Mr. T and the Pearl of Cheap Price

Like all kids Hannah has chosen her favorite Christmas present right out of the gate: a fist-full of cheap Mardi Gras beads that my brother placed in a treasure chest he made for my oldest daughter Olivia.

Every day she teeters over to the chest, looks in and points with absolute joy in her heart that indeed, the beads are still there!

...and then Hannah proceeds to put on each stand, one at a time, and then do a little dance of joy...

Like the man who found the treasure chest and the other who found the pearl of Great Price, she has placed all of her attention and affection on one Gift.
...have you? Do you still peer into the eyes of Christ with the same wonder, love and praise as you did that first Christmas Morning when the Holy Spirit revealed the King in all his splendor?

bullet proof collar or Pope-mobile?

 I tend to go to places alone alot...dropping off furniture, clothes, food, carseats. Now the places I go to are safe compared to where my friends go...Afghanistan, the Meth-Belt of Kansas City MO..etc. But still...

Sometimes I get freaked out before I go, but I always pray...and wear a collar. Why?

Well, collars are meant to remind me that I am yoked to Christ. I wear them on these runs to remind myself that Jesus came into my neighborhood to get me. I don't wear them for anyone's benefit. They are not a fashion statement nor a badge of anything I have earned.

But I have to be honest when I do solo-runs I wear them to put the folks I'm ministering at ease and to let them see a ambassdor of Christ  in their neighborhood getting dirty....and I also think that someone might think twice about jumping me.

How stupid is that? Did they think twice about anything when they killed Christ? Have the countless martyrs been spared anything because of their affiliation with Jesus? Did Jesus promise we would live like Holy Bubble Boys?

Of course not.
As we enter into the last week of anticipation of celebrating the event of God making a solo run (well, Trinitarian run I guess) into the world, let us not forget that He left His credentials at home (see Phillipians 2).

Are you going into these places? Christ did.

Into the Heart of Christ...living art in a pick-up truck

I had the overnight shift driving during one of our yearly Thanksgiving Surf Trip to the Outer Banks. Allen and I took shifts sharing the 15 hour drive to get to our favorite waves on the East Coast; the Outer Banks of Cape Hatteras. Thoughts of glass-smooth 6-8 foot waves curling into perfect barrels over my head...albatross dancing on the thermals just above the waves, dolphin leaping around us, hot apple fritters after six-hour long early morning sessions. I had mentally changed into my baggies and was running across the parking lot at the lighthouse.

And then we drove through it; heaven meeting earth....

We were on one of the long, low bridges spanning the marshes. The timing was perfect; that time of day in the warmer climates when the cool air of the night meets the warm air of the day and both sit still. The air was so motionless you could hear a butterfly's wing rub against the wind and the water sat motionless like school-girl when her crush walks by. 

The sun had just risen over the tops of the pines lining the bay and  we  were caught up right in the middle of  360 degrees of the Glory of God touching the stuff of earth...you couldn't tell heaven from earth...perfect mirror image. We were flying over the water.  We had escaped earths' capture and we ascended into Joy.

I did the only thing I could do when you confronted by such Holiness.
I screamed.

"Wake up!" Allen was  afraid we were about to die.
I couldn't keep this beauty to myself. In times like this can't keep your eyes shut or your mouth closed.

The image is burned into the corners of my imagination. And the Holy Spirit brought it back today as I journey into Advent...
The bridge of Death was spanned during the longest of nights, when the Glory of God shown down on the stuff of earth, when God was perfectly reflected in the One ...and the Angels screamed "wake up!" to the shepherds because they couldn't keep the beauty to themselves.

Have you see it? Did you scream?

Archimedes and Advent...esspresso on the floor

"Give me a place to stand and I will move the world"... This is the common translation for Archimedes' declaration that if you have a fulcrum and a long enough lever you can move an object of infinite size. So theoretically speaking, if he could develop a long enough lever he could move the earth....

True as this statement is, the problems lie in the fact that we cannot build a lever that large and there the world needs to move in a deeper fashion that simply physically.

This is the problem, and the solution of Advent...

The Hebrews knew (as we all should if we are paying attention) that the world needed to be moved. It was busted because babies were dying, folks were committing murder, and the physical world produced hardship (among other things like idol worship). They had done their best using the fulcrum of their hearts and the lever of the law but it had failed...not because of the lever, but because the fulcrum was in the wrong place... (see Numbers 11:23 and Isaiah 59:1)

So enter the Advent solution: a new fulcrum (see Ezekiel 36:25-27) and a new lever (John 1:14)....
and ever since that first not-so-silent-night the world has moved indeed...

So are you trying to move the world on your own? Sure, you can do some good things, but that's just budging the world. For me, my little earth-moving-place is a  stool I bought in seminary. I sit on it, drink espresso and read of the saving acts of the loving God who rocked the world through a little baby...and I move the earth by starting with myself.
blessed Advent to you all
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