From a Completely Different Perspective

I grew up the youngest of eight kids in a loving, but pragmatic, expansive home in a village in SE Missouri in the '50's---headed by my taciturn, rather stern father, an elementary teacher/principal, and my very nervous, stressed-out, time-pressed mother, a stay-at-home-mom (she would laugh at that term---with eight kids what else did one do!). Needless to say, we were nominally rich---well, poor . . . but compared to most homes about us, we were doing pretty well, I guess. As a snotty-nosed, rambunctious, pint-sized urchin I excelled.

Christmas was always thrilling to me as a young child.  I realize my recollections are some kind of random, not completely accurate, amalgamation. At some point a few days before Christmas, my dad would cut a cedar for a Christmas tree (I would trail along with my brother in later years to get one). We would decorate the tree with the numerous, accumulated ornaments and trinkets of decades of collecting (seldom do I recall a new one), wrapping it with popcorn chains and paper-ring chains that we kids cut and glued together, making the project a joyous ritual. Hopefully, we could get the lights to work---and what a hassle it was some years.

Presents were limited---typically something like a board game to be shared, a book, maybe a jigsaw puzzle or toy, and several items of clothing.  Christmas wasn't glutted with gifts, but the excitement was intense, nevertheless. Food treats and visits from family members (older brother and sisters from afar) lit the atmosphere, making Christmas a glorious, thrilling interlude in a rather uneventful lifestyle. The divinity, fudge, chocolate chip cookies, and the ham---yes! Life almost seemed good. Then, New Year's came. School started up again, leaving the anticipation to center around biding one's time for the all-sufficient "snow" day(s) ahead. 

However, Christmas, in our home, was not a focused, Jesus-centered holy day. It was family and food and good will. My mother attended church regularly and was an active member. My father on Sunday mornings read the "Sunday paper" in his rocking chair (or on the screened-in front porch during the summer months). She was "family and love," and he was "knowledge and discipline," in my immature, abridging mind. Eventually, my dad became an attender on a regular basis. As a result, I didn't "find" religion until I was in my thirties. Very slowly, I have come to discern for myself God and His love, forgiveness, goodness, patience, power---the supernatural quality of His existence. All of these compared to our physical weakness and smallness and sinful nature. I have accepted The Way artlessly and innocently through faith alone. Now, I'm able to approach Christmas from a completely different perspective, yet retain many of those typical elements. Merry Christmas to all of you, and I hope each of you can find The Way!

It's about Time to Hit Pause

Christmas is at our doorstep once again---my wife has purchased SO many gifts for the grandkids. The love of her life now is their welfare and happiness. With that in mind, I jump to a broader subject---broader, but not more significant. Don't get me wrong.

The USA sends "approximately $800,000,000,000 in mandatory payments and voluntary contributions . . ." to the United Nations. Also, we spend "$23,000,000,000 on foreign humanitarian assistance and international development and $14,000,000,000 on foreign military assistance." I include the zeroes intentionally to try to get you to focus on those amounts more closely. And, I could go on and on listing various stats. My point:  Please reflect on the dollars the USA sends from here to there (wherever)! Personally, I believe we spend too much money around the world and not enough here at home solving our internal problems. I realize the many arguments that can be made in support of foreign "aid," but, sorry, they're just wrong [just like abortion is "wrong"]. 

Another huge problem is the waste and corruption in the public monies that are spent here at home. I could easily throw out some impressive stats on spending here at home. We as a nation are so blessed by our Creator that we have become careless, nonchalant wasters. We have created a monster of convoluted entanglement of mismanagement and corruption and budgeting that defies revision and correcting. 

As I listen to the GOP debates (where ARE those Dem debates?), I have not heard ANYone speak of that monstrosity at all in any fashion at all. Where is the concern for those things? Where is it? No one has a solution apparently. No one wants to talk about it, I guess. No one has the backbone or stomach (strange terms indeed) to propose ANYthing. Actually, no one has suggested ANY solutions or attempts to solve anything.

Don't you think it's about time to hit pause---to call a time-out. Isn't it time for a genuine reflection, for an unpoliticized search for solutions, for corrections---before we get back to vaulting headfirst toward the edge? 

Humans really are capable of the searching, forethought, and preparation necessary for solving problems. I believe it. I ask members of our government who aren't completely sold-out to monied-interests to step up. To attempt to begin a change in the slide in our nation. "The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now He calls all people everywhere to repent" (Acts 17:30). Hey, USA, the "times of ignorance" must be left behind us if we are to have any chance to survive as a nation. God said in Isaiah 1:18, "Come now and let us reason together . . . though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." Yes, we can reason with God and with each other to find solutions to problems. We must!

Many will contend (and therein is much of the anger in our citizens) that no solution is possible. They may, perhaps, be right. So, I think, like my wife, I'm going to focus on the immediate happiness and welfare of our grandkids and children and enjoy the Christmas spirit in our home and family. The rest? Well, in faith, I'm going to leave the larger purposes to God's capable hands. Please don't call me names like quitter or all-talk-no-action. God will ultimately "solve" all my concerns. He's my Rock.

Since I started this blog in May, 2015, we've had 1700 reads. Hope we've helped someone's day once in a while. Want to wish the real Merry Christmas to all my friends and readers!!!

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Christmas Really Doesn't Belong to You

      Well . . . we had a marvelous Thanksgiving---the entire family gathered together. Everyone's life was apparently in good and/or acceptable condition. Now, Christmas is looming (14 days left).  Jan and I decided not to buy presents for each other just yet, but to wait awhile, then each to get something each wants. She has been happily purchasing presents for the grandkids (now one great-grandkid) for several days. The holiday period is always a treat for us.

       I can't, however, but have some misgivings as I observe the malicious political climate we have right now, the brokenness I see in so many people all around me for all kinds of reasons, the poverty, the drug and alcohol-induced stupor of so many, the emptiness and hurting, the overwhelming health problems, the moral and general ignorance, and the horrendous evil. Yep. I know. Many---the rosy ones---will say it's not as bad as it seems. But, they're wrong, I'm thinking. It really is as bad, maybe even worse.

       So, where does that leave me?  I'm not sure. Right where I always am, I guess.  Not knowing just how to influence the situation.  Left---just talking; trying to say something sensible in my own way and based upon my seventy years of living that perhaps someone will hear and find helpful. Many would tell me to get up and get out there and do something. I try in my now limited way---have yet to find some larger, benevolent outlet. But, each day that I feel well, I try to touch lives I encounter in a Christian manner . . . and I hope that's enough. Some days I'm simply an old grouch---grunching around uselessly.

      So? . . . so what? Christmas is now just around the corner---a marvelous reminder that Jesus lived our life and suffered our difficulties and waits to receive us in a supernatural, spiritually based configuration (that I won't even speculate about anymore); therein is my hope. It truly isn't logical. There's no common sense in it. It's not emotional---emotions eventually fade or change. Rather, I invite you to accept Jesus Christ into your life---through simple, innocent "faith." Yep. There it is. Be skeptical. Be sarcastic. Be intellectual. Miss the boat. One simply speaks to Him, asks for forgiveness for one's sins, and confesses publicly one's acceptance of Jesus as Lord (one's king) and Savior (the only eternal Out). Then, one can have joy and peace in a more consequential, abiding sense.

      I wish you a Merry Christmas. It's really only merry if you're a Christian, and the holiday really doesn't belong to you unless you're a Christian. Sorry. But, it really doesn't.