The Beauty of Christmas, 2017

The World Upended

The ethereal hails the dust of earth

The One who lit the stars shivers in darkness beneath them

A dirty peasant girl’s bastard child is

God with us.

~S.B.S. (December, 2016)

My friends, the beauty of Christmas isn't family togetherness, twinkling lights, or the story of a cute baby among barnyard animals. 

The beauty of Christmas is that the most powerful being in the universe shocked the hell out of heaven and hell, not by a show of might but by becoming the most vulnerable of humans: the baby of an impoverished, teenaged refugee. 

Why? It was a crucial step in the ultimate, ongoing, undeserved rescue plan for you and me, who--even in our moments of best intentions--make an ugly mess of everything we touch: every opportunity, every relationship, every governing system, every inch of this planet. 

When will the final rescue occur? How will it happen? I don't know, but I suspect it will be an even more audacious, amazing, beautiful show of love.

  

A Christmas Story

http://www.princetoninfo.com/index.php/component/us1more/?Itemid=6&key=7-22-15steen

When A Photo Is More Than A Photo

This photo on my Facebook newsfeed today reminds me that pictures can carry meaning far beyond what they show.



Bob snapped this while setting up the camera timer for a family photo on the beach in Mexico 6.5 years ago. We're in a hurry, because it's dinnertime (in other words, the kids' good moods are about to expire), and the bright sunshine we enjoyed all day has blown away with an approaching storm. But it's our last chance for a family photo, because we leave in the morning for home and winter. Sally is shown mid-sneeze; squinting Huckle is clutching the well-traveled stuffed cat he brought on all our travels back then. But this photo represents far more to me. It was taken in February 2011, several weeks after I learned I had breast cancer. This vacation was a blessed respite between the emotional hardship of cancer diagnosis and the looming physical hardship of cancer treatment. It was a bittersweet time of facing the vulnerability of being mortal but also of awakening to the everyday joys of being alive--not simply the photogenic sunny days we all love to post, but every sneezy, overcast, hungry-and-tired-kids second that makes up life. These moments, these now-teenaged children, my re-grown hair and middle-aged survivor body, today's cool fall weather, the dog whining beside me for another walk, the stack of homework I need to grade, the cold cup of tea by my elbow--they are gifts, not entitlements. I praise God for every one of them.