What Are You Doing?

Don’t you know today’s a holiday?!?  What are you doing snooping around here?  Git.  Go spend some time with your family, fercryinoutloud.

Resurrection Sunday

Yesterday was Silent Saturday [the reason for no post yesterday]…reminding us that Christ was taken from us.  What can you say.  Some tragedies defy words.

I remember where I was in 1995 when the Alfred P. Murrah building in Oklahoma City was bombed by Timothy McVeigh.  I was working for McCaw Communications/Cellular One (later to become AT&T Wireless Services) about ten miles north of downtown OKC.  I worked on the second floor in our customer service call center.  At 9:01 we all heard a great booming sound and our building shook.  I thought someone had driven a semi trailer truck into our building.  The first rumor we heard was that a boiler in the basement of a downtown building had exploded.  We would soon find out otherwise.

I don’t remember how many employees we had working that day.  Probably 100 or 150.  In a call center you take one call after another.  Goals are high and despite what you’ve probably experienced in calling into a company’s customer service department, we were expected to answer all calls within the first 20 seconds and take 90 calls in an eight hour day (do the math - about 12 calls/hour which meant five minutes per call tops.  And amazingly we usually met our goals).  We serviced customers in Oklahoma, Arkansas and southwest Missouri.  The phone lines went dead.  Stone.  Cold.  Dead.  There were no technical difficulties.  But how do you call to dispute a $4.50 charge on your cell phone bill in the context of what just happened?  Unless you’re that one jerk from Arkansas who said, "I don’t care what just happened.  I need to make a business call and I can’t," you don’t.

Some things defy words.  Kennedy’s assassination.   September 11th.   We may eventually find the words, but it will almost certainly take a while.

Jesus has been crucified.  The one John had pointed to saying, "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, who’s sandals I’m unworthy to untie."  The one who had given sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, made the lame walk, set the captives free and cast out the ruler of this world.  Dead.  Gone.  Speechless.  Silent Saturday.

There are also some things that happen in life which bring great joy, but for which words can be hard to find.  When our oldest daughter was born I was in the delivery room with my wife Vera.  As Jessica’s little head and body emerged I was overwhelmed.  At a loss for words.  Full of joy, but with tears streaming down my face.  I couldn’t believe the miracle I’d just witnessed.  For a moment I was speechless. 

But we tend to find words for those sort of events more quickly.  It wasn’t long until I was a crazy man on the cell phone calling everyone I could think of who wasn’t already there.  Soon the words would come bursting out.

Read the resurrection story in Matthew’s Gospel.  There’s an earthquake.  An angel sits on top of the stone of the tomb.  The soldiers fall to the ground paralyzed like dead men.  Not a word.  Mary and Mary come to the empty tomb and the only one among them able to utter a word is that angel.  He sends them on their way to tell the disciples and as they go they are encountered by the risen Christ.  In Matthew’s Gospel they don’t say a word.  Mark says this: "And they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and
astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they
were afraid."

But very quickly the women returned to the other disciples declaring that they had seen the Lord!  He is risen!  The silence of Saturday now bursts forth into babbling excitement.  All is abuzz.  Mourning has turned to laughter.  Despair has turned to hope.  The silence has been broken.  Today we break the silence.  Today we declare with millions around the world, in greetings, in songs, in proclamation, that He is risen!  He is risen, indeed!

Good Friday

Isaiah 52

1-2 Wake up, wake up! Pull on your boots, Zion! Dress up in your Sunday best, Jerusalem, holy city!
Those who want no part of God have been culled out.
   They won’t be coming along.
Brush off the dust and get to your feet, captive Jerusalem!

   Throw off your chains, captive daughter of Zion!

3 God says, "You were sold for nothing. You’re being bought back for nothing."

4-6 Again,
the Master, God, says, "Early on, my people went to Egypt and lived,
strangers in the land. At the other end, Assyria oppressed them. And
now, what have I here?" God’s Decree. "My people are hauled off again
for no reason at all. Tyrants on the warpath, whooping it up, and day
after day, incessantly, my reputation blackened. Now it’s time that my
people know who I am, what I’m made of—yes, that I have something to
say. Here I am!"

7-10 How beautiful on the mountains
   are the feet of the messenger bringing good news,
Breaking the news that all’s well,
   proclaiming good times, announcing salvation,
   telling Zion, "Your God reigns!"
Voices! Listen! Your scouts are shouting, thunderclap shouts,
   shouting in joyful unison.
They see with their own eyes
   God coming back to Zion.
Break into song! Boom it out, ruins of Jerusalem:
   "God has comforted his people!
   He’s redeemed Jerusalem!"
God has rolled up his sleeves.
   All the nations can see his holy, muscled arm.
Everyone, from one end of the earth to the other,
   sees him at work, doing his salvation work.

