It's beginning to look a lot like . . .

We put our Christmas tree up this past weekend. I dislike the Christmas rush more than most people. I dislike seeing the trees and decor out on the shelves in September. I love the celebration of Christmas and all the warm fuzzies that come with it. But each year I grow a little colder and a little harder in response to the mainstream treatment of it.

It honestly felt weird to put the tree up. It did not help that is was seventy-two degrees outside. We ALWAYS put the tree up the weekend after Thanksgiving. This year it just seemed too early. I'm still glad we did it though. The boys had a great time and the tree is really more for them than it is for me. Once I put the cookies in the oven and the Christmas CD's in the stereo, my mood changed.

As we pulled each ornament out of its box, I got more and more into it. Every ornament has a story. Every ornament evokes a memory. My kids are getting old enough that now they are able to recall their own stories for each one, not just recite the ones they hear their mom and dad recite.

It's beginning to look a lot like . . . it always does. And that's why we do it. My wife and I decided early in our relationship (pre-marriage) that we wanted to establish some speacial traditions in our family. Tradition sounds like a strange word to come out of my mouth I know. I'm not talking about a stuck in a rut attitude that says we have to do it this way because we've always done it this way mentality. It's a "let's set some traditions to use as rituals and rites of passage to mark the passing of time."

The Christmas tree and the annual ornament shopping trip are just two of the traditions we observe. Every summer we try to spend a few days at the beach with GrandMa and GrandPa. The boys ride down with them as they pull the camper behind them. And that rounds out our set of annual things. We need more traditions to be honest. We have one "weekly" observance. Every Friday night is family night for us. The boys can count on us stopping everything else and devoting that time to them.

Traditions and rituals are important because they create an atmosphere where it is beginning to look like it always does. When you are on a faith journey, it's good to have a few traditional stops along the way. They allow you to reflect on past memories and the things God has done for you. They allow you to "reset" and remember what is important when your life gets out of kilter.

A good weekly tradition is attending worship service with other folks on a faith journey. My faith journey has the typical traditions that are part of the usual faith observance - Christmas, Easter, sometimes Pentecost. Others are things like going to camp every summer. I have important decisions I have made on my journey and decisions my children have made on their own journeys in my PDA. When those dates comes around, I'm reminded of what happened "when. . ."

It's beginning to look a lot like it always does in my house. That's a good thing.

Giving Thanks

This week I'm going cliche and writing about giving thanks. If you know me personally, you know how difficult that is. But I can't help it. There are lot of things to be thankful for.

Our church said good-bye to Charlie Strickland this weekend. His battle with a series of brain tumors ended Saturday night. Most of us in the church, myself included, had only know Charlie for about three months. But they were three great months.

Charlie entered our lives as a result of getting serious about his faith journey. In fact, he really liked the "journey" terminology. Whenever I talked to him, whether in the hospital or out, he would say, "We're on a journey. But it's a good one." Charlie held no illusions about his prognosis. The closer he got to the end, the more excited I believe he became about his journey. He knew the final destination on his journey would be amazing beyond belief.

What's all this got to do with being thankful? I'm thankful I got to know Charlie. I'm thankful I got to see his enthusiasm about his faith journey. I'm thankful that as his pastor, I can say with assurance where he is tonight.

Of all the things I have for which to be thankful - my wife, my kids, never going hungry or cold, and so on, I am most thankful that I have assurance about the journey I am on. I am thankful that one day my journey will end and Charlie will be one of the folks who will greet me at my final destination. Just a thought.

GASP! The Impossible Happened!

It's nice to return from the land of the almost dead. That's how I felt yesterday. I had some kind of bug that mimicked the flu, but without the fever. I had chills most of the day. Ironically, I took some acetaminophen to battle some aches and it created hot flashes. Puzzled, I wondered why since we use it to treat our children's fevers all the time! Anyhow, I spent most of yesterday asleep or otherwise just lying around. Today all my muscles are tight and I can barely move.

My wife was most shocked to see me in that condition. I NEVER get sick. She told others, "He NEVER gets sick!" "That's impossible!" you might say. "You got sick yesterday." True, but I get sick rare enough to be able to say "NEVER" with a clear conscience. The other aspect of this trait of mine is that when I do get sick, it is usually only for a small fraction of the time that everyone else did. The average 24 hour bug will last around 4 hours for me. Which could mean I get sick more than I realize, it's just too short for me to notice. Hmmm. . . that's an interesting theory.

There's been a lot of talk in the media and on the blogosphere lately about the fall of prominent religious leaders. Anytime another one falls, we always dig into the back of the closet and pull out the skeletons of past fallen leaders, raking them over them coals once more. People who call themselves Christians are then forced to take a stand - do they defend the fallen or do they distance themselves? Usually they waffle in the middle with a statement like this - "Christians aren't perfect. Just forgiven." Or "We all sin in some way." People of faith then find it hard to defend their faith to those not also on a faith journey.

