Happy, Yet Bittersweet... and a Request of our WI Community!

Our old house is finally sold as of this morning.  It is a bittersweet day.  A happy day, but a bittersweet one.  It was more than a house for us.  It was a home.  A home that saw birthday parties, Easter egg hunts and holiday dinners.  The home that we brought our beautiful Ethiopian daughters to when they became part of our family.  It is where the girls learned to ride their bikes, tie their shoes and where the twins lost their first teeth.  It has creaky floors, a beautiful stairway and an amazing yard to play in.  It was a home filled with laughter and love.  All of these things and more made it a wonderful home for the Burke family!

Now it belongs to someone else.  I don’t know the people that own it now.  I don’t know if they are from the area or from somewhere completely different.  However, I pray it is more than a house for them as well.  I pray that it will be their home too.  I pray the new family living there will be warm by the wood burning stove.  I pray their holiday celebrations will be filled laughter and love.  I pray that they will enjoy the tree swing as much as my girls did. 

However, it’s more than just the house that I pray for them.  The people of this town welcomed us and enveloped us in their community.  We feel so much love and care from all of them.  We miss them terribly.  What I pray is that all of our friends and community will pray for this new family too.  Welcome them, whether they are people from the area or from far away.  If you see them in the yard when you drive by, wave to them.  If you pass them on your walk greet them and welcome them to the neighborhood.  Offer to help them move in.  Invite them to church.  Have them over for dinner.  Bake cookies for them.  Welcome them into the community just as you did for the Burke family.  Show them the love that will help them feel like this is now their home. 

I pray daily for our friends, family and community up North.  We miss you all beyond measure and look forward when we can visit you all!  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

The Christmas Song I Hate

I was driving to the church this morning.  The sun was shining on the water as I crossed over the dam toward the church.  The radio is playing and I'm thinking of what I need to accomplish today.  Then a song comes on the radio... We Need a Little Christmas.  I hate that song.  Truly hate it with every fiber of my being.  It's so... so... happy.  Cheerful.  Sugar coated.  It literally brought a vision to my mind of me suffocating elves with one hand while setting Santa's sleigh ablaze with an acetylene torch in the other hand.

You don't have to say it.  I know.  Bah Humbug.

I don't know what is with me this year.  I am not in the Christmas spirit.  I'm not even in the Advent spirit.  It's really weird.  Maybe it's the fact that there is no snow in South Carolina.  Maybe it's the fact that we're in a rental house and it doesn't feel like home.  Maybe "M^" having surgery and an infection has worn us down.  Maybe I don't know what to expect with Advent in our faith community.  Maybe it's the fact that my Facebook feed is full of negativity about the world we live in.  Maybe it's the shootings.  the violence.  the refugee crisis.  the racism.  materialism.  politics.  consumerism.  death.  darkness.

maybe.

I'm not sure I'm going to find my way to a gleeful Christmas filled with sugar plums and tinsel.  Honestly, I don't want to.  As each year passes I get more and more frustrated with how Christmas has become commercialized.  To our society it seems like an excuse for overindulgence and profit.  I don't need a little christmas.  At least not the Christmas that commercials, store fronts and magazines tell me I need to have.

I need the Christmas that comes with the birth of our Savior.  I don't need the glitz.  I don't need the gifts.  I don't even need the snow.  I don't need all of the things that society is screaming at each of us that we must have for the perfect Christmas.  All we need to celebrate Christmas is Jesus.  The trouble is that celebrating Jesus doesn't always include everything warm and fuzzy.  We must include the beautiful with those aspects that make us cringe.  Love that comes with God choosing to become fully human yet remain fully God.  Humility that comes with the creator of the universe becoming a vulnerable infant.  Risk that Mary willingly takes to birth God's son.  Potential shame that Joseph is willing to bare to wed an already pregnant betrothed.  Innocent children that Herod slaughters to pursue power.  A refugee family taking shelter in a foreign land.

This story that we claim to know and celebrate so prophetically... it can't be glossed over and maintain it's power.  It's more than just the simple tale of a mother giving birth among friendly beasts while angels sing and travelers bring gifts.  We need the raw and real Christmas.  We need it to touch our very souls until we cry out with praise for a God that loves us beyond measure.  Instead of just "needing a little christmas" I'll be searching this Advent for something else to come.

O come, O come, Emmanuel,
and ransom captive Israel,
that mourns in lonely exile here
until the Son of God appear.
Refrain:
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, thou Wisdom from on high,
who orderest all things mightily;
to us the path of knowledge show,
and teach us in her ways to go. Refrain

O come, thou Rod of Jesse, free
thine own from Satan's tyranny;
from depths of hell thy people save,
and give them victory over the grave. Refrain

O come, thou Dayspring, come and cheer
our spirits by thine advent here;
disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
and death's dark shadows put to flight. Refrain

O come, thou Key of David, come,
and open wide our heavenly home;
make safe the way that leads on high,
and close the path to misery. Refrain

O come, O come, great Lord of might,
who to thy tribes on Sinai's height
in ancient times once gave the law
in cloud and majesty and awe. Refrain

O come, thou Root of Jesse's tree,
an ensign of thy people be;
before thee rulers silent fall;
all peoples on thy mercy call. Refrain

O come, Desire of nations, bind
in one the hearts of all mankind;
bid thou our sad divisions cease,
and be thyself our King of Peace. Refrain

O come, O come, Emmanuel,
and ransom captive Israel,
that mourns in lonely exile here
until the Son of God appear. Refrain