11-12 Out of here! Out of here! Leave this place!
   Don’t look back. Don’t contaminate yourselves with plunder.
Just leave, but leave clean. Purify yourselves
   in the process of worship, carrying the holy vessels of God.
But you don’t have to be in a hurry.
   You’re not running from anybody!
God is leading you out of here,
   and the God of Israel is also your rear guard.

It Was Our Pains He Carried

13-15 "Just watch my servant blossom!
   Exalted, tall, head and shoulders above the crowd!
But he didn’t begin that way.
   At first everyone was appalled.
He didn’t even look human—
   a ruined face, disfigured past recognition.
Nations all over the world will be in awe, taken aback,
   kings shocked into silence when they see him.
For what was unheard of they’ll see with their own eyes,
   what was unthinkable they’ll have right before them."

Isaiah 53

1 Who believes what we’ve heard and seen? Who would have thought God’s saving power would look like this?

2-6 The servant grew up before God—a scrawny seedling,
   a scrubby plant in a parched field.
There was nothing attractive about him,
   nothing to cause us to take a second look.
He was looked down on and passed over,
   a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand.
One look at him and people turned away.
   We looked down on him, thought he was scum.
But the fact is, it was our pains he carried—
   our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us.
We thought he brought it on himself,
   that God was punishing him for his own failures.
But it was our sins that did that to him,
   that ripped and tore and crushed him—our sins!
He took the punishment, and that made us whole.
   Through his bruises we get healed.
We’re all like sheep who’ve wandered off and gotten lost.
   We’ve all done our own thing, gone our own way.
And God has piled all our sins, everything we’ve done wrong,
   on him, on him.

7-9 He was beaten, he was tortured,
   but he didn’t say a word.
Like a lamb taken to be slaughtered
   and like a sheep being sheared,
   he took it all in silence.
Justice miscarried, and he was led off—
   and did anyone really know what was happening?
He died without a thought for his own welfare,
   beaten bloody for the sins of my people.
They buried him with the wicked,
   threw him in a grave with a rich man,
Even though he’d never hurt a soul
   or said one word that wasn’t true.

 10 Still, it’s what God had in mind all along,
   to crush him with pain.
The plan was that he give himself as an offering for sin
   so that he’d see life come from it—life, life, and more life.
   And God’s plan will deeply prosper through him.

11-12 Out of that terrible travail of soul,
   he’ll see that it’s worth it and be glad he did it.
Through what he experienced, my righteous one, my servant,
   will make many "righteous ones,"
   as he himself carries the burden of their sins.
Therefore I’ll reward him extravagantly—
   the best of everything, the highest honors—
Because he looked death in the face and didn’t flinch,
   because he embraced the company of the lowest.
He took on his own shoulders the sin of the many,
   he took up the cause of all the black sheep.

[The Message]

Holy Thursday

"For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." Mark 10:45

On Holy Thursday we are reminded of the time Jesus, showing his disciples the full extent of his love, wrapped a towel around his waist, filled a bowl with water and washed their feet.  Service.

"A good many are kept out of the service of Christ, deprived of the
luxury of working for God, because they are trying to do some
great thing. Let us be willing to do little things. And let us
remember that nothing is small in which God is the source."  - D. L. Moody

America has a "Service Industry."  Wait staff.  Janitorial service.  Truck drivers.  Retailers.  Waste management.  A growing sector of the service industry in Oklahoma is the customer service call center.  AT&T Wireless/Cingular, Dell, Convergys, CIT group, Hartford, Williams Sonoma.  The typical ones pay somewhere around $8/hour and the workplace is always in transition (employees don’t stay long).  Thankless jobs, most of them.  Last night one of the kids asked another one, "What do you want to be when you grow up?"  None of these jobs even hit the radar.  The one asking wants to be a Secret Agent and a Famous Basketball Player.

Service does not come naturally nor is it easy.  Just ask the disciples.  Washing feet was the job that belonged to the lowliest servant of the house.  Apparently he/she called in sick that day.  None of the disciples were interested in taking over the job.  Even when the Master donned the towel no one stepped in to say, "No.  Here, let me do that!"  It’s much nicer to be served than to serve.  But in Jesus’ right-side-up kingdom economy the greatest become the servant of all.