Wouldn't it be great if on our faith journeys we NEVER got sick, er, I mean, sinned? Or what if our failings were so small or insignificant that they were virtually unnoticed as such? Before some of you take that proposition too far, that last question is not the same as keeping a long term and continual sexual sin in the closet as has been revealed in the last month. I'm talking about things like stubbing your toe and saying the wrong thing or getting a little more than miffed at the guy who cut you off on the freeway.

I believe that such a possibility exists for our faith journeys. Getting sick or sinning does not have to be normal or acceptable. I want my faith journey to be characterized by as few setbacks as possible. Honestly, I'm not sure it's all that attractive of an option if there isn't such a possibility.

For those of you new to such thinking, this will raise a lot of questions. Questions on a faith journey are good. Questions like what exactly is sin? How do I avoid it? Is sinlessness really a possibility? Is there more to this than just avoiding sin?

I've got thoughts and answers to all the above. I've even got more questions. What about you? What do YOU think?

Cleanliness anyone?

The other night the missus and I went out on a date. We went to a local comedy club for "Clean Comedy Monday". For $20 a head, you get dinner and a show afterwards. We were quite surprised at the overall demographic of the audience. In the small group of about 30 or so, approximately half were families. The kids there ranged in age from 10 to 15 years old. Another noticeable trait was prayer. We noticed that at least half of the groups prayed before their meal. My wife wasn't surprised. She brushed it off, saying, "Who else would be looking for something advertised as 'Clean Comedy'." She's got a point.

As you walk in, they have a rating posted on the door, similar to what you would find at a movie theater. The show for that night was advertised as rated PG. The headliner for the evening was a master hypnotist. Come to find out, he was the same performer advertised on the club's website for the "X Rated Hypnotism Show." I have no desire to even know what that means.

Honestly, the show was not that great. The people who volunteered to be hypnotized were doubtful in their credibility. After about 30 minutes of listening to this guy talk in his smooth hypnotist voice and snapping his fingers every 5 seconds, he finally ended that portion of the routine. He proceeded to tell a few jokes to end the show. He obviously struggled to keep it clean. You could see him correcting himself split seconds before saying the wrong thing. All his jokes were quite prejudicial or poked fun at disabilities.

Now, if you know me personally, you know I am no prude. You also know that I like to make fun of people with the best of them. This guy was uncomfortably cruel in my opinion. He made jokes about people wearing turbans, advocating violence toward them. Yes, I know. He was only joking. But do we need to make light of violence prompted by hatred? I became disgusted at his imitation of the person with a disability who worked as a Wal-Mart greeter. I don't know. Maybe I'm becoming a stick in the mud and need to loosen up.

Needless to say, we were disappointed as we left the show that night. We had hoped for a fun-filled evening of clean comedy. The comedy aspect was questionable, and while it may have been PG, it didn't feel very clean. At least not dignifying. Which leads me to this thought. Why is it so difficult to be clean?

I think the nature of our society is growing increasingly comfortable with those things that only 20 years ago would have been unthinkable or at least unmentionable. It is not so much that we have become immoral, but amoral. Few things have any moral value associated with them. Cultural diversity has lead to extreme relativism. There are no standards, it seems, to govern what is acceptable.

I'm not just speaking as some ultraconservative Christian who would be obviously concerned with such things. I had a staunch atheist tell me one time that morals were necessary for the functioning of society and in fact good for business. He was a successful management consultant. As he explained, in the same manner he advised his clients, if you want someone's business or desire a business partnership with them, they need to be able to trust you and your moral conduct. Makes a lot sense. The last five or six years have seen the collapse of several big corporations because of the lack of moral conduct.

So, why it is so hard to be clean? Is it from lack of desire? Is it from looking for it in the wrong places? As they say, wrestle with a pig and you both get dirty. But only the pig likes it. Is the lack of clean-ness a result of trying to make chicken salad with . . . well . . . you know?

Our faith journeys can help us with that. Our journeys usually have several washing stations along the way. Sort of like a drive through car wash. If you are looking for clean-ness and can't find it, maybe the journey you are presently on is not the right one. Just a thought.

My Favorite Time of the Year

This week has been amazing in terms of visual pleasure. The leaves in our area have suddenly taken on the beautiful and vibrant hues of fall. I find myself just walking around my own yard, taking in the colors. I wish I was able to take some time lapse photography of it all because it is amazing how fast it happens. Given the opportunity, I really do believe I could sit around for a week or so and just watch the show.

And that's my thought.