Filed under: life
So now that Christmas is over, I can post this. Didn’t want to post pre-Christmas because, well, it might serve to put a damper on the big day for some whom I know read this.
This year the phrase “Merry Christmas” had a strange new twist for me. I said it to a friend, a guy who I consider a “spiritual mentor,” and when I said it I immediately sensed something in me change.
Over the past couple of weeks since this little happening, I’ve figured it out: Saying “Merry Christmas” doesn’t mean anything, and in the context of where hyper-sensitive America is with that phrase, I’m pretty sure the so-called fight to keep Christ in Christmas makes a bunch of otherwise well-meaning people into assholes.
For me, it came down to a question I heard in my head when I said the phrase to a friend: What purpose does this serve for the Kingdom of God? Answer: Nothing.
What is merry about Christmas, in the sense of the Christ-mas story? Is “merry” really an adjective that accurately describes what happened to the point of fighting for the right to say it?
The confirmation of what I was sensing came earlier in the week when I read a story about woman who is claiming to have lost her job because she refused to say “Happy Holidays,” and instead told customers at the job she worked at “Merry Christmas.” She is now suing her former employer, citing a lot of absolutely ridiculous claims such as her being a Baptist Christian means that she can’t say “Happy Holidays.”
Bull. Shizzzznit.
For those that want to fight to keep saying Merry Christmas, I cast my hope against your fight. I’d rather you live out 1 John 3:18, and keep your face hole shut.
How about showing some compassion, love, and listening before you “fight” to keep saying “Merry Christmas” like some parrot?!
See, this issue has become yet one more area for well-meaning Christians to toil in, and the fruit of this toiling turns out to be the opposite of pretty much everything Jesus The Messiah is about.
So to wrap this up, Happy Holidays!
Filed under: life
Last Tuesday we came home after hanging out with some new friends, and around 10:30pm our son began to puke. In his 13 months of life, he hadn’t really done something like this – spit-up, etc., sure, but not like this. Projectile vomit is how I would classify it, pure nastiness.
So we assumed food-related, as he had been chowing down on his first chocolate chip cookie at the new friends place, and also ate a cherry. No big deal. Just one puking, move on.
But after the 5th puking, changing of sheets, cleaning up, etc. we knew this might be something else, though he did sleep the night away. My wife, however, did not. She, too, was feeling ill and spent most of the following day very sick by another means. That was Wednesday.
By Thursday night I was errupting from any hole in my body that could project something, and on top of that, the illness that was now clearly a stomach bug added in this whole-body deep ache. I should add “-soul” to that because even my dreams and state of mind were effected. My dream that night was of a shrine – some kind of religious thing that I did not know what to do with. I was laying in bed while all this stuff was going around me. Oh, and Kenny Mayne was doing the commentary, but that’s probably because I love the Mayne Street series on ESPN.com.
Anyway, by Friday night the bug had mostly left, and with it taking my, my wife, and my son’s appetite and sense of time. Friday morphed into Saturday, and then into today. It’s all one big blur of laying around, drinking 7up, aching, and waching A LOT of cable television.
Saturday, however, was good. We started the day by cleaning up quickly for a rare house showing! An agent called the night previous, and since it was the first in months we had to say yes, even though we felt like shit. So we tidied up, left and drove acrossed the street to a park where we could see our visitors behind trees from the comfort of our SUV. They were young, stayed only 10-15 minutes, and we knew they weren’t interested by their body language. Oh well.
Saturday night was great. First, G had 2 teeth FINALLY break through. Then he learned to clap – and really got a kick out of it. And then wrapped the night up by walking. Quite a milestone day for the little man. And I will never forget how and why he did it.
Andrea and I were laying around, me on the love seat, she on the sofa, watching The Dog Whisperer, and I had just finished testing my stomach’s limit with 1/2 of a sandwich. I gave part of my uneaten bun to G, as he wanted stuff to chew on. Our little dog, Jasper, is always near G when he’s eating, looking for scraps. G likes to tease him, and that’s how it happened… G was teaing the dog, holding out the bun, walking with the furniture, and then he took about 3 steps out, and I whispered loudly to Andrea to watch what was happening.
By that time G realized, “Hey! I’m walking!” and began to do his proud grin to us. He just walked around and around in a circle for while, breaking down into a crawl now and then. It was fun to watch – a huge ray of sun on all of our day.
So that’s that. We were supposed to be in Illinois this weekend, but our sickness, my grandpa’s health, a nasty snow/ice storm in IL, the house showing, and who-knows-what stopped that from happening. Thankfully, everyone is feeling better. Just have to see what this week will bring.
Filed under: happenings
It is so refreshing to see these scientists, and their findings, to get some coverage. It’s nothing short of arrogance to believe that a consensus could be arrived at so quickly on a topic of such vast scale.
Climate change is something that I openly admit I know little about. My skepticism is based mostly on intuition, so if I’m proved to be totally wrong, I’ll accept it.
But one thought occurred to me the other day when I read a story about the Creation Museum’s assertion of a “young earth”:
“Rapid” climate change is logically considered extreme for the Old Earth (millions-of-years) folks, but for the Young Earth (6k-12k year old Earth) folks, the pace of these climate changes fits right in. I’m not saying this has any weight in the debate – I simply found it to be interesting.
I guess the thing that bothers me about Big Govt. and Big Media’s rush to assume consensus on man-made global climate change is that it is nothing but a segue for more intrusion and control. I’m already seeing stories written about Carbon Credits, etc. and it makes my eyes sore from rolling so much.
Filed under: happenings | Tags: morality, cincinnati zoo, creation museum, religion, right and wrong, ravi zacharius
In today’s Cincinnati Enquirer, a story on the front page tells of how our local zoo has decided to cut off a promotion partnership with another local big attraction – the Creation Museum – because of “dozens of calls” from people protesting the partnership.
I would first like to give my opinion on the matter: The Cincinnati Zoo did a very inappropriate thing by going into this deal to begin with, specifically because they accept public money via a tax levy. I part ways with many of my brothers and sisters in Christ in my strong belief in a separation between church and state.
For example, I don’t have a problem with a government approving unions between adults, so long as government doesn’t dictate what Churches approve of or honor. When I married my wife, I made the commitment to God, alone, and the paperwork for the state of Ohio was a formality. I fall into the C.S. Lewis camp of belief that there should be 2 distinct and different kinds of unions, those of the state and those of the Church. This intermingling of the two just muddies the waters of what the purpose of each really is.
So when it comes to this topic of the Creation Museum and the Cincinnati Zoo, I see it more of a “What were you thinking?!?” thing on the part of the zoo, than anything else. Keep public funds out of blatantly religious things. Just my opinion on the matter, and I reserve the right to change my mind on this as I age and gain more experience on the topic.
But…
The story caused me to also think on a big picture question: Who decides what is tolerable? Last month’s drama in California about gay marriage had the same question at it’s core when those in favor of gay marriage went on a rampage, essentially displaying intolerance at the will of the people. They used intolerance to lash out against intolerance.
When God or faith or any kind of religious thinking is taken out of the conversation, where is the objective frame work for figuring out what is ultimately right and wrong?
Pro-gay marriage or anti-Creationist folks are strong in their opposition to their counterparts, but any time I have engaged someone they simply cannot answer the question how they draw the distinction between wrong and right. If gay marriage is right… if creationism is wrong, just tell me why, on absolute terms.
On the surface, in the most shallow of terms in conversation, relativism is often cited as the rule of the day – that there is simply no ultimate right or wrong.
But if one logically draws that out, one must accept that his/her opinion on a matter of right or wrong is no longer valid! You say creationism is wrong. I say it’s right. In a relative context, neither of us are wrong, so why all the drama?
The fact that there is outrage, that there is conversation, is proof that even in the most relativistic thinker, has a core sense of wanting an ultimate right or wrong exists.
Here’s the trouble most find themselves in – the smart ones, anyway: They start with the consensus argument, that our social context is one that is very “open minded” to these ideas, and that as such we should be “open” to gay marriage, and “free” of creationism. The trouble is that they are at the same time bashing group-think and holding up group-think. Bashing it in their perceptions that people are opposed to gay marriage or somehow slaves to creationism. Holding up in their glorification of social contexts. It’s a circular firing squad.
Dr. Ravi Zacharius gives his life’s work to looking at these kinds of questions, and the question of absolute morality, specifically. He points out that absolutes must exist because if they didn’t, their non-existence would in fact be an absolute: They would absolutely not exist.
So at some point, we’re all going to have to ask “why?” in determining the value of right or wrong in any situation. Unfortunately, the prevailing winds of thought dictate that most will spend most of the time debating the direction of that wind instead of where it’s coming from.