"During World War II, England needed to increase its
production of coal. Winston Churchill called together labor
leaders to enlist their support. At the end of his presentation he
asked them to picture in their minds a parade which he knew
would be held in Picadilly Circus after the war. First, he said,
would come the sailors who had kept the vital sea lanes open.
Then would come the soldiers who had come home from
Dunkirk and then gone on to defeat Rommel in Africa. Then
would come the pilots who had driven the Luftwaffe from the
sky. "Last of all, he said, would come a long line of sweat-stained,
soot-streaked men in miner’s caps. Someone would cry from
the crowd, ‘And where were you during the critical days of our
struggle?’ And from ten thousand throats would come the
answer, ‘We were deep in the earth with our faces to the coal.’" - Don McCullough in Waking From The American Dream

How are you serving?  Who are you serving?

A Christmas Letter

From our three year old:

Hello Friends,

My mommy and daddy thought
about sending one of those Christmas letters to everyone this year instead of
giving out cards, but neither of them wanted to write it, so, not being the shy
type, I volunteered.

My, how time flies when
you’re three. It seems like it was just
yesterday that I was two. Mom and dad
tried to potty train me this past year and I’ve done a pretty good job, but I
still wear a pull-up at night because…well, mainly because I want to show them
that I’m still the boss and because sometimes I’m just too busy to go all the
way down the hall to the bathroom. Especially at night. When I’m
asleep.

I got a new brother and
sister this year, which means that I get to share a room with Jessica now. I really don’t mind because I’m the social
one and I like the company and because I can make a big mess and tell mom and
dad that I didn’t do it. And if I need
help sometimes they’ll make her help me. It’s hilarious!

My new sister is Chelsea.  I like her name because it sounds like Kelsey
and when mom and dad are yelling at me I can brush it off as if they were
yelling at her instead. She’s 14 and
she’s lived with us since September. She
talks a lot and we get along pretty well. We’re both princesses.

My new brother is
Victor. I haven’t really gotten to know
him that well, even though he’s lived with us since April. I usually only see the back of his head while
he’s playing the Gamecube or Playstation or watching TV. I hear he’s nice. He wants to grow up and be a basketball player
or a football player.

Jessica just turned nine in
November. She’s playing basketball. Sometimes I get out there and play with the
big girls when they practice. I don’t
think they like that, but I don’t care because, like I said, I’m a
princess. She’s really smart and does
really well in school, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Wesley’s five and is in Kindergarten at school. He’s always
showing off how he can add numbers already. Whatever. He likes to play soccer
and his soccer team won every game this fall. He even got his picture in the Sapulpa
paper. I love my big brother. We play together a lot. Sometimes we fight. But that’s because he’s not treating me like
a princess.

I’m three and I go to
preschool three days a week. I like to
color and glue. I like to wear lots of
different clothes, sometimes all in the same day. Sometimes I tell mommy and daddy that I want
a new mommy and daddy, but then I usually change my mind. I’ve got a boyfriend named Preston. He goes to my church.

We’ve lived in Sapulpa for almost three
years now. We all really like it
here. We have lots of friends. Mommy and daddy have re-done the
kitchen. I like drawing on the new
chalkboard in the kitchen. I also like
drawing on the walls. Or just about anywhere. We got two dogs this year. They’re both Boxers. The oldest and biggest is Niki and the other
one is Sadie. Niki is mommy’s dog and
Sadie is daddy’s dog. But sometimes
they’re both mine. I love them.

Well, that’s us! I already know what I’m getting for Christmas
because I’ve been snooping in mommy and daddy’s closet. I forgot what it was, though. We all hope you have a Merry Christmas!

Love,

Kelsey

Merry Christmas from all of us to all of you!

Conflicts

This week I’m going to be writing about some conflicts going on within me.  I’m experiencing conflicts in a number of areas of life, right now.  None of them are real crises.  I’m not losing it, as far as I know.  But there is much sorting out going on.  I suppose all of life is about sorting through things.  Maybe I’m a dialectician of sorts, constantly proposing, counter-proposing and synthesizing.

One of those conflicts relates to the season we are now in.  It is a joyful time.  I love this season.  I love the colors, the sounds, the smells, the spirit.  Yes, Christmas is over commercialized.  To be commercialized at all is to be over commercialized.  If you are nodding your head in agreement let the implications of that sink in for a minute.  And I don’t mean that to sound like a condemning shot at retailers.

I’m conflicted because my children are young and they live with the cultural expectations that come with the approach of December.  Just last Friday my three-year-old said, "I can’t wait until Christmas!"  We all know what she meant by that.  And that comes from a belief that it is more blessed to receive than to….well….almost anything else.  I want to break those thoughts without breaking their spirits.  I don’t want my kids to value the deeper meanings because I "made" them do it.  They’ll only rebel against that too soon.  I don’t want them to grow into adults who charge their credit cards to the max because their Scrooge dad refused to buy them gifts when they were children.  But as any good psychologist will tell you, values are the most difficult things to change.

