Shade tree wisdom 12/11/10

I really am sort of at a standstill as to how to begin. (Now if that sentence doesn’t intrigue you, then nothing will.)

Christmas is near, and the news says so, no end. Only so many days left to do your shopping, getting gifts wrapped and sent, doing all the pre-Christmas chores. Shopping for gifts either online or in person is hard, wondering whether what you plan to give is right, and now you have to worry whether your high school niece will find the label you buy right. “Correct” with the “in crowd”.

Stress no end, and the voice gets a bit shrill, and tempers are short, and you forget the person serving you in a busy store is also a person with feelings, needs, and cares of their own.

Maybe the think piece that called Christmas “a numbing season” had it right. For it seems as if the thing is way out of kilter.

Especially so when we consider that Mark and John don’t even mention the birth, and the early Church celebrated the Resurrection of Christ, not the birth. So St. Paul writes, “I determined not to Know anything among you but Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.”

The climax of the four Gospels is not the birth, but the events we celebrate at Easter. One quarter to one half of each of the chapters in the four Gospels focus on Easter events. Early Christians did not celebrate the birth so much as they did the Resurrection, at least not from their basic texts.

Pressures to buy loads of gifts are pressures from the culture, not from the faith. Pressures to present a flawless meal, or spend a holiday without family friction, or keep a relentless façade of good cheer are not pressures of the faith. We may not be able to escape the pressure completely, but let us at least put things into persective. Let us not confuse faith and discipleship with what the world offers.

May I offer this, that we pause in the race, take time for quiet worship, relax a bit and remember that we are God’s baptized children and that He has written the plan of our lives before they ever began. Psalm 139,16 is the selection of choice, among so many others rich in promise and of blessing.

When we do that, it won’t bother us when we end up in the grocery line behind the person who starts digging for money only after everything had checked and the cashier is waiting to be paid.

We are patient, because we know something, we are God’s children.

GPD 12/11/10