Christmas Season ~ JOY

For a long while I’ve told myself I’m stopping daily, at 4 p.m., and having something to eat and drink. It can be simple – hot or cold tea, decaff coffee, juice, a glass of water or milk but stop and take a break. If I’m going to eat an evening meal, I want it early because I’ve learned the hard way, to eat late is to court acid reflux and if I don’t eat early, I’m scarfing down melted cheese on crackers and calling it a meal. Like tonight. ahem.

Well. Yeah. Stopping around 4 (see how quickly I backslid into “around” 4?) worked until “normal time” set in, meaning non DST (daylight saving time, which I despise). These days, just prior to the longest day of the year on 12/21, I’m hustling to get my barn chores finished so I’m not rushing around in the dark, side stepping one thousand pound plus beasts, throwing out grain and hay. On good great days, it’s done in good weather. On not so great days, it still gets done and if I’m late from visiting parents, it gets done in the dark.

Christmas Season is going strong with just enough fun to keep things interesting. Church women went to Rosewood Tea Room in Lunenburg County for an enjoyable afternoon. (I don’t know who did their website, but it is stellar!) Of course, Queen E 2 was there, looking ravishing in her pink ensamb. She’s gotten quite a bit of wear out of that outfit and it still looks marvelous!

Now, you wouldn’t know it but there are several women in our group who are all 91+ years of age, all are quite active and still drive. In fact, one woman had to (get that…had to… smile) buy a larger vehicle because her friends voted her “designated driver”. Don’t you love it!?

“Those who have a “why” to live can bear with almost any “how”.  ~ Victor Frankl ~

Then the choir and youth group had a Christmas party for the folks at Clay’s Assisted Living in Blackstone and, truth be told, we had as much, or more, fun than did they. We sang carols,  handed out little gifts, they ate and ate again (I was waitress) and the youth group took photos, printed them right then and there, put them in a card and viola! The folks had a nice memento. I need to find out how they did all that…I’m intrigued. I’ve got photos but, my guess is operator error, they aren’t coming up in e-mail. There’s probably an easier way to do this…but… when I take pictures with my phone, I send the photos to my e-mail, copy, download, paste, edit then drag into a post. Burdensome but better than nothing at all which is what you’re getting now. Ah well. Please feel superior now! <wicked grin>

“God doesn’t need our good works. But our neighbor does.” ~ Gustaf Wingren ~

BTW, Blackstone Baptist Church is pastor seeking so if you know someone who might be interested, let me know. BBC (which always tickles me because invariably I think of British Broadcasting Corporation) is, hands down, the friendliest church I’ve ever walked into. The first Sunday I attended, I didn’t know a soul and many people welcomed me, asked after me, asked me to return. Folks, that has NEVER happened and I’ve been a church goer for decades. It’s a small congregation, growing slowly, and, yes, most people have known each other for decades if not generations. That’s just the way it is in a small town but I let it flow over me. There’s no way I’ll ever catch up and don’t even try but I do try and hold my little place there. I do believe it’s where God calls me to be; like Isaiah when God said, “Who will go for us?” and Isaiah said, “I’ll go.”

BBC is where I went and where I feel the love of God’s people and in this day of crazy and mean, finding the love of God’s people is both blessing and gift.

“Grand Christian movement will rise and fall. Grand campaigns will be mounted and grand coalitions assembled. But all together such coordinated efforts will never match the influence and untold numbers of followers of Christ living out their callings faithfully across the vastness and complexity of modern society.” ~ Os Guiness ~

God calls us by name…by name! He rejoices over us with singing! He weeps over us! He collects our tears in a bottle.

“Our deepest calling is to grow into our own authentic self-hood, whether or not it conforms to some image of who we ought to be. As we do so, we will not only find the joy that every human being seeks–we will also find our path of authentic service in the world.” ~ Parker Palmer, Becoming the Person You Were Called to Become (Not What the World Wants of You)

Today, in Sunday School, we spoke of the difference in the school system during the last forty years and I may have had the last public school classical education offered before the system was hijacked. Today, students are taught to follow, not think, and it’s leading us down a dark, murky road. Like so many, I fear for our country because the non-thinkers outnumber the thinkers; there is no “for the public good”, there is only what some want and how far they’re willing to go to get what they want.

Frederick Buechner said, ““If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michaelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.”

Take heart! If it’s your job to raise little ones, do it well and with honor. If it’s your job to teach, do it well and with honor. If it’s your job to love your spouse, do it well and with honor. Whatever your job, do it well and with honor. I leave you with this:

“May you grow still enough to hear the small noises the earth makes in preparing for the long sleep of winter, so that you, yourself may grow calm and grounded deep within.

May you grow still enough to hear the trickling of water seeping into the ground, so that your soul may be softened and healed, and guided in its flow.

May you grow still enough to hear the splintering of starlight in the winter sky and the roar at earth’s fiery core.

May you grow still enough to hear the stir of a single snowflake in the air, so that your inner silence may turn into hushed expectation.” ~ Brother David Steindl -Rast ~

Peace and plenty, Friend. May you grow still.

P. S. apologies if the text isn’t uniform…these things are sent to test us.