Show me the path where I should walk, O Lord
To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul. I trust in You, my God! Show me the path where I should walk, O Lord Point out the right road for me to follow. Lead me by your truth and teach me for You are the God who saves me. All day long I put my hope in You. Remember O Lord your unfailing love and compassion which you have shown from long ages past. Forgive the rebellious sins of my youth…Archive for Christmas
worship, spend, give and love this Christmas
UPDATE: my friend Chris Barras leads the Area 10 Church in Richmond and is actually going to be doing a series of messages (11/30, 12/07, 12/14, 12/21) on just this topic! Awesome… and the audio should be available online here afterwards…
I don’t get the whole term ‘advent’. It just speaks to me as one of those religious terms that makes me think of the Catholic church… anyway, some people out there think there is a conspiracy about it … or something like that.
The story of Christ’s birth is a story of promise, hope, and a revolutionary love. So, what happened? What was once a time to celebrate the birth of a savior has somehow turned into a season of stress, traffic jams, and shopping lists.
And when it’s all over, many of us are left with presents to return, looming debt that will take months to pay off, and this empty feeling of missed purpose. Is this what we really want out of Christmas? What if Christmas became a world-changing event again?
Welcome to Advent Conspiracy.
fall is already over? and a construction project
What happened? Now I know it’s somewhat warm (40-50 degrees right now) and we’re still going to go outside like we’ve been doing, but geez. I’m not ready for the winter. Ah well; it doesn’t work that way, does it?
We barely took many pictures this fall, but if you click on the picture below you’ll see a slideshow (does anyone know how to embed a Picasa album slideshow in WordPress?) of only a bit of what we’ve been up to this fall. Read the rest of this entry »
the joys of Christmas [shopping!]
Ah the joys of Christmas! Well not really, because I’m really talking about the shopping…. and we all know that Christmas isn’t about shopping, right? RIGHT?
Last week we finished the stuff (we mostly didn’t buy but more just made ourselves) for family and finally mailed it all out on Saturday (and due to mailing costs, probably would have been better off ordering online and just getting the free shipping!).
We tried to wrap up shopping for the kids – and I think we did. Oh wait – except for the money that family sent us so we could go and buy more stuff at the last minute for them and further “enjoy” shopping and way too many cars on the road. It’s simply amazing how horrible it can be on the road this time of year unless you’re really patient (and even if you are, you will probably still get mad because the sheer volume of it is overwhelming). Just yesterday we saw a car driving way too slowly (which isn’t that unusual) but then they got in the left lane, turned on their turn-right blinker and proceeded to turn right. The car in front of us, which of course was in the right lane hoping they would be able to pass this car, almost got hit 
Plenty of cars slowing down way too early to make right-hand turns. Plenty of cars not paying attention to the left and causing the dozen or so cars behind them to wait through maybe three lights just to make it through. Ah the joys.
The best part of shopping over the weekend was when my wife had me drop her and the baby girl (who’s actually 2) off at Target so I could take the other 2 just across the street to the Dollar Store to buy gifts for each other. After driving away and getting onto the main road, I realize that I didn’t ask for my money from the wife (I generally am not the keeper of the money), and think I better just go and take out a $20 at the ATM. But in the process of driving, I completely forget the ATM and pass the bank. I then proceed to wait thru a light to make a u-turn, and then u-turn again at the next light and get to the bank. When I get to the ATM and pull out my wallet, I notice my ever-thoughtful wife actually DID give me a $20 (just didn’t tell me). So I leave the bank lot, make another u-turn to get to the other side of the street and then finally into the parking lot where the dollar store is.
Ah the joys. Most years, I’m really frustrated over all this shopping. Last year, my wife just up and did it all in one day.
I could link to so many other people that wrote online about shopping and Christmas. I will link to Gary from Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit as I really liked this “We went shopping for a while this afternoon. The traffic, the parking lots, all the people, what a pain.” He wrote a lot more than that – but I really connected with that. I really enjoyed Brant’s post from Letters from Kamp Krusty regarding crap and don’t buy it if you can’t afford it. Towards that topic, I will end with an SNL skit regarding Debt Management and how to get out of it:
Christmas and gifts
Amazing how quickly it always comes that the topic of Christmas (and for most, the buying that goes with it) is already being discussed. The good thing is that the context in which I read about it (“Buy Nothing Christmas” by Growing Up in Church) is about NOT BUYING. This Buy Nothing Christmas thing is “a movement dedicated to reviving the original meaning of Christmas giving.”
Now when I told this to my wife, she thought it meant not giving anything but that isn’t the idea. Instead it is giving gifts but not just because everyone is giving (you know what I mean, you feel obliged to get every single person in your huge family a gift NO MATTER WHAT). Several years ago, we made mixes (like caramel corn) and bought trays to put them in and distributed those to friends, coworkers, and neighbors. We have also some year ago made cookies and mailed them in tins to family. Usually what we’ve done obviously involved making and giving food. We really like that idea.
My family has never really been that big into doing huge piles of gifts – but when I was a kid, we did get the usual gifts and from the cousins’ families (only 2 sets of aunts+uncles+cousins) we usually received one thing like a movie. My grandparents give their daughters necessities every year. In a small group a few years ago, we did a gift exchange (usually what your family didn’t want anymore but someone else might but sometimes it was silly stuff). We’ve had the children make hand-painted and decorated frames with a picture of themselves, and make other things (maybe we did ornaments one year) to give.
But this Buy Nothing Christmas movement has a list of alternative ideas that we’ve never thought of but like:
- recycled glass coffee containers, painted and filled with goodies for kids
- calendar for the family with everyone’s photos and birthdays (I really like this idea – might do this!)
- alternative to department stores is Ten Thousand Villages which provides vital, fair income to Third World artisans (I came across this recently from somewhere else online too)
- Look through your (and your kids’) old clothes, cut out squares of fabrics they will remember, and make a little wall hanging or pillow or stuffed toy or whatever.
Either which way, we have a lot of planning going on before we can think about all of this – we have Thanksgiving! And before that, I had mentioned previously about serving with some organization with the homeless – well we have decided to connect with the Freedom House’s Respite Program 10 days from now and serve dinner…. I can’t wait!
12/4/2007 UPDATE: I really enjoyed this post on this topic…