I’ve been to four church Christmas parties already.  In three of them we did the "dirty Santa" thing.  We’ve spent fifty dollars on five gifts that we wouldn’t want to take back home, so that we could trade them for five gifts that someone else didn’t want, either.  One lucky person went home with a green shellacked gourd.  No kidding.  I was lucky enough to get a Chia Taz.  What if next year, instead of playing dirty Santa we did something to make a difference in our world.  What if someone bought two text books for needy children overseas?  Or fertilizer for a farmer?  Or school dinners for 100 children?  All of those things cost less than $10 from Oxfam.  Or how about a share of rabbits, a share of a pig, or a share of a sheep from Heifer International to be given to a community to help provide a more sustainable life?  Or what if the whole group were to go in together to buy a cow?

What if we began to really teach our children that it truly is more blessed to give than to receive, and showed them with the example of our own commitments to that?  What if we invited them into the decision-making process so that they have some ownership in it and the gift becomes more than something that mom and dad made them do, but something they helped to do?

How can we, as parents, get our children to think about Christmas in new ways without becoming killjoys and Scrooges?  This is one of my conflicts.

To read some other worthwhile thoughts on Christmas check out:
Kiki Cherry on the Goodness of the Lord and An Incredible Gift
Alan Cross on Reclaiming Christmas from the World
Joe Thorn on The American Christmas
and buynothingchristmas.org

Christmas Tag

I’ve been tagged by Br. T Alphege the Bald…

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate?
Hot Chocolate.
Disclaimer: I’ve never had Egg Nog with alcohol in it, but I have taken some NyQuil the past two nights. To any SBC trolls out there, please, please, please don’t hold it against me!

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree?
A little of both, but mostly wrapped.

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white?
White on the tree, blue on the house.

4. Do you hang mistletoe?
Who is Mistletoe and what did he do to deserve being hung? (No.)

5. When do you put your decorations up?
The day after Thanksgiving. The wife is a real Nazi about this.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish?
Breakfast streusel! I could eat a whole one all by myself.

7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child?
Christmas morning and all that new stuff!!

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?
What exactly do you mean “the truth about Santa?”

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?
Yes. My wife’s family has always opened all of their gifts on Christmas Eve.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree?
Americana.

11. Snow! Love it or Dread it?
Love it!

12. Can you ice skate?
Very poorly.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift?
No.

14. What’s the most important thing about the Holidays for you?
Being with family.

15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert?
Pumpkin Pie!

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition?
The reading of Luke 2

17. What tops your tree?
An angel.

18.Which do you prefer giving or Receiving?
Giving.

19. What is your favorite Christmas Song?
O Come, O Come, Emmanuel with O, Holy Night a close second.

20. Candy Canes! Yuck or Yum?
Yum, but I don’t often eat one.

I know some find these things annoying - especially when they get tagged. I think they’re kind of fun, so if you swing by and you’d like to participate, trackback to this post and consider yourself tagged.

Ups and Downs

That’s the story of the last several days.

Up or Down, depending on your perspective:
First of all, I ate waaaaayy too much for Thanksgiving. Of course, I blame the parents and the in-laws. We have to make it to both on Thanksgiving day and it would be downright inhospitable to thrown down a couple of green beans and a spoon full of Granny’s addictive dressing. I told her she was going to put me into a 12 step rehab program with that stuff.

Down:
Friday morning the wife hit Best Buy at about 4 A.M. to get an insane deal on a desktop computer ($190), but when she got there the line was already around the entire building. Very disappointed as that was going to be a gift for the kids. Now we’ll all continue to share the laptop.

Up:
That same day Texas A&M gave Oklahoma a nice Thanksgiving gift by knocking the Longhorns off. It was a nice gift for their coach, Dennis Franchione as well. It’s always a good day in Oklahoma when Texas loses.

Up:
OU beat the Oklahoma aggies in Stoolwater to win the Big XII South. Now we get to play our old Big 8 rival Nebraska for the Big XII championship and a BCS bowl birth. Way cool.

Down:
I’ve come down with the crud. I’m blaming Kevin Stilley. I probably got it reading his blog. In addition, Vera is gone to OKC to be with a friend who’s mother is having surgery today which means I can’t mope around the house and complain about how bad I feel because there won’t be anyone around to listen.