, single, divorced, with and without kids, with and without dogs, cats, guinea pigs, iguanas... homeschooling, public schooling, fat, skinny, black, white, gay, straight, artists, engineers,  in shape, out of shape, democrats, republicans, independents, organized, scatterbrained, healthy, sick, American, Russian, Greek, ... 

But, whatever our label, whatever our fascination, whatever our pet obsession, it's not so much that we get to pick 'our' Jesus, but that there is room, ample room for all of us – the us and the them - inside Him. 

Now, that's the kind of radical Christmas the world might be still waiting to celebrate...

Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. John 1:12-13

All I Got for Christmas was a Bag of Coal

Today half of the Christian world celebrates Christmas. Some are enjoying lavish tables bursting under the weight of the feast surrounded by loving friends and family. Unwrapping the generosity and goodness of our God in its many shapes and sizes. It’s like heaven has opened its door and poured its favor of those thus blessed.

Some.

Others… not so much.

No loving family. Or at least no loving. No friends. No feast. No presents. Or, even worse, some are actually given the gifts nobody wants - the duds of Christmas... sickness, separations, loss or death.

Some may feel that year after year this Christmas thing is overpromising and underdelivering.

Sure, there are few who may have gotten joy but certainly not all.

For the past twenty some years, I’ve been celebrating Christmas far away from home. Among people who speak a language not my own. As a foreigner with a foreign accent.  

The food is different here. The culture is different. The protocol is different. Different customs, different values, different expectations, different mindset, the whole shebang is different!

I feel like I am constantly out of alignment with the world around me.

During Christmas this becomes painfully obvious.

It’s probably the most frustrating, stressful, discombobulated season of the year.

I feel like the kid in a Christmas play who sings out of tune, who dances in the opposite direction from everyone else.

Awkward, annoying and frustrating not just for him but for everyone else around him.

Sometimes it feels all I get - and give! - for Christmas is a giant bag of coals!

Which makes me wonder if Christmas has anything to offer for the misfits like me...?

A genuine joy in the midst of discordant circumstances?

Then it crosses my mind… that’s what Christmas is all about! The ultimate, all-out cross-cultural experience – God of Heaven inhabiting human world, God living in a foreign country, speaking with a foreign accent. God the Misfit! With the background nobody understands or can relate to. God being misunderstood. Misinterpreted.  Violating the rules and the customs, upsetting the tradition basket.

Suddenly, my Christmas bag of coals doesn’t seem like a bag of coals any more… It’s more like a pot of pure gold…. and with that, the Merry inhabits Christmas again.

Merry Christmas!

… for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. Luke 2:11

He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. John 1:10-12

Christmas on Detour

One can only speculate as to the rhymes and reasons that led our tired travelers knocking on the wrong door... But, once it swung open, and they were invited in, I wonder how long it took them to realize it was wrong...

...A split-second lightening bolt kind of awareness? Oh my GOD! What have we DONE?!!??

... Or was it longer?

...A day or two?...

...a  week that dragged on?... I wonder...

And what did they do then?

Did they blame themselves and each other?  I told you we should have stuck to the...

Were they shocked that nobody else in Jerusalem, neither in the temple nor in the palace, was aware that the baby king was born? 

Were they self-conscious about the stir, the consternation they caused in the palace hallways, its stagnant air now filling fast with intrigue, as they overheard bits and pieces of hushed conversations behind closed doors…?

Did the feeling in their gut grew more weird with time, as they waited, watching, listening, listening, watching...?

Did they cringe when Herod used the same 'w' word while all hell danced inside the irises of his eyes? Were they stunned at the inadequacy of the language that allows the use of the same word to cloak unfathomable divine mystery and cover up for... murder?

Were they scared? Did they want to excuse themselves really fast and bee-line towards the closest exit?

Or did they remain calm, poised, unperturbed in their focus…  knowing that the One who led them through the darkest desert nights – even with this odd detour – will eventually bring them to their destination?

Having seen what they’ve seen,

having heard what they’ve heard

was it easy...

or was it hard…

for them…

to distinguish…

  

that despite all the wealth,

despite all the glitter and glamour,


privilege and power;

political, religious,

to the left and and to the right,...

... inside Herod’s court...

...there was...

... nothing ...

...and nobody...

...worthy of their worship?

Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we saw His star in the east and have come to worship Him. Matthew 2:2

The Christmas GPS Malfunction

I often wondered about them. 

Already they traveled so long.  They've been on the road for months, perhaps even years, guided by a star of all things! 

Their personal celestial GPS. 

They covered so much ground. They’ve been through so much, as any traveler would attest that being on a journey has a way of spawning many a strange adventures. But they persevered, they pushed through thick and thin, undeterred. Dauntless.

Now, at last, they are almost there, almost arrived. Almost to their destination. The culmination of their hopes and dreams, the very reason for their existence is almost at their fingertips!

Almost.

I wonder what were they thinking?

Thank you Star for your faithful service and guiding us with uncanny precision thus far, but... we can take it from here…? We got this. Just asking any local would get us there…Excuse us, Sir… excuse us, Ma’am… Are you from here? We are not…

The couple skips the patronizing, ‘that’s kind of obvious’ and being the nice, hospitable people they ask the strange entourage what they need.

We are looking… do you happen to know where we can find the newborn king…we saw his... ?

A newborn king? Hmmm, we didn’t know the queen was even pregnant… Well, of course - a newborn king would be born in the Jerusalem Memorial –the best of the best… that’s where the queens go to give birth to the heirs to the throne.  But, you are going the wrong way – you need to go NORTH from here. THERE! - they emphatically point towards the palace, towards the temple - NOT south!

And thus the well-meaning couple, earnestly desiring to be helpful, convinced they know exactly what they are talking about point the weary travelers in the wrong direction...