Christmas Traditions

We have two extra kids this week. Our friends (Steve & Suzanne) went on a trip and we have the privilege of hosting their daughters for the week.

We have collected children's Christmas books even before we had kids. We now have several and we wrap 25 books every December and open and read one each night until Christmas day. The kids love it!

I don't need the calendar . . .

to tell me this is the first day of December. I don't need the television to tell me that the Redskins lost yesterday. I don't need weather.com to tell me that last night's snow and ice is going to be the broth for today's dismal soup.
I know these things full well.
What I do need is for the Bible to tell me that God is in charge. I need the Bible to tell me that God is operating in ways beyond the scope of my perception or comprehension. I need the Bible to tell me that I think about myself too much. I need to hear from Scripture that today's date, yesterday's loss, and tomorrow's weather won't matter much a couple hundred years into eternity.
And in regard to these things the Bible is both loud and clear.

Thanksgiving

Thanks to Omya and the Elliotts for providing the turkey and thanks to Joel for cooking it.

Grandpa and Lucy.

The table without people . . . we were to busy eating to take pictures during the meal.

Obie & Emma.

Caroline

Obie helps Nate fix the Robobug.These girls had way too much fun together!

I think we tired him out.

We had way too much fun on the couch . . . way too much fun!

Lucy, reminding us what the holiday is about.

Again . . . too much fun on the couch.

Crazy girls . . . I like Lucy's expression and Reba looks like she really is giving birth.

Lucy had lots of fun with Reba's camera.

Grace gave us a concert.

. . . more couch fun!

My Amazing Kids!

She can touch her head with her toes! Amazing . . .

Hard at work.

Look what I can do with a Hershey Kiss.

Fiasco and Debacle

are some of the words that come to mind when I consider our experiment with sorghum this year. It was beautiful in the garden, it suffered no pests, and our Vermont raccoons had no idea what to do with it. But it turns out that this popping sorghum is pretty much un-poppable. Chicken feed.

Still, I stick by the experiment. My gardening activity could never match the scope of God's creative variety, but it should at least reflect an appreciation for it.

But if you were thinking about putting in a row of popping sorghum next year, you would do just as well to plant a row of crabgrass.

What happens when every stereotype of the liberal Vermonter

gets rolled into one third grade teacher?

A bulletin board outside the classroom with the heading "Wishing . . . " and below an assortment of student compositions of five or six lines each, with each line starting with "the deep peace of." The deep peace of sparkling snow to you. the deep peace of singing birds to you. the deep peace of beautiful mountains to you. Ad nauseum.
I imagine her classroom full of miniature zen monks with shaved heads and saffron robes, meditating during recess while the other, less enlightened, children lose their cool on the jungle gym.
But what bothers me most about this isn't the eastern mysticism thinly disguised as a language lesson. What bothers me most is that all of this deep peace is so incredibly shallow.
So this morning I too am wishing. I am wishing the deep peace of the cross to you. The deep peace of the cross of suffering and death, the cross on which a man died, a man who, alone of all the men who ever lived, did not deserve to do so. And that man who died, by his death, made a way for us beyond sparkling snow, beyond singing birds, beyond beautiful mountains into the court of the King of Kings where we will be welcomed on his account.
Thats the deep peace I wish for you.

Prayer Meeting

I think one of the most successful things about my ministry at North Chittenden Wesleyan Church has very little to do with North Chittenden Wesleyan Church. Every Wednesday I leave work a little early to go home and scarf down a quick meal while Lucy cheerfully fills a backpack with coloring books and crayons. Then she and I drive down the hill to Pittsford, sometimes in silence, but mostly in backseat chatter.
At the Village Manor Ruth is always standing in the foyer watching for us and she is always relieved to see that I have brought Lucy with me. She lets us in and the three of us go into the community room where five or six other octogenarian women are sitting around the table in their customary seats, Bibles out in front, hands folded demurely in laps. Lucy, all curls and effervescence, empties the contents of her backpack on the table and graciously receives their admiration.
Then, if you can believe it, we spend a half an hour studying Scripture. And we really do. And we sing a hymn and then we pray, and when we have prayed and open up our eyes we blink and sigh and feel as though we have emerged from something it was good to be immersed in.
And not one of these women attend the church. One of them, however, did attend the church in her youth for a time before moving and becoming affiliated with the Wesleyan Church in Forestdale. And this wonderful saint is actually one of the keys to the success of the prayer meeting. Not because she has wonderful insight into Scripture, although she does, but more because she is hard of hearing.
I have decided that every prayer meeting and Bible study should include someone who is nearly deaf, because someone hard of hearing helps you to edit yourself. I don't say things at prayer meeting unless it seems like they're worth shouting, and when it comes to Scripture and the things of faith that seems about right. If they are worth saying at all, then shout, and if you can't bring yourself to shout, then be silent.