Christmas, a time of being patronisingly berated for your failure to grasp the real meaning of the season. If it hasn’t happened to you in some form by the 24th, you might as well knock down the tree and use the cinnamon-scented candle to set fire to your wreath: you’re just not having a proper Noël without a bit of sanctimony to spice the joyeux.
by Kristin Fontaine ‘Tis the Season on Facebook™ for those “Keep CHRIST in Christmas” memes. These type of copy/paste postings annoy me for two reasons:
When we prepare a highway for the Lord, we need to remember it wasn’t built in a day–nor will we get used to it in a day.
Advent’s a time for looking back at the things that had bad outcomes, and asking those same questions we always asked in M and M–“What would I do differently if I had it to do over again?” “How would I do it differently the next time a similar situation happened?” “How aware was I at the time?” “How can I be more aware next time?”
I had all the presents back at my apartment, I was halfway through wrapping them, and I realized, “Damn, I used the wrong wrapping paper.” The paper I used said, “Happy Birthday.” I didn’t want to waste it, so I just wrote “Jesus” on it. ~Demetri Martin
The Presiding Bishop speaks, a video reminds us of the essential characteristics of Advent, and seasonal web calendars put us in the right frame of mind.
‘Tis the season: an enterprising group of young clergy and seminarians has teamed up to create an island of reflection and prayer in the middle of a mall.
“Perhaps this Advent can bring revolution within the Christian church — to inspire us to use our power and privilege to heal and not to harm, to help and not to hinder, to bless and not to curse.”
Historically, on All Saints Day, we focus on the “perfection” of the saints–that they are models of holiness, and we feel we can never attain that kind of perfection. But the more I read about the lives of the saints, the more I recognize they were wildly, crazily IM-perfect.
I’ve been having a wonderful exercise of my life and vocation this summer. I’ve gone swimming, sat on the edges of piers and drank wine, kayaked up an idyllic marsh-land creek to see a heron rookery, gone fishing, sat at dining room tables and on porches, headed over to the local restaurant to celebrate a birthday, and went to brunch at the local marina